Church Staff Book Club

Success Can Actually Hurt Your Future

We talk a lot about learning from failure. But what about success? It might be quietly doing more damage than you think. In this episode of the Church Staff Book Club, Jonathan Malm and Jason Young dig into Chapter 2 of How to Get a Return on Failure by John Maxwell. The big idea: success and failure don't belong in isolation, and when we treat them that way, both become dangerous. 🎧 What We Cover in This Episode: * Why success can deceive you just as much as failure can discourage you * The danger of "I am a success" vs. "I am a failure" and why both are wrong * Why the most successful people are sometimes the worst ones to write the book * How repeated success quietly causes you to misalign your values and your why * Why churches struggle to define success and how failure helps realign it * The importance of doing an autopsy on your wins, not just your losses * Jonathan's story: the tuxedo skit that nobody learned anything from * Jason's honest confession: falling into the identity trap with book reviews * Two practical tools to evaluate success and failure: Five Whys and Kaizen * The quarterly journal idea for tracking your team's progress like a scoreboard 📖 We're Reading: How to Get a Return on Failure by John Maxwell Follow along chapter by chapter with us! 💬 Key Quotes from This Episode: "I am a success is just as dangerous as I am a failure." "Success can inflate your ego. Failure attacks it. How do you live inside both?" A bad day doesn't make you a bad leader." 🛠 Free Tools Coming: Jonathan and Jason are building individual and team debriefing tools based on this conversation. Download them at churchstaffbookclub.com [http://churchstaffbookclub.com] 🔗 Connect & Subscribe: Follow us on social media and join the conversation Subscribe so you never miss a chapter Grab How to Get a Return on Failure by John Maxwell and read along with us

Are You Planning to Fail?

Every leader fails. The question isn't whether it'll happen... it's what you do with it when it does. In this episode of the Church Staff Book Club, Jonathan Malm and Jason Young kick off their third book: How to Get a Return on Failure by John Maxwell. Chapter 1 reframes the way leaders think about failure. From something to avoid at all costs to something that, when handled well, actually pays you back. 🎧 What We Cover in This Episode: * Why most people treat failure as final and why that's costing them * The difference between you failing and being a failure * Why avoiding failure has a cost too (and we rarely count it) * Small risks vs. big risks: the fencing approach to leadership * Jason's story: 210 volunteers quit in one day and what happened next * Why school is actually the safest place to fail (and we've made it terrifying) * Planning for failure: anti-faith or just smart leadership? * What your first reaction to failure reveals vs. what you do next * The Moses principle: why God rarely gives you the full picture up front 📖 We're Reading: How to Get a Return on Failure by John Maxwell. 💬 Key Quotes from This Episode: "You are not a failure. That thing you did might have failed, but that's not your identity." "Your first reaction to failure is the human part of you. What you do next is the leadership part." "If we don't take risks, things naturally decline." 🔗 Connect & Subscribe: Follow us on social media and join the conversation Subscribe so you never miss a chapter Grab How to Get a Return on Failure by John Maxwell and read along with us

Embrace Endings

Most ministry leaders are great at launching new things. But what about ending them? That's where things get messy — and where so much unnecessary pain in churches actually comes from. In this season finale of the Church Staff Book Club, Jonathan Malm and Jason Young wrap up The Emotionally Healthy Leader by Peter Scazzero with Chapter 9: "Endings and Beginnings." If you're holding onto something that needs to die — a program, a role, a relationship, a season — this conversation is for you. What We Cover in This Episode: * Why leaders are wired to add things and terrified to end them * How "keeping the peace" often just delays pain and elongates it * The subtle drain of holding onto something past its season * Why endings feel like failure — and how to reframe them as release, obedience, or completion * Jonathan's exercise for SundaySocial: "What would we build if we started today?" * Why endings are actually a vital part of your spiritual formation * How to love people through an ending... before, during, and after * Why messy endings are normal, and what to do when you're in one * Don't bypass the grief... what it means and why it matters We Finished Reading: The Emotionally Healthy Leader by Peter Scazzero Tune in next week to find out what book we're reading next! Key Quotes from This Episode: "Every new beginning starts from some other beginning's end." "Endings feel like loss, even when they're right." "It's less about quitting and more about releasing. Less about defeat and more about obedience." Connect & Subscribe: 📱 Follow us on social media and join the conversation 🔔 Subscribe so you never miss a chapter 📚 Grab The Emotionally Healthy Leader and read along with us

We Don't Like to Admit We Have Power

Nobody in ministry wants to talk about power. We talk about humility instead. But ignoring your power doesn't make it go away. It just makes it dangerous. In this episode of the Church Staff Book Club, Jonathan Malm and Jason Young dig into Chapter 8 of The Emotionally Healthy Leader by Peter Scazzero: "Acknowledging Power and Boundaries." Jonathan calls it his favorite chapter in the book and possibly the one that explains more of what goes wrong in churches than any other. 🎧 What We Cover in This Episode: * Why "unexamined power becomes harmful power" and what to do about it * The 6 sources of power every church leader carries (whether they know it or not) * Why the Me Too movement is really a story about unacknowledged power * How megachurch pastoral abuse happens and why it's not just a megachurch problem * The blurry lines between pastor, friend, boss, and discipler and why they matter * Why pastors are so lonely (and why it's actually structural) * What healthy boundaries actually look like in church staff relationships * Why "no" is a complete sentence and why ministry leaders can't seem to say it 📖 We're Reading: The Emotionally Healthy Leader by Peter Scazzero Follow along chapter by chapter with us each week! 💬 Key Quotes from This Episode: "We don't talk about power because it feels dirty. We talk about humility because it feels clean." "Unexamined power becomes harmful power." "Every yes and no has a cost." 🔗 Connect & Subscribe: 📱 Follow us on social media and join the conversation 🔔 Subscribe so you never miss a chapter 📚 Grab The Emotionally Healthy Leader and read along with us

Why Your Church Culture Is Your Fault

The culture your team lives in isn't something that just happens... It's something you create. And if it's unhealthy, the first place to look is in the mirror. In this episode of the Church Staff Book Club, Jonathan Malm and Jason Young dig into Chapter 7 of The Emotionally Healthy Leader by Peter Scazzero: "How to Build an Emotionally Healthy Team." This is the chapter where everything gets practical, not just for you as a leader, but for the people you lead every single day. 🎧 What We Cover in This Episode: * Why you're a thermostat, not a thermometer, and what that means for your team * The "cage the tiger" principle and why we avoid it (and shouldn't) * Why values on the wall mean nothing without a leader who lives them * The difference between ignoring someone's faults and making allowance for them * How to address the elephant in the room without blowing up the team * Why healthy conflict actually strengthens culture, not weakens it * What a genuinely healthy church staff culture looks like in practice * Jonathan's take: should churches under 1,000 stop hiring specialists? 📖 We're Reading: The Emotionally Healthy Leader by Peter Scazzero Follow along chapter by chapter with us each week! 💬 Key Quotes from This Episode: "Culture is what people experience, not what you announce." "Who you are becomes the culture." "When you avoid conflict, you actually weaken the culture." 🔗 Connect & Subscribe: 📱 Follow us on social media and join the conversation 🔔 Subscribe so you never miss a chapter 📚 Grab The Emotionally Healthy Leader and read along with us