Here is a great podcast from Lead 222. This is the latest Leader Talk featuring Steve Stroope. Steve Stroope is the L
Here is a great podcast from Lead 222. This is the latest Leader Talk featuring Steve Stroope.
Steve Stroope is the Lead Pastor at Lake Pointe Church, Rockwall, Texas.
Called to pastor Lake Pointe shortly after its’ founding in 1979, Steve Stroope leads a congregation that has grown from 53 at its inception to more than 11,000 members or regular attendees each week at several area campuses. In addition to preaching, Steve provides coaching to partnership churches and pioneer missionaries in Africa, Australia, New Zealand, China, Cuba, Russia, Mexico, France, South Africa, and North America. Pastor Steve’s spiritual gifts are evangelism, leadership, teaching, and talking to strangers on airplanes. He has a passion for seeing that the Gospel is presented to unchurched people in a culturally relevant style without compromising its truth. He also believes that one of the keys to an effective church is keeping a balance between evangelism and discipleship. Because of this belief, he is a strong supporter of the small-group ministry at Lake Pointe.
Although he is a sought-after speaker and church consultant both nationally and throughout the world, his heart is for the local church, and he looks forward to many more years at Lake Pointe.
Pastor Steve graduated from Hardin Simmons University in Abilene, Texas, with a B.A. in Psychology and received the Master of Divinity from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. He and his wife Marsha have two grown daughters, three grandsons and one granddaughter.
I really enjoyed the conversation that Bo and Andy had with Steve as they talked through Kingdom Impact in youth ministry. I though that the discussion about self leadership was quite helpful. Many times we focus on leading both vertically and laterally, but often times growing your own leadership qualities takes a backseat. We stop reading and listening to those that challenge us and we stop growing as a leader. I have seen this happen and I think that Steve is right as he talks about self leadership and that being the area that needs the most focus, so that we can be the best leader possible.
I also think that Steve does a remarkable job as he works through how both young and older youth workers can become better at communicating to the senior pastors in our lives what it is exactly that we are doing in student ministry. He also is very clear that sometimes their is a communication breakdown between senior and youth pastors because there has never been that coaching discussion between the two parties as to how each one expects to be led and, or reported to.
How do you report back to the leadership team in your church, or organization what it is that you are doing weekly, monthly, and yearly?
Are you expected to report back and do you have a clear expectations on how you are to do that?
Here is what Steve Stoope asks from his leaders when they meet once a month.
1) Tell me what you have been doing in the last 30 days.
2) Tell me what you plan to spend your time, energy and focus on in the next thirty days?
3) How can I help you as your supervisor in making those plans come to fruition?
The thing that stuck out for me in this was those three easy steps towards creating clear communication between pastor and youth ministry,
Do you have a clear idea what your senior pastor wants from the youth ministry?
Do your volunteers have a clear idea of what you expect from them?
I would strongly recommend listening to the whole podcast as Steve gives some great insight into how he leads and what he expects from those that he is leading. He asks some heavy questions about spiritual growth and health that I think every leader needs to ask as they strive to be a better leader today than they were yesterday.
The Emerging Network 