CNLP 738 | Don't Make the Pastor the Product: Ashley Wooldridge on Building One of America's Fastest-Growing Churches Through Team Empowerment
The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
Carey Nieuwhof
4.8 • 2.2K Ratings
🗓️ 1 July 2025
⏱️ 97 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Lessons from one of America's fastest-growing and largest churches, Christ Church of the Valley (CCV). Senior Pastor Ashley Wooldridge talks about lessons he learned from a decade at Intel before working at a church, how teamwork trumps talent, EQ as a key to success, and why the pastor can't be the product.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Art of Leadership Network. |
| 0:03.0 | Because it scares me to death to lose it. |
| 0:07.0 | It, it, um, I probably get chills and, and am so fearful that as we, as we, um, as we, as we, as our influence grows, |
| 0:23.6 | that somehow we lose the kind of posture |
| 0:27.6 | that we need for God to continue to bless our church. |
| 0:31.6 | It really, really works. |
| 0:33.6 | It keeps me up. |
| 0:35.6 | I know it can happen to me. I mean, that's ultimately personal. I know that can |
| 0:40.3 | happen to me. Welcome to the Kerry Newhoff Leadership Podcast. I'm so glad you joined us. I hope |
| 0:48.8 | our time together today helps you thrive in life and leadership. I am fascinated by leaders who do well, and I'm also |
| 0:56.4 | fascinated by churches that are reaching people. Ashley Wilrich, Christchurch, Christchurch of the Valley. |
| 1:02.0 | Oh my goodness. What a story going on there. They're one of top attended churches in America |
| 1:08.0 | right now, I think over 50,000 on the weekends, which is insane. |
| 1:12.9 | Multiple locations. My wife and I, we were there to shoot actually not only this podcast, |
| 1:17.8 | but the next couple of podcasts, because Ashley's back with his wife, Jamie, for the next episode. |
| 1:24.2 | So make sure you subscribe. You won't miss the thing. And we showed up at the, |
| 1:28.3 | I think, Saturday 4 o'clock service. You know, I showed up with a few minutes to spare. |
| 1:32.5 | Could not get a parking space. It was insane. I mean, I got one, but you know, it took a minute. |
| 1:37.9 | And to see the kind of growth and impact they're having is amazing. And then what I want to do is I want to unpack in this episode, |
| 1:44.8 | sort of the leadership angle, and then in the next one, the personal angle, by bringing |
| 1:48.9 | Jamie and Ashley together back to the podcast. So I think you're really going to enjoy it. |
| 1:55.2 | Ashley talks about not making the pastor the product, building one of America's fastest-growing |
... |
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