The Mission Guys

In this episode, Nick Jorgensen and Rick Pop explore the often-hidden role of fear in leadership, especially within the church. Drawing from St. Thomas Aquinas and Scripture, they examine how fear can disguise itself as prudence, pulling leaders toward safety and the status quo instead of bold, Spirit-led mission. They also discuss how fear surfaces in team dynamics, conflict avoidance, and organizational decision-making, and they challenge every leader to prayerfully discern where fear may be holding them back from the boldness God is calling them to. ______   Connect with us! MissioInstitute.org Missionguys@missioinstitue.org

In this episode, Nick Jorgensen and Rick Pop take a fun, honest look at the little habits that can quietly undermine our leadership—everything from jumping to conclusions, to time management, to competitive comparison. Through personal stories, they invite leaders to grow in self-awareness, bring these patterns to prayer, and ask trusted people for loving feedback. The challenge: identify what might be distracting others from your mission—and take one concrete step to become a more effective, Christ-centered leader. ______   Connect with us! MissioInstitute.org Missionguys@missioinstitue.org

In this episode, Nick Jorgensen and Rick Pop explore the concept of living an integrated life, particularly for leaders in the church. They discuss the challenges leaders face in maintaining a truly integrated life that contains their spiritual, personal, and professional responsibilities. They emphasize the importance of intentionality, prayer, and self-examination, highlighting key elements and potential pitfalls to avoid. Join them in this discussion to reflect on your own calling, gifts, and priorities to better align your life with God's will. ______   Connect with us! MissioInstitute.org Missionguys@missioinstitue.org

Ambition. Drive. Desire. Hunger. We aspire to cultivate these qualities, both as individuals and among the teams we lead. Yet, at times, maybe frequently, we don’t sense the hunger that is required to accomplish the great Mission for which we are called. At other times, we may be questioning if our hunger is properly ordered toward the glory of God and serving others, or is it instead chasing personal recognition or other gain. As a leader, can you create or at least influence rightly ordered hunger, and if so, how? A big question to ponder. Join Nick and Rick in this episode to explore how leaders in the Church may approach answering such a question.  ______   Connect with us! MissioInstitute.org Missionguys@missioinstitue.org

In this episode, Nick and Rick discuss one of the worst forms of cancer in any organization and the need for immediate treatment of that cancer. Among the many challenges and pitfalls that all leaders, teams, and families may face, the one that cannot be tolerated is subversion, the deliberate or unconscious undermining of authority, mission, or vision. Join The Mission Guys as they share share insights to help leaders better understand, identify, prevent and address subversion when it appears. One thing is for certain, no leader, team, or family should ever allow it. ______   Connect with us! MissioInstitute.org Missionguys@missioinstitue.org

In this episode, Nick and Rick discuss Stephen M.R. Covey's book "The Speed of Trust" and its relevance to leadership within the church. They explore how trust serves as a foundational principle of leadership, emphasizing the importance of integrity, character, and the process of restoring broken trust. Additionally, they connect these concepts to Biblical teachings and encourage leaders to follow Jesus' example, leading at the speed of love. ______   Connect with us! MissioInstitute.org Missionguys@missioinstitue.org

In this episode, Nick and Rick discuss one of the best secular leadership books written in our lifetime. They kick around a few ideas that can both take advantage of this all time leadership classic and then take it even further in the Church to help you grow as a Kingdom Leader. ______   Connect with us! MissioInstitute.org Missionguys@missioinstitue.org

One of the most important responsibilities of a leader is to grow other leaders. However, too often in the Church, this is at best an underdeveloped leadership trait and at worst is often ignored — poor leadership is frequently tolerated. In this episode, Nick and Rick share their observations, insights, and practical advice for Church leaders to grow in developing other leaders, a must. ______   Connect with us! MissioInstitute.org Missionguys@missioinstitue.org

Did God design tomato plants so that we can be even better leaders? In this episode, Nick and Rick discuss why pruning even fruitful endeavors is necessary in order to feed and grow the most important aspects of our ministries. Pruning can be painful, and is often avoided, but is necessary for more abundant fruit.  This episode will help make pruning easier. ______   MissioInstitute.org Connect with us! Missionguys@missioinstitue.org

In this episode, The Mission Guys address the all too often habit of Church leaders who avoid conflict for the pseudo-virtue of being nice (aka Catholic nice). Instead, Nick and Rick offer a fresh perspective and practical methods for leaders and their teams to encourage and have good fights, resulting in better decisions, more creativity, increased clarity, and stronger relationships. ______   MissioInstitute.org Connect with us! Missionguys@missioinstitue.org

Are you taking the time, both scheduled and unscheduled, to step back, reflect, and recharge? We suspect your answer is “No, I don’t have enough time to get all the work done that I need to do, so who has time for that?!”  So in this episode, Nick and Rick explore ways to ensure that you regularly take advantage of the opportunities to “sharpen the ax,” whether they are via planned retreats and offsites, or whether they are less-planned as with a sudden job change. You can and must leverage every good chance to sharpen your axe. ______   MissioInstitute.org Connect with us! Missionguys@missioinstitue.org

Unfortunately, leaders in the Church too often buy this bad advice as they try to lead people as though they are running a business. That’s not biblical. And it doesn’t work well in the Church. So set down “Inc. Magazine” and “Harvard Business Review” for the length of this episode, and consider what the Bible and Jesus have to say about becoming a family on mission. You’ll love it brothers and sisters!    ______   MissioInstitute.org Connect with us! Missionguys@missioinstitue.org

Goals. Focus. Energy.    The Mission Guys close out a mini-series for leaders on strategic planning. In this episode, they’ll help you as leaders to think about how best to establish your organization’s goals, in order to focus the energy of your team to achieve what it is the Lord has called you to achieve together. ______   MissioInstitute.org Connect with us! Missionguys@missioinstitue.org

In this episode, Nick and Rick tackle one of the biggest challenges for leadership teams in the Church, which is to figure out how to assess and monitor the success of their organization (diocese, parish, school, apostolate, etc.). Metrics, indicators, measures, markers, KPIs, SMART objectives, and many more terms like those often get leaders in the Church especially agitated. Some insist that you can’t measure results in the church, while others suggest that you should measure the Church just like a business…both extremes are wrong, but contain some valuable insights. ______   MissioInstitute.org Connect with us! Missionguys@missioinstitue.org

In this episode, the second part of a mini-series on strategic planning, Nick and Rick focus on the concept of ’mission’, the definition, the often confused difference and relationship between mission and vision, why clarity of mission matters in the church (parish, diocese, school, family, your organization), and how to approach missional clarity.   Though vision and mission are critically linked and dependent on each other, it is vital for leaders to know the difference and the importance of providing clarity of both. So the “mission” of this episode is to help leaders become more comfortable and confident in discerning and effectively communicating their mission for the entire team/family.   Mission Challenge:  Prayer Sessions: Higher Level, longer-term mission. For example: What is our part of the Great Commission; what are you calling us to do?  How are we to arrive at the vision of success that you have shown us? Prayer Sessions: Deeper Dives, shorter term How will we succeed in your mission for us? What is most important right now? Who is to do what? What am I personally called to do in light of the larger mission here? ______   MissioInstitute.org Connect with us! Missionguys@missioinstitue.org

Strategic Planning Mini-Series: It All Starts with Vision Mission, Vision, Strategy, Plans, Goals, Metrics, KPIs, …Ugh! The Church is not a business! Do we need any of this? I’m confused.    In this mini-series on Strategic Planning in the Church, Nick and Rick simplify strategic planning for leaders in the Church, from a biblical perspective and always being docile to the Holy Spirit.   This episode focuses on the importance of Vision and how to go about discerning a common vision of success for your diocese, parish, school, apostolate, or family — one of the most fundamental and important responsibilities of leaders in the Church. ______   MissioInstitute.org Connect with us! Missionguys@missioinstitue.org

If you want to establish a culture of discipleship, it is essential to begin with your leadership team. In this episode, we provide personal examples and discuss the practical components necessary for your leadership team to develop and live as a discipleship community. Link to the FOCUS discipleship roadmap www.MissioInstitute.org Connect with us! Missionguys@missioinstitue.org

"Your organization will never outgrow your leadership team." This truth emphasizes the importance of leaders in the Church committing to their discipleship journey together if they wish to see it flourish in their parish. In this episode, we offer some valuable insights for leaders to contemplate as they strive to transform their culture. www.MissioInstitute.org Connect with us! Missionguys@missioinstitue.org

Envy is a deadly sin, and it has a sneaky way of showing up in our lives. In this episode, the guys discuss how envy in leadership roles harms progress and the prescribed antidotes given to us through the Church. www.MissioInstitute.org Connect with us! Missionguys@missioinstitue.org

Have you ever said this to yourself? "I know I should talk to her about that, but I really don’t want to.” "I know the team is suffering, but I don’t want to hurt his feelings by bringing up such a potentially sensitive topic.” "I’m not very good at having those kinds of difficult conversations." Or how about this? “Wow, that went better than I thought; I should have done that a long time ago.” “What a relief! It’s like weight has been lifted from all of our shoulders.” We hear all of these kinds of statements way too often. So this episode is intended to inspire and help you to have those critical conversations now, to be effective in having them, and to feel positive and confident in doing so. www.MissioInstitute.org Connect with us! Missionguys@missioinstitue.org