Not In It to Win It with Andy Stanley

Mark Cole:

Hey. Welcome back to the Maxwell Leadership Podcast. This is the podcast that is designed to add value to leaders who multiply value to others. My name is Mark Cole. I’m the CEO of Maxwell Leadership and today I’m doubly excited. I’m excited because here with me today live in person is John Maxwell and I’m glad because John, as usual, has brought a dear friend. Now, this dear friend is not anyone unique to both the podcast land, the leadership conversation, and certainly not even to the Maxwell Leadership Podcast because Andy Stanley, our good friend, is back with us today. Now, John, you say that if someone is good, they don’t need a long introduction. And so, we’ve got one of those people in studio with us today.

Andy Stanley is certainly a leader that needs no introduction, but for those of you that don’t know, Andy is the founder and pastor of North Point Ministries. He’s an author, he’s a speaker and he’s a leader. And so, just like everyone that we bring on this podcast, he’s passionate about adding value to you, our podcast family. Andy recently wrote a book that I’ll tell you, I don’t think it could be better timed. I don’t think it could be better positioned for a conversation that is happening in the leadership space. This book is called Not In It to Win It. Now, for those of you, our community that visually joins our podcast, I’m holding it up and I’m going to tell you. Whether you’re a person of faith, which this is really designed for those of us that have a strong foundation of faith, or whether you’re somebody that really wants to bridge a gap, a divide within you and your team or you in a political persuasion or maybe you and the faith community, this book will absolutely change your perspective and change the way that you want to engage.

John, I’m going to let you… Before we hear from Andy, I’m just going to let you talk a little bit about your friend and talk a little bit about this book. But, John, one final thing I want to say is when you and I were sitting on a plane and we began to read this book together, we said to ourselves… You said it to me actually. You said, “It’s almost like Andy has been traveling the last year with us and eavesdropping on our conversation.” I want you to start this conversation with telling me and our audience what you meant by that statement.

John Maxwell:

Well, Mark, I love Andy. And, Andy, I think you’re just a phenomenal communicator, but not only in speaking, but also in writing. And, I have just felt… I’ve been left very leadership sad for the last year and a half, two years. I just feel that we have had an opportunity to help a lot of people, and some of our leaders, instead of helping and bringing people together, they’ve divided people. And, somebody told me one time that a great leader unites his friends and divides his enemies and a bad leader divides his friends and unites his enemies. And, boy, I tell you, I’ve seen that kind of leadership way too much.

And, when I read your book Not In To Win it was just like, “Okay, Andy, that’s exactly how I feel.” And so, I’m so excited to have you today. I’m so excited to have you with us to talk about the book and how we can apply it to our life. This is going to be a very beneficial time together, so I’m glad you’re here. I love you greatly. I admire who you are, what you do. We’ve been friends a long time and you have taught me so much in my life. I’m so much of a better person because of you. So, thanks. You’re about to make a whole bunch of other people a lot better too, Andy, so thanks for being.

Andy Stanley:

Well, thanks for having me on the podcast, John. And, I won’t spend a whole lot of time like I could talking about the investment you’ve made in my life, so… But, thank you. And, the fact that you would even read one of my books… Hey, that’s a win right there, so thank you.

John Maxwell:

I read all your books, friend. I read them all.

Mark Cole:

Hey, as we get started, of course you can go to maxwellpodcast.com/andy. You can go to the show notes. We’ll have a bonus resource button for you. We’ll have a way that you can go direct to buy the book and get this book for you and your team. And, finally, we’ll show you how you can hear more from Andy on Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast.

But, Andy, this was not one of those books you were sitting around for years waiting to write. It was in your heart.

Andy Stanley:

No.

Mark Cole:

You didn’t even plan to write this book. Tell us a little bit about how this book happened.

Andy Stanley:

Well, thanks Mark, and it’s great to see you as well.

Yeah. Sandra and I have been working on a parenting book, and so, a year ago or a year ago this past May, I said, “Darling, I hate to tell you this, but we got to hit pause on that because I am so brokenhearted.” As John just expressed, I am so, I don’t know, almost confused as to what’s happening within the Christian community in terms of our… Where we stand in culture and the message we’re portraying in culture and I am so… Honestly, I don’t know if this is right word. I’m so embarrassed by some of my friends who are podcasters, broadcasters, Christians, leaders and pastors, the way they have politicized their organizations on both sides and seem to just kind of lost their minds and certainly seemingly lost their bearings in terms of what we’re called to do in the faith community.

And, I said I feel like I got to say something. And, I had been talking to our local churches in the Atlanta area and around the country for quite some time about these issues and so I decided to sit down and write a book and so I wrote Not In It To Win It. And, I told her. I said, “I don’t know if anybody’s going to read this. I don’t even know if anybody’s going to publish it. I doubt anyone’s going to want to endorse it, but I just felt like I had to do this.” So, that’s where this came from.

Mark Cole:

And so, I want to ask you a question completely off script and John, I want you to talk about this too. Both of you… You both share great communication as one of your giftings. You both share this passion for people far from the faith that you both grew up in. So, I’m just going to ask you right out of the gate, both of you. John, you read it. You read it once, you read it twice, you read it first, you marked it, the second time you read it marked you. Andy, what do you hope the person that’s kind of far from this idea of faith that you grew up with?

Andy Stanley:

Yeah.

Mark Cole:

What would you want them to pick up from this book?

Andy Stanley:

Well, let me… I’ll tell… This encapsulates it. I love Twitter. A lot of people hate Twitter. I follow all kinds of people. I learn so much about all kinds of people. So, the other day, this just popped up on my Twitter feed. This was not directed at me or our organization and here’s what the person said. And, I think this goes to what you’ve just asked. “Before you demand Christianity be taught in schools, maybe you should demand it be taught in churches.” And, what’s behind that tweet? I know. Isn’t that amazing?

John Maxwell:

Oh my gosh.

Andy Stanley:

I know. The point of this tweet is, hey, I’m not a Christian. I may not be Biblically illiterate, but I know enough about Jesus to know you’re not acting like Him. And, this is the space that has been… I mean, we just left this space. So, to my non-Christian friends and to my friends who are of different faiths and people who have abandoned faith, the challenge is not that they don’t believe what we believe. The challenge is now they don’t think we believe what we say we believe because not of our belief system and not just because of our actions, but because of our reactions.

Actions speak louder than words. Reactions speak louder than either. And, the evangelical community in particular, the evangelical community’s reaction to the social political issues in the past two and a half… Cultural issues in the last two and a half years have revealed the ugly underbelly of evangelicalism that they have suspected has been there all along and the underbelly is simply this, that we value what everybody else values — winning — that we fear what everybody else fears — losing — and that we basically just use our religion as a tool to help us win. But, when you step back into first century Christianity and when you follow Jesus through the gospels, you find none of that. Not only do you find none of that, you find the opposite of that. So, folks like John and me and others have just been… We have been bewildered, just bewildered at the… People have just left the middle to run to the extremes.

And, every leader that listens and watches… John knows this. Leaders know that problems are solved in the middle. Problems are solved where there can be conversation with nuance. And, in the current political situation we’re in, there’s almost no nuance. Everybody’s evacuated the middle. And yet, leaders know, no, you have to have conversations with people you disagree with in order to deal with real issues and solve real problems and we believe that if we actually follow Jesus, we’re able to engage with people of different faith systems, different worldviews, and solve real actual problems in our communities that desperately need to be solved.

And, we just sat back and saw faith leaders leave the discussion, which means they left the arena of solving real problems. And, it was disheartening. It was disgusting. It was embarrassing. And, I would just say to all of the folks who watch and follow John who are not people of faith, I just want you to know there are a few of us who have not lost our minds and we are as concerned as you are about what’s happening in our country and in the world.

John Maxwell:

Well, Andy, but that thing, that statement, a few of us have not lost our mind, you’ll have to speak for yourself. Maybe I’ve lost mine a few times. But, your heart and my heart beat so similar to this because when I’m in my wonderful friends of secular business world, they keep asking me what’s happened to the church? Why do you not? The question they ask all the time is, Why do you not like Democrats? And, I sit there and I think, okay, immediately I’m put in a position that I should never be put in.

Andy Stanley:

Right.

John Maxwell:

I mean, why would people think I don’t like Democrats? I love Democrats. I love Republicans. I love people who vote. I love people who don’t vote. I love everybody. I mean, geez, God so loved the world that he gave you His son.

Andy Stanley:

There you go. Yeah.

John Maxwell:

I mean, [inaudible 00:10:21]. He didn’t just so love Republicans that he gave his son.

Andy Stanley:

Yeah.

John Maxwell:

[inaudible 00:10:28]

Andy Stanley:

Well, he loved people. He liked people who were nothing like him and they liked him back because they knew he liked them. And, then he said to me and to you and the world, “Follow me.” And, I mean, I don’t know how it gets any more basic and clear.

John Maxwell:

They could hardly wait to be with Jesus.

Andy Stanley:

Right.

John Maxwell:

Because, he gave them hope. He gave them life. He spoke words to them. He loved them unconditionally. And, really, if you’ll think back about it, when you think of Jesus and the lady, the Samaritan woman, and you think of Zacchaeus and all these people, even back then the religious people had a hard time with Jesus loving people that they just thought weren’t like, I don’t know, approachable or lovable.

And, I spoke at a pastor’s conference. Oh my gosh. And, I couldn’t help it because they were quite conservative and my opening statement was, “I have news for you and this will be hard on you, but Jesus loves Democrats and in fact He died for them. This is amazing. It’s just amazing. He gave his life up for them.”

And so, where we should be… Where we should be bringing a message of love and hope to people, we’re bringing a message of bias and disgust to people and we’re dividing lines that have never been… Should have never been divided. And, we began to think that putting laws of the land and getting on one side or the other was much more important than the good news, the real good news of loving people unconditionally.

So, your message is for the church and it’s for those who don’t go to church, not person of faith. You know how much I love you and care for you. Just, if you’ll read the book… The reason I want you… Here’s what I… I want people who are not people of faith to read the book. I want you to see how we really are.

Andy Stanley:

And, how we should be. Yeah.

John Maxwell:

Yeah. Yeah. If you read the book, you’re going to see that there are some of us, this is who we are and this is who we want to be. And, the book represents, I think, Christians as we would like to be and want to be seen, not what you see in actions all around you and that’s why I love the book. Christians need to read the book to get… Just to learn to be nice again and people who are not people of faith need to read the book to know that there are some of us that aren’t buying into that foolishness at all for any reason at any time.

Andy Stanley:

Yes. Yes.

John Maxwell:

We’re not… That’s not who we are, that’s not what we believe and that’s not what we do.

Andy Stanley:

Well, you made a point a minute ago I want to go back to, that whole question of why do we hate Democrats. The thing… Again, this is the part that is embarrassing and I don’t even know how to even say it. It’s just so baffling to me. Conservatively, 80% of African American Christians… 80% probably or more of African American Christians vote Democrat. And so, when I would watch white Republicans dismiss the entire evil Democrats, they hate the church, they hate, they hate. [inaudible 00:13:46] Wait, wait, wait, wait. You have just dismissed hundreds of thousands of our African American brothers and sisters.

John Maxwell:

Yes.

Andy Stanley:

Yeah.

Andy Stanley:

Who have embraced a faith that it’s virtually impossible to understand how they could ever embrace it to begin with based on their history in this country. So, I would listen to these. Whenever one side demonizes the other side, they’re showing their ignorance.

John Maxwell:

Yes.

Andy Stanley:

This is a group of people who just… Who isn’t… They’re either not being honest or they’re just not very smart. And so, to watch pastors and Christian leaders do this, I just didn’t have a category for it, so.

John Maxwell:

No. And, again, the love that we’re to share is for everyone and the moment that we start taking sides and putting winning a political something ahead of the love of Christ… The moment we do that, we automatically shut the door for half of the population at least.

Andy Stanley:

Right.

John Maxwell:

Not to even be open to the message, the good message of hope and faith that we have for them.

Andy Stanley:

Right.

John Maxwell:

We just shut the door and we basically disqualify and say this isn’t for you and that is so… And, there is nothing more un-Jesus than that. I can’t even. You know? If you follow the gospels… Andy, you know and I know. You follow the life of Jesus. The takeaway is how much he valued people.

Andy Stanley:

Yep.

John Maxwell:

I mean, he just valued people.

Andy Stanley:

The least valuable in his cultures.

John Maxwell:

[inaudible 00:15:17] Mm-hmm. That’s right. And, we devalue. We devalue people and that’s as non-Christian, non-Jesus-like as anything I know.

Andy Stanley:

Yep. And, the people who are not people of faith… Again, they may not know the Bible, but they know that about Jesus and they have every right in the world to hold us accountable to what we claim to believe. Again, that’s why I think the big loss in all of this is, again, not that they don’t believe what we believe. We seem to have proven the point that maybe we don’t believe what we say we believe and that just makes us hypocrites and it just confirms their suspicions. And it’s… Anyway, it’s… We’ve already covered all that. So, anyway.

Mark Cole:

Well, we’ve kind of covered too, Andy, but I want to come back to it because you… In the first part of the book… And, it’s marked up. I promise you this book marked me as well. In the first part of the book as a business leader, and I read this as a person profoundly disappointed in my faith as well, but I read it as a business person too. You wrote in the first part of this book about being on brand. Now, you were talking about being on Christianity, the brand. You also talked about finding common ground.

John and I, we have the responsibility of 43,000 coaches, speakers, trainers in 165 countries. You’re talking about diverse.

Andy Stanley:

Yeah.

Mark Cole:

And, I found myself as a business leader, like many of you business leaders will read this book, and I found myself, boy, we’re off brand on more than just our faith. We’re off brand as business leaders. Tell me the concept behind Not In It To Win It. I’m a competitive business leader. Right? I’m in it to win it.

Andy Stanley:

Yep. Yeah.

Mark Cole:

I want to win. There’s something about it, win, and yet you’re going, “Whoa. Whoa. Wait. Whoa, We’re not in it to win it.” Talk to me a little bit about the title of the book.

Andy Stanley:

Well, the title of the book is taken, and John touched on this, specifically from the posture that Jesus took in culture, that he was criticized from two or three different angles, two in particular, and each side tried to co-opt Jesus to be a part of their thing, just like Democrats and Republicans. And, I’m very politically active and I’m very conservative, so I tell our folks in our church all the time, run for office, get involved in local politics, vote every time you have an opportunity. So, this isn’t anti-political. This has to do with ultimate allegiance.

You know, in the first century, the message… Rome… Rome didn’t care who you worshiped as long as you obeyed Caesar. So, worship your gods, obey Caesar. And, then Christianity came along and for Christians it’s like, well, we have a problem with that because our ultimate allegiance is to a king, Jesus, and Jesus did not come to be co-opted by the existing parties. He came to start something brand new. So, consequently he wasn’t trying to win the way everybody else was trying to win. In fact… And, again, it’s so not intuitive but you got to read Jesus’ version of this. He actually came to lose on purpose with a purpose.

John Maxwell:

Yes.

Andy Stanley:

And, consequently, two thirds of the world’s population views him as divine today. So, in the end, he won, but he did not win by picking up what we would refer to as the tools and the posture and the attitudes of the kingdoms of this world. He came to do something completely different. So, he did not come to win it the way that we usually define winning it.

I think of it this way. Has anyone who’s married ever won an argument with their spouse? No. You have arguments. You don’t win. As soon as you begin arguing, you have lost, regardless of whether or not you make your point.

John Maxwell:

Yeah.

Andy Stanley:

Well, that is in some ways an illustration of what Jesus came to do. He said, I’m not even going to enter into those conversations and into that tension because I’ve come to do something that’s above and beyond that. Again, Jesus said we’re to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. That was his way of saying when someone considers you their enemy, you are not required to return the favor. In other words, you just don’t enter in to that point of conflict because as John said, for God so loved the world, which means he is for the world and I am to be for the people around me, which means I’m not here to win something. I’m actually here to love someone. And, that is a very different posture. It appears weak. It appears passive. The pushback for Americans is we don’t think that will, quote, work, but Jesus didn’t come to make it work. He came to do something different. So, that’s sort of a synopsis of where the title came from.

John Maxwell:

Amen.

Mark Cole:

[inaudible 00:19:50] Yeah, amen. You know, you guys both have a friend. He’s one of our Maxwell Leadership thought leaders, Tim Elmore, and he’s writing a book about the generational diversity, a new kind of diversity that organizations now have multiple generations working within it. In the faith community, there’s multiple generations. You make a point, Andy, that blew me away. John and I talked a little bit about this. You mentioned the faith of the next generation is always a casualty of a culture war where the church takes a leading role in the fray.

Andy Stanley:

Yeah.

Mark Cole:

What impact do you see this current culture war that we’re having have on the next generation?

Andy Stanley:

Well, I’ve sort of already said it. It’s that tweet. It’s like, “Hey, I know enough about Christianity and enough about Jesus to know Jesus wouldn’t react that way.” So, the minute… This is what I say in the book. The minute we step into these culture wars, we’ve already lost in terms of what God has called us to do and what Jesus modeled for us.

Again, as soon as I begin arguing with one of my kids, I’ve lost. Soon as I begin arguing with Sandra, I’ve lost. The minute I step into that ring to have that kind of conversation in order for there to be a winner and a loser, I’ve lost. Jesus said, hey, you gain the whole world, but you lose your soul. The minute we step into that, we lose. And, this is why it’s so amazing that on his way to Jerusalem to be crucified, Jesus says, “For the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give this life a ransom for me. I’m just not here for what everybody else is here for and I’ve invited you to follow me.” And, that makes communities a better place. It makes the world a better place. It makes a nation a better place.

John Maxwell:

You know, Andy, when you talked about him saying that in his last days on coming in to…

Andy Stanley:

Yeah.

John Maxwell:

What did he say? If you want to be first, you have to be last. You know what I mean? If you want to rule, you have to serve. He taught us a different world. He taught us a different way to live. And, the thing I think that hurts me the most is the fact that it all begins with valuing people right where they are and the moment that I don’t value you where you are, now I am putting conditional love on you and I’m creating barriers for you to never know the love of God.

Andy Stanley:

Mm-hmm.

John Maxwell:

And, the moment I value a person, the first thing I want to do is add value to them. That’s just the natural response of and do things that would add value to them. And, I think that when we don’t value people, we begin to draw these lines. I look at all these divisions and the fact that we value our opinion or our persuasion more than the other people and then it becomes personal and then we begin to degrade people and we create barriers for them never… To never again to know the good news. Who would want to know the good news that somebody that devalued you?

Andy Stanley:

Right.

John Maxwell:

There’s no… There’s nothing.

Andy Stanley:

[inaudible 00:22:58]

John Maxwell:

There’s nothing appetizing about… There’s nothing salt and light about that that makes things better and brighter for the culture.

Andy Stanley:

Yep. I say in the book the churches and leaders who politicized their organizations or their churches should just put a sign out front that says Republicans not welcome or Democrats not welcome.

John Maxwell:

Yeah. [inaudible 00:23:18]

Andy Stanley:

Why wait for them to get inside? Just go ahead and just put it out there. And, John, you touch on… You bring up another really big point. I don’t know if, Mark, you want to talk about this, but for those of you who are not people of any faith or a different faith, one of the problems you have with those of us who are Christians, and I get this, is we have a tendency to lead with our beliefs rather than leading, as John just said, with our values.

John Maxwell:

Yes.

Andy Stanley:

And, when you follow Jesus through the gospels, Jesus led with his values because he valued people. And, the thing that I have in common with my secular friends is we all value pretty much the same thing. We’re just trying to figure out how to leverage the value out of our lives and we just go out about it at different ways. But, we want our families to thrive. We want our kids to thrive. We want our kids to get educated. We want to eat and live indoors. I mean, the commonality of humanity is so rich.

So, I apologize on behalf of all the Christians you’ve met that felt like they had to lead with their belief because when you lead with your belief, and I… Or, I lead with my belief, we immediately have conflict and I feel devalued because what you’re communicating to me or I’m communicating to you that my belief system is better than yours, which makes me more valuable because I’m righter. Jesus never did that. The only time you catch Jesus doing that is with the religious leaders who were supposed to be leading with their values as well, but elevated themselves above the common people. But, you don’t catch Jesus doing that.

Consequently, again, as John said, people who were culturally separated from him by miles, physical miles and just cultural miles, they liked Jesus because they felt valued. And, again, this is what gets lost in the political division that we’re experiencing today. And, the church… From our perspective, the church should actually be leading the way in the other direction.

John Maxwell:

Yeah. Andy, let me just really quickly say… People come to me all the time and they say, “But, you say, John, you value me. But you don’t know me.” And, I say, “Oh, that’s true. I don’t know you, but I value you.” And, they say, “Well, how can you do that?.” Well, I say, “Because, God created you.”

Andy Stanley:

Yeah.

John Maxwell:

I mean, it’s very simple. The very fact that he created you, gave your life, gave you gifts, gave you purpose, tells me all I need to know about you. If God values you, I value you too. And, I think we’ve lost our way with going back to the reason that we are created in the beginning. So, it’s good stuff, right?

Mark Cole:

Hey, in chapter two, Andy, you make this quote and you said, “The sad truth is the fear fueling our division has been created, cultivated, and stoked by those who benefit from it.”

Andy Stanley:

Yep.

Mark Cole:

So, who is this that benefits from it specifically? And, then what should we do about people that are just sowing all this discord?

Andy Stanley:

Well, see, once again, smart people understand what’s going on and Christians, of all people, should understand what’s going on because we have a different king. We have a different ultimate allegiance. And, here’s what I mean by that. The people… I mean, we all want to eat and live indoors and make a living. So, there are people whose professions and because of what they do, they benefit from division. And so, here’s how it works. The goal is to make sure that you fear the other party because if they win, something bad’s going to happen to you. So, in politics… And, again, we should all know this by now. In politics, the goal is to never be winning. The goal is to always be losing. But you can help me win, which will help you. I mean, that is the message of politics. You can’t ever look like you’re winning. You have to look like you might lose and if we lose, do you know what they’re going to do to you? They’re going to take away your freedom. They’re going to take away this. They’re going to take away that. They’re going to come for your religious freedom. They’re going to come for your guns. They’re going to come for your schools.

So, by now we should all go, “Oh yeah. Oh yeah. There’s that.” But, you know what? We’re not going to give into that and we’re not going to run and we’re not going to be leveraged. We’re not going to be bribed by we’re not going to be manipulated by those messages because we know better. Because, when the political season is over, we all have to get together and build highways and schools and get along.

And so, again, that’s never going to change, but we should see through it and not give into it and when we give into it, we are divided. They benefit. I mean, say it a different way. You can’t raise any money in the middle and you can’t get a lot of followers in the middle. But, in the middle is where the problems are solved. So again, people want to gen us up, scare us into the extremes. They win, culture loses, the nation loses, the church loses. And, we should be smarter than that and better than that.

Andy Stanley:

John, I bet you have a comment on that.

John Maxwell:

Yes, I… You saw me. You saw me [inaudible 00:28:09].

Andy Stanley:

Yeah. I saw you coming.

John Maxwell:

Well, and I do. Democracy only works when you work in the middle.

Andy Stanley:

Exactly.

John Maxwell:

I mean, this is a huge mess.

Andy Stanley:

Right.

John Maxwell:

Democracy is beautiful when you get different perspectives to come out with the best and we don’t get that anymore. We don’t… We… Because, if problems are solved in middle, democracy works in the middle and so does Christianity and our faith. It all works in the middle where we have common ground and we start with common ground to build something. The only thing we’re building now is walls to divide us instead of common ground to unite us.

Andy Stanley:

Yep.

Mark Cole:

You know?

Andy Stanley:

And, again… Again, that’s the… And, I have plenty of friends that are in politics and I genuinely appreciate what they do. And, the other thing, Mark… John. You both know this. The majority of men and women who go into politics are doing great work.

John Maxwell:

Yes. [inaudible 00:29:08]

Andy Stanley:

They’re doing hard work. They actually get along with the people on the other side of the aisle from them. They go to lunch. They go to dinner. I mean, there is… When I spoke at the Georgia House not too long ago, afterwards, I would talk to our Georgia legislators and so many of them came up in pairs. “This is my friend. He’s so-and-so. He’s a Republican. I’m a Democrat. But, we get along.” There was so much of that.

But it’s at the national level. And, again, getting along doesn’t make the news. I was a journalism major at Georgia State University and I heard it a thousand times. Nobody cares how many Amtrak trains get to the station safely. Nobody cares. We want to know about the one that didn’t. It’s the exception to the rule. It’s the extremes that make the news. But again, that’s never going to change. But, we should know that. We should not be drawn into that and we certainly shouldn’t allow it to influence how we treat and talk to other people.

Mark Cole:

You’ve touched on… Both of you have touched on this, but I’m going to end the podcast with this question because I just want to offer hope, and I’m going to ask it in a slogan that feels political. Sorry about that. But, I’m going to ask it. Not just how can we make American great. But, I’m going to ask. This… John has such a global footprint, as do you, Andy. How do we make the world great? I mean, what is the way forward from both of your perspectives? Andy?

Andy Stanley:

Well, John alluded to it, so I’ll just read it. We make… And, by the way, for our listeners, y’all were gracious enough to send me some of these questions. How do we make America great? By adopting Jesus’ definition of great. It’s that simple. And, here’s his definition of great. He said to his disciples, “You know that those who regard themselves as the rulers and the leaders? You know how they lorded over everybody else and their high officials exercise authority over them and they used their authority to benefit from them, from it?” And, then he leaned into his followers and he said this. “Not so with you.”

John Maxwell:

That’s right.

Andy Stanley:

“You’re going to do it differently.” Instead, whoever wants to become great… You want to make America great? You want to make a community great? You want to make a family great? Whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant and whoever wants to be first must be the… And, this means nothing to us, but this sent… I mean, this sent chills to his disciples. Whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. A slave is someone who has given up their independence for the benefit of somebody else.

And, then he makes this statement I quoted a while ago. “For even.” [inaudible 00:31:36] He takes all their excuses away. Takes my excuse away. “For even the son of man has not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.” That’s the definition of great.

And, Mark and John… And, you know this. Here’s what’s amazing for everybody watching and listening. Anytime you see that level of servant leadership in business, the community, politics or in a family… Anytime you see someone do this, you admire it. We aspire to it because we know it’s the way forward. So, you want to make a family great, a community great, a business great? You just adopt Jesus’ model and Jesus’ definition of great. And, when we see it, we know it’s the way forward and we admire it.

John Maxwell:

100% agree, Andy. Underline everything you said. You said it so well. Thank you so much, my friend, for this book and just thank you for your life. You’re just a beautiful brother.

Andy Stanley:

Thank you, John.

John Maxwell:

And, this book… Just pick it up and read it. Just pick it up and read it and then ask God to help you to become salt and light, and he will. He will.

Mark Cole:

Well, it’s interesting, John. As some of our podcast listeners know, our family probably knows that when John and Margaret lived in Atlanta, now you know why John Maxwell called Andy Stanley his pastor. They kind of think the same as it relates to what it means to be a person of faith and how that should be so attractive to all of you that have not found a faith or don’t really get this whole faith community because of some of the poor decisions we’ve all made. Now you know why these two have joined up for many things because we’re not in it to win it. We’re in it to add value and to create an environment to where you too, podcast listener, podcast viewer, feels valued.

So, just in closing today, thank you for being a part of something John and I got passionate about, which is this book Not in It to win it by Andy Stanley. Again, you can go to our show notes. We’ll have a link where you can order not one, not two, but an entire team’s worth of books. Go to maxwellpodcast.com/andy. The next thing I want you to do is I want you to hear more from Andy. You’re going to love it. John and Andy have teamed up on his podcast as well. Go to Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast.

And, finally, we’ve developed a Maxwell Leadership app and that app is for you to be able to listen to podcasts like this, be able to listen to A Minute with Maxwell each and every day. Go to the app store, your favorite app store. You’ll be able to search the Maxwell Leadership app and we will partner with you because here’s what I know. Just like John and Andy have given their lives to bring powerful, positive change, we too want you in the Maxwell Podcast family to do that powerful, positive change because everyone deserves to be led well.