Power of Preaching & Leadership Development | John Cameron | Episode #20

In Episode 20 of The Flourishing Life, Andrew Staggs sits down with John Cameron as they discuss the power of preaching, emphasising the necessity of revelation, clarity in messaging, and reliance on the Holy Spirit. John's practical advice on leadership development underscores his belief in recognising, nurturing, and investing in potential leaders. He shares his 'three numbers of leadership development' and offers wisdom on resilience, cultural challenges, and maintaining spiritual vitality amidst adversity.

Key Moments:
(00:00) - Daily Routine & Deep Work Practices
(03:18) - A Suit’s Role in a Lifelong Commitment to Faith
(06:02) - Building a Thriving Church Community: Key Insights
(16:05) - The Art & Impact of Effective Preaching
(23:34) - The Power of Anointed Preaching & the Holy Spirit
(29:07) - Three Key Numbers for Leadership Development
(37:59) - Achieving Success in Ministry & Personal Life
(41:39) - Balancing Compassion & Purpose in Leadership
(46:03) - Resilience & Leadership in Tough Seasons
(54:05) - Adapting Christian Leadership in Today’s Culture

Connect with Andrew Staggs:
https://linktr.ee/andrewstaggs
https://www.instagram.com/andrewstaggs

Produced & edited by StoryRocket

Transcript

0:00:00 - (Andrew): Welcome to the Flourishing Life podcast. Wow. We've got John Cameron today. John has become a great friend and champion. Many of you know him as a leader, megachurch pastor, great communicator, coach and friend and champion of the local church. So, John, welcome to the podcast today.

0:00:21 - (John): Thank you, Andrew. It's an honour to be with you and appreciate you, my friend. So thank you for having me on.

0:00:27 - (Andrew): We've been planning this for a while, haven't we? And so it just so happened you were back in Australia. This time we've been able to create a window, an opportunity here on the Gold coast. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:00:37 - (John): Either I'm here and you're in Singapore, you're here and I'm in America. We have not been.

0:00:43 - (Andrew): On Monday, we were both at Newcastle airport together.

0:00:46 - (John): We were. That's right.

0:00:47 - (Andrew): And you were flying back with Will. Will was great. He was able to educate me in the ways of chess. I went back to Jean and said, babe, I think I can get a handle on chess now. He gave me so much confidence.

0:01:00 - (John): He did. Actually, I've never heard him give that little speech before, but he was basically telling you in 5 hours you could be competent at chess. Is that what he said or something?

0:01:09 - (Andrew): I went back to Shah and said, baby, I think I can do it. I can do it. Well, we're here on a Wednesday, so what's a day in the life of John Cameron look like? For example, how did today start? Was it a normal day?

0:01:26 - (John): Today was a pretty normal day. I mean, essentially it depends slightly on jet lag, but sometime between four and 05:00 a.m. depending on my body rhythm, normally I am awake. I'll have had one cup of coffee. There's a little bit of time that goes into Bible reading. And then really the first section of my day is just aiming to get that sort of two to three and a half hours of deep work in. And so my goal is, as much as I can be disciplined, is to avoid touching my phone for the first few hours of the day.

0:02:03 - (John): And then I'm just trying to just push out something that'll be meaningful. So in this season of my life, I'm not doing a heap of, like, Sunday message creation. So right now, it's. It's either coaching resources or book writing is just dominating that first section. Bit of a break. Coffee with Jillian. I may or may not take Will to school. He's just. Because he's trying to get his hours up for his L's.

0:02:33 - (John): And then I'm into my workday. So just whatever the workday requires of me that day. And then normally trying to sort of finish sometime between that three to five window with a workout and then into the evening. Yeah.

0:02:49 - (Andrew): Well, it's good to see you. Early fifties, I understand, and we're seeing a really good version of you in this season. But it started way back. I got this photo of you, which I've been trying to find in a suit. Look at that. You look like an absolute boss. This is you. Something about the suit. It was a present on your 18th birthday. Can you tell us about the suit? And then what that then led to? Because you look confident. You look like a boss.

0:03:18 - (John): That's not my 18th birthday suit. But that is me in a suit and not my birthday suit.

0:03:24 - (Andrew): Oh, boom, boom.

0:03:26 - (John): Just to clarify for people. So you're talking about how I found Jesus?

0:03:32 - (Andrew): Yeah. Well, I think something happened. You were dressed up in a suit with nowhere to go.

0:03:37 - (John): Yeah. So, I mean, essentially, like, when I turned 18 years old, I had already been working full time since I was 15 in insurance, fire and general insurance insurance. And so my parents gave me a suit for my birthday, and I wasn't walking with Jesus at this point, so wasn't going to church and was not a committed christian. In fact, my life was a long way away from God. And so they gave me the suit and I couldn't think of anywhere to wear it, and I kind of wanted to wear it.

0:04:10 - (John): And so I put on the suit and went to church because, you know, when I'd last gone to church, that's what everybody wore. I didn't quite realize that a brand new double breasted Pierre Cardan suit would be in the exceptionally high, you know, sort of lofty dress standard for church at that time. So I sort of rolled up to church in my Pierre Cardan suit. And that's how I started on the journey of faith, was in that church service, just standing in that environment.

0:04:47 - (John): People were lifting God up, but I could sense his presence coming down. And I just thought, there's something real here. And what these people have, I need. And I never stopped going. So from that moment until this, I've been in church. Unless I'm on holiday, I've been in church every Sunday of my life from my 18th birthday till now.

0:05:10 - (Andrew): How long did we would say I made a decision to follow Jesus or sign over the management rights of my life to Jesus? How long was that? Was it that on your 18th birthday?

0:05:22 - (John): Four weeks. Yeah.

0:05:23 - (Andrew): So four weeks.

0:05:23 - (John): So I went on, my birthday's April 20, and I don't know if I want to be clear. My birthday may have been the Saturday or the Friday, I don't know. But it was the first chance I had to wear the suit. Whether the birthday was Friday, Saturday or Sunday, I can't remember. What I do remember is that the day I gave my life to Christ was May 12 because that's my father's birthday.

0:05:45 - (Andrew): Wow.

0:05:45 - (John): And so it was the evening service of the church that my family attended. And that I attended was when I gave my life to the Lord. Yeah.

0:05:57 - (Andrew): So why is a relationship with Jesus important to you?

0:06:02 - (John): It's everything. Knowing Jesus as the center of my life, you know, he's my lord and my God and I live my life to honor him. There's nothing, nothing more important to me.

0:06:20 - (Andrew): You can see that we've spent time together and many people to see that love of Christ just exuding out of you. We marvel at the life that you and Gillian have built with your young adult children. Seems like church has been a big part of your life along the way. Talk to us about your involvement with church over the last couple of decades.

0:06:44 - (John): Well, I've been a lead pastor for most of the last 20 years. Been in full time ministry, I think 32 years. So started full time when I was 19 and then youth evangelist for four years, part time children's pastor for two of those years, six years on staff at a church. Started off as youth pastor, did a few other roles as well for my lead pastor, just overseeing different things. Pioneered a church when I was 29. So for just a few months short of 20 years, was the lead pastor of a church which Gillian and I founded with seven people.

0:07:25 - (Andrew): And how did that come about? How did it like, it's like some people think I'm just going to go buy a museum, I'm going to go buy a zoo. Like, what makes you think I'm going to just go and start a church?

0:07:37 - (John): Well, I mean, I don't remember this, but people who know me from when I was 18 years old and just newly saved have told me that, you know, even back then when they said, what do you want to do with your life? I would say I want to pioneer a church. So I think my, I've only ever had one goal really for my life and that was to pioneer and to build a church, you know, and so it was a great honor to be able to live my dream in every way. You know, it was a wonderful, wonderful journey of being lead pastor of a church. And I thoroughly enjoyed it.

0:08:14 - (John): It's a mugs game you know, like being a lead pastor, it's a hiding to nowhere. You know, it's all responsibility and fickle on the joy. And, of course, it's also a role that you're doing for the Lord and for other people.

0:08:33 - (Andrew): What did you enjoy most about it? Those decades of leading arise?

0:08:38 - (John): Without a doubt, the greatest joy was the team that I was able to do it with. We had such a phenomenal team, you know, amazing people. And so, you know, not just the staff team, but obviously the staff team, the leadership team, you know, to. I think, really, I've never been a broadly smart person. I think I've always been someone who's just really enjoyed smart people, and so just always, really enjoyed getting in a room with people, asking a question about a problem that we're facing, and then just watching people go to work.

0:09:17 - (John): There's no greater buzz in life than a highly collaborative environment with great people working together on something. So I think that that's always been my number one. I think making a difference is also addictive. The old King James version, in one corinthians, I think it's verse 57, says they addicted themselves to the work of the ministry. And there is something very, very compelling about experiencing life change, you know, like, and watching people come to Christ. You know, we had just shy of 50,000 recorded decisions for Christ in the last ten years.

0:10:03 - (John): You know, I think two of our locations, over 1% of that city attended, you know, one of our services. Yeah. And that. That's, you know, just amazing. Incredible.

0:10:17 - (Andrew): I remember you talking to a bunch of leaders, and you were just so overcome by the joy of watching a life be transformed.

0:10:25 - (John): Yeah.

0:10:26 - (Andrew): People saying yes to Jesus and then getting wisdom into their life, making good decisions.

0:10:32 - (John): Yeah.

0:10:32 - (Andrew): Choosing right life partners, living a life of wisdom and basically the flourishing life. You spoke with such fondness, I could hear it resonating in your voice. You never get tired of that.

0:10:43 - (John): No, no. I mean, you know, you know this Andrew better than me, you know, and you're an incredible life change agent. You know, you really are. And just watching you even, you know, we did it. We climbed a mountain together with a group of leaders on the weekend. A bit of huffing and puffing. It was more climbing a cliff than a mountainous. But I watched you just engage with people and be so intentional. And the way that you got involved in their story and helped them to walk their journey was amazing. But I think the pulpit is fickle.

0:11:23 - (John): Life change is powerful. If you get involved in people's lives and you watch them grow and mature and become who they're called to be. It's incredibly rewarding.

0:11:32 - (Andrew): Does someone say that, you know, what you and Gillian built there in partnership with God, which is a modern day phenomena, why do you think that it worked? Why did it expand? Why did it grow? Like, have you thought through like what's reproducible out of that or why did it work? Would you just sit there and just marvel at the grace of God? A great grace was upon it.

0:12:00 - (John): I think a bit of both, right? Like, I think, I think, you know, people sometimes when you compliment christians, they say, you know, oh, it's all God. And I'm like, well God works better through you than he does through other people. You know, it was great worship, leading. Oh, it's just God. No, I've watched other people worship leader and it was definitely not the same with their experience. Look, I mean I think in many ways what we did was a bunch of lessons and how nothing to do it.

0:12:28 - (John): I think we started, for instance on the 14th or. No, no, the 11 November or 10.

0:12:38 - (Andrew): November late in the year.

0:12:39 - (John): It was just.

0:12:40 - (Andrew): No one ever starts a church late in the year.

0:12:43 - (John): It's absolutely in a capital city. So university had already closed and there's like 20,000 or something students in the centre of Wellington, the parliament houses closed. So then, you know, it was just absolutely insane. Who does that? And you know, there's probably ten other examples of that along the way of, well, probably a thousand of things we didn't do. I think what we did do well was we really focused on three things. Encounter, community and mission.

0:13:17 - (John): So I think one thing we did was we built a church where people were genuinely. There was genuine spiritual life. Genuinely the word of God was being preached. People were encountering God through his word, through worship, through ministry. You know, I think if a church doesn't have spiritual life it's dead. And, you know, and I think a lot of times we underestimate the importance of actually just keeping that fire in that encounter.

0:13:51 - (John): Living and breathing in the heart of a church community. I think a lot of churches are really, really not growing, just simply. The myth is that large churches are impersonal. It's a fallacy. A church only becomes large if it is personal. It stops growing the moment that it isn't personal. You know, you and I can both give examples of churches you visit that have 100 people in them and no one says hello to you.

0:14:22 - (John): So we had a genuine sense of community. Long lunches and lengthy suppers are at the heart of how Christianity works. You know, and if it doesn't have that element to it, if it's professionalism or distance, you know, it doesn't work. And then mission, I think, you know, we have to call the church to a purpose that is greater than any one person. A clear and a compelling vision, something worthy of your time, your volunteerism, your sacrifice, your effort, something that gives the greatest possible why, you know, churches need that.

0:15:02 - (John): And I think we probably did. Those would be three things, I think that we stayed true to all the time. You know, a living encounter, a strong and vibrant community, and a clear and a compelling mission and vision for why we were there. And encouraging people to live that life of mission for God in their own lives would be.

0:15:26 - (Andrew): That is inspiring. I can actually see young leaders just lapping this up, but probably pulled over their car on the side of the road writing those three keys down. Well, can we just pivot the preaching? Because your preaching, your communication, teaching gift is really the touch of God on it. I know it's something that you've worked on. Why preaching? Why do you think preaching works, and how do you understand preaching? Because as an observer of you and admirer of what you do, that really is one of your key strengths, one of John Cameron's lines.

0:16:05 - (John): Thank you. I'll take that compliment. So you just. I mean, preaching is how. I mean, you know, what does Paul say? God has chosen the foolishness of preaching. And, you know, it's pretty darn true, isn't it? I mean, if you ever listen to your content, you know, your messages that you preached 20 years ago, normally, most of us are like, wow, that's amazing. And that is totally awful at the same time. Yet God uses it.

0:16:36 - (John): I think what makes great preaching is firstly and singularly a revelation from God. You know, I mean, you know. You know, one of the things that I find a lot of fun is to help people, you know, with their journey of preaching. And I've been blessed to do that for a number of people. And one of the things that will happen is they'll send to me their sermon notes, right? And I'll read the sermon notes. And the first three pages are often just very vanilla, just kind of just stuff.

0:17:12 - (John): Nothing kicks, nothing jumps, nothing triggers you when you read them. And then you get to halfway down maybe the fourth page, and you read this verse of scripture and what they're saying about that verse, and suddenly you're like, wow, there is life there. And then I couldn't tell you how many times I've sat down with that, you know, aspiring preacher and said, man, there's something very special about that.

0:17:39 - (John): I've had this so many times, they'll say to me, that is the first thing God spoke to me about. And that's how I started developing this message, you know, and what I always do is I just put a. I put a pen through page one and a pen through page two, pen through page three, and then I just say, that's your message. That nugget is your message. Go back and say that. Just make this whole message that, and forget everything else you want to say.

0:18:08 - (John): So, revelation, exceptionally key. The second thing that makes great preaching, and I'm deeply passionate about. It's not the only preaching style I want to say that, but what I'm passionate about when it comes to preaching is in ten words or less. Tell me, what are you trying to say? And really what I try to do with my messages is I just land one point, just one phrase, ten words or less. And in many ways, I think what would make a lot of people preach better messages is if they left more things out.

0:18:45 - (John): Right. Like, you know, I mean, you know, Pastor Ross Abraham, you know, is a friend of both of ours, leader of the ironc movement, and he preached the message last year in July. Can you tell me what the title of the message was at Noosa? Narrator no, not done yet.

0:19:07 - (Andrew): Oh, yeah.

0:19:08 - (John): The hat, the whole branding, everything he preached. Three words, not done yet. And you still hear people talking about those three words over and over again. And I think that's the essence of preaching. You gotta have something that God wants you to say, limit yourself to say only that. Narrow that down to a point of clarity and say over and over and over again. So, I mean, my messages are just normally just phrases.

0:19:36 - (John): That's it. So, like, you know, I am responsible, far away goddess, I stand in the presence of God. You are the one. Get ready to cross the Jordan River. I really just take a phrase from the Bible and I preach that for 30 minutes and I'm done.

0:19:54 - (Andrew): And because that's what the revelation.

0:19:56 - (John): That's my revelation.

0:19:57 - (Andrew): The touch of God was on that. Okay. Yeah.

0:19:59 - (John): And that's my word. That's my message. And I think that, you know, you should hit the pulpit as a preacher with a sense of fear, because your message is too simple. That's your sweet spot. Man's wisdom is not going to bring anointing. So there's this trust element, because we're not trying to be simplistic and we're not certainly trying to be laissez faire it's that trust relationship, that what God told you to preach is enough, and then you'll trust his word to be life to people, and that's normally gonna be your sweet spot.

0:20:40 - (Andrew): That's awesome. We got you involved in our preaching clinic earlier in the year at school of ministries.

0:20:46 - (John): Awesome.

0:20:46 - (Andrew): And you did four by 15 minutes. Little punchy video clips, I don't know how many. I've shared that with other leaders.

0:20:55 - (John): Oh, wow.

0:20:55 - (Andrew): And they just really drank it. You have this great clarity around how you prepare a message. Can I ask you this? One of the hardest bits in a message is the close. We call it landing the plane. Yeah. I think they say no one ever reports on a landed plane, but they always remember a plane that crashes. Like, how does the end work for you and the preparation then when you're delivering it, you got a clock, you got a countdown working.

0:21:24 - (Andrew): How do you see that last moment? Because I'd say watching you for a long time, that's one of your strengths. So how is it that you get that result, even in the preparation, then what's happening as you're going through your message to get to that, to that point without crashing?

0:21:43 - (John): That's a great question, I think. Okay, so I want to draw a line between, like, an altar call and land in the plane. Right. So an altar call is something that you want to be very, very prepared for. Landing the plane, for me, is about reacting to what's in front of me and how I sense the Holy Spirit entering. So that's probably the only time for me where I've got a pretty clear picture of where I maybe think it might go, but it's the least planned part of where I go.

0:22:24 - (John): So, for me, landing a message, because, you know, the thing is, the word connects with people differently in different environments. Right. So, you know, I mean, I normally prefer a enthusiastic landing to the message, like a climactic end, but sometimes the same message will not go that way. It'll go down even on a Sunday.

0:22:48 - (Andrew): Like, you know, sometimes we have to preach three times on a Sunday to the same day. It often can be three different sort of mess nuanced messages. Can it?

0:22:55 - (John): Well, certainly the landing can be three different ways. Yeah. To different people. So I think what I'm always trying to do is just sort of just really trust the Holy Spirit in that moment. That would be my least. And I always don't. I don't like saying that, you know, when you. We're talking about how to preach, because I feel like, you know, you're telling people to suck eggs when you just say, just trust the Lord.

0:23:17 - (John): But I think a great preparation allows you to get to a point where you can land the plane, you know? And so the more prepared we are then, do we need to stop for my dog, or is dogs just coming to the house?

0:23:34 - (Andrew): This is real life.

0:23:35 - (John): We have wooden floors here, and so the dog should not be walking around right now.

0:23:40 - (Andrew): We should say. We should introduce. Hello, everybody. This is Coco.

0:23:43 - (John): Yeah, yeah, coco the dog is here.

0:23:46 - (Andrew): What about the altar call? That is a significant feature of our spirit filled spirituality. Like, other versions of church don't have this thing called the altar call, but we do expect God to do something, and we do expect people to respond to the now living, revelatory word of God in encounter. It's a pretty powerful part of kind of what we do and how we do ministry, isn't it?

0:24:13 - (John): Yeah. I mean, for me, power of the Holy Spirit is everything when it comes to. I mean, the early church was baptized in the Holy Spirit and in power, and we want that power. Jesus said, john the Baptist, sorry I baptized you with water, but there's coming one after me. He will clothe you in the Holy Spirit and with power and fire and power. And we want to be clothed with power. We want the power of God to be in and through his church.

0:24:45 - (John): I can't do vanilla. I can't do ordinary church.

0:24:50 - (Andrew): I'm hearing encounter. I'm hearing revelation. I'm hearing Holy Spirit. You said something that really impacted a lot of people at our preaching summit. You said, you must position your life if you want to be effective, you must position your life under anointed preaching.

0:25:08 - (John): Yes.

0:25:10 - (Andrew): Can you talk to me more about that without saying, this is what a desolate life would be like if you don't sit under anointed preaching, what's the power of people who want to build a flourishing life? What is the link? Why does anointed preaching work? Or why does that have to be an essential part of how you build a life of satisfaction and hope?

0:25:35 - (John): Well, I think the power of, like, faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God, right. And so there's a revelatory nature to faith being alive in our lives. And when you're in an environment of the Holy Spirit, then you're normally in an environment of revelation as well. And that's where clarity comes from. That's where conviction comes from. Right. Like, if we're not in an environment of the presence of God, then we start to live by earthly wisdom and man's principles, and we start to trust on our own wisdom.

0:26:12 - (John): But when you get into an environment of God's presence and power, that's where clarity comes, right? And that's where conviction comes from. That's where faith is born. And so the best thing we can do for our lives as Christians is to live in that place, you know? And there are christians, you know, that live their lives as christians, but from a human perspective, you know, and that's where Paul always says, you know, that your faith might not rest on man's wisdom, but on God's power.

0:26:45 - (John): So we need to make sure that we're just orienting our lives and our faith and the, you know, if you're a pastor, our church, our ministry towards an environment where there is, you know, my concern when it comes to preaching is that we raise a generation of communicators rather than preachers. And, yeah, I understand the updating of language, right? So now it's like, oh, you know, he's a great communicator. And I'm always sort of like, okay, but there's a bit of an amber light there for me, you know, where I'm like, I don't want to know whether he can wax eloquent.

0:27:28 - (John): I don't want to know whether he's funny or even whether he knows the Bible or even whether, you know, he can hold or she can hold a congregation. I don't want a communicator. I want a preacher. Because a preacher is someone who has intimacy with God. You know, a preacher is someone who says, silver, I don't have gold. I don't have what I do have. I give it to you. And, you know, we're. We're a world that is being oppressed by demonic influences.

0:27:59 - (John): We're a world where deception is rife. And I think if we want to continue to be the church, we need a spirit of revelation, and we need the power of God that can break a person free. Come on, preach it.

0:28:11 - (Andrew): Wipe it well, because good preaching even preaches to the spirit realm, to the atmosphere, around a location, around families, even around a city, around a nation. Yeah, that's why I think what, you.

0:28:22 - (John): Know, when you hear anointing, I mean, Phil Pringle says about the Holy Spirit moving in church. Cool phrase. And I know you know phil well, but Pastor Phil always says, he says the Holy Spirit's manifest presence is hard to define, but, you know when it's there and you know when it's not, and when you. When a preacher's preaching and they've got, you know, my latino friends would say, there's no fuego, there's no fire, you know, so my other friends would say, he ain't dripping, meaning there's no oil on the sky. There's no anointing on the sky.

0:28:56 - (John): What we want is we want to hear somebody and think they got it. They got that touch, they've got that kick, they've got that passion. Something's being important.

0:29:07 - (Andrew): You're helping some people right now. This is good. That's why I love our relationship. Last couple of years, you've been in the school of Ministries. You've been helping shape, coach, inspire, in part to some of our younger leaders, like you and I spent a lot of time in this leadership development, pastoral development space over the decades. When you were in New Zealand, you would have learned a thing or two about raising, mobilizing, even identifying leaders.

0:29:34 - (Andrew): Can you just talk us through sort of what you began to learn over those years? Because we can point around the world to many very good emerging leaders who've been shaped by the fingerprints of John Cameron. So talk to us about what you've learned along the way.

0:29:54 - (John): How about I give you, and, you know, I'm worried people will run with this and I won't get to preach it enough, but I'll give it to your podcast. I'm going to give you the three numbers of leadership development.

0:30:08 - (Andrew): Okay, this is good.

0:30:09 - (John): Okay. So I spent a lot of time thinking about this, crystallizing it, my own thoughts over the last two years about how do you develop leaders? Most churches don't have enough leaders. We're always looking for more. Even Jesus said, the harvest is plentiful, laborers are few. So we don't have a harvest problem. We have a leader problem. So let me give you right now the three numbers of leadership development. Okay.

0:30:34 - (Andrew): Should we ask listeners to pay some money for this? Because previous guests have released their latest secret sauce, and people have offered in the comments section to pay, like, up to $1,000 a pop anyway.

0:30:46 - (John): They should pay. No, no.

0:30:48 - (Andrew): Over to you, John.

0:30:49 - (John): I will say that I have a book that will hopefully come out about September next year. Was going to come out earlier, but it's been delayed by me because of my own pressures called Jesus built leaders. So everybody can grab that book when it comes out. Jesus built leaders. I think it's going to be a game changer. I think it's going to be a really great book. But for this purpose, let me give you the three numbers of how you can develop leaders.

0:31:17 - (John): If you apply these three numbers to yourself as a leader, the ministry you lead. Here's a bold call. The ministry you lead will never lack leaders. If you can apply these three numbers to your life, here they are, 510 and 20. If you can apply those three numbers to your life, you'll never lack leaders. Let me give them to you. Five. I will never forget where I was driving down Richardson Road in Mount Roscoe when I heard John Maxwell say on the enjoy life club that one in every five people is a leader.

0:31:57 - (John): He was explaining the Pareto principle, the 80 20 rule, and he said that one in every five people is a leader. I pulled the car into a driveway, sat there, rewound the cassette tape, listened to it about four times as my mind was blown by the simple thought that if there are five people that walk into my church, my youth ministry, whatever ministry that I'm involved in, one of those five is a leader.

0:32:25 - (John): Embryonic, needing work, rough around the edges, potentially rebellious, but one in every five as a leader, and at the age of 1920 years old, I can't remember exactly how old I was. I started praying a prayer every day that I prayed for years and years, decades. God, show me the one in five. If every pastor and every leader would start praying that prayer, show me the one in five. Open my eyes to see when I get to youth this Friday, church on Sunday, just show me who the leaders are. And I think, for me, that's now like a gut reflex.

0:33:03 - (John): Like it's just something that I can walk into any room and go, leader, leader. We want to. We want to develop that. Hone that to our maximum ability. Here's the next number. Ten. If you're going to develop leaders, you cannot be what I term a reductionist leader. Too many people start the journey of leadership development by telling people everything that is wrong with them. And you'll never have an abundance of leaders if your point of relationship is around what is wrong with the person you're trying to develop, you have to be able to find where that person is a ten, and put a ten over their life.

0:33:50 - (John): It is so crucial, so profound. You gotta put that ten. You gotta find where that person is uniquely gifted, specially talented. See something in them they don't naturally see in themselves. My favorite conversations at the end of church services is sitting down with people who are involved in some area of that church. I aim for three. Every church I ever preach in, at the end of the service, I try and have three conversations where I just tell somebody what's brilliant about them.

0:34:24 - (John): That's where our journey starts. Jesus didn't start his journey with the disciples by saying, listen, you're always late, your clothing's messy. You don't know theology, but I'll develop you. He said, if you'll follow me, I'll make you a fisher of men. He put a ten over people. Right? So what we want to do as leaders is we want to excel in that. You are a world changer. You have something special when you do that. I was like, my lord, I've never seen anybody do that before.

0:34:55 - (John): You put a ten over people. We want to be the kind of leaders that when we speak, the clouds roll back and sun shines on people, and they feel the warmth of that glow. Right. And then the third thing that we is 25. You gotta find the one in five, put a ten over them, and then 20 is the percentage of your time as a leader that you devote to developing other leaders. So this is just, so if you work full time in your ministry, one day, 8 hours a week, you're gonna devote to leadership development.

0:35:33 - (John): Now, maybe not all of that time is actually with the leaders. There may be a little bit of curriculum development, but listen, if six out of 8 hours is in curriculum development and only two is with leaders, I'm sorry you've misapplied this, but really, what we want to be doing is we want to be orienting 20% of our time towards developing leaders in the life of whatever environment we're involved in.

0:36:00 - (John): And, you know, I mean, for me, I mean, just honestly, from the time I started in pastoral ministry, I've always had a group of people that I was just importing leadership material to, and I'm terrible at having any kind of plan. For me, it was always reactionary, what was on my heart, what I was motivated by in that season, but just constantly pouring out leadership investment into other people.

0:36:27 - (Andrew): So I'm hearing 510 and a 20, but some of us heard three as well, that you gotta have.

0:36:32 - (John): Can I finish three conversations by saying this?

0:36:35 - (Andrew): Yeah.

0:36:36 - (John): Color code your calendar. Right. What did you do last week that was devoted to leadership development? If you can get 20% of your calendar the same color, that's leadership development. You'll never lack a leader in your ministry.

0:36:53 - (Andrew): People, people are asking now, what color do you use?

0:36:57 - (John): I think I used orange, but I can't remember.

0:37:00 - (Andrew): Orange. For passion development, fire. That is absolute gold, because I've done some work with some of your team, and they were being able to systemize this a little bit and almost like retrofit what you're doing. But sometimes you would use like a Bible college like you had unaccredited, then you had accredited sort of apprenticeship, internship type stuff.

0:37:23 - (John): Yeah.

0:37:24 - (Andrew): And then you had some, they've got to get some doctrine or some theology in them at some stage.

0:37:29 - (John): Absolutely.

0:37:30 - (Andrew): You do that, do that process and then you just keep working at them and developing them.

0:37:34 - (John): They just, yeah, I mean, I think more.

0:37:37 - (Andrew): Awesome.

0:37:37 - (John): Those are more more sort of generalized practices, I guess, that I gave out before, but yeah, I mean, I believe in studying for ministry and I believe in the power of a ministry school. I believe in the power of serving other leaders. You know, I think these are important parts of the mix for the church and crucial for people.

0:37:59 - (Andrew): You've also been able to write some of your thoughts down. It's great when a leader begins to write. Like, I remember getting a copy of this book, John Cameron momentum.

0:38:07 - (John): Oh my gosh. There we go.

0:38:09 - (Andrew): Move faster, dream bigger, reach higher. This just sounds like you. It's good. Which is great. Like how did this book come, come about? It's not like you got spare lazy hours in a day, but like how did this great book that has blessed a lot of people, how did something like that come about?

0:38:30 - (John): Well, that book there, momentum, that literally is like. So that book came to me when I was probably about maybe 24, 25. I was a youth pastor. I got invited to share with a group of youth leaders and pastors in a city in New Zealand called Tauronga. Had nothing to share. Woke up at the beginning of that week and was reading Matthew, chapter nine and through to chapter ten and found this four verse summary of the entire ministry of Jesus from when he got baptized to when I, he anointed the twelve apostles.

0:39:11 - (John): And God just showed me in this four verse summary, Matthew 935 to chapter ten, verse one, that the ministry of Jesus had four stages that he began. He broke through, he broke down. He literally said, these sheep have no shepherd, but he calls himself the good shepherd. And then he broke out, he anointed the twelve apostles. And God just showed me that there are four stages to momentum begin, breakthrough, break down, break out.

0:39:38 - (John): And so everything that I ever built, you know, in terms of like, the way I would phrase where we were at in our building phase was always attached to one of those stages, right to the point where my team would say, I'm personally, my area right now is in stage three, right? Like I'm in breakdown right now. I'm in breakout right now. So it became part of our language. So then I think twelve years ago I wrote that book. But that. That book, Andrew, is 14,000 words long.

0:40:08 - (John): I think it sold a lot of copies. But right now it's about one week away from being rewritten. It's a complete rewrite. There's going to be somewhere around twelve to 15 new chapters. That book has four sections. This book's going to have five sections. That book was written for church planters. This is written really for everybody in whatever stage of momentum. It's written for business. It's written for just personal motivation.

0:40:42 - (John): Whatever area you're involved in, this book will break down how you can achieve momentum and live with its incredible multiplying impact in whatever arena you're seeking to go after in your life.

0:40:55 - (Andrew): So we're going to look for a link in your bio, and it's going to be.

0:40:58 - (John): It's going to be 40,000. About 40,000.

0:41:00 - (Andrew): Wow.

0:41:01 - (John): Somewhere around there. Yeah.

0:41:03 - (Andrew): So it's going to be the gift that keeps on giving.

0:41:05 - (John): Oh, it's going to be. I'm so excited about it. That'll be out next January.

0:41:08 - (Andrew): Okay.

0:41:09 - (John): If my editors can deliver according to my impossible timeline.

0:41:14 - (Andrew): I loved how easy this was to read. It's got a funny bit in there. I think you got something that you play upon the ghost buses. If there's something weird in your neighbourhood, who you gonna call? Twelve apostles. I thought, oh, that's clever. If you got something here towards the end, you've got some really pithy thoughts about leadership. You can see you've thought about this for a long time. You talk about, our challenge as leaders is to know what's best to do.

0:41:39 - (Andrew): You go, we can never allow sentiment to Trump purpose. And we're given a God given responsibility to put people in places that are going to advance vision, not simply make them feel good because they were in the room. This sounds like where the music changes. A little bit of everyone can be a leader 90% of the time, but sometimes you have to make a tough call for the sake of momentum. Can you talk to us a little bit more about that?

0:42:09 - (John): Well, I think, you know, it's just the thin wedge of leadership is making decisions around who gets to be in certain rooms, who gets to get certain roles, and, you know, if. If. I think one of the things I'm, you know, always wanting to do is to help people, to not just be dismissive of the contributions of people. Right. Like, we don't want to just make people feel bad by, you know, tossing them to the side. That's not the goal of leadership. We want. We want to value, contribution. We want to honor people. We want to love people.

0:42:49 - (John): But at the same time, what I see as being a and, man, this is so tough. But the truth is that if you, as a leader, will not make tough decisions around who's going around assembling the right people in the right rooms, if you just want everybody to feel happy and you keep the team broad, then you will end up choosing that over. Yeah. Moving something forward and building an effective ministry. And we see with Jesus that he was willing to make the tough decisions. I mean, you see him all the time. Like, when he gets to the home of Jairus, he only lets in Peter, James, and John.

0:43:38 - (John): And that's a very key phrase in scripture. He would not let anyone go in the room except for Peter, James, and John. So you see an intentionality around, you know, the leadership team that Jesus had around him. How's the demoniac in Gennesaret? Right? Because the demoniac in Gennesaret effectively joined Jesus ministry team, because Jesus Jesus ministry team was people who had testimonies, people who did advance campaigns, and then they called people out to the large crusades that Jesus did.

0:44:16 - (John): And the Gennesaret, the demoniac and Gennesaret, who's no longer a demoniac, joins that ministry team. And then Jesus goes to leave, and Jesus said to him, no, I need you to stay here. That's leadership. Sometimes you have to say your contribution is vital, but I need this room for this purpose. And an unwillingness to make those decisions will hamstring us as leaders. You know, we would not allow any coach of any professional sport to remain the coach if they favored leaders or players, sorry.

0:44:57 - (John): That were their favorites, but weren't the right players for that team to win. And sport has nothing to do with heaven and hell. So the teams that we're building are for a much more noble purpose. And as leaders, it is behoven on us that we make the right decisions. Again, not in a way where we stop being thankful for the contributions of people that's important, but that we don't just choose teams that are not the right team for the moment.

0:45:29 - (John): We have to remain committed to having the right team for us to win. And the win for us is plundering.

0:45:35 - (Andrew): How right people in the right place, even in the right season, the right time. Yeah, we're gonna have to chat about it in a podcast for another time. But how does that link with loyalty and longevity? I mean, that's a whole different chat for another time. Like, as a leader, like you said before, it's a mugs game. Passionate church. Like, you have great seasons and you have challenging seasons. Like, it's tough season.

0:46:03 - (Andrew): Like, resiliency is a key part of leadership for longevity. Cause so many of our colleagues do fall by the wayside. There's so many pressures. Like, what have you and Jillian done in a tough season? What are some keys that you've found? How do you push through a tough season? Because you're still going. You're still going, you're still pushing through, and you still look like you still love people and you still love the church.

0:46:32 - (John): So, yeah.

0:46:36 - (Andrew): How does that work for you? What are the keys? Have you learned about resilience and pushing through and the pain?

0:46:46 - (John): A tremendous amount. Right? Like, I mean, I think. Yeah, I mean, look, leadership is pain. And, you know, I mean, isn't it interesting? Sam Chand is a friend of mine, friend of yours. And he wrote a book before COVID called Leadership Pain. And I would love to track the sales of that book because I feel like when he dropped it, the world was in just this beautiful place, right? I don't know if anybody wanted to read leadership pain coming out of COVID Every pastor I know had read that book.

0:47:26 - (John): And I've told him, you know, on Zoom, I feel like God gave him that book. For us to be able to read, like, as pastors and leaders during that season, it was needed. I think that, you know, I mean, for me, you know, perseverance and enduring in ministry, keeping on going is going to be linked to, for me anyway, my ability to let go of the pain and certainly the bitterness of what you experience in life, to not get conditioned by it and to be able to front up and go again, you know?

0:48:17 - (John): You know, I've walked through valleys in my life, you know, many seasons where, you know, I've just thought I. This is. This is crazy. Like, why am I doing this? This is all pain and no reward. And in moments like that, I think, you know, you dig deeper and you ask, well, why am I doing this? And what is it for? I think that we're being sent a cultural message right now, too. That if you're doing anything that is causing you pain, that the best thing you can do is to get out of the environment that is filling you with whatever negative emotions you're experiencing and find your way to an easier life or a better day.

0:49:07 - (John): And I think we've got to be really clear about this. And I've taken a bit of heat for saying this on some social media environments, but the truth is the devil does want you weak, and the devil wants our culture weak. And the robbing of grit and resilience that we see amongst too many people in our culture, that is a demonic agenda. I mean, let's just be clear about that. To destroy. There's a link between the feelings of exhaustion, the feelings of depression, and the work of the Jezebel spirit.

0:49:47 - (John): And so we have to identify that. I mean, just even this morning in my prayer times, I bet, you know, I had a couple of bad news things that have happened to me over the last 24 hours. And I just found myself just feeling a little low for 1 second and then remembered Elijah and how much negativity came into Elijah's life under the influence of that Jezebel spirit that made him feel apprehensive, anxious, fearful.

0:50:16 - (John): The Bible literally says in two translations, Elijah was afraid and he ran for his life. And another translation Elijah saw and he ran for his life. So there's a link between your fears and what you're focusing on, what you're seeing, how you're perceiving things. And then he's exhausted. He's lying down on the ground. Not all of the exhaustion you feel in ministry is because you're tired. And I know that's an unpopular conversation because people are all like, avoid burnout, avoid burnout, avoid burnout.

0:50:45 - (John): Well, yes, but no, right? Leadership is your ability to endure difficult seasons where it is not fun, but you push through the temporary difficulty and you walk through to another day. It's your appetite for pain.

0:51:11 - (Andrew): Sam chan talked about a capacity for pain. Like when I interviewed him on a podcast, you talked about your pain quotient, even what you're saying there, correctly identifying the source, like some of it is intimidation. We had Samuel Rodriguez recently preach about Jezebel's tweet, but even remember, too, you told me in one dark time to someone on the phone, someone who we appreciate as a senior leader, just got a message down, a phone call John Cameron, Hebrews 1035. Do not throw away your confidence. Do not throw away your faith. It will be richly rewarded.

0:51:44 - (Andrew): Sometimes we need the now revelatory word of God, which pierces through that to give hope and fuel spiritually fuels resilience.

0:51:54 - (John): I think. I think we're not talking enough about things like spiritual warfare right now. And, you know, like, you know, in the nineties, we had neighborhood prayer maps and, you know, like we had, we were binding demons, we're praying in tongues. These are powerful things. And suddenly now we've got like, you know, practices that have the danger of just stemming from secular humanism more than, you know, were more like, you know, get grounded, watch the sunrise, be chill in your life. And, yeah, I mean, I believe in holidays. I believe in, you know, in eating right. I believe in sleep. You know, I'm very, very dedicated to making sure.

0:52:37 - (John): But I also recognize that there is a real demonic world, right? And I think what we need to be doing more of is on this side, you know, is saying, I'm gonna bind them. I'm gonna bind the devil. I'm gonna pray until the spirit breaks. Right. If you're feeling discouraged, overwhelmed, you know, burdened, hey, listen, ask yourself, are you in the manifest presence of God right now? And if you're nothing, man, a holiday might be helpful. I mean, God, let Elijah sleep and eat some great food beside a fire, because that's legitimate.

0:53:14 - (Andrew): That's healthy self care, isn't it?

0:53:16 - (John): Healthy self care. But then he took him to the mountain, and he got a word, right? And Elijah didn't quit ministry. He went again, and his next season looked different. So this is the other thing. In the middle of your pain is your evolution. You'll learn more on one difficult day than you will in a thousand good days. So, if we're teaching a culture to avoid moments when you're experiencing pain, you're robbing people of the opportunity to grow.

0:53:39 - (Andrew): We should do a teaching on maybe. How about this? SQ and AQ, like, you need spiritual intelligence. We know about EQ and IQ, spiritual like, understanding the spiritual dynamics of it. But AQ, our adversity quotient, our ability to absorb pain, resilience. Cause it seems like those two need to work hand in hand together, as well as a good network of friends and some good food and some good downtime.

0:54:05 - (John): Yeah, this is good.

0:54:07 - (Andrew): You can feel another chat coming on some.

0:54:09 - (John): Well, there's. The repositioning of the church, too, is one of the reasons. Right? Like. So the church has gone from peacetime with the culture to a wartime footing with the culture, right? And this has happened very, very quickly. And so, similarly to a peacetime America or peacetime Australia that is suddenly having to build up its. You know what they call it in America? The industrial war machine. Right? Like that.

0:54:39 - (John): I'm using the wrong phrase, but we've gone from a peacetime footing to a wartime footing. So what you need to be a christian leader in this cultural moment is a different set of tools to what you needed even ten years ago. You know, sit on a plane. What do you do? Pastor? Oh, great. Now it's like, oh, you know, and there's presumptions about your. Who you are, that people who have that radical leftist agenda are trying to point to the church as being anti mental health. And, you know, we're transphobic and, you know, homophobic. And I. And these are broad labels being put upon the church with the intention of making the church the enemy.

0:55:25 - (John): And so we have to get comfortable with some new skills that you need to live in that environment. And that is going to naturally fit into the need for personal resilience, not needing to be liked quite so much without becoming a nasty person at the same time, it's just. It's a new skill set, and nobody likes personal rejection. Nobody likes somebody thinking something bad about you. And so we're finding that this is difficult now, right? Like, this is a new set of skills that you need if we're going to survive as christian leaders in this moment.

0:56:06 - (Andrew): I found while it's getting darker and more crazier out there, I'm just finding it's just easy to preach now. People can handle the black and white. These people are no longer indifferent. I mean, I've had it recently. You've had it recently. Even before you ask people to respond to Christ, put up their hands. People are putting up their hands. Like, there's a clear contrast now. And I'm loving this new season, but it does, as you say, need new tools, needs new approaches.

0:56:34 - (John): Yeah. Like, the bonus of now is getting to stand flat footed as a preacher. Right? Like, ten years ago, people expected you to be, you know, kind of an entertainer. You know, you have to start with a funny bit, you know what I mean? Like, that was the expectation. Now people are like, I've got so much stuff coming at me all the time. Just stand flat footed and tell me the truth. You know, no one's gonna like you no matter what you do, no matter what you do, no matter what you do. Even within the church. Right.

0:57:04 - (John): Like, I mean, the amount of. The amount of things I hear about me that people have said that are just reactions to something, that everybody now is an Instagram influencer who feels like they have a valid commentary about what you say in any particular moment. So you just gotta stand flat footed in the pulpit in your life and just say, this is who I am. If you won't do that, you will never have a following.

0:57:31 - (John): Right? So then if you're just trying to skirt every. Every issue, move to the left and move to the right, you're going to get totally nailed in this cultural moment. So the bonus is we can stand flat footed. Churches no longer work if they're attractional. And by that, I mean event attractional. Look what we've got for you this week. We got another widget, another moving light. People don't, aren't attracted to that anymore. That feels fake. And it's high effort, low influence.

0:58:02 - (John): People are now asking, okay, you're doing the event. What did we get out of it? They've used to quantitative questioning. So now if you'll stand flat footed disciple. People have a great process. Grow leaders, then you can grow a phenomenal church in this moment. So there's advantages, right? There's advantages. And the darker the world gets, the brighter the church appears. I mean, you know, you and I have friends whose churches have copped.

0:58:34 - (John): Sorry, schools, right. The schools cop. The christian schools cop bad media for stands that they've taken on some of the woke issues, but the silent majority of culture just joins their waiting list as they're getting hit in the media.

0:58:50 - (Andrew): People are like, people's spirit resonate when they hear truth with a capital t.

0:58:55 - (John): Stay out of my face.

0:58:55 - (Andrew): I love your strength. And anyone who hangs around that strength is inspired. So I see you mid week. When you're not traveling, you're always with groups of pastors doing stuff. So as we move to sort of some sort of close in an attempt to land the plane, what sort of things are you working on in this season, and what brings you the greatest joy in doing some of those things?

0:59:21 - (John): Well, in this season of my life, I'm really, really enjoying just investing in other pastors, you know? And I feel like, you know, you know, for me, you know, there's. It's been just so much fun to come alongside people doing what I think is the most important job on the planet, which is pastoring a local church and then being able to offer them the gift of sort of, you know, my look, when you're in any, the greatest problem you face in your life is not the largest problem.

1:00:04 - (John): Your problem that overwhelms you is the problem you have no solution to. And any problem that you can see a way through, you'll feel differently about it really changes everything. So what I'm trying to do in this season, I guess, is do my best to come alongside pastors and to say, okay, all right, you might have these challenges that are overwhelming you, but here's some solutions, or here's really a way that you can view these that give them a new.

1:00:37 - (John): A new way of seeing what they're facing. And we've seen some absolutely phenomenal results. I mean, ridiculously impressive. Yeah, really impressive. That's come out of it. And it's just been the greatest delight. It really has. I mean, I think, you know, it's what you don't know that kills you, right? And I would be the first to say that I'm not the world's best pastor. And I have made so many mistakes and found myself short of my own standard in terms of, like, you know, what was needed for the moment on multiple occasions.

1:01:13 - (John): But my journey has just been one of like, okay, I sucked right now. Let's learn through that. And then going to work on the next skill set that I needed to lead beyond whatever was limiting me yesterday. And now I just get this cool set of those failure or tragedy to triumph stories, right? And learnings. And I think I've just always been a lifelong learner. So now just to take those and say, okay, firstly, I feel your pain because I felt that pain. So I'm not coming here as I know everything.

1:01:50 - (Andrew): You're like a pain partner for people. You're a pain partner.

1:01:54 - (John): I'm a pain partner. And then I'm like, okay, now let me show you how you can work your way through it, you know?

1:02:00 - (Andrew): So writing books, being with pastors, preaching, inspiring people, I'm glad. I'm glad you're in my corner. John Cameron, it's been a privilege today to interview you. It's been great having a chat. We should do this again sometime. God bless you. Thanks very much.

1:02:17 - (John): Thank you.