ILI: History Makers Leadership Podcast
Explore the transformative journey that is leadership. In each episode, we will dive deep into strategies, stories, insights, and the core values that shape and inspire effective Christian leaders who make an impact - all around the globe. Get ready to unlock your leadership potential.
When leaders are equipped, kingdom impact multiplies. Equipping leaders and spreading the Gospel. Let’s change history together!
This podcast is brought to you by the International Leadership Institute.
ILI: History Makers Leadership Podcast
Ep. 33 | Strong Family Values Build Better Leaders
Can the key to effective leadership be found in the way we prioritize our families? Join us as we explore this compelling question with Pastor Kevin Rivers, who shares his personal journey of integrating strong family values and ministry. In this episode, we uncover how family priorities can serve as the cornerstone for thriving leadership. Kevin shares practical strategies, such as weekly planning sessions, prioritizing activities to make a greater impact, and more. You'll also discover the transformative power of saying "yes" and "no" to life’s competing demands, guided by family values.
Kevin and Katie discuss the significance of setting personal and family goals and the impact of sharing these with children to foster a nurturing environment. Their conversation emphasizes how acknowledging mistakes and creating a culture of apology can strengthen family bonds. We also reflect on how balancing work and family can enhance spiritual growth, presenting family as the first ministry and a foundation for overall well-being. Finally, we discuss the profound role of shared spirituality and daily prayer in strengthening marriages and family ties, encouraging listeners to nurture these aspects for more harmonious and fulfilling lives.
Learn how prioritizing family can elevate the effectiveness of your leadership today!
When you begin ILI training, you will discover how the Eight Core Values will lead to the Seven Outcomes in your life and the lives of those you lead. Join a community of leaders who are ready to change history and make an impact in this world. Discover more at ILITeam.org/connect.
Welcome to the History Makers Leadership Podcast, where we explore the transformative journey that is leadership. Each episode, we will dive deep into strategies, stories, insights and the core values that shape and inspire effective Christian leaders who make an impact all around the globe. This podcast is brought to you by the International Leadership Institute. Now get ready to unlock your leadership potential and let's change history together.
Speaker 2:Hey there, welcome. I'm Katie Bennett and I am the training communications director here at the International Leadership Institute. Thank you so much for being with us today. I'm really excited because today we are joined by my pastor, kevin Rivers. So, kevin, welcome, thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Kevin has been instrumental in seeing a great transition for our church from leadership. That has been 20, 30 years at the church, seen some incredible growth, and Kevin was with Midway for seven years and then he got called away to a church in Indiana for six years and then God did something amazing and called him back to Midway for the past two years. So we've been so grateful to have you part of our staff at Midway. Part of my life and just seeing all the things that I've been able to witness firsthand in your leadership in life have really impacted me, so I'm so glad to have him here today. We are going to talk about a topic for one of our core values family priority. So I've witnessed this personally and seen you demonstrate family priority from both a friendship and a staff and a leadership at Midway.
Speaker 2:So today I want to jump into family priority and how that affects you personally, ministry and all the things, and then all those people that are listening out there can take away some of those things as well. So family priority Again, like I said, this is one of our ILI eight core values for our history makers, leadership training and it is something that really shapes a lot of our ministry, whether we know it or not, and over and over again, what we hear leaders say from all over the world when they are equipped at a training event. We constantly hear leaders who've been leaders established for decades even tell us that they didn't know that family should have been a priority, that they didn't realize that God was calling them to honor their family. So I see it as being such a crucial part of leadership, and so today I want to start by just talking about how family priority has impacted your life and how you see that personally in your life.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, first of all, honored to be here. Love what ILI is doing, love what you guys are doing, love that there are core values like family priority that make us who we are. And in today's world for me, I have been blessed to see so many great pictures of what that can look like in a good way. Blessed to see so many great pictures of what that can look like in a good way. In my own life I've blessed with a great set of parents that displayed what family can look like and mean.
Speaker 3:But then I think all of us can relate with knowing what it looks like when a leader in our life particularly doesn't adhere to family priority and it crumbles ministries, it crumbles churches and it rips life to shreds at many times. So I've seen both. For me personally, just watching even just the fabric of family and the definitions of family is such a divisive thing in today's world, I guess, in a lot of ways. But I've watched the power of it become such a unifying thing in my own world as well too, such a unifying thing in my own world as well too. So it's something that if we don't get a hold of it, it'll be something that either is behind the scenes as a silent killer of our ministry or our leadership, or it'll be the most fueling component of our ministry, and so I think you've got that choice to make.
Speaker 2:So tell us a little bit about your family really quick. What does your dynamic look like for your family?
Speaker 3:My family got a marriage of 18 years to Jessica, my wife, and we have three kids, two middle schoolers and one elementary schooler, boy, girl. Girl Got Caleb who is in eighth grade, callie who is in sixth grade, kaya who is in first grade, and they're in all things sports and so there's all kind of competing priorities you know in our world right now. So I love my kids, I love my wife and man. I'm so thankful for them.
Speaker 2:So let's take a minute to talk about family priority. When you do have all these competing priorities, how do you prioritize family time, family issues, family, all of those family items? How do you prioritize that when you're being pulled in so many directions? Because I know, no matter what country you live in, that is an issue. We're all being pulled in so many different directions. How do you prioritize your family?
Speaker 3:No doubt, wherever you're at, busyness is one of our biggest priority killers, I think now, and so I think it is the right word priority.
Speaker 3:You've got to prioritize well, and so for us and our family, communication is key.
Speaker 3:That's something that if you don't communicate well expectations, a lot of times there is a gap between what I expect and what I experience, and that's true for me, that's true for my kids, that's true for my wife, that's certainly true in ministry, it's true in leadership, and so how you fill in that gap between what I expect and what I experience matters a lot, and sometimes the best way to do that is fill it in with communication, fill it in with honest expectation.
Speaker 3:You know of what I'm hoping for, and so my wife and I practically will sit down every Sunday before we begin the week and we just look at the week's calendar, and she has my calendar and she can add things to the calendar. She controls the weekends, which is a little breathing room, you know, which can look a little different from time to time, but those are some of the ways we make sure we both know and are aware what's coming up, but also that expectations are clear. You know who's picking who up is from the little things all the way to the big things of making the kids games and those kind of things Right All the way to the big things of making the kids games and those kind of things right.
Speaker 2:So you kind of sit in a season of life that I'm similar you have all over the board because you have one from first grade to eighth grade, that's right.
Speaker 2:So you have a little bit of everything, but I have two young boys too, and one of the things I love is that my husband and I started listening to Andy Stanley talk about family priority from a very well, well beyond the years of having children but he talked about having young kids and sometimes it's just a season of no, because you want to have a family priority, and that means sometimes you have to say no to fun things that are out there opportunities that might come up for you leadership wise, or being stretched to your limits because it just might have to be a no right now, because my kids are young and it just needs to be a no so that I can focus on their sports or their school or their extracurricular. Have you experienced that in your life in this season?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. You know, every yes you say is a no to something else, and that's true for our family, that's true in leadership, that's true in life, and so, for us, one of the things that we've done that has helped us determine what is hard to know what's the right yes, what's the right no, and we've seen a lot of the wrong ones at times. So, for us, we actually ask our kids and walk through a goal process at the end of each year with our kids, and so I share my personal goals with our family. Jessica does the same, our kids do the same, even Kaya first grade.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love that.
Speaker 3:You know hers can look like. You know I want to have my hair fixed in time for school. I mean, it's just the little simple things and we share those goals and we try to let the goals drive our no's, because there's power in the right no's. But where am I going If I don't know where I'm trying to go or what I'm trying to accomplish? It's hard to know what are the right no's and yes's. So we have spiritual goals, you know, and so we can prioritize church as a family. We like sports, we like instruments We've got piano going on right now, you know. So, with those goals, it helps us drive the right yeses and the right noes and then balancing, supporting each family member to. It's a puzzle right. All those puzzle pieces have to fit together.
Speaker 2:How do you see that benefit your family when you do get it right?
Speaker 3:Man, those moments where you get it right, everybody feels supported. I see two of my kids showing up for each other. You know loving each other. When you get those things right, when they don't even overlap, when the schedules don't even allow for a mutual support, then you see the absence of those things right. So to me, when my kids get it, that's when I know, Jessica, and I say we're getting something right, you know, and we've gotten it wrong way more than we've gotten it right.
Speaker 2:Well, how do you correct that when that happens? So what does the process look like to get back on track?
Speaker 3:I think family priority, ownership of mistakes, is at the top of the list. We try to love loud and apologize freely in our home. We get that wrong a lot too, and you just own it, and so for me, there've been times. I can remember a time where this is a phrase that I just hold on to. Family priority was something God taught me about I was trying to do everything. It was before we had kids. Before we had kids, I was a full-time construction worker, part-time in ministry. As far as part-time goes, I was full-time in seminary and I just thought I could conquer the world and I wasn't prioritizing my marriage, so certainly wasn't ready to prioritize kids. And I ended up with shingles on my eye and God used that time. With shingles, my right eye swelled shut and I was on my back, and what God taught me in that moment was that the way I was doing the work of God was destroying the work of God in me.
Speaker 3:I was doing really good things, really good goals, really good dreams, serving the church, serving people, but I wasn't creating space for the priorities God had for my life, which number one at the top of that list should be my family. At that time it was just Jessica Thank goodness it wasn't children yet because I wasn't ready for that and so I had to own something. Then. That has, I think, trained me with my kids, to create a culture of apology, a culture of ownership. You know where, like hey, we should have slowed down last weekend. You know where? You see the breakdowns and the meltdowns. That's what it looks like in our house.
Speaker 3:I can amen that you see the tears and like Kaya, you know she just loses it at a football game. That was, you know she just loses it at a football game that was. You know, it's because she's tired, it's because we didn't create space, we didn't create margin and so saying, hey, I'm sorry we should have slowed down a little bit. Why don't this weekend? What do you want to do? You want to go swim? You want to go walk in the woods? Let's go do that. Create the margin. Say do it, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So you know, this is great. Family priority is great for any secular advice, right. But I want to switch gears and talk about how that, how does that priority influence your family's spiritual life and your kids' spiritual life. What does that look like for you guys?
Speaker 3:For us. I'll never forget what one of my seminary professors said a long time ago. He looked at us and he said guys, ladies, your family is your first ministry, and if you don't get your first ministry right, you won't have any more ministry. And I have found that to be so true.
Speaker 3:I have seen so many people lose their ministries, churches, because they just don't prioritize their first ministry, and so that's been a priority for me. Through the ups and the downs, I've gotten it right, I've gotten it wrong, but I'm thankful for how God placed people in my life that showed me that priority and pointed me to that priority. And I've had to own when I haven't owned it the way I needed to own it. And so for me in ministry, I've watched the trend Whenever my family life is a priority. When our family's thriving, when I'm discipling my kids, we often look to the church to disciple kids in today's world, but we look at it as we partner with families, partner with parents to disciple their kids. When that's happening in my home, I watch my ministry soar too. It's an interesting tie. If you had a graph you could just watch it rise and fall together for me and I've seen that the health of my family shows up in ministry and vice versa. It feeds off of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So you're saying the impact of your family priority impacts the effectiveness of your leadership, would you say.
Speaker 3:I would say that 100%, not only in just perception but in reality. You know people look to that. People need stability.
Speaker 3:We live in a world where the family structure is so unstable and so many people grow up without any semblance of what a real family structure could look like and we look for that. I think people look to that. So the perception of that invites people into ministry or it doesn't. But I'm going to tell you, deeper than that, katie is spiritually. It impacts what I'm able to do in leading other people. If I'm not able to do that in my home Scripture talks about that a lot that you know for a pastor, if things are not in good order at home, how can I expand that into a ministry?
Speaker 2:right. So, yeah, that priority impacts ministry directly and that goes into. Our last core value is integrity, and we talk about how the two, the first and the last core values, kind of bookend all the rest and it's intimacy with God and integrity and in between that family priority. If you don't have that, you can't lead with integrity, because that's what we just talked about. The Bible calls us to lead our family and to be one together and to prioritize our family, and if we're not doing that, then we can't lead with integrity either. And that's the same leading, whether you're leading a business or just leading your family or leading in a ministry. I believe that family priority ties across all of those things that we're doing. So even if you are in a secular business, I think it's hard to leave with integrity if we're not starting with that family priority.
Speaker 3:So great, we talk a lot about the priorities of our life being God, family, others and work. You know those kind of things, and that's so true. I think Scripture calls us to that when it comes to integrity.
Speaker 3:I'm going to lead with integrity. Wherever I'm at, in whatever country, whatever organization, if it's church, if it's ministry, if it's in the secular business world, I need to have my faith at the top of the list, my family next and then everything else I do. But I'm going to tell you, in ministry I've learned that a lot of times that gets muddy, and so we've looked for ways to overlap those priorities where a lot of times we think it's got to be. You know, I'm walking with God or I'm studying the Bible, it's just family time, and so I try to, as an example, I try to be home.
Speaker 3:When I'm home, Try to not have the laptop out there. I work hard at putting that stuff away and not doing the phone calls and there's value in that it speaks to those priorities but like a Sunday morning what does that look like?
Speaker 3:You're there, you see us on Sunday mornings, my whole family's there, and so then, for me, it's my faith, it's my calling, it's my role, it's my job, it's my livelihood and it's my family. And so we look for ways to integrate all those pieces together, because the reality is, we can try to segment them, but a lot of times they overlap, and so I actually look for the overlap. Where how can we overlap those priorities? Where all of our worlds merge together? That's at the ball field, that's on Sunday morning, church days, that's at Walmart. How do we make those priorities a thing that other people can see in our life, but that our kids see too?
Speaker 2:That's really good. I really like that. The overlap, looking for the overlap.
Speaker 3:I'm going to take that, kevin, thank you.
Speaker 2:That's good. I want to talk about your staff. So how many do you have that you're leading right now at Midway? How many staff?
Speaker 3:We have about 40 full and part-time staff. Okay.
Speaker 2:So 40 is a lot to lead. Obviously, leadership matters for this whole staff, but how do you see family priority affecting them and also how do you incorporate family priority for them?
Speaker 3:Yeah, great question. If you don't, I watch people don't last. That's the bottom line of the why behind it. You know the what that goes with. That is we're in a growing season, as you know, where we're structuring, we're adding, you know, ministry opportunities, and so we're our staff's growing, our church is growing and so within that, it requires shifts, it requires priority, it requires the right yeses and the right noes. It requires the right yeses and the right noes.
Speaker 3:So we've tried to even shift what our structures look like, to even require staff to take some time with their family at times, you know.
Speaker 3:So we try to look for that in an individual leadership basis with all of our different teams.
Speaker 3:We're doing something later this fall where we're shifting what we've always done with our staff retreat and goal sharing time at the end of the year and bringing families in for a Thanksgiving meal you know just little things like that where it shows we do value family ministry. That overlap, it creates some of that overlap as well, and so we try to challenge our staff to be at the ball games. We try to create a culture of flexibility where, if you need to go somewhere to make your family the priority, we work to say yes, not look for ways to say no. You know, and to me, when your team knows that they can prioritize their family in a way, maybe they wouldn't have and they'll stay longer and they'll perform better and you would think well, what about the time at the game, you know, are they shouldn't they have been working? They'll work better when they get back because they're making their family a priority. They're healthy internally, which leads to an external impact that just exponentially grows.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's a level of encouragement that sometimes as we work, even in ministry, we sometimes neglect and you don't think you are, but work is work and it takes a lot out of us and it takes a lot of time and demand.
Speaker 2:Work is work and it takes a lot out of us and it takes a lot of time and demand. And then if it's not presented that we do need to prioritize family or those things could fall to the wayside and then eventually, over time, you start to see the ramifications for it. So I think it's it's of utmost importance for an organization, especially in ministry, to prioritize family for their employees, for their staff, for their ministry. I think, like you said, the other side of it is that they'll work harder because they are more fulfilled. So I love that Midway takes time to do that. I want to talk about maybe a side that some of our listeners or viewers have, which is not a great family setup. So we all know that we live in a time when we talked about families broken and we come from all kinds of different places.
Speaker 2:When we say family, that might trigger some negative thoughts for some people. What does it look like? And you've seen probably the gamut of families being at the church. How do we prioritize family when somebody says my family's broken? What does that look like?
Speaker 3:I'd say, if that's you, I just want you to know God sees you today. God wants to show you a picture of what family can look like. I believe that with all my heart, and so, Katie, to me that is what we try to be at Midway is we are a family, and that's one of the first things I'll tell a guest that comes is like I believe you're going to find that Midway is just a good family and I get all kind of looks. It's like you know the word family brings up, it conjures up a lot of different thoughts, and so for somebody that has never had some of those good examples, I would say I'd say this to you you can learn to be that example. You can find that example.
Speaker 3:I believe in churches, and ILI is a great family. I mean, there's just God is bringing so many good pictures. In a world that's full of a lot of bad ones, God's brought a lot of good ones too, and once we find that family, and so find your family, that's what I'd say. It's out there. You've got a heavenly father that loves you. He wants to get whatever father example you've had in your life. God's ready to be that newness that maybe you're looking for right now and once we find that, Katie, I think then we can be that for other people. So in our church we see so many broken families. So we've got our counseling ministry has more than doubled this last year, way more than doubled, and it's all family priority-based things where the family's broken. But we serve a God who can put things back together when they get broken.
Speaker 2:That's awesome, that's beautiful, and I love that it doesn't have to look like what we think it should look like here on earth. God has greater plans than that, that sometimes outside of our thinking and our structures that we believe are family or what titles we've put on them. God can go beyond that, so I love that advice.
Speaker 3:And you know when I think about broken families, god will use people that come from a brokenness where maybe your story is different than my story, or maybe your story is more broken in some area than mine, or mine than yours, because the world has such a broken family system. There's so many broken families, so many needs in the family priority vein of ministry and life. Right now, when you can allow God to take you from a place of brokenness and bring beauty from the ashes, you'll be able to connect with people that I couldn't connect with, or we together can connect with more people. God is good at taking pain and turning it into purpose, and that's what I think he wants to do. In a world where the backdrop of family is very dark, it shines pretty bright when we can see God bring purpose from our pain, and that's what I think God's doing right now.
Speaker 2:And that's what I love about things like this, this podcast, you know, having the space to talk about it and feeling okay to be vulnerable and say I'm broken and maybe someone else's too, and we can find ways to grow in knowing that God has done something amazing in your life and a broken family, and share that and be open and be vulnerable and, like you said, find that family, because when you do, god will use that to grow you and grow those people. And so when we talk about family priority, we are not talking about just the blood kin that is your family. This could be family might look different for you and that's okay.
Speaker 2:God can use that In the ILI HistoryMakers curriculum we have something we call six characteristics of strong families. I'm going to read these off and I want to ask you a little bit about these. So, six characteristics of a strong family One strong commitment. Two spending enjoyable time together. Three good communication. Four appreciation and affection for each other. Five ability to solve problems and react in crisis. And six a shared spiritual life. So this was some research found and I love all six of them, but I feel like we each have probably a strong suit for our family, or maybe a few that we are naturally more prone to. So do any of those stand out for your family and things that you could share tips or advice on with those six strong family? Sure, we need all of those stand out for your family and things that you could share tips or advice on with those six strong family.
Speaker 3:Sure we need all of them. I think they're all so good and I can think of more weaknesses in all of them than I can strengths. For sure they challenge me. I love those six. I love this part of the ILI eight core values. It just it resonates with me because we all have family and it all looks different. But I'll tell you, the shared spiritual components of our life to me is just foundational. You'd expect that from a pastor right?
Speaker 2:Is that the pastor answer? That's the pastor.
Speaker 3:but right answer because I've just seen it with my own wife. I'll tie it to marriage for a moment. When Jessica and I are praying for and with each other, when we're praying together and I don't know we stay together, I'll say this it's hard to be mad at somebody you're praying for. If I'm praying with you, it's hard to be mad. It's just brought not just a togetherness but it's brought a foundation, I think, even for our kids. We're called to disciple our kids, you know, to pour into them, to raise them up to be able to do the same kind of thing. But if we can't give them that model, we're not going to be able to do anything beyond us generationally. But to me that starts spiritually. If you have a shared spiritual life and that's to me, it's looking for the overlap. You know, for us, on Sunday mornings, my poor wife God bless her she's a single mom. On Sunday mornings I'm up super early and she brings the kids to church.
Speaker 2:Kevin's preaching two sermons and connecting and networking and all the things.
Speaker 3:So we look for that overlap, we try to make it that shared experience. But then I'd say second to that is have fun together. Man, life is so fast paced and we take sports so seriously. And I'll say this to you Maybe this is for somebody out there, maybe your kid's going to be a professional athlete I hope so, but let them have some fun.
Speaker 3:We try to just let our kids have a good time in sports we try to laugh together a lot while we share spiritual life create that overlap and to me, the areas that I see shine the most. Those things are converging, but I love all six. They're outstanding.
Speaker 2:The areas that I see shine the most. Those things are converging, but I love all six. They're outstanding. Yeah, and you mentioned earlier about good communication too, so I know that was one of those strong characteristics you'd already mentioned and talked about. But again, just love that that you've highlighted good communication and shared spiritual life and all those things, because I think all six we could all grow in and work on. But especially when you know that those, some of those, are your strong suit for your family, whatever your family looks like, lean into those. Really try to let God use those to strengthen your family.
Speaker 2:I love that you mentioned that, you and Jessica. The spiritual life, the prayer life, all that because our small group just started a marriage study and it was talking about the number one thing that will save your marriage, make your marriage thrive and impact your family the most is just pray together every day. Pray together every day, and it seems too simple, yet I think in the study, in the book, they said only 8% of Christian couples were doing that, but of those 8%, only 1% got a divorce. So it's a very high rate of success if you will just pray together. Shared spiritual life, I think, is probably the number one effect, cause and effect for a healthy family.
Speaker 3:It's foundational, it really is. It spills over into everything else that we do. It really does yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, kevin, I have had so much fun talking to you today. I know that so much of what you just said was some great nuggets that our listeners are going to take from, and I really do pray that people listening today or watching, get to stop and think am I making my family a priority, and if I am, or if I'm not, how is that affecting my life and what can I do differently and how can I lean in a little bit more? So, thank you all for listening today. I can