Lance Witt has been called a Pastor’s Pastor. He loves those who serve on the front lines of ministry and is committed to helping them stay healthy and “finish well”. With over 25 years as a local church pastor, serving as an executive pastor at Saddleback Church, and extensive experience in missions and training pastors around the world in more than 15 countries, Lance has a seasoned perspective on ministry and building a team to function the best it can. Lance is the founder of Replenish.
Key Questions:
How can a pastor hold his staff accountable to some measurable metrics without discouraging them?
A lot of times in churches you have people who are kind of in silos—the children’s director is doing one thing, the head pastor is doing another, etc.—how can you create a team where everybody works together and everybody shares in each others’ successes?
What does Sabbath mean to you?
What is a healthy way of addressing under-perfomance in a team member?
Key Quotes:
“[We don’t just want] a team that gets along but a team that’s actually in their sweet spot and getting stuff done and making progress.”
“In the church, we suffer from a disease called terminal niceness.”
“Because of the press of time, we just plug in programs. And we don’t always ask ‘What’s the fruit of that program? And is that program helping our people move toward that goal of becoming a disciple?’”
“We need to do a better job of actually teaching people how to deal with conflict.”
“I think we have to teach people more about their own emotional health. Sometimes what’s causing the disfunction is an issue of insecurity or a pain I have in my past…that’s been kind of a blind spot for me, but it keeps being a land mine in my team environment.”
“Your soul is the real you…So you need to learn how to pay attention to that.”
“Part of what masks our emotional unhealthiness is we cover it with busyness…Too many of us find our identity and significance in our busyness and what we do.”
“Here’s the lie I think sometimes we believe: Busy people are important people. But if I’m going to lead a team well, I have to take care of my own soul.”
“You can’t live life at warp speed without warping your soul. And you can’t follow Jesus in a hurry.”
“One of the biggest things has been learning to spend my time with the Lord more relationally and less informationally.”
“As pastors…we don’t often come to Scripture thinking about the fact that I’m meeting with a person. That means I should take time to listen, to sit quietly…”
“This is what I think Sabbath is about: God established a rhythm for life, a rhythm that he wants for everyone of us, it’s in the DNA of the universe. And the rhythm is work and rest. Produce and then recover and restore.”
“As pastors, one of our greatest sins is we live as though we have no limits.”
Mentioned in the Show:
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership
Emotionally Healthy Spirituality and The Emotionally Healthy Leader
Replenish (book)
The Rest of God by Mark Buchanan
Building Healthy and High Performing Teams Course (via MinistryU)
