Episode 157: The Gate to Growth w/ Steve Cuss

The most powerful leadership tool is understanding and having awareness of what is going on under the surface. Understanding is where the work happens — it’s the gate to growth, but not the path. Episode 157 with Discovery Christian Church Lead Pastor, Steve Cuss, is one you do not want to miss! 

Bio: Steve is the author of Managing Leadership Anxiety: Yours and Theirs and the founder of Capable Life, an online community helping you to function as a calm, aware, present human in the workplace and home place. 

When Steve served as a trauma and hospice chaplain at a young age he learned how what was going on inside him could quickly affect his ability to be present to people in pain. He also learned how to notice the dynamics between people. These early lessons and later study served Steve well as he works with organizations on team health and the infectious nature of anxiety. 

Steve was first exposed to Family Systems Theory when he was a chaplain and he later studied it in graduate school. Steve holds sixteen hundred hours of supervised ministry in Clinical Pastoral Education and is a Spiritual Care Professional in the ACPE. He holds a Master of Divinity from Emmanuel Christian Seminary with a thesis focusing on the dignity laws of Leviticus and Exodus and how a suburban church can move beyond charity to address systemic poverty. 

Steve is proud to be a strategic partner with Compassion International, Leadership Network, and Mission Alliance. 

Since 2005, Steve has served as Lead Pastor of Discovery Christian Church in Broomfield, Colorado, an innovative and entrepreneurial church that has grown from 150 to more than 1000 in weekly attendance. The church intentionally welcomes spiritual seekers and skeptics and is passionate about partnerships that break the local and global poverty cycle. Steve previously served at a mega church in Las Vegas, on a ranch for struggling teens, and as a youth minister in the Appalachian region. 

Steve was privileged to grow up in Perth, Western Australia, in an adventurous family of origin. After moving to the United States for theological study, he married Lisa and they have two sons and a daughter, in whom they take great delight. When Steve is not working, you can find him laughing with his family, knee-deep in a trout stream, or trying a guitar he cannot afford at a local music store.

Steve’s Something Extra: If you want the best out of your team, you need to present a well self. If you are emotionally and spiritually well, then your team has a better chance of being well. This is the high productivity, high profit margin, actual proper work kind of well. This takes real work, but anyone can do it. 

Links and Mentions: 
www.stevecusswords.com

Credits:
– Lisa Nichols, Host
– Scott Crosby, Executive Producer
– Daniel Williams, Recording Engineer

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