Lecrae was topping the Billboard charts, winning Grammys and was at the top of his career when things were coming undone internally.
In an open and vulnerable interview, Lecrae talks about the pressures of fame, losing his faith, dealing with addictions, anxiety and personal trauma, and how he’s finding healing.
Welcome to Episode 371 of the podcast. Listen and access the show notes below or search for the Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and listen for free.
Plus, in this episode’s What I’m Thinking About segment, Carey talks about when Christians lose their minds, people lose their faith.
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Episode Links
Red Letter Challenge
The team at Red Letter Challenge has put together a brand-new 40-day challenge that your whole church can go through. It is called BEING Challenge, and it is focused on helping you BE in relationship with God.
Written in a similar way to the original Red Letter Challenge, this study focuses on the only one who has ever lived in perfect relationship with God, Jesus Christ, and challenges us to practice the 5 keystone habits of Jesus.
When disruption came in 2020, new habits were formed by everyone, and the best habits of all are the habits of Jesus. With the New Year coming up and people setting goals and resolutions…why not teach your church the habits of Jesus and give them a real tool that will help them grow in their relationship with God?
Just like the original Red Letter Challenge, it has everything you need for a turnkey 40-day church challenge. BEING Challenge has everything…small group guides and videos already done, sermons done, kids curriculum done, graphics done…it really is turnkey.
The first wave of churches are going through it right now and are seeing incredible results. Small groups are back up again, engagements are back to all time highs and social media engagement has gone way up.
Right now you can get some awesome specials, 10-40% off discount at redletterchallenge.com/being. And if you are a pastor and you want to check it out, for our podcast listeners only, you can request a FREE copy mailed directly to you.
ICM
Did you know that Christianity is on the rise worldwide? Looking around, this may come as a surprise, but all over the world people are coming to follow Christ—and filling local churches—in unprecedented numbers.
As the Global Church Developer, our partner, ICM, has a holistic view of the international church today. For over 30 years, ICM has been working to equip indigenous churches around the world with discipleship tools and permanent facilities for worship and outreach. Now, they’d like to share that perspective with you.
They believe the church around the world is ripe for even greater growth—and you can see how in their report “5 Major Developments in the Growing Global Church.”
They’ve made this report available to podcast listeners for free at icm.org/growingglobal.
CONVERSATION LINKS
Audiobook sample of chapter one from I am Restored
Tim Keller on How to Bring the Gospel to Post-Christian America
When Christians Lose Their Minds, People Lose Their Faith by Carey Nieuwhof
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INSIGHTS FROM LECRAE
1. There might be a better way to think about the narrative of “becoming a Christian”
A lot of Christians and churches describe the journey of becoming a Christian like, “Before I was a Christian, I was flawed and broken. But now that I’m saved, I don’t have any struggles anymore.” In his new book, I Am Restored, Lecrae outlines that this might not be the healthiest way to describe that journey.
He believes that restoration is the journey not the destination. Restoration is a marathon, and you win a marathon by finishing it, not by coming in first or looking the best. A Christian is going to fall over and over again. The restoration journey is all about getting up and learning from each of the falls.
2. For many leaders, becoming more successful fuels your insecurities
A lot of leaders don’t realize that they fuel their insecurities by achieving more and accomplishing more. If you don’t work through the wounds of your past, you’ll continue to fight for more accomplishments so that you can keep giving false senses of security to yourself. This doesn’t lead to anywhere good.
If you never deal with your insecurities, a day will eventually come when you have to face them. Eventually, someone important won’t like what you create or will challenge your life’s decisions. When that happens, everything will fall apart because what you’ve used to combat insecurity is no longer working.
3. Driving too hard means you’ll eventually run out of gas
Many leaders are like speedboats. They drive really hard out into the ocean of opportunity, and while they are driving, they pass all of the rafts and sailboats. This works out for a while, but eventually, every leader runs out of gas at a speedboat’s pace. And when you run out of gas, you become no more useful than the raft.
Both Lecrae and Carey have led like the speedboat, and as a result, faced some pretty serious seasons of burnout. They have now learned that it’s better to operate like the sailboat. A sailboat never runs out of gas. It responds to its environment and uses that energy to get itself to its destination.
4. You can’t fix the issue of race in America without deeply listening first
The current environment that we’re in needs people being listeners and learners. But leaders are really good at doing the opposite. Leaders don’t need to listen and learn because they can thrive off of CliffsNotes. But as it pertains to race or ethnicity, we’re talking about cultures. And you can’t just read the CliffsNotes on a culture and expect to actually understand it.
To overcome this, you’ve got to become a practitioner. You’ve got to get involved in these relationships. You’ve got to spend some time with those of a different culture and learn about their experiences and ways of thinking.
Quotes from Episode 371
I let go of God, but He never let go of me. @lecrae Click To Tweet Temptations are meant to destroy us, but the trials are meant to develop us. @lecrae Click To Tweet What a lot of leaders don't realize is they feel their insecurities by achieving more. What you are actually doing is wielding false senses of security to yourself. @lecrae Click To Tweet There's freedom in confession, but there's suffering in suppression. @lecrae Click To Tweet For many people, behind the decision to turn your back on God oftentimes is a desire for some sort of personal freedom. @lecrae Click To Tweet If you have unresolved historical trauma in your life, that's going to come for you under stress. @lecrae Click To Tweet When Christians lose their mind, people lose their faith. @cnieuwhof Click To Tweet Influence takes years to build and seconds to lose. @cnieuwhof Click To Tweet If God has all the same opinions your political party does, you're probably not worshiping God. @cnieuwhof Click To Tweet People don't want to know what you think is right, they want to know what's real. @cnieuwhof Click To Tweet If Christians prayed as much as they talked, we'd have a different church. And nobody really finds life in your kingdom, they find life in Christ's kingdom. @cnieuwhof Click To Tweet Jesus never asked us to confess the sins of our enemies, He told us to confess ours. And social media has become a lot of confessing the sins of our enemies. @cnieuwhof Click To Tweet If you really start to deal with real-life relationships with people who are very different than you, you will gain more empathy. @cnieuwhof Click To TweetRead or Download the Transcript for Episode 371
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Next Episode: Pat Gelsinger and Scott Beck
Silicon Valley titan Pat Gelsinger, the CEO of VMWare and former CTO of Intel, and Scott Beck, who scaled Blockbuster Video, Boston Market, Einstein Brothers Bagels and Ancestry.com, and is the Founder of Gloo, talk about how the future church can use technology to reach people and connect people. Pat and Scott also talk with Carey about why church leaders resist technology, privacy concerns and why the future is more relationally-connected than we imagine.
Subscribe for free now so you won’t miss Episode 372.
