51 Leadership Quotes From Carey Nieuwhof – Live Notes From The Orange Conference

April 25, 2013 0 Comments

For the next few days, I will be attending the Orange Conference in Atlanta, Ga.
This morning I had the privilege of attending a session for senior Christian leaders by my friend Carey Nieuwhof, Senior Pastor of Connexus Community Church in Toronto on the subject of change.  I wanted to share his thoughts with you.
In my opinion, Carey has the best leadership blog on the internet.  To get additional thoughts from this incredible leader, you can check it out his blog by clicking here.
After reading these leadership quotes, please check out an amazing FREE offer from The Rocket Company on helping pastors preach better sermons.  You can join Exponential live by clicking here.

1. Leadership can sometimes be lonely.
2. If you look at where the church is going, change is going to be on the agenda.
3. The longer I lead the less I trust myself.
4. There is a difference between whether you are doing something or are you doing it well.
5. Change is exhausting.
6. I will be letting a younger generation make more and more calls as I move into my 50s.  They have a better pulse on today’s culture.
7. Many churches have frozen into a particular year.  Some are in the 50′s.  Some are in the 60′s.  Some contemporary churches are frozen in the 90′s.  They aren’t contemporary anymore.
8. Sometimes you have to say, “You’re a praying person.  I’m a praying person.  We both love Jesus.  Now let’s talk about strategy.”
9. Spiritual leadership can become a mask for conflict.

5 Shifts That Help Create An Appetite For Change
Shift One – Understand Why People Resist Change

1. People crave what they already like.
2. Our cravings form behavioral patterns.  People who attend your church love it the way it is.  That is why they are there.  The people who don’t attend your church don’t.
3. People change when the pain associated with the status quo is greater than the pain associated with change.
4. Leaders have a greater appetite for change than those who follow.  This creates tension in your church.  You behave one way as a leader and another way as a follower.

Shift Two – Plot Trajectory To Determine What’s At Stake

1. Unimplemented change eventually becomes relief or regret.
2. As a leader you must decide if you want your story to be about relief or regret.
3. Incremental change ushers in incremental results.
4. 60% of those who attend Connexus have no church background.
5. The Kingdom of God really, really demands our best.
6. Radical change has the potential power to usher in radical results.
7. (Regarding change) the last 10% is the hardest.  Because the people who resist change still have something to hold on to and now you’re taking that away.
8. Change can happen in five years.  Transformation takes seven.
9. Four Sundays a month is disappearing.  Regular attendance in now 2-3 Sundays a month.
10. Plot out where you will be if you don’t change.  Plot out where you could be if you do change.
11. Your job as a leader is paint a picture of the future and call people to it.
12. The greatest enemy of our future success is your current success.

Shift Three – Raise The Level Of Discontent

1. Create discontent in a good way.
2. Out of discontent great things get birthed.
3. Create discontent out of the potential of your mission, the progress of your mission, the gap in your mission of what is and what could be, the urgency of your mission.
4. As leaders, you are dreamers.  You see great things of what could be.
5. Transfer the tension that comes with the appetite for change from the leader to the community.
6. When you cast vision, focus twice as much as why you do what do rather than what and how.  Why unites, while what and how divide.
7. The only leadership question that unites people is “Why?”.
8. Only the most selfish people say “I don’t care about the rest of the world.  They can go to hell.”
9. Communicate the need for change in concentric circles.  Dialogue with the core.  Get input from committed people.  Give information to the congregation.  Give vision to the crowd.  And finally, give an invitation to the community.
10. Getting input from 100s and 1000s of people in your church can kill change.
11. Don’t look for consensus.  Consensus kills courage.  Change never happens when everyone has a say.
12. You will never get consensus.
13. You are a leader because you will do things other people don’t do.
14. Reserve decisions exclusively for the body that must make decisions.

 Shift Four – Prepare For Drama

1. We are attracted to the drama in other people’s lives but resist it in our own.
2. We pay for drama.
3. Most Christians would forbid their children to participate in the Bible stories we read to them.
4. Most Christians pray for a changed outcome and then pray against any drama necessary to bring the outcome about.
5. There is no story without drama.  You want the  right kind of drama in your drama.
6. To lead effectively introduces the drama necessary for the outcomes to change.

Shift Five – Never Arrive

1. Focus on where you are going, not when you’ll arrive.
2. When you stop changing, you die.
3. Value experimentation.
4. I don’t know where the church is going the next 10 years, but it is going to require a lot of experimentation.
5. Embrace failure as a step toward progress.
6. Celebrate the progress you make.
7. A lasting appetite for change develops naturally in people and organizations who truly embrace their mission.