Jennie Allen never expected to be leading a massive movement involving millions of people around the world, but that’s exactly where she finds herself.
She talks about how she stays grounded, what contributes to the downfall of so many leaders, and how to model your leadership differently.
Welcome to Episode 318 of the podcast. Listen and access the show notes below or search for the Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and listen for free.
Guest Links
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Episode Links
Leaders in Living Rooms
I want to introduce you to a great, new podcast that I’ve added to my repertoire.
It’s from my good friend and leader, Sean Morgan, and it’s called Leaders in Living Rooms. On Leaders in Living Rooms, Sean has backstage conversations, living room style conversations, with leaders like Jud Wilhite, Brady Boyd, Aaron Brockett, David Kinnaman, Kenton Beshore and myself. Sean is a hyper connected leader, and spends a lot of time with founders like me and with their successors to discuss a major issue in church and business, leadership transitions.
Check out Leaders in Living Rooms wherever you get your podcasts, or go to
CDFcapital.org/Leaders-In-Living-Rooms.
Red Letter Challenge
Easter is right around the corner, and if you’re like me, you’ve got a lost of message grind going on right now. What if you could something that incredibly engages your church and is done for you? A growing number of churches are adopting the Red Letter Challenge. It’s a 40-day turnkey church campaign that will give your church really incredible results and effectively help produce more disciples. It focuses on the Red Letters, the teachings of Jesus.
Red Letter Challenge has worked with more than 300 churches and 75,000 individuals with professional small group video studies, study guides, sermon manuscripts and videos, graphics, and kid’s curriculum. In the fall of 2019, 100% of the churches that used Red Letter Challenge, grew their small groups and they had a 100% recommendation rate from pastors who had used the program.
Check out their packages and get 10% to 40% by going to
RedLetterChallenge.com/Carey.
CONVERSATION LINKS
Get Out of Your Head by Jennie Allen
3 Insights from Jennie
1. Your private life and actions should ground your public ministry
When you have a platform of any size, there is a natural tendency to lean into the platform alone and leave everyday life of small groups, community, and relationships. This is dangerous. Jennie has found that the thing that keeps her grounded and authentic when she communicates to millions is the experience and love she gives to the one.
Many of us think that once we hit a certain level, we graduate from needing to do community in a local small group. That’s just not true. The bigger you get, the more you need it. We think that enough social media likes, and paid speaking gigs will fulfill us, but the truth is that those things are shallow, temporary solutions to a deeper longing within us.
2. We shouldn’t be surprised by the massive public failures of people in ministry
The whole Christian world is always shocked when one of the spiritual giants we follow has a public moral failure. Jennie has realized that maybe we shouldn’t be surprised, because we all are one decision away from ending up in jail. Sometimes we make too much of people’s public sin because we’ve made too much of them as a public figure to begin with.
Jennie combats this with things like confession, submission, local church accountability, being very known, not living into her own power, and continually choosing the more costly, honest way. When she begins to stop doing these things, she begins to fall into the trap of the world that leads to failure.
3. We need to take our thoughts captive before they take us
70% of our thoughts in a day are negative. When we have this many negative thoughts, we end up giving in to the deep, negative thought cycle that leads to anxiety, stress, and depression. We have to respond as leaders.
In the New Testament, Paul is very clear that we are to, “Take every thought captive.” He uses battle terms. The war for our mental health won’t be easy, but it will be worth it.
Quotes from Episode 318
Sometimes we make too much of people's public sin because we've made too much of them as a public figure to begin with. @JennieAllen Click To Tweet I'm always checking myself, 'Is this an overflow, or am I just trying to feed a machine?' @JennieAllen Click To Tweet 'If my weakness helps people, which I think it does more than my strength, then why would I not put it out there? @JennieAllen Click To Tweet Mental illness is not one of those things we can will our way out of. @JennieAllen Click To Tweet If you don't lead well, the audience doesn't stick around. @cnieuwhof Click To Tweet I'm not in it for the fans. I'm in it for the glory of God, because people are dying and they need hope and they need help. @JennieAllen Click To Tweet We are all one decision away from jail. @JennieAllen Click To Tweet I think the greatest gift I learned in leadership was to be weak and to embrace that weakness, and rather than fight it, own it and not hide it and speak of it. @JennieAllen Click To Tweet Some of the best stuff I have is the darkest stuff I have. @JennieAllen Click To TweetRead or Download the Transcript for Episode 318
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Read or download a free PDF transcript of this episode here.
Watch Back Episodes of The Podcast on YouTube
Select episodes of this podcast are now on YouTube. Our new YouTube Channel gives you a chance to watch some episodes, not just listen. We’ll add select episodes to YouTube as time goes on.
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Next Episode: Craig Groeschel
In May 2019, Craig Groeschel started to experience anxiety. He hired a performance coach to help drill down on what was going on and shares his insights into what he’s learned so far and how he’s handling the growing demands of leadership. Plus, Craig talks about how to avoid the pull of entitlement in leadership, how to stay approachable as you become more successful, and why your prayers should be more dangerous.
Subscribe for free now and you won’t miss Episode 319.
