CNLP 782 | The Problem of Mini-Celebrity Pastors: Les McKeown on Growth Barriers for Church Leaders
The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
Carey Nieuwhof
4.8 • 2.3K Ratings
🗓️ 29 January 2026
⏱️ 103 minutes
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Summary
Leadership expert Les McKeown talks about the rise of mini-celebrity pastors, the limits that places on church growth and team development, and how to overcome the growth barriers you're facing as church leaders.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Well, we'll get to today's regularly scheduled podcast episode in just a moment, |
| 0:04.0 | but I am so glad to be here in person for the first time ever. |
| 0:07.8 | We're doing state of the church. |
| 0:10.0 | It's great to be here. |
| 0:10.6 | Live and in person in Nashville. |
| 0:11.9 | It's great to be here, Kerry. |
| 0:13.4 | It's great to be with you. |
| 0:14.4 | Thanks for having me. |
| 0:15.2 | We're tracking. |
| 0:17.3 | We is very generous. |
| 0:19.2 | You are tracking. |
| 0:20.5 | It's the Royal Wee. The Royal Wee. You're tracking some |
| 0:23.3 | data now. We're all talking about revival, right? There's some really hopeful signs. But there's |
| 0:30.1 | also some other things going on at the same time. It's not a complete positive story. What's going |
| 0:34.9 | on and what are you learning? Yeah, I think just to make sure we |
| 0:37.8 | really emphasize it, we're seeing so many interesting pieces of data about renewal, especially |
| 0:42.9 | among young people, Gen Z and millennials. And at the same time, so that is very true, at least |
| 0:48.6 | according to the data, we've been collecting the last couple of years, and especially in |
| 0:52.1 | 2025, we'll have more of that coming in at 2026. |
| 0:55.4 | But we're also tapping the brakes on this revival is breaking out. |
| 0:59.1 | So we want to just kind of cover a couple key stats. |
| 1:01.7 | When you look at the percent of all U.S. adults who identify as Christian from 2000 to 2025, |
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