The LDHR Podcast

In this episode, Beth and guest Besi Rajta explore what makes teams not just effective but life-giving — focusing on trust, psychological safety, vulnerability, and transformational conflict.

They share practical steps leaders and team members can take, such as modeling vulnerability, investing in relationships, and asking what helps people feel known, and emphasize cultural humility and biblical values as the foundation for healthy teams.

In this episode, host Beth talks with Wilma Tan about growing a thriving global community despite distance—emphasizing shared purpose, intentional connection, and using digital spaces to belong across cultures and time zones.

They offer practical tips like praying before reaching out, asking open questions, staying intentional with follow‑ups, and listening well, and highlight benefits such as encouragement, shared learning, and stronger teamwork. Reach out to someone new this week to strengthen your global ties!

Leading with Questions with Bob Tiede

BPMT with Ben Sparkman

Mike Maney and the host explore why people are drawn to caring roles in ministry, the emotional weight and hidden costs of carrying others' stories, and how serving can become an unhealthy part of identity.

They offer practical steps for tending your own soil—establishing rhythms, setting healthy boundaries, receiving care, and finding safe people to process with—to help caregivers thrive long-term.

In the first episode of the Healthy Soil series, counselor Brian Boecker and host Beth explore the roots of loneliness and the deep human longing to be seen, known, and connected.

They discuss biblical examples, practical steps for leaders and missionaries to build mutual relationships and healthy team rhythms, and how Jesus meets us in our ache while inviting us toward renewal and flourishing.

Restoring the Soul

Questions? Comments? Contact us at llama@cru.org

Have you ever wondered what helps people not just survive in ministry, but truly flourish over the long haul? Just as healthy plants need healthy soil to take root, grow, and bear fruit, people need nourishing environments, relationships, teams, and rhythms that support their well-being.

This episode explores loneliness, the hidden cost of caring for others, the power of community, creating healthy teams, finding the right place to grow, and cultivating a sustainable life. For those in ministry, it invites intentional ways to tend the soil around people and within ourselves so we can grow, thrive, and continue serving with joy.

In this LDHR Podcast episode, Beth interviews Ben Sparkman about BPMT (Building Powerful Ministry Teams) — a practical model for teams to choose cooperation and achieve exceptional results. Ben explains the six components (common purpose, clear roles, accepted leadership, effective processes, solid relationships, and excellent communication) and how they help teams grow, especially across cultures.

Listeners will gain simple, actionable steps to start aligning their teams around a clear purpose, improving processes, and building trust. For next steps and resources, visit LDHR.org, contact your LDHR leader, or message us at llama@cru.org.

Barbara Culwell shares her journey with Cru and her work as a strengths coach, explaining how CliftonStrengths and the CoreClarity framework help people recognize their gifts, deepen their sense of purpose, and serve more effectively in ministry.

She offers practical steps for listeners: take the CliftonStrengths assessment, revisit your top five, consider coaching to unpack results, and intentionally apply your strengths in teams and relationships.

Embrace Your Strengths with Barbara Culwell

Clifton Strengths Assessment

Want to find out more? Write us at llama@cru.org.

Welcome to the LDHR Podcast, where ministry leaders grow together. In this episode, Gina Butz discusses why moving beyond surface snapshots to examine our stories matters for leadership and spiritual growth. She shares practical tools—like life maps, journaling worksheets, attachment insight, LEAF coaching, and transformational prayer—and emphasizes emotional self-awareness, community, and compassionate curiosity as pathways to deeper healing and freedom.

Make Sense of Your Story

The Place We Find Ourselves Podcast

To Be Told

How We Love Awareness Worksheet

The Emmanuel Promise

Landscapes of the Soul

And Gina's Book: Making Peace with Change

Contact us at llama@cru.org

In this episode, Roger Osbaldiston (35 years with Cru, now leading a church network in New Zealand) introduces Patrick Lencioni’s Working Genius — a simple, practical framework of six “geniuses” (Wonder, Invention, Discernment, Galvanize, Enablement, Tenacity) across ideation, activation, and implementation to help teams work together better.

Listeners will learn how Working Genius explains behavior, reduces guilt and judgment, maps team strengths and gaps, and equips leaders to be self-aware of the “wake” they create. A simple next step: ask your team what work gives life and what drains it.

For more info, write llama@cru.org.

The Working Genius

On this LDHR Podcast episode Beth interviews Dennis Metcalf about the Career Path Planning tool — a God-centered process to help ministry workers discern calling, clarify strengths, and plan growth. Dennis explains the three-part Career Pathway Map (Know, Discern, Grow) and the Five E’s of development (Expose, Equip, Experience, Evaluate, Environment).

The episode emphasizes listening to God rather than rushing decisions, practical next steps for leaders and staff, and how the tool creates space to make faithful, fruit-bearing choices in vocational ministry.

Career Path Planning

Career Pathway Map

Bringing Clarity to Calling

Welcome to the LDHR Podcast, where ministry leaders grow together. This episode explores the Myers‑Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) as a tool for self‑awareness and healthy leadership. Steve Morgan shares his personal journey, explains the four preference pairs of MBTI, and illustrates how understanding type can improve personal growth, team dynamics, and stress management.

Listeners will learn practical next steps for discovering their type, how to use MBTI as a doorway to deeper self‑knowledge (not a label), and how to apply insights to lead and serve others more effectively.

16 Personalities Test

Would you like to find out more about MBTI and a coach? Write the llama at llama@cru.org!

On this LDHR Podcast episode, three Birkman experts—Erin Layne, Cy Farmer, and Mark McGowan—introduce the Birkman Method and explain how it measures underlying needs, interests, usual behaviors, and stress reactions using a four-color framework (red, green, blue, yellow). They discuss how the tool reveals invisible needs, accelerates team formation, and offers a strengths-based, biblically rooted approach to personal and leadership development.

Practical takeaways include naming needs without judgment, spotting stress early, borrowing behavior to increase effectiveness, and stewarding team pace to prevent burnout. To learn more or get started with Birkman, listeners can contact birkman@cru.org.

Workvivo Birkman Community

Workvivo Birkman Certified Professionals

Welcome to the LDHR Podcast with guest Terry Morgan. In this episode, we explore the Embracing Feedback course, why feedback matters, and practical ways to give and receive it. Terry shares the origin of 30 Days of Feedback, lessons on using questions and heart-centered approaches, and tips for building feedback-rich, cross-cultural teams. Learn simple steps you can try this week to strengthen positive feedback and invite growth, and find the course at LDHR.org to dive deeper.

Embracing Feedback Course

Bob Tiede, who has served for 54 years in Cru, shares how switching from directing to asking transformed his leadership. He explains the difference between diminishers and multipliers and why self-awareness and humility matter.

Bob introduces a simple toolkit you can use immediately: four short questions, plus techniques for giving feedback, inviting ideas by asking "What might we do?", and helping people own solutions.

Leading With Questions Blog

Bob's Free eBooks

Leading with Questions Seminar Cru25

In this final Across the Ages episode, ministry leaders from four generations discuss development, retention, and separation across the staff life cycle.

They explore what helps people feel seen, valued, and supported—from clear development pathways and creative leadership handovers to meaningful recognition, flexibility, and healthy offboarding practices.

Listeners will hear practical steps and real stories to help organizations nurture staff, prevent unnecessary exits, and send people well when it’s time to move on.

Welcome to the LDHR Podcast series Across the Ages. In this episode, four panelists from different generations discuss the application and onboarding phases of the staff life cycle, comparing past and present practices and the expectations each generation brings.

They highlight clear qualifications, timely and respectful communication, transparent application questions, meaningful interviews, effective websites and social media, team hospitality, and practical steps organizations can take to help new staff feel known, needed, and have a future.

Welcome to the LDHR Podcast episode of Across the Ages, where four panelists from different generations discuss the recruitment phase of staff life. They share personal stories about being seen, invited, and supported—highlighting how small acts of care and clear vision drew them into ministry.

This episode explores the tension between personalization and professionalism, practical steps for better recruitment, and how organizational culture is reflected in the way people are welcomed and invited to serve.

Welcome to the LDHR Podcast. This episode focuses on coaching: a conversation with Karen Zando about moving people from where they are to where they want to be. Host Beth and guest Karen cover core coaching skills, especially listening and asking powerful questions, and show how they apply in relationships, both professionally and personally.

The episode offers practical tips you can use right away, including the WAIT acrostic (Why Am I Talking?), listening with mind, body, words, intuition, and the Spirit, and ways to reduce distractions. You’ll hear why listening builds value, trust, and deeper relationships.

If you'd like more information about coaching or to get in contact with Karen, email llama@cru.org

In this episode of the LDHR Podcast’s Renewed Leadership mini-series, Kourtney shares practical steps to realign your leadership purpose for the new year. She explains the soul line/goal line framework, the importance of values and community, and how reflection practices, such as journaling, mentorship, and regular rhythms (daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly), keep leaders grounded.

Listeners are invited to try quick exercises—a 10-minute check-in or a 20-minute vision-goals-commitments triangle—to clarify a one-sentence north star, set focused goals, and sustain alignment throughout the year.

Sacred and Strategic

In this episode, coach Cristina Dragomir and host Beth explore designing sustainable rhythms for ministry leadership, focusing on patterns that sustain spiritual, emotional, and relational health rather than just yearly goals.

They share practical coaching tools—accountability, reflective questions, simple place-changing practices, and habits—to help leaders slow down, reconnect with God and others, and build rhythms that last.

FOCOS Coaching

The Emotionally Healthy Leader