There is a natural way to lead people.
There is a God-ordained way to lead people.
And it's organic in that it's God's way.
It's God's natural way of how we treat people.
It's God's natural way for our environment
that blesses others and brings forth
and enhances the kingdom of God.
And it's life-giving.
So the whole family has always been involved in organic food
without even knowing it.
I grew up on a ranch in South Carolina.
And my grandmother had this massive garden.
I mean, it would be, I would say it was probably
like 40 yards long by 20 yards wide.
And it had all organic food.
There was no Monsanto, pesticides, or anything.
This would be in the 60s and 70s.
And then dad, my dad, wherever we lived,
always did a garden.
So even though we lived in suburban places,
my dad was a pastor, and we moved about every six years,
always dad did a garden.
So I just grew up eating great vegetables
from organic gardens that were in our family.
And organic wasn't even a word.
I mean, we weren't even using the word I eat organic
or inorganic or whatever.
And then when Liz and I got married,
we lived the first seven years or so in Japan.
Japan is very organic.
Even the way in which they process their food
back in the 80s and then into the early 90s
would be considered organic.
They did have imports that came in
from other countries in Asia.
And all I can tell you is the taste.
All I remember is the taste of the food in Japan
tasted like organic.
So when you tasted a tomato or a cucumber in Japan
or an onion in Japan, whether it came from Japan or not,
it tasted organic.
And so what does it mean to grow foods organically
or not organically?
Some of the terms that have been used
is genetically modified foods.
And these are foods that have pesticides and hormones
sprayed or injected into them.
And it's become a big problem for our nation.
I think we could say health-wise,
we are one of the most unhealthy nations in the world
because of GMOs, because of pesticides.
I would call it fake food, fast food, and forever food.
Forever food I made up.
But forever food means it's got
so many injected preservatives into it
that it's infecting us.
And if we were to grow just organic foods,
we would be a much, much healthier nation as a result.
And what would happen if we didn't have
growth-regulating drugs, steroids, and hormones
or antibiotics in our food?
It would just be huge.
So inorganic food is basically food
that has synthetic chemicals,
such as pesticides and artificial fertilizers,
genetically modified into the food system.
And so it's a chemical-laced system.
So in a nutshell, if we did not have chemicals
in our system, we would not have cancer-producing,
heart disease-producing, diabetic-producing,
and dozens of other autoimmune diseases
ravaging our population.
We'd be healthier.
We'd be more energetic.
We'd be more thriving.
But think about this.
It also means that the cancer industry
wouldn't have as many patients.
And the diabetic industry wouldn't have as many patients.
And we wouldn't have as many heart doctors
because more and more people would have healthy doctors.
So the whole system is set up based on greed, in my opinion.
So I'm talking about being as organic
as possible with our food.
And that's just simply, this is just a metaphor.
This is only a metaphor that I'm using
as it relates to leadership.
Let me tell you what I think organic means
in relation to what I'm talking about.
And that is, what is God's kingdom way?
So what would be God's kingdom way for food?
What would be God's kingdom way for how we raise our animals?
What would be God's kingdom way for growing crops?
It would mean treating the soil, the animals,
and our food supply in the, listen now,
the most natural way.
I'm using this as a metaphor for leadership because I believe that when we lead God's
people in the most natural kingdom way, it's healthy.
It's the healthiest way.
So I'm calling this kingdom leadership or natural leadership, or the term I'm going
to use is organic leadership.
Let me give you some points to this.
Organic literally means things that are natural, organic, or related to nature as God intended.
In common uses, when we think of organic, we say healthy or close to nature.
It can also be described as foods or animals grown without artificial pesticides or fertilizers.
In other words, organic refers to living things or living materials birthed from that.
So when dad or my grandfather were doing their gardening, and in the case of my grandfather
on the ranch, he was doing his farming.
He let the soil be natural.
In other words, he let the vitamins and the enzymes and the supplements that were a part
of the soil come into those plants that then grew fruit that bore forth what we now call
organic food.
He just considered it natural.
And so what granddaddy would do is every seven years, he would actually burn a part of his property.
It was a, what we call a controlled burn.
So it was not uncommon for me as a kid going along and seeing these burned areas that would
be for a whole year, nothing grew there.
They would just burn it and they'd rest it for a year.
And then the next year he would farm it.
And so you understand what I'm saying?
So imagine say 150 or 200 acres of farmland where 15 acres was not being used.
It was burned over.
He rested it for a year.
And the reason he did that was for the soil to repair itself naturally.
And then he would take another 15 acres.
He would do the same thing with that, but then he would now take the other 15 acres
and he would plant on that.
So here's what I see when I speak of organic leadership is that there is a natural way
to lead people.
There is a God ordained way to lead people.
And it's organic in that it's God's way.
It's God's natural way of how we treat people.
It's God's natural way for our environment that blesses others and brings forth and enhances
the kingdom of God.
And it's life-giving.
So I debated about calling this life-giving leadership or the kingdom of God way of leadership.
I'm calling it organic leadership.
So I'm talking about God's natural living ways that I believe were best modeled by Jesus
Christ.
So the way in which Jesus grew people, the way Jesus built people, the way Jesus empowered
and equipped people is the best leadership.
It's the best leadership in the world.
And so I'm going to contrast that to what I'm going to call inorganic leadership or
corporate leadership.
So when we look at the American landscape, there's a lot on leadership.
There's probably more nonfiction books on leadership and psychology, kind of in those
two categories.
If we were to go to a Barnes and Noble or even Amazon, as far as nonfiction books, those
would probably be the biggest categories on the shelves, the biggest categories that you
can order from because everybody that's in the corporate world is wanting to know about
leadership.
Well, I'm going to challenge that system.
There's a different kind of leadership that is called what I'm calling organic leadership.
That's kingdom of God leadership.
And it's in contrast to the inorganic, maybe American corporate system that we have today.
And I've had to learn this the hard way, even as a pastor and a leader and a coach, much
of my leadership in the past has been built on the wrong principles, on the wrong attitudes
toward people and even toward getting things done.
And so what I'm going to do in this series is begin to break down what I mean by organic
leadership, why I think it works, why I think it's the most effective way.
And so wherever you are in your journey, if you're in college, maybe you've never been
to college or you're in a job or you started a company or you're an entrepreneur, whatever
your background, I believe.
The Jesus way of leadership is organic.
It's the best.
It will be the most natural to your heart
because you are created in the image of God.
And so the image of God flowing through you
is going to be the most natural way for you to lead.
And I would say this, that just like a tomato plant
or a cucumber plant or asparagus plant,
everybody's different.
Everybody's gonna lead different.
I'm gonna be talking about broad principles
that relate to organic leadership,
but the actual way in which you lead
will be very, very different for you than it is for me
or from your neighbor.
So we have different ways.
So I wanna set your heart, first of all,
in this beginning to just say,
when I speak of organic leadership,
the natural living ways of God and leadership,
kingdom of God way of guiding, coaching, loving,
and leading God's people or people in general
created in the image of God
will be different for each person.
It'll be unique to you.
So I hope it'll be a blessing to you.
And in the next episode,
I wanna talk about what Jesus said.
I think it's his most poignant,
most powerful passage in scripture on the contrast
between what I call corporate leadership,
corporate in inorganic leadership
and God's kingdom organic leadership.
So I wanna talk about what Jesus said.
In the next episode, I wanna talk about what Jesus said.