Practical Revitalization Podcast: Recent Episodes
Practical Revitalization Podcast
Each podcast happens in "real time." That means that anything can happen while the guys are leading their churches in revitalization. Real issues, problems, successes, tears, sweat and anguish.
Here's Don and Natalie after seeing Sound of Freedom as they discuss why every church needs to watch this film.
Hear what's in store for the upcoming season. We will focus on the Pastor Shortage.
We will have a panel discussing this issue already here. We will hear from pastors in the deep south, mid-west, from NAMB, and even state leaders.
In the last few months, popular pastors have submitted to their elders in church discipline. Don discusses how these two instances show how this works, how we should react, and what we can and should do.
Don gets back from a New Hampshire vacation to give some things going on for the future of the podcast
Don gives an update as to why no new podcasts recently and also asks you to pray for him and his wife with future decisions.
In any church we often hear people quote a theologian or scholar on a particular subject of the Bible. This is an acceptable help often in getting the point across. However, when we see people quote these men more often than the Bible or on equal footing, we have to question if the person really knows their Bible. Do they idolize the theologian/scholar too much? Do they even know how to study their Bible? Today we look into the realm of hero worship and how this can harm churches, especially these days.
1. Do they know their Bible?
a. Hermeneutics
b. Bible Studies/Small Groups
c. What Tools do they Have?
2. Cult of Personality
a. Is the person reputable?
b. Does this Person Have Proper Education?
c. Is this person divisive?
3. Fallen Heroes
a. What is their Reputation within Christendom?
b. Have they ever been removed from ministry or disqualified?
c. Have they been fully restored into ministry?
A brief talk about what many are seeing in the lives of the church as many churches close
looking at the recent SBC report and why both sides need to find balance and understand that there is good and bad from both sides of the argument in the debate.
Natalie takes the lead talking about her recent time away and what she was studying and how we must be practicing this in our revitalizations.
As observed by Aldag and Fuller (1993), the groupthink phenomenon seems to rest on a set of unstated and generally restrictive assumptions:
- The purpose of group problem solving is mainly to improve decision quality
- Group problem solving is considered a rational process.
- Benefits of group problem solving:
- variety of perspectives
- more information about possible alternatives
- better decision reliability
- dampening of biases
- social presence effects
- Groupthink prevents these benefits due to structural faults and provocative situational context.
- Groupthink prevention methods will produce better decisions
- An illusion of well-being is presumed to be inherently dysfunctional.
- Group pressures towards consensus lead to concurrence-seeking tendencies.
According to Janis, decision-making groups are not necessarily destined to groupthink. He devised ways of preventing groupthink:
- Leaders should assign each member the role of "critical evaluator." This allows each member to freely air objections and doubts.
- Leaders should not express an opinion when assigning a task to a group.
- Leaders should absent themselves from many group meetings to avoid excessively influencing the outcome.
- The organization should set up several independent groups working on the same problem.
- All effective alternatives should be examined.
- Each member should discuss the group's ideas with trusted people outside of the group.
- The group should invite outside experts into meetings. Group members should be allowed to discuss with and question the outside experts.
- At least one group member should be assigned the role of devil's advocate. This should be a different person for each meeting.
Taken from the Wiki
Irving Janis identified three antecedent conditions to groupthink::
- High group cohesiveness: Cohesiveness is the main factor that leads to groupthink. Groups that lack cohesiveness can of course make bad decisions, but they do not experience groupthink. In a cohesive group, members avoid speaking out against decisions, avoid arguing with others and work towards maintaining friendly relationships in the group. If cohesiveness gets to such a level that there are no longer disagreements between members, then the group is ripe for groupthink.
- Deindividuation: Group cohesiveness becomes more important than individual freedom of expression.
- Illusions of unanimity: Members perceive falsely that everyone agrees with the group's decision; silence is seen as consent. Janis noted that the unity of group members was a mere illusion. Members may disagree with the organization's decision, but go along with the group for many reasons, such as maintaining their group status and avoiding conflict with managers or workmates. Such members think that suggesting opinions contrary to others may lead to isolation from the group.
- Structural faults: The group is organized in ways that disrupt the communication of information, or the group carelessly makes decisions.
- Insulation of the group: This can promote the development of unique, inaccurate perspectives on issues the group is dealing with, which can then lead to faulty solutions to the problem.
- Lack of impartial leadership: Leaders control the group discussion, by planning what will be discussed, allowing only certain questions to be asked, and asking for the opinions of only certain people in the group. Closed-style leadership is when leaders announce their opinions on the issue before the group discusses the issue together. Open-style leadership is when leaders withhold their opinion until a later time in the discussion. Groups with a closed-style leader are more biased in their judgments, especially when members had a high degree of certainty.
- Lack of norms requiring methodological procedures.
- Homogeneity of members' social backgrounds and ideology.
- Situational context:
- Highly stressful external threats: High-stake decisions can create tension and anxiety; group members may cope with this stress in irrational ways. Group members may rationalize their decision by exaggerating the positive consequences and minimizing the possible negative consequences. In an attempt to minimize the stressful situation, the group decides quickly and allows little to no discussion or disagreement. Groups under high stress are more likely to make errors, lose focus of the ultimate goal, and use procedures that members know have not been effective in the past.
- Recent failures: These can lead to low self-esteem, resulting in agreement with the group for fear of being seen as wrong.
- Excessive difficulties in decision-making tasks.
- Time pressures: Group members are more concerned with efficiency and quick results than with quality and accuracy. Time pressures can also lead group members to overlook important information.
- Moral dilemmas.
Although it is possible for a situation to contain all three of these factors, all three are not always present even when groupthink is occurring. Janis considered a high degree of cohesiveness to be the most important antecedent to producing groupthink, and always present when groupthink was occurring; however, he believed high cohesiveness would not always produce groupthink. A very cohesive group abides with all group norms, but whether or not groupthink arises is dependent on what the group norms are. If the group encourages individual dissent and alternative strategies to problem-solving, it is likely that groupthink will be avoided even in a highly cohesive group. This means that high cohesion will lead to groupthink only if one or both of the other antecedents is present, the situational context being slightly more likely than structural faults to produce groupthink.
Type I: Overestimations of the group — its power and morality
- Illusions of invulnerability create excessive optimism and encourage risk-taking.
- Unquestioned belief in the morality of the group, causes members to ignore the consequences of their actions.
Type II: Closed-mindedness
- Rationalizing warnings that might challenge the group's assumptions.
- Stereotyping those who are opposed to the group as weak, evil, biased, spiteful, impotent, or stupid.
Type III: Pressures toward uniformity
- Self-censorship of ideas that deviate from the apparent group consensus.
- In illusions of unanimity among group members, silence is viewed as agreement.
- Direct pressure to conform is placed on any member who questions the group, couched in terms of "disloyalty"
- Mindguards— self-appointed members who shield the group from dissenting information.
Do we do discipleship right? maybe and maybe not, but the main thing is are you looking at the makeup of your church and investing time properly with new Christians as well as integrating them into established groups? DO takes a look at this in this week's short take.
Bring Glory to God
If We Allow All Churches to Die It Says Our God Is Weak
Because It Was Once a Plant and an Established Church
History
We Love to Restore Other Things
Cars
Furniture
Tools
In this episode, Don talks about lost opportunities churches miss and also rants about how this affects the area he is in as both an Educator and Pastor in the state of Massachusetts.
We said no new episode this week, but Don decided this had to be said pointing out the pastor controversies the last few weeks, the crisis we are in in the Strauss-Howe Theory that he is working out for churches. This is an episode that you will want to hear to help you think through what is going on in the capital "C" Church
Matt Henslee talked at the 2021 Replant Summit about thriving in a rural replant. As more than half the revitalization in New England are in rural areas, we pray you are blessed by his words of wisdom.
Sometimes we just need to dress up or undress a church to make the right adjustments to make it modern in feel. Today Don shows us three things to consider
1. Undressing a church to exorcise the past
2. Dress up a church to hide things
3. Make sure that it works, and when to know it's time to change what you got.
Don challenges pastors to take a bold step to have the revival they want in the revitalization they pastor.
Don's Blog Article
5 Things Revitalizers Wish Visitors and Guests Understood.
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We have more people than your seeing today
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We really have children’s and youth programs
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Our goal is to have missions giving, but we are just making it week to week
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I’m not responsible for the mess
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I’m stretched and have no more bandwidth to give.
Most pastors burn out because they do not connect or keep connections going with other pastors or people in their church. Hear why this is important to do and keep up in a pastor's ministry.
Erik Maloy is back to discuss what has been going on with him and First Church for the last several months and some of what he has done, why, and what he is going to do in the future.
Chris McDonald shares why working with other churches in a revitalization effort is a key thing that replanters and revitalizers have to consider when things happen to block the church from healthy growth.
Don and Natalie interview Dr. David Jackson of the NAMB Replant team where he oversees the East region. Dr. Jackson has four decades of experience in Church planting and revitalization and shares his wisdom with the hosts. Dr. Jackson also served as Don's filed supervisor for his practicums in seminary this past year.
At the 2021 Pastors Encouragement Dinner, Pastor Lierte Soares Jr. brought an encouraging message to the 30+ pastors gathered. Lierte’s ministry is unique in that he pastors two churches, Framingham Baptist Church in Framingham, MA (pop. 72,308) and Precision Valley Baptist Church in the small town of North Springfield, VT (pop. 644).
Lierte Soares is a NAMB church planter missionary originally from Brazil and has been in New England since 2014. Pastor Lierte (or you can call him Pastor Junior) has been pastoring a church in Vermont and planting a multicultural church in MetroWest Boston for the past few years. Each week he makes the 240 miles round trip drive between the two churches several times as he evangelizes and disciples the people in those communities and those churches.
Erik and Don interview with Randy Adams, executive director of the Northwest Baptist Convention (NWBC), and nominee for president of the Southern Baptist Convention, top discuss his vision for the SBC as well as ask some questions on their hearts and minds.
See Randy's site for his announcement: https://randyadams.org/2020/01/14/my-commitment-to-southern-baptists/
Don and Natalie discuss the need for pastors and their wives to be transparent in their mental health as the discuss their own struggles after the recent suicide of Paige Hilken.
Link on article of Paige Hilken
Natalie's Blog
New England Pastors Encouragement Dinner
Today we interview another of the SBC President nominees, Ed Litton, pastor of Redemption Church in Mobile, AL.
The final live episode of 2021 and Dona nd Natalie talk about three things they've learned while pursuing people for their church.
- Pastors need to go after the people who "like the church, but................."
- Pastors need to cast the vision for them
- Pastors need to pray for God's will
In the second to last new episode of the year, Don goes over his big three after Praying and the Bible for a replanter.
- Know your community that you are in.
- Meet regularly with the people in that community
- Create a battle plan to evangelize and minister to that community.
PCRP S4 E6 Special Needs Ministry in the Church
Don interviews Natalie McKinnon on the need for special needs ministry within the Church and the missed opportunity to families that need it.
13% of Kids in public have special needs
1 in 83 are on the autism spectrum
7% of children 3-17 years of age have ADHD
8% of children 3-17 years of age have a learning disability
17% will experience communication disorder
90% of these families will not attend a church regularly out of embarrassment
Reach Natalie at natalie@legacysutton.com
http://mintools.com/special-needs-ministry-resources.htm
http://www.willowcreek.org/disabilities. Ideas for ministry at your church from Willow Creek Church,
Chicago, Illinois
http://www.hopeingod.org/disability
http://www.access-board.gov/guidelines-and-standards/buildings-and-sites/about-the-adastandards/ada-standards/chapter-2-scoping-requirements#221%20Assembly%20Areas
http://storage.cloversites.com/christianchurchesdisabilityministry/documents/A%20Place%20For%20M
e%20In%20Gods%20Family_2012.pdf. Nine lessons that will help a teacher lead a person with
developmental disabilities into a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
http://www.unitedspinal.org/pdf/DisabilityEtiquette.pdf. General information
http://www.understandingdisability.org/DisabilityEtiquette. On-line quiz
http://www.autismspeaks.org/sites/default/files/docs/going_to_church_0.pdf. Booklet for children with
autism about going to church
http://www.autismspeaks.org
http://drgrcevich.wordpress.com. A church4everychild site
http://childrensministry.com/leadership/special-needs-ministry/
https://www.amazon.com/Start-Hello-Introducing-Ministry-Irresistible-ebook/dp/B019JGEG2I (free
downloadable booklet)
http://www.keyministry.org
http://theinclusivechurch.wordpress.com/
http://www.joniandfriends.org/
http://www.clcnetwork.org/
Barna’s article discussed the number of pastors ready to quit, with 46% of pastors under 45 prepared to quit. 1,000’s of these pastors are working in dying churches out there. Many do not see the looming crisis and need for pastors to encourage in the post-COVID world.
1. Pastors are doing their all in dying churches, and the results are burning them out. No one is set to replace them, and so churches are going to close.
2. Pastors are not seeking out other pastors for encouragement. Either within their denominations or outside. Pastors are lonely and fighting the battle alone.
3. Pastors feel like they are following the Lord’s will, and the results prove they should quit.
Barna's Article
Don and Natalie interview Dr. David Jackson of the NAMB Replant team where he oversees the East region. Dr. Jackson has four decades of experience in Church planting and revitalization and shares his wisdom with the hosts. Dr. Jackson also served as Don's filed supervisor for his practicums in seminary this past year.
In this episode Don talks about the importance of prayer in a revitalization and why we must do so fervently, but also as an example for those who may not be praying in their own relationship with Jesus.
From Replant Summit 2021, Andy Addis talks about revitalization through Multi-Site churches.
Nothing lasts forever, and T$G is ending next year. We give some thoughts on this and how this can be huge for local networks.
Three things we see shifting
The return of midweek services
Wednesday and Thursdays nights are showing promise for families who are working hours that keep them away from Sunday services
Youth groups and Bible Studies
Both are being combined and youth group on Friday nights from 8-10 is becoming a choice to get teens discipled, and parents to attend Bible study
Smaller Church over larger church
People are choosing to go to smaller venues for a variety of reasons.
Email Don at don@legacysutton.com or Erik at erik@fcccharlestown.com with your thoughts.
At the 2021 Pastors Encouragement Dinner, Pastor Lierte Soares Jr. brought an encouraging message to the 30+ pastors gathered. Lierte’s ministry is unique in that he pastors two churches, Framingham Baptist Church in Framingham, MA (pop. 72,308) and Precision Valley Baptist Church in the small town of North Springfield, VT (pop. 644).
Lierte Soares is a NAMB church planter missionary originally from Brazil and has been in New England since 2014. Pastor Lierte (or you can call him Pastor Junior) has been pastoring a church in Vermont and planting a multicultural church in MetroWest Boston for the past few years. Each week he makes the 240 miles round trip drive between the two churches several times as he evangelizes and disciples the people in those communities and those churches.
Warren has served several churches in the elders role, providing pastoral support. He gave his testimony to the 2021 Pastors Encouragement dinner held 9/25/2021 at Legacy Church in Sutton, MA
After this brief episode, we will bring you the messages from the Pastors Encouragement Dinner that was held 9/25/21
In this episode we catch up with Don and Natalie and get a small update on Erik Maloy, then dive into the topic of the episode.
Churches have a reputation in their communities and many in the churches do not know what they are based on. Don and Natalie shed light from a book they read together by Mark MacDonald, Be Known for Something: Revitalizing Your Church's Reputation.A. What are you known for?
B. What does your church do well?
C. Embracing a theme for your church.
Books discussed
Be Known for Something by Mark MacDonald
Small Church Essentials by Karl Vater
Chad McDonald came to Lenexa Baptist Church from Valley, Alabama where he served as Senior Pastor at First Baptist Church. He originally came to Lenexa to be the Campus Pastor at The Fellowship at Greenwood where he served for two years. He became the Senior Pastor Elect at the main campus in June of 2014.
Here he shares why it is important for churches to work together and why some churches that are stuck or struggling to swallow their pride and reach out for help.
Don and Natalie discuss the need for pastors and their wives to be transparent in their mental health as the discuss their own struggles after the recent suicide of Paige Hilken.
Link on article of Paige Hilken
Natalie's Blog
New England Pastors Encouragement Dinner
On this week's episode Don and Natalie talk about updates and encouragement for pastors and pastors wives.
Links for what was discussed.
Video for Legacy Church
Natalie's Blog
Don's Blog
Don gives us updates on the podcast and future of the team. Also discusses replacing pews with chairs.
Don talks about recent events and why he believes that we are headed into a new reformation in the Church.
Don has Dr. David Jackson, Northeast Replanting Strategist for the North American Missions Board, John Brownlee, Executive Director for the Massachusetts Baptist Association, and Jim Fontaine, pastor of Friendship Baptist Church in Brimfield, MA to discuss Pastors Dinner Event.
From the boys travel to the Replant Summit 2021 in Kansas City, MO Jimbo Stewart, Pastor of Redemption Church, Jacksonville, FL and NAMB Replant Specialist discusses the 13 characteristics of replanters.
Pastors Need Pastors Preaching into Their Lives
Don discusses some observations he has seen and heard over the last several months and years and gives us reason if your area does not have a monthly meeting of this type, you need one. In those months Don briefly discusses how he has heard form veteran Pastors and even younger ones looking to connect with guys in their towns and close by for fellowship and to be fed the scriptures as they sorely need it.
IRON SHARPENS IRON: Theological and Planting/Replanting Conferences are good to get information and ideas, but a Pastor can only speak to a Pastor in ways that hit home and that they understand. Its like how veterans understand each other or how if you played a sport, you have war stories to share.
IT’S PURE NETWORKING ON A LOCAL LEVEL: Pastors love to connect, but when we have local conferences the region is usually larger than just 15 minutes away from you and does not allow for guys in similar ministry barriers to meet.
TAKING THE REIGNS: If your area does not have one and this is something that you are thinking about, you may have to take the initiative. Gather like minded pastors and men and start the process there.
- Perspective
- Helping Church Deal
- Emotions
- Importance of Raising up Leaders
- Are we Wrapped up in People?
- Depending on size, the loss can be felt more or less
Leave under good circumstances not bad.
In church revitalization we’re told that keeping all the old things is not in the best interest of the church. This is true if your facility looks like it got stuck in a time warp and into 1970. Statistics show that people have an innate sense of new and old and stay away from what the perceive as old. This is why many churches should regularly look around and see if updating their facility is in order. A fresh coat of paint can change things, it transforms areas with out expensive remodels and other costly expenses. However, that is not the point of this article. Let us discuss dusting off a time worn tradition as we begin to come out of our COVID comas, let’s discuss homecoming. Now we do have Back to Church Sunday in September, but as many of our states are opening things wide open again and churches are now looking at having in person services, many for the first time in a year, let us discuss why a homecoming is a good idea.
First, it is a time to welcome back the church family. In many of the old-time homecomings, it was a time for members to reacquaint themselves with people that life’s journey had just taken them away from their church. They haven’t seen one another since perhaps a church potluck, men’s dinner, or that Bible study group from the summer. In our situation today, they may not have seen each other in over a year, and so this will be a valuable time for the church family to get back in synch with family members they haven’t seen in that time. Reacquaint themselves, get their barring, and begin to find their place again.
Second, it is a good time to reach out to people who have dropped out. Homecomings were a way to get back in touch with the people who left the church, and if we are honest, we have seen that too in the current global crisis. Maybe it speaks to us that there’s a deeper need for discipleship in our churches, but it also means reconnecting with those who have dropped out. I believe we will be surprised by those who would return for a homecoming and we would be wrong to not want to use such an opportunity. For some in the original sense, they wanted to know how things were coming along since they had been there, and for many today, they’re either disconnected from social distancing and not sure how to reconnect again.
Third, it will help us gauge the recovery period. This one doesn’t have a tie in to the past, but it can help us for the future. We know that not everyone is going to return right away, there’s a lot of talk of people having PTSD in coming back to church, so this will be a good way to see who will return right away and who may still hold back, even after they get the vaccine. Communication is the key here, we have to remember to use the shepherd’s heart and care for our flocks. It will be aggravating to some who just want to get back to things right away, but it will take time. Churches after the 1918 Spanish flu (A period that lasted from 1914-1921) took about 4-6 years after to fully recover with smaller churches doing the best because they could keep track of their people and know if things were going in the wrong direction.
Fourth, celebrate the victories of the last year. You’ve made it this far by the grace of God, so why not celebrate it? In the old homecomings, churches would celebrate the service of one of its members to the church and community. They would give out an award for their faithfulness and the church as one would celebrate something they knew to be true. For many of us who have been doing church either in person with restrictions or online, there are people we can celebrate who have worked tirelessly to keep the flow going. Be it the worship team, AV crew, or someone else, they have come out and they need to be celebrated. Doing this in a gathering is going to show the church who had cared enough for them to still be fed by helping you pastor livestream, call, set up food drops, and other things that kept momentum during the pandemic.
Finally, let us take time to remember those we have lost, rejoice in being back together, and pray for the Lord to pour out his Spirit to revive our churches again. Paul tells us in Romans 12:15 to “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” My church is not coming out of this time away unscathed, we have had people get and survive COVID, and we have had some not survive it within families, so we must remember them. Also, there are those who were not allowed to mourn the loss of family to non-COVID related illness, and we need to give them their due too. Take a time to perhaps put together a video like those memorandums at the awards shows to remember who you as a church lost, but who your flock also lost during this pandemic themselves. Its touches like that which can bring things home.
Overall, this can be one of the biggest moments for our churches and treating the opportunity that is without preparation would be a bad move. Even if your church is not moving to in service yet, this is a time to be preparing, a farmer prepares for a harvest, and between planting and harvest is a lot of preparation, be in that moment, trust God and lean on him in the moments you struggle as you get back into the groove of meeting again.
Today we interview another of the SBC President nominees, Ed Litton, pastor of Redemption Church in Mobile, AL.
In the changing landscape of the pastor's wife, churches have begun to offer the pastor's wife a stipend for the work she does. Yes, the pastors wife comes along with the pastor, but it is the pastor who is hired not his wife. Usually they take on roles within the church. Don and Natalie examine this and ask if being a pastor's wife is a calling.
Don flies solo before a big week of interviews and lays out thoughts on the Ravi Zacharias and John MacArthur stories and then gives us feel good story that he saw bring a grizzled US Marine to tears.
Don and his wife Natalie discuss Premarital Counseling and why they see it as important to churches in light of many pastors not doing or seeing the importance of an intense counseling period before or even during a marriage.
Open talk: Church life
Why we are discussing this
1. Highest rate of divorce is now in Christian homes
a. Doesn’t look well to the world
b. Christians give into worldly view
2. Pastors focused less on marriage counseling
a. Look to more professionals
b. CEO style has killed the vision
c. Most think discussing bills, money, jobs is all that needs to be done
3. Simple cure or fixes
a. Pastors meet with couples
b. Dinners with couples
c. Advise what works in your marriage
i. Keep dating each other
Erik and Don interview with Randy Adams, executive director of the Northwest Baptist Convention (NWBC), and nominee for president of the Southern Baptist Convention, top discuss his vision for the SBC as well as ask some questions on their hearts and minds.
See Randy's site for his announcement: https://randyadams.org/2020/01/14/my-commitment-to-southern-baptists/
In this episode Don asks Erik questions based on reading he has from training he is going through in revitalization at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in light of things the revitalization pastor must do to help his church along in the replanting process.
The question includes:
Do we focus too much on the family aspect that we neglect the missional aspect?
Do we challenge the “spiritual” people in their “faith”?
Do we understand the true family nature of the Church in light of 1st century thinking?
Has the American Church created students for lectures, or followers for doing?
With Bible studies and small groups beginning to fail in churches, what is the next gathering type outside of the norms?
Why do churches struggle to do evangelism?
In the events of the last few months how are we taking care of ourselves mentally? Don flies solo and explains Erik's absence and explains why he'll be taking time off social media. This is also a challenge to the American Church as he explains how vast its different from the Church of the 1st century.
Don suggested When the Church Was a Family by Joseph Hellerman and here's the link
The events of the last few weeks and even year have given pastors a lot to think and sift through as we lead our churches and staffs in a new era. It has caused us to have examine how to handle and respond to the issues at hand, with people in our churches on both sides of the discussion. Tied to this is that churches may begin to meet in full again within the next several months as the anti-virus shot is taxed out. So, Don discusses three points in the messiness laid out that revitalizers will have to trudge through.
The State of the Union:
o We all have members and regular attenders of our churches that are on either side of the political aisle.
o Understand that in all of this, the Left wants their story out, the Right wants theirs out too.
o Bring up friend who came down on me for sharing something from a “non-News source” but shared from one twice and then denied the story from credible one.
o We must be Wise as Serpents and Gentle as Doves
The State of the Pandemic
o Not everyone is coming back
o Churches that did not disciple will pay highest price
Larger Churches have seen a decline
Some Smaller Churches have seen increase
o Smarter and more creative ways to evangelize.
o Discipleship and evangelism will become the new way to grow the Church
The State of the Kingdom
o We live in America, but we are citizens of heaven
o Faith over Fear
o God knows our futures
o In All things, God is sovereign
Being the pastor’s wife means more than smiling and supporting your husband. You have to deal with people who are not happy with him, and in many cases, you’re wearing as many hats as your husband in a revitalization. Today, Don interviews his wife Natalie on the pressures she’s felt since coming to Legacy Church as the wife of a church replanter.
- You Feel Like You Have to Defend Your Husband at Every Turn.
- You’re Wearing as Many Hats as Your Husband Is.
- Parents Do Not Understand the Limited Recourses the Church Has.
Don reflects on the positives of 2020 and what the Church needs to do for 2021
Replicate link https://www.amazon.com/Replicate-Create-Culture-Disciple-Making-Right/dp/0802419992/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=replicate&qid=1609445152&sr=8-1
Preaching for the Rest of Us link https://www.amazon.com/Preaching-Rest-Us-Essentials-Text-Driven/dp/1462761623/ref=sr_1_1?crid=RJ4KC5O1IJKE&dchild=1&keywords=preaching+for+the+rest+of+us&qid=1609445241&sprefix=preaching+for+the+%2Caps%2C183&sr=8-1
Mark discusses what replanting is like and the challenges many will face who choose this path for their churches.
In this episode, Don looks at things churches are realizing and pondering when the crisis is over.
From the 2020 Replant, Here about rural church planting and how God called Andy Addis of Crosspoint Church into an area he never realized he'd be in, doing multi-sight. As more replants are networking into smaller multi-sights, this episode will make you laugh, think, and rethink your direction.
From 2019: Erik Maloy interviews NAMB Replant director and co-director, Mark Clifton and Bob Bickford as well as Overseed New England president Jim Harell on the future of revitalization in the US
Don interviews Erik for an exit interview for a class tackling this subject to get a prospective from an area where Evangelism and Discipleship are needed heavily in an increasingly atheistic culture.
In this episode, Don McKinnon talks about how he and a group of pastors have been meeting, but how they came to a conclusion that the lack of empathy and a malaise has kept pastors from meeting in encouraging and challenging ways. Don brings up the question “what happened to pastors dinners?” even before COVID happened. Don’s challenge at the end is that we should be planning for when we can meet again, but how.
Don and Natalie discuss in a double size episode some of the things they learned and absorbed at this year's REPLANT Summit in Greenwood, MO Aug 24-25, 2020
The "Am I a Replanter?" Survey
https://www.namb.net/church-replanting/join/
Don tackles one of two questions he got from our last podcast in this special no intro version of PCRP.
Don takes the mic to discuss how his church has used the time off from COVID, his thinking out loud for getting known out there when we think we are known, and thoughts on the recent regathering survey and he has heard and seen.
https://www.christianheadlines.com/blog/most-churches-have-chosen-not-to-return-to-in-person-services-survey-finds.html?fbclid=IwAR2MXZV4g9349gwALmWHlUOvWZIZvQj3v6Ltp9_8NwUsVRmTiEk2l43hoBw
OUR 50th EPISODE!!! All three boys are back in this episode as Erik, Don, and Sam discuss what churches may look like in the weeks and months after reopening and how this will affect not just revitalizations and replants, but church plants and established churches as well.
On this episode we'll hear from Samuel Arroyo-Breeden who talks about his fall into addiction, his rescue from it, and the message the Gospel played in this.
Samuel is the Addictions Recovery Specialist with the Baptist Convention of New England's Compassion Ministries, an addiction counselor, and leads the Community Groups at First Church in Charlestown. He also is founder of New England Outreach a ministry dedicated to helping addicts find their way from addiction and into a meaningful life of recovery and relationship with Christ.
In this episode we look at 3 check engine lights pastors need to examine and have looked at before they fail in ministry.