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If You’re Doing It All Yourself, Your Church Will Never Grow | Pastor Darrell Johns

  • Writer: Ryan Franklin
    Ryan Franklin
  • Jul 25
  • 34 min read

Updated: Aug 2

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In this episode of The Christian Leader Made Simple Show, Ryan Franklin sits down with Pastor Darrell Johns—Assistant General Superintendent of the UPCI and longtime pastor of Atlanta West Pentecostal Church—to talk about one of the most critical (and often overlooked) aspects of church leadership: building a dream team. With decades of experience in local and organizational ministry, Pastor Johns unpacks practical and biblical insights on why team ministry matters, what makes it work, and how leaders can overcome fear and insecurity to develop others. Whether you’re a solo pastor feeling stretched thin or a leader wanting to take your team to the next level, this conversation will equip and encourage you to multiply your impact—one team member at a time.





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Transcript


Ryan Franklin (00:01.836)

Welcome to the Christian Leader Made Simple show. I'm your host, Ryan Franklin. And on the show today, we have a very special guest who has deeply impacted the apostolic movement through both pastoral and organizational leadership. Pastor Darrell Johns is not just a seasoned leader, but he's a true builder of people. Pastor Johns has served as the pastor of Atlanta West Pentecostal Church in Atlanta, Georgia since 1995.


Prior to moving to Atlanta, he served as the General Youth President of the UPCI, and he served as the District Superintendent of Georgia from 2013 to 21. And then he was elected as the Assistant General Superintendent for the Eastern Zone in 2021. He has an extensive list of ministry experience, much more than I could even name here. But I want to point out that he has a deep love.


for developing leaders for the Kingdom of God. And he's specifically known for his passion for biblical team-based ministry concepts. And so with that said, Pastor Johns, I want to welcome you to the show.


DARRELL JOHNS (01:15.39)

Thank you, Brother Ryan Franklin. It's an honor to be a part of this show.


Ryan Franklin (01:20.248)

Well, I really appreciate you carving out a little bit of time for this. I know you're super busy. You wear a lot of hats even today. And so it's such an honor that you would give us this time for me and for this audience.


And before we jump into the topic of team building, which is what we're here to talk about, I'd love for you just to kind of share some pivotal moments in your ministry journey that kind of shaped your passion for even leadership development.


DARRELL JOHNS (01:54.516)

So I'm a Saints kid and raised in a good church, pretty much grew up in church. But when I went to Bible College, Jackson College of Ministries, and then Brother Kraft asked me to stay on as youth pastor. Brother Kraft was a team builder, believed in people, and he really gave me an opportunity to serve on his team. He was a selfless leader, shared resources, gave me a place to grow.


So that probably was the pivotal moment that I saw team ministry actually function successfully and we had a great team there. And then throughout my life, serving on boards and committees and working in youth ministries with Brother Jerry Jones, we had a team there. So that's really at the core of my life. But I had mentors that modeled team ministry.


and it became a passion for me. And one other thing I'll say that back in the day I taught Bible college in Jackson and so I taught the book of Acts and as I was teaching through studying through the book of Acts I saw the church of Antioch in Syria where Barnabas this good man went and they had a team ministry there. So I would say that that was a core pivotal moment for me when I just thought you know one day wherever it is


I'm going to do my best to build a biblical model of team ministry where strengths are brought together and you can really do much more for the kingdom of God. So I think that probably suffices for shaping me to think about this. And then when I was about 30 working in a Bible college, actually administrator of Jackson College of Ministries, somewhere in there I just felt like, okay, my life goal


is to develop leaders for the kingdom of God. So not everybody on a team is a leader per se, but I think it's in my core to try to be a leader who facilitates leaders. I noticed in the life of David, David was a hero, but he was more of a leader than he was a hero because he had mighty men that were willing to follow him who were leaders in their own right. So I think it's who I am.


DARRELL JOHNS (04:17.51)

And I don't consider myself a great leader, but I consider myself a person who tries to identify leaders and release them for ministry.


Ryan Franklin (04:27.691)

Yeah. Well, I know you're still a young man, but you have spent decades in both pastoral and organizational leadership. You've done both for many, many years in a ton of different roles. And in your view, what makes this team ministry that you've been so interested in, what makes it essential for the health and growth of a local church?


DARRELL JOHNS (04:32.052)

That's it. I wish.


DARRELL JOHNS (04:56.948)

So I think in the United Pentecostal Church, the basic of our church world of apostolic people, we think really good about deep, but maybe not always about wide. And I thank God for the amazing people who are solid, doctrinally, integrity. But I think growth is another thing. It's another component, like deep and wide. So we know that you're not a leader unless somebody's following.


And any leader, no matter how gifted they are, will bump up against the wall of their limitations pretty soon. And if not sooner, it will be later. And one person can only do so much to grow the kingdom of God. So I realize that I am a member of the body of Christ with a few strengths and lot of weaknesses that I cannot fulfill my heavenly assignment.


that God has given me without the help of a lot of people, many of whom are more gifted than me, smarter than me, are good at things I'm not good at. So I think that at the core of this, you have to see that the only way a church can be successful is if there is a team ministry and it's not all resting on the shoulders of one person. So in my mind, one person is too small to grow the kingdom of God.


and I am insufficient on my own. So to me it would be presumptuous and foolish for me to think that I could do ministry alone, that I was everything this church needed in leadership. So it's a core concept to me.


Ryan Franklin (06:37.869)

Yeah.


And of course, now you're in an organizational style church, but there's many pastors out there that may be listening to this that are sort of in a smaller setting with a solo type of an approach. And I often hear leaders talk about the feeling of stuck because they're alone. And they may be leading a congregation, but in regards to their


leadership structure in their church and doing ministry and you know, it's limited maybe not completely alone, it's challenging. What's some early warning signs that a leader has outgrown that solo approach and if they don't start shifting to building a team, then it's going to be challenging for them in the future.


DARRELL JOHNS (07:29.812)

So I don't know if it's something you outgrow or if it's something you realize from the beginning. So when I came to Atlanta, this was not a super small church, but from day one in my interviews before I was elected, it would be 30 years this August. I just said, we're gonna have a team ministry and I didn't have a team.


Ryan Franklin (07:39.447)

That's good.


DARRELL JOHNS (07:56.756)

We had some staff. had a Christian school at that time. But my our first youth pastor was Shay Mann and I 1996 and I had like half the budget I needed to hire him and I've apologized to brother man for the salary we gave him. I mean I didn't know how we were going to get through my first full year and not have to borrow money and just because of transition and it's a long story, but.


Ryan Franklin (08:05.027)

really? Wow.


Ryan Franklin (08:13.421)

you


DARRELL JOHNS (08:26.12)

But you have to say, you know, I have to have a team. So for me, it was day one. One of the coolest things after I was here one year, the one year anniversary, our church secretary at that time went out and they had everybody buy Atlanta West team player jerseys. So I've got these cool baseball jerseys, three quarter link jerseys, jerseys that say Atlanta West team player. Now, a year in,


Would I say if we had a team? There's no way we had really the team we needed. But I feel like I talked about it enough in that first year that the church was catching the idea that this one guy is not even going to try to do this alone. So I have this idea about a guy named Joe who goes and opens a hamburger shack and he does everything. He's an entrepreneur.


So he cooks, he orders, he manages, he meets the customers, and he's everything. But after a while, he's overwhelmed, burning out. And at some point, he has to make up his mind that even though he may love every part of that business, that if the business is to grow, maybe he's never going to sell billions and billions like McDonald's. He may have a much better product, probably does.


but he's never going to get past being stuck as an entrepreneur until he lets somebody else make a hamburger not as good as his, mess up the ordering, do things that he's better at, at least early on. So I think that outgrowing, maybe that's a place you come or maybe it's something you start with and you don't have the money to hire staff, but you start investing in people early on.


So what's the early warning sign? I think the early warning sign is an awareness that solo leadership is not biblical. And I won't take the time to go into a long theology of team leadership in the Old Testament under David, under Solomon, under Moses, go back to under Moses, know, captains over thousands, hundreds, fifties, tens, but it's so much a biblical concept.


Ryan Franklin (10:22.912)

Yeah.


Ryan Franklin (10:42.39)

Great point.


DARRELL JOHNS (10:51.72)

that even when your church is small or maybe you lead a department in the church, I think you've realized from day one that I am inadequate by myself to do this. So if I could share a story, somewhere maybe in the first five years or so, I was praying sincerely and I asked the Lord to help me know when this church had outgrown my ability.


And I was thinking about John Maxwell's law of the lid. You know, the fear of five, you can't lead past the three or four. So that was in my head. And while I'm praying that, I feel like the Lord spoke to me very strongly. It was not very nice, but the Lord said, this church has already outgrown your ability, but it can never outgrow your vision. And it was both a body slam and an eye opener to me.


Ryan Franklin (11:42.336)

Hmm. Wow.


DARRELL JOHNS (11:47.22)

that I had to realize that the church was not to some total of my ability. But God had called me to lead by vision and to allow other people to share in ministry with me, whether they were volunteers or a full-time person that you hire over time.


Ryan Franklin (12:01.728)

That's really good.


Ryan Franklin (12:05.778)

And I love the way that you pointed out that the solo method of leading is never appropriate. Even if you're beginning a church and you've got 10 people in your congregation, you've still got to begin with a mindset of, it's not good to lead alone. We have to lead with other people around us and even with a mindset of wanting to empower.


people to our weaknesses. I love that.


DARRELL JOHNS (12:37.042)

Yes, and I gave that example earlier, which conceptually before I ever built a team or had a team, I just saw that church in Antioch where there are prophets and teachers and Paul and Barnabas go on a missionary journey. So that church captured me conceptually, but making a reality out of that is a lot harder than seeing the idea.


Ryan Franklin (13:04.286)

It is. And when you're working to build a team and you're developing people under you, this just came to my mind. I didn't realize that Shay Man was your youth pastor. Did he go to headquarters from your church? So you're producing youth ministry executives left and right from Atlanta West. my point is that you have to lead with an open hand.


DARRELL JOHNS (13:18.258)

Yes, he did. He was way out of the will of God, but no.


Ryan Franklin (13:33.937)

They're not the only ones that have left your ministry to go on and do big things. I think of others on your ministry staff. You've had to replace them. You've had holes even in your ministry staff at times because you overdeveloped people to grow in the ways that they were to contribute in other ways even beyond your staff.


DARRELL JOHNS (14:01.374)

So to that point, when they contacted me about Shay Man coming to work at headquarters, I was depressed. I remember exactly where I was standing when I got that phone call. And the man's had been with us for seven and a half years when he left. And I was ready for him to start assuming other areas of responsibility. Obviously, super high quality guy, loved...


Ryan Franklin (14:12.236)

Ha


DARRELL JOHNS (14:30.598)

trusted at our church, had helped me in the early years where it was pretty tough going. They're like family to me and my family still to this day, you know. So yeah, that's a whole side of this that's wonderful. Sounds really great. But at the time when you're, know, Paul said I'm willing to spend and be spent. So spending is the choice you make. Being spent is when you don't choose, but you get spent anyway.


Ryan Franklin (14:42.667)

Yeah.


And then you've got DJ Hill. Yeah.


DARRELL JOHNS (15:00.008)

But yeah, I'm thankful for that. I'm really thankful for that. But the other side of that is you spend seven and a half years and this person is incredibly profitable, but you do open your hand whether you feel it or not, it's the right thing to do. And all these years later, we're still very close friends and part of one another's lives. So yeah, there's that.


Ryan Franklin (15:19.838)

It's the right thing to do.


Ryan Franklin (15:27.25)

And next week at the time of this recording, you've got DJ Hill who's going to minister to 35,000, 40,000 people who spent many years under your leadership and refers to you as his pastor and his mentor. That doesn't happen by chance.


DARRELL JOHNS (15:47.112)

DJ was here four years and before that we were friends, our families and grew up in Georgia and yeah, we love DJ and Natalie and their girls and yeah, I can't explain how all that happens but I'm thankful, you know, to be a part of their lives. I'll be foolish to think that any of those people are the sum total of something I did for them but relationship and trust and releasing is all part of it.


Ryan Franklin (16:17.087)

Yeah. So speaking of, you know, these tremendous team, you've spoken of a dream team in your teaching. From your perspective, how would you define a dream team? Everybody would love to have that. Anybody that would be listening to this would love to have a dream team to do life and ministry with. What does that mean, a dream team in a church setting?


DARRELL JOHNS (16:43.572)

Well, first of all, it's a dream. Probably not a reality. Brother T.L. Craft was my pastoral mentor. He said, a pastor pastors two churches, the one you really have and the one of your dreams. and everybody who's ever worked here could probably say there's the pastor of their dreams and there's the one they really have, know, Darrell Jaws, the real guy that's here. But so,


Ryan Franklin (16:46.539)

Yes, exactly.


Ryan Franklin (17:01.799)

Ha ha.


DARRELL JOHNS (17:13.524)

First of all, think a dream team is built on faithful people. Not necessarily famous or incredibly talented, although we have incredibly talented people. But I feel like if you're going to trust a person, maybe not as a volunteer at a lower level. So we use the paradigm of 101, 201, 301 leaders here.


So 101 would be entry level, the shallow end of the pool. So we want people to get involved in ministries quickly, but we're not risking the whole church by what they do. But somebody that's on my dream team is somebody that I can count on, that they are faithful, that they are committed to Jesus Christ and the church. I think it's important to say that a dream team


There are people that just do whatever it takes. I'm pretty flexible about work styles, office hours, but when I need somebody at midnight or on a weekend or a funeral or something, I don't apologize for that, but I also think about those people's families, that their salvation is first, their family is second, their place of ministry is third, that I don't own them.


So there's a lot of components of a dream team, but they're willing to do whatever it takes to make it work in any given moment, like Nehemiah's people building the walls when they had 52 days. So a dream team, finally, I think they serve one another, not just me. They're equally committed to the team.


Ryan Franklin (18:59.721)

Yeah. Any other practical traits or behaviors that you would be interested in from a healthy ministry team member or team?


DARRELL JOHNS (19:10.526)

Yeah, think it's unacceptable that we sacrifice people on the altar of church work. Really not a part of this session, but years ago I heard T.W. Barnes say that many men have failed God working for God, but no man has ever failed God walking with God. So I'm not saying that we do this perfectly and everything I say


You know, I can speak conceptually and then there's the practical living out of this. But a healthy team, those people serve Jesus Christ first. They don't serve Darryl Johns, they don't serve Atlanta West. I want them to have a healthy walk with God. And then that whatever they do, that they do it with all of their heart is unto the Lord and not to me, not to men. So pretty often when I'm thanking somebody for what they do, or if I'm publicly talking about our leaders,


I say, thank God, you know, for what you do for the Lord at Atlanta West. They did it for the Lord first, unto him and with all of their heart for people. So I think it's important that they serve God and that whatever they do, they're responding to a call of God. So a long time ago, I was thinking about people and volunteers and I felt like the Lord impressed me.


Ryan Franklin (20:17.813)

That's good.


DARRELL JOHNS (20:36.382)

that I needed to preach a call to ministry, that people would respond to that call of God to serve. So then it was not me as a pastor that's having to motivate them every week and talk them into staying on in ministry. And even when they leave a place of ministry, that they're not saying no to me, they're saying no to God. So I think a person is healthy in ministry, that they're walking with God.


They're doing it under the Lord and not to men, and that they do it out of a response to a call to God. And then on a healthy team, that they're not just serving in a place where they're needed, that I'm just forcing people into positions where we have needs. Sometimes you do that, you know, when I pick up trash or push down the trash in the trash can or do something that somebody else forgot.


I get on the default lockup team maybe, not often, but every once in a while things happen. I don't do that because I'm gifted in that, I'm just needed at that time. But on a dream team or a good team, a healthy team, people are serving where they're gifted, not just plug and play because you had a need and you just stuck them in there. So we try to assess the giftings of people and place them in roles where they can thrive.


If they're fruitful and successful, then they're going to feel the reward of that more than just me honoring.


Ryan Franklin (22:09.864)

That's really good and it makes it more about the Kingdom of God than about your team. It is your team.


DARRELL JOHNS (22:16.146)

If I could add just one other thing there quickly, and I could talk about this a long time, but I'll be real concise. You know, at the end of his ministry, John 13, Jesus calls the disciples into the upper room and he takes a towel and he washes their feet. And so when he finishes, he puts down the towel and he asks them a question, do you know what I have done for you? And then he says, if I, your Lord and master have washed your feet,


you ought to wash one another's feet. So I really believe on a healthy team, and again, whether this happens every week at Atlanta West or not, know, somebody would have to judge a secret shopper like you have done for other people, but we know you here, so you can't do that here. We already know you. But Jesus didn't say, I've washed your feet, you should wash my feet. Because sometimes, you know, a good leader will wash the feet of his people. You should serve your people as a leader.


And then sometimes, you know, people watch the leaders feed and they're maybe happy to do that. But I don't think you have a dream team unless people are willing to watch one another's feet or serve another person that may be in what they consider a lower position or a peer position. And I think when people are not willing to serve one another, they only want to serve the leader. That's an unhealthy culture. So leaders serve the people.


Ryan Franklin (23:42.932)

Yeah.


DARRELL JOHNS (23:45.15)

People serve the leader, but they serve one another with the leader. And I think the leader establishes that culture, but people catch the spirit of a leader, that you're a servant leader, and they're willing to serve one another, that they don't think that that's condescending to something that's beneath them. Nothing is beneath a servant.


Ryan Franklin (24:09.288)

Yeah, I'm glad you brought that out. It's that type of culture of servanthood and mentality of Jesus, washing the feet of the disciple. That starts with you. It starts with the leader. It filters down, but it easily filters down if the leader is doing it himself. And so thank you for bringing that out. In regards to delegation, there's a lot of leaders that will hesitate to delegate.


raise up others because of fear, insecurities of they may be replaced or the person they raise up may make a mistake or may be disloyal to them in some way. There's a lot of negative aspects of insecure aspects of reasons why people wouldn't delegate. What would you say to that pastor that is battling those types of insecurities?


DARRELL JOHNS (24:49.737)

Thank


DARRELL JOHNS (25:07.26)

Well, man, it's going to happen whether you like it or not. Some of those things and maybe all of those things. John Maxwell said the number one thing you need to know about working with people is that people are basically insecure. You know, we're complete in Jesus Christ.


Ryan Franklin (25:10.772)

Yes.


Yes.


Ryan Franklin (25:23.028)

Mm-hmm.


We all are. Exactly.


DARRELL JOHNS (25:26.32)

not in ourselves. So I think first of all I have to be realistic to say that even though I would like to think I have no insecurities, that if I'm a human being and I'm only complete in Jesus Christ, that I have some weirdnesses and insecurities that I have to deal with. Yeah, so...


Ryan Franklin (25:41.648)

It's our sin nature. It's our nature.


DARRELL JOHNS (25:46.472)

But I also learned that fear is only overcome by stronger impulses. So the fear that someone might be disloyal or somebody may become immoral or backslide and I have to sit them down, which just happens, you know it happens. Somebody may stab you in the back, but I have a greater fear. My greater fear is that I will not do what God called me to do, which is raise up people in the body of Christ.


and help them find their place in the church where their giftings are released. So I feel like I would be a failure as a leader to not dare and try and empower. So that stronger fear motivates me to say, okay, maybe I'm having trouble with that. I'm struggling with that. I'm worried, you know, that human nature may let me down. Or what if


Ryan Franklin (26:18.132)

That's good.


Ryan Franklin (26:26.438)

You feel like it's a... Yeah.


DARRELL JOHNS (26:44.99)

What if people in the church actually like one of my team members more than they like me? What if one of my team members is smarter than me, more gifted than me? Well, that's gonna happen if you have good, strong teams. And why would I wanna have teams of people that are super weak and everybody sees me as the guru, the maestro, the smartest, know, most gifted person in the church?


That's a super ego trip if I don't trust other people. And I thank God that the people that have worked on our team here, I still have good relationships with them. I love them, they love me. I hope that's because I had a great respect for them and built a relationship. Now, if you've interviewed anybody who's ever worked on our team or works for us now,


Ryan Franklin (27:13.416)

Right. Right.


DARRELL JOHNS (27:41.672)

You know, they could tell you my weirdnesses and faults, but I try to be open and transparent and listen to people. I want to be a leader who listens. So I have a greater fear of, you know, that my city is not evangelized, that people don't reach their potential. I violated my calling as a leader and that I'm going to get burned out one day because I did everything myself and there was an answer and it's called the body of Christ.


Ryan Franklin (27:54.206)

Yeah.


DARRELL JOHNS (28:11.486)

that God gave me to help support me. And that was Moses' problem, right? He did everything himself, had this giant church, and I think his father-in-law's advice was good, that you're gonna wear away. And when I die or burn out, there's gonna be a leader after me, and so I can be a martyr, but that's super unhealthy, so I don't know if that answers your question.


Ryan Franklin (28:37.743)

It does. And for the record, I've had the tremendous privilege to work with multiple members of your team on different occasions and they all speak very highly of you. So you're doing a good job in that regard. You've done a lot of seminars, leadership seminars. You've worked with a lot of churches over the years.


you know, people bringing you in to do a leadership weekend or through the organization and with your organizational roles. You've seen a lot of different things when it comes to building a team. What are some of the common mistakes that you see pastors make when building a team?


DARRELL JOHNS (29:23.7)

So I was thinking about this idea and I hesitate to use the word mistake, know, but let's just call it a mistake. Lessons learned, right? Some mistakes that perhaps I've made. I think one of the mistakes is, you know, forcing a person, convincing a person to serve in a role when they're not ready, they're not


gifted for that, so they fail and they disappoint the pastor. The biggest failure is they disappoint themselves. I think also, I might be, pardon me, I might have a different opinion than some people, but I mentioned this early, we have 101, 201, 301. So we put people in places of leadership where they can serve that are behind the scenes.


And I know at POA, Pentecostals of Alexandria, if you go to Because of the Times, you will have people serving everywhere. But these new people, and maybe they're not really faithful people, they're not serving in trusted leadership roles. You're involving them. So I kind of alluded to this earlier, but Proverbs 25 19, confidence in an unfaithful man in a time of trouble.


Ryan Franklin (30:27.974)

everywhere.


DARRELL JOHNS (30:47.028)

like a broken tooth and a foot out of joint. So I think when pastors put people in a trusted position of leadership like a department head or put them on their platform but they're really not you know really faithful disciples they haven't really I don't want to say bought into but become fully apostolic but now they're in a trusted role when you even you put confidence in them


But then they let you down. They're like a broken tooth or like a foot that's been sprained. And then something is lost there because you've trusted someone. So then a pastor can feel burned, disappointment. And I think the failure I see there is a pastor's withdrawal from trusting people because maybe they trusted someone who was not really trustworthy. And then sometimes


We just let dysfunction go on forever and it's very hard to fire a volunteer. And someone taught me when I was young that sometimes you have to care enough to confront someone that they're not doing a good job, they're in the wrong place, or perhaps they've disqualified themselves. So I see pastors that just let things continue in an unhealthy way and they never really deal with them.


Another thing is if you ask someone to do something, this is a mistake. You haven't trained them. You throw them out there to try to do a job that they haven't been trained to do. Or you ask them to do a job. They don't have the resources, you know, to be able to do that job. Or if they're on your staff, like a paid staff member, part time or full time, and they're starving to death, or you're making them work 70 hours a week.


Ryan Franklin (32:23.037)

Hmm. That's a good one.


DARRELL JOHNS (32:44.562)

and their marriage is failing, they don't have enough time for their family. Those are things that will undermine building a healthy team. And then, just a couple more things, like morale is something right that's emotional, but it's accomplished. When the Queen of Sheba comes to see Solomon in all of his glory, one of the things that I would love to say is your people are happy.


Your servants love doing what they do. And so, you know, we try to honor our volunteers. We have an annual Volunteer Sunday. Every two years, we have a big volunteer celebration where we thank people. On the alternating years, we have a leadership dinner where we thank our leaders. And we try to always take time to let people know that we value them.


and we appreciate what they're doing. And that's just one way of doing that. Another thing, this is kind of on the opposite side. If you expect something from someone, then you should inspect it to see if it's actually being done before it all implodes and falls apart. Also, I think it's a mistake that you don't get feedback from the team by listening to people and finding out that things, they need resources, they need help.


Ryan Franklin (33:58.313)

accountability.


DARRELL JOHNS (34:12.54)

something is falling apart and they were afraid to tell.


Ryan Franklin (34:15.953)

Yeah. One other thing, common mistake that I see that I've struggled with in my own ministry. And I think if I know you correctly, this could be a temptation to struggle with yourself because you can, if you're not guarded, you can have a perfectionistic mindset, right? And expect, have really high expectations of people. How can you, how do you navigate


DARRELL JOHNS (34:36.669)

Right?


Ryan Franklin (34:45.895)

the desire, the urge to micromanage someone, because we all know that that doesn't work in leadership, but how do you avoid that?


DARRELL JOHNS (34:54.964)

So again, you'd have to ask my people. So you create a culture, but then that culture is somewhat self-perpetuating. I think there can be atrophy. But for example, if we have an event in our family life center, all the table legs go the same way. All the tables are set up in the same direction. They're equal distance. Well, that's a 30-year-old paradigm, but our people


I'm in their head, if that makes sense. Years ago we had a meeting with our music team and worship team and I was, you know, this is probably 26 years ago and I was talking about getting it right and excellence. You know, in my mind, I'm a perfectionist. I would like to say a recovering perfectionist, but I'm not sure you could convince anybody I'm recovering, but probably harder on myself than other people.


So I'm going on in this room and a guy raised his hand, he's a very sharp, successful guy and he said, brother Johns, what if we mess up? And when I looked at him, I thought, this guy's really helping me right now. He's not asking him for himself, but he sees that I'm probably bearing down on this a little too much. And I said, well, if you mess up, you just fix it, you know?


So we have this saying here, if you mess up, fess up and make it right. But so on the balance of wanting a culture of excellence is not killing people, not beating them up when they mess up. And if they do, I'm not talking about doctrine or morals, you laugh about it, you go on, you fix it. Something happened recently and you know.


Ryan Franklin (36:22.002)

That's good.


Ryan Franklin (36:27.783)

Mm-hmm.


DARRELL JOHNS (36:44.86)

right after church happening during church and I won't go into the details of it, but I went to that person to try to take the pressure off of them because they knew they messed up and I wanted them to know that that failure was not fatal, wasn't final. I'm not mad at them. I'm not saying I've never been angry, but and then like once you release people and you know, then you've got to back away. So I don't micromanage the discipleship department.


try to make sure it's going good, the youth department, the music production, if something goes wrong, we talk about it, but you've got, even a detail-minded person like myself, you've got to back out of those details and let those people run their departments, and I think if they were all in the room right now, that they would say I do. Now, if something goes wrong, my nature is I start asking a lot of questions. Why did that happen? Let's go figure out.


If that happened, what else might have happened? Or is there a flaw in the system? Is this a systematic or a systemic issue? was it a human failure that we all have in a blip on the screen? You differentiate that. I don't know if that answers your question, but there's a little experience anyway.


Ryan Franklin (37:49.938)

Mm-hmm.


Ryan Franklin (37:59.559)

Yeah.


Ryan Franklin (38:05.82)

Yeah, and if there's a one, is this a one-off issue or is this a systems issue, in other words? just a side question here, I just want to throw in something here on meetings. You know, that's an important part of having a good team is to communicate with meetings. In your opinion and experience, what makes good team meetings? Give us some practical advice here.


DARRELL JOHNS (38:12.852)

That's right.


DARRELL JOHNS (38:32.702)

First of all, meetings, having meetings. So people ask me questions about our church. Is there a secret sauce? Probably not, but I think I would say that we do what we do over and over. Whatever you do and say over and over creates culture. So we do what we do all the time. So except for rare exceptions, every week,


I meet with my pastoral team. And every month I meet with my full staff. Now people do better at this than me, but this is just what we do. And every month I meet with our 301 leaders. Since COVID, that's Zoom, but we're in a building program, so we'll have an in-person meeting in August. So it is consistency in communication. You know, when businesses are asked about communication,


Most of the top leaders think that they communicate a lot, but if you ask down line those other people that serve under those leaders, it's a different answer. They feel like the answer is no. So I've learned that people tend to be down on what they're not up on. So you communicate, over communicate, you listen, get feedback, ideas are shaped. So we have consistent meetings and there's an agenda.


or my pastors 1030 on Sunday morning, excuse me, Monday morning, Monday morning. And these are full-time guys. So that's not the same in every church, but I have a written agenda. It's in base camp. They can all contribute to that agenda, but I may have an administrative gifting, but when I'm sitting up for two or three hours on Sunday evening, after I've preached twice, you know, we have two services, mirror image services on Sunday.


working on that agenda, that doesn't feel like a gift. So I'm not bragging, but we work really hard. Now, I will tell you, our meetings are too long, our pastor meetings. We solve the world's problems every Monday. That's probably a flaw, but we work really hard at meetings. So if you have follow-up questions to that, but we're consistent, they're well planned. I'm engaged in those meetings. I create the agenda.


DARRELL JOHNS (41:00.68)

whatever those agendas are, and then other people can feed into that. And then it's not just a unilateral, I'm telling everybody what to do. They are conversational and they're collaborative.


Ryan Franklin (41:15.208)

So when you say collaborative, I would assume that you mean that anybody can bring anything to the table. In other words, if you can't talk about it, you can't improve. And so you've got to talk about the hard things, right?


DARRELL JOHNS (41:28.68)

That's right. That's right. And sometimes I know the older you get, the more successful a person is perceived to be, which I think that's somewhat of a myth. People are reluctant to tell you, and it's the story of the emperor, you got new clothes, and because everybody was afraid they were going to lose their position or their favor with the emperor, nobody told him that he had no clothes. And so a leader has to make


has to create a climate where people can save him from himself. So does that happen all the time? Are people reluctant? Probably so. But this is just an example. I'm the pastor, senior pastor. But I did not bring a speaker here without talking to my core team about that speaker, getting feedback from them, maybe doing a little research on them.


Ryan Franklin (42:03.217)

So true.


DARRELL JOHNS (42:25.254)

And can I make that decision on my own? I can make that decision. But why would I not want to involve those guys in helping me make that decision? Because I don't want them to be down on that. I don't want them to be blindsided. But then in a building program and whatever we do in the shaping of a new ministry, you know, we're in a conversation and it is not me getting my way or telling them what to do.


Ryan Franklin (42:35.749)

Yeah.


Ryan Franklin (42:53.669)

And if you don't mind me pointing out from the perspective of I'm not a senior pastor, I so value that when my senior pastor comes to me, and he often does, and asks my opinion, you know, gets my feedback. He may even have his mind made up, but he gives me the opportunity to hear his mind and even voice my opinion on it. And it may change his mind in some occasions, but it gives me the feeling of acceptance.


and validation and affirmation that is so important and vital to the relational, I guess, ingredients of a team.


DARRELL JOHNS (43:37.044)

And yes, and so your audience may not know, but for the first 15 years of my ministry, I was in a youth pastor, assistant pastor, you know, a second, third man role. And I wondered after 15 years, is that where I belong? And if it was where I belonged, I would be happy.


know, Brother Jerry Jones was the youth president and I was director promotion and secretary under him. And he's been very complimentary of me as a second man. I think I might be a better second man than I am, you know, a first man, whatever that is. And I asked the Lord before, I don't know if I'm supposed to be a second man or you're just trying to beat the daylights out of me and teach me to be a better leader. You know, so I'm more aware of how it feels to be


a staff member under a pastor with finances, with decision making, with true team building. And I hope that I'm a better leader because of serving under really good leaders.


Ryan Franklin (44:35.942)

Yeah.


Ryan Franklin (44:48.313)

And it's got to be, especially the fact that you remember what it's like to serve under others. For you to have empathy for a David Drury or one of your sons that are serving with you or others, for you to have empathy of where they sit, you know where they sit, you understand their needs, their emotional needs a lot of times, even though they may be a little different from yours, you understand the core needs.


And that's critical for you to keep that in mind for all of these years, but as you continue to lead as a senior pastor.


DARRELL JOHNS (45:26.184)

Yes, and if I could just say one thing, I know that the size of our churches in the United Pentecostal Church, for example, but all across America, cross-denominational, and our churches are not large churches typically, but I'm going to speak specifically about, you know, about a staff member. If I have a full-time staff member that can't pay his bills, that doesn't have health insurance, that


as you know I've mentioned this earlier has no time for his family you know then that's a really unhealthy place to be and as much as I you know I'm a steward of my own soul I'm a steward of my own family it's not the church's responsibility so I know that each of us but my expectations and trying to understand that so we have a perks package and you know we do a lot of things we have a


a medical reimbursement fund when our people, but I'm careful about saying some of these things because I'm not trying to put pressure on another lead pastor or senior pastor. Neither am I trying to create, you know, some type of a feeling in a team member that, well, we don't have that at our church. I'm real careful about that to not put other people in an awkward position. But yeah, I hope so.


And I think so. To be empathetic and understanding what it feels to be an SE. the main thing I want to say before I launched off into all of that is access. OK. So I feel like my core guys need to have access. So if my wife calls me, one of my sons called me, they're not all of my staff, three sons. If my son's called, if David Jury calls me, pastoral team member,


Ryan Franklin (47:04.047)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.


Ryan Franklin (47:10.679)

Absolutely.


DARRELL JOHNS (47:21.268)

If I can answer their call, I'm gonna answer their call. If they need to meet with me, they're gonna meet with me. When I was a youth pastor, I took a periodical and it had a cartoon in there. And there's a voice from the church secretary that said, the pastor will see you now. And laying on the floor of the outer office was the skeleton of the youth pastor. And he had this long list that flowed onto the floor was like, you know, 50 feet long.


Ryan Franklin (47:24.987)

Mm-hmm.


DARRELL JOHNS (47:50.384)

And so obviously that was a thing, right, for who has access to the pastor.


Ryan Franklin (47:56.901)

Yeah. So this is a, you have a unique position in that you have been involved in a ton of high level positions, district youth president, national youth president, local pastor, district superintendent, assistant general superintendent, and a bunch more. We've already named a lot here that I think would apply, but is there any other principles of team building?


that have remained constant no matter the level of leadership that you've been in.


DARRELL JOHNS (48:32.158)

So I would say the number one thing is never give up on this concept. It is not a church growth concept. It is not philosophical that works for some people. It is a biblical principle of the body of Christ, of team ministry, of allowing people to find their place in the body of Christ, to serve where they're gifted for the glory of God.


Ryan Franklin (48:39.056)

Hmm. That's good.


Ryan Franklin (48:46.02)

Yeah. That is good.


DARRELL JOHNS (49:01.428)

for their good, for the advancement of the kingdom of God. If I know that and I believe that, and I know it's not salvation doctrine, but if I believe that like I believe the oneness of God, like I believe the new birth in Acts 2.38, then it is a conviction, not a preference, not a style, it's a conviction. So then, if I have this as a core conviction of mine,


Then you preach it, teach it, and train to it, and don't just be satisfied, and don't be disillusioned when people leave you to go work somewhere else, or you have to sit them down because of a failure, whether it's moral, doctrinal, financial, family trouble. I mean, that's a gut punch when you have to, when you see people go who are great people.


and they become the general youth president. Ta-da, you know, that's a wonderful celebration. But what about, you know, the people, and this has never happened on our staff, I thank God for this, but what about volunteers in your church who've disqualified themselves, so you just give up on the idea, so you can't do that. So I trust people, I try to train them, I mentioned this a minute ago and somewhat, but try to spend more time with fewer people.


you know, if everybody in the church has equal access to the pastor, that's not what Jesus did. You know, he had the multitudes, had 70, he had 12, he had three. I think John was his closest human friend. So Jesus did not apologize for saying, let's come away, come apart, rest awhile. Of course, that didn't work out too good.


Ryan Franklin (50:39.044)

That's so true.


DARRELL JOHNS (50:58.324)

But he had no, didn't feel like he was being unjust to take those 70, take those 12 and spend more time with them. So I feel like as a leader, even though I love everybody, hopefully I love everybody equally, everybody in our church does not have equal access to me. After church, my style is I stay around, talk to everybody, but through the week,


I try to be very intentional about who I spend my time with. God, preparation for preaching, teaching, important meetings, time for my wife and my family, you know, because I believe my priorities are God, marriage, family, ministry, in that order, and you have to press order into disorder and things that tend to atrophy and go into chaos, you know.


Ryan Franklin (51:56.261)

Yeah.


DARRELL JOHNS (51:56.328)

So sounds good, but you'll have to work at it all the time. And then as a leader, I know I need layers of leadership. not everybody, doesn't make them better than anybody else, that because of calling and gifting, some people, they're at a higher level of leadership, organizationally in our church. They may not pray as much as a person who's not even a leader. So that's not what we're talking about. It's two different things.


and hopefully they're praying, they're godly and all of that. But it's that Moses model of Exodus 18.


Ryan Franklin (52:32.56)

That's very good. Very good. I want to end with this one last question. And this is to the leader that may be listening today who wants to start building a team, but it feels a little overwhelmed with overwhelming with actually making it happen. What would be one biblical or practical first step that this individual can take this week to implement a team mentality?


DARRELL JOHNS (53:03.828)

So I think first of all, recognizing you have to recognize, okay, God, not only can I not do this alone, you never intended me to. And maybe you're in a really small context of a North American missions church. You know, you're church plant. But I learned from my friend Scott Sistrunk that when he planted a church, he planted six, that


Ryan Franklin (53:14.778)

Hmm, that's good.


DARRELL JOHNS (53:32.882)

The first thing you do is you work 18 to 24 months or three years and your goal is to develop three to five core family members that will die for that church. And I know that he's even given advice to small church planters, know, churches that were small, church plants, who are trying to do all these big evangelism things and he's encouraging the rain in.


and think small and focus on developing those core disciples and core leaders. So recognize it, no matter that you're small, do that. So that's the one thing. And I'm gonna have to give you two. Pray the Lord of the harvest. This is a prayer request of Jesus, that he would send labors into the harvest. So if I know I can't do this, then I'm gonna start praying that God would call people.


and they would feel it from the Lord to come alongside me and share the load of this ministry to build the church, to build the kingdom of God. And if God calls them, it's a different thing than if I just recruit.


Ryan Franklin (54:46.913)

I love that. I love that. That's a tremendous way to end here. Well, Pastor Johns, thank you so much for taking your time out. know, again, like I said at the beginning, you're a very busy man. And for us to have an hour of your time today is just a tremendous thing. A wise man, a man with lots of credentials and history and success. And so I just want you to know how much I greatly appreciate your time today.


DARRELL JOHNS (55:16.222)

Thank you. Can I pray for your audience?


Ryan Franklin (55:19.555)

would love for you to. Please do.


DARRELL JOHNS (55:26.012)

I thank you Lord that you're the Lord of the harvest.


And sometimes when we feel so inadequate, Lord, you remind us in your word that our sufficiency is of you and not of ourselves. So when we work in this eternal kingdom, we're always in over our head. You called us to do things that we're incapable of doing. So we would always trust you and our trust would grow.


as we work through the seasons of our life. I pray, Lord God, for the man or woman listening to this podcast that feels like a failure because they don't see the results that they want to see. And I pray, Lord, that you would encourage them to keep doing the right things until they work. If they're doing things that are unproductive and


off base Lord, I pray that you would help them see that and stop. But because we know Lord there's resistance and obstacles and Satan hinders us, I pray Lord that you would encourage that person who might be weary and well-doing to keep on doing the right thing Lord. That we will reap if we faint not. We can trust the Lord of the harvest. We can trust the eternal principles that this church is built on.


that they always work every time if we will not give up. I pray for Brother Ryan Franklin and his family. I thank you for the incredible value he is to the kingdom of God that he has chosen to invest himself in developing leaders. And I pray that you would continue to use him in the kingdom of God to expand your kingdom. And I pray for that in Jesus name. Amen.


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