In this episode, Kadi Cole joins the Backstage Pastors™️ to discuss her unexpected journey into ministry and her passion for developing female leaders in the church. She shares how her experience as often the only woman in leadership led to the creation of the Women Executive Pastor (WXP) Network, now supporting hundreds of women in executive roles.
Kadi explains the importance of mentorship, coaching, and especially sponsorship—highlighting how women are often overlooked in leadership development due to systemic habits rather than theology. She challenges male leaders to rethink how they view and support female leaders, emphasizing equal access to development resources and opportunities.
The conversation also explores the unique challenges women face in leadership, including isolation, lack of role models, and navigating expectations. Kadi encourages churches to intentionally create pathways for women to grow and remain in ministry long-term.
CHAPTERS
[00:45] Introducing Kadi Cole[02:00] An Unlikely Ministry Journey[04:00] Birth of Women Executive Pastors Network[06:00] The Power of Female Community[09:20] Why Women Need Dedicated Spaces[12:40] Supporting Women in Leadership Growth[17:00] Mentorship, Coaching & Sponsorship[24:00] What Male Leaders Often Miss[31:20] Encouragement to Stay in the Calling
– –
Editing and Support by The Good Podcast Co.
Ep 6_KadiCole
[00:00:00] Phil: There are a whole host of incredibly strategic pastors, leaders, and thinkers who are doing the daily work of ministry in a largely hidden capacity. If you are one of those leaders who has chosen the shadow rather than the spotlight. This podcast is for you. Hello and welcome to the Backstage Pastors Podcast.
We are brought to you by the Church Hub. I’m your host, Phil Taylor. My co-host is Tyler Ditz, and we are here today to help you be more effective in your role as an executive pastor or second chair leader in the church and nonprofit worlds Tyler. It’s gonna be a great episode.
[00:00:46] Tyler: Oh, absolutely. You know, we’ve got Katie Cole on the show today.
Katie is best known for her book, developing Female Leaders. She’s also doing a ton of amazing work coaching female leaders in the church as well as supporting healthy leadership [00:01:00] in general. So we brought her on the show primarily because she’s involved in. A ministry and conference specifically designed for women serving in the second chair role in the church called WXP.
Now since that’s exactly who we focus on here at the Backstage Pastors, it made perfect sense to get her on the show as soon as possible.
[00:01:20] Phil: Yeah. Well, let’s let’s. Get into this interview with Katie,
Katie Cole. You have written lots of books for leaders. You have an amazing website with a lot of great resources and opportunities to develop female leaders throughout the church world. You are sought out by organizations all over. We are so glad to welcome you to the show today.
[00:01:45] Kadi: Well, thank you so much.
It’s really an honor to be here with both of you. Excited for our conversation. Hello to all the listeners
[00:01:50] Tyler: now, Katie, we’ll get into some specific questions in a minute, but we’d like to start off just by hearing a little bit more about your ministry journey and why we, why would we have you on the [00:02:00] podcast today?
[00:02:01] Kadi: Well, I’m not sure about that, but I am a, I’m sure
[00:02:04] Tyler: we’ll figure it out.
[00:02:05] Kadi: I always try to tell people I am a very unlikely person to end up in full-time ministry. I didn’t even know that was an option when I was growing up. I grew up in a tiny little church. In Montana, in the mountains outside the big city of Missoula.
And no one got paid, including the founding pastor. And so I just kind of thought you volunteered a lot and gave a lot of money, and that’s how church worked. And even when I went to college, didn’t really lock in even though I loved God. I wanted to serve him. I thought I would be a nurse and do foreign missions, or I thought I would kind of like support myself as I volunteered.
It didn’t really dawn on me to my church, recruited me on staff that I could actually maybe work. At the church. But even then I, my church was growing really rapidly. I was volunteering a lot, and so they asked me to come on. The team and help organize things and create some structure and systems and fix some problems, which I tend to be really good at.
And even then I [00:03:00] kind of spent the whole time sort of thinking, this is probably just a short term gig. I better keep my nursing license going. It’s just sort of like for the moment and now here I am almost 30 years later and I’m like, oh wow, this actually turned out to be a career.
[00:03:13] Phil: This
[00:03:13] Kadi: didn’t a real thing.
I didn’t see that coming. Yeah. Yeah. I think especially as a woman, I really didn’t see any women leading in churches or making a salary more than maybe part-time in kids ministry. And so, yeah, it just is, I’m probably the most surprised of anyone that I’m still in it.
[00:03:32] Phil: I love that. Well, you, you’ve you’ve done a great job taking what you’ve done there at your own local church where you kind of got started there and really spreading it out to a lot of others. And I love it. You know, personally, as since Tyler and I both love to serve churches outside of our own context, I love it when leaders take, you know, at least the beginning is of a portion of your time and begin to serve. Other pastors and leaders outside of your own local context and, you know, kind of have an apostolic approach to the way that you do [00:04:00] ministry in life.
And so one of the things that you’ve, you’re involved in and kind of the, the way that part of the reason why we wanted to bring you on the show was to talk about this group that you’ve got, the women’s executive pastor group or ministry. You’ve got a website for it, W xp. Talk about that a little bit and you know, how that came about and just share a little bit of that journey.
[00:04:20] Kadi: Sure. Well, I was about 15 years ago maybe 17 now. I was serving at Christ Fellowship in South Florida, which is a big multi-site church. I was overseeing campuses and our leadership development pipeline. We were renting about 20,000. We had nine campuses when I left 10 years ago. And so in that place I was really kind of the only woman who sort of, broke through into executive leadership really for a long time they were working really hard. They placed me in that role to try and help develop women. But it was still kind of, I was the only person and leadership network which is a part of exponential now, but. They used to put together these cohort groups of certain kinds of leaders.
They’re [00:05:00] really behind a lot of executive pastors meeting one another. Sort of coordinating people around multi-site or next gen ministry, things that would create innovation. And one of the things they wanted to invest in was female. Leaders, particularly executive directors or executive pastors.
So they did a search and found people like me. There were about 20 of us and put us in a cohort together. And again, this was 15 or 17 years ago now. And we spent two years meeting every six months in this cohort. And it was really revolutionary for all of us in the ministry. And there were four of us that kind of stuck together pretty closely coming out of that.
And we decided to keep meeting after the cohort ended and started inviting other women that we met. And now we have over 300 in the women Executive pastor network across three s. That’s amazing. We have a big sort of online connection point that we stay connected and ask questions and network and sort of be available to each other.
And then we meet once a year in person, kind of whoever can come comes it. We try to keep it very low cost [00:06:00] but it’s really been, two things. I think for me, one professionally it’s been a whole world of sort of informal network and resourcing. We always bring in a speaker or we host it at a different church, so you know what the power is when you get to Sure.
Be outside your local context. You visit another church, you meet their leaders, you kind of. Find out what they’re uniquely great at. You learn a lot. You take pictures of how they do the signs to the bathroom. You know, you just get all sorts of thoughts as an executive leader. You’re taking notes on everything.
So there’s sort of the professional development being with other like-minded leaders. But the piece that I probably really underestimated my whole ministry life is the power of being with other female leaders. And partly because I was just never really around that. I was often the only woman in the room.
I was the only woman really at senior leadership on my church team. When I traveled to conferences, I was one of only a few women, and those women were just, as you know, confused and uncertain as I was. We were all weren’t sure why we were there. And I think for many [00:07:00] women it’s been hard to find those sort of peer friendships that guys really have built in to their leadership development or built in on their staff or their elders are all men and there’s just this whole informal network that, to be really honest, I dismissed, ’cause I never had it.
I was sort of like rolled my eyes. I’m like. I don’t even really like hanging out with women. Why would I wanna go, like, you know, whatever my equivalent of playing golf for a day. Like why would I take a day off and go do that? But this, this women executive pastor network, to be honest, kind of kept pulling me back in.
And when I ended up writing the book, developing Female Leaders, started doing my own leadership development business and go and working with churches. They were the first people to cheer me on. Some of them were the first churches to hire me, and I started to really get a view of, wow, life is so much easier when you have not just sort of ministry sort of peers, but also friends in ministry because friends help friends.
And I realized how much harder it is to do ministry solo, even though I had. Friendships. I [00:08:00] didn’t have the kind of friends that show up for your book launch and travel across the country to hear you speak and cheer in the front row with a sign. I just had never experienced anything like that. That’s awesome.
And so this group has really been such a personal lifter. You know, we all go through ups and downs in ministry and we all end up with personal challenges that we navigate if you stay in it long enough. And this was really the group of women I could lean on and, you know, text prayer request to and wa they wanted me to stay in ministry when I felt like I clearly needed to leave or I didn’t have it in me to stay.
And those things are just really invaluable. And like I said, I spent most of my ministry years. Not having that and really not realizing how helpful and often critical that is. And for many of us, our systems are built with those things in place for men. So it’s hard a lot of times for male leaders to realize what women are leading without.
And so, that’s one of the things this group really offers each other.
[00:08:59] Phil: You know, just kind [00:09:00] of as a follow up to that I, I love that there’s, you know, this space that, that you and others have created that is specifically, you know, for women. And I think, you know, I, as a, as a male leader, have worked really hard to like, bring, bring women into the spaces that I’m creating.
Well, tell me a little bit about like. Where I know that men are listening, going aren’t we working to try to like bring men and women together more? Like do we need spaces that are different? Isn’t that going against like what we’re trying to do? Tell me like, how would, how do you answer that question?
[00:09:37] Kadi: Yeah. I actually am a huge proponent of that. I don’t like women. Things going off on the side or these, we always have to come one day before the real conference to get the women’s version. I’m like, what is that? I’m a big girl. I can sit at the table with everybody else. But I do think because women tend to be the minority in their leadership environments it would be different if I was in a church where there were 20 other women leading at all [00:10:00] levels.
And when I walked into a leadership team meeting, you know, four of the 10 people were women, I would have that kind of comradery. But most of us. Don’t in most churches. And so I really like to articulate this as this is a temporary necessity until we get there. So it’s sort of the stop gap. And if you look sort of generationally, this is really our first generation of women who are fully educated, working outside the home during most of their career, able to be in these kinds of spaces in churches particularly.
And so we’re sort of the transition generation. And part of it is like I had to learn how to have women. Friends who are high capacity leaders, you know, there’s some skill sets involved that need to be figured out. We still are sort of crossing over what does that look like for us, for men and women to work together?
And what are the appropriate boundaries around that? So for me, especially 15 years ago when I was in church and I was networked with a lot of male leaders, I did not exchange cell phone numbers with any male leaders. So, but I do with my female executive [00:11:00] pastors, so when I’m in a. Staff meeting or an executive meeting, and we’re looking a few months ahead, and Christmas is falling on a Sunday and we’re trying to figure out what are we gonna do with Christmas services versus Christmas Eve and do we come back on Sunday?
Well, you guys know, you text all your buddies at all your other churches like, Hey, what do you guys do? What do you guys doing? Yeah. Who do you use as a lawyer for. Thing. I’m in a meeting right now. You text your network and without really the capacity to text anyone in a personal cell phone way, I’m really at a disadvantage.
Whereas now I have 300 women I can pop on into our portal even. And that’s why I think even these practices of, maybe it’s not about personal cell phones, maybe it’s more about professional network portals, ways that we can communicate that include everyone. Those are sort of the practices I think we are seeing emerge where we’re making space and actually.
Taking the extra effort to make sure everyone gets to be a part of helping the kingdom move forward. Hmm.
[00:11:56] Tyler: That’s,
[00:11:56] Phil: that’s good. Love that. That’s
[00:11:57] Tyler: amazing. I love that. So, like, [00:12:00] as you’ve over this past season, as you’ve leaned more intentionally to serving and advocating for female church le leaders what do you hope that the women who are leading in the church today will find through this work?
And what should our female listeners be paying attention to or leaning into right now?
[00:12:16] Kadi: Yeah, that’s a great question. So I’ve spent the last six or seven years really spending my time trying to help men understand the dynamics around female leadership and change our practices. I’m, I’m kind of theologically neutral on this point.
I, I’ve grown up in a variety of different contexts I’ve led. Really in a fulfilled and joyful way in very conservative environments, very or I should say more complimentarian environments. Sure. More egalitarian sort of churches who have shifted, you know, through the years one way and the other way.
And so for me, I really am just interested. In leadership allowing space for women, whatever those theological parameters are. But within that I would think that we have a lot of leadership sort of practices and habits we’ve [00:13:00] inherited that we want to shift. And so that’s been the majority of my work.
That’s what my book Developing Female Leaders is really about is how we as church leaders, including myself, inherited practices and biases that don’t really align with. My theology around this, but they do limit what women can and cannot do. And again, it’s more about habit and tradition than it is really about belief system in today’s context.
But then just this last year and a half or so, I have been working with a lot of churches who have women stepping up into lots of leadership roles. They’re making spaces at the table. They’re serving on the executive team, but women themselves are. Still having a lot of challenge, kind of navigating the pressures of that and not necessarily the pressure of the job, but the dynamics of being the only woman or the first woman to sort of break through what we call the glass, the stained glass ceiling.
Right? Or I’m balancing home and work and I don’t have any models for that, or I’m just questioning myself like, is it okay if I do this or how do I. Find my voice in these higher level leadership roles, [00:14:00] especially for women who have been developed as leaders within church systems. For women like myself, I grew up in nursing.
I was even at a, a va, a veterans hospital, which were really run by military women. And so I learned a lot of leadership. I got a thick skin real quick. I was given huge opportunities that I tried to step into. I got a lot of feedback, but women in ministry circles, if they followed sort of the internal development pathway, which most women who grow in leadership.
Are from internal systems, right? They’ve been in the church a long time. Sure. We trust them. We trust them with God’s word. We trust them with the leadership and the people we trust. Their heart is with us, but they’ve not had constant feedback. They’ve not had a lot of opportunities. They don’t know what their gifts really are.
They don’t know how to take their leadership legs out for a run and see what they can do, and so they spend a lot of time questioning themselves, or they’re uncertain. Seen a role model of a female leader lead in this way. They’re trying to find their voice and that balance between do I give a decision that I’ll be respected or do I give a decision that everyone will still like me?
Most [00:15:00] men don’t have to make those choices. Women feel the that, that it’s one or the other because it often is. And so I’m trying to give more support now to women as they step into these roles so that they stay in the game. You know, like I said, we’re in this transition generation and. I like to remind women, most of us are not gonna be Esthers.
We’re not gonna get, you know, picked outta the crowd by the king and save a nation and have a book named after us. We’re gonna be more like the Vashti, the Queen who came first, who spoke up for truth, who did the hard work, who kind of took. The hit and made way for the Esthers to come after us. And so that’s good. That’s a different kind of role in the kingdom. It’s a critical one but we need a little bit more support. So I’m trying to talk a little bit more about some very tactical, practical leadership lessons that most women don’t get in their development. The things you get from a mentor, but we, again, a lot of women are not mentored by people in leadership because most of them are men.
And we sort of have a bias against men mentoring women. And so tries trying to kind of fill in the [00:16:00] gaps and give some encouragement and help women know that it’s possible to actually really enjoy your leadership and love your family well and be flourishing in the kingdom and still get a good night’s sleep at night.
You don’t have to take quite, take it all on yourself every single day.
[00:16:16] Phil: That’s great. Well, that’s a great transition, Katie. You know, I think I know I first came across you because of the book you’ve referenced a few times developing female leaders. I think somebody had recommended it to me and I read it and then recommended it to like half the staff and said you to check this book out.
Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. It probably five, six years ago that that I came across it. Nor not long after it was published, I would guess. And you know, so many great things in that book, I really do strongly recommend it to, you know, any, I mean any leaders, but especially like some of the men that are listening, if you’re trying to figure out how to do a better job of this in your context, there’s just, it’s not just theory.
Your book is not just theory. There’s like real. Practical things in there that we can take, we can look at and go, how do [00:17:00] I implement this like right now at my church, without having like some big, you know, theological discussion. Yes. ’cause a lot of it is not really tied to theology, quite frankly. It’s, it’s just like, you can do this regardless of what your particular theological persuasion is in your church.
A lot of this just doesn’t tie to that. But one thing in particular that, that you just referenced is that. Idea of mentorship or the sponsor. The male sponsor. And I think, you know, just you know, quite honestly, having a woman say we actually need. Male sponsors, we need male mentors. And that’s okay to do that.
Like, that’s not gonna be weird. It doesn’t have to be weird, right? We could just do this and have it be a normal part of, of leadership development. Was for just for me personally, very empowering. And so, you know, I remember coming alongside of, one of the women who were, was leading at a high level, and in my church context, she was leading a massive ministry within the church.
Hmm. And just saying, you need to write a book about this. Like,
[00:17:59] Tyler: [00:18:00] Hmm,
[00:18:00] Phil: you’re like the best person I know on this. And and take work time, take work time and write a book on it. Like, oh, I love that. Take week off and go away and do a writing retreat. See what you’ve got. You know? And you know, she later did write a book on it.
And I, by no means I’m taking credit for that. I’m just saying that, that I was one. One voice in her life saying, you’re good at this and you need to, you need to share this with others. But talk more about like that idea of male sponsorship. Male mentorship, what does that look like? How have you, maybe a couple success stories, like share a little bit about that.
[00:18:30] Kadi: Yeah. So every leader really has the need for three people in their life, a mentor, a coach, and a sponsor. And so, part of the challenge that we run into with female leaders in church settings is that, like I said, because of our sort of boundaries and fear around inappropriate relationships and because of some clear scriptures about spiritual discipleship that women disciple women and men disciple men.
Which I just wanna remind everybody in today’s LGBTQ plus [00:19:00] environment, that is not necessarily keeping you safe or above reproach, so Right. We need to kind of rethink how we are, are considering ourselves like protected. But what happens is that most of the men, in fact the stats, I think. Most recently are about 90% of leadership roles in churches.
Formal leadership roles are held by men, 10% by women. And so if you’re an up and coming leader and you can’t get mentoring except from only 10% of the leaders. In the church in general, you’re really at a disadvantage. And mentoring is one of those critical pieces that helps you really process and think through your leadership.
So these three roles, the way I like to describe it is mentors talk with you. So when you have a leadership opportunity and the mentor talks with you, be ahead of time. Oftentimes this is your direct leader. Hey, I want you to run this meeting. Here’s some things I want you to keep in mind. Watch out for this guy who will always do this.
And you know, don’t forget this over here. You go and do the meeting, and then when you come back, let’s talk about how it went. Yeah. Debrief. What did you think? Right? Yeah. Yeah. It’s, I talk [00:20:00] with you and we formulate kind of what’s happening on the inside of you and on the outside of you. That’s mentoring.
Coaches talk at you, Hey, you need to be doing this. Stretch it. If you think of like a coach for the Olympic team, you know, they’re like get your legs up faster. They’re yelling at you, they’re pushing you, they’re challenging you to go faster. And then a sponsor actually talks about you, and this is someone who is in rooms that you’re not in.
And this is exactly the kind of thing that you did. Phil is not only. Saying to this woman, Hey I think you have a book in you, but you probably also said, Hey, I think so-and-so’s got a book in her. We should give her time. Right? Or if you knew a publisher, you might be like, Hey, I’ve got this gal on my team.
You should really meet her. I’m talking about you in rooms that you don’t have access to. So, when you’re sitting, particularly in the executive seat, you have such a huge opportunity to sponsor people. And in fact, one of the things, I think that’s a critical piece of the leadership development. Culture of a church is that the executive leader has an eye on who are the up and coming leaders?
Yes. Who are the people who are performing well? You know, performance reviews aren’t just for the file, [00:21:00] they’re for you. Who is getting all five stars? Who do you need to keep your eye on so that when it comes time to launch a campus, or it comes time to have a church plant team, or you’re gonna initiate a new young adult ministry?
These are people, you don’t even necessarily have to give them a promotion or a raise, but you can say, Hey, will you for six weeks take on this project? Or will you be part of the launch strategy team to figure this out? Give them an opportunity to exercise leadership, present something to the executive team, see how he or she does.
That’s how people grow in leadership and sponsorship is one of the things that women tend to get overlooked, both sponsorship and mentorship. Again, because of these gender boundaries, because all of us as leaders, we tend to see up and coming leaders if they remind us of us, like, oh, they’re kind of, they’re big on personality, but low on knowledge or they’re really confident in these areas, but weak in these areas.
Or I came from the same kind of family or they remind me of my personality or they show up in my office and ask me questions and bring my coffee. They know how to work the system. [00:22:00] Most women don’t know how to do that and most men don’t see themselves in up and coming female leaders. And so we naturally go, oh, you remind me of me.
I think I can really help you because I get why you’re stuck. I had a dad like your dad. You know, I get where you’re feeling this internal conflict. But most women, immature leadership and women looks very different than immature leadership in men. And we oftentimes don’t have a real patience for it like we do for men.
We kinda look at this like. Young, arrogant guy that wants to take everything you know on, and we’re like, you’re so cute. Life’s gonna flatten you, you know, can’t wait for you to give that sermon and also get an email from Sam in the back. You know, we, we have an, we have an okayness with that sort of immaturity, but female immaturity looks different and it can be annoying and feel bossy and feel like it is overdoing.
And we don’t have a, we don’t have just like an aptitude for it. And so women tend to not get mentored, and then they also don’t get sponsored, and so they tend to stay stuck in lower level leaderships, not because they don’t have the capacity or [00:23:00] the gifting or the calling, but because we haven’t expanded our leadership skills and mindsets to actually make a pathway for them.
[00:23:07] Tyler: Wow. That is, yeah, I love all of that. I’m gonna be thinking about that probably the rest of the day. So thank you so much. I appreciate that. You know, you’re often coaching and advising male leaders who wanna develop women. Well, and so just, I’m just curious, what’s the message you find yourself repeating over and over to men, almost to the point of banging your head against the wall when it comes to supporting and developing female leaders?
[00:23:31] Kadi: Oh, there’s so many.
[00:23:33] Tyler: I bet.
[00:23:34] Phil: Try to pick one or two.
[00:23:36] Tyler: We’ll do a three or four part podcast just to give
[00:23:38] Kadi: you No, I’m just kidding.
[00:23:39] Tyler: Time to answer.
[00:23:39] Kadi: Kidding. I’m just kidding. I probably two big things sort of come to mind. One is I do think that it’s easy for all of us, and I would say part of the reason I’m passionate about this work is I grew up in these systems also that said to me about women.
Things that weren’t always true. And so I have my own biases against women. I was not a very supportive [00:24:00] leader of women. I was kinda like, I made it. Why can’t you get it together? Mm. You know, I really didn’t appreciate the uniqueness of my journey that most women don’t have. So I think the first thing is to look at female leaders.
More as leaders than as women. And for those of us who have grown up in church, which tends to be most of us in higher level leadership, we’ve been around church for a long time. We have women’s ministry in our mind, or maybe we have like the person that you married or your mom. And so those may or may not be.
Strong leaders, but I would encourage you to kind of drop the female in your mentality and think of this person as a gifted leader, right? Someone, God is gifted with leadership. They have skills of leadership and let the leadership conversation lead what you do. And so I think a lot of times pastors, because they have a strong pastoral heart, there’s a protection that comes with a shepherding gift and calling.
And because of sort of the way we’ve thought about women growing up, there is a. Sense that I don’t wanna make her cry. I don’t want her to feel [00:25:00] pressure. I don’t wanna put too much on her. I am, I, I don’t wanna break her. And so we think of her as fragile rather than as a strong leader who needs critical and constructive feedback.
Leaders thrive on feedback. When we do not get feedback, we tend to think we’re as good as we’re ever gonna get. Right? And so we need feedback. Tears from women are often not because they’re crushed. It’s because they’re frustrated. They’re frustrated at themselves. They’re frustrated that you’re not listening to what they’re actually saying.
They’re frustrated that their point is being overlooked, like it’s frustration, which is a very different sort of internal motivation than fragility or crumbling. And women want to be given concrete. Plants, like, what are my next steps? How can I get better? And that’s a different way of approaching sort of a soft, gentle woman who needs a lot of encouragement.
Like, you probably should go back to school or quit going to school. You have six degrees. You don’t need to go to school anymore. What your issue is, you roll over people or you’re not kind, or you need to relax. [00:26:00] Like, it’s usually different kind of feedback, but we’re honest. Often not honest with them about what is really holding them back or what would actually open the doors for them.
So that would be the first thing I would say. And then the second is, we oftentimes don’t budget equally for what the development of men and women.
[00:26:17] Tyler: Hmm.
[00:26:17] Kadi: And this isn’t a line item. Development. This is what our culture offers men that women have to go buy separately. So one of the biggest challenges that I find for women to hire me as a coach or other coaches or be in our programs is they don’t have the finances and 90% of the women pay for it themselves because their church does not give them the money to buy the book or do the online coaching cohort or sign up to do the conference or, and it’s.
Not because they don’t have equal, you know, there’s $2,500 for every person at this level for development. But again, what we mentioned earlier in the male kind of ecosystem that church is when you go to a conference, you have 50 people you could go to lunch [00:27:00] with and that you’ll be friends with and that you could learn from.
Women have like three and they probably aren’t even the right person she wants to hang out with. And they haven’t done more than she’s done. So there her question is not gonna get answered by that person. And so you have to fund women differently. For right now, again, when you have 20 female leaders who have 30 years of experience in your ecosystem, you don’t need to fund it differently.
But right now, you need to. So women need coaches. Women need to go to the WXP network conference, that’s like $200, but they need to not have to pay for it themselves. Chances are they’re underpaid anyway, have fewer benefits, and now they gotta like. Find the money themselves. So they’re like, you know, I just, it’s such a shame for a 50-year-old woman who’s a director of the biggest ministry in a person’s church to get for her birthday, a thousand dollars coaching cohort.
Like she had to ask for it for her birthday from her husband and mom to go together. Wow. And I just think that is just such, yeah, a shame when you have this kind of leader on a church staff, but it. We’re not acknowledging the [00:28:00] lack of resources that come that are made for women to digest easily in their native language and in a way that they can really receive and respond to and not have to translate for themselves.
Hmm.
[00:28:12] Phil: Yeah. Quick follow up to that. So, you know, part of the reason why, why we have you on the show is ’cause we wanna expose what you’re doing to the, the male leaders that are listening, right? So that they’re aware of resources that they can help some of their female leaders tap into that are.
Specific for women. Do you find that, that in your, like in the WXP group and in other things that you’re involved in, that you’re actually kind of in response saying, Hey, there’s a, there’s a male leader you need to connect with over here because that person is gonna help you move forward in this particular area?
[00:28:45] Kadi: Oh, absolutely. I think, you know, the best resource is just the one that’s gonna work for you. And so, right. I wouldn’t say that it means you necessarily need just women doing these things. Right. But you usually do need something supplemental. And I wouldn’t even say it’s supplemental, but it’s [00:29:00] more customized because Yeah.
The journey of a female leader, just like it would be for a, a racial minority if you had one. African American or one Hispanic American on your team. Right. And they were navigating uphill, just the dynamic. They need others of it. If, if you don’t realize that it’s different for that person, you’re really missing the boat on what That’s right.
Really creating a, a diverse and kind of like. What looks like heaven sort of congregation is gonna be. And you need them on your team. You need them to be in leadership. Your community is watching you. And they want to know not only do I fit here if I happen to be a minority, but like my son is 22, him and his friends.
They’ve got no tolerance for an all white church or an all black church, to be honest. Hmm. They have grown up in diversity. They care deeply about it. Their schools and their programs and their colleges have all been incredibly diverse. And so when they walk into a church, they feel the lack of it. And so it’s not just about maybe the racial percentages in your community.
It’s about this next generation [00:30:00] knowing what holistic and inclusive environments look like. Not in a way that’s like to the extreme, but just in a way that this is what real life looks like, right? And I’m in a digital world that’s connected globally. All my friends are from all sorts of different backgrounds and I love it.
And I want my church to be able to offer that to me also.
[00:30:18] Phil: That’s great. I love that. Hey, as we close out our time, Katie, what would be really cool would be for you to just kind of. Turn to your attention to the female leaders that are listening.
[00:30:28] Kadi: Hmm.
[00:30:28] Phil: And just maybe offer a, a challenge or encouragement, wherever you want to go with that.
Just wanna give you that, that opportunity to do that.
[00:30:35] Kadi: Oh, thank you. Well, first of all, I would love to invite you to our Women Executive pastor network. You can find us@wxpastors.com. And we would love to encourage you if you lead at that executive level, you report to your senior leader. That is a huge network that’s been incredibly beneficial in my life.
Encouraging I think you’ll find it the same way. It’s the women you want to hang out with. That’s what I would say. And secondly, I just wanna encourage you [00:31:00] to stay in the game. To stay in your calling. I find that women as women, we tend to do a couple different things differently than the guys.
First of all, we have very high expectations of ourself, maybe not of other people, but of ourself. And so we wanna be great at everything. We wanna deliver, we wanna be trustworthy, we wanna keep growing. We wanna go to the next level. And I just wanna encourage you, you are doing a great. Job and your leaders already believe you are an incredible leader.
That’s how you got into this role and it’s why you’re leading. And so you don’t need to become more, you need to just do a good job with who you are. Now, God will bring you the lessons. He will bring you the people, he will bring you the book. You don’t need to know everything. You just need to know what you know now and it’s exactly what you need for today.
And then secondly. You being in this, the long haul is what actually is gonna make the difference. And so sustainability and pacing yourself getting a C in a couple things, if you need to, if you’re used to being a straight [00:32:00] A student, you can get a C and still get your degree, I promise. And chances are your C is still another person’s a plus.
And so just take a take a. Break for yourself. It’s not about being less than, it’s just about being more mindful of all of your calling, all of your calling matter. God calls you to all of them, whether it’s at home with kids, whether it’s your parents taking care of your body, having friendships, leading in your church, receiving from your church, and not just giving.
You’re called to all of those things and he wants those callings to all integrate. They aren’t in competition with each other. He actually uses them as a flywheel to work together. And so if you need to come down on one to beef up another one, that’s actually part of how God is gonna wire you and continue to keep you sustained and in good health as you fulfill all of your callings.
[00:32:48] Tyler: Hmm. That’s amazing. Thank you so much. Listeners, be sure to check out katie cole.com. That’s K-A-D-I-C-O-L e.com. Read her books, subscribe to her podcast, and bring her [00:33:00] into your organization for consulting. Katie, thank you so much for being on the show today.
[00:33:04] Kadi: Thank you. And let me just give a shout out.
We do have a new ministry called female church leaders.com. We have a podcast. Yes. We have some cohorts specifically for women who are growing in church leadership, and particularly for executive pastors. If this is a desire, you have female leadership at whatever level and you wanna start helping them grow into the leaders, you know, they can be, this is a great supplement to what you’re doing, and so I’d encourage you to at least send them to the podcast and let us be able to pour into them each week.
[00:33:32] Phil: Awesome. I listened to a couple of episodes of that in prep for this, and it’s a, it’s a really great podcast. So
[00:33:37] Kadi: yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you guys, guys so much. Yes. Thank you for all that you’re doing in the kingdom. Appreciate you both.
[00:33:47] Phil: Oh, man. What a great interview with Katie. I feel like there was something there for everyone in the church and, and not just, females in leadership, but also males in leadership. And so I hope everybody was able to take part in that and learn from [00:34:00] that. Just really good stuff there.
[00:34:01] Tyler: Oh, absolutely.
I mean, she is such a gift to the church and meets a real need in the leadership space. I just, I appreciate her courage and her tenacity to keep pushing forward in a space that I mean some even have theological conviction about. That’s a really. Complicated space. And so just super blessed by her being on the show and sharing what she’s done and the fact that she has like dug in and continued doing that hard work year after year.
Just, just amazing. But we covered that all up in the interview itself. And so Phil I think it’s time to. Close things out.
[00:34:36] Phil: Yeah. Listeners, if you’ve got a building expansion project that your church needs to figure out or you’ve got an old building stuck in the nineties that you wanna bring into today, take a look@plainjoestudios.com.
Check out some of the work there and then send me an email at phil@backstagepastors.org and we’ll schedule a call to talk about your project. [00:35:00]
[00:35:00] Tyler: Absolutely. And if you are interested my xp, the company that I’m the executive director of provides bookkeeping support and remote payroll services to churches across the country.
We help churches stay organized, steward their finance as well, and free up more time for ministry. And so, if you’re interested in learning more, go to my xp.church and set up an initial connect that’ll actually happen with me. I take all of those and so look forward to connecting with you sometime soon.
[00:35:25] Phil: That’s a wrap on our episode for today. If you wanna catch me on Instagram, you can look me up at Phil Taylor XP and you can check out the show’s Instagram at Backstage Pastors. Tyler where do we follow you?
[00:35:39] Tyler: You can follow me at. At Tyler Ditz. That’s D-R-E-W-I-T-Z. The Backstage Pastors Podcast is brought to you by the Church Hub.
The church hub serves pastors in all kinds of ways. Check them out@thechurchhub.org. Our podcast is produced by The Good Podcast Company, and our theme music was written by Seth K. We’ll see you on the next [00:36:00] show.
