LEADERSHIP SESSION WITH JARED NIEMAN

A Privilege to Be Here

Well, it’s a privilege to be here. Thank you all for coming on a Monday morning. And thank the team for not starting at 8 or 9 a.m. Hallelujah for 10 a.m. start times. Man, I grew up in church and we used to start everything at 8 and 9 in the morning. It’s like, what are we doing? You know, we set the time. Why do we keep doing it? We make the rule. It’s a privilege to be here. And I do not remember a time in my life when I did not know Pastor Marshall and Cindy. Quite literally. I have known them my whole life. And so to be here is very special. I love you all. I thank God for your friendship in my life, and of course in my dad and mom’s life. I mean, we like grew up, me and Hannah and Jordan grew up together. And so it’s a privilege, us pastors, we don’t give our platforms to just anybody, and so it’s a privilege that you would allow me to stand on your platform.

Transitioning Leadership

It’s quite a special season that this church is in, transitioning leadership. Our church went through that about 13 years ago. And I’m gonna share with you my one principle of leadership. I am embarrassed to say that I don’t read leadership books. I got invited to a private meeting with John Maxwell. It didn’t end up going because of scheduling. And my friend that invited me, he goes, which of John’s books is your favorite? And I went, I don’t have one. He said, What do you mean? Because they’re all so good? I said, No, because I haven’t read one. I said, I might be the first person in the history of a John Maxwell meeting that hasn’t read a John Maxwell book.

Pastor Marshall and I were talking, and he said, How was church yesterday? And I said, Well, you know, praise the Lord. Yesterday was the single biggest attended Sunday in the history of our 48-year church. And I’m gonna share some things. I don’t like sharing numbers. I’m just gonna share with you where our church is at to then share with you why I’m gonna teach you what I’m teaching you. Two years ago on the last Sunday of October was one of the most frustrating, disappointing, discouraging, horrible church days. Have you ever had one of those where you drive home defeated? Yeah, and you’re frustrated, you’re mad, you feel like you’re not anointed. Who said I was called? Because clearly I am not called to do this.

Everything Produces After Its Own Kind

Genesis chapter 1, verse 11. Says, then God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its own kind, whose seed is in itself on the earth, and it was so. Verse 12, and the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its own kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself, oh, there it is again, according to its own kind. Verse 24. Goes on to say again, the every living creature, cattle and creeping thing, the beast of the earth, each according to its own kind. Verse 25, and God made the beast of the earth according to its own kind.

So one, my Bible, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven times in the first chapter of the Bible, while God was creating life. He established, if you want to give it a name, the first law of life. And the first law, now please understand, this is a law. It’s not a hope, and it’s not a promise. It’s not a prayer that needs to be answered by God. This is a law that God put into the earth. And the first law that God put into the earth is this everything produces after its own kind. Everything produces after its own kind.

Humans produce humans, dogs produce dogs, cats produce well, ugh cats. I’m kidding. I’m not kidding. I’m just saying I’m kidding, so you’re not mad at me if you’re a cat lover. All notice that all dogs go to heaven, cats. Amen. There’s only two options, and they don’t go to heaven. I’m kidding. Apple seeds produce apple trees. Orange seeds produce orange trees. Everything produces after its own kind. Don’t come up to me with an orange and say, Jared, it’s a miracle. I planted apple seeds, and it produced oranges. You know what I’m going to say to you? It’s not a miracle. What you thought were apple seeds were actually orange seeds. Because God does not usurp his own laws. Everything produces after its own kind.

The Law of Seed Time and Harvest

Now here’s the great thing is that laws are indiscriminate. Not man-made laws. We know man messes up our own laws. But biblical laws, even the scientific laws are indiscriminate. And remember that God created those laws as well. God put the law of gravity, the law of thermodynamics, the law of lift, into the earth to do what? To create order. That’s good. And no matter who you are, where you’re from, how educated you are, young, old, rich, poor, the color of your skin, the history of your background, the education you have, no matter how much you love Jesus, if you get on top of this building and jump off, you’re coming down.

You can pray, you can do, you skip the 21-day fast. You can go do a Jesus fast. You can literally go into the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights. You can read the Bible from beginning to end. You can pray all day, every day. You can come have David and Jordan anoint you with oil, but if you get on that roof and jump off, you are coming down. No matter how much you have declared, no gravity formed against me will prosper. Guess what? It’s gonna prosper. That’s right. Why? Because it is the law of life that God put into the earth to create his order of doing things.

Well, we talk about gravity and lift and thermodynamics. But did you know that God builds his church on Genesis 11? Everything produces after its own kind. Well, the first thing you really need to think about is just the first two words. Everything produces. So what are you producing? Because what you’re producing was created by its own self in the past. What are you producing?

Go Do the Right Thing

When we transitioned leadership in our church, it was an interesting path to walk down because we had a very successful church. Our church is very successful. It’s very big. It’s incredibly impactful. It’s very well known in our community in our city. We had borne fruit for a long time, decades. But they are as much sincere pastors and leaders that you can find on and off the platform. By no means are they perfect, but they are sincere in their honor and worship to the Lord. And all they ever wanted to was to build a church that got people saved, discipled, baptized, filled with the Holy Spirit, and taught them the word. That’s all they ever wanted.

And so when my sister and I came along, we were in this interesting balance of okay, we need to honor the past, but we’ve also got to press forward to quote the Apostle Paul. To quote Isaiah, do not remember the former thing, but we also have to honor the former thing while also understanding that God’s the God of new things. And then the pandemic hit, and our church went down to less than 500 people from thousands. And I told our team, I said, listen, this is going to be either the most devastating thing that has ever happened to us, or it’s the greatest opportunity we have ever had in the history of this church. So the only choice we have is to view this as an opportunity.

Every service, every this is what we do, this is how we do it. We argued it, we fought about it, we got mad at each other. We remodeled. You know that tearing down is easy. Right, yeah. Rebuilding is hard. Amen. You know, I’ve actually remodeled things before. They call it demo day. All the teardown happens in one day. And then the remodel takes God only knows how long. And you know what else? You know what I’ve learned about remodeling is that whatever amount of time they tell you, it’ll be longer than that. And I remember as we came through that season and we began to delicately but boldly rebuild the church. I began saying two things to our staff. I began saying, just go do the right thing. I don’t have all the answers. There’s so much we can’t control. And we’re not in a pandemic anymore, but the truth is we still don’t have all the answers, and there is so much in our society we cannot control. Amen. So I would just tell him, just go, just go do the right thing. Go do the right thing. Sow the right seed. Just go do the right thing. Just go do the right thing. And even if, even if, even if someone takes advantage of it, God will know your heart. That’s right. Amen. Go do the right thing.

Five Thoughts on Building Your Church

And then I would say, we’ve got to believe in the law of seed time and harvest. We’ve just got to believe it. We’ve got to believe in it. Guys, we’ve got to believe in it. We’ve got to believe that if we do the right thing, that God will honor that we’re doing the right thing. And even if we’re wrong about what was right, at least we had the right intentions. And I’ve got to believe God will honor that. Amen. So I ask you this question before we go any further. What are you producing? Are you happy with it? Have you looked at it? You’re the leader. You set the tone. Your words, your actions, your decision, you set the tone. And if you are lying to yourself and saying that others are producing what you don’t want, the reality is you’re the leader. You put those people in those places. It takes away all the excuse, all the blame. It takes away all the comparison and the mental games we play with leaders with ourselves to justify why we are not where we want to be.

Number one, everything produces, and it produces after its own kind. This is the first law of life. The second law of life is found in this in the next statement, and that is whose seed is in itself. And that’s where I began to tell our team, just go do the right thing, sow the right seed. Because if you’re doing the right thing, it will produce what is right, and then everything you do is a seed you’re sowing. And when you understand the first two laws of life, you see life completely.

This is why you see families never change. Have you read the statistics about how children who are raised by alcoholics, over 75% of them become alcoholics? It’s I believe it’s sixty-eight percent of young girls who are raised by abusive fathers marry men who abuse them. Do you want to know why? Because everything produces after its own kind. Everything. Everything produces after its own kind. That’s why pastoral families tend to produce pastors. Entrepreneurial families tend to produce entrepreneurs. Scientist families tend to produce scientists. I was talking to a couple in our church yesterday, and the wife is a dentist, the husband is an orthopedic. I said, What do your parents do? Doctors. It’s like, oh, because everything produces after its own kind, and the seed to produce more of the same is inside what was already produced.

Now that can discourage you or it can encourage you. Why? Because at any moment you can sow a new seed. If you don’t like what you’re producing, you can look at the seeds that have been sowing, and you can start sowing a new seed. And that’s why so many people inside your churches, they come in and they have generations of family legacy that is negative. They encounter Jesus Christ, they get filled with the Holy Spirit, they learn the word, and they begin to sow a new seed, and that seed produces something different from what the history of their family was. Why? Because everything produces after its own kind. And the seed to produce more of it is within itself.

Love produces love. Love doesn’t produce hate. Hate produces hate. Joy produces joy. Birds of a feather flock together. Have you ever noticed at work? All the gossips hang out together. All the negative people hang out together. All the sunshine and rainbows people hang out together. All the mourning people hang out together. All us normal people. Why? Because everything produces after its own kind. And the seed to produce more of it is the same. When you understand that, you can walk into any situation, into any church, into any business, into any family. You can look at it and you can ask one question. What’s being produced? Are we happy with it or are we not? If we’re not happy with it, we need to go sow new seeds. And if we are happy with it, let’s keep sowing those seeds. And that’s it. You don’t need eighty-six laws of leadership. Why? Because God already gave you his law. This is his way of building his church and our lives. Everything produces after its own kind. And the seed to produce more of it is within itself.

Now, here’s some thoughts on it. Write these down. Five thoughts on building your church this way, building your business. You can extrapolate this into any area of your life. Why? Because this is the law of life. Can I tell you the funniest thing? I exercise a lot. You know, the more I exercise, the more I want to exercise. And then when I don’t exercise, I don’t want to exercise. You want to know what else is funny? When I am exercising, I’m motivated to eat healthy. Which is weird because you would think, hey man, I really hit it at the gym today. I’m gonna get me some fries and some ice cream. But it’s the opposite. Why? Because healthy living produces healthy thinking and health. Why? Because everything produces after its own kind. Is this helping you today?

So here’s what I learned while we rebuilt our church. This is this first one is so encouraging. It’s slow. Is anything happening? And if you’re literally talking about a seed, I mean you can go months and months and months, and you don’t even know if the seed has survived. Right. That’s right. It’s slow. Now let’s not talk about literal seeds. Let’s talk about spiritual things. It is still slow. I’m gonna say this to you. Quite often God is slow. God’s not in a rush. And God’s timing is always perfect. We are usually trying to rush God’s timing. But can I tell you something? The reality is God will bring growth and increase in harvest as you are ready for it. And a lot of times we’re mentally ready for it, but we’re not actually practically ready for it. Not ready for the harvest yet. Because during that season, from when the seed is sown until there’s an actual an actual fruit-giving, life-giving tree, God has to bring the right people. But you know that the third law of life after these two is actually the law of seed time and harvest. So it’s slow. Oh, but here’s the good part. But the harvest will come.

And we went four years. Four years of grinding. And it was like, is anything happening? Two steps forward, one step back. Two more steps forward, three steps back. Four steps forward, two steps back. And it was frustrating and exhausting and slow and discouraging. And maddening sometimes. People would come, people would go. No expl, he didn’t even understand it. It was slow. But the harvest did come. Here’s the here is the most encouraging way of viewing it. It’s slow, but it’s right. It’s the right way. Why? Because it’s God’s way. Amen.

Here’s another thought on building your church and the laws of life. It’s not glamorous. Can I tell you something? The first few years of my leadership, we had the glamorous church, but it was actually unhealthy. We chased events events that produced hype. But it didn’t produce fruit. And I am very resigned to not chasing glamour. That’s right. I don’t care about the Instagram contest anymore. That’s good. I’ve been through enough of it. And it’s not glamorous. God’s way of doing things isn’t glamorous. In fact, a lot of times you’re sitting there and you’re the only one that can even see that you planted the seed. A lot of people are looking around like, are you doing anything? Yeah, I’m just planting seeds. Planting seeds, baby.

Let me tell you what else. Number three, it’s tedious. It’s tedious. It’s tedious. You know, we have a statement in our church, and that that is I want to pastor a small church that thousands of people come to. What do I mean by that? I mean, I want thousands of people to come to our church, but I want it to feel like it’s a small church. Yeah, that’s what we are. And thousands of people do come to our church. I mean, we have thousands. We are very blessed. Thousands of people come to our church every week. We’re very blessed. But it I want it to feel like it’s a small church. Meaning that it’s warm and it’s welcoming and it’s friendly. People remember you and recognize you. And if you want to get connected, we have tons of ways for you to get connected.

I have a statement that I say to my team almost every week, and that is don’t ever lose sight of the one person. But do you know how tedious that is? Do you know how much effort we put? Last week, Wednesday night, we had a special event Friday night, and Sunday morning, we had over twenty-three thousand people at church. Do you know how tedious it is to notice every volunteer that canceled and call them? Do you know how tedious it is to listen to every gripe and every frustration to answer every prayer call, every prayer request? We get the prayer requests. We have paper prayer requests in the lobby. We get them. We pray over every one of them. And anyone that leaves a phone number, we call the person. Do you know how tedious that is? And do you know that nobody answers the phone for a number that they don’t have programmed? So they tell us they want us to call them and then don’t answer. We have a five-phone call rule. After five times we finally give up. I mean, you know, I mean, at some point you gotta move on down the road, right? You know how tedious that is? It’s so tedious. But everything produces after its own kind.

Last Wednesday I was at church, and a girl came up, a woman, not a girl, a woman came up. And she said, she came to tell me to test crying, weeping. She said that two years ago, I thought I was meeting her. I was like, oh, I did. It’s like, okay. But two years ago, she was in the hospital. And I guess I found out about it. And I called her. I left a voicemail. She said she never called me back. She then went through a horrible season in her life. She had not been at church since being in the hospital. She came on Wednesday night back for the first time. And she came to tell me that the reason she came back to our church was because of that voicemail. Because she knew someone cared about her. I’m standing there going, I have no recollection of what you’re even talking about. I’m like. My sister would be like, oh yeah, you’re Julie. Oh my god. Your number was 52684. I called you on a Tuesday at 1.38 p.m. You were in the hospital, you just had surgery, and the doctor, the doctor’s name was Jose Martinez. And I’m standing there like tedious. Come on.

You want to have a great church, you want to have a great business, you want to have a great family, you better be ready to do the boring, mundane, I shouldn’t have to do that. I’m the pastor. Really? Well, then you’re you’re if you think that way, your team’s gonna think that way. You wanna know why? Because everything produces after its own kind.

Here’s the fourth thought. Living in the law of life, it requires care. Does everybody know the parable of the seeds in the ground? What’s the last ground? Good ground. But did you know that good ground is not found, it’s made. If you go in your backyard right now and you wanted to plant a garden, you would not be able to plant that garden in the ground that is just in your backyard. You have to go dig that ground up. Go buy soil that has been made to be healthy for planting. Put the soil in, and then sow the seed for what you want to grow. Guess what else you then have to do? You have to work the ground. You gotta water it. You gotta go look for worms. You gotta make sure it’s getting just the right amount of sunlight and or shade, depending on what you plant it.

I have two trees in my backyard. I mean, I have a lot of trees, but there’s two that are the same. One of them is on one side of the yard, the other is on the other side of the yard. One of them hardly grows at all, the other is massive. The only difference is the amount of sunlight. I bought them on the same day at the same nursery. They were brothers. The only difference is this one gets shade in the afternoon when it’s 186 degrees at El Paso. The other one doesn’t. I’ve tried watering it, giving it fertilizer. Like, do we have tree steroids? Like, is there HGH for trees? Like, do we have testosterone? Like, what can I give this thing? It takes care. Good ground is made. It’s made and it works hard. As the leader, it’s your job to make sure that your team is good ground. That’s good.

Here’s another thought. Do not despise your seed. Oh, and don’t we do that? Don’t we do that as leaders? The moment we become leaders, we start looking at everybody else’s seeds. At all their fruit. You know, the only time our church has never grown is when I tried to do what other churches were doing. Amen. That’s good. Tried to do what other churches were doing, and our church stopped growing. You want to know why? So I was trying to plant their seeds. That’s good. But I can’t plant their seeds. I have to plant the seeds God gave me. Amen. You know the verse. Do not despise the day of small beginnings. Well, you could say, don’t just despise the day of small seeds. Right. Amen.

No, we all want the harvest. We don’t want the seed. We want the harvest. We don’t want the seed. We want the harvest. Let’s tell the truth. We don’t want the seed. We don’t want to work the ground. We don’t want to protect the ground. We don’t want the tedious, the mundane, the boring. We want the harvest. That’s what we want. We want the growth, the revival. We want all that. We want the overflow rooms. That’s what we want. What we tend to not want is the seed. But I’m telling you, God will not build any other way. He will not. This is God’s way of building.

Let me just encourage you. Your seed, meaning your calling, your talent, your abilities, your way of doing things, your identity is special. It is God given. It’s beautiful. It’s wonderful. Don’t despise it. Don’t try to be us. Don’t try to be someone else. Be yourself. Be the best version of yourself. But don’t despise your seed. Don’t chase someone else’s seed. Trust the seed God gave you and plant it over and over and over.

Now listen, remember, not every seed produces the same amount of fruit. But it will produce. Why? Because everything produces after its own kind. And the seed to produce more of it is within itself. Oh, and that brings us to another amazing thought. Sometimes to get down to the seed, you have to strip away the outer core. And a lot of times our outer core, our ways of doing things are actually from seeds that we planted that we didn’t even mean to plant.

So what does that say to us? It says that as the leaders, as the pastor, as the manager, as the boss, we have to be able to look in the mirror and say, what are we doing? What are we doing right? What are we doing wrong? What do we need to do better? Well, Jared, what we’re doesn’t. The both first two questions identifies what we need to be doing better. No, it doesn’re doing something right, you may still be able to do it better. Amen. So you strip away the outer core and you get back down to the seed.

You know, here’s the wild thing about seeds and how God does things. If you had an apple up here and you cut it in half, what would you see? The seeds. Inside of any apple, any orange, any type of fruit, you can count how many seeds are within the fruit. If I were to cut an apple in half, it would fall over, and you and I could count how many seeds were in that apple. Do you want to know what we could never count? We could never count how many apples are inside of those seeds. See, you can count the seed, but you cannot count what the seed is going to produce.

So if you if you’re not in love with where something is or what you’re producing, go sow new seeds. Go work the ground, go be tedious, go put the effort in. Allow God to lead you and guide you and put you in his perfect timing. Don’t despise the seed, don’t abandon the seed. Don’t walk away from the seed. Work the ground. We worked and worked and worked, and I’m telling you, it was so maddenly, maddeningly, maddeningly frustrating. Until that next Sunday. And that first Sunday in November 2023, it was like, oh my god, there’s fruit. Wait a minute. Something’s different. There’s fruit. And then we rolled into the holidays with Christmas musicals and everything. And it was, oh, there’s there’s more fruit. And then 2024, and it was like, oh wow. There’s like a lot of fruit. And then 2025, you want to know what I thought about? I was like, is there any way 2025 could be better than 2024? Like, there’s no way. But it’s better.

Somebody asked me the other day. I was with some pastors, and they were like, so madam, your church and all this, and is it like? I was like, oh no. It’s so easy now. You know how easy life is when you have momentum? When there’s harvest? The hard part was before. They’re like, are you busier than ever? I’m like, not really. We hardly have anything to do. It’s like just keep doing the right things, guys. My job, my job now, is to make sure my staff is doing the right thing. Just go do the right thing. Keep sowing the right seeds. Just keep sowing the right seeds. That’s all that matters. It doesn’t matter. Just sow the right seed. Because if you sow the right seed, you’ll produce the right harvest. Because everything produces after its own kind. And the more that produces, the more seeds get sown, and it begins to produce more and more and more. And God multiplies and builds on itself.

So go sow the right seeds. I say all of this to say, go sow the right seed. And God will bring the harvest. Listen, that He wants to bring. Amen. God wants the harvest more than you do. Amen. But He’s only gonna do it his way. He does not do it our way. Our job is to find his way and go, Alright, that’s how I’ll do it. And if you’ll do it, he’ll do it. Amen. Amen. Praise the Lord. God bless you.