Season 2 - Episode 16 - Ken Nienke On success, personal and organization growth, relationships

Hey, uncommon leaders. Welcome back. This is the uncommon leader podcast and I'm your host, John Gallagher. I've got another fantastic guest for you this week. His name is Ken minke, former lead pastor at fellowship community church in Salem, Virginia. The theme of this podcast is organization and personal growth ken's experience was in ministry, growing fellowship from a small church that started in a basement with 69 people to a thriving three campus church with over 1500 regular attendees is a leadership story. That transcends industry. What I see almost is impressive as the exponential growth was that Ken has stayed on to fellowship for over 20 years now. Ken. And I discuss the challenges that organizations and leaders face in growing with some key topics, including personal development, staff development, vision, and mission structure, and process. I think all leaders, regardless of the area you work in or serve will get some great wisdom from this conversation I could go on, but I want you to hear from Ken, let's get. Ken Niki, welcome to the uncommon leader podcast. It's so good to see you so good to have you. It's been a while since we've connected, but I'm happy to have you here. How you doing? I'm doing great. Things are going well here in the Roanoke valley and it's a pleasure to be able to be with you today, John. Well, people often ask me, you know, what do I miss the most about the Roanoke valley? Certainly it's the friends and the people, but we do miss our church. And we're glad, glad to have found a church here in Myrtle beach, South Carolina as well. That frankly reminds us a lot of the community that we had there in Roanoke. So I'm happy to get a chance to chat with you today. And I know the listeners of the uncommon leader podcast are going to benefit from hearing and part of your story. But I'll ask the same question, always ask. First time guest, and it gets an opportunity for us to learn a little bit more about you, but tell me a story from when you were young, when you were a kid from your youth that kind of still impacts who you are as a leader today. Sure. I would say the biggest impact that someone made on me during my teenage years was right after I had, uh, I, I lived from age 12 to age 16. What I would call pretty far and very distant from God. And the ironic thing about that, John is I was involved in church. I, my family was what I would call culturally religious, and we went to church Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night. And I was very active in my youth group, but I was very far in distant from God. My, my whole life revolved around. Me. It was all about the next relationship. It was all about the next party to go to. And that, that sounds a little crazy. Usually you don't think about that kinda lifestyle until you. Later in your teens or maybe your college days, but I, I, I guess on one level I got outta my, a system pretty early in life, but the story that impacted me the most is I made a commitment to Christ when I was, uh, 16 at a camp called super week at Hargrave military academy. And the thing that impacted me the most was a student pastor that invested in my life. And a high school teacher. Jackie Wilkerson was a high school teacher at Cape spring high school. And Jay Owens was our student pastor at Cape spring Baptist church. And between those two individuals they invested in my life. Jackie would say things to me, like she would say Ken, where are you headed with your life? I see such potential in your. I see you could do some great things in the future. And she would plant those seeds of faith in my life. Even when I was, you know, I, I, I would go, I'd do crazy things like go to a youth retreat and take a six pack of beer or, you know, take some weed and smoke some joints at. At a youth group gathering and sneak off around the corner and she would still be there to support me. She didn't she didn't judge me. She just loved me, but she confronted me with the truth and the reality that things could be so much different in my life. Jay Owens. On the other hand, after I committed my life to Christ he would come by and pick me up once a week and take me, uh, to school and have prayer with me before I would go into the school for the. There were just a lot of things. He spent time going through materials that would help me grow and develop in my spirituality. And I think that's forever impacted my life to say, I was given a lot and people invested in my life. So then I've spent, that was when I'm 62 now. And that was when I was 16, 17 years old. That set it in motion. That was a catalyst. For me to say, I wanna spend my life making an investment in the lives of people to make a positive difference in their lives. Hmm. It sounds exactly like the growing champion story. I mean, I think about as I talk about that and I appreciate you sharing, cuz I know, you know, we've had a chance to talk a little bit about that over the years, but I know the listeners that find value in that story and that. It's not the traditional path to where you were as a leader. And you know what I hear the greatest story ever told is those people who made an invested time in your life. And they're ones that, you know, 40, 45 years ago that you'll still write their names down on a list. When somebody says who's made a positive impact on your life and to your point, because of them, you've made a commitment. To in essence, try to create an environment where others are gonna write your name on their list in the future. It says who's made a positive impact on my life. I, I absolutely appreciate you sharing that story. And I know that it's made a big imprint on who you are and your leadership development journey. We'll get a chance to talk about that a little bit more. And as I think about kind of the theme of this one, when I think about this podcast, it is growth in organization, both in people and in the organization. And before I even jump into how, you know, FCC grew as a church, you founder, and you grew the church to you know, a thriving three campus church, the, the opportunity for you when I think about even calling, so giving your, your life to Christ at 16, but what was it that really. I wanna start a church. Tell me a little bit about that story of when you wanted to, in essence, become an entrepreneur and, and start from the beginning and then grow it into something else. Where, where, where did that come from? Yeah, when I think about what happened in my life I thought that I was gonna be an elementary school teacher. In fact, the I went to Radford university. My undergraduate degree is in elementary education thought I was gonna be a school teacher, did my student teaching at Glenville elementary, but never taught the public schools. About that same time. This was several years from age 16, where I committed my life to Christ. Then when I was in my early twenties and was finishing up my undergraduate degree. I realized, uh, sort of the timing of all that I had begun to take on roles in my church. I, I was. Fifth grade Sunday school teacher. When I was taught Sunday school for fifth graders, when I was 18 years old got very active, very involved in my youth group. And about that same time I had the ability. To sort of experiment and became a part of a youth advisory group at my church. And all these things served as catalyst. It, it sort of wet my appetite gave me opportunity to test the waters. And I thought, you know, just as I had gone through some tumultuous times in my early teens, I didn't want other teenagers to have to experience the same things that I went through. The guilt, the wondering what I'd done, the previous. And I, I, it just set me up and then I was involved in campus crusade for Christ when I was in college. It, all of that prepared me to say, Hey, I think the direction that I need to go is not being a public school teacher. I need to move in the direction of, of really giving my life and investing in the lives of teens to help them along in the journey, because I had been helped so much. When I think of that, there's a statement that I had written down before, and I kind of knew it was there is that, you know, ultimately God doesn't call the qualified, he, he qualifies the called. And so as you've gone through that journey, you have life experiences that have been really tough. And you say, basically, I don't want that same age group as I grew up to go through those same things, but. I studied in elementary education and I don't have, and again, starting a church or starting a business, entrepreneurial takes a lot of different skill as you go forward. I mean, what, what was it that said? Oh gosh I have this vision now that I wanna start FCC, 20 years ago, you get a starter. You're probably starting that in a home somewhere. And. Carry me forward a little bit of that journey from the start of that up to 20 years later. And you're a thriving three campus church. Tell me a little bit about that journey and what, what impacted you? Well, you, you make a good observation, John, and that is all the experience of the life prepare you for what it is that you have for your future. I was thinking even my undergraduate degree, even though I never was a public educator my education classes. Help me know how people learn and grow and develop. So that was, that was critical. FCC began back in the year, 2000 as a, uh, split off of another church and started with a core group of 69 people. They were already running over a hundred people before I was called as pastor in January of 2001. So I inherited from another congregation. A really strong core group of people. And so I, I knew that I had to show up and preach messages on Sunday. I knew that I had pastoral care, but I had no idea. I had a lot of theories and ideas in my mind. I, I wasn't sure whether they would work, but I had always been a proponent of leadership in church. So I had not gone off to Bible college or seminary at that point. And so I just took everything that I had read and tried to implement to the best of my ability. Some things worked. Some things didn't work, but it did give us over the last 20 years, it's given us an opportunity to grow from a core group of 69 people that started in someone's basement to now a church family that, uh, runs typically on a weekend, about 1500 people in attendance. Wow. Fantastic. So exciting. I mean, I, I remember the day look, I walked into red lane, Salem, Virginia was before the Southwest campus and we were searching for a church and I just, I just read about, found it online, read about it, walked in. I said, I know this is the place that I want to be. And I had, frankly, I never thought about Southwest. I was just prepared for the 35 minute drive every Sunday to go over to Salem. And then when we announced that we had a Southwest campus coming up close to home, made it even that much better. You think about all the different things that you had to go through going from 69 people or approximately a hundred meeting in a basement to, you know, 1500 attending on a Sunday morning. What are the things that you as a leader and then as the organization, what changes did they have to go through to be able to be successful if you will, uh, over that journey? Yeah, that. And in fact, even you talking about driving the 35 minutes from cave spring here to Salem to our campus here problems sometimes become our greatest opportunities for growth and success. We we maxed out things before we began our north campus in 2010. And before we began the Southwest campus in 2013 we were running 20 different zip codes here at the, uh, Salem campus, but we were packing it out. We had a Saturday service in three Sunday morning services and we really couldn't accommodate any more people. And we couldn't go into another capital campaign cuz we'd just come outta one. People were sort of tapped out financially. So we began thinking about being multisite outta necessity is what can we do? And this was the big challenge. This was the lesson I learned people like Chris and yourself would drive the 35 minutes to come to our Salem campus or they'd drive from Botta county to come here. But regrettably, what I found is the people, the further distance that they drove to our church, The less likely that they were to be involved in anything else other than Sunday morning attendance. And so, because of that, we were like, well, they can't really get involved in ministry in their community. They don't get connected in relationships, in a life group, a small group in their community. They're so all we're facilitating is a consumer kind of Christianity and what we really wanted to try to do. Help people live out their relationship with Jesus in the community. So that, those between the problem with accommodating more people here and realizing some of the, the downside of the travel distance that people had to make, helped us say, this is the right direction to go. Did we know it would work? No, it was a, it was a calculated gamble that we took, but we tried to make sure for our north campus, that we started with a core group of 35 families, I think by the time you and Chris and John Sharp led it in the way in regard to our Southwest campus, I think we had about 50 families that were a part of that. So it, it gave us. And understanding that there would be some structure and some backbone behind seeing those opportunities have as much successes as possible. I love that. Right, right off. The start is that seeing, you know, you had a problem, but you viewed it as an opportunity. And many times organizations aren't able to overcome that to exceed the problem. And it becomes so big that there aren't able to overcome it. So that's actually, you know, a really good leadership trait is that you see those problems. As opportunities, other things in growing the organization, we talked about this a little bit beforehand. You talked about, you know, organizations must figure out how to go through change. I mean, my guess is you've seen a significant amount of change in those 20 years that you've grown as well, both in structure and process. What are some of the things you had to go through from a change standpoint as well, and with campuses as one, but what about from a leadership development standpoint? Yeah. Yeah, I found that when we hit about seven to 800 people in attendance the expectation level of the level of coordination the quality of my communication skills as a leader, radically changed. Uh, we, we started when we hit about seven, 800 people in attendance, we started having attorneys, doctors, others that would attend that more white collar individuals. And I'm. They expect me to be able to present and communicate everything from content of a message to body language voice inflection, just all the, all the things that are a part of communication that it added to go to a whole new level. So part of that pressure, I put on myself to become a more effective communicator. And part of it, I just knew would, would be ultimately expected from the congregation. So my communication skills, the structure of the church change. I mean, when you've got 69 people in somebody's basement, that's one thing when you've got three campuses, there, there's a lot of things that changed over the years. Everything from having really good at, at first. It was myself as a full-time staff member with half a dozen part-time people. And now we've got 20 some full-time staff with probably an additional 15 or 20 part-time individuals. So structuring that. So we changed from just sort of one group of individuals leading and guiding to now we function more at this point with. Different layers of structure. Now we work more by departments. Okay. And that requires a significant amount of growth on your part as well. Going from leading a small group of five part-time individuals to a team of 20 full-time, 15 to 20 part-time. And frankly, one of the biggest challenges that I see in, in the organization, whether it's not for profit or churches is also, you know, leading groups of volunteers that are required really to, to make the. Come to reality and bring that forward. What's been your personal growth journey. How have you stayed on a, on a path of growth? I, if we had a picture of it, people would see all the books behind you. What are the ways that you've stayed relevant in your personal growth and raised your lid? Yeah. Well, first and foremost, above everything else, I feel like that my, my work life, if is facilitated, honestly, by. My personal life and relationship with Christ. If I didn't have that to draw from that, it's not willpower, but it's, God's power things would've been an uphill battle. So for me personally, that's it then on a, a practical sense in terms of the, just the journey and personal growth, as well as the church's growth. You're right. Reading, I think is, is probably one of the most critical things. I'm not as an avid reader, as some people perhaps are, but I, I have typically throughout the years, tried to read at least 15 to 20 books a year, just, uh, and, and varied in terms of if we're struggling in a particular area, if we're trying to analyze what the future has in store read books that are pertinent to whatever challenge or obstacles that we may have to overcome. The. So you're not reading Harry Potter or you're not reading? No, I don't read a lot of Harry Potter. I will read some books, business books, Patrick Lindsey some of his books on leadership. Craig grok has written some books on leadership. Andy Stanley there, whether it's spiritually biblically based books or books from the business community. And then I have to make sure that the principles that we're gonna apply are, are biblical in terms of cuz a church structure is a little bit, it's more of a, and I think even the business community, all I, one thing I have realized throughout the years is that All truth is ultimately God's truth. Mm. Sometimes we sort of, uh, separate the spiritual from the sacred. And ultimately I realize this, like even in the business community, I've realized in the last decade or two, this CEO mentality has changed and now it's sort of more All hands on deck. It's more of a servant leadership model. And I think, and then I'm like, well, you know, the Bible does talk about that. It, it, it shows us clearly that just to throw around and wheeled power or a title or a position is not the way to go. Some of the most effective leaders in churches and in business life are people that have a servant servant leadership. Amen. I, I, I agree. 100% can, and that I don't think there needs to be as much separation as sometimes the secular world makes it to be. That if we have a set of values that we grow up as leaders I do believe they cross boundaries. And frankly, one of the best leadership books that's out there is the Bible in terms of how we can learn from if, if, if you say it really, it is the best one, but let me ask that for suggestions to our readers as well, who are looking to grow personally, or maybe even looking to grow in, in their personal faith as well. What's the one or two books you might suggest based on being a reader. That's one of your hobbies that. You've got Len you talked about, or even Andy Stanley what's what, what are one of the, two of the books that have had the most influence on you through your development? Yeah, one years ago that I have forgotten the, oh, it's Cal and Posner the art of the long view. And it, it, it said that, and this is still true. Now it was written a couple of decades ago, but it caused me to realize John. That the decisions that we make or the failure to make the right decisions now have a ripple effect for the years to come. And they were giving an example. I remember it was a New York times best seller. And one of the aspects they said is that the, uh, Atlanta metroplex area, they did not make decisions early on for their interstate system. and said they forever will pay the price. Well, if you drive through Atlanta, now you realize they're still paying the price with backed up traffic mm-hmm and decisions that they made decades ago that maybe didn't consider the quantity of growth that was gonna take place in the Atlanta area. That's one book. Another book is just a book I read on this past Monday and it's by a guy named Seth Lewis. And it just came out, just hit the market, but I think it's gonna do really well and small book, you can read it in about three hours and, and this is the irony of it. The title of the book is called dream small. And I know Seth personally he's serving as a missionary in Ireland. He's been to our church before. And one of the things that he says and goes through his whole premise is this is that some dreams that we have are our own personal dreams, rather than tapping into the dreams that God has planned for a person's life. And sometimes ours are more, our dreams are more emulated by successes defined by the power that we acquire or the money that we possess or the home that we live in rather than how we impact life in the small decisions that we make. Mm-hmm and you, you know, this from having been a part of FCC, one of our. Ministries that's had the greatest impact on the flavor in the DNA of FCC is our special needs ministry, which is called unlimited mm-hmm And it reaches families that have children that have autism fragile X down syndrome. We even have staff members on our the help come as a part of our facility staff that help us clean and work on our facilities. And it has impacted. Now when we do special needs ministry there's not a lot in it. it's not what they can do for us. It's what we can do collectively together. But the impact that that's made, I'll give you a perfect example. We have, we have a guy Tim that comes and helps volunteer and cleans our facilities and he has Asperger's and it, it is amazing how the human mind and each person is uniquely gifted. I took him to lunch back at chip and Joe's back several months. And he had given me prior to our meeting for lunch, he had given me a book on Brazil. It was like a tourist guide, cuz he knew I'd been to the country at Brazil several times. And he he, we were just carrying on a conversation and he said, have you looked at that book that I gave you? I said, well, I've looked at the pictures. And he said, did you realize that on page 1 72, there's a picture of a green Anaconda snake. And I. No, I don't recall that it was on page 1, 72, but I make a, I made a little note on my phone and I went home and sure enough on page 1 72, there was a green and a cond state. I'm like his mind, even though sometimes Tim doesn't always know social boundaries or all, you know, carrying on a conversation could be a little awkward with. He's a genius in a different way. Mm-hmm and knowing that every single person is gifted by God, regardless of ability or disability is, is, is pretty amazing to view life from that perspective. And I learned so much from Tim, Tim I'll be it could be an elders meeting, could be an important staff meeting. We'll have. The door closed because of the nature of the conversation. And I, I can always count on if he's here in the building, Tim might just open the door and there he is. And Hey Ken, how you doing today? And I'll carry on a 30 to 62nd conversation. Thank you for dropping by. Good to see you. Thanks for volunteering today. Hey, we gotta a meeting. I gotta get back to thank you for dropping by have a great date. And those kind of conversations make a big impact. And, and so when I say dream small, I'm realizing sometimes. even the last few days, I've thought about this a whole lot. In fact, I think I'll give a message later this fall. Sometimes I think we make life way too complicated. And I've thought about giving a message called the simple life. Mm-hmm. Sometimes, I think we don't have enough margin. We don't create enough spaces in our lives to really, truly enjoy life. We stay so on the go. So on the treadmill of work and family and business and everything that we just get worn to a frazzle and we don't really enjoy life. I think the way God intends for us to. Ken, I think you're spot on. It's a conversation I had this morning with a group of men at a study that we have, and, and actually is, you know, the, the response that we get all too often from individuals, when we ask how they're doing is I'm busy and it's, it's a space that, and maybe this is part of your message, but it's the space that too many times we wear that busy as a badge of honor. We have to be on the go all the time and we don't get a chance to appreciate really what some of those gifts are. The gifts that Tim can bring to us from that standpoint. And that takes a certain humility from a leadership standpoint to say that each one of these opportunities that I have from a relationship from a connection standpoint, Is a learning opportunity as well. And I, I appreciate how those learning opportunities come out for you in one of the gifts that I think you have. And I, and I wanted to touch on this before. I know we're coming up on our time and I wanna honor your time as well. That I've noticed before. And it's, it's something that I think leaders can learn from to grow an organization. The way you've grown an organization requires a level of discipline and rigor that sometimes can be misconstrued. I mean, I think there are probably times where you've had to put your, you know, foot down and say, we are going to do this and we are going to move forward. And so I'm curious, but one of the gifts that I've notice. And it's a word that's been popping in my mind the past few months is equanimity that you have the ability to remain calm in the midst of many of those challenging times. What do you think it is? Where does that come from for you in terms of your ability to remain calm or maybe I'm misinterpreting it, and you have that behind where you're talking with someone else that you've vent, but what is it that allows you to to bring that forward in an organization, the size of FCC. One of the things I haven't always viewed myself as a calm individual sometime I may have been able to fake it in past decades. But I do think that the more seasoned you become and the, and the greater number of apologies you've had to make to groups of people will keep you from sort of making some blunders sometimes you know, One, one of the best things in work life, as well as in marriage is this is, is said the number one key to a happy marriage is this filter. You, you don't have to say everything that you think mm-hmm And I think confidence comes from being secure in who you are and the decisions that you. And I'm a firm believer. There are a few times that I can pull out that Trump card and say, this is the direction that we need to go, and I need your all support, but that's very rare. Most of the time I'm a consensus maker and I want us to leave the room all being excited about a decision. So the Bible speaks of in the book of Proverbs, it says in a multitude of counselors, there's safety, and I believe. Sometimes in my own leadership, I may not see things from the same perspective that someone else sees. So all the contributing that pool of thoughts makes a huge difference in making wise decisions for the future. So lots of times I, and, and I even had one of our elders one time this was years ago and I have an annual review here at the church and he, he was nice about it, but he. You talk too much in meetings. And he said, when you as a leader talk first, rather than listen, first, he said it squelches anybody else from sharing and pulling their ideas. He said, if you'd wait a little bit longer, you'd probably get some better. Buy-ins some better input. And then you, you know, and you can save your thoughts for last after you've thought, cuz it may help you formulate better ideas for the future of the church. Interesting. Great, great to always have those in your life that will provide feedback to you to help you grow as well. Very important. So, yep. Ken faithful of the wounds of a friend, um, amen. You know, lots of times we present people that give us constructive criticism, but if we can embrace it and welcome it, we'll, we'll be better leaders going on to your point. That takes a lot of self-confidence to be able to, to do that, to accept that. Feedback as constructive to know that people are coming to you most of the time in truth and in love when they provide that feedback to you and you can absolutely learn and grow from that. Ken, I appreciate your time today. I've, I've actually enjoyed this even if I didn't really. So there's a podcast, I've enjoyed the conversation having with you, but I know the listeners of value. I'm gonna give you the last word and it's really, there's, there's two questions. Maybe one is a very simple one. But the other is a mantra. And you get, I'm gonna give you a billboard on, on route 81, right out the, we know how busy that highway gets and, you know, you get to put anything on that billboard that you want to for someone to hear a message. What are you gonna put on that billboard as your mantra and why do you wanna put it there and then finish off with ultimately how can, how can we stay in touch with you in the future as well? Well, if I had a billboard on 81, I was thinking about this earlier. It's I'd probably put on it. This it's not about success. It's about succession. It for me, it's about passing on whether it's the Christian faith or whether it's in the business world. It's about passing the Baton onto the next generation. If we can achieve. Then at the end of my days, I'll feel pretty good when it comes to spiritual life, passing on that Baton of faith, you you're able to hear the words well done now. Good and faithful servant mm-hmm that, that probably would be one mantra. The other mantra would be this it was set of Socrates that he was wise. Not because he always had the right answers, but because he knew the right questions, sometimes I think we get caught up and we're not even asking the right questions when it comes to life. What really makes me satisfied deep down. It's not about the acquisition of things or stuff or where I live, but it's about the relationships that we possess with other people. If we do that everything else pales in comparison. So asking the right questions you know, will lead us to the right answers. Amen. What was your final? Well, yeah, the other was overly simplistic. So I think people are gonna want to hear more from you. How can we stay in touch with you in the future? Is it near your website is on the Facebook page. What's the, yeah, what's the people could FCC life.org. They could find my profile and send me an email. I'd love to connect with them that way. They certainly could connect with us here at the church office if they wanted to carry on a conversation, but glad to help in any way, whether it's. Regard to church life spiritual life, business principles, whatever we'd we'd be more than glad to help in that regard. That's great. Well, Ken, I appreciate your time today. I know that the listeners are gonna find value in it as well. I hope that you enjoyed it too. So I look forward to chatting with you more in the future. Maybe more about this succession topic or frankly about this hobby or interest you have in crispy cream as well. We need to go through that. So yeah. Yeah. Now how many of those little gift cards are you gonna send to me? yeah, I love crispy cream. That's one. I, I have. Crispy cream coffee mugs on my office wall and my office, and just a lot of things that take my grandkids there. So it's it's a wonderful experience. Amen brother. All right. Thanks again, have, have a great day. Okay. And be well, all right. See you. God. Bless. I love having conversations with friends who make me laugh as well as challenge me and help me to grow. Ken dropped some great wisdom with us and I listened, especially close. When he spoke about understanding that problems sometimes become our greatest opportunities for growth and success. As a man of faith, I understand his challenges with regards to personal development. How it isn't really willpower, but it's God's power. And I loved his mantra. It's not about success. It's about succession. Check the show notes for links to the books that Ken suggested as well as ways to stay in touch with her. Thanks for listening in uncommon leader podcast, nation. I'm sure there was value in it for you. And I'm confident that you know, someone who needs to hear it as well. So please hit the subscribe button, leave me a review and share this podcast with someone else who needs to. Until next time go and grow champions.