Theology in the Raw - S2 Ep1104: Leading a Church When People No Longer Trust Leaders: Léonce Crump

Episode Date: August 21, 2023

Pastor Léonce B. Crump Jr. is an author, international speaker, and co-founder—along with his wife Breanna—of Renovation Church in Atlanta. Before committing his life to pastoral ministry, and civil rights activism, Léonce was a collegiate All American in wrestling, nearly made the World Team in wrestling and a professional football player. He has been in ordained ministry for nearly 20 years and holds multiple graduate degrees. He and Breanna reside in Atlanta with their three daughters and son. Leonce is the author of the recently released: The Resilience Factor, which forms the basis for our conversation. We talk about leadership, self-censorship, the low view that people have of leaders, abuse of power in the church and how to still be a leader in the midst of all the accusations, and the pros and cons of highlighting leadership failures in the church and what this does for leaders who are not narcissistic, power mongering, domineering men who cover up abuse in order to save face and keep their positions of power. 

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Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. My guest today is the one and only Leonce B. Crump Jr. Leonce, Pastor Leonce, is a author, international speaker, co-founder, along with his wife, Brianna, of Renovation Church in Atlanta. He is the author of, I think, a couple books. The latest one being The Resilience Factor, A Step-by-Step Guide to Catalyze an Unbreakable Team. We talk a lot about church leadership. We talk a lot about pendulum swings in the church. We talk about addressing abuse without giving the impression that every pastor is covering up abuse and that really tough tension between exposing the underbelly of the church, which we absolutely need to do, while also not just continually feeding failure, porn, and so on and so forth. So I am really excited about this conversation.

Leonce is an amazing man of God, wonderful pastor. And yeah, this is the first time on the show. So please welcome to the show for the first time, the one and only Leonce B. Crumpton. All right, Leonce. Okay, here's where we got to start. Do you want to tell the story how it matters or should I tell? Because it's funny because... You tell it, I'm feeling it. Okay, there's two different directions.

Okay, so I don't know if you know this. No, I think you do know this. I was in the middle of one of my busiest speaking weeks. I was in, I think I spoke 20 times in eight days in four different states. And I was right in the middle of it on a plane to, I don't even know, where were we going? Florida? Is that where we're going? Panama City? Yes, we're going to Florida, yeah. And I'm already an introvert, and I get extra introverted on planes.

So I sit down. I got upgraded to first class. Sit down, do this. Looked like an NFL football player sitting next to me, which turns out it was. Leonce. So we sit down next to each other. Now I recognize your name. At that point, I didn't.

You start talking to somebody across the aisle about going to this conference. Yeah, Rufus Smith. Rufus, yeah, that's right. Yeah, he pastors a great church in Tennessee. Come to find out, it's like, this dude, yeah, I now know. He's the guy.

He's the guy. So, here I am between these two dudes, and I'm hearing you guys, I can figure out, you're going to the same conference I'm going, I'm going to give a short talk there, and I don't say a word. Zero. I don't know if they can talk there. And I don't say a word. Zero. I don't know if they can see this.

Listen, I looked past him. He didn't even try to make eye contact. He looked straight down and went back to typing. He wanted no part of this conversation. You were, okay, in all fairness, you were sitting on my left side, which is I'm deaf in my left ear. So conversations, especially that one-on-one, I have to turn my head all the way around like an owl to actually hear somebody. And I'm like, I just don't feel like doing that.

I've got to go over my notes. I'm going to give this talk. And I just don't want to talk right now. So you guys are talking about this conference. Head down. And I'm preparing my notes, right? And then you look over. What did you say?

You were cracking it out, man. And I said, excuse me, are you writing a sermon? I just happened to notice. I wasn't staring. I just happened to notice. And I had my iPad out, and I was actually working on the talk, too. And I said, oh, I'm working on my talk for this weekend as well. And I said, you wouldn't happen to be headed down to an event for a cue,

would you? And you said, absolutely. I am. I am headed down. And that began one of my favorite plane rides of all time. So it's because of that plane ride that I now leave space to – I might meet my new best friend, you know, because after that conversation we were finishing each other's sentences.

The best part about it was, so I will say this. I hope this is okay. You could let me know if you need me to delete this out. But in first class, which neither of us, just to make it clear, we upgrade extra travel a lot. That's right. And it's, you know, they serve you whatever you want up there. It's all free.

And so they come by asking for the drink. And you waited. You waited to see what I was going to order. I did. I did. So I said, you know what? I don't care. I don't know.

This guy seems awesome. I'm like, yeah, I'll take a Woodford neat. And he said, me too. And I was like, oh, heck yeah, this relationship is getting even better. I said, make it two. I just had to wait and see, man. I don't want to stumble my brother.

I just had to make sure. But I mean, everybody knows I'm an avid bourbon drinker. Everyone knows that. You're a real, like, come to find out, you're not just having a casual, like, you know your bourbon. Like, you were getting into, like, the science. I mean, we started talking about the good stuff after that.

We talked about all sorts of things. Bourbon, predestination, theologies of the afterlife, children. That's right. We talked about everything. Oh, my word. Yes. And I just come from speaking at Ryan Kwan's church, and you're good friends with him. Yes.

And then lots of mutual connections. And anyway. Yeah, Kwan really loves you, by the way. What's that? Kwan loves you. Kwan really loves you. He was one of the most amazing humans I've met. I speak at a lot of churches, and a lot of really neat.

Dude, here's the thing. Maybe we can get into this. I know pastors like yourself, such a bad rap these days, right? You got scandals, you got narcissism, you have abuse coverups and all that stuff is horrifying, right? I've had the advantage of getting to know loads of humble, godly, people-loving, prayer-warrioring, women-empowering church pastors. And he was one of them. Here's this dude, pastor in an Acts 29 church like yourself, right?

And Acts 29 gets a stigma of being like a bunch of white bros, you know, you reform people. Well, all of that is not unwarranted. All of it is not unwarranted. Okay, okay, okay. Well, here's Ryan Kwan. Some of it is fair. Here's Ryan Kwan, pastor of a church that's about 75% not white,

absolutely loving on his people. He talked to anybody in that congregation. They said, my pastor loves me and knows me, is reformed in its theology, my pastor loves me and knows me, is Reformed in its theology, I mean, in a healthy way, but is incredibly humble and is complementarian, because I think Acts 29 has to be,

but women, talk to the women there, and they are, I know this, okay, this may be, you know, whatever, but they are doing all kinds of kingdom-pounding ministry at his church. And he would see the first one and say, this church would crumble were it not for these amazing, gifted, godly women doing incredible work for the kingdom of God.

So anyway, where was I going with that? Anyway, yeah, so Ryan and you are both doing amazing work for the kingdom. Yeah, he's really been a big brother to me, and he's a beloved friend, and he's made space. I mean, we can go down this trail if you want to. Even for my latitude and my complementarianism. And he is, you know, really stood by me as I fleshed out some divergent opinions on what complementarian actually means. And of course, our church is incredibly diverse and inclusive as well. And we empower women and we have probably 30 different ethnic groups represented. And so that's something that he and I highly value. And he's just been, he's been a real gift to me as I've tried to figure this out over the years. Wait, are you allowed to talk about whatever divergence or nuanced forms of commentary? First of all, is it one of those unwritten rules or written rules that to be an Acts 29,

you have to be commentarian? What's the fine print here? And we'd love to know where you're at on that. Not that I didn't bring you on to defend your position or whatever, but since you mentioned it. Hey, listen, listen, I ain't worried about it. You know, for a long time it was an unwritten kind of understanding that, that went along with reformed theology. And then of course that got even more clarified when Chandler took over in saying, you know, we're actually just reformed in our soteriology, not necessarily adherence to five point Calvinism or, you know, a full breadth of reformed theology. Now, some guys are, but in order to be in Acts 29, it's only the soteriological matter of what it means to, quote, unquote,

be reformed. So, you know, we were talking about a Presbyterian church. I would consider myself a Presbyterian. So I give them a hard time all the time by telling them they're not really reformed. They're just unique Baptists, you know. So there's that piece of it. And then there was a short window, and I won't go into it too much because it was its own controversy, but where the former president or former CEO of X-29 tried to make it a written rule and actually sent out, you know, like a Magna Carta of his position. And I actually haven't shared this

very much publicly, but this is as good a time as any. I was briefly kicked out of Acts 29 without my knowledge because I refused to sign this paper. And my entire, And my entire, my argument was built around Paul's words in Corinthians when he tells women how to prophesy properly. And so this guy happened to be a cessationist. I am not. I believe all of the gifts that were available to the church in the first century are still available to us. And so I believe in prophecy as both blessed the Lord and at times the ability to see things through the spirit that we wouldn't be able to see the natural. I believe that. But he believed that prophecy was preaching and that all of those supernatural aspects had ceased to be. And so I caught him in his own argument. And I said, okay, well, we have a conundrum. We have a conundrum because if prophecy is preaching and Paul tells women in Corinth how to preach properly, well, then that must mean women can preach or your position on prophecy doesn't stand.

prophecy doesn't stand and you have to relinquish that position and agree with me that the gifts are still fully active in the body beyond preaching and encouragement and general leadership gifts. So that is when my kind of nuanced position on complementarianism really kind of came to the fore and I had to really push on it. And so I'll be quiet after this because I know I've been rambling for a minute, but I got a call from one of my buddies in Australia and he was really upset. And he said, dude, if you were going to leave the network, you could have at least told me. He's a very good friend. And I said, I've been leaving the network.

And he said, well, I just got this list of guys who have left the network and you're on it. I said, well, I didn't put myself on that list. So it turned into this whole thing. And eventually that died. And so even now, I would say there's a spectrum of complementarianism in Acts 29. And we're trying to define what our borders and boundaries would be even right now. And I don't know where that's going to land.

Okay. Okay. Wow. That's great that you guys are talking through that. And again, regardless of where you land on the position, I just think having the humility to keep revisiting some of these kind of unwritten theological norms or like, have we really thought through this and keep it always be reformed and always reforming, right? Like, like that's the spirit of the Reformation is keeping the text at the center and recognizing the fragility of our humanity in, you know, adopting certain things that might be more tradition than actually biblical

and constantly being willing to rethink those. So, I mean, Rick Warren got into that recently. I just had him on the podcast talking about all that. So what we're talking about kind of offline, I think is an important conversation, which we kind of toyed with a little bit at the beginning. What's it like being a pastor in 2023? And what's surrounding that question is there is,

I don't know if it's more than ever. Maybe it's always been here. Maybe it's always been here. Maybe it's just more heated than ever before. But with all the scandals, all the controversy, the cover-ups, the abuse of power, the narcissism, and I think there is a healthy movement addressing that. And addressing that, like it's in my 30 years as a Christian, I've never seen such a vigilant pursuit of finally kind of addressing some of this stuff and setting up ecclesiological structures to help us prevent it from happening again, or at least to the same magnitude that it seems to have been happening. On the flip side, I've talked to lots of pastor friends of mine. He said, I'm all for the coverage. I'm all for that dressing, everything.

The problem is there seems to be such a heightened attention to the abuse of power that now I feel like people don't even trust me as a pastor anymore. Like just being a pastor, being on stage is almost like I'm already going up there with like two strikes because I'm on stage and I have a title or something, you know, do you experience that? Is that a problem? How do we both address abuse and not, and also like not shoot people that are actually doing good work for the kingdom and leadership? Yeah, man, that is, uh, that is loaded and, and I've got a lot of thoughts on that. And so I'll start with, I'm glad that it's being addressed. I was on the board when Mark Drusko was removed from Acts 29. I signed that letter. And so to see these things be addressed is good and right and timely. They're not new. As a matter of fact, I tell people all the

time, I'm surprised I'm a Christian, let alone a pastor, because my family was subject to pastoral abuse. And my father almost killed, and I didn't grow up regularly in church, but my father literally almost killed the pastor because of an abuse of power and an overreach and that eventually led to him coming on to my mom in an inappropriate way. So my family has been subject to that. And I think the tension we're experiencing now is not its newness, but in a positive way, I'll compare it to kind of all of the attention we've gotten around Black men and interactions with police. Those things have always happened. I was held at gunpoint in 2009.

Yeah, I was held at gunpoint in 2009 in Texas while a second officer asked my wife if she was being held against her will. Right. Yes. True story. Actually, it's a story that Taylor told that got him labeled as woke. And so. And your wife, your wife is, is she white or what's her ethnic?

She, mostly. Okay. But the percent like, like, is that, I'm not kind of plays into the scenario a little bit. I'm sure. Yeah. That was a dynamic. Yeah, absolutely. That was a dynamic, you know, interracial marriage called me boy, a bunch, you know, the whole deal.

That's not brand, that's not brand new. Just in 2009 or, you know, we didn't have social media. We didn't have video cameras. Just in 2009, or, you know, we didn't have social media. We didn't have video cameras. We didn't have the ability to network these happenings across a broad spectrum of people. In fact, I just heard this crazy story from Warren Bird, who I wrote my new book with. And he told the story of a pastor in the 40s who shot one of his elders in his office. the 40s who like shot one of his elders in his office so so there's been yeah so there's been crazy stuff happening for years i think we've kind of reached a dual tipping point of availability

of information uh and a and a right spirit in trying to root it out and deal with it. I think the flip side is what you said is at the unhealthy end of that has been a bit of a witch hunt. It has kind of put us in a position to feel like we can't be trusted. As a matter of fact, I just heard Craig Rochelle give a talk at the Global Leadership Summit and it was all about trust. And he said it outright. He said, your people don't trust you. They don't trust you. And we have to fight for trust more than we ever have. I think the third piece I'll add, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on it, is I think the cultural shift we've also experienced, which has, and I know I'm on dangerous territory here, but I'll quote one of my psychologist friends. She said, if everything is trauma, nothing is trauma. And so there's also a little

bit of a cultural zeitgeist where basic conflict or differing opinion or disagreement around an idea is also being pushed into the realm of trauma. And so overall leadership is being pushed into the realm. And so we actually write this in our book that we're in a day and age where direction is seen as control. Clarity is seen as manipulation. Expectations are seen as burdens, uh, and, uh, accountability is seen as abuse. And we, we laid this out just as a frameworkbly and vulnerably figure out how you're going to lead through the reality that we find ourselves in. I mean, yeah, I don't – I can only recognize the complexity with you. And I mean, everything you're saying seems spot on.

Now, what's the solution? I don't – I'd be curious what Craig talked to, I agree. I think that leaders, what I don't want to see is this like self-censoring where leaders stop doing what leaders are called to do as leaders out of fear of being misperceived as being whatever, you know? So like, yes, leaders need to be leaders and do what leaders should do, which is what? To serve the people, right?

Humbly. But you're still offering spiritual oversight. You're still proclaiming God's word in all its truth and beauty as you see it. You know, I don't want leaders just apologizing or having no conviction or something. Or especially, you know, I don't want leaders just apologizing or having no conviction or something or, or, or especially, you know, this is going to open it, you know, male leaders, you know, seeing how much abuse there has been a power, especially among male leaders and, and the

misogyny in the church and all this stuff that, that can have a, a pendulum swing to the other side to where, and, and yeah, I was talking about this with my daughters recently, actually, you know, where, um, they even, my teenage daughters pointed out this kind of pendulum swing to the other side. They've only been around the church for a few years, but they wouldn't even say, oh, I have so much. They would say, if I wanted to, I could wield so much power over men because they know that men are so scared to be. Sorry to cut you off. I was going to say, my daughters have actually said to be... Sorry, I'll cut you off. My daughters have actually said the exact same thing. So I have two teenage girls.

Oh, right. Yeah. I got two. Yeah. And yeah, we talked about that. They actually said the same thing. And we've had several conversations about the ever expanding, and this even gets deeply into your work, the ever-expanding list of self-definitions and identifiers and modifiers. And my middle daughter actually came home one day, and she's

like, I can't do it anymore. I said, what? And she said, it's just too many things. Demi girl, Demi guy. You know, she's like, I just it's too much. And so I think all of this really is encapsulated in kind of the pendulum swing and the cultural zeitgeist. And I'm seeing two reactions to it. Honestly, one is the first one you said, which I have been guilty of myself, which is pulling back, censoring myself, not being as vocal, not being as direct for fear of being accused of abuse. I'm seeing is, you know, people buckling down and becoming even more hardened, more misogynistic, more foolish. You know, that's the other. And those are kind of the two reactions we're seeing. And and I'll send you my notes, actually, if you want to include them in the show notes. I'll send you Craig's the notes. Yeah. It was so good. And the whole idea was around the fight for trust and how, especially as pastors, but all leaders today can no longer presume trust just because of knowledge, expertise, tenure, or even track record. They can't presume trust anymore. And so we're working from a negative and we've just got to accept that reality and lead in a way that mitigates it

as much as possible. Is it too simple or too much of a cliche to kind of say, hey, look, okay, as a leader, and I can even, you know, I run into some of this as a podcast host. You know, every other podcast I do has somebody somewhere didn't like it

and you need to take this down or sometimes it'll blow up on Twitter. So there's always a temptation to self-censure. And I will stop doing the podcast if I turn into that. To me, it's not... The nature of this podcast is honest, humble, curious conversations. And if I ask a question in a certain way that's offensive or do something like, all I can do is do the best that I can do to be genuine, to be truthful, to be as humble as I can, to be genuinely curious. And if I – in the course of any natural conversation, which is what this podcast is, just natural conversations,

people are going to say things that if they had to like write a perfect script, they'd say, yeah, we would have said that a little differently. Oh, yeah, maybe my tone is a little off here. But in the natural world of just conversations, and I just, oh, so here's my question. Is it too much of a cliche or just too simple to say my, you know, audience of one, you know, all I can do is control. Like I, I need to act as a Christian. I need to be as Christlike as I possibly can, knowing that I'm always going to fall short. There is going to be some fallout, some offense, misunderstanding, misinterpretation. I, but I can't be controlled by that. All I can do is say, God, were you pleased with my effort today? Is that, I mean, I don't be controlled by that. All I can do is say, God, were you pleased with my effort today? I don't know. Yeah, I don't think it's cliche. I think if we don't think through the nuance of that understanding and the complexity of that understanding, that it could feel too simple. And now at the core, that's exactly what it is.

At the same time, you know, for me, for example, I'll use myself for an example, two things. I had become so timid that my staff like set me down and they were like, will you please lead us? I mean, this is a conversation that happened. Recently? And I said, what do you got? This was in the end of 2021. Yeah.

You know, so we had a pretty significant church trauma in 2019. We don't have time to get into that. But it ended up in a splinter, a fracture from our church, not a full split, but a significant fracture. And so we were trying to recover from that while COVID was happening, while we couldn't meet for 14 months. And so I came out of that period so unsure of myself. Looking back to 2019, am I a monster? Did I just inception all these other people and put my magic on them and they can't see clearly? I'm working through this with my therapist.

I'm working through this with my coach. I had some of the stuff from Chuck to grow, toss my way. And I said, man, maybe, maybe this is who I am. You know, my mother's a developmental psychologist and and I, and I asked her, I said, mom, am I a narcissist? And she said, if you were a narcissist, you wouldn't be asking me if you were a narcissist. But that, but that's where I was, man. I was just, I was totally shattered

and afraid. I was afraid to be compared to Mark. I was afraid to be caught up in the fray. And at the end of 21, my team, my lead team came to me and they sat me down and they're like well you just lead us and i was like what do you mean and they're like you just you're second guessing every decision we don't feel like we have direction we don't feel like we have clarity uh we we we feel like you're just kind of alone for the ride.

So, you know, what a confrontational conversation to have, you know, when the very thing you fear is running into that type of confrontation. And so, you know, I've lived it, man. I've lived it and had to work through it. And then I think the second piece is just intelligently understanding what your disadvantages are. All right. So Darren Patrick, who was a friend and mentor of mine, and I think everybody knows he took it. You know, he died in the midst of trying to recover from a scandal. But he told me one time, he said, The six factors of intimidation are height, size, intelligence, attractiveness, wealth, and power.

And he said, bro, like it or not, you have five of those. And because you played in the NFL, everybody assumes you have all six. And so you are working from a deficit when you enter a room, no matter what. And you are not responsible for how people, uh, um, react, respond to you. You are responsible for how you present yourself to them. And so I'm very careful. I don't, I don't stand over people because I'm six or five, 270 pounds. So, so I'm, if I'm having a conversation, you know, and someone's seated and they initiate the conversation, I'm going to sit down. Sometimes I kneel down. You know, I do my best to speak last in a meeting because if I speak first, there's a good chance that that's going to be received as a directive rather than an opinion because of the power seat that I hold just by the role I play.

So I do think it is as simple as I got to do this the best I can as a Christian. I got to abide in Jesus as we were talking about when we were offline. But at the same time, I've got to be, you know, I've gone back a bunch of times to Jesus' words, wise as serpents, gentle as doves. bunch of times to Jesus' words, wise as serpents, gentle as doves. You know, I've got to have a wise and intelligent approach to my self-presentation, knowing the deficit that I work from, if all that makes sense. That makes total sense. And it's just such an interesting, the deficit you're working from is who God created you to be. You know, God made you six, five. He gave you a, let me say a strong personality.

And I don't mean that, because that could be, even that, a strong personality could be a negative. It could be intrinsically people like, oh, that sounds negative. But just like you have confidence and charisma. Things that until five minutes ago were like, would in a sense bring you to use another, you another – to bring you a lot of privilege, right?

Yeah, to some degree. And yet now, because of the way things are, they're now almost the opposite. They're now a deficit being tall, if I dare say good-looking wise intelligent all these things are now giving you making you a deficit which I guess in a roundabout way I'm like that's not totally bad because in the past we would just wield these things and be tempted to use them as power over people and now these things that could easily be used for power. Now you need to go the extra mile and be extra humble and, and, and sit and kneel maybe next to somebody that's man.

Yeah. I'm just, just processing all this. Would you also say, and this may get into your book, um, that rethinking healthy leadership structures is also a big part of it. Cause it's one thing for me to say like audience of one, as long as I, and then I, and I, and I, I, I, I, but even that's not

sufficient because I'm going to have blind spots. You're going to have blind spots, but have people around you that are willing, that you're creating space where they can speak into your life and tell you, Leonce, I know you think you're being humble, but you're actually being very arrogant right now. Or you think you're being gentle. You're actually exerting your power in ways you don't realize. And not giving just an open door for anybody to kind of like anything they feel, whatever, but like true people that can keep you accountable. Would you say is that?

I mean, I might be quoting your book. I don't know if that's, is that an essential piece to this whole thing too? Yeah, I think it's crucial. And actually at the top of the book, we give eight new realities of leadership. I shared one with you. One of the other realities of leadership is team leadership is the only way forward. So I do think it's absolutely critical to think about the leadership structure and how flat it should be. I personally have never seen a completely flat leadership structure work,

but I have seen, yeah, not completely flat. What you mean by that is there is still some kind of recognized leader among the leaders? Or how would you word that? What we call it in the book is a point leader. So they're still like a point leader. They're still the tiebreaker. And we kind of described the role that that point leader plays. They're the tiebreaker.

They may be the lead strategist, but everything is submitted to the entire team, you know, because at a, you know, at a complete level of flatness, moving the ball forward is almost impossible. That's why football teams have quarterbacks and basketball teams have point guards, right? Somebody's got to be watching the whole floor or the whole field. And so we lay out kind of a structure that says doing the bidding of one person is something that we also go to great lengths to differentiate. Now, that's helpful. What's the pushback to that? Or what would be the danger?

What would be the challenges to that kind of model? And I'm just trying to think of what people, if they're like, ah, that's just going to end up reproducing the CEO top-down model all over again. Which part? Still having a recognized point person. Yeah. Yeah, I think that could certainly be the pushback. I think most people, if they dig into the research in particular, and that's the one part of this book I love, is it's not just anecdotal.

We did a great deal of research on teams and teaming and work through the work of a lot of scholars who've written on this for a long time. And so that's one. Two, this book is actually meant to be worked through as a team. Uh, it's actually not, it's best use is not read individually. It can be read individually, but we've instructed it to see any structure where there is no identifiable understanding of of some type of point leader. Even in I don't see it. The Starfish and the Spider, one of my favorite books. The Starfish and the Spider, one of my favorite books. And it really kind of goes at the idea of the spider organization, right? Top down with the legsified this starfish model, it was still one person that kind of rose to cast a vision, but then completely trusted everybody else to execute their part. And the one was completely submitted to the whole. So even in that kind of system, and they had a very specific word for it, but I can't remember it now. But even in that kind of system, every single time someone would rise.

Now, the enemy who was fighting them could not identify who the leader was. But the people understood who the point person was, who was kind of organizing their strategy around this war. I'm just thinking biblically, I mean, you definitely do see, I'm just thinking through a bunch of passages. I mean, Peter on Acts 2, the inner circle in Jesus' ministry. We've got Timothy pastoring at Ephesus. Or even I've done a bit of research on the elder overseer, kind of what was that structure in the first century? And at least one pretty thought out theory is that elders

are kind of the network of recognized Christian leaders in any given city, and the overseer are the individual leaders of the individual house church who are also among the elders. So all, all overseers are elders. Not every elder would necessarily be an overseer of the individual house or just something like that. So, and again,

that's, I think it was Andrew Clark. He's done quite a bit of research on it was his suggestion there, but all that say, you definitely see a much greater emphasis in plurality of leadership, I think, in the New Testament than you do in our traditional models of church. But you do see these, as you would say, point people kind of being highlighted in different places. And even to go to the overseer model, I think one of the most unique features of the New Testament, which is the governmental structure we have,

is it's not just the, you know, kind of network of elders over a particular place and then the local overseers, but they also have what we'll call global overseers for the sake of terminology. And so when they got into the conflict over circumcision and over meeting with non-Jews in Galatians 2.14, Paul says, I confronted Peter to his face, right? And Barnabas got swept up in the same ethnocentric controversy. Well, they couldn't settle it in this church. Well, they couldn't settle it in this church. And so they actually had to take it to Jerusalem. And it had to be heard by a body of elders and leaders there in Jerusalem.

But then only one person spoke. And so that's where you see kind of this beautiful rhythm of plurality and point leader where Peter spoke into it, Paul spoke into it it other leaders spoken to it but james is the one that rendered the decision and after having to wrestle through everybody's ideology and having to submit his ideology to everybody else's he's the one that ultimately came along and said just tell them not to eat blood and do sexually immoral stuff and everything else is fine. Right. And, and that, and that became the writ for the church from, from there going forward, for Gentiles being integrated with, with Jews in the church. So yeah, this is, this is a place I've spent a lot of time to trying to figure out the best way to empower people, especially women in our church, while holding to some form elders, but women can teach and preach under the authority of the male elders?

Is that the structure, like a soft complementarian? Is that the structure? Soft. Soft, sir? Doth thou call me soft? I'm lucky you're on the other side of a screen right now. That's the phrase we use, I think, right? Is that the term?

Soft complementarianism? I don't know. I didn't know there was a term. I read the Bible. I read the Bible. And then there were two books that were actually helpful to me. One is called Hearing Her Voice. And then Neither Complement complimentarian nor egalitarian. I read them both. They're excellent. Man, both very helpful to me.

And so what we would say is, yeah, uh, male only elders, um, because the first qualification of an elder is husband of one wife. Um, but women still lead in those rooms because we have a women's councilological milieu and says, at the end of the day, the church needs mothers and fathers. And elders are fathers. And we have to be diligent about ensuring that there are also mothers leading. And that's how we've tried to structure. So we have women that sit on our executive team. We have a separate women's council of lay leaders that function in that capacity. And then we have our pastors and elders, and then we have external overseers as well, kind of our Jerusalem council. And that's how we're set up to function.

Is that, I mean, that Acts 29 leadership? Would that be the external? No. Oh, you have something else? No. No. It is five pastors. Ryan Kwan is one of them.

Okay. Who have a love for Renovation Church and a love for me and a respect and an authority among our congregation. And they function in that capacity. Oh, wow. Wow. And you guys submit yourself to their insight. Not necessarily, not their apostolic authority over, but like if there ever was some kind of tension,

you can lean on them for as an outside voice? It's also apostolic authority. Oh, it is? They can fire me. authority over, but like if there ever was some kind of tension, you can lean on them for as an outside voice or. It's also apostolic authority. Oh, it is. They can fire me. Oh, okay. Okay. All right. Yeah.

They can fire me tomorrow. And it would take a vote of 70% or more of our local elders to halt that process. And then it goes into a kind of cyclical deliberation until one of those bodies kind of cedes to the other. So yeah, they have actual apostolic authority as well. What were your thoughts on – similar, but I didn't realize you were close to Mark Driscoll or at least that situation.

The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill, that podcast, did you – because when I listen to it, and I don't know if it's the way of my temperament, but I loved it. I wasn't part of that, but I was really informative. I thought it was well-produced, well-done. I thought Mike Cosper – I thought he did a great job. He seemed really – it seemed fair. I was actually expecting it to be more just railing on Mark,

but he even, I think, unearthed some of the reasons why so many people were attracted to him. You know, guys that grew up without following figures and are kind of lost in their ways. And to be kind of have the guy play bad cop, you know, like there's something like this is why that would really resonate. And anyway, all of this, I really liked it. But the people afterward kind of alerted me to the problems of like failure porn. The church is just searching for these kind of negative narratives. Like, ah, I didn't really think about it like that. So I'm kind of like, I don't know. And it's been a few years now, whatever. I don't want to resurrect something that doesn't need to be. But curious about your take on that whole,

I guess, maybe that series and also just this idea of failure porn. This comes back to where we talked about at the beginning, like we need to address abuse. And yet the manner in which we go about it, could we be creating an unhelpful perception that every other pastor is some narcissistic, power-mongering abuser or abuse cover-upper? Yeah, I think what you said there at the end is is very very poignant um i did see it as failure porn um and i know mike well i know mike well i've known mike for years i love mike um and and i don't let me be clear unlike many others i don't blame Mike for how it was received. I think that we are in, again, this iteration of culture where we are looking for salacious things. We're looking for people to not be who we thought they were.

We're looking for reasons to pull people apart. You see it everywhere, not just in pastoral ministry. You know, I mean, I see people attacking Dwayne Johnson on Twitter. I'm like, who doesn't like that guy? For what? Why would they attack him? Exactly. That's what I'm saying. You know, he's on steroids. That's not real.

He's so fake. He pretends to be black and does whatever he wants. He left his first. I mean, just all of this man's life and issue. And I think it has put us in a position where very good men I know, very good men, some you know, have been accused of abuse and narcissism and overreach and inappropriate things. And it turns out that, you know, the abuse was just a conflict that the other person did like the outcome, you know, and the narcissism was just a refusal to take criticism on a sermon from somebody who had never preached before, you know, so it turns into these things and then they compound. And I think what concerns me is, you know, pastors are dropping like flies, man, at an alarming rate. And some of them are disqualifying

themselves. Others are just leaving the game for fear of disqualifying themselves, for fear of ending up on the Roy's report. right? And so I think there is, there's gotta be a way to balance power structures and to not cover abuse or allow abuse and as best we can to keep abusers from rising to power. But what we're experiencing right now, man, you know, again, I told you in 2021, I felt like I was one decision away from being accused of something horrendous. So I just stopped trying because I made it up in my mind

that if I just preach and keep all of my interpersonal interactions as impersonal as possible and don't tell anybody to do anything. Then I'll be safe. Like I literally had this internal dialogue. And I remember I remember my therapist said, if that's where you are, you're not going to be there for long because you can't lead from that position. So that was two years ago. What changes did you make to get to a more, I guess I would say it seems to be a healthier spot? And has that gone? Well, I've got two questions. I'm not sure

how related they are. I guess let me back up and ask it this way. The fear you had before when you were self-censoring and people might get upset or accuse me of things, when you got over that and then just went back to leading as humbly and as well as you can. Did that, the people, were the fears justified? That people did kind of respond and say, oh, you're being a bully? Or was it not really just, was it an unjust fear that people would read into kind of your behavior a certain way? Does that make sense? Some of my, yeah, it does.

Some of my fears were justified. Absolutely. Okay. Absolutely. Absolutely. And then, you know, there were other surprises as well. You know, there were some people not on our team, like not on our staff team that approached me and said, we being felt, you know, beyond our staff and our pastor elders, that it was actually being felt by members of the congregation who wouldn't have been in any of those meetings. And they felt the shift in my posture and my restraint. Actually, I had one. Her name is Mama Joy. She is the

oldest person in our church. We have like seven people over the age of 50. And she's 70. Our average age is like 26, essentially. Is it really? Wow. Yeah, dude, it's crazy. Maybe 28.

But she pulled me aside and she said, I just feel like you're restrained. You can't take us where God wants us to go until you're free again. So that like, those are the kinds of conversations that were happening. And then on the other side, there were some people who had picked up some power. And when I started to push back against their ideas or their strategy or what they wanted to do or how they wanted to do it, you know, or tried to clarify any of those things, then, you know, you're just trying to take over. You're controlling us. It was exactly what I feared it would be. I think the difference was I had this other team of people giving me perspective because I couldn't see clearly for that season. And then, of course, again, I had my therapist and I had my coach. And so I had this kind of whole network of folks that were helping to give me perspective and give me clarity and call me out on some things.

You know, I mean, you know, it's not all right. I left one meeting and one of my guys pulled me aside. He said, man, you're a little you're a little stronger in there than I think you need it to be. And I said, my bad, man. I certainly didn't mean to just incredibly passionate about, you know, this particular thing. Do you think I need to repent? to repent? You know, do you think I crossed the line into sin? And he said, no, I just, I just want you to be aware, um, you know, that that came across as stronger than I thought it should have. I mean, it was great. Like, that's what I want from a team. That's pretty, I mean, I don't, I don't know too many in my anecdotal observations, too many senior leaders that have created an environment where people would feel free to come to a senior leader and say that. That's pretty, I mean, I think that's even in hearing that, and I'm putting myself in your shoes and that'd be hard to hear. Like I would want to defend myself or whatever. Yeah, but well, and to not defend, to just totally receive and say, okay,

I will, uh, I will, I will take, I will, I will improve on what I need to improve on. Thank you for, for bringing that. I mean, that's, that's, it's not easy, you know? Well, and here's the hardest, here's the hardest part, man. In that interaction, the person to whom I was strong was the one that actually raised their voice. I never raised my voice above this level, but they raised their voice and got very demonstrative, a lot of hands, but power dynamic. I'm the senior pastor size, size dynamic. Right. Um, and so even there among people who know me well, it was perceived that I was the stronger one in that interaction, even though I wasn't, you know, and, and, uh, and man, listen, everything in me wanted to defend everything into me. Um, but I learned, I learned the hard way through 2019 that,

you know, that's a lose lose. Um, and, and so to, you know, defending yourself only, uh, makes you look like you are what they say you are, you know, or you're worried about being what they say you are. And so I stopped defending myself a long time ago and I just take it and I process it in a healthy way, you know, with professionals rather than processing it in a frustrating way with the source. If, cause I'm, I'm still, I'm trying to think like, what if, cause on the flip side, if you're always, if you never defend yourself,

you always receive that, that could, and I'm just, I'm thinking out loud here. It could be way off, but I mean, it could get like cultivated and unhealthy where all of a sudden everybody, every little thing they have, they just, you know, address it cause they know you're just going to kind of like bow your head and say, okay, thank you. I'll, I'll try to change. And that can get exhausting. And also like not every pushback to whatever is right either. They can be totally wrong and you can be totally right. Like, so is the response, like if you did feel like, you know what, I want to receive this,

I've thought through it. I still don't feel, I just don't, I don't feel it the way you do. Um, is that at that point, do you take it to maybe a few other people that were there and say, Hey, there's this, this issue is brought up. My dear brother or sister, you know, brought this to my attention and I, I want to listen to them. I did listen to them, but I still don't feel like their accusations or the things they brought up were legit. And you submit it to maybe other people that the would that be the next step if if it came it came to that well here's a dangerous thing what i will do because one one of the cultural values we have is um we talk to each other not about each other okay that's one of the cultural values on our team. And we talk about it in the book as well about building in radical candor. So I will go back and sit with it. And if I feel that it's totally unfounded, then I'll bring it up in the meeting and in front of everybody and say, hey, you know, such and such came to me after our meeting two weeks ago, and they felt that I came on a little too strong. I didn't perceive that I did. I received that at the time,

so I have to process it and sit with it. I didn't feel that I did. I'd love to hear how you guys perceive that, you know, and we talk about it openly right there and try to put it to bed. right there and try to put it to bed. I've done that because, I mean, again, I get critiqued on – I open my mouth and people critique me for opening my mouth. Absolutely. So I've had to learn and I've had to sit in that tension of what do I listen to and what do I say? I actually don't think that's legit. There's been times. I would say in the last few months even, I'll do a podcast or whatever

and I get maybe an unusual number of critiques from maybe some people I respect. If it's just bots on Twitter, that's kind of a low level not, that's, I don't, you know, I, I, that's kind of a low level, whatever. But if I, but I kind of see more legitimate, like, oh, these are, these are raised in good faith. These are from people that, you know, I have a respect for, even if there's disagreement and I've had to take it to kind of a council of, of, you know, a number of people and submit it to them and say, totally give me your feedback here. Here's the, the concerns. And if, if a good number of people that I, you know, submit it to say, totally give me your feedback. Here's the concerns. And if a good number of people that I, you know, submit it to say, yeah, those are legit, then I'll totally listen to it.

And I, you know, I've had to, you know, again, not self-censure. I don't want to self-censure, but I want to be wise and improve too. And that's, sometimes it's a hard line to... Well, yeah, it's that line between regulation, right, as we're being sanctified, emotional, mental, spiritual regulation and self-censure and dancing on that line is challenging. And I think the great challenge we're facing now, more than anything, is as leaders, we've lost the benefit of the doubt. anything is as leaders, we've lost the benefit of the doubt. And so, so more of it, even if we're not in Rome, it is what it is. More of it sits with us, you know, and I go back to, I did one of my doctoral papers on Moses and his leadership.

Now the people of Israel were wrong, bro. They were wrong in every stinking term. And I remember reading that story and being so frustrated because I'm like, these people were rude, disrespectful. They tried to stone him. They complained against God. They complained against Moses. They made a golden calf. They refused. I mean, just go down the line. This dude strikes a rock. I know. I so resonate with Moses.

I'm like, of course. Who wouldn't have hit that rock? Right? Oh, man. Listen, and it was one of those moments, man, where the Holy Spirit is like, well, God, God didn't put his hands on all those people. He put his hand on Moses. And so the burden rested more greatly with him. You know, and so that, you know, I could be totally wrong.

I could be way off base. But I do think. In this hour, leadership is going to require a nuance it never has before, and especially pastoral leadership. You know, oh, my goodness, my brain failed me. Twenty one laws of leadership. John Maxwell. Oh, yeah. John Maxwell. He actually said recently that in 50 years, this is the most difficult season he's ever seen to be a pastor.

Really? Okay. That's my anecdotal perception. And I wonder, is it just because this is the moment I'm living in, or is there really something unique about this period? What has led to that? Is it the politicalization in the church? Is it COVID? Is it social media exacerbating all our anger and fears? Is it all of the above? I mean. All of the above. All of the above. The politicization, the secularization social media you know

there's something off putting to me about some person in the corner of Iowa having the ability to argue with the president of the United States on social media

right and that, to me, encapsulates so much of it is we don't we don't have boundaries and borders and protocol and kind of understood cultural behaviors anymore in any direction, you know, and I think social media has contributed to a great deal of that because you don't have to be who you really are on social media. And so you can say whatever you want. And I think that plus the politics, plus secularization, plus the individualization of faith in Christ rather than understanding it as a communal expression. Like you get saved and you belong to God and you belong to his people. You don't just belong to Jesus in isolation. I think all of those things have contributed to the moment we find ourselves in. How do you pass? From a cultural standpoint.

Yeah. How do you, how do you, okay, so what's the solution as a pastor? How do you pastor people toward the way of Christ with all those competing things hitting us? You point them out. repeating things hitting us. You point them out. You point them out and you compare them to the riches that Christ offers and affords. I think the root dissemination of hurry is one of the best kind of polemics against living life according to the rules of the host culture.

And so that's, you know, at least that's what I do. I tell our people, you know, listen, we have a host culture. They're hosting us. They are not the locus for us. And that means that when we adopt their values and their practices and their ideas and their behaviors, then we are de-identifying with the kingdom culture and re-identifying with the culture. And then you name specific things. In Atlanta, it's certainly sexual identity, hustle culture, success at all costs, insta-famous, constant busyness.

Those are the fabrics of our host culture. And so you pull at them and you cut them and you yank them and you lay them before all that Christ promises. And then the Holy Spirit's got to do the rest. Well, brother, I've taken you over an hour. Thank you so much for coming on Theology in Iran. I appreciate you and your ministry.

Where can people find you? I know you've got a website. I was just on it a few seconds ago here. Yeah, leonscrump.com or my name on the socials. All right. Thanks, brother. Thank you. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.