Christian discipleship is truly an admirable mission, but it calls for a certain kind of leadership rooted in faith, trust, and love. Only if these things are in play could one inspire other people to live their faith and become servant leaders themselves. Exploring this inspiring yet busy life with Dr. Tracey Jones is Aaron House, Founder and Executive Director of Piercing Word. He shares how his deep love for Jesus Christ and the meaningful counsel from his flock motivate him to go forward with his ministry as an ordained minister. Aaron also talks about the things that keep him up on his toes: doing triathlons, attending live presentations at church, and jumping in prayer whenever he has a chance.
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Episode 131 - Aaron House - Leaders on Leadership
I'm tremendously excited because my guest is Aaron House. Aaron is the Founder and the Executive Director of Piercing Word, as well as the coauthor of the book, Warriors of the Word: The Bible Memorization Battle Guide for Winning Spiritual Victories. Although Aaron is originally from Houston, Texas, he lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania with his lovely wife, Emily and their three children. Aaron is a professional actor. He is an ordained minister. He has a deep passion for Jesus Christ and for every believer to be able to wield the sword of the word of God in their everyday lives. Aaron, welcome.
Thanks so much, Tracey. I appreciate you. I'm glad to be on the show.
I'm very excited. For our readers out there, you're always like, "How did Tracey meet this person?" Aaron and I connected at the end of April of 2021 at a fundraising conference where it was a one-day seminar, where we were learning all different things. With something like that, the opportunity to network happened. I had the tremendous pleasure of meeting Aaron and hearing a little bit about his ministry, Piercing Word, which we'll hear a little bit more about it at the end. We're here to talk about all things leadership. Thank you so much, Aaron. You've read the little booklet, The Price of Leadership. My father was a student of leadership but he was also very pragmatic about it. He said leadership is a beautiful thing. It's also a heartbreaking and heart-aching thing. In his Price of Leadership, he goes over four tenets of prices that somebody is going to have to pay in order to truly be a leader. I'd love to unpack each one of them with you and to get your perspective as a leader throughout any stage of your career. The first one he talked about is the dreaded loneliness. We've all heard that it's lonely at the top. Aaron, can you share with our readers what loneliness means to you as a leader, maybe a time when you were in a season of loneliness?
I have experienced that as a leader. In fact, several years ago, I remember being in a season where I was coming up against some hard decisions, some things in the ministry, even some relational conflict. I didn't feel like I had anywhere to go to talk about some of these things because everybody that I was surrounded with was under me in the organization. It didn't feel like I had a place to go with it. Thankfully, the Lord brought me through that into a place. Not only have I had an executive coach, mentors, an awesome board, I have these different people in my life that I can go to when those things hit me. I'm in a stronger place, a much more community-supported place with people that have gone before me, people that are helping to continue to lead me as a leader. It's awesome.
I have a lot of people that are in the same boat. A lot of us are entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, or crafting that vision. When you realized, "I need counsel. I need feedback,” you don't want to share with the underlings too much because some of the stuff runs on you. What went through your thought process about finally saying, "I need to shore up the lines of defense and get some people in my tribe?" Can you go through what happened? Where did you look to find those resources?
Warriors of the Word: The Bible Memorization Battle Guide for Winning Spiritual Victories
I began to realize that some of those things that were on my heart and on my mind, I could not share with those underneath me. It wouldn't have been healthy, right, and helpful for anyone in the picture. I went to my board and began to ask them for the support that I needed. They pushed me towards that opportunity to get an executive coach. They said, "We'll prove to pay for that. If that's going to be an integral part of you leading as an organization, you're realizing that we as board members can be one kind of support, but you need another kind of support as well outside of that.” Being humble enough to admit that was cool.
You used my favorite word, ask. A lot of us are struggling on our own until we say, "I’ve got to help." I love that your board says, "We're here to back you." That's what a board is supposed to do. For those on nonprofit, don't be afraid to ask your board. They can't read your mind. They may sense but they're waiting for you to go, "Coach, I'm in here fighting the fight. Here's what I need." Thank you for sharing that and being humble enough to share that and ask for help. Aaron, in addition to loneliness, the next thing my dad talked about was weariness. Not only is it lonely but a lot of times you're shouldering very much the burden. How do you, as a leader, stay refreshed and replenished? The chain is only as strong as you. Do you have some insights on that?
One thing that I consistently do is I have a hobby outside of my ministry where I do triathlons. It's very active. I'm working out. I stay in shape. That's an outlet for me to get out into God's nature, run, bike, swim, and to be able to even use those times for prayer and rehearsing his word that I've memorized. To have those times is valuable for me. In addition to that, being in full-time ministry will eat your life. My wife and I have had to set boundaries for ourselves back on Piercing Word. We're constantly performing scripture, dramatic, and musical presentations throughout different churches, which is usually on a Sunday morning.
Back earlier in the ministry when Emily and I were shouldering a lot of different responsibilities and doing a lot of different jobs, we're at the bookings and doing the behind the scenes, we would find ourselves three months had passed but we haven't been to our home church. We had to set boundaries and be like, "We personally are going to make the goal that we're going to be at our home church two times a month regardless of what the ministry schedule is. We're going to bring other people into the ministry that is necessary to support that from us." We have that value for the whole staff. We won't be able to be plugged into their home churches so that they're being poured into while they're pouring out and getting filled.
Those are all three incredible things. First of all, sometimes we do need to get away, especially when we're in the mission. I can't leave it but it takes time to get away. I love boundaries. That's one of my favorite books by Henry Cloud too called Boundaries. Whenever something has gone awry, I'm like, "99% and 100% of the time, it's improper boundaries." I love the delegate that you brought other people in to serve. Those are all fantastic insights for how to cope with weariness. Loneliness and weariness, the third one was abandonment. Abandonment typically gets this, "That's bad." In my father's sense of the word, he's like, "You're going to have to abandon a lot of stuff that you probably did before, people, things that occupy spaces in your time, and being on boards. You're going to have to abandon them because you're going to have to be more focused on what your calling is to do." How do you hone in your focus? You've talked a lot about how you got there but how do you continue? Aaron, if you're like me, every day, you get another great idea of what the ministry should or could do. How do you stay focused?
Spending time with the Lord and trying to seek his direction for the ministry is key and spending that time in prayer. That's one of the biggest things as far as staying focused for me.
Isn't that tough? That's the one thing that we are like, "Prayer? I have to be working with somebody about this,” but that's the most important thing of all. How do you get to that? Do you carve out certain times during the day? What works for you?
I do have my time with the Lord in the mornings but then there's also making sure to stop and pray. One of the things that my staff knows me for is my sudden jump into prayer. One of my staff members called it ninja praying. It's like suddenly, bam, ninja, boom, praying. It doesn't matter what it is. If something's going on, we stop and pray. I have that from my personal life but also in my interactions with others too. I'm like, "Let's pray about that." It can be a continual thing.
That's your book, The Ninja Prayer Warrior. Aaron, I love that because I am an organized person but also, I can be all over the place. That is good too if you're quoted more. I get a lot of people on the show and they're like, "I'm up at 4:00. I pray for two hours." I'm like, "That is awesome but that's not going to be me." I love the ninja prayer warrior. I'll meet people in the store. They'll tell me stuff, "Let's pray about it right here." I thank you. I found it. Loneliness, weariness, abandonment, and then vision. Sometimes vision gets us, "I'm not Moses. I'm not a prophet or a prophetess." My dad always said, "Vision is seeing what needs to be done and then doing it." A lot of people see what needs to be done but vision applies this. You go and do it." How have you crafted your vision for Piercing Word, Aaron?
Christian Discipleship: Board members can be one kind of support, but you need another as well outside of that.
The vision for Piercing Word, maybe it would help to share it and then talk about how that came about. We love coming alongside Christian leaders in order to ignite passion for the word of God and the heart of the church through live scripture performances. We don't just perform scripture. We challenge everyone everywhere we go to memorize God's word for themselves. We equip them to do so with Bible memorization workshops, discipleship programs, and resources. It's the heartbeat of the ministry and what we do. That inspire challenge and equip that engaging people with the word of God, challenging them and equipping them. That has come about from a natural standpoint early in the ministry when we first started doing spiritual performances and realizing that this was a spark that ignited a fire in people's hearts to want God, to get into God's word more. People came away going, "I didn't know that was in the Bible. I'm going to go home and read that. You memorize a lot of scripture. Maybe I should be doing that. This is amazing, impactful word. It's changing my life." It's taking it from there and moving it towards that life application and equipping people for that.
The medium or how you got it out there, did that change, especially in 2020? Are you recording stuff? Is everything still pretty much live? Can we find you on YouTube or an app? How can we find you?
PiercingWord.org is probably the best way to find us. In 2020, we put our live scripture performances on video. We have some high-quality videos of our scripture performances available for digital download on our resources page. We published this book as well as another resource. COVID has been a blessing and a curse for many people. For us, there are hard times where for a couple of months, we weren't doing any live scripture performances, but we did Facebook Live scripture performances instead. We did lots of videos. We have those as a resource for people and Christian leaders to use. There's a lot good that came out of it as well.
The vision is permanent. The vision stays the same. The media may change but that's okay. It's like people don't read books, they read eBooks or audio books, it doesn’t matter. It's all good to compete. Aaron, anything else leadership-wise that you want to share with our readers out there? Maybe a leadership lesson that you learned or that you want to pass onto our folks.
Something that we're big on is discipleship with Piercing Word. We disciple our interns, our actors, and things like that. Discipleship is all about helping people to become more than they are now. That's one thing that excites me about leading and discipling others, watching that process happen, watching an intern come in and then one year later, coming out and quoting the entire book of Romans as part of this internship program. Watching them become more than they were before they entered the internship, that's one of the cool things about discipleship. Jesus was a leader through discipleship. He discipled twelve. That's one of the cool things that we've been able to experience.
Even for our leaders that are not in nonprofits or faith-based, mentoring and onboarding is discipleship just like followership is fellowship. People are like, "No." It is. I love that you took a very biblical concept and turned it into something that anybody in any industry or any walk of life, any faith paradigm can apply. That's a beautiful truth. Aaron, how can people get ahold of you? I know you said PiercingWord.org. Is that the best way to connect with you?
PiercingWord.org is a great way. We also published our brand-new book, Warriors of the Word: The Bible Memorization Battle Guide for Winning Spiritual Victories. You can catch that book. For more information, you can watch a video trailer about it at WarriorsOfTheWordBook.org. It's a great place to connect there. We look forward to continuing to be a resource and to come alongside Christian leaders to ignite passion for the word of God and the heart of the church.
Let me ask you this. I know you're near my neck of the woods. Do you travel? If somebody is reading and they’re maybe out in California or something like that, how does that work with your group?
The lion's share of our scripture performances happen within a three-hour radius of Lancaster, but we do occasional regional tours throughout the United States. As far North, it's Maine. As far South, it's Texas. We do tours. If you are in another state and you're like, "We'd love to see what this would look like," we'd love to connect with you.
Thank you so much for all your insights. For our readers out there, if you like what you read, please be sure and hit the subscribe button. Also share, we'd be thrilled. Also leave us a five-star review and a comment. We answer all our comments. Please be sure and get out there. Check out PiercingWord.org. Connect with Aaron. Check out his Warriors of the Word book too and see how you might be able to get that old noggin refreshed and learning the word of God. Thank you again, Aaron.
You're welcome. Thanks so much for having me on the show.
You're so welcome. To our tremendous readers out there, you have a wonderful day. Keep on paying the price of leadership. Bye.
Important Links:
Warriors of the Word: The Bible Memorization Battle Guide for Winning Spiritual Victories
Scripture Performances – Piercing Word
About Aaron House
Aaron House is the Founder and Executive Director of Piercing Word as well as the co-author of the book Warriors of the Word: The Bible Memorization Battle Guide For Winning Spiritual Victories. Although originally from Houston, TX, he currently lives in Lancaster, PA with his lovely wife, Emily House, and their children, Caleb (5), Aria (4), and Malakai (1).
He is a professional actor, an ordained minister, and has a deep passion for Jesus Christ and for every believer to be able to wield the sword of the Word of God in their everyday lives.