Chris Lesner
Andy, thanks for being with us today.

Andy Crouch
It is a pleasure. Thank you, Chris.

Chris Lesner
I am so excited to have our audience learn about you, hear a little bit about your journey. Obviously, people might think of you as a world renowned author, but tell us how you got to where you got to.

Andy Crouch
Yes, I'm not sure, world renown would be little strong, but I have found myself writing books. But my path to that was initially working alongside college students who were sort of finding their way through college. I was in campus ministry, so working with a Christian fellowship at Harvard University with Harvard undergrads. And in the midst of that, actually started to think about kind of why we go to college, what happens in college.
One way to think about it is we're preparing for influence in the world. And that raises the question of how does college help you prepare and maybe what are the missing pieces? And in a sense, ever since I've been working on the missing pieces, maybe the things you don't learn in school that nonetheless turn out to be really important. So I went on to work in journalism for quite a while. But now get to work with entrepreneurs every day who are kind of back in college because college is this
sort of wet cement stage where everything's up in the air. You arrive in this new place. If you go off to kind of a liberal arts or a residential college, you arrive in this new place. You don't really know who you are. You don't know who the other people are. Everything's in flux. That's what it's like to be an entrepreneur. So I'm kind of back to doing working with college students. Just they're all ages this time, but they're just as wide eyed and perplexed and excited and
capable and vulnerable as any college student.

Chris Lesner
A lot of your journey maybe started with your culture making book, which took off, right? And a lot of it is making, like, how do you make culture and how is culture made? And I would love for you to share a little bit with our audience about some of your learnings from that experience and then how you're seeing it transform over the last decade.

Andy Crouch
Mm

Andy Crouch
Mm -hmm.

Andy Crouch
Yeah, this did emerge very much out of my thinking about, you know, what do we, in a sense, what do we get all this education for? And I think it is to participate in culture. And that leads to the question, what is that? What, you know, culture is word, it's used a lot in organizational life, it's used all over the place with a lot of different meanings. But I think the best definition of culture, the broadest, and in some ways the most illuminating, is what we make of the world.
So culture is, if you ask anthropologists or sociologists, they'll give you a very long answer with lots of multi -syllable words. I like what we make of the world because it's all one -syllable words. But it'll boil down to this, that culture is the shared human project of actually making stuff. Like it's very tangible. You can think about clothing, you can think about food, you can think about architecture. But even the less tangible things get rendered in physical form, even making music.
which is maybe one of the cultural universals that is all human beings everywhere make music. Every human community we've ever discovered makes music. It's sound waves and it actually moves out into the world and hits your eardrums and transmits itself in other ways to your body. It's a physical thing, even music, which is in some ways this very ethereal thing. So it's what we make of the world in the sense of tangible activity.
Concrete stuff, it's always stuff. And this beautiful phrase, which I didn't make up, I got it from another journalist, Ken Myers, but what we make of the world also gets us thinking about making sense. Because if I say something and you ask someone, what do you make of that? You don't necessarily mean, you know, what stuff are you going to make? You're asking what sense do you make of that? And culture is also about that. That it's this shared human activity of trying to figure out
Who are we? Where are we? What are we doing here? What's the significance of our lives, individually and collectively? And the really fascinating thing is the two meanings of that, what do we make of the world, the stuff and the sense always go together. So you cannot make sense of the world without making stuff. And if you're a human being, you will never just make material things that aren't in

Andy Crouch
imbued with meaning that aren't full of meaning. So this book, Culture Making, was kind of an exploration of how do we do that, you might say faithfully, because I did write it as a Christian book. I am Christian and I bring that faith perspective. But it's really this kind of human project that we all are in and that every leader is involved in, by the way. So the only way you kind of build an organization is to both render in tangible form the values of your organization.
and to be constantly thinking about meaning in everything you do, not just the monthly culture meeting or something like that. Like everything you make is just filled with meaning, whether you intend it or not. And I think great leaders end up intending every single thing to be full of meaning. So that was where some of my kind of interests got started. And then it's very fun to come alongside people doing that in every possible.
dimension of life, because this is just what human beings do in every single thing we do.

Chris Lesner
Your work, so you started with that and you've made many books since, I don't know, five or six. I don't know how many you're up to, but I've read a few of them.

Andy Crouch
Five plus one with my daughter that was the most fun, because she wrote most of it and I got to do a project with my daughter.

Chris Lesner
Oh, I love that. How do you see servant leadership playing out in the context of any of your books?

Andy Crouch
It is a theme. It's not a phrase I've written a lot about, but serving. That is having other people's interests before your own. And then doing that as a leader is sort of the through line, especially my first three books. Because what you're doing, if you are making culture in a healthy way, I would say.
is you are actually looking at what's missing in the material and the meaningful world and filling that gap for the benefit of others. Like good culture, great culture, worthwhile culture addresses some gap in the existing kind of panoply of culture, because we all inherit most of this. mean, we're not making up a new language here. We're speaking English. We're not generally inventing new kinds of food to eat today. We'll probably eat some things that's been made before.
But culture makers actually spot the gaps. They're like, you know, no one has ever put language to this, or no one's ever put these ingredients together in this way, or there's a new kind of architecture we need in the world, or there's a new kind of technology we need. And that's actually, I would say, when it's done well, it is actually servanthood in the sense that a servant cares more about someone else's flourishing than their own. But it's also leadership in the sense that you have to step out and offer it without knowing exactly how it's going to go.
which is actually the secret of what's happening in all leadership is if it's worth being called leadership, it's uncertain what the results will be. And you have to believe in it and commit to it. so all culture making is that, that led me to think about one of the most important topics in culture, which is power.
Because the question is who gets to do this who gets to make something of the world and the answer is not everyone does And this is actually one things that's kind of broken about the human story is that some people never really get to make anything of the world and others are given Incredible scope and when they are given scope to make something of the world We say they have power although you could also say to have power is to be able to make something and so I wrote a book called playing God which is about the kind of human imperative to

Andy Crouch
to play God in the world, that is to take on really big responsibility for others and for the creation that we've been entrusted with. And playing God is all about kind of how do we have a healthy relationship with the power we have, because I've found not everywhere, but in most places people are a little reluctant to name the reality of power. And I was especially finding, interestingly, in church circles, a strange reluctance.
to just say, know, pastors of churches have power. They're actually very uncomfortable admitting that. But even in like nonprofit organizations or in many settings, people sort of, they'll avoid the topic of power. But in fact, the topic of power is at the very heart of who gets to create and we've got to reckon with it. And then that led to a third book that's called Strong and Weak, which is the simplest and best, I think, of the three. It's the shortest.
It's probably done the most good because it just dives into a particular dimension of what it is to lead, which is the strange and beautiful and mysterious interplay of authority and vulnerability in healthy human lives. And that, you know, all of this is what servant leadership is about. It's about living with authority and vulnerability in a kind of organizational context where you've got to help that group of people make something of the world together.

Chris Lesner
I know a lot of Christians would say that Jesus was the ultimate servant leader. Or I've heard that. When you think about Jesus and him being a servant leader and the struggle with people wanting personal success and power and Jesus coming to serve and all of this, what lessons do you think people should be taking away just from the story of Jesus and who Jesus was?

Andy Crouch
That's a super interesting question. you know, I would also say Jesus of Nazareth, just objectively speaking in a certain sense, was the greatest culture maker in that whatever responsibility was assigned to him, the fact is his life as it was remembered, as it kind of ramified him and as the story of his life worked itself out in another 2000 years of history, there's probably more.
that's changed materially and meaningfully in the world, including things that have changed for kind of everyone who lives, especially in the orbit of Western culture, whether you believe in the Christian religion or not, like the culture has been shaped by this one life. And the really fascinating thing about Jesus of Nazareth is that he's living in the first century. And this is, you know, well attested, not just by his own doc, the documents of his followers, but, you know, we're, very confident someone named Jesus of Nazareth lived a life.
at the same time that another really important person is living, because his birth name is Octavian, but he styles himself Augustus Caesar and he's the emperor of the Roman Empire. And one of his subjects is Jesus of Nazareth, way off in this province called Judea. And they're pretty much contemporaries. Now, Augustus lives longer. of Augustus's kind of advantages as an empire, he ended up having a pretty long life. And he also ended up killing off all of his rivals, including many of his family members.
And so he was able to really project his rule to the ends of the earth in a way. And his story is playing out at the same time as Jesus of Nazareth's story. And they could not be more different in kind of the choices that they made. Augustus basically makes culture through domination, and really through force and violence. He projects it through military power. He projects it through financial power.
He mints the coins and then he projects it through what we would now call meme power, that is the power of the image. And the image that he projects is his own face. The face of Augustus Caesar is the only face on all the coins. I think it's still true maybe of British currency that the monarch is on all the coins. In US currency, you we have different figures from our history on the different bills and coins. certainly under Caesar, the only face anyone ever saw. And this is not in a world with photography, right?

Andy Crouch
like how do you see an image of a person? It's very rare actually that you're going to see an image of a person, maybe a mosaic or something. By the way, in the province of Judea, you wouldn't because the Jews did not make images of human beings. They felt they had this commandment saying don't make an image. And so they had, and in the Muslim world today, that would still be true that there are not representations of people. So in Judea, the only face, like the only famous face you ever would have seen was Augustus Caesar's on the coins of Rome. So he's got
Military power, he's got financial power and he has, another word might be charisma. He has kind of the power of fame that he's intentionally building. And by the way, he was very careful, as careful as anyone taking a selfie today, like that's gonna go on Instagram, he was very careful what he looked like on those coins. were intentions about his hairstyle and the direction his face was pointing, all of that had meaning. So contrast that with this other
young man living out a life until his life is cut short by Caesar's representatives on a Roman cross, Jesus of Nazareth who has no army. He forbids his followers from engaging in direct revolution against the Romans, though many Jews wanted to. They chafed under the subjugation of Rome. He never uses money.
A question comes up at one point about whether Jews should pay the tax to Caesar. And it had religious significance as well as kind of political and financial significance. And Jesus has to say, well, can somebody bring me a coin? He doesn't have any money on him. And then when they bring it to him, it's called a denarius. It's one of the coins that shows the face of Caesar. And he says, whose face is this? pretends, I guess he pretends. He acts like he has never seen it before.
I mean, like, whose face? There is no other face. Everyone knows what's on this coin. But Jesus is so unfamiliar in a sense with money. And it seems, you know, he had followers who provided for him and so forth. But he himself just doesn't use money, certainly doesn't become a billionaire, doesn't, you know, become a capitalist. And then charisma, like the face, there are literally no representations of his face. Now, later followers create images, initially icons and, you know, so forth. And

Andy Crouch
Jesus of Nazareth uses none of these forms of power. And yet, we probably are more shaped by his life. Anyone listening to this, whatever you believe about him and what he said about being the son of God and so forth, our lives are more shaped by his life than probably by Augustus Caesar's, though it's close, I would say. But still, like, Caesar's got all the resources. Jesus of Nazareth has none. How can a life like that end up being so significant?
I think it's a massive invitation for us to consider, like, what do I believe really gets things done in the world in the long run? And Jesus just chooses this completely different way, kind of at every turn, from what people around him think you should do to make a difference. And I just find it the most compelling life ever lived myself. I mean, and I think I would have to say that even if I didn't also happen to believe what he claimed, that he was somehow a...
uniquely the representative of the creator in the creation.

Chris Lesner
Well, it is interesting just thinking about things so upside down compared to maybe how the world thinks about it. One of the things that people might not realize that you talk about or that you're super involved in, depending on when they bumped into you, is this concept of redemptive entrepreneurship and some of your work involved with Praxis. Can you share with our audience about Praxis and then also just what redemptive entrepreneurship means to you?

Andy Crouch
Sooo upside down.

Andy Crouch
Yeah.

Andy Crouch
Yeah, well, it's interesting. It's kind of connected, actually, because what we're trying to do is rethink the purpose of entrepreneurship with this sort of upside down mindset, among other things. So Praxis is an organization where about 13 years old that serves entrepreneurs. We exist to come alongside founders of both for -profit and nonprofit organizations. We don't really care about your tax status. We care that you're starting something new in the world that takes a lot of risk.
and that is seeking to make a real difference. And so the core thing we do is just with 12 a year, 12 for -profit founders, 12 nonprofit founders, in a kind of an accelerator model that many people will be familiar with, we have this kind of year -long program where we try to bring alongside them the best mentors we can find in every area where they might need help, whether it's hiring or marketing or whatever tactical things they need help with, but also,
to create a community that has an imagination for doing something that's a little off the script of entrepreneurship today. We think entrepreneurship is one of the most powerful culture -making forces in our world right now. And certainly when you ask who's kind of moving the needle, people often name founders, whether it's Brian Chesky from Airbnb or Elon Musk from Tesla, et cetera.
We think that's in some ways right, that we sort of are bought in on the culture making idea, that we should be creating more culture in the world and entrepreneurs do that. But we also think the scripts that have been written about how entrepreneurship gets funded, who gets rewarded, what currency you might say you get rewarded in, and how you imagine your difference in the world, that that often is incredibly, frankly, exploitative.
we would say there's kind of three ways to do work in the world. And the first is the exploitative way. And there's a lot of that in business. There's actually a lot of it in the nonprofit world, I'm sorry to say. The nonprofit world, everyone thinks, oh, these are noble ventures. And it's precisely because they seem so noble that they can actually be very exploitative. We could talk more about that if you want. So there's an exploitive way to do work. And most people don't want to do that. They want to pursue what we would call ethical work. And ethical work is kind of

Andy Crouch
playing by good rules and win -win and just best practices and honoring people. And we think that's an absolute baseline. And we certainly want all our entrepreneurs to not be exploitative, but be ethical. But we're chasing a third thing. And it's this word redemptive that's originally a business word, though to a lot of people sounds religious or theological. But it's originally a word from the ancient world.
One of the main things you had to do in business in a way in the ancient world was buy back property and people that had been sold off and become kind of settlement of debt. So land and people were in a sense enslaved, people literally, land metaphorically, that is sold off to pay off debts in a way that made them unfree. And to redeem was to buy back someone who had lost their freedom or land that had been lost from its original family.
and was now held by a kind of creditor, to redeem the land or to redeem a person, to redeem a slave was to pay so that they could actually be restored to the freedom they were meant to have. So redemption is this vision of actually acting in the world to repair something that's been broken. And that's the real heart of what we are trying to pursue in our community is actually asking in every industry, every sector, what's broken in this sector?
And who's not free to flourish as a human being because of that brokenness? And would there be a way to intervene through a new venture that would actually upset the current, turn this current exploitive system upside down and create flourishing where there isn't flourishing right now? whether that's aerospace, we've got two very interesting aerospace startups that we're working with.
where I mean, I won't go into all the details, medicine, like healthcare in the United States, but also things like the foster care system in the United States or the child welfare system. Like these are all places where really good things can happen, but also places where in different ways really exploitative things happen. And our entrepreneurs, we're trying to help them see the possibility to really reset the terms of those industries and sectors in a way that brings flourishing where there isn't flourishing right

Chris Lesner
mean, nobody's going to argue that that's a bad thing to do, right? Everyone is going to say that's good, but to some, it might sound like a pipe dream. Like, well, of course you want to restore this, but people are terrible or whatever. How does an entrepreneur or somebody who's trying to start something or make change in the world, what do they do? Because really, it feels like the world's up against them probably in a lot of cases.

Andy Crouch
Right, right.

Andy Crouch
Yes.

Andy Crouch
Totally.

Andy Crouch
Yeah, yeah, 100%.

Chris Lesner
they may never see the redemptive part of the journey.

Andy Crouch
Totally, totally. We see this all the time. It requires two things in more measure than I think ordinary people have, frankly. mean, frankly, the people we work with are quite extraordinary, and each of them has their story of how they got to be extraordinary, you might say. It requires extraordinary creativity. That is, if you're going to do this sustainably, which is the essence of business, and nonprofits, too, have to be sustained and have to have a model that sustains them. it's so.
How do you disrupt an existing system that's working very well for the incumbents? I think of it as the used car dealer problem. We pretty much think of used car dealers as exploiting, at least in popular culture, we sort of assume if you walk onto a used car lot, you're going to be exploited, right? And say you want to start a redemptive used car business, right? So you want to do it fairly, honestly, maybe beyond fairly. You want to, I don't know.
restore cars and sell them and just make them a great deal for people and a great deal for the environment. Be really mildly imaginative here. What's your number one problem? It's that right down the street is someone operating very exploitatively who's doing very well at that. Like he's making a profit. He's turning a deal at the cost of good for his customers and so forth, but he's still he's doing really well. So how do you disrupt that? Well, that requires creativity.
We had an entrepreneur few years ago who was in the car wash business, which turns out to be like one of the most exploitive businesses. It's often they're terrible jobs, pay very poorly, very little dignity. They're actually often terrible car washes. Like they actually damage your car's finish as much as they help. And they have like the lowest customer satisfaction and retention of almost any industry. Like no one even remembers where they got their car washed the last place and they don't want to go back. But they're profitable.
And so he had to figure out like a new business model that would make for a great car wash that was a great place to work where the people who work there actually advanced in their careers. And this requires a lot of creativity. So that's number one. And then the second thing, and frankly, this is why not many people do it, is we would say that actually redemption always requires what we would call sacrifice. So sacrifice is sort of setting aside my needs in some significant way.

Andy Crouch
and trusting that I'll be provided for, even if I give something up, whether it's compensation or equity or status. And we actually think when sacrifice happens, it unlocks possibility and creativity that isn't unlocked any other way. So it is harder. We've got a company, Venus Aerospace, they're building a space plane. It'll get you from LA to Tokyo in an hour.
based on this proprietary propulsion technology, it's amazing. That is by far hard enough to build a space plane, it's extremely hard, just on its own. But then they have this redemptive vision, they think the whole aerospace industry is kind misdesigned, and they want to design a different kind of aerospace company that competes with Blue Origin or SpaceX or those others. And like, wow, you already had an extremely hard thing, and now you're trying to do another extremely hard thing. Well, that's what practice exists to
That's why we care about the people we're working with is they're trying that.

Chris Lesner
So creativity and sacrifice, when I think through both of those, often people are learning ways to be more creative. So that one sounds somewhat doable, but still really hard. Sacrifice doesn't sound like something you learn or would want to learn. It sounds like something that is like a miscue or unfortunate circumstance happened to you.

Andy Crouch
Haha.
Yeah.

Andy Crouch
Indeed.

Andy Crouch
Right. Right.

Chris Lesner
Are there steps that you encourage people to take as they're trying to think through their own redemptive stories, walking through their own lives to become more creative and maybe become a little more sacrificial thinking about others? Which plays into the whole servant leadership perfectly, right? Those two concepts.

Andy Crouch
It totally does. It totally does. You know, I actually think sacrifice is something you learn. That is, it's not just something you, it's not just a crazy thing you decide to do one day. I think it is built over time, the ability to set aside my interests as I understand them today and trust that
on the other side of giving something up is something better. I actually think that is learned. And so how does one go through the process of learning that? Well, one thing I would suggest, I've never quite thought about it this way, I bet for almost every person listening to this, if I ask you who was the most like transformative person in your life, it might've been a teacher, it might've been a coach, it might've been.
could be one of your parents. People have different answers to this. I bet that they acted at some key moments in very sacrificial ways for your good, that they sort of poured themselves out for your good in ways that they didn't have to and that are the reason they are that person. So I think we learn at first by watching other people. I will say for me, Jesus of Nazareth also lives this out all the way to...
death on our Roman cross for that matter. So it doesn't have to be people I've actually known, it can be historical figures. And actually, by the way, like in the history of even our country, the United States, like Abraham Lincoln is this pivotal figure in the history of the United States who both prosecutes a terrible war, but also does it in a way that really sets aside a lot of interests that he might've had and takes on a huge burden that he might not have had to take on. And there's Dr. Martin Luther King.
I mean, we can think of so many kind of key examples in the transformation of this country closer to something that we would call a healthy country. And like over and over, there's an element of sacrifice. So I think you learn it first by just sort of apprenticing yourself to people who have done it. And then you start taking small steps to like de -center your own interests. One of the ways we really encourage our

Andy Crouch
fellows at Praxis and that we practice as a community is actually this idea that comes out of the Jewish tradition called Sabbath, which is actually one day a week giving up work, like not attempting to provide for yourself one day a week, not attempting to get anything done or be productive, not attempting to gain any status. So I'm not on social media on my Sabbath because social media is really a status game, right? And if you have one day a week where you lay down,
you know, all the things you could do to improve your business or get more business or whatever. And instead you rest and you feast and you spend time with other people. If you're a person of faith, you worship. That's a sacrifice. And it's a kind of a weekly practice of I'm actually going to give up some time, but trust that on the other side of that, often quite mysteriously.
something's going to be provided that I wouldn't have been able to get for myself. And this is what we see over and over, in fact, is that somehow those other six days, things happen that would not happen if we were working 24 -7, 24 -6, well, not 24, but 18 -6 is plenty. And that one day that you're giving up, like, I mean, actually just look at the cultural fruitfulness of the Jewish people almost through their whole history, like the poetry, the modern times, the math and the science, the achievements.
And all from people who, until very recently, some Jews are a little more loose about this now. But for most of history, like one day a week, no work. And yet unbelievably productive, way out of proportion to their numbers in human history, right? So I think you learn it by starting smallish, and then you realize, oh, this is actually the way to unlock possibility. It's like a secret code that exploitative people will never
use, but it actually can work.

Chris Lesner
That is extremely powerful, just even thinking through that and letting people process. I think a great example of who were you apprenticed by, who were you under, who led you. mean, that's so powerful because, they made some big sacrifices. And I'm sure they wouldn't have traded it for anything either. The joy that they got, the impact, such an interesting concept. It does make me think through.

Andy Crouch
Interesting. Yes!

Andy Crouch
Yeah.

Chris Lesner
You've got you talked a little bit about the exploitative side and hopefully people aren't that way, even though I know that there are a lot of people that way. But you've got this whole culture making side of the argument that you talk about and you've talked about this sacrifice side of the coin, if you will. And it doesn't seem like in culture, we see those two things go together when people want to change and make culture. They hardly ever sacrifice.
Right? They're making moves to advance themselves or their vision or their cause, whatever, trying not to sacrifice potentially. Do you think that those naturally are against each other and that's what makes this hard? Or are they naturally in parallel and it should be a lot easier than it is?

Andy Crouch
I actually think, now can I prove this to you? I don't know. I actually think there are two paths to influence in almost every setting and context. And one is the exploitative path. And that's what you kind of alluded to just now. Well, look, when people want to make a difference, they're ambitious. They chase it. They grab it. And yes, many times that works.
I will tell you in almost every industry, and I think we could go through this. I think we could talk about Hollywood. We could talk about sports. We could talk about popular music. We could talk about business. I know I've seen this in business with like people who make it to the CEO role, let's say. There are some people who make it to the CEO role absolutely by being like ruthlessly exploitative, pretty much and manipulative at every step. And they're really good at it probably because they're psychopaths, which is a, you know, like a cheat code.
Psychologically, you just don't care. But I will tell you, there are other people at the same level, in the same industry, who got there by being incredibly sacrificial. And the really interesting thing is it's often hard to tell from outside or to be short from outside. But the way you find out is you talk to people who worked for them. I remember, mean, Steve Jobs is actually a really interesting example of this. He's been dead for a number of years now. And so he's fading as a cultural icon.

Chris Lesner
Mm.

Andy Crouch
But Steve Jobs in his first, so he was fired from Apple and went away and had this very humbling experience trying to build another company and then came back. And arguably when he came back, he had had a kind of, I don't know, I would characterize it as a spiritual change, but he had had a profound humbling kind of experience. And when he came back, he was much more of a servant leader than the Steve Jobs who founded Apple.
and led it initially. Now, he wasn't perfect on either side of this as if anyone is, but he sort of was both. But the second one was the one who unlocked all this possibility. And Tim Cook, who leads Apple now, I remember talking with one of his, whatever the title, his senior vice president, like a direct report who worked with him for many years. And this guy said to me, I would take a bullet for Tim Cook.
And he's just a servant. so Steve Jobs not only himself changed, but the person he kind of picked as his successor was someone who had grown through the ranks through this incredible sacrificial life. And I don't buy into every decision Tim Cook may have made. I'm not endorsing him for anything, just except to say, I met someone who worked for him who said when you work with him, he's this incredibly sacrificial person. So I don't.
I think the, and this is true, like meet the surgeons at your local tertiary care or hospital. Some of them are absolutely ruthless exploiters. Others of them are like saints basically. And meet, yeah, go to the top of any field and you're gonna find some people who got there, the exploitive path and other who got there, the sacrificial path. But which one's better for your soul? Which one's better for the world in the long run? I'm gonna go with path, the road less traveled and choose it.
and trust it.

Chris Lesner
That's such an interesting concept and just interesting to think about. I want to hit you with 10 rapid fire questions where you just say the first thing that comes to your mind.

Andy Crouch
Okay. Okay.

Chris Lesner
Who's the first person you think of when I say servant leadership?

Andy Crouch
Pope Gregory, who was the first one to really think about people's inner lives and write it down, like think as a psychologist in a way before there were psychologists. Here's this person with all this power, but he cares most about pastoral care.

Chris Lesner
Five words that most describe yourself.

Andy Crouch
Ah! Curious... um... musical... uh... restless... friend seeking... Can that be two? That's like a dash. Okay. Curious, restless, musical, friend seeking.

Chris Lesner
Yeah. Favorite author book.

Andy Crouch
Right now, a book by, oh gosh, well, okay, Mark Halperin, A Soldier of the Great War. It's a novel.

Chris Lesner
Favorite movie.

Andy Crouch
Il postino, directed by Michael Radford, filmed in Italian from the 1990s.

Chris Lesner
favorite food.

Andy Crouch
Bulgogi Korean barbecue beef.

Chris Lesner
Favorite thing to do in your free time.

Andy Crouch
Get on my bike.

Chris Lesner
Alright, surprising fact about you.

Andy Crouch
How do I know what you're going to find surprising? Ah, ah. I cannot think of a surprising fact. Is that surprising?

Chris Lesner
That you bike, guess, even from the last. You're a biker. Favorite place you've been.

Andy Crouch
Sure, yeah, well, maybe that's surprising. Yes, yes.

Andy Crouch
Uh, gosh, that's very hard to choose. I would say old town of Rhodos, the Greek island. It's a medieval street where there's a little restaurant that serves moussaka. And if you are out at about 9 p .m. on a summer night eating moussaka on that street, it's about the best place in the world.

Chris Lesner
where somewhere you wanna go that you have not been.

Andy Crouch
New Zealand. More sheep than people.

Chris Lesner
All right, and finally, what's the best advice you've ever gotten?

Andy Crouch
It's public speaking advice, which I do quite a bit of. got it from a gentleman who, as we're speaking, just died this past week, Mike Allman, the former chairman of JCPenney and chairman of the board of Starbucks. And he was a very shy guy in spite of his public and big leadership roles, an incredible servant leader, by the way. And when he took the JCPenney job, he suddenly had to give all these talks. And so we went to his pastor. said, look, you speak every week. what should I, how should I think about this public speaking that I hate to do?
And as Pastor said, Mike, it's actually very simple. There's only three things you need to do. Do your homework, love your audience, and be yourself.
And I heard that from Mike, I thought, that is it. Do your homework, love your audience, be yourself. That's by far the best advice I've ever heard.

Chris Lesner
Wow. Well, Andy, thank you so much for being on the podcast and helping our audience learn alongside all the learning you've done over the years. Really appreciate it.

Andy Crouch
Gosh, truly a pleasure. Thank you, thank you.

Chris Lesner
Thanks for being such a great servant leader and excited for people to just be able to learn.

Andy Crouch
Thanks, Chris.