PODCAST | Getting To Know The New President of Leadership Network, Carrie Williams

In today’s podcast, William speaks with Carrie Williams, President, and CEO of Leadership Network. She has recently stepped into this role after years of experience serving her local church. She has founded the national ministry The Truth Republic and was a key leader at The Church of Eleven 22.

In this conversation, Carrie shares her story and the ways that the Lord opened doors leading her to Leadership Network even through difficult seasons. Carrie is a strategic, team builder who is passionate about developing healthy leaders for the kingdom.

If we can help you staff your team, please contact us to get started.

Resources:

https://leadnet.org/

https://leadnet.org/shows/

Transcript:

Christa Reinhardt:
Welcome to the Vanderbloemen Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Christa Reinhardt, senior marketing coordinator here at Vanderbloemen. In today's podcast, William speaks with Carrie Williams, president and CEO of Leadership Network. She's recently stepped into this role after years of experience serving her local church. She's also founded the national ministry, The Truth Republic, and was a key leader at the Church of Eleven22. In this conversation, Carrie shares her story and the ways that the Lord has opened doors leading her to Leadership Network, even through difficult seasons. Carrie is a strategic team builder who's passionate about developing healthy leaders for the kingdom. We hope you enjoy this podcast.

William Vanderbloemen:
Well, hey everybody. Welcome to the podcast today. I am just thrilled to introduce you to a long time acquaintance and a renewed friendship in Carrie Williams. Carrie is heading up Leadership Network and it's probably Leadership Network 3.0, maybe it's 4.0, I don't know, but it's a new iteration of what Leadership Network's done. If you've been in our family for any length of time, you know Leadership Network was very much a part of what we've done over the years, whether it's helping them get salary surveys out or helping teach where we can or being on the advisory board for a while. It's just an organization that's near and dear to our heart. And I was thrilled when I saw that Carrie had agreed to take over. Carrie, you want to tell us a little bit about your story? First of all, thanks for joining us, but would love to hear your journey starting in ministry to where you are now. I know people would love to get to know you.

Carrie Williams:
Yeah, thanks so much. Well first, thanks for having me. I absolutely love what you guys do and as you're going to hear in part of my history, have had the pleasure of having our staff reinforced in some church environments because of the work that you guys do and so, so appreciate it. And so, yeah, I'm Carrie and I've been in ministry for over 25 years and that's included being on multiple church staffs in different ministry positions, leadership positions was a missionary at one point in my life, worked at a missions organization recruiting and training long term missionaries in different parts of the world. So about 10 or 12 years ago, found myself with a ragtag group of friends, running a service called Eleven22 that we eventually determined needed to launch into its own church. Our senior pastor came to us one day and said, "I think it's time."

Carrie Williams:
So myself and about five others, including our lead pastor Joby Martin set out to launch the Church of Eleven22, which William, which is where our paths crossed. I think our very first big hire that we did for a leadership position outside of the scope of the people that we were already in relationship with was through you guys. So you sent us some candidates and we hired one of them and it was great, great experience. Helped launch the Church of Eleven22 as part of the core leadership team there and then from there launched an organization called the Truth Republic, where we equipped and empowered women to fulfill their calling. Then recently stepped into this role, of CEO of Leadership Network and so that's a little bit of my journey.

William Vanderbloemen:
Okay, and if you're not impressed with Carrie yet, it was about a year ago now I remember Carrie's husband Ben is an amazing creative director. I don't know the right titles, Carrie, I'm sorry. It started as worship leader and now master of all things creative for Eleven22. I think if I remember right, we were just a couple weeks away from a fairly big Sunday, Easter and Ben got sick, right?

Carrie Williams:
Yeah, yeah. So my husband, he's on staff at Eleven22. He's the pastor of culture and creativity and we were on spring break last year, actually with Joby and Gretchen Martin. We do our spring break every year. We have this tradition of going to Disney and we were in a hotel room, middle of the night my husband had a seizure, which within 12 hours led to the diagnosis of a brain tumor. So a week later he underwent surgery to have it removed and went through six to eight weeks, chemo radiation simultaneously, and then has been on a journey of preventative chemo over the last year. So the good news is there's no tumor, it's completely gone, he's cancer free.

Carrie Williams:
He's doing amazing. We are hopefully approaching the end of chemo. We either have one month or seven months to go. So we'll see when all is said and done, but we're almost on the other side of it, but yeah, it's been quite the year, but I mean, the truth is the Lord taught us through all of it, how to cling to good [inaudible 00:05:26] really hard and how to be really present in every single day in every moment. So those are lessons that I am incredibly grateful for.

William Vanderbloemen:
Well, this is a little off topic Leadership Network, but I'm always curious to hear, as a young pastor, I would walk into a hospital room with a tragic situation and try and find the right thing to say and end up then trying to remove my foot from my mouth. Because it was just... I always said the... Were there some memories you have of people who said or did things that were really helpful?

Carrie Williams:
Truthfully, the things that stand out the most to me are just the people who stayed present. It wasn't necessarily the things they said, it was them just reminding me that they're praying, that was huge for us, that immediately before we even got home from Orlando, after we got the diagnosis, I reached out to a friend and just said, "I need you to get into my house and I need you to write scripture on sticky notes and put it all over my house. I want the truth in front of my family's eyes." So from that led to this whole campaign even where we literally got hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of cards with scriptures on them that were placed all over the house and I mean, it was things like that, people just reminding me of the truth in the middle of the hard and just being present.

Carrie Williams:
I mean that's where the biggest value that really laid for us. And man, I'll tell you William, just the body of Christ and the way that it rallied around our family, just to where we didn't feel alone, that week in between diagnosis and surgery, I didn't feel alone and I really could have very easily felt very alone in the despair of what we were in and just people being present, it really mattered.

William Vanderbloemen:
Wow. Well it's been said many times, but the one thing Job's friends got right was they sat still with them for seven days before they said anything.

Carrie Williams:
That's right. That's good, yep.

William Vanderbloemen:
Yeah. Well, thanks for sharing that. And I'm glad to hear Ben's got a bright future ahead.

Carrie Williams:
Yeah, me too.

William Vanderbloemen:
So in the middle of that, hey, we're fighting cancer, hey, I've been a missionary, I've been in one of the fastest growing churches I've ever seen. Why not take on a new challenge? It's not like... I mean, sorry Ellen, sorry all you who are going to get offended by this, but it's not like you walked into a super rosy situation where it was just, oh absolutely I want to do that. It was a little bit of a turnaround deal, right?

Carrie Williams:
Totally a little bit of a relaunch is what... Or version four point whatever, whatever as you stated before. Yeah and honestly not something that was on my radar. I worked closely with Exponential over the last few years, about three years ago, stepped in as an Exponential associate just through my leadership and the Truth Republic and the work that we were doing drawing in more and more women into being developed for the sake of the gospel in the church. So from there, started working directly with Todd Wilson weekly on an area called Exponential Ventures, which man I love, I absolutely love what we're doing in Exponential Ventures. It's now called Next Ventures. We tucked it underneath Leadership Network, because it just makes sense. And yeah, it wasn't on my radar as far as Leadership Network goes and began to have conversations with Todd regarding potential leadership role there.

Carrie Williams:
First of all, I love a good challenge. It's just how I'm wired. I thrive and function better when I'm being challenged in something, which is a blessing and a curse all at the same time and can't think of any better way to live my life and spend my life.

William Vanderbloemen:
Wow.

Carrie Williams:
I think the situation with Ben, honestly, pivotal moment of our lives to constantly step back and reevaluate, where are we spending our time? How are we spending our time? Are we maximizing-

William Vanderbloemen:
Wow.

Carrie Williams:
Every experience, every skill, every talent, every breath for the sake of the gospel, are we maximizing it? Are we doing everything we can within what we can do in our life to make sure that the gospel is being shared and that disciples are being made. So I think that opened me up-

William Vanderbloemen:
Wow.

Carrie Williams:
To really consider the position.

William Vanderbloemen:
Wow.

Carrie Williams:
At the time, I don't know if I would've considered it, had we not gone through all the things that we did-

William Vanderbloemen:
Oh wow.

Carrie Williams:
With Ben. But it did bring me to a place of, okay, God, I'll do whatever, whatever you have that's next, I'll do whatever, challenge accepted. Let's make sure that I'm living my life to its fullest for the sake of the gospel, which led me to say yes.

William Vanderbloemen:
It's so good. And you can only do that if you realize this world is not all there is.

Carrie Williams:
That's right. That's right.

William Vanderbloemen:
Yeah.

Carrie Williams:
Yeah. You got to hold it real loose and remember why we're here in the first place.

William Vanderbloemen:
I don't know if you know this or not. I haven't told you this, but about a year ago, Todd called me and said... Wilson and said, "So probably in about three or four months, I'm going to call you and tell you I need you to do a search for a new CEO for Leadership Network." Okay, what are you thinking, he walked me through some of this, that, and the other. Then Todd's a genius. I mean, he's literally a nuclear submarine engineer. That's not an overstatement and people don't know that about him, but I didn't hear from him and I didn't think anything of it. I checked in with him. He said, "I just don't think we need to do a search." I'm like, "Okay." Then I saw that he named you CEO or the board or whatever the right way to say that is.

William Vanderbloemen:
And I thought, no, he didn't need a search because I've seen her work before and I've seen how God uses her and I was just thrilled to not get the business. So, super glad you're there.

Carrie Williams:
Thank you.

William Vanderbloemen:
Paint a picture for me of where things are headed now. I mean maybe when I might not even know Leadership Network, it's been a little bit of hibernation for a few years and then we've had this thing called 2020 that we've all been living through. But some of us may remember Leadership Network was the consummate aggregator. It would get groups of Joby Martins together when they're young pastor is growing too fast and not knowing what they're doing and get some Yodas around the new Jedis and teach them, right?

Carrie Williams:
Yeah.

William Vanderbloemen:
So is that still the plan or do we have new things that are going? Give me a sense of where you see God breathing on Leadership Network?

Carrie Williams:
Yeah. Good question. So yes, it's still the plan and yes, we still are partnering with the Yodas to invest in the Jedis. In this example, Joby's now the Yoda and so not to age you friend, but it's just the truth.

William Vanderbloemen:
Now I got to... The metaphor breaks down a little because Yoda was never a body builder and I have damaging photos that I keep just in case I ever need them.

Carrie Williams:
Listen, my husband is putting together a calendar for Joby. One of his big birthdays, let's just say that, of some of the most amazing photos of his lifetime, some of which we've taken ourselves. Anyway.

William Vanderbloemen:
Sorry, [crosstalk 00:13:16].

Carrie Williams:
The plan is over the last six months, as I've engaged in conversation with folks who have been impacted by Leadership Network, the number one thing that I hear over and over again is the connections that were made in the small room environments and love it. I mean, from friendships that were birthed, networks that were formed, wisdom that was granted, advice that was received, next steps that were walked out, all of it took place in these small group type environments a lot like what you just mentioned, William. And so it would be completely foolish of us to not continue to build those kind of environments where peer to peers can sit down together, learn from one another, but have a leading practitioner in the room walking them through here's what's next. Here's what you don't know. Here's what you should know and so we'll continue with that.

Carrie Williams:
This year to kick us off though, we started in a little bit different type of direction. That really is an overflow from Ventures, the program that we started a couple years ago. So this year we have six focuses and those six focuses include micro churches. We have a content director, Rob Wagner and Brian Johnson who are heading up that area. We have Church Next that talks about healthy church operating systems and Myron Pierce heads that up for us. Generation Next, which I'm super excited about infusing the next generation into church planting movements and multiplication. And that's being led by Hannah and Aaron Barnett with Generation Distinct. We have Meta Church, so for people who are unaware, there's this whole thing called the metaverse, where churches are being birthed and churches are being multiplied and reproduced online in these great environments where you put the goggles on and you do all the things.

Carrie Williams:
So that's being led by Jeff Reed with Digital Church and then our other two focus areas just come from an overflow really of Bob Buford and how he really set out to start this organization to begin with, which was all about biblical church management principles and healthy leaders. How do we make sure that we have healthy leaders? Because if we don't have healthy leaders, we don't have healthy churches. And so those are our focuses this year and the way that we're pushing all of those out are through some key channels, one is new creative fresh content. So we have weekly live shows and on-demand shows that are available in all of those six areas and then weekly articles. This year we'll have summits that are online three hour summits that folks can engage in for free to listen, learn and watch about all of these kind of new, innovative future of the church type things.

Carrie Williams:
We also will be kicking off a research institute that will be in partnership with Asbury Seminary in addition with some other folks. We'll have Next Ventures that will continue on this year. We have multiple partners, we do a Shark tank style event where we identify projects that are really out of the box, blazing new trails. That's really where we learned about the metaverse stuff and even some of the micro church movements that are taking place. So we'll do our Shark Tank type style event within Ventures, and we have full partnerships within that. And so that's the range of what we're doing over the course of this year and I couldn't be more thrilled about it.

William Vanderbloemen:
It sounds like a full plate and with a lean staff and a hungry hustle attitude.

Carrie Williams:
That's right, and I forgot to mention our learning communities. So we also in addition, have learning communities that kick off later this year in 2022 for executive pastors, worship pastors and campus pastors.

William Vanderbloemen:
Yeah. I think I'll be at the executive pastor one. I think we're hosting some meals and just being available. My former colleague, Tim Stevens, who's now exec pastor of Willow Creek is running those. So its a great lineup. That's a pretty limited attendance thing though, are those all sold out?

Carrie Williams:
They're not sold out yet but like you said, space is limited. And so, yeah.

William Vanderbloemen:
You keep that small room, right?

Carrie Williams:
That's right. Yep. Totally on purpose, that's right.

William Vanderbloemen:
Andy had the people learn in circles, not in rows and it's kind of the... I was actually a recipient of it. We haven't talked about this, but when I was a pastor, I was called to be the senior pastor at First Presbyterian Houston, which is the oldest church in the city. It's actually older than Houston, it's where Sam Houston went to church, so-

Carrie Williams:
Wow.

William Vanderbloemen:
If you know, Texas, it means we've been reaching lost people for a long, long time, he was character, but I went there at 31 and I didn't know anything. If it weren't for the circles of Leadership Network where I got around a lot of the guys that are my age that were just starting out, I remember meeting [Grishell 00:18:29], I remember meeting Perry Noble. I remember meeting... It was just an amazing aggregation of leaders. So if you are needing to be around some people because you're in over your head, sounds like Leadership Network's going to continue that tradition. Is that right?

Carrie Williams:
Yeah, that's right. That's right. There's so much value in it. I mean Joby Martin who is my pastor will attest to the same thing, William. I mean he was in a learning community when we first launched to the Church of Eleven22 and that's where he met a lot of the key leaders and friends that he does life and ministry alongside of now. And so yeah, very valuable.

William Vanderbloemen:
Is it still Leadnet.org? This is how-

Carrie Williams:
It is.

William Vanderbloemen:
Okay. So Leadnet.org and any other key pieces of information or is there a resource that you're really excited about people should go grab right now from Leadnet?

Carrie Williams:
Yeah. I think the biggest thing is to engage in the weekly shows. So if you go to Leadnet.org, you're going to see options, show page option. You're going to see all of those focus areas. They have pages where you can engage in the shows and the articles. So I encourage you, if you heard me say things like micro church and you immediately think house church and don't know why that's a network or a movement that's taking place, it's a good conversation to engage in. Any of those topics that I just mentioned that... They're good, they're good, it's good to be a part of the conversation.

William Vanderbloemen:
Well Bob Buford launched this thing to say, let's focus on large churches and how do we get them to grow and he was right on the front end of the megachurch movement.

Carrie Williams:
That's right.

William Vanderbloemen:
How cool is it that you guys are being reborn right on what I think is the front end of true revival, which I do believe... That's a whole nother podcast, but there are forensic reasons to believe that we're on the cusp of something new. And even if you don't want to believe that, we're at least on the cusp of a new way of doing church now that we've had to all do online. So I can't recommend going to Leadnet.org highly enough. They know how to aggregate thought leaders to help people who are new in the game get equipped. I hope people will do that and I'd love to make the offer that if they signed up for something right now, they could get on the list for a calendar. But I don't think that's an option. The photo calendar's probably not going to be a bonus prize. Oh, hey listen Carrie, thank you so much for making time for us. Any last thoughts or words for those who are listening?

Carrie Williams:
Yeah, no, I would just say thanks again for having me. I appreciate what you guys do at Vanderbloemen, I mean, helping resource churches so that they can and continue on with the mission that God's put in front of them, super valuable and I love the partnership that we have in working together to advance the kingdom and I appreciate ya.

William Vanderbloemen:
Well, look forward to doing a lot of things with you. There's nothing that slows the progress of the church down more than people problems, and that's what we're trying to solve and you're trying to solve leadership problems. I think if we can both get those things done it's going to be good.

Carrie Williams:
Amen, amen.

William Vanderbloemen:
Yeah. Thanks so much, Carrie and thanks to all of you for listening today or watching if it's what you're doing. If you go to Vandercast.com, you'll get into a little segmented email list where you don't get beaten up with a bunch of junk, you just get show notes and what's coming up next. We would love for you to tune in again and be a part of our conversation about how to lead teams better. So thanks for joining us.

Christa Reinhardt:
Thanks for listening to the Vanderbloemen Leadership Podcast. We at Vanderbloemen help Christian organizations build their best teams through hiring, succession, compensation, and diversity consulting services. Visit our website, Vanderbloemen.com to learn more and subscribe to our Vanderbloemen Leadership podcast wherever you listen to podcasts to keep up with our latest episodes. Thanks for listening.