Ep. 197: You’re Never too Young to Lead

Isaac Dagneau:
With me today is Anne Miranda. Anne is the Women’s Director at Village Church just outside of Vancouver, BC in Canada. It’s great to have you on the show with us today.

Anne Miranda:
It’s great to be here.

Isaac Dagneau:
Before we jump into our topic, could you just tell us a bit about who you are, particularly how you came to know Jesus. Now I know this could take the whole … all of our lives are so multicoloured, so it could take a long time, but yeah, just let us know who you are and how you came to know Jesus.

Anne Miranda:
Sure. So, I think the important part here is that I’m an Enneagram Three, or those that love the Birkman, I’m a blue/green, a Myers-Briggs, ENTJ. Love Starbucks, but if I have to go to Tim Horton’s, I’d be having a steep tea. It’s really interesting to think about how I’ve come to know Jesus cause it’s a moment in my life that is completely transformative. I grew up in a home that the name of Jesus was familiar, but He wasn’t someone that was known to be alive, a name that we just spoke about kind of in passing or more traditions.
My family is from Lebanon and so I’m first generation Canadian. And as I grew up in this incredible loving home, I realized that I was striving to achieve. And so, education was highly important and I found myself at a very young age accomplishing things that perhaps are unique. So, I was working with the administrative of the Attorney General’s office in their crime prevention program since I was 13 years old. And in multicultural programs with NBC and witnessed incredible opportunities.
But there I was, 19 years old, someone invited me to church. I ended up accepting that invitation simply because I never wanted them to invite me again. And on that condition, we entered into this church and I couldn’t believe what the music was I was hearing, I couldn’t believe the atmosphere that was in there, and every word that was being spoken, it was piercing. And at the end of this service, the pastor invited people to make Jesus the Lord of their life.
And I didn’t understand what that meant, but in that moment it was like blinders were coming off and I thought, “Well, if I have to submit my life to this word and this purpose, I really want to accept this invitation.” And it was literally revelation in that moment that if this is truth, if this death and resurrection of Christ is true, I want it and I want to access this gift. And so, at 19 years old I started to discover mysteries in the text that we call Bible and apply that as authority in my life.

Isaac Dagneau:
That’s awesome. That’s so good. Isn’t it amazing too, as you tell your story of your testimony, it started with someone inviting you to church?

Anne Miranda:
Totally.

Isaac Dagneau:
And I mean that’s the story of lots, but I feel like many times today that’s almost discouraged. Like, “Don’t just invite someone to church. It’s about relational evangelism, take a long time,” all that kind of stuff. Whereas, I think sometimes it does take that boldness just to … either just share the gospel straight up with someone in obviously love and respect and contextualized, or just to invite them to church. There’s been other people that we have out on the show that have had similar things where someone just came up and just said, “Here’s a Bible, read it.” And that’s their point of conversion basically. Or it led to it. So, it was really cool to hear that it was just someone saying, “Hey, come to church,” and you did. And then that was the beginning of it.

Anne Miranda:
Yeah. I need to preface that with this person tried multiple times-

Isaac Dagneau:
Okay.

Anne Miranda:
And to shut them down, it was like, “Yeah, sure, I’ll go with you on the condition that you never talk to me about this again.”

Isaac Dagneau:
Sure, sure. Which is even greater cause that-

Anne Miranda:
That’s incredible.

Isaac Dagneau:
Yeah, that is great, because it also shows be persistent in that sometimes as well. Oh, that’s so great. Thanks for sharing that. You are the Women’s Director at Village Church, which is a fairly large church in British Columbia. So, what exactly does your role look like as the Women’s Director at your local church? I feel like lots of churches have this role, but they probably do lots of different things. So, what does it look like to be that at Village?

Anne Miranda:
Right, so Village is a multi-site church. We have almost six sites. We will have by the new year five in BC and one in Alberta. And my role is to develop leaders, and so as we’re developing leaders and really leaning into the gifts that people have and equipping them to live out what God has destined for them, the works that He has for them to complete. Probably 85% of my role is to develop leaders in their calling and their giftings across all of the sites and then building teams at the sites to execute women’s ministries depending on how that fits into their site model.
Focusing my time on people that are identified as high level leaders across all of our sites and spending time leaning into how is their relationship with the Lord, how is their marriage, how are their families? So that’s where we start off relationally. And what is their vision for their particular site? What is their vision for doing women’s ministries programming? Well, that could look like Bible study, that could look like a ministry to moms, that could look like actually a bigger size event or a social activity.
Another part of what I would do is also connect with leaders across the nation. And so, as I’m developing women in leadership, I’m also … I see it as stifling lies and speaking truth into their life where there is doubt in their leadership ability and speaking truth and calling out and encouraging them to truly live out in confidence boldly what God has called them to do.

Isaac Dagneau:
Yeah, that’s so good. Well, thank you for the work you do. So what I want to do in this conversation today is help listeners and primarily from yourself to just do a few important things when it comes to how leadership, but I’m thinking specifically of young adults, maybe more so in leadership, how leadership fits into the church’s mission to make disciples.
But to begin, I’m wondering first if you could just describe what you mean by leadership. Obviously, you spend lots of your time developing leaders, all these different things. I think that the world and the church both talk about leaders and leadership. And so, are they referring to the same thing and what makes Christian leadership, Christian?

Anne Miranda:
I think the essence of the definition of leadership is the same. I looked it up. It’s the art of motivating a group of people to act towards achieving a common goal. So, whoever the leader is, this person, they have the combination of personality and skill that makes others want to follow them as they’re leading to whatever that final goal is. But truly, I think the difference between leadership in church ministry context is heart posture.
And so in Mark Chapter 10, Jesus calls his disciples together and he gives them this example. He actually asks them to look around in their community and He says, “Look at these rulers and how they’re ruling over authority over others.” He identifies that they’re kind of flaunting their leadership. They’re prideful. He reveals their heart posture and then He instructs His disciples and says, “Not with you. In order for you to be a leader or a ruler among you, you must be a servant. And so, whoever wants to be first must be a slave of all.”
It’s counter-cultural. He’s like flipping what we would actually define as leadership. He says, “So even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and give His life for a ransom.” So, there’s no ladder to climb in Christian leadership. There’s no cutthroat tactics. It’s all about feet washing. Right? I always get young leaders going, “What do I have to do, what do I have to do to get into a position like yours or into leadership in a church?” And Christian leadership isn’t defined by having a microphone or a platform of some sort or leading numerous people.
It’s really trying to understand a biblical picture of being a servant of how low can you actually go, how selfless can you be, how humble can your heart get to? Because leaders need a clear communication line to God without distractions on this planet, without distraction from the enemy, or from ourselves. I’ve been reading a book by Pastor Jon Thompson from Sanctus Church in Toronto, and he writes in his book, Convergence, that leaders are the ones to whom God speaks and he tells them what the promise land looks like.
He tells them to see the ark before it’s built. He tells him to see the temple constructed before instructions have even been spoken. They must hear in order to lead. And so, having a spiritual gift of leadership would imply that the leader is a visionary. It’s really unique. They can see the big picture and their heart posture is one of humility. And so, I think of Genesis 17 where Abraham, God is talking to him, he throws himself on the ground, face on the ground, says he fell with his face on the ground. His heart posture is one of humility and the Lord reveals to him a vision, “You’re going to be a father of the multitude of nations.” It’s completely different than what we would qualify leadership in the world.

Isaac Dagneau:
Yeah, that’s so good. That’s really helpful. And I guess the other piece of our subject, so you kind of helped to define a little bit about leadership, talking about the importance of humility in leadership, the importance of being a servant style, not just a, “I’m going to be at the top,” kind of thing. That’s really helpful. Now the other side of it, if we want to see how leadership fits into the church’s role to make disciples, for those who are maybe unaware of what exactly is what we generally call the Great Commission, I’m wondering if you could just kind of let us know what that is. What is the mission of the church? What components are involved in that? And then we can speak to how leadership fits into that.

Anne Miranda:
So somewhere, probably around the 17th century, there was … this term was coined as the Great Commission and it’s coming out of these verses in Matthew 28, which has been interpreted to mean that the Christian message or the good news should be shared. And so, the passage says that the 11 disciples were in Galilee and they go to the mountain where Jesus told them and then they saw Him, they worshiped Him, and Jesus said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I’m with you to the very end of age.”
And so this command to go make disciples of all nations, disciples are students. And so, what He’s asking them to do here is to teach what they have learned. It’s like they have … the instruction to the 11, they have now graduated in this moment to the role of teacher. And according to this model, practically speaking, leadership would look like a teacher gathering a group of students and emulating whatever Jesus did with them, with their own students. And each student would then grow to become a teacher and have their own student. He’s creating this practical cycle of growing students.
And there’s room for many disciples and many teachers at the table. I think is one of the big things I’ve learned through this message, is that He’s not like, “Only this group can be teachers, only this group can be this.” Actually, the teacher is always a disciple and I think of it in an academic setting like a PhD level student can actually teach a first-year level student, but the PhD teacher doesn’t ever stop learning. They keep on teaching out of their experience, out of their knowledge. But there’s a growth trajectory that’s happening here.
I see it similar to how our physical body grows from infant, to child, to young adult, to adults. And so, faith grows like that spiritually, but it’s only when someone’s in the adult stage can they actually birth again and the cycle continues. So, this growth chart is for everybody. But I truly don’t think everyone lives this out as a Christian. I think that there is a different responsibility for those that now graduate into that role as teacher, or Jesus holding them accountable to do, to live out what they have experienced. But it’s a special command for everyone.

Isaac Dagneau:
Yeah. Okay. So just to try to get this straight then, when Jesus commands His 11 disciples, I’ve heard it said that that is a … the paradigm is that if we are all disciples, this is the commission for all of us, so that means every single disciple and every Christian is a disciple, so every single Christian has the actual role to recognize the authority of Christ and to go and make disciples, which includes this idea of teaching others to do what Christ has commanded. So, in saying that, is this … I guess there’s two things here. There’s leadership and then there are leaders. Would you make a distinction there?

Anne Miranda:
Definitely. So, leadership can be developed. Leadership is a quality that … and I would say even a spiritual gift that is on somebody’s life that is a visionary. They’re seeing themselves dream big dreams and setting goals of how to achieve those big dreams. That’s not everyone. Being a leader is not something that is, everyone is like, “I’m going to lead. I can lead in my home. I can be a great mom. I can lead in my classroom.” That’s different when we’re talking about this spiritual context of sharing my faith, sharing my faith is blanket for everybody who is a believer. I am a Christian, I have been gifted the salvation, this good news, I’m going to share it.
I think of the Samaritan woman. She gets this good news; her life is changed. God’s revealed to her. She goes through her whole town, she shares it. Right? Now the Word is spreading. That’s a different command that God gives us. Leadership is a journey to fulfill something that God has actually created for a specific person. Something unique that is for each person. It’s not for everyone, because He even said, “Some are given gifts of administration. Some are gifts of mercy. Some are gifts …” There’s so many different gifts in that sense, so leadership, to me, is one of those, is a gift and is actually a call.

Isaac Dagneau:
So thinking about those and who are younger, engaging in leadership in the mission of the church, what kinds of things can they bring? So maybe someone’s listening right now, and they recognize that leadership in their own lives. What kind of things can they bring to this mission of the church that perhaps maybe an older person couldn’t to help inspire a young leader to actually go? Cause I think we see that in the Bible, an encouragement for young people to rise up.

Anne Miranda:
Yeah. I love this question because it means that I’m old and it’s really exciting to be in this stage because as I look to this young generation, there’s just so much hope. And I know that millennials, this term that has been coined for this generation now have gotten a lot of slack and almost a negative reputation, but truly they are remarkable. This is a generation, Simon Sinek actually says that he’s learning more from millennials than anyone else because they’ve grown up with access to information and like no other generation has.
And so if they choose to use it wisely, they are the most brilliant. So, on every single one of my teams, with all young people, all young people who I work with intentionally. So, I think there’s actually three things that they bring to the table that are highly important. And the first one is relevance to culture. And it’s not just keep me trendy with my outfit, it’s language. It’s the new things that are out there. So, the Enneagram, that was something a young leader came to me and said, “Hey, have you heard of this?” I’m like, “No.” They’re like, “Oh my goodness, you have to research this. You would love this.”
And so I’m learning from them things that I would have never learned before. How to leverage technology, I would have never known things like this before. And so, the fact that they bring relevance to culture, they’re open to new things. The second thing is authenticity. I’ve seen young leaders just, “Give me the truth, give me the raw truth.” This is a common statement that they would share with me. It’s a beautiful thing. They’re not faking, they’re not trying to be perfect. They’re saying, “This is who I am, and I want you to be the same. I know that we’re not all superheroes, just be authentic with me.”
And I think the third thing is mentorship. And so, I know that intentionally… I am mentoring women who I see leadership potential in. So, there’s a vertical, a mentorship there. I am pouring into them, but I think there’s this counter-vertical that’s happening almost like an upside-down mentoring. They are mentoring me by being candid, by being bold. They’re asking tough questions; they’re sharing their frustrations truly. I know when I was younger, people would be like, “You are the future.” There’s even songs about it. And I see this for our young generation. They are the legacy of the church. And so, do they fit in the church? Absolutely.
If a church doesn’t have young leadership involved, they’re basically committing suicide for their church. I feel so strongly about it. I’ve had leaders all across this province ask, “How do you involve young leaders in your church?” “We don’t have it. We don’t trust them.” “Why?” We have to actually give young people a chance because somebody gave us a chance somewhere along the line. And as we’re pouring out ourselves and mentor, it’s the actual … they don’t want a fictitious mentorship. Like, “Take me out for coffee once in a while and just hang out with me for a little bit.”
It’s like, “Give me some encouragement. Give me some hope. I want to ask these tough questions. Give me a safe space with adults that are a few steps ahead of me to actually develop me.” And so, I love this. I think there’s an absolute … it’s a gift to the church to include young people in their leadership.

Isaac Dagneau:
What are some maybe pitfalls possibly that younger leaders can perhaps, yeah, fall into that … right now you are speaking to leaders that are listening to this and they’re excited, especially when you go through those three things. Maybe they’re beaming right now. They’re like, “Yes, okay, I have those things. I love those values. I want to go and do this in the mission of the church.” But what are some things that you would say in your experience that you’d say, “Hey, yes, I love it, but please watch out for these things?”

Anne Miranda:
So the things that have been coined as millennial attitudes are things like entitlement, pride, that know-it-all attitude. Those are things to watch out for. If for whatever reason culture is saying that painting a picture of a generation that looks like that, that is not able to be independent. There’s so many negative labels that they’ve put on this generation. Be the opposite, because then you stand out actually, and people notice. And so, when you’re working hard, you’re sitting in an office, but you really want to just go sit in Starbucks with your Beats on your head and you just don’t want to be in that atmosphere, you don’t want to report to anybody. You want freedom, all those things.
When you do the opposite, then it actually does stand out. When you give your opinion humbly, it stands out. People take notice. I had one young leader come in and she was like, “Look, I know I’ve got leadership potential. I can write, I can speak, I can do all these things.” She basically was giving me her resume. I was like, “Oh, that’s great.” And I said, “Hey, you know what? In a couple of weeks, I need you to go and lead this team.” She’s like, “Okay, yeah, I’m all for it.” And I said, “Actually, it’s cutting long grass and you’re going to bring it in bundles. It’s like sheering wheat basically.”
And she’s like, “Okay.” And she went and she did it. We had to do it for three days in a row and it wasn’t like I was sending her; I was going to go out with her. So that’s another part of it too, a lesson in itself. So, we went out with this team and I just watched, because no job is too little, too menial. And I think that’s the other part. We want the other roles; we want the teach the Bible study or we want whatever other role of leadership you can dream of that’s applicable to you. But shearing wheat is not one of them.
And so we went out and I watched. I watched her, how she led the team. I watched her sweat in the sun. I watched how she worked in the menial task and the first day it was hard. And so the complaining came a bit. But by the second and the third day she was making relationships with people. We were talking and praying about other people on that team that were having suicidal thoughts and just struggling in life. And she began to see that ministry happens at all levels. It was a teaching opportunity. So, I would say to young leaders say yes to the little things because that’ll actually prove your character deeper than any other role.

Isaac Dagneau:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think it’s important for people like yourself, what you’re doing, which is so good, and other people in leadership to not give off a persona or not give off a picture of leadership will get you this, and this, and this, and this, and this. I mean, Jesus went around saying, “The Son of Man has no place to lay His head. Foxes have a better place than I do.” And that was His … you deny yourself daily, pick up your cross and follow Me. This is not what maybe the world’s leaders promote to people to say, “Hey, come be a leader because then you’ll have all this stuff.”
It’s like become a leader and deny yourself and have nothing, but you’re going to be richer than so many. You’re going to make so many people rich in faith, obviously. So, I think that’s huge. So, to go back to that other question then, again, as young leaders are listening now and inspired, especially with what they can bring to the church’s mission, especially maybe older leaders couldn’t or maybe not as well, let’s flip that around. What can older leaders bring that younger leaders can’t? So how can younger leaders be more listening and learning from the older leaders?

Anne Miranda:
Right. I think of examples that are also in the Bible, where Paul and Timothy … Timothy wouldn’t have ministry opportunities if it wasn’t for Paul pouring into him or Naomi and Ruth. There’d be no Boaz if she didn’t listen to Ruth. There’d be no future lineage for Ruth if she didn’t listen to Naomi. So, what does that all mean? I think older people in ministry especially, they have wisdom to offer. We can’t forget that as young leaders coming in, those people who have gone before, they have a lifetime of wisdom and experience.
And those two things are powerful weapons that you only get with time. And the third thing I would say is opportunity. Older leaders, they want to give opportunities to younger leaders for the most part. And there’s a great book I’ve just been reading too, called the Proximity Principle by Ken Coleman. And he talks about how if you position yourself in close proximity, there’s different opportunities that happen because the older leader is there going, “Okay, who is the next leaders that are around me?”
And so they want to equip, they want to connect you with others. They want to inspire you to love Jesus with all your heart, mind, and soul. So I think it’s a really beautiful picture that God paints for us of … as an older generation, and it may not be older in age as much as it is in that experience and wisdom, and pouring into a younger generation.

Isaac Dagneau:
Yeah, that’s so good. That’s really helpful Anne. As we come to a close in a little bit here, what are some key principles that you’d give to young leaders? Again, I feel like you’ve already said so much, but what are some other key ones or maybe similar or just reemphasized key principles that you’d give to young leaders and how they can help fulfill the Great Commission as leaders?

Anne Miranda:
Right. I think that completing or fulfilling the Great Commission lies in how deep our relationship is with God and with people. And so, we can’t teach anything that we haven’t lived. This is Jesus talking to His disciples in this part. He’s like, “They’ve lived it, they’ve soaked it, they’ve obeyed it, they’re living it out now and teaching others.” So how I lead, how I share truth about Jesus with others, it flows out of my relationship with God and that relationship with a living God. That was the big revolutionary part for me, God’s not dead. It’s that song, he’s really alive. What?
And what I believe about Him, if I actually have access and authority to resurrecting power, that flows out of me to people. And so, remembering that we are all image bearers of God and so if I see love extended out of someone, it’s because God is in them, dwelling in them. If it’s joy that I’m extending to someone, it’s that Jesus that’s in me that’s extending out to this world that’s around me or those that I’m ministering to, or peace, or patience, all of that. It’s really, if we can see each other as image bearers of God, I think our relationships would be different. It would kill pride.

Isaac Dagneau:
I’ve asked this question a few times with different people when we’re talking about just different topics and I guess the question would be, what can someone do today? They’re listening right now and they’re hearing you talk about this fact of leading humbly, servant leadership and they’re listening. What can they do today that could propel them or even just help them go further in the calling that God has for them in leading to help fulfill the Great Commission? Today, what could they do?

Anne Miranda:
I think the first thing is actually carving out some time and writing. It seems so silly and maybe even insignificant, but writing out, what is it? What’s the vision that God is giving you? Write it out, even if it seems so far away and then get organized. It’s the positioning. Timothy positioned himself with Paul, Paul positioned himself with Timothy. This is something that … it was a choice that … Ruth, same thing. Your God will be my God, she says to Naomi. It’s this positioning. I’m choosing to position myself with other people, other like-minded people around me so I can learn from them.
Now, sometimes those people are not physically around us because again, this generation is the generation that has the most information ever on the planet, and so sometimes those mentors also are digital. So, Carey Nieuwhof is someone that I listen to a lot on the weekly. He doesn’t know he’s my mentor, but he is, because I’m positioning myself to listen to the content that he’s sharing. Or Kadi Cole is another one. There’s different people, Christine Caine, there’s so many. People that you can look up to and may aspire to be like, that’s okay. That is totally fine.
The practical things are positioning yourself, writing it out, and actually organizing your life to get there. I find a lot of young people, even this week, someone said, “I’m just kind of like a slob. I come into my house, I just dump my things and then I just go on with my life. It’s so crazy.” And we want to almost make excuses for not organizing ourselves, but really positioning ourselves in our loneliness matters. And those are just practical things that even Jesus … This was a funny thing, my mother-in-law taught me when He resurrected, He folded His linens and they were there nice and neat. She used to say, “Come on everybody, fix your bed.” In the practical little things, those things matter in the long run.

Isaac Dagneau:
Yeah. And those are things that we can do today, right? We could sit down, we can write, take 5, 10 minutes, just write, organize your private world a little bit more. That’s huge. And then something else as you were talking, we need to know who our leaders are as well, or just the leaders out there. And I think with the sort of authority complex, as so many millennials have, where they don’t like to be an authority, the fact of the matter is the discipleship plan of the church is to have leaders and have those in authority.
And I think Hebrews 13:17 even says that your pastors, your overseers of your church at least, will be accountable to God for your soul. So, there’s a high respect there, so know who your leaders are and when you talk about proximity, maybe call them up, text them, email them and say, “Hey, can I sit down with you?” And just gain from them as well. It could be a way, and I’m sure people have done that with you as well.

Anne Miranda:
I think even some of the gifts that young leaders have no idea that they’ve given me is praying for me. Whether it’s a little card that they’ve left, an email, a text, whatever that looks like, praying for me, for my family. It’s like a personal investment. They’re not trying to get anything. They’re showing that they actually care. That speaks volumes of their character.

Isaac Dagneau:
Yeah. That’s so good. Is there anything else you’d want to add before we wrap up? Maybe something on your mind that you just would love to say?

Anne Miranda:
Yeah. I think for church leaders, remember, remember, remember someone mentored you. Remember someone gave you an opportunity. Even John Maxwell, he attributes his success and where he’s at now because Bill Bright opened an opportunity for him. Many people won’t even know who Bill Bright is, but they’ll know John Maxwell. And I think for young leaders it’s Paul’s charge to Timothy in 2 Timothy. I just want to encourage you to pursue and to run after righteousness because you’ll look different than this culture.
This having faith, having love, having peace, praying, having a pure heart. Paul tells Timothy, you’ll stand out in this culture and remember that we need each other. Know the church needs your voice and your talents. Just remember to love each other well, the young and the old, cause that’s how this world will actually know who Jesus is.

Isaac Dagneau:
Yeah, that’s absolutely right. Well, we’ve come to the end of our discussion today. Thanks so much Anne for being with us. If you’re interested in more of this topic, I’d encourage you to go check out our episode podcast page for this episode and some of the people and books that Anne mentioned, we’ll put up there. Also, are you a part of Leverage or are you just affiliated with it or are you actually a part of it?

Anne Miranda:
I’m the Co-Founder of Leverage Leadership Network.

Isaac Dagneau:
Okay. Tell us just a quick little thing about that.

Anne Miranda:
It’s a network of women in leadership from across the Pacific Northwest and basically it is created so that we are equipping one another, connecting with leaders across this region, and inspiring each other to continue pursuing what God has designed for us to complete.

Isaac Dagneau:
That’s so good. Yeah, that’s great. Thank you so much Anne for this time.

Anne Miranda:
Thank you.