For 13 years, Gavin Adams was the lead and campus pastor for Woodstock (Ga.) City Church. Located just north of Atlanta, this church was a campus of North Point Ministries led by Andy Stanley.
During Gavin’s tenure, the church grew to an active database 38,000 with an average weekly attendance of 8,000. Recently, Gavin felt God was moving him on to begin coaching marketplace and ministry leaders. Gavin helps leaders make things better and make better things. You can read more about his consulting and coaching services by clicking HERE. I highly recommend his services.
In this week’s edition of The Pursuit Of Service Podcast which I co-host with Jeff Wright, we had the privilege of interviewing Gavin about topics such as healthy cultures, vision alignment, and behaviors which lead to success. It is a must-listen to episode. You can do so by clicking HERE or on the image provided.
One of the first topics we discussed was what he learned during his time working with and for Andy. His comments were so insightful I want to share them with you and also give you a preview of the entire interview.
The following are just 5 Of The Many Things Gavin Adams Learned During His Time As One Of Andy Stanley’s Campus Pastors:
Family
As Gavin pointed out, Andy has communicated often on the subject of balancing family and ministry. He would meet very early to help people but he would be home by 4:30 PM. Following Andy’s lead, Gavin was often the first person in the office but was home in the late afternoon to serve his family.
Quoting Andy, Gavin said, “At some point someone else is going to have my job… But I don’t want anyone else to be a husband to my wife or father to my kids. That’s the one job I never want anyone else to have. So that’s my number one priority.”
Humility
Few Christian leaders in church history have the resume of Andy Stanley. He could easily have a “I got this figured out”-type of attitude. But one of the things which makes Andy so successful is he is a continual learner and one of the groups of people he learns the most from is his staff.
Gavin said, “I worked for Andy, directly with Andy. But when you work for Andy, you work with Andy. I was impressed over my 11 years how frequently he wanted to know my opinion, how he valued my perspective, how he wanted to learn because we have very different personalities. He valued diversity and inclusion of all kinds including personality diversion and inclusion.”
Delegation
You cannot run a ministry as vast as North Point Ministries without being an effective delegator. Gavin pointed out, “That’s what great leaders do. He delegated a lot to guys like me. He trusted people like me.”
One of the areas Andy trusted Gavin in was preaching and communicating. Gavin fondly remembered, “Andy only actually reviewed one sermon outline before I preached it. From that point forward he allowed me to do whatever God laid on my heart and help trust me in the process.”
Continual Improvement
Andy has previously taught us that the greatest enemy of future success is current success. Regarding Andy evaluating his sermons, Gavin said, “And help critique it on the back-end to make it better for the next time but wasn’t going to get too involved upfront because he wanted me to learn through the experience of wrestling with all the stuff.”
I had to ask a follow-up question regarding what it was like to have one of the world’s greatest communicators evaluate his preaching. Gavin admitted it could be intimidating and reveal all your insecurities. However, he counted it as a great privilege. Gavin said,”I just want to be a learner… Every version of critique is helpful, even if it’s hurtful personally… When you can allow it to be about growth and getting better for the next time, sitting with a guy like Andy, it is a doctorate in communication… I can’t metric how much better of a communicator I am just through osmosis and watching and learning over time with a guy like that.”
Decision-Making
Because of their personalities, Gavin and Andy approach decision-making completely differently. Gavin said, “Andy is not a quick decision-maker… Andy’s a little bit more of a perfectionist… Andy’s pacing in big decisions was helpful for me to learn… By slowing down it gives us the ability to process information better, to bring more people into the conversation, allow that to marinate, and allow all those things collectively to lead to the best decision in the end. He does a good, good job of that.”
Gavin’s admiration for Andy was evident through the first ten minutes of the interview. We then moved on to other topics. Trust me, you are going to want to hear all of the insights this brilliant individual provided. Once again, click HERE to listen.
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