What I’ve Learned as a Leader

Jan. 25

Part 1 in a series by Steve Long, Catch The Fire Toronto Ambassador

My Journey as a Leader

Leaders are both born and raised. Some come from families where skill sets to lead come second nature. Others learn to lead through university courses and life experiences. I inherited skills from both camps. I've been in Christian ministry and various forms of leadership for over 40 years. I have learned a few things! What to do and what not to do.

On top of these, there is a spiritual gift of leadership called the apostolic. Once it kicks in, people with this gift have a unique God-given ability to lead. The apostolic isn't limited to faith-based leaders. Most business leaders have this gift too.

Before I share with you some of the things I've learned as a leader, let me take you on my journey to becoming a leader.

For some, leading people, managing, and making decisions come easy. For others, it is hard work. I live on the easy side. I'm not saying that leading is easy, but it comes naturally to me.

I've been blessed to have a mother who grew up in a prestigious family. Way back, my heritage in England was knights. My mother's maiden name was Knight. Her siblings were bankers, professors, etc. My grandpa was an entrepreneur. He owned businesses and a football team that produced movies and travelled the world.

As a child, whenever I faced a problem and wanted to quit, my mother would remind me of the story of a little train engine that "could." I hated that story as a kid. But my mother encouraged me to persevere and conquer the issue. She was a great leader and my first inspiration.

My dad's family was the opposite. My grandfather had post-traumatic stress disorder after he came to Canada from Scotland following the First World War. My dad grew up in Scarborough, in poverty. My dad learned to be an overcomer. He taught his kids about tithing, being generous, and being grateful.

Despite my parent's low income as church planters, we lived well above our means due to these principles. My parents started a church in Pickering Beach, the poor part of Ajax, ON. I never knew we were poor because my parents acted as if we were rich. We took vacations every year when none of my friend's families did.

At age 18, I knew there was a call from God on my life to be in Christian ministry. I eventually enrolled in a Baptist Bible Seminary, where I was trained to lead a church of 100 people. I was fortunate that opportunities came my way to begin to think outside those limitations.

I began to read books on the science of growing a church. I took specialty courses on leadership with people like John Maxwell. I travelled to be a part of conferences where big-picture people like Zig Zigler were presenters. Something in me knew I needed to be ready for more.

The first time a prophet said the word "apostle" as it related to my life was perhaps 30 years ago. I wasn't sure what one of those was. But my spirit did, and I embraced the thought that this meant leadership.

In 1993, before the revival that began in January 1994, I took a course at our church on hearing God's voice (Mark Virkler was the presenter). Soon after, I heard the Lord say differently in my journaling related to Sandra and me moving to a different church from my Baptist church.

My journaling went something like this. "Jesus, should I take the church job in Kingston, Ontario?" I heard "NO!" I wrote that down in shock, followed by, "What?" I hadn't expected that answer. In a panic, I then wrote, "Then where?"

This time I felt the Lord say to me that I was to "serve John and Carol Arnott for the rest of my life." Again, I wrote, "What?"

My two accountability mentors for journaling felt the next step was easy. Could you talk to John Arnot and see if he has a job for you? And so, I did. John knew me but didn't really. The long story is that after he blew me off (despite me paying for breakfast), I took one more shot at getting his attention.

I said, "John, the Lord asked me to help you to accomplish your vision. That's why I'm here." I don't remember John's response, but I shocked him. He went home from breakfast and told Carol, "I've just found the answer to our prayer request!"

It turns out that in 1993 John and Carol were spending their mornings with the Lord. They prayed most days for the Lord to send them someone "to help them accomplish their vision." I had just quoted their prayer to them.

The following week, they offered for Sandra and me to join their leadership team. It was June 1993, before the revival. John was in year five of starting Catch the Fire (we used to be called Toronto Airport Vineyard Christian Fellowship). John wasn't taking a salary, and there was no money for us either. We delayed saying yes until there was a salary for the job.

Then Father God showed up. A full-out revival that touched the nations happened in our church. We hosted something like 4 million people over 12 years. Every week people came for the nightly revival meetings. Leaders worldwide came—faith leaders, business leaders, politicians, entertainers, etc.

Someone was needed to organize all this on behalf of John and Carol. That, someone, was me. On day 10 of the revival, I was volunteered by John Freel, my senior leader in the Baptist church, to be on loan to John Arnott until they could pay my salary.

Sandra and I officially joined the leadership team in June 1994. Sandra served in kids' church with upwards of 90 pre-schoolers in the Ark. I organized the teams needed for the nightly meetings. I also hosted 3 of the meetings each week for ten years. I was learning to lead on behalf of John and Carol.

In 2004, John and Carol and our leadership team responded to several prophetic words about the revival needing to change. Instead of hosting people, we were to train and release people to return to their churches, jobs, and cities with a revival culture and a new set of kingdom values.

So, the process began of Catch the Fire becoming a church again, rather than being a "Christian Disneyland." In part of that process, Sandra and I were asked to step away from the revival meetings to focus on raising leaders, primarily via connect groups.

We did that and loved it. Many of those connect group leaders went on to become campus pastors. Catch the Fire Toronto has started 25 churches in the GTA and across Canada. Sandra and I have also helped to coach church plants in cities such as Manchester, UK, Myrtle Beach, Houston, and Orlando in the States, and Halifax, Moncton, Saskatoon, Kelowna, etc., in Canada.

The next significant shift was sixteen years ago. John and Carol Arnott met with us and asked if we would become the Senior Leaders. We said yes because doing this was a part of what the Lord has said to me; to serve John and Carol for the rest of my life. We now were serving them by leading the church they started.

So here we are now, 16 years later. Sandra and I are turning the senior leadership role over to Murray and Ash Smith. We step into a new position, actually two functions.

First, we will become Ambassadors of Catch the Fire Toronto church. We will serve Ash and Murray and be like grandparents to the church. We expect to be in Toronto on average 2 Sundays per month.

Our second role is that we are now coaching our 50-ish Catch the Fire Partner churches in the UK, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. That will take us away from Toronto on average 3 Sundays every two months. We will be helping leaders become better leaders.

At least that's the plan!

Here are two simple things I've learned.

1. It is more important to be led by the Spirit than by opinions.

Being a people pleaser is a quick way to fail in leadership and ministry. As a follower of Jesus, all of my best decisions have come because I've learned to hear the voice of God and be led by the Spirit of God.

Everyone has an opinion when it comes to making a decision. The easy thing is to read the room, find out what most think is right, and then act. I do lean on the advice of others. I do research. But at the end of the day, I ask the Lord to speak to me about what to do.

An example is the building we call our home, the Attwell Centre. (I think you didn't know that our venue has a name and a website for when we host corporate events.)

In November 1994, we were about to have a prophetic conference, and we'd booked half of a convention room at the former Constellation Hotel. We were expecting about 1500 people. I had a dream one night where Jesus walked me through what happens when you are bumped from a hotel contract.

Jesus gave me a scenario where the hotel would say our venue would not be available. He told me in the dream what questions to ask, what compensation to expect, etc. Then at the end of the dream, Jesus said, "That's going to happen. Be by your phone at 9 am!"

At 9:02 am the next day, my desk phone rang, and it was the Constellation Hotel. They told me the group in the other half of the conference room could also use our side. They were exercising that option, and we were out. Calmly I went one by one through the topics Jesus and I had discussed in the dream. The hotel said yes to everything!

They moved us to the Attwell Centre, where we are now. And as the Lord had it, this venue was perfect for conferences and a growing revival.

The short form of this story is that we never moved out after that conference. Our previous venue maxed at 300 seats, and our lease was up. We could lease the Attwell Centre, which sat 5000, for the same price. Only God! (2600 is now our capacity due to our renovations of adding a stage, bathrooms, green room, café, coffee shop, a welcome center for newcomers, nursery, ark, etc.)

Being led by the Spirit has helped me over and over again in making important decisions for our church family. We are debt free as a congregation primarily because of decisions made due to being led by the Spirit of God.

2. Courage is the separator between leaders and great leaders.

I'm constantly shocked that when Joshua was about to become the leader of Israel after Moses of how many times, he was told to be "strong and courageous." I think that phrase is used 12 times in the Bible, and eight are directed to him.

But he was courageous already. He had been one of the 12 spies. Only he and Caleb spoke up against the other ten who said this "promised" land wasn't for the taking. When the people saw giants, Joshua and Caleb saw a bigger God!

Joshua is then Moses' chief of staff for the next 40 years. He was the number two guy in leading several million people. He lived in the Tent of Meeting, where God would speak to Moses.

But somehow, when it was Joshua's time to lead, he needed to be reminded over and over to be "strong and courageous." Had he lost his edge, become complacent, or was it a word from the Lord about what it takes to be a great leader: courage?

Everyone will have an opinion on what to do during a crisis or even in good times. But nations are not led by committees. The stockholders don't lead Fortune 500 companies. Churches aren't led by everyone having a vote. Great churches, such as ours, are led by men and women of courage.

Sandra and I don't lead in a vacuum. We do have a great leadership team around us. We have a solid board of directors full of faith and wisdom. We also have mentors such as John and Carol Arnott, who we run every big decision through.

But in the end, the leader needs the courage to make the decision! That was our role!

I've told this story before. A recession hit the world in 2008-2009 and caught us as a ministry. We had almost 75 staff, and we were doing good stuff all over the world; starting churches, doing missions, magazines, daily TV, etc. Somehow, we found ourselves in a perfect storm with an unmanageable debt load. Our bank was about to step in and take over the day-to-day management.

Tough decisions were made to cut staff size, stop the TV and magazine, etc. When Sandra and I became the Senior Leaders, we inherited a short-term debt of almost $1,000,000. These were bills overdue past 90 days. On top of that were mortgage payments of $13,000 per month.

Sandra and I gathered our pastors for a night of prayer. We repented, asked God for mercy, forgave debts others owed us, rebuked the devourer, etc. As we were leaving and shutting off the lights at the end of the evening, I heard the Lord audibly speak to me.

We were with Jeremy and Connie Sinnott, our former Worship Pastors and now Senior Leaders of Catch the Fire Barrie. As we walked by the staircase to the upper level, I heard the Lord say, "Invest in the anointing!"

I knew what He meant. We were to hire John and Patricia Bootsma as campus pastors for our Airport location. (At that time, we had eight campuses/venues, which have since become church plants.) We were also to hire an unproved straight university worship leader by the name of Jonathan Clarke.

In the face of cutting staff, shutting down ministries, and a spending freeze, we hired three key people. That took courage. But it was the right decision. We were caught up in paying our bills on time three years later! Father God rewarded our courage, I believe.

John and Patricia were excellent leaders and stewards of the presence of God, allowing Sandra and me to spend most of our time raising the campus pastors. They were with us for seven years before becoming the coaches for our church leaders in Canada and the US.

Jonathan Clarke, who married Alice within a year, gave us ten years rather than the three he promised. They took us to new levels of worship. During this season with the Bootsmas and Clarkes, we developed our vision statement of Encounter God's Transforming Presence.

Courage!