The Scandal of Domineering Leadership: an Interview with J.R. Woodward

In this episode, host Paul Baldwin interviews author and professor J.R. Woodward on his latest book “The Scandal of Leadership: Unmasking the Powers of Domination in the Church” based on his research on the problem of domineering leadership in the church…along with a prescription. Woodward contextualizes the “powers and principalities” that exacerbate dysfunctional leadership and outlines how to guard personal leadership. He co-founded Missio Alliance and serves as the National Director for the V3 Church Planting Movement. Woodward is an adjunct professor at several seminaries and universities, including Central Seminary, Missio Seminary, and America Evangelical University, as well as co-founding the Praxis Gathering.

https://jrwoodward.com/

Host: Paul Baldwin

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Transcript

Welcome to the Elemental Leaders Podcast. Designed to help you grow more effective in your leadership, visit us at elementalgroup.org for more resources and free downloads. 

Welcome to the Elemental Leaders Podcast. My name is Paul. I am your host for today and I am very, very excited about today's interview. I'm here with JR Woodward. JR has been planting churches for over 25 years. He has helped start and multiply dozens of missional, incarnational communities from Virginia all the way to California. JR holds a PhD from the University of Manchester, which just sounds cool, by the way, JR. And he's a part of and he shares leadership in and he's a consulting voice and an influence with many organizations and networks around the country. He currently serves as the national director for the V3 church planting movement, helping to train church planters across North America and the world in a way that values grounded spirituality, missional theology, and movement ecclesiology. I'm going to ask you about that in just a bit. He is the co-founder and director of the praxis gathering and annual gathering for planters who want to grow in grounded missional practices. He's also the author of numerous books, one of which we're going to talk about today, the scandal of leadership. Most importantly, JR loves to surf, loves to travel, he loves to read skateboard and meet new people. He enjoys photography and film and attends the Sundance Film Festival whenever he can. I kind of got jealous on that point right there. So anyways, JR, welcome dude. I'm so grateful that you're here. Thanks for being here, man. 

Glad to be here. 

Did I get this intro right? You You want to edit, adjust or throw anything? 

Oh, yeah. You got it totally right. 

Yeah. Okay. Cool. Well, if you don't know JR, you can jump on his website. We'll talk about that in a little bit, but I would encourage you, if you're leading in the church, just to pick up some of his books, but we're going to talk today about his latest book, The Scandal of Leadership, unmasking the powers of domination in the church. Part of the way I want to kick this off is actually to read. I don't normally do this, but read a review on Amazon. There was one that was, I think, simple and I think will steer us in the right direction by Jay Allen Love. I don't know who he is. Maybe you do. So Jay Allen, if you're listening, this one's for you, man. This is what he writes about the scandal leadership. This is the most thorough, comprehensive and robust book on church leadership that I have read in a long time. No stone has been left unturned. Woodward addresses the scandal and dominating powers of leadership in our churches. with precision and detail like no other. His diagnosis is thorough and his prescription is most Christ-like. This is not a quick read, but a resource and a compendium of information, insights and application you will return to repeatedly. I recommend this book enthusiastically. And Alan, I would absolutely echo that as well. I think it's a great introduction. Let's start with the challenge. What challenge are you addressing specifically in this book? Like, what problem are you trying to solve? 

The core question I'm asking is trying to give a deeper diagnosis to the problem of dominating leadership. And in a lot of ways, it's to be preventative from keeping any of us from falling, because I think we've seen the tragic fall of so many leaders. Probably over 20 years ago, this book was really started in me. And seeing it in in the context I was living in where someone would be elevated to a particular role, seemed like a very good person, and they became less good the more they endured that role. And so I was asked at one time to speak at a Pastor's conference on spiritual warfare, and it was there that I realized how the powers are really tied to this kind of domineering problem. I think a lot of times we look at the problem from maybe a psychological or even sociological, and I'm trying to look at it from more of a cosmic element, because all of these different realms, personal, the smallest, the social, to that more mythological or cosmological, that larger space influences everything down from it. And so I think if we don't learn to analyze it from that part, we're not gonna have a robust remedy. So in a lot of ways, even though I'm addressing this problem of domineering leadership, I'm probably going back to the earliest kind of views of Atonement was Christus victor. And that was like, how do we overcome the powers as the people of God? And that was just a very fundamental understanding of Christians that we've kind of lost today. 

No, we totally have. In fact, I'm not even sure if I should say this, but I'll say it. I'm watching the Lord of the Rings right now for the first time ever. Like, I feel like I'm not, I feel like I'm not a real American. But it was interesting. There seems to be this mystical, almost fake behind the scenes dark powers. We used to talk about when I was a kid, right? Principalities and powers and darkness and the kingdom of light over the kingdom of darkness. We just don't talk about that nowadays. Why do you think that is?

I think partly we don't broach the topic. So even if you watch the, you know, like the rise and fall of Mars Hill, they kind of mentioned a little bit about this, but they don't use it in any diagnosis because I think it takes a long time to actually understand when I say powers, I'm talking about Satan, the demonic and the principalities and powers. It does feel fake to us because I think in our current context, it doesn't fit with our current plausibility structure or the things that make sense to us. Just like any missionary has to contextualize the message to the place that they've been sent, they have to understand the people, the language and so forth and translate it for them so that actually makes sense. I think haven't contextualized the powers for our day. And so, you know, we either under contextualize it where it just doesn't make sense. And so it feels fake. It doesn't feel that real. Or we over contextualize it like Boltman, where, you know, he basically talks about all the powers, but then demythologizes it, meaning they're not really real. It's just a way to explain our human struggles in life and so forth. What I really attempt to do is to remythologize with the help of many different people to say, no, these are real entities, but maybe how you, you know, it's not like the devil and horns and the medieval. Right. It's a very different way. And so obviously, I'm not going to, that's what the whole book is about. And it takes a long time to kind of fully dive in. But what I'm seeking to do is really kind of having a faithful contextualization of the powers for our day with our current understanding, with our current worldview. And I think it actually then starts to make sense and we start, "Oh gosh, like this does have a lot of power over every life." There is a reason why I say Satan is a God of this world because he does seem to have an influence that's unwieldy. But I think when you read this, as you have, that you'll see that the conception of Satan is very different than tradition. And I think it makes a lot more sense. At least it does to me. No, it does. I think it fits with what the Scripture teaches as well, even better than what our lack of understanding currently gives. 

No, yeah. Thank you for bringing clarity in your answer to a rather ambiguous question, because it does. As I was reading through it, not only did you attach language to a very present reality when we talk about Satan, when we talk about demonic forces, when we talk about darkness, but you also make a really compassionate and practical connection to waking up tomorrow morning morning when I go to work. You use a term "root cause analysis." Engineers are looking to solve a problem. They go to a root cause analysis. As you kind of survey the scene over the past 25, 30 years of ministry, and you look at domineering leadership, whether you're looking at it intentionally or you're looking in the rearview mirror going, "Oh, that's what that was." Especially now that you have more articulated language to attach to it, in addition to your experience, what would you say the root cause is? I'll finish the question. You mentioned Mars Hill. I'm now going through the Hillsong documentary. Obviously, we saw some things happen with Willow Creek back in the day. I'll be honest, I'm super, super cautious when I watch some of these documentaries because I think the world just does a really good job of kind of pounding on pastors, even pastors that fall and get out of alignment. As you look at some of those people, as you look at some of maybe the unknown names, what would you say the root cause is, is it that we don't understand these powers behind the scene? Is that the issue you're getting at? 

Yeah, I mean, I would say this, we're all familiar, I think, with the Lord's Prayer, probably one of the most common things that Christians might cite today in prayer. And near the end of the prayer, how does Jesus teach his disciples and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, or some translations say the evil one. And so I would say the root cause, and by the way, that's followed by like an addendum which is what for thine is the kingdom the power and the glory for everyone. So the root cause is that we're tempted by the evil one to build our own kingdom by our own power for our own glory and I think we we don't realize is this is simply the work of the evil one. It's when we have an unhealthy desire for prestige power and control where we get into trouble. James puts it this way and he also ties it to the devil and the demonic. He says, "For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder in every evil practice." It's interesting this is James 3:16. So maybe it's an easy way to remember. Okay, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We all remember John 3:16, but James 3:16 gives us an insight and I think it does get to the root. Historically, the church has always recognized the seven deadly sins, right? Why are they called deadly sins. Why is anger, pride, envy, greed, and gluttony, and lust, and slothfulness put on the list, but murder is not on the list? That seems fairly deadly. And I think it's because these are the root of evil, right? Envy is the root of all evil. The love of money is the root of all evil. And so when a murder happens, usually they're looking for a motive, because it's usually greed, envy, lust and anger, that's the motive for killing. So these get to the root of the issue, not just the results and fruit of it. So that's kind of what I would say. And I would say envy in particular is a big aspect of what I dive into in many different ways. 

You talk about imitating powers in the world to move the church ahead, that this can cause problems, that when Jesus-following leaders start to imitate practices and ideas and movements that are more worldly, things start to unravel a little bit. Can you talk a little bit about, I thought that was fascinating. 

Yeah, and maybe I'll do that by way of looking at a passage like 1 Peter 5:1-9, which is one of the key passages that speaks to this problem of dumping leadership. It just outright Peter does this. And Peter is a good guy to kind of probably speak to this. But he's writing about these under-shepherds who are lording it over people. So this is number one, not a new problem. It's old as sin. And Peter pointed to what he learned from Christ himself, that leadership is really not to be in the way of the world. He talks about the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you, right? If you want to be great, you must become a servant and whoever wants to be first must be your slave. And then he even talks about his own imitation here, the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and give his life as a ransom. So too often, we uncritically imitate leaders in the world and then we wonder why we have the same problems in the church that we have in the world. It's obvious like this is a worldwide problem because there's a worldly approach to power and there's a godly approach to power and there's a big distinction between these two because we haven't really distinguished them. And when I say worldly, I'm not really talking about, you know, we're kind of live in the world but not be of the world. Jesus said, "I'm not of this world." He wasn't saying, "I'm this other worldly person." I mean, we're to kind of pray that his kingdom is coming here on earth as in heaven. You know, this is kind of where we started. This is kind of where we end if you read the end of the book. The point being is there's a worldly type and approach to leadership that really is totally based on the powers. And then there's a godly approach to power that comes from the Spirit as we surrender to him. I think that's the distinction that I'm trying to make. There's There's nothing wrong with learning knowledge from anywhere, but what happens is when we uncritically take things in and think that we're not going to be changed by that. But maybe fundamentally, it's not just the practices, but our desires that I think are super important. And what happens is we may look to a leader quote in the world that may not be a Christian. And what I think what happens, whoever we look up to, we will imitate their desires very subconsciously and that's where the real danger is. 

You make a statement several times where none of us are immune to this. No, yeah. This is the reality of it. I mean, I turn the camera on myself here a little bit. Whether I was in a small church plant or leading in a large mega church, you jump on Instagram and you post something, for example. What's the first thing you do when you come back to Instagram? You see how many likes you have. It's such a small, small example of such a large, large issue that is at work and present around us, that we're so susceptible to being famous or to being popular, being liked, or that draw of affirmation. It really, really started to bother me so much that I just got rid of Instagram. And then I thought, well, that's not the key. I mean, Instagram is a great tool to use in our culture today to communicate and to celebrate and to invite people into the mission of God. So I got to figure out how to handle that and not be overcome by it, right? Again, it's a small example, but it's probably one that's relevant to every single listener. 

Yeah, I think maybe one of the guys I kind of connect with is William Stringfellow. And his project, a lot was more about the principalities and powers. And I like to distinguish Satan, the demonic and principalities and powers. And so when he's trying to articulate the principalities and powers, he uses image, institution, and ideology as the things that will subvert us as leaders. And so I think that first one image, he uses an example of like, there's Marilyn Monroe the person and Marilyn Monroe the image. There's two distinct identities claiming the same name. So public image through our social media and other things is a principality. And as with any idol, image desires full devotion and is in conflict with us until we give ourselves over to it. So the principality demands that the person of the same name give up his or her life to the service and homage of the image. And when that surrender is made, the person in fact dies, though not yet physically, for at that point they're literally possessed by their image instead of possessing their image and God. That's probably the weakest of powers, but it's substantial and social media has accented it. 

He talks about institution, like any, and if you look at all of these things, ultimately, these are things that seek our ultimate allegiance, which is why they become idols. And many of us find our meaning in life through our work, which typically takes place in some form of institution, weak or strong. And according to Stringfollow, the guiding moral principle of any institution, whether it's a university, a corporation, a union, or a church, is its own survival. And when that is the case, it becomes demonic. Everything must be sacrificed to the cause of preserving the institution in this domain and by everybody, whether you're a worker or a leader in that institution, that we commit ourselves to the service of that and the survival of the institution. And when the institution exists as ultimate, like any idle idol, it seeks complete devotion of all the people in the domain so that the ultimate sacrifice is given to the institution. So while promising benefits, giving ourselves fully over to any institution is an invitation to bondage. 

And then probably the last one that he talks about is ideology, maybe the most recognizable principality today, though I don't think many of us realize how it can enslave us. But the ideology or basically the isms, right, that seek to take people, especially leaders captive, it's like communism or fascism or nationalism, we might be familiar with these, but also humanism and capitalism and rationalism and democracy are fallen principalities. The thing about ideologies is they have common characteristics and that they have absolutized themselves and demand unconditional loyalty from the individual and societies. In fact, ideologies have their own account of sin and redemption and like every fallen principality, they claim ultimate sovereignty, which is due only to God. And so they kind of give us a sense of meaning and significance. I actually trace these to the temptations that Jesus endures in the desert from the devil. I can go into that. But I think of one way that I'm trying to translate the principalities and powers to our vernacular that makes sense to us today. And I think when you think about that, I can see how this impacts every aspect of my life.

Yeah. I mean, I think about Tim Keller. He says, "When the good thing becomes the ultimate thing, you've got idolatry." Right? So, you know, our politics, our ideas, are those things bad? No, they're not bad. But when they become ultimate thing, when they become the source and supply of your contentment, your affirmation, dare I say, your shalom, you know, that sense of peace, even for a moment, even for a moment, you run into idolatry. And again, one of the things you beautifully do in this book is that nobody is immune to this. So we have to understand the reality of this. We don't have to live in fear of this, but we have to understand rather than fly blind. 

Let me shift a little bit on a real practical example here. I've got a friend, and this is a real friend. I know sometimes we say, "I've got a friend," and we're talking about myself, but it's really a friend. This guy, one of my dearest friends, still to this day, probably a mentor in my life from a distance now. 15 years as a pastor, 15 years as a missionary, and now 15 years as a businessman, very successful businessman, involved with a lot of different social endeavors and just loves Jesus with a passion. But there was a season in his life where things just got out of alignment. He ended up having an extramarital affair with his colleague and it became really, really messy. He's with his wife still today and he's healed out of that, which is great. But I remember sitting down with him and I was a younger leader, this is probably about 20 years ago, and I just said, "Hey, help me understand how I can avoid what just happened to you. Can you walk me through your progression?" Because as a young leader, I don't want to get to that place because you look at you know, Mars Hill you look at Willow Creek, you look at some of these other hill song I don't believe for a moment that any of these men and women started out their ministry their walk with God their walk with God's people their leadership over God's people with the intention to fall out of alignment and to and to fall prey to some of this stuff, right? I I believe these are I believe these are good men and women that have a passion for the Lord. And the Lord did wonderful things in their ministries, not just the public people, but the people who are not so public. How do we protect ourselves from that? I mean, for the pastor, for the nonprofit leader, for even the businessman or woman who loves Jesus and is doing their thing out in the corporate world, how do we protect ourselves from that? 

Yeah, I think first of all, is having a robust understanding of the powers that makes sense for our day today and how they subvert us. And I kind of think through Jesus before he entered his public ministry, what happened? He was driven by the spirit into the desert and tempted by who? You know, the devil. So the powers. But what happened right before that, I think is significant. Are you speaking of his baptism? Yeah. And then what happened at the baptism? The father looked at him and said, this is my son and who I'm well pleased. So if you look at the temptations, one of the ways to look at him is there's a temptation of like where we're going to find our sense of significance. I think there's a temptation that deals with our security. These are like deep human needs that everybody's kind of acknowledged. And I think the other temptation probably deals with our sense of success and what that actually looked like. What's their end? Yeah. When I talk about a leader, I kind of talk about, you know, our identity, our praxis and telos, you know, in other words, our identity, who we are, sense of being. Praxis, you know, is it just a nice fancy word for, you know, like doing, doing, and, but it's kind of reflecting and it's a cycle of action, reflection, and so forth. And then the telos is our ultimate end. And so if our ultimate end is off, you know, if it's not our life in God and the kingdom of God as properly understood, and our sense of identity is misshaped, like if we're getting our identity in something other than Christ, it will affect our praxis and how we behave and how we use power in particular. And so I think we need to have a deeper understanding, which I do in the book, with these typical temptations. But even more than that, so I think we, for me, some of the ways to monitor, ways I want to monitor myself, am I seeking status or the kingdom? Do I see myself as indispensable? That's kind of a dangerous place to be. You know?

Are these questions are these questions you're asking as yeah a part of your rhythm?

Yeah, yeah, there's a proverb that talks about a person's gonna be tested according to the praise given them in other words When we become successful we can kind of become proud. I think that's why Constantly we're kind of told God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble and Romans 12:4, don't think of yourself more highly than you ought, but with sober judgment, maybe even a test if we're kind of thinking of ourselves too highly is, you know, later in Romans 12:16, he says, "Don't be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited." Sometimes when you become so successful, you know, you're on a speaking circuit, you're in the green room, you just don't associate with, quote, "normal people" anymore, And you think you're something and you become full of yourself instead of the kenotic journey of emptying yourself. And I think pride ultimately blinds us to how we're simply kind of mimicking a leader that might be lifted up in the eyes of the world by using the ways of the world. And so even unbeknownst to us, we start to imitate the powers through the imitation of our poor model. And all of this happens subconsciously. 

I had an opportunity to meet the late Chuck Smith who was over the Calvary Chapel movement. You know, the movie just came out. They just had that movie? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Jesus Revolution. The Jesus Revolution, which is pretty cool. But I was a youth minister, volunteer youth minister just kind of starting out and I was at this conference and I had a chance to meet him. And I just said, man, that was such a great hour. Thank you so much for that. And you know, this is at the time where Chuck Smith is kind of at the height of his career. It's quote unquote, success and all this. And he just looked me right in the eyes and he just said, that was really fun, wasn't it? And so he didn't diminish it. He didn't just say, oh, no, no, no, that wasn't me. That wasn't me. It was all God. It was a careful balance between him just saying that was fun. And then he said, the Lord's doing some really cool things. Isn't he? That's great. That's it. He just had such a humble presence to him, and by the world standards, he could have gone a whole different direction with his response. 

You mentioned this idea of kenotic leadership. Can you talk a little bit about that? In fact, you use the term kenotic missiology. Yeah, so kenosis or I call it kenotic spirituality in the book. And yeah, I think it's really key because when we say what my maybe underlying theme of of the whole book is like we will either imitate the powers and their submission to Satan, which will lead to bondage to idolatry, dishonoring God and dehumanization, or, and there's really one other option, or we'll kind of imitate Christ and submission to his Father, which is freedom from idolatry and leads to honoring God and human flourishing. And so I don't think there's any option, but when we think about imitating Christ, I think that can go many different ways. I think the key that we need to think about imitating Christ in particular is Philippians 2. - Yeah, I was just gonna go there. - And that's really where we see kenosis or this kenotic journey. I kinda look at it in three aspects. He's like, here's Jesus, he's literally God, but refuses to exploit his status as God. He became human, and not just a human, but a slave. He became the lowest of status, if you will. He didn't use his status for his own benefit, always for the benefit of others. This kenosis is an idea of letting go, emptying ourselves, which is kind of the opposite of being full of yourself, right? And being full of ourselves is really having a sense of self-importance. We tend to exalt ourselves above others, usually based on our either ascribed or achieved status. And I think what's interesting, and you know, I kind of go into this pretty deeply, in Philipi, which is probably very similar to today, their highest commodity was honor. Archaeologists found like 7,000 inscriptions in the way that they established their sense of honor. So if you had money, you used it to buy honor for you and your family, usually this inscription, which started with their ascribed honor or what they inherited, and then they're achieved honor. And by the way, in that day, your ascribed honor was much more important, the things that you were kind of born with, right? Because those were hardly changeable. We don't put as much value into kings or princes today, unless maybe you're in Britain or something. We probably put more emphasis on our achieved status. And because of that, we're probably more stressed out. So, you know, I refer to a book there called Status Anxiety because we're in a world today because we base everything more on our achievements. Like our status is very much in question from day to day. There's so many factors that can go into that are better beyond our control. And so I think what we see happening with Jesus, what does it mean? Like, he became nothing. Is that what our goal is supposed to be? Like, that seems kind of an odd goal. I don't think it means nothing in the sense that we're insignificant or unvalued, because obviously Jesus understood his value in God. But I think it's insignificant in the way that the world calculates honor and value. And as we know, the kingdom of God is very different than the kingdoms of this world. 

I think we're talking about a new way to construct our sense of identity. The last part of the kenotic journey is obedience even to the point of death. I think what's interesting and maybe in a quick way to see what does this kenosis mean for us? Yeah, Jesus was God. So like, what about us as humans? I think Paul later on, not only does he first say the, and by the way, the whole context is there's memetic rivalry with the leaders that's affecting the whole church. And the way that Paul's dealing with it, the whole book of Philippians, is there's like positive and negative models. And so he talks about Christ as the ultimate model. And then he talks about Timothy and the Epaphroditus. But then finally, he comes to himself after talking about the negative models. And it's interesting that how he describes himself, because in his short autobiography, he does exactly what the Philippians would have, you know, the 7000 instructions. He starts with his ascribed honor that goes to achieve honor. He says, "Hey, if you think you're great because you've been circumcised, I was circumcised on the eighth day. I'm a tribe of Benjamin, you know, I'm an Israelite." So he starts with these things that were just inherent to his birth, but then he goes into his achieved honor, you know, as a Pharisee of the Pharisees. With the law, I was faultless. With the church, I was a persecutor. And he lists all of these things, which by the way earned him great honor in the Jewish community. He was highly honored. And he goes, I consider all of this garbage, crap compared to knowing Christ, the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His suffering. I think what we've seen with Paul, who was in jail at this time, who even those who were who threw him in jail unjustly, he showed love and kindness to, how was he able to live in this different plane of living? It's because his sense of being was gotten from a very different plane from what the world kind of teaches us and tries to mold us into. We have to learn to construct our identity in Christ. If we don't do that, if we fail there, I think we fail to become the people that God really wants us to become. And so this imitation of Christ, and again I kind of go into it a bit deeper, looking at Jesus looking at Paul and looking at a very recent example, because sometimes we think, "Oh, Paul, 2000 years ago." I look at Oscar Omero, I think is a very classic example of someone who lived a kenotic journey near the end of his life amazingly well. And by the way, this journey of kenotic journey isn't a one-and-done thing. Paul said he died daily. He had to die daily to how he got his sense of identity and his sense of self. And he had to constantly kind of reconnect and find that in Christ.

What do you want to say to our audience? We have a lot of pastors of various levels in the church. We have nonprofit leaders that love Jesus. If you were to encourage them, if you were to kind of give them a summary statement out of this book or just in general from your life experiences?

I think there's a few questions that for me I think about a lot over the last number of years. But the first is, do I have a life worth imitating? And when I kind of say that, I mean, I didn't have the time to develop memetic desire and all of that, but essentially, we imitate the desires of our models. And so fundamentally, I'm kind of speaking to a right ordering of desires, because what happens is people will imitate our desires subconsciously. And if our desires are kind of mis-oriented, like if we're all about a title, people will want that title too. And that creates kind of conflict, eventually scapegoating and many other things. I think it's so fundamental. Do we have a life worth imitating? Even recently, kind of there's an article going around Facebook about this guy who left his role as a pastor, gave all his reasons and everybody's speculating on giving advice, right? I think ultimately, he's probably got to the point where like, I don't have a life worth imitating, like there I wouldn't want anybody to have my life, you know, not even myself. And so that's That's a bad space to get in for any of us, right? So there's something that we have to do to say, do you have a life worth imitating? Is my life so good, and well, that I would say with like the Apostle Paul, imitate me as I imitate Christ? Then I think secondly, do we have a community worth joining? Have we learned to establish a good sense of team and being together? Because we all have a need to belong.  And then the third one is like, do we have a mission we're dying for? In other words, if I'm doing something that isn't worth dying for it, I may not have found my true purpose in life. So I would probably live with those things. 

JR, that's beautiful, man. And I just feel like I'm doing the book disservice because we could talk for hours. It's just such a good book. All your books are and what you write, what you speak is just a huge contribution to the kingdom community. So personally, you've mentored me from a distance. How can people find you? What's the best way? I know you're involved with so much, but what's the best way to find you?

JRWoodward.com. I'll have my social media outlets there, other things.

JRWoodward.com. Listen, if this is the first time you have met JR, do yourself a favor in your leadership. Just jump on JRWoodward.com and just cruise around and see what's there. JR, thank you so much. I really appreciate the time. I know that you are a busy guy, so we're honored that you'd give space to us. 

Oh yeah, man. My pleasure. 

For the rest of our audience, we're so grateful that you're with us today. If this podcast brought value to you in any way, would you rate it? Would you share it? Share it with someone else who is leading in the way of Jesus. We would love that. And then of course, if you need any help at all, any coaching, any resources, we'd love to just talk and help make your life a little more pleasant if we can go to elementalgroup.org. Thank you so much for joining us and we'll see you guys next time. 

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