31 How to Lead When You’re Not in Charge with Author and Pastor, Clay Scroggins
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Laura Dugger: Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host, Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here.
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Today is going to be a special episode because my husband, Mark Dugger, is going to join as a co-host today, and our guest is Clay Scroggins.
Mark Dugger: Clay and I go back to our days at Georgia Tech. I always remember Clay being an impressive leader, but he's since gone on to be the lead pastor for North Point Community Church's campus in Alpharetta, Georgia.
He has recently come out with a new book titled, How to Lead When You're Not in Charge: Leveraging Influence When You Lack Authority. We're really excited to talk with Clay today.
Laura Dugger: Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, Clay.
Clay Scroggins: Thank you, Laura. It's a pleasure to get to be here. Thanks. [00:01:25]
Laura Dugger: Well, are you willing just to start us off by sharing a bit about your journey before coming on staff with North Point?
Clay Scroggins: Sure. I have done a few podcasts along this process of writing a book, but I have not done one with someone that I have known as long as Mark Dugger. So I have to be super truthful and honest about my background.
Mark Dugger: We're going to be double-checking everything.
Clay Scroggins: No, I'm not actually tempted to lie, but I do have to be extra honest. So yeah, I grew up in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Great family, parents that were loving and terrific and, older sister, younger sister. So I am the only boy with an older sister, younger sister. I felt very comfortable in shopping malls. They do a lot of shopping those two.
Moved to Atlanta in 1998 to go to Georgia Tech. That's where me and Mark met. Go Jackets. Mark was one of the most sought-after recruits in the Georgia Tech fraternity system in 2000. [00:02:30]
I majored in industrial and systems engineering. I was not very good at it. I say this about my situation, and it's not a joke. This actually happened. I knew I was going to do professional ministry. I knew I wanted to be a pastor, I don't know, maybe at least halfway through my college experience. So I was trying to finish this engineering degree, and it was not going very well. There were some classes that I felt like I needed to take over again just because I hadn't started the content yet, and the school agreed.
So I'm in the registrar's office telling this lady, "Ma'am, I really need to get out of here." At Georgia Tech, you don't say you graduated. You say, "What year did you get out?" So I said to her, I said, "Look, I don't even want to be an engineer. I just need to get this degree because I'm trying to go to grad school." I said, "Why don't we do a deal? You will promise to give me this degree, I will promise to never use it." That was the exchange we made and an agreement was reached. [00:03:32]
I ended up passing those classes, finished Georgia Tech in 2003, promptly moved to Dallas Theological Seminary in Dallas, Texas, which is where I met my gorgeous, lovely, awesome, amazing wife, Jenny. We got married and moved to Atlanta. It was back to Atlanta for me, but it was a big deal for Jenny because she grew up in Texas. I was raised in Texas, went to college in Texas, so to move to Atlanta was a pretty significant move.
I started working at North Point Community Church. I did student ministry for about five years, and then I have been a campus pastor for the last eight years. And the last four of those, I've been at North Point Community Church, which is our original campus.
We have five kids. We've got a nine, seven, five, three, and a one-year-old, and we are having a great time. A lot of activity, but a lot of good, a lot of exciting things. That's my life. [00:04:34]
Laura Dugger: That's an incredible backstory. Now moving on to your book, Mark and I have both read this. Great job, by the way.
Clay Scroggins: Thank you.
Laura Dugger: Who would you say is your target audience? And what is one main thing that you want them to walk away with after completing your book?
Clay Scroggins: I never set out to write a book, definitely did not set out to write a leadership book. But Andy's got this, Andy Stanley, my boss, actually my boss's boss, he's got a bunch of things that he says often. But one of the things that I feel like has really shaped our organization, our church, is that we are not responsible to fill up the cups of other people, we're just responsible to empty our own.
That's the way we try to lead, and it's the way we try to live, and it's the way we try to operate as a church. So this book was really just an opportunity for me to empty my cup and here's everything I know about my professional journey. [00:05:37]
Honestly, I wrote it for people like myself. I wrote it for people who were in a church context who were trying to get their senior pastor to do church the way they thought it needed to be done. Throughout the process, I started realizing that church people, pastoral people, are not the only kinds of people that feel this tension of authority deprivation, but it's really.. I mean, it's rampant in every organization.
So it's been an interesting process because I think writing it for a church audience, I thought that's who would be the audience. But as it turns out, most of the speaking stuff that I've done as a result of the book has been to business leaders, non-profit organizations, for-profit organizations. And that's been a whole lot of fun.
To answer your question, what do I want for people? My hope would be that if somebody could read this book or digest some of the content, it would allow someone to be able to get to the point where they really could believe that influence is what leadership really is, and it would equip them enough to where they would feel like they could be dropped into any organization at any level at any point in time and make a difference, move an idea forward, or make a change, or create positive impact. That's what I hope for people. [00:06:54]
Mark Dugger: And I love that your book is written in Clay Scroggins, meaning that it's in your language. I can definitely hear you speaking it as it's written.
Clay Scroggins: Oh, well, thank you. Honestly, I think I wrote about two or three chapters. I have my boss to credit for that because I sent him a couple of the chapters and he came by my office a couple days later and he's like, "Hey, I read the chapters you sent me. It's good, it's good. You need to be you. You need to just be yourself." And I was like, "Huh."
I mean, I don't have a problem being myself, but I think originally I just thought, Oh, I need to sound like a leadership person. And I'm not really a leader. I mean, I enjoy having a good time and enjoy laughing and I'm not super serious most of the time. I thanked him in the little acknowledgement section up front because I feel like it was so significant for me to get to the point where I could go, "Okay, I've got to be me. I can't write like I think a leadership book is supposed to be."[00:07:52]
Now the book, I've had numerous people who've said, hey, I was at a pilot truck stop or a Flying J truck stop and I saw your book. I think initially that kind of made me cringe because no one ever dreams about being in a truck stop. But I really fancy it as helpful leadership content for the average person. That's what it is.
Mark Dugger: That's awesome. I've started recommending this as a resource to my team at our Chick-fil-A restaurant. How large is your organization to give some context at North Point?
Clay Scroggins: So we're in Atlanta, we have six churches in the Atlanta area, and we have about 600 employees all in. At the campus that I lead, we have about 110 employees. On any given Sunday, we'll have 10 or 11,000 people at the location that I'm at. In total, we'll have, I don't know, maybe like 30, 32,000 at all of our campuses on a Sunday. So it is a large... You know, from a business side, I would say it's mid-sized business. But it's definitely a large church in the church world. [00:09:02]
Mark Dugger: Wow. So in that large of an organization, when you're talking about this idea of leveraging influence when you lack authority, how do you incorporate that into your organization's culture?
Clay Scroggins: Well, I can't take credit for implementing this as an organization. I would say this began by me personally going, Okay, I don't know that I can make other people do this, but I know for me, in order for me to be able to have influence... I mean, it started as a selfish thing. If I'm going to get people to listen to what I think we ought to do, then I've got to learn to cultivate influence with them because I don't have authority over them.
I would say it began more of a personal journey or voyage for myself. And then I think over time, what happens is people start to see, okay, well, he's not in charge of everything, but he shifted the plans for next Sunday or even the plans for next year or the agenda for, you know, how we're going to operate. And so maybe I can as well.
I think what I've learned is that modeling it, I mean, that's the most effective way to change a culture anyway. And it's really the only place to begin is to say, hey, well, I can't change everything, but what I can change, what I'm most in charge of is myself. So I think it begins with me. It begins with you. It begins with each of us as individuals. [00:10:19]
I don't remember what chapter it is now. Maybe one of the first chapters, I call it the Oasis of Excellence, that every one of us has to figure out what am I most in charge of? Just because you're not in charge doesn't mean you can't take charge. And every one of us is in charge of something. And what every one of us is definitely in charge of is me, is ourself, is my own agency as a person. You got to start there by modeling.
Then secondly, you know, celebrating it in other people is another important way to help others see that this is of value. At every staff meeting we have, I try to bring up an example of someone who changed something that they weren't in charge of. Because to me, that's the greatest way that you know the culture is being affected by influence and not authority is when you see people who do not have authority over an area, but they're making changes in that area or they're influencing change in that area.
I try to bring that up and celebrate it and say, hey, Here's another example of somebody who's doing something. I mean, here's a simple example, but we didn't take Martin Luther King the day in January that we celebrate Dr. King's life. We didn't do anything to honor him last year. [00:11:34]
The more we started thinking about diversity and who we're trying to be and how we can serve every kind of person that's in the Alpharetta area, we had a person on our team that brought it up and said, Hey, let's do something in 2019 to celebrate Dr. King's birthday. And they brought some solutions. "Here's some options."
They just sent out the calendar last week for 2019, what are the days that we're going to be working and the days when we have off and MLK day was on there as a day we're taking off. So I celebrated that person saying, Hey, look, that is a great example of someone who was not in charge of it, but they leveraged influence in such an appropriate and terrific way that they made something happen, which is great.
Laura Dugger: That kind of makes me think of another question. Because now that your book has been out for over a year, what other stories have you collected from people who have read your book and applied these concepts? [00:12:32]
Clay Scroggins: You know, the most common feedback I get, and a lot of times people are emotional about this, is, Hey, I work for a difficult boss, and this book has really helped me see my job differently. Because I think, you know, most of our tendencies is when it gets difficult, we find the escape route. Sometimes that's not the best... sometimes that is the best option and sometimes we need to leave.
But I think the most common story I get is just people who said, hey, I don't really like my boss and it's been really hard and I read this book and it was just really challenging and it gave me inspiration to really figure out how to lead up better.
Then my favorite story of someone else doing this is actually the Chick-fil-A example that I put in the book about Shane Todd leveraging influence to be able to get the milkshake started, the Chick-fil-A milkshake, which I praise God for on a regular basis. [00:13:37] I mean, honestly, that's my favorite story, but that's not... I put that in the book.
Laura Dugger: Well, and if somebody hasn't read the book yet, do you mind just sharing that story?
Clay Scroggins: Yeah, for sure. Mark, I would love your opinion on the story as someone who is an operator. That story was so impactful to me because... so we're a multi-site church, and we have a central organization. So functionally, we operate very similar to probably the way you feel as an operator at Chick-fil-A.
There are certain things that I can do as a campus pastor, and there are certain things that I just can't do. Now, Andy Stanley, the way he leads, he's a very empowering boss. So if he heard me say there are things that I can't do, that would really frustrate him. And he would say, "What? Tell me something you cannot do." Because he really wants to have a culture where if you think there's something that you should do that would be the best way to operate or to lead, that's what you need to do. [00:14:33]
Ideally, that is true, but obviously, we're working in an organization where there's multiple locations, there are things naturally that I can't do. An example would be, you know, if I wanted to have a service next week that was an hour and 15 minutes, that would create a big problem for us because we've decided together as a group that we're going to have services that are 60 to 65 minutes long.
Now, there's a reason why. One of the reasons is because we want volunteers to have a great experience. And when volunteers serve longer than 65 minutes, we've just found that it just changes the dynamic of a volunteer. I would imagine in the Chick-fil-A world, there are things you can do and things you can't do.
When I first heard about this Shane Todd example, I asked Shane, I said, "Shane, so you helped get the milkshake started. Tell me more about that." And he said, "Well, first of all," and I love what he started with, he said, "This was not a pizza. This was not a hamburger. He said, honestly, if it were a chicken wing, I would have said no, but milkshake is so close to the ice cream that we already had. It was really on brand, I guess you could say. That was really helpful." [00:15:39]
Then he tells the story about how loads of people would come and say, "Hey, we want a milkshake, want a milkshake. When are you going to have a milkshake?" It would have been real easy for him to blame the central organization and say, "Well, our menu strategy team is, you know, they're so frustrating because they don't get us the products that people really want. We've brought it up to them, and they've said no, and we're so mad, so sorry, we don't have a milkshake, but it's their fault."
But he didn't do that. He said, "Okay, well, enough people have asked for it." And he had built enough trust within the organization that he decided, I'm going to start giving it a try. So he started making milkshakes at his store that were, in a way, unsanctioned, I guess. He even said this was before social media was really huge. So he said even now would be so much more difficult because he tried to keep it quiet because he knew if he broadcast and told everybody about it, they would eventually go... Basically what happens other stores starts to go, "Well, if Shane can do a milkshake, why can't I do it?" [00:16:32] And the next thing you know Chick-fil-A's got a hundred different milkshakes happening in hundred different stores. And that's not a good thing.
So he basically created a product that was good enough... And he was even humble enough to say, "Hey, the product that we have now is so much better than what we were serving initially but we found a way to do a milkshake in a pretty expedient way." He knew that the worry or the concern that people were going to have was the speed of it. Could you serve milkshakes and not back up the drive-through? I thought that was really important that he was aware of that.
Then he had this duel where Tim Tassopoulos, who's now I guess the president of Chick-fil-A, at the time was the VP of menu strategy, came by his store and he said, "Let's see how fast these things really are." So he told Tim, "Why don't you make two Diet Cokes and I'm going to make a milkshake and we'll see who can finish faster."
When I asked Shane, I said, "Shane, why did you do Diet Cokes? What's up with that?" He said, "Because it creates the most fizz." And I thought, "Oh, dirty dog. That was awesome." Sure enough, he made the milkshake quicker than Tim made his two Diet Cokes, and the rest as they say is history. [00:17:39]
But I thought it was just a good example of not blaming, not being a victim, not being rogue, and being completely belligerently insubordinate. But it was a great way of using what he could do to create something new under authority. Mark, what's your opinion of that situation that Shane had?
Mark Dugger: I think your take is a great one. It's very difficult in an organization where you have over 1,500 entrepreneurs who want to drive results and have different ideas on how things might be done in the best way. And so, you've kind of been given a framework, but everyone has the same values, understands the culture, and understands the end goal. So it ends up resulting in, you know, examples like this, the milkshake. Actually, the creation of Chick-fil-A sauce is the same idea or very similar story to that.
Clay Scroggins: That happened at a store.
Mark Dugger: It did.
Clay Scroggins: Wow. That's the best sauce.
Mark Dugger: The rest of the world is blessed.
Clay Scroggins: That's right. [00:18:39] Another example would be the father-daughter, the date night. I think it happened at a store first as well, right?
Mark Dugger: Definitely. There's a lot of ideas like that, especially with different events that have happened across the board.
Laura Dugger: And there's a Chick-fil-A saying we say, it's better to restrain Mustangs than kick mules.
Mark Dugger: That's what Truett always said. He just always wanted to recruit those Mustangs and just keep them going, but, you know, might need some restraint along the way.
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Mark Dugger: One of the examples I love in your book, Clay, you talk about before you took on this role, how you did some 360 review feedback, and you found out from some others how you could do things differently before you took on this big leadership role and this big jump. Why is this so important within your organization's culture at North Point to promote self-awareness, to learn more about yourself?
Clay Scroggins: This book revolves around four behaviors that I've been trying to implement in my own life. The first one is to lead yourself well, that most of us get real frustrated at what my boss is not doing or what my boss is doing too much of. And we blame the boss. [00:20:43] "Oh, if only the boss would pay more attention to me, then I could really lead."
The truth is, you can be well-led even with a bad boss. You can lead yourself really well. Part of leading yourself well is taking up that responsibility to get as much feedback about yourself as possible, because there's information orbiting around your world that could help you. There are things that if you knew it about yourself, it would make you a better spouse, it would make you a better parent, it would make you a better friend, it would make you a better employee and it would make you a better leader.
But too often we associate that feedback with our identity or we connect it too closely to ourselves basically. We attach ourself to it and so any feedback just naturally we receive it as rejection. I would say the better we can disassociate ourselves from feedback the more willing we are to go seek feedback.
So for me an example of that. In our world, we do a lot of three sixty evaluations, 360 meeting. Your boss, your peers and then people that in a sense would work for you. So whether that's direct reports or even... In our world pretty much everyone has volunteers that work for them to some capacity and so it would be getting feedback from all of those people. To go, "Hey how are you leading the people that you do have authority over? How are you leading your peers and how are you leading your boss? [00:22:07]
There are tools that you can use for 360s that are very expensive. The ones that I found to be the most beneficial are ones that you can really just choose to do on your own. So about four years ago, I was changing jobs. I was in the middle of a move. I was going from one of our campuses, Browns Bridge Church, to the job I'm in now, North Point. And I had read a book by Michael Watkins called First 90 Days. It's really a book on job transitions, which, if you're not in a job transition, doesn't sound like a very helpful book. But if you're in a job transition, it's about the most helpful book imaginable, because it's so specific to what you're going through.
One of the things he says to do is he says, hey, leverage this opportunity to get a lot of feedback from where you're coming from, because people are just more likely to give you feedback when you're leaving than they would when you're there. I think that's just natural. You know, you're on your way out, so now they're gonna unload everything they always wanted to say perhaps.
So I had a friend of mine facilitate it for me. [00:23:08] This person sent out the email on my behalf, said, "Hey Clay's asked me to help him with this review that he's doing, would you answer these three questions?" Number one, what does he do that inspires you? What does he do that bothers you? And what does he not know about himself?" Which is another way of asking, what are his blind spots?
The feedback I got was just tremendously helpful. There was a lot of positive feedback. We tend to diminish or forget the positive feedback. But the themes that I took from it were so helpful because it helped me see, here's where I need to grow. I mean, for instance, people said, Hey, when you're in meetings or even meetings that you're supposed to be leading, we've noticed that sometimes you're not prepared. I know I'm not prepared for the meeting. I just was hoping that my personality or my ability to think on my feet would be able to overcome that. And they basically were saying, it's not overcoming that — you're still unprepared.
So that was really good because it was just such an obvious challenge to go, Hey, I need to adjust my schedule. I need to change my life to be able to make room to be able to prepare for what's coming or what's going to be happening in the day. [00:24:15]
That was just one example of a change that I would not have been able to make if I didn't have the knowledge, if I didn't have the data. And the information, the feedback, it just made it painfully obvious, hey, this is a change that if you want to get better, this is a change that needs to be made in your life.
The same thing is true for every person listening. There are things in your life that you would be better for knowing it, and it would really help you to know exactly how to lead yourself.
Laura Dugger: What would you say to the listener that's thinking about this question, but they might be pushing back, saying, well, self-awareness kind of sounds selfish?
Clay Scroggins: Yeah, I can understand that. There's certainly a difference between focusing on yourself, and then I would call it self-care. All of us need to do the things that are habits that we have to care about ourselves. Obviously, there's a danger because we could become too focused on ourselves that all we think about is ourselves. So allowing the vision that Jesus really put in front of us to be what drives us, which is to love God above everything else, to love others as much as we love ourselves.
That's an important distinction about this. That anything I do to make me better, anything God allows to happen in my life to make me better, the reason he's allowing it is so that I can ultimately help someone else. Isn't that the corporate mission of Chick-fil-A? To glorify God by serving other people, something like that, isn't it? [00:25:33]
Laura Dugger: I love your knowledge on Chick-fil-A. It's awesome.
Mark Dugger: The corporate purpose is to glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that's been entrusted to us and have a positive influence on all who come in contact with Chick-fil-A.
Clay Scroggins: I love that.
Mark Dugger: So yeah, you're right there, Clay. That's awesome.
Clay Scroggins: Well, I love that it's not just to make me better. It's not just for me to get more out of life, but it really is to have that positive impact on other people. Ultimately, that's what Feedback has got to do. That it's got to have a purpose in the end and the purpose is ultimately to lift up everybody else around you.
I've heard a leadership guru say often that Everyone wins when the leader gets better. And that's just true. That everyone feels the benefit of improvement that happens in your own life. So yes, I think there's always a temptation to make it about yourself and to make it a way to fixate on yourself. But at the same time, if we don't, if we ignore it, we're missing huge opportunities to get better as a leader so that we can help others. [00:26:32]
Mark Dugger: There's so many practical tips in the book. One of them that especially stood out to me was this idea of champion publicly and challenge privately. Do you mind kind of elaborating on that and talk about how that comes out in the organization?
Clay Scroggins: Probably the best thing that happened through this whole process for me was the simple question of what am I doing that's cultivating influence and what am I doing that's costing me influence. And if anybody listening to this gets nothing else out of this, if you ask that simple question and do the work to answer it honestly, it will help you.
There are things you're doing that those behaviors are cultivating influence for you. They're causing people to trust you more and to want to listen to you more. And then on the flip side, there are things that you're doing that you might not even realize that have a cost to them, they're withdrawing influence.
The book was really meant to go, okay, well, what are those things? And the challenge is so many of those things are personal. You know, there are things that Mark that you do to cultivate influence or Laura that you do to cultivate influence that they're things that I just... they wouldn't be as instinctual for me because of my temperament and my wiring. And then on the flip side, they're things that I do that other people don't do. [00:27:42]
Obviously, I can't list them all and they're also unique to each person, but I tried to give some, hey, here are some general things that you've got to remember, particularly when you're not in charge, particularly when you're thinking about: how do I cultivate influence with my boss?
I've just learned that anytime you challenge someone, which if you want to change anything, you have to challenge someone. So, you know, you can't resist challenge. You can't avoid challenge, but you've got to learn how to do it the right way.
I know with my boss, I've just found that doing that in a meeting in front of other people... and it's dependent on the size of the meeting. If it's just the six campus pastors and our immediate boss, we've got a pretty trusting relationship where we can have open and honest debate. But if the meeting gets beyond that, if it gets bigger than that, anything I do to challenge my boss in that meeting feels like... I always use the term "it's like you're pantsing your boss. It's like you're pulling your boss's pants down in front of everyone, which that's just not going to cultivate influence. [00:28:47] That's obviously going to cost you.
So really learning how to champion what your boss is trying to do in front of other people and then using that relationship with your boss as the place to approach your boss with those more challenging things.
Mark Dugger: I love how practical that is. Another thing that we have to ask about, just because I know you get to work really closely with Andy Stanley, could you just share maybe two or three things that you've learned from your experience and working alongside him?
Clay Scroggins: Sure. I mean, it is one of the greatest privileges for me. I mean, he is a world-class leader and there's so much to be learned from him. He's a real person in every sense of the word. He really believes what he preaches and he's the real deal. He's a pretty easy person to follow.
Most of the feedback I get from the book or most of people's objections are, well, Andy Stanley sounds like a great boss. I wish you could meet my boss because he's not near as great or she's not near as great. [00:29:47] But the point of this book was not, "Hey, here's how great it is to work for Andy Stanley." It's really, you can apply these principles with a great boss or with a bad boss. Either way, it's going to help you. And not applying the principles under a bad boss or a great boss, on the flip side, that's not going to help you either.
So a couple of things I've learned from Andy. Number one, he listens really, really well. He listens really deeply into the organization. He has a couple of different things that he does as a system for this. Number one, he has a leadership team, and not everyone reports to him. I would say less than half of the meeting reports to him. But he meets with this team on a weekly basis to be able to really hear what's going on inside the organization.
Secondly, he does these 90-day or year reviews. Basically, if you've been in your role for 90 days, he's just got a pretty simple system in place where you get an email sent to you saying, "Hey, here's about five questions that I want to know about. Have you seen anything that's odd? Is there anything that you don't have that you need to do your job well? Is there anything that's not aligned or out of place that you've seen?" And it's basically a way to say, hey, you're brand new, you have the freshest eyes, and so tell me what you see.
And he really takes those seriously. He definitely reads them and definitely responds to them when people have difficult or challenging or even easy ways to make the organization better. He's a very admirable listener in that way. [00:31:14]
Then, I mean, the other thing that comes to mind immediately is he is great at absorbing things. I feel like it's so easy for a leader to deflect or object or be defensive. He really allows contentious debate, which for someone like me is so attractive because I don't know, I was always one of those kids that I didn't have to be right, but I wanted to be heard. Any teacher that I had that allowed us to have real honest feedback and conversation about the way we felt about the way the class operated or about the topics we were talking about, those are the teachers I was always drawn to.
Andy's just that way. He just really, he appreciates people that disagree with him. And it doesn't mean he's going to do anything about it, but he absorbs that disagreement really well. He allows it to happen. He allows people to be critical.
I've never started an organization, but I can imagine how personal it would feel if someone were critical of the organization that you started. He just has a great way of being open to people's feedback. Again, it doesn't mean he's going to do anything about it, but being defensive shuts not only that conversation down, but it lets everyone around know that that person's not open. [00:32:34]
So his ability to just absorb the feedback and either internalize it or to dismiss it, if it's impossible, I just think is terrific. So those are just a couple of things. But honestly, it's a very common question that I get a lot, which I really love it because I count it as a privilege.
Laura Dugger: Well, that's really helpful feedback. Where can listeners start today after hearing all of these great ideas?
Clay Scroggins: I mean, I think the place that I would start is to begin with the question of what am I learning right now? That's not necessarily on subject with this book, but it's really the way this whole process began for me is somebody asked me... it was actually a... there's another great church called Passion City Church. And the pastor of Passion City Church is a guy named Louie Giglio.
I don't know Louie super well, but he's been definitely a mentor for me in a very indirect way. I've just listened to him for 20 years now. And Louie asked me about four years ago, Hey, I want you to come and share at our staff meeting about what you're learning right now. I don't know that I would have sat down to answer that question if he had not asked that but since he asked me that, I've used that question at least on a yearly basis and usually more often than that, just as a way to process what's going on in my life. [00:33:49]
You know, very rarely do we stop to evaluate what is God trying to teach me. What is He doing? I think a more common question that we ask is why is this happening? Why is this happening to me? Or when is it going to stop? And a better question is, what should I be learning right now?
So I would start there. I would just start with the question of what am I learning right now? What is God trying to teach me in the middle of what I'm going through right now in life? And it might be great. It might be He's trying to teach me that He loves me and He says every good gift comes from Him. Or He's trying to teach me that sometimes life is hard and depending on Him and leaning on Him is the best thing I could do right now in this season. But whatever it is, I think being open to that, being open to learning whatever it is that God would want for you to learn, is way better than trying to figure out why is this happening.
Mark Dugger: So if anyone wants to take some next steps and go a little bit deeper, where can they find you, Clay?
Clay Scroggins: Well, I am on social media, on Twitter and Instagram @ClayScroggins. I've got a website that has a link to put in your email address that I send out maybe once a month or so. Here's what's happening in our world, and it's a great way to stay in touch. I live in South Forsyth with my family, so I'm usually at the Chick-fil-A near us. If you want to find me there, you can find me there. [00:35:09]
Laura Dugger: That's amazing. Well, we'll link to all of those social media sites in our show notes. As you know, we're called The Savvy Sauce because "savvy" is synonymous with practical knowledge. We would love to hear some of your best practices so we can implement our own savvy ways. Now, as our final question today, Clay, what is your savvy sauce?
Clay Scroggins: I love that question, and I love the title of your podcast. But I think the answer I'm going to give, it does not feel very savvy, but it is the most practical thing that I have implemented in my life that has helped me, that has created the most impact, I would say, or at least the most change. Some of it I didn't choose.
But I would say waking up earlier is probably the most helpful, challenging habit in my life. Obviously, y'all have kids and you know how it is with little kids that you just learn life just gets earlier and earlier. That's just the kind of the natural order of life. If it weren't for our kids, we probably would naturally sleep till seven or eight. But since we have kids, for me, I've just learned that the only way I can get done what I need to get done, and really the only way I can have time and space to think about how I can make other people's lives better today, or even thinking about the question we just talked about, God, what are you trying to teach me right now, the only time I can really spend time talking to my father in a real intentional way is to wake up earlier. [00:36:41]
I wake up usually in the fours on most days which feels bizarrely early. Especially Mark the last time you and I hang out we were college students and no one woke up at 4. I think it was way more common to stay up until 4 in those days. I made that change in my life probably about three and a half years ago.
Charles Duhigg, another author, talks about keystone habits. There are certain habits that you have in life that kind of like pins at a bowling alley. When you knock one of them down, when you institute one, when you implement one in your life, it leads to all this other progressive change. And I would say that one was one that there were so many other benefits to it that I didn't even recognize or realize. But it really made me a better dad, it made me better at work. It created just better general self-discipline that filtered its way into other areas of my life. As simple as that is, that is my savvy sauce.
Laura Dugger: That's incredible and a great way to end today. Clay, thank you so much for your time. It was really fun to get to hang out with you.
Clay Scroggins: Thank you, too.
Mark Dugger: Appreciate the time and keep doing what you're doing. Go Jackets.
Clay Scroggins: Y'all are awesome. All right. Hope to see y'all soon. [00:37:52]
Laura Dugger: Hey everyone, we want one of you to be the winner of Clay's book, How to Lead When You're Not in Charge. So if you go over to our website, thesavvysauce.com, you can click on our "giveaways tab" and find further instructions for how to enter. Thanks for participating.
Mark Dugger: It was really fun to host with you today. I think since we are together, it's a great time to share some news that we have on behalf of our little family.
Clay Scroggins: Yes. We are excited to let you all know that we are expecting baby number four.
Mark Dugger: Coming to a hospital in central Illinois soon.
Laura Dugger: So just wanted to share the news with you all.
One more thing before you go. Have you heard the term "gospel" before? It simply means good news. And I want to share the best news with you. But it starts with the bad news. Every single one of us were born sinners and God is perfect and holy, so He cannot be in the presence of sin. Therefore, we're separated from Him. [00:38:52]
This means there's absolutely no chance we can make it to heaven on our own. So for you and for me, it means we deserve death and we can never pay back the sacrifice we owe to be saved. We need a savior. But God loved us so much, He made a way for His only Son to willingly die in our place as the perfect substitute.
This gives us hope of life forever in right relationship with Him. That is good news. Jesus lived the perfect life we could never live and died in our place for our sin. This was God's plan to make a way to reconcile with us so that God can look at us and see Jesus.
We can be covered and justified through the work Jesus finished if we choose to receive what He has done for us. Romans 10:9 says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
So would you pray with me now? Heavenly, Father, thank You for sending Jesus to take our place. I pray someone today right now is touched and chooses to turn their life over to You. [00:40:07] Will You clearly guide them and help them take their next step in faith to declare You as Lord of their life? We trust You to work and change their lives now for eternity. In Jesus name, we pray, amen.
If you prayed that prayer, you are declaring Him for me, so me for Him, you get the opportunity to live your life for Him.
At this podcast, we are called Savvy for a reason. We want to give you practical tools to implement the knowledge you have learned. So you're ready to get started?
First, tell someone. Say it out loud. Get a Bible. The first day I made this decision my parents took me to Barnes and Noble to get the Quest NIV Bible and I love it. Start by reading the book of John.
Get connected locally, which basically means just tell someone who is part of the church in your community that you made a decision to follow Christ. I'm assuming they will be thrilled to talk with you about further steps such as going to church and getting connected to other believers to encourage you.
We want to celebrate with you too. So feel free to leave a comment for us if you made a decision for Christ. We also have show notes included where you can read Scripture that describes this process. [00:41:21]
Finally, be encouraged. Luke 15:10 says, "In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." The heavens are praising with you for your decision today.
If you've already received this good news, I pray that you have someone else to share it with today. You are loved and I look forward to meeting you here next time.
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