Catalyst ’15 – 45 Leadership Quotes From Jeff Henderson

As a member of the Catalyst Blog Team and INJOY Stewardship Solutions, I will be bringing you live updates from the much anticipated Catalyst Conference in Atlanta, GA.  The theme for this year’s conference is Awaken The Wonder.

Catalyst always begins by conducting a series of Labs on Wednesday for church leaders.  The afternoon’s next Lab session was conducted by the absolutely delightful Jeff Henderson .  As usual, he inspired and encouraged us.  The following are 45 Leadership Quotes on Leading in the Land of Possibility from this amazing session.

Also, before reading, make sure you check out the announcement from INJOY Stewardship Solutions shown below about a FREE webinar on October 13th for churches needing to raise capital in 2016.  Now onto  thoughts:

1. VISA going to go out of business one day but the church will last forever.
2. The tendency of a church leader is to live in the land of reality. Can you lead and live in the land of possibility?
3. Leaders need to own a space in the land of possibility and lease a space in the land of reality.
4. Possibility is the answer to the question – What causes a leader to advance?
5. We need to be “Anything Is Possible” leaders.
6. Have you been beat down by spreadsheets and accountants?
7. Possibility fuels the advance.
8. We have 280,000 unchurched people in our county. Our church was filled to capacity when we opened. But I told our team that was not success. Our goal is to reach 280,000 unchurched people in our county.
9. We don’t deny reality but you can’t let reality define you.
10. Advancing leaders display a confident humility.
11. When I cast bold vision, I have to make sure my ego doesn’t get in the way.
12. You are looking at a prideful leader who has to practice humility on a daily basis.
13. Bubba Cathy was a leader taking the organization to high places but he was willing to take the low places.
14. You have to ask, “How can I take the low place today?”
15. There has to be one person in your organization you are pushing to the forefront.
16. How much time do you spend building your platform vs. building other people’s platforms.
17. Someday your platform is going away. So it’s how many platforms have you built.
18. God’s thumbprints are on you. And His thumbprints are clues as to how He is going to use you.
19. In the land of reality, we ask a question that causes people to stop dreaming – “Is it working?”
20. If you create an atmosphere of fear, it becomes detrimental because people go into protective mode.
21. “What are we learning?” should be asked twice as much as “Is it working?”
22. Sometimes you have to kill things. The church is not good at killing things.
23. When you live in the land of possibility, something might not work but an iteration of this idea might work somewhere down the line.
24. The Chick-Fil-A calendar is the #1 selling calendar in the world. It almost didn’t happen.
25. When you live in the land of possibility, don’t give up too early. You are persistently resilience.
26. It’s OK to fail because we’re not failing, we’re learning. And if we’re learning, we’re winning.
27. Is your team scared of failing? It starts with you and me.
28. “I don’t know if it’s going to work. But I’m so proud of you for trying.”
29. It doesn’t take a whole lot of courage to live in the land of reality. You just point out what’s working or not working.
30. The Wright brothers were preacher’s kids.
31. Culture eats strategy for breakfast. – Peter Drucker
32. People value hearing their name.
33. “Jeff, your leader Jesus is the greatest servant leader of all-time. We shouldn’t know how to serve people better than you do. I just think we’re more passionate about it.” – Horst Schulze, former CEO of Ritz-Carlton
34. One day I want the Ritz-Carlton to study us.
35. “We want to let people know God is for them by how well we serve them.” – Gwinnett Church guest services statement.
36. Deliver WOW Through Service – Get to know their name in a non-freaky way.
37. The most threatening thing guests do at our church is hand off their babies to people they don’t know.
38. Church is not just for the adults. There are kids involved.
39. The Holy Spirit is not just in the auditorium with adults. The Holy Spirit is in the nursery with the kids. It’s been my experience the Holy Spirit leaves the nursery in about an hour.
40. Create Fun. Fun at church is so disarming.
41. Address the customer. Learn their name. Address their situation. Solve their situation in the moment if possible. Say farewell by using their name.
42. We can get too evaluative in our meetings and not celebratory. Start with celebration. Now that we’ve celebrated, what could we have done better and what did we learn?
43. Church plants, the slower sometimes the better. In the early days, going every other Sunday might be a good idea.
44. Every idea that is dying is competing for resources that are currently alive.
45. We want to fund and fuel momentum.

More leadership insights to come throughout the day.  And do not forget to join our team at INJOY Stewardship Solutions on October 13th for a session entitled How One Capital Campaign Raised Over $10 Billion.  It will be a fun hour of equipping and training.  Click HERE or on the image below to register today.