unSeminary Podcast: Recent Episodes
Rich Birch
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Spence Shelton, Lead Pastor of Mercy Church, a rapidly growing multisite church in Charlotte, North Carolina. Since launching in 2015, Mercy has expanded to multiple campuses while maintaining a relentless focus on reaching people, developing leaders, and sending them into ministry. In this conversation, Spence shares how churches can intentionally build a culture of multiplication by developing leaders from within, creating healthy sending pathways, and stewarding opportunities for church revitalization.
- Stop “plucking” leaders. Start growing them. // One of Spence’s biggest challenges to church leaders is resisting the temptation to solve leadership shortages by hiring talent from elsewhere. Just as churches prioritize reaching lost people rather than simply attracting Christians from other churches, they should approach leadership development the same way. Instead of constantly recruiting experienced leaders, churches should intentionally identify, disciple, and develop people already sitting in their congregations. This approach takes longer, but it creates leaders deeply shaped by the church’s culture and mission.
- The power of the shoulder tap. // Many future ministry leaders never consider vocational ministry simply because no one asks them. Spence encourages pastors to intentionally “tap people on the shoulder” when they observe leadership potential. Some of Mercy’s key leaders—including executive pastors and campus pastors—came directly from marketplace careers like banking, manufacturing, and physical therapy. Rather than waiting for seminary graduates to apply, Mercy helps people connect their existing gifts and experiences to ministry opportunities.
- Create a clear leadership profile. // To make leadership development intentional, Mercy created a “Lead Pastor Profile” built around three categories: character, competency, and calling. While designed for future church planters, the framework serves as a roadmap for developing leaders throughout the church. By clearly defining what healthy leadership looks like, staff members know exactly what qualities to identify, cultivate, and reproduce in others.
- Character matters before charisma. // Within the character category, Spence believes self-awareness is one of the most overlooked leadership traits. Effective leaders understand both their strengths and limitations and are secure enough in their identity in Christ to build teams around areas where they are weaker. Without self-awareness, talented leaders can make excellent first impressions while creating long-term organizational damage. Character requires observation over time and not just impressive interviews.
- Multipliers build movements. // When evaluating leadership competency, the ability to multiply is critical. Can this person develop other leaders? Have they demonstrated the ability to move beyond accomplishing ministry personally and instead equip others to lead? Churches often unintentionally hire capable “doers” rather than leader-builders, limiting long-term growth. Multipliers create healthy ministries because they reproduce leadership instead of accumulating responsibility.
- Alignment creates unity. // Calling isn’t simply about theological agreement, but also includes ministry philosophy. Spence stresses the importance of ensuring leaders share the church’s convictions about how ministry is carried out. When someone consistently wants to reshape the church into something fundamentally different, the healthiest response may be helping them pursue the ministry God is calling them toward elsewhere. Clear alignment creates healthier teams and stronger long-term partnerships.
- Let people discover their gifts by leading. // Churches shouldn’t expect to know someone’s leadership potential before giving them opportunities to serve. Mercy intentionally creates pathways where people can lead community groups, coach leaders, and gradually assume greater responsibility. Some will flourish as long-term small group leaders. Others will demonstrate broader leadership gifting and eventually plant churches. The key is creating a culture where trying, learning, and growing are celebrated rather than feared.
- Revitalization begins with humility. // Spence also shares lessons from Mercy’s experience helping revitalize struggling churches. Successful partnerships require patient relationships, deep humility, and genuine respect for the legacy of existing congregations. Rather than viewing church buildings as opportunities to expand Mercy’s influence, the team approaches every conversation as the stewardship of Kingdom resources. By honoring the faithfulness of previous generations, Mercy has seen older congregations joyfully become part of new seasons of ministry fruitfulness.
- Faithfulness compounds over time. // Spence closes with an encouragement for church leaders: don’t underestimate what God can do through long-term faithfulness. Leaders often overestimate what can happen in five years while dramatically underestimating what God can accomplish over twenty. Healthy multiplication isn’t built through shortcuts. It grows steadily through consistent obedience, patient leadership development, and a commitment to stay the course.
To learn more about Mercy Church, visit mercycharlotte.com or follow Spence Shelton or the church on social media for additional leadership resources and updates.
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Risepointe
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. You know, this week is a great conversation and was recommended by one of my favorite church leaders in the country. And so you’re going to love this conversation. It’s going to be super helpful. And I do think it’s going to challenge you and provide you some steps forward.
Rich Birch — Excited to have Spence Shelton with us. He is from Mercy Church, a multi-site church with three locations, if I’m counting correctly, in Charlotte, plus Church Online. God is leading Mercy Church into a season of a bunch of expansion and investment in ministry facilities and outreach over a two-year discipleship initiative called All to Him. They have a goal to launch the Mercy Family of Churches in in late 2025, which I think is maybe launched, or we’ll see where that goes, and is aiming to form their own collective within the next five years. Super excited to have you on the show today, Spence.
Spence Shelton — Man, such an honor to be with you, Rich. Man, this is, I’m a big, going to say it, I’m a big fan of yours, man…
Rich Birch — That’s kind of you to say.
Spence Shelton — …because you have produced so much helpful content for me as a leader to lean into and grow little by little. And I can only hope that I can contribute a little bit more to the great work you’ve been doing, man.
Rich Birch — Come on, that’s amazing. Honored to have you with us and to learn from you today, Spence. And mutual friend in Andrew Hopper…
Spence Shelton — That’s right.
Rich Birch — …who I love, fantastic leader. And so shout out to Hopper. Thankful for what God’s doing in his church as well. So Mercy Church started in 2015. Give us a picture of kind of where things are at today. If we were to come to the church, what would we experience? Kind of talk us through the last season, kind of the last couple of years. What’s that look like?
Spence Shelton — Yeah, man. So if you came to Mercy today, what you’d find is a church, you might be surprised to learn how big it actually is because the church is, you know, a couple thousand people, but it’s across seven services and three campuses. And there’s some of some of that’s intentional. Some of that is, hey, we’re just kind of following the Lord where he’s led in this. And we didn’t really plan for it, you know, so.
Spence Shelton — Our average service size is not that big, but we’ve the Lord’s been really gracious. If you came what you’d find is especially at our broadcast campus you’d find an old church building that you’d be thinking: wait are all these people how are they you know filling in here, you know.
Rich Birch — Right.
Spence Shelton — And you’d see cars parked uh all through a neighborhood and everything else and you’d see a retrofitted old church building, and that’s just the story of God’s grace on us – a building that was given to us and a church family that decided, hey we want to join you guys and they gave us their building. Really cool moment that like a legacy moment of faith in our church. And a couple other spots where we’re seeing similar sorts of things and it’s just it’s awesome, man.
Spence Shelton — So we feel blessed. We feel like we are um doing what God has called us to do because we’re seeing that kind of momentum in the ministry that we’re doing. But none of our facilities are going to wow you, I promise. I actually love training church planters because, you know, so many times they come in and they’re like, Oh, ah we can do this.
Rich Birch — Right.
Spence Shelton — I’m like, yeah, you can do it. You know?
Rich Birch — That’s normal like us.
Spence Shelton — So we are praying and asking the Lord for better wins. Yeah. But you can do it, man. If you can do it here, you can do it anywhere kind of thing. So Lord’s been really gracious to us. And it’s a, it’s been a real joy these past 10 years.
Rich Birch — It’s so cool. It seems like you guys are in a bit of a pivotal season or an inflection point season where you’ve got a bunch of things on the horizon, launching Mercy Family of Churches…
Spence Shelton — That’s right.
Rich Birch — …the 50 Missionary Goal by 2030, a collective. Talk me through those. What is the future look like? What’s driving the urgency? Help us understand kind of what the future looks like.
Spence Shelton — Yeah, man, I think this happens for any church, both leader and in just the life of a church. You come to those milestone moments. We hit it last year with 10 years, and it was not only a milestone in terms of age. There was some just real growth that had been happening to the church that was forcing some good conversations around long-term you know expansion so that we can continue to facilitate what we believe God, actually, I should say we could steward what God is doing in our church.
Spence Shelton — And so we launched an initiative that we called All to Him. I was teaching through the book of Romans all year last year. And so it comes out of Romans 12:1 and 2, because Christ gave his all for us, we give our all to him. That is our living sacrifice that we do.
Spence Shelton — And so we said, we got some goals as a church, man. We want to see our church, we got some reaching goals. We got some training up goals. We got some sending out goals. Because when I planted Mercy Church, one of the things that was on my heart: if we’re going to come to Charlotte, North Carolina, we were going to be a sending church. Which means we’re going to build a sending hub here where this thing’s going be like an aircraft carrier that just sends out missionaries all over the place into the battles that the Lord has for us across the world.
Spence Shelton — That was just on my heart. Instead of going to, you know, a place that might be, might have a, I don’t know, like a north Pacific Northwest or Northeast, something like that. If we’re coming to the Southeast to the Bible Belt, we’re doing so intentionally. Very intentional.
Spence Shelton — So that’s been on our heart um ever since day one and this All to Him initiative. You know, we were hoping that by 2030, we double the size of our church. That’s because Charlotte is growing by 150 people a day.
Spence Shelton — So like, we’ve got to, you know, this isn’t like it’s just because it’s something we want to do. It’s a calling, a good stewardship of the moment that we’re in. And we want to we’re launching a seminary certificate program for our members of our church because we want to train them up. Right.
Spence Shelton — And we got a goal to see 50 missionaries go on the mission field by 2030. We just planted a couple of weeks before the recording of this, we planted our next church here in Charlotte, and we’ve got plans for several more.
Spence Shelton — We are a large family of churches about to become a collaborative. We’re, we’re ah you know, 2028, 2029, somewhere around there, we’ll officially form that collaborative if the Lord continues to do what he’s doing. All because, man, we are convinced that God has brought us here to reach people, train them up, send them out, which I hope does not sound novel to any church leader listening to this.
Spence Shelton — I hope it just sounds like, yeah, man, that makes sense.
Rich Birch — Right.
Spence Shelton — It’s like, well, then what’s the the magic or what’s the the secret sauce? It’s just putting your hand to the plow. And now here we are 10, 11 years in, and we’ve been steadily doing that same work. And I think the Lord is, um you know, our buddy Andrew would use the flywheel. That’s his favorite version of that illustration. But you keep putting your hand to the same thing and eventually the Lord starts to bear fruit. And that’s what we’re seeing now.
Rich Birch — Yeah, so good. And yeah, you know that and you’re a kind leader, you know that for some leaders, the reason why we’re talking to you today is unfortunately, that is more novel than it should be. And so we want to dig into that a little bit.
Spence Shelton — Sure..
Rich Birch — Particularly, let’s maybe start with that middle section, this training goals, you’re working on trying to train people up. When you’re thinking about the kind of leadership vision you have as a church, you’re thinking about, hey, we’re going to raise up leaders both you know here to and then also sending.
Rich Birch — I think we we can fall into this dichotomy around, okay, so do we find these leaders from other places and attract them to come here? Or, do we grow them up internally?
Rich Birch — Do we find a way to develop them internally? So it’s this idea of plucking talent rather than developing it. Talk to me through why is training so hard in so many churches? Why do we struggle with that? And we seem to default towards, let’s just find somebody from over there and have them come and help us here.
Spence Shelton — Yeah, man, I think that mentality starts all the way down to the idea of reaching people that don’t know Christ versus just sheep swapping from one church to the other church. Right.
Spence Shelton — So you can grow your church by transfer growth. Um, which I actually am one who, Hey man, if somebody on the sideline in one church and then they plug into your church, I I’m all for it And if the same thing happens with Mercy, all for it.
Spence Shelton — But our aim, what we all know as pastors and ministry leaders is our aim is man, let’s reach lost people and then disciple them. Right.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Spence Shelton — The same thing I think should be true with leadership development. For some reason, when it comes into developing leaders, we tend to go a different direction and think, well, let’s just go find where some leaders are and get them to to plug in.
Spence Shelton — It’s like, we don’t do that even with discipleship. Why are we switching our mindset? And so I want to just kind of, I have to, I was convicted and wanted to call our church and I would call others to the same mindset that you have with discipleship. Let that carry over into your leadership and your leadership development as well.
Spence Shelton — And I think that’s how we’re going to grow, just as how we’re going to grow the kingdom by reaching lost people, how we’re going to grow the leaders in the kingdom, the number of leaders we have, it’s going to be developing them in our church. And I just… I don’t know that we’re even thinking that way and asking the question, is the guy who’s a 27-year-old physical therapist in my church, has anybody ever bothered to tap him on the shoulder and ask, hey, man, could God be calling you into ministry?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Spence Shelton — Because I watch you and no we’re not doing the shoulder tap, man. And so um right now, I just I love it. Just a little bit of the story of our church…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Spence Shelton — …our executive both of our executive pastors and two of our three campus pastors were all in the marketplace. One of our executive pastors was in banking. Another was a plant manager. We have two campus pastors who were both, I use physical therapists because they’re both former physical therapists. And you know, we’re sitting there having these conversations.
Spence Shelton — You know what makes a great pastor is someone who has sat with person after person told them, hey, you should do this to feel better. And then they come back to you later and say, hey, I don’t feel better. And you say, did you do the thing I told you to do? And they say, no. And you say, well, you should have done that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Spence Shelton — And a patient, long suffering physical therapist turns out to be a great pastor, but somebody’s got to tap him on the shoulder and say, hey, man, I think God might be calling you into this. And so my my encouragement to anybody who’s a in ministry right now, kind of in that leadership development role, and you’re like, I don’t know, we’re gonna have to go outside to find some talent.
Spence Shelton — I promise it’s going to take longer the way I’m talking about. But if you will seek the Lord, ask the Lord, and then start shoulder tapping and giving some opportunities for guys to lead, for men and women to lead there in your ministry and whatever the leadership roles might be, I think there might be more people in there than you realize. Because I believe that God provides for the church that he’s growing, that he’s called you to lead.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that.
Spence Shelton — And so I think the same thing is true with leaders as well.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good. I love that. And I you know I love the even the vision for, hey, maybe there are some people within your church. We see this statistically, like even if you’re thinking about campus pastors, 9 out of 10 campus pastors are coming from within, which means we’ve got which means we’ve got to get good at this.
Spence Shelton — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And yeah, if your church has any kind of unique slant on the world, you’ve got to find people who have come up through that culture to ah to ultimately push that culture forward.
Spence Shelton — Yes.
Rich Birch — I love this this marketplace to ministry transition. How do we help people do that? That’s a real key transition. I would imagine on your end, you’ve got to help connect the dots for somebody. I love that there, how you even with the physical therapist, we’re able to connect the dots between, hey, here’s what you’re doing. Let me talk to you about the kind of role that we’re thinking about. How do you make that transition? Have you developed anything to try to help make that, you know could you know, connect those dots for people as you’re having those conversations?
Spence Shelton — Yeah, I would say we don’t I don’t have a conversational map that I’m doing.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Spence Shelton — I don’t have that yet, though I think that’s just like many things, trial and error, and I’m still in the still cooking to formulate that map.
Spence Shelton — But what I do have that we’ve worked through with our staff is something we call, it’s interesting, we actually call it the lead pastor profile.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Spence Shelton — The reason we call the lead pastor profile is because everything we’re doing, we’re building towards, developing towards planting more churches. And you’ve got to have a lead pastor to go and plant those churches.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Spence Shelton — Now, the thing is actually when you when you look at it, it’s actually just a ministry leader profile, you know?
Rich Birch — Right.
Spence Shelton — Everything on there, but there may be a couple of things that are nuanced specifically to lead pastors, but it’s kind of like when you go into Timothy and you see what are the characteristics of an elder? Well, every single one of them is just a good Christian, except then you got this thing able to teach. You know what mean?
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Spence Shelton — So it’s a similar thing is like most of our profile, nine points on it and divided into three buckets, it’s mostly just what makes a good ministry leader. Well, then what I’m doing is what we are doing is we’re taking that and we’re training our whole staff through it and saying, Hey, here’s what we are looking for. Here’s what we’re trying to develop. And then here’s everything. So I do a training monthly with our staff on these points.
Rich Birch — Right.
Spence Shelton — And then I do it and I say, yeah, I have to verbally say it, never underestimate or never overestimate, I guess just that it’s going to happen without you saying it, always say what you want them to do, you know, just good old preaching point there. But man, Hey, I want you guys to take what I’m teaching you and go teach your volunteers.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Spence Shelton — And go teach those that. And I want you to teach your leaders. And then I want your leaders to be able to teach them. And if it doesn’t work, I want you to come back and tell me so that we can get better at making this a multiplying thing. Right.
Spence Shelton — So we just got to have a lot of checks and balances along the way. So we’re hopefully training. And it took a while to pull this together in a way that it makes sense to all of us. And now that we’re kind of running it, we can see the value in it of, hey, this is what we’re looking for. And now you can go shoulder tap and say, I know what I’m looking…So the the kids director can go, I know what I’m looking for.
Spence Shelton — Now I can go and start shoulder tapping because I know what, you know what i mean? Now that know what I’m looking for, it’s…
Rich Birch — Totally.
Spence Shelton — Those are probably the the beginnings of a conversational map to to walk somebody through, but at least you know what you’re looking for. You can start to have those conversations. And if you have the relational equity, those conversations can really go somewhere.
Rich Birch — Love it. I’d love to double click on that. I love this lead pastor profile idea. I think working to get the clarity I think is in is a great, you know, a great task for all of us to wrestle through.
Rich Birch — We think, well, we want to develop our leaders, but then we don’t have any definition of what do we mean by a leader, like at its more most basic level.
Spence Shelton — Yes.
Rich Birch — So we don’t need to get into all nine, but are there a couple of them that are either counterintuitive or maybe we miss, or you find yourself coming back to time and again, that are like real dividing points or like ones that kind of stick out to you in the in the framework?
Spence Shelton — Yeah. All right. So obviously all nine matter to me or I wouldn’t have had them all. So I’ll do my best.
Rich Birch — Yes, exactly.
Spence Shelton — I’ll do my best.
Spence Shelton — So we divide him into three buckets, character, competency, and calling. So each one of those has three points under it. And I’ll click on one of them, maybe in each, and you can tell me if you want to go further.
Rich Birch — Sure. That’s great. Yeah.
Spence Shelton — But in character, the one that I find to be the most overlooked is self-awareness.
Rich Birch — So true.
Spence Shelton — I find that to be the most overlooked characteristic of a good leader is one who is aware of their strengths and aware of their weaknesses and is settled in their identity in Christ so that their weaknesses don’t crush them.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Spence Shelton — You know, they can instead build a team around them, you know. Because the classic thing with a lead pastor is to say, well, I’m good at vision and bad at details. It’s like, OK, man, maybe we need to do something a little more thoughtful than that, because that resonates with me for sure…
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Spence Shelton — …that you ask the guys around me for sure. But what what? what about are you better at vision casting or vision creating? And what are the evidences of that in your ministry? You know, so for me, I’m better at vision casting than I am vision creating. That’s probably my my 9 to 10 is actually sharing it.
Spence Shelton — But I got to have some help and and love having help in the other side of that. And so there are plenty of other things like that. But when we have someone who’s not aware of their strengths and weaknesses, usually that’s that’s like a stop point for us.
Spence Shelton — And so if we’ve got someone we think, oh, man, they they come across because here’s the thing. Unless you have these points, somebody will can make a great first impression and a lot of long term damage in your ministry.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Spence Shelton — Not because they have bad intent, but because they’re not aware of what they’re… And you give them a lot of responsibility and maybe they’re not actually, they don’t have the eyes of Jethro in Exodus 18 to know how to build out a ministry.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Spence Shelton — You just thought they did because they gave off a good first impression.
Rich Birch — Right.
Spence Shelton — So that’s my biggest biggest one in that character, or not biggest one, but that’s a key one, I think, in the character is…
Rich Birch — Right. A key one that sticks out.
Spence Shelton — …man, are you self-aware? And so whatever we use, we love different, whether it’s the personality assessments, leadership assessments, but we also, and we just, we wanna develop from within because that gives us the ability to see.
Rich Birch — Right.
Spence Shelton — We can see what their strengths and weaknesses are.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Spence Shelton — Because we’ve had people eyes on them for months and years and you can’t really trade that out.
Rich Birch — Yeah, and character takes a long time of up-close observation to really get a sense of where where people are at.
Spence Shelton — Yes.
Rich Birch — Because, and you know we know this is, this is you know we don’t have to think long. There are lots of examples of leaders who—and all look great—but there’s like a 2% you know, problem in their character that ended up showing itself in the most kind of ugly of ways.
Spence Shelton — That’s right.
Rich Birch — So I know all nine are super important. I get that. appreciate that. But we can’t be here for three hours. So competency, what was what’s one in there that that that tends to say we’re just trying to whet people’s appetite to kind of help them think through it a little bit.
Spence Shelton — Yeah, man. For competency, the one that I would, the the one that, yeah, that spend a lot of time on when it comes to competency, what I would say is the multiplier.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Spence Shelton — I want someone who is a proven multiplier before I move them into an increased um level of leadership and responsibility. I want to see it, man. And if we, otherwise, again, what I’m trying to weed out is someone that talks a good game or someone that just has a, there may be someone I think a lot of leaders that might actually be really strong in the gift of hospitality have found themselves in the arena of administration simply because they are, like generous, kind, easy to talk to people. And they’re great. You want to be around them. They’re probably encouragers, that kind of thing.
Spence Shelton — And it’s like, wait a minute, have they multiplied? Do they actually understand what it takes…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Spence Shelton — …to take someone from leading self, to use the old Ramsharan leadership pipeline, from leading self to leading others, have they actually, do they understand what it takes?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Spence Shelton — And do they understand what it takes to go from leading others to leading leaders? And have they, let’s let’s just look behind them. If you wanna go the the Bible route, you just take 2 Timothy 2:2…are they able to train up faithful teachers who can then teach others also? That to me is, especially when we get into who’s going to go out and plant a church…
Rich Birch — Right.
Spence Shelton — …and I’m not sending somebody out that’s not a builder. Another way to say multiplier would be builder, but I say multiplier because I’m specifically thinking around leadership and leading those who will lead others.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Spence Shelton — If we want to build a movement of churches for the sake of the glory of God, and we want these churches to go and continue to build, there’s got to be multipliers leading this.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Spence Shelton — You know, gotta be. So when it comes to competency, that’s like a a deal breaker for me for who we’re going to send out the plant. And so I want to develop it starting in our student ministry, you know, and working our way through or starting in our college ministry, working our way through.
Spence Shelton — I don’t want to wait until we just try to, otherwise we’ve got to go pluck out from the, you know, ether, somebody that we hope is a multiplier. And I don’t want to do that. I’d rather raise them up.
Rich Birch — Well, and we see this temptation in churches when they get to, say, 1,000, and then they’re they’re growing you know they’re they’re eyeing 2,000 beyond. There’s a there’s a dangerous temptation that can come in, particularly for our staff teams. I know we’re talking broader than just staff teams, but particularly for our staff teams, we can ah we can forget the Ephesians 4 call to equip others to to ministry.
Spence Shelton — That’s right.
Rich Birch — And we just become doers. We hire doers rather than multipliers…
Spence Shelton —Yes.
Rich Birch — …because they get stuff done. And we’re like, oh man, they’re solving problems for us. But that is can then erode a church long-term very quickly. I’ve seen that so many times where they end up with, you know they slow down.
Spence Shelton — That’s right.
Rich Birch — They’re like, why are we slowing down? It’s well, because you’ve stopped multiplying. You’ve stopped doing what we’re called to do. I love that.
Rich Birch — So then the third category calling anything in there that would, that steps that kind of is similar. Again, I know all nine are are really important, but, but any of those that that kind of jumped to the, to the front.
Spence Shelton — Maybe I’ll give you one that has we’ve learned through some some painful trial and error,
Rich Birch — Okay. Sure.
Spence Shelton — And that is, we call it alignment. And what we mean by that is: as you develop a leader, when it comes to their long-term place in your church and leading maybe even beyond your, so in our case, beyond our church to going in and leading ah a church that’s going be a part of the family of our churches, it’s really important that not only are they theologically aligned, but they are philosophically aligned in terms of how we do church.
Spence Shelton — So no shade on any other way of doing church. What I’m saying is so that we can continue to be united in one voice internally, so at Mercy Church with how we do discipleship, and then so that we can be united in how we can help and train one another as a family of churches, we got to be aligned not just around our theological convictions, but on our ministry convictions, how we do it.
Spence Shelton — I would say to those of you out there who have a promising young leader, but it seems like they just don’t want to do, they want to change your church into their, a different kind of church.
Rich Birch — Right.
Spence Shelton — The best thing you can do is set them free.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Spence Shelton — And I don’t mean like, that’s not like code for firing, by the way, that genuinely that genuinely is like, help them find a way, an off ramp to whatever it is they sense God calling them to. If they’re not, you know, they might be just, they need more season of development. That might be all it is. But when it comes to appointing people towards and, and, setting people into key leadership. So take an elder role at Mercy Church, community group coaching, shepherding, that kind of thing where you’re in now, you are shaping, not just participating. You’re really shaping the DNA of our church.
Spence Shelton — We’ve got to be aligned with what we’re doing. It also makes for a much more enjoyable experience. I’m not saying we’re not thinking. We’re always thinking over here about how to do it better and trying to be faithful and everything else.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Spence Shelton — Of course. But I’m saying, man, you want to feel like you’re locked arm and arm going together. And when conviction comes that goes a separate way, it’s like best to separate. So we’ve we’ve learned that the kind of the hard way. I think a lot of lessons are hard.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Spence Shelton — And so I offer this as our missions pastor likes to say, we have paid some dumb tax.
Rich Birch — True.
Spence Shelton — And so wherever we can save another person from paying it, we’d love to do that for you.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I love that. and And yeah, I think alignment’s a massive deal and and calling it out. And I would think being in a church that is um so focused on sending, you’re you’re hoping that that’s a big part of what’s kind of the outcome of the church.
Spence Shelton — That’s right.
Rich Birch — That, you know, having an an outlet for that sending in a way that makes the most sense. Hey, here’s a leader who seems to have the skills and, you know, and and and then you can celebrate, hey, they seem to have some unique ideas that they want to go and see happen somewhere else.
Spence Shelton — Yes. Yes.
Rich Birch — That’s fantastic. Rather than having to like fight that. I think that’s cool. That’s really good.
Rich Birch — So, you know, help me ah pick this apart a little bit. So one of the interesting things I find in this whole kind of leadership pathway, leadership pipeline conversation is there are, so I think we all can be influential. I think in one way we are all called to be leaders, but not necessarily everyone that we’re discipling is necessarily going to be a lead pastor. They’re not all necessarily going to.
Rich Birch — Now I understand we’re kind of discipling towards that, but help me understand what are you doing internally with folks that you’re like, I just, they’re just not going to make that jump eventually. How do you have that conversation? I know that’s a hard conversation. What does that look like?
Spence Shelton — Right.
Rich Birch — Or am I just looking at this wrong? Which could be the case too. Happy to be wrong. Help help me think through that.
Spence Shelton — Well, we’ve got to have some freedom that comes from distinctive categories. This will help us a great deal. Helps me in pastoring a great deal.
First, we got to have the category of spiritual gift. The Lord has given everyone a spiritual gift…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Spence Shelton — …and we got to celebrate that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Spence Shelton — And we got to be careful not to turn the leadership pipeline into, or that concept of leader development, turn that into a a grading of gifts. Like you’ve got a, you know, you’re, you need to graduate from one gift. Maybe that’s a better way to say it. Graduate from one gift to the other, to the other. It’s like, no, no, no.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Spence Shelton — What we’re not talking about is graduating out of your gift set. God has given you that. And the best thing for you and for his church is to get really good at how he’s given you or how he’s gifted you.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Spence Shelton — And when we when we conflate those, when we only talk about just you know getting better, it’s like, man, we got to watch out. Instead, let’s say, how can we get better at the giftings God has given us so that we can steward it really well?
Spence Shelton — And then we find ourselves able to say, and when it comes to leadership, and here we are as church leaders, we’re now inside of a category. We’re inside of a category of leadership. And how can we develop leaders who are gifted by God as leaders? Well, the good news is maybe take some pressure off everybody, you’re not really going to know if someone’s gifted in leadership until you let them try to lead.
Rich Birch — True, yes.
Spence Shelton — So you got to let them try to lead, man. And then as they lead and you give them a couple of swings, two, three, four, whatever, and you coach them along the way, hey, here’s what we’re looking for in a leader. Here’s how you can grow from leading self leading others. Take the pressure off.
Spence Shelton — This might be how God has gifted you, we don’t know. But the best way to see, based on what we’ve seen so far, is to let you try. So here’s a community group, and here are the things you’re gonna need to be a good community group leader, and we’re gonna coach you and support you.
Spence Shelton — Let’s go. And let’s see what the next six months brings, right?
Rich Birch — Yep, that’s great.
Spence Shelton — Hey, this went really well. We wanna take you out of this community group leader seat and put you in as a coach. Now there’s a different set of skills you’re gonna need to be a coach, but man, it seems like your people responded to your leadership. What do we think about you as a coach?
Spence Shelton — Each set of the way, man, do I have the, the way I always say it to our staff—they’re sick of me saying this, so it’s great to talk to you because…
Rich Birch — I’m not sick of it. Yeah.
Spence Shelton — …[inaudible] fresh person to say this too—is that clarity in expectations creates confidence in execution. The clearer you are with what you are asking someone to do, the more confident they will be in doing it. Another way to say it.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Spence Shelton — So that’s just my my big thing there on on this. Let’s get over now that we’re, and what we’re going to find is some people are going to lead a community group faithfully for 20, 30 years at our church.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Spence Shelton — Praise the Lord. What we can’t see is that we can’t see that a failure.
Rich Birch — No.
Spence Shelton — Others are going to lead for six months to two years. And we’re going to man, this, this person’s a leader and, and we’re seeing it. They already, they’re planting.
Spence Shelton — I had someone come up to me the other day at church and tell me, Hey man, I just wanted to tell you, we’re so excited. You challenged me about five years ago to lead a community group. And we just planted our fifth group. And I went, like I went, I was, my mind went so far. I didn’t even have time to be, to be celebrating.
Rich Birch — Right.
Spence Shelton — Cause I was like, does anybody know that there’s a guy out here…
Rich Birch — Right. Yes. Who’s just cranking out groups.
Spence Shelton — …with the with an apostolic gift just planting groups every year what’s going so so.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s great.
Spence Shelton — I was like hey, but so that that was a a great moment the Lord gave me just of, hey this is this is going really well and there will be some that will lead a group and things won’t go well and they won’t go well and you’ll keep trying different efforts. So to my community group leader friends, hey once someone tries and tries and tries, would you maybe tap their shoulder and say hey can we try something else. You know.
Rich Birch — Good.
Spence Shelton — Like you are not a failure. We just got to find the gift that God has given you.
Rich Birch — Right.
Spence Shelton — And the more that’s in the conversation of your church, that’s in the atmosphere of your church—We’re just looking for the way God’s gifted you. And we’re going to try and make you the best you can be at how he’s gifted you.—The easier the conversation is going to be of, I don’t think it’s community group leadership. I don’t think it’s this. I don’t think it’s that. Because we have a culture of, Hey, trial and error, you know?
Rich Birch — Right. That’s good. That’s so good. I love that. And I love this has been a great kind of look under the hood of this whole multiplication issue. I think a lot of church leaders out there have the desire. They have the like, oh, we, man, I would love to be a church that has that kind of vision. But then what are the mechanics underneath of that? How do we actually do that?
Spence Shelton — Yeah. Yeah.
Rich Birch — Super helpful. Pivoting in this totally, well, it’s a related but different direction. Your church has been involved in a number of revitalizations. You talked about on the you know top end, you had a you know facility given to you. And I this is like a super inappropriate, with just a few minutes left, curveball to throw in there. What’s your shorthand thing for us to learn about that?
Rich Birch — You know that we’ve seen, particularly from a multisite point of view, this area has grown hugely in the last 10 years. It was 10 years ago, 5% of new campuses came about because multiple revitalization. The most recent study showed showed it was 40%.
Spence Shelton — Wow.
Rich Birch — I suspect Warren’s out talking right now. I suspect the number is even going to be higher. What are the few things that you’ve learned about, you know, those kinds of conversations and relationships that have allowed it to work for you? And it’s been helpful. It’s been a joy giving part of the story at Mercy. Talk us through that.
Spence Shelton — I’m going to do so using another point in my lead pastor profile just to have some fun here.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Spence Shelton — So one of the things we look for in a leader is confident humility.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Spence Shelton — Confident in terms of, man, they believe God has called them to something. You know there’s a there’s a settled confidence there. But the humility to be patient and wait on the Lord and see what he has and to consider others, Philippians, to consider others more important than yourself. Right? This matters a great deal when it comes to this area of revitalization.
Spence Shelton — What a leader needs to know that there’s this temptation, and I had it, of why would you not give us your church building?
Rich Birch — Right.
Spence Shelton — Things are going well for us and struggling for you. Why would you not do that?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Spence Shelton — Well, it’s that there’s an unintentional, I’m call it a holy ambition that may be a little bit creating some blinders. Okay, let’s use the positive side of that. The the negative side would be there’s some arrogance there.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah.
Spence Shelton — But the positive would be holy ambition. But what you gotta know is, man, often these facilities that are housing these churches, the ones that are remaining, a lot of the times that there are people that have been there for decades and for a generation or two, and they put blood, sweat, tears and money into where they are.
Spence Shelton — And we had to take the the approach of slow by my standards, still fast by theirs…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Spence Shelton — …slow by my standards. Conversation after conversation that began with , in both of these cases, began with the church that needed revitalizing coming to us. We didn’t go to them.
Spence Shelton — They came to us and said, hey, we’re trying to figure out what’s next. We hear you might be able to help. How can you help?
Spence Shelton — And we had to present them. We had to consider that a stewardship process. of a kingdom resource, not a how do we advance the name of Mercy Church.
Spence Shelton — And so it’s happened two different ways for us right now. One is a campus of our church. You know, we it took months and months, but they wound up voting to hand us the keys, join our congregation, and we held their hand the whole way through. And it was a really beautiful thing. And it’s where our broadcast campus meets today.
Spence Shelton — There’s another one that happened where we decided the best thing was for that to be a, because of the neighborhood it’s in in East Charlotte, to be a church planting incubator where we could plant a church every 18 months to two years.
Rich Birch — Love it. Yeah.
Spence Shelton — And so that’s what we’re doing right now. And there’s a church plant in there. And that was the best stewardship of that building. And after the conversation with their people, but we kind of, we basically put that with them and say, I had a lot of lunches and dinners that I just I’m going to tell you, if you want to get into this game and you want to do it in a way that’s going to honor the Lord, you got to be ready for the patient handholding that I would say is honoring a legacy of faith these folks are are taking.
Spence Shelton — In many ways, the greatest step of faith taken in our church has been a couple of other churches handing us keys…
Rich Birch — Yeah, 100%.
Spence Shelton — …to something that the Lord was an outpost for the gospel at one point. And now in both of those cases for us and in the others that we’re starting to see that are still too soon for me to talk about, it’s just, man, now there’s an outpouring happening in both of those places. And you got like, man, there’s a couple of folks that are from the original congregation of what is now our, where our broadcast campus now is. And they, they, they’re greeters. They have tears more mornings than they don’t on Sunday mornings.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Spence Shelton — It’s beautiful, man.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it is.
Spence Shelton — I mean, they’re all in. They are way bigger fans of Mercy Church than I am. And I’m the lead pastor of the church.
Rich Birch — Yes, right.
Spence Shelton — You know what I mean? And they just, they are like, they love, because what they actually are is they, they took a step of faith, a huge step of faith, trusting the Lord. And the Lord has blessed them and renewed a a vigor in their ministry.
Spence Shelton — I saw a couple of them, mid 80s, and it was about 11 a.m. weekday and they were leaving the church building. I was pulling up. I just put windows down. Hey, what are you doing? It’s like, well, we just finished prayer walk in the neighborhood a couple of times…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Spence Shelton — …and it’s getting too hot now. We’re going inside. And I’m like, these are the people I want, man.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Spence Shelton — Like just they’re retired and they have chosen they’re going their day prayer walking. It’s like, well, you told us to pray. And I’m like, yeah. Yeah.
Rich Birch — That’s amazing. Yeah, that’s incredible.
Spence Shelton — Thank you for leading the way you have the time and this is what you do with it. So, man, there are if if all we see is just, Oh a facility to advance my cause. And we miss what has actually been the sweetest thing for our church has been our very young church got some grandparents.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Spence Shelton — It’s beautiful, man. Beautiful.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah. That’s so good.
Spence Shelton — So that’s just a little bit I learned from that ah from those couple of runs we’ve had.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s amazing. And yeah, that underlines, so it’s definitely the majority—I think it’s three quarters, if I remember the most recent statistics on these sort of revitalizations—are coming about because the joining church is coming to the lead church, not the other way around.
Spence Shelton — That’s right. That’s right.
Rich Birch — And so you have to position yourself in a way that that confident humility is a great kind of benchmark to be thinking about, friends. How do we you know hold ourselves in a way that we’re here to serve other people, we’re here to care for them in a way. And I say to church leaders when we talk about these things, I’m like, you have to handle these relationships well enough so that then they’ll tell other people, hey, wow, we loved working with Mercy Hill.
Rich Birch — Man, there we love working with Mercy Church. Well, we love working with mercy Mercy Hill too.
Spence Shelton — Sure. That’s right.
Rich Birch — We love working with Mercy Hill, Mercy Church, too many Mercies. Wow, what a great you know interaction that was been. And wow, that’s a life-giving thing.
Spence Shelton — That’s right.
Rich Birch — And I loved that. That is what ultimately we’ll see more of these happen long-term. Not because you did some, you know, so too many people have these like, You know, like they use merger and takeover and like this kind of aggressive language, which just doesn’t help in the conversation at all.
Spence Shelton — No, it doesn’t help at all. Yeah, that’s exactly right. You got to have that humility. And if somebody’s sitting there wondering, okay, man, well, how do I how do I wait on that without, I want to go get it. I want to get started. I’d say two or three things to do if you’re looking and you believe your church might be a good church candidate for helping another church revitalize, whether that’s being a campus of yours or or something to that effect.
Spence Shelton — I’d say first start praying and asking the Lord. And that if you’re not fasting, then you’re not praying yet.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Love it.
Spence Shelton — So I don’t want to hear that you’re praying if you’re not fasting on this. Secondly, man, this is why networks matter. So I would say whatever your denomination or stream is, whatever, however you’re kind of tied to other churches in your community. If you have no relationships with other churches in your community, and then you want to go and be the revitalizer, that’s going to come, that’s probably going to come across a certain way.
Spence Shelton — So There are a number of—years and years and years—of meetings that I’ve gone to, conversations I’ve sat in, in order to genuinely try to say, how can we help? How can we help?
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Spence Shelton — Whether that’s sending a worship leader to go serve at a church one Sunday morning or helping one church with a a building fundy kind of like thing they got to upfit or something, you know.
Spence Shelton — Basically, I’m trying to be a team player in the Kingdom here in our little corner of the world in Charlotte. And then that’s going to earn the respect and the trust for when those conversations can happen in the relational network, those conversations can happen.
Spence Shelton — So I am one who just in my nature, I do not like meetings. I don’t like them.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Spence Shelton — They feel like necessary evils.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Spence Shelton — And I’m trying to get better about that. But they are actually what I do love and value is trust and relationships. And again, confident humility. I have to be more about the Kingdom than I do about my own church. And a rising tide lifts all boats, you know.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good. Well, this been a great conversation today, Spence. I really appreciate that. And thanks for going with me there with that little you know detour at the end.
Spence Shelton — Of course, the joy.
Rich Birch — That was fantastic. But anything you’d love to share just as we wrap up today’s conversation?
Spence Shelton — I would say too—I don’t know what’s spurring this, but something that has helped me so much in my ministry to the leader out there, especially the young leader, but maybe to all of them—you will always overestimate what you can do in five years and you will drastically underestimate what you can do in 20.
Rich Birch — That’s so true.
Spence Shelton — And there maybe a way to say it is you will overestimate what God will do and underestimate what God will do. So this is a little plug of me saying, stay the course, stay the course where you’re at. The Lord is going to do a work in honor of your faithfulness to the work. Stay in it, man. Stay in it.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Just to add to that, I’m doing some research on working on a book on churches that break the 2000 barrier. And one of the interesting telltale signs are senior leaders and senior leadership teams that have been in the same church or the same community for 20 plus years.
Spence Shelton — There you go.
Rich Birch — So going into their third decade, it just takes time.
Spence Shelton — There it is.
Rich Birch — You know, it’s not it’s it’s not you know’s not overnight.
Rich Birch — Well, I really appreciate this. This has been a great a great conversation. Spence, if people want to track with you or with the church, where do we want to send them online?
Spence Shelton — Yeah, man, you can go to probably social media is the the day and age that we live in. So @SpenceShelton is my social media handle. It’s Instagram and and those kind of things. Our church is just @MercyCharlotte. And you can go on our website, mercycharlotte.com. Find everything you need there.
Spence Shelton — We’re launching a podcast. Praise God, let’s go. You can find all of it, though, just through our Instagram handles, which is usually a good first landing point for folks. And however we can help, man, feel free to reach out. Nothing super shiny about what we got going on over here, but we love being in the game for the Kingdom. However we can help.
Rich Birch — All the best as you serve in Charlotte. Thanks so much, man.
Spence Shelton — Thank you, brother.
Leadership failures rarely happen overnight. More often, they begin with unseen pressures, unresolved pain, and unhealthy patterns that slowly erode a leader from the inside out. In this special compilation episode, we bring together four candid conversations with experienced church leaders who openly share the personal struggles that nearly derailed their ministries.
Rather than focusing on leadership strategies or organizational systems, this episode explores the inner life of church leaders. From burnout and unprocessed grief to stress management, character formation, and radical honesty before God, don’t miss the lessons that can help you build healthier, more sustainable ministries. Use these conversations as discussion starters with your teams, asking not simply how the ministry is doing, but how the leaders themselves are doing.
Unprocessed Loss Eventually Takes Its TollBob Riedy reflects on the burnout that brought his ministry to a halt and the painful realization that decades of accumulated loss had never been properly grieved. The death of a family member, staff transitions, declining attendance after COVID, fractured relationships, and personal shame all compounded over time because he kept pushing forward instead of processing what he had experienced. His story is a powerful reminder that even successful leaders are vulnerable when they ignore the emotional weight of ministry.
Key Takeaway // Pastors experience constant loss, but simply “moving on” isn’t resilience. Healthy leaders intentionally process grief with God before it silently grows into burnout, anxiety, or shame.
Listen to the Full Episode // Burnout, Breakthrough, and the Road to a Healthier Ministry with Bob Riedy (May 29, 2025)
Simple Practices Build Long-Term ResilienceCharles Stone shares practical neuroscience-backed habits that help leaders reduce stress and remain emotionally healthy. Rather than offering complicated solutions, he begins with something every leader can practice immediately: intentional breathing. By slowing the body’s stress response through simple breathing exercises, pastors can create space to think clearly, regulate emotions, and respond wisely during difficult seasons.
Key Takeaway // Resilience isn’t built during a crisis. It’s developed through consistent daily practices. Simple rhythms like intentional breathing can help pastors lower stress before it becomes overwhelming.
Listen to the Full Episode // Leading Through Stress Without Burning Out with Charles Stone (July 3, 2025)
Crisis Reveals CharacterAllen Holmes explains that gifted leaders often reach a defining crossroads when crisis exposes weaknesses beneath their talent and experience. Every leader eventually faces a moment when they must decide whether to hide behind their abilities or allow God to shape their character through hardship. Churches that embrace this perspective create cultures where leaders remain, grow, and mature instead of running from difficult seasons.
*Key Takeawa*y // Leadership development isn’t primarily about improving skills. Rather, it’s about allowing God to form character. Crisis often becomes the catalyst that moves leaders toward deeper maturity and lasting influence.
Listen to the Full Episode // Why Gifted Leaders Still Fail: Lessons from 25 Years of Ministry with Allen Holmes (March 5, 2026)
Honesty Before God Leads to HealingScott Landry vulnerably recounts one of the darkest moments of his life after personal failure left him isolated, angry, and questioning God. Rather than meeting condemnation, he encountered God’s presence in the middle of his raw honesty. His story illustrates that true healing begins when leaders stop pretending, acknowledge what’s really happening inside, and allow God to meet them in their deepest pain.
*Key Takeawa*y // God doesn’t meet the version of us we project to others—He meets the person we truly are. Healing begins when leaders stop hiding and bring their deepest struggles honestly before Him.
Listen to the Full Episode // Leading After You Lose Everything: Redemption, Honesty & The Fight with Scott Landry (December 18, 2025)
This compilation reminds us that leadership health begins long before visible success or failure. Healthy churches are built by healthy leaders, and healthy leaders cultivate habits that address the condition of their hearts, not just the effectiveness of their ministries. Whether you’re leading through growth, challenge, or personal struggle, these conversations invite you to slow down, examine your inner life, and take intentional steps toward long-term faithfulness in ministry.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary Podcast. So glad that you’ve decided to tune in. You know, the subtitle of our podcast is Stuff You Wish They Taught in Seminary.
Rich Birch — And today I wish there was like a big underline under that word wish. I wish this conversation was a robust conversation when I was in school. Today we’re listening in on four senior leaders talking about really stuff that was going on on the inside when nobody was watching.
Rich Birch — This is a good time of year for you and I as executive leaders to pull back and to think deeply about the kind of structures we’re building as an organization that really create a flourishing environment for our people. You know, we asked earlier in the year what your greatest fears were for this year and 24.8% of you indicated that staff health, structure, morale, succession were your top fear this year. And so today’s conversation, what we’re doing is listening in on four senior pastors who get really honest on the show about what was happening on the inside of them.
Rich Birch — One of the churches that I was an executive pastor at, about a decade after I left, the senior leader made tragic decisions in their own personal life that ended up burning the church down, literally to the place where that organization doesn’t exist anymore. And from my understanding, actually the building is going to be demolished. Literally there’s nothing left.
Rich Birch — A ministry that impacted tens of thousands of people doesn’t exist today because of the decisions of a senior leader. And so at this time of year, in the summertime, I want to challenge us to listen carefully to some leaders that have been through some horrific moments and have come out the other side more healthy. And I want us to learn from these moments and say, hey, what can we do to structure our ministry so that we can be the healthiest possible environments we can possibly be?
Rich Birch — So up first, we’ve got Bob Riedy at Church of the Open Door, who hit a wall on a Sunday morning a few years ago, and he learned about ungrieved losses that took 40 years of ministry to see. So let’s listen in to Bob and see what you and I can learn as we think about the future.
[Clip 1 Begins]
Bob Riedy — I really do think that loss, and especially not properly processing and grieving loss, was a big part of what was behind all of this. In 2018, I lost my brother, my younger brother, who was really my wingman in so many ways. That was a loss that I think in some ways I’m still wrestling with.
Bob Riedy — During the pandemic, we lost, pick a number, a lot of loss as far as attendance and stuff. At first, we were off for about four months, but then when we came back, people began to trickle in, and it was clear to me that we lost hundreds of people as well from our church during that time. That was probably a profound thing for me.
Bob Riedy — We lost some key staff members as well during that time. We lost some friends because of the politics and some of the difficulty of that. And so I think loss was a big part of that.
Bob Riedy — My counselor has really helped me a lot with that, not properly grieving loss. Terry Wardle is one who said that ministry is a series of ungrieved losses. And I found that I really wasn’t doing that good. I was shaking it off and just moving forward, shaking it off and moving forward, and not really grieving it and bringing God into it and surrendering it to Him.
Bob Riedy — And I think part of what happened with that as well was I was concerned about what people thought. We were this powerhouse of a church, growing like crazy, and all of a sudden, like every other church, we were struggling.
Bob Riedy — And I remember the day that I burned out. That afternoon my children all came to our apartment. My wife and I were living downtown, and my daughter reminded me of this the other day. And she said, Dad, do you know what you said to me that day? And I said, no. She said, Dad, you said to me, what are people going to think of me that this happened to me?
Bob Riedy — And that was a loss that I wasn’t able to really properly wrap my head around. I was more concerned about how this was going to look with me as a Christian leader in our community. And then I think one of the places that the anxiety came from as well was shame.
Bob Riedy — One of the things the enemy, I think, came after me with was like, you’ve been telling people here in York how to live for the last 15 years, and you let this happen to you. And wow, I wrestled with that as well. So I think that loss and worrying what people were concerned about or what they were thinking of me, and then the shame of wrestling through that as a senior pastor whose church had been top 100 churches.
Bob Riedy — I taught church leadership and biblical preaching at Lancaster Bible College, and this happened to me. And so I really wrestled with just the fallout of all that.
[Clip 1 Ends]
Rich Birch — What are people going to think? Bob’s daughter quoting him back to him is a part of this thing I just will not shake. Ungrieved loss, it compounds.
Rich Birch — Loss is a part of your role. It’s a part of my role. But what Bob learned the hard way is that shaking it off and just kind of moving on will cost you more in the long run than sitting with it and processing it.
Rich Birch — Charles Stone is up next. He’s a friend, a pastor, a counselor, and did his PhD on stress while he got diagnosed with three serious conditions in the same year. And we’re going to focus on an easy kind of habit that he has installed or practiced that he has installed that I think you could use in the midst of your processing, of dealing with even those kinds of ungrieved losses. Let’s listen in on what Charles has to say today.
[Clip 2 Begins]
Charles Stone — Well, I kind of get thematically. One involves how we breathe. These are practices that can help us develop resilience.
Charles Stone — One has to do with how we breathe. Two have to deal with our emotions. One has to do with our thinking. One has to do with contemplative practices, spiritual practices.
Charles Stone — One has to do with something called certainty. One has to do with gratitude. One has to do with relationships. And one has to do with sleep. So any of those, I’m game for any of those that you feel like we ought to touch on one or two of them.
Rich Birch — Well, what about maybe breathing? Why don’t we start right at the top where you started? And then, you know, we’ll scratch the surface. There’s a ton we could, obviously, we want people to pick up a copy of the book, but let me start with breathing. That might be kind of interesting.
Charles Stone — Yeah. Well, actually, this ended up being the first one because it’s very easy to do. Now, I think around 75 times plus, you’ll find the word breath or breathe in the scripture.
Charles Stone — And Genesis, God breathed into Adam. He became a living being. I think his early part of Acts, Jesus breathed on the early church, the Holy Spirit came.
Charles Stone — And then David, the psalmist wrote, let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Now, here is the interesting neuroscience insight. Deep breathing activates a key set of nerves that come directly from my brain, just come from my spinal cord. But these are these are key nerves that they’re in pairs.
Charles Stone — One of them is called the vagus nerve, comes from the word vagrant. What does a vagrant do? He wanders around. So this nerve wanders around our hollow organs, our heart, our lungs, our stomach. So there’s a lot of communication back and forth.
Charles Stone — Scientists have found that deep breathing, especially on the exhale, when you exhale a little longer, it actually engages this nerve, which lowers the stress response. And here’s here’s why you practice it. I call it the sniff breath.
Charles Stone — Now, the actual term is “a psychological sigh”, but here’s how it would work when you’re facing some stress. Just breathe in, you know, a little more and then breathe out through your mouth. Now on the out breath, you want to be a little longer than the in breath, doing that three or four or five times.
Charles Stone — Labs all around the country found it lowers the stress response. So that is a simple, a portable tool you can take. Anybody can use anywhere.
Charles Stone — So yeah.
[Clip 2 Ends]
Rich Birch — I love Charles. He’s such a practical leader. Listen, I’d pick one of those practices this week and really try to install it.
Rich Birch — I love that he started with breath work because it’s really the easiest one to start with. You can install it today. Literally, he gave you everything you need, but maybe look at the other ones. Pick up his book, “Stress Less”. Got a bunch in there.
Rich Birch — Well, coming up next, we’ve got Allen Holmes. He’s been the senior pastor at Definition Church in Greensboro for 25 years. He has watched gifted leaders crash long enough that he’s built a framework around this to understand it. Let’s listen in to what Allen has to bring to this conversation.
[Clip 3 Begins]
Allen Holmes — It’s interesting when I, one of the other real key moments for me is I went back to do my doctorate of ministry degree at Gordon Conwell in redemptive leadership. And so much of what we were studying is how God works in the crisis, in these pressure moments to expose the unfinished places in our character so that we can grow and become more like Jesus and therefore maximize our kingdom impact in the world.
Allen Holmes — And one of my professors, Dr. Powers, he actually wrote a book called Redemptive Leadership. It’s a simple little book, but profound, where he describes leadership development in five stages. And stage one is a skilled leader where you get a leadership role just based on your skill. So maybe the ability to preach. And so they call you to be the pastor.
Allen Holmes — That’s how I became the pastor of my first church. I could preach. I hadn’t done anything else, but they let me be a pastor because I could preach.
Allen Holmes — And then the second stage is a principal leader where you begin to understand why you do what you do. But the third stage, which is so important, is the character stage. And in order for a leader to go through the character stage, God always uses a crisis to bring him into that stage. But when he comes into that stage, he has a choice. In that stage, he can open his heart and allow God to do that deeper work, or he can go back and hide behind his skills and principle.
Allen Holmes — And that’s what pastors do. A lot of times the reason you see this turnover every, you know, depending on what statistic you read, every two to four years, pastors are leaving churches is because they come into a church and they have this honeymoon season. And then all of a sudden there’s a crisis that exposes some things and they start floating their resume and hiding behind their skill rather than allowing God to deal with their character so that they can advance and become a transformative, redemptive leader.
Allen Holmes — So I think one of the things that’s been so true for us is we’ve just tried to say to people when there’s a crisis, don’t panic, don’t run away. See it as an opportunity.
Allen Holmes — In fact, I ended up doing my dissertation on the idea that if we could teach this model to leaders, that it would cause them to respond differently in the crisis instead of running from it, they would run to it and open their heart. And God could use that to really propel them into their redemptive future. And the research said that was true.
Allen Holmes — And so we’ve tried to really work that in our culture to understand when something goes wrong, don’t run away and don’t hide. Let’s run into it and trust God to meet us there so that this thing God works redemptively to use it for your benefit and to launch you into your future.
Allen Holmes — And because that’s been our culture, people have stuck around. I mean, my lead team, Rick has been here 25 years. He was he’s actually here two Sundays longer than I’ve been here. Eric’s been here 24 years. Jonathan’s been here 19 years. Chelsea’s been here almost this year will be 14 years. Steve’s been here 10 years.
Allen Holmes — I mean, so they’ve just been here a long, long, long time. And that but that’s why they’ve seen these moments and we’ve helped them to find God in it so that it actually works for us instead of against us.
[Clip 3 Ends]
Rich Birch — Allen walked us through the five stages. The third one he talked about is character. And that’s really where I think you and I, our greatest test is at. And this is where we meet our crisis. You should go back and listen to Allen’s episode. Super helpful.
Rich Birch — Coming up next for our last part of the conversation today is a friend of mine, Scott Landry. He’s the senior pastor of The Bridge near Ottawa. He’s been on the podcast before.
Rich Birch — Next is a clip from a book that was coming out or that has come out called “The Fight”. And it’s the moment that he lost everything and that he was alone in a house in the Northwest Territory. The reason why I wanted this on is because I think Scott models for you and models for me an open transparency with ourselves, with our people.
Rich Birch — That is something that I think you and I should live with our live with and should think through. How can we be this transparent with the people around us? Heads up. This is a heavy clip and it’s worth every second of your attention to lean in and hear what Scott shares.
[Clip 4 Begins]
Scott Landry — I hope that’s a powerful moment in the book because it was it’s genuinely the most powerful moment in my life. And this was this was kind of at the crescendo of my my breaking point. So after my marriage and my life specifically falling apart and I kind of lived in a place of isolation.
Scott Landry — I was living in the North, Canadian North, and I was yeah, I was lost. I was I was angry like I had so much anger. And it was so, yeah, I talk about in the book and I was angry and ultimately I was angry at myself, but I was also angry at God.
Scott Landry — And because even after, again, making a mess of my own life, he didn’t make a mess of my life. Nobody made the mess in my life. I made the mess in my life.
Scott Landry — And but then after that, I was trying to do everything right. And I was trying to do the right thing, do the right thing. And I was like, God, when are you going to start intervening on my behalf?
Scott Landry — And so, you know, being the preacher that I am, I was like, I got all the Bible verses that tell me that you’re going to like now is you’re going to do the redemptive thing. You’re going to show up. You’re going to move.
Scott Landry — You’re going to fix. You’re going to redeem. You’re going to restore.
Scott Landry — You’re going to repair. You can do all the R words. And and nothing was happening like it was like and it was almost as if I and I literally heard nothing. And I’d like to say I didn’t feel anything, but I did.
Scott Landry — It was just this this anger that was welling up inside of me like a like a pot boiling and eventually it just I just became unhinged. Like I was alone and I was completely isolated. I was in this empty house and I just started crying out like and yelling out and I threw through things.
Scott Landry — I I used words I’ve I’m ashamed to admit I used. Like I mean, I was as unhinged as could possibly. I was like, I God, if I saw you face to face, I would give you the…like I told him all this stuff.
Scott Landry — And and what I found in that moment was like and I again, I talk about in the book, but like I yelled, God, I don’t even believe in you anymore. I’m done. Like I like I don’t I don’t believe. You’ve promised me that you would never leave me. You would never forsake me. And that’s exactly what you’ve done. I’ve told people that you would never leave them and forsake them. And yet you’ve done that to me. You are you are dead to me. I don’t believe in you anymore.
Scott Landry — And I even now I still feel this and I’m just talking about it. But like this is and this is I know some people are going to roll their eyes at this. But like genuinely, when I heard myself say that, I felt this…like over me, over my house. It was like this eerie like pause.
Scott Landry — And I heard if I’ve ever heard the voice of God, I heard a voice say, well, then who are you yelling at? And it was like this, like…
Rich Birch — Beautiful.
Scott Landry — And in that moment, it was like my anger was it wasn’t my degree. It wasn’t my Bible. It was it was my anger was my evidence that God was present right then and right there. And because my anger was directed at him.
Scott Landry — And he knew that I was angry with him and he met me at the place of my anger and he was waiting. And this is the part that I still, I can’t do this, what’s in my head and in my heart justice. But it was God was saying, I’ve been waiting for you at this place your whole life.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Scott Landry — You you have been hiding from this anger from your childhood, from your young adulthood. And I’ve been waiting for you to meet me here at your anger. And I’ve I’ve wanted you to know that I would be here waiting for you.
Scott Landry — And if you met me on the top of the tallest mountain and if you look me face to face and if you were to give me the finger, you would find me there waiting because I am waiting at who you really are, not who you’re pretending to be.
Scott Landry — And everyone around you, you’ve got them fooled. And you’re a used car salesman and you can spin the Bible verses and you can do all that other stuff. But I know who you really are. And I’m waiting for you to finally be honest with yourself about who you really are.
Scott Landry — And now that you finally are, now we can do something about that together. And that was the moment that God truly revealed himself to me. And that’s when I, for the first time in my life, truly discovered who I was.
Scott Landry — And yeah, that’s the moment that I hope anybody who ever meets me or talks to me or listens to me or reads it, like that’s the part that I long for people to have before it costs them, like it cost me.
[Clip 4 Ends]
Rich Birch — I love that moment when Scott said he heard, who are you yelling at? Man, that sticks with you.
Rich Birch — Listen, four different stories. What I’m trying to do is raise for you the question about the inner life of what’s going on at your church with the senior leaders around you.
Rich Birch — What if you were to go back and look at these four conversations and maybe say, OK, this one might be the best for us to lead a conversation with, and send them one of those, send your team one of those episodes. And say, hey, I’d love for us to take some time this summer.
Rich Birch — Maybe you go and relax on a back deck somewhere or jump in somebody’s boat or spend a little extra time at the office. Because there is a little bit of slack at this time of year. And ask the question, hey, what’s going on on the inside of us as leaders at the church? How are we developing and how could this conversation help us ask some different questions than we normally do in our team meetings?
Rich Birch — All the links to those four conversations are down below. Thanks for sticking through this this entire conversation. I know there was a lot today, but we’ll see you next week with our regularly scheduled programs, kind of back to what we normally do here at unSeminary.
Rich Birch — Thanks for being a part of the podcast. Thanks for doing what you’re doing, including the hard work of the inner life to lead your people in a way that makes a huge difference. Thanks for being engaged in the local church. Take care, friends.
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Aaron Stanski, founder and CEO of Risepointe. For more than 15 years, Aaron and his team have partnered with growing churches and Christian schools across North America, helping them design facilities that remove barriers to growth and create environments where more people can encounter Jesus. In this conversation, Aaron shares some of the most common (and costly!) mistakes churches make during construction projects, along with practical strategies to avoid them.
- Don’t build today’s problem into tomorrow’s building. // One of the most common mistakes Aaron sees is phasing projects incorrectly. Churches may be tempted to build a larger auditorium while postponing essential components like increased parking, children’s space, or student ministry areas, assuming they’ll complete them in a future phase. Unfortunately, that second phase often gets delayed for years, leaving the church with a building that limits growth from day one. Instead of designing around what leaders hope they’ll afford later, Aaron encourages churches to build a complete project that fully supports their next season of ministry, even if that means reducing the overall size of the expansion.
- Create a long-term plan first. // Before drawing floor plans or establishing budgets, churches should develop a long-range vision for their campus. A master plan doesn’t mean building everything immediately. It simply provides clarity about where the church is heading. Once that long-term vision is established, leaders can determine the next right step that fits their current budget and ministry needs. Without that roadmap, churches can solve one immediate problem only to create another one a few years later.
- Short-term savings can become long-term expenses. // Budget pressure may lead churches to remove features or simplify systems in order to reduce construction costs. Aaron cautions that these decisions frequently create much larger operational expenses over the life of the building. Whether it’s HVAC controls, building systems, or maintenance-related decisions, saving a small amount during construction can result in years of higher operating costs. Churches need to evaluate every cost-saving measure through the lens of long-term stewardship rather than immediate affordability.
- Your facility should serve your mission—not become your mission. // Buildings are simply tools for ministry. The goal isn’t completing a construction project; it’s creating environments that help people take steps toward Jesus. Once the ribbon-cutting ceremony is over, the real work begins. Healthy churches continually evaluate guest experience, signage, gathering spaces, children’s environments, and overall functionality. Facilities should continue evolving alongside ministry rather than remaining frozen in time.
- Plan for growth before it arrives. // One surprising reality Aaron sees is that solving a facility constraint often produces immediate attendance growth. Sometimes this comes from new guests, but often it’s because existing attenders begin attending more consistently once parking, seating, or children’s capacity improves. Churches that don’t anticipate this surge can quickly find themselves facing another capacity challenge. Planning for success means considering what happens if the project works exactly as intended.
- Know when to start the conversation. // Aaron recommends churches begin facility planning long before they’re completely full. His general guideline is simple: when your largest service consistently reaches about 80 percent capacity, it’s time to begin exploring your options. That doesn’t mean starting construction immediately, but it does mean beginning strategic conversations, gathering data, and creating a long-term plan before your building becomes a lid on ministry growth.
- Courage is part of every construction project. // Building projects can feel intimidating because they involve significant financial commitments and countless unknowns. Aaron encourages leaders not to let fear drive their decisions. Throughout his career, he’s watched God repeatedly provide for churches that prayerfully stepped forward in faith while remaining focused on the mission rather than the building itself. The goal isn’t constructing impressive facilities—it’s creating spaces that help more people hear the gospel and experience life change.
To learn more about Risepointe and download their free guide, Top 10 Mistakes Churches Make in Construction Projects, visit risepointe.com/unseminary. You can also schedule a free “Ask the Architect” conversation to discuss your church’s facility needs and long-term strategy.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in Listen, I know that today’s episode is going to be particularly helpful to a lot of churches. I am consistently interacting with churches, asking questions about the things that we’re talking about today. It’s a real pain point that I know many of you are leaning in on. You’re going to want to stay tuned right to the the end.
Rich Birch — Excited to have my friend and really an incredible leader and expert in this whole area of developing our facilities and using them to ultimately see people take steps closer to you, really leveraging architecture, interior design, graphic design, branding, all of that stuff.
Rich Birch — Aaron Stanski is the founder and CEO of Risepointe. With 15 plus years of church design, leadership, and project management experience. He works not not only with churches, but also schools and nonprofits in a wide variety of contexts. Excited to have you on the show, Aaron. Welcome back.
Aaron Stanski — Thank you, Rich. Excited to be back, man. This is fun.
Rich Birch — Yeah, so good to see you again. And I wanted to get you back on because I feel like, man, this is a conversation that we’ve got to keep in front of people and keep thinking about these things. But for folks that don’t know, give us a picture of Risepointe and maybe particularly the types of churches that you help when you’re like, hey, here’s the kind of churches.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — How do you think about that?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I mean, Risepointe, I mean, we’re we’re an architecture and design firm. So we have architects, interior designers, graphic designers that work directly for us. And we work with churches and Christian schools um all across the U.S. and Canada. And for us, I mean, the typical churches or schools that we work with, are ones that are about growth and are about um what we call like the you know personal ownership of evangelism.
Aaron Stanski — They are churches that are like, hey, it’s not about us. It’s about it’s about people who aren’t at our church yet. It’s not even necessarily about our students and raising up those students, but it’s about families that are considering what would it look like to you know grow up their their child in Christian education. And so yeah, for us, it’s about churches and schools that are growing and wanting to have an impact on the kingdom. So.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good. And I know, you know, our facilities are such a key part of what we do. You know, it’s a critical piece of the puzzle. And, you know, it’s it’s not, it can be an accelerant. It can be, or or it can hold us back. It can be the kind of thing that can help us reach more people, connect more guests, or the kind of thing that hinder us from that.
Rich Birch — And you’ve been doing this for 15 plus years. When a church first comes to you, let’s say they’re wrestling with these issues. What do most leaders think, not realize that they’re walking into?
Aaron Stanski — Oooh.
Rich Birch — Like they’re they’re like, hey, I think we got to like do something here to fix this. What what do they what do they stumble on that’s like, hey, maybe they they’re not aware of?
Aaron Stanski — Oh, interesting. That’s a great question, Rich. I mean, I think most churches, like when they call Risepointe, I mean, they understand they’re talking to an architect. They understand that construction is going to be difficult or pricing and budgeting.
Aaron Stanski — And we’re going to get into a lot of that here in the podcast. I think one of the things that they might not realize when they’re first starting is, you know, just the mental load that it’s going to take to carry a project through to completion.
Rich Birch — that’s good.
Aaron Stanski — I mean, it’s easy to think about, oh, yeah, we’re going to have some extra meetings or, oh, yeah, Risepointe is going to be running some things. But there’s just going to be an extra load when it comes to decisions that have to be made, conversations that have to be made with your congregation, your leaders, your staff.
Aaron Stanski — And that that mental load over time can take a toll and it can certainly add to the stress if you’re not careful. So.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. I don’t know what the stat is, but I remember hearing that there’s some just a giant number of percentage of lead pastors, particularly or senior leaders who transition after…
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …you know, within 18 months of opening a new building because of that mental load.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — You know, how does that kind of show up in maybe how you interact with them?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Or how do you lead them in a way to try to reduce that mental load?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, I’ve heard that I’ve heard that statistic referenced. I haven’t been able to find it actually myself.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes. Me too.
Aaron Stanski — Fortunately, most the vast majority of executive pastors and senior pastors that work with us, like they don’t quit once it’s over.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Aaron Stanski — So…but I don’t know if that’s us doing something right or if like just as a culture and as a as churches, we’ve figured out like, hey, we’re going to support them. We’re going to make sure they have the right administrative support.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — We’re going to make sure we you know bring some other people around them. um So I have no, maybe we should add that to like the XP ah survey or something next year, figure that out.
Rich Birch — Survey. Yeah, that’s true. Yeah, that’s true. Yeah. Yeah. It was funny in that survey you referenced, we, we did, we do survey every year and there was, I was thinking about this morning as we were prepping for that. There’s an interesting dichotomy found in this year’s study where executive pastors had higher confidence that they were going to start a project this year. And I think it was like 80, it’s a high percentage, 80 some odd percentage versus finished projects.
Rich Birch — So there was this like tension of like…
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …yeah, yeah, we got stuff rolling.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Are we going to be able to finish it though?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Is it going to be a problem? Who knows, you know, whether we’ll be able to do that.
Aaron Stanski — Oh, yeah. That’s good. I mean, they’re the prag you know they’re the pragmatists.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Aaron Stanski — They’re like, we we’re the ones that are going to have to get this done. And, you know, like we got vision stuff flying around here, but we also have like Sunday coming.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Aaron Stanski — So, yeah, I love that. That’s great.
Rich Birch — Yeah, so good. So you’ve put together a new resource that I want to make sure people pick up at. You can just get it at Risepointe.com/unseminary. We’ll link to that. That’s Risepointe with an E, but it’s called “Top 10 Mistakes Churches Make in Construction Projects”.
Rich Birch — Now, I don’t want to give it all away but let’s talk about maybe a couple let’s talk about a couple of them.
Aaron Stanski — Sure.
Rich Birch — What a couple top mistakes that you see churches make when they’re thinking about construction projects?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah. I mean, at some point I should probably write a book on this topic, Rich.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Aaron Stanski — Not because, not because I know the right things to do, but probably cause I’ve, I’ve done most of these things myself.
Rich Birch — Love it
Aaron Stanski — So if you’ve done some of these things, don’t feel bad, just join the club. I think I should have like a punch card or something like people can like punch out if they’ve made some of these mistakes, but…
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — One of the things that we discovered is, you know, rarely, you know, when we make one of these mistakes, rarely is it like the first time that it’s ever happened in the history of church construction projects.
Aaron Stanski — Right.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — Like, and rarely is it like some like random, unique one off thing. Most of the time we can look back and say like, oh, yeah. I kind of saw that thing coming. And so hopefully like some of these things will just like help, you know, some churches hedge off like what some of those things are.
Aaron Stanski — But yeah, I mean, I’ll I’ll jump right into the first one. And the first one that we see a lot is churches that try to phase the project. And that’s a, you know, that ends up being, you know, can be a big construction mistake. And one of the biggest that they make. primarily because we think phase two is coming. So we’re just going to phase the project.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — We’re going to get this done and completed. And then three years later, we’re going to go into another campaign or we will have paid off the debt and we’re going to fix the, you know, finish the project. You know, we’ve worked with dozens of churches that spent decades in misaligned buildings because they had this approach, you know?
Rich Birch — Yes. Let’s start with, I think this is great. In fact, I’ve heard you talk about this one and I have parroted this to other people when they’ve talked about their buildings. So first explain, what do you mean by phased?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Clearly pull that apart when you’re, you know, what what is the mistake that we could step into?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, so, ah because there’s two different ways that you can look at phased. Sometimes you can look at the project and go, hey, we’re going to do this first and then this second, and the construction team is going to do phase one, phase two, and then we’re done.
Aaron Stanski — The construction error that I’m talking about is when we say, Hey, um, we’re going to go ahead and build the thousand seat auditorium in phase one, knowing that we don’t have enough room for the kids or parking or students and think, well, we’ll just come back in phase two and add in the parking that we need or the kids space. Um, that’s the, that’s the part that I’m talking about.
Rich Birch — Yeah. And in fact, actually, I know a church that’s in this exact spot. They did not build any kind of youth space. They’ve got a great, you know, the rest of the building, but now they’re like, oh my goodness, we’ve got to go back now and redo this.
Rich Birch — So why is this such a problem? Why not? Isn’t this a great way to playing the devil’s advocate? Isn’t this just a great way to save resources? We can’t do it all now. So isn’t this an a logical thing to do?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I mean, you’re we either spend money building something that we can’t fully occupy, which is poor financial stewardship, or we end up like stuck and it hurts that first time guest experience, right?
Aaron Stanski — Like I tell churches, I mean, look at the drawings that you have on paper and say, yes. Like we can do a decade or more of ministry in that space as it’s designed. Or like you got to fix it. Either fix it, or don’t spend the millions of dollars. I mean, that would be my, that would be my encouragement just to make sure we’re spending the resources the way we, the way we should, you know?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. And so how do I know, you know, like, because like I think this is one of those things that, you know, it’s like a, it’s a bit of a counterintuitive idea because I think lots of people actually think this is the way you do it.
Rich Birch — How, what’s the better alternative then? How do we kind of pull that apart.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Double click on that, expand that a bit more to help us think more clearly on that?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I think, you know, what we do want to have is a long term plan, right? Skipping the long term plan, that’s going to be another one of these construction fails if you don’t do it.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Aaron Stanski — So if we have a long term plan and say, okay, here’s what it’s going to look like on our campus if we continue to grow and we continue to trust God and here’s what, yeah, maybe here’s what phase two and phase three looks like and we’re planning for expansion. That’s great. But when it comes down to like the construction and the budget, if we just like lop something off so that we can move forward with the project, we could be we could be introducing a lid that that we don’t know about yet. Right?
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Aaron Stanski — And so I think what we want to do is establish that long term plan and really dial that in first and then scale it back to something and say, OK, this is a great project. It’s going to set us up for the next run. It’s the step of faith God’s calling us to do. And this thing is going to last us 10 years if we if we you know if we get it done correctly.
Rich Birch — Is this, again, I’m not the expert friends at all. So I may not be so thinking about this correctly. So correct my thinking on this. Is a better way… So let’s say we’re thinking about exactly what you’re talking about. We’ve got like a 300 seat auditorium and you know we need we’re thinking we need to triple the whole thing.
Rich Birch — And so we, like you say, go to a thousand seats. And so we know that then in rough terms, we would have to triple the kids ministry space, triple the you know, the parking, triple, the, you know, the crush space, the lobby space, that sort of thing.
Aaron Stanski — Correct.
Rich Birch — You start doing this work and then you’re on the design and you’re like, okay, but we can’t afford all all that. What I’ve seen is churches get all the way through and then they’re like, okay, they literally, they do all the design and then they’re like, okay, well, we can’t afford this.
Rich Birch — They try to scope it and they just cut off the student wing or they cut off whatever.
Aaron Stanski — Right.
Rich Birch — Are we better to think about, okay, We eventually we want to get to triple, but let’s, let’s go from 300 to 600 and scale all those parts up that way and design a plan that then we could come back 10 years from now and maybe add the third. Is that more, is that a better idea?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, it’s a better idea because you’ll build less square footage in the first phase.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — It’ll be more it’ll be more achievable. I think understanding what we can afford and can’t afford at the beginning…
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — …designing something to the budget, I mean, that’s really critical, right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — And so, yeah, I mean, I think if we just get into like, hey, what’s the vision and what would we love to have someday?
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — We’d love to have a thousand seats and stuff. Well, that’s great. um But what can we afford and what’s what’s that right next step? um Because, yeah, we have to scale the kids, the students, the parking, the guests, like all of that stuff with those number of seats.
Rich Birch — Isn’t it interesting? Like we would never approach the building of our own personal house. This is the way that we sometimes do with the church. It’s me speaking with, this is not Aaron, but I, you you know, I do think we forget the, like what’s actually affordable step.
Rich Birch — And we would never do that with our own home. It’s like, sure. I would love a five car garage and like, you know, this amazing, whatever insert, you know, whatever the play space and all this stuff. I, I just kind of, so like, I’m going to renovate the kitchen and I’m going to, you know, make these few changes with what I can actually afford.
Rich Birch — It’s interesting that we do that. Well, you talked about the ah skipping the long-term plan is maybe one of these or something around that.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Let’s talk about that. How do we think that about the long-term plan?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah. I mean, I think sometimes it’s tempting to just kind of try to solve some immediate space needs as quickly as possible. We’re running hard. Some of us are launching campuses or we’re trying to plant a church down the road and we’re out of seats. And it’s tempting to say like, hey, can we just blow this wall out and add 200 seats? Like it it feels like that’s just the next thing to do.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — you know I’ve talked, you know a lot of pastors, they just want the problem to go away.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — And I get it. And like the thought of, like let’s spend some time like planning out the future, like this feels like a waste of time to them a little bit. And I mean we’ve rushed few you know we’ve rushed through some projects at Risepointe’s only to be ready to start construction and realize, like oh shoot, like the problem shifted, or we’re just going to introduce this other problem. And so, I mean, I think, you know, sitting down, taking the time and it doesn’t have to take a long time.
Aaron Stanski — I mean, ah you know, we’ll come in and do a needs analysis for church in like 30 days.
Aaron Stanski — So like we’re not talking about like, let’s spend a year like blue sky dreaming about all the possibilities. But I am saying let’s spend let’s spend a good amount of time like thinking about it, planning it so that we know we’re not you know causing more problems than we’re fixing.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. What’s the tension there on, and you know I picked this up from you in a previous conversation and it it has stuck with me, is that you know all of our buildings are built in kind of a particular kind of cultural moment and a philosophy of ministry moment.
Rich Birch — They’re an expression of that. And but then ministries change, right? And our ministry looks different. How do we balance that reality of like, we’re kind of want to make it work for today, but then we also want to design, have some sort of conception long-term that’s like, Hey, we could imagine a future where things might change a little bit. How do we, how do we work? How do we make that happen?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I mean, you know, some of some of it’s prescribed pretty clearly in the Bible and it hasn’t changed for thousands of years.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — And so like the gathering together of the saints and the singing and taking care of the widows and orphans and the opening up of the word and you know inviting the Holy Spirit to participate. And so some of those things um are just going to stand the test of time.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — I think a little bit what you’re talking about in the expression of it is you know some of the design choices and some of the things that feel relevant or good. I think we have to be careful not to chase trends you know too often in doing some of that. But I would say there’s like a wrong there’s a strong resurgence right now in you know getting back to churches that feel like churches, in walking into spaces that feel holy and not just black boxes and some of those.
Aaron Stanski — And so we want to pay attention to some of those things. And we also, ah yeah, we just don’t want to be too trendy, you know. We don’t want to chase trends, especially with architecture and steel and concrete because those things are expensive to to change.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes, absolutely. Yeah, that’s interesting. Okay, so what maybe what’s another one in these top 10 mistakes? Again, friends, we want you to drop by and pick it up. But what’s another one of these we could unpack for folks?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah. As I was thinking through, you know, some of the mistakes that I’ve even I’ve made, I think sometimes when we’re in construction and budgets are tight and we’re tired, we get to a point where we want to ignore, you know, maybe the long term costs for some of the decisions that we make and we want to sell it out short.
Aaron Stanski — I was talking to a church last week. Right. I mean, they you know, they made a decision that saved them 20 grand on the construction project, but it cost them like 10 times that every five years in ongoing maintenance.
Rich Birch — Wow. Right.
Aaron Stanski — And so you look back and you’re like, well, shoot, why did we do that?
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — You know, why did we try to save, you know, $1,500 per kids, you know, room in trying to like, we’ll just put one thermostat in and make all the rooms hot or all the rooms cold and we’ll just run the air conditioning or run the, run the heater. Like long-term, like you’re spending way more money in those scenarios. So that’s one of the things is like, man, what are, what’s the ongoing operational and maintenance costs of these decisions going to be?
Aaron Stanski — And I mean, sometimes it’s like, oh, this thing looks really cool, or we really want to have that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — And that’d be an awesome feature. And you just have no idea like, oh, man, every week someone’s going to have to go out there like with a machine and like a chemical or something to keep that thing ah functioning or looking the way ah we want it to look.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — So.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Well, and that that I can see, mean I feel like I’ve been in that conversation around even the, you know, the system controls and stuff where we’re like, man, every one of these thermostats we put in is going to cost X amount of dollars. But the long-term, you know, ah flexibility and just, you know, ability to actually reduce the cost, you know, can be amazing if we get more sensors and more stuff in there. But it seems like we’re just pinched.
Rich Birch — Why why does that happen? Is it rush at the, you know, we’re just not slowing down enough when we make all those decisions. We’re not asking the questions. We don’t have the right partner at the table. Help me understand why, why do we end up making these short-term, long-term, you know, trade-offs or maybe we’re saving a dollar today, costing us 10 tomorrow. Where does that actually come from?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I mean, I think it comes a little bit from, you know, some decision fatigue definitely happens. And then, you know, maybe not counting all the costs and, you know, potentially like we’ve missed some things or, oh, yeah, we got to get the furniture in here. And the like, and so we’re right up against like what we feel like is the top lid for what we want to spend.
Aaron Stanski — And then you get into some of these things, you’re like, man, we just need to value engineer, you know, some stuff out of this project. And at that point, you know, you’re saving, you know, you’re trying to save pennies. But you’re you’re sacrificing a lot of functionality.
Aaron Stanski — I mean, I think in those situations, we would say we would typically take a longer term approach and say hey before we make that decision, let’s talk about those consequences, and let’s figure out if there’s another area that we might that we that we might want to save some money on. Or another decision that we could make that would still get you to where you want to be financially but isn’t going to cost you you know the the pain every year kind of moving forward.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Yeah, that’s, man, I feel like that one, I feel like I can feel that one a little too close to home. I feel like i’ve been in that conversation in the past. Maybe one more. What’s one more top 10 mistake?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And then again, we want people to pick up the whole thing.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah. Oh, man. There’s a few different ones on here that I could certainly do. You know, one of the one of the mistakes I see and I’ll kind of end with this one. It’s it’s number 10 on the list. But, you know, I called it treating the building as as the mission.
Aaron Stanski — I’ll state the obvious, like yeah and most of the you know all the churches that listen to your podcast would not say like the building is the mission, right? The goal is never simply to complete the building project.
Aaron Stanski — The goal is to create spaces that support discipleship and outreach and worship and community impact, right, when it’s all done. But I think we also subconsciously potentially treat the building as the mission when we get to grand opening and say, man, I’m so glad I’m done. Like that’s it, like mission accomplished.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — Like you’re building your spaces, how you’re inviting guests in. I mean, it’s never done, right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — I think, you know, I mean, I think McDonald’s has renovated every restaurant in America at least five times since the last time Burger King has ever done a remodel.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Aaron Stanski — And so they one of those environments is nice and I want to take my seventh grade boys over there after we play laser tag after church or whatever.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Aaron Stanski — And one of those I don’t.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — And so I mean I think you know trying to figure out how are we going to constantly improve, move signage, change where the guest services spot is, like experiment with kids, check in and move them around and update the carpet and use some accent paint and buy some awesome lobby furniture and um kind of see it as sort of a repetitive thing.
Aaron Stanski — And then i would also say that a lot of churches, like they hit that finish line and, you know, because of the financial stress of it and stuff, they’re like, and we made it. Unfortunately, like if you continue to grow, you’re going to have to do another project at some point…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Aaron Stanski — …or you’re going to want to launch a multi-site. And if you’re still carrying the debt of that first project, you’re not going to have the finances to do it. And so I think it’s also like saying, hey, you know, this building wasn’t the end, and we’re going to aggressively pay down the debt.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Aaron Stanski — We’re going to aggressively um open the doors to our community and let as many people use it as we can. And so, ah so yeah, that’d be one of the, one of the end ones.
Rich Birch — That’s good. Yeah, I can see that. and And I think it’s great. This part of why I love you is like, I feel like there’s a lot of folks that are in your seat that do what you do for a living, who do see the building as the mission. Even the way they talk about it, they’re like, hey, this is the most important thing. But actually, it’s just a tool to serve, which is part of why I love Risepointe, love your team, love love what you’re doing.
Rich Birch — Talk to us about, I think the idea there, I’ve also experienced this, I’ve seen churches with this where they build the building and then I literally, close to a church where they built a new campus and then that campus grew by 50% in the first 10 weeks after they launched and then they were scrambling. They were like, oh my goodness, now we’ve got to like do the next thing.
Rich Birch — How do we how do we plan for this one? Assuming like it might actually work like people will show up.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — You know how do we how do we plan on the front end thinking about, you know, beyond okay so that we get the thing open and then a bunch of new people show up.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, and and not just thinking that if you build it, they’ll somehow magically come, right?
Rich Birch — Right, that’s the tension of those two. Yes, for sure.
Aaron Stanski — Because that’s the tension of those two things.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Aaron Stanski — So I mean, I think having the right, you know, strategic design partner or like a partner to walk alongside you in some of that, whether that’s like someone, you know, on the church growth ah side of the equation…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Aaron Stanski — …that can speak into some of that strategy or the multisite strategy side of the equation, I mean, those are going to be very important voices.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Aaron Stanski — you know Like you mentioned, we want your facility to serve your mission, not ah be a lid. ah Sometimes when we take the lid off, we open, we solve a problem, right? Uh, and that’s kind of stating the obvious.
Aaron Stanski — But we’ve worked with churches where, you know, they’re running three or four services, you know, they’re maxed out. And so, yeah, we go and we double the number of seats. We open a bunch of things. And instead of coming once every six weeks, everyone starts coming once every three weeks because there’s more parking spots and more seats.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — And so that’s when you get that immediate 50%, you know, bump. And it’s not from, you know, reaching more people necessarily. It’s it’s literally just your attendance pattern changing.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — So when you’re sitting down and having these conversations, I think it’s really important that you look at some of those trends. You’re looking at your attendance data, and you’re, you know, you’re sort of measuring, you know, what do we think this thing’s going to do?
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good. That’s fantastic. I love I love this. So we’ve got, you know, there’s a multiple, there’s other ones that we want people to check out. Again, we’ll put a link in the show notes, but it’s just Risepointe.com/unseminary. You can pick that up. There are “Top 10 Mistakes Churches Make in Construction Projects” from the mouth of someone who sees a lot of these, we don’t want people to make these mistakes.
Rich Birch — How early in the process should a church reach out to you? So my my sense is that we have churches reaching out too late in the process. But how early, like if we start thinking, hmm, you know, we’re filling, you know, things are filling up. We’re thinking about, we got to fix the kids ministry space. How when in that process should they say, hey, I got to talk to Aaron and the team at Risepointe?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah. I mean, I think like if you talk to any salesperson in the, you know, on the planet, they’ll tell you like, well, you got to talk to me right away.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Aaron Stanski — The sooner, the better, like the sooner you’re planning to buy a car or the sooner you should call me.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes.
Aaron Stanski — I mean, I think ah having the conversation and the right strategic triggers to know when you need to start like the design process and the construction process, that’s the key.
Aaron Stanski — So, you know, if you call Risepointe, you’re not, you know, we’re not starting architecture. We’re not selling you services or anything like that. So I think bringing bringing either us in or another trusted expert, you know we say when you reach 80% capacity at your largest service, you need to have the conversation started.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Aaron Stanski — You know, you can be at 80% capacity at your largest service and be launching your first, second service, right? And that’s very different than adding your fourth or fifth on a Saturday or something like that. But in general, we we say that that’s usually that tipping point…
Rich Birch — That’s good trigger.
Aaron Stanski — …where we want to at least say, what is the strategy? What is the plan? What are the triggers so that the facility itself doesn’t become a lid to our growth?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s I like that’s a really good I like a good tripwire like that. I think there’s a lot of churches that are at that spot. And actually, you can go on the Risepointe website and actually schedule like an initial call, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Rich Birch — You can drop by there. Why don’t you to tell us a little bit about that? What am I committing to? If I click the schedule to call button, what what does that mean?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, we’ve got a little “Ask the Architect” series and stuff that’s that’s rolling as well. But it basically just means you get to talk to someone who’s a church guy or gal first, but who’s an architect or a design professional. And they just want to meet you and hear a little bit about like your church and your story and where are you at and what are some of the questions that you have? What are some of the things that you’re wrestling with?
Aaron Stanski — A lot of times we’re pulling up examples from other churches and kind of like walking you through some ideas or pointing you in a direction that might be helpful. But yeah, on that call, we really want to get into what’s what’s going on at your church specifically. What are some of the concerns? What are some of the things that you’re seeing or not seeing? And sometimes there’s some a homework assignment coming out of it.
Aaron Stanski — Like, right. Hey, let’s go get your attendance data. Let’s take a look at some of these things. Let’s try to figure out what’s going on. Let’s have someone take a picture in the parking lot because you’re never in the parking lot on a Sunday morning.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — You’re backstage or whatever. And ah but, yeah, it’s a great first step in you know trying to figure out you know what you need to do with your facility.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s fantastic. I’ve had, you know, multiple friends who have done that. I just be so thankful for your team’s interaction with them and just some helpful guidance in that, even that initial call to be like, hey, here’s a couple of things. Here’s a couple questions that they would ask that have you think about that, Yeah, it’s not like ah we’re committing to anything today. It’s necessarily a conversation to get the ball rolling. I think that could be super helpful.
Rich Birch — Well, friends, again, we want to send you to Risepointe.com/unseminary to pick up a copy of this 10 Mistakes. I think it’s a super helpful resource that you could even just kick around with your leadership team. Hey, let’s talk about these ones. Could be great. Any kind of final words, just as we wrap up today’s episode, we want to make sure that people hear about when we’re thinking about construction projects.
Aaron Stanski — You know, I would, you know, I’d say construction is ah scary and it can be expensive and it’s not what most of us went to school to do. So I would just say, like, take courage.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Aaron Stanski — Like man, the number of times that we’ve seen the Lord like just show up in unbelievable ways ah when His churches stepped out in faith and said, hey, like we’re going to you know we’re going to go take something on. And so I would just say like have courage. Do not be afraid. And you know, like, yeah, make it, you know, it’s not about the building, right? It’s about it’s about lost people and and sharing the gospel.
Aaron Stanski — And so, um yeah, if my mistakes can help you out in any way, I would love to love to share those with you.
Rich Birch — I love it. So good. Well, Aaron, this is a great, great conversation today. Appreciate you coming back on and and helping us think through some of these issues. Again, we want to send people to Risepointewithane.com to schedule that call or, you know, pick up the mistakes. Anywhere else we want to send them online to track with you or with your firm?
Aaron Stanski — Nah, man, that’s fine. I mean, they can find us on socials and stuff like that if they want to see like nerdy pictures of like church construction being built and like…
Rich Birch — Mid build guys walking around…
Aaron Stanski — …mid-build stuff, concrete getting poured or whatever.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Aaron Stanski — But but no, it’d be great.
Rich Birch — Guys in hard hats, people in hard hats walking around…
Aaron Stanski — Yes. Yes.
Rich Birch — …you know, half built buildings. That’s good. Thanks so much, Aaron. Appreciate you, that sir. Thanks for coming on today.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, thanks, Rich. Bye.
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Alvin Sanders, President and CEO of World Impact, an organization committed to equipping leaders to build healthy churches in every community experiencing poverty. After decades in pastoral ministry and leadership development, Alvin has become passionate about helping ministry leaders avoid one of the greatest threats to long-term effectiveness: burnout.
Are you serving faithfully but feeling increasingly exhausted? Wondering how to sustain ministry for the long haul without sacrificing your health, family, or relationship with God? In this conversation, Alvin shares the personal lessons that transformed his own leadership after experiencing burnout. Tune in as he offers a practical framework for building a ministry that lasts.
- When work becomes worship. // Ministry itself can quietly become an idol. He didn’t intentionally choose work over God, but somewhere along the way, serving Christ replaced walking with Christ. Spiritual disciplines gave way to ministry responsibilities. Prayer, Sabbath, retreat, fasting, and personal communion with God slowly disappeared beneath endless demands. The result was a ministry that looked productive on the outside while becoming spiritually unsustainable on the inside.
- Return to the basics of spiritual formation. // Rather than searching for complicated solutions, Alvin returned to the foundational practices Christians have embraced for centuries. Prayer, engaging Scripture, fasting, Sabbath, retreat, generosity, commitment to the Church body, and intentional spiritual rhythms are not optional extras for ministry leaders. They are essential practices that sustain healthy leadership. Just as championship football teams return to blocking and tackling when they lose, pastors must continually return to the spiritual basics that anchor their lives.
- Pay attention to the warning signs. // In hindsight, Alvin sees numerous warning lights he ignored. His daughter once looked at him during dinner and innocently asked, “Daddy, why are you here?” because she had grown so accustomed to his absence. He gained significant weight, neglected his physical health, ignored emotional exhaustion, and consistently placed ministry ahead of family. None of these issues appeared overnight, but together they revealed a leader drifting toward collapse. Burnout is often less about one dramatic event and more about a thousand small compromises over time.
- Healthy leaders steward their whole person. // Pastors often underestimate the importance of caring for their physical and emotional health. Exercise is no longer something he squeezes into his schedule. Now, it is part of his workday because caring for his body directly affects his ministry. Likewise, emotional health is not separate from spiritual maturity. Leaders who fail to process stress, trauma, criticism, and disappointment eventually carry those burdens into every aspect of ministry. Healthy ministry begins with healthy people.
- A three-legged stool for sustainable ministry. // At World Impact, staff health is built around three interconnected priorities: spiritual formation, engaging stressors, and leadership development. Spiritual formation keeps leaders rooted in Christ. Engaging stressors helps them process trauma, maintain healthy boundaries, and avoid adopting a “savior mentality.” Skill development—including emotional intelligence, leadership growth, and contextual ministry effectiveness—equips leaders to serve wisely. Remove any one of these three “legs,” and long-term ministry becomes unstable.
- If you’re approaching burnout, don’t ignore it. // Alvin closes with practical encouragement for leaders who recognize themselves in his story. First, honestly acknowledge where you are instead of pretending everything is fine. Second, intentionally rest by embracing Sabbath, vacations, and healthy rhythms. Finally, if the burden runs deeper, don’t hesitate to seek help from a trusted counselor. Burnout isn’t a badge of honor—it is a warning that something needs attention.
To learn more about Alvin or World Impact, visit worldimpact.org or connect with Alvin on LinkedIn. You can find his expanded book Redemptive Poverty Work on Amazon and his recent webinar on redemptive poverty work here.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: TouchPoint
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TouchPoint Church Management Software is an all-in-one ecosystem built for churches that want to elevate discipleship by providing clear data, strong engagement tools, and dependable workflows that scale as you grow.
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If you’ve been wondering whether your current system can carry your next season of growth, it may be time to explore what TouchPoint can do for you. You can evaluate TouchPoint during a free, no-pressure one-hour demo at TouchPointSoftware.com/demo.
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Listen, I know you’ve got a million things going on this week. In fact, if you’ve got a lot of things going on, you really need to set aside the next half an hour or so to lean in on this conversation because I really think this is going to be helpful for you. I know it’s the kind of thing that you and your team is wrestling with plus we have a return guest on the podcast which what that indicates to you is this a person I want you to hear from. Honored to have Reverend Dr. Alvin Sanders with us he is the president and CEO of World Impact which empowers leaders to build healthy churches in communities of diversity and poverty. When urban leaders so when urban leaders are empowered that to own and lead their own ministry, individuals, families, and neighborhoods ultimately flourish. Super excited to have him with us. Enjoyed his episode from maybe a couple years ago and honored to have you back today. Alvin, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.
Alvin Sanders — Glad to be here, Rich, and thanks for having me back.
Rich Birch — Oh, it’s great to connect a little bit. Why don’t you bring us up to speed? Tell us a little bit about yourself, about World Impact. Give us some context if people don’t remember.
Alvin Sanders — Yeah, so President, CEO World Impact – our vision is a healthy church in every community experiencing poverty. We’re working to solve the problem that 95% of the world’s pastors have no formal ministry training whatsoever.
Alvin Sanders — So we we try to bring that training to them and make it affordable and accessible. I don’t know if you’re paying attention to what’s going on in the Christian educational world right now in terms of universities, but it’s ugly out there.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Alvin Sanders — So we are really trying to make sure that people are equipped and they can be able to do ministry in the in the context that they’re called to do it.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. Yeah. And I really, friends, I would commend you to to, if you don’t know World Impact, you should get to know them. You know, all them and the team do such good good work here. Well, we I want us I want you to take us back to 2007, so almost 20 years ago, which is insane to say that that’s 20 years ago, because it doesn’t feel like 20 years ago. It feels like just yesterday.
Rich Birch — What was going on in your ministry and life? Yeah, kind of bring us into that part of the story. Let’s start there.
Alvin Sanders — Yeah. So in 2007, I was wrapping up a 10-year project of planting and starting a church in inner city Cincinnati. And the denomination that I was a part of, the Evangelical Free Church of America, had offered me a position to leave the pastorate and to come work for them and run what’s called our “all people initiative”.
Alvin Sanders — So me and my wife prayed, thought about it and said, yep, you know what? It’s time to make a good transition. And we made that transition. Yet for the first six months after that transition, we were, it was really a weird dynamic in the fact that when we would run into other people, people would say, hey, you guys look so much better than…, I mean, they didn’t say it this directly…
Rich Birch — Right.
Alvin Sanders — …but essentially what they were saying is you look so much better now that you’re out of the pastorate.
Rich Birch — Right. What happened? You look great.
Alvin Sanders — Yeah. What happened? You look good. Did you, did you lose weight? Did you, you know, glasses, whatever, you know?
Rich Birch — Oh, no. You’re like, thank you, I think.
Alvin Sanders — Yeah, and Rich, this wasn’t like a small amount of people. It was like every time we ran into people. So after about six months of this, we were like, okay, so what’s going on? And then we when we looked back in hindsight, felt like the last year or so of being in the pastorate, we had burned out.
Alvin Sanders — And up until that point, I really didn’t know what burnout was. You kind of sort of hear about it, but you don’t really think about it. Why? Because you’re too busy, right? So you don’t sit back and think about ordering the chaos of ministry or anything of that nature.
Alvin Sanders — And so we vowed that going forward, never again would this happen to us. So essentially I divide my ministry life in the two halves.
Rich Birch — Right.
Alvin Sanders — The first half is pre-2007. It’s kind of like how people look at the pandemic, right?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Alvin Sanders — So it’s like pre-2007 and then post 2007. And so we began to implement a series of things that helped us to be able to do ministry in a sustainable way and not experience burnout because you do not have to burn out doing ministry. That’s what I’ve learned since 2007.
Rich Birch — Yeah, when you so when you think about that time, yeah, I love that. Like, hey, friends, thanks for telling me I look great. Or you look terrible a year ago. Okay, thanks.
Rich Birch — When you look back on at that moment, you’re like, hey, I think we were burnt out. What were some of those those patterns, habits, evidence, signs that you look at and were like, oh, that is what was going on there? You know, what what was it that, you know, got you, yeah, that you kind of saw it yourself in that moment as you looked back?
Alvin Sanders — In hindsight, what I looked at is we were basically on autopilot. When I first started that ministry project, I felt a call. I felt like I was walking with the Lord. I felt the Holy Spirit’s presence. You know it was like hindsight, it’s like the book of Acts stuff. You know it was kind of like God was right there. I was energized. I was excited. I truly wanted to make a difference in the lives and the hearts of the people who were there. I wanted to make a difference in the community.
Alvin Sanders — But that last year or so, I look back at it. It was just 60, 70 hours a week, flip the switch, doing what I need to do.
Rich Birch — Right.
Alvin Sanders — Very jaded, cynical all the time, low energy, you know, vacation didn’t matter because I had to go back to work. You know, these are, you know, it was sort of like a call of duty, so to speak. It was this is my duty to do it.
Rich Birch — Right, right, right. Interesting.
Alvin Sanders — Right.
Rich Birch — So now you made a few decisions to, you know, in the words you use was, we do a series of things. We changed the way that we work. What were those things that you changed? What were some of those things when you look back, now that you’re on the other side of that, what were some of those decisions you made to say, hey, we’re going to live in a different way? And what was what was that? You know, what is that? What were some of those?
Alvin Sanders — Well, one of the big things that I realized, and it’s going to sound elementary when I say it, but I think as pastors and people in ministry, we forget about the basic things.
Alvin Sanders — You know, I’m a big football fan, Ohio State Buckeyes to be exact, right? And so I remember, I can’t remember which one of those coaches, but I remember one of those coaches, I was listening to an interview one day and they said, hey, you know, when we lose, our first practice back is we go back to the basics.
Alvin Sanders — Just basic stuff. That’s all we do. Blocking, tackling, you know, simple things. And one of the things we did was we went back to the basics of what it means to be a Christian. You know, over the years, they call that spiritual formation.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Alvin Sanders — So the basic things of are you praying? Are you fasting?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Alvin Sanders — You know, you know, just if you type in spiritual formation in Google, you’re going to get a gazillion things that pop up. Right?
Rich Birch — Right. Yes.
Alvin Sanders — Well, we should be doing many of those things.
Rich Birch — Right.
Alvin Sanders — You know, retreating. You should not be accessible all the time. Sabbath. You know, it’s Hebrews 11 tells us that, you know, we’re among a great cloud of witnesses and that great cloud of witnesses are our people who, any and everybody who has ever been Christian ever in in in the entire history of the world. And Rich, hate to break it to you, but it’s not rocket science of how to be a good Christian.
Rich Birch — Right.
Alvin Sanders — We just ignore it.
Rich Birch — Yes. Right. True.
Alvin Sanders — Because there have been people before us who have worked out, hey, these are the rhythms. These are the things that you do…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Alvin Sanders — …you know, to be Christian.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Alvin Sanders — And what had suddenly happened is I made work my worship.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s painful.
Alvin Sanders — The job became what I worship. Now, I didn’t intentionally set out to do that, but I had so much passion and I had so much zeal to want to make a difference in the world that suddenly the rhythms of what made you a Christian took a backseat to the work that I was doing.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. I want to come back to that. I want to put a bookmark in you made work your worship. I think that’s a powerful idea. I want to come back to that. But just before we leave this idea, you know, I love that the football analogy. I had and a nephew that was a receiver, college ball receiver. And I remember talking to him, you know, once as well.
Rich Birch — And I was like, like, tell me, what you know, kind of what is your practice look like? And how are you, how do you keep on top of that? And he said, he said, well, you know, I’ve got these three formations, these three patterns that we run. And he’s like, I just run those formations all day long.
Alvin Sanders — Yes.
Rich Birch — It’s like, you just, you know, it’s like the same, you know, four steps this way, three steps that way, you know, turn, you know, it’s like, I’m just do that for four years. We’re just going to run that, which stuck with me similarly that, you know, I think oftentimes, you we can complicate this and we can say, hey, that you know we can complicate staying connected to praying, fasting, Sabbath, reading scripture, these kinds of things. We can drop them.
Rich Birch — Were there any other warning signs looking back now that you missed? Again, in hindsight, you look back and say, oh, there were some some things on the dashboard that were blinking and I didn’t notice that you were leading up to this breaking point.
Rich Birch — Were there other things in your life besides these dropping off that you know, that you, again, in in hindsight noticed and maybe are looking for now?
Alvin Sanders — There was zero what they call work/life balance.
Rich Birch — Right.
Alvin Sanders — Zero.
Rich Birch — Right.
Alvin Sanders — At that time, I was working on my PhD. I was pastoring a church full time.
Rich Birch — Right.
Alvin Sanders — And I was running the church’s Christian Community Development Corporation that was attached to it.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Alvin Sanders — And oh, by the way, I was also teaching classes at the local Bible college.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes.
Alvin Sanders — And had a wife and I had two kids.
Rich Birch —Yep.
Alvin Sanders — And so I remember during that period, a huge red flag that in hindsight, I’m ashamed to say, I did not pay attention to. One Friday night I was sitting down and I was eating dinner with my family and my youngest, Gabby, she looked up in her little toddler face and she said, Daddy, why are you here?
Alvin Sanders — And I said, what do you mean? I’m I’m sitting here. I’m I’m eating dinner. You know I’m here. You know she’s and she and she was so confused that I was home.
Rich Birch — Oh my goodness.
Alvin Sanders — So that’s so that was a neglect of family. Right.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Alvin Sanders — That was a huge red flag.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Alvin Sanders — Gained a ton of weight because I was not taking care of myself physically. I think that’s something we underestimate in ministry.
Rich Birch — I agree.
Alvin Sanders — You know, to the point now that I even I count when I go work out, that’s part of my work day.
Rich Birch — Right. Interesting.
Alvin Sanders — Because I said I can’t be a successful minister if if I am not in shape. So I see that as a you know, I don’t have this sort of dichotomy of the physical and the spiritual, all that. No, I it’s all one. You know, it’s going to hurt me spiritually if I’m out of shape, if I’m not eating right, I’m not properly fit and all those types of things.
Alvin Sanders — So I wasn’t taking care of myself physically. I clearly was not taking care of myself emotionally.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Alvin Sanders — We are emotional beings. We are emotional. I have come to believe, and this is maybe a controversial point, but I don’t know. It’s my belief. I have come to believe, Rich, that we are emotional beings that rationalize our lives with facts.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s true.
Alvin Sanders — But there’s a lot of research out there that says we can think we’re rational all we want, but what we really do, we have never made a rational decision that does not agree with our emotions.
Rich Birch — Right.
Alvin Sanders — So we must take care of ourselves.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Alvin Sanders — I was not taking care of myself emotionally.
Rich Birch — Right.
Alvin Sanders — Therefore, out of shape physically, neglecting family, which by the way, God says that’s the first ministry, you’re supposed to lead well. So if you’re not leading your family well, it really doesn’t matter what else you’re doing, you know. And just an emotional, just not emotionally regulated is the easiest way that I can say it. Didn’t know I wasn’t emotionally regulated, but I wasn’t.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, that’s good. You know, the Carey Nieuwhof, friend of mine, ah you know, he says around this whole that topic, he says, you know, if you’re an alcoholic and you stumble into work one day drunk, you know, you get fired, or you or there’s a consequence, right? If you are a gambler and you’re addicted to gambling and you know you lose your house, that’s gonna show up and you know you’re gonna lose your house, there’s consequence to that. And you know one of those might be you lose your job.
Rich Birch — But this area of like overworking, if we overwork even in good things, you’re rewarded for it. Like, you’re like, way to go. You’re a good soldier.
Alvin Sanders — Yeah. Yeah.
Rich Birch — You know, there’s, it’s almost like a badge of honor in ministry to be exhausted for Jesus. When you said, man, I made work my worship, that stung because I was like, ooh, I think I’ve done that before.
Alvin Sanders — Yeah. I mean…
Rich Birch — So take us inside, you know, ah other leaders’, you know, heads. How does that mindset quietly quietly set us up for this crash? How do we, you know, kind of unpack that even more for us?
Alvin Sanders — Yeah, I mean, I say all the time I’m a recovering work workaholic.
Rich Birch — Right.
Alvin Sanders — You know, that’s the way I put it.
Alvin Sanders — And then a big thing that really set me up for this that I didn’t realize is that I come from a family of workaholics. You know, my father, who is my hero, other people have heroes outside of the household. My father is my hero. He’s 87 now, that’s my guy.
Rich Birch — It’s so good. Yeah.
Alvin Sanders — He, I grew up in a household, my father grew up in Jim Crow, Alabama. And he overcame so much.
Rich Birch — Right. Incredible.
Alvin Sanders — He went to when he joined the military, military was was sort of like a saving grace. He was in the military for 30 years.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Alvin Sanders — And he went to night school and he got two degrees in night school while working during the day.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Alvin Sanders — You know, my mom was an old farm was a was a farm girl, you know. Protestant work ethic. You know, you want she would say, son, you want to kill time, work it to death. You know, idle hands is the devil’s workshop. You know I grew up on all these idioms.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes.
Alvin Sanders — And, and so that was in my DNA. And just by the fact that we live in United States of America, where busyness is a badge of honor, I believe you said, and we all are under the Protestant work ethic, you know, you know, who, what, what, what bum works only 40 hours.
Alvin Sanders — I mean, you want to get ahead.
Rich Birch — It’s true.
Alvin Sanders — The minimum is 50.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Right. Right.
Alvin Sanders — You know, when I was pastoring, how many people in my congregation, you know, in terms of the white collar crew, you know, I had ah I had all spectrums in the church that I was in, I pastored. It was no big deal for them to just be gone all the time.
Rich Birch — Right.
Alvin Sanders — If you get offered a promotion, who would tell you don’t accept it for the sake of your family?
Rich Birch — Right.
Alvin Sanders — Of course I’m going to accept it. It’s more money…
Rich Birch — Right.
Alvin Sanders — …because more money puts us in a better position…or doesn’t it?
Rich Birch — Right.
Alvin Sanders — It might, or might not. So counterintuitive thinking is something that we have to do. I mean, I’m in a place now where um God has blessed me that I have a lot of opportunities and I limit my opportunities. Because I say if if I’m gone all the time again, guess what I’m on the road to?
Rich Birch — Right.
Alvin Sanders — You know, and we may have a little bit more money, but then, you know, I’m in the I’m in the empty nesthood stage of season of life and I’d be missing valuable time with my wife. So it’s a reordering of the priorities, you know?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Alvin Sanders — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good. And this is one of those areas where I see hope in you know next generation. You know i see hope in Gen Z leaders. There there is, like I think, a healthy pushback on on some of this area, which is I think is positive. I know sometimes, you know, I’m Gen X, classic Gen X, born 1974, the lowest birth rate year of the 20th century.
Alvin Sanders — Yes. Yeah.
Rich Birch — And, you know, and I think sometimes, you know, my peers and particularly the folks older than me, that generation, they they really did, they handed down this idea. And you know, there’s good change happening, I think, on this front.
Rich Birch — But so how do you think about this now? So, you know, as you’re thinking about the future, or maybe you’re coaching your team, people you’re interacting with, you know, how do you kind of articulate this, maybe with a framework or thinking around this, so that we don’t just pass on more burnt out organizations?
Rich Birch — How how are you helping, you know, lead an organization? Because I think there’s the reason why asked that question is I think it can be easy for us folks that are in charge. I run my own organization. I like often joke, like my boss is a bit of a taskmaster because it’s me, you know. But you know, when, but when we’re the people in charge, we get to set the pace. We get to lead in a way. How are you leading different now? How are you helping your people understand this different now? What are, how are you, what’s that look like for you?
Alvin Sanders — Yes. So we, we have baked in in the cake at World Impact. Um, three things, three areas. We talked, we touched on it before spiritual formation, you know, that’s a big deal here at World Impact.
Alvin Sanders — You know, we, we really want to make sure that people understand your work is not your worship. You know, part of our sustainable strategy is, you know, we care more about who you are than what you do. And we mean that.
Alvin Sanders — And it’s funny because when you first say that to some people, they go, oh well, you don’t want me to work. It’s like, no we didn’t say that. What we said is we understand you are a human being. And we care about you and we’re going to invest deeply in you as you invest deeply into our our our vision. And so um making sure that work’s not to worship, make sure that people understand our identity is in Christ.
Alvin Sanders — Understanding also the the spiritual disciplines. We incorporate eight particular spiritual disciplines. I probably should know them the my head, but I don’t. But let me see, I mean, I can roll off the top of my head.
Alvin Sanders — Let’s see, you got church membership. You know, we, we, and It’s not cool, you know, to be a church member and people love to kill the church and criticize the church and this that the other. But I leave that to the accuser of the brethren to use the KJV version and use that to the devil.
Rich Birch — Nice.
Alvin Sanders — Jesus came to establish the church. Period. End of discussion. So you ought to be part of one. So, you know, we encourage our folks to be part of churches, to fast, to pray.
Alvin Sanders — We have three times a year we’ve shut everything down and we have prayer days. You know, we we encourage people to be generous with their money. We encourage people to empower others. You know, so there’s we we we encourage we have a personal retreat days that we offer people for for, it’s a work day, but it’s a different kind of structured work day. We say we’ll give you one day a month where you go off and you examine yourself. You do a spiritual examen off basically, you know, off the old St. Ignatius type of spiritual examen. And then you also look at your professional development. You go off and we do that and we’ll pay you for that.
Rich Birch — Right. That’s great.
Alvin Sanders — You know, so there are a number of things that we do in terms of developing a rhythm. We call, you know, having a rhythm.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Alvin Sanders — You know, so a lot of spiritual formation. And then the other s is we look at the, you could think of these S’s as three S’s or a three-legged stool that serves the foundation and they’re all intertwined.
Alvin Sanders — So besides spiritual formation, we also encourage people to engage stressors, right? We there’s there’s a way that you work in the world. There’s I got this from my friends at Praxis that there’s three ways that you can engage the world. You can engage the world um exploitatively, ethically or redemptively.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Alvin Sanders — So we want people to we want our staff to engage the world, and engage their jobs in a redemptive manner, which is, you know, sacrificing our lives in the pattern of Jesus Christ. Right. That’s we follow the pattern of Jesus Christ, that that we are doing this in order to make the world a better place.
Alvin Sanders — We also have a posture of that we’re not the saviors. Many people who are in ministry, we get in it for the right reasons, but then we think that we’re the king and not a subject of the kingdom. Right. And so we think that whatever ministry we’re in, whether it’s urban, suburban, whatever it may be, that we’re the saviors. It’s like, no no, no, no, that’s not the right posture. The right posture is that to be utilized by God, you know.
Alvin Sanders — And then also anybody who’s been in ministry any any time in their life, any, you know, they are going to experience a lot of what’s called secondary trauma.
Alvin Sanders — You know, like mine was very intense being in a very violent neighborhood and ministering there. But even in suburban context, there’s a lot of things. Now, Rich, don’t know if you ever experienced this, but, you know, people, the sheep bite.
Rich Birch — True.
Alvin Sanders — They talk about the pastor.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Alvin Sanders — They do a lot of things. You know, you’re misinterpreted all the time. There’s a lot of hurtful things that happen to you…
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s true.
Alvin Sanders — …from an emotional perspective. And if you if you try to blow them off or roll them under, you know, let them it’s water under the bridge. No, no, no. Those things need to be engaged.
Alvin Sanders — So that’s keeping the right posture, making sure we keep the right pace in ministry. So we have one school of spiritual formation, one one one leg stool of engaging stressors. And then the third leg stool is is skill set development.
Alvin Sanders — And we have to understand that developing the right skills will not save us from burnout. That’s a false dichotomy. People think, oh, well, if I just develop X, Y, and z well, then, you know, I won’t burn out. No. um There are three primary skill sets that I think people need to understand when it comes to any type of ministry or wherever they’re doing it. A big one is emotional intelligence.
Alvin Sanders — It’s there’s a guy by name of Daniel Goldman who really popularized the concept. He wrote this book years and years ago called “Primal Leadership”. And that book makes the case that therere there are things that you can develop to emotionally regulate yourself.
Alvin Sanders — There’s a book they they don’t call it emotional intelligence, but it’s another classic called “Leadership and Self-Deception”. It’s a classic book which teaches you how you can engage the workplace and and by emotionally regulating yourself, which I think is directly correlated to spiritual maturity.
Rich Birch — True.
Alvin Sanders — There’s also the skill set of leadership development. I believe that everybody is a leader, right? We don’t all have the same responsibilities as leaders, but there are things that we can do to develop ourselves to become better leaders in the situations that we find ourselves in.
Alvin Sanders — And then there’s also a a skill set that we can develop where we engage our ministry context in a dignified manner. So that’s sort of like our three-legged stool at World Impact, you know, spiritual formation, engaging stressors and skill set. And you can’t, just like a stool, if you remove one of the legs…
Rich Birch — Right.
Alvin Sanders — …the stool will not work. So all three have to be intertwined and working together to give you that strong foundation. And if you do those things, I have found that, you know, you won’t touch burnout. Because…
Rich Birch — Right. It’s so good.
Alvin Sanders — Yeah. So I’m very, very focused on that. And we have interwoven all of those things within the DNA of World Impact.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that.
Alvin Sanders — Yeah, I love…
Rich Birch — There’s there’s so much to unpack there, friends. And there’s, you know, in six minutes there, you gave us what a great picture of how we should be thinking and leading in our environments. I love, particularly, you know, you talked you touched on the emotional quotient, the eq issue.
Rich Birch — And, um you know, I’ve had a a friend of mine say, you know, it’s it’s impossible to be spiritually mature if you’re emotionally immature. And I think…
Alvin Sanders — One hundred percent.
Rich Birch — I think that’s true. And there are, we all know these people who they they walk around like they’re spiritually mature, but they’re they’re, you know, emotionally immature and it comes off. It’s like they’re bleeding. It’s like the internet’s made for these people.
Rich Birch — Like they are, those people get good followings, which is terrible. And you know, they get people around them who are just like, yes, sir. Yes, sir. It’s usually sirs. Unfortunately, it’s a lot of guys…
Alvin Sanders — Yes.
Rich Birch — …you know, we’ve got to fight that. And I love that you’re, you’re attempting to do that, you know, at, you know, in the organization you lead at World Impact, I think is, is incredible. And one of the things, you know, calling this out, I’m not directly engaged in urban ministry, but the thing I, I think is, like, I think every ministry has its stressors to it.
Alvin Sanders — Yes.
Rich Birch — I think every ministry has trauma related to it. And I think what you’ve outlined here, we can apply really in any context.
Alvin Sanders — Yes.
Rich Birch — But I do want to underline for our listeners, the fact that this has come out of a context where, again, I don’t want to stigmatize or create stereotypes around urban ministry, but there is a lot of trauma. There is a lot of stress in the ministry.
Alvin Sanders — Yes.
Rich Birch — You know When you’re dealing in communities that are experiencing homelessness and poverty and you know, you know at the conflict, at the you know the epicenter of racial conflict, and you know all ah all of that creates the context that makes it next to impossible to serve in. And the fact that you’re leading there, I just want to commend you you know on that.
Alvin Sanders — Yes.
Rich Birch — And so this is actually a part of, well, talk to me about the expanded second edition of “Redemptive Poverty Work” and how does that tie into what we’re talking about today? Because I want to move people even towards that call to action out of today’s conversation.
Alvin Sanders — Yeah. So the the things that I’ve talked about that I just talked about that we instilled at World Impact, it definitely works in in any context, no doubt about it. What I tell my suburban colleagues is that whatever you experience in the suburbs, 10x it. And that’s in the urban context.
Rich Birch — That makes sense. Okay, that’s good.
Alvin Sanders — Just 10x it. It’s not that you don’t experience these things.
Rich Birch — Right.
Alvin Sanders — It’s that it’s much more intense…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Alvin Sanders — …within the urban context.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Alvin Sanders — So the expanded edition of “Redemptive Poverty Work” is is my attempt to really have our vision at World Impact come to fruition. Because at World Impact, if our vision is a healthy church in every community experiencing poverty, we cannot not talk about burnout.
Alvin Sanders — Because the burnout rate within the urban context, because of the 10X that happens down there in in this in the urban community—but increasingly in suburban communities, to be quite honest with you. The same dynamics are happening in certain suburban communities—is that you have to be able to deal with it. And the big way that you deal with it is that you are intentionally engaging those things that can cause you to burn out.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Alvin Sanders — Cause you cannot have a healthy church unless you have spiritually formed pastors who are engaging stressors and who are developing the skillset to make the community a better place.
Alvin Sanders — So, It was basically by doing things in the field and spending a lot of time with our partners that I said, you know what, these folk need an expansion. Because when I wrote “Redemptive Poverty Work” a couple of years ago that we talked about, it was a little booklet and it was more academic.
Rich Birch — Right.
Alvin Sanders — But what I realized is, hey, these folk need to know how to implement this in a practical sense. So that’s what the expanded version is about. It’s not only teaching you the principle, it’s like, here here’s how you can apply this to your life. It’s sort of like a field handbook, so to speak.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s fantastic. I think it’d be great for people to pick up, you know, a copy of this. And, you know, I think it could be really helpful for them as they’re thinking about, you know, ministry in any context. Even to help if there are folks that are listening in, you know, that serve in a suburban context and they’re trying to gain, you know, a bit more understanding of there are urban, but you know, brothers and sisters as they’re, you know, leading there. I think this could be a helpful resource.
Rich Birch — For folks that picked up the first edition, you know, should they pick pick up a second? I know you’re not just trying to sell books, but like, help me understand, you know, obviously you’ve added a lot to it. For folks that are familiar with your work, what would your, you know, kind of what’s your recommendation that, you know, for them?
Alvin Sanders — Yes, because the the first Redemptive Poverty Work booklet is really only one chapter in the expanded edition. It’s, as I said earlier, it’s really about how to apply and how not to burn out.
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Alvin Sanders — The whole thing is it assumes that there’s a point in your walk in doing your work of the ministry that you’re going you’re going to hit a wall
Rich Birch — Yep.
Alvin Sanders — I don’t know anyone in ministry, let alone urban ministry, who hasn’t at some point hit a wall.
Rich Birch — Right.
Alvin Sanders — Right. To go back to sports analogy. Right. Talk about how if you’re a rookie and you’re coming into the and NBA, you only play like 40 or some college games. NBA has 82 games. No matter how skilled you are, no matter how much you play, about game 50, you’re going to hit a wall because you’ve never really played at that intense level for that long.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Alvin Sanders — Same thing with ministry.
Alvin Sanders — At some point, you’re going to hit a wall. So within this urban context, you know when you hit that wall or hopefully before you hit the wall, read this book and begin to implement it in your life. It’s a failure for you just to buy the book and read it.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Alvin Sanders — A lot of books you just write, you buy it and you read it and you go, oh, I got the knowledge. I’m good. No, this book is like, read it and apply it. And I can tell you, it’ll work if you do so.
Rich Birch — That’s so good. Where do we want to send people to pick up copies of the book? Where online? you know how how can they How can they get their hands on it?
Alvin Sanders — Yeah, just go to Amazon. you can get it off of Amazon. Redemptive Poverty Work Expanded Edition.
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Alvin Sanders — You type that in or you can type in Alvin Sanders and I’m sure it’ll pop up.
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Alvin Sanders — Yeah, we’d we’d love for you to get it. You know, got paperback and hardback versions that are there.
Rich Birch — Nice.
Alvin Sanders — And then you can also go on YouTube. We just had it. We launched it last week. We had a webinar…
Rich Birch — Great.
Alvin Sanders — …around the topic of redemptive poverty work. It was about an hour long. So if you’re really interested in this topic, you can check that webinar out as well.
Rich Birch — Nice. Yeah, we’ll link to that in the show notes to make it even easier for folks to to find that. We’d love for for people to track with you, Alvin. You’re doing such a great, great work. So let’s take us back to 2007.
Rich Birch — Let’s say there’s a leader who’s listening into, well, I know that there’s a leader who’s listening in today. There’s at least one…
Alvin Sanders — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …in the couple thousand people that are listening in who are heading towards where you were in 2007. Not the new part, not the new job part, but the like, oh, I’m burnt out.
Alvin Sanders — Yes.
Rich Birch — This is not good. Maybe today they’ve been listening in and they realize, oh, wait a second. Maybe they had a similar thing with their kid. Hey, dad. Hey, mom. Why are you here? What’s one thing you’d want them to do this week? What’s one action step that they could take coming out of today’s conversation?
Alvin Sanders — Well, I would say, I’m going to cheat. I’m going to give you more than one. But first is to admit where you’re at.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Alvin Sanders — Because there are so I hate to say it. There are some faith traditions where it’s downright almost sinful to admit that you might be burned out. What? You don’t you don’t pray enough. You don’t do this. You don’t do that. Say, you know what? I’m tired. I’m still committed, but I’m tired. I’m jaded. I’m whatever. So the first thing is to embrace that.
Alvin Sanders — The second thing is, you know, get some rest. You might it might just be an Elijah situation. You know, Elijah wanted to die and God said, no, man, just just go lay down.
Rich Birch — Yeah, have a nap.
Alvin Sanders — You know, you just had a really, really intense situation. Go lay down. Take some time. Go take a nap. Get some refreshment. Get some food. Look at your schedule and say, am I actually taking at least one day a week off? You know, are what’s your rhythm of rest, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Alvin Sanders — Are you resting as hard as you’re working?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Alvin Sanders — Are you taking vacation? You know, or is vacation for the weak, right? Are you taking your paid holidays off? Do, actually really start to take the commandment of Sabbath seriously…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Alvin Sanders — …and actually start to rest?
Alvin Sanders — And then there are some of us, and, you know, and there’s nothing wrong with this either. We may be too far gone, and we may need to take some time to go see a counselor, and to unpack things.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Alvin Sanders — And to unpack some emotional wounds and things of that nature. So I would say, you know, first, acknowledge where you’re at. Second, actually start to rest. And then third, if these things aren’t really working, don’t be prideful. Go see a mental health counselor.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Alvin, you’ve been a gift again to our audience. Thank you so much for for being here today, for helping us think through these issues and take some steps. If people want to track with you or with World Impact, where do we want to send them online?
Alvin Sanders — Well, if you want to track with me, you know, as a good Gen Xer like you, I’m on LinkedIn. So you just place to find me.
Rich Birch — Love it. Love it.
Alvin Sanders — It’s LinkedIn. Find me on LinkedIn. I have an Instagram account. I ain’t been on that Instagram account in forever. So, you know, that’s just not me. But you can find me on LinkedIn.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Alvin Sanders — If you want to personally interact, talk, whatever. Great thing to do on LinkedIn. And then the other thing is go to worldimpact.org and you can learn a lot more about World Impact and what we do.
Alvin Sanders — We’d love to serve you.
Rich Birch — That’s great. Thanks so much for being here today. I really appreciate you taking some time to be with us.
Alvin Sanders — All right. Thanks for having me.
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Dave Ferguson, co-founder of Exponential, co-founder of Community Christian Church, and author of Multiplier: How Healthy Leaders Create Lasting Impact. For decades, Dave has championed one central conviction: the Church will never fulfill its mission through addition alone. In this conversation, he challenges church leaders to rethink success, embrace multiplication, and cultivate the kind of personal health that sustains lasting kingdom impact.
Are you building a church that grows, or a movement that multiplies? Wondering how your leadership today shapes generations of ministry tomorrow? Dave offers a compelling vision for creating influence that extends far beyond your own church.
- Multiplication changes everything. // Dave believes many church leaders are asking the wrong question. Instead of waking up each day asking, “How can I grow my church?” he challenges leaders to ask, “How can we multiply God’s Kingdom?” That subtle shift transforms every leadership decision, from staffing and budgeting to leadership development and church planting. Growth focuses on adding people to one church. Multiplication focuses on reproducing disciples, leaders, churches, and networks that reach beyond one church long after the original leader steps away.
- The Church needs a new scorecard. // Only a small percentage of churches in the United States are actively reproducing new churches. Through Exponential’s “16% Mission,” the goal is to move enough churches toward multiplication that reproducing churches become the cultural norm rather than the exception. Reaching this tipping point would fundamentally reshape how churches think about mission and influence.
- Culture beats strategy every time. // Multiplication doesn’t begin with a sermon series or a strategic initiative—it begins with culture. Dave encourages leaders to model multiplication long before they publicly announce it. Whether leading a small group, mentoring an apprentice, or developing future leaders, pastors must demonstrate the behaviors they hope to reproduce. People adopt what leaders consistently practice far more readily than what they merely promote.
- Health fuels multiplication—not hustle. // While multiplication requires intentional effort, Dave warns against building ministry on relentless hustle. Instead, healthy multiplication grows out of healthy leaders. Churches don’t simply reproduce strategies. They reproduce the character, priorities, and habits of their leaders. If leaders neglect their own well-being, they will unintentionally reproduce that same dysfunction throughout the organization.
- Watch the four gauges. // At the heart of Dave’s new book, Multiplier: How Healthy Leaders Create Lasting Impact, is a simple daily framework for preventing leadership drift. He encourages leaders to evaluate four areas every day: relational health, physical health, mental health, and spiritual health. By honestly assessing these four “gauges,” leaders can recognize unhealthy patterns before they become major failures. Rather than waking up years later wondering how they drifted so far, leaders make small course corrections every day. Even better, Dave encourages processing these areas with trusted community, since accountability helps combat self-deception.
- Think beyond your lifetime. // Ultimately, Dave invites leaders to adopt a longer horizon for ministry. Buildings, attendance, and personal accomplishments eventually fade, but investing in people creates lasting kingdom influence. When leaders intentionally multiply healthy disciples and healthy leaders, their ministry continues bearing fruit long after they’re gone. That, Dave believes, is the kind of legacy worth pursuing.
To learn more about Dave Ferguson, Exponential, and his new book Multiplier: How Healthy Leaders Create Lasting Impact, visit exponential.org/multiplier or daveferguson.org. Email Dave directly to get bulk copies of his book.
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. You’re in for a real treat today. Today is a leader, you know, you have those leaders in your life. You’re like, man, I wish everybody could be exposed to this person and would follow along. And you feel like you’re introducing a friend to friends. That’s what today’s conversation is. And I hope at the same time, it’ll challenge you and encourage you as we think about the future.
Rich Birch — Excited to have Dave Ferguson back on the podcast from Exponential. It is a growing community of leaders committed to accelerating multiplication of healthy, reproducing faith communities. They equip multipliers through a variety of resources. You might know their big event, Exponential, but that’s not all they do. They do a lot of other stuff as well.
Rich Birch — Dave also was the co-founder of Community Christian in Chicagoland and New Thing. We actually had Ted on recently for a follow-up episode, which is fantastic. So these will this will come out at a similar time. Dave also wrote a book recently that I want you to pick up. It’s called Multiplier: How Healthy Leaders Create Lasting Impact. Dave, welcome to the show.
Dave Ferguson — Hey, thanks, Rich. Good to be with you.
Rich Birch — Yeah, so glad you’re you’re here. Why don’t you fill in the story for folks that don’t know or maybe aren’t following along. Maybe give us fill out the bio a little bit. Tell us a little bit about your background.
Dave Ferguson — Long story short yeah, in my early mid-20s I planted a church in Chicago with a whole bunch of friends. God was very very kind to it; it grew had pretty large, and we had locations across the city and the suburbs. Out of that, then we started planting churches. Our first one was in Denver, then Southern California, and then Detroit, then New York, then Boston. And pretty soon we made a shift that we went from not only reproducing new churches, but helping reproduce networks of new churches. And that turned out to be a bigger deal than and we realized.
Dave Ferguson — And we got opportunities then to do that in Europe and then in Africa. And next thing you know, fast forward 15, 20 years, and we were in 69 countries. And this will sound better than it is, but we got to help plant over 35,000 churches.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s incredible.
Dave Ferguson — And at the same time, we also started Exponential. And so all three of those things had seemed to have God’s favor on it, grew. And in the last year, I apprenticed a new lead pastor, Ted Coniaris, that you referenced, who is, I guess, recently on the podcast…
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Dave Ferguson — …and who’s doing a great job at Community.
Dave Ferguson — And then then on top of that, we moved New Thing underneath Exponential. So Exponential actually acquired New Thing. And for us, that feels really good. It was pretty, pretty easy transition, but feels really good because we have something we call the 16% mission that we’re going after. And it’s starting to feel actually achievable now.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so cool.
Dave Ferguson — So I think I think that’s all that’s all the things.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s that’s it. Just that’s it. Yeah, that’s amazing. It’s so good. And, you know, there’s a lot I respect about you and your leadership. But one of the core things I love is you’ve really given your life to multiplication. You’re focused on this idea, helping us think about and then really in the best sort of way, poking and prodding and pushing us to come back to this idea.
Rich Birch — I think for many of us, the word multiplication is the kind of thing we can hear it so many times. We can kind of tune it out or it like, what does that actually mean? Aren’t we all committed to multiplication? Isn’t it, isn’t that just what it means? So why does it still matter to the church today? Really lay it on thick here. Why is multiplication such a big deal?
Dave Ferguson — Yeah. I mean, two things real quick. I mean, one for every one of your listeners, if they’re involved in ministry, I mean, they want, they they’re trading their life and they want to make the greatest impact they can. And I’m telling you, when you don’t invest in multiplication, you’re short selling yourself. You’re not going to, you’re not going to get to make the kind of impact that God intended for you to, or you possibly could.
Dave Ferguson — So, I mean, Let me give you a quick example, so it becomes real tangible.
Dave Ferguson — So two weeks ago, I was in Long Beach, California, and I ran into Matt Larson. Matt’s a guy who did a leadership residency with us probably, man, it’s been a long time ago now, 15 years ago. So he basically came, spent a year with us at Community, really sharp leader, but he didn’t really understand how to multiply. And we kind of helped him understand how to do that.
Dave Ferguson — So he does that, goes back to Ventura, California, plants Anthem Church, and they’ve planted 15 churches.
Rich Birch — Wow. Wow.
Dave Ferguson — So think about this and this this. And I don’t know how you keep score, but this is how I keep score with my own, how am I making a difference?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Dave Ferguson — So like even like if I’m taking a day off in Chicago…
Rich Birch — Right.
Dave Ferguson — …Matt’s still working in Ventura, California, and he’s planting churches.
Rich Birch — Right. Amazing.
Dave Ferguson — And I, you know, you’ve heard me probably say like my favorite quote from Bob Buford, my fruit grows in other people’s trees.
Dave Ferguson — That’s what multiplication does.
Rich Birch — So good.
Dave Ferguson — Instead of just having one tree, you get a whole orchard.
Dave Ferguson — Or Troy McMahon, who’s one of my best friends.
Dave Ferguson — My wife’s getting ready to go to Kansas City to see his wife in just a few hours here.
Dave Ferguson — And I mean, again, probably 15 years ago, they took 25 people who moved from Chicago to Kansas City. We blessed them and sent them with some money. They’ve gone to multiple locations.
Dave Ferguson — They’ve started four networks there in Kansas City and have probably planted somewhere between 60 and 70 churches.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s amazing.
Dave Ferguson — I mean, again, if I can say it this way, like I count that.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Dave Ferguson — I’m just telling people. So if you just want to kind of focus on just your thing, you will never, ever make the kind of impact you can if you invest in multiplication of multiplying other leaders.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Dave Ferguson — And the other thing, so one, it’s in your best interest because you got this game not to make money. None of us are making any money, right?
Rich Birch — Right. Sure. Yes, yes.
Dave Ferguson — You got this game because you’re like, this is the best way I can make a difference. And if you’re not doing multiplication, you’re short selling yourself.
Dave Ferguson — But let me add one more thing.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Dave Ferguson — It’s also how the mission gets accomplished. I mean, if you went into Acts 1:8, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, ends of the earth, and Jesus said, okay, here four more guys.
Dave Ferguson — Last time, before I leave, i want to shoot here’s here’s the mission, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, ends of the earth. The only way that that’s going to happen is if there’s a movement, and movement does not happen unless there’s multiplication.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Yeah, and there’s, ah you know, one of the things I appreciate about kind of the the you and the broader exponential movement, I think you’ve helped really sharpen this conversation, tighten this up and get clarity for us, which I think is is positive.
Rich Birch — And, you know, I bump into a lot of churches that are struggling, a lot of teams that are struggling with getting their their staff to be Ephesians 4 type people, people that are equipping others, that are multiplying others, that they, and there’s an interesting connection between these two, right? Somewhere we thought, oh, you could reach a bunch of people, but not actually equip anyone, which is so strange, right? It’s a strange, and actually there’s only a tiny fraction of churches that are actually multiplying today.
Rich Birch — Most are only doing addition. I think this this thinking is one of the ways I think you’ve helped us sharpen this up. Why do you think that math is so stuck and kind of unpack that, help us understand, you know, the kind of the problem we’re trying to attack here.
Dave Ferguson — Yeah. I think one of the things you’re referencing, so I casually talked about the 16% mission. Let me back up.
Dave Ferguson — We want to see 16%, and I know your audience is bigger than the United States, but in the U.S., that’s where our exponential U.S.’s focus is. We want to see 16% of all churches in the U.S. become reproducing or multiplying churches. And that means that they’ve ever planted a church in the last three years.
Dave Ferguson — When we first did the homework on this, it’s only about 4%. Now we’ve moved the needle in the last 10 years to 7%.
Rich Birch — Amazing.
Dave Ferguson — We think in the next five years, we can get to 10%. In the next 10 years, we can get to 16%. And 16% is kind of that tipping point. Where the of that tipping point, you get the right innovators and early adopters. They will convince the whole that this should be normative.
Dave Ferguson — And that’s what we’re trying to do. So with that in mind, you’re right. So we’re still only at 7%. And I think the biggest… we’re stuck we’re stuck in an existing paradigm. We’re like fish swimming in water that um we think the best that we can do is grow a church. And I And I think candidly, here’s how I’d frame it up. I think most leaders wake up every morning asking the question, how can can grow my church?
Rich Birch — Right.
Dave Ferguson — How can I grow my church? And that’s a good question, but it’s not a great question. It’s not an Acts 1:8 question.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Dave Ferguson — It’s not the kind of question going allow you to maximize your impact, you know, where you’re sleeping in on a Saturday you’ve got a guy in Kansas City and you’ve got a guy in Southern California who’s planting churches. Okay.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Dave Ferguson — A better question is how do we multiply God’s kingdom?
Rich Birch — So good.
Dave Ferguson — And if and if we could get if we could get leaders to wake up every morning asking that question. Okay, and again, I and versus we, because it’s going to take us working together, not just grow, like addition, but actually multiply, multiplication, and not just my church, but actually God’s kingdom.
Dave Ferguson — I mean, it’s going to make a huge difference in the kingdom. And I think, so when you get stuck in that kind of addition, like how do I grow my church, it impacts decisions you make about money…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Dave Ferguson — …because you’re going to go, oh, I need to keep that here. So we can you know add another you know and add another wing to our building versus like, oh, guess what? Maybe if I so if i sent that money to you know this church plant, it’s going to result in 70 churches in Kansas City.
Dave Ferguson — I mean, it’s highly leveraged like venture spiritual venture capital is what it is.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Dave Ferguson — It implements the decisions we make about staff. You know, we want to hold on to our best staff instead of developing them. And then some of them who actually have the capability of starting other churches and even networks, blessing them and sending them out and going like, yeah, I’m a spiritual father and these are my kids. I’m cheering them on.
Dave Ferguson — So I think that’s that’s, we’re kind of stuck in this paradigm and it’s not a biblical one, but it is a paradigm that we’re stuck in.
Rich Birch — Yeah. I love that. And, you know, I’ve similarly been with a lot of leadership teams where we’re in the kind of growth conversation. And I’ll come at that from ah kind of the almost the opposite end, but you end in the same place, which you end up saying, like, this box is not big enough to contain the number of people that your church is hoping to reach.
Rich Birch — Like we can’t build a box big enough to do that.
Rich Birch — I don’t care how much money, I don’t care how good you are at fundraising, you can’t do that. So we have to multiply. If you really think that we are trying to reach and make an impact in our community, if there’s so many churches say, we’re for whatever city we’re in, we’re for Chicago, we’re for whatever.
Rich Birch — If you’re really for that, then you have to be by definition for multiplication and for other churches and for seeing, you know, this thing multiplying out. We can’t, we can’t get them all to come here. That’s never going to work. That’s just, it doesn’t work at all.
Dave Ferguson — And here’s thing you can, though, do. I mean, you’re right. If it’s just about their butts in your seats, whatever. But if it’s about you bringing them and equipping them and then sending them out, oh, that’s highly leveraged. And that could be a really good use of a building or facility.
Rich Birch — Right, right. Yeah, absolutely. That’s good. So, so much of this conversation, you know, I want to tap in your expertise. We’ve got a lot of lot of executive pastors listening in. You know, you have been in the one of the multiple seats you’ve sat in has been the kind of lead pastor seat. And let’s talk to some XPs from your perspective as as a you know a lead pastor around this area.
Dave Ferguson — Oh, good. Those are the people actually the stuff done. They’re not just the top. These are the executors.
Rich Birch — But let’s let’s think that through. So vision isn’t just about getting up on Sunday and preaching about it. You’ve actually led organizations that have done this stuff. And you know you’ve you’ve cast a compelling vision, but then have seen the organizations actually go out and make this stuff happen. So we think about it from our seat as an executive pastor. What is the executive pastor? Where do we actually come into play in this thing? What’s our piece of the puzzle? How can we help kind of move this thing forward at an operational level? You you named a couple of things, money, staffing. Help us think through that.
Dave Ferguson — and And the assumption here is, okay, so the lead pastor is pro-multiplication, and now you have to execute the vision.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Dave Ferguson — I I think one of the things, grab a hold of how do we create ah a multiplication culture? Because if you can create a multiplication in culture, you will literally become, people in your church will become unconsciously competent.
Dave Ferguson — I’m thinking of a real quick story. A friend of mine named Doug. Doug was a guy who was nominally involved at Community. All right. Long story short, only because his wife insisted he joined a small group that Sue and I were leading. Now I didn’t have an apprentice leader in that small group, which is which is not good, okay? That’s how you don’t create a culture.
Dave Ferguson — But we went through six weeks and I went up to Doug and I said, I told him, I said, hey… And actually said in front of the whole group because he’s the kind of guy I could do this to. I said, hey, I know this group would like to continue, but we can’t continue unless we have an apprentice leader.
Rich Birch — Nice.
Dave Ferguson — And I said, Doug, will you be my apprentice leader?
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Dave Ferguson — He’s kind of like you.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Dave Ferguson — Big guy with a bald head. Beads his sweat or popping on top of his head. He says, all right, I’ll do it, I’ll do it, I’ll do it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dave Ferguson — So he he agrees to be my apprentice leader. So I start meeting with him because the group was on Wednesdays. I’d meet with him on Tuesdays at Starbucks around 4 o’clock as he’d finish up work. And we’d kind of…And I remember his first question to me was like, hey, so if I’m going to be an apprentice leader, I should read the Bible, I guess, right?
Dave Ferguson — I’m like, yeah, you probably should.
Rich Birch — Yes, it’s a good starting point.
Dave Ferguson — And so I told him how I how I do it. But over the course of the next 14 months or so, um you know, I basically apprenticed him through what we call the the five steps.
Dave Ferguson — And here’s here’s the fun part of this story. OK, so Doug didn’t have much of a church background.
Dave Ferguson — So he gets to the place where he thinks he’s ready to lead a group. And I think he’s ready, which people ask me a lot. how do you know when a leader is ready? I think it’s really that it’s that simple when they think they’re ready and you think they’re ready, they’re ready. And so I said, okay, why don’t you take over this group? It’ll be easy for me to go start a new group. You take… And he he said, okay.
Dave Ferguson — I come back, like two or three weeks later, to Starbucks on Tuesday at 4 o’clock, sitting at the exact same table where we would always sit was Doug and his brand new apprentice, Tim.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Dave Ferguson — And so Doug was like unconsciously competent. He was like, oh, I thought I thought every church in America did that. I thought that’s how it works. I didn’t know I had a choice.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Dave Ferguson — And if you create a culture of multiplication, that’s what will happen over and over and over again.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. Well, and and yeah, what a vivid picture. And, you know, we’ve got to move our our people and our systems towards, you know, continuing to multiply at every level. When you think about a church that’s stuck and it maybe is is just focusing on addition. They’re really in that, but they they have a desire to want to multiply.
Rich Birch — Is your recommendation, or maybe what you’ve seen happen, the churches that have actually made that pivot towards multiplication, is it like a ground up thing? Like we start with, man, we’ve got to get all of our, you know, all of our team leaders get an apprentice, let’s go there. And then we’ll trickle up through the organization, which then leads to the conclusion. Oh, by the way, we’re going to have to, we’re going to multiply because we’ve kind of built this culture.
Rich Birch — Or, is it better to go or or maybe there’s advantages to go one way or the other from the kind of the, hey, we’re going to declare this and that’s going to kind of pull us towards multiplication. Do you understand what I’m saying? Ground up or we cast a vision to pull towards it.
Dave Ferguson — Yeah. And creating the culture.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. In creating the culture, yeah.
Dave Ferguson — If you haven’t, if you, if you don’t currently have that kind of culture, here’s what I would encourage leaders to do. I do think it does start at the top with like the lead pastor and the executive pastor.
Dave Ferguson — And I encourage leaders at every level. I said, lead at the smallest level of your organization and lead at the largest level and you train and trust everybody in between.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good. That’s good.
Dave Ferguson — You want, and so for, I mean, all, whatever it was, 30 some years at Community, I always led a small group and I tried to always have an apprentice leader. So you need to do that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dave Ferguson — And if you can get, okay. And I think there was a moment where you declare, Hey, this is who we are. And you need to decide if you want to buy in or not. You’re firm, but kind about that.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Dave Ferguson — And if you can get all of your staff, plus all the people that you consider as leaders and key influencers, which is probably somewhere around 16 to 20% of your total church. You get them bought into it.
Dave Ferguson — Once you get them bought into it, and it’ll probably take you a year and they’re actually doing this stuff. Then you preach a sermon on it. Then you start casting vision on it. Then you declare it for the whole, because what will happen is that, again, kind of back to that innovators and early adopters. When they’re in the lobby and somebody comes them and goes like, hey, what do you think about this idea of apprenticeship? And we’re all going to have apprentices or multiply. They’ll already have been done it. They’ll have done it for a year.
Dave Ferguson — And they’ll be like, oh, yeah, I think this is awesome. And that’s exactly what you want.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dave Ferguson — Does that make sense?
Rich Birch — Yeah, it makes total sense. Yeah. And even what you’re doing.
Dave Ferguson — I guess I’m questioning if you’re ready to make that shift, I wouldn’t preach a sermon on it first, because what they’re going to do is if you’re preaching a sermon on it and you’re not doing this stuff, what happens is you implicitly and almost accidentally create a culture that says, oh, I don’t actually have to do this stuff because the guy who’s casting the vision only talks about it and doesn’t actually do it. And so you create that culture, which is what we have a lot of.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, I for sure I’ve seen a lot of that in, you know, in the churches I’ve been a part of, even with stuff like ah the fact that you, you know, were leading in a group, you know, I’ve I’ve seen a number, not necessarily the lead pastors I’ve worked for, but in churches where there’s like the lead pastor, they like elevate themselves out of that kind of thing. And they’re like Oh, I don’t need to interact with normal people. And, and that comes out, you know, I’ve, cause I’ve said it all the time to lead pastors. I’m like, even simply like, I would way rather you that just leak out of you that you’re, that you’re apprenticing a leader in a small group.
Rich Birch — Then, then we have some big thing on why apprenticing is important because people will catch the the small little things, the little breadcrumbs here and there. They’ll catch that at a more powerful level than the big, let’s put a, let’s get a brand name, stick it on a wall, you know, kind of thing. That’s cool. That’s great.
Dave Ferguson — It’ll but end up in your sermons, it’ll end sidebars, hallway conversations. Here’s one of my favorite examples. You know, Nicky Gumbel, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Dave Ferguson — So Nicky’s the guy who previously was the vicar at Holy Trinity Brompton. He was really the guy who kind of really brought out Alpha…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Dave Ferguson — …which you might say is, I mean, right there with Billy Graham and the Apostle Paul…
Rich Birch — Yeah, Oh, absolutely. 100%.
Dave Ferguson — …greatest evangelistic tools that we’ve ever had.
Rich Birch — Yes. 100%.
Dave Ferguson — One of the things I love about Nicky is I don’t know how exactly how many years, it’s probably been 40 years. Every semester for 40 years, he always leads an Alpha course.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Dave Ferguson — There’s a reason they have such a strong culture and so powerful.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Dave Ferguson — And that’s a big mistake. I mean, I think as, you know, we’ve planted church and starts to grow. And we’re trying to figure out, what can I do and what shouldn’t I do? And one of the first things that goes, oh well, I just won’t lead a small group anymore. I won’t lead a missional community anymore. Whatever is that smallest organizing principle is, you want to hold on to that. Train and trust everybody else to do everything in between.
Rich Birch — That’s very good.
Dave Ferguson — And as you continue to grow and scale, yeah, influence way out there. But but Ii’ll hold on to this too.
Rich Birch — Yeah, continuing to shout out Nikki, I just think the world of Alpha…
Dave Ferguson — I do too.
Rich Birch — …and it’s been so effective for our our church. And I had an opportunity to interact with him right in the teeth of COVID. I was doing an interview with him. And he, we were talking about some stuff and i it really marked, it was one of those like you lean forward and you’re like, okay, that’s interesting.
Rich Birch — He was talking about how he’s like, you know, for years, the meal is a big deal for for Alpha and like, you know, hospitality is a big deal for that. And he said, I was always critical of people that did Alpha online. He’s like, I was always critical of people doing it over Zoom and was like, I would say you can’t do it over Zoom. You can’t do it over Zoom.
Rich Birch — And he said, obviously people did it over Zoom and I wasn’t stopping them, but I was, I poo-pooed it. Well, then well then COVID came. And he said exactly what you said. I’m still leading alpha courses and our Apha groups. And so I’m in an Alpha group. And what do you know? This is amazing. God works through this.
Rich Birch — And so I was really struck by that, that he as a leader would have the humility to say, hey, I was wrong, but I’m enough in the weeds of this thing to understand, okay, what are the actual implications for our ministry? I think that’s a huge lesson for us to pull away.
Dave Ferguson — Well, I mean, two things…
Rich Birch — And yeah, I think it’s 35 million people they put through that. Yeah.
Dave Ferguson — My thought is two things. One, is I remember that podcast. So thank you very much. I remember going, listening to him. And and and excuse me. And it shaped a lot of the ways I even thought about COVID from hearing from him on that.
Dave Ferguson — But I think I think this the second thing is, I think what you were kind of replying to, you have to be in the weeds…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Dave Ferguson — …in order to know how the next innovation is going to happen. I mean, if if he wasn’t doing that, he would have kept with his assumption, no, it’s not going to work and maybe made a lot of bad choices.
Rich Birch — Right, right. And we would end up in ah yeah and a very tough spot today. In a lot of ways, that that ministry continues to accelerate…
Dave Ferguson — Oh, yeah.
Rich Birch — …or that movement really continues to accelerate ah you know in these years, which is amazing.
Rich Birch — So one of the things let’s talk about, so one of the things I’ve heard you say is that you really build the case that multiplication has to be built on health, not on hustle. And you know there was a previous generation that was really valued like we wanted leaders. We didn’t want leaders that were burnt out, but we wanted them one step back from being burnt out. We wanted them like right there, right at the line. But what, you know, but I know that’s not what you’re advocating for. But it but I think sometimes our teams, our people, our cultures can look at this and say, this feels like one more thing to do.
Rich Birch — So what why does this distinction of health, not hustle, how does that factor in when we’re thinking about actually trying to become a multiplying organization when we’re, you know, we’ve got lots of other stuff to carry as we’re thinking about it. Help us understand that.
Dave Ferguson — My experience, particularly working with church planters and other leaders, is they aren’t afraid to hustle.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dave Ferguson — And in fact, that’s our default position, that I that I will I can maybe outwork the next person. And they’re willing to do it for it for a good cause. But even though we are willing to that, it actually gives us the wrong result. Because if we only hustle more, if only work more, you’re not going to make the impact you could, like I’ve already described, if you’re multiplying more. So I am constantly encouraging leaders, don’t work more, multiply more. Don’t work more, multiply more. And that’s how you make the biggest impact.
Dave Ferguson — The other part of that, which is really important, I kind of have a conviction. We knew that we need to try to do the Jesus mission the Jesus way.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Dave Ferguson — We want to do the Jesus mission, the Jesus way. And I think that has to do with, no, I’m going to try to i’m gonna try to be a great dad. I want to try to be a great husband. I want to try to be a good steward of this body that I have. I want to pay attention to what my thought life, I want to pay attention to my anxiety and and and and levels and and am I feeling depressed? I want to make sure I’m okay spiritually.
Dave Ferguson — And I think if we’re doing those kinds of things, we’re checking what I call these four gauges, I think will be healthy leaders.
Dave Ferguson — And here’s the axiom that I have kind of led by, especially over the last couple decades, is that you will reproduce who you are and what you do.
Rich Birch — Yes. Right.
Dave Ferguson — So if if if you want to reproduce unhealth, then be unhealthy. But like if you really want, if you want the, if you want the, the guys in your church to be really good dads. You don’t have to be a perfect dad, but just put in the effort and let them know that you’re also putting in the effort.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dave Ferguson — If you want to be a you want people to be you know really good spouses, then try to be that yourself. Because you’re going to reproduce who you are and what you do.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I really appreciate that you’re you know that you’re pressing on these issues. I think this is a a critical thing you know for us, and particularly as we, you know I’m in a phase of my ministry where looking on to like, okay, how am I handing this stuff off?
Rich Birch — What am I doing to try to help the next generation? And man, I would love the next generation to, I think one of the things that particularly Gen Z leaders are attuned to is they seem to be naturally attuned to like, we’re not going to like drive over a cliff for this thing. We want to do this in a healthy manner.
Rich Birch — And and you’re not obviously, you know, you’re highly productive. You get a lot done and Exponential is a highly productive organization. You do a lot. But we want to do it—I like that—you were saying, you know, the Jesus mission, in the Jesus way. That’s actually at the heart of your most recent book Multiplier.
Rich Birch — You talk, you kind of referenced these four gauges. Can you unpack that a little bit more at a high level? Help us understand what are the four gauges? And what were you hoping with this book? Why, why another book? Why is this one? What are you hoping this accomplishes for churches?
Dave Ferguson — I think there’s a lot of great content out there about personal health, emotional health, how to have a rule of life, that kind of stuff. And we and we need to avail ourselves to it. I think there’s also a lot of great stuff and some of it that I’ve helped contribute to around how do you multiply? How do you you know develop leaders? How do you hero making? All that kind of stuff.
Dave Ferguson — What I tried to do in this book though is show how those are so interconnected.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Dave Ferguson — That if you really want to do this for a long time, and that’s how you make the biggest impact, it’s only going to come if you’re a healthy leader, because again, you reproduce who you are.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Dave Ferguson — And so what we do is we kind of, we, we, we talk about the problem and the problem that all of us face, in the first couple of chapters, is what I call drift.
Dave Ferguson — And we drift because…maybe frame it this way. I’ve never had a conversation with a young leader who tells me, hey, 15 years from now, here’s my dream: I hope I’m 50 pounds overweight and divorced and compromising my core convictions.
Rich Birch — That’s so true.
Dave Ferguson — I’ve never had that conversation.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dave Ferguson — But we read about it almost every week. And I sometimes share the story. I mean, I was in a small group with some of the most influential pastors, maybe in the world, but definitely in Chicago for about eight or nine years. If I tried to reassemble that group today, half the seats would be empty.
Dave Ferguson — And I don’t think it’s, and I think it’s because they, they drifted and they unintentionally ended up someplace they never intended to be.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Rich Birch —
Dave Ferguson — They didn’t intend to end up, you know, in a hotel room with a woman that wasn’t plan A, when they planted a church.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dave Ferguson — Or to create a toxic culture, which really benefited them more than other people i don’t think that was like the, the goal from the very beginning. Does that make sense?
Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely.
Dave Ferguson — And I think what happens is we incrementally, we drift a little bit of time until, you know, in a variety of ways, we end up someplace we never intended to be. So one of the things that I do, I’ll I’ll just, maybe I’ll show you here too. I know, this is, this is, I’ll just show you. And I don’t, I know we’re not doing anything on video. I don’t think, but this is, this is kind of, this is my journal.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Dave Ferguson — Oh, that’s one from like December. Wow. That’s old. There we go. There we go. That’s actually yesterday. And so like, I just write these four letters, RPMS in my journal almost every day.
Dave Ferguson — And R stands for relational. How are things with Sue, the kids, my friends?
Dave Ferguson — P stands for physical. How am I doing stewarding this body? For me, it’s a trip the fitness center or out running on the prairie path.
Dave Ferguson — How am I doing mentally, which has to do with kind of stress or anxiety or thought life?
Dave Ferguson — And then how am I doing spiritually? What’s going on between me and God?
Dave Ferguson — And then so I just make a little gauge here and I kind of just, where am I? Where am I? And then I actually go ahead and give myself, I like to keep score. If we got executive pastors, they’ll like this. You should keep score.
Rich Birch — Yeah, they like numbers. Stuff that ends up on spreadsheets. It’s good.
Dave Ferguson — So you can see, like, so I gave myself a score for each of those on a scale of 1 to 10, then a composite, which was 5, which was actually down from 5.25 the day before. And I think that’s because, as you can kind of hear, I got a little bit of a cold, so I’m not feeling well.
Dave Ferguson — And, but I, I try to do this every day. And I encourage leaders, those four gauges, relational, physical, mental, spiritual. If you’ll just spend four minutes every day…
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Dave Ferguson — …reflecting on those four areas prayerfully, how am I doing relationally? How am I doing physically? How am I doing mentally? How doing spiritually? You’re going to drift. We all drift, but here’s the thing. You’re not going to go a whole month or a whole year or a decade and and suddenly wake up, you know, and someone’s dragging you into court and you’re going like, how in the world did I end up here?
Rich Birch — Yeah, I think this is…
Dave Ferguson — And so…
Rich Birch — Yeah, I would just want to…
Dave Ferguson — …it’s hopefully it’s a very, very practical tool for here’s how you can do this every day. And and let me throw this in Rich too, because I want to make sure I hit this. And then if you can do it in community…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Dave Ferguson — …that’ll way mitigate how much you lie to yourself.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Dave Ferguson — t’s like if a small group or a missional community every week, just checking in or once a month with another group that you’re you’re working with, I think that if you do that, it’s not foolproof, but it’ll be a big, big, big help.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah. The human, uh, human propensity for self-delusion is incredible, right? Like our ability to like become, to lie to ourselves, let alone other people is amazing. You know, I, I want to just honor you for, I think, you know, I, obviously I saw it Exponential this year where you’ve been rolling it out. I’ve, I’ve, I haven’t read the entire book yet, but I’ve read a bunch of it. And I really appreciate that at this phase in your, journey, you’re raising this flag, I think, and connecting it so, you know, integrally to the multiplier, the multiplication mission. I think that is so critically important because we, you know, we’ve seen those leaders who make a series of foolish, unwise decisions that ultimately end up in a tragic spot.
Rich Birch — And oftentimes it’s like, I don’t know what to say to people. How do you avoid that? And I like that you have, you’ve put together a framework here to help us think that. Now, as you’ve rolled the book out to folks…
Dave Ferguson — How old you how old are you, Rich?
Rich Birch — 52.
Dave Ferguson — 52.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Dave Ferguson — Okay. Like, I’m convinced God’s probably got at least another 20 years…
Rich Birch — Sure.
Dave Ferguson — …you know, and ah and in some ways it’ll probably be your highest impact years.
Rich Birch — Yep. Yep.
Dave Ferguson — But if one of these gauges goes way south and takes you out, like there’s 20 of the best years of difference-making that we don’t get from Rich Birch. And it’s not just Rich Birch. Every one of the people listening to the podcast. I mean, I think there’s a whole bunch of people that God goes like, no, I got 75 years or 80 years of difference making. And let’s do the whole run.
Rich Birch — Yeah. No, I appreciate that. That’s why I think it’s, it’s I’m not doing a good way I’m not doing a good job articulating. I think it’s a gift that you’ve given to the church because you’re helping us actually attack this problem in a really super practical, good way that that I can see it making a huge difference.
Rich Birch — And I would agree with you. I think what I realized after being however many decades in ministry, there’s like a real cumulative effect here that it’s like, you know, each decade, I thought things were great in my thirties and then I hit my forties and now I’m in my fifties.
Rich Birch — I’m like, oh my goodness, there’s and and sometimes people will say, they’ll they’ll ask you know kind of questions like, you know hey, how do you basically, you know how do you do what you do or whatever? And a part of I’m like, well, you just stay in it. Like you just keep doing it, right? And stay in the game and stay plugged in and yeah.
Dave Ferguson — And the and the longer your influence continues to grow, I mean, like, in the kindest, humble way, if Rich Birch emails somebody, you respond.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, that’s kind.
Dave Ferguson — Because I mean, you’ve put in so much time you mean now that you you’re able to get things done that quicker than you couldn’t before because people know who you are, they’re interested in what you’re doing, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, it’s true.
Dave Ferguson — And I think that’s true with all of us. Our influence will just continue to grow if we stay faithful to this.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s great. So I want to, I’m going to, we’re going to talk about where you can get the book in a minute, but just before we get there, of the four, this book’s been out now for a while and it’s out in the world. It’s, you know, as an author, I know that’s a very different experience. You go from writing and then it goes out there and then people react to it.
Rich Birch — Are there any of those four gauges that you’ve been surprised by the reaction or you’ve noted the reaction? Like, oh, that’s interesting. I’m hearing from people or I’ve seen, you know, maybe it’s a conversation or that sort of thing that any four of those have kind of bubbled up in in discussion.
Dave Ferguson — I think the one, I think that’s what surprised me so far in the conversation is how important the physical gauge, how, how underestimated it is and how important it is.
Rich Birch — Oh, interesting. Tell me more.
Dave Ferguson — I was just, I was just in a conversation this morning with somebody who’s telling me that he’s really been working on these four gauges and for him in the last year’s dropped 40 pounds. And he’s like, it has, it has really shifted my influence, my, my leadership.
Dave Ferguson — He said, I just, I feel more confident walking into a room. And I, yeah, I think probably as Christian leaders, we probably downplay that one the most. And I’m I am surprised.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dave Ferguson — I’m not saying it’s the most important of the four…
Rich Birch — No. Yeah.
Dave Ferguson — …but I am surprised how important it is and the feedback I’m getting on it.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. I can see that. I can see that for sure.
Dave Ferguson — Yeah, I mean we’re whole people.
Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely. And I, you know, the, the days I ride that Peloton in the morning, I’m better at, I’m a better husband those days. I’m a better, you know, it’s, it just works out, which is, yeah, that’s really cool.
Rich Birch — All right. So we want to, so when I, as I’ve been going through this, what I’ve been struck by is, man, I think this could be a real gift for our team’s to go through together. i think this could be a great tool for our staff teams. Maybe if I’m an executive pastor, it’s like, Hey, what if we went through this with our senior leaders first? And then maybe we roll it out to our teams or something like that. Where can people pick up copies of this book? Where do we want to send them online to get them? I’m assuming Amazon. Is there anywhere else we want to send them?
Dave Ferguson — You know what? Let me give you two things that comes to mind. One is if they’re ready to make a commitment, say, hey, I want to be a multiplier. If you go exponential.org/multiplier, exponential.org/multiplier, there’s a place there where you can say, hey, I want to be a multiplier.
Dave Ferguson — We’ll explain how you can be involved in meetups and cohorts and resource. We actually have a multiplier digital check-in. So you can actually do this online every day, that kind of stuff. So that’s one place that would be, I think, really fun.
Dave Ferguson — But you’re right, um a lot of people are using it as a book to go over with their with their staff or with their teams or even their networks. And if they’re going to get, I think it’s like six or seven or more, maybe it’s a dozen, somewhere in that neighborhood, you’re going to get more than few, go ahead and email me and I’ll tell you you get a bulk discount. And that’s dave@exponential.org
Rich Birch — Great.
Dave Ferguson — dave@exponential.org – Say, hey, I’m going to do this with my team. How can I get a bulk discount? And my assistant, Sarah or me, will get back to you and let you know how you can do that.
Rich Birch — Yes, that’s fantastic. Friends, I don’t say this with every author that comes on, but I really, I would highly endorse, would recommend that you do that. I think this could be the book you should pick up maybe this summer, read it by yourself, read it with a small group of people. I do think this could be, I think it’s a critical resource. I think it’s, I think this is more than just like, hey, it’s another book. You know, I think there’s a real potential here for this to shift the conversation in a really positive way in the broader church. So I would love more people to pick it up. Well, Dave, this has been incredible. I really appreciate you being here today. Any final words as we kind of land today’s episode?
Dave Ferguson — I would probably come back to, if I was going leave people with one thought, is just just remember that you’re going to reproduce who you are and what you do.
Rich Birch — So good. Appreciate you, Dave. Thanks so much. We want to send people to exponential.org. Is there anywhere else online we want them to go if they want to track with you or with the movement or anything like that?
Dave Ferguson — I mean um I’m on most of the socials, so you can follow me there. DaveFerguson.org, DaveFerguson.org, if, you know, for some reason you want me to speak or do something or find other books that I’ve written.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. Thanks for being here today, sir. Appreciate that.
Dave Ferguson — Hey, my pleasure.
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Eric Holmstrom, Lead Pastor of Purpose Church in Pomona, California. Founded more than 150 years ago, Purpose Church has a rich legacy of ministry and is currently experiencing significant growth following a healthy leadership transition. In this conversation, Eric shares lessons from succeeding a beloved long-tenured pastor, building on an existing culture, and leading a historic church into a new season of impact.
Are you preparing for a succession transition—or wondering how to lead after a highly respected predecessor? Eric offers practical wisdom on navigating change with humility, honoring the past, and creating momentum for the future.
- Following a beloved predecessor. // Succeeding a pastor who led for 31 years can feel intimidating, and Eric is refreshingly honest about the insecurities he faced. During the transition process, he wrestled with feelings of inadequacy and wondered whether he was the right person for the role. Yet he found confidence not in his abilities, but in God’s calling. A defining moment came on the morning of the congregational vote when he reflected on Isaiah 41:13: “I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, do not fear; I will help you.” That promise became an anchor throughout the transition.
- The gift of a healthy handoff. // Eric credits much of the success of the transition to the generosity and wisdom of former lead pastor Glenn Gunderson. During the public handoff, Glenn introduced Eric to the congregation as “your new lead pastor” and then added, “and my new lead pastor.” That simple statement communicated trust, unity, and support. Glenn also intentionally stepped back for several months to allow Eric to build relationships with the congregation before gradually returning to participate in ministry. The result was a transition marked by health rather than division.
- Focus on what only you can do. // One of Eric’s biggest adjustments was determining how to spend his time as lead pastor. He quickly realized he could be involved in almost anything, but shouldn’t be. Instead, he narrowed his focus to vision, spiritual direction, staff development, and culture. While pastoral care remains important, he sees his primary role through the lens of Ephesians 4: equipping leaders who then shepherd and disciple others throughout the church.
- You are not the exception—you are the example. // One of the most significant initiatives Eric introduced was an employee spiritual commitment for church staff. He noticed a tendency among ministry leaders to unintentionally exempt themselves from practices they encourage others to embrace. Reading Scripture, serving, giving, participating in groups, and pursuing spiritual growth are not just expectations for church members—they are expectations for staff as well. After months of discussion, clarification, and prayer, the entire staff committed to a shared set of spiritual standards designed to strengthen culture and integrity across the organization.
- Building an intentional invite culture. // Purpose Church has also seen momentum through strategic “Sunday Funday” invite events. Rather than creating dramatically different experiences, these Sundays closely resemble a normal weekend service while adding elements that make inviting easier. Eric intentionally tells the congregation exactly what will be taught and who the message is designed for, helping members identify specific people to invite. This approach has contributed to increased attendance, more baptisms, and a growing number of people taking first steps toward faith.
- Shepherd people where they are. // Looking back, one of Eric’s biggest lessons is the importance of meeting people where they are emotionally during a transition. Some church members were grieving the departure of a beloved pastor, while others were brand new and excited about the future. Rather than forcing everyone into the same experience, Eric sought to pastor each person according to their unique journey. This posture of empathy helped create trust during a potentially difficult season.
To learn more about Purpose Church, visit purposechurch.com or follow their ministry online for resources, messages, and updates.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Risepointe
Do you feel like your church’s or school’s facility could be preventing growth? Are you frustrated or possibly overwhelmed at the thought of a complicated or costly building project? Are the limitations of your building becoming obstacles in the path of expanding your ministry? Have you ever felt that you could reach more people if only the facility was better suited to the community’s needs?
Well, the team over at Risepointe can help! As former ministry staff and church leaders, they understand how to prioritize and help lead you to a place where the building is a ministry multiplier. Your mission should not be held back by your building. Their team of architects, interior designers and project managers have the professional experience to incorporate creative design solutions to help move YOUR mission forward.
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad you’ve decided to tune in and you’re going to be rewarded for that today. We’re having a conversation that I know there’s a whole bunch of leaders that are on the front end of this decision. And today you’re going to get a chance to kind of peek up over the horizon and see potentially where your church is going to be in a few years. You’re going to want to stick around for this entire conversation. We’ve got Eric Holmstrom with us. He is the lead pastor of Purpose Church, which is in Pomona, California.
Rich Birch — It originally started as Spadra, if I’m pronouncing correct, Baptist Church 150 years ago. It’s one of the fastest growing churches in the country. It’s diverse, multi-generational of every age and stage. And Eric has been the lead pastor since 2024. Welcome to the podcast. So glad you’re here.
Eric Holmstrom — Well, thank you so much, Rich, for having me. I am a huge fan of you and what you’re doing. I love how you’re supporting and helping church leaders and ministry leaders. So thanks for letting me join you today.
Rich Birch — Oh, come on. That’s super kind. Glad you’re here and really looking forward to learning from you today. Why don’t you kind of give us a bit of your story and tell us a little bit about Purpose and kind of set the context for us.
Eric Holmstrom — Yeah, well, Rich, that’s really cool too that you knew the name of our original church. It was Spadra Baptist, I think, was back in the day.
Rich Birch — Spadra.
Eric Holmstrom — And it’s actually, our church is 156 years old. So our church was started three years before the city of Pomona even became a city. And so a group of people came into this area and felt God calling them to plant a church here. And for 156 years, we’ve been in different parts of the city, but always here in Pomona, feeling called by God here.
And so I am lead pastor number 19.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Eric Holmstrom — And so I’m just a blip on the radar here. And unless Jesus returns, Lord willing, there will be lead pastor 21, 20, or 20, 21, 22, 23. And they won’t even remember me. They won’t even know anything about me and God will continue to do a great work through this church.
Eric Holmstrom — So I came here, my wife Sarah and I came here. We had one kid at the time, Charlie, and we came here 13 years ago. And you know felt like, this is a great, healthy church. The lead pastor, our our former lead pastor, Glenn Gunderson, just an amazing man of God. Him and his wife, Kimberly, and their family, they led here for 31 years as our lead pastor and just such a legacy leader.
Eric Holmstrom — So when we got here, I started as the high school pastor and, I you know, wasn’t sure how long we’d be here. Loved the ministry, loved that ah there is a multi-generational, very diverse congregation here in terms of even diverse socioeconomically.
Eric Holmstrom — So I love the opportunity to get to do youth ministry. That’s what I was passionate about and excited about and just wanted to faithfully follow God. I mean, that’s where my story of faith really began was going into my freshman year of high school. That’s when I got saved. That’s when I gave my life to Christ. I was at a camp, summer camp, went there looking for a girl and I found God. And my life was forever changed because of that, because of this camp and the local church that discipled me.
Eric Holmstrom — And so got into youth ministry, came here, ah was a high school pastor for 10 years here, did a total of 18 years in youth ministry, and then began to sense that God was calling me and my family to step into this new season. And our lead pastor was encouraging of that. He really saw that in me.
Eric Holmstrom — But then in our church polity, in our structure here, there had to be a church vote. And so I interviewed, got grilled by, search committee…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Eric Holmstrom — …had an amazing, you know experience, a challenging. And at the end of it, uh, you know, we went before the congregation and there was a vote and I got enough votes to become the next lead pastor.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Eric Holmstrom — And the baton was passed and it was such a healthy transition. Our, our former lead pastor, pastor Glenn, I’ll never forget on that that ah Sunday when he passed the baton to me, he said to our whole church, he said, this is Eric, your new lead pastor, and this is Eric, my new lead pastor.
Rich Birch — Oh, wow. What a gift.
Eric Holmstrom — And so he just got it. It was a powerful statement and very humbled. And and yeah, and then he him and his family kind of for six months ah gave a little space for me to bond with the congregation.
Eric Holmstrom — And then their, you know, they’re back in the rotation now. We see them about once a month and then they’re with their grandkids and doing other things. But ah but he preaches here still. Pastor Glenn preaches here about three or four times a year still.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Eric Holmstrom — And so it’s been a beautiful, healthy transition.
Rich Birch — That’s so cool. I love the fact that you’re, you know, you know, there’s 19 pastors been there over those 150 years. I love that context of you setting yourself in like, hey, ah you’re in one in a line.
Rich Birch — A couple of years ago, I was in London, England, and was at a church and was talking to the vicar. And he was, we were just walking around their building…
Eric Holmstrom — Wow.
Rich Birch — …and he said, yeah, this wall over here is a thousand years old.
Eric Holmstrom — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And, and then he had similar, they have ah really literally written on the wall, all the pastors through the years.
Eric Holmstrom — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And he pointed at some guy and said, that guy is written in a play by Shakespeare. Like he’s literally a character in Shakespeare.
Eric Holmstrom — No way.
Rich Birch — Yeah. So I was like, man, that’s just a, you know, thinking about legacy this is a very different way to think about it.
Eric Holmstrom — Oh, oh, oh.
Rich Birch — Right. And I’ve been around forever. Well, let’s go back to those early…
Eric Holmstrom — And Rich, I, I…
Rich Birch — Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Yeah, go ahead.
Eric Holmstrom — Oh, was just gonna I wish you could come and see our church because we have this like heritage wall of like, you know, our church, different seasons, doing different things, buildings, groups, whatever. And there’s a wall of all of us like lead pastors. And you should see that wall. These lead pastors are like the most distinguished, like, you know, FB then their last name, Reverend, Doctor. And they’ve got the suits and the glorious beards and they look amazing. And then there’s me, this buffoon, who is this guy? Like who how did if he make this cut?
Rich Birch — One of these things doesn’t belong.
Eric Holmstrom — I don’t fit in, but I’m just humbled and honored that God would choose me. D.L. Moody has that line, or his son, Paul Moody. D.L. Moody is one of my mentors, and ah you know historical mentors. But his son, Paul, said that ah about his dad, he said, D.L. Moody never got over that God would use him, despite all of his handicaps. And that ah his wife, the love of his life would choose to love him.
Eric Holmstrom — And I just feel like I’m that I’m that man. I’m just I’m so amazed and honored that I get to be a part of this legacy church and that my wife and my family love me. And that, you know, I’m just, I feel very grateful and humbled.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so cool. Well, let’s go back to those early days of the transition. You know, what’s going through your head when you’re following in the footsteps of someone who’s been there for 31 years? That’s a significant time to step in on. What were what were you aware of, you know, in those early days? What was kind of thing that was bubbling around in your head?
Eric Holmstrom — Oh, oh my gosh. Okay. The thing bubbling around my head is, am I an idiot? Like why? This is like following Rick Warren. This is like following Billy Graham. Like why? I mean, Pastor Glenn Gunderson is one, just he’s nationally known, internationally. He’s he’s just such an incredible, amazing pastor and leader, and 31 years here at our church, just faithfully leading.
Eric Holmstrom — And so why would I want to follow him? Like that, it just, ah you know, so there was a lot of insecurity and just fear around that. I’m thinking through the whole process for anyone that’s gone through a similar process, just feeling very vulnerable, honestly.
Eric Holmstrom — I mean, lots of people in our church and different groups were having conversations about me and whether they saw me in this role and, ah you know, that that just felt very exposing and and made me feel very vulnerable.
Eric Holmstrom — And at the same time, like really excited, like really the going, wow, like this, this would be a dream. You know, I think for me, I went through kind of a life planning, my wife and I went through a life planning process with an executive pastor of another church and and and a life coach. It was amazing experience. And basically what surfaced for me is, you know, I feel like my calling is to lead every generation to leverage everything they have to advance God’s kingdom.
Eric Holmstrom — And so I really kind of grew through my ministry years of going, I really am passionate about leading every generation. And leading every generation to make a mark, to to leave a legacy, to do something great with their lives.
Eric Holmstrom — When I gave my life to Christ going into my freshman year of high school, I remember praying, Lord, ah I’ll follow you. I’ll become a Christian, but you’ve got to make it an adventure. Because to me, I felt like, well, maybe being a Christian would be a boring thing. And I felt like God was laughing going, you have no idea what adventure is. Adventure is being a Jesus follower. And and so I just want people to wake up to the adventure of following Christ.
Eric Holmstrom — And so I had those mixture of emotions of insecurity, fear. I remember the morning of the congregational vote where, you know, we had done this like six months of work and interviews.
Eric Holmstrom — And it all came down to how many people were going to gather in the room, how many people were going to vote.
Eric Holmstrom — There there had to be at least in our polity structure, at least two thirds of the people had to vote in favor of me being the next lead pastor. And I’m getting calls and texts from buddies who are like, Eric, we’re cheering you on. Can’t make it tonight. Sorry, man, have this pizza dinner. And I’m like, I’m like, bro, I need you there. Like I need you in the room.
Eric Holmstrom — But but anyway, that morning, I was on a run and just feeling so insecure, feeling, you know, Satan was just bringing to mind all my sin, all my shortcomings. And man, the Lord met me. I feel like I got this vision and this picture of Jesus holding my right hand. And I was going, wow. Like it was just powerful. But then I’m like, okay, where is that in the Bible? And then the Lord led me to Isaiah 41:13, “for I am the Lord, your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, do not fear. I will help you.”
Eric Holmstrom — And was going, okay, if, if, if we’re going to step into this next season and Lord willing, you know, we, we’d love to be here 20, 30 years, however long the Lord would have us here. I believe Jesus is holding my right hand and he is leading me and helping me through our amazing staff and our board and our congregation and our volunteers and everyone involved.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. And, you know, for context, a part of the reason why we’re talking to you is because your church has been flagged as one of the fastest growing churches.
Eric Holmstrom — Yeah.
Rich Birch — So listeners, like, let’s put this in context here. This transition happened and the church continued to accelerate and reach more people…
Eric Holmstrom — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …which I think can be a fear on the on the side of maybe the departing leaders. They’re like, hey, what’s going to happen? Is this thing going to go sideways? Well, it hasn’t. It’s actually continued to accelerate. So, and I even have seen this even as we’ve you know kind of interacted today.
Eric Holmstrom — Yeah.
Rich Birch — How do you think about honoring what’s happened, so honoring the past…
Eric Holmstrom — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …honoring the leadership and what’s happened there, but still really continuing to lead god lead the church into what God has for the church, into something new. How has that tension, I’ve seen you model it already in this conversation…
Eric Holmstrom — Yeah, yeah.
Rich Birch — …but how does that work out you know in your leadership?
Eric Holmstrom — Oh, that’s such a great question. And what’s awesome is like, we don’t have to fake it here at Purpose Church because our lead pastor, our former lead pastor, Glenn Gunderson, did such an amazing job creating a church culture here where, you know, he used to always say, ah this church is is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.
Eric Holmstrom — He would always talk about, um we’re a church that goes after the one.
Eric Holmstrom — And we have ah a… a high celebrate recovery culture here, model here of people come as they are. And and really it’s it’s it’s a beautiful church to be a part of in terms of, you know, we’ve had people on our staff who were homeless sleeping on our church campus and then we offered them a job. They went through recovery. Now they’re leading different ministry areas.
Eric Holmstrom — We’ve got people on our staff who were very high up in, in, industries that ah are just really dark and broken. And God has redeemed them and we brought them on our church staff and now they’re working for God’s kingdom and doing great things.
Eric Holmstrom — And so, our church culture has always been one of, especially under Pastor Glenn’s leadership, of we want to reach people that are far from God. Our vision is everyone everywhere following Jesus.
Eric Holmstrom — We literally mean everyone, wherever they’re at, following Jesus, which means there’s a starting point for their relationship with God. And they continue, that we continue being discipled, continue growing in our relationship So what I’m trying to do is, especially as I started in this role, is honor what’s been, because we’ve got this amazing momentum moving forward because of their hard work.
Eric Holmstrom — And because of this church culture that has been created. So we’re trying to honor the past, trying to thank God for the ways that he has led our church and then continue to move into the future and and start new ways of reaching people through some invite Sundays that we’ve done through different sermon series, through reaching out to our neighborhood and our community more.
Eric Holmstrom — And so, it’s been an awesome progression and you’re right. We have seen a lot of growth ah while Pastor Glenn was our lead pastor and by God’s grace, he’s continued to grow this church over the last almost two years that I’ve been the lead pastor.
Rich Birch — Yes, that’s great. So let’s again, we’re thinking about these early days, you’re in this chair. How did you get clarity on where you should be spending your time? It’s an interesting shift, right?
Eric Holmstrom — Yes.
Rich Birch — You go from being the person on the team to now you’re responsible for the team, ultimate flexibility, you can make up your own day.
Eric Holmstrom — Yes. Yes.
Rich Birch — How did you figure that out?
Eric Holmstrom — Yes. Yes. And that’s the word, that’s the hardest part for me is in this role as lead pastor, I could get involved in anything I wanted to, right? I could schedule a meeting with anyone. And and so I had to quickly discern, okay, what does the church need most from me? And what is it that only I can do and only I should be doing?
Eric Holmstrom — And so what kind of quickly surfaced for me is I need to be giving my best energy towards what’s the vision and direction of our church.
Eric Holmstrom — What’s the spiritual direction of our church? Now, I’m not just casting vision by myself. I’ve got an amazing executive pastor, Pastor Greg, who he he’s he’s a rock star. I mean, he hired me here at this church. And then through this process, I became his boss.
Rich Birch — Oh wow.
Eric Holmstrom — And he is just, he is such an amazing, humble, incredible executive pastor.
Eric Holmstrom — He’s been a lead pastor before and has no desire to be a lead pastor again. So he is just been, he was such a champion carrying our church through that season of transition and now being an amazing executive pastor.
Eric Holmstrom — So, you know, we’re developing vision through time with my executive pastor and our strategic team, our pastors. But at the end of the day, I’m seeking the Lord going, okay, God, taking in all of this inside and time away with you. What’s the vision and direction you’re leading our church in? What’s the spiritual direction? And then for me, a core role that I have here is developing and discipling and training up our staff, our pastors and our leaders. And then, of course, as a pastor, I love doing congregational care and and there is time built into my schedule for that. But honestly, if I’m doing my job best, according to Ephesians 4:12, I’m equipping the saints for ministry.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Eric Holmstrom — And so really what I need to be doing is pouring into our staff here, who are then caring for and ministering to our congregation, many of whom I only interact with, you know, many of our, much of our congregation, I only interact with on Sunday morning when I see them or, um you know, if they happen to come forward or we send an email, it’s really our church staff and then our high capacity volunteers who are discipling, mentoring, coaching, walking with the rest of our church. So that’s where I’ve been focusing a lot of my attention.
Eric Holmstrom — Also on culture. That’s become a really important one. You know I’m constantly thinking through, okay, what do I need to be focusing on externally for our church?
Eric Holmstrom — But then what about internally? How do we be the healthiest we can be as an organization and as a church? And so we did something this last year, we basically took a year and said, we are going to develop ah what we ended up calling an employee spiritual commitment, where we are making some decisions as a staff and a team This is who we are going to be. This is going to be our culture.
Eric Holmstrom — Because Rich, I have discovered that the longer you become, longer you’ve been a Christian and and and once you get on staff or become a high capacity volunteer or whatever, Satan likes to trick us into thinking that we become the exception.
Eric Holmstrom — And so what I’m telling our staff all the time is you are not the exception. You are the example.
Rich Birch — good.
Eric Holmstrom — As soon as you join a staff, you start thinking, you know what? I don’t need to tithe here or give, that’s what other people do. I don’t need to serve because I work here at the church. I don’t need to read my Bible for my own intimacy and time with the Lord. I just read my Bible to prepare sermons. I don’t need to be in a life group. That would be hard for me as a church staff member. That’s for ever…. So I’m gonna tell everybody else, you need to be reading your Bible, you need to be tithing, you need to be serving, you to be in a life group, but those things don’t apply for me because I’m the exception.
Eric Holmstrom — Wrong. Peter talks about it in 1 Peter 5. Be an example. Be an example the flock.
Rich Birch — Love that.
Eric Holmstrom — So we made some commitments and we worked on them. We prayed through them. We talked about them with our staff and we shared them and then gave people four months to say, hey, if you’re not about this, that’s okay.
Eric Holmstrom — You’re still Christian. You just can’t work here, right? And like try to be as gracious and kind as we as we could be say, hey, we’re not saying you’re not a Christian.
Rich Birch — Wow. Yes.
Eric Holmstrom — We’re not saying you don’t love Jesus. We’re just saying. These are going to be the commitments we are going to keep as the staff and the leaders of Purpose Church so that we can look at our congregation and say, we want to be an example to you, not an exception to you.
Eric Holmstrom — So I’ve been really wrestling with that culture of our staff, culture of our church, and then also kind of vision direction, spiritual direction of of where we’re going and developing.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I’d love to talk a little bit more on the rollout of the commitments. I think that’s that’s amazing.
Eric Holmstrom — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And um you know you know you brought it up there. Hey, we’re going to give the four months for you to wrestle through this and think about it. Maybe just double click on that because I think it’s great that you’re calling your team to that.
Eric Holmstrom — Okay.
Rich Birch — But just give me a little more about well how that went. What would you do different if you’d done it again? What went well? What didn’t go well?
Eric Holmstrom — Totally.
Rich Birch — What would you advise the clients if they called and said, hey, we’re thinking about doing something like that?
Eric Holmstrom — Yeah, so it really started with me and our executive pastor and our chief of operations here. We were in a meeting and we were like, look, we just think it’s important that our whole staff embody these values. And then we asked each other, hey, would we be willing to lose amazing people who are doing amazing work, but don’t necessarily fit with our culture? Like, would we be willing to lose them? And we all looked at each other and said, you know what? It’s worth it. It’s worth it. It feels like the right thing to do. It feels like the step that honors God.
Eric Holmstrom — And so it started with that commitment and that that, you know, recognition, like we may lose people in the process. And then, you know, we started to work on it with our pastors and our staff, roll it out. But before we did that too, we we sent it to our lawyer and we sent it to our trustees.
Eric Holmstrom — They looked through it. We sent it to our lawyer because they’re like, are we doing anything illegal here? And ah our lawyer wrote back the most beautiful, you know, I guess maybe this is one of the ways you know, like, you’re you’re a lead pastor is like when when when you get an email from your lawyer that’s like really affirming, you start crying.
Eric Holmstrom — And so I’m just like, she she she sent me an email, she sent us an email and she said, I stand by all of these commitments. And if I lived in your area, because she’s, think she’s in Alabama. She said, if I lived in your area, I would go to your church because I would want to be led by a staff like this.
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Eric Holmstrom — And so it was very, very affirming. So it was important to run it, you know, to collaborate with our pastors, run it through our lawyer, ah run it through our trustees, getting all the input, all those things. And then we shared it with our staff.
Eric Holmstrom — I wrote kind of like a cover letter for, hey, here’s my heart behind it. It’s because I want you to be a healthy leader.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Eric Holmstrom — It’s because I want you to be an example. It’s because I want your work in ministry to be meaningful. And I care about you as a leader. And I care about the health of our church. And then we shared it with the staff and said, hey, you’ve got, I think it was three three months to pray on this. And then we need you to sign this and commit to this as we go into the new year together.
Eric Holmstrom — And and and thankfully, everybody committed to it. We had, but but that three to four months also gave opportunity for conversations. And we invited those. You said, hey, there’s anything unclear in this for your situation or your season of life, like, let’s talk about this.
Eric Holmstrom — And it was really, really great. It gave us a lot of opportunities to have conversation, clarifying conversations, and to help people not misunderstand things, but to understand the heart and and how it might apply to them.
Eric Holmstrom — And it’s been really cool to see our staff…
Rich Birch — that’s cool.
Eric Holmstrom — …invested more in groups, invested more in setting that example for our church.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. I love that. And, you know, what even a great kind of alignment thing to go through as you’re starting to lead, you know, to say, hey, let’s try to define what is going to be really important for us.
Rich Birch — So going in a totally different direction. You mentioned it as we kind of flew through there and love invite culture stuff. And so you mentioned invite Sundays. And so that caught my eye. Tell me about those. How have they function? How does that look different than from what you’ve done before? Yeah, just kind of unpack that a little bit for us.
Eric Holmstrom — Yeah. Yeah. Well, Rich, I’ve heard on your podcast, which by the way, I’m a big fan of unSeminary. I think your podcast is awesome. And I’m a big fan of seminary. I went to seminary. I went to two different seminaries.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Eric Holmstrom — I love seminary, but I think we can learn so much from each other. And so to everyone listening, I’m just so grateful you’re joining us today. And I’m always getting on our staff here as they’re joining, as they’re, you know, becoming a seminary student, as they’re going to graduate school to, hey, continue to serve in a local church.
Eric Holmstrom — When I went to seminary, there were several students, colleagues who were only doing seminary. They were disconnected from the local church. And I’m like, what are you doing? You’re missing out on applying what you’re learning.
Rich Birch — It’s so true.
Eric Holmstrom — But there’s so much that seminary can’t teach you or doesn’t teach you. And so podcasts like yours, Rich, like the one you have here is absolutely amazing.
Eric Holmstrom — One the things you’ve talked about on your podcast is how most people are invited to church by somebody else. So so we do you know promotions on social media and on our website and you know all that stuff. But we wanted to prioritize equipping our church and giving our church family an excuse for to invite their friends and their family to church.
Eric Holmstrom — And so we have four or five of these invite Sundays every year where we try to keep them very similar to what somebody would experience on a Sunday morning, just heightened a little bit. So we’ll get bounce houses. We’ll we’ll bring a food truck in. We’ve even kind of experimented with like launching into a series. So we did a spiritual warfare series in the fall called “The War You’re In.”
Eric Holmstrom — And it launched on our invite Sunday. And the the the idea was, let’s give these new people who are coming chapter one of this story of this book and see if it piques their interest. But weeks leading up to that, we’re telling our church family, we call them Sunday Funday. how we kind of brand them, but we tell our church family, hey, Sunday Funday is coming up. Don’t come to church alone. Invite your neighbor, invite your friends. Who’s your one more that doesn’t know Jesus? This is a great opportunity to invite them. And and every Sunday here at Purpose Church is a great Sunday to bring somebody.
Rich Birch — Right.
Eric Holmstrom — I do a salvation message about once a month or so. We’ve seen a lot of people surrender their lives to Christ this year. We’ve had more baptisms this year than we had in the last 10 years. It’s just been incredible. So we’re seeing people take those first steps, but we’re trying to equip our church family. We’re telling them, hey, here’s what we’re talking about.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Eric Holmstrom — Leading into Easter. I mean, Easter is an invite Sunday for us. It’s a big outreach Sunday for us. So multiple weeks leading up to Easter, I’m telling our church family, this is what I’m talking about. You know, this this Easter, last Easter, our theme was a second chance. So I’m telling our church family, hey, if you’ve got somebody in your life who needs a second chance, this is their Easter. This is the service for them.
Eric Holmstrom — So I’m trying to, we’re trying to help our congregation get excited about what’s happening here, equipping them with flyers, talking about what we’ll be talking about, making it an environment through ah worship, greeting the message through the atmosphere and the environment. I mean, I think one of our secret sauces here at Purpose Church is we don’t have the biggest budget, but we’ve got big hearts.
Rich Birch — That’s right.
Eric Holmstrom — The people of Purpose Church have big hearts. They love people well. They make people feel at home and welcomed here. And so we want to leverage that. We want to see new people coming on our campus and and giving all of us an opportunity to welcome them, love them. And and and we’re seeing people stick around, which has been exciting.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so cool. Love that. Just to call out friends, ah there’s a lot there that you should rip off if you’re listening in. There’s so good. I love that. But one of the things that many churches miss on trying to build invite culture is we we think that like if we kind of surprise our people, that they’ll like that. It’s like, oh, there’s some big thing happening on that day. You’re going to want to invite your friends to be here.
Rich Birch — That’s actually not how people think. You need, they need to be very predictable. The fact that you’re saying, this is exactly what we’re going to be teaching on. Do you know someone who asks questions like this, this, and this? You need to get them to be here that day. That is a great best practice there for sure. I love I love that.
Eric Holmstrom — Oh, thanks Rich.
Rich Birch — As opposed to like, oh, hey, it’s going to be great, um you know which just doesn’t mean anything to people.
Eric Holmstrom — Yep. And and we used to do like Easter services at a different location, you know, with more seating.
Rich Birch — Right.
Eric Holmstrom — But we’ve just gone, man, we want the experience to feel as similar as possible on a Sunday morning. So our church family’s equipped to know what are we going to be talking about? What’s going to be happening? But then for that new person who comes, we want them to feel the familiarity of the parking experience, of dropping off their kids, of where they’re sitting.
Eric Holmstrom — And so that as they’re making that decision, “Am I going to come back again?”, they’ll know what that experience is going to be like. And then of course, we have an amazing next steps team that’s following up with these people. That is, we’re getting information. We’re inviting them to scan a QR code to connect with us. We have a gift for them. And then our team is doing a great job of following up with them and helping them take the next steps that they want to take.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good. Well, let’s think about the succession question again, you know, going back to that conversation. So for a pastor who might be listening in today, who is, they are the person that is going to be, you know, taking the baton.
Eric Holmstrom — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Maybe they’re before the actual transition, but they’re thinking about their first 90 days, 100 days.
Eric Holmstrom — Yes. Yes.
Rich Birch — What would what advice would you give to them? How how would you help them think about their their their initial days as they’re launching off?
Eric Holmstrom — Oh, that’s so great. Okay. So the first thing I tried to do was to make a commitment that I’m going to shepherd people and pastor people right where they are. And what I mean by that is there were people in our church who were grieving that our former lead pastor was leaving. And what they didn’t need from me was vision, vision, vision. What they needed from me is, Hey, I get it. I’m I’m sad too. Like I’m going to miss him.
Eric Holmstrom — And and so our job was to shepherd and pastor them. And by the way, I told this to all of our staff and our pastors. I said, don’t feel like you have to you know hype me up or or if people are sad that things are changing, that you have to try to convince them. Like there’s that whole change curve. It’s going to take people time and people are on different places. And so shepherding and pastoring people who were really struggling and and having a difficult time with the change, meeting them where they’re at.
Eric Holmstrom — There were also people who had recently come to our church. I just met ah a guy last Sunday who’s been coming for like a couple months now and he’s brand new to our church. And he’s like, man, I love it here. Love you, Pastor Eric. And and there was a guy who preached like a couple of weeks ago. I think he like led the church for like 30 years or something. He was great. He was amazing.
Eric Holmstrom — I’m like, Oh my goodness. You don’t know pastor Glenn Gunderson at all. You don’t know him.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Eric Holmstrom — And and so what he needs is vision for where we’re going.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Eric Holmstrom — So pastoring and shepherding people right where they are, instead of trying to force everybody into one category.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Eric Holmstrom — Second thing that I just felt the Lord leading me to do that I’ve just continued to do is I start every single sermon the exact same way. I tell our church every single Sunday, I greet the new people and it’s it’s a for everybody, whether you’re new or you’ve been a part of our church forever.
Eric Holmstrom — I greet them the same way. I say, I love you. And most importantly, God loves you. And that sort of came out of me asking this question, what do I wanna be remembered for? Like, what’s the thing that at the end of the day, these people are not gonna remember all my sermons, all my points, but if they if they remembered one thing about me as their pastor, what would it be? And it’s that I would want them to know I love them and that God loved them.
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Eric Holmstrom — And 1 Thessalonians 2:8 really like has been my ministry motto. Paul says, because we loved you so much, we cared for you, we shared the gospel and we shared our lives as well.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Eric Holmstrom — So Paul’s talking about this this ministry that’s born out of a deep love for the people that you’re pastoring. And so I I’m always praying right before I preach. I pray the same thing. God, would you put your message in me like a fire in my bones? And would you help me to see these people the way you see them and to feel about them the way you feel about them?
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Eric Holmstrom — And I’ve had moments when I’ve been preaching where it’s like, I just feel like the Spirit of God deposits into my heart his incredible love for them. And I start tearing up over something.
Eric Holmstrom — But but I tell them every Sunday, I love you. And most importantly, God loves you. So that when I give them a convicting word, a challenging word, something where I’m calling them to a higher standard, they know it’s coming from a pastor that doesn’t want to beat them up or that doesn’t care about them or is trying to build some platform.
Eric Holmstrom — It comes from a pastor who loves them and who is deeply, deeply convinced that God loves them. So I’m sharing that with them um each Sunday. And I’ve heard from a lot of people that that that really resonates and and feels significant for them.
Rich Birch — Yeah it’s good.
Eric Holmstrom — Yeah.
Rich Birch — I think that’s great. I think the the thing to point out there that I think is, I just think is amazing is good is I think oftentimes we when we think about that kind of transition we can go to the like immediate the tactics or the whatever you know like oh make sure you meet with all these people or whatever. And what I’ve seen in churches that this transition has gone well is there’s a humility with both leaders, which both of you, which you have described him in these conversations today, like that, you know, when Glenn passed it to you, there was ah that humble moment. And he obviously continues to, you know, he gave some space, but has continued to handle himself in a humble way.
Eric Holmstrom — Yeah.
Rich Birch — You’re handling yourself with humility as well. And, you know, the, I like that you’re pushing on really ah a deeper issue, which is like, do you love these people at the end of the day? You know you’re not taking over some organization this is a family that you’re called to lead. And so I mean I think that’s just so good. That’s fantastic.
Eric Holmstrom — Yeah. And then, Rich, I would just want to say too, in addition to that is then starting to cast some vision and direction for, okay, where is God taking this church? So one of the things we did is we started to a new rhythm of Vision Sunday once a year. So we actually, it’s coming up in a couple Sundays. We try to do it right before summer. We do it actually, it aligns with our fiscal budget year. So one of the things that we tried to make a a commitment around is, hey, we’re gonna be a vision-driven church. We’re gonna have vision-driven budgeting. So it’s not just, hey, can I get $1,000 more than last year or whatever? It’s it’s what’s the vision that God has given you for your ministry, for your department, and we’re budgeting around that.
Eric Holmstrom — But that starts with me as I’m with my team, I’m a collaborative visionary. And as I’m hearing from the Lord, what’s the vision and direction for our church? And so ah first Sunday of June, we do a big vision Sunday where we celebrate what God has been doing. And where we cast vision for the next year. And so that’s part of what I’m doing too.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Eric Holmstrom — And what I did early on and continue to do is to keep vision in front of our church of where are we going? What things are we starting? What are we praying and hoping to see the Lord do? And what’s their part in that?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Well, this has been a fantastic conversation. Any final words just as we wrap up today’s discussion?
Eric Holmstrom — Yeah, absolutely. Well, I would just say that the last thing I would want to say is I think as as a lead pastor or, and if preaching is a high priority for you, recognizing that we do so much leadership through our preaching.
Rich Birch — That’s the truth.
Eric Holmstrom — And so that that became a really important thing for me in terms of figuring out, okay, how do I go about writing the sermon? How do I edit the sermon? How do I prepare and practice the sermon and then ultimately get some evaluation on the sermon?
Eric Holmstrom — And so that’s been a journey for me of of learning how to do that well. And I think some of the things I’ve I’ve learned along the way is there’s parts of it you don’t love and that are more challenging. For me, it’s the editing.
Eric Holmstrom — And I think a lot of preachers and pastors are probably like that. You know, on Mondays, I’ll start going, man, I think I only have a 15 minute sermon here. By Thursday, I’m like, I’ve got an 80 minute sermon here. And so the the I think the difference between good sermons and great sermons is great sermons are are are ones where we cut out the good stuff. It’s all good stuff, but we cut out the good stuff to make enough room for the great stuff.
Eric Holmstrom — And then getting people’s feedback, you know? So after i write the sermon, I edit it, I still practice my sermons even before delivering them I have a rhythm of, they gotta be done by Thursdays because I wanna enjoy some of my weekend. And so I’m practicing my sermons, but then, after preaching my sermons, I have kind of an evaluation form that I give different people in our church to give me direct feedback because there’s things I’m not seeing.
Eric Holmstrom — And especially leading up into Easter and some of these invite Sundays, I’ll actually deliver my sermon to several people on our staff. They’ll give me direct feedback. And sometimes it’s not what I want to hear. Sometimes the story I’m so excited about, they’re going, hey, you know what? I don’t think it fits here. Or and my sermons have always been better because of their feedback.
Eric Holmstrom — And so that’s something I’m really passionate about is helping.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Eric Holmstrom — We started a preacher’s club. That’s part of the, one of the things that I’m trying to do in terms of developing our ministry leaders. And so we started a preacher’s club where we meet once a month and, everyone gives, you know, or one or two people will give a 10 minute sermon and we give each other feedback. I share with them some tips and tricks, things I’m learning, and we watch other sermons and evaluate them.
Eric Holmstrom — And so ah that that’s been an important aspect, I think, for me is really is realizing that that for for our church, 90% of our community interacts with me on a Sunday morning through my sermon. And so I want to be really intentional to shepherd and pastor and care for them and to give them the very best that I can. And so that’s been some of the process for me.
Rich Birch — So good. That’s, that’s fantastic. That’s like a little preaching clinic you just gave us there. That’s so good. So many good things to unpack there. This has been a fantastic conversation, Eric. I really appreciate your time today. If, where do we want to send people online? If they want to track with you or with the church, where do we want to send them?
Eric Holmstrom — Oh man, well, you could go to our church webpage, purposechurch.com. We’re on Instagram, Purpose Pomona. You could follow me on Instagram, eric.h.holmstrom. Good luck spelling that. But I would love to you know I would love to interact with you on Instagram. That’s kind of the only place that I’m at.
But yeah, thank you. And Rich, this has been a really rich conversation rich rich conversation I appreciate you, man.
Rich Birch — Nice.
Eric Holmstrom — And I’m I’m grateful for your ministry.
Rich Birch — Thanks so much for being here today.
If there’s one thing church leaders should be obsessed with, it’s the front door. In this special compilation episode, we’ve pulled together four conversations from leading churches and ministry organizations that are seeing success in helping first-time guests move from curious visitors to fully engaged disciples. The challenge facing churches today is different than it was even a few years ago. Guests are arriving with different motivations, different expectations, and different questions. Churches that continue using yesterday’s assimilation strategies may unintentionally lose people God is already drawing.
Don’t miss the four critical lessons every church should consider as they prepare for the fall ministry season. From changing guest motivations to intentional follow-up systems, discipleship pathways, and data-driven care, each conversation offers practical insights that can help churches better connect with the people walking through their doors.
People Are Coming to Church Looking for GodGreg Curtis shares a remarkable shift he’s seeing among first-time guests, particularly younger adults. Where people once came primarily looking for community, support, or practical life help, many are now arriving already searching for God. In some cases, they’ve already begun reading Scripture, exploring faith, or experiencing spiritual curiosity before ever attending a service. This means churches must be prepared to engage people with greater intentionality from the moment they arrive.
Key Takeaway // Many first-time guests are no longer casually checking out church. They’re arriving with genuine questions about God and faith, often after beginning a spiritual journey on their own. Churches must be prepared to meet that curiosity with intentional next steps.
Listen to the Full Episode // They’re Looking for God … Don’t Miss Them: Fixing Your Church’s Assimilation Problem with Greg Curtis & Tommy Carreras (March 26, 2026)
Follow-Up Can’t Be Left to ChanceJohn Sellers explains how Journey Church creates a clear and repeatable process for helping guests take their next step. Through intentional touchpoints—including a welcoming first interaction, relational next-step environments, and a six-week follow-up process involving texts, emails, phone calls, and personal invitations—the church ensures guests don’t simply attend once and disappear. Consistent follow-up may not be flashy, but it remains one of the most effective growth strategies churches can implement.
Key Takeaway // Fast-growing churches rarely rely on a single welcome interaction. They build systems that encourage guests to take multiple steps over several weeks, increasing the likelihood that visitors become connected participants.
Listen to the Full Episode // From Guests to Baptisms: Building Clear Next Steps with John Sellers (November 13, 2025)
A Clear Pathway Helps People Keep MovingAshley Lentz outlines Lutheran Church of Hope’s discipleship pathway, which helps leaders identify where people are spiritually and what their next step should be. Rather than treating every attendee the same, the church intentionally helps people move from seeker to believer, from believer to follower, and ultimately into servant leadership. The framework creates clarity for both staff and volunteers while helping people continue growing long after their first visit.
*Key Takeaway* // People are far more likely to stay engaged when churches provide a defined pathway for spiritual growth. Clarity helps both guests and leaders understand what comes next.
Listen to the Full Episode // Clarity Is Kindness: Simplifying Next Steps in a Growing Church with Ashley Lentz (September 18, 2025)
Data Is a Tool for Shepherding, Not Just AdministrationRonee de Leon of TouchPoint challenges churches to view their database as more than a record-keeping system. Using her framework of Conviction, Collection, Clarity, and Care, she explains how churches can use data to proactively identify opportunities for discipleship and connection. Effective data practices ensure people do not fall through the cracks and allow churches to provide personalized care at scale.
**Key Takeaway**** // Churches cannot effectively shepherd hundreds—or thousands—of people through memory alone. Healthy systems and meaningful data help leaders identify opportunities for connection, care, and discipleship before people drift away.
Listen to the Full Episode // From Data to Discipleship: The Four Cs Every Church Needs with Ronee de Leon (April 30, 2026)
This episode serves as a timely challenge for church leaders preparing for the months ahead. As more spiritually curious people walk through church doors, the question isn’t whether guests are coming. It’s whether our systems, pathways, and follow-up processes are prepared to help them stay. The churches seeing the greatest impact are not leaving assimilation to chance. They’re intentionally creating environments where people can move from a first visit to a life transformed by Jesus.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Friends, Rich here from the unSeminary Podcast. Thanks so much for tuning in. We’ve got a very special compilation episode for you.
Rich Birch — Listen, I have heard echoes of similar things happening over the last year or so on the podcast, so we’re pulling together these episodes because I want to point out to you critical lessons for your church, particularly here in the summertime, as you think about what are some things that we should be reloading for this fall. Listen, friends, you know, and I know that you and I are a part of the local church and the local church is the only organization in the world that exists for people that are not here yet. You and I should be fanatically focused on the front door.
Rich Birch — We should be first-time-guest-obsessed. And on today’s episode, I want to peek in on four discussions that talk about changing dynamics when it comes to connecting with first time guests. And no conversation around this whole area of assimilation would be complete without talking to and listening to Greg Curtis.
Rich Birch — If you do not know Greg, where have you been? He’s been at Eastside Church for the last decade running their assimilation work. And he’s really seeing some interesting shifts in particularly young adults when it comes that I keep seeing across the country. And in this clip, he’s going to open up and tell you about a subtle shift that he has seen and some of the changes they’ve made around assimilating people when they come in.
Rich Birch — Now, today’s conversation, we’re going to really frame around Greg’s three part model. We talk about the screen to the seat, the seat to the circle, and then the circle to the street. We want you to understand that how we’re connecting with guests today is different than what it looked like five years ago.
Rich Birch — It’s definitely different than what it looked like pre-COVID. So let’s listen in first and see if we can catch what Greg is seeing and think about the dynamics that you’re seeing at your church. Listen in to what Greg’s got to say…
[Clip 1 Begins]
Rich Birch — People get assimilated, get connected. What have you noticed maybe something that’s maybe different in the way people are engaging right now that’s different than maybe even a year or two ago?
Greg Curtis — A crescendo over the last two years has been remarkable in its shift towards—this is going to sound crazy because we’re talking to churches—they’re wanting God now. And what I mean by that is prior, we were having to sell the benefits of following Jesus – most growing churches, which there are. And I think it was a compelling thing to share with the culture.
Greg Curtis — And so people were coming to church to find community, to find help with parenting, to find support in marriage or to, you know, a variety of different things. And so the draw and what was causing people to engage with church was really, what help in my life? How can I increase the quality of my life? Maybe even get some pretty powerful pain points addressed.
Greg Curtis — This has shifted. I’ll put it in the terms of our young adult pastor. His name is Charles. He came to me. He said, Greg, prior to two, three years ago, maybe not even that long, he said young adults were coming, 80% of them to find friends and community, and about 20% to find God.
Greg Curtis — He goes, it’s flipped. It’s flipped. Now it’s 80% God and 20% community.
Greg Curtis — And that has expressed itself in some remarkable ways. I’ll just throw two out. At the end of last year, I was covering somebody, a pastor who was going to baptize somebody after the service. He had to be gone. So I said, yeah, I’ll cover it. So in our context, I’ll meet that person ahead of time and kind of show them where to sit in the service, when to come out, where the baptistry is, et cetera.
Greg Curtis — And I met her. She was 28 years old, named Connie. And I said, as we’re walking through the baptistry, so, you know, I asked these typical questions: how long have you been coming to Eastside, which is my church?
Greg Curtis — And she says, oh, I’ve never been to Eastside. I was like, oh, so you’re from our online campus. And she goes, no, I’ve never really heard of Eastside.
Greg Curtis — And I said, well, what’s led you to be baptized today? And this was her story. She goes, I grew up in a very non-religious home, and I’ve never been to church. And I vowed I’d never even date a religious person. But I had some friends, three months ago, that invited me to watch The Chosen with them. I didn’t want to.
Greg Curtis — I was mad at myself for getting engaged after the first episode, kept watching, decided to buy myself a Bible two months ago. I started reading the Old Testament and New Testament concurrently and decided I love Jesus and I want to follow Him, and I could tell what I needed to do was get baptized. But, get this, I’m the game day operations coordinator for the NFL. So I work on Sundays, and I just Googled who would baptize me on a Saturday. And your form came up, and I filled it out. So here I am.
Rich Birch — Wow. That’s amazing.
Greg Curtis — Yeah. And I’ll tell you what, she didn’t know, Rich, that this baptism was going to be in front of other people until we were in the water and the whole church was looking at her.
Rich Birch — Wow. That’s incredible.
Greg Curtis — The questions she had, we’ve remained in touch. The questions she asks are so precious. But I’m telling you, I’ve had a few of those that are similar. That one’s pretty dramatic, but are very similar. No background at all. They’re coming because they’re having a God moment before they get to us.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Greg Curtis — And that’s a big shift because God is doing something literally worldwide and in our culture right now that they’re coming to us to find God, and they’re already encountering him in some way, and they need help with that and want it. And that’s a huge shift.
[Clip 1 Ends]
Rich Birch — Fantastic. Listen, if 80% of the guests are arriving at your church with a God question burning in their heart, the first 60 minutes, what we do every single weekend is critically important. I have seen this over my career.
Rich Birch — Listen, I had recently one of those birthdays with a zero on the end. And I can tell you, as someone who’s been three decades into ministry experience, there was a time where people stumbled into our churches. And that’s just frankly not happening anymore.
Rich Birch — People are arriving with real questions. And we might have been able to, in a previous generation, entertain them or try to diffuse this idea that we ain’t your mama’s church. But that isn’t where people are at anymore.
Rich Birch — They’re coming with real live questions in their heart. They’re not stumbling into your church on Sunday morning because they don’t know what’s going on there. They’re coming looking for real questions.
Rich Birch — And you and I, our processes, what we do on Sunday morning has got to meet that intensity. We can’t just hand them a coffee mug and say, we’ll see you next week. We’ve got to follow them up with some fervor and excitement and frankly a bit more intensity than what most churches are doing.
Rich Birch — I love this conversation that’s coming up with John Sellers. He’s executive pastor of locations at Journey Church in Central Florida—three campuses with a fourth on the way—and is one of the most consistently fastest-growing churches in the country. Now, listen to what John talks about when he talks about the follow-up process, that they aren’t just leaving it to chance. They are working with intention to move these first time guests and get them plugged in.
Rich Birch — The question I have for you is, is this the kind of intensity that you’re following up your first time guests with? Let’s listen in.
[Clip 2 Begins]
John Sellers — So at our church, every location has a tent. It’s a new here tent. And so the first step that we’re communicating, the clear step on that first or second week is: stop by the tent.
John Sellers — Like, I know that’s a big step and we have to remind our serve team. And behind the curtain, that seems simple to us, but like to a new person at a church, even going to a tent or making themselves known by filling out a Connect card, even if it’s digital, like that’s a big step for somebody.
John Sellers — And so a lot of our communication’s go to the tent. We’d love to meet you. We’ve got a gift card for you just to celebrate the step of faith you took to be here today. And so once they take that step, it starts us being able to follow up through text messages, emails, phone calls, and really encouraging them to step into our Next Steps class.
John Sellers — And so when they step into our Next Steps class, one of the things we’re even constantly trying to think through what we call it because “class” probably isn’t the best way to describe it. And we’re actually revamping it right now.
John Sellers — But for us, even that Next Steps class is a round table. It’s relational. It’s getting them around our Next Steps team that wants to hear their story. You know, what brought you through the doors? Wants to begin to hear about maybe what’s on their heart? Where are they at? What’s their next faith step?
John Sellers — And so those are the first couple of weeks. If we can encourage them to stop by the tent, that allows us to stay in contact with them relationally. And then the next step would be go to one of our Next Steps classes after a service.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Can we pull apart a bit of the detail there? Just because I know people are wondering this because I get these questions.
Rich Birch — So it sounds like when you arrive at the New Year tent, there’s a gift card there. Where’s that gift card for? What is the value of that? And why a gift card? Talk to us about that.
John Sellers — Yes. So for now, and we’ve experimented, we’ll change this up like constantly. But right now it’s for a local coffee shop. And it’s literally a $5 gift card. It’s just a thank you to say thank you for coming.
John Sellers — It’s a little gift bag. It’s got information about our church, obviously. And it’s just a step. The way we phrase it is we know it’s a big step of faith you took to be here today. And so we just want to celebrate the fact that you made it in the room. And so that’s what it is – $5.
John Sellers — On big events, we’ll do a Journey Church cup and make it a little more substantial. But it’s just a $5 gift card to a local coffee shop.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. And I love the thinking behind that, friends, that are listening in, is sometimes what I see churches do, they’ll be like, hey, if you want to get connected, or if you’ve got interested about your Next Steps, or if you’re wondering where to go, drop by the tent outside. People are not asking that question when they first come.
Rich Birch — We’ve got to take a celebratory step. And I like what you’re saying. I love that language of we want to celebrate the faith step by being here today. And we want to give you a gift in exchange for that. People will do that for a $5 gift card, or a coffee mug, or whatever. That’s good.
Rich Birch — And then the other thing that caught my attention you said was, you said: and we follow up with texts and emails. Talk about how many of that, what’s that communication process look like? There’s another area where I see churches drop the ball all the time.
John Sellers — Sure, it’s a variety. There’s a workflow that we use through our database system planning center that is owned by our Weekend Experience team members. But basically, it starts with an email from our lead pastor with a short video for them to watch, a message directly from him.
John Sellers — It includes a text message or phone call from the location pastors within two weeks. It includes other text messages and emails. So it lasts about six weeks. And it’s more information about how to take steps at our church.
John Sellers — And so some of its vision, a lot of it is geared towards stepping into the Next Steps class. But yes, it’s multiple, and it’s a variety. And it’s over the span of six weeks. And then we even have, you know, workflows built out that, you know, if somebody goes through that six-week process without taking the next step, that periodically we’ll check back in with them.
[Clip 2 Ends]
Rich Birch — Boring stuff grows churches. I’ve said it before. I’m going to keep saying it.
Rich Birch — A monthly Next Steps cadence or New Year cadence, whatever you call it at your church, a $5 gift card may not be exciting, but it’s the kind of thing that we see time and time again at fast-growing churches. But the question is, what happens after week six? Where do we take people beyond this initial connection?
Rich Birch — In fact, I’ve seen in some churches that have done extensive studies on this. If people do not get plugged in in the first 100 days, they might come, they might even come back. But if they don’t take a significant step, that is get on a team or in a group in those first 100 days, they will just not connect to your church.
Rich Birch — So I want to peek in on a conversation we had with Ashley Lentz. She’s the Connections Pastor at a fantastic church, Lutheran Church of Hope, a multi-site church with seven campuses in Central Iowa. There’s 7,000 people at their one location every single weekend.
Rich Birch — And she really takes the longer arc view. Where do we go? It’s really, going back to what Greg talked about, there’s this kind of seat to circle, and then there’s the circle to street. That’s what this conversation is all about. How do we get these people who have taken these first few steps, what are we doing to get them actually plugged in? Let’s listen in to what Ashley has to say.
Rich Birch — There’s so much we can learn here. And again, I want you to be thinking about when you think about this fall at your church, are there some things you should be adjusting as we go into the fall?
[Clip 3 Begins]
Ashley Lentz — One of the tools that we use, and it is very much an internal tool is what I would call it. We call it the Hope Circle. And it is what I would call a discipleship tool or a discipleship pathway.
Ashley Lentz — And if I were to say that to our congregation members, they would really have no idea what I’m talking about. It is very internal. But it’s helpful to identify where people are on this Hope Circle.
Ashley Lentz — And so the circle starts with being a seeker. At a church our size, we have people every weekend who have zero idea what the church thing is about. They’ve maybe never been introduced to Jesus. Someone just invited them to church. They maybe knew they needed church and walked in the door, but have no idea what to expect. And so they are seeking something that has been missing in their life.
Ashley Lentz — And so helping people identify if that’s where you are, here are kind of the very preliminary places that would be helpful for you to start plugging in. As we move around that circle, we get to believers, people who are like, okay, I’m bought into the Jesus thing. I’ve heard the message, I believe, now what? I wanna understand this better. I believe in Jesus. I believe in God. I’m here for it, but I don’t really know the things.
Ashley Lentz — So where do we go from there and how do we help them then move into being super excited about Jesus? I don’t just believe, I’m on fire for Jesus. I’m a follower, right? I am all in, my life looks different. I’ve been transformed. How do I follow him?
Ashley Lentz — And then how do you serve people in that arena too? Because that’s gonna look different than somebody who’s come in as a seeker looking for Jesus and somebody who’s on fire for Jesus.
Ashley Lentz — So how do we move them around the circle? So it’s seeker, believer, follower, and then kind of the last part of our circle is servant leader. How do we move them then into serving and letting the transformed nature of the gospel pour out of them into the world around us?
Ashley Lentz — And I would say our secret sauce here at Hope is we love volunteers. Like as we move people around the Hope Circle, I and my colleagues, we want to equip people to lead. So being a servant leader inside these walls, but also outside these walls is really like, that’s what’s attractional to people is letting them know like you’re on fire for Jesus, go tell everyone about it and serve in the arena you find yourself in, whether in the church or outside the church.
[Clip 3 Ends]
Rich Birch — A pathway you can’t measure is a pathway you cannot improve. Friends, you’ve got a brain problem. Over 200 people, you simply cannot track where people are at in the processes we have talked about before.
Rich Birch — Your mind literally cannot hold in place where all of these people are at in their process. And so underneath everything we’ve talked about today, you need a robust approach to data.
Rich Birch — Listen, your church database is a care mechanism. It’s just a way we make sure people do not fall through the cracks. And so everything that we’ve talked about in today’s episode needs a robust approach to data and the way you handle data to move people just from a broad, kind of like they’re attending all the way through to caring, ensuring that they are plugged in. So I wanna peek into one final conversation.
Rich Birch — Ronee de Leon, she’s the executive director of Partner Church Success at Touchpoint. But outside of that, she’s formerly on staff at a large multi-site church in Columbus, Ohio. And Touchpoint sits across hundreds of churches and Ronee sees the patterns.
Rich Birch — Listen, what I want you to listen to carefully here is these four Cs that she talks about. Conviction, collection, clarity, care. And ask your question, are you doing this with your data?
Rich Birch — Does your data structure actually allow you to move people along in a way that ensures that we’re actually getting them plugged in? Friends, I don’t want you to miss the opportunity that God’s bringing your way. And this conversation could help you think differently about that, particularly in the next couple of months.
[Clip 4 Begins]
Ronee de Leon — Let’s alliterate some more. Like I said, I was on church staff for a long time.
Rich Birch — Yes, exactly.
Ronee de Leon — And it does become memorable, right? So this is a really simple framework that really is more stages. It’s a progression. But even though it’s simple, whether they know it or not, every church is in one of these stages when it comes to data-driven discipleship.
Ronee de Leon — And so four kind of Cs of this or stages are conviction, collection, clarity, and care. And I’ll just give a brief description of each of those and then we can go dive in a little bit deeper.
Ronee de Leon — But conviction, really the question that we’re answering here is, do you truly believe this matters even when it’s not easy? So leaders believe that shepherding is important, but do we wanna move into doing it proactively? And are we comfortable using data as a tool to do that well? So that’s kind of the conviction piece. Do you really believe that this matters?
Ronee de Leon — Collection then, are you committed to consistently gathering the data that’s needed? Not just once, but as a rhythm. It’s hard work, but it is a worthy cause, a valiant effort.
Ronee de Leon — Let’s move to clarity real quick. Again, the question we’re answering is, now that you have the data, do you have the insight? Do you really see what it’s telling you? And what are we doing with it?
Ronee de Leon — And then the last one here, of course, is where we’re acting on the insights to connect with our people. Will you actually act on the insights and shepherd people or will it stay theoretical? That’s kind of where we’re headed with this.
[Clip 4 Ends]
Rich Birch — We started this off today talking about how we see this pattern happening across the church. And I think these four episodes really hang incredibly together. Greg Curtis, he really named the moment that we’re in. I really do think that we’re seeing something that is generationally important. And I do not want your church to miss it.
Rich Birch — John Sellers, I thought gave a really clear discussion around how we move these people that are arriving. How do we get them to take those first steps and get plugged in?
Rich Birch — Then Ashley Lentz, she unpacked what it looked like to go from the seat to the circle, to the circle to the street pathway. What are we doing to actually get people to plug in deep in our community?
Rich Birch — And then finally, Ronee brought it home, giving us a measurement layer to really bring the whole thing together with some honesty and truth.
Rich Birch — Listen, this is the question: if I was sitting across from you and your staff this week, if I was in your staff meeting, the question I would simply ask is this, which of these four pieces is the weakest in our church as we approach this fall? And what’s the smallest move we could make in the next 30 days to improve where we need to in these areas?
Rich Birch — We’ve got links to all of these show notes before. Please stay tuned. We’ve got incredible episodes coming up all summer long and all fall long here at unSeminary.
Rich Birch — We’re on a mission to help 100 churches like yours grow by a thousand people by talking about stuff they don’t talk about in seminary.
Rich Birch — Thanks so much for being here, friends. We’ll see you next week. Take care.
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Tim Foot, CEO of Slingshot Group. With nearly three decades of ministry and leadership experience having worked with thousands of churches, Tim brings deep insight into one of the most critical drivers of church health: your team. In this conversation, we explore what separates stagnant teams from those that create real momentum and how leaders can shift from survival to remarkable impact.
- Why teams stall out. // After working with thousands of churches, Tim consistently sees the same patterns: unclear expectations, misaligned priorities, lack of structure, and unspoken tension. Many teams are overly task-driven but underdeveloped relationally. Others don’t fully understand how their strengths and weaknesses fit together.
- The danger of “hero-driven leadership.” // When a church relies too heavily on one standout leader to carry the mission it results in what Tim calls “hero-driven leadership.” While it can produce short-term results, it ultimately leads to burnout, unrealistic expectations, and fragile systems. Leaders often fall into this trap because it feels productive, and even rewarding, to be the one with all the answers. But over time, it limits team development and creates dependency instead of shared ownership.
- From hero to team. // The future of healthy ministry is team-based leadership. Instead of building ministries around individuals, churches must build systems and cultures where teams thrive together. This requires leaders humbly admitting they don’t have all the answers and a willingness to slow down in order to build alignment. When leaders shift from being the “hero” to developing others, they unlock far greater long-term impact.
- The seven “key signatures” of remarkable teams. // Tim introduces a framework of seven core areas that every healthy team must develop: conviction, message, culture, roles, systems, friction, and risk. These “key signatures” work together like elements in music, providing structure that leads to a strong, unified outcome. Conviction anchors the mission (“why we exist”), while message communicates that mission clearly. Culture shapes how people experience the team, and roles define how individuals contribute. Systems enable growth, friction drives improvement, and risk fuels breakthrough.
- Why friction is actually healthy. // One of the most counterintuitive ideas Tim shares is that healthy teams need friction. Many leaders try to eliminate tension, assuming harmony equals health. But in reality, the absence of friction often means important issues are being avoided. Healthy friction leads to better ideas, stronger alignment, and greater innovation. The key is ensuring it doesn’t become personal. When friction turns relationally destructive, it’s unhealthy. But when it stays focused on ideas and outcomes, it becomes a powerful driver of growth.
- A practical tool for leaders. // To help teams take action, Tim points leaders to a free “team awareness assessment.” This tool helps churches evaluate how they’re doing across the seven key signatures, identifying areas of strength and opportunities for growth. It’s designed to spark meaningful conversations that lead to real change.
- A final challenge for leaders. // Tim leaves leaders with a simple but powerful reminder: if your mission matters, your team matters more. Churches often focus heavily on the people they’re trying to reach, but neglect the health of the people they’re leading alongside. Sustainable, mission-moving ministry requires both.
To learn more about Tim’s book Reaching for Remarkable: The 7 Key Signatures Behind Every Remarkable Team and take the free team assessment, visit reachingforremarkable.com or explore additional resources at slingshotgroup.org.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: TouchPoint
As your church reaches more people, one of the biggest challenges is making sure no one slips through the cracks along the way.
TouchPoint Church Management Software is an all-in-one ecosystem built for churches that want to elevate discipleship by providing clear data, strong engagement tools, and dependable workflows that scale as you grow.
TouchPoint is trusted by some of the fastest-growing and largest churches in the country because it helps teams stay aligned, understand who they’re reaching, and make confident ministry decisions week after week.
If you’ve been wondering whether your current system can carry your next season of growth, it may be time to explore what TouchPoint can do for you. You can evaluate TouchPoint during a free, no-pressure one-hour demo at TouchPointSoftware.com/demo.
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Listen, listen, listen, pull in close because today’s conversation, I don’t even know your church, but I know that a large portion of your budget is being spent on the thing we talk about. In fact, lots of churches, it’s like half of their budget. And it’s an even larger portion of the outcome of your ministry. It’s incredibly important what we’re talking about today. And so you do not want to miss this.
Rich Birch — And we’ve got an expert that has worked with not tens of, not hundreds of, but literally thousands of of churches like yours and wants to help you take steps forward. Excited to have Tim Foot with us. He has nearly 30 years of experience, which I’m not sure how that’s possible, such a young man, as a leader, pastor, coach, speaker, musician in both Australia and North America, bringing a diverse background to his role as the CEO and president of Slingshot Group. If you’re not aware of who Slingshot Group is, they take the guesswork out of nonprofit and church staffing. He’s recently written a book that I’m excited for you to learn more about. But Tim, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.
Tim Foot — Rich, it is so glad, it’s so great to be on with you today. I’m excited about this conversation.
Rich Birch — So good. I’m I’m excited for it too. Why don’t you kind of give us a bit of the Tim Foot background? Tell us a little bit about about you and kind of give us the how do we end up here in this conversation today?
Tim Foot — Yeah, it’s interesting. I often say to people, I had no idea that I’d be on the other side of the world to where I started doing what I’m doing. But this is what happens, Rich, when you say, keep saying yes to God.
Tim Foot — Born and raised Tasmanian, worked as a musician and in ministry in Sydney for 10 years after moving from Tasmania, then relocated to Boulder County, Colorado in 2002, been here for 25 years now in ministry at a great church called Lifebridge Christian Church. Built ministry there for 10 years and went bivocationally started working with the Slingshot Group when there was a handful of us doing a handful of staffing and coaching work and then things exploded.
Tim Foot — And I really, really hit my sweet spot and saw how God had been preparing me for so many years to work with teams, love teams, love the strategy of teams, love working with people, love the fact that placing the right leader on the right team exponentially moves the mission forward and affects culture in all kinds of ways.
Rich Birch — So true.
Tim Foot — And so I’ve had all kinds of roles in Slingshot over the years, now get to lead our team of amazing consultants around the US serving so many, and beyond, serving so many ministries and teams move mission forward.
Rich Birch — Love it. I’m so glad that, yeah, this is going to a good conversation. You know, one of the things I want to take advantage of is the fact you’re really an expert. You know, you’ve worked with, you and Slingshot have worked with thousands of churches and organizations, and you you really get a chance to see churches at an interesting inflection point.
Rich Birch — You know, often when we’re hiring a team member, bringing someone in or trying to develop our teams, you know, we’re thinking about the future and we’re, we’re taking a step back. And like you say, I do think it’s a transformative inflection point that you’re involved in.
Rich Birch — So you’re sitting across the table from a lot leaders, and maybe even some leaders who their mission is stalling. Like things aren’t maybe going as well as we would hope. Are yeah there any patterns in that you’re seeing, are there things that you see time and time again in churches that might be holding us back?
Tim Foot — Yeah, I immediately thought of a common question we’ll ask teams when we’re brought in when it comes to needing a new person on the team or helping coach leaders. We’re often brought in in crisis moments, moments of transition, but they’re also moments of incredible opportunity.
Tim Foot — And we’ll often ask the question, hey, do you want a painkiller or do you want a vitamin? And so often the the team is thinking they want the painkiller, they want the pain to go away. They want to solve the problem, they want to fill the seat, or they want to break through whatever it is they’re struggling with. But honestly, deep down, they need to start a regimen of vitamins to help them get to a healthy place to move the mission forward.
Tim Foot — We often will see an unawareness that the wrong people are around the table. Or an unawareness that they need other leaders around the table to help them move forward, whether it be vocational paid leaders or volunteers.
Tim Foot — We’ll often see misalignment and a lack of focus on the right things. Communication misfires around why the mission actually matters. We’ll often teams see teams that are task-driven at the expense of relationships.
Tim Foot — And then an unawareness of strengths and weaknesses and how they complement each other, how they help move you forward or how they hold you back. Other patterns are a lack of structure to support the work. Elephants in the room, taboo topics, fear around failure that leads to lack of innovation. So many different patterns we’ll see and be able to diagnose and say, hey, we need to have conversation around that because I think uncorking that will help you accelerate the mission.
Rich Birch — That’s cool. One of the things I love by reputation that I love about Slingshot is I love that you’re asking those bigger questions that it’s not just like, okay, how do we get to let’s just, let’s get the next hire done and move on.
Rich Birch — It’s like, you know, you’re, you’re trying to ask those bigger questions and which I, that which I think, you know compliment to you and your organization that you’re trying to. Because we know when we need the painkillers, but really we need to take some good vitamins over an extended period of time to make our things more healthy for sure. Hmm.
Tim Foot — You know, Rich, when we jumped into staffing work almost 20 years ago now, we had to educate the church on the need to have outside advice around staffing. But it was a lot of art and not as much science.
Tim Foot — And now we’ve developed so much science around the art with with things like our candidate match tool. When you’re looking for a leader, you have to align around what you actually want in that new leader. So many teams will say, hey, we need this, this, this, this, this, this. And in the end, they’re looking for a purple unicorn. And that’s not going to help.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tim Foot — And we’ll talk about that as we get deeper in the conversation.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes.
Tim Foot — But Rich, last time I looked, unicorns are still mythical creatures.
Rich Birch — True.
Tim Foot — And so working working out what you actually need…
Rich Birch — Right.
Tim Foot — …and getting an awareness around alignment with who’s around the table may actually change your idea of what you’re looking for. Alignment is so important in getting an awareness of what our strengths and weaknesses are. Are we focused on the right thing? And are we actually moving the mission forward right now or is it stalled out?
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, that’s good. One of your consultants, that remember once I was in a conversation about that very issue and and you know we had really lofty goals for what we were trying to hire. And and they they walked us through that conversation where it was like, okay, well, let’s let’s think about how many of these people are actually out there.
Rich Birch — So and you list off hat half a dozen things that we were looking for and you cut back and you think, well, how many people actually work in the church? How many people have worked as long as we want to work and have had experience that we did and have done the stuff that we want to do?
Rich Birch — And you literally get down to like, Well, there might be three people, you know, like, you know, and so anyways, that’s, that’s, that’s so true.
Tim Foot — And actually…
Rich Birch — You… Yeah, go ahead.
Tim Foot — …that’s what we’ll often say. There are maybe three to five people when you have all of these filters in place, they can actually fill this role.
Rich Birch — That’s true.
Tim Foot — And that’s why you need to focus on ministry and you need to let us focus on finding those people.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Yeah, that’s good. That’s great. And yeah, and if there’s three to five and one of them is Jesus, the other is the Holy Spirit. So it’s like, you know, you’re down to just a very few. You…
Tim Foot — And Rich, let’s not talk about why many, many teams wouldn’t hire Jesus these days.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. That’s a whole other topic. that’s That’s great. Now, you’ve said something once that caught my attention, and it’s in my head has been branded to you. And it’s that most of us were trained on a model, a leadership model that nobody named out loud, that everyone, that we’ve all absorbed.
Rich Birch — What is that model? You know, what it look like? And I know when you named this, I started seeing this everywhere I looked. I was like, oh, wow, I can see this in multiple different places in myself and in our organization. What what is this model?
Tim Foot — Yeah, I mean, the the model we see is hero-driven leadership. It’s when we rely too much on individuals to actually carry the mission. And I think the cracks have happened.
Tim Foot — I mean, we’ve seen it, Rich, you and I are similar ages. I think the cracks are happening generationally. The builders and boomers were wired differently for a different time and culture. And us Gen Xers, we can code switch. I mean, we we see we see that happening all the time. And as we stepped into leadership, the cracks started to appear.
Tim Foot — I mean, we see it every week. Another leader burning out, doing stupid things because of too much pressure. Then millennials and Gen Z are now leading in a new way that we need to embrace.
Tim Foot — And so I think we’re seeing those cracks around that hero dependence, and we’re starting to see the need more than ever to have a team awareness, a holistic approach, or we’re just going to have leaders continue to burn out.
Tim Foot — And we sit we see it around unrealistic hiring expectations, a lack of support for great leaders when they’re hired, a lack of development.
Tim Foot — Hero dependence is a terrible staffing and growth strategy and becomes a massive trap when it comes to a number of the key focus areas or patterns we’ve seen that healthy teams focus on and move mission forward.
Rich Birch — Yeah. See, this is the thing when you, I heard you say that once and it, it literally, I sat up and I was like, oh man, I’ve seen that in my own, you know, my own hiring. I’ve seen that in the way I’ve talked with, you know, I see the leaders around me. You see these people who they’ve kind of built the entire ministry around themselves and they’ve built, it’s like, it doesn’t work if they don’t, it’s like, they’re such a unique individual. They have to lift it all.
Rich Birch — But what makes that model so sticky? Like, why do we keep coming back to that? Why? Even if we know like intellectually in our heads, yeah, that’s not a good idea. It feels like we just keep coming back to this same thing time. In fact, we actually reward it. We’ll be like, wow, isn’t that great? This person’s amazing. And we just kind of keep moving on. Why is that?
Tim Foot — It’s the shiny object trap. I mean, that that the the shiny object, aka the the talented leader that we think is going to catapult the ministry. Often we see it in in hiring conversations when a particular organization wants to go after somebody that’s been in at a much bigger organization than them. And often that person, if if they can attract them, will come in with a playbook that isn’t uniquely suited to the organization they’re stepping into. Or there aren’t systems to support that new leader and the growth that’s going to happen. And burnout happens at every level. But but we both know, Rich, busy work makes us feel productive. But is it the right work?
Rich Birch — That’s so true.
Tim Foot — And and we know that we can be ourselves the shiny object. We we want to it feels good to be the hero. It feels good to be the one that’s solving problems.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Tim Foot — It feels good to be the one that has all the answers.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tim Foot — And I think that’s one of the biggest threats in healthy leadership today is feeling like you have to have all the answers. Because I think one of the most powerful statements from healthy leaders and healthy teams is, hey, we don’t know what to do next. Because it actually opens up the room for new thought. It opens up the room for collaboration. And it opens up the room for teamwork.
Tim Foot — But it’s easier to move quick. It’s easier to move quick and be surrounded by people who agree and play it safe.
Rich Birch — So true.
Tim Foot — And then down the road, we realized that we weren’t growing in every sense of that word. And the mission was stalled out. We know we often have to slow down, re-strategize, look at who’s around the table, work out how we work together to move faster in the long term. We have to be vulnerable to make a team work. And sometimes it requires us to actually help others win than focus on heroes.
Tim Foot — I mean, you think about a winning sports team. It’s not about just one person out there doing all the work. We’ve got to work together as a team. You know, it’s it’s it’s how do we work together and have had have less dependence on that shiny object, those standout leaders or those heroes?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. I love that. I remember years ago, we had a coach come in and as a lead team, and this basically spent a week with us and then, you know, try to help us get better in our leading of our people. And I remember at the end of the week, the leader who we brought in said you answer way too many questions. And I was like what do you mean by that? They’re like, you need to ask more questions and you answer. You’re you’re putting yourself way too much in the middle of all of this and you’re not letting…And I was like, oh that’s a good insight. You know, we’re not raising up other people we’re trying to uh you know make it all about us rather than about our teams. Well, I’d love to talk about your book.
Rich Birch — So the title is Reaching for Remarkable: The Seven key signatures behind every Remarkable Team. Let’s start with the word Remarkable. You literally have it twice in your title and subtitle. Why Remarkable? And how does that relate to hero? Because I was like, isn’t that the same thing? Like, isn’t it couldn’t this be reaching for the heroic? So unpack that.
Tim Foot — I love that word remarkable. And it’s always been our mission at Slingshot. We build remarkable teams through staffing and coaching because your mission needs a remarkable team to move it forward.
Tim Foot — Jesus left us with the most remarkable mission. And but it wasn’t enough. He needed a team to move it forward. And if Jesus needed a team to move it forward, we need to move it forward as a team.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tim Foot — And so we’ve all got these unique expressions of that remarkable mission. But if that mission matters, your team matters more.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Tim Foot — And so when it comes to Remarkable, it’s about the mission. It all comes back to the mission. And we never fully arrive, Rich. We’re always reaching.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Tim Foot — We’ve always got to be focusing on the right things, doing the deep work of of of reimagining, reinventing, and re-moving forward to reach for remarkable momentum when it comes to our mission. But we’ve got to focus on the team and the right the right areas to move that mission forward.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. So you actually talk about these, there’s these seven key signatures. Can you take a little bit of time and just unpack those? We won’t be able to get into all of them, but kind of talk us through how does it hang together as kind of a big idea?
Tim Foot — Well, give you a little bit of context behind why they’re key signatures. You mentioned it in the intro, in a former life, I was a working musician and I would do solo gigs. It was my tentmaking job to do ministry back in Australia.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tim Foot — I would work three to five nights a week as a musician. And I always had way more fun working with other musicians in a team setting, because ah a band is essentially a team. And my best experiences, Rich, was when I was on stage with other musicians who were often better than me, but I was leading the band. We all lifted each other. And to achieve remarkable results, there was structure to it.
Tim Foot — I mean, you know, there’s structure to music. There’s harmony and there’s rhythm and there’s key signatures. There’s tracks to run on that allow us to have a remarkable output.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Tim Foot — And so as I move from that world into team strategy world, team specialist world, building teams world, I realized, hey, there are also tracks to run on as a team to reach for health and reach for remarkable, a remarkable output and remarkable momentum. And so that’s where we came up with these seven key focus areas that we call the seven key signatures behind every remarkable team.
Tim Foot — And they’re a pathway, they work together. And I’ll run through them quickly. And then we can unpack what you what you want to unpack with the time that we have left, Rich.
Tim Foot — But though, and they’re simple. I mean, these are patterns that I’ve observed over the last 16 years staffing teams, but the last 30 years growing in teams, learning from teams, leading teams. I mean, you and I both grew up in in church, Rich, and I learned a lot of of leadership lessons from being a volunteer on teams in in in my late teens and and early 20s, so much.
Rich Birch — Yes, 100%.
Tim Foot — But these patterns, this pattern or these key signatures start with number one, conviction. Conviction, which is a shared sense of why you exist and what you’re called to do. It’s the why behind the what. It’s the Simon Sinek. People buy why you do, not what you do. So that’s number one is conviction.
Tim Foot — Number two is a message, a compelling and consistent way of communicating what matters most because, Rich, everything communicates. What’s the story our leadership is communicating? What we say, what we don’t say, our actions, our systems and processes. What story is it communicating? That’s number two.
Tim Foot — Number three is culture, the values and behaviors that shape the soul of our team. How are people experiencing your ministry organization or your team?
Tim Foot — Number four is roles, unique contributions for remarkable impact. Roles that clarify how we work together.
Tim Foot — Number five is systems, which is scalable design for remarkable growth. Systems scale our mission.
Tim Foot — Number six is friction because healthy friction moves the mission forward.
How do we embrace healthy friction for growth?
Tim Foot — And then the last one, number seven, and these all build on each other, is risk, which is bold moves that drive remarkable outcomes, initiatives that lead to breakthrough, strategic risk, not blind gamble. So those are the seven.
Rich Birch — Love it. And you know friends, i I do think I would highly recommend that you pick up copies of this book. To me, when I when I saw this, to me, this feels like the kind of book that we should read together as a leadership team. Like, hey, let’s pull this together. You know maybe you’re looking for a fall thing to do with your leadership team. This would be a great book for you to pick up and go together.
Rich Birch — There’s a couple I would love to tease out a little bit. I’d love you to pull out for us. Help us understand. You differentiate between conviction and message, two different things. I think lots of times we might collapse those into one. Why are they two separate? Help us understand the difference between those two.
Tim Foot — Absolutely. Conviction, again, is why we do what we do. Without shared conviction, you won’t move the mission forward. There won’t be a reason behind initiatives. They’ll fall flat.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tim Foot — There won’t be a reason behind the message you’re communicating. That’s why they’re different. So conviction is what keeps us in on the days we want to quit.
Tim Foot — I mean, think about the early church in Acts 4. It’s a great, best example of conviction. Peter declaring in Acts 4:20, we cannot help but speak about what we’ve seen and heard. They didn’t just believe. They acted. It drove every decision.
Tim Foot — If the disciples were just compliant, when Jesus ascended, they would have scattered. But because they were convicted, they ah nearly all of them gave their very lives for the mission. Conviction is our North Star. It’s It’s like calling. it’s It’s what keeps you the days, keeps you in it, the days you want to quit. And Rich, we know there’s going to be plenty of days you to quit.
Tim Foot — Message, however, is is the story we’re communicating. It’s how we hire, fire, onboard, develop. It’s how we communicate our conviction and our overall mission. And in the book, we list a bunch of traps for each of these seven key signatures. And we can chat about some of the most common traps. But a common trap for for message is assumption.
Rich Birch — It’s good.
Tim Foot — We assume people understand and care like we understand and care.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tim Foot — And we don’t ask enough questions. I mean, it’s why Jesus’ ministry was full of questions, Rich.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Tim Foot — Because he was he was cementing conviction. I mean, Jesus asked the best questions and rarely gave the answers. He lived the answers and he teased the answers out because that’s what led to conviction. That’s why they build upon each other.
Tim Foot — You can’t have a story without conviction. You can’t have a message without conviction. And you can’t have a healthy message unless you are asking the right questions to make sure people are hearing and understanding it.
Tim Foot — Did you like like did you understand what I just communicated? What did you just hear that I that I said?
Rich Birch — Right.
Tim Foot — Why why are why are you so convicted to by our mission?
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Tim Foot — Why are you committed to it? So many great questions.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s good.
Tim Foot — The book is full of questions too. I’m a I’m a serial question asker. They used to call me “Quiz” when I was a teenager because I asked so many questions.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Tim Foot — And it wasn’t until later that a mentor and co-founder of Slingshot, Stan Endicott—I think you know him, Rich—that he he convinced me that my proclivity for asking so many questions was actually a spiritual gift and not a special need.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Tim Foot — Because questions, questions move conversations forward.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yep. Yeah, it’s true. It’s so good. And yeah, as I’ve shifted into full-time coaching, I have found, yeah, like that the the skill of asking a good question, it’s like, you know, I think the best moments I have with the people I’m working with are when we’re, I’m asking questions and they’re discovering, they’re tripping on to their own answers that maybe are a little different even than I would have. But just asking good questions, super important.
Rich Birch — Okay. Another one that stood out to me of the, and again, friends, you’re going read all this. Obviously we can’t cover this in just, you know, half an hour conversation. But talk to me about friction, healthy friction.
Tim Foot — Yeah.
Rich Birch — So I literally have said as an executive pastor, my job was to remove friction from the organization. And so when you say, oh, you lots of us are trying to remove it. I was like, ouch, that’s me.
Rich Birch — Because I think that’s, ah you know, I would I want to find places where we’re stuck and say, how do we get those unstuck and push this thing forward? So talk to me about why I’m wrong about friction.
Tim Foot — I was there too, Rich. I was absolutely there. But when I get to number six, when we’re speaking on this or teaching on this, I will often say, hey number six is a wait, what?
Tim Foot — I thought this was the sign of an unhealthy team. I used to think that. I used to think that the harmonious teams were the healthy ones, that when I walked into a context where there was all harmony with the team, that it was there was healthy, the absence of friction was healthy. But it’s not. It’s a sign of unhealth.
Tim Foot — And I’m talking, there’s two kinds of friction, healthy and unhealthy. I’m talking about healthy friction. I mean, you think about a car and how the rubber meets the road, causes friction, moves the car forward. If you don’t have friction in your team, your mission isn’t going on anywhere.
Tim Foot — It’s interesting, Zippia workplace survey found out that 76% of employees in the workplace avoid conflict, which is a real problem because healthy friction sharpens and aims teams, while avoiding conflict leads to complacency and stagnation.
Tim Foot — Teams where members are passionately embracing friction will not only push through and forward to great results, they’ll attract and retain, which is really important, they’re going attract and retain top leaders. It’s where the mission truly comes alive and evolves to all it can be. Good leaders, rich, know to allow it. They know not to control it, but closely monitor it.
Tim Foot — We get to decide if the tension or friction we allow is healthy or unhealthy. We call this the loaded gun of the seven key signatures, because when this gun goes off, it either breaks through a door or a wall that you needed to break through, or somebody gets hurt. And good leaders know how to monitor that and help it break through and not damage other leaders.
Rich Birch — Yeah, let’s double click on that. Help me understand. So yeah, I’m going with you. I can see what you’re saying. You know, healthy friction, you know, unhealthy friction, good friction, bad friction. So give me an example.
Rich Birch — You walk into it, you’re working with a ah church and there’s some telltale signs of, friction that’s that’s negative, that’s actually pulling the organization back, that’s that could be potentially hurting, or maybe has gone too far, or what’s, I’m not sure the best way to say that. Versus, hey, no, here’s some here’s some good friction that’s actually some good heat here that’s pushing the tires forward. Help us, what does that look like?
Tim Foot — When when it becomes personal, Rich, that’s always the way you know it’s trending towards unhealthy. We’ll get to it in a minute, but we’ve got a team assessment on our website now around these seven key signatures, and we talk about unhealthy, inconsistent, functional, remarkable.
Tim Foot — Most most teams live in that functional space. If you’re below unhealthy, it’s trending toxic, and that’s when you need ah that’s when you need the 4Sight group and Jenni Catron to come I mean, do some some deep, deep culture work.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tim Foot — I’m all about our ecosystem. I know you are too, Rich. It’s like when you need the deeper work, then you need the specialist.
Rich Birch — Sure, sure.
Tim Foot — But right now you’ve got the general practitioner.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Tim Foot — But but when it gets when it gets personal, you know that that’s unhealthy friction.
Rich Birch — That’s good. Right.
Tim Foot — And let’s go back to um the the harmony piece. Because that’s one of the traps when it comes to friction. it’s It’s the harmony trap. And it’s like it’s you wanting there to be you know violins and and and and birds singing and for everybody to be loving each other. That’s also a sign that there is unhealthy friction.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tim Foot — Because there’s things lurking that have been pushed down below the surface that are going to come out sideways that if you had just dealt with it straight away, it actually could have become momentum for your mission. It’s the unspoken influences trap. it’s the It’s the elephants in the room.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tim Foot — It’s what everybody’s thinking about, but nobody’s talking about. That’s going to that that’s gonna be insidious and it’s going to chip away at the health of your team.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Tim Foot — And it’s gonna become unhealthy friction. And so that’s a great question to ask. And that’s in the book too. What’s every thinking about, nobody’s talking about? Because that’s what we need to engage.
Tim Foot — Now, if we think that’s going to lead to unhealthy friction, let’s have the the conversations outside of the meeting. So that when we get to the conversations inside of the meeting, we can engage this as healthy friction that will actually address the topic and will move us forward rather than becoming personal and eroding relationships.
Rich Birch — That’s good. Yeah, that question, what’s everybody thinking about that nobody’s talking about? That’s powerful. And I can see, yeah, that even even the organizations I’ve led, you can see where there’s seasons where we try to push away that friction. nd that can be just super negative. And it’s like this, we’re all just in la-la land. We’re all just, you know, can see that for sure.
Tim Foot —Yeah.
Rich Birch — So you wrote this book, you put this resource together. help me understand how you’re hoping it will help our, our churches. You know, I’m picture, I’m a church of a thousand people. Maybe I’m the executive pastor. I’ve got a team of 12 to 15 people on my team. And how how could, how could this be a helpful resource for us?
Tim Foot — Well, this I believe this is the most important work we need to be doing, Rich, because if your mission matters, your team matters more. So often we get so focused on the people we’re serving that we forget the people we’re serving with.
Tim Foot — And if we’re stalling out mission, mission-wise, then we’re not moving forward. And that’s not and we’re not being obedient to God’s call. And so what I’m hoping is, I mean, personally, our kingdom first principle at Slingshot is to leave teams better than than the way we found them. And the last thing we want to do is place great leaders on unhealthy teams.
Tim Foot — So what we’re hoping is that teams are going to focus around these seven alignment areas and start to move mission forward, attract great leaders, retain great leaders. When we place, I mean, I you and I have both had healthy long-term ministries at churches, and it is a massive blessing when you, if God wills it, and you stay somewhere long term. I want other people to experience that. And that happens when the right leaders are placed on the right team.
Tim Foot — So what I’m hoping churches do is they take our team awareness assessment on on our website, reachingforremarkable.com, which is attached to slingshotgroup.org. And they get a sense of, okay, where what where might we need attention in these seven key areas?
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s good.
Tim Foot — Because it heat maps, it gives you percentages, you can take it as a team. And then to start the real important conversations.
Tim Foot — I mean, I’ve been in rooms with this work, Rich, where you start to see teams have conversation around alignment and and teams that were that were stale or leaders that were burnt out start to get a glimmer of hope.
Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s good.
Tim Foot — That, oh, if we start to have these conversations around these areas, if we walk this pathway, if we focus in these areas where we’re struggling right now, we’re going to start to see results.
Tim Foot — I mean, I even think about the key signature of systems. You know, it’s systems that scale remarkable growth. If we’re not building systems to to accommodate the growth that we keep praying for, God’s not going to bring the increase.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s true.
Tim Foot — Because God isn’t going to bring growth if it’s going to hurt us. We have to be building the right kind of systems to support our teams and leaders so that the growth can come. It’s a stewardship issue.
Rich Birch — Yes, yep.
Tim Foot — So what I’m hoping happens in churches all over the place is that they start to focus on these key signatures and see mission momentum results that moves them forward as an organization.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Why don’t you tell us, you’ve mentioned it, but tell us a little bit more about the team awareness assessment. Give us like a bit of a, you know, you’ve kind of given us an overview there. Give us a little bit more why we should take that test and give us that URL again that we can send people to.
Tim Foot — It’s reachingforremarkable.com and it’s it’s literally 10 minutes or less.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tim Foot — And it’s free as a leader. You can jump in and take it or you can sign up and and take it as a team. And it gives you obviously the team percentage on each of these key signatures. but also your own results. And when we’ve worked with real high-performing teams, it’s fascinating to watch these great leaders compare their individual percentage on each of these key signatures with their entire team and just to see alignment start to happen and the right conversations to happen.
Tim Foot — Because we want to be able to focus in on where alignment is needed most. It may be real simple, Rich. Most teams live in that functional space.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Tim Foot — Functional’s fine.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Tim Foot — But it’s not going to get remarkable results.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Tim Foot — And our mission is too important. We have to focus on team alignment to move it forward.
Rich Birch — Yeah. It’s so good. Yeah. I was talking to a a leader recently of a very large church and they were saying, you know, I just feel like, I feel like we got a go Pro. And what he was saying is exactly what you’re saying is like, Hey, we we’re we’re fine. We’re functioning.
Tim Foot — Right. Right.
Rich Birch — But man, we want to go remarkable. We want to go from just just because we can do this thing week in, week out in their case, have thousands of people show up, tens of thousands of people show up. But it’s like, that’s not enough. We got it. But the mission’s too important. We’re trying to reach people. How do we go remarkable? Which to me, I think picking up a copies of these books as a team would be a great first step.
Rich Birch — Where do people, where can people pick this up? Where can they get your book if they’re looking for that? I’m assuming Amazon, but is there anywhere else we want to send them?
Tim Foot — No, Amazon’s a place to go.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that is the bookseller apparently.
Tim Foot — I mean, it’s we know these days where wherever where everybody’s going, Amazon’s the way. And I would just add to Rich that as a leader, you want to know. This is information you want to have.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Tim Foot — We’ve talked so much about self-awareness. And if we’re in leadership, we need to show up to our team self-awareness. So many profiles.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Tim Foot — We don’t talk enough about team awareness. You need to know as a leader if you’re moving your mission forward or where you might be stalling out because it’s too important. And these seven things, as I said earlier, Rich, they’re not they’re not rocket science.
Tim Foot — I mean, I like to I like to couch it this way: Conviction shapes the heart. Message shapes the voice. Culture shapes the atmosphere. Role shape contribution. Systems shape sustainability. Friction shapes growth. Risk shapes the future. And that’s why I hope you’ll dig into this with us.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Tim Foot — Because we want to see the kingdom move forward and we want to see churches full of healthy teams that not only great leaders want to come and be part of, great volunteers want to be a part of and help move this forward.
Rich Birch — That’s so good. Well, I think that’s a great place to end it. I was like, man, that’s, I’m like, I want to preach. Amen, brother. That’s fantastic. If people were, so we’ll send them to Amazon. We’ll put a link in the show notes for that. If people want to track with you or with Slingshot, where do we want to send them online to connect as well?
Tim Foot — Slingshotgroup.org is our company website. And there’s a bunch of great stories there. There’s places that you can engage. We would love you to be in our ecosystem. And yeah, you can jump over there to reachingforremarkable.com. And we would love to come alongside you and help you continue to move forward in the unique ways that God has called you to.
Rich Birch — Well, Tim, it’s great to see you.
Tim Foot — You too.
Rich Birch — We were just remarking before, we had dinner together there a couple months ago. That was fun, but it was fun to put the recording on today and connect a little bit. Appreciate you, brother. Thanks so much for being here today.
Tim Foot — Thanks for having me, Rich.
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by John Plake, Chief Innovation Officer and Editor-in-Chief of the State of the Bible research at the American Bible Society. With decades of experience as a pastor, missionary, professor, and researcher, John brings a unique perspective on how people are actually engaging with Scripture and what we should do about it.
- The “movable middle” is growing. // One of the most significant insights from recent research is the rise of what John calls the “movable middle”—millions of people who are open to the Bible but not yet engaged with it. This group has grown by approximately nine million people in recent years. They are curious, interested, and even positive toward Scripture, but they lack the tools, confidence, or guidance to engage it meaningfully. This represents a massive opportunity for churches willing to step in and help.
- People want a guide. // Through focus groups and research, John discovered that many people in the movable middle feel intimidated by the Bible. They struggle with language, context, and navigation. But perhaps most striking is they want help. Contrary to what some leaders might assume, they are not rejecting the church as a guide. In fact, many say, “If we can’t trust the church to help us understand the Bible, what good is it?” This creates a clear invitation for churches to step into a more relational, guiding role in discipleship.
- A surprising discipleship gap. // One of the most sobering findings is that nearly half of weekly church attenders are not regularly engaging Scripture on their own. While churches invest heavily in preaching and programming, many people are not developing personal habits of Bible engagement. John suggests that churches often focus on delivering content rather than equipping people to engage Scripture themselves. The result is a gap between what happens on Sunday and what happens in everyday life.
- From teaching to equipping. // If churches want to close that gap, they must shift from being primarily content providers to equipping environments. This means helping people develop the skills, habits, and confidence to read and apply Scripture on their own. It also requires understanding the real barriers people face, like time constraints, confusion, or lack of community support, and addressing those barriers with practical solutions.
- A new tool for churches. // To help leaders take action, the American Bible Society has developed the “Next Step for Church” assessment. This free tool allows churches to measure spiritual health, Bible engagement, and key leadership behaviors within their congregation. Within a few weeks, leaders receive a detailed, data-driven report highlighting strengths, challenges, and suggested next steps.
- Data that leads to discipleship. // John emphasizes that data is not an end in itself; it’s a tool for better shepherding. By listening to their congregation at scale, leaders can identify patterns, confirm instincts, and prioritize what matters most. The assessment surfaces both what’s working and where growth is needed, giving churches a clear path forward. It also connects individuals to personalized Scripture engagement resources, helping them take their next step spiritually.
- Why Scripture engagement matters most. // Nothing has a greater impact on spiritual growth than a person’s relationship with the Bible. In fact, Scripture engagement accounts for a significant portion of overall spiritual health. When people consistently engage with God’s Word, transformation follows—affecting beliefs, behaviors, and relationships.
- Signs of hope for the future. // Despite broader cultural challenges, John sees encouraging trends, especially among younger generations. Millennials and Gen Z show increasing openness to Scripture, even if they are still exploring. While overall trends may appear flat, meaningful change is happening beneath the surface. For churches willing to engage this moment, there is real opportunity for impact.
To explore the research further or access the free church assessment, visit church.nextstep.bible and begin discovering how your church can better equip people to engage Scripture every day.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Risepointe
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. I am so glad that you have decided to tune in today. This is one of those episodes that there’s a great resource in it that going to want to make sure you engage with. There’s super helpful content. Plus it’s about an area that I know so many of us are thinking about, we’re wondering about, we’re asking questions about.
Rich Birch — So super excited to have John Plake with us today. He is the chief innovator ah innovation officer and editor-in-chief of the State of the Bible Research Series, which comes from the American Bible Society. And they’re on a mission to make the Bible available to every person in a language and format each can understand and afford so that all may experience its life-changing message. ABS has really a whole bunch of different tools and approaches, and we’re excited kind of expose a little bit more about that today. John has been in ministry over 30 years. We’ll just call it over 30 years. And it served as a pastor, missionary, professor, researcher. John, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.
John Plake — Thanks so much for having me today. It’s great to be with you.
Rich Birch — Why don’t you fill in the picture a little bit? Tell us a little bit about your background. You know, what brings you to your current work?
John Plake — Yeah. Closer to 40 years now.
Rich Birch — Nice. Yeah, yeah. That’s great.
John Plake — It’s a little uncomfortable to talk about that.
Rich Birch — That’s great.
John Plake — Yeah. You know, I start out like a lot of people in ministry. I grew up in a home that ministry was central. Actually, both my grandfathers were ministers. My father was a minister. Ministry is kind of the family business in a way, but I really did sense a direction from God when I was about 15 years old to to pursue full-time ministry.
John Plake — There was some detail around that. Ended up going to Bible college and and then started what turned out to be about nine years of full-time pastoral service. And I hadn’t been in that for very long before I realized that everything I learned in Bible College was preparing me to serve a generation that no longer existed in a culture that was gone.
John Plake — And I thought, my goodness, I know God’s word pretty well. And mean, I’m a lifelong learner of God’s word. I love the Bible. And yet, didn’t really know culture very well. And I didn’t develop those tools until just years and years of practice, some missionary service, wonderful teachers at at Wheaton College and graduate school and and just a lifelong journey of learning.
John Plake — So at American Bible Society, when I got here, the State of the Bible, program or this research project was already underway. And we’d been helped out by the Barna Group, which does some wonderful foundational work. And eventually it just kind of grew up and it got to a place where we had an internal team that was running it ourselves, now in collaboration with the National Opinion Research Council or NORC at the University of Chicago. We just do, I think, what is the largest ongoing study of Americans’ relationship with the Bible and faith and the church. And we get to talk about it all the time.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love it.
John Plake — So, I mean, this is the best job in the world.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. It’s it’s great research, something that I think should be on the kind of list of things that we need to be paying attention to. It’s been a gift to the church for so long and something that we should continue to to pay attention through. Now, let’s talk about you specifically. You spent three plus decades. I didn’t want to say almost 40. You know, I’m not saying that. I’m not saying that. I could say that, you know, a couple years ago, I clicked across one of those numbers with a zero on the end as my birthday. And ever since then, I’m a little sensitive about the the age thing.
Rich Birch — So anyways, As a ministry, missionary professor, researcher, you’ve done a lot. How does wearing all of those hats, what do you what does that bring to you as you come to the data? How does that impact you as you think about really the state of the Bible research?
John Plake — Yeah, you know, I think research can be dull. You know, it can sound like it’s all about writing questions or it’s all statistics and numbers. But for me, the research is all about the people.
Rich Birch — So true.
John Plake — It’s all about the people in our communities and in our churches that we’re trying to understand better so we can serve them well with the gospel. I, for years, I’ve used the analogy that that being in gospel ministry is like being a human bridge across a river. I grew up not very far from the Mississippi River in the St. Louis area, and there was a big 100-year flood when I was early on in ministry. And I mean, none of the bridges worked anymore. You couldn’t get from one side to the other.
John Plake — And I thought, you know, that’s a tragedy that I encountered sometimes in ministry where maybe I was deeply rooted in one bank of the river, the text, but I wasn’t necessarily deeply rooted in the other bank of the river, which was the context.
John Plake — And it’s this lived experience of the people that I was I was serving. And that I wanted to serve in my community, but I needed to understand them better. So I wasn’t just spouting you know Aristotelian logic to them. Or I wasn’t just coming at them with the pat answers that I’d learned. Like I’d never heard anybody in my life walk into my office and say, Pastor John, you got to tell me, what can you describe hamartiology to me from. You know like I had to learn that in school, but that’s not what people struggle with.
Rich Birch — That’s so true. Yeah.
John Plake — They had totally different questions and I needed to love them and honor them enough to understand their questions and answer them responsibly and reliably from the pages of scripture.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. Okay, well, we’re going to dig into a little bit of just a couple of the findings just to kind of, we’re trying to whet your appetite, friends, to take steps towards this. So the 2025 data showed, and we’ve seen this, a real bump in Bible engagement, particularly among millennials and men. If I’m reading it correctly, though, we saw 2026, a shift happen, maybe back down. And so what’s going on? Actually, I heard another sociologist in a kind of a related field that was about church attendance talked about the dead cat bounce, that it was like, you know, which I thought, oh, that’s a, but there’s a similarity going on here. Pull this, this finding apart. Help us understand this.
John Plake — Yeah, apologies to cat lovers out there.
Rich Birch — Yes, exactly.
John Plake — We were we were hoping, you know, I think we were really hoping. We looked at 2025. We saw that men in particular were leaning into the Bible in ways we hadn’t seen recently. Millennials doing the same thing. There there were some interesting numbers in 2025. And so when the 2026 numbers came to my desk in late January, I thought, I hope we’re extending I hope it’s going to be a trend. But it wasn’t. It was a blip.
John Plake — And there’s more to it, though, than just the fact that scripture engagement didn’t go up. It also didn’t go down. And the level of people in America who are Bible disengaged, meaning they never pick up the Bible on purpose at all, that actually didn’t go up either. What grew was this kind of curious explorer group in the middle that we call the movable middle. And over the last two years, it’s grown by 9 million American adults.
Rich Birch — Wow.
John Plake — And so what we do see is there’s there’s openness to the Bible. There’s experimentation with the Bible. But people are jumping in and they’re trying it and they’re not being able to get hold of it. And I think that’s largely because of us.
John Plake — Because Bible people who are around them aren’t saying, please come do this with me. Let me help you. Let me honor you enough to to respect your questions, to ask what you’re dealing with, and help you explore those issues through the pages of Scripture.
Rich Birch — I love that movable middle, man, that feels like the kind of group we want to connect with and reach out to in our community. Any other, when you, when you’ve been thinking about this movable middle, what are some other kind of characteristics of those people or other things that, you know, are kind of telltale signs of this group as we’re thinking about them as it, as it pertains to Bible engagement?
John Plake — Yeah, they’re an amazing group, and we’re going talking more about them all year, but they are probably my favorite subject in America. There are 74 million American adults that are in the movable middle.
Rich Birch — Wow.
John Plake — 74 million of our neighbors who are like…
Rich Birch — Wow.
John Plake — …and here’s what they tend to say: They love the Bible. They think it’s a great idea. But if you handed them a Bible, they don’t know how to find what they’re looking for. They don’t know how to navigate it. They get confused by the language in in Scripture.
John Plake — I remember doing a a focus group with a bunch of people in the movable middle. I was in Chicago. it was an area I was really familiar with. I used to pastor in that area. And we got them talking about their experience with the Bible. And we said, hey, does anything ever stop you or kind of you know make you check out because you’re struggling with what’s going on?
John Plake — And one young lady at the table said, yeah, you know the language of the Bible is really really hard for me to understand. It’s it’s a really old book. It uses expressions I don’t understand. And a gentleman sitting across the table from her just kind of chuckled and said, yeah, what the hell’s a mustard seed? And everybody laughed.
John Plake — I was behind the glass and I just about fell out of my chair because they didn’t teach me to talk like that in a Assemblies of God seminary.
Rich Birch — Yes.
John Plake —Things like that, you know, that’s just not the way we roll.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Yes.
John Plake — But it was so authentic and he wasn’t being mean.
Rich Birch — No.
John Plake — He was just saying, boy, I don’t I don’t get it. And then they said, you know, we really want a guide.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
John Plake — And so we pushed on that a little bit. At the time, there were some clergy abuse scandals that actually there were billboards up in Chicago about clergy abuse scandals that all of us lamented. And so we’re like, OK, listen, do you trust the church to be your guide? Because ee saw these billboards, you know, and it’s your city. And so what what do you think?
John Plake — And they said, well, of course we do. I mean, it’s terrible when people in the church abuse their position and abuse others. And that’s not what they’re supposed to do. But if we can’t trust the church to help us understand the Bible, what good are they, really? And so, yes, we’re looking to you, church, to help us connect more deeply with the Bible, understand what it meant to the original hearers and readers and how we apply it to our lives today.
Rich Birch — Okay, that’s yeah, that’s really cool. I look forward to hearing more about the movable middle in this coming year. Another thing that jumped out to me, which I feel like, man, I’ve seen this in my church. This is like you you named a group that I see, but it’s surprising, at least it’s surprising on its face. So nearly half of weekly church attenders, weekly church attenders, which is, that’s like really engaged, you know, are not regularly engaging, engaging scripture on their own.
Rich Birch — Man, what, so what should we do about that? That’s an interesting, how does, how should that impact our discipleship strategy? What are you encouraging us to be thinking about? And these people that are with us all the time, but they’re not engaged with scripture.
John Plake — Well, I think the first thing to do is to just recognize it.
Rich Birch — Right.
John Plake — You know, a lot of pastors that I’ve talked to, when we talk about scripture engagement, they tell me things like this: Everything we do is scripture engagement. I spend my whole week preparing a scriptural message. I’m, you know, we’re preparing small group curriculum and Sunday school curriculum and all of this stuff. It’s all about the, everything we do is about the Bible.
John Plake — Well, okay. But I had a I had a young youth pastor come to me not that long ago and he said, John, look, you were me once a few years ago. If you knew then what you know now, what would you do differently?
John Plake — And the answer is I would do everything differently, than the way I ought to do it. Because what, in my tradition, there was a lot of emphasis on the preaching event, and I put a lot of effort into those communication events, but what I didn’t put as much effort into is empowering people in my church to do what I was doing, which was dig into scripture, understand it for themselves, giving them the tools to do that.
John Plake — And then in May, we’re going to be releasing a chapter, just in a few few days now, we’re going to be releasing a chapter all about parents. And one of the startling things is the time pressure that moms are under. I mean, it’s incredible. And so we need to understand where they’re coming from and where they have barriers, but also have some compassion on them and help to support them when they’re really facing struggles. Like they don’t have enough time. They don’t have the resources or the community coming around them to help them to engage God’s word ah more fulsomely, more transformatively.
John Plake — We know how to do this stuff, but we’re not connecting the dots to everybody that’s coming to hear us talk every…
Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good. I know I’ve in my seat as an XP, um you know, I’ve overseen a lot of what we do on the programming side and what we do on the weekends. And I’ve, you know, it’s like, that i don’t think I’ve ever said this publicly. It’s like the kind of behind the scenes conversation. I’ve sometimes wondered, I’ve said, you know, like, what we do on the weekend to try to make the Bible understandable is so completely different than Tuesday morning in someone’s life.
Rich Birch — Like, we pull out all the stops to make it interesting. We get like world class communicators, incredible graphics, you know, emotional music, all of this to try to… But then the question is, okay, so now on Tuesday morning when you’re tired and you haven’t had your coffee yet and you’re just about to go read scripture, man, like that feels like a long ways away. There’s like a gap there that I sometimes wonder maybe we’re making it worse. You know. Maybe we’re making it harder. I said that. You didn’t say that.
Rich Birch — So maybe there’s pastors that are listening here and they read this kind of report. They read this kind of finding and they’re like, hey, that’s interesting. But like, how what do I do in my church specifically? So you know we want we don’t want to just leave people with a tough stat.
Rich Birch — I think we see that in our church. There’s people in our church that are here all the time. They’re not that engaged. But you’ve actually developed a new tool or ABS has developed a new tool to help us think through that. Why don’t you walk us through it? Tell us a little bit about it. How’s it work? Talk us how it can help us.
John Plake — Yeah, so recently we developed two tools that kind of work together. One of them you can find on the internet at nextstep.bible. And it’s just for anybody who’s like, hey, I’m on a spiritual journey. I’m kind of stuck. I don’t really know what to do next. Maybe you’re just getting started exploring what it means to be a Christian. Maybe you’re Jesus’ little brother or sister. Wherever you are in that journey, there’s always a next step for us.
John Plake — And so what we’ve done is analyzed along about a million spiritual life surveys.
Rich Birch — Wow.
John Plake — And from this huge quantity of data, we’ve learned that people are at different places in that journey. They’re at different points on the map. And we want to make sure that they’re equipped to have the right thing at the right time. I think currently there are 21,000 scripture engagement resources available there.
Rich Birch — Wow.
John Plake — They’re absolutely free. They’re in English, Spanish, and French. So go check it out, nextstep.bible.
John Plake — But if you’re a pastor or you’re a church leader, you’re probably wondering, well, what’s going on in my church, right? So I see all the national data, but I think our tendency is to say, well, we’re the exception, right?
Rich Birch — So true. Well, that’s not our people.
John Plake — I know I know everybody else is struggling, but we’re doing okay.
Rich Birch — Yes.
John Plake — And and so it’s good to check our assumptions a little bit. They used to say a really sad statistic that 10 o’clock on Sunday morning was the most segregated hour in America, which makes me sad. What makes me sad also is that 12 o’clock noon in America is the most dishonest hour in America. That’s the hour when pastors tend to start greeting their people after the church service closes and they hear all these comments: oh, Pastor, that was the best sermon I’ve ever heard. And it wasn’t. It just wasn’t. All right, let’s face it.
John Plake — There’s somebody out there who preaches better than you do and better than I do. They’re available on YouTube. People don’t need you to be the best Bible teacher in the world. They need you to be the best pastor for them.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
John Plake — And the tools that are all about focusing on their relationship with the Bible, their holistic spiritual formation, and our leadership behaviors. And so for that, we built the Next Step for Church Assessment.
John Plake — It’s actually standing on the foundation or built on the engine block, if you want a different metaphor, of the old reveal research that the Willow Creek Association had come out with. It’s no longer available. And we were able to acquire all of their historical learnings, but also add in things like human flourishing and e-pastoral leadership behaviors that lead to churches really being missionally effective and strong. Excellent stuff on Bible engagement and spiritual formation.
John Plake — So the the big challenge we had, I was talking with Dr. Ed Stetzer about this because he was at LifeWay Research when the Transformational Church Assessment was being built. And it was always hard because analyzing this kind of data required a lot of human intervention. It’s very expensive to do. It’s very complicated to deliver. And even a small cost can be a barrier for churches that have strained budgets. It doesn’t matter if you’re a church of, you know, 2,500 25,000 or 250. There’s always more places to put your money than there are dollars that are available to do it.
John Plake — And so at American Bible Society, we said, you know what, as a gift to the church, because we love the church, we need to make it completely free. And so you can go to church.nextstep.bible and you could sign up today. Literally, we’re recording this on a on a Thursday. You could go there today and by Sunday, you could be launching your survey. Two weeks later, you’d automatically have results in your own online dashboard. You’d get key highlights emailed to you. There’s a place for custom questions. There’s just all kinds of really, really rich information.
Rich Birch — So good.
John Plake — And it it doesn’t take the place of the kind of learning that you have as a pastor. You learn deeply in relationship with others. You’re observing what’s going on. You have a team that’s around you. But what it does is it provides this valid, reliable sift and sort function. It’s based on well, I don’t know even know how many, well over 3000 churches, well over half a million survey responses went into building this and making it a tool that that is a good benchmark for you to say, you know what, if we want to move from where we are today to where God is calling us, here are the things we need to focus on.
Rich Birch — It’s so good. And friends, I want to encourage you to to go there. Just church.nextstep.bible. I know many of us have a heart for saying, listen, we want to measure more than just nickels and noses. The number of people that show up and revenue that comes in. And this a great way to kind of inject at something that’s at the core of what we’re supposed to be doing as a church. So why don’t we just give a little bit more detail?
Rich Birch — What is it? You know, what’s it actually measuring? How is it? You know, how could it be helpful? How how could it kind of dovetail with some of the things we’re already tracking? Maybe give us, you know, what kind of insights are we going to gain from this if we if we put our people through this?
John Plake — Yeah, maybe it’s worthwhile to just back up and say it’s based on a congregational assessment. So really this kind of work is all about just listening to your congregation at scale. So if you have 25 people coming to church, you can probably have this conversation with them if you know how to ask the right questions.
Rich Birch — Right.
John Plake — You can go to the website. You’re like, what’s in the survey? There’s a button you can click. You can read the whole survey. It’s fine. We’re not going to try and surprise you with anything. But really simple stuff. How’s your relationship with Jesus? How often are you interacting with Scripture? What difference is that making in your life? We ask the standard Harvard human flourishing questions. We ask about um how the pastoral team or the senior pastor, him or herself, is doing at actually modeling Christlike leadership for you.
Rich Birch — It’s so good.
John Plake — And all of that reporting then gets brought into a database. It’s all anonymous. So individuals don’t, they don’t have to tell you who they are. They can’t tell you who they are other than by characteristics. And you’re going to get this really good, robust picture of what’s going on at the church.
John Plake — Now, what does it take for somebody to do that? It takes about 20 minutes of their time, and time is expensive, right? People always have too much to do. So in return for that investment, at the end of their survey experience, they will have already told us everything we need to know to match them to great resources at nextstep.bible.
John Plake — And with their permission, not without it, they can click a button, pass that data over to the individual nextstep.bible platform. They can create an account and right away, they’re going to be finding things like YouVersion Bible reading plans that are just for them.
John Plake — If you’ve got people in your church and they’re outliers, they’re they’re way more spiritually advanced than everybody else, or they’re just getting started and everybody else is way ahead of them, these kinds of tools create bespoke pathways for them so they know what to do next. All the while, the church leadership can sit back and say, okay, here’s our results. And as a team, now what do we need to do to serve the whole congregation well?
Rich Birch — I love this. You know, this is what incredible tool that you’ve put together here for our churches to wrestle through and to, you know, not only help us as a church as we’re thinking about these issues, but then help individuals in our church. What what would be some of the ways that churches might use the data that’s generated to impact what we’re doing in our programming? How how could we use this to improve what we’re doing?
John Plake — Sure. There are really three things we want everybody to do. First, just discover what’s going on. Just just check your assumptions at the door and and say, okay, what do the data tell us about what’s going on in our church life and in our people’s lives? That’s the first thing.
John Plake — Second thing is it’s going to surface for you the top three things that you’re doing great. And it’s going to give them to you in the report. And you need to throw a party. Like there are people who make these things happen for you. No pastor is doing this all by themselves. And so plan a party, celebrate what’s going well.
John Plake — The third thing it’s going to do is it’s going to give you suggestions about, okay, here’s where your congregation is today. It won’t surprise you, but it might inform you. I’ve never seen a pastor look at the report and go, ah you guys got it wrong.
Rich Birch — Sure, right.
John Plake — Usually they they see the report and they go, yeah, okay, yeah, you got me.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Confirmed some hunches I’ve had. Yeah. Yeah.
John Plake — Right? But we don’t we don’t have time. We don’t have the resources. We don’t have the expertise to be able to sit down and and kind of scientifically walk through this process. So we do that for you. We deliver the report. And then we’re going to give you two key action items that we think churches like yours in a similar place have done that have helped move them toward spiritual health and missional effectiveness.
John Plake — And that’s really what it’s all about. We want your congregation to be spiritually healthy. We want your your church as a whole to be missionally effective. And when that happens, often there’s numerical growth. Often there’s financial growth. But there’s certainly more missional impact that’s coming through your congregation and its work.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. So if I’m like a church of a thousand people, let’s say, and just round number to picking out of the sky, how how what kind of percentage of my congregation would I need to take this to give me a reasonable, you know, statistical, you know, feeling good about the data for it? What what kind of number um should I be thinking about?
John Plake — Well, the first thing is we’ve built in a tool that will tell you how to get to a margin of error of plus or minus 3%.
Rich Birch — Love it.
John Plake — And that does vary depending on the adult attendance that you have. So let’s say you’ve a thousand adults. And by adults, I mean anybody in high school or older can probably take this survey.
Rich Birch — Yep.
John Plake — And you can cut the data like by gender or by age. All of that live filtering is in the online platform.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s so good.
John Plake — So if you’re the you’re the youth pastor and you’re like, well, wait, tell me about the young people that took the survey. You can just look right at them and compare them to the rest of the congregation, which I bet will be enlightening. But nevertheless, how many do you need if you’re a church of 1,000, it’s about 275.
Rich Birch — Okay.
John Plake — If it’s a smaller church than that, then you’re still going to need a pretty significant percentage. So if I roll that all the way down to a church of 100, you need 80.
Rich Birch — Okay.
John Plake — And if you roll that up to a church of 5,000, well, you don’t need that many more than 275.
Rich Birch — Interesting.
John Plake — So you’re going to report that out to you. It’s very, very doable. And, you know, I’ve pastored at large churches and I pastored a small church. And I’ll tell you, when I pastored a church of under 100, I could have gotten a census of the people, like everybody, to do a survey like this. They would have been glad to tell me these things.
Rich Birch — Right.
John Plake — And it’s not that I couldn’t have had a conversation one-on-one with most of the adults in the congregation. It was something different in that case. I actually didn’t know what to ask. I used to run into this when I was a campus pastor at a Christian university. And I would have young people walk into my office and I was like, I know I should be able to help them, but the challenge they’re facing is different than anything I’m familiar with. I don’t have any analog for this in my personal experience. And so this sort of takes the mystery away. We don’t ask fluffy questions. We ask research proven questions that are going to give you the information you really need so you can take action.
Rich Birch — That’s amazing. That’s think this is such a great tool for people. I can see how, you know, it’d be so helpful for folks that are listening in to, you know, might be be able to plug in grab this experience for their people, help their church, help the folks that are attending. That’s, that’s incredible.
Rich Birch — So, you know, you’ve picked an interesting vocation to be connected with the American Bible Society. And because, you know, this is such a critical and important part of developing people’s relationship, obviously, with Jesus; its core to all of it. And we have seen a long historical downward trend, and you’re pushing against that, which is amazing. But what gives you hope in the middle of all of that? What would it when you look at the church around you know, the country, where do you see flashes of just good things going on that are like, you know, when it comes to the relationship with scripture that even, you know, even when we see maybe the overall numbers are not as great as we want them to be, what are some kind of flashes of hope we should, that we could encourage folks with today?
John Plake — Well, I’d like to maybe point to just three things that leap to mind.
Rich Birch — Yep.
John Plake — The first of them is I never talk to anybody in the church who says the Bible is a bad idea.
Rich Birch — Sure.
John Plake — Everybody likes the Bible. We’re all trying to figure out how to communicate its message better, to understand it more deeply. It’s transforming our lives, and we want to be able to share it with others.
John Plake — And that’s great because, number two, there’s nothing that makes a bigger difference in somebody’s spiritual life than their relationship with the Bible. I mean, absolutely nothing. And I’m saying this as a researcher. I’ve tested it. I can’t find anything that makes a bigger difference.
John Plake — In fact, when we looked at Christian college and university students, 60% of their overall spiritual health across lots of domains—beliefs, practice, putting faith into action, loving God, loving others, all these things, 60% of the variance in their spiritual health is solely accounted for by their relationship with the Bible.
John Plake — So if we can help people have a dynamic relationship with scripture, we win. That’s all there is to it. It’s just that simple. And so that is really encouraging.
John Plake — And then the third thing, ah the third thing is how I say this nicely? I’m I’m from Gen X and so to my Baby Boomer friends, I’m sorry, but you guys don’t have the influence that you once did.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s true.
John Plake — And that’s a good thing because there’s new openness among Millennials, and Gen Z and even younger Gen X um that we just don’t see among Baby Boomers. It’s like Baby Boomers made up their minds in the 60s and early 70s and said, this is what I believe and I’m not changing. And they haven’t.
John Plake — That’s not to say that someone who’s a Baby Boomer can’t have a a spiritual experience and transformational experience. It does happen. But on the population level, like when we looked at the Bay Area of San Francisco, if you look at the scripture engagement, church engagement, love God, love others data in the Bay Area, it looks like what you’d expect, until you strip out the Baby Boomers. And then suddenly it looks better than every place else in America.
John Plake — You’re like, what’s going on? Well, looks like all the unreconstructed hippies that moved to the Bay Area are actually holding a lid on the population numbers. And when you remove that and you go, oh, wait a minute, let me look under the headline and say what’s happening. There’s more going on than is easy to see. And I think this happens in big national trends.
John Plake — Oh, is Scripture engagement up or down? Is you know church attendance up or down? Whats what’s going… big national trends. Yeah, okay, those are helpful, and we want those to change. But what’s changing first is below the fold. Things in Gen Z, things among Millennials, things in young men, those things are starting to change, and I think those are the first glimmerings that God is at work in a new way in America, and I can’t wait to see it.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s that’s a great word. And that lines up with what we’re seeing, even just experientially talking to churches across the country. You know we’re so we’re seeing there is something going on with younger generations, which is great to see. I was I was born in 1974, the lowest birth rate year of the 20th century. I am classic Gen X. Like you know I am like statistic I’m the statistical average Gen X and has spent a lot of my time trying to hand stuff from the Boomers to the Millennials. And, yeah, there’s lots of encouraging news there, particularly with the younger generations.
Rich Birch — I also want to speak to on the the work I’ve done in the church growth stuff that I’ve done and coaching I’ve done with churches, one of the things that’s just undeniable is churches that have a high view of scripture, that is, they’re trying to get people engaged with scripture. They they talk about it like it’s actually true. How do we say don’t know what’s the best way to talk about that? Those are the churches that are prevailing, and that actually works out statistically. You see that time and again. Talk to us about that dynamic, which is kind of co-related to the things we’re talking about today. From your perspective in the stats and all that, how how have you seen that work out as you’ve looked at churches across the country?
John Plake — Yeah, I think you’re exactly right. The churches that are the healthiest in America, that are growing, that where where people are spiritually healthy, have a really dynamic relationship with Scripture. And it kind of it cuts across tradition.
Rich Birch — Yep.
John Plake — There are some traditional things going on. I was listening to Justin Brierley and his surprising Rebirth of Belief in God podcast, and it was from last season, and he he had someone on, he was interviewing, and what she was saying was there are the parts of the church that seem to be thriving are kind of the, the the older, the ancientness traditions, whether it’s Catholic or Orthodox, that what she called somewhat irreverently, the smells and bells side of of the church.
Rich Birch — Sure, sure.
John Plake — And on the other side, kind of my end of the swimming pool, I’m, from the Assemblies of God, so the Pentecostal and Charismatic side. And she said, what’s going on is that both ends of that spectrum are totalizing.
John Plake — They’re saying, you know what, the the Bible places certain expectations and demands on people. Christ places certain expectations and demands on people. And these parts of the church aren’t sort of shy about talking about that from a biblical perspective. She said, what’s what’s dying is that part in the middle where we’ve reduced church to a PowerPoint and you know an Excel spreadsheet. And she said, that part of the church seems to be dying and no one’s coming to the funeral.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
John Plake — And I thought, you know okay, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, that’s good.
John Plake — So if we revitalize our relationship with God through scripture, there’s a next step for every church. It doesn’t matter what, you know whether you’re mainline or evangelical or, you know, Pentecostal or Orthodox or whatever it is, but but reviving our relationship with God through Scripture is really where it’s at.
Rich Birch — That’s so good. i Yeah, I call that middle group the just because it rhymes doesn’t mean it’s true group. You know, like the, you know, were just like, it’s all my thoughts. No one wants to come and find us. They want to find God ultimately. Well, I don’t want to pick any fights with anybody that’s listening in, but I really appreciate today’s conversation, John. This has been great. So we want to send people to church.nextstep.bible.
Rich Birch — The the promise of in two weeks, your church could have a comprehensive report on spiritual health, on where your church is, spiritual health is at, that’s a huge promise. And so again, this is go to church.nextstep.bible. Any kind of final words as we wrap up today’s episode?
John Plake — You know, you might be familiar with Cally Parkinson. Cally was the co-author of all of the Reveal books, every single one of them. She was head of communications for the Willow Creek Association when they were running this. She’s probably had more conversations with pastors and church leaders about survey results like this than anybody I know, maybe than anybody alive. And Cally likes this so much. She said, John, I want to have a personal consultation with the first hundred churches that go through this.
John Plake — And so if you want to be in that group, she’s going to offer to spend an hour with you and just walk through your results and help explain it. There are videos throughout the platform that will explain it as well. And you can’t beat talking to Cally. She loves pastors. She says you’re the salt of the earth. And she just really wants to serve you because the work that you do to save people is just so valuable to her. So anyway, just wanted to offer that. And I know you’d probably love to meet Cally.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s fantastic. Well, appreciate you being here today. Thanks for the great work you do at the American Bible Society. John, appreciate you being on today. Thank you.
John Plake — Thank you.
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Ted Coniaris, lead pastor of Community Christian Church in the greater Chicagoland area. After an intentional and extended succession process with founding pastor Dave Ferguson, Ted has stepped into the lead role during a pivotal season for the church. In this conversation, he shares what it looks like to lead through transition, clarify vision, and build a disciple-making ecosystem for the future.
- A transition built on trust and clarity. // Ted describes a multi-year succession process that included months of private conversations, an 18-month apprenticeship, and a highly visible transition with full support from church leadership. One of the most unique elements was launching a new vision before the transition was complete. While unconventional, this approach created immediate alignment and buy-in across the church. Because the process was prayerful, transparent, and unified, the congregation experienced less anxiety than expected, resulting in what Ted describes as a surprising sense of peace and readiness for what’s next.
- Renovating, not rebuilding. // Ted uses the language of “renovation” to describe the church’s next chapter. Community Christian Church has a rich 37-year history of helping people find their way back to God, especially those far from faith. Rather than starting from scratch, Ted is focused on building on that foundation while addressing a critical gap: what happens after people come to faith? This has led to a renewed focus on creating a clear and intentional disciple-making ecosystem.
- A bold, layered vision for the future. // Ted outlines a four-part vision that builds sequentially: every heart on fire, every person a pastor, every child and student equipped, and every neighborhood a thriving church. This framework begins with spiritual passion—not just participation—emphasizing that people today are searching for something deeper than casual faith. From there, the vision moves toward activating every believer in ministry, taking seriously the priesthood of all believers. The end result is a multiplying movement of disciples impacting communities at scale.
- Rethinking discipleship through Growth Track. // To support this vision, the church is developing a clear pathway called Growth Track, built around three movements: Alpha, Disciple, and Pastor. The goal is not just information or assimilation, but transformation and activation. Ted emphasizes helping every person identify their calling, answering the question, “Who am I called to reach?” This reframes discipleship from passive participation to active mission.
- Ancient practices for modern renewal. // One of the more surprising shifts has been a return to ancient spiritual disciplines. Through rhythms like “Ignite Week”—a church-wide season of prayer, fasting, and reflection—Ted is seeing increased spiritual intensity across all age groups. These rhythms create deeper roots than one-time events, shaping both individual lives and the overall culture of the church.
- A multiplying model through microchurches. // In addition to strengthening internal discipleship, Community Christian is expanding outward through a rapidly growing microchurch movement. With hundreds of microchurches already launched globally, the model focuses on simple, scalable principles: low control, high support, and strong coaching relationships. Rather than centralizing growth in large gatherings, this approach empowers everyday people to lead and reach others in their own contexts—creating the potential for exponential impact.
- The leader’s soul is the strategy. // Ted closes with a powerful reminder: the most important strategy a leader has is their own spiritual health. Passion for God, integrity, and relational support are foundational. Ministry is difficult, but leaders who tend their own spiritual lives and refuse isolation will be better equipped to lead others effectively.
To learn more about Community Christian Church, visit communitychristian.org.
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Portable Church
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Super excited to have you listening in today. GI gotta be totally honest. I asked this person to come on today to have a bit of an update conversation from a conversation we had out just over a year ago. I’m really excited for this because it’s kind of fun to follow along with this story. And this is an area that really is, applies to all of our churches and I want all of us to lean in. And so pay attention, whether you’re cutting your grass or whatever you’re doing for the next 30 minutes, it’s going to be a great conversation.
Rich Birch — We’ve got Ted Coniaris with us. He is the lead pastor at a fantastic church, a multi-site church in the greater Chicagoland area called Community Christian. They have, if I’m counting correctly, seven physical locations, as well as micro churches that meet in homes throughout the week and online space, plus community freedom locations, which meet in correctional facilities across the region as well. Ted, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.
Ted Coniaris — Thanks, Rich. Really glad to be here. Great to see you again. We get to cross paths a few times a year, so it’s always great to connect. Appreciate the time.
Rich Birch — I appreciate you you taking time to come on and and connect. Friends that are listening in, just kind of bringing you up to speed. We’ll link to the previous episode if you want to go back and and check that. But the last time we talked, you were apprenticing as the lead pastor at Community Christian under Dave Ferguson. And I think that was a year ago. And you you know there’s all the steps. I think you were step three, step four, somewhere in there.
Ted Coniaris — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And there was this handoff on the horizon. And now we’re on the other side of that. And so that’s part of why I wanted to get you on. Here we are a year later. Let’s talk about those things. You’re still there. So that’s a good thing.
Ted Coniaris — I mean, as far as you know, this could be a fake backdrop. Who knows?
Rich Birch — Yeah, true this is the… Yeah, so you know what? You were…
Ted Coniaris — No, it is true.
Rich Birch — It takes a lot of time. Talk to us through, you know, what’s happened since then. Talk us about that transition. Kind of bring us up to speed.
Ted Coniaris — Absolutely. So as you said, we went through an 18 month apprenticeship, but before that we had about six, eight, probably eight months of conversations just Dave and I, before we went above ground with elders and everything else, maybe even a little longer than that. So it was quite a long process walking through our apprenticeship process as a church and really wanting to do that at the highest level, just like we do at every level of leadership as a church.
Ted Coniaris — So that was an amazing process. Dave is an incredible leader and even better man and somebody that it was a great privilege to spend more and more time with him. He and Sue—his wife—Melissa and I spending time with them, and then John and and Lisa, his brother and his wife. We spent a lot of time together, so it was great. And then since then, May, they’re still around. They’re still a part of our church. Dave is now the CEO of Exponential, spending full time doing that.
Ted Coniaris — And John is leading something called the Chicago Collective, which is a network of churches, networks of churches throughout Chicagoland, working to plant more churches, which we desperately need in Chicago area. So if you’re listening, you’re like, man, I’m thinking about planning a church in Chicago. Please reach out to me. I would love to help you do that. We desperately need more more churches here.
Ted Coniaris — So since then, it’s been great. Honestly, there’s been so much change, so many things going on, but it’s truly, truly been really, really good. I think I’m tired in the right ways.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — I’m probably also tired in some of the wrong ways too…
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — …but it’s been a great it’s been a great transition.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. You know, when we you were on last time, you were talking about really stewarding the mission of the future, while also chasing new vision, which is, is at that phase kind of easy to say, you’re like, okay, we’re looking forward to the future. Now you’re in the seat. And it’s like, you got to keep doing that. Now that you’re sitting there.,you know, what’s become clearer for you as you’ve thought about the next chapter and, and, you know, as you think about the future, what are, cause there may be some questions you’re wrestling with as you’re thinking, you know, up over to the horizon. Yeah. What are the things that are, are, are bubbling in your brain on that front?
Ted Coniaris — Yeah, great question. I mean, so much has become more clear. But one of the great gifts that I felt like the Lord gave us as a church in this transition on the very front end was a real clarity and unity around our new vision as a church. It’s not so typical to launch a new vision for the church before the transition has even occurred. And I wouldn’t recommend that in other situations, but it just, the way that it went with us, this just felt like what the Lord was leading us to do.
Ted Coniaris — So we actually actually launched the new vision for the church while Dave was still the lead pastor. And he stood right there beside me and in full support with our elders and everyone else. And so it was actually unique in that way. But that’s just really been confirmed. Honestly, that’s been one of the biggest things that I am grateful for through this process is just the Lord’s gift of clarity on the front end and just giving me ah real clear direction to run.
Ted Coniaris — And I would say too, that there’s a big difference between a transition that’s been prayed over for years.
Rich Birch — That’s good. Right, right.
Ted Coniaris — It just lands differently than a transition.That’s just like been negotiated in some back room somewhere. You know, it’s like this…
Rich Birch — Right. Right. Right. Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — This has been prayed through and put above ground and has been a really healthy, visible process that I think resulted in the church just being wide open, saying, yeah, this feels right. This feels good. And we’re in. And so almost it’s like a a sense of exhale that I’ve been experiencing, which has surprised me…
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Ted Coniaris — …in the church.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — I thought there would be more anxiety in the transition.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — But there’s really been like a quiet permission-giving that’s happened.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Ted Coniaris — Almost like, you know, just the family knew the transition was healthy so they could just sort of relax into it and say, okay, what’s next?
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Ted Coniaris — And in hindsight, what felt a little crazy of launching the vision now feels like if we hadn’t have done that, we would have missed a real amazing opportunity because people were really bought in right from the get-go, which has been great.
Rich Birch — Well, and what, yeah, that’s great. And in hindsight, being able to look back at that moment and saying like, no, like, yeah, maybe not the kind of thing that you write in a book and say, that’s the way to do it. But it’s like, we did that. And there’s in hindsight, man, amazing to have kind of both of your endorsements on the future direction. And like, Hey, we’re excited to be going in this direction. There was a mutual support there that ended up accelerating pointing things to the future. That’s incredible. That’s great.
Ted Coniaris — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — And so now it’s really…Go ahead. Sorry.
Rich Birch — No, you go ahead. You go. Go ahead.
Ted Coniaris — Okay. Yeah. Now it’s in the season where it’s how do we take that vision, that sort of north star for the future and building on their 37-year history as a church that’s been so rich and good in and move in this new direction, but also be aligned with our past.
Ted Coniaris — You know, it’s not about tradition, but it is about, you know, God has been doing a unique and wonderful thing here that we want to continue in, but also kind of build on what’s next. So I felt like as a church, one of our great strengths as community, and this is really a reflection of Dave and John, is we’re a community where everyone is welcome. Like that that’s without a doubt. Anybody and everybody can walk through these doors and probably tens of thousands of people have over these last 37 years, and found their way back to God. It’s incredible.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s amazing.
Ted Coniaris — I mean, when it comes to that zero to one, those people finding the Lord from a really hard spot, man, God has just used this church in such miraculous and amazing ways for so long. And we want to keep that. Like we love that about this place and just think it’s an amazing amazing strength of this community. But now we want to answer sort of the next question, which is now what? So everyone’s welcome.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — Now what?
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — And so we want to build on that path towards what’s in the future. And the way we’re talking about it here is sort of renovating our disciple-making ecosystem, which is a big mouthful. But you know it’s renovating, and it’s a certainly a lot of you know jargon, but bear with me for a second.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — You know, we’re renovating because we’re not starting from scratch.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — We’ve got a great house, a great church.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — Things are great. It’s time for a renovation. And what we’re renovating is a very clear, focused outcome, which is disciple-making. And I think that’s an area where we have not been as strong over the years. It’s like that first part of the journey. And we have a lot of evangelists here and we’re passionate. We want to keep that. But we also want to answer that that: now what? That disciple-making ecosystem. And it’s an ecosystem because not any one thing, this program doesn’t make you a disciple-making church.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Ted Coniaris — Or just a good teacher doesn’t make you a disciple-making church. It’s all of these things kind of together create an environment and a path for that to happen. And so we’re just renovating all of those things with the vision, teaching, creating new rhythms as a church, and also creating a, for the first time for us at least, a clear disciple making process, which we’re we’re calling it Growth Track.
Ted Coniaris — And a lot of churches use that term. But just trying to say, okay, our vision is to see every person step into their God-given calling to be a pastor. If every person is a pastor, it’s like, what if we actually took the priesthood of believers seriously? Right? And how would that change our disciple-making process if that was the end result?
Rich Birch — That’s cool.
Ted Coniaris — Right? I think a lot of times we can slip into being really like our disciple-making becomes more about assimilation. Or more about collecting a certain level of information or knowledge or even practice.
Rich Birch — Yep. Yep.
Ted Coniaris — But we’re trying to have a different output. We want to see people finding their way back to God, which has always been the core of our mission, and then released as pastors in the world and equipped to do that.
Ted Coniaris — And so what’s our process for taking someone from a seeker to a pastor. We really didn’t have that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — And so we’re in the process right now of just building all of that out, aligning all of our teams and creating just a clear answer to that, that “now what” question.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love that. And, you know, that makes sense for a church of of this age. You know, people have changed, you know, what we used to call seekers or the people that were arriving, they’re different. It’s like the most obvious thing to say, but people are different today than they were 37 years ago when this ball got rolling.
Rich Birch — And and what what are some of those early changes that you’ve made to renovate? What are some of those things that that do look a little bit different or are are, you know, kind of pointing in a new direction? Where where what are you learning on that that front?
Ted Coniaris — Well, obviously the first one is the new vision, and I’ll just share that really, really quickly.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ted Coniaris — But it’s, and they all build on each other. That’s really the the key for us. And while this is unique to Community Christian Church, it’s not a vision that’s unique to Community Christian Church. Like, I think this is really like a biblical thing, but it starts with every heart on fire.
Ted Coniaris — And it talks about, when you ask the question about what’s different, I think one of the things that’s really different, people aren’t looking just for a place to blend in the background and be like, oh, this is cool.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — You’re cool Jesus followers. I’m cool. We can be cool together. This is cool. That is, that is…
Rich Birch — That’s amazing. I love it.
Ted Coniaris — That is not what the next generation is looking for.
Rich Birch — No.
Ted Coniaris — They are looking for fire.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — They are looking for passion. And rightfully so. Rightfully so. Thank God for that.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — And so we want to lean into it. We don’t want to be a place where everybody’s buddies with Jesus. We want to create a place where people are consumed by him.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Ted Coniaris — Just like the disciples on the road to Emmaus talked about, you know, we’re not our hearts beating or burning within us when they talk with Jesus along the road. That’s that’s the kind of community we want to be, a consumed community. And that’s the starting place for everything else. Everything else. And that’s not just emotionalism. It’s a passion for. It’s it’s a a focus on.
Ted Coniaris — The second part, which builds on that, it’s not even worth going to the second part if you don’t do the first thing. The second part is every person a pastor, right? Because if you start with every person a pastor, but the heart’s not on fire, there’s not a passion and a consuming focus, you know, what kind of pastors are you raising, right?
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Ted Coniaris — It’s not the kind that the world needs. And so it’s every heart fire, then every person a pastor just really taking seriously the priesthood of all believers. I’m not the pastor, you know. You all are the pastors. I function as a pastor in this context, but you function as a pastor in whatever context God has placed you.
Ted Coniaris — And if we could do those two things, if we can have every heart and fire and every person released into their God-given calling as a pastor, then maybe we could accomplish the third thing, which is every child and student equipped.
Rich Birch — Wow. Yep.
Ted Coniaris — Because that’s going to take all hands on deck. What our kids, what my kids, I have 16, 14, and 10-year-old, all boys. So please pray for us. But what what my boys are facing today, it’s like the challenges I faced have been weaponized and placed in the hands of every single kid. And yet our student and youth ministry, our kids and and student ministry, looks almost identical to what it did look like 37 years ago. Why is that? I mean, there’s different strategies, practice in those sort things.
Rich Birch — That doesn’t make sense. Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — But if you look at like the form even of itself, we’re like, it kind of looks the same. It looks sort of like the youth group I went to as a kid.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — And I think we need to be doing a lot more and investing more in the next generation in in relational deep ways. But it can’t happen without every heart and fire and every person being a pastor. And if we can do that, every heart of fire, every person pastor, every child and student equipped, then we can accomplish the Great Commission, right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — And that’s really the last part of the vision, which is every neighborhood a thriving church. Because the way you change the world is by having you know a community of Christ followers, place where Jesus is King, we’re on mission together within arm’s reach of every person on the planet.
Ted Coniaris — You know that’s, that’s the plan. And so that’s what we’re targeting and going after. So that’s different. And so for us to do those things, there’s things we’re trying to change and layer in behind that. Really renovating our teaching ministry. We’re kind of going old school. We’re going back through like long series, books of the Bible, just walking through scripture, teaching people the Bible, just like the disciples on that road to Emmaus. You know, that was when Jesus opened the scriptures to them. It’s lit this fire inside of them.
Ted Coniaris — I think that’s even more necessary. 37 years ago, basically a Christian culture-ish.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ted Coniaris — Today, not so much.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — So nobody’s walking through the doors with like this biblical knowledge. They’re walking through the doors with nothing.
Rich Birch — That’s so true, yeah.
Ted Coniaris — And so, you know, we need to do that. So we’re doing that, creating rhythms in our calendar years. A lot more I could say about that. Spiritual disciplines communally, not just as individuals, feels maybe like a little spin on liturgical calendars of old.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ted Coniaris — We’re embracing some of that in a new way for us.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — And then this this Growth Track is a big part of that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — And then there’s there’s more beyond that, but that’s just a few of the things.
Rich Birch — Dude, I love it. I love I love the how those four layer on. I love the focus. I think it totally just feels right on with where you know culture’s at. Could you unpack a little bit of what you’re doing with Growth Track? What does that look like, that particular tactic in the… You know I think the idea of every person a pastor is a very compelling, that’s like a lean-in, “what did you just say?” kind of thing.
Ted Coniaris — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And then but what are you, you know, help us, help us understand, you know, a little bit of that, what you’re doing with Growth Track to kind of point towards that.
Ted Coniaris — You mean like the mechanics of it or like just the overall strategy?
Rich Birch — Yeah. How’s it work? What are you teaching there? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What, yeah, what’s, what is it?
Ted Coniaris — Well, it’s all…
Rich Birch — How’s it work?
Ted Coniaris — Yeah, we’re getting ready to to launch it all this fall.
Rich Birch — Great.
Ted Coniaris — And yeah, we’re really excited about it. But essentially, it’s it’s three steps. “One. Life. Go.” is kind of how we talk about the Growth Track. And the first step is tried and true. It’s Alpha.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ted Coniaris — I think Alpha is probably the single greatest tool available…
Rich Birch — Sure. Sure.
Ted Coniaris — …to help you know my friends and neighbors and family find their way back to God. I I love Alpha. I’m running an Alpha right now at an office with a buddy and his partners, all the partners of his business.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ted Coniaris — We’re doing Alpha together over lunch. It’s amazing.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Ted Coniaris — So Alpha is step one.
Ted Coniaris — Step two, we call disciple because disciple is both a noun and a verb. It’s who you are and it’s what you do. And so it’s, you know, we’ve used Rooted in the past as a church and Rooted is fantastic. We love Rooted. It’s been helpful to for us. But we felt like there were ways in which we wanted to adjust that to our context a little bit more…
Rich Birch — Sure.
Ted Coniaris — …and also have an opportunity for people to make a commitment to the church. We don’t do membership, but we do ask people to commit to belonging here. And honestly, I think that’s a big missing step in the overall discipleship of a lot of like churches like ours. Because if you don’t have a commitment, and there’s just kind of growth that happens in your life that only can happen in a committed relationship. And it’s not about you committing to me. It’s really about us committing to each other. And when we do that, it opens the door to a different layer and level of transformation in your own life.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that.
Ted Coniaris — And committing to that unity on the front end is is really important. And so we want to do that. We also do several other things a part of that, but that’s kind of a general idea.
Ted Coniaris — And then the third step is pastor. That’s the goal. That’s where we’re going.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — It’s also a noun and a verb, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Cool.
Ted Coniaris — It’s who you are and it’s what you do.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — And this is designed to do that. So we took some learnings actually from Brian Sanders, and he has something called the Calling Lab. He does the Tampa Underground down in Florida.
Ted Coniaris — He’s done some great work on that.
Ted Coniaris — And it’s essentially a similar process of triangulating your true sense of calling. We want everybody in our church to be able to say, I exist to help blank find their way back to God.
Rich Birch — That’s cool.
Ted Coniaris — Like, who are you called to reach?
Rich Birch — That’s cool.
Ted Coniaris — Because what’s a starting ground for someone to be a pastor? You know, like, is it education? Is it more this, more that? Well, I think the journey of learning and growing and honing your gifting, it has to start with the calling. And I think there are so many people who just, they don’t know how to finish that sentence.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — Even if it is your kids or your neighbors or your coworkers, have you really done the work? Have you invested to say, no, these are the people, like names and faces that I’m called to reach. And then I’m released into that context as a pastor. So when I show up to work, I want to show up. I’m the pastor of BMO Harris Bank today because that’s where I work and I’m a teller there.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — you know I’m the pastor of You know, my neighborhood and in Downers Grove, in my part, my north, you know, little west quadrant there. That’s what I want to show up. That’s what I want our whole church showing up as. Thousands and thousands of pastors released into every arena of life. And so a lot of churches have Growth Track, or something like it. We’re really trying to say, okay, what’s what is the unique thing that that we’re feeling Lord’s calling us to produce here? And that’s it. And so we’ve designed these steps to work together to produce that that thing in us.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s very cool.
Ted Coniaris —Hope that’s helpful.
Rich Birch — I love that. Oh, it’s super helpful. I love I love what you’re doing there. And that’s thanks for taking the time to unpack that.
Rich Birch — Pivoting in a slightly different direction, we were together at Exponential at Dave’s event. And well, it’s not Dave’s event. I understand that. At the Exponential conference. And we were at a breakfast together. And you mentioned about some just kind of in passing some stuff that was going on at the church that was and part of it was some of this around spiritual vitality, you’re seeing that increase.
Rich Birch — I’m assuming that some of these, you know, pieces of these puzzles coming together. But then you also talked about the kind of growth of your microchurch, you know, planting movement that’s connected to Community. Could you unpack that a little bit more? Tell us a little bit about, you know, that that, how does that fit into the whole story that God’s writing here?
Ted Coniaris — Yeah, I think the spiritual vitality, I’ll start there. The way we talk about it a lot is it just feels like everywhere you go, the spiritual temperature is just increasing. In kids, in students, in adults, our small groups, in our services, it’s just across the board. There’s just like an increased heat or passion around our faith.
Ted Coniaris — I think a part of that is is truthfully in a season of transition, there’s always an opportunity to be open to something new. And we’ve been trying to really place our focus on, well, what’s the new thing? Like, how what is the condition of your heart? Are you on fire, truly on fire? I think putting that question, that vision in front of us as a church has been refining – that in and of itself.
Ted Coniaris — But we’ve also just seen, I mean, there’s so much I could speak to on this, but one of the things I’m just really excited about is what’s happening with our students right now. We talk a lot about students being the leaders of tomorrow’s church, but I’ll tell you here, they’re the leader of today’s church.
Rich Birch — So true.
Ted Coniaris — I mean, they are setting a tone with passion and a desire.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s very true.
Ted Coniaris — Like we do our services. I’m at the Yellow Box location, right? It’s our Naperville church here. And teaching here on Sunday. And there’ll be a group of students that will just come and sit on the ground in front of the stage…
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Ted Coniaris — …have their Bibles open with their notebook, taking notes. And then during worship, it’s like they’re in the pit of a concert. You know, they’re at the stage, hands up.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, it’s true.
Ted Coniaris — And you’ve got a room full of thousands of adults watching this and they’re leading us. Nobody asked them to do it. Nobody told them to do that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — So I think some of it, I point to that.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool.
Ted Coniaris — Others other parts of it is we’ve really kind of pushed our chips into the middle on some of the ancient stuff instead of new trendy stuff…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — …specifically prayer and fasting.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s cool. Tell me more about that. I’d love to hear about that.
Ted Coniaris — So yeah, earlier I talked about, you know, we’re embracing the calendar rhythms as a church.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ted Coniaris — I really believe that, you know, rhythms are so much more powerful than events because, you know, an event is just a drop in the ocean. But if you can build some rhythms, you could actually build some roots.
Rich Birch — That’s cool.
Ted Coniaris — And, you know, our most valuable resources, our people, and our most valuable real estate is our calendar. And so we’ve said, you know, three times a year as sort of the calendar turns and that’s sort of the rhythm of our community. There’s sort of three seasons, there’s winter, there’s fall and there’s spring/summer. So to launch those seasons, we do what we now call an Ignite Week where we ask the whole church to commit to a full week of prayer and fasting.
Rich Birch — Wow. Very cool.
Ted Coniaris — And then we have intentional programming in that week to do like a full spiritual reset to say, okay, God, what are you saying to me right now? For the individual, we have like prayer and fasting guides to help guide people through that experience. For the groups, we do these discipleship conversations where we want everybody in each group to say, okay, what is God saying to me right now? And what am I doing to say yes to him?
Ted Coniaris — And then for our locations, we take a break from all of our regular series stuff and we do Hearts on Fire Sunday. And we just say, okay, God, what are you doing here? What are you doing today? What are you doing right now? And it feels very different than our regular Sundays.
Ted Coniaris — And then for the church as a whole, all of our locations together, we do what we call our Ignite Gathering on Saturday morning. It’s actually coming up this Saturday. And we just gather the whole church together. And what’s happened in these Ignite Gatherings is really exciting. It feels like a a catalyst for the rest of the church.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — It’s like the church we’re going to be a year from now, we get to see in that room on Saturday morning.
Rich Birch — That’s very cool.
Ted Coniaris — And ah after a week of prayer and fasting, gathering the church together to worship, to break the fast together in communion, it’s it’s powerful.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — I mean, it is powerful. The environment of that space is so different There’s such a hunger for the Lord and honestly, a true actual physical hunger after all that fasting.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Ted Coniaris — But it’s it’s it’s really changing the whole, as I said earlier, this ecosystem of our church. so those are some of the real important you know pieces of that ecosystem.
Rich Birch — Oh, I love that. Yeah, I love that. And and um it isn’t isn’t it interesting? So we’re seeing lots of that kind of things or echoes of that across the country where, you know, there’s a there’s been a shift that, you know, we’ll probably understand better five years from now. We’ll look back and we’ll put all the pieces together and understand what God’s doing. But it does appear like, you know, the Spirit’s on the move. They say, what is that? Aslan’s on the move, right? Something is shifting in people. And you know, we’re trying to keep pick keep pick up keep up with it and do what we can to continue to steward what’s here.
Rich Birch — And my experience with, you know, our our churches would have similar backgrounds, similar history. You know, we’re a heart for people who don’t, and your church has a heart for people who who don’t follow Jesus. You know, we’re trying to create a space for those folks. But though my experience has been those people are different today than they were 20 years ago. That people are coming much more, it’s like they’re farther along in the process. They’re they’re much more engaged than than um than they have been in the past. And so they’re willing to jump into the deep end of the pool on some of this stuff, maybe even more quickly than our long-term people…
Ted Coniaris — Yeah, I think that’s true.
Rich Birch — …because of whatever God’s doing in in their life. That’s that’s, yeah, that’s really interesting. That’s a cool thing to, you know, to be a part of, to hear you know a part of that. What about on the microchurch side? What’s happening there?
Ted Coniaris — Yeah.
Rich Birch — What is that? Yeah, what’s that? What’s happening with that?
Ted Coniaris — So during COVID, we just sort of began dipping our toe in the water of starting microchurches under this belief that the macrochurch movement, even megachurch, doesn’t need to be at odds or in conflict with the house church and microchurch movement.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ted Coniaris — Like, is there way for us to just see that as one thing instead of competing things, reaching all different kinds of people? And so we’ve just kind of dipped our toe in that. And here we are a few years later. Took us few years kind of figure out what we wanted to do.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — We’ve been doing it for about three years now. We have you know somewhere around, i was just texted the guy for the today number because it’s growing so fast, somewhere around 350 microchurches all around the world.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Ted Coniaris — And it’s it’s a simple, simple, simple strategy where you’re just basically saying anybody in the world, anybody on planet Earth, feeling called the planet Earth or maybe you already have and you don’t know what to do with it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — And what’s interesting is that there are, I don’t know how many people, but there are a lot of people on this Earth. And a lot of people are asking that exact question and they just need someone who’s going to say, we can help you. We can help you.
Rich Birch — Interesting.
Ted Coniaris — We want to help you do that. We want to coach you, train you, and then set you up with a cohort of others doing the same thing to help you do it in a sustainable fashion. It’s it’s very low investment. It’s very low control, but it’s super high results.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Huh.
Ted Coniaris — And so it’s it’s sort of a little mind shift because a lot of times we want to have everything controlled. We want to have everybody’s theology statement. We want to have all this stuff. We want to know it’s going to be successful. We want to da-da-da-da-da. It’s like we’re not doing any of that. We obviously do teach some theology, but what we do is just keep like, what are what are these sort of ecclesiological minimums?
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — And how can we just center on those things…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — …and launch as many people as possible and see what the Lord does? And he’s been doing some remarkable things. And I think you know our world has a giant need. We need to see millions of people find their way back to God. And a lot of us have strategies where the wild success is if we had thousands of people come and find their way back to God over decades.
Ted Coniaris — This this is a strategy that could reach millions. Like I think we legitimately can see a network of these and people down the chain will have no idea kind of where it came from and they don’t need to. But I legitimately think in 10 years time, we could easily reach a million people and have a a church of a million people, but not in the traditional sense.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — But through this.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Well, I love that because, man that’s a great vision to cast. Because you can’t build enough or a big enough yellow box for all of even Chicagoland, right?
Rich Birch — Like that’s just not going to, you know, you can’t.
Ted Coniaris — Oh, yeah. No.
Rich Birch — And and that is a, you know, it’s a just a resource intensive, you know, that’s been my life’s work. I’ve spent a lot of time on that. it’s not I’m not downing that, friends. Save your cards and letters. I still think that’s a piece of the puzzle.
Ted Coniaris — I agree.
Rich Birch — But how do we, is there a way for us to, work together to find solutions? How what how does the, I appreciate the, know, we’re not trying to be high control. We’re trying to, you know, we’re not you know we’re trying to really foster something that’s already in happening. We’re going to we’re going to get behind it, do what we can to support it. And we’re not going to try to over control. But I’m going to ask the control question. How do you, what is the kind of level of interaction that you’re, you’re finding is kind of the appropriate, it’s the, you know, not too little, not too much. Where have you found that’s like, hey, this, this is the kind of good sweet spot that that we have found so far with these, you know, 350, you know, microchurches.
Ted Coniaris — Are you asking like, what’s the relational rhythm or…
Rich Birch — Yeah. What is, yeah. What is the connection? What’s the relational rhythm between, or even connection between community and those 350? Like, are they, how are they, how do they relate to you and your team, your people, your volunteers, and then vice versa? What does that, you know, how does that, what’s that look like? What’s the connection there?
Ted Coniaris — Yeah, it’s it’s purely coaching, training and ongoing support.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ted Coniaris — And we also make it clear there’s no financial arrangement – them to us or us to them.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ted Coniaris — And what we find is that just keeps the relationship very clean.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, that’s good.
Ted Coniaris — We’re here to coach, support, train, launch, walk alongside.
Ted Coniaris — It’s a relational currency.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — And it’s an expertise currency and a material and resource are the currencies. And so that’s really what we’re doing so when it comes to you know what is the relational controls or how do you keep tabs or you know, whatever might be behind the question for us it’s more about that thriving coaching relationship…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — …and that this is a journey and you know if somebody is unwilling or unable to connect, I mean, they just go do their own thing.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — And we’re not going to try to stop them.
Rich Birch — No. Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — You know, we want to be dancing with the people who want to dance. We’re not you know spending our time or energy on that. And so it’s really that that coaching system and network. That’s the key in scaling that coaching system and network is how you reach a million people.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s amazing. It’s great. That’s a huge vision. I love that. That’s that’s super inspiring.
Rich Birch — Well, Ted, this has been a great check-in and lots of good stuff. Just want to encourage you in your leadership at Community. Appreciate what you’re doing there. Thanks for letting us kind of pull back the curtain a little bit and and get a sense in there. Any kind of final words you’d have for leaders that are listening in today? You know, we’ve covered a lot of ground, but anything you know you’d you’d want to kind of remind us just as we close off today’s conversation.
Ted Coniaris — Yeah. And you know, the thing that’s just sort of striking me in the moment is just to encourage the pastors who are listening in particular to, to really remember that, that the strategy is your soul. And your own passion and hunger and thirst for the Lord and your integrity and walking that out, that is the key strategy. That is the most important thing. And you can’t do that alone.
Ted Coniaris — You know, a lot of times talk about leadership being lonely. I kind of have a different view. I think loneliness is a choice. And I think you can choose not to be lonely. And so I know there are people who feel discouraged and that discouragement leads to isolation and that isolation feels like loneliness and it just becomes this downward spiral. There are different choices you can make to change the direction of that.
Ted Coniaris — I know a lot of people are are struggling. The ministry is hard. It’s really hard. But I think that if you can really focus on your passion, your fire, tending your flame with the Lord, it will make the work of ministry lighter. It will make the successes and failures less impactful on you. And to find to find some people who can you can really be vulnerable with, who are sharing the same kind of load that you carry, that would be if I could just say one thing to a group of, you know, 5,000 pastors, that’s probably the thing I would just say right now.
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Rich Birch — So good. Well, Ted, I appreciate you coming on today. Where do we want to send people if they want to track with you or with the church? Where do we want to send them online?
Ted Coniaris — Communitychristian.org, church website, probably the best place. You can find us on socials and stuff like that. I don’t really do social stuff. It’s not my thing.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — But you could go to the church. You can find all that. So it’s Community Christian Church in the Chicago area, and you’ll find everything.
Rich Birch — That’s great. Thanks so much, Ted. Appreciate being here today, sir.
Ted Coniaris — Thank you, Rich. Appreciate you too.
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Rebecca Maxwell, a licensed marriage and family therapist and founder of Jacksonville Counseling Services. With 15 years of prior church ministry experience and now leading a growing counseling practice, Rebecca brings a unique perspective that bridges biblical truth and clinical insight.
Are you feeling unprepared when people come to you with deep emotional or mental health struggles? Wondering how to respond wisely without overstepping your role? In this conversation, Rebecca helps church leaders better respond to crises and care for people in more informed and effective ways.
- Why pastors often feel unprepared. // Rebecca reflects on her years in ministry and recognizes that many church leaders simply lack the training needed to identify and respond to mental health challenges. While pastors are often the first call when someone is in crisis, most have received minimal formal education in this area. As a result, well-intentioned leaders can miss important warning signs or unintentionally cause harm. Rebecca emphasizes that pastors don’t need to become therapists—but they do need a basic framework for recognizing distress and knowing how to respond appropriately.
- Slow down before you try to solve. // One of the most common mistakes leaders make in crisis situations is moving too quickly to solutions. Offering Scripture or advice immediately—while well-meaning—can sometimes shut people down if they don’t first feel heard. Rebecca encourages leaders to practice the “ministry of presence”: allowing individuals to tell their story, expressing empathy, and bearing witness to their pain. This approach helps regulate emotions and creates space for truth to be received later, when the person is more grounded and able to process it.
- You don’t need all the answers—but you need a plan. // A critical takeaway for church leaders is the importance of knowing where to turn for help. Rebecca stresses that leaders don’t need to be experts, but they must have a resource network in place. This includes vetted counselors, crisis resources, and trusted professionals they can contact when situations escalate. Without this preparation, leaders may feel stuck or overwhelmed in high-pressure moments.
- Addressing misconceptions about mental health. // Rebecca also addresses a harmful but common belief in some church contexts—that mental health struggles are simply a sin issue. While sin can play a role, this perspective oversimplifies the complexity of the human mind. She explains that just as the body can become ill, so can the mind. Ignoring this reality can lead to shame, misdiagnosis, and ineffective care. Instead, churches need a more integrated understanding of people as whole beings.
- Why the church must engage this conversation. // If churches remain silent on mental health, people will seek answers elsewhere—from social media, AI tools, or secular sources that may lack biblical grounding. Rebecca urges leaders to step into this space with confidence and compassion, offering both truth and practical support. The church has an opportunity to be a trusted starting point for healing—but only if it is equipped to respond.
- A practical next step for every church. // Rebecca strongly recommends that anyone working with people receive basic crisis training, such as QPR (Question, Persuade, Refer). This short training equips leaders to recognize warning signs, respond appropriately, and guide individuals toward help. It’s a simple but powerful step that can literally save lives.
To learn more about Rebecca Maxwell and her book, Jesus and Your Mental Health: Linking God’s Word and Modern Science to Find Peace about Mental Health, visit JesusAndYourMentalHealth.com and download a sample here. Explore additional resources at jacksonvillecounseling.net.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in today. You’re gonna be rewarded for that. I know that the conversation we’re having today, that this week, probably four or five times, you’ve thought about issues adjacent to this, and it’s gonna be super helpful. We are leveraging an expert. We’re gonna take advantage of this person to really help you this week and to help you solve some real problems.
Rich Birch — Excited to have Rebecca Maxwell with us. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist. She started Jacksonville Counseling Services in 2015 to serve her Florida community with counseling services that integrate best practices with a biblical foundation.
Rich Birch — The cool thing about Rebecca, well, there’s lots of cool things about her, but one of the cool things about her is prior to her voyage into marriage and family therapy, she spent 15, not 50 years in…
Rebecca Maxwell — I look amazing.
Rich Birch — Yeah, exactly. …in church ministry with children, adolescents, and family. So it’s just a great background, dual background for us to kind of tap into today. Rebecca, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.
Rebecca Maxwell — Yeah, glad to be here, Rich.
Rich Birch — Apologize for the 50 year. That’s…
Rebecca Maxwell — Hey, I mean, I look good for doing this for 50 years.
Rich Birch — Yeah exactly. Why don’t you kind of give us a bit of a background? Tell us, fill out that, you know, bio a little bit. Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Rebecca Maxwell — Yeah, so I’m married to a pastor, but I want to just be clear that I was in ministry first.
Rich Birch — Yes. Good. Good.
Rebecca Maxwell — I fell I fell into ministry ah after getting a degree in management from Georgia Tech…
Rich Birch — Okay.
Rebecca Maxwell — …and the Lord just kind of opened some doors, and I had to figure out what that was going to look like. Started in ministry to teenagers, youth. And did that faithfully for many years and also did a little bit of adult discipleship and kids ministry along the way, kind of got my training as I went along.
Rebecca Maxwell — And there was a there was a point where God was just really beginning to lay the foundation for a different direction, a new call. And I spent a couple semesters in seminary trying to figure that out and ah didn’t think that was where the Lord was taking me to finish that training. And a friend, honestly, this was the best question I’ve ever been asked. She asked me, Rebecca, what do you love about youth ministry? What’s the favorite what’s your favorite part of your job?
Rebecca Maxwell — And I said, you know, I love talking to teenagers and their parents about life stuff. And she said, well, I think you’d make a great counselor. And so that was the that was the the great question that got me in the direction of seeking more training in counseling. And I did marriage and family therapy because I was working with family so much…
Rich Birch — Right.
Rebecca Maxwell — …and really believing that the health of the family was so important to the health of the kids. And the kids were really like my driving force in what I was doing.
Rich Birch — So cool.
Rebecca Maxwell — So that it took me in that direction and along the way got to do some cool things in ministry and now working alongside churches in Christian, biblically based, also clinically informed counseling.
Rebecca Maxwell — And so I have a practice in Jacksonville of there there’s about 18 of us now. And along the way, God gave me an experience that allowed me to to really know that I needed to be distinctively Christian and biblically based in my practice, that that was going to be important for my community. And so that’s that’s what we do. We try to bridge the best of psychological science with what the Bible says…
Rich Birch — Yeah, so good.
Rebecca Maxwell — …and serve our community.
Rich Birch — Well, friends, you can see why I’m excited to have Rebecca on the on the call today, because I think, well, there’s a lot there, but there’s you know this idea of of being clinically informed and biblically based. I think you have a lot to help us think through these issues you know as pastors, as leaders. You know We’re wrestling with these kinds of questions all the time.
Rebecca Maxwell — Of course.
Rich Birch — We’re thinking about all of these things, referring people, and all this this comes up all the time. So you spent 15 years in church ministry before going down this road of being a licensed therapist. What did you see during those years as you reflect back on that time that made you realize, hey, maybe maybe church leaders need more help in this space? I’m declaring that I think we do. So, you know, I’m putting those words in your mouth. So, you know, don’t you know don’t be offended, listeners. That’s me saying that. But what do you what do you think?
Rebecca Maxwell — Yeah, I think that I didn’t know what I was seeing when I was in ministry with some students and their families. I just knew that there was distress…
Rich Birch — Right.
Rebecca Maxwell — …and I didn’t know why in some cases. And not everything was a mental health issue, but I certainly missed a lot of those. I didn’t know how to meet kids and families who were in like mental crisis moments.
Rebecca Maxwell — So, you know, my husband has been all the way through seminary. And so I know that he took one class in pastoral counseling that I helped him with.
Rich Birch — Right.
Rebecca Maxwell — And so this is a big issue in our community. And I don’t think that church leaders are generally well-equipped, like broadly.
Rich Birch — Right.
Rebecca Maxwell — I know there are there are more and more church leaders who are doing a deeper dive into understanding mental health and mental illness. But I would say by and large, the training isn’t there. And the problem with that is that people, parishioners, are going to go to their church leaders first when they’re struggling because they’re trusted. They’re a trusted source of on life. And so if our folks aren’t trained well, they can unintentionally cause harm. And I want to emphasize unintentionally…
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Rebecca Maxwell — …because nobody wants to miss something or cause harm. And, you know, they may accidentally just miss things. And, you know, suicide continues to be on the rise. And we don’t want to miss the pleas, the cries of a desperate person. And we also don’t want to minimize those.
Rebecca Maxwell — We don’t want to give, you know, Christian euphemisms that don’t really address and see what’s going on deeper. Because not people don’t always show you what’s going on deeper right in the beginning. So a little bit of training goes a long way. And I know having been there and even now today, like we just don’t have enough, enough knowledge.
Rich Birch — Right.
Rebecca Maxwell — And church leaders are never going to be master’s level therapists. That’s not I’m asking for.
Rich Birch — No. Right.
Rebecca Maxwell — But I think we can have a better partnership to help each other.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s, that’s good. Well, let’s, let’s start. I want to come back to the the suicide question in a minute.
Rebecca Maxwell — Okay.
Rich Birch — So I want to put a a bookmark in that and come back to that. Cause there’s specifically, I want, I got a couple of questions around that, that I’d love to get your thoughts on. But let’s go back to that idea of pastors getting the first call. Many of us have been in on that, right? We get the, you know, a family’s in crisis mode. Something’s falling apart. I can’t, I can’t deal with this situation.
Rich Birch — In fact, actually, I’ve used this yeah as like an example when training campus pastors where I’m like, there’s, you know, when someone calls you with a crisis call like that, what you say in the first 30 seconds matters.
Rebecca Maxwell — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Like actually that, you know, even on the phone, you know, hey, you know, so what, what happens, talk to us from your perspective, what, what usually happens in that conversation or what, where, where could that go sideways? How do we, how do we end up maybe intentionally we’re trying, unintentionally we’re trying to help, but we, things just don’t go right because we do something dumb, you know, in the, in the first little bit.
Rebecca Maxwell — Well, think all of us are problem solvers. And so we want to give someone a solution to the thing that they’re experiencing.
Rich Birch — Right.
Rebecca Maxwell — And so that’s where we can like well-intentioned, we can kind of drop people. Because if we too quickly try to just point them to a scripture or give them a truth, which is true, we can tell them some true things about who God is and, and where he’s working and those sorts of things. And again, it’s true. But sometimes in that moment, it’s not helpful.
Rich Birch — Right.
Rebecca Maxwell — Sometimes a person needs to get out a little bit more of what they’re experiencing and just have someone to bear witness to their pain, right? And we see this in the scripture. Jesus did this over and over where he he he spent that time with someone to kind of bear witness to their pain before he sent them in a different direction.
Rebecca Maxwell — And obviously we need both of those. I don’t want people just swimming around in the pain forever either. That’s not helpful. But I do think we move too quickly sometimes when we get that first call. You know, we just want to solve that thing.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Rebecca Maxwell — And sometimes we just need to kind of slow down and the and give the ministry of presence.
Rich Birch — What’s a good way, maybe maybe put a bit more kind of practical bones on that. I love that idea of the ministry of presence. Hey, we’re just going to, my job right now is just to be here with you. Talk us through what that looks like.
Rebecca Maxwell — Yeah, I think it’s allowing someone to get their story out. And sometimes that’s not convenient because sometimes it’s long, you know.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Rebecca Maxwell — So to get their story out to and to be listening for the strengths and the positives that the person might be saying but isn’t quite aware of.
Rebecca Maxwell — And actually…
Rebecca Maxwell — you know, this, this happened yesterday to us.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Rebecca Maxwell — And so maybe like a story will help.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, that’s great.
Rebecca Maxwell — Someone called in to our main office line and got one of actually my personal assistant, didn’t get the clinical admin, but got my personal assistant. And asked the question, if I kill myself, will I go to hell?
Rich Birch — Wow.
Rebecca Maxwell — Yeah. And my personal assistant knew enough to reach out to our team right away. And so I was able to help kind of walk her through what to do. And some of the things that I told her were just keep this person talking, right? Ask about their life, all aspects of what’s going on. Let them get their story out. Because what happens when we put words to our experience and someone bears witness to that is the emotions don’t have such a grip on us. They kind of relax a little bit.
Rebecca Maxwell — And my assistant told me that as she was able to kind of just continue to keep this this woman talking, that she could just, over the phone line, experience kind of that release, that she got a little bit of relief, not ultimate relief…
Rich Birch — Right.
Rebecca Maxwell — …but a little bit of relief just in telling her story. And my personal assistant, I was able to walk her through listening for the strengths, listening for the positive things, that then you can come back around to. Not minimizing or negating the struggle, but bringing more balance to the truth. Because because then when they when they calm down and they’re more in their logical brain then you’re able to deliver truth in a way that they can grab onto.
Rich Birch — That’s good. Right.
Rebecca Maxwell — But when they’re heightened and they’re in such distress trying to kind of speak truth in that moment just kind of bounces off of them. Does that make sense?
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, there’s that moment of like it’s like that fight or flight thing that’s going on in our brain, right?
Rebecca Maxwell — Yes.
Rich Birch — Where we’re just like, I just want out of this situation…
Rebecca Maxwell — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …whatever’s happening to me…
Rebecca Maxwell — Yes.
Rich Birch — …and and none of us make, you know, wise decisions in those moments.
Rebecca Maxwell — No.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s amazing. How did your, well, first of all, like, I think all of our churches have got a call like that, maybe not exactly that one, but you get that call that’s like, whoa, this is, this is heavy. And particularly, yeah, so so how how did your, how did your assistant know what to do in that moment? How did you, like, that doesn’t, is that under other duties as assigned? How does, how did you, how are they prepared for that?
Rebecca Maxwell — Well, I think one, she doesn’t have the clinical experience, but she is a believer and she’s walking with the Lord and she has the ultimate power source within her. So she knew to immediately start kind of praying in her spirit as she was talking.
Rich Birch — Right. Right. Right.
Rebecca Maxwell — And then she knew where to go. She knew who to call on.
Rebecca Maxwell — And I think that that’s another important concept for church leaders is: Who are you going to call on in a crisis?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Rebecca Maxwell — When you are sitting with someone who is actively considering ending their life, or they’re just in a really, maybe they’re not at that point, but there’s they’re dealing with something else.
Rich Birch — Right.
Rebecca Maxwell — Who are you going to call on? You don’t, I tell church leaders, you don’t have to have all the answers. You don’t have to know exactly what to do and where to where to point people, but you have to know where to go to resource yourself.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Rebecca Maxwell — And that’s what my personal assistant knew.
Rich Birch — Right.
Rebecca Maxwell — She knew how to resource herself, how to get some help. And so I was able to, you know, she’s on the phone and I’m texting her questions and things like that…
Rich Birch — Right. Okay.
Rebecca Maxwell — …so she knew where to go. Yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. You know, a best practice i’ve we’ve seen in many churches, ah but I’m surprised, I still am surprised that when I bumped into churches and they don’t have this, is like a resource list of like, here are some trusted counselors, some trusted people to talk about. Talk to us about that from your side. You’ve seen both sides of that equation. How do we develop a list like that? How do we how do we make that available? How do we how do we do that in a way that is most helpful for for our team, for maybe our staff, or for people who are just at our church.
Rebecca Maxwell — Yeah, it takes a little bit of time, but there are resources in your community. You just have to find them, usually.
Rich Birch — Right. Yep.
Rebecca Maxwell — And there are some purely online resources as well. I think the first step is probably gaining some understanding of the different types of clinicians who are out there…
Rich Birch — Right.
Rebecca Maxwell — …and and what they’re best suited for, what issues they’re best suited for.
Rich Birch — Right.
Rebecca Maxwell — You may have someone in your congregation who is a counselor. And so that might be a good first step is to get them on board to help you create a vetted list to what should I be asking when I want to partner with someone?
Rebecca Maxwell — Because it’s one thing to say, I’m a Christian and a counselor. It’s another thing to say, I am counseling from a biblical framework. I’m counseling from a biblical worldview. And so you know, understanding how to make that distinction, you know, someone in, in your congregation may, may have the ability to do that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Rebecca Maxwell — But just how to ask the right questions so that you can begin to build a resource list of, like I said, we are biblical worldview clinically, like informed. And so you, you want to have some people like that…
Rich Birch — Right.
Rebecca Maxwell — …because we are operating under the license of our state. We have a code of ethics that we’re following. We have oversight. And I think that’s really important. You also have biblical and pastoral counselors that are some are very, very well trained. But you need to understand like what that lane is…
Rich Birch — Right.
Rebecca Maxwell — …and what is a more clinically informed lane. And so, and a lot of people don’t have that understanding and rightfully so. Right? There’s so many different practitioners and we don’t, we don’t really know who has kind of what skills and what’s appropriate in their lane.
Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely. you got to do a little bit of research around even the language that’s used, you know, the difference between like a life coach and a counselor…
Rebecca Maxwell — Right.
Rich Birch — …and a therapist.
Rebecca Maxwell — Right.
Rich Birch — And, you know, like, and, you know, be a little bit suspicious of people if they’re like, hey, I want to get on that list. And are there any from your—give us the inside scoop—are there any red flags that you would have? Let’s say I’m reaching out, I’m talking to a number of therapists in my community and, if somebody says something or is there something that, you know, I want to be wary of, of, ohh I’m not sure we necessarily want to point people in their direction?
Rebecca Maxwell — Yeah, I think this is a more subtle one.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Rebecca Maxwell — But I think when someone says I’m a Christian, but you know, I really don’t bring that into my practice at all.
Rich Birch — You want to ask some follow-ups?
Rebecca Maxwell — Yeah, let’s ask some follow’s ah some follow ups.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah.
Rebecca Maxwell — Because in general, and I’ll kind of expound on this particular one…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Rebecca Maxwell — …regardless of what the clinician’s faith background is, we are trained to um to bring up a person’s spiritual part of self as part of holistic practice.
Rich Birch — Right.
Rebecca Maxwell — Unfortunately, a lot of clinicians are just leaving that part out completely.
Rich Birch — Okay. Yep.
Rebecca Maxwell — Because of politics and taboos and, you know, and we don’t want to get in trouble sometimes with our our licensing boards, right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Rebecca Maxwell — But we are all trained to see a person holistically. And we would, in in my field, we would say bio, psycho, social, spiritual—biological, psychological, social/relationships, and spiritual. But we’ve we’ve kind of left out the spiritual. And so, we should all, no matter whether you’re a Christian or not, we should all be asking and inquiring about a patient’s spiritual life.
Rich Birch — Right.
Rebecca Maxwell — And that’s a really easy open door. So if someone says, you know, I’m such and such, but I don’t…you know, I really don’t bring that up and in counseling at all. I understand that they’re afraid to, and there’s, I understand.
Rich Birch — Right.
Rebecca Maxwell —But you really want a clinician who’s not afraid to inquire more generally about a person’s spiritual life.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Rebecca Maxwell — And I think that’s a big one.
Rich Birch — Yeah. And the combo of doing that in a licensed environment, you know, so you’re getting kind of the best of both worlds there really makes a lot of sense. Like, Hey, were, you know, I understand why, you know, that makes, that makes sense. That’s a good, that’s a good line there.
Rich Birch — So kind of a different, it’s related, but different train of thought. I know there are churches out there that have like a, a negative view on on like mental health…
Rebecca Maxwell — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …on mental illness, on counseling in general. They they it gets really black and white. And they’re it’s like, like I have a family, yeah, I have a family member who their pastor told them, you know, it’s just totally a sin issue and like and
Rebecca Maxwell — Yes.
Rich Birch — They had been struggling with issues for a long time. And, you know, that was a huge weight on their on their life…
Rebecca Maxwell — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …that they carried, you know, for a well into their kind of 80s, late into life. And talk to us, unpack that for us. Like I think that’s just a dangerous approach, but help us and understand that mindset. Why is that dangerous? What’s behind that instinct?
Rebecca Maxwell — I think that I think the instinct is probably good that the Bible gives us everything we need for life and godliness.
Rich Birch — Right.
Rebecca Maxwell — And I think sometimes it’s just potentially a misinterpretation of just a holistic understanding heart, soul, mind, and strength of a person. That the mind…because in Deuteronomy, it, it, it doesn’t say heart, soul, mind, and strength that comes in Jesus words in, Mark. And I think also Luke, But in Deuteronomy, it’s heart, soul, strength. And so mind is not broken out in that original text.
Rebecca Maxwell — And then I believe that it is broken out and listed in the New Testament because I really think Jesus wanted to highlight that. And we see, I mean, the mind is talked about about 180 times in the New Testament. And so it’s a really important aspect of us.
Rebecca Maxwell — And so think that unintentionally the mind is not considered distinctly and is maybe not seen as an object of brokenness and illness in the same way, right? Like we see, obviously we see if the pancreas doesn’t work properly, we have diabetes, right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Rebecca Maxwell — Or we get cancer and obviously that’s not our fault. But the mind is the thing we have the most control over. And so think people think that that’s just a sin issue. You just need to stop or do something differently. And we don’t have the full understanding, especially because science is still understanding the interplay between the mind and the physical brain…
Rich Birch — Right.
Rebecca Maxwell — …and how they interact with each other. And so I just don’t think a lot of people have kind of caught up with understanding that, you know, that is a distinct part of self that can be broken, just like the body can be broken.
Rich Birch — Right. Just like having a broken leg or whatever.
Rebecca Maxwell — Right.
Rich Birch — Yeah, and that I think that’s a great that is a great transition to, you’ve actually written a book on this that I’d love to unpack a little bit. You use this you know whole self integration—heart, soul, mind, and strength. It’s kind of at the core of what you’re talking about. Why don’t you walk us through that framework a little bit more? The book we’re talking about is “Jesus and Your Mental Health: Linking God’s Word and Modern Science to Find Peace about Mental Health”.
Rich Birch — I would love people to pick up copies of this. We’ll get to that in a bit, but kind of unpack how that those four inform the framework of the conversation in this book.
Rebecca Maxwell — Yeah, so it’s really like setting our thinking on holistic health and putting mental health right inside the framework of whole self. So we do things to, we do things to help our physical health and our spiritual health and our relational health. And so we probably ought to be thinking about the health of our mind. You know, again, it’s mentioned 180 times plus in the New Testament.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Rebecca Maxwell — So it must be pretty important, this renewing of our mind and how we go about that. And this idea that we’re integrated. So our mind impacts our body, impacts our soul, and our soul impacts our body, impacts our mind, impacts our relationships. Like it’s all integrated.
Rich Birch — Right.
Rebecca Maxwell — And we can utilize some of the healthy habits of the other three parts to help our mind. And we can utilize this thing we have control over our mind to impact the other parts of self. And we know this just anecdotally in our own lives, right? Like very simple things like when my dad taught me to throw a softball, he had me point at the target and direct my body…
Rich Birch — Right.
Rebecca Maxwell — …and my mind and my eyes in that direction. And then the ball went there.
Rich Birch — Right.
Rebecca Maxwell — Well, we can use that concept, you know, in all of mental health, you know, where we direct our mind, the rest of us follows.
Rebecca Maxwell — And so really just understanding that integration and how we can use it for the common good and not, not separating this mental health and continuing to stigmatize it as, you know, sin just a sin problem. I think that’s where we go wrong, is that if you have and a malady of the mind, it’s really a sin problem. Sometimes it is.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Rebecca Maxwell — But it’s a little more complicated than that as well.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, it it seems like there’s a false dichotomy in a lot of leaders’ minds around, um well, it’s exactly were talking about, Bible and psychology, Bible and therapy. Like there’s there’s like those two things can’t interact with each other. Which which side of that equation do you experience more? Like, is it more from like church leaders that are skeptical or is it more from maybe leaders who are from outside the church who you’ve mentioned this already, who don’t pursue kind of the spiritual conversation? Which of those do you see? Cause I can see it from both sides where I’m like, oh, I could see on both sides of that conversation.
Rebecca Maxwell — Absolutely.
Rich Birch — People are like, and then we’re not meeting in the middle. And that’s why it’s great that you exist and why your organization exists. So, uh, talk to us about where do you see the pressure more from?
Rebecca Maxwell — I really see it on both sides, honestly…
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Rebecca Maxwell — …just kind of like you’re describing, you know. Secular psychology really wants to leave out, you know, spirituality and um any, any, really any firm truth, you know, absolute truth.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Rebecca Maxwell — And then the church, because of that, a lot of times just in general, we’ll be like, well, we got to throw all of that away because it’s not useful at all.
Rich Birch — Right, overreact.
Rebecca Maxwell — And I just, I don’t, I don’t think that’s helpful. We, we utilize science, scientific concepts in our everyday life. And so we, you know, we need to find the the good and the truth in what, you know, research based psychological science is showing us because there is some common good there, just like there is in, you know, other discover scientific discoveries.
Rich Birch — Well, I I think this is a great resource. I’m so glad you’ve put this book together. And I’d love to talk about how you could see it being used. I know for me, and we’ll link in the show notes actually to a sample of the book. So you can, you don’t even have to buy anything. Just look at the sample to start before you buy it. I so I thought this could be a great resource for us as like a staff team to read through as kind of like a, hey, here’s like a primer on some of these issues for us to be thinking about, even just to kind of frame the conversation to be thinking about these things.
Rich Birch — Who are you picturing as you put this together? What’s what’s your kind of vision for how you hope this resource will be used by churches?
Rebecca Maxwell — Yeah. When I wrote the book, I was picturing someone kind of like me and my friends who are, you know, love the Lord, love their families, are trying to help their families live in health in all aspects of their life. And as I was writing it, what I realized with also some prompting of my pastor was that this could be a really great resource for equipping churches.
Rebecca Maxwell — The very people that I wrote it for, the mamas, you know, in that are serving in the church and very involved, but also church staff and volunteer leaders, because what I’m trying to give people is really a grounding for how to think about mental health and mental illness from a suffering, you know putting it in like a suffering standpoint. And then equipping them with a ton of scripture to back up the understanding of the mind and the brain and how to have a healthy mind, what happens when the mind isn’t healthy and then some common both some common roots of mental illness, including trauma and family of origin issues, and then some, some really common problems in the area of mental health, anxiety, depression, grief, and loss, so that people can be equipped with a resource that they can hand to someone, or they can say, Hey, read chapter seven on anxiety…
Rich Birch — Right.
Rebecca Maxwell — …you know, and someone is going to get a biblical understanding of where anxiety shows up in the scripture. How Jesus shows up in that? What are some practical ways that psychological science gives us to deal with that? What does the Bible say about how to deal with that? And let’s kind of put all of these things together.
Rebecca Maxwell — So they’re really going have both just under an understanding of grounding in mental health and also some practical ways to address those issues. And then really ending with like, hey, how do you know when you need more help than what this book can give you?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Rebecca Maxwell — And how do you find the right person to help you?
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s fantastic. Yeah, there’s, you know, just even as I’m flipping through looking at the chapters, like just so much helpful stuff in here, identity and self-esteem. Who does Jesus say I am? Attachment. How did my childhood impact my relationship? Trauma. That’s a word we hear all the time.
Rebecca Maxwell — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Where is Jesus when that happened? And I think there’s just, this is gonna be so helpful for so many leaders to check out and and to and to use as a resource.
Rich Birch — I think this is the kind of book, like you said, I could picture, hey, I got five copies of this and I’m gonna end up in a conversation where it’s maybe not somebody that’s in like an immediate crisis right now, but they maybe their kid is wrestling with these issues. And on top of, yes, I’ll meet with them, I’ll pray with them. And yes, here’s the list of counselors, but like, here’s a book to read as well to help you think through this. I think this could be incredibly helpful for people.
Rebecca Maxwell — I hope so. Yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah, where where do where can people get, if they want to get copies of this book, where do we want to send them to pick up copies of this?
Rebecca Maxwell — Yeah, anywhere books are sold online. So Amazon and Barnes and Noble, Walmart, Target, places like that. And folks can reach out to me about getting like bulk copies.
Rich Birch — Oh, great.
Rebecca Maxwell — They may already have places they get bulk books, but they can reach out to me to get that. I have some other resources like discussion guides that I am happy to give if people reach out to me – discussion guides and other just resources for folks that maybe, I’ve had a bunch of people reach out because they want to kind of do a book study with their disciple group or things like that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Rebecca Maxwell — So, you know, my goal really is to equip the church. I want the church to be the the trusted source where people can come to and begin a healing journey. And so I think this will help equip people in the church, both, you know, paid staff and lay leaders to to really help people.
Rich Birch — If people want to reach out to you, where where do we want to, where do we do that? Where do we want them to do that to? To reach out to you?
Rebecca Maxwell — Yeah, the best is probably my website, JesusAndYourMentalHealth.com.
Rich Birch — Love it. That’s great. I want to talk about that trusted source idea that you just referenced there. This conversation is a conversation that’s happening in the broader culture. It’s just happening, right?
Rebecca Maxwell — Yes.
Rich Birch — Like it’s, you you know, you open up, I read The Economist all the time. Every week in The Economist, there’s some sort of article that is, if not directly talking about this, it’s connected to it. What happens when the church in general just stays silent on the mental health issues? What happens if we if we don’t engage this? Kind of inspire us a little bit.
Rebecca Maxwell — Yeah, well, there’s a lot of noise. And so people are going to go to TikTok and Instagram and even ChatGPT…
Rich Birch — Right. Yes.
Rebecca Maxwell — …to get there their information. And they’re not always going to get biblically informed information.
Rich Birch — Right.
Rebecca Maxwell —And that’s why it’s so important that we’re equipped because people are coming to churches more and more for practical guidance on the stuff that they’re actually going through.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Rebecca Maxwell — And the Bible is not silent on the practical stuff. And so we want to be well-equipped to go to the scripture with them and to point them in the right direction and to give them some kind of guardrails and guidance for finding help. Otherwise, it’s like you’re kind of floating out in this sea of information. I wouldn’t even say knowledge or wisdom, but information.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Rebecca Maxwell — And you don’t really know where to anchor.
Rich Birch — Bullet points. Checklist. Yes. Yes. Five steps to.
Rebecca Maxwell — Right.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s yeah, that’s ah yeah, that’s so good. It’s interesting on the AI thing. There’s but bunch of studies that have shown that’s really the primary use how people are using ChatGPT, particularly. They’re using it as like a counselor.
Rebecca Maxwell — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And um I I mean, there’s like that’s dangerous. So it’s incredible. Well, this has been a great conversation. Any kind of final words you’d say as we wrap up today’s discussion?
Rebecca Maxwell — Yeah. You know, kind of, I think the thing I want to leave people with is a little bit of where we started in the beginning, which is managing crisis. Something that’s really, I think, important for anybody working with people is to get trained in how to prevent suicide. And there is a training called QPR instead of CPR.
Rich Birch — Yeah, let tell us about this. Yeah, yeah, tell us about this. Yep.
Rebecca Maxwell — It’s QPR question, persuade, respond. And it’s like an hour long, maybe 90 minute online training or anyone that works with people can be trained in how to basically do CPR for people that are having a mental health crisis that could literally save lives. And the skills that are taught in that are transferable to people that aren’t in crisis.
Rebecca Maxwell — And so that’s the thing I mostly want to leave. Like there’s a lot of information to be found. And obviously I would love people to get my book, but I really want everyone that works with people to be trained in how to respond to people who are having a mental health crisis, how to know what to say, how to persuade them to get help. I think that, you know, we could, we’re, we could really save lives there.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s, that’s, how do we go about finding QPR training? Like if we, I think this is, again, what a great takeaway. You’ve landed this great takeaway right here at the end, even for our staff teams. Let’s get that on our schedule.
Rebecca Maxwell — Totally.
Rich Birch — Like I I think about the people that are answering the phone at the church. I’m like, I was thinking about that earlier when you were talking about your assistant. I’m like, man, I want to make sure that they get the kind of training because, you know, I don’t want to fumble that ball. So where, where do we, where would people find training this QPR training?
Rebecca Maxwell — Yeah. You can find them online. I think it’s qpr.org, but I’m kind of looking it up as we speak because I’m like, dang it, I should have had that reference.
Rich Birch — Right. Yep. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. ah
Rebecca Maxwell — QPR.
Rich Birch — No, no, that’s okay.
Rebecca Maxwell — It’s QPR. qprinstitute.com
Rich Birch — Perfect. QPR Institute.com.
Rebecca Maxwell — qprinstitute.com
Rich Birch — Great. Perfect. That’s, that’s fantastic. Well, Rebecca, I really appreciate you being on today and helping us serving us. I want to make sure folks, again, the name of that book is “Jesus and Your Mental Health: Linking God’s Word and Modern Science to Find Peace about Mental Health”. Grab that at Amazon or Barnes and Noble. We’ll put links in the show notes to that. We’ll put links in the show notes to your website, anywhere else we want to send them online so they can track with you or with the book?
Rebecca Maxwell — Yeah, our our practice website is jacksonvillecounseling.net.
Rich Birch — Perfect.
Rebecca Maxwell — So we only really can practice in Florida, Texas, Colorado. That’s where we have.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Rebecca Maxwell — But we do have a blog, a mental health blog on there. I have a podcast called Jesus and Your Mental Health. So those are some other resources just, you know, to get more information about mental health concepts. You know, we all love a good podcast and bite-sized learning on something.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Rebecca Maxwell — So those are a couple couple couple extra things for folks.
Rich Birch — Well, Rebecca, I appreciate you being here today. Thanks so much for being on the show.
Rebecca Maxwell — Yeah. Thanks, Rich.
Early in my time as an Executive Pastor, we were about halfway through what felt like a defining campaign for our church. And I was frustrated. Every time we met with our campaign consultant, they showed up with a binder (this was back in the 1900s) and we would turn pages to whatever was next. Cookie-cutter strategy. No real interest in who we were or what God was doing in our community. We fired them halfway through. Cost us real money and time.
A decade or so later, I was part of another campaign. Completely different experience. That consultant is still a friend today. We started as workmates and became something more because we drew swords together through the whole thing.
Reflecting on those two experiences over the years, across three fast-growing churches (two of which grew from under 1,000 to 4,000 or 5,000 people) and through multiple campaigns of various sizes, one thing has become clear: what makes the difference isn’t the firm you hire. It’s what you and I bring to the table.
That first campaign? I was looking to the consultant for too much. I hadn’t thought carefully enough about what we needed to bring. These firms are coaches. Coaches can only do so much when the athletes aren’t doing the reps.
Here are 10 things your church must bring to the table in your next capital campaign, whether you call it a generosity initiative, a spiritual growth season, or a building program.
1. Clarity of Vision Before You Talk About MoneyResearch consistently confirms what experienced fundraisers already know: people give to impact, not to organizational need. Penelope Burk’s Cygnus Applied Research donor surveys, conducted annually with up to 25,000 active U.S. donors, found that 67% of donors increasingly favor organizations that provide measurable results, and roughly half report they’re not giving at their full potential simply because they lack information about where the impact actually lands. [ref] Yale’s Center for Customer Insights confirmed in 2024 that aspirational, vision-driven framing significantly outperforms need-based asks in generating donor response. [ref]
For churches, the translation is practical: “We need a new roof” raises less money than “We’re building a home for the next generation of faith in our city.”
The question worth sitting with is whether the average person in your congregation can explain your vision in a single sentence, and whether that vision is genuinely bigger than the campaign itself. If your church is fuzzy on what God is uniquely calling you toward, you are not ready. The campaign is just the next step out of a clear vision. Without that clarity established first, the campaign will underperform regardless of the firm you bring in.
2. Leadership Alignment at the TopWhen campaigns underperform, the culprit is almost never the economy, the giving culture of your congregation, or the consultant. In my experience, it’s misalignment at the senior leadership level, and the research on this is hard to argue with.
Prosci’s Best Practices in Change Management research, now in its 12th edition and spanning 25 years across more than 10,800 professionals globally, has found that active and visible executive sponsorship is the single #1 contributor to initiative success in every benchmarking study since 1998. Campaigns with effective senior sponsors succeed 79% of the time; those without that alignment drop to 27%. [ref] McKinsey’s global survey data found that transformations are 12.4 times more likely to succeed when senior leaders communicate continually, and 47% of executives who had been through a major transformation wished they had spent more time aligning their top team before the launch. [ref]
Your campaign consultant cannot create unity. That work belongs to you. Senior leadership team members and elders who are privately skeptical before the campaign goes public will erode trust once the pressure arrives, and the pressure always arrives. Getting that alignment sorted before you move is one of the most important things you can do, and it’s entirely on your shoulders.
3. A Willingness to Actually Do the WorkHere’s something worth saying plainly: most capital campaign firms follow a nearly identical strategy. There’s a leadership phase, a core donor phase, a volunteer phase, a public phase, a pledge weekend, and follow-up. You could ask an AI to outline any firm’s likely approach and have a reasonable answer in about 10 minutes.
The strategy isn’t what separates campaigns that transform churches from campaigns that disappoint them. Execution is.
McKinsey’s global transformation data tells a similar story: only 26% of major organizational transformations actually succeed. [ref]
Think about it like my Peloton. The instructor can give me a plan, show me the gauges, compare my output to other riders, and tell me exactly what to do. She cannot make me get on the bike and push hard. That part is entirely on me.
A campaign running in parallel with normal ministry operations is essentially asking your team to do two full-time jobs simultaneously. Budget your team’s capacity honestly before you start, and make structural space for your people to actually execute the work the campaign requires.
4. A Culture of RepetitionBehavioral science is consistent on this: people need to hear a message many times before it moves them to action. The old “rule of 7” from marketing turns out to be folklore with no traceable original source, and research suggests the real threshold is higher. Schmidt and Eisend’s 2015 meta-analysis in the Journal of Advertising found that peak attitude change happens at around 10 exposures. [ref] In a world of increasing distraction, that number is almost certainly climbing.
At one church I was part of, I counted how many times the lead pastor repeated the core campaign message before the first public Sunday. The answer was 23. That’s not overkill. That’s how transformation actually works.
Leaders get tired of the message long before the congregation does. Your congregation is always further behind than you think they are. The leaders who succeed in this season are the ones who lock in their messaging early and walk it out consistently, without flinching when it starts to feel repetitive to them personally.
5. Strong Engagement with Key Donors Before the Campaign LaunchesI don’t know your church, but I can predict with reasonable confidence that close to 50% of your church’s donations come from roughly 10% of your people. The AFP Fundraising Effectiveness Project, covering 12,000+ nonprofits and 6.7 million donors, found that just 3.1% of donors contributed 77.7% of all fundraising dollars in 2024. [ref] Industry benchmarks suggest 80 to 90% of a campaign goal comes from the top 10 to 20 gifts.
The biggest checks come from the smallest rooms.
If you have done little or no relational investment with your top-tier donors before you start thinking about a campaign, you are already behind. Early donor conversations are not about pressure; they are about invitation. These are your most generous people. Giving them the privilege of early connection, of being brought into what God is doing before the rest of the congregation hears about it, is not a fundraising tactic. It’s honoring a relationship.
Start building that now, well before you need anything from them.
6. A Real Follow-Up PlanHere is something that can quietly sink a campaign before it ever goes public: pledges that never get followed up on.
Well-managed capital campaigns actually have strong fulfillment rates. The follow-up process is what converts a signed pledge card into a fulfilled gift over time.
Before you go public, map out your entire follow-up phase: regular donor communications, pledge reminders, giving statements, and a clear plan for when someone falls behind. One practical contract note worth flagging: make sure your agreement with your campaign consultant keeps them engaged through the follow-up phase, not just through Pledge Sunday.
Campaigns that struggle with fulfillment almost always lose their way in exactly this stretch.
7. Financial and Operational ReadinessPlan to spend somewhere in the range of 3 to 5% of your total campaign goal on the campaign itself, covering communications, events, materials, and video production. Most churches underbudget this category significantly. Running a campaign well requires real financial investment.
The operational issue that almost took us down was different, though: our giving infrastructure wasn’t ready for a surge.
In one campaign I was leading, I had a conversation with our finance team the morning of our public launch. “Are we ready?” I asked. “Yeah, yeah, we’re ready,” they said. I think part of them didn’t genuinely believe we’d see what we were hoping for. We were targeting over a million dollars in a single day. We hit it. And then our payment processor shut us down because we hadn’t prepared for a transaction volume that size.
The friction in your systems is costing you generosity that’s already there, from people who were ready to give. Test your systems with your processor before launch day, and know your transaction limits before you run into them at the worst possible moment.
8. Emotional and Spiritual ResilienceLeaders who have been through campaigns almost universally surface the same surprise: the internal relational strain was harder than they expected. When resources get focused on specific ministry areas, other leaders can feel overlooked or left out. Add the extra workload, the high stakes, and the spiritual opposition that tends to accompany anything of real Kingdom significance, and you have a reliable recipe for team fracture if you’re not paying attention.
A campaign doesn’t create those pressures; it amplifies whatever is already present. Building in regular rhythms of prayer, celebration, and genuine rest throughout the entire season matters more than most leaders plan for. A friend of mine who recently finished a significant campaign took a real vacation between the core donor phase and the public phase. He went to Mexico and unplugged completely. Looking back, he said he doesn’t think he could have led the public phase well without it.
That kind of intentional recovery isn’t optional; it’s what makes the second half of the campaign possible.
9. A Plan for the Dip MomentsMany churches experience a drop in weekend attendance during a campaign season, and too many leaders take it personally or treat it as a sign that the campaign is going sideways.
It’s predictable. Research on organizational transitions documents a well-established pattern: performance and engagement typically dip during major change before recovering and eventually surpassing prior levels. Researchers call this the Productivity J-Curve. [ref]
When you’re in a big campaign, some people feel the weight of a vision Sunday and take a step back for a few weeks. Most of them come back. Some won’t. Rather than spiraling when the dip arrives, focus your energy on what comes after: a strong re-engagement plan for the weeks following your public ask.
Also worth planning for financially: total operational giving can dip slightly during a campaign season, even in a one-fund model. Some operational giving temporarily redirects. It doesn’t always happen, but building a budget that accounts for it protects you from making reactive decisions mid-campaign based on a short-term fluctuation that was always predictable.
10. Full Ownership of the OutcomeNo consultant, regardless of how experienced or gifted, can deliver this for you.
The churches that see campaigns change their trajectory are the ones whose leaders own the outcome completely. They don’t engage a firm and hand off the responsibility. They understand the consultant’s role clearly: someone who comes alongside to coach them through a process they are running themselves.
Research on coaching outcomes gives this some weight. Olivero, Bane, and Kopelman found that training alone increased productivity by 22.4%, but training combined with coaching increased it by 88%, nearly four times the gain. [ref] The difference between those two numbers comes down to ownership and active application. Coaching works because the person being coached has to do the work themselves.
You are not paying someone to run your campaign. You are paying someone to coach you while you run it. Feel that difference before you sign anything.
The campaigns I’ve seen genuinely transform churches had one thing in common: the senior leader and the Executive Pastor were fully in. They treated the outcome as theirs. That posture, more than any strategy or any firm, is what makes the difference.
One last thing before you start calling firms: walk through these 10 areas honestly with your senior leader and your key staff. Figure out where you’re strong and where you have real work to do before a consultant ever walks in the door.
The campaigns that go well aren’t ones where the consultant was exceptional.
They’re the ones where the church was ready.
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Hal Mayer, a coach and consultant who works with pastors and business leaders to help them grow healthy teams without burning out. With decades of ministry experience and a background in coaching, Hal brings actionable insights into one of the most common leadership challenges: how to move a team from passive compliance to active engagement.
Are you carrying too much of the leadership load yourself? Feeling like you’re the only one coming up with ideas or pushing things forward? In this conversation, Hal shares a simple but effective framework to help leaders shift from telling to asking—and unlock the potential of their teams.
- Why teams become disengaged. // One of the most common frustrations leaders express is that their team feels stagnant or unmotivated. Hal suggests this is often not a team problem but a leadership problem. When leaders consistently provide the answers, shut down ideas, or unintentionally reward passivity, team members learn that their input isn’t needed. Over time, they stop contributing and simply comply. What appears as laziness is often the result of a system that has trained people not to engage.
- From answer-giver to question-asker. // Many leaders are promoted because they have strong ideas and can solve problems quickly. However, if they continue operating as the “answer person,” they eventually limit both their own capacity and the development of their team. Hal emphasizes that asking better questions is the key to unlocking engagement. Questions reveal what team members understand, help them think critically, and shift ownership of solutions back to them. When people help create the solution, their investment in execution increases dramatically.
- The Smart Ask framework. // Hal introduces a practical coaching framework called Smart Ask, designed to guide conversations that lead to action. The process begins broadly by asking, “What issues are you facing?” This allows team members to surface their own challenges and become more self-aware. From there, the leader helps narrow the focus by identifying one clear goal for the conversation—something the person can act on immediately. Next comes a pivotal question: “If you could try anything, what would you do?” This opens up creativity and removes internal barriers that might limit thinking. From there, the conversation moves toward selecting one idea, identifying potential roadblocks, and outlining specific next steps. By the end, the team member leaves with a clear, self-generated action plan.
- Why buy-in matters more than the idea. // Even a great idea will underperform if the person responsible for executing it isn’t fully invested. Conversely, a slightly weaker idea can produce better results if the team member has full ownership and enthusiasm. Engagement drives execution. When leaders consistently choose their own ideas over their team’s, they unintentionally lower buy-in and limit results.
- Coaching toward self-leadership. // Over time, consistently using questions develops leaders who can think and solve problems independently. Hal describes the ultimate goal as “self-coaching” where team members begin asking themselves the same questions and generating solutions without needing constant input. This not only reduces the leader’s workload but also builds a stronger, more capable team.
- Balancing development and delegation. // Hal cautions that delegation is not the first step. Rather, it’s the result of development. Leaders must invest time in coaching and guiding their team before handing off responsibility. Skipping this process leads to frustration and failure. However, when leaders take the time to develop people through intentional questions and feedback, they create a foundation for effective delegation and long-term growth.
- Recognizing true engagement. // Leaders can spot engagement by watching for energy, initiative, and ownership. Engaged team members proactively solve problems, follow through on ideas, and bring solutions rather than just concerns. In contrast, disengagement shows up as slow execution, repeated questions, or a lack of enthusiasm. These are signals that more coaching, and better questions, are needed.
- Leading with humility and transparency. // For leaders who recognize they’ve been over-directing, Hal encourages a simple starting point: acknowledge it. Telling your team, “I’ve been giving too many answers, and I want to change that,” creates trust and opens the door for a new dynamic. This kind of vulnerability invites feedback and helps reset expectations for how the team will function moving forward.
To learn more about Hal Mayer and his resources—including Smart Ask and The Coaching Playbook—visit halmayer.com or find his books on Amazon.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: TouchPoint
As your church reaches more people, one of the biggest challenges is making sure no one slips through the cracks along the way.
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you are tuned in to today’s episode. Man, we’ve got something super helpful for us. It’s one of these areas that many of us spend lots of time doing, but we maybe haven’t taken a step back and think thought about what do we do in coaching relationships? We all are involved in coaching staff and people on our teams. And today we want to help you with some practical steps to make that even better.
Rich Birch — Excited to have Hal Mayer with us. He’s a coach and consultant for both businesses and business leaders and pastors who want to grow but don’t want to burn out. He’s authored a few books, including “Smart Ask”, “The Coaching Playbook”, and excited to have Hal on the episode today. Welcome. So glad you’re here.
Hal Mayer — It’s good to be here, Rich. I’ve been a fan on the sidelines for years, and unSeminary was so good because I did the seminary thing, and I did all the stuff, and you’re right. There’s so many things we didn’t talk about there that you help us prepare for, so thank you for what you’re doing.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s super exciting. That’s kind of you to say, but I’m I’m really looking forward to today’s conversation. It’s been a while coming and so excited. We bumped into each other at the Exponential conference this year.
Hal Mayer — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Shout out to Exponential. I was like, we got to get you on. So excited that you’re here today. Well, why don’t we kind of start. Give us kind of the Hal background. Tell us for folks that don’t know, you know, you give us the kind of the 90 second, this is who Hal is conversation.
Hal Mayer — Yeah, I, ah goodness, was born up north, came to faith in Georgia in high school. We moved down there, played basketball in college, and then coached for about five years. Married Sandy, moved off to seminary, finished that up, and I’ve been in Florida since ’84, serving in churches from the size of 200 to 12,000.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Hal Mayer — So all over the yard, and also do some business coaching in the middle of that.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good. Yeah. And I’m, I really, that’s really what I want to tap in today. You spend your days coaching both pastors and businesses leaders, like we talked about that.
Rich Birch — When, when someone first sits down with you, I want to kind of use the fact that you have a lot of these conversations today to help our listeners kind of take advantage of you. When someone first sits down with you, what’s like a common version of stuck that you hear, whether it’s a pastor or maybe a business leader, like do you hear common themes with folks.
Hal Mayer — Yeah, you know, probably the most common thing I hear is our team’s stuck, our team’s stagnant. And I’ll say, what do you mean by that? And they’ll often say something that relates to this of, I have to come up with all the ideas. It seems like I’m the only one pushing the team to get going. I’m the only one with the ideas. They just seem often lazy, or they’re not doing it. What do I do to engage them?
Rich Birch — Right. Love that. Well, man, I wish I hadn’t thought that. I haven’t thought that as a leader over the years. What what, so then take us the next step from there. What what, as you’re kind of coaching someone, I’m assuming as a leader, you know, I, or one of my convictions is our teams are a by-product of our leadership…
Hal Mayer — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …and we’re leading in a way that’s leading them to act that way. So what what leads our people to be like that?
Hal Mayer — Yeah, I think it’s the leader. And that’s the fun thing to do. As a parent, I loved watching my kids do something that was dumb, but they repeated it, and it’s because it was rewarded.
Hal Mayer — So I watch team members disengage because they come up with an idea and it gets shot down. Or they ask everybody in the room the idea and it’s only the leader’s idea they go with. And when that happens, they they kind of go, well, I guess we’re just here to hear his ideas. And they start pulling back and not engaging and just being compliant.
Rich Birch — Interesting. I remember years ago we had a coach in who said who said to us, this is when I was on the senior leadership team of a fairly large church, fast growing. We were like four or 5,000 people at the time. And he spent a bunch of time with our ah you know with our team, with us.
Rich Birch — And ah he looked at us and he said, listen, you guys answer way too many questions. You need to be asking more questions than answering questions.
Rich Birch — And that was a pivotal you know changing moment for me as a leader. I was like, oh, Oh my word, that is so true. Talk us through that dynamic of, you know, asking the right questions versus always being the answer man or the answer person.
Hal Mayer — You know, we usually get promoted because we did the job well or we have the answers. If we continue in that framework, one day we will run out of the answers, but let’s say we’re in that framework. I’m not developing anybody if it’s only my ideas we’re using. And if we’re only using my ideas, they’ve got ideas, but they’re dying. So what I encourage and push guys to do is exactly what you said, ask questions.
Hal Mayer — I mean, questions will do a couple things. One, it will tell me what they understand. I mean, do they really understand the problem? I say, tell me what’s going on. Okay. What do you see here? And all that. It tells me, do they understand the problem? And I may have to probe some more, but I want them solving things that I find out about later. And to do that, I’ve got to lead different.
Hal Mayer — For me, we were in a fast growing church in South Florida. And I was the answer man. And what I realized was I’m working harder and harder and I’m not developing people. So I started stepping back and then learning this principle and started asking questions, looking for their engagement. Here’s what I found. When they had the answer or they got to do what they wanted to do, their engagement went way up.
Hal Mayer — So for me, not only did it go up, they began to develop. And I’ve had somebody say, well, I don’t have time to develop people. He said, in fact, if I develop them, they’ll just leave me. I say, yeah, yeah you know, it’s worse is if you don’t develop them, they stay, right? Right.
Rich Birch — Right. Exactly.
Hal Mayer — So I found this to be a tool for development: asking questions.
Rich Birch — Okay, that’s cool. I, like talk to me more about engagement. What would be some telltale signs for you of like someone who’s really engaged, fully engaged versus, you know, when your team isn’t as engaged? Because maybe we’re having a hard time even discerning what that looks like.
Hal Mayer — Yeah, I I mean, if they’re slow walking the solve that we came up with, if there’s no passion around it, if there’s no energy going in it, and I find myself even answering the same question over and over, I’m realizing more and more, I don’t have engagement. I’ve got compliance. And I really want them engaged and dialing in to what we’re doing. And to get that, I’m going to have to get them on the same page.
Rich Birch — Well, and then obviously questions are at at a core of this. And a part of what I love about your resource, “The Smart Ask” or just “Smart Ask” is this framework, it’s it’s, you know, it’s simple…
Hal Mayer — Yes.
Rich Birch — …but powerful. So why don’t you kind of talk us through the Smart Ask framework? What’s kind of the basic arc that you try to walk someone through?
Hal Mayer — Very good.
Rich Birch — Coach us through that. Talk us through what that looks like.
Hal Mayer — I start very broad and I’ll say, and by the way, I take notes, but at the end I give them the notes and I’ll explain that in a minute.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Hal Mayer — So I’ll I’ll ask permission, can I take some notes? And they’ll say, sure. And I say, I’m going to give them to you. But our first question is, what are the issues you’re facing right now? And let them just elevate them out. Let them say everything they want to say, every problem they’ve got.
Hal Mayer — And then I’d say looking at these problems, is what’s one goal that we could have for our time today? Now, what that does is it focuses it on a goal and what they’re going to do, not on me. It can’t be, how could you find me 10 more leaders? That’s not something we can do in that meeting.
Rich Birch — Right.
Hal Mayer — So I want a goal from them, something they can do when they leave the meeting. And so they say, you know what? I want to face this volunteer engagement. In fact, I use the illustration from the book about a preschool lady who said, I need 30 more volunteers to serve in preschool. And I said, well, I can’t get that for you now. So her goal was come up with an idea that I could engage 30 more people. And then I’d go with this.
Hal Mayer — Okay. If you could do anything, what would you try? Yeah. And of course, the first, she says, anything? She said, yeah. She said, I’ll pay them $1,000 a piece. I said, okay.
Rich Birch — Right.
Hal Mayer — And I just write it down to go ahead and get that out and get them moving on to the next thing.
Rich Birch — Right.
Hal Mayer — And they run through things. And I listen, I’ve got to be careful not to go, oh, that’s a really good one. But let them talk about it. And as they get through, if I’ve got something at the end, I mean, as they’re going, I’ll go, anything else you could try? Anything else you could try? And you feel like you’re asking that too much, but what you’re doing is just unpacking all of it. If I’ve got an idea, I can add that in, but I don’t give any passion to it because I don’t want to control.
Hal Mayer — Then I’ll say, now look at these. Which one of these ideas would you like to explore further? And they’ll look, and this lady said, I want to explore the one about a lemonade stand in the lobby, which I thought was a dumb idea. I didn’t tell her that, but I thought, aaaah.
Rich Birch — Right.
Hal Mayer — So then I said, okay, what potential roadblocks? Well, I’ve got to talk to leadership. Okay, what else? And they talk about that. And any detours?
Hal Mayer — Well, if this happens, we’re walking through solving the problem before it approaches, right? And then the last thing I said, okay, if you’re going to do this, what will it look like? And we list out six or eight things. And I say, okay, let me know like it goes. And hand her the paper. In this case, I said, hey, listen, let me know on Instagram how it went.
Rich Birch — Oh, nice.
Hal Mayer — So the next week she picked up 40 new workers. And this was a very large church.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Hal Mayer — She picked up 40 workers with this idea, because it was hers. And to me, it was crazy. It worked.
Hal Mayer — But so the the framework is you’re starting broad and you’re narrowing down. And I’m actually getting a set of to-dos and objectives. One, two, three, four, five. Then I hand them that. They’ve got their plan. All going to do is execute it. And they develop it when I’m asking them questions.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that.
Hal Mayer — Now, let me tell one of the advantages of that too.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Hal Mayer — If I use that enough with them, there’s going to be a time when they come to me and say, and want to talk to me and I’m not available. They’ll say, well all he was going to do is ask questions.
Rich Birch — Right.
Hal Mayer — And they start going through the questions and they start self-coaching is what they do. And that’s the end game. That’s what I want. And by the way, when I use questions with people, I explain to them what I just did. So they can then take it and use it somewhere else.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. I’d love to start right back at the beginning.
Hal Mayer — Sure.
Rich Birch — I love this idea of really starting at a wide open. Hey, what challenges are you facing today? I think too often if we’re, I’m thinking in kind of the one-on-one situation, maybe I’m an executive pastor at a church of 1,500. One of my people comes to me and I go to that conversation, and I’ve got five things I want to talk to them about.
Hal Mayer — Right.
Rich Birch — But I love, you know, starting with what challenges are you facing? What happens if we skip that with people? If we if we don’t start there, I’m sure we get, you know, we end up in all kinds of bad places. Talk us through why you encourage people to start with that question.
Hal Mayer — Especially early on when you’re coaching folks, because as they go later, they’ll kind of work through that, no, that’s the framework I’m going to work with. And they’ll come up with their biggest issue. But the reason I do that, I want to show this value to everything they’re facing. And I want them to elevate it, not me tell them what they’re doing, so they become more self-aware.
Hal Mayer — Now, if they don’t list one of the things I see as an issue, I may say, and what about this? Is this an issue for you? Oh, yeah, that too. I just don’t want to put a lot of passion on it because then they’ll do what I want. And I want them to do something they’re passionate about because the framework just means I’m going to get more from it.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. That that’s a key lesson. I think particularly for first-time managers or people who haven’t managed a lot of people before, we don’t realize the weight of our voice, right?
Hal Mayer — Right.
Rich Birch — If we, you know, even by saying like, oh yeah, you’re right. That’s a good idea. Then all of a sudden they’re running with that idea just because you indicated it. That’s an interesting thing. That’s interesting.
Rich Birch — Now one of the, I mean, you kind of pulled it apart, but I would love to double click on it there. To me, as I go through your framework, I can imagine, that, hey, “what if you could try anything” is a is a pivotal moment, is kind of a turning point, it is an important question. Why is that and so important? Maybe give us another example. I love the idea when you talked through with the lemonade stand, but talk us through why that’s so important and what does that unlock as we’re interacting with our teams and people?
Hal Mayer — That’s a great question because what will happen there is if we don’t ask that question, ah it’s “what if you could try anything”, they may be in the back of their mind have something they go I can’t try that. So they keep trying to think somewhere else. Just get it out on paper.
Hal Mayer — It’s like when I feel stressed or something, I just list everything that I’m dealing with and then I can focus on one thing.
Hal Mayer — But I allow them to get it all out at that point of trying this and trying that. And usually what will happen is they’ll come up with six or seven ideas. And I say, “and what else” a lot? And it seems like I’m saying a lot, but is when they’re in the zone, they’re answering, well, could try this. Well, could try that. I could try this. And then I find which one they have the most energy around because that’s what they want to do.
Rich Birch — Yeah. And obviously you would, you observe that, that energy and you’re like, Hey, it seems like this one, tell me more about that.
Hal Mayer — No, no I don’t I don’t do that.
Rich Birch — Oh okay. Okay. Talk to me about that.
Hal Mayer — What I do is I say, okay, which one of these seven things would you like to try?
Rich Birch — Okay.
Hal Mayer — Once they identify it, then I say, okay, tell me more about that. What would that look… Why do you want to try? And and then we dive into that.
Rich Birch — Okay. One of the things that this strikes me, and this, when I read, again, friends, you should pick up a copy of of this book and there’s a playbook as well I want to talk about. But but I think this could be ah a huge gift for…Just this week, two days ago, I was talking to somebody who, they asked me, they said, hey, what should I be doing in my one-on-ones? I’ve got these staff, what should I be doing with them? And I thought of this framework.
Rich Birch — So I think the part of what I love that you’re driving towards is is buy-in. At least my, my my impression as an outsider looking in is that this would really increase the buy-in of my staff. Talk me through, you know, the connection there between buy-in and moving the organization forward and that sort of thing. What, how does that help us think through those issues?
Hal Mayer — Yeah. I’m going to bring up the equation I use in the book, the buy-in equation, or the engagement question, whatever that is. I was a math teacher in a former life. So PBI, possible value of an idea, times BI, the buy-in, equals their ROI.
Hal Mayer — Now, let’s say, you know, we’ve we’re we’ve got, you’re my boss and I’m doing student ministry and you have an idea because you did student ministry and all that. Your idea out of one 10, it’s going to at least be a nine. I mean, you’re Rich Birch. I mean, you have all the answers.
Hal Mayer — Now me doing it, I don’t get any input on it. So I will comply. I will do it, but my buy-in is probably going to be about a three. I’ll do what you ask, but there’s not going be a passion with it. So 3 times your 9 idea is a 27.
Hal Mayer — However, let’s say I come up with an idea and it’s not going as good as yours. In fact, it’s a only two thirds as good as yours. It’s a 6, but what’s my buying going to be if it’s my idea? It’s a 10.
Rich Birch — A lot higher. Yeah.
Hal Mayer — That’s a 60. So there’s a 60 ROI to my buy-in because of my buy-in as opposed to a 27. Now you had the better idea, but buy-in is what gets it done. We’ve seen that over and over again. When people are bought in on something, they often they’ll make a bad idea work. We’ve seen that.
Hal Mayer — So for me, that’s what I want. I want full engagement. And when they know that they get to do their ideas, people are much more engaged than they’re running around doing mine.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so true. As a coach, somebody who obviously I coach people full time now and and that is you’ve you’ve named something there that I think is critically important and that oftentimes like I can’t coach people who don’t want to be coached.
Hal Mayer — Right.
Rich Birch — Right? Like if they’re not bought in, if they don’t think this will help. And, you know, I’ve said in other contexts, I’ve been like, man, the the leaders who who apply the frameworks we’re talking about are seeing great results. And those that are applying, the majority of them are seeing, but a lot of it is just their own buy-in on these issues.
Hal Mayer — Right.
Rich Birch — There might be a leader that’s listening in today that’s like, okay, this all sounds good, but like, what if my people just have bad ideas? Like, and if, if it’s going to push us in the wrong direction, like it’s one thing to be like, tell me seven ideas. All seven of those are crappy and they’re going to, we’re going to end up somewhere where I don’t want us to end up as it. How do I steer somebody back towards better direction?
Hal Mayer — Yeah. One the things before I give people full leash or full run on something is I want to check out their readiness for it. For example, if I want to do brain surgery, I may be excited. I may have done AI search on it and Claude said, do it this way and all that. But I’m not ready for that. It wouldn’t take but a second to find that out. I found that out in high school. I went, so I worked at a gas station where they actually worked on cars too. And I saw a guy fixing the valve. So I went home and took my 1960s Comet and tightened the valves down and ended up having to get a valve job.
Hal Mayer — I was excited. I was passionate, but I wasn’t ready. So if you don’t have people who are ready, you cannot hand it off to them. They must be developed some. They’ve got to have some experience. To hire somebody in fresh who’s never done it before and start leading with questions is like leading me with questions in how to operate. I wouldn’t have a clue. I’d be most excited about cutting. No, stop.
Hal Mayer — However, questions also help draw focus. And sometimes the reason they don’t have ideas, is we haven’t focused them.
Hal Mayer — I learned this with a physical metaphor. Somebody told me it would work. My son, pretty good basketball player. I had him out driveway. I said, son, see how many shots you can make out of 10? And so what that basically did was put a little pressure on, right? And he’s a good, so he shot four out of 10 from the three point line.
Hal Mayer — I said, okay, let’s forget about how many you’re making and just shoot and answer my questions. I said, okay, what do you notice? All right, what do you notice about the ball? What do you notice about the ball? He hit 10 in a row. And what I discovered was, you know, you college athletes who will shoot seven out of 10 in a game, but in practice hit 20 in a row. It’s the fog of war or whatever.
Hal Mayer — And so with employees, sometimes we haven’t asked enough questions. to get through that. However, we could also have some people who aren’t ready to lead. It’s not fair to expect them to come up with good ideas. They haven’t done anything. So both edges on that.
Hal Mayer — And at the end of the day, all of the employees I have are my fault. And if I haven’t developed them, that’s on me, right?
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, that’s good. Talk to me about, so I feel like there are, lead there’s leaders on our teams or there’s people that are listening in today that think they’ve got buy-in, but they really actually don’t. They think their teams are really with them, but they don’t. How, what advice could you give us to try to spot the difference around buy-in that’s not actually there? Like I keep kind of bumping into this wall. How can, how can we spot that?
Hal Mayer — You know I look for people who are solving problems. Are they solving them and telling me about it later? Are they coming to me with every problem? Because that means I’m still solving. Buy-in has to do with the passion and the ability to finish something. It doesn’t mean you work until 9 o’clock every night, but it does mean you manage to get the ball across the line.
Hal Mayer — So when I watch a lack of energy around an idea or somebody slow walking it. Or maybe somebody asking questions that really aren’t, that are just curmudgeon questions. They’re asking questions just to find every hole that’s wrong. I mean, everything that you can find, well, suppose that doesn’t work. Suppose… That’s not buy-in because for me, my challenge is always, don’t tell me what won’t work or tell me what’s not working. Give me an idea of what we might try. At least then we’re thinking in solutions and not just problems.
Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s really good. So a big part of scaling any organization, a growing church, a growing business is delegation, is leaders figuring out how to give away things they’re doing. I’ve said this in so many contexts, you know, roll this clock forward. The majority of what you’re doing, we need to figure out how to give to someone else…
Hal Mayer — Right.
Rich Birch — …how to empower a volunteer or another staff member to pick that up. How does asking better questions change the way we hand off responsibility to other people? How how does it help in that transaction?
Hal Mayer — You know, I’m a big fan of Ken Blanchard and the book “Situational Leadership”.
Hal Mayer — And I used to train that with a corporation. And one of the things I watch is people like to start people and like to delegate. But when they leave off the coaching in between, it’s not delegation, it’s abdication. And people fail.
Hal Mayer — I go, what’s wrong? They said they understood. Well, you stay engaged. I mean, you give them a task. You stay engaged. You’re asking questions. Soon, you’re no longer asking questions to to help them figure out what to do. You’re just asking questions to draw focus. And then you know they’re ready. You can hand it off to them.
Hal Mayer — But you’re right. If we’re not finding a way to delegate, but delegation is not the first step nor the second. It’s more like the fourth, right? You watch me. We do it together. I watch you. You’re doing it. However you want to call that. But it takes more engagement.
Hal Mayer — People say, well I don’t have time for that. Well, here’s the deal. You can pay me now or you’ll pay me later. But you’re going to pay me. If you’re if you’re not developing people, you’re going to run into a system where you’ve got a bunch of people who don’t know how to think and do. And that’s on you.
Rich Birch — True. Yeah, that’s so true. And if we don’t start that process, hey, you watch me, we do together. And if we don’t start that process today, we’ll never get there. And so it takes time. But we’ve got to, you know, that’s, that’s what it we just constantly have to repeat that over and over and over in our areas. I love that.
So let’s talk more specifically about the books specifically. So it’s “Smart Ask: Questions that lead your team to win.” Where can we pick up copies of this? If people are looking, because I think this is not a huge book. It’s, you know, if you’re watching on video, it’s just a little thin one, but it’s got, it’s one of these ones. It’s a quick read. You could literally give it to a team member and say, hey, let’s read through this. And then we’re going to talk about it next week. I’d love to get your thoughts on it. But talk to us kind of, when why did you put this together in a book form?
Hal Mayer — Well, I was training it and people kept asking me questions. And the only reason I write books is to stop answering all the questions I get asked, right? Is to put it out there. I mean, Seth Godin’s idea of a long tail, right? I want it to last when when I put a book out there.
Hal Mayer — So “Smart Ask” is on Amazon, but it was created for the purpose to to help people, after I’ve used it in coaching, to be able to take it then and train their teams. Because it dives in also to the why it works and and such as that. But you’re right, intentionally a short book because I like short books and there you go.
Rich Birch — Well, and we all, you know, I can say this as an author, that we’re tempted when we write to be like, well, I’m just going to stuff a bunch of other stuff in there.
Rich Birch — But this is, it’s to the point, it’s it’s focused, it’s a great training material, I think, like you say, for you know for our entire team.
Hal Mayer — Right.
Rich Birch — But then you also put together a playbook. Talk us through how this is different than just the standard book.
Hal Mayer — Well, my daughter-in-law, Chrissy, Chrissy Mayer, married to my son. She’s a pastor over to church in Tampa, Grace Family Church. And she said, why don’t you create a handbook for it? And you know what I said? Why don’t you do that?
Rich Birch — That sounds like a great idea for you.
Hal Mayer — So I said, that sounds like great idea. Once you create the framework, I’ll get it published on. So she did the work and we got together and we put it there. And the reason for it is you can take your coaching conversation, it has all the questions in it. It’s got lines you can write answers. And it gives you a chance to keep up. And I would probably take a picture and send the person they’re the the answers they gave to the questions or whatever like that. It just helps you stay on track. So you’ve got all the questions right there.
Rich Birch — And yeah, talk us through the the handing off of the notes back to someone. I think that’s a great move.
Hal Mayer — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Talk us through why that’s important. Why is that such a critical piece of the puzzle?
Hal Mayer — Well people are so used to us building files on them. And you’re going to put that in my file to show that I didn’t know what to do? And so I asked for permission on the front end to take notes. Now, if I’m the boss, I’ll do take notes if I want to. But I I won’t and I won’t if they say no, though. So I’m I’m really giving it to them. And I tell them, I’m going to give you these at the end because I don’t want them taking notes. I want them talking. I want their full engagement with me. And you can’t get that while they’re writing.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Hal Mayer — So I said, you just pay attention to me. I’ll take the notes and I’ll give you them at the end. Then you hand them at the end and they’ve got their execution plan.
Hal Mayer — So my meeting with them, usually it’s a 30-minute meeting and land with an execution plan that gets handed to them and they go back and do the work. So it pulls them into full engagement. They’re not getting distracted by trying to write down everything or slow play that way. So I’m taking notes again, putting value to them.
Hal Mayer — When when they’re the hero, right, and I’m the guide, what I’m doing is is setting them up. And when you take notes on somebody, that means something to them.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Hal Mayer — So that’s where I am.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. Now, what about, so one of the tensions I have found in my one-on-ones is wanna make sure that I’m doing all the other stuff: caring for them, you know releasing, you know I guess, finding barriers that that I can pull apart for them and say like, hey, here’s some stuff. Yeah, I’m gonna take some to…
Hal Mayer — Right.
Rich Birch — And I’ve said to my team in the past, hey, I’m hoping that you don’t walk away from this with a bunch of to-dos. That’s not the the goal of today. I want to help you. And I know you got a lot going on. I don’t want to just dump on you today. And so how do you avoid that in this framework that we don’t end up with? Okay. Every time they meet with Hal, now I’ve just ended up with a plan that I just, gosh, I just gave myself more work to do. How do you, how do you, do you understand that tension?
Hal Mayer — Yeah, I don’t do this every meeting with them.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Hal Mayer — The meetings on there. And I, you know, I’ll check in. How are you doing? One the things I i really want to pay attention to is the emotional, soul, health of the individual.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Hal Mayer — Because we’ve got people facing burnout today. So I’ll ask them, you know, tell me on a scale of one to 10, what are you feeling? You feel like you want a 1 being I want to go home and go to bed, a 10 being let’s charge hell with water pistols. Right, that gives me a framework. The number doesn’t really matter. I just compare it each time to see if they’re tanking.
Hal Mayer — The second thing I’ll ask for is give me a win in your private life, in your home.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Hal Mayer — Give me a win in your ah ah ministry side because I want to get them on the positive run. And then I’ll say, anything you need from me. And this may be 15-minute meeting. But what it is is I’m checking in on them. If I have something I need them to do, sure, I can tell them. But I’m checking in on them, and ah that gives them value, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Yeah, that’s really good. That’s good. I love there’s, friends, as you’re listening and you can tell Hal’s done this a few times. And so, you know, it’s been such a great conversation for you. So if if I’m a church leader listening in today and I feel like, man, I’m doing way too much telling and not enough asking, where would I, and and maybe even my team has told me this.
Hal Mayer — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Where do I start? How do I start to shift that dynamic with my people? Because because you you you kind of set this up at the beginning of like the teams that are passively disengaged, they’re just waiting for for you to give the list of, okay, go do these 12 things and then come back. How do I shift that dynamic? Where do I start? If i if my analysis is, I think that I’ve actually done that to my team, ah where would we start?
Hal Mayer — If I’m convinced of that, I start at this place and I’ve done this before. Guys, you know what? I’ve been running our meetings and coming up with the answers and that’s not fair. So what I want to do is pull back more and get your engagement. So I’m going to be asking questions. I need your engagement in this meeting and your ideas coming. And in fact, if you see me over talking, catch me one-on-one afterwards and give me some feedback because I’m open up the feedback loop then, right?
Hal Mayer — But I will do some self-disclosure and just own it because here’s what I do know. If you don’t own it, they won’t recognize the difference later. For example, if I tell somebody, you know what, I’m going to work on asking more questions. Six months they go, wow, you’re asking more questions. If I don’t tell them, they’ll never at they’ll never notice. Sometimes you have to highlight it. Hey, I’m going to stop being the guy trying to be the smartest man in the room, and I’m going to do this.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah.
Hal Mayer — People get, vulnerability from a leader is a great thing, right? Own their stuff, but come up with some resources ah to help them, so so you’re asking more questions.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. I like that. I like i think that’s a keen insight, that not just like shifting the behavior, but actually pointing to it like, hey, as a person, I’m changing. And the implicit, the great kind of ninja move you’re doing there is like, and therefore I need you to change because, you know, what?
Hal Mayer — Right. Right.
Rich Birch — I’m changing because I don’t think this is working. Implicit in that is I don’t think our relationship is structured correctly and we need to figure out a different way to do that. You don’t even need to necessarily say that. But but flagging that, hey, I need to change my approach, I think is a really smart move for sure. That’s you know that’s fantastic.
Rich Birch — Well, as we’re coming down to land today’s episode, any kind of final words around this idea of asking, leading with questions rather than being the answer person all the time?
Hal Mayer — Yeah, this model doesn’t mean you don’t ask offer suggestions. This model doesn’t mean you couldn’t collaborate to build it. It just means you can’t be the person always having the answer.
Hal Mayer — And it’s engaging other people. And the thing you will find for me that I have found, when I truly am asking them for their ideas and we execute on their ideas, they’ll come back later and say, you know, I thought that was one of those conferences you went to that said ask questions.
Hal Mayer — But you actually did execute on what we talked about. Then they’re more engaged because everybody wants has ideas and wants to be heard and wants to be a part. I think people are motivated. They’re just not motivated when we take over a meeting and and run everything, right? There’s an intrinsic motivation. There’s there’s something they want to do. They’re in ministry, not because they’re just wanting to plow through. They want to see a difference. Well, they’re in the business cycle.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, that’s very true. And I think that’s a good reminder for us. I think sometimes we can get caught in the weeds of running Church World and we forget that like all these people have chosen to be here. They could be doing something else.
Hal Mayer — Right.
Rich Birch — And how do we bring the best out of them? And how do we, you’ve encouraged me to thinking about long term the long-term win, that really engagement, even if we have to walk through a couple of things that maybe are not the best, because… But if I can get engagement up with my team, man, that’s way better place than like, sure, we have the, it’s the, you know, it’s that perfect plan that’s poorly executed. We want to avoid that, you know, even an imperfect plan. But if it’s got tons of engagement behind it, man, there’s some gold there that we need to think more clearly about. That’s good. Love it.
Hal Mayer — Yep.
Rich Birch — Well, I want to send people to Amazon to pick up both of these. I think it’d be great. I really do think this could be the kind of book you could build a staff training around it, friends, really easily. You’ve got 15 staff. You could buy 15 copies of this and say, hey, you’re going to read this. And then we’re going to come to our you know team meeting in two months or whatever in a month. And we’re going to work through how do we ask better questions in our our training. That’s how it sticks out to me. Anywhere else we want to send people online to connect with you or to pick up copies of the book?
Hal Mayer — You can catch my web website at halmayer.com. They can email me at hal@halmayer.com or I’m on the socials just as Hal Mayer. I, my son is Hal Mayer also, but I beat him to all of them. So I’m Hal Mayer on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn. It’s just /halmayer. So I win there.
Rich Birch — Nice. Really appreciate you, Hal. You’re a good friend of leaders and I appreciate you being on today. Thanks for being here.
Hal Mayer — Thanks, man. It’s been an honor.
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Aaron Graham, lead pastor of The District Church, a diverse and growing congregation in the heart of Washington, D.C. Founded in 2010 just a few miles from the White House, the church has become known for its global diversity—with people from more than 80 nations represented—and its commitment to living out the gospel for the good of the city.
Are you noticing both spiritual curiosity and spiritual drift among people in your community? Wondering how to disciple people faithfully in a culture that increasingly pushes back against historic Christian orthodoxy? In this conversation, Aaron shares insights from his ministry context in D.C. and his new book Unshakable Faith: How to Stand Firm in a Culture of Lies, offering practical ways churches can respond to cultural pressure while forming resilient disciples from the next generation.
- A generation leaning in—and drifting away. // Aaron observes a striking tension among young adults today: some are pursuing faith with new seriousness, while others are quietly drifting away. Cities like Washington, D.C., attract highly educated young professionals who want to make a difference in the world through public service. Many are motivated by compassion and a desire to serve others, but they also face cultural pressures that can slowly reshape their beliefs. In Aaron’s experience, this environment creates both incredible opportunities for ministry and real challenges in maintaining historic Christian faith. Some people are exploring spiritual questions deeply, while others disengage from church entirely through gradual spiritual drift.
- Understanding doubt, deconstruction, and denial. // Aaron encourages church leaders to distinguish between three different spiritual responses: doubt, deconstruction, and denial. Doubt is a natural part of faith—it involves uncertainty and questions that can ultimately strengthen belief when handled within a supportive community. Deconstruction, however, goes further by dismantling previously held beliefs. While some deconstruction may be necessary—especially when people have experienced unhealthy theology or spiritual abuse—it becomes dangerous when it happens in isolation without reconstructing a healthier biblical foundation. Denial is the final stage, where a person actively rejects core Christian beliefs. Recognizing these distinctions helps pastors respond with wisdom and compassion rather than assuming everyone wrestling with faith is in the same place.
- Creating space for honest questions. // One practical way The District Church engages doubt is through a summer series called “This Is My Story.” During this series, church members share short testimonies about their biggest spiritual questions and how God met them through those struggles and doubts. These stories normalize honest questions while showing that faith can deepen through wrestling with difficult issues. Instead of centering doubt itself, the church highlights the journey from questioning to deeper trust in God. This approach has been especially meaningful for newcomers, helping them see that the church is a place where people can wrestle honestly with faith while still moving toward spiritual maturity.
- Resisting the pull of cultural lies. // Aaron’s book identifies several cultural narratives that quietly reshape Christian belief. One example is what he calls the “selective Christian”—someone who edits Scripture to match personal preferences or cultural expectations. When believers accept only the parts of the Bible that feel comfortable, the authority of Scripture slowly erodes. Over time, this selective approach strips the gospel of its transformative power. Aaron emphasizes that discipleship must include serious engagement with the whole Bible, even the passages that challenge modern assumptions.
- Returning to deep Bible engagement. // One of the most effective ways Aaron addresses cultural pressure is by encouraging consistent Bible engagement within the church. Through reading plans, group discussions, and teaching that emphasizes submission to Scripture rather than simply learning about it, believers begin to develop a more holistic faith. Interestingly, Aaron notes that people who deeply engage Scripture often become both more morally conservative and more socially liberal with deeper compassion toward others. Instead of fitting into political categories, they develop a kingdom perspective shaped by the teachings of Jesus.
- Holding together justice and biblical conviction. // Throughout his ministry, Aaron has worked extensively in justice initiatives, advocating for the poor and vulnerable. However, he has also seen many leaders abandon historic Christian beliefs while pursuing social justice causes. This experience convinced him that justice and biblical orthodoxy must remain connected. True justice flows naturally from a high view of Scripture and the lordship of Christ. When churches separate the two, they risk losing both their theological foundation and their long-term spiritual influence.
To learn more about Aaron Graham’s book Unshakable Faith: How to Stand Firm in a Culture of Lies, visit aarongrahamdc.com, where you can find resources, curriculum, and links to purchase the book. Plus, check out District Church at districtchurch.org.
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Risepointe
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Super excited that you have decided to tune in today. I know you got a lot going on this week and the fact that you would turn us on is just incredible. So we want to honor you for that. Thanks for doing that.
Rich Birch — Today, we’re going to talk about some stuff that I know is applicable to all of us. It It’s the kind of conversation that we’re we’re wrestling with in all of our churches. And we also have a repeat guest, which you know does not happen that often at unSeminary. And you know when we have repeat guests, it means I really want you to hear them and hear what they have to say out.
Rich Birch — Today we’re honored to have Aaron Graham with us. He is the lead pastor of of District Church. It was founded in 2010 in Washington, D.C. It’s a Christ-centered, culture-defining church. for transplants and natives. The church was born from a dream about what it would look like for a church to be, or to seek the peace of the city and to exist for the sake of Christ and for the good of the city.
Rich Birch — So we’re really excited to have Aaron with us today. Aaron, welcome back to the podcast after a couple of years, but glad to you glad you decided to come back on. Appreciate that.
Aaron Graham — Thanks, Rich, for having me and love what you guys are doing and how you’re practically helping church leaders like myself address problems we’re facing in our organizations and culture cultural contexts.
Rich Birch — Kind of you to say that. Give us a bit of the District story for folks that, you know, my mom listens to every episode, but not everyone listens to every episode. But kind of to give us a bit of the District story and and talk a little bit about how you intersect with all of that.
Aaron Graham — Yeah, we launched 15 years ago right in the heart of DC. We meet two miles north of the White House, and made up of mostly young adults becoming more intergenerational. But one of the things we’ve become known for is just our diversity. So there’s over 80 nations represented in the church. Last night at the newcomers dinner, there were 14 nations represented…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Aaron Graham — …and so just in that small little dinner. So that’s a real privilege we have of of doing that. We’re a church of life groups and just love what we’re doing right here in the heart of DC.
Rich Birch — So good. I once heard a leader say that, you know, DC is full of young leaders, young people like, and, you know, the the whole thing that, you know, the main business will call it in DC is all run on the back of, you know, 20s and 30s who are making a huge difference. What have you noticed with reaching that? And I know, i know you’re, you’re, you’re, like you said there, you’re becoming a more diverse church and, you know, age-wise in all different ways. But let’s let’s kind of focus in on that kind of 20-somethings, 30-somethings. What have you been noticing with folks in that generation as it comes to faith and their relationship with Jesus and, you know, all of their kind of spiritual side? What’s what are some of the observations you’re seeing?
Aaron Graham — Yeah, well, I think a lot of young adults are leaning into their faith more than ever. There’s a revival in so many ways happening among young people, but there’s also a lot of retreating and people drifting in their faith. And so we kind of find ourselves with people either leaning in like never before or leaning out like never before. And in a context like D.C., people move to D.C. to change the world. I mean, this is where you come.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Graham — This is a city of public service. And so these are the Ivy League, educated top of their class. They move here. They land that that job at the U.S. Capitol working for a member of Congress or the White House or an agency whatever, an advocacy advocacy firm.
Aaron Graham — And so what happens is it’s very highly educated people here. And highly educated people I’ve noticed have a deep care for those who are suffering. And they want to make a difference. That’s like what public service is all about.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Graham — Like I want to help serve people.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Graham — And like the government is supposed to exist to serve people. And so just that kind of love for neighbor. I want to help people out. And so D.C. is like a very politically progressive, highly educated city. And there’s a lot to draw upon with that because people are making a lot of sacrifices. But it does come with some problems, mainly people drifting from biblical orthodoxy, the historic Christian faith that has been handed down to us.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I, so I’m Canadian for folks that are listening in and don’t know that I lived in the States for a bunch of years. We lived in New Jersey. And I remember the first time I visited D.C. as a Canadian, I felt patriotic for America. I was like, man, this place is unbelievable.
Aaron Graham — Yeah. Yeah.
Rich Birch — I’m like, you know, and obviously I was just there as a tourist and actually we’re visiting some friends and we got the tour of the Capitol, one of these like behind the scenes, let me put you behind the velvet rope. And I was like, this place is unreal. Like what a, what a place to serve and…
Aaron Graham — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …it has that kind of feeling of, you know, while people are are coming to change the world really in a positive way. I’d love to kind of focus in on this as you talk about people that are leaning, you know, leaning back, leaning away, drifting from their faith, drifting from orthodoxy. You know, we’ve we’ve heard a lot about even the kind of deconstructing movement and that, you know, there’s, it is an interesting time we live in, spiritually, because these are like two realities that are kind of happening at the same time, people leaning in and leaning back.
Rich Birch — What are some of those common assumptions that you’ve noticed for people who are leaning back from, from, like you say, an Orthodox Christian faith?
Aaron Graham — Yeah, absolutely. I think one is just, we’ve we’ve heard this, but just church hurt. I think scandals and hypocrisy in the church among leaders is kind of at least at an all time high of what we’re hearing about right now. And so because we’re so tapped into the news and online, I think most people are very aware, if they haven’t had a bad experience, they know somebody who has been been hurt by a religious leader or by you know a church leader. And it’s sort of like, you know we always hear the bad examples, right?
Aaron Graham — Like all the planes that arrive safely every day, you never hear about. But when when the one plane has some mechanical issues or has has a rough landing, you hear about it. And I think there’s so many just faithful pastors and church leaders out there that are doing awesome work. But unfortunately, we’re hearing about the, the, the bad apples. And there’s been a lot of them that have been reported on. So I think that influences people saying, do I really want to be a part of this? If it’s an option, do I? You know, so church hurt’s one of them.
Aaron Graham — I think theological differences. I mean, this is the age of the church split and human sexuality is like front and center of that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Graham — But politics increasing these, these last few years or what side are you on and how do you interpret? So, so I think, political, theological differences. And then I think just like complacency, like just straight up spiritual drift. It’s not doctrine doctrinal. It’s not scandal. It’s just like, you know what? Like, it’s just easier not to go to church.
Aaron Graham — It’s sort of the folks that left during COVID. It’s like, oh I’m going to watch online and then I’m not going to return to church. It’s just like that spiritual drift. So those are some themes I’m seeing, you know, right here in DC. And I’ve seen as a pattern and talking to other church leaders.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that I’d love to kind of narrow in a little bit there on this tension between spiritual drift, like it’s the, you know, I’d rather watch football or whatever, you know, complacency. And then actually folks that are wrestling, honestly, that are asking questions and are are struggling. What have you seen? How how do you discern that how how does that? How does that work itself out? What have you learned about the difference between people who are in these kind of two categories?
Aaron Graham — Yeah, I talk a lot about the difference between doubt, deconstruction, and denial. And I think it’s helpful to have these kind of three categories because it’s easy to just put everybody in the same category when they’re not dealing with the same thing.
Aaron Graham — And so to doubt is to lack confidence, to be unsure about something. And that’s like part of what it means to be human, to have questions.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Graham — Like we want to have churches where like youth and young adults can ask honest questions about human suffering and about questions they have theologically like that. You want people to be curious and it says in the book of Jude that we need to be merciful to those who doubt.
Aaron Graham — And so we see that modeled in Jesus. But he ultimately calls us beyond our doubt. Like he doesn He doesn’t call us to like center our doubt. He calls us to walk by faith, not by doubt. And so we have to create space for that. But you know if a church is like, you know its mission statement is to just welcome doubters and then you center that, that’s actually not a very forward…
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Graham — …facing thing.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Graham — And so, so, so we need to create space for doubt. And sometimes people, that’s just what they’re having. They’re are just having questions.
Aaron Graham — I think deconstruction is a step beyond doubt and deconstruction is like when you are in the process of dismantling your beliefs. And sometimes there’s some beliefs that need to be dismantled because there’s like, you grew up in a church that had like really messed up theology.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah.
Aaron Graham — Like you grew up in a cult or something.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Aaron Graham — And you’re like, I’ve got to deconstruct this. Or like I experienced spiritual manipulation and I thought this is what it meant to honor a leader. Or I experienced abuse in some way. And so you have to kind of deconstruct that. The problem is a lot of people are deconstructing outside of the context of community or biblical community. And so they’re doing so in isolation and the enemy loves that. Like the enemy loves to isolate us.
Aaron Graham — And so if you’re going to deconstruct something unhealthy, you have to reconstruct. And the problem is there’s been a lot of deconstruction without reconstructing. So so there’s doubt, there’s deconstruction, and then unhealthy deconstruction can lead to denial, right? This is Judas, right? This is like, I will not go with you.
Rich Birch — right
Aaron Graham — Like and so denial is like, is more active, where doubt is more passive, denial can be ah more more active. And I think it’s very dangerous. This is Jude saying, snatch them from the fire. You know, this is life or death type of thing. So.
Rich Birch — Can we focus in a bit on the doubt piece for a second? What does that look like for you as a leader? Like, what are some practical ways that we can offer space for people who are, who do have legit doubts? And, you know, I get that there’s this tension of like, we don’t want to create just like, let’s all get around and talk about what we don’t know. But like, how how can we do that? Or how are you doing that at District? What’s that look like for you guys?
Aaron Graham — We do a series every summer called This Is My Story, where I don’t preach for two weeks and we hear 10-minute testimonies from people in our church. So three 10-minute testimonies each week, and we select people in our church and then we coach them around how to prepare for it. And they share a question, their biggest question, their biggest doubt, their biggest struggle and how they’ve moved through that and how it’s actually enabled them to deepen their faith and not to deconstruct their faith.
Aaron Graham — So it’s testimony time, but it’s structured around how they’ve moved through doubt. Because I think our biggest questions, for me as a child, it was why do kids die of preventable causes? Like it shapes so much of your calling if you process it in a healthy way. And so, yeah, so this is my story. And that’s just been really helpful. It gives the pastor a break.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Graham — Sometimes I’m doing it when I’m on vacation.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Aaron Graham — So allows me to step out, but it also allows leaders. And so what it does in terms of formation in the congregation is we’re actually moving the date this year to be when most newcomers come at the end of August.
Rich Birch — That’s cool.
Aaron Graham — Because it’s been so popular with newcomers. Cause they’re like, Oh, I see myself in this church. Like, Oh, you have questions too. I have questions. But once again, it’s not like I’m centering that doubt or that question at the end of the day. So, so that’s, that’s one thing practically, you know, we’ve done.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. I love that. And, you know, there there was a time in the generation before me where, yeah, it was like, you don’t acknowledge any of that, right? It’s like, you don’t, you can’t ask any of those questions. Cause that, that is it’s like, just asking the question is going to, it’s like something bad is going to happen. I worked for a long time for a lead pastor that did open forum Q and A after every single message. So every single message you would say, Hey, like, is there anything, have any questions about anything I said or left unsaid? And similarly, it, it created a culture where, people kept you honest as a preacher. I hated it when I spoke. I was like, gosh, because you know, like any question?
Aaron Graham — Totally.
Rich Birch — But it did create a culture where like, hey, it’s okay to ask, right? It’s okay to to explore for sure.
Aaron Graham — Yeah, that’s great.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s interesting.
Aaron Graham — I love it.
Rich Birch — So getting back to this whole idea, you know, doubt, discernment, denial, at some point, you know, you’ve started to see some patterns in the culture around us, some recurring themes that you’ve seen. And actually you package these into a book that I want to make sure people, I actually think it’d be a really helpful tool for folks. But and so no, I’m not just trying to sell books, but I do think it’s a helpful thing. Help us talk through, so tell us about the book and how is it set up? What is the framework for it?
Aaron Graham — Yeah, so the new book’s called Unshakable Faith: How to Stand Firm in a Culture of Lies. And for me, it really came about from trying to see this pattern of so many people slowly drifting from their faith and saying, how do we prevent this as pastors?
Aaron Graham — Like, the if we don’t disciple our people, the world gladly will. And in some ways, they’re doing the world’s doing a better job…
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Graham — …of discipling our people. And so what are these like subtle lies that people are believing that is causing people to, you know, not lean into their faith. And I’ve just seen it like in the urban center here, I’ve just seen so many well-intentioned, highly educated, sometimes often sincere people just drift.
Aaron Graham — And so they’re no longer going to church. They’re not raising their kids in the faith. And so, yeah, I’ve just seen it over and over. And so I wrote this book in response to that. And honestly, in so many ways, it’s a critique of what I what I call progressive Christianity. And I mean that theologically, not politically. But it’s it’s when someone reinterprets Scripture, the historic teachings of Scripture, to make it more comfortable or palatable to the current culture.
Aaron Graham — It’s it’s like emphasizing relevance over faithfulness. And so what I’ve seen so often over and over is that oh, this isn’t just a conversation around human sexuality or progressive Christianity. Progressive Christianity is becoming a layover to post-Christianity for so many people. And so I just began to say, okay, is this new thing? Oh, it’s actually not new. It’s not in the last like 20 years.
Aaron Graham — This has been happening for like 500 years since the enlightenment where you know progressive Christians, or however they’re labeled, end up denying the miraculous. And then denying at the core the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which is like the very core of our faith.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Graham — I was like, this isn’t just a conversation around human sexuality, which is where it started with the newcomer. This is, you know, or with the leader, even in the church, this is about something much more deep.
Aaron Graham — And so that’s when I just began to pray in this and and just say, what are the patterns that I’m seeing? What are these lies that people are often like well-meaning, but believing? And how is that compromising our ability to call people to faith, but also help make disciples. So.
Rich Birch — Is there, I think, friends, I had a chance to sneak peek at this book and I think it could be a great resource for many of our churches. It could be a great kind of small group discussion, a great leadership book. I think it could be a fantastic thing for us to do with our leadership team together wrestling through these these issues. so We’re not going to be able to cover all of it, but what would you say maybe one of these pernicious subtle lies that you see is prevailing? It it’s it it pops up all the time. Help us unpack one of those.
Aaron Graham — Yeah, sure. So one of them I talk about is the selective Christian, the person who edits scripture to fit preferences rather than engaging in the whole word of God. And you know, Jim Wallace, who is a well-known social justice advocate in the 70s, when he was at Trinity Evangelical Seminary, got together with some friends, and they went through the Bible and they cut up every reference in the Bible to the poor, or to the widow, the orphan. And there’s like 2000 verses in the Bible about about that. And he would go around and he’d hold up a Bible and he’d say, this is the Bible we have in in America. It’s a Bible full of holes because we’ve neglected the call to justice and the call to care for the poor.
Aaron Graham — Well, I’m seeing that same thing happen in this next generation around some other core doctrine, around human depravity, around human sexuality, around gender and marriage and these other things that we don’t want to talk about. But what’s really at stake in so many ways is the authority of Scripture. And so we pick and choose what parts we want to believe. And then we strip the gospel of its saving power because we’ve only chosen to believe the parts that are the most acceptable to us and our friends in this cultural moment. That’s just a really dangerous way to not be formed in our faith.
Rich Birch — Yeah. And, you know, I think we’ve, you can see that in how, you know, we handle scripture. I think one of the dangers that we face as preachers, we did a study where we looked at common passages that people were using over a couple years in churches. And we found that, you know, it’s not surprising, right? People come back to like the same passages time and time again, because I think we are trying to, even if it’s not if it’s not a like a willful decision, we just kind of drift in that direction of like, hey, well, I’m just not going to talk about that because I just am not sure what to say.
Rich Birch — How how do you fight this in yourself, in the church around you? Because you know you are a winsome leader. You’re a church full of grace. You’re trying to actually interact with the culture. You’re not running for the hills. You’re not like, you know, putting your head in the sand kind of thing. How, how do you, how does not being a selective Christian work itself out in, in your world?
Aaron Graham — Yeah, so one of the things I’m trying to really emphasize in our church is like Bible engagement. It seems like so 101, but it’s like, guys, we got to read our Bibles.
Rich Birch — Yeah, no, absolutely.
Aaron Graham — And so it’s like you know Bible in a year kind of plans, getting as many groups together. I lead a group on on Bible in a year, and it’s like, let’s read the whole Bible and let’s like struggle with these passages and talking about it and like, let’s see the power of the word of God.
Aaron Graham — And so, you know, there’s a lot of research that shows that people who engage with the Bible have like measurable differences in their life. And one of the things is that when you actually engage in not in reading the Bible, but actually submitting yourself to it, you become both more liberal and conservative. Because you you you become more morally conservative and you become more socially liberal, like in caring for the needs of others. And so you just break out of these categories.
Aaron Graham — And for somebody like you in Canada, that’s not in the US, like, it’s kind of crazy how we get polarized in the U.S. over certain things that that global Christians don’t get as as polarized on in some ways.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Graham — And so I think that’s one of the things that I’ve seen a lot of fruit in is like, hey, we’re going to be at a church that’s about the word of God. We’re going to teach the word of God. We’re going to sit under its authority even when it’s uncomfortable.
Aaron Graham — And I find even in very progressive cities like D.C., people hunger for biblical teaching.
Even if they they don’t agree with it all, they’ll come listen to it because they’re looking for something that’s different than what they’re hearing everywhere else where it’s like affirm, affirm, affirm everything. It’s like, I wanna be called to something higher, something that’s bigger than me, that’s more historic than me. So as it relates to being a selective Christian, I think just simple Bible engagement and really putting effort in that has is has borne a lot of fruit.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. I know my lead pastor has been saying the same thing for the last few years. And I would I would echo this. I think this has been, this is a very unique season where I think in general, the culture is leaning in and asking the question, what is it about this? And, you know, Jeff, my lead pastor makes the joke. He’s like this, you see this rippling it all in all parts of culture. There’s you know one of the outcomes of the fact that things are so kind of changing all the time, we’re we’re obsessed with the you know the latest trend or whatever, is people want things that have been true for a long time. They’re and it’s why are people putting chickens in their backyards? And what is it with all the sourdough? Like, why does that stuff, why is that resonating?
Rich Birch — There’s a connection to this so, you know, similar kind of cultural issue that we’re saying here with scripture, where it’s like, I’m intrigued by the Bible. I want to learn about that because that’s it something we’ve been telling each other these stories for thousands of years. And how does that apply to our lives? Let’s not miss that moment, church leaders, and not actually give them what they’re what they’re looking for. So yeah, that’s that’s interesting.
Aaron Graham — Absolutely. I think the devil really overplayed his hand as it relates to secular culture. Meaning, secular culture meaning it’s defined itself in opposition to the church with a message of the more personal freedom you have, the more autonomy you have, the more the happier you’ll be. And Gen Z is waking up and being like…
Rich Birch — That’s not true. Yeah.
Aaron Graham — …no, this is not fulfilling. I want something more historic and rooted. And that’s, I think, one of the things that’s leading a lot of people to come into the church right now in this generation. They’re just saying, I’m hungry for God. And I don’t think that just having more freedom and flexibility is the answer.
Aaron Graham — It’s like so somebody just gave their life to Jesus on Sunday, came to the newcomer’s dinner last night, and he’s like, what do I need to do next? And and you know and I gave it to him hard. I was like, it’s not just about praying a prayer. You prayed that, praise the Lord, and you’re going to baptized and you’re doing a Rooted group and all this. But it’s like, what in your life, in your relationships in your work, like you need to cut some things off, like repentance, like change directions. And he’s like, yeah, like, tell me more. You know, he’s like leaning in.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Aaron Graham — Like, I think people want to be led, like in love, but they want to be led.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Aaron Graham — It’s not just like choose your own adventure.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Aaron Graham — That’s not helping this generation.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so true. I would echo that. You know, it does feel like we’ve come to the end of secular humanism. And and I remember a time when I first started ministry, I was like, well, it sure seems that that’s working.
Aaron Graham — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Like, it’s just so dominant, but it feels like there’s this collective like, well, that didn’t work. So.
Rich Birch — What was that what’s another lie that we, again, we’re not gonna able to get to all of them. So don’t worry, friends. And we, you know, you’re gonna have to read the book. But what’s another one that that has bubbled up that’s been, you know particularly intriguing as you’ve interacted with people around it?
Aaron Graham — Yeah, um there’s there’s so many different ones, but I think um one of them is the divisive influencer. This is the seventh lie, so I’ll kind of take it to the the end of the book here. But the divisive influencer is really growing right now. It’s somebody who kind of mirrors cancel culture instead of practicing radical forgiveness and grace.
Aaron Graham — And so we see a lot of political polarization right now. We feel it in our families. We feel it in our churches where it’s like you’re coming for a holiday meal and it’s like, it’s this tension underneath. We feel it in life groups and it’s like, how do we navigate this? And so that’s that’s one of the ones that, you know, being in DC the political…
Rich Birch — Yeah, it was gonna that was going to be my follow-up. I’m like, wait a second. Isn’t that the bread and butter of the people you work with?
Aaron Graham — Yes. And honestly, people, when they come to church, even in DC, they don’t want to like enter into an echo chamber. They want to be formed. They want to go upstream. They want to hear the word of the Lord.
Aaron Graham — And so I think that one of the things as it relates to this, like cancel culture and like the solution to that obviously is like Jesus, it’s like, love your enemies, forgive those who persecute you. Like actually when you lean into relationships with people who are different, like that’s that’s how you you grow.
Aaron Graham — And so whenever we’re dealing with an issue, like whatever, some issues in the news, and it’s like, oh, what should should we what should we include in our prayer? Do we need to talk about that in the sermon? And you know you’re getting pressure from certain people to do that. One of the things I’ve realized is that if we haven’t gone upstream as church leaders, and taught our congregation the biblical call around poverty or abortion or immigration or whatever, then when it pops up in the news, we get very reactive and people interpret that through their political lens. They’ve already made their mind up.
Aaron Graham — And so some pastors are playing on this and you can kind of grow your church, like you’ll lose 10%, but grow 40% because you kind of lean into that predictable division.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Aaron Graham — But I think that one of the the calls of of Jesus is like, how do we we go upstream so you can form people to say, hey, we have to engage in poverty. We have to… But like two Christians can agree on addressing something like abortion, poverty, you know justice, and disagree which policy solution will be the best. And so we should have that kind of diversity our church.
Aaron Graham — That’s what’s made our nation great is having that level of diversity. And I think we need to model that out in the church, not just our racial and ethnic diversity but I think our political diversity is increasingly important and it’s not to say that each side is like morally equivalent on each issue. I think some parties are way better on certain issues than others. But I think we have to really lean into this forgiveness and not lean into this radical divisive influencer even though that kind of posture may be rewarded online. And this next generation is, I think a high percentage of them want to be influencers online. So there’s ah a great temptation to kind of lean into that. But it’s like, what does Jesus teach us around that?
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, that’s so good. Yeah, I think you’re calling out of something that we you know definitely see. And there’s ah even ah ah this kind of return of particularly young men back to church. There’s some of that that I’m not sure is is actually positive where it’s it’s leaning towards. It’s a it is a very politically charged kind of faith that to me doesn’t read Jesus. It or it’s a it’s just one aspect maybe of of of Jesus. So that’s interesting you’re calling that out for sure.
Rich Birch — Off-roading a little bit on a similar topic, one of the things I find fascinating about you, about the church, about District, is that there was like this false dichotomy that’s set up in a lot of churches. It’s like, hey, you can either be a church that is has a high value on scripture, which you clearly do. Or you can be a church that is engaged in issues of development and justice in the world around you. You can’t do both of those. You can’t actually make a difference in the community around you, be cared, be care about the poor care about those things and also have a high view of scripture. I’m not saying that’s true. I’m saying there seems to be this popular notion out there. Your church seems to be doing both, trying to do both. Am I reading that correctly? Help me understand how, how you see those interacting with each other.
Aaron Graham — Yeah, I’ve always been known the last 20 years in ministry as the justice guy, the one calling the church to engage in justice. And then I looked up around and saw so many of my justice friends had deconstructed their faith, were no longer pastoring churches, and their kids weren’t following Jesus.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Graham — And I was like, something’s wrong. Because it’s like, oh, we’re trying to like care for the poor, but now we’ve lost our faith in the process. And the kids that we’re raising, we have no message for them other than just be tolerant and inclusive Christians. Like tolerant being tolerant and inclusive and loving is a great value. Jesus is the most loving person, but he called people to repentance and he called people to the to to the Father.
Aaron Graham — And so I think that that’s always just been a a big value of ours is like the authority of scripture and the Lordship of Christ. And I think that leads to justice. Like, um and so I think it’s just being willing to stand alone. I’ve lost a lot of friendships over this. Not not just friendships. Not like I don’t talk to somebody, but just like colleagues in ministry, because there’s like theologically, like you just believe something that’s different. Like you’ve stepped outside of biblical orthodoxy.
Aaron Graham — So I think we have to be, be willing to to stand alone. And i think we’re on the winning side. I think Jesus and justice, I think both those things go together.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Graham — So I don’t think we’re crazy, but it is hard to hold them together when the political narratives are so forming and deceptive. And so it’s hard. It’s hard for me. I got a lot of flack for my theological positions in this city. but I think, you know, we got to be willing to stand alone.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Very cool. Well, I want to, I think this could be a great book, as you were writing it. What were kind of what were you picturing your kind of ideal situation where it would land? Obviously you want lots of people to read it, but to me, I saw it. I was like the, when I, the sneak peek I looked into, I was like, man, this could be a great, I think a really good discussion starter in a leadership team. Are there other environments you think, Hey man, this could be really a great place to, you know, to use this resource.
Aaron Graham — Yeah, the the the main person I’m writing to, and I hope a lot of people read it, but the main person is like a 23-year-old that graduates from college that has at least a nominal Christian faith. They have the intention to join a church when they move to the city and land their first job, but they are totally at risk of abandoning their faith unless they make some very clear decisions and are a part of a church that has made some really clear decisions around, we’re not going to believe these lies. We’re going to call them out, and we’re going intentionally disciple you away from being discipled by secular culture and disciple you around the Word of God.
Aaron Graham — That’s my hope. You know If anybody that’s deconstructed comes back to faith, praise the Lord. Hallelujah.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, that’s amazing.
Aaron Graham — But I’m actually trying to do a prevention so that all the people who are coming to faith right now in this revival, that it falls on good ground. Because we have such a discipleship culture in our churches that is able to name and discern, first, and then name these lies and to help this next generation stand firm in the gospel. And so that’s that’s the subtitle of the the book is how to stand firm in a culture of lies.
Aaron Graham — And for so long, we were trained in the church as church leaders to evangelize people who were like spiritually kind of curious and open, like kind of the seeker sensitive movement. That’s how like international, but I grew up as a missionary kid. So it’s like, we were trained to like share the gospel with people who like just needed to hear that there’s one God and that he loves you and that you can have a relationship with him.
Aaron Graham — But now we’re trying to evangelize a post-Christian culture, which you know a lot about in Canada. And we’re learning more about here in in North America. And that culture actually is not just like ambivalent towards Christianity. It’s actually anti-Christian faith.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Graham — They’re trying to evangelize us. And so if we just try to take the same approach where we’re just loving and let me give them a hug, see if they hug back, they’re actually winning.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Graham — And so so so it’s like, how do we… how do we have a plan to say, you know what, we’re going to love the world. We’re going in the world, but not of the world. But it’s it’s like it’s a whole different, I can use that word on on this, ah the word here on this church leaders podcast. It’s a whole different missiology around how to engage in mission.
Aaron Graham — And so, yeah, so I’m hoping that we reach the 20-something and I’m hoping that people talk about this. We wrote this and we have a small group video curriculum coming out as well, because we really want pastors who say, I want this culture in my church to be able to have people do it in groups, discuss it…
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Aaron Graham — …and be able to make these commitments before it becomes an even greater problem in our churches.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s a really vivid picture of, like you say, the 23 year old who’s moving to the city, um you know, who has some faith, but is is maybe at risk, I think is ah is ah is a vivid picture for all of us. And I would share, you didn’t actually say it this way, but I would share some concern with the swell towards faith. I don’t, who am I? Like the, obviously it’s an amazing thing that’s going on. Lots of people are taking steps toward Jesus. I’m not going to be the guy that’s like, that’s bad.
Rich Birch — But I would say I’m concerned that we are a good steward of this moment, that it’s like, man, I have been waiting my entire ministry career for this to happen.
Aaron Graham — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And now, gosh, let’s not drop the ball. And I think your book could be a part of helping us think through and helping leaders and individuals think through this. So the name of the book is Unshakable Faith. And again, you said that: How to stand firm in a culture of lies. Where can people, look at that? There’s a shot of it. There’s got a beautiful front on. It’s very hip. I’m assuming we can get it at Amazon. Are there other places we should go to get copies of this?
Aaron Graham — Everywhere books are sold so um if you go to aarongrahamDC.com—just my name aarongrahamDC (double meaning for District Church and DC of the the city of DC) aarongrahamDC.com —and then you’ll see the links to all the retailers on there, including Amazon, but all the different retailers Christianbook, Books-a-million, Barnes and Noble, all that. And so, yeah, you can you can grab a copy there, and we’d love to hear from you as well. You you can have a place where you can contact me on there.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s great. Perfect. We’ll put links to all of that in the show notes. And friends, like I say, if you’re a long-term listener, you know, we don’t actually typically have a lot of authors on, but I wanted to have Aaron on because I do think this is particularly poignant for us, I think, in in today’s culture. And I think it could be a thing that could really help your team, help, you know, people at your church, I think could be ah a really great resource for that.
Rich Birch — As we wrap up today’s episode, any kind of final words you’d have for a church leader that’s wrestling in, that’s wrestling with these issues today is, is maybe feeling some of this tension around, you know, feeling compromised at the door kind of thing. Help us, help us as we wrap up today.
Aaron Graham — Yeah, well, first off, just thanks for having me on and having me back, you know, as a repeat guest. That’s awesome. I love what you’re doing. Like I said, I learned so much from you. Some practical stuff is so great to hear all the different speakers that come on and and leaders.
Aaron Graham — But yeah, no, I think the the the message that I want leaders church leaders to hear is that if you don’t run to this problem around what’s happening in our culture and how it’s affecting discipleship, this problem will get worse. And, and I think that one of the the challenges for me being in the belly of the beast in the heart of DC, I’m not just like DC, like, so I’m like in the heart with all these national leaders, very educated people, is that it’s sort of like a signal, kind of like downtown New York city is as well. It’s like a signal of where culture is going.
Aaron Graham — And so if, if you don’t lean towards this conversation and learn, this problem will only grow in your church. And so while it might be uncomfortable for some of you based on, like if you’re like me and you’re wired as like a harmony person, like I don’t want to have disagreements on my staff or with my board or in my family conversation, like it will only get bigger and worse. So lean in and and take advantage of of resources from people who are writing about this, who have thought about it. And don’t be alone in this. Don’t try to be isolated in this conversation because there’s a lot of people who, even though you might feel alone where you’re pastoring or where you’re leading, there’s a lot of people who feel the same way you are. And so, so get connected in, in with them. So, so that’s, that’s what I’d say.
Rich Birch — That’s great. Thanks so much, Aaron. Give us that website again where we want to send people to if they want to connect more directly with you or with the church.
Aaron Graham — Yeah, just aarongrahamDC.com. And that’ll also link to our church website, districtchurch.org. And we’d love to have people visit us when you’re in DC, because like you said, DC is a fun city.
Rich Birch — Love it. It is a fun city.
Aaron Graham — It’s one of the best cities to 250th anniversary of DC. Lots of celebrations happening this year.
Rich Birch — Yes, that’s true.
Aaron Graham — So come in and see us.
Rich Birch — It’ll be a big year. That’s great. Thanks so much. Appreciate being here today, sir. And we’ll have you back on sometime soon. Thanks for coming.
Aaron Graham — Awesome. Thanks, Rich.
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Dr. Derwin L. Gray, co-founder and lead pastor of Transformation Church. Since launching in 2010, Transformation Church has become a multi-ethnic, multi-generational movement impacting thousands locally and globally. In this conversation, Derwin tackles one of the most pressing—and often avoided—questions facing church leaders today: what are we actually multiplying?
Are we forming disciples of Jesus—or unintentionally shaping people more through culture, politics, and media than through the gospel? Derwin challenges leaders to examine the deeper currents shaping their churches and to recover a bold, Christ-centered vision for discipleship.
- What are we actually multiplying? // Derwin raises a provocative concern: many churches are focused on growth, expansion, and multiplication—but not always clear on what is being multiplied. Are we producing disciples rooted in the gospel, or consumers attracted to experiences? He warns that without intentional focus, churches can unintentionally replicate shallow faith, cultural Christianity, or even ideological distortion. The goal of multiplication must not simply be more campuses or larger attendance, but deeper, more faithful discipleship.
- A discipleship crisis beneath the surface. // The issue isn’t that churches lack discipleship. It’s that many people are being discipled by the wrong influences. Social media, political ideologies, and cultural narratives are shaping beliefs and behaviors, often more powerfully than Scripture. This creates a “wrong discipleship” problem, where people identify as Christians but reflect values that are inconsistent with the teachings of Jesus. The challenge for leaders is to re-center discipleship around Christ, ensuring that people are being formed by the gospel rather than the surrounding culture.
- The danger of ideological captivity. // Derwin speaks candidly about the ways the church can become entangled in political ideologies—whether on the right or the left. He specifically critiques the rise of Christian nationalism, defining it as the fusion of the church’s identity with the identity of a nation-state. This, he argues, distorts the gospel by elevating political allegiance above allegiance to Christ. At the same time, he acknowledges the influence of secular progressivism. Both extremes, in different ways, can pull believers away from the centrality of Jesus. The call is not to disengage from society, but to engage from a distinctly gospel-centered perspective.
- Recovering a gospel-shaped identity. // At the heart of Derwin’s message is a call to rediscover what it means to be shaped by the gospel. The good news of Jesus is not merely about individual salvation—it creates a new family across ethnic, cultural, and social lines. This vision is central to Transformation Church’s identity as a multi-ethnic community. Derwin emphasizes that the gospel reconciles not only vertically (between people and God), but horizontally (between people and one another). When churches lose this vision, they lose their witness in a divided world.
- Courageous and compassionate leadership. // Leading in this cultural moment requires what Derwin calls “courageous compassion.” Pastors must be willing to speak truth clearly while loving people deeply. This means addressing difficult issues without fear of losing people, while also avoiding harsh or divisive rhetoric. Derwin acknowledges that this approach can lead to criticism from multiple sides, but he emphasizes that faithfulness to Christ must take priority over maintaining comfort or approval.
- Practical steps for leaders. // For pastors who feel their churches have been shaped more by culture than by Christ, Derwin offers simple but powerful starting points: pray, repent, and refocus on the gospel. He encourages leaders to equip themselves through study and to guide their teams in rediscovering a biblical framework for discipleship. Most importantly, leaders must model what they teach, demonstrating lives rooted in Christ rather than captured by cultural narratives.
- A renewed vision for the church. // Ultimately, Derwin calls the church back to its prophetic voice. The church is not meant to mirror the divisions of the world but to offer a compelling alternative: a community shaped by love, unity, and truth. When the church remains rooted in Jesus, it becomes a powerful witness to a watching world.
To learn more about Transformation Church and Dr. Derwin L. Gray, his teaching, and resources, visit transformationchurch.tc and derwinlgray.com. Plus, pre-order his book, It’s Time to Heal: Four God-Given Steps to Restore What Life Has Shattered.
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Portable Church
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, so glad that you decided to tune in to today’s episode of the unSeminary podcast. Really looking forward to this. I had a fragment of a conversation with a dear friend at the Exponential Conference and I want to have more of that today with you listening in. And this is a conversation that I know is impacting people. I think 100% of our church is in the country today. It’s something that we all are seeing. It’s impacting us. We’ve got to be thinking about this.
Rich Birch — Honored to have Dr. Derwin Gray with us, incredible leader from Transformation Church. He and his wife, Vicki, co-founded the church in 2010. It’s a multi-ethnic, multi-generational, mission-shaped community community with two locations in South Carolina, as well as Church Online. He’s an award-winning author of multiple books. He’s been on the podcast in the past and is one of the people who, he’s called me out on the podcast before, and I have taken those lessons with me. And so I’m I’m hoping that happens with you today. Derwin, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Hey, man, thank you. So good to be with you.
Rich Birch — No, it’s it’s honest. You know, been multiple times you’ve been on the show and I I’ve walked away being like, man, okay, Derwin just, he’s just pushed me and and got me to think different, which I really appreciate that. So for folks that don’t know about Transformation, kind of tell us a little bit about the church and give us the context you’re in, that sort of thing.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Yeah, man. So ah my wife and I co-planted Transformation Church in 2010 in the Charlotte, North Carolina area. And so neither my wife and nor I grew up in church, and both of us came to faith in our mid to late 20s, and primarily through people at work. There was a woman at my wife’s job who shared Christ with her. I had a teammate named Steve Grant, with the Indianapolis Colts, where I played in the NFL. We called him the naked preacher because after practice, he’d dry off, take a shower, wrap a towel around his waist, and he’d share the gospel. And over five years, I came to faith. My wife came to faith before me.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And all we knew was this. If Jesus is this incredible, this forgiving, this gracious, this is the greatest news there is in the world. And so we didn’t know what words like evangelism and discipleship meant. All we knew was this. I want to know him. I want to make him known. I want to know his word.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And so that was in 1997, 1998. We moved to Charlotte, North Carolina to play for the Carolina Panthers, and I got injured. And so all I could do was read my Bible, rehab my knee. And the following year, both my wife and I said, you know what? I think my NFL time is done.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — What are we going to do? We don’t know. So I got an invitation to speak at a youth event to share my testimony. And I said, well, what is that? They were like, a testimony is where you share your story of how you met Christ and what what took place. So I did that. People started calling me.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And in 1999, other Christians says, you guys need a nonprofit organization. You know, we’re like, what does that mean? So we started a ministry called One Heart at a Time. I would travel and speak. She would organize everything. We served at our church. Well, the longer we did that, we saw incredible fruit, but we also saw that wherever I would preach, it was ethnically segregated. It was it was really weird, right?
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — I’m like, wait a second. America is integrated, but the church is basically segregated. And so I began to ask questions and I got lousy answers. But as we read the Bible, it was like the early church was Jews and Gentiles. That’s what it was. It was a multi-ethnic church. Jesus not only forgave sins, but he created a family with different colored skins. Not only is that the future of the church in Revelation 7:9, but that’s the present reality of the church that intrinsic to the gospel is ethnic reconciliation. What good would it be Jesus forgives you but don’t love your brother and sister? So the cross is vertical and horizontal.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — So we were frustrated. And then we just sense God say, well, you can criticize or you can create. And so ultimately that led to planting Transformation Church in the south area of Charlotte, North Carolina, where actually physically in what’s called Indian Land, South Carolina, and our other campus is in Lake Wiley, South Carolina, but it’s really the greater Charlotte area.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And our church is more ethnically diverse than our community. And I want to be very, very clear. One of the reasons why we are ethnically diverse is because of the good news of Jesus. Like I explained, Jesus not only forgives sins, but he creates a family with different colored skins. And so for us, ethnic unity in Christ not only enhances our discipleship, but it enhances our witness to a looking and watching world which is filled with so much division.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And over the last 16 years, God has done miraculous things. We’ve seen 9,000 people come to faith, thousands be baptized. God has given us massive influence. We also have what’s called the Multi-Ethnic Church Roundtable, where we’ve equipped 800 leaders from around the world to do gospel-centered multi-ethnic ministry. We’re also in the process, Leon’s Crump and I, of launching what’s called the Promise Collective, which is going to be an intentionally multi-ethnic gospel-centered church planting network.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — So a lot of wonderful things are taking place. And we think it’s pretty cool that God planted us in the state of South Carolina where the first shots of the Civil War were fired. And God has used this church here to influence not only the church in America, but even around the world.
Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — So we’re grateful.
Rich Birch — Well, I, yeah, there’s I respect you on so many levels. And, and, you know, they these issues around being a multi-ethnic church are, you know, at the core of that. And just to respect you on for lots of what you’ve done. and And we ended up at this in this conversation, just to kind of bring everybody up to speed, we ended up in this conversation at Exponential that I leaned forward as just declaring my, ah you know, a little bit about me for folks that are listening in. So I am Canadian, don’t hold it against me.
Rich Birch — But I’ve served mostly American churches in the churches I work with. And most of the 95% of the listeners of this podcast are in the States. I was in the States for a bunch of years. And that may become a little more obvious as we’re talking here why that’s why I’m talking about that context. But one of the things in this conversation that I heard you, the question you asked, which made me lean forward and then where it kind of unfolded from there is you asked the question, what are we actually multiplying? Exponential is obviously the global conference for multiplication, but you were pushing us to think about what are we actually multiplying? What is the the core of that? Can you unpack that for us?What were you thinking of when we started talking about that that day?
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Yeah, sure, sure. Just to provide either even a little bit more context is it was a gathering of of very large churches.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And the question is what’s going well, what’s not going well? And so typically in those types of rooms, I like to listen. And so as I was listening, I was hearing no disrespect, but a lot of the same.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And so I kind of waited for everybody to to finish what they were saying. And I said, here’s something that Transformation Church does well, is we are equipping our people to stand against secular progressivism and Christian nationalism. And I said, what are we exactly multiplying? Because the state of the church the United States America is not good. It’s not healthy. It is divided. In many cases, it is it’s mean. Shallow theology, not loving our neighbors as God commands us to be loved.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — So so my question was, are we just putting up more boxes for consumers to come in and consume because we have good music, good human-centered preaching. You know, we’re not going to mess with your idols. We’re not going to topple your idols at all. And yeah, you can invite your friends when we get more campuses. Because if that’s just what we’re doing, don’t sign me up for that. I don’t I don’t I don’t want any parts of that. That’s how we got to where we are now. And so you as a Canadian, here in America, the witness of the church is not very good. Like when I talk to people who are unbelievers, I have to untangle…
Rich Birch — Right.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — …politics from the gospel because unfortunately there’s been an unholy wedding, particularly on the far right with aspects of Christianity, which has distorted and deformed. I think the secular progressivism is pretty easy to see, but I think the Christian nationalism is a lot harder.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Now, let me define what I mean by that. So first of all, Loving your country is a good thing. That’s called loving your neighbors. You love yourself. So my fourth grandfather, Moses Davis, fought for the Union, the colored cavalry of Virginia…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — …against the treasonous Confederate whatever it was. So in my blood is patriotism for my nation. America’s my home. But to love my neighbors, I love myself means not only do love America, but I love the entire world. And then as a Christian, we have a global body that we love. There are more followers of Jesus of color outside of America than the United States of America.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Now, what do I mean by Christian nationalism? This is what I mean. Christian nationalism is the attempt to fuse the identity and mission of the church with the identity and power of a nation state, treating the nation as a primary vehicle of God’s purposes rather than seeing God’s kingdom as a global Jesus-centered reality that transcends all nations.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — By that definition, Christian nationalism is a heresy. Because it basically says, if you don’t think like us, you can’t be a follower of Jesus. And so you’re adding to the works of Christ. And so Christian nationalism has infiltrated much of what I would say the majority culture, Caucasian church in America. Not all, but a lot. Where Christians, what what it means to follow Jesus has turned into a far right, almost authoritarianism versus, no, no, you have the right to vote in the United States of America. But as Christians, we don’t have a right to idolize nor demonize those who vote differently than us.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — I’m not sure Americans know this, but most people in the world are not Republican or Democrat.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — So if you say your faith is based on what you vote for, you’re adding to the work of Christ.
Rich Birch — So, so Derwin, I appreciate you. So I’ve not heard a lot of people talk about this. This seems to be, I don’t know, it seems like something happened post COVID and the church in general, there was this like shakeup in the church in general where, you know, lots of people ended up in different places and it was like, we’ve become more divided than ever before. And I do think that there’s a significant dividing line at or close to what you’re talking about here, that it’s like, there’s a, there’s a new voice around Christian nationalism that seems to be gaining influence. Is that, is that, is that ah a false perception or is that the way you see it as well?
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — No, you are 100% right. And it is a well-orchestrated, well-funded plan. With social media and the rise of social media influencers, paid propagandists can go on and infuse their propaganda into people immediately.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And here’s and here’s the thing. Populism does not require much intellect. All it requires is somebody to be angry at who’s taking from you. So the more divided we are as people, the more the oligarchs have power and the money that they make.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — They own the social media. They own the algorithms. I mean, for goodness sakes, Elon Musk promised people a million dollars to vote in Pennsylvania for the election. How is that even legal? Right.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — So people are being inundated. Like we have family members that don’t even talk to each other anymore because they have red hat or a blue shirt, right? And so it has been in increasingly effective. But here’s the thing, Rich, that’s so wild to me. The admin the the Trump administration greenlit the FDA approval of an abortion pill. And I don’t hear any evangelical saying anything about it.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And even when you look at the Supreme Court now saying states can choose whether you do abortion or not, that’s pro-choice. You know, what used to be the Republican Party, small government, family values, those things are way gone.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And so not only has Christian nationalism changed like, or not only has this current administration changed what the Republican Party was, but in many cases, it’s changed even so much of the church. And it is wild to listen to people in 2016 who said one thing, who say a totally different thing now.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — It’s hard.
Rich Birch — Well, yeah. And I so I think the thing you’ve, you’re putting a finger on and it’s, I appreciate you being willing to talk about and unpack it is there’s definitely like a broader cultural conversation that’s happening around these issues. That is for sure. We’re seeing that. And that’s having an impact on our ability to disciple the people in our churches or our people are being discipled by social media, by the algorithm, by YouTube And that can create or is creating a discipleship crisis in many of our churches. How do you try to find the line between those two to say, hey, we’re going to talk about the discipleship stuff…
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …without getting dragged in on the you know the exterior? How do we how do we draw those lines in a way that makes sense?
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Yeah. Yeah. So, so, so what I would say is we don’t have a discipleship problem. We have a wrong discipleship problem.
Rich Birch — Okay, that’s good.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Because somebody is making students out of somebody.
Rich Birch — Right, sure.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And so are we becoming students of Jesus? that’s That’s the issue. And so what I say is this, how a person votes, that’s their conscience. But how do you treat the people who don’t vote like you?
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — So for example, research shows black Americans are more socially conservative, more biblically committed than white Americans. But 90%, I’m sorry, but black American Christians, but black American Christians, 90% vote for Democrats. So how can you be more socially conservative, more biblically committed, but you vote for Democrat?
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Well, because they don’t take everything that’s in the Democratic Party, just like most people who voted for Trump don’t take everything with him. And so we have to give each other the latitude and the grace. And there’s also pro-life Democrats. And not everybody who voted for Trump is evil. Not everybody who votes Democrat is evil. But the powers that be want us divided.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s true.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And when I and when I talk to my friends from Canada, when I talk to my friends that are pastors from around the world, Norway, different parts of Europe, Australia, England, and they’re going, what has happened to you guys?
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — I can tell you what’s what’s taken place is our faith is being distorted and driving it is fear and hatred.
Rich Birch — Yeah. So I would echo that. The joke I’ve made, both with American leaders and leaders from other parts of the world, is there is a segment of the body of Christ that seems very angry about the love of God. Like they’re and they’re very fearful. Like it’s all it’s all anger and fear driven. And I don’t know whether, and it probably is related to the algorithms, but like we’re hearing from these people so much more than, than we used to. It used to be an echo chamber of people that lived in so much fear, but now it’s just out there. It seems to be in, in our, you know, in our feeds all the time.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Yeah, what used to be on the fringes is now on the main street, right? And so we need to re-gospel ourselves. We need a greater commitment to Christ. So, for example, life in the womb is precious and sacred. That’s not conservative. That’s gospel. That’s biblical.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Caring for the dignity of undocumented people in America is not liberal. That’s gospel. Wanting border control is not conservative. That is understanding that a nation has to have borders to flourish.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Believing that marriage is between a man and a woman, we believe that’s biblical. But loving and respecting LGBTQ people is not liberal. Loving my neighbors as I love myself. And if I have any hope of anybody ah coming to Jesus, they’re not going come to Jesus because I’m yelling at them and I’m angry. I’m going to love them and pursue them just like we’ve done here at our church.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And so I feel like what we’ve done in in in the church is we’ve taken a 250 year old country called America. And then specifically the last 10 years, we’ve made that the hermeneutic to understand the gospel.
Rich Birch — Yeah, right.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — We’ve made that the lenses that we look through to determine the gospel. Whereas what I’m saying, let’s go back to the text. Let’s go back to the early church, the book of Acts, Paul’s letters, the gospels. That’s where our faith comes from.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Like I have lobbied on Capitol Hill with Republicans and Democrats about immigration reform. We need border security, but we can also secure the dignity of human beings, especially human beings who are undocumented and don’t have a record against them. Right. So there has to be a process to have strong borders, but also to hold to people’s hearts.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — But but at the end of the day, right at the end of the day, we are people of the Lamb, not the elephant or the donkey.
Rich Birch — So good. So good. So what’s the hardest part about leading in a church that really refuses to be captured by either side? I feel like there’s pressure on from both political parties to they, you know, I think somewhere along the line, they realize, wow, there’s a lot of power in these churches. And how do we you know, how do we kind of infiltrate or how do we gain that? What’s it like to lead a church that’s trying to, that’s refusing to be captured by both sides is wants to keep Jesus ahead. What does that cost? How is that, you know, what are some of the pressures of that? What have been some telltale signs for you as you’ve led at Transformation in this front?
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Yeah, um i would i would I would say, Rich, sometimes I’ll get a critical email and a eventually those people will leave. But but but but for the most part, I mean, we’re 16 years in, it’s our ethos, it’s our character. People know who we are. They know why we are. And so like we’re flourishing, we’re growing. It’s beautiful.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — There’s a matter of fact, I got some messages earlier today just saying, hey, thank you. Like I was just about done with Christianity and I found Transformation Church, right? I mean, this Jesus, you’re this is what I want to be a part of. So I think respecting and loving all people, even though you disagree with them. And the thing that I said, I did a series in 2024 in the fall before the election on on the Beatitudes.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And my whole thing was how you vote is up to your conscious. How you treat people is not up for debate. We’re called to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. And so in our church, I’m sure we got people all over the political spectrum. I’m a registered independent myself.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — But something that I think really landed well with our people is this: 99.9% of all followers of Jesus for 2,000 years and even now have never voted Republican and have never voted Democrat.
Rich Birch — Right. Right. That’s good.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Our faith is in Christ and Christ alone. And America is what’s called a constitutional republic democracy. It is not a theocracy. It is governed by a constitution, not the Bible. And so, yes, I want believers in place not to do some kind of spiritual Sharia law, but to make sure that the Constitution is upheld, which gives life and liberty and justice, not for some, but for all.
Rich Birch — What would you say, you know, I’ve often thought around this, these, this issue and we’re kind of related issues. I have to think back to Billy Graham and I think like, man, we don’t know what, don’t what he’d be doing today. Like what would, I’ve heard this story that and in the fifties he gathered a group of what at the time, they you know they self afflicted they gave themselves the title of fundamentalist and they said, hey, we gotta stop calling ourselves fundamentalist because that word is so loaded in our culture. It feels like evangelical is like that today.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Yeah.
Rich Birch — It is when people ask me, are you evangelical? I’ll say, well, it depends on what you mean by evangelical because it has so much freight behind it. Do you think there is a place for kind of a broader discussion? How, how can we continue to try to create a middle here that where people can actually try to shed these, like you say, the Lamb and the donkey and, or the, the, the elephant and the donkey and, and focus on the Lamb. How do we do that going forward? How do we create those kinds of places where those kinds of conversations can continue to happen?
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Yeah, you know, so let me answer the first question first is when I preached in Norway a few years ago, the people said, thank you for being so evangelical. And it had nothing to do with politics. So the term evangelical comes from the Greek word, which means good news. So it’s never meant to be a political voting block.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — It’s never meant to be an ethnicity. It is good news people. So in Europe, I say I’m evangelical because it goes well. Here in America, I say I am shaped by the gospel. I’m a Christian that’s shaped by the gospel.
Rich Birch — That’s good language.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — I love God and I love my neighbors. I love myself. So I think we have a fundamental gospel problem in the American church. If you simply think the good news is Jesus died for your sins, now you don’t go to hell, then your discipleship is going to be very reductionistic. It’s going to be very individualistic.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — So the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, his ascension and then sending the Spirit, is not only do we spend eternity with him, but as brothers and sisters, we’re equally righteous, equally redeemed, equally the temple of the Holy Spirit, equally God’s children. So if all those things are true equally, then by definition, we are the body of Christ. So if you hurt, then I hurt, but we don’t think that way.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — So we have to change the way we think. Paul says in Philippians 2.3, do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but consider others better than yourselves. Verse five is “for you have the mind of Christ”. And so what we’ve been able to do here at Transformation Church is really move people deeper to the gospel. If you listen to one of my messages, you will hear gospel. That’s why we are the way we are. And the gospel challenges idols.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — When President Obama was president, I would get emails, “Oh you must be a Republican.” And then when President Trump, “You must be a Democrat.” I’m like, no, I’m an independent, but I’m called to be prophetic and to equip us to not be captivated by the zeitgeist…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — …the spirit of the age. When the church loses her prophetic witness, we’ve lost everything.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that that that names something that you put a finger on there, on something that I’d love you to unpack a little bit more. How do you do that as a pastor? Because I’ve seen you do that consistently. It’s like, how how do we be that prophetic voice, speak with clarity to ultimately point people back to Jesus, not be captured by just the winds of the day?
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Be courageously compassionate.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Be courageously compassionate. I believe, you know, so I have, I have, I have talked to pastors who lead churches that may be, you know, center a little bit left. And well, if I talk about this issue too much, people may leave. Then I’ve heard other people like, well, if I talk about about this, the MAGA people may leave. And it’s like, well, Are you concerned about people leaving or are you concerned about honoring the call that God has given you?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And one day you have to face him and you’re going to say, well, you know, what Lord, I was afraid people were going to leave. Like you can be courageous and compassionate simultaneously.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — So I, there are people on both sides of the aisle that passionately and deeply love Jesus, but have different perspectives politically. Now, Christian nationalism, that is a whole different species that that has to be lovingly challenged. And my job at Transformation Church is to equip our people and to be a shepherd because there are false prophets and wolves that are coming.
Rich Birch — There’s a ton here. I really appreciate that. For a pastor that’s listening in today that’s thinking, man, I look at my people and I think maybe I they have been discipled more by cable news than by scripture. And I maybe haven’t done everything I could could have done. I haven’t been clear with compassion. I’ve just been, I’ve just kind of let this happen. What would you say some of the first steps that you would say for a for a leader like that?
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Yeah, pray, repent, pray, repent. Take your elders and your staff through a book by Preston Sprinkle called “Exiles in Babylon” or the book by Michael Byrd and N.T. Wright. Both of them deal with you know how to be a faithful witness in this time of political division. But before you go out and share, make sure that you are equipped. But also choose not to be partisan.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Rich, the Epstein Files is one of the biggest cover-ups in American history. We’re talking about precious kids who were taking advantage of. And I mean, where is the prophetic voice that this is wrong, regardless of who’s in it? This is wrong and it demands justice. We as God’s people are going to be held accountable to equip this. Like, this is serious. Like, I’ve heard people say, well, there’s bigger problems in the world. No, there’s not.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Derwin, this has been fantastic. I want to point people towards, you’ve got a new book that’s coming out. That’s like like a huge left-hand turn here, but just looking at it, I think this could is is connected, obviously, to what we’re talking about in today’s conversation. It comes out this fall.
Rich Birch — It’s called it’s a time or “It’s Time to Heal: Four God-Given Steps to Restore What Life Has Shattered”. Tell us a little bit about this book, and I and I want to get people to you know actually pre-order this thing.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Yeah, man. So basically the last seven years, what I have seen from followers of Christ is we’re the walking wounded. We are, we are just stuck. We have allowed our traumas, our histories, our pains, our failures, the way we’ve been hurt to keep us in a position of hurt. And we’ve just circled and circled. And then, a lot of preaching deals with behavior modification and doesn’t get to the root. And so I’ve just been like, you know what, God, I want to help God’s people. Right. And it starts with helping myself.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And what I do is I really take a theology of who we are in Christ. I take neuroscience and psychology and marry them in spiritual formation
Rich Birch — Love it.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And it’s by far the best book that I’ve ever written. I can’t wait for people to see the endorsements from people like Dr. Daniel Amen, Craig Groeschel, Christine Caine. It’s by far the most important book I’ve ever written and the best book I’ve ever written. And I believe that it can really help people heal. Like really understanding that trauma gets in our nervous system. It’s not just think harder, do more. Like we have to learn how this is embodied inside of us.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And so, man, it transformed me writing it. And what I do is I walk the people through an acronym. The the book is in four parts and the acronym HEAL. H stands for honest about what what happened. E, expect hard. A, accept what happened and L, live from love, not for love. And I share some incredible stories in there. And so, yeah, I’m really, really looking forward to people healing.
Rich Birch — Well, yeah, I would encourage people to, we’ll link to that in the show notes and all that. But I think it’s connected in that I think I think the extremes on both ends politically, they’ve picked up on kind of the pain in the zeitgeist. And they’ve they’ve said, hey, the solution is is is the other side is the enemy and we got to do something to tear them down. And we know that just won’t work. At the end of the day, it’s Jesus transforming our lives. It’s him restoring us to who we are. And I think this could be a great tool for folks as they’re wrestling with that. So I’m excited for that book to come out. Looking forward to that. And we’ll we’ll link to all that.
Rich Birch — Any kind of final words as we wrap up today? I really appreciate you unpacking this a bit more and taking some time to, you know, kind of let us chat a little bit about it.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Yeah, two thoughts. Jesus said in Matthew 5:44 and 45, bless those who persecute you. And I said, love your enemies. And then Jesus said, you will know my disciples because they love one another. Refuse to let anger and hatred and division guide you.
Rich Birch — That’s good. So good. You said two things. You had two you that and one other thing.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Well, yeah, it was it was Matthew 5 and you’re on…yeah.
Rich Birch — Oh, I see. Right, right, right. Yep. Okay. That’s good. Nice. Where if people want to track with you or with the church, where do we want to send them online? Just as we wrap up today’s call conversation.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Yeah, just go to derwinlgray.com, derwinlgray.com
Rich Birch — Nice. That’s great. Dr. Derwin, I just want to honor you. You’re an incredible leader. Thank you for being here today and helping us think through these issues. Thank you.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Thank you, my friend.
Rich Birch — Take care.
Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Appreciate you.
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Ronee de Leon, Executive Director of Partner Church Success at TouchPoint Software. With nearly two decades of ministry experience and now serving churches across the country, Ronee brings a unique perspective at the intersection of systems, strategy, and shepherding.
Are you relying on attendance and giving numbers to understand your church? Wondering how to actually “see” your people as your church grows more complex? Ronee shares a practical framework for turning data into meaningful ministry action.
- You can’t shepherd what you can’t see. // One of the biggest challenges Ronee sees across churches is a lack of visibility. While most churches are passionate about reaching people, many rely on high-level metrics—attendance and giving—that only tell part of the story. As churches grow (especially beyond 300 people), intuitive leadership alone is no longer enough. Leaders can’t be in every room, and without deeper insight, they miss critical moments in people’s lives. The result is a gap between what leaders think is happening and what’s actually happening in people’s spiritual journeys.
- From data to discipleship. // Ronee emphasizes that data itself is not the goal. Rather, discipleship is. The opportunity for churches today is to transform raw data into actionable insight that helps people take meaningful next steps. Instead of just knowing how many people are in groups, leaders should be asking deeper questions: Who is still engaged three weeks in? Who dropped off halfway through? What patterns are emerging in people’s participation? These insights reveal where discipleship is thriving and where it’s stalling.
- The four stages of data-driven discipleship. // To help churches think clearly about this process, Ronee outlines a simple framework: conviction, collection, clarity, and care. Conviction asks whether leaders truly believe data collection matters enough to prioritize it. Collection focuses on consistently gathering meaningful data, not just sporadically. Clarity is the ability to interpret that data, moving from information to insight. And finally, care is where action happens – using those insights to connect with people and shepherd them effectively. Every church, she notes, is somewhere along this progression.
- Where most churches get stuck. // Many churches struggle in the gap between collection and clarity. They gather data but don’t translate it into meaningful action. Data becomes a warehouse rather than a tool. The shift happens when leaders move from asking “What happened?” to “What does this mean and what should we do next?” This requires intentional conversations, regular review rhythms, and a willingness to engage with the data rather than ignore it.
- Drifting is the key moment to watch. // One of the most important indicators Ronee highlights is disengagement. When people begin to drift—missing groups, serving less, or disengaging from community—it often signals deeper issues. Behind that drift could be doubt, divorce, depression, diagnosis, or financial stress. Without visibility, churches miss the opportunity to respond. But with the right systems in place, leaders can proactively reach out, offering care at the exact moment it’s needed most.
- From surveillance to stewardship. // Data collection isn’t surveillance, but rather stewardship. When used correctly, data enables pastors and leaders to care for people more effectively. A simple phone call or conversation, prompted by data, can change someone’s trajectory. Ronee shares examples of pastors identifying disengaged individuals, reaching out, and discovering significant life challenges—leading to holistic care that addresses spiritual, emotional, and practical needs.
- Culture matters more than tools. // While technology plays an important role, culture is the starting point. Churches must first align around why data matters. Without that shared conviction, systems will fail regardless of how advanced they are. Teams need clarity, support, and accountability to consistently engage with data. Leaders must normalize conversations about it by reviewing insights in meetings, celebrating wins, and integrating it into everyday ministry rhythms.
- Measuring what really matters. // One of the most important shifts happening today is moving beyond weekend attendance as the primary measure of health. Many churches are discovering they are actually ministering to two to three times more people than their weekend numbers suggest. This broader view changes how leaders think about staffing, engagement, and discipleship pathways. It also raises a deeper question: are we promoting participation, or are we cultivating transformation?
To learn more about TouchPoint Software and access the free church health assessment, visit touchpointsoftware.com/unseminary.
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. You know, we say here at the podcast that it’s like stuff you wish they taught in seminary. And 100% know that today’s topic is one of those that they’re not talking about in seminary, but for particularly my executive pastors, senior leader type people that are listening in, you think about this almost every single day. And your team interacts with it multiple times a day. And it’s something you’re gonna wanna lean in on for an incredible conversation today with Ronee de Leon.
She is the Executive Director of Partner Church Success at TouchPoint Software. If you do not know who TouchPoint Software is, you have been living under a rock. It’s a church management and engagement platform that serves churches across the country. She brings over 18 years of experience working in and alongside ministry, combining strategic systems, thinking with a deep heart for shepherding. TouchPoint, this is an incredible organization, has a mission for helping churches transform their data into discipleship, and they really talk a lot about engagement. And so we really want to dive in with this today. Ronee, thanks for being here. Thanks for being on the show.
Ronee de Leon — It’s my pleasure. It’s great to be back, Rich. Thank you.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good to have you back on. Slightly different context, but same kind of conversations, but glad to have you back on. Why don’t you bring us up to speed? Tell us a little bit about the Ronee story and tell us a little bit about TouchPoint. How’s all that work together?
Ronee de Leon — Yeah, I have been on a journey. Anybody following the Lord, I feel like is on a fun adventure with Jesus. And I have definitely felt that in the last couple of years. I’ve been at TouchPoint for a little less than two years. But before that, I was at a large multi-site mega church based in Columbus, Ohio, and just grateful for the way that the Lord pivots us in our journey when it’s time. And so I had the opportunity to move from serving one church to lots and lots of churches across the country. And I just, it’s such a privilege to serve the bride of Christ in the way that we do at TouchPoint, like you said, through technology, but it’s so much more than that.
Rich Birch — Yeah. and I want to take advantage, friends, I want to take advantage of the with the fact that Ronnie’s here. You see churches across the country. You’re working with churches across the country. You have a great experience. And friends, if you’re listening in today and you’re like, oh, like we already have a system like this, I want you to listen in because we’re not we’re not here to sell you on anything. We want to have a bigger conversation, ask some bigger questions, to help you wrestle with and think about this issue, but frankly, to take advantage of your position TouchPoint because you see so much.
Rich Birch — When you think about the landscape of churches, when they’re looking at, you know, particularly the leaders, we’re thinking about executive pastor type person, when they come to actually knowing their people, where are their people are at at their church, Where what does a landscape look like for us on that front? How do we know kind of the people in our church? How do we get a sense of who are they? What are they do and how are they engaging with us?
Ronee de Leon — Yeah, I love the church, Rich. I recently have been kind of working through the language with the Lord of, I think the calling on my life is to be the best maid of honor to the bride of Christ that I can be. So it’s such a unique vantage point…
Rich Birch — I love that.
Ronee de Leon — …at TouchPoint serving churches all over the country, like you said. The church has a lot of passion and we’re doing a lot to reach people. But some things that I see are that we still have visibility gaps and why that matters is because churches cannot shepherd what they cannot see.
Rich Birch — So true.
Ronee de Leon — And so we we’ve got a lot of people in our care, but if we’re just taking ministry snapshots instead of understanding meaningful steps as people take their discipleship journey, we’re still struggling with visibility into what’s actually happening in our church.
Rich Birch — Wow, I’m looking forward to digging into that. I know many of us, ah you know, I like to call it the nickels and noses issue. Like we know, in fact, probably 100% of the pastors that are listening in today, they know how many people attended last weekend. And they probably know generally where things are at on the revenue side, particularly, hopefully on the expense side too. But that’s just a really high level, maybe not that helpful, if I hear what you’re saying. Where does the picture start to break down when all we see is these two? If if if we’re just looking at these two numbers, how does that kind of limit our ability? I like that, you know, to see our people, to ultimately disciple them.
Ronee de Leon — Yeah, I would say there is a ton of opportunity to transform data into discipleship. And when we stay high level, we’re missing the opportunities that double clicking into those things would allow us.
Ronee de Leon — Like you said, with an attendance example, we know how many people are in groups. Sometimes that’s roster based. Churches really are getting into this might know what their retention rate is, you know how many people actually are staying in groups over the course of the season. But like if we keep clicking and keep drilling into this, there is the ability for us to understand as people are engaging in these groups and disengaging from these groups.
Ronee de Leon — You know, who’s still connected. three weeks into the season, six weeks into the season, 12 weeks into the season, and who’s not? And why did they fall off? And so there is a high level view that’s helpful year over year, season to season. But again, we’re missing a lot of discipleship opportunities by not drilling down into this to kind of these personal levels.
Rich Birch — Yeah, well and I can imagine as particularly as our churches grow, I think ah there’s a lot of leaders in the church that are like really intuitive leaders and they like to kind of like get in a room and like, I can feel this thing. I just know how it’s going. But as the church grows and becomes you know, more complex, that’s harder to do. You can’t, you just can’t, you can’t get in all the rooms. There’s, there’s, you can’t be in more than one place at once. If you have multiple locations, you can’t do that. And so how, as that happens, what are the kind of maybe questions that you see leaders asking that that doesn’t work anymore though? They can’t get answers out of that. They want answers for that, but they just can’t get it. What, what are those?
Ronee de Leon — Yeah, I would say, Rich, intuition is God-given…
Rich Birch — Right.
Ronee de Leon — …but feelings are fleeting, right?
Rich Birch — So true.
Ronee de Leon — I’m a big believer in facts are our friends. So we’ve we’ve got to have the data and make data-driven decisions. But I think the questions that leaders are are trying to answer that sometimes they can’t with those feelings. In my experience, it feels like the breaking point of visibility is around like that 300 mark. If your church is growing to or above around 300, your, your staff’s eyes just can’t see everything anymore on a weekend.
Ronee de Leon — And so the questions that I think we want to answer that we, we lose visibility to as we grow and bigger churches obviously suffer from this as well, but we want to know who’s new. We want to know who’s stalling in their discipleship journey. We want to know who needs care, who’s drifting. And, that’s the part, Rich, that I think is is really important. Because when people are drifting from something that they were previously engaged in, it’s probably the things of life that they’re going through that we, the church, are responsible for caring for them and connecting with them, shepherding through.
Ronee de Leon — You know it’s it’s a bunch of Ds, Rich. It’s doubt. It’s divorce. It’s depression. It’s diagnosis. It’s economic duress. It’s disgruntlement. It’s distraction. It’s all of these things that we can’t see if we’re not double clicking. But but we want to know who’s drifting. We want to know who needs care and we want to show up in a timely manner
Rich Birch — Okay, that’s fantastic. I love the D list as well. Good, great preacher. Lots of Ds there. I love it. So let’s double click another D on this this. I know you have a framework to help churches wrestle through this, to to actually you know get beyond just these kind of high level to undersee, both see these people and understand them, move them along. Do you want to kind of talk us through this framework? Give us a high level over and then maybe we’ll kind of dive into pieces of it.
Ronee de Leon — Yeah, let’s alliterate some more.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Ronee de Leon — Like I said, I was on church staff for a long time.
Rich Birch — Yes, exactly.
Ronee de Leon — It feels like it’s more memorable, right?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Ronee de Leon — So um this is a really simple framework that really is more stages. It’s a progression. But even though it’s simple, whether they know it or not, every church is in one of these stages when it comes to data-driven discipleship.
Ronee de Leon — And so four kind of C’s of this or stages are conviction, collection, clarity, and care. And I’ll just give a brief description of each of those…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ronee de Leon — …and then we can go dive in a little bit deeper.
Ronee de Leon — But conviction, really the question that we’re answering here is, do you truly believe this matters even when it’s not easy? So leaders believe that shepherding is important, but do we want to move into doing it proactively? And are we comfortable using data as a tool to do that well? So that’s kind of the conviction piece. Do you really believe that this matters?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ronee de Leon — Collection then, are you committed to consistently gathering the data that’s needed? Not just once, but as a rhythm. It’s hard work, but it is a worthy cause, a valiant effort.
Ronee de Leon — Let’s move to clarity real quick.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ronee de Leon — Again, the question we’re answering is, now that you have the data, do you have the insight? Do you really see what it’s telling you and what are we doing with it?
Ronee de Leon — And then the last one, care, of course, is where we’re acting on the insights to connect with our people. Will you actually act on the insights and shepherd people or will it stay theoretical? That’s that’s kind of where we’re headed with this.
Rich Birch — Okay, that makes sense. So again, so that’s conviction, collection, clarity, and care. I’d love to talk about collection a little bit. So I think our churches would love to collect data. And in fact, I know there’s lots of leaders that are listening in that are like, they’re like, yeah, that sounds right. I would love to get more data. I’m just not sure how to do that. How do we build a system for collecting that data, for getting, you know, even the things you talked about, people dropping out of groups, you know, not just people rostering, but like, how do we, how do we do that? What’s the starting point for collecting data?
Ronee de Leon — To be honest, I think the starting point is your culture.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Ronee de Leon — I think that this is often an upstream problem when we think it’s a downstream one. I think that we think people just need to follow up or just be more regular about it. But if we don’t have a strong culture around why we gather the data and what we’re doing with it, there’s just a lack of clarity with the team. So I think culture really matters as a starting point. Of course, we can get into…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Ronee de Leon — …of of how to collect it. But I think we have to start there.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s a good insight. Because I can see where, yeah, we have to even just at a high level, is this a is this a conversation where we’re willing to have, want to have, want to be a part of, and we’ve got to deal with it, like you say, upstream rather than, okay, let’s dive into the actual tool first. Let’s figure out you know how important this is.
Rich Birch — But my experience…I’m going to play a little bit of devil’s advocate on this question. Hopefully you can take it Ronee. Our relationship can sustain that.
Ronee de Leon — Yeah.
Rich Birch — But like, I feel like churches collect more data that they than they use. Like I I’ve bumped into churches where they’re like, yeah, we’ve got this data, but we’re not actually doing anything with it. What’s the difference between a church that does that? Like that just sitting on data, not using it. And one that actually can gain some clarity from it. What’s the pivot between collection and clarity? How do we do that?
Ronee de Leon — Yeah, the difference is data and discernment. A church that’s collecting information knows what happened, but a church with clarity understands what it means and what to do next. And like you said, we’ve got to be willing to talk about it. We have to spend the time to translate it. It is a pivot. That raw data is is rarely helpful. And um to what do they say to to push back on your pushback?
Ronee de Leon — I am surprised as I deal with churches, how many of them don’t have all the data. I think sometimes we make an assumption that above a certain size, they just collect group data and they take attendance and that’s what they do.
Ronee de Leon — Or our volunteers check in or our kids and students check in regularly and they’re excellent at it. I find that that is actually less frequent of a case than than I think you or I would hope to believe.
Rich Birch — Okay, that’s cool. Well and so again, I said, we weren’t going to be like selling TouchPoint, but I do want to understand kind of your unique position on this issue. How is TouchPoint accelerate… because to me, I think the model turns here on this collection clarity issue. It’s like, man, we’ve got a, we have to use technology to enable us to collect data. And then that And then have some sort of intermediating technology that helps us gain better clarity on that. Talk us through where is TouchPoint’s kind of expertise in these these two parts of the four Cs?
Ronee de Leon — Yeah, I would say that TouchPoint obviously helps with collection. We’re a church management software with some unique features that are going to help you get um an intuitive kind of collective view of people’s engagement.
Ronee de Leon — So we offer things like engagement scores, which which not a lot of church management softwares have kind of baked into it. We want you to understand that overall participation and be able to see what level at what levels people are engaged and as they’re disengaging. There are ways to do that and and other softwares, but TouchPoint does have some unique kind of approaches to that built into the software.
Ronee de Leon — I would say another piece to this that kind of separates us is we have a team of consultants and those consultants are not only partnering with churches as they’re kind of getting up and running in TouchPoint to learn how to use the system.
Ronee de Leon — We’re kind of ministry consultants. We often, just a couple of weeks ago, I had a church in Texas approach me and say, you know, we have a lot of great people on our staff, but to be honest, a lot of them have transitioned from the marketplace. We don’t know what we don’t know. What processes should we have? What should our baptism process look like?
Ronee de Leon — And so we have a whole team as part of our TouchPoint team that sits with churches and helps strategize around ministry philosophy and best approaches. And so I’d say that’s another place where we we kind of shine in the space.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great.
Ronee de Leon — Everybody in the space wants to see the church win. Everybody has good hearts. And I can only speak to the team that I’m on. And these guys, they really counted a privilege to serve the church.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s, that’s amazing. Like, and and you can see, you know, a church when this is done well, when you have got a solution like TouchPoint at the core of what you’re doing, it ends up touching all of your processes. It doesn’t surprise me that a church like that would reach out and say, Hey, like, can you help us work through because you start to see the value of like, man, if we can embed this into the core of what we do, we get a better, like you say, it’s not just like, oh, look, we get a good engagement score. It actually helps us minister to people better. It actually helps us to, and so it makes sense to me that you find yourself in increasing conversations that are obviously related to technology. They they have a, for lack of better word, a touch point to technology, but they are, they’re also, you know, other kind of related systems in the church.
Rich Birch — So obviously, ultimately, this all points towards care, maybe paint a bit of a vision for us, maybe think of a church that’s doing this well. That’s like, hey, here’s some of the telltale signs that they’re actually following through that they’re, yes, they’ve got, they’ve at a high level kind of culture, they’ve got this conviction. Yes, we’re going to do that. They’re, they’re finding lots of places to collect data that doesn’t seem intrusive. They’re ultimately gaining some clarity on that. And that’s translating into real world care. Give us some, a few pictures of what does that actually look like when you’re like, oh, that’s working well.
Ronee de Leon — Yeah, I would say um one of the best kind of tells of this is we hear less and less stories of people disengaging and nobody knew and they were hurt by that. We missed an opportunity to care for or connect with them when those things of life came up.
Ronee de Leon — You know, it’s as simple sometimes as a phone call or a text, a conversation on a weekend when when the data is showing you that this person has been disengaging or not around, to to just reach out and say, hey, how you doing? You know, this is not um surveillance. This is stewardship. This is this is caring for our people.
Ronee de Leon — And there’s a story out of the church where where I used to work that I love and I still tell just because of the multifaceted kind of piece of the engagement that came out of it. So a campus pastor who was using data really well saw an individual in his church on a list of people who were disengaging. And so he reached out and he learned that this individual had lost his job that was causing doubt in his faith. And he was actually beginning to struggle with some depression.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Ronee de Leon — You know, if we play that scenario out, if we never saw that, we didn’t reach out, what happens to that guy? You know, the story could have looked very, very different.
Ronee de Leon — But because that pastor was able to use the data for the purposes of discipleship and make that connection, we we saw him and connected him. We were able to address his physical needs. You know, there was some assistance the church could provide or or point him to. We were able to help with mental needs, emotional needs, spiritual needs. There was pastoral care and Christian counseling. And so, so many different ways that we were able to engage and and and walk alongside this individual. Like I said, the way I think the church wants to and should be, but we maybe would have never known about that individual if we hadn’t had the indicator ah because of the data.
Rich Birch — Yeah, so you something you said there caught my attention. I’m like, oh, we got to loop back around on that. The example used there, you talked about the campus pastor type person. They had like a disengagement report. There was like the system ended up generating, hey, here’s a list of people. I’m assuming by what you said, here’s some people who you know I you should connect with.
Rich Birch — Talk to me about how that happens. I I I’m not like I’m not putting down any other solutions out there. I’ve worked in a number of them. I have not had that experience where it’s like, hey, these are some people you should talk to. Talk to me about how TouchPoint actually does that. What does that look like at at the level of a church? How how do we get to the point where we’re using this well enough that we can have a report like that, that we could actually take action on? That’s incredible.
Ronee de Leon — Yeah, I would say um it comes down to consistency in some ways, right? You build some reports in your system. TouchPoint has a lot of unique reporting that we can do to surface that data for you. But no matter what system you’re using, I would say if you and your team aren’t using some something as simple as absentee report of some sort, people who have been missing three or more consecutive weeks from groups or something like that.
Rich Birch — Volunteering, yep.
Ronee de Leon — I mean you can start there and and it’s really that easy. But there are more complex ways to understand rather than the arbitrary, I want to call everybody who’s missing three weeks, understand as personal participation patterns change. And that is a really unique approach to it.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Ronee de Leon — And I would say it does take a software like TouchPoint or even one that TouchPoint just partnered with called Path we’re getting into seeing those personal participation patterns and that’s where I think we get into some secret sauce and just be able to show up in a really timely manner.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s incredible. Like being able that that to me, friends, okay, I’m just going to stop pretending like I’m not biased. Like I’m biased. You should be checking out TouchPoint. But like the the I was I tried. I held for almost 20 minutes. I tried to be the the but the unbiased, you know, second voice or whatever.
Rich Birch — But but I think a part of the all of these systems have, for years, have like, this is the thing that’s all been talked about. Like, this is going to be amazing. But actually what they end up doing is being, they they’re just like warehouses of data. Like it’s just, it’s just a big list. It’s basically a complex spreadsheet of people’s names. And that’s not helpful. That doesn’t actually help us. And the the vicious cycle I’ve seen with my team is our people, our people people, the people that actually interact with our folks, they don’t see the value in this helping them. So then they don’t end up interacting with the tool and giving data and all of that stuff because they’re like, well, this doesn’t actually help me do my job. So why am I interacting with it? What I love about TouchPoint is we’re saying, hey, how do we get to the to the idea of a personalized path, a personalized understanding of where people are at? That’s, you know, that’s incredible.
Rich Birch — So you’ve worked with lots of churches, hundreds of churches, and, you know, lots all across the country, great, lots of different contexts. What trends are you seeing right now that church that are helping churches think about engagement differently than maybe a few years ago, that things that are like, okay, this is, you know, kind of the cutting edge stuff we we should be thinking about, you know, in the in the future, what are some things we should be looking at?
Ronee de Leon — Yeah, I’m really grateful that in the last few years, I think there has been started to see a shift, at least in churches moving from simply gathering the data to asking what they can do with it. How can we actually leverage this for discipleship? I think churches are taking that more seriously. It even used to be a little taboo for churches to gather data. That’s not the case anymore. And and I’m grateful for that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ronee de Leon — I see that moving in a really positive direction. I’m seeing churches being willing to evaluate their technology stack, which I think is really important. Again, we’ve been gathering the data long enough long enough.
Ronee de Leon — If it’s not useful, what are what are we doing? What are we doing with it?
Rich Birch — Right. Why are we doing this?
Ronee de Leon — And so yeah, understanding is our technology really serving us well and as a tool exactly for those people you just mentioned. Your people people, your pastoral people, is it quick and easy and getting them to their people more quickly?
Ronee de Leon — And then even the idea of decisions being made around data about specifically the actual size of our ministry. I think this has been said for years now, pre-COVID it was true. Now it’s it’s even more true. Weekend service numbers don’t tell the whole story…
Rich Birch — Right.
Ronee de Leon — …of who is in and around our ministry pond. And we have to understand that and start making decisions around that.
Rich Birch — That’s so true.
Ronee de Leon — Or in those spaces, how are we discipling them towards the importance of the weekend service and that gathering? And so, I’m just seeing some things shift in that area as well. Executive pastors don’t love this conversation, Rich. I’m just going to throw that out there. Because a lot of our staffing ratios are based on weekend service attendance numbers, but we’re actually serving. The patterns that I’m seeing are somewhere between two and a half to three times that number of people in our ministries.
Ronee de Leon — So there’s there’s a lot of movement in the world of data, but those are some of the things that are kind of surfacing that I think is really helpful and productive for churches.
Rich Birch — Okay, I want to, I would like I said, I was want to take advantage of your expertise. An area that, speaking in this whole this consistency issue, hey, how do we keep our people engaged, keep our staff, our volunteers, key volunteers engaged in um collecting data and, you know, ensuring that they’re engaging with the tool. What have you seen as best practices either on the front end, like, hey, when we’re rolling out a new system, if we’ve, if we’ve switched, say, for instance, if you’re listening in and you want to switch to TouchPoint, what are some best practices on that front or just ongoing to keep our people using this? How do we, how do we, yeah, what’s what’s best practice on that front?
Ronee de Leon — Yeah, what you’re kind of hinting towards is a little bit around change management and the stick-to-it-ativeness around that, right?
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Ronee de Leon — There is a leadership coaching company that I’ve worked with in the past that talks about to achieve anything, you need clarity, support and accountability. And I’m a really big believer in that clarity. Again, we’ve talked about what are we doing? Why are we doing it? Support is do we have the tools and the training to make that happen?
Ronee de Leon — The biggest lacking piece that I see often in church world is the accountability side.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ronee de Leon — You know, we we wrestle with the idea of grace and truth. And a lot of times we want to lean really heavily into the grace side of things. I think there is a huge opportunity for accountability to be reframed in church world. It doesn’t have to be a drop the hammer approach.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Ronee de Leon — You know, it’s seeing people do the right thing and helping them continue to do that. So I would say if you don’t have all three of those pieces, you’re probably going struggle to achieve just about anything. And the part, like I said, that I see really, really with area for opportunity in the church world is that accountability piece.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. Any that I think that’s a clear framework. That’s like the cost of the price price worth the price of admission of today’s episode right there.
Rich Birch — Clarity, support, accountability. That’s fantastic. On the accountability side, how do we do that? What what what are some ways to, ou know, I’m thinking carrot and stick. It’s like I can we’ve celebrated where it’s like, hey, look at this person. This department’s doing a great job with this. How how else are should are have you seen churches that are particularly effective at driving that kind of consistency, driving accountability? What are they doing to ins ensure or that that’s, you know, that’s actually happening in their organization?
Ronee de Leon — Yeah. Casting the vision of this being stewardship, I think really matters.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Ronee de Leon — You know, there’s a verse in Hebrews that talks about, your church leaders will be accountable to the Lord for the people they’re shepherding. And so I think really, casting the vision around stewardship as part of that. But then practically it can’t be weird to talk about it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ronee de Leon — You know, let’s talk about it in department meetings. Let’s talk about it and celebrate in staff meetings. Let’s bring it up in one-on-ones. Pull the technology up with the people that you lead and look through the lists and say, what are the stories? How are things going? You know, how can I support you as you move this forward? But I just think it can’t be weird to talk about.
Ronee de Leon — So between taking the stewardship side seriously and just starting to incorporate it into every conversation, every meeting, if it matters to us, and it does. It does because people are the mission of the church, right? How do we just continue to build that culture around it?
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good. So you’ve put together a great resource that I want to make sure, if you’re listening in friends, you’ve invested almost 30 minutes here, you need to jump on this resource, like super helpful: the church health assessment. Talk us through what is this tool? How will it help? Why should we jump on board? You know, what what what kind of conversation could it help us with but with our team even this week?
Ronee de Leon — Yeah. The church health assessment is looking at five widely accepted kind of industry benchmarks to understand how your church is comparing to those. So like we talked about earlier, this could give you a starting place to understand, according, you know, based on those benchmarks, how is your church doing? How are a few of these ministries doing? And then it’s, it’s probably going to highlight somewhere specific for you to start drilling into and double clicking on. So, that assessment is going to be at TouchPointsoftware.com/unseminary.
Rich Birch — Ooo, look at that.
Ronee de Leon — Like I said, it’s going to take you, if you’ve got the data, which is part of this conversation, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ronee de Leon — But if you know the numbers, it’s only going to take you two or three minutes to get these five key areas kind of benchmarked to understand how your church is performing compared to those accepted benchmarks.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s amazing. Like, again, friends, I would love for you to check that out. We’ll put a link in the show notes to that. Thanks for doing that. What a great gift, tool for people that are listening in. That’s super helpful. I appreciate that. I think I can see where this kind of thing could be super helpful for us, even to have like a bit of a leadership conversation around, let’s do it and then talk about it together. It’s a good conversation.
Rich Birch — So taking a step back, if I’m if i’m an executive pastor or senior leader who’s listening in, and I feel like I’m constantly, or we’re mostly reacting. We’re constantly reacting to problems at our church. You know, we’re not getting ahead of this. We’re not seeing kind of data but as it, you know, we’re not developing, like you say, ahead. We’re just, it’s stuff happens and then we you react. How could we use data to help us get ahead of that rather than, you know, just reacting all the time? What’s one of the first areas we should look at and consider as a church?
Ronee de Leon — Yeah, I would say that a simple place to start is kind of revisiting this framework of conviction, collection, clarity, and care. And ask yourself, what C is my church stuck on? Where are we stuck in this journey? And dive in there, ask the questions, reach out to another church who maybe is doing this really well. But that’s where I would say, practically, I would ask yourself, where are you on this kind of progressive journey of data-driven discipleship?
Rich Birch — Yeah, so good. This has been a fantastic conversation. If you were, I’m going to get one more last question in for you here. What’s one question you wish every church leader who’s listening in today would would ask about their church that almost nobody’s asking right now, that’s thinking about this area, that’s thinking about like, hey, what are we, you know, here’s a question I wish we were thinking about that we’re not thinking about today.
Ronee de Leon — Yeah, churches are asking a lot of good questions. And I love this topic. I’m passionate about data-driven discipleship.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Ronee de Leon — But I think the question behind the question behind the question kind of comes down to: are we promoting participation or are we cultivating transformation? And that’s what I hope that we’re asking through this kind of sea of data and everything that we’re we’re looking at. The core of things. Are we promoting participation or are we cultivating transformation for the people of our churches?
Rich Birch — Well, this is fantastic. There’s a ton we could talk about on this front. This has been helpful conversation for us today. Friends, I want to encourage you to take the church health assessment. Give us that address again that we want to send people to.
Ronee de Leon — It’s going to be at touchpointsoftware.com/unseminary.
Rich Birch — Great. Well, you can do that right in your phone right now. We’d love for you to go and check that out. We’ll put a link to that. Anywhere else we want to send people online, Ronee, if they want to track with TouchPoint or maybe we’re sitting in today and we’re thinking, you know what, maybe we should relook at this area. I’m not super happy with what’s going on with our, you know, church management software. Where do we want to send them online to get more information and about what what you guys do?
Ronee de Leon — Go ahead and just check out touchpointsoftware.com. I would recommend you get a demo. Like I said, it’s kind of a conversation that churches are having right now, evaluating their tech stack. If you haven’t looked at it in a while, just take a look, maybe just look around and we would love the opportunity to connect with you and demo TouchPoint for you. So that same website without the backslash, get a demo and we’d we’d be just thrilled to have a conversation with you.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s that’s good. Friends, I just want to endorse that. I think that’s a great next step for lots of our churches that are listening in today. Listen, friends, your team spends a lot of time in this in this tool. Whatever you use on this front, they spend a lot of time on it. It’s worth a sober second look. It’s worth, if you haven’t looked at this in a while, to take a step back and say, hey, let’s take a look at this again. And TouchPoint would be a great one to for you to to to take a look at and say, hmm, I wonder if maybe we should be looking at a change.
Rich Birch — So Appreciate that, Ronee. It’s so great seeing you again. I’d love to have you come back on in the future. I’m sure there’s more we could talk about, but thanks for being here today.
Ronee de Leon — Sounds good. Thank you, Rich.
Your people aren’t broken. Here’s what’s really going on.
Three weeks after I got my driver’s license, I put my car in a ditch.
This was back when you could walk into the licensing office on your sixteenth birthday, get a learner’s permit, and … within a few weeks … be fully licensed, no restrictions, no supervision. And that was me. Sixteen years old, license in my wallet, and a car I was allowed to drive anywhere.
It was a Christmas party, which meant it was a winter night. I was driving home with friends, a paved road transitioning to gravel, and I hit that washboard effect … the tires skittering sideways in a way I’d never felt before. My car did something I wasn’t expecting. I overcorrected and we ended up nose-down in the ditch on the wrong side of the road.
Here’s the thing: I was fully licensed. I’d passed the test, on paper, and I knew how to drive.
I just hadn’t been trained for that specific moment. Nobody had taken me out to a gravel road and said, This is what washboard feels like, this is what your car will do, and this is how you respond. The gap between licensed and actually prepared put me in a ditch.
I think about that night almost every time a pastor tells me their people won’t invite.
Your people are not the problem.Say it again.
Your people are not the problem.Stop the quiet Monday-morning verdict that your people just don’t care enough, aren’t committed enough, or aren’t bold enough in their faith. That story is wrong. And worse, it’s leading you to the wrong solutions.
Spiritual guilt campaigns don’t build invite culture. They build a two-week bump and a long guilt hangover.
Here’s what the data actually says about your people.
Roughly a third of unchurched Americans say they’d attend a worship service if a friend invited them. [ref] That number climbs for lower-barrier community events. Meanwhile, three in four regular churchgoers say the sermon content is a primary reason they show up … Scripture, connection to real life, and actual teaching. [ref]
Translation: the receptivity is already sitting in your people’s friend groups. The weekend experience is already a word-of-mouth asset. Your people care, their friends are open, and the raw materials are there.
So why is your invite rate what it is?
Because licensed isn’t the same as trained. Your people are fully credentialed believers who’ve never been taken out on the gravel road. And when the invite moment shows up — a friend at work mentions a hard week, or a neighbor asks what you did this weekend — they hit the washboard and overcorrect. They mumble something vague or change the subject or go quiet.
You read that as a motivation problem.
But it isn’t. It’s a training problem and those are very different things — because one of them you can actually fix.
What your people actually need (and it’s not another guilt sermon)Three things. Not one, not two, but three.
Train their Heads // Most of your congregation thinks they’re passengers.Your people need to understand what role they actually play in reaching your community. Not abstractly or as a sermon illustration. It needs to be communicated as a job description.
Most people in the seats on Sunday don’t believe they have a meaningful role in the impact your church will have on the community. They think that’s the pastor’s job, the staff’s job, or the outreach team’s job. When an invitation comes up, they nod along … but in their head, they’re a passenger. You’re the one driving the bus.
Training changes the mental model. It teaches your people that they are the most persuasive communication channel your church has … more than your Instagram, more than your website, more than any ad you could run. The research backs this up repeatedly. People don’t get invited by buildings, they get invited by friends.
When a congregation genuinely understands that — at a head level — their posture shifts. They stop waiting for the church to grow itself.
Equip their Hands. // Your people freeze because nobody gave them a script.Now give them the tools.
What are the actual words to say when a friend asks what you did this weekend? What do you text someone after they mention their marriage is struggling? What’s the language for inviting a coworker to Easter without it sounding like a pitch? What do you share on social media, and when, and how often?
This is where most churches fall off a cliff. We train people at a concept level, then send them into real conversations with no script, no prompts, and no practice reps. They freeze. Of course, they freeze! We froze, too, the first time we tried to explain what grace is to a skeptical relative at Thanksgiving.
Equipping means giving your people specific language, specific triggers for when to use it, and specific tools … shareable social posts, invite cards that don’t feel weird, text templates … that reduce the friction of the actual moment.
Language without the tool is theory. The tool without the language is a tract left on a diner table.
Motivate their Hearts. // Guilt is not vision.And finally: the why.
This isn’t about guilt or obligation, and it’s not another way of saying that better Christians invite more people.
Real motivation is vision. It’s the moment your people see that this — inviting their coworker, their sister-in-law, the single mom down the street — is how their community actually changes. This is how a marriage that’s quietly falling apart gets a Tuesday night small group. This is how a lonely senior gets a ride to church and a coffee after. This is how the teenager whose parents just got divorced finds one adult who keeps showing up.
This is how we change the world. Not from the stage but from the seats.
Motivation isn’t about making your people feel bad. It’s about letting them feel the weight of what their life is worth when it’s spent this way.
Here’s why this matters for you specificallyThe pastor who thinks our people just won’t invite builds culture around guilt and shallow inspiration. Neither compound. You’ll run that sermon series every September and get the same spike every September and wonder why the baseline never moves.
The pastor who thinks our people need to be trained, equipped, and motivated builds systems. And systems compound. Year one looks modest. Year three looks like a different church.
One of those leaders is still running the same spike-and-drop cycle in 2031. The other isn’t.
The question isn’t whether your people care. They do. The question is whether you’ve ever built them a gravel road to practice on, or whether you keep handing out licenses and acting surprised when they end up in the ditch.
The Invite Culture Audit — May 12On Tuesday, May 12 at 12pm ET, I’m hosting a free workshop called the Invite Culture Audit Workshop.
It’s not a pep talk. It’s a diagnostic.
For twenty years, I’ve had a front-row seat to what’s actually working inside growing churches across North America. And here’s what I keep seeing: the churches that are growing aren’t doing more. They’ve just made inviting normal.
In 60 minutes, we’ll work through three things together:
- Why healthy churches get stuck — the hidden reason your church is doing all the right things, yet guest flow stays inconsistent and big days spike then settle right back.
- The 5 Gears of Invite Culture — the specific systems growing churches use to move from hoping people invite to expecting they will.
- Your 90-Day Invite Culture Blueprint — a practical plan to mobilize your people, multiply invitations, and build real momentum heading into fall 2026.
You’ll walk out with your Invite Culture Scorecard — a clear picture of where your invite culture is strong, where it’s leaking, and which of the three — train, equip, or motivate — is the dominant blocker in your church right now.
You won’t get a generic answer. The answer will be specifically your own.
That’s the starting point for building the training your people never got.
Zero pressure, no hard pitch, and your whole team is welcome.
→ Register for the free Invite Culture Audit Workshop
One last thing about that ditchWhen the police pulled me out of the snow that night, they asked me where I wanted to go. My parents were out and I knew enough that I shouldn’t go home to an empty house.
So, they drove me to Pastor Dave Lewis’s house – my senior pastor and a good man. (Plus … if I’m honest, I figured when they came to pick me up at Pastor Dave’s house that would soften any initial parental pressure.)
He opened the door in whatever pastors wear at 10 pm on a winter night, and he wasn’t angry and he wasn’t disappointed. He was just kind. He let me sit on his couch, shake a little, and eventually call my folks to tell them what happened.
My parents expressed concern, but — honestly — they didn’t freak out. They were just grateful I was alive. And then the police showed up at the front door with the real consequence: a one-month suspension. No driving.
Here’s the truth: I didn’t want to drive after that experience. I was sixteen, and I’d scared myself badly. That month off did something the license test never did. I came back to the road a different driver. I was slower, more careful, and more aware of what I didn’t know.
To this day, I drive slower than my wife. She’ll tell you that, cheerfully.
I think about that sometimes when I’m talking to a pastor whose invite numbers are flat. Because your people aren’t reckless, they’re not uncommitted, but most of them are quietly in the ditch — they tried, it went sideways, they stopped trying, and now they’re just driving to work and back.
The audit isn’t a lecture. It’s closer to Pastor Dave’s couch. We figure out what’s actually happened. We name the specific thing that went wrong. And then, together, we build the training your people should have had all along.
That’s how you get them back on the road.
See you May 12.
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Donnie Griggs, founding and lead pastor of One Harbor Church in eastern North Carolina. Over nearly two decades, Donnie has led the church from a living room gathering to a thriving multisite church reaching around 2,500 people each weekend in a rural context. In this conversation, we focus on a growing leadership challenge: how churches can effectively engage and disciple men in today’s cultural moment.
Are you noticing fewer men engaging in your church, or struggling to define what biblical manhood even looks like today? Wondering how to call men forward without falling into shame-based or culturally distorted approaches? Donnie shares a practical and hopeful framework for building a culture of “good men” in your church.
- Recognizing the quiet crisis among men. // Donnie began noticing subtle but significant indicators: fewer weddings, more single women asking “Where are the good men?”, and a growing sense that many men were stuck—lacking vision, purpose, and direction. Even older men reaching retirement were finding that the life they had worked toward didn’t deliver the fulfillment they expected. These observations, combined with broader cultural trends, led Donnie to believe that churches must intentionally address the formation of men rather than assume it will happen naturally.
- Prioritizing men again. // Donnie made a conscious decision to focus on men’s ministry, creating intentional environments like men’s gatherings, reframing how the church speaks to men, and leveraging key moments like Father’s Day. Instead of reinforcing negative stereotypes, the goal became calling something out of men and casting vision for who they can become.
- Redefining the goal: good, not great. // Central to Donnie’s approach is a shift away from cultural obsession with “greatness” toward biblical “goodness.” Rather than pushing men to become influencers or achieve notoriety, he emphasizes becoming faithful, reliable, and obedient. To make this practical, he developed a simple framework describing a “good man”: someone who embraces responsibility, serves and protects, blesses and encourages others, builds deep friendships with other men, and ultimately follows Jesus. This framework gives men a clear target, which many struggle to articulate on their own.
- Combating unhealthy cultural narratives. // Donnie is careful to address both extremes in cultural conversations about masculinity. On one hand, he rejects exaggerated “alpha male” stereotypes that emphasize dominance and performance. On the other, he acknowledges that harmful behaviors among men are real and must be addressed. His approach is to call men into a fuller, more biblical picture that includes strength and responsibility but also compassion, tenderness, and emotional health. Looking to the life of Jesus provides a balanced model that breaks down unhelpful stereotypes.
- Moving from shame to encouragement. // A key insight Donnie shares is that many men operate under a constant sense of shame, feeling like they are not enough and never will be. While shame can motivate behavior in the short term, it is ultimately destructive. Instead, churches must create cultures of encouragement. This includes helping men take responsibility without condemning them, affirming progress, and consistently speaking life into them. Encouragement, not shame, becomes the fuel for long-term transformation.
- Building brotherhood, not just buddies. // Another major gap Donnie identifies is the lack of deep male friendships. Many men have acquaintances but few relationships where they can be honest and vulnerable. He emphasizes the need for churches to create spaces where men can move from surface-level connections to genuine brotherhood. Tools like his book Becoming Good Men are designed to facilitate these conversations, helping men process deeper questions together rather than in isolation.
- A tool for churches to implement. // Donnie wrote Becoming Good Men to give churches a practical resource they can use in small groups, mentoring relationships, or larger men’s initiatives. With discussion questions built into each chapter, it’s designed to spark meaningful conversations and help men take tangible steps forward.
To learn more about One Harbor Church, visit oneharborchurch.com. You can also find Donnie’s book Becoming Good Men on Amazon, Audible, or at becominggoodmen.org for bulk church resources.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: TouchPoint
As your church reaches more people, one of the biggest challenges is making sure no one slips through the cracks along the way.
TouchPoint Church Management Software is an all-in-one ecosystem built for churches that want to elevate discipleship by providing clear data, strong engagement tools, and dependable workflows that scale as you grow.
TouchPoint is trusted by some of the fastest-growing and largest churches in the country because it helps teams stay aligned, understand who they’re reaching, and make confident ministry decisions week after week.
If you’ve been wondering whether your current system can carry your next season of growth, it may be time to explore what TouchPoint can do for you. You can evaluate TouchPoint during a free, no-pressure one-hour demo at TouchPointSoftware.com/demo.
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. We’ve got a repeat guest on today, which what does that mean? That means that I want you to hear from them again. I’m really excited for today’s conversation because it’s super relevant. We’ve been hearing about this in kind of the broader news and we want to bring an expert on to help us think through these issues.
Rich Birch — Today, excited to have Donnie Griggs with us. He is the founding and lead pastor of a fantastic church, One Harbor Church, a multi-site church with, if I’m counting correctly, three locations in North Carolina. They’re passionate about planting disciple-making churches in eastern North Carolina. So glad that you’re on the the show today. Welcome back, Donnie.
Donnie Griggs — Man, so good to be with you, Rich. Thanks again for having me.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s going to be great. Why don’t we start with, tell us a little bit about One Harbor. Give us a quick picture of the church and what’s been God doing across your locations and since we last talked.
Donnie Griggs — Yeah, sure. We started 17 and a half years ago in a living room. I kind of thought that’s what we would do forever and was really happy with that idea. I didn’t tell the person whose living room it was that my long term plan was to use their living room. And just God did something different and it just grew a lot. This is a town I’m from. So there’s ah a book about our town and my mom and my granddad are on the cover of it. And it’s very much like our town.
Rich Birch — Oh, wow.
Donnie Griggs — Yeah. So um huge desire to see, you know, people who just had no never thought they’d ever go to church. Like, um, those are the people that we were after. And, and so anyway been, been quite a ride the last 17 and a half years. Like you said, we’re now three locations. We average about 2,500 people on a Sunday across the the three locations. And we’re in a pretty small rural, you know, context. And so, that, you know, that’s got a lot of, a lot of great opportunities, you know, to, to make an impact, but also a lot of challenges as well. So that’s kind of it in a nutshell.
Rich Birch — Yeah, you’ve been there for 17 or planted 17 years, been there much longer, but you know you’ve been pastoring this context for for you know almost two decades. Today, we’re going to talk specifically, friends, about kind of men in the church and what are we doing as churches to engage men. And Donnie’s done some really great stuff on this front that I want to make sure we kind of unpack. But what have you been noticing about the men in your church and in your community over the last couple of years? What are some of the things have been kind of on your heart and mind around this?
Donnie Griggs — Gosh. So I think one of the things is there’s kind of a few things. One, I noticed of just randomly that we weren’t doing as many weddings as we used to do. It was just this random kind of data point that I was like, why do I feel like I’m hardly doing any weddings anymore? And then kind of with that, I found like almost it felt like every Sunday, some really great single woman would come up to me and be like, where are the men? Like, where are the good men? You know?
Rich Birch — Right.
Donnie Griggs — And so that was kind of going on in in the background. And then I just kind of with that saw so many men that were just stuck in various ways, really visionless, bored. Even like older guys who kind of had this really jarring moment where they make it to retirement. They think, oh, my gosh, like I’ve I’ve arrived now. I can just golf all day or fish all day. And and and and really just, you know, me seeing, you know, and I’m I’m not I’m almost 45. So I’m a little ways away from this. But to like see how unsettling that was for men and how really jarring and and honestly, how unhappy they were, you know, like kind of, they get to this sort of cultural finish line and, and it just does not satisfy them, you know, in the way that I think they, they thought it would and longed for.
Donnie Griggs — And, and so just lots of stuff like that kind of going on the last few years that, you know, have have, have, you know, made me feel like, man, we got to do something about this, you know?
Rich Birch — Yeah, and what what changes did you end up making in the church, in your ministry? How did that kind of impact how you were you were thinking about, you know, ministering to your community, reaching out to your community, engaging people?
Donnie Griggs — Yep. So, I mean, I think, I think we just began to prioritize, like trying to reach men. You know, even from the beginning. This was going on, like very early days, we were meeting in the living room for church. I would, I’d do these men’s nights in my house. I think what I realized was, you know, and we are so grateful for the incredible women who come to our church. I mean, so many amazing women. But like just men weren’t coming to church. They were fishing. They were working in the garage. They were golfing. They were hunting. They were doing something.
Donnie Griggs — And so kind of from the early days, there was this desire to do so something for men. But I think we did a lot more of it in the beginning. And then church got bigger. Things got busier. And this thing really fell to the wayside. And and so I think in in recent years, I was like, man, we’ve got to put this on the front burner again. We really I kind of took took it back and really owned, like, how do I build a culture of good, strong men? Because if we do that, you know, like, you know, all the data points to it’s going to it’s going to lead to better marriages, better families, better you know, better society, better everything, you know?
Donnie Griggs — I mean all all that data around like fatherlessness and, um, all the carnage that comes from men not doing the stuff that they need to do. And so I just felt like we got to really prioritize that. And so it’s looked like a variety of things. It’s looked like a lot of men’s breakfasts and clarifying what we mean by what a good man is. And you some conferences, some, I mean, even like it really leveraging Father’s Day. A buddy mine said it like this. He said, you know, we’ve turned Father’s Day into like Toxic Masculinity Awareness Day where we just it was just shame men for like being in such terrible men.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Donnie Griggs — And so we were like, no, we we don’t want to do that. So how do we how do we look for ways to encourage men to call something out of them, you know?
Rich Birch — I want I want to come back to that, the toxic masculinity question in a second. So I’m going to put ah a pin in that, but you asked a good question there. What do you mean when you say, be a good man? What does what does that actually mean?
Donnie Griggs — Yeah. So I intentionally use the word good, not great. I think like, I think from a Bible standpoint, greatness is something that God does, you know, but goodness is something that’s sort of in our hands, you know. He lays out for us in just so many ways, what it looks like to be a good man in scripture. And so that’s just sort of of a broad thing there.
Donnie Griggs — And then I think we’ve got a cultural obsession with greatness. think especially of like the younger generation who’s obsessed with being an influencer with, you know, with somehow being, you insta-famous. And I wanted to just push back on that and just say, hey, guys, that’s not actually what we’re aiming for. We want to aim for we want to aim for what it means to be a good man.
Donnie Griggs — And so you could use words like, you know, reliable and faithful. And, you know, there’s all kinds of words you could you could Google and use for that. But we really just boiled it down to these kind of five things that guys can just hang their hat on and just, you know, aim at.
Donnie Griggs — So, a good man embraces responsibility. You know, he eats it up. He wants it. You know, a good man serves and protects. You know, he looks for ways to step into hard things and and make a difference. And, you know, kind of that sort of serve and protect thing. Those those two felt pretty straightforward.
Donnie Griggs — And then, but I thought there’s, there’s more to that, you know, that, that just, the end of the day, that’s, that’s pretty cultural. I mean, there’s a lot of, think of Jordan Peterson, think of all kinds of guys who’ve talked about, you need to clean your room. you need to, you know, you need to, step up. You need, so so guys are getting a lot of that. You know, what, what else does the scripture say that paints a broader picture for what a good man is?
Donnie Griggs — And that’s where we threw in things like a good man blesses and he encourages. You know, a good man. And then, and then I wanted to talk a lot about friendship when I think about, you know, we’ve done this weird thing where we’ve, we’ve normalized female friendship and we’ve really sexualized, you know, deep male friendship. Does that make sense?
Donnie Griggs — Like we’ve kind of told guys you can’t… So I found this data point says the average man in America under 30 doesn’t have one male friend he can be emotionally honest with. And so it’s kind of that Bible verse, you know, a man of many companions may come to ruin. That’s, ah that’s what I think we’ve done with men. We’ve said you get to have buddies, but not brothers. And so really, really, really wanting to like go hard in the paint on what it what it means to have deep male friendship. So they walk with other good men. And then finally, obviously, they they follow the only perfect man who ever lived.
Donnie Griggs — So we just came up with that to to give guys a grid for what is it we’re aiming for? Because, I mean, you’re right. say Being a good man doesn’t, you know, it’s like, well, what does that mean? You know?
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, that’s cool. Well, I want to dig into a couple of those, but but you brought it up, the toxic masculinity thing. Part of what I find intriguing that you’re talking about this, there is a version of this conversation that feels very like machismo, super masculine, like in a in like a negative way, you know, in a, you know, it turns into this kind of like, I don’t know, it’s like, who can, you know, do the most pushups or whatever. How do you think about that issue when you’re trying to speak to encourage, you know, grow men? How do you think about that?
Donnie Griggs — Yeah. That is a really great question, Rich. I think, so one of the things we’ve got to do is just go out of our way to push back on faux versions of masculinity. And so I mean what you’re alluding to there is the kind of Andrew Tate sort of alpha male you know thing where, I I mean, I’ve been to Africa a bunch and through the years doing ministry stuff, and I’ve been around a bunch of baboons. And I literally think that’s what that’s what that’s what culture like that’s what that sort of cultural lens is. It’s more baboon like.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Donnie Griggs — It’s like I can bench press. I’m super strong. I can get any woman I want whenever I want. And so we want to push back on that. That’s not what we’re aiming for. And also that disqualifies men who tend to be more sensitive or more tender, you know, and that’s really sad to me, you know, that we’ve we’ve basically. We’ve kind of fallen into a narrative there where we tell men, you know, you, you aren’t really a man if you’re not like this.
Donnie Griggs — And I had a guy who’s, who’s like that. He’s just very tender and very compassionate. And, you know, he said he was like 51 years old when it finally hit him that he was a man, you know, even with that kind of tension. And so I think we just wanted to like, yeah, I wanted to make sure we don’t, we don’t do that.
Donnie Griggs — And so, ah but I do think like kind of with that, we do need to own that there are a lot of men who are toxic and are bad. And so I think to, you know, to just act like, you know, that that’s not a thing is is not helpful either. I think to, you know, kind of in that to be empathetic toward men who, are lacking vision, lacking purpose. I mean, you know, so many of us just, you know, we did not have the good examples that we needed growing up. And, you know, so there’s just like layers and layers to this.
Donnie Griggs — But I think to stay away from that kind of locker room, shame-based, just man-up sort of like language is a position that I want to take. And I also want to steer really far away from a kind of masculinity that demeans women, you know, and, and demeans men who don’t fit like cultural stereotypes, you know?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. And yeah, that’s just from the little bit I know about you and know about your church. The thing I think it’s great that you’re engaging this conversation because you as a leader don’t come across as like, oh, I’m like the rah-rah, like you say, the man up, you know, the baboon. That’s a great, you know, that’s that’s not my impression of you or your church. And so I love that you guys are tackling this. I think giving a fresh voice to this.
Rich Birch — Well, at some point you decided to sit down and put this together, this kind of five into a framework that you ultimately became a book. What kind of, what led you to actually want to do that? The book friends we’re talking about is “Becoming Good Men: A Guide to Figuring It Out Together.” What kind of led you to the point where you’re thinking, Hey, okay, I think now’s the time I want to kind of pull, put this into codify this into a book. As an author, I know that that’s a, that’s a tough amount of work to do.
Donnie Griggs — It’s so much work, man.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Donnie Griggs — It is so much daggone work. So I think it was a couple of things. I think I felt…so, I kept having chats with men, lots and lots and lots of men. And I would ask them the same question. What kind of man do you want to be? And they just couldn’t answer it. They just couldn’t answer it. And so my heart just began to really be so heavy, you know for men who, you know that is ah that’s a tough, you know we live in such a weird moment you know culturally, and it’s so hard, I think, to be ah a man in our current moment.
Donnie Griggs — So to not even know what you’re aiming for just felt like, gosh, as a pastor for men in our church, I just wanted to like put something in their hands that, that could help them. But then really beyond that, I think maybe the most thing, the thing that drove me the most to it was just being a dad.
Donnie Griggs — So I’ve got two boys, one’s 11, Wyatt, and the other one’s 14, Jed. And I just was like, you know, if nobody else gets this book, I want my two sons to get it. You know, I really thought I want to put something in their hands so they don’t have to wonder, what are we aiming for here? Like what, what, what does it look like to be a good man? You know?
Donnie Griggs — And, so I think those two things, you know, really, really drove me to want to do this. And and and then, you know, kind of maybe a third piece would just be, I alluded to this earlier, but seeing older men, I feel like really waste their last years and and wanting to like call older men to, to finish well and to, you know, really count to the very, to the very end of their lives.
Donnie Griggs — And I’m not saying it’s wrong to ever play golf or ever go fishing. You know, I’m not definitely not saying that. But, ah but I, I think this, ah I wanted to cast vision too, for like the older generation to see themselves as really needed and, and, and, and wanted, you know.
Donnie Griggs — So that’s that was some of the driving. I just feel like eventually you have to write this stuff down. I you can’t have 10,000 lunches with people, you know, saying the same thing, you know.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, that’s cool. That’s great. Well, let’s dive into a little bit, you know, a few, maybe a few of the five areas. So embrace responsibility, this this first one. So talk us through this a little bit. What does that look like practically for, you know, maybe somebody who’s drifting and how is that not just another version of like, you’re a bad person because you keep dropping the ball. I know that’s not what you’re saying, but how do we, how are you handling this with guys to help kind of call something out of them rather than shame them into something?
Donnie Griggs — Yeah, that shame word is such a big one, right? It’s like the air we breathe as men. I’m not enough. I’ll never be enough. I don’t have what it takes. I mean, so many men, some of us probably consciously, but most of us, I think subconsciously, we just live in that. And so I just don’t I don’t ever want to be part of any of that, you know. No one needs more shame. What we need is a lot of encouragement. And and and unfortunately, I think a lot of the language that’s out there that is on the like, you know, take responsibility thing, does, I think, activate shame in men. And so, you know, shame does work as a fuel source. It’s just a really bad one, you know, like it it, it works, but it’s like super unhealthy.
Rich Birch — Right.
Donnie Griggs — And so yeah. So I think with young guys, like trying to get them to the word embrace responsibility, you know, to stop, you know, Paul talks about it like this – he says, like, when I was a child, I, you know, I acted like a kid, you know, I, I, I did all those childish things, but now I, I became, when I became a man, of put away those childish things. And so I think it’s like, what are the steps you can take to begin to put away childish, like a childish behavior?
Rich Birch — It’s good.
Donnie Griggs — I, I met with a therapist one time and, I really expected to get a lot more sympathy from this person since I was paying quite a lot to see them. And I said something like some behavior I’d done and I said, I know that’s really you know childlike of me. And she pushed back and she said, no, she’s like, childlike is what Jesus tells us to be. You’re being childish. That’s different. And it was like a BOOM moment for me where I realized, man, I’m justifying childish behavior, you know.
Donnie Griggs — And so I want to help, I want to help young guys, especially to first begin to just take responsibility for themselves, you know. You know, the scriptures talk about loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And so what does it look like to begin to, you know, you know take responsibility for for like you as a fully integrated human being? You know, what is it, you know, not just your actions, but also your thoughts and your feelings. And how do you begin to like, you know, really take responsibility for that?
Donnie Griggs — How do you how do you begin to, you know, scripture, all the proverbs are so great on this where it talks about like how, you know, each of us has like a field and, you know, is your field overgrown? Is it full of weeds? Is it, is it, is there chaos in your life where, you know, if you go back to the garden, like Adam was meant to step into that chaos and bring order. He was meant to, you know…So what does it like to begin to look at your sphere of influence and and begin to and and begin to you know embrace responsibility? Kids have to be made to do, they have to be made to do something, you know whereas you know good men begin to look around them and go, what what here is actually for me to do? you know. And how do begin to be someone who contributes? You know?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. I love that. Another other thing, different idea. So for some reason, and maybe again, you’re the expert on this. I’m not. It’s like, guys, we struggle with looking somebody else else in the eye, a guy we love, a guy we think the world of. We think, man, this internally, we’re like, that guy’s incredible, does great stuff, is a good man. I see them doing all kinds of amazing things. But it’s like, there’s something that stops us from looking at that person, speaking words of encouragement to them. It’s like a language that we’re not comfortable with.
Rich Birch — Why is that? Talk us through that. And then what have you tried to do as a church to try to help with that? Is there anything that you’ve you’ve kind of instilled to try to help guys think that through a little bit better?
Donnie Griggs — Yeah. So that’s the whole bless and curse thing, right? It’s like men aren’t just tough. They’re meant to be tender, you know. And and we know this by looking at the life of Jesus. I mean, unfortunately, what we’ve done as a society is we have we feminized certain things, you know, and and so we feminized things like tenderness. We feminized things like compassion. And we we see those with men as a sign of weakness, or some kind of softness that’s not akin to masculinity.
Donnie Griggs — And that’s where I love looking at Jesus, because i mean, you know, he’s over and over again we read he’s moved with compassion, moved with compassion, moved with compassion. He weeps openly at a funeral. He just does, He breaks all those stereotypes, you know. And and so I think getting a grid for masculinity where we can be tender. We can be compassionate. We can be empathetic. I think that’s really important. Yeah, I think, yeah, I think we’ve just got to like…
Donnie Griggs — This this stuff has been around for a while, right? It’s the like, you know, dad, you know, disciplines the child. Mom goes in and make sure the child’s OK. You know, it’s like it’s like we we’ve we’ve really embodied these kind of unhelpful stereotypes and and for far too long, for far too long. So I just yeah, I think it’s unfortunate that, like you said, I mean, to use your analogy, that men can’t can’t use words like I love you. I mean, how many, many can say things like I never saw my dad cry. My dad never said he loved me. And that is, that is so not healthy.
Donnie Griggs — It’s like…and so how do we create, how do we make it okay for men and make it more than okay? Like how do we normalize and kind of expect men to, to, to embrace these kinds of things, to, to walk in, in, in this way. And, and we can’t even tell a guy to your point, we can’t even tell a guy we love them. We have to say something like, I love you, bro. You know, like we have to add something on there because we’re so worried about this thing looking like we mean something else. And that, that is just, we really need to put that behind us, you know, because I mean, people around us are so desperate for encouragement.
Rich Birch — I heard you reference something that you do with your own boys to try to break some of this. I think you refer to it even as a liturgy.
Donnie Griggs — Yeah.
Rich Birch — What does what does that look like? Tell us about that.
Donnie Griggs — Yeah. So that would kind of just, you know, came, I look back and think, I remember being in the room when it happened. It was 14 years ago. Jed was a baby and I was holding him in his room and I just found myself, I prayed this very simple prayer for him. Very simple prayer that where I asked, you know, I was asking God to thanking God for him, asking God to help me be a better dad and and just some of those things.
Donnie Griggs — And then and then I just fell in this little kind of call and response thing with him where I mean, he was a baby, literally holding him in my arms. And I so I had to say the words for him. But, you know, and you know, I it sounds so simple that I struggle. It’s even worth saying. But I’ll I’ll tell you since you’re asking. But it was basically what what basically what I do is I just say, like, you know, Jed, you know, you’re a gift and you’re made to be a… and he’s supposed to say: a blessing.
Donnie Griggs — And I say, you’re safe and your daddy’s strong and you’re not… And he’s supposed to say: alone. And I say, and you’re strong. And he’s supposed to say: too. And so I just did that one night. Simple prayer said this little thing. And then the next night I did it again. And the next night I did it again. And I’ve been doing that. I did the math. I’ve been doing that like over five…I’ve done it over 5,000 nights.
Rich Birch — Wow. Wow.
Donnie Griggs — And obviously with my son Wyatt and I do it with him every night. Now they’re like preteen teenagers. Some nights they’re like happy about it. Some nights they’re like, they just say the words kind of begrudgingly, you know…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Donnie Griggs — …like, but, but I really wanted them to hear, as long as they’re as long as I can, I wanted them to to hear these things. I wanted them to know that like there’s security for them. There’s like their dad loves them, their strength you know in their dad for them, but also that they were made for something, you know. There’s like gifting to them and there’s blessing that they were made to give and there’s strength in them. And so, I mean, you know if I was to sit down and try to script it out, maybe I’d come up with something different, but I just fell into this.
Donnie Griggs — And I mean, if nothing else, my kids, don’t I don’t think they’ll ever forget it. I mean, they just it’s like one of those they’ve heard it so many times, you know, and I’m just committed to continuing to say it over and over again.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. That’s a great, what a great vivid example for, you know, for parents, particularly young dads who who are, you know, early in their in their walk with their their sons. That’s fantastic. That’s that’s so cool.
Rich Birch — Well, if you were, well, I want to get to the book a little bit more. What have been as you’ve kind of it’s been out there in the world as people have started to to use it. What have been maybe a surprise in a positive way? Like, oh, here’s the way I’ve seen a church use it. Or here’s a way that it’s interacted either inside your church or outside the church. Talk to us a bit about the journey of the book.
Donnie Griggs — Some of the surprises have been like the amount of like wives and moms of boys, especially single moms who have really enjoyed it.
Donnie Griggs — How they, you know, actually, i I spoke with a young lady the other She just got engaged. She read it and she said she felt like she was able to put her ear to the door ear to the door and hear a conversation that she really needed to hear. Like she was eavesdropping on a conversation. She was like, man, I’m about to be, she she just said, I’m about to be married. And I just thought, you know, I’m getting a glimpse into the kind of man that like my husband my future husband, you know, wants to be. And so like from like young, engaged women to single moms who are going, I need to know how to help my son here. I don’t have a dad in the picture. You know, wives, that’s been really surprising.
Donnie Griggs — I think also like people outside the church who aren’t Christians, who’ve like really enjoyed it. I mean, like doing with their coworkers and God, God just, you know, got a copy and said he sat down and read the whole thing that, you know, in one sitting and, and then bought copies and is doing with his coworkers that, at I think some construction workshop worksite or something. That’s like, I did not see that coming. I didn’t have that on my note card, you know?
Rich Birch — Right. Yes. Yes.
Donnie Griggs — But I really did want it to be easy to read and be accessible. So I’m glad it it is working in that way. and And we’ve got lots of churches doing it in lots of different ways.
Donnie Griggs — So there’s questions at the end of each chapter that are for discussion. And so I’ve heard everything from middle school boys and high school boys and young life groups and all kinds of like that younger group, you know, sort of thing working through it. Some of them are like fifty kids at once. Some of them were like three kids at once. All the way through I mean all the way through to like men I just had an email from a guy in south Africa who read it – he’s in his like 80s, I think…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Donnie Griggs — …and was so inspired and so encouraged and it’s like for I mean for guy that age to be like man, I I am still needed. I’m still wanted. There’s still—it’s like a Caleb thing—there’s still strength in me. There’s still purpose for me. So really the like…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Donnie Griggs — …almost the full gamut there. And then I’ve heard of churches doing, I just spoke at a church up in in in the like kind of Gaithersburg area over the weekend in Maryland. And they got like 40 guys going through it at once, all the way through to like small group, you know men’s small groups. And this has really been kind of wide, you know, which again, I didn’t know what to expect. I mean, but it’s been pretty encouraging.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s very good. I love that. it’s It’s cool to see when it kind of starts to live beyond you, right? It’s like, it gets kind of a life out of its own, which is pretty cool to see. That’s ah yeah that’s super encouraging.
Rich Birch — What when you think about the book as a tool, what are a couple of the ways that you can imagine it being used? You mentioned a few there, like it could be used in your men’s ministry. It could be used as a small group. Talk us through one of a couple of those ways that you were, as you were writing, you thought, oh, I could see how churches could use this.
Donnie Griggs — Yeah. I mean, I really, when I think about our church, my goal is that every man who comes to our church is meaningfully connected to some other men. It goes back to that friendship thing. I want men to have more than buddies. I want them to have brothers, you know, drinking buddies, hunting buddies, golfing buddies, whatever buddies, you know. That, that is not going to get you where you need to go.
Donnie Griggs — And so I wrote it thinking primarily like what if two or three guys went through this together, you know, because the questions are, they’re not easy, you know, um, at the of the chapters, they, they really do unearth stuff. The goal is for them to unearth stuff and, you know, to, you know, get you to begin to think about some pretty significant things, you know.
Donnie Griggs — And so I think it’s really great. I mean, I’ve heard lots of guys reading it on their own, which is awesome. But I think in my mind, it’s best lived out in like those small group kind of like getting all the men in you know your church to to go through it and to break up into groups and to go through it. And then, you know, I think then like a, in my mind, like then a kind of once a month or once every couple months, you do some kind of a breakfast thing or something and you, you pick up one of these, you know, one of these chapters, one of these kind of aspects, and you just kind of camp out on that a little bit and go, Hey, you know, when we, you know, what does this look like in, you know, in our church? What does like in our community? What is it look like in your lives? And so that’s, I guess, primarily how I imagined it being used. And I’m, I think I’m seeing a lot of fruit from guys using and like that.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s really cool. Love that. if Where do we want to send people to pick up copies of the book? I’m assuming we can get it at Amazon. Is there somewhere else we want to send people to to grab these?
Donnie Griggs — Yeah. So um there’s a few different avenues here. So obviously Amazon – straightforward. It’s on Amazon. It’s on Kindle. There’s that. It’s also on Audible because, I mean, you probably know this, Rich. Dudes just don’t read, you know?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Donnie Griggs — And I mean, I’ve even had guys say, man, I’m I’m like severely dyslexic. I actually can’t read. And, we’ve got a guy who church who reached out just said, like, I’ve got a guy in my church who’s blind. Like, you know and so the Audible thing, um I think a lot of guys are in, they’re just in the car a lot…
Rich Birch — Right.
Donnie Griggs — …and they’re listening to like the hour long Joe Rogan podcast. You know So you can listen to the whole book in like, I think four hours or something. It’s not it’s easy, you know?
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah.
Donnie Griggs — So the Audible thing I think is is is another one that point guys to. If like you’re a church and you want to order like a bunch of them, um, I’ll, I’ll work a deal for you and get them to you cheaper than you can get them on Amazon. You can just go to becominggoodmen.org. And there’s a whole thing there for that. Um, and I’ll, I’ll, I’ll make it work for you.
Donnie Griggs — And then the last thing is I actually, um, you mentioned machismo earlier and, I’ve done a lot of work, um, in the Spanish speaking world, have a huge heart for that, that part of the world. And, you know, machismo is, ah is a, it’s a big deal. You know, it’s, I have a single lady in our church who’s from Mexico who said she reckons like 9 out of 10 men that she know she grew up around in Mexico have been pretty much have just bought into this machismo kind of thing. And really, it’s created just a huge mess. I mean, and so actually then I actually got the book translated into Spanish.
Rich Birch — Oh, very cool.
Donnie Griggs — So, so that’s on Amazon too. Unfortunately, not an Audible yet for that. But but if somebody is like, man, you know, I’ve got some Spanish speaking folks that there’s, there’s that avenue as well.
Rich Birch — That’s really cool. Well, I love I love all that. And friends, I would encourage you to pick up a copy. I love the idea, the picture. You might be listening into this today and say, hey, you know, you get a couple copies of this book and find two or three other guys. And why don’t we work through it together? And even as a way to say to someone like, hey, man, I want to be your brother, not just your buddy, you know, I think is a great framework, right? for, know, as you’re interacting with with other folks. So I really appreciate this, Donnie. I hope this helps get more people connected with the book and that it helps more folks that are are out there today.
Rich Birch — As we wrap up, any final words, any final comments you’d have for a church leader that’s leaning in today and thinking, man, I feel like we got to do a better job on this front.
Donnie Griggs — Yeah, gosh, I mean, I just think the time is so right for this. It’s such a necessary thing. So hopefully what I’ve done can be helpful to you. If not, there’s other things out there. But I mean, you know, we we’re living in this weird moment with so much gender confusion. And then you add cultural hostility where all masculinity is deemed toxic and men are unwanted and unneeded. And then you throw in so many of the guys in your church who walk with a limp because they didn’t have a good dad, a good male figure, really poor faux versions of masculinity. I mean, I just want to and say you can’t afford to not think about this. And so, I mean, and I just think it’s one of those things where it’s like if you can, if you can build a culture of of good men in your church, it’ll that tide will lift all the boats.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. Thanks so much, Donnie. If people want to track with you or with the church, where do we want to send them online?
Donnie Griggs — Yeah, oneharborchurch.com has got all the church stuff. And then for me, I’m pretty much, you know, I do some stuff on Instagram and Facebook. I’m not the biggest social media guy in the world. But yeah, but I’m I’m on there pretty frequently.
Rich Birch — That’s great. That’s great. Thanks so much, Donnie. Appreciate being here today, sir.
Donnie Griggs — Thanks a lot, Rich. Thanks for having me.
Picture this. It’s the year 2000, and a psychology lab at Cornell University is about to ruin a college student’s morning. A researcher hands an undergrad a t-shirt and asks them to put it on. The student unfolds it and sees the face staring back at them: Barry Manilow. Not vintage-cool Barry Manilow. Not ironic, Barry Manilow. Just… Barry Manilow. The kind of shirt that would get you roasted by your roommate before you made it out the door.
The student puts it on anyway (this is science, after all) and is told to walk into a room where a group of peers is already seated. Before they open the door, the researcher asks a simple question: “How many people in that room do you think will notice your shirt?” The student thinks about it. They’re about to walk into a room of college kids wearing the musical equivalent of a “kick me” sign. They predict that about half the room will notice.
They walk in and sit down. They endure a few minutes of low-grade social agony before the researcher pulls them out and surveys the room.
The actual number of people who noticed the shirt? Roughly one in four. The student had overestimated by a factor of two. But the really fascinating part came next. When the researchers repeated the experiment with shirts people would actually want to wear … Bob Marley, Martin Luther King Jr. … the gap blew wide open. Students still predicted that nearly half the room would clock what they were wearing but the real number dropped to fewer than one in ten. A six-to-one overestimate. When the message was positive rather than embarrassing, people paid even less attention [ref].
Psychologists call this the Spotlight Effect. We anchor on our own vivid internal experience and dramatically overestimate how much other people are paying attention to us.
Now apply that to your church. You’ve talked about inviting from the stage, you’ve put it in the newsletter, and you mentioned it in your staff meeting last month. It feels like you’ve been beating this drum constantly. But here’s what the research suggests: your congregation has barely registered the beat. And that’s not because they don’t care, it’s because human brains simply don’t absorb messages the way communicators assume they do.
The encouraging news is that the gap between where your church is right now and genuine invite-culture momentum may be smaller than it feels. Your people love your church and they’re already in the room, but they need far more persistent encouragement, training, and equipping around invitation than most leaders realize. The difference between stuck churches and growing churches comes down to this: growing churches persistently train, equip, and motivate their people to invite. They don’t do it once a quarter but rather build it into the rhythm of everything they do, all year long.
You’re Tapping, They’re GuessingThere’s a lesser-known study from Stanford that might be the single most uncomfortable data point for anyone who communicates for a living. Researcher Elizabeth Newton asked people to tap out the rhythm of well-known songs on a table while a listener tried to identify the tune. The tappers predicted their listeners would get it right about 50% of the time. The actual success rate was 2.5% [ref]. That’s a 20-to-1 gap between what the communicator heard in their head and what the audience actually received.
This is exactly what happens in churches every week. A pastor who has spent 20 hours in a sermon text hears a full symphony of meaning, nuance, and application. The congregation hears a series of disconnected taps on a table. And when it comes to broader communication—announcements about serving, reminders to invite, follow-up on events—the gap compounds. An XPastor survey of roughly 200 church leaders found that leaders estimated 44% of their people had forgotten the sermon by Monday, and a cumulative 94% by Wednesday [ref]. Church communication practitioners consistently report the same phenomenon: people approach them after six weeks of announcements asking about events they’d never heard of.
If 94% of your congregation has forgotten this week’s sermon by midweek, what happened to that invitation challenge you made three Sundays ago? The honest answer is that it evaporated. Don’t despair over this because it’s just a reason to lean in harder and more consistently than you thought you needed to.
The Channels Are Working Against YouEven when you do communicate about the invitation, the platforms themselves are filtering your message before it reaches your people. Facebook organic reach has collapsed from 16% in 2012 to approximately 1.2–1.65% in 2025 [ref]. A church page with 10,000 followers reaches roughly 130–165 people per post. Instagram organic reach sits at around 3.5%, and it dropped another 30–40% across all post formats in 2025 alone. A church that posts once on Facebook and once on Instagram and considers the communication job done has reached, at best, about 5% of its online followers.
Email is the bright spot for churches, but even it tells a sobering story. Religious organizations have some of the highest email open rates of any industry, which is roughly 30% according to analysis of more than 91,000 church emails [ref]. Those are strong numbers. They also mean 70% of your email list never opens any given message, and more than 90% never click a link inside it. Meanwhile, the average person encounters an estimated 6,000–10,000 marketing messages per day and consciously registers fewer than 150 of them. Your midweek email is competing with thousands of other messages for one of those limited attention slots.
None of this means you should stop posting or stop emailing. It means that a single mention through a single channel barely registers. If you want your congregation to internalize the idea that inviting friends is a normal, expected part of following Jesus at your church, you need to show up across multiple channels, repeatedly, over weeks and months. The research on multi-channel communication backs this up: campaigns using three or more channels produced a 287% higher engagement rate than single-channel campaigns [ref], and multi-channel donors give roughly three times more in lifetime value than single-channel donors [ref].
Multiple channels don’t just add to your message. They multiply its impact, because each new context creates a distinct memory trace and a separate pathway to recall.
Repetition Isn’t Annoying. It’s How Trust Gets Built.There’s a reason the idea of persistent communication makes church leaders uneasy. Nobody wants to be the church that nags. But the science on how humans process repeated messages is remarkably clear, and it doesn’t validate the fear.
Robert Zajonc’s Mere Exposure Effect, first demonstrated in 1968, showed that repeated exposure to a stimulus—with no reinforcement, no reward, no positive association—is enough on its own to increase how much people like it [ref]. A 2017 meta-analysis of 268 exposure curves confirmed that the preference curve rises with exposure and peaks at around 10–20 presentations before beginning to decline [ref]. And that decline is primarily a risk with simple, unchanging stimuli. When you vary the format or channel while keeping the core message consistent, the positive range extends significantly. The effect is actually stronger when people aren’t consciously aware of the repeated exposure [ref].
The old Marketing Rule of 7 … the idea that people need seven exposures before taking action …comes from the 1930s movie industry. In 2025, research across industries puts the average number of touchpoints before a decision at nearly 29 [ref]. Seven was the floor almost a century ago. Your congregation needs far more than a single stage announcement and an Instagram post to shift their behavior around invitation.
“But We Don’t Want to Annoy People”This is the objection every church communicator faces, and it deserves a fair hearing. The fear of over-communicating is real, but the data says the fear is dramatically lopsided.
A Stanford study by Flynn and Lide analyzed more than 2,700 archived 360-degree leadership assessments and conducted four additional studies. They found that leaders who miscalibrated their communication were nearly 10 times more likely to be criticized for under-communicating than for over-communicating [ref]. Leaders who under-communicated were perceived as lacking empathy and leadership ability. Leaders who over-communicated were, in the researchers’ words, given the benefit of the doubt. The conclusion was clear: over-communication may be seen as a nuisance, but under-communication is seen as a leadership flaw.
The email data tells the same story from a different angle. Organizations that send emails only once a month have a 78% higher unsubscribe rate than those that send more frequently. The baseline unsubscribe rate for nonprofits sits at just 0.17–0.19% per send, which is well below the cross-industry average. Your people are not bolting when you show up in their inbox. They’re far more likely to disengage when they rarely hear from you at all.
There are real tipping points, and it’s worth exploring them. Complaints increase meaningfully beyond five emails per week and spike beyond seven. But the resolution from the research is consistent: frequency is not the enemy, irrelevance is. People resist when they feel their autonomy is threatened, and that resistance is triggered far more by tone—guilt-laden, high-pressure, directive language—than by volume. The legitimate risk for churches is not communicating too often about invitation, it’s communicating too often with the same generic, unsegmented, ask-heavy content through a single channel.
What Growing Churches Actually Do DifferentlyIf the research makes one thing unavoidable, it’s that shifting an invite culture requires consistent, persistent, long-term pressure across the full breadth of your church’s life. Growing churches don’t just mention inviting once a quarter during a sermon series on evangelism. They weave it into everything, and they sustain it for years.
In working with churches across North America for more than two decades and conducting over 800 interviews with leadership teams from some of the fastest-growing churches in the country, I’ve found that the churches building genuine invite-culture momentum are consistently working across five interconnected areas. I call them the 5 Gears of Invite Culture, and they function less like a menu you pick from and more like the tumblers in a lock. All five need to turn together.
- Shareable Weekend Teaching is the biggest lever. When your teaching is the kind of thing people want to talk about at lunch on Sunday, you’ve created the raw material for invitation. Research from Gallup confirms that sermon content is the primary reason three in four worshippers attend. If your weekend teaching connects Scripture to real life in a way that gives people language they can share, inviting becomes dramatically easier.
- Eventful Big Days are not the strategy on their own, but they serve as training grounds for invitation. Easter, back-to-school, Christmas—these are cultural moments when people are genuinely more receptive to an invitation, and they give your congregation a natural on-ramp to practice the skill of inviting. The key is to design them backward from the invite and then leverage them to build a weekly rhythm that outlasts the event.
- Captivating Online Conversations turn your digital presence from a broadcast channel into a relational bridge. The social media reach numbers above make it clear that posting once isn’t enough. But when your online presence is built around genuine conversation rather than promotion, it becomes another context in which the invitation message is encoded in a distinct way.
- Magnetic Community Service gets your people out of the building and into proximity with the people they’re being asked to invite. Churches that serve their communities together create the relational bridges that make invitation feel natural rather than forced.
- Appealing Volunteer Experience may be the most underestimated gear. People who serve, invite. The data is consistent on this point: engaged volunteers become your most enthusiastic advocates. When your volunteer culture is the kind of thing people are proud to bring a friend into, invitation stops feeling like a program and starts feeling like a reflex.
These five gears are where the multi-channel science meets the practical reality of church life. Each gear represents a different context in which your people encounter the invitation message, and each creates a separate memory trace and retrieval pathway. When all five are turning together, the effect compounds. When one or two are stuck, the whole engine labors, and that’s often the real reason growth feels harder than it should.
Find Out Which Gear Is StuckIf any of this research resonated—if you read the tapping study and thought, “that’s exactly what’s happening with our invite messaging”—then the next step isn’t to simply communicate more. It’s to figure out where the alignment is breaking down in your specific context.
That’s exactly what I built the free Invite Culture Audit Workshop to help you do. On Tuesday, May 12th at 12 noon ET, I’ll walk you through a practical scorecard that shows where your invite culture is strong, where it’s leaking, and which gear to focus on first. You’ll see real examples from churches that have moved the invitation from something they talk about to something their people actually do, week after week. And you’ll walk away with a 90-day blueprint you can start acting on immediately.
This isn’t a motivational talk; it’s a diagnostic session designed to give you and your team clarity. Sixty minutes, straight to the point, with a concrete plan that fits into your existing rhythms
Register for free here: helpchurchleaders.com/invite-culture-audit-workshop
Your people love your church. They’re already in the room. With the right systems and sustained encouragement, they’re closer to becoming a church full of inviters than you think. Let’s figure out what’s keeping the gears from turning.
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Jimmy Scroggins, Lead Pastor of Family Church in South Florida. Under Jimmy’s leadership, Family Church has grown into a network of over 20 congregations across multiple languages, all unified under one structure while maintaining local leadership and live teaching at every location.
Are you finding your church’s energy drifting in too many directions? Wondering how to keep your ministry focused while still doing all the “good things” churches are called to do? Tune in as Jimmy offers a clear perspective on why maintaining a relentless focus on the weekend experience is critical for sustained church growth.
- A network of neighborhood churches. // Family Church operates as one unified organization—one name, one budget, one leadership structure—but functions like a family of neighborhood churches. Each location has live preaching, local leadership, and contextualized ministry for its community. Like siblings in a family, each campus shares core DNA while expressing it differently based on context, language, and culture. This approach allows the church to scale while remaining personal and locally effective.
- Why Sunday still matters most. // One of Jimmy’s strongest convictions is that healthy churches must prioritize the weekend gathering. When growth slows, churches can be tempted to drift away from focusing on Sunday. Leaders may unintentionally elevate secondary ministries, such as midweek programs or community initiatives, because they feel like wins. However, if Sunday gatherings are not vibrant, engaging, and growing, the effectiveness of every other ministry will eventually decline as well. A healthy weekend service creates the momentum that fuels everything else, and secondary ministries all need to drive back to the Sunday experience.
- Creating alignment across multiple locations. // One way Family Church keeps the focus on Sunday, and maintains unity across a large multisite network, is through shared sermon planning, common teaching outlines, and collaborative preparation. While each pastor delivers messages in their own voice, the theological direction and structure remain consistent. At the same time, local campuses retain flexibility to adapt to their specific communities, ensuring both consistency and contextual relevance.
- Developing future leaders intentionally. // A key driver of Family Church’s growth is its leadership pipeline. The church utilizes internships, residencies, and student ministry roles to identify and develop future campus pastors. Notably, Jimmy views student pastors as potential senior leaders because their roles require a broad range of skills, from teaching and leadership to administration and pastoral care. By consistently investing in emerging leaders, the church creates a steady pipeline of capable pastors ready to lead new locations.
- Coaching for continuous improvement. // Teaching quality is a high priority, and every communicator receives regular coaching. Sermons are recorded, reviewed, and evaluated by trusted leaders who provide feedback and track growth over time. Jimmy himself participates in this process, modeling a culture of humility and continuous improvement.
- Refocusing requires difficult decisions. // For churches that have drifted away from prioritizing the weekend, Jimmy offers a caution: refocusing will require letting go of some good things. Leaders must carefully evaluate where time, money, and energy are being spent, and whether those investments are truly supporting the weekend experience and the church’s primary mission to make disciples.
To learn more about Family Church, visit gofamilychurch.org and explore their resources and annual leadership conference.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Risepointe
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. We’ve got a returning guest today, which, what does that mean? That means it’s somebody I want you to hear from again. Excited to have Jimmy Scroggins with us. He is the lead pastor at Family Church. They’re one of the fastest growing churches in the country with, if I’m counting correctly, 14 campuses in Florida, plus five locations in Spanish and a Portuguese location. That’s a lot of moving parts. Family Church is dedicated to building families in South Florida through a network of neighborhood churches. Jimmy became the lead pastor there in 2008. Super excited to have you on the show again today.
Jimmy Scroggins — Hey, man, always glad to be with you and appreciate what you do.
Rich Birch — Yeah, encouraging to see you as well again. So why don’t you bring people just up to speed for folks who haven’t been following along with Family Church. Give us a picture where things are at today, your 14 campuses, multiple locations. What’s a network look like today? Tell us all about that.
Jimmy Scroggins — Yeah, so actually, depending on how you can, you know, we use the word campus and church interchangeably. So although we are one church organization, one budget, one name, one leadership structure, one constitution and bylaws, we still function a lot from the perspective of an attender like likes independent churches because we have live teaching and live local leadership at every family church location.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jimmy Scroggins — And so we have 20 locations.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Jimmy Scroggins — Then we have some additional, so because some of those are Spanish speaking…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jimmy Scroggins — …yeah like Portuguese our Portuguese church has their own campus. A couple of our Spanish speaking churches have their own campus.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Jimmy Scroggins — Then a couple of them congregations meet on the same campus with an English speaking congregation.
Rich Birch — Okay. Yep.
Jimmy Scroggins — And so so that’s that’s where we’re at. We have all those different physical locations and several more coming online in the next 12 months or so.
Rich Birch — That’s fantastic.
Jimmy Scroggins — And we’re really excited about the opportunity that we have to reach people in South Florida. We are not a megachurch. We have but a budget and the total attendance of a megachurch, but that’s in the aggregate. Our largest attended campus on a strong Sunday that’s not Easter might have 1,800 people. Our next one might have 1,500. We have another one that runs about 900. And then the rest of them are like usually with t between 400 and 600. Yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. That’s really this neighborhood church vision that you’ve been talking about, right? Which is the idea, if I remember correctly, it’s a one hundred locations that you’re hoping for, you’re wondering, you’re asking the Lord. Tell us talk to us a little bit about that.
Jimmy Scroggins — We’re talking about a hundred congregations, so they don’t all have to be Family Church. So we felt that we also helped to plant a truly autonomous, independent churches that are not Family Church. And so between that and where we are now with our own locations, we think we’ve started out on 40 something…
Rich Birch — That’s amazing.
Jimmy Scroggins — …of these over the last 15 years or so.
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Jimmy Scroggins — And, You know, the number 100 is kind of aspirational. I don’t know if we’ll ever actually get 100.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jimmy Scroggins — But it’s it’s it’s close enough that we can measure progress, but far enough out there that it feels like, man, we’ve got a lot of work to do.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. What what do you, this is like a sidebar question. How do you kind of define the difference between a Family Church, somebody that’s in the network or is a part of the Family Church versus a church plant?
Jimmy Scroggins — Sure.
Rich Birch — How do you think about the difference between those two?
Jimmy Scroggins — Well, I mean, again, our our main markers, the one thing that, well, we say what makes us one church or one church organization is we’d have one name. So like all of our Family churches, if if we do a strategic partnership or a merger with another church, they’re all going to become Family Church.
Jimmy Scroggins — We have one constitution and bylaws that we all share. We have one um leadership structure, so they’ll all come into the leadership rubric and structure of Family Church, and we have one budget. So we all pool our resources and then we dispense them to together to fund the work of the different locations that we have.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. So…
Jimmy Scroggins — And because we have live teaching, too, you know, we we try not to use language. We usually will correct someone around here if they use language like the mothership…
Rich Birch — Right.
Jimmy Scroggins — …or the main campus because we don’t we don’t have that.
Rich Birch — No, no.
Jimmy Scroggins — You know, wherever you attend church, that’s your main campus. Whoever’s your pastor, your preacher, that’s who you want to hear.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Jimmy Scroggins — That’s that’s your that’s your lead pastor.
Jimmy Scroggins — So we really try to think of it like that.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. Yeah, there’s a lot there. And maybe we’ll have you on another time to talk about, you know, how you’re keeping those together and keeping them aligned and focused. Because there’s, you know, I think there’s a lot of people that would aspirationally say, hey, that would be great. But man, I’m just not sure the inner are workings of that. But that’s it for another day. So I’m already setting you up for the next conversation.
Jimmy Scroggins — All right. All right. Great. Look forward to it.
Rich Birch — But one of the things I’ve heard you talk about is, hey, you know, we got to stay focused on the weekends. We got to stay focused on Sunday mornings. That sounds simple, and the kind of thing, of course, that’s what we do. But what what were you seeing when you think, hey, we got to be focused on Sundays. We got to be focused on that experience as church leaders.
Jimmy Scroggins — One of the things that I’ve discovered over my, you know, I’ve been, I’ve been a ministry a long time. I’m 54 years old. This is the only kind of work I’ve ever really been in vocationally. So as I’ve watched, I’ve just watched churches always have this tendency to drift away from a focus and a value on what happens on Sunday morning and towards other things.
Jimmy Scroggins — Now, before anybody starts emailing you or emailing me or whatever, I understand. I want to say all, just please assume the best in terms of the caveats, right?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jimmy Scroggins — I know that discipleship is the goal, not church attendance. This is not about nickels and noses and all that. That that is really not what I’m talking about.
Jimmy Scroggins — What I’m talking about is for a church to have an organizational drive, for a church to have an organizational forward momentum, they have to be succeeding and rallying people at their weekend services. That’s just the way that it is. If you don’t do that well, you are blunting the impact of everything else that you might be doing, whether it’s small groups or home groups or whatever else.
Jimmy Scroggins — And again, look, this is not the Bible. This is my opinion. If you, my opinions are all free. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to take it. But I do think that, I do think that in my experience just watching, and and what I watch is when churches begin to get into severe decline, what they do is they usually latch on to some other ministry that’s not Sunday morning…
Rich Birch — Right. That’s true.
Jimmy Scroggins — …so they can feel like they’re getting a win. And so they’ll start, you know, our, what’s really important around here is our Thursday night ministry to special needs kids.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jimmy Scroggins — It’s our orphanage that we own in Haiti. It’s our soup kitchen where we feed the homeless every Monday. And all of those things are awesome things.
Rich Birch — Yeah, VBS in the summertime or yeah, whatever those kind of things.
Jimmy Scroggins — Yeah, there are things that the church should do, maybe where you are, and those are all godly things, good things, biblical things, faithful things. But the thing of it is, what I watch is churches latch on to those things because they stop believing they can succeed on Sunday morning, and those things take on greater and greater importance.
Jimmy Scroggins — But but what what churches find is that eventually, if you don’t make Sunday morning healthy and vibrant and growing, all of the other things that are the auxiliary ministries that are attached to that are going to go away also.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s, I love that. In fact, just recently I was with a church where we were talking about similar issues and they were talking about these other things they do. And I was challenging them very similarly. I was said like, listen, that all sounds great. But like, how can we take the energy you’re putting into that and focus it in on the weekend, focus it in on Sunday? What can we do to rather than because it feels diffused? It’s like, you know, you got all these other areas you’re you’re spending your time on.
Rich Birch — What does focus really look like for you as you’re coaching, even your team at Family? You say, okay what do what does it look like to kind of have a great weekend that feels like a win? What are some of those kind of telltale signs of, yeah, that that’s a that’s a congregation that’s focused on making that work?
Jimmy Scroggins — Well, I think I think there’s organizations such as 9Marks and others who have laid this out pretty clearly. What should be happening when a church is gathering regularly? And so I think I think others have done a really eloquent job of laying these kinds of things out. And I want to go ahead and say I’m for all of 9Marks and all that kind of stuff.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jimmy Scroggins — And I really am from the heart. But I also would just say, in terms of some more pragmatic ways that you approach that, obviously being faithful to what the Bible calls a neighborhood church to do. But I think one of the ways i encourage pastors is agreeing that we’re going to be faithful theologically in every way. I want to try to create the kind of church that I want my family to grow up in.
Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good.
Jimmy Scroggins — So I’ve got kids, I’ve got teenagers, when I had little ones, when I had preschoolers, what kind of preschool experience do I want my kids to have in a context of a faithful church?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Jimmy Scroggins — What kind of children’s ministry experience? What kind of student ministry experience? What kind of music do I think that our family ought to be singing together when we gather on the Lord’s Day? What kind of sermon do I want my wife and my children, what kind of sermon do I need to be hearing when we gather on the Lord’s Day?
Jimmy Scroggins — And so that’s what I’m trying to think about. And what you’ll find is, you know, now I’m in a little bit of a different phase because now I have my kids and grandkids go to my church. So what kind of an experience am I hoping that my grandchildren are going to have in the context of a biblically faithful neighborhood church?
Jimmy Scroggins — And so I’ve just found that when you think of it like that, it clarifies a lot of things.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Jimmy Scroggins — And and it also lets you be authentically who you are. And what I found is that if I will help to create the kind of programming in the context of a biblically faithful church that I want my kids to experience, there’s a lot of people who actually have the same desires. And they might not even be able to articulate it because maybe they don’t have the training or they haven’t thought about it as hard as I have. But when they but become part of it they go, that’s what I’ve always been looking for right there.
Rich Birch — Right, right. Well, that’s part…
Jimmy Scroggins — And so that’s what that’s what I think.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. It’s a part of being a leader, right, is to identify here are the things that are important to our organization and and how do we keep those front and center and keep them in front of people? And I love that just personal kind of reflection, even, hey, what what am I looking for and how does you know, what do I think God can use?
Rich Birch — Well, pivoting a slightly different direction, thinking about what you’re doing at Family Church, you know, when you’re running multiple locations in multiple languages. How do you keep this kind of focus consistent with across all your campus pastors who are leading in very different contexts? You know, I know you’re all in South Florida, but like it’s very different communities you’re in.
Jimmy Scroggins — That’s true.
Rich Birch — Talk us through how are you, how are you driving unity and continuing to make sure Family Church is Family Church.
Jimmy Scroggins — Well, a couple of things, Rich, you know, we’re multisite, but we, so, you know, our, our goal is always family resemblance, not cookie cutter and identical. So the way I think I’ve shared this with on your podcast before, but the Scroggins family, we have eight biological children. None of them are twins. They do have a look because genetics are real.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jimmy Scroggins — But they don’t look alike and they don’t want to be alike.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jimmy Scroggins — They like being brothers and sisters. They like being part of the Scroggins family. If someone else picks on them, they tend to tribe up pretty quick. But there’s a healthy sibling rivalry among all of them. And that’s kind of my idea for how our family of neighborhood churches can work.
Jimmy Scroggins — is There’s a family resemblance. We’re all proud to be part of the family. We love each other a lot. We pull for each other really hard. There’s a healthy amount of sibling rivalry. We don’t like other people coming at our coming at our brothers and sisters. And so that’s kind of how I like to posture our churches as much as I can.
Jimmy Scroggins — And the way that we keep consistency and camaraderie and chemistry and hold each other accountable is we just have a lot…we call it meals, meetings, and retreats. So we have a lot of meals together. We schedule it. We budget for it. We have a lot of retreats together. We schedule it. We budget for it. We have a lot of face-to-face meetings, more than most churches or leaders would tolerate. But that’s part of how we create culture and how we cultivate culture together.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s very good. I love that. Actually, very similar Mark Jobe in Chicago. They have 20 some odd locations as well, all preaching locally.
Jimmy Scroggins — Yeah.
Rich Birch —And he gave a very similar answer. I said, how do you keep everybody together? And he would kind of look to like well, we all get together for lunch on Monday. That was that was his answer. You know, it’s very similar.
Jimmy Scroggins — Yeah. Yeah.
Rich Birch — Like, hey, we got to keep FaceTime with each other. We got to keep relationally connected.
Jimmy Scroggins — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s that’s fantastic. What would you say some of the, when you say your campuses have a strong resemblance, sticking with the genetic.
Jimmy Scroggins — Sure.
Rich Birch — What are some of those markers of the strong resemblance that that are telltale for you?
Jimmy Scroggins — I mean, aside from the more superficial things like branding, right? Signage and branding. But also, I would say like our preaching. So we cultivate our sermon series together. Every preacher preaches in their own voice. umThey make every sermon their own, but we do collaborate. We create like a three or four or five point fill in the blank outline together that we all use. Then you have a lot of freedom beyond that, but that does keep a family resemblance.
Jimmy Scroggins — Um, even our music, we don’t all have to use the same songs. We don’t, it’s not always in the same style, but we do have a set of songs that we’re using each quarter. And, um, we tend to try to, people have freedom to, to add songs or do something, but we, we, we kind of agree on a catalog of songs that we’re going to focus on for the quarter.
Jimmy Scroggins — Our liturgy is similar. So we have certain, like an announcement video that we all play all every church, every campus does. So we all do the same call to worship, reading out loud together congregationally. And we all do the same benediction, you know, that we read out loud congregationally. We all take the Lord’s supper every week.
Jimmy Scroggins — We share our baptism. So like,whenever we baptize, we video all of them. And then the following week, those baptisms are shown at every location.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jimmy Scroggins — So we all rejoice in each other’s baptism. So those are just some things that we’re doing to communicate, hey, we’re all we’re all one.
Jimmy Scroggins — At the same time, again, if you go to some of our congregations that majority black, well, it feels like it. I mean, the music’s different. The the preaching style is different. The the the way people react in the room is different. Obviously, if you’re Brazilian and you’re speaking Portuguese, obviously, if you’re, and even our Hispanic churches… One the things I discovered—I didn’t know this because I’m such a redneck—but when I come down here to South Florida, I did not realize that Hispanic is not actually all one thing. There’s actually a lot of different countries that speak Spanish…
Rich Birch — Right. Sure.
Jimmy Scroggins — …and they speak Spanish differently. And they actually like, they’re different.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jimmy Scroggins — And so I did not know that. And I never thought about it. And so even those congregations may have some differences.
Rich Birch — Some differences. Yeah.
Jimmy Scroggins — So that’s how we that’s how we do it.
Jimmy Scroggins — Try to maintain family resemblance. Try to maintain Sunday morning excellence. At the same time, giving the preachers and the congregations freedom to reach their own neighborhoods for Christ.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s fantastic. I’d love to double click on the Sunday morning excellence piece, particularly around teaching. So I get that you’re doing, you know, the kind of team teaching in a sense, here’s the three or four points, we’re kind of all heading in the same direction. What are you doing to ensure that that part of what you do, we know that’s critically important for all our churches, that that part is as high quality as it can be, you know, it’s it’s kind of as engaging as it can be.
Rich Birch — What are you doing um from a feedback, coaching, you know, maybe even selection of those campus pastors or the people that are speaking? you wouldn’t call them campus pastors, lead pastors. What are you doing on that front to ensure that that is as high quality as it can be?
Jimmy Scroggins — Well, we have a system for that. So we have a couple of guys. We have three or four guys in our church or pastors here that are very gifted and not only in teaching and preaching, but they’re gifted coaches. And so we have a system and I, and a regular rhythm where everyone videos their sermons and then they they email their manuscript and their video to these coaches and then they get feedback. But then they sit down and actually watch the video and get personal feedback from these coaches. And they do this several times a year.
Jimmy Scroggins — And we keep a running log on here’s some things that we’ve asked them to work on and improve. And so then when we come back the next time, did they work on these things and are they improving? And so those are the kinds of it’s not perfect, but it is a it is a serious mechanism that we have where…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Jimmy Scroggins — And I do it, too. I submit to it as well. We all get coached and we all get better.
Rich Birch — I love that. Actually, this is now the second church. I literally was talking to a church earlier this week that is pursuing a secondary communicator to do exactly this. So it’s actually not the lead pastor who they’re who they’re kind of charging with this coaching role on communicators. Talk to me about that. That’s an interesting decision because I think a lot of people would assume, oh, that must be Jimmy’s job. He’s going to be coaching all these people. But talk to me about about your decision to have them do that.
Jimmy Scroggins — So one of the things that I do in a church like ours is I delegate a lot of things, but I do not delegate the teaching ministry of the church. So every week, if you go to our, you know, every week I meet for about two hours with everyone who’s preaching this weekend.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Jimmy Scroggins — So they’re all in that meeting. We’re talking through the sermon. We’re developing this outline. I do that myself. I personally lead the preaching retreats. We have two a year where we’re laying out our calendar. So we’re always 18 months out on our preaching calendar.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Jimmy Scroggins — And so those are, that’s just something I, I don’t want to delegate. Um, the teaching ministry of the church belongs to me in terms of responsibility, for the ah oversight of it.
Jimmy Scroggins — And so that’s how we do that.But in terms of the coaching, these are all men that I’ve known for a long time that I trust a lot.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Jimmy Scroggins — We’re theologically aligned.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jimmy Scroggins — I know the kind of feedback that they are likely to give. I trust it a lot. I know how they do it because I submit to it myself. And part of the reason that I do it is I want to get better. And part of the reason I do it is I want to interact with the coaches.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, that’s good. That’s great.
Jimmy Scroggins — So I, yeah. And so it is my responsibility. But the other thing is, you know, Rich, on coaching, whether it’s student ministry, kids ministry, you know, I’m I’m an ex-athlete. And one thing that athletes do, they get coached all the time, and they get coached by people who usually can’t do what they’re being coached to do.
Rich Birch — That’s true.
Jimmy Scroggins — So like, you know, when Tom Brady was at his height winning Super Bowls, not one of his coaches could have played quarterback as well as him, but he got coached every week.
Jimmy Scroggins — When Tiger Woods was at his peak of golf, he flew Butch Harmon, his swing coach, around his jet. And if Butch could play golf as good as Tiger Woods, he’d have won the Masters.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jimmy Scroggins — But he was his coach. And so somebody doesn’t have to be better than you to coach you.
Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s great insight for sure. And, and yeah, that the analogy of, yeah, somebody that’s professional at what they’re doing is getting coaching right in there. And it’s a different skillset than the, the same is true the other way. There’s a lot of people that are pro-athletes who can’t make the jump to coach. They just can’t do that. They…
Jimmy Scroggins — That’s correct.
Rich Birch — …you know, that’s like a different, it’s a totally different skillset than, than doing the thing that we’re talking about. What about the these key staff, campus pastors in these locations? How are you where are you finding them before they join the team? Are they coming up within? Are you you know what what’s that look like? How are you how are you finding these individuals to lead?
Jimmy Scroggins — Yeah.
Rich Birch — I know this real pressure point a lot of multisite churches.
Jimmy Scroggins — Yeah, well it’s a pressure point for us, too. And we never have enough.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jimmy Scroggins — But I will say we work at it. So we have an internship program that’s year round. So we’re trying to cultivate college age kids, not because we’re going to hire them necessarily. We hire some, but so that we have a pool of people that we know that are in their 20s that may have an interest in vocational ministry.
Jimmy Scroggins — We bring in, in the summers, a cohort of outside college students who are from all over the country. Again, it’s kind of like an eight week where we invest in them, but it’s an eight week job interview also. And so at the conclusion of that, we’re sitting down with our team and going, okay, is there anybody that was here this summer that we would want to hire? Stuff like that.
Jimmy Scroggins — We do have a residency program here in English and Spanish. So we’re cultivating, these are for people who are beyond college age and these is our residency is primarily aimed at people who already live here and who are engaged in a career that’s not vocational ministry. And people who are, it’s usually, we’re we’re looking for people who are at a point in their career or their business where they have a lot of control over their own schedule.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jimmy Scroggins — And then we give them some training. It’s a two year residency program. And then some of them become pastors or lay ministers. Some of them become just highly trained volunteers. That’s another avenue.
Jimmy Scroggins — And then we’re networking all the time. So we’re working hard. We try to enter our team and cohorts. We try to travel and be there for college fairs and other things. Because we have to work hard so we have a Rolodex of people that we can call on when when we when we need someone to come fill fill a role.
Rich Birch — And out of those, well, first of all, super commendable that you have lots of different avenues. And lots of times when I ask your church that question, they’re like, well, we do this one thing and it’s not working. It’s like, okay…
Jimmy Scroggins — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …well, it takes more than one thing. You got to do a bunch of different things. Which of those has been the most effective or most fruitful for, or is it kind of a scattershot? It’s all of it for…
Jimmy Scroggins — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …you know, identifying particularly key leaders.
Jimmy Scroggins — They’re all fruitful in different ways. One of the things that we do is we use our student ministry. So when we have full-time student ministers, which we have a bunch of them, we really don’t hire somebody to be full-time as a student pastor unless we think they could be a campus pastor or lead pastor.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Jimmy Scroggins — So it doesn’t mean that they will be, but every single person we hire, we think this person’s got the gift mix, they’ve got the teaching gift, they’ve got the want to, they’ve got some administrative ability, they’re a good convener, people tend to come around them. And so we’re trying to identify those people who may not be ready yet in terms of experience or age or family development or whatever, to be a lead pastor, but we want to identify people who we think are on that trajectory, put them in those slots.
Jimmy Scroggins — And we do that because student ministry, you know, I was a student pastor for a long time. Student ministers do basically everything that a lead pastor does. They have to prepare messages. They have to rally volunteers. They have to arrange music. They have to oversee events. They have to do funerals and weddings. They have to do counseling. They have to deal with discipline problems. So student pastors, and they have to do it all on shoestring. They tend to be really good at senior pastor stuff after they’ve been doing it for a while. So that’s why we do it that way.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. I love that. I love the, just even the clarity of identifying, Hey, we know that the people in this, you know, in this role, those are all people who eventually we could see, you know, if they keep developing, they could be in these roles. That’s a, that’s, that’s fantastic.
Rich Birch — Well, this been a fantastic conversation. Getting back to the kind of Sunday focus question. if, if I’m a church leader and I think, man, I think we’re maybe a bit off focus on some stuff. We’re not, we’re not putting enough energy into the weekend. What would your recommendation be to them for pulling back on other things? How do you actually do that in a way that you know doesn’t kind of kibosh? How do we make that transition in a way that that actually propels the church forward rather than you know hindering us? Any thoughts on that?
Jimmy Scroggins — Yeah, that’s probably a whole nother podcast, Rich.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jimmy Scroggins — But just in brief, I would just say you need to do that very wisely because what you’re going find out is in order to refocus, you’re going to have to either de-emphasize or stop doing something else. And that something else is probably a really good thing that some Christian somewhere ought to be doing. And your church has a constituency of people in it who are super passionate about that thing.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jimmy Scroggins — And so you gotta be really wise because you just go ripping and slashing, um you’re gonna undercut your own leadership credibility. And in some situations you might undercut your leadership opportunity.
Jimmy Scroggins — And so you gotta be really wise about that. But I think minimally, if you could just assess it. So years ago I heard a guy that was really good at organizational leadership. He said, he said if you brought in a consultant from outside and he didn’t know anything about your church, and he didn’t care about anything about it. And he just assessed it and said, you should stop doing this, you should start doing that, you should fix this, you should fire them, you should hire them. He goes, why don’t you just think about what that guy would say and then do it.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes.
Jimmy Scroggins — So I think there’s a part of that where even if you can’t wisely do everything all at once, I think there is a sense in which you should at least be able to identify what those things would be if you could. And then you begin to chip away at it.
Jimmy Scroggins — So the way, I mean, just real clarity is just like, hey man, where’s the money? How who how many how many staff dollars or budget dollars are flowing towards helping Sunday morning succeed and how much of it is flowing elsewhere?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Jimmy Scroggins — How many staff members and how many staff hours are directed at other programming versus Sunday morning programming? How much of your brain space as a senior leader is being occupied by other ministries versus Sunday morning?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Jimmy Scroggins — And I would just say it doesn’t mean that it should be zero. It just means the clear priority in my mind should be your weekend gatherings. And then a very simple, like a very practical example of how this might work out is let’s take student ministry. So I did that for a long time.
Jimmy Scroggins — A lot of churches on like their midweek program on Wednesday nights, whatever night it is, they have a huge group, two or three or four times bigger than the student ministry group that meets on Sunday mornings. Okay, and why is that? Well, we’re reaching the community. Okay, maybe. Maybe you got a bunch of kids that aren’t Christian or whatever, and they come to your thing because it’s fun. and Maybe you’re also collecting some kids from other churches whose youth group isn’t as good as yours, or maybe they don’t have one, or, you know, whatever. There’s there’s a lot of reasons why the youth group on the midweek is is big, and there’s nothing with that.
Jimmy Scroggins — But I would just say, my so what I tell my youth pastors is, look, get the biggest group you can on Wednesday nights. I love it. Blow it out. I’m just not evaluating you on that. I’m evaluating you by how many students are here on Sunday mornings.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jimmy Scroggins — Because because Sunday morning kids come with their families and families are what build churches.
Rich Birch — Right. Right. That’s good.
Jimmy Scroggins — Now they’re going push back and say, so you don’t care about reaching all these lost kids at our public school. No, I actually really do, which is why if that’s something that we’re really passionate about, why don’t you get a job with FCA or Youth for Christ or First Priority? Let’s fund you and, man, knock yourself out as a missionary to the public schools.
Jimmy Scroggins — But what we’re trying to do at Family Church is make disciples. And the way we do that is building families. It doesn’t mean that we won’t have kids whose parents don’t go to church. We will and we do. But what I’ve learned over many years is all that activity around people who never whose parents never come bears very minimal fruit compared to the energy we put into parents whose kids do come or likely to come. Those that fruit tends to remain.
Jimmy Scroggins — I know we’ve all got anecdotal stories. I do too.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jimmy Scroggins — And I know you know I am 100% in favor of student ministry as a missions enterprise, and we want to reach kids and baptize kids. I’m for all of that. We baptize a lot around here. At the same time, everyone at our church knows I’m being evaluated by what happens on Sunday morning. So what I’m doing on Wednesday really needs to be a funnel where I’m catching kids and bringing them into our true discipleship matrix, which is um Lord’s Day worship. So whether they have they’re with their parents or not.
Jimmy Scroggins — A Christian who says, I’m a Christian, I’ve been baptized, but I don’t participate in Lord’s Day worship with a neighborhood church. That’s not a, that’s not, they’re not following a biblical pattern and that’s what we’re trying to get kids. So that that’s just an example of how an emphasis on the weekend might flesh out in a local church.
Rich Birch — I love the clarity there. And I love the like, hey, you can do that thing, but we got to make sure that there’s a connection between that and this. And if we can’t show that we’re that this thing is going to drive to that thing, to the weekend, we you know, you you probably don’t want to be doing that. I think the clarity that you’re giving your people, I think, is a huge gift there. That’s that’s fantastic.
Rich Birch — Well, Jimmy,
Jimmy Scroggins — Well, you know, it’s one of the things about what I do is I always sound like I’m 100% positive and like I know what I’m doing. Just to be clear, hey, man, other people do it different. God blesses it.
Rich Birch — Sure. Yeah, yeah.
Jimmy Scroggins — Praise God for it.
Jimmy Scroggins — This is how we do it at Family Church. I don’t think it’s the only way to do it.
Rich Birch — Right. No, that’s great. And in fact, actually, that’s a telltale sign I’ve seen in lots of churches would say, would have that same humility to say, hey, we know there’s lots of different ways to do it. This is the way that we’re doing it.
Jimmy Scroggins — Yeah.
Rich Birch — This is what we believe God’s called us to. But we’re that means we’re called to this thing. We’re going to do it this way.
Jimmy Scroggins — Right.
Rich Birch — And that clarity, rather than like, hey, we’re always every six months, we’re trying something different. I think that just drives in too many weird directions and the church doesn’t end up being focused enough.
Jimmy Scroggins — Yeah.
Rich Birch — So yeah. Yeah, I really appreciate your clarity, Jimmy. Well this has been a fantastic conversation today. Any kind of last words as we wrap up today’s conversation?
Jimmy Scroggins — Yeah, I would just say again, if you’re a church leader, my my humble encouragement to you is make Sunday morning the best thing that you do. Put your primary and energy into that. And if your Sunday morning is vibrant and healthy and growing and people are being encouraged and taught and trained and they’re serving, then what you’re going to find is all of the other things that you want to do and should do outside of that are likely to be healthier.
Rich Birch — That’s great. Thanks so much. If people want to track with you or with the church, where do we want to send them online?
Jimmy Scroggins — You can go to our website, gofamilychurch.org. We have some podcasts as well. Church for the Rest of Us is one. We’ve got another one for ladies called Mom Village. Check all that out. And and we love to connect.
Jimmy Scroggins — We also have a we have a we have a conference every March. It’s a one-day conference, very affordable, small, no green rooms, no VIP treatment. But we want people to come with us, make friends with us, and talk church.
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Jimmy Scroggins — And you can check all that out online or on our website.
Rich Birch — Love it. We’ll link to all that in the show notes. I appreciate you, Jimmy. Thanks for being here today.
Jimmy Scroggins — Always. Thanks so much, Rich. Appreciate it.
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Scott Worthington, Lead Pastor of Hope Church in Las Vegas, Nevada. After serving on staff for over 15 years, Scott stepped into the lead pastor role in 2022 following founding pastor Vance Pitman. In this conversation, Scott shares candid insights from that transition—what he learned, what surprised him, and how he’s helping the church move forward in a new season.
Are you navigating a leadership transition—or preparing for one? Wondering how to honor the past while leading into the future? Scott offers practical wisdom on succession, culture, and leading through change with humility and clarity.
- When transition happens faster than expected. // Scott’s transition didn’t follow a long, multi-year succession plan. While there had been informal conversations about the future, the actual handoff happened in a matter of months when Vance stepped into a new national role. Moving from a worship/creative role into the senior pastor seat required rapid adjustment. One of Scott’s biggest realizations was that strong personal relationships don’t eliminate the complexity of leadership transition. Even with deep trust, there were moments of tension, especially when his leadership instincts differed from the mentor who had shaped him. Learning to lead without feeling like he was disappointing his former pastor became a key internal challenge.
- Hold tightly to mission, loosely to strategy. // As Scott stepped into leadership, he quickly identified what could not change: the church’s mission, vision, and core discipleship philosophy. For years, Hope Church had emphasized abiding in Christ as the foundation of ministry, rooted in John 15. That DNA remained non-negotiable. However, strategy was a different story. Scott embraced the idea that while the mission is fixed, methods must evolve.
- Ask the hard question: are we making disciples? // Early in his leadership, Scott gathered his team and asked a deceptively simple but weighty question: Are we actually making disciples? While there were encouraging stories of life change, the broader picture required honest evaluation. The disruptions of COVID had reshaped engagement, and the church needed to recalibrate. This question became the catalyst for new strategic direction, pushing the team to rethink how they measured spiritual growth and engagement.
- Introducing “spiritual cartography.” // One of the key strategic shifts Scott led was helping people identify where they are on their spiritual journey – a concept he calls “spiritual cartography.” The church began consistently communicating that everyone is somewhere spiritually and every Jesus follower has a next step. This language became embedded in sermons, staff culture, signage, and communication. To support this, they developed a simple “Discovery Tool” that helps people assess their current spiritual stage and identify next steps.
- Listening before leading. // In the early days of transition, Scott prioritized listening over directing. Rather than immediately implementing changes, he met with every department on staff, asking questions about culture, strengths, and areas for growth. Importantly, he resisted the urge to defend or explain, focusing instead on gathering insight. These conversations provided valuable data that shaped future decisions. His posture of humility helped build trust across the team during a potentially fragile season.
- Growing into the role. // One of Scott’s personal challenges was preaching. Having only preached 37 times before becoming lead pastor, he knew this was an area for growth. He joined a preaching cohort, studied extensively, and committed to getting reps. Over time, he began finding his own voice and learning not to imitate his predecessor but to lead authentically while still reflecting the influence of years under his leadership.
- A final reminder for leaders. // Scott closes with a powerful encouragement: ministry flows from intimacy with Jesus, not activity for Him. Leaders can easily drift into busyness and neglect their relationship with Christ. But as he reminds us, apart from Jesus, we can do nothing. True fruitfulness comes from abiding in Him.
To learn more about Hope Church, visit hopechurchlv.com or follow @hopechurchlv on social media. Plus, don’t miss Hope’s spiritual cartography Discovery Tool.
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Really looking forward to today’s conversation. This is one of those issues that literally thousands of churches across the country are at some phase of working on. And so I know that this is going to be a practical conversation for you. Excited to have Scott Worthington with us today. He is the lead pastor at Hope Church, a church in Las Vegas. It’s a multisite church with three locations, if I can count correctly, in Nevada. They were founded in 2001 by Vance Pitman, and then he passed the baton to Scott, who stepped into the senior pastor role in 2022. Super excited to have Scott on the show today. Welcome. So glad you’re here.
Scott Worthington — Thank you so much, Rich. It is a privilege. Grateful to be here with you today.
Rich Birch — I’m honored that you’re you’re here and taking some time out. I know you’ve lots going on. Tell us a little bit of the Hope Church story, kind of cast a bit of the picture. If we were to arrive this weekend, what would we experience, that sort of thing?
Scott Worthington — Yeah, Hope Church is an incredible church here in Las Vegas, as you said, three locations, three congregations what we call them. And yeah, I began to attend Hope Church right out of college in 2006, 2007, and been here for, I guess, 20 years now.
Scott Worthington — And Vance Pitman, you mentioned his name. He was my pastor. He is the founding pastor here. He planted this church in 2001. Three dudes from the South moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, and 18 people started in his living room. It’s an incredible story of just church planting, and I don’t know how much we’ll get into that, but obviously that’s not my story to tell. That’s his, but it really is a miracle of God of what he’s done here.
Scott Worthington — And then, yeah, Vance was my pastor for 16 years. I started as an intern in the student ministry and kind of just as God opened doors, walked through those doors, and eventually, I was the most surprised guy in the room when when Pastor Vance tapped tapped me on the shoulder in 2022, and he was being called to go lead a church planting organization here in North America. And yeah, he said, I think you’re supposed to be the senior pastor.
Scott Worthington — And so we walked through our whole process, and it has been such a privilege now going on four years of leading the church that I’ve loved for 20. So it’s been a it’s been a wild, amazing, ah grace-filled ride, man.
Rich Birch — Love it. I am looking forward diving into that today and helping people understand kind of what you learned through that process a little bit. I wonder if we could start, what’s your like, you know, you’re at a conference or you’re talking to somebody and they’re like, explain to me how the transition went. What’s the kind of the two minute version? I know it’s like, there’s a lot there, but how, how, how did that from that initial conversation through till, okay, you know, you’re now the lead pastor. What’s that look like?
Scott Worthington — Yeah, the transition in the beginning, I would say it was it was really great. And and and the things that I’ll share publicly here is they’ve all been dealt with and things have been reconciled.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Scott Worthington — I’m so i’m so grateful. Pastor Vance is actually coming—our 25th anniversary is this September, and he is coming to preach our 25th anniversary. I’m so, so looking forward to that.
Scott Worthington — But you know In the beginning, there’s there’s multiple ways to do transitions. Of course, there’s so many. Some people, especially when you got a kind of larger than life guy like Pastor Vance, they they’ll bring in another kind of larger than life big name somewhere. And we just felt like, and I say we, that was our whole lead pastoral staff, our stewardship team, which is our board. We just felt like um that that wasn’t the that wasn’t the move for us, that God wasn’t leading.
Scott Worthington — I wasn’t so much a part of those conversations because my name was the leading name. And Vance just said, I think God has raised up the next leader right from within. And so that’s already a little different in that sometimes it’s like a five-year run or a six-year run and it’s like there’s a whole plan. This was this was a matter of months. I’m going from being one of the worship pastors here to being the lead pastor. And it was it it was very healthy in the beginning. And even even throughout the hard, it was good. And God’s grace has been all over it. But man, we just didn’t know what we didn’t know.
Scott Worthington — One of the things we took for granted, I think, is that because of the relationship between Vance and I—I mean, he was my pastor for 16 years. We had a podcast together. I mean, we traveled together. I was the student pastor to his kids. I mean, it’s one of my really, really good friends, my mentor, my my pastor.
Scott Worthington — And some of the advice that many people have written books on and done podcasts on and what what you should do in transition, frankly, we just thought, I don’t know if we need to do that. I mean, it’s Scott and Vance. It’s it’s it’s all good. And and there was just things that we didn’t know. I didn’t know how to handle. I don’t know if he knew how to handle. And again, I want to be careful. I don’t want to put words in his mouth. We’ve talked a lot about all this. I can speak for me.
Scott Worthington — When Vance had an opinion that may have differed from mine in the way I should be doing something, I didn’t realize how hard that was gonna be for me to feel like I was disappointing my pastor. You know what mean?
Rich Birch — Interesting.
Scott Worthington — And really, really good, deep conversations have been had since then. But yeah, of course, you know we all know theologically, Joshua isn’t called to be Moses. You know, Joshua had to do things differently. And and it was harder for me to do that than I realized, Rich.
Scott Worthington — It was it was harder for me to go right when I’ve been trained so long to go left by Pastor Vance, but I really felt God leading us right in some ways. And that was actually more difficult for me than I than I anticipated.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I’d love to double click click on that part, because I think that that the core of all of these transitions, right, is this tension of like, hey, there’s some stuff that’s essential to preserve. And then by definition, like I think that’s a really apropos, you know, Moses to Joshua, I think is a really good, vivid example. There’s also things that need to evolve and change. How what helped you distinguish between those two as you think about, hmm, here’s some stuff we should really keep. And then here’s some stuff we should maybe start thinking differently about.
Scott Worthington — Yeah, I would say to start with the what I needed to keep, I mean, I’ve been discipled here. I didn’t give my life to Christ at this church, but I joke and say, I wish God would have saved me at this church. So would have literally been, you know, the entire story. But I got saved here in another church in town and and quickly kind of made the transition through some circumstances here to Hope.
Scott Worthington — But everything I know about ministry, I learned from, from, this church and from pastor Vance. And, uh, I mean, my wife and I were married to this church. We began having kids in this church. I’ve I’ve, joked that my entire adult life has been lived in the context of discipleship at Hope Church. And so all of the things, I mean, our mission, our vision, our values, everything has shaped me as a husband, a father, a Jesus follower, a pastor.
Scott Worthington — You know, I’m so grateful that God’s given Vance, such a platform around the world. I mean, he he literally travels all over the country and all over the world preaching about this idea that of John 15, right? Apart from him, we can do nothing. That our our primary call is to intimacy with Jesus, not ministry for Jesus. And I mean, these are things that I just rattle off because they’re so in me. And and that was what was so embedded in the culture of Hope Church from the very beginning when it was 18 people in his living room, now to thousands. And I knew there’s no way I could do anything other than that.
Scott Worthington — And so, you know, our mission, our vision is hasn’t changed. We we exist to connect people to live life with Jesus follower. And we believe a Jesus follower abides in Christ, connects in community and shares in the mission. I mean, these are things that I’ve heard for years 20 years and I’m still preaching to this day because they’ve changed me.
Rich Birch — Right. Yep.
Scott Worthington — Those were things that were, I mean, they, those were not changing. But I think it’s that old Andy Stanley line, you know, you, you marry the, the, the mission and you date the strategy. And so there were some ways that we were—and I might’ve butchered that. I have no idea. Sorry, Andy, if you listen…
Rich Birch — It’s fine. Exactly.
Scott Worthington — Yeah, I knew there were some things strategically that maybe we could start to play with that would help people deeper abide in Christ, connect in community and share in the mission.
Scott Worthington — So those were the things that we started as a team. And that’s what I’m I’m also grateful for, the tracks that Vance laid down of of doing things together with with a plurality of elders. And so this isn’t me on a mountain, you know, coming up with the ideas and and and saying, this is this is what the Lord says.
Scott Worthington — There’s an incredible team of pastors around me, especially as I’m I’m younger in the pastorate here, helping me make those decisions and helping me understand what what we should be. And of course, I’m I’m driving with vision, but man, they are such gifts to me. And and that was all stuff that I I picked up the baton from Vance. He led that way. And so I’ve tried to to continue that and and really tap into the guys around me.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. I’d love to double click on that around some strategic decisions that you’ve sensed with your team. Hey, there we need to maybe to go in a new direction. What led you to that? What was kind of the data? What were you seeing? What what was the the thing that kind of precursed even making those decisions? And then if there’s an example of one or two, that’d be interesting as well.
Scott Worthington — Yeah. So of of course, every person listening this podcast, they know, man, COVID was just such a shakeup for everybody.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Scott Worthington — And we were interesting because not only do we have COVID here and, you know, I know depending on where you’re listening, you had different restrictions and all that, but we, we, we had a lot ah here in in Vegas. We we had really taken a lot of our cues at that time from California. And so if you know what California did, we were, we were kind of right behind them.
Scott Worthington — And yeah, we, so we, going into kind of reopening, if you will, we also just built a new building. And so we had a new building, reopening, the shakeup that COVID brought all of us. Then it sounds like a long time, but we know one or two years of ministry goes by in a flash. And so within one or two years of kind of reopening and reestablishing who our church really is, not just, you know, watching on YouTube, but also in the room and really the the core of the community, that’s when the transition happened. So it all happened so fast. So we really had to take a step back and go, okay, who, who is our church? Are we making disciples, right?
Scott Worthington — That’s just our our mission to connect people to live a life of Jesus follower is just a contextualized version of the Great Commission, right? To make disciples. So are we doing that? And that’s a that’s a hard question to ask because you you got to be prepared to really deal with the results, right?
Scott Worthington — Like when you ask your leadership team, and that’s what I did that very first lead team retreat we took two months after I began leading Hope. um I said, guys, I’m gonna ask a question that sounds silly, but it needs to be asked. Are we making disciples? Are we making, ah helping people abide in Christ, connect to community and share in the mission? And of course we have stories of like, yes, this person that just recently got saved, you know, out of the harvest, into the harvest kind of thing.
Scott Worthington — But when you really started to drill down kind of on this new, I hate to say new church, but I mean, out of COVID, we all know…
Rich Birch — Sure.
Scott Worthington — …man, it was, they were like, you’re making new people, it’s growing. And then you’re going, wait, where’d all those other people go? That they got used to Sundays by the pool…
Rich Birch — Right.
Scott Worthington — …you know, like, and we’re we’re just asking good, hard questions that I think leads you to start making strategic choices that, that pushed the mission forward. And so, yeah, we’re we’re asking those hard questions and then we’re saying, okay, does the the does the strategy we used to have, does that accomplish the mission now in this season and this time?
Scott Worthington — And of course, we we saw some fruit there, incredible fruit, but new leader, new season, in some ways, a lot of a new church. Let’s move forward with maybe some different strategic initiatives.
Scott Worthington — And that’s when we started to to kind of ask the question, which will lead to maybe some practical stuff, where are people spiritually? That’s kind of where we’ve been leading over the last few years. Asking a question, you know, the the super nerdy form of this is is spiritual cartography. It’s really nerdy. But like really helping people understand everyone is somewhere spiritually. We want to so help you see where you are spiritually and then help you take a next step. And really just like putting it on the bottom shelf. How do we help people grow in their faith and take next steps? And that’s basically kind of the strategy we’ve been operating off of for the last couple of years. And it’s it’s been incredible.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. I love that. I wonder if you could, you know, give us a little bit of detail around that spiritual cartography. Love that. That’s a great turn of phrase. But how how are we how are you helping people see more clearly where they are and then provide those steps that maybe looks a little different? It’s been a shift than, say, 10 years ago kind of thing as a church.
Scott Worthington — Yeah, I’d say, you know, everyone, again, leaders listening know this, but it starts with language. So we just started very strategically saying a couple of things. Number one, saying, hey, we believe everyone is on the spiritual journey somewhere or everyone is a certain place on the spiritual journey.
Scott Worthington — And we believe every Jesus follower has a next step. I like that language because it connects our mission to the strategy, right? If we exist to connect people to live the life with Jesus follower, we say, hey, every Jesus follower has a next step. If it’s about following Jesus, I joke with our church, not to insult your intelligence, but following Jesus implies movement. It implies you are taking steps. You cannot be following if you’re standing still.
Scott Worthington — And you know this, but I mean there there are people in churches that have checked all the boxes: I give, I serve, I got baptized. And then they think, I’ve checked all the main assimilation boxes. I guess I must be done growing. And we know that is not the case. There’s always more of Christ. There’s always more of of his movement in our lives.
Scott Worthington — And so that was language that we just, I mean, I end every email with that. We we talk about that in staff meeting. I mean, we are constantly using where are people on the spiritual journey and how do you take your next step? Or their staff, I’m I’m encouraging what’s, what’s your next step?
Scott Worthington — With me, I’m always saying, Hey, I believe God’s leading me in my next step to this. And so language, I think starts it. And then of course you’ve got to give people handlebars. You’ve got to, and of course, including language, by the way, is is signage. I mean, there’s signs all over our campus now that, Hey, we want to help you take your next step.
Scott Worthington — And then we developed what we call our Discovery tool, which I think has been really helpful tool that we’ve given people. It’s it’s very simple. It is, I think it’s 20 questions that just gauge to help people understand where they are on their spiritual journey.
Scott Worthington — And I know some people might be thinking, well, that sounds like you’re labeling folks. And that is the number one pushback that we get on this. And I get it. I get it. People think if you tell people that where they are on the spiritual journey, they’re gonna feel like they’re labeled and they they can’t, you know whatever it may be. And I think Dallas Willard said, I’ll probably butcher this quote too, but he said, the only thing worse than helping people see where they are spiritually is not helping people where they are spiritually.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Scott Worthington — Like it’s one of those, like, yes, there are dangers, if you will. Because you know, on the wrong hand, somebody could weaponize it and be like, well, you’re this way spiritually and I’m this way spiritually. But at the end of the day, as a church, we want to help people take next steps in their faith.
Rich Birch — Yep. That’s good.
Scott Worthington — And so that tool has been really helpful. So there’s like wayfinding signs all over our campus where they can scan a QR code and and take that tool. And we do that in our services. And we’re trying to help people just take a next step.
Rich Birch — That’s great. I love that. That’s so good. Maybe we’ll link to that. I think I’ve seen that actually on your site or I saw that somewhere when I was poking around to even give people a sense of that. Don’t take the test though, friends. Just look at it because we don’t want to stuff your system with a bunch of you know bad data. But yeah, that’s that’s fantastic.
Rich Birch — Pivoting a little bit to your team. So one of the interesting dynamics when any you know there’s a kind of lead pastor transition is obviously there was a team there when when you joined and they’re amazing people that God’s been using them, done great things. But a part of your early job is to assess kind of where things at and staff health and try to gain actual kind of insight from them and to think about the future.
Rich Birch — When you think about those early days, what were you doing to to kind of establish yourself and and assess where things were at with your team?
Scott Worthington — Yeah, I, again, because of the nature of our transition, I was not a new guy, right? That was, ah that I think is a lot of of transition leaders. They’re going, all right, need to establish myself and people need to get to know me. I’ve been here, ah there’s one other guy that’s been on staff longer than I have at this point. He’s one of my best friends. He’s still on our staff. He’s incredible. He’s been here 20 years. I’ve been here 19.
Scott Worthington — And ah so I’m a known… it wasn’t like, hi, my name’s Scott. Let me let me get to know you. But now that I am the leader, what I wanted to do is I wanted to get to know the culture. I wanted to get to know what, What is really happening on our staff level, especially through a transition? You know, people people get all kinds of feels. And some people are like, uh-oh, what’s going to happen? Or some people may be excited or what it may be.
Scott Worthington — So actually sat down, I recommend, depending on your size of or scope, whoever’s listening, this could be really helpful or maybe impossible to do. But you know, we had at that time probably a staff of about 80. And I literally brought every staff team in. You know, so you got small groups and worship and you know whatever it may be, break up with your departments. And whether it was the lead pastor of that ministry or the intern, I invited them all in.
Scott Worthington — And I had them, I asked them five questions and I said, the point of this little 20 minute meetup is for me to talk less and you to talk more. I’m just going to take notes. And I asked, they were all culture questions. Where do you feel you know where do you feel most motivated for the mission right now at Hope Church? Stuff like that. Very much like, where do you feel like we have a strong culture and where do you feel like we need to grow as a culture? And I tried to be true to my word. I gave the questions and then I shut up and let them talk.
Scott Worthington — And man, to hear, you know, the intern right next to the lead pastor of that ministry, just share honestly. And I didn’t give feedback. I didn’t defend. And there were things that you wanted to, right? You wanted to go, well, wait a minute, let me tell you why that is. And I just knew I’m getting data right now that will help me make decisions to help shape the culture that we want here at Hope.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Scott Worthington — And not to say that the culture was bad. Of course, I’m not saying that.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Scott Worthington — But again, new leader, I need to see kind of what we’re dealing with it as you go forward and where people’s hearts and minds are as we as we walk through a major transition with our founding pastor. And so that was super, super clarifying and helpful for me as the leader. Then I can make decisions with my team to help um you know drive that culture to a better place.
Rich Birch — That’s cool. The church has continued to grow and impact people, which is incredible. And that’s, you know, I think both to you, you know, to both of you guys’ credit…
Scott Worthington — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …to that you, you handled this transition in a way that it wasn’t like, Hey, things collapsed. So, you know, you just honor you for that. That’s, that’s incredible.
Rich Birch — When you think about those early, you know, maybe year or two, what were some early signs that you felt as a leader, okay people are with me. Like this is, because there’s the like, there’s the someone’s going to take over, this is being foist upon you, but then eventually people decide are they going to follow you or not.
Scott Worthington — Yeah.
Rich Birch — What were some of those signs, where you’re, oh no, I think I think that’s going to work; people are going to follow me.
Scott Worthington — Yeah, I think, man, it was just, it’s, it’s all God’s grace because, yeah, I know looking back now I was, I made some mistakes. You know, there’s that balance and anybody who’s, who’s led a transition knows this. Like there’s the balance of wanting to, you know, wanting to continue to do what, what God has been doing here at Hope. But then, you know, okay, I think I have this idea. And, you know, we, we did a couple ideas that were like, those are great. And then a couple ideas that were like, that was horrible. Let’s never do that again.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Scott Worthington — And even even through those, you know, some hard conversations with some longtime members that that had some questions. By the way, I think that’s another great tip. Like invite those in. And when somebody’s been at our church for 8, 10, 12, 20 years, and they request a meeting, it’d be really easy for me to be like you know, Come on, old timer. No, man, these are gifted saints who have given so much to this church. Like I would relish a meeting and and a lunch with them, even if it’s hard to hear.
Scott Worthington — There were some, there were some like, hey, I got i got some questions on what we’re doing. And ah yeah, I would say, man when when even through some of that, God was continuing to save people here. Our baptism numbers are are higher than they’ve ever been. And I know, you know, I’m pretty hard on myself. So I know the mistakes that I’ve made. I know that, I mean, gosh, anybody who’s listened to this, who knows who Vance is, I don’t say this because I’m on a public podcast. I’ve said this behind closed doors. He’s one of, if not my favorite preacher of this generation. I mean, the dude can preach the paint off the walls. And up until this, this a funny little nugget up until, you know, I wasn’t the preacher here. I wasn’t even the secondary preacher. I was, I preached six or seven times a year. I was the one of the worship guys. I led the creative ministry. And when I began to lead Hope Church, I counted them because they’re all on one file on my computer. I had preached 37 times to adults in my whole life.
Scott Worthington — Which, even if you hear that, like, that’s kind of crazy that Vance would hand off the baton to somebody who preached 37 times. So I knew, listen, I need to grow in my preaching. I’ve preached, you know, less than a few dozen times and I’m taking over for one of the greatest preachers ever. And a guy that I’ve sat under is preaching for 16 years and just grown so much. So all of that, and still God’s growing our church. Still people are getting baptized. It shows a couple of things, Rich. It’s not, it has nothing to do with me. It’s all his grace. But also they they do they do trust me.
Scott Worthington — There were there were there were elements and and and initiatives we did and things we we we tried and and people showed up and and people were encouraging. And it was like, man, there there are glimpses of God’s grace that they’re with us. Not just me, my my leadership team. And and ah those were pretty evident really early on. And and I praise God for that, man, because those were those were wind in our sails.
Rich Birch — I’d love to hear more about what you were doing to grow your preaching. That’s incredible. i think there are oftentimes in a transition like this, the the person that people are looking for is the like, who’s the person that’s been up 20 times a year or whatever.
Scott Worthington — Yeah.
Rich Birch — So what have you done to grow that side? What’s what’s that development track look like for you?
Scott Worthington — Yeah, right in the beginning, I jumped into a I jumped into a preaching cohort that was a kind of a national thing that I that I got a part of. And I got to be a travel a few places with a group of guys for eight months. And and we just we just learned how to be better preachers from some of the best in the world. It was awesome.
Scott Worthington — And I’m just a natural learner. And so I’ve just devoured the preaching books. And and then I knew everyone, you can do all that. At the end of the day, it’s reps, it’s reps.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s true.
Scott Worthington — So as I look back at like those first couple months of sermons, I could tell I was I was trying to be, not trying to be Vance. I don’t think I’ve ever done that. But you know trying, it was just a little outside of me. And I praise God for the grace that our church has given me. But I feel like now I’m I’m finally a few years in finding my voice and finding what I’m good at and what I’m not.
Scott Worthington — And and and so, yeah, it’s just it’s reps. But then also just learning from the pros, man. dDoing preaching cohorts and, you know, doing, you know, online modules and and and then listening to a ton of preaching and eating the meat, spitting out the bones. And I think all of that maybe just kind of contributed. And and I praise God, I’m still 39 years old and I have more than 37 reps under my belt now, but it’s still not a lot in comparison to many guys listening to this. And I can’t, I joke, I was like, I can’t wait to see the preacher I am at 50 years old. Another 11 years, man, I can’t wait. I can’t wait.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah. That’s fantastic. Well, and that is, you know, there’s an interesting tension there I’ve said. So I’m not, um I used to think I was a good communicator and then I worked for some really great communicators. And so then I was like, oh man, I’m not very good at this. But, and so I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this part of what we do. And there is an interesting thing where, um like I’ve said to people, when we would have someone come and guest speak, you know I would say, listen, you you can’t ignore the community. The fact that the community has been developed under Vance teaching…
Scott Worthington — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …and they’re they’re used to that. And so it’s not that you you don’t need to imitate him…
Scott Worthington — Yeah.
Rich Birch —…but you would you would be dumb to not at least consider that as you’re preaching, right? You need to think through, you can’t be like, oh, maybe something’s totally different because it’s just hard to make that transition. And so you’ve got to at least consider that in the in the transition.
Scott Worthington — And the thing with that is, again, because of the nature of our transition, some things just naturally come out, not because I’m trying to be Vance, but it’s because I’ve sat under his teaching for 16 years, right?
Rich Birch — Yes, 100%. 100%.
Scott Worthington — Like it naturally comes out of me
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Scott Worthington — And it’s not like, oh, he’s copying Vance. It’s like, no, I’m i’m actually being the disciple that God raises up…
Rich Birch — I’ve been influenced. Yeah. yes
Scott Worthington — …in churches that you are in for a long time.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah, 100%, which is great, which is fantastic. So think I want you to put on kind of the theoretical hat. I want you to think about two different groups of people. First, the the successor is kind of the heir apparent sitting in a church today. They’re waiting in the wings. They haven’t been identified maybe even publicly, there’s been some conversation. What would you say to that person to be working on? I know that wasn’t your situation. It was kind of jumped quickly, but I would love to get your thoughts. What would you say to a leader that reaches out to you and asks, you know, hey, what what advice would you give them?
Scott Worthington — I would say, yeah, and and just to to rewind real quick, it’s funny, there actually was, when Vance and I were doing our podcast, you know before and after a podcast, there would be these kind of these kind of statements of like, man, one day in eight or nine years when I retire, I think you’re the guy. But again, that was eight or nine years. So there was definitely kind of talks and it seemed like Vance kind of knew at some point, but then when he got the call to go lead the church funding organization, it was it just kind of got you know shifted into into…
Rich Birch — Accelerated. Yeah.
Scott Worthington — …yeah, accelerated, yeah. So, but I would say, man, in those in those moments, I just I just tried to remain humble and like, God, if if this is if this is what you want, awesome. If if it’s not, I also love what I’m doing.
Scott Worthington — One of the things that I think, again, kind of feels weird saying this, but I’ve been you know told this and I do I do affirm it. I think one of the reasons why God opened the door and and put it on Vance’s heart and the leader’s heart at the time to to ask me to step into this is this was not something I was like shooting for.
Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good
Scott Worthington — And and you know I got one of my best friends got back to plant a church in New York, New York City next year. We’re sending them out in in a couple months. Like he knew from a very early age that God put on his heart to plant a church. I’m not saying that’s bad. I think there are guys listening, people listening to this right now that are like, I am called to plant a church. That’s awesome. Or or called to lead a church. That was just not my story.
Scott Worthington — I, whether I was a student pastor or the worship pastor, like I was grateful to be a part of whatever God had me doing. And it’s it’s that idea that Jesus says, right? Being faithful with little and then maybe being entrusted with much. And that doesn’t mean you’re always gonna get the top seat on the organization. But I was just like, okay, Lord, if that if that’s what you have for me one day when Vance retires, awesome. Prepare me now for that.
Scott Worthington — And we know, again, back to Joshua and Moses, we know, man, Joshua shows up way back in the story. And he’s just the he’s just the dude that sent out to be a spy. Nobody at the time knew that he was going to be the leader, but God knew. And Joshua was faithful with what he had in front of him.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Scott Worthington — Because I also have heard of transitions getting weird where like it doesn’t happen. Right? The heir apparent is like behind the scenes. It’s it’s it’s stamped and then five years come and go. And it’s like, hey, I don’t think this is it. And so if you put all of your eggs and like, I am the guy, rather than just holding it open to be like, Lord, this is what right now seems to be the plan. But you know many are the plans of a man, but the Lord directs the steps. So um yeah, I would say remain humble, remain dependent and ah be faithful in what’s put in your hands now. And if he opens that door, joyfully walk through it because his grace will sustain you.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s fantastic. And the the other person I’m thinking about is somebody is in like the first 90 days, this transition has just taken place. When you look back to the early days of your transition, either what did you wish somebody said to you? Or maybe here was something that went well. Or, you know, maybe here’s here’s a pothole that I want you to avoid, and particularly in that first window, the first couple months, as you’ve started to walk into that.
Scott Worthington — Yeah, it’s kind of the, I feel like pretty, pretty age old advice, but, you know, be careful with how fast you try to change things. I don’t think there’s a couple of things that I did that I definitely would go back and go, hey, that was, that was not, not wise. But I got some, some great advice. I had some great guys around me. And I think you have to listen more than you talk in those early days. You’ve you’ve got to learn, and again, it depends on if you’re the new guy or you’re like me, you came up in the organization, but you’re still now the new at the new seat. There’s still just a lot of learning.
Scott Worthington — I mean, I remember the first time I sat down, it was it was before the official transition, of course, but it was it was right right around the summer of ’22 when I first sat down with like the the financial books for the first time. And I’d never seen any of that. And I just knew in that moment, I have so much to learn. That was an area that I just had never even even been in a back room in. And so um it was just, again, that humble posture. Like I have so much to learn here and I need to ask a lot more questions than I need to give directives. I need to ah I need to listen more than I need to talk.
Scott Worthington — Of course, there’s moments when I’m leading my staff and all the things where I need to give vision and direction. And I’m not saying abdicate your responsibility as a leader, but um man, you don’t know what you don’t know, especially in those first 90 days. And I would even say six months to a year…
Rich Birch — Right.
Scott Worthington — …where you’re just learning things. And then I just took a lot of people out to coffee, lot of people to lunch in our church. And I just, I started to ask questions about how they feel about the culture of Hope and how we can grow and how we can get better.
Scott Worthington — And yeah, I gave my staff a lot of access. Some people will be like, oh, that’s dangerous. I literally put a glass door in my office and I said, hey, at any point you guys want to swing by if you got questions about what you see. I’ve called them just softball tosses. Like what are those softball tosses that you can do, you know, eating lunch in the break room, if you if you have a break room, or taking your staff to lunch. Because people are looking for you to become now the bougie senior leader that doesn’t have time for the staff.
Scott Worthington — At least that’s been in my spirit. Like people are looking like, oh, now, you know, now Scott’s the the top guy. And I just was like, I’ve never been that guy. I’ve never been the the guy that isolates. And so I’m still going to eat my lunch in the break room. I’ll never forget. We had a staff member come in and it was like three weeks after the transition. She said, what are you doing in here? And she was genuinely shocked that I was eating lunch in the break room. And I laughed and I said, I’ve been eating lunch in this break room for 15 years. And and that was an easy win. Like that created a culture.
Scott Worthington — And now I eat lunch with our staff in the break room. And I know, you know, depending on the the scope this scope and scale of whoever’s listening, that could be different. But a large church like us, like they they didn’t expect that from me. And so um it was an easy win. So man, look for easy wins. Listen more than you talk and and just be humble that that you’re going to learn a lot in those those early days.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I think the the posture of humility goes a long way. And it’s interesting how those, it’s like a relatively small thing, but like something as simple as like, hey, you know, eat in the break room, I think can can speak volumes to people and earn you chips…
Scott Worthington — Yeah. Yeah.
Rich Birch — …for then, you know, other things that are coming. Scott, this has been a super helpful conversation. Any last words as we wrap up today’s conversation?
Scott Worthington — Yeah, I would just, I think I want to encourage the listeners with what the discipleship that I’ve learned here at to Hope for so long. Because I know, I know, I know, even this morning, ministry leaders can can get so busy that they they start to think, I can skip out on my time with the Lord. And again I just honor Pastor Vance for teaching me this for so many years. It really cannot be said enough that your primary call on your life, if you’re listening to this and you’re in ministry and you got a big role and a big title and a big church, and you’re even a small role, a small title, small church, you have responsibility over people. Jesus was not lying when he said, apart from me, you can do nothing. But if we abide in him, we bear much fruit.
Scott Worthington — Dude, it’s crazy as the enemy deceives us into thinking, well, we can skip that part so that I can go make much fruit. You can’t. It’s a dead branch cut off from the vine. You can’t bear any fruit. But connected to the vine, spending that time with Jesus, really cultivating a true, deep relationship with the Lord actually is what produces the fruit. And I don’t know maybe somebody needs to hear that this morning like I need to hear that.
Rich Birch — No, that’s fantastic. Scott, thank you so much for being here today, for taking some time to spend with us. If people want to track with you or with the church, where do we want to send them online?
Scott Worthington — Yeah, hopechurchlv.com, hopechurchlv.com. That’s got all our stuff. And we’re on the socials with all the the same handle, hopechurchlv. And any way we can serve the the greater kingdom, man, we’re down for it.
Rich Birch — Great. Thanks so much for being here today. I appreciate that.
Scott Worthington — Thank you, guys.
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Jeremy Norton, Lead Pastor of Mountainview Church in Whitehorse, Yukon. Jeremy has led the church through a significant revitalization journey since 2017, helping transition it into a growing, multicultural congregation that now includes both English and Tagalog gatherings.
Are you looking for a fresh way to engage Scripture in your own life or lead your church through it? In this conversation, Jeremy shares the heart behind his recent book Meeting Jesus, and how exploring the relational encounters of Jesus in the Gospel of John can reshape both personal faith and church leadership.
- A revitalization story shaped by people. // Originally founded in the 1940s, Mountainview Church underwent significant change beginning in 2017. Over time, the congregation not only stabilized but began to grow, including the addition of a Tagalog-speaking gathering led by a Filipino pastor. This shift reflects the demographic reality of Whitehorse, where a growing Filipino population now makes up a significant portion of the city. The result is a church that is both culturally diverse and unified around shared teaching and mission.
- Why focus on the relational encounters of Jesus? // Jeremy’s book Meeting Jesus began as a sermon series that explored the Gospel of John through the lens of Jesus’ one-on-one interactions. Rather than a traditional verse-by-verse approach, Jeremy focused on how Jesus engaged individuals, like Nicodemus, the woman at the well, and Pontius Pilate. This relational framing makes the gospel more accessible and personal, helping people see themselves in the stories.
- Why this approach resonates today. // Exploring Scripture through relational encounters connects deeply with modern audiences. People are drawn to stories they can see themselves in, whether as skeptics, wounded individuals, or seekers of truth. In particular, Pilate’s question, “What is truth?” reflects a growing cultural tension where truth is often seen as subjective. By grounding these questions in Scripture, churches can help people navigate complex cultural conversations with clarity and conviction.
- A resource for churches and leaders. // Jeremy sees Meeting Jesus as more than a book; it’s a ministry tool. Jeremy built this into his book by including discussion questions and action steps at the end of each chapter, making it a practical tool for both individuals and groups. Churches can use it alongside a sermon series through John, in small groups, youth ministries, or leadership development environments. It can also serve as a resource for new believers exploring faith or long-time Christians seeking deeper understanding.
- Turning sermons into lasting resources. // Jeremy also offers a behind-the-scenes look at why pastors should consider turning sermon series into books. Many pastors spend significant time preparing messages that are later archived and forgotten. By developing those sermons into written resources, leaders can extend their impact far beyond Sunday. Books can become tools for discipleship, outreach, and even invite culture, giving church members something tangible to share with others.
- A practical framework for pastors. // For pastors considering writing, Jeremy suggests starting with sermon series that span three to six months. That’s long enough to provide depth but not so long that the content becomes overly academic.
You can follow along at Mountainview Church at mountainview.church. To learn more about Jeremy’s book Meeting Jesus and access additional resources, visit leadbiblically.com or find the book wherever books are sold.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in Really looking forward to today’s conversation. We got multiple conversations happening on multiple levels today, and we’ve got a repeat guest, which you know, when we have a repeat guest, what does that mean? This is a person I want you to listen in on and pay attention to. Today, we’ve got the privilege of having Jeremy Norton with us. He is the lead pastor of Mountain View Church. It was established in the 1940s in the Yukon, the Yukon Territory, and went through revitalization here in 2017. It is now both English and Tagalog. Did I say that correctly? Is that close? Close.
Jeremy Norton — Yes, that’s great, which is which is the language of Filipino peoples.
Rich Birch — Which is fantastic. He wrote most recently wrote a book called “Meeting Jesus”, which I want you to check out, which walks through the Gospel of John, highlighting Jesus’ relational encounters and how he crossed boundaries and transformed lives. You’re going to love this. Jeremy, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.
Jeremy Norton — Thanks so much for having me. Excited to be back.
Rich Birch — Always good a chance to connect with you. And, you know, people, when they say I’m from the North, I’m like, no, my friend Jeremy, he really is from the North. You know, that’s a long ways away. Kind of talk to us about Mountain View. Tell us a little bit of the story, how you intersect there. If we were to arrive. You’ve been on in past episodes, but kind of update us a little bit.
Jeremy Norton — Yeah, yeah. So I’m going on 11 years as lead pastor of Mountainview Church. Started as Whitehorse Baptist Church, revitalized to Mountainview Church, all sorts of different changes there. Yeah, lots of people are familiar with revitalization journeys. Went through that. It’s hard work, but it’s good work. And I’m on the back end of it and we’ve seen crazy growth. We went to two English gatherings during revitalization. And then about a year and a half ago, we added a part time Filipino pastor and he does a Tagalog gathering as well.
Jeremy Norton — And so same content, same or same theme and passage as the English gatherings, but obviously he writes his own content. So we still go through the sermon series together. His name’s Byron, Pastor Byron. And so that’s been really, really great.
Jeremy Norton — Most people don’t know that in Whitehorse, and I think Yellowknife as well, Canadian immigration about 10 years ago started kind of fast tracking Filipino peoples. And for those of us in Canada, all of a sudden, probably 10 years ago, we started seeing more and more Filipino people in the workforce, amazing people, joyful people, resourceful people. And it got to the point in Whitehorse where we had a lot of Filipino immigrants and And to the point where we’re about 10% of our population in our city is Filipino.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Jeremy Norton — And so there’s actually like there’s a Filipino Catholic, Nazarene. And for us, we’re Evangelical Baptist. So there’s a number of congregations that are Tagalog speaking. And yeah, so that’s kind of where we’re at now.
Rich Birch — That’s very cool.
Jeremy Norton — Yeah.
Rich Birch — That’s, yeah that’s fun fun to hear. And I, yeah and I’m thinking about, man, moving from the Philippines to Whitehorse, that’s a move. That’s a move right there.
Jeremy Norton — Crazy. Yeah. A country that’s constantly what over 30, over 35 degrees Celsius.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Yeah.
Jeremy Norton — And then now they’re in negative 40 Celsius.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeremy Norton — Which, for Americans, negative 40 meets at Celsius and Fahrenheit.
Rich Birch — Yes. Cold.
Jeremy Norton — So it’s just stuff’s cold and it breaks.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jeremy Norton — So yeah, crazy. And it just shows you the the desire of Filipino people to to, I guess, make life better for their family and to take opportunities. They’re willing to sacrifice a lot. It’s pretty incredible.
Rich Birch — Love it. Well, we want to talk today about a book that you’ve recently released called “Meeting Jesus: the Transformational Encounters of John’s Gospel”. Why don’t you give us the the big picture first? Why did you write this book? what What’s the kind of story you’re telling here? What are you hoping for? What were you thinking as you were pulling this together?
Jeremy Norton — Yeah, well, it it started as a sermon series in 2018 called Meeting Jesus. And I wanted to walk people through John’s gospel, but instead of in instead of doing a just kind of an expository preaching series, I was like, what would it look like to go through the actual relational encounters that Jesus had with different people?
Jeremy Norton — You know, I guess starting with kind of Philip and Nathaniel and even working to Nicodemus, woman at the well. Anyway, all the way right through to to the to the famous moment of him and Pilate, where Pilate’s like, what is truth? You know so the whole journey.
Jeremy Norton — And then after doing that in 2024, I can only assume the the Holy Spirit led me to like just opening up those notes. And I was like, I need to turn this into a book. This isn’t quite a commentary. And yet it is a commentary, and yet it’s it’s it’s a story because it’s each chapter is the story of Jesus and another person. And in the sermon series, I had expanded on like who this person is in modern culture as well.
Jeremy Norton — Like, this could be you, this person. You know, whether it be the the legalist or the skeptic or like, you know, yeah, again, you have you have Nathaniel, who’s the skeptic, Philip, who’s the evangelist. You have Nicodemus, who’s the legalist. You know, anyway, ah the the woman of the well who’s wounded and and really disowned from culture. So there’s all these people.
Jeremy Norton — And and then so I I started working to put the sermon series into a book. I use a publisher.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeremy Norton — I have a great publisher, Ambassador International, sent it to them in…And then through 2025, it went back and forth to multiple edits.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeremy Norton — They did a lot of work for me.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Jeremy Norton — And, you know, and yeah, then it launched in March 10th. And it’s been really fun.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great.
Jeremy Norton — So far, I’ve got amazing feedback from it. So it’s great.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. I’d love to, I think the framing of kind of the relational encounters of Jesus is interesting way to look at the Gospels. And, you know, the the the incredible popularity of “The Chosen”, I think, is built on a similar premise, right? How do we see Jesus, even if you have a kind of passing knowledge of Jesus, see these stories that maybe we’ve heard of before, but from a slightly different lens, just a slightly different point of view, which is like, hey, let’s think through this at ah at a human level, for lack of a better word.
Rich Birch — Why do you think that that is, an effective way to re-encounter something like the gospel of John? Why is that in a framework that you think God’s used either in your series or when you talk about it here in the book?
Jeremy Norton — Yeah, I think and well, I think John’s gospel in itself is, you know, different than Matthew, Mark and Luke like how he writes it. He wrote it later right it’s the gospel that came much later.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeremy Norton — And so and for whatever reason God led him to to focus so much on the conversation Jesus had with people. You know the other gospels just detail things differently. And so I don’t we’ll you know we’ll meet John one day but I imagine he he’s pretty pastoral. I I, from his writing, I I imagine that he’s kind of the, you know, for a modern term, you know, coffee shop pastor just wanting to know people’s stories…
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeremy Norton — …and saying like, oh, I remember this one time Jesus had this conversation with so and so and this is how it played out. And this, you know, and so that’s when I did the sermon series, which became the book like that, I just envisioned John like that. And I just thought that John’s like a lot of pastors with their congregations on those like coffee shop meetings, or like trying to help them through life and trying to point back to Jesus and the conversation he’s had. So, um yeah, that’s kind of that’s where where it all kind of started…
Rich Birch — Started. Yep.
Jeremy Norton — …and I just wanted to explain that well. And there is tons of scripture in it, and even going back to pointing back like for context, and it’s not like there’s not theological depth to it, or pointing back to some Old Testament stuff on what what was talked about. Yeah, especially with ah Nathaniel, who Jesus calls the true Israelite. You know, we get this picture that Nathaniel really wanted to follow God’s law. He he really he really was waiting to see the Messiah, but but desperate, you know, to see the Messiah. So anyway, yeah.
Rich Birch — That’s cool. When you went through the series, was there one of these vignettes that seemed to resonate or stick out with your church more than others? Or, you know, we like to think, oh, every every message is like people just love them. But were there any of them that just kind of like, oh, that seemed to to resonate? And why do you think that resonated with your people? Because maybe that’ll continue to resonate even through, you know, the book here.
Jeremy Norton — Yeah, there’s there’s there’s there’s two that I that I remember.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jeremy Norton — I mentioned them slightly already.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jeremy Norton — But coming out of the revitalization in 2017 and then moving into 2018 this was like one of the one of the sermon series that kind of got us in the journey. And so, you know, hashing out Nicodemus as a, as a, as a legalist who, who’s, you know, the midnight encounter with Jesus and, and, and processing like how to be born again. And we were getting a lot of visitors. And so and so that was an important thing.
Jeremy Norton — And it was an important thing, I think, for a church that had been probably like a lot of churches pre-revitalization, they tend to lean towards legalism a little bit, the rules, you know, thus saith the Lord. And to understand, to just see it through Nicodemus’ eyes that that his whole religious worldview was like breaking down at midnight.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeremy Norton — And and you know unfortunately, we don’t really get the end of the story with Nicodemus.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeremy Norton — It’s like I’m always desperate for it. Like what happened in the end?
Rich Birch — Right. Yes.
Jeremy Norton — Like, did he just give up his religious position? Did he stay like a Christian spy? Like what, you know, what happened? So that was the first one to, to just really help our church understand that being born again, like that is, that is the, the point.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeremy Norton — And, uh, and all the rules and all the commands like of of God’s law, they’re a beautiful thing, but they were all leading us to the trajectory of Jesus…
Rich Birch — It’s good. It’s good.
Jeremy Norton — …and fulfilling the law, fulfilling the prophets. And that and that we we we need to be dead to self and and born again.
Jeremy Norton — And and then the the second one was, which I already slightly mentioned, was that was Pilate and what is truth. And in 2018 in particular, there was, I’m sure pastors listening will remember that we, we weren’t quite in, we weren’t at COVID yet, but the, it was like, you know, a year and a half before and, and truth was a big thing.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeremy Norton — There was, there was a lot of identity stuff happening in 2018.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jeremy Norton — It was just kind of really kicking off, especially in Canada. It was, it was a big deal. And so capturing truth and and what is truth that that’s actually in 2018 was when we started hearing a common phrase now where like your truth and my truth. That was just kind of starting at that time.
Rich Birch — Right. Right. Yes.
Jeremy Norton — And so hearing Pilate…
Rich Birch — Right.
…who is, you know, has so much authority and so much clout and and trying to figure out Jesus and just clearly just so frustrated that he’s in the whole mess of this and that really doesn’t want any part of it. And…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jeremy Norton — And for the Greco-Roman world, like they were definitely like in a lot of ways, like modern culture, like
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeremy Norton — you take a little part A, a little part B…
Rich Birch — And blend it together.
Jeremy Norton — …and you just form your own truth.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jeremy Norton — God 1, god 2, god 4 – who cares…
Rich Birch — Right. Yes. Yes.
Jeremy Norton — …you know.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah. yeah Interesting.
Jeremy Norton — So so that really resonated too. And that was like the last, that was the the last message in the series. And we actually saw people come to know Christ and baptized at the end of the series and and ending doing it actually right before Easter. And yeah, it it yeah was great.
Rich Birch — That’s good. Yeah, I love that. There’s, you know, it’s, I think it’s great to relook at a book like the book of John from this kind of perspective. Because I think sometimes as pastors, people, as we, you know, deal with the scripture, and it it can become routine. We don’t want it to become routine. That’s not our heart for that to happen. But I think that can happen. That’s like, I’ve said in other contexts, that’s like an occupational hazard we have with the scripture is…
Jeremy Norton — Totally.
Rich Birch — …you know, we’re we’re constantly just opening this book up to find, you know, I got to find nuggets to give to other people. And, you know, I miss that.
Rich Birch — Speak to a pastor who might be listening in today that this book could help them because I was struck by that. This could be the kind of thing that I think even for us as we’re thinking about our own walk with Jesus, I think this kind of book could help us help us think think about this book from that perspective.
Jeremy Norton — Yeah, this for a pastor that wanted to go through John, they could just grab this book and do a like, like for their church, either the whole church.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeremy Norton — Hey, we’re going to be walking through John and we’ve got this book Meeting Jesus and and it’s going to be available in our small groups. Because in the back of every chapter, there’s discussion questions, action items like the the publisher really helped me flesh out the end of the chapter to make it very applicable.
Rich Birch — That’s cool.
Jeremy Norton — So you can walk through John’s gospel and meeting Jesus could be a discussion guide. Even for like youth, for like senior high youth, totally doable in that through all your community groups and to for for a pastor to preach through John, but then get more ah more out of it, I think would be would be quite valuable. Obviously I’m biased…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jeremy Norton — But but if you’re look if you’re looking for a resource to give your people to get the fullness out of your John series this be it for sure. Yeah.
Rich Birch — Love it. One of the things I love about this is like, sidebar taking that back to school. I did a class on John. Actually, one of my favorite classes in school was on John and my prof was just amazing. And and I oftentimes when I’m reading John I hear his voice you know my prof’s voice…
Jeremy Norton — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …and remember he used to make, there’s all those places in John where, maybe it’s not that many, you probably would know because you’re a better preacher than me. There’s those places where John refers to John as the one who Jesus loved.
Jeremy Norton — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And my prof used to always make fun of that all the time and be like, you know, here, there he is. He’s like writing about himself saying, or maybe it’s the community writing about him saying, well, you know, the John, the one who Jesus loved, you know, which is just a funny story. But it is, it speaks to your point. It’s a personal text. It’s it has a relational edge to it that I think we can miss we can miss or as an opportunity for us to highlight for our people. Hey, let’s let’s think about this from a slightly different perspective. Love that.
Jeremy Norton — Yeah, and even even how John talks about the discovery of the empty tomb…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jeremy Norton — …and and who’s with who and who’s running back, like how he how he does it, it’s just, I’m for me, I’m always like, that’s you know, great about the New Testament writings is like God in his, wisdom didn’t take the personality out and yet kept the truths.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Jeremy Norton — And so you, you see a little bit like, like was John, if he really was the relational guy and, and just the the shepherd, was he also a little bit insecure?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jeremy Norton — It kind of comes across a little bit. Like, I don’t know for sure. I don’t, I can’t do the full exegesis of it, but I, I often wonder that.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it feels very human.
Rich Birch — That part of the, that part of the the well, and even that whole story…
Jeremy Norton — Yes.
Rich Birch — …well, that to me is one of the most compelling reasons for why I believe the text, because it’s like, if you were trying to make up a story…
Jeremy Norton — Totally. Yeah.
Rich Birch — …about a guy coming back from the dead. there’s a bunch of stuff in there, including the women, including the…you’re telling me that the guys that were the closest were not here. You know, like that just doesn’t make sense. Like you, if we were writing this story, you would be like, Hey, let’s put, let’s put us all in there. Let’s put us that we, we, we stood by and maybe we beat up the centurions. Like, let’s put that in like that. That’ll make us look better.
Jeremy Norton — Totally. Yeah.
Rich Birch — But that to me is one of the, to me, it’s like one of the most compelling. There’s a bunch of that in the New Testament, but that’s one of them that to me is a key text…
Jeremy Norton — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …that speaks to why you can believe this text to be true, because you wouldn’t write it that way if, unless it actually happened.
Jeremy Norton — Totally. It makes, yeah, it makes me think of Mark Clark’s book, The Problem of Jesus.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
Jeremy Norton — He does an excellent job, like, explaining the resurrection and and and from, like, an investigator’s point of view. I’m like, that this is so erratic.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Jeremy Norton — It has to be true, you know?
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Jeremy Norton — So, yeah, it’s good.
Rich Birch — When it feels very human, feels very human, right? You’re like, like you say, like that feels like the kind of thing I can relate with for sure.
Rich Birch — Think about it at a church level. You kind of mentioned this because similarly, I thought, man, this could be a great study.
Jeremy Norton — Yeah.
Rich Birch — I was actually struck by, I think an interesting context for it might be, hey, you’ve got a group of leaders. at the church that you’re trying to invest in. And, um you know, my friend Dan Reiland from 12 stone said, you know, the core of his leadership development over the years has been find a group of 10 people say, here’s a book, let’s read it and talk about it. To me, this is one of those ones that could be great because it’ll get, it’ll open up all kinds of other conversation.
Jeremy Norton — Totally.
Rich Birch — What are some other contexts that you kind of pictured this being used in the church?
Jeremy Norton — Yeah, I think, well, personal devos I think would be great. Like if you’re reading through John just on your own, like the the back sections can, yeah, it can be discussion guides, can also be like a personal journal. I if people went ah into a deep dive of of this book, reading along with John’s gospel, obviously there’s lots of scripture just like right in the book. But, and then let’s say they answer the reflection questions, go through the action items. There’s just so much there’s lots of space in that end of each chapter. And I could see someone, turning it into like a journal and…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Jeremy Norton — Yeah, I also think, you know, I guess it it could it could also be a great gift. I think if you’re if you’re, you know, you could keep giving people a coffee mug with your church’s logo on. You really could if you wanted to.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeremy Norton — I’m I’m I think I think books are with the pen and the candy bar or whatever, you know, whatever you’re going to do I think a book as a gift is a is a good way to do it. Obviously, it’s my book. I’m biased, and there’s lots of great books out there.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Jeremy Norton — But this would be a book, whether whether someone’s first coming to know Christ or exploring Christianity, or whether they’re they’ve been long discipled and mentored for a long time as you’re as a first-time guest in your church to give them a little welcome package. This this would would fit, I think.
Rich Birch — Yeah, for sure. That’s good. Let’s pivot to actually that, that, ah you know, wants me to pivot to a different kind of a different conversation, but about the book…
Jeremy Norton — Sure.
Rich Birch — …which is even that as a pastor, so kind of the meta conversation, it’s a lot of time, effort, and energy, I can say as a a third time author who’s working on the fourth and is taking time.
Jeremy Norton — Well done.
Rich Birch — It’s like, it’s a lot of time to invest to put this together. As a pastor of a church, talk to me why you would invest the time, effort, and energy in writing a book like this. What how do you see that fitting in to you know the mission of what you’re doing at the church?
Jeremy Norton — Yeah, well I want a lead passion out over a decade and you go through sermon series. You know there are those pastors who will do like two years in Matthew…
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeremy Norton — …and they’re doing like one or two verses a time…excuse me. And so you know that i can’t turning that into like that’s going to be a full-on commentary, very theologically deep.
Jeremy Norton — But for a lot of us, we’re doing thematic thematic series or like this, where you’re doing an overview of a book, like catching highlights, encouraging a congregation in their personal study to read through the meat of it and the details. But, you know, maybe one chapter at a time, a highlight. So there’s lots of times pastors do that.
Jeremy Norton — And so you write these sermon series and then they just get archived. And, you know, I I’ve I have them. Every pastor listening has them where you have, you know, your folders and you open your folders and it’s like you have the year and then you got the months…
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeremy Norton — …or or maybe you just have the sermon series. And then you open that folder and it’s like manuscripts, notes, and you don’t want to delete them.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeremy Norton — Because you’ve put so much heart and soul and prayer and and work into it. And I just, I really feel it’s a ton of work, like so much work, so much work, but you get better at it. And pastors that you you can, you can let those sermon series live on in books.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Jeremy Norton — And you you can do the heart, the hardest work. You know, I’ve done both ways, having a publisher, And self-publishing, you can do the self-publishing, you know, Amazon has those tools. It gets easier over time, you know, having done a ah number of them now and some of them looking ugly and some of them now looking it’m like, okay, I got it I’ve got it locked in now.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeremy Norton — And with you go a traditional publisher, you know, when you’re first getting started, you know, it it it costs money. But there is something amazing when you see your sermon series in print.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Jeremy Norton — And that you can give it to your, you could give it as a gift to your people, welcome gift, or you could just sell it. And, and you, you’ve got people in your congregation that will support your writing anyway. They love your sermon series.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah.
Jeremy Norton — That’s why they’re there. The main reason they’re coming. There’s, they may come for different reasons to your church, but they’re staying for the teaching.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeremy Norton — Like we just know that. The the stats are there and can enter consistent. So to have to have your teaching in a book form, they will buy it for friends. They will buy it for themselves, they especially if they really love the sermon series.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jeremy Norton — So. But it’s a lot of work.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jeremy Norton — I get it. It’s a lot of work.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I like it from, and we said this before we started recording, but from a on the like invite culture, church growth side of work that I do, one of the tactics that I recommend that churches seriously look at is writing a book like this. Take a sermon series, do the work to, and you know, it takes time.
Rich Birch — It’s not a like, you can’t pull that trigger and a month later you’ve got a book. That’s not how that works. It takes time. But it is a great tool. And we’ve seen it with the churches we work with, multiple churches, where it it is, like you’re saying, it’s a great in the new year gift. It’s a great tool for there. But it’s frankly a great tool for your people on the invite side. People will give the book to other folks.
Jeremy Norton — Correct.
Rich Birch — It’s a way to interact in town with other, you know, like other leaders, that sort of thing. And, you know, your people, there is still, there’s like a perceived…prestige is too strong of a word. But there’s like there’s a validation in in putting together a book that…
Jeremy Norton — There is. You are totally correct.
Rich Birch — …you know you’ve you’ve put the work in, and that it probably means more than it should in the culture, but it is a tool. It’s something that you could use. And so I love that you’re doing this. When you think about, if you were sitting across from a a pastor, was thinking about the kind of series that would translate well into a book based on your experience, obviously not all series could could translate well. What would be the kind of thing that you think could translate well for someone?
Jeremy Norton — So there’s a, yeah, a few caveats would be like, it has to be a minimum that you’ve done. It’s gotta be in order to get it to book form, I would minimum two months, but that’s going to be a slim book. So I would say like, I guess if you really wanted to but the sweet spot is three to six months series. In a three to six months series, you’re going to have enough content for a book. But not so much content that now you’ve written a textbook.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeremy Norton — That’s why I was saying like, you’re doing the year in Matthew or the two years in Matthew, which, you know, lots of, that seems to be a thing, especially with Matthew. I hear that more than anyone else is, is doing the deep dive of Matthew, probably because a lot of the touch points to the Old Testament in in Matthew for sure. But it’s too it’s too big. You’re you’re it’ll be too academic. It won’t be accessible. It’ll just be a monster.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeremy Norton — So three to six months of sermon series. And and yeah, just there’s lots of there’s AI tools out there that you can use to to be cautious with the AI tools, because if you lose your voice, you’re done like it does people people will see it.
Rich Birch — Right, right. It doesn’t sound like you.
Jeremy Norton — If your book is full of m dashes, they will know that ChatGPT wrote it, you know.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes. That’s funny. Yeah.
Jeremy Norton — So yeah, it it it. Yeah, it’s it’s it’s something that I think later on I want to help pastors with. I think I really would.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. Yeah, I do I think there’s a I think there’s an opportunity there for a lot of pastors to think about that and say, hey, what is there a way for us? I like the idea of like, I think that’s a good tangible three to six months. Even if you’re, I’m thinking about even the lead pastor at at our church, we typically do four or five week series.
Rich Birch — He doesn’t, we don’t typically do super long series like that.
Jeremy Norton — Oh right. Yes.
Rich Birch — We’re changing the channel, but he’s done a number of, he’s come back to similar topics over time. So he’s, we just finished up a series on the Holy Spirit. It’s actually the third time in, maybe three years, we’ve done a series on the Holy Spirit. You could see where maybe it’s piecing together a couple different series and say, hey, there might be a, or you could think about that on the front end, like, hey, maybe over the next two years, I’m going to do three or four series together, you know, or over this next couple of years that I eventually am going to pull together into one, you know, overarching kind of idea that we can put together in a book.
Jeremy Norton — And even in that, like hearing, okay, so three years doing the Holy Spirit…
Rich Birch — Yep.
…you could definitely do, just take those three, if they’re like four to six weeks or whatever, a three-part book and actually separate into parts.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Jeremy Norton — and And again, using AI tools, you can upload those documents and say, ah you know, anything that’s duplicate, you know, please categorize for me.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Jeremy Norton — And, you know, put it into co-work or something like that. And, and then go into the docs, pull, pull that out. And yeah, it would, it it could work. It could work great.
Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s similar. Like when I wrote the, the, and I don’t know if I’ve ever talked about this publicly, but the books I’ve written, I’ve similarly, like I, um, the process I’ve gone through is I write an outline and then I actually, I actually speak the chapters like a presentation. So, cause that’s my most natural form, like is I’m doing, or I do it all the time. I’m constantly like, I’m doing it later today, meeting with the church and we’re going to talk for a bunch of hours about stuff. And so I’m like very used to that. I’ll use then the transcript from that. I’ll take that. And then I write from that transcript. I’m basically editing that transcript to turn it into something that sounds like it’s written. And then I’ve done iterative back and forth processes with an actual editor.
Rich Birch — So, you know, it’s like then it’s like it goes to her and then comes back to me, goes back to her…
Jeremy Norton — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …back and forth over time to kind of get that whittled down into, OK, here’s a text. And, you know, the thing I’ve said to other leaders, even that process gets you started, people get stuck looking at a blank page, right They get stuck at the beginning. So even finding a process to get the ball rolling is is and getting the information down on the page. I think it was Ernest Hemingway who said, which stay with me, friends, don’t hang up on the podcast. I think he said, write drunk, edit sober. And you what you should not do as a pastor, but what he’s saying there is like, just get it onto the page, like just get it out.
Jeremy Norton — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Like, you know, and if you take forever on that first stage, you’ll never get to a book. Right. And you’ve already done that as a, as a pastor, you’ve spoken these, but how do we get the ball rolling? Thoughts on any of that, except for the get drunk thing. Don’t comment on that, but any comments on the rest of that?
Jeremy Norton — Yeah, don’t write drunk. But so I guess I so there’s some guys out there that like, you know, they’ll have just like a few little notes and they they’re not manuscript preachers. Some guys are manuscript preachers. Nothing against that. You know I’m kind of a both and guy.
Rich Birch — Yep.
I manuscript for like our manuscript and teleprompt for our YouTube channel. And then but then I take that like so that manuscript I just have highlights. And then when I live preach, I just have highlights. And I walk around and talk. So there’s lots of passages in different versions but if you are the guy that’s just got an an outline um you’re probably going to have an audio an audio of your sermon and you can put it into a like Otter AI, or don’t know there’s probably loads of different tools now, and run that transcript, and then just export every sermon as a as, you know, the first sermon in your series you know introduction. Right.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Second one in your series…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jeremy Norton — …you know, chapter one. And once you have those documents, now you will you will notice, well, there’s lots of things you’re going to notice when you get a transcript. You’re going to notice how much you say and like and all these different things.
Rich Birch — True.
Jeremy Norton — You’re going to be just like, oh my goodness, is that how I sound like, which can be a good thing when you read that when you’re when you move from the transcript of your sermon into a book, you’re like, oh my goodness, this is would be the most awful thing to read.
Rich Birch — True.
Jeremy Norton — But there’s also tools now that remove all all that for you.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah, that’s fun.
Jeremy Norton — Then you go through and you edit it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeremy Norton — And yeah, yeah. And it’s a beautiful thing when it’s done.
Rich Birch — Good stuff. Yeah, that’s great. Well, this been a good good conversation. Where can people i want to get people to pick up copies of this.
Jeremy Norton — Sure.
Rich Birch — I’m assuming they can buy it at Amazon. In fact, I know you can buy it at Amazon because that’s where books come from. But are there other places we want to send people to pick up? I think this would be, even if you’re listening in today and you’re thinking, hmm, I wonder what it looks like to have sermons transformed into a book like hey you should pick up a copy even as just a reference to get a sense of hmm I could see what that could look like even if you’re not going read it that would interesting tool…
Jeremy Norton — Totally. It’s it’s a great…
Rich Birch — …there. so so Amazon, where else do we want to send them?
Jeremy Norton — Anywhere anywhere books are sold.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeremy Norton — I don’t I don’t know if anyone buys books at anywhere else.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jeremy Norton — Like does people do people still buy books at Indigo or Chapters or ChristianBook.com?
Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Yes.
Jeremy Norton — I don’t know who does, but if you do…
Rich Birch — It’s there.
Jeremy Norton — …it’s it’s there. One of the benefits of going with a publisher is they just have access to just…
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeremy Norton — …every book distributed. They just can get your book everywhere.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeremy Norton — When you self-publish, you know, with Amazon, it’s locked in Amazon, but then again, people go to Amazon. And yeah, it’s a, it would be a great thing for pastors to, to look through and say, Hey, you know, I think I could do this.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeremy Norton — I see how this works now. So that would be good. And obviously there’s print copy or a digital copy.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jeremy Norton — You know, if you want more information on the book and stuff like that, you can go to my website, leadbiblically.com. There’s lots of other stuff there. My other books that I’ve written, self-published and published by Ambassador International, they’re all there too. You can have a look. Yeah.
Rich Birch — That’s great. Well, Jeremy, I really appreciate that. I appreciate you being on the show today and and let us peek under the hood. There’s obviously a lot more we could talk about there, but I want to encourage people to go pick those up and and check out your website, Lead Biblically. And thanks for being here today.
Jeremy Norton — Thanks so much. Love it.
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Greg Curtis and Tommy Carreras from Climbing the Assimilayas, an organization dedicated to helping churches build systems that move people from first-time guests to engaged disciples. With years of experience working inside and alongside growing churches, Greg and Tommy bring practical insight into one of the most overlooked—and most critical—areas of church health: assimilation.
Are people showing up at your church but not sticking? Do you feel like guests are slipping through the cracks despite your best efforts? In this conversation, Greg and Tommy unpack what’s changing about how people engage with church today and how leaders can respond.
- A seismic shift in why people are coming. // One of the biggest changes in churches is a shift in motivation: people are no longer primarily coming to church for community or life improvement—they’re coming to find God. Where previous generations often needed to be convinced of the benefits of church, many new guests today are already spiritually curious or even actively seeking Jesus before they arrive. Greg shares stories of individuals with no church background who are reading Scripture, watching content like The Chosen, and showing up ready to take decisive steps like baptism. This means churches must recalibrate their approach—not just creating welcoming environments, but facilitating genuine encounters with God.
- You’re missing more people than you think. // Tommy identifies a foundational issue: most churches are only tracking a fraction of the people actually engaging. Many leaders celebrate the number of new guests they can count, but in reality, they’re missing a significant percentage—especially families checking in children or people who never stop at a guest table. Churches often aren’t lacking opportunity—they’re overlooking it. Recognizing and responding to all entry points into the church is critical if leaders want to move more people toward connection and growth.
- Stop telling your story—start naming theirs. // A common mistake churches make is focusing on communicating their own story—how the church started, what it believes, and why it exists—rather than connecting with the story of the guest. Guests aren’t primarily interested in your church’s narrative; they’re asking what God might be doing in their life and how your church fits into that. Instead of offering multiple vague next steps, churches should provide clear, guided invitations that help people take one meaningful step forward. When churches shift from “Here’s who we are” to “Here’s how we can help you,” engagement increases dramatically.
- The first questions every guest is asking. // Every new person is subconsciously asking, “Is there anyone here like me?” That question shapes their experience from the parking lot to the worship service. But today, a second question is emerging: “Is there someone worth imitating?” Guests are looking for more than information—they’re looking for transformation. This has led many churches to create space for prayer, reflection, and personal ministry during or after services. These moments often become powerful connection points where guests experience both God and meaningful relationships with others.
- People are looking for people—not programs. // Both Greg and Tommy emphasize that guests aren’t primarily searching for better programming—they’re searching for meaningful relationships. That means churches must prioritize relational connection over information delivery. Simple actions—like learning someone’s name, asking thoughtful questions, and creating environments where people feel seen—can have a greater impact than any polished program.
- Designing clear pathways for connection. // Greg outlines three key journeys every church should consider: from the “screen to the seat” (first-time attendance), from the “seat to the circle” (relational connection through groups, teams, etc.), and from the “circle to the street” (living out faith in everyday life). Each stage requires intentional environments and clear next steps. Without these pathways, guests may attend once or twice but never fully engage.
- Every response is a sacred opportunity. // Tommy closes with a powerful reminder: every form submission, every piece of contact information, every small step a guest takes is a miracle. People don’t casually give their information—they do so because something significant is happening in their life. When churches fail to follow up or steward those moments well, they’re not just missing a system—they’re missing a person God is drawing. Leaders must treat every interaction as sacred and respond with urgency, care, and intentionality.
To learn more about Climbing the Assimilayas, access their free assimilation audit, or explore their Sherpa Tribe coaching community, visit assimilayas.com.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Really looking forward to today’s conversation. We have got repeat guests on the call, which you know what that means. These are people I love dearly and who I know have so much that they can help you with. You’re going want to stay plugged in. In fact, this is one of those areas that I think many of our churches are stumbling on and are not doing a good job. We’re not doing what we should be doing. And that doesn’t just come from like, it’s a hunch. I’ve literally been in dozens of conversations where what these guys have shared literally illuminates our thinking and helps us take steps towards being a more effective church. So you’re going to want to stay tuned stay tuned for the entire conversation.
Rich Birch — Super excited to have Greg Curtis and Tommy Carreras with us. They’re with an organization called Climbing the Assimilayas. Greg is the director of First Steps and Content Development Eastside Christian Church, a fantastic church. Been on the podcast a number of of times. They’re a multi-site church with six locations in all the places that make sense, California, Nevada, and Minnesota. Of course, those fit together.
Rich Birch — And then Tommy is is the head sherpa at Climbing the Assimilayas. Super excited to have both of you guys on. Welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.
Greg Curtis — Yeah. It’s awesome to be with you, man. Always.
Rich Birch — Always fun to connect. Why don’t actually, before we jump in, Tommy, why don’t you tell us about Climbing the Assimilayas? How do you guys help churches? What do you do to come alongside us and help us get better at what what we do?
Tommy Carreras — Yeah, I’d love to. Climbing the Assimilayas was started by Greg back when I was brand new in ministry. I was a groups pastor who had just taken over sort of the rest of the pipeline of getting people into groups because I realized I couldn’t get anybody into groups because I wasn’t in charge of anything that was happening before that.
Tommy Carreras — So I met Greg in like 2013, 2014. He had just taken over the role of assimilation at Eastside. He kind of designed the role himself when his lead pastor—I’m telling your story now, Greg. Usually you get to tell it.—But his lead pastor, Gene Appel, said, hey, what what do you want to do in this next season? And Greg kind of designed the role based on what he saw was super necessary in the church and also what he was really well designed for.
Tommy Carreras — And he was right. Because it was exactly what I needed at the time. It was just trying to figure out what a replicable and scalable system looked like for making things more personal and more effective at getting people to take real next steps. And it sounded really simple, but it was so unbelievably challenging because I just kept getting it wrong myself. And I had no idea where to actually go for advice on any of this. And he started figuring it out, started universalizing some of the principles that were working for him at Eastside and testing those with other churches.
Tommy Carreras — I was at his first ever base camp training at Eastside. And so a long friendship began there. And then I just believed everything he said at that point and customized it, contextualized it for ministry and in also Southern California, but a different part. And, you know, it’s California is like five states total.
Rich Birch — Right. Sure.
Tommy Carreras — So it was much different than Eastside, but also all the principles held up. And so that’s what he’s been doing ever since. I came alongside him a few years ago to sort of throw gas on the fire. I had transitioned out of my role in ministry and started doing a few things with multiple churches. And this was one of them. And it has been a blast to help build these systems in churches that are super hungry for helping people connect, but can’t quite build the systems or just don’t have the models out there that are able to adapt and flex with the changing culture and the changing needs. Because those needs of guests have changed a lot over 12, 13 years.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s fantastic. And friends that are listening in, both Greg and Tommy are the kind of leaders that I just say, you should just do what they say. Like, just listen to what they’re doing and do it. And you’d be amazed at the results that we’ve seen at churches all across the country. And so you’re in for a treat of a conversation today.
Rich Birch — Greg, since we last talked, so I think that was maybe a year ago, maybe 18 months ago, what have you continued to notice that’s maybe different around how people are engaging, connecting? We’re talking about getting first time guests, the kind of people that are arriving, trying to help those people get assimilated, get connected. What what have you noticed maybe something that’s that’s maybe different in the way people are engaging right now that’s different than maybe even a year or two ago?
Greg Curtis — Yeah, over a crescendo over the last two years has been remarkable in its shift towards—this is going to sound crazy because we’re talking to churches—they’re wanting God now. And what I what I mean by that is prior, we were having to sell the benefits of following Jesus, most growing churches, which there are, and I think it was a compelling thing to share with the culture.
Greg Curtis — And so people were coming to church to find community, to find help with parenting, to find support in marriage or to, you know, a variety of different things. And so the draw and and what was causing people to engage with church was really what can, what help in my life? How can I increase the quality of my life? Maybe even get some pretty powerful pain points addressed.
Greg Curtis — This has shifted. I’ll put it in the terms of our um our young adult pastor. His name is Charles. He came to me. He said, Greg, prior to a few two, three years ago, maybe not even that long. He said, young adults were coming, 80% of them to find friends and community, and about 20% to find God. He goes, it’s flipped. It’s flipped. Now it’s 80% God and 20% community.
Greg Curtis — And that has expressed itself in some remarkable ways. I’ll just throw two out. At the end of last year, i was covering somebody, ah a pastor who was gonna baptize somebody after the service. He had to be gone, so I said, yeah, I’ll cover it. So in our context, I’ll meet that person ahead of time and kind of show him where to sit in the service, when to come out, where the baptistry is, et cetera.
Greg Curtis — And I met her, she was 28 years old, named Connie. And I said, as we’re walking through the baptistry, so, you know, I asked these typical questions, how how long have you been coming to Eastside, which is my church? And ah she says, oh, I’ve I’ve never been to Eastside.
Greg Curtis — And was like, oh, so you’re from our online campus? And she goes, no, I’ve never really heard of Eastside. And I said, well, what’s led you to be baptized today?
Rich Birch — Right.
Greg Curtis — And this was her story. She goes, I grew up in a very non-religious home and I’ve I’ve never been to church. And I have, I vowed I’d never even date a religious person, but I had some friends three months ago that invited me to watch The Chosen with them.
Greg Curtis — I didn’t want to. I got I was mad at myself for getting engaged after the first episode. Kept watching. Decided to buy myself a Bible two months ago. I started reading the Old Testament and New Testament concurrently and decided, I love Jesus and I want to follow him. And I could tell what I needed to do was get baptized. But get this. I’m the game day operations coordinator for the NFL. So I work on Sundays. And I just Googled who would baptize me on a Saturday. And your form came up and I filled it out. So here I am.
Rich Birch — Wow. That’s amazing.
Greg Curtis — Yeah. And and I’ll tell you what. She didn’t know, Rich, that this baptism was going to be in front of other people until we were in the water and the whole church was looking at her.
Rich Birch — Wow. That’s incredible.
Greg Curtis — Okay. The questions she had, we’ve we’ve remained in touch. The questions she asks are so precious. I mean…
Rich Birch — So good.
Greg Curtis — …but I’m telling you, I met with somebody, I’ve had a few of those that are similar. That one’s pretty dramatic, but are very similar. No background at all. They’re coming because they’re having a God moment before they get to us.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Greg Curtis — And that’s a big shift because God is doing something literally worldwide and in our culture right now that they’re coming to us to find God and and they’re already they’re already encountering him in some way and they need help with that and want it. And that’s a huge shift.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I would agree. I’ve seen that in our context, in our church, so my specific home church that I’m a part of, Connexus. I’ve seen that at our church. We’ve seen it in the churches we work with. There is a um a measurable change in the way, kind of the state that people are at when they arrive. You know, that the way I’ve said, echoed similar to what you’re saying there, Greg, is like, There used to be, you know, you and I are of a certain age. I can remember a time when, you know, people would kind of stumble into church and they, you know, they were there for all different kinds of reasons. And, you know, we had to hold their hand for a long time.
Rich Birch — But it seems like now people are arriving and they have ah It’s like a God question on their heart that they’re looking for an answer for. It’s they’re, they’re arriving already asking something significant. And, you know, we’ve got to meet them there. We can’t, we can’t just leave that.
Greg Curtis — So get get this. I’ve often, I think I’ve probably said this on your podcast before, but for for our church, Christmas is our Super Bowl. It’s our number one outreach event for the year. Traditionally, we’ve gotten 18% of our guest leads from Christmas for for the year.
Rich Birch — Wow. That’s amazing.
Greg Curtis — Okay. But yeah, but we tried something in light of this. Because we’re we’re we’re looking at this and trying to meet God in in this. And we did something we have never done at Christmas services. And that’s, we it’s so counterintuitive. We invited people, we just shared the gospel. If you want to be baptized right now, We’ll do it.
Rich Birch — Wow. Wow.
Greg Curtis — And we have never done that because, and and you’ve heard me say i Christmas guests are different than other guests of the year. They’re not there to find God. They’re there because Aunt Sally invited them to a Christmas service before the dinner and gift exchange. So they’re on their way someplace. They’re not going to do anything. And we just thought, let’s just try it.
Rich Birch — Right
Greg Curtis — And it probably, we we were we were prepared for, we thought maybe, you know, we’re a church of, I don’t know, 12-, 15,000 today. We thought maybe we’d get 120 people to respond, but we prepared for 200 just in case. We had 399 people…
Rich Birch — Wow. Wow. That’s incredible. On Christmas Eve.
Greg Curtis — …get baptized by coming to a Christmas service, not knowing that they were going to do that.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s incredible.
Greg Curtis — So that just that that just illustrates there’s a seismic spiritual shift going on. And I think meeting guests there is going to be very smart for us in this hour.
Rich Birch — Yeah, and I want to, that’s a great place to start. I think sets up, tees up the conversation we will be having today, which is, friends, I think a lot of our churches could be missing some of these folks as they’re as they’re connecting. And I want to really mine from you guys. You guys are the experts on this. You interact with a lot of churches. I want to mine for our our listeners some help for them. So Tommy, from your vantage point, you work with churches across the country where we’re asking questions like this.
Rich Birch — How do we get these people plugged in? How can we help these first time guests take steps towards ultimately groups, teams, get plugged into whatever it is that we’re trying to get them plugged in. Where do you see that leaders keep getting stuck when it comes to helping people take their next steps beyond this kind of first weekend? Where do we keep stumbling? What do you see consistently bubbling up in the churches that you’re working with?
Tommy Carreras — Yeah. Yeah, there’s a few really specific things. And the first one is, first of all, we always have to move as far left or as far up, however you’d like to think, left to right, top to bottom. We have to move all the way to the left or all the way to the top. And the problem is there aren’t enough people in your funnel in the first place.
Tommy Carreras — We’ve talked about this before, but a really, really popular church that I’ve been talking to a lot recently, and working with—by “popular”, I mean it’s growing, it’s a few thousand, so it’s there’s something there, obviously, and really popular online pastor. Not not super duper 2 million followers, but like quarter of a million. That’s a lot. Right. And just a wonderful guy. Right.
Tommy Carreras — They announced really proudly recently that they had 1300 new people in the last year and their church of 25 to 2800. And I, looked him and said, guys, guys, that’s not even half of how many new people walked in the door. And they just looked so con confused.
Tommy Carreras — They’re like, that’s a great number. I’m like, that’s a that’s a great number. It’s a really bad percentage, though. And it’s just wrong. Doesn’t matter if it’s good, bad, ugly.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tommy Carreras — It’s just wrong. The idea is most often we’re trying to help people take next steps, but we’re just looking at half or less than half of the actual people that are there. And so if we can’t get the top of the funnel right and recognize who’s there, and some of that is just missing the data that we do have. You can give this one away… If you’re not treating your new families like new guests, you’re ignoring them. You’re not missing them. You’re ignoring them because they’re giving you all the info. They’re giving you all the info besides their social security number, right? We need all their info for having their children. And we’re just missing that opportunity usually because we don’t treat them like, well, they didn’t go to the new guest table. But well, who cares? Bring the new guest table to them, right? Just bring it over there and treat them as such. And so that’s a huge one. That’s 30 to 40% of your new guest leads are actually coming in through kids. And so we have to stop ignoring those people.
Tommy Carreras — But also it’s all about that invitation. If we can’t get that invitation right originally, then we’re always going to be looking at less than the actual amount. And then fewer people are going to take next steps because fewer people are being invited to take next steps. And so the top of the funnel is the first problem. We’re just not dealing with all the information.
Tommy Carreras — The bigger sort of meta problem that I think has has been really interesting to watch is that most churches end up trying to tell their story instead of name their guest’s story.
Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good.
Tommy Carreras — And so if you want to go like the StoryBrand route, and if you’re a Donald Miller fan, which I think, Rich, you are a Donald Miller fan, like it, how could you not be, right?
Rich Birch — Sure, sure.
Tommy Carreras — Like, “Blue Like Jazz” and “StoryBrand”, where does this guy stop? But the idea is we try and play the hero so that they’ll choose us. We’re trying to make sure all our theological ducks are in a row. We need to tell them the story about the incredible call that that God had on this this church planter’s life 23 years ago and that incredible first moment. And and they’re just sitting there going, Okay, that’s really cool…
Rich Birch — That’s interesting to you.
Tommy Carreras — …but it has nothing to do with them. Yeah, that’s super interesting. And that sounds like a great documentary that I would watch the trailer for. But that’s it. And what we’re not trying to do, though, is name their story, how they might be feeling right now, and how we might play a part in their story.
Tommy Carreras — So instead of trying to say, here’s the story of our church, do you want to get on board? Those assimilation environments, whether it’s your “one program”, which is our language for, you know, the the program that you invite somebody to to help them take a next step into belonging and purpose. Instead of trying to name our story as an organization and say, here’s where you can fit into it. We’re trying to say, here’s the story we believe that God is writing in your life. And we might be able to play a part of it. It’s way bigger than us as a church, but we would love to play a part in it. And here’s the specific next thing that we would like to try and do for you because God’s writing your story and it’s a really good one. And we think we can plug in right here, right now.
Tommy Carreras — And that’s the other thing. It’s a lot of times we’re just trying to go and here’s all the ways you could connect. And Greg’s been saying this since 2013 when I met him. But, you know, if you give if you give somebody A, B, C and D, they’ll choose E, none of the above. We’re just we’re giving them options and really they want guidance. And so if we can say, hey, here’s the thing that we have found is the best step for most people like you right now. Then they can just say yes or no.
Tommy Carreras — And yes or no is great because if they say no, we just downsell and say, well, what do you want? What are you looking for? What what can we help you accomplish in your story and in your life right now? Not what environment do you want to be in? Because they don’t know. They don’t know what the deliverable of a group is. They don’t know why they would do it. We just have to say, what what do you want then?
Tommy Carreras — And they say, oh I’m kind of looking for this, this, this. And you go, oh well, this is an environment that might be built just for you. And so we’re just trying to come alongside their story. But most often we’re trying to convince them that our story is really compelling. And that’s just falling way too flat.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. So much there. Unpack. Friends, rewind. Listen to that. There’s good stuff packed in there. Greg, sticking with this idea of options versus guidance, you know, when we’re thinking about a new person that walks into our church this weekend, this season, what do you think they’re actually trying to figure out in those first few weeks? What are the kind of questions that are on their minds that we’ve got to try to guide them towards? What are you seeing in the churches you’re working with? How should we be trying to guide those people?
Greg Curtis — Multiple thoughts come to mind with that one. I’ve always said, and I do think that it’s still true, that the number one question when any of us are in a new environment is, and we’re not conscious of it really, but we look around and is there anyone here like me? And that’s that’s the inner question everybody is asking whenever they go to someplace that’s foreign or new to them. And that, you know, in a church context, that starts in the parking lot.
Greg Curtis — And that sounds unusual. But if you’ve if you’ve driven in in on your motorcycle and every other car is a Mercedes and a Beamer, when you pull up, you know, you start to feel other than. And it’s people just look around, is is there somebody here like me?
Greg Curtis — And I do think, like I had mentioned before, they are trying to figure out if this is a place where I can encounter God. So I do think we need to calibrate our services in such a way that they do encounter God. And I think that there’s a shift and I can’t wait to see how it gets ferreted out. But the shift in worship that needs to be happening is not just singing great praise songs and, having compelling announcements and and great teaching that is given to you, but having moments where they they actually feel like they’re encountering God, you know what I mean, in some way. And not that he’s not encountered, you know, through his word and and and and in worship. But um you know, ah creating a little bit of space ah for that, I think, going to actually speak to what they’re trying to figure out, which is, okay can I figure out God here? I have so many questions.
Greg Curtis — And when they encounter God, that covers a multitude of sins, so to speak. Like, they may have three burning questions, but when if they actually encounter God, the questions almost go into the backseat because, oh my gosh, I just I sense God here. And when I say this, I’m not being theoretical. I just met with a gal, another 28-year-old, yesterday. And again, no church back when whatsoever.
Greg Curtis — Her father was Jewish. She passed away a year ago. And she just feels orphaned and started looking for God and started watching us online for two weeks and then came and got baptized her first week she came because we happen to be doing one of those baptism things that we do maybe five times a year.
Greg Curtis — And so we sat down, she had her little Bible that we print. It’s one of these few dads that we make. We call it a Bible, but we just print out text for the Bible because we’re doing an Old Testament survey kind of thing called the Old Testament Junk. But she’s she’s like, I think I should get it. Like she just figured out that’s not actually a Bible. And she what what Bible should I get was her first question.
Rich Birch — Right. Love it. Right.
Greg Curtis — Her other second question. because I said, you got a real pastor of front of you. Where do where do you which what kind of Bible should I get? The second one was, how do you pray?
Rich Birch — Love it.
Greg Curtis — This is the kind of stuff that as we were growing up, you said we were men of a certain age, that we used to anticipate and dream that people would ask us these incredible discipleship questions, like the disciples asked Jesus, Lord, how do we pray? And he gives them Lord’s Prayer. And we were prepared for those questions, but we were unprepared for a culture that was pretty disinterested. And so we’ve gone to the other paths I mentioned before. But now they’re asking the questions that we we are very prepared to answer, but I think we’re just got a little unused to it. And we need to put those things right in our pocket again because they’re asking.
Greg Curtis — And so those are the kinds of of things that that they’re looking for in their first few weeks. And I think they’ll gauge and they are gauging our church by different things than they were a couple of years ago. You know, yeah, sure we have our kids program needs to be good and safe. You know, and and and we can’t do a sloppy job, you know, as we worship God corporately. But they’re gauging it by is God here? Am I meeting him? How can I connect with him? And that is just a very beautiful thing to see happen. That’s a great shift.
Rich Birch — You know, I kind of sticking with that. One of the things I’ve been doting as I’ve been interacting with churches across the country is something that a friend of mine, Jeff Brody, lead pastor at Connexus has said. He talked, he’s talked about how we’re trying to offer what we’ve been calling accessible encounter, that it’s like we are trying to, so he wouldn’t say this next part, I’m saying this, so I don’t want to put words in his mouth.
Rich Birch — But, um you know, i come from I come from the attractional church movement. That would be my background. Happy to say that that is my background. I know you’re not supposed to admit that, but that’s where that’s my background. It’s like you’re not supposed to say or that’s who it is.
Rich Birch — And you know, what we were trying to do there was trying to connect with people who don’t normally attend church. And that’s still our heart. That’s still what we’re trying to do. But what we’ve realized is people are looking for an encounter with God that is that does go beyond. It transcends like, here’s three great ideas for this week at work or whatever. It’s it’s like, hey, I’m coming with real questions.
Rich Birch — And so people are looking for something in the service that does have a transformational experience or an encounter to it. Sticking with you for a second, Greg, do you see that trend? So we’re doing more, I’m seeing more churches doing more kind of prayer stuff at the altar, end of the service experience, light these candles if you’re praying for that, fill out this card and post it on the cross. More of those kinds of experiences than I’ve seen before. What do you think about that, Greg?
Greg Curtis — No, I feel that too. But that do you know what that does, is it shifts me into one thing I didn’t say is, I also think they’re looking for a person, a resource that they can talk to also.
Tommy Carreras — Yeah.
Greg Curtis — And I think that when we have those after church like prayer moments, like what what how that’ll look at our church is, and we’ve we’ve decided for this very reason to increase the frequency of them because we didn’t do them often. Now we’re doing them a little bit more regularly, more cyclically. But we we’ll have a prayer team, and I love being on the prayer team that’s at front afterwards because of the content that we were talking about.
Greg Curtis — And lines will form of people, and we just pray for them and and talk to them and look in their eyes and sometimes connect them to resources if you know, that’s appropriate. But we just watch the people just line up for that, you know. And I just think people are looking for also a person or a guide, you know, that they could ask some questions of.
Rich Birch — Right.
Greg Curtis — And so I had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine who’s, I think he’s 31. And um his name is Kellen. Love this guy. He’s a leader on staff at a church in Georgia. And his thing, and I’m not saying this is the answer, but because I don’t think anybody knows the answer right now, because all of this, there’s not, and it’s really multiple answers, right? It’s just a bunch of things. But I’ll throw this in as an ingredient in the thought soup, you know, that’s percolating right now on all this. He was saying, especially with all the younger people returning to church, he that he sees a shift in the attractional church model maybe that may be happening over the next five years, where instead of the worship service being the attractional event, and then we get them assimilation-wise into small groups and ministry teams, that it it may be the reverse of that.
Greg Curtis — Where because they’re looking for God in a person, they end up in somebody’s home at, at a, something that may look like a small group, as we think of them, and conversations over coffee. And they get so enraptured in it that it starts there. And then it ends kind of like my friend, Connie, who, who came the NFL gal, it ends at your church. It doesn’t start there. That’s the shift. It starts to end there. And that may mean in the future, our attractional church model and worship may shift to something that’s unapologetically for those who are following and seeking Jesus, not trying to get them to. And that’s a big shift. So so the the the river flow may be shifting. And I just think that’s an interesting thought. It’s been in my head for a while.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Tommy Carreras — I think it’s so funny that you mentioned that people are looking for a person, because I was hoping to jump in and say, I think that all of this is like they’re looking for people, not experiences.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tommy Carreras — And so thank you for for going there. The question that came to mind, because I’ve always loved your question to to remind us how simple and basic the initial need of a guest is. Anybody in any new scenario, is anybody here like me? I think the question that they’re asking next, is anyone here worth imitating? Because also imitation, imitation is the way we learn. It’s the way we grow. It’s why Jesus is a, is a person we follow, not a doctrinal set of beliefs that we adhere to.
Tommy Carreras — That’s not the point. The point is the person we follow and the people we’re becoming and everybody wants to become someone better. And that’s not actually a legalistic gross, like, Oh, you’re just prideful. No, no, no. We’re designed to be phenomenally wonderful people that look like Jesus. That’s what our, our actual heart’s desire is.
Tommy Carreras — And so if God’s leaning into that desire in people, then their first question is going to naturally be, is anybody here worth imitating? And we can’t tell people that we’re worth imitating. We can only show them that we’re worth imitating. And how do we show them? We walk up to people we don’t know and say, Hey, I don’t think I know you yet. And you deserve to be known. I’m Tommy. What’s your name? And just take it from there.
Tommy Carreras — That’s somebody that’s worth imitating. That is somebody that’s confident and inviting and welcoming and kind and compassionate and interested and curious. That’s who I want to be. And so I’m going to naturally say, oh, if that’s the first person I met here, what are all these other people like? This could be wonderful.
Rich Birch — Right.
Greg Curtis — Yeah.
Tommy Carreras — And so I think those two questions really build the the exact desire set, or at least the first initial desires of somebody who’s who’s coming to church, especially somebody who’s explicitly coming to get to know God and to be the best version of themselves. And they’re they’re actually saying, and I think God defines what that best version looks like. That’s like the best news ever for churches. But we tend to miss it because we design for information transfer and not relationship building. And that’s just not what they’re looking for.
Greg Curtis — Yes.
Rich Birch — So sticking with that, Tommy, I’d love to, I’d love you to unpack that a little bit. Think of maybe I’m a church of a thousand. So it’s, you know, this thing’s got some energy behind it. And I want to design this, these kind of initial first steps. I want to design our weekend experience and then whatever I’m asking for people to make, to try to get them towards some relationship and get them towards some people. What are some of those initial things that we should be thinking about to try to help them take those first couple steps? What are some of the, these initial steps. Again, picture a church of maybe a thousand. What’s that look like? So it’s gotta be done at scale.
Rich Birch — I love the idea of like, you know, I could note people in the room who I don’t know, but like, we all know you get up over a couple hundred and it’s like, I don’t know. By the time you get to a thousand, you look around your lobby and you’re like, I don’t know any of these people. Like I don’t know who any of these people are.
Tommy Carreras — I don’t know any of these people. Yeah.
Rich Birch — So how do we, how do we build a system for lack of a better word that helps us move people towards that?
Tommy Carreras — Yeah, I think that first we have to get clear on our goals as a team and we have to get clear on every environment’s goal and make sure there is an environment for every step of the journey. Nobody’s just going to take a big swing. Right. And also we, I would love to live in a place and and be in a church where this is just like, I don’t have to design any systems because all the people just naturally do it.
Tommy Carreras — And I would say that often, like I want to, I want to, I want our church to be a church where we don’t even need a group connection event because everybody gets invited to a group personally. And that wasn’t because I was actually hoping that would be a realistic thing. I was trying to set such a clear picture of my actual goal that we could just move 5% in that direction. We could get 20% of our people invited instead of going through a connection event. That would be awesome. Even 5% is better than zero.
Tommy Carreras — And so I tried to set ah a visionary goal just for the sake of the culture building. But we have to build the systems and and be really obvious about it because people are also walking in with baggage and they’re walking in with a clear picture and they’re they’re asking to be proved wrong in most cases. Well, i don’t know about in most cases, but in plenty cases, they’re they’re hoping they’re proved wrong.
Tommy Carreras — Well, church people just like each other. Well, church people are going to judge the places that don’t have it together yet. Lightning is going to strike when I walk in the door. I’m not actually going to be useful here. I’m going to be a burden. All of those things, that’s the baggage they’re walking in with, not just because of church hurt, because of life hurt. And that is exactly why we’re here, to meet that and say, that’s actually a lie. That’s actually a lie from the father of lies. And you’re here to meet the good father that has only truth for you. And I’m going to show it to you.
Tommy Carreras — But we need the systems and the environments that build it correctly and that that lean toward those and produce those kinds of relationships or relational touch points. We need to set clear goals and we need to be relentless in our invitation into those environments. So just having a new here sign on a booth is not an invitation. It’s information. But when my favorite way to announce, for example, which should be an announcement, every single service, hopefully twice in the service. Hey, if you’re new here or you consider yourself new here, and if if you haven’t done this yet, we’d love you to go have a conversation at this place. We want to put this gift in your hands or this something and, and, and here’s what I would always say. And if you’re thinking that the free mug is a bribe to get to know you, you are exactly right. The mug is great, but what’s better is that we think you’re worth knowing and we want to make sure that you have every opportunity to have a familiar face next time you walk in the door.
Tommy Carreras — Not, we want to meet you because it’s part of our organizational goal to identify this many guests so that hopefully you give at some point. That’s not a great message. The great message is you’re worth knowing. We think you deserve a familiar face who calls you by name next time you walk in the door. And hopefully also there’s going to be a next time. And we’d like to ensure that there’s a next time. So yes, it’s a bribe. All we want to do is get to know you. We stop by the place.
Tommy Carreras — And that, that really worked because also we’re not being slick. We’re being honest. We’re being vulnerable. We’re being transparent. We’re saying we’re just here to do this and whatever it takes to get you there. That’s great. You can leave the mug. The point is we would love to get to know you because you’re worth knowing. And so we’re trying to make sure those environments exist. And then we also have to follow it up.
Tommy Carreras — And that means training people training. empowering volunteers to actually accomplish the goal as opposed to accomplish what they think is the goal, but never really was. And so if they’re like, I got to sell the church. Nope. No, no, no. You got to remember their name and ask three personal questions about them. That’s my, that’s my goal for you. Just do that.
Tommy Carreras — And if they come to the next thing, like we’ll, we’ll get them to the next thing. You got to mention the program that we want them to come to. That’s fine. They’re not going to come next week anyway. They’re not ready for that. Just get to know them.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Tommy Carreras — And so we’re setting real goals and making them very attainable for those volunteers. And then we’re also doing it ourselves in staff and we’re not hiding in the green room, just a little note. But you know, if you’re on staff and you’re hiding in the green room, you know, would fix that. Just fix it.
Rich Birch — Yeah, exactly. Stop doing that. I love that. So super tactically, Greg, because we’re talking, we talked, you brought up the ethical bribe. I like to call it the like, Hey, we’ve got a great coffee mug or a water bottle. And you know, it’s one of those things. I love how you framed that, Tommy. Cause I like, think that’s a, that’s a great way even just to like unpack this exactly what we’re trying to do. I think that’s fantastic.
Rich Birch — Greg, you’ve helped us think, you’ve helped me think so clearly around um how are we collecting people’s contact information, which is just the start of the of the relationship. Like we’re I think sometimes we can get that turned upside down. It’s like we’re trying to hit the metric because for some metric reason. No, no, it’s ultimately about trying to start a relationship. What are you learning about the timing, the context of all of that, of that kind of part of the service that we’re asking when we’re giving them? You know, what is the ethical bribe, all of that?
Rich Birch — What are you learning these days for this very tippy top part of the transaction we’re talking about, the very first step? Is there anything that you’re learning there that we should be thinking differently about?
Greg Curtis — I don’t I don’t know. I’m always cautious about saying what I’m learning as if it’s been learned.
Rich Birch — Right.
Greg Curtis — I think that we are experimenting with some new things in light of this. And I would say that one of the big shifts is it’s look, how do I say it? In light of everything we’ve said already about them looking for God, right? And not just life help. They, I think looking at their discipleship, there’s an old word, you know, but they’re they’re learning to follow Jesus, right? Their discipleship, becoming a follower of Jesus. We have always looked at that through just a biblical theological doctrinal lens. Like, do they know this? Have they done that kind of thing?
Greg Curtis — And I think it’s an interesting thing to look at it through the journeys that they experience at at when they come into a new church from their angle. So I call them, I’ve said this before, I think to your crowd, but I call those three journeys the journey from the street to the seat, which really became from the screen to the seat after COVID.
Greg Curtis — Right. Like I mentioned, the gal I met with ah on Sunday, she had already attended our church twice online before she had come. And many churches I have talked to, their average is about four times that they’ve attended your church online. But that journey from, say, the screen to the seat where they’re ah they’re seeing you on their television. But then it’s the parking lot, the greeters, the info counter, kids checked in, ushers, whatever. Right. That journey is is so important.
Greg Curtis — And that journey is about but ah belonging. But then you get the journey from, ah that’s really the growing journey, which is what they’re there for. And that’s a journey from the seat to a circle. And that’s because the circle is the environment we know works best for somebody to grow, where they’re just kind of FaceTime with people, you know, that in Tommy’s words, they might want to imitate, right? And learn from.
Greg Curtis — But it’s so important to get that information. We’re making a big shift where instead of like we’re actually experimenting and saying this for the last few weeks at our church where we’re not collecting their information at all at the at that stage. What we’re doing is saying just come get a free get come get…in our case, we have like a grill where they could get a free meal. Come get a free coffee drink or meal or whatever on us. And we’re we’re not asking them for anything. We’re just creating engagement.
Greg Curtis — But we’re starting to shift because we are baptizing, like in our in our case, over the last 15 months, we’ve baptized over 1800 people. And that’s a big that’s a big shift from targeting what I call cold leads to warm leads. You know, you want to get engagement, start collecting stuff and engaging with people when they’ve been willing to get wet in front of people they don’t know, because they made a decision to follow Jesus. That’s a warm lead.
Rich Birch — Right.
Greg Curtis — Somebody, you know what I’m saying? And in the, in the spirit of the parable of the talents investing where the, you’re starting to see results, you know, in the fruit and just being strategic about that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Greg Curtis — That’s where we’re pouring in some of our, of our best stuff. We’re experimenting with that. I’m not telling people to do that yet because we don’t know how that’s going to work for us.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Greg Curtis — So let me just say that in the…
Rich Birch — Yes. That’s good. Yeah.
Greg Curtis — But moving them from the seat to the circle through that kind of engagement, you know through whatever one program you have, inviting them into a ministry team, a small group. And then that third journey is the journey, you know once it’s belongings established, growing established, then it’s it’s going, the journey about going.
Greg Curtis — That’s the journey from the circle back out to the street. And it’s really just equipping people to to not just know Jesus, but to be more like him and to imitate him ultimately, even through their other people examples. And ad I just think that there’s some great environments that we can talk about later that really equip them to do that. Because we may look at the Bible and see, here’s discipleship steps. But from the guest vantage point, it’s their journey from the screen to the seat, the seat to the circle, and the circle back out to the street. And so what environments are we creating?
Greg Curtis — And like you said, how are we engaging with them? When do we get their contact info, right? When do we invest in in the engagement? And for us, it it seems a worthy experiment to shift to, because we are seeing so many baptisms in light of the the huge God interest, is to start it’s like a it’s a it’s a discipleship moment to let the discipleship issues drive when we do what. And look at it through the lens of these journeys that guests experience our church with. Right. So that’s a little bit about, you know, what we’re looking at in there and on the front end.
Rich Birch — Love it. Well, I friends who are listening in, I was really hoping that you’ll take steps to get connected with Greg and Tommy. We’ve talked about a bunch of stuff. The problem with these things is, man, we can just keep going. And like, there’s so much in this that I find fascinating and, you know, I’ve always loved when people connect.
Rich Birch — I do want to kind of pivot and talk a little bit about how you guys help churches. So first, maybe Tommy, talk to us about, you’ve got this incredible free audit that you’ve made available for folks. Talk to us about the audit. How will it help us? We’ll put a link to in the show notes about it. But I really think 100% of the people that are listening today should take this. This would be a great next step for folks coming out of today. Talk us through this a little bit.
Tommy Carreras — Yeah, yeah. One of my favorite things about the audit, because it’s it’s a brand new tool that we just rolled out. Because we had a 63-point checklist before, and it was phenomenal. I worked through every item on that checklist…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Tommy Carreras — …when Greg initially rolled it out a long time ago. And what we did was we took our own medicine and said, how do we reorganize this instead of around an organizational checklist of do we have the features that we think are valuable? Instead, we said, well, what what milestones are going to help a guest on their journey. And so we, we organize the assimilation audit around the three journeys of the guest, not the environments of the church.
Tommy Carreras — Now the audit does say, well, this is an environment that meets them in this thing that they’re looking for on their journey, but, do you have the environment? Is it working? Is the main question usually is, is it actually working? And we give you some actual markers around whether or not it’s working. Because the the reality is you have the programs, you have the ingredients, you have the volunteers, you probably have a great Sunday experience. And yet all the people are still disappearing or at least most of them. And they’re, the problem is they do it quietly. They don’t write in and tell you…
Rich Birch — Right.
Tommy Carreras — …by the way, I left because I didn’t find somebody that I could imitate quickly enough because what I really had was all this baggage from this… They don’t tell you any of that. You just never knew they were even there.
Rich Birch — So true.
Tommy Carreras — And so what we’re trying to do is look at the experience and go based on all the churches that we’ve worked with, Greg, for over 12 years and seeing this happen over and over and over and seeing the remarkable consistency in the issues and the challenges. We said, here are the leakage points in the system. And some of them are pretty surprising. Some of them are super obvious. But what this will do is actually help you audit the effectiveness of those experiences, organized by what the guests are hoping they experience. They’re desperately hoping you can provide for them on their journey.
Tommy Carreras — And the best part about it, honestly, like it’s a Google doc right now. That is, I’m just giving you that admission because also it’s not a fancy tool that I vibe coded like Rich recently vibe coded one of his really cool assessment tools. I haven’t done that yet. And the the reality is though, it’s a Google doc because also you should write some notes on this thing and you should sit around it as a staff and share it and have real conversations.
Tommy Carreras — Cause the, the, the gold of this audit is going to be in the conversation and the arguments: No, I think it’s red. No, it’s yellow. It’s doing okay. But what about this person? What about this person?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Tommy Carreras — Will somebody go pull up the numbers? Because the numbers… That’s where the gold is in the audit. And it’s, I mean, it’s a lot. It’s a lot of stuff to dig through in your system because it’s 49 points. It’s 49 stops along the way on those three journeys. But you’re going uncover so much. And then I think that it’ll give you a really clear pathway toward, okay, well, here’s what we should do first.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Tommy Carreras — And that might be the most important thing about it.
Greg Curtis — I would just say, too, on that point that for your listeners, if you’re at a point where you are either feeling alone in in wanting to see a breakthrough in engagement or you have a team and you guys are just kind of spinning your wheels and you have the same results all the time and wanting to see them increase and they really don’t that much, this thing is do it for a few weeks together in meetings. It will invigorate. And you’ll do it do it with a team, even if if ah ah but ah a team of key volunteers yeah in a smaller context.
Greg Curtis — But make a day retreat or something out of it and really go through it. And you will find that you, oh my gosh, you can shake out all of the obstacles, all the pain points and weaknesses. It will be very, very helpful and rejuvenating. And it’s free. So there’s that.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Yeah, and we’ll put a link to that in the show notes. I really do think this would be a great next step for everybody who’s listening in. Super helpful. Great. It’s crazy that it’s free to me. You know, don’t don’t trash talk that it’s just a Google Doc. Like, man, a lot of intelligence built into that that, you know, we want people to take.
Rich Birch — And then the second thing, Greg, could you tell us about the Sherpa tribe? Because I think there are people, well, I know there are churches that are listening in that, you know, you talked about earlier, there was this, you know, hey, there’s 1300 guests or or, you know, sorry, Tommy was talking about the fact there’s 1300 guests at this church, and they should have had a lot more. That has been my experience with 100% of the churches that I’ve talked to around these issues, we’re missing people. So how does the Sherpa tribe help with that? How does that actually help us find those guests, get them to stay, get them to serve and to start growing? What does that look like?
Greg Curtis — Well, alongside of looking at the guest journeys in these three ways that I earlier described, we we find that each church, once they do the audit, has a different weakness. You know what I mean? Some of them are common, right? But they ah they’re at their own place and shoring up and strengthening different aspects of that journey.
Greg Curtis — And so what we did is we took our video course, which was one of our mainstays, and we started breaking it up and creating a ton more videos that breaking up around 10 minutes and then creating action points for each one and allowing ah people who become part of our Sherpa tribe—which you can go to assimilayas.com and click on Sherpa Tribe, find out more—to to to go right where they need it and study the things and action points that they need. Go deep in that. And then weekly meet with Tommy or I, with other people just like them from around the country and beyond that in these Zoom sessions where there’s no agenda but you.
Rich Birch — Right.
Greg Curtis — And you bring your questions and what you’re struggling through in this. And we have the most dynamic and fun conversations that create breakthroughs for teams through those through those Zoom moments. Tommy, would you add anything to that?
Tommy Carreras — No, I think the the other the other piece of the puzzle that’s so powerful is we’ve seen the we’ve seen the best results from the folks who haven’t just jumped in to go like, I got to shore up a thing and get some information and and then get out and then you know milk it for all it’s worth and just get in.
Tommy Carreras — What they’re really, that the churches who are getting the most out of it are the ones who say, this is the year where we fix this.
Greg Curtis — Yeah, yeah.
Tommy Carreras — This is the year where we look different at the end of it. This is the year that our staff gets it. There are no more people just sitting around in workflows or process queues 29, 42, 83 days overdue. That is the biggest crisis that we could have now because we all get it. We’re speaking the same language and we’re serving each other and we’re doing all these things to shore up all of these systems because it’s not just one person. And most likely it’s most people’s second or third job on their actual plate.
Tommy Carreras — And so we’re trying to skip them up to third base on all of these different kind of sections of their assimilation system. And we’re trying to give them the people and the contextualization that’s going to make it come to life for their entire team. But it’s it’s the churches that go, we’re going to make it this year is going to be the one where things change.
Tommy Carreras — And they they dive in and they go, I’m going to commit to this thing because they believe that it’s a keystone. It’s almost like a keystone habit. We fix this. Everything else is going to make more sense in our church. And that’s assimilation is a mindset and ah a sort of almost a belief system, not just a couple different environments in our church or a couple different process cues. And so those are the churches that are really crushing it inside the tribe.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that that’s fantastic. And friends, again, we’ll link to that. It’s assimilayas.com where you can you know connect more with Tommy, with Greg, with everything that they’re they’re doing. And you know super hearty endorsement from me. You guys do great work and I think it’s super helpful for many churches. This is one of these areas that if we don’t keep an eye on over time, we’re just missing people. We’re missing people taking steps closer to Jesus.
Rich Birch — Tommy, why don’t I give you the last word here? Any kind of last encouragement as we wrap up today’s episode that you’d like to share with listeners who are you know thinking about these issues? Obviously, these people are the better part of an hour in. What would you say to them as we wrap up today’s call?
Tommy Carreras — Yeah. I was at a church recently and they I was working on mostly data with them. Okay. And they said, hey do you want to talk to the staff for 20 minutes? And I said, okay, sure. Random. I’m going to try and convince them that data matters. And that they okay, they should love their church management software at the end of this 20 minute talk.
Tommy Carreras — And by the end of it, they did actually. They believed me. But the whole idea was I led with there’s a whole bunch that got to it, but the the crux at the end was every form response. Every time somebody gives us their information is a miracle. God has moved heaven and earth since before time began to get them to put their name, email, and phone number on that stupid Planning Center form. And it’s a dang miracle.
Tommy Carreras — And if that’s true, then every single person in a queue or a workflow or a form, you know, submission, whatever you call in your church management software, that is a sacred opportunity and a massive burden of leadership on our shoulders.
Greg Curtis — Yeah.
Tommy Carreras — And every red light overdue, 23 days not started, all of those are massive warning signals in our ministry. All because it’s a miracle that anybody would say yes to anything. And how could we not do everything in our power to lean in meet them there and steward their next step and get them across the gap that they are not going to and may not be able to cross on their own.
Tommy Carreras — That’s the opportunity ahead of us. And it’s just sacred. And I hope that we don’t miss it.
Rich Birch — That’s great. Well, thank you so much, guys. really appreciate you being on the show. Again, that’s assimilayas.com. We’ll link to all of that, but appreciate you being here today. We’ll have to have you on again in the future because this is such an important area, but appreciate you being here today. Thank you.
Tommy Carreras — Thanks, Rich.
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Jon-Michael Sherman and Eric Smith, the team behind SermonDone—an AI-powered platform designed specifically to help pastors with sermon preparation, research, and media creation. Their goal is simple: help pastors save time so they can focus more energy on shepherding people, developing leaders, and delivering impactful messages each weekend.
Are you feeling the weekly pressure of sermon preparation? Wondering how new technology like AI could actually support your preaching rather than replace it? In this conversation, Eric and Jon-Michael explain how tools like SermonDone are helping pastors streamline research, develop sermon series, and extend the reach of their messages beyond Sunday morning.
- Building an AI operating system for pastors. // The idea for SermonDone began during a conversation with pastors at a conference about how they were—or weren’t—using AI in ministry. Jon-Michael realized many pastors either didn’t know where to start or were piecing together generic AI tools that weren’t designed for ministry contexts. The team set out to create what they call an “AI operating system for pastors,” built specifically around the real workflow of sermon preparation. From planning long-term preaching calendars to turning sermons into small-group resources, the platform was designed to support the full lifecycle of preaching. Their goal is to eliminate the intimidating blank page pastors often face on Monday mornings and provide tools that help them think, research, and prepare more efficiently.
- Saving pastors time without replacing the pastor. // The purpose of SermonDone is not to replace pastors but to free up their time for the things that matter most. Many pastors spend countless hours gathering research before they ever begin writing. SermonDone accelerates that process by compiling detailed research reports in minutes, allowing pastors to move quickly into prayerful reflection and message development. Eric compares it to meal-prep services that deliver ingredients to your door—you still cook the meal, but you don’t have to spend hours shopping. In the same way, pastors still craft the message, internalize it, and deliver it with passion; the platform simply helps gather the “ingredients” faster.
- Deep research and sermon writing tools. // One of the platform’s most unique features is its deep research capability. SermonDone deploys multiple AI agents to explore various aspects of a biblical passage or theological topic and deliver a comprehensive research report in minutes. The report can include historical background, theological insights, commentary perspectives, and practical applications—equivalent to the work of multiple research assistants. Pastors can then write directly within the platform using an AI assistant that provides feedback, cross-references, and suggestions as they develop their sermon. The goal is not to automate preaching but to equip pastors with better information and more time to internalize and communicate the message effectively.
- Extending the impact of sermons beyond Sunday. // Another major focus for SermonDone is helping churches extend the life of their preaching content. The platform can automatically generate sermon clips for social media from a YouTube link, allowing churches to create multiple short videos that highlight key teaching moments. Upcoming features include adding B-roll footage and music to clips, helping churches produce engaging content that keeps the sermon message circulating online throughout the week. The platform also creates graphics and other media resources so churches of any size can maintain a strong digital presence without needing a large communications team.
- Creating a personalized preaching assistant. // SermonDone includes a feature called “My Library,” where pastors can upload past sermons, documents, or other teaching content. The platform analyzes this material to learn the pastor’s theological framework, communication style, and recurring themes. Over time, the system becomes increasingly personalized, offering suggestions and insights based on the pastor’s own voice and past teaching. It can even identify patterns in a pastor’s preaching—highlighting repeated themes or areas where fresh perspectives might be helpful.
- Addressing concerns about AI in ministry. // Both Eric and Jon-Michael acknowledge that some pastors remain cautious about using AI in sermon preparation. Their response is that technology has always shaped ministry—from printing presses to radio, television, and the internet. AI, they argue, is simply another tool. Used wisely, it can accelerate research, expand creativity, and help pastors spend more time shepherding people rather than staring at a blank document.
To learn more about SermonDone, visit sermondone.com. The team is continually adding new features designed to help pastors research faster, preach better, and extend the reach of their sermons throughout the week.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: TouchPoint
As your church reaches more people, one of the biggest challenges is making sure no one slips through the cracks along the way.
TouchPoint Church Management Software is an all-in-one ecosystem built for churches that want to elevate discipleship by providing clear data, strong engagement tools, and dependable workflows that scale as you grow.
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If you’ve been wondering whether your current system can carry your next season of growth, it may be time to explore what TouchPoint can do for you. You can evaluate TouchPoint during a free, no-pressure one-hour demo at TouchPointSoftware.com/demo.
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in I’m really looking forward to today’s conversation. Got some returning friends, returning guests on the podcast, which you know what that means. These are people I like who I think you should be paying attention to. Really excited to have Jon-Michael Sherman and Eric Smith from SermonDone. If you do not know SermonDone, where have you been? You’ve been sleeping under a rock somewhere. It is the premium AI assistant, build just for pastors like you. It’s a tool that helps you with really everything to do a sermon prep from deep sermon research, to planning an entire series, even generating the first draft that’s theologically aligned and sounds just like you. Plus, we’ve got some new stuff that they want to talk about today. But welcome to the show. So glad you’re here today, guys. Welcome.
Eric Smith — Thanks for having us, man. We’re super pumped to be here and thanks for having us back.
Rich Birch — Nice. It’s good. Eric, why don’t you bring us up to speed a little bit on where has SermonDone been since we last talked? You know, what’s been going on these last few months?
Eric Smith — Yeah, so the last few months have been incredibly exciting. We have really almost re-envisioned even the original platform, and have expanded it to be so much better than it was before.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Eric Smith — It was great before, and it was a great resource. But just like anything, we continued to dream and stretch ourselves and really push ourselves to expand the platform to offer more resources, to save pastors more time, and to help pastors be more effective.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Eric Smith — And so we’re going to talk about a lot of those different features today and super pumped to share those and excited about all that’s happening.
Rich Birch — Yeah, so good. Jon-Michael, why don’t we start with you kind of roll the clock back for people who maybe haven’t been following this story. Friends, I think this is an incredible tool that you should be trying. And actually, you’re going to want to stick around till the end because they’ve got this incredible thing that they’ve just rolled out that you’re going to want to try.
Rich Birch — But Jon-Michael, roll the clock back. Tell us a bit of the founding story. What what are you really trying to solve? What’s the problem that you’re lying awake at night wrestling with, trying to to help so many church leaders with?
Jon-Michael Sherman — Yeah, first of all, great to be back with you, Rich. And always love listening to the show. Long time listener, happy to be a guest. We started this over a year ago at a pastor’s conference in a breakout session with a bunch of pastors talking about preaching. And we were going around the room saying, how are you using AI? How are you using AI? Another person’s like, I’ve never used it before. I’ve never tried it before.
Jon-Michael Sherman — And so we said to ourselves, what would it look like for us to create really the AI operating system for pastors in every aspect of their process? Everything from research, being able to plan a 12-month or 24-month or 36-month or however many months you want to go preaching calendar, right? What if we could help you with that? What if we could help you with your discipleship resources and turning a sermon into small group curriculum?
Jon-Michael Sherman — And so we started creating and we created without handcuffs. We just said, if we could be maximalist in our approach, and create the most amazing tools, what could we create? And so we went on this journey and we’ve been listening to so many of you that have been listening to this show, giving us feedback. I know many of the listeners on this show have emailed me personally and said, hey, John, could you make this for me? And I said, I’d love to. I love that idea. That’s a great idea.
Jon-Michael Sherman — And so what you’re gonna be seeing now in this latest version is because of the listeners of this show, the feedback that’s come from this show. And pastors, you know, I’ve sat in that seat. I’ve been a lead pastor. Eric’s a lead pastor right now. And so I know the pressure of that Monday morning feeling. What am I going to do? The page is blank again. And I think we can clearly say now as a company, you really never have to start from scratch anymore.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. And I don’t know if I ever told you guys this, but you know a year ago when I got to know you a little bit better, you graciously gave me access to the platform and I sent it to some preaching friends of mine. And I said, Hey, like, take a look at this thing. What do you think? And the part that I have found really impressive with what you’ve done is I feel like every time I’m back on the tool, there’s like something new. It keeps growing. It keeps expanding. You’ve, you’ve even from where it was a year ago, it’s like a totally different deal. It’s like, it’s, there’s all kinds of new stuff in there. And I’ve seen you pay close attention. Like you said there, Jon-Michael to, what you’ve heard people say and actually implemented that, which I think is commendable.
Rich Birch — Eric, in your this is a part of what you do. It’s not the only thing that you do in life. As Jon-Michael had talked about there, lead pastor at a fast-growing church in Florida, Hope City. I think you’re three locations, if I’m if i’m correct.
Rich Birch — One of the things I love that I’ve heard you say is, hey, this tool is going to help pastors save some time. That makes me lean forward. Let’s talk about maybe one or two of the new features that you think is going to help save some time particularly, that’s gonna maybe make this process a little more efficient so that we can focus on whether that’s meeting with people or some extra leadership stuff or what what’s a new new feature that kind of is gonna help us save some time.
Eric Smith — Yeah, so everything that we do is all about helping churches grow. We want to help churches grow and we want to help them engage people. And so we believe the way that we do that is by saving pastors time, but not just saving them time, helping them maximize the time that they invest…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Eric Smith — …to create better sermons and better, you know, sermon clips and all the other things that we do. And so a couple of the new features that we’ve come out with since the last time we talked is now we actually have a sermon writer. So you go into the platform and you can actually write your sermon inside the platform. And what’s really cool about it is as you’re writing, you have an AI assistant right there beside you and you can, you know, ask it questions, you can get feedback, you can get cross references, whatever. So imagine you’re going through the process and you’re able to do that.
Eric Smith — But not only that, as you’re building your slides, you can right click on anything that you have and it’ll immediately start building your slides for the weekend. And then on top of that, one of the other amazing features is after you’re done with the sermon, I wanted to create, I was telling Jon-Michael when we were building it, I said, I want to create something that’s going to help a pastor actually memorize and learn the sermon. Because it’s one thing to write a sermon, it’s another thing to internalize the message and then deliver the message in a dynamic and compelling way.
Eric Smith — I think I said this the last time I was on the podcast with you. The way we deliver the sermon is actually just as important or more important than, than writing it. And so we created a feature in there where helps you memorize the sermon and walk through it. It also has a feature where you can preach straight from the platform where, you know, right there from your iPad or from your computer or however you preach.
Eric Smith — I’m still old school. I preach on paper, but that’s just me. Uh, but yeah, but that’s one of the features. Another exciting feature is to help pastors, you know, really take the the research to a whole nother level. And so we developed something called deep research. There is nothing like this out there. You can’t do this with generic AI. It’s impossible.
Eric Smith — And so I was telling Jon-Michael as we were brainstorming this idea, I want to create something for pastors that will help them get so deep and further ahead that when they sit down to craft the sermon, they have all the research they need. It’s kind of like this: you know, we go to the grocery store, we buy all the ingredients, we bring the ingredients home and we we cook the meal, we prep the meal.
Eric Smith — What we’ve done is we’ve said, hey, just like there’s their services now that you can buy and all the ingredients come in a box and all you have to do is unbox it. You still have to cook the meal. Well, that’s the way this is. Deep research is we’re giving you all the ingredients in a research report that’s over 20,000 words. When Jon-Michael and I were building it, we wanted to wrestle with what would the average pastor who’s bivocational want to know, but what would also the PhD want to know?
Eric Smith — And so the research, we have 23 AI agents that go out. They have four to 500 words of prompting that we wrote. It does deep research in 23 specific areas, every area you could want to know about a specific section of the Bible or a theological topic. And then it delivers in five minutes, it delivers a report back with all that information. I mean, it’s it’s absolutely amazing. That feature alone would cost you a ton of money. I mean, it’s imagine having 23 master level or doctorate level assistants that are going out and researching these different areas for and then delivering the report back. And now when you sit down, you’ve got all this amazing research to go through as you get ready to to prepare yourself to preach.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that feature. That’s incredible. I multiple times with, so I’ve been in the executive pastor seat, this you know, supporting some great, incredible communicators and multiple communicators, we have explored And ultimately never pulled the trigger on a research assistant or there’s organizations out there that will do this, that will put together a research brief and they’ll they’ll get a PhD student. And you’ll you’ll pay ah you know thousands of dollars a month for that kind of service.
Rich Birch — When I first used your research tool, I was like, oh my goodness, this is exactly like that thing that we were looking at, that that, man, but it’s ah you’re making it available for every pastor, which is incredible. I’ve said in other contexts, preaching is a team sport. Although one person has to get up and do it, I get it. Ultimately, one person’s going to stand up this. What you’re helping do is is bring all that other um support from, other like you say, these 23 other agents.
Rich Birch — Jon-Michael, a part of what I love is the partnership between the two of you guys and your whole team. When you’re thinking about the the features that you’ve been adding, one of the things you talked about was like you’ve been listening to people and saying, hey, here’s a change. Are there any of these new features particularly that you’re like, you know, the people are demanding. And so we added this, you know, what was one of those features or a couple of those features that really people have been excited about that you’re looking forward to releasing or maybe are just around the corner to releasing?
Jon-Michael Sherman — Yeah, well, we’re really excited about having sermon clips as one of our latest features.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Jon-Michael Sherman — People are absolutely loving it. It’s this immediate way for you to be able to put your YouTube link in and have incredible viral clips ready for social media. So I’ve led a church marketing agency in the in the church industry for 10 years. And I know the value of vertical video. It’s so important to let your sermon keep preaching beyond Sunday. However, ah you know, right now, you know, a clip alone can be somewhat engaging, but adding B-roll footage really helps it take it to another level. And so we’ll be releasing that here very soon right around the corner. So you’re going to have the ability to do even better edits than ever before.
Jon-Michael Sherman — So imagine having 10, 20 clips to look through and then choosing the one that you love and then being able to add B-roll with high level stock footage and engage people in a big way. So people have been asking for it. We said, yes, we’re bringing it. It’s costing us a lot of money and we’re spending it for you guys. So we want you to have it and it’s important to us.
Rich Birch — Love it. Yeah, that’s amazing. I loved when I saw that you guys added that to the suite. One of the, a part of the work I do in the coaching/consulting with my churches is around invite culture. And, you know, one of the things we’ll often do is look at their social channels and give them some feedback, really benchmark against what the fastest growing churches are doing. And you would not believe how many times I’ve said to churches, how come you’re not doing sermon clips like that? That is like low hanging fruit. Three quarters of the reason why people attend your church is because of the teaching. And you know, being able to do a clip or two a day you know in the week following is a great way to keep that in front of people. I love that you’ve added that.
Rich Birch — Tell me a little bit more about the B-roll, though. That’s kind of interesting. That that feels like that’s going to really punch it up, take it to a whole new level.
Jon-Michael Sherman — Yeah, I think, you know, if I were talking to you 10 years ago, the hot thing to do was have a virtual visit video on your website. Remember those days where you would show people a look of, you know, here’s what it looks like in the outside. And this is what kids check looks that like and different things. Well, the beauty with B-roll is you can still put in that stock footage of your church, and clip that in with your sermon.
Jon-Michael Sherman — So as you’re preaching, now here’s some B-roll of worship. As you’re preaching, now here’s some B-roll of kids check. As you’re preaching, now here’s some B-roll of the lobby. You can show off your church experience a little bit more and upload your own custom B-roll.
Jon-Michael Sherman — Or you can use the stock B-roll that we have. So maybe you’re talking about a specifically emotive subject. You can then clip into some a stock footage that illustrates that emotion or that story that you’re communicating.
Jon-Michael Sherman — So it just takes it to a whole nother level. Obviously, like the clips alone, the way they are right now are great. But just having those different tools that you’re able to add on to it. We’ll also be releasing some audio too. So along with that, if you want to choose or use from our our library of of audio, you can use that too. So songs, different things you want to add to your clips, you can really do it all within our within our new release.
Rich Birch — That’s amazing. You know, this is the thing that’s incredible about your tool. Really, the suite of tools put together in in one ah you know one environment is, you know, you just keep adding new things. Eric, when you think, though, back to the core of SermonDone, when you think about the the thing that’s kind of getting used the most, what what what is the part of it? Like these, I’m assuming that these new tools, it’s like additive to a core experience. What part of it at its core are you kind of the most happy with or the most proud of? Okay, we keep working on this part of it because this is the piece that is so important to the overall ah kind of SermonDone experience.
Eric Smith — Well, I think there’s, um it’s hard to pick one…
Rich Birch — Or a couple, a couple.
Eric Smith — …but I will we’ll say the unique thing about our platform, unlike anything else that’s out there, is ours has a media component. You know, we have sermon clips. We also do graphics. And so our heart is for, there’s so many pastors out there that that are all alone. They’re by themselves. They’re fighting the fight. And man, we are with you. We built this honestly for you.
Eric Smith — And to have a pastor be able to, you know, even if their church is small or they’re a new plant and they’re just getting started to be able to do clips, but then also to be able to create graphics for events, graphics for their sermons. So literally in five seconds, you can have a graphic. And we give even just on our $99 a month lowest version, you get 100 graphics a month. Nobody’s going to probably use that many, but if you don’t like the way it was, you can tweak it, you can modify it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Eric Smith — And so um on the media side, I love all that. For me personally, using the product, developing the product, I love the ability, even with our sermon builder, to just when I’m sitting, you know, waiting for somebody at a coffee shop to meet and I have a thought or an idea and I type it into my notes on my phone about a specific, you know, devotion I was doing or a text I’ve been thinking about or a topic. And then I’m able to take those notes and throw those into my sermon builder. What that does is it just organizes those and begins to outline that for me.
Eric Smith — It’s my words. It’s just helping organize it. And here’s the other thing, because our platform, unlike any other platform, has your personal pastor profile—When you set the product up, you build your pastor profile. You talk about your theological heritage. You talk about Bible translation. news You talk about your your preaching style and you upload sermons if you’d like to do that. And what happens is our AI begins to understand you more. And as does that, it’s going to deliver that content in a way that aligns with you and your theology. And in your delivery.
Eric Smith — And so that’s really, really important. But I just I can’t get past the deep research. I mean…
Rich Birch — Yeah, so good.
Eric Smith — …I was pastoring. I’ve I’ve been blessed to pastor for a long time now, and I’ve been blessed to pastor three different churches that grew incredibly fast. All glory to God. And I was in a church I was pastoring in Alabama. I was it I planted two and I pastored and revitalized one. So I’m a weirdo, I guess, in that way. When we did revitalization, it was it was a large church and I’m there and I almost hired a company to do research for me.
Eric Smith — And I got the quotes back, I got the demo the the sample report. And I was like, oh man, this would be amazing.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Eric Smith — It was just it was just so much money, even at a large church.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Eric Smith — I cannot pull the trigger on this.
Rich Birch — Right.
Eric Smith — I can’t do it. Just imagine now, in our product, you get 10 deep researches for $99 a month.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Eric Smith — To get one deep research with one of those companies would cost you hundreds of dollars and it would take hours and hours and hours for someone to do.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Eric Smith — Well, now we’re able to deliver that and it aligns with your theological framework. It is absolutely amazing. And so we literally are delivering delivering the ingredients to you. You still got to cook the meal, but we’re delivering it to you.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Eric Smith — So I love that. That’s amazing.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, it’s so good. And I know um it’s been fun to watch your journey as an organization. And early on, one of the questions that people would ask is like, how is this any different than just a generic AI tool? And and I always from the beginning, I was like, no, it’s so different than just you know going on and having some you know chatbot conversation.
Rich Birch — But to me, that question just isn’t even in the orbit anymore. It’s like, there’s so much of this, you know, you could not replicate. The amount of time it would take for you to build all these individual apps and all that just would be insane.
Rich Birch — Jon-Michael, could you talk to us about the “My Library”? That’s been up and running now for maybe six or eight months. Maybe it’s longer than that now. What have you seen as users have used that to kind of help your tool be more custom? Because I think that’s one of the advantages that you’ve built in is, hey, this isn’t sounding like some generic, somebody else. It is giving me feedback that is related to things that I’ve preached in the past. How is how is that tool being used?
Jon-Michael Sherman — Yeah, it’s really quite remarkable because it really serves as an external brain for those of us who can’t remember what we said 10 seconds ago. And it seems to be that lead pastors all have that same personality.
Jon-Michael Sherman — Do we agree, guys? Yeah. No, I mean, it’s, you know, it’s it’s true. And I mean, and listen, like no one in the world has the job that lead pastors have to go and have create 40 plus unique sermons a year and then somehow try not to repeat yourself. Right?
Rich Birch — So true.
Jon-Michael Sherman — So obviously the memorization of saying, have I said that before? When did I say that? But the beauty of being able to build on what you’ve already said and be able to remember yourself and pull up all the the past content that you’ve said in the past is remarkable. Again, we may write 3000 words of notes, but we’re going to speak 6000 words on the mic. And so being able to have all of those words as well captured within the platform is remarkable.
Jon-Michael Sherman — Another really great one, I was working with a pastor in in Phoenix area. We uploaded his sermon library over the past couple of years, and we just said, hey, analyze me, you know, like, what are my, what are my themes? What am I repeating too much? What am I you know, am am I, am I, am I being diverse enough in my communication? You know, and it, it gave a deeply accurate profile of these are things you repeat. These are themes that are, ah that you, that you repeat. And it was just spot on. It was wild. It acted like a doctorate level, homiletics coach in a sense.
Jon-Michael Sherman — And so we’re going to be doing some cool upgrades to My Library. Stay tuned.
Eric Smith — Oh yeah.
Jon-Michael Sherman — Right right now, you’ve got to be a little bit smart in the sense of like thinking about what to say. We’re going to make that a little bit more, click and go moving forward. But I’m telling you, if you upload your sermons in there, there’s a lot of amazing questions you can ask and you can get some honest feedback, maybe more honest feedback than your teaching team gives you. Who knows? So, the most honest one is our wife, right? Anyone else?
Rich Birch — Yeah, true.
Jon-Michael Sherman — Exactly. Yeah, she’ll tell you, but the AI will tell you too. you’ll They’ll tell you. So it’s great. We love it.
Rich Birch — And that in My Librar…oh, sorry, Eric, I didn’t mean to cut you off.
Eric Smith — Well, no, I was just going to say, I just want say this so I don’t forget. Maybe if you’ve heard about our product before, and this platform, and you tried it out months ago or a year ago, it’s so much better and so different. So I would just encourage you to jump back in and give it another go because the new features that are available are just absolutely phenomenal. And the reality that you can do the media and the research and the writing, is it’s it’s it’s just so robust in what it can do.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s that’s a good, that’s a good word. you know if I know there’s people that have tried it and maybe for one reason or another, maybe you you know you took ah took the summer off, you weren’t preaching for a few weeks and so you canceled. Hey, now’s a good time to re-up and you’ll be amazed all the different features that have been added and improved.
Rich Birch — On the My Library, I just want to there’s a detail there I want to make sure we capture. You can upload. It’s a multimedia upload. You can upload audio, video. What’s that whole list of things that you can upload to that?
Jon-Michael Sherman — Yeah, everything from you know your files that you’ve written, your your sermons you’ve written. You can use Google Drive to link in. YouTube link is very popular, being able to you know upload your sermons via YouTube link.
Jon-Michael Sherman — So it’s always better if you have the version where the the worship isn’t playing, but just just your sermon, that part, that’d be the good one to use when you upload it.
Jon-Michael Sherman — But it is smart enough to know the difference. It’s, it’s wild. But it’s, it’s really amazing. So again, it’s not just every word that you’ve written. It’s every word you’ve, you’ve actually preached from the mic. You know, cause I’ve never written out my full stories. I don’t know about you guys, when you’re doing a sermon, I just say, tell this story, right.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jon-Michael Sherman — [Inaudible] my notes. But the actual story I spoke through the mic. So it’s going to capture all of that when you’re in My Library.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so true.
Eric Smith — Well, one of the things on My Library is if you have other theological documents. For example, if it were you, Rich, you could take all your podcast and put there, right? All the scripts from your podcast, you could load up in there.
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Eric Smith — And so think outside the box. Don’t just think: sermons I’ve written or even sermons I’ve preached. Maybe it’s theological papers, maybe it’s blogs, maybe it’s podcasts. There’s other things that you can put in there as well.
Rich Birch — Eric, I want to play the devil’s advocate here for a minute. Because I know there’s people that are probably thinking this. We’re 20 minutes in. They’re maybe interested but a little suspicious of just the use of AI in sermon prep in any way. They’re like, I just don’t know. This is this is this is a bridge too far. I’m just not sure we should be doing that. I’m you know, I’m I’m concerned. I’m nervous. I think you know this is going to be really negative for me. What would you say, not necessarily somebody who’s being combative, but is honestly asking you, is picking up with the phone and saying, Eric, I trust you. But talk to me about that.
Eric Smith — Yeah, so I think everybody has to operate in the different convictions they have. Our belief is that we highly trust pastors.
Eric Smith — Rich, you know thousands of pastors. We know thousands of pastors. Yeah, there’s a few out there that may not be the greatest, but pastors are amazing and they’re high integrity people. And so we trust you. You you operate with your conviction, number one.
Eric Smith — Number two, I would just say this. You were already using it and you didn’t know it. We’ve been using AI for a long time. Google is AI.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s true
Eric Smith — What’s happened is it’s just gone from you know slow speed to super fast. And so really there is no difference in what we’re doing. It’s just delivering content faster. And people say stuff like AI is the devil or whatever. It’s just pulling data. It’s just pulling data.
Eric Smith — I mean…So all it’s doing is the computers are so good and so smart that they can ah research and pull data faster than ever before. And so why would we not want to speed up that process? All of us are using Amazon because it sped up the process for me to get the thing delivered to my door. Is that a bad thing?
Rich Birch — Right.
Eric Smith — No.
Rich Birch — Right.
Eric Smith — I will say no pastor that we know of that’s ever used our product is just, you know, using AI and then stepping up on the platform and then using it to preach. They’re using it to research. They’re using it to to refine things. They’re using it to wrestle with, I have this statement. How can I say this better? They’re using it for things like sermon clips, and and or uploading your sermon in our discipleship area that we have on our platform, you can upload it. It’ll turn your sermon into kids curriculum. It’ll turn your sermon into small group curriculum. It’ll turn your sermon into small group questions. It does all that as well.
Eric Smith — And so it’s taking your content and reorganizing it in a different way. Why would we not use? We’ve done this throughout history where we’ve used things to advance the speed of something. Of course, none of us ever want to get away from praying, seeking the Lord, asking the Holy Spirit to guide us and lead us. This is just allowing us to get the ingredients together faster…
Rich Birch — Right.
Eric Smith — …so that we can actually spend time on what makes a sermon great. What is it that makes a sermon great? It’s not what’s on the paper. I can preach the same sermon as someone else on Sunday and you could look at our paper and go, wow, that looks just the same. But one of our sermons might be a lot better because, number one, we allowed it to really take root in our heart. We allowed it to simmer in our soul.
Eric Smith — And so if I can help pastors move faster through the researching and gathering of the material, so that they can put the sermon together and it really take root in their soul. And then second prep on the actual delivery of the sermon. In the platform we have a masterclass that I put together on, really, sermon delivery. If I can help pastors do that, what’s going to happen is it’s going to save them time, but not only is it going to save them time, it’s going to help them preach better sermons. And as said before, our focus, our heartbeat is to grow the church and to engage believers in the body of Christ.
Rich Birch — It’s good.
Eric Smith — And so for us, we can help pastors preach better, churches grow. Why? 82% of people choose their church based on the quality—it’s either 82 or 83. I could be off 1%—the quality of the sermon.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Eric Smith — And so, pastor, you should do everything you can to preach better sermons. And this is a tool that we want to come alongside you and serve you. We are here to serve and make your sermons better. And that’s our heart. So that’s what I would say.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. You know, I know that people have a concern anytime there’s new technology, but I love how you frame that, Eric, that it’s, in you know, it’s, We’re already using parts of this. It’s a part of all of our everyday lives. And how can we use it in a way to really accelerate the mission to try to get, you know. And I think that if I would say the only thing I would add, if I was listening in today and I had that hesitation, I would just take a step towards it and to learn about it, to actually try a tool like or try SermonDone specifically, ah you know, like and and see, hey, maybe there’s a way that this could help.
Rich Birch — And I would agree with you. It’s not, you know, it’s not a, you don’t go in there and be like, hey, give me a great three-part sermon on John 3:16. You know, that’s not what this is. It’s, hey, I’m working on this. It’s a bunch of tools to help you think through and to process all of this and then to ultimately give you the the time to to prepare it.
Rich Birch — Jon-Michael, what anything you’d add to that kind of the, maybe the hesitant pastor who’s who’s a little bit worried about this and is, you know, yeah doesn’t want to go left behind, but is also concerned about it?
Jon-Michael Sherman — Yeah, you know you know me, I’m probably going to be a little bit not as nice as Eric. would I’ll try to but i’ll try to be nice, but I’ll just put it this way. You know, look, it’s just the way it goes. When new tech comes into the church world, we go through five phases. The first phase is it’s demonic.
Jon-Michael Sherman — You know, ah the Nephilim came down into spacecraft and and handed AI to, you know, Peter Thiel and he’s bringing the Antichrist and it’s over…
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Jon-Michael Sherman — …you know, the the military is going to listen to me through SermonDone.com.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jon-Michael Sherman — You know, like that’s, what’s I’ve had, I’ve talked to guys on the phone that have thought that, okay, that’s real life.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Jon-Michael Sherman — Even it’s funny, but it’s true. It’s demonic.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jon-Michael Sherman — And then it goes, well, that evil mega church down the road is doing it, but I would never. I would never we grab our pearls and we clutch up.
Rich Birch — Right. Right. Right.
Jon-Michael Sherman — And then it goes to, well, I’m using it secretly, but I can’t tell my pastor. I can’t tell anybody you know I’m using it secretly.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jon-Michael Sherman — And then it goes to, well, of course we’re using it. And why isn’t everyone on staff using it? If you don’t use it the next 30 days, you’re getting fired. And then it goes from that to like, hey, welcome my breakout session here at Exponential. I’m going to be teaching you how I use AI. Well, 10 minutes ago, you thought it came off a spaceship, you know. But this is how we are, okay?
Rich Birch — Right, right, right.
Jon-Michael Sherman — Like this is just how we are. So we’re somewhere in the mix right now, depending on who’s listening. Okay, you know, it’s fun. But here’s the real issue is this. It truly is this. It It depends on which tribe you’re coming from. But there we, all of us, as lead pastors, guys that get in the pulpit, we all have one sin that we struggle with, and it’s pride. And we have to realize that we have this treasure, the gospel, it’s in a jar of clay. And you know what? Like we are broken vessels and we ah we we are a broken you know medium and the message is pure. The message is the gospel. The message has to go out.
Jon-Michael Sherman — And so whether we’re using radio, television, artificial intelligence, you know, we’re streaming online right now using ah the Internet. The medium is is is not the thing that I’m worried about. It’s the message, is the gospel. And so whatever a tool the Lord gives us, let’s use it for his glory and our good. But let’s not let pride get in the way.
Jon-Michael Sherman — So I’m going to speak into the Pentecostals because I grew up hanging from a chandelier. OK, I had a binky in one hand and a chandelier in the other. OK, I grew up Pentecostal holy roller.
Jon-Michael Sherman — We have man-of-God complex. And this is what we do. Saturday night, the Lord speaks okay to pastor. And then he comes down from the mountain of God and he delivers the tablets, you know. Common phrase growing up was, I got woken up two in the morning. The Lord, the lord changed it up.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jon-Michael Sherman — Dude, you didn’t have a sermon until two in the morning last night. I know you’re you’re golfing all week.
Rich Birch — Right, right. It’s called pressure. Last minute pressure. Yes.
Jon-Michael Sherman — Exactly. Okay. And and it’s We struggle with that because we want to be the man of faith and power for the hour, Pentecostals.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Jon-Michael Sherman — We do. And so like all of a sudden AI can help me do this faster and better. And what will my congregation think, led by the holy demon in Silicon Valley, you know, whatever. I’ve heard, I’ve seen the comments, right? It’s, but that’s, you know, it’s about humility. Like we have no new truth here. This is the truth that God gave us.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jon-Michael Sherman — And we have to be faithful stewards of that truth. So we we can have nice outfits, but we better be true to the gospel. That’s my Pentecostal friends.
Jon-Michael Sherman — Now to my Reformed friends, who I’m very close with. I had a very long conversation with a friend who’s deeply Reformed about our product. There’s a different pride issue because knowledge puffs up. And a lot of us in the Reformed world, man, we have gotten these badges of check out my master’s, check out my doctorate, check out my library. And, you know, and no one can orate or exegete the way I can.
Jon-Michael Sherman — Well, hold up. AI can exegete pretty well, actually. And so there’s a pride issue there. And so I’ve seen that tribe having pride problems, too. But if we can make it not about the medium or the messenger, but make it about the message, it’s about the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Jon-Michael Sherman — And so, unfortunately, I’ve just seen AI bring out a little bit of pride in every tribe. And I think we all just need to humble ourselves and say, this is just a tool. We are just messengers and ambassadors of Christ. Right. You know, like we have this message of reconciliation. And so the message is still the same. The messengers were still full of pride and we need to be humble before the Lord every Sunday.
Jon-Michael Sherman — You know, there’s nothing more humbling than preaching, I would like to hope, but sometimes we get it twisted. So that’s my fun anecdote on that one for those are that are struggling in the midst of it. And and for those of that are still struggling, I did write a book for you. It’s called Pastoral Intelligence. It’s a book to help you figure out some of these big questions like, what is AI? How does it work? How do I make it work in my team?
Jon-Michael Sherman — And maybe you don’t want to read the book because you don’t like reading because you have ADHD like me. I have memes in here. I’ll just teach you through memes. So you can use a meme and it’ll tell you what you need to know about AI.
Rich Birch — Yes, that’s hilarious.
Jon-Michael Sherman — But I want to encourage you to get that you if you’re struggling through it.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s that’s fantastic. And I would say, you know, my heart similarly, you know, I’ve spent, like I said this earlier in the podcast, I’ve spent most of my career in the second seat supporting incredible communicators who spend a lot of time, effort, energy, blood, sweat, tears on this. And I saw that my job, a part of my job was to remove barriers from that person’s life to try to make that part of what they do easier or so they could focus on that more. One of the lead pastors I worked to, incredible guy, His process, his sermon process, he would read about a thousand pages a week. That was pretty typical for him. And he would start writing after dinner on Saturday night.
Rich Birch — He would write all Saturday night, finish his slides at two or three in the morning, email them to our team. We’d get the slides made up early morning. And we tried to change this process. I’m like, I’m not sure that this is super healthy for you. He had been doing it for 20 years or 15 years by the time I had got and interacted with him. And I’ve often thought about Sermon Don. I thought, man, if we had this tool back then, we could have saved a lot of you know blood, sweat, and tears. There’s you know there’s a part of that research that we just didn’t need to be doing.
Rich Birch — So anyways, I’m glad, heartily endorsed, excited that you guys are are doing what you’re doing. As we come to to land the plane, Eric, any kind of final words from you that you would say to a pastor who’s listening in today? I want to make sure pastors actually go to sermondone.com and actually try it out. Anything else we want to be saying to people as we land the plane today?
Eric Smith — Yeah, you can tell Jon-Michael’s, the one that’s the most fun in the group, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah!
Eric Smith — Now, I would just say, you know, you should give it a shot. And it’s it’s it’s not even doing, you still have to read the research it gives you. It’s just gathering the content for you. And for me, I’m like, I don’t I don’t really let the noise bother me of the culture or what this person or that person is saying, I’m trying to serve the people that God has has called me to serve. And so if I can more effectively do that in a way that honors the Lord and reaches people…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great.
Eric Smith — …that’s, that’s my heart. And I know that’s every pastor that’s on here. That’s what they’re doing too. And so, uh, yeah, I would just invite you to give it a shot. Doesn’t hurt. Uh, when you sign up too, I think we have a code RICH20 to give 20% off because we love Rich Birch and the unSeminary podcast.
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Eric Smith — I guess Rich brings so much amazing content to the church world and God has used him in such a just a special way helping churches think through growth and strategy and systems and how to scale and you know the right things to do and so we’d love for you to try that out. And thanks, Rich, for all your time and what you meant to us.
Rich Birch — No, I appreciate that, Eric. And we we keep saying this. We’ve got to have you on to just talk about the church side of your world at some point. We’re always like, well, we could get to that, but there’s always so much good stuff to talk about on SermonDone. We’ll have to have you back just on that. Jon-Michael, any any final words from you?
Jon-Michael Sherman — Yeah, you know, I think it’s aptly put right now that no one here is is going to be replaced by AI, but maybe, you know, you might be replaced by someone who knows some of you as AI well. And I think it’s it’s a it’s a skill and a tool that you have to be embracing right now. And I think everyone needs to do that.
Jon-Michael Sherman — Now, in three years, there’s a very good chance you know we’ll be back on the podcast and we’ll be talking about you know how to replace a staff member with an optimist robot, you know. I can imagine you know, I like you know youth pastors, optimist robot. You know, youth leader at camp, optimist robot. No one wants to be with a fourteen year old bunch of 14-year-olds at youth camp, you know optimist robot. With security at church, optimist robot with a gun. There’s a lot of great opportunities here in the future.
Rich Birch — Oh, gosh. Oh, my goodness.
Jon-Michael Sherman — But I will say this, I’m just teasing, but like AI is so great. It’s a wonderful tool for God’s glory and our good. Let’s embrace it. Let’s like shake off the naysayers, enjoy it, love it. And we’re so glad we built this. We made this for you and we want you to have it and try it. And we’d love to have you jump on.
Rich Birch — That’s so good. So again, that’s just SermonDone.com. You can use that code RICH20. I really would encourage you to, to try it friends. I think it’s a great tool. It can save you so much time. And so that you can focus either on, you know, working on that delivery piece of the puzzle or more time leading your teams, more time connecting with people, you know, counseling folks, whatever, you know, there, I just think it’s a huge tool for you. So yeah again, that’s just SermonDone.com. Thanks so much. Really appreciate you guys being here today.
Eric Smith — Thanks.
Jon-Michael Sherman — Thanks, Rich.
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Brandon Boyd, Executive Pastor at Quay Church in Windermere, Florida—one of the fastest-growing churches in the country. What began as a struggling congregation marked by multiple splits has experienced dramatic renewal and growth since a 2022 replant under Lead Pastor Luke Lazon.
Is your church experiencing rapid growth that feels both exciting and overwhelming? Wondering how to scale systems, structure, and culture without losing spiritual health? Tune in as Brandon shares how Quay Church is stewarding momentum while building clarity, accountability, and lasting impact.
- From flat structure to scalable leadership. // When Brandon arrived in 2024, Quay had grown from 400 to 1,500 people, but its internal structure hadn’t caught up. Meetings were crowded, decisions were unclear, and Sunday services were running long due to lack of coordination. The church had been operating as a flat organization where everyone contributed to every decision. That worked at a smaller size but became chaotic during rapid growth. Quay implemented tiered leadership levels: elders at 50,000 feet guarding mission and doctrine, an executive team at 40,000 feet solving forward-facing challenges, and a lead team at 30,000 feet ensuring weekly ministry execution. This created clarity in decision-making and allowed the church to scale effectively.
- Systems in many places leads to excellence. // A guiding philosophy Brandon has is SIMPLE—Systems In Many Places Leads to Excellence. Brandon introduced tools like Asana for project management, Slack for communication, and Otter for meeting documentation. Agendas are shared ahead of time, action items are clearly assigned, and meeting notes are converted into trackable tasks. Each meeting is defined by purpose—innovation, execution, or decision—so participants know what is expected. The tools support clarity, but the real goal is alignment and accountability.
- Guarding culture during rapid growth. // Growth creates urgency that can easily become chaos. Quay combats this with clearly defined staff values: Kingdom over castles. Nimble over fragile. Sled dogs over show dogs. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Burn the ships. These values act as decision filters. Everyone owns the broader mission, not just their ministry lane. Staff lead by example—serving first, giving first, even parking farther away to prioritize guests. A 2026 staff covenant outlines expectations for spiritual leadership, generosity, and ownership, ensuring alignment as the church continues to grow.
- Spiritual health beyond attendance growth. // While attendance has surged to nearly 2,700 adults weekly, Brandon points to transformation as the real marker of health. Spontaneous altar ministry has become a defining feature of services—not manufactured, but Spirit-led. People regularly respond in repentance, prayer, and life change. One man publicly confessed infidelity and committed to reconciliation. The church just celebrated 188 baptisms last year, reinforcing that growth is not just numeric but spiritual.
- Leading through overwhelm. // Brandon closes with a vulnerable reminder: rapid growth can be overwhelming. Leaders must acknowledge that reality rather than pretending to be superhuman. Honest conversations with lead pastors, elders, and trusted peers help prevent burnout. When God calls, He equips—but leaders must stay transparent and supported during demanding seasons.
To learn more about Quay Church, visit quaychurch.org or follow @quaychurch on social media. You can connect with Brandon on Instagram at @bgboyd.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Risepointe
Do you feel like your church’s or school’s facility could be preventing growth? Are you frustrated or possibly overwhelmed at the thought of a complicated or costly building project? Are the limitations of your building becoming obstacles in the path of expanding your ministry? Have you ever felt that you could reach more people if only the facility was better suited to the community’s needs?
Well, the team over at Risepointe can help! As former ministry staff and church leaders, they understand how to prioritize and help lead you to a place where the building is a ministry multiplier. Your mission should not be held back by your building. Their team of architects, interior designers and project managers have the professional experience to incorporate creative design solutions to help move YOUR mission forward.
Check them out at risepointe.com/unseminary and while you’re there, schedule a FREE call to explore possibilities for your needs, vision and future…Risepointe believes that God still uses spaces…and they’re here to help.
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in today, and you’re definitely going to be rewarded for that. Today, we’re talking with a church that I like to say has platinum problems. Like every church wants to be a fast-growing church. They want to be, or you’ll hear leaders talk about in a season where they’re growing, where we’re capturing a church and a leader in the midst of that right now.
Rich Birch — And I’m really excited to talk to Brandon Boyd. He is at Quay Church in Windermere, Florida. This is a fast-growing church. It’s one of the fastest-growing churches in the country. He serves as the XP. And I’m really looking forward to unpacking the story a little bit. Tell us a little bit about Quay and the history there, the story, what’s going on. Tell us, bring us up to speed.
Brandon Boyd — Yeah, Rich, thanks for having me on the podcast today. Just such a joy to chat with you and tell all the incredible things that the Lord’s doing at Quay. So I’ve only been at Quay for about like 15 months. And so previously, I’m a native Texan, grew up in Dallas, served my home church in Dallas and another church in the Dallas, North Dallas area. And then the Lord transplanted us all the way out here to Orlando, Florida – Windermere, suburb of Orlando, which is on the north side of Disney World, which is pretty fun. And so I’m married and I’ve got three daughters. I live in a sorority, basically, which is really fun.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Brandon Boyd — And so when the Lord said, hey, I’m taking you to Windermere, was pretty easy yes for our family, for what the Lord had for us. And so, you know, Quay is a little bit of a replant. And so our church was initially started in the early 2000s and went through like two or three church splits. And we shouldn’t really have a church just because of those splits and what was occurring at that time period.
Brandon Boyd — And I would say our church got replanted in 2022 when Luke Lazon, who was our young adult pastor at the time when he became the lead pastor. At that time, there was basically like 400 people that were calling our church home. We were known as Lifebridge Church at the time.
Brandon Boyd — And then you fast forward to when I got here in May of 2024, we had grown to 1,500 adults. And then this past weekend, we had 2,700 adults with us, and then about 500 kids and students. And so it’s just been a wild ride these last three years. And I’ve just been fortunate to be a part of it in the past like 15 months.
Rich Birch — Well I, yeah, I want to acknowledge that, you know, that kind of growth is, it’s exciting and fun and and have lived through similar seasons in the past, but there is also comes with a lot of challenges and a lot of like real world problems. And so I appreciate that you’ve taken time to, you know, help us think through these issues today. And even just before the call started, we were talking about stuff literally from last weekend that was like, well, there’s a new problem. We got to figure that one out. So excited for this.
Rich Birch — Well, let’s talk about when you stepped into the role. So you you you arrive, you know, the church is obviously growing, had experienced incredible growth in the couple years before you got here, went from 400 to 1500. When did you realize that maybe not just that it was growing, but maybe the qualitative, the kind of what kind of growth Quay was having was was maybe a little bit different and was kind of going to inform the next couple of years. Help us think through what was that like when you first arrived, unpack that, you know, those first weeks or months.
Brandon Boyd — Yeah. So my my first Sunday was Mother’s Day in 2024. And on that day, we had communion, we had baptism, we had a parent-child moment. And I looked up to us and I said, we’re just not communicating well. So we can’t have all these elements in a worship gathering taking place at the same time.
Brandon Boyd — And so I started talking with our XP over worship and creative. And I just said, help me understand your planning process through the week. And so I took that first week just to ask a lot of questions like, how are we sitting together? How are we working together? What’s not working? And then what we started to do was start to organize our meetings behind the scenes. So we really took that summer of 2024 and start putting some processes in place that would help us kind of scale up well.
Brandon Boyd — And part of that was we use a project management tool on the back end to make sure that everything is operating well. We use Asana. And some of this is what I learned in Dallas with our team there. And I took that and brought it here and scaled it. And so everything runs through a project through us on the back end. Worship is a project. All of our events are a project. And so everybody knows what is expected of them today. What is expected of them tomorrow, two weeks from now. And it’s also our accountability tool.
Brandon Boyd — So back to that first Sunday, when we realized that we had all these things going on, Luke still preached for 40 minutes. And then they looked at me and said, Hey, we’re just always over time on our gatherings. Well, everything’s got to be spelled out. And so that was an initial thought that I said, this can’t be the Wild West anymore.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brandon Boyd — Because of the rapid growth that we had going on, knowing that we’ve got natural growth cycles coming up, whether it’s in the fall when school starts, and in January. And that’s kind of what we saw happen at Quay in that first year in 2024.
Rich Birch — Yeah, there’s a lot there I want to unpack. And I want to get to meetings and and project management. I want to really dive into some of those details. But one of the things I’ve been, as I’ve kind of watched from afar, what’s happened at Quay, you guys have done a good job balancing the past, even just how you talked about there, kind of balancing, talking about the past, but then you know, projecting forward and kind of casting vision for the future, how did the church’s past really approach your, or has that, ah you know, kind of ah impacted your leadership as you’ve approached leading here in the, even in the current, or as you think to the future, how are those two connected together?
Brandon Boyd — Yeah, I think just an axiom I live by is I always want to speak respectfully about the past, be honest about what’s going on presently, and optimistically about the future.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Brandon Boyd — And so we’re super grateful for the people that went ahead of us that helped start this and plant this church way back in the early 2000s, and then had the foresight to kind of buy this piece of property in Windermere.
Brandon Boyd — We’ve got part of our property is not developed yet. And we had a developer show up the other day that offered $5 million dollars for our grass kind of parking lot where we’re going to expand our campus on. But I couldn’t imagine unloading and reloading everything into an elementary school or a high school right now. So we’re super grateful for the people that went ahead of us, not only the pastoral leadership, elders, but also the people that called this church home, that hung on for the hope that something better was coming in the future.
Brandon Boyd — And so they’ve been on this wild ride, up and down of, splits, attendance, differences, whatever else, but knowing that, you know, there ought to be a church in this part of Windermere, that there should be a gospel presence, especially in a place that’s so known for entertainment. Like you can stand on our roof at nighttime and see the fireworks from Disney World.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brandon Boyd — If the wind, if the wind is blowing just right, you can hear the whistle from the train at the Magic Kingdom. I mean, that’s how close we are.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brandon Boyd — So for a spot in Orlando that’s known for entertainment, why shouldn’t there be a place that is a flag spot for the gospel. And so knowing that those people went before us, knowing that you’ve got people moving here on a daily and weekly basis, we appreciate that, but we also got to look forward to the future.
Brandon Boyd — And so we had this opportunity to kind of rebrand our church. So our church was named after our young adult ministry Quay. And a quay is a literal thing. Like it’s a place where ships unload and reload their cargo. And that’s just a metaphor for the church – that the church a place where people can unload the things and that are burdensome and get refilled up with the message of Jesus and take that out into their places of influence, to their schools, to their work places.
Brandon Boyd — And so when we cast that vision early in 2025, the people that had been here when all the ups and downs of the church really saw, like this is the moment. And then they saw this surge of people that were coming in to hear the gospel message. We baptized this past year 188 people.
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Brandon Boyd — That’s adults, children, kids.
Rich Birch — Fantastic.
Brandon Boyd — I got to baptize my own daughter this past year, which is super exciting. But to see life change. So you go from this really small remnant that was left to see this surge and explosion, to see people, their lives being transformed for the gospel, I think is how they’ve just seen, all right, what’s next? What’s next, Lord, for us? And we’ve got this phrase here that stewardship is our responsibility, that we’re just merely stewards of what the Lord has provided to us.
Rich Birch — Right. Good.
Brandon Boyd — And so we’re just stewarding this moment. And we really want to set it up well for the people that follow me, that follow Pastor Luke, that follow any of us, that we want to leave it better than we found it.
Rich Birch —Yeah, that’s so good. And I just want to honor you for how you guys even publicly are handling all that. Because I think particularly with the growth that you’ve seen, it would be easy to be like, man, isn’t it incredible what’s happening now, but even kind of just forgetting what’s gone in the past. So, you know, honor you for what you’re doing there. I think that’s that’s incredible.
Rich Birch —Well, let’s get back to some of those rhythms. So one of the things you talked about was like, hey, we realized, oh, maybe these, ah you know, the meetings, we just, we didn’t have the right, maybe the right flow of information.
Brandon Boyd — Yeah.
Rich Birch — So let’s talk through what did that look like? How did you how did you pick that apart, diagnose the problem maybe first? And then how did we make some shifts towards the kind of system you’re currently running?
Brandon Boyd — So our organization was a flat organization. So when I got here, everybody was involved in every single decision. Everybody, like there was a weekly staff meeting where everybody was there and they were pitching ideas left and right about what we need to do on Sunday, what we need to do for our student ministry programming. And then we had a weekly meeting where everybody was involved with all the event processes and everything else.
Brandon Boyd — And so I think another obstacle that we were trying to work past was Luke went from, like I said, young adult pastor to lead pastor. So he went from a peer on the hall to the boss. And so I knew that we had to put some structures in place and we had to scale the organization, and had to put some meeting structures around that. So we created an executive team meeting that meets on Mondays. We created a lead team that meets on Tuesdays. And we put people in those meetings that had influence or had certain gift sets, or we took Working Genius. And so we’ve kind of started to strategize our meetings around Working Genius and putting people in meetings where they thrive.
Brandon Boyd — So if they’re an innovator, if they’re a wonderer, then we may need to put them on the front side of work. If they’re more of an implementer and they’re more of somebody that can get the tasks done, they don’t need to be in all these meetings. So what we’ve tried to do moving forward is really name what the meeting is before it’s even called, so people know what the expectation is.
Brandon Boyd — So what what we’ve tried to do over the past year is really provide clarity and expectation.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Brandon Boyd — So when somebody comes to a meeting, they know what they need to prepare, but then they also know what their expectation is in the conversation.
Rich Birch — That’s great. A couple things I want to unpack there. First, ah for listeners, we had Patrick Lencioni on talking about Working Genius. If you should go back and listen to that episode, if you don’t know Working Genius, it’s a fantastic tool. Here’s an example of a church is actually putting it into practice, not just like reading the book and putting it on the shelf.
Rich Birch — So can you pull apart the, when you say executive team and lead team, the kind of Monday and Tuesday, how do you, what’s the like 30 second definition between those two and their roles and responsibilities between those two groups and who’s kind of comprises those, those teams.
Brandon Boyd — Yeah. So our exec, well, it really starts with our elder team. So for a period of time, like our elders had to be really involved just because of the nature of what was going on in our church. But they have since decided that they needed to fly at a higher level. So we’ll we’ll just talk 50,000 feet.
Brandon Boyd — So the elders are at the 50,000 feet. They’re really guarding the mission and vision of the church.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Brandon Boyd — And then you come down to the executive team, which flies at 40,000 feet. And they’re really tasked at making sure that from an executive level, we’ve got you know all the the problems that need to be solved, that we’re looking at the vision forward, that we’re not only looking at the current week, but we’re looking six weeks out. We just wrapped up Christmas. We’re already talking about Easter. and We’re talking about Christmas already for 2026.
Brandon Boyd — And then you step down to the lead team. They’re at 30,000 feet. And what they’re doing is making sure that our ministries are humming and running on a weekly basis and making sure that those budgets, ministry resources, calendars, everything are executing.
Brandon Boyd — So what we’ve done is the executive team is obviously our lead pastor. We’ve got myself as executive pastor. We’ve got the other executive pastor of worship and creative, Justin Melton. And then we added our spiritual formation pastor, Mike Brook on that team.
Brandon Boyd — Our lead team is the executive team, plus our project manager, plus our young adult pastor. Cause young adults are so important and and vibrant to our house.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Brandon Boyd — And that’s kind of like the impetus for the rebirth of our church. And then we’ve got like people in charge of kind our crews, which is our small groups and then kind of our volunteer teams in that. And so that’s kind of those teams.
Brandon Boyd — And then out of that, you’ve got ministry teams that run on a weekly basis. And then our staff gathers for once a month where we pray together. we have some fun together. We eat lunch. And so let’s kind of put some meeting structures that we put in place and the purpose of them.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool.
Brandon Boyd — So we’ve kind of walked through 50, 40, 30, 20, 10, all the way down to zero. So everybody knows what the purpose of each of those meetings are.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. I’m assuming so you go executive to lead and then is there then like a weekly team meeting? So each of those people that are on the executive, or on the the lead team, they would then have their, you know, kind of trickle that down that information throughout the organization.
Brandon Boyd — Yep.
Rich Birch — Is that what that looks like basically?
Brandon Boyd — Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great.
Brandon Boyd — You’re exactly right. So those ministry teams meet on a weekly basis.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brandon Boyd — And so, yep.
Rich Birch — Okay. One other thing you said that caught my attention, which is a small, it’s like, since we’re sticking with the the quay metaphor, the the nautical metaphor, it’s a small, like a rudder. It’s not that big, but it’s it’s a huge deal. Actually, people knowing what we’re talking about in the upcoming meeting and being prepared for those meetings can be transformational in an organization. So talk me through what does that look like? What’s your expectation? And then when it’s running perfect, what is the kind of goal that we’re, we’re trying to go towards on that, you know, on that front, obviously that we don’t, we don’t bat a hundred, but I’m not even sure I’m mixing metaphors. Now we don’t bat a thousand. I think it is.
Brandon Boyd — Yeah.
Rich Birch — What is that? You know, what, what does that look like?
Brandon Boyd — Yeah. If you’re batting a hundred, I think you’re batting pretty bad.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Brandon Boyd — And so what what we try to do, I mean, we’re not afraid of tools. And so we use several different tools.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brandon Boyd — Already talked about Asana. We use Slack for internal communication. So we we really try to strive that we’ve got to get our agendas out ahead of time and then understand if there is an action item in the agenda so that people can understand what’s expected of them.
Brandon Boyd — We use another tool called Otter that helps make minutes and notes. And then we disseminate those to the people so they know what’s expected of them. Otter does a great job of recognizing voices and then they’ll also tag people. Then we take that and dump it into Asana.
Brandon Boyd — So if we’re having, we’ll just use our student ministry. If we’re having like our weekly Wednesday night student ministry programming for middle schoolers, they’ll know what’s expected of them from what our middle school director is speaking on to what’s expected from production to what’s expected from our creative team to what’s expected from our communications team on the website, social media, some of those other things.
Brandon Boyd — And so we use, we’re we’re not shy to use tools.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great.
Brandon Boyd — And so we use those tools just to make sure that everybody understands what’s expected before the meeting and after the meeting.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I’m an Otter user as well.
Brandon Boyd — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Use it in my coaching. And it’s it’s ah it’s transformed my own personal interaction with the churches I work with. And then I’ve actually had a number of churches pick it up and start using it. I had an XP, this was before Christmas, texted me after just one week. He was like, dude, this has changed our game because it’s like having someone, it’s like in every meeting having like an incredibly detailed assistant that’s writing notes on everything that’s going on and they don’t they don’t miss anything or miss very little, which is, you know, incredible.
Rich Birch — So now let’s talk about so from there. So like I get the idea you’re using Asana, get that Slack, Otter, tools are together. How do you ensure that things keep simple and streamlined rather than becoming con, you know, yeah really complicated and, you know, were just bolting on stuff. How do you think about those issues as, as you’re growing?
Brandon Boyd — So I’ve got a phrase that I learned at one of my churches in Texas, and it’s actually an acronym. It’s for SIMPLE. So, systems in many places leads to excellence.
Brandon Boyd — So we just try to keep things simple. Like we launch a fourth gathering here. We’re at max capacity on Sunday mornings with all three of our gatherings from 8:15 and 11:45. So we’re we’re launching a fourth one here in a few weeks at Sunday night at 5 p.m. And so if we just take what’s replicable from the Sunday morning experience and add it to the the evening experience. But it’s just the basic thing.
Brandon Boyd — So yes, we’ve got tools. Yes, we’ve got Asana. Yes, we’ve got Slack… [inaudible] to call a stand-up meeting and just to make sure everybody’s understand what’s going on and just have a conversation. Like my door, I’ve got an open door policy. And if my door’s open, just come on in and ask a question to make sure that you understand what’s going on.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brandon Boyd — I think it’s just the basic thing.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brandon Boyd — A lot of times we can hide behind email, we can hide behind Slack, we can hide behind text messages, but we’ve we’ve just got to be more proactive than reactive and say…hey, if you don’t understand something, then it’s okay to come ask a question because I may miss something because we’re involved at a different level.
Brandon Boyd — And so what we try to do is just make sure that we’ve got avenues for people to ask questions, whether that’s having quick standup meetings before we run to a big initiative. We also run things where it’s kind of an integration meeting. So if we’re looking at Christmas, Easter, if we’re looking at another objective where we’re going to get everybody on the table and we’re going to walk through a checklist just to make sure even the most small, minute details are taken care of.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Brandon Boyd — Part of it is like we’re a stickler for excellence. So we would say excellence is our standard. And part of that is just kind where we are with Disney and Universal and theme parks all over everywhere that everybody that goes to our church already has an excellence experience whenever they go to that. So why can’t they have the same excellence level when they come to church on Sundays?
Rich Birch — Sure. Yeah.
Brandon Boyd — So.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. A big issue in growing churches is, you know, the people side. So it’s related to what we’re talking about. But as you’re scaling, you know, your team has to continue to grow as people. They have to, you know, step up their game as growth has accelerated. How are you accelerating whether people are operating at their best contribution? They’re kind of really leaning in, you know, and they’re kind of performing at their highest. How how have you been able to keep an eye on that?
Brandon Boyd — Yeah, I think this a growing thing for us. I’ve got a “no freak out” policy.
Rich Birch — Right. Good.
Brandon Boyd — So we’ve we’ve just got to talk through it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brandon Boyd — We’ve only got about 20 full time equivalents behind the scene.
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Brandon Boyd — So when you’re in a church that’s twenty seven hundred and then you add in kids, you’re easily at thirty two hundred on a weekend basis. We have to run lean and mean knowing that we’re trying to project out for when we need to hire additional staff members or we need to hire some part-time.
Brandon Boyd — We’re launching an internship program. And so what we’re trying to do is making sure that our staff team feels taken care of, feels heard, feels supported. And I think a lot of that is being accomplished by when we went from a flat organization, nobody, everybody knew who their boss was, but their boss didn’t know maybe what specifically what their directions were. So as we created the executive team, as we created the lead team, as we’ve got those ministry teams, we’ve created avenues for people to be able to feel supported and cared for.
Brandon Boyd — And so what I’ve said to our team is you’re caring for the people just down the rung for us. Obviously, Luke and I are caring for our entire team. But just making sure that we’ve got avenues for feedback, avenues for just encouragement, avenues for conversation.
Brandon Boyd — And then what we’re trying to figure out next is how do we hold people accountable? So how do we, yes, we’ve told people what’s expected from them. We actually created like a staff covenant for 2026. Like here here’s our expectations, just in case you’re you’re curious about what’s expected from you. And in case you’re caring, well, I was hired under this pastor and this was what the agreement was, that’s out the door. But as 2026 for Quay Church, just so we’re all entirely clear…
Rich Birch — That’s cool.
Brandon Boyd — …this is what we’re covenanting, not only, from us as a team, but to the Lord. And so we’ve got that. We’ve got accountability.
Rich Birch — What are some of the, just before we leave that, what what are some of the things that landed in that? You don’t have to get into this…
Brandon Boyd — Yeah.
Rich Birch —…but, you know kind of categories of things that you’re, you’re recovenanting around?
Brandon Boyd — We kind of made a joke that it sometimes we just, our volunteers, which we call stewards, they kind of outwork us.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brandon Boyd — And so like, hello, like we, we want to be the first one in and the last one out. And so in the covenant, it just talks about, Hey, we’re we’re going to be here for all the gatherings and we’re going to set the table and make sure that our house is ready to go before people show up.
Brandon Boyd — We’re going to covenant. If we’re going to ask our church family to do something, whether be in a group or tithe or whatever, those things that we ask from the platform, we’re going to do it first. So one of the things that I just said to our staff team today is, we need to give up parking in our staff parking lot and we need to park in the farthest spots away on our grass parking a lot.
Rich Birch — 100%, yep.
Brandon Boyd — So those spots are ready to go for people. And so it’s just little things like that, just making sure that we’re super clear so that there’s no shadow of a doubt that as we go into 2026 and we kind of anticipated that we would have another growth wave based upon what we saw in 2024 and 2025, that in 2026, we just need to be clear what was expected from them as people stepped into it.
Rich Birch — That’s cool. Well, when, you know, everything in a growth phase that you’re in, it can get chaotic pretty quickly, because everything feels urgent. It’s like, you know literally, even just the situation we talked about, and before we jumped on the call. It’s like, oh, my goodness, you know, we had a bunch of new more people show up that we’re excited they’re with us, but now we’ve got figure out how to keep them plugged in and all that.
Rich Birch — How do you keep from the urgency turning into chaos? What are you doing to try to really push back in some ways and and keep your team focused? And I like that no freak out, you know, no freak out policy. Like, hey, let’s not freak out. We’ll figure it out. But but what’s that functionally look like?
Brandon Boyd — I think part of it is it just goes back to our staff values. And so when we were looking, when I first came on board on this, on the church staff, Luke was like, Hey, we got to rebrand the church now. And I said, that’s a longer conversation that we need to roll out in a smart and healthy way. And also gives us time to cast vision.
Brandon Boyd — But that first fall that I was here in the fall of 2024, we rolled out staff values and we really go back to those staff values to help people understand they’re not just phrases that we stick up on a wall, but it’s who we are as ah as a culture, as a people. And so one of our values is that we want to build a kingdom over castles.
Rich Birch — Good.
Brandon Boyd — So we’re more interested in obviously the kingdom of the church, the kingdom of the Lord, and not your own necessary small little ministry thing at Quay Church. So everybody is all in on the broader conversation of the church. Like I told our staff team this past week, as we look towards the launch of the fourth gathering here in a few weeks: No matter what your role is, you’re all jumping in and helping make sure that facilities is ready to go the next day. No matter what your role is, we’re all going to be nimble and shift to it.
Brandon Boyd — Another phrase that we like to use is that we’re nimble over fragile. And so we don’t really hold on to things that that that we’re, that we created. We’re we we’re open-handed and open-palmed. It goes back to what I said earlier about stewardship. We’re just stewarding this whole thing. This isn’t ours. This is the Lord’s.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Brandon Boyd — That comes down from our lead pastor to our team. He models that so well. And so we really just kind of run with the staff values. Our other staff values are: we take the risk And so we’re willing to take risks for the gospel, whatever that looks like. We’re willing to push that forward. We want to be sled dogs over show dogs.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Brandon Boyd — And so we want to put in the good work and all pulled together in the same direction. “Slow is smooth and smooth is fast” is another one of our staff values. We believe that, yes, we can take time to make a decision, but once we make the decision, then we can run so much faster because we’ve got clarity. “Kingdom over castle” I already talked about. “Nimble over fragile.”
Brandon Boyd — And then a last one is we just want to burn the ships. And so this is the day that the Lord has for us. And so while we do look back in the past from time, the past is in the past, and we’ve got today. We’re not promised for tomorrow, obviously. And so what can we do now with what the Lord is doing in our church to make sure that the message of Jesus is available to people not only in this part of Windermere, but also throughout the other Orlando regions?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so cool. When you think about Quay today, what tells you that the church is becoming healthier not just bigger? i know there can be like criticisms of, and listen, that comes from a place of h being on the other side of these questions when I’ve led before where there’s like this criticism. They look at something like Quay and they’re like, oh, like that’s just whatever. It’s a fad. It’s going, you know, but that’s not the case. What are some of those, either metrics, or stories, or things that you see happening that say like, oh no, things are actually heading, not just bigger, but also healthier.
Brandon Boyd — It’s not like we have a growth strategy on my whiteboard over here and we’re like, hey, we got to hit this marker and this marker by then.
Rich Birch — Yes. Right.
Brandon Boyd — But I think what’s, I’ll just tell you a quick story.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Brandon Boyd — We’re in a collection of what we call Sermon Series Collection of Conversations. So we’re in a conversation about Song of Songs right now. We call it Divine Desire, and we’re walking through that.
Brandon Boyd — And the Lord has really blessed what we would call altar ministry. And so at the end of our gathering, especially during the last song, after the message has been communicated, people just come down to the front of the altar for prayer.
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Brandon Boyd — And we’ve got pastors, we’ve got elders, we’ve got deacons. And some of those things that are being communicated in those moments, like last fall, we had a gentleman come down and he said that he was cheating on his spouse and was repentant. And he’s like, I got to go get her now. And we’ve got to share this right now in this moment.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Brandon Boyd — So I think we’re seeing like real life transformation take place in the gatherings, obviously through the movement of the Holy Spirit. But then the Spirit is directing people to make inroads right now in that moment. Like don’t leave this building today before you’ve had a conversation with the Lord and you’ve confessed your sin.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Brandon Boyd — So I think from that perspective, I’ve just been able to see that happen and to see people really take their faith seriously in that moment, rather than just like coming to a worship gathering, getting in their car and going home.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I love that. That’s great. Any, you know, the talk to me a little bit more about the response time, the altar time. I would say this for sure is a “trends” may be the wrong word, but like we see more and more churches, you know, employing that, that tactic. What have you learned from just managing that as a normal part of your worship experience? What, what has been, and has that been an add in the last couple of years or has it always been there?
Brandon Boyd — I think it’s I think it’s been an add, but it hasn’t been like a programmatic element…
Rich Birch — Right.
Brandon Boyd — …that we’ve said, we’ve got to have altar ministry. I think it’s just been a movement of the Lord. So last spring we had we had this moment where it was our last gathering of the morning was at 11:45. And then we had this altar ministry where people just stayed and prayed after the end. And I don’t even remember what Luke spoke on. That started at 1:00 basically, and didn’t wrap up till 6 p.m. that night.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Brandon Boyd — So we’re not manufacturing any of this.
Rich Birch — No. Yeah, yeah.
Brandon Boyd — I think it’s just the Lord. And I think it’s just being sensitive to what the Lord is doing. And I think it’s the courage of not only Luke, our pastor, but other people that fill the pulpit when Luke isn’t there, that says, hey, don’t leave this room.
Brandon Boyd — Our worship pastor, Justin Melton, does a great job of this at the end of each gathering. Don’t leave this room before you’ve talked to somebody, if the Lord is prompting that. So I think from a programmatic standpoint, we just want to be open-handed and just provide opportunities for people either to come forward or go to the next step space to have a conversation. And so it’s just been really remarkable to watch.
Brandon Boyd — Like at first, I was kind of like, what in the world is going on? These people are just getting out of their seats and coming down front. But that altar ministry is not only prevalent in our Sunday morning worship gatherings, it’s prevalent in our student gatherings, whether that’s Wednesday night for middle school or Sunday nights for high school, and Thursday nights for our young adults. So it’s just something that the Lord is kind of stirring in and through our church.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I was visiting, maybe 18 months ago, I was visiting a church. It was, the year before it was the second fastest growing church in the country. And showed up, and there was nothing about the kind of my pre-experience with this church that would have led me to believe that like, oh, altar time was going to be a part of their experience. And but very similarly, at the end of the the service, it was very like nonchalant is is the wrong word, but it wasn’t it was not a programmatic. We are, you know people know what we’re talking about.
Brandon Boyd — Yeah, yeah.
Rich Birch — Like we’re not, we’re not trying to, we’re not doing anything to get people to respond. And I would say, I don’t know, two thirds of the room got up and came down or, you know, half the room, it was like a huge portion of the room got up and came down. And I remember talking to the lead guy the next thing, he’s a good friend of mine. And I was like, like trying to pick it apart and understand it from a process point of view. And he was like, Rich man, the fact that we don’t totally understand it is a part of what we think that God’s using, right? Which is is beautiful. So that’s, that’s great to hear. That’s cool.
Rich Birch — Are you doing anything with your elders or staff team to train towards that? Because you want to make sure that, you know, the people that are receiving some of that, you know, are kind of thought about it ahead of time before they got down there. Is anything you’re doing on that front?
Brandon Boyd — Yeah, we’ve had training conversations and just how to be receptive to what people are sharing and knowing that we’ve we’ve done that with our elders, with our deacons and our staff team and pastors. and
Rich Birch — Sure.
Brandon Boyd — But some of that is obviously there’s there’s going to be greater needs that extend past a Sunday.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brandon Boyd — So what is the immediate conversation that we need to have? But then if it’s a counseling issue, how can we refer them to a counseling partner?
Rich Birch — Right.
Brandon Boyd — Are there things that we can handle internally? Part of it is like we’ve just had this rapid growth in our church where it’s like you would assume if you come to our church that we would have this ministry, this handoff, this handoff. So another thing that we’ve had to do this past year is kind of build those handoffs as we’ve experienced some of these altar ministry things.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Brandon Boyd — Yeah.
Rich Birch — That’s cool. Well, it’s been a fantastic conversation. What kind of final words would you have or encouragement would you have to a leader who’s maybe experiencing, obviously what you’re experiencing is super unique across the country, but is maybe experiencing a season of growth that there’s, Hey, there’s, we’re experiencing more momentum. We’re seeing this across the country in a number of churches, but what would you, what would your kind of final words be to them as we wrap up today’s conversation?
Brandon Boyd — I think for me, just the final thing that I’d like to say, Rich, is it’s easy to feel overwhelmed.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Brandon Boyd — I’ve felt overwhelmed in this season, and it’s okay to acknowledge that. And so just to have that space with my lead pastor where I can go into him and just say, look, I’m overwhelmed. I’m going to be okay. But I just want you to know that I am overwhelmed. And then being able to be transparent with our elder board about that. I think that’s just ah a feeling of, as if you’re in a fast-growing church like this situation or other situations, where it’s okay just to acknowledge we’re humans. You don’t have to act like a superhuman, that everything is okay.
Rich Birch — Right
Brandon Boyd — But just to say, hey, I’m overwhelmed and it’s a season. And then being able to express that not only to your lead pastor, to your elders, but I’ve got friends outside of Orlando that are in pastoral ministry that understand what that feels like. So just creating that network of being able to say that. Because what my fear is that people can just get overwhelmed and can get burned out and can say like, I hate the church. I don’t want to be a pastor anymore. And I believe that the when the Lord calls you, he’s also going to equip you. And so at the same time, you just need to be able to voice that and just say like, I am overwhelmed. We are going to make it through it, but here’s some things that I need help on.
Rich Birch — That’s so good. Brandon, I really appreciate you being on today and taking time out of your schedule, packed schedule, I’m sure, to help us today.
Brandon Boyd — Yeah.
Rich Birch — So I really appreciate that. If people want to connect with Quay, connect with you, kind of track with the story, where do we want to send them online?
Brandon Boyd — Yeah, so you can go to our social media. That’s @quaychurch, Q-U-A-Y Church. Also, quaychurch.org. And then I’m on Instagram @bgboyd.
Rich Birch — Nice. That’s great. Thanks so much for being here today.
Brandon Boyd — Yep, my pleasure.
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Dr. Allen Holmes, Senior Pastor of Definition Church. Allen has served at Definition for 25 years, leading it from a congregation of 30 people to one of the fastest-growing churches in the country. But in this conversation, we don’t start with strategy—we start with the soul. Allen shares how a personal marriage crisis early in ministry exposed deep character issues and launched him on a decades-long journey of spiritual formation that has shaped both his leadership and his church.
Is it possible that the greatest lid on your ministry isn’t your strategy—but your inner life? Allen challenges leaders to rethink success, crisis, and longevity through the lens of character formation.
- Pressure reveals who you really are. // Leadership rarely collapses because of incompetence—it collapses because pressure exposes unaddressed character issues. Early in seminary and marriage, Allen’s wife told him she didn’t love him and didn’t want to remain in ministry. The crisis shattered his sense of calling and identity. Allen—by God’s grace—was able to ask: What in me has produced this? That shift from defensiveness to humility marked the beginning of deep transformation.
- From gifted producer to formed leader. // Allen explains that many leaders are rewarded for production, not formation. A gifted communicator can build a crowd while remaining insecure, defensive, and relationally immature. You can be a great producer and a poor leader. True leadership requires learning to lead yourself. For Allen, that meant confronting independence, insecurity, and relational blind spots—issues rooted in his upbringing that were sabotaging both marriage and ministry.
- Prioritizing presence over performance. // The turning point in Allen’s growth was deceptively simple: he began prioritizing his relationship with Jesus. Guided by a mentor, he learned to read Scripture for formation rather than information and to cultivate rhythms of prayer, worship, and dependence on the Holy Spirit. Ministry leaders face an occupational hazard—handling Scripture transactionally for sermons while neglecting personal communion with Christ. For Allen, consistent morning surrender became the foundation for long-term sustainability.
- Marriage as spiritual formation. // Allen describes marriage as God’s primary classroom for sanctification. Drawing from the biblical metaphor of Christ and the Church, he explains how learning to live in the presence of his wife taught him how to live in the presence of God. Simple daily rhythms—morning prayer, consistent check-ins, shared meals, evening walks, praying together—have sustained their relationship for decades. Rather than competing with ministry, his marriage strengthens it. What God forms privately shapes what leaders produce publicly.
- Culture flows from character. // Over 25 years, Allen’s commitment to personal formation has shaped Definition Church’s culture. Every staff member has a “rule of life” and an intentional growth plan. Personal development is written into job descriptions as the number-one responsibility. Staff are given monthly retreat days to spend extended time alone with Jesus. Spiritual practices are embedded into the life of the church. Allen believes you reproduce who and what you are—so the greatest contribution a leader can make is becoming more like Christ.
- The power of staying. // Allen notes that lasting impact often requires long tenure. His senior leadership team has served together for decades, building trust and shared formation. In a skeptical culture, credibility grows through consistency. But longevity without formation is dangerous. The process prepares leaders for the purpose; bypassing the process risks collapse. Like Joseph’s journey from entitlement to anointing in the Old Testament, leaders must pass through refining seasons before they can steward influence well.
To learn more about Definition Church, explore their resources, and connect with Allen, visit definition.church.
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Portable Church
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Today’s going to be a really good conversation. It’s one of those conversations that I think we all need to have, looked carefully at, think about ourselves, think about the teams we lead. I really do think it’s one of those make or break kind of conversations. And so you’ll be rewarded for tuning in today.
Rich Birch — Excited to have Dr. Allen Holmes with us. He’s a senior pastor of a church called Definition Church. He’s been there since 2000, so a few years. They’re located in North Carolina and is one of the fastest growing churches in the country. They have a residency program as well that’s called to train and develop next generation of mission-minded ministry leaders. And believing that generosity is a privilege, Definition Church also partners with a number of other ministries, churches, and organizations to really serve their community. Dr. Allen, so glad you’re here. Thanks for being here today.
Allen Holmes — Wow. Well, I’m so excited to be here, Rich, and appreciate the invitation.
Rich Birch — Oh, this is going to be a fun conversation. Why don’t you kind of fill out the picture?
Allen Holmes — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Tell us a little bit about Definition. Kind of tell us the story. Give us a sense of the church.
Allen Holmes — Well, my wife and I, we grew up down in Wilmington, which is on the coast of North Carolina. In 2000, we were finishing seminary and looking for a church, really looking for a city where we could plant our life and stay in one place kind of forever. And we were in a small town. Our first church was in a small town of about 1500. And Greensboro was one of the cities we visited, and there was a church here that had lost their pastor. They only had about 30 people.
Allen Holmes — And the truth is that was safe and kind of gave us a a lot of freedom to make mistakes and learn and grow as leaders and as a man and a woman, as a married couple, as parents, you know, all the things without mistakes, really the pressure of a big church and a lot of expectations. And that was perfect for us. And and we fell in love with the city and it’s been 25 years now. It’s hard to believe that. And and but we love it here. Greensboro’s home now and and Definition’s been great to us.
Rich Birch — So good. Well, I want to take advantage of the fact that you’ve been at your location, at your church for a number of years. When you look back over two and a half decades of ministry, and you know you’ve seen a lot of churches in your community, and then just even wider you know across the country, that sort of thing. Where have you seen leadership fall apart in churches? We’ll start with the negative to start.
Allen Holmes — Yeah.
Rich Birch — When’s it break down most often? Why does, you know, why do the wheels come off? Where have you seen that happen?
Allen Holmes — You know, I think generally it’s just anything that creates pressure. So I think we have a tendency to train and prepare as leaders when there’s no pressure.
Rich Birch — Right.
Allen Holmes — And then all of a sudden we find ourselves in a situation where there’s a tremendous amount of pressure. And in those moments, it’s not what we know that matters, but who we are.
Rich Birch — So true.
Allen Holmes — It kind of gets it gets exposed. And this happened for me the first time I was in seminary. It was my second semester. My wife, Tina, and I had just gotten married. So we were five months into marriage. I was living my dream. I mean, seminary for, you know, somebody who wants to be a pastor is like Disney World, right? I mean, I’m in class every day studying the Bible, surrounded by all these people that love Jesus. I’ve got this vision for changing the world. I mean, it was just wonderful.
Allen Holmes — And in month five, towards the end of that second semester, I came home and and my wife wasn’t doing well. I didn’t realize, you know, how bad it was. But that day I came home and she said, I don’t love you.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Allen Holmes — And I don’t want to be married. I will never be in the ministry. I’m going home.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Allen Holmes — And it’s like, all of a sudden, my whole world just began to fall apart. You know, at that stage of life, the only thing that really mattered to me was ministry. You know I had this call, this sense of calling. And my marriage.
Allen Holmes — I really I grew up in a broken home, really didn’t have any family. And my wife and actually her family were family to me.
Rich Birch — Right.
Allen Holmes — And so in that moment, it felt like I was losing everything that mattered.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Allen Holmes — And I realized that despite all of my gifts and my zeal and my passion and my good intentions, beneath the surface, I had all of this on all of these unaddressed issues from my life story that were now coming to the surface and creating a mess in my marriage. And that crisis, that pressure exposed those things and created an opportunity for me to learn and grow. And by God’s grace, we dropped out of seminary, we moved back home. And I met Dr. Bennett, who became a mentor to me. He was a retired pastor.
Allen Holmes — And I just started this journey of instead of being focused on just what I do and what I could produce, which is all I knew up until that moment, to really asking some deeper questions about who am I? And what’s driving all of this behavior and what’s creating this problem in my marriage? And how do I invite Christ to really do a deeper work in my heart and life and character? And and I’ve been on that journey now for almost 30 years.
Rich Birch — Wow. That’s incredibly compelling. One of my mentors, he talks about how he burnt out early and he had kind of, you know, ended up on the side of the road and, you know, in a really bad spot in life. And he says, he looks back on that and says, wow, by by God’s grace, that happened.
Allen Holmes — Right.
Rich Birch — You know, and, and wow, that, you know, his whole, it changed the whole trajectory of you know his life and he made a whole bunch of changes. And he feels really, in a weird sort of way, thankful for for that, if even though you’re thankful, it feels like a weird emotion to have around such a crisis you know in you know in your life.
Allen Holmes — Right.
Rich Birch — Now, so many leaders, we’re so focused on the mission. We’re so focused on leading others. We’re so focused on pushing forward. We miss this stuff. There’s there are these things bubbling under the surface. And and we haven’t had the grace of a wife who would raise her hand and say, hey, this enough is enough. Why do you think that gap is so common in ministry? Why is this just like a thing we see all the time?
Allen Holmes — Well, I think to your point, in ministry, just like not just in ministry, but any organizational leadership, you’re rewarded and celebrated for what you produce. And the truth is that’s all most people can see. I mean, when my marriage blew up, if you would have gone around and interviewed my friends, my family, Tina’s family, my professors, if you would have asked anybody about me, they would have said, Allen’s a rising star. He loves God. I mean, he he’s doing all the stuff. He’s checking all the boxes. This guy’s going to really be somebody one day.
Allen Holmes — But what you couldn’t see is that beneath the surface, I didn’t know who I was. And I was insecure. I was defensive. I was independent. I really didn’t know how to do relationships well. I was insensitive.
Allen Holmes — I didn’t have like a bad, ugly heart. I mean, I loved and cared about people. I just had all of these unaddressed, unfinished issues in my life. But my giftedness would allow me to produce despite that.
Allen Holmes — You know, I think sometimes people um wonder why are leaders great at leading, but, you know, they struggle to lead themselves. I’m not sure that’s really a real thing. What leaders are good at doing is they’re great at producing. They’re not great at leading if they’re not great at leading themselves. In other words, I can be a great producer and a bad leader.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Allen Holmes — I can be great on stage and draw a crowd and kind of be a slave-driving leader. And it might, from a numbers perspective and people that aren’t close, they look at it and think, wow, this is wildly successful. But the people on the inner circle know better, that the culture is unhealthy and and this person’s, you know, shallow or he’s a tyrant or whatever the, you know, whatever the case might be.
Allen Holmes — There’s all kinds of ways to build a crowd in American culture today that have very little to do with Jesus. And we’ve seen that over and over and over again. So I think in order to be a great leader, you have to be able and willing to lead yourself.
Rich Birch — So what did that process look like for you the kind of internal journey of trying to name what your wife had or or define maybe what your wife had named to really get clarity on that? Maybe unpack that step a little bit first before we get on to what changed. You know, how how did you, what did that look like? How, what kind of space did you have to create? What, what, did where did that, what did that part of the journey take you?
Allen Holmes — Yeah, that’s a great question. You know, when I look back on all this, I’m, you know, I’m just so grateful for God’s grace because I didn’t even understand the process I was in. I mean, you know, I was just in it and trying to navigate it. But by God’s grace, I decided to ask the question, what in my character has produced this in my marriage. And what’s really shocking about that is all of my seminary buddies were saying, what is wrong with your wife?
Rich Birch — Right.
Allen Holmes — And I, by God’s grace, was saying, what’s wrong with me?
I had enough humility to look at my wife and go, you know, I married this woman because she was so full of grace and kind and gentle, this beautiful soul, this beautiful person. So if she’s reacting this way, chances are she’s not the problem. You know, sometimes.
Rich Birch — Wow. Wow.
Allen Holmes — Something about our relationship is producing that. And actually, so what it was is, my wife grew up in this really great, healthy family, parent, two-parent home, siblings, people in her house all the time. Her mom cooked every night. I ate at their house five nights a week. I mean, it’s like their family became my family.
Rich Birch — Right.
Allen Holmes — Well, I grew up with none of that. I grew up with a single mom, basically all by myself, raising myself. And those two worlds just collided. So when we went seminary, I was doing school full-time and working full-time, and she was working full-time. And I thought, well, that was normal. That’s what I’d been doing for years and years. I’d worked my way through college. I’d been and on my own since I was 18.
Allen Holmes — And so that seemed normal. But for Tina, it’s like she went from living in this beautiful community to being all by herself at seminary, and I’m not even there.
Rich Birch — Right, right. Wow.
Allen Holmes — And she’s and so she was relationally just dying, and I didn’t know how to be sensitive to that. You know, I wanted to just say, you know, get over it. Life’s hard…
Rich Birch — Right.
Allen Holmes — …which would not have worked.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes.
Allen Holmes — You know But I just had enough grace to begin asking, God, what are you trying to do in my heart? And and like you were saying earlier about your buddy, the thing I would say today, if I would have married a woman strong enough to tolerate that moment, I would have been I would have never survived in ministry because I would have been a driven, legalistic, judgmental, demanding kind of pastor that that really, I think, used the Bible to beat people up.
Allen Holmes — And I mean, instead of being a man who really actually experienced, I guess, an inner this inner, deeper work and can invite people into something that is deeply spiritual and transformational and life-giving, you know, I would have just been this ugly, difficult pastor to be with. And so I’m so grateful. I mean, that that really began this journey that just changed and has literally touched everything about my life and ministry and our marriage today. I mean, it’s amazing.
Rich Birch — Yeah. So what, what changed? What, how did you change your, you know, approach to making decisions, to dealing with the pressure, dealing with the pace? You know, obviously we were kind of at the point in the journey where you took a pause and made some changes, but eventually, you know, you ended up back on that path and back into ministry and have been leading and the ministry has been flourishing. So what were some of the, the kind of shifts that you made that were that, in hindsight seemed like that was, those were keystone decisions.
Allen Holmes — Well, this sounds so silly to even say it, especially to Christian leaders, but I had to prioritize my relationship with Jesus.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Allen Holmes — Well, there’s a good idea.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, exactly. Write that down. What did he say? No but that’s true, though. Lean in on that because you know that there are…
Allen Holmes — Yes.
Rich Birch — Listen, we all know we go, we all go through seasons where that our relationship goes colder. Some of us, we, you know, we just, it’s been like years, decades since we feel like we’ve had a thriving relationship. So lean in on that.
Allen Holmes — Well, you know, it’s interesting when I when we moved back to Wilmington and I started spending time with Dr. Bennett, he just he just pressed me on that all the time. Give your mornings to Jesus. Give your mornings to Jesus. And I just began learning how do I develop a meaningful time with Jesus every day? How do I read the Bible for formation instead of information.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Allen Holmes — And how, you know, how do I worship for formation? How do I what is my relationship to the Holy Spirit and inviting him into those moments to help me see and to understand, to teach and to heal and to counsel me into healing, wholeness, growth, all those things.
Allen Holmes — You know, how do I press into community? You know, I was so independent. And the truth is, I mean, 30 years later, I’m still working on this.
Rich Birch — Right.
Allen Holmes — I was so trained to be independent and I liked being independent. I wasn’t unhappy independent…
Rich Birch — Right.
Allen Holmes — …but independence allows you to hold on to your immaturity because nobody’s challenging it.
Rich Birch — Nobody’s in your business.
Allen Holmes — Nobody’s confronted. That’s right. And so I just began really developing that time with Jesus and just fell in love with spending time with Jesus. And again, that that changed everything. And again, as silly as that sounds, I’ve been in so many groups. It’s kind of shocking how often I’m with pastors and they just say, I just, I don’t have time to read my Bible.
Rich Birch — Right.
Allen Holmes — I don’t have time to worship. I can’t give 15 or 20 minutes in the mornings to the Lord. And it’s like, if that if that’s true, then something is just so out of order about our life and ministry. And we’ve not learned to juggle all of that. And because we’re not handling that well, so many pastors, they don’t finish in ministry.
Rich Birch —Right.
Allen Holmes — Ministry chews them up and spits them out. And so we have to make that the priority. So important. So important.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I really appreciate that. I appreciate you leaning in on that. And this is an area where it’s an occupational hazard in what we’ve picked to do…
Allen Holmes — Oh, yeah. That’s right.
Rich Birch — …because our our job is to produce that in other people. And so we have to handle the scripture in in a way, you know, it’s like a part of what we do to produce the content we produce or whatever that is. And it can become very transactional if we don’t watch. And so I really appreciate you leaning in on that.
Allen Holmes — That’s exactly right.
Rich Birch — What about on the married side? What advice would you give? Again, you’ve, you’ve are happily married today and you know, all these years later.
Allen Holmes — Yeah, that’s right.
Rich Birch — And, what, what rhythms have you found that have worked well for you and your wife, for you to continue to lead and to lead, you know, at a high level. The reason why we’re talking is because you’re leading a fast-growing church.
Allen Holmes — Yeah.
Rich Birch — But, you know, you’re doing that and keeping your marriage. What are some of the rhythms that you, that you help coach other, maybe younger leaders to, to really instill on that side, to, to, to be, to be whole on that side?
Allen Holmes — One of the things that was so helpful early on is recognizing that my marriage was God’s gift to me to learn, not just to grow and to mature as a man, but even to learn to walk with God.
Allen Holmes — And one of the things you see in Scripture over and over and over again is the primary metaphor God uses to describe our relationship with Him as a husband and a wife, that we’re the bride of Christ.
Allen Holmes — And what I found is that my marriage and my relationship with Jesus were running in parallel. So if I learned something with Tina, it strengthened my relationship with Jesus. And when I would learn something with Jesus, it would actually strengthen my relationship with Tina, that they were you know playing off of each other that way.
Allen Holmes — And so as Tina and I started working on our marriage, I mean, it was it was as simple like even when I think about giving my mornings to God. When I wake up every day, the first thing I do is I roll over on my knees. I acknowledge Jesus, you are my king, king of my heart and life.
Allen Holmes — I invite the Holy Spirit to fill me fresh for that day. And I probably pray there three to five minutes, and then I roll over on my back and put my hand on my sleeping wife. And I just take a minute and begin praying and and blessing my wife.
Allen Holmes — And then I’ll get up and I’ll I’ll kind of have of usually a couple hours where I can just be in the Word, I can worship, I can be in so have silence and solitude and just allow God to minister to my soul. And then i don’t ever leave the house without giving my wife a kiss, telling her I love her, embracing her.
Allen Holmes — During the day, I’m going to check in two or three times. How’s your day going? What’s going on with you? You know, if I’m driving somewhere or between meetings, you know, little quick touches.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Allen Holmes — When I get home, I’m going to walk in the house. The first thing I’m going do is I’m going to find Tina. We’re going to eat dinner together that night. At the end of the day, we’re going to maybe go on a walk that night. We may get in bed and just both be reading a book for a little bit. We might talk about our day or what’s going on with our kids or life.
Allen Holmes — Before we go to bed, before we go to sleep, we’ll pray together. And again, I want to make sure that I’m affirming my love for… When I describe all of that to people and what I try to tell them is have a response. The Christian life is learning to live in the presence of God. And marriage is learning to live in the presence of your wife.
Allen Holmes — And so I know throughout the day what’s going on in the heart of my wife and how to love and serve her well, even when I’m here at work. And as a Christian, I’ve got to learn how do I live in the presence of God and recognize he’s always with me. And I want to bring Jesus into every moment, every meeting, every decision. And versus I have devotional time and I leave God at home. And then I come to work and do my work.
Allen Holmes — So that’s just one example. As I learned how to do that with Tina, I saw how to apply to my relationship with God and vice versa.
Rich Birch — That’s so good. Yeah, that’s so helpful. Let’s talk about how your internal life and your own growth and your own staying close to him, what impact has that had on the church, on your team, on the people you lead? How do you see those two, you know, working together?
Allen Holmes — Yeah, that’s a great question. So part of it is you reproduce who and what you are.
Rich Birch — True.
Allen Holmes — So what we’re describing, and of course, I’ve got 25 years of this, and so that gives me a little bit of an advantage in that regard because this takes time to build. You know, it doesn’t happen overnight. But when this has been kind of the direction of your life for over 25 years, then it becomes the direction of the organization and the people that you lead. And so on our on our church staff and our church and the way we do ministry, the way our we you know our mission is all affected by what we’re talking about.
Allen Holmes — And so our staff, that you know, they all have a rule of life. They all have a very intentional plan a plan for their spiritual and personal and leadership growth in their life. And and we work as a team to to facilitate that. In fact, in our job descriptions, their number one responsibility is their personal growth and development. And we tell them all the time, the greatest thing you can do for everyone in your life is to learn and grow as a leader. That’s the greatest contribution you can make. When you do that, you everybody comes up. you You bless everybody. So work harder on who you are than what you’re building.
Allen Holmes — And so we just emphasize that. And and then we do little things like, you know, in our in our church culture, we once a month, they have a retreat day where they’re required to go and be alone with Jesus for a whole day. And they’re being paid to do it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Allen Holmes — It’s their, you know, it’s part of their job. We emphasize a spiritual practice every month, and we’re doing that in all of our groups, and we model that as a staff. Like in January, our spiritual practice is fasting, and we’re about to begin you know a season of prayer and fasting like a lot of churches do in January. And so that’s integrated into everything that we’re doing as a church and to our staff. They’re encouraged to do that, and so we’re just constantly making sure that they’re learning and growing. And then that begins to shape the culture your church. It shapes your ability to actually make disciples in your church. I mean, at the end of the day, if on a scale of 1 to 10, as a follower of Christ, if I’m a five, I can only lead three and fours…
Rich Birch — Right.
Allen Holmes — …and I can only attract twos.
Rich Birch — Right.
Allen Holmes — And then there’s nobody that I can help, right?
Rich Birch — Right. Yes. Yes.
Allen Holmes — Because I’m already at the bottom.
Rich Birch — Right. Right. Yeah.
Allen Holmes — But if I can be an eight and lead sixes and sevens and attract four and fives, then we can reach down and help the two and threes get up, you know. So my what God is doing in me, and that’s true for everybody on our team, is the greatest contribution they can make, and it brings everybody up. And so that’s just really worked into our culture.
Rich Birch — Think at like from a diagnostic point of view. A church calls you up and they feel stuck organizationally. They feel like, man, things are just, they’re not going well. When you take a call like that, is your reflex to go towards, well, where are things with the with the leadership team internally?
Rich Birch — Or you know do we start organizationally? Hey, let’s fix a couple of things. Help us talk think Help us think through um how do you handle that kind of conversation? Or how does this conversation inform a conversation like that when it comes your way?
Allen Holmes — That’s a great question. I mean, generally my response will be, I’ll tell people really, if you need organizational, just kind of practical, how do I do it information, I just give them some resources, you know, so I’ll send them, go to the Grow Conference. They’re probably the best in the world at it.
Rich Birch — Yeah, they’re so good.
Allen Holmes — They can tell you how to do these different things. But then I want to come back to the thing I think we can help you with is really the soul of your organization, which is a reflection of what God’s doing in you. So let’s talk about who you are as a leader, the way you live your life, the way you lead your staff, the culture that you’re building and creating. Because ultimately, if you get all these systems, but you don’t have culture, culture trumps systems every single time.
Rich Birch — Right.
Allen Holmes — And when you get the systems and the culture right, you begin, everybody’s attracted to that. In fact, I think maybe one of the big problems in Western culture, and this is hard to admit, but I think the church has to admit this, is that people, people are not going to church. Church attendance is on decline, but it’s not because people don’t want God. They’re just not convinced they can find him at church.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, that’s so true. Yeah.
Allen Holmes — I mean, they’re they’re spiritually hungry, but the cultures of our church, people come into that culture and what they kind of intuitively know is that this doesn’t feel healthy or spiritual. So you can create all the systems you want and send out flyers and do all kinds of things. But if people show up at your church and what they intuitively know is that this isn’t healthy and spiritual, you can’t grow your church. So you have to begin there.
Allen Holmes —It’s also true if it is healthy and spiritual, even if your systems are a little suspect, people will tolerate a lot of a lot of that because they’re so spiritually hungry. And I think that’s more true than ever before.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s very true. Yeah. Well, yeah, my good friend, Carey Nieuwhof, he says like, man, it would be so sad if people came to our churches and all they found was us, right? You know, at the end of the day, right? Like we were trying to point them to Jesus and as as kind of elementary as it sounds, but it’s just so true.
Rich Birch — If there isn’t something happening there that’s bigger than just what they can get anywhere else, why would they come to us? Why would they engage in our churches? Yeah, that’s that’s…
Allen Holmes — You know, we just came through Christmas, and and one of the things that I think Protestants miss is is when we think about Christmas, we think about Emmanuel, God with us. We think about the incarnation, God became flesh, and we think that’s something that happened 2,000 years ago. And the truth is, that’s supposed to be true of the church today. We are the body of Christ.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Allen Holmes — God in us. And when that’s true, people, when they show up at our churches or show up at our dinner table, they should experience Jesus when they’re with us because we’re becoming more and more like him.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah, it’s good.
Allen Holmes — And then our life gives validity to our message.
Rich Birch — Well, one of the things I’m working on a book for for churches about breaking the 2,000 barrier. And one of the interesting stats that we’ve bumped into is that oftentimes the, when a church breaks the 2,000 barrier, the senior leader and often the senior leadership team have been there for going on two decades, 18 years, 19 years, 22 years. Like it’s just a really common pattern you see.
Rich Birch — Now that’s not the perception. Our perception is like, oh, there’s like the just add water mega fast church that just explodes and it all happens. But that actually isn’t the normative pattern. the Normative pattern is it’s it takes a long time. You’ve been at your church for 25 years. Talk us through how longevity, how does that tie into this conversation? How does it tie into the impact you’re seeing, you know, at Definition? Talk us through that.
Allen Holmes — Yeah. You know, it’s interesting when I, one of the other real key moments for me is I went back to do my doctorate of ministry degree at Gordon-Conwell in redemptive leadership. And so much of what we were studying is how God works in the crisis, in these pressure moments to, you know, expose the unfinished places in our character so that we can grow and become more like Jesus and therefore maximize our kingdom impact in the world.
Allen Holmes — And one of my professors, Dr. Powers, he actually wrote a book called Redemptive Leadership. It’s a simple little book, but profound, where he describes leadership development in five stages. And stage one is is a skilled leader where you get a leadership role just based on your skill. So maybe the ability to preach. And so they call you to be the pastor. That’s how I became the pastor of my first church. I could preach. I hadn’t done anything else. But they let me be a pastor because I can preach.
Allen Holmes — And then the second stage is a principal leader where you begin to understand why you do what you do. But the third stage, which is so important, is the character stage. And in order for a leader to go through the character stage, God always uses a crisis to bring him into that stage. But when he comes into that stage, he has a choice.
Allen Holmes — In that stage, he can open his heart and allow God to do that deeper work, or he can go back and hide behind his skills and principle. And that’s what pastors do a lot of times. The reason you see this turnover every, you know, depending on what statistic you read, every two to four years, pastors are leaving churches is because they come into a church and they have this honeymoon season, and then all of a sudden there’s a crisis that exposes some things, and they start floating their resume and hiding behind their skill, rather than allowing God to deal with their character so that they can advance and become a transformative, redemptive leader.
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Allen Holmes — So I think one of the things that’s been so true for us is we’ve just tried to say to people, when there’s a crisis, don’t panic, don’t run away, see it as an opportunity.
Rich Birch — Right.
Allen Holmes — In fact, I ended up doing my dissertation on the idea that if we could teach this model to leaders, that it would cause them to respond differently in the crisis. Instead of running from it, they would run to it and open their heart, and God could use that to really propel them into their redemptive future. And the research said that was true.
Allen Holmes — And so we’ve tried to really work that in our culture to understand when something goes wrong, don’t run away and don’t hide.
Rich Birch — Right.
Allen Holmes — Let’s run into it and trust God to meet us there so that this thing, God works redemptively to use it for your benefit and to launch you into your future. And because that’s been our culture, people have stuck around. I mean, my lead team, Rick has been here 25 years. He’s actually here two Sundays longer than I’ve been here.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Allen Holmes — Eric’s been here 24 years. Jonathan’s been here 19 years. Steve’s been Chelsea’s been here almost this year will be 14 years. Steve’s been here 10 years. I mean, so they’ve just been here a long, long, long time, and that but that’s why, is that they’ve seen these moments and we’ve helped them to find God in it so that actually works for us instead of against us.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s that’s great. I love that. You know, I think if more churches, if more leaders had the mindset, even as we led our people that like, hey, if they come to us and it feels like there’s a crisis brewing here, I do feel like our culture is so bent towards like, it’s not just them leaving, it’s us leaving them. It’s like, okay, time’s up, you’re done, like move on. We would never say it that way because we’re better Christians and we know, but but that’s the vibe we give people.
Allen Holmes — Right.
Rich Birch — And And I do think it’s been interesting as we’ve been looking really from a church growth point of view, this is a really sticky trend that we see that it’s like you, the key leaders have to be here for a long time. And it makes sense on lots of levels.
Allen Holmes — Right.
Rich Birch — This level, it makes sense. It makes sense on just like community influence. Like you you have to be around for a long time. People are super suspicious of the church and they’re not You know, they don’t come like that maybe 30 years ago, people trusted the church. Well, that’s just not true anymore.
Allen Holmes — Right.
Rich Birch — And so when you’re around for a long time that, you know, that makes a difference. And it’s hard to, it’s not like a really pithy bullet point because it’s like, well, just stick around. But it is, it’s critically important to the, you know, to the overall mix.
Allen Holmes — Yeah, you know, that make that reminds me of a couple of things. One, one of the, think, things we have to be careful about today is I think we are doing such a good job of planting churches. We’re all for church planting. We just help the church in our city plant. We’re about to launch somebody out next year to plant under the church. I mean, that’s a fantastic thing, but we’ve gotten so good at it.
Allen Holmes — If you’re a 30-year-old and you plant a church and you start with 500 on day one, it could be detrimental to your spiritual journey. And we just have to kind of recognize that.
Rich Birch — Talk more about that. Why would that be?
Allen Holmes — Well, like when I think about myself, when I came to Definition, we had about 30 people, and we did not average 100 for an entire year until my seventh year here.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Allen Holmes — Now, during those seven years, I thought it was the greatest church in America. I mean, we were having a good time, and we were basically a college ministry more than a church back then. When I came, we had an older congregation, but my first Sunday, 15 college students showed up.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Allen Holmes — And, of course, I was only 26, and so I naturally gravitated towards them. We kind of became this college ministry, and it wasn’t until several years later that they were old enough to get married and start having babies that we actually became a real church. And, uh, but during that time, the truth is God, I just believe God was in that because I was still so young and inexperienced and immature as a man and leader that the last thing I needed was any more success.
Allen Holmes — It would have really, success can really blind you to your areas of, you know, where you need really need to grow. In fact, one of the things that you see in several places in Scripture, and one of the things that we tell our church all that time, that the Christian life is a lifelong, transformational journey with Christ.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Allen Holmes — And you see this in several places in Scripture. Let me give you a couple examples. You think about Joseph. I don’t if you’ve ever thought about this story, but I was preaching on it a couple of years ago, and I realized in this story, there are three times that Joseph has a coat. His first coat as a child is a coat of entitlement, and it needs to be ripped off.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Allen Holmes — His next coat was given by Pharaoh. It’s a coat of self-sufficiency. It needs to be ripped off, and Potiphar’s wife took it off. And then third, there’s a coat of anointing where he’s come through this crucible. He’s come through these seasons of pain and struggle and wrestling and and suffering that has produced this character. And now God can elevate him and give him almost unlimited power and authority without the threat of him abusing it.
Allen Holmes — Well, without that process, God could never. If God puts any man in that position without that process, it destroys you. I mean, you you’re not prepared. You can’t handle that. You know, tell people all the time that one of the reasons God doesn’t just tell us our future, you know, people are always wanting to know, you know, what’s God going to do?
Allen Holmes — And the truth is, if God told us what we were going to be doing in 10 years, we’d try to go there tomorrow. And the process prepares us for our purpose. You cannot bypass the process…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Allen Holmes — …and still fulfill your purpose.
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Allen Holmes — And so God works in that that challenge. I think about Psalm 23, and I think Psalm 23 describes three stages. First stage is that I’m this child. I’m very young and immature in my faith. And then I become this warrior. And then I eventually become friend. But I have to go through the valley of the shadow of death to get up that mountain in order to be a friend of God.
Allen Holmes — And there’s no way to bypass that. it’s seeing you You see this over and over and over again in scripture. And it’s just part of our sanctification. It’s the way God works in our lives.
Rich Birch — It’s so good.
Allen Holmes — Now, one of the things that sometimes somebody might hear all this and they go, well, I know so-and-so. I’ll give you a great example, classic example of this. Chris Hodges is one of the most respected pastors in America.
Rich Birch — Yeah, for sure.
Allen Holmes — And he he has pastored one of the fastest growing churches in in America. But there is a reason he has been so fruitful. And the reason is before he ever became a pastor, he didn’t start that church until he was 40.
Allen Holmes — And before becoming that pastor, he’d served under two of the best pastors and two of the strongest churches in America. So he was so much more mature than the average church planter when he started. And I’m 53, I don’t think I’m where Chris was at 40 when he started that church.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Allen Holmes — So that was a big advantage in why they’ve been able to be so consistently fruitful for such a long period of time. And we just have to recognize that. And again, that’s why it’s so important that we’re focused on what God is doing in us…
Rich Birch — So good.
Allen Holmes — …because over time, that’s what produces the best results. It’s just a mature man or woman of God.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good. Love it. Well, Allen, thank you so much for today’s conversation. This has been a great, it’s been really rich conversation. There’s a lot more we could we could talk about, but I really appreciate you giving us the time today. As we wrap up today’s episode, what any kind of final words you’d give to a leader, as they’re thinking about reflecting on this kind of inner life, leading themselves, you know, trying to align who they are outside with who they are inside. Help us Help us with the kind of final word as we kind of wrap up today’s call.
Allen Holmes — Yeah, you know, I was reading a book recently, and and this quote, I’ve just been meditating on it the last couple of weeks, and it the quote is, God loves us as we are, not as we should be, for none of us are as we should be.
Rich Birch — It’s good. Oh wow that’s good.
Allen Holmes — And I say that just to say I think so many pastors are trying so hard like the older brother in the prodigal story. They’re trying so hard to work for God and to prove something. And I just think we got to begin with falling in love with him and trust he’s better at producing than we are. And if we just fall in love with Jesus and allow him to make us more like that father, his kids will come running home.
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Allen Holmes — because they’re looking for fathers. They’re they’re looking for that place of grace and life and hope. And so that characterizes who we are in our soul. And people are just so attracted to that. So I would just say to all the pastors and leaders listening, God is crazy about you. You can’t do anything about that. You don’t have to earn it and none of us deserve it. And if we can learn to really receive that and fall in love with Jesus again, it just changes everything.
Rich Birch — So good. Well, sir, I appreciate you being on today’s episode. If people want, if we want to send people online somewhere to track with you or with definition, where do we want to send them so they they could connect with you?
Allen Holmes — Yeah, they can just Google Definition Church. And I do have a website. There’s not much on it yet. There’s probably not anything there that’s going to help them. But I need to do a better job of developing some content and getting it out there. But the best place to look would be just to go to our website. There are some resources there for churches.
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Allen Holmes — And of course, you know, we’d love to hear from them. And we really appreciate you just letting us, inviting us to be on the show today and to get to encourage leaders is such a such a privilege.
Rich Birch — No, I appreciate you. I just want to honor you. You know, publicly. We reach out to churches like this, frankly, because you end up on the fastest growing church list. And we’re like, hey, what’s God using? And I love where this conversation went today. I think super helpful for people. So thanks so much, Allen. Appreciate being on today.
Allen Holmes — Thanks, Rich. Have a great day.
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Lou Pizzichillo, Lead Pastor of Community Church on Long Island. Community Church launched in January 2020—just ten weeks before the world shut down—then relaunched after 52 weeks online. Now averaging around 1,200 people across Thursday and Sunday services, Community is known as “a church for people who don’t go to church.” In a region where skepticism toward organized religion runs deep, Lou and his team are building trust by creating space for honest questions, lived-out faith, and tangible community impact.
Is your church serving in a skeptical environment? Are you trying to reach people who already think they know—and don’t like—what church is about? Lou shares practical wisdom on posture, transparency, and earning trust one decision at a time.
- Starting where people really are. // On Long Island, while some residents may identify culturally with faith traditions, most see church as judgmental, hypocritical, or irrelevant to everyday life. Lou quickly realized that the biggest obstacle wasn’t apathy—it was reputation. Rather than fighting skepticism, Community Church chose to acknowledge it. The church repeatedly communicates three cultural values: You can belong before you believe. You have permission to be in progress. And there’s no pretending. These aren’t slogans—they shape how the church operates.
- Permission to be in progress. // One of the most resonant phrases at Community is “permission to be in progress.” Many people assume that following Jesus requires instant agreement with every doctrine and behavior expectation. Instead, Community encourages people to wrestle honestly with the claims of Christ first. Secondary issues and sanctification come later. This posture doesn’t mean watering down truth—it means sequencing it wisely. By focusing on who Jesus says he is, rather than debating every peripheral topic, the church keeps the main thing central.
- No pretending—and real transparency. // Transparency builds credibility in skeptical contexts. Stories of real life—parenting mistakes, marriage tensions, leadership missteps—often resonate more than polished success stories. At the same time, Lou draws a boundary between “scars and wounds.” He shares what he has processed, not what he is still unraveling. This authenticity signals that faith isn’t about perfection but transformation. For many in the congregation, seeing a pastor admit imperfection dismantles years of distrust toward church leaders.
- Becoming an asset to the community. // Community Church doesn’t just talk about loving Babylon—it demonstrates it. Early on, Lou realized trust would not come through marketing but through partnership. Before launch, the church created “12 Days of Christmas,” giving away gifts purchased from local businesses. In year one, stores hesitated to participate; by year seven, businesses were reaching out to collaborate. What began as skepticism has shifted to partnership because trust was earned gradually.
- Serving instead of competing. // A defining moment came during the annual Argyle Fair, a 30,000-person event held across the street from the church—on a Sunday. Rather than fight the inconvenience, Community canceled services and mobilized volunteers to serve the fair, providing parking and manpower. When the event was rescheduled due to rain, the church canceled services a second week to honor its commitment. Lou describes this as a defining cultural moment: demonstrating that service isn’t convenient—it’s convictional.
- Earning trust through inconvenience. // Lou recounts being called to the mayor’s office days after launch to address parking concerns. Instead of pushing back, the church chose to rent additional parking space—even when legally unnecessary—to honor neighbors’ concerns. In another instance, Community canceled a planned Christmas light show after Village neighbors expressed concern about traffic. Though disappointing internally, the decision earned significant community goodwill. Lou believes canceling the event built more trust than hosting it would have.
- Posture over persecution. // Lou cautions leaders against defaulting to a persecution narrative when facing resistance. Most pushback, he says, comes from practical concerns—not hostility toward Jesus. By listening humbly and responding thoughtfully, churches can win trust among the large percentage of community members who are neither strongly for nor against them.
To learn more about Community Church, visit communitychurch.net or follow @communitychurch.li on social media.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: TouchPoint
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, thanks so much for listening in, tuning in into today’s episode. I’m really looking forward to today’s conversation. We’re talking with a leader leading a prevailing church in frankly a part of the country that is not known for tons of prevailing churches. And so it’s an opportunity for all of us to lean in and to learn.
Rich Birch — Super excited to have Lou Pizzichillo with us from Community Church. They’re in Babylon, New York on Long Island. They’re known as a church for people who don’t go to church. They’re big on being real, bringing real questions, struggles, hangups, doubts, disappointments, and failures. Lou, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here today.
Lou Pizzichillo — Thanks so much. Yeah, it’s a privilege to be here.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s an honor that you would take some time to be with us today. Why don’t you kind of tell us a bit of the Community story, kind of give us a flavor of the church, help us kind of imagine if we were to arrive this weekend, what what would we experience?
Lou Pizzichillo — Yeah. So we have an interesting history. We launched in January of 2020. And so we were open for 10 weeks.
Rich Birch — Great time.
Lou Pizzichillo — I know it was perfect. And then we closed down for 52 weeks, and we relaunched. But because of that, what’s been really cool is, you know, when you’re launching a church, the launch team is a big deal. And to launch twice, we’ve had really like two two launch teams. And so team culture has always been a real big part of our church.
Lou Pizzichillo — But yeah, we like to say that we’re a church for people who don’t go to church. and So we try to keep things pretty casual. We try not to assume that there’s any interest or experience with the people who are showing up on a Sunday. And yeah.
Rich Birch — Nice. Give us a sense of, so like size and like your, you know, the ministry style, that sort of thing. Like what would you help us kind of place what the, what the church is like if I was to arrive, arrive on a weekend?
Lou Pizzichillo — Yeah, we’re a pretty contemporary attractional church. We’ve got services on Thursday night and on Sunday morning. So we say the weekend starts on Thursday.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Lou Pizzichillo — We call Thursday night thurch, which is…
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s funny. Thurch.
Lou Pizzichillo — Yeah, it was a joke at first, but then it kind of like, I don’t know, just kind of gained a life of its own.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lou Pizzichillo — So yeah, so the church over the course of the weekend, right now we’re at about 1,200. And it’s exciting. There are a lot of new people. And things are constantly change changing. Change is that really the only constant for us.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, that’s so good. Well, you’re on Long Island, and I can say as somebody who I ministered for years in New Jersey, I’m from Canada, I I get that people don’t wake up on Long Island on Sunday morning and think, hey, I should go to church today.
Lou Pizzichillo — Yeah, yeah.
Rich Birch — You’re serving a community that is is more unchurched than other parts of the country, which is a challenge for planting. So help us understand, you know, help us just kind of get into the mindset or the um perspective of people who are outside of the church. What do they view on, you know, Christianity? Tell us, give us a sense of of kind of what you’ve learned, you know, planting in that kind of context.
Lou Pizzichillo — Yeah. So one thing that was really helpful right off the bat was somebody mentioned to me, they were like, you know, I’m not a gym person. And so when a new gym opens up in town, I don’t even really notice it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lou Pizzichillo — And they’re like, I think it’s the same thing for church people.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lou Pizzichillo — It’s like, if you’re not a church person, then you don’t really notice when churches are doing things. And so that’s like, really, it’s a big reason why we’re so vocal about saying it we’re a church for people who don’t go to church, you know?
Rich Birch — Right.
Lou Pizzichillo — Um, and yeah, from there, honestly, we found that the biggest obstacle with people here is the existing reputation of church, of what church is like and what church people are like.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lou Pizzichillo — This church is seen as very judgmental, hypocritical, fake, exclusive, impractical, you know, it’s something you just do to kind of check the boxes and then you go on with your life. I’ve spoken to even a lot of, um, like devout Catholics here who have, have said like, they don’t, they do their church thing because, because it’s what they think that they’re supposed to do, but they’re, what they are doing in church does not translate to everyday life.
Lou Pizzichillo — And so church is seen as kind of an impractical thing. And, that’s kind of the starting point for a lot of people who we’re trying to connect with.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I’ve heard it said in other contexts, it’s like, not that people don’t know the church. It’s like, it’s what they know that they don’t like.
Lou Pizzichillo — Yeah, yeah.
Rich Birch — It’s like, they have a sense of, you know, that that reputation. Are there any, maybe even stories or engagement you know conversations or engagements you’ve had with folks that have kind of brought that reputation to the fore. That obviously has led you to say, hey, we’re going position ourselves as a church where people don’t go into churches. Was there something that kind of influenced that as you were having, you know, even in these early years as you’ve been kind of get the ball rolling?
Lou Pizzichillo — A big part of it honestly is a lot of my extended family. Like they’re, most of them are not church people. You know, they have a lot of respect for God. Like most people on Long Island, uh, especially, you know, most kind of nominal Catholics, like they would say they’re Italian or Irish. They say, oh, of course, Jesus is my savior. You know, like they, they know the right things to say, but in terms of what it actually means on a regular basis, it’s like kind of a totally different thing. So, so yeah, I mean, that’s kind of, kind of where we’re starting.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, people have criticisms about the church and they have criticisms of of their experience with the church. How do you discern between criticisms that maybe you either need to be challenged, like, hey, that’s actually just not true, or like, oh, that’s a critique that is actually fair, and we’re going to try to steer in a different direction, ah you know, than that. Help us think about those, you know, when we think about skepticism towards the church.
Lou Pizzichillo — Yeah, I think, honestly, the best thing for us has just been to have a posture of listening.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Lou Pizzichillo — Because even even if their claims aren’t valid, a lot of their experiences are. And so, you know, they’re like, there’s somebody who’s been going to the church for a while now, and somebody that was very close to them has like a pretty intense story of church hurt, like real damage. And so to know that he’s walking in with all of this baggage and that there are a lot of other people walking in with that baggage that don’t let you know that they have that baggage…
Rich Birch — Right.
Lou Pizzichillo — …just kind of giving them the space to, to be hurt and for it to be real. That’s been huge for us just having that kind of posture of humility.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. So that obviously has led to the way you’ve developed either the way you talk about ministry or the values that are underlining, you know, the ministry.
Rich Birch — What has been important for helping communicate or articulate to people like, hey, this is a place that you can show up, you know, before you, you know, you’ve kind of bought it all. It’s like, Hey, you there’s a place to explore that sort of thing. Help us think through how do you communicate and then how do those, whether they’re phrases or yeah that sort of thing, how does that translate then into the values of how you actually operate?
Lou Pizzichillo — Yeah. So big thing is for us, it’s training the team, like getting those values into the team and helping them to understand what that looks like in a concrete way. So we say, like a lot of churches say, you can belong before you believe. And the the illustration I give almost every single time, I’m like, if somebody walks in with a church, with a shirt that says, I hate God, we are glad that person is here, right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Lou Pizzichillo — Like we’re not assuming that they are walking in with interest or experience. And they might have a story that’s a lot more complicated than we know. So um so yes, we try to celebrate that.
Lou Pizzichillo — When somebody walks in and they’re very open about their beliefs and their views not lining up with us, that’s something that we celebrate, right? Like because these are the people that we want here.
Lou Pizzichillo — The other value that’s been really helpful for us is to say that people have permission to be in progress. And that has to do with their actions, the choices that they make, but also the things that they believe. And so you can be on board with some of our beliefs and not be on board with all of our beliefs. And we’re okay with that, right?
Lou Pizzichillo — Like rather than just saying, okay, I accept all of it at one time. And now I completely agree that everything in the Bible is true. And, you know, I endorse it. Like we just kind of give people space to say, okay, like let’s maybe let’s start with the claims of Jesus, like right to this guy really rise from the dead. And now let’s look at what he says about things like the Old Testament, you know?
Lou Pizzichillo — And so that’s that’s been a huge thing. We go back to that over and over and over again. It started as kind of like a main point in a sermon where I was like, you’ve got permission to be in progress. And so many people repeated it back to me that I was like, okay, this needs to be woven into our culture because it needs to be articulated…
Rich Birch — Right.
Lou Pizzichillo — …or people just assume, okay, if I’m going to say I believe, I got to say I believe it all. And there’s no room for disagreement.
Lou Pizzichillo — And then from there, we say like, you got you can belong before you believe, you got permission to be in progress. And if both of those things are actually true for us as a church, then we can also say like our third value is no pretending.
Lou Pizzichillo — Like you don’t have to pretend to be on board with certain things if you’re not there yet. And I think if we create an environment where people can be real and dialogue and be open about the things that they’re, you know, that they disagree with, I think that’s where there’s real hope for ultimately ending in a place of alignment.
Rich Birch — Yeah, permission to be in progress to me feels very like a very Jesus value It feels like, oh, that to me, that’s like when I read the New Testament, that feels like the way he oriented himself to the people around him, right? There were clearly people that were like the rich young ruler came to him and was like, you know, asked a pointed question. Jesus gave a clear answer, and he didn’t, you know, Jesus didn’t, even though he said harsh words to or clear words, I would say, all was it always done in an environment of trying to say, hey, we I want you to be a part of this conversation. I’m really trying to be on the same side of the table. How do I bring you along?
Rich Birch — Can you, like, let’s double click on permission to be in progress. Talk us through what that looks like. Because I think, I think so many churches draw very strong lines on like, you got to believe these 15 things to be a part here. Even if we wouldn’t explicitly set that say that, it’s like implicit in our cultures.
Rich Birch — How does your culture look different when you say, hey, you’ve got permission to be in progress? What would be some of the things that might stand out to us as like, that’s a little bit different than how maybe some other churches handle this?
Lou Pizzichillo — Yeah. So we have like we have values, but then we also just have sayings, right? Like it it is too hard for me to define what the most important values are. Like I get too obsessed with the wording and how we’re going to phrase things. And so in our our conference room, we have a big whiteboard and we write down little sayings. We actually write them in permanent marker on the whiteboard, which is wasteful, but at least we have something to reference.
Lou Pizzichillo — So when somebody says something and we’re like, hey, that’s a culture thing, it gets written on the board. One of the things that came up that’s really helped us with this idea of permission to be in progress is that the goal is to get people to Jesus and everything else is secondary. Everything else comes after that.
Rich Birch — That’s good. Yep, that’s good.
Lou Pizzichillo — And so I’m not going to like get into it with someone over a secondary issue or really something that’s an issue of sanctification, when we believe sanctification is the work of the Holy Spirit, right? Maybe your view on that will change after you understand who Jesus is and begin to follow him.
Lou Pizzichillo — And so in a lot of ways, I feel like when we when we get too into the issues, we’re putting the cart before the horse, right?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lou Pizzichillo — And so we’re trying to bring people to Jesus and show him show them what he’s like. And ah that that has been clarifying when it comes to permission to be in progress.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. And I think in heavily church context, when we kind of assume, oh, basically everyone here has some level of faith, those secondary issues can become like a really big deal. It’s like we spend a lot of time talking about those things.
Rich Birch — But when the majority of people we’re interacting with you know, they haven’t, they haven’t really, really wrestled with what they think about Jesus and the difference he can make in this life. And we got to keep that, that really clear.
Rich Birch — So no pretending is an interesting value as a communicator. How do you live that out in the way you show transparency? There’s this interesting thing years ago, I had one of the ah preacher that I love or communicator. I just think the world of, you know, he talked about how there’s this tension when we’re, communicating that, you know, we’re we’re trying to be transparent, but up into a point and how, where is that point? And how do we do that in a way that’s not, that brings people along? So ah what what does that look like for you even as a as ah as a leader to say, hey, it’s not my job to pretend. I’m going to just be honest and transparent, authentic to where we are?
Lou Pizzichillo — Yeah. Well, I mean, I can definitely say that every time I tell a story that has me screwing up, it is it is the thing that people come to tell me about.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lou Pizzichillo — Like, oh, thank you so much for telling me about you know the way you spoke to your kids…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lou Pizzichillo — …or the thing that you said to your wife. Or it is just by far the thing that people love to hear. And that’s been encouraging. Now, I have had people like throw it back at me and that that comes with the territory. But I think that the stories of how that’s been helpful for people um like dramatically outweigh the people that are going to you know weaponize that stuff against you.
Lou Pizzichillo — Something else I heard, um I think Brene Brown said this in one of her books. She said she doesn’t share things she hasn’t processed through yet.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lou Pizzichillo — And that for me is a really helpful thing. Like If I’m in the middle of something and just in the thick of it, it’s not the time for me to like bring that to the congregation. I think that could be really unhealthy for a lot of reasons.
Lou Pizzichillo — So that’s, that’s kind of something that, and it doesn’t mean I can’t share something that just happened. You know sometimes I’ll explain an issue that just happened with my kids. That’s different than something I’m still processing and haven’t resolved yet.
Rich Birch — Right. I think she said it’s the difference between scars and wounds, right? You can talk about your scars. That’s like, that’s an area that has, has had some level of healing to it versus an open wound, right? Like this is a part that’s, that’s still gaping.
Lou Pizzichillo — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And, uh, you know, we don’t necessarily want to to share that. And that, you know, uh, that is a change. So I’m, you know, I’m of a certain age, been in this game a long time. And I remember when we first started, when I first started, that generation that came before me, people wanted like the superhuman religious leader. They wanted the like pastor to be, to have their stuff a hundred percent sewed up. Like, don’t tell me that you’re a real human. They didn’t want that.
Lou Pizzichillo — Yeah.
Rich Birch — You know, and that has completely reversed.
Rich Birch — People are like, no no, like you said, we, we need to be transparent, open, authentic. People know that we’re not perfect.
Lou Pizzichillo — Yeah.
Rich Birch — They know that we don’t have it all together.
Lou Pizzichillo — Right.
Rich Birch — And when we try to hide that, when we try to, in your language, pretend that actually is repulsive, it pushes them away.
Lou Pizzichillo — Yeah.
Rich Birch — One of the things that stood out to me just by reputation, kind of seeing your church is it appears that you guys have a conviction around getting out and serving the community, actually making a difference in the community. You know, it strikes me as very ah a very James-approach, faith in action – it’s it should make a difference in our community. What how do talk to me about what that looks like for Community. How does that, even your name, Community, you know, Church, reflects that. Talk talk to talk to me about what that looks like.
Lou Pizzichillo — Yeah, so we’re pretty clear. Like we we tell people we want to be an asset to the community. We want people to be glad we’re here, whether they attend our church or not. And so that started really early. Actually, before we launched, we did this thing called the 12 Days of Christmas where, so our church is in a village, right? So there are a lot of local businesses around us. What we did is during the 12 days leading up to Christmas, we went to shops and we gave away gifts from those shops. There was a different shop every day for the 12 days leading up to Christmas. So we planned this out ahead of time. But we would post on social media and be like, Hey, today the, you know, the shop is Bunger surf shop. The first 25 people there are going to get beanies from Bunger surf shop.
Lou Pizzichillo — And we paid for them. We sent the, Bunger agreed to hand them out. And people went to go get them. And what was, so it was a win, win, win, really. Like the people who participated got free beanies, the surf shop are like all the different shops in the village. They got people to go, they got traffic to their business, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Lou Pizzichillo — Because people went in then bought other stuff. And it helped us communicate that we we say we want something for you, not from you, right? We want to be an asset to the community. And so it helped us communicate that message. And the response to that has been great.
Lou Pizzichillo — Now, what’s interesting, if this doesn’t tell you something about the church’s reputation, on year one, before we launched, it was very hard to get 12 shops to agree to do this with us. Like they were like, you’re a church? I’m sorry. No, we’re not doing it.
Rich Birch — Forget it. Yeah.
Lou Pizzichillo — Now it’s year seven. Right now we’re in the middle of our our seventh year and there are shops lining up to do it. There are shops reaching out to us, asking us to collaborate.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Lou Pizzichillo — They’re helping to pay for the stuff. So it’s actually in some ways getting a little bit cheaper.
Rich Birch — Huh.
Lou Pizzichillo — And it’s just cool. It’s shown like this posture of partnership with what’s going on…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lou Pizzichillo — …rather than, okay, there are the shops and then there’s the church.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lou Pizzichillo — And yeah, we actually have a someone on staff now who first heard about the church on year one during the 12 days of Christmas. She started coming to the church. she eventually got baptized and now she’s on staff. And it’s just like, it has been so, so cool.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. That’s what a cool, you know, even just a cool tactic, kind of an expression of that. Is there other ways, other kind of activities like that, that you’re engaged with throughout the year that would could illustrate this idea of being for the community, being an asset to the community? What would be another example of that that that’s happened?
Lou Pizzichillo — Yeah. So there is this fair that happens right across the street from the church. It’s called the Argyle Fair. It’s it’s around a lake. There are about 30,000 people that come to this fair. And the fair is on a Sunday during church.
Lou Pizzichillo — The first year that we were here and had services during that Sunday, it was a mess. There were people you know like parking all over the place. It was hard to have services. Traffic was crazy. And we left church and my wife and I walked to the fair and just felt like something didn’t feel right. Like there’s some, here’s something everybody’s doing and we’re fighting against it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lou Pizzichillo — So we went to the people who ran the fair and we were like, is there any way we can help? Like, is there, what do you guys need? And right away she was like, we need volunteers and we need parking. And as a church, we are uniquely equipped with volunteers and parking.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lou Pizzichillo —And so really it was there, like that almost right away, we were like, okay, next year, ah we’re going to be on board with what you’re doing.
Rich Birch — Wow. Wow.
Lou Pizzichillo — And so we decided to cancel services. And in the weeks leading up to that, we teach about the importance of serving the community. It’s kind of like the grand finale to whatever, you know…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lou Pizzichillo — …outreach series or message is being given.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Lou Pizzichillo — And um yeah, so we teach on that. And then we’re like, hey, you know, two weeks from now, we’re not going to have services. Instead, we’re going to go out instead of staying in here talking about serving, we’re going to go out there and serve. And, you know, we’ve said like…
Rich Birch — Love that.
Lou Pizzichillo — …yeah, what’s what’s happening out there is not more spiritual than what’s happening in here. It’s a different way to express and grow in our faith. So we did that. And the response has just been unbelievable. Like the community has loved it. The the fair has had the help that they need. The people in our church have loved it. But this year we actually it got rained out on the first week. And so they postponed it to the next week.
Rich Birch — Oh, wow.
Lou Pizzichillo — And that made it tough for us because now we were like, okay, are we going to cancel church two weeks in a row?
Rich Birch — Right.
Lou Pizzichillo — And we had a meeting about it and like looked at our values, looked at what we were talking about. We were like, you know what, this is actually an opportunity for us to really double down and say, we’re not doing this out of convenience. We’re doing this because it’s a value. And so I called up the guy who was running the fair and he was like, I get it. If you can’t do it, I get it. And it felt, it was, it was amazing to be able to say on the phone, like, Hey, we’re with you, uh, no matter what. So, uh, so we did and it was, it was awesome.
Rich Birch — That’s incredible. Like ah that, again, that what a vivid example, because I think there’s a lot of church leaders, if we’re honest, we’ve been engaged in the conversation that’s literally on the opposite side of that, where we’re like, man, how do we, these people, they’re, you know, they’re cramping our style or whatever. It’s like we naturally default towards that rather than to serve.
Rich Birch — Take us back early in the discussions because I think a lot of us have not done a good job in building trust bridges in our communities. And you know trust isn’t built with just you know, one conversation. It takes time, right? It takes, like you said, those those first 12 days of Christmas, you couldn’t get anybody. And now here’s seven years later. We want we want to get to the seven years later part really quickly.
Rich Birch — But ah those early conversations, how are you handling yourself, interacting with the like other people, you know, approaching them, having those conversations. What did you learn in the early dialogue that could help us if we’re trying to build, you know, deeper community trust in a place that just is so skeptical of that we’re coming with, just looking to take from our people.
Lou Pizzichillo — Yeah. I mean, you have to be willing to be inconvenienced. I think that’s been a big part of it.
Lou Pizzichillo — On week one, so we we launched literally on the first day and launch day was bigger than we thought it was going to be. And on that Monday, I was called to the mayor’s office, the mayor of the village.
Lou Pizzichillo — And I was like, okay, thought I was going to go have a conversation. And when I got there, it was the it was him, it was the head of code enforcement and the fire chief all in a room waiting for me
Rich Birch — Oh, gosh.
Lou Pizzichillo — And they had pictures of cars parked all over the street. And I I realized there, like, there was a real concern about what this church was going to be in the community.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lou Pizzichillo — And so from there, we’ve just been looking for opportunities to earn trust. The neighbors have made it very clear that they don’t like cars parking on the street. And so we, we began paying for a lot so that we could take the cars off of the street. We don’t have to, they can legally park in the street, but we rent the lot. We told the owner of the property why we’re doing it. And he got on board with what we’re doing. We’re now in a place, kind of a long story, but we now don’t have to pay for that lot.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Lou Pizzichillo — We also, like the trust has been earned one decision at a time. We were going to do this big thing in the parking lot. We did a parking lot renovation that took the whole summer. After the summer, we were like, hey, in our new parking lot, let’s put on a Christmas show. We’ll run it throughout two weeks in December.
Lou Pizzichillo — We had an animator who goes to the church. He like had this great idea for a show. He’s like, we’ll project it on the building. People will drive in. We’ll run it multiple times a night, do it for a few weeks throughout December. We were calling it Christmas in Lights.
Lou Pizzichillo — So we put this whole plan together. He’s making the thing. We start advertising it and the village comes to us and they’re like, you’re in violation of the code. You can’t do this. And and they’re giving us all these reasons that I felt like didn’t really hold that much weight, you know.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lou Pizzichillo — But in thinking about it, I do understand the inconvenience it would have been. We just had a major parking lot renovation. There were huge trucks making tons of noise for months.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lou Pizzichillo — And now that’s finally over. And we’re going to ask the village to deal with the traffic of a show happening every single night, you know, for a few weeks in December.
Rich Birch — Right Right.
Lou Pizzichillo — And so I went to the mayor and I was like, hey, ah it’s a new mayor at this point. But I just sat down with her and I was like, hey, listen, if you have concerns about this, I want you to feel the freedom to just come to me and say, this is a lot for the neighbors. Like, what do you think about pulling this in?
Lou Pizzichillo —And it was cool. It was an opportunity for the two of us to kind of bond, like there was some trust earned there and we canceled the show. We decided not to do it. And I released a video explaining why we weren’t doing it.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Lou Pizzichillo — And the amazing thing is that I think canceling the show accomplished more than we would have accomplished if we actually did the show.
Rich Birch — Interesting.
Lou Pizzichillo — Like it earned, it was so well received when people found out that we weren’t going to do it. They were like, and even the people that attend the church, they were like, I want to be part of a church that supports their community like this.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lou Pizzichillo — And so it went really well, and it was a lot less work, and so it was it was kind of a win all around.
Rich Birch — What did the animators say? I feel but feel bad for that person who started doing that work. Did they understand. Obviously, they’re bummed or concerned.
Lou Pizzichillo — He was bummed out, but he’s one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet, and so he he totally got it. And he’s on board with what we’re trying to do, and when he knew the reason why, he was totally, totally supportive of it.
Rich Birch — Interesting. So where have you seen churches kind of get this wrong as we’ve tried to engage with the community? Maybe a common a pothole that we fall into or a way that we stub our toes, you know, a thing maybe you’ve you’ve you’ve seen that we just, we you know, kind of consistently make the same mistake.
Lou Pizzichillo — Yeah. You know, one of my mentors told me a while ago, he was like, when you’re thinking about the church in the community, he’s like, there’s a small percentage of people that are for you. He said, there’s, there’s also a small percentage of people that are anti-church and they always will be, and you’re not going to change their minds.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lou Pizzichillo — And he’s like, but then there’s this large percentage that’s just kind of going to go one way or the other. And he’s like, that’s the percentage that you really have to be intentional about connecting with.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Lou Pizzichillo — And so I think, you know, it is very easy to tell the story like, hey, they don’t want us to do our Christmas show. This is persecution…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lou Pizzichillo — …you know, and we got to fight and suffer for the name of Jesus. And ah we’ve just found that that’s not always the case.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lou Pizzichillo — You know, it’s people that don’t want to be inconvenienced and they may love church, but there’s there’s all this stuff going in the community. Maybe they maybe they have you know other reasons why. So i think I think it’s just the posture.
Lou Pizzichillo — Like a lot of, most people, most people aren’t unreasonable. And I think if we give them the chance to really articulate what’s going on, I’ve been surprised at how understandable a lot of the feelings have been, a lot of the resistance to church comes from real stories, real experiences.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Lou Pizzichillo — And so, yeah, I think it’s the you know the whole like persecution thing or suffering or that is real and people do really experience that. But a lot of times I think we’re a little too quick to say, oh, this is what that is when really it may not be.
Rich Birch — Well, and it it’s, ah in some ways, it’s like a low form of, well, it’s a leadership shortcut for sure to like demonize, to like, oh, there, those people are come out to get us. You know, any leader that’s led before realizes, oh, that’s like a that’s a tool that actually works. People respond to that, but, but we don’t want to do that. Like that isn’t, these are the people we’re trying to love and care. These are people we’re trying to see point towards Jesus. They’re not our enemies.
Lou Pizzichillo — Yeah. Yeah.
Rich Birch — They’re not, you know, they’re, they’re not, they might just not like parking, like you at the end of the day.
Lou Pizzichillo — Right. Right.
Rich Birch — And so let’s not, let’s not get over-revved, ah you know, on that. And unfortunately there are, I know, you know, way too many churches that have got themselves on the wrong side of this. And it’s very hard to backwards engineer out of that. Once you go down that road of like, we’re going to try to go negative with our community. That just isn’t, it’s just, it’s, it’s very difficult to to step back from that.
Rich Birch — If you think about a church leader that’s listening in today and they’re, they’re saying, Hey, They’re thinking we want to do a better job being trusted more locally, trusted by local leaders, trusted by other you know businesses in town, that sort of thing. What would be a couple first steps you think they could take? A couple things where they could start to try to build that kind of trust with the community around them?
Lou Pizzichillo — Yeah. You know, I think I’m a big believer in praying for those opportunities. And also just giving things a second look, you know. When you’re in a situation that may seem like a challenge or something that may seem like it’s getting in the way, to just stop and think, okay, is, is there an opportunity here to build trust with the community?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Lou Pizzichillo — Because we, and when we say the community, we’re not just talking about this nebulous, you know, idea of Babylon village. There are people there.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Lou Pizzichillo — And if those people see this church as trustworthy, they may come here, you know, when their relationships are falling apart or when they’re looking for answers.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Lou Pizzichillo — Um, and so it’s really just been… We have great people here who have bought into what we’re doing, who have really helped us to see like, this is an opportunity to win with the community. And yeah, you gotta, you have to look outside the box and, and also be willing to, there, there are moments like with Church Has Left the Building—with the fair—and with the Christmas and light show, there are moments where they’ll see, okay, do you really care? Do you really care?
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Lou Pizzichillo — Like are how how much will you inconvenience yourself? And I mean, the payoff from that has just been huge, even though it’s been an inconvenience and our giving goes down that week and it throws off the series and we got to restructure the calendar.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lou Pizzichillo — It has gone, there’s there’s never been a time where we’ve regretted it.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s good. And, you know, there’s no doubt one of the things I think we can in our our little world of kind of church leadership, I think we can forget often that people in the communities that we’re serving, they really don’t have any frame of reference for a church of 1,200 people. Like they that that isn’t people’s normal perception of what a church is. Like a church is 25 people or 50 people in a room somewhere super small.
Rich Birch — And, and their perception can be, they just don’t, they just don’t have any idea. What is that? What’s that look like? And some of that can skew negative because it’s busy and blah, blah, blah, all those things. And so we’ve, we, we have to take it on ourselves when our church gets to the size that you’re at or larger to try to help them understand and see though this is like really positive for the community and actually point towards that.
Lou Pizzichillo — Yes.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s good.
Lou Pizzichillo — Yes. And, and like along those lines, ah it’s also perceived as a source of power, right? Like if, if there, if you have 1500 people that all believe the same thing and you’re trying to run a village or a community, there is this, this sense of like, okay, well, are they going to be for us or against us? Like, are all these people going to be anti-village?
Rich Birch — Right.
Lou Pizzichillo — And so there is like that, that instinct to kind of protect from this group of people that make, make things really hard for us. But over time, as they begin to see like all these people are, are behind us, they’re here to support us and they want to make this place better.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lou Pizzichillo — It’s, it really is a beautiful thing. And we’re not there yet as a church, but we’re getting there. And, uh, we’ve just seen a lot of, lot of positive signs and, uh, Yeah, think it’s paid off.
Rich Birch — So good, Lou. That’s, that’s great. Just as we wrap up today’s conversation, any kind of final words you’d have to, ah you know, to leaders that are listening in thinking about these issues today?
Lou Pizzichillo — Yeah. I mean, I think I would just say it’s worth it. It’s it’s messy. It does make things difficult. It can be inconvenient. And when you have people who don’t go to church coming to church and you give them permission to be in progress, you get a lot of hairy situations. And we have a lot of conversations where we’re trying to figure out which way to go.
Rich Birch — Yeah, 100%.
Lou Pizzichillo — But it’s in those conversations that we cant kind of stop and remind ourselves like, Hey, we’re, we’re glad that these people are here and we’re glad that these are the problems that we’re having. And, the end of the day, this is what we feel like it’s all about. So.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good. I just want to encourage you as you’re leading, you’re doing a great job and and it’s been fun to get a chance to get a little window into what’s going on at Community. Want to encourage you and your your team, just you’re doing the right thing. If people want to track with the church or with you online, where do we want to send them to connect with you guys?
Lou Pizzichillo — Yeah, so communitychurch.net is our website. On Instagram, we’re communitychurchli, we’re @communitychurchli, and we try to keep that handle throughout all the platforms. So YouTube, same thing. But yeah, that’s it.
Rich Birch — Great. Thanks for for being here today, Lou.
Lou Pizzichillo — Thanks for having me, Rich. It’s an honor to be here, and I love what you guys are doing for the church.
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Jeff Beachum and Curt Banter from Portable Church Industries (PCI), a company that has helped more than 4,000 churches launch, expand, and thrive in portable environments over the past 25+ years. PCI specializes in helping churches create high-quality worship, kids, and guest experiences in rented or temporary venues—without sacrificing excellence, volunteer health, or long-term strategy.
Is your church growing and starting to feel the pressure of limited space? Are you wrestling with what comes next when your building is full but a permanent solution feels years away? Curt and Jeff share how portable solutions can help churches keep momentum, reach more people, and make wise long-term decisions—without rushing into costly permanent buildings too soon.
- Recognizing the capacity tipping point. // When churches reach 70–80% capacity, leaders begin to feel pressure everywhere—parking, kids’ environments, hallways, volunteer fatigue, and seat availability. At that point, growth doesn’t slow because of lack of vision; it slows because of physical constraints. Leaders often start “chasing capacity,” stacking services or squeezing rooms, but those solutions eventually hit a wall. The real question becomes how to keep momentum going without rushing into a long-term decision that may limit future flexibility.
- Why waiting too long can stall growth. // Waiting to see what happens with growth can quietly kill momentum. When guests can’t find seats or families feel crowded, people stop inviting friends—even if the preaching and worship are strong. While overflow rooms may solve logistics, they rarely create the same invitational energy. Churches must respond to growth with courage, believing that God is at work and making room for what He’s doing.
- Portable as a strategic bridge, not a shortcut. // One of the biggest misconceptions is that portability is a cheap or temporary compromise. In reality, portability often serves as a strategic incubation phase—a way to grow now while preparing for long-term solutions later. Portable environments allow churches to launch new locations in months instead of years, often at 3–7% of the cost of permanent construction.
- Why permanence shouldn’t be your first move. // Permanent buildings come with long timelines, heavy capital costs, and irreversible decisions. By contrast, portable systems allow churches to test locations, leadership capacity, volunteer systems, and community engagement before committing to bricks and mortar. In many cases, churches reuse or retool their portable systems for future campuses, making portability a repeatable growth engine rather than a one-time solution.
- Designed for volunteers, not professionals. // PCI systems are designed around the reality that most churches rely on volunteers—not production experts. Systems are engineered so everything has a place, setup is repeatable, and volunteers of all ages can succeed. Portability often attracts a unique group of volunteers—people who may not serve in traditional roles but find purpose in setup, teardown, logistics, and behind-the-scenes leadership. Over time, these teams become deeply connected and highly committed.
- Experience and kids environments matter. // Portable doesn’t mean second-rate. In fact, kids’ environments are often more important than the worship space. Parents cannot fully engage in worship if they feel uneasy about where their children are. PCI’s design process balances worship, kids, guest flow, safety, and branding to ensure the entire experience reflects the church’s values—not just what happens on stage.
- Custom systems, not off-the-shelf kits. // PCI’s consultative approach begins with listening. Each system is custom-designed based on the church’s identity, volunteer capacity, budget, and long-term vision. There is no “stock solution.” From sound systems to kids check-in to trailer layouts, every detail is engineered to support the church’s unique mission and growth trajectory.
- A first step for leaders. // For leaders feeling capacity pressure, start with a conversation—not a commitment. Learning what options exist now prepares churches to act decisively later. The goal is not to rush, but to be ready when growth demands action. Speak directly with Jeff Beachum and discover how Portable Church can help with your unique situation by scheduling a conversation at portablechurch.com/jeff.
Learn more about Portable Church Industries and see samples of their work at portablechurch.com.
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Super glad that you’ve decided to tune in today and you are going to be rewarded for that. We’ve got a really important conversation, I know for many churches that are listening in, particularly if your church is growing and you’re thinking about the future and you see some constraints around you, we wanna help release some of those constraints today.
Rich Birch — And I’ve asked good friends, Curt Banter and Jeff Beachum from Portable Church Industries to come and be on the on the call with us today, because they’ve got some stuff that I know can help so many of us. If you do not know Portable Church, they help churches thrive in portable venues. For more than 25 years, Portable Church has helped literally thousands of churches launch strong and thrive in a mobile setting. They design custom solutions that fill that fit each budget, vision, and venue. They really are amazing people. And I’m so glad to have you on the show today, Curt and Jeff. Welcome. So glad you’re here.
Curt Banter — Great to be here.
Jeffrey Beachum — Glad to be here.
Rich Birch — Why don’t we start with Curt? Tell us the kind of portable church, you know, summary. You bump into someone and you they yeah they ask you where you work and you’re like, I’m CEO of Portable Church. What what is that?
Curt Banter — Yes, yes. That’s a popular airport question. That is a very, what is that exactly? And I always…
Rich Birch — Right. Is that on wheels or something? What is it like, you know.
Curt Banter — Exactly. I always tell people like, well, we build portable systems to help churches function in kind of rented spaces is, you know, the deal. And it’s production, it’s kids, it’s lobby, it’s the whole thing. It’s it’s the experience on a Sunday morning in a rented venue.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s fantastic. And Jeff, give us a sense of the scope of both the services and kind of solutions that PCI provides. Like when you say you help that, what does that, what does that mean? Is this just like a bunch of ideas or what what do you actually do?
Jeffrey Beachum — So Portable Church provides absolutely everything that a church needs in order to do church the way they do at their home campus, except we don’t provide the pastor, and the people and the place. But, I mean, we do everything else from, like Curt said, production, everything you need to do children’s environments, everything you need to get people on the campus with wayfinding, greeting them, coffee, right down, if we don’t recommend it, but right down to the communion wafer and the baby diaper. We can do it all.
Rich Birch — Nice. Right. Yeah, it’s incredible. Well, today we want to frame the conversation for churches that are listening in that are particularly growing and are thinking about the future and maybe are coming up against some capacity issues. Jeff, when a church starts to approach, say, let’s picture a church, maybe they’re approaching 70, 80% of their weekend capacity. What kind of questions do you hear those leaders wrestling with? What are they thinking about, as they’re thinking about, hmm, what do we do next?
Jeffrey Beachum — Well, luckily I’ve run into some ah amazing executive leaders that carry the vision and the execution of a church. And those are usually the two primary people or positions. And there might be multiple people involved in it. But those are the two positions that really are looking in their crystal ball and trying to say, all right, based on The seats we’re filling, the parking lot the way it is, the corridors that are jammed, the children’s ministry, how high a pitch our our volunteers are screaming. We need to be thinking down the road about what are the solutions. And those those people typically, those good leaders are asking questions about, all right, what can we do onsite?
Jeffrey Beachum — And eventually, if this keeps going, and we’d love the momentum to keep going, what are some off-site solutions? And so that’s what we like to help take leaders through is even if they don’t use it, the more they know, the better they’re going to be.
Rich Birch — And what, when you think of the questions that they’re wrestling about kind of the onsite offsite question, what would be some of those things that, why would they be at that venture? Like what, what is it about, you know, these, this kind of threshold of 70, 80% that starts pushing them to be like, Ooh, maybe it’s like, what are the pain points that they start feeling that are like, okay, that we’ve got to start thinking about something, you know, different down the road.
Jeffrey Beachum — Well, this we do this thing, I like to call it chasing capacity, because once a church opens its doors, and if they’re blessed by God and they’re doing all the things that they should be doing, they will forever be looking for that elusive extra seat so that people can hear the gospel.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeffrey Beachum — Well, when they get into that position, um they they immediately begin to think, we only have so many seats. It’s a finite number and we’re growing. So how how do we get more? And on-site solutions might include stacking services, adding another third, fourth service. It could mean expanding the footprint of the whole building that you’re in. It could be moving from a smaller room to a bigger room. It could be a variety of solutions on-site to help all those situations. And and there’s a lot to consider when it comes to children’s space, worship space, getting people in and out between services and parking and all of those things.
Jeffrey Beachum — Eventually, someone has to be looking at what the offsite locations might be. And and to be honest with you, that is a finite thing. There’s only you can find a green piece of grass and and build a brand new building, which takes a lot of money, a lot of time. There’s commercial properties that you can go into now and build them out, which is always fun and exciting and good good solutions. Mergers is popping up and then portability. Those really are the only four options that are out there for a church to consider going off-site for another site or to launch a new plant.
Rich Birch — Cool. So Curt, from when we think about, again, this church, they’re, you know, they’re reaching 70, 80% capacity. They got full everywhere. Like and they look around and it’s like not and enough seats, not enough kids space, not enough parking. From a design and systems perspective, kind of the running side, what often do you think that we miss at that moment in a church life? Like questions we’re not asking or maybe things we misunderstand about that?
Rich Birch — Because you guys see this all the time. These are the people you work with all day long.
Curt Banter — Yeah.
Rich Birch — What are the things that we maybe misunderstood?
Curt Banter — Yeah, I think, you know, a lot of people are trying to, they don’t want to lose momentum. They don’t want to lose people. They they start, especially I think people kind of a knee jerk sometimes that it’s like, oh you know, people to come in the door. I can’t find a place to sit. They’re going to, you know, they’re to, people are going split.
Curt Banter — And so they’re really nervous about that. So people will tend to do the things that are maybe more black and white and make choices that feel concrete. Like I could build a thing or I could add a service or I could do different things that will cost money and maybe not as much in terms of personnel. But I think sometimes the the tricky part is is that the strategy is really key because what you’re building now is going to lay the foundation for so many other steps down the road.
Curt Banter — So it is important to really kind of step back for a minute and make some choices about you know what that means for your staff, what that means for long-term capital spending or whatever it may be before you kind of just leap into those decisions. And then you’re stuck with things that maybe don’t grow so well, or, um, are just bandaid solutions.
Rich Birch — Yeah, trying to make the long term. That’s hard in the middle of the chaos of it to step back and say, hey, what what is the best decision here?
Curt Banter — It is, it’s really hard.
Rich Birch — Even though I’ve got, you know, I’ve got problems right now. What’s the best decision for us to make it this for this next step? Jeff, what happens if we’re in this again, thinking about the same kind of church, if we wait too long, if we, because I’ve actually seen this in churches where I think it’s like it’s like we don’t have faith that what’s happening now is going to continue. And we think, well, maybe maybe next fall, all these people won’t come back. Now, we would never say that. And then we wait and we hesitate for a year or two. What’s some of the risk there that we should be thinking about?
Jeffrey Beachum — Well, it it is a scary thing to see God moving and and being amazed at what’s happening in front of you, and and really taking that and getting a gut gut feeling, the right gut feeling to say, God is doing something here and we just need to be able to provide ways for him to keep filling seats.
Jeffrey Beachum — And so momentum is very, a tricky thing and you need to be able to keep the momentum going, keep people encouraged. And, and if you don’t, I’ll just share one story. Um, I was at a church. I’ll just tell you my church. I was at my church. I love my church. It’s a great church and got there at Easter time, got there early cause we knew better. And I, I’m old, so I went out to the bathroom and I came back in, and as I was coming back in the doors were closed and there was a sign there that struck me big time and it said: no more seats in the sanctuary. And it pointed to another place where they could go. Well, nobody wants to sit in the second space, no matter what it looks like, and that no more seats available. What if that was the day, you know?
Jeffrey Beachum — And so momentum, you need to be able to keep it going. It’s tenuous and you can hit speed bumps with some of the things that you try to do, but you you really need to take courage in what God is doing and what the skill set that he’s provided for the executive leaders to make these decisions and say, we really believe that God is asking us to do this and make plans for that next thing, whether it’s the on-site solution or the off-site solution.
Jeffrey Beachum — But if nobody is thinking about it and nobody is ready to make those decisions, that’s where you hit a wall and you stop growing. And in my mind, I think once you’ve let people know that that’s not important enough to keep seats open so that more people can come in, I think that has a negative twist to the momentum piece.
Rich Birch — Oh, for sure. Yeah. And there’s, there’s, you know, people won’t invite if there’s not empty seats and there’s, you know, there’s all kinds of interesting, you know, you know, correlations there for sure. So again, thinking about the same church, actually literally earlier today, I was talking to a church, there are three services on a Sunday morning, adding a fourth. And I was asking the XP, how’s it going? And he said, well, we had our, they have like their main parking lot and then they have like the grass parking lot. They’re part of the country country where you can do the grass parking lot. And he’s like, our grass parking lot this last weekend, we’re recording this in early January, was full. And he’s like, we did not anticipate that. And he’s like, I know I’m at least four years away from a building program. I’m not sure, you know, what, what to do. And I thought it was kind of funny that I’m talking with you guys today as well.
Rich Birch — So Curt, when you think when, and so this, this guy was a little freaked out because he’s like, man, we got years before we can think about, and he’s thinking permanent building. So when churches are thinking about expanding, many of us, we jump right to permanence. Hey, how long is it going to take? You know, if you talk to our friends on that side, there’ll be three years to, you know, and lots of money.
Rich Birch — What have you learned about the danger of kind of skipping this, maybe some sort of interim in between step? Talk us through, you know, why maybe permanence isn’t, shouldn’t be our first step when we’re thinking about this.
Curt Banter — Yeah. No, I mean, yeah, and I often tell people, I like, I love the permanent space. I got no problem with that. But if the momentum is really flying and things are going fast, that that is that is a big chunk of why we exist. I mean, we can build a design. You know, you can, it’s, it’s if you you need to find a location. You need to figure out your team. There’s a lot of steps that need to happen in here, regardless of whether you’re going to be building a building or doing a portable church or whatever it may be.
Curt Banter — And so this is a, it’s a great time to kind of figure out what the next steps are. And it really is, it’s an opportunity to, to trial things. And like I say, for us, the big deal is is, you know, instead of that four year window, that kind of thing, I was just talking to somebody yesterday and they said, well, you know, how many, how many months would it take? And I said, well, if if we’re talking in months, we’re in good shape. Because sometimes people show up and they’re like, Hey, we need to do something in 10, 12 weeks. And I’m like, okay, we could probably do that. You know?
Rich Birch — Right. We can hustle.
Curt Banter — Yeah, I mean, and that’s that’s pretty low risk. Like if you can get get something off the ground in 10 or 12 weeks, you know, that…
Rich Birch — Right.
Curt Banter — …that that gives you opportunity to really take advantage of that and not have to freak out about what my next step is and figure out how am I going to excavate or get a architect involved or, you know, whatever permitting all these things, which, you know, yeah, you’ll get to that. But we don’t have to really work through a lot of those issues to get something launched fairly quick.
Jeffrey Beachum — If if I could…
Rich Birch — Jump in – yeah, absolutely.
Jeffrey Beachum — …we, we recently did a case study of a church down in Florida and they, it’s an amazing church in itself, but they went to a campus and thinking they were only going to have to be there for a couple of years because they had a property across the street. And what happened in that campus was amazing and God blessed them.
Jeffrey Beachum — And After they ended up, instead of being there two years, they ended up being there four years. As they were getting into their fourth year, we said, you know what, we need to capture this because this is exciting stuff that they could do. They had 6,000 people on a high school campus on an Easter Sunday…
Rich Birch — That’s crazy.
Jeffrey Beachum — …which is wacko in my mind.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Jeffrey Beachum — But we went down to capture it. And the theme that kept coming out of the volunteers and the leaders that we interviewed was, why would we have waited? Why would we have put this off for four years? Look what happened in the four years that we were in this environment. And now we get to walk across the street in a few months and fill a brand new building. And they did. They walked across and they added a third service immediately. And now just six months later, they’re up to five services. So that I like to call it an incubation time…
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeffrey Beachum — …in portability where they can grow and they can test their mettle. They can test their leadership. They can let the community know here’s what we do and here’s who we are. There’s a lot of great benefits to being portable first.
Rich Birch — Okay, sticking with you, Jeff, and and with that idea, this frame of like, a hey, we’re going to, you know, maybe like you’re saying test or take the first step towards a long term plan that’s portable. I’m sure you’ve had a lot of those conversations with churches over the years that have done that.
Jeffrey Beachum — Yeah.
Rich Birch — I’m sure some of them were like, maybe hesitant at the beginning, and then they do it. And then there’s learnings that come back. They they discover, oh wow, this this was different, better. Here were some of the advantages of going portable first. What would be some of those?
Rich Birch — I hear the idea of like, in that church’s example of like, hey, we actually were able to start reaching people rather than waiting for four or five years for a building and then start doing that. We actually start to do that now. That’s a great benefit. Any other, that kind of thing that comes back that people are surprised they didn’t see on the, on the, on the outset.
Jeffrey Beachum — Well, I think people are surprised when they go portable, at least in our experience with portable church, we we see churches are able to bolster their volunteer base. Normally you get into experiences like that and volunteers, you know, they they they do it for a while and then they say, I’m out. But in our case, it’s intuitive enough and exciting enough, and they see the results that the volunteers usually grow in that case.
Jeffrey Beachum — Another great example purpose for going portable first would be to become a part of the community that you’re targeting for that that next facility that’s going to be permanent. If the community sees that you are already a part of them and that you make a difference, they’re going to make it easier for you to get the permissions to get everything constructed in a timely basis. They’re not going to get in the way because they see the value of having you already in the community.
Jeffrey Beachum — And then there’s always, you know, the the the end result is that when people are hurting and you go into a new community and you answer a need and they they get to go to a place that they’re familiar with, the school, the YMCA, movie theater, whatever that is, in a very comfortable setting that they’re already familiar with and learn about Jesus and have hope restored. So there’s just a few, but there’s a lot of reasons to go portable first.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Jeffrey Beachum — Yeah.
Rich Birch — I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this. In fact, I’m pretty sure I haven’t. So the church I’m at now, next year, 2027, will be a 20-year anniversary. And although I’m not on staff anymore, I do this full-time. I’m still a part of the church. I love it. And you know they have like the organizational values. And we we had one of our campuses was portable for 17 years using a Portable Church Industries system. I know you know that, Jeff.
Jeffrey Beachum — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And when we, I was like emotional when we were putting those cases away and like unpacking them. It was like, oh my word, like this was like a big deal. And actually one of the the staff team’s values, I just saw this yesterday, I was in the office, is we push cases. And, you know, they they internally, even though they’re not portable anymore, we push cases, this idea of like, hey, we’re all in. And it’s like this thing they kind of tell each other. And I actually think friends like I’m I try I’m trying to be like the unbiased, like, oh, I’m just interviewing these guys. But like, I love Portable Church. I love what they’re up to. I love how you help churches.
Rich Birch — And I think your systems, the actual physical systems that you make are like the biggest competitor to you because I bump into them all the time. You know, a decade later, 15 years later, this stuff is still rolling out there. So, Curt, when you design a system where, you know, let’s say we’re we’re headlong in. We’ve said we’re going to do this. We’re going to we’re going to go portable. What do you prioritize? Is it experience, efficiency, volunteer experience, future growth? Talk us through how that kind of the the framework for how your team thinks through the actual design of these things, because it’s it feels like magic to me that, you know, it all comes together. It’s incredible.
Curt Banter — Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it’s it’s funny. All those things are important. And I think a lot of what you have to do is when we go when we go and meet with a church, we talk through all that stuff. You walk in the building and you get a sense of, okay, what’s your identity? What, you know, how does it feel? What does what does the environment look like? What’s your auditorium experience? What’s what’s your kids? You know, what kind of security do you want? There’s just all these environmental questions that we’re trying to figure out.
Curt Banter — And obviously budget plays a part in it as well, but it’s sort of a balancing act. You’ve got to sort of gather all the information in terms of who they are, what what are they trying to achieve, what’s their timeline, you know, and then you’re kind of baking all that into one big pie and trying to figure out how to you know, balance it all together.
Curt Banter — But yeah, it’s it’s different. And it’s funny, I was I tell people, I’ve told Jeff this story, is like, when we sit down with a church, I always tell people, like, if there’s 10 things that are important, don’t assume that I know what they are, because the 10 things that are really important to this church are not the 10 things that may be important to you.
Rich Birch — That’s so true.
Curt Banter — And every single system has to be, we really base it around what is the the core values of that team, that church.
Rich Birch — And how, reveal what that looks like a little bit for people folks. Cause I do think this is, this might be, this isn’t like a pull it off the shelf kind of thing.
Curt Banter — No.
Rich Birch — You’re building a custom system for people. What does that kind of consulting process look like? How do you, how does that actually, what’s actually look like, Curt?
Curt Banter — Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So a lot of times we’ll we’ll set up a consultation, we’ll go in and it’s a it’s a full day of discovery, right? So it’s a lot of meetings with, it could be the executive pastor, we’re meeting with the production team, we’re meeting with the kids people, everybody, people that are making coffee, literally, you know, every part and piece of it.
Curt Banter — And it’s a lot of just listening. It’s it’s a lot of me writing notes and figuring out what’s important to people. And yeah, we’re also talking about sound boards and PAs and you know lighting systems and all that kind of stuff. But it’s it’s tons and tons of gathering and information. Because yeah there’s there’s not there’s really nothing about the system that’s stock. Every single part and piece of it is customized for every client from some of our most budget systems to systems that are gigantic with lots of trailers and and lots going on, so. But yeah, it’s that data, that customization for each client is a gigantic part of what makes us, us.
Rich Birch — Yeah. And I’ve said to folks who have used you when I knew they were you know coming up to a consultation, I’m like, just just mirroring the same thing you’re saying, just tell them everything. Like don’t like don’t hold back and you know and and talk through it all ah and be really clear.
Curt Banter — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Sometimes people come back and the system’s like, well, that’s maybe not what we were hoping it would be. Maybe everyone has like, what is it? Platinum Dreams and you know they have a smaller budget or whatever.
Curt Banter — Oh, yeah, yeah.
Rich Birch — But but but that’s okay.
Rich Birch — That’s a part of your job is to try to help them right size it and and all that. Jeff, kind of on the brand consistency. Oh, sorry. Jump in. You were going to say something there. Yep.
Jeffrey Beachum — I was just going to follow up with what Curt said, because I’ve attended with Curt a number of the consultations, and just walk away amazed at the value of just being being able to have Curt sit in a room with the leaders and how it feeds to the leaders really well.
Jeffrey Beachum — And so some some significant things that I’ve seen Curt do is help them to understand it. So what kind of a what does your worship feel like? And what kind of sound system do you use? And there are some churches now that I say have the Cadillac of systems and they have the best of everything. And it could be really expensive. And if they’re going to multiply sites, that could get expensive over time.
Jeffrey Beachum — And I’ve seen Curt be very gracious about, all right, so you have this top line equipment. If you’re going to do this two or three times, wouldn’t you like to like jump down to a Buick? and And have your people get really comfortable up with a Buick. Because to be honest with you, only the the professionals recognize the difference between a Buick and Cadillac. All of them still have four wheels and a steering wheel.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Jeffrey Beachum — And so he’ll talk about that. And then another key piece is that depending on who’s in the room when Curt does the discovery, he talks about the balance that people really don’t get to the worship space where the high production happens for 7 to 10 minutes. And they pass a lot of things. So there’s a nice balance to the design of the system with the children’s space, which I think is probably as as important or more important than the worship space, because no parent wants to go in and be have misgivings about what the space looks like and what’s going to happen to the child that they’re going to abandon into the care of these people and then walk across the street and the pastor think for one minute he has their attention enough to to preach the most important hour or 20 minutes of of their life…
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeffrey Beachum — …to change their life. They’re thinking about what the heck did I just do to my kids?
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeffrey Beachum — So I’ve seen Curt very graciously help them balance everything out and say, this is how it is important. And it’s important that we we get it into a system so that it can be done with volunteers quickly and they can have success every single time, every single week.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Jeffrey Beachum — And they can be excited and feel they’re as invested in the message that of the gospel as the pastor is.
Rich Birch — Well, let’s double click on that with you, Curt. You know, I think there’s a lot of executive pastors listening in today and, and I have had this experience as an executive pastor. I’m like talking to some tech person and they’re like, we need the—using Jeff’s thing—we need the Cadillac. Like, you know, the gospel will not go forth without, you know, the Cadillac. And and and I look at all this and I’m like, it’s numbers and letters on a page. And how do I understand all that?
Rich Birch — How do you help leadership teams really not either over invest or under invest, particularly on the technology side? Because that side, you know, a kids panel, you know, that stuff, it feels like, okay, that’s pretty consistent. But this area feels like, man, we can, it’s like sky’s the limit. So how how do you help churches on that piece particularly?
Curt Banter — Yeah, I mean I mean, one of the first things I almost always do is I’ll ask people, to say, are you okay, so do we do you have experts coming to run this, or do you have staff coming to run this, or do you have volunteers running this?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Curt Banter — Because those are two very different things…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Curt Banter — …and if you’ve got volunteers coming, which a great majority of our churches do, then you’ve got to think about who you’re designing this for, right?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Curt Banter — And that is a problem because a lot of production directors are like, this is what I want. I’m like, are are you going to run it? Because if you’re not going to be there, it doesn’t really matter that much, you know. So a lot of times we’re really trying. I mean, sometimes i hate to be the wet blanket, but sometimes I think, and i can i can I can speak the language. I know what all the letters and everything mean.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Curt Banter — But sometimes I’m trying to back them off a little bit to say, look, let’s build a system that’s repeatable. Let’s build a system that anybody…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so true.
Curt Banter — …maybe not anybody, but certainly your volunteers, somebody who’s equipped to do it, can do that, set it up in a reasonable amount of time. And and and every week they’re not having to try to troubleshoot it and figure it out and because it’s so complex.
Curt Banter — And yeah, that that may be the right system for your main campus. But a lot of times at these portable locations, we’re trying to do something that’s fast, efficient, volunteer friendly. that’s That’s really key.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s that’s a critical piece.
Curt Banter — So we’re I’m constantly bringing that kind conversation back around to, okay, that’s great. There’s a trade-off in time. There’s a trade-off in expertise. Do we want to do that, you know? And sometimes we say, yeah, that one, we we do want to do it, but maybe we don’t do it over here. there’s you know So it’s always a balancing act there a little bit.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that that to me, that’s a that’s a critical piece. I think it’s such a great thing that that you guys offer to help us think through that. And what is the nuance there and and be another like another voice in the room? Because I think sometimes we end up in those conversations with the with the pro or person that wishes they were a pro you know tech person. And there’re it’s like…
Rich Birch — It’s like they’re they’re they want like the all the bells and whistles, but at the end of the day, they’re not going to have to solve these problems long term.
Curt Banter — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Let’s, Jeff, let’s talk about the volunteer piece, particularly. So, man, I’m here in like set up, tear down, rolling stuff, plugging stuff in. You know, we we know that churches live and die on volunteers in every location, but it’s particularly true in in portable environments. How do systems, well thought out systems from the front end help us win with volunteers, you know week in, week out, not from day one, but then continue over the years.
Jeffrey Beachum — Oh, well, and actually that’s that’s a part of Curt’s team and production and integration and all of that. the The system that Portable Church uses, if you think about it, the the Portable Church has to have all the same stuff your home church has. It’s just all put into a portable system. So you need all of that.
Jeffrey Beachum — And and I’m betting at your home church, you’ve built that up over a series of 5 to 10 years. And here you get it all in one shot. And because that you’re starting out with church and it has to be done well. So you don’t have boomerang volunteers that say, oh, I tried this and I’m going back home. We don’t have that.
Jeffrey Beachum — So some of the things that help with that is that they are designed for that repetitive nature where everything goes in the same place in the case. So every case is designed custom for that particular room. And so one group can come in and set everything up and a whole different group can come in and put it away after you’re done with your one, two, three services. And and it all be in the same place because it everything, every piece has a home and within each case.
Rich Birch — Right. That’s good.
Jeffrey Beachum — And then every case, has a specific place on a trailer because we advocate for trailers and we can explain that later, but everything is weighted out. So we have people that actually weigh each case and where it should go on the trailer so that we’re not breaking some of your volunteers’ hitches, that we’re not having stuff abandoned on the side of the road.
Jeffrey Beachum — And so there’s a meticulous design that goes into meeting the needs so that the church can be effective. And allowing the the case system to be productive. And we have people, kids as early as 10 or 12, they think it’s cool to be able to be a part of that.
Rich Birch — It’s so true.
Jeffrey Beachum — And so they’re from 12 to 80 years old pushing these cases and being helpful in a way that maybe they’re not teachers. Maybe they’re not Sunday school teachers. Maybe they’re not preachers. Maybe they’re not people who welcome you know easily, and they don’t have those skills, but they love pushing the cases and being a part of that.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s true.
Curt Banter — Yeah, that’s to to tag onto that.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Curt Banter — That’s, I mean, the the teams I’ve been a part of in the past, we’ve, we’ve had groups of volunteers that never would have served in a permanent location.
Rich Birch — A hundred percent.
Curt Banter — They had no, they had no place there. They had no home there. Guys that pull trucks, people that are on the security team, people that are bringing in food to the green room, whatever it may be. And they, they really do. They find a home there. They find connection there. It’s not just about the serving. It’s also about the community. They’re very much interlinked.
Rich Birch — Yeah. 100%.
Jeffrey Beachum — And it’s important enough that we we warn churches. So when you go from portable to permanent, you need to find a home for all these amazing volunteers that they can continue to to serve.
Rich Birch — Yeah. And we’ve, I was going to echo that. Like I’ve seen that time and again, in campuses have been a part of where we’ve gone from portable to permanent. And even though I’ve seen it, I’m like, there are a group of these volunteers that are like, they’re the backbone of the church. Like the, it’s all theoretical until the roadies show up and set the thing up. Like we’re, we’re theoretically doing church this weekend. And then this group of heroes show up and, you know, make it all happen.
Rich Birch — And it is a group typically, it’s not always, but it’s my experience has been, it’s typically a group of guys who they don’t necessarily, they love it, but they don’t necessarily fit in other places. And they get this like foundational role in the church and love getting a little bit sweaty. And it’s the systems are designed so they’re not super hard.
Rich Birch — One thing I want to say too, as a friend, like I remember years ago, this is again, probably 20 years ago with Pete, the founder of Portable Church. I was, I was at your location at the production location. And was, I was like waxing eloquently about, man, these cases are incredible. And he like, and you’re going to know what this is. I can’t remember the exact stat, but he he was showing this one case with this door that like flips down and you know he’s like, well, you know, if a certain person of a certain height, if something gets dropped into the bottom of that case, that door is designed so they can lean down and pick it up out of the bottom of that of that case. And he had some stat around like, you know, well you know, like X number of volunteers typically are this.
Rich Birch — And I was like the amount of thinking that’s gone into the design is incredible. like And these are not like these just boxes that you’re pushing around there, although they are, they’re thought through, like lots of small things throughout the entire system that always strike me. I’m like, man, that’s just such a great idea, which is you know pretty incredible.
Rich Birch — Curt, coming back to kind of an a little bit of an earlier question, I want to, there may be people that are listening in there like, yeah, I strategically get that. Maybe we’re going to spend a little less money. We could do some sort of like portable thing to help us before we go, you know, long-term. But some leaders might hear portable and think cheap, temporary, not great, ineffective, not on brand, all that kind of stuff. Help us think through how portable it really, yeah, how does that, what how how do you respond to that? How do you respond to those kind of potential criticisms?
Curt Banter — Yeah. Yeah, I think I was trying to think of, ah you know, what, what causes the cheap thing. And I, I, I hate to say it, but I think sometimes it tends to be a DIY situation. It tends to be something where it’s, it’s that we talked about it earlier, that emergency situation, like I’ve got to figure out a solution.
Rich Birch — Right.
Curt Banter — And so I think sometimes people that go out and they grab this and they grab that and pull together. And now you’ve got this, you know, And there are churches that we go and work with where we sort of refresh the system or optimize the system.
Curt Banter — And a lot of times you’ll see that where it’s just stuff in a trailer.
Rich Birch — Right.
Curt Banter — I mean, it’s just, they’re in boxes. They’re in, you know, cardboard, seen TVs and cardboard boxes that have been in those cardboard boxes for five, six years, you know, that kind of thing.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah.
Curt Banter — And I think that’s the, I think that’s sometimes maybe where the cheap comes from. And, and it’s the, the deal with us is, you know, everything’s thought out, right? Everything has a home. Everything has an an an intention in the way that it’s stored, used, trainability in terms of, you know. So, you know, I often say to people like, look, people go and pay lots and lots of money to go see concerts at big venues, right? And that’s all portable. It doesn’t have to be cheap. Those aren’t cheap. It’s really, it’s dependent upon, you know, what is your budget and what is your volunteer base and everything else. It doesn’t need to be cheap. And even at lots of budget levels, it doesn’t look cheap because there’s really a lot of thought that’s put into how it’s used.
Curt Banter — So I don’t think, you know, there’s lots of opportunities to make it look great in a portable situation, but But yeah, it has to be, and like you were talking about with Pete, it has to be thought out. It has to be engineered. It has to be put together in a way that’s easy and fast and and looks good and has quality about it.
Rich Birch — Well, and this this gets to how many churches you guys have worked with. Like, this is the insane, like, it’s some giant number. Like, it’s I know I said thousands at the front end, but what what is that number, Jeff? What is that? It’s it’s some huge number, right?
Jeffrey Beachum — I, I think right now it’s got to be north of like 4000 churches over the last 30 years.
Curt Banter — Something like that.
Rich Birch — See, this is friends. This is what I’m saying. There are people that are listening in and you’re like, we could just do this on our own. And I’m like, well, why would you do that? Like talk to the people who have, they, although your situation is super unique, they’ve worked with 4,000 other churches in super unique situations and have helped them figure it out. And man, like that’s, you wanna leverage all of that thinking to help you figure out, okay, how are we gonna get this to work at, you know, insert junior high, high school, whatever it is, you know, bowling alley, whatever it is, wherever you’re you’re moving into, that’s that’s great.
Jeffrey Beachum — Yep.
Rich Birch — Curt, oh, sorry, go ahead, Jeff.
Jeffrey Beachum — Well, I was just going to so I would also, when it comes to the value piece, ask how how valuable is it for you to have and to continue the momentum that you have going into your next, your next facility, whatever that is.
Jeffrey Beachum — So you’ve got a gap when you finally realize, man, we got to do something and we got do something fast. Portability can be done within three to four months. We can have you on the ground, in your site and probably for an investment of maybe 3 to 5 or 7% of whatever that end expense is going to be, could be invested to keep that momentum going and to make things stronger.
Jeffrey Beachum — And so with that gap between we need to land somewhere and landing in a permanent spot, you could have anywhere from a three to five year gap that could be highly productive in a highly professional environment with professional gear run by your volunteers.
Jeffrey Beachum — And I don’t know very many, I mean, there are some guys that do DIY and do it well, but I don’t know very many that take into consideration all those engineering feats…
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeffrey Beachum — …that originally were thought up 30 years ago and Curt’s team continues now.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeffrey Beachum — They produce a system that is amazing and helpful. And most of our the churches that we work with, they they come back. In fact, Liberty Live, we just did another interview with Liberty Live, and they were gushing about how much we’ve helped them with several sites. And it’s wonderful to hear that they’re effective because of us putting you know a carpet on wood and putting the right stuff in the right places and helping them to share the gospel.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s incredible. That’s so good. Yeah, and i love that. You may not like what I’m able to say, but I’ve said this behind your backs. But, you know, so so many times I’ve said to leaders when they’re thinking about this exact moment, I’m like, okay, so let’s talk about worst case scenario.
Rich Birch — Let’s be the like, okay, we we launched this location and this campus and we’re, you know, we’re excited about it. It’s working well. But, you know, we don’t know. You don’t know what’s going to happen there.
Rich Birch — Well, the beautiful thing about a portable system is like, let’s give that a run for two or three years. And but best case scenario, four years, like the example you used, four years, we end up moving into some other facility. Well, that’s great. Well, what we do what do we do with this portable system? We take it and put it somewhere else, which I know you’d like us to say, you buy a new system. But but but I say, just take it and you know get them to come back and retrofit it…
Jeffrey Beachum — Yes.
Rich Birch — …and then go into a new location which you can’t do I don’t know any, and I’ve known multiple churches that have done exactly that play, which is, you know, just, you talk about stewardship. That’s just incredible use of the resources that God’s given you.
Rich Birch — It’s amazing stuff.
Curt Banter — Yeah, we’re in the process of…
Rich Birch — Well, as we’re coming to land here, sorry, go ahead.
Curt Banter — …to say we’re in the process of talking to several churches right at the moment that are that are retooling systems that they’ve had in play for 5 to 10 years.
Rich Birch — Right.
Curt Banter — And it’s exactly it’s an engine, right?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Curt Banter — They use it for growth. They retool it and they put it back out there to do the next one. And that’s part of the plan. It’s not a happenstance. They they that is the plan, like is to always keep pushing that thing forward.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, absolutely. And that DUI thing, DUI, that’s different. DUI, do it yourself, DIY. That’s a Freudian slip. The that happens in churches all the time.
Rich Birch — You know, a friend of mine’s church, they were, you know, I was like, you really should be using Portable Church. And they didn’t use Portable Church and they came to their opening weekend and a key piece of gear did not fit through the door. Jeff knows the church I’m talking of.
Rich Birch — And they, you know, I was, you know, the leader that I know is like a little bit frustrated with, you know, with all that. And I happened to see pictures of their launch and I’m like, oh, you got it through the door. And they’re like, no, we did not get it through the door. We ended up spending more money and figured out like an older thing or something and retrofitted. And I’m like, gosh, like, you would have saved all that hassle just talking to someone who’s gone ahead and figured out how do you fit all this into a box and get it through a door.
Rich Birch — As we’re coming to land, maybe a couple last ah questions, maybe one for you, Jeff. If if there’s a leader that’s in this, they’re they’re facing the capacity pressure right now, what’s kind of one step they should take in this next 90 days? Where should they go next? and then I got one last question for you, Curt, as we wrap up.
Jeffrey Beachum — So the next 90 days, I would say, certainly you’re not going to land in a new location in the next 90 days. But what you can do is you can take a look in your crystal ball and say, I think something could be in our future and begin to know what you don’t know.
Rich Birch — Good.
Jeffrey Beachum — And I would say there’s a lot about going portable, the benefits of portability, some of the processes involved that we would love to just tell you about and inform you about so that 12, 18, 24, even 36 months down the road, you you have that knowledge and you say, all right, I’ve got this one in my pocket. I know I can do this. And we would be here to help you.
Jeffrey Beachum — So I would say in the next 90 days, give us a call and talk to us and say, hey, I don’t know when we’re going to do this, but I kind of feel that we’re going to have to. Can you help me understand and learn about it?
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Jeffrey Beachum — I guess that’s the best step.
Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s fantastic. You can go to your website, right? Portablechurch.com/Jeff, I think is the answer.
Jeffrey Beachum — Yes.
Rich Birch — If you want to actually talk with you, which is amazing. I’ve so i’ve told people that I’m like, Jeff will get on the phone and talk to you. Like he’s a real live human.
Jeffrey Beachum — Forever.
Rich Birch — And at the end of it, it’s not like, you know, there’s a, you know, a credit card, you’re buying a new system. That’s not what it is. It’s like, Hey, we want to help you understand early, get in the process. You cannot start the conversation too early. You know, I appreciated Curt saying like, hey, I talked to this leader and they said maybe 10, 12 weeks from now I need something done.
Rich Birch — Don’t do that. Like start early. Like if you’re as and they say they’ll do that. That’s fine. That’s that’s Portable Church. They’ll actually help you. But from my end as an operator, I’m like, even if you’re inkling thinking like early in the we might be doing something down the road. I’m not even sure if this is an option. Call Jeff – he’d be happy to help you.
Rich Birch — Curt, for you, senior leader of the organization – you know, Portable Church is doing a great job. 4,000, we’re looking forward to that when you click over 5,000 churches. What would you say to a leader that’s listening in today as they’re thinking about expansion, maybe a senior leader, like, you know, a lead pastor, that sort of thing? What kind of words of advice or wisdom would you give them as we wrap up today’s episode?
Curt Banter — Yeah. It’s funny, like as, as people are growing and they’re expanding, we’ve talked about this a few times, but think about, you’ve poured everything you got into your, especially if you’re in one location, you’ve poured everything you got into that one location. All of you’ve got your special sauce and all of those people that are really talented at what they do. And now you’re like, we need to grow. And maybe that’s another location. And okay, how how are we going to do that?
Curt Banter — And I think a lot of people are really commonly saying, okay, we’re going to stretch that base over two. And a lot of times you can sort of get away with that a little bit. But what tell you what you go to three or even as you really fully expand into two, you’re going to feeling it. And so the the thing I would always say is, again, think about your long-term strategy.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Curt Banter — Think about what you’re going to need in terms of your team, in terms of repetition and process. And it just it’s going to serve you so well in the long run to be thinking about how the people play into this and how you’re going reproduce it versus just you know getting through this moment.
Rich Birch — That’s so good. Well, appreciate you guys being on today. Again, if you want more information on Portable Church, you can just drop by portablechurch.com. There’s a ton of information on there, lots of helpful resources and all that.
Rich Birch — And if you want to talk to Jeff specifically, just go to portablechurch.com/Jeff. He would love to jump on a call with you and talk you through whatever you know kind of issues, or even if it’s just like, hey, we’re kind of thinking about this.
Rich Birch — What questions should we be asking? He would love to jump on a call with you. So thanks so much, gentlemen. I appreciate you being here today.
Curt Banter — It’s good to be here.
Jeffrey Beachum — Thanks. Appreciate it Rich.
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Jason and Nan Britt from Bethlehem Church, one of the fastest-growing churches in the country with three campuses in Georgia—and a fourth on the way. Jason serves as Lead Pastor, while Nan has pioneered a powerful inclusion ministry called Bethlehem Buddies, designed to help children, students, and adults with special needs fully participate in the life of the church. In this conversation, they unpack how inclusive ministry became a defining part of Bethlehem’s culture and how any church—regardless of size—can take meaningful steps in this direction.
Is your church unsure how to serve families affected by special needs? Do you feel overwhelmed by where to start or afraid of doing it wrong? Jason and Nan offer practical, hope-filled wisdom rooted in real-life experience.
- Revitalization with intentional mission. // Bethlehem Church is a revitalization story at every campus. When Jason arrived 14 years ago, the church had plateaued and was struggling to reflect its surrounding community. Rather than questioning the church’s heart, Jason focused on intentionality—helping the congregation shift from insider-focused habits to an outward-facing mission. Located near Athens, Georgia, Bethlehem serves a family-centric community, prompting leaders to double down on reaching families and the next generation. That commitment laid the groundwork for inclusion ministry, even before the church realized it.
- Seeing an unreached community. // Nan’s background in special education played a critical role in shaping Bethlehem Buddies. Long before it became a formal ministry, Jason and Nan were deeply immersed in the lives of families affected by disability. When they arrived at Bethlehem, they recognized that many families in their community wanted to attend church but lacked the support to do so. Rather than being opposed to special needs ministry, churches often feel overwhelmed by it. Bethlehem chose to take a different approach—starting small, stepping in with humility, and learning along the way.
- Inclusion, not separation. // Nan defines inclusion as inviting people with disabilities into the same environments as everyone else—preschool, kids ministry, student ministry, and adult worship—rather than isolating them into separate spaces. Inclusion honors the individual and recognizes that people with disabilities don’t all look the same or need the same support. A five-year-old with autism and a 30-year-old man with Down syndrome should be welcomed into age-appropriate environments, with individualized support when needed. The goal isn’t just inclusion, but belonging—creating space for people to contribute and use their gifts within the body of Christ.
- The buddy model at scale. // Bethlehem Buddies pairs each individual with a trained volunteer—called a “buddy”—whose role is simple but powerful: be their best friend for 90 minutes. Buddies focus on connection over compliance, valuing relationship more than control. While some individuals prefer quieter environments, most are included directly into existing ministries with one-on-one support. Parents can attend worship knowing their child or adult family member is safe, known, and loved. Over time, this model has grown from serving one child to serving more than 300 families every weekend.
- Unexpected volunteer impact. // One of the biggest surprises has been how Bethlehem Buddies shapes volunteer culture. The ministry attracts people who might never serve in traditional kids or student roles—men, teenagers, business leaders—and cultivates empathy, humility, and ownership. Jason notes that the ministry has become one of the strongest volunteer-recruiting pipelines in the church, strengthening the overall mission and heart of Bethlehem.
- From program to culture. // Early on, Nan personally recruited volunteers by tapping shoulders and inviting people she saw potential in. Over time, inclusion became embedded in the church’s DNA. Today, the culture itself recruits. Serving families affected by special needs has reshaped Bethlehem’s understanding of the gospel—reinforcing the truth that the kingdom of God is for everyone, especially “the least of these.” Jason emphasizes that while inclusion started as the right thing to do, it has become one of the most spiritually formative aspects of the church.
- Simple steps for churches. // For churches wondering where to begin, Nan encourages leaders to start with one service, one plan, and one conversation. Decide how you would respond if a family arrived this Sunday. Identify a few volunteers who could serve as buddies. Use a detailed family intake form to prepare volunteers and build trust with parents. Jason urges pastors to see opportunity rather than obstacles—and to remember that you don’t need to be an expert to start, just willing to learn.
To learn more about Bethlehem Church and the Bethlehem Buddies Network, visit bethlehemchurch.us. Churches interested in starting or strengthening inclusion ministry can email Nan directly and take take a look at Bethlehem’s Buddies Volunteer Handbook.
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Risepointe
Do you feel like your church’s or school’s facility could be preventing growth? Are you frustrated or possibly overwhelmed at the thought of a complicated or costly building project? Are the limitations of your building becoming obstacles in the path of expanding your ministry? Have you ever felt that you could reach more people if only the facility was better suited to the community’s needs?
Well, the team over at Risepointe can help! As former ministry staff and church leaders, they understand how to prioritize and help lead you to a place where the building is a ministry multiplier. Your mission should not be held back by your building. Their team of architects, interior designers and project managers have the professional experience to incorporate creative design solutions to help move YOUR mission forward.
Check them out at risepointe.com/unseminary and while you’re there, schedule a FREE call to explore possibilities for your needs, vision and future…Risepointe believes that God still uses spaces…and they’re here to help.
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey, friends. Welcome to the unSeminary Podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. I really want you to lean in today. This is one of those issues that we see in churches all the time that I really hope tons churches that are leaning in or listening in today will lean in on this issue, particularly if you’re a growing church. This might be one of those just up over the horizon issues that it that you can get ahead on and work ahead on now and and actually create more space for more people in your community.
Rich Birch — Really excited to have Jason and Nan Britt with us. They’re from Bethlehem Church. It’s repeatedly one of the fastest growing churches in the country with three locations, if I’m counting correctly, in Georgia. Jason is the lead pastor and Nan has championed a program called Bethlehem Buddies. And we’re really looking forward to pulling this apart. They offer that all campuses and they provide inclusive support to help preschooler, child, teenager, and adults with special needs transition smoothly into one of the church’s worship environments. So Jason, Nan, welcome to the show. So glad that you are here.
Nan Britt — Thank you.
Jason Britt — And we’re thankful, thankful for for you having us.
Rich Birch — Yeah, Jason, why don’t you tell us, kind of give us the picture of Bethlehem Church, kind of tell us a little bit about the church, kind of set the picture. If we were to arrive…
Jason Britt — Yeah. Yeah.
Rich Birch — …on a typical weekend, what would we experience?
Jason Britt — Yeah. It’s three campuses, hopefully four soon. They’re all revitalization story. We just actually relocated our broadcast campus about a mile down the road. We’re a year in now…
Rich Birch — Nice.
Jason Britt — …December when you’re broadcasting this. And so we opened, new and it’s a revitalization story, multiple services, and it’s just a church that had history. And all of our campuses, Rich, are revitalization stories, too.
Jason Britt — And it was a church with history that just had the courage, if you will, to envision a new future or be open to envisioning a new future. And we’ve been here for 14 years. It was my first senior pastorate, and it’s been a phenomenal year. And the church has just embraced the mission of leading people to discover new life in Christ in all areas of our ministry.
Rich Birch — Why don’t we stick with you, Jason, and double click on revitalization.
Jason Britt — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Kind of pull apart that picture a little bit, help people, because I know there’s people that are listening in today that are on the other side of revitalization. And they’re thinking, hey, you know, what were some of, you know, you first stepped into that journey. What were some early questions that you were asking that really about that kind of led you to the place of like, hey, this is what I think the church could become. Where what started that journey for you?
Jason Britt — Yeah, I think even in the process of, you know how it goes in different denominations or tribes have different ways of calling a pastor. And so for me, as I talked with the group that was selecting a pastor, the church had been plateaued for a number of years, plateaued, declining, kind of fell on that. And ultimately, my question for them is, what’s your limiting, have you guys considered your limiting factor? You know, and I think our church, although the heart was there, it did not reflect the community as a whole. And so by that, I mean the heart for mission was there, but not the intentionality of mission, if you will.
Jason Britt — And so we really kind of began a two to three year journey of what would it look like for our church to reflect our community. And our community, Rich, we’re outside we’re kind of the bedroom community of Athens Georgia.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Jason Britt — All of our campuses surround the college town of Athens and it’s very family-centric, very kid-centric. I mean it’s not a high single adult population out here, if you will. This is where families live. And so we really needed to double down and become incredibly serious about the next generation and reaching families.
Jason Britt — And I think it was just the reality of getting intentional with what our mission and heart was. The church wasn’t, I think I heard years ago, maybe on your podcast or somebody else, a pastor say, when you take over a church, one of two things are happening. They either believe they won the Super Bowl or they believe they’re losing every game.
Jason Britt — Neither he goes, neither—I think it was Jud Wilhite said, I’m not sure…
Rich Birch — Okay. Yeah, yeah.
Jason Britt — …He goes, neither are true.
Rich Birch — Right. That’s good.
Jason Britt — But you have to understand their psyche…
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Britt — …and the way they see their ministry. So for me, the gift of Bethlehem, Rich, was they were, they were, they were ready to win. I didn’t have to convince them they had to change a ton. I just had to, in many ways, give permission to see things differently. That if you will, the local church tends to be drift toward insider focused…
Rich Birch — Yep, that’s true. Yeah.
Jason Britt — …and the gospel is very outsider focused. And so for us, it was a lot of, if you will, deconstructing some things before we reconstructed, a lot of examining the fruit of what we were doing, not the intent. You know, that was a lot of the earliest, probably where lot people that you’re listening, your listeners are in revitalization. A lot of it’s not what we, early on, is not what we need to do that we’re not doing is what we need to stop doing that we’re doing.
Rich Birch — Right. That’s good.
Jason Britt — Right. And that’s the hard part, the deconstruction.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s true.
Jason Britt — That was my first two or three years. It’s when I had a full head of hair and no gray, you know what i’m saying, bro? And so it was good though, man.
Rich Birch — Yes, for sure.
Jason Britt — And so that was our early days of really the heart didn’t need a lot of work. The direction and the intentionality to mission, if you will, strategy and vision. So.
Rich Birch — Well, I think there’s a lot of churches that are listening in that I think can relate with that idea of like, hey, the heart of our church is is right, but we’re not really taking intentional steps. And at some point as a leadership team, you realized that there were families that wanted to participate fully, but needed something different in order to do that. That’s ultimately what led us to what we’re talking about today.
Rich Birch — What opened your eyes to that gap? What kind of got the ball rolling for you as a leadership team, for you specifically or for our leadership team as you were thinking about this issue?
Nan Britt — Yeah, so, um you know, we’ve always been in ministry, Jason in ministry, but really my calling has been early on in special education. You know, that was my training and experience.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Nan Britt — And ah so professionally, you know, that was my job as a teacher. And so really for the first 10 years of our marriage, Jason walked alongside that road with me. And so the students that I taught really had a lot of needs. And so we really got to know those families. We were really immersed in the special needs community of families.
Nan Britt — And so as we came to Bethlehem, we knew, we just knew this was such a great need. This was really an unreached group of people in our community. And so we were excited at the opportunity to be able to serve these families. You know, with him taking that role as as lead pastor, we wanted to make that a priority with our church.
Nan Britt — And so that was that was an easy way for me to get involved as a volunteer. So I served as a volunteer for several years because that was just my experience and training and gifting and, you know, what I felt called to to do to to take what I had learned and really use that, you know, in the church.
Jason Britt — Yeah, I think we’ve been to some great, we served at two great churches before we came here, awesome churches. If I said them, many of your listeners would know they were awesome and we have nothing, but I remember us being there. A lot of times it was, as we as we were serving there, it was not a, nobody’s against special needs ministry. It just seems overwhelming.
Rich Birch — That’s true. Yeah.
Jason Britt — Right. And that’s what you find is nobody’s against doing it. It’s just kind of what it seems overwhelming, if you will, or where do we even start? And so I think for us, when we came, our kids were young. And as Nan began to It just began as with one person.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Britt — And really beginning inclusion there. It was more of instead of being overwhelmed by it, almost, if you will…
Nan Britt — Yeah.
Jason Britt — …taking a step in and giving the example of what of what that looks like.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. I love that. And let’s let’s start, we’re going to get into some tactics in a second, but Jason, I want you to think about from like at a 30,000 foot point of view. My impression as an outsider, looking at this, you know, what you guys are doing, it’s pretty robust. You’ve created a pathway for children, students, adults with special needs to be fully included. And we’ll talk about what that means in a minute. But it to me, i think this could struggle if it’s just a tactic. It seems like what you’ve done has been able to talk about it really at kind of a cultural, this who we’re trying to be. So talk to us how we do that as senior leaders. How do we move this from beyond just like this is another thing we do to like, oh, this is a part of who we are. This is how we see ourselves.
Jason Britt — Yeah, and and Nan could probably fill a little bit of the gaps here, but I think for me, I would say two things to senior leaders or senior teams if you’re talking about that. I think the cultural piece is when it becomes a kingdom of God, everybody’s invited at the table.
Nan Britt — Yes.
Jason Britt — The least of these, marginalized, which we know the gospel – Jesus is more drawn to empty hearts and empty lives than he is full rooms, if you will, you know? And so then in our society, the poor, the marginalized or the least of these is not only poor and impoverished, but oftentimes it’s families who have lived and wrestled with and, walk through this. And so creating space for everybody, I would say was a very, for us, Jesus-centric type thing.
Nan Britt — Yes.
Jason Britt — It was like this, if we are for the least of these, if we are for all people, that was one of our kind of core values as Bethlehem Church is a church for all people, right? Gospel, for God so loved the world. That’s a pretty broad path right there, the world.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes.
Jason Britt — So then let’s be intentional there. And, and the thing that I would tell you now, and as Nan gets into the tactics, we didn’t do this to start. This wasn’t the reason. The reason was it was the right thing and we could do this, but, Rich, man, I am telling you, when you begin to serve these families and and you see the joy and the blessing and what it does to the heart of the church, you cannot exchange.
Rich Birch — That’s true.
Jason Britt — Serving these families, when I talk to other pastor buddies that are stepping into this or some good friends that are in the Buddies Network who would do this, I’m like, man, what it does for the whole of your church when it comes to the heart of Christ, you know, and we’ve seen it go from one kid to three serving 300 families a weekend now. And so it’s been a crazy thing. But what it does for the overall mission and heart of the church and the volunteers and the church seeing this is a powerful thing.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I would agree. You know, we talked a little bit beforehand about yeah when I esrved at Liquid Church for years, and this has been a part of our story there. It’s like of my proudest things that we had been a part of. And but but I want to take a step back. And Nan, can you help us understand when you say the word inclusion, what do you mean by that as opposed to separation?
Rich Birch — So I’ll paint a bit of a picture for you. Maybe I’m a church of, I don’t know, 5-, 600 people. And sure, there are some kids that we can see. There are kids with special needs. And and I’m like, don’t don’t we just want to create a place where we can like put those kids away so they don’t bother us? Again, I’m I’m using hyperbole.
Nan Britt — Right.
Rich Birch — Obviously, I’m playing a bit of the devil’s advocate. I don’t actually believe that.
Nan Britt — Right.
Rich Birch — But what what do you mean by inclusion, not separation? What does that look like?
Nan Britt — Yes. Well, inclusion simply means that you are, in the church setting, looking at preschool ministry, kids ministry, students, adult ministries, and really just looking for opportunity to include everyone into those environments. You know, and we know that some people, individuals with disabilities, just may need some individualized love, care, and support. But I think inclusion also speaks more importantly to honoring people and seeing people as individuals.
Rich Birch — So true.
Nan Britt — And so, for example, we know that a 30-year-old man with Down syndrome looks very different than a five-year-old with autism. And so inclusion is honoring and seeing a person for who they are. And so we want to invite a 30 year old man with Down syndrome into the same opportunities that we’re inviting other 30 year old men in in the church.
Nan Britt — And so, so that just gives an example and it actually simplifies things a lot. You know, you you’re really whatever is being offered, you know, at your church, for each age group, you’re you’re simply just opening up that opportunity for our kids and adults with disabilities and special needs to be a part of that.
Nan Britt — And then, like we said, we just know sometimes that may mean they need some individualized support in order to be a part of those ah great ministries happening. But it I think inclusion really speaks to honoring that individual and seeing them, what they can contribute to the body of Christ.
Nan Britt — And so we know everyone wants to be included, but belonging is really the goal. You know, people, we we know the difference, you know, as people when we’re included in a place, but when we’re invited to to to contribute back…
Rich Birch — So good.
Nan Britt — …and to use our gifts and strengths, you know, that’s when you really feel a sense of belonging. And so I think that’s the power of inclusion versus just, hey, let’s just provide a separate space and because this is what we’re supposed to do.
Rich Birch — Right. Right. So can you get tactical on that? What does that actually look like for, because I, you know, I, I understand doing this at a one or two people, but at scale, 3-, 400, 500 every weekend over a year, like that’s, how do you actually do that? We’ll stick with you, Nan. If I’myeah, what what does that look like? How do how do we provide that care? How do we and how do we learn how we can best support people and then communicate with them and all that? What does it kind of…
Nan Britt — Yes.
Rich Birch — I know there’s a lot there, I understand…
Nan Britt — Yes.
Rich Birch — …but but give us kind of an overview. We start there.
Nan Britt — eah, that’s a great question. I think it’s really important to first define your goal of like…
Rich Birch — Right.
Nan Britt — …okay, what is our goal and why are we we providing disability ministry, special needs ministry? And what I believe is the goal of it is that so a family can attend worship, can attend a worship service together on a Sunday morning.
Rich Birch — Great.
Nan Britt — That is the goal. You know, first, over other nights of programming happening at your church, we believe that we want our families to hear the gospel message, the hope of Jesus, to experience worship, prayer, sit under preaching. And so that’s why we we want to focus on inviting them and providing support around a worship service. We know most likely for parents to be able to attend the service, then that means their child or adult is going to need some individualized support and care.
Nan Britt — And so that’s that’s where the Buddies team, the Buddies ministry comes in. And so ah you’re going to need some some volunteers. And so really, i think that simplifies it a lot because I think churches get overwhelmed to think, man, do we need to provide something every time the doors of our church are open? And I would say a great place to start and focus on is we want families to be invited to your worship service.
Nan Britt — And then equally, ah we want our individuals to experience the love of Christ, grow in their faith, be be in community um with others. And so I think that’s the place to start is while mom and dad get to attend a service and they’re siblings, then we provide a volunteer to pair up with kids and adults with disabilities.
Nan Britt — And then from there, you already have these great ministries happening in your church, kids ministries, student ministries, sometimes on a Sunday morning. And then you’re able to just join in the great ministry happening with that buddy support with a child.
Nan Britt — And then I do think that if you have the space at your church, you can also offer a classroom space for kids and adults who prefer a quieter setting or do better in a small group setting. Then you can offer another space that that also has the same great ministry happening. So I really think those volunteers drive the ministry…
Jason Britt — Yeah.
Nan Britt — …and then just get to participate in with with all the great things happening on a Sunday morning at your church.
Rich Birch — I love that. Jason, can you, let’s talk about it from the side, because Nan was talking there about the volunteer side of the equation. Let’s talk about it from that end.
Rich Birch — What have you seen, kind of what impact has adding buddies and adding a really robust inclusion culture to your church?
Jason Britt — Yeah.
Rich Birch — How has that kind of impacted the volunteers who are and engaged in this ministry?
Jason Britt — Yeah, I think a couple things and our kids will be examples, but they’re friends as well. What you see is there, and and we’ve seen this with male leadership, is there are people that would probably not raise their hand and say, hey, I want to be in preschool or kids ministry. But the chance to pair up and walk with a teenager with special needs, to be included, to be a one-on-one individualized and walk into our kid’s town or our midtown, which is our younger environments, it’s very empowering. And, I mean, it just opens opportunities for connection. And that’s one thing that we’ve seen, that we see people who may not want more than handing out a, but if you will, just on the Sunday service, if you were the Sunday morning weekend environment, serving opportunities, obviously there’s more in the church, but those coffee, parking lot, greeter, than kids ministry. A lot of your churches that you minister to look similar ours, you know what I mean?
Jason Britt — And so what we found was that stream of empowering and inviting, and candidly our buddies ministry, is stronger in the recruiting aspect than our kids or student ministry because it’s so unique and it calls things out of people that maybe the other don’t, if you will. We’ve seen that. And so I would say that that was one of the benefits that we didn’t know early on. Nan maybe did just because of her background in special needs. But as we’ve seen it, I mean, you know, students, it’s a powerful thing when you’re watching a 16-year-old, 17-year-old high schooler, when you’re watching them walk with a five-year-old with autism or Down syndrome into a children’s ministry class. That’s just a pretty powerful thing. The humility, the ownership, there’s just…
Nan Britt — Empathy.
Jason Britt — …empathy. That rich, the discipleship piece of that’s incredibly strong. You know…
Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely.
Jason Britt — …that just in this simple, it’s not filling a hole, it’s empowering. And so that’s one of the things we’ve seen. I mean, I know you’ve been around, if you were Liquid, even the Night to Shine, obviously the the Tim Tebow thing.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s fantastic.
Jason Britt — Even that, that’s probably the big mass on a mass scale we do where the church is incredibly involved. But then the opportunities it’s opened up for us on the outside of the church to partner with other nonprofits and bring nonprofits that for serve families with special needs, but we get to bring a gospel presence to that.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Jason Britt — And that’s because of what we’re doing internally. So I’ve seen both of those things that the mission fulfilled in ways that it’s not just serving those families with special needs, but taking the church to a place we’ve never been.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. And, you know, to underline something you said there that we’ve seen through multiple conversations that I think when we cast a big picture and a big responsibility to volunteers, they will step up to that. In fact, they’ll actually lean in. They’ll be like,I’m this is great. This requires a lot of me.
Jason Britt — Yes.
Rich Birch — I would love to lean in.
Jason Britt — Yes.
Rich Birch — So Nan, what have you learned about, let’s keep keep on this whole topic here, volunteers. What have you learned about recruiting, finding these volunteers, training them so they feel prepared, confident, like, you know, this is your professionally, you said this…
Nan Britt — Right.
Rich Birch — …your this is your professional background, but, you know, you take your average 16-year-old, they’re not professionally equipped for this. And so how do you help them get to a place where they can be a buddy?
Nan Britt — Right.
Rich Birch — Talk us through what that looks like.
Nan Britt — Yes. It’s, it’s really, it’s so exciting. That’s something that I’ve always been passionate about to connect people to purpose. And so, and then like you said, to take what I have learned and, and really, put it into terms and, and easy ways, easy strategies for, everyday volunteers to feel equipped.
Nan Britt — And, and, and so I think that we, a lot of our training materials have come from that that we love to share with churches because we that’s something that we prioritize is we we have many volunteers that serve that do have a background in special education a lot like myself with experience, and I think they’re needed for sure in this ministry. But we have the majority of our volunteers are teenagers and adults who are businessmen. They own their own construction company. Women who you know are stay-at-home moms. Teenagers who, yeah, who would say, hey, I have a heart for this. I’m available. And we love that. We think that that is absolutely the right person to serve. And so we’ve just found some easy ways.
Nan Britt — We are highly prepared on our end as a staff. to ah provide the best experience possible for the volunteer and the child on a Sunday morning. And so we do that with, we have a great family form that we have all of our families fill out. We’ve done that for 11 years. It’s a really detailed form. And so we feel like that gives us so much great information about the child or adult that we’re working with, that the parent has given us. Their interests, their likes, things that their dislikes, what to do to to help them stay calm and engaged. We utilize that every week. We get that in the hands of the volunteers so they feel equipped to to know the child they’re paired up with.
Jason Britt — Yeah.
Nan Britt — And then we we have great just engaging activities and and Bible stories and worship that that just provide the best experience possible for for an hour and a half on a Sunday morning while they’re with us. We want our volunteers to feel supported, to just enjoy being with their child or adult. You know, we say your role is to be their best friend on a Sunday, to hang out. We really prioritize connection over compliance. You know, we’re highly relational. It’s very individualized. And so we, I think that takes away a lot of the nervousness for our volunteers.
Jason Britt — Yeah.
Nan Britt — And we really, do have great experiences because church is different. Church is different and should be different than school, than therapy, than camp.
Rich Birch — Right.
Nan Britt — And so you really can have such a a great experience, you know, for an hour and a half, you know, during a service and people feel equipped. We encourage them. We support them. And, and as you know, Rich, people step in to, to volunteer and, but they always come back to us and say, they are so much more of a blessing to me.
Jason Britt — Yeah, yeah.
Nan Britt — You know, they, they are really ministering to me because our kids and adults, you know, just have such a, a peaceful presence and unhurried spirit, gracious. They’ll pray for you. And so they turn around and bless our volunteers and minister to them. And in so many greater ways than we, than we ever really do for them.
Jason Britt — It’s good.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love that. And you use the word buddy, and I’d love to double click on that. You you talked about this, Nan, this idea of be their best friend that, you know, for that 90 minutes every week. It’s not about compliance. Talk us about talk to us about that a little bit more, kind of unpack that a little bit. What does that look like? Because that’s a nuance that I think people might, who have not been around this kind of ministry might not understand that. So unpack that a little bit more. What’s that look like?
Nan Britt — Yes. So that’s, that’s what we choose to call our volunteers, buddies, buddy volunteers. And we we think it’s, it fits whether you’re with a child or with your, whether you’re with an adult with a disability. And I think that, the the beauty and the success of the ministry is it’s just individualized, you know, undivided attention for a whole, like you said, 90 minutes where we want our kids and adults to feel seen and heard and valued.
Nan Britt — And so if you’re a buddy volunteer, you you have that permission to just celebrate and make that morning just all about their child and get on their level, play with them. You know, we we give a lot of direction around ways to interact with people that have differences. You know, if they’re in a wheelchair, if they don’t verbally communicate, hey, here’s some creative ways of of how you can interact with your buddy. And just to that, you know, to to just place such a high value on that child or adult. And yeah, and there there’s so much celebration around it and so much joy. I think people who walk by buddies or around our ministry, that’s the culture of it’s just so much joy and celebration.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s great.
Nan Britt — Even when they’re you’re in the presence of so many complex needs, you know, this is a group of people who have a lot of hardships and and very complex needs on paper, but yet you can still just have such a great experience as a buddy volunteer. And like I said, I think that the reason for it is it’s so individualized and it’s ah based around their interest, what they like, and really valuing them and then sharing the love of Jesus.
Jason Britt — Yeah.
Nan Britt — You know, that unconditional love. That is what we are we strive to share, you know, as a buddy volunteer to our kids and adults.
Jason Britt — And I think, we’re Rich, I would add, I think in your churches that are listening, now, then we’re 10 years in, the culture recruits.
Nan Britt — True.
Jason Britt — Early on, early on, I would say Nan, and she doesn’t give herself enough credit for this, she shoulder tapped a lot of people and would say, hey, you know this is when the church was very smaller and it was. But in the early days, it was a lot of, just like there’s individual care, I would just say the recruiting was individualized…
Nan Britt — Yes.
Jason Britt — …by Nan, tapping shoulders, saying, hey, I see this in you, or hey, I think you could help me. I mean, I think about… You know, our friends, Richard, Andy, some of these guys who were men’s men that are friends of mine that and and she would just be very specific. Would you and and all of them were like, absolutely.
Nan Britt — Yeah.
Jason Britt — Before they even knew what they were getting into.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Britt — I just think early on, I would tell you now our culture does a lot of the recruiting.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Jason Britt — But early on it was individualized. I see this in you, that shoulder tapping.
Nan Britt — Yep, that’s true.
Jason Britt — It was never necessarily my vision for it, recruiting people. It was more of the individualized.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Jason Britt — And then now it’s part of our culture, but I would say it didn’t start. It just became a part of our culture.
Nan Britt — Yeah.
Jason Britt — Does that make sense?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s 100%. 100%. That’s a great thing to underline, even just in general…
Jason Britt — Yes.
Rich Birch — …but specifically in this this ministry, that those early people that we get involved really do kind of cast vision for the future of like, oh, we’re looking for more of these kind of, like you said, whoever those guys are, your men’s men guys.
Jason Britt — Yeah.
Rich Birch — It’s like, well, that then creates a door for like other guys like that to say, hey, I want to be a part of that.
Nan Britt — Absolutely.
Rich Birch — And yeah, that’s good.
Nan Britt — Yes.
Rich Birch — I was also don’t underestimate the the power of the person asking. I know you highlighted this celebrating your wife, but that’s very true. Like that you want to, the person you put in in charge of this wants to be the kind of person that is trusted and is loved and has got some wisdom. So Jason, sticking with you, I’m sure you get calls from leads, from other lead pastors or executive pastors that might have some like common misunderstandings or fears that about starting a special needs ministry. What are some of those fears that they have and what do you say to them to try to say, no, no, you should do this. What are what are the things that come up in a conversation like that?
Jason Britt — It’s great question. I think a lot of times it’s not, it’s, if you don’t have a background or awareness or someone in your family or close to you that has special needs or disabilities, there is a lot of what if, what if, what if.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jaon Britt — And so like, what if the needs extreme, you know, they have feeding tube or they kind of create the worst case scenario or the hardest situation to go, I don’t know if we could ever.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Britt — And what you realize is the vast majority, the, the, the, the needs not that extreme. So it’s kind of almost right size and go in. No, no, no, no. I think you’re, you’re out thinking, you know, in church, you’ve been around church, Rich, you know, we have a way of out-thinking ourselves somehow of going, well, what if…
Rich Birch — Sure. Sure.
Jason Britt — Hey, Hey, Hey, there’s a really good chance, you know?
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Britt — And so I think that’d be one of going, no, I think, but a lot of times it’s not from against, it’s just a lack of awareness.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Britt — You know, it’s not, we can’t do this because. I think liability, something that comes up, I mean, candidly, Rich, you know, in this day and age of liability and stuff like that. And I think again, the reality is, we are 10 years in, 300 families. It’s just not something we’ve ever dealt with.
Nan Britt — Yeah.
Jason Britt — You know, got think these families love these kids more than we could ever love these kids.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Britt — And so we’re going to be fully equipped and they’re, they’re not, if there’s great needs that, that are, that, they’re probably not going to check them in. They’ll sit with them in the service. You know what I mean? Something like that.
Rich Birch — Yep, sure.
Jason Britt — I think sometimes that would be one. And then…
Nan Britt — Well, yeah, and I would just say, I think that’s when it’s important to have have humility and invite in someone that, like myself that, and I only say myself because like a teacher. Someone who has experience and training professionally in this field so that they’re able to to answer those questions, and to really right size and give a realistic. You know, and I’ve been in some of those conversations before to say, you know, in 11 years, that’s not something that we’ve ever dealt with the church…
Jason Britt — Right. Yeah.
Nan Britt — …but, but, Hey, here’s something else that you need to think about.
Jason Britt — Yeah.
Nan Britt — And so I think it’s, it’s really important. I have a lot of respect for leaders who show humility in saying, Hey, I, I even admit I have some ignorance about this conversation…
Rich Birch — Yeah. Right.
Nan Britt — …and I’d like to invite in so ah someone, an expert in this area to help us move forward in this conversation. Yeah.
Jason Britt — Yeah, that’s been the, I think that’s the, yeah, that’s what we have talked to. Again, it’s almost permission, that Nan’s right, humility and just going, okay, we don’t know what we don’t know, let’s just ask some questions.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Britt — But the other thing I would say is, like, we don’t have, um if you will, a room. We don’t have space. We don’t, we’re we’re for it. And I think we go back to our early days, neither did we. You know It was all inclusion-based and all still is before we had a safety room, if you will, or before we had, what do you call it?
Nan Britt — We don’t call it a safety room. It’s just a buddy space.
Jason Britt — Buddy Space. Like like you know if there’s a kid that’s having an issue or or you know something. We didn’t we have a little more now than we did, but back in the day, it was more inclusion and just start where where you’re at.
Nan Britt — Yeah.
Jason Britt — You can do something.
Nan Britt — That’s right.
Rich Birch — Yeah. I think that’s a good word, Jason, that I think we get way too far ahead of us. And we’re like, we and we picture 300 families and like, oh my goodness, what’s going to happen? It’s like, well, how about but we start with the two kids that are right in front of us?
Nan Britt — That’s right.
Jason Britt — That’s it.
Rich Birch — And what can we do to support those families? Nan, you said this, I’d love to invite you in on these conversations. I’m sure there’s churches that are listening in there like I would love Nan’s help. Talk to me about the buddies network. This is a way—I love this—you guys have stepped out to try to help more churches. Talk us through what that is. How do you help churches? How can you engage with them that sort of thing.
Nan Britt — Yes. I mean, you’re exactly right. That’s that’s where the idea came from, is that in our area, you know, around metro Atlanta, around Athens, we are in weekly conversations with churches of of how to start a ministry or just begin, like you’re saying, what are some easy steps, tangible ways to serve families, bring awareness to it. And so we just decided, you know, out stewarding, being a good steward of the the great work God has done at Bethlehem, the resources he’s provided for us that we love.
Nan Britt — Jason and I, we, we, our big kingdom church people. We love partnering with churches. We love knowing other pastors. And, and so that’s been exciting for me just to work with other churches and share with them. I think we’ve learned so much at Bethlehem, like Jason said, from being very small with no budget, no space, being very conservative in, in what we’ve done to now having a huge ministry, a large ministry, having great space.
Jason Britt — Right.
Nan Britt — I think we just have learned so many ways to be able to equip churches. And and that’s really the heart behind it. And so we’ve done this last year, really, I have I’m leading that and and kind of initiating that. We just have put in quarterly quarterly lunches if you are nearby and close to us to join us for that. Quick things to your inbox that give ideas. We share our resources. We’re where we don’t want you to recreate something, spend time on that.
Bethlehem Church — Because like you said, a lot of that a lot of times it’s kids’ ministries, people who already wear a lot of hats at their churches. I mean, they are overwhelmed. They are leading kids’ ministry. We have some a part of our network that are family pastors, and then they have also been given this task of, hey, figure out special needs ministry as well.
Jason Britt — Yeah.
Nan Britt — Or volunteers. They’re not paid. So it’s our desire just to get in there and help equip.
Jason Britt — Yeah.
Nan Britt — And to make it fit the structure of your church. You know, every church is unique. And so ah we just want to make this tangible and easy. And so, yeah. And so we we walk alongside churches really at their own pace, you know, of what they say, hey, we need help with this.
Jason Britt — Yep.
Nan Britt — And in 2026, we hope to keep expanding resources and more so online that really allow churches outside of Georgia, you know, to access more resources.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that which you’ve provided and we’ll link to this, the Buddies Volunteer Handbook. I thought this was great, kind of a I know I love this kind of thing. I’m always like diving deep on, wow, it’s so cool to see what people do. I love this. Talk to us a little bit about this resource. How does it fit in your…
Nan Britt — Yes.
Rich Birch — …like in your process with Buddies and all that?
Nan Britt — Yes. For sure, you know, the first few years, like we’re saying of our ministry, that our our procedures and systems looked more like just a Word document.
Rich Birch — Right.
Nan Britt — You know, something that I would share onboarding volunteers of, hey, this is your role as a buddy. You know, this is what it means to serve at our ministry. This is these are the expectations. This is… And then in time, you know, we created that. It turned into a handbook, you know, a nicely you know printed handbook that that matched really what our kids ministry handbook and our student ministry handbook looked like. And so it is a great resource that that’s how we onboard volunteers and kind of their their first invitation into the ministry of we go through that handbook with them. We prioritize, hey, this is what we say is your role and what a win is in our ministry. So it goes through a lot of our our systems put around the ministry, the procedures. And what I like to share with churches is kind of what Jason was saying. Really, special needs ministry fits neatly into that that umbrella of all the systems and procedures and policies that a church already has in place for kids ministry…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Nan Britt — …and student ministry, special needs ministry fits within that. And that is the way we function at our church. And so there, back when you said there really is not additional liability or additional policies for special needs ministry. So, that’s contained in our handbook. And yeah, it’s a great resource to share with our volunteers and drives the the goals and expectations of the ministry.
Jason Britt — Yeah .
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Nan Britt — And that’s what we share a lot with we share our handbook with churches and then our family form. Most churches are saying, hey, you mentioned the form that you give to parents.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Help us understand that. Yeah. Yes.
Nan Britt — Hey, can you share that with us? And we say, absolutely. Just just take our logo off of it. You put your church logo on there.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Nan Britt — And you just just just start using that because that’s that’s another great resource we share.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. So as we’re coming down to land, kind of a same similar question to both you. I’ll start with you, Nan. Let’s picture that you’re a leader within a church who’s got a passion for this area and is like thinking, hey, we we need to take some steps in the next, maybe the next six months, next three months to kind of move this from, hey, we’re helping a couple kids to we want to create a bit more structure there. What would you say to them to like, Hey, here are some first steps that you should be taking to try to expand this beyond something that’s informal to like, we’re trying to make this a little bit more part of what we do, not just something we’re kind of dealing with. It’s like, we’re going to actively add this.
Nan Britt — Right. Yeah, I think that’s a great question. I think something immediately that churches can do is to have a conversation, you know, around kids ministry, around the team on Sundays, and essentially just to have a plan in place of, okay, what would we do if a family visited our church? And just by having a conversation and being prepared, really just allows you to welcome that family without the stress and panic on your face.
Rich Birch — Sure. Right.
Nan Britt — You know, of that we know it’s unintentional, but we never want a family to feel like an inconvenience or a burden or unwelcomed at our church. But simply by having a plan of okay, what would we do if a family came? And I think that that could easily be we’re going to get them checked in and they’re going to go into our kids’ ministry environments. But maybe we can have two or three extra volunteers on call that we would utilize or we might pull from our existing kids ministry classes to be a buddy for that morning for that child in the second grade class. That’s that’s pretty easy to do. But if you have already talked through that, then when a family comes, it doesn’t send you in a into panic mode.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah.
Nan Britt — And and then, like because as we said, the parents are still there. They’re in service. You can always call them or text them with a question or a need that you might have. And then from there, I think it gives you time to put some systems in place. What that might be like is you you prioritize a Sunday morning service. If you if you offer multiple services, I always tell churches, hey, you know, pick, choose a service and build your volunteer team around one service.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Nan Britt — And then that is a service you can communicate to the community of, hey, we’re offering our buddies team at the nine o’clock service on Sunday morning. We’d love to invite you to attend at this time. That’s pretty manageable for churches rather than feeling overwhelmed of, wow, do we need to offer her volunteers at every service that we have on a Sunday? So just starting small.
Jason Britt — Yep, yep.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Nan Britt — And then, like I said, an easy step is, is, getting access to a family form.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Perfect.
Nan Britt — And like I said, we can easily share that with you because you collect such great information that really helps you feel prepared for the hour and a half that the family’s with you on a Sunday morning.
Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s great. So similar question, Jason, let’s say you’re, imagine you’re a lead pastor and, you know, somebody on their team comes to you and says, Hey, we, we had this conversation as a huddle, like, Hey, what could we do? And we realized we’ve got to add some more emphasis on this. We, you know, if, if we had a family come today, oh, I’m not sure, you know, we might be able to serve one kid or two kids if they came or one or two people if they came, but we’re not, I’m not sure if we had any more than that, that we, and we’d like to add some more volunteer time. We’re not looking for money, just kind of some more emphasis. What would you say to a lead pastor who had someone come to them? How would you kind of coach them to respond to that, to a, to a leader that came with them with that kind of request?
Jason Britt — Yeah, I would say just because I know how does a senior pastor would, hey, we got this, we got this. It seems like there’s always about five things pressing and and and it’s like another thing, you know. I would say see the opportunity.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Jason Britt — That’s what I would just go, man, the opportunity and, you know, see the opportunity for gospel presence. I mean, I think some of my favorite stories, and we don’t have time to get to them, have been families that came or brought their special needs adult or student, or and they’ve been baptized because of that, you know. So the opportunity of it, it is a communit…
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good.
Jason Britt — …of people that in the local church we are for, but oftentimes unintentionally we haven’t been prepared for or, and again, it’s legitimate and get it. I think it’s the, also there’s just great resources. Like I just got, we just came off, I mean, you know, this stuff, Rich, there’s just like there’s people who help out. We just came off of a two-year generosity initiative. And I need help thinking strategically.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Britt — I don’t need, you know, and and they help that. Well, there’s people like Nan. Uh, there’s people that are out there that are there to help.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Britt — And I think there’s a lot more similarities in churches with people who can help…
Nan Britt — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jason Britt — …than just like I needed in the general there. That’s the same thing I would tell a pastor. Don’t be overwhelmed. See the opportunity.
Nan Britt — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good.
Nan Britt — I would add, I think that’s key that, you know, in the same way that, like you’re saying, in the world of production or other ministries, we are familiar with contracting with people who that’s their specialty. That’s their skill. That’s their experience. I think it’s the same way in this conversation with special needs ministry. I think that is the quickest way to…
Jason Britt — Yep.
Nan Britt — …move along the conversation is to maybe to consider contracting with a person that that has that is a professional in this. It it it will eliminate all of those what-if questions…
Jason Britt — Yep.
Nan Britt — …the fear around it, and someone who knows this this ministry and knows what to do.
Jason Britt — Yep. Absolutely.
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Nan Britt — You know who’s not surprised by the needs of people with disabilities and special needs. So I think that for churches that And like we said, it’s it’s similar to contracting with other needs around the church.
Rich Birch — Right. Good.
Nan Britt — So just as quickly as you can, get someone in the conversation that is an expert and kind of knows ah you know what how to care, how to care for these kids.
Jason Britt — Yep, yep.
Rich Birch — So good. Well, Nan, we’ll give you the last word. If people want to get in touch with with you, with the church to talk about the network or to just just even learn more, where do we want to send them online so they can access more information, you know, that sort of thing?
Nan Britt — Yes. So ah they are welcome to email me, nan@bethlehemchurch.us. I would love that to just, like I said, eat weekly, that’s really my role on our staff now is is talking and training and and just working alongside churches. So I would love to connect. And then our website is BethlehemChurch.us, which they can find our Bethlehem Buddies page. Just see a lot of great resources there and then get in touch with our staff there as well.
Jason Britt — Yep.
Rich Birch — That’s great. Appreciate you guys being here today. Thank you so much. And thanks for what you’re doing. Appreciate being on the show today.
Nan Britt — Thanks so much.
Jason Britt — Thank you.
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Jeremy Baker, Lead Pastor of Elevate Life Church in Connecticut. In just over three years, Elevate Life has grown from 70 people to more than 2,000 weekly attendees, becoming one of the fastest-growing churches in the country—especially remarkable in a region widely known as spiritually resistant and unchurched. Jeremy shares the honest, behind-the-scenes story of how God has moved, and what his team has learned about loving people well, building invite culture, and helping people take meaningful steps in their spiritual journey.
Is explosive growth possible in spiritually dry regions? How do churches keep the focus on people instead of preferences as momentum builds? Jeremy offers a refreshing reminder that growth is less about formulas and more about faithfulness.
- Humble beginnings and a clear calling. // Jeremy and his wife left a comfortable ministry role at a large church in Dallas after sensing God’s call to the Northeast—one of the least churched regions in North America. With no church-planting playbook and their personal savings on the line, they launched Elevate Life with high expectations and a large marketing push. When only 70 people showed up on launch day, disappointment could have ended the story. Instead, it became the starting point. Jeremy describes the journey as a “God deal” from the beginning—marked by prayer, obedience, and a willingness to go after people rather than polish programs.
- Loving people from the street to the seat. // One of Elevate Life’s defining values is making people feel seen, heard, and celebrated. Jeremy believes every person walks in carrying an invisible sign that says, “See me.” That belief shapes their entire guest experience. From banner-waving parking lot teams to outdoor tents for first-time guests (even in winter), the church treats arrival as sacred ground. Volunteers walk guests through the building, help with kids check-in, offer tours, and even escort people to their seats. The intentional warmth sends a clear message: you matter here.
- Taking people where they are. // With nearly 4,000 first-time guests in a single year, Elevate Life assumes nothing about biblical knowledge or spiritual maturity. Rather than pushing people toward instant maturity, the church focuses on meeting people where they are. Grow Track, life groups, and clear next steps help people move forward at a sustainable pace. Jeremy warns that churches often forget how far they’ve traveled spiritually—and unintentionally expect newcomers to keep up.
- Invite culture that never lets up. // Elevate Life’s growth hasn’t come from direct mail or massive ad budgets. Jeremy says he’ll never do mailbox ads again. Instead, growth flows from a relentless invite culture. Every service, hallway conversation, life group, and ministry environment reinforces the same message: Who are you bringing? Invite cards, QR codes, social media ads, and consistent language keep invitation top of mind. Jeremy believes repetition—not creativity—is the secret.
- Reaching people over protecting preferences. // As the church has doubled in size, Jeremy is vigilant about guarding its mission. Growth brings new pressures—parking shortages, crowded services, limited space—but he resists shifting focus inward. If churches aren’t careful, they’ll trade purpose for preferences,. Elevate Life’s mission—making heaven more crowded—keeps the team outwardly focused. Jeremy regularly reminds leaders that people are not problems to solve; they are people to pastor.
- A challenge for church leaders. // Jeremy closes with a simple encouragement to pastors: love people deeply, steward what God has given you, and don’t lose sight of why you started. Churches don’t grow because they chase growth—they grow when leaders refuse to give up on people. In regions others have written off spiritually, God is still moving—and often through ordinary leaders who simply refuse to stop caring.
To learn more about Elevate Life Church, visit elevatelifect.com or follow them on Instagram @elevatelifect.
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Portable Church
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Pumped that you have decided to tune in today. We’ve got a very good conversation. I’m really looking forward to leaning in and learning from this leader and the story that God’s been writing at his church in the last two and a half years.
Rich Birch — Elevate Church in Connecticut has grown from 70 people to over 2,000 on a weekly basis. It’s been named one of the fastest growing churches in the country. I love their mission and purpose is really simple: making heaven more crowded. Today we’ve got Jeremy Baker with us. He is the lead pastor. Jeremy, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.
Jeremy Baker — Thank you so much for having me. So excited. And what a great privilege and honor to be on on live with you today. So thank you.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I’m excited that to unpack this story a little bit. It is not normal for a church to grow from 70 to 2000 in any part of the country, but even more so in Connecticut. I can say as a guy who served in New Jersey, I’m Canadian, you know – don’t hold that against against me.
Jeremy Baker — Let’s go.
Rich Birch — So I understand the spiritual context that you’re in a little bit. But why don’t you unpack the story? Kind of tell us a little bit what’s gone on over these last couple of years. For folks that don’t know, tell us about the kind of spiritual, you know, climate in Connecticut. Talk us through those issues.
Jeremy Baker — Yeah, I first of all, it’s a God deal all the way. And I know a lot of people are asking me, hey, give me some handles, what’s some formulas, what’s some how-tos.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeremy Baker — I’m just blown away by what God’s done. And I think it’s really just the heartbeat of God is going after his people and serving the community really well. So we’re in an area, I’m 30 minutes away from Yale University.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Jeremy Baker — I’m not too far away from New Haven, Connecticut. I’m in in a town about 100,000 people.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Jeremy Baker — Matter of fact, the building is actually in between two cities.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Jeremy Baker — The building is divided right down in half. One half being, yeah, it’s crazy. One half being Meriden, one half being a town called Wallingford. And so in those two cities is about 100,000 people.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Jeremy Baker — So three and a half years ago, I’m working at a big church in Dallas, Texas, mega-world, mega-church, on staff, XP, and the Lord just pressed on our heart, me and my wife that we’re comfortable. We’re we’re living the good life, we’re living the Dallas life, the big Texas life, and there’s more, you know. And nothing wrong with that, nothing wrong with the Dallas life, the big life, the Texas life, nothing wrong with big churches – God loves this, the capital “C” church, you know. And so long story short, prayed for about a year, and we said, we’re going to the Northeast.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Jeremy Baker — This is where my wife is originally from, the Connecticut region, this area, actually called a little town called North Haven. And we’re going to go back up here because there’s a group of people that need the Lord. And, you know, the Northeast, New Jersey, you know, New York, Maine, Vermont, Pennsylvania, these kind of, this region up here in this New England region is ah is an unchurched region.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jeremy Baker — There’s great people that are God-fearing people, great good Bible-believing churches, but there’s it’s not known as a Southern, you know, Christianity.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jeremy Baker — Like everybody goes to church in the South, but up here, it’s a little different region. So we came up here. We didn’t know how to plant a church, honestly.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Jeremy Baker — I’m just giving you all the honest, the the real, real.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jeremy Baker — I wish I could tell you that I wrote the book on it and I know how to do everything perfectly.
Rich Birch — Love it
Jeremy Baker — But i could I could tell you every horror story what not to do, you know? So we we pulled out our life savings and we started a church and we had 70 people on our launch date.
Rich Birch — Wow.
And we put about $100,000 into our launch date thinking we would have…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Jeremy Baker — …you know, 800 people, a thousand people are going to show up. We put mailers in everybody’s mailbox. So long story short, we had 70 people.
Rich Birch — Wow, wow.
Jeremy Baker — And then out of that, we have just been going after our city. Out of that, we have just been reaching people, inviting people to God’s house, serving our community, clean days, outreaches, food ministry, backpack giveaways, Christmas, Thanksgiving. I mean, just every major holiday, we have just attacked our community. And this last week, we had over 2,400 people in attendance.
Rich Birch — Wow. Wow. Praise God.
Jeremy Baker — And and so in three and a half years, it’s just been wild. And there’s so much in that story I could tell you.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeremy Baker — But that’s kind of been from where we were, planning humble beginnings. God, what do you want to do? And it’s not about the size of a church, as you know, because I know there’s great churches out there that are ministering very well to the size that is in their community, and they’re doing a really good job shepherding people, caring for people.
Jeremy Baker — But it’s just, you know, I always believe, God, let me not mess this up. Lord, if I can steward this well, you’ll keep bringing them to me. And so we have a brand new team, new staff. I like to call us the the misfits of Toy Island, if I could use the if i could if i could use the Christmas kind of you know…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jeremy Baker — …thought process, you know. We don’t know what we’re doing, but we’re loving people well. We’re serving. We’re discipling to the best of our ability. We’re preaching the full gospel now. I don’t want people to think that we’re not preaching the gospel.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Jeremy Baker — We’re preaching from Genesis to Revelations, and we’re preaching the whole Bible, the whole council. And but that’s kind of that’s a little bit of kind of like how the beginning happened, but it’s been wild.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool.
Jeremy Baker — It’s been wild, man.
Rich Birch — Yeah. And I know, you know, we know that, well, all of our churches, you know, they they have the impact they do because God chooses to use what we’re doing at the end of the day. It’s got nothing to with us. It’s got everything to do with him.
Jeremy Baker — Right.
Rich Birch — But he is choosing to use something that you’re you’re doing. He’s clearly blessing something. He’s working through something. When you step back and think about the last couple of years, two or three years, What would be some of the things that you’ve seen him use that are like, hmm, this seems to be a part of the equation of what he’s pulling together.
Rich Birch — And that’s not from a like, hey, we want to replicate all this, but it’s like, hey, here’s here’s your story. This is what God seems to be using in your context to reach your people. What would be some of those things that bubble up to your mind?
Jeremy Baker — Yeah, great question. I would think the first thing for us is people want to be seen. People in the world that we live in today want to know that someone cares about them, that someone loves them.
Jeremy Baker — We like to say it around here. We have little cultural sayings. We see you. We hear you. We celebrate you. We see you, we hear you, we celebrate you. I love what Mary Kay said, the the makeup organization. She had a quote, and if I can quote her right, she said, everybody has an invisible sign around their neck that says, see me.
Jeremy Baker — And and I think it’s important. I think it’s real important that we see people the way God sees them. You know, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever would believe in him. So the whole thing is about seeing people the way God sees them, not seeing them through their lens of brokenness or through the lens of maybe a divorce or the pain or the regret or the shame. No, we got to see them through the grace and the mercy of God, through through what Jesus wants to do in their life. So we’re just loving people really well from the street, if I could say it like this, because I know it’s been said in church conferences, but from the street to the seat, we’re just loving people really well, you know, how to how to make people feel like they’re the big deal.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Jeremy Baker — You know, that God does love them. So that would be probably one thing that I would say would kind of be our bread and butter of just loving people well…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jeremy Baker — …helping people find hope, especially in a season like this, you know, holiday season. It’s like, a you know, a lot of people are hopeless and we need to give hope to people. And so that would be a big thing.
Jeremy Baker — I say think the second thing I would say is taking people on the spiritual journey where they’re at. You know, I’ve been a ministry for 30 years. My dad’s a pastor. So I’ve been in church for a long time. And I think sometimes, you know, we can as as as church kids, or if I could say it that way, or church people, we are called the shepherd. We’re called to minister. We’re called the guide. But sometimes we want people to be on the road that we’re on. And and they don’t realize…
Rich Birch — That’s so true.
Jeremy Baker — …we have we have we have been on this journey for a long time. There’s been a lot of going to the mat, dealing with us, God doing a work in us. Like David said in Psalms 51, Lord, create me a clean heart. Help me help me grow, Lord, as a leader, as a mature, you know. Put away childish things. I, you know, I want to grow. So so we’re taking people on their journey. Okay, you’re new to faith, so we need to start you on this road or this path, if I could say, you know. Oh, you’ve been walking with God for three years. Okay, we’ve got to make sure that you know some of the foundations, some of the basics.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeremy Baker — You know I think that’s been some of our greatness of helping people stick, find community, be a part. So those are, I think those are two things. Understanding people need to be seen. And the second one is taking them on a journey of where they’re at, you know?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. I love that. The let’s let’s unpack that a little bit. I’d love to start with the loving people well thing – a little bit more detail.
Jeremy Baker — Yeah.
Rich Birch — When you say that, so what does that mean from the street to the seat? How are you how do you feel like, oh, this is something that Elevate Life’s doing well to love people as they’re coming, as they’re arriving, as they’re a part of what’s going on at the church?
Jeremy Baker — Yeah, so great. So for me, it’s going to be guest experience.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jeremy Baker — What does it look like when people pull on your parking lot? You know, do we have parking lot – we don’t call them attendants. We call them parking lot banner wavers.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah. Love it.
Jeremy Baker — They’re waving a banner, a blessing over your car. Now, it’s going to be a little charismatic a little bit. There’s going to be a little bit of a, you know, my background is, you know, is I’m I’m very very energetic, very enthusiastic…
Rich Birch — Sure.
Jeremy Baker — …passionate as a leader. So I want people to know it’s a big deal that you’re on property today.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeremy Baker — It’s a really big deal that you brought your family, that you showed up. You didn’t have to show up. You didn’t have to be here. You could have stayed home. You could have did what you wanted to do, but you gave God some time today. And so what we do is we we we we really pray that as the tires hit the parking lot, that miracles take place in people’s lives.
Jeremy Baker — Whatever that miracle might be, miracle of salvation. A miracle of of of a mindset change, a miracle of restoration. So banner wavers in the parking lot, loving on people.
Jeremy Baker — We have a team called the Impact Team that’s in the parking lot. They’re what we call our first time guest experience connection moments. So when they when there’s tents outside, of course, even in the winter, we got tents outside with heaters outside. You know, we just got four inches of snow the other day, but they’re still outside.
Jeremy Baker — So the commitment from our servant leaders is there. The commitment from our staff is there, just to make people seen and feel loved. So as they’re walking into the property, if they’re a first time guest, our team has been trained how to identify a first time people, even with the amount of people that are coming. And they’ll walk up to them and just say, so glad you’re here.
Jeremy Baker — Is this your first time? No, I’ve been here for about a month. OK, do you need anything? How can I serve you? How can we help you? Do you know how to check your kids in? Or, hey, can i can I walk you to your seat? I mean, we literally have a team over 100 plus people that are helping people walk into a building…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Jeremy Baker — …get a free get a get a cup of coffee, find them to their seat, make them feel loved. If they’re new, hey, let me take you on an experience tour is what we call it, an experience tour. You’re walking into a brand new building. You’ve never been into the building before. You know, lot of churches, it’s all love, but might not have the right signage of communication of where restrooms are, kids check-in nurseries, nursing mother’s room, you know, special needs, whatever. So we have these people that go and walk these people through this building. And, you know, we don’t have a large building. We’re we’re adding on to our building, but we’re about 28,000 square feet.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Jeremy Baker — And so even in that size, you know, you can get lost in a building that size…
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Jeremy Baker — …you you know, especially where there’s hallways and doorways you don’t know. And so we’re having people walk through. And then people walk up all the way to their seat.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Jeremy Baker — And then when they’re in their seat, we got people that are on the host team, which we’d call modern day ushers. We call them host team members. They just walking up to them. Hey, good to see you. How you doing? Good morning before service starts.
Rich Birch — I love that. Yes.
Jeremy Baker — So we’re creating this we’re creating this interaction culture. Now, if you’re introverted, I’ll be honest with you, it’s going to be hard. It’s going to be hard, man.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jeremy Baker — It’s going to be hard. If you’re more introverted in your personality and your style, you’re going to feel overloaded at a level, you know what I’m saying?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jeremy Baker — So so that that’s some of the feedback we get.
Jeremy Baker — Like, hey, I love the church…
Rich Birch — It’s a little much.
Jeremy Baker — …but I got 18 people talking to me, man, before I even find a seat. And it’s like, I get it, I get it, I get it. But, you know, we just want you to feel seen and feel loved. So that’s part of what we do.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s very cool. I love that.
Jeremy Baker — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Super practical. That’s cool. And then I like this idea of talking to people where they’re at. I think that can be a concern we run into or a it’s like we’re not even aware that in our our churches we’re we’re we’re using language or or we’re assuming everyone’s at a certain place. What does that look like for you at Elevate Life? How are you helping? Because that’s a lot of people in a short period of time to both get to know and then also try to communicate in a way that actually connects with where they’re at. Talk us through what do you mean by that when you say we’re trying to talk to people where they’re at in their spiritual journey?
Jeremy Baker — Yeah, so if it so if you’re new, let me just give you context. This year alone, in 2025, we’ve had 3,919 first-time guests walk through our doors.
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Jeremy Baker — This year alone.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jeremy Baker — So for us, we know as a new plant, as a new church, we’re going to have to really walk people through this spiritual journey. Some of these people maybe have some form of God, maybe they have been walking with God. Maybe they’ve been out of church since, you know, let’s just talk about pre, know, after or during COVID. Maybe they haven’t been back to God’s house because that’s really real in the Northeast.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Jeremy Baker — I mean, some people are just now coming back to church in the Northeast that have not been in church for the last four years. You know, it’s like, oh yeah, I’ve been out of church for about three and a half years and I’m just now getting back into the rhythm of getting back in my faith.
Jeremy Baker — So there’s so much I can talk about that. Like how how do we make our services flow? Like I always introduce introduce myself, hey, my name is Jeremy, and I have the privilege to pastor this church, and I just want to say welcome. If if this is your, you know, 52nd welcome this year or if this is your first welcome, I just want to say welcome.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jeremy Baker — Because i want I want them to know that we’re real, that we’re authentic, and we want to help them on their spiritual journey.
Rich Birch — It’s good.
Jeremy Baker — So we offer stuff like, you know, first-time, you know, decision, if you made a first time decision, let’s go, let’s go into, you know, who is Jesus? You know, what does Jesus, you know, want to do in your life? So there’s, there’s, there’s classes, there’s paths that we offer there.
Jeremy Baker — Grow track, you know, we have grow track that we offer every month. Hey, hey, won’t we want to teach you a little bit more about faith, who Elevate Life is, what, what our mission is, what our vision is, what, what the values of our church is. And so we walk them through that.
Jeremy Baker — And then, and then what we have is we have life groups. And these life groups are from all different walks. Deep dive of Revelation, deep studies of the Old Testament. Or, hey, we’re just going to go through the book of John. We’re just going to start in John 1 and learn what Jesus, you know, who Jesus is. And we’re to start there. Or if you’re more intellectual, we’re going to go a little bit deeper. You know, so we we we we we have these these life groups, we call them, because we’re Elevate Life. So we call them life groups. We want we want these groups to bring life to people.
Jeremy Baker — And and so ah so we just we we have people, we encourage them to sign up, to get involved. That’s our conversations always in the hallways. Hey, are you are you serving on a team? Are you in a life group? Here’s here’s why. The goal for me is not just gathering large crowds. The goal for me as as a shepherd, I would just say as ah as as the lead pastor now in this season of my life, is is to help people develop spiritually…
Rich Birch — Yeah, so good. Yeah, definitely.
Jeremy Baker — …to help people find their personal walk with God, not just come and hear a good word. You know, motivating, it’s inspiring, it’s it’s helpful. Yes, it’s practical. I’ve got handles I can live my life by throughout the week. But my my heart is, don’t just take a Sunday and give it to God, but give God every day of your life.
Rich Birch — So good.
Jeremy Baker — You know, sometimes we just turn the surrender switch on on Sunday, not realizing the surrender switch needs to be on every day of the week.
Rich Birch — Amen. So true.
Jeremy Baker — So I’ve got to turn that surrender switch on every day. And just like you a natural thought when you turn the light switch on when you’re in the room, you turn it off when you leave the room. Well, a lot of people look at church that way. I’m going to turn my surrender switch on today. It’s Sunday. I’m going to go to God’s house. And then on when they leave Sunday, they leave away the property. They pull away. The surrender switch turns off. And I think that’s where the consumer mindset, especially in the Western part of the country…
Rich Birch — Sure.
Jeremy Baker — …you know, we have gotten, you know, we’re, we’re inundated with consumerism.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jeremy Baker — And so, and so how, do how do we help people really become disciples of of Christ? So the second part of our mission statement is making disciples that follow Jesus. So the goal is making heaven more crowded, but making disciples that follow Jesus.
Rich Birch — So good. That’s great. Let’s talk about a bit like up the funnel a little bit, like at the top end, where, how are people learning about Elevate Life? You talked about when you launched, you did a bunch of marketing stuff. Has that continued to happen? Is this just like, you’re really good at Facebook ads? Help me understand. What does that look like? How, why is the church growing?
Jeremy Baker — Yeah, great question. I personally, I will never do an ad in a mailbox again. That was $25,000 that I think one person showed up, and then we had a bunch of them ripped up and mailed back to us and told us to never mail them and again. It’s the funniest story.
Rich Birch — Wow. Yes.
Jeremy Baker — Yeah, so it’s it’s all good. It’s it’s it’s this is not the South. I’m a Texas guy, and I’m living in the New England region, and it’s it’s night and day, you know.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Jeremy Baker — So what we have done really well at, I believe, causes some of the growth to happen is two things, is every week we’re encouraging people to invite somebody. That is a part of our culture. Invite culture. Who you bringing? Who do you know that’s far from God that needs the Lord right now? Who do you know that’s far from Him that you know that that you could bring?
Jeremy Baker — So then the second thing is we’re doing really good social media ads. We’re spending about $1,500 a month on social media ads. And our team has done a phenomenal job. And all my team is 19, 20, 21, and 22-year-old young men and women that are running all of my social media.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great.
Jeremy Baker — I’m 50. I want to act like I’m current. But I’m not. You know, there’s things I don’t, I’m not adverse in. There’s things that are constantly changing with technology.
Rich Birch — Sure. Yeah, sure.
Jeremy Baker — And and and I just got to trust this younger generation.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jeremy Baker — And they have done a phenomenal job.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Jeremy Baker — That’s been one of our huge success for us to put us on the map in this region, to put us, make us aware.
Rich Birch — Let’s pull it, but pull apart both of those. When you say you’re encouraging people every week, so you’re like ringing the bell that I want to hear churches to hear more of. You’re inviting people every week to invite their friends. Give us a sense. What does that look like? How are you doing that every single week? What’s that look like?
Jeremy Baker — Yeah, so part of that is in our services. It’s in language.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jeremy Baker — You know, we always say, you know thank you for being here this morning. We pray that you have brought somebody with you. And then at the end of our service, we’re saying, hey, don’t forget to invite somebody back next week. So we’re always saying that in our language. So it’s become part of our our culture. It’s become part of of who we are as a church. We are a bringer church. We are an inviting church. We are a reach the lost church. We are the great commission. Because the goal for us is not just giving information, but we’re hoping that the people will receive the information that causes some type of revelation in their own spirit that leads them to the Great Commission.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Jeremy Baker — Because we want them to be a part of what Jesus said. He you know he said in in Matthew 10, he goes, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. You know. Pray to the Lord of the harvest that he would send more laborers. So we are we are Ephesians 4, equipping the church to do the work of the ministry. We are we have to encourage people to build the local community of the church, the local house of God.
And so that’s part of our language in our hallways. We have really practical things. We have invite card stands everywhere. Invite card stands everywhere. So simple. We have QR codes. You can scan. You can download all kinds of invite information.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Jeremy Baker — You can invite our service times. So really practical steps like that have really helped us. And then in our life groups, it’s in it’s being said. In our midweek services, it’s being said. We do eight services a week. So that’s what we’re doing right now, eight services a week. And and and so in every service, it’s just been indoctrinated.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jeremy Baker — It’s been just repetition, you know, over and over and over.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jeremy Baker — And then And I think that’s a big part of why God’s allowed us to… Honestly, I don’t know church any other way.
Rich Birch — Right. Sure.
Jeremy Baker — I personally don’t know church any other way. I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
Rich Birch — I don’t know about that.
Jeremy Baker — I’m just I know I’m just appreciate the love. I mean I I’m a guy who barely graduated from seminary. I barely graduated, you know. I was like everybody looked at me, all the professors, like, oh, man. I hope you make it. You know, it’s like, it’s like one of those guys, it’s like, I just, I just love people well. And I want people to know Jesus. I mean, Jesus changed my life. I mean, he changed my life. He, he did something in me that no one ever has ever done or no one could ever do. And my life is I’m indebted to him.
Jeremy Baker — I’m I’m living my whole life for him. That’s why 30 years of working through whatever I’ve got to work through in ministry and working through stuff as a as a young man, now as an older man. I’ve just stayed the course, stayed faithful. Not perfect, but stayed faithful, step moving forward every season of my life. And so I just love people well, and I think people hear the heart of that through our pastoral team, through our elders.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Jeremy Baker — They hear the heart of loving people well, that we want people to find Christ. So that’s the language I think helped us in this last season, you know, really in this last season, really grow. A year ago, a year ago, this time, we only ran, not not only, it’s great, but we were around about 900 people a year ago.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s crazy.
Jeremy Baker — And then it’s last year, we’ve exploded.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jeremy Baker — We’ve doubled our church.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Jeremy Baker — I mean, we’ve doubled. I mean, we we we have no more parking. I mean, we we we have 345 parking spots. And then two out of the five weekend experiences, because we do other services throughout the week, two out of the five weekend experiences, we have to turn people away, which just breaks my heart as a pastor because it’s like…
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah. Yes.
Jeremy Baker — …we can’t build fast enough. We’re looking for bigger venues. Again, I could go on that, but we want to make more room. We want people to find hope. It was never about being big. I told a pastor locally, I said, and he was he was coming here to, you know, just to encourage us to keep going, which was very kind of him. But I said, pastor, it was never about being big. It’s always been about reaching the lost.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s great.
Jeremy Baker — It’s always been about reaching the lost.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Jeremy Baker — So I don’t know if that makes any sense.
Rich Birch — It does. It does. There’s a lot there that you, that I, you know, I, I, I didn’t want to interrupt because there’s so much packed in there that I think was so helpful for people. And, you know, that singular focus on, Hey, we’re trying to reach people. I want to come back to that in um in a minute. I want you to kind of speak to, leaders on that.
Rich Birch — But I want to underline one of the, it’s a simple thing that um we miss in too many churches. And I’ve done a bunch of study on invite culture and you’re doing classically, you’re doing the best behavior classically. You’ve got to keep invite in front of people. We can’t, you can’t let up the gas pedal on that one. You’ve got to keep that in front of people, make it super practical, give them tools, all that like invite card stuff, all of that super important.
Rich Birch — Years ago, I was talking to a lead pastor of a church that was growing very rapidly. And this wasn’t on a podcast. We were talking sidebar and I was like, Hey, asked a very similar question. What’s God using? And he’s like, Oh, it’s a little embarrassing. I don’t want to say it. And I’m like, no, no, tell me, what do you think he’s using? And he said, well, every weekend for this last year, We put invite cards on every single chair in every auditorium for the entire year. And we told people, take those and invite people. And he’s like, I really think that that is like just the intensity…
Jeremy Baker — That’s it.
Rich Birch — …of we’re keeping it in front of people. We can’t let up. So I want to I want to encourage you and that and listeners.
Jeremy Baker — Thank you.
Rich Birch — Hey, friends, that is that is a key part of this. Talk to us about the the focus on reaching the lost or reaching people who are far from God or unchurched people. Talk talk us through that.
Rich Birch — Because what what’s happening at your church, I know we’ve kind of we’ve referenced this a few times, is super unique in in, you know, New England. What would be some of the challenges that you’re facing to keeping that singular focus of reaching unchurched people, people far from God? What’s been the challenge there and how are you having to adjust and kind of keep your culture focused on that as you continue to grow?
Jeremy Baker — Such a great question. I mean, such a great question. I would, man, you’re such a great question asker, if I could say it that way.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s nice. Thank you.
Jeremy Baker — Yeah I mean, a great question.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Jeremy Baker — I would think for me, for me, I got into ministry so that people’s lives could be changed by the good news. There’s no other way there’s no other reason why I’m in ministry. I’m here because I want people’s lives to be changed the way my life has been changed. So the the thing I’m always projecting from the the the the platform that I get to walk in, the the place that I get to stand, is it’s got to be about people. That’s why Christ came. He came and he and he died on a cross so that people would find eternal life, so that people would find hope.
Jeremy Baker — And so we’re always pushing that agenda from the front. And, you know, whatever said from the platform stage, whatever you want to, however you want to articulate it, is is is is being pushed for a reason, I believe. So we’re constantly pushing this from the stage. We’ve got to reach people. People are dying and going to hell every day. And this is where I think the church sometimes trips. We got enough people now. So now let’s get let’s let’s stop making it about people and let’s start making it about preferences.
Rich Birch — Come on.
Jeremy Baker — And I think that’s the danger that’s the danger where guys like me can, you know, I was just having an elder meeting a few days ago, and I andI was telling our elders, because now we’ve got to implement some other pathways of discipleship, some other handles to help people grow and mature faster. And I said, you can’t push maturity. Maturity takes time.
Jeremy Baker — If we’re not careful, we’ll we’ll lose the vision of what got us here. And then what happens is we’ll become inward focus rather than outward focus. said, I’ve seen it, guys. And I was talking to my elders. and I was just opening up my heart to them. I said, I’ve seen us do this. I’ve been a part of big churches where now it’s about the building. It’s about the butts.
Rich Birch — So true.
Jeremy Baker — It’s about the budgets. It’s about, you know, I’ve seen that. And I’m like, let us never lose the very thing that God’s allowed us to be a part of in in this season.
Rich Birch — Yep, so true.
Jeremy Baker — I never woke up one day and said, hey, let’s go and have one the fastest growing churches in America in the New England region. I woke up one day said, God, I’m comfortable. And I don’t want to be comfortable anymore.
Rich Birch — So good.
Jeremy Baker — I want you to use my life for the rest of my life until I see you to bring an impact in this region, whatever region that you send me. He sent us to the Northeast.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jeremy Baker — He sent us back home to where my wife was from. And so that’s our prayer. And I want to keep the main thing the main thing. I don’t want to drift because there is a difference between, there is a difference between preferences and then and then purpose, you know. The purpose of Elevate is to make heaven more crowded. The purpose of Elevate is to make disciples that follow Jesus. The purpose is to reach our community, to make an impact. But but if you’re not careful, you’ll you’ll get you’ll get satisfied with the people. You’ll settle. You’ll get complacent. We got enough people now.
Jeremy Baker — But what if but what if God really wants to change? What if God, this is my question I’ve been wrestling with, and maybe maybe you have answers for me, but I’ve been wrestling with this question in my own spirit. Like, is it possible that one church could really change a community? Is it possible that one church could, God could use a church, a group of people. Not not I’m not talking I’m not talking about domination. I’m talking about just a group of people that are passionate about making heaven more crowded, that God could use a group of people that would change the facet of a community.
Rich Birch — So good.
Jeremy Baker — You know? That would that that that’s the that’s the thing I’ve been wrestling with. Can God use Elevate Life in this region? What if God wants to use us to help Yale? What if God wants us to use us to, you know, to to to get on college campuses and see a revival, you know, at Yale University?
Rich Birch — So good.
Jeremy Baker — You know, and I mean, that’s an Ivy League school.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jeremy Baker — I mean, people from all over the world go to that school. And we haven’t even, I feel like, scratched the surface. So that’s part of my my always, I got to keep the main thing the main thing. It’s got to be about people. So one of our values is, people is our pursuit. That’s what we’re, we’re pursuing people.
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Jeremy Baker — And not programs, not not preferences. I got preferences. I mean, I’m sure we all got preferences.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jeremy Baker — But I’m putting down my preference so that I can carry the purpose of the good news. I hope that makes sense.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Makes total sense. And yeah, super encouraging. And yeah, I think I think God’s placed your church in a, you know, every community across the country is an important place. There’s people all over the world that need Jesus, obviously, but I i don’t think you’re, I think it doesn’t, it’s not surprising to me that the Northeast is a place that is, some call it a spiritually dead or spiritually dry part of the country, while at the same time, it is of global significance in a lot of different ways. Like the the communities that you’re serving are are different than other parts of the kind country from an influence point of view. You place like Yale, it’s not just another university.
Jeremy Baker — Yeah.
Rich Birch — You know. And so I think God’s placed you there for a real specific reason, which I think is you know, super encouraging. Well, this has been a a great conversation, Jeremy. I just want to encourage you, thankful that you would come on today and help us kind of peek behind the curtain a little bit. As we land today’s episode, any kind of final words you give to church leaders that are listening in to today’s conversation?
Jeremy Baker — You know, the only thing I would encourage church leaders is my my my thing I always tell pastors and and people that I am connected with always is just make it about people. Make it about people. And I’ll say it this way. It’s not problems to be solved. It’s people to be pastored. It’s not problems to be solved. It’s people to be pastored. Sometimes pastors, and I get it because I’m talking to myself, sometimes we make people the problem, and the people are not the problem. The people are the purpose of why we do the pastoring. That’s why we do what we do. That’s why we do shepherding.
Jeremy Baker — So, you know, when you’re dealing with when you’re dealing with people, it’s messy. It can be hurtful. There’s there’s different things that come with that, and we could list a thousand things in that. But I would just say, just love people well to the best of your ability. Give them grace. Give them mercy.
Jeremy Baker — If they leave your church and they go somewhere else, just let them know the key under the mat. We’re on the same team. We’re part of the same family. We’re all going to go to heaven to we know one day. It’s not about who’s got the bigger church or who’s better? Who’s got the better kids program or who’s got ah the more youth? It’s not about any of that. It’s about just trusting God with what he’s given us stewardship over and in stewarding that really well and just loving the people that God brings.
Rich Birch — Yeah, so good. Pastor Jeremy, appreciate you being on today.
Jeremy Baker — Thank you.
Rich Birch — If people want to track with you or with the church, where do we want to send them online to connect with you guys and kind of follow your story a little bit? I would encourage people to follow your Instagram. So where can we find that and your website and all that?
Jeremy Baker — Yeah, so our website is elevatelifect.com, elevatelifect.com, and that would be the same for our Instagram. And so thank you so much for having me. ‘m very grateful, and thank you for your time.
Rich Birch — Thanks so much. Take care.
Leading Into 2026: Executive Pastor Insights Momentum is real.
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- Why staff health is the #1 pressure point
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- Clear decision filters for the year ahead
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Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re wrapping up our conversations with executive pastors from prevailing churches to unpack what leaders like you shared in the National Executive Pastor Survey.
Today we’re joined by Shayla McCormick, executive leader at Coastal Community Church in Florida. Coastal is a rapidly growing multisite church with three locations, consistently ranking among the fastest-growing churches in the country. Shayla serves alongside her husband and brings deep operational insight shaped by leading a large church with a remarkably lean staff.
In this conversation, Shayla helps unpack one of the most pressing themes from the survey: how churches hire—and why so many find themselves hiring the same roles over and over again. She challenges leaders to rethink staffing through the lens of multiplication rather than pressure relief.
- Why churches keep hiring the same roles. // According to the survey, churches continue to prioritize familiar roles—especially NextGen and support positions—even as ministry contexts change. Shayla believes this pattern often comes from reactive hiring. When attendance grows, volunteers feel stretched, systems strain, and leaders feel pain. The quickest solution is to hire someone to relieve pressure. But Shayla cautions that hiring to relieve pain is different from hiring to build capacity. When churches skip the discernment step—asking what this season truly requires—they repeat the same staffing patterns without addressing root issues.
- Relieving pressure vs. building capacity. // Shayla draws a sharp distinction between doers and equippers. Doers add short-term relief by completing tasks, while equippers multiply long-term impact by developing others. Coastal intentionally prioritizes hiring equippers—even when that means living with short-term discomfort. Her leadership philosophy flows directly from Ephesians 4 – the role of leaders is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry.
- The courage to make the “big ask.” // Shayla challenges the assumption that busy or successful people won’t serve. Too often, leaders say no for people before ever asking. At Coastal, high-capacity professionals—business owners, executives, retirees—serve in everything from parking to finance. The key is matching people’s gifts with meaningful responsibility and inviting them with confidence.
- A radically lean staff model. // Coastal averages around 5,000 in weekly attendance with just 25 staff members, an unusually low ratio. This isn’t accidental—it’s strategic. Shayla explains that Coastal has built a high-capacity volunteer culture where unpaid leaders carry real responsibility. Staff members exist to equip and empower those leaders. This approach requires more upfront investment in training and coaching, but it produces sustainable growth without constant hiring.
- The risk of overstaffing. // Overstaffing creates more than financial strain. Shayla warns that it can lead to lazy culture, misaligned expectations, and long-term instability. Churches that staff heavily during growth seasons often face painful decisions when momentum slows. Without a strong culture of equipping, ministries become staff-dependent rather than leader-driven. Shayla encourages leaders to steward today with foresight—preparing for future seasons, not just current demand.
- When hiring is the right move. // While Coastal resists reactive hiring, Shayla is clear that hiring still matters. For example, Coastal recently decided to add staff in Kids Ministry—not because volunteers were failing, but because the kids pastor needed freedom to focus on strategy, family connection, and leader development. The new role removes task-based pressure while also serving as a developmental pipeline for future campus launches. The goal isn’t to replace volunteers—it’s to free equippers to multiply more leaders.
- Mission over position. // As Coastal grows, Shayla emphasizes a culture of mission over position. Roles evolve as the church evolves. Using metaphors like scaffolding and rotating tires, she reminds leaders that some roles exist for a season—and that rotation is necessary for long-term health. Leaders regularly ask: Who are you developing? Who’s next? This mindset ensures the church can grow without being dependent on specific individuals.
- Starting points for stretched teams. // For leaders feeling perpetually tired despite added staff, Shayla offers simple coaching: eliminate work God never asked you to do, clarify expectations, and require every leader to develop others. Growth doesn’t come from adding people—it comes from multiplying leaders.
To learn more about Coastal Community Church, visit coastalcommunity.tv or follow @coastalchurch on Instagram. You can also connect with Shayla at @shaylamccormick.
Watch the full episode below:Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. We are in the middle of these special episodes—I’ve been loving these—around really responding to your survey. We did a National Executive Pastor Survey. It’s the largest survey I can say that I’m aware of, of this, where we get out and talk to executive pastors across the country and really ask them, how’s it going in their church? What are they feeling? What are they learning? To really take a litmus test of where things are at.
Rich Birch — And then what we’re doing is pulling in some incredible… leaders to help you wrestle through with some of the findings. And I’m excited, privileged, really, to have Shayla McCormick with us today. She’s with an incredible church called Coastal Community Church, a multi-site church with, if I’m counting correctly, three locations in Florida. It started in September 2009, not that long ago, and they’ve repeatedly been one of the fastest growing churches in the country. She serves with her husband at this church, and this is an incredible church. You should be following along with Shayla and with the church. Welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.
Shayla McCormick — Thank you so much, Rich. I’m glad to be back and excited just to, you know, share with everybody just some insights and things that that I’ve learned along the way too.
Rich Birch — Nice. This is yeah super fun to have you on again. And you should go back and listen to back episode that Shayla was on was one of our best of last year. Super helpful. So you’re going to want to lean in on that.
Rich Birch — Now, when I saw some of the results from the survey, friends, I’m letting you behind the curtain. We looked at a couple different you know things and I sent them out to these friends and I said, hey, you pick whichever one you want. And I was really hoping that you would pick this one because I really think that you’ve got just so much to offer to this. So let’s, I’m going to unpack this a little bit.
Shayla McCormick — Yeah.
Rich Birch — So one of the questions we asked was, ah you know, there’s all these different roles that people are hiring. And for years, in fact, I actually thought about maybe not doing this question this year, because basically the order is pretty similar that people come back every year. But what we’ve seen from 2023 to 2024 is that particularly support roles, this idea of support roles that churches are out looking for those has grown significantly, 12 percentage points in those three years. Other roles like NextGen remain consistently at the top. You know, Outreach ranks the lowest at like 9 to 12 percent, which breaks my heart as a former outreach pastor. I was like, ah, people are not thinking about those things.
Rich Birch — So today what I want to do is unpack this idea around what are who are we hiring for? What difference does it make? We know as an executive pastor listening in, I know that many of you are are kicking off this year thinking about, hmm, who should we be hiring? What should that look like? And really this tension that we all face with you know, being understaffed and overstaffed. How does all that work together? So I’m really looking forward to having your input on it.
Rich Birch — Why do you think churches continue to hire for essentially the same roles as we see year in, year out, Shayla, why do we see that? Even as ministry changes, it’s like we find ourselves having the same conversation. Where are the kids ministry people? Where are the support roles people?
Shayla McCormick — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Why do we find ourselves in these same conversations?
Shayla McCormick — Yeah, honestly, I think a lot of times as church leaders, like we repeat roles because we haven’t we haven’t really honestly just kind of stopped long enough to really go, what does this season actually require?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Shayla McCormick — I think a lot of times what we do is we hire to almost relieve pressure but not really build capacity. And so I think we repeat roles because like kids ministry, right? That’s always a place where you have growth, you have kids, you have to staff a lot of volunteers. It’s a lot of administrative work. And, you know, sometimes I think we can tend to go, Hey, I want to relieve pressure on this. And so we end up trying to to put somebody in a seat and then we end up over hiring. And a lot of, a lot of us hire when it hurts, right? When, okay, attendance is growing, volunteers are tired, systems are breaking, A leader is overwhelmed.
Shayla McCormick — And we end up, I think, making these desperation hires rather than hiring to actually build capacity…
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good. That’s good.
Shayla McCormick — …so that we can continue to grow. And so I think a lot of times our mindset kind of subtly shifts from, I mean, Ephesians 4, right? You equip the saints for the work of the ministry. And it sometimes our mindset shifts from equipping the saints to to almost replacing the staff role or the saints role with a staff member.
Shayla McCormick — And it can tend to just, you can be overstaffed. And then that puts pressure financially and all, you know, like so much, but we just continue to repeat the process. Because again, we hired to relieve pressure instead of build capacity and we’re not really sitting…
Rich Birch — Yeah, I would love to unpack that.
Shayla McCormick — Yeah.
Rich Birch — I think there’s so much there. So how are you discerning or how, you know, if a church calls you up and is asking you discern really between those two, like, Hey, I’ve got maybe I’ve got an operational problem. I’m trying to relieve pressure using the language you do. You were saying versus like building capacity for the future, which inherently sounds like to me, if I’m choosing to build capacity, I’m going to live with some pain in the short term is what I hear in that. Help me discern what that, what that looks like. How how do you work that out at, you know, at, at Coastal?
Shayla McCormick — Yeah, I think we we are always looking for equippers, for multipliers. We ask the question very consistently, is this a doer or is this a leader? And not that doers are bad. Doers can actually, they can help you add capacity because it relieves the stress or the pain on a leader, right? Because you have somebody doing stuff, but equipers actually, they multiply. And so when I’m a growing church, if I continue to hire doers, then I’m just like, I’m solving a temporary so solution essentially, or a temporary problem, because at some point those things are going to go away.
Rich Birch — Right.
Shayla McCormick — But what, what the approach that we’ve taken is the Ephesians 4, you know, you equip the saints for the work of the ministries. And I think a lot of, lot of the times we actually neglect almost our volunteer base. And we lean heavily on our volunteers, our, We average probably 5,000 in weekend attendance, and we have about 25 staff members. And that is not a lot of staff for…
Rich Birch — That’s insane. That to me, that is… Friends, I hope you heard that. So that’s like one to 200 or something like that. It’s it’s that’s all it’s
Shayla McCormick — I don’t even know. It’s low.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s very low. It’s very low. Yes.
Shayla McCormick — But we have a very, very, very high value in equipping our volunteers. Because there are people in our church that want to, they want to do.
Rich Birch — Right.
Shayla McCormick — They might be the doers that can help build capacity in a way that can help lift responsibility off people. We have people that come in that like, they’re like on staff, but they don’t get paid just because they want to come and they want to serve.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Shayla McCormick — And a lot of times I think we actually, say no for people because, oh, I don’t want to ask somebody to do another thing. But they’re like begging, use my gifts, use my talents. But we’re saying no for them. And then we’re going and hiring for these positions when it’s something that we could actually give away…
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Shayla McCormick — …and equip the saints for the work of the ministry.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Shayla McCormick — And for instance, in our kids’ ministry, we average at one of our locations probably about between 500 and 600 kids on the weekend. And I have one full-time staff member for that position right now.
Rich Birch — Wow. Wow. Yeah.
Shayla McCormick — And now we are getting ready to hire an additional person. But she has done a phenomenal job at building high-capacity leaders that are volunteers…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Shayla McCormick — …that want to give their time and their energy and their resources and their passion. But I think for so many churches, we just we say no for people…
Rich Birch — Yeah, 100%.
Shayla McCormick — …and then we end up hiring something that we could give away in a volunteer capacity. Now that is harder on us…
Rich Birch — Right.
Shayla McCormick — …because you have to you know you have to teach and equip and you know pick things up, but…
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s it’s longer term. It’s it’s not it’s not a quick and easy.
Shayla McCormick — Right.
Rich Birch — So I want to come back to the big ask in a second.
Shayla McCormick — Okay.
Rich Birch — But I want I want to play a bit of the devil’s advocate.
Shayla McCormick — Yes.
Rich Birch — So I was having this conversation with a church leader recently, and we were looking at their staff, like their just total staffing. And we were actually having this conversation between, I was asking them like, hey, what how many of these people would you say are Ephesians 4 type people, equippers, people who are…
Shayla McCormick — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And then how many of these would be doers? Because every staff team has some doers on it. Like you have some percentage of them.
Shayla McCormick — Yes, 100%.
Rich Birch — When you, shooting from the hip of those 25, what do you think your ratio is on your team of equippers to doers? Because this is what this leader said to me. They were like, because I was kind of pushing them. I was like, I think you need to have less of these doers on your team. Like we’ve got to, we got to get not, I said, we’d have to get rid of them, but we got to grow some of these leaders up to become more multipliers.
Shayla McCormick — Yep.
Rich Birch — And they were like, well, but those people, they release my multiplying type people to do the work that they need to do. And I was like, yes, but if we don’t watch this ratio very quickly, we’ll we’ll end up with a bunch of doers on our team. So what would the ratio look like for you on your team? How do you think about those issues? Unpack that for me.
Shayla McCormick — Yeah, I would I would say it’s maybe like a, I would say it’s maybe 10% that are, that are…
Rich Birch — Right. Wow. Yeah. A couple, two or three, maybe four at the most kind of thing.
Shayla McCormick — Yes, exactly, that are that are not the ones that I’m expecting. And even even them, I expect to go out and multiply as well. It’s it’s it’s part of our part of our conversations.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Shayla McCormick — But it’s a very low percentage because for me, it again, it goes back to, those are things that I can equip other people to do…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Shayla McCormick — …that I can give ministry away. And…
Rich Birch — Okay. So yeah, let’s talk about the big ask.
Shayla McCormick — Okay.
Rich Birch — So I hear this all the time from church leaders across the country and they’ll this is, this is how the conversation goes. They’re like, yeah, yeah. But you don’t know, like people in our part of the country, they’re very busy.
Shayla McCormick — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And like the people at our church, they’re kind of like a big deal. And like, they got a lot going on in their life. And like, This is true. You guys are in like the greater Fort Lauderdale area. This is a very, you are not like some backwoods, you know, place and you’re doing the big ask.
Rich Birch — You’re saying, hey, you used it, which is you said like, hey, basically we’re saying, could you work part time for us in this area?
Shayla McCormick — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Have a huge amount of responsibility. How do you keep the big ask in front of people? How, how what’s that look like? Unpack that for us.
Shayla McCormick — I mean, something that we talk about on our staff very frequently is, because it’s so natural to say, oh, they’re too busy, especially high capacity people. What I’ve what I’ve realized is is just a side note, but like, single moms are the most high-capacity people. They are the busiest people juggling the most things. But there are best people to come in and serve and do and all of that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Shayla McCormick — But they’re busy.
Rich Birch — Right.
Shayla McCormick — And so just because someone seems busy or successful or, you know, whatever barrier that you put in your brain, like, I think the reality is is we say no for them before we even ask.
Rich Birch — 100%. 100%.
Shayla McCormick — And so the conversations on our team always look like, are you saying no for them? Make the ask anyways. And a lot of times they’re like, oh my gosh, they said yes. I mean, I have people that run million, billion dollar companies serving in my parking team. You know, it’s like…
Rich Birch — Right.
Shayla McCormick — It’s, yeah, I mean, I you have people that are retired, very successful, business leaders that are coming in and volunteering to you know do finance things. Like it’s finding what are what are they great at and giving them purpose in it.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Shayla McCormick — And not just saying no for them because I think they’re successful or they’re too busy.
Rich Birch — How much of that is, because I would totally agree, how much of that is like, like what I hear you saying, it’s like a mindset issue for us as leaders.
Shayla McCormick — Yes.
Rich Birch — Like, hey, we can’t, even when we ask someone, we can say no before them in that question, right? We can be like, I don’t know if you could, well, you know, you’re real busy and I’m not sure blah blah, blah. And that kind of lets them off the hook before we even. So part of it is a mindset, but then part of it has to be like a structural thing, the way you’re structuring the roles. How do those two interact with each other?
Shayla McCormick — Ask the question one more time.
Rich Birch — So part of it is like our mindset are the, the, when we approach people, we’re asking them in a way that, you know, is casting vision for like, Hey, this is a huge opportunity to push the kingdom forward. But then also a part of it, I would assume is like the way we’re structuring the roles so that it it feels like, no, like we’re, we’re kind of, it is a big ask. Like, it’s like, we’re giving them enough responsibility and all that sort of thing. How do those interact with each other when you’re asking someone, when you’re making a big ask like that?
Shayla McCormick — I mean, I think most of what I’m talking, what I’m referring to is a little bit more in the the doer space or the operational space.
Rich Birch — Yep. Yep. Okay, good. Yep.
Shayla McCormick — So it’s structuring things based on almost task or, you know, responsibility that can be repeated consistently and come in and just, you know, like get it done, so that I don’t have to, again, go back to hiring somebody to do these tasks to take this off of this staff member’s plate to increase their capacity. I’m basically giving those tasks and responsibilities to a volunteer. And I think a lot of times what’s scary to me is people, us, you know, churches, their first response to problem in every situation is to hire.
Rich Birch — Yeah, right.
Shayla McCormick — And I think if that’s your first response, you’re going to get in, trouble you’re going to get in big trouble.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Shayla McCormick — And you’re going end up overstaffed because you, you staffed in seasons where attendance was growing or something again, to relieve that pressure…
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah, that’s good.
Shayla McCormick — …not thinking multiplication. And if every solution is to hire, I don’t think the church has a staffing problem. actually think they probably have a discipleship problem. And like…
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good. That’s good.
Shayla McCormick — …and an equipping problem because the goal is to multiply apply leaders faster so that your church grows.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, that’s good.
Shayla McCormick — And so if we’re not thinking multiplication and equipping, then you know I think we’re gonna get to a place where, again, we’re we’re overstaffing and we’re hiring for the same things because we haven’t learned to equip and empower and train up.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Let’s double click on that.
Shayla McCormick — Yeah.
Rich Birch — What risks? So overstaffing, why is that a risk? What’s the there’s obviously a financial risk there. Are there other risks that you see there that emerge when a church consistently staffs for doers or execution rather than you know invest in you know equipping and raising up the people in their church? What will be some other risks you see in that?
Shayla McCormick — Yeah, I think if you’re, if you, I’m trying to figure out how to frame this. If you’re not thinking multiplication, you’re going to, you’re going to hit a point in your church where like everything isn’t always up and to the right.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes. True.
Shayla McCormick — And so it’s not that I’m planning for failure or the difficulty, but I’m also trying to steward what has been entrusted to me, and some of that requires foresight and wisdom…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Shayla McCormick — …even in my planning and my budgeting. And so if one season I’m staffing something in growth, the next season might not look the same. And I’ve because I haven’t diligently given, again, Ephesians 4, given ministry away, my role, pastor’s roles, you know, like, is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Shayla McCormick — And if I haven’t done those things properly, then I think I’m going to get a hit a season where then I’m letting staff go.
Rich Birch — Right.
Shayla McCormick — And, you know, or honestly, culture has become lazy because everybody doesn’t have enough to to do. And so there’s tensions and frustrations and, you know, like, and it starts you start to get a culture, I think, where you say, well, we’ll just hire for that. We’ll just hire for that. We’ll just hire for that. Instead of, okay, who’s next? Are you always developing? Like, what volunteer have you asked to do that? Have you given ministry away? And start asking our staff questions. If they’re coming to you and saying, hey, i need ah I need this role and I need this role and I need this role, the question back should be, well, who have you been developing?
Rich Birch — Right.
Shayla McCormick — You know, what ministry have you given away? Some of those things that just kind of push back on the solution is not always to hire somebody.
Rich Birch — Right.
Shayla McCormick — But what responsibility have you taken in development of people?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. in the In the kids ministry area, you had referenced this earlier, you know, a campus with 500 kids and one staff, which again is is, I know there’s lots of executive pastors that are listening in that are like, what? That’s crazy. But you are, ah you have decided to add a staff member there. What was it that kind of clicked over to say, okay, yeah, we are going to add someone. And and what are what is that role that you’re adding? And how do you continue to ensure that we’re, you know, that we keep this focus as we look to the future?
Shayla McCormick — For us, my kid’s pastor is obviously very high capacity, you know, and she is a multiplier. And her greatest use of her time for me is connecting with those families, is creating opportunities for them to connect, and hiring another person is going to free her up to connect more with families on the weekends, and to spend more of her time being strategic.
Shayla McCormick — And so she needs to duplicate another her on the weekends that can make sure they’re facilitating volunteers and they’re making sure people are encouraged and that teams are built and that people are showing up and schedules are being done. And it’s it’s high people, but it’s also task and responsibility that comes off of her plate that frees her up to um do the thing that she’s great at.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s fantastic.
Shayla McCormick — And obviously, she’s given all that stuff away in this season, but now we’re also using that as a developmental role to potentially be a kids director at another location when we launch a location.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah. There will be more, hopefully more coastal locations in the future…
Shayla McCormick — Yes.
Rich Birch — …and you need to you know raise those people up now you have the ability to do that. This is one way, you know, to do that as well.
Shayla McCormick — Yep. Yep. Right.
Rich Birch — So put yourself in a, a, say a friend calls executive pastor calls and they’re in this kind of this topic. They feel like, man, my team is perpetually stretched.
Rich Birch — We, we added a bunch of staff last year and, it just didn’t help. You know, it’s like we find it sure we’re starting out the new year here and our headcount is up, but people are as tired. They’re as burnt out as they’ve ever been. And it feels disproportionate. It feels like, oh, man, like I don’t this things are not getting better. What are they missing? What what are what’s the how would you coach them? Maybe some first steps that you would kind of help them to think about what they should be doing on this front.
Shayla McCormick — So I think maybe first and foremost, I might ask what what work are you doing that really God never asked you to do, first of all? I think we, we, add a lot of things that aren’t probably the best use of people’s times. And so where have we added things that we didn’t need to add that aren’t adding value…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Shayla McCormick — …that can, number one, lift something off of our team that maybe they don’t just, you know, doesn’t add value.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Shayla McCormick — And so that would probably be one of the first places I would start. It was like what are what are you working on that God hasn’t asked you to do?
Rich Birch — Yeah, what can we streamline? What do we need to pull back? Yeah, yeah.
Shayla McCormick — Exactly. And then…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Shayla McCormick — …secondarily, I think I would really focus on leaning into, and this is what we’ve done in in many seasons, is we’ve leaned into two things. Number one is starting to ask our team, like, hey, who’s who’s around you that you’re developing? I need you to pick three people, you know, and just start pouring into them. I know this this isn’t a, I know this doesn’t lift the load, necessarily in the moment, but I think it can help lift it for the future. So it’s like, hey, how am I teaching my staff to look for other leaders and developing those leaders? And the other question just went away from my mind.
Rich Birch — Well, that’s a great one, though. This even it’s the idea of who are the two or three people that you’re developing, that’s a powerful idea. Because I think there’s think particularly if you’re a church that’s caught in this treadmill, um there probably are people in your orbit. There are there are volunteers that would be looking for more to do to look. But but oftentimes our team, we just they don’t see those people. They don’t because we haven’t challenged them to see those people.
Shayla McCormick — It’s it’s it’s honestly a question that’s a regular part of all of our teams one-on-ones…
Rich Birch — That’s cool.
Shayla McCormick — …that one of the questions is, who’s next? Like you should always be replacing yourself.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Who’s next? Yeah, that’s good.
Shayla McCormick — And that is just a continual pipeline of people and it’s teaching them to see other people and develop people. And they know that when I come to this meeting with my leader, I need to be telling them what I did, who I’m investing in, you know, what that looks like. So that there’s like a pipeline of leadership.
Shayla McCormick — And I even, like with with my own assistant, I’ll say this, she’s like, Shayla, how do I do that? It’s like I’m, she’s right, a doer, you know, she’s my assistant. But I said, honestly, the the way that there’s so much that you can give away, you can build volunteer teams to execute gift baskets when a, you know…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Shayla McCormick — Like there are things that we just have to teach people to start giving away…
Rich Birch — Right.
Shayla McCormick — …and equipping other people to do.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good.
Shayla McCormick — And I think it’s why I don’t I don’t use like being a large church with a small staff as like a bragging thing because I I don’t think that that’s necessarily healthy long term.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Shayla McCormick — But I think that it’s very strategic in how we have built a volunteer culture that is very high capacity and shows up and gets it done because we simply just haven’t said no…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Shayla McCormick — …and we’ve always looked for somebody else to come up underneath us.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. I know for for me in seasons when I led in fast-growing churches…
Shayla McCormick — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …churches that were deemed as some of the fastest growing churches in the country, I would say to my… Now, I sat in a different seat than you were because I was never like a founding team member. Well, that’s not actually not true. That’s not actually not true. I was in one church. But but I always tried to hold my role with open hands, even with my team.
Shayla McCormick — Yes.
Rich Birch — I would say, listen, the the people that I don’t I don’t want to get in the way of the mission, the mission is bigger than my job and my role.
Shayla McCormick — Yes.
Rich Birch — And there might come a season when the ministry will outpace me and I need to be willing to step aside.
Shayla McCormick — Yep. Yes.
Rich Birch — And that whenever I said that, there was always like, it freaked people out a little bit. They were like, oh my goodness, what are you saying? What are you saying? But I do think that those people that got us here may not necessarily be those people that will get us there. I’d love to hear your thoughts on that. And and this does not apply to any of the 25 people currently employed at Coastal Church, but help us understand…
Shayla McCormick — Hey, we’ve had this conversation with all of them, so it could apply to them.
Rich Birch — Oh good. Okay. Okay, good. I Okay, good. I didn’t want to you know have people listen to it at your church and be like, oh my goodness. But help me understand how you think about that as a leader, because I think that’s a real dynamic in this area.
Shayla McCormick — Yeah, there’s there’s two two things, two almost analogies that that I’ll give you. One was when we were a smaller church, we were a growing church, we were a church plant, and somebody gave us some some great advice. And they said, listen, the people you start with are not going to be the people you finish with, and that’s not a bad thing. That that happens.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Shayla McCormick — And they said, when you are building something, there’s a phase of that building that requires scaffolding.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Shayla McCormick — And scaffolding serves a purpose in that season to build the structure and the walls and and all of the things, but there is a point where that scaffolding has to come down…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Shayla McCormick — …in order for you to utilize that building or that space effectively.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Shayla McCormick — And I think sometimes that’s people in a way. Like they serve a purpose for a season, but it’s not like, it’s not like oh, now they can’t serve in any capacity or any way. It’s just that the role that they played for that season was very important. But it looks different in the next season. And we have to be okay with that if we want to continue to grow.
Shayla McCormick — As we’ve grown, there was actually people probably know the name Charlotte Gambill. Charlotte Gambill has invested a lot in our team and in in our church. And she came in and did a ah session with us. And one of the things that she talked with us about is like, if you think about a a vehicle, right? And that vehicle is there to get you to the destination of where you’re going. And that vehicle has tires. And those tires have to be rotated.
Rich Birch — Right, oh, that’s good.
Shayla McCormick — And as a team member, you are like a tire. And what you are doing is getting that vehicle to the proper destination. But if you don’t allow yourself to be rotated, then there’s going to be a problem in getting that vehicle to the location.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Shayla McCormick — And so language that we use is this is mission over position.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Shayla McCormick — And your position may change. Your position may rotate. But this is not about your position, this is about your mission. And if you’re not here because of the mission, then you’re gonna be fixated on your position.
Shayla McCormick — And so our team knows that. We we talk about that very frequently, like, hey, remember this is mission over position. And we’re gonna we’re gonna rotate the tire today.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Shayla McCormick — But this is because this is for the mission, not because of your position.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Shayla McCormick — And so we just consistently have those conversations. And if we if we don’t rotate those things, And if there’s something that’s worn out and we don’t change it, it’s going to affect the mission of where that organization is going.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so true.
Shayla McCormick — Yeah.
Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s, that’s worth the price of admission right there. I think, you know, I think so many of us, um you know, people who are listening in their church leaders, they love people. They want to see them take steps towards Jesus. And, you know, we hold onto people too long or we, or we, you know, we always believe the best. We’re like, no, they’re going to get there. They’re going to get there.
Rich Birch — But what would you say to a leader? You know, Give us some courage to say, hey, maybe there’s a team member we need to rotate, either find a different seat on the bus, or it might be we we need to move them off this year. Like we need to get them on a performance improvement plan and do the like, hey, you’re not leaving today, but it’s like, this has got a change. You’ve got a shift from being a doer to being an equipper. And we’re going to work on this for the next three months. But we need to see, we actually actually need to see progress on this. Give us some courage to do that. Talk us through that. If that’s the if that’s the leader that’s listening in today.
Shayla McCormick — I mean, I think first of all, if you’re sensing that and you’re feeling that, you need to start having some very honest conversations. I think Proverbs is very clear when it says, bind mercy and truth around your neck. Like, we can have those truthful conversations while still being merciful. And, you know, if if you’re not clear with people, then there’s just, then there’s there’s going to be hurt, there’s going to be bitterness, there’s going to be all of those things. And so if you can just even start the conversation, if you’ve been frustrated for a long time but you haven’t said anything, honestly, it’s your fault.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes.
Shayla McCormick — Because you’ve allowed it for so long.
Rich Birch — Right.
Shayla McCormick — And now that’s that’s you’ve allowed behavior to continue. So the first step I think is just giving yourself freedom to have a mercy and truth conversation, right? Of just going, hey, like I know your your heart is here I know you have vision for this organization, but there’s just some things that need to adjust.
Rich Birch — Right.
Shayla McCormick — And so we’re going to bring some clarity to those things that need to adjust.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Shayla McCormick — And you have those conversations and then, hey, let’s check in a month from now and just here’s some action steps for you to do. And it just gives framework for like, okay, now if they’re not doing those things, you’re just like, you know, hey, do you, we asked the question, do you get it? Do you want it? And do you have the capacity to do it?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Shayla McCormick — If they have, if they get it and they want it, but they don’t have the capacity, they have to change their seat, you know.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Shayla McCormick — And so for me, I think it’s really starting off with the clarifying conversation…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Shayla McCormick — …if you haven’t had that.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Shayla McCormick — And in that clarifying conversation leads to either an off-ramp or an adjustment of seat.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, that’s so good. I know that there are people who are listening in who that you know, like, hey, I’ve got to make a change. I have this staff member, team member that’s got to make a change. We can’t do this for another year. And even that idea of sitting down, having a you know, a truthful, but merciful conversation and doing exactly what Shayla said there. Let’s have the conversation and then document it.
Shayla McCormick — Yes.
Rich Birch — Here’s exactly what we talked about. Here are the three or four things that we need to see progress in the next month on. And we love you dearly, but in a month, we’re going to come back and actually ask you on that. My experience has been when you have that…
Shayla McCormick — And even…
Rich Birch — Yeah, go ahead.
Shayla McCormick — …even asking at the end of that, like, hey, do you have any questions? Or even repeat back to me what you heard…
Rich Birch — Right.
Shayla McCormick — …because I want to understand how you’re receiving the information that I just gave you, because it can help you even go a little bit deeper in shaping that.
Rich Birch — Clarify it. Yeah, that’s so good. Well, this has been a great conversation. Question that’s not really, it’s just kind of a broader question…
Shayla McCormick — OK.
Rich Birch — …about this coming year. What are the what are the questions that are kicking around in your head for this year as you look to 2026 as we come to kind of close today’s episode? What are you thinking about? Might be around this. It might be around other stuff. What are you thinking about this year?
Shayla McCormick — Ooh, I was actually talking to my husband about this. We’re getting ready to go into a leadership team meeting, and the thing that’s just been sitting in my head, and this is so probably counterintuitive to large church, but it’s how can I grow smaller?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Shayla McCormick — And so I’m just trying to think how can we be more intentional as we grow to make a large church feel small? And then I’m also thinking, are we building a church that can grow without us? So how, you know, is it only because of us that things are happening? Or how are we, again, ah equipping people that if we weren’t here, it would continue on?
Rich Birch — I love that.
Shayla McCormick — So how do I grow smaller? And would this survive without us?
Rich Birch — Wow, those are two super profound questions. And they are so totally related to what we’re talking about today. Both of those, you’re only going to get to it feeling smaller. You know, that is that is the great irony of a growing church. I’ve said that to many. I didn’t I wasn’t as eloquent as you were there, but one of the, the interesting kind of tensions is when you become a church of 5,000, 10,000, 15,000, you get around those circles. Those churches are asking the, how do we be more intimate? How do we, um you know, we, okay. So we figured out how to gather crowds and, but how do we go beyond that? Right. How do we, how do we now, you know, really drive into deeper, more intimate conversations? I love that. And yes.
Shayla McCormick — Systems just complicate things.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Shayla McCormick — So it’s like, how do you how do you simplify? I really appreciate you, appreciate your leadership and all that you’re doing and how you helped us today. And if people want to track with you or with the church, where do we want to send them online?
Shayla McCormick — Yeah, they can follow our church on Instagram. It’s at Coastal Church or visit our website, coastalcommunity.tv. I’m not super active on Instagram, but you can follow me if you want to @shaylamccormick.
Rich Birch — That’s great. Shayla, I really appreciate you being here today. And thanks so much for helping us out as we kick off 2026.
Shayla McCormick — Of course. Thanks so much, Rich.
Leading Into 2026: Executive Pastor Insights Momentum is real.
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- Why staff health is the #1 pressure point
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- Clear decision filters for the year ahead
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Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re continuing our conversations with executive pastors from prevailing churches, unpacking what leaders like you shared in the National Executive Pastor Survey, so you can lead forward with clarity.
Today we’re joined by Paul Alexander, Executive Pastor at Sun Valley Community Church and Senior Consultant with The Unstuck Group. With more than 25 years of ministry experience and nearly 15 years at Sun Valley, Paul brings a blend of practitioner insight and coaching wisdom. Sun Valley is one of the fastest-growing churches in the country, with six physical locations, a prison campus, and more expansion on the way. In this conversation, Paul helps unpack one of the most pressing themes from the National Executive Pastor Survey: staff health, culture, and organizational structure.
Is your church clear on vision and strategy but still struggling to move forward? Do you sense tension or fatigue beneath the surface of your staff team? Paul offers candid, practical guidance on how leaders can cultivate both healthy and high-performing teams.
- Staff culture is often the real growth lid. // Many churches leave strategic planning sessions with remarkable clarity—clear vision, strong strategy, and actionable next steps—yet still fail to move forward. The reason is rarely theological or missional; it’s cultural. Team culture and staff structure often become the limiting factor. Just as personal growth stalls when internal issues go unresolved, churches stall when unhealthy patterns persist within leadership teams.
- Healthy and high-performing. // Many churches swing between two extremes: high performance with little concern for soul health, or relational warmth with minimal accountability to achieve the vision. Neither honors the full call of ministry. The healthiest teams refuse to live at either end of the pendulum. Instead, they pursue a culture where people are cared for deeply while being challenged to steward their gifts faithfully toward the mission.
- You can’t legislate health. // Health cannot be enforced through policies alone. Leaders set the tone through example, not rules. Staff watch how senior leaders manage time, rest, family, boundaries, and pressure. Late-night emails, skipped days off, and constant urgency quietly shape expectations—even if leaders say otherwise. Pastors need to lead with moral authority, not moral perfection: modeling rhythms that reflect trust in God rather than fear-driven overwork.
- Practical rhythms that protect people. // At Sun Valley, staff health is reinforced through intentional systems. Leaders are expected to take their days off and use vacation time; reports track whether staff actually do. Full-time staff receive sabbaticals every seven years, including non-director-level roles. Marriage retreats are offered as a gift to staff couples, recognizing that healthier marriages produce healthier ministry. These investments cost little financially but yield long-term fruit in sustainability and trust.
- Hire leaders, not doers. // A common staffing pitfall is hiring doers instead of leaders. While competence and skill earn someone a seat on the team at Sun Valley, long-term effectiveness depends on their ability to develop others. Staff are evaluated not on how much ministry they personally accomplish, but on how well they equip volunteers to lead. Volunteers are the heroes; staff exist to serve and multiply them. This mindset shifts ministry from bottlenecked to scalable.
- Structure must evolve with growth. // Churches often treat structure as fixed, but Paul insists that growing churches must restructure continually. Span of care, staffing ratios, and role clarity must be revisited regularly. He points to healthy benchmarks—such as staffing costs and staff-to-attendance ratios—as helpful indicators, not rigid rules. When leaders ignore structure, culture suffers; when structure is aligned, momentum increases.
- Fruit requires clarity and measurement. // Every staff role at Sun Valley includes measurable outcomes. Paul likens this to personal goals—no one expects a marriage to improve without intentional action. Clear metrics create focus, alignment, and accountability. Monthly one-on-ones blend personal care with performance review, ensuring leaders are supported holistically while still moving the mission forward.
- Encouragement for leaders sensing tension. // For executive pastors who feel something is “off” but can’t quite name it, Paul urges them not to ignore that instinct. Growth exposes weaknesses, and structure or culture may need adjustment. Whether the issue is misalignment, unclear expectations, or misplaced roles, addressing it early prevents deeper damage later.
To learn more about Sun Valley Community Church, visit sunvalleycc.com. For resources on staff health, structure, and strategy, explore theunstuckgroup.com or email Paul directly.
Watch the full episode below:Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Really glad that you’ve decided to tune in. We’re doing a special series here this month where we’re looking at the results of a national survey that we did of executive pastors across the country. And we’ve pulled in some leading XPs from prevailing churches to help us think through these issues. Like we’re sitting across the table, if you talk about this problem, they want to help you with that. And today it’s our honor, our privilege really to have Paul Alexander with us. He is the executive pastor at Sun Valley Church for over 10 years. He has 25 years of experience. He’s a senior consultant with Unstuck, I think for 13 years. And he’s worked with all kinds of churches on health assessment, strategic planning. Sun Valley, if you don’t know this church, you’re living under a rock. fantastic church in Arizona, six physical locations, if I’m counting correctly, plus in prison, plus online. It’s repeatedly one of the fastest growing churches in the country. Paul, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.
Paul Alexander — Yeah, Rich, glad to be with you. Hopefully the conversation can help your listeners, man.
Rich Birch — I really appreciate that. Why why don’t you fill in the picture about Sun Valley? I know we’ve had you on in the past. You should go back and listen, friends, but kind of give us the Sun Valley picture. Kind of tell us a little bit about that to set some context today.
Paul Alexander — Yeah, man, been here now for almost 15 years. It’s wild to think back. When I first joined the team, it was one location, 10 acres, one exit, one entrance.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Paul Alexander — And, you know, there’s a lid to what you can do with that. And so we had originally went multi-site because we had to go multi-site. You know, the mission that Jesus gave the church to help more people meet him and grow up in their friendship with him. We had a lid to that with the space we were in. And so we had to go multi-site. It wasn’t cool. It wasn’t cute. It wasn’t fun. It wasn’t an experiment. It was like, if we’re going to obey Jesus, we don’t have an option.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes.
Paul Alexander — And so over the years, we’ve had the opportunity to add new locations. And, yeah, six physical locations, one in a prison. Our next prison campus opens up Q1. We grand open our Chandler location in March, and we break ground on San Tan in May. So, yeah, man, fun times, lots of people meeting Jesus.
Rich Birch — So multi-sites not dead at Sun Valley.
Paul Alexander — Man, multi-site’s not dead in America. Yeah.
Rich Birch — I know. And it’s true, right? It’s one of those like, people are like, oh, I don’t know. That’s an old idea. I’m like, that’s not what I’m seeing. I’m like, gosh, there’s so many prevailing churches like Sun Valley that are just doubling down. That’s that’s fantastic.
Rich Birch — Well, looking forward to today’s conversation. So friends, you’ve joined us actually for within, what did we ask, two questions that were about fears for next year and or for this year, 2026, you caught me. We recorded this late in 2025.
Rich Birch — And we’re talking today about the biggest fear. 24.8% of all respondents identified staff health, organizational structure, morale, succession, leadership – the people issues as a primary fear heading into this year. In fact, and then a separate question we asked about data and insight. Where are you lacking some of that? Almost 9% of respondents answered that they’re looking for better data on staff pipeline and org chart and leadership development, these sort of things.
Rich Birch — When you combine them together what does that mean? Nearly three in ten surface staff related tension as a defining pressure point for 2026. And when I was thinking about this issue, I thought of no one better than Paul to pull on and to have this conversation with. So Paul, when you look at the churches across the country, you interact with a lot of churches both just because you’re a great person and through Unstuck, and you’re and Sun Valley’s a leading church and people will ask you questions all the time. Where do you think staff health breaks down the most and why is that? Why is this such a tension for us as we lead from our seats?
Paul Alexander — Yeah, well, to your point, Rich, it comes up repeatedly with my work with Unstuck with churches. It’s not uncommon to do a health assessment, strategic planning with the church, and you walk out of the room and they have great clarity on vision, on where they’re going next. They have great clarity on strategy, like how they’re actually going to pull this off and do it.
Paul Alexander — And yet you walk out of the room and the lid to move towards that vision, actually obey Jesus and do what Jesus has commissioned and command commanded them to do, the lid is the culture of the team. And the team culture and the team structure is what’s holding them back from going where Jesus wants them to go.
Paul Alexander — Which we shouldn’t be surprised by this, frankly. that’s That’s the organizational side of how that shows up. This shows up in our own life personally. So on a micro scale, what’s preventing you and I from actually following Jesus and what He’s calling us to do in 2026? Well, it’s not Jesus’s problem. The problem is not with him. The problem usually with us.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Paul Alexander — The problem is with how we structure our life, our family, our time, maybe something in our own heart and in the culture of our own heart and our families.
Paul Alexander — And so on on a macro scalele scale in the church, it’s not a surprise that this shows up. Most most churches have a tendency to run on a pendulum, Rich, of either being a really high performing team or a very, very healthy team. And at Unstuck, we want we want staff teams to be both very healthy and very high performing.
Paul Alexander — The the problem is most churches, their staff swing through that pendulum from one side to the other. And so, and you’ve seen this repeatedly, where it’s take ground and in just do the next thing. And they’re very project oriented and destination oriented, and they have a tendency to not really care about the soul of the team, the health of the team, and they’re caring much more about the the destination they’re chasing.
Paul Alexander — Or they’re sitting around looking at each other, praying for one another, kumbaya-ing together, and they’re neglecting the actual call that God’s put on their life. It’s not just a personal holiness, but to invite others people other people to know Jesus as well.
Paul Alexander — And while that’s an over-exaggeration, fundamentally, that’s very true of what happens with staff teams. And so, yeah, walking away from a strategic planning with the church, you’re thinking, oh, they’ve got everything they need.
Rich Birch — Right.
Paul Alexander — They just don’t have the culture to pull it off. their Their staff culture is going to prevent them from going where God wants them to go. Or they’ve hired ah a lot of doers on the team and they don’t actually have leaders. So they’ve hired people to do ministry instead of lead ministry. Or they don’t really have a development pipeline. You know, they don’t have a plan to coach up and build up people that the Lord’s already entrusted to them right underneath their nose, to invite them into leadership in the church. And so, yeah, there’s some overarching things that are common.
Rich Birch — Yeah, so when I saw this came out, I wasn’t surprised by this result. We’ve seen similar results in past years. But whenever I look at this fear that leaders have, I’m reminded what our mutual friend Jenni Catrin says. She talks about senior leaders are, we think our staff culture is better than it actually is. Like from our perspective, sitting as an executive pastor, lead pastor, we look around and we’re like, man, this is a great place to work. But that’s not necessarily the case with our people.
Rich Birch — Sticking with this idea of like high performing and healthy, when you think about Sun Valley or the churches you coach, what are some practical rhythms or structures that you’ve put in place or seen put in place that really help try to do both of those things. Cause I think that’s, I think that’s ultimately what honors the Lord is like, we do want to be high performing. We, the mission’s massive. Like, gosh, we got to get out and reach some people, but we, we don’t want to drive over our people to get there.
Paul Alexander — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Help us understand what does that practical, some of those practical rhythms look like.
Paul Alexander — Well, I don’t I don’t think a lot of XPs are going like what I’m about to say…
Rich Birch — Uh-oh.
Paul Alexander — …but you you cannot legislate health. You can’t. You can’t build enough guidelines. You can’t build enough policies. You can’t make people be healthy. You also can’t lead a healthy organization unless you yourself are healthy. It’s that’s a just it’s just a fact. You can’t take your family somewhere you haven’t been.
Paul Alexander — You disciple people, to use a Bible word for a second, you can’t disciple your own children and your own family and people close to you by intention or neglect. We do that all the time, and unless you have something to actually give them. And so this is why even in the Old Testament, you know God gives the law and we realize we can’t live up to the law. And so it honestly only shows our own imperfection. Right. And so God you know, Jesus says, “Well, hold on a second. The Sabbath was made for man. Man wasn’t made for the Sabbath.”
Paul Alexander — And so um what does that mean? It means, I think, as executive staff, senior staff in the church, you actually have to lead with some moral authority in this area. And so people are going to watch if if they get an email from you at 11 o’clock at night, that tells them what’s expected of them.
Rich Birch — Right.
Paul Alexander — Without you ever even saying it, you’re telling them what’s expected. If you’re texting them after work hours, so to speak, and it’s not an emergency, it actually, you know, it could probably wait till tomorrow, but you’re having it right now because it’s important to you, and you don’t have the personal self-control to be able to not have that conversation with that staff member at that time.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Paul Alexander — You’re telling them how they’re supposed to behave. They’re watching you just again, leadership so much like parenting. And I don’t want to minimize this, but children watch their parents and they naturally adhere to and take on the behaviors of their parents and the family unit that they grow up in.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so true.
Paul Alexander — And culture a lot like that. It’s way more caught than taught. And so the leaders of the executive staff and senior staff, they’ve got to lead with moral authority, not moral perfection. We’re not going to see that this side of seeing Jesus, right? Not moral superiority. We’re not better than anybody. But just to be able to say, hey, man, if if everybody at my church and on my staff. If they manage their time the way I manage my time, if they manage their finances the way I manage my finances, if they used alcohol the way I use alcohol, or if they use the internet or social media the way I do, if they traded their… would my church be more of what Jesus wants it to be or less?
Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s so good.
Paul Alexander — And so there’s a moral authority component to this. They got to model this. Okay.
Paul Alexander — Now, practically, Rich, because you know, okay, what does it actually mean? Take your time off.
Rich Birch — Right.
Paul Alexander — Like that sounds so silly, but I mean, I remember as a young guy in ministry, my my wife was working Monday through Friday. Friday was supposed to be my day off. I’m not the kind of guy that’s going to sit around and like watch Oprah on Friday. Or like, you know, just snack and binge watch Netflix or something like that. That’s not how God wired me up. And so I would just go into the office.
Rich Birch — Right.
Paul Alexander — And I’m like, my my wife’s working. Well, we don’t have kids. um I’m going to go get some stuff done. I’m going to move the ball forward.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Paul Alexander — And I remember the XP I was working with on the senior staff at the time came in to get something out of the office. And he saw me and he’s like, Paul, what are you what are you doing? And so I do the whole, my wife’s working and I’m not going to sit around and watch Netflix, blah, blah, blah. He’s like… he gave me a gift. He said, Paul, if you don’t take every day off between now and the end of the year, don’t bother coming in in January.
Rich Birch — Oh my goodness.
Paul Alexander — Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Paul Alexander — And looking back, that high challenge was a tremendous gift, to begin to teach a young man in ministry that had a propensity to drive hard to learn how to actually slow down and enjoy my life and receive from the Lord.
Rich Birch — That’s interesting.
Paul Alexander — And so, um yeah, take your day off. It sounds so silly.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. No, it’s good.
Paul Alexander — I get a report on my desk once a year, Rich, of all of our staff, even multiple campuses, all that, who’s taking their time off and who hasn’t taken their time off. And it’s not uncommon for me to have a conversation in January to say, hey, dude, if you don’t take all your time off this year, we’re going to have a problem. Because you’re no good burning out. The Lord needs you in the game for the long run.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Paul Alexander — And I need you in the game for the long run. Sun Valley needs you in the game for the long run.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Right.
Paul Alexander — Your family needs that, and you can’t self destruct. So.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good. I had a similar interaction early on in ministry where I had a senior leader say to me, it with a similar kind of tone, don’t forget, take your day off is on the same list as don’t kill someone. Like, you know, which always stuck with me where I was like, you know, okay. And he said it in a funny kind of like, but but the message was was clear, right?
Paul Alexander — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Same kind of thing. Hey, we, and I don’t know that I’ve always lived by that.
Paul Alexander — Yeah, sure.
Rich Birch — Are there other behaviors that you, you know, in a similar way would lean in. I think the fact that you’re pushing on, okay, as us as senior leaders, are we setting the pace with the health of our organizations? Lean a little bit more in on that for us.
Paul Alexander — Yeah, sure. So a couple of practical things that any leader can actually make their decision to start doing today. Establish a finish line. In some regards, you know, when is ministry ever really done?
Rich Birch — Right.
Paul Alexander — Well, when 7.5 billion people on the planet know Jesus, we’re done, right? So it’s one of those, the poor will have you with you you’ll have with you always. There’s never going to be a done moment. So you got to choose each day when you’re done. And if you don’t choose it, someone else will choose it for you.
Paul Alexander — And so talk with your family, figure it out. And there may be a moving target from day to day and what the rhythm of your family is and the rhythm of your ministry is the Lord’s entrusted to you. But you have to personally establish when’s the finish line. I’m going to turn my phone off. I’m gonna turn my email off. I’m going to mute this or whatever. And unless something’s burning down, I’m not going to I’m not going to jump in. Simple things.
Paul Alexander — Marriage retreats. We started experimenting some time ago with marriage retreats for our staff at Sun Valley. And so like everybody would say, it’s a good thing for people’s marriages to get better. And sometimes we’ll do that for our people in our churches. And we just thought, well, gosh, what if we did that for our staff? You know, if the marriages of our staff got better, would the ministries that the Lord’s entrusted to them get better? Of course they would.
Rich Birch — Of course they would, yeah.
Paul Alexander — So we just started doing a marriage retreat couple times a year for our staff.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Paul Alexander — We invite, you know, 10 to 15 couples. We have a professional counselor that we pay for that runs the thing. And we we just do that as a as a gift to our staff. Because we think, if our staff marriages get better, the ministry that the Lord’s entrusted to them will get better.
Paul Alexander — We do sabbaticals every seven years for our full-time director level staff and up. And there’s a period of time that they get and a financial allowance they get. And they think about it in three in three different buckets, like professional development, personal development, and just family. And and ultimately we want them to rest so they can minister from a from a full cup, you know?
Paul Alexander — And ah some time ago, we actually made the decision. It didn’t cost us anything, Rich, that even our full-time staff, no matter what their level in the organization was. So for example, a full-time administrative assistant. If they’re full-time, every seven years they get a sabbatical. We give them…
Rich Birch — Oh, wow.
Paul Alexander — …yeah, you’re full-time admin at Sun Valley. You get, now the scale of it’s a little different.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Paul Alexander — We just give them a month off with no financial allowance, but we give a month off every seven years to take at one lump sum…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Paul Alexander — …to get out and refresh their soul and enjoy their life a little bit. What’s that really cost us? Nothing, but time.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Paul Alexander — Nothing.
Rich Birch — Right.
Paul Alexander — And so, yeah, there’s some real tactical things that you can do to invest in your team. Again, you can’t make them be healthy people, but you can kind of roll the carpet out and pave the way for them to be healthy people.
Rich Birch — I love that. That’s some real practical examples. I love what you’ve you’ve outlined there and been you know super practical. That’s, yeah, that’s fantastic. I get the sabbatical question actually quite a bit. I think churches wrestle with that and they you know they they think, oh, you know how should we do that? So you do, kind of like what we would typically think of as a sabbatical at director and above, but then everyone else does kind of this one one month off. That’s great. And they do they have to submit a plan for the sabbatical ahead of time? Some churches will do that where they have to kind of define, hey, this is how we’re going to do. Just give us a little more detail on that.
Paul Alexander — Yeah. We’re not uber religious about it, Rich.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Paul Alexander — We, we, we, there is a plan and their supervisor talks through their plan with them…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Paul Alexander — …because there’s a financial allowance that follows that.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Paul Alexander — So yeah, they have the conversation ahead of time. As a representative of the board, I actually sign off on all those sabbaticals just to make sure they’re thinking about and they’re thinking…
Rich Birch — Right.
Paul Alexander — …intelligently about how they want to spend their time. But functionally, to be honest, like you and your wife just went on vacation, right?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Paul Alexander — If our staff went on vacation for like an entire sabbatical and sat on the beach for a month or two, and they came back a little bit more rested, and they’d read a couple of books and spent time with the Lord…
Rich Birch — Right.
Paul Alexander — …and they walked and prayed and fasted and enjoyed their life a little bit, they’d probably come back a little healthier.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, that’s great.
Paul Alexander — So I don’t have strong feelings about it, man. Rest, enjoy your life.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, that’s good.
Paul Alexander — Yeah.
Rich Birch — That’s so good. I love that. I want to loop back on one thing you talked about earlier. You talked about hiring or or are the way our staff position themselves as doers versus leaders. I think this is a critical Ephesians 4, how we’re supposed to be equipping our people. But I see way too many of our team members, I see us fall into this all the time where we just slip into doing. Coach us around that. What difference does that make around cultures in our organizations?
Paul Alexander — Well, yeah. Wow. Now you’re starting to talk about where accountability comes into play in culture, right? And where culture gets violated.
Paul Alexander — So it’s not uncommon. So I still, at the size we are, director level and up, I still at least have a phone conversation interview with every single director level hire and up about our culture as they’re joining the team here. And if they do join the team, we go through net new staff orientation. Once a quarter, Chad, the lead pastor and myself, spend a half a day with all of our new staff and talk through our culture and our philosophy of ministry and our strategy and all that stuff.
Paul Alexander — And frankly, it’s just a time to hang out have a meal together and create some relational accessibility. Because most these people I’m not going to work with day to day.
Rich Birch — Right.
Paul Alexander — But I want them to know that we care about them, love them, and they’re they’re part of the family now. And so we we don’t hire people that aren’t absolutely fantastic, incredibly gifted people.
Rich Birch — Right.
Paul Alexander — And it’s easy to compliment everybody in the room.
Rich Birch — Right.
Paul Alexander — Hey man, glad you’re on the team. Whether I hired you or somebody else hired you, I know you’re awesome because we don’t hire people that aren’t awesome. And you were gifted, you’re gifted. Someone saw something in you. We invited you to the team. But here’s the deal. You’re no longer going to be evaluated on how awesome you are. Now that you’re on the team—congratulations—you’re going to be evaluated how awesome you can make everybody else.
Rich Birch — So good.
Paul Alexander — And so your job and how great you are and gifted you are and skilled you are, that’s what got you in the room. What’s going to keep you in the room is your ability to make everybody else just as incredible as you. And so we just say that from the very beginning.
Paul Alexander — And, you know, a lot of churches, their ministry staff kind of think, OK, I have to get all these volunteers in place to help them accomplish my ministry. At Sun Valley, we flipped that upside down. And the hero of the ministry at Sun Valley is the volunteer. We’re helping the church actually be the church. The staff’s role is to be a servant, to help people find their gifting, their place, their calling. And real leaders who are getting paid real money that attend your churches, um they want to solve big problems. They don’t want to just push a broom. Now, occasionally you run into the CEO or the general or whatever, who’s like, I just want to push a broom to help me remain humble. Great. We can we have a lot of brooms you can push.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Paul Alexander — But most people are competent, skilled, gifted, educated people. And they want to be called into something that’s big, and where they feel like they’re making a real difference. And so, yeah, our job as a staff is to call them into that, tee them up for that, support them in that, and let them run. Not let them run within the boundaries of our strategy and our culture and our vision, but let them run. So, but we’ve got to paint the riverbanks for them.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s really good. I love that. You know, kind of a related issue is how how is Sun Valley ensuring that you’ve got the right people in the right seats? What does that look like in your system? Like, how are you, like, what’s the what’s the cadence of, you know, regular reporting and like goal setting?
Paul Alexander — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And, you know, how are you holding people accountable? What does that what does that look like? I realize that could be like a whole episode in of itself…
Paul Alexander — Sure.
Rich Birch — …but give us kind of a thumbnail version of that.
Paul Alexander — Yeah. Thumbnail. I mean, at the end of the day, I’ll give you the, how it happens, but, besides the hiring process and recruiting process, that stuff matters a lot. Right. So you’re inviting people to something that they’re actually gifted and called to. But at the end of the day, um it’s really results, Rich. The Bible way to say that is fruit.
Rich Birch — Right.
Paul Alexander — OK, for all of our listeners who are high on the theology side of things, I can sympathize with you. I went to Bible school, too. Really, it’s fruit. And when you are in a place, when your staff are in a place where they’re playing to their strengths and their gifting, and they’re in a place where they’re not overreaching and trying to attain a different role, and they’re not talking about career path, they’re just content to be the person and play the part in the body of the Lord’s gifted and call them to to play, they’re going to have more fun and they’re going to produce more fruit.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Paul Alexander — It’s just a fact. And so when when you see all this striving and, you know, this ambition to like, I want more, I want more, I want more. It’s a very American, Western idea, right? And the biblical way of doing that would be, hey, well why don’t you be faithful with what the Lord’s entrusted with you today? And when he sees fit to entrust more to you, guess what? He probably will.
Rich Birch — He will.
Paul Alexander — There’s probably going be some stray arrow out of the battle that was never even intended to hit that guy. It’s going to find just the right place in the chink in the armor. And you’re going to ascend to the throne at the right time when the Lord wants you to. So, you know, relax. Do what the Lord’s called you to do today.
Rich Birch — Right.
Paul Alexander — Be faithful in that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Paul Alexander — And he’ll entrust more to you when he’s ready.
Rich Birch — Right.
Paul Alexander — So that’s a big deal. that it may sound ah like a contrite, a little bit Bible answer to that. But when your staff are personally in a place where they’re doing what God’s called them to do, and they’re they’re very sober-minded about that, they’re going to have more fun. That’s really important. They’re go to have more fun in ministry. It’s going to be more fulfilling and they’re going to produce more fruit.
Paul Alexander — Now, how’s that work its way out with what you’re talking about? We have an annual run of strategic planning that we do, both senior staff and then at the campus level. And that we refresh that every single year. Out of that come real clear objectives where the Lord’s calling us to go. Then goals, professional goals are set around that at the campus level. And then that kind of trickles down. That all gets into review systems. There’s monthly one-on-ones where they’re talking about the performance side of things.
Paul Alexander — But it’s really normal, Rich, where if you and I were working with one another and I was reporting to you, you’d say, hey, Paul, what’s going on with you and Lisa? And you’d be asking about my daughters and you’d be asking about my sons. And we’d be talking about life and marriage and family. And and what’s the Lord doing in your life? What’s he saying to you these days? You know, and you know where’s he challenging you? Where’s he encouraging you? So they’re very natural, normal, that part of things there. You’d probably pray for me actually in that meeting that one-on-one.
Paul Alexander — And then we talk about, okay, how are we doing with our goals? What what are the measurables? What are the setbacks? Because there’s always setbacks.
Rich Birch — Right.
Paul Alexander — And what are the things that went faster than you thought they would go? And you’re finding real real traction.
Rich Birch — Right.
Paul Alexander — And then my your job as a supervisor would be, how do you get roadblocks out of the way for me to be successful?
Rich Birch — Right.
Paul Alexander — How do you fuel things that I need fueled so I can be successful and and reach my goals?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Paul Alexander — So yeah, does that make sense?
Rich Birch — That makes total sense. So I, you know, in other contexts, I’ve said results matter because the work that you do matters so much. Like and, and we, and we, we want to think about results. We want to think about fruit. What percentage of, or you know, in a round sense of the team at Sun Valley has like a number or a metric or a like they can measure, it’s not like qualitative, like, oh, things are better. It’s like, no, no, we know. I know whether this is working or not. What percentage of your people you think have a metric like that they they think about on a regular basis?
Paul Alexander — All of them.
Rich Birch — Love it. Tell us about that. I think this is going to be mind blowing for leaders of churches who do not think about these things. And I know, you know, there’s people out there who, who they they haven’t wrestled with this idea. Unpack that a little bit more.
Paul Alexander — Yeah. So, I mean, okay. So if I say, I want my marriage to get better this year, we’ll go real personal for a second.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Paul Alexander — I want to get my marriage. That’s wonderful. Who doesn’t want their marriage to get better? How are you going to do that?
Rich Birch — Right.
Paul Alexander — That that just doesn’t magically happen. You don’t drift towards relational intimacy with your spouse.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Paul Alexander — What you do is you drift apart. That’s what happens.
Rich Birch — Right.
Paul Alexander — Absence doesn’t make the grow heart grow fonder. It makes it wander.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Paul Alexander — And so, you know, you’ve got to figure out, okay, how many date nights am I going to do? How much am I going to budget towards this? Are we going to do an annual retreat as a husband and a spouse together, maybe a marriage retreat? Are we going to go on vacation? What are the conversations we feel like we need to lean into? Do we need some do we need some coaching? Rich, if you’re a professional counselor, do I need to go to you and get some some input and some professional coaching? Because goodness gracious, you can see some things that I don’t see because I’m in the fray of it day in and day out.
Paul Alexander — So yeah, we’ll get real tactical and say, what book are you going to read? How many of those books are you going to read? What podcast?
Rich Birch — Right.
Paul Alexander — Are you going listen to the unSeminary podcast? You know. What are you going to do to to grow and in your marriage this year or as a leader. And so, yeah, if you can’t measure it, then you can’t actually do it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Paul Alexander — And then it gets down to opinions and, you know, everybody’s got one of those. So.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Alright. I imagine imagine I’m an executive pastor you meet at a conference or you’re somewhere and you’re at an airport lounge, and they’re church of a thousand people, maybe 1500 people. They’ve got 10 staff and they’re sensing that, man, there’s some misalignment, but it’s it’s at the level of like, I think there might be a problem here. I’m not entirely sure. I feel like there’s cracks starting to happen in the staff culture, but it’s not like a giant fizzer. It’s just like things just don’t feel right. What would be some of the first steps that you would suggest a leader take to try to get clarity on actually where things are at with their staff team…
Paul Alexander — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …you know, in the next 90 days kind of thing?
Paul Alexander — Yeah, that’s a good question. Okay, so first of all, I’d say, and this may sound, I mean, play Captain Obvious for a second, don’t ignore that inclination.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Paul Alexander — So the Holy Spirit is is is impressing upon you, something doesn’t smell right, then it probably doesn’t smell right.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Paul Alexander — Don’t bury that. Don’t avoid that. Avoiding something you know you have to solve is never going to make that situation better, ever.
Rich Birch — That’s so true.
Paul Alexander — And so don’t avoid it. Go with that feeling. Lean into it a little bit and and begin. Why? Why do I feel this way? What is what am I sensing that needs to be solved? Because my hunch is they’re anticipating something. If they are a good intuitive leader, they’re probably anticipating something before it’s going to happen.
Paul Alexander — And so structure is always a lid to growth in a church. Churches always need to restructure. This is really important. So once you get a structure, it’s not like, oh we’re going to be with this structure for the next 15 years.
Rich Birch — Right.
Paul Alexander — And if it’s a growing church, you’re always going to need to restructure. And that’s just normal. Get used to it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Paul Alexander — It’s just part of what it is.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Paul Alexander — And so I think you’ve got decipher, is it a structure issue or is it a culture issue? That that’s, you know, Wwhat am I sensing that needs to be actually needs to be solved? If it’s a culture issue, where is there a violation of your culture taking place, and how do you help it get better? Maybe you haven’t defined what your culture is.
Rich Birch — Right.
Paul Alexander — Maybe you can’t actually really articulate it. Maybe you haven’t written it down, trained it. Maybe you have not filmed 5 to 10 minute videos for every new staff member to to onboarding to actually understand your cultural distinctives. Maybe you’ve not embedded that into your annual reviews and actually, you know at review time, you’re actually reviewing me on how we’re doing, how I’m doing with our staff culture.
Paul Alexander — So maybe that’s something you need to just kind of look in the mirror and say, you know what, as a leader, I have the power to change that. And I’m going to get that better this next year. We’re going really clear about what our staff culture is.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Paul Alexander — And then we’re going embed that and train it. If it’s a structural thing, is it truly a structural thing or do you have one or two players that just aren’t playing their part? You know, you’ve got ah this wonderful body the Lord’s put together. He talks about the church being the body of Christ, this wonderful body but where we’re limping because our ankle, we got a bum ankle. And the reality is we either need to rest it, you know, so we can get it healed up. We need to maybe get some repair done to it, or we need to like reconstruct that thing. We need a new ankle.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Paul Alexander — All of those are fine answers. And I think just being honest about the team that we have and everybody playing in the right place. And then structurally, you start to get into span of care and you know do we have the right number of staff? Those are real answers you can really get. When we do staffing and structure with churches at the Unstuck Group, there are real healthy benchmarks. There are real healthy financial numbers that are good benchmarks, you know. If you’re spending more than 50 cents on the dollar on your staffing, you should ask yourself why.
Paul Alexander — You know, if you have more than your staffing, you’re, you know, beyond one to 75 and you’re creeping into an area that’s really unhealthy. You know, I’ve seen churches that are staffed like one full time staff member for every 30 attenders at the church.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Paul Alexander — And you’re just like. It’s sad, frankly, because the Lord’s called us to so much more. And um so those are those are like the basic science side of things that need to be changed. You know, if you’re not clear about who your senior staff is, if you got, if your senior staff, like your executive staff, are making decisions about like the color of the carpet, and they’re making decisions that that are low-level decisions, then you kind of got to look in the mirror and say, boy, are we training our staff that all big decisions have to come to us? Or are we pushing decisions down and actually teaching people how to lead and make decisions? So myriad of things.
Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s so good. One of, in last year’s, kind of rundown of, you know, most listened to podcasts, Amy from the Unstuck Group, hers, I think was our second most listened to podcast. And she, she dove in deep on exactly what we were just talking about their, friends. You should go back in the archives, find that episode. It will, it’ll, you know, all that structure stuff.
Rich Birch — And I would say on that, particularly on structure and some of those benchmarks, I think too many of us think our church is like this precious, it’s so different than every other church out there. And and and that’s true. It is a unique body. There’s a there’s one way that that is true. But in this way, there are actually a lot of commonalities you can learn from other churches and gain wisdom from folks like Paul who have done this before and talked with lots of churches. So don’t don’t be in isolation about this, Paul. This has been an incredibly helpful. I’ve got a page of notes and other questions I wanted to ask as we were going through. Oh, I want to talk about that. Oh, I want to talk about that.
Rich Birch — But I know you’ve got other things to do than be on our podcast. But as you’re thinking about the 2026, the year coming up here, what’s a question or two that you’re wrestling with that you’re thinking through? It doesn’t have to be on what we just talked about there. But just as you think about the future of Sun Valley, what are some things that you’re thinking about going into this year?
Paul Alexander — Yeah, that’s a good question. I mean, we pressure we’ve deal with pressure points just like every church does, right? Frankly, the pressure points we’re dealing with, we’re going through a season of a couple of years of pretty significant growth. A lot of people needing Jesus. last This is the first time in back-to-back years we baptized more than 1500 people, you know, in back-to-back years. And so there’s a huge responsibility that our growth, our front end growth is beginning to outpace our engagement. Things like people engaging in groups and building meaningful friendships that are around God’s word or, engaging and volunteering and being the church, not just coming to church, right? And a giving, learning to be generous, generous and steward with the Lord’s entrusted to them. Kind of these markers that we see of people who are actually beginning to look like Jesus. They’re not just, you know, you know, attending church and trying to figure Jesus out a little bit.
Paul Alexander — And so in a lot of ways, we need a bigger boat. We’ve got multiple campuses that are doing two services on Saturday and three services on Sunday. And we’ve, we’ve got to get some bigger rooms. And you know, the other side of it is is growth sometimes can grow faster than our ability to grow leaders. I mean, you think about your own personal leadership, Rich. I mean, how long has it taken you to become the leader you are today?
Rich Birch — Right. Right. Not overnight. Not in 18 months.
Paul Alexander — Yeah, your whole life.
Rich Birch — Yes, exactly.
Paul Alexander — Yeah, the answer is your whole life.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Paul Alexander — And so there’s definitely been crucible moments. My hunch is if we unpack your leadership journey, there’s been crucible moments where the Lord has ah stretched and grown you in unique ways and unique seasons because of pressure points that you went through. And so um we’re figuring out how do we accelerate leadership in in our staff?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Paul Alexander — And you you accelerate leadership not by by giving resources, but by constricting resources. Because leaders always figured out and grow through constriction moments.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Paul Alexander — And so giving stretch assignments, all those kind of fun things. So yeah, we deal with pressure points just like everybody else does. I mean, everybody’s like, oh, I’d love to have that problem. I know you would. It’s a wonderful problem to have. It’s still a problem because we don’t want to become a lid to more people meeting Jesus in 2026. You know, by us not solving something that’s in our control to solve.
Rich Birch — Yeah. In other contexts, I’ve talked about platinum problems. Those are are great problems, but they’re still problems with things we have to wrestle with. And and friends, if you’re not tracking with Sun Valley, you should be, or Paul or the Unstuck Group, these are all organizations you should be getting a chance to kind of follow along with. If people want to kind of connect with the church, get a better sense, follow along with your story, where do we want to send them online? Tell us about that. And then also Unstuck Group. I want to make sure we we send people there too.
Paul Alexander — Yeah, Unstuck Group is super easy to find. Unstuckgroup.com. The listeners can email me at paul@theunstuckgroup.com. That’s the easiest way to get me, frankly. The easiest, cleanest way to get me if someone has a question or wants to follow up on something personally. I’m happy to do that, man.
Rich Birch — Thanks so much, Paul. I appreciate you being here today and and really looking forward to seeing what happens in 2026 at Sun Valley. Take care, man.
Paul Alexander — Yeah, glad to, man. Thanks for the invitation. Hope the conversation is helpful.
Leading Into 2026: Executive Pastor Insights Momentum is real.
So is the pressure.
This free report draws from the largest dedicated survey of Executive Pastors ever, revealing what leaders are actually facing as they prepare for 2026.
- Why staff health is the #1 pressure point
- Where churches feel hopeful — and stretched thin
- What worked in 2025 and is worth repeating
- Clear decision filters for the year ahead
Download the Full Report Free PDF • Built for Executive Pastors • Instant access
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re sitting down with an executive pastor from a prevailing church to unpack what leaders like you shared in the National Executive Pastor Survey, so you can lead forward with clarity.
We’re joined by Jeremy Peterson, Executive Pastor at One Church, a fast-growing multisite church with five physical locations across New Hampshire and a strong online presence. Jeremy is also a key leader behind the Executive Pastor Summit (XPS), investing in the health and effectiveness of second-chair leaders across the country. In this conversation, Jeremy reflects on insights from the National Executive Pastor Survey and shares practical wisdom for strengthening one of the most critical—and often fragile—relationships in the church: the partnership between the lead pastor and executive pastor.
Is your relationship with your lead pastor thriving, strained, or somewhere in between? Are you feeling neutral when you know the relationship needs to be strong? Jeremy offers clear, experience-tested guidance on building trust, maintaining alignment, and leading with integrity in the second chair.
- Why trust matters more than ever. // The survey revealed that just over one in five executive pastors feel uncertainty or strain in their relationship with their lead pastor. While not a majority, Jeremy believes the number may actually be higher in practice. He notes that many executive pastors quietly wrestle with trust—either feeling that they are not fully trusted by their lead pastor or struggling to trust their lead pastor themselves. Because the lead pastor and executive pastor sit at the intersection of vision and execution, even small fractures in trust can ripple throughout the entire organization.
- Consistency builds confidence. // One of the clearest ways trust erodes is through inconsistency. Jeremy emphasizes the importance of being dependable—doing what you say you’re going to do, following through on commitments, and showing up with a calm, steady presence. When executive pastors overcommit and underdeliver, even unintentionally, trust begins to erode. Over time, staff and lead pastors alike start to hesitate, slowing decision-making and momentum. Reliability, Jeremy notes, is one of the most underrated leadership strengths.
- Truthfulness over comfort. // Another major trust-builder is honesty—especially when the truth is uncomfortable. Executive pastors often act as filters, but withholding information eventually backfires. Metrics like attendance, giving, or volunteer engagement will surface eventually, and surprises damage credibility. Jeremy argues that leaders would rather hear hard truth early than manage damage later. Speaking truth with humility strengthens trust far more than protecting feelings in the short term.
- Clarity before problem-solving. // Jeremy observes that executive pastors are wired to fix problems, sometimes before fully understanding the lead pastor’s intent. When clarity is missing, misalignment follows. At One Church, Jeremy maintains a standing weekly lunch with the lead pastor to ensure they are synced on priorities, vision, and concerns. These rhythms allow for shared understanding and prevent assumptions from growing into frustration. Trust, he explains, grows when leaders take time to listen before acting.
- No surprises. // A core operating principle between Jeremy and his lead pastor is the “no surprises rule.” Whether it’s service times, staffing changes, or ministry initiatives, quick five-minute conversations prevent hours of repair later. Jeremy encourages executive pastors to drop into offices, make short calls, or send clarifying texts rather than letting uncertainty linger. Small misunderstandings left unaddressed often become major relational landmines.
- Prayer as a leadership discipline. // One of Jeremy’s most personal insights is the impact of daily prayer for his lead pastor and staff. Rather than praying only during crises, he now prays intentionally for his lead pastor, lead pastor’s spouse, and children by name. He’s seen this practice soften frustrations, realign perspective, and strengthen unity across the team.
- Trust sets the speed of the church. // Referencing Stephen M. R. Covey’s Speed of Trust, Jeremy explains that trust is not just relational—it’s operational. High-trust teams move faster, communicate clearer, and recover quicker from failure. Low-trust teams slow down, double-check motives, and avoid risk. For executive pastors, cultivating trust is not optional; it’s foundational to healthy church culture.
To learn more about One Church and reach out to Jeremy, visit church.one. For executive pastors looking to grow in their leadership, learn more about the Executive Pastor Summit at xpsummit.org.
Watch the full episode below:Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. We are in the middle of these special episodes we’ve been doing where we’re reflecting back on what you said in the National Executive Pastor Survey. And what we’re doing is bringing executive pastors from prevailing churches on to really help us wrestle through some of the things that we saw and ultimately to provide some help for you as you launch here into 2026. Today, it’s our privilege to have the executive pastor of all executive pastors, Jeremy Peterson with us from One Curch. It’s a fantastic church, a multi-site church in Northeastern United States. They have five, if I’m counting correctly, outpost locations in New Hampshire, plus church online, plus Jeremy’s involved in a leading XPS, a great conference for executive pastors and and and and campus pastors. And he does all kinds of amazing stuff. So Jeremy, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.
Jeremy Peterson — It’s quite the introduction. Thanks, Rich, for having me.
Rich Birch — This is the problem you become you become a more than one-time guest. And I’m like, what do I say? He’s amazing. That’s what you should say. Tell us a little bit about One Church, to set the context for people, understand a little bit about your background, where you’re at.
Jeremy Peterson — Yeah, so I spent the first 17 years in ministry in Texas, and I’ve been here for 12 and a half years now, and it’s it’s pretty wild. I said I would never be on the mission field. I grew up as a missionary kid, and so being here, I really feel like I am on the mission field. I’ve been here 12 and a half years, and we just celebrated like our 4,000th person that’s been baptized…
Rich Birch — Amazing.
Jeremy Peterson — …since I’ve been here. And so it’s just it’s just been quite the ride being a part of what God’s doing and just trying not to mess it up.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good. Well, this thing we’re looking at today to kind of kick the conversation off, there was a a stat that jumped out to me from our study. 22.32% of executive pastors, that’s just over one in five, are either uncertain or experiencing strain with their lead pastor. Now, I know that that’s a minority number. It’s not like two-thirds are like struggling with this. It’s it’s It’s just over one in five.
Rich Birch — But to me, that’s still a hauntingly large number that one in five executive pastors we would bump into and say, I’m not sure that that relationship is working well. So I’d love to start the conversation there. Why do you think the lead pastor and executive pastor relationship, why is there kind of tension there? Why would people be experiencing that? And and personally, I think, man, that relationship’s got to be strong for the the health of the church. But help us understand, maybe set the problem up for us. What what do you think is going on there when that relationship is strained?
Jeremy Peterson — Yeah, it’s interesting to stat, Rich, because talking to a lot of executive pastors around the country like you do, I feel like that number may even be a little bit higher.
Rich Birch — Right.
I think so surveys are incredibly helpful, but I feel like one of the biggest challenges or conversations that I’m having on a regular basis with other executive pastors is I’m not sure the lead pastor trusts me. Sometimes it’s like, I’m not sure that I trust my lead pastor.
Jeremy Peterson — And so I think there’s definitely a tension, which I think it’s, there there are two roles that are so incredibly crucial for the church, right. You have either the cedar senior or lead pastor, who’s really the one casting the vision. And you’ve got the executive pastor in that second role or that second chair, that’s really called to like help execute on the vision. And when there’s like, trust or mistrust, lack of trust, whatever it may be, that can cause a lot of, i think, tension and frustration if it’s not if it’s not addressed in some capacity.
Rich Birch — Yeah. And I do get these calls as well. I sometimes what happens is i’ll I’ll be talking to an executive pastor, maybe I’m on site and they’ll pull me aside and they’ll say, you know, I just love my lead pastor. So fantastic. They’re an amazing vision-caster. They do such a great job. And then they they rattle off all this real positive stuff. And then they’ll say, but can you help me get better at this relationship how do I… Or it’ll be a lead pastor will pull me aside and say oh i just i love the executive pastor here and they’ll same thing rattle off that person’s so good at getting stuff done and they manage the team so well and never worry about money stuff, and and then there’s a but. But could you help me get better at that relationship like ah it’s like we’re struggling around this.
Rich Birch — What would be some early signs in conversations that you’re having that maybe there’s the trust is starting to erode a bit that that’s drifting towards this kind of, Ooh, this is things are not in a good place. What are some of the telltale signs in those conversations that you see? Ooh, we maybe have a trust problem here.
Jeremy Peterson — Yeah. Trust is really interesting because I feel like, um, really time builds trust. I mean, I feel like I’m, I usually kind of err on the side of like, hey I’ll trust you until you, until you cause reasons to bring like, untrust or whatever that may be…
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeremy Peterson — …or or break the trust. Because it takes, I feel like time, time is what really builds on trust, but it’s something that can be also lost overnight.
Rich Birch — Very quickly.
Jeremy Peterson — And so, um, I think a few things that I’ve noticed over the years, As trust begins to erode, I think there’s ah a few things that I would that I would hit on. I think um a few of them is just as being consistent. So like as an executive pastor, are you like are you reliable? Are you are you dependable? Are you doing what you say you’re going to do? Are you coming in with like a calm calm spirit? Sometimes senior pastors or lead pastors can be all over the place. They can be upset or frustrated, and if you kind of come in as like the is the constant like in the midst of a storm and you can kind of calm that down a little bit, I think that that’s that’s really helpful.
Jeremy Peterson — I think a big part of it is just is being truthful. So like in the consistency, are you being truthful? Because a senior pastor needs somebody who can speak the truth into them. Most of most staff even other um I think a lot of senior pastors they’re just not very trusting people by nature, and so I think when you have somebody who can speak truth into you, I think it actually starts developing and growing the trust. I feel like if you’re the same time i feel like if you’re holding back all the truth, I feel like like trust starts eroding over time if you’re holding back some of the truth.
Jeremy Peterson — So take something like weekly attendance, right? Senior pastors, lead pastors really, really care about seeing like about attendance. But if you are not being like fully truthful or transparent, little if you start holding some of the information, the information is going to come out in some capacity.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeremy Peterson — And so I think if you start holding on to that, that can start breaking or even eroding the trust over time. So I think that consistency is a is a huge thing. I think another part of it is…
Rich Birch — Yeah. I think…
Jeremy Peterson — …oh go ahead.
Rich Birch — No, no, I was just going say, it’s amazing how, and what was that poem? Like everything I learned about life I learned in kindergarten. It’s amazing though, how much the just the core idea of like, do what you say, do what you said you were going to do.
Jeremy Peterson — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Like it’s, but it’s amazing how for some leaders we, they seem to struggle with that, that it’s like, well, you said you were going to do this. Like, why did you not do it? It’s incredible. What else else were going to say there?
Jeremy Peterson — Oh yeah, the other thing was just going to add is I think clarity is so crucial. You’ve been an executive pastor. I think sometimes we go into this like problem solving mode and we’re constantly trying to think of like, how do we solve this problem? How do we how do we get in front of it?
Jeremy Peterson — And so a lot of times we don’t even have clarity, even necessarily around what the senior pastor or lead pastor are trying to accomplish. And we’ve already gone into like fix it mode before even we even have a full picture of like what’s trying to be accomplished. And if you’re not constantly like syncing up in some capacity with the senior pastor, I think that that’s where some of the trust can break over time.
Jeremy Peterson — So like I have a standing lunch every single Monday, regardless of what’s going on, unless we’re on vacation, we get together and we sync up every single Monday to have a conversation. And I remember initially it was like, well I don’t know that I can commit to a, you know, weekly lunch time and doing this. And so unless there’s some random exception for us, Mondays is really that chance to be able to sync up, make sure that we’re on the same page. And and I think really in that time, kind of not only hear like what’s God placed on your heart, but but I’m building camaraderie.
Jeremy Peterson — So like, and by camaraderie, I don’t I don’t feel like in any sense, like you as an executive pastor and lead pastor need to be best friends. But I feel like having some kind of common interests where you can you can spend some time together, you can have conversations that are not just work related, but a lot of it’s also about like hey what’s going on in your life. Like what’s happening not just here at the church but what’s happening in your own life? What’s going on? Like like being aware of those things, I think the more you can have those conversations it’s not just all about work all the time, I think that that helps build trust builds that relationship with your senior lead pastor as well.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I’d love to come back to that the kind of friendship, co-worker relationship thing there.
Jeremy Peterson — Yeah
Rich Birch — But you said something earlier that caught my attention, this idea of a standing lunch on Mondays. Are there any other, in your relationship with Bo, a part of why I was excited to talk to you about this is as an outsider, I perceive you guys are like, those guys seem to like working with each other.
Rich Birch — They’re like, the fact that you’ve been there for 12 years and you continue to be there is a sign of that and vice versa. He continues to love working with you and it’s a prevailing church. You guys are taking new ground. Mondays, lunchtime, that’s a core behavior practice, intentional practice. Are there other things that you’re doing as you think about engaging with him in a way that build trust or build that relationship?
Jeremy Peterson — That’s a great question. So I think two things is, I will constantly drop into his office and have a five minute conversation, or make a five minute phone call. I’ve realized that over the years, how much time and probably pain I could have spared both of us…
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeremy Peterson — …had we just dropped in and had those conversations. And so kind of a a best practice that we would have now is like, hey, pick up the the phone and let’s have a five minute conversation…
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeremy Peterson — …instead of like potentially hours on the back end of things that we may have to undo or repair just because you know you may have had a question, doubt, frustration, whatever it may have been like. Just go ahead and voice those things and let’s have those conversations and then let’s move on versus like dwelling on it. Because I think that’s where the enemy does a really good job getting a foothold. And it’s like, hey, if I can just create a little little doubt or a little dissension here, then I can help break away and erode that trust.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Could you give me an example, that’s maybe not too close to home, of what one of those five minute things would be? Because I think that’s a good insight that like, hey, I should just like pick up the phone or drop by and like, hey, here’s something either I heard I can I can see that or I’ve thought of a similar thing around, like I see something that’s getting going and I’m like, I could wait to meet with the executive team and everybody or like, I but I really should just get my lead pastor’s thoughts on where his head’s at on this issue. Because if this thing gets too far down the road…
Jeremy Peterson — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …you know, we could be causing pain. What would be some examples of the kind of things that you think those kind of five minute drop-ins are helpful with?
Jeremy Peterson — Yeah, I mean, something is simple as we had one of our locations was going from two services to three services. And so I had a conversation with the outpost pastor and we started talking through what those things are.
Jeremy Peterson — And we’re like, yeah, these three times make sense. And we just kind of ran with it. And so in retrospect, we start going to print. So we get to the point where it’s like going on the website, it’s going to print. And he asked me, he’s like, what are these times? Like, why why did we land on these times?
Jeremy Peterson — And so it was realizing that sometimes it’s those simple things, but if you can constantly be dropping in shoot a text, have a quick conversation, like the amount of things that we had to undo to fix something like that, was big. Another thing that he’s he’s shifted a lot now, but early on, it would not be uncommon for, say, one of our student pastors to go up to him and say like, hey, I know you did student ministry back in the day. I’m thinking about doing this. And he would be like, that sounds like a great idea. Just go for it. Not thinking through like all the details and ramifications of what that looked like.
Jeremy Peterson — And so next thing I know, I’m in a meeting with one of our student pastors and they’re like, hey, Bo said that we should do this. And I’m like, hold the phone, like no we’re not we’re not doing that.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jeremy Peterson — And so having those short conversations really trying to operate under the like the no surprise premise which is what him and I operate under. Our elders operate under that as well. So we’ve we’ve kind of shared the same thing with our elders is like, hey, if you have questions or concerns, pick up the phone, make a call, always choose to believe the best instead of assuming the worst.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. You know, speaking with weight, you know, that’s always a shrewd move by staff to like, if I can just get the lead person to say, yeah, yeah go do that that. That’s like a blank check. Well, Bo said, you know, I can imagine that, that
Jeremy Peterson — He signed off on it. It’s fine.
Rich Birch — It’s fine. It’s totally fine. We’re buying the corporate jet. It’s fine. Let’s go back to the best friends versus coworkers thing.
Jeremy Peterson — Yeah.
Rich Birch — I see that this is an interesting relationship. And I’ve had I’ve had the privilege of working for three incredible lead pastors who I have really good positive relationships with. And, you know, we got a lot of stuff done, moved a lot stuff for the kingdom. And we’re friendly, like we’re we were close, but we weren’t like dudes. We were not like, you know, going to whatever dudes do like, you know.
Rich Birch — And, so I sometimes had tension around in my own brain around like, should I be more friendly with these people? I don’t know. Help us understand, pull that apart. How, what do you think is healthy? What, what, what’s the kind of a minimum viable relationship? You know, how do we think through our you know, that, that side of this, this relationship?
Jeremy Peterson — Yeah, that’s that’s a really, that’s I think it’s probably different for every senior executive pastor relationship, but I feel like there’s some who think that they need to be best friends.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeremy Peterson — So like every vacation we do, like our families need to do this together. Every hobby, like we need to be a part of that together. What I’m also realizing is that there there’s probably some common interests that you share.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeremy Peterson — And they may not be the same. So like your lead pastor may like to golf. You may not like to golf. I may really like to fish. He does not really care to fish.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeremy Peterson — But but there are common interests that we’ve realized over time. So a lot of that could be sports. So like we follow one of the same college football teams. We both enjoy working out. And so being able to share some of the best practices in those areas, I think it is finding like, where’s their common ground?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Jeremy Peterson — And how can we have a conversation? At the same time, I don’t know how healthy it is for you to be best friends. And because there are times where that could actually keep you from being fully truthful with them in in worries that you may like you may impact your relationship in some capacity. I think that’s a dangerous place to be.
Rich Birch — That’s good. How do you think, so we’re really talking here about trust and how we’re building trust. How are we trustworthy people with our lead pastor and are seen by being trustworthy with our lead pastor and then vice versa? How do we, you know, continue to try to, you know, choose trust with them and engage in a way?
Rich Birch — How do you think this idea of building trust ends up rippling into other relationships as, as, ah as we lead as an executive pastor? I often think, you know, we, we, we end up in, we’re in this really interesting kind of intersection of vision and execution. And so, you know, oftentimes I think lead pastors, when they’re doing their job, right, they are like a large portion of what they’re doing is thinking about vision and about the future. And then our job is to figure out, okay, how does that actually, how do we make that work?
Rich Birch — And so we got to work with all these other relationships. What’s the connection here around trust and relationships with our staff, with our staff teams, maybe younger staff, what’s that look like?
Jeremy Peterson — And I think it goes back to being truthful. If I overcommit and under deliver, then I can only do that a couple of times before like trust will start to erode. And I’ve seen it times over the years where like somebody way overcommits on this and they’re like, no problem, we can do this. And you know we’re going to have 10,000 people show up to it, but it’s going to be amazing. And then you you hype it up in such a way that then then the event or the function, whatever it is, happens. And then all of a sudden you like, you feel like you way under delivered. You can only that I think ah a few times before it starts to become like, man, I’m not sure. Like I know, I know Jeremy said he was going to do this, but like he keeps dropping the ball. He keeps committing at super high level and he’s not executing at that level. I think that that starts impacting things. um
Jeremy Peterson — There’s a, there’s a great book out there um that Stephen Covey wrote. He’s probably most, probably most well known for The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, I think is the name of the book.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jeremy Peterson — He wrote another book that’s not as well known, but the book is called Speed of Trust.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Jeremy Peterson — And it’s a great reminder that like the more you work on being synced up together, the more trust begins to grow, the faster you can actually move and operate as an organization and as an entity, the more that that is built. And so so if you haven’t had a chance to read it, fascinating read. It was really helpful for me to understand that like, the more truthful I am, the more consistent I am, the more clarity I’m providing and actually executing at that level, then the more trust begins to build. And therefore allows us to actually move at a pretty rapid pace, the more that that foundation is built.
Jeremy Peterson — And I think it impacts the staff as a whole. it’s It’s a little bit like the mom-dad relationship. Like if there’s tension or if they’ve like if there’s been a fight or an argument, like as as kids, like you can tell something’s off.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes.
Jeremy Peterson — What did dad say? Or you know why is mom upset with dad? um I think ah the staff can sense that. Like If something is off between the two of you, they can start to begin to wonder, doubt. They can even begin to you know, put in like suspicious thoughts of like, man, something must be off here. Something’s out of sync. And so I think that that’s a big part of it is just, is taking time, working on the relationship, and then just watching it kind of like grow and blossom over time. But also I would encourage, like if you’re a new executive pastor to the role, just realize that like you can’t buy time.
Rich Birch — It just takes time.
Jeremy Peterson — I’m an investment over years, the things that you’ve learned. You know, we talk often here about like failing fast and cheap because we feel like failure is actually needed to be able to accomplish what God’s calling us to do. But I think if you’re not truthful and transparent as that’s happening, then then it’s not long before it it starts catching up to you.
Rich Birch — That’s good. That reminds me one of the the, you know, axioms I’ve talked about with our teams is, you know, there’s, there’s no bad information. There’s just because I think sometimes like something might go wrong, you might have an event, you might be a team member, you, you know, you busted something, it could be as simple as, you know, youth event, we had literally had this happen, we opened a brand new building. And the very first youth event, there was a car, we had a kid go through the wall, and it busted a like it, you know, but busted a wall, like his brand new building, $15 million dollar build. Wow. This is amazing. You know, put a hole in the wall.
Rich Birch — And you know, there’s no bad information. What makes that hole in the wall worse is if we never hear about it, and it gets covered up and someone puts a, you know, well, we’ll just move this, you know, whatever, some furniture.
Jeremy Peterson — Just put a big poster up there, it’ll be fine.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Put a poster in front of it or whatever. That just gets worse over time. Like, sure. There may be information we don’t like, but there’s no bad information. Like we’ve got to be organizations that spread even bad news and you know how we react. That was one of the times where I felt like in that case that instance I said was, I feel like, oh like the Lord was with me because actually I responded super well. I said to the guy, I’m like, this is why we bought this building. I’m so glad you had all these students here. You know, let’s get it fixed and and move forward. I did not like paying that bill, but you know, it is, it is what it is, so. But we can’t, if we create organizations that are trying to hide the truth, that are trying to hide information that will erode trust long-term and you move way slower to the speed of trust, you know, information there.
Rich Birch — So pivoting in a in a slightly different direction, but related kind of an adjacent neighborhood of conversation. What are you learning about developing, particularly trust with, or building up team members, younger team members, newer team members at, at One Church? How, what does that look like for you guys? How, how are you, how how does that fit into this whole idea of, you know, building trust with people?
Jeremy Peterson — That’s a great question, Rich, because actually the and we can talk about it if we have time. But the Executive Pastor Summit this year specifically is really about leading up and empowering younger leaders.
Rich Birch — I love it.
Jeremy Peterson —But can I just do a quick jump backwards before?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jeremy Peterson — Just just maybe this is a bonus thing. Regardless of whether you’ve worked with your lead senior pastor um for the last couple of months or the last 10 years, something that has really changed my heart and my perspective, and I think has really helped grow the relationship, is um it’s just daily be in prayer for him or her. I know that sounds very simple. Until about three years ago I would pray for Bo on a regular basis but it was just kind of like when I thought of it, or on the way to work, or Sunday morning…
Rich Birch — Right. It’s a big thing coming up.
Jeremy Peterson — Yeah, here’s a big thing coming up. But but man the the more we really challenge all of our staff to do this, but I know for myself praying for him, praying for each of his kids by name, know where they’re at in their life, relationships that they’re in, praying for his spouse, and I know he’s doing the same thing. Like I think that that God really takes that, honors that, and he helps kind of build trust through that. And so just an encouragement to some of you if you’re like wrestling with this, if you’re doubting, if you feel like the enemy is getting a foothold is, my encouragement is like, man, just take time every single day to pray for your senior lead pastor. And then I think that’ll make a huge difference. So just want to put that in. So I didn’t forget about, about that on the, on the back end.
Rich Birch — No, that’s so good. That’s a great practical tactic for us around, particularly, you know, you think about the the lead pastor, there was a high percentage of these in this kind of one out of five that were really saying, so it’s 17.89 is the number of people, of executive pastors that said that they feel neutral about their relationship with their lead pastor. And man, we don’t want to feel neutral about this relationship. Like this can’t be like, it’s fine. Like that’s not good. That would be a great takeaway is say, Hey, what if I was going to spend time every day praying for my lead pastor, for what’s going on in their world, for their, you know, for their spouse, for their kids, all of that. I think that’s a great, great takeaway.
Rich Birch — That’s a callback to a previous episode as well. I love, and I know I’ve joked with you about this before when we had you and Bo on talking about multi-site stuff last year, and you know, I asked this question around how do you know the campus versus teams and like the classic multi-site tension. And, um and I’ve retold this story way too many times. And, you know, I’m like, what do you guys do to fix this problem? And then Bo in his wise sort of way rolls out the like, well, you know, I pray every day for every staff member and their, and their family. And I found that that has really helped. And I was like, literally, I was like, Okay. So I’ve been doing this for 20 years, asking that question. Never, never once considered that. So I felt humbled.
Rich Birch — But that’s a great, a great, you know, it’s not just like, and know that’s what I love about you guys. It’s not like you’re not saying that from like, oh, just pray about it. It’s like, no, this, let’s actually add this as a part of our lives and discipline and see what the Lord will do. You know, I think it’s amazing. It’s fantastic.
Jeremy Peterson — Yeah, not to recap the whole thing, but man, like our staff as a whole has been doing that the last four and a half months, Rich. And even the interaction, some of the past frustrations, it’s crazy how much that’s minimized.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeremy Peterson — And just simply praying for, I mean, we spend all this money to go to conferences and all this stuff. And it’s like, hey, how about here’s a printed off name of everybody on staff, their spouse and their kids.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jeremy Peterson — Hey, just take 20 minutes a day and pray for them.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jeremy Peterson —It’s like, oh yeah, I can I guess Ii can do that as it doesn’t cost much other than some time so. But anyway…
Rich Birch — Well, and you start to see each other as humans, right? At the end of the day.
Jeremy Peterson — Oh yeah.
Rich Birch —And, you know, you start to be like, hey, this person’s like, they’re not just a task that needs to be done or, you know, they’re not just whatever the next problem is that’s going to come up. So, um yeah, that’s a great practical takeaway.
Rich Birch —Well, let’s pivot on that. I want to make sure because I know that you can help leaders on this as well. As we think about younger leaders, what, you know, just ah ask a super wide open, what should we be thinking about? What are you thinking about? What are you wrestling with? Help us wrestle through that. you know, let’s talk about that.
Jeremy Peterson — Yeah, something that’s really been on my heart the last probably year and a half is how do we empower younger leaders? And so I’m not sure who sits around like your, know, your decision making team. But God really put in our hearts several years back to start a residency program and really pour into some of these younger leaders. I know people took a risk on people like you and I, at some point when we were in our twenties and didn’t really know what we’re doing. And we made some dumb things. Like, I think I made multiple holes and multiple walls, which the senior pastor was like very forgiving at the time about it.
Jeremy Peterson — But, but I just love that we get an opportunity to like really pour into invest and actually empower and, um, and and put some trust even behind some of these residents that they’re they’re going from like, okay, I’ve learned these things in school. I have this head knowledge of things, but from a practical standpoint, what does that really look like?
Jeremy Peterson — And so so knowing that we were going to this conversation, I just sat down with one of our first year residents just to kind of hear what their experience has been so far, because I want to hear like the positives, the negatives and kind of what their insight was. But um but a few things that he shared shared with me was like, I love that you guys allow us to fail.
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Jeremy Peterson — He’s like, I’ve been at other jobs before where it’s like, if something happens to me, if I miss it, then it could be like, hey, you’re going get written up for this. And for us for us, it’s really trying to create that culture of like, you are allowed to fail. You’re allowed to try things. We talk about failing fast and cheap. We hope it doesn’t cost us a lot. But but ultimately, like that’s a safe place in the residency to but to be able to be.
Jeremy Peterson — Another thing he said was, um like I’ve been challenged to say yes to opportunities. And I was like, well, yeah, tell me a little bit more about that. And he’s like, no, usually kind of like you pick and choose. Well, yeah, I want to say yes to this one, but I don’t want to say yes to this. And he’s like, I’m in my early 20s. Why would I not say yes to all these different opportunities? And he’s like, I really want to be scrappy.
Jeremy Peterson — And I’m like, well, tell me more tell me more about that. He’s like, no, I really want to be like more of a utility, like multi-tool staffer. And in my mind, I’m like, OK, I appreciate the the hustle and this younger resident because he’s already talking about like, OK, how do we create a staffing position for him?
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeremy Peterson — But I also think realizing that, you know, he said, if I get an opportunity to preach, I’m going to take the opportunity to preach. If I get the opportunity to host, I to take the opportunity to host. If I don’t have anything that weekend, that I’m going to see if I can serve with our production team and kind of learn the behind the scenes side of things so that I can help with that. Anywhere that’s needed.
Jeremy Peterson — And so I love this idea that they’re willing to say yes, they’re willing to take some risks, knowing that the team believes in them. And so for us, and I think for me specifically, it’s been okay, who do I see being a part of our leadership decision making team in the years ahead?
Jeremy Peterson — And know for, you know, if the average age in the room is like, say, in their mid 40s, like to bring in a early mid 20 year old is it like, wait a second, like, what is this, you know, what is this kid going to say to us? um I think they provide some incredibly fresh perspective…
Rich Birch — 100 percent.
Jeremy Peterson — …on what we’re actually doing well, things that we should do differently, and just ways that we can continue to like really empower them, challenge them, put them in positions that may make them feel uncomfortable. Like we have some that have are like almost deathly afraid of having you know being on stage and talk talking to somebody. But give them an opportunity to to get in there, host, I mean, hosting’s two, three minutes, but get an opportunity to get on stage, just kind of like, you know, put a little fire under them, and and see how they do. And and just watch them grow. And I’m always shocked, and I shouldn’t be shocked because because we’ve been doing the residency for a while, but how many of them not only step up into the challenge, but then actually go beyond our expectations.
Rich Birch — Right. That’s so good. I think this is a critical important critically important for us to lean in on. You know In the last year I’ve been struck, I was with a lot of different churches, and but there were two in particular that stood out to me. These are like prevailing churches, folks that are listening in. If you were listening, they’re like name brand churches. You know these people.
Rich Birch — And the thing that stood out to me was I was having in both of them, I just happened to be having a kind of a meeting with leadership meeting with the folks that were actually operational leaders of a whole bunch of different departments. It was like a kind of a cross section of team leaders. And I was pleasantly surprised with how young that crowd was. Like I looked around the room and I was like, man, these people are all in their late twenties, early thirties. And they’re running departments that are larger than, you know the majority of churches in the country.
Rich Birch — You know they’ve got 15 staff reporting to them. They’re managing multi-million dollars of budgets. And these are prevailing churches. Now, I don’t think that that is a coincidence. I think both of those churches have unlocked something and have realized, wait a second, we have to pass this thing on to the next generation.
Rich Birch — So when you think about the residency, kind of talk to us so about but about the residency program. What does that look like? And how did you get into that? How did that kind of get that ball get rolling? Help us understand. Maybe there’s someone who’s listening in today is thinking, hmm, maybe that’s something, a step we should take in this coming year.
Jeremy Peterson — Yeah, so it was actually a retired baseball player who’s actually going to be at XPS this year. I’m going to do an interview with him. Because now that he’s retired, he’s still coaching, but the like now he’s kind of coaching up the AA and AAA players as they’re coming in and they’re moving up to the major leagues. But he really challenged us because we told him the staffing was one of the biggest challenges, especially in in the New England area. There’s not a lot of people that feel called to be up here this close to Canada, which I know you’re in Canada. But they’re they’re like, maybe if we can be further south, like a little more comfortable.
Jeremy Peterson — But for us, we realized that staffing was a challenge. And for us, he really challenged us to to start a residency. And the residency, it’s either a one or two year residency. And you come on you come in you have two areas of focus. And so it could be, say, worship and production. And you’ll spend six months with each of those areas, really kind of hands-on. And so if you’re showing up here, you’re actually like, you will be on stage leading worship. You will be helping run production, whether it’s for our online service or at one of our outposts. But we really try to give as many hands-on opportunities as possible.
Jeremy Peterson — As somebody who went to seminary, I think I had one class called practical ministry. And it was like, here’s one semester on, you know, how to do weddings, how to do funerals, but not a whole lot of hands-on experience unless I was volunteering at a church. And so for us, it’s really trying to take, hey, here’s some things that I’ve learned, like from a practical standpoint, but like actually let’s just actually see them like, live happening in real time and get an opportunity to be able to see like, Hey, is it something that God’s even really calling me to? And how can I use the gifts that he’s given me to further the kingdom?
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good. Love that. Well, we’ve kind of referenced XPS. So XPSummit.org. This is a conference that you are the grand content poobah for. Talk to us about XPS this year. This is to me is a must-attend event. Talk to us about it. and And where is it? All those kind of details this year.
Jeremy Peterson — Yeah, sure. It’s it’s May 4th through 6th in Dallas-Fort Worth. And typically we’ll have 150, 175 executive pastors from different size of churches around the country. And and I appreciate the comment, Rich, but really my goal is to get the people that are there with the content, people like you, and other leaders who really want to come and pour into other executive pastors. And so, yeah, so if you, whether you live in the area or you just want to a day to hang out with some incredible leaders, Rich is going to be there, I’ll be there. And like you said, you can go to xpsummit.org and you can see some of the keynote speakers as well as some of the breakout leaders.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good. Well, Jeremy, just as we wrap up today’s episode, bit of a curveball question here. As you think about 2026 at One Church, what’s a question or two that’s on your mind that you’re like, hmm, here’s some stuff that we’re thinking about. it doesn’t have to do with anything we’re talking about today. It could be just anything that you’re thinking about this year. You’re wrestling through thinking, hmm, I wonder what that’s going to look like in this this coming year.
Jeremy Peterson — Man, I was not expecting that question. One thing I’ve been praying about is I think we’re going to start seeing a shift in different parts of the country um where we may have people that are more of like a like a tentmaker role in ministry where um I think there’s an incredible opportunity to do things in like the business sector, but at the same time still work in the church using some of the gifts that God’s empowered you with. And so I can see a shift happening where we have more of the tent making. It’s crazy to me that it’s been like less than a hundred years since the church has actually had like paid full-time staff…
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeremy Peterson — …and not only paid full-time staff, but multiple staff. And so I think I think we could see a shift there. I think a lot of its just to be trying to be, in the words of one of our residents, how to be a little more scrappy, and really looking for staff that is not just focused on one specific area, but somebody who is a utility player that’s like, hey, I can help out in these four or five different areas instead of just being like, I have this one skill set that I can bring. I think those are two things that are going to make a huge impact in the church in 2026.
Rich Birch — That’s great. Thanks so much, Jeremy. I appreciate you being on today. If people want to track with One Church, where do we want to send them online to track with you guys?
Jeremy Peterson — Just go to church.one. Little bit different of a website, but yeah, they can go there and you can find my email address if you want to email me or if we can serve you any way, I know um for for our elders, for Bo, our senior pastor, we love serving the local church as a whole. And so if you’re in the area or if you want to come and hang out with us for a few days, shoot me an email and we’d love to host you guys.
Rich Birch — Great. Thanks so much. Thanks for being here today, sir.
Leading Into 2026: Executive Pastor Insights Momentum is real.
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- Why staff health is the #1 pressure point
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Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re continuing our special series responding to insights from the National Executive Pastor Survey with an executive pastor from a prevailing church.
Today we’re joined by Eric Garza, Executive Pastor at Cross Church. Cross Church is one of the fastest-growing churches in the country, with 12 campuses across South Texas, serving both English- and Spanish-speaking congregations. In this conversation, Eric helps unpack the number-one fear expressed by executive pastors in the survey: running out of space and not knowing what to do next.
Is your church growing but feeling physically constrained? Are facilities, kids’ space, or parking holding you back from what God may want to do next? Eric offers practical, hard-earned wisdom from leading through rapid multisite expansion.
- Facilities don’t just limit space—they shape momentum. // At Cross Church, growth has come through both campus planting and mergers or acquisitions of existing churches. In both cases, facilities either enable momentum or quietly choke it. Sustainable space must support all aspects of ministry—not just a worship room. Parking, kids’ environments, lobbies, restrooms, storage, and office space all play a role. A building that works on paper can quickly fail if it can’t support the full weekend experience.
- Don’t rush into permanence. // One of Eric’s strongest recommendations is to resist the pressure to own a building too early. Several Cross campuses began in leased spaces, which reduced operational burden and allowed the church to test viability without long-term risk. Leasing removes concerns like insurance, major maintenance, and long-term liability, freeing leaders to focus on ministry. If a campus stalls or misses the mark, leaders can pivot without being locked into a costly asset.
- Location matters more than you think. // Some facility lessons are learned the hard way. Eric humorously—but seriously—warns against launching next to railroad tracks or industrial zones. Visiting a facility during a Sunday morning timeframe is essential. Noise, safety, curb appeal, and accessibility all influence guest experience. Cross has launched campuses in libraries and event centers, learning to adapt acoustics and layouts while prioritizing safety and hospitality.
- Capital campaigns need margin. // Eric is candid about capital campaigns. Churches often believe in faith for a number that rarely materializes at full scale, especially since capital giving sits above normal tithes. Meanwhile, construction costs almost always rise. Cross learned the hard way that campaign timelines and construction timelines rarely align. Building 10–15% margin into every campaign accounts for inflation, surprises, and delays. If surplus remains, it becomes a testimony of generosity rather than a crisis averted.
- Remodeling vs. rebuilding requires sober math. // Acquiring an existing building can be a gift—or a trap. Before knocking down walls, Eric urges leaders to get third-party inspections and cost estimates. Some remodels quietly approach the cost of new construction while delivering less functionality. Evaluate whether a building should serve as a long-term campus, a ministry center, or even collateral for future development. Sometimes the wisest move is not to hold services there at all.
- Define a clear facility standard. // Over time, Cross Church developed a consistent “Cross standard” across campuses—shared color palettes, stage layouts, kids’ safety ratios, and ministry flow. While floor plans differ, the experience feels familiar. This standard helps teams evaluate remodels quickly and ensures families know what to expect. It also clarifies where compromise is acceptable and where it’s not.
- When space is tight, simplify strategically. // Not every constraint requires construction. Cross has increased capacity by adding services, adjusting service times, and consolidating kids’ age groups when space is limited. Combining grades temporarily doesn’t dilute quality—it preserves momentum. Eric defines excellence not as “having the best,” but “doing the best with what you have.” Obstacles are reframed as opportunities to steward growth faithfully.
- Communicate the season clearly. // Your people can endure inconvenience when they understand the why. Leaders don’t need to share every detail, but they should frame facility strain as evidence of impact, not failure. Clear vision keeps people focused on mission rather than discomfort.
To learn more about Cross Church, visit crosschurchonline.com or follow @crosschurchrgv on social media. You can also connect with Eric directly on social media at @ericpgarza.
Watch the full episode below:Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Risepointe
Do you feel like your church’s or school’s facility could be preventing growth? Are you frustrated or possibly overwhelmed at the thought of a complicated or costly building project? Are the limitations of your building becoming obstacles in the path of expanding your ministry? Have you ever felt that you could reach more people if only the facility was better suited to the community’s needs?
Well, the team over at Risepointe can help! As former ministry staff and church leaders, they understand how to prioritize and help lead you to a place where the building is a ministry multiplier. Your mission should not be held back by your building. Their team of architects, interior designers and project managers have the professional experience to incorporate creative design solutions to help move YOUR mission forward.
Check them out at risepointe.com/unseminary and while you’re there, schedule a FREE call to explore possibilities for your needs, vision and future…Risepointe believes that God still uses spaces…and they’re here to help.
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. We are in the middle of, in the in the midst of, is maybe a better way to say, these special set of podcasts where we’re responding to what you said in the National Executive Pastor Survey, which turned out to be the largest dedicated or direct executive pastor survey that we’re aware of ever, which is kind of cool. And hundreds of people were you know, logged in and told, gave us a sense of where ministry is at. And what we’ve been doing is spending time with an executive pastor from a prevailing church, and frankly, people I like, to get their ah thoughts on kind of what was surfaced.
Rich Birch — And today we’ve got a big one. This is a significant issue. In fact, it was the single biggest fear that was expressed. We asked a question around, what’s your kind of biggest fear for this year? And nearly one in five executive pastors expressed fear about this. And what is that fear? It’s the whole issue of our facilities, space, capital projects, that sort of thing. Many churches are running out of kids space, parking, seating, lobby capacity.
Rich Birch — You know, we’re all worried about in inflation of construction costs. If you got a building quoted on five years ago, you’re going to want to get it quoted on again, you know, renovation, building, all of this stuff. And, you know, we’re excited to have ah today a return guest, Eric Garza with us. He is from a fantastic church, Cross Church, which is located in Texas. It’s one of the fastest growing churches of ah in the country, and they have 12 campuses, if I’m counting correctly. So Eric has thought about facilities and so excited to have you back on the show, Eric. Thanks for being here.
Eric Garza — Rich, thanks for having me back. Good to have an opportunity to have a great conversation about a big topic for a lot of pastors and executives across the country. Yeah.
Rich Birch — Well, you’re going to solve all our problems for us today, Eric. So.
Eric Garza — It’s just some nuggets of what I’ve learned and experienced. But if I can make your life and your world a little bit better, awesome.
Rich Birch — That’s great. That’s good. Kind of tell us a little bit about Cross again, kind of set the context, you know, give us a bit of sense of the the church.
Eric Garza — Yeah, so we’re in deep south Texas. Most of our campuses are within a half hour north of the US-Mexico border. So right at the bottom of the tip of Texas. 30 years going on 31 years as a ministry. In the last eight years, we went from one site ah to now seven locations, physical locations and 12 campuses.
Eric Garza — We’re a bilingual ministry, which means we do we have English campuses and we have Spanish campuses. And we recently, last year in 2025, launched our first campus outside of our region in San Antonio, Texas.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Eric Garza — And you can imagine a lot of ah victories and a lot of challenges, ah you know leaving your space, your comfort area, the region where you’ve been, for 30 years and then heading out and venturing off into what we believe God called us to do in in Central Texas.
Eric Garza — So ah just phenomenal growth. We’ve seen God’s hand up on our ministry and it’s come with, ah like I said, a lot of wins and a lot of challenges we’ve had to navigate. And being a a predominantly Hispanic ministry that reaches both English congregants and Spanish congregants, dealing with cultural, political issues in our region of the country ah has just been a whirlwind. But as anybody could imagine, it’s been a big learning season for us for expansion. You know, I know we’re talking about facilities going from one side to multisite and all of that that entails operationally, logistically, financially. So I wouldn’t say we know it all. We certainly don’t if we’re always learning. But man, if if we can just impart any wisdom, we’re we’re all for that.
Rich Birch — Love it. Well, I would say I actually re-looked at a lot of these fears. And the overall tone, if you were to kind of summarize the the conversation that people seem to be expressing is like, there’s this sense from a lot of executive pastors, listen, our ministry could grow, but our space, frankly, is holding us back. And we’re not entirely sure what the path forward is. It’s like, we we see the physical space issues, but I’m not sure where to go from here. So I’d love to jump right in.
Eric Garza — Sure.
Rich Birch — How have you, as you’ve looked at your seven physical locations, 12 campuses, how do you evaluate facility limitations? And are they the things that are actually restricting growth or does the issue lie somewhere else? How do you, how are you discerning that when you look at, you know, this, this whole issue?
Eric Garza — Yeah, a lot of our of our growth has come from us planting campuses, but some of our growth has come from, I guess, what the corporate world calls mergers and acquisitions, where we’ve merged or really acquired other ministries who either had an existing facility that we took over. Or where we partnered with them through the acquisition and launched a campus in a new building or a new facility.
Eric Garza — So some of the things that we’ve done is, there’s a whole process, right, that that it’s entailed with going multisite. And one of those big key indicators of whether the campus or the church plant is going to succeed is whether they have a sustainable facility that can house all aspects of the ministry. And sometimes that can be difficult to find.
Eric Garza — For example, you don’t just want meeting space to have services, right? You need maybe an office space, you need childcare space, you need a meeting space, you need lobby, restrooms, you need adequate parking. And all of those factors come into play when you’re looking to find the right spaces. So for us, We’ve just been blessed that ah either we’ve have you know gone through the capital campaigns, we’ve gone through the funding, the you know internal funding to build new facilities, or the acquisition that we’ve ah done over the last couple of years already had an existing facility, which is a plus. Because instead of building, we just went into a remodel phase to bring that building up to what we would call our Cross-standard to house our campus and facility. And so I mean it’s It’s a holistic approach.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Eric Garza — You look at parking, kids space. What you don’t want to do and what what we’ve run into in the past, is it’s okay to to launch with limited space, but if you’re launching and you already have a couple of hundred people that are gathered, you’re going to want to find a space that’s going to give you ample room to have one or two services without having to crunch yourself in the short term. And it’s going to, in in in a larger sense, going to really facilitate some challenge and some angst and frustrations early on. And you want to minimize as much of that, especially when you’re when you’re launching and you’re setting out to start a new campus or a new church.
Rich Birch — Yeah, so that’s one of those kind of pinch points would be too small, right? Like I’m assuming you’ve ended up in facilities where it’s like, okay, this is this just frankly is too small.
Eric Garza — It’s not going to work.
Rich Birch — And so we’ve got to, it’s not going to work. We’re going have to start with three services and that, you know, or something like that. Or we’ll start with two and we’ll be pinched too quickly. Are there any other kind of tripwires that you’ve run into that are like, oh, like it might be great on these five things, but this, these, if it’s not these two or three, if these aren’t right, we were not going in there. Are there any other things to get to, as you said, a sustainable facility? Are there any kind of big no-nos that you’ve bumped into, or maybe you wish you knew before? Yeah. Tell me about that.
Eric Garza — Yeah, a couple of things. Number one is don’t ah start a church next to the railroad tracks. That may sound a little funny.
Rich Birch — No, tell me more.
Eric Garza — You never know that during your Sunday morning message at your 10 o’clock service, roughly about 10:40 a.m., this train…
Rich Birch — Oh, gosh.
Eric Garza — …who’s two or three blocks away is going to come blaring out ah and just completely disrupt your sound and and your service and your message for a few minutes. So it may sound comical, but ah yeah, definitely don’t do that. Right.
Rich Birch — No, that’s very good.
Eric Garza — Yeah.
Rich Birch — That’s well, and even going and seeing, that’s a great takeaway because even going and seeing the facility during a Sunday morning, like, cause you wouldn’t know that if you’re there to just Tuesday afternoon or something, you would have no sense of that.
Eric Garza — Yeah.
Rich Birch — But, but cause it might be a train, but there’s, I could see lots of things where.
Eric Garza — Trains are not confined to Monday through Friday.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Eric Garza — They’re there every day as they need. And so you just you just never know. That has to happen a couple of times, and it’s incredibly frustrating.
Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s interesting. That’s good.
Eric Garza — And so you play it off the middle of the service, but man, it can it can mess it could mess with some stuff. The second thing I would say is is this when looking for a facility. There’s obviously some innate some internal perhaps pressure or self-imposed pressure as a pastor or an executive to want to get into a permanent facility right away.
Eric Garza — One of the things that helped us early on with with a couple of our campuses is we actually rented. And here’s the benefit of renting or leasing, even for a year or two, as you grow that site is number one, you’re not worried about insurance, right? You’re not worried about lawsuits. You’re not worried about maintenance or you’re paying for that, right? But there’s a lot that you minimize when it comes to overloading your mind and your brain about what you have to handle.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Eric Garza — Alright. And so you pay a fee, but the building’s clean when you come in. And right after you set, you know, you tear down your equipment for the service in your kids area, you don’t have to worry about that because you’re leasing a space.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Eric Garza — And so if you can minimize, like I said, as much of the overload of operations and facilities on the front end, that’s that’s a great a great thing. And most spaces, right, what we did early on is if we had an event center where we would rent the main auditorium uh we would use conference rooms or or multi-purpose room for child care. We would safe proof them, right – all of our protocols in place. But that’s what we would do early on, and it would give us a chance to test and gather some data.
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Eric Garza — Is this going to work long term? Right. Number one, we don’t believe we missed God. But if after a couple of years, this isn’t going anywhere. Well, thank God we didn’t buy a building…
Rich Birch — Right.
Eric Garza — …because now we’re you know up a creek without a paddle, as they say. And so leasing is not is not an entirely bad idea on the early outset.
Rich Birch — No, that’s great.
Eric Garza — But definitely the neighborhood that you’re in, right beside the town that you’re in, you want to be in a centrally as centrally as you can, centrally located as you can, and and not next to a railroad track or any industry or warehouses where there’s going to be trucks, just for safety concerns, for the curbside appeal. And so that’s why public libraries or where we had actually launched started campuses was at a public library – acoustic set because we couldn’t be so loud. So all of those facility concerns are are really things you want to keep in mind.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. I love the idea of the rental on the front end. What a great way to, it’s good use of capital. It’s a good, you know, it it gives you a chance to test…
Eric Garza — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …even if you stay for a couple of years, that’s, you know, that’s fantastic. So you’ve been through multiple, you know, capital campaigns, this whole process of like, we’ve got to raise money and then get a facility renovated or, you know, you know, expanded or whatever.
Rich Birch — What, what do you wish you would have known before all that? Well, are there a couple like things that either, you know, you stumbled upon, you stubbed your toe or you wish, man, I wish somebody would have told me this. Are there any things that stand out to you?
Eric Garza — Number, I think the first one is this. You have an you have a number in your mind, and you of course you believe God for it. It…
Rich Birch — And it’s lower. It’s going to come in lower every time.
Eric Garza — …it is. Every single, unless God does a miracle, which he is more than able to do…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Eric Garza — …it’s going to come in lower. And so I think have have high anticipation but realistic expectations…
Rich Birch — Right.
Eric Garza — …because most capital campaigns are campaigns that are above normal giving.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Okay. Yep.
Eric Garza — Right. And so at least for us, it’s above normal giving.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Eric Garza — We encourage and we get people to give towards a specific capital campaign, which is for a specific campus or a specific project or or what have you. But you have this number in mind and then if you can tend to early on. It’s not coming in yet. Or maybe you’ve done it for a year or give a specific timeline.
Rich Birch — I see. Okay. Yep.
Eric Garza — And you can get quickly discouraged, especially with capital campaigns where you’re like, we’re halfway through this thing and not even half has come in yet, or of what we thought would come in. And so it’s easier to get discouraged. But that was a big thing is that number in your mind, it’s going to be lower. And that’s not a bad thing. Right. That’s not a bad thing.
Eric Garza — People are giving to a capital campaign above giving of their normal giving, sacrificially, they’re giving by faith. They’re giving with expectation. But at the same time, for those of us on the inside, right, those of us who are managing the resources and what have you, it’s it’s about having a realistic expectation that we have the faith that God can do it. But we’re all going to budget ourselves knowing that if there’s a high probability, not impossible, there’s a high probability that the number we had in mind, is not going to be what comes in for the capital campaign.
Rich Birch — Let’s talk about that there. So there’s an interesting, um so I’ve seen that for sure in churches. There’s an interesting kind of tension that pulls in two different directions. One, you can have exactly what you’re talking about, which is, you know, we thought we would go in, we we were hoping we would raise X and we raised something less than that.
Eric Garza — Yeah.
Rich Birch — But then the other part of it is we were hoping the project was going to cost X and it costs X plus, you know, it’s costing us more than, than we anticipated. How do you manage that tension? How have you been able to kind of navigate that? That’s a, that’s a tough tension.
Eric Garza — Yeah, the longevity of the capital campaign is gonna is not always going to be exactly match, it’s not going, rather, to exactly match what the building construction cost was at the beginning. Prices fluctuate and prices change.
Eric Garza — And so let’s say you have let’s use so a rough even number, a million dollar capital campaign for your church organization. And the construction is going to cost, I don’t know, $900,000, $950,000. Well, a million dollars should cover it. But by the time a million dollars or shortly or short of that comes in, well, your budget is now at 1.2 or 1.3.
Rich Birch — Right.
Eric Garza — It’s fluctuated. And so the what’s congruent at the beginning can be really a little bit financially off by the time that can…In other words, the timelines of the capital campaign and your building projects sometimes don’t align perfectly. And we’ve run into that too, where we’ve had to take from our operating budget a little bit, or we’ve had to really emphasize a certain amount during the campaign, because that’s what needs to come in. We’ve you know met with with key givers and donors of the church. And those are challenges that you navigate ah during the capital campaign process.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Eric Garza — And and like I said earlier, it’s it’s challenging because, well, let me backtrack and say this.
Eric Garza — This is why on the front end, you should add margin into your capital campaign…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Eric Garza — …which we didn’t do that, perhaps the first go around. But certainly the later ah seasons, we added margin in our capital campaigns to account for any fluctuation in construction costs. And if there was ever in a surplus, well, we would tell the church it’s because of your giving and because of your support and generosity that we had more than enough come in.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Eric Garza — And so now we’re going to use those funds for X or they’re going to go back to the general fund or or whatever whatever the case. But I think that the key that would be to incorporate some 10 to 15% margin in your capital campaign on the outset to account for anything that might happen 12, 15, 18 months down the road.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s really good. That’s good. You maybe just saved somebody a lot of headache two years from now…
Eric Garza — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …because of that part of the conversation. I want to go back to something you talked about earlier. You’ve had multiple buildings that you’ve acquired or you’ve merged with, and you were talking about remodeling and there’s like, that can be a blessing and a curse. Like it can be amazing. Like, wow, this is great. And…
Eric Garza — You never know what you’re going to find.
Rich Birch — …you know, you open up, you open up a wall and who knows what’s behind that wall. And, you know, there’s all that. And you talked about bringing it up to the Cross standard. Talk me through what how have you decided what that is? What is the Cross standard? And how do you what are the common things that you find, Oh, we’ve got to make this change. And how have you kind of defined that as you think about projects like that?
Eric Garza — Yeah, so over the last few years, we’ve pretty much honed in on, I guess, the vibe and the look of what we want our campuses to to feel and look like.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Eric Garza — They may be different ah floor plans because some of them we built, some of them we acquired, properties we took over. But as far as color schemes, we do our very best to match wall colors, sanctuary colors. We use the same stage equipment, both branding and layout as best as possible across all of our sanctuary auditoriums, our stages.
Eric Garza — Our kids spaces, ah we have an internal ratio of how many teachers or volunteers per infants, per toddlers, for school-age children we want. And so that determines our spacing. And so sometimes we’ve got to knock some walls down or build some walls in to accommodate for for what, like I said, our standard of ministry, both in appeal, but also in care for for our congregants and for our families.
Eric Garza — And so when we remodel, you’re right, there’s some things that once you knock down a wall, you’re not going to know until you knock it down. And that’s where that, you know, that margin comes in. But for the most part, right, we’ve had we do inspections, we get we get third party opinions on the building, on the cost estimates, and like we would encourage anybody to do, right.
Eric Garza — But that’s our Cross standard is the look, the feel, the equipment, the wall colors, you know is there enough space for our our guests, connect area, our next steps area for first impressions. Does every ministry have adequate space to store their items – all of those factors come into play in deciding how we’re going to remodel a facility.
Eric Garza — And I’ll say the second thing is this is why before you break or before you knock down a wall, get an inspector or or get some people either in your church or in the construction industry or somebody that you know in in your community. Because sometimes when you have a building, your initial thought is to remodel. That may not always be the most financial financially wise decision. And here’s why. Because you may not know all that you’re going to encounter, you may in the long run end up spending just as much as if you had built a brand new facility with the exact floor plan you want.
Eric Garza — And so that’s where you’re evaluating and deciding, is it more feasible to remodel this building for X amount of dollars? Or are we within 5% to 10% budget margin, where we might just say it’s it’s in the best interest of the church perhaps to use either this facility as collateral for our next building or a brand new building, or is it better to use it a multisite building, excuse me, multi-purpose building, and we end up building a new facility…
Rich Birch — Right.
Eric Garza — …for the church or for the campus. And so those cost estimates are going to help you make the best, most informed decision of where you’re going to steward the resources financially in either remodeling or in building a site.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. One of my favorite churches, Mercy Hill Church in North Carolina, they they had a building that was given to them and they did, they weren’t entirely sure what to kind of, it was in a part of town, they weren’t necessarily sure they wanted to launch a campus and just they had a campus closer and all that. And they ended up using it turned it into a really a student center and it’s a fantastic ministry building and it’s active, you know, five, six days a week.
Rich Birch — Now they don’t do Sunday morning services there, but they do all kinds of other stuff, which is fantastic. Like is a great, you know…
Eric Garza — And we’ve seen that too. Yeah. They use for leadership meetings, for small chapel receptions…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Eric Garza — …or gatherings or next gen events, youth, young adults, even renting it out to the community as a means to supply income to the church…
Rich Birch — Yep. Yep. On a daycare or something.
Eric Garza — …to like, you know aligned organizations, of course, whatever your church policy is. But yeah, sometimes the best use of that building is not for church services.
Rich Birch — Have you, have you run into facilities that you’ve evaluated and then decided, no like this is going to cost way too much to renovate and we’re, so we won’t go forward with it. Have you run into that after evaluation?
Eric Garza — Well, not entirely, but I’ll say this…recent…
Rich Birch — I know that risk is there for sure.
Eric Garza — Yeah, there is risk. There is risk. And the risk assessment is different when you’re leasing a space or remodel…
Rich Birch — Right.
Eric Garza — …and when you’re when you’re obviously building your own facility, as far as and including the costs associated with that. One of our campuses recently, and I mean in the last 24 months, before we moved into our new building was leasing a space and we were given the option to remodel the space we were leasing. Because though it was suitable for what we needed for the ministry, for Sunday services and and all the other ministries, parts of it were not really conducive to growth for the congregation and for the ministry.
Eric Garza — So we did contemplate remodeling. I think I think what kept us from doing that number one is whatever you remodel for the landlord the landlord is going up keeping. And so the return on that investment would be short term and not long term, We were already in the midst of building our building but we were growing at a rapid rate, and so we were eight, twelve months out from from being in our building and the campus was growing, and so we needed a short-term solution.
Rich Birch — Right.
Eric Garza — So we did think, Well, we’ll spend X amount of dollars to remodel our site where we’re leasing before we get into the new building. But we found out that shifting our service times and and doing different different strategies ended up alleviating in the short term the constraints we had to give us a time to get into our new building, which is now more than enough space for us to grow for for years and years to come.
Rich Birch — Right. That’s cool. Yeah. Cause I’ve said as a, I feel like I’ve been in a ton of conversations with XPs where, you know, they’re talking about this issue and you know, there’s like a building that they’re, maybe it’s another church that’s come to them and they’re having a conversation and they’re, I would say their mindset is like, I’m not sure we should do this. Like this is, they’re like, this other church came to us and statistically, actually the most likely for these mergers to succeed are when the joining church comes to the lead church.
Eric Garza — Yeah.
Rich Birch — So they would come to your church and be like, Hey, we’re interested. So it actually happens a fair amount. And I’ve, I feel like I’ve talked, tried to talk so many executive pastors into like, man, it’s gotta be a really bad building. If particularly if it’s like has debt or has no debt or very little debt on it, it’s gotta be a very bad building to not want to take it. Cause it’s like, you know, you can, you can take, invest, you know, a moderate amount of money. You don’t need to dump a ton into it and get something great. And like you said, as long as you’re above board with everybody, you know, five years from now, if it doesn’t work, you could take that asset, sell it and move on and use those resources somewhere else.
Eric Garza — And that’s very good because when you talk about acquiring a ministry, especially if it has a low balance on their mortgage or or they don’t have much to pay off the building, and if you’re in a position to pay that off within the first year of acquiring the ministry…
Rich Birch — Right.
Eric Garza — …think of a collateral and the equity that your organization now has because of that new facility that’s in your portfolio.
Rich Birch — 100%.
Eric Garza — And I know it sounds very business-minded, but when you’re looking to expand into the future, even at another site in your church ministry organization, you now have more collateral, more resources to leverage for a better financial position in the future when you do want to actually build a building.
Eric Garza — And the second thing is this, if you’re acquiring a ministry that already has an existing building, in most cases, it’s already built out for church purposes. So that’s very helpful. So at that point, you may be putting in a smaller amount and just…
Rich Birch — Right.
Eric Garza — …you know, refurbishing it, painting the walls, putting some new equipment, some new screens, maybe be changing out the flooring a little bit, or some of the fixtures in different spaces…
Rich Birch — There’s technology or whatever, yep.
Eric Garza — …because it’s already built out for a church. And so that’s the benefit of going or acquiring in a ministry if you’re going that route that already has an existing facility.
Rich Birch — Yeah, we had, ah we were running, our budget was about $8 million dollars and we were, we had a church come to us and they were, they had really, they had had a tough season and the summer before we ended up merging with them or they joined us really, they had multiple Sundays where they had two people show up on Sunday. They had the person that was preaching and the guy that was opening the door, like it was, it had really atrophied down.
Rich Birch — And I remember in one of those conversations, they had had a bit of a roof problem. The facility was worth just probably south of 2 million. It was like ah a great facility, but they had a roof problem. And I remember one of the the elders leader person, he said, you know, we we got a quote on the roof and it’s it’s going to cost maybe about $15,000 to fix. Do you think you guys will be able to fix that? And they had no debt and were going to give us their building.
Rich Birch — Well, like I humbly had to say like, like, yeah, we’ll we’ll be okay. Like, it’s gonna it’s gonna be fine. Like, you know, I what I didn’t want to say is like, I feel like our youth guys have like wasted $15,000 this year. Like, you know, like it’s like we can, you know, the exchange just on paper. And again, that’s not why you go into those conversations.
Eric Garza — Of course.
Rich Birch — But a part of that is, particularly in our seats as executive pastors, that’s a part of what we have to wrestle through and think about those things. So let’s get back to the renovation thing. A lot of what churches were talking about is like, pressure of like, man, I just, our physical facilities are, are holding us back.
Rich Birch — Any other thoughts around, you know, changes you’ve made to increase capacity or, um you know, things that maybe are like some low hanging fruit or creative solutions that have that, that maybe we’re not thinking about, but as a leader who’s been through this, you know, you’ve been, you’ve wrestled through that, that we, we could, you know, benefit from.
Eric Garza — Yeah, absolutely. A couple of things. You can please everybody, right?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Eric Garza — And so I think one of the ministry pressures well, we want to please the next gen. We also want to please the child care. We also want to please the elders of the church. And we also want to please the younger families of the church and young professionals. And when you’re when you’re in a facility that wasn’t originally built according to your specs, it’s going to be difficult to do that.
Eric Garza — And so you have to focus, as we have, on the most critical areas, sanctuary and child care. If you don’t have child care, it’s going to be a barrier to growth because families or parents are not going to have the comfort level they need to come to your church on a regular basis and to be a part of the community. And so for us, when we’ve remodeled, the first things we look at are sanctuary and then the kid space. Do we have enough adequate kids space?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Eric Garza — Some of the solutions when we’ve been limited in space is is launching multiple services to we have a smaller sanctuary or a smaller space, we’ll offer more service opportunities. Or when it comes to our kids ministry, we’ve evaluated with our kids directors and our our kids department of how can we best merge age groups to maximize the space that we have. So if you have right an ideal facility where you have you know your child your child care divided by grade level or age level, sometimes you have the amenity to do that and many times you don’t. And so what we’ve done is instead of having first grade on their own, maybe we’ll put you know kindergarten and first grade level kids together.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Eric Garza — We’ll put second and third together, fourth and fifth together as a way to consolidate because we don’t have the space that we prefer to have, at least in this season. And so for us, sometimes you’re not watering down in essence, the content, the quality, but you are consolidating in the short term or even medium term…
Rich Birch — Right.
Eric Garza — …if you will, if that’s even a term, to make adequate space for the constraints that you may have.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Eric Garza — And so you have 600 members and you only have 200-seat sanctuary, 250. Well, that’s an opportunity for three services.
Rich Birch — Right.
Eric Garza — Is that is that is that Is that a strain? Well, it can be if you see it from core perspective versus a perspective of, Man, we’re so large and we have the space. You know, one of our core values at our church is excellence. And we’ve defined excellence as not having the best, but doing the best with what you have.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Eric Garza — So we may not have a thousand seat auditorium for this growing congregation, but what we do have, we’re going utilize it and steward it to our best ability. So if that means two or three services, well, God give us the strength and the people to manage and to lead and to execute three strong services every weekend, or every Sunday, in order to meet the need of the congregation that we have.
Eric Garza — And and I think one of the biggest things, Rich, is also communicating this. It’s keeping them current, right. You’re not going to go into all the details per se, unless that’s your preference and that’s your senior pastor’s prerogative. But to share with them the overarching theme of, hey, here’s where we’re at as a ministry. Here’s our facility. And here’s what we’re going to do to continue to offer as best a ministry as we can, while at the same time being cognizant of the challenges that we’re facing.
Eric Garza — We said this to our staff and to our church many times, is we don’t look at obstacles as negatives. We look at obstacles as opportunities. Okay.
Rich Birch — That’s so true.
Eric Garza — If this is what we have, how can we be as excellent as possible with what we have? If that means going to a third service, well, then we’re going to give it a shot because what we don’t want to do is allow facility constraints to translate into diminished capacity or into a diminishing congregation and I’m talking about numerically. Because the diminishing congregation numerically also means a diminishing budget and revenue financially because you have less givers in the seats. And that’s those are some of the challenges that you got navigate so we don’t see it as obstacles. We don’t see obstacles necessarily as a challenge we see that’s an opportunity of okay how can we navigate around this mountain if you will to continue to provide as excellent a ministry as we can.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. I love your example of the kids age size rooms. Because I think you’ve you’re articulating a tension that whenever we’re, particularly for launching we talked a lot about this, like renovating other spaces and new campuses and all that, where I think really is germane to our job as executive pastor to to manage this tension of we want it feel, you know, the language you used was Cross standard. It’s absolutely has got to be Cross standard, but there will be areas where we’re going to have to compromise. Like that is just true. And a part of what we have to do, we have to use our leadership and our discernment and, you know, get the right players in the room and have the conversation. And, you know, somebody using your example, somebody kids’ ministry to be like, no, we can’t combine them together. That’ll be terrible. And it’s like, we’re going to be fine. Like, we’ll figure it out, you know.
Eric Garza — Yeah [inaudible].
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s going to be okay. We’ll we’ll help that navigate. And that’s one example, but there’s a ton of those that can come up in these, you know, in these renovations for sure.
Eric Garza — Yeah, absolutely.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Eric Garza — and And people are always going to have opinions.
Rich Birch — Right.
Eric Garza — But I’ll say this from experience. And I mean, no ill intent towards anybody in your congregation or your ministry.
Rich Birch — No.
Eric Garza — Most of the people that are criticizing are the people that aren’t giving anyway. And so I’m not saying ignore them by any means. They’re part of your part of your ecosystem. They’re part of your church, they’re part of your flock.
Rich Birch — Yep. That’s very true.
Eric Garza — But it’s always with a grain of salt because the people that are really bought into your ministry are going to walk through those opportunities alongside you, ah hopefully with the best attitude that they possibly can muster up because this too shall pass.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Eric Garza — Right.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Eric Garza — If you’ve gone out in faith to plant or to grow or to expand your congregation, this is a temporary season. It’s not a permanent season. You won’t always be at three or four services, right? Or multiple services.
Eric Garza — At some point, if God is in this and you really believe He is, and I believe He is for many organizations and ministries, the timing will be right when you have a facility that can house what you need, or that can provide the amenities and space that you need. And so for parents, for givers, for guests, it is just letting them know as best you can, even subtly through announcements or even messages and say, hey, we’re in a season of growth and expansion. \ Growth doesn’t always look you know perfect. And so we have seasons where we’re going to navigate some some challenges and opportunities as best we can to get us to an end goal.
Eric Garza — This is a means to an end. What we’re going through is a means to get us to where we want to go as a ministry. And as long as you keep it at the forefront, tying it into the vision of the house, you’re going to see that in a large sense, you’re going to have people rally behind that idea and unfocused, if you will, from the constraints of their of the facility to the broader appeal of what God is doing in the ministry.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that is so good. Friends, you should go back and re-listen to what Eric just said there. That is some wise advice. And obviously from somebody that’s been in the trenches a lot, that’s been my experience as well. The people, the complainers, I’m reading through the book of Job right now. And I’m like, man, his friends are just like, this guy needs better friends.
Eric Garza — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And that that reminded me of the people you’re talking about. Like…
Eric Garza — Yeah.
Rich Birch — You know, there’s these people who are just, you know, sniping from the cheap seats and they’re not really engaged in the mission where, man, those people that are right on in the middle of it, they’re like, let’s go, let’s lean in.
Rich Birch — And man, that’s the kind of person, I’m hoping as I transition into older age that I’m that person, you know, because we have a number of those people at our church that I look at that are like, these are incredible saints who have seen so much change. And who I’m sure lots of things annoy them, but they’re fired up for the mission. They’re excited in our case to reach unchurched people, to see people who far from Jesus connected.
Eric Garza — If you’re not changing, you’re not making progress, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely.
And the fact you the fact that your ministry is facing opportunities or obstacles rather disguised as opportunities is proof positive you’re going somewhere.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Eric Garza — You’re not a stagnant ministry. You’re not a you’re not a lazy ministry, right? You’re not apathetic. You’re really out in the field of vision that God has given you or to your senior leadership. And so it’s proof positive, right? And so take that as an badge of honor in some way to say, we must be doing something right.
Rich Birch — So good. Well, Eric, just as we’re coming to kind of land, this has been a great conversation, hopefully been helpful for you, friends, as you’ve have been listening in. But as we kind of come to land today’s conversation, what’s a question or two that that you’re kicking around for this year at at Cross as you’re thinking about 2026? Where’s your head at? What are the things you’re wondering? It doesn’t have to be about this, could be anything.
Eric Garza — Yeah, well, ah thanks for letting me speak into that, Rich. I think for me as an executive and looking at our ministry, you know, looking at the previous 30 years and looking at the next decade, if you will, of where God is going to take our ministry, being one of America’s fastest growing churches, being the largest bilingual Hispanic-led ministry in the country. We’ve, you know, like I’ve said in a previous episode with you, we haven’t had any precedent for us in our context. And so we’ve navigated a lot of uncharted waters and learned from both wins and losses and different opportunities and struggles to get us to where we’re at now.
Eric Garza — I think one of the biggest questions facing the church at large in 2026 is how the church is going to respond to the ever increasingly fast-paced changes that we’re seeing on the political front, on the cultural front. I’m not saying that the church has to be a political response. The church has to be, has to provide a biblical response to what we’re seeing.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Eric Garza — And with the fast paced nature of culture and society and trends, I don’t believe it’s the church’s responsibility to respond to every trend or to everything, but certainly the overarching elements of our current culture and political dynamic where there is a biblical either mandate or precedent for it, that the church would speak it into that and provide biblical perspective…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Eric Garza — …and and and wisdom for how people should think about certain topics that have a biblical or moral prerogative. And so navigating that as an organization, because as a growing church and being such a large ministry, if you can imagine the opinions. We have people in our church who are conservative and who some who are not. We have people who belong to one political party over another. We’re in multiple communities. And so different communities have different demographics, different cultural contexts, different policy initiatives. There’s a lot going on.
Eric Garza — And as a church ministry, especially as that we’re multisite, one of the biggest questions I’m asking myself and our team is how do we, number one, stay biblically founded, right? And unwavering in what the biblical standard is.
Eric Garza — Number two is how do we address the different things and different occurrences in different communities that we’re in? If we were just one site and one community, well, then we would just be I guess you could say in our own little space and our own little focus. But we have multisites, so we have multi-focus, if you will, at how we continue to provide as excellent a ministry as possible…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Eric Garza — …keeping Jesus at the forefront, above the fray, and at the same time, giving a biblical perspective so that people have the right biblical worldview for how to walk out their journey of faith their relationship with Christ, but at the same time, how to respond to what’s happening in our world. I think for many times, for for many years, really for decades, the church has abdicated its biblical responsibility, if you will, to speak into things, not from a political perspective, but from a biblical perspective.
Eric Garza — And because that abdication of responsibility we’ve seen a lot of things that have happened. Thankfully, in recent seasons, in recent years, we’ve seen a a shift where faith is now at the forefront. And so though I have that question, my biggest, I guess you could say prerogative is to leverage that people are focused more on faith, that people are open to faith now more so in our country, that people are focused more on this person of Jesus and is to leverage that as an opportunity to really hone in and speak into people’s hearts and minds and into the different communities that we’re in so that they have the right biblical perspective, the biblical worldview to carry out what God has enabled them or called them to do.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I love I love what you’re saying there. And you know I know had a friend say, you know if you’re, you know, we we all are serving in a context. We serve in a particular time, in a particular cultural context, and God’s called us to lead in that context. And if you’re not feeling the pull from, you know, multiple sides, multiple polarities, you’re like, well, everybody here agrees with me then it means you’re not actually reaching your community, you know. And the fact that you’re feeling that tension means, okay, like there’s there’s people from a wide variety of, and it can be all different political is one, but there’s lots of different ways to think of that.
Eric Garza — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And yeah, that’s that’s so true. I really appreciate this. Well, Eric, you’re you’re a blessing to us. I thank you so much for for giving us time today and helping us think about these things as we kick off into 2026. If where do we want to send people if they want to track with you or with the church?
Rich Birch — How do we how do we want to get people connected to Cross?
Eric Garza — Yeah, well, Rich, thanks for the opportunity. And it’s what a blessing for us and for me personally to be able to just share some thoughts. And if it helps anybody, well, praise God for that. I think if you want to follow the church, we’re crosschurchonline.com or crosschurchrgv on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, all of, you know, most of the social media platforms.
Eric Garza — If you want to connect with me, I’d be happy to connect with you at Eric, E-R-I-C-P Garza on any of social media platforms. It’d be a h privilege for me to help you guys and to share some thoughts and even answer questions. I’d be more than happy to do that. If I can serve your ministries in any way, by all means, feel free to reach out to me on any of the social media platforms.
Rich Birch — Nice. Thanks so much, Eric. Really appreciate being here today, sir. Thank you.
Eric Garza — Thank you, man. God bless. Appreciate it.
Leading Into 2026: Executive Pastor Insights Momentum is real.
So is the pressure.
This free report draws from the largest dedicated survey of Executive Pastors ever, revealing what leaders are actually facing as they prepare for 2026.
- Why staff health is the #1 pressure point
- Where churches feel hopeful — and stretched thin
- What worked in 2025 and is worth repeating
- Clear decision filters for the year ahead
Download the Full Report Free PDF • Built for Executive Pastors • Instant access
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re sitting down with an executive pastor from a prevailing church to unpack what leaders like you shared in the National Executive Pastor Survey so you can lead forward with clarity.
In today’s episode, we’re joined by Kayra Montañez, Executive Pastor at Liquid Church in New Jersey. Liquid is a fast-growing multisite church with six campuses stretching from Princeton to communities just outside New York City. In this conversation, Kayra helps unpack one of the biggest concerns surfaced in the National Executive Pastor Survey: the growing gap between attendance and engagement. While many churches are seeing people return, far fewer leaders feel confident that those people are truly connected, discipled, and serving.
Is your church seeing full rooms but thin volunteer pipelines? Are you unsure how engaged people really are beyond weekend services? Kayra offers practical insight into why that gap exists—and what churches can do to close it.
- Attendance is up, engagement is unclear. // Kayra begins with encouragement. Across the country, churches are seeing renewed spiritual openness. People are coming with expectancy, ready to encounter God. At the same time, many leaders sense a disconnect between attendance and belonging. Kayra identifies several common gaps: people attending without joining “people systems” like groups or teams; online attenders remaining anonymous without a clear bridge to community; seasonal attenders who show up for Christmas and Easter but never return; and potential volunteers who are open to helping but hesitant to commit long-term. These patterns aren’t unique to Liquid—they’re widespread across the church landscape.
- From prescribed paths to personalized journeys. // One of Liquid’s biggest shifts has been moving away from a rigid, one-size-fits-all connection pathway. Kayra compares the old model to the video game Mario Brothers, where everyone must follow the same prescribed path or “die.” Instead, Liquid now operates more like Zelda: a choose-your-own-adventure approach that honors people’s seasons, needs, and interests. Rather than telling people where they must plug in, the church focuses on learning what people actually want and helping them find a meaningful next step.
- Connect and Conversation. // This shift comes to life through a monthly experience called Connect and Conversation, hosted at every campus after the final service. New and not-yet-connected attendees are invited to a meal where they sit at tables with others like them and facilitators. The event begins with relational icebreakers to help people connect naturally, then moves into guided conversation around what attendees are looking for—community, care, serving, support groups, or spiritual growth. Facilitators take detailed notes, which drive personalized follow-up in the weeks ahead. Kayra describes it as “high-touch, concierge-style ministry,” and the results have been significant movement from attendance into engagement.
- Measuring what matters. // Liquid tracks what happens after people attend Connect and Conversation—not to claim direct causation, but to see correlation. They monitor whether participants join groups, teams, or discipleship environments in the following months. That data has helped the church refine pathways and remove unnecessary friction. Kayra encourages leaders to examine two key metrics: how many first-time guests take any next step within 30 days, and what percentage move into a people system within 60–90 days. These numbers often reveal where engagement breaks down.
- Reimagining discipleship. // One surprising insight at Liquid came from surveying the congregation about small groups. While relational connection mattered, the top desire was biblical literacy. In response, Liquid “blew up” its traditional small-group model and launched a new midweek Bible study format called Deep Dive. Rather than prioritizing relationships first, these environments put Scripture front and center, with connection as a natural byproduct. The pilot—an in-depth study of Revelation—drew hundreds of participants and revealed a deep hunger for understanding God’s Word.
- Rebuilding volunteer momentum. // Like many churches, Liquid faced a volunteer crisis as growth outpaced serving capacity—especially in kids’ environments. In response, the church launched a short-term campaign called For the One, built around a “try before you buy” serving model. New volunteers could serve a few times with a shortened onboarding process (without compromising safety) and then decide whether to commit long-term, scoring exclusive team swag. More than 400 people stepped in to serve, helping stabilize teams and reignite volunteer culture.
- Short-term fixes and long-term culture. // Kayra emphasizes that engagement is both a systems problem and a culture challenge. Churches need short-term solutions to address immediate gaps, but long-term health comes from storytelling, celebration, appreciation, and consistently casting vision for why serving and community matter. Engagement doesn’t happen accidentally—it’s cultivated intentionally over time.
To learn more about Liquid Church, visit liquidchurch.com, or connect with Kayra directly via email.
Watch the full episode below:Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. We’ve got a special episode on today where we’re diving into some of the results from the National Executive Pastor Survey. And today we’re super excited to have Kayra Montañez with us from Liquid Church in New Jersey.
Rich Birch — And today we’re talking all about engagement. One of the things that jumped out, well, one of the top tier results, kind of concerns that came out, 10% of executive pastors in the open questions, expressed fear around discipleship death depth and volunteer sustainability. At the same time, nearly 12% said they lacked really visibility into participation and involvement data. Another 6% pointed specifically to volunteer and team metrics really being an unmet need, not knowing where they are.
Rich Birch — So what does that all that mean? Roughly one in five executive pastors are entering 2026 this year, wondering really how engaged their churches are. And Kayra is going to solve all that for us. So Kayra, welcome to the show. Tell us about Liquid. Tell us a little bit about the church.
Kayra Montañez — Well I appreciate the vote of confidence but I’m not sure about that. But, Rich, it’s always so great to be with you and to be a guest on your podcast. Thank you so much for having me. So yes, we are in New Jersey. So our church is called Liquid. I get the incredible privilege of serving there as one of two executive pastors. And we are a multisite church. We have six campuses. If you and know anything about New Jersey, one of them is the furthest one is in Princeton, New Jersey – a lot of people know Princeton.
Kayra Montañez — And then probably the closest one that we have up north is closest to New York City, about 30 minutes from the city. So that kind of gives you the breadth and width of how we’re trying to saturate the state of New Jersey with the gospel of Jesus Christ. That is our mission.
Rich Birch — So good. And Kayra, I really appreciate you jumping in on on today’s conversation, particularly in this area, because I think, man, have so much to offer. You know, so many of our churches, we feel like the volunteer pipelines are thin. How are we getting? It’s like people are underutilized. Maybe are our follow-up process are like overly complex. And you’ve done a great job on on this area. So let’s just jump right in.
Rich Birch — Where do you see some of the biggest gaps today in churches, whether it’s Liquid or other churches you interact, between, you know, getting people to attend church attendance and actual engagement. There’s a gap there. what What’s driving that? What do what do you think drives that gap in our churches?
Kayra Montañez — Yeah. So I see a couple of things. But before I get to that, you know, I just really wanted to start with something really encouraging because it’s not in my nature to be discouraging. So one of the things that I have noticed, in fact, I was actually spending some time with other pastors from other states in the U.S. And we were talking about like, hey, what is the Lord doing in the in the Big C Church? What are you experiencing in your context?
Rich Birch — So good.
Kayra Montañez — And one of the things I think that was a theme for all of us is it feels like we don’t have to work as hard to get people to come and be ready for what the Lord has for them. And that feels very exciting.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Kayra Montañez — And that’s like a theme that I’m seeing repeated across the entire nation with all of my pastor friends from different locations. Having said that, there are still things that we have to do to get people from going to just attending to engaging, like you were saying. I think there’s a couple of things that I saw.
Kayra Montañez — One of them is a big one, I would say, is like this idea of, attending versus belonging, right. So like first people actually want to come, but they don’t actually join people systems. So they come in person, they come online, but they don’t actually join any kind of people system. So when I say people system I’m thinking about groups, or dream teams, a support group, a class. That’s actually something that we started seeing a lot post-pandemic, and I would say it’s still here. So that’s one gap that I see.
Kayra Montañez — The second gap that I see is digital versus relational. So obviously, we at Liquid have spent a lot of, we’ve invested a lot in our digital ministry, and we really believe online and in-person can both thrive at the same time, and we’re seeing that.
Kayra Montañez — However, online services, while they can remove barriers, which is good, it also helps people stay anonymous unless there’s a clear bridge for those people to actually join in-person community. And so churches that haven’t figured out well how to do that will continue to see a gap between people who are attending, whether it’s in person or online, but not actually engaging.
Kayra Montañez — There’s also the people who just come for big events, right?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Kayra Montañez — We’re approaching one of them, even as we film this podcast, next week is Christmas Eve. So we joke at Liquid, we have the CEOs, they come for Christmas, Easter, and other big events, but they don’t actually have a weekly rhythm of attending and engaging.
Kayra Montañez — And then there’s people who I would say are curious about serving and for the most part are open to helping, but are not really ready to make a serving commitment and actually take on a very consistent role. So I would say across the breadth and width of churches, that’s probably something that would hit most people, no matter where you are.
Rich Birch — Yeah, for sure.
Kayra Montañez — Definitely we experience all of them at Liquid.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I there was a lot there, in which I appreciate. and i appreciate the way you’ve kind of diagnosed. I think there’s multiple ways to kind of um diagnose or kind of pick apart – Hey, here are different aspects here, or different ways that we’re seeing this kind of attendance versus engagement question. So maybe, you know, pick apart those attending versus belonging. What has Liquid done? What are you doing to try to help move people from just attending, actually getting into those people systems? What does that? What are you learning on that front?
Kayra Montañez — Yeah. You know, we’ve had a major shift at Liquid, I would say, in the past two years. The best way that I can explain this is with a gaming analogy, because I have teenagers and they love gaming.
Rich Birch — I love it.
Kayra Montañez — So if you um go back to when we used to play Mario Brothers, you remember Mario Brothers?
Rich Birch — Sure, yeah.
Kayra Montañez — Mario Brothers has prescribed path where if you did not follow the path, at some point Mario would die. Like if you stayed behind and the camera kept moving, the character would die. You remember that?
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Kayra Montañez — And that’s the way that a lot of churches, even today, approach helping people connect. There is a prescribed path for you, and we’re going to tell you what you need to do and what you have to do. Then Zelda came into the scene and Zelda is like, hey, choose your own adventure. You can start your adventure anywhere you want.
Rich Birch — Right.
Kayra Montañez — And so I feel like Liquid, we’ve shifted in that. We used to be Mario Brothers, like, hey, here’s a prescribed path for you. Here’s all the things that you have to do to connect. Whereas now we’ve shifted over the past two years into like, hey, we have a lot of things that we can offer you. And there are many different things depending on your season of life, on your felt needs, on what you’re looking for, on what you’re interested in, on what makes your heart beat. Tell us what you want to do and we’re going to help you.
Kayra Montañez — And so in order for us to understand what is it that people want, we created an event that we do every month called Connect and Conversation. And the whole idea and the way that we market it is if you’re new to Liquid, or if you are not new, but you haven’t connected yet, you haven’t found your people, you haven’t found something that you want to be a part of, come to this event.
Kayra Montañez — We feed you. We get to know you. And then we follow up personally with you. It’s very high level concierge, kind of a follow up system, where after we connect with you, we ask you, hey, what are you actually interested in? What are you looking for? Because your needs as an empty nester who’s been married for over 25 years, you’re parenting adult children who are already married are very different than mine who have two team have two teenagers.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Kayra Montañez — One of them is about to go to college, right?
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Kayra Montañez — And so that has actually produced incredible fruit from getting people who are attending.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Kayra Montañez — Now I’ve actually offered them something they’re interested in, which is making connections with people. And then from there, we follow up to offer, what do you need?
Rich Birch — That’s so cool.
Kayra Montañez — And everybody has different needs. Some people just wanna join teams because they’re just like, I just wanna serve. Some people, they really just need a lot of care. And so maybe they need a support group and we’re gonna offer that to you.
Kayra Montañez — Some people may need marriage mentoring. We’re gonna offer that to you. So it really depends. And what we’ve seen is people taking significant next steps once they go out of that event. And that has really changed the past. In the past, we would only be marketing teams and groups, role and relationship, join, ah you know, get into a role and connect with a relationship. And while that’s still good, I’m not saying that’s not good or not needed.
Rich Birch — Right.
Kayra Montañez — It’s not the only thing that people are looking for.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s interesting. Can we, I’d love to dive just a little deeper on on that because I think there’s ah a really key learning there for lots of us. This idea, and you didn’t say it this way, but where my brain went to, you know, I think we have, we have for sure in the past done the thing where it’s like we have these giant funnels that we’re pushing everyone through.
Rich Birch — And and the only question we’re really asking is where do you fit in our funnel?
Kayra Montañez — Correct.
Rich Birch — Like where, You know, and we and we push and literally, and this is no, you know, kind of slam on other systems, but it’s like, this is the, you know, step one, step two, step three, everyone do step one first, then you do step two, then you do step three.
Rich Birch — So the the connecting conversation, that feels like highly, like it’s volunteer intensive. You got to get a lot of volunteers in there because it sounds like you’re having one-on-one conversations or something close to one-on-one. Unpack what that looks like. Maybe as a guest, if I arrive at that, what do I actually experience when I show up there?
Kayra Montañez — So you you can register up until the time that we have the event.
Rich Birch — Yep, that’s great.
Kayra Montañez — So we do math you know magical math with the food and and the preparation so that we can just accept people who are going to come on the day of. Because we promote it, obviously, every week. And then the day of, we actually promote it. We get most people to show up the day of the event.
Rich Birch — Right, okay.
Kayra Montañez — So people will come. There’s going to be a lunch. And then they’re going to sit at a table with about five other people who have a facilitator at that table.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Kayra Montañez — And that facilitator is actually going to lead them through a series of relational icebreakers because the event is designed for you to first connect. You want to meet other people who are just like you. Maybe they’re new or they’re not new, but they haven’t connected yet with somebody.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Kayra Montañez — And so there’s going to be a lot of relational icebreakers you know during the first part of the event. And then after that, we get into like, hey, what are you looking for? What are you hoping to get out of? What do you need? What are you interested in? We make notes.
Rich Birch — How can we help? All that kind of stuff.
Kayra Montañez — That facilitator takes really good notes based on what people are saying. And then the follow-up begins.
Rich Birch — That’s so cool. I love that. That’s what a great learning. You know, I think so many times we’ve seen that step and for sure that echoes what I’ve seen in in a number of churches. There’s really a trend away from the class being the first step.
Rich Birch — It’s like the stand that we used to do that thing where it was like, okay, someone stands up at the front and they’re going to talk for 50 minutes about why we’re such a great church. And, ah you know, that really has gone away. I would I would echo that, that we’ve seen that as ah as a best practice for sure. So let’s talk…
Kayra Montañez — When we do measure…
Rich Birch — Sorry, go ahead. No.
Kayra Montañez — …oh sorry, as I was to say, we measure the activity of everyone who goes to Connect in Conversation and what they do.
Rich Birch — Oh, that, tell me about that.
Kayra Montañez — And so there’s, or ah how we say it at Liquid is it’s correlation, not causation. Like I can’t prove that if you go to this event, your next steps were a direct result of this event…
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Kayra Montañez — …but we can correlate that because you came to the event you actually took these next steps, if that makes sense.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Kayra Montañez — So we’ve seen tremendous, tremendous engagement grow because of that.
Rich Birch — And that’s on Sundays. You do it on on campus after the last service, that sort of thing.
Kayra Montañez — Every month. Yes, every month at every campus after the last service, we promote it up to the day of the event…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Kayra Montañez — …and we do it rain or shine. Whether it’s five people or 10 or 50, obviously at our largest location, sometimes we have about 100 people show up every month to these events.
Rich Birch — That’s great. I love that. That’s a great. You’re coming in hot, Kayra. Great learnings, even you know, with friends, we’ve got through the first question.
Rich Birch — So yeah, and we’re, you know, it’s fantastic. So one of the one of the things I’d love to hear a little bit about, um you know, that when we look in the data, people’s anxiety, there’s there seems to be some anxiety around or concern around discipling people. We offer these discipleship pathways or engagement pathways. And it’s like, we do this stuff, but then people don’t actually take advantage of it. It’s like, we do, we offer small groups, but people don’t do them. Or people we offer classes and people don’t actually engage on them.
Rich Birch —What are you doing to try to move to, to ensure people are actually engaging with the various pathways that you’re developing at Liquid to actually get them to use them?
Kayra Montañez — So this is a very interesting question in this particular time because at Liquid we’re just about getting ready to or just ready to ah blow up small groups basically.
Rich Birch — Oh, nice. Okay. I’d love to hear more.
Kayra Montañez — Yeah, so I would say that small groups was the one metric that did not recover for our church post-pandemic. So even though our volunteer pipelines at times felt thin, we were able to have incredible momentum around that. We can talk more about that later. How did we do that? We recovered in attendance and giving, baptism, but we were not able to crack the code on small groups. We were at an all-time low, about 20% our church…
Rich Birch — Oh, wow. Yeah.
Kayra Montañez — …was engaged in small groups, pretty low. And so we started surveying people.
Rich Birch — Yep.
We’re like, what is it that people actually want from the small groups? Like, what is it that we’re not offering that they’re looking for? And the one, it was shocking to us that the number one thing, I mean, it shouldn’t be shocking because we are a church.
Kayra Montañez — The number one thing that people wanted was to understand the Bible. So for the first time ever, we have uncoupled relational connection from biblical literacy. In the past, our small groups, the thing that was in the driver’s seat, I would say, was the relational connection. We wanted people to connect, to join a group so that they could make friends, do life together. We used to um promote it that way, if you remember. Do life together. Where are the people that you’re doing life together?
Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
Kayra Montañez — For the first time ever, we’re actually putting biblical literacy in the front seat and relational connection on the passenger seat. So you will actually make connections, but that’s not the goal of this process right now. The process is for you to actually understand and read and study the word of God. In fact, our new tagline is to know the word of God so that you can love the God of the word.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. And is that so if you change the the container that that fits in or are you changing the like, like…
Kayra Montañez — We did. We changed the container.
Rich Birch — So what’s that look like?
Kayra Montañez — So right now we’re offering people different levels of biblical literacy.
Kayra Montañez — The biggest vehicle that we’re that we just piloted this fall through the book of Revelations, if you can believe it. So we’re like, why not start with the hardest book of the Bible?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Kayra Montañez — And what we did was we created a Bible study midweek on a Wednesday night where people would go in person and study the word of God in tables with other people. Now, obviously there’s facilitators who have been trained and vetted. And once you join a table, that was kind of like the table that you were going to go on this journey with, but it’s not a small group. It’s a, it’s a short term. It was 10 weeks. We went through the entire book of Revelations, 22 chapters. We would do homework in order to get ready for this midweek study, we would come, we would have a conversation around what did you put in question 10?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Kayra Montañez — What did I write? This was hard, I don’t understand. And then there was teaching.
Kayra Montañez — And we also piloted doing that same thing with our high school students so that parents could actually come with their kids on the same day, drop their high school kiddos in their own cohort, and then they would go to their own biblical midweek you know Bible study.
Kayra Montañez — And that was, too, a great success. So we are trying to figure out like what are the appropriate levels of biblical literacy that we can offer a congregation…
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Kayra Montañez — …that is increasingly illiterate in biblic in in the Bible.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Kayra Montañez — And deep dive, make no mistake, is the highest level. So that’s not for everyone. And we understand that. And so the parts that we’re trying to figure out is what’s like the appropriate next level to that for somebody who’s not willing to come in person 10 weeks to do homework and study, you know, the actual Bible.
Kayra Montañez — But, it was fascinating to just uncouple those two things for the first time. And I would say it’s in the right frame of, in the right approach. You’re still making friends.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Kayra Montañez — You’re just not, that’s just not being the driver.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, I do wonder. So we for sure have seen that. I’ve seen this conversation. I don’t claim to be a small groups expert. I never have.
Kayra Montañez — Me neither.
Rich Birch — Like for 20, 30 years, it’s always been a mystery to me. I’m like, it’s like hard. It’s a hard system to run and to to build. And, but for sure, post COVID it it is, I would say that’s a universal concern that it’s like, whatever we used to do, I see this all over the place, whatever we used to do to try to get people into groups, we don’t do that anymore. We’re doing something completely different. I happen to be at Liquid this fall. I think you were speaking at a conference when I was there. Bummer…
Kayra Montañez — I was, I missed you. Yeah.
Rich Birch — And I saw the deep dive. I think that’s what it was called.
Kayra Montañez — Yes.
Rich Birch — Deep dive that night. And I remember, i remember thinking, I was like, Whoa, this is like, ah this is incredible. Like, you know, I don’t know how many people were there that night. There was a ton of people all lined up and ready to go. I’m like, that’s, That’s cool. I love that.
Rich Birch — Well, let’s pivot. You kind of flagged it there, the volunteer piece.
Kayra Montañez — Yes.
Rich Birch — I’d love to know what you’re learning on this front, you know, to rebuild volunteer culture. We had this kind of, I don’t know when we’ll stop saying post-COVID. I don’t know whether we’ll be like that generation that was like after the like war or like after the depression where like for 40 years we’re going to be talking about it.
Rich Birch — But it does still feel like we’re post-COVID. I don’t know when that is. But what have you done to kind of restart? How what’s going well on that front externally? Liquid feels like a incredibly volunteer you know robust culture – help us understand what’s that looking like what are you learning these days?
Kayra Montañez — Sure. Yeah. I mean everything you said is still very much a factor. I mean, we are constantly having to work at this. This is never going to be a problem that I feel we’re ever going to solve. It’s really a tension that we’re managing. And sometimes tension feels better and sometimes it doesn’t feel good.
Rich Birch — Right.
Kayra Montañez — In fact, this year, I would say in March, we probably had like our biggest crisis in the broadcast campus where our church growth so far outpaced the amount of people that were serving that we were finding ourselves having to close rooms for Liquid family…
Rich Birch — Ooh.
Kayra Montañez — …not because we we hit ratios, but because we didn’t have enough volunteers. And that doesn’t feel great…
Rich Birch — No.
Kayra Montañez — …especially if you’re a new here family, right?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Kayra Montañez — And so we were like, all right, we need to do something really aggressive. And the best way that I can explain it is we did like a try before you buy.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Kayra Montañez — Very low approach…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Kayra Montañez — …low hanging fruit. We said, hey, we we casted a vision, right? It’s never about we need volunteers, but we actually told a really significant story of where’s all the fruit that the Lord is bringing to this church, all the spiritual fruit that we’re seeing, like people are getting saved, people are getting baptized, they’re coming to get to know Jesus, they’re studying the Bible.
Kayra Montañez — It was incredible.
Kayra Montañez — But we need people to use their spiritual gifts. And so we came up with a campaign called For the One. And everything was geared for that one person. Like, who’s who are you going to go serve? Who’s the one that you’re going to go serve?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Kayra Montañez — And the try before you buy was, we’re going to give you a hoodie. We designed a hoodie. It was called, it was, you know, at the tagline For the One. And the key is you only get it after you serve a couple of times.
Rich Birch — Okay, that’s cool.
Kayra Montañez — So this is the try before you buy. You know, you’re going to try it out.
Rich Birch — Yes.
You’re not going to go through the whole background, pipeline, covenant process because we need people now and we need them quick.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah.
Kayra Montañez — So you’re trying before you’re buying. But if you like it and we’re going to make sure that first serve experience is incredible for you, then we want you to buy it.
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Kayra Montañez — And we’re going to reward you by giving you swag that’s limited, exclusive. Not everybody’s going to get it. Rich, you would be surprised. Like I’m still to this day, i have been at Liquid, it’ll be 13 years in April. And I am still shocked by how much people, the gamification of playing to people’s particular interests…
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Kayra Montañez — …whether it’s FOMO, they don’t want to miss out, whether it’s the idea of collecting exclusive apparel.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah.
Kayra Montañez — There’s something here for everyone that just draws people out.
Rich Birch — It’s true. It’s true.
Kayra Montañez — We had over 400 people sign up for the one.
Rich Birch — Wow. That’s amazing. That’s great.
Kayra Montañez — It was incredible. And we were able to tell amazing stories of people who were coming and showing up and serving, whether it was our special needs kiddos or high school whatever you want to call it. We had it. And and I would say the appeal of a try before you buy, how can you shortchange without? So this is key. You don’t want to reduce the quality. But you do want to shorten your pipeline so that you can get people quicker to try it. And then once they actually feel like, hey, I really enjoy this, now we’re going to get you through the whole, you know, rest of the process, right? But you can still serve while we do that.
Kayra Montañez — So that was a huge thing. And then obviously, you know, like the free apparel swag, that always is a nice incentive to give to people. So that was huge.
Rich Birch — It’s true.
Kayra Montañez — It was very successful. And that’s what I would recommend is like, hey, can you run, try before you buy little events with like swag, and like you you get you have people serve for a limited amount of time. Like you don’t give them the swag immediately. You make them work for it.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes.
Kayra Montañez — They got to serve three, four times before you give it to them.
Rich Birch — Yeah, we did a similar thing last summer. Our kids ministry team did a similar thing last summer where we did the summer serve, which we hadn’t done in in actually a number of years. And they they pulled that out and did summer serve. And it was the same thing. If you signed up, you got a t-shirt, a specific t-shirt for that.
Rich Birch — And then you, there was, they basically were asking you to serve once in June, once in July, once in August, like once a month, just for the summertime. And if you served, um I forget exactly what the ratio was, but it was, you got entered in a draw for however many times. And basically, so if you served all three, you got like 10 times the number of draw things to win. And it was all this stuff that you, you could win. And it was like really great gifts.
Kayra Montañez — Yes.
Rich Birch — And you would think that that should not motivate people.
Kayra Montañez — But it does.
Rich Birch — But it does.
Kayra Montañez — It does.
Rich Birch — And and you know and it was and, you know, they did it in really fun, you know, hey this is going to be a fun thing to be a part of. Talk to me about the, because there’s a friction thing there to learn around trying to reduce the friction the kind of onboarding friction, I think over time that stuff can become, you know, it’s, it’s the, we actually are like our, we can become just too hard for our people.
Kayra Montañez — Yeah.
Rich Birch — What did you learn through that process in, in trying to find that balance of like, we want to make it easier to onboard people, but we still want to, is there any kind of lessons from that when you look back on that?
Kayra Montañez — To me, the the lesson really is, again, there is a tension between you can’t shortchange, especially when it comes to kids. I can’t emphasize this enough.
Rich Birch — No, yeah, absolutely. Yep.
Kayra Montañez — Like I oversee all of these ministries and it would be not on my watch will will this happen, right?
Rich Birch — No, yeah, yeah.
Kayra Montañez — So we have to make be very sure that we’re not shortchanging the safety procedures.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yep.
Kayra Montañez — At the same time recognizing these things can take some time, right? Like we ask people to get a background check, they have to be interviewed, they have to sign a covenant, they have to have a reference. I mean, these things this is a lengthy process.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Kayra Montañez — And I stand by it. We have to do that.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Kayra Montañez — At the same time, can we actually live in a world where we are marrying our need to have someone in the room while also still doing all of these things simultaneously, not actually waiting for all of this to happen so that then they can come.
Kayra Montañez — And that’s kind of how we figured it out. Our Liquid family pastor came up with a process where she’s like, okay, we can shorten it this time. They’re only going to do these three things, not four, not six. But while they’re in the room trying it, we’re going to continue to do the other remaining four.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great.
Kayra Montañez — It’s messy. It’s not always the best thing to do in an ideal world. You are not doing that. But when you’re faced with crisis, then you need to come up with, you know, resourceful ideas.
Kayra Montañez — And so what I would say about the volunteer pipeline is this. There are short-term problems that you have to solve while you’re still working on this very long-term. Like this is a culture that you have to create.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Kayra Montañez — And in order for you to create a culture, you have to tell stories. You have to celebrate what you want to be repeated. have to make people feel thanked, encouraged, appreciated, seen. You those are all long-term things that you have to be doing all the time. This is like nonstop.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes. Can’t take the, you can’t take the gas off that pedal for sure. Pedal off that gas.
Kayra Montañez — Correct. You cannot take your foot off the the pedal. But at the same time, there are things that are short term that you really do have to also do. And sometimes that will require teaching from the stage where you’re actually envisioning people about why this matters so much.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Kayra Montañez — And this is what we did in March with the For the One. So I would say it’s it’s both/and; it’s not either/or. And so if that’s helpful, that’s how I would approach it.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s super good. That’s good. If there was a church that was, if you were sitting across the table from an executive pastor, maybe you’re at a conference or someone drops in your office and they’re, they’re feeling really stuck on this engagement issue. They feel low. Like it’s people were, maybe it’s groups, it’s teams, it’s all of it. Like it’s, we’re not moving people through any kind of pipeline.
Rich Birch — What would be some of those first steps or first recommendations, first things you’d have them look at, maybe like a diagnostic or a first couple of things that you’d have them think about in this area?
Kayra Montañez — Well, I would say if there’s a way for them to know of the people who are attending and maybe they figure this out with new here, how many of those people take one next step within the first month?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Kayra Montañez — That would be one diagnostic that I would first see if I can do with the data that I have and the data that they collect and they actually figured that out.
Rich Birch — Yep. Yeah, that’s good.
Kayra Montañez — If they’re able to do that, then the next diagnostic would be what percent actually move into a people system…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Kayra Montañez — …whether it’s a group, a deep dive experience, a dream team within 60 to 90 days, right?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Kayra Montañez — Because if you do that, you’re going to find the blockage. You’re actually going to discover Maybe our attendance is fine. We don’t have an invest and invite problem, but maybe what we have a problem with is our conversion rate. And so then you can start to identify what is it about our conversion that we need to fix?
Kayra Montañez — Is it that we have ah unclear on-ramps? Or is it that our processes are too high friction? It’s too hard people to get involved. If you actually find like, no, actually people are taking next steps. Great. But they’re not sticking to it. Then you have a different problem. Then you can actually diagnose…
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Kayra Montañez — …oh, maybe the first serve experience actually wasn’t sticky enough. It wasn’t welcoming. Maybe there were issues with scheduling. Maybe we didn’t give clear information. So you can kind of figure out what the problem is based on how you’re measuring it and what you’re discovering. That’s how I would start if I didn’t know what the problem was. Does that make sense?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. That makes total sense. And, you know, it it definitely aligns with one of my bugaboos that I constantly driving with executive pastors. When you look at the actual numbers—I and I have not run into a church yet that this is not the case—most churches actually have a front door problem. They don’t have a back door problem. They their actual problem that we think we feel like, oh, like people aren’t sticking and staying in groups, they’re not staying and volunteering. But statistically, that’s actually not true. When most of the time, if you look at, okay, all the people that end up in a group, what is the kind of churn rate on that? Whatever that number is, I’ve never seen a church where it’s higher than the people we’re missing on the front end with exactly with what you said is how many people are removing from new here to taking the first step in the first month?
Rich Birch — Because that you lose a ton of people in that door right there. That is a, you know, by a multiple of 10 or 20, like it’s a lot more that we’re missing out. And, you know, generally in most churches…
Kayra Montañez — And can I just [inaudible] to that?
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Kayra Montañez — Because I just want encourage people, like, figure out a way to target your new here audience.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Kayra Montañez — So at Liquid, for example, if you come for the first time, not only do we encourage, highly encourage you to tell us that you’re here for the first time because we give you an awesome gift.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Kayra Montañez — Lots of churches do this, but then we survey people who came for the first time.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Kayra Montañez — And based on what they answer, they receive a custom follow-up process for the first 30 days.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. Yeah.
Kayra Montañez — We don’t, so in that regard, like it is worth to look at that.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Kayra Montañez — Because you’re going to find out a lot of information and a lot of data about what people are choosing to do, where are they going, why they’re not sticking to it or why they’re not even going in the first place.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Kayra Montañez — Like I’m shocked that I’ve been to churches sometimes to speak and they don’t actually really do like a new here call out. Like they don’t.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I was going to say that. You said, oh, churches do this.
Kayra Montañez — Maybe not.
Rich Birch — And I’d be like, Kayra, I’ve been to way too many churches where they don’t do any of that. And they’re like, well, we’re not really sure. And I’m like, this is a solvable problem. We can fix this.
Kayra Montañez — Yes. Yes.
Rich Birch — There’s like real things you can do here. Actually, I worked with a church last year, a fairly large church in 2024, where they were experiencing some of these issues and so and I was like I basically said the same thing I just said, I’m like you’re losing people on the front end. And they’re like they’re like well we do a gift. And I’m like no you don’t. And I said there’s a and there’s a few things to fix around that. In 2025 the year we just ended, they received we made a few changes it’s not about me there’s about them they made a bunch of changes, they ended up receiving 5,000 more first-time guest contacts than they did 2024.
Kayra Montañez — Wow. Just like we’ve always told it to do.
Rich Birch — Now they did not grow by people but it’s just by focusing on that, right?
Kayra Montañez — Amazing.
Rich Birch — It’s just by like saying, hey, how are we what are we going to do to ensure that that step goes well with folks? So anyways, there’s huge opportunity there and in lots of churches. Kayra, you’ve been incredibly generous to give us your time at this time of year. As you’re thinking, kind of last question, as we’re thinking about 2026, what are some of those questions that are floating around in your head as you think about Liquid, as you think about the future? What are some things that you’re wrestling with that you’re wondering about that you’re contemplating as we go into this year?
Kayra Montañez — Oh my gosh, Rich, so many. After this conversation, you know, I really am interested to see what’s going to happen with our discipleship model since we just blew it up.
Rich Birch — Yes, yep.
Kayra Montañez — I’m helping all of that and changing the way that we even onboard leaders. Like I’m really invested in seeing this through.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great.
Kayra Montañez — I also totally unrelated to this, but we just launched, I think in the survey, one of the questions that was asked was what’s the best idea that you had in 2025?
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, right.
Kayra Montañez — And I was like, well, I feel like one of our best ideas was to use AI to launch a Spanish service. And I am really invested in that in seeing like, how do we continue to grow that service? How do we continue to grow that ministry? We’re launching new ministries in 2025, or 2026. So that always feels exciting and daunting.
Kayra Montañez — So there’s just the work never ends. And there’s always it is an exciting and fascinating time to be in the church. I’ll say that.
Rich Birch — I would agree. I totally would agree. Yeah, it’s the best. I would think, literally, I think this is the best season that I’ve been involved in ministry for sure.
Rich Birch — For folks that don’t know what you’re doing with Spanish ministry, give us the 60 second, explain that again. Because I think I keep pointing churches to you saying, have you heard what Liquid’s doing? You go talk to them. So tell us about that.
Kayra Montañez — So basically we have a Spanish service. We do have live hosting in Español. We have live worship in Español. But then we take our English message and we pass it through an AI service called Heygen, which actually uses the communicator’s voice and matches the words to their lips and they’re just preaching, they preach it in Spanish. Even if they’re not bilingual, they will preach it in Spanish. And it’s like you, Rich, are speaking in Spanish. Your words match to your voice.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah, it’s it’s amazing.
Kayra Montañez — People get to hear the the gospel and the message in their language. So it’s been fascinating to learn who we’re reaching, who’s coming, who likes that kind of a thing. You know, as a Spanish speaker myself, I’m like, would I go to a service where the message wasn’t actually authentic Spanish and it’s an AI generated?
Kayra Montañez — I believe in the quality of our communication so much that I actually have to say, yes, I would. Because like last year, this year, we took our entire church through the book of Revelation. Tim spent 25 weeks teaching us the hardest book of the Bible.
Kayra Montañez — The fruit that that endeavor produced is incredible. And so when I think about what we’re doing, I’m like, I believe in that so much that I do think this is a this is a thing that’s actually good to do. Even if people would who would think like, why would they go to that and not like an authentic Spanish speaker?
Rich Birch — Yeah, interesting. And that, and you’re, you’ve been a year, that’s been basically almost a year you’ve been doing that now.
Kayra Montañez — A year. A year.
Rich Birch — And, and you’re be continuing to do it. So obviously something’s working. There’s some sort of version of like, Hey, we’re, we feel.
Kayra Montañez — We’re continuing to do it. we’re seeing We’re seeing the fruit. We’re seeing baptisms, people giving their life to Christ, getting baptized, showing up and joining teams, um reaching families. We’re reaching multigenerational families where the parents go to the Spanish service, the kids go to the English service because it’s simultaneous, right? Well, the English is going on, the Spanish is going on. So families get to decide. It’s just really interesting to watch. Obviously, it’s been challenging in the U.S. to grow a Spanish service because of everything that’s been happening.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah…
Kayra Montañez — But it’s just been really fascinating to see like the dynamics of who we’re reaching, who’s is sharing like who’s excited about it, and then using technology to further the gospel. It’s always exciting.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s fantastic. I know I was goofing around with Heygen a little bit. And the part that actually, this was you know almost a year ago when you guys started doing that that, one of the tests I ran that actually convinced me was, so I was like taking videos of me and I would send them to like a friend who speaks Spanish. And I sent to a friend who speaks, you know, a couple of languages that it was doing, but then I did the reverse. There’s a great church, Nouvelle Vie. It’s a French speaking church, large church, be very similar to Liquid, but they’re French speaking. And so I took one of the, the lead pastors from that. I took a clip of his message and translated into English. And I was blown away. I was like, Oh my word. Like,
Kayra Montañez — It is getting better and better every day.
Rich Birch — I was I was shocked. I was like, oh, that that is, yeah, could I tell? Yeah, but this guy’s an incredible communicator. And you know similar to you and Tim and the team at at Liquid, I’m like, I could see that work anyway.
Rich Birch — So that’s exciting. Kayra, it’s so great to see you.
Kayra Montañez — Thank you, Rich.
Rich Birch — Thanks so much for having time with us today. If people want to connect with you or with Liquid, where do we want to send them online?
Kayra Montañez — Sure. So my name Kayra, K-A-Y-R-A at liquidchurch.com. Happy to connect with anybody have questions.
Rich Birch — Thanks so much. Thanks for being here today.
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Andrew Hopper, Lead Pastor of Mercy Hill Church in North Carolina. Planted in 2012 with just 30 people, Mercy Hill has grown into a multi-campus, fast-growing church known for its gospel clarity and sending culture. In this conversation, Andrew shares why adoption and foster care have become central expressions of Mercy Hill’s mission—and how those practices flow directly out of the gospel. He also unpacks the heart behind his book, Chosen: Building Your Family the Way God Builds His.
Is your church unsure how to engage big social needs without drifting from the gospel? Are you looking for a way to mobilize people beyond church walls while keeping discipleship front and center? Andrew offers a clear framework for doing both.
- Doing good as a sign of the kingdom. // Andrew addresses a common tension churches feel between community engagement and disciple-making. Mercy Hill refuses to treat these as competing priorities. Acts of service—whether foster care, adoption, or family restoration—are not the kingdom itself but signposts pointing to it. Meeting tangible needs creates openings for gospel conversations. These ministries don’t replace evangelism; they amplify it by demonstrating the heart of God in visible ways.
- A church’s collective heartbeat. // Mercy Hill’s deep involvement in adoption, foster care, and family restoration didn’t start as a top-down strategy but emerged organically from the gifts and passions within the church. Many leaders and members have adopted children themselves, shaping the church’s collective heartbeat. Rather than attempting to address every social issue, Mercy Hill chose to focus deeply on a few—believing churches are most effective when they lean into the specific good works God has prepared for them. This focus has mobilized hundreds of families and created a powerful witness in their community.
- Rope-holding and shared responsibility. // Not everyone is called to adopt or foster, but everyone can hold the rope. Drawing from the William Carey analogy, Mercy Hill equips members to support families on the front lines through prayer, childcare, meals, financial help, and presence. Over time, they’ve learned that rope-holding works best when built on existing relationships rather than formal assignments. The goal is to ensure no family fights alone in what Andrew describes as intense spiritual warfare.
- Big vision with baby steps. // Mercy Hill isn’t afraid to cast a bold vision—whether for global missions, adoption, or church planting—but they pair that vision with accessible next steps. Prayer nights, giving opportunities, short-term service, and relational support allow people to grow into greater obedience over time. High challenge without guilt creates healthy discipleship.
- Why Andrew wrote Chosen. // Andrew wrote Chosen: Building Your Family the Way God Builds His not to promote a program, but to give churches a theological foundation for engaging adoption and foster care. The book weaves together Andrew’s family story, Mercy Hill’s journey, and a deeply gospel-centered motivation rooted in Scripture. Designed to be used individually or in groups, Chosen includes discussion questions and practical guidance for churches or small groups wanting to explore this calling in community. Andrew’s prayer is that the book would catalyze thousands of Christian families to participate meaningfully in caring for vulnerable children and families.
- Gospel-driven motivation. // Underneath everything is Andrew’s conviction that gospel motivation outlasts guilt. Behavior rooted in grace goes further than behavior driven by pressure. Adopted people adopt people. Chosen people choose people. That theological clarity fuels Mercy Hill’s sending culture, their community impact, and their ongoing growth.
To explore Andrew’s resources on adoption, foster care, and grab his book, Chosen, visit andrewphopper.com/chosen or follow him on Instagram @andrewphopper. You can learn more about Mercy Hill Church at mercyhillchurch.com.
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Portable Church
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. We have got a multi-time guest on, and you know what that means. That means that I really respect, deeply admire, and want you to listen up, and today is no exception. Excited to have Andrew Hopper with us. He is the lead pastor of a church that they should be following, that you should be following. He’s a lead pastor of Mercy Hill Church with five locations, if I’m counting correctly, in North Carolina, and is repeatedly one of the fastest growing churches in the country. I love this church on many levels. They’re centered on the gospel and have a radical commitment to sending people to the nations. They have a desire to make disciples and multiply churches. Andrew, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.
Andrew Hopper — Man, I’m so pumped to be here. Love the podcast. Really appreciate it, man.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I’m honored that you would come back. For folks that that don’t know Mercy Hill, give me a bit of a kind of an update. Tell us a little bit about the church.
Andrew Hopper — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Maybe update us from last time you were on.
Andrew Hopper — Yeah, man. So just real quick, planted in 2012. We had 30 people, all you know kind of young professional age, and man, just really believe that God could do something incredible ah through, you know just through our our open hands, and he did.
Andrew Hopper — And so it’s been 13 years. It’s crazy. We’ve been sort of pushing the same boulder up the same mountain for 13 years, just flywheel kind of concept and keep pushing. And ah the Lord has done an incredible thing, like you said, five campuses. And man, just moved into a new home and hub. That was from last time we had a chance. That’s been really great.
Andrew Hopper — We were in a rented location for a long time as our main like broadcast campus. We’re a video-based multi-site. And so um it’s ah it was a three or four-year journey to raise the money and build this new facility. But we’re in, and the Lord has really blessed that with tons of new people, highest baptisms, sent ones, first time guest numbers, all everything that we’ve done. This has been a, you know, we’ve gone been on a ride – praise God for that. It’s it’s, um, it’s for his sake and his renown, but this year has been unlike the others. So it’s been…
Rich Birch — Yeah, you were saying beforehand, it’s like 30 or something like 30 some percent year over year growth. That’s insane to keep up with.
Andrew Hopper — It is man. And the, and the giving does not, uh, you know, the giving doesn’t happen.
Rich Birch — Reflect that yet.
Andrew Hopper — So it’s, it’s like, we’re trying to do ministry on a budget of a church that’s 3000, but a church that’s running 4,500. And it’s like, how do you do that effectively without killing everybody?
Rich Birch — Nice.
Andrew Hopper — All your staff, I mean, so, but we’re, we’re learning, man, we’re figuring it out. It’s fun. We got, we just planted our sixth church. So that’s apart from the campuses. This is first time, Rich, we’ve planted a church in our own city.
Rich Birch — Oh, nice. That’s cool.
Andrew Hopper — It’s been really, a really cool dynamic and it’s been fun. He’s doing great. Man, it was a college student that we met when he was 19 years old at North Carolina AT&T 10 years later. He’s an elder here. He’s done a lot of different things. And man, he goes and plants a new church in Greensboro about five minutes from one of our campuses and they’re doing great.
Rich Birch — Wow. Yeah, that’s so good. Well, the thing, there’s lots I love about Mercy Hill, but one of the things that I’ve loved about your church from the you know the chance we’ve had to journey a little bit over the years about it is you just have real clarity around the mission, this idea of making disciples, multiplying churches. It’s like that has been rock solid from the beginning. When you think about we want churches to have discipleship at its core, this idea of a church that actually grows people up in their relationship with Christ. What matters most at the foundation? How are you keeping that so foundational to you know what’s happening at Mercy Hill?
Andrew Hopper — Yeah, I think um I think that we always sort of bought into kind of what we see in Acts 2 as a little bit of a flywheel. We call it gather, group, give, go. A lot of churches have something like that.
Andrew Hopper — The the difference, I think, at Mercy Hill a little bit than what I see ah in in in a lot of churches that we help mentor and coach is that 2020 hit and everybody was like, man, what is a church? What is discipleship? What are we going to do now? And and people were kind of… And I do think it was and it wasn’t, you know, it wasn’t just me. I mean, our, you know, our executive pastor Bobby, he was really integral in this. We sort of really doubled down on no, I kind of think the church is going to come back.
Rich Birch — Right.
Andrew Hopper — And I kind of think what we were doing is sort of what our church is set up to do. It kind of a brand thing. We are sort of a big box sending brand. And that, you know, for us, when we look at Acts 2, we’re like, dude, the gathering, there’s no more there’s no more important hour for discipleship and evangelism. And I know there’s a lot of things written against that. And people are kind of almost like downplaying it.
Andrew Hopper — We’re just like, man, we just don’t believe it. We believe people need to be in a group. You know, we they need generosity is lead step in discipleship, give. And we got to teach people that there’s a mission bigger than themselves. And if we do that, it’s going to funnel more people into the gathering.
Andrew Hopper — So I think fundamentally what I would say, we need to get, you know, we could talk about our value, you know we can talk about values to gospel and [inaudible] identity, but I think landing on you know, it’s very hard now to, to not get a word salad book form or thing. When you ask somebody, how are you making disciples? It can just be like…
Rich Birch — Right. Very vacuous. Who knows what that means? Yeah.
Andrew Hopper — For us, it’s just been a very clear, simple process.
Rich Birch — Right.
Andrew Hopper — Like, man, we believe if someone is in the gathering, if they’re in relationship, if they’re being pushed on generosity, and if they’re living for a mission bigger than themselves, that’s a current of maturity that will move them. They just get in the stream, they’ll move.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It’s so good.
Andrew Hopper — that’s kind of So you know for us, I think that’s as, you know we’ve we’ve tried to simplify things there.
Rich Birch — Yeah. And, and your last episode, I’ve pointed a ton of people to it, uh, to really, and we really unpack a lot of what you talked about there in more detail.
Andrew Hopper — Right. Yeah.
Rich Birch — You’re going to want to go back and, uh, and listen to that. You’ve reached as a church, you’ve reached a lot of people who don’t grow up in church that it’s like, there’s a lot of people who are there. You know, we used to say we ain’t your mama’s church, but mama didn’t go to church, you know? So, you know, and it’s been a long time that people were there. What challenges have you seen, you know, helping move people from curiosity into real ongoing discipleship? So like, I think there are, we’re seeing a swell of attendance across the country. People are like, oh, I’m kind of interested in this, but we got to move them from just, oh, this is something interesting to like, oh, I’m actually want to grow my relationship with Jesus.
Andrew Hopper — Yeah, I mean, and it’s it’s funny too, Rich, you probably have a better bird’s eye view of this than I do. But I feel like churches that have been faithfully growing for like the last 10 years, they’re not really doing a lot different now. Or even though there’s this big swell happening, what I do think is that some churches have sort of decided like, oh, clarity does matter.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah, that’s true.
Andrew Hopper — And don’t try to be friends with the culture. We’re going to speak in and be prophetic. And, you know, even even to the you know Proverbs 25:26 says, you know, there’s there there’s no there’s no benefit in a muddied spring. You know, it’s like you got to be sort of you got to figure out if we’re going to be clear.
Andrew Hopper — So, I you know, for me, I think like and you’re right, we do reach most of the people that we reach that are in the camp that you’re talking about our college age. We reach a lot of people, though, ah that are, you know, they’re they’re coming back to the faith because they’re a southerner.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Andrew Hopper — You know, they they kind of they kind of were, you know, they they did have some church in their background. They’re coming back. Their kids are not only born, but they’re realizing they’re sinners and they don’t have answers. They’re trying to figure that out.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Andrew Hopper — They’re coming back to church.
Andrew Hopper — And, you know, I think the biggest thing that moves people from like interest into a decision point is just being very clear on this is what the gospel is. This is the life it compels you to. Are you going to be in or out?
Andrew Hopper — One of the things we say at Mercy Hill a lot is like, man, if you’re if you’re just intrigued, you know, if you’re interested, you’re not going to stay at Mercy Hill because we’re never going to let you, you’re going to get pushed every week. And it’s like, man, people are not really in or like that. I’m not going to do that. You know, they’re just like, no I’m not going to sit here and get like pushed every single week on something I don’t really… And the flip side is when people say, all right, you know what? Stake in the ground. I’m in.
Rich Birch — Yeah, we’re doing this, yep.
Andrew Hopper — I wanna look like this, I want to build my life on this. It’s like, well, now, you know, it’s it’s man, I’m hopefully, you know, putting tools in the belt every single week to live that life.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, it’s good. I do think there was a time where people wandered into our churches where I don’t think that happens as much anymore. I think people, when they arrive, they come with questions, with live active questions that they’re trying to wrestle with, kind of regardless of where they’re they’re at in their journey.
Andrew Hopper — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And they’re what you to your point around, you know, there’s no benefit in a muddy stream. People aren’t looking for anything that sounds like, well, what do you think? Because the reason why they’re there is because they’re asking questions. And so, you know, they’re they’re looking for clarity, like I think you’re saying.
Rich Birch — Well one of the things I love about your church is there’s a high commitment to, you’re you’re you’re tearing down what I think is a false dichotomy. Sometimes I think when churches come to this idea of outreach or making a difference in their community, there’s this there can be this gap or false dichotomy between doing good in our communities and making disciples. Like we gave that up at some point. We were like, you can’t, you know, we can’t do both of those things for some reason. Why, why did we do that? Why did we, as churches say, we can’t both make a difference in our communities and also make disciples?
Andrew Hopper — Yeah, I think it’s, I actually have a lot of sympathy for the fundamentalist leaning. I know it sounds a little bit weird.
Rich Birch — No, that’s fine.
Andrew Hopper — Churches that led from the, you know, from the good do good in your city kind of thing. I don’t think they’re right, but I do have sympathy for that because I understand how quickly that sort of, you know, is so hijacked by liberal, by theological liberalism to where it’s finally man we’re digging wells and wherever but we’re not talking about who the true source of living water is. Like we don’t want to be offensive we just want to do good without speaking the whole you know you know live your life as a Christian only use words if necessary, whatever, you know. And and I so I understand why people kind of fled and have fled that.
Andrew Hopper — Like, you know, I’ve even had our church before when I when I talk about adoption or we we have a ministry, and a ministry called No More Spectators. We’re like moving people towards community ministry. And we had people kind of going on like, oh, my gosh, this seems like a sign of like churches start going this way and then they lose the gospel.
Andrew Hopper — And I’m like, well, the reason you’re kind of feeling like that is because a lot of churches have done that. You know, you’re not [inaudible] like that just out of nowhere. Now, of course, I think it’s a little bit immature and we’ve got to push through. The way we talk about it, Rich, is, man, we want to do good in our community as signs of the kingdom coming.
Andrew Hopper — They are not building the kingdom. You know, if we go repaint a house or house a homeless person, one day that person would parted with that house, whether they, you know, get messed up and leave or whether they do great and then would die one day, you know.
Andrew Hopper — Or, if we have, ah you know, if we go and, and you know, we’re going to, for example, we have ah ah a family in our church that they need a ramp built because, man, the the brother is struggling with MS and he’s, they’re they’re fighting it like Christians do. We’re going to go do that. You know, we’re going to go build that ramp. That ramp’s going to rot and die one, you know, rot and rot away one day. And, you know, whether it’s 100 years from now or whatever.
Andrew Hopper — Like it’s not literally the kingdom. But when the outside world sees us engage and, you know, our church will talk about this primarily when we think about community ministry, we think about it in terms of adoption, foster care and families count, which I can talk to you about. I think it’s bringing a sign of the kingdom that is to the community around us to say, hey, this is not the gospel. But it sure points to the gospel.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Andrew Hopper — You know, it’s a pretty good signpost of like, yeah, there’s a kingdom coming where kids aren’t separated from their parents, you know. And and so that’s kind of the way that we think about, it’s not, you know, it’s not the kingdom. It’s a sign of the kingdom that is coming.
Rich Birch — Yeah, let’s let’s dive in. So adoptions, foster care, families count. These are not small issues. Like you started with like putting a ramp on, painting somebody – those are like, okay, I can organize my head around that. And then we jump to what I think are obviously significant. How, it can be easy, I think, for church leaders it can be easy where, you know, we got a lot of fish to fry in our own backyard. When you see big problems like that, help us unpack that. Why do you as a lead pastor, why are you passionate about these issues? Why are these the things that you’ve chosen?
Andrew Hopper — I think it’s, man, I think it’s great. I mean if you can’t if you don’t mind I’ll go back and give you a little bit of context. I’m a context [inaudible]…
Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely. Let’s do it. Yeah.
Andrew Hopper — …number one so I always want to frame it in where we’ve been. But the short answer to the question is I think that every church because it is made up of individual believers that have individual gift matrix, you know they’re they’re gifted the church is gifted in a unique way because the people which are the church are gifted in a unique way, right?
Andrew Hopper — And so to me, you know, slapping, you know, a top down every single church has to to manifest signs of the kingdom in X way, which, for for example, I’m not to pick on it, but like, you know, the whole diversity church kind of movement. I love you know, if that’s your brand, that’s awesome. That’s great. Go, go bring signs of the kingdom in that area. But you know what people do is they take their thing and then slap it on every single church. You know, this is the sign of the kingdom that you have to manifest.
Andrew Hopper — I don’t think that. It takes every kind of church to reach a city because there’s all you know, there’s every kind of people in the city. Right? For us, though, and I think for a lot of churches that that maybe are are made up a little bit like we are, I think there is a lot of meat on the bone for adoption, foster care, families count ministry. And I think churches could be greatly helped by latching on to maybe, you know, something in particular, maybe this, maybe this specifically. How we got there, Rich, was we had we had, you know, huge movement in our church in 2019. I was very convicted.
Andrew Hopper — Some of the exponential stuff was coming out, you know, mobilizing people outside the walls of the church. And I really was, man, I was just really affected by that. And I don’t want the dichotomy, you know, I don’t want, well, you your people serve in the church and not outside the church. It’s like, no, most people serve outside the church. If you watch them, they are serving inside the church as well. It’s it’s like a it’s like, man, you know, just just because serving inside the church is not the finish line, don’t demonize it because it is a starting place.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Andrew Hopper — So it’s like, I don’t like that kind of whole thing. But but it did affect me to say, OK, what are we doing to push to the outside? So we we we did a thing. You would have loved this, man. But it except for the fact that it didn’t really work that good. OK, it was awesome.
Andrew Hopper — It was, we still have the domain name – nomorespectators.com – I had the tagline: Jesus didn’t die to create spectators. He died to create servants, not spectators, workers, not watchers. We, man, you could go to nomorespectators.com and, you know, it was like, it was like a funnel for all of these community ministry opportunities in our city. So it was, you know, people from the housing, you know, authority type stuff would post things. And it was, it was all this kind of, it had a bunch of stuff in it.
Andrew Hopper — In the end of the day, great idea. It was a little too complex. Our people latched on to the foster care, pregnancy network, you know, ended up being families count, Guardian ad Litem and adoption. So our guy that was over all that at the time our sending director, which is hard for me to have a good idea that ends up dying hard, okay that’s just tough for me.
Rich Birch — You had a great sticky statement and everything. Come on.
Andrew Hopper — I’m the king of sunken cost bias. Okay. Like, I’m like, dude. And so finally around 2020, he came to me and he said, bro, I know this is hard for you. Cause it was like a two year initiative. He’s like, this is hard. He said, No More Spectators needs to just turn into Chosen. And it needs to be like, you had this idea for 30 different things. It just, this needs to be our niche, man. You know, we we don’t do a lot of these other things, but we do this really well.
Andrew Hopper — And it was hard for me. Ultimately, it was great wisdom by them, not me. And we started going down that road. And partly, I think it’s because, Rich, is heart is near to my heart. I have an adopted daughter. A lot of our staff have adopted kids. We just have a guy right now. Our associate director of first impressions at the Rich campus is in Texas right now, you know, bringing their daughter home.
Andrew Hopper — I mean, so it’s just, and so it’s sort of started to morph into, and the the the big thing I’ll say, and I, you know, I’ve been talking a lot here, but the big thing I’ll say is, if you think about the way I just ah described all that, it doesn’t start with the need in the community. It starts with the gift matrix of the church. The poor we will always have with us. Like there there is no there’s no scenario until Jesus comes back that there’s no kids that need to be adopted, you know.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Andrew Hopper — And it’s just the reality of it. And so there’s always going to be need in the community. It’s more about, okay, what are the Ephesians 2:10 works that your church, because the church is made up of people who are individually called, what are the you know what are those works that God has set out for your church?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Andrew Hopper — And, you know, so for us, we just felt like, dude, this is a a heartbeat thing. Our people got more, they get more fired up. The greatest thing I’ve ever been able to mobilize our people for prayer for is go to the abortion clinic and pray. I mean, a thousand people on their face in the pavement. It’s like, it just strikes a chord with our church and who we are. So we wanna run after that.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Well, I love that. And we’re going to dig out a bunch of this, but let’s think about it first from a perspective of somebody who’s maybe attended your church. They just started. They’re they’re relatively new, you know. The idea of something as weighty as adoption or foster care, that’s a big ask. And you know when you yeah how do I experience that as someone who’s just new? What are some ways that I could get plugged in? What does that look like? That, that, cause I, I’m hard, it’s hard to imagine that I go from zero to, to, you know, adoption, you know, how do I end up or flying to Texas to, you know, pick up a kid. That’s a lot. Help me understand. How are you, cause I know you guys are so good at moving people along from kind of where they are to where you’re hoping to – what’s that look like? What’s the kind of, how do you bring people along in this?
Andrew Hopper — Man, totally. I think you’re right. I think it’s a combination of big vision on one end and then baby steps on the other. But the big vision matters.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Andrew Hopper — Like we don’t want to be scared of the big vision. So, you know, for example, our weekender process, which I know you talked about some, you know, that weekender process, you know, people literally for years, we would give them a passport application in the weekender process. Because we’re like you’re at this church you’re probably going to be overseas at some point on a mission trip. And so to me it’s like people are like dude that probably scares the crap out of people. And it’s like well, I mean we want to make sure they know what they’re getting into, you know. We’re not telling them they got to do that tomorrow…
Rich Birch — Right.
Andrew Hopper — …but that is the, and then and then there’s all these baby steps, right? Like hey come to you know, every February we do Sent weekend. Come to the prayer night. Like that’s a baby step. That’s not you getting on a plane to go to Nepal. But you know hey we’re doing this missions offering at the end of the year, like maybe get you know. So there’s all these I would say that our the way we think about Chosen ministry, which again: adoption, foster care, families count, and rope holding, which is a big part of this discussion…
Rich Birch — Okay.
Andrew Hopper —…is that way. It’s big vision on the front end so we’re never going to tell somebody, hey you know, I know you could never do this. Like I’ll never…I think people can do it and they should. Or or you know more Christians than are should. At the same time we’re also not guilting anybody. Like so I’m I you know the the first thing I’ll tell people is like, hey, you know we start talking about adoption. I always say always say, hey, we have not lined up a bunch of little kids in the lobby for you to take one home today, okay. And then I’ll tell them, that’s next week.
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Andrew Hopper — Okay, so yeah but and we we try hard to like put some levity in it. Man, we’re not everybody’s not going to do that. In fact, a minority, of a small minority is going to do it. But everyone can be involved and there are baby steps.
Andrew Hopper — So we try to highlight giving, man. Like if you someone adopts from Mercy Hill, we pay 25% of their adoption. Okay.
Rich Birch — Wow. Yep.
Andrew Hopper — If they’re a member and they’re in a community group, they get 25%. All right, well, you know, we’re going to connect that. Like, man, you you are never going to adopt. You feel like that’s, but it’s like, well, I give $100 a month to the church.
Rich Birch — Right.
Andrew Hopper — Well, hey, what? You know, you’re you are you are supporting.
Rich Birch — We’re making a difference.
Andrew Hopper — We do parents night out, you know, for all of our foster and adoptive parents. We do it quarterly. It’s like, hey, those are opportunities to come and serve, man. You can serve the meal you can do. We do rope holding, which I know we’ll probably talk about. But but the the idea of rope holding is just like, man, I’m not going to do this, but I can be in the corner for somebody. They’re in my community group. I want to be their first call if they need a babysitter or they need, you know, a gift card, or whatever they need.
Andrew Hopper — So I think, man, we try to do big vision. You know, we’re going we’re going to set a huge vision, you know, for 2030 for 2030. Actually, we just hit our vision for 2025, which is 200 adoptive or foster families. There’s a lot of ways people can be involved with it.
Rich Birch — So good. There’s, I think thing I would encourage friends who are listening in, you really should be following Mercy Hill, Andrew, because I do think you’re a very unique communicator where you, and you just described it. And I think to you, it’s just like, that’s just what you do. But this idea of like, you’re calling people to a high bar, but you’re not leveraging shame, guilt. you know, it’s, and I think so many times our language can kind of lean in that direction. Or we can, if we really are trying to push people towards something, or we can just undersell the vision. You know We can be like, oh, it’s not that it’s not that big of a deal. You know It’s not for everybody. So I would encourage people to listen in.
Rich Birch — Talk to me about rope holding. How is that, what’s that look like? Unpack what that looks like a little bit.
Andrew Hopper — Yeah, so rope so the the the rope-holding analogy, which a lot of your listeners probably gonna already know this, but you know William Carey, Andrew Fuller, William Carey, father of modern missions, he’s he he he makes the statement, “I’ll dangle at the end of the rope in the pit, if you’ll hold the rope,” talking to Fuller. And Fuller held the rope for him. Like, you know, Carey the mission field, Fuller’s raising money, preaching sermons, organizing mission boards. So that’s kind of the picture. Right.
Andrew Hopper — So we say, all right, not everybody is going to go down into the pit of foster care adoption, even even families count. I mean, these are these are massive spiritual warfare battlegrounds you know um which is one of the reasons why our church wants to be involved so much. I mean you if you want to talk about getting to the you can do all the rhetoric in the world, brother, you want to get to the very bottom of societal issues, you you be involved in somebody’s story that’s trying that’s trying to get their kids back from the foster care system. You’re trying to help them with that. I mean, every you could fatherlessness, poverty, drug abuse. I mean, everything you can think, you know.
Rich Birch — Right.
Andrew Hopper — So this this is just spiritual war. So what we tell people is like, hey, man. If we got people that are mobilizing for for adoption and foster care, we better have people in their corne,r because the enemy is going to bring his war machine.
Rich Birch — Right.
Andrew Hopper — And we see it all the time. I mean, you’re going to see, you know, a family steps in to adopt and you’re going to start seeing them, you know, there can be sickness. They can have marital problems. They can have financial things that come up. They can begin to believe lies, frustrations. I mean, There’s just so they can become, you know, their their heart can start getting hard toward the system. I mean, there’s so many things that come at them. And so what we say is we need people in their corner, right.
Andrew Hopper — Now, it’s funny because like the way our church has operated was at first we said, all right, we’re going to we’re going to do, you know, the the community group is going hold the rope for the people. And and that that was fine. The problem is when we really kicked off this ministry, so many people got involved that it became overwhelming to the group. So we said we got to start this…
Rich Birch — Right.
Andrew Hopper — …rope holding ministry. The rope holder ministry is good. It’s like, what does a rope holder do? They kind of do whatever the person needs them to do.
Rich Birch — Right.
Andrew Hopper — So there are examples of the rope holding ministry going really well, where it’s like, hey, man, they’re they’re helping with ah child care with the other kids when they’re going to foster care appointments in court. And or, hey, we’re we’re helping you do some things around the house whenever you’re overseas doing your adoption, which is going to put you three weeks in country. You know, there are some good examples like that.
Andrew Hopper — But the other thing that we’ve learned is, you know, foster care and adoption families that are that are walking through this, they’re going through a very trying time. And to just pair them with somebody they don’t know and say, hey, look, here’s your supporter, it can be a little bit like, oh, that’s awesome, and then they never reach out to them.
Rich Birch — Right.
Andrew Hopper — They never reach out – the rope holder’s ready.
Rich Birch — Right.
Andrew Hopper — But it’s just like, dude, I don’t I don’t know you. And this is a hard time.
Rich Birch — Who are you? Yeah, yeah.
Andrew Hopper — And so what we’re trying to figure out now as we reboot that rope holder idea is, you know, how how do you kind of integrate relationships they’ve already had? Almost like, hey, do you have this massive pool of people called rope holders? Or when an adoptive family comes up, you say to them, hey, who can we shoulder tap, rope holder for you.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Andrew Hopper — And then we’ll train them.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s cool. Yeah.
Andrew Hopper — But not have this pool, but say for you, we’ll put them in. So that’s kind of what we’re, so as part of our reboot for 2030, you know, that’s sort of what’s in our mind right now.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool.
Andrew Hopper — We have a whole playbook for the way we’ve done it, which anybody, you know, if anybody wants any of those things, they can go to AndrewPHopper.com/chosen. And I can send you any of that stuff we have, but on the rope holder side, you know, just full transparency, we’re still, you know, kind of, of you know, and I’m sure it’ll always be that way that we make an improvement.
Rich Birch — Yeah, always trying to make it better. Yeah. And I want to, yeah, at some point in this journey, you decided, hey, we’ve got to put this vision and framework into writing, like we and you actually ended up writing a book, and friends who are listening in, I want to encourage you to pick up a copy of this book. Listen, we’re almost half an hour in. I know you’re interested in this. This is the kind of thing you, Andrew’s a trusted leader. He’s, I’ve had a chance to take a peek at the book. This will be super helpful for you. But, but that’s a lot of effort to put this together into a book. What pushed you from just leading this ministry to ultimately saying, hey, I want to capture this into a resource that could help other people?
Andrew Hopper — Well, you know, Rich, I never really saw myself as like a writer, just like a practitioner, man. Let’s just keep keep working on the thing and going.
Rich Birch — Right.
Andrew Hopper — And truthfully, I got approached. Hey, would you have any interest in writing? You know, New Growth Press is the one that’s editing this book and putting it out. And it was funny, though, because the second I was asked, I was like, man, I know what we should do [inaudible] that should be what we should do. It’s it’s our it’s it’s my story’s family story with our special needs child that we’ve adopted. It’s our church’s journey. But more important than either of those two things, it’s a grounding in the gospel-centered motivation. Because I think that is what is so important. We don’t do guilt motivation. And you know, cute kids and sad, cute kids and and sad stories are good reasons, but they you need a great reason, because it’s hard.
Rich Birch — That’s good. Yep.
Andrew Hopper — You know, and the great reason is of course, adopted people adopt people. And so we delve way into the helplessness of our spiritual condition, how God adopted us and then how, you know, that provides a deep motivation for us to go and do the same for others.
Rich Birch — Can you unpack that a little bit more? Because I think this is, ah to me, a core part of the book that I think is really helpful. Even if you’re maybe listening in, you’re thinking, okay, I’m not sure adoption or foster care is necessarily the thing, but you unpack this idea of gospel rather than guilt. And can you talk us through, you know, how, yeah, just talk us through that part, that concept a bit more. Just double click on that a little bit.
Andrew Hopper — Yeah. So, you know, when we think about behaviors that flow from the Christian life, there’s really only two ways to think about it, right? Like one of them is we try to do things in order that God would approve of us, you know, that he would, you know, he would, ah he would, he would let us in his family, you know, those those types of things. And we, you know, this is for a lot of Baptistic world, which I am, this was kind of like, wow, this is really revolutionary, but that was 20 years ago – Keller and all that. You know, we just started understanding what more of a gospel center motivation.
Andrew Hopper — Of course, the other way to think about Christian behaviors is you are part of the family because of what Christ has done for you. And the family has a culture. The family works a certain way. There’s fruit that will pop out in your life, not so that you can gain entrance into the vine. That’s not how it works. Like, ah you know, you don’t you don’t produce fruit to get in the vine. You produce fruit because you’re in the vine.
Andrew Hopper — And so, you know, when we think about like like Titus 2, for example, we think about how the grace of God appears to all men, teaching us not just salvation, but teaching us to obey his commands. So there’s something about salvation that and is inherent to the gospel-centered motivation of of of going out, living the Christian life. You know, it’s it’s kind of the John Bunyan idea when they said, man, if you, you know, if you keep preaching this gospel message, people are going to do whatever they want to do. And he said, no, if I keep preaching this gospel message, people are going to do whatever God wants them to do.
Rich Birch — Right.
Andrew Hopper — You know, and so I think what we’ve done in this book is just say, hey, that that is true universally in our Christian life. Like if I’m not tithing and I’m stingy, I can do motivation in two ways. Number one, how dare you, you piece of trash that you never, you know why would you never give? Look what God, you know, blah blah blah, blah, blah, guilt, guilt, shame, shame. Right.
Andrew Hopper — Of course, the other way to say is like, man, what kind of riches has God given you in the gospel? And what kind of inheritance do you now have as a son of the king? It’s like, all right, that’s powerful, you know, and it will it will take us places that guilt never can. Guilt will work for a while. You can put fire under somebody and it’ll move them. But if you put it in them, they’ll run through a wall, you know.
Rich Birch — So true.
Andrew Hopper — And so it’s like it’s like, hey, OK, so you could do it with all these different things. We’ve tried to take this book and do that with adoption to say, all right.
Rich Birch — Right.
Andrew Hopper — We know James 1:27, we need to care for the fatherless and the orphan. We understand. I mean, dude, there ain’t, when you talk about metaphors, there’s two big ones, marriage and adoption, you know? And so if you want to do adoption well, we can do it from two motivations. One motivation is look how many kids need. That’s all and that’s all true. That moves my heart. You know, look, can you believe this story of this kid? And that’s fine.
Andrew Hopper — Of course, you could do guilt, too. Like, how dare you, you know, have this nice, happy family and not go adopt a little poor orphan kid. You know, you could do guilt. All those things will be fine. They’ll put fire under you a little bit. But if you want to put the fire in someone that is going to carry them through the long haul of all this stuff, I think it’s better to start with: All right. There’s kids that need to be chosen. Were you chosen?
Andrew Hopper — You know, so like one of the you know, one I’ll give you an example. We know of a family here in the tribe. They’ve got an awesome son that is 20-something years old, kids got Down syndrome, and they adopted him from Ecuador. And his story was one day a carpenter was working on this building and he heard cries coming out of a dump, like a trash heap. This child had just been born and been left you know with his deformities had just been left for the dumpster.
Andrew Hopper — And they brought him to the orphanage. And next thing you know, you know about three or four years later, he got adopted by this family that we know. And that family’s father, he said, Eddie’s story is my story. I was pulled from a trash heap by a carpenter. And if you it’s like that is powerful.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes.
Andrew Hopper — You know, when you start thinking about, man, in my sin, I was one who had no part and parcel in the kingdom of God. I was headlong in rebellion. I had rejected. I was not a son. And God lavished his love upon me, that I would be called his child. And if if that has happened to me spiritually, how could I not want to do that? Or at least help those. you know I’m not saying that’s a call for everybody, but be involved in others that are doing that as well.
Andrew Hopper — And so that’s what we say. Adopted people, adopt people, chosen people, choose people. And hey, I didn’t answer your last question.
Rich Birch — That’s fine.
Andrew Hopper — Okay. Your last question was, why did we write the book? Very simply, I think more people just need to think about what I just said. You know, and I think churches do. And I think that if, you know, a lot of churches have adoption-minded people and a little bit of of fuel in that fire might create some really cool ministry in that church. And this book lays really well for being like, man, make it a small group resource for eight weeks. You know, it’s got questions at the end of each chapter.
Andrew Hopper — Like my my prayer is that this book would catalyze tens of thousands of Christian adoptions.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Andrew Hopper — And that’s why we wrote the book.
Rich Birch — Yeah. It’s and I thought the same thing as I was looking through it, that this would be a great resource for a small group, a great resource as a staff training thing. Because again, I think there’s two things happening on two levels. From my perspective, there’s what you’re actually talking about – adoption, but then there’s how you talk about it. And I think even both of those, I think could be interesting as a as a staff team to kind of unpack and think about. How do we ensure that what we’re doing is so gospel-infused. That’s part of why i love you as a communicator. I think you do such a good job on that. It’s just fantastic. So I would strongly encourage people to pick it up.
Rich Birch — Help me understand the connection. So Mercy Hill is known for, or at least from my perspective, known as a sending church. You know, the thing, one of the and I’ve told again, I told you this before, you’re the first church leader I’ve ever bumped into that has connected new here guests to number of missionaries sent. This like idea of like this funnel of how do we move people all the way along to that? I think that’s incredible. How does that kind of sending culture and adoption, how does that fit together? How does that help kind of fuel the flywheel of what’s happening at Mercy Hill?
Andrew Hopper — Well, you you helped me think about this when you came and did our one day for our for our Breaking Barriers group, you know, for the pastoral trainings that we do. Because in your church growth book, you talk about how, ah you know, community ministry is used as an evangelism tool. I’m not, I’m probably butchering the way you talk about it.
Rich Birch — Yep. Yep. Oh, that’s good. Yep. That’s great.
Andrew Hopper — That was like a big light bulb for me because because we we definitely do that, but we have not leveraged the communications of that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Andrew Hopper — And so, um you know, for us now, what we’re trying to really think about is how does our adoption of foster care ministry and rope holding and families count ministry, how does that create open? We call them open doors, right?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Andrew Hopper — Like, how does it create open doors, questions in the community, where people come in? And we’ve seen it. You know, so like when we’re talking about the sending culture, that pipeline starts when new people get interested in faith, they get interested in church.
Andrew Hopper — And, you know, like, for example, we we had a guy, we just did a historic video. Man, he’s saved, baptized, serving now, ah or, you know, family, young family, prototypical Mercy Hill guy, like, man, just you know blue collar heart, white collar job, just that. I mean, just everything we talk about. Right. He’s our he’s kind of our guy. And the way he got connected was his boss had signed up to be a rope holder. And it just blew his mind. Like, why would a guy take limited time and go help these families? I mean, he of course, he thought it was a good thing. But it really intrigued them.
Andrew Hopper — And so we’ve tried to we’re trying to leverage more of the communication side. It’s tricky. You don’t want to be like, hey, look at us you know in the community. At the same time, I’m like, man, this year, you know when we’re going to do a pretty significant upgrade to some of the there our foster care system has, there’s a house that has a backyard and the backyard is where families come to play with kids, play with their kids they’re trying to get back from the foster care.
Rich Birch — Right. Yep.
Andrew Hopper — And we’ve said like, you know what, man, if these parents are putting in, that needs to be like the best, the best backyard, and you know?
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, absolutely. 100%.
Andrew Hopper — And so, you know, we’re, we’re going to do a significant investment in some, you know, whatever…
Rich Birch — Play structures and yeah.
Andrew Hopper — …like a, you know, whatever, like a pergola type thing. They’re going put a shed out there. All going to connect it, pavers, all that stuff is what we want to do. And, you know, we’re, we’re looking at that and I’m going like, yeah, I mean, I get it. Like you don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, but at the same time, that’s not for us. That’s for people that are interested to say like, why would a church do that? You know, like why do they care so much?
Andrew Hopper — And it’s because, Hey, sign of the kingdom. We want to build families through adoption. We want to restore families through foster care and families count. This is part of that. So we’ve tried to we’ve tried to use it as a way. And I would really encourage church leaders to think about that. Like, hey, is your community ministry actually an evangelism strategy?
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, that’s good. Love that. And yeah, I would encourage you continue to encourage you to think through those things because I do think that there’s, we’ve seen that there’s huge opportunity for folks who don’t normally attend church. They’re interested the way I’ve said in other contexts is they see it as a good thing. We see it as a God thing. We’re not going to fight them over the semantics of it at the front end. Because like you say it’s it’s the kingdom puncturing through that grabs their attention and you’re like oh what what you know what’s going on there? It’s a first step – how do we encourage those people?
Rich Birch — Like on that backyard project, I no doubt if you’re rallying a bunch of guys to go work there, I know that there are guys in your church who have friends who they could invite who don’t attend church who maybe would never walk in your church who’d say, hey, will you come and work for a Saturday for a couple hours and swing a hammer and help us do this thing? Let me explain what this is about.They absolutely would show up, right? 100% they’d show up and and they’ll get intrigued by that. And they’ll be like, oh, what’s going on there? That’s that’s fantastic.
Rich Birch — Well, friends, unabashedly, I want you to pick up copies of, not just a copy, copies of this book. So where do we want to send people to pick up copies, that sort of thing?
Andrew Hopper — Yeah, man, they can just go to andrewphopper.com/chosen.
Rich Birch — Perfect. Yep.
Andrew Hopper — The book’s out so they can pick up a copy. I mean, it’s also just like on Amazon or whatever, but that link will take you straight to New Growth Press.
Rich Birch — Right.
Andrew Hopper — So, yeah, man, would love it. Would love to hear from anybody who’s using it well in a church context um to catalyze Christian adoption.
Rich Birch — Love it. Anything else you want to share just as we close and how can people track, go to the website, other places we want to send them as we close up today.
Andrew Hopper — Also on Instagram, we have a lot of stuff on Instagram, andrewphopper on Instagram. Yeah, the last thing I would say as a closing thought, Rich, is you know, the Christian adoption boom has sort of happened 20 years ago. People started talking about this a lot more. And now you can feel in some of the podcast world and all that, there’s a bit of a backlash, not not to don’t do it, but also like, hey, no one told us how hard this was going to be.
Andrew Hopper — You’re dealing with traumatic situations, kids that have been brought, you know, I mean, it’s, it’s crazy. One thing I try to do in this book is I try to say, Hey, that’s not a good reason to take our ball and go home, you know.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Andrew Hopper — Instead we just need to try to shoot as straight as we can. And I do that in this book, man. It is hard. It’s you’re on the front lines of spiritual war. I mean, it’s almost like, dude, the, the, the greatest transfer of faith from one generation to another happens in the home. We love it when adults get saved. I get that. But let’s be honest. Statistically, where does it normally happen? Right.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Kids.
Andrew Hopper — And so if you got a home that’s broken apart, that Christians are trying to put back together, what did we think Satan was going to do? You know, and so instead of taking our ball and going home, let’s just call it what it is, and then ask the Lord to steel our spine…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Andrew Hopper — …and to move forward with the mission. So, yeah, man, I’d love for people to pick it up. And I appreciate the time to talk about it today.
Rich Birch — Andrew, thanks so much. Appreciate you. Just want to honor you for the work you do. You’re a great leader. And I love how God’s using you and your church to make a difference. Thanks for being on the show today.
Andrew Hopper — Thanks, brother.
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Tim MacLeod, a former nurse who escaped the financial treadmill by flipping couches—and now teaches others how to do the same.
Are you a church leader feeling the financial squeeze? Looking for a side hustle that doesn’t require debt, special skills, or hours you don’t have? Tim’s story offers a practical roadmap—and encouragement—for anyone needing to close that income gap.
- Burnout and financial pressure. // Tim became a nurse at 21, newly married, supporting his wife through teacher’s college, and quickly thrown into adult responsibilities. The only way to stay financially afloat was by working overtime once or twice a week. When their second child was on the way, he realized the path he was on was unsustainable.
- Finding financial freedom. // Options like upgrading his nursing degree, relocating, or working in dangerous psychiatric facilities were unappealing. Tim needed something flexible, part-time, and profitable enough to replace overtime. He discovered flipping phones and iPads first, but competition was fierce. Then, after borrowing a trailer and responding to a free couch listing, everything changed. He cleaned it up, sold it the next day for $280, and instantly covered more than an entire nursing shift.
- Why flipping couches works. // The opportunity exists because of a gap in the marketplace. Most people don’t own trucks, can’t move heavy furniture, and face tight deadlines when moving. Sellers value reliable pickup over price; buyers value affordable furniture delivered to their door. Tim steps into this gap. With polite communication and kindness, he creates a “win-win-win”: sellers get rid of furniture quickly, buyers get affordable delivered couches, and Tim earns a consistent profit. He estimates most beginners can make $1,000/month by flipping just five couches—buying each for around $50 and selling for $250 with delivery included.
- A side hustle with time freedom. // One of the most surprising parts of Tim’s business is the flexibility. He built the early stages of his flipping business in the evenings with his wife and baby riding along—road dinners, cheap pizza, and trips to pick up inventory. Now he schedules pickups during school hours, stacks deliveries based on availability, and can pause or accelerate the business as needed. It’s ideal for ministry families with unpredictable schedules.
- Why you can succeed at this. // Many of Tim’s students are pastors or church employees, and he says ministry workers have unique advantages: access to storage at the church, a heart for helping people, strong communication skills, and the ability to bring calm to awkward interactions. Many pastors live outside their ministry communities—creating the perfect “import/export” opportunity where they can buy in one market and sell in another. And unlike many side hustles, flipping couches doesn’t conflict with ministry—it simply provides supplemental income with minimal stress.
- A free resource to get started. // Tim created a free Google Doc of scripts—his exact messages for starting conversations, vetting couches, and negotiating with integrity. To get it, simply comment scripts on any of his Instagram videos and he’ll email it your way. He also offers an affordable course walking through his full system, including storage setup, videos, delivery strategies, and scaling beyond $1,000/month.
To learn more or access Tim’s free scripts, visit him on Instagram @thefulltimeflipper or explore his full course at tim-macleod.com.
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. We’re definitely having a very un-unSeminary episode today. You know recently I heard some statistics that I was like, man, we gotta do something about this. According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics—you’re like, it’s a little early in the year for the Bureau of Labor and Statistics—but there’s a 13% gap between what religious workers—people who are clergy actually, is the title—and the average income in the country makes – a 13% gap. In fact, it even gets worse when you look at people, there’s a category called “religious workers, other”, which these would be like not the senior pastor types. This is like everybody else that works in a church. There’s a 40% gap between those people and the the average salary in the country.
Rich Birch — And so why am I bringing this up? Because I know that there are people that are listening in today that are feeling that gap. Here we are in January and they’re feeling the pressure of that. And I want to help you with that. And so I’ve got a friend, like a friend from real life, friends. This is like we’re in the same small group. We know each other, incredible leader, and I want to expose you to him. But more importantly, I think he can help you with that gap.
Rich Birch — It’s my friend, Tim MacLeod. Tim was a nurse with the dreams of fatherhood and home ownership, but after a few years was faced with reality and no time, no amount of overtime was really going to fill the gap that he needed to make things work. And after being stuck on that kind of financial treadmill, he found a way out. He found the niche of, wait for it, friends, flipping couches. What? Flipping couches and was able to quit his nursing job and now does this full time. And I’ve asked him to come on. Uh, because I think what he did at the beginning, even part-time, I think could help some of us today that are, that are listening in. Tim, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.
Tim MacLeod — Thanks so much for having me, man. I’m excited.
Rich Birch — This is going to be a good conversation. Kind of fill in the story. Tell us a little bit, uh, tell us about your background, and how did you get in? How did you go from nursing to flipping couches?
Tim MacLeod — So I wanted to be obedient and I got married maybe a little bit too young at 21. My wife was still in teacher’s college. And so very, very quickly I was thrown into adulthood of two cars, rents and all the things that come with that.
Tim MacLeod — And nursing was good. I was a registered practical nurse, so not a university educated RN making bank, but doing okay with a college diploma. And I got the comfy gig at a long-term care home because I preferred eight-hour shifts and not the, I didn’t want nights.
Rich Birch — Midnight and all that.
Tim MacLeod — I just wanted, yeah, exactly.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Tim MacLeod — I wanted the free parking and the the reliable six to two shifts. That was just the lifestyle that I liked. And the only way that I could stay afloat financially was with doubles. I had to do my six to two and then at least once a week, usually twice, if I wanted to have any money to play with, um I would work the two to ten.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Tim MacLeod — And that was cool while my wife was in college or while she was finishing up teacher’s college, that was fine. And then, we had a newborn baby and that was fine. Because anytime that I would have to do those doubles, she’d go to sleep, go for a sleepover at her parents’ place. And, uh, and I would just drudge up the shifts.
Tim MacLeod — And, but then when we were pregnant with number two, I knew that there was difficulties coming. And the road ahead did not look very good. And so I needed something different and all my options for replacing the income suck. Like I could go back to school and upgrade to RN, but I scraped through the first time. So that was nuts.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tim MacLeod — I didn’t have much hope in myself in that avenue. And I could go, I could relocate, I could move or I could commute about an hour and 20 away to the mental health hospital and make like danger pay in like an asylum, basically with my current qualifications.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tim MacLeod — And everything just looked terrible. I hated all of that. And all I needed was something better than overtime. I just needed to replace that portion of the income. And I needed something better in my evenings that hopefully I could do with my wife or from home. And so I was looking at side hustles.
Tim MacLeod — And I had a little bit of success flipping phones and iPads because that’s all that I really understood…
Rich Birch — Okay. Yeah, yeah.
Tim MacLeod — …all I understood at the time. And I live about an hour north of where my in-laws live, which is a pretty dense population. I’m in the sticks and the supply was really light there. So I could reliably go for a free meal at my in-laws place, pick up an iPhone or three and for like 300 bucks and then bring them home and sell them for 450 bucks. And so that took that took the pressure off and that was like grocery money.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tim MacLeod — And it was really consistent, really reliable. And and it was fun too. I really liked it. I liked the negotiations. I liked, I liked not trading time.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tim MacLeod — Like I liked making making a profit instead of a wage. And that I was hooked on that, but there was competition. Like I wasn’t that clever doing that.
Tim MacLeod — There was there was kids that were closer to the inventory ripping around in little Hyundai Elantras and uh i remember meeting this this Indian kid named Lucky, at least his Canadian name was Lucky, and he was beating me to all the goods. And and I met him one time to buy a phone for myself and I actually got to meet him and ask him some questions and he was making four grand a month flipping phones.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Tim MacLeod — And I thought that is so sick, and it’s just a pure cash hustle. And he was making more doing that than whatever his office or IT job was at the time. And I was super inspired by that, but I didn’t want to compete with him. So that kind of that kind of festered with me a little bit.
Tim MacLeod — And um I just got an awesome idea. Well, was gifted to me by the Holy Spirit, I think, based on how fast and how fierce it came, that I need to get skills and tools to sell in a different category, something with a higher barrier to entry. And I wanted something where I didn’t have to compete with the Honda Civics and the Hyundai Elantra’s that were closer to the action.
Rich Birch — With Lucky. Yes.
Tim MacLeod — Yeah, exactly. He was smoking me. And and it also, it was a little bit of that and then also a little bit of me coveting. I wanted to get like, um I wanted an excuse to buy a Ford Ranger. I wanted a truck at the time.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Tim MacLeod — And so this combination, this combination of like wants and needs at the time, had me pitching an idea to my brother, Ross. I’m just like, Hey, what do you think about instead of phones and iPads? What if I got a truck and I started doing like washers and dryers or appliances or something like that? And he said, that’s a cool idea.
Tim MacLeod — You’re good at the phones and iPads thing. And I definitely like, you’re good at the negotiations, all that. But don’t start eight grand in debt. That’s so stupid. Why don’t you just borrow my trailer and just try it? And I said, well, I don’t have a, I don’t have a hitch on my car. He said, get a hitch on your car, buddy. Okay. So, put that on the Visa, did not have the money for it.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Tim MacLeod — Put that on the Visa, put a two inch two inch hitch and four prong wiring on Mazda 5 like the little four cylinder, little mini minivan.
Rich Birch — Oh, I wish I would have saw this at that. I wish I would have s seen this at this phase. Cause that, that, that would have been amazing to see him getting pulled around.
Tim MacLeod — It was it was pretty cute and it was a big trailer too 12 by 6 aluminum being pulled by this little aaaaahhh. And it was stick shift and and…
Rich Birch — Nice.
Tim MacLeod — …and the first day I got the trailer, the only thing I could find, because I was just itching to use it, was a free couch. And it was one of those beige microfiber, like gets dirty if you look at it wrong.
Rich Birch — All right. Yes.
Tim MacLeod — Like they hold on to every water stain.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Tim MacLeod — And it was that and it was free and it needed a little bit of TLC. And I went and I got it for free. Brought it home and with a damp cloth, scrubbed out all the little marks and had it looking good. Took a picture of it, listed it with an offer of delivery and it sold the next day for 280 bucks.
Rich Birch — Wow. That’s amazing.
Tim MacLeod — It was awesome. Because a nursing shift net was like 180.
Rich Birch — Wow, OK.
Tim MacLeod — I think I was, I think I was 28 bucks an hour for an eight hour shift after taxes. Yeah. Probably like 180 hit the account.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Tim MacLeod — And so 280 for that. And it was one of those trips of free meal at, at the in-laws and then a free couch and then bring it home and then solve somebody’s problem of, I just got an apartment. I don’t have a car or my car’s too small and I need a couch.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Tim MacLeod — And their option was, rent a U-Haul or go to Leon’s and finance something that comes delivered. Both are not very good options for most people. And then lo and behold was this guy who said, I got a couch, I can bring it by. And it was just the easiest yes for them. It was a win for everybody.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tim MacLeod — The person who needed the couch picked up, didn’t care about the money. They needed reliable pickup more than they needed cost recovery of the item because they had a deadline. I needed a way to make some cash and the person on the receiving end needed a couch that was affordable that came delivered. So it was just a win-win-win for everybody. I was like, okay, forget about appliances. Couches – I love this. And it was easy, it was it was easy enough to lift by myself.
Rich Birch — Did you ever do appliances? Did you ever do appliances in there?
Tim MacLeod — Yeah. I did a washer and dryer and ate a loss on that because it needed repair and I didn’t…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Tim MacLeod — …I paid for someone to assess and they were like, yeah, this thing’s broken. Was like, sweet. Okay. So a hundred bucks to you for, for, to tell me that it’s hopeless, and then pay for junk removal too.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Tim MacLeod — Like it was just such a loss. But couches, I could reliably sit on it and be like, well, that’s not broken. And I can handle that little stain or I can, my wife could stitch that up.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Tim MacLeod — And, uh, it was just so safe. And I loved it. If, if I were handier, I’m sure I could, flip snowblowers or lawnmowers or cars or something like that, but I’m not handy. I’m just, I have the ability to relocate stuff.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tim MacLeod — And so couches were just so perfect where I could just accurately be like, that’s 300 bucks to me.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tim MacLeod — And they only want 60 for it. Perfect. Let’s do that.
Rich Birch — So and let’s double click on that. A part of what, so friends, like with the reason why, I think you’ve seen why I’ve got Tim on the the line today. I want to inspire you to think like, hey, you you could in part-time make a little extra a month. And I’m going to get to that with Tim. I’m going We’re going hammer down on, okay, what exactly would be some of the first steps that you take? But let’s unpack a little bit more. You’ve talked about once this insight, which I think is just a stellar insight that’s obviously at the core of your business. It’s this whole timing thing. Like people, you know they think a couch is worth certain certain amount, but they’re moving on X date, and the value of that couch goes down. But then it’s literally the reverse. Someone on the other side, they have an empty living room and they’re like, I need something here.
Rich Birch — Unpack that a little more, kind of double click on… that value exchange and how you’re in the middle of that. What’s it talk us through what that looks like.
Tim MacLeod — Yeah, there’s there’s a gap. There’s a gap in the marketplace. On the one end, we’ve got people who need it picked up and their options are hope that someone will pay the price that they want. And then if they hit a deadline, then their option is junk removal or put it to the curb. And so there’s a gap to fill there.
Tim MacLeod — And then on the other side, there’s a gap of people who need a couch dropped off but can’t do it themselves. Like how many, what’s the population of people that own a truck that can actually do it is probably less than 10%. Most people have cars and hatchbacks and SUVs and stuff like that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tim MacLeod — And then there’s also the how many people can lift a couch. I would say easily less than half the population. And so there’s just this huge gap that can be filled. And so by just committing to being the dude, you can help a lot of people solve a lot of problems. And there’s a little slice in it for you too.
Rich Birch — So one of the things I’ve heard you say is that you have found this process of buying couches and then, you know, sitting on them for a while, maybe cleaning them a little bit and then turning around selling them is really flexible. Talk us through that. You know, it feels like you’re, you know, you’re, you have some time control. Talk us through what that looks like for you in your current world.
Tim MacLeod — Yeah, the time freedom is crazy. And that was the appeal in the beginning was [inaudible] I didn’t want to be strapped to a location, a building to to make money. I had to be away from my wife and kids. But when it, couches just took off so fast that the first time I flipped a couch, I immediately called the scheduling office and reneged on all of my overtime. I said cancel all my two shifts.
Rich Birch — Oh, wow.
Tim MacLeod — I’m done. I’m I’m I’m just doing my 10 shifts. And, and then it didn’t take too long before i wanted to quit so fast, man. I wanted to be out of there. My, my my passion for the, like, I was so replaceable. Like as soon as if if I’m gone, someone’s going to fill the shift.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Tim MacLeod — Like, ah but there was a, there was a huge, there was a need that, and it was fun for me too. It was a game. I forget the question.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I was just talking about the time flexibility, like how you feel like it’s, you know, you have a fair amount of time freedom. Part of what I’m trying to get to is pastors are busy people. Church workers are busy people. Is this even the kind of thing that they could fit into, you know, an existing as like a side hustle kind of thing?
Tim MacLeod — Yes. Yeah. The time freedom is crazy. And so on the buying side, I’m just letting people know when I’m available. And sometimes I’ll tie it up with ah with a $50 deposit so that they can market it sold with confidence and they know that I’m not going to ghost on them. And that I have the peace of mind of nice, that’s mine for when I need it. And I’ll squeeze them for a deadline so that I make sure that I’m providing the service of reliable pickup in a manner that works for them.
Tim MacLeod — But yeah, I’m just stacking pickups when it’s convenient for me. And in this current season, it’s during school hours.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tim MacLeod — So I’ll drop the kids off at school and then rip south and grab some stuff. But in that season, it was I’m available in the evening. And so I would come home from school, I’m sorry, work from my nursing job. And my wife would pack up, we pack up a little cooler bag of like a road picnic of dinner.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tim MacLeod — We had a one-year-old baby at the time and, uh, oh, that summer there was a lot of 50% off pizzas. Pizza Hut had a, the, the apps, we had all, all the apps, lots of road dinners.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Tim MacLeod — And Costco was clutch too.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Tim MacLeod — But, um, yeah, just when I had an availability, I would acquire inventory and then they’d sell when they sell. And and again, full flexibility of, okay, I’m available at this time. I can squeeze in a delivery or someone could come pick it up. But yeah, the the time freedom is crazy and it’s sweet to to to just dabble in profits instead of relying on a wage.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tim MacLeod — Yeah, time freedom is awesome.
Rich Birch — Well, you talked about the fact that your you know your brother was telling you you’re good at negotiations. I know there are people that are listening in today that are feeling like, oh, there’s no way that I would be good at negotiations. Obviously, you’ve got to buy the thing for considerably lower than what you’re selling it for. Talk us through even just a couple, help us get over that hurdle in our brains. Man, I just don’t know that I could do that.
Tim MacLeod — Yeah. So the first thing is I’m scrolling a lot. And not not frequently. I’m not glued to my phone. But when I do it, I lock in. Like today was the shopping session and it was headphones in with some instrumental music, just kind of vibing. And I’m probably scrolling, looking at probably 400, 500 couches.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Tim MacLeod — And I’ll message probably 20 to 30 of them. Because a lot of them are crap. A lot of them are actually new. There’s no opportunity with new coaches. like There’s lots of warehouse stuff that’s still on first Facebook Marketplace and stuff like that. But what I’m looking for is very specific. I’m looking for private sales from real people. You got to be able to spot the scammers and weed them out.
Tim MacLeod — And I’m looking for couches that I would want in my lockers. I’m not worried about the price whatsoever. Because the price is super subjective and it’s just kind of like what they’re hoping for. It’s not actually what they’re necessarily going to get. So the price is irrelevant. I’m just looking at pictures and I’m compiling lists of couches that I would want. And I’m starting conversations so that it’s kind of like I’m, I’m, it’s it’s like I’m offering my service. I’m starting the conversation to see why they’re selling it, if there’s a deadline, and if they would be someone who would be receptive to my service. And it’s kind of like they’re paying me for my reliable pickup service with a smoking and deal on a couch.
Tim MacLeod — And so I have to get them there. And it’s not just, I can’t just go around lowballing everybody because you burn the bridge and you hurt feelings.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tim MacLeod — So I’m starting conversations and I’m filling in the gaps on the item. So I’ll read the description and see what’s missing. Like, did they specify that there’s pets in the house? I want to know, is there pets? Are there smokers in the house? Does it need any repairs? Does it need any stain removal or restoration if it’s leather? And I’m filling in all the gaps. So I have a complete picture of what it is that I’m actually buying. And that’s all kind of like a trauma response from my many, many drives of shame of I didn’t ask the right questions.
Tim MacLeod — And so it’s it’s definitely preventing the drive of shame. And I’m just running through these scripts that I have. And it would sound like it’s a lot of typing, but I’ve actually made keyboard shortcuts for all of it. So my opening question is, I’ll never say, hi, is this still available? Because everybody hates being asked, hi, is this still available? On Facebook Marketplace, right? Because they’ve made it ah they’ve made it a button…
Rich Birch — Yes. That’s why it’s up.
Tim MacLeod — …where it’s just like, hi, is this still available? But that upsets people, which is fair, because it’s annoying. But at the same time, most people don’t have empathy for the fact that, how else are they going to start the conversation? Why would you ask questions if you’ve got someone lined up for it? So I’ll ask the exact same question, but in a way that annoys nobody. And I’ll say, is anyone scheduled to pick this up? It’s the same question, but upsets nobody.
Rich Birch — Same question, just in a different way.
Tim MacLeod — So that’s, that’s my first shortcut is, good morning, good good afternoon, good evening, whatever. And then any, and so on my keyboard, any with two wise expands into anyone’s schedule to pick this up. And then the next one is, does it need any repairs or stain removal? That’s if it’s fabric. And that’s does D or D O E S S and then D O E s S S S or with three S’s is, does it need any repairs or restoration? That’s if it’s leather. And so it’s just these quick little, my thumbs are just, and just…
Rich Birch — So cool.
Tim MacLeod — …I’m, I’m drafting up this quick little paragraph that fills in all the gaps, firing that over. And then, And then they’ll reply and fill in the gaps. And then I park it. I pause the conversation by saying, okay, awesome. Thanks so much. Just starting to have a peek at options, might get back to you.
Tim MacLeod — And that one line separates me from everybody on Facebook. Because most people ask a question and then they just leave it on read. They got that little picture, that little tiny profile picture of yourself that says that, hey, he read it, but he’s gone and it’s crickets.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Tim MacLeod — And it’s a very, very infuriating experience. And that’s kind of like part of my service is that I am very, very different on Facebook Marketplace. Like an experience selling to me is better than anybody…
Rich Birch — Right.
Tim MacLeod — …because of how I talk. Like I’ll receive offers every day from people that don’t use words. They just send a number.
Rich Birch — Just money.
Tim MacLeod — Like I’ve got a couch listed for 1150 and someone just sends 700 – no dollar sign, no question mark, no good morning, nothing like that. And, and that’s a fair offer. Like he’s…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Tim MacLeod — …I paid, I paid a fifth of that, like 700 is a fair offer, but I automatically hate this guy. I don’t, I don’t hate, I don’t hate him.
Rich Birch — Yes. No, I get what you mean.
Tim MacLeod — But, but it’s immediately just like, dude!
Rich Birch — Yes.
Tim MacLeod — You like say, say hi, say please.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Tim MacLeod — Even a, even a question mark would be, you know, so that’s the kind of people that I’m dealing with. And I’ve got thick skin and I always operate on the mindset of, I do want to sell this guy and I, and I do want to see him later today. So I’m not going to match his energy.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tim MacLeod — I’m never, I’m never a thermometer. I’m always a thermostat. I always set, set the temperature in the room, you know?
Rich Birch — Right. Love it. Yep.
Tim MacLeod — And so that’s ah that’s a big factor. But yeah, running through those scripts and and just getting people to their best price. And so after pausing it of, thanks so much, just starting to have a peek at options, I’ll reconnect with them.
Tim MacLeod — Now, this is this is if their price is optimistic and it’s not a price that I’m willing to pay. I’ll slow play it a little bit by pausing the conversation. And then I’ll come back and then I’ll hit them with my my secret weapon is my polite lowball offer. And the number they might hate the number, but it comes gift wrapped in this like apologetic, like, Hey, I’m…
Rich Birch — Oh, you got to tell me more that you’re, you’re setting that up. Well, you’re like, what is the polite low ball offer?
Tim MacLeod — For me, I’m shopping in Toronto, which is like 90 minutes, two hours away.
Tim MacLeod — And so my apologetic offer is: It’s so far, is there any chance you’d consider this much, any chance you’d consider for an out of towner? And then I just plug in the number. And, and it’s always received well. And even if it’s even if it’s even if they’re firm, that’s fine. Now I know.
Rich Birch — Right. It’s data.
Tim MacLeod — But and ah honestly, if somebody accepts my offer, then I didn’t offer low enough. Like I’m i’m really pushing the limit.
Rich Birch — Oh, interesting.
Tim MacLeod — I’m flirting with the line between an optimistic offer and a rude offer, but because I’m so nice about it. And it’s, it’s kind of like, it’s my secret weapon to get them to their best price. Because the the worst way to get someone to their best price is what’s your best price?
Rich Birch — Right.
Tim MacLeod — Like whenever someone asks me that, it’s again, it’s just like, that’s annoying. I don’t like you.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes. Right, right, right, right, right.
Tim MacLeod — But to politely lowball and then their counter is their best price. So I just want to squeeze them for their counter offer. And now I know what their best price is.
Rich Birch — Right. Okay. That’s cool. There’s a lot there. And I know you’re want to stay tuned because Tim’s got an offer of some free help that he wants to give you that we’re going to, we’re going to get to here in a minute. So I know some of you were like, go back and ask questions on that. But I know that the free offer to help is going to help with some, some of those things.
Rich Birch — What about negotiation on the other side? So I get a sense of what you’re talking about to try to get them, you know, there’s a time thing there and we’re going to wait and all that. But now on the other end, you’re trying to obviously maximize or get the biggest money for that couch you just bought, bought. What are some things we should be thinking about on that? How are you offering the couches in a way that, you know, captures people’s imagination and says like, oh, okay, that’s this, I want to do business with this guy.
Tim MacLeod — So a big thing is where I’m selling it. It’s almost like I have an import business. It’s that I’m I’m ripping down the city and I’m shopping in the Tesla BMW neighborhoods where nobody has trucks and they sell really slowly.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Tim MacLeod — And I’m loading a trailer and then bringing it home to the sticks where there’s not as much supply. And I’m selling to people who do have pickup trucks. Like where I live, there’s lots of people with trucks and trailers, but they weren’t doing that drive to the city like I did.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Tim MacLeod — So I’m destroying a Toyota Highlander in kilometers, which is really hard to do. It’s at 400,040 and she ain’t quitting anytime soon. It’s been a great car.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Tim MacLeod — So that is definitely like the fact that it feels like an import business feels like cheating.
Rich Birch — Well, and can I just, I just want to interrupt you for a second here. This, because that dynamic, this is a part of why I wanted to have you on the show. Because one of the things that I’ve seen is like, it’s super common, like super common for church leaders to not live in the community that they serve. Because frankly, they can’t afford to live there because of that gap that I just told you about.
Rich Birch — There is a wage gap between what people make and the communities they serve in. And so they typically live you know, 45 minutes, an hour away. I actually think that that, the fact that they’re just driving into the office could be, and then going back to wherever they live, could actually set them up for running this kind of business just because they’re in and out of where they’re at.
Tim MacLeod — Oh, yeah. Yeah, that’d be cheating. If you could, if you could grab a couch on your way home from on your way home from work to bring it back to the sticks, that’d be awesome.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah. I see that all the time.
Tim MacLeod — For sure. And at a lot of…
Rich Birch — So the distance is one way. So there’s like an import out, out, port anything else that you get, it’s kind of an interesting part of how you negotiate on to try to increase the, the, the price.
Tim MacLeod — Knowing what it’s worth and how quickly it would sell is definitely a factor. And just patience wins on both sides.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tim MacLeod — Being the dude who um can pick it up and someone is now, they had their optimistic kick at the can and now it needs to go and their patience has run out. Patience wins there. And then on the selling side to where I don’t, it’s not in my foyer. It’s not in my living room. The new couch hasn’t arrived. It’s in a storage locker ready to be picked up anytime. And my lockers are fairly affordable being in a rural spot.
Tim MacLeod — And so it’s kind of like if if we were playing poker, I’m holding aces. I can deliver it. I can sell to anybody. I’m not relying on people on the small demographic who can pick it up. I can sell to the Honda Civic crowd. I can sell to seniors who can’t lift a couch themselves. I can finesse it into a patio door by myself. And so there’s the there’s the skill gap there as well. And all of the all of the hindrances that make selling a couch difficult are not a factor for me. I can lift them by myself. I can I have the best trailer. I have storage lockers. They can take as long as they need to sell. And I live in a market where there’s not as much supply. So it’s just, it feels like cheating. Like I’m just really, really set up for it. And it’s super easy to be patient.
Rich Birch — Now, I don’t know if I’m going to force you to give away one of your secret weapons here, but talk about the videos that you shoot ah of the, you know, of the products. Because i to me, I think this is one of the things you do that I think is super unique. What is what’s unique about the videos that you might shoot? Say got this nice leather couch. It’s like, you know, it sells for $5,000 somewhere else. You’re selling it for whatever, $1,500, $2,000. What’s actually in that video that might set your your listings apart?
Tim MacLeod — Yeah, so that was something that I feel like I pioneered. And since then, Facebook has now added a feature where you can add a video to a listing. But it’s so nice to have. So I’m I’m posting flattering photos. So it’s it’s a scroll stopper when they’re on Marketplace.
Tim MacLeod — And they’ll inquire. And then my video is super, super honest. And the goal is for it to be so detailed that they could confidently say, okay, he just showed me all the reasons not to buy the couch because all my stuff is used. I’m not selling anything new. It’s all pre-owned. They all have some blemishes or some quirks or worn spots or something like that. But to include ah a video that shows all of the reason not to buy it really, really greases the wheels because no one’s coming to see a couch and then being disappointed when they get there. Everything was already shown.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Tim MacLeod — So they’re coming to just give, basically just come sit and sniff and make sure that it’s something that they would want in their house, or something they’d want to sit on for two hours a day. And, um, and so those videos really, really saved me so much time and gasoline. And since then they’ve added that where you can add a feature. So, or where you can add a video into the listing. And so as long as the video is less than a minute, so I’m aiming for 59 seconds, I’ll fill the whole thing and I’m showing every inch of it and I’m packing it with dialogue on the neighborhood that it came from, the people, the house. And a lot of times that’s a selling feature of this this couch came from North York. The house was ridiculous.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tim MacLeod — It’s one of those houses with three living rooms. And this is the one that had the Christmas tree for a month a year. Like this was barely used. And I’m just packing it with dialogue and really, really selling it.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Tim MacLeod — And my goal is that I could deliver it with them like sight unseen that they could firm up. And that when that couch arrives, there are absolutely no surprises. It’s everything they ask for [inaudible]…
Rich Birch — Which from from your point of view, like this isn’t the only couch you’re hoping to sell this week. And and a part of the way that you have to protect your time and protect your business, frankly, is not having a bunch of people come and check out couches and then decide against it. Whether they’re coming to your locker or you’re driving it to their place. That’s like the worst case scenario is they show up and they’re like, oh, I don’t want this. So you might as well be fully upfront and be like, hey, here’s some stuff that’s not great about it.
Rich Birch — And you do it in a really clever way. I love those videos. You helped me sell a car, which was fantastic. And I love the video you did for, you know, for that, because it was the same thing. It was this kind of like fun, um you know, here’s five reasons why you shouldn’t buy this, which which is just endearing. People, you know, lean in and want to hear more about that.
Rich Birch — Well, what about the lifting piece? So, you know, if you’re not seeing one of these clips, Tim is a man of a certain size. He’s got some girth to him. He can pick stuff up. But what if I can’t? What if I’m not that guy? What if it more like me? You know, you’re like, hey, I’m not sure that guy can pick up 20 pounds. Like, is that like, I know that’s a part of what your you offer. Obviously, it’s a part of your advantage. But, you know, not everybody can do that. Talk us through that hesitation.
Tim MacLeod — Yeah, I don’t think that it’s a deal breaker for having success. I think that if you can carry in a stubborn load of groceries in from the house that you could make a lot of money flipping couches.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Tim MacLeod — And it it feels like a very unique form of laziness. Like I’m the kind of guy that if I need to go start start the barbecue or go run and grab my wallet from the car, I’m going to walk across the whole house and look for my flip flops instead of bending over and lacing up my boots that are right there. Like it’s a very unique form of laziness where I could jackknife park the trailer up to the storage locker. I have the dolly, but I’d way rather just, hey-yep-hey-yep-pep-pep just, just he-man lift it myself. And I’ve got a lot of really good mechanics lifting it.
Tim MacLeod — Lifting a couch solo actually is not very heroic. And, and I’ve taught a lot of people how to do it. And there is, there are some heroic angles where, where the couch is on the ground and all four feet are on the ground to like clean and jerk it up overhead is that would definitely take some mass and some explosive power, but you can always also lift the couch up from the side until it’s vertical and then kind of like let it teeter and, fall on you in ah in a safe manner. And the lift itself, like once it’s up, it’s it’s as easy as like portaging a canoe. It’s not it’s not as heroic as it seems.
Tim MacLeod — And I’m still reliant on other people. I am a one man show and it’s not, the money’s not good enough to pay an employee to sit in the car with me for four hours for 30 seconds of actual work. And so that’s one of my, one of my questions that I’m asking people, lift with two T’s on my phone expands into is anyone available to help me lift it? I’ll be alone. So I do need muscle.
Tim MacLeod — And, um, if it’s in the garage, I can do it solo, like dragging a couch onto my trailer is easy enough. They slide very well. And I do have the dolly if there’s anything overly technical, like the pullouts, it’s nice to have a dolly. But yeah, a lot of the times there’s people, there’s someone there to help me lift it. And very, very rarely is it, sorry, I had back surgery or sorry, I’m a single senior lady or something like that. There’s usually, and even even when they say that, sometimes I’ll press a little further. Like, do you have a helpful neighbor?
Rich Birch — Right. Meet us.
Tim MacLeod — Do you have a son-in-law who can who could that I could coordinate with? Yep. And a lot of times I’m just handing it, or I’m squeezing them for a cell phone number of whoever the the muscle is. And now I’m on their schedule.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool.
Tim MacLeod — So solo lifts are not required, but they are, they are helpful sometimes, especially at the locker when I’m by myself.
Rich Birch — So this is how many years you’ve been doing this full time? Like you, so you left nursing, you know, I know this goes way back to the beginning the story. You left nursing and then how many times, how many years you’ve been doing this?
Tim MacLeod — July, 2019, I borrowed the trailer from my brother. And I did full-time nursing plus evening couches for about a year, pulled back from full-time to part-time, part-time to casual. And I think it was May, 2021. Like I did a year of COVID nursing and hated every second of it. Like as soon as COVID was announced, I wanted to be out of there, but I had mortgage approval on the brain and T4 income, or W2 income for the Americans, is much more preferred for lenders than self-employed income. So I held on for that reason. And eventually left just because I hated nursing. I was getting like ulcers on my ears from wearing masks all day. Just the the charades of COVID were really, really ruining it for me.
Rich Birch — So we’re going I want to get to that, that help that you’re, you know, you’re offering, which is fantastic. But I want to think about like a person that, you know, they, we want people to stay in their jobs. We don’t want them necessarily to leave. And so ah somebody that wants to make maybe like an extra thousand bucks a month, maybe that’s like, which is, you know, to lots of people, that is like a, that’s a game changer. Like that’s like, that makes all the difference in the world.
Rich Birch — Give me a sense of what you think that would take to actually get to that point where, okay, yes, I could, you know, how much time do you think they would need to invest? You know, what would, what is that going to look like? How many couches do you think I’d have to move? You know, I know that’s hard to say. It’s like all North America wide, but give us a sense of kind of the framework of for an extra thousand bucks a month, what would that look like for somebody? Maybe it’s like a youth pastor that’s that’s listening in or an executive pastor. Or and they’re like, Hey, if I just had an extra 1000 bucks that’d make a huge difference in my life. What what would that look like?
Tim MacLeod — Sounds like five couches to me.
Rich Birch — Five couches. Okay.
Tim MacLeod — Buy them for 50, sell them for 250. Delivered. Yep. And that’s that’s a great way to start is just three-seaters. Just rinse and repeat. Three-seater, three-seater, three-seater. But the money is sets and sectionals. That’s where my focus is now.
Rich Birch — Okay, okay.
Tim MacLeod — Now that does require trailer privilege. But with a with a minivan, you can pick up a three seater. Most three seaters will fit inside a Dodge Caravan or an Odyssey or a Toyota Sienna. And that’s a really good way to start lean and mean with a U-Haul, enclosed trailer, you just need a V6 all wheel drive. So obviously preferred, especially if you have the kind of weather we do, but, um, yeah, for 45 bucks for a U-Haul enclosed, that’s, that’s insured so that you could get in an accident and you’re not paying for it. Always take the insurance. Always. It’s only like five bucks.
Tim MacLeod — But um yeah, 45 bucks for 12 by 6. And then you can pick up couch, love seat twice. But yeah, just fill in those trailers. But yeah, starting lean with what you have available and scaling up when it’s smart. And once you’ve proven that it’s possible in your market as well. But everyone’s using couches, so I think it’s good alright.
Rich Birch — Yeah, so five, so five couches. How many conversations do you think I’d have to get into take to buy five couches, maybe on that side first?
Tim MacLeod — I think, yeah, with the numbers, I think that if you were to start 30 conversations a month, that there would be, there would be five people that hit deadlines and they’d be like, sure. 50 bucks. If you can actually show up, it’s yours.
Rich Birch — Right. Right. That’s that feels very doable. That doesn’t feel like crazy out of reach. Like there’s no way that feels like a good, you know, a great starting point for sure.
Tim MacLeod — And nobody wants to do it. The barrier for entry is, is ah high enough that it’s it’s basically a private little fishing pond. A lot of people to help.
Rich Birch — Right. So let’s talk about, I want to, you’re going to help people, which is amazing. And so you’ve put together some resources to help them kind of get the the ball rolling on this front. And how do, first of all, tell us what it is and then talk to us about how we can get that contact information. We’ll put links and all that in the show notes, but talk us through this.
Tim MacLeod — Yeah. So those scripts that I was talking about, um, I’ve made a Google doc that is available. All you got to do is comment scripts on any of my videos and, uh, my little robot Tim will fire over, um, just squeeze you for an email and then I’ll fire that over. And, uh, it’s a good little list and you can plug those in just copy and paste and plug them into keyboard shortcuts in your phone. And then you can use those.
Tim MacLeod — And it doesn’t have to be for couches. Like a lot of them are pretty couch specific, but just using those as inspiration for starting conversations and getting people to their best price and making sure that you have all the information so you’re making an informed purchase and there’s not any surprises. And and you’ll see with the with the flow of the conversation, I really am just gifting the blueprint on getting people to their best price.
Tim MacLeod — And yeah, and then in my in my bio on instagram I’ve also got the couch course and I’ve run that before as a high ticket offer um and I had help from an agency to, to get leads and all that stuff. And I didn’t like it cause I didn’t like how much people were having to pay in order for me to afford that team. And I just want it to be an impulse buy price range.
Tim MacLeod — So for a one hundred bucks, you can come along on a three month ride along with me while I’m pulling like $15,000 months. And, uh, the summer that I recorded that, was 2023 and I did 180k in sales with a gross profit so just sales minus cost of goods was north of a 100k, I think, after tax. I think it was like an 80k a year income.
Rich Birch — That’s amazing.
Tim MacLeod — And I had a three-year-old with me the entire time. My wife had gone back to work and was using her teaching license and I had a little three-year-old tow. And I also got 75 rounds golf in that year. So it’s, it’s…
Rich Birch — That just got some people’s attention. Yeah, that’s amazing.
Tim MacLeod — Yeah. The time freedom is stupid. The money is incredible. And, uh, it was, yeah, that was a really, really fun year.
Rich Birch — Love it. So what we want to do is send people to your Instagram. Would that be the best? So @thefulltimeflipper, @thefulltimeflipper. And again, you can just comment on any one of his videos.
Rich Birch — Well, first of all, Tim’s a great follow on social media. I’ve said this to lots of folks. It’s just such a fun follow. You know, it makes something like flipping just like I was like, man, I think I could do that. And, but just comment scripts on any of those and we’ll get access to those scripts.
Rich Birch — And then if you’ll find the link to tim-macleod.com on there as well, which takes you to the course, it’s only a hundred dollars friends. That’s worth your investment. It’ll, it’ll really literally outline. There’s a bunch we could have talked about today and there’s a bunch of details to get into. It will drive into all of those. Literally just take his approach and just do it. Like just, take his scripts, take the what he’s done and apply it. And you’ll for sure be able to find that extra thousand dollars a month or more, you know, down the road. So, yeah, I would love that. and Anywhere else we want to send them. So Instagram, @thefulltimeflipper, anything else about that?
Tim MacLeod — Oh, that’s lots. That’s good. And I was feeling pretty pretty silly that I never asked to come on your podcast earlier because a lot of my students are in church ministry in the States. And I think it’s such a sweet side hustle.
Tim MacLeod — For me, it was an escape from a job that I didn’t like. But the fact of that most people need supplementary income is pretty across the board and especially in ministry. And a lot of my students have um have had that background and are still in it. And a lot of the time, the people that are in church ministry have an advantage of storage where the church, like they’re like, oh, I got free storage at my church. Pastor said the back room is available. And he said, as long as I just keep a rotation of couches for the student ministry…
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s a good call.
Tim MacLeod — Yeah, there was a lot of advantage there for church leaders. But yeah, it’s awesome, reliable, supplementary income. And it’s nice to not rely on your ministry for income. Like people aren’t in ministry for the big bucks. They’re there because they that is their purpose. That’s their calling. But the pressure of having to rely on that for income isn’t always the best.
Rich Birch — Well, and I do think, um you know, I think folks who are in church ministry, a part of what I why why I think this is great that we’re talking about this is you might underestimate that even like a part of your core, it’s like literally core to your business is like, be kind to people and like be helpful.
Tim MacLeod — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And, you know, you don’t need to be sleazy. You don’t need to be, ah you know, some sort of like, oh, you’re like a used car salesman of couches. No, that’s not what it is at all. You’re just being kind and helpful and you want to try to close this gap in the market. And and I think there’s a lot of people in ministry who are like, my I could totally do that. I can make that happen for sure. So, Tim, I really appreciate this.
Tim MacLeod — It really does feel like stewarding my gifts, you know?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. So again, that is, if you just go to Instagram, @thefulltimeflipper, you should follow them there and then comment scripts for any of those. Appreciate you being on the show today, sir. Thanks so much.
Tim MacLeod — Thanks, man.
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Scott Landry, Senior Pastor of The Bridge in Ontario. Scott first joined the church in 2013 as a worship and student pastor before later stepping into the senior pastor role.
Is your leadership marked by hidden wounds? Do you struggle with vulnerability in your ministry? Are you fighting the wrong battles—externally and internally? Scott recently released his first book, The Fight, a raw, deeply reflective look at the internal battles that shape our lives. Tune in as Scott’s story of redemption after hitting rock bottom offers an honest, hopeful picture of what it looks like to stop hiding, confront the truth, and let God rebuild what was lost.
- Honesty after years of hiding. // After ten years as a “professional Christian”, hiding behind his seminary degree, thriving ministry, external success, Scott’s internal life was crumbling. His marriage ended, his relationship with his daughter was severed, his ministry collapsed, and he hit emotional and spiritual rock bottom. That collapse became the catalyst for transformation—choosing vulnerability and refusing to fake spiritual health.
- Sharing scars, not open wounds. // Leadership requires discernment about transparency. Scott embraces the principle: share your scars, not your wounds. There is a kind of vulnerability that belongs with counselors, trusted friends, and Jesus alone—and another kind that can help others heal. For Scott, his book, The Fight, became a way to share healed places that might help protect others from making the same mistakes he had. Vulnerability isn’t weakness; rather, it’s a gift. The act of going first as a leader gives others the courage to do the same.
- Fighting the right battles. // One of the dangers we face is fighting the wrong battles. Scott uses the story of David and Eliab to illustrate how church leaders often get pulled into conflict—criticism, social media arguments, internal comparison—and miss the “Goliath” right in front of them. We often fight against the people we are supposed to fight for, especially in ministry. Learning to focus on the right fights is essential for healing.
- The breaking point—and the voice of God. // One of the most powerful moments in his journey is when Scott found himself alone, isolated, and furious at God. In an explosive moment of honesty, he shouted, “I don’t even believe in You anymore!” And then he sensed God say: “Then who are you yelling at?” That moment shattered his illusions. His anger, he realized, was evidence of God’s presence. God had been waiting for Scott at the place of his deepest anger—the place he had avoided his entire life.
- Pain as preparation. // Drawing from Joshua’s story and the painful preparation before Israel entered the Promised Land, Scott argues that discomfort often precedes destiny. The battles we face now equip us for battles ahead. Instead of asking God to end the fight, ask God to form you through it. Scott’s leadership has since been shaped around embracing discomfort—having hard conversations early, sitting with difficult emotions, and obeying God before understanding.
- Obedience in writing the book. // Writing The Fight began as an act of pure obedience. Scott resisted God’s nudge for a year, until finally acknowledging that he couldn’t ask God to bless one area of his life while disobeying Him in another. Once he opened a blank document, the first draft poured out in just three days. The writing became a healing process—one he initially believed was meant only for his children. The surprise has been how deeply his congregation has embraced his honesty and resonated with his story.
Visit www.bridgechurches.ca to learn more about The Bridge, and pick up Scott’s book ,The Fight, on Amazon. To connect with Scott, find him on Instagram at @scottmlandry.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. You are going to be rewarded today. We’ve got a great conversation lined up. I have my friend Scott Landry with us. He is the lead pastor at a fantastic church called The Bridge in or just outside of Ottawa, Ontario.
Rich Birch — He joined the team in 2013 as the pastor of worship and student ministry and now serves as the senior pastor. Just being totally honest, friends, Scott and I are friends in real life. So it’s, these are actually, I find some of the funnier conversations because it’s like this weird conceit of like, we’ve got microphones between us and all of that. So, but Scott, welcome. So glad you’re here today.
Scott Landry — Honored to be here with you, and better yet to be your friend.
Rich Birch — This is going to be good. This is I’m really look looking forward to today’s conversation. So, um ah dear listener, I’m just going to pull back the the curtain. I really want you to listen in. Scott is an incredible leader and is doing, there’s lots of different things we could talk about, the way you’re using his his leadership and the church is growing and making an impact. And he’s got a bunch of platinum problems that he’s trying to figure out. And you know, where to get space and all that. But, but actually is none of that I want to talk about today. Actually, earlier this year, Scott released and a book. He wrote a book called “The Fight”. And what we’re going to talk about today is a little bit of the content, what it’s about and what led him to that process. And and then about ah the impact on ah his church. And I really want you to listen to in friends, think there’s a lot we can we can take out of this.
Rich Birch — Why don’t you, how do you describe the book? When you, someone says like, oh, you wrote a book? What’s that on? I’d love to hear that. I’ve read the book, friends, so you just so you know.
Scott Landry — Yeah, um it’s honestly somewhat of an autobiography, but it’s also a personal therapy session that’s on paper. It’s a little bit of biblical perspective in light of those things. And then I think hopefully pointing people who might read it to some level of personal insight or maybe personal application to both, both my story and also more importantly, the scriptural kind of you know, underlying and all of it.
Scott Landry — So yeah, it’s not a self-help book, but I think it’s a self-reflective book.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Scott Landry — And kind of hoping that people, yeah, hoping that people might see their story in the midst of mine. And and what what are the things that connect or are kind of similar threads through everybody’s story. And, uh, and, and it was, it it was, it was the cheapest version of therapy I could come up with, really. It was a lot of just kind of looking at my life and trying to make sense of it and and trying to find, find words for feelings I didn’t even know I felt. And, uh, yeah. And so just kind of putting it all out there for myself and also, for my kids and then, you know, the, the, you and the three other people that might read it. So it’s great.
Rich Birch — Ah, and that’s not true. A lot more people than that have read it. At the core of this book, and we’ll get into this, friends, but at the core of this book, I would say it’s a high level of transparency. Like you are, you know, you let people in on, hey, here’s some stuff that I’ve been wrestling with, you know, over these years.
Rich Birch — And I think most pastors think they should be transparent. That always hasn’t been the case. I’ve been in ministry long enough that there was a time where I think people actually wanted religious leaders who seemed perfect and were like…
Scott Landry — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …they’re these like, they’ve got their whole life together. That’s not the case anymore. People are looking for, and I think leaders want to be transparent. We want we want to kind of be honest with people. But the stakes sometimes feel higher for some reason. So what kind of led you to the place where you’re like, hey, I want to be vulnerable in a way, ah in written form, with your people, with the community around you?
Scott Landry — Yeah, that’s a great question. Honestly, I think it was the fact that I hadn’t been authentic and vulnerable for too long and then lost everything because of it. You know, obviously I write in the book about my journey. I was a pastor for 10 years. I had a a seminary degree and didn’t have an unSeminary one, but I had the degree on the wall and I had, you know, the…
Rich Birch — The real one, the real one.
Scott Landry — They’re the real one. Yeah. And, uh, but I had all of that. I had 10 years of, of experience standing on stages and preaching the gospel and sharing who Jesus was. And, but the truth is I never really bought what I’d been selling, like in a personal, intimate way. And I wouldn’t say I was good at selling it, but I, but certainly, you know, had been doing it long enough, and and and and in some ways had been successful doing that. like Like good things were happening, ministry was growing, you know people were excited. And so then there becomes this like, oh, well, the lie, it’s amazing the lies that we can tell ourselves and the things that we can convince ourselves of.
Scott Landry — So as a professional Christian for 10 years, you know, talking about but all these things and then my own life being a complete mess. And so as a leader, I’m sure other leaders that are listening to this can relate like I’m a dreamer. I always have been, always will be. But I was living a nightmare. And and for I was I had actually become a villain in my own story.
Scott Landry — And and and I lost everything. A marriage fell apart. A relationship with my daughter, it was was severed at a very young age. She was four. Ministry was over. Like it was it was all done in an instant. And so 10 years of of hiding and not being, not authentic just for the people, but to my own self. And so when God resurrected my life and resurrected ministry, which I never thought was gonna happen, I was like, that that can’t ever happen again.
Scott Landry — And so I wanted to kind of be someone who would lead by going first and saying, you know, and, and so I’ve been vulnerable and transparent from the pulpit. But this was something else. And, and I still am not sure why God prompted me to do this, but, but I would say, I never, I never want to go back to hiding.
Scott Landry — And I think, I think we hide for a lot of reasons. I think there’s pastors or leaders listening to this. We hide, ultimately, I think we can give all the excuses we want, but it’s like, who you going to tell? Who you and what are you going to tell them? And and the minute you do, it’s like, well, then I’m going to be disqualified. I’m going to lose my job. Like, so it’s like, we kind of do this thing where I think I shared with you before. It’s like, I’m going to, we we almost force ourselves into a corner and convince ourselves we’re going to fake it till we make it. And ultimately what ends up happening is we fake it till we’re found out.
Scott Landry — And and that’s, I mean, we’ve we’ve heard so many stories of that. And I was just like, that happened to me and I would hate for it to happen to anyone else. And I certainly am not going to let it happen to me again.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I, friends, you can see why I’ve had Scott on today. There’s a lot here to, I think that all of us need to wrestle with. In fact, one of the, when I didn’t, didn’t even told you this, this is one of the the things I was, when I was reading it, um I had a mentor, a guy I worked for earlier in my career who his life has spectacularly failed. He had to has one of these situations that’s just blown up, and ministry’s blown up and all that.
Rich Birch — And ironically, I find there’s ah multiple things about his leadership that I carry with me. And one of the things that I remember him saying very early on was he was like, there’s this interesting dance we do as leaders where we let people in. We know we have to let people into our, into our story, but we only let them in far enough.
Scott Landry — Yeah.
Rich Birch — We only let them in some, to something. And you’re always going to draw that line somewhere. The question is, where do you draw that line? And, um you know, you’ve chosen to to be very open and say, hey, this is my experience. This is who I’ve been here. And you kind of cast it in the book, not kind of, it’s literally called “The Fight”. You cast it in the book as an internal fight, the stuff beneath the service that shapes ultimately who we become. How do you discern, where are you drawing that line? How much are we able to, how transparent can we really be?
Scott Landry — Yeah. That’s a great question. I think for me, it’s a few things. I’m not sure who said it. Um, but I, I, I’ve heard it said multiple different ways, but like, you know, you share your scars, not your wounds. So I’ve kind of, I think there’s a lot of truth to that. So for me, it’s like, if I’m still bleeding, that’s for therapy. That’s for trusted friends. That’s for my wife. That’s for Jesus.
Scott Landry — But if it’s a wound that has, that is healed, and somebody can see their story in it and it’s helpful for them as either they’re still bleeding or or it could prevent them from getting hurt, then to me it’s worth sharing.
Scott Landry — I’ve kind of come to the conclusion in my life, vulnerability isn’t weakness. it it’ it’s It’s actually it’s actually a gift. It’s there there is something to vulnerability in sitting with someone. You and I have done this without microphones in front of us. And we’ve we’ve told things to each other with tears in our eyes. And there’s something powerful that happens. That is a gift that you give someone. And it’s a gift for for what you give them and what you share to them.
Scott Landry — But it’s also the gift to them that’s like this could, I could actually do this myself. It’s freeing for me to be given this gift to know it might not be with you, but with someone I could do that too. And, and that gift, I don’t think we truly understand how freeing and the weight that could be lifted by going first in that way. So for me, I’ve just decided that’s that’s who I’m going to be moving forward. So that the book is “The Fight” and because life is a fight. And to me, vulnerability and authenticity are worth fighting for.
Rich Birch — I’d love to dig into some of the some of the stuff that you actually talk about in the book, kind of dig a couple layers deeper. You write about the danger of fighting the wrong battles that we can find ourselves in conversations that we we shouldn’t be in. You know, pulling out this… talk us through that. How does that relate? How have you seen that in your life?
Scott Landry — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And then what is that? How do you lead differently out of that? Because, you know, how do we pick the right battles? Talk me through that.
Scott Landry — Yeah, I think it’s a personal thing. It certainly applies to leadership as well on a personal level. I think many times we fight, we fight with the people we’re supposed to fight for.
Scott Landry — I think we fight amongst family members and, and then, you know, times goes by and you’re like, was that even worth it? I think, so I think those things happen. It’s like, how many fights have you had with your spouse? And it’s like I’m supposed to be fighting with you, not against you. Like we’re supposed to be in this together. And I’ve seen that happen in leadership too. It’s amazing to me how church people can, can hurt each other and and fight with each other and over things like carpet and and song selections and song volume and and preaching styles.
Scott Landry — And so for me in leadership, it’s fighting the wrong battles. I talk about it, the David and Eliab thing, and you know, on the, on the battlefield where Goliath is kind of waiting in the wings and it’s really the main event. And, so much could have been so different if David had wasted his time in that argument. And, and he would have been justified in doing it. I mean, his, his character was being questioned. I mean, that’s worth fighting against. And it’s like, David’s like, I don’t get time for this, right? And I think how many of us as leaders spend so much time in the comment section, we’re fighting critics and we’re missing out on the giants.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Scott Landry — You know, you, you, like that that in our culture, I think, is a huge one for leaders. And it’s like…
Rich Birch — Yeah, big deal.
Scott Landry — …oh, we’re so…And and I’m I’m guilty of that. You know we’re the other one I struggle with, I’m sure no one listening to this could can relate to this, but I spend so I spend so much time spending energy on who’s left, and not who’s here or who could be coming. And it’s like, and and you know what? Many times the people who’ve left, they were never really here anyway. Now that’s not to say we haven’t done something wrong at times and hurt people, but it’s like, man, I’ve I’ve spent so much time trying to convince that one person. Cause I’m like, oh, Jesus would leave the 99 to go after the one. And I’m like, maybe not that one. No, I’m just kidding.
Rich Birch — That’s good. I like that.
Scott Landry — But you know what I mean? Like but…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Scott Landry — …but we do. And and it’s it’s tragic how how distracted we can become. And and we we miss out in the fights that matter most because of ones that weren’t worth fighting to begin with.
Rich Birch — Well, and this this is why we’ve seen a lot of pastors make the decision, church leaders make the decision, like, I just need to step back from social media. Because it’s like, you know, it’s like it’s like it’s set up for us to pick fights with other church leaders.
Scott Landry — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Like, it’s like, you know, that people are out there and there’s and there seems like there are for whatever reason, there are ah brothers and sisters in the faith who, who think that it’s their job to agitate, like that they’re like the professional agitators out there. And it’s like, so then we’re fighting with some other pastor or whatever, but that’s not, that’s like a total distraction from our mission. Like this, who, that person’s going to Jesus is going to be fine. Like, what about, like you say, the people that aren’t here yet.
Rich Birch — There’s a moment in the book where you describe kind of being hitting a rock bottom or hitting an emotional bottom and crying out to God. Would you mind opening up a little bit about that? What did that teach you?
Scott Landry — Yeah.
Rich Birch — You know, what God meets us when, when all our strength runs out.
Scott Landry — Well, yeah, that the, I mean, that I hope that’s a powerful moment in the book because it was it genuinely the most powerful moment in my life. And this was this was kind of at the crescendo of my my breaking point. So after after, you know, my my marriage and my my my life specifically falling apart. And I kind of lived in a place of isolation. I was living in, in, in, in the North, Canadian North. And, I was, yeah, I was lost. I was, I was angry. Like I had so much anger. And it was, so yeah, I talk about in the book. And, and, uh, I was angry and ultimately I was angry at myself, but I was also angry at God.
Scott Landry — And, um, because even after, again, making a mess of my own life. Like He didn’t make a mess of my life. Nobody made the mess of my life. I made the mess of my life. And, but then after that, I was trying to do everything right. And I was trying to, you know, do the right thing, do the right thing. And I was like, God, when are you going to start intervening on my behalf. And so, you know, being the the preacher that I am, I was like, I got all the Bible verses that tell me that you’re going to like now is you’re going to do the redemptive thing. You’re going to show up, you’re going to move, you’re going to fix, you’re going to redeem, you’re going to restore, you’re going to repair, you’re going to do all the R words. And, and nothing was happening. Like it was like…
Rich Birch — Right.
Scott Landry — …and, and it was almost as if I, heard and I literally heard nothing. And I’d like to say I didn’t feel anything, but I did. It was just this, this anger that was welling up inside of me, like a, like a pot boiling. And eventually it just, I just became unhinged. Like I was alone. And I was completely isolated. I was in this, you know, empty house and I just started crying out like, and yelling out. And I threw, I threw things. I used words I’ve, I’m ashamed to admit I used. Like, I mean, I was as unhinged as could possibly, I was like, I gotta, if I saw you face to face, I would give you the thing. Like I told him all this stuff.
Scott Landry — And, and what I found in that moment was like, and again, I talk about it in the book, but like I yelled, God, I don’t even believe in you anymore. I’m done. Like, like I don’t I don’t believe. You’ve promised me that you would never leave me. You would never forsake me. And that’s exactly what you’ve done. I’ve told people that you would never leave them and forsake them. And yet you’ve done that to me. You are you are dead to me. I don’t believe in you anymore. And I even now, I still feel this when I’m just talking about it. But like, this is, and this is, I know some people are going to roll their eyes at this. But like, genuinely, when I heard myself say that, I felt this like, over me, over my house. It was like this eerie like pause. And I heard, as if I’ve ever heard the voice of God, I heard a voice say, well, then who are you yelling at? And it was like this, like…
Rich Birch — Beautiful.
Scott Landry — …and in that moment, it was like, my anger was, it wasn’t my degree. It wasn’t my Bible. It was, it was my anger was my evidence that God was present right then and right there. And because my anger was directed at him. And he knew that I was angry with him.
Scott Landry — And he met me at the place of my anger. And he was waiting. And this is the part that I still, I can’t do this, what’s what’s in my head, into my heart justice. But it was God was saying, I’ve been waiting for you at this place your whole life.
Rich Birch — Wow. Right.
Scott Landry — You have been hiding from this anger from your childhood, from your young adulthood, and I’ve been waiting for you to meet me here at your anger. And I’ve I’ve wanted you to know that I would be here waiting for you. And if you met me on the top of the tallest mountain, and if you look me face to face, and if you were to give me the finger, you would find me there waiting because I am waiting at who you really are, not who you’re pretending to be.
Scott Landry — And everyone around you, you’ve got them fooled and you’re used car salesman and you can spin the Bible verses and you can do all that other stuff. But I know who you really are. And I’m waiting for you to finally be honest with yourself about who you really are. And now that you finally are, now we can do something about that together.
Scott Landry — And that was the moment that God truly revealed himself to me. And that’s when I, for the first time in my life, truly discovered who I was. And yeah, that that’s the moment that I hope anybody who ever meets me or talks to me or listens to me or reads in it, like that’s the part that I long for people to have before it costs them like it costs me.
Rich Birch — I just want to say thank you for for going there and talking about that. Because to me, that…and friends, you should pick up a copy of the book. I’m not trying to sell the book, but you should pick up a copy and actually…it’s worth it for this interaction. Because I think as pastors, people who are in what we do, I think we can give, we can put a varnish on all of this. And it and and I love that picture of you yelling at God. And then and then he’s like, well who are you yelling at? Like, what’s, what’s you you know…
Scott Landry — Yeah. You don’t believe it. You don’t believe in me, but you’re yelling at me. Yeah. Yeah. That’s it. Yeah.
Rich Birch — Yes. Like, I think, I think that is such a, I don’t know, there’s so much there. And I think it’s beautiful that you would open up about that and tell, talk to us here. I feel a little bit bad because I feel like I’m getting you to mine out like one of the best parts of the book, but that, um, at its core, I think would be hard for a lot of leaders to even admit to say, because by this point, friends, again, remember the pre-story, you had been a professional Christian for a long time. Like that that you had built your life around taking money from people…
Scott Landry — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …and doing this and came to that moment of crisis. So talk to me about the road back from there. So there’s obviously, you know, between there and today, you know, something happened. So talk us through…
Scott Landry — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …kind of what were some of those key steps? We’re not going to be able to cover all of it, but some of those key things that, that God used on that journey.
Scott Landry — Yeah. Well, the immediate one was that I needed to get away. I was living in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories at the time, and I needed to get to Ontario because that’s where my four-year-old daughter was. And that necessity was kind of the you know the spark of of God beginning a redemptive work in my life.
Scott Landry — And and then again, had never thought that I would be back in you know ministry in terms of you know a job or a career. I I I and iI wasn’t I had no idea what I was gonna do. And so I just did what I had to do to survive.
Scott Landry — And, and, and again, God just, it’s the, it’s, it’s all this cliches. It’s all the songs we sing. It’s, you know, he made beauty for ashes. He, he resurrected things I was certain was dead. And so, and, and there were, he was orchestrating things to, to, you know, provide another way for me to get back into what he called me to do, which, you know, again, I, I, it would take me a long time to, to get into it.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Scott Landry — But I, again, I think it was just, it was, I just took the steps I had to take because I, and, but they were the steps that he was preparing for me to take, you know?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Scott Landry — It’s and I, and I see that now, but it didn’t, it just felt like, like necessity then. But it was more than necessity. It was, it was intention. So, yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I don’t I don’t know if I’ve said this to you, but I think, in fact, I’m pretty sure I haven’t said this to you. One of the, you know, I mentioned, and and you know the person I’m talking about whose life fell apart. You know, one of my own reflections on that experience as a leader that was in that person’s orbit, pretty close to that orbit, in hindsight, um was we have to do a better, the collective we have to do a better job on helping people to talk about what’s going on on the inside in a way that doesn’t just immediately jump to, hey, like, you you know, you should not think that thought. Like, you know, we we need to be better at that. And I you think you’ve done a gift in this, you know, this with this book.
Rich Birch — One of the things you also talked about is this whole idea that comfort can be the enemy of our calling. And I wish you didn’t write about this, but because, ah you know, it’s like convenience is and comfort are organizing principles of culture, right? That is like our entire culture is based around how do I make myself more comfortable? And and it’s true. I agree. Like I’m, you know, I’ve been on the Peloton and I’ve felt discomfortable. And then at the end of that, I’m like, I’m glad I did that in the middle of it. I was hating it. I get that. Talk us through that. What’s that journey been like in this kind of return home? How has that played a, you know, a part of that as a part of the journey?
Scott Landry — Yeah, I think I think what I’ve learned is pain is always preparation. And and to me, I use the word always because I don’t see it never being that. I think there’s always something in in in a situation of discomfort or pain that is always preparing you for something that’s next for you or something that’s next for someone else that’s going to require you to be a part of it.
Scott Landry — So the pain that I go through a lot of times is is you know preparing my my son or my daughter. Um, and so it’s always preparation for something. And that’s what I write about in the book, the story of Joshua, you know, it’s, it’s the most uncomfortable thought in the world that, you know, the, the, before their greatest battle, they, they’re circumcised, as, as men. And it’s like, oh, you know, that’s, that’s one conversation when the kid’s like a couple days old or eight days old as it was supposed to be. But when you’re, you know, 18, 20, that’s a whole different conversation.
Scott Landry — And, Any guy that’s listening right now feels uncomfortable, but that’s, but that’s the point. God brought them to a place specifically to bring pain into their lives because of the destiny that he had for them.
Scott Landry — And I think that’s just true in life, you know, it’s, and, and, and going through those things is crucial. It’s always, there’s always something next. And I think that’s the thing that I’ve, and again, I use the analogy of the fight and I tried to do that in the book because I, you know, I’m not a fighter in terms of like, I don’t do, you know, mixed martial arts or anything. I love that stuff and I love watching it. And I love boxing, which the the movie Rocky was part of the inspiration for the book or at least the theme of it.
Scott Landry — And I think when you look like look at that stuff, what you always see is fighters fight a fight, so they can fight another fight. It’s like, I want to win this fight because I want to win this fight, but winning this fight sets me up for another fight that has greater reward for me.
Scott Landry — And so I’m I’m inspired to win this fight because it’s going to put me or it’s going to allow me to fight on another level and another dimension. And I think, you know, in leadership, I think the challenges or the platinum problems, as you call them, you know, I think those are preparation. They’re not just to solve and the problem itself to be solved. It’s also preparation for a problem that’s coming because of getting through this one.
Scott Landry — And I think when we start to see it that way and we can view the fight as like, I always pray that God will cause the fight to end. Like, God, just, just stop. Like, get me through this fight. Instead of praying, God, will you help me become the person in the midst of this fight that I need to be for the fight that’s coming down the road? It, that perspective, I think changes everything.
Scott Landry — And if as leaders, we looked at our current challenges and struggles as like, hey, this is just preparation for something bigger. I think we’d i think we’d go into it a whole lot differently. And I think we would be willing to endure it just and with a different mindset. And so, yeah, that’s that’s what I’ve I’ve come to discover my own life through this thing.
Rich Birch — Like our friend T.D. Jakes said, every level, a new devil. Like it’s like, right?
Scott Landry — Yeah, yeah, totally.
Rich Birch — This idea of like, hey, we’re going to get through this, but then that’s just going to open up something else that we got to get through. And I think that’s, I think it’s a great metaphor and is, I see too many people who are, and it could be, you know, people of my age or whatever.
Rich Birch — I must, you know, you reach a certain age with enough zeros on the end. You hit a couple of those zero birthdays. And then you look around at your friends and you’re like, the people that, that don’t inspire me are the ones that are hitting the coast mode.
Scott Landry — Yeah.
Rich Birch — That are like, Hey, I’m going to try to, i’m going to try to make life more comfortable. It’s the people that are saying, no, let’s lean in. Let’s look, what can we do next? What is the thing that God’s got for us? I love that. Well…
Scott Landry — Well, I tell people, oh, sorry, I was just going to say just…
Rich Birch — Go ahead. No, go ahead.
Scott Landry — …well, just to to kind of follow up on that. I think practically, what does that mean? Or what does that look like for us? Like, I you know, we talk to our staff all the time, right? I, you know, constantly tell them it’s like, to embrace that means in leadership, you’ve got to have uncomfortable conversations now because you’re going to have them anyway.
Rich Birch — Right.
Scott Landry — So comfort tells us, oh, like if I just let it go or if I just like, no, you’re you’re just prolonging the inevitable conversation. So have it now.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Scott Landry — You know, or or you sit with emotions that you’re feeling. You got to sit with them a little longer before you act on them. That’s not comfortable. We want to just, you know, so it’s that balance. Like it’s, It’s, ah you know, even obeying before understanding, right?
Scott Landry — Like, like you’ve got like all those lessons and those places of discomfort, I think are all preparation pieces for the greater thing. So…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good.
Scott Landry — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah. And even in the physical world, like I was thinking about this when I was on my Peloton prepping for this. And I know you have Peloton, that like there was a time when there would be numbers on the screen in front of me that those numbers felt like death. Like I’m like, this is not like, I can’t keep doing this. But then what happens over time is you, your body acclimatizes to that, right? You become healthier. You get your cardiovascular system, your VO2 max grows, and then you’re able to, ah you know, to carry more. And I think that is true in leadership. I think that’s true in our spiritual life. I think there is like a, you know, kind of bearing on the weight of it. And um yeah, I think that’s very true.
Rich Birch — Okay. I’d love to pivot in a totally different direction. So, you know, again, friends, you should pick up a copy of the book because I think it’ll be great. It’s spiritually enriching experience for you. I think this book could be helpful in like, there’s lots of conversations where I’m like, I think, I think this could be one of those books you have on your shelf. And you said, Hey, you know what, why don’t you read this book? This might help you think through, you know, might be a real encouragement. So I will, we’ll get to where you can get that in a minute.
Rich Birch —But I want to kind of talk more about kind of the meta experience of you as a pastor, writing a book, choosing to do that. When you first introduced me to this idea, I still remembered it. You were like, I do not want to write a book. I am writing a book. Like, and it was like this, I am compelled. It is by obedience that I am, who knows? I think literally the thing you said to me the first time, and it was through tears, was like, I’m not really even sure why like I’m doing this thing, who knows? So talk to me about that obedience. What did that first step look like? Kind of help me ah or understand the process. Talk about that a little bit.
Scott Landry — Yeah, it’s funny. You did a great version of me there. That’s exactly how I said it. And that’s exactly how I felt. And I honestly, I still feel that way, even now that it’s out there in in the world. Yeah, it was totally an act of of obedience.
Scott Landry — And so for context, two years ago, my family vacations in Florida. I, I have no shame. I mooch off my in-laws who have a condo there. My wife and I both lived there at one, at one point. So it’s kind of like going home.
Scott Landry — But anyway, long story, I was running on the beach. And, and I just, I felt like the Lord just stopped me and he gave me two very clear directives for the next chapter of my life. One was about the church and the other was to write a book.
Scott Landry — And the first one made complete sense to me. And the other one still makes absolutely no sense to me. I am not an, writer. I’m not an author. I’m not ah like, and who am I? Like all this kind of, you know, who am I syndrome started kicking in and and I was just like, whatever. So I came back two years ago and I got to work on the first one and ignored the second one.
Scott Landry — And I ignored the second one, writing a book for an entire year. And then on my birthday in September, I just, I felt like I was, I was genuinely like, how can I ask God to bless this first thing that he’s asked me to do if I’m being disobedient in this other thing that he’s asked me to do? And I, I don’t understand it. So to me, I’m, that justifies why I’m not doing it. And I was like, I’ve got to be obedient to this, whether I understand it or not. So that’s what I did. And so for me, obedience was opening a blank document. And just starting. And that’s what I did.
Scott Landry — And it was, and I don’t know if you’ve had this experience, Rich, but it was amazing to me. I’ve had writer’s block for sermons. This poured out of me…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Scott Landry — …in a way I was not expecting. Like it it was the draft that you read of the book or the first draft of the book was done in a little over three days.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Scott Landry — It just…
Rich Birch — Well, that surprised me even, you know, cause I remember you were, and that hasn’t been my experience with writing. It’s been like, I have found it like arduous. But I remember you’re like, Oh, I’m going away. I’m going to this thing. And then it was like, Oh yeah, I got it done. And I was like, wow. Like that’s, that’s incredible. That’s amazing. And then obviously then there’s all the editing and you got to actually get it.
Scott Landry — Well, yeah, I, yeah, everything after that was way longer than I or wanted it to be um um for sure.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Scott Landry — And way more than I expected it to be. But I think, I think I needed to me, to me, it was a piece of, it was a document that was basically like a therapy session that didn’t cost me anything other than time…
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Scott Landry — …that I needed to get a lot of stuff off my chest and and off my heart. And it just, I needed to open that document to do it. And I think maybe that is, and it didn’t occur to me until just now, that that may be the very reason that God wanted me to do it…
Rich Birch — Right.
Scott Landry — …was to free me of that so I could be released to do whatever has nothing about to do about the book. It just was his way of getting me to get through it.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Well, and I remember at one point, um hopefully I’m not outing something. We can cut this if you don’t want me to say this, but I remember at one point you were saying like, even if I just have it for my daughter, that would be a gift, right?
Rich Birch — Like it’s like for her at some point to read this would be, um you know, a gift. Actually, I know a friend of mine who has literally done that has written full books and literally got like got them printed and given it just to them for their kids.
Scott Landry — Yeah.
Rich Birch — You know, tens of thousands of words. So yeah, that’s, that’s, ah that’s incredible. So, you know, the writing of books in general, is I find the line between writing and thinking is very blurry. Like it’s like, it’s like almost in my mind, like it’s kind of the same thing. Like it’s the same activity. There’s obviously writing involved, but it’s like, it’s, it costs, it’s a, or it, it drives a lot of reflection, honesty, you know, thinking about all that stuff. Was there anything as you went through this therapy process of writing that actually just surprised you about like, Oh wow. Like that was either my reflection on that was different or, um, you know, we’re, you know, like anything surprised you through the process process?
Scott Landry — Yeah, there was a…good question. There was a couple things for sure. One of them was I had to go check. It’s amazing how your memory can be your greatest enemy. I remembered certain things a certain way and then going back and talking to my mother. Again, spoiler alert – I grew up in a single parent household. My mom is my hero, strongest woman ever.
Scott Landry — Anyways, and I write about her and, and my life growing up and what she had to do to get us through. So, so going back and, and, and really at as an adult, getting the details of what actually happened and what my perception of what happened happened. It was it was It was much worse than I understood…
Rich Birch — Oh, wow.
Scott Landry — …and what she endured and went through. And I gained a level of admiration from my, I thought I admired her, but I gained a level of admiration that is a gift. And, and, and every child should have the gift to see their parents the way that I see my mom. She is, she is amazing.
Scott Landry — So that, that’s one. The other one was, was I there was some things that I, I learned along the way. I think the first one was that I found was about the, the resentment that I had towards my father. And I, and, and I, as I was writing it, God just kind of revealed this to me that, that adapting, adapting to loss is different than than winning a fight. And I had adapted to the pain of what I had lost. And I thought that was the same thing as winning that fight against resentment. And they’re not the same thing.
Scott Landry — And that was that that was a real breakthrough moment for me. I was in a cabin near a ski hill as I was writing that. And it was like i was almost like I was watching a movie, watching myself have a moment.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Scott Landry — And it was just this this really beautiful moment between God and I. And I was just like, wow, God, thank you for for showing that to me. And then, give me the words to articulate this to my kids. Cause you’re right. I, I did first and foremost, write this for my kids, Emma and Parker. And I wanted them to know, you know, who they come from, what they come from. And, and, and hopefully if I never get the chance to tell them, they’ve got this to fall back on. And then my wife being my wife was like, well, if you’re going to do it for them, you might as well go all the way. So, so that’s, that’s, that’s what we did.
Rich Birch — Wow. Okay. So what did this process teach you as you’ve now, cause you’ve launched this book, it’s out in the world. You’ve, you can get it on Amazon. You, you know, it’s, you’ve done a series at the church. You’ve talked about it. You know, if you’ve been public about it.
Rich Birch — What did the launching of that teach you about your congregation, about your church? What resonated? What, how, how was it helpful? Any conversations that sparked kind of what was the impact that you’ve, now that you’ve landed this in, in your church?
Scott Landry — Yeah. Oh, I just got emotional there thinking about your question as you’re asking it. I think… what I talk about in the book, Rich, is that I’m a very insecure person. And and as a leader, I’m an insecure leader. And always, you know, that that dance between, you know, being authentic about who you are at the same time, the insecurity about that. And it’s, Lisa, my wife tells me all the time, if people knew how insecure you are, they they wouldn’t believe it, because you don’t present that way.
Scott Landry — But I was very insecure about doing this thing and the people that I serve, and and and journey together with seeing me in a way that they might change their mind about me. But the people at The Bridge, they love me, and they are so gracious to me. And I what I’ve discovered is that me being honest about who I am is is who they’ve wanted me to be the whole time.
Scott Landry — And so everybody that’s read the book, I shouldn’t say everybody, but I’ve gotten a lot of feedback from the people at The Bridge just thanking me for telling my story and then them saying so much of that I relate to, so much of that I needed right now telling me things about themselves that I had no idea was happening in their lives. And this has only been out for like a month.
Scott Landry — And so I’ve just gotten overwhelmed with, with people’s responses. And, and I think for our church, you know, one of our values is authentic storytelling And so, um, it just so happens that as a leader, you get to go first
Rich Birch — Right.
Scott Landry — And, and, and and in order for that value to be more than something that’s just plastered on a wall or a website, like I had, I didn’t know it was going to be in in the form of a book. But I do see that, that people are opening up in ways that, you know, just in the, in the in the last month to me and in others. So, yeah, but that that’s the thing that that i’ve I’ve seen in our church is just um that that I’ve been insecure about how I’m seen as a leader and and they’ve shown me that that they love me. And that’s the greatest gift, I’m telling you.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so cool, man. I love that. That’s, and thanks for being vulnerable in your sharing there. Like I think I, you know, I think there is anyone that’s written has had a book definitely has those feelings on the inside of like, oh man, this was a bad idea like why am I doing this. And like I’m you know, the stuff I’ve written about is nowhere near as, you know, personal and tender as what you’ve written. And I can identify exactly with what you’re saying there around the like, what will people think of me? You know, and it’s amazing.
Rich Birch — So trying to extract a bit of, you know, there might be people that are listening and I hope there’s people that are listening in who would think like, maybe I should write a book. Or maybe, maybe they had a similar experience where God told them to write a book and they’ve been dragging their feet.
Scott Landry — Yeah, yeah.
Rich Birch — What would be a couple kind of just practical takeaways, like maybe things you would say, I wish I would have known this before timelines, collaboration, editing, any of that kind of stuff.
Scott Landry — Yeah. Well, the first thing I would do is thankfully what I did, was talk to people who have done it. So you were one of those people and I was hoping that you were going to convince me not to do it. Thanks thanks for letting me down. But yeah, just like, and, and, you know, it’s like, Hey, talk to a few different people and, and, and, you know, what’s their process is and and kind of what they did.
Scott Landry — But the other thing that I learned quickly was everybody that I talked to does it differently. And so it wasn’t about figuring out the process. It was about finding my own.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Scott Landry — And so I kind of leaned on what I know of myself and how I kind of operate. And so that was one.
Scott Landry — I think the other one was You know, however much time you think it’s going to take, double it and then add some to that. Like it’s way more time than you think it’s going to going to take.
Scott Landry — I would, you know, what do they say? Like find people in your life who tell you what you need to know, not what you want to hear. Like it’s like whoever you’re going to invite into the process with you, like you want to collaborate with people who are going to tell you the truth, not that you’re profound. It’s like, yeah, like I, I wanted this to be the best that it could be for my kids.
Rich Birch — Right.
Scott Landry — And that’s why I asked, you know, you and a few others. And so, um, and then I think, you know, the other one is, is really have a clear, at least for me, and I don’t know if this is true for you, but it’s like, I’m sure it is, like, you know who you’re writing to and who you’re writing for.
Rich Birch — Right.
Scott Landry — And I think that has to be like, every time I sat down, like after a coffee and was like, okay, here, we’re opening up the laptop again, it was like, I pictured Emma. I pictured Parker. This is who I’m writing this for. It’s like who, so whether if it’s a, if it’s a book for your church, if it’s a book for leaders, you know, whoever that’s for is like have a very clear picture in your mind, who your audience is and and imagine faces that represent those people.
Scott Landry — Because I think it, to me at least, is it makes it less about the content and it brings the heart into it. And I think that I hope that and is what engages people more than, because I’m not a writer. But I hope my heart comes through the words that are on the pages. And I think that’s just because I had those two beautiful kids in mind.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. That’s a great, that’s a great tip. I, the, that idea of focusing who is the person. And I worked at a church that had a very robust practice kind of sermon practice process. And that’s one of the things, one of the questions we would often ask is like, who are you preaching this to? And I loved, cause our lead guy, he would get like really specific. It wouldn’t be like, it’s not like, well, I’m generally thinking 33 year old, you know, guys that are married. He’d be like, Scott Landry…
Scott Landry — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …you know, like he would like, it’s like he would pick out a specific person. He said, I’m hoping that that that’s who I’m thinking about. And that always struck me as like, I think that’s a part of what gave him great kind of power in his communication because it wasn’t this vague idea of like this, some general target. It’s like, no, I’m talking to this person and I want to, I want to communicate in a way that will move them. I think that’s great when you think about from a book point of view.
Rich Birch — Well, I want to encourage people to pick up a copy of the book. But before we get there, any kind of last words about any of this that you want to share? You’ve been so generous with your time today.
Scott Landry — No, I appreciate your time. I appreciate you having me on. And if anybody’s gotten to the end of this podcast and is even considering, you know, getting a copy of the book, I guess my heart for you would be to discover what I discovered the hard way, but I hope that it doesn’t require you to to find out the hard way is that that God truly knows who you truly are. And all he desperately wants is for you to be honest about who he already knows you are. And and then he wants to release that person for the purpose that he has for them. And so I pray that it doesn’t take whoever you are, you losing what I lost to find that. I hope that you will be wiser than I was. Learn, you know, don’t learn from your own mistakes, learn from mine. And, and, and, and find yourself because you’re going to find God there waiting. And I hope that for you and pray that for you.
Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s great. So we want to send people to Amazon. Is that the best place that they can pick up copies of this book? Is there anywhere else we want to send them just as we wrap up today’s episode?
Scott Landry — No, yeah, Amazon, the book “The Fight” is there. Can also follow me on Instagram. Keep updates there – @scottmlandry. Yeah, you can see pictures my sneakers. That’s about it.
Rich Birch — It’s great. Thanks so much, Scott. Appreciate you being here.
Scott Landry — Thank you, Rich.
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Sarah Hooley, Executive Pastor at City Church in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Founded in 2016 by Lead Pastor Chris Freeman, City Church is a young, rapidly growing, intentionally multi-ethnic, multi-economic, and multi-generational church. Since moving from a setup/teardown environment into their renovated 60,000-square-foot facility, the church has experienced explosive growth—reaching 2,500–2,600 weekly attendees, baptizing nearly 500 people this year, and engaging a high percentage of unchurched and new-to-faith individuals.
Is your church reaching people far from Jesus but struggling to disciple them well? Are you navigating the complexities that come with rapid growth? Tune in as Sarah shares how City Church reaches, welcomes, disciples, and mobilizes people who often arrive with little to no church background.
- Reaching the unchurched at scale. // From the beginning, City Church planted itself intentionally in one of Fort Wayne’s most racially diverse neighborhoods. Many guests arrive with no church vocabulary. Many don’t know the difference between the Old and New Testament or famous biblical characters. Teaching, therefore, is designed with zero assumptions, helping newcomers feel included while still deeply challenging long-time believers. Worship reflects the church’s diversity, blending musical styles in a way that unites cultures rather than centering one preference. Many first-time attendees hear about the church through friends who aren’t yet believers themselves—evidence that transformation is visibly taking root.
- Welcoming culture built by transformed people. // One of the most powerful forces shaping City Church is its culture of warmth and belonging. Their Connections Director, Victoria, came to Christ through City Church herself—giving her deep empathy for the unchurched experience and a passion for noticing people. Her team is trained not just to greet but to see people, engage them meaningfully, and make church feel safe and familiar. Serve teams are intentionally open to nonbelievers as a front door for community and spiritual curiosity—allowing people to “belong before they believe.” This relational warmth is often the defining difference-maker for guests who have never experienced church before.
- Discipleship for people with no foundation. // Rapid growth and a high percentage of new believers revealed a critical discipleship gap. In response, Pastor Chris launched Act Like Men, a 15-week, high-accountability discipleship course for young men covering identity, integrity, purity, humility, servanthood, and spiritual discipline. Women quickly asked for something similar, prompting the launch of Be Bold Women, a complementary course that includes teaching, mentoring, small groups, a women’s conference, and topics like emotional health, community, and living as a godly woman.
- A volunteer-driven church with a tiny staff. // One of the most stunning aspects of City Church is how much ministry happens through volunteers rather than staff. With only seven full-time staff and roughly 2,600 attendees, their ratio is radically outside national norms. Staff serve as equippers, not doers. High-level volunteer leaders oversee major portions of ministry: shadowing, training, leading teams, scheduling people, and pastoring others. Leadership development is an essential form of discipleship, not an operational necessity.
- Leading from abundance, not scarcity. // Sarah encourages leaders to adopt a “loaves and fishes” mindset – the question is not what the church lacks but what God can do with what it has. Simplicity, clarity, and focus keep the team aligned. Staff calibrate constantly, coaching one another to resist the pull toward doing everything themselves. Sarah also stresses the importance of relational support systems for leaders—cohorts, mentors, and peers who remind pastors that faithfulness, not outcomes, is the goal.
To learn more about City Church, visit forthecity.com, or follow them on social media at @citychurchfw.
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Risepointe
Do you feel like your church’s or school’s facility could be preventing growth? Are you frustrated or possibly overwhelmed at the thought of a complicated or costly building project? Are the limitations of your building becoming obstacles in the path of expanding your ministry? Have you ever felt that you could reach more people if only the facility was better suited to the community’s needs?
Well, the team over at Risepointe can help! As former ministry staff and church leaders, they understand how to prioritize and help lead you to a place where the building is a ministry multiplier. Your mission should not be held back by your building. Their team of architects, interior designers and project managers have the professional experience to incorporate creative design solutions to help move YOUR mission forward.
Check them out at risepointe.com/unseminary and while you’re there, schedule a FREE call to explore possibilities for your needs, vision and future…Risepointe believes that God still uses spaces…and they’re here to help.
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you’ve decided to tune in today. This is going to be a jam-packed episode. You’re going to want to buckle up. We’re talking about a lot of stuff today that applies to your church that I know will be super helpful. I’m excited to be talking to Sarah Hooley. She is the executive pastor at a church called City Church in Fort Wayne, Indiana. This is a church you should be tracking with. If you’re not, they were founded in 2016 by lead pastor Chris Freeman. It’s a diverse church in a city that is for the city with multi-ethnic, multi-economic, multi-generational community. It’s really, God’s doing some incredible things here, and you’re going to want to track along with that. And we’ve got Sarah on the show to help us. Sarah, welcome to the show.
Sarah Hooley — Thank you so much for having me. It is a privilege to be joining you today.
Rich Birch — Oh, this is going to be wonderful. I’m really looking forward to learning from you. Why don’t you tell us a little bit of the City Church story, kind of set up. Tell us a little bit about it. What’s going on Give us a sense of what’s happening at City Church.
Sarah Hooley — Yeah, so we are a nine-year-old church plant. We were a set-up, teardown church for the last eight or so years ah seven and a half. We’ve move we bought a grocery store in 2020.
Rich Birch — Good year.
Sarah Hooley — Great time to buy a building, and and it was being used as a warehouse. And so we bought it and then the pandemic happened and we’re like, well, we still have a warehouse occupying the space. Maybe at some point it’ll become a church. We don’t know. And then it was just about a couple years ago that we then started a capital campaign and went to develop the the space. It’s 60,000 square feet. We developed about 40,000 square feet of it for our church.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Sarah Hooley — I’m thinking, man, that’s going to, we’ll be set for a good long time. And we are out of space already.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Sarah Hooley — And so and we moved from two services to three. And now we’re just, excuse me, trying to figure out what do we do? um God has just been moving in incredible ways. Like we have from the from the start been very intentional about wanting to be a multi-ethnic, multi-economic, multi-generational church. And where we planted has been very intentional.
Sarah Hooley — So even where we were for set up and tear down, and we were right in the heart of the city where it was the most ethnically diverse within Fort Wayne. So Fort Wayne is roughly about 66% white in the city as a whole, but in our neighborhood specifically, it’s more 40% African-American, 20% white, 20-ish percent Hispanic. And so it is a much more racially diverse area.
Rich Birch — So good.
Sarah Hooley — And that is has been very intentional from the beginning. And so our location now, is it’s just been beautiful to see how God has really drawn people from every background. And, you know anyone who’s been a part of a multi-ethnic church knows that that that’s a messy process. It’s It is incredible to see, though, the the beauty and of what God can do when we are are not just attending a church together, but really in community with one another, and with people who come from radically different backgrounds um and and how that can really bring about a lot of healing in our stories and in our in our relationships.
Rich Birch — So good.
Sarah Hooley — And so um we have grown since moving into the building, we were about 800 people um when we were set-up/teardown. And then once we moved into the building, it has just been um exponential growth. So we we have grown very quickly and just tried to keep up with all of it.
Sarah Hooley — One of the things that I’ve i’ve just loved about City Church is it’s very intentional about um reaching those who don’t know Jesus. And so the that really comes from our our lead pastor, from Pastor Chris Freeman, his heart for the lost. So a lot of our growth has not been transfer growth. It’s not just people moving from church to church, but really those who’ve never set foot in a church, those who are, or who ah are really far from Jesus. It’s been a long time.
Sarah Hooley — And the greatest evidence of that, that we’ve seen is we are on track to have 500 baptisms this year.
Rich Birch — Wow. Oh my goodness.
Sarah Hooley — That has just blown our minds.
Rich Birch — That’s incredible.
Sarah Hooley — Like we, We had to move up ah the frequency of our baptisms to every six weeks because we just could not keep up with all of the people who wanted to get baptized.
Rich Birch — We’re not baptizing enough. That’s amazing. Wow. That’s incredible.
Sarah Hooley — But we we’re about 430 right now, and I have over 70 people registered for this next upcoming one in December.
Sarah Hooley — So it has just it has been a wild ride…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great.
Sarah Hooley — …of um seeing God move in such phenomenal ways, and and just try to be faithful along the way. How do we steward these people well?
Rich Birch — So good.
Sarah Hooley — How do we continue to point them to Jesus? How do we encourage them to grow in their faith and to take those next steps of what it looks like to follow him? So it’s…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. There’s a ton we could we could unpack there, and maybe we’ll have you on in the future to talk. I um, you know, we’ve said it in the past on the podcast, every zip code in the country is more diverse today than it was 10 years ago, and 10 years from now, it will be more diverse, and our churches need to continue to progress towards reflecting the kingdom of God and being, as you’re saying, multi-ethnic.
Rich Birch — And so there’s a ton we could we could learn from you on that. Maybe we’ll have you back in the future to talk about that. Cause I, that is definitely a thing I think we all can, can learn from, but I’d love to kind of key in on what you were talking there about. Hey, your church has a heart for, which I think lots of churches do have a heart for reaching people, who don’t know Jesus, but it’s like actually happening at your church, ah which is incredible.
Rich Birch — So what were some early signs, you know, that you realize, or what are some of the signs that you realize, oh, this is actually happening. Like we’re actually reaching people. Baptism is one of them. Can you think of any other signs that were like, oh, we we’re reaching people who, who this is a brand new thing for them?
Sarah Hooley — Yeah. So I mean, baptism was definitely a big sign of like, wow, these are, these are people who are, are new to following Jesus and taking that, that first step. And in our conversations with people who are preparing to be baptized, um, that, that was a part. It’s so funny, just, just this last week, uh, somebody posted on their Facebook page, uh, City Church choir is better than the club for real.
Rich Birch — I love it. Love it. That’s great.
Sarah Hooley — And they didn’t, like we don’t have, we didn’t have a choir. It’s our worship team, but like they don’t even know the words for what that worship team is.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes. Yeah. They don’t know the words yet.
Sarah Hooley — And, and the comments after that, like it, it truly was showing that we, we are drawing and attracting people who, who like, they’ve they’ve never really considered going to church. And then in our conversations with people, as they’ve realized, like, man, I do want this. I want to follow this Jesus. Like, this makes sense. This is incredible. But you just can’t assume anything.
Rich Birch — No.
Sarah Hooley — Like, they there’s no foundational understanding of what that looks like. There’s no, and and I think even just, there’s no understanding of even like what some sins are. Like, there’s just not like, oh, I didn’t even, not even realizing that like, that’s not a good idea to continue. So we’ve had, we have people who are like, yes, I want to follow Jesus. And then they’re still sleeping with their girlfriend. They’re still, you know, like it’s and it’s like…
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah. 100%.
Sarah Hooley — …oh, I didn’t, I didn’t even know…
Rich Birch — The thing.
Sarah Hooley — …that that was something that you shouldn’t do.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Sarah Hooley — And so really being able to, to come alongside and say, okay, man, we have to go back to the basics. We can’t assume anything. It’s gonna…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Sarah Hooley — And it really has set the tone, even in just the way that Chris preaches and and all of our our pastors preach that we don’t make assumptions when we’re talking about scripture.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Sarah Hooley — So allowing um there not to be any barriers or or anything that would create a place where people would feel like, man, like everybody else knows what he’s talking about, but I don’t. And so like just the way that you set things up and explain things and introduce people. So you don’t don’t just assume that everybody knows who Joseph is from the Old Testament.
Rich Birch — 100%. Right.
Sarah Hooley — Like you have to be like, Hey, this is this guy. And so I think that that has led us to like, Chris does such a great job on Sunday mornings, but man, there’s, there’s so much more that we need to do as far as for people to truly learn what it means to follow Jesus when they don’t have much of a background. Like it’s going to take some more intentional discipleship that, um that we do. So that that has been really a process of of recognition that we even people who are coming on a Sunday…
Rich Birch — Right.
Sarah Hooley — …they’re excited about Jesus, there’s still some gaps there.
Rich Birch — Sure. I’d love to talk. We’re going to get into the discipleship question, but I just want to pause just before we get there. And so um what do you think God’s using to help your church engaged? You know, in different circles of the Christian world, it’s called different things. Unchurched people, seekers, people who follow Jesus, people new to the faith, you know. So the teaching, I agree. That’s like a best practice around, um ah you know, taking time to explain. It takes three sentences to explain instead of just saying, well, you all know Joseph.
Sarah Hooley — Yeah.
Rich Birch — He’s an example, which is just lazy preaching. You should take a few sentences, explain it. But what else is God using you think to, ah you know, to help your church reach so many unchurched people?
Sarah Hooley — Yeah, you know, so we we really have, the the teaching is significant.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Sarah Hooley — And that’s one of the things that I have just been blown away. So I grew up as a pastor’s kid, went to Bible college, went to seminary, like…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Sarah Hooley — …biblical, like good, solid biblical teaching is such a huge priority for me.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Sarah Hooley — And the thing that I think has been unique is that Chris has a way of communicating with those who have never been in church and and helping them to to see a clear picture of who Jesus is and challenging the deep disciples. Those who’ve been following Jesus their whole life. And yet, man…
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good.
Sarah Hooley — …the way that he brings light to scripture and, and even just like points out some, like, this is what it means to live this out.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Sarah Hooley — That has made such a big difference. And then, so we really have had this, this drawing of, of those who have been followers…
Rich Birch — So good.
Sarah Hooley — …who then can invest in those who are new believers. But also we have, and it and it is beautiful, like a really dynamic worship time that is incredible. And one of the things that’s unique about it is it’s because we’re multi-ethnic, you can’t just go in one kind of genre of music, like it really is a blend.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good.
Sarah Hooley — And so there’s something about it that um it it’s not all of anyone’s preferences, but you’re like, oh man, like I love this part of it. And then, well, this part’s new and different, but okay, I can I can get on board with it. And so I think those that combination, um but there’s there’s another factor and that’s, that really is in the culture that’s been set in how we are a welcoming church.
Sarah Hooley — And so our connections director is somebody who came to faith in our church. So she she started following Jesus, like she had no church background whatsoever, started following Jesus, um started really growing in her discipleship. Her name is Victoria. And it it has been such a beautiful thing to see how she has has such a heart for Jesus and heart for others. And so she’s continued to invest in her team…
Rich Birch — It’s great.
Sarah Hooley — …in like, how do we make people feel welcome from the beginning? How do we not just say hello and let them walk by, but like really see people?
Sarah Hooley — And she has really invested in her connection team on like, how is that an opportunity for discipleship? And so one of the things is you can you can join our greet team. You can join our parking lot team. You can join our coffee team and not be a believer. But the heart behind it is like, is you’re still investigating who Jesus is. Like we hope that you’re rubbing shoulders with someone who is following after him.
Rich Birch — Yeah, make some friends, right? Yeah, absolutely.
Sarah Hooley — And you have those conversations and that relationship has grown um through that. And you’re you get a picture of of who Jesus is.
Rich Birch — So good.
Sarah Hooley — And so um like there there it’s just this multifaceted thing that has happened um that really is like when you come, you’re like man, I want to be a part of this. And so we have like, that’s the crazy thing. We have people who are not followers of Jesus inviting their friends,
Rich Birch — Yeah, 100%. That’s great.
Sarah Hooley — …like new church is better than the club for real.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that’s great.
Sarah Hooley — Like they’re inviting their friends to come and…
Rich Birch — So good.
Sarah Hooley — …and be a part of this because there’s just something happening here.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Okay, let’s talk about the discipleship issue. So ah you didn’t say this, I said it, but one of the problems with the church in general is a lot of our discipleship systems assume a fairly high level of actually understanding of scripture. And our church shares a similar heartbeat. We’ll normally see, one of the things a new year guest come through in our church. We don’t ask them a lot, but one of the questions we do ask is for them to describe their kind of faith background before they came. And we’re consistently above 50%. It’s usually 60, 75% of people would describe themselves as something that we would label as unchurched.
Rich Birch — And so I understand the discipleship problem. In lots of churches it just you just assume people know stuff and they grow closer to Jesus, but that’s not the case. So how are you helping move people towards being fully discipled followers of Jesus? What does that look like for City Church?
Sarah Hooley — Yeah, so we we do, we have loved using Alpha for for those who really still are in that questioning phase and like they’re not even sure. And like they may not, they might may not feel comfortable coming to City Church, but they would come to somebody’s house and walk through Alpha. So that’s been really great for those who are kind of trying to still discover who Jesus is.
Sarah Hooley — But for specific discipleship, because we were realizing, man, there’s just some some gaps here, Chris decided to launch a 15-week discipleship course for young men specifically.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Sarah Hooley — And we really saw, like we are we are a pretty young church. I mean, always have been, but that there was some some pretty serious gaps in and not only like, what does it mean to follow Jesus, but even what does it mean like what does it mean to be a godly man? And so wanting to have, to bring alongside some intentional mentors and people who can invest in these young men.
Sarah Hooley — So um he invited people, but it was a very high accountability, high expectation sort of class. They meet at 6 a.m. on Thursday mornings.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Wow.
Sarah Hooley — That is not something everybody wants to sign up for. It was…
Rich Birch — Yeah, no, not every guy wants to do that. I can say that.
Sarah Hooley — No, it is it is a huge sacrifice.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Sarah Hooley — And he said, this is going to require a lot of you.
Rich Birch — Right.
Sarah Hooley — And they actually have a crazy. Like if you are, if anyone is late, any single person is late, even five seconds, the whole group does pushups together…
Rich Birch — Oh, no. Yeah. Okay, that’s cool.
Sarah Hooley — …and not in a shaming way, but in a like, Hey, we’re inviting you to something great.
Rich Birch — Right.
Sarah Hooley — And part of, part of following Jesus is is it’s going to need incorporate discipline in your life. And so we have, we are called to have discipline. And so we’re going to really keep you accountable to this.
Sarah Hooley — And so he does um he he talks through, like what does it mean to be a godly man? Talks about identity, talks about discipline, talks about integrity, purity, humility, servanthood. So he’ll do a ah teaching, and then they break off into groups with two leaders. So each group usually has about six six guys who are participants and two leaders who are older men in the church who have um that Chris has identified and recruited. And then they have a small group time.
Sarah Hooley — So It has been so incredible to see how God is working, not only through his teaching, but really through that accountability…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Sarah Hooley — …and like digging into what does this look like in our lives? And, and then those leaders are, are following up with them and encouraging them throughout the week. They, they do, they, they challenge, they come up with their own challenges. And as like, okay, we’re going to memorize this passage of scripture. And then they, then they like, all right, how did you, did you memorize this? Most of these guys have never memorized scripture in their lives.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Sarah Hooley — And so, even though some of those practices have been really incredible. And he he calls the class Act Like Men. And it really is so, and he makes it very clear, this is not about talking about what what is the difference between a man and a woman. This is talking about what’s the man and a boy.
Sarah Hooley — Like we are calling you to be godly men and intentionally calling you up to to live out as godly men, not selfish boys. And so that, that has been beautiful. There was about, um, I think he had about 60 participants the first time he he ran it…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Sarah Hooley — …with 25 leaders. And then this next, um, this heat currently they’re they’re walking through it right now and there’s 100 guys and 30 leaders.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Sarah Hooley — It also requires, and they have to pay $100 and that goes right back into them. Like it’s for some resources that they are given. But again, it gives that like, hey, this is a high threshold. This isn’t just a casual thing.
Rich Birch — Right.
Sarah Hooley — They also cannot miss more than three sessions. If they do, they are asked to step away and if they can join again in a future time.
Rich Birch — Take it again or whatever. Yeah.
Sarah Hooley — So super high high high…
Rich Birch — And is it the idea that it’s going to rotate like kind of a couple seasons a year or something like that? How what what’s the thinking on that?
Sarah Hooley — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Like how often are you going to run it or what’s that? What’s that look like?
Sarah Hooley — Yeah. So, so what we’ve done so far is, um, the men’s course is in the fall. And then, um, after last, last fall, the first time that, that Chris did it, there was such an out, like lot of the wives and the girlfriends and the people who were just connected with these guys, they were like, man, this has been so incredible. Like, what do you have for women? Like, when are we going to have our, our course?
Sarah Hooley — And so that really sparked. And I was like, I’m too busy to do this right now, but like, I can’t not do it. So, um my kids, pastor, and I developed Be Bold Women’s, which was a complimentary course for women. And so the men is in the fall and the women starts in January. And we go through the spring and do kind of a similar, we follow a lot of the same topics, although we did choose some different ones, a couple of specific one…
Rich Birch — Sure.
Sarah Hooley — …that we felt really convicted that, like we do one of our lessons is on emotions and like, what is a healthy, godly way to approach and process, and how are emotions a part of our life? We also talk about community. So there’s just a couple of different topics that we walk through with the women.
Sarah Hooley — We also incorporated women’s conference as a part of it that we then opened up to the rest of the church. So everyone in the church could come to the conference. We had our own people speaking at it, our own worship team leading worship. And we had about 300 women at this conference.
Rich Birch — Wow. That’s great.
Sarah Hooley — And it was just, it was a great start, like jumpstart to our time together in the course, but then also with our larger community.
Rich Birch — There’s a lot there I’d love to ask questions about. So my impression of City Church just looking in, don’t know your church well, but follow online. And, you know, I don’t get the vibe from you guys that there’s like, I don’t know, like an overly machismo kind of like, you know, ah like in a negative way. Like, you know, you know you know what I mean? There’s some churches out there. You’re like, okay, they’re like a little too much into the man/woman thing.
Sarah Hooley — Uh-huh.
Rich Birch — And, and I don’t know how to say that nicely and not like step on people’s toes. I don’t get that vibe from you guys, but this, but you’ve, you’ve obviously taken, taken a gendered approach. Can you unpack that a little bit? Help me understand how is that it’s obviously been super helpful. So, but just kind of talk through that issue. Help me understand that. What’s that look like for you guys?
Sarah Hooley — Yeah, we really saw their there just was a need to have those intentional conversations um really of older men investing in younger men, and older women investing in younger women.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good. Yeah, that’s good.
Sarah Hooley — And so um there are things that, there are conversations that you can have when it’s just men, that you add one woman into that mix and it’s gonna change some of those conversations.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Sarah Hooley — And some of the things that, especially when it comes to kind of the harder accountability parts of of those conversations, it’s going it’s just gonna look differently. If if somebody’s trying to impress somebody else, like that’s going to be an issue.
Sarah Hooley — But I think, I think really, even though we’re not a overly like machismo, there’s, that’s still a part of our culture.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Sarah Hooley — And so I think Chris really wanted to be sure that he, he tackled that kind of toxic masculinity approach.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Sarah Hooley — And, and like, that is not biblical masculinity.
Rich Birch — No.
Sarah Hooley — Like this, this idea of, you know, I’m the man. And we’re, but like, that’s not what, and and so really continuing to call them back to that, that being a true man is not the world’s version of, of power and money and having the beautiful wife or girlfriend. It really is about following Jesus’ example. He is the greatest example of what a godly man looks like.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Sarah Hooley — So what does that look like?
Rich Birch — Yeah. What’s that look like?
Sarah Hooley — So that means humility and servanthood and sacrifice and laying down your life for others. And so how do we live that out?
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s good.
Sarah Hooley — And then for our women, it it it has been so powerful to be able to have those those deep conversations and um and challenging them to live this out.
Sarah Hooley — And you know when you have people who are coming from, like they they don’t have um maybe those older women or men in their lives who have been investing in them and showing them what it looks like to follow Jesus or to live this out. It’s still brand new. And so there’s still, there’s some some space to have those questions be brought.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s good.
Sarah Hooley — And um like, why shouldn’t I return to this abusive boyfriend?
Rich Birch — Right. Yep.
Sarah Hooley — Why shouldn’t I like, so like being able to deal with some of those really hard conversations in a really healthy way that that comes back to scripture and comes back to like, this is what God wants for you.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Sarah Hooley — And um and it’s and it’s hard, like following Jesus is hard. Like there is nothing easy about that…
Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Yeah.
Sarah Hooley — But it’s so worth it.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Sarah Hooley — And I think that being able to put that in front of people. But you know, those are two courses that we have. We have lots of small groups and mid-sized groups and groups that are that are mixed gender. And like there’s some beautiful things from that, too. These two courses specifically are just a little bit unique in in their approach.
Rich Birch — That’s good. So as you’ve kind of watched this roll through as an XP, you know, go people go through these experiences, what what kind of changes have you seen in the broader church culture? Like, has there, you know, what have you seen that like, oh, hey, there’s something happening here that that seems to be having a positive impact or negative, I’m assuming there’s positive, that’s been kind of impacting the church culture. Talk to me about that.
Sarah Hooley — Yeah, I I you really start to see um just that that growth, the idea that this is, you know, that that view of discipleship that’s a long obedience in the same direction. That is what we are are experiencing. You know, with so many people who are new believers, there are some great breakthrough moments and that is worth celebrating, but it is a long process. And so um I think really being able to come alongside and and watch watch those who are like, they were, they’re excited about Jesus. They’re pumped. They’re going lift their hands and worship. They’re going to be like, join the team. But to go beyond that to, okay, what does this actually look like in my life? And to see them begin to make changes in how they actually live that out. um That they’re not just, okay, this is my Sunday thing. And then I go and I do my weekly thing, um but truly changing. And that like that’s profound. It’s profound to see God work in such powerful ways.
Sarah Hooley — And again, it’s not it’s never overnight, like there’s overnight breakthroughs, but it’s always a process. And I think that that like watching the the development of these courses is like there’s gonna be things you’re confronting in week one. And then you might still be confronting in week 10. You might still be confronting in week 15. But there’s there’s growth. And there’s um it doesn’t mean that they’ve been able to overcome everything, but you you can see that that change in them. And that draws people.
Sarah Hooley — And so I think that we we’ve been able so to so clearly see even just the growth in the number of guys who who joined the course the first time and then the growth in the second second time through that people are hearing about it and being like, I want to be a part of this.
Sarah Hooley — Like I saw what it did in my friend’s life. And like, that’s like, I know it’s 6am, but it’s worth it. I’m going to make the sacrifice. I’m going to be a part of it. And so I think that that that kind of invitation to discipleship where you see what the effect it’s having. And then that brings others in. And they’re like, I want what he has.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great.
Sarah Hooley — Like, I, I’ve, I know who Jesus is, but I, Idon’t want it just to be a yeah, I know who Jesus is. I want to actually know Jesus.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s fantastic. Friends that are listening in. I one of the one of the changes I for sure have seen in people who are arriving at our churches is, this is a problem when you’ve been at this long enough, like decades ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, people did kind of just stumble into church. Like that actually did happen, but that’s not happening today.
Rich Birch — People, when they arrive, they’re they’re arriving with real questions and are looking for, they’re not looking for us, they’re not looking for our ideas, they want Jesus and they wanna know what that looks like. So I love this this idea of calling people to something That is a little more, you know, that’s, it’s not just the like, well, we’re going to to make it super easy. That’s not what it’s about.
Sarah Hooley — Yeah. Right. Yeah.
Rich Birch — I think makes a lot of sense. Well, I want to pivot to it just a totally different conversation. As we were getting ready for this, one of the things that caught my attention, and you’re a humble leader, Jesus has formed your life. So like you didn’t lead off with like your attendance numbers and all that. You talked about growth, but you didn’t really go there. What what are you averaging right now? Attendance wise, where are you at?
Sarah Hooley — Yeah, we’re about 2,500 to 2,600 right now.
Rich Birch — Okay. And how many full-time staff do you have as as a team?
Sarah Hooley — Oh, we have seven full-time staff. Now, we do have some part-time roles that are high level…
Rich Birch — Sure.
Sarah Hooley — …but we are a skeleton staff.
Rich Birch — Yes. Okay. So to put that in context, like, I, this is why want to hear more about this. How, how are you doing that? So to put make some context that people are listening in, um there’s a kind of a well kind of oiled benchmark out there that says churches should really shoot for 1 to 75 attendees and staff. And, you know, ah really great churches are maybe one to a hundred. Like that would be amazing if you could get that. I think the math on you guys is one to like 350 or something like that.
Sarah Hooley — Yep.
Rich Birch — Even if it’s like, okay, those those other equivalents, even if they end up being say you have another three full-time people in all those part-time. So you’re 10 full-time equivalents. That’s still like one to 250. So like, this is a significant lesson, friends. We need to learn from.
Rich Birch — So it’s like, I really just want to say, talk. Like what systems and philosophies make that happen?
Sarah Hooley — Yeah.
Rich Birch — How do you, you know, how are you able to make that happen? Talk us through that.
Sarah Hooley — Yeah. Well, we are trying to hire. So there are some roles that we definitely know that we need.
Rich Birch — Yes. You got a long ways to go though. Even if you doubled your staff, you still would be like one to 125, which is still very high. You know, that’s great.
Sarah Hooley — Yeah. And this has been one of the unique things about being a multi-ethnic church and a multi-ethnic church that’s reaching new believers. The the the financial support, it takes longer. Like financial discipleship, it’s a process. And and in a um you know within our community, there’s a significant like where we our church specifically is, there’s a significant number of people who are below the poverty line. And so that just means that where our budget is not going to be as large.
Sarah Hooley — But so like we have always, and I think part of it is going from that church plant model to even having an established church. Like we’ve always had to be scrappy. Like you always have had to, like I started as a volunteer and I wanted to do a women’s conference. And then someone came and said, I heard that you’re leading the women’s ministry. And I was like, what? Like I didn’t, I just wanted to lead this women’s conference.
Sarah Hooley — But just the the way that, um you know, we have continued to to philosophically want to equip the body to be the ministers. That it’s not just, oh, we can just hire somebody to do that. But for every staff person being so intentional about choosing staff members who can be equippers, who are not looking to just do ministry, but who are looking to equip others to do the ministry. And so those who can develop and be leaders of leaders. And that that really has been a part of our heart um in the beginning out of necessity. But also as we’ve continued to grow, um we’ve found there’s just been incredible fruit, because it calls the whole church body into being a part of what’s going on.
Sarah Hooley — And so there is nothing more powerful and significant than saying like, yeah, I am I am a significant like participant, I am leading within this church in in a significant way that creates such buy-in. And so like that has really made a difference in in, I think, our church culture and and in just people so staying with us and saying like, man, there’s there’s there’s something happening here. I wanna be a part of it. And um being identified in like, given the opportunity to lead in those ways. And so um we are very, we are slow to hire because we’re kind of a unique, um we have a unique church culture and unique church body…
Rich Birch — For sure.
Sarah Hooley — …and we want our staff to reflect our church body and to to have buy-in. So I would, so the majority of our staff really are people who have come from the church body itself. So we we only have had very few outside hires um because we know that they understand who we are, they they understand kind of what we’ve been called to do.
Sarah Hooley — And so that has been the most, like we have one full-time kids pastor…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Sarah Hooley — …for 400 children. And she has an associate who’s also very high level and she’s incredible too. Um, but they have done such an incredible job of identifying, okay, within our kids ministry, within our volunteers, who are those people who, who can lead others and who have a heart for developing others.
Sarah Hooley — And so, um, so they’ve broken down the different areas and they have leads over each of those individual areas where they’re doing some of the scheduling. So like identifying those administrative skills, like people who have people skills as well as administrative skills.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Sarah Hooley — But so the role of our of our kids pastor is to you know set the vision and invest in our leaders. And then they are then the ones who are are working through some of those logistics of what it looks like when it comes to staffing or when it comes to volunteers um and being fully like, oh, it’s a whole lot of children. We have a lot of kids.
Rich Birch — Yes, that’s amazing. I’d I’d love to double click on some of that there. So this idea of leaders of leaders does not surprise me that, um you know, I it’s like one of these when I heard this, I’m like, I don’t even know anything about this. But I know that you the only way you get to that kind of ratio is you’ve empowered volunteers to actually lead things.
Rich Birch — There’s a humbling thing you could do. Church leaders that are listening in do it. Do a giant org chart. Spend two hours and do a giant org chart on a whiteboard. Like literally draw out who is who leads who all the way down to every role in the church and then circle the people that are staff. And oftentimes what you find is there are no leaders of leaders that are volunteers. And they’re just that that’s a that’s a key distinction. How do we get and and how do we keep our staff being Ephesians 4 leaders, people who equip the saints to do the work?
Sarah Hooley — Yes.
Rich Birch — So give me some of the telltale signs that you that you see in volunteers that, hey, this person is could lead at a high level. And what does the equipping look like? How are you helping them step into that?
Sarah Hooley — Yeah, we really do view leadership as discipleship. And so, um, so even for our volunteers, we want to identify people, for them to step into a leadership role like that, that relationship with Jesus, that that’s strong connection to to him is is key.
Sarah Hooley — So like that is first and for foremost across across all of our leadership teams. So even though I mentioned earlier that we have some of our serve teams that you can join the team and not be a believer, but for the people who are leading those people, we want them to be following Jesus.
Sarah Hooley — And then just looking for those who also love people and have that heart for like, I want to have the conversations that, you know, something is is going on in someone’s life and they’re having a hard time, I’m going to follow up with them during the week. And so um so that love for Jesus, that love for people in some of these roles, it it is some administrative ability. Like, can you handle scheduling people? Like there’s there’s just like, are you able to complete some of those things, some of the doing aspects of ministry?
Sarah Hooley — But even within our within our high level leader volunteer leaders, like they’re actually then finding other volunteers who are are doing some of those roles as well. So I think that that has been a process. So it’s looking at who who do we have in front of us? Like who are the people who are like bought in? They see the mission. They’re they’re passionate about what we’re doing. They care about what we’re doing. um And then inviting them into that next step of leadership.
Sarah Hooley — A lot of times it’s we kind of give them a chance to kind of test it out first before just throwing them to the wolves so that they can kind of see like like shadowing somebody who already is currently doing something like that to get their feet wet, to kind of understand the the scope of the role. We don’t ever want to ask somebody to to step into a role that they aren’t, that they’re like, I don’t have the capacity for this. And so, but there’s there’s lots of development still along the way of like conversations of like, of of our actual staff members, checking in with them and helping them to like navigate problems and helping them to to think through like how to process, um you know, that they even are invited to bring feedback of like, hey, here are some things that we’re seeing, like what’s a way that we can then approach that together? So like really they they have a great voice into into how things are being run.
Rich Birch — That’s good. One of the tensions that happens in a lot of churches is staff, our staff start to think like the kind of important people are people who have full-time staff that report to them. There’s like this insidious pull towards, I’m going to build my little kingdom. And like this is really common, like lots of churches struggle with that. It can be difficult.
Rich Birch — How are you developing your, particularly the the culture with your staff team to ensure that they stay focused on leading volunteers rather than, you know, just hiring people? Like, let’s just hire somebody. How do we, how do how are you what are you doing there? Beyond the like, well, we can’t afford it. There’s got to be something else you’re doing to try to help them, you know, develop that.
Sarah Hooley — Yeah, feeling missed out on the budget is really helpful.
Rich Birch — Well, because, well, and yeah, but the but my pushback would be friendly pushback as as one leader to another is like that resource things are going to get sorted out. And it’s going to come to a time where you have resources to be able to do that. And it could be very tempting to say, let’s just go quadruple the size of our staff. So how are you ensuring that the culture isn’t going to do that?
Sarah Hooley — Yeah. And so much of that is through through our coaching, through the way that we talk about this. This is something like we have these calibrating conversations all the time of of this is who we are and this is what we’re about. And this is what it looks like to lead here. That we um and and that And to be totally candid, like that has been a challenge where we had a staff person and as we grew, um could not make that transition of from doing to leading others and and delegating.
Sarah Hooley — And so like that that is a challenge of, and and just thinking like, oh man, all we need to do is just add more staff and then I would be okay. And instead of really recognizing like, no, our our heart behind this is inviting the church to be the church. That that, Letting them know that that priesthood of all believers, like we are all called um to do ministry.
Sarah Hooley — Ministry is not just for those who have a degree or those who have a title. Like we are called into ministry. And so keeping that before our our leaders and our staff so that they are keeping it before the the people that they’re calling into these volunteer leader roles.
Sarah Hooley — And I will say like those who are the volunteers, like they, they’re excited. They’re excited about like, man, like you just invited me into this position. Like you’ve asked, you’ve seen, you saw something in me and asked me to, um to lead in this way and to serve in this way. And it’s, it’s a privilege to do that. But it is also like continuing to put that before us. Like we we are investing in our people.
Sarah Hooley — Now, some of our future staff members might come from those who are volunteer leaders. And like and like that’s a beautiful thing because we’re like, man, I already know, I can see how you would operate in this role and how you would fit on our team and how you would keep how you you do get the culture and what what we’re trying to do. And I think that that’s that’s really a beautiful thing.
Sarah Hooley — But it is it is a lot of conversation, a lot of coaching, and just a reminder of like, and I think part of it too is is realizing like, we can’t do everything. And so being very intentional to not be overly programmed. To be very clear about, we’re going do these things, like these very simple.
Rich Birch — Right.
Sarah Hooley — And so that’s where it’s like, it seems so simple. It seems so basic, but we’re going do these simple, basic things and do them faithfully. And um and then, yeah, see what God does.
Rich Birch — Trust God for the results. Yeah, that’s fantastic. Yeah. And listen, you know it makes sense that you’ll end up hiring some people because it’s like that’s a little bit of a crazy ah you know ratio. And you know I think that’ll be that’ll be a challenge ahead to keep that focused as you add those people. And it’s not unreasonable to say to your team like, oh, yeah, like we probably should add a few people.
Rich Birch — But to still champion at the end of the day, I think that’s like there’s a key piece there that you mentioned. It’s like this idea of championing the people who have been able to make that transition. And I’ve like, I got us like hey, ah it’s about developing leaders and I want to make that happen. And I know that might be messy and there’s other problems with that, but that’s you know that’s good.
Rich Birch — It’s been a fantastic conversation. For people who are listening in today who might feel that kind of like, oh my goodness, we’re under-resourced, we’re you know are outnumbered, we don’t have enough people. Help us think through, kind of talk to us a little bit from an even mindset or how we lead point of view to kind of lead from abundance rather than from scarcity. Because a part of what I don’t hear you saying is like, oh, woe is me.
Rich Birch — Like you’re like, no, this is just what God’s called us to in this season. We’re going to make it happen. And God’s doing a great thing. So try to encourage us, yeah help us think that through.
Sarah Hooley — Yeah. Well, I would, I mean, I would first of all say you’re not alone. So if you feel, if you do feel overwhelmed and outnumbered and under-resourced, like you’re not alone. And so I think that that is is helpful to be like, man, I’m not. And I think that’s where like even having podcasts like this, where you’re able to hear from others, we’re like, oh, man, OK, we’re in this together. We are all doing the mission that God has called us to. And there are challenges that come with that. And and that can be really discouraging and hard. And yet, like, I think when we can have that kind of. loaves and fishes mindset of like the disciples, they could not feed those people. Like they could not fit fill all the needs that were before them. But Jesus could.
Sarah Hooley — And so if we can be faithful to say, okay, God, what do we have? What do we have? Like, what do we have in front of us? And how do we use that for your glory? And what what does that look like? What what are the things that we need to like have that laser focus on um so that we can then continue to see what you are going to do with with what we bring.
Sarah Hooley — And and I think that there is that reliance on God to um to say like, you’re the one who does the work. Like this is not, and I think that helps us to like, it takes away that that pride and also that just overwhelming feeling feeling of sometimes failure when it’s, it’s not, when we realize that it’s not all on me…
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s good.
Sarah Hooley — …like this is not like my responsibility is to be faithful and continuing to be faithful, to follow what God has called me to do. And that means, I mean, that means working hard. That means best practices. That means learning from others, but I am not responsible for the the end result. So how do I just be intentional and faithful with what God has given me?
Sarah Hooley — And, and, and I think too, I think it’s really important to, to find others who are also in the journey with you.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Sarah Hooley — That you can, that not that you just get together and complain, but that you can really come alongside each other and encourage one another. And that, That has been one of the most significant things that I have found in in stepping into this role. I got connected with a women executive pastor cohort of women all over the country who are leading in this in similar roles.
Sarah Hooley — And being able to just ask questions of other church leaders, being able to say, will you pray for me? Like, I’m going through something really difficult right now. Will pray for me? That has encouraged me personally to be able to keep pressing on when it does feel overwhelming or it does feel like, man, the the task is too great for me. To be reminded and to have other pastors in like my corner and in my ear saying, remember who God is and remember what he’s called you to.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Sarah Hooley — And so I think that that is just, it’s, if we can keep that in view and that in, in that mindset in view, that that God is so much greater than the most difficult person at your church who is louder than all of the others. And, um and God is greater than the the greatest problems that you are facing and the, the difficulties that you’re walking through. And, and so like, I think just looking for those, those things.
Rich Birch — So good. Sarah, this has been such a helpful conversation. I really appreciate you being here today and investing in us. And it’s fantastic, super encouraging and lots of good nuggets in there. I got pages of notes here. If people want to track with you or with the church, where do we want to send them online?
Sarah Hooley — Yeah. We I mean we’re on um Instagram and Facebook. We’re forthecity.com is our church website. We are not on TikTok yet. We’re not that cool. I don’t know. Someday we’ll we’ll get there.
Rich Birch — Nice. That’s fun.
Sarah Hooley — But yeah, that’s that’s the primary way.
Rich Birch — That’s great. Thanks so much. Thanks for being here today.
Sarah Hooley — Thank you so much.
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Aaron Stanski, founder and CEO of Risepointe, a firm that partners with churches across the country to design and build facilities that amplify ministry impact. With more than 15 years of experience in church architecture, project management, and ministry leadership, Aaron and his team help churches navigate complex building challenges while staying focused on mission.
Is your church facing growing pains—crowded lobbies, full parking lots, or overwhelmed kids’ spaces—but unsure how to move forward? Aaron shares practical insights on how to approach facility planning strategically, align vision with budget, and avoid the costly mistakes that can slow down momentum.
- Overcoming the overwhelm. // When churches consider expansion or renovation, leaders often feel paralyzed by the process. Questions about cost, zoning, design, and disruption quickly pile up. Too often, churches jump straight to hiring an architect before defining their real needs. Instead, churches should first clarify what’s working, what’s broken, and what’s next before anyone draws plans.
- Start with scope and budget. // The two guardrails of every successful project are scope (what you’re building) and budget (what you can spend). Aaron warns that skipping this step often leads to beautiful drawings that churches can’t afford. Risepointe begins with a Needs Analysis, an on-site deep dive into the church’s DNA, culture, and challenges. The team listens to staff, studies how people use the building, and identifies bottlenecks—whether it’s the children’s hallway, lobby congestion, or limited parking. Only then do they define the right-size project and realistic cost range.
- The power of early engagement. // Most churches wait too long to start planning. Zoning approvals, fundraising, and construction all take longer than expected, especially in urban areas. Waiting too long forces rushed design work, unclear budgets, and lost ministry opportunities. You don’t have to build everything at once. Start with a plan that captures the next few wins—like improving your lobby or kids’ check-in—while preparing for long-term growth.
- Knowing when it’s time. // Aaron says early warning signs include maxing out your primary service, overflowing kids’ spaces, and parking lots at capacity. Many pastors misjudge space needs because they see the auditorium every Sunday but rarely experience the parking or early childhood chaos firsthand. Evaluating your entire Sunday experience—entry to exit—reveals where capacity problems really begin.
- Aligning buildings with ministry models. // Every church facility reflects a ministry philosophy—but those philosophies evolve. Where there used to be 40-year ministry cycles, now they are closer to 10 to 20. Churches shaped by the seeker-sensitive movement, for example, are now adapting to relational, community-driven models. Spaces that once emphasized rows and stages now need more environments for conversations, mentoring, and connection.
- A free resource for leaders. // To help churches begin the conversation, Aaron’s team created a free guide called “10 Things to Get Right Before You Build.” The resource walks through key questions every church should answer before launching a building project—from clarifying vision and budget to preparing for change. You can download it and schedule a free consultation at risepointe.com/unseminary.
To learn more about Risepointe’s work helping churches align facilities with mission, visit risepointe.com/unseminary or follow Risepointe on Instagram for inspiration and project stories.
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Portable Church
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. I am so glad that you have decided to tune in. You know, across the country, we keep hearing about churches that are growing and we’re seeing swelling attendance and that’s good. Some of that is like a platinum problem though. It generates other issues that we have to think about. And so what what I did was pull on a friend of mine, Aaron Stanski, he’s the founder and CEO of Risepointe. He’s got 15 plus years of church design, leadership and project management and experience.
Rich Birch — If you don’t know Risepointe, where have you been? You’re living under a rock. They’re church architects and designers. They have years of experience working with churches like yours, schools and nonprofits, and they offer a wide range wide variety of services, including architecture, interior design, graphic design, branding, and so much more. Aaron is, I like Aaron not just because he actually has got incredible skills. His team’s got incredible skills, but he really actually wants to help churches like you. And so Aaron, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I’m glad to be here, Rich.
Rich Birch — It’s going to be good. Give give people, you’ve been on a couple of times…
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …and but give us again, for folks that haven’t heard, the Aaron Stanski, you know, a couple bullet points.
Aaron Stanski — Sure.
Rich Birch — What did I miss? What do you want to fill in the picture?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah. I mean, ah you know the quick story is grew up in ministry. My dad was a pastor growing up, planted a we planted a church in Boston when I was a kid. Went to school for engineering, worked for Harley Davidson Motorcycles, did big projects, project management and stuff for them for a while. And then felt called to ministry.
Aaron Stanski — So left Harley Davidson, was on staff with Cru for a couple years doing college ministry before I jumped on staff at a fast growing multi-site church here in Chicago. So loved that, loved being part of that ministry team. And then, of course, we went through a big building project. So got to roll up my sleeves on the on the church staff side of things and hire architects and engineers and AV consultants and really kind of combine my my engineering mind and my ministry heart. And so absolutely love that process. And so, yeah, I’ve been helping churches now for the last 15, 16 years. It’s been an absolute blast.
Rich Birch — So good. Well, the the kind of person I want to have in mind today, and so friends, if if you’re listening in, if this sounds a little bit like you, you’re going to want to pay close attention. So I’m thinking about that church, you know, the leader that looks around, they maybe have got, maybe they got two services.
Rich Birch — They’re looking around and they’re seeing, ooh, they feel like maybe their growth ah is starting to create some pinch points. Maybe it’s in kids. Maybe it’s in adults. Maybe it’s their lobby. It’s they look around and they’re like, man, I just I feel like our facility might be holding us back a little bit. um And because I do bump into this in churches all the time.
Aaron Stanski — Sure.
Rich Birch — And there’s like, there can be like a certain amount of anxiety and fear around, gosh, when do I, what do I do? So when you talk to pastors, what do you know notice as one of the kind of most common point of confusion when it comes to starting or pulling the trigger, moving on with a building project, expansion project, try to improve things. Where are we getting this wrong?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah. I mean, I think ah like one, the whole process itself can just be completely overwhelming.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — Like immediately you’re confronted with, ah oh my goodness, like what’s the right solution? What is the, ah what is the town or the, you know, the jurisdiction going to allow us to do? What is this all going to cost? Where are we going to do church in the meantime if we’re having to fix this building or add on to it?
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Aaron Stanski — I mean, immediately all of these questions start to kind of well up and it can become ah really overwhelming for a lot of churches.
Rich Birch — So good. So when when we step back, is there any one of those that you think in particular is like a piece of the puzzle that is the most kind of mysterious or is the most um confusing as as you that you bump into regularly with leaders?
Aaron Stanski — I mean, I think the most confusing is probably like, what’s the right solution?
Rich Birch — Okay. Yep.
Aaron Stanski — A lot of times it’s a combination of like, you know, we feel like we’re out of space, so we have to add on. But if we do that, we’re going to have to modify what we already have. And what we have is old, or there’s some maintenance on it that we haven’t gotten around to. And like, what can we do in this space? And so actually the the right solution is is probably one of the most difficult things to kind of imagine for a lot of pastors.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — And, you know, then right behind that is like. What’s it going to cost? Right.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — I mean, you know, for the last four or five years, we’ve seen a lot of inflation. We’ve seen a lot of different things happening, like with pricing and stuff. And so what used to be a pretty easy calculation for us as churches now, it feels like it’s a lot foggier as far as like what what things are just going to cost.
Rich Birch — Yeah. So I’ve heard church leaders at this this juncture, they start thinking like, okay, like we got to get an architect. Get me the architect, the the person that designed this building 25 years ago. Where are they? Are they still in business? And, you know, we start going down that road. I’m not even really sure what an architect does. Like, I obviously, you you draw things. But, like, help us understand what what is the piece of the puzzle that, like, an architect brings to the table.
Aaron Stanski — Right.
Rich Birch — And I know that’s, like, a subset of what you guys do. Pretend that I’m, like, super dumb because it’s probably not actually worry about pretending too much there. Explain what that is. What is that service? And is that actually what we need at this juncture? Is that the first question? Like, get the architect. Come in here. Explain that whole thing.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah. I mean, well, I think we have to be careful. Sometimes hiring an architect is like picking up a hammer, right? And for a lot of architects who were, you know, traditionally trained and might have like one sort of, you know, viewpoint of the world. Like their job is to come in and draw something new um that’s going to sort of solve your problem. The challenge with that is a lot of times that architect is just looking for ah one type of solution, ah which is build you something new, add something on.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — And they’re looking at it very narrowly through the lens of what the solution is going to be.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Aaron Stanski — And a lot of times they’re not, you know, kind of able to kind of step back and take a look at strategically and say, okay, before we start drawing plans and blueprints and some of those sorts of things, let’s really talk about like what’s going really well at your church and how are we going to amplify what you’re already doing well? How are we going to add some, you know, some pieces around it? And then of course, how are we going to fix some of the big, you know, some of the bigger problems?
Aaron Stanski — So an architect technically, right? I mean, it’s a licensed professional. Their job is to lead your organization through the process from the very beginning all the way through the stages of design. Their job is to make sure that the solution is aligned with your with who you are as an organization and your budget. And they’re supposed to help all the way through construction, making sure that it gets built the way that it was designed and and that it gets you know all the questions get answered and that it’s ultimately safe.
Aaron Stanski — So that’s what an architect does. I think the I think the thing that we miss a little bit on the front end is in order for the architect to start, we really need kind of need to know what the scope of the work is and the budget first.
Rich Birch — So good. Okay. Okay. Good.
Aaron Stanski — If we don’t put those two guardrails on the left and the right-hand side, we’re really missing out. The left-hand side should be scope. The right-hand side should be budget. And we should nail those down before we get going into designing.
Rich Birch — Okay. I want to unpack that because I know, I actually texted you recently. Friends, getting you behind the scenes a little bit. I had a friend of mine, they had done exactly what we talked about here. They were like, we went and hired an architect to help with this thing. And they came back with a ginormous number um that was like, I would say a factor, you know, three or four times what I thought. And what do I know? I don’t know anything.
Rich Birch — And I actually think it was these guardrails where they went off off on it. They didn’t start with scope and budget. They started with, hey, here’s a problem, architect – solve it for us. And they came back with this, you know, very incredible initial drawing and all that.
Rich Birch — Talk us through how do we nail down scope and budget from the beginning? Talk us through what does that look like?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, so I would say, ah you know, you want to find a ministry partner who’s going to come in and really kind of help ah flesh out some of those pieces, really understand what’s working well, what’s not working well, what’s missing, where do we have to clarify what it is that we’re doing in order so to sort of establish that. And and there’s ah there’s a lot of great partners out there who can help you do that. But you’re really looking for someone in the building/design/construction space who has experience who has a lot of experience, honestly, with churches and understands what it means to, you know, serve people who’ve been part of your church for 20, 30 years and keep them on mission and disciple them up, as well as welcoming people who are walking into your doors for the very first time.
Aaron Stanski — So at Risepointe, we walk through a process called The Needs Analysis, where we get on site with, you know, a church for an entire day and understand their DNA and really understand what’s working and not working and stuff. And we start with that so that we can sketch out some ideas and some concepts and stuff around what is the what is the scope of work that’s going to solve the problem or fix the lid or add the seats that we need? And what’s the budget that we feel like God’s calling us to spend as a church in order to go do that? And we want to start with that before we jump into full architecture.
Rich Birch — Okay, so sidebar question. Is it possible for someone to help us at this early kind of scoping phase without doing some sort of on-site? Like, can I just call an architect and say, hey, here’s the problem. I need to add a thousand seats. How much is that going to cost? And then they go away and come back with a number. Or, or you know, are is there, yeah, can they do that? Talk us through that.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah. I mean, you can. I mean, you can call up Risepointe and I’ll get on the phone with you. The, and, but there’s going to be a range, right?
Rich Birch — Okay.
Aaron Stanski — And I can say like, Hey, here’s the last 10 churches that we’ve done a thousand seat auditoriums at…
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — …and here’s kind of the range and stuff. The problem with shortcutting to that is you miss a lot of things, right? Each jurisdiction is different, like how the civil engineering works, the parking requirements and stuff.
Rich Birch — Right. Good. Yep.
Aaron Stanski — And those really affect the budget. And so we want to understand those first. And the second thing is, I mean, every church that we work with is and incredibly unique in the people that they’re reaching, and the values that those people have and whether they’re de-churched or unchurched and and who they’re running into and and stuff. And so really kind of understanding that context is so important um before we jump into, you know, sort of solution.
Aaron Stanski — But yeah, I mean, since we work with churches all over the country, I mean, if someone called me up, I could probably, I could probably put my thumb in the air and give them a ah swag on what that might cost.
Rich Birch — Yeah. And I would, you know, it’s funny because I’ve, I’ve recommended people have asked me those kinds of questions and I always actually say exactly what, you know, where you led, which is like, you should call my friend Aaron and, but, but what you should do, get on the, do the like free call or whatever, get on the book a time. But I said, you really should do this Needs Analysis thing. Cause the project that you’re facing is always much larger than you think.
Rich Birch — And I would rather people take time, invest the resources upfront and time, frankly, to slow down and say let’s actually understand the question we’re asking before we jump to answers, right? Like what because because we could get this thing wrong and actually that gets to this whole idea of how early is too early. My experience has been people wait too long before they engage with someone like you. They they get into like their third service, fourth service. They’re like, oh gosh, people aren’t going to the fifth service. Maybe we have to figure out how to get more space. Talk us about, you know, what mistakes do we make when we wait too long without engaging with someone like you?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah. I mean, I’d say, you know, the thing to keep in mind is that you’re, if you’re the average church that reaches out to Risepointe, you’re somewhere between two and a half and three years away from having any sort of new space.
Rich Birch — Wow. Wow. Okay.
Aaron Stanski — And that’s on the short end. We have churches who are bringing new space online five years after they’ve reached out to us because they’re, they live in downtown areas…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Aaron Stanski — …very challenging jurisdictions and some things like that.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Aaron Stanski — And so when we’re thinking about when is the right time, I think, yeah, earlier is definitely better. But we have to be careful ah that we’re strategically spending dollars even on the front end, you know, so that we, you know, we’re getting out of it what we need.
Aaron Stanski — As leaders, what questions are we asking that we need answers for in order to determine is it the right time to move forward with a building project? Is it a right time to launch a campus or go multi-site or some things like that?
Aaron Stanski — If you wait too long, typically what happens is either we’re we’re rushing through the design process to kind of hit the capital campaign stuff and there’s budget misalignment. All of a sudden we thought it might be this, but now this is the actual budget for what it’s going to work.
Aaron Stanski — And I think when that happens, there starts to be some vision confusion. You know, we’re looking at solutions that we kind of rushed through and it doesn’t feel like we really thought all of those things through. And so I think that’s another one.
Aaron Stanski — And then I just think, you know, there’s there’s some missed ministry opportunities if if we kind of wait too long. I think a lot of times when we’re planning out, here’s the multiple phases of how we develop this campus and expand it. You know, we miss out on opportunities to go get some smaller things done sooner…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Aaron Stanski — …capture momentum, you you know, fix the welcome center, like invest some dollars in something we know we’re not going to tear down, make it better for guests in a couple months. And we miss out on those things if we don’t have a bigger, more strategic plan.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good. Yeah, kind of a step back and say, hey, how does this fit into where everything that’s going on?
Rich Birch — What would be kind of double clicking on that? What would be some indicators internally that would say, hey, um you know, these things are happening. I should really reach out to Risepointe. What would be some of the things that you would see as telltale signs that it’s now a time to to kind of take this step?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah. I mean, I think if we’re, you know, if we’re really pushing towards our, those max numbers at our primary service, I think that’s a, that’s definitely an early indicator.
Aaron Stanski — A lot of churches just kind of reach out and say, Hey, okay, here’s, here’s kind of where we’re at. Here’s where the math is at. Like, can you look at this like from a, like how much kids area should we have? How much lobby space should we have? And we can run some quick math for them and say, Hey, you don’t have any other lids. You’re looking good. You, you probably have a few more years of growth in you.
Aaron Stanski — So that would be one. You know i think if ah you know we’re starting to talk about ah adding a third or fourth service, it’s probably a little bit too late, but we should probably get on it sooner than later.
Aaron Stanski — And then, you know, one of the, one of the other things too, is just kind of paying attention. It’s easy for us on Sundays to stand on the stage and look out and get a pretty good sense of, are there enough seats? Is there space for me here? And like, we look out and we see some empty chairs.
Aaron Stanski — Keep in mind that when you’re coming in from the back of the auditorium, it’s a lot harder to see some of those empty chairs.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Aaron Stanski — And so what is the percentage? But the other thing is the things that we’re not seeing when more when we’re on stage on Sunday is we’re not seeing the parking lot. We’re not seeing the early childhood wing that’s basically a it’s a it’s a disaster back there. There’s kids running around like crazy.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Aaron Stanski — And so even if we’re ah even if we have enough seats, like or we’re not at the 80 or 90 percent capacity to our primary service. We need to be looking out at some of these other areas and making sure that there’s not a lid somewhere else.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Yeah. In fact, I literally just last weekend said that to a church. I was, you know, I was doing a weekend visit where I was on site and all that stuff. And, and it, to me, it felt like the building, the parking, and the kids, and the main auditorium, they, or the adult auditorium, they just didn’t match. It was like they, the three were out of alignment. And I think they had enough kids, but you know, I don’t know. There was, it’s interesting how that can happen. And you know the lead pastor typically is seeing um only the adult room and not you know not anything else.
Rich Birch — Early on, you know there’s my experience has been and projects that have been a part of that I would rather spend money as personally as a leader. I’m not saying, friends, if you’re listening in, that you need to necessarily do this.
Rich Birch — I would rather spend money on the front end with a designer like you. Because because the joke I’ve made is it’s a lot cheaper to move walls on drawings than it is in in the real world. And I’ve that comes from pain of building stuff…
Aaron Stanski — It’s true. Yeah.
Rich Birch — …of building stuff, and then being literally I opened up a new facility and then stood there with a kids ministry person. And the kids ministry person was like, oh, I didn’t think it was going to look like this. I was like, oh my goodness, what what are you talking about?
Aaron Stanski — Shoot.
Rich Birch — Like, we just opened this new facility. Talk us through, like, what’s an investment on the front end to reach out to someone like you?
Aaron Stanski — Sure.
Rich Birch — How do you help churches see that hiring someone like you can actually save us resources in the long haul? Talk us through that.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah. I mean, starting out at the beginning and getting really clear about where we’re going and how we’re going to get there, it really helps us, you know, cart and like make sure we don’t overbuild or underbuild.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Aaron Stanski — It makes sure that like compared to all the other churches that we’re working with all over the country, that we’re in alignment with where the square footage is at and it’s aligned with how you do ministry locally, how you use these spaces seven days a week.
Aaron Stanski — And so it’s it’s really making sure that we’re not overbuilding or underbuilding anywhere because that’s ah you know that’s a huge that’s a huge miss if we do that. And that’s probably one of the biggest cost savings.
Aaron Stanski — The other thing is you know during you know during sort of that season of vision and master planning and when we’re talking to our folks about what God’s doing at the church and we’re telling stories of life change, like we’re really kind of laying out a vision for what God is calling us to do as a ministry. And people just naturally have questions around like, like, how is this going to help? And and how is this actually going to help us reach my lost coworker, my lost neighbor?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Aaron Stanski — And, and so I think, you know, spending the time to do that, really translating sort of the mission and vision into physical space needs and producing some of those renderings that accompany that story. I mean, that’s just a really critical part.
Rich Birch — Okay, so let’s double click on that. That’s that I feel like I have been caught in this situation where I get I get like, it’s the hammer and nail thing you you say. Like, I’m I’m pretty sure I know what the solution is.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Like, let’s go do this. And I like that what you’re saying is like, hey, we need to take a step back and like actually think through how does this fit in our vision and how’s that all? How do you actually do that? How do you help a leadership team discern what the problem is that they’re really needing to solve, or should be solving, rather than just let’s build a bigger box. Or, I know! We just need 25 new parking spots. Like how do we not jump too quickly to that? What’s that look like?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah. I mean, it looks like, you know, spending time.
Rich Birch — Good.
And and, really getting to know them and what makes them unique. Like we have a fantastic set of tools that we use at Risepointe to like really talk about, you know, let’s talk about, uh, outside the walls, right? Like who, who are we called to reach? And, and what does it mean to do ministry in this place that God has uniquely put your church in the geographic area?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Aaron Stanski — And let’s talk about the tension between this side of town and that side of town. And let’s, you know, let’s wrestle with, you know, some of those issues. And then let’s, and then let’s talk about like, like, man, who are we as a church on our best day? And what does it feel like when we’re like living up to our full potential?
Aaron Stanski — And then we even get into some of the things around like, man, what are what are some of the strategic drivers? What’s driving more people hearing about Jesus? What’s working really well? What do you see as opportunities or things that where if you had the right leader or finances that you’d be able to you know, accomplish even more of your mission.
Aaron Stanski — And so by starting there and then starting to work down towards, okay, where is your facility aligned with that with that exercise and where is it misaligned? Okay, let’s unpack that a little bit. And then without getting into ah the solution yet, I want to meet like individually with each you know ministry leader…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Aaron Stanski — …talk about what how check-in works and all of those things.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Aaron Stanski — And so it’s really sort of this almost like a 360 review of what’s happening between the mission and vision God’s given us, and how are our facilities helping or hindering that mission and vision.
Aaron Stanski — And then it just comes down to budget. And so, okay, here are the possible solutions. Here’s what roughly what some of those things are going to cost. And then it’s going to the, going to God in prayer and saying, okay, what are you calling us to do? What are based on these options and trying to figure it out?
Rich Birch — I want I want to come back to the budget question in a second. But I’ve I think I probably have stole this off you. I have said to multiple church leaders that like our buildings were built, there was like a philosophical underpinning of the the buildings that we were built with. There was a ministry model that they were built on.
Aaron Stanski — Sure. Yeah.
Rich Birch — And then there’s been a lag between when we made those decisions, we’ve we built them. Now we’ve been using them for X number of years. And our ministry model may no longer be the same as the building, or probably isn’t actually the same as when the building was built.
Rich Birch — What’s your sense on how long that lag time is kind of between the, they they you know, we built something. If we built something more than 10 years ago, you know we probably want to readdress or look at our facilities afresh and say does this actually meet the needs of…
Aaron Stanski — Sure.
Rich Birch — Because I feel like so many of us are in like the the cramped shoes that just don’t quite fit they work but they don’t quite fitWhat do you think that lag time is?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah. I mean, the lag time is getting shorter and shorter.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Aaron Stanski — It used to be, you know, it probably used to be 40 or 50 years…
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — …you know, without major ministry model shifts and stuff. Obviously, you know, Willow Creek, North Point, you know, coming onto of the scene in the in the late 90s and stuff really shifted. We have churches all the way up into the 2000s, even into the 2010s that sort of copied the model of the Willow Creeks and some of those things. And I think we’re seeing, you know, we’re seeing the model shifting a lot faster now.
Rich Birch — Interesting.
Aaron Stanski — I’d say, you know, you know, we’re probably in a faster 10 to 20 year cycle, something like that. But I think we’re coming out of the, you know, the, you know, that model of Willow Creek and North Point and stuff. And we’re, we’re moving into a new season. And it’s kind of exciting for us.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Aaron Stanski — I mean, we get to, we get to sit on the front edge of all of that. Churches like in fantastic places, being creative, reaching, you know, people for Christ. And so it’s just interesting to kind of observe some of those things and, um and observe what’s working really well and, and where it we can improve, you know?
Rich Birch — Yeah. You’re baiting me. What are those things that you’ve seen that have shifted? There’s got to be, or is that the magic? We got to call Aaron to find out.
Aaron Stanski — No, you don’t have to call Aaron. No, I mean, the thing, I mean, like, you know, I heard someone share this with me recently, right? I mean, every Netflix account homepage is different for every person, all billion subscribers or whatever that they have.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — They’re individually tailored to to those individuals. And I know that because when I had a bunch of seventh grade boys spend the night at my house, like my algorithm got so messed up on my Netflix account last weekend.
Rich Birch — Love it. Love it.
Aaron Stanski — But I think there is a shift away from you know some of the bigger, more institutional types of look and feel and trying to get down to, okay, how are we engaging one-on-one with people who are walking in and where they’re at.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Aaron Stanski — How do we, you know, instead of preach a sermon at them, how do we hear their story? And what does it look like for us to hear their story in in various places, whether that’s a welcome center, whether that’s, ah you know, side by side in the pew, whether that’s in sort of a first steps class. And so there’s a shift on that side of things…
Rich Birch — Yep. Yeah, that’s interesting.
Aaron Stanski — …just like as we look at the next generation and how we engage and reach the next generation.
Rich Birch — Okay, I want to loop back on the money question. So for folks that don’t know, a part of what I do is actually help churches with that. And don’t really talk about it publicly, but I do. And, you know, there is this interesting tension that churches often come to this. It’s like we think we’re different than our ourselves.
Rich Birch — And that if I was going to go build a new house, I would have to start with, well, how much income do I have? And like, what can the, you know, what can the, you know, what what would the what would the bank give me from a mortgage point of view? Like I start with reality around my finances. But so many churches start with, let’s build this giant thing. And it’s totally disconnected from the from what we could actually afford to either raise or carry long-term.
Rich Birch — How much variance can a church bring to a design? Like if they upfront are defining, Hey, like we can afford probably 5 million. I know I’ve got $35 million dollars in dreams or maybe not. That’s, that’s too crazy. I got $15 million dollars in dreams. Is it possible for me to, to actually get that into a tighter box? Help us understand how do we do that? How do we on the front end be realistic with our finances as we’re doing this design thing?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I mean, I think we have to with open hands, we have to hold out the, you know, the dreams, the vision, you know, the stuff that God’s given us. And we have to prayerfully sort of go through that exercise and say, okay, ah but how much risk do I want to introduce into the organization, like via debt?
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — What what is God actually calling us to do with those things? And we have to be creative in how we and and how we get across the finish line. I think when I when I hear sometimes a senior pastor sharing with me his $35 million dollars vision, Rich…
Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes.
Aaron Stanski — …what I immediately try to do is say, okay, talk to me about what it is about that $35 million dollar thing that’s resonating with you.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good. That’s good.
Aaron Stanski — And so even though he’s describing something that’s $35 million, dollars and as an architect, I might get really excited about drawing $35 million dollars worth of stuff.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Aaron Stanski — If he actually can’t afford it and can’t raise it, he’s actually not going to go do it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — So I need to go back to that vision and say, okay, what are the pieces in there that are from God, that are ah that are aligned with the mission that his church has and stuff? And I need to contextualize that. And then as an architect, as a designer, I have to turn around and say, okay, with my guardrails in place of budget and scope, how do I express those things…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Aaron Stanski — …in the $5 million dollars that God has entrusted our church with? And so there’s going to be a lot of difficult decisions along the way. We’re going to have to prioritize some things. And some other things might have to go on the back burner. But that’s the process that we want to help churches walk through um to to get them to that point where they’re walking into a space for the first time and going, oh, man, this feels like us. Like this is this is who God wants us to be in our community. And I’m so excited about doing ministry in this new space.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. So it’s it’s not, from what I hear you saying, it’s not unreasonable on the front end to be like, hey, we should actually bring, like, be clear on this is this is what we think we can actually raise. This is that what we think we can carry. We think we could do a project of X, whatever. And that needs to be early on in the discussion rather than we’re disappointed on the back end. Oh my goodness, we got this this big number and we don’t know what to do with it.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I like to be doing it simultaneously. I like to be doing the Needs Analysis and working through, okay, here’s the eight different project options. You can relocate and spend $35 million. You can add on. You can you can do this. All right, here’s your here’s your four options, $10, $8, $6, $4 million dollars And at the same time, I like to encourage churches to like, okay, go talk to someone like yourself…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Aaron Stanski — …and say, okay, what do we think we could raise if we did a capital campaign? How much debt do we currently have? How do our elders feel about us you know borrowing some money if it if it makes a bigger impact on the project? Because if we can bring those two things together and pray through it and get clarity from God about what he’s asking us to do, then I can go ah help draw buildings and blueprints and things like that. Rich, you can help them raise some money and they and we can you know we can go through that process.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Yeah, it’s great. And you know, my experience has been every one of those steps, friends, is, it’s a lot of work. It’s, it’s like a, it’s a faith ah stretching experience. There are late, late nights staring at the ceiling, but every one of those I’ve been a part of, literally 100% of them have been transformative in the life of the church. You know, when they, when you look back, you’re like, wow, that was an inflection point. I am so glad we went through that. It wasn’t this like we did that and I was like, man, that wasn’t such so good in the end. It was really was amazing.
Rich Birch — Well, there’s a resource that you’ve provided. It’s called 10 Things to Get ah Right Before You Build. Talk to us about this resource and then and then where can where can we want to make sure people get this. Tell us tell us a little bit about this.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I mean, like with, you know, church, hundreds of churches calling us, you know, every year, asking a lot of the questions that we’ve talked about today. Like we tried to distill down what are the most common things the churches are like, okay, pause real quick. I got to go do something real fast before we decide that we can sort of move forward. And so some of these things are what happens like while you’re talking to Risepointe and some of these things might be before. But I think it’s just kind of a helpful reminder and ah a thoughtful list to kind of work through.
Aaron Stanski — And so if that’s helpful at all, or if that’s interesting at all, um you can just go to risepointe.com/unseminary. And a little ah little landing page will pop up there. There’s two things you can do on that page. The first one is to just give us your name and your email there and sign up and get that 10 things to download.
Aaron Stanski — I also threw another button on there this morning in case you’re like, hey, that sounds great, but I’ve got I’ve got a specific question I have about our building. Or like, I actually really need to talk to you guys about what our options are. And so I put another button down there at the bottom. If you want to schedule a call with myself or one of our architects, we’d love to hop on the phone with you. No charge for that. 30 minutes. Just kind of talk through where you’re at, what some of your questions are and see if we might be able to help. So ah once again, that’s risepointe.com/unseminary. And you can get all that, all that stuff right there.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s fantastic. That’s risepointe.com/unseminary. And friends, I’ve had multiple friends in ministry who have engaged with with Aaron across the entire spectrum. The like free 30 minute thing all the way up through, you know, the kind of full deal, help get a whole project out the door. And and just so happy with the work that Risepointe does. And just has been transformative for their churches. So you get a hearty endorsement from me. You really should do that. Again, that’s just risepointe.com/unseminary. You can pick this up. It is a helpful little PDF, and the schedule call is a great thing.
Rich Birch — Well, Aaron, I appreciate you being here today.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — If people want to track with you guys or if they’re anywhere else online, obviously risepointe.com. We want to send them to anywhere else online. We want to we want to send them to.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah. I mean, you can always, uh, you know, follow us on the Insta or whatever you want to do there.
Rich Birch — Nice. Love it.
Aaron Stanski — If you’re into like, you know, cool pictures of like steel being erected, ah or, uh, kids ministry stuff or pictures and stuff, we’re trying to share a little bit more info there. But yeah, I mean, or just our website and, uh, yeah, stay connected.
Rich Birch — That’s so good. Thanks for being here and have a good day, buddy.
Aaron Stanski — All right, you too. Bye.
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Tensley Almand, President and CEO of Atlanta Mission, the largest and longest-running provider of services for people experiencing homelessness in the Atlanta metro area. Founded in 1938 as a soup kitchen during the Great Depression, Atlanta Mission now operates four campuses, serving over 800 men, women, and children nightly through programs that provide housing, recovery support, and Christ-centered transformation.
How do you lead through complexity while staying true to your calling? Tensley shares leadership lessons from his transition from church ministry to leading a $20 million nonprofit—insights that apply to every pastor or church leader navigating growth, complexity, or change.
- Moving beyond shelter to transformation. // While many think of Atlanta Mission as only an emergency shelter, over 60% of its beds are dedicated to long-term transformational programs that address root causes of homelessness. The yearlong program includes counseling, trauma recovery, life skills, and vocational training. Clients complete a four-week “Next Steps” program focused on relational, emotional, and workplace health. The results are remarkable: 70% of graduates maintain stable housing and employment a year later.
- Learning to lead by listening. // When Tensley stepped into his CEO role, he faced the challenge of succeeding a leader who had guided the organization from crisis to stability. Rather than arriving as the expert, Tensley began as what he calls the “Chief Question Officer.” He met with every employee to ask four key questions: What’s right? What’s wrong? What’s missing? What’s confusing? The responses revealed a clear need for strategic focus.
- Building clarity and focus. // Using that input, Tensley led a yearlong process to create a strategic roadmap—a seven-year plan that defines the organization’s mission, values, and measurable outcomes. When there’s clarity in an organization, saying ‘no’ becomes easy and saying ‘yes’ becomes difficult. The new strategy gave Atlanta Mission a unified framework for decision-making, with every initiative measured against the same mission.
- Measuring what matters. // Data fuels care. In order to better track client progress, the team at Atlanta Mission built dashboards, measuring not only how many people they serve but how lives are changing. When graduation rates dipped from 70% to 45%, they discovered the cause wasn’t program failure but economic change. That same approach can transform church leadership. Churches measure nickels and noses, but what if we measured progression—how many first-time guests become group members, or how many volunteers grow into leaders?
- Partnership through presence. // Atlanta Mission thrives through partnerships with churches across the city. Tensley explains that relational poverty—people lacking healthy connections—is as debilitating as material poverty. Rather than only focusing on “do for” service projects, he encourages churches to create “be with” opportunities: hosting birthday parties, sharing meals, or building relationships with families at Atlanta Mission.
- Encouragement for leaders. // Reflecting on his own journey, Tensley reminds church leaders who feel stretched or uncertain that often you’ll overestimate what you can accomplish in 90 days, but underestimate what you can do in a year or two. Take time to listen, build unity, and stay faithful in the process. Over time, that faithfulness becomes transformation—both in the people you lead and in yourself.
To learn more about Atlanta Mission, visit atlantamission.org or email to connect or schedule a visit.
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. I am so glad that you have decided to tune in. We’ve got a real honored to have an incredible guest on today’s episode. We’ve got Tensley Almand with us. He is the president and CEO of Atlanta Mission.
Rich Birch — Now, if you don’t know Atlanta Mission, I’m not sure where you’ve been. You really should know. This organization was founded in 1938 as a soup kitchen to feed men who were displaced by the Great Depression. And they just keep chugging along. They do incredible work. They now serve Metro Atlanta’s largest homeless population and bring hope in the face of homelessness, poverty, and addiction.
Rich Birch — Prior to serving at Atlanta Mission, he was in vocational ministry for 20 plus years, the last 12 of those, as we were just saying in the pre-call. He said, felt like he had the the best job in the world, was a lead pastor at Decatur City Church, one of the eight Atlanta City, Atlanta area campuses of North Point Ministries. Tensley, welcome. So glad you’re here.
Tensley Almand — Man, so good to be here. Thanks so much for having me. I’ve been looking forward to this conversation.
Rich Birch — No, this is going to be good. I’m excited. Why don’t you kind of fill in the picture? Tell us a little bit more of your background and tell us a bit more about Atlanta Mission, that kind of thing. Just help set the table.
Tensley Almand — Yeah, so I’m a native Atlantan. I grew up here, born and raised just north of the city. Yeah. Only child. Parents still live north of the city in the same town that I grew up in.
Rich Birch — Nice.
Tensley Almand — My wife and I, we have four kids. We have been married now, just celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary…
Rich Birch — Congratulations. That’s great.
Tensley Almand — …which makes me feel old, but it’s it’s it’s all good. So four kids, three boys, little girl, they’re all just amazing, doing great things and in their worlds. We live over in city of Decatur. So ah for those that don’t know, just kind of just right outside of downtown Atlanta. So we feel like we’re living in the heart of the city.
Rich Birch — Cool.
Tensley Almand — Like you said, I spent 20 plus years on the church side of ministry, which you had told younger me that that was going to be my future, I probably would have laughed at you. Grew up in a family that church just frankly, wasn’t that important to us. My mom gets mad if I say I didn’t grow up in a Christian home, um, which, you know, looking back, I think is really true. I just grew up in a home that we didn’t feel like the church was for us.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tensley Almand — And so, um, after, you know, meeting Jesus in college, giving my life to him, which is a whole nother really cool story, started down the path towards ministry. And eventually several years into that kind of looked up and thought, I don’t know what I’m doing. Like I’m working at these churches that I don’t even want to attend.
Tensley Almand — Like remember this very pivotal meeting in my life where our pastor asked us, he’s like, if I didn’t pay you to go to church here, is this the church you would attend?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Tensley Almand — And every one of us said no.
Rich Birch — Oh, gosh. Oh, my goodness.
Tensley Almand — And they were all okay with it.
Rich Birch — Oh, no.
Tensley Almand — And I just like something broke in me.
Rich Birch — Oh, no. Oh, no. Yeah.
Tensley Almand — And I remember going home and I told my wife, I was like, I can’t do this anymore.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tensley Almand — And so I started the process of just trying to find a job. But the problem is I’ve genuinely felt called by God to ministry. And so God used that to, to lead us down the path of starting Decatur City Church. And, um, our whole dream was just to create a church that people who didn’t like church would love to attend.
Tensley Almand — And so, which is really cool. Again, it’s probably a whole other episode, but really cool because we got to do that in one of the most unchurched cities in Atlanta. 70% of the people who live in Decatur ah don’t go to a church. And Decatur, for those who don’t know, small little town right outside of a big city.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tensley Almand — But literally, there’s over 600 churches in that town. So we used to say all the time, nobody wakes up on Sunday wondering where a church is. They just wake up wondering if church is for them.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Tensley Almand — And so that’s, that’s the thing we tried to solve. Right.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tensley Almand — And so did that for 12 years, thought I would do that with my whole life. Just an amazing season. And then God called me out of there to Atlanta Mission. And so for those who don’t know, and we can get into that story here if you want to, but, for those who don’t know, Atlanta mission, like you said, it’s the largest and longest running provider of services…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Tensley Almand — …for men, women, and children experiencing homelessness in our city. So for perspective, what that means is on any given night, we’ll have about 800 men, women, or children who are staying with us.
Rich Birch — Wow. Wow. That’s a significant operation. That’s, that’s incredible.
Tensley Almand — It’s a significant operation.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Tensley Almand — It represents that in our city, that represents about 35 to 40% of all the shelter beds in Atlanta.
Rich Birch — Wow. Wow.
Tensley Almand — So that’s, it’s a, it’s pretty remarkable opportunity that we do that across three campuses in downtown Atlanta.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Tensley Almand — One for men, two for women and children.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Tensley Almand — And then we have this really cool drug and alcohol addiction facility out near Athens, which is about an hour outside of town, on 550 acre farm that is just beautiful ah for men who are in recovery from addiction.
Rich Birch — Wow. Oh my goodness. Huh.
Tensley Almand — So yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s, that’s incredible. i’m I’m glad you started with the kind of community size that you’re you’re serving. That’s, that’s amazing. Give me a sense of the operation from like a, you know, total number of staff, other kinds of metrics. Like I’m just trying to, I know, you know, you’re not a kind of person that’s going to brag about that kind of stuff, but just trying to help people kind of place, because this is a significant operation, friends. Atlanta Mission is it’s a world-class organization doing great work and honored to have you on this the show. But people might not be ah kind of aware of the the scale of it. Give us a bit more sense of that.
Tensley Almand — Yeah, no, it’s a, it’s a good question. I appreciate you asking. Cause yeah, I definitely don’t, I don’t want to, I don’t like going there, but…
Rich Birch — Yes. And it’s even just, it’s a funny thing to, it’s a funny thing to even like, it’s like, well, we’re really good. It’s like, it’s like, well, yeah, it’s a tough thing you’re doing. So it’s like, man, it’s a weird thing to kind of try to but get ah your arms around. How, how do we talk about this? Yeah.
Tensley Almand — Yeah. So let me kind of give you scope and then let me talk a little bit about what we’re doing. So scope is ah we’re we’re about a $20 million dollars a year organization.
Rich Birch — Yep. Yep.
Tensley Almand — And so just like every church out there, that means, you know, we start July as the start of our fiscal year and we start at zero…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Tensley Almand — …and then we go and raise $20 million dollars…
Rich Birch — Right.
Tensley Almand — …to meet the need of our expenses. And we do that through mainly private and and corporate donations. And so…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Tensley Almand — …we’re almost a hundred percent privately funded this year.
Rich Birch — Oh, wow.
Tensley Almand — We, we, we took our very first government grant.
Rich Birch — Huh.
Tensley Almand — But I mean, it’s a $250,000 grant, which is not insignificant, but on the scope of 20 million. So that kind of gives everybody an idea. So you’re talking about, uh, you know, thousands of donors who come alongside of us to partner with us, which is just amazing.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Amazing. Yeah.
Tensley Almand — We serve about 800 men, women, and children, like I said,
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Tensley Almand — And we have right at about 180 staff…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Tensley Almand — …who are who are either you know full-time equivalents basically here with us. And that’s across four different campuses. So we’re essentially like a multi-site operation. So I’m sitting here at my office today, which is basically our mission support center.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Tensley Almand — So your accounting, HR, development team, all of your infrastructure, and we support the work that’s happening all over our city.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tensley Almand — And then we also have three thrift stores across Northeast Georgia that’s included in that head count.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Tensley Almand — And so a little bit of that 20 million that I was telling you about that that revenue comes from sales as well. And so, so yeah, it’s pretty broad organization. And then what we do, a lot of people think about you know Atlanta Mission, especially here in our city, and they just think emergency shelter.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tensley Almand — Certainly what we do. But of those 800 beds, roughly only 40% of those go towards emergency shelter. And so if you…
Rich Birch — Oh, really? OK.
Tensley Almand — Yeah. And so if you show up at our door and you just need safety, security, stability, um, you’re just trying to like get off the street…
Rich Birch — Right.
Tensley Almand — …we have a program called Find Hope…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Tensley Almand — …and it’s a 30-day program. You can stay with us rent free 30 days. You know, bed meals, showers, really, really, really, really low expectation on those clients.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tensley Almand — It’s just like, hey, we’re here to meet your needs.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool.
Tensley Almand — The other 60% of our beds go towards what we call our transformational model…
Rich Birch — Okay.
Tensley Almand — …where we provide complete wraparound services. It’s about a year long program.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Tensley Almand — You show up and we’re going to try to help you get healthy relationally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, vocationally. We’ve got counselors, we’ve got advocates, we’ve got social workers. You have a whole team…
Rich Birch — Right.
Tensley Almand — …that works with you, walks with you for a year…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Tensley Almand — …depending on really your core traumas, what’s caused your homelessness. And our main goal, our mission is to transform through Christ the lives of those who are experiencing homelessness, poverty, and addiction.
Tensley Almand — And so what we want to do, what that means to us is over the course of that year, Um, we want to give you the tools to identify your traumas, understand those traumas and ultimately break the cycles so that you don’t ever have to come back to our doors again. We we tell our clients, we love you, but we don’t ever want to see you again. Like this is just like, like, how do we…
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes. This was a phase of your life, hopefully, right?
Tensley Almand — Yeah.
Rich Birch — That’s the goal.
Tensley Almand — How do we end that for you? And so our program goes through all the counseling, all the services, and it wraps up in a vocational training program we call Next Steps that…
Rich Birch — Wow. That’s amazing.
Tensley Almand — …that gives our clients the soft skills they need to not just get a job. Because here’s here’s what’s really cool. You you would get this. Our clients are really good at getting jobs. But like so many people out there, we’re terrible at keeping a job.
Rich Birch — Right. Right. Right. Yes.
Tensley Almand — Like people don’t know the skills needed to like keep a job. Like how do you manage conflict?
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Tensley Almand — What do you do with that boss who’s just overbearing? How do you have normal workplace conversations?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Tensley Almand — And so we have a ah four week training program that gives our clients those skills. And what we’re finding is that for the clients who go all the way through our program, 70% of those who graduate our program, they still have a house or a living situation a year later.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Tensley Almand — And they are maintaining that job a year later.
Rich Birch — Wow. That’s incredible.
Tensley Almand — And so it’s just been a remarkable, remarkable journey. And so we’ve got some transitional housing in there…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Tensley Almand — …where you graduate our program, you stay with us, we help you save up and and we help you find an apartment. And then when you’re ready financially and you’re you’re stable, we help you move into that that apartment.
Tensley Almand — And what’s really cool, probably one of my favorite things is for alumni is that year after you graduate, you get a retention coach with us and they walk with you. And they just help you navigate life because, man, when you’ve stayed somewhere for a year and then you kind of come back in and you’re like, oooh, the pressures of the world are on me. That first year is so tough.
Rich Birch — So hard. Yeah.
Tensley Almand — Yeah. Yeah.
Rich Birch — Well, that’s cool. I appreciate you sharing that. and And yeah, even church leaders that are listening in, um man, ah there whether if you’re in the Atlanta area, you definitely should reach out to Atlanta Mission.
Rich Birch — But even in your neighborhood, like there are, this is why you shouldn’t be trying to invent this yourself as a church. There are these are incredibly complex issues that you know when I heard all of the the different things you’re doing to surround people, try to help them, um that’s that’s inspiring. That’s amazing.
Rich Birch — Well, I’d love to pivot and talk about kind of your experience as you’ve transitioned in, like some try to extract some leadership lessons. It’s been said that one of the first things that leaders do is define reality or gain clarity for their for their organization.
Rich Birch — When you first started early on in your role, what were you listening for or look for that told you, maybe there’s some areas here that just aren’t very clear? What did you see as you were, you know, we got to bring some more clarity in the organization? Were there things you kind of saw that that made you think, oh, we maybe this is some areas we need to gain some better clarity as an organization?
Tensley Almand — Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think, you know, every leadership transition is different. One of the advantages I had is that what my predecessor was leaving me was so much different than what he inherited.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Tensley Almand — And so he inherited an organization that was in crisis. He handed me an organization that was thriving. But, that organization really was, and he was, and it’s it’s all kind of wrapped up in our story, is that it was time for him to retire. It was time for him to move on. And so the whole organization was asking what’s next. And so that’s, that’s one advantage I had is that there was this collective, like, well, like what what is next for us? That was helpful.
Tensley Almand — The other advantage I had, and I did not think this was an advantage. But, you know, I, I came out of church ministry. I didn’t know how to lead a nonprofit. I didn’t know anything about homelessness.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tensley Almand — Tensley Almand — I didn’t know much about social services. And so, yeah I truly believe God called me into this, but I couldn’t come in like an expert.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tensley Almand — And so I literally was forced to, my I tell people my door said CEO, but I think I was really the chief question officer. I mean, my my first year…
Rich Birch — Help me understand. Help me understand.
Tensley Almand — …was, yeah, asking questions. I can I can vividly remember our clinical director coming into my office and saying, hey, we’ve got this massive clinical decision that we need to make and there’s this and this and this. And you know and then like trying to leave that way. What do you think we should do? And I’m like… you’re the clinical director. Like, what do what do you mean?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Tensley Almand — But that was again, and this is and he would say this if he was sitting here, my predecessor had an organization that was in crisis. And so every decision had to center on him. And I needed to come in and teach our team how to have a decentralized leadership. How like, hey, look you’re the clinical director I’m going to support you, I’m to remove obstacles for you. But if I have to make clinical decisions, we’re we’ve got a really big problem because I’m not qualified to make that decision.
Tensley Almand — And so um really pushing leadership down…
Rich Birch — yeah
Tensley Almand — …asking a lot of questions, understanding what we do. And so that was that was a huge advantage that that i think a lot of people probably, they can like I did, they they think about the things that are stacked against them. To me, it’s like you don’t know anything about the space. That’s a big obstacle.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tensley Almand — Well, maybe lean into those obstacles because it’s a really good way to to get underneath the hood. And so it forced me to ask questions, forced me to listen. And then what I did is I I truly went on a just a listening tour.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Tensley Almand — I set up a meeting, I think, with every employee of our organization.
Rich Birch — Wow. Wow.
Tensley Almand — And I asked everybody what’s right, what’s wrong, what’s missing and what’s confusing.
Rich Birch — Huh.
Tensley Almand — And I still have that notebook.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tensley Almand — I mean, my assistant like cataloged answers for days.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tensley Almand — And what was so cool to me was that without having the same language, almost everybody in the organization identified the same rights, wrongs, missings and confusions. And so I was able to then take that and really come back to our senior team and say, hey, what should we do about this? Like we all…
Rich Birch — Right.
Tensley Almand — We all agree this is a problem. like What should we do do? And I think a colleague of mine, I remember walking into his office and he had this drawing on his board. I’m like, what is what is that? He’s like, well, is how I feel about our organization. I remember it was ah it was a circle.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Tensley Almand — And all the arrows were pointed in every direction around the circle. And he’s like, that’s us. Like, we’ve got the right idea…
Rich Birch — Right.
Tensley Almand — …but everybody’s pulling in a hundred directions to try to figure out how to do that idea.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Tensley Almand — and I said, man, we need to take that circle and get all those arrows on one side. Cause if we can collectively pull… and that just kind of became our quest. And so we took all those answers and, you know, basically the the big thing was, um you know, and I don’t know where I learned this, but I feel like when there’s clarity in an organization, ‘no’ is really easy and ‘yes’ is is really difficult. It’s like really easy to say no.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Tensley Almand — And what I found at Atlanta Mission was we were just saying yes to everything. And the reason we were saying yes to everything is because there was no strategy, there was no clarity.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Tensley Almand — And so we took that first year and a half, wrote our strategic plan, identified who we want to be and why we want to be that. And then what would it look like to be that organization? And so we just kind of built it backwards. And that’s the journey we’ve been on now for the last four years since I’ve been here.
Rich Birch — Wow. That’s, ah yeah, that’s incredible. I love that that feeling. In fact, i I took over a nonprofit ah kids camp and much smaller scale than what you’re running. But I remember those early days where there yeah people are looking at you and and and there is this sense of like, okay, so like you got to tell us where we’re going. What is the thing we’re doing next? Like and it’s easy to like… the easy thing is, let’s try this. Let’s try that. Let’s do a bunch of different things. And that can lead to that pulling, those hundred different, you know, it’s lots of activity, but it’s not focused.
Tensley Almand — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And trying to get everybody on a kind of a shared page of or shared picture of what the future looks like, man, that’s great through this, this process of kind of we’re going to do a strategic plan over a year. What, what would you, what would you say to a leader that is feeling the pressure of like, Hey, I want to define the future now, as opposed to that feels like a step back. We’re going to year and a half and define this stuff. What would you say to a leader? Why should we slow down? Talk us through why that, how that benefited now that you’re on the other side of all that.
Tensley Almand — Yeah, I think the first thing I would say is it’s it’s totally worth it. I mean, it it was hard. It was challenging. It it does feel like a step back. But I don’t know how to step forward without without clarity, you know.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tensley Almand — And that’s, you said at the beginning, I got to ah got to be one of the campus pastors at North Point Community Church for years. I can remember Andy always saying, The beauty of North Point wasn’t that we got to start with a blank page, just that we started on the same page.
Rich Birch — That’s good
Tensley Almand — And I just think that like that, that is always set with me. And so when I when I started here, I realized like, hey, I don’t I don’t get the luxury of a blank page. I mean, this organization has been around since 1938. You know, when I when I started Decatur City, it was so easy because I just told everybody what we were doing and why we were doing it and there was nothing else we were doing.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tensley Almand — And so it was just like… But here it’s like, OK, if I can’t get to a blank page, the best thing I can do is we’ve got to get on the same page…
Rich Birch — Right.
Tensley Almand — …or else we’re just we’re going to spin our tires. And, and you know, I think I’ll I’ll this story probably sums it up and maybe somebody can relate to this. I have a monthly breakfast with our board chair and our vice chair. And the very first breakfast I went to in this role, it was my predecessor’s last breakfast and my first. And so we’re all so it’s him, it’s me and it’s a board chair a vice chair, all of which have been around this organization 3x the amount of time I had at that point, I had been there like three days.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes. Couple weeks.
Tensley Almand — And and we got this email the night before the breakfast, and it was from a developer. And they were offering $14 million dollars for the piece of property that my office sits on, which is a widely underused piece of property…
Rich Birch — Right.
Tensley Almand — …that we’ve always kind of wrestled with, like, what do we do with this thing?
Rich Birch — Right.
Tensley Almand — $14 million dollars.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Tensley Almand — That’s almost our entire year’s budget.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Tensley Almand — And I remember showing up to this breakfast with this LOI and I asked the question, should we take it or should we not?
Rich Birch — Right.
Tensley Almand — And nobody could answer my question.
Rich Birch — Wow. Wow.
Tensley Almand — Nobody knew if it was a good idea to take $14 million dollars or to walk away from $14 million dollars
Rich Birch — And if that group doesn’t know, nobody else in the organization is going to know, right?
Tensley Almand — And that’s exactly what I said. I was like, if you don’t know, and I don’t know…
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yes, exactly.
Tensley Almand — …nobody knows.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes.
Tensley Almand — And so I started with that small group and I said, hey, would you give me the freedom to to take however long it takes for us to make sure we can answer that question?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Tensley Almand — And so in our first board meeting, I raised my hand and I just said, hey guys, I know I’m new, I know I just started. But I shared the story and I said, hey, we have to be able to answer questions like this. Or we’re never going to get anywhere. We may do a lot of good things, but we are going to have no idea if we did the best thing.
Rich Birch — Right, right. That’s good. That’s good. So kind of double clicking on that, continuing to kind of focus in on this. You know, there are churches, organizations that will do the strat plan or roll. We go away for the big retreat. We come up with the new value statements. It’s got great strategy on paper. But it doesn’t end up translating into practice. What are you doing at the mission to try to make sure that we’re going from that wasn’t just a great document that’s like in a nice book somewhere, but it’s actually rolling out. Maybe give us some examples of that. And what are those kind of rhythms, cadences, all that? How how are you making that happen?
Tensley Almand — Yeah, it’s wish I could really tell you we’re crushing it in this area. It’s this is a new habit for us.
Rich Birch — Sure. Sure. Good.
Tensley Almand — And so we’re I’m four years in. We just finished our first full fiscal year under our new strategy. And so I can tell you what we’ve learned.
Rich Birch — Hey, that’s good. Yeah, good.
Tensley Almand — One, once you get it built you have to start small. We, I wish I could remember the exact number, I think as a senior team we committed and told our board we were going to do 392 new initiatives or something in year one, you know.
Rich Birch — Wow. Right.
Tensley Almand — And this is a seven-year plan…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Tensley Almand — …we’re like we got almost for it and I think we got 100 through of the 392.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tensley Almand — And we celebrated like crazy at the end of the year because it was like, that’s 100 things that were all in alignment that we’d never done before. We learned so much. So, start small.
Tensley Almand — The other thing is we built our plan. And I was I was very intentional about this because of what you just said. I did not want another notebook that was going to sit on my shelf. And so our strategic plan is really a strategic roadmap. And what I have told our board, what I’ve told our staff is I want an organization that knows how to think.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Tensley Almand — And our our plan is really a roadmap for how we should think. It’s not overly prescriptive in necessarily what that means. Because it’s it’s designed to take us all the way through 2030.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tensley Almand — Well, I have no idea what’s going to happen between now and 2030.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Tensley Almand — But I do know that if what we said we want to accomplish, we’re accomplishing, however that looks, by 2030, we’re on the right track. And so that would be the other thing is just like, I would build, I wouldn’t make it so prescriptive that it tells you like, Hey, next week you’re doing this. And the week after… It needs to teach the organization how to think, how to act so that the person who’s brand new on the front line, if I’m not in the room, they don’t need to spend any time going like what, what would Tensley want me to do? They just, this is who we are as an organization. It’s how we think.
Tensley Almand — And then we at a senior level and then we pushed it all the way down to our organization. We built a meeting cadence around it.
Rich Birch — Nice.
Tensley Almand — And so we have our senior team meets once a week.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Tensley Almand — That’s my six direct reports and plus my admin.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Tensley Almand — And we, one, so we do that on Tuesday morning, one, the first Tuesday of the month is a strategy meeting. We talk all about the strategic plan. That’s like a, how how are you doing and your department doing towards what you said you were gonna do?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Tensley Almand — And we have a dashboard to measure that against. And then the next Tuesday is an operations meeting. And it’s just like, hey, what are what are we working on? We can’t live at 50,000 feet all the time.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tensley Almand — Let’s get down to 1,000 feet or whatever it is.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Tensley Almand — And so we have that operations cadence. And then the third meeting is kind of like a catch-all, like, hey, what you know what needs to happen? And then our last meeting of the month is a monthly ministry review with the entire, not just my direct reports, but all the managers that sit under my direct reports.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s cool.
Tensley Almand — And they lead that meeting. I listen in that meeting. And I get to hear what’s happening at every campus, what’s going on. And I get to hear how people are implementing or not implementing the strategy.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tensley Almand — And then the very next meeting, if you’re keeping up, is then our strategy meeting.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Tensley Almand — So then I’m like, hey…
Rich Birch — Here’s some stuff I heard.
Tensley Almand — …tell me more about this.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah. Yes.
Tensley Almand — Or I didn’t hear like, Hey, I thought we were working on this. Why is that not happening? And so we have dashboards.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Tensley Almand — We’ve never had those before. We have data that we can follow. We have metrics we’ve identified as a, as a team, our wins. And so it’s like, Hey, how are we tracking towards those wins and just have created a layer of accountability that didn’t exist probably three years ago.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Let’s talk a little bit more about the data thing. I’ve, or data thing. We, I’ve, I’ve said with younger leaders, you know, spreadsheets are the language of leadership. Like you’re going to have to get used to this stuff. This is just…
Tensley Almand — Yep.
Rich Birch — …this is how we care for people at scale is, is that is what it looks like. So data can either inspire or intimidate. How do you track outcomes? How do you, how do you how have you seen, you know, data over this last year actually change behavior and move things, improve care, better outcomes, all that kind of stuff. Talk us through what, cause you know, what we measure can get, can, you know, steer us in the wrong direction or steer us in the right direction. Help, help us think through that. As we’re thinking about what numbers should we pay attention to?
Tensley Almand — Yeah. So again, when I started, that was a big question I had. So if you were to look at our numbers, you would see that we serve, you know, let’s, these are rough, but right at about 3000 people a year come through our doors.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Tensley Almand — Right. Which is huge.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Tensley Almand — You’re like, man, that’s amazing. Well, then I, as I walk you through that, by the time you get to the end of our vocational training a year later, we may graduate like 400. And then 70% of those 400 are still doing well the the next year. And so, you know, on paper, you’re like, man, is that good?
Rich Birch — Right. Yes.
Tensley Almand — Like that, that there’s a lot of attrition there.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tensley Almand — Like should, is, is, are we fail… And that was, again, when I started, that was a question nobody could answer for me is, Hey, is that good?
Rich Birch — Right.
Tensley Almand — And so even backing up before we built our strategy, our senior team spent so much time defining our outcomes. And we had all of these statements, you know, but it was like we want somebody to be healthy vocationally.
Tensley Almand — It’s like, okay, what does that mean? Crickets in the room.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Tensley Almand — Wait, if you don’t know what it means and I don’t know what it means, does the person who’s leading that program know what it means? Better question: does the person who’s receiving our services know if they’ve actually achieved help in that area?
Tensley Almand — And so we went through, defined all of those terms so that there was a clear outcome to it…
Rich Birch — Right.
Tensley Almand — …so that we could then measure it. And then we built both a one-page dashboard that our senior team could look at at a high level. So I could I can open this dashboard on any Monday morning. It’s just in Tableau, so nothing super you know exciting.
Rich Birch — Yep. Yep.
Tensley Almand — And I can just see, i can see progression through our program. I can see healthy exits. We’ve defined what are healthy exits. I can see, ah you know, are people getting stuck? That was a big thing we were we were learning is like, people are just getting stuck in our program and we’re committing to somebody. You’re going to be at this phase of the program 30 days. Well, then they spend 60 days.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tensley Almand — And what we were finding. We were, so this, this probably long winded way of saying this, but what we, we didn’t know what was happening or why it was happening and it felt good. But you know, you’re like, I don’t know.
Tensley Almand — And so what we were finding is it’s like, Hey, so that’s an example. Like, somebody gets stuck in our program. We promised them 30. It takes 60. All of a sudden, we were able to track that, hey, there’s a certain amount of fallout rate at this stage of the program. Why is that happening? Oh, people are stuck. They’ve been here too long.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tensley Almand — We got to fix that. And so it it enabled us to know what needed to be fixed and and not fixed.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Tensley Almand — And probably the the best real-time example of that is just recently. So I keep telling you the 70% number of graduates are successful. That’s kind of our historical data.
Rich Birch — Yep. Yep.
Tensley Almand — Well, this year, that number fell for the first time ever. It’s gotten better every year.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Tensley Almand — This year it fell and it fell like dramatically. And this is one of those I don’t like to talk about it because it doesn’t look good.
Rich Birch — Interesting. Yes.
Tensley Almand — I mean, like it fell down to almost like 45, 50 percent.
Rich Birch — Oh, wow.
Tensley Almand — You’re like, what’s happening?
Rich Birch — Almost inverse. Yeah, yeah. Wow.
Tensley Almand — Exactly. And so at first, you’re like, our program is no good. We got rewrite our program. Well, thankfully, we had been tracking all of the kind of whys and we understood what was happening in people’s lives. And what we have found out is no, like the economy shifted. You can’t get a job in 30 to 60 days anymore.
Rich Birch — Interesting.
Tensley Almand — And so a gate in our program is when you graduate, you have 60 days to get a job. If you don’t get a job, you can’t move into our transitional housing because if we just allow you to stay, beds back up and then more people can’t get in.
Tensley Almand — Well, our clients then would stop taking our advice and stop waiting for a good job. And at day like 50, they would just go get that job that doesn’t pay well.
Rich Birch — Ohhh.
Tensley Almand — And they knew it wasn’t going to be a career builder job. It was just going to keep them sheltered.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Tensley Almand — And so it was our our like metrics were actually driving a behavior we didn’t like.
Rich Birch — That’s interesting.
Tensley Almand — And so we’re in the process now of like, hey, we’ve got to change this. The length of time it takes to get a job now takes longer. and
Rich Birch — Right.
Tensley Almand — The job market’s more you know fierce right now.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tensley Almand — And so we don’t want nothing against these types of jobs. We don’t necessarily want our client leaving to go get a job at McDonald’s
Rich Birch — Right.
Tensley Almand — But for them, leaving it to go get a job at McDonald’s versus not having a place to stay, I’ll take the McDonald’s job…
Rich Birch — Right. Yes.
Tensley Almand — …even though I know I’m only going to be there three months.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Tensley Almand — And so it was throwing off all of our numbers and it’s because we were incorrectly driving a behavior that we don’t want to drive. So.
Rich Birch — Wow. That’s cool. That’s a great, very vivid example. And there’s lots of that in the church world. I know you I know you know that. There was a church I was doing some work with last year, large church, 10,000-person church. And they were we were talking one of the numbers I obsess with my clients over is documented first-time guests, the actual number of people that come every single weekend. And I was convinced that this church was just was missing a whole bunch of first time guests. And so they were telling me about how great their, their, their assimilation numbers were. They were like, Oh, this is so great. And I was like, I just don’t believe it. I’m like, because, because if you are not capturing the number of, of documented first time guests, then yeah and you’re comparing against half of what you probably actually have coming into your church, then then every number be below that, all your integration stuff looks twice as good as it actually is.
Tensley Almand — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And you know that that happens in lots of places across our numbers. We’ve got to get real clear and benchmark against other people.
Tensley Almand — If I could go back and if I could go back, no, no, it’s just, like I’ve often thought like, what would I do different if I was a church leader now?
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s a good question.
Tensley Almand — And I would I would measure so much differently.
Rich Birch — Yeah, interesting.
Tensley Almand — You know, historically we’ve measured nickels and noses, right? Like how much money’s coming in and how many people are sitting in the pews. But it’s like, those are important.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Tensley Almand — I wouldn’t stop measuring them, but I would pay attention to like this. I would try to find a way to measure progression, you know.
Rich Birch — Yes, 100%.
Tensley Almand — It’s like to your point how many first-time guests are you having okay well then of those first-time guests how many of them are actually moving to your small groups.
Rich Birch — Yeah, 100%.
Tensley Almand — Of those who moved your small groups do any of them ever volunteer like and and really understand the behaviors you want. And then measure to those behaviors and i think especially in a world where just church attendance looks so much so much different, we could gauge health of our churches so much more effectively if we were
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so true. I’d love to I’d love to kind of pivot for a few minutes in a slightly different direction.
Tensley Almand — Okay.
Rich Birch — So we have a lot of church leaders that are listening in and I’d love to understand how Atlanta Mission partners with churches. What does that look like? How do you work together? So specifically at Atlanta misha, and then what would you, Mission, and then what would you say to churches in general? Hey, um what advice would you give now that you’re on this side of the equation of actually partnering with an organization like Atlanta Mission? How can you be kind of the best partner? How do we what are what are people on your side of the table actually looking for from a church like ours? Because I’m sure there’s all kinds of stories of like, yeah, that didn’t work well. Talk us through what that looks like, partnerships specifically, and then kind of in general, how can we be better at that?
Tensley Almand — Yeah, and partnership is one of our pillars of our strategic plan. I think I think for nonprofits, especially when you’re large and you’re self-funded, you can it’s easy to get siloed. And we we fell into that category, not just with outside partners that wanted to come in and help us, but also with other service providers across the the, you know, continuum of care in our city. is It’s just it’s easy to kind of put your head down and do your own thing.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tensley Almand — And so this is a huge emphasis for us, mainly because it’s really woven into the vision of our organization. Our organization is a community that’s united to end homelessness one person at a time. Well, I mean, it’s like partnership has to be built into that.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes, baked into it. Yeah.
Tensley Almand — So what who are we to then go get siloed? Like, that’s like, wow, you can’t even accomplish what you said you wanted to do. And so um we… I’ll back into this answer by telling you one of the things we’ve discovered at Atlanta Mission is that this isn’t this, you know, this isn’t novel, but, you know, material poverty, we all know is debilitating. Relational poverty is just as debilitating as material poverty.
Rich Birch — That’s so true.
Tensley Almand — And what we find with our clients is that almost 100 percent obviously are struggling with some version of material poverty, but they are just relationally broken and poor. They are void of healthy relationships. And so this is this is so much where partnership comes in, because we we literally have a metric that we track of how many healthy contacts does a client have in their phone before they graduate our program. And what we were finding is I mean we were their only healthy contact.
Rich Birch — Oh, wow.
Tensley Almand — And it’s wait this is this is not good. And this is such a great place for churches to partner with us because we have so many opportunities that we just call we call them “be with” opportunities there’s like there’s “do for” service projects but there’s also “be with” service projects. And they’re just designed for you to establish healthy community with our clients, build relationships, throw a birthday party for somebody…
Rich Birch — That’s so good. Right.
Tensley Almand — …have a Christmas party at one of our shelters. Come, you know, we’re moving into the holiday season, you know, come and build gingerbread houses together with our kids who are staying with us and just create an hour in somebody’s life that’s normal.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tensley Almand — And I feel like churches are better at this than anybody. Our corporate partners are fantastic at the “do for” projects. They can then come in and beautify our campuses in 30 minutes in a way that none of us can.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tensley Almand — You know, Home Depot comes in and it’s like, we’re going to transform your landscape. Great. This is awesome.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Tensley Almand — I love it. But a church can come in and just be authentic and be real and be with our clients.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Tensley Almand — And you would be amazed at how different somebody’s life looks after just that hour. And so, and I think that’s a huge thing. And then what I would tell churches, I think even as a church leader, I I probably overlooked how vital we were to nonprofits. You just you know, you think it’s an hour, but you know, even the day of, you know, you wake up that morning and you’re like, they don’t really need me. Like, I don’t know.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tensley Almand — This is, am I not really going to make a difference? Yes, you are.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Tensley Almand — You are going to make a huge difference. It is worth the hour. It is worth the drive.
Tensley Almand — And we we tell people all the time, and I’ve seen this in my own life. The thing that happens at Atlanta Mission is there’s always two stories of transformation happening. There’s the story of transformation that’s happening in a client’s life. But God transforms my life every day.
Rich Birch — That’s so true.
Tensley Almand — And it’s that’s the part I didn’t expect, Rich, is that…
Rich Birch — Right.
Tensley Almand — …my life is being changed as much as anybody else’s. And so I would, I would tell a church, Hey, our clients need you. But you need this as well.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
Tensley Almand — Like God’s going to do something in your life.
Tensley Almand — And then the other is just, um I think, especially for really big churches, it’s easy to think like, I bet they need my expertise. It’s like, actually, that’s not like. We need your partnership.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Tensley Almand — You know, we, we know how to do this. Come put wind in our sails.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah,
Tensley Almand — Come just serve, be a part of what we’re doing.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good. That’s super helpful. Love love that. Well, just as we’re coming to land, any kind of final words or encouragement you’d you’d say to church leaders that are listening in today that are, you know, wrestling with maybe clarity or wrestling with some of the stuff we’ve talked about today? This has been a really fruitful conversation. Thank you for it.
Tensley Almand — Yeah, I think the, you know, probably the biggest thing I would say, and I have to tell myself this all the time. I mean, I’m an entrepreneurial type A. I’m going to like, you know, go conquer the world in a day is that, you know, remind yourself, you know, more than likely what you can accomplish in 90 days is nowhere near what you think it is, you know. But what you can accomplish in a year or two years is probably way more than you ever imagined you could.
Rich Birch — Right. So true Yeah, that’s good.
Tensley Almand — And so just again, kind of back to the strategy thing, it takes time. It’s messy. You know, you’re going to feel like, is this worth it? It creates conflict on your team. It feels uncomfortable. We were, we were joking as a senior team the other day. There was, it was about a year where I just, every Tuesday morning, I thought I want to cancel this meeting because I just didn’t enjoy, like we were just, we were at conflict because we were…
Rich Birch — Right. Yes.
Tensley Almand — …hashing out who we are and why we exist and what are we going to do and why are we going to do it?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Tensley Almand — But now it’s my favorite hour of the week. Like, I just love it. And so, you know, I would say that…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Tensley Almand — …you know, and I think, yeah, I don’t know that I have anything, you know, much more.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Tensley Almand — Yeah.
Rich Birch — No, that’s good. Well, I really appreciate being on the show today. Where do we want to send people if they want to connect with you or with Atlanta Mission? Where are the best places for us to send people online?
Tensley Almand — Probably the easiest place is just our website, atlantamission.org. You can find everything you want to about us. If you want to know more, you can email info@atlantamission.org. And that actually goes right to my assistant and we’ll get you connected to the right person. And you can, you know, next time you’re in town, you partner with us. You can help us. You can be happy to give you a tour, show you what we do.
Rich Birch — That’s great. Thanks so much, Tensley. Appreciate you being here today.
Tensley Almand — Thanks.
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Jamie Barfield, the Lead Pastor at Palmetto Pointe Church in South Carolina. Palmetto Pointe is one of the fastest-growing churches in the country, with four locations in South Carolina, a campus in Southern Illinois, and Spanish-language services reaching even more people.
Is your church in a season of slow growth or scarcity? Wondering how to stay faithful and creative when resources are tight? Tune in as Jamie shares powerful lessons from 18 years of ministry—how his team built a thriving, multiplying church by embracing perseverance, stewardship, and servant leadership.
- The long road to growth. // Palmetto Pointe’s story is one of persistence and faithfulness. It took three years to break 100 in attendance, five years before Jamie drew a paycheck, and six before the church had its own building. Today the church averages 2,500 weekly attendees and continues to grow—up 31% last year alone. Jamie credits that perseverance to remembering the “why” behind ministry: reaching people with the message of Jesus Christ.
- Stewardship over scarcity. // In the early years, Jamie says the constant feeling of “not enough”—not enough money, volunteers, or influence—could have been crushing. Instead, it shaped the church’s DNA around stewardship and innovation. Rather than throwing money at problems, the team learned to think creatively and maximize what God had already placed in their hands. That approach still drives their ministry today.
- Faith that looks forward. // While rejecting the “name it and claim it” mindset, Jamie embraces faith-filled vision. Even when he doesn’t know how to get to big things, he continues to be faithful with what he has right now. This conviction shapes how he leads – every resource is treated as a seed that can grow if cultivated with faith and hard work.
- Developing leaders intentionally. // One of Palmetto Pointe’s most distinctive practices is its 12-week leadership development process, a hands-on journey that every potential leader must complete before serving in a leadership role. Participants are recommended by current leaders and walk closely with Jamie throughout the course. During those 12 weeks, participants serve across multiple ministries and complete weekly assignments that build humility and discipline. Only after completing the program do they join the pool of eligible leaders.
- Multiplying wisely. // As Palmetto Pointe has launched new services and campuses, Jamie has learned key lessons about healthy multiplication. Each expansion begins with identifying potential pain points, recruiting dedicated volunteers, and ensuring no one burns out. Before adding services, his team recruits a core group committed to that specific time slot for at least nine months.
- Encouragement for church leaders. // As a district overseer, Jamie has a heart for pastors—especially those in smaller churches who feel stuck or discouraged. His advice: make one Sunday amazing. Pick one big day—Easter, Mother’s Day, or another big day—and go all in. Then pick one person and invest deeply in them. Small, faithful steps of stewardship often lead to exponential impact.
To learn more about Palmetto Pointe Church, visit palmettopointechurch.com or connect with Jamie on social media at @pastorjamieb.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad to have you tune in today. We’ve got a great conversation. Really looking forward to talking to a leader who I know you can learn from, talking about stuff that is really important as we think about our churches and think about the future. It’s our honor today to have Jamie Barfield with us. He is part of the leadership team at Palmetto Pointe Church. I don’t know why that’s stuck in my mouth coming out.
Rich Birch — It’s one of the fastest growing churches in the country with four locations in beautiful Myrtle Beach in South Carolina, a location in Southern Illinois and Spanish services as well. He’s an ordained bishop in the Church of God, serves as a district oh overseer for the Myrtle Beach and surrounding areas. He’s also served, he’s got a lot going on, in the State Evangelism Board for the Church of God in South Carolina. Welcome to the show, Jamie, a real expert on the show today. Appreciate you being here.
Jamie Barfield — I don’t know about expert, but it is an honor to be here. I learned a lot from the school of hard knocks, so I will be definitely able to answer from that point point of view.
Rich Birch — Love it. Well, Palmetto Pointe is one of the fastest growing churches in the country. Now multiple locations, which is we see that 73% of churches over 2000 have multiple locations. For leaders that don’t know the story, kind of give me the story of your church. Tell me a little bit of what’s going on. If it were to arrive this weekend, what would that look like?
Jamie Barfield — Yeah, wild, wild story. 18 years. We just celebrated 18 years.
Rich Birch — Congratulations.
Jamie Barfield — Took us three years to ever break 100. Five years before I was ever getting a paycheck from the church.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Jamie Barfield — Six years before we ever had our own facility. Seven years before I ever had another staff member with me. Right before COVID hit, we were doing four services. And then obviously COVID shut everything down. And last year, God’s favor has just been upon the church the last few years. Last year, we grew about 31% last year – it was wild.
Rich Birch — Wow. Wow. And what does attendance look like now on the weekends at your church?
Jamie Barfield — We had 2,500 last Sunday.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Jamie Barfield — And we had but 2,500 last Sunday and that we we had about, of that probably 2,100 was here at our our main location here in Myrtle Beach.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s incredible. Well, I appreciate that you paced out the timeline there, because I think there’s a lot of church leaders who, or church planters who are in these early days, and it feels like, and the early days could be half a decade, you know, it could be a long time.
Rich Birch — Take us back when you think kind of the mindset of that, what what what was that experience like? How did you keep going? Talk us through what did that look like?
Jamie Barfield — Yeah. Early on, you know, and I talked at a conference last weekend about your “why”, knowing why you’re in this to begin with, knowing why you started and never forgetting the thing that actually put you in ministry to begin with. You know, that moment God called you, that moment that he asked you to do something great for him.
Jamie Barfield — And in those moments or those seasons, um early on specifically, when you were ready to throw in the towel and ready to quit, you always had to be reminded of, okay, God, why am I doing this? What is it that you put inside of me that pushed me to want to do something great for your kingdom?
Jamie Barfield — It was never about a paycheck. It was never about being on an amazing podcast like this. It was never about speaking at conferences. It was always about reaching people with the message of Jesus Christ and doing our best to get that out there. And so in moments where you wanted to throw in the towel and you wanted to quit, you always go back to those seasons of, okay, God, why did you call me into this to begin with?
Rich Birch — And what, what, when you answer that question in your own life, where does that, but you know, kind of, when you think about the why, how, what is what’s the kind of image that comes to mind or language that you wrap around for, for you?
Jamie Barfield — I’m very visual. So I think of standing before the throne of God one day and him saying, well done, my good and faithful servant.
Rich Birch — So good.
Jamie Barfield —And I’m so it’s going to be such a beautiful moment, but it also also motivates me .bBecause I think in that moment that I’m going to go in there almost nervous of the time that I wasted or the time that I gave up or the time that I… And I’m so I’m so motivated by that moment that I just want to stand there and have him look at me with a big smile on his face and say, you did it. You did everything that I put before you to do. You did it. Good job, servant.
Rich Birch — That’s so good. Well, early on, if we could talk for real here…
Jamie Barfield — For real.
Rich Birch — …like church planting, man, it’s it’s it’s tough.
Jamie Barfield — It’s the hardest thing ever.
Rich Birch — And those early years, yeah, those early years, it’s like, I don’t know. It’s like, you’re not rolling in cash. You don’t have the resources. You don’t have the people. Man, how how did that go for you? The kind of scarcity? How did that shape the way you lead, innovate? Talk us through that piece of the puzzle.
Jamie Barfield — Yeah, lack of money, lack of volunteers, lack of influence in the community. You know, it it feels like you know the the word attached to church planting so often is lack. I don’t have enough.
Rich Birch — Yeah, right.
Jamie Barfield — And that mindset inside of church planters, it’s going to be the thing that either crushes them or is going to cause them to innovate. For us, we just decided it was going to be the thing that pushed us or that drove us. And so the scarcity mindset that you spoke about at you know the beginning of ministry was some some things that were birthed inside of us that created some stewardship principles that we still follow today at our church. You know, we’re very much penny pinchers. We’re going to try the best to figure out the best way rather than just throwing money at problems.
Jamie Barfield — You know, I got buddies that, you you know, with the best of intentions, they just think that they can you you know, throw money at situations or at problems and it’s going to fix everything. And our mindset is just, we’re just going to be innovative. We’re going to try to figure this out and do it the best way we can without expecting that money is going to fix everything, or that volunteers are going to fix everything, or that influence is going to fix everything. So even at the start, all of that lack created or birthed something in us that has followed with us for the last 18 years.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I’d I’d love to talk a bit a bit a bit more about that. Well, first of all, I think it’s I think it’s good that you’re underlining mindset. I know for me as a leader, and it took me way too long to figure out that like kind of my approach. You know, I’m not like, ah you know, name it and claim it kind of person. I don’t think I can like, you know, I can’t just like make stuff up.
Jamie Barfield — Sure.
Rich Birch — But what I do know is if I don’t have the faith for it, if I don’t believe that God’s going to do something, then it doesn’t happen.
Jamie Barfield — Yeah, for sure.
Rich Birch — And so I’m not sure how that happens. There’s like a weird connection there between what I believe about faith and like, and I probably some people are like, man, this guy’s got bad theology. But talk us through that mindset and how, maybe give us a couple examples of how that has impacted you even today.
Jamie Barfield — Yeah, yeah. So I agree completely. The the you know concept of name it and claim it versus you got to have faith and where is that balance? And I’m unsure as well, probably got bad theology as well. But I definitely think that, you know especially early on, like it was, God, I see big things in our future. And I’m not sure how to get to big things, but I know I can’t settle with these things that we have now.
Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s good.
Jamie Barfield — So I have to press forward to make the things that we have in our hand now. I have to be a good steward of what you’ve given me. You know, he is faithful with little. You’re going to reward us with much. So, God, I’ve got to be faithful with what you put in my hands now.
Rich Birch — That’s so true.
Jamie Barfield — And I’m going to do the absolute best with this that I have in my hand now. But I’m going to do everything I can to make this thing better. Because I see bigger, because I see greater in front of us.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Jamie Barfield — And so I’m not going to just stop here and say, well, this is all that I have. This is this is all that I’m ever going to be. I’m going to do more for you with what you placed in my hands. I’m going to be that servant that whenever you walk away from me, you gave me two talents. I’m go to do my best to turn it into four.
Rich Birch — Yeah that’s, yeah, that’s amazing. That’s that’s so good. I love, you know, we wanna be multipliers of what, you know, what’s given. And I think the the financial stewardship thing makes sense. I think that’s understandable. You can see where, man, we gotta be good we gotta use the resources we have.
Rich Birch — What about on the people side? When you think about kind of being good stewards of your people, maybe developing leaders, that sort of thing, how does that work? What practices have you helped has have you kind of kept this mindset of innovation, kind of getting the most out of our people, that sort of thing. How has that impacted how what you do even today?
Jamie Barfield — Yeah, so I grew up in a very small church, you know maybe 70, 80 people. Maybe on on big Sundays we had 120 on Easter or something of that nature. And I saw leaders being thrown into situations, not trained well, not knowing church culture, not knowing what expectations were, not knowing the pastor’s heart. I saw all of that growing up.
Jamie Barfield — And those leaders that were thrown in oftentimes would find themselves burnt out by focusing on things that they really had no passion for. And the pastor maybe didn’t know what the thing inside of them that was the thing that really you know would drive them. And so we just decided whenever, you know, probably 10 or 12 years ago, we just decided we were going to create a process of knowing our our leaders and our leaders knowing me well.
Jamie Barfield — And so so we we go through a you know, I tell them all the time as we do a 12 week course. It’s not really we call it leadership development, but it’s not really leadership development. It’s more about you have to learn this culture. You have to learn my heart and my expectations for you.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Jamie Barfield — But I’ve also got to learn your story, and your passion, and your vision. Because I want us to walk away from this 12 weeks together, I want to walk away better prepared for a future together. And so as you’re walking this 12 weeks out with me, you’re you you know they’re serving everywhere in the church and serving in kids ministry one week and you know making coffee one week and all of the things. But what we’re learning in that season together is expectation. And you’re learning me and I’m learning you, but we’re putting expectation on what it takes to be a leader. And so as they finish this 12-week process with me, they then go into this pool of just to even be considered to be a leader in our church.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s interesting.
Jamie Barfield — So everybody that’s ever been a leader in our church, before they ever get to a leadership role, they’re a part of this pool because they’ve been through this 12-week journey with me. And I’m there with these people every step along the way, because again, I’ve seen it done so poorly that I just wanted to make sure that my fingerprint was upon leaders and volunteers in such a way.
Rich Birch — That’s cool.
Jamie Barfield — You know, there’s again, go back to a parable of Jesus, you know, the sower and the seed, you know, there’s this, there’s this principle of where you sow, if you sow in good soil, that it’s going to produce a good fruit. And so these people that are, that are, have a passion for the kingdom of God and want to do something great for the kingdom of God, those are the people that I want to invest my time, effort, and energy into because those are the people that are going to produce the, the largest or most productive harvest.
Rich Birch — Okay. I want to double click on this.
Jamie Barfield — For sure.
Rich Birch — There’s a ah bunch there that I want to unpack…
Jamie Barfield — For sure.
Rich Birch — …which is fantastic. So how, so how do you identify or how does your team identify people that land in this 12 weeks? And then I’d love to talk a little bit about, you know, the, actually the mechanics of it what’s going on in those 12 weeks.
Jamie Barfield — They have to be recommended by a leader in our church.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Jamie Barfield — It’s the only way to join the 12-week journey.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Jamie Barfield — So a leader in our church sees them, watches them serve or whatever inside of the church, and then they recommend them to my assistant, and we we start the journey with them.
Rich Birch — Okay. And those, is it like you run it in like a couple of seasons during the year? It’s a class and like a cohort matter. What’s the content? Just give us a ah a bit of, you know, a bit more about that.
Jamie Barfield — Yeah, we do we do two… Yeah, we do two semesters of it. So twice a year we run it. And it is ah one night a week. We meet at the church. We go through ah hour, hour and a half you know class type setting with constant homework through the week. And homework looks as simple as, you know, we we read the book, Andy Stanley, Next Generation Leader. We read through that together.
Jamie Barfield — Homework is serving assignments on Sunday. Homework is cleaning the church. You know, little things like that that just creates this culture, this this servanthood inside of them. So once ah once a week, we’re here at the church learning together. But then through the week, we’re constantly um connected and, um you know, again, working, efforting to to sharpen them through the 12 weeks.
Rich Birch — That’s cool. And you know you mentioned it multiple times. So you’ve really kept ownership of this group. They’re meeting with you. That I want to underline for folks that are listening in.
Jamie Barfield — Yeah.
Rich Birch — You know, your church you said is 2,500 people. There’s a lot of pastors of a church of 2,500 that would say, hey, I don’t have time to meet with this. Kind of unpack that a little bit more. I know you mentioned this already, but I want to kind of unpack what what are you thinking about there? What’s the advantage? How far does that scale, you think?
Jamie Barfield — Yeah, I am a huge advocate of whatever it is that you do, whatever’s on your plate. There’s some things that you have to do as a pastor or as a leader. And leadership development ought to be something that you have your fingerprint on.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Jamie Barfield — Whether it’s [inaudible] as much as mine is or whether it’s just, hey, I’m creating class and I’m stepping in every now and then, but somewhere, somehow, you have to be touching your leaders in the church and they have to know your heart.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Jamie Barfield — Whenever they go away from this class and they’re serving wherever, and maybe even they’re on a campus or doing whatever they’re doing, when they walk away from me, they know me, they know my heart, they know my, my expectations.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Jamie Barfield — And so I don’t have to go into, you know, seasons and step into kids ministry and try to put out fires and fix problems because they know me from the start before they ever get involved in certain ministries. They already know me and already know my heart. And so it just makes the the family community atmosphere of the church healthier…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Jamie Barfield — …because from from birth, this is from birth. This isn’t something that we’re trying to teach on the run. This is something we teach from birth to through the process. And then whenever they launch into whatever ministry they um lead or or serve in they already have all the foundational principles, all the pillars are built.
Rich Birch — That’s interesting. I love it. That’s, that’s great to learn more about. Talk to me about an expectation that ah that you have of your leaders that might be a little bit different. That might be like, oh, hey, it’s, you know, kind of in the secret sauce category that you’re like, hey, this is a part of what God’s using when, you know, hey, if you’re leading here, this is what we want you to be like, or something activity or something like that.
Jamie Barfield — Yeah. So so for instance, servanthood is something that I’m very passionate about. I am a servant. I expect leaders here at this church to be servants. I think Jesus is the greatest leader of all time, and he was a servant leader. It’s who he was. It was a part of his you know, character. And so, so servanthood is something that we, my wife and I portray to our leadership. And then we give expectation that this is what we expect from leaders inside of our church and throughout every department of our church.
Jamie Barfield — I think that is, that is, you know, something as simple as when you see some trash in the parking lot, as you’re walking up, you pick it up. All the way to when we’re having church events here, my wife and I are the last ones to eat. We’re not first in line.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Jamie Barfield — We’re making sure everybody else is served because we want we want to make sure that we are servant leaders inside of our our team.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. So I’d love to know, you guys have launched multiple locations, obviously multiple services within that. Multiplication is, to me, is a sign that you’re developing leaders. There’s something good happening on that front. You can’t do that unless you, you know, have multiplied leaders. Talk us through some of the lessons you’ve learned around multiplication as it relates to leadership development and how that all works together.
Jamie Barfield — Yeah, I will say that good leaders multiply themselves, but so do bad leaders.
Rich Birch — Oh gosh, that’s true. Oh man.
Jamie Barfield — And so that’s and so that’s that that’s that’s dangerous as well.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jamie Barfield — And so as as we multiplied, you know, from multiple services to, you know, multiple campuses and all the things that come with multiplication, as we have walked through the seasons of multiplication, we’ve always identified early the needs that were going to be present and tried our best to make an effort to make them not as painful as they could have been if we wouldn’t have identified them.
Jamie Barfield — And so something as simple as you know whenever we you know we were talking about launching multiple services, when when we launched into multiple times, we’ve launched into multiple services and been able to you know, through growth, knock out walls and go back to one and then we’re at two and then we’re at three, knock out a wall, back to one, two, three. And then right at COVID, we were doing four. But the the healthiest way that we ever launched a service was we did a 8 a.m. and a 10 a.m. The 8 a.m. was for volunteers only. So it was kids’ workers. It was, you know, we did, but did we did a full service. We did the band. We did I did my full sermon. It was volunteers only, but you’re welcome to come.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jamie Barfield — But this is strictly, you know, we’re focusing on volunteers. But then whenever we launched into two, as that second service filled up, we launched into two. We completely changed service times. What was a 10 a.m. service, now we went to 9 and 11. So then everybody was forced and instead instead of saying, oh, well, this is my service time. Now everybody was forced to choose a different service time.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jamie Barfield — So the 8 a.m. people we you know went to the 9 a.m., obviously, and the 10 a.m. people had to choose, do I want to get up an hour early or do I want to come an hour later?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Jamie Barfield — And so it was almost it was actually a 45 to 65 percent split whenever we went to the 9 and the 11. So it was the healthiest way we had ever done it, so incredibly beautiful.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Jamie Barfield — And so just, you know, if somebody’s watching this and they’re looking to go to two services, I would suggest have a volunteer service, go all in because that starts training your your band to do two services. It starts training your volunteers of what time they’d have to get there to be able to do multiple things. It kind of creates that buffer of a tension point in the future and being able to look look in advance to say, hey, let me let me work some of these issues out before we get there.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. um Kind of related to that, I feel like this is the year of like the three service questions, third service questions. Like I’ve had so many people in this last year reach out to me. I’ve written, I think three or four blog posts, probably 10,000 words on different stuff I’ve learned um about this because it’s like just keeps coming up. Like even today, literally today, I got an email about it this morning.
Rich Birch — So talk me through what what you’ve done at Palmetto Pointe around identifying when we pull the trigger for more services. Is that what mix of that is like opportunistic—we’re creating new space—or it’s reactive, like which of how much of it’s proactive, reactive? And how do you, you know, your church is growing, you’re growing quickly. How do you, how do you keep a far enough ahead? Cause you can’t just decide, Hey, we’re going to do new services. You got to do planning to make it all happen. Talk us through what’s that look like? How are you kind of the, how, how do we know how to identify when we pull the trigger? That sort of thing. Talk us through what that looks like.
Jamie Barfield — Yeah, reactive is terrible. I’ve done it twice. Reactive to, oh no, you know the parking lot’s full. Let’s plan a second service. You know, hat’s terribly difficult. You know, the proactive approach of, I see growth, here goes what, you know, we’re already talking about Easter next year, okay? Here goes how many people are gonna show up. How many services do we need for Easter? And then how much did we grow last year for Easter? So if those people come back, what can they expect the next week?
Jamie Barfield — And so for me, it becomes, opportunistic, yes. Launching multiple services are going to help your church grow. But as you’re launching multiple services, the growth versus the attrition, how is this going to wear your team out? Is this going to wear your staff out? Is this going to wear your band out or your kids’ ministry workers out? And that balance of, okay, at what point do you press forward and what at what point do you pump the gas or pump the brakes?
Jamie Barfield — And so I would just say for us, what we learned through this journey is, you know we want to make sure that when we launch into a another service that there’s a core group of people that are going to be a part of that service. I need you to I need you to say for nine months you’re going to be a part of this service and this is your thing.
Jamie Barfield — And so when we launch into another service, we’re going to make sure that this group of people wants to be there, and this is their church and their service. And then for us, we’re going to make sure that we have a completely different staffed kids’ ministry, completely different group, so we’re not wearing out the already wore-out volunteers of kids’ ministry.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Jamie Barfield — And depending on the time slot, we’ve we’ve tried three different time slots for our third service, but depending on the time slot we choose, it potentially may be a completely different band as well. Maybe the same worship leader, but a completely different band. Because those are the really the two areas, kids ministry and band and the staff. Those are the three areas that are really going to wear you out with multiple services.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. That’s some really clear thinking there around that. Really appreciate that. You know, at 31%, if you continue to grow, I know you know this, you know, that’s like just less than two and a half years, you’ll end up doubling.
Jamie Barfield — Right.
Rich Birch — So you’ll be a church of 5,000 if you continue at this rate.
Jamie Barfield — Crazy.
Rich Birch — And that that becomes difficult to stay in front of. You know, I’ve led in churches that are growing at that rate. And it’s it’s hard to to keep the skis out in front, you know, keep things moving in the right direction.
Rich Birch — Let’s pivot in a totally different direction. I want to take advantage of the fact that you’re a district overseer, in your movement. From your perspective, from your vantage point, what are you seeing across the church these days as it comes to growth and and challenges? And kind of what are you learning as you’re in that kind of coach seat?
Rich Birch — I’m taking advantage of the fact that you’re coaching other leaders.
Jamie Barfield — I actually love that you asked me this question because I was talking with a guy yesterday, and we were talking about how smaller churches specifically, those pastors are really struggling with grasping what their expectations of congregants are, and what the congregants’ expectations of the church should be.
Jamie Barfield — We as small you know smaller church pastors specifically, but we expect them to show up and to give and to serve and to connect, but they don’t have those same expectations on their life. So 30, 40 years ago, those were the expectations of a church attender.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jamie Barfield — Now they’re not.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Jamie Barfield — And so we have these unrealistic expectations that are creating frustrations from the pulpit to the pew. And I think it’s it’s creating this disconnect, or or honestly, I’ve seen some pastors even preach maybe very angry towards their congregation because of the unrealistic expectations placed upon those people. And so I would say maybe just to the smaller church pastor, which again is 80% of America, you know…
Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely. Yep.
Jamie Barfield — …those those guys listening to this, maybe be more understanding of how life has changed in the last 30 or 40 years. I’m not saying lower our standards of righteousness or scriptural truth, but understand that travel ball is a thing and it’s always going to be a thing. And you know, school plays and you know, families going on vacation.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jamie Barfield — Man, we celebrate when families go on vacation. I’m not mad at you for taking a vacation because I want a vacation, you know?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jamie Barfield — And so we celebrate when families go on vacation. So just creating realistic expectations for the congregation rather than what the, what the expectations were 30 or 40 years ago.
Rich Birch — That’s good. I like that. You know understanding where people are are today and not you know not overburdening them with ah a previous model. I think that’s a really good word for sure. How can we think about that same pastor that maybe sees that frustration and and takes the, you know, the pastoral word of like, yes, I’m not going to exacerbate my people, but I want to help clearly articulate. I kind of want to point to a brighter future for them.
Jamie Barfield — For sure.
Rich Birch — How do I what what would you suggest to them? How do you how should we do that?
Jamie Barfield — Well, first off, I would say one of the things that I see giving life to pastors is them connecting with other pastors.
Rich Birch — So true.
Jamie Barfield — I would just encourage a pastor watching this to make sure that he has or she has somebody in their life that’s outside of the bubble of their own church that may be going through something similar to their to what they’re going through.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Jamie Barfield — And I just think pastors encouraging pastors. We’re on the same team. We’re in this together. Pastors, encouraging pastors. I love what you do here where you celebrate ministries and what they’re doing. I just see that giving such life to um to other pastors that are discouraged and frustrated and aggravated. So I would start there. I would say, man, pastors, find another pastor and speak life into them.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Jamie Barfield — Maybe maybe the second thing I would say is you know maybe maybe an encouragement to, you know, to pastors who have wanted to try something new and try something different. Maybe just an encouragement to you know and to to do it, man. Just do it. Just try it.
Rich Birch — Give it a try.
Jamie Barfield — See what happens. Throw spaghetti up against the wall and see what sticks.
Rich Birch — You get a lot of grace from most, I think most of the people in our churches, we have the the negative voice person in our head, the person that like doesn’t love what we do and is like a complainer or whatever, but that’s like a rare minority in most churches.
Jamie Barfield — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Like most of the people in the church are cheering for the pastor, cheering for the leaders…
Jamie Barfield — That’s right.
Rich Birch — …and are like, man, I love that guy. I love that girl. And if you were to say, Hey, I’d love us to try this thing. It’s just a test. Let’s see what happens. Most people would be like, let’s do it, you know, and, and I, you know, that’ll be fine. And if it goes bad, then don’t take yourself too serious and say, well, we tried that. That didn’t work. And that’s okay. um Yeah, that’s good. I love that. That’s a great word for sure.
Jamie Barfield — Yeah. Agree. Agree completely. Agree completely.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. Well, just as we’re kind of landing today’s episode, any final words as we think about for people that are listening in about, you know, what you’ve learned through the years? I love the mindset stuff we’ve been talking about and just this whole area of like our our you know our approach to scarcity, how that works. But anything else you’d love us to think about today as we’re hanging up today?
Jamie Barfield — Yeah, yeah um maybe maybe maybe just to um to the guys that are feeling guys and gals that are feeling stuck, um you know maybe maybe short on everything. Lack is a big thing. Here goes here would be my encouragement. Make every Sunday amazing the best you can, but pick one day and throw all of your energy towards that one day.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Jamie Barfield — Maybe it’s Christmas Eve service coming up, or maybe it’s an Easter service or Mother’s Day or, you know, a manufactured big day, ah you know, a back to church Sunday or something of that nature.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Jamie Barfield — Pick a day and throw all of your energy towards that one day. Pick a person and start investing in a person. You may not be able to do a leadership development process, but pick a person and start investing your life into that person.
Rich Birch — Dude, that’s so good.
Jamie Barfield — Pick one event in the community and just show up for it. Just you know wear a church shirt and show up for the event and shake hands and hug necks and tell everybody, hey, you know. Pick one area of ministry and you know you know go go to your kids’ ministry and say, how can I make this better? You don’t have to fix it all right now.
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Jamie Barfield — You don’t have to you don’t have to be great at everything right now. You don’t have to have the most amazing, you know, Mother’s Day yet. But man, you can find one thing and just start focusing on something. And I think this is where that mindset of there’s more out there. I’m going to focus on something and make this one thing that God has put in my hand. I’m going to make this thing better.
Rich Birch — Dude, that is such good advice. You know, don’t drown in the all the things you wish you could do. Pick one thing and just do it. I love that.
Jamie Barfield — Pick one thing and do it.
Rich Birch — A friend of mine was a church planter and i was like, I think it was either the first or second Easter they did they went all in on the like Easter egg drop, which I know lots of people have done. But it was a smash success for them. They, you know, it was like five times their normal attendance. It was fantastic. The local news showed up. It was, and it gave, man, it breathed energy into the church for months.
Jamie Barfield — Yes. Yes.
Rich Birch — Like they lived off of that because it was like, hey, that was a win. Yeah, that’s, that’s so good. Well, this has been a great conversation today.
Rich Birch — I love talking to church planters. You know, I was recently with a leader of a church. We were walking around his facility and their buildings about 250,000 square feet, giant building. And he was talking about himself as a church planter. He was like, you know, referring to that.
Rich Birch — And and I joked with him. I said, well, at what point do you stop being a church planter? Like when you, you know, when you you just are doing a $20 million dollars building or whatever, I think, you know, somewhere along the line. But he’s like, no, once a church planter, always a church planter. We’re always, ah you know, the same thing. So I’ve really appreciated this similar conversation today.
Jamie Barfield — That’s exactly right.
Rich Birch — Jamie, if people want to track with you or track with the church, where do we want to send them online?
Jamie Barfield — Yeah, palmettopointechurch.com, it’s all over social media.
Rich Birch — Perfect.
Jamie Barfield — pastorjamieb, all of all of the social media handles are that. Love to connect with them…
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Jamie Barfield — …palmettopointechurch.com, I’d love to connect.
Rich Birch — That’s great. Thanks so much, Jamie. Really appreciate you being here today, sir.
Jamie Barfield — Thank you so much for the opportunity.
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with John Sellers, Executive Pastor of Locations and a location pastor at Journey Church in Central Florida. Journey is one of the fastest-growing churches in the country, with a thriving online community, three campuses, and a fourth location on the way.
Is your church struggling to help new guests take meaningful next steps? Wondering how to move people from attending on Sunday to fully engaging in community and serving? Tune in as John shares how Journey Church creates clear pathways for connection, builds consistency into its systems, and celebrates every step of faith along the way.
- The power of simple next steps. // Journey Church, once a traditional congregation, has experienced steady growth over the past 20 years—especially in the last five, averaging 10–15% annual increases. Rather than overnight success, it’s been the result of consistent focus on helping guests take simple next steps. Many churches lose first-time guests because they underestimate the courage it takes for someone new to walk through the doors. When someone visits your church, it means God’s already working in their life. Our job is to remove every barrier that keeps them from taking their next step.
- The “New Here” tent. // Every Journey Church location features a New Here Tent – the church’s first relational on-ramp for new guests. Volunteers greet visitors with warmth, celebrate the faith step they’ve already taken by attending, and offer a $5 gift card to a local coffee shop as a thank-you. This simple gesture opens the door for meaningful conversation, helps the team collect contact information, and lays the foundation for further follow-up.
- Six-week follow-up system. // From the moment a visitor shares contact information in exchange for a gift card, Journey’s six-week workflow ensures consistent and personal connection. Every new guest receives a brief video message from the lead pastor, followed by texts, calls, and emails from their location pastor and staff team. The messages include vision, invitations to next steps, and reminders about upcoming opportunities. If a guest doesn’t take a next step within that timeframe, Journey continues periodic follow-ups, keeping the door open for future engagement.
- A clear next steps pathway. // Journey’s Next Steps class provides the structure for moving guests toward increased connection. Held every weekend at every campus, the class runs on a monthly rhythm. Week 1 introduces the church’s vision and the gospel, inviting people to follow Christ or sign up for baptism. Week 2 focuses on serving, helping people discover their gifts and join a team. Week 3 is Baptism Sunday, offered every month across all locations. Week 4 celebrates new team members as they serve for the first time. Guests can join at any step, and every class includes free food, childcare, and relational discussion around tables.
- Lowering fear, increasing clarity. // Journey intentionally crafts weekend moments to affirm guests and point them toward next steps. A brief welcome moment after the first worship song specifically addresses new people: “We don’t know what it took for you to get here, but you made it—and that’s a big deal.” That language of affirmation lowers fear and builds belonging. Clear signage, follow-up stories, and visible next step options make it easy for guests to respond when they’re ready.
To learn more about Journey Church, visit journeyconnect.org or follow @journeyconnect on Instagram. Download their New Here 6-Step Follow-Up Workflow here.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Risepointe
Do you feel like your church’s or school’s facility could be preventing growth? Are you frustrated or possibly overwhelmed at the thought of a complicated or costly building project? Are the limitations of your building becoming obstacles in the path of expanding your ministry? Have you ever felt that you could reach more people if only the facility was better suited to the community’s needs?
Well, the team over at Risepointe can help! As former ministry staff and church leaders, they understand how to prioritize and help lead you to a place where the building is a ministry multiplier. Your mission should not be held back by your building. Their team of architects, interior designers and project managers have the professional experience to incorporate creative design solutions to help move YOUR mission forward.
Check them out at risepointe.com/unseminary and while you’re there, schedule a FREE call to explore possibilities for your needs, vision and future…Risepointe believes that God still uses spaces…and they’re here to help.
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Well, hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in and you’re gonna be rewarded for that because today we’ve got a great conversation. I know this is the kind of thing, in fact, I know this is helpful because I feel like every other day I get people asking about this area and this is the kind of thing that many of us can do just a much better job on and we’ve got really an expert on the line today to help us with. We’ve got John Sellers. He is Executive Pastor of Locations and is also a location pastor at Journey Church which has repeatedly been one of the fastest growing churches in the country. If I’m counting correctly, they’ve got three locations in Florida and a fourth in the works, plus church online. They exist to help people connect with Christ, community, and their calling.
Rich Birch — Super excited to have you on the the show today, John. Thanks for being here.
John Sellers — Thank you, Rich. I’m excited ah to be on. God’s been moving here and we’re just so thankful for you. I know we’re one of those churches that I don’t feel like we do anything unique or novel. Like we just learn from other people and learn from other resources.
John Sellers — And your resources have been a part of our story. And so one of one of your books, in fact, over the last couple of years about creating an inviting culture at your church has been one of the one of the best resources we’ve had in the last couple of years.
Rich Birch — That’s super kind.
John Sellers — And so we’re one of those churches that’s benefited from you.
Rich Birch — Wow. You and my mom read my book. I appreciate that.
John Sellers — Yes, yes.
Rich Birch — No, that’s good. I really appreciate that. Super kind of you to say. That’s that’s humbling, frankly, for you to say that. And so why don’t you kind of tell us a little bit about the church? Kind of tell us about Journey. Give us a sense. Talk about your role. Kind of set the table for us.
John Sellers — Yes, you’ve, you said it pretty well. We’re in central Florida. We’re a little ways north of Orlando. So we’re in a ah county called Volusia County, which is the same county that has Daytona Beach in it.
Rich Birch — Oh, nice.
John Sellers — And, uh, our area is a lot of kind of blue collar people. They’re just incredible, um, men and women of God. There’s incredible men and women who are moving here. Um, and they’re the kind of people that would just give you the shirt off their back. They’re ready to serve. They’re ready to be engaged, ah to make a difference in the world around them.
John Sellers — And so for us, we’re not in a big metropolitan area. So sometimes when we hear from other churches that are in big, you know, massive cities, sometimes it’s hard to relate to how that translates into small towns like we’re at, and medium sized cities. And so for us, what’s been helpful is podcasts like these, where I hear the principles I’ve read in a book at a church that’s maybe normal size or a little bit smaller or more kind of a normal size city. And so that’s kind of us.
John Sellers — We’ve been multi-site for about 10 years…
Rich Birch — Great.
John Sellers — …and we’re continuing to see God kind of multiply our ministry. And ah yeah, that’s about it for for where we’re at.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. What’s your, ah I know this is, this is germane because of what we’re talking about today. Give us a sense of the kind of growth trajectory of the church. I know you’re a humble guy, so you’re not going to be like, oh, this, is we’ve grown by this and this and this.
John Sellers — Yeah.
Rich Birch — But kind of tell us a little bit of that story. That’ll help set the table a little bit for where we’re going.
John Sellers — So we were um kind of a traditional, you know, First Baptist Church of Orange City. And our lead pastor came a little over 20 years ago, and he brought just kind of a church planting mentality with him and really a new vision, a new direction for the church.
John Sellers — And so I would say our growth has been really just steady growth over those 20 years. And really in the last five to six, we’ve seen some incredible back-to-back years of double-digit growth, you know, in the, you know, 10 to 15% growth year over year.
Rich Birch — Love that.
John Sellers — And it’s just been kind of a steady year after year, making slow, small progress is the way I would describe it.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good.
So it has not been one of those overnight, hey, we went from a hundred people to 10,000 or anything like that.
Rich Birch — Yes.
John Sellers — It’s just been a slow go every year. How do we get better? How do we continue to be a church that reaches people right here in our community?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. And that’s actually really common. I’m working on a book right now about breaking the 2000 barrier. And typically, actually, one of the interesting benchmarks is when a church breaks the 2000 barrier, actually, it’s common the most common thing is for the lead pastor to have been there for 15 years. And so…
John Sellers — Wow.
Rich Birch — You know, I think oftentimes people think like, oh, you like you say, it’s like, oh, it’s just something happens. You know, those stories because they’re unique, you know, they’re…
John Sellers — Yes.
Rich Birch — And so, you know, that this is is great to kind of dig into some of, you know, like you say, the more normal…
John Sellers — Yes.
Rich Birch — …you know, obviously what God’s doing is not totally normal, but but we’re we want to learn from it.
Rich Birch — So one of the things that we all struggle with is this idea of getting people to take next steps and plugging into connection, get you know, how do we move new here guests, get them to actually make, um you know, some sort of connection to the church. From your vantage point, why is that hard for for so many churches or maybe so many guests ah to actually make those steps?
John Sellers — Yes, I think there’s a lot of factors that go into that. I think the problem we keep running into or have run into over the years is we have so many new people walking through the doors and many times we find, hey, they kind of get stuck in this. They’ll visit once or twice, maybe three times. We don’t see them again. And we saw that gap of how do we connect those that walk in the doors and help them take that step um to really engage for the long haul.
John Sellers — And so I think some of it, what I’ve found is it can be multifaceted. Like I think sometimes as people who’ve been in the church for maybe many years, we forget what it’s like walking through the through the doors of a church.
Rich Birch — Yes. It’s true.
John Sellers — And so we have to constantly, as leaders, keep going back to ah what is that like?
John Sellers — And so the way we talk about it a lot at Journey Church is when someone walks through the doors um of your church, it means God is working in their life. The Holy Spirit is doing something to create a desire for them.
Rich Birch — So true.
John Sellers — And what that means is I think anytime God leads people to take any kind of step, um the enemy and the flesh and sin ah wants to creep in and use anything as a distraction to kind of keep them from taking the next step.
John Sellers — And so what I found sometimes that ah where that can happen is um when when people walk in the fear of, am I accepted? The fear of, you know, what do I do?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
John Sellers — There’s not a, you know, clarity on what they’re wanting me to do. And so for us, what we’ve prayed about and what we try to hone in on is we want to do everything in our power to recognize that those who walk through the door, God has led them to make that step, that it’s a big step. And we want to do everything we can to remove the barriers.
John Sellers — And so how we do that, I think, is greater clarity. Like what steps do we want them to take? And how do we make it as clear as we absolutely can can, as clear as possible…
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
John Sellers — …for them to know when and how to take that step?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
John Sellers — And then beyond that, what we found is is a lot of times the question people are asking when they’re new is, do I belong here? Like, am I a fit here? So no matter what those steps are, what we found is it it needs to be relational. And you have to put some of those people on your team that are gifted with hospitality, with making somebody who’s brand new feel like they’re welcome and at home. And try to put them in those on those teams and on those next steps areas to help with that process. Because a lot of times people are asking the question, like, I don’t know if I’m a fit here. I don’t know if they want me here.
Rich Birch — Right.
John Sellers — And so we have to go up above and beyond to to kind of help them know they’re welcome. We’ve thought of you. We’ve prayed for you. And here’s that very next step that we want you to take.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good.
John Sellers — Here’s it’s as clear as day for you.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I know, and we’re going to get into this, but I often say to churches that I do coaching with, I’m like, you cannot make this too clear. Like you’ve got to keep, we’ve got to work on how do we, what is the step we need people to take? How do we, how do we make it more obvious? How do we make it more clear? It’s literally a bottomless pit of like, we just got to keep making it.
John Sellers — Yes.
Rich Birch — And and I think it’s true. One of the things I’ve noticed in my own, so, you know, I’m in, you know, whatever my third, fourth decade of leading now, I guess. And which is weird to say, but the um I do think people have changed. I think there was a time when I first started where I think people showed up at church and they weren’t really sure why they were there.
John Sellers — Yep.
Rich Birch — But I think that has shifted over time as we’ve become a more and more unchurched. All of our churches, all our communities are more unchurched today than they were 20 years ago. People don’t just stumble into a church and they’re not sure why they’re there. They’re showing up looking for something. They’re they’re asking questions when they arrive and we want to meet them with that.
Rich Birch — So when someone visits for the first time, actually talk us through that. What are the first couple weeks look like? What is that experience like? How do you help move them from I arrived and I’ve I maybe have got some fear. I’m asking, do I belong here? What are some of those kind of meaning, the first steps you you you lead them through to get them towards meaningful connection?
John Sellers — So at our church, every location has a tent. It’s a new here tent. And so the first step that we’re communicating, the the clear step on that first or second week is, man, stop by the tent. Like I know that’s a big step and we have to remind our serve team and behind the curtain, that seems simple to us, but like to a new person at a church, even going to a tent or making themselves known by filling out a Connect Card, even if it’s digital, like that’s a big step for somebody.
Rich Birch — Right.
John Sellers — And so a lot of our communication is go to the tent. We’d love to meet you. We’ve got a gift card for you just to celebrate the step of faith you took to be here today. And so once they take that step, um it starts us being able to follow up you know through text messages, emails, phone calls, and really encouraging them to step into our Next Steps class. And so when they step into our Next Steps class, one of the things we’re even constantly trying to think through what we call it, because class…
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
John Sellers — …probably isn’t the best ah way to describe it, and we’re actually revamping it right now.
Rich Birch — Yes.
John Sellers — But for us, even that Next Steps class is a round table, it’s relational, it’s getting them around our Next Steps team that wants to hear their story. You know, what brought you through the doors, wants to begin to hear you know about maybe what’s on their heart, where are they at, what’s their next faith step?
John Sellers — And so those are are the first couple of weeks. If we can encourage them to stop by the tent, that allows us to stay in contact with them relationally. And then the next step would be, man, go to one of our next steps classes after a service.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Can we pull apart a bit of the detail there?
John Sellers — Sure.
Rich Birch — Just because I know people are wondering this because I get these questions. So it sounds like when you arrive at the New Year tent, there’s a gift card there. Where’s that gift card for? What is that and what is the value of that?
John Sellers — Yeah.
Rich Birch — What do you what do you, and why a gift card? Talk to us about that.
John Sellers — Yes. So for now we’ve, and we’ve experimented, we’ll change, we’ll change this up like constantly. But right now it’s for a local coffee shop.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great.
John Sellers — And it’s, it’s literally a $5 gift card.
Rich Birch — Yep.
John Sellers — It’s just a thank you to say, thank you for coming. It’s it’s a little gift bag. It’s got information about our church, obviously. And um it’s just a step to the way we phrase it is we know it’s a big step of faith you took to be here today.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
John Sellers — And so we just want to celebrate…
Rich Birch — Yeah, I want to celebrate that.
John Sellers — …the fact that you have made it in the room.
Rich Birch — Oh, I like that.
John Sellers — And so that that’s what it is. Five dollars. On big events. We’ll do, you know, a Journey Church cup…
Rich Birch — Right. Christmas or something like that.
…and make it a little more, you know, more substantial.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
John Sellers — But it’s just a five dollar gift card to a local coffee shop.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. And I love the, you know, the the thinking behind that, friends that are listening in, is sometimes when I see churches do, they’ll be like, hey, if you want to get connected, or if you if you’ve got interested about your next steps, or if you’re wondering where to go, drop by the the tent in the you know outside. People are not asking that question when they first come.
John Sellers — Yes.
Rich Birch — So we’ve we’ve we’ve got to take a celebratory ah step. And I like what you’re saying. I love that language of like, we want to celebrate the faith step by being here today. And we want to give you a gift in exchange for that. People will do that for a $5 gift card. They’ll or a you know or you know coffee mug or whatever. You know. That’s good.
Rich Birch — And then the other thing that caught my attention, you said, was you said and we follow up with texts and emails.
John Sellers — Yes.
Rich Birch — Talk about how, you know, how many of that, what’s that communication process look like? This is another area where I see churches drop the ball all the time.
John Sellers — Sure. It’s a variety. There’s a workflow that we use through our database system planning center…
Rich Birch — Yep.
John Sellers — …that is owned by our weekend experience, ah you know, team members. But basically it starts with an email from our lead pastor with a short video…
Rich Birch — Yep.
John Sellers — …for them to watch a message directly from him. It includes a text message or phone call from the location pastors within two weeks. It includes other text messages and emails. So it lasts about six weeks…
Rich Birch — Yep.
John Sellers — …and it’s more information about how to take steps at our church.
Rich Birch — Yep.
John Sellers — And so some of its vision, a lot of it is is geared towards stepping into the Next Steps class. But yes, it’s multiple and it’s a variety and it’s over the span of six weeks.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
John Sellers — And then we even have, you know, workflows built out that, you know, if somebody goes through that six week process without taking a next step, that periodically we’ll check back in with them just to see how we can serve them.
Rich Birch — Now, I’m just because I know how this goes, would you be willing to share like a one pager that kind of explains what those six weeks are? Do you have that? Even just a screen capture of the workflows?
John Sellers — Sure, sure.
Rich Birch — Would you be open to that?
John Sellers — I can put that together for you. Yeah.
Rich Birch — Because what I know will happen is this is going to go out and then people are going to ask you, you’re going to get flooded with email.
John Sellers — Yes.
Rich Birch — So I’ll save you that step. You can look at the show notes below. We’ll we’ll link to that. People are very are interested in that, ah you know, that step for sure. So um that’s super helpful. Also love, how often does the next steps class? Talk us through…
John Sellers — Sure.
Rich Birch — …what does that look like? How often does that happen? Give us a sense of what goes on in that.
John Sellers — I would say this has been one of the one of the biggest, it seems like a small tweak for us, but it’s been a game changer in kind of back to that question, how do you overcome the barrier of helping people get connected consistently, is we’ve just made it a consistent month-to-month process.
John Sellers — So week one, weekend one is step one, no matter what weekend it is, there’s maybe a couple of weeks out of the year, you know, where we it may shift it a week, but week one is next steps one. That’s where you connect to, you hear more about our vision as a church. You can, learn about the gospel, like we’ll share the gospel, give people a chance to receive Christ, sign up to be baptized.
Rich Birch — Yep.
John Sellers — Step two is join a team. So you’re discovering how God’s wired you and what teams are on your location that you can plug in.
John Sellers — Week three is baptisms across all of our location. And so if you went to step one, accepted Christ, you’ve never been baptized and you want to be baptized that month – every location, every single month on the third weekend.
John Sellers — And then the fourth week is um typically there’s no class or any step that week other than that’s the week that most of our new team members on our serve team will serve for the first time or shadow for the first time.
John Sellers — And so we want to celebrate them that morning. We want to make sure to connect them relationally as they join the team. And so we just do that every single month.
Rich Birch — So good.
John Sellers — And so it just it gives in those next steps classes happen after every service on every location.
Rich Birch — Wow.
John Sellers — Those were some of those little tweaks for us that seem small, but taking that step has actually allowed more and more people to take the step when they’re ready, when God moves in their life.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I want to underline that. That is best practice. We’ve heard something similar like that in lots of churches, similarly modeled on Church of the Highlands Growth Track. Some of the lessons that they’ve learned around the consistency is a huge issue for sure.
Rich Birch — Can you jump in at any one of those? Or do you, so like are all the people that are here this month, they’re going to be invited to the first step or can they jump in on any step?
John Sellers — They can jump in on on any step.
Rich Birch — Wow.
John Sellers — And so the the communication to the new person is, man, here’s the…
Rich Birch — Next weekend.
John Sellers — …yep, here’s next weekend or today. Like if they’re in the service today, right after service…
Rich Birch — Wow.
John Sellers — …walk into the into the next steps room. We’ve got free food for you, lunch if it’s lunchtime. You know, we’ve got Journey Kids going on. So your kids will be taken care of.
John Sellers — And so we try to make that as easy as possible, whether it’s that day or, you know, sometimes it’s six months later after they visited for the first time. But we want to always have it available for when God moves and they’re ready.
Rich Birch — That, John, that’s a gift where you just gave to people here. Like this, friends, I’ve joked in other contexts: boring stuff grows churches. And this is an example of one of those.
John Sellers — Yes.
Rich Birch — Putting together a class like that, that is going to go every single weekend, week-in, week-out, like, man, the the kind of the amount of momentum that builds for a church like Journey is, is incredible. That’s, that’s amazing.
Rich Birch — So when you think about weekends, you know, you, what moments in a weekend have you found is like the most effective for both lowering fear and inviting that next step? Are there times during the service or are there moments that you’re saying like, Hey, we want to make sure that we’re communicating clearly, doing what we need to do to make sure that we’re, we’re helping people take these steps.
John Sellers — Yes. For us, obviously there can be fluctuation and variation week to week, but for us, most weekends after the very first worship song is just a quick welcome moment.
John Sellers — And that welcome moment is specifically for new or newer people. And so it’s just a chance to say thank you for being here. We highlight the tent. Um, we usually, we’ve started using language that I don’t know how difficult it was to get in the room. I don’t know how smooth it’s gone, but you made it. That’s a big deal. You’ve made it in the room.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I like that. I really like that.
John Sellers — And we’ve been praying for you. Man, we’ve been expecting you. We just want to celebrate you. So, you know, you pass it on the way in, but if you haven’t had a chance to stop there on the way out, it’ll take, you know, less than a minute. Just stop by, let us meet you real quick and give you that gift. Talk about the gift card.
John Sellers — And then usually that will be, if it’s a next steps class weekend, that will mention something there because we’ve already got their attention. But on those weekends, we will also allow that to be the very last thing that we say. And so if next steps class is that day, as you leave, we make it as clear as possible. People with signs. I mean, we we don’t want them to miss it. That remember next steps is today. Like we mentioned earlier in service, we’d love to have you, you know, step into next steps class.
John Sellers — And so kind of that welcome moment. And at the very end is the norm. And then periodically our lead pastor will mention it in his sermon time, like in his, in his main message.
Rich Birch — Right.
John Sellers — And sometimes we’ll strategically use a video, you know, how someone took a step into that class and and the difference it’s made. But I would say most weekends is that welcome moment in the very end.
Rich Birch — Yeah, kind of the top and the end to kind of cap the service with that. I love that. I really like the language that you’re using there. I think I’m going to steal that. I love this idea of like, man, I don’t know what it took for you to get here. Man, you did an incredible thing. Like it’s it’s validating to people. You did the right thing by being here today.
John Sellers — Yes.
Rich Birch — And man, like God is already at work in your life. Like, and you may not say it like that, but that’s what we believe.
John Sellers — Yep.
Rich Birch — Like the fact that they’ve just showed up, man, we don’t want to miss that. Like, I often think of particularly when we deal with a lot of unchurched people who don’t normally attend church, like that first step, man, is a giant step.
John Sellers — It’s a big deal.
Rich Birch — Like that they’re changing something huge in their area. That’s incredible.
John Sellers — And and I think that’s the thing that’s so easy to forget is like, especially if you follow Jesus for years…
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah.
John Sellers — …you know, you forget what that experience is like and what God’s doing.
John Sellers — I had someone explain this to me yesterday. He’s been at our church for a number of years now. And when he came in, he was absolutely broken. And he’s like, I just don’t want you guys to forget, like the people who walk through your doors on Sunday, he’s like, I was ready to end my life.
Rich Birch — Wow.
John Sellers — And I was given one last shot and I walked through the doors. And the conversation I had in the parking lot. And the conversation I had and then the message and how God used it. And I just told him, I was like, thank you for sharing that because I don’t ever want to lose that perspective.
Rich Birch — A hundred percent.
John Sellers — I don’t ever want to lose what a big deal it is when somebody who’s unchurched or far from God or doesn’t know the Lord takes that step just to walk through the doors on a Sunday or a Saturday night. It’s a big deal.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Not that people need more vision, but i’m going to layer on a similar story I had two weeks ago with a guy. And he was reflecting back on his experience when he first came. This is at our church. And he’s like, ah he’s a man’s man, drives a truck, all this kind of stuff. And he’s an incredible young, incredible guy. And God’s done amazing thing in his life in the last couple of years. And he was talking about the very first weekend.
Rich Birch — And he said, you know, he said, when I showed up, pulled up in my pickup truck and there was some guy out front with the Mickey Mouse hands where like so many churches, you know, they got the guys with signs and Mickey Mouse hands and come and park here and all that. And he said, I remember I pulled into a spot where they told me to park and I sat there for like a few minutes and just watched people come in. Because I just didn’t know, like, are these, and it gets back to your belong thing. Who are these people? Like, are these, and he said, I saw a few people that were like, okay, like they’re, you know, they’re dressed normal. I guess I didn’t have to wear a suit. I guess it really is okay.
Rich Birch — And, and I thought, wow, like, I would have, the way this guy presents himself, I would have never thought that like he would have struggled with like, oh, I don’t know if I can go in. I don’t know if I can go in. But man, people come with that, that kind of anxiety when they arrive for the first time. We can’t lose that.
Rich Birch — Let’s talk about baptism specifically.
John Sellers — Sure.
Rich Birch — One of the things I want to kind of double click on is kind of focus in on that. I know many of us want to see people take that step. It’s an important step, obviously, in their spiritual journey. It also helps us understand kind of what’s happening in our church. How have you found kind of the right way to inject the baptism experience? It’s obviously step three. It’s a big part of the the the puzzle. But how do you build towards those moments? What does that look like? Kind of talk to us about how baptism fits into this.
John Sellers — Sure. It’s it’s a big deal for you know for us as well. And um it’s been one of those things on our, as we think about new people, how do we continue to make this step available? It’s part of the command of what Jesus gave the church was to make disciples and baptize them.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes. Yes.
John Sellers — And so um as we were thinking about that, that’s part of offering it every single month. The direct feeder of that, if you want to think about it behind the curtain, is Next Steps Class Step One. And so that’s where they’ll indicate that they’re interested or that they need to be baptized or want to be baptized.
John Sellers — And then we have a volunteer team ah that follows up with them as well, just kind of hearing their story. Sometimes there’s gospel conversations you can have in those relationships there, just sharing the gospel you know with them.
John Sellers — Sometimes that’s where they come to Christ is their they’re interested in this baptism thing. They don’t know what it’s all about. And so they’ll follow up, get their story, kind of listen to them, connect with them.
John Sellers — And then the way that we do it right now is the baptisms are just a part of our worship moments. So as the band is singing, um you know, we use iMag up on the screen real close up in the baptistry. And, um you know, those are moments where they have a baptism shirt. So they’ll come that day, meet with the baptism team that’s already followed up with them. And that team just walks them through relationally through the whole day with pictures, kind of celebrating that. We encourage them to bring their family on those weekends.
John Sellers — And so That’s probably the main kind of um stream for us…
Rich Birch — Yep.
John Sellers — …is we use that as our main on-ramp every single month, every single location we offer it.
John Sellers — Now that’s to say, I know this will be encouraging to to some people out there. That doesn’t mean that there’s baptisms happening every service on every location. We offer it every single month, but depending on the size of the location and the congregation there, it doesn’t mean that that’s happening in every every campus, every service, every single month. But a lot of months there are because we offer it and we have that on-ramp.
John Sellers — And then for us, we do two strategic events a year…
Rich Birch — Okay, yeah.
John Sellers — …where that step is incorporated into our worship services and people can take the step to receive Christ and be baptized on the very same day in the very same service. And so those two for us is the weekend after Easter,
Rich Birch — Okay.
John Sellers — And then we do a special event. It’s our only event that we do on a weekend that’s all church. So all locations in one place. And it’s actually coming up in October.
Rich Birch — Okay.
John Sellers — The reason we strategically placed it there is many times for us. I don’t know about other parts of the country or the world…
Rich Birch — Yes.
John Sellers — …but ah right here in central Florida, October, November is like dead season for for us as a church.
Rich Birch — OK, right.
John Sellers — We would see attendance dip and all these different things. And so we just prayed through what what can we do to leverage this time to reach more people? And so we do that as an all church event. It’s outdoor. We call it church at the park. And we share the gospel, encourage people to invite their friends and family and they can be baptized on that day.
John Sellers — So we’ve done that kind of rhythm for two years in a row.
Rich Birch — Yep.
John Sellers — And we’ve had over, so our church averages a little over 2000 people in person. It’s continuing to to grow. In the last two years, both years, we’ve had over 400 people take the step of baptism.
Rich Birch — Wow. Praise God.
John Sellers — And those are just students and adults. So we’re Baptist and we we don’t baptize infants.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
John Sellers — And so that’s just adults and students that are taking this the step of baptism.
Rich Birch — Wow.
John Sellers — And this last year, it’s felt like even beyond what we would ever expect, like 400, over 450 people across the the year.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s amazing. Praise God. That’s incredible.
John Sellers — So it just feels like God has breathed on that um in a way that we ah we didn’t expect.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
John Sellers — So…
Rich Birch — I love I love that. So i I want to come back to those two times a year in in a second, but I just, I want to underline just so I understand in the rest of the year on that week three. So the anticipation that that’s week three, you’re doing kind of baptism Sunday every month during the year, except for in these two big months months of the year. That’s what, that’s what’s happening there. And again, not necessarily every campus, every service, but that’s kind of the kind of cadence is pushing towards that.
John Sellers — Yeah. And every campus, every service is offering it. It’s just a matter of how many people sign up for that for that month.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes. Okay.
John Sellers — So the expectation is, man, Lord willing, if God moves, we’ve prepared the way and we’re ready. If someone in every, you know, who attends every service, every location is ready to take that step.
Rich Birch — I love that. That’s so good. And the, the do you, are they doing like a story? Do they give a little bit of their testimony? Does, how does that work? I’ve seen what you’re talking about with like during the worship experience. I get that, but is there some part of it where we get to hear from them or no? Obviously the baptism team hears from them.
John Sellers — So the way the way we’re currently doing it, we we do not hear their story. So we don’t, um there was a time, it’s funny to how those iterations have happened. When I first came to our church, we had every person who was going to be baptized film a video…
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
John Sellers — …with their story that would play. And then we’ve reached times where they would share, ah you know, in the moment.
Rich Birch — Yes.
John Sellers — Then there was times where the pastor would share. What we’re currently doing…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
John Sellers — (And I’m not saying this this may not change.)
Rich Birch — Yes. No, that’s good.
John Sellers — …is what we’re currently doing is they share the story with the baptism team, sometimes with the location pastor. And in that moment, we’re letting them know in the welcome moment, what’s about to happen. And, you know, we may share some specifics there. Like we had some, some middle school girls and it was almost their entire small group was being baptized on the same day. So in the welcome, we said, what you’re going to see is these are, these are middle school girls that have been taking steps of faith and bringing their friends.
Rich Birch — Okay.
John Sellers — And they’re about to get baptized. But in the moment, it’s during worship, people are celebrating, but we’re not stopping to share every single story.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
John Sellers — And in fact, kind of back to the barriers, that’s been one of the barriers that we’ve and we’ve encountered, where people aren’t ready to take the step of baptism because they’re afraid they’re going to be put on the spot to talk in front of hundreds of people or something like that.
John Sellers — So, but that’s currently how we’re doing it.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Okay. And then let’s talk about these two times a year, the week after Easter and October, I get a sense of why you would do those. Then what are you doing differently to kind of prepare people to move towards that? Obviously, you know, apart, you know, I gotta be careful on all this stuff. I know that like the Lord is moving. I understand that. I get that.
John Sellers — Sure.
Rich Birch — There’s a part of this we can’t, we’re not manufacturing. I get that. But there must be some communication process we’re doing to kind of give people a heads up. Talk us through what that looks like leading up to those kind of big baptism days.
John Sellers — Yeah, for the for the one after Easter, there’s not a lot in regard to communication to people who would be taking the step. It’s more behind the curtain preparation for our teams.
Rich Birch — Okay.
John Sellers — Obviously, the baptism team, the weekend experience and next steps teams, like they’re preparing for, you know, what could be 10, 20, 30, or even over a hundred, depending on the size of the location.
Rich Birch — Right.
John Sellers — And so they’re making sure they have enough. We do baptism shirts in all the different sizes on those days. We’ll even have all kinds of shorts available for people.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes. Spontaneous. Yep.
John Sellers — We’ll have towels, all those kinds of things. They’ve got the whole system planned. But as far as that person who’s new to our church and the anticipation is they came on Easter. And the step at Easter is: join us next week. It’s a big, weekend. And we are following up that week from every new person from Easter, and probably the six weeks before Easter, just encouraging them to be there on that day with their families.
John Sellers — And so a lot of it’s more behind the curtain and in that sense. So it feels like though, like it does feel like I get the question all the time, especially the last two years from our church members of like, man, did you have all those people pre-planned and ready to to go?
Rich Birch — Right.
John Sellers — And um And I’m like, no, like on the day, it literally feels like you’ve created the altar…
Rich Birch — Wow.
John Sellers — …and you’re praying, Lord, let your fire fall. Like we we don’t, it’s a step of faith, but God’s been faithful to do it.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yeah.
John Sellers — With the one in the fall, so the one we do in October, we we do kind of our play like we would any bigger reaching event, like like like an Easter, as far as invite cards, marketing, social media, all that kind of stuff. And the idea is bring somebody with you. This is a reaching event in our community and we’re going share the gospel. And it’s the same kind of play as far as um obviously it takes a lot more to to lift off. So it’s an all call for our staff. We bring a lot of our baptism resources to the park. It’s it’s a pretty intense week before and obviously months of planning, kind of getting ready for it. But we kind of run a play as a reaching event for that.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. And is the size of that event, like couple thousand people, ah you know, how big can that thing get before you’re going to have to find somewhere different?
John Sellers — Yeah. That’s what we’re, that’s what we’re at right now. You’re exactly hitting it. Yeah. I mean, it’s we’re taking over a city park and it’s hard to count, right?
Rich Birch — Yes.
John Sellers — I mean, we we take over a community building to do our Journey Kids experience that day and and pack out that building.
Rich Birch — Yes.
John Sellers — But as far, I mean, it’s just a sea of people, like it’s thousands and thousands of people. So I think we’ll we’ll be there soon. So that’s obvious.
Rich Birch — Yes.
John Sellers — One of those things where we keep evaluating, like when’s the time that we may not be able to do this anymore? Should we continue to do it? Are there larger venues?
Rich Birch — Yeah.
John Sellers — But for now, that’s kind of how we’re looking at it.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I was talking to a church a couple of weeks ago, maybe a month ago now, and they do a similar once a year. And they’re like, we’re in the biggest venue that there is. They like they’re like, we’re not sure where to go. And so I said to them, I was like, well, you’ve got to find a bigger venue. Like, like you know, like.
John Sellers — Yeah.
Rich Birch — I don’t know, or move it to a different time of year where you can get outside or, you know, whatever. Obviously that’s a nice time of year. have some friends live in central Florida. That’s a nice time of year. People, it’s like the opposite of up north. Up north they’re like going indoors at that time of year.
John Sellers — Yes.
Rich Birch — But there it’s, everybody’s coming outside.
John Sellers — It’s pleasant.
Rich Birch — You know, the, the, the might be reverse logic if you were, you know, in northern part of the country, you know, do something like that in the spring…
John Sellers — Right.
Rich Birch — …because people want to be outside. So yeah, that’s interesting. Well, there’s obvious there’s an interesting balance here. How do you think about, this might be a bit of a curveball question. How do you think about and lead, we want to motivate people towards baptism. We want them to be like, hey, this is a positive step. We want to cast vision towards that. While at the same time, we don’t want to pressure them. We don’t want them to feel like…
John Sellers — No.
Rich Birch — …they’re being guilted into it. How do you balance that out? What’s that look like? How do we how do we kind of walk with people through that? I know that’s your heart to find that balance, but what what’s that look like for you? How do you think about that internally?
John Sellers — Yeah, I think internally we think of it as we want to do all the work to prepare. So we use that kind of language, that idea that when it takes the Holy Spirit of God to move in someone’s heart in life, to lead them to have a desire to take a faith step. So whether it’s baptism, whether it’s coming to Christ in the first place.
Rich Birch — Right.
John Sellers — And we can’t do that. We can’t manufacture that.
Rich Birch — Yep.
John Sellers — That’s that’s the sovereignty of God. We pray for it like crazy, like we bathe it in prayer…
Rich Birch — Yep.
John Sellers — But we’re going to do all we can that when God does move in someone’s heart that we’ve made it so clear and we’ve prepped for them to take that step that it’s as easy as possible.
John Sellers — But in our language, as we’re walking with those people, if they’re not ready, there’s always next month, right? I mean, there’s always, you know, if it’s not, you’re not ready at this big event. And that’s a common conversation that we have as team members, even our serve team, volunteer team that we have with people is, hey, you know, if you’re not ready today, don’t worry. There’s next month, there’s the month following.
John Sellers — I do try to encourage them to have the conversation, but if the Spirit’s moving in your life, don’t hesitate, like don’t don’t wait.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, that’s good.
John Sellers — And so that’s kind of how we handle it. Like I don’t think there’s any kind of set strategy or anything like that that we have in place other than that’s the vision we cast, that’s what we try to encourage our people to have. And so I would say it’s pretty common. Like there’s there’s people when they go through Next Steps class, they’re not ready and it may take six months.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah.
John Sellers — Sometimes they’ll go through a Next Steps class, they don’t wanna do it that month or even the months following. But then one of these big events comes and you see them in the, in the, in the baptistry.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, so good.
John Sellers — And so it kind of works differently for everybody, but yeah, I would encourage, don’t put the pressure on, but use the language of man, but when God’s leading and be obedient to what he tells you.
Rich Birch — Yeah, if you’re looking for a practical training on that, friends that are listening in, I’ve actually found it really, this is going to sound like a bit of an old school thing, but find a a couple videos of Billy Graham doing his crusades years ago. And I felt obviously he was so good at that moment of like not letting people off the hook because the Spirit might actually be moving in their life, but also not trying to pressure them.
John Sellers — No.
Rich Birch — It’s not like, Hey, we’re trying to, we’re trying, trying to humanly coerce you to the front. And obviously it’s, it’s a different, it’s a different ask, but I yeah I would, whoever’s doing your teaching or doing that moment, watch a couple Billy Graham’s and kind of pick up on your, you’ll get a sense of, Oh, wow. That’s a good, you know, that’s a kind of a good way to, to kind of find that tension in those things.
Rich Birch — This has been incredible.
John Sellers — That’s really good.
Rich Birch — What I’m, I know, friends that are listening in, John had like a whole other bunch of stuff he wanted to talk about. And I was like, let’s talk about this one thing.
John Sellers — This is awesome.
Rich Birch — So maybe we’ll have you on again in the future sometime if you’re if you’re open to that. But anything else you’d love to say just as we wrap up today’s episode as we close things down?
John Sellers — Yeah, I think I’m just encouraged like to anybody listening that we’re in a unique moment. I know if if other churches are like ours, we’ve had just people showing up. We had the numbers of people that would be like a reaching event, not like an Easter, but like a Christmas, like a big event on just a normal weekend that we did not plan, that God is causing questions.
Rich Birch — Yes.
John Sellers — There’s people coming, asking, you know i had someone come and say, how do I do that thing that you guys do? And I’m like, what thing are you talking about? And he was trying to describe baptism, but he didn’t know the word.
Rich Birch — Yes. Love it.
John Sellers — And he’s like, how do I how do I do this?
Rich Birch — Yeah, love it.
John Sellers — And so my encouragement is, man, in your community where God’s planted you, God is still wanting to use the local church to be the kind of catalyst to bring life change, transformation in people’s lives. And so I would just encourage you to pray through with the giftings God’s given you, the resources God’s given you, even in the next two to three months, what might you need to shift? How can you kind of change your language…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
John Sellers — …even small tweaks to make sure you’re speaking whatever sermon series you’re doing or whatever passage you’re preaching through, that you’re speaking directly to those people that are asking, man, I want to get back in church. Or man, I want to figure out this whole church thing and make sure my family’s coming there. How do you apply those scriptures to their lives and give them a very clear, very specific faith step?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
John Sellers — One of the things that that we did is we weren’t ready for it. We had just kind of um been through our groups onboarding season and, you know, still assimilating people. And now we’ve got all these people showing up and we created just, and God led us to create just a new group environment that’s literally launching this week.
Rich Birch — I love it.
John Sellers — We didn’t plan on it. Right.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
John Sellers — And, ah but it was God.
Rich Birch — What are you doing? I’d love to hear what’s because that’s funny. We’re literally talking about the same thing at our church. What are you guys doing to to to kind of catch these people?
John Sellers — Yeah. Yeah. So we just doing an eight, like a six, I think it’s a six or seven week short term group. And it’s literally just following, you know, it’s not a long commitment.
Rich Birch — Yep.
John Sellers — The language we’re using is we’ve been hearing a lot of your questions. Like we’ve been hearing a lot of you coming and asking, man, what about evil? What about all these things? So we’re actually going to address some of those questions in our weekend services.
Rich Birch — That’s cool.
John Sellers — And there would be this group environment where you can ask those questions and process with other people ah for a short term. And so, that’s what we’ve done. They’re launching this week on every location and there’s people signed up for all of them that we didn’t have planned. It was like God just kind of laid it in our lap.
John Sellers — And so that’s my my challenge to people listening is just thinking that way of, Lord, you’re your Spirit is who has to move for people to take those steps.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
John Sellers — Help me. What can we do as a church to be good shepherds, stewards…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
John Sellers — …of that faith step and lead them with little one step at a time?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Well, John, this has been a great conversation today. Super helpful for people. I really appreciate you taking some time out of your busy schedule to be with us. If we want to send people to somewhere online to track with you, to track with the church, where do we want to send them?
John Sellers — Probably our Instagram page. It’s @journeyconnect. Our website’s journeyconnect.org. And so those would be the two spots.
Rich Birch — Great. Thanks so much, John. I appreciate you being here today.
John Sellers — Thank you for having me.
In this special workshop episode, Rich Birch unpacks the same five systems thriving churches use to move from hoping for growth to launching it. If you’ve ever felt like your church’s momentum is hard to sustain—or that your people love your church but don’t naturally invite—this episode gives you a simple roadmap to turn things around before Christmas.
You’ll learn:
- The 5 levers that fast-growing churches pull to train, equip, and motivate their people to invite friends
- Why building an invite culture is 15–25x more effective than marketing alone
- How to design a repeatable 90-day plan that sparks new growth before 2026
- Real examples from churches seeing breakthrough results right now
Plus: Rich shares a behind-the-scenes look at the Church Growth Incubator—a year-long coaching experience for church teams serious about sustainable growth.
Learn more about the cohort here: Church Growth Incubator Proposal
Click here to apply: apply.churchgrowthincubator.com
Apply for the Church Growth Incubator by November 19th and unlock a special fast-action bonus — Rich will come to your church for a full on-site staff day in January–March 2026. This in-person strategy session (a $3,500 value) is designed to accelerate your church’s progress, align your team, and help you implement the five growth levers faster. Space is limited to those who apply before the deadline.
Listen now and take your next step toward a thriving invite culture.
Nice is not a growth strategy.
When I was a young adult, I worked at a Christian summer camp called Camp Mini-Yo-We. You know the place; canoes skimming across a glassy lake, worship songs around a campfire that somehow made the stars feel closer, friendships soldered together over bug juice and burnt marshmallows. It was the first laboratory where I learned leadership, not from a book, but from a cabin of eleven-year-olds who expected their counselor to be part sherpa, part coach, part mom.
Six campers. That was our number. Six guys barely fit around the heavy pine dining-hall tables. I could sit at the head and scan the whole universe in one glance, who needed seconds, who needed sleep, who needed a nudge to apologize. At night, everyone got airtime as conversation slid into the delicious randomness only Summer Camp can produce. Six names? Between the 10 a.m. opening-day staff huddle and the 2 p.m. arrival window, I could have them down cold, name and hometown, hopefully making those first few moments of my campers’ time at Summer Camp a little easier by knowing their names.
Then I moved up to an older program. Ten campers.
Ten changed everything. Now we needed two tables. Walking around Camp, I had to count in my head like a security detail, “one, two, three…” because a head swivel no longer covered it. Ten names felt exponentially harder than six, not 33% harder … impossibly harder. The inside jokes multiplied faster than I could track them. Dynamics shifted. I couldn’t “pastor” each kid in the same way anymore; I had to build systems … ask guys to look out for each other, delegate a table leader, plan check-ins, and enforce lights-out like clockwork.
Leading six was craft. Leading ten required architecture.
I learned young: group size changes everything; the experience, the culture, and the leadership it takes to keep people safe, growing, and moving together. Scale doesn’t just add complexity; it alters the physics. And that truth doesn’t stop at the lake.
“Niceness Trap”: How Healthy Cultures Turn Hazardous at 800Let’s be blunt: 800 is a trap size. Only a sliver of North American Protestant churches ever hit 500–1,000 in attendance, roughly 4 percent, and fewer than 2 percent ever break 1,000. [ref]
That’s not random; it’s structural. At 800, what got you here, tight relationships, consensus leadership, and that beloved “family feel”, quietly becomes the lid on what God could do next.
Tim Keller called this “size culture.” Every size behaves differently, and if you impose small-church expectations on a larger body, like expecting the senior pastor to be personally available to everyone, you wreak havoc. Decision-making slows to a crawl, six-hour elder meetings become normal, and leaders burn out doing shepherding that should be owned by teams and systems.
How the Niceness Trap shows up: Consensus as a creed. “We won’t move until everyone’s on board” sounds godly; it’s actually institutionalized paralysis at this size. * The family becomes a club. Insider language, cliques, and a crowded calendar built around the already-committed signal to newcomers: this isn’t for you. * Comfort over clarity.* Leaders avoid disappointing legacy members, so innovation dies in committee.
What once felt like unity becomes veto power. That’s not pastoral care—it’s organizational anemia.
Your Church Doesn’t Need Another Idea—It Needs a Plan Most churches want to grow but feel stuck doing more without seeing results. Join Rich Birch for a free 60-minute workshop that gives you a simple, proven way to reignite momentum and see more people connected to your church.
You’ll walk away with a clear 90-day growth plan you can actually implement—no extra staff or budget required.
Wednesday, November 12th at 12noon ET / 9am PT
Free online training for pastors and church leaders who want real results.
Save My Seat Why Niceness Feels Godly (and Why It Isn’t)Niceness mimics fruit. It creates harmony, low conflict, and positive vibes. But harmony without movement is hospice, not health.
Mid-sized plateau churches show an uncomfortable pairing: insider satisfaction is often high while evangelistic engagement is low. [ref] Per-capita giving can even look strong precisely because the room is full of long-time Christians, not new believers.
Translation: your core is comfortable; your front door is closing.
This is where theology gets misused. “We’re being faithful; we’re not chasing numbers.” Faithfulness and fearlessness are not enemies. The Church in Acts was constantly adding people and was constantly in tension. When “peace” becomes an excuse to protect preferences, that’s not gentleness … it’s mission drift.
Litmus test: If a new person has to learn your internal slang, intuit your unwritten rules, and fight to get a seat at your proverbial table, your niceness is for insiders. Niceness that never risks, never disappoints, never decides isn’t love. It’s abdication.
When Consensus Kills: The Organizational Science of StallAt around 800, you are too big to function like a living room, and too small to afford bureaucracy. You need clarity … not more committees.
Keller’s counsel is surgical here: as size grows, decision-making must shift from whole-church consensus to empowered staff and leaders, with the board focused on high-level governance. [ref] Refuse to shift and you produce exactly what you fear: burnout, ambiguity, and decline.
Playbook moves (read: non-negotiables at 800): Clarify who decides what. If everything flows to the senior pastor or full board, you’ve already lost a year. Push operational decisions to staff; reserve mission/guardrails for the board. * Hire for scale, not sentiment. Move from generalists who “do ministry” to leaders who build teams and systems (e.g., Connections, Kids, Students). Leadership is the multiplier. * Time-box decisions. If a decision requires unanimity, it’s the wrong decision or the wrong table. Set deadlines; move. * Pre-delegate change. Decide in advance* the thresholds that trigger action (e.g., “At 70% room capacity for 4 consecutive weeks, we add a service in the next 6 months.”).
Consensus is beautiful in a cabin of six. At 800, it’s a growth killer.
The Cure: Clarity, Courage, and an Invite CultureThis isn’t about becoming “corporate.” It’s about becoming clear. The courage to choose mission over maintenance will feel less “nice” to insiders and far more loving to the neighbor who hasn’t met Jesus yet.
The data is stubborn: growing churches actively equip and encourage people to invite their friends, 72% of growing churches emphasize invitation versus 43% of declining churches. [ref]
And on the demand side, the harvest is shockingly open: large majorities of unchurched people report they would attend if a friend invited them. Your problem isn’t interest; it’s invitation.
Make Invite Culture your operating system Preach the why … relentlessly. “Every number has a name. Every name has a story. Every story matters to God.” Normalize invitation as ordinary obedience, not hype. * Equip the how. Give scripts, cards, and social assets every series. Run a 3-week “Who’s Your One?” push twice a year. Low cost. High output. * Fix the funnel. Invitation without assimilation is churn. Identify guests, follow up in 24–48 hours, and offer one over-the-top-obvious next step (New Here lunch, 101). Reduce options; increase movement. * Design for scale. Kids, students, weekends, groups—these engines must have capacity before you step on the invite gas. A room above 70% full* feels “full” and quietly repels guests; act before you hit the wall.
A strong invite culture isn’t a program. It’s what a healthy church does when leadership is clear, structure is sane, and volunteers are equipped.
Five Strategic Pivots to Break 800 (and Live to Tell About It)Think of these as your “from → to” moves—the shifts that turn niceness into leadership and momentum.
1) From Family Feel to Mission ClarityCast a crisp, repeatable vision for outsiders, not insiders. If your insider language requires a decoder ring, you’ve already told guests, “This isn’t for you.” Teach your people to see the church through a guest’s eyes… jargon-free, warm welcome, obvious next steps.
2) From Consensus Culture to Accountable OwnershipRewire governance. Board = mission/guardrails. Staff = operations. Push decisions down to competent leaders, with clear success metrics and review rhythms. Replace “everyone signs off” with “the right people decide, on time”.
3) From Generalists to Builders of BuildersAudit staff and key volunteers for scale capacity. Do they recruit? Build teams? Delegate outcomes? Your church stalls at the ceiling of your leaders’ ability to multiply leaders. Hire or reassign accordingly.
4) From Program Buffet to Simple, Obvious PathwayIf new people have ten “next steps,” they’ll take none. Reduce to the one or two actions that most predict movement. e.g., New Here → Join a Team—then architect everything to drive there.
5) From Talk About Invite to Measure ItIf you can’t see it, you won’t shift it. Track documented first-time guests, return rate, conversion to groups/teams, and invite touchpoints. Celebrate every baptism, every “I was invited by…,” every story—because what you celebrate, you replicate.
Common Pitfalls (and How to Avoid Them) “We’ll wait until everyone’s ready.” That day won’t come. Lead change with empathy, but lead—create listening posts, communicate early/often, and time-box dissent. * “We’ll just add one more program.” Complexity is your enemy. Prune to grow. Trade breadth for throughput. * “If we change governance, we’ll lose people.”* Possibly. Keller’s sober truth: larger churches must entrust more to fewer decision-makers, or they will plateau and then shrink. Love the flock—by leading it.
Love People Enough to Lead ThemAt Summer Camp, six kids at one table could be pastored by the presence and charisma of one person. Ten needed systems. Eight hundred needs leadership. Not mean, not brusque, but clear. Clear about who we’re trying to reach. Clear about how we decide. Clear about the path from the seat to serving to sent.
Niceness keeps insiders comfortable. Leadership makes room for the next person God is sending.
If your church is hovering at 800, your greatest act of kindness might be your next courageous decision.
This month:
- Choose one “nice” behavior that’s actually avoidance, then replace it with one courageous act of clarity.
- Name a capacity trigger and pre-commit to the action it demands.
- Put the invitation back in the water supply train, equip & motivate your people towards it.
Because nice doesn’t change cities. Clarity and courage—animated by the Spirit—do.
Ready to See Growth Again? If you’re tired of guessing what drives church growth, join Rich Birch for the free Church Growth Launchpad workshop.
In just 60 minutes, you’ll discover a simple framework thriving churches use to build momentum and reach more people—without adding more to your plate.
Walk away with a clear 90-day plan you can put into action right away.
Wednesday, November 12th at 12noon ET / 9am PT
Free online training for pastors and teams who want practical results.
Save My Seat
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Jeff Warren, Senior Pastor of Park Cities Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas. Founded 86 years ago, PCBC is a fast-growing multicultural, multilingual, and multigenerational church.
What does it mean to stay faithful when leadership gets hard? In this candid conversation, Jeff shares lessons from decades of ministry—what he’s learned about identity, calling, and staying grounded when the pressures of leadership rise. From navigating the complexity of a large, legacy church to cultivating spiritual vitality among staff and volunteers, his perspective is both refreshing and deeply rooted in grace.
- A legacy church with a living mission. // Park Cities Baptist Church stands at the crossroads of tradition and transformation. Located in the heart of Dallas, the church gathers thousands each week across multiple venues and languages, including a thriving Spanish service. Jeff describes PCBC as “steeple people”—a legacy church that feels both historic and alive. Behind it all is a culture of warmth and hospitality, where five services, multiple worship styles, and vibrant connect groups reflect a single mission.
- The beauty and challenge of intergenerational ministry. // Jeff calls his congregation “intergenerational” for good reason. PCBC brings together everyone from centenarians to newborns, creating a living picture of the kingdom of God. While multiple venues help serve diverse preferences, Jeff’s deeper goal is to foster relationships across generations. The goal isn’t to erase differences, but to celebrate them as part of the family of God.
- Staying healthy as a leader. // After decades of ministry, Jeff has learned that sustainable leadership begins with identity in Christ, not performance. “Never base your worth on something that can be taken away,” he says, echoing C.S. Lewis. Ministry can easily become like a “drug,” feeding off the need to be needed or to see results. Jeff shares that his life verse, 2 Corinthians 5:21, grounds him in the truth that he is fully accepted, totally loved, and completely pleasing to God—not because of what he does, but because of who he is in Christ. This daily return to grace is what keeps him anchored through the highs and lows of leadership.
- Building a healthy team culture. // Jeff believes church health starts with healthy leaders. At PCBC, he models and expects rhythms of spiritual formation and accountability. The entire staff reads the same daily Scripture plan and discusses it together before meetings. The team also sets holistic yearly goals—spiritual, physical, relational, and vocational—to encourage balance and self-leadership.
- Living faithfully in the moment. // Through the challenges of COVID and cultural polarization, Jeff learned a lesson he now shares with his team: live in the present and define success by faithfulness, not outcomes. That posture of mindful obedience—serving whoever God places in front of him—is what what it looks like to be faithful with our moments, days and lives.
To learn more about Park Cities Baptist Church, visit pcbc.org. You can also find Jeff Warren on Instagram and Threads at @jeff_warren and discover his book Live Forgiven wherever books are sold.
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Portable Church
Your church is doing really well right now, and your leadership team is looking for solutions to keep momentum going! It could be time to start a new location. Maybe you have hesitated in the past few years, but you know it’s time to step out in faith again and launch that next location. Portable Church has assembled a bundle of resources to help you leverage your growing momentum into a new location by sending a part of your congregation back to their neighborhood on Mission. This bundle of resources will give you a step-by-step plan to launch that new or next location, and a 5 minute readiness tool that will help you know your church is ready to do it!
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Really looking forward to today’s conversation. I know it’s going to be the kind of thing that’s going to be helpful for you. Hopefully inspiring, hopefully help you to think about maybe the future of your church a little bit.
Rich Birch — Today, we have got Jeff Warren with us. He is from Park Cities Baptist Church and has served in multiple roles. If I’m getting it right, the young adults pastor, the minister the men’s ministry associate pastor, and since 2010, the senior pastor. Park City (PCBC) is a multicultural, multilingual, multi-generational church that meets in multiple venues, which is lots of multis in one sentence in Dallas. They’re also one of the fastest growing churches in the city. Jeff, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.
Jeff Warren — All right, Rich. Hey, great to be with you, man. And you about got it right. Yeah, I was here previously as student pastor right out of seminary.
Rich Birch — Okay, nice.
Jeff Warren — And so I was here for lots of years and then and gone.
Rich Birch — Yeah
Jeff Warren — I was in McKinney just north of here for 10, 11, and then back. The Lord called me back where I’m now ah dedicating babies of kids in my youth ministry and, you know, all that kind of thing. So really cool.
Rich Birch — So good.
Jeff Warren — Yeah, yeah.
Rich Birch — That’s great. Well, well, um I’d love to hear a little bit more about PCBC. Kind of tell us the story, fill in the flavor. You know, if you were, if we came this weekend, tell us a little bit of what we would see.
Jeff Warren — Yeah, so you would you would come ah here at Northwest Highway in Dallas where there are thousands of cars driving by me right now. We are I like to say we’re yeah we’re a legacy church. You know, we’ve been around. We’ll celebrate this next month 86 years of being here in Dallas…
Rich Birch — Wow, that’s amazing.
Jeff Warren — …and the church was was it was planted, like a lot of folks probably listening, we met at University Park Elementary School ah for a while. Small group of people said there ought to be a church in Park Cities, where just right north of me right now from my office um was really the kind of the highest furthest point of North Dallas. We have ah charter members who remember it was big field, which is hard to believe.
Rich Birch — Wow. Yes. It’s packed now. Yeah.
Jeff Warren — You you can’t get out of a field, you know, for, yeah, for miles and miles. So all that said though, you would show up at big, you know, giant traditional, church with a steeple, you know, we’re steeple people, all the things.
Jeff Warren — But once you, gosh, step in, you would find that you’re greeted with a lot of love. It’s a challenging ah thing to find, okay where do I fit in? Wait, where do I go? So you find it all on our website. But we have multi-, as you said. I like to say intergenerational, right?
Rich Birch — Good. I like that. Yeah, nice.
Jeff Warren — We’re cross-generational, but intergenerational, that’s hard work, you know, we could talk about too.
Jeff Warren — But yeah, we have we have five services on a Sunday morning. Two of those, one’s in a chapel, one’s in a you know giant sanctuary, a beautiful sanctuary we have here. And then two of those are in the Great Hall where we have a contemporary you know modern worship and then En Español that meets in the and a Great Hall as well.
Jeff Warren — So we have all that. It sounds complicated, but once you arrive, we can point you to where you need to be. We have connect groups on Sunday mornings as well. So you have all those options with kids and all the things that happen here on Sunday morning.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s ah that’s a lot going on. That’s that’s incredible. I’d love to talk about the intergenerational. You know, that’s obviously something that you’re excited about and that God’s used. Talk us through when you say intergenerational, what what do you mean by that? What’s that look like?
Jeff Warren — Yeah. So you can imagine in a legacy church, a lot of different, the tension, you know, of a lot of different opinions, different experiences, all the things can make you crazy you know half the time, used to more so than it does now. I’ve seen it as just a glorious and beautiful thing to be in ah an intergenerational church where people have different ways of worshiping the Lord, different ways to connect.
Jeff Warren — So that’s why, in part, we have you know a lot of different options here. We have you know you yeah I know you talk to a lot of folks who have kind of one church, multiple locations. I like to think we we’re multiple venues in one church, you know one place.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jeff Warren — And we also have a couple of sites off campus too, though, with our Spanish-speaking ministry. But all that said, man, the beauty and the glory of of a church that has an older, you know, I called the gal two weeks ago. I called on a Saturday, called her on her 100th birthday, you know, to wish her a happy birthday.
Rich Birch — Wow. Wow.
Jeff Warren — And then to be dedicating, as we did this past week, dedicating babies, you know, parents coming to dedicate their kids before the Lord. It’s just a beautiful thing. The challenge, Rich, comes with, I like to say intergenerational, you know, and that’s the that’s the challenge is to constantly allow and and and leverage our older adults with all the wisdom and all the things where you have Gen Z who so wants more and more mentors.
Jeff Warren — I talked to a gal last night. She’s in her 30s. I’m just looking for a mentor. Talk to a gal on Sunday. I need an older woman in my life. So the beauty of that is I know some older women. We can do this. You know, but it’s also the challenge. You come on our campus and it’s, hey, you’re young person, hey, they’re over there. And older person, you probably, okay, you’re probably over here in the chapel or whatever.
Jeff Warren — And so we we like to have, we have events and gatherings. We had one last night, a prayer gathering where we had we talked about how to respond to all the violence taking place in the world. And so it’s cross-generational. And so that’s the challenge, I think, the tension not to resolve but to manage is to connect our people across generational lines.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Jeff Warren — We do periodically come together, as we will, a few times, probably four, maybe five times um a year, where we gather all together and worship the Lord. We’ll do that for our anniversary upcoming.
Rich Birch — That’s cool.
Jeff Warren — And yeah, so it that’s the challenge along with it.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I’d love to kind of double click on that. I like that you’re saying it’s a challenge, it’s a tension, it’s glorious, and it’s beautiful. You know, every, and and, you know, there was a time in the life of the church, there was this idea, and you’ll no doubt know these words, this homogeneous unit idea that like, churches are going to grow by like all being the same. But actually increasingly we’ve just found that’s just not working, frankly. And it’s actually not a reflection of the kingdom of Christ.
Jeff Warren — Right.
Rich Birch — We don’t really want to do that. It’s it’s actually quite a bad idea and you’re trying to live out all kinds of diversity—age is one of them, you know, ah ethnic, racial, you know, there’s lots of ways we’re trying to to have diversity as a church. And what are you learning about trying to walk that line? What’s kind of practical? How are you doing that? How are you trying to drive towards unity? Like you say, living in the tension or the challenge of that?
Jeff Warren — Yeah, I think, as you noted, I remember that too, ho homogeneous unit a principle. I think it was Peter Wagner…
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Jeff Warren — …in you know another age and era. But…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Jeff Warren — …and you know and a lot of us like, okay, let’s go, thinking that was right and good.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah..
Jeff Warren — We didn’t read Revelation 7:9, where all this is heading, right?
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Jeff Warren — People from all tribes and nations. So, yeah, doesn’t look much like the kingdom of God. I think that’s the first step is to recognize, man, we we want to be that church. Now, if you know anything about Dallas, you come here, we’re in the Park Cities. So we’re we’re a township within Dallas, you know. And I don’t mind telling you, know we are we are white. I mean, we’re white up in here. And ah and very affluent ah part of, you know, part of Dallas as well.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jeff Warren — But with that, ah we’re involved in a lot of ministry. I’ve heard others who’ve said, hey, you know, oftentimes the diversity around the community of the church, say within a one mile radius or so, is a lot more diverse than than the actual church itself. And so we have made some strides there, though. We we have become more and more colorful along the way, which is a greater picture of heaven.
Jeff Warren — Our In Español ministry is flourishing in a place where, against all odds, um our our Spanish language ministry is flourishing. And they are an integral part of our church as well. So that just opens the door for all kinds of opportunities. We’ve been involved in a lot of racial justice and reconciliation across the city of Dallas where we’ve partnered with ah churches, pastor swaps, all those good things.
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Jeff Warren — But um more and more, I think you were asking for practical things.
Rich Birch — That’s good. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jeff Warren — I think it’s you know it’s that message of grace that’s got to drive everything. That everyone’s welcome here. I like to say it this way, we are radically devoted to hospitality and we are radically devoted to holiness.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Jeff Warren — So becoming like Jesus. You know, I like to say, man, with all the theological debates we could have, you know, Jesus was perfect theology embodied, right?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Jeff Warren — So if you’re if you’re not, if you’re if you’re theology, the application of Scripture doesn’t look like Jesus in the end, you’re doing it wrong. And so grace is at the center. I like to say, you know, I don’t like to say we’re a centrist church – that feels like we’re sitting on the fence, right?
Jeff Warren — But but but we really are. We’re not we’re you know We’re not hardcore right and left and whatever that might mean for people here in America in particular. We find our we we find ourselves at the deep center…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Jeff Warren — …where Christ is at the center of the church. And with that message of grace ah constantly in the mix, people, I think, do do feel and sense, man, I think I’m loved here. It doesn’t matter my skin color, doesn’t matter what look like, how old I am, young. And so that’s kind of the driving point…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Jeff Warren — …I think, is are you you preaching that message of grace?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good.
Jeff Warren — Yeah.
Rich Birch — That’s so good. Well, um I don’t think you’ll mind me saying this. You have been in the saddle for a few years. You’ve been ah leader for quite a while, been through a lot. I’m sure you’ve been through ups and downs, wins and losses, things that have been good, things that haven’t been so good.
Jeff Warren — Yeah.
Rich Birch — How do you as a leader, how do you keep yourself, your soul anchored in Jesus?
Jeff Warren — Yeah.
Rich Birch — How do you keep leading through when things are up and down and not get sidelined? How do you do that?
Jeff Warren — Yeah, man. That’s a loaded one, right? We can talk a long time about that.
Rich Birch — Yes, lot there.
Jeff Warren — And I’ll try to center those thoughts. I was yeah I was at ah I was speaking at a seminary um ah not too long ago, and one of the guys said, the professor said, we need to have you back because our students need to see happy pastors. And you know I saw I think you probably saw, Barna recently came out, that what, 42% of all pastors are considering quitting.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jeff Warren — Man, I haven’t seen those numbers since COVID, right?
Rich Birch — Right. Right. Yeah.
Jeff Warren — I haven’t. I get that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeff Warren — I’m in a great place right now. I’m grateful. I am in a happy place. But man, I’ve had some dark nights of the soul. I would just say to all of your young pastor leaders out there that if you stay at this long enough, you will have those. And what’s what’s kept me in, Rich, has been a clear calling to the ministry and to this place.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Jeff Warren — Everywhere I’ve gone, it’s been, Lord, I’m i’m there until you yank me out. And so knowing in those moments where, man, I could be doing this elsewhere, you know that kind of thing. We always kind of look into where the grass is greener, I think. But knowing that the Lord’s called me here, those have been in those dark moments, those have been the times when I’ve been, I’m still in, I’m still in.
Jeff Warren — And I think a big part of that too, for me, a lot of us, we wrap our identity up in our work that we do. That’s not just pastoring thing. But we define our work by the maybe the approval of others or by performance. And in ministry, that gets real insidious. It gets twisted because I’m doing this all for God, right?
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Jeff Warren — And then you start to realize um along the way that, gosh, maybe not. You know, maybe maybe I do have this high need to be needed. Maybe that’s why I’m in ministry in some ways.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Jeff Warren — That’s why he called me. I have have empathy is my highest you know strength finder, for real. It’s like the highest of the strength.
Rich Birch — Yes. Love it.
Jeff Warren — So I feel all the feels.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jeff Warren — It serves well as a pastor, but also wrecks me. You know, when I’m like, oh, man, I I I so I love people, and I, you know, there’s underneath the dark side of that is I want them to love me too.
Jeff Warren — So I think staying centered, the main thing, Rich, that I would say is that—this is probably that moment you know in the in the sermon, in the teaching, if you hear nothing else, you know this is it.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jeff Warren — For me, it has been to constantly, I never knew ministry would be this, constantly running back to Christ and finding my identity in Him. C.S. Lewis was the one who said, and I’ll translate him differently, but he said, never base your worth on something that can be taken away from you. Right?
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good. Yeah.
Jeff Warren — So so I’m a you know I’m a father, I’m a son, I’m a brother, I’m a friend, I’m, oh, and I’m a pastor, you know, all those things. None of those things are the truest thing about me. And someday, when, you know, parents are gone, when, you know, whatever, name it, you know, it’s why professional athletes who have a career in ending injury, right, need to not just have therapy.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jeff Warren — They need to have, I mean, physical, they need to have real therapy. They don’t know who they are anymore. And so if our identity is founded being a pastor in my case, then man, that is going to be a rough road. And because, right, it’s up and down all the time.
Jeff Warren — And and oftentimes we base that on numbers. How’s my church doing? Are we growing?
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Jeff Warren — You know, am I crushing it in terms of sermons?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jeff Warren — And that’s been the thing is constantly going back to this private personal prayer, Rich, that I have often into worship before I come before the Lord in in my quiet time. Lord, to remind me again of how much you love me. Remind me again of how much you love me.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Jeff Warren — And that’s the key thing.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Jeff Warren — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Let’s let’s double click on that. There’s an interesting tension there of having our identity firmly rooted in Christ, that’s obviously preeminent. And, you know, having a clear calling like that, you know, Jesus has called us to be where we are today. He’s called us to the role we’re in. Man, the lines can get blurry, though, between those two. You know, the kind of like our the call to have a, um you you know, a really strong call on our life for this, you know, this season or this place or this thing, this mission that we’re a part of can get wrapped up in like, well, maybe that’s the person I am.
Rich Birch — How do you, how do you hold both of those at the same time? How do you hold both of those in a way that that’s healthy? Because it seems as an outsider, it seems like you’re you’re able to do that well.
Jeff Warren — Well, um It’s been a journey, Rich. I do think I’m doing it better than I have in the past. So ah for me, I would say it this way, um as quick as I can, I guess, here. 2 Corinthians 5.21 is my life verse. It says, He made Him—we all know this verse—He may made Him who knew no sin to become sin for us, right?
Jeff Warren — The first half of that verse, that’s the gospel. Like, okay, yeah, Jesus, He’s our substitute more than just our good example, right? But then the latter part of that verse is what changed my life. Years ago, I was probably in my 30s, already in ministry, doing youth ministry at the time. But man, I was running like a wild man. Like I was at times, that’s a longer story, but I was so busy. I was married, no kids at that point. And I was like, who’s pointing a gun at my head? I can’t stop.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeff Warren — You know, I love what I’m doing. But Stacey, my wife, was like, are you you’re busy again this weekend? You know, it was kind of that moment. And I was like, what is what is happening to me? And it was this need to be needed. And and then I realized that ministry can become like a drug, right?
Jeff Warren — But so I understood the gospel, all that. But the latter part of that verse, he made him and who knew no sin to become sin for us. Then it says there’s this henna clause, a comma in a Greek.
Jeff Warren — I know just enough Greek to be dangerous, right? There’s ah but it’s a purpose clause that Paul used over and over again. He says, in order that, in other words, this happened in order that. And it says, in order that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Right? And so so what that means, I mean, I’ve asked that question before college students, adults, you know what is the righteousness of God? And I often get crickets.
Jeff Warren — And I think that’s because we don’t see we don’t know who we are. We are totally accepted, fully pleasing, completely loved, by Him. That is who I am.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Jeff Warren — I am first a beloved son of the Most High King. That’s who I am. So much of ministry, I never knew… I mean, this is Christian life. But ministry is constantly, Lord, to remind me again. That’s the battle. And and I mean, you’ve asked the question. The battle is to stay there, to remain there.
Rich Birch — That’s good. Yeah, that’s so good.
Jeff Warren — And that’s for every one of us. And I never knew that ministry would be such a battlefield to constantly go back to Him and to be found in Him, is the phrase Paul loved, right? To be in Him-ness, the doctrine of of remaining in Him. That’s not to, in my case, not losing my salvation. I did nothing to gain it. I did nothing to receive it, so I can do nothing to lose it. But to stay in Him.
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Jeff Warren — So that’s a it truly is, Rich, a constant spiritual discipline of of remaining in Him. And so, you know, not everybody can do this. You’ve got kids running around, you know. I’ve had twins and and I had three kids. But but now I can I can get up. My mornings are quiet. I get up early. You know, I think the key to life is going to bed on time, being early if you can.
Rich Birch — It’s true.
Jeff Warren — And I like to hit the day in before the Lord and just get centered. So that’s what we do. And then, Lord, help me to how to live out of this.
Rich Birch — That’s so so good.
Jeff Warren — Help me live out of this.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good. Well, let’s pivot back to the church. You know, PCBC is is growing. It’s, you know, was flagged as one of the fastest growing churches in the country. You know, healthy things grow. How do you think about the kind of connection between growth and church health? How do those things fit together? How do you ensure that you’re not just, you know, weeds grow too. We don’t want those to we don’t want those to grow.
Jeff Warren — Yeah, right.
Rich Birch — We want something healthy to grow ah that’s got great fruit on and on the on the limbs. Talk me through how that works for you and how do you lead in that direction?
Jeff Warren — Yes. So, um you know, I think it’s really hard to find healthy churches because it’s hard to find healthy leaders, right?
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Jeff Warren — It’s hard to find healthy teams, leadership teams, because it’s hard to find healthy leaders. And so I I’ve really just, I think it’s it’s on me, it’s on key leaders in our church.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Jeff Warren — I’m constantly talking to our team about how to be healthy, what I just described to you. I want my team to walk, remain in Him. I challenged my team this week, Rich. You know of the number of pastors who’ve fallen, particularly here in Dallas. It almost seems like there’s one every every week, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, it’s been it’s been quite a season in Dallas.
Jeff Warren — And another just last week. And Yeah, so I’m, ah so my, you know, I I talked to our entire, we had an all staff. We have once a month, yesterday, Tuesday, and um gave them, you know, again, the big challenge. I did it with our ministers as well, just remain in the Lord. Let’s let’s not let’s not let that happen here. You know, how do we keep accountable with one another? And and so that’s that’s the great challenge. I think i think too often we it’s ministry pace can be so fast and so crazy. And we’re in a season right now that is wild. I like to say Jesus was often busy, but he was never in a hurry.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Jeff Warren — And so I love to talk to our team about opportunities to slow down, even in busy seasons. How can we be in a busy season, managing life, family, marriage, all those things, and and stay centered in Him?
Jeff Warren — So I think more pastor leaders need to model that. We need to live that out and talk about it as a team. We read Scripture together. We have this Dwell reading plan. You can find it our website. All of our members are reading Scripture, the same Scriptures, every morning, every day.
Rich Birch — So good.
Jeff Warren — And so for years, Rich, I’ve wondered, how can I help my team be accountable? How can I be certain they’re in the Word? You know, I can’t I used to tell them, there’s only so much I can do for you. I hope you’re doing this.
Jeff Warren — But now at every staff meeting, every minister’s meeting, before we start, we’ll pray together and I’ll say, all right, hey, turn to your neighbor. Let’s talk about what you heard from God this morning when you’re in His Word.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeff Warren — And we’re all reading the same thing.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good.
Jeff Warren — And so, yeah, that’s a relative past few years, a relatively new thing. And so we talk about what are we learning? How are we growing? You know, then BAM, let’s kick in. It doesn’t have to be a long part of the meeting, but it centers us, keeps us accountable.
Jeff Warren — Back to your question, I think that’s that’s key, is is is keeping everybody is spiritually healthy, and then myself, executive pastor, keeping us on on target, on track.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s good.
Jeff Warren — You know, and like we’re on a 100-day run you know right now as we’re doing a lot of vision planning. We’re doing long-range stuff towards 2030 right now for the next five years. And but centering in on, okay, what what’s the next? It’s kind that one four, one four, if you’ve seen that, that Auxano, others have used. That helps us.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. Yeah, I was going to ask for an example, but I love that idea of like, hey, we’re we’re on the same reading plan. We’re trying to keep everybody and hey, we’re going to even integrate that into our conversations. I think that’s that’s really practical.
Rich Birch — I often hear, you know, like it might be easy for the lead guy or the leader, whoever the leader of the church is, to be busy, but not in a hurry because like they can control their schedule. But working in a large, fast growing church is it’s like relentless, right? The weekend is always coming. Is there anything else that you do to try to ensure the rhythms with your team that you don’t get to the place where your, your team is like, Oh sure. That’s great for Jeff, but that doesn’t work in my world. Is there anything else you do to try to help your team, you know, run at a good pace?
Jeff Warren — Yeah, I think I think it’s staying it’s it’s staying in your lane, doing what you’ve called to do. Yeah that’s a great question, Rich. And because I don’t have the quick answer, I’m like, ha, we got to work on this one.
Rich Birch — Yeah, you’re good. That’s good.
Jeff Warren — Again, instead of just, hey, I’ll model that for you. Because truthfully, I mean, I love, like a lot of us, I love the work I do. I’ve got a really, I got a busy day today, you know doing a lot of things I love. But I’ll also model the role…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Jeff Warren — …and then I’ll ask them one of the parts of our our evaluation even involves some ah some holistic health. And so the at the beginning of every year, I ask them to give to me and we share together the you know, kind of what’s your single word for the year kind of center in what are you what are you looking for God to do and desiring for him to do in you?
Jeff Warren — And then we look at, literally, we look at physical, spiritual, interrelational, and then vocational life.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Jeff Warren — And then we talk about what are your goals for the year. And that plays into then how you’re doing. So I can come back to knowing every one of them. Hey, want to work out a few times a week. You know, I’m gonna I’m going to finally lose some weight. I need to go to bed earlier. You know, whatever the thing might be, try to keep each other accountable in that. Easier said than done.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jeff Warren — But I think I think it’s true. If you model it as a leader, and I think you’re okay. You know, we all want to, I think a lot of times we think our members want us to, I hope my pastor is about to kill himself serving Jesus, you know? And they really don’t mean that, but it can feel that way.
Rich Birch — No, no.
Jeff Warren — So when I get a chance, like I want to be out on my bike, you know, I want to be. I’d love to ride. That’s my happy place. And so I’ll be be out at the lake these days. I’m trying to find some gap there. I think it’s real important that you you you set a schedule for the week and try to set a pattern.
Jeff Warren — So there are certain times that are study times for me that can’t be touched. There are certain times where I do mark out, when am I going to get some exercise, you know, that kind of thing. Again, easier said than done ah because, you know, there’s going to come the crisis.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Jeff Warren — There’s going to come, oh, I’m doing that funeral. You know, that happens.
Rich Birch — Right. Right. That pushes in for sure. Yeah that’s, that’s, that’s great. Well, you’ve written a book called “Live Forgiven”. I’d love to hear a little bit more about that. We’ll link to that in the show notes, but why don’ you tell us a little bit about, uh, about that book? What, you know, kind of what was the, the germ of that? Well, that’s a lot of work to pull together, a resource like that. Talk us through that. What’s, what’s that look like?
Jeff Warren — Yeah, so it’s a little bit of what I talked about earlier. It really is unpacking the gospel. What does it mean to live forgiven? In other words, what is grace? And then how do you appropriate grace in your life?
Jeff Warren — So it really is built around my life verse, 2 Corinthians 5.21 that we talked about earlier. And a lot of what I’ve learned, the appropriation of grace to really, again, remain in Him, I think you know it’s possible today, Rich, and this is a big deal, this is what I’m preaching a lot, it’s possible to self-identify as a Christian in America and not be a disciple of Jesus. And those are two very different things, right? I know that you know John Mark Comer, among others, have talked a lot about that. He’s just riffing off Dallas Willard. We all know that. And that that there’s a real difference. And so anyway, it’s it’s about that.
Jeff Warren — Once capturing grace and understanding the gospel that Christianity is not work harder, get better. It’s believe more deeply what He’s already accomplished for us. And then, okay, yeah, I get that. But then how to appropriate that?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Jeff Warren — How can I live forgiven, remaining in Him? And that’s my, you know, if you come around here much, that’s my constant message. We don’t have much of another message, really, do we, Rich? We’ve got one message, and it’s the grace of God.
Rich Birch — Right. Amen. Yeah.
Jeff Warren — And then it’s parsed out in all kinds of ways. But, yeah, that’s what the book’s about.
Rich Birch — That’s great. So good. well Well, yeah, we’ll link to that. And this has been, this been a good conversation, you know, ah thinking through wrestling through you know, your own um relationship with Jesus, how that impacts your life, how that impacts your leadership, you know, leading a, you know, very busy churches doing all kinds of things and is reaching people. Busy is to the wrong word, in a very active church that’s, you know, making an impact, which is incredible. It’s been a good conversation. Anything else you’d love to share just as we kind of land today’s episode?
Jeff Warren — Yeah, I would share something that ah um I’ve come to over the past few years and a new learning for me that I think would be really good for pastors, leaders listening. Another thing that’s really set me free um has been to to live in the present, to be mindful and and to live in the moment. We hear that a lot, but let me let me explain that.
Jeff Warren — You know when COVID hit, um if we were if we were deciding that you know our worth and our value is found in how many people come into our church, that was kind of blown up, right? And so during that time, I was really I was really wrestling. Like a lot of us, was real dark time because any decision I made as a pastor… and I’m starting to have some PTSD you know right now with some of what’s going on our culture right now.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s true.
Jeff Warren — You know the old the the old but the trope, you know if your pastor didn’t say this, you know this past week…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, it’s wild, right?
Jeff Warren — …I mean, you know, you ought to find another church. I’m like, please.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff Warren — Okay, you’re not pastoring my church.
Rich Birch — No, exactly.
Jeff Warren — So so during that time, long longer story short, out of that then, where I thought, well, we’re going to bounce back, you know. We we were, think, a lot of legacy churches. We did not bounce back, right? We’re back. We’re beyond where we were pre-COVID. But it has been, I mean, it’s been work, right?
Rich Birch — It’s a journey. Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff Warren — So so for me the the learning is this. I have a friend who is a recovering addict. He’s got a ministry that’s amazing. Michael Moulton, M to the Rock is his is this name.
Jeff Warren — But he I sat down with him and I said, Michael, how do you do it, man? How are you sober? How do you remain sober?
Jeff Warren — He said he said, Jeff, I’ve got to live in the moment. I’ve got to live in the present.
Jeff Warren — And I said, okay, help me there. Help me. What do you mean?
Jeff Warren — He said, man, if I go back to in the past, all I have is shame and regret. My guy’s got 23 mug shots, okay. He’s had he has a past, right. And he says, if I go in the past I have shame or regret. If I go into the future, all I have is worry and anxiety. He says, so I’ve got to stay right here.
Jeff Warren — And then I said, how do you do how do you stay right here? I mean I get that, but he said, I’ve got I’ve got to serve somebody.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Jeff Warren — I’ve got I’ve got to get outside of myself. And I’ve got to serve someone.
Jeff Warren — So Rich, here’s what I’d say to to close all that. It’s been so freeing for me. It means that I’m going to…what is success? Okay, there’s not numbers in ministry or whatever, the you know, bigger, better church, something. What is success? I asked the Lord during that time, Lord, what is success in ministry? And he he kind of, you know, holy headbutt, kind of slapped me upside the head and said, no, there’s a question before that question. Shows you where your mind and your heart is. The question is not success in ministry. What is success in life, right? What is success as a disciple?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Jeff Warren — And what I came to, and this is not new for me, I discovered later that Mother Teresa, among others. It’s success is faithfulness. Full stop.
Rich Birch — That’s good. Amen. Amen.
Jeff Warren — Not faithfulness so that… Right? No, no, no. Faithfulness full stop. And so what does faithfulness look like? This is where all this goes. Faithfulness looks like being faithful in the moment. Like with whomever He’s put in front of me right now.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Jeff Warren — Not not this afternoon.
Rich Birch — Good. Right.
Jeff Warren — Not my lunch appointment. Right now.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Jeff Warren — Whomever He’s put in front of me, focus! And whatever He’s called me to do in the moment. And man, that has been so freeing for me.
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Jeff Warren — It’s a battle, but if we can live that way…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Jeff Warren — …I can put, you know, you and I both, I can put this hour together. Next I got another appointment later. I’m meeting with another, you know, whatever. I can go home tonight, hopefully give my best emotional energy to Stacey, my wife, and I can put my head on the pillow tonight and go, I mean, I kind of messed up, you know, 2 o’clock, I blew it, and then 3 o’clock, that wasn’t a great meeting.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeff Warren — But I sought to be faithful in the moment.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, that’s good.
Jeff Warren — And you put some hours together, you put days together, months and years together, and someday, you know, it’s what we long to hear. Hey you’ve been faithful. Well done. Been faithful. And those happened that just happens one moment at a time.
Rich Birch — Yeah, Jeff, that’s so good. That’s so good. So helpful for people. I appreciate that. Great. Yeah, super helpful insights and great for us to wrestle through and think about those things.
Rich Birch — If people want to track with you or with the church, where do we want to send them online?
Jeff Warren — Yeah, you can find us at pcbc.org. Find out everything about us. You can even find there. You can find, know, I’m on Instagram. You know, Twitter, less and less. Facebook, you know, dumpster fire, even less.
Rich Birch — True. So true.
Jeff Warren — I’m on Threads. You can find me.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Jeff Warren — I think it’s jeff_warren, but just find, yeah, Jeff Warren.
Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s great. Appreciate you being here today, sir. Thank you so much.
Jeff Warren — Thank you, Rich. Thanks for all you’re doing, man. I love love you. Appreciate all you’re doing, bro. Keep it up.
Rich Birch — Thanks so much.
Jeff Warren — All right.
Most churches are overspending on visibility and under-investing in invitations.
In the late 1900s I ran a dot-com back when saying “I run a dot-com” got you a seat at the cool table.
We obsessed over our branding. Fancy logo. Perfect domain. Debated five kinds of red like our lives depended on hex codes. Launch day came and… crickets.
Why? We were doing marketing when we should’ve been doing conversations. The growth strategy wasn’t a new shade of crimson; it was getting out of the building and talking to customers.
Churches make the same mistake. We assume the next Facebook hack, TikTok trend, or website refresh will push us over the top. But the channel we’re ignoring is sitting right in front of us every Sunday: people who personally invite people. The data has been shouting this for years: personal invitations beat paid reach … in effectiveness, in trust, and in retention.
You don’t need a new logo, Google Ads, or a slicker site. You need to build inviters.
If you want durable and compounding growth, stop buying marketing and start building inviters.
Call it Invite Propensity, the percentage of attenders who invite someone in a given period. It’s the church’s NPS (Net Promoter Score): a simple human metric that predicts future growth better than vanity numbers (impressions, followers, even raw attendance). When invite propensity rises, everything compounds — first-time guests, baptisms, small-group participation — because invitation rides on the rails of relationship, the most trusted medium on earth.
Your Church Doesn’t Need Another Idea—It Needs a Plan Most churches want to grow but feel stuck doing more without seeing results. Join Rich Birch for a free 60-minute workshop that gives you a simple, proven way to reignite momentum and see more people connected to your church.
You’ll walk away with a clear 90-day growth plan you can actually implement—no extra staff or budget required.
Wednesday, November 12th at 12noon ET / 9am PT
Free online training for pastors and church leaders who want real results.
Save My Seat Why “More Marketing” ≠ “More Reach”We live in the attention recession. More posts, more reels, more ads, but diminishing returns. Meanwhile, trust in institutional messaging lags far behind trust in people we actually know. According to Nielsen’s global survey, recommendations from friends and family are the most trusted form of promotion, outranking every ad channel by a mile. [ref] McKinsey adds that word-of-mouth drives 20–50% of decisions, cutting through the noise in ways paid media can’t. [ref]
Translation for church leaders: the most persuasive “ad” for your church isn’t an ad. It’s a friend who says, “Sit with me.”
And it’s not just first-touch effectiveness. It’s stickiness. People who come through relationships are more likely to stay because relationships are the glue. Research on assimilation shows that those who remain active long-term average seven new friendships; those who drift away average fewer than two. [ref]
Friends don’t just get people in the door … they keep connected to the church long term.
- Personal invite dominates first visits. Decades of studies converge on the same point: the #1 reason people attend a church is that someone they know invited them, far outstripping ads and programs. [ref]
- Younger adults are even more invite-driven. Recent surveys of evangelicals show 71% of under-35s first connected to their church via a personal invitation, versus ~51% among 55+, authenticity and relationships trump exploration. [ref]
None of this requires marketing spending or media buy. It requires a robust invite culture.
Invite PropensityInvite Propensity is the share of your congregation that has personally invited someone in the last 90 days.
Why it matters:
- Predictive power. Invite Propensity is a leading indicator. Attendance is lagging. Track the leading indicator.
- Compounding effects. One person invites one friend; some of those friends invite friends; the network compounds.
- Budget sanity. The cost per retained attender via ads can run high (mailers, boosts, design)—while a personal invitation’s cost is near zero and comes with built-in hospitality.
If 12% of your people invite one person per quarter and half of the invitees show up, that’s a 6% quarterly lift in first-time guests before a single ad dollar is spent. If 30% of those guests connect into groups or serve via relational bridges, you’ve just shifted the growth curve … with trust, not spend.
4 Outreach Myths Draining Your Momentum Confusing visibility with persuasion. // More impressions don’t equal more impact. Awareness is necessary, insufficient, and expensive. You can buy reach, but you can’t buy trust. People don’t show up because they saw your ad; they show up because someone they know invited them. If your communications strategy ends at visibility, it’s just brand maintenance, not mission advancement. Shift budget and attention toward equipping inviters. Measure personal outreach, not post reach. * Centralizing evangelism to staff. // When outreach becomes a department, the body atrophies. Staff-led evangelism looks efficient on a spreadsheet but weak in real life. And again … marketing feels safer. You can spend money, schedule posts, and avoid people. Stop that. The early church didn’t hire a marketing firm; it mobilized a movement. Make every role invitational. Train parking teams, kids’ volunteers, and greeters to ask, “Who could you bring next week?” Equip small group leaders to model invitation as part of discipleship. The job of the staff is to create inviters, not do the inviting for them. * Under-funding hospitality. // People won’t risk relational capital if they don’t trust that guests will feel welcome. If an attendee at your church isn’t confident that their friend will have a great experience, they’ll never send the invite. Confusing signage, awkward kids’ check-in, or “guess which door is the main entrance” kills momentum. Audit your Sunday experience like a first timer. Fix friction points before you ask people to invite. Hospitality isn’t a side ministry … it’s your front door. If you want more invites, fund the experience members are proud to share. * Only celebrating conversions.* // Most churches platform the touchdown and ignore the drive that got them there. But people don’t start with conversions; they start with conversations. If you only celebrate salvations, you silently teach your people that the invite doesn’t matter unless it ends in a baptism. Celebrate courage, not just conversion. Tell the story of the invite text sent, the coworker who came, the “yes” that started a journey. Make inviting part of the discipleship story. When you normalize the attempt, you multiply the effort.
The Budget QuestionShould you stop all advertising? Not necessarily. Paid media can prime the pump—but the conversion happens in the relationship. Ads can raise awareness; people create action.
Here’s the uncomfortable math:
Through decades of studies, personal invitations outperform advertising by an order of magnitude. The Institute for American Church Growth found that nearly 79% of first-time guests came because someone they knew invited them, while programs, ads, and special events accounted for single-digit percentages. [ref] Meanwhile, McKinsey estimates that 20–50% of all consumer decisions … in every sector .. are driven by word-of-mouth influence. [ref]
That’s at least 10x more effective than most paid channels.
So, if invitations are roughly 10x more powerful than marketing, then … logically … you should be investing 10x more in building an invite culture than investing in marketing and ads.
That doesn’t mean kill your marketing budget. It means repurpose it. Your spending should follow your strategy:
1. Training (Staff & Systems)
Most churches don’t have a marketing problem…they have a discipleship problem disguised as one. The job of your staff isn’t to post better; it’s to prompt better. Train your team to infuse invitation into every department: kids, worship, groups, and guest services. “How does this help people bring a friend?” should become a standing meeting question. That’s your new creative brief.
Budget for leadership development, invite-culture workshops, and ongoing coaching that helps your staff stay focused on mobilizing inviters, not managing impressions.
2. Equipping (Tools for the Congregation)
People want to invite; they just don’t know how. Make it stupidly easy. The most effective churches lower friction with shareable tools—physical and digital. Think:
- Branded invite cards with simple copy (“Sit with me this Sunday.”)
- Pre-built social graphics your people can post or text.
- A clean, mobile-first landing page with times, directions, kids’ info, and an RSVP option.
- Easy one-tap “share” buttons that let members tag a friend directly.
Budget for creative production that serves your members as marketers, not your brand as a product.
3. Motivation (Stories That Stick)
Vision leaks; motivation decays. You have to keep the invite story alive. Every Sunday, highlight someone who came because of a friend. Baptism stories? Trace them back to the first invitation. What gets celebrated gets repeated, and nothing reinforces culture like stories told in public.
Budget for story capture…video, social posts, short stage moments. Hire a part-time storyteller before you buy another ad campaign.
The gospel doesn’t spread through algorithms.It spreads through relationships.If your strategy is “buy attention,” you’ll keep paying rent to platforms.
If your strategy is “build inviters,” you’ll own the asset … trust.
The most persuasive message your city will hear about your church won’t come from your page. It’ll come from your people.
Stop buying marketing. Start building inviters.
Ready to See Growth Again? If you’re tired of guessing what drives church growth, join Rich Birch for the free Church Growth Launchpad workshop.
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Wednesday, November 12th at 12noon ET / 9am PT
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Save My Seat
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Lucinda Ross, Central Group Leader of Communications at Life.Church, one of the most influential and innovative churches in the world. Since its founding in 1996, Life.Church has grown to more than 40 locations across the U.S. and a massive global online presence. Through initiatives like the Open Network and the YouVersion Bible App, Life.Church continues to equip millions of people and churches to engage with God’s Word every day.
As Global Bible Month begins, Lucinda shares powerful insights on how churches can inspire daily Bible engagement, leverage digital tools like YouVersion to disciple people beyond Sunday, and help believers experience lasting transformation through God’s Word.
- Reaching everyone, everywhere, every day. // The heart behind YouVersion’s mission is summed up in three simple words—everyone, everywhere, every day. As the Bible App approaches one billion downloads, Lucinda emphasizes that the real win isn’t the number of installs—it’s the number of lives being transformed through consistent engagement with Scripture. The app is now opened more than one billion times every 39 days, and the past few weeks have seen some of the highest engagement rates ever recorded. Similarly, print Bible sales have increased, revealing a growing hunger for God’s word.
- The power of daily engagement. // Research from the Center for Bible Engagement demonstrates that people who interact with Scripture four or more days a week experience significant life change. This “power of four” effect leads to greater faith-sharing, reduced anxiety and loneliness, and freedom from destructive habits.
- Equipping churches to disciple digitally. // YouVersion Bible App was designed not only as a personal tool but as a resource for churches. Through YouVersion Connect, local churches can create a free digital home within the Bible App where members can find their church, access reading plans, and receive updates directly from their pastors. Churches can feature Bible plans connected to sermon series, post follow-up devotionals, and share key verses throughout the week. The app also provides anonymous engagement insights for church leaders—a “spiritual health dashboard” that helps pastors see what topics their people are exploring, how frequently they read Scripture, and how they can be better shepherded.
- Celebrating Global Bible Month. // November marks Global Bible Month, an opportunity for churches worldwide to celebrate the power of God’s Word. This year, YouVersion and several partner ministries are uniting to encourage believers to take the 30-Day Bible Challenge—a commitment to read the Bible every day for 30 days. Churches can sign up and access free resources at globalbiblemonth.com, including sermon outlines, social graphics, and curated 30-day reading plans. The goal is simple: to help people experience the difference that consistent engagement with Scripture can make.
- Technology as a tool for transformation. // Some critics argue that Bible engagement should happen only through printed Bibles, but Lucinda sees technology as an ally, not a replacement. YouVersion’s accessibility—through text, audio, or reading plans—makes it possible for people to engage with Scripture anywhere, at any time, in their preferred version or language. God’s Word is alive and active, and technology simply helps more people experience it.
- Expanding global reach. // As YouVersion grows, the team is investing in new ways to make the Bible accessible to everyone in their heart language. In addition to the main app, the Bible App Lite serves users in areas with low connectivity, while the Bible App for Kids helps children engage through story-based learning. YouVersion now offers over 3,600 Bible versions in 2,300 languages, with teams at global hubs in Africa, Latin America, Europe, and Australia ensuring content is contextualized for local cultures.
To learn more about how your church can get started with YouVersion Connect, visit youversion.com/connect or explore free resources for Global Bible Month at globalbiblemonth.com
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Super honored that you are listening in today and you’re going to be rewarded for this. You might not know it, but here in November is Global Bible Month. And I’m super honored to have—you know, you feel like you’re talking to a rock star, like somebody who’s at the center of something that’s pretty amazing that’s going on. Today’s one of those days, Lucinda Ross. She is a central group leader of communications at Life.Church.
Rich Birch — If you have been sleeping under a rock and do not know Life.Church, they started 1996. And it’s grown to this incredibly diverse group of people meeting with cities all across the United States and around the world. They have, if I’m counting correctly, if I can count all the slots, 40 physical locations in several states in the U.S. and an incredibly robust online community. Life.Church has several resources and tools for growth, ah for really helping churches grow, including their Open Network for churches and the Bible app from YouVersion, which really seeks to put God’s word in the hands of everyone, every day, everywhere. And um man, they have just done amazing stuff. And Lucinda, I’m super glad, honored really, to have you on the show today. Thanks for being here.
Lucinda Rojas Ross — Thanks so much, Rich. That was just a kind kind introduction. Just humbled and honored to play small part what God’s doing here.
Rich Birch — Well, I appreciate you being humble, ah but like YouVersion has just had such a monster impact on so many people’s lives. And I’m really happy to celebrate it this month and to kind of dive deep a little bit, tell a little bit more about that.
Rich Birch — But why don’t we kind of start before we jump in? um Tell us a little bit about your background. How did you get connected to this, this whole thing? And then I’d love to chat through what we’re talking about today.
Lucinda Rojas Ross — Yeah. So I have had the honor of being on the Life.Church team for almost 13 years. So started out attending, never thought I would be in ministry. God had me in um corporate world and thought that that’s where my place was. And he had other plans for me. And so he’s used Life.Church to change my life, to draw me closer to him. And I’m just super honored that I get to play a part in it now. And so, and part of what I do as and the leader of communications at our church is I just get to tell stories. I get to do the fun part of just sharing what God is doing in our ministries like YouVersion.
Rich Birch — Love it. So good. Well, Life.Church, man, has had just incredible impact and reach in both physical and digital realms. And God’s used it in so many ways. From your seat, from your perspective, what’s kind of driving that transformation? What is it that God’s using ah in the kind of Life.Church community to make such huge impact?
Lucinda Rojas Ross — Yeah, there’s no denying that God’s hand is all over this every step of the way. And so one of the things that are one of our leaders, Bobby Grunewald says is it’s it’s all him and it’s all his. And so when you approach things with that kind of posture, it’s um it gives you just the obedience to take risks. Because you know that we can have the faith to believe that something incredible is possible on the other side.
Lucinda Rojas Ross — And so seeing our leaders model that, um getting to play a part in that, where we are just going for it consistently thinking about, okay, what’s next? What does God have next? How, um if our vision truly is to reach people, everyone, everywhere, every day, it’s a vision of YouVersion, but also the mission of Life.Church is to lead people to become fully devoted followers of Christ.
Lucinda Rojas Ross — If those are the things that we’re focused on, those are big. That three everys in the vision of YouVersion means we’ve always got work to do. That work will outlive us. And so um thinking about just taking risk, being obedient, and seeing where God has, where that momentum is, and just pouring fuel on that fire.
Rich Birch — It’s so good. Well, you know, every pastor that’s listening in, ah you know, they want to see people be changed. They want to see people be transformed. They want, they they don’t, there’s this misnomer that, you know, pastors just want large crowds and they don’t really care whether transformation happens. That’s just not true.
Lucinda Rojas Ross — Absolutely not.
Rich Birch — Those aren’t the people I interact with. They want to see people you know, their lives turned upside down in the best possible way. What are you learning about what actually drives change in people’s lives? What are you seeing from your perspective that that actually sees that kind of transformation take place?
Lucinda Rojas Ross — Yeah. Yeah. We can all agree. Just like you said, like pastors care about people’s lives being changed. So we can all agree that there’s critical pieces to someone’s spiritual journey. So not not everyone’s on the same journey at the same time at the same pace, but those steps of faith are super critical. Finding biblical community, serving, giving. But one of the things that we’re focused on specifically at YouVersion is how do we get people engaged in God’s word every single day?
Lucinda Rojas Ross — And so spending time in God’s word, we know is a critical part of their spiritual journey of their life, the transformation that God does in their lives. And so that’s the the part, the piece we get to play in in what he’s doing in those spiritual journeys.
Lucinda Rojas Ross — And so I think just you know thinking about pastors who wanna see that happen, it’s what it’s what happens outside the walls of the church. And so, and we know that that’s the case. We know we only have that limited time with them every single weekend. um And, may you know, maybe in some other spaces, but but what is God doing outside the walls the church?
Rich Birch — Yeah. I want to—listen, pull back the fourth wall for a little bit. Just want to honor you and the team at YouVersion. Like guys have done just an incredible job. Like what a resource to give to the church. It’s had just huge impact, worth celebrating. I think I saw your crossing or have crossed a billion downloads. Like that’s just an incredible.
Rich Birch — Even just in my little small group, couple years ago, I had one of those transformative experiences with a guy. He’s the kind of guy you want to reach, mid-30s guy, unchurched guy. And he’s taken steps towards Jesus. And like, it’s like stupidly simple what I’m about to share. But he was like, you know, I’m really struggling with reading the Bible on a regular basis. And so I literally took up my phone, fired up the app.
Lucinda Rojas Ross — Love it.
Rich Birch — And I said, look here, you know, why don’t we do like a three day plan? Let’s try a three day plan this week.
Lucinda Rojas Ross — Great.
Rich Birch — And then how that goes, then if we do that, why don’t we then together do a five-day plan. and then a seven-day plan.
Lucinda Rojas Ross — Yes.
Rich Birch — And then, and literally just built up the streaks. And, and I remember a couple months later after that, he was sharing, he’s like, you know, that really changed my life. Like, he’s like, I never thought I’d be the kind of person that read the Bible every day.
Rich Birch — And this is what, you know, I know you’ve done that on scale for literally millions of people. But many churches know about the Bible app. They know about YouVersion, but they maybe haven’t connected it to the weekly rhythms of the people at their church.
Rich Birch — Like they they might say like, hey, go download the app, but they haven’t figured out how to really integrate it. I’d love to focus on that today. How can we integrate? What are you seeing kind of the best practices for integrating this app into their ministries?
Lucinda Rojas Ross — Yeah, that’s great. Oh, I love that story. Like, that’s it. That’s literally what we want to see.
Rich Birch — Part of it. That’s we’re hoping. Yeah.
Lucinda Rojas Ross — Yeah, that’s just, you know, that those little the steps to just download the app, open it, and just start taking those like steps through along the way. I think if you just back up and think about, um you hit on this really quickly, but we are approaching a billion downloads. We’re getting really close. We’re actually going to celebrate that next month, which is really, really exciting.
Lucinda Rojas Ross — But what we’re even more excited about than the number of devices that have ah God’s word is really the number of people who are regularly engaging in it. That’s actually growing really, really quickly right now. So the last five Sundays are ranked as some of the top 10 highest days ever for Bible engagement in the app. Like that’s where we are right now.
Rich Birch — Wow, that’s amazing.
Lucinda Rojas Ross — Yeah. So when you think back, I mean, where’re it’s ranking up there with like Easter and the beginning of the year when people are starting those, trying to start those habits. But we’re seeing that, that kind of momentum where the Bible app is opened a billion times every 39 days.
Rich Birch — Wow!
Lucinda Rojas Ross — And so, yeah it’s it is it’s just so encouraging and it’s just so exciting to see people hungry for God’s word. And so I think just backing up, yes, we want to get people in it, but just I think getting getting ourselves in a place to think about the why. Like why do we really want people in God’s word?
Lucinda Rojas Ross — We know that it changes their lives and we’ve all hopefully experienced the impact that it has. But when you back up and think about what will it do in their lives? How can you cast vision for what will happen on the other side of regular engagement in God’s word?
Lucinda Rojas Ross — So one of the things we talk about a lot here is the power four. So if you, a lot you may be familiar with it, but if you’re not, the Center for Bible Engagement did a study that found that engaging in the Bible four or more days a week has a profound impact on someone’s life.
Lucinda Rojas Ross — So in fact, hearing from God through his word is a single most powerful predictor of their spiritual growth. They’re more likely to share their faith. It decreases their struggles, like their felt needs, like fear, anxiety, loneliness, and actually reduce some of their like risky behaviors, like the things that they’re doing in their life that they want to stop doing.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lucinda Rojas Ross — And so if you think about that why of like, oh, it’s yes, we want people to grow in their spiritual journey, but we actually just want their lives to feel different. We want them to operate in the power of the Holy Spirit every day and reading in his word and connecting with God in that way is such an important part of doing that.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s that’s that’s so good. I know that um like church engagement, kind of engagement as a church has been at the core of the YouVersion story right from the very beginning. I remember, well, whenever YouVersion started, years ago, I remember Andy at North Point talking about, you know, I was talking to Craig Groeschel and they’re doing this thing with the Bible and like with this app and like, we’re going to try it over here too. And like right from the beginning, this idea of like churches encouraging their people to has been kind of built in right from the beginning. You mentioned that, you know, we, we see that kind of engagement, but how, how do we actually use it? Walk us through, how can we better leverage this to really shepherd our people?
Lucinda Rojas Ross — Yep, absolutely. So I think just as as a local church, getting to steward this kingdom resource, like our heart is like, how can we help equip and empower pastors and church leaders to do that? So one of the ways we do that is through YouVersion Connect.
Lucinda Rojas Ross — So there’s features in the app in the Bible app. So you might be using on a personal level, but if you haven’t kind of dug a little bit deeper, your church can actually have a dedicated space in the app where they can where people can find community, they can see who else is attending their church. And so they can find churches near them. So if you go to the discover tab or at the very bottom, you can search churches and it shows churches my friends go to, people that I’ve friended in the app, but also churches near me.
Lucinda Rojas Ross — So that getting people connected into a church, that’s super important, of course. Also pastors and church leaders can feature reading plans within their page on the Bible app. So if you’re doing a specific series on anxiety, for example, you can find a great Bible plan that you feel confident about, you want to put in front of your people, people to engage in that way. Put it on your page, and then you can promote it as you’re talking every single weekend.
Lucinda Rojas Ross — The other piece of that is there’s posts. So you can actually send passages, devotionals, sermon follow-ups it to the entire community – all the people that are following the church page. So when they open it, their your pastor’s guidance is right there with them.
Lucinda Rojas Ross — I think beyond that, there’s you know live events where you can put sermon notes. People can follow along. They can highlight. They can add notes and thoughts. So that digital way of of being able to keep keep track of what what my pastor is talking about. I can go back to it. What was he you know What did what it he or she mention and in that specific verse? Go back. What did I think about that? And reflect on it.
Lucinda Rojas Ross — I think one of the most powerful things in all of this, so when we, you know, get our church engaged in this way, you know, being able to see they’re connected, they’re following, I know, you know, what they’re, what they’re, what I’m leading them to do, but also you can get insights so that you can see what kind of engagement—on an aggregated anonymous level—but you can see what are the kinds of things that that my church is thinking about? What are they like looking for? What are they struggling with? What kinds of Bible plans?
Lucinda Rojas Ross — And so when you do that, it’s you’re able to have just ah another little connection. Of course, those conversations and those relationships are a huge part of that, but just another like input. Just a little spiritual health dashboard for you to be able to have an input into how can you best serve your church and what they’re walking through right now.
Rich Birch — I love that. I love the use of the data. What are that’s like you know being able to kind of see, like you said, an anonymized, but still the people that are following our church, that’s powerful data for a a pastor. You know, we often come up to this, even this time a year, lots of churches are thinking about what are we going preach on next year? What’s our calendar going to look at? Well let’s actually try to pull out some data from you know the YouVersion app to understand what our people are wrestling with.
Rich Birch — How are some pastors or teams use that data to better shepherd their people? What’s that actually look like, if you give examples of what that’s what that looks like at a church level?
Lucinda Rojas Ross — Yeah, think one is helping people connect to each other. And so being able to do Bible plans together. So I think that’s a good, like there’s an example there. But I also think you know finding that data just to think about what what might um what might my sermons look like? What might my series look like?
Lucinda Rojas Ross — What, or you know, if people are really interested in finding community, like that’s something that it looks like they’re, they’re really interested in. Okay, so how do I help them get more connected, rather than it be something that they, they see, and they go seek out, how do I put it in front of them.
Lucinda Rojas Ross — So I think those are the kinds of things of like, just picking up on those threads. And so there’s lots of there’s lots of, of of inputs that we can take. But I think it’s just really, okay, how can I combine what I’m seeing, the data in front of me, what what people are actually doing. Or you know even just their their frequency of engagement in the app? Like how can I know, okay, that’s they they’re doing well, or I can challenge them to more. And so I think in being able to see that, take those, you know that prayer, Holy Spirit guidance on, okay, now now where? How do I lead my congregation? How do I shepherd my flock moving forward?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. And this is softball question here. So I’m a church. I want to set up my my church page. How much is that going to cost me? I know there’s like, that’s going to cost a lot of money. This kind of technology you’re talking about, reading plans, connecting our people, getting that all costs sounds like money. What’s it costing me?
Lucinda Rojas Ross — Absolutely nothing. It always is free, will be free. And I think that’s the the piece of of the generosity of people all over the world to really see the vision of getting God’s word everywhere to be able to enable us to be able to do this for free. And so to be able to give it away, like that is that is the heart of of of who we are as a church, as a ministry, but it’s not without the generosity of of of believers all over the world.
Rich Birch — Yeah, if you’ve ever done, friends, if you’re listening and ever done any app development work for phones or even just like web apps, it’s complex to do and to maintain and keep running. And at the scale that this app runs at is insane to be able to keep this thing you know up and running and so smooth. The fact that you can open the app every time and it works, like it’s insane at the scale that you guys are operating at.
Rich Birch — Well, Global Bible Month is here in November. How can churches leverage that moment to to kind of build better healthy spiritual rhythms in their people? How could we, this kind of an interesting month, I’ve never, I don’t know, um maybe I’ve been so under the rock somewhere. where I’ve never heard of Global Bible Month except for, I don’t know, I’ve been following you guys and you’re talking about it, which is great. So how how could we leverage this as an opportunity? What are some things we could do to try to encourage this, encourage Bible reading in our people this month?
Lucinda Rojas Ross — Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s so as we saw, as we I mentioned earlier, just as we’re coming up on a billion installs, we looked at not just how do we celebrate ourselves? Like that’s not who we are what we’re about. We’re actually terrible at celebrating ourselves. That’s that’s so a point of weakness. But we recognized that this is a moment for the Bible. This is and one of billions of reasons that God’s word is is alive and active. And just like I said, the momentum that is building around it.
Lucinda Rojas Ross — And so as we looked ahead and thought about, okay, we’re going to reach this milestone. How do we just point everyone to the Bible? We’ve actually gotten to partner with lots of other ministries, organizations, other apps, Glorify, Hallow, who we’re all on board for Global Bible Month. Like we are celebrating the Bible. And one of the big ways that we’re doing that is through the 30-day Bible challenge. So 30-day challenge.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Lucinda Rojas Ross — So what we’re encouraging people to do, and I would love for pastors to really you know encourage and challenge our churches in this way is is maybe that you’re someone who is just inconsistent. You’re in and out. You kind of really try, but it’s just not really stuck. That habit hasn’t quite clicked. Or um even all the way to the end of like, you know, I’ve tried so many other things. I don’t even know really what what I believe. I’m you know I’m doing meditation, mindfulness, all the things. Why don’t I give the Bible a chance?
Lucinda Rojas Ross — So that huge spectrum of people, so encouraging the people who are in his word to keep going, to inspire, share, the people who make it consistent or the people just to give it a try, 30 days, every single day of November.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lucinda Rojas Ross — Open the Bible, experience God’s word and see what happens.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lucinda Rojas Ross — And that’s really like the heart of the challenge and and challenging people both to take it for themselves, but just to invite people around them to do it too. And so it’s been really exciting to see how many people are already committing to it. And we’re just, at you know, we’re still like a little over a month or about a month away. And so it’s exciting to see. And we know, we know that God’s going to do something really special through this. And so just rallying around, getting people to commit and to build that habit.
Lucinda Rojas Ross — We know, um we’ve all seen studies about it takes about three weeks to build a habit, like that 30 days. That’s on purpose. Like get you get through 30 days, like you’ve done something and being able to create that habit and build it into before January, before, you know, the times we think we want to make those habits, like let’s do it now. Let’s all rally together and and do this.
Rich Birch — Okay, let’s pivot in a slightly different direction.
Rich Birch — So um I’m a fan, and this, remember, this comes from a spot of, like, I use the YouVersion app. I love it. ah So this is not a personal attack. But there are people out there who, like, are really down on app-based Bible experiences. They’re like, you got to read it in like a, you know, an actual physical book. And I’m not trying to pick a fight here. I’m not trying to like get in an argument over this, but I’m sure you’ve had people say that. And I don’t know what to say. I just say, I give the dumb answer and I’m like, listen, I just want people in God’s word. And I’m like, I am like, I don’t know, like yeah I’ve seen lots of people get engaged when they use YouVersion and I want to see more of that happen.
Rich Birch — But what what do you say or how do you think about that, you know, that critique? It’s a weird critique to me. And it always seems strange to me when when when pastors, particularly when they take on, again, I’m not trying to pick a fight, but what do you think about that? Comment.
Lucinda Rojas Ross — No, I mean, no, I think that’s something that we, and when we talk about the 30 day challenge, so like just really quickly on that, and it’s not even a complete different direction. Like, honestly, it’s however that works best for you, you know, paper Bible. And that’s the other exciting part of Bible momentum, like the Bible engagement momentum. It’s not just what we’re seeing. We’re seeing print Bible sales go up.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Lucinda Rojas Ross — We’re seeing like Gen Z buying, like the, the, the fact that God’s word is at the center of this, it doesn’t like, we have zero, like, just engage with God’s word. If we are a helpful way for you to do that, great.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Lucinda Rojas Ross — And so when we go back and tell the story actually of of when Bobby Grunewald had the idea um to create the Bible app, one of the things he was trying to solve for himself is that idea of consistency, of like, I just want to be more consistent, but I like i wonder if technology can help me with that.
Lucinda Rojas Ross — And so as as you kind of fast forward through the story, one of the one of the things that happened along the way is we actually created a website. I don’t know if a lot of people know the story. We actually created a website first and people started going to it and then it failed. Well, this was in 2007. People didn’t necessarily have like, you know, it was like a a lot ah desktop experience. And so what he always says that always sticks with me is we moved it from their nightstand to there their desk, their desktop.
Lucinda Rojas Ross — And so what the Bible app, what technology helps us solve for is the fact that we’re not necessarily always going to have our paper Bible with us everywhere we go…
Rich Birch — Right.
Lucinda Rojas Ross — …but we also will have it with us everywhere we go. And we can engage in different ways.
Lucinda Rojas Ross — Some people, audio Bible is really helpful for them. Like that’s something that they, that’s a really powerful way that they engage in God’s word. Having the different versions, the languages, like they’re just different things that it solves for or helps with. But yeah, that’s absolutely not to diminish, you know, if people feel more power to if you. If you like your paper Bible, that’s your go-to, great. We love that.
Rich Birch — Love it. Friends, listen to, go back and listen to listen to their incredible communicator. You do a good job at your thing and you’re not picking the fight. You took my, you totally dodged my question and answered in a super gracious way. Not surprised by that at all. Friends, we just want to see more people engaged with scripture. We know that it’s life transformating. It’s just such a clear picture of what it means to follow Jesus when we engage in his word.
Rich Birch — And so let’s get back to the 30 day challenge. I think that’s amazing. Are are do you know of churches that are doing this together, or is there is there a way that we could encourage? Is there, would you want to send them somewhere to kind of be a part of that? Or I’m sure there’s a bunch of different people are doing reading plans on, on you know, YouVersion. Talk us through how can we get more involved if we’re like, oh, we’re intrigued in that. We should do that.
Lucinda Rojas Ross — Yep. So if you go to globalbiblemonth.com. One, we’d love for for you to send people just to sign up for it, just so that we can show. Like that’s the encouraging part of seeing that number of people who’ve signed up, seeing that grow and seeing that momentum. But beyond that, there’s actually free church resources there. So there are sermon outlines, graphic slides, other things that you could do to challenge your church in this way.
Lucinda Rojas Ross — So there are, we’re curating some 30-day plans so that we make it really easy. So if you wanted to choose one and challenge your church to go through the same one together. You could use, and you know, for smaller groups of that, you could use some plans with friends feature to be able to do that together. You can discuss it in other places. But really, it’s what it’s what you you guys as pastors, you know your churches best.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Lucinda Rojas Ross — You know um you know what you’re what you’re teaching on, what you’re walking through, and how your people respond. But we definitely want to make sure that those resources are available so that you can take that, run with it. But I think definitely just encouraging to sign up so that we can help show and encourage other people to engage in that way.
Rich Birch — So that’s globalbiblemonth.com. We want to send people over there and make sure they sign up, you know kind of flag that they’re interested and there’s some resources there. You can see various you know apps and that that are participating. That that would be a great ah first step from people.
Rich Birch — Well, let’s think a little bit about the future. As you think about the future at YouVersion, man, that vision of the three E’s and it stood out to me. I don’t know again where I’ve missed this, but somewhere along as I was prepping for this, I bumped into that. Everyone, every day, everywhere. As you think about the future, what are the questions that you’re that you guys are asking, thinking about the future, about how we can ah see more people engage with scripture? We definitely seem to have a moment now.
Rich Birch — I’ve been saying this in lots of contexts. When we talk about this stuff, I’m like, let’s not miss this moment. Let’s not just, ah you know, let this go by, but let’s try to build a new foundation for a future. So what, what does the future look like for you as you wrestle with, you know, where’s God taking YouVersion as we go next?
Lucinda Rojas Ross — Yeah. So I think one of the things, there’s there are lots of different areas that we are looking at, but I think if you just collectively look at it one is is continuing to grow, continuing to get the Bible to more people around the world. And that also has expanded into, we talk about ability and we’re talking about family of apps now. So beyond the Bible app, we have Bible app light, which is for areas with lower connectivity and less capable devices. Bible app for kids, of course, has been around. So continuing to build on those and looking for more opportunities. Are there other things that we’re, that we need to pursue in that space? So that’s continued growth.
Lucinda Rojas Ross — We’ve talked a lot about engagement. That’s a really important part that power for the idea of how do we create features? How do we continue to update the apps and and build opportunities for people to engage more? So if you go back to when we added streaks, which for some people is helpful, some people it’s not. But it’s it’s one of those things that it just helps prompt people to think about, oh, have I spent time with God today? And so really looking at engagement, how do we get people not just into God’s word once, but coming back every single day?
Lucinda Rojas Ross — And then another part of where we’re looking at the future is really um is personalization. So one of the things we found makes makes a significant difference in consistency is when people have the Bible in their heart language, so more languages, and biblical content that’s really reflective of their local culture or what they’re going through in that moment.
Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good.
Lucinda Rojas Ross — We can’t pretend to know from Oklahoma and the U.S. what someone’s going through on the other side of the world. So we’re actually um setting up, we’re we’re expanding, and we have actually global hubs where we have teams of people around the world who are focused on building relationships with pastors, church leaders, content partners, so that we can have more content in the app that meets people in their very specific context. So yeah, with the help of our partners, we’re now, we’re offering 3,600 versions of the Bible and 2,300 languages, and we just see that growing, especially with Bible translation efforts, accelerating. Like I said, those hubs, Latin America, European Europe, Africa, we have one Australia to really meet people, everyone, everywhere, not just in the context ah of where we are here.
Rich Birch — That’s incredible. Well, I just want to honor you and the team at YouVersion. You’re doing an amazing work. And, you know, this has been such a consistent player for years, you know, whatever that is now – almost two decades we’re coming up on, you know, of just helping churches and helping people take steps closer to and using, you know, engaging with scripture more. So just want to honor you and just everybody at the team that’s making it happen.
Rich Birch — As we wrap up today’s conversation, anything else you want to share ah just as we kind of close down today?
Lucinda Rojas Ross — No, just thank you so much for this opportunity. Thank you so much for what you’re doing, both on an an an individual level to lead someone in your small group to engage in God’s word, but also for, you know, using the platform that you have to help others, inspire others too to continue leading in this way. And so just thank you to you. And I think just um for everyone listening to just think about how can we play our our part in pointing people back to God so he can speak them directly through his word. So Just thank you for what you’re doing, for what your listeners are doing to serve the kingdom.
Rich Birch — That’s great. So globalbiblemonth.com, that’s really the punchline where we want to send people. Is there anywhere else we want to send them online to connect with, to plug in more? Are there places, if I’m a church leader and and I’ve heard us talk about all these pages and all that stuff, is ah might open up the app and explore is probably the answer, but are there other places we want to send that are kind of helpful for that thing that we talked about earlier?
Lucinda Rojas Ross — Yes. So if you are interested in getting your church um in the in the Bible app. And so it can be found youversion.com/connect is your first step there. And so that will open up. YouVersion Connect is where we would point um pastors and church leaders to be able to go find how how they can do all of those things and unpack those insights that I talked about. That’s your your best bet in that direction.
Rich Birch — Great. Thanks so much, Lucinda. I appreciate being here today.
Lucinda Rojas Ross — Thank you so much, Rich. Appreciate you.
Let’s start with a confession.
I’ve misdiagnosed “dead” more times than I care to admit…more than a coroner in a zombie movie marathon.
I have this bad habit of declaring the demise of trends that are, in fact, quietly entering their prime. I thought podcasts were “saturated” back in 2013 when I started the unSeminary podcast. Everyone and their cousin had one, and I thought I was arriving at the party too late. Yet, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Podcasting didn’t plateau… it exploded. It became mainstream. The biggest names in media…people who swore audio was finished…now build entire empires around long-form podcast conversations. Joe Rogan, The Daily, SmartLess…they didn’t just succeed; they defined a new era of attention. What I thought was a crowded space was actually an emerging medium.
Then, there were QR codes. I mocked those little pixel boxes like a pro. I remember my friend Kenny using them years ago, and I laughed out loud. “No one’s going to pull out their phone to scan that,” I told him, dripping with confidence. Fast-forward to 2020, when every restaurant menu, conference check-in, and even church connect card required a QR code. They went from “gimmick” to “infrastructure” overnight. What I once dismissed as clunky, and dead became the universal bridge between the physical and digital worlds.
And YouTube…don’t get me started. I was doing video podcasts and then 8 years ago I stopped because…I thought it was dead. I used to think YouTube was for cat videos and makeup tutorials, not serious long-form content. I said, “No one wants to watch a 30-minute video conversation on YouTube.” Yes,I said that. Out loud. Turns out, millions of people do. YouTube has become the world’s most dominant podcast player and arguably the most powerful storytelling platform of our time. The lines between podcast, video, and TV are gone. YouTube isn’t a side project anymore…it’s the main stage.
Even books fooled me. I was convinced the Kindle was going to kill print. I believed we would all be reading on glass screens by now, that bookstores would become nostalgic museum pieces. Yet, print continues to outsell e-books. Year after year. There’s something about paper, the texture, the smell, the way you can hand a book to someone, that we’re just not ready to give up. The “dead” medium has more life than ever.
And that’s why I roll my eyes when someone confidently declares that the “attractional church” is dead.
I’ve heard it at conferences, read it in think pieces, seen it in hot-take clickbait reels: “People don’t want polished anymore.” “The attractional model doesn’t work.” “We’ve moved beyond that.”
No, we haven’t.
Attractional church isn’t dead; it was absorbed into “normal church” …and the churches that win in 2025 are the ones that treat invitation as culture, not campaign, and pair it with clear next steps into community and discipleship.
Things don’t die; they normalize. They get woven into the fabric. So it is with the attractional church.
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Save My Seat What used to be “attractional” is now baselineOnce upon a time, these were edgy moves. Now they’re table stakes:
- Music people actually love. Not as a stunt, but as contextualized worship that lowers barriers for guests.
- Teaching that connects to everyday life. Felt-need series, biblical clarity, concrete application, this is just effective preaching.
- Buildings (and lobbies) designed with outsiders in mind. Wayfinding, hospitality, kids’ environments that kids beg to come back to.
The point isn’t flash, it’s hospitality. You don’t get extra credit for clean bathrooms, clear signage, and songs that don’t sound like 1998. That’s the bar, taken seriously by newcomers.
Call it attractive if you like; I call it normal.
Follow the data, not the hot takes Big days still work. Easter and Christmas remain the largest attendance days in most churches. Many are doubling down on specific “Invite a Friend” Sundays, now embraced by roughly one in five churches…up from a decade ago. Crowds gather when we give them a clear reason and an easy on-ramp. [ref] * Invitation remains the #1 front door. Most churchgoers are inviting friends. In recent surveys, three in five Protestants had invited someone in the last six months, and among the unchurched, a friend’s invite remains the most compelling catalyst to attend. The channel is person-to-person. Always has been. [ref] * Growing churches train, equip & motivate their people to invite friends. Research on large, fast-growing congregations shows a straight-line relationship: the faster the growth, the more their people invite…and the stronger their pathways for incorporation (groups, serving, classes). Attractional momentum plus discipleship scaffolding. [ref] * Multiplication correlates with evangelism.* Multisite and church-planting churches report higher conversion rates than peer churches. New campuses = new “front doors” + fresh invite energy. [ref]
It’s not just attractional, it’s transformational.
It’s attractional plus biblical literacy that roots people in the truth of Jesus and his teaching.
It’s attractional plus gospel-centered teaching that changes hearts and launches new lives.
It’s attractional plus the active work of the Holy Spirit providing an accessible encounter with God.
Together, that’s what makes the prevailing churches magnetic and mature.
Church’s Leading the “New Attractional” Movement Church of the Highlands (AL): “At the Movies” remains a massive newcomer on-ramp, and they report thousands of decisions for Christ tied to that series—because the creativity is welded to clear gospel invitations and next steps. * Journey Church (FL): Practical, invite-worthy series + multiple services aimed at families = sustained growth; it’s invitation culture in action. * City Church (IN): Arena Easters, historic-theatre Christmases, neighborhood ministry = attractional and local, leading to conversions and baptisms. * Embrace (SD),* Union (MD)*,* Crosspoint City (GA)*,* First Orlando (FL)**: VIP guest processes, youth-led momentum, “Harvest Sunday,” language-specific services—different riffs on the same melody: make it easy to invite, then move guests swiftly into groups and serving.
None of these churches are “all show.” They are disciplined about next steps. That’s the quiet variable the think-pieces miss.
What actually died?What died is the idea that you can run a slick weekend and call it discipleship. The vibe-only era is over. That’s good news.
In 2007, Willow Creek (is it safe to mention them?) dropped a bombshell study called Reveal: Where Are You? … a data-driven autopsy of its own ministry model. The results? Attendance and program engagement weren’t producing mature disciples. Cue the headlines: “The Seeker Church Repents.” The hot-take crowd declared the attractional model dead.
But that’s not what happened. Reveal wasn’t a eulogy…it was an evolution. Willow realized crowds aren’t the same as change. They didn’t scrap weekend experiences; they added spiritual coaching, personal disciplines, and next-step systems. In other words, they didn’t kill the attractional church, they deepened it.
Nearly two decades after that study, the lesson stands: the problem wasn’t being attractional; it was being only attractional. The weekend is still the front door, but now the smartest churches obsess equally over what happens next. The critique that was supposed to bury the model ended up refining it.
Like most “deaths” we announce in the church world, this one was just a metamorphosis.
Attractional didn’t die…it grew up.
The enduring pattern with prevailing churches today looks like this:
1) Warm invite → 2) Excellent weekend (clear gospel, real people, real stories) → 3) Fast follow-up (text within hours, personal touch within days) → 4) Concrete next steps (groups, serve, classes) → 5) Multiplication (invite others, launch campuses, tell the story).
When leaders say, “attractional is dead,” what they’re often reacting to is an empty, 2006 playbook…production without a pathway. That model is dead. Good riddance. But attractional as hospitality? As to lower friction for outsiders? As architecting moments that catalyze invitation? These are not dead; they’re disciple-making foundations.
The Playbook: Normalize invitation, then engineer integration1) Make invitation a year-round sport.
- Cadence: Anchor the year with a few clear invite moments (Easter, Fall launch, Christmas), but create smaller, monthly on-ramps (kickoff Sundays, “You Asked for It,” testimony weekends).
- Training: Give a 3-minute “how to invite” moment quarterly. Provide scripts and shareable digital invites. Celebrate stories, weekly. Assume people want to invite; remove the social friction.
2) Design for first-timers without dumbing down.
- Wayfinding & welcome: Parking → doors → kids check-in → seating. Test it with a mystery guest every quarter.
- Message design: Preach the text; show the bridge. Put handles on doctrine—what it changes on Monday.
- Music & moments: Choose songs that the room can sing. Test keys and tempos with real people, not just your band.
3) Build a two-week guest journey (from start to joining a small group).
- Day 0 (Sunday PM): Text: “Thanks for coming, here’s one helpful next step.”
- Day 2: Personal email/video from a real person (not a do-not-reply).
- Day 5: Invite to a 20-minute “New Here Meetup” after any service…low-stakes face time.
- Day 12: Direct ask: “Join a group” or “Jump on a serve team this weekend.” Churches that win speed up time-to-relationship. Clock it. Improve it. Repeat.
4) Tie big weekends to tangible next steps.
- Baptisms scheduled within two weeks.
- Alpha/start-here course every month; never more than two weeks away.
- Group launches immediately after an invite series…sign-up on the spot. This is where “attractional” becomes “discipleship.”
5) Multiply front doors.
- Services: Adjust times to match life patterns.
- Venues: Add a smaller room vibe or a language-specific service.
- Campuses: When you’re healthy, multiply. It raises your invitation ceiling and your conversion rate, not just your attendance.
Objections, answered“Young people don’t want this.”They do…if it’s welcoming, authentic, and purposeful. Gen Z and Millennials are showing up more frequently than older generations in recent data. The more we give them real responsibility (serve, lead, create), the more they stick around. [ref]
“Attractional churches are shallow.”Only if you stop at the lobby. The fastest-growing churches are more…not less…obsessive about small groups and integration. The crowd isn’t the end; it’s the on-ramp. [ref]
“This is just entertainment.”Creativity is hospitality. It lowers defenses, opens ears, and earns you a hearing for the gospel. The message doesn’t change; the method contextualizes. And the fruit…decisions, baptisms, transformed lives…keeps showing up where invitation and follow-up are tightly coupled. [ref]
Don’t confuse needed reforms with funerals.I’ve been wrong before about what’s “over.” I said podcasts were saturated—now they’re a primary channel with staggering reach and spend. I said QR codes were a gimmick…now they’re woven into daily behavior. I said YouTube wasn’t for long-form … now it is the stage. I said print was toast … yet it remains king. My point isn’t to relitigate old takes; it’s to warn us against throwing out working channels because we’re bored, bruised, or reacting to excesses.
Paul’s counsel to a young, outnumbered movement in a pluralistic world is still the brief: “Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time.” (Colossians 4:5 ESV). Wisdom toward outsiders looks like lowering barriers, speaking plainly, and making the way back to God visible and viable. That’s not a fad. That’s faithfulness.
So, stop saying attractional church is dead. What’s dead is laziness, gimmicks, and vibe-with-no-pathway.
What’s alive…and working…is a church that gathers and scatters, which invites and disciples, that engineers moments people can actually bring friends to…and then walks with them toward Jesus. That’s not the old playbook. That’s the only playbook.
Ready to See Growth Again? If you’re tired of guessing what drives church growth, join Rich Birch for the free Church Growth Launchpad workshop.
In just 60 minutes, you’ll discover a simple framework thriving churches use to build momentum and reach more people—without adding more to your plate.
Walk away with a clear 90-day plan you can put into action right away.
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Save My Seat
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Luke Cornwell, Communications Pastor at Realife Church in Indiana. Founded in 2007, Realife has grown into one of the fastest-growing churches in America with two thriving campuses, a STEAM Academy for preschoolers, and a partnership with Southeastern University. Luke brings a unique blend of strategic communications and pastoral care, helping Realife stay aligned, relational, and mission-focused as it grows.
Is your church struggling to keep everyone on the same page as you scale? Luke shares how Realife Church builds clarity, connection, and communication systems that foster alignment and strengthen relationships in a fast-growing, multi-campus environment.
- Scaling communication as your church grows. // When Luke joined Realife three and a half years ago, the church had 15 staff members. Now that number has more than doubled, and the need for clear communication has become critical. As the church prepared to launch its second campus, they realized the importance of everyone “speaking the same language.” Luke explains that while systems matter, relationships must remain central. Realife intentionally invests in both structured communication and personal connection to keep unity strong.
- Tools that simplify communication. // Internally, Realife relies heavily on Slack—not email or text—for 95% of staff communication. Slack channels allow focused, real-time collaboration across teams while reducing clutter and missed messages. Email is reserved for non-urgent updates, while Slack is for action and discussion. This separation helps the team stay responsive and organized as the church grows.
- Leading with relationships, not control. // Luke emphasizes that communications teams can’t function as “brand police.” Instead of saying no, Realife’s communications team focuses on collaboration and clarity. They regularly check in with the lead pastor and executive leaders to ensure alignment before major changes or campaigns. The key is keeping leadership informed, not blindsided. When communication is proactive and relational, trust grows and silos shrink.
- Excellence defined by stewardship. // Realife defines excellence not as perfection, but as doing what you can with what you have. The communications team works hard to balance production demands with spiritual priorities, asking God to bless their efforts. Excellence means faithful stewardship and surrendering outcomes to God.
- Strategy over noise. // In an age of constant distraction, Luke urges churches to communicate strategically rather than reactively. Realife maintains clear “lanes” for communication. For example, text messages are used for personal contact while emails are for reminders and responses. The church limits communication frequency and ensures each message adds real value.
- Knowing your audience. // Realife uses tools like Community Church Builder (CCB) and Nurture to understand their congregation, track engagement, and identify people at risk of disengagement. Their volunteer team includes captains who care personally for others, ensuring no one falls through the cracks. This data-informed, relationship-driven approach helps the church shepherd people well—even as attendance multiplies.
- Discipling between Sundays. // For Luke, communication isn’t just about promotion—it’s about discipleship. His team’s goal is to “disciple people between Sundays” by creating content that reminds, inspires, and challenges people to grow in their faith. From social media to email, every message aims to connect people with opportunities to take next steps toward Jesus.
To learn more about Realife Church, visit realifechurch.org (that’s Realife with one “L”) or email Luke directly.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, Rich here from the unSeminary podcast. Pumped to have you listening today. Really looking forward to today’s conversation. We’ve got a communications expert on the phone, on the call. And you know that communications is critically important for your church as you try to gain alignment and clarity with your people and ah move the mission forward. ah Today, we’re talking to Luke Cornwell. He serves as a communication pastor at Realife Church, which was founded in 2007. It’s one of the fastest growing ah churches in the country. And if I’m counting correctly, they’ve got two campuses in Indiana. They exist to create a place where Uh, people love, so they will experience a loving God and something that really for the entire family.
Rich Birch — They, they include they, sorry, I’m stumbling. I’m talking to communications guy and I can’t talk straight today! What’s happening?!
Luke Cornwell — We all we all have that problem.
Rich Birch — They’ve got Realife STEM Academy for pre-K age and under and a partnership with Southeastern University. This is a fantastic church. Luke, welcome to the show.
Luke Cornwell — Yeah. Thank you for having me. This is a privilege.
Rich Birch — This is going to be good. Realife is one of the fastest growing churches in the country, as we said. For leaders who may not know the story, kind of know about the church, can you give us a snapshot of Realife? Tell us a little bit about that and tell us about your role as communications pastor. What does that cover?
Luke Cornwell — Absolutely. So, ah Realife Church started in 2007, like you mentioned. And, um you know, it was a slow start. Everybody has this dream that, you know, out of the, but you know, out of the gates, your your your church is just going to grow.
Luke Cornwell — And it took some time. And Pastor Adam and Kristen, our lead pastors, um founded it 18, 19 years ago. And you know, it took years to grow um to the point where it’s like, yeah, this is a a church. You know, we feel like a church. It’s it’s it’s not a constant grind.
Luke Cornwell — And um it really wasn’t until um about 2018 that, you know, numbers aren’t everything, but they give you a metric, right? You know, numbers aren’t everything, but it wasn’t until about 2018 where they started to cross over the 5- to 700 mark, which is a really good size church.
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Luke Cornwell — And, you know, it took that’s that’s like, you know, that’s 11 years.
Rich Birch — Right.
Luke Cornwell — And so since then, um it is just catapulted in both number and impact in the community. And this year we are averaging more than we ever have on our weekend services. This February, we launched our second campus. So our primary campus is in New Palestine, and our second campus is in Greenfield. And this last week, we are so we have 500 people attend our second campus nine months in.
Rich Birch — Wow. That’s amazing. That’s huge.
Luke Cornwell — So this is nothing that we’ve done. It is all God and God. We’re excited for what he has for us in the future.
Rich Birch — Nice. Well, I’m looking forward to learning from what God’s doing in your midst and…
Luke Cornwell — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …and particularly around this communication stuff.
Luke Cornwell — Yeah.
Rich Birch — It’s so critically important. And, you know, one of the downsides, people like the idea of being inside a quick, fast growing church, but it’s like it’s difficult having lived in that space. And communication complexity is really one of the the and problems that we deal with.
Luke Cornwell — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Particularly as a church’s growth accelerates, it’s like, man, there’s a lot to pull together. What challenges have you run into as the church has been growing or that you’ve seen other churches ah that are you know making sure that everybody knows what’s going on?
Luke Cornwell — Yeah.
Rich Birch — What have been some of the complexities of growing quickly from a communication point of view?
Luke Cornwell — So when I started three and a half years ago as the communications pastor for Realife Church, we had about 15 full-time employees, full-time staff members. And we were just starting the STEAM Academy that you mentioned earlier.
Luke Cornwell — Now we’ve more than doubled that. So one of the first things that we recognized is just our internal communications was just in dire need of tightening up. And so as we prepared to launch this campus, we had to make sure that we were all speaking the same language, that we were you know all working towards same goals.
Luke Cornwell — And this is not to say that we weren’t before. We had a really tight knit group of staff. But as we grew in staff numbers and weekend numbers, we realized that we had to be on the same page, even more so. You know when you’ve got 10 or 15, it’s really easy to get into a room…
Rich Birch — Right.
Luke Cornwell — …and to just talk things out. But when you’re at 30, 35, where we’re at now, like it’s hard, like it’s a it’s a large group conversation. It’s no longer a small group.
Luke Cornwell — And so there are have been a few things that we’ve had to do. We’ve had to change the makeup of um of our teams. We’ve had to have smaller meetings and then larger meetings. And we’ve had to prioritize just making sure that we ah keep our relationships strong through all of that noise. Because, you know, we all know systems are great. But it’s all about the people. And it’s all about relationships ah within those systems.
Rich Birch — Well, I want to come back to the relationship piece in a second, because I think that’s critically important. But talk me through ah how from a communications kind of keeping your team all on the same page, you talk about small, you know, small or small teams, large teams.
Rich Birch — How do you think about ensuring that you’re from a kind of system point of view, we’ll get to relationship in a second…
Luke Cornwell — Yep.
Rich Birch — …but from a system point of view, kind of keeping everyone on the same page and ensuring that the right people know the right things at the right time?
Luke Cornwell — Yeah. So over time, we have implemented a series of, and this is going sound horrible because not everybody loves meetings, but really connection points throughout the week where we make sure we talk through our weekend services, where we’re planning of four, six months ahead on large events and you know just strategically thinking through what it looks like, what our calendar looks like.
Luke Cornwell — Most people don’t realize that, but a church’s calendar can really dictate the ebb and flow of what is going on in the church. And so we’ve had to create some of those rhythms um and recreate some of those rhythms as we’ve grown, and as we’ve hired staff and brought people in.
Luke Cornwell — And so even today, you know we’re having conversations about what do our teams look like? What are the structures? And so making sure that everybody is in sync with that.
Luke Cornwell — And then we use simple tools like Slack.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Luke Cornwell — We don’t text each other. We Slack each other.
Rich Birch — Right.
Luke Cornwell — And that helps us to keep everything focused. It helps us because we can have lots of small groups, if you know about Slack.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Luke Cornwell — Slack has allows you to have channels and different groups. And that allows us to keep each other all the time in the loop and in the know of what’s going on.
Rich Birch — Yeah, so so I’m assuming that also would include ah like you’re not emailing internally either. Like any internal communication really is on Slack. You’re trying to cut down the total number of channels, get a focus on Slack.
Luke Cornwell — I would say 95% of our communication is all in Slack.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah that’s interesting.
Luke Cornwell — Emails—so we look at it this way…Email is like, hey, you’re on vacation. I need to send you something…
Rich Birch — Right.
Luke Cornwell — …and I want you to see it, but it doesn’t need immediate attention. Slack is like, hey, and I need you to respond to this.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes, please see it and engage with it.
Luke Cornwell — Please see. Yes.
Rich Birch — Can you talk us through what the your kind of weekly or like the regular meeting rhythm looks like? You mentioned like, hey, we’ve got, you know, meetings throughout the week. What does that, what are those, what’s the kind of form of that take? What’s that look like?
Luke Cornwell — Yeah, so for the entire group, um every week we have a time of worship and what we would call our chapel on Tuesday morning. And that’s a time for us to ah get into God’s word with a short little devotional, to pray together, to sing a few songs, and to really just bond spiritually together and seek God for you know ah whatever we have going on.
Luke Cornwell — And so there’s a lot of times where our lead pastor, Pastor Adam, will get up there and say, hey, yeah let’s let’s pray together about these things coming up because they’re important to us and we can’t do this without him.
Luke Cornwell — And then after that, we have a time of just connection. Our executive pastor will lead a one church meeting ah that allows us to hear from both sides, from our two campuses and what is going on in those places.
Luke Cornwell — And then ah we break into smaller teams at that point. Our pastors and directors get together and we discuss um what is going on detail. Our dream team, our volunteer core, what are some things that we’re ah maybe ah roadblocks we’re running into and and how do we how do we ah retain and and how do we recruit? And we’re talking through those things in a smaller core for our campuses.
Luke Cornwell — So that’s just three of the things that we do every week.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. And even, ah you know, listeners, the thing I love that’s built in there is um there’s like an there’s a natural um kind of echoing out cadence there. It’s like it’s naturally set up for like, hey, here’s ah here’s kind of a big direction thing. Let’s talk about it in a little more detail. And then we’re going to get down into small groups, into our individual teams and talk about it. Not that that’s necessarily the structure you’re going to follow every week. But we’ve got to cascade our communication, make sure that people…
Luke Cornwell — Yes.
Rich Birch — …you know, understand and get a chance to talk about it. Even just in your weekly meetings. I love that that’s, you know, set up already.
Luke Cornwell — Yeah. And so another form of that is our executive leadership team meets on Mondays.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Luke Cornwell — So it’s a real, again, it’s a great cascading of information and then it just sets our week up to to succeed.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. Love, you know, love that. Well, let’s loop back on the relationship piece. You’d mentioned this, I caught my eye. So true. You know, I think as a church grows, like when you were all, you could all sit around one table, you know, order a box of pizza, everybody knows what’s going on.
Rich Birch — And it’s not just that information falls through the cracks, but actually you can, you know, step on people’s toes, lose relationship there. How are you keep keeping focused on the relationship side as you continue to grow?
Luke Cornwell — So one of my roles as a communication director is to keep alignment with anything that is internally, but also you know primarily going out. And so that includes working with our worship experience pastor and what is happening in our Sunday and weekend services.
Luke Cornwell — That includes working with our lead pastor, making sure we’re carrying his vision through what’s printed, through what’s on the web, ah through what’s in our social social markets, Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and all those different things.
Luke Cornwell — And so one of the things that like I hold near and dear to my heart is this um passion for people and passion for relationships. So, you know, I mentioned Slack. My Slack is full of DMs and people. I’m constantly talking to almost every one of our pastors every single day about something that is going on in their world.
Luke Cornwell — And our team, our goal is for our comms team is that we’re facilitating their ministry. So yes, we have our directives, um but we are not living and working in a silo. So we may own something, but we’re not working alone.
Rich Birch — So I’m sure this never happens at Realife, but sometimes comms departments um can be seen internally as like, those are the people that just say no to things.
Luke Cornwell — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Like those are the people that are like, no, you can’t get an announcement. No, we can’t make a video for you. No. Or like you did this thing that was off brand and like, stop it. You know…
Luke Cornwell — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Like, it’s like, they’re like the communications police or whatever. How do you ensure that you’re not that for Realife?
Luke Cornwell — That is a really good question. And if if you have a miracle drug, um I would like to know, because I think that plagues every communications team in some form or another.
Rich Birch — Yeah, sure.
Luke Cornwell — I don’t think you ever are perfect at it. But what we do is we you know, yesterday I had a phone call with our lead pastor. I said, Hey, I need five minutes your of time. I have a very specific question to ask you.
Luke Cornwell — And he said, sure. So I’ll call you about, you know, 11 o’clock or whatever time it was. And he called me and I said, Hey, I have this very specific question for you. I want to ensure that what we’re about ready to do, you are okay with.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Luke Cornwell — Not because we’re going way out of the bounds of our values, which are super important to us. Not because this is against our mission, because it’s a tiny little change, but it’s highly visible. It’s changing a name.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Luke Cornwell — And it was just a small change of that name. So we had ran that up through our executive pastor, our comms team, our events person, all in agreement with it. But I wanted to double check before we put it in print that our lead pastor was okay with it. So a two-minute conversation over the phone ensures that, one, he’s aware of it.
Luke Cornwell — Two, if he has any concerns, he can speak into it. Now he was like, hey, I’m good with it. We’re good. Let’s double check this but and that, but we’re good. And that allows us to stay aligned, keeps him informed, and then allows us to proceed with confidence.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Luke Cornwell — So if you do that across all of your channels and have that respect up and across peers, then it really helps to break down those those conversations that you end up having of like, hey, you went off base here.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, that’s good. ah that That aligns with ah some advice I recently heard um where like similar kind of advice that, you know, lots of times lead pastors, particularly, they’re they just they want to be they want to know what’s going on. They don’t necessarily need or want to even be able to like change everything, but but if they’re operating in a low information environment if they don’t actually know what’s going on they’re going to be more likely to step in and micromanage that actually by by doing lots of informing…
Luke Cornwell — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …that you know gives them the opportunity to kind of see what’s going on…
Luke Cornwell — So true.
Rich Birch — …a sense of what’s there which I thought was, you know, I think that’s good. That’s good.
Luke Cornwell — Yeah. Yeah. And I’ve had to work at that. And I’m not perfect at that. Our team, we’re not perfect at that.
Rich Birch — Sure, sure.
Luke Cornwell — Because what we want to do is we want to ah we want to tell them, hey, we’ve got this taken care of. You don’t need to worry about this.
Rich Birch — Right.
Luke Cornwell — You worry about lead pastor stuff. We’ll worry about comm stuff. But the truth the matter is we the the church is a communication platform.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Luke Cornwell — Everything is communications.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Luke Cornwell — And so we really have to work hard ah to make sure that we’re aligned in that.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah, that’s good. Okay. So how how are you balancing? To me, there’s these two kind of tensions in communications that we deal with in particularly fast growing church. There’s like the urgency of needing to promote what’s coming next.
Luke Cornwell — Yes.
Rich Birch — Like there’s always something coming down the pipe, right?
Luke Cornwell — Yes. Oh, so all the time.
Rich Birch — Like it’s like, and, but doing that in a way, the other side of the tension is like, we want to reinforce our culture. We want to reinforce who we are. And we we want to build, we want to use the communication that we’re doing that to kind of build that culture. How do you, and and those, they can be at odds sometimes they can be kind of, there’s an inherent tension in that.
Luke Cornwell — Sure.
Rich Birch — Talk me through what that looks like.
Luke Cornwell — So it really comes down to how you define excellence.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Luke Cornwell — So we we strive for excellence. I believe that’s one reason why God has blessed our church is because we strive to be excellent in everything. We’re we’re not trying to be more than he wants us to be. We’re just trying to be excellent in whatever that we’re doing.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Luke Cornwell — We don’t want to allow things to fall through the cracks. We don’t want to do things halfway. And excellence, in our words, is defined by doing what you can with what you have.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Luke Cornwell — And so when it comes to to the communications department, that’s rough. Like that’s hard. Because we we see what’s available to us via social media. We we see what other churches are doing. There is always something more that a communications department could do if they had the time.
Luke Cornwell — You could always do one more video, one more social post, ah one more print piece. And so balancing the “enough” is difficult. And so some of that, I’ll I’ll be honest, some of that is a God thing. It’s like, okay, God, what is enough? We need you to bless what we have. We need you to bless. We need to bless we need you to bless what we’re doing. We’re going to do our best. We’re going to be as excellent as we can.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Luke Cornwell — And then leaving it in his hands.
Rich Birch — That’s good. Yeah. How do you, as a communications person, it’s kind of a related issue, ah maybe adjacent to that. We live in a very noisy culture. Like there is, you know, our people are, you know, they’re distracted all day long. And so I think we’ve got to raise the value in what we do.
Luke Cornwell — Yes.
Rich Birch — It’s our responsibility to to push that up in their priorities to make it you know important for them. How do you balance that off with not just contributing to the noise that is you know the kind of broader culture? How how does that work out for you as you think about that with with the people at RealLife?
Luke Cornwell — I think ah there’s a couple of things that are in play here. You need to have a strategy.
Rich Birch — Good.
Luke Cornwell — And by strategy, you need to know why you do what you do and then follow that. You need to have a plan. When you don’t have a plan, everybody is sending communication this way and that way. And, you know, the the average person in a church um is many, many, has many, many faces. So they’re a parent. They’re a a husband, they’re a man, they’re a, um, a giver. You know so like the the possibility of them getting multiple pieces of communication a week is super high.
Luke Cornwell — And so one, you’ve you’ve got to have a strategy and a plan and two, you have to bring value. I think you said that before, you’ve got to bring the, it can’t be just a reminder.
Rich Birch — Right.
Luke Cornwell — And then the last thing I’ll say is you need to keep certain lanes for certain things. So keep lanes clear. We will not text people just because that’s what they answer. We reserve text for personal contact. We reserve email for responses to something that they’ve done, but also reminders. And then we don’t send over, we over-send communication.
Rich Birch — Yeah, what what would you say, how else would you define the kind of certain lanes? That’s a, it caught my attention. That’s kind of certain lanes for certain things. Are there any other kind of boundaries you follow there?
Luke Cornwell — Sure. We try to balance so we don’t send more than one email a day.
Rich Birch — Right, okay.
Luke Cornwell — So if if kids are sending an email to the parents, we try not to send a giving email. We have a weekly midweek update that goes live goes out and goes live every Wednesday night, Wednesday afternoon, evening. That’s a reoccurring. So people know, hey, let’s not send an email unless we have to Wednesday. We try not to overlap.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. Yeah, there’s definitely the kind of the air traffic controller part of your job, which is the like, hey, how do we try to coordinate all of that? That gets to the kind of the no, you can be the no person, ah you know, like or the not yet person.
Luke Cornwell — For sure.
Rich Birch — How do you balance, you know, that off at the kind of the intersection of staff expectations and then congregational or your church attention? You know, what have you learned about saying no, maybe there’s a new comms director that’s listening in. You do actually have to do that sometimes. What’s the right way to do that? How do you do that in an elegant way so that, you know, you don’t create enemies internally?
Luke Cornwell — So true, so true. The best way is to not say no. The best way to communicate no is not in what you’re not going to do, but in what you’re going to do.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Luke Cornwell — So, hey, we we have a new strategy for email. This is what our plan is.
Rich Birch — Right. That’s good.
Luke Cornwell — Does anybody have any issues with the plan? You know float it through leadership, you know wherever you need to go with that. Float it horizontally to your peers, to other pastors, or to other directors. Hey, does this work for you? Is it okay if on Wednesdays? It’s not that you’re looking for their approval. You’re looking for their collaboration. And they might see something that you didn’t see.
Rich Birch — Right.
Luke Cornwell — And so having that opportunity to float that up or float it horizontally allows you kind to kind of prepare them again, communicate with them, but also keeps you from having to say, oh, I’m sorry, we’re not doing that. Why aren’t we doing that? Well, we’re doing this and they don’t have to ask as many questions when they’re in the know.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. but So as you think about, you know, there’s a lot going on here to try to, you know, pastor the communication side. It’s not just like, hey, we’re trying to be good at communications. We’re really trying to move our organization closer to Jesus.
Luke Cornwell — Yeah.
Rich Birch — How do those two sides of your role intersect?
Luke Cornwell — Yeah.
Rich Birch — The kind of communication piece and the pastoring piece? How does this help us push people towards relationship with Jesus?
Luke Cornwell — So our goal for communications is to disciple people between Sundays.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Luke Cornwell — So that’s kind of what our overarching big goal. Then we partner with small groups and we partner with our dream team, our volunteer pool, and our next steps directors and pastors. We our goal is to partner with them to help their ministry succeed in the communications, in the technical side of things, we’re not really here for ourselves. We don’t have our own silo. We’re really just helping bring everybody together and to kind of be that glue amongst the church leaders so that we can really, like you said, we want to bring people closer to Jesus. And so that that is our goal. Any social media post that we do, any email is to either remind them, to inspire them, or to push them closer to Jesus, give them opportunities to draw closer to Jesus.
Rich Birch — What’s your, so this is like ah um ah bit of a a slightly different direction. What do you see that’s like a low hanging fruit problem that lots of churches are getting wrong on the communication front that like you see it consistently, you’re like, oh, it’s man, where we keep fumbling this ball. Is there anything that you see that we’re we’re just not doing well that from your seat we should be doing better?
Luke Cornwell — Yeah. That is such a good question, and it could go so many different directions. So many different directions.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Luke Cornwell — You know, there’s a couple things that are popping into my head. So from a graphic side, consistency. You know, when you’re a small church, it’s like, Hey, you’re just happy to have a graphic to stick up there for the potluck on Sunday afternoon.
Rich Birch — Right. Yep.
Luke Cornwell — Or for the the ladies night. And you’re just, you’re just happy to have it. But as you grow larger, people expect things ah like graphics and they expect them to be unified. They don’t look the same, but they expect to have the same feel.
Luke Cornwell — I will say probably one of the biggest things that I feel is low-hanging fruit is just truly understanding their demographics and their church, their people. Because if you know who you’re talking to, you change the way you’re talking.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Luke Cornwell — We’re in the process of creating some ah some drip campaigns for different demographics in our church. You know, after an event, we want to communicate consistently over time with our ladies, with our men, with our married couples, et cetera, ah from different events that we have at the church. And so like, What, who who are we talking to? What value are we adding to them when we send them an email and say, hey, you know, it was great having you at our ladies night. And here’s a short devotional, or have you considered ah these small groups, ladies? um This would help you build community in your church.
Luke Cornwell — So knowing who you’re talking to, your demographic is completely, knowing who your church is made up of. So, you know, again, this, you know, you go from like, what…
Rich Birch — How do you do that? How do we do that? How do we, you know, beyond a couple hundred people
Luke Cornwell — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …it can be really difficult to understand who’s in our church. What what are you guys doing to try to understand your people better?
Luke Cornwell — Yeah, so we have a um a bunch of tools that we use. One is our ah CCB, Community Church Builder. We use that to manage our people. So we are integrally in part of and in CCB, understanding who our people are.
Luke Cornwell — We’re also using a new product called Nurture, um which helps us identify people helps us identify those who are at risk of going out the back door. Because, you know as your church grows, so do the number of people. And it’s super easy for somebody to come in on a Sunday morning and really not feel noticed, really not feel known. And it’s easy for them to walk out the back door. They had a hard week. You know, maybe they struggle with some kind of addiction. And you know, you know They love Jesus, but it’s just easy for them to stay home and not come on a Sunday.
Luke Cornwell — Or maybe it’s sports. You know sports is like the number one killer right now of people coming to church without opportunity because they go, hey, we’ve got stuff going on this weekend. Sorry, we’re not going to make it.
Luke Cornwell — So knowing your demographic and who those people are and then using tools like Nurture, your church management software. And then we, our volunteer team, our dream team is made up of captains who care for people.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Luke Cornwell — And so we are constantly training and meeting with them, having them care um for those who are underneath them and making sure that people don’t fall through the cracks.
Rich Birch — That’s cool. That’s great. Yeah, I think that’s ah that’s a real issue for so many of our churches, for sure. Again, slightly different category. You mentioned it at one point, the STEAM Academy.
Luke Cornwell — Yeah.
Rich Birch — This caught my eye ah you know, and and how does it all, tell us what that is.
Luke Cornwell — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And how does that fit into the kind of overall family ministry strategy at the church or kids ministry strategy?
Luke Cornwell — Sure.
Rich Birch — How does that all fit together?
Luke Cornwell — So when we moved into our new building just a little over three and a half years ago, at the time, our county, Hancock County, is one of the fastest growing in Indiana. And just exponential growth happening all around us. Like out my door here is is a cornfield. You know, so we’re surrounded by cornfields, but we’re also 20 minutes from Indianapolis.
Rich Birch — Okay, yep.
Luke Cornwell — And so it’s one of the fastest growing areas. And one of the biggest needs in our area is a preschool childcare ministry. Call it a daycare if you’d like, but it it really is, it’s a childcare ministry. And so ah when I arrived, they had been in talks with the County and different groups of like, how could we do this? And within gosh, three months of my arrival, in 2022, we started the STEAM Academy. And we’re actually in a construction phase right now to double the size of our STEAM Academy.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Luke Cornwell — Right now we have 65, 70 kids every day that are dropped off to our building. And so not everybody goes to our church. So this is it’s available to the community.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Luke Cornwell — And our goal is to double that over the next three years or so.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Luke Cornwell — And um we see that as a huge ministry. And we’ve seen both teachers um that work in the academy, as well as um parents begin coming to our church, get baptized, give their hearts to the Lord, ah because we have this environment for them that is good for their kids.
Rich Birch — That’s cool. And what does it run like five days a week? What’s the kind of frame of that?
Luke Cornwell — It’s five days a week. It’s Monday through Friday all day.
Rich Birch — That’s incredible. That’s good. I love that. You know, one of the things I find interesting about communications is from my from my seat, communications is a professional discipline like accounting or bookkeeping. You know, when a church is is starting, ah there might be somebody like a volunteer, somebody who’s doing the accounting, or maybe it’s even, you know, it’s like the you know pastor’s wife or the pastor’s spouse is doing it or something like that.
Rich Birch — But then eventually get to the point where the church grows and you’ve got to bring on some help. You get a bookkeeper, maybe an accountant, eventually a CFO, that sort of thing. But communication for is exactly the same. The church grows to a certain size. And I think because pastors talk for a living, they think they’re good at communications. But communications is more than just like getting phraseology right. Like there’s a whole strategy, a part of it, that it it demands, you know, um an expert like you to really help draw this thing together.
Rich Birch — If you’re thinking about a church that’s out there today, that’s maybe listening in, maybe they’re a church of a thousand people. So they’re, you know, that’s a sizable church, but they feel like things are just scattered and like, they’re, they’re not clear. They’re not aligned. What would you, what would be some first steps that they should take to try to get some more clarity, get some more alignment?
Luke Cornwell — Yeah, I think that is so true. Communications is so broad. You know You could say, well, video is communications.
Rich Birch — Right.
Luke Cornwell — And print and design. These are all different disciplines within the communications. And then you’ve got you know some churches have their next steps programs under communications. Ours is separated out, but um we work very, very closely together because that’s texting and emailing and and those different things. And so you’ve got all of these micro-disciplines within this idea of comms. And it is super easy to kind of get lost in all of that and go, what do we need?
Luke Cornwell — And I think um I love Pat Lencioni’s Working Genius Assessment because it helps us know how we work together. And making sure that you have not just disciplines, but also things like, you know, creative people and people who are tenacious, and people who like to help with things. And looking at your staff and your volunteer base and saying, do we have a complete package of people who are furthering the gospel?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Luke Cornwell — Now, disciplines, you know, I can teach you how to use MailChimp. If you’re a smart person, which, you know, you’re a smart person.
Rich Birch — I might be able to figure out MailChimp.
Luke Cornwell — Yeah. I could teach you how to use MailChimp. So it’s easy to learn some tools. What’s difficult and what you’re not going to do is you’re not going to change people’s personalities. And so making sure that you have a staff or a volunteer base that’s well-rounded to fill in those blanks, I think is great.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Luke Cornwell — And then just growing your knowledge. um So looking at what the disciplines that your church requires. Some churches love videos. They want to do story videos.
Rich Birch — Right.
Luke Cornwell — Other churches don’t. So if that’s something that your church is your church values, then maybe a second or third hire is a full-time video person, you know. But if your church is um somebody who values ah weekend services more and and it’s more auditory-based, maybe you you hire an assistant or a copywriter, somebody who can help write and help ah be creative in that.
Luke Cornwell — Now, you know, these days we have AI and everybody’s an expert, but it still takes a skill set…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Luke Cornwell — …to even work you know the chat GPT to get what you want and make it sound good. So there are a lot of things, but I believe this. This is how we lead it Realife. And that is people are our biggest asset because they have God-given gifts.
Rich Birch — So true.
Luke Cornwell — And yes, ChatGPT can write better than all of us, but nobody can channel the Holy Spirit like his creation.
Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good. Well, just as we’re coming to land today, what any other kind of final advice – this has been really good. I’ve got a page of notes here, some stuff to think through on, you know, on our side, but, but anything else you’d like to share just as we, we wrap up today’s conversation.
Luke Cornwell — I just want to encourage the communications pastors or maybe maybe the person who’s out there who’s just their job is communication. They’ve found themselves in that because yeah, maybe they were good at the video editing, or they were good at the design and it’s a a side thing for them, or it’s a gift that they’ve been given.
Luke Cornwell — And I just encourage you to continue to focus on your relationship with Jesus and those around you. And like collaborating with people is the best way to see God’s vision and plan for your lives and for your church to succeed. And so I think that is the the biggest thing that I’ve learned over the last couple of years.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Well, look, this has been great. Super great, helpful, challenging. If people want to track with you or with the church, where do we want to send them online?
Luke Cornwell — Sure. They can go to realifechurch.org. They can hit up our Instagram or our Facebook and watch it. Both handles are Real Life Church. By the way, that’s Real Life Church with one L.
Rich Birch — Oh, nice.
Luke Cornwell — So R-E-A-L-I-F-E.
Rich Birch — Nice.
Luke Cornwell — And so that that is different. There are there are a couple of those and there are other churches where it’s one word and Realife.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Luke Cornwell — And that’s a ah whole nother story for another day.
Rich Birch — Love it. Love it.
Luke Cornwell — But autocorrect you know saved me many times on that.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Luke Cornwell — But yeah, so they can meet us there. And then I’d be happy to field any emails…
Rich Birch — Sure.
Luke Cornwell — …at luke.cornwell@reallifechurch.org. And my email is on the website. So.
Rich Birch — That’s great. Luke, appreciate you being here today. Thanks so much for your being on the show.
Luke Cornwell — Thanks.
In 8th grade, I thought I was unstoppable. A growth spurt gave me height, leverage, and what felt like destiny. I could clear high jump bars with a scissors kick while others struggled. No training, no technique, just raw advantage.
I beat everyone in my school, made it to my town’s track and field meet, and placed well. I was on top of the high jump world. (Albeit it was a very small world!)
In my freshman year of high school, I was toast. Everyone else had learned the Fosbury Flop…the backward roll that revolutionized high jumping. My height advantage evaporated. Suddenly, I couldn’t clear the same bars, and I didn’t even make the varsity team.
Lesson learned: Growth can make you lazy. It can trick you into thinking you’re great when you’re just tall.
Churches fall into the same trap. Growth feels like validation: more people, more buzz, more money. However, growth can be toxic if it masks underlying weaknesses. It’s a sugar high that makes leaders feel invincible when, in reality, they’re just riding momentum.
The hard truth: the very growth you’re celebrating may be setting you up for decline.
Let’s break it down. Five areas where unchecked growth quietly kills future growth:
- First-Time Guest Capture Rate
- New Donor Retention Gap
- Follow-Up Speed to First Touch
- Kids/Students Capacity Ratio
- Staffing Leverage
1. First-Time Guest Capture Rate: Growth Without Names = Decline in DisguiseIf you don’t know who your guests are, they don’t exist. Churches celebrate attendance spikes but often fail at the most basic task: capturing guest info.
Here’s the brutal math: in many churches, only 3 out of 10 first-time guests fill out a connect card or text-in form. That means, 70% leave without a trace. Imagine running a restaurant that never records who dines there. That’s not strategy…it’s negligence. [ref]
Unchecked growth hides failure. When 100 people show up, you don’t feel the loss of the 70 who disappear. But fast-forward six months: you’ll plateau, scratching your head about why your “record Sundays” aren’t leading to real growth.
If your church is growing, you should see new visitors each week—roughly 2% of your average attendance. If your attendance is 1,000, that means week in and week out, you are averaging 20 guests that you could contact, follow up with, and invite to be a part of your community. If you don’t see this regularly, you are missing guests.
Without this new guest information, you are just gathering a crowd that you won’t be able to move towards deeper community and connection. Your growth will plateau and slide into decline. You will be left wondering where all the people went.
- Audit your capture rate for the last three months. Not an estimate, an actual number.
- Set a benchmark goal: at least 2% of every single week should be first-time guests that you can contact.
- Create frictionless ways to respond: text-in, QR codes, digital follow-up.
- Use an “ethical bribe” …a gift that makes people want to give you their info.
- Assign accountability: one staff member or volunteer owns the process every week.
Catch their contact information. No contact information, no long-term growth.
2. New Donor Retention Gap: The Revolving Door of GivingEvery pastor gets excited about first-time givers, but most of those givers will never give again. In the nonprofit world, donor retention hovers around 20%. This means, 8 out of 10 first-time donors vanish. [ref] For churches, the numbers aren’t much better.
Do you know your church’s donor retention rate? But even more pointedly, do you know the retention rate of new donors to your church? If the gap between these continues to grow, your church will run out of money, and your growth will stumble. Many churches have a core of faithful, long-term donors (that’s why the church around the corner from your place, with just a few people left, hasn’t died), but it takes more intentional effort to onboard new donors to fuel the future of the mission.
Growth masks this churn because new people continually replenish the bucket. But it’s a leaky bucket. Giving totals may rise, but the base is fragile. When momentum slows…or the economy dips…you’ll discover you’ve been funding ministry with one-night stands, not long-term partners.
- Track your first-to-second gift rate. If 100 people give for the first time this year, how many give again within 90 days?
- Build a 48-hour thank-you system: no generic receipts—only personal thanks, handwritten notes, and phone calls.
- Report impact. Show donors what their gift did…student camp funded, families served, baptisms celebrated.
- Push recurring giving. Monthly donors have retention rates above 80%. One-time donors: below 20%. The math is obvious.
- Treat new donors like seedlings—early care determines long-term fruit.
Generosity follows gratitude. When people don’t feel valued, their support dries up fast.
3. Follow-Up Speed to First Touch: Delay = DecayIn our world, speed is the new currency. Amazon ships in 24 hours and Uber arrives in five minutes. If your church waits a week to follow up with guests, you’ve already lost them.
Here’s the reality: follow up within 24 hours, and your chance of a second visit can be five times higher than if you wait a week. Five. Times. Higher. [ref]
Growth hides this problem because guests keep coming. But look at your second-visit rate: it’s probably abysmal. People don’t return because they never heard from you.
For years, I’ve said to campus pastors at new campuses to grab the “new here” cards before they are whisked away to a central team member to enter them into a database. Take pictures of each one. Then, on Sunday night, call each of those “new here” guests. Yes, Sunday evening.
Too many churches are too scared to show some passion in the follow-up process. I bet that my dentist has more urgency in ensuring that I book my next plaque removal than your church does in inviting guests to return. Let’s change that.
- Secret shop your own church: fill out a card, see how long it takes to hear back.
- Benchmark goal: 100% of first-time guests contacted within 24 hours.
- Build a system: Handwritten note written on Sunday by volunteers, Sunday afternoon text by campus pastor, Monday morning email from the church, Monday night phone call from a member of the team.
- Train volunteers to share the load; don’t leave it to one overworked staff member.
- Measure weekly: how many cards came in, how many were contacted, and when?
Slow follow-up is the silent killer of momentum. If you can’t respond fast, stop bragging about being “a friendly church.”
4. Kids/Students Capacity Ratio: The Family FilterHealthy churches consistently see 20–30% of attendance made up of kids and students [ref]. That ratio isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s the single strongest indicator of long-term health. Below 20%? You’re drawing adults but not reaching families. And without families, you don’t have a future.
You can celebrate growth today…more adults in seats, a buzzing lobby…but if kids aren’t in the mix, you’re quietly aging out. A church that trends older without bringing in the next generation is on a countdown clock.
Parents may love the preaching, music, and atmosphere, but if their kids aren’t excited to come back, the family will drift. Flip it around: when kids are thriving, families stick. Kids aren’t just a ministry; they’re your best retention strategy.
- What percentage of your weekly attendance is under 18? Don’t guess—track it.
- Aim for 20–30%. Below 20% = families slipping through. Above 30% = maxed capacity.
- Compare the ratio year over year. Stable or growing = future. Shrinking = slow death.
- Listen to leavers. Ask why families bail. Nine times out of ten, it’s the kids’ experience.
- Put money where it matters. Staff, space, and resources for next-gen aren’t side projects…they’re the core to the mission.
- Tell the wins. Tell real stories of life change happening in your kids and student ministries. That’s what builds confidence in the future.
Ignore kids and you’re not just losing families—you’re scheduling your church’s funeral.
5. Staffing Leverage: Stop Hiring Doers, Start Hiring LeadersIn small churches, staff do ministry. In large churches, staff equip people to engage in ministry. Fail to make that shift, and you’ll drown.
Here’s the metric: average churches run about 75 attendees per full-time staff. High-performing churches run 100:1 or more. If you’re at 40:1, you’re bloated. [ref]
Growth often hides inefficiency because staff are hustling to keep everything together. But payrolls balloon, volunteers disengage, and eventually the model collapses. You can’t hire your way to 10,000. You must mobilize.
This isn’t just organizational efficiency, it’s obedience. Ephesians 4 reminds us that pastors, teachers, and leaders exist “to equip the saints for the work of ministry.” [ref] The goal isn’t to create a staff of superheroes who do everything; it’s to raise up a church full of ministers.
An insidiously dangerous pattern is when staff start absorbing work that used to be led by volunteers. That’s not progress…it’s regression. It appears that they are helping, but that behavior hinders the church’s development. The flow should run the other way: what staff carry today should eventually be released to volunteers tomorrow. If you see staff pulling ministry back from lay leaders, they’re not empowering the church…they’re shrinking it.
- Audit your ratio: total weekly attendance divided by full-time staff equivalents.
- Measure volunteer engagement: what percentage of adults serve regularly?
- Redefine job descriptions around multiplication, not execution.
- Hire leaders who can build teams, not just talented doers.
- Launch a leadership pipeline: train, empower, and release lay leaders into real authority.
Staff who insist on doing everything aren’t heroes, they’re bottlenecks.
Staff who reach for another hire instead of mobilizing volunteers aren’t scaling ministry, they’re slowing it down.
The Hard Truth and the Way ForwardGrowth feels like success. But it’s often camouflage. Behind the buzz of full services and rising giving are the cracks: lost guests, shallow donor bases, families turned off, and staff stretched thin.
Unchecked growth is like a startup with booming revenue and no margin. It looks great on stage but collapses in real life.
The good news: every one of these issues is fixable. But only if leaders stop drinking their own Kool-Aid and start confronting the uncomfortable data.
Your action plan:
- Run the numbers. Guest capture rate. Donor retention. Follow-up time. Kids ratios. Staffing leverage. Don’t estimate, measure.
- Set targets. Pick benchmarks that force accountability. 60% guest capture. 24-hour follow-up. 80% room max. 70% serving adults. 100:1 staffing ratio.
- Assign ownership. Someone on your team is responsible for each metric. Not “everybody.” One person.
- Communicate urgency. To your board, staff, and congregation. Do not sugarcoat. Growth without health is a future crisis.
- Invest accordingly. Budget for capacity where it matters: kids’ spaces, follow-up systems, volunteer training. Cut fluff.
Because this isn’t about numbers, it’s about people. Each metric represents individuals who either connected or didn’t, gave again or didn’t, felt welcomed or ignored. These aren’t “corporate KPIs,” they’re kingdom outcomes.
Growth is a gift. But it’s also a test. The question isn’t, “Are you growing?” It’s, “Are you stewarding growth in a way that sustains?”
Don’t let your church’s growth kill its future growth. Build the systems. Strengthen the foundation. Make the shift from tall middle schooler to varsity athlete. Learn the Flop.
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Eric Garza, Executive Pastor at Cross Church in Texas. Founded in 1995, Cross Church has grown into one of the fastest-growing churches in America, with 12 campuses across the Rio Grande Valley and beyond. With a unique focus on bilingual ministry, Cross Church is pioneering new models of multisite ministry in a predominantly Hispanic region.
Is your church wondering how to expand across languages, cultures, or campuses? Eric shares how Cross Church has embraced a centralized, bilingual multisite strategy that unites excellence with contextual flexibility.
- From one campus to twelve. // In just over seven years, Cross Church expanded from its original location to 12 campuses. Seven campuses operate in English and five in Spanish, often sharing the same physical site. The church’s regional strategy ensures that within 20–30 minutes anywhere in the Rio Grande Valley, people can access a Cross Church service.
- Bilingual by design. // Recognizing the area’s demographics, Cross Church offers identical ministry in both English and Spanish. Worship services follow the same structure, prayer is offered in both languages, and even discipleship classes are recorded and taught in both English and Spanish. Children’s ministry and Next Gen programming is primarily in English due to generational language preferences, but bilingual leaders ensure Spanish-speaking kids are fully included. This high bar of excellence across languages makes Cross Church one of the largest bilingual multisite ministries in the U.S.
- Centralized systems, local flexibility. // Cross Church operates with a centralized model. Ministries like Cross Kids, worship, first impressions, and discipleship are standardized across all campuses, ensuring consistency in branding, curriculum, and training. Campuses then have freedom to contextualize through local outreach, such as citywide prayer walks or community celebrations. This balance allows Cross Church to maintain quality while adapting to the unique needs of each community.
- Unity across languages. // In locations where English and Spanish congregations share a facility and pastors work together closely. They attend each other’s services, providing a pastoral presence, and ensure smooth transitions between the 10 a.m. English service and 12 p.m. Spanish service. This intentional collaboration prevents silos and reinforces unity across language lines.
- Discipleship through teams. // Instead of small groups, Cross Church emphasizes serve teams as the primary environment for discipleship and connection. With large percentages of members serving, teams become relational communities where people feel connected in a big church. Midweek discipleship classes, offered in both languages, supplement these teams with biblical teaching and spiritual formation.
- Launching new services. // When considering a new service, Cross Church follows a deliberate process: surveying leaders and congregants, canvassing communities, starting with worship nights, building leadership teams, and branding months in advance. They also watch practical metrics—such as when a sanctuary hits 70% capacity or when kids’ spaces overflow—before launching. And above all, they pray to discern if the timing is from God, not just a good idea.
- Looking ahead. // Cross Church continues to expand, preparing for new campuses beyond South Texas. They’ve also launched the 360 Global Network to share resources and lessons with other pastors and leaders, equipping churches to navigate growth, multisite challenges, and bilingual ministry in an increasingly multicultural America.
To learn more about Cross Church, visit crosschurchonline.com or follow @crosschurchrgv. You can also connect with Eric directly at @ericpgarza and explore resources at 360global.network
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, Rich here from the unSeminary podcast. Honored that you would tune in and listen today. Excited for this conversation. ah Literally this week, I had two conversations around what we’re talking about today with people ah who are wrestling with these issues. And I’m sure that many of you are wrestling with these as well. Honored to have another executive pastor. We love executive pastors at unSeminary.
Rich Birch — We’ve got Eric Garza. He is the executive pastor at Cross Church. They were founded in 1995. They’re located in Texas and is one of the fastest growing churches in the the country. I think they’ve got 12 campuses, if I’m counting correctly, which is incredible. Cross Church is in a predominantly Hispanic area and and is likely has one of the largest bilingual ministries in the country. Eric, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.
Eric Garza — Rich, thanks for the opportunity. Happy to be with you and happy to have this conversation.
Rich Birch — Wow, this is great. So obviously you guys have experienced incredible growth…
Eric Garza — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …and, um you know, amazing things going on there. Why don’t you kind of unpack the story a little bit? Tell us a little bit about what the ministry looks like today and then about your role of executive pastor of campuses specifically. I know that kind of looks different in all you every church, but tell us, talk us through that.
Eric Garza — Yeah.
Eric Garza — Yeah, well, you said it. 1995, almost 31 years ago, the church started. Senior pastors, Jaime and Rosemary Loya here in deep South Texas. So for context, ah we’re about 20 minutes north of the border with Mexico.
Rich Birch — Wow. Okay.
Eric Garza — So right on the bottom, ah deep South Texas, right on the tip of Texas. And so our our demographic is predominantly Hispanic, Latino.
Eric Garza — And we’re in a part of the country um that sometimes we’re we’re the last to receive news or information, although that’s changed recently with ah SpaceX here in the region and LNG and just a lot of economic growth.
Rich Birch — Okay. Yeah, that’s good.
Eric Garza — Our church over the last, I would say five years, um we went from, well, let me backtrack. 2018 this way, we went from one location to now 12 locations.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s huge.
Eric Garza — So it’s been about a little over seven years where we went from one site where we had in San Benito, our main campus, our original location, and then expanded to the upper part of the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, then to the southern part of the valley. And then now, even in San Antonio, our first campus out of our our region.
Eric Garza — So we got ah seven English campuses and five Spanish campuses. And so it’s been a challenging, it’s beena challenging season, but it’s been a very rewarding season. And God has just enabled us to really break the mold of what local ministry looks like here in our region and expand beyond one site to multiple sites. And in the last, Rich, in the last 18 to 20 months, we’ve doubled in size as an organization.
Rich Birch — Wow, that’s amazing.
Eric Garza — And so that’s why Outreach Magazine, I believe this is the third or fourth time ah in recent years, have recognized it as one of the fastest growing churches in the country. And we’re just really blessed by that.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Give us a sense of the the distance between those 12, like from the original location to the farthest. How does all that, what’s that look like?
Eric Garza — So right now in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, within 20 to 30 minutes, you can be at a Cross Church location.
Rich Birch — Okay, that’s cool.
Eric Garza — So our our first campus was in the upper valley in the Mission area. That’s about a 35 minute drive from our original location. And then the other locations ah from our original site, they’re about 25 minutes or so, ah no more than half an hour.
Rich Birch — Okay. Yeah, that’s great.
Eric Garza — So that’s why we say anywhere in the Rio Grande valley within 30 minutes ah max, you can be at a Cross Church location for for service.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love…
Eric Garza — Yeah.
Rich Birch — I love that. You know, one of the things that we’ve seen about multisite is even to the way you’re talking about it there, you know, it really is a regional strategy. It’s like, hHey, we’re trying to reach the Rio Grande Valley.
Eric Garza — Yeah.
Rich Birch — This is a, you know, is a particular cultural ah milieu. It’s an area it’s like people are, you know, have a lot in common and I love that you’re, you’ve saturated that area. Well, multisite ministry looks different from in every context, you know, like multisite, there’s like a number of different ways to skin the cat.
Eric Garza — Sure.
Rich Birch — At 12 locations, you are in the rare minority. Last last I saw, 50% of multisite churches don’t get beyond three. It’s like single digit percentage get beyond 10. You know, at 12, you’re in the rare thin air. So I’d love to kind of hear what does multisite look like for you when you say you’re multisite, you know, seven English, five Spanish, what’s that look like?
Eric Garza — Yeah, so we got seven physical locations. And so so ah some of our locations double up. In other words, They have an English campus with their own English pastor, and then they have a Spanish congregation with their own Spanish pastor.
Eric Garza — And so ah it’s for us, we are the, I believe we’re the largest church in in deep South Texas. And you’re right. We kind of broke the mold expanding to multisite several years ago. Our pastor had that vision and desire to, the biggest thing is we wanted to go to where people are at instead of expecting people to come to us. And so our our vision is to raise up an army, to lead a spiritual revolution.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Eric Garza — And so we felt that in order to do that, we had to go into the communities where people are located instead of expecting them to come to us. And when we started doing that through multisite strategy and and campus ah campuses. Well, we just saw right our growth increase, we saw our reach increase, our influence in the region increase.
Eric Garza — And so for us, we are a Latino predominantly area. And so we have a lot of speaking Spanish people um that want a modern, contemporary non-denominational type of ministry that in our region really wasn’t available up until several years ago.
Eric Garza — And we were kind of the forefront, the pioneers of offering that. And then now that God has given us resources and abilities to really be at the cutting edge of providing ministry for the whole family and a lot of local churches are just not in a position to do that.
Eric Garza — And so we feel humbled, and we feel responsible, and we feel ah blessed that we get to go expand and do multisite with both reaching English speaking congregants, and then of course, diving into making sure that we cannot ignore, especially in our region, a predominantly Hispanic, excuse me, Spanish speaking, a demographic.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. What do what do you hold in common between the campuses? What like what does teaching look like? What does um ah you know music, kids ministry, that sort of thing?
Eric Garza — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And compare and contrast, you know both English and Latino, Spanish you know Spanish speaking, what does that look like? How do you how’s all that work together?
Eric Garza — So our our services, our service formats, whether it’s in English or Spanish, are very much similar and identical. The only difference is the language.
Rich Birch — Okay. Okay.
Eric Garza — And so we’ll have worship set lists. The songs may vary differently, but as far as the structure of the service, the ministry we offer, whatever we offer in English, we offer in Spanish. Next Gen, pastoral care, prayer, first impressions, Cross kids, kids ministry, whatever whatever we offer in English, we offer in in Spanish.
Eric Garza — And so for us, we’ve we’ve really been adamant about centralizing all of our ministries and our systems to where every campus location pretty much looks the same. The building might be different. The size might be different. The size of the congregation might be different. But as far as the ministry apparatus, it’s identical. Whatever you see in one location, you’re going to see at another location.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Eric Garza — And so when we launch campuses and when we launch services, we do so ah first making sure that we’re going to be able to provide as excellent a ministry as possible. And so for us, we offer the same, just just just in different languages.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Eric Garza — And so you’re not going to go to one location in one part of the valley. And then go to a different location in a different part of the valley and experience different teams or different structure or different layouts or different branding.
Rich Birch — Right.
Eric Garza — You’re going to see very much the exact same stuff.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. And and that’s, um you know, as a commentary friends that are listening in, yeah know, I’ve been involved in multisite for a long time, 20, almost 25 years. And early on, there was a lot of debate around, um like, should we have lots of local contextualization, like as in, you know, from one campus that’s 25 minutes away from another, like how different should it be or how common should it be?
Rich Birch — And for sure, we’ve seen over the last two decades that churches like Cross Church that are really trying to focus more on what do we have in common rather than, hey, let’s try to do a whole bunch of things different at all the various locations really are are prevailing in this model, in this approach.
Eric Garza — Yeah, that’s good. Yeah, so for us, that’s that’s great. For us, what we do is, like I said, the ministry we provide is identical across the board. But campuses do have a little bit of local autonomy in this regard.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Eric Garza — Maybe their community that they’re in is doing a citywide prayer walk or they’re doing a, ah you know, an Independence Day celebration that another community might not be doing. They have the the opportunity to dive into a local context that may pertain to that campus that another another city may not be having a similar or same event. So that other campus may not be doing it.
Eric Garza — So they do have, especially with our community engagement endeavors, if something is happening in their community that that we can be a part of and that we want to be a part of, then we’ll allow the local campus to make that call and do so.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Eric Garza — And then when we do like baptisms or child dedications, we’ll do them all on the same weekend. But then the local campus might say, hey, our campus will do it Saturday morning.
Rich Birch — Right.
Eric Garza — And then another campus will say, we’ll do it the same day, but we’ll do it Saturday afternoon…
Rich Birch — Okay.
Eric Garza — …or we’ll do it Sunday after. So in other words, we try to have a calendar where everybody is synced up. That way we can tell the everybody, hey, no matter what location you’re at this weekend, we’re going to offer water baptisms.
Rich Birch — Good.
Eric Garza — But then we tell them, go to our social media or at your local campus, they’ll give you further details as to the time of those baptisms. So there is some local contextualization with community engagement…
Rich Birch — Sure.
Eric Garza — …with because not every community is created equal. Our ministry is similar across the board. It’s identical. But then the local context does play a part. And so the campuses do have to be a little bit flexible with with that.
Rich Birch — Okay, help us understand, you know, you’re leading the way really here, ah particularly on, um you know, having services both in English and in Spanish, really reaching and discipling people across language and cultural lines. I think this is an area, this is the thing where I said I had multiple conversations about this this week.
Rich Birch — I think growing church in the country is is asking this question. Every zip code is more multicultural, multi-ethnic today than it was 10 years ago, and it will be more multicultural, multi-ethnic 10 years from now. That’s just true. And so we’re all trying to figure out this question, but I think, frankly, a lot of churches have struggled with this.
Rich Birch — So unpack that a little bit. how What are you learning? How are you keeping these things aligned? How are you working? You know, I’m sure it’s easy. I’m sure there’s no problems, but talk us through what you’re learning on that front.
Eric Garza — Okay. Yeah. Wishful thinking, wishful thinking, my man. That is, yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah, talk us about that.
Eric Garza — So for us, there’s been a lot of trial and error, right?
Rich Birch — Okay.
Eric Garza — We say we have a great system, but it’s not a perfect system.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Eric Garza — And as you grow and expand, you’re going to have to adapt and tweak some things in your current system. And then some systems that serve you in one season don’t serve you in another season. So a system that served us with four or five locations doesn’t serve us with six or seven or 10 or more, right? And so you have to adjust yourself.
Eric Garza — So for us, um the then you know millennials, Gen Z, Gen Alpha, those are the ones that, even though they may come from a Spanish background, are English speakers. So you’re going to see a lot of that English ministry.
Eric Garza — In fact, even in our Spanish congregations, though we offer Spanish ministry across the board, you’ll notice or will notice that our next gen, a vast majority of them, I mean, 85, 90% plus are English speakers. And so we’re not going to do everything, you know, 50/50 bilingual. We’re going to do things that are going to help reach a demographic and reach people across the age spectrum, ah giving them their specific ministry and their required or or preferred language.
Eric Garza — And so for us, how do you do multisite ministry in a bilingual context? If you know something that we don’t, please tell us, because we’ve we’ve grown to adapt this in our context, Rich. There is, to our to our knowledge, no ah thriving ministry in America that sets a precedent for how to do multisite bilingual ministry.
Rich Birch — I would agree.
Eric Garza — We’re pretty much the trailblazers here. Our senior pastor, our our executive team, our our church, and in really pioneering what this looks like. And so that’s why I say, some things we’ve tried that haven’t worked. You know, when do you offer service times? When do Spanish speaking people prefer a Sunday service? English speakers? And so we’ve tried different things and we’ve just learned over the years what’s worked for us and what hasn’t worked for us. And again, it’s been through through a lot of prayer, through a lot of ah trial and error and figuring things out as we go.
Eric Garza — Now, we have learned from other ministries, of course, that there’s wisdom in that. But in our context, reaching a predominantly ah Latino area and where you have a dual language demographic, that has been a challenge that we’ve really… And here’s the thing: we’ve become really good at it because we have a lot of our pastors and teaching pastors and speakers are bilingual, myself included.
Rich Birch — Right.
Eric Garza — So our senior pastor, phenomenal. The man will preach bilingual and translate himself live on stage.
Rich Birch — Wow. Wow.
Eric Garza — That’s is that he’s got a gift.
Rich Birch — Wow. That’s incredible.
Eric Garza — He’s a phenomenal pastor, a phenomenal leader. And a lot of our our pastors, our campus pastors are bilingual.
Rich Birch — Right.
Eric Garza — And so they’re able to flow in that dynamic that is attractive to families. It doesn’t slow things down and it gives them a greater footing in their community, being able to connect with dual language ah ah people.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s that’s that’s incredible. I was going to ask the kind of, is there like a profile difference between people that are attending the English and Spanish services? Maybe you could unpack that a little bit more. In the Spanish services, are you doing, I can understand within the service, that makes sense.
Rich Birch — But are you also doing Spanish kids ministry associated with that? Or is it English? Because I know some churches that will do, they’ll offer like a Spanish service in another room kind of thing, but then they’re sharing a shared English kids ministry. Talk us through kind of what is the the difference in the communities kind of double click on that on that uh you know that those dynamics.
Eric Garza — Yeah, so it’s a wide – great question. It’s a wide spectrum, right? ah different You’re have guests and ah and congregants from you know different socioeconomic backgrounds, different income levels ah in both services.
Rich Birch — yep.
Eric Garza — And in one campus, you might have more of one one specific socioeconomic background than another campus. When it comes to kids, for example, kids ministry, at our Spanish service, we will still offer kids ministry in English because like I said, really the next gen and and and kids, you know, between the ages of really, you know, it infants and adolescents all the way to to high school, teenage years and beyond, young adults are English speakers. So we’ll have a Spanish service going on in the main sanctuary. And in kids ministry, it’ll be in English, with this caveat.
Eric Garza — We fully understand that there might be some Spanish speaking only kids that attend. And that’s perfectly fine. We’re prepared for that.
Rich Birch — Yep. Right. Okay.
Eric Garza — So we’ll have bilingual teachers, bilingual staffers, ah coordinators that are part of our kids ministry that, should that occur, they’re going to get exactly the same. We don’t water down.
Eric Garza — Our curriculum is in Spanish. Our videos are in Spanish. We’ll have teachers that will speak to kids in Spanish including with special needs, right?
Rich Birch — Wow.
Eric Garza — And so there’s, we do our absolute best to ensure that we provide as excellent a ministry as possible to every, without, and I use the word watering down, with but, you know, I hope you get the the sense of what I’m trying to say…
Rich Birch — I understand. Yeah. Yeah.
Eric Garza — …without minimizing the impact and the quality of experience or teaching that they’re going to get.
Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s incredible. I love that. That’s, uh, Yeah, you’ve you’ve set a high bar in a in a really great, beautiful way, um you know, to to make that happen.
Eric Garza — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Let’s double click on this again. You kind of already touched on this, but I’d love to circle back on the alignment and, you know, and autonomy issue.
Eric Garza — Sure.
Rich Birch — So, you know, the most, um we’ll call them single language, multisite churches, they struggle with this issue. You know, that this is like it’s a constant kind of battle. How do how much alignment, how much autonomy do we give locations? But then you’ve added this extra layer of multiple languages.
Rich Birch — And so talk us through how you think about that. How do you work on alignment? How do you work on autonomy? I get the idea local kind of outreach community service stuff. That makes sense. But what else does, how else does that work itself out for you?
Eric Garza — So we are a centralized ah ministry organization. And so what I mean by that is um every campus will have a kids leader and those kids leaders have a line to the central kids pastor or kids director. And so the central team is basically this central will set the systems. Campuses will execute those systems.
Rich Birch — Yeah, for sure. Great.
Eric Garza — So Cross Kids central department, right, our kids central department, Cross Kids because that’s the name of our church, um they will set the curriculum, they will set the lesson plans, they will set the videos that are going to be shown, ah the theme for that Sunday or for that month, and then the local campuses will execute.
Eric Garza — Central will provide the training to all of our kids leaders and teachers and staff and personnel. The same. So every every kid’s team at every campus will get the exact same training from the central director from the central department. Same with next steps, first impressions, worship. And so our alignment is very centralized.
Eric Garza — In other words, as far as our ministry systems are concerned. Even our finances, even our our our our our marketing. Our marketing, we do central, but then we also allow our local campuses to do different things based on one campus might be having a business breakfast with local business leaders that another campus is not. So their local marketing might look different. So we’re very centralized. And then the autonomy that we give is just that local context ministry.
Rich Birch — Right, okay.
Eric Garza — What is your community doing that we’re not doing? And so when we plant a campus, you’re going to get the same branding, you’re going to get the same banners, you’re going to get the same logos, you’re going to get the same signage, you’re going to get the same teams that any campus would have, regardless whether you’re a 200 member campus or you’re a 2000. We have both of those. We have that wide a spectrum of campus sizes. They’re going to get the same materials and branding and resourcing.
Eric Garza — And so we’re very centralized. And then the local autonomy is just based on local context when it comes to engagement, to outreach, to reaching a local demographic or or something that might be a little bit different. And that’s the way we found, Rich, that allows us to ensure that number one, we’re providing as excellent a ministry as possible across the board at any location. We wanna be able to tell people No matter what location you go to, what cross location you’re at, you’re going to get a great experience, a very similar experience. And we’ve over the years found that to be true.
Eric Garza — People love going to our Brownsville location. People love going to our Mission, Texas location. People like going to our Bay Area location because they found they’re not getting a different experience that they would at the original site from, you know, years ago. And so there’s people now that are part of our church, they’re members of our church who’ve never stepped foot in our original location. They’ve never stepped foot in other locations.
Eric Garza — They’re just so adamant about their local Cross Church location, and they’re getting the exact same quality that they would at the original location. So I hope that answer is right. It’s we’re very centralized systematically, but then there is some local autonomy where a campus pastor might make some decisions based on his or her local context that another campus might not.
Rich Birch — So this is like a super detailed church wonk question um at the level of at a campus level, um even this the way you you kind of set it up, we’ve got 12 locations. You talk about them all as campuses, but they’re really they’re sharing physical locations, if I’m if I’m correct.
Eric Garza — Yeah.
Rich Birch — So how do the campus pastors who are sharing a physical location, English campus pastor, Spanish campus pastor, how do they relate to each other and in in that, you know, that location? what What does that look like for them?
Eric Garza — Yeah, great question. And so one of our core values is unity. And so we always try to instill that across the board, especially in that kind of situation where it’s one physical location, but you have two two congregations, one English, one Spanish. So the English will have their us English pastor and the Spanish will have their Spanish pastor.
Eric Garza — And so the way we train our pastors and our our our top level leaders is this. We’re one team. Right? And so we’re not, you know, we don’t come with the attitude of, well, I’m just, I just do English and I don’t do Spanish. Right? Or I just do so do Spanish and I don’t do English. And that’s, and that’s perfectly fine in the sense that we understand you have a responsibility to serve your service. But at the same time, we believe that teams should help each other out.
Rich Birch — yeah.
Eric Garza — And so for example, we have a 10 o’clock English service at at our locations and then locations have a twelve… That’s the other thing. Our service times are the same at every location. 10 o’clock in English. And then those that have Spanish, it’s 12 p.m. on Sundays in Spanish.
Rich Birch — Okay. Yep.
Eric Garza — So the teams will transition out. The Spanish has the exact same teams that the English does.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Eric Garza — And so they’ll transition out between services to make sure that everything that the Spanish service is equipped and that the English service transitions well into Spanish. So basically, English service will be the first ones there on Sundays. And then Spanish will be the team that leaves in the afternoon on Sundays. And so those two pastors have to work very much in in in tandem with each other.
Eric Garza — Hey, here’s what’s happened first service. Don’t forget about this. Or here’s what happened in the building the first service. Be aware of this. They both attend both each other’s service, right? It’s not, hey, my I’m done and I’m out of here.
Rich Birch — Right, yeah, yeah.
Eric Garza — No, they’re there to equip each other, to support each other, to help each other, to back each other up, to provide a stronger pastoral presence. And so they have the responsibility, but they’re not entirely siloed. In other words, where they abdicate responsibility and helping each other out. No, it’s a very pastoral structure where we help each other out and we’re there the entire Sunday to back each other up and to provide pastoral presence.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s that’s fantastic. Like, ah yeah, you’re you’re doing something really unique here and it’s it’s fun to kind of get a chance to dig around in it. Thanks for letting ask some of those, ah you know, detailed questions.
Eric Garza — Oh, absolutely. And we’re still learning, right? We’re we’re still learning as we go.
Rich Birch — Oh, yeah, for sure.
Eric Garza — Yeah. And as challenges and situations come up, up we’ll figure them out as they come, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah. You talked about um earlier, you met you said the we the the phrase, hey, we’ve got a great system, but not a perfect system.
Eric Garza — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And that does, it’s interesting, I’m working on this book um ah about breaking the 2000 barrier for churches. And one of the interesting things we’ve seen as I talk with church leaders who have done that is there’s this idea that under 2000, churches are trying lots of different things.
Rich Birch — But then eventually you get to the point where you’re like, yeah, there’s like lots of different ways to do this, but this is the way we’re going to do it. Like, this is, you know, this is kind of our thing.
Eric Garza — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And we’re not even convinced. It’s just like our approach. It’s fine. Like, we’re not hung up on it.
Eric Garza — Yeah.
Rich Birch — What would be ah some adjustments to the systems that you’ve made over the years to try to improve to, you know, some changes, you’ve maybe dropped some stuff or added some stuff to try to um you know, push the thing forward? What would be one of those or a couple of those that you could, you could think through?
Eric Garza — Yeah, um as I’m thinking about it, as you’re asking the question, ‘m thinking back to a couple of our campuses that underwent some building renovations and building projects to create more space.
Eric Garza — And so it used to be that we could host our our membership courses or membership classes in a small space. And as the campus grew that space, we outgrew that space or that meeting room or whatever.
Rich Birch — Right. That’s great. Yeah.
Eric Garza — And so our our system, let me put it, let me put it this way. Let’s just say that our next step system, all of our first time guests get a ah blue bag with their gift, right?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Eric Garza — Well, That’s the system that every campus has to do. What every campus can do differently is perhaps what exit they’re going to have their station at…
Rich Birch — Sure.
Eric Garza — …or their next steps room at or where they’re going to host it. And so for us, the systems have had to be adapted as we’ve grown. And that’s what I mean. They’re not perfect systems because sometimes things happen that are out of your control. You plan for 15 and 22 show up, or 30 show up or 30 RSVP and only, you know, 17 show up. And so they’re not perfect systems in the way that they’re concrete and they’re cookie cutter in the sense that we can’t maneuver or or rework them to meet the demand of the local campus.
Eric Garza — And so our systems are are the same, but the local implementation of those systems may vary campus to campus. Instead of using one mobile TV, you’re using ah an LED screen, right? because your your your spacing is different.
Rich Birch — Sure, sure.
Eric Garza — But you’re still teaching the same stuff. It’s the same books. It’s the same materials, same resources. And so as we’ve grown, Rich, from, you know, multi site and adding more and we’ll continue to add more into 2026 beyond. We’re obviously constantly evaluating our systems, right? Does this membership system fit, you know, for where we want to head, where we want to go? Does our Cross Kids curriculum, is it replicable across this so across the board to even more campuses?
Eric Garza — Our current systems, do they, now that we’re expanding even out of the Rio Grande Valley and deep South Texas to other regions, San Antonio and beyond, does how we do ministry in this region need to change how we do ministry in a different region.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Eric Garza — And so we’re constantly evaluating and tweaking. And then, like I said earlier, what system served us in one season, you know, they’re not sacred cows or they’re not sacred, you know, things.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Eric Garza — And as you’re right, as long as it’s not sin and it’s not anti-biblical or scriptural, yeah you can change things, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah, 100%.
Eric Garza — Nothing nothing beyond the word of God is sacred…
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Eric Garza — …and in this in the in the context of this conversation, right?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Eric Garza — And so we’re always thinking, hey, does what we do in in this region, does it need to shift or change for the next region that we want to be in? And so that’s what I mean.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Eric Garza — They’re not perfect because they’re led by and they’re implemented by imperfect people. And so all of that, right, as we go multisite and expand, man, we’re constantly thinking about all those thoughts, ah perusing through our minds and our meetings, and how do we get better at what we’re currently doing?
Rich Birch — Yeah, this fantastic. So is there a difference or a kind of compare and contrast the discipleship pathway between English and Spanish is, you know, like you talked about, like, so you know, someone’s coming, they’re getting a gift and some sort of new here thing. And then, you know, you’re trying to get them connected to teams and groups somehow, I’m assuming. And, you know, then we’re hoping that they take these steps to kind of grow in their relationship with Jesus.
Eric Garza — Yeah.
Rich Birch — What does that look like? And are you bilingual at at that level as well? Like are the right to the, you know small groups and all that stuff and talk us through all, what does all that look like that side of what’s going on across?
Eric Garza — Yeah. So for us, we currently don’t have small groups at our church. We have serve teams.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Eric Garza — And so we push, ah we highly encourage people into our serve teams.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Eric Garza — And a large percentage of our church is involved in serve teams.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Eric Garza — And so that becomes kind of their church family, their church group.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Eric Garza — We’ve found that people have often said, man, we’re so we’re such a large church, but we feel so connected because we’re on teams. And so in their local context, people form those relationships.
Eric Garza — Yeah, our discipleship is bilingual. So for example, when we do Wednesday night discipleship classes or Bible studies, us English will meet in one room and Spanish will meet in another space. And but it’ll be the exact same teaching. So, for example, I’ll use myself as an example. When I record the content for discipleship, I’ll record the exact same content in English…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great.
Eric Garza — …and then I’ll record it in Spanish.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great.
Eric Garza — So that evening or that Wednesday night, right? Those seven English congregations are getting their set, their English discipleship teaching. Let’s say we’re talking about gifts of the Holy Spirit. Spanish is going to get the same exact teaching on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, just in Spanish.
Rich Birch — That’s fantastic.
Eric Garza — And so that’s why, Rich, we’ve, we’ve been so blessed and, and we’ve had to work at this…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Eric Garza — …where as best as we can. Now, not everything, right, not a hundred percent bilingual. But as best as we can, we want to offer what we do in English, we want to offer it in Spanish and then vice versa.
Eric Garza — Maybe Spanish has a great idea that we’ve never done in English. We want to see if we can explore doing that in the English as well.
Eric Garza — So we do our very best. And I say nine out of ten – 90, 95% of the time, everything we do, we’re doing it in both languages to accommodate and to serve. We’re not trying to please one congregation over the other. I think when you’re trying to please people, that’s when you get into some trouble and you get into some pressure you were never meant to have. We’re trying to serve the congregations as best as we possibly can. And I believe our growth has spoken volumes of, like I said, hey, it’s been impactful and it’s worked for us. Not perfect systems, but they’re very efficient and excellent systems.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. I love that. Years ago, I had Derwin Gray on the podcast and we were talking about multicultural, you know, how our churches should, you know, continue to pursue multiculturalism and and become, you know reflect our community. And, you know, I was coming at it from like, a hey, like our churches should represent, they should, when you walk into our church, it should look like the community we’re in.
Eric Garza — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And he totally called me out on the podcast, and was like, Rich, like you could need to think about a bigger thought. This isn’t about some marketing trick. This is the kingdom of Christ. It’s like the, you know, every tribe tongue is represented, should be represented in our church. And I love what you’re doing to try to make, to operationalize that, to try to, how do we actually make that happen in our our context? I think it’s you know I think it’s I think it’s amazing.
Eric Garza — Yeah.
Rich Birch — It’s it’s incredible. Well, if there’s leaders that are listening in today that are thinking, hey, we we are thinking about we might need should add a second language service experience, or we we should maybe we have that at one location we should be thinking about doing that at multiple locations what would be some of the first steps that you would encourage someone to take say in the next month maybe two months what would be some of those first steps?
Eric Garza — Yeah. Great question. As a matter of fact, we’re actually in that exact scenario with one of our campuses right now…
Rich Birch — Oh nice.
Eric Garza — …that is only they’ve only been an English campus since their since their launch, since their start. But the community they’re in now, they’re reaching, you know, they’re getting interest from from Spanish speaking, you know, residents.
Eric Garza — And so we we don’t launch a second service from one month to the next. Right? It goes through a series of months before. So we do market research. We do surveys. I’ll give you an example. Last month in August, on one of the Sundays, one of our campuses, their Spanish service, they need to go to a second Spanish service because their Spanish congregation there has grown.
Eric Garza — So we did a community, we did a congregational survey, right? We asked our team, right? Because those are the ones that have the biggest buy-in is your team and your leaders. You know, between these two or three service times, which one would you prefer?
Eric Garza — And then we ask the congregation, hey, there’s going to be service available. Would you help us out and answer that survey? Just let us. It’s a one question survey. Just say if we had to open a second Spanish service. What time do you believe? Is that 2 p.m., 6 p.m.? Is it Saturday? What what what service? What does that look like?
Eric Garza — And then at the campus where I say we’re actually going through that scenario, So they’re going to launch a Spanish service, I believe, in December. So we’re still about three months away from that. But they already started a couple of months ago with worship nights…
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s great.
Eric Garza — …with ah canvassing the community, with starting marketing in Spanish, getting the names the church’s recognition out there in a Spanish context, meeting with local stakeholders, meeting with people in the in the congregation. And then here’s the thing. Because it’s a different service in a different language, we also have to build a leadership team that’s going to serve that congregation in Spanish.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Eric Garza — So right now we’re identifying candidates for leadership. We’re training our our executive Spanish pastor for the church is training leaders, identifying families. So that by the time we launch that second service, we have a leadership team in place. We’ve had several months of branding. We’ve had, we know what the community is saying to us. We’ve asked them through surveys, through conversations, through local events.
Eric Garza — So by the time we open, and then we have families that are going to commit to being part of that service, worship teams, kids, teachers. I’m the, across the board, by the time we launch it, uh, we’re pretty much in place to sustain it.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Eric Garza — And so what happens is if, if if there’s pastors or leaders who, it’s not, hey, we’re growing, we’re expanding, right? Statistically, if a service is 70% full, ah then you can launch a second service. A lot of people say, well, yeah I still got empty seats. Yeah, but your kid’s ministry might not.
Rich Birch — Or parking or some other area. Yeah.
Eric Garza — And so a lot of pastors, a lot of pastors consider, well, we’re not ready for a second service because perhaps they’re only contextualizing that decision based on empty seats in the sanctuary without realizing your kids space may already be overcrowded. Your nursery is overcrowded. You got, and so you got to consider. So when your sanctuary attendance is at 70% or higher, ah you’re probably in a good spot to consider opening a second service, regardless of the language.
Eric Garza — In our context, opening a second service, we do a lot of back-end work. We do a lot of due diligence ah before but before we open the service.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love that.
Eric Garza — And then once we do a month, a month and a half leading up to it, we start promoting that service time so that people can become acclimated and aware that there’s a new service time in their community at our campus, at our church, and and they can be a part of that.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good.
Eric Garza — So a lot of front-end work, but then a lot of it’s a process. It doesn’t happen from one month to the next. And then, of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t say, we also pray about it. Is God leading us in that direction?
Rich Birch — Right, what’s he telling us to do?
Eric Garza — Because just because it’s ah it’s a good thing doesn’t mean it’s a God thing, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah. True, true. Yep.
Eric Garza — And so even in in the context of ministry, even in us as a multisite bilingual ministry, which I believe we’re the largest in the country, we’re very adamant that, hey, we want to do systematic, but we want to make sure that this is a God thing for our church or for that campus um before making the final decision.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I love that. And, you know, a couple things I want to underline there for our listeners. I love that you start with listening to your people.
Eric Garza — Yeah.
Rich Birch — You know, you’re surveying, but it’s like, hey, let’s let’s get out and have some conversations, whether that’s through survey or, you know, focus groups or just listening…
Eric Garza — Right.
Rich Birch — …you know, get 10 leaders in a room, have have some conversations.
Eric Garza — Right.
Rich Birch — Because I think sometimes as leaders, we can get in our ivory tower somewhere and we’re like, we think this is what we should do. And it’s like, well, maybe we should actually talk with the people we’re trying to serve.
Eric Garza — Right. Well, and and you have to, I didn’t i didn’t mean to interrupt you.
Rich Birch — No, no, it’s fine.
Eric Garza — And and you had you have to talk with the leaders because they’re the ones that are going to be helping you execute the ministry.
Rich Birch — 100%. 100%.
Eric Garza — And if they’re not, if if you don’t have a ah good segment of them on board, you’re going to have a difficult time getting that service off the ground.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes. Yeah, it’s great. Okay. And then the other thing was, I love that you’re, there’s like the decision to launch and then that sets off a whole bunch of other actions. Like if you cannot just like pull the trigger and be like, okay, we’re doing this in two weeks. Like we got to work, we got to get ready for that.
Eric Garza — Right.
Rich Birch — We got to actually, it’s the difference between starting that service and launching it. Like where we really want to push it forward and um you know, do it well. So love that.
Rich Birch — So, all right. Well, as we’re wrapping up today’s episode, anything else you’d love to share, ah you know, kind of final parting words to leaders who are listening in today?
Eric Garza — Well, Rich, thanks for the opportunity, man. I’m very grateful just to get to share. Our church, we we believe we’re in a season of of just growth and expansion really across the country. And our senior leadership, our senior pastor is very adamant about pouring into other churches and other pastors and leaders. In fact, he just recently launched a brand new um ah organization, the 360 Global Network that’s available.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Eric Garza — You can go to 360global.network and we’re in a season and he’s in a season where he now wants to pour into other pastors and leaders.
Rich Birch — So good.
Eric Garza — And God has given us so much resource and so much wisdom. And ah it’s now a our responsibility and our desire to equip other pastors and leaders where they don’t have to face some of the pitfalls that we faced early on as we expanded and grew and serve and serve more people.
Eric Garza — And as the demographic of our country continues to shift and change. And you have the Hispanic community just really growing in throngs and and thriving. Bilingual ministry, we believe, is going to become a key factor in how the church operates in different communities in the country.
Rich Birch — 100%. Yeah, 100%.
Eric Garza — And so anything we can do, please reach out to us. We’re more than happy to provide resources. You can be part of the network. You can be part of what God is doing. And ah man, it would just be our pleasure ah to help serve pastors and leaders around the country where it’s more blessed to give than to receive. And so we want to be a blessing to the body of Christ at large.
Rich Birch — That’s great. Love that. So again, that’s just 360 global – so the numbers, 360global.network. You should check that out.
Eric Garza — Correct.
Rich Birch — A great resource, lots of, you know, stuff going on there. You can chase that down ah more and learn about that. Well, I really appreciate you being here today, Eric. If people want to track with you or with the church, where do we want to send them online?
Eric Garza — Yeah, you can go to social media, @crosschurchrgv or crosschurchonline.com. And if I can be a resource to anybody, it would be my heart and blessing to be able to do so. It’s @ericpgarza on Instagram, social media. Man, thanks for the opportunity, Rich. Very, very blessed by our conversation.
Rich Birch — Thank you. Thanks for being here today.
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Dr. Warren Bird—author, researcher, and one of the most trusted voices in church leadership studies. Warren has co-authored over 35 books for pastors and church leaders, including Hero Maker, Better Together, Next, Resilience Factor, and his newest, Becoming a Future-Ready Church. Known for his deep data-driven insights, Warren has spent decades researching trends that shape healthy, growing churches.
What’s next for large churches in North America—and how are they shaping the future of ministry? How are they adapting after the pandemic? Are they thriving, struggling, or transforming in unexpected ways? Warren shares early findings from his newest national research study—The Large Church Survey 2025—which explores how churches of 1,000 or more are changing and what’s coming next for the future of the church.
- Exploring large church health. // Large churches have reshaped the landscape of ministry over the last fifty years. Yet following the pandemic, questions have emerged: Have they fully come back? Are they still growing disciples—or just attracting crowds? Warren’s latest study, available at bit.ly/largechurch2025, is designed to answer those questions by gathering data from churches with 1,000+ in-person attendance. The goal is to measure growth, transparency, discipleship, and community impact in a post-pandemic world.
- Cultural distrust of institutions. // Warren notes that many people today are skeptical of large organizations, including churches. Scandals, media coverage, and declining trust in institutions have fueled the perception that “big” means “impersonal” or “unaccountable.” Yet Warren argues that healthy large churches can be powerful forces for good—offering specialized ministries such as special needs programs, counseling centers, and community partnerships that smaller churches often can’t sustain.
- Early findings: community and young adults. // Although data collection is still underway, some surprising trends are already emerging. The second-highest area of growth since the pandemic has been churches’ service and impact on their local communities. Large churches are not retreating—they’re doubling down on outreach. Even more encouraging, the top area of growth is the spiritual response among young adults. Despite common myths, many large churches are seeing renewed engagement from people in their 20s and 30s who are hungry for spiritual depth and authentic community.
- The power of small groups. // One consistent trend across every five-year survey Warren has conducted since 2000 is the growing emphasis on small groups and teams. In the most recent data, 92% of churches give their highest priority to small groups as essential for discipleship and connection. Warren summarizes the insight simply: “You get bigger by getting smaller.” Large churches thrive when they help people move from rows to circles—building relational environments where faith grows deeper.
- Raising leaders from within. // Another major finding centers on leadership development. Among churches of 5,000 and larger, 92% report having a residency, internship, or formal leadership training program. The median number of participants per church is 15. This suggests that future pastors, missionaries, and ministry leaders are increasingly being raised up inside the local church rather than emerging solely from seminaries. Warren calls this a promising trend that could strengthen the next generation of church leadership.
- Comeback stories. // The data also reveals a surprising recovery among large churches. So far, 53% of churches with attendance over 2,000 report being at least 10% larger today than they were in 2019. Some have even doubled or tripled in size. At the same time, a smaller group continues to struggle to regain momentum—creating what Warren describes as a “K-shaped recovery” across the church landscape. These insights will help leaders benchmark where their church stands and how to plan for the future.
- A younger generation of leaders. // Contrary to the myth that megachurches are a baby boomer phenomenon, early data shows that the average senior pastor age has actually declined since the last survey. Many fast-growing churches are being led by a younger generation of pastors—some who planted their congregations and others who revitalized long-standing churches.
To participate in the Large Church Survey 2025 and receive the full results, visit bit.ly/largechurch2025. The survey takes about 20 minutes and is open until November 11, 2025. For more on Warren’s work, follow him on LinkedIn or explore his latest book Becoming a Future-Ready Church to stay ahead of emerging ministry trends.
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Risepointe
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. We are honored to have a guest with us, Dr. Warren Bird today, who, what can I say about Warren Bird? He has co-authored 35 books for church leaders, but it’s more that, not that he’s just written a bunch of books. These are a number of the books that from my perspective are like the go-tos on their topic.
Rich Birch — Hero Maker on leadership development, Better Together on healthy mergers, Next on pastoral succession, ah Resilience Factor on effective leadership teams. And his latest is incredible: Becoming a Future-Ready Church on these eight emerging church trends. He’s not only an author but he’s also a researcher and the work that he produces, I think, is among the best that’s out there. His background is a pastor, seminary professor. He was a research director at Leadership Network and was the executive vice president of research at ECFA, the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability.
Rich Birch — Warren, I am so glad to have you here. He’s also, one of the distinctions Warren has is he’s one of the few people that I’ve said, anytime you want to come on the podcast, you come on, we’ll make space. And so he reached out. Happy to have Warren on. Welcome. So glad you’re here.
Warren Bird — Wow, Rich, you just rattled all that off. It’s like my life story. I could do that for you because you are so articulate and and the impact you’ve had on me. I listen to your podcast very regularly. The consulting insights when I you and I are sharing a speaking platform and all. So I could have done the same thing for you, but thank you for having me.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s kind of you. That’s kind of you to say that. And today we’re talking, you’re in the midst of one of the things I love about Warren, and and you might know this if you bump into him at a conference, he’s always working on some project. And he’s always wants to pick your brain about, Hey, like I’m working on this thing, got this thing coming up. And we were at a conference recently and he was talking about his latest research project. And so why don’t you talk to us about the study that you’re currently engaged in?
Rich Birch — And friends, I want you to stay tuned because we’re going I’m going to try to pull some early results out of Warren. This is the first place that some of these results have been talked about. So you’re getting an exclusive here, which is great, or a first because you’re listening in today. But what is this study that you’re working on?
Warren Bird — So Rich, the world of large churches—let’s let’s just say in-person attendance of a thousand and higher—you know, that was a big change in the face of the North American, actually the global church, the rise of the large church in the last 50 or so years. But now we’ve had the pandemic where large churches were hit the hardest, unless you were in like Florida or Texas, where they didn’t even participate in the pandemic. But the rest of us got hit hard.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Warren Bird — And and the question is, have they come back? And if they’ve come back, are they different? And then there’s that growing skepticism of, well, are big churches actually an asset or a liability? To what extent do they actually make their communities better? To what extent are they really healthy and vital versus, you know, are, are they an inch deep and a mile wide?
Warren Bird — What’s the level of financial transparency? I mean, you, you, you look at, you listen to ah headlines in the media and then they always have adjectives in front of the word megachurch, like rich megachurch or or something a even more disparaging. Well, how, how “rich” are they?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Warren Bird — Do people give more because they go to a larger church and more important, you know, what’s the level of transparency and discipleship that’s there? And, and fundamentally what’s the bar of discipleship and, and what are churches who are exploding with growth, in particular, are they giving out free coffee or are, are they giving out Jesus in a way that’s resonating with the population around them?
Warren Bird — So it’s it’s time to explore and to say, well, what’s happening? And the best way to do it, i mean, we hang out at conferences, Rich, because I don’t want to just ask questions out of the top of my mind. I want to know what people want to know about their world, their peers.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Warren Bird — And I can put that in a question and find out from a bunch of churches and then come back to you and say, well, here’s the lay of the land. And more importantly, here’s what seems to be around the next corner…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Warren Bird — …for churches that they are anticipating.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Warren Bird — Can you tell I’m excited about this project?
Rich Birch — Yeah, I was going to…
Warren Bird — Bit.ly/largechurch2025
Rich Birch — Great. that’s the That’s the link. We’re driving towards that today, friends. And you’re looking particularly for churches over a thousand is the is the kind of the…
Warren Bird — In-person attendance, yes.
Rich Birch — In in-person attendance.
Warren Bird — And that’s adults and children, all your campuses, every nose that’s there on it on a given weekend. You know, is it somewhere around 1,000 to up to 100,000? And it’s…
Rich Birch — All those people over a hundred thousand were asking you not to participate. Yeah, that’s great. That’s so, this is good.
Warren Bird — Well, that’s another story. Yeah I just interviewed the pastor of Africa’s third largest attendance church, and they would be more than 100,000 on a weekend across their campuses.
Rich Birch — Yes, it’s amazing. Amazing
Warren Bird — But that’s another story.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. So a couple things, just while we’re kind of establishing why this particular study. So there does seem to be this um undercurrent in the culture in general. I don’t know whether it’s just the church culture that’s like, it kind of looks down on large churches.
Rich Birch — In fact, I was at an event earlier this year of large church pastors where the vibe there for sure was like, and it’s one of these kind of like social things. They get all their people together. And it’s outside of they’re all from the same denomination, but it’s not run by the denomination. They just do it themselves. And the reason is, is because they feel like, oh, everybody else looks down on us.
Rich Birch — So why is that? Why do you, why is it that we seem as, as Christians to kind of, I don’t know. It’s like we, we, we look at these large churches suspiciously. Why, why do you think that is?
Warren Bird — A lot of reasons. The probably the biggest reason is the cultural distrust of institutions, church included. And and that’s all the major institutions.
Warren Bird — Somehow we think, and I’ll just use a wild example, that going to GoFundMe where there’s zero accountability that my money is going to be better used than in an established non-profit or Christ-centered non-profit or church or whatever. And it’s like, really? But that’s the tenor of the culture.
Warren Bird — And there have been enough scandals that the media has highlighted that people like, okay, yeah, you’re raising money for the church van, for the youth. I mean, that’s a great idea, but i you know do I have any confidence that that’s what’s happening? That’s just on the money side. There are so many other factors that influence the distrust in large organized religion.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so true. You were saying about the, you know, when you see any scandal write ups, if the something goes sideways at a church, they talk about a rich megachurch or an affluent megachurch or a whatever.
Rich Birch — The other thing that bugs me in those reports is they always talk about, well, you know, they have rock and roll band. And like they they kind of talk about some of the stuff we do as if it’s like, well, that’s the reason, the only reason why people are there. So interesting stuff.
Warren Bird — Yeah. So, so Rich, let me put this in context.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Warren Bird — I am all for every single church, whether it’s three people, 30 people, 300, 3000, 30,000, whatever.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Warren Bird — If they are making disciples of Jesus Christ…
Rich Birch — Amen.
Warren Bird — …and even more so if they are making disciple-makers of Jesus Christ.
Warren Bird — Now, when a church is explosively growing and it’s genuine, I’m just thrilled by it. Because large churches have the opportunity to do things that other sized churches don’t.
Rich Birch — Right.
Warren Bird — Like let’s say special needs ministry that that often is very volunteer intensive and sometimes staff intensive and may require a certain room. You know, it’s a a quiet room or or ability to do things structurally with your facility that just not every church can do. But but large churches can. So I’m trying to zero in on, okay, every church size can do something well.
Warren Bird — And actually the survey at bit.ly/largechurch2025 is part of a series that’s going to compare against every other size. So for example, the average pastor age, or the average pastor tenure, or the average, whatever. We’re going be able to do across all sizes. I’m doing the very large church size and, and I’m, that’s, that’s what, that’s the size that’s hardest to get good data on. And I’m bullish on the outreach, on the impact on their communities.
Warren Bird — In fact, let me let me leak one early finding.
Rich Birch — Sure
Warren Bird — We gave 15 things where we said, what has, have these changed since the pandemic?
Rich Birch — Right.
Warren Bird — Have they increased, stayed the same, and gone down? The number two vote at present is our service and impact on our local community.
Rich Birch — Interesting.
Warren Bird — Wow, that’s such a positive thing…
Rich Birch — Right.
Warren Bird — …especially for large churches.
Rich Birch — That’s amazing. You know, one of the things in in the coaching I’ve done with churches, we talk about magnetic community service as a key piece of an invite culture that people want to be a part of a church that is not only making a difference, but they want to be seen as being a part of of a church that’s making a difference, so that I can invite my friends to come be a part of that.
Rich Birch — And it’s interesting, as I’ve talked with some large churches about that, you know, we’ll talk about this particular area. And they’re like, oh, we’ve never thought of that as like ah a way for us to reach our community. They’re like, it just seems like the thing we should do. And I’m like, no, you should be inviting first time guests to come and do that to be a part of. But that’s cool to see. Now, so what you said, number two, what was number one? Yeah, I’m going to try to milk more of this out of you here of these things, if you don’t mind saying.
Warren Bird — Very exciting. Very exciting. It’s the spiritual response by young adults.
Rich Birch — Interesting.
Warren Bird — Wow. In other words, the the people that we’re able to impact as a church who are young adults, we have seen a clear increase in the spiritual interest of that group. Wow.
Rich Birch — Isn’t that interesting? We’re seeing that in in a number of places, right? That that this is bubbling up.
Warren Bird — And that’s another thing about large churches. They are disproportionately bulging in not only the the children, Next Gen, but also in that 20-somethings age is is usually a sizable percentage of of, especially, newer large churches.
Rich Birch — I was just with the church a couple weeks ago and they were talking about—and they’re a large church—and they were kind of thinking, they were like, I would say disparagingly about their own ministry. And they’re like, you know, young people just don’t want large churches. They they want a small, intimate thing. And I challenged them on that. Now I’m looking forward because when the study comes out, I can give them an actual stat.
Warren Bird — Okay, okay, Rich. I’m going to tease another finding then.
Rich Birch — Yes. Okay.
Warren Bird — Because this I’ve I’ve sat and listened to your… And and tell tell us the name of the title of your latest book where you talk about different growth strategies.
Rich Birch — Yeah, Breaking Breaking the 200 Barrier or 2000 Barrier is the this the title of the book I’m working on.
Warren Bird — Wow. Okay. So so this survey that I’m doing actually has been done every five years since the year 2000.
Rich Birch — Okay, yeah.
Warren Bird — And it’s fascinating to see the same question, the answer every 2005, 2010, 2015, 2020, just before the pandemic, and now 2025 after the pandemic.
Warren Bird — And one of the questions is, it’s an agree/disagree statement, that how important are small groups or teams for the Christian formation and discipleship in your church?
Warren Bird — And the when it was first asked many years ago, it was right at 50%. Every single survey, it has inched up. And the last survey, it was 89%. And I thought, well, we’re not going to top that because you don’t get 90 or more percent in any survey.
Rich Birch — Wow. Of anything.
Warren Bird — But the responses so far, 92%…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Warren Bird — …give the highest rank to small groups, which translated is: you get bigger by getting smaller. And that intimacy that you were reflecting on, that’s what where people thrive. That’s the hub of discipleship. And that’s essential for the larger you get to know how to do that well. Plus, of course, that’s where so many of your lay leaders are developed and everything else.
Rich Birch — Yeah. And and we, on ah from a practitioner point of view, we know that um like large churches have to get good at that. Like you have to get good at moving people into smaller communities. You’ve got to figure out how, you can’t, people will come for whatever you’re doing on the weekend, but they will not stick and stay long-term.
Rich Birch — they They have to find a group of small, you know a small group of friends that they’re connecting with. My parents, most of their, ah my dad moved, I think, 23 times in his career, moved a lot and went to a bunch of different churches. I think like 18 different churches or something over the years, and mostly small churches. I’ve mostly worked in large churches.
Rich Birch — And if I’m honest, they would never say it this way because they love me and they’re good parents. I always felt like they kind of looked down on the large church thing. They’re like, I don’t know. I don’t know. They, at one point we’re moving to Louisville, Kentucky.
Rich Birch — And I said, you got to go to Southeast, at least try going to to Southeast and check it out. Just check it out for one weekend. They ended up getting connected there, stuck and stayed, loved it. And they would say too, and it’s a massive church, probably like it’s up there, top single digit, the largest church in the country, somewhere in that range. And it it they would say to this day, that was the church that they felt the most connected at, not the church of 200 people. You’ve we’ve got to get really good at that for sure.
Rich Birch — Any other findings that are kind of interesting for us to kick around?
Warren Bird —Yeah, what I did, Rich, before the surveys, I got a whole bunch of people together who work with churches and say, tell me what you think might be on the horizon that I can test for.
Warren Bird — And one of the things Ithen worded questions to test for is are, is the locus of where future pastors, leaders, missionaries are coming from, is it is it less from the seminaries as points of origin? You know, I’m going to go to seminary and try to figure out what God has for my life. And more happening there in the local church. And and just for an example, if you take all the churches of 5,000 and higher in attendance that of ah have completed the survey so far, and you ask, do you have a residency program or equivalent? (And I give them a whole bunch of words because everybody calls it something different…)
Rich Birch — Yes.
Warren Bird — But designed to train future church leaders.
Rich Birch — Right.
Warren Bird — So far in the findings, 92% have said yes.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Warren Bird — And then when we said, okay, if yes, then how many people during the course of 2025 are you training? And the median is 15.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Warren Bird — Now, that doesn’t mean just really large churches are doing it. I also checked for 2,000 and up, 1,000 and up. And they’re all at different levels doing some kind of of serious ministerial training.
Warren Bird — So this is pipeline, pathway, whatever you want to call it, that, you know, from to use the phrase of another church, starting with the irreligious person who comes and and finds a vital life-changing forgiveness relationship with Jesus Christ. And then if gifted, there is just no lack of steps you can take toward leadership if God’s calling should continue in that particular way – all the way towards a ministry residency, towards doing something vocationally full-time.
Rich Birch — Wow, that’s incredible, 92%. That’s shocking to me, that’s surprising. That’s incredible for churches over 5,000. I wonder, one of the things I’ll look forward to when the study comes out is seeing how that gradiates with churches that are say at 2,000.
Warren Bird — Right. And and that’s what we’ll do in the report.
Warren Bird — For those who take the survey, by the way, they get the report first and…
Rich Birch — Yes. What is that link again?
Warren Bird — …and and but wait, there’s more. Those who take the survey get an exclusive webinar where we unveil it and do Q&A with us and special guests like Sam Chan there. And and and we’ve we’ve got a whole bunch of people lined up who are going to kind of ask the tough questions of the data. And again, it’s at bit.ly/largechurch2025.
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Warren Bird — And so, and so participate and then be the first to get these wonderful reports that we’ll do.
Rich Birch — You know, that’s interesting because I, you know, I’m always looking for what are the behaviors at a kind of certain level of church that changes as they become larger. And um that’s actually that book I’m working on, that really is what it kind of is is based around. And one of them, there’s these eight different things that I’ve i’ve just seen. And and so I’m out talking to other church leaders. And one of them is they go from reactive volunteering to proactive volunteer growth. That like a church of a church of 800 or a church of 500 is like, oh, we need people for this. But then to really break that 2000 barrier, churches have to, they move to, or we see them move to, okay, actually we see that moving people into places of their gifting, their what’s kind of best for them. And also trying to find a way to create more space for more volunteers is a behavior that we see.
Rich Birch — I wonder if in this one, as churches go from 2,000 to 3,000 to 5,000, there’s like, it’s just kind of that behavior even just extended all the way up through the kind of staffing experience where it’s like, hey, we’ve got to develop our leaders from within. That’s that’s amazing. That’s that’s incredible.
Warren Bird — Yeah, it’s to me, it’s exciting.
Rich Birch — Oh, for sure.
Warren Bird — It’s it’s just thrilling to imagine the impact because frankly, last weekend of the people who went to a Protestant church, at least in the United States, um somewhat around half or more went to a large church.
Rich Birch — Interesting.
Warren Bird — And it’s where you cut do the cutoff for what becomes large. But this is a a small number of churches, relatively speaking…
Rich Birch — Right.
Warren Bird — 320,000 U.S. churches. And at least in the megachurch department, 2,000 and higher, they’re only like 1,800 or so. And then when you go into the thousand range, it it adds a chunk more churches. But this is a disproportionate number of churches. And if they get leadership development right, um the impact, the ripple effect to bless all churches and all communities has great potential.
Rich Birch — Well, and this, absolutely, this has been um so much of the work that you’ve done over the years, which I think has been such a blessing to so many churches, is you have mined out these insights, these, that but then have become resources that then all of us can apply regardless of our church size.
Rich Birch — So even down the road when the when the study comes out, if you’re not a large church, this would be a great study for you to read, to but to to to learn from.
Warren Bird — Yeah. Yeah, and we will make it available to the public…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Warren Bird — …but it’s just those who take the survey at – did I mention it: Bit.ly/largechurch2025. And it closes for those who may be listening to this later: November 11th, 2025. That’s your cutoff for midnight, that night…
Rich Birch — Midnight.
Warren Bird — …whatever your midnight is.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Warren Bird — U.S. churches take the survey. So, but Rich, you know, let me just tell you some of the questions we’re asking.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Warren Bird — I’d love to get your feedback on, for example.
Rich Birch — Okay, sure.
Warren Bird — First, the stereotype of a megachurch, for example, is that they have this colossal sanctuary like like Lakewood Church, you know, the seats 16,000. But the reality is typically the largest venue, and we’re asking this, but I haven’t looked at it for this survey so far, is about 1,400, which means, you know, you have multiple campuses, multiple services and so forth.
Warren Bird — Which leads to the question, is the is the spiritual commitment, is there any relationship between facility size and the amount of volunteering, giving, or anything else? Are there factors that proportion with the size of your largest worship venue? We’ll have some numbers on that, but Rich, do you have any predictions?
Rich Birch — Well, um so I’m looking forward, this could be one of those areas where I have been giving bad advice, but I have I have been saying for a long time, 15 years, think smaller rooms, more more services, more campuses, rather than you know fewer.
Rich Birch — And um the logic, I the reason why I say that is like, let’s say you take, um like my friends at Flatirons, they have 4,000 seats in their in their biggest room. You only, “only”, you only need maybe five or six people on the worship band. um You know, and that room only has, I think there’s, I think there’s only four entrances to that room. So you’ll only need maybe eight people to actually be like usher greeter people at the door.
Rich Birch — Man, I want to see way more volunteer engagement than that. I want to see, you know, for 4,000 people to only have, say, a dozen volunteers, man, that’s that’s like the wrong kind of efficiency. I’d rather go the other way. Let’s have a smaller room. Let’s have eight rooms of 500 where then now we require a whole bunch of more people to be involved to make it happen, which is then going to drive all kinds of the other positive behavior around inviting and them being leaning in more, all of that.
Rich Birch — So I would say, I think there’s a sweet spot. I think, you know, it’s, well, and I’ve heard that 14-, 1500 number before. I think it’s, you know, 500, 1000, somewhere in there. There’s like this interesting sweet spot. If I was going to guess, I would think as it goes dow… as it goes up, that kind of engagement and some of those participation numbers go down over a certain number. So that’s my prediction. We’ll see.
Warren Bird — All right. Rich Birch predicts. We will you see what happens. All right. Let me ask you another one, Rich.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Warren Bird — There are a lot of definitions to the attractional model. And there are a lot of questions of people saying, you know, is the attractional model, they use strong words like dead.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Warren Bird — But but is it lessening? And if so, what is replacing it? And we’ve asked enough different types of questions about involvement and, you know, where’s your front door, primary front door, and that most newcomers come and all, that I think we’re going to be able to tease out which churches are strongly attractional and and how strongly they’re growing, versus which churches are not and how strongly they’re growing. And which churches are doing other things like, let’s say, community service emphases, justice emphases – how that impacts growth.
Warren Bird — Do you have any prediction as to where you think it’s going to land when all these listeners of yours in large churches take the survey at bit.ly/largechurch2025?
Rich Birch — Well, you got me on a bit of a high horse. I’ll try and I’ll try not to preach about the death of the attractional church, but I can say, so ah last year, I turned one of those numbers on my birthday that had a zero at the end that started for me to think like, okay, I’ve been in this for a long time. And one of the things that I’ve noticed in the people we serve is I do think when I started 20, 30 years ago, you could do things that were classically attractional. Like, and and we would have never said, we’re trying to entertain people. Like we were more spiritual than that. We would have never said like, put on a good band, be funny, have like a standup comic, do… Like we wouldn’t have said that. Although those were all the things we were trying to do.
Rich Birch — And I actually think that worked, but I actually don’t think that works anymore. Because the people that we’re serving has changed. I’m convinced that the people that are coming in our front doors in every zip code in the country is more unchurched today than it was 20 years ago.
Rich Birch — And so people are coming, they’re pushing through some sort of cultural resistance to be there. They don’t just stumble into church like they used to. Even…
Warren Bird — Right. They’re choosing church over…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Warren Bird — …any number of other things they could have done on a Sunday morning.
Rich Birch — Yes. And they’re…
Warren Bird — And they’re coming find God.
Rich Birch — Yes, they’re coming with actual questions. Like they’re like, I, my marriage is falling apart. My life is not doing well. Who is Jesus? Does any of this make a difference? And so, you know, the classic attractional model I would think is in decline. And that comes from someone I’ll introduce myself in situation where listen, I came from the attractional church movement. That is my background. That is my heritage. But I, that I think model has has shifted.
Rich Birch — Now, It’s not like we’ve moved to repulsive church. It’s not like that works. We don’t want our churches to push people away. But I, but I, I, and I do think that there has been, I don’t know if you’re teasing this out as well. I have also noticed, man, a lot of our worship services, they look a lot similar.
Rich Birch — I’ve been in, I think 22 churches in the last year where I’ve been like there on a Sunday in a church. Most of those churches north of 500, less than, well, guess there’s a bunch that are quite large, but north of 500. And it’s interesting how we’re, a lot of us are doing a very similar kind of participatory raised hands, come to the front, get prayed for – that, whatever you call that. That sure is a great band. And there is somebody that’s like, they know what they’re doing from a communications point of view, all that. But there there seems to be, I don’t know whether that’s just me, but it seems like there’s more homogeneity in the church and than I maybe even realized was there. I’m I’m not sure.
Warren Bird — Well, at least…
Rich Birch — So that’s what I would say.
Warren Bird — …homogeneity in terms of experiential. And I think the pandemic, one of the silver linings is churches said, we need to distinguish what the value is in coming in person versus watching.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Warren Bird — And and you you can’t be hugged on on the… And and please don’t anyone hear me as disparaging the incredibly wonderful outreach by ah the the Internet that so many churches have with their digital ministries. But but to come in person, I can be hugged. I can I can be prayed over in person with somebody holding my hands to pray. I can tactilely, you know, take the Lord’s Supper, communion, whatever you call it, in person, in a way that that’s in community…
Rich Birch —Yeah.
Warren Bird — …that I just can’t do online by myself, even even with my family. And that’s that’s one of the many pulls for people coming back. And I’m hoping in the survey to learn a little bit more as to what is drawing people today in different aspects of a increased hunger for God.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. I can see I can see that how, you know, there’s been a shift around that. And and again, super intrigued to see what comes out of – is there was there one last question that you, listen, you get to actually shape the questions that you’re like super intrigued. You don’t have to reveal the early results, but like you’re really looking forward to, I know that’s like picking which is your favorite children, I understand. But like, you know, are there any any other questions that you’re really hmm super intrigued to see what comes out?
Warren Bird — Yeah. It’s just the whole idea of the comeback. I, we ask people, what was your worship attendance in 2019? Which would be, remember the pandemic was March of 2020. So this is well before anybody had in inkling of what was to come. And ask, what is the attendance in-person today? Total noses. And and to wonder, because the larger the church, typically, as I mentioned earlier, the the harder you were hit during the pandemic and the and the slower often you were to do the comeback.
Warren Bird — So have they regained to where they were? And what is, first of all, so far 53%, limiting just, let’s say to megachurches, 2,000 and higher, 53% have come back at least 10% more than they were in 2019.
Rich Birch — Wow. Wow.
Warren Bird — But some have spectacularly, dramatically come back…
Rich Birch — Right.
Warren Bird — …three times the size, two times the size.
Rich Birch — Wow. Wow.
Warren Bird — And and I want to isolate those off. And there is a small group, but it’s still a definite group that has not. And they’re taking the survey.
Warren Bird — And if that’s you, please take the survey.
Rich Birch — We want to hear from you.
Warren Bird — Because we want to say, OK, what’s happening in those churches that’s different from those? So so we’ll look across the spectrum of comeback. But if someone said, nope, the era of the megachurch is dead.
Warren Bird — Oh, oh, oh. And the era of the people said, oh, megachurch is just a baby boomer phenomenon, you know, with pastors just getting older and older. And, you know, so far, the average pastor age is considerably younger, senior pastor, than when we did the survey five years ago…
Rich Birch — Interesting. Interesting.
Warren Bird — …which says there’s a whole new generation, at least enough of that generation of younger church planters or otherwise that are becoming large churches.
Warren Bird — And I say church planters because from our survey five years ago, 82% of megachurches, 2,000 and higher, reached their size under the leadership of their current and founding pastor, same person. So I’m sorry, that’s a misstatement. Under their current pastor, the majority of which are founding pastors.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Warren Bird — But many people come into a church that’s 100 years old and you know for 100 years ministered effectively as a community of 50 to 75, and then just exploded under one pastor.
Warren Bird — So um all that to say, I’m excited by the reaching of young adults, by the the apparent getting younger of the age of the leader and the explosive growth of some. And I haven’t correlated the explosive growth ones with the average age of the pastor, but we will do that.
Warren Bird — And the more people who take the survey, the more I’m able to slice and dice in that way. So please, before November 11, 2025, take the survey. It’ll make a difference and it will pay you back big time in terms of data informed, wisdom that the Holy Spirit uses to help you make wise planning and strategic decisions.
Rich Birch — Well, the thing, friends, we really do want you to take this survey. You really should be tracking along with Warren. And, you know, he does just such great work. And this is going to be a valuable resource. I know it’ll be the thing we’ll be chewing on for a long time, probably for the next five years until the next one comes around. And then we’ll be thinking about that one. So super helpful.
Rich Birch — This is great. It’s interesting that whole thing you were talking about. i have I’ve wondered, I heard, this is probably two years ago on the economic side, they talked about the K recovery in some industries, that there were some that have done quite well and then some that are doing not so well. And just intuitively, that has been my experience as I’ve talked with church leaders, that there are still, like there are people that COVID is in their rear view mirror and they’re like, man, we are just like we’re up and to the right. Things just are going. But then there’s some church leaders that are still like licking their wounds and are like, man, this just is, we’ve not been able to recover and it’s not, it’s not going well.
Warren Bird — Well, and and for some, you know, the the prime industry in their city tanked during the pandemic…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Warren Bird — …and there’s there’s been a massive departure. Or there was a leadership a change or there was, you know, something else that that could explain something that thwarted or or considerably slowed their growth and rebuilding impact.
Rich Birch — Yep. Yeah, so good. So give us that link again and the timeline. Just so just give us a whole blurb.
Warren Bird — Yeah, I might not have mentioned it before, but it’s bit.ly bit.ly/largechurch2025. That’s all one word. And between now and November 11th, 2025, and please don’t wait till the last, but I mean, you can, but but we’d love to have you be part. And we’d love just to bless you back with all kinds of helpful ah guidance and information and benchmarks and ratios and everything else if you’ll participate.
Warren Bird — This will be, assuming we continue the way we are the largest ever study…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s right.
Warren Bird — …of large churches in the United States.
Rich Birch — What, how long does it take if i’m if I’m preparing to sit down to do it? How much time should I set aside?
Warren Bird — Okay. The average is just under 20 minutes. That’s a big ask.
Warren Bird — However, on the opening page of the survey, click here to get a PDF. Many people hand it to their admin and say, hey, there are certain numbers, things you fill those in and I’ll fill in the rest and then you can key it in for us or whatever. So so um while it is asking a very knowledgeable person to to give input. It’s often shared around the office. But that 20 minutes, up to 20 minutes will pay you back big time…
Rich Birch — Yeah, 100%.
Warren Bird — …in in the feedback you get.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. I just I just referenced that because I know you got to set time aside. This is not like…
Warren Bird — Yeah and and I know that people have survey fatigue everywhere you go. You’re asked to take a quick survey, which is really not quick. And so I’m just being upfront and telling you what the average is.
Rich Birch — Yeah, no, it’s good. And it’s super valuable, friends. And this this will help not only your church, but will help shape so many churches. We want to learn from you. You know, that’s really what this podcast is, trying to learn from other churches. This is a great thing.
Rich Birch — Warren, where do we want to send people online if they want to track with you, um if they just kind of want to be in the the greater Warren Bird cinematic universe?
Warren Bird — I am full time as a church researcher and writer. I probably post the most on LinkedIn. I’m pretty easy to find there to follow me. And and Rich, thank you for mentioning different books. And um that’s the most joyful thing that happens is somebody reads like “Becoming a Future Ready Church,” the latest book that Daniel Yang and Adelle Banks and I did, and then writes me an email. Just Google me. I’m easy to find. And says, I have a question or I’d like to tell you a story or whatever. So that’s the way to get even more connected with me.
Rich Birch — Well, it’s an honor, privilege to know you, even for folks that aren’t watching the video. There’s Mike Slaughter’s book, “Unlearning Churches”, over your corner. And that literally was a book I read when it first came out years ago, and it shaped my own thinking. This is the thing that I was thinking this as we were preparing. I know I said this at the beginning, but I want to honor you with this. Your books are for sure the ones I recommend the most, like “Better Together”, “Hero Maker”, “Multisite”, “Church Road Trip”.
Rich Birch — Like there’s a bunch of books that you’ve had your hand in, “Next”, that I’m always like – literally today, I was like, someone was talking about succession stuff. And I was like, well, you should buy “Next” first. Like before you do anything else, buy “Next”. That’s the book you should buy and go through that. And then, you know, think about your next steps from there.
So and they have that consistently with your work. So you do such good work. Thank you so much, friend. So glad you’re here. And let’s get a bunch of people to do your survey. Take care.
Warren Bird — Rich, you’re a good man. I always go out of my way to hang out with you or if we’re at a gathering together to sit down at your table or to be in your session. So keep up the great work and I look forward to the next time our paths will intersect.
Early in our marriage, rent ate half our income.
At the end of one of our first months living together, we had $35 total left for a week’s worth of groceries.
Christine was stressed. (Totally understandable.) I started building a compelling, highly spiritual case for “maybe we skip giving this month.”
Christine cut through my rationalization with five words: “Of course we are tithing.”
That moment kick-started a lifelong journey into generosity. And here’s the honest headline: we’ve received more through generosity than we ever imagined we’d “lose” by giving.
So no, money isn’t some awkward side topic we avoid like a seventh-grade sex talk. It’s discipleship, it’s spiritual formation, and the way you handle it matters.
Bad money preaching feels like a timeshare pitch; good money teaching changes lives.
Why Teaching on Generosity Matters (Right Now) The Bible won’t be quiet about money. There are somewhere around 2,350 verses on money, wealth, and possessions—far more than many other themes. The precise number depends on how you classify passages, but the sheer volume is the point. [ref] * Jesus talked about money a lot. Depending on methodology, many analysts count 16 of 38 parables touching on money/possessions. The exact ratio is debated, but the broader truth stands: money saturated his teaching because it reveals our hearts. [ref] * Culture is catechizing your people already. U.S. household debt hit $18.39T in Q2 2025; credit card and auto balances keep inching up. Translation: Your congregation is being discipled by debt, fees, and friction. If the church won’t preach a better story, Visa will. [ref] * Teaching influences behavior. Barna’s recent work highlights a “virtuous cycle”; people who experience generosity are more likely to practice* generosity. Teaching that pairs theology with tangible experiences catalyzes that cycle.
And yet many churches go quiet. A recent poll found about a quarter of churches don’t teach on generosity at all. Silence is also a sermon; it just lets culture preach.
If you’re not talking about money, Amazon, Amex, and Apple are happy to.
If you won’t preach discipleship of dollars, Prime, points, and payments will.
The Rich Young Ruler isn’t a “rich guy” dunk; it’s a mirror. Money threatens to become identity, security, and scorecard. Jesus’ money talk isn’t fundraising …it’s heart surgery.
The church can’t heal what it won’t name.
And here’s a reality check on tithing language in the pews: only 21% of Christians say they give 10% or more to their church; among practicing Christians, the figure rises to 42%, but it’s still not a majority.
Clear, confident teaching matters.
So, here’s the deal: if less than half of your people are tithing, and you’re still allergic to talking about money, you’ve basically handed the keys of financial discipleship to TikTok finance bros and credit card companies.
The antidote? Stop reinventing the wheel and learn from churches already doing this well. Rip their best moves, pivot them for your context, and jam until it sticks. The following five examples aren’t theory; they’re field-tested, congregation-shaping strategies that actually move the needle.
Steal These Ideas for Teaching on GenerosityThese aren’t “talks about money.” They’re systems that pair sermons with scaffolding—tools, prompts, groups, and follow-up. (Yes, steal this.) The summaries below draw on their public resources and the field notes you provided.
Crossroads Church (Cincinnati, OH) — Tithe Test + The Blue TeamCrossroads treats Malachi 3 like a lab: 90-Day Tithe Test, with public invitations, clear sign-ups, and—this is key—a refund guarantee if participants don’t sense God’s provision in that period. It’s not just a sermon; it’s an experiment with a feedback loop. They’ve also publicly talked about the tithe test/refund in weekend content: “we will refund your entire amount of money [after 90 days, if you don’t see God meet your needs].” They share stories from people who have participated and invite people to join in.
Why it’s smart
- Behavioral friction is your enemy. A simple, high-trust on-ramp reduces fear.
- Guarantee = confidence signal. It reframes tithing as testable, not mystical.
- Tribe beats try-hard. Their “Blue Team” (declared tithers) creates belonging, updates, and social proof—discipleship with nametags. (Crossroads surfaces the 90-Day Tithe Test in their group and resource ecosystem.)
Steal this
- Offer a time-boxed challenge with explicit sign-ups and a real follow-up plan.
- Build a “finish line” story—share outcomes, testimonies, and next steps.
- Form a named cohort for ongoing encouragement (think: “Founders,” “First Fruits,” etc.).
Liquid Church (NJ) — Generous Livin’ with ReceiptsLiquid runs a 90-Day Tithe Challenge with a money-back guarantee, reinforced by weekly videos/emails, budgeting workshops, and practical content across their site. Start here: “Give Generously” (challenge + guarantee). See also “The Blessing of Generous Livin’” and a sampling of debt/finance helps that continually point back to the challenge (e.g., How to Get Out of Debt, Keys to Financial Freedom).
Why it’s smart
- Bold offer = clarity. A guarantee signals pastoral confidence and lowers cynicism.
- Drip content changes habits. Weekly nudges move people from intention to action.
- Holistic framing. Teaching + tools acknowledges the money ecosystem (budgets, debt, goals), not just the Sunday plate.
Steal this
- Stand up a simple microsite/landing page with one action: “Join the 90-Day Challenge.”
- Script eight weekly nudges (video + email) before the series launches.
- Pair the series with budgeting classes and coaching hours.
Pantano Christian (Tucson, AZ) — Altars of GenerosityThey invited a small, concrete step: “Add $10/week to your tithe.” Small enough to be doable; specific enough to be measurable. And they framed it theologically as “worship in motion.” Series overview and message page.
Why it’s smart
- Shrink the ask, grow the muscle. Micro-moves beat macro-vows.
- Worship framing. This isn’t “fundraising;” it’s formation.
- Legacy lane. Budgeting + estate planning workshops widen generosity beyond this weekend to this lifetime.
Steal this
- Name a small weekly move and make it your default on-ramp.
- Offer two tracks: Entry (budgeting 101) and Advanced (estate/legacy).
- Capture testimonies in week 4; run them back in week 6 to reinforce momentum.
Life.Church — Making ChangeThey made a money series so simple it could fit on a T-shirt:
- Less Is More
- Stress Is Bad
- Giving Is Good
- Tomorrow Matters
Each talk is a sticky, single idea, reinforced through YouVersion devotionals and group courses like Financial Peace (FPU). The series index is available, featuring individual message pages: Making Change overview, Less Is More, Stress Is Bad, Giving Is Good, and Tomorrow Matters.
Why it’s smart
- Sermons that travel. One-liners spread further than 45-minute word studies.
- Daily reinforcement. Devotionals convert Sunday inspiration into Tuesday habits.
- Group accountability. People do hard things with people; FPU is the scaffolding.
Steal this
- Reduce each week to a four-word maxim. If it won’t fit on a slide, it won’t stick in a mind.
- Publish a 7-day reading plan per week of the series.
- Recruit host homes (short, time-bound groups) to practice the content—think 4–6 weeks.
Saddleback (Lake Forest, CA) — Uncommon CentsThey named the water we’re swimming in: skyrocketing consumer debt + low financial literacy, and then they built a resource hub (worksheets, tools), ran workshops, and launched Financial Freedom groups. Start here: Uncommon Cents series hub
Why it’s smart
- They dignify the struggle. “Debt” and “stress” get named, not shamed.
- They curate tools. One click from sermon to action.
- They scale discipleship. Short-term groups translate content to community.
Steal this
- Set up a Financial Tools page before your series launches.
- Offer pop-up workshops during the series window (budgeting, debt snowball, saving).
- Run 6-week Financial Freedom groups; publish a start/stop date to lower the barrier.
How to Preach Money with Clarity (and Zero Cringe)1. Lead with purpose, not pressure. “We want something for you, not from you.” Then show how money discipleship grows freedom, margin, and mission. (Barna’s virtuous cycle insight is your friend here.) 2. Name the cultural liturgies. Debt, dopamine, and one-click checkout catechize your people daily. Quote the macro: household debt trends, high APR retail cards, etc., to be concrete about the “enemy.” 3. Make the ask measurable. A 90-day challenge or a $10/week step creates traction. (See Crossroads, Liquid, Pantano for models.) 4. Pair every sermon with a tool. App, worksheet, group, or coaching hour. If Sunday has no Tuesday, you’re just motivational speaking. 5. Use one-liners that travel. Life.Church’s four titles are masterclass-level sticky. Say less so people remember more. 6. Tell stories (yours included). People borrow courage. Whatever your “$35-grocery week” story is, use it to humanize giving and offer a parable of trust.
The Elephant in the AuditoriumPastors often avoid discussing money for understandable reasons, such as fear of appearing self-interested, not wanting to trigger shame, or because it wasn’t covered in seminary.
But the bigger risk is malpractice by omission. Barna shows that only a fraction of Christians intentionally tithe; Stewardship’s polling reveals that churches rarely address generosity. People are already being formed—just not by Jesus.
If your church won’t disciple people’s wallets, don’t be shocked when Wall Street does.
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Lane Lowery, Executive Pastor of Warren Church in South Carolina and Georgia. Founded in 1898, Warren is one of the fastest-growing churches in America, with over 7,000 members across its campuses. Known for its Southern hospitality, Bible teaching, and focus on whole-person ministry, Warren has also launched a Hope Women’s Center and is preparing to open a Hope Mental Wellness Center.
Is your church wrestling with how to scale leadership and maintain unity as you grow? Tune in as Lane shares how Warren Church transitioned to a global leadership model, developed essential staff practices, and keeps the large church personal and relational.
- From single-site to multi-site. // When Lane first arrived at Warren Church it was a single-campus church of around 3,000 members. Today, with multiple campuses and ministries, the church has grown to nearly 7,000 members and employs 270 staff. Lane notes that what worked for one or two campuses no longer fit once the church expanded to six ministry expressions.
- The global leadership model. // To address challenges of scale, Warren implemented a global leadership structure. Eight global ministry teams oversee preschool, next gen, discipleship, missions, worship, communications, counseling, and the Hope Women’s Center. Each leader is a “player-coach,” serving in a campus role while also providing oversight across all locations. This ensures alignment while keeping leaders grounded in local ministry.
- Why unity matters. // Before adopting the global model, Warren found itself with competing ministry silos—at one point even running three different discipleship models across campuses. The new structure promotes collaboration, vision-sharing, and consistency, ensuring that ministries move together rather than in competition.
- The player-coach advantage. // Asking leaders to both manage a local ministry and oversee their area globally is demanding, but it builds credibility. Leaders bring ideas from real ministry experience and share them across campuses. To prevent burnout, Warren Church emphasizes intentional rhythms, regular meetings, and clear communication.
- Eight Essential Practices. // To embed culture, Warren Church developed a set of eight essential practices guiding staff behavior. These are celebrated in staff communications, reinforced during onboarding, and reviewed biannually. Practices like “Connect with People” and “Leverage Change to Move the Mission” ensure values don’t stay on the wall but shape daily ministry.
- Keeping it personal. // Even as a large church, Warren prioritizes personal touches. Each location has a paid staff member who oversees the First Impressions Team at that campus, and every first-time guest receives a personal call within the week. With about 70 new guests each Sunday across campuses, that’s more than 3,500 calls annually. Hospital visits, prayer before surgeries, and care for shut-ins also remain a priority, modeling shepherding from the senior pastor down.
- When it’s time to change. // Lane encourages leaders to admit when structures aren’t working, secure leadership buy-in, research and learn from other churches, engage stakeholders early, and clearly communicate the “why” behind changes. Transitioning Warren’s model took about a year of planning, listening, and implementation—but the results have unified and strengthened the church.
Visit warren.church to learn more about Warren Church and reach out to Lane here. Plus, download the Eight Essential Practices document that Lane talks about.
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Portable Church
Your church is doing really well right now, and your leadership team is looking for solutions to keep momentum going! It could be time to start a new location. Maybe you have hesitated in the past few years, but you know it’s time to step out in faith again and launch that next location. Portable Church has assembled a bundle of resources to help you leverage your growing momentum into a new location by sending a part of your congregation back to their neighborhood on Mission. This bundle of resources will give you a step-by-step plan to launch that new or next location, and a 5 minute readiness tool that will help you know your church is ready to do it!
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Well, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Really looking forward to today’s conversation. You are going to be rewarded for tuning in. Thanks for being here. I think we’ve got one of the oldest churches on the hat we’ve ever had on an episode. Warren Church, founded in 1898, is one of the fastest growing churches in the country, which I love that because so many times I think we think of fast growing churches and like there they’re like celebrate their fifth year and they’re so excited for how long they’ve been around.
Rich Birch — But this church has been around for a long time. They’ve got four campuses in South Carolina and Georgia. Southern hospitality, generosity, strong Bible teaching, and a passion for making disciples and multiplying disciple makers have been a heart of Warren from the very beginning and behind all they do. They also have a sports and fitness center programs that really try to minister to the whole person. Lane Lowery is with us today. He is the executive pastor. Welcome to the show. So glad you’re here, Lane.
Lane Lowery — Thank you so much, Rich. I am grateful to be a part of this.
Rich Birch — This is going be a good conversation. Why don’t you kind of fill in the picture? Tell us a little bit. That’s kind of the bio of who the church is. Tell us about the church. Kind of give us the flavor and tell us a little bit about when you say executive pastor. I know as an XP, it’s like every XP looks a little different. Tell us about your role.
Lane Lowery — Sure, sure. Well, as you said, Warren is about 127 year old church. We are multi-site and it’s happened just incredible. We launched our first multi-site campus, Grovetown, right at 11 years ago.
Rich Birch — Nice.
Lane Lowery — And then within the last five years, we’ve adopted two other churches.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Lane Lowery — So we did a church plant, if you will, which you know but was our first multi-site. And then the the Lord brought us two other churches and it’s been incredible.
Lane Lowery — We also have a Hope Women’s Center, which is a crisis pregnancy center that we oversee. And we are just about to launch what we’re calling the Hope Mental Wellness Center um that will open the doors of that in January. And so we’ve already had a counseling ministry going on here, but we’ve expanded that. And we’re really excited about about that.
Lane Lowery — We’ve got a large church staff here and I get to serve as executive pastor. We have another executive pastor as well, which I’ll talk about later on, who is just a phenomenal leader. And and so just grateful that the the Lord allows us to participate in this together. And we’ve got an incredible leader, Dr. David McKinley is our senior pastor. He’s been with us 17 years…
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Lane Lowery — …and the and the Lord has just done ah an incredible work here. As you said, we are in the in the deep South and it is it’s ah it’s a fantastic ministry. I’m grateful that that the Lord has allowed me to be here. I’ve been here 19 years. And I’ve seen a lot of change. I’ve had a front row seat to some exponential growth. And it’s been a lot of fun ah to to be a part of that.
Rich Birch — Why don’t we talk a little bit of metrics there in the time from when you came 19 years ago to today? What does that look like from a growth point of view? Just to give people, I know you’re not like, ah you’re you not a bragging kind of guy.
Lane Lowery — Sure.
Rich Birch — you don’t want to brag about it, but talk us through that. That helps give a little bit of context for the conversation we’re having.
Lane Lowery — Great. Well, when I came here 19 years ago, we were Warren Church, Augusta. That was it. And, um and since then we’ve planted three other churches and we’ve launched a Hope Women’s Center. Like I said, the crisis pregnancy center, and we are in the process of launching a Hope Mental Wellness Center.
Lane Lowery — So we’ve, when I got here, we were, um probably around 3000 members total. We’re over almost 7,000 now.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s amazing.
Lane Lowery — Um, like I said, we’ve, we’ve, we’ve been able to adopt some churches and, and we’ve been able to, just really engage our community in just an incredible way.
Lane Lowery — Obviously, you know, staff is growing. I remember when I got here, our full staff, we could meet in a, in a, in a, like a life group classroom. Now we have to meet in a large, you know, we’re up to 270 employees at this point…
Rich Birch — Wow. Yeah. Yep.
Lane Lowery — …on our, our six campuses, if you will. So we’ve just seen incredible, like said, we just seen the Lord do incredible things over the last 19 years.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Well, I’d love to talk about that, particularly the kind of leadership structure stuff. I know as we, it’s like, everyone sounds great. Let’s add a bunch of staff. Let’s grow that side.
Lane Lowery — Yeah.
Rich Birch — But that does come with some tension. um I’m sure, I’m sure you’ve bumped into things along there that have been a little bit tricky. Talk us through what, what does that look like as the kind of, as your structure has changed over these years?
Lane Lowery — You know, it’s kind of like going from, you know, having no kids to a child and then having two child, you know, two children. And then if you have multiples after that, you you’ve just got to change the way you parent.
Lane Lowery — And, and as our church has gone from one site location to really six now…
Rich Birch — Right.
Lane Lowery — …as as we when you you know think about the other campuses, we just came to a place where we realized a single church model of leadership no longer worked for where we were. You know going from one to two was was was a stretch, but going from two to six, has been a huge stretch.
Lane Lowery — And so as I shared with you, you know we’ve had ah exponential growth, especially over the past five years, Rich, you know adding the the additional campuses and and the additional, you know the the Hope Women’s Center and Hope Mental Wellness Center. You know, so going from two campuses to six campuses, we realized that our single single church yeah and then our dual church model, leadership model was no longer, it just wasn’t effective.
Lane Lowery — It became evident that Dr. McKinley and myself, that we couldn’t effectively oversee the operations and staff on each of our campuses. you know we’ve got incredibly gifted campus pastors and we had to equip and empower them to lead with vision, not just give them tasks, but give them vision and responsibility.
Lane Lowery — So the key tipping point that really caused us to to to regroup and to implement a new leadership structure was when we realized at one point we looked up and we had three different discipleship models going on at our four campuses.
Rich Birch — Oh, gosh. Oh, my goodness.
Lane Lowery — Yeah, yeah. And as we we we noticed that that that just that’s just not to work.
Rich Birch — No, absolutely.
Lane Lowery — And so we also noticed that our former leadership structure didn’t promote, it didn’t promote the the unity and the and the collaboration that we really wanted from our staff team.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Lane Lowery — You know, it felt like our ministry teams, Rich, were in competition with one another rather than really working together as a team. We always use a statement, we’re better together. We really believe that.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Lane Lowery — But the way our our leadership model was structured, it didn’t promote unity. It didn’t promote um it collaboration. And we needed more team collaboration.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. I love that. So yeah, just kind of stepping back statistically, 50% or around 50% of multi-site churches don’t get beyond, still are not getting beyond three locations. And I’m convinced a part of the reason why that is, is because of these issues that this, even just the structure stuff and how we interact with each other, it’s like, it’s working against what we’re trying to do. It’s it’s working against the mission that God’s called us to. So let’s get a little bit practical there.
Lane Lowery — Sure.
Rich Birch — Define in concrete terms. What do you mean? What are the roles? How does that all fit together? How do you, what’s the like, two minute explanation of how you talk about how you stuff gets done at Warren. What’s that look like?
Lane Lowery — Sure. So we we developed this, we call it a global leadership structure. And basically our global leadership team is it’s led by Pastor Andrew Bryan, who’s our executive pastor of ministries and leadership development. One of the best young leaders I’ve ever been around. And this team consists of the following ministry areas. So we have eight global ministry teams.
Lane Lowery — Our preschool and children’s team is led by Carol Young. Our next gen, which is our middle and high school team is led by Pastor Shane Padgett. Our spiritual formation and discipleship team is led by Pastor Corey Baxter. We have a local and and and global missions team, which is led by Pastor Mark Claiborne. We have a global worship team led by Pastor Joseph McKinley. We have a global communications and connections team led by Pastor Drew Robinson, a counseling and support group team led by Pastor Brett Legge. Then our Hope Women’s Center is led by Dr. Jacqueline Hyder.
Lane Lowery — Each of these people are player coaches. They’re overseeing an area of ministry on one of our campuses, but then they’re also overseeing the the greater, the overall ministry for all of the campuses.
Lane Lowery — For example, example Pastor Corey Baxter oversees our spiritual formation and discipleship. That’s our our life group ministry, our Sunday school ministry, if you will, and our discipleship groups and all of our discipleship ministry.
Lane Lowery — So Pastor Corey, he’s on our Grovetown campus and he is the day to day operations for that. But then he also kind of rises up to the 30,000 foot view and he oversees the discipleship and and spiritual formation ministry for all of our campuses. Which is why, we like I said, we got to a point where we looked up one day and we realized we had three different discipleship models going on you know within you know three of our our church campuses.
Lane Lowery — We thought this isn’t this isn’t right. This isn’t working well. So we thought let’s go to a global leadership model so that we have input and someone kind of overseeing over watching that for all of our campuses.
Lane Lowery — Like I said, these guys and girls are our player coaches. They’re they’re on boots on the ground on a campus, but then they rise up and lead the greater ministry of Warren as well.
Rich Birch — So like I’d love to double click on the player coach. That sounds like a conviction that you’ve had.
Lane Lowery — Yes, sir.
Rich Birch — That that’s like something, hey, we want to make sure we don’t just have like the head office people…
Lane Lowery — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …who like are like their whole job is head office. We want them grounded in local ministry. Talk us through that decision. What’s been maybe some of the upside of that, but then also some of the challenge of the player coach model.
Lane Lowery — Well, the the the challenge is it’s it’s a lot more to do.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lane Lowery — You know, they’ve got plenty to say grace over. Just like Pastor Corey, you know, our Grovetown church, they’re running over 2,000 every Sunday…
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Lane Lowery — …or about 1,500 every Sunday, about 1,500, excuse me, and And so he’s got plenty to say grace over just dealing with his own stuff with, with you know, we we believe that every person needs to be in a life group. You know we, you know, we believe every person needs to be in a discipleship relationship. So the challenge is saying, now hey, Pastor Corey, you’re doing a great job, but I’m going to add more to your more to your your your your table, you know.
Rich Birch — Yes. You’re so good at your job, we’re going to give you more.
Lane Lowery — Isn’t that how it works?
Rich Birch — Yes, absolutely.
Lane Lowery — You know find the busiest guy and give them more. But the good thing is we do have high capacity leaders, Rich. I mean, these, these folks are, so we’ve got to be careful not to, to overdo it and not to, you know, meet them to death. But you know, as well as I do, you got to have meetings. I mean, you have to.
Lane Lowery — And and so, so the, the, the, the stretch was, are we giving them too much? But they’ve risen to the, to the, to the challenge and they’ve done a great job. I’m so proud of our team. They’ve done such a great job. And they’re continuing to. So I think it’s a good thing that they’re still in, know, they’re still doing the work of the ministry because it to me, it brings credibility when they come to the table with an idea.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lane Lowery — They’re doing it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lane Lowery — And so the down the only downfall we found is just that I got to be careful that I don’t burn my burn my folks out.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, that’s good. Okay, that’s good. Well, walk us through kind of the decision matrix. This is my language, not your your language, but oftentimes there’s like a global versus campus. There’s like, okay, where who gets to own what? What about local expression versus we’re doing this together as a church? What decisions are campus level by default? What’s get what’s get escalated across the entire church? Talk us through what that looks like.
Lane Lowery — Sure, sure. Well, we we have an executive leadership team and it consists of our senior pastor, Dr. McKinley. It consists of our our Grovetown, each of our campus pastors. ah Pastor Joseph Humphreys is on our Grovetown campus. Pastor Steven Newman is on our Belvedere campus. Pastor Andrew Skelton is on our Crossbridge campus. And then, of course, Andrew Bryan, our other executive pastor. So every Monday we we meet together and everything is funneled through that.
Lane Lowery — So we are constantly every Monday at two. We’re going we’re going to meet every Monday at two o’clock. And, um, and, and so therefore, you know, everything runs through that filter whenever, whenever we’re together. Our senior pastor and executive lead team that they set the vision. We set the vision for the church and the ministry and, you know, an easy example of ah of a global decision and how it translates to the campus level is like our life group ministry, Sunday school, if you will, our life group ministry.
Lane Lowery — We believe that, that biblical community is essential. And we expect every church campus to have a strategy to offer and promote promote life group ministry. You know, when a life group happens to determine, you know, it’s happened to determine at the campus level, you know, like, for example, Grovetown, all of their life groups meet off campus because they don’t have education space throughout the week.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Lane Lowery — So they all of their life groups are in homes during the week. Our other three campuses, we have a hybrid model where we have some groups on campus and some groups off campus. But at the end of the day, we’re going to do life group. We believe that’s a stack pole ministry, just like we’re going to have worship on Sunday morning. We are going to offer life groups. You can offer them on Sunday morning or you can offer them in in homes during the week. But we are going to offer life groups.
Lane Lowery — So that’s kind of one of those big picture things that that we are that we make sure is happening on each of our campuses that we’re intentional about that. We are intentionally trying to get people from the pew into the life group.
Lane Lowery — It’s a little bit more difficult when you take them from um you know being on campus versus in homes. You’ve got to be a little more intentional about it. But to me, that’s that’s one of those big picture items that that we you know we’re pretty hard, hard pressed. So we’re going to to have life groups.
Rich Birch — So again, I’m I’m trying, cause I know there’s people that are listening in that, that are living in the tension of this and they’re trying to sort this out. Talk me through the kind of, in other contexts, we’ve talked about the dotted line, solid line responsibility. So like, who is the first mover? So there’s something, using your example, there’s something happening in a campus like, hey, we’re not seeing, you know, maybe enough people are experiencing that kind of life group, biblical community. That’s not happening ah well in one campus. Which team is that is going to be the team that’s going to be like, okay, we got to solve this. Is it the global leadership team or the executive team or both, or a combo of both? Or how does that, how does that work together?
Lane Lowery — Yeah, that’s a great question. I’m counting on our global leads having their finger on the pulse of what’s going on with each of their areas of ministry.
Rich Birch — Okay. Yep.
Lane Lowery — You know, singly as as well as globally. Obviously as an executive team, we, we look at statistics every Monday.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Lane Lowery — I’ve got our, I get, I bring a report to that meeting every Monday on attendance on, you know, worship attendance, life group attendance, all of that. So you know, we’re, we’re seeing it as well, but, but I’m counting on my global leads to, to, to, that’s why it’s important that they’re also in the mix, not just leading…
Rich Birch — Right.
Lane Lowery — …but they’re also in the mix with it. So I’m counting on them to, to bring to us any issues or problems they may be facing or any hurdles that they need to try to get over. And then we can speak into that and help them do that. But that’s why we can’t be all places at all times, but, but that’s why we have teams that are doing that. So that’s really, has really helped.
Lane Lowery — And, and also going to this global leadership model, it’s it’s allowed us to employ more people into ministry who, like i said, aren’t just task people. They’re casting vision, said leading, and and so we’re counting on them to do that.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Okay. That’s good. How do you, um, kind of an adjacent issue, the global leadership team is the expectation that they’re getting out and seeing other campuses, like actually getting onto other locations on Sundays. What does that, what’s the rhythm look like on that front?
Lane Lowery — Yeah, that’s fantastic. Honestly, yes, Rich, they we need them to. And what we’ve challenged our staff to do, and it’s hard because like I said, you got enough to say grace over in your own on your own campus on a Sunday morning…
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah. Yes.
Lane Lowery — …but we’ve challenged all of our staff to try to get to another campus at least one time during the year. That’s all staff people. That’s not just the global leads. That’s, you know, that’s a you know Beth Power, our our our Augusta preschool director, I’d love for Beth to be able to put her eyes on each of our campuses at least one time during during during the year. And they’re doing that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lane Lowery — And when they do, it it brings greater you know unity. And she sees ideas. Every time I go to a new one of our other campuses, I see them doing something new. It’s so cool to see. Like I said, we’ve got incredibly gifted leaders and they’re smart and they’re doing great stuff. But I would never know about it if I didn’t go get on one of their campuses.
Lane Lowery — But we got to be intentional about it. It doesn’t just happen. Like I said, on Sunday morning, my home base, if you would be, is on the Augusta campus. But I’ve got to make myself say, no, I’m going to I’m going not be signed up for any new duties that this Sunday. I’m going to go to the Crossbridge campus this Sunday.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Lane Lowery — But it’s got to be an intentional. It’s like putting it on your calendar. I’ve got to do that or it won’t happen.
Rich Birch — Yeah, you got to plan for it. Yeah, absolutely.
Lane Lowery — So we constantly talk to our staff about doing that, especially for our global leads. I have to have them doing that.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. That’s great. Pivoting in a kind of a slightly different direction, but talking about obviously these same issues, um you had passed along a document that caught my attention, the eight essential practices document that really defines, talks through, you you know the behaviors really of your team. Talk us through how has this these eight essential practices, how have they helped really take this kind of thing from being like, those are nice ideas sitting on a wall somewhere…
Lane Lowery — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …to like actually making a difference in the way you operate. Talk us through this and we’ll put it, we’ll link to this in the show notes for folks that are listening in.
Lane Lowery — Sure, sure. Well, what you said is exactly what we didn’t want to happen. This came out of a strategic leadership meeting that our executive team went on almost two years ago now. And that’s what we, you know, you’ve done this too. You know, you’re an XP.
Lane Lowery — You go to a conference, something you get some great stuff and you and you bring it back. And next thing you know, it’s in a folder or it’s up on your shelf. We didn’t want to do that. So what we do, this is, so we constantly celebrate it. When we see somebody doing it, we celebrate it. Every person who is hired during the onboarding process, this is part of the onboarding process. They get a copy of this and their leader, their supervisor reviews it with them.
Lane Lowery — We do biannual reviews. We have review in March and in April, excuse me, September and and in April. And our September review is literally, they are reviewed on how they are um working through the eight essential practices.
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Lane Lowery — Each of these are on that review and we walk through that with them and we talk through that with them. You know, so, so we, like I said, so we make sure that that that we are, it but it’s becoming a part of our DNA. It’s only two years old, but it really is now becoming our DNA.
Lane Lowery — We send out a a monthly email um staff email, because again, you’ve got so much going on try to keeping trying to keep everyone informed of what’s going on, upcoming events. We celebrate birthdays and and you know staff anniversaries. And we always highlight a an eight essential, somebody who who’s done the eight essential practices.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Lane Lowery — Plus there’s always a link in that, Rich, that if you see somebody doing that, you can click on that link and type up a little synopsis, you know sharing some information, how they saw so-and-so, you know, exhibiting one of these practices. So we’re really trying to push this in, making it part of our DNA.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I love it. It’s so good. One of the ones that caught me, there’s a lot of—friends, I would encourage you to check out this document and go and do likewise. You know, don’t rip off their stuff, but come up with your your own on this. But one of the ones that caught my attention was ah connect with people.
Rich Birch — So one of the misnomers about very large churches like yours is that people aren’t connected, that it’s just everybody coming to the show. That’s actually statistically not true. Churches over 2,000 have a higher percentage of people connected to small groups and in volunteering opportunities than a church under 200. What specific behaviors do you expect from your staff to keep the ministry as high touch as possibly can as a large church?
Rich Birch — And how do you, how does it measure that? What’s that actually look like?
Lane Lowery — Sure. Great question, man. That’s a great question. We always use the word, in order to grow bigger, we got to grow smaller. Obviously, we got to get people in life groups and in that small group community. But we place a high value on our First Impressions Team ministry. And therefore, we have paid. We have a paid person who oversees our F.I.T. ministry—First Impressions Team—on each of our campuses because it’s so important, especially on a large church.
Lane Lowery — You know, we’ll have over 2000 people on the Augusta campus on Sunday morning. We want people to be seen and known and welcomed. And so we call every first time guest. Now, on typical Sunday, we’ll have 70 first time guest guests across our our four campuses, but they will get a personal phone call within that week.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love it.
Lane Lowery — We we make sure that that it’s happening within that week. And our Connections Pastor helps facilitate that. So we have, you know, first time you know guest calls. If you’re a first time guest on a campus, we give you a gift and we we want to engage with them. We still visit people in the hospitals.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Lane Lowery — We place a high priority on that, Rich. We you know we’ve got hospital lists from each of our campuses and we we have a person we have you know pastors on staff who go visit folks in hospitals. We pray with people before surgeries. We visit our shut-in our shut-in members. And so we we really do place a high value on that.
Lane Lowery — One of the best things is our senior pastor has a gift of shepherding. He’s a pastor shepherd. And so he exhibits that behavior as well. But it is a high value for us. And we spend time talking about it and we invest money in it.
Rich Birch — That’s so good. I love that. Friends, I want to underline something. You blew over it really quick, but I want to underline something here. You talked about 70, you know, guests a week, all getting personal calls.
Rich Birch — I’ve said this in other contexts. You know, we’ve talked about that kind of thing being a best practice. Like, hey, we’ve got to reach out to people. We can’t just send them an email. We got to try to connect. So friends, that’s over 3,500 calls a year that this church is doing. That’s a commitment to, I’ve had churches much smaller than your church say, there’s no way we can organize to call five people a week, 10 people a week.
Rich Birch — Friends, you got to do that kind of thing. That’s what a great inspiration for us. Another one of these, again, friends, check the link below that really caught my eye was, I don’t think I’ve ever seen this in a change document quite, or like a culture document like, like this.
Rich Birch — You said leverage change to move the mission. It talks about the idea of how flexibility and kind of looking for what’s going to you know need to be adapted in the future is embedded in your staff culture. So what did you stop doing? What’s that look like? How are you simplifying?
Lane Lowery — Yeah.
Rich Birch — I love that that’s embedded right in your staff essentials. Love that.
Lane Lowery — Well, I mean, something immediately came to mind is we changed our worship times, you know, um and and that’s no, I mean, that’s a…
Rich Birch — It’s a big deal.
Lane Lowery — …pretty big deal, but we changed our worship times on all four of our campuses. And two of our campuses, we added more time between the worship services so that they could onload and offload their campuses. Because of, so you know, praise God. I mean, it’s a winner’s problem, you know, because so many people are coming.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lane Lowery — So at the end of the day, we said, you know, the we loved our our original times, but we we had to do something different to help with the with the growth situation. So we changed our worship times and you know and went through that whole process of doing that across. And we even allowed ourselves to allow different campuses to to to to set up times that’s bet that best fits them.
Lane Lowery — You know i’m saying? We’re not like, well, bless God, everybody’s going to do it at this time, at that time. We’re saying, look, what what works best in your individual context? So we you know that’s what we did. We just that that was the thing that came to my mind immediately. That’s something we just did within the last year was change those worship times. And it made sense. Because we were setting away how we did it for many, many years, but it’s worked really well.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. Well, I love how, you know, what you’re hearing, friends that are listening in, you’re hearing, here’s a church that took some bold steps to try to change their structure, to try to better have their structure better serve where they were as a church and looking to the future, which is fantastic. I think inspiration for lots of us as we’re thinking about those kinds of issues.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I want to leverage you as a coach. Let’s say there’s a church listening in today who knows, maybe it’s an XP of a church of 1500. And they’re like, gosh, we know that maybe our structure not working. We’re at that, you know we’ve launched a couple locations. We’re trying to stretch to three or four. We’ve got vision for that.
Rich Birch — What would be some first steps, maybe 30 day, 60 day, 90 day steps that you would suggest that a church leader would take based on where you’ve gone through as you’ve kind of, um you know, reoriented your structure, tried to get better on this front. Help us think about that.
Lane Lowery — That’s a great question, Rich. First, I think you got to be willing to admit your structure is outdated or it’s not working.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Lane Lowery — You know, change is hard and and and, you know, not a whole lot of people like change, but it’s one of our essentials. So we’ve we’ve got to be able to embrace it and be willing to to look at things differently.
Lane Lowery — Second, I think your leadership um has to be willing to change.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Lane Lowery — You know, you you know, if if one guy on the staff wants to do it but no one else does. Well, that’s that’s gonna be tough. Third, you you need to identify where you currently are and where you want to go and the why behind It’s kind of like the old statement where you start with the end in mind.
Lane Lowery — You know, don’t, I don’t think you need to change just for this you know to change, but if something’s not working, and and you need to you need to know the why. If this it’s not, then you got to be willing to embrace it and and work to make the change.
Lane Lowery — Next, I think you got to develop a new leadership structure that’ll help you accomplish your desired outcome. Look at what you’re doing. I called a number of churches before we did this.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s good.
Lane Lowery — I mean, I really cut and looked and I saw some things that were happening. I tell you, Family Church down in for yeah down in West Palm is doing a great job. And honestly, I modeled our ministry after what they’re doing.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love it.
Lane Lowery — It fits us, our context.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that.
Lane Lowery — But they had it figured out, man. And I’m not afraid to go find out you know what other people are doing. That’s that’s winning.
Rich Birch — 100%.
Lane Lowery — Then seek buy-in from your key leaders and stakeholders. What we did was was once we started, you know, developing this structure, I went to those those those team leads that we had identified. And I sat down and myself and Andrew Bryan, our other executive pastor, sat down and had conversation with them. And we really shared with them the why, because guess what? We’re getting ready to add a bunch of stuff to their plate. And and and they had to I had to have their buy in before it to work. And praise the Lord, they all bought in, man. They saw their they saw the need for it. They felt the pain of not doing it.
Lane Lowery — So, you know, so we we met with we took the time to have hour long meetings with all of those key stakeholders and they got and got their buy-in. And finally, we made the change. You know, we just finally had to jump and do it.
Rich Birch — What was the timeline, you know, in your from like, hey, I think we need to make a change through research phase all the way through to adoption? How long did that process take?
Lane Lowery — I’m embarrassed to tell you about a year. I would figure it’s something like that.
Rich Birch — No, that’s not unreal.
Lane Lowery — Yeah.
Rich Birch — I say that because it’s like, it doesn’t it it can’t happen overnight if you’re going to do it well.
Lane Lowery — Yeah.
Rich Birch — You know and and you’ve got to walk people through it. That does that makes sense. So about a year, that that’s good. What part of it was the longest piece of the the puzzle?
Lane Lowery — Figuring out exactly how it would work in our context. You know, I saw what Family Church was doing there. Now no they’re, I think they’re up to 15 campuses or something like that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lane Lowery — But I saw, you know, and so seeing what they were doing as well as some other churches and then saying, OK, how can this really work for Warren Church? How can it really? And so really figuring that out and then presenting that to our our our senior pastor and our our global pastors. Because at the end of the day, their people are are are going to have to take on more responsibility and do some things. And so getting getting there buy-in. And the cool thing, that was a pretty quick buy-in on their part.
Lane Lowery — And then implementing it. So just developing that whole structure and showing the need for it and then implementing it was about about about a year.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. That that you know that doesn’t surprise me at all. I think it takes time to work it through. I love the idea of listening to other churches. Obviously, that’s actually at the core of why we started this podcast was you know we’re 800 and some odd episodes in. I really do think, man, there’s ah we should be working together as a body of Christ…
Lane Lowery — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …and somebody else has faced most of the problems that we face as a church. Let’s go find them, talk with them, ask those questions.
Rich Birch — So this has been fantastic. As we come to kind of land today’s episode, anything else you’d love to share? Any kind of final words or encouragements that people might be listening in today?
Lane Lowery — Yeah, I think, Rich, I think that the biggest thing is communication, you know, amongst our staff.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Lane Lowery — You know, we we we’ve grown so much, which has been incredible. And we’ve added so many more staff members. And and I know a lot of people don’t like meetings and I don’t like to have meetings for the sake of meeting. That’s why I encourage every person if you’re gonna have a meeting, make sure you have an agenda, make sure you have a set time, but but you gotta get together.
Lane Lowery — And and so I think the biggest thing that’s helped us to make for this move to be successful. And it has been successful. I’m really encouraged by that is, is we have an executive leadership meeting every Monday at two o’clock.
Lane Lowery — Our global leaders meet twice a month. Our global leaders meet with their teams twice a month.
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Lane Lowery — Every campus has a Tuesday at two o’clock staff meeting every week. And and that’s for some people go, my gosh, that’s that’s six meetings. But yeah, it it is. But they’re meetings with purpose.
Rich Birch — Yep, that’s good.
Lane Lowery — And and they’re not, you know, three and a half hour meetings there, you know, 45 minutes to an hour um with with an agenda, with action steps. When the meeting’s over, people walk out of there knowing what the next thing with what the next thing is.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Lane Lowery — But being willing to do that and seeing that that it really is important because there’s so many moving parts. And if we’re not all on the same page, something’s going to break down.
Rich Birch — 100%.
Lane Lowery — But it it takes getting together face-to-face, you know, email when you when you need to, but those face-to-face meetings are really important.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I agree. Totally. And well And even the way you’re thinking about it there, I think is critical for folks to lean in on is thinking clearly on kind of what the system of meetings is, like when is the best time to have the right meeting? I love the idea of like, hey, all are the thing like you’ve said, hey, our campus teams all have a Tuesday at two meeting. It’s like predictable. We know exactly.
Rich Birch — We’ve got to make this we’ve got to make the rhythm of what we do the weekly. Hey, every weekend so it comes, whether we like it or not…
Lane Lowery — Yes, sir.
Rich Birch — …use that rhythm to help us push the culture forward rather than being kind of overwhelmed by it.
Rich Birch — Well, Lane, this has been a fantastic conversation. I really appreciate you investing time in us today. If people want to connect with you or connect with the church, where do we want to send them online?
Lane Lowery — Yeah, just go to Warren.Church, and that that’s our website. And you connect with me right there my on the staff page. My email address LaneL at Warren.Church.
Rich Birch — Love it. Thanks so much, Lane. Appreciate being here today, sir.
Lane Lowery — Blessings to you, Rich. Thank you.
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Dr. Chris Vaught, lead pastor of Connection Point Church (CPC) in Missouri. Under his leadership, CPC has grown from 300 people in 2011 to over 2,500 today across multiple campuses. With a passion for raising up the next generation of kingdom leaders, Chris has built a leadership development pipeline and launched the Connection Point Leadership College to multiply impact far beyond the church walls.
Is your church struggling to develop leaders and sustain growth? In this episode, Chris shares how the church equips volunteers, creates leadership pathways, and empowers everyday people to lead with clarity and purpose.
- Raise the bar for volunteers. // At Connection Point, volunteers aren’t just an extra set of hands—they are recognized as unpaid staff. Each role comes with a written job description outlining time commitments, responsibilities, and cultural values. This kind of intentionality elevates ownership, raises expectations, and ultimately increases the sense of purpose among those serving. Volunteers rise to the challenge when treated with dignity and entrusted with meaningful responsibility.
- Find your Timothy. // Each staff member should develop a “Timothy”—a person they’re investing in who could step into their role if needed. This mindset of multiplication ensures continuity and creates a built-in culture of mentorship. By identifying and pouring into potential leaders, churches develop stronger teams and deeper bench strength over time.
- Four-Step Discipleship Path. //Chris and his team designed a clear discipleship and leadership journey: Starting Point (intro to church/DNA), Life Groups (discipleship) or Serve Teams (leadership development), Equip Workshops (10-week leadership training), and the Leadership College (10month internship program). This structured progression gives people consistent next steps for growth.
- Connection Point Leadership College. // At the top of CPC’s leadership pipeline is its 10-month internship program, designed for both future church leaders and marketplace leaders. Full-time interns spend two days a week in intensive theology and leadership training, alongside hands-on departmental experience. A hybrid model allows working adults to participate online. In partnership with Evangel University, graduates earn 12 college credit hours.
- Marketplace and ministry. // The Leadership College trains vocational leaders, but marketplace discipleship is equally critical. Leadership competencies are meant to extend into schools, businesses, sports teams, and families. This mobilizes the congregation to carry out ministry wherever they live and work, not just inside the church.
- Identify leadership types. // Drawing from Larry Osborne, Chris distinguishes between “big L leaders,” who drive growth and innovation, and “shepherds,” who nurture and care for people. Both are vital to church health. Place leaders strategically based on these traits to maximize impact and sustainability.
- Develop a leadership pathway. // The number one gift to give your Timothy is an investment in them. Sit down with them and talk. Ask how you can pray for them and care for them. Then give a quick update of what is going on and teach them some leadership competency. Help them build confidence in their leadership and celebrate with them.
To learn more about Connection Point Church and their Leadership College, visit yourcpc.church
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Super excited for today’s conversation. I know I say that lots, but I really mean it today. We’re talking about an area that I think, frankly, lots of our churches should be leaning in on and learning more about and asking the question, how can we improve this area? Excited to have Dr. Chris Vaught with us. We got a doctor on the episode today.
Rich Birch — He’s the lead pastor of Connection Point Church. This is one of the fastest growing churches in the country. And if I’m counting correctly, Currently two campuses in Missouri. They have a passion for raising up the next generation of kingdom leaders and they’ve developed the Connection Point Leadership College. Super excited to have you on the show today, Chris. Thanks for being here.
Chris Vaught — Hey, I’m excited, Rich. So excited to be here and get to share a little bit about what God’s doing with us. And of course, we’re constantly learning from you and all the other great hosts or leaders you have on your podcast with you and just excited and humbled to be to be able to share a little bit of our story. So thanks.
Rich Birch — Well, yeah, I’m, I’m excited to have you and to have, you know, I really do think this is going to be an area. I know a lot of us are wrestling with how do we do this well? How do we develop leaders? And, but, but kind of, you know, tell us a bit of the story, kind of set the table for us. Tell us about Connection and you know, what, you know, if what, if we were to come this weekend, what would we experience? Give us a kind of a flavor of the church. Talk us through that a little bit.
Chris Vaught — Yeah, so Connection Point Church, we’re located in Jackson, Missouri. We’re about two hours south of St. Louis, down toward the Boot Hill, is what the area calls it, right. Just outside of Cape Girardeau. So there’s, between Cape Girardeau and Jackson, total driving distance around the church, you know, 20 minutes. We’ll probably lean in to around 70,000 people. Jackson itself is a small town of 15,000.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Chris Vaught — But it’s ah it’s very it’s it’s a very fast growing area as far as young families moving in. The school systems are excellent. Sports teams, Southeast Missouri University is over in Cape Girardeau. And so um so there’s a lot of energy in the area.
Chris Vaught — And so for CPC, we’ve actually kind of designed all our ministries to fit the mode of this area. I’m a firm believer we should bloom where we’re planted, right? And so how can we get into this community? And over over the ah the past 14 years, that’s been our goal.
Chris Vaught — We came here in 2011 and church was running about 300 the time. We had a traditional service and a contemporary service and was just trying the church was just trying to feel that piece out and what that looked like and how to get into the community.
Chris Vaught — And God just began to put the pieces together in 2012. We we changed our name to Connection Point because we wanted the people in the community to know what our church was about. I mean, there’s churches, you know, on every corner in our area. And so what set this church apart? What is our niche? And we wanted it to be about connections.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Chris Vaught — Number one, a connected relationship with Christ. And then, relationships with people. So ah throughout the past 14 years, that’s become our emphasis, right? Getting out in the community, making those connections, and then making sure that the relationship with Christ is real and personal, not just religion.
Chris Vaught — We’re a very religious area. So we wanted really to build off of the relationship aspect. So from that, okay, so by 2019, we had bought 28 acres across town, built a new campus, and we moved into this campus with about 800 people in 2019.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Absolutely.
Chris Vaught — So we we made a lot of transitions from 2011 to 2019, and we’d grown from 300 to about 800. Of course, we all know what happened with 2020 and and covid. That all came four months after we built this brand new campus.
Rich Birch — Oh no. Perfect timing. Perfect timing.
Chris Vaught — I was literally teaching the membership class. We call it Starting Point…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Chris Vaught — …to get new people connected to the church, when the phone call came into the church…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Chris Vaught — …that the government, the governing leaders of Missouri was asking the churches to stop meeting in public because of COVID.
Rich Birch — Wow. Right.
Chris Vaught — And I was teaching the membership class when that night, when that came in. I mean, I was teaching and my staff was in the back waving me down, said, hey, we just got a message.
Rich Birch — Oh my goodness.
Chris Vaught — I was like, are you kidding me?
Rich Birch — Wow. You’re giving me a little PTSD here. That’s those are those are dark days, man. That was, you know, hard to look back on.
Chris Vaught — They were, man. But you know what? Our income jumped 18% over the four months that we were shut down because our our people just built this building.
Rich Birch — Right.
Chris Vaught — They were scared we were going to lose it.
Rich Birch — Right. Wow. They leaned in nothing like adverse advert. Uh, can’t say that word adverity to draw people in. That’s amazing.
Chris Vaught — Yeah, they they jumped in, man. That was incredible. Came back. We came back actually, I think Father’s Day weekend or right after Father’s Day that June to back in-person services. When we came back, we came back with 600 people.
Rich Birch — Okay. Yep.
Chris Vaught — So building back on that foundation of 600, what God did next was absolutely phenomenal to us. So from 2021, we’d gotten back up to 1100. From 2022 to 2024, we doubled in size.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Chris Vaught — And today, if you came here this weekend, there’ll be there’ll be a little over 2500 people on the campus.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s incredible. Praise God.
Chris Vaught — And three services, and then we have about 30 miles away, 10 months ago, we launched our first multisite campus.
Chris Vaught — And I have to tell you, Rich, about this campus. It’s 30 miles away.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Chris Vaught — It’s in the second poorest county of our state.
Rich Birch — Wow. Wow.
Chris Vaught — It’s in a town of 1,700 people, a county of 10,000 people. And God has blessed that little campus
Rich Birch — Wow.
Chris Vaught — And it’s been the largest church in the county since day one.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Chris Vaught — And they’re running about 350 in a town of 1700.
Rich Birch — That’s amazing. That’s incredible.
Chris Vaught — So we have this motto.
Rich Birch — Praise God.
Chris Vaught — We want see God do something only he can get the credit for.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Chris Vaught — And to be honest, right now, that’s that’s what you that’s what we’re seeing. But that’s the atmosphere you feel if you were to come on the campus this weekend. There’s just that anticipation.
Rich Birch — Wow. Well, that’s incredible to hear. And, you know, it’s, it does seem like that kind of post COVID. I know it’s like, I don’t know at what point we’re going to stop saying that kind of thing, but like, it’s a big deal obviously. And, and it’s like an inflection point we all went through. And it does seem like post COVID there was like, they at one point they were talking about the K recovery that there was like, some churches have come out not doing well. They’re struggling. And there are churches like Connection Point that are accelerating.
Rich Birch — And in like an odd sort of way, we look back and are like thankful for that time. We say something happened there that focused us. And we came back with, you know, even more, you know, drive and and all of that, which is amazing to hear. But I can imagine in the midst of all that kind of getting to where we’re we’re talking about today, talk, you know, developing leaders, trying to scale up. Every church has a problem finding leaders. How do i get people to actually take the ministry and run with it?
Rich Birch — You’ve made some changes on this front that, you know, have really helped, I think, accelerate some of this growth. But why don’t you talk us through when what’s that look like for you in the last couple of years?
Chris Vaught — Yeah, so coming in right just before COVID, we knew as we were growing, we just could sense, you know, hey, this is picking up. God’s given some good opportunities. We have to spread this out. we’re We’re in Southeast Missouri.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Chris Vaught — This is not a hotbed for people who don’t move here to take on a position. We started thinking through and looking at the New Testament, too. You can only hire out so much, right? Because even though our church has grown fast, budget always comes up last. So you have to look at other avenues other than just, oh, I’ll hire another position. So we started looking in the congregation. We began to develop our own leadership pathway or pipeline to develop, not only volunteers, but our future staff.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Chris Vaught — We knew we grew really fast, we need to hire from within, but we still couldn’t hire every position.
Rich Birch — Yep. Right.
Chris Vaught — So we started looking at our volunteers as almost as non-paid staff positions. And so creating an atmosphere of expectation of roles and responsibilities, and also the value of what they’re doing.
Rich Birch — So true.
Chris Vaught — That the kingdom is dependent upon all of us using our gifts and talents. And so we started this pathway. And at first it was simply a challenge to every staff member. You go find your Timothy, you go find one other person that you can invest yourself into—a volunteer—so that if on Saturday night, and here was kind of the criteria for us, if on Saturday night, something were to happen and you catch ah COVID, okay, we’re at that time period or the flu, could this ministry run the next day because of the person you have personally equipped to hold the ministry?
Rich Birch — I love that clarity. Yeah, that’s so good.
Chris Vaught — And we began putting those little pieces says together.
Rich Birch — I love that. So sorry. That’s right. Sorry, you go ahead. I cut you off there. That’s so good.
Chris Vaught — No, no, no. I was just saying that’s this so’s what we began. We began this pipeline, and that’s that was really the basic level at first. Every staff member finding that one Timothy, if you will, if you want to use that terminology, that could run that ministry if you were out.
Rich Birch — I love there’s a lot of clarity there. I love that. Even just the practicality of like, hey, on Saturday night, somebody calls. Who can take this? Who can take your piece? I think that’s that’s so good. Break up a mindset for us. You talk about kind of, you know, use the phrase non-paid staff members. You’re setting a high bar for volunteers, like a high, high calling.
Rich Birch — I think there’s a lot of staff in our churches who are like, oh, like I can’t ask that of a volunteer. I can’t that they’re not, they’re like paid to do other things. And like, man, they either, they are not good enough is the mindset problem. There’s no way they could do it. Or that’s way too much for me to put on them. Break that mindset up for me.
Chris Vaught — Yeah, because we’ve tackled that mindset over and over and over again. Bob Russell, who who I consider to be a mentor in my life, he challenged me years ago, early on in this process. When you’re hiring staff, he would tell his staff at Southeast, if I hire you to to develop and to coach others to do, if I catch you doing, you’re fired, right? I mean, it was that kind of mindset.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Chris Vaught — And getting that across, first of all, to your staff. That it doesn’t have to be 100% of your ability. That our ministry, according to Ephesians 4, is to raise up the congregation to go do the ministry.
Chris Vaught — And now let’s paint a bigger picture of why that’s important. If we have a church of 150 and you’ve got two staff members, you’ve actually got 150 priests of God.
Rich Birch —Right. Yeah, I love it.
Chris Vaught — A royal priesthood. You can do more if they all do 30% of what you can do, spread out over the multitudes, then you can give all week long. And guess what? You don’t have to ruin your marriage or your health in the process. We spread this out.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Chris Vaught — It’s tackling that perfect mindset. The other issues we had to tackle, and you mentioned it, is this, well, I don’t want to ask them to do this. People will rise up to the level of expectation.
Rich Birch — So true.
Chris Vaught — So what we began doing was, is we actually created job descriptions for every volunteer row. And in that job description, it may say, this will require you on a weekly basis, X amount of time. Here’s how you prepare. Here’s who you report to. Here’s what’s expected. And here are the values we want you to conduct yourself with. People respond well to that.
Rich Birch — 100%.
Chris Vaught — People need clarity. People need to know, okay, if I’m gonna serve on the usher team or the parking team or the worship team, here is the level of expectation. They know whether or not they can get into it.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Chris Vaught — It clears up a lot of miscommunication. It makes people feel valued and you can do it in the right way with positivity and motivation.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I love the clarity of job descriptions, getting it all written down. I think is is incredible. So, you know, what that it started with this simple idea, a simple idea, hard to execute. I feel like, hey, you find a Timothy, Ephesians 4. But it’s more robust today. When you say pipeline, give me like a simple definition of that. How do you explain that to like somebody who maybe is struggling with it? Maybe a staff member, elder, leader type person. When you say, you know, leadership pipeline, what does that mean? What’s that mental model for you?
Chris Vaught — Yeah, for us, we tell them we’re putting them on a pathway.
Rich Birch — Okay. Love it.
Chris Vaught — You’re here, but we want to put you on a pathway to help mature you and grow you and develop you and your skills that God has already given you, because that’s where you’re going to find fulfillment.
Chris Vaught — That’s where you’re going to find the energy and the motivation to go long term. But this is this is a process of development.
Chris Vaught — ah You know, we come to faith in Christ and we often talk about our salvation like it’s a done deal at one moment, one little prayer, one baptism, you know, now it’s done.
Chris Vaught — Yes, we may be instantly brought into the family of God, but there’s a whole life of sanctification and discipleship and development.
Rich Birch — That’s so true.
Chris Vaught — And so painted is a picture of this exciting pathway that we’re going to be on. And these are just this is a part of your path. We call it the discipleship path. And we kind of just draw it out for our people. We show them, hey, we’re getting ready to take you on a journey. And it’s a lifelong journey.
Chris Vaught — We got I got the concept from the Jewish concept of a disciple to a rabbi called a Talmud.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Chris Vaught — And one of the cool definitions that learned years ago on what is a Talmud, one of the definitions is a Talmud is the shadow of their rabbi.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Chris Vaught — In the in the Middle East, they would actually say a disciple knew they had arrived when they were mistaken for their rabbi out in the community.
Rich Birch — Oh, I love that. That’s so good.
Chris Vaught — So think about we are to become like Christ. We should be mistaken for his character, his heart, his attitude, right? But in a much smaller sense, part of that process comes into how we operate in and through the church, how we use our gift sets. The church’s responsibility is to help put them on a path…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Chris Vaught — …to begin to develop what that shadow looks like.
Rich Birch — How do you, so I love that. It’s a very vivid metaphor. What does that look like practically going from metaphor to like, okay, that sounds like the kind of thing I want to be a part of. I want to be a shadow. I want to I want to you know grow. How are you structuring that and and doing that at scale? I think it makes sense in the kind of rabbi, you know, a follower kind of thing. But you know, you’re you’re talking about, you guys have grown by hundreds, thousands of people in the last few years. How have you been able to, to make those two things work? A relational, you know, discipleship experience that is, that is deep, but it has some sort of structure to it. What’s that look like?
Chris Vaught — Yeah, so so the structure is going to be as people are coming into church, are new here, are next steps, so we’re always pushing them to that very first next step, which for us is Starting Point.
Rich Birch — Okay, yep.
Chris Vaught — There they’re learning the DNA and we actually talk this language to them at that introductory night of us explaining, here’s who we are at CPC, here’s our DNA. And we give them that next step. What does that look like?
Chris Vaught — For one, it’s maybe just joining a serve team. Now, not everybody’s ready to join something on a Sunday, but that’s a starting point. And we begin to teach these leadership competencies and explain to them, hey, there’s a path that we want to put you on.
Chris Vaught — Then included with that serve team is something we call Equip Workshops.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Chris Vaught — These are about 10 week workshops. We do two to three times a year where people we market it to the congregation, to our serve teams. They sign up. We’re going to teach you about your circle of influence. How Replicate gave us this concept, um Replicate Ministries, and it’s helping them find their kingdom circle, right?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Chris Vaught — Because everyone has a circle of in influence. And what does that look like as you use your gift sets to serve?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Chris Vaught — And so our goal of then is to not only get involved in Sunday Sunday morning or so or weekly serving opportunities here, we want it to stretch beyond. If we’re going to reach our community, I need them and taking the same competencies onto their job.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Chris Vaught — I need them to take the same competencies to the traveling sports teams, right, wherever they’re living their life out. Then the next step we introduce them to is our leadership college, Connection Point Leadership College, CPLC. And that’s a 10-month internship program where it is it is straight on leadership, skill, competencies. We tell them, we’re going to teach you as if you’re going into vocational ministry. But we invite people who don’t feel a call to vocational ministry because we tell them, we need disciples living out their gift sets in the secular world, not just inside the church.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Chris Vaught — And so there’s two ways of coming into that college, which is one step of it. There is the on-campus intern, where you’re actually taking classes and practical ministry, shadowing, being involved in the ministries here on campus.
Chris Vaught — But then we have a hybrid edition, which is online. And that’s for those who have to work a full-time job, can’t come on the campus, and maybe they’re wanting to learn the biblical leadership competencies, and apply them to the secular world.
Rich Birch — That’s fascinating. I want to come back to the leadership college in a minute. I want to put a bookmark in that, but taking a step back to the serve team and Equip Workshops, talk to me about, like, I think some churches would come to the moment of, like, when they’re trying to get people in connection and connected and into some sort of discipleship relationship, and they would actually push more towards groups, you know, rather than teams.
Rich Birch — Now, I’m not trying to I’m not trying to pick a fight here. Obviously, we want people to do both, but talk to me about that decision around, hey, we’re going to kind of go the team’s route and then add Equip. Because I think it’s a really interesting model of like, then add these workshops, which kind of drives some of that depth discipleship stuff to people who are serving, I’m assuming, but talk us through that.
Chris Vaught — Yeah, so just for clarification, we do we do do life groups as well. But if it’s more for leadership development, we push them toward the serving.
Rich Birch — Yep, that makes sense. Yep, that makes sense.
Chris Vaught — Kind of like two different pockets, if you will.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Chris Vaught — And some are going to switch over to both.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Chris Vaught — Some will start and serve and eventually lead into a life group.
Rich Birch — Okay, that makes sense.
Chris Vaught — Others may start a life group and come over to a serve team. Life groups are going to be a lot more discipleship based while serve teams is discipleship with an emphasis on leadership competencies. Just because the faster we grow, the more we have to make sure we’re developing leaders not just attenders if you will.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Chris Vaught — And discipleship carrying on that serving aspect. So if you looked at if if I drew my pathway out for you on this journey of course you go to Starting Point the next one is either join a life group or a serve team.
Rich Birch — Yeah, OK. Yep.
Chris Vaught — But then if you go into the serve team we’re going to really push you to these kingdom circles and circles of influence and then to the leadership college, if that makes sense.
Rich Birch — That makes total sense. Yep. That makes total sense. Well, let’s talk about the leadership college. Like give me a bit more kind of framework for what that looks like. Is it literally like full-time internship, 10 months, 40 hours a week? Talk us through that.
Chris Vaught — Yeah. So um first of all, we don’t make it easy to attend our leadership college.
Rich Birch — I love it. We’re not going to make it easy. We’re not putting the cookies on the bottom shelf. Love it.
Chris Vaught — We didn’t. And we say it up front.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Chris Vaught — So if you go into this, you’re going into it with intentionality.
Chris Vaught — One of the things I teach from day one is I can teach you competencies. I can’t teach you initiative. And so from the get go, this has got to be something you’re after, you’re coming after, right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Chris Vaught — Because this is the highest level of our training. So it is a full time intern is 10 months. You’re serving every weekend. You for the first six weeks of the internship, you get to go through a discovery phase where we’ll put you in every ministry department for a certain amount of time, let you get exposure. We believe you need exposure. After that, you got to pick a direction, right?
Chris Vaught — And so from then on, you’re here every Tuesday and Wednesday all day.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Chris Vaught — And that those are very in-depth biblical, theological, as well as practical leadership courses. Every morning up until lunchtime in the afternoons, you’re in the department in which you’ve chosen. That’s the avenue that I’m feeling led toward. And you’re going to be working under the leadership of that department. You’re going to learn the skills of that department. You’re going to go to their meetings, their departmental meetings. You’re going involved in activities. And that’s probably where you’re going to serve on the weekends.
Rich Birch — Right.
Chris Vaught — Or through the midweek, depending on what it is.
Rich Birch — Right.
Chris Vaught — So now one of the beautiful things we partner with Evangel University outside of Spring… or in Springfield, Missouri.
Rich Birch — Yep.
They actually looked at our program and said, anyone that wants to come to school here or take online classes, if they go through that leadership program, we’ll give them 12 credit hours of of college.
Rich Birch — Oh, wow.
Chris Vaught — So there’s a bit there for the ones who are looking for more formal education. And we have students who will do that. We have many that just want the leadership competencies here.
Chris Vaught — Some of them are going into vocational ministry and others, as I said, they’re they’re wanting to take it into the secular world. And part of our goal throughout the year is we tell them, we’re not here to convince you what your calling is. We’re here to equip you for whatever God calls you to do.
Rich Birch — Wow. Give me a profile of the a kind of person or a couple, maybe there’s a couple different profiles of people that take that step into the the leadership college. Like is, is that, yeah, like give me a sense of some of the characters that you find in that, ah in that experience, if you know what I mean.
Chris Vaught — You know, this is year number four for us.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Chris Vaught — And it’s so interesting that it’s grown every year.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Chris Vaught — Oh, and by the way, one thing I left out, I told you we don’t make it easy.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Chris Vaught — They pay us $500 to join.
Rich Birch — Okay. Yeah, yeah. That’s great. Cover the cost. Or not really.
Chris Vaught — So they don’t get paid for this internship and they get all that back and resources.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Chris Vaught — It’s just a commitment, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Chris Vaught — But last year, it was primarily high school graduates or college age kids that were in our internship program. And we don’t know what the Holy Spirit’s doing.
Chris Vaught — This year, we doubled enrollment. And half of the group, more than half of the group are non-traditional. They’re like, we have a husband and a wife who are both working side jobs on Mondays and Thursdays and Fridays and Saturdays, so they can do the internship together because they’re both seeking what God’s will is for them. So they’re taking a financial hit. And they’ve got children. I mean, they’re having to get childcare so they can be here all day on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
Chris Vaught — We’ve got others that are in their mid thirties up into their forties coming to the school. So we’re really watching God do something pretty unique because the the idea, this concept of growing and stretching…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Chris Vaught — …is now reaching beyond just the college age. and we’re And we’re getting into really all age groups. The oldest intern right now that we’ve had was in 56.
Rich Birch — That’s amazing. Yeah, it’s incredible.
Chris Vaught — And he was so phenomenal, we hired him on staff after he graduated.
Rich Birch — That’s great. Well, and we’ve seen this in other, you know, echoes of this in other prevailing churches like Connection Point where um there’s like a high bar and there’s like, and we’re really calling people to say, hey, why don’t you come join the mission? And people respond to that. And, you know, the ripple out impact of that is huge. It’s almost like, you know, there are churches that are struggling and they’re just trying to like, well, we’re just going to make it as easy as we possibly can.
Rich Birch — And there’s something about that that actually repels people, ironically. Or maybe maybe attracts the right people or the wrong people, you know. And this idea of like, hey, we’re going to do something big for you. Like, it’s a lot of work what you’re talking about, pulling that internship together. But it also it’s ah it’s requires a lot from people. That’s ah you know that’s that’s incredible.
Rich Birch — How do you identify like and call out…I get that it’s like, you know, people have to make that choice, but what are, what are, what are you doing? What’s your team doing to identify leaders to kind of help them take steps next in their, you know, in their leadership development, or is it mostly just kind of driven by them? They’re raising their hand.
Chris Vaught — No, I mean, actually you apply for it. You have to go through an interview process.
Rich Birch — Right.
Chris Vaught — And and once we interview you then we kind of help navigate. Yeah, we believe you have the commitment level. You have the spiritual maturity for what you’re about to come into. You know we’re looking at your personality skills. You’re, you know, doing an assessment. And just to make sure, because it is a a commitment, right? And you don’t want to start, not finish. And and we will make sure you got the character for this.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Chris Vaught — Because when you come into a leadership school like this, everyone know, you know, everyone knows that’s one of our interns.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Chris Vaught — The your personal disciplines, your character, competencies has to be at a certain level. So we even start there with an interview process. Then beyond that, once you’re in the system, and we learned this from Larry Osborne, there are two primary sides of leadership in every person, right? You’re either going either going to be that what he calls a big L leader, that one that lead the charge, and you know they’re going to drive a ministry or an avenue. Or you’ve got the shepherd.
Rich Birch — Right.
Chris Vaught — And both are needed in the church. And one’s not better than the other, right?
Chris Vaught — Your big L leader, they’re the ones that make things grow. There are two criterias to look for for that big L leader. One, can they make things grow? Everything they touch takes off.
Rich Birch — Right.
Chris Vaught — You know, they’re able to grow it. The second piece is, well, I love how Larry Osborne says, it says it’s the Tom Sawyer effect. And you know the story of Tom Sawyer. Can they can they make people paint the fence for them and thank them for it when they’re done?
Rich Birch — I love that. That’s great.
Chris Vaught — Can they motivate the people around them? Well, if they are, and we recognize that kind of skill, that then gives us direction on how to craft their experience.
Rich Birch — Right.
Chris Vaught — Where we want to emphasize them to be able really maximize those skills to be a big L leader. They’re going to lead a ministry. They may be potential future staff. They may go in a secular world, but they could really make an impact. They’re an entrepreneur, right?
Chris Vaught — The shepherd, if we see that they have the caring gifts, that they’re not the big old leader. They need a system. They need the structure. They’re not going to create themselves, but everybody wants to be around them. They have a heart. They have a care. They’re loving. They’re prayerful. They’re very spiritually deep. That helps us be able to craft their experience in the leadership college.
Chris Vaught — Because again, it’s not about us getting them to do something. It’s them to learn the competencies to be the best of what God has called them to be.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Chris Vaught — And so we kind of kind of keep our eye on that and watch those metrics. Some of that comes through how they respond in classes. It’s how they serve on the weekends. It’s just what a lot of observation pieces as they go through the process.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, that’s cool. So kind of related issue, but more, maybe less of the this the art part part of it, more the science. When you think of metrics or mile markers around this whole area, what are some of the the numbers that kind of come to the fore? Things that you think about like, oh, we got to make sure we’re hitting this. If it’s, this feels, or I know this is healthy when that’s happening. Do you have kind of metrics that you think about on this front?
Chris Vaught — Mainly for us, it’s as as far as any kind of metrics is we’re watching as if the people are taking ownership and are they self-recruiting others, right?
Rich Birch — Sure. Okay.
Chris Vaught — If I have a ministry that’s self-recruiting, constantly growing, like for us, ever since COVID, our media outreach department exploded. We went from an average of 800 unique views on the weekend to now over 6,000 on the weekend.
Rich Birch — Wow. Wow. Wow. Yep.
Chris Vaught — So all of sudden we’re like, okay, we’ve really got to keep our eye on the digital marketing media aspect of our church, right? So we judge health by it. How big has that volunteer base grown? Are they replicating, right? I think right now we have 50 volunteers in that ministry.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Chris Vaught — Where they, with a full-time staff of three people, four people, four people. And so, you know, I can’t hire 50 people, but I got to have that kind of a base.
Rich Birch — Right. No.
Chris Vaught — Our kids ministry, you know, our church age dropped dramatically after COVID. It’s all these young families. So our kids numbers are through the roof. So can we, so what’s our volunteer ratio look like there? And are they replicating? Some of the metrics we look at is the volunteer ministry large enough that people can serve one and sit and worship in another.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Chris Vaught — If the same volunteers are working every single weekend and they have no time to come and get fed themselves.
Rich Birch — That’s a problem.
Chris Vaught — And and even the ministry department leads, if they can never break away and come into a worship service and get fed themselves, that ministry is not healthy.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Vaught — They need more volunteers and the department heads need to be able to train their team lead who’s underneath them well enough to run a ministry for one service once a month to come into a worship service and get fed themselves. You know that’s just an example.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. So good. Well, this is a great conversation. There’s a ton we could talk about here, but just as we’re we’re wrapping up, if you were to coach, a maybe there’s a leader that’s listening in today and they’re like, gosh, like I know we’re at the place where we got to take that first step. We got to take the, hey, who’s your Timothy?
Rich Birch — What would be some some advice you’d love to give? Maybe it’s like a pothole to avoid or like, here’s something, you know, that kind of early advice I would give you to to get as you’re getting the ball rolling on, you know, on trying to develop a leadership pathway.
Chris Vaught — Yeah, straight up early on, whoever your staff is or your key volunteer leaders are, when they find that Timothy, tell them the number one gift they can give that person is time investment.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Chris Vaught — Sit down with them, spend some time with them, and then lead into a competency. And it could be 15 minutes. We do this with our volunteer bases on the weekends. So they gather together for a huddle 15 minutes before their serving opportunity actually begins. And there’s only three pieces that you have to talk about there. One is caring for them. Hey, how can I pray for you? How can I care for you? Because remember, volunteers, it’s not just a job, though you give them responsibility to job, but you’re also a congregation. You’ve got pastoral care. Hey, how can I pray for you?
Chris Vaught — Then a quick update of here’s some things going on. Just keep communication going. Here’s what we need to know for the day. But that third piece that I’m so big on, and you can do this sitting around coffee. It doesn’t have to be a Sunday morning huddle. It could be as you’re building the program. Just but then teach them some leadership competency.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Chris Vaught — You don’t have to preach a sermon. It’s just bring that little competency to help them develop and build some confidence. So if you came to one of our huddles like this weekend for 15 minutes, they’re going check up on you. They’re going to share a win. Hey, here’s what God’s doing. Celebrate with them. They’re going to give them a quick little update.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Chris Vaught — And then they’re going to share something like, hey, this weekend, our whole theme is we want to create hospitality. So whatever we do today, let’s just all be hospitable.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Chris Vaught — And they’ll talk just quick minute about that, right? So as you’re building your teams, as you’re building your pipeline, that’s really all you’re going to want to replicate. Then however large you get, you just keep adding layers to it. But it’s really the same simple structure.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. That’s so clear. This has been great conversation, Chris. I really, really appreciate it. I feel like there’s a bunch more, even just there around huddles, we could jump in on maybe a future podcast. We’ll have you back on or your team back on to talk through ah that piece of the puzzle. Because I think there’s even that alone. I think that’s the thing so many of us, we’ve got to do a better job on or just got to do a better job on.
Rich Birch — Well, Chris, I really appreciate you being here today. As we land the plane, if people want to get in touch with you or get in touch with the church, kind of track with your story, where do we want to send them online?
Chris Vaught — Yeah, you want to send them to yourcpc.church. You can send a message to us just simply by email and info@yourcpc.church. course, you can catch us with that same handle on any social media site, and you can send some direct messages straight our way.
Rich Birch — Love it. It’s great. Thanks so much. Appreciate you being here today, sir.
Chris Vaught — Yeah, I enjoyed it. Thank you so much for the honor.
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Ashley Lentz from Lutheran Church of Hope in Iowa. As the Connections Pastor at one of the largest and fastest-growing churches in the country, Ashley brings a wealth of practical insight into creating personal connection in a growing church.
Struggling to connect new guests and help them take meaningful next steps at your church? Tune in as Ashley unpacks how her team prioritizes clarity, simplifies the path forward, and builds systems that still feel personal—without overwhelming people or staff.
- Offer more than one pathway. // At a large church like Lutheran Church of Hope, it’s easy for people to feel lost in the crowd. A website can’t be the only entry point. While it’s useful, relying solely on digital tools can confuse guests. People often want a conversation—not a scavenger hunt. Churches must create multiple, intuitive connection points beyond online portals.
- Four paths of the Hope Circle. // Lutheran Church of Hope staff uses an internal tool called The Hope Circle to identify where people are in their discipleship journey and help them take next steps. The circle starts with Seekers, for people who are exploring what Jesus is about. Next are Believers, identified as people who have heard the message and are into Jesus, but don’t know what to believe or do next. Followers have been transformed by Christ and wanting to actively live out their faith. Finally is a Servant Leader – a mature believer leading and serving others through their transformed life.
- Start with Alpha. // Ashley recommends Alpha as a go-to starting point for anyone in the Seeker, Believer, or Follower stage. For Seekers, it provides the foundational answers they need. Believers benefit from a supportive community. And Followers get a refresher and grow more confident in sharing their faith. This simple, effective course has proven to be a unifying tool across spiritual stages.
- Personal relationships at scale. // Despite its size, Hope prioritizes personal touches. The “New to Hope” area is centrally located, staffed with volunteers in bright orange vests, and offers a free t-shirt to first-time guests. Visitors fill out a connection card (paper or digital) and are invited into further conversation, tours, or ministry introductions. Automated systems send follow-up emails and texts, but staff personally respond to replies to ensure people feel seen and valued.
- The power of serving. // Serving is one of Hope’s primary pathways to connection. Volunteer opportunities—such as hospitality, communion, or the café—allow people to engage while they’re already attending worship. Serving builds natural community, makes a large church feel smaller, and creates discipleship opportunities in the context of teams. Ashley notes that service can be a more accessible first step than joining a class, particularly for busy families.
- Clarity is kindness. // One of Ashley’s key takeaways is that clarity is crucial. Large churches can easily overwhelm people with too many programs. Recently, Hope streamlined its discipleship offerings, moving some content online and focusing attention on core pathways like Alpha, Foundations, and Tuesday night programming. By simplifying options and communicating them consistently, Hope has made it easier for people to know what to do next.
- Metrics and insights. // Ashley has observed consistent patterns: from sign-up to actual attendance, about 20% drop off; and from week one to week four of a class, roughly 40% of participants fall away. To address this, Hope emphasizes shorter class cycles and practical on-ramps. These metrics help them refine offerings while staying realistic about engagement.
Learn more about Lutheran Church of Hope at www.lutheranchurchofhope.org and email Ashley.
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Risepointe
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Well, the team over at Risepointe can help! As former ministry staff and church leaders, they understand how to prioritize and help lead you to a place where the building is a ministry multiplier. Your mission should not be held back by your building. Their team of architects, interior designers and project managers have the professional experience to incorporate creative design solutions to help move YOUR mission forward.
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Well, hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. I’m super excited for today. We’ve got a church that I’ve been tracking for quite a while and excited to have a leader from there on. But then I know this is an area that so many of our churches are struggling with, and it’s kind of like an area that you might not be aware that you’re struggling with. And so I’m hoping that we open up a discussion today to help that will move you to really make some changes that will ultimately see your church help people get connected to it.
Rich Birch — Today we have ah Ashley Lentz. She’s the Connections Pastor at Lutheran Church of Hope. It’s one of the fastest growing in the churches yeah churches in the country with, I believe, seven campuses, if I’m counting correctly, in Central Iowa.
Ashley Lentz — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Iowa. Sorry, it’s early in the morning, getting my lips going here, friends, ah multiple smaller local sites and opportunities to join online. They actively partner with and support other churches through their Hope Network. Super excited to have you on the episode today, Ashley. Welcome.
Ashley Lentz — Thanks, Rich. Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here and help in whatever ways I can and just share, share what we learn.
Rich Birch — Nice. Why don’t, for people that don’t know, kind of paint a picture of Hope today, kind of tell us a little bit about the church and your role as a Connections Pastor.
Ashley Lentz — Yes, you described Hope beautifully. We are located in the metro Des Moines area of Iowa.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Ashley Lentz — So Des Moines is our capital for those who don’t know. And like you said, we have seven campuses and a whole bunch of local sites, is what we call them, and partner with churches all around the country to simply help them do ministry and meet them where they are.
Ashley Lentz — And so ah Hope is, we would call it a multi-site megachurch, right? But it very much feels like I’ve grown up in the Hope, what I would call the Hope system, the Hope Network. I did our middle school and high school ministry here and came back to be a pastor here.
Ashley Lentz — And so um I think we do a really beautiful job of reaching people where they are and inviting them into ah something deeper, but also meeting them where they are and saying like, if this is where you’re at, like we will, we will meet you there and walk alongside you and wherever you are in your faith journeys.
Ashley Lentz — So my role as a Connections Pastor is just that. I get to meet people where they are and help them navigate ah what is next in their faith journey. We worship at our campus, the larger campus here in West Des Moines. We worship about 7,000 in person weekly. And my favorite way to meet them as a Connections Pastor is truly to have one-on-one conversations.
Ashley Lentz — And sometimes that happens you know during weekend worship. Sometimes it happens during the week at other things. um But that’s what I love doing is getting to know people, helping them find the next best step for them in their faith journey and making a really large church seem intimate, seem like a ah community that is for them and finding a place where they can really feel like they belong…
Rich Birch — So good.
Ashley Lentz — …not just fit in, but where they can belong here.
Rich Birch — Well, for friends that have been tracking with for with me for a while, they know this is like a passion area for me. I’m super excited to learn from you, clearly an expert in the field. And you mentioned it, you know, one of your campuses is 7,000, multiple thousands in the other locations.
Rich Birch — It’s a large church by all, you know, all, you know, metrics, probably the top 0.2 to 5% of churches in the country. ah And, you know, when a church like yours is attracting thousands of people coming through the doors every single weekend, you know, helping them take the next step can be difficult. And one of the misnomers that I, that bug me is I know that a church like yours is very good at connecting people. That is a part of the reason why you’re the size you are. But there are challenges that you run into trying to connect with people at scale. I love that you started with, I love to connect one-on-one. I’m like, how do you do that at a so church that size. But what are some of those challenges? Talk me through why is it so hard at scale to connect with people?
Ashley Lentz — For sure. We do not do this perfectly. I’ll be the first to say that. And it’s important that anybody listening knows we do not have this completely figured out.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Ashley Lentz — I will just tell you where we’ve been and some of the challenges we faced and what we do in the midst of those challenges to just navigate them as best we can, because we’re still figuring things out too.
Ashley Lentz — One of the biggest struggles that we have is communicating effectively. When you have the the size of staff that we have, and by no means do we have a massive staff. I think many of our staff, people would tell you we’re probably understaffed. We could always use more. But we have so much programming. A lot of it is volunteer led. I help lead our women’s ministry and I have women facilitators leading those classes.
Ashley Lentz — But we have things happening every day of the week in every ministry area. So it is hard to effectively communicate where I want people to plug in. Because it’s easy to say, hey, check out the website. Everything is listed on there. But really quickly, people get overwhelmed by that.
Rich Birch — So true.
Ashley Lentz — And that’s one of, again, that’s one of the things that love is I tell people, come talk to me. Some people love that. They’re like, yeah, would love to sit in chat. And other people are like, no, let me just navigate the website and figure it out on my own.
Rich Birch — Love it. Yes.
Ashley Lentz — But when you have so many things, they’re all great. It is hard to effectively communicate. Here’s what we find most important. Here’s what we would say. Start here and then do these kinds of things.
Ashley Lentz — Prescribing a discipleship journey is really hard. And probably not effective because everybody’s on a different journey.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ashley Lentz — So we do like to offer, like we just have different offerings and I get to help people navigate season of faith, season of life, and what might meet them where they are right now and be an effective discipleship pathway for them. Yep.
Rich Birch — Okay. I’d love to unpack that a little bit more. You talk about, and there’s a great description. We’ve got lots of different things going on, lots of different ministries, ah and but we’ve got to simplify it. You didn’t quite least say that. You said, we got to start here. We have to you know make it kind of really obvious or have pathways. What does that look like in practice? Help us understand how you’re doing that.
Ashley Lentz — Yes. One of the tools that we use, and it is very much an internal tool is what I would call it. We call it the Hope circle. And it is what I would call a discipleship tool or discipleship pathway. And if I were to say that to our congregation members, they would really have no idea what I’m talking about. It is very internal. But it’s helpful to identify where people are on this Hope circle.
Ashley Lentz — And so the circle starts with being a seeker. At a church our size, we have people every weekend who have zero idea what the church thing is about. They’ve maybe never been introduced to Jesus. Someone just invited them to church. They maybe knew they needed church and walked in the door, but have no idea what to expect. And so they are seeking something that has been missing in their life. And so ah helping people identify if that’s where you are, here are kind of the very preliminary places that would be helpful for you to start plugging in.
Ashley Lentz — As we move around that circle, we get to believers, people who are like, okay, I’m bought into the Jesus thing. I’ve heard the message. I believe. Now what? Like, I I want to understand this better. Like, I believe in Jesus. I believe in God. Like, I’m here for it, but I don’t really know the things. So where do we go from there and how do we help them then move into like being super excited about Jesus? Like, I don’t just believe like I’m on fire for Jesus. I’m a follower, right? Like I am, I am all in my life looks different. I’ve been transformed. How do I follow him? And then how do you serve people in that arena too? Because that’s going to look different than somebody who’s come in as a seeker looking for Jesus and somebody who’s on fire for Jesus. So how do we move them around the circle?
Ashley Lentz — So it’s seeker, believer, follower, and then kind of the last part of our circle is servant leader. How do we move them then into serving and letting the transformed nature of the gospel pour out of them into the world around us?
Ashley Lentz — And I would say our secret sauce here at Hope is we love volunteers. Like as we move people around the Hope circle, I and my colleagues, we want to equip people to lead.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Ashley Lentz — So being a servant leader inside these walls, but also outside these walls is really like, that’s what’s attractional to people is is letting them know like you’re on fire for Jesus. Go tell everyone about it and serve in the arena you find yourself in, whether in the church or outside the church.
Rich Birch — That’s good. So how do you, how do you help people self-identify that? What’s that practically look like for folks that are at the church? How do you help them? And um folks, we’ll, we’ll put the Hope circle in the show notes. You can look down there. You can see it there if you’re, if you want to see that as a tool to kind of visualize that. But how do you help folks self-identify where they might be in that process? Or is it purely, they got to talk to somebody?
Ashley Lentz — No, it’s not. I would love to say, please just talk to me, but you’re right.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yes.
Ashley Lentz — With 7,000 people worshiping on a weekend, there’s no way.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I can’t do that.
Ashley Lentz — Even if if everybody on staff talked to some people. We, I’ll talk about this as kind of like on ramps or pathways.
Rich Birch — Yep. Yep.
Ashley Lentz — One of the best places for people to start as a seeker, a believer, even a follower is the Alpha course. I’m sure you’re familiar with Alpha course.
Rich Birch — Absolutely. Yep.
Ashley Lentz — We love Alpha here at Hope. And Alpha does such a beautiful job of if you are a seeker, it gives you the foundation that you need to step into what’s next.
Ashley Lentz — If you’re a believer, it’s going to connect you to community, which is a really important part of discipleship. If you are a follower, like you are bought in and you are learning the things, we tell people Alpha is a great place to brush up on the basics, but also get plugged into community. So would say one of our biggest on-ramps is Alpha.
Ashley Lentz — And then from there, this is kind of like my bread and butter in my role, is taking people as they finish Alpha and helping them self-identify what’s next. Coming out of Alpha, am I ready to serve? Is that like, am I on fire? Am I ready to come back and host Alpha or step into a different service opportunity? Do I need more basics? Did Alpha spark in me like, oh, maybe I don’t know as much about the Bible as I want to. Do we direct them back to a Bible class and learning like the foundations of a Bible.
Ashley Lentz — This fall, we’re trying something new called Foundations. it’s a three-week class. The first class is, what’s my Bible? How do I read it? Second class is, how do I pray? And the third class is identity, like what God says about you.
Rich Birch — That’s cool.
Ashley Lentz — And so there’ll be people who come out of Alpha, yeah, who we say, maybe Foundations is next for you. Like, let’s Let’s really get some of these foundational pieces put together. up We also have a ton of just general classes, right? Like if you want to study ah spiritual disciplines, we have a class for that.
Ashley Lentz — If you want to really dive into the narrative of scripture from Genesis to Revelation, what is the story that’s being told? We have a class for that. We also outsource resources. So I’m always always directing people to BibleProject.com and other things that do a really good job of walking people through some of these basic parts of discipleship, Bible knowledge, prayer knowledge. How, how do I get plugged into community? These are the questions we continue to ask.
Ashley Lentz — And people can self-identify. I like, I do like directing people to the website. If you’re excited about community or getting plugged into a small group, check the website. There’s a page for small groups. Like we will help you with that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ashley Lentz — By far and away, the best way we have found to get people connected is personal invites and personal relationships. I can’t personally do all of that. It is our congregation that does that for one another. And that is super beautiful to equip people who are on fire for Jesus to invite their neighbors and their colleagues, and to help them to share their story and say, here was here’s what my discipleship journey looked like. And I’d invite you to check out Alpha or this class or come join our small group and see what it’s like.
Rich Birch — That’s good. Yeah, I love that you’re, you know, stressing that. I think there might be people that are surprised who are listening who would say, you know, here’s a person talking, you know, a large church, really stressing personal relationships. Unpack that a little more a little bit more. How do you practically cultivate those personal touches at scale? How do you encourage that beyond, you know, just, you know, you doing that or a small group of people doing that?
Ashley Lentz — Yes, ah we build teams. And everything that we do, we build volunteer teams. So if you walk into Hope on a weekend, and this is true of any of our campuses, there will be a New to Hope area with volunteers who are clearly marked. They they wear bright orange vests here at our West Des Moines campus. You can’t miss them. The vests say: “New to Hope?” And we clearly tell people, if you are new, we love to connect with you.
Ashley Lentz — They can fill out an online form. They can fill out a paper form. They can have a conversation with a real person. But those people every week are being followed up with personally um by staff members, by volunteers. They are being checked in with because we so deeply believe in personal relationship and personal invitation.
Ashley Lentz — Same thing with people who are just getting involved.They might not be new to Hope, but the fall is a great example of getting connected, right? Like rally weekend is coming up for us this weekend where all of our fall programming kick kicks off. So we have a ministry fair where we will have tables in our atrium and invite people to stop by the tables and really get to know the leaders leading those ministries or the volunteers involved in those ministries and ask your questions.
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Ashley Lentz — Some people, again, some people won’t stop, right? Like they like, I don’t want to have a conversation with anybody, which is why a website’s a great tool. We have clearly marked women’s ministry, men’s ministry, general adult classes, everything’s on there. But if you are excited about what’s next and making a large place feel small, the best way you’re going to do that is by a conversation with someone or an email correspondence.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Ashley Lentz — But yeah, really having pointed conversations about where you’re at in your faith life and what you’re looking for.
Rich Birch — Okay, let’s deep dive on that. You talked about some stuff there that I’d love to double click on and hear a little bit more about.
Ashley Lentz — Yeah.
Rich Birch — So talk us through, if I’m if I’m a guest that comes, um talk us through, I arrive at the New to Hope, I see. So like, give me a sense of like, how many people are there? What happens when I arrive there? What are they going to ask me to do? How do they get me connected? I’m assuming I fill something out. Maybe I get a gift. Then what happens? You know, kind of talk us through what the the experience of someone who chooses to self-identify, you know, through the New to Hope experience, what’s that look like?
Ashley Lentz — Yes. Yes, I love this. Our New to Hope area is in the middle of our atrium. So we have our building is kind of, the worship center is obviously like big and there’s it’s kind of the main part of our building. But the atrium is very clearly when you come into the building, you are in the atrium. And so it’s a big old signs, bright orange. When you see that, you will see very friendly volunteer faces – usually like three or four and probably a couple of staff people lingering in that general area every single weekend, every single service.
Ashley Lentz — And it’s really funny, Rich, just this weekend, I was walking around the building and I saw a family. And it was a young adult woman and her parents. And they walk into our building. And you can tell when people are new because they just kind of stop and look around.
Rich Birch — A hundred percent. A hundred percent.
Ashley Lentz — Like they don’t know where to go, right?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Ashley Lentz — So I walked up to them and I said, hey, can I help you find anything? And they’re like, we’re brand new. We have no idea what we’re doing. And I so I introduced myself. And I said, here here’s where we’ll start. We’ll start at New to Hope. And so I had her fill out a connection card. We have paper connection cards, like a postcard. And it is name, address, email address, phone number. People can follow it as much or as little as they want. But I tell them, if you want us to get in touch with you, I need you to write your email and I need you to write it legibly.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Ashley Lentz — And then they can opt in for our weekly newsletter, right? Like that’s and then there’s a blank space that says, what are you interested in? What do you want more information about? Some people fill that out, some people don’t. But that’s, they can fill it out virtually. We have little tablets at the New to Hope or they can fill it out on paper. And then what we do, we give them a free Hope t-shirt and we tell people in announcements, like if you’re new, stop by the New to Hope area. We’d love to gift to you with a free Hope t-shirt as a way of saying thanks for being our guest today.
Ashley Lentz — So they get a free Hope t-shirt. And then I always ask them, can I help you find anything? Would you like a tour of the building? Like, I personally walked around this family this weekend. She was a young adult woman who had just moved here. And she said, like, where would I do young adult things? You have young adult ministry. And I said, yes. And I said, it’s not in the worship center. It’s in this, it’s in our chapel. Let me walk you around and orient you.
Rich Birch — So good.
Ashley Lentz — So when you get here on a Thursday night for, for that, then you know where you’re going.
Ashley Lentz — That’s what our volunteers will do for people too. We, I want people to feel seen, right? As It’s a large church. You don’t want people to walk in without being seen or walk out without being seen.
Rich Birch — So good.
Ashley Lentz — So yes, we I say hi to everybody that crosses my path. And some people purposely put their head down and don’t want to be said hi to. And it’s like, you’re in church…
Rich Birch — That’s okay. Yeah.
Ashley Lentz — …you don’t have to say hi back.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Ashley Lentz — But if you cross my path on a Sunday morning, I’m going to say hi to you because I’m truly glad that people are here and I want them to know that.
Rich Birch — Yes. Okay, that’s that’s fantastic. When So let’s say I come, I fill out, let’s say i’m I seem eager, maybe like that family, I fill out all the information. I give you my my mailing address, my email, my phone number, the whole thing. What then happens from there? What’s my experience? Do I get certain amount of follow-up? So what all happens at that point?
Ashley Lentz — Yes, our we have a team that that does follow-ups.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ashley Lentz — So those all go, we have, I would call it a track. They’re going to get an email right away. If they fill out a card on Sunday, they’re going to get an email on Monday that says, thanks for stopping by New to Hope.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Ashley Lentz — And generally that’s a generic email. It will have their name in it, right? So it seems like it’s personal. And it comes from ah Pat Quaid, one of our pastors here. um He’s been on staff for like 20 plus years. He’s incredible.
Ashley Lentz — And so Pat will say, you know, we’re glad. Thanks for stopping by New to Hope. And generally here’s some information. If people put on the card that they want specific information, he will put that in the email as well.
Rich Birch — Okay, yep.
Ashley Lentz — Then I believe there are a couple other follow-up steps past that. We can send text messages. And so if people have put in their put their phone number down, they’ll get a text message later in the week that simply invites them back to worship.
Ashley Lentz — It just says, hey, hey, Rich, this is Ashley from Hope. I just want to say I’d love to see at worship again this weekend. Reminder service times are…, or something like that. So they get a couple follow ups past that to know like we actually care.
Ashley Lentz — While it’s automated, it also comes from real people.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ashley Lentz — So the system is in place because we’re such a large church.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ashley Lentz — But if people text back, like I get those text messages back through an app, right?
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Ashley Lentz — Like I’m, I have good healthy boundaries. ah Nobody has, you know, like I’m not texting 7,000 people at a time.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ashley Lentz — But we can personally respond to these people and answer questions that they might have.
Rich Birch — Yeah Yeah. I love that. So friends, I want to underline a bunch of things that Ashley said there, because this is best in class practice that we’ve seen in in other contexts. You know, the idea that the, you know, New to Hope is like in the middle of the atrium, it’s super obvious. It’s that orange. You’ve got lots of, you know, volunteers and staff there. The t-shirt I love, the free gift. People, you know, ah too many churches will say like, if you want to get connected, drop by the connection kiosk. That’s like way too, people are not interested in getting connected yet.
Rich Birch — They’re like just ah new. And so, but they will stop by and get a free T-shirt. It’s fantastic. I love that there’s multiple follow-ups. You wouldn’t imagine how many churches drop the ball there. they go They do everything else, but then they only follow up once or they, because they don’t want to bother people. I’m like, we’re talking about trying to get people connected to the kingdom of Christ. We’ve got to follow up with them.
Ashley Lentz — Yes.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s, that’s so good. There’s so much, so much good there.
Rich Birch — Okay, pivoting in a different direction. So, there’s a dichotomy, false dichotomy of in the church world around, we want to get people connected to teams or to groups. You know, we, we, and ultimately want to see them connect to both. And I think that’s the best practice. We want to get them there eventually, but it’s hard to point them towards both. What’s your thoughts on that? How do we, if if you were trying to kind of move people in an ideal direction, teams or groups, what’s that look like? What’s your experience been like when you’re trying to get people connected?
Ashley Lentz — Yep. I would tell you, we ask often around here, what does it look like for someone to be engaged? What is an engaged church member? Like, how do you define that?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ashley Lentz — And I’m not going to quote the research because I can’t remember if it was Barna or Gallup, but it was one of the two. A few years ago released that a highly engaged church person, the research is that they attend church once a month. That’s a highly engaged church person…
Rich Birch — It’s true. It’s true.
Ashley Lentz — …in our society. And so to to engage them, like the task of discipleship is so interesting because to say like, if I’m highly engaged, that means I’m coming to church once a month. To ask them to do anything beyond that means you’re like a super duper, highly, highly, highly engaged person, right?
Rich Birch — Right. True.
Ashley Lentz — So one of, I call this maybe ah another secret sauce, secret weapon, is I love to invite people into service opportunities as their kind of pathway to getting more connected. What people undermine in service opportunities, and by service opportunity, volunteer opportunity, I mean like our hospitality team or our communion serving team or the kitchen team.
Ashley Lentz — We have a cafe where 100% of the proceeds go to missions. Somebody’s got to make that coffee, right? Like I invite them into these teams because I know that they will already be here for some of some of that time, right? Like if you’re coming to worship and I can get you on a team that greets before worship, I’m capitalizing on you’re already coming to worship.
Ashley Lentz — But number two, you are going to be in community.
Rich Birch — So true.
Ashley Lentz — You will start to have great conversations with these people in community. You’ll start to get to know faces, right? Again, large place will start to seem smaller. Discipleship will happen in the context of volunteer teams without me ever teaching a class. It will just happen naturally.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ashley Lentz — And so I think we forget that that’s a really great place to get people plugged in.
Rich Birch — It’s so true.
Ashley Lentz — And then is it is an on-ramp to anybody who shows up in the in this space and says, I just want to meet people. I want to get connected.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so true.
Ashley Lentz — They might be in a season where they want a class, but I’m a young mom, right? Like I got two little kids. It’s hard for me to get here on a weeknight for six or eight weeks to do a class. A really good invitation might be, well, if you want to get connected, get to know people, you love greeting. Like you love talking to people. Why don’t you be on our greeting team? You’re already coming to service. Your whole family can do it.
Ashley Lentz — And discipleship will happen in that context in such a beautiful way…
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so true.
Ashley Lentz — …that that I love introducing people to volunteer opportunities.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I would say that for sure we’ve seen that as a trend in lots of prevailing churches like yours. You know, I would say particularly post-COVID, I think there has been a stronger emphasis or emphasis, depending on how you say it, to, you know, move people towards serving opportunities as like, a you didn’t say it this way. I’m saying it, but like as a primary path. Or like a let’s let’s take a first step there ah because of all the stuff you talked about. You know, we can get people on a schedule. We can yeah you know, there’s there’s something about the kind of envisioning we do in teams where we’re like pouring in like, hey, this is what Hope’s about. This is what Hope’s about that doesn’t necessarily happen in in in groups. So yeah, that’s that’s great.
Rich Birch — Curveball question. We didn’t talk about ahead of time. Hopefully you can take a curveball, Ashley. I’m sure you can. You’re an incredibly smart person. What are the metrics that you think about in this area? Like, are there numbers that you reflect on that you like come back to you time and again that somebody asks you about regularly? What what would be some of those metrics that you think about?
Ashley Lentz — What a good curveball question. Yes. Here’s what is fascinating to me, as somebody who does discipleship and gets people connected. I know, and this is specific to our context because these are numbers that I have crunched.
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Ashley Lentz — We can have really good intentions with groups and classes, but I will tell you that from sign up to show up, right? So if you’re promoting a class, amount of people who sign up versus the amount of people who show up just automatically will drop 20%. Because people have really good intentions.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, it’s true.
Ashley Lentz — But when it comes to coming to class, you’re going to lose about 20%.
Rich Birch — Yeah. It sounded so good at church on Sunday to sign up for that class, but I did not actually come in. Yeah.
Ashley Lentz — Yes, so that being said, the people who show up to your class, you’re already looking at 80% of people who are gonna come. But we’ll we’ll call that 100% of people who are showing up.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ashley Lentz — From week one to week three or four, you will drop 40% by week four.
Rich Birch — Oh, wow.
Ashley Lentz — I see this consistency, consistently across discipleship at Hope and and the groups that we do.
Ashley Lentz — And so we have also tried to build Alpha. I would tell you is probably the only exception. Alpha, we do Alpha in nine weeks here at Hope. But everything else we have tried to build in three or four week chunks because we just know that by week four, you’re gonna lose half your class or so about about anyway, right?
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s a good insight.
Ashley Lentz — So we have great intentions with six or eight week classes. And I love to teach the Bible in six or eight weeks. I also know that for people’s schedules, they see a six or eight week class and that’s daunting. So to do things in three or four week chunks is really, really helpful. And those are some of the metrics that I keep in the back of my mind.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Yeah. And you could see that, right? It’s like better to have two three-week classes than one six-week class. You know, you kind of re-up like this is part one, part two, how do we move people along? You know, that’s, you know, that’s fantastic.
Rich Birch — Well, let’s say you’re at a conference and someone is, you know, pulls you aside and they’re like, Ashley, oh, you’re the connections person from Hope – you guys do such a great job. What’s the one thing that you think I should do to make it easier? I’m sure you give out like common advice to somebody, to churches, church leaders around like, Hey, here’s the thing you could do to make it easier for people to get plugged in.
Ashley Lentz — I would tell them clarity is kindness.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Ashley Lentz — Be clear about what you’re asking people to do or or where you want them to get plugged in.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Ashley Lentz — Yep. If that’s a conversation, be clear that like step one is a conversation. If it’s Alpha, be clear that Alpha is like the thing you want people to do. Clarity is kindness. Make sure your website is clear. We’re not perfect at any of these things by any means, but…
Rich Birch — Sure. Yeah.
Ashley Lentz — …the more clear we can be about where we want people to go, what we want them to do, what we know works. That’s a really loving thing to do for people is just be clear.
Rich Birch — It’s so true. And, and I know that’s like an, that’s like a journey, not a destination. Like we’re clarity is something we keep working on. We have to keep refining, keep making it easier. I think even in this, that’s part of why I was double clicking on theNew to Hope kind of process. Cause I’ve, in other contexts I’ve talked about that, that, that piece of that. I think every six months you got to look at it again. Okay. What can we do to make this easier?
Ashley Lentz — Yes.
Rich Birch — How do we make it easier for people to connect? Can you think of some areas where you’ve had to gain more clarity? Where like we thought it was clear but then, no, it wasn’t clear – we had to change it and and make it a little more clear.
Ashley Lentz — For sure, I will tell you, we kind of touched on this at the very beginning. We offer so many things as far as adult discipleship goes here at Hope, specifically even just our West Des Moines campus, ah that it’s kind of unclear where to even start.
Ashley Lentz — So one of the things that we have done in the last year is really kind of cleaned up what our fall and winter adult discipleship schedule looks like. So that when people say, okay, I’ve already done Alpha and maybe I already took that class, that we kind of have a very clear trajectory for them depending on where they find themselves in their season of faith, season of life.
Ashley Lentz — So we, Foundations is a good example. That will happen each semester. It’s kind of the foundational course. Here’s where you start. Then it’s Alpha. Then we then there are Bible classes and prayer classes, if that’s what you’re looking for next. Small groups. We always have a small group kind of class to help launch small groups.
Ashley Lentz — But we cleaned up a lot of what I would call white noise around that. So people say, like, what do I do? As a team, we clearly know: this, that, and the next thing, if you’re looking for a prescriptive track. Otherwise, iI got a million women’s groups meeting. There’s a million men’s groups meeting. I can point you in that direction too.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ashley Lentz — But we’ve cleaned up a lot of that white noise to say, generally, this is what we’re offering. It’s going to continue to happen in kind of a cycle, a semester cycle. And so it just makes sense.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I know so many, so many models, you know, churches, every seems like every five years, it somebody comes out with some new approach to cleanliness and clarity.
Rich Birch — And people are like, Oh, this is like the, you know, it’s Highlands’, you know, step one, step two, or, you know, 101, 201, 301. Or it’s like, you know, Saddleback’s run the bases. Or, you know, but the, the foundation of all of that is we’ve got to be super clear. We’ve got to make it as clean as possible. I feel like we cleaned up our schedule is like Des Moines nice for like, we cut a bunch of stuff or like, what did we do? Like that cleaned up. What does that mean? Like you, you are still doing everything, but we’re focusing people’s attention on just a few things? Is that what that means?
Ashley Lentz — Yes, we did get rid of some things and it’s not because they weren’t good.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Right.
Ashley Lentz — We actually moved some of them online. We said people can take this online at their own pace. It will always exist. It’s good stuff.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ashley Lentz — But let’s be really clear about what we want people to jump into in the fall…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Ashley Lentz — …and in the winter and in the spring. And so we just kind of moved some of those things.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ashley Lentz — And then, yes, communicated it more clearly. A lot of our stuff happens on Tuesday nights. And so we have told our congregation, come on Tuesday nights. Men’s thing, women’s thing, general classes, dinner, stuff for your kids, right? Like we’ve also tried to make it super accessible. So it’s like, if you don’t know where to start, just show up on a Tuesday night and we’ll help you kind of a thing.
Rich Birch — Right. Right. That’s so good. Well, this has been an incredible conversation, Ashley. I feel like I’ve got a page of notes here that is super helpful for me. There’s lots of other stuff I’d love to talk about, but I know you got other things to get to. So we’re going let you go. Just as we wrap up, any final word you’d have to say for us or anything you’d like to say just as we close today’s episode?
Ashley Lentz — I would just encourage listeners, like what you’re doing is great and continue ask to ask yourself and the people that you’re around, like what are they looking forward to? So many times we try to do things, like I live in church world, right? Like this is my frame of reference. It’s really when I start listening to the needs of other people that we really start gaining some traction, right?
Ashley Lentz — So I would just encourage them, like what you’re doing is great. Keep going…
Rich Birch — So good.
Ashley Lentz — …and ask your congregation what what they need and and what they want. And then just clarify that for them.
Rich Birch — So good. Well, thanks so much. If people want to track with you or track with the church, where do we want to send them online?
Ashley Lentz — Yes, LutheranChurchOfHope.org is our like landing page website.
Rich Birch — Perfect.
Ashley Lentz — From there, you can find our West Des Moines campus. You can find all of our other campuses. You can find out what you need to know at LutheranChurchOfHope.org. And I’ll be on our staff page and happy to connect with anybody further. My email, I think will be in the notes, but Ashley.Lentz L-E-N-T-Z at HopeWDM.org.
Rich Birch — Perfect. Thanks so much, Ashley. Appreciate you being here today.
Ashley Lentz — Thanks, Rich!
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by returning guest and friend of the show, Dave Miller. With a background in worship and creative arts ministry across Las Vegas, Kentucky, and Michigan, Dave now leads Leadership Pathway, an organization focused on helping the next generation of church leaders take their healthiest first steps into ministry through two-year residency programs, training, coaching, and consulting.
How can your church build a sustainable pipeline of future leaders? Tune in as Dave unpacks the critical role churches play in mentoring Gen Z and why the old models of leadership development just aren’t working anymore.
- Sit with Gen Z to lead them better. // Gen Z isn’t just another version of the generations before—it’s an entirely new cultural landscape. Dave challenges church leaders to see this generation as an “unreached people group,” calling us to sit with them, learn their language, respect their customs, and lead with empathy. Rather than forcing them into old systems, we must dignify their contribution and shift from transactional leadership to relational investment.
- Leadership development starts with slowing down. // One of the biggest barriers to Gen Z development is our pace. Middle managers in churches—often overworked and overwhelmed—struggle to prioritize leadership development. But if we truly want to raise up the next generation, we must slow down. It’s about presence, not productivity—FaceTiming between flights won’t cut it.
- Residencies are the future of staffing. // With ministry hiring taking longer and churches often “settling” after months of searching, Dave encourages churches to proactively invest in residencies. His new book, Who’s the Next You? A Call for 1000 More Churches to Invest in Gen Z Through Residency, outlines a practical framework for launching effective residency programs. From onboarding and legal concerns to mentoring rhythms and developmental milestones, the book equips churches with tools to build a leadership pipeline.
- Seven ingredients of leadership development. // Drawing from years of coaching and residency work, Dave outlines seven essential ingredients for leadership development: training (sermons, small groups), spiritual formation, soft skills (emotional intelligence), best practices, ownership (clear responsibilities and expectations), mental wellness (planning and support structures), and developmental conversations (beyond content delivery). Many churches stop at training, but it’s the deeper relational and emotional investments that shape lasting leaders.
- One size fits one. // Through Leadership Pathway, Dave and his team have worked with over 150 churches and more than 160 residents. What works for one young leader may not work for another. Whether it’s moving across the country or mentoring a senior pastor’s child, every residency journey is unique. The key is listening, adapting, and avoiding the “stupid tax”—learning from past mistakes so the next leader doesn’t pay the price.
Learn more and pick up Dave’s book at www.leadershippathway.org.
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Portable Church
Your church is doing really well right now, and your leadership team is looking for solutions to keep momentum going! It could be time to start a new location. Maybe you have hesitated in the past few years, but you know it’s time to step out in faith again and launch that next location. Portable Church has assembled a bundle of resources to help you leverage your growing momentum into a new location by sending a part of your congregation back to their neighborhood on Mission. This bundle of resources will give you a step-by-step plan to launch that new or next location, and a 5 minute readiness tool that will help you know your church is ready to do it!
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Listen, today, I really do want you to lean in. We have got a return guest, which you know, we don’t do that often, and a friend. This is like a legit friend, somebody that I know from the real world who has got something for you today that I want you to take action on.
Rich Birch — We’ve got my friend, Dave Miller, who served as a Worship and Creative Arts Pastor in churches in Las Vegas, Central Kentucky, and Western Michigan, and also has spent a bunch of years helping churches on a variety of topics from strategy to technology and facility design.
Rich Birch — However, the thing he is the most passionate about is helping young leaders take their first, healthiest steps into ministry. He leads an organization called Leadership Pathway. They offer a two-year residency program for future church leaders, as well as training, coaching, and consulting services. Plus, he’s a great guy. Dave, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.
Dave Miller — It’s great to be here, Rich. Thanks for the opportunity.
Rich Birch — It’s so fun to have you back. Kind of fill in the picture there. You’re a return guest, so my mom, she listens to every episode, so she can skip ahead. But for folks that don’t, kind of fill in the picture a little bit.
Dave Miller — Well, my mom, she still asks me on occasion, do you have a job? What do you do?
Rich Birch — What do you do?
Dave Miller — Yeah, she has no idea.
Rich Birch — I love it, yes, yes.
Dave Miller — Fill in the picture. So the picture is, yeah, in ministry, thought I would be in ministry forever. Came, I don’t have one of those great testimonies about going to jail and coming back from the edge. I grew up in an amazing church, all that legacy stuff of my parents, what they handed me. An amazing youth group, an amazing high school experience, into college, and maybe I was an early adopter because upon graduation, I had no idea what I wanted to really do, but I knew I wanted to do something for God.
Dave Miller — And the local church was really important. I don’t think I would have even said that when I was 22, but looking back, I’m like, I never really thought about the family business or doing something else with my life. And I thought I would do it forever. And then I was found myself at a church that was closing. And yeah, which is a, we won’t go down that exit, but I was like, what happened? And someone invited me to go on a consulting trip, which I didn’t even know in those days.
Rich Birch — Yeah, what is that?
Dave Miller — What is it? And he said, we’ll figure it out, which was a foretelling of what was going to happen over the next few years. And I literally in those days, I’m like, okay, I think this will pay the bills for six months till I figure out where I’m gonna go.
Rich Birch — Right, what’s next?
Dave Miller — And that was 20 years ago now.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s amazing. That’s crazy.
Dave Miller — So I mean, that is crazy to say 20 years. So anyway, that’s kind of the…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool.
Dave Miller — …that’s kind of the high level story.
Rich Birch — The thing, there’s lots I love about you and love about Kristen, your wife, and you guys do lots of amazing things. But one of the things I love is you’re consistently passionate about not even next generation. It’s like, I don’t even sure what the best way to say that. It’s like this gen, people that are leading today…
Dave Miller — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …that has been a consistent drumbeat for you. And I realized, so I was born in 1974, the bottom of the bust. The lowest, I am classic Gen X. I literally at that lowest, the lowest birth rate year of the 20th century, the pill was just kicking in well, wide adoption, do not have a lot of people in my cohort. And so I’ve spent a lot of my career either interacting with boomers and helping them do their thing. But now I realized, I clicked over one of those ages with a zero on it. And I realized I’m increasingly—a mutual friend of ours, Carey Nieuwhof, we joked about this—I’m like, increasingly, we’re the old guy in the room. Like increasingly look around and I’m like, oh, I’m now that guy, that’s my role. I’d love to kind of dive in on Gen Z specifically today.
Dave Miller — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Cause you are a thought leader. You’ve got real things to say. Plus you have actual experience working with dozens of leading an organization that works with dozens of Gen Z leaders. What are we getting wrong when it comes to leading Gen Z folks? What is the church, you know, you take the average church in America, we’re not doing this right. What’s the thing that we’re not doing right on that front?
Dave Miller — Well, first of all, a big change for me in the last eight, we started eight years ago. We’ll be eight years old this summer.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Dave Miller — And a big change for me is the realization that there’s a lot of churches doing well. And by a lot, I mean, I’m gonna say hundreds. You know, I take a look at some associations that are going around around the country. I look at groups that help interns and residents raise money, see how many postings they have. And you just kind of total it all up and then add 50% to try to be positive. There are hundreds of churches doing well.
Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good.
Dave Miller — Eight years ago, in fact, I was digging out some old documents that we’ve done to pass to give to someone. And I would have said eight years, we’re only gonna work with the best and the biggest and the most cutting edge. And you know, there are churches of 150 that are some of our favorite people…
Dave Miller — So there are great churches. It kind of boils down to that senior pastor. Are they a developer? Do they naturally, not naturally, I don’t use that word. Are they a developer? Have they grown in such a way that they see as part of their mission of doing this?
Dave Miller — And so whether they’re a church of 60,000, 40,000 or 100, there are churches doing well. To answer your question, fundamentally, what are we getting wrong? I liken it to Mike Shealy in Indianapolis said in a masterclass that we do, a training. He said, I liken this—he’s a youth pastor, veteran youth pastor—this generation is like an unreached people group. We don’t conquer unreached people groups, like we used to.
Rich Birch — Right, yes.
Dave Miller — The stories of the way Christians has done this, right? Go in, make them sit in rows like Southern Baptists in Dallas in the jungle and teach them Sunday school curriculum.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Dave Miller — No, no. We go in and we sit with them. We learn their customs. We learn their language.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Dave Miller — We understand, we give them dignity, by the way. We give them little wins. We let them serve us as we’re serving them, right? And you can experience pieces of this. I’m not a missions expert, but I’ve experienced pieces of this on old missions trips to Haiti, where all the white people were doing the work and all the people that we should have hired standing around the edge.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Dave Miller — Just totally taking their dignity from them. We don’t do that anymore. No, we know better than that.
Dave Miller — If you can sit with this generation and learn their customs, learn their language, seek to understand, would be a boomer way of saying that. Then you’re gonna have a shot. If the goal of an internship or residency is just to get the kids working. Let’s get them on our page. Like we would have done, Rich.
Rich Birch — Yes, yep.
Dave Miller — I’m just a couple of years ahead of you. There was this assumption. You went to college, no matter who was paying for it. You got that degree, you showed up. And then I don’t think we, you and I might’ve said this, but we probably did not like our boss, but we were just waiting for them to move on so we can take their job. This generation does not think like that.
Dave Miller — And Dr. Tim Elmore, Gen Z Unfiltered, is like a book that has meant so much to us. He’s a great friend. And he talks about just the fundamental differences of the world they’re coming from and how they view their bosses, how they view their coworkers.
Dave Miller — And it’s not just church.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Dave Miller — So I think sometimes church people, we all think it’s our fault or it’s not. It’s not. Just hop online and start reading up in Forbes and reading up in journals and things and business. It’s not going well out there. And it’s not going well for the 35-year-old middle managers.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dave Miller — That’s who’s not doing well. And in the church, that’s who’s struggling. My peers are the senior pastors who are beginning to think about legacy.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes.
Dave Miller — You said you’re the oldest guy in the room now. Even though they’ve changed their glasses and they have cool shoes. And the bald ones, the bald ones are the coolest because you can’t, is he 35 or 60? We can’t tell. And maybe a little eye work done, but let’s not get into that.
Dave Miller — The oldest guys in the room, they understand legacy. They understand. They’re beginning to think things like you and I think. Like if I sit still, who were the eight people from age 22 to 25 that just did, they meant everything to me. I still talk to a couple of them.
Rich Birch — Right, right, right.
Dave Miller — They’re beginning to think about legacy. They’re slowing down, getting their eyes on the horizon and all this. The 33 to 40-year-old middle managers. And in church world, these are the next gen directors and the kids’ directors and pastors and worship leaders.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes, yes, yes.
Dave Miller — They are running hard. They are running fast. And now enter something new to their world, which is: you must slow down. You must sit down. You must listen and talk. And these people are amazing people who for 15 or 20 years have run at a pace. And then people like us are saying, you gotta sit down. And they’re like, I don’t have time to sit down and talk.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dave Miller — That’s the long answer to what are we not doing well? It’s a systemic small business, right? Small business. And even large churches are small businesses.
Rich Birch — Yes, that’s true.
Dave Miller — I mean, a church of 5,000 with 50 employees, that’s a small business. They do not have systems and processes. They do not think like this. They think get the job, hit the ground running. If you survive for three years, we’ll advance you or something. And that’s just not gonna work. It’s not working, period. It’s not working anymore. And it hasn’t worked for a long, and we’re just awakening to it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dave Miller — That’s what we’re getting wrong. And so this book that’s coming, this book that’s coming, Who’s the Next You? Like literally answering that question. And I was with an executive pastor this week. Like, hey, if your kid’s pastor walked in and just quit, not in a mean way, but God called her to go do something amazing.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dave Miller — Or her spouse was transferred. A lot of this is like very positive reasons. What would you do?
Rich Birch — Yep, yes.
Dave Miller — And he’s like, well, I’d hire one of the firms and we’d probably take a year.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Dave Miller — Like all of my friends’ churches have taken a year and these job postings, and then we would settle.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I was gonna say that because that’s the real trend there. It’s not just that it takes time. Like we go into all these hiring things and we have this like ideal scenario. We’re gonna find this incredible person. And we go an entire year. And then really what we do is negotiate with ourselves at the end. And we’re like, well, this person from this other church.
Dave Miller — These are some of my best friends in some of these groups, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah, 100%.
Dave Miller — In the time of that work. And how many times the first handful of candidates pass on, oh, there’s gotta be something better. Nine months later, I’m literally…
Rich Birch — You’re back at the same conversation.
Dave Miller — And I would call him a guy that worked for us for a while. He’d call it dumpster diving. You go dumpster diving and you’re like, how about this one? We tossed this one away. It’s so great to think about people that way.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dave Miller — But now we’re back. And actually that was the best person we’ve looked at. Let’s call them back and see if they’re still available. Of course, typically they weren’t, they’d moved on.
Dave Miller — So I would just say this thing of going, it’s just sort of a principle, isn’t it? Like you have to go a little slower so you can go faster and farther. And this shows up big time on this topic. It shows up in every area of our life, right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Dave Miller — People, what is it? Exponential, we’re gonna develop leaders like Jesus did and like Paul did. I’m like, well, they walked everywhere, man. I’m like, hey, Rich, let’s go hold a revival eight miles down the road. We’d get there at three o’clock. We started walking. You would not need a therapist. You would not need a coach. You would not need marital help. We would work it all out.
Rich Birch — Yes, lots of time to talk.
Dave Miller — So like to compare ourselves to that or Paul on these boats that took weeks to get where he was going. How many conversations could you have?
Dave Miller — We would be amazing leadership developers if we did not have any AI. Sorry, Kenny Jahng. If we had no modern tools, we would be amazing because we would be talking.
Rich Birch — Right, we’d slow down.
Dave Miller — And one thing we’ve discovered, when a residence, there’s always a quit moment or a get fired moment in the first six months. And when we start digging, we start picking at that as coaches. We run towards the smoke is what Kristen, you know her coaching.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Dave Miller — Run towards the smoke. Is it a barbecue or is the house on fire? We gotta run over there and figure it out, right?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Dave Miller — And like, well, but tell us about your one-on-ones. How have they been the last month? And you start digging in. They’ve not been in the physical presence of the resident or their down-line hire. Because of vacations and conferences and running fast and it’s summer. So you’re just like, okay. So to develop someone is not FaceTiming from the back of an Uber between airports or something.
Rich Birch — Yes, or sending them a book and saying, you know, like. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dave Miller — And I think of my own trends. I think of me, age 25 to 33, thinking I was developing leaders, right? Developing.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dave Miller — And it’s just a different, it just doesn’t work anymore. My intern, my intern, when I…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Dave Miller — She knew she had to sit there.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dave Miller — She had no options.
Rich Birch — She was compliant.
Dave Miller — This was probably, she thought this was as good as it was ever gonna get. And I just think we’re in a, we’ve got these amazing, highly leveraged, highly talented, smart, you know, all of these adjectives. We’re trying to flip the script on all of this stuff. Flip the script.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Dave Miller — Changing the narrative on who this generation. They don’t, the biggest option is not doing it. It’s not becoming an astronaut or a doctor. The biggest option is they’ll just fall back on their 40,000 Instagram followers and monetize that and do what all of their friends, all of their, go make three times as much money.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dave Miller — Through their 20s.
Rich Birch — And have more control and all that.
Dave Miller — Have more control and their weekend’s off and they can do what they want. Anyway.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s interesting. So my daughter, she’s been, you know, we’ve worked in and been led in, you know, great churches, large churches, and I would say healthy, thriving environments. And she’s working for our city, which is, you know, is like exponentially larger organization, our city, than the largest churches we’ve worked for.
Rich Birch — And I’ve worked for, you know, whatever, 3-, 4-, 5,000 person churches. And it’s interesting watching her, the thing that she’s loving is this development piece. It’s the, you know, when she talks about it, she talks about that her department head, who is two tiers up, coming down, sitting at the end of her desk, having a conversation at the end of the week, reviewing, hey, what, how did this go? How did that go? Here’s some stuff I would have done different if I was you.
Rich Birch — You know, it’s that advocating for. Let me test this hypothesis on you. I wonder if, because in the church world, we’re in the content business, like we make content. So, and particularly our senior leaders, they think of the world through content. They think of the world through 35-minute, you know, talks.
Rich Birch — And so we think of, when we think of leadership development, we immediately go to 35 minute talks. What are the, I just need to put together a great talk and we’ll get in front of people. But that’s actually, my experience is not, that’s not what you’re saying. You’re not saying let’s talk at them.
Dave Miller — No.
Rich Birch — It’s something deeper than that. Unpack that for me.
Dave Miller — Well, we would say there’s seven ingredients. There’s a chapter in the book, seven ingredients. You can get it on our website right now. Seven ingredients of what we would say is leadership development. So what you’re talking about really, a sermon is training, if you think about it. Like in a market sense, I’m gonna talk at you for 35 minutes. There’s four points. It’s very good. It’s inspired. It’s like Ted, Ted long Ted talk every, 52 times a year…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Dave Miller — …plus Christmas Eve and whatever. And I would just say, we call that training.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Dave Miller — Churches for a long time have done really, really well with training, right? It’s either it’s the sermon or it’s Sunday school. It’s even the AI delivered small group questions I get from my men’s group, right?
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Dave Miller — It is staff. When I say, do y’all do leadership development? Yeah. Tell me about that. And they start talking about your book or Carey’s book or Craig Groeschel’s book. It’s a book of the month. It’s conversation even. Now we’ve taken training and we’re still delivering the content, but we’re discussing it and we’re filling in blanks, right? And we do that.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Dave Miller — And, or spiritual formation. I had a well-known keynote kind of person. We just need to disciple these kids and get out of their way. And I was like, oh, neat. Actually we don’t.
Dave Miller — We did that once. It’s called the Jesus movement. I think that was the Jesus movement or the Jesus people in the early seventies…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Dave Miller — …which kind of mirrors what’s going on on college campuses, if you think about it. We don’t need to just disciple them and get it. We got to go with them.
Dave Miller — So training, spiritual formation, soft skills, which is the pain point of all the bosses, the emotional lack of intelligence of things. Those would be the three core ones. And then we have to provide best practices. We have to provide ownership, which is a big thing for us in our small business, small church world at the 12 month mark, when we’re saying, well, she just doesn’t get it. She doesn’t get, oh, what doesn’t she get? He just doesn’t understand.
Dave Miller — We talk about our downline people as if they’re executive leaders with 20 years of experience. It would be totally fine for someone to accuse me of something like that. But like when we think of sports, we don’t talk about individual players. We talk about the coaches. When the team’s losing, whose fault is it? As a lifetime Cincinnati Reds fan, we changed the manager. We don’t talk about number 78 and 14.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dave Miller — When the team’s doing amazing, it’s about the player.
Rich Birch — Wow, wow.
Dave Miller — He’s killing it. She’s killing it. He’s killing it. When the team is losing, we have to own it similarly. This is on us.
Rich Birch — Wow, wow.
Dave Miller — Mental wellness, one of the seven things, mental wellness. If you can’t prove to me that you know, I’m not here giving you even a theological construct because we work with all sorts of churches that believe all sorts of things, right? But mental health, if you can’t prove to me that you have a plan at least, or you’ve thought about it, that’s gonna be a problem we’re checking in on.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dave Miller — And then finally, developmental conversations. This is not delivered only through training, to your point.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Dave Miller — Rich, if content was the key, I don’t have to finish the con…
Rich Birch — We’d be fine, we’d be fine.
Dave Miller — From MDivs at the finest seminaries in the world…
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Dave Miller — …not just the country, but the world, all the way down to hack your way to being smart for free online, right? Content is amazing. It’s what a world, what a world.
Rich Birch — Well, I know that as a coach in the coaching that I do with churches, that the problem isn’t the training. The problem isn’t me coming up with great ideas. In fact, one of the things I’ve said with the clients I work with this year, cause I had my own coach ask me that, they said, are you more interested in your client’s results or them liking you? Which are you more interested in? And I was like, oh no.
Rich Birch — And my coach was like, you’ve got to be way more interested in their results. You’ve got to lean in and I can see this. I can out content my clients. I can out content the people I work with. But that doesn’t mean that they’ll necessarily make the changes that we’re talking about. I’ve got to actually slow down, ask the question, see them take a step. They won’t, if they take the step, great.
Rich Birch — If they don’t take the step, then I got to loop back around and say, hey, why did that? What happened there? Why didn’t you do that? What did you do that? Man, that’s convicting.
Rich Birch — So the thing I love, I had the honor of, assuming you didn’t delete it from your process. I had the honor of writing the forward for this book, which I just want to say thank you for letting me do that because I’m super passionate about this. I love the subtitle: A Call for 1000 More Churches to Invest in Gen Z Through Residency. That is a giant thing to put on the front of your book. Tell me about that.
Dave Miller — Well, so when I first, we used to talk about the 3% of churches. So it depends on who you read and which piece of content you click on. But how many churches are there? 3% of them are at, we would say advancing, right? Not just getting bigger, but advancing. And of all sizes, by the way. This church of 150 is definitely the one I’m thinking of in Atlanta. It’s definitely advancing. It definitely is. There are more people who know Jesus this year. There are these marks that we all would talk about. So 10,000 churches, 10,000 churches. So can we affect 10% of those churches? Can we affect a thousand churches?
Rich Birch — That’s amazing. I love it.
Dave Miller — The other reason it’s a thousand is I went to Bible college and I grew up in Eastern Kentucky. So I can’t really do complex math. So let’s keep it simple. But that would be an amazing thing. Now I will tell you, we’re turning eight. We’re turning eight and it’s taken us, we’ve worked with 150 at this point. So it’s 80 years.
Rich Birch — Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Stop this. You know what I’m gonna say. Did you hear yourself, Dave? Dave’s like, well, gee, I make fun of Dave all the time. I’m just a guy from Eastern Kentucky. I don’t really know. Gee shucks, we’ve only worked with 150 churches. We’ve only had however many residents. How many residents have you worked with?
Dave Miller — It’s 160 something at this point.
Rich Birch — Yeah, which is amazing. I put that up against anybody’s residency. Who out there has done this as much as you guys? You are the experts on this thing. And so I can’t just let that float by. I can’t let that float by.
Dave Miller — Thank you for that. Maybe your editor’s like, should I cut this right now? I would also then on the others, I would be like Kristen, who she’s now got, she’s onboarding coaches and handing work off, right? But she does about 40 a month. She’s been doing about 40 a month coaching sessions…
Rich Birch — Wow.
…which anyone who’s coached knows that when the Zoom turns off, there’s the text tomorrow and the email. So it’s not just 40 hours, right? So 40 of these things a month, which is if you’re at a great church with a couple of residents, that’s about what you’ll do in a year.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dave Miller — So every month. So if you just think about it, my best AI is actually Kristen when I wanna know something because she’s just sitting there just curating all of this.
Rich Birch — Yes, in the conversations. Yeah.
Dave Miller — In the conversations. So, yeah, I would say she’s the expert. She really is the expert. And it’s not, it is forged through, you know, hitting potholes and then helping the next one not. If like a lot of, if churches would just not make the same mistakes that we’ve made. There was a resident who finished, he’s the only one. He finished a two-year residency and did not get hired. Said he wanted the job, I don’t know.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Dave Miller — And that was the last one that I coached. That was like number nine out of 167.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dave Miller — He’s the one. And so if we would just not make the same mistakes as just avoid, just avoid the stupid tax. She says that over and over. Paige on our team says one size fits one. There’s a lot in the book about recruiting.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Dave Miller — There’s a lot in the book about predicting success, which is still the hardest thing. She does all the candidate stuff. One size fits one. So when a church calls and says, hey, have you ever seen the senior pastor’s son be a good resident? Yes. The answer will always, we’ve seen most scenarios at this point.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dave Miller — But if you, if they ask, have you ever seen the senior pastor’s son be a complete disaster as a, yes, totally. Have you seen moving cross country? Gabby, one of our board members, she’s now been full-time through four years at her church. She moved cross country. Everything she owned, the trunk of her car. And I’m just like, this is crazy. She’s going from Virginia to Denver. And that same month we moved someone from Denver to Virginia.
Dave Miller — I’m like, this is so dumb. This is as bad as the headhunter.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Dave Miller — And she made it. She made it. She killed it. In the middle of COVID, all of this headwind. And she just, her origin story of growing up the way, she just was, she’ll be speaking at a masterclass with us in Denver next week. Success story.
Dave Miller — Have we ever seen someone move across the country and be lonely and completely implode? Yes. One size fits one, every time.
Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s good.
Dave Miller — And so just at this point, as you know, in my work history, this is the first time I can say, yeah, I’ve been at this for eight years. The same job for eight years. I’m a big quitter, like a lot of good consultants. I’m just a good quitter. And so we’re living out of the abundance of that at this point, I would say.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Dave Miller — Will it grow and will it affect a thousand churches? I hope so. Man, I pray that the Lord puts enough opportunities in front of us and we stay after it. But we’re living the benefit of having now worked, we had our 1,000th applicant in December.
Rich Birch — Wow, that’s great.
Dave Miller — Amazing amount of talking and hearing people’s stories and digging into why their Enneagram plus their disc minus their whatever equals that. The predictors of these things. We’re living the abundance of that. And a lot of that’s in this book. We took, this book is, someone challenged us right when we, well, actually before we started. You gotta have a book. I’m so glad we didn’t write some dumb book because it would have said completely different things.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Dave Miller — Gen Z, don’t forget, is turning 28 this year.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Dave Miller — So this, I think four or five years, it has to change to Alpha if we’re gonna do this.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes.
Dave Miller — So, we’re just living out of the abundance of that. We took our masterclass. That’s what I was gonna say. We do these two day trainings, deep dive all day. I don’t know how people sit there and do it, but they do. We took the nine sessions of that. We put it in a book, added a few things.
Dave Miller — So it really starts with what’s a resident? Why should we do this? Takes you all the way into the deep weeds of legal things, HR concerns, how to onboard and how to interview and how this is a little different than interviewing full-time staff. First 90 days, first day, first 90 days, the one year thing, the six month check in. It’s just a, from the beginning to the end, how do you launch them full-time in the ministry?
Rich Birch — Yeah, so good.
Dave Miller — So that’s what this book is. So, people will say, who should come to a masterclass? Well, if you’re kicking the tires, thinking about interns, you should definitely come. This is gonna be amazing. Just like the book, I would say. Or if you, we’ve had people who’ve been at, they’re a thought leader. They truly are a thought leader and have been doing it at a local church for a decade.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dave Miller — And they leave this thing going, this has been so great. How do I get my other staff leaders through this material though? That’s what this book is. So, front end.
Rich Birch — I would imagine, again, you’re the expert on this, not me, but seeing this kind of operate in a number of churches, it’s like, I would think you need like the subject matter expert internally. You need the person that’s gonna be the residency kind of flag bearer. Hey, we’re gonna run this thing.
Rich Birch — But then I also need everybody else to be on the same page. To be like, no, these people aren’t just free labor. No, these people aren’t. And this would be a great tool to kind of get everybody up to speed, to kind of give an operating understanding of what we’re trying to do.
Dave Miller — Totally totally. I mean, a residency director, once they get more than two or three residents rolling, they are dependent on half a dozen staff on their team to own this the way they own it. And right there, it break. It’s kind of like campuses. I forget, you’re the multi-siting one. What number does the campus thing break and you gotta reinvent it?
Rich Birch — Yeah, at like three or four.
Dave Miller — There’s a point at which it works. Like one-on-one and then the youth pastor at that campus or the worship leader or the production or guest server, I want one of those. At some point, we then hire a residency director who’s now over the residency. They spend most of their time chasing staff around.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Dave Miller — It’s kind of like an in-house version of us. We’re chasing them around, getting them to sit down, tell us what’s going on, trying to coach and handing this book to someone on the team, skim this. In fact, just skim chapters three, seven, and let’s talk. That could be an in-house way of helping bring them up to speed. Each chapter has a little case study, a little victory story of a resident that went through something and almost quit or almost got fired.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dave Miller — And now they’re still on the team. Or they got hired up the street or back in their hometown or whatever. So I think, I am hoping that the book is 30% inspiration, 70% instruction. There’s some tools in it, tons of QR codes to resources.
Dave Miller — It’s a lot like that masterclass. It literally, the first masterclass we did 18 months ago now and man, it was like our kitchen table was the war room for trying to like, all right, what are we gonna say?
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Dave Miller — It was so much work. And now we’ve done nine or 10 of them. We just roll into town and it works, right? I think this book was similar. Like, okay, let’s take that content. How do we put this in a couple of hundred pages that people will actually wanna read, honestly. Hopefully people wanna read it.
Dave Miller — Yes.
Dave Miller — I guess we’ll see, but.
Rich Birch — No, they will, for sure.
Dave Miller — Your mom will. Maybe your mom will get it.
Rich Birch — Yes, exactly. Yeah, so we wanna, we can pick these up. Where can we pick these up? We wanna go to your website, leadershippathway.org. I’m assuming we can kind of find all the links there. Is there anywhere else we wanna send people?
Dave Miller — Definitely go to Amazon. If you go to our website, there’s a big thing across the top of every page in obnoxious color that you can definitely find the book. That or Amazon and just search: Who’s the Next You? I think it’s the only book with that title, which is helpful.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that is interesting. As an author, that’s actually hard to do.
Dave Miller — I have a good friend who just released a book, his story. And when you search it on Amazon, be careful what you click on, because. We got none of those problems. So it’s out there.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, that’s great. Well, friends, I would strongly encourage, you’re like, I am biased. This is not like, oh, I’m the sober second voice. I don’t really care. I do on this one. I really think you should pick up Dave and Kristen’s book. Dave’s okay. Kristen’s even better. You’re gonna love this. It’s Who’s the Next You? A Call for 1000 More Churches to Invest in Gen Z Through Residency.
Rich Birch — It’s a fantastic resource. I think it’ll be super helpful. Even if you’re just on the fringes of thinking about residency, the reality of it is, I think for so many of us, particularly I’m thinking about executive leaders, executive pastors that are listening in. You get to any size and you are constantly dogged by your staff saying, I need to hire, I need to hire, I need to hire. And the reality of it is, man, what if we got up on top of that and said, what if we built a system for building young leaders that sure is not gonna deliver somebody today, but two years from now, it’s gonna deliver some people. Two years after that, two years after that, two years after that, we’re just gonna keep finding and cultivating next gen leaders. I really do think that this could be super helpful for you.
Rich Birch — Well, Dave, appreciate you. Where do we wanna send people online to track with you? Any other kind of final words as we wrap up today’s episode?
Dave Miller — If they just go to the website, leadershippathway.org, they’ll find all the stuff there would be the best.
Rich Birch — Thanks so much, Dave. Cheering for you.
Dave Miller — You’re such an encouragement. It’s like, if we could just put all of that in a battery, it’d probably be the last battery we would have to buy. And it was, you know what we would call it? We’d call it the, “hey friends!”, battery.
Rich Birch — That is true. The power of the world. You’re not the only person that’s made fun of me for saying, hey friends. I really mean it.
Dave Miller — I know, you do actually mean it. I’m like, have you seen Rich do, that’s actually if you meet him in the hall or you sit down with him and have lunch, he actually is like that.
Rich Birch — That’s funny. All right, well, thanks so much, Dave. Appreciate you.
Dave Miller — Bye-bye. Take care.
In this special rushed episode of the unSeminary Podcast, Rich unpacks the biggest nonfiction book launch in history: Alex Hormozi’s $100M Book Launch. Alex didn’t rely on TikTok trends, billboards, or mass media. Instead, he orchestrated a carefully choreographed campaign that leaned heavily on email — sometimes sending seven to nine emails in a single day!
So what can your church learn from this? I pull out three big lessons that every church leader should pay attention to:
- Campaigns, Not Announcements
Most churches think one announcement is enough. It’s not. Hormozi’s strategy shows us the power of multi-phase campaigns that build intrigue, reveal value, and lead to action. - Over-Communication Beats Under-Communication
Churches often fear “sending too much.” But Hormozi proved that variety and frequency cut through noise. Different voices, tones, and urgency hooks kept his audience leaning in — something we can apply to big days like Christmas or Easter. - Compete in the Attention Economy
In today’s distracted world, you can’t whisper and hope people will hear. Novelty, mystery, surprise — even Guinness World Record-style stunts — keep people engaged. Your church can adapt this mindset to make invite moments more compelling.
I hope this episode helps translate these lessons into practical steps for your church, so you can strengthen your communication, deepen your invite culture, and move more people toward Jesus.
A Next Step for YouIf you’re ready to sharpen one of the most important five minutes in your weekend service, don’t miss the Hosting Coaching Clinic … a six-week training designed to dramatically improve your service hosting. Each week includes actionable video lessons, best-in-class hosting examples, and tools to eliminate awkward moments, refine your “ask,” and boost engagement.
Use the code ALEX at checkout to get 50% off. This is the perfect next step to put these communication lessons into action. Click here to enroll today
IMAGE NOTE: No, I haven’t met Alex. The banner image is AI-generated and intended to serve as a pattern interrupt, following Hormozi’s style.
Thanks for joining us at the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Taylor Scott-Reimer, a dynamic speaker, advocate, and author of She Believed: Recovering the Fierce Faith of the Women of Scripture — and Ourselves.
Is your church truly inviting the full participation of women? Are female leaders empowered to speak, shape, and serve—or are they silently sidelined? Tune in as Taylor shares a practical framework to help churches reframe the narrative, restore the practice, and reclaim the voice of women—so that the whole body of Christ can flourish.
- Ask for the woman’s point of view. // Many women in churches carry a quiet pain—their stories aren’t preached, their voices aren’t heard. Over time it teaches women to shrink their faith to a mold that stifles spiritual growth, creativity, and courage and signals that their contributions are secondary. It’s helpful to call women to the table and ask them what their experience has been in the church. Making room for honest conversations helps surface unseen perspectives and fosters a truly inclusive church culture.
- Three step framework. // Taylor’s book as a three step framework in recovering women’s spiritual growth in the church—reframing the narrative, restoring the practice, and rediscovering the voice. It begins with theology in how we teach, preach, and talk about women in scripture. How we create space for women to lead and serve in meaningful, visible ways is the important part of restoring the practice. In rediscovering the voice we help women reclaim agency and spiritual authority, allowing them to show up as their full selves.
- Representation shapes identity. // Representation matters. When women see female prophets, leaders, and teachers elevated in sermons and stories, they begin to recognize their own place in God’s story. It empowers new callings and unlocks courageous leadership.
- Reclaim your voice. // Taylor offers a free PDF resource titled 7 Days to Reclaim Your Voice, which reflects on seven women from Scripture to help women rediscover their spiritual boldness. Her book expands on these themes, providing a roadmap for deeper reflection and community engagement.
- Look closer at your teaching calendar. // Look at your calendar for the next few months. Who’s preaching? Whose stories are being told? Are female voices and stories included? Are women speaking? Use small groups or leadership meetings to open these discussions and create space for women to express what they long to hear from the pulpit.
- A Church that needs all of us. // The Church needs all its members—male and female—to live and lead fully. When women are invited to speak, lead, and preach, the entire Body is enriched. It’s not about tokenism; it’s about telling the whole story of God through the voices He has gifted.
Grab a copy of Taylor’s book, She Believed: Recovering the Fierce Faith of the Women of Scripture — and Ourselves, on Amazon. Learn more about Taylor at taylorscottreimer.carrd.co and find her on Instagram.
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Listen, you’re gonna wanna lean in on today’s conversation. I know that this is an issue in your church. It’s kind of thing that that you really should be wrestling with, thinking about. It’s not the kind of thing that should be on the back burner.
Rich Birch — It’s the kind of conversation that you should be having with your staff team, you should be thinking about with, various leaders in your church. It’s going to be a super helpful and challenging and encouraging conversation. Excited to have Taylor Scott-Reimer with us. She’s a writer, speaker, and passionate advocate for building a church where women’s voices are not just welcomed, but they’re needed.
Rich Birch — She’s written a recent book that I want you to pick up for your team called She Believed: recovering the fierce face of fierce not face fierce faith of women of scripture and ourselves. Through this book she’s invites you, our readers, to rediscover the fierce forgotten women of scripture the prophets, preachers, judges, and warriors who refuse to shrink from their faith ah or callings. Taylor, welcome to the show – so glad you’re here.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — I’m so glad to be here. Thanks for having me, Rich.
Rich Birch — Yeah, this is going to be great. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about your background? Kind of give us the the story, the Taylor story. Tell us about your, you know, yeah, just tell us about your background.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — Yeah, absolutely. So I grew up deeply immersed in church life. My dad is a Presbyterian minister. And as a kid, I seriously loved church. I was the kind of kid who really enjoyed ah youth group Bible studies, just being around and part of our community.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — But over time, as I grew up and kind of moved away from my home church and encountered wider Christianity and the wider church world, I started to notice something that when we were having those conversations about leadership and calling and just more of the business and leadership side of church, it was really like the women in the room disappeared.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — And of course, not physically, they were often there, but there was something going on spiritually. We were expected to serve, but not to speak, to show up, but to not shape. And as I worked in ministry myself, I started to experience this deep ache that maybe maybe my voice didn’t belong. Maybe I was wrong on this issue.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — And “She Believed” was really born out of this ache. When I became a mom to my daughter and then to my son, I really was experiencing this tension of wanting to pass on a faith that affirmed and liberated and introduced my daughter to my personal savior, Jesus.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — But that also was ah enough for my son to be able to respect and to understand women as co-creators of the new garden. So that led me to writing “She Believed”. And it’s a reclaiming of space for myself, yes, but more importantly, for the many women who love Jesus deeply and yet have been told that they’re not allowed to lead boldly.
Rich Birch — Well, want to, so you’ve said something that really caught my attention that I want to kind of double click on and hear a little bit more. You said that there’s a deep but quiet pain. That that is a it’s powerful phraseology, uh, that many women experience in the church. Tell me about that. Talk that through, help us unpack that. What does that actually look like? What is that? How does that show up in a woman’s life? How is that, you know, how have you experienced that? How do you see that happening around us? How could that be happening in our church?
Taylor Scott-Reimer — Yeah, of course. Yeah, I think it’s the pain of just being spiritually disqualified whether explicitly or implicitly. It’s sitting in pews week after week but never really hearing a woman’s story preached. Never really seeing a woman and lead from a pulpit and never being asked what you think God is saying and being invited to bring your unique female perspective to the church.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — And that that kind of exclusion isn’t always loud, but I think what’s really insidious about it is that it’s formative. And over time, it teaches women to shrink their faith to fit a mold which stifles our spiritual growth, our creativity, and our courage. And as a result, we as a church, we miss out on the fullness of discipleship because half of the church is watching from the sidelines instead of participating on the field.
Rich Birch — Well, yeah, and I would echo that this this, you know, the issue you’re pushing on here has been my experience when I’ve interacted with prevailing churches that are making a huge difference. I look around those tables and I see it’s not all it’s not all men. There are often lots of women in the room leading, which is wonderful. Obviously a good thing we want want to we want to have have happen. We want to continue to kind of accelerate that.
Rich Birch — But my so my assumption, my thought as you’re as you’re as I was kind of listening to you unpacking what you talked about in in “She Believed”, is that this kind of quietening, silencing, sidelining, like that can happen even in a church that would maybe even theologically be like, I’m totally okay with having women lead, you know, and in all positions. Even in that, we’re not talking about churches that even necessarily just have a theological, you know, can, you know, bent towards limiting women’s voices. It can happen even in, ah you know, more, you know, in other churches. Is that true? Help us understand that.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — Yeah, 100%. I think that is completely true. It’s it’s that difference between it’s not necessarily explicit exclusion, but it’s insidious and it it creeps up into our churches, whether we realize it or not. And I think it’s helpful to have these conversations where we can call it out and we can work and really ask the women who are around the table, if they are around the table, what is your actual experience? And creating such an environment where we can really dig into that. Because, Rich, this is important stuff. This is half the body of Christ we’re talking about.
Rich Birch — 100%. Yes. Yes.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — And yeah, yeah, we can do better.
Rich Birch — Absolutely. Well, and there’s that great irony of like, and I’ve said this in other contexts as well, not just in the kind of talking about this issue. The great irony is you walk into most churches and 60% the people, it’s even 50%, 60% of the people, 70% of the people in that room are women. Lots of churches skew towards there being more women engaged than men engaged. And even in those environments, there this I can see this happen.
Rich Birch — Well, in your book, you offer a three-step framework, something for us to think about. Can you help us kind of think through, even at a high level, to kind of talk that through a little bit?
Taylor Scott-Reimer — Yeah, totally. So high level, right off the bat, the framework is really simple. I think we need to be reframing the narrative, restoring the practice, and reclaiming the voice. So this really starts with our theology.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — So how we preach, how we teach, and how we talk about women in scripture. While writing this book, I encountered so many sources that delved into the stories of women in the Bible, but were so obviously written by men and centering the male experience of those texts. Reading things about how, ah you know, Rahab, when the Jewish spies go and ah scout out the city and they join her in a brothel and the text doesn’t address why are they in the brothel. What’s going on there? And what what would it have been like for Rahab, a woman, to not only have been exploited economically and societally, but then have the opportunity to meet God.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — And that’s that’s such a different conversation, that’s such a different sermon when it’s preached by ah by a woman and through her lived experience. So this really, really starts foundationally with reframing the narrative.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — And then it moves into church practice. So how we create space for women to serve and lead in meaningful ways. And meaningful ways is the important part here. Ways that allow them to show up authentically as their full selves.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — I’m a new mom myself, so showing up at a church and being told that I can listen to the sermon, but it’s in the family room. Or I can listen to the sermon, ah but I’m going to be in the hallway with my children during it. These are real, real things that are happening.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — So we need to think through our physical spaces, but also just the spaces and the culture that we’re creating as a church. Are we allowing, again, I’ve already said it, but half the body of ah believers to show up in a way that’s real to them. And finally, it’s really about voice.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — Helping women rediscover their agency and authority in community and in calling. And again, I really think this comes back to ah reading the stories of women in scripture and hearing their voices and interpreting it ah with a female-centered lens.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — It’s not a to-do list for churches, but it is a reimagining of what a healthy, vibrant discipleship can look like when women are no longer missing from the story, but are able to see themselves as important aspects of of this story
Rich Birch — Love it. I love it. And, you know, I got to say a part of what your work convicted me, even as I was reflecting on like, I feel like I’ve, I’ve worked, been a part of, led in great churches that are fantastic places. But even this idea of, I we we’ve never done, I’ve never been a part of like, hey, we’re going to do six weeks on, let’s look at six incredible female leaders in the Bible. Let’s look at six, you know, we just have never, and that would be, that would be the kind of thing that we’ve done in other kinds, like the kind of treatment of the text that we would have done in for other things, but we’ve never done that in this.
Rich Birch — I would say we’re the churches I’ve led in. We’re not probably on the extreme where it’s like the only time we talk about it as Proverbs 31 on Mother’s Day. Like that’s the only time we bring it up. It’s not that. But I like this idea of reframing the narrative. Maybe we could unpack that a little bit. Help us kind of imagine and kind of think a bit differently around that. I think that could be a really practical step for people to take away, which is, hey, how can we ensure that we’re infusing, highlighting, taking more time to point out some of the parts of the narrative that maybe we’ve just overlooked in the past? Help help us unpack that.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — Yeah, well I really think when women only get to see themselves in scripture and in sermons as helpers or background characters in God’s stories, they subconsciously assume that that’s all they’re allowed to be.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — But when we can reframe this narrative and really claim it, everything changes. We know representation matters. Theological representation matters.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — When we lift up women with voices like Deborah, like the Jewish midwives, Mary Magdalene, Priscilla, Phoebe, Dorcas, suddenly the story gets so much richer. And I really think this is what we’ve been missing as a church. When women begin to see themselves as part of God’s story, they’re able to preach, to build, to speak truth. And what really happens is it’s like spiritual oxygen. It makes room for new callings to emerge, new stories to be told. And the Holy Spirit to come through all of us.
Rich Birch — I love that. I’m going to take advantage of the fact that you’re an expert in this area, ask you for some coaching on this. So let’s say I’m like, hey, that sounds like a good idea. Like my natural inclination or what’s that my hesitancy in the back of my brain is like, that’s like a fantastic idea for like a four or six week series. We’re going to do, we’re going to have like six weeks of women preaching on, I’ll have people on my team whatever, preach through all these things. That would be amazing.
Rich Birch — But then there’s, there’s a part of me that says, am I just ghettoizing this, this, through that, is that actually helping? Or am I is it one of those situations where helping hurts actually by kind of highlighting um you know the you know, this in kind of its own special thing. It’s like, the you know, it’s the thing that it’s like the churches that do the like, it’s youth Sunday. It’s like, that doesn’t really mean that you’re integrating youth to the church. It just means that you gave as a Sunday up for them. Help me. Maybe I’m just like overthinking it. It’s like, no, Rich, that’s a good idea. You should do that. Help us think through that. What what should we be thinking about?
Taylor Scott-Reimer — Yeah, I think the first thing that just comes to mind, Rich, when you say that is if you are a church who isn’t highlighting women’s stories, let’s start with that. If you’ve never done speaker series where you highlighted intentionally ah the the voices of women, maybe this is the push you need ah to to do that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — Because representation starts with things like that. We need those initiatives. to kind of get the ball rolling. Now, if you’re a church that, you know, again, we said at the beginning it’s 2025, maybe you’ve had these conversations. Maybe this is something that’s already happening in your church. I think getting to the point where we have more mature conversations. One of the things I hear often when I preach through our “She Believes” series is, I didn’t know we were allowed to talk about that in church, or I didn’t know we were allowed to say that out loud.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — And I think what’s really healing about these types of conversations is that it shows just the breadth and depth of God’s love for us within the human experience. And it lets us know that we can have these conversations, that God is big enough that we can challenge, we can ask questions, we can say, hey, you know what, what you just said really hurt me or that what you just said wasn’t fair. And be invited to really understand and move through those emotions as our full selves.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — God created us with the full spectrum of human emotion. And I often feel that sometimes women are only invited to bring some of those emotions into the church. In small group settings settings, I’ve seen women cry, laugh, really challenge each other. And most importantly, remember who God made them to be.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — So this devotional, “She Believed”, is designed to create that space. It’s less about arriving at answers or having a theological debate about women in leadership and spiritual headship and all of those kind of things, and more just about reclaiming that space and allowing people to wrestle honestly and faithfully and bringing in all of their questions.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — We’ve seen a lot of conversation in the last little while about deconstruction, reconstruction, all of that stuff. I think this is part of the piece of naming, explaining, and just being ready to hold the whole capacity of human experience and human emotion because God created it and it’s not something scary.
Rich Birch — So the, you know, in this you’ve provided, which is fantastic discussion questions, obviously it’s like a, Hey, we could do this in a group. We could have a, you know, conversation. You kind of touched on that little bit. I wonder if you could unpack stories you’ve heard or how has that impacted helped, you know, as you’ve invited people into this discussion to reflect wrestles, you know, and speak together, how, you know any kind of sense of the impact that that’s having or any kind of interesting stories along that line?
Taylor Scott-Reimer — Yeah, I would say one of the things that really struck me is I just finished preaching through “She Believed” at my home church where I grew up and where I was raised. Many, many women in our congregation came up to me afterwards with tears in their eyes just, and I realized in that moment that a lot of our older generations of believers haven’t been invited to have these conversations out in the open.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — They’re conversations that have happened in the kitchen and in the nursery, but not necessarily from the pulpit. And allowing the older generation of women to be affirmed, and to have the ways in which patriarchy has hurt them named is a deeply, deeply healing experience. But also for younger women like myself, new moms, women working, being able to see the the stories of scripture without the sanitized lens of helpers, what have you, has been super helpful.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — And cultural cues are powerful, especially especially in the church. So you can have all the right theology about women’s leadership on paper, but if your platform never reflects that, the signal doesn’t land.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — Modeling is a ministry in and of itself, And when women see others women, women leading with authority, with authenticity, showing up as themselves with breast milk stained shirts and [inaudible], we normalize it. And that’s how we build a church that’s that’s more reflective of God’s kingdom and frankly, more suited for a ministry in 2025, where we’re stripping back the camera.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love it. So good. And again, I think this would be a great ah great resource for church leaders to pick up, to wrestle through, to think about, you know, to have you come and speak. I think there’s lots that could happen there. I think that’s amazing.
Rich Birch — This is a bit of an unfair question. I asked my friend Kadi Cole this when she was on the episode. I should have told you this ahead of time. I’m pulling the rug out from underneath of you.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — All right, let’s do it.
Rich Birch — But hopefully we’re friends enough to ask this question. So and I know this book is not really answering that question. You’re not really wrestling with what I’m about to ask you. But I just want you’re in this. You’re thinking about these things.
Rich Birch — Do you think that if you think of the the broadly evangelical church, not like people ask me if I’m evangelical, it’s like, it depends on what you mean by that. Like, if you mean someone who takes the teaching of Jesus seriously, yes, I am evangelical. if If that’s what you mean, there’s lots of other cultural freight to that word that I don’t associate with. But I’m, you know, like in that in that church, whatever that church is, however you describe that, do do you think that this, the issue here is more of a sticky floor issue or a glass ceiling? Is it more that women are not leaning in where there’s maybe more opportunity there than then there they’re choosing to be a part of? Or is it a glass ceiling problem? There’s actually like systemic, and maybe it’s it’s obviously both.
Rich Birch — There’s obviously both of those dynamics happening. But which of those do you think is kind of the the side of the equation that we need to be thinking about or should be wrestling with. Again, it’s not, it’s it’s adjacent to “She Believed”. It’s not directly what you’re talking about. But but what do what do you think? Again, unfair question. What do you think?
Taylor Scott-Reimer — No, I love it, Rich. That’s awesome. I think you were already kind of pointed to it, but I do think it’s both. It is a glass ceiling issue of if there’s no room, there’s no room. We need to make room. But it is also a little bit of the the need to just empower daughters of Christ ah to to take that space. And if it’s not available to make that space.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — I notice a lot of the times in my own experience of evangelical Christian world, however you define it, there’s a lot of mentoring opportunities for for Christian young men um that Christian women aren’t being invited into. I think of an example for myself.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — I went to a Christian university. I absolutely loved my experience there. But I had professors who abided by the Billy Graham rule, right, of not being a alone with a woman. How does that translate into career opportunities and mentorship for daughters of Christ if their professors won’t sit down and have a conversation with them? How does that transfer into internships and pastoral ministry if people aren’t engaging with women in that mentoring capacity to affirm their gifts, but to also tell them ah how to use them for the church.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — I think ah women are grieving this, and the church is grieving this. We’re missing out on half of the body because of it. But some of the most powerful leadership I’ve seen really comes through this grief and this acknowledgement that it is both of those issues, the glass ceiling, we need to make the space, we need to do the work, but it is also empowering daughters of Christ to to live to their calling.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Yeah, so good. and ah And I’ve talked about this on other episodes, but like my own personal experience with the Billy Graham rule, like I have a ah certain sense of I have been the benefactor. Listen, I am a like middle-aged white guy. I am like, I check a lot of the boxes that are, you know, born in a fairly affluent family in the West, white guy, you know, at ah at of a great time.
Rich Birch — I was born in 1974, the lowest birthright year of the 20th century, which gave me a significant leg up. And I, in that particular issue, I have, there ah there was a a, and I’ve said that I’m only saying this again to to point out ah to other folks. I’m not trying to make this about me, but there was a week early on in my ministry. I was a young leader in my twenties where we were trying, we were stuck as a church. And like, there was another church, a very large church, literally like 10 times our size, who I knew they had solved this problem. And I reached out to a leader there and I said, listen, can I just come and hang out at your church for the week?
Rich Birch — And he was like, what? And I was like, yeah, I just want to like sit in in all your meetings and like take a bunch of notes and you don’t have to talk to me. You don’t need to you don’t need to do anything. I just want to be around. I just want to try to see what I can learn from that experience. And he graciously said yes. By the end of that week where I’m like having dinner at his house, hanging out, um you know. We’ve become friends. We’re now lifelong friends. That week was absolutely an inflection point in my leadership. Like I was like, oh, my goodness, I saw things differently.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — Right.
Rich Birch — I know that that leader, if I was a woman that had called him and said, hey, can I just hang out for the week? I don’t think that would have happened. I think he would have said, ah well, maybe come, we got a conference coming up next month or next year. Why don’t you come to the conference and we can, why don’t we see each other after a session or something like would have been probably what he would have said. That’s, and that’s not a slight on him. That’s just a slight on the culture. What’s all all around that.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And so, yeah, that’s a, that is a very real issue. I think we have to create that space. So you touched the Billy Graham rule and it like touched a part of me and I was like, oh, I got to talk about that. So yeah.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — Right?
Rich Birch — Well, let’s get back to your content. So you’ve given us a ah PDF that we’re going to link to. It’s called Seven Days to Reclaim Your Voice, a devotional guide for women. And I would say men. I went through this. I think this is fantastic. I know what you mean by that. But I think this a fantastic resource. Talk to us about this resource. We’ll link to it.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — Yeah, awesome. So this is this a great resource to kind of get the the ball rolling, whether that’s ah around the table in your staff meetings or for your own personal use. The resource works through seven women of scripture, and it’s a quick daily reflection. And then my book, “She Believed”, which is coming out later this summer and will be available on Amazon, really delves into these topics in a fuller way.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — Again, I think we’ve mentioned this, but something I’ve really intentionally done with She Believed is this is not this is not the place for a theological argument.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — This is the place for women and men, by extension, who have been hurt by the church, have been hurt by the ways that patriarchy has played out in the church and that ah that need ah that pastoral hug um and that commissioning that you are doing God’s work and there is ah there’s a lot of work to be done.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I really appreciate this fantastic. And I appreciate you redirecting. I’ve been pushing us towards, let’s talk about this issue. And I know obviously it’s connected to what you’re talking about, but but I love the underlying push of like, hey, we got to get back to scripture. Let’s look at these stories. Let’s engage women on this and let’s ensure that we’re looking at ah scripture from that lens. I think is is critically important.
Rich Birch — Listen, there might be some pastors that are listening who want to do better. They’re like, they’ve they have listened to this conversation and they’re like, man, I really do want to take a new start here. I feel like we’ve got a you know, I would say a step they could take would be to buy your book, which we’ll talk in a minute where people can get that when it comes out.
Rich Birch — But what what’s another kind of step or something they should be thinking about as kind of a first step in this direction to be like, Hey, we need to do a better job kind of regardless of where they’re at in this, in this area.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — Yeah, totally. I would say ah next little bit, low hanging fruit look at ah look at the narrative that you’re telling from the pulpit. Look at your preaching calendar for the next few months and ask whose stories are we telling? Whose voices are we centering?
Rich Birch — So good.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — This might be looking and seeing who the preachers are, like we’ve already talked about. Are they male or female? But also, are we preaching about all male prophets? Are we preaching about all male disciples? Can we do better here? Can we include some of these voices that have been historically disenfranchised?
Taylor Scott-Reimer — And then go deeper, invite women in your congregation into that conversation.
Rich Birch — So good.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — I wanna say to your pastors listening, particularly if they’re male pastors, is this isn’t all on you. Tap in, see who’s in your conversation, ask them what kinds of stories or sermons that they wish they heard of more often. I think oftentimes as pastors and ministers, people assume it’s all on them, but people in your congregation will be able to give you a sense of what’s actually happening beside behind the scenes.
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — Small groups are a great place to start these conversations where people already know each other more intimately and can speak more authentically. The goal isn’t to really overhaul everything overnight, but it is to start seeing what’s missing and to commit to filling those gaps with courage and care.
Rich Birch — Well, where do we want to send people to ah pick up not a copy, but copies? I think this would be, to me, this is done best in community. It’s like, this is a staff team resource. This is a, hey, we’re going to do with our small groups. We’re going to buy couple hundred copies and do with the entire church. Like it’s that kind of thing. I think it’s it’s best made for in community. Where do we want to send people to pick up copies?
Taylor Scott-Reimer — Yeah, 100%. So the book is coming out this August. So you can find, or you will be able to find “She Believed” on Amazon, both print and ebook formats. And if you head to my website, which we provided for you, ah there’s a free downloadable discussion guide that we’ve kind of already highlighted and mentioned to help guide you to use it in starting these conversations.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — And yeah, you can follow me on Instagram @taylorreimer96 and stick along for the journey. I’m really, really excited about this project. It’s it’s kind of a new thing for me to be stepping into. And I just, I’m really passionate about it. And I’m so thankful, Rich, for the opportunity to share it with you and your listeners.
Rich Birch — Yeah, any any last words, last encouragements you’d say ah just as we wrap up today’s episode?
Taylor Scott-Reimer — Yeah, I was struck by a line this morning. I’m I’m of ah a certain demographic. I believe we’re called Zennials. I think that’s what it is. I’m the Gen Z Millennial kind of.
Rich Birch — Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, right, right.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so full disclosure, was on TikTok this morning and I saw a TikTok…
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — …like why… Yeah, yeah. How hard could it be – boys do it? And it was young women showing what they don’t think that they’re able to do, but men do all the time.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — And I was kind of struck by: how hard could it be boys do it? And I think that’s something we as women in the church need to remember.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — People do it. We can do it.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, that’s good. Well, this has been great. Listen, I want to like honor you publicly. I thank you for writing this book. I thank you for sticking your neck out here and raising a good question, doing it in just a super elegant way and helping us think through these issues and really hopefully encouraging, you know, some folks to, to think differently and to move forward in this. So I really appreciate this, Taylor. Thanks for being here.
Rich Birch — And we’ll link to all of that in the show notes, friends. You can you can get all that there. But thanks for being here today. Thank you so much.
Taylor Scott-Reimer — Thank you.
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Zenzo Matoga, Senior Pastor of Impact Church in Boston, Massachusetts. Originally from Malawi, Africa, Zenzo brings a passion for evangelism shaped by the revival crusades of Reinhard Bonnke. Under Zenzo’s leadership, Impact Church has become one of the fastest-growing churches in America, thriving in one of the nation’s most unchurched cities.
Is your church struggling to move evangelism from a program to a culture? Zenzo shares practical strategies and spiritual insights that have helped Impact Church ignite revival in a spiritually dry place, equipping believers to impact one person at a time.
- Finding your city’s key. // Every city has a spiritual “key” that unlocks its people, and every church has a unique calling. For Boston, Zenzo identified young professionals as a primary audience. By fostering authenticity and sharing real-life stories, Impact created an atmosphere where unchurched people feel welcomed and understood. Zenzo stresses that pastors must seek God for the specific key to their city rather than copy other churches’ models.
- The power of authenticity. // Millennials and Gen Z are drawn to honesty and transparency. At Impact, leaders openly share personal stories—including struggles in marriage or faith—so that people see church as a place of grace, not perfection. This culture of authenticity empowers members to share their testimonies, creating an environment where evangelism feels natural and accessible.
- Impact One. // Zenzo’s book “Impact One: The Epic Prayer That Transforms Friends and Family” grew out of a desire to help every believer reach their unchurched loved ones. The book teaches a simple four-step process: First, gain a burden for the lost—pray for God to break your heart for what breaks His. Pray for one—write down three names of people far from God and pray for them. Practice friendship evangelism—become a genuine friend with no agenda. And finally, seal the deal—when the time is right, share your faith boldly. This framework equips everyday believers to live as “producers” of disciples rather than passive attenders.
- Embedding evangelism in the culture. // At Impact, evangelism isn’t a program—it’s woven into weekly practices. Every Sunday, the church prays the “Impact One prayer”: God, please give me one person to impact with your love and invite to church. Testimonies of changed lives are shared regularly, reinforcing a culture of outreach. Members are even encouraged to ask one another, “Who did you impact this week?”—keeping evangelism front and center.
- Practical systems for connection. // Impact Church uses two creative tools to make disciples. “F15” stands for the first 15 minutes after service, when members are encouraged to treat the lobby like a mission field, seeking out new people rather than gravitating toward friends. The “C.L.O.N.E.” model—Chronology, Location, Occupation, Number, Encouragement—gives members a practical framework for conversations that lead to authentic connections and ongoing discipleship.
- Radical worship as evangelism. // Zenzo bridges his background as a worship leader with his passion for evangelism. He believes radical, joy-filled worship breaks spiritual strongholds and attracts unbelievers seeking something beyond what the world offers. In a city defined by intellectualism and materialism, Impact’s passionate worship embodies the presence of God in a way that draws people to conviction and freedom.
- From evangelism to discipleship. // Impact emphasizes that inviting someone to church is only the beginning. Members are encouraged to disciple those they bring—offering rides, inviting them to small groups, and walking with them through life. This relational approach ensures that evangelism naturally flows into discipleship.
To learn more about Impact Church and Pastor Zenzo’s resources, visit impactpeople.org. His book Impact One: The Epic Prayer That Transforms Friends and Family is available on Amazon and other online retailers.
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you’ve decided to tune in. Really looking forward to today’s conversation, an opportunity to dive in on a conversation that really all of our churches should be wrestling with.
Rich Birch — Honored, privileged to have Zenzo Matoga with us. He is the senior pastor at a church called Impact Church that has, if I’m counting correctly, two locations in Massachusetts. They’re one of the fastest growing churches in the country. He’s also a seasoned worship leader. And I think this is a first for our podcast, a Dove Award nominated songwriter and author. So excited to have you on this the show today, Zenzo. Thank you for being here.
Zenzo Matoga — Thank you so much for having me, Rich. It’s such an honor to be here with you.
Rich Birch — This is wonderful. Impact has experienced you know incredible growth in these last number of years. And I’d love for you to kind of tell us a little bit about the church, bring us up on the journey and and tell us what God’s doing in your church these days.
Zenzo Matoga — Yes, so this next month here in September we’re going to be celebrating 10 years. So it’s been 10 years of ministry and we are in Boston, Massachusetts of all the places in the world.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Zenzo Matoga — It’s been named the fifth most unchurched city in all of America. And so um you know people told me Boston is a very dry place and I thought to myself last time I checked dry places catch on fire faster than any other place it’s so so that…
Rich Birch — Oh, I like that. I like that. Nothing like a a cemetery for if you want a resurrection, right? Same thing.
Zenzo Matoga — There you go. There you go. That got us excited, you know, but it’s been an honor you know to do ministry here, you know, 10 years of incredible ministry. I’m originally from Malawi, Africa
Rich Birch — Oh, nice. Okay.
Zenzo Matoga — Very, very small country. So it’s humbling to be in this nation and preaching the gospel. Yes, I’m a worship leader first. So I started leading worship in what we call the African revivals that were led by a man called Reinhard Bonnke, who literally saw 79 million salvations in those crusades. And so I just adopted this passion for evangelism, this this passion for evangelism.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Zenzo Matoga — Except back then it used to happen through crusades, big crusades. And when I moved to America the Lord said teach the Americans how to win their unchurched loved ones.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Zenzo Matoga — That’s gonna be the key to evangelism. So in a nutshell, we’ve built Impact Church on that, you know, the Great Commission. That’s why we named the church Impact Church. It says, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, the Holy Spirit.
Zenzo Matoga — And so, yeah, make disciples. Who make disciples? Who make disciples? Who make disciples? And that’s church growth. That’s revival. It was never meant to be rocket science, if you’re making disciples, not converts.
Rich Birch — That’s so good. Well, I’m looking forward to digging in and learning from you today and and the good just the good stories, the good things that are happening at Impact.
Rich Birch — You know, many pastors want a vibrant evangelism and discipleship culture at their church, but it really is can be really challenging for many churches to create that. Why do you think that is? What are some of the obstacles that you’ve seen other churches face, you know, why why do you think this is? It’s like so core to who we’re supposed to be, but why is it why is it so tough so so so many times?
Zenzo Matoga — Yeah. Well, number one, I believe that the very art of making disciples was never meant to be too easy. There are challenges there, but there are beautiful challenges. So if you’re facing challenges, hey, welcome to the club. You’re heading in the right direction. Don’t be discouraged.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Zenzo Matoga — I also feel that many pastors and churches and leaders, they they copy from other churches, you know. And it’s okay to learn from others, right? But when you’re copying something and you don’t receive it by revelation, because listen, to Moses, he said, use a stick. To Joshua, he said, march around the city. The power was not in walking around and the power was definitely not in the stick. The power was in the instruction, you know.
Rich Birch — Right.
Zenzo Matoga — And so I think it’s good to to pray, study your city. There’s a key that unlocks every city. You got to find that key. Whoever finds that key will unlock that city.
Zenzo Matoga — And so, and I think, ah and you can learn what others are doing, right? But sometimes people copy things, but then they just, they don’t follow through, or they start and they stop and they try something else, and then they try something else and then they go to that conference, pick up something else and try. Because most of these strategies, you got to, you got to see them through and you got to be patient.
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Zenzo Matoga — You got to be patient for them to produce, you know. It’s like, you know, revival sometimes is like pounding the ground so that you can build a spring or rather you can break ground so that there can be a spring that gushes out. But you can’t just do that. You can’t do that for two days. You can’t do that for one day, you know. And sometimes you encounter rocks and you’ve got to break through that and keep going. And so I feel like sometimes people start and stop, start and stop. There has to be a long-term commitment to the strategy that the Lord gives you. Yeah.
Rich Birch — Well, there’s a lot there I’d love to unpack. You talk about ah you know every seat every city has a key that to unlock you know that and and leaders are part of our job is to find that. Unpack that a bit more. Tell me a little bit about that. What has that looked like for you at Impact as you’ve considered? I do think as, ah ah I think there’s an interesting advantage that you have as someone from outside the culture coming in to to see the culture. I actually think that’s a huge strategic advantage that God’s given you. So help us understand that. Unpack that a little bit more.
Zenzo Matoga — Yeah, for sure. You know, every city has a key. Whoever has that key and will unlock it, you know.
Zenzo Matoga — And so, yeah, I think it’s good to study your city. And also every church has a calling, right? I don’t think I don’t think our churches are supposed to reach everybody. I think you have to know who you’re called to reach, you know. And then find the key that unlocks those type of people. For us here in Boston, We wanted to reach you know young professionals. And amazingly, in doing that, they brought their parents and later on grandparents, you know.
Rich Birch — Right.
Zenzo Matoga — But we wanted to focus on those. And so one, I wanted to create a welcoming a welcoming atmosphere, welcoming environment. I wanted to create a culture that was authentic because Millennials, Gen Zs, Gen Alphas, you know, you can’t reach them if you’re not authentic.
Zenzo Matoga — So from the get, I knew that I was going to use personal stories. It was going to be self-duplicating stories, but with integrity, right? Like the like the young people say, not forcing anything, but just really telling them here’s a story. I started talking about the issues my wife and I had um at the beginning of our marriage. I mean we’ve been married 19 years and always say we’ve had the best 16 years of our lives you know because the first three, first three was very rough.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Zenzo Matoga — She’s she’s Italian American. I’m African and I quickly found out that the the jungle spirit in me did not agree with the mafia spirit in our you know so we almost started World War III, you know.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Zenzo Matoga — But we we we were going to tell our stories, we were going to utilize humor, we were going to be honest, and we were going to train the young people to also be authentic. Tell your story. One the best things you can ever do is tell your story, you know.
Zenzo Matoga — We overcome by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of our testimony. you know And they did not love their lives to shrink back from death. Sometimes people are afraid to share their story, your powerful testimony. Let people know what God has done. It creates an atmosphere where where there’s a culture of grace where people are not afraid of church people and they think like they’re better than us, you know, or I’ll never be like them.
Zenzo Matoga — I’ll never, you know, I’m drinking right now and I’m smoking and I’m doing this. I’ll probably never be like them. Well, a bunch of us used to do that, you know. So if you can tell your story, share your testimony, create an authentic environment.
Zenzo Matoga — I don’t know how much to share now, but also, you know, from from the book Impact One, let me just jump in that. I wanted to teach our church members how to reach their unchurched loved ones. To me, the key to Boston was if I can teach a typical churchgoer how to reach your unchurched loved ones, if I can teach you to just impact one, right?
Zenzo Matoga — In the next three months, if I can just teach you to impact one person, bring them into the house of God, and then, you know, some people can impact three, some can maybe do five, but every year, every believer has to be a producing believer, not a barren producer. I mean, not a barren believer. And so yeah, I wrote that book. I wrote that book just for the members of our church.
Rich Birch — Right.
Zenzo Matoga — It’s a small book, four chapters only.
Rich Birch — Right.
Zenzo Matoga — Chapter one is ah is is just get the burden for the lost. Ask God to break you with what breaks his heart concerning the lost. Start weeping again for the lost. You know, number two, pray for the one. So right just write three names down of people you want to win for Jesus, right?
Rich Birch — I love that.
Zenzo Matoga — Those people you’re eating Thanksgiving dinner with, you know, write write a few of those names. The people the the person who’s always next to you in the gym working out, right you know, write their name down.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah.
Zenzo Matoga — And then chapter three was simple. Just become a good friend. Friendship evangelism. Just become a good friend. Billy Graham, before he passed away, he said he believes after doing all the crusades that this present day of America, that the best form of evangelism is friendship evangelism.
Zenzo Matoga — Sometimes Christians are not good friends. Just learn how to be a good friend.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Zenzo Matoga — You know and we we taught our church just be a good friend for a season with no strings attached. Just really show interest in those people.
Zenzo Matoga — And then number four is seal the deal. You know, sealing the deal means wait for the right moment. You know, they will ask you, they will ask you, where does your joy come from? You know, why are you not shaking about this? You talk about this church thing all the time. Tell me about that.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Zenzo Matoga — You know, a door open, then you seal the deal, you know. But ride the waves.
Rich Birch — Step in.
Zenzo Matoga — Ride the waves of the Holy Spirit like surfing. You know. And so let the opportunity be created. So to us, that was I think that was the key you know in a nutshell…
Rich Birch — Right. Love it.
Zenzo Matoga — …creating a welcoming atmosphere where there was authenticity and a culture of grace and then teaching these young people you know how to win Jesus.
Zenzo Matoga — And I think the final thing for me being a worshiper was we wanted to create an atmosphere where there was radical worship, radical worship. I’m in Boston. You know, it’s the mecca of education.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Zenzo Matoga — We have a quarter a million students. We have the most students than any other city in the world. We have Harvard University, MIT. And I felt a bit insecure, if I can be honest, ah Rich.
Zenzo Matoga — I was like, OK, I’m an African kid. I come from the third poorest country in the world. And I got no college degree, you know. Because I went into music route I wanted to go to school for music I couldn’t afford it…
Rich Birch — Right.
Zenzo Matoga — …and I just dove straight into music and the Lord blessed that, but I felt insecure. And the Lord said hey one of the keys to Boston is the foolishness of worship. I will confound the wisdom of the wise with the foolishness of radical worship and joy. Radical worship and joy, you know.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Zenzo Matoga — And so we worship radically and I found that people are looking you know for for for…
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Zenzo Matoga — …a radical version of believers again, You know, people are not looking for ah nice alternative of what they’re already doing. No, they’re looking for something vibrant, something that’s embedded in revival and radical worship…
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that.
Zenzo Matoga — …and joy, joy, joy, joy. Yeah.
Rich Birch — I love that. I’d love to, we’re I’m going to put a a bookmark in that. I want to come back to that in a minute, but yeah I want to loop back on something you said earlier. You know, my sense is that one of the things you’ve been able to do at Impact is really see evangelism as a culture. It’s not a, it’s not a program. It’s not like a, hey, here’s a, you know, do this thing. It’s like a part of who we are. Talk us through how that um works itself out at Impact. What how are you ensuring that reaching out to unchurched folks in Boston, Bostonians, is a culture of impact rather than just a program? What’s that look like?
Zenzo Matoga — Yeah, Rich, I believe that’s the that’s the key, is that sometimes we go on this journey of making evangelism or discipleship these systems and classes. And and nothing wrong with that to supplement and complement what you have. But I believe that evangelism and discipleship has to be embedded in the culture of the church.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Zenzo Matoga — On our worst Sunday, we’re evangelistic and we’re making disciples. And so what what does that mean? For us, it’s simple. You know, yet again, for me, it kind of goes back to that book because I wrote that book to release that evangelism culture you know for our church.
Zenzo Matoga — I think, one, it begins a prayer. Are we praying for the lost? Are we earnestly praying for lost? But before we pray for the lost, are we broken with what breaks the heart of God concerning our city, the burden to see them? You know, are we do we want them saved just because we want our churches to grow, or do we sincerely want them to know God and not go to hell, right? That simple.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Zenzo Matoga — And so I think it starts there. And then after that, you know, we’ve started making it a culture. So every single Sunday, we pray this prayer, God, please give me one person to impact with your love and invite church.
Rich Birch — So good.
Zenzo Matoga — We pray that in our services every single Sunday. And then after that, Rich, we we show stories of people who have been impacted.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Zenzo Matoga — Because yet again, testimonies are so powerful. Last Sunday, we showed the story of Teddy. You know, Teddy was coming to Impact Church because a family friend invited him to church. Remember the prayer, God, please give me one person to impact with your love and invite church. So somebody prayed that prayer, and then invited Teddy to church. That was, he was their impact one prayer. And there are times when we pray that prayer, remember, we write three names down, practical. We write three names down. So somebody had Teddy as one of their…
Rich Birch — Right. Yes.
Zenzo Matoga — …and then invited him to church. He started coming to church, you know, kind of still drinking and doing other things, you know, and then kind of started coming to church and started dating this young lady.
Zenzo Matoga — And, you know, she got pregnant out of wedlock. But we continued to disciple them because it has to transition from evangelism to discipleship. We started reaching out to them one-on-one and some of our pastors and group leaders just discipling them. Long story short, those two are married now. They’ve got a child. And Teddy now leads our men’s groups, man.
Rich Birch — So good.
Zenzo Matoga — This young man is shepherding and caring for young men in our church, just men in general. And those groups have they’ve multiplied over and over and over and over, you know.
Rich Birch — Right.
Zenzo Matoga — And this summer we’re believing God for another 20 or so just, you know and he’s he’s the coach over that. So so yet again after the prayer you write the names down, we show the story so that people see it in real time of a life that has been changed, you know. And then after that in service we have this 60 seconds, social seconds, where we tell people to go greet one another. And they ask each other the question, who did you impact this week? You know, so you you’ve prayed the impact one prayer and you’ve seen the impact story.
Rich Birch — Right.
Zenzo Matoga — We call them stories of impact. You’ve seen an impact story. And then you have the chance to walk around, greet somebody and ask them, and hold them accountable. Who did you impact this week?
Rich Birch — That’s cool.
Zenzo Matoga — If they didn’t impact anybody, hey, come back next Sunday with the story of who you impacted, you know?
Rich Birch — Right. I love that.
Zenzo Matoga — And then that’s what’s happening in the service, right? So that that’s the evangelistic portions in the service, you know? And then I take ah take once a year and and in our series, and I do a whole series on how to win the lost.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s great.
Zenzo Matoga — But then also in all my messages, there’s going to be a portion somewhere in all my messages where I’m talking about evangelism.
Zenzo Matoga — And then like was all this is happening inside the auditorium. Now, outside the auditorium, God gave us something called F15, and I wrote it in the book. So F15 is a code, you know, and it’s funny because when we got F15, I said, yeah, I think we officially code. That’s a joke, by the way.
Rich Birch — That’s funny.
Zenzo Matoga — But F15 simply stands for the first 15 minutes after church.
Rich Birch — Okay, yeah.
Zenzo Matoga — Don’t go to your cliques in the lobby.
Rich Birch — Okay, yeah.
Zenzo Matoga — Don’t run to your cliques. Don’t run to the people you already know. We treat during F15 during the first 15 minutes of service being over we treat our lobbies like a mission field. You sacrifice wanting to run to Jimmy because you’re buddies, you probably know Jimmy’s phone number and you probably can hang out and go to lunch later. But we’re going to sacrifice the first 15 minutes after service to look in…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Zenzo Matoga — …our lobbies and parking lot for somebody who looks like they’re new to church, you know. And we’re going to and impact them, you know.
Rich Birch — That’s cool.
Zenzo Matoga — And how do we impact them? God gave us something as well called C.L.O.N.E., right?
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Zenzo Matoga — Because the Lord said, go make disciples. So go clone yourself, essentially.
Zenzo Matoga — So so C.L.O.N.E., the C stands for chronology. So during the F15, you walk to somebody, ah chronology, and you say, hey, how long have you been coming to Impact Church?
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love it.
Zenzo Matoga — And they’ll tell you five months, six months. Or today is my first day. And the L is location. Hey where do you live? Where do you live?
Rich Birch — Oh, so good.
Zenzo Matoga — And the O is occupation, you know – hey so what do you do for a living? And the N stands for number or mode of communication, you know. And I hear these days you don’t ask for phone numbers, so hey stands for DM’s as well – hey what’s your DM? You know.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah. What’s your Instagram handle? What’s your, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Zenzo Matoga — Yes, there you go, there you go. What’s your Instagram handle, how can I find you? And what’s remaining? The E. The E is encouragement. Hey, I’m so glad you came to Impact Church. I can’t wait to see you next Sunday. Do you have a ride? We can come pick you up. You can sit with our crew. We can hang out together.
Zenzo Matoga — I’ll see you right here, the same place next Sunday. And so I share with you all the stuff that are happening in the auditorium every single Sunday.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Zenzo Matoga — By the way, I’m giving you our secret sauce here, man.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah, it’s good. It’s good. Love it.
Zenzo Matoga — We need to give this because we need to win America for Jesus.
Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely.
Zenzo Matoga — And then these are things that are happening outside the lobby, you know.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love it. And are you…
Zenzo Matoga — And then part of the encouragement…
Rich Birch — Where are you talking about F15? Like, are you, how often are you, because I love that. I think practically training our people on, hey, this exactly what you should do at the end of the service. Man, I think that’s transformational. Are you talking about that in that once a year series? Are you regularly kind of encouraging people? Hey, remember after the service today, we’re cloning, get a chance to talk to someone. What’s that look like?
Zenzo Matoga — Yes, I’m talking about that to the whole church when I do that that series in the year. But I’m telling Vision Sunday, I drop it again, Vision Sunday. Because I’m talking about our vision of the Impact Church. Our vision is to impact you so you can impact your world. To me, that’s the definition of discipleship.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that’s so good.
Zenzo Matoga — I’m not just impacting you to become a convert who comes, sit down.
Zenzo Matoga — I’m impacting you so you can impact your world. What’s your world? Your world is your business, your family, your workplace, and all those people. So we’re talking about that, yes, from the pulpit.
Zenzo Matoga — But in our leadership trainings, right, in our leadership orientations, in our growth tracks, next steps, classes, all that stuff, we’re talking about that. If you’re becoming a member of the church, if you’re getting assimilated into our church, we are putting this burden here, this beautiful, we call it the beautiful burden on you to be able to do that.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Zenzo Matoga — And not only are we talking about it, yet again, Rich, we’re doing it every Sunday. I’m praying the impact one prayer every Sunday after worship. We’re sharing the impact story. And then people are going to one another and asking, who have you impacted this week?
Rich Birch — Love it.
Zenzo Matoga — And then I’m doing I’m doing the series and teaching people, get the burden, you know, pray for the one, you know, write the names down. And and friendship evangelism, how do you become a good friend? How do you do that? How, you know, Jesus became a friend to Zacchaeus, you know. And then he waited for the conviction.
Zenzo Matoga — You know, it wasn’t Jesus who was like, change your life, do this. He just became a good friend. And the conviction came and then he sealed the deal. You know. So you teach the people how to seal the deal boldly with boldness.
Rich Birch — Yeah, so good.
Zenzo Matoga — You know, when somebody tells you, I’m struggling with this, don’t don’t don’t you bash, don’t don’t you become bashful. And you seal that deal with boldness. So I release the gift of faith over the people. I pray over them. And I during our impact one prayer, I tell them, hey, I pray and I’m believing God that before, you know, right now we’re in August.
Zenzo Matoga — So I’m telling them before the close of this year, I am believing that every member of this church will be responsible for at least one soul coming to the saving knowledge of Jesus. And we release the gift of faith and the burden, you
Rich Birch — Love it.
Zenzo Matoga — Yeah. And then part of the E.
Rich Birch — Sorry. Go ahead.
Zenzo Matoga — Yeah, I got to say this part of the E in encouragement in the clone, right, is also, hey, you can be a part of our small group.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Zenzo Matoga — So that E there is the final piece that transition you from evangelism to discipleship. If you invite somebody to church, you are responsible for also discipling them. So you’re responsible to not only bring them into the house of God, but you’re also responsible to invite them to your crew, invite them to your small group, give them a ride and see them through and just walk with them.
Zenzo Matoga — You know, and so that’s what creates evangelism and discipleship as a culture versus making announcements on a Sunday morning for people to attend some class.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Zenzo Matoga — That’s supplementary, man. We have that stuff too, but it’s supplemental.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Zenzo Matoga — Yeah.
Rich Birch — It’s so good. I love, well, first of all, I want to underline, I think it’s great how practical you’ve made this. You’ve you’ve given really clear next steps. I love that you’re training your people around this. I want to loop back because I said I was going to, and I’m intrigued to hear your thoughts on this around radical worship.
Rich Birch — I you know, I love that your background, you obviously are a passionate evangelist and you obviously are a passionate worship leader. And I think there can be a false dichotomy in a lot of churches that like those, that you can’t be a church that’s focused on reaching unchurched people at the same time as being a passionate worship environment. We sometimes see those as opposed to each other.
Rich Birch — Unpack that for me. How do those two work? Cause I would agree with you. I think, one of the changes I’ve seen in unchurched people over the time I’ve served is I do think what you’re talking about there is true. I think people are coming to church looking for something different than they were 20, 30 years ago. They and I think worship is a part of that. So unpack that. Talk me through the connection between radical worship and reaching unchurched people. How do those two things work together in your mind or and how are they working themselves out at Impact?
Zenzo Matoga — Yeah, and Rich, it’s Acts chapter 16, right? Paul and Silas ended up in the jail cell, and they were in there. What were they doing? Prayer and worship.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Zenzo Matoga — It was so radical the other jailers heard them. It says to me it was loud and it was radical. Because because it’s loud in jail.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Zenzo Matoga — But people heard them. People heard them. And it was so radical it caused an earthquake, man.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Zenzo Matoga — And what happened? Chains broke. It wasn’t just the chains of the two people who were singing. It was the chains of everybody who was exposed to the worship…
Rich Birch — Right.
Zenzo Matoga — …and the and the radical environment.
Zenzo Matoga — And what amazes me is that at the end of that, it says when the jailer saw that all the prisoners had ran away, right, he ran to them and and and they found him almost killing himself. He was almost committing suicide. You know, and they say to him, man, my guy, chill out, man. We’re good. You know, ah and then he says to him, what should I do? What should I do, you know, to be saved? You know, paraphrasing.
Zenzo Matoga — There was, so two things happened because of radical worship. Chains broke and there was a conviction. There was a conviction for someone who was lost, you know. And I just believe that’s what happens, you know. And I may we be set free from gimmicks because the Jesus we serve is powerful enough to get the job done. If we can just bring him down. He says, if I be lifted up, he says, I will draw men to myself.
Zenzo Matoga — And so don’t believe me. Believe the scripture. If we lift him up and if we praise him, I believe there’s a shaking. There’s a spiritual earthquake that comes to us to our regions and our cities. That’s that’s what people are looking for. I mean look at Boston, yet again the fifth most unchurched city. There are spirits of intellectualism here. There’s spirits of humanism here. Spirits of materialism and secularism, every ism you can ever think about, you know. Things are birthed here and then they go to, I always say that the truth is things are birthed in Boston, you know, and then they’re marketed, they’re marketed in in New York markets them, you know, and then California, you know, makes a movie out of them. But they’re really birthed here.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. No, it’s true. Yeah, that’s very true.
Zenzo Matoga — And those those those are those are spirits, man, that are holding our cities. And so we you’ve got to pray and the worship, you know, it’s like when Saul would start to have these these tormenting spirits and and David would come and start playing and worship, and these things would be removed. And I think there are things in our cities that need to be removed and when that happens, you know bible says what is this is this, help me out, is this 1 Corinthians 4:4 or 2 Corinthians 4:4 somewhere say it says the god of the god of this age, you know, has has blinded people’s eyes. You know that blindness spiritual blindness has to be removed. And it’s radical worship, it’s a radical worship…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good
Zenzo Matoga — It’s childlike joy.
Rich Birch — Right.
Zenzo Matoga — You know, the bible says the joy of Lord is my strength. The bible will also says you know for the spirit of heaviness I’ll give you it says the oil of joy every time you see oil that represents an anointing…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Zenzo Matoga — …a yoke breaking power. And so when you lose your joy, you don’t just lose joy. You lose strength and you lose power. You lose this anointing. And so there’s something about this radical joy. You know, when you go to Fenway Park here in Boston, my goodness, there’s joy there.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Zenzo Matoga — When you go to ah the Boston Celtics, man, come on. We were champions before Oklahoma OKC took us off, you know. We got the New England Patriots. We had the days of ah Brady here.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Zenzo Matoga — You know, it’s you go there and it’s a religion. It’s worship. It’s joy.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah.
Zenzo Matoga — It’s a radical joy. they They don’t bash away from being radical. Man, they take their shirts off. They cuss up a storm. They it’s radical. And the church of Jesus Christ is not going to be outdone by the world…
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, yeah, that’s good.
Zenzo Matoga — …because we invented this joy, man.
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Zenzo Matoga — We invented this radical behavior, you know, and it can be done well.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good.
Zenzo Matoga — So don’t hold back. Don’t hold back.
Rich Birch — I love that. That’s so good. I love I love your thinking and your leadership there. That’s that’s fantastic. Now, I want to point people towards your book. It’s again, it’s “Impact One, The Epic Prayer That Transforms Friends friends and Family”.
Rich Birch — I do think this could be a helpful resource for people. I think it’d be kind of thing that church leaders could check out and would help them frame this conversation. Where do where do where can people pick up a copy of that if they want to grab a copy or copies of that? Where do we want to send them to to do that?
Zenzo Matoga — Yeah, copies on Amazon, everywhere online.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Zenzo Matoga — Right now it’s just online.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Zenzo Matoga — Yet again, I wrote this church just to teach our church, so it’s out there.
Rich Birch — Yep. That’s wonderful. Yeah. Love it.
Zenzo Matoga — But three times, Rich, churches have reached out to us, and we literally provided books to the whole congregation. And I partnered with the pastor to do to do a series around that and just equip the churches on how to, you know, how to win the loss. And man, I’m telling you, in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, in Providence, Rhode Island, sorry, not Massachusetts, Providence, Rhode Island, man, we helped a church that was averaging about 130 people.
Zenzo Matoga — And just this last Easter, man, they saw over a thousand, you know.
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Zenzo Matoga — And and every single Sunday, they’re now averaging about 300. And we, it was a joy…
Rich Birch — So good.
Zenzo Matoga — …to to go through this book, yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Well, Zenzo, this has been an incredible conversation, super encouraging today. I’m just so thankful for what you’re doing at Impact and the the impact you’re having in a part of the country, like you said, that is is considered spiritually dry. I love that. I love what, you know, I just want to honor you for, you know, for that. If people want to track with you or with the church, where do we want to send them online just as we wrap up today’s episode?
Zenzo Matoga — Yes, I love the church. I love the church so much. If a pastor wants to reach out, one of my greatest joys is to just stand with other pastors. You know we give God all the glory because what’s happening here, only God could have done that. But many others have helped us along the way, so would gladly do that. And my email address is simple, pastorzenzo at impactpeople.org.
Rich Birch — Love it. Easy.
Zenzo Matoga — Pastorzenzo at impactpeople.org. And our website is the same, very easy, impactpeople.org. That’s it.
Rich Birch — Love it. Well, thanks so much, Zenzo. I appreciate you being here today, sir. Thank you for for serving us and for what you’re doing at Impact.
Zenzo Matoga — Man, to God be of the glory. Thank you so much for what you’re doing. And I’m humbled and honored to to do this with you. Thanks again, Rich.
Rich Birch — Thank you so much.
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of unSeminary! A quick heads-up: Rich experienced some sound issues during the recording; thank you for bearing with us. Fortunately, our guest, Robert Watson, comes through loud and clear, and you won’t want to miss the incredible insights he shares. Thanks for your grace and enjoy the conversation!
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Robert Watson, Teaching Pastor at Sun Valley Community Church, one of the fastest-growing churches in the U.S. With over two decades at Sun Valley, Robert has seen thousands take steps toward Jesus and is passionate about helping new believers grow in uncomplicated, practical faith.
Is your church making it easy for new believers to follow Jesus? In this episode, Robert shares how Sun Valley breaks down barriers to discipleship, creates clear next steps, and equips people to live out their faith in real relationships.
- Removing barriers for new believers. // Many new Christians struggle with church “insider language” and cultural assumptions that can make faith feel inaccessible. Sun Valley intentionally explains biblical basics—like chapters and verses, or the difference between Old and New Testament—to ensure guests and new believers feel included. This approach doesn’t alienate mature believers; instead, it fosters a culture where everyone can invite friends knowing they’ll be understood and welcomed.
- Simplifying without watering down. // Pastors can unintentionally overcomplicate teaching by focusing on academic discoveries or niche theological debates that don’t serve most attendees. Keep the main thing the main thing—offering practical, actionable truths while giving seasoned believers a “bone to chew on” for deeper thought. This balance helps churches disciple people at every stage without overwhelming newcomers.
- Creating moments of decision. // Robert emphasizes the importance of “line in the sand” moments—clear invitations for people to say “yes” to following Jesus. Drawing from Jesus’ ministry pattern of “come and see” and “follow me,” Sun Valley uses high-attendance weekends and special events to present the gospel and call for commitment. Baptisms, held five times a year, provide a public step of faith and an opportunity to connect people into the life of the church.
- Relationship and responsibility. // Long-term discipleship happens best in the context of relationships and shared responsibility. At Sun Valley, new believers are encouraged to join small groups and serving teams. Serving not only builds community but also engages people in mission—helping them grow by using their gifts to serve others. For many, serving feels like a more accessible first step than joining a small group, especially for those unfamiliar with church culture.
- Simply Following Jesus. // Robert’s new book, Simply Following Jesus: Practices for Living Out an Uncomplicated Faith, distills foundational truths for new believers into a practical, accessible guide. Given to every adult and high schooler baptized at Sun Valley, the book starts with a clear presentation of the gospel, explores the habits Jesus modeled, and shows how to live out faith through healthy relationships. The goal is not to overwhelm with “to-dos,” but to invite people into rhythms that help them experience God’s grace daily.
- Pursuing new believers. // Robert urges churches not to assume new Christians will naturally integrate into church life. Instead, proactively pursue them through personal connection and follow-up. Early faith is a fragile time, and intentional relational investment can help new believers remain rooted and growing.
To learn more about Sun Valley Community Church, visit sunvalleycc.com. You can find Simply Following Jesus at Amazon, Baker Books, or Barnes & Noble.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Risepointe
Do you feel like your church’s facility could be preventing growth, and are you frustrated or maybe even overwhelmed at the thought of a complicated or costly building project? Are the limitations of your church building becoming obstacles in the path of expanding your ministry? Have you ever felt that your church could reach more people if only the facility was better suited to the community’s needs?
Well, the team over at Risepointe has been there. As former ministry staff and church leaders, they understand how to prioritize and help lead your church to a place where the building is a ministry multiplier. Licensed all over North America, their team of architects, interior designers and project managers have the professional experience to help move YOUR mission forward.
Check them out at Risepointe.com/unseminary and while you’re there get their FREE resource “10 Things to Get Right Before You Build”.
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. You’re going to be rewarded. Today is a fantastic conversation around an area that I know that many of our churches wrestle with, and we want to try to give you some practical steps, some kind of resources to move forward today.
Rich Birch — This is one of those episodes you’re going to want action on when we get to the end of it. Excited to have Robert Watson with us. He is a teaching pastor at Sun Valley Community Church. It’s one of the fastest growing churches in the country with, if I’m counting correctly, seven locations in Arizona. He speaks at camps and conferences across the country, trains communicators both locally and internationally. He’s also written a new book that we’re going to get a chance to talk about today. Robert, welcome to the podcast. So glad that you’re here.
Robert Watson — Rich, thank you so much. It’s a huge honor to be here and and join you on the podcast. And yeah, I’m excited about what we’re talking about as well.
Rich Birch — No, this is on this is our honor. Thanks so much for for taking time to be with us. Why don’t you share a little bit about your journey to come to Sun Valley? Maybe tell us a little bit about Sun Valley, kind of what led you to this this point. Talk about your current role. Kind of give us the Robert story.
Robert Watson — Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I felt called into youth ministry when I was a student and my life had kind of blown up and there were people in the church world that kind of opened up their their lives to me, and it made a radical difference. And so I thought, okay, maybe God’s calling me to to be a youth pastor. And I’ll try to do this—you know, some, sometimes pastors can talk a little bit too long when they tell stories—so I’ll try and do this as condensed as I can.
Rich Birch — It’s okay. It’s okay.
Robert Watson — But basically, I was as I was going into college and going to Bible college and thinking about seminary and all of the things, I started thinking about who has you know, just great legacy in ministry. And I looked around kind of the East Valley. I’m from Arizona. And so the East Valley of Arizona, and there were a handful of youth pastors that had a massive impact.
Robert Watson — And I said, okay, what is it that they all have in common? And the answer was absolutely nothing. They were all totally different. Like some were great organizational leaders. Some were really good communicators. Some could just, they knew how to, how to attract people. People they were fun to be around, but they were all so different except for every single one of them had longevity in ministry.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Robert Watson — And so I decided, okay, that’s going to be part of my strategy is I want to, I want to find a church that’s not just a job. I want to find a church that this would be my church community. This would be a place I could invite friends and family and neighbors and not be cringing when they walked in. And so I, again, long story medium, I got a phone call from Sun Valley Community Church and they said, Hey, we know you love where you’re at.
Robert Watson — (I didn’t. They didn’t know that. I was actually going to go into banking.) And they said, would you consider taking on a youth pastor role out at Sun Valley? And so I went to the church service and I walked in and this was 20, over 21 years ago now, almost 22 years ago. And I walked in and I went, there’s just something about this place. I’m going to go to this church, even if I don’t work here.
Rich Birch — That’s cool.
Robert Watson — And I did. I ended up taking that job and I still feel that way about Sun Valley. When you walk into Sun Valley, there’s something about it. God’s anointing is on it. The Holy Spirit is working. People are being loved in Jesus name.
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Robert Watson — And we see a lot of people meet Jesus in that environment.
Robert Watson — And so I just committed to, yeah those days when you get tired and you’re like, maybe I should do something else, just to stick with it and and to work through conflict with people, get to the other side of it. And I found that’s been so rewarding just to stick with it long term. And so that’s how, so it’s actually my first ever full-time job…
Rich Birch — Oh nice – love it.
Robert Watson — …and I’ve been on staff now going on 22nd year.
Rich Birch — So good. I love that. I love the idea of longevity. You know one of the things that we’ve said in other contexts from like a church growth point of view, one of the telltale signs of a church that gets to multiple thousand people is the senior leadership team has is going into or is in their third decade.
Robert Watson — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Like they they’ve been at this for a long time.
Robert Watson — Yep.
Rich Birch — And so I think we often, you know, we think of those churches that just seem to explode out of the box, but that’s just not normative.
Robert Watson — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And I love what Sun Valley’s done. It’s a great church. If you’re if you’re not tracking with Sun Valley friends, you really should. Doing all kinds of things right. And today we want to talk kind of specifically around as people take steps towards Jesus. Sun Valley, your ministry, is known for people who are are actually coming to faith, which is amazing. It shouldn’t be like a rare thing in churches, but unfortunately it is sometimes. I said that, you didn’t say that.
Rich Birch — So we want to talk through some of that today. Every church leader wants to see people take meaningful steps in following Jesus. From your experience, what are some common barriers that but new believers, people who are just starting to follow Jesus face when they’re starting out in their faith.
Robert Watson — Yeah, there’s there’s this secret language in the church world that we don’t realize we pick up. If you’ve grown up around church, there’s so many things, and we use acronyms, we use letters, we’ll refer to things like, oh, VBS or whatever. And people are like, what in the world are they talking about?
Robert Watson — Even when we open up the Bible, we’re like, what are the big numbers and what are the little numbers? Like, we we forget if you grew up around church, which a lot of people that are in church ministry, they they grew up around it or they’re somewhat familiar with it. We don’t realize how foreign some of the language and the thought process when we start singing songs about the blood and people are like, what are we…
Rich Birch — What are you talking about?
Robert Watson — What is this place? Why are we singing? You know? And so one of the things that that we’ve tried to be intentional about, of making it really easy to understand what we’re talking about. Like we’re still going to open up the Bible, but we’ll explain, hey, the big numbers, those are chapters. The little numbers, those are verses.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Robert Watson — And these are just tools to help us find different things in the Bible, because the Bible is actually a collection of books. Like we we do the same kind of introduction anytime we talk about Old Testament, New Testament. What is the Old Testament? What is the New Testament? And so we’ve found that by giving kind of those easy steps to understanding, one, it doesn’t make our church dumber.
Rich Birch — Right.
Robert Watson — Like people aren’t, you know, that grew up around church or people that have their their doctorates, they’re not sitting back going, I can’t believe they’re explaining this. We’re creating a culture where they know they can bring their non-Christian friend and they’re not going to feel alienated. They’re going to understand. But we’re going to get into what does the Bible actually say? What is the meat of it? But we’re going to do it in a way that we can take everybody on that journey with us.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I yeah, I think sometimes there’s this false dichotomy in churches where it’s like on one side are like the like trivia driven churches where it’s like they think like, hey, if we just get people understanding all kinds of trivia about the Bible, that’s somehow the goal. And that’s not the goal. That’s the goal is is discipleship, actually seeing people grow. And so we’ve got to take people from where they are to where we want them to be.
Robert Watson — That’s right.
Rich Birch — Let’s double click on that. What are some other ways you’ve seen kind of this over complexity, this kind of like our way of making things more complex than they should be as it relates to kind of um following Jesus that we might be not aware of – there’s like a forest for the trees thing, if we’ve grown up in the church.
Robert Watson — Yeah, I think because a lot of times the voices that we listen to, first of all, are our own. And so if I’m a pastor and I’m putting together a sermon and I’ve done this sermon before and I’ve done you know I’ve done something on this passage before, I get excited about discovering new things when I when I’m preparing a message.
Robert Watson — I get excited about a new book that I just read. Or I get excited about this new archaeological discovery. And we found this manuscript here and it actually matches that. So those are things that I get fired up about. And I’m like, oh, man, this would be great fodder for this message coming up this this next weekend. Or this would be great content. And instead of listening to those, or my friends that are you know church people or other pastors, we get excited about things that sometimes are confusing.
Rich Birch — Right.
Robert Watson — And it’s a new it’s a new conversation that started in the academia world, and it’s things we want to engage in. It’s just not helpful, especially for the person that doesn’t have that framework.
Robert Watson — And so for me, I think one of the reasons why we do make things a little overly complex is because we’re just excited about a new thought, even though we’ve been growing in our understanding of the Bible for decades. And it’s been layer by layer. We’ve been building kind of this foundation of our understanding. We have to remember, most 99.9% of the people who are, you know, in church on a weekend, they don’t have that same background and foundation.
Robert Watson — And so it’s, it’s important once again to go, okay, what is actually practical here and what is helpful? And I’m all for Bible studies. So don’t, don’t hear that I’m, I’m not a fan of…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Robert Watson — …you know, go read N.T. Wright, go study your, you know, do your commentary stuff and all of that. I’m, I love doing that. I get excited about that because I think God’s word is incredible and it’s full of so many deep truths, but sometimes the deepest truths are the obvious ones that we should do something that are very practical, that are very simple. Those to me are the deepest things. The other stuff is just interesting. It’s fun. It’s it’s exciting.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Robert Watson — And one of the terms, we have a a mentor, Chad, who’s our lead pastor. He and I have been working together. He got hired on just two months after I did. So we’ve been in this long run together. And we have a mentor who’s now a retired older gentleman. And he always says, sometimes when it comes to church people in the church, you got to remember every message, give the dog a bone.
Robert Watson — And what he what do he means by that is is people who’ve been around it for a while, they want something interesting, thoughtful to chew on. But once you give that to them and they can gnaw on that bone for a while, you’re good. Like you can actually now go back to the simple message and and the preaching.
Robert Watson — And so we try to do that when we whenever we present, that there’s something that the church person goes, I never thought of it that way, or I never heard it explained quite that clearly or from that angle, or that was a new thought on that that old idea. And and and we just make it really practical from there.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. ah You had a a friend, a mentor of mine who said, you got to put the cookies on the bottom shelf, like make the main thing the main thing.
Robert Watson — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Like, how do we ensure that we don’t make things more complex than they need to be? And then also there’s there’s a profound thought there, friends. It applies to so many areas of leadership that I don’t want you to miss, which is we’re not the target for what we’re working with as a leader in all areas, you are, you’re leading. And so you’re in a different place. And so it’s not about impressing you or impressing, you know, your friends who are at the same spot. You’ve got to think about where are people at? You know, that’s why they’re called sheep. We have to lead them. You know, we’re called to be shepherds to move them from where they are to a more desired future.
Rich Birch — Well, at Sun Valley, ah let’s double click on this, kind of keep digging into this idea. You know, you see thousands of people come to faith every year and and we want to learn from that. What have you learned about helping people move from that initial decision? So let’s say they’ve decided to say, hey, I want to follow Jesus into a growing active relationship with Jesus. We we want to move people from that kind of like, hey, I feel something. I had this initial experience into an active growing relationship. What are you doing to to help see that happen?
Robert Watson — Yeah, that’s a great question. So there’s there’s a few things that we see Jesus do in his his ministry, and and I want to cover them real quickly because I do think it is important. If you want to know how to help people who say yes to Jesus, you got to have a line in the sand moment where you invite them to say yes to following Jesus.
Robert Watson — And so if you look at if you look at like John and you look at the ministry of Jesus, it kind of had four parts to it. So there was come and see, which is woman at the well. Jesus has this interaction. She goes to the whole village and says, hey, come and see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could it be this is this is the Messiah? Come and see.
Robert Watson — Follow me. There are line in the sand moments where Jesus gives a hard teaching and he says, are you in or are you out? So he draws in a crowd and and then there’s a line in the sand. Are you following me? Are you just here because I multiplied fish and loaves and that that was impressive and you guys followed me around Galilee and you want to see it again?
Robert Watson — So “come and see” and “follow me”. Those are things that we can do up front on stage. That’s kind of one on many. But then there’s there’s “be with me” and “remain in me” are kind of the the next stages.
Robert Watson — And those things only happen in the context of conversation and close up and community. And so at best as a upfront communicator, the the best that I can do is you know, the big crowd moments, the come and see, and then a line in the sand, follow me. But I do think the more we invite people to say yes to following Jesus, the more people we will see say yes to following Jesus.
Rich Birch — For sure.
Robert Watson — I think sometimes we’re just waiting for that to happen organically. And it’s okay on a big weekend when we have like coming up soon, we’re going to have a big weekend with a lot of guests because we’re back to school in Arizona and it’s one of our highest attended weekends of the year. And so we’re going to do a line in the sand moment because people invite friends…
Rich Birch — Right.
Robert Watson — …we do some fun stuff and we’ll go, Hey, this is what Jesus did for you. And if you want to put your trust in him, he’s already said yes to you. If you’d be willing to say yes to his invitation, he’ll transform your life. And here’s how he does that and invite them to say yes. And we’ll have, you know, hundreds of people go, I’m in.
That’s good.
Robert Watson — And then we do baptisms five times a year, which is, again, this is now a public profession of that that inward decision. And from there, our goal is if we can get people into real relationship and then also give them real responsibility.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Robert Watson — Because if if they have real relationship, meaning there’s somebody who knows their name, there’s somebody who knows when they’re there, when they’re not there, they know what’s going on in their world. They know what’s most important to them that week because they got this big thing going on. It’s impossible to do that from stage one on many. And so that’s why we push things like small groups. We push things like serving because it’s one thing to go, okay, I’m going to show up. But if you say, hey can you, we’re doing small group at my house. Can you bring the soda or whatever? And, and I’m, now I have responsibility.
Robert Watson — Now, if I don’t show up, like the group’s not going to have any Dr. Pepper, like I can’t do that to them.
Rich Birch — Right.
Robert Watson — And so there’s any time we can get people into that, that relationship and responsibility, now they’re into kind of the life of the church.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Robert Watson — And the goal of “remain in me” is that as they, as they start serving others, they start to experience more of Jesus, no longer just in their head of like, okay, I’m getting knowledge. Now I’m practically serving others.
Robert Watson — And if you think about in your own story, Rich, and if I think about my own story, one of the times we’ve grown the most in our relationship with Jesus is when we really started using the gifts that he’s given us to serve other people.
Rich Birch — Yeah, so true. Yep.
Robert Watson — That’s Jesus, when he washes the disciples’ feet, he doesn’t say, I’ve given you a a really good teaching. You should go teach other people. He goes, I set you an example. Go do this, and you’ll be blessed if you do it. And he’s he’s telling us there’s something about serving others that’s kind of that that deeper level of understanding who Jesus is, and that’s his invitation to us.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yep. yeah I love that. This is the thing we’ve seen. So I’ve seen in multiple contexts where on the like, I would say and maybe on the like church assimilation side, which is I realize is kind of connected to what we’re talking about, but it’s it like slightly different where, but it’s, it’s a related, it rhymes, that I’ve really seen I would say post COVID, like in the last five years, churches shift to a lot more, like we always want people into teams and You know, and or on, you know, on groups or sorry, on teams and in groups, you want to see them do both of those things.
Rich Birch — But there has been, I would say, a stronger emphasis ah around getting people plugged into helping somehow. That there’s been like, hey, there’s a there’s an inherent understanding that people need to be a part of the mission. That’s actually a part of what discipleship is like. What is that?
Robert Watson — Yeah.
Rich Birch — I know this is a little bit off from what we said we were going talk about, but tell me a little bit more what that looks like at Sun Valley. Because I think that is, I think this is definitely a trend we have seen. I’ve seen it echo in other other contexts. What’s that look like for you guys? As someone takes a step toward Jesus, you’re trying to say, hey, we want to help you actually plug in and and get connected, not just a learning phase, but like a doing phase as well. What’s that look like?
Robert Watson — Yeah, that’s a great question. And I think a lot of times, especially you get a bunch of us executives together and we want a nice linear path, right? We want to we want to map it all out.
Rich Birch — Right.
Robert Watson — It’s going to look really good on a whiteboard.
Rich Birch — It’s going to be great on the whiteboard. Exactly.
Robert Watson — Yep. They’re going to go from here to here to here.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Robert Watson — That’s just not how humanity works. People are messy.
Rich Birch — That’s true.
Robert Watson — People are in process. And so there needs to be, I think, a a willingness and an openness to go, okay, it depends on the person…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Robert Watson — …and and what is best for this individual might not be that they follow this exact assimilation track. And so I think the reason why probably you’re noticing and sensing more of an emphasis on plugging people into serving, because the things that you get out of like a small group or some churches, they’ll do, you know, more of the like Sunday school model or whatever.
Robert Watson — When you plug somebody into serving, you kind of get all the good things that come from being in a group thrown into that. So if you’re, if you have a team, that’s a solid team, you have your coaches, your mentors on that team. Usually you’re teaching some kind of content and to kind of go back to even the premise of this conversation, the deep truths of Scripture, we’re teaching in our elementary school.
Rich Birch — Right.
Robert Watson — We’re teaching these things in our with our students.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Robert Watson — The deep things of of Scripture, they’re accessible to everybody. And so even if you’re not in this context where it’s geared directly towards you, the content’s there, the relationship’s there. You have real responsibility. Kids are asking you questions.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Robert Watson — And you’re having your leader huddle before the service starts or you’re hanging out afterwards.
Robert Watson — I was just on a mission trip with 43. It was a high school mission trip. And me and the other leaders on that trip, man, we built great connections. We’re going to one of, they live far away. We’re going to their house next Sunday with our family because we just built these connections serving students together.
Robert Watson — And I do think there’s a lot of that that naturally happens. I think in some people’s minds, though, they’re like, I’m not ready to serve yet. But for some, that’s before they ever go sit in somebody’s house and like knock on the door of somebody’s house…
Rich Birch — Yes.
…and go sit in the living room and talk about their feelings.
Rich Birch — Right.
Robert Watson — I invited—this is a funny story—I invited my next door neighbors in our previous house. They had just given their lives to Jesus. They came to Sun Valley, said yes to following Jesus. We had baptized them. And I was like, hey, we do Bible study at my house. We do the small group, you should come over. And they walked in and they saw a circle of chairs. And I saw them look at this circle of chairs like, what kind of a cult am I walking into right now?
Rich Birch — That’s true.
Robert Watson — And everybody’s sitting down in these chairs and nobody, there’s no alcohol. So for my, so I say all of this for my neighbors, they’re like, who does this? Like they, they understood a party.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Robert Watson — They knew that you hang out at parties. People have drinks, you bring them food. It’s a potluck. Sitting in a circle in a living room talking about your feelings was very scary for my neighbors.
Rich Birch — Right.
Robert Watson — But then when I was like, Hey, do you guys want to, we go a hour early before service and we we serve. They’re like, yeah, we’re in. And they were more than willing to jump in and serve.
Rich Birch — Right.
Robert Watson — For them, that felt like that is the right next step for them.
Rich Birch — Right.
Robert Watson — And so I was just reminded, oh yeah, I’m so used to this. For the rest of the world, sometimes this looks a little weird what we do and we just it’s normal.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Robert Watson — Yeah.
Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s a good insight for sure. And, and yeah, there’s something about asking people, they can kind of picture what the serving thing looks like. They can picture, Hey, this is what those first steps look like, but, but we don’t have a lot of kind of dynamic equivalents of the, like you say, sit in a circle and, it goes in all kinds of crazy directions.
Robert Watson — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Well, you’ve written a book. I want to make sure people pick up copies.
Robert Watson — Yeah.
Rich Birch — My bias is just right out there, friends. I think you should be buying copies of these with your team and maybe even as a resource as a church. It’s called “Simply Following Jesus: Practices for Living Out an Uncomplicated Faith”. This a huge deal. What led you? What was the kind of spark that led you to write this book?
Robert Watson — Yeah. So because of the the context of our church and the number of individuals that that we’ve seen say yes to following Jesus and just in massive numbers, and it’s overwhelming for them because they don’t know, okay, what do you do first? Where do you start? How do how do you really get this thing? Like I’m all in, they hear the gospel, they’re excited about following Jesus, and they’re just kind of: now what? And, and, and so to go, well, you know, we do this class couple times a year, you know, you can join us for that.
Robert Watson — And and so we just decided, what if we gave them a resource that really took, cause we’ll talk about all the things that are in, in the book that I wrote. We’ll talk about that over the course of a couple of years. Like what if we took really the foundational pieces, we put it together in one resource and we gave it just as a gift to people.
Robert Watson — And so we’ve started now, we, we do baptisms five times a year. And now whenever somebody gets baptized, if they’re a high schooler or an adult, we give them a copy of this book.
Rich Birch — So good.
Robert Watson — And it really lays out, it starts with the gospel, because I think where a lot of people are confused, and this is Christians and non-Christians, is understanding the gospel.
Rich Birch — Right.
Robert Watson — Is understanding that we are this is not a works salvation. We’re not trying to earn something. We’re not trying to earn back something, that this is a gift from God. And so really understanding the foundation of the gospel and and that it is because God loves us that he’s invited us into this relationship. It’s not if we do these things, then he will love us. No, God loves you no matter who you are, no matter what you’ve done, no matter what’s been done to you. So it really starts with kind of laying that foundation.
Robert Watson — And I think it’s important if you grew up in church like I did, you know, you have to keep coming back to the gospel again and again and be reminded of it again and again.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s true. It’s true.
Robert Watson — And so really wanted to start with that foundation, understanding who is Jesus, the nature of God’s love for us. So that’s kind of the the beginning, which is a little bit theological. But I try to make it a simple as as possible. And I’m stealing that idea from Jesus who said, hey, all the law, all the prophets, let me take the whole Jewish scriptures and let me sum sum it up for you.
Rich Birch — Right.
Robert Watson — It’s love the Lord your God with all your heart heart, soul, mind and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. And when Jesus does that, that to me is kind of the the model, the example. Okay, can we take these big truths that, I mean, you and I, we could get in a room and we could unpack verse by verse and we would love it. And it would be brilliant and beautiful and wonderful. And Jesus goes, okay, but also let me just sum it up and simplify it for you.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Robert Watson — So that’s, that’s kind of that first part. So simple foundation. And looking at what are the habits that Jesus modeled and that Jesus taught. Because if you look at the early church, you had a lot of people that that were illiterate. You had a lot of people that they didn’t understand all the Jewish scriptures and everything, but they understood the example that Jesus set and that his disciples are going, here’s what Jesus did. Follow me as I follow Jesus. This is what this looks like practically.
Robert Watson — And there are some habits. There are things that Jesus expects us to do, like spending time with him in prayer, you know spending time in relationship with others. And then the third part of the book is just simple relationships.
Rich Birch — Right.
Robert Watson — It’s how do you take this foundation of the gospel, these habits that Jesus modeled, and apply it into your relationships? Because at the end of the day, the Bible, it’s it’s a relational book. It’s a book about how to have right relationship with God and right relationship with the people around us, which again, to back to where Jesus says, all the law, all the prophets hang on these two commands.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Robert Watson — And the and the first is like the second, it’s love God, love people.
Rich Birch — Love it. Well, I want to dive into that a little bit, but but let me give a little hearty endorsement. I really do think that this resource could be, I think is is fitting in a great spot when I was going through it, I thought the same thing that that you said there, man, this would be so fantastic for people that are getting baptized, for people that are taking that first step. Maybe someone’s you know, just had some sort of encounter at something like Alpha and they’re like, hey, they’re looking for something next. Like, what is that? Is that resource?
Rich Birch — But I want double clip click on the simple relationships part. So reflecting on my own early discipleship experience when I first became a Christian, I feel like there was that tension of like, the gospel is a free gift and you don’t need to do anything, earn anything. And then immediately the discipleship went into, and then here are things you should do.
Robert Watson — yeah
Rich Birch — Here are, do this, read that, all that. And you don’t handle it like that in the habit section at all. I love the way you frame it, but but I think early discipleship can kind of land in that way. Like it’s a free gift. Now here’s 10 things you’ve got to do.
Robert Watson — That’s right. Yeah.
Rich Birch — This relationship part I found as an interesting nuance. Unpack that a little bit more.
Robert Watson — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Why was that in there as a, or why do you see that as a critical piece, ah kind of an an an initial conversation someone should be having around their faith?
Robert Watson — Yeah, I think because there are there are things that are disciplines in following Jesus, but they’re not disciplines in the sense of like, oh, I got to do this difficult thing because it’s the secret handshake that gets me in, you know.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes.
Robert Watson — Or it’s the I’m climbing this proverbial mountain. They’re just new ways to experience God’s grace.
Rich Birch — Right. That’s good.
Robert Watson — And so when there’s habits, the habits are actually invitations. It’s not you you ought to and you should, and and we feel like we’re just guilted into, I need to read my Bible more. I need to pray more. These are open invitations that God has provided these ways for us to experience His grace each and every day.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Robert Watson — And it’d be transformed by His grace each and every day. And so even just that that little different way of looking at it. It’s an invitation and it’s not one that God’s forcing upon you. It’s open to you. It’s available to you. And what, what I’ve experienced when I’ve stepped into that invitation. it’s scary in my mind, but it’s so rewarding in actual practice.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Robert Watson — Like it’s usually just in my head space. I’m like, oh man, I’m gonna read my Bible every day. Now I genuinely, and I’ve been reading my Bible for a long time. I genuinely enjoy starting off my day. I have I use the Bible app now because I have a streak counter and I’m a little bit competitive. And so I can be like, oh man, I’m on this many days in a row.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Robert Watson — And I use that and I and I just go, okay, Holy Spirit, what do you wanna speak to me this morning? And I’ll start reading through ah a passage. Sometimes I’ll get through a whole chapter, sometimes just a section. And I walk away and it’s like, it’s recalibrated my day.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Robert Watson — And and my day now is it’s pointed in a right direction. I’ve experienced God’s grace. Sometimes I get a little whisper from the Holy Spirit. Sometimes I’m just groggy and I did it and I move on, but I’m experiencing God’s grace in new ways by doing that.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Robert Watson — And so that’s, I think that’s the important thing for any new believer to understand. God is not trying to like force you. He doesn’t want to rob you. He actually comes to to give. He comes to to share in his grace, to share in his love. And anytime he asks us to do something, it’s ultimately for our good. And it’s an invitation, not a, hey, I’m going to make you do this thing because now you you obey every every word that I say. No, it’s an invitation to to experience his grace in new ways.
Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good. This is a fantastic resource. And have you seen, you know, any impact as, it’s been used at Sun Valley or maybe in some other context, maybe a story or two of like, you know, how it’s been particularly effective or been, you know, a tool in the hands of somebody who’s taken some next steps, some early steps towards Jesus.
Robert Watson — Yeah, it’s, it’s always, it’s always fascinating to me. I just, as a, as an author, as a writer, I never know, like, hey, is this good? Is this helpful?
Rich Birch — Right. That’s true. Yes.
Robert Watson — Is this you know is this going to is this going to resonate with somebody? I don’t know.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Robert Watson — And I’m always amazed at how God has has used these resources in in different ways. This one in particular. So the book’s only been out for a couple months now. And I there was an older gentleman who actually…he was being forced into retirement. And so his job, his time, his whole company was kind of disbanding and he was being forced into early retirement, but he was going to throw a retirement party for all his fellow employees. And this is not, these these employees are far from Jesus. And he goes, Hey, I read your book. And as kind of my last parting gift, I want to give it as a resource. You know, can I come by with a box of these books and you sign it?
Robert Watson — And so at his retirement party, he gave, you know how like at kids’ birthday parties, they get the little bag of candy when they leave, they get the little door prize.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Robert Watson — He had my book there. And so I just wrote little notes about how how much God loves these individuals and prayed over them. And he handed them out as kind of a, hey, I would love for you to have what I have. And it’s this relationship with Jesus. And this this book will actually help you understand what it is. And and so he gave that out. I thought, man, what a cool evangelism tool.
Robert Watson — And for this person, you know, and his kind of last is probably the last time these people all be in a room together. And he thought, hey, this is a great opportunity to maybe share the gospel with with my coworkers one last time.
Rich Birch — That’s cool. That’s so cool. I love that. Well, if there’s a pastor that’s listening in that that wants to better serve people who are taking early steps, outside of buying copies of your book, because I want them to do that. But outside of that, what’s one thing you know you could encourage them to take kind of an early step they could take, maybe even the next month, to try to help those people who are taking early steps in their relationship with Jesus? What’s one kind of practical advice you give to them?
Robert Watson — Yeah, I do think because so much of following Jesus has lived out in the context of relationships, what I what I think it’s important for all churches, especially large churches, and I know a lot of the people who listen on your podcast here, they’re churches over a thousand. It’s easy for people to become numbers in all of that.
Robert Watson — And the reminder that every number has a name, every name has a story, every story matters to God. The the more we can get those stories, one, and think in front of our staff to remind our our staff, hey, these are real people. These are people that you know. These are people that you’ve been in conversation with. The more we can get those names, those stories in front of our staff.
Robert Watson — And I would just say for those new believers, especially when somebody says yes to Jesus, Don’t just hope that they kind of naturally assimilate. Have some way that you pursue those individuals.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Robert Watson — Let them know that they’re seen. Let them know that they’re known. Go out of your way because for some people, it’s going to take several times of saying, hey, we should grab coffee. Hey, we should hang out.
Rich Birch — Right.
Robert Watson — Let me hear your story before they say yes to that. I think those are people worth pursuing. And I think, too, if you look at you know the parable that Jesus gave, when that seed’s planted, there’s a lot of things. That soil can be rocky, can be thorny. The enemy can come snatch that away. I think it’s a fragile time in those early stages of a new believer that if ever there’s a time for us to go out of our way to relationally connect and pursue, that that is the time to do it.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Love that. I yeah when I first became a christian when i was a student there was a guy youth leader in my church that he like jumped on it, and which was amazing and like we met every week for a year. Which when I look back on that this guy, Rick Peet, incredible leader in my life.
Rich Birch — You know, I look back on that man, the impact that that had on me because he took the he took the kind of first step there. He was the first mover in that relationship. Hey, let’s let’s get together. Let’s talk about it. that’s that’s That’s fantastic.
Robert Watson — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Well, we want to make sure people pick up copies of your book. Again, it’s “Simply Following Jesus: Practices for Living Out an Uncomplicated Faith”. I’m assuming people can get it at Amazon. That’s usually where good books are sold.
Robert Watson — Yep.
Rich Birch — It’s always a funny question to ask.
Robert Watson — Amazon, Baker Books.
Rich Birch — Where do people get books? You know, that kind of thing.
Robert Watson — Yeah. Yeah.
Rich Birch — And where else do we want to send them?
Robert Watson — All those places, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Baker Books – usually they run some kind of a discount off their website. That’s the book publisher. And so usually they have some good deals run in there as well.
Rich Birch — Great. Well, just as we wrap up today, any kind of final parting words you’d have for people that are listening in today?
Robert Watson — I would, oh man, I would just say enjoy the journey. I think there’s so much…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Robert Watson — …joy that comes from following Jesus. Like when I think about all the things I could be involved in, in my life and all of that, when I get to hear somebody taking, not, not just you know intellectually, I’ve got this new information and I’m believing it, but they take something and apply it.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Robert Watson — And they experience the transformation and they experience a strengthening of their relationships. Jesus said that we would be known by the quality of our relationships, our loved one for another is how he he says it. And so when I see people that are new in faith experiencing forgiveness for the first time, or experiencing the the gift of listening to others and asking good, thoughtful questions and and something starts to come alive in them, I just, as a pastor, what more can you ask for than than seeing and life change?
Robert Watson — And so the the relational life change, being around that, like constantly celebrating those stories, sharing those stories, being excited about that, I find no greater joy than to see people genuinely following Jesus.
Rich Birch — That’s good
Robert Watson — And ah so I don’t know if that is the right closing thought, but yeah.
Rich Birch — No, it’s wonderful. It’s great. It’s good.
Robert Watson — Rich, thank you so much.
Rich Birch — Well, I appreciate being on the podcast today. Where can we send people if they want to track with you or track with the church online?
Robert Watson — Yeah. So Sun Valley Community Church is the name of our church. We’re in Arizona, sunvalleycc.com. And then we’re on you know Instagram and all of that. And I think mine is just robertsvcc is my Instagram. But yeah, you can you can look up us look us up online. And if there’s anything that anybody has questions about, you can reach out to me. You can find me through the the website, whatever, and I’d be I’d be happy to follow up with you.
Rich Birch — That’s great. Thanks so much. Thanks for being on the podcast today.
Robert Watson — Thanks, Rich.
In this special roundup episode of the unSeminary podcast, we highlight key insights from three previously recorded interviews focused on strengthening church staff teams. In celebration of the Summer 2025 issue of Executive Pastor Magazine, this curated compilation revisits rich conversations with leadership experts Dr. Ryan Hartwig and Dr. Warren Bird, executive pastor Ken McAnulty […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Steece Hayes, a bi-vocational pastor and account manager at Higher Ground Managed IT, part of the ACS Technologies family. Is your ministry struggling with unreliable tech, security risks, or outdated systems—and you’re not even sure where to begin fixing it? Tune in as Steece brings […]
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of unSeminary! A quick heads-up: Rich experienced some sound issues during the recording; thank you for bearing with us. Fortunately, our guest Yolanda comes through loud and clear, and you won’t want to miss the incredible insights she shares. Thanks for your grace and enjoy the conversation! Do you ever feel […]
You’re not alone. Many churches hope for big impact at Christmas but end up seeing minimal growth, and it’s not because your people don’t care or your services aren’t good enough. In this final installment of our 3-part summer series on planning for Christmas, Rich Birch unpacks the real reasons why churches miss the mark—and […]
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Devin Goins, Executive Pastor of Strategic Development at Biltmore Church in western North Carolina, one of the fastest-growing churches in the country. Is your church growing but you’re struggling to keep your team aligned and rowing in the same direction? Tune in as Devin outlines a […]
What if you could double your church’s attendance this Christmas … just by doing what other growing churches already do? In this second installment of our special Christmas planning series, Rich Birch unpacks three real-life examples from churches that didn’t leave Christmas up to chance—and saw incredible results. These churches represent different regions and contexts, […]
Thanks for joining us at the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Mike Winger, Executive Pastor at Mosaic Christian Church in the Baltimore-Washington area. What does it take to launch a bold new vision while carrying the weight of financial obstacles? Tune in as Mike unpacks the multi-year process that led to Mosaic’s Unlimited campaign—one […]
Is your church treating Christmas like the massive growth opportunity it truly is? In today’s solo episode, Rich explores why Christmas remains the most strategic moment in the church calendar for reaching new people, even in a post-pandemic world. Drawing on compelling stats and years of experience helping churches grow, Rich makes a compelling case […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Dr. Charles Stone, seasoned pastor, author, and leadership coach. Feeling overwhelmed by the constant demands of ministry? Looking for biblical practices that can help reduce anxiety and fuel long-term health? Tune in as Charles shares insights from his latest book, Stress Less, blending timeless biblical […]
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Russ Ewell, Executive Minister at Bay Area Christian Church (BACC) in California and founder of Deep Spirituality. How can churches meaningfully engage and empower the next generation of leaders? With campuses across Silicon Valley and a deep commitment to developing future leaders, […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Jason Hanash, the founding and lead pastor of Discovery Church in California—one of the fastest growing churches in the country.
How do you restructure your staff leadership to keep pace with rapid church growth? Tune in as Jason shares how Discovery evolved from a living room gathering to a thriving church reaching nearly 5,000 people—and the leadership shifts that increased alignment, ownership, and execution.
- Train your team as you grow. // As Discovery grew past the 2,000–2,500 attendance mark, Jason realized their existing pastoral team model was no longer scalable. The team was too broad, meetings were inefficient, and execution lagged. In response, Jason transitioned to a leaner executive team structure, developing four key leaders over two years and empowering them with oversight based on their unique gifting.
- Hire from within. // Rather than recruiting externally, Jason believes in developing leaders from within. Each of Discovery’s four executive team members aligns with the church’s culture, vision, and values, making them ideal for executive leadership. This long-term investment in development allowed for high trust and deep synergy across the leadership team.
- Don’t skip the training runway. // Discovery spent two years intentionally developing its executive team. The first year was spent modeling leadership and included seasonal staff meetings, goal setting, and retreats focused on strategic management. The second year involved gradual empowerment and coaching. This slow-build approach created leaders who understood the organizational DNA and could lead with confidence.
- Navigating change with vision. // Organizational change inevitably causes friction—especially when some staff members lose direct access to senior leaders. At Discovery, staff are reminded to “marry the vision, not the position,” and flexibility is woven into the culture. Involve key influencers early, explaining the “why,” and selling the benefits of change.
- Weekly and monthly rhythms. // Discovery uses a two-tiered meeting system for their executive team. A quick weekly huddle every Tuesday creates space for real-time coaching and decision-making. Then, once a month, the executive team meets for a deep dive focused on five pillars: advancing the vision, influencing the culture, managing the systems, multiplying the leadership, and stewarding generosity. Each season emphasizes one pillar, helping the team stay mission-focused and proactive.
- Daily department huddles. // Each department also holds a five-to-eight-minute daily huddle. These quick stand-ups increase alignment, clarify priorities, and offer real-time coaching. The brief check-ins save time, prevent costly miscommunication and provide a space for the team to exchange ideas.
- Yearly themes that drive culture. // Jason and his wife take time each summer to fast and pray over the coming year. In 2024, the theme was “Year of Freedom,” which led to a yearlong focus on emotional, mental, and spiritual healing. The theme shaped sermon series, events, small groups, and even the launch of a counseling center. In 2025, the theme is “Identity,” with a new devotional, curriculum, and book—Christ Formed in You—guiding a 12-month journey of spiritual formation.
Learn more about Discovery Church at ilovediscovery.church and check out their leadership conference on July 12, 2025 at leadershipconference.church.
EXTRA CREDIT // *15-Minute Daily Huddle Toolkit**In this episode, Jason Hanash shares how Discovery Church grew from a living room gathering to a thriving church of over 5,000 without losing clarity, culture, or team alignment. One key system that supported that growth? *Daily 15-minute leadership huddles.
To help you implement the same high-impact rhythm, we’ve created the 15-Minute Daily Huddle Toolkit, available exclusively to unSeminary Extra Credit members.
What’s Inside the Toolkit:
- Toolkit Overview – A one-pager that explains what daily huddles are, why they matter, and how to lead them with impact
- Email Sequence – Pre-written copy-and-paste emails to launch the 6-week challenge, keep it moving, and close it strong
- Printable Prompt Cards – A set of creative conversation starters to keep your huddles focused and engaging throughout the challenge
- Weekly Leader Tracker – A reflection tool for team leads to identify patterns, highlight wins, and capture learning
- Celebration Ideas – Fun and flexible ideas for wrapping up the challenge—whether you continue the huddles or pause to reflect
Extra Credit members can download the complete toolkit here.
Not a member yet? Support the podcast by joining unSeminary Extra Credit. It’s just $7/month and as a thank you, you’ll get access to this toolkit plus a growing library of practical resources designed to help your church lead better, grow faster, and stay healthy.
Join today and start your team’s next 6 weeks stronger than ever.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: SermonDone
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Super excited to have you with us today. Looking forward to today’s conversation. We’re we’re talking with Jason Hanash today, great leader. He is a lead pastor and founding pastor with his wife, Veronica, of Discovery Church. And it’s repeatedly one of the fastest growing churches in the country. So you know, I’ve got a lot of questions. We want to lean in and learn more.
Rich Birch — The church is located in beautiful Bakersville, California. Their ministry includes a counseling center that offers biblically-based therapy. And in partnership with Vanguard University. The church hosts a partner site on the church campus called Discovery College or Discover College, which offers students affordable degree programs. I am so glad to have you with us today, Jason. Welcome to the show.
Jason Hanash — Hey thanks so much, Rich. Excited to be here, man.
Rich Birch — No, I’m excited to talk to you. Kind of fill in the picture for folks that, ah you know, that aren’t aware of the church. Kind of tell us a little bit of the Discovery story.
Jason Hanash — We started in 2013. And just to tell the story, I probably take 30 minutes to all the God stories, to be honest, ah to be where we’re at today at reaching almost like 5,000 people after 11 years, almost going to be 12 years this year, is just miracle after miracle, to be honest, doors that were open that I couldn’t open, just grace and favor and provision that we look back and we just say, man, that was that was God.
Jason Hanash — So there’s so many God stories to get us where we are, but it truly has been year after year, knocking literal walls down after walls down, expanding and expanding because the Lord has been bringing lost sons and daughters to his church. It’s been beautiful.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good.
Jason Hanash — Yeah.
Rich Birch — That’s great. Well, there’s a ton we could talk about there, but I know one of the things that often kind of happens in a fast-growing church ah is we start to see some cracks on kind of the leadership side and being able to find enough leaders, release them. This is a critically important issue. Can you talk us through what has your church’s journey been with that whole side of this this trying to manage what God’s doing at your church, trying to keep up with what he’s, you know, what he’s sending your way.
Jason Hanash — Yeah, you know, when you start a church, your church plant, you’re like, do you have a pulse and are you breathing? Let’s go. You can serve. Let’s do this. We used to say at the the beginning, If you can open up a bag of chips and, you know, open up your home, then you can lead a small group. And my goodness, the Lord’s grace on us.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jason Hanash — So there’s…Yeah, there’s there’s some things that happened probably in that season that could have been prevented. But honestly, we were so fast moving, fast growing, and there is a messiness on the side of grace. But yes, as you grow, um yeah those cracks become wider and wider.
Jason Hanash — And so we have always been a leadership development church focused on leadership development and raising leaders. And we did that, have done that in a variety of ways, but we probably saw the most glaring gap was in our 2000s.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Jason Hanash — And and I say, that because leadership development and in teams and multiplication has has always been part of our DNA and part of our systems and processes. But at the 2,000, 2,500 mark, we hit a lid…
Rich Birch — Okay.
Jason Hanash — …that we were not ready to grow beyond. And and that was where we had this pastoral team model. And I’m leading, and you know my wife as well, we lead together, but we’re leading the pastoral team. It’s one meeting. It’s a large team. It’s all the pastors, all the ministry pastors. So It just became too broad…
Rich Birch — Right. Okay.
Jason Hanash — …too slow, lacked execution and detail at the level that ministries and ministers needed needed it.
Jason Hanash — So um this was probably, don’t know how many years ago now we’re at at that stage, maybe just after COVID. It was probably leading into COVID and after COVID, they just COVID kind of lengthened everything. But it was that stage that we were at this 2,000, 2,500 mark that we needed to restructure.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Hanash — And we moved to this executive team model where I was able to focus on some mission-critical things and raise up some leaders to another level.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Hanash — So we kind of identified four leaders on our team, and we took them on a journey of about of two years…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Jason Hanash — …pouring into them and and helping them understand what executive leadership looked like and modeling it for.
Rich Birch — Yep. Yep.
Jason Hanash — So even like the first year, what do you doing we didn’t even call it an executive team. We called it an admin team. This is our administrative team.
Rich Birch — OK, great.
Jason Hanash — We didn’t give them the name.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Hanash — It was like, no, they were right you you haven’t earned that label, that title yet.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Jason Hanash — So administrative team. And and we, one year we poured into them and and modeled ah for them. And then the second year they started, they started carrying more. And so now we are in a very healthy executive team model now where…
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Hanash — …and we’ve been able to grow, not only grow to the 3,000, but now reaching almost 5,000 people. So it’s it’s been a tremendous shift for us.
Rich Birch — That’s great. That’s great.
Rich Birch — Yeah, let’s double click on that. When you, because there’s a bunch there I want to unpack. But before we think about kind of where things are at now, how those four roles are structured, that sort of thing. What were some of the kind of things that led you to the place where you’re like, um I’m just not sure, you know, that this is really working.
Rich Birch — I’m thinking for leaders that are listening in, they might give a few hearty amens to like pains that you were feeling at that time, that they might see that, hey, may um maybe we need to make a change.
Jason Hanash — You know, when when you start noticing the the lack, the gap, the deficiency or the decline…
Rich Birch — Okay.
Jason Hanash — …in ministry or in baptisms or in team members or in leadership, when you start noticing those pain points after the pain happens, you’re just it happens you’re like, what what happened? You go, oh, we we don’t have that team meeting. We don’t have that, we’re not running that system the way it’s supposed to be. Why aren’t we? And there was so much that we just, we just, we missed.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Hanash — And so we we were now looking in hindsight going, how did we miss that?
Rich Birch — Okay. Yeah.
Jason Hanash — And whenever that starts to happen, it’s because there’s probably too much bureaucracy or there’s not enough intentional leadership being given to your, to your pastors or your departments. And so where we were planning and looking ahead and we’re able to support our ministries, we got too big to where we were, we were looking behind and see it react…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Jason Hanash — …rather than rather than acting.
Rich Birch — Then proactive. Okay. So then you ended up restructuring around kind of a four-part leadership team. Talk to us about how those roles kind of work out. What are the kind of various buckets that the people have? And then and then we’ll talk about the transition to that.
Jason Hanash — Yeah, so I’m big on on you know the answer’s in the house, and raising up your leaders that you have…
Rich Birch — That’s good. So good.
Jason Hanash — …your your pastors, your leaders, your team. And we have have not hired out at Discovery.
Jason Hanash — And I’m not against it fully. I mean, if there’s a need for that, I’m open to it. I just have always tried to develop the people that God has given me and raise them up. And so that’s why it it took probably two years for our executive team to start humming. But I have people on our executive team that have been here for 11 years and…
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Hanash — …and I’ve been able to raise them, them up. So, they have culture, they have the vision, they have the heart of our, of our ministry.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Jason Hanash — And there is, there is relationship that there. We have chemistry. There’s a lot of alignment and synergy with that. So, and I say that because, you know, what buckets that they have, are really a reflection of their their gifting and their leader capacity…
Rich Birch — Right, right. That’s good.
Jason Hanash — …their their passions. And so in working with who you have and raising them up, I think you have to leverage people’s gifts. So our leadership structure is leveraged towards the the giftings of of the elders…
Rich Birch — Of the people. Yep.
Jason Hanash — …that God has called to lead this church. And so um we you know we have a zone who oversees our experience and creatives They lead all communications experience, creative ministries. We have someone leads all of the worship and and services and moments across all ministries. We have another executive that leads all of our next gen and as well as guest experience. And then we have some leads all of our what we call freedom ministries and our counseling center, pastoral care. And so those are the the four primary executives. And then myself and my my wife, we we you know have some mission critical things ourselves, but we oversee the the executive team.
Rich Birch — So that’s great. I love your word there around, um you know, really taking this from who are the people God’s put in in your church and trying to build their roles around them rather than like where we’ve got some artificial, you know, org chart that we’re trying to fit people into. That’s not how you said it, but I but I really appreciate that.
Rich Birch — That’s, now you did this, talk to me about this training, this kind of before you launched, what did that look like? I love the intentionality of that. Like, Hey, we’re going to march towards it. We’re bridging towards this, not just saying like, okay, go for it kind of thing.
Jason Hanash — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Tell me about, tell me about that.
Jason Hanash — Well, there’s a lot of things that we do in leading a high impact ah action-oriented, change-oriented staff and and ministry. So from um the goals that we set, how we set goals, our lead measures, lag measures, the org charts, how we plan our staff meetings. We have seasonal you know seasonal meetings with with department heads and what are the goals you’re focusing on.
Jason Hanash — So there’s there was a lot that hit just show we had to walk them through and we took them on a few retreats and showed them how to manage a staff and a team, and different departments goals and teams and how to keep keep them looking forward. So it it was just come along let us we’ll do it with you and we’ll actually break away a couple times to to to have you ask questions and and build it out build it out together. So um it was it was a year of modeling what what that looks like.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Hanash — And then this second year was us kind of um but releasing a little bit to them while we coach them is is what it looked like.
Rich Birch — That’s cool. Now, what about the people? So I’m assuming that these folks and this this may be a foreign question to you because everybody always gets along at Discovery Church. There’s never any tension. Everything’s perfect. But I’m assuming from what I hear you saying that, like, you know, you’re you’re raising up a few people by definition.
Rich Birch — And you know, that might have, there might be some stepped on toes in that feeling. How you know, again, how did you avoid that? Or what did that theoretically look like to try to avoid that? If that’s not really an issue, how how did you navigate that? Do you understand the kind of question I’m wondering about there?
Jason Hanash — I think change in any regard is going to cause friction…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jason Hanash — …and especially when you’ve got organization structure change, organizational change.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Hanash — So there there is that. I think what we have going for at Discovery though is we have um grown every year and had to restructure quite often.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Jason Hanash — And so kind of in our culture, to be change oriented.
Rich Birch — Right. Good.
Jason Hanash — And of our staff in our, in our, so that, that is going for us where that is something that is embraced structure changes, meeting rhythms change. We tell people to marry the, the, the vision, not the position. And so you’re going to might have to shift on, um, you know, what hats you’re you’re wearing depending on what season we’re in and and what what the needs are.
Jason Hanash — So there’s there’s that in the culture, but inevitably there is going to be, hey, well, I was sitting at this table and now I’m not at at that table.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Hanash — And so with that, I think you have to be, use some change strategy and have conversations with key, not only key influencers, but but people that it’s going to impact the most.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Jason Hanash — And share vision with them, you know, get embodied on the vision and and the why. And that is something that hopefully that they’re going to be able to grow through.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Hanash — That they’re not meeting maybe with me anymore or with Pastor Veronica…
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Hanash — …but they’re actually meeting with another executive. And, you know, there’s still value that I add in coaching them. And these are the rhythms of of what that looks like and how I can speak into your life and really selling them the benefit. It’s a benefit to them and a blessing to them…
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Hanash — …because I’m not able to give them, honestly what they need to do.
Rich Birch — Right. The care they need.
Jason Hanash — I cannot. And they need so much more than what I’m able to. And with this structure, here’s what they’re able to do. And I’m able to lean into where I’m strong at. And I can mentor you.
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Jason Hanash — I can care for you. I can stretch your leadership. And and they can actually help you see the details and stay on track and grow faster and larger. And so they just need to understand the why.
Jason Hanash — And we try to try to do that, but inevitably there is going to be, you know, feelings and and to navigate people’s very real feelings so its is important.
Rich Birch — Yes. Feelings are part of working with people. There’s ah there’s definitely is feeling there.
Rich Birch — Talk to me about your ah the you’re meeting rhythm. This is like typical unSeminary question, like love to get in the weeds there. How often do you meet one-on-one? How often do you meet as a group with that executive team? And did that change from before? I’m assuming you reduced your your total, your direct you know headcount that you’re managing. So to talk us through maybe before and after what’s that look like?
Jason Hanash — Yeah, so it’s it’s looked different throughout the transition.
Rich Birch — Right. Yep.
Jason Hanash — And and honestly, our meeting rhythms shift quite often, probably more often than and went then we should, and to be honest with you. And I feel like it is, but honestly, it is because people come and go and hats get shifted and leadership assignments get shifted. So that necessitates maybe some movement.
Jason Hanash — So but currently where where our rhythm is at is we have a weekly huddle with our executive team. And this is on our first day.
Rich Birch — Okay
Jason Hanash — We have a Monday Sabbath because Sunday is a week packed into one day for us.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jason Hanash — We have five services, range from 8 a.m. to 6.30 p.m. And so it’s Monday Sabbath.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Jason Hanash — And then so but Tuesday, when we come to the office, the first thing that that we do is the executive team meets together. And this is where we just, it’s just a huddle, really. This isn’t a detailed meeting. It’s not we we just want to have FaceTime with with them. What are the the the projects and priorities? What are any problems? And if there’s any people conversations that we need to discuss. And it’s it’s pretty quick. And we we let our our executives give them a room every week to just share. And that’s where we can have some real time conversations. So coaching real-time answers to to barriers or challenges that they’re having and where we can get alignment across our executive team.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Jason Hanash — So it’s time for us to so huddle. They have a weekly a daily huddle that they have with their with their departments, and it’s like a five to eight minute things. It’s standing up and they get to, they just do that a quick huddle. And so we kind of model that as well, where it goes a little bit longer though. We probably have about 25 to 30 minutes that, that we, we try to stand too and not sit down.
Jason Hanash — And then we do a monthly executive meeting. In the monthly executive meeting we try to stay bigger picture and, and looking ahead. And to do that, we actually, we have a a rhythm that every month is a different a little bit of a different focus. Every month we’re talking about vision and we are going to have our vision metrics that are that, how are we moving people toward the process of discipleship here at Discovery and their the, their vision goals in their specific departments. But we have a different focus every month that we move through. And these are and this is probably going to be more in the weeds that you’re probably looking for, but it’s…
Rich Birch — No, no, it’s good.
Jason Hanash — Okay. We we have really, there’s five, the five focuses of of an executive at Discovery is: advancing the vision, influencing the culture, managing the systems, multiplying the leadership, and stewarding generosity. And so these these are five focuses that the executive team is is, it’s like a heartbeat that they, they, so every month we shift from what the focus is. So vision is actually going to be the one that’s in every every meeting.
Rich Birch — Right. That’s cool.
Jason Hanash — But we shift from influencing the culture, managing the systems, multiplying the leadership and stewarding resources. So what it works out, because it’s four of them, it works out, we do a seasonal calendar. We actually focus on one of those habits, if you will, or one of those um pillars every season.
Jason Hanash — And so we get to do a deep dive in our systems every season.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jason Hanash — We get to do a deep dive in our in our leadership pipelines and our leadership ah team and the goals that we have for leaders every season. Culture…
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Jason Hanash — …how are we influencing the culture of our church? What what is the culture of our church? We have culture conversation and how we are, we get to talk about how are we shaping the culture of our church this season and how are we going to shape it next season?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good.
Jason Hanash — What are the stories that need to be told? What are the things that need to be highlighted? There’s a we get to just do a deep dive into that. And then as well as every season, we talk about stewarding generosity. And so we get to do a deep dive into how we have stewarded their budgets.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Where are we at and all that.
Jason Hanash — And where are they at? And how are we looking? And so it’s it’s both reflective of what has been done and where are we moving moving forward. So we’re able to do just a deeper dive with this team…
Rich Birch — I love that.
Jason Hanash — …that is that influences the the the background, the heart, the foundation of of the church. It isn’t we’re not talking about events. We’re not talking about you know who’s speaking there and and what what is the that conference looking like. That’s not what we’re talking about in that meeting. We are shaping the heart of the church and moving it forward toward the vision.
Rich Birch — Love it. I love that. And I love the just—listeners, as you’re listening in—I love that you’re using the rhythm. Like we have a very, what we do is very routinized in the church. Every seven days, we’re doing a giant event. And you guys in particular, five services that we were joking about this before we went ahead of time. Oooh, that’s a lot. I get tired just thinking about it. But you know we have this rhythm already in what we do. Let’s leverage that. And I love this idea of like, hey, we’re just going to march through these five things and talk about them. We’re going to every, you know, I guess that’s like a third of the year, we’re marching through every one of those areas. I think that’s so good.
Rich Birch — You caught my eye with daily meetings, daily huddles with your team. I know we’re not talking about your executive, but they’re having daily huddles.
Jason Hanash — Yeah.
Rich Birch — I have a friend of mine who runs a business who swears by daily huddles. He’s like, why are you not doing these? And pushes me on it. So, and I do, I, in fact, I don’t know any churches that do daily huddles. I think you’re the first church that I’ve heard of that does that. So tell tell me about that. Tell me what that looks like. Unpack that. Convince us that we should be doing that.
Jason Hanash — Well, it gives an opportunity for the executive to look in the eyes of their of their staff and and for that department to get alignment and to talk about their their projects and and priorities, what their focus is for the week.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah.
Jason Hanash — And when they when they come together, they are saying again, what the focus is for the week, what are they accomplishing, what challenges or questions that that they have.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Jason Hanash — Real-time decision-making feedback is is it so important, man. I think people, there’s so much that doesn’t get done and get stalled because they just didn’t have the line of communication that was that was open, the clarity that was needed, a question that went unanswered. So I think it creates that open line of communication. It creates an opportunity for there to be collaboration across the different team members of your department. But it is a good rhythm of accountability where everyone can work on what they’re working on instead of being in the weeds and like just grinding, they actually have to pick their head up and go, what is my focus this week? What should I be accomplishing? And be able to articulate that in a succinct way.
Jason Hanash — And so this is an opportunity for them to become great administrators and time management and task management and project management And as well as an executive or a leader who’s leading them to discern where people are at in that, if they need coaching in that, if they need redirection, if they need focus. Sometimes in a huddle, they’re saying, I’m I’m working on this, this, this. And an executive has to go, and actually, let’s talk about that because I actually I have I have some redirection for you there.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Jason Hanash — I need you to focus on a few more things this week, and and we’re going to table some of those. Oh oh, yeah, you didn’t. There was something we actually canceled that or we changed that. We need to connect. And so it creates so much alignment and and focus and momentum when you get people in the room…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Jason Hanash — …talk about what they’re going to be working on. And it gives opportunity, like I said, for coaching. So it’s been huge for us. We’ve been able to, I think, save so much time…
Rich Birch — Yeah, 100%.
Jason Hanash — …and energy and mistakes in wrong direction…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jason Hanash — …by dedicating 10-15 minutes…
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Hanash — …in the morning first thing to just talk about what you’re actually going to be working on together.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I can see that. I remember reading, I think I’m going to butcher the number. I think it was 40% or 45% of staff time is occupied with waiting on management or feedback around, you know, it’s literally just like I’ve communicated. I just need to wait for someone to respond.
Rich Birch — And, you know, the the the kind of theories of constraint idea behind that is if you can just get people talking more, you can speed up at the pace of your organization because it’s like, and if you know, in this case, every day you’re going to have a quick check-in, man, we can move from, because then the question becomes, hey, what did you do on that project yesterday? Or I can just wait till tomorrow morning to ask my supervisor about that. And we’ll, you know we’ll move as opposed to like, well, I’ve got a meeting up three weeks from now or whatever. So yeah, I love that.
Jason Hanash — Right. And there there’s ways, I mean, you can use systems as well.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jason Hanash — We have we use Basecamp.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Jason Hanash — A lot of people use different different software. We we use Basecamp for, sometimes they they don’t do the huddle because people are in different towns, in different cities.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jason Hanash — They’ll do Basecamp. Basecamp is an ongoing system of communications as well. Must must happen.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Love it. Love it. So good. Okay. So let’s pivot in a slightly different direction. You did an initiative called Year of Freedom.
Jason Hanash — Yeah.
Rich Birch — It caught my attention. Tell me what is Year of Freedom? Give us, give me a sense of that.
Jason Hanash — So every, it was 2024, last year…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jason Hanash — …we we just ah really felt like the Lord leading us in a direction. And every summer, I take a month off, not just a vacation, but I take about two weeks. I pray, fast—my wife wife and I both—and we’re seeking God for his voice and direction. And not just for like ministry and the church, but for my life and for God to align me…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Jason Hanash — …as a father, as a husband. It’s our marriage. It’s
Rich Birch — So good.
Jason Hanash — …it’s in that time in the summer we’re we’re praying and we’re fasting and we’re seeking God that the Lord will show us some things about our our children. He’ll give us insight as to importance in this next year that we’re leading into and what they need to learn and grow and how we need to lead them.
Jason Hanash — And so it’s in that time though, that that we also seek God’s direction for what everything we’re stewarding, including including the ministry and the church. And the Lord has been pretty faithful these last I don’t know, four or five years to to just give us clarity of focus. And and this year was just um was ah one that focus was around freedom. And that was the word that Lord just spoke to our heart. And and it it came in birth out of the the need. There’s such a great need of healing of mental and emotional and spiritual strongholds that that that people have. And and um…
Rich Birch — So good.
Jason Hanash — …we felt that the Lord wanted to wanted to set people fee free. And and we were going to take people on a journey the whole year of freedom…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Jason Hanash — …and crafted that journey and through our series and our men’s and women’s nights and experiences, even our youth and young adults and the retreats that we went on – the thread of the year was was freedom.
Rich Birch — So you organized, I love this idea. Like I, you know, I’ve heard of churches doing the like, like, you know, whether it’s a word or it’s a focus. Peal that back a little bit. How did that drive your planning process? How did it drive, you know, series selection?
Jason Hanash — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Give us some examples of what that looked like.
Jason Hanash — So it starts for us in the summer. And then when we take our staff on our annual retreat in October, we share the vision with them and they begin to craft the experience and their events and moving into the year with this thread of freedom.
Jason Hanash — But for me, with our sermon series, that the the planning is is around that how does this how is this reflective of this this year of freedom that we’re moving into? I began the year with a series called Freedom. We released a curriculum called Freedom as well.
Rich Birch — Wow. Yep. Yep.
Jason Hanash — A book we wrote that was like small group curriculum called Freedom. The, and then throughout the year, it’s not that every single sermon was about, you know, freedom…
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Hanash — …but we, we had like, you know, The Relationship Rehab is one of the series. So we’re relational freedom. We did a series called Anxious for Nothing and it was about anxiety and depression. And we did a spiritual warfare series called Battles and Breakthrough. And this was on a spiritual freedom. We did Truth Over Trend and the deceptions of culture. And so the the thread throughout the year was, was freedom. We were going to see people set free.
Rich Birch — That’s cool.
Jason Hanash — And then when we did like a men’s night or a women’s night, we were leading intentionally men and women, specifically in the things that they deal with. So we’re addressing some of those things to lead them out and into freedom.
Jason Hanash — We did Freedom nights in in January and August. We have those 21 Days of Prayer. And so we we have worship nights during those times. And so those were nights of of freedom…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Jason Hanash — …that we were intentional about the focus every time we’d gather, a different area of focus where we’re where we were going to break strongholds, and we were going to believe that people were going to be set free and and start walking out a new freedom journey.
Rich Birch — I love this from a clarity point of view. I love this. Like, Hey, we’re, where this is like an organizing principle for the, for the year. Have you done this multiple years or is this like a one year thing? Has it been, you know, is it gaining momentum internally? Like we’re thinking, cause I hear you say like, Hey, we’re thinking about in the summer. So that would mean, Hey, you’re thinking about next year. You know, how, how’s that all work?
Jason Hanash — Yeah, it really, this last year in 2024 probably was the greatest year of alignment with it that we’ve had.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Jason Hanash — We’ve had focus and and clarity on on maybe a theme and and it would thread through maybe sermons, and um but not the kind of alignment that we had this year. And this probably is, again, a result of empowering people our our leaders to lead at higher levels…
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love it.
Jason Hanash — …seeing that kind of traction thread through…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jason Hanash — …all of the church. I it was it was a result of that. I got to share the vision…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jason Hanash — …to a team that’s carrying it and they get to mobilize.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jason Hanash — And it just thread through everything. We have small groups and like as a curriculum. We launched our counseling center. We launched a freedom prayer ministry. We we started LGBTQ support small group and saw people set free that were going to take hormone blockers and confusion and and homosexuality and and saw people saved and set free from from all of that. It was all like it was it was all because we we shared vision and invited the team into it.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love it.
Jason Hanash — Yeah.
Rich Birch — That’s so good. I love how those two connect together. Obviously this, you know, taking what’s an idea, you know, given to you, but then, hey, accelerated through your team, expanded and even, you know, greater alignment and then obviously impact from all of that. That is, yeah, that’s that’s so good.
Rich Birch — Well, when you think about the future, this has been great today. First of all, this has been so good. Lots of, I got a page of notes here, stuff to think about and chew on. But when you think about the future, ah you know, at Discovery, kind of where, what are the questions you’re asking or wrestling with in in the future?
Jason Hanash — I think where we’re at right now is is this is 2025…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jason Hanash — …and the year or theme for us was identity. And I really felt like it was an identity crisis and has been an identity crisis. And not just culturally that we see maybe with with with gender, um but I think in the kingdom, people do not know are in Christ. They don’t know their identity in Christ.
Jason Hanash — And so so I I believe there’s a hunger for for that in the body. There’s a hunger for that in the world because what the world has told people where they would find belonging, fulfillment and meaning has has just leaving them broken, lost and confused. And so there’s a I believe there’s ah there’s a message in a revival coming to the church where we are bringing people into understanding into their, their identity, who they, who they were created to be and their identity in Christ.
Jason Hanash — So this year we kind of, we we wrote like a devotional for it.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Jason Hanash — And in I’m actually, you know, finishing up a new curriculum, a book I’m writing called Christ Formed in You is launching in July 30th, I believe.
Rich Birch — Nice. Love it.
Jason Hanash — And we’re [inaudible] spiritual formation and a culture of [inaudible] faith.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jason Hanash — And we’re going to take people on a year long journey…
Rich Birch — So good.
Jason Hanash — …where our foundational new believers curriculum needs to be 12 weeks. We’re stretching it out to a year and the 12 habits of the disciple.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Jason Hanash — We’re just taking people on a deeper journey of spiritual formation so that they’re just not practicing habits, but the habits are shaping Christ’s likeness in them.
Rich Birch — Ah, that’s so good. I love that. Yeah, I was thinking that, you know, the interesting thing about launching, you know, you talk about launching a year like that.
Jason Hanash — Yeah.
Rich Birch — If you launch at the beginning of January, that means you’re writing at the in, you know, the year before. So you’re trying to balance out this year, next year, trying to keep it all straight. That’s, that’s cool. I love, I love that. It’s interesting to hear.
Rich Birch — Well, this has been a fantastic conversation. What what else would you like to say just as we come to land today’s conversation?
Jason Hanash — Man, it’s it’s been a pleasure, been a pleasure, man, to hang out with you and to share. I think that that there’s, I what I would say is I’m seeing across the the nation, as I talk to pastors, it truly is the sparks of revival.
Rich Birch — I would agree. 100%.
Jason Hanash — There is such a hunger for the the word of God and the presence of God. And, and what is, what used to be, I don’t know, we’ve moved away from, guess, the teachings, the word of God and, and we tried to attract people and wow people and lights and, and, and music and, and that’s, there’s nothing against that. I, we, I use that. But, but I think what, what’s really attracting the next generation is truth. And this generation is starved of of truth and there’s so much deception and the truth is is is in the Word of God. And as we teach the Word of God and we teach the truth, they’re coming. And I see young adults coming with their Bibles and they want to read the Bible, they want to know the Bible.
Jason Hanash — And so I think a church growth recipe is, is you know, teach the Word of God. Get back into the Word of God.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so true. Absolutely.
Jason Hanash — Open it up and dive into and you’ll see a ah spark, I think, in your congregations.
Rich Birch — No, that’s so good. What a great encouragement, great place to, uh, to end. Where do we want to send people online? If people want access, is there a way to access some of these resources that you’ve used for the entire year? Is there a place we can send people to kind of see that or where do we want to send them online to track with you track with the church, that sort of thing?
Jason Hanash — I mean, you can go to our website, ilovediscovery.church to see a lot of our, all of our content. We’re actually putting on our first ever leadership conference on July 12th.
Rich Birch — Oh, great. Good.
Jason Hanash — It’s just a one day Saturday. We’ve we’ve been getting a lot of just, you know, questions from pastors and ministry leaders on on how we’re doing what we’re doing.
Rich Birch — Good for you.
Jason Hanash — So we’re kind of opening up the house and giving our playbooks and resources and workshops and bringing in some speakers and hopefully going to be a really great value add.
Jason Hanash — But we’re, we’re we have a ah website, I believe it’s leadershipconference.church.
Rich Birch — Ooh, that’s good.
Jason Hanash — And if you want more information about that, leadershipconference.church, you can check that out. I believe that’s it. I’m probably murdering it. Let me see. Rich, I’m good my team’s going to kill me here if I don’t get this right. Yep, leadership.
Rich Birch — No, that’s right. That is. Yep. That’s right. That’s, that’s the, that’s the address. That’s good.
Jason Hanash — That’s it. So if you want more information um and more resources and how we do what we do and how we grew from a living room to 5,000 people, that’s that’s what we’re going be sharing there.
Rich Birch — That’s so good. That’s great. You got some great speakers there, Natalie, Ryan, Chris, and yourself. That’s going to be a great. Yeah. We’ll, we’ll link to that in the show notes. Incredible value. Uh, you know, you should check that out if you’re in the area for sure.
Rich Birch — Thanks so much, Jason. I really, uh, really appreciate you being here today. Thanks for being on the show.
Jason Hanash — Thanks, Rich.
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast! Today we’re talking with Craig Smith, Lead Pastor of Mission Hills Church in Colorado—an 80+ year-old multisite church and one of the fastest-growing in the country.
Is your church growing faster than your systems can handle? Do you ever feel like your team is working hard but not aligned? From shifting teaching paradigms to reworking systems, tune in as Craig unpacks what it takes to align a historic church for long-term mission impact.
- Change is inevitable—prepare for it. // Churches must constantly adapt as their environments, congregations, and staff change. Revisit systems and culture regularly to ensure they support growth rather than hinder it. Leaders should resist nostalgia and instead anticipate future needs by assessing current practices with an open hand.
- Purpose before mission. // A major source of confusion in churches is a lack of clarity between purpose and mission. Purpose is why a church exists, while mission is what the church does in response to that purpose. Many churches get caught up in activity without anchoring it in clear purpose, which can dilute culture and cause drift.
- Preach for transformation, not just information. // While Mission Hills was known for its Bible teaching, they lacked clarity on the why. Reestablishing the purpose of Bible teaching—to help people follow Jesus—helped guide everything from sermons to discipleship. Use the Bible to lead people toward life change rather than just sharing information. While biblical knowledge is important, it should always lead to transformation and a deeper relationship with Jesus.
- Build systems to support growth. // Craig inherited a high-capacity church with very few systems in place. Over time, he implemented clear decision-making processes, established team structures, and clarified how different leadership roles (elders, executive team, department leads) fit together.
- Dismantle silos through honest conversations. // A months-long culture audit revealed both strengths and barriers across departments. By facilitating open conversations about what people valued and what they hoped to see, Craig helped unify teams around a shared vision.
- Repeat it—consistently. // Language creates culture. Leaders must say important things not just often, but consistently. If you change the phrasing every time, the message gets lost. Mission Hills is intentional about memorable language that reinforces vision and values over time.
- Speak in clear, accessible language. // In a post-Christian context, leaders can’t assume shared language or knowledge of the Bible. Speak plainly and avoid churchy jargon. Teach with language that invites non-believers while still challenging mature believers. Reaching people today means speaking with clarity and compassion.
- Mission Hills Association. // Mission Hills Church has launched the Mission Hills Association—a support network to help churches strengthen their health and reach. It includes coaching, collaboration, and shared resources aimed at building a regional gospel movement.
Visit Mission Hills Church at www.missionhills.org to learn more about the church and their Beyond initiative.
EXTRA CREDIT // *Download The Clarity Conversation 1-on-1 Worksheet*****This episode with Craig Smith is all about navigating change without losing your team – and we’ve created a practical tool to help you do just that.
It’s a simple, printable guide with five powerful questions to help you align your staff, surface tensions, and build trust during seasons of change.
Members can download it here.
Not a member yet? Support the podcast and unlock this resource (and many more!) by joining unSeminary Extra Credit.
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Risepointe
Do you feel like your church’s facility could be preventing growth, and are you frustrated or maybe even overwhelmed at the thought of a complicated or costly building project? Are the limitations of your church building becoming obstacles in the path of expanding your ministry? Have you ever felt that your church could reach more people if only the facility was better suited to the community’s needs?
Well, the team over at Risepointe has been there. As former ministry staff and church leaders, they understand how to prioritize and help lead your church to a place where the building is a ministry multiplier. Licensed all over North America, their team of architects, interior designers and project managers have the professional experience to help move YOUR mission forward.
Check them out at Risepointe.com/unseminary and while you’re there get their FREE resource “10 Things to Get Right Before You Build”.
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in Really looking forward to today’s conversation. We’ve got Craig Smith with us. He is the lead pastor of a church called Mission Hills Church, which was established more than 80 years ago, if I’m counting correctly. A multisite church, it’s been one of the fastest growing churches in the country for multiple years. They’ve got three locations and a Spanish campus in Colorado, and they’re currently engaged in this initiative to accelerate towards their 100-year legacy.
Rich Birch — Super excited to talk to Craig today. Thank you so much for being here today.
Craig Smith — I’m really honored to be here, Rich. You have been you’ve been really helpful to me as a leader, and so I’m really honored ah to be part of this. Thank you.
Rich Birch — Well, that’s kind of you to say. Why don’t you fill in the picture about Mission Hills? Kind of tell us a little bit, give us some context there.
Craig Smith — Yeah, a lot of this is actually in my head right now, because as you said, we’re thinking towards that 100-year milestone. So I can tell you that this church was founded July 26, 1942.
Craig Smith — So right in the middle of ah World War II.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Craig Smith — Everybody was being shipped off to, some of them were being shipped off to boot camps, their people were being shipped off to internment camps.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Craig Smith — I mean, there’s just a lot of uncertainty in the country, and there was a group of people that said, the best thing we can do for this next generation is to plant a church.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Craig Smith — And so they they did that. And here we are – we’re 83 years later, and it’s ah it’s been pretty incredible to see what God has done with this church over these last 83 years. And we know he’s not done. We’re looking forward to the next 17.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Exciting. The you know, one of the things that’s yeah unique about your church is, um you you know, you’re it’s a fast growing church, but you also have this legacy. It’s been around for a long time. And and those are two things that don’t normally fit together.
Rich Birch — A church that’s 75 years old that has obviously seen some accelerated growth. So when you think about, there was must have been some shifting of the culture here when you started. I wonder if we can kind of elaborate that, talk about any kind of cultural underpinnings that needed to transform to kind of help the church in its current state.
Craig Smith — Yeah, so the the church had a season of really substantial growth before I got here. God kind of orchestrated a move from their existing location to a new location, and there’s a whole story in there about what God did.
Craig Smith — But then the new location really it was a more strategic location. I think it was it was the right place. It was the right time. There was the right leadership in place at that time. And so there was some pretty rapid growth that came from that. With with that growth came also some challenges. I think it broke a lot of the systems. And not too long after the the church had moved into the new location and really began to see some substantial growth, the the the executive pastor and the lead pastor sensed God’s call elsewhere.
Craig Smith — And and I think that was true. That was God calling them elsewhere. But it was also, they were a little overwhelmed with what had happened with the growth. And soI and it was about a two-year period before I got here.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Craig Smith — So I came in and sort of looked around and went, wow, yeah, this is a great church, great bones.
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Craig Smith — I tell people a lot of times, I feel like I got handed the keys to a Ferrari. It was maybe a Ferrari sitting on a sheet of ice spinning its wheels a little bit. And I think that was mostly systems and processes. They just hadn’t quite caught up to being the size of church that they had become. So we we settled into trying to figure out like what needs to happen, systems process, what needs happen culture-wise to to begin to to move towards the next season. And by God’s grace, I think we’ve been able to figure a fair amount of that out. We’re still working on it.
Craig Smith — But yeah. Yeah, there were definitely some culture things that had to shift. It’s a Baptist church. We don’t we don’t say that anymore. We’re Converge.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Craig Smith — Converge worldwide, you know which used to be the Swedish Baptist Conference.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Craig Smith — And somebody figured out Swedish wasn’t helping us reach people. And then eventually they became the the Baptist General Conference and they figured out Baptist wasn’t helping us reach people.
Rich Birch — Funny.
Craig Smith — So now we’re Converge worldwide.
Rich Birch — Converge worldwide.
Craig Smith — Yeah. But there, yeah…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Craig Smith — …there definitely was some culture shifts that that needed to happen.
Rich Birch — Yeah, what would be some of those when you look back at this? That’s a good framework of culture and then systems. Why don’t we start with the culture stuff? What were some of those things that you’ve seen evolve over the time you’ve been there on the culture side?
Craig Smith — Yeah, I think from a cultural perspective, the biggest challenge is probably one that I think a lot of churches in the Western world have, and that is not a lot of clarity went around the difference between purpose and mission. And I know people use these words differently, so I’m just, this is the way we use them.
Craig Smith — But ah for me, purpose is why we exist, and then mission is what we do. And so mission flows out of purpose, but I think we get that wrong in the Western church a fair amount.
Craig Smith — And I think what happens is that what happens we we end up focusing on what we do without an underpinning, understanding of why we do it. And so i so here at Mission Hills, we would say our purpose as a church, not just Mission Hills, but the Church in general, is we exist because God loves the world and wants them to know it.
Craig Smith — That’s why we exist, right? Because God loves the world and wants them to know it. And then our mission, which is what we do, flows out of that. And so, I mean, the mission is it’s discipleship and evangelism. I mean, we’re not going to come up with something new for the church, right?
Rich Birch — Right. If you do, there’s something, you’re not a church, right? It’s got to be at its core.
Craig Smith — There’s something wrong that has happened. But I think what happens is we get focused on the mission. So we you know we end up like, well, we’re doing discipleship or evangelism.
Rich Birch — Right.
Craig Smith — And sometimes I think the split in churches today is, are you a discipleship church or an evangelism church? And I’m like, even that question bothers me.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Craig Smith — Because I even i you know I often hear it in the discipleship context, and people go, well, the purpose of the church is discipleship. And I’m like, no, it’s not. That’s like saying the purpose of the Marines is physical fitness. It’s not.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good. Right.
Craig Smith — Now, is physical fitness fundamental to doing what the Marines exist to do? Absolutely. Is discipleship fundamental? I feel like all I do every day is discipleship.
Rich Birch — Right.
Craig Smith — That’s that’s my gifting.
Rich Birch — Right.
Craig Smith — But my discipleship is built on this understanding that the church exists for a reason, and that is to reach the world with the gospel. And so you can’t do that without discipleship. But when you get that purpose and mission confused…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Craig Smith — …that creates a culture that can get in the way. And so I think that was probably the biggest challenge was beginning to shift the church to: no, no – understand your purpose first.
Rich Birch — Right.
Craig Smith — And then all this other stuff is building on or building towards that, that purpose.
Rich Birch — How did that exhibit itself in the culture? Like, or where did you identify as like, Hey, here’s some stuff we’ve got to shift because we were not clear on, you know, purpose and and mission.
Craig Smith — Yeah, so Mission Hills has a really long history and a legacy as a strong Bible teaching church. And and I hear this at Mission Hills still. I’ve been here eight years working on nine. I still, you know, we’re a Bible teaching church, and I think that’s true.
Craig Smith — But I would say even in my own personal growth as a as a leader, early on, if you had asked me what my job was as a preacher, I probably would have said my job is to teach the Bible. And then God kind of began to to work some stuff in me, and I I began to grow increasingly uncomfortable with that. And I wasn’t quite sure why, because I love teaching the Bible.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes.
Craig Smith — But I but I just felt like something was missing. And I was talking to a trusted mentor, I was sort of explaining what was going on in my heart. It was it was inarticulate. It was just kind of babbling. And he goes he’s kind of stopping. He goes, oh yeah, I know what you’re saying. You’re understanding that your job isn’t to teach the Bible. And I was like, Yes, it is.
Craig Smith — And he goes, no, it’s not. Your job isn’t to teach the Bible. Your job is to teach people how to follow Jesus using the Bible as your only authority. And it was just a light bulb moment when I, like that’s what I’m feeling.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah.
Craig Smith — That’s what I’ve been feeling my way towards.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Craig Smith — That’s what I think the Spirit’s been convicting me towards.
Rich Birch — Right.
Craig Smith — And and, and, and so like, does it fundamentally change what I do? Not necessarily, but it does change how I think about it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Craig Smith — And so when I got to Mission Hills, I think I was, and I was still in that process, but I was like, Oh yeah, what I’m seeing here is like the focus on the mission, which is teaching the Bible, but that’s disconnected from the purpose, which is why am I teaching the Bible? Which is to help people follow Jesus, which means not only spiritual growth in their own personal lives, but also joining Jesus on mission in the world.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Craig Smith — That’s why there’s a church.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Craig Smith — And so i definitely saw that there was a church that’s very focused on Bible teaching. Very proud of the fact that there have been multiple pastors here with PhDs in biblical studies. And I had to begin to go, okay, we’re not getting rid of that…
Rich Birch — Right.
Craig Smith — …but we do need to make sure we understand why we’re teaching the Bible.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Craig Smith — You know, and sometimes it manifests even in like, how do we teach the Bible, right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Craig Smith — Like the the previous pastor before me, who I love dearly, he’s become a very good friend. He was very fixated. That that’s a negative word. He he was his his preferred mode of preaching was a version of expository teaching. And I say a version because his version was, we’re pretty much going to go all the way through a book of the Bible. And that’s the only way we’re going to do it.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Craig Smith — Nothing wrong with that. It’s not really my way. I’m an expository teacher. like almost I’ve probably preached four topical messages in my life.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Craig Smith — But what I mean by expository is I’m going to unpack. I’m going to expose the meaning of a passage of Scripture. But I may or may not do that as part of a whole book study. Sometimes it it is. Sometimes I’m going to section of a book. Sometimes I’m going to do what people would call topical because I’m going ah walk through a passage about this issue.
Rich Birch — Right.
Craig Smith — And then i’m on ah next week i’m going to walk through a passage about this other issue.
Rich Birch — Right.
Craig Smith — Which some people go, that’s topical. I would say, yeah, but for me, topical is I’m bouncing around picking verses.
Rich Birch — Right.
Craig Smith — Nothing wrong with that either.
Rich Birch — Here’s 10 verses that ah on this. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.
Craig Smith — But yes, I think Mission Hills was a little bit locked in on a very specific version of teaching the Bible.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Craig Smith — And and maybe not a really clear understanding of why are we teaching the Bible in the first place. That’s kind of how it manifested.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. I like that. That’s a good distinction there. I think there’s that’s a clear drive. I think sometimes this can, it can just drift towards, it’s almost like a trivia approach to the Bible. It’s like, I want to give you knowledge, information about the Bible. And then I feel like I’ve done my job. If you walk out with some more, you know, facts that you can impress people with.
Rich Birch — But at the end of the day, we want to, we preach for life change. We’re preaching to see people take steps closer to Jesus. I love that. What about on the system side? You said there was some system stuff that needed to change as you looked at this kind of like, okay, we’re, we need to make a bit of a renovation here at the church. What were some of those systems that that need to improve?
Craig Smith — Yeah, i’m honestly, we just needed some systems. Like that that was a big piece of it.
Rich Birch — Okay. Yes.
Craig Smith — I think the Mission Hills was not a small church before they built their their broadcast location that that I’m I’m leading in right now. But in some ways, if I’m going to be perfectly honest, and again, I I don’t want to dishonor anything that’s come before me…
Rich Birch — No, no, no.
Craig Smith — …because I I love the leadership. And the and the former pastor is such a good friend. The former pastor, his name Mike, and Mike would say and has said to me, I wasn’t a an organizational leader. He’s a shepherd. He’s got an amazing shepherd’s heart. In fact, he’s he’s told me, like one of his favorite things to do is funerals. He loves those tender moments with the families, which I, man, I respect.
Rich Birch — Right.
Craig Smith — I love that so much.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Craig Smith — That’s not me.
Rich Birch — Right.
Craig Smith — But when the church grew and he found himself going, wow, now there’s this there’s all these people here. What what do I do with this?
Rich Birch — Right.
Craig Smith — He just, he felt like he wasn’t really equipped to think that way.
Rich Birch — Right.
Craig Smith — And he had an exec pastor, but but honestly, the growth kind of overwhelmed the executive executive pastor. And so when I got here, I felt like I’m not entirely sure how you guys functioned as a church the size you were before you grew.
Rich Birch — Right.
Craig Smith — And we’re we’re woefully ill-equipped to lead in this particular context that we are now, let alone to continue to grow. So yeah, I don’t see it with a lot of us just establishing systems. How do we make decisions? Who gets to decide what decisions get made? Who has responsibility for certain kinds of decisions? What’s the role of the elder team versus the executive team versus the the department leaders and all those kinds of things. So a lot of it was just thinking through that philosophically.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Craig Smith — Yeah, the church, the the departments were very siloed. So there wasn’t a lot of cross communication going on. There wasn’t a lot of fun. I don’t think we, I don’t think we felt like when we got here that there was a sense, oh, we’re doing something incredible together because God’s leading us. It was more like…
Rich Birch — Right. It’s like we got our individual pieces. we do our thing and it’s good. But you know, wow.
Craig Smith — Yeah, it was, it was head down and let’s get the job done. And…
Rich Birch — Right.
Craig Smith — You know, I started seeing things like I remember early on, I discovered that we had a quarter where there were three separate parenting seminars from three separate departments, none of whom knew the other department was doing those.
Rich Birch — You’re doing what? That’s funny.
Craig Smith — Yeah, yeah. And that was it was just it was a result of the growth and the lack of systems and and and…
Rich Birch — Communication.
Craig Smith — …really thoughtful ways of dealing with those kinds of things.
Rich Birch — Wow. That, by God’s grace, when you think about like the delegation and decision-making and how does the elder team relate to staff team, all that stuff, man, it’s by God’s grace that it didn’t blow up. Cause that, the fact that that wasn’t super clear, that could have been, you know, tragic in the life of the church.
Rich Birch — When you, let’s double click on the silo thing. How did you go about breaking down? Cause that’s and a natural thing that happens in churches. As we grow, they kind of become, you know, everybody gets their own little fiefdom and it can be difficult to get them to talk together. What have you done to try to stitch those together?
Craig Smith — So if I’m going to be completely honest, God was really gracious, and we stumbled into some things early on that ended up being helpful. I should probably tell you, I didn’t have any experience in big church.
Craig Smith — There’s there’s a weird story about how I ended up here. I didn’t apply for the job. I wasn’t interested in the job. I made the mistake of guest preaching, and I was a brand new lead pastor.
Rich Birch — And you’re still guest preaching. You’re still guest preaching all these years later.
Craig Smith — I’m I’m still guest preaching all these years later. So I all that’s to say that I came into this role without any real experience.
Rich Birch — Right.
Craig Smith — And I was pretty new as a lead pastor, honestly. I’d only been about a year in that role at a at another much smaller church.
Craig Smith — So I I was trying to figure things out. So I was I was collecting mentors in my life, and I was you know I was in a crazy learning mode. And and again, unSeminary was very, very helpful to me in that season. So again, thank you for that.
Rich Birch — That’s kind of you.
Craig Smith — One of the things I started to to realize I needed to do is we needed to figure out who are we as a church? What’s our culture? What’s our cultural values? And so I spent a lot of time ah talking to members of the staff as well as the congregation to go, hey, what’s true of this church that you want to make sure we don’t lose? And then, you know, what do you think could be true, but we’re not quite there yet? And that was about a six month process.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Craig Smith — But what happened in the process of doing that was we had a lot of conversation across departments. Because I was kind of moving down into each department and not staying up at the higher level. And I think that actually began to start some of the the movement away from silos. Because I was then going to other people going, well, okay, these people said this. What do you think about this?
Rich Birch — Right.
Craig Smith — Oh, yeah, we like that, but I’m not sure that one’s quite true. And then I’d go back to the first team and go, hey, so they said this about what you said, and what do you but do you think about what they’re responding to? But also, they said this, what do you think about that? I think that was the beginning of breaking some of those silos.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Craig Smith — And then just putting some stuff into place where there’s regular conversation and and meaningful ways to talk about decision-making, about programming. And and so maybe maybe we stumbled into it a little bit.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Craig Smith — But it was it was communication, like big surprise there. It was just creating formal processes of thinking through communication.
Rich Birch — Right.
Craig Smith — So the informal benefits of communication began to happen.
Rich Birch — That’s good. Well, even just in today’s conversation, you know, you’re clearly a gifted communicator. Everything from the spinning tires of the Ferrari on the ice, you know, this purpose, mission, conversation. Language is obviously a powerful tool for to drive culture and to communicate.
Rich Birch — I wonder if you could unpack a few examples of maybe where language or messaging strategies have been particularly helpful for you to kind of embed values, what we’re doing, how we do it deeply into what the church does. Can you talk us through what that looks like from your seat? That’s a unique seat that lead pastors have.
Craig Smith — Yeah.
Rich Birch — There’s a language piece that you have that is different than even a senior like executive pastor person. A lot of this language stuff is driven by lead pastors.
Craig Smith — Yeah, so, I mean, you you’ve heard it said that words create worlds. And I think that’s absolutely true. You know, they they say in marketing, what’s the what’s the rule of thumb? You got somebody’s got to hear something seven times before they act on it.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah.
Craig Smith — And I have I say to our staff all the time, and it took me a while to figure this out, because as ah as a lead pastor and as a communicator, like the worst thing I can do, the greatest sin I can commit as a communicator is to bore somebody. Which means that I’m always going, I I want to say this a new way and a new way. But the problem is every time you say it a new way, it hits different people differently. And and so and they receive it slightly differently.
Craig Smith — So I began to realize, and I tell my staff this all the time, just because you’ve said it doesn’t mean they’ve heard it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Craig Smith — Just because they’ve heard it doesn’t mean they’ve understood it. Because they’ve understood it doesn’t mean they’ve agreed with it. Just because they’ve agreed with it doesn’t mean they’ve done anything with it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Craig Smith — Just because they’ve done something with it once doesn’t mean they’re continuing to do something with it.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s good
Craig Smith — And just because they were doing something with it doesn’t mean they have haven’t forgotten it and need to be reminded of it.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Craig Smith — Which is just really just a way of saying, yeah, they they need to hear it a lot.
Rich Birch — Right.
Craig Smith — I think language begins to beat the drum. And if you beat the the backbeat steadily enough, people begin to bob their heads and like, OK, we’re moving in rhythm together. The problem is if you say it differently every time, you can’t quite count that as a second saying.
Craig Smith — You’d like to think that you can. I used to like to think that I could. I can say this creatively and in a new way and accomplish exactly the same messaging. And I began to realize that’s just not, I’m not able to do that.
Rich Birch — That’s a great insight.
Craig Smith — So I started going, I need to figure out how to say this in a way that feels like me, and also is memorable, so that people can remember it even when I’m not there.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Craig Smith — And I need to say it a lot. So I gave you one example earlier, when we started talking about purpose, we started saying, hey, yeah, the church is here because God loves the world and wants them to know it. And sometimes we’ll say, i mean, what does the Bible say? He loves them so much, he gave them his son. And he wants them to know it so much, he gave them his church. And a lot of times now, I’ve said it enough that I can i can leave off the last word of those, and people will go: son, church.
Rich Birch — Right. And people repeat. Yeah, yeah, yeah, oh good.
Craig Smith — I actually kind of want people to roll their eyes a little bit on some things that are so important that I’ve said them so much, they’re like, yeah, yeah, I got it.
Rich Birch — That’s a good…
Craig Smith — Maybe you do, but not everybody else does.
Rich Birch — Yeah,
Craig Smith — So yeah, we started figuring out how how do we say these kinds of things. You know, when we talk about discipleship, I’ll say things like, listen, it’s not big leaps, it’s small steps. Because enough small steps in the same direction will take you places you never thought possible.
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Craig Smith — So thats that’s a phrase I say a lot: enough small steps in the same direction will take you places you never thought possible. So I don’t need you to make a massive life change today. I need you take a small step.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Craig Smith — And then another one. And then another one. So those are the kinds of things like I have a, we call them plumb line statements. And when we’re onboarding new staff, like my my development director goes over a lot of those plumb line statements because there’s a lot of them.
Rich Birch — Right.
Craig Smith — They’re just, here’s how we say this. And and we we tend to say it pretty consistently.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, that’s good.
Craig Smith — Sometimes you got to vary it because some people just, they can’t handle saying the same thing over and over again. But but I think the more you can say it the same way, the better you’re going to get this sense of oh, we’re all bobbing our heads together and, you know, we’re dancing to the same tune.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I think that’s such a good insight. I, you know, I’ve joked in other contexts that, and you obviously said it way better than I say it, that, you know, people have to start making fun of you for these things. They have to, you know, they have to be like, okay, come on.
Craig Smith — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Like, but it’s true. I was with a i was with a staff member of one of my favorite communicators last week, and I was listening to them. They were presenting, and I was listening to them talk, and it was like I could hear that their leader coming through in their voice. Because it was, you know, they were repeating, like you’re saying, repeating these plumb lines.
Rich Birch — And, and it wasn’t, it wasn’t in like a copy and paste routinized way. It was just like, oh, that, that language is just has seeped into this person and has become a part of who they are. Which is what, what a powerful example. And I think that as a non-communicator, I don’t, I’m not a preacher. I think sometimes we can forget that that kind of repeating thing is such a critical piece of the puzzle and we’ll want to always come up with some new way to say it. But I just love that. I think that’s such a great a great insight for sure.
Rich Birch — One of the things you’ve talked about is the part of the country you find yourself in, Colorado’s front range. That’s a unique part of the country, but as an outsider, it appears like you’re passionate about reaching that part of the country. What’s unique about that? What is it about the front range that has you fired up that, what you know, what is it that’s, you know, kind of given your church, you as a leader kind of a unique mission with that aspect of what God’s called you to?
Craig Smith — Yeah, the Front Range of Colorado, which is kind of a, we we use that, it’s a civic designation. It runs from a city called Pueblo, Colorado in the south to Cheyenne, Wyoming in the north. It’s just east of the Rocky Mountains, which are obviously a big feature here and probably a big part of the culture. And I think a lot of places in the country will say this. It’s absolutely true here as well. This is a graveyard of church plants. Very difficult to get church plants that survive here.
Craig Smith — And and I think there’s a number of things to do that to that. Part of it is it in some ways we probably feel a little bit like the Pacific Northwest. There’s there’s a little bit of a Seattle vibe to to Denver, Colorado.
Rich Birch — Right. Yep.
Craig Smith — There’s a lot of California. We’ve had a lot of transplants from California coming out to to Colorado.
Rich Birch — Right.
Craig Smith — There’s a little bit of that. At the same time, there is a difference. You know, where’re we’re on the plains right next to the big mountains. We don’t have an ocean. We’re not the Bible belt by a long stretch. We’re probably more similar to the the northern parts of the country and the Pacific Northwest. There’s a very strong ah financial component to the Front Range. It’s not cheap to live here.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Craig Smith — So so money is often part of the culture. The mountains, as I said, are a big part of the culture. Let’s go to the mountains…
Rich Birch — Right.
Craig Smith — …and let’s let’s ski or let’s camp or let’s hike or let’s whatever. And so the weather has massive implications even on weekend church attendance. I…
Rich Birch — Okay.
Craig Smith — …you know I coach some guys around the country that will sometimes lament to me like, yeah, I mean depending on you know with the weather, we might see a 10% shift in our weekly attendance.
Rich Birch — 10%?
Craig Smith — And I’m like, dude, 30% is not at all unusual.
Rich Birch — Right.
Craig Smith — A really good weekend, I can drop 30%.
Rich Birch — Yes. Right.
Craig Smith — A bad weekend, it’s got to be just the right kind of bad.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Craig Smith — It’s like, oh, it’s not good to be in the mountains, but it’s not unpleasant to go outside, like 30% up, like wild shifts.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Craig Smith — There’s there’s a fair fair amount of culture of apathy here about spiritual things…
Rich Birch — Okay.
Craig Smith — …because of the money and because of the mountains and and the recreational culture. So yeah, it’s it’s not an easy place. We we think less than 10% of the front range is engaged in ah a life-changing, life-transforming relationship with Jesus. Yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I’ve that’s amazing. On the weather thing, I’ve joked in other contexts that like perfect church but weather is like 70 degrees and overcast. Like it needs to be like, you know, not not crazy hot, not crazy cool.
Rich Birch — But now, so obviously, and you didn’t use these words, but, it you know, the front range is heading towards post-Christian or post-Christian, you know, which is a challenging environment to communicate the gospel in. How have you as a communicator and as a person trying to build a church, how has that context impacted how you talk about Jesus, talk about… Yeah because I think the the rest of the country, we have to learn from environments like yours that are that are really in in some ways, I don’t know what you say, ahead of the rest of the country. There you know It’s a context that most of us are heading towards. Help us understand what how does that impact your your communication or what you do as a church?
Craig Smith — Yeah, nothing real new here, Rich. I’m not I’m not breaking any new ground on this, but I think what it means for us is you can’t assume a common language about spiritual things.
Rich Birch — Right.
Craig Smith — So we’re super careful about what we would consider churchy language. You know, we’ll talk about growing to be more like Jesus. I mean, our our mission statement is helping people become more like Jesus and join him on mission, right? Evangelism, discipleship, right? But we don’t we don’t say sanctification.
Rich Birch — Right.
Craig Smith — We don’t talk about justification. You know we’re just going talk about like growing in your faith because that’s, it doesn’t assume a knowledge.
Rich Birch — Right.
Craig Smith — We can’t ever assume that they know the Bible stories.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Craig Smith — So, you know, I will never say, and I will coach our younger staff when they’re communicating, don’t say, hey, you know the story of Moses. Because a lot of them don’t.
Rich Birch — Right. No, they don’t. Yep.
Craig Smith — A lot of them, I was actually, this is this is wild. I was in um I was in a I was in a screening of a ah a Christian film recently, a Christian TV series. And and the the room was filled with church staff. Okay. That’s key. They they were professional Christians, right?
Craig Smith — And and there was there was a scene where Jesus was making a whip. He was obviously getting ready to go into the temple and do that whole kind of a thing. When the thing was over, somebody asked the, there was a person who in charge of the screening. They said, hey, you know, what are your thoughts? What are your questions? And people said, oh, I really like this. I really like this. And one person says, “I’m I’m super curious – what’s he going to do with the whip?”
Craig Smith — And again, it’s church professionals, right?
Rich Birch — Wow.
Craig Smith — And so the the person who was overseeing it clearly thought it was a joke cause he kind of laughed. And then he had that moment where you could tell he was like, oh, you don’t you real you’re serious.
Rich Birch — Yeah. You don’t actually know.
Craig Smith — And he so he said, “Well, what do you think he’s going to do with the whip?”
Rich Birch — Oh, wow.
Craig Smith — And this this person and this person said, “I have no idea. That’s why I’m I’m so curious.”
Rich Birch — Oh, my goodness. Wow.
Craig Smith — And I just thought that’s a pretty good illustration of where the where the culture has gone, at least in Colorado.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes.
Craig Smith — You’ve got church professionals who don’t know the stories, right?
Rich Birch — Right. Right. Wow.
Craig Smith — So you never never assume that.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Craig Smith — So we yeah, we just we’re just very careful about our language. It doesn’t change the kind of things we’ll preach on, but we’re just always assuming we’ve got nonbelievers, in part because our people are living on mission inviting people to come to church with them.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Craig Smith — And we don’t want the cringe moments…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Craig Smith — …where that person who brought their friend is suddenly going, oh my gosh, they feel so lost because the way we’re talking about this or whatever.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Craig Smith — So a lot of it, again, kind of comes down to language.
Rich Birch — Yep. That’s good. Good stuff. Well, it’s one thing to be a part of a church to see the kind of culture change and then, you know, be the the culture change agent, and and be a part of all that. But then, you know, the the culture around us keeps changing. Our organization demands something new as we grow.
Rich Birch — As you look to the future, the next, I don’t know, 5, 10 years, what do you anticipate as maybe some changes or questions that you’re wondering about, thinking about in the future to kind of support what you believe God’s calling the church to do? As you kind of look to the horizon, what would be some some questions you might be wondering, Hmm I wonder how we’ll have to shift to to anticipate those.
Craig Smith — Yeah, so god God’s given us a pretty big vision. We call it the Front Range Vision, and that is that that Mission Hills would become a catalytic influence for reaching everyone in the Front Range.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Craig Smith — And that that’s very general. Specifically, what we think that means is that we we’re looking at our 100-year anniversary going, when we get there, I think what we want to do is to be able to look around and go, there is no one on the Front Range that lives more than 10 minutes from multiple healthy churches.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Craig Smith — And there’s a lot of gospel deserts.
Rich Birch — That’s a giant vision.
Craig Smith — It’s a giant vision.
Rich Birch — That’s amazing.
Craig Smith — And and and the key word there is catalytic influence. We’re not obviously not going to do that ourselves.
Rich Birch — Yes. Right. Right.
Craig Smith — But we think God’s calling us to to be part of what the church is doing and maybe to maybe to light some fires, maybe to grease some skids, maybe to to provide some encouragement and support. And so we have two strategies around that, and multisite expansion is one of those. We’ll continue to do campuses.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Craig Smith — We’re we’re Like you said, we we’re at we’re at four campuses. One’s a Spanish campus. The other two are are video, and then there’s a broadcast. We’re still figuring out what it means to be a multisite church. But we think there’s going to be additional campuses. But a lot of it, we’ve we’ve got something that we’ve launched recently called the Missionals Association, which is an all give to churches in the front range…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Craig Smith — …just designed to help them become healthy where they recognize they’re not. You know, we’re not going to walk in and go, hey, you’re unhealthy. But when churches are going, hey, I want to be this and we’re not quite there, how do we get there? Yeah, we’re we’re providing all kinds of resources and and cohorts and and learning opportunities and encouragement and equipping and supporting and those kinds of things.
Craig Smith — So that that’s that’s the vision. And yeah, we’re going to be a catalytic influence for reaching everyone by making sure that we’ve got these healthy churches. Because we more and more believe the only way to reach the front range is to unleash an unprecedented movement…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Craig Smith — …of missional followers of Jesus that are fueled by local congregations.
Rich Birch — Wow. That’s amazing.
Craig Smith — So local congregations, whether they’re Mission Hills or other other congregations, we just want to see healthy congregations helping people live on mission with Jesus here. So that that what does that mean for us? I mean, It means raising the money to do that, which is a little tricky because it’s not the, it’s not direct benefit to our people.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Craig Smith — We’re in a campaign right now and I’m realizing that’s one of the challenges. We’re not going, hey, you’re going to get a nicer building to sit in. No.
Rich Birch — Right. Here’s a new kids area. Here’s a whatever. Yeah.
Craig Smith — Yeah, this is actually, this is a little bit like the centurion who helped build the synagogue. You know, we’re going to build places that you’re going to pay for them, but you’re never going to pray in them kind of a thing.
Rich Birch — Wow. Wow.
Craig Smith — I think the centurion who was, who was Gentile probably wasn’t allowed to go into the synagogue, but he helped build it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Craig Smith — That’s a little bit of a mantra. Like, yeah, we’re going to, we’re going to pay for places we’re not going to pray in. That’s a little bit, that’s a culture shift.
Rich Birch — Wow. Yep.
Craig Smith — That’s, that’s about helping our people think of themselves living on mission. So that’s, that’s a change. And then there’s, there’s structural issues as we continue to grow.
Rich Birch — Right.
Craig Smith — I more and more find out that growing churches have really messy org charts.
Rich Birch — True. Yeah, absolutely. And constantly changing.
Craig Smith — Constantly changing, which I kind of like change.
Rich Birch — Right.
Craig Smith — Not everybody that I lead likes change…
Rich Birch — Yep. Yep.
Craig Smith — …or don’t like the way I lead change, which is often, that’s my fault, right? I’m I’m still learning how to do that effectively. But yeah, we’re we’re in the midst of figuring out some more structural stuff going forward. What got us here isn’t going to take us there. Again, lots of people have said that, but we’re seeing it for sure right now and trying to figure out, well, okay, well, what is going to take us there?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. I love that. That that vision of, you know, a life-giving church within 10 minutes of everybody in the the front range, that’s that’s incredible. That’s a huge vision, you know, to benchmark that for listeners, I know Walmart’s thing is to put, and it’s they’ve achieved it, is 90% of Americans live within a 20-minute drive of of a Walmart. So you think about, man, you’re, you’re trying to have twice the density of, of Walmart is amazing. Obviously for much, something that’s more than twice as important. I just think that’s and incredible. So fantastic.
Rich Birch — Craig, this has been a great conversation. There’s a lot we could dive into, but this has been super good. Anything else you’d say to listeners as, just as we wrap up today’s episode about this whole area around clarity and alignment and how do we keep churches headed in the right direction?
Craig Smith — You know I think probably the the one thing that I would say is you’re probably not as clear as you think you are…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s true.
Craig Smith — …and you have you’re not as constant as you think you are. You know, I’ve just learned this over and over again in my life.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Craig Smith — What I thought was clear was not nearly as clear as I thought it was.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Craig Smith — And so I had to work really hard, like, how how can I do it again? What what process of distilling it down to its essence do I have to go through again? What what filter do I have to run it through to make sure I’m getting rid of the extraneous so that I’m really focused on the essential? Yeah, I just realized that you’re not as clear as you think you are, Craig, and you’re not as consistent or as constant as you think you are.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Craig Smith — You think you’ve said this so many times and you think everybody’s got it and they’re so bored with it. They’re not. They’re they’re not because you haven’t said it nearly as much as you think you have, know.
Rich Birch — That’s so good. That’s so good. Well, this has been great, Craig. Appreciate your leadership, cheering for you, cheering for the church, what you’re, you know, what you’re up to. If people want to track with you or track with the church, learn about what’s going on, where do we want to send them online?
Craig Smith — Yeah, missionhills.org.
Rich Birch — Love it. Thanks so much, Craig. Appreciate you being here.
Craig Smith — Great, Rich. Thank you.
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Shayla McCormick, Executive Pastor at Coastal Community Church, a thriving multisite church in South Florida known for its authentic culture and rapid growth.
How do you build and protect a thriving staff culture as your church grows? Tune in as Shayla offers practical, actionable insight on shaping culture, defining staff values, and creating systems to keep your team aligned as your ministry expands.
- Creating a culture that feels like home. // Shayla and her husband planted Coastal Community Church from scratch, starting with no connections in the area. Recognizing South Florida’s often disconnected and transient culture, they prioritized building a church that feels welcoming, relational, and like home. From day one, they wanted people to feel seen and valued. Their authenticity—sharing personal struggles, not just victories—has helped foster a genuine sense of belonging for both staff and attendees.
- The critical role of values. // As Coastal grew, Shayla saw the need to ensure staff alignment around organizational values. Many churches struggle with dysfunction not due to poor strategy, but because values are aspirational rather than actualized. To combat this, Shayla developed a practical process to define the values Coastal wants to see consistently lived out in staff. Instead of starting with abstract concepts, she asked herself what characteristics were present in people she loved working with—and used those real-life examples to shape their core values.
- From wall to hall. // Coastal has seven staff values: We Believe the Best, We Own It, We Think People, We Live From the Inside Out, We Make It Better, We Have Risk Taking Faith and We Set the Tone. Values only work if they’re acted upon, not just printed on posters. Coastal implemented a quarterly staff values evaluation tool where staff self-assess how well they’re living out each value using a plus, plus-minus, minus system. Supervisors do the same, and both compare notes to spark meaningful conversations. This regular rhythm has become more impactful than annual performance reviews and has helped create a culture of continuous growth.
- Quarterly check-ins drive accountability. // These evaluations include three key questions—Do I get it? Do I want it? Do I have the capacity to do it?—which help surface deeper issues of calling and alignment. The result is clearer communication, fewer cultural blind spots, and, when necessary, healthy offboarding of staff who aren’t aligned. Shayla notes that conversations are now regularly centered around values, and team members frequently reference them when making decisions or reflecting on behavior.
- Modeling values from the top down. // Values must be modeled by senior leaders. As Coastal grows and adds campuses, Shayla is continually asking how to transfer the heart and vision of top-tier leaders down through the layers of the organization. Her team is currently developing onboarding materials that communicate each value directly from senior leaders like herself and her husband, ensuring clarity and consistency from the start.
To learn more about Coastal Community Church visit coastalcommunity.tv and follow @coastalchurch on Instagram, or find Shayla at @shaylamccormick.
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Portable Church
Your church is doing really well right now, and your leadership team is looking for solutions to keep momentum going! It could be time to start a new location. Maybe you have hesitated in the past few years, but you know it’s time to step out in faith again and launch that next location. Portable Church has assembled a bundle of resources to help you leverage your growing momentum into a new location by sending a part of your congregation back to their neighborhood on Mission. This bundle of resources will give you a step-by-step plan to launch that new or next location, and a 5 minute readiness tool that will help you know your church is ready to do it!
Click here to watch the free webinar “Launch a New Location in 150 Days or Less” and grab the bundle of resources for your church!
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Super pumped that you’ve decided to tune in today. Really looking forward to today’s conversation. We’ve got Shayla McCormick. She is the executive pastor at a church that you should be tracking with, Coastal Community Church. They’re a multisite church with, if if I’m counting correctly, two campuses in Florida. And they’re repeatedly one of the fastest growing churches in the country. Honored to have Shayla with us today. She is the executive pastor. Welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.
Shayla McCormick — Thank you so much, Rich. It’s so exciting to get to be here and to share about one of my favorite topics in leadership in the church and investing in other leaders. So thank you.
Rich Birch — I’m honored that you’re here. Why don’t you kind of tell us a little bit about about your role? Tell us, ah because, you know, the executive pastor, that’s been my background. It looks a little different at every church.
Shayla McCormick — Yes.
Rich Birch — Tell us a little bit about your background, your kind of role and andCoastal in general. Kind of give us this, paint us the picture.
Shayla McCormick — Yes. So what’s crazy is I I had never really worked in the church world or the nonprofit world until my husband and I moved to South Florida 15 years ago to plant our church.
Rich Birch — Nice.
Shayla McCormick — We moved here like knowing no one. So starting from the ground up. it’s
Rich Birch — Wow.
Shayla McCormick — And it was crazy journey. We did a lot of things wrong, but figured it out along the way. And just, you know, I think what we were great at was consistency. You just keep showing up and keep showing up and eventually…
Rich Birch — So good. Yep.
Shayla McCormick — …it kind of it kind of worked out. And so my husband and I actually lead very much together, but he’s he’s his strength is as a visionary. And my strength is strength is really as like the implementer of that of that vision.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Shayla McCormick — And so we work really well as a team. And so I pretty much manage the day-to-day operations of the church and the staff and and just, you know, seeing the vision begin to actually have legs to it.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Shayla McCormick — And I enjoy every moment of it.
Rich Birch — So good. Well, we’re honored you’re here. Could tell us a little bit about Coastal. Give us like the flavor. If we were to come this weekend, kind of talk to us a little bit about the church, kind of help us picture your church.
Shayla McCormick — Yes, I would say, you know, one of the things that we always said here in South Florida, my husband and I come from the Bradenton, Sarasota area Florida, which is just south of Tampa.
Shayla McCormick — And over there, everybody knew everybody, right? It was like, good old boy. Everybody knows everybody. You you have a friend when you walk into church. South Florida is very different. Like people aren’t the friendliest.
Rich Birch — Yeah, okay.
Shayla McCormick — So they all you could easily walk into a store and people are just going to look the other way and not say hi to you.
Rich Birch — That’s because they’re all from New Jersey. You know, they’re…
Shayla McCormick — Exactly.
Rich Birch — I lived in New Jersey for years and that’s where they all end up. They all end up down there. That’s fun.
Shayla McCormick — Exactly. They come down 95 and they end up with us.
Rich Birch — They just keep going.
Shayla McCormick — And so we were like culture shock. This is, this is crazy.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s interesting.
Shayla McCormick — And so we were like, we are determined to have the friendliest church.
Rich Birch — Okay. That’s cool.
Shayla McCormick — That when you walk in that you feel seen, that you feel welcome. It just feels like home.
Rich Birch — So good.
Shayla McCormick — And we would say that all the time when we, when people walk through the doors, we just want them to feel like they step through the doors of, of, of home.
Rich Birch — So good.
Shayla McCormick — And consistently people that come, they’re like, they come in and they’re just like, something’s different about this. It just feels like home.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Shayla McCormick — And that’s sometimes the greatest compliment, you know, that we could have. So we’re a very authentic, um, church, like what my husband and I are walking through or what our team is walking through. You’re going to hear about the mistakes and the failures and the difficulty. And I think really people connect with us a lot of times in our weakness more than they do our strength.
Rich Birch — True.
Shayla McCormick — And so we try to, to really make everything relatable and that we don’t have it all together. And so i think I think people would probably describe our church as just a safe place that they can just be themself.
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Shayla McCormick — And you feel that when you walk through the doors, we have a big sign at all of our locations that says, everyone’s welcome, nobody’s perfect, and anything’s possible.
Rich Birch — So good. So good.
Shayla McCormick — And I think you really feel that in in the life of our church.
Rich Birch — That’s so good. Well, I loved as you were, you know, there are multiple things you said there resonated with me, leading a staff team, being consistent, keeping the values aligned. You know, you’ve done things wrong. We want to learn from you, particularly on the staff leadership side. Lots of XP’s that’s a part of our puzzle. How, you know, when you think about ensuring that you’re kind of keeping staff moving in the same direction, kind of living out those values, what are some kind of obstacles that you’ve encountered or you maybe have heard other churches and encounter…
Shayla McCormick — Sure.
Rich Birch — …when it comes to trying to ah keep the team aligned around common values?
Shayla McCormick — Yeah, i think I think in any organization, right, you have you have people that are coming in from from somewhere else. You know, they haven’t always experienced your church or your leadership. And there’s going to be some things that are very unique to to how you lead and the culture of your church. And if we aren’t really focused on what those values are, you can tend to have people that come into your organization that just don’t embody or or model those values.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Shayla McCormick — And so you can have a very, ah I don’t know what the, like division, I guess, in in your church and in the vision and in the culture. And so I have gone into a lot of churches and my husband and I love to invest in church plants. And one of the questions that I’ll always go in and ask because they’re having challenges, maybe with their volunteers or their teams. And it’s like, oh, this person’s complaining or this person’s doing this.
Shayla McCormick — And I’m like, but okay, well, what, what do you value? And I just start asking, you know, some of those questions. And what I’ve realized is a lot of people don’t really know a value in the organization or what they want to see actually lived out in the life of their staff members, their key leaders, and ultimately into their their volunteer teams, you know, because it it is a trickle down. And so if if you don’t like what’s happening in your church, a lot of times you got to look at your team, right?
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes. Yeah. That’s good. I love that. You know, there’s that pivot that happens. We go from like producing great services, doing making of the ministry, all of that. But then there is a shift that happens as we grow where we have to shift towards, we actually have to make a great organization that makes those things.
Shayla McCormick — Yes.
Rich Birch — And we’ve got to push that down. And part of that is through this values process. When you think…
Shayla McCormick — Yeah. And I, I…
Rich Birch — …I love that idea of they don’t know. And, oh, sorry… I love that idea of they don’t know. How did you come to that? How did you guys define that? What did that look like for you? How did you define your values as an organization?
Shayla McCormick — Okay. This is, this is really interesting. So I think, as leaders, I started thinking about, okay, if I could think about one person that, whether they’re in my church, one person that I’ve been on a team with, whether it be at another organization or anything like that. And I was like, man, that person, I would love to work with them again.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Shayla McCormick — I would um like, they displayed these things in their life. And I started asking myself, what are the things that I consistently see in that person that I’m like, I always want that person around me.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good. That’s good.
Shayla McCormick — I always want that person, you know, close by. And so I said, okay, I need to start looking at those might be the values of the person that I want on my team.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Shayla McCormick — So we started going, thinking of the person first, and then going, what did they display? And that’s really kind of what I valued. And then I was like, okay, what’s, what’s kind of that middle ground person…
Rich Birch — Right.
Shayla McCormick — …that is like, okay, they’re great. But you know, and then there was like, the third person that’s like, I don’t ever want to work with that person again, honestly. And so I’m like…I know…
Rich Birch — You’ve had those people? i don’t know what you’re talking about. Yeah.
Shayla McCormick — And so I tried to like picture those three people.
Rich Birch — Right.
Shayla McCormick — And then that kind of shaped what we wanted to see modeled in our, in our leadership. And everybody has different values that they want to display or that they want to see in the life of their church. And I think the hard work is really asking ourself, what are the things that I actually value? Because people, a lot of organizations, a lot of churches have aspirational values, right? Like we want this, but how how are you actually facilitating or or communicating what that means?
Shayla McCormick — I I heard Craig Groeschel one time say like, it doesn’t matter what’s written on your walls if it’s not happening in your halls, you know?
Rich Birch — That’s good, that’s good. Yeah.
Shayla McCormick — You you might think that that’s a value, but is that actually being displayed, you know, on your team? And so, again, for us, it went back to really thinking about who are those people…
Rich Birch — Right.
Shayla McCormick — …and then what do they display in their life? And that helped us shape some of those things. And so I as senior leaders, executive pastors, any any of that, like, we’re really going to shape the values of that organization. So we have to ask ourselves those questions, I think.
Rich Birch — Yeah, when that idea of taking what’s, you know, internal or intrinsic and making it extra extrinsic is is a difficult process.
Shayla McCormick — Yes.
Rich Birch — That is you know because it’s there’s a lot of assumptions we have inside of ourselves that we’ve got to kind of get outside. Now you’ve defined, if I’m counting correctly, seven values. These are kind of like organizational values.
Shayla McCormick — Yes.
Rich Birch — We believe the best, we own it, we think people, (and we’ll put these on the show notes, friends), we live from the inside out, we make it better, we have risk-taking faith and we set the tone. There’s so much I’d love to talk about there. Are is there any one of those that what you would say was, as you were developing them, you’re like, ooh, this has been the kind of the tool that has shaped us the most. That’s and that could be, it’s been the hardest you know to to achieve. But has there been any one of those that really stood out as been the most formative?
Shayla McCormick — Yes. I would say the one that we talk about the most and the one that we go back to the most is the one that says we believe the best.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Shayla McCormick — And really, this doesn’t mean that we walk around with like rose-colored glasses trying to look at people and going, oh, I’m just going to ignore that because I’m going to believe the best. It actually means that we have hard conversations that allow us to eventually believe the best about that person. So it allows us to maintain unity.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Shayla McCormick — Because unity is the, probably the biggest thing. And so we tell people like we believe the best about each other. So that means we have to fight for the unity. And that means if I’m struggling to believe the best, I need to have a conversation with Rich…
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, that’s good.
Shayla McCormick — …and I need to go, Hey, I’m struggling to believe the best right now because of this. Can we talk through that?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Shayla McCormick — And it really helps us shape that. It also eliminates a lot of gossip. Like go to the person, don’t talk about the person.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, that’s good.
Shayla McCormick — And so that’s really one that we talk about quite a bit. And we have, I feel like that one has defined very much of the healthy team culture that we have.
Rich Birch — That’s amazing.
Shayla McCormick — Because if somebody comes and has a conversation, our first response is, have you talked to them?
Rich Birch — Right.
Shayla McCormick — Have you gone to them so that you can continue to believe the best?
Rich Birch — Maybe give us another example of that, you know, ah working that out. I can see that. Hey, ah you know, come to me.
Shayla McCormick — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Is there another, can you think of another time where we believe the best has you’ve had to, it’s pushed some operational, like, ooh, we’ve had to make a change or have some conversations that are around that?
Shayla McCormick — I don’t know about about like make a change necessarily operationally…
Rich Birch — Sure.
Shayla McCormick — …but I will say like forward facing, let’s say the church to the church and somebody comes to one of our staff members and says hey I’ve got an issue with that person this person I can’t believe they did xyz, you know. Our staff, because we first of all believe the best regardless of how we feel about that, we’re gonna say, hey that really doesn’t sound like Rich’s character. You know, like I appreciate you coming to me about that. And in, you know, sharing those things, and then we’re going to go back and we’re going to conversation with that person.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Shayla McCormick — But forward facing, we’re always going to have the back of, you know, our, our teammate. And so that, that changes the, I think the dynamics and the interaction and the confidence of the people on our team, knowing that somebody is always going to have my back. They’re not just going to allow, you know, people to come and make accusations or, you know, be frustrated. But we’re going to we’re going to choose to to have each other’s backs in those moments.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Shayla McCormick — And I think that has helped you know shape shape a lot of things.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. So you said it, I wasn’t gonna say it, but like sometimes these values, it’s the easy part is writing them, even though it’s a lot of work and like making a great graphic, putting them up on the wall. What have you done to take it from that to actually, you know, can walk us through how you’ve then made this like work itself out? Is there any kind of repeatable system or anything you’ve added to to ensure that we come back to these time and again?
Shayla McCormick — Yes. So one of the things that I started asking myself is like, okay, we have these great values, right? We’ve we’ve worked really hard to go, what are our values and to really, you know, solidify those.
Shayla McCormick — But now how am I holding people accountable to those values, right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Shayla McCormick — Because we can say something, but if there’s no accountability that allows us to have difficult conversations to make sure we’re actually embodying those things in the life of our organization, then we’re just going to kind of be aiming at nothing. And so what I started doing was going, what are some tools and ways that, that we can actually make sure people are living these out within our organization.
Shayla McCormick — So we actually came up with almost a self-evaluation tool for our team. And we listed out all of the values and, we began to say like, okay, let’s give ourself a plus or a minus on, on each of these values or a plus minus.
Rich Birch — Right.
Shayla McCormick — And so a plus would be like, I embody this value. A minus would be like, I struggle with this. And a plus minus would be, I do this sometimes, but I’m not really consistent at it.
Shayla McCormick — And so we develop this tool with all of our values. And then what we do is quarterly, our team sits down with their direct report and they self-evaluate themselves on how they feel they’re doing on displaying those values. And then their boss basically evaluates them. And then they talk through like, hey, we’re different here. Why are we different?
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Shayla McCormick — Like, here’s how I see that you could maybe embody that a little bit differently. And explain to me why you feel like you’re weak in this, because I see you as being strong in it. And so it’s a chance to like celebrate. But it’s also a chance to have some corrective behavioral conversations around maybe where we feel like we’re missing the mark on some things.
Shayla McCormick — And so there we also added a couple of questions on there that says, I get it, I want it, and I have the capacity to do it. And that’s really like their job. Like I feel like I get what I’m supposed to be doing. I get it.
Shayla McCormick — And then the I want it question is like, I still want to do this because I actually want to know, like, are you still in this and do you love what you’re doing still?
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Shayla McCormick — And then the other one is I have the capacity to do it. Because we all know in the life of the church, sometimes things outgrow our capacity.
Rich Birch — Right. Wow.
Shayla McCormick — So I want to know from that employee, like, do you feel like you still have the capacity to operate in the role or are you overwhelmed by all of this? And do we need to have a different chair kind of conversation?
Shayla McCormick — And this has really helped us carry this out and and like keep it in front of people. Cause honestly, Rich, I think there’s so many times in the church where we hire people for their gift and talent, but their like character and adherence to the to the values of that organization, they don’t really care about. And I would rather hire people based on values and teach talent and, you know, teach the skills.
Rich Birch — The stuff you need to do. Yep, for sure.
Shayla McCormick — But values are way more important to me because that’s what people are seeing displayed.
Rich Birch — That’s so true. That’s so true.
Shayla McCormick — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Well, and we’re not doing rocket science. I would agree with you on that. Like it’s not, you know, what what we, what we do is not, it’s not incredibly complex. You know, we can teach a lot of it.
Rich Birch — The thing I love, I saw this on that evaluation forum. I’m so glad you brought this up. I love that: I get it. I want it. I have the capacity. I think that’s, man, that is so wise. One of the things I’ve known and growing in a, in a fast growing church, particularly, I always tried to model and have tried to model, like, hey, my role, I this thing might outgrow me.
Shayla McCormick — Yes.
Rich Birch —And there and there may come a time where I have to step aside for the sake of the mission. And that has created a culture with my team being able to say that. But I love that you’re actually literally every quarter asking your people to reflect on that.
Rich Birch — How have these evaluations then ended up translating into like steps, actionable changes in staff development or alignment you know around this? What are some things that you’ve seen? Oh, hey, here’s some positive change that’s happened because of this.
Shayla McCormick — I think what I hear, what happens since we’ve implemented a lot of this is I hear more conversations centered around the values because…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Shayla McCormick — …so I feel like the values are really driving the decisions that they’re making. So I’ll hear people saying, Oh, okay. Our value is, you know, we own it. And so, you know, the other day there was a bunch of trash just sitting outside the door. So you know what? We own it. And so I took out the trash, you know, or whatever.
Shayla McCormick — So you just see the conversations beginning to shift.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Shayla McCormick — And then I’ll also say that as we implemented this, there were also some people that eventually exited the team because the dial was turned up on on, like, this is, this is what we’re displaying.
Rich Birch — Right.
Shayla McCormick — And I think some people self eliminated because they’re, they were just like, I’m not going to live up to that. And so there were several people actually that, you know, exited. And that was a healthy thing and a good thing um because those things weren’t going to be modeled.
Shayla McCormick — And, you know, we we do shaping conversations even even at our staff meeting. Like I’ll i’ll give you an example. The other day at our staff meeting, we were sharing like we do wins at the beginning of our staff meeting. So stories of life change or how people are embodying the the life of our church. And one of the guys that is very new to our team, he’s been on the team for about three weeks.
Rich Birch — Oh, wow. Yep.
Shayla McCormick — He was sharing and he was like, man, this weekend there was like this, this huge carafe of coffee that got spilled in the lobby.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Shayla McCormick — And he was like, all of these people like run over to the coffee spill and everybody’s grabbing stuff and trying to clean it up and whatever.
Rich Birch — Right.
Shayla McCormick — And he was like, I’ve been in churches where people wrote a walk the other way. But he’s like it kind of looked like somebody threw money on the floor and people were going to grab it, but it was actually a coffee spill.
Rich Birch — Wow. Wow. Love it.
Shayla McCormick — And I was able in that moment, because it’s a new staff member, and I said, hey, you know why you’re seeing that? It’s because the team in this room, our staff has modeled the value of “we own it” well. And they’ve seen us go first in all of those ways. And so they embody that too. So great job team owning it when there’s something that’s not even your job that you went and took care of, you know?
Rich Birch — Right. Love it. That’s…
Shayla McCormick — And so it’s kind of cool how how you can shape or, you know, facilitate conversations even around what they’re saying to highlight, this is why it’s happening and let’s celebrate that.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. That’s, that’s like 201, 301 leadership there. That’s to capture a moment like that and be able to point back and say, hey, that’s because of this value, the framework that you’ve designed and have been able to, you know, point your people towards. That’s, ah yeah, that’s, that’s amazing.
Rich Birch — How else do you, do how else, I know so in some churches, they’ll like go through these values, like once a staff meeting. They do a different one every time. Do you do anything like that? Is there teaching done around these? How, what does that, that part of it look like?
Shayla McCormick — Yeah. So we typically we typically pick one and talk about them in a staff meeting. Right now, we actually have one that is our theme for the year that we feel like God’s asked us to focus on kind of this one thing.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Shayla McCormick — And so we talk about that regularly at staff meeting. Because we do this, here’s what we’re going to do this week, you know. But we try to speak about at least one of them every staff meeting or highlight something like I just talked about, connect it back to a value.
Shayla McCormick — And then we do staff development days where where we do teachings, you know, specifically…
Rich Birch — Right.
Shayla McCormick — …on these on these, you know, values. But I think our biggest add value is that is the quarterly.
Rich Birch — Right.
Shayla McCormick — But especially like as you’re onboarding new staff, I’m I’m seeing this now. We’ve we’ve had an influx of new staff. And I’m even rethinking like, okay, how am I being super intentional about connecting people to these values consistently?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good.
Shayla McCormick — Because we all know a couple of people can disrupt your culture if, you know…
Rich Birch — Absolutely.
Shayla McCormick — …if they’re not modeling something well or they don’t understand it. And so I’m even like, okay, new season of like figuring out how am I gonna incorporate these even more…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Shayla McCormick — …into those conversations in different environments.
Rich Birch — Yeah, culture is so critically important. It is, you know, like there’s all those sayings, right? Like culture eats strategy for lunch. And, you know, we you can have all kinds of great plans, but man, if our team is not aligned around the right culture or, you know, it can become toxic, man, that’s—it can be really terrible.
Shayla McCormick — I would say we have more conversations…
Rich Birch — Talk to me about quarterly… Oh sorry. Go ahead.
Shayla McCormick — I would say we have more conversations about our values than we do job performance, you know?
Rich Birch — Right. Right. Well, because if you’re violating culture stuff, then that does start to get to like who you are as a person. It is more core to them than—yeah, like you say, I can teach you to get better at Planning Center…
Shayla McCormick — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …or how to make better videos or whatever. Like there’s lots of what we do that we can train you to. But like, if you—at your core—if you really don’t want to, if you don’t believe the best in other people, or if you can’t, think about people first or, you know, live from the inside out. Like if you’re constantly guarding yourself, like that’s really hard to get under.
Rich Birch — So talk to me about quarterly. Like why so lots of churches, or I’ve heard churches, do this like on an annual basis. What led you to think about, you know, checking in quarterly?
Shayla McCormick — Yeah. So on an annual basis, we do a performance evaluation.
Rich Birch — Okay. Yep.
Shayla McCormick — But quarterly is when we do the values evaluation conversation.
Rich Birch — Okay. Okay. Right.
Shayla McCormick — It’s—again, it’s—you have to keep things in front of people so that they understand how important that is. We’ve all heard the term like “vision leaks,” right? If you don’t talk about those things consistently, it’s easy for people to forget about that.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Shayla McCormick — And most of the time, our corrective or harder conversations are going to be centered around these values.
Rich Birch — Right.
Shayla McCormick — And to be honest, Rich, if we have too many of these conversations where people have like two negatives in their boxes, we’re talking about a performance improvement plan and/or an exit from the team. Because we believe in the culture that much and that it shapes our church. So really the quarterly is because we want to keep it in front of people…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Shayla McCormick — …and we want to keep them changing and growing in these areas so that we see that trickling down into the life of our church and even in our volunteers. And I think what this has done is really shaped—even though these are our staff and leadership values—it’s shaped so much of the culture of the church…
Rich Birch — Sure.
Shayla McCormick — …because you actually see our church begin to embody these things because that’s what they’re seeing the leadership do.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Love that. So, you know, I think Coastal will continue to grow. You guys will reach more people, launch more campuses.
Shayla McCormick — Yes.
Rich Birch — When you look up over to the horizon, what are your thoughts, questions you’re asking around how are you going to plan or adapt what we’re doing, evolve this thing to continue to push forward the staff culture? Any kind of questions on the horizon that you’re wondering about or thinking about for the future on this front?
Shayla McCormick — Yeah. Like my constant thought is, you know, as we grow, as we launch new locations, as we add staff—and the further my husband and I get—the more layers you add to your organization, the more difficult it is probably to maintain that heart, that culture, that vision. And so I’m a constant tinkerer. How can we do this better? How can we make this more available or visible? How can we continue to have these clarifying conversations? And so I think I’m asking myself in this season, how do I get the heart and vision from this top tier of leadership to be felt way down the organization?
Shayla McCormick — And so we’re even coming up with some things right now to be able to, when we’re onboarding staff, creating some little talks around those values that are coming from TJ or I, just so that they see that. And honestly, the thing that they always need to see is their pastors and their leaders modeling those things as well.
Rich Birch — Yeah, so true. Yep.
Shayla McCormick — So it’s this constant evaluation of—for me—even those top tier leaders that I’ve put in those positions have to be the ones that are that are modeling that.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Shayla McCormick — And so I think I just keep asking myself, as we grow…
Rich Birch — Right.
Shayla McCormick — …what can I add or perfect or make better that allows this guy to continue to drive this organization and that we don’t lose just the authenticity of who we are as leaders, you know?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Shayla McCormick — So…
Rich Birch — Love it. So good. And just as we come to land today’s episode, anything else you’d love to say? Any final thoughts, maybe for a leader who’s listening in and thinking, “Yeah, we got to take some steps towards this.” We’re going to link to this PDF in the show notes to show about the staff values, staff evaluation that we’ve been talking about here, friends. And the thing I love about this: it’s super clean, simple, easy to understand, but super powerful. I can see how, man, if we did this, it would make a huge difference. But, anything you’d love to share with us just as we land today’s episode?
Shayla McCormick — I would say all of this, like I just want to encourage those top-tier leaders is all of this starts at the top, right?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Shayla McCormick — We’ve heard that it’s more caught than taught. And I think as senior leaders, sometimes we underestimate what people are catching from our behavior and what we’re doing, not just what we’re saying.
Rich Birch — That’s good. Yes.
Shayla McCormick — I think it’s easy to say all of these things, but what are they seeing you model? And I think that is of the utmost importance—that that happens at the top and that we never forget why we’re doing this and the value that it brings to our organizations. Especially as we grow and we get bigger and we have more demands on our time that we can’t forget the simple modeling of the things that we’ve put in place.
Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s so good.
Shayla McCormick — So, yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah. And that’s probably key to the core problem we talked about at the beginning—of values just staying on the wall somewhere. I think that the caught versus taught is a big piece of that. You know, at some level, I think in those organizations it’s like, “Yeah, we don’t actually believe that stuff.”
Shayla McCormick — Exactly.
Rich Birch — It looks good, but you know, we don’t believe it.
Shayla McCormick — Right.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. Well, Shayla, this has been such a helpful, encouraging, super practical conversation today. I really appreciate it. If people want to track with you or track with the church, where do we want to send them online?
Shayla McCormick — Yeah. So they can follow our church on Instagram. It’s @coastalchurch – it’s probably the best way to get a window into our church. And I’m not super active on social media…
Rich Birch — Nice.
Shayla McCormick — …but it’s @shaylamccormick.
Rich Birch — Love it. Love it.
Shayla McCormick — But life is crazy. And I’m like, “Social media? I don’t know how to do it all.”
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Got to live life, not document it.
Shayla McCormick — Exactly.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. Thanks so much, Shayla. Really appreciate you being here today. Thanks for being on the episode.
Shayla McCormick — Absolutely. Thanks, Rich.
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Bob Riedy, Senior Pastor of Church of the Open Door in Pennsylvania. After leading one of the fastest-growing churches in the country, Bob found himself facing a personal and professional breakdown. In this deeply transparent episode, he shares his journey through burnout, anxiety, and loss—and how a season of pain became a catalyst for healing, reflection, and renewed leadership.
Feeling overwhelmed by ministry demands? Struggling with unprocessed grief, exhaustion, or the weight of expectations? Listen in as Bob offers honest insights on burnout recovery, emotional health, and the kind of leadership that builds both soul and church.
- Deal with loss to move ahead. // Years of accumulated grief—personal loss, staff transitions, and post-COVID declines—had taken a quiet but devastating toll. Like many pastors, Bob had failed to grieve deeply. He admits, “Ministry is a series of ungrieved losses,” and shares how shame—over not being able to “hold it all together”—compounded the pressure he felt to appear strong and capable.
- Combat shame with grace. // The enemy uses shame to isolate and weaken pastors who feel they should always have the answers. Returning to Scripture reminds us that even biblical heroes experienced loss and hardship. God works through those seasons in new and powerful ways.
- Let the Truth transform you. // Pastors can fall into the trap of preaching truth without letting that truth transform their own hearts. Bob realized he had been carrying more weight than Jesus was asking him to. True rest came when he began allowing the gospel to minister to his soul, not just his sermons.
- Getting help and doing the work. // Bob’s road to recovery began with a doctor’s visit, counseling, and time away from the pulpit. He leaned into scripture, read books on mental health and burnout, and began integrating new rhythms into his life. Practices like contemplative prayer, Sabbath rest, and cultivating deeper friendships helped him reestablish emotional and spiritual health.
- Set boundaries for rest and health. // Create clear limits on your time and energy. Leaders must learn to fully engage in ministry and fully disengage to rest. For Bob, this meant prioritizing his family and carving out time to be with God without guilt.
- Lean on trusted relationships. // Burnout taught Bob the value of authentic friendships. For years, he was surrounded by people who knew “Pastor Bob” but few who really knew him. Through intentional efforts, he built deeper relationships where he could be vulnerable and receive care—not just give it.
- Share the burden. // Appoint someone to step into your leadership role and divide responsibilities among the team to give yourself time to step back and rest. This lightens the load and creates a healthier rhythm for the entire staff. Leadership doesn’t have to mean carrying everything alone.
- Burn Out and Life Lessons. // Today, Church of the Open Door is stronger than ever. Attendance is rebounding, spiritual growth is flourishing, and Bob is leading from a place of authenticity and freedom. His honesty has invited others into healing as well, and he’s become an advocate for soul care among pastors. Through his downloadable resource, “Burn Out and Life Lessons Talk“, Bob outlines the journey he walked through, the disciplines that helped him heal, and practical steps pastors can take to guard their emotional and spiritual health.
Learn more about Church of the Open Door by visiting www.codyork.org.
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Thanks so much for tuning in. Today, we’ve got something really unique on the podcast. We don’t typically do. We’re looping back around to get a bit of an update on the story, particularly the personal story of Bob Riedy. He is the senior pastor of a fantastic church, Church of the Open Door, that you should be following. Bob was on in 2019 and has come back now a few years later for a bit of an an update on where things are at. At that point, the the episode he was on was called “From Plateaued for 30 years to One of the Fastest Growing Churches in the Country. Bob, so glad that you are here. Thanks for being on the show today.
Bob Riedy — Yes. Thank you, Rich. So good to be with you.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I appreciate you being on today and taking time and and spending some time with us again to kind of update us on you and where things are at. Why don’t you give us some context before we dive in? Kind of tell us about the church. Tell us about your role, that sort of thing.
Bob Riedy — Yes. Church of the Open Door is a church that was established in 1951 with a really unique story of of a church coming out of a mainline denomination and where a whole bunch of people came to know Christ. And they established the church, and the church grew very rapidly for probably the first 25, 30 years, then to plateaued, as you mentioned. And then ah somewhere around 2007 or ’08, the church began to grow again very rapidly.
Bob Riedy — I’m the senior pastor of the church. I’ve been here since 2006, and I’ve been in ministry about 43 years. And love ministry and have really loved my time here at Church of the Open Door. It’s it’s a great church. It’s a multi-site church and with a staff of about 45 people that really continues to reach people and see them experience life change in Jesus.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Well last time we spoke your church was named one of the fastest growing churches in the country, like we talked about. And a lot has happened since then. Bring us up to speed, tell us to give us the story. What happened since then.
Bob Riedy — Yes. So we, we ah you know, as you said, we were named one of the top 100 fastest growing churches in America. And we were really doing well, I think.
Bob Riedy — And ah and then somewhere around 2000, the end of 2019, we had a difficult transition with ah some one person, a couple people actually on our staff. Of course, the pandemic hit in 2020, and that was you know a difficult thing for our church, especially guys as a ah multisite, large church, and know how to handle that. The politics, were certainly a part of of of all of that as well. And so we got through those challenges.
Bob Riedy — And then ah in yeah mid 2021, just hit a wall personally and had to take some time off and, you know, get to a better place.
Rich Birch — So mid 2021, what kind of led you to that? You described the fact that you hit a wall. Talk us through what led you to the place where like, oh, something is not up. This is more than just tired. This is more than like, oh, I need to have a nap this afternoon.
Bob Riedy — Yeah.
Rich Birch — You know, there’s it was obviously more profound than that. Tell tell us about that.
Bob Riedy — Yes. So on Sunday, June the 27th, 2021, I woke up like I had for the last, you know, 40 years and showered, shaved, had breakfast and could not come in and do my job that day. And I you know went back to bed and my, you know, I certainly alarmed my wife. And I just said, I’m not feeling well today.
Bob Riedy — And fortunately at that time, we were still taping our services ahead of time and we hadn’t been live streaming yet. And so um you know I text my my team and said, you know you guys just need to play the tape today. But the truth of the matter is, is that I was just totally exhausted.
Bob Riedy — And, you know, that later on that day, my children who all attend my church, you know, they were texting mom, what’s going on with dad and stuff. They all showed up at our apartment that afternoon. And, you know, they they they saw that, you know, their father was, you know, just not himself, just just totally, really totally exhausted.
Bob Riedy — The first thing I did was call my doctor. He responded right away and put me on medicine and and whatnot. And you know I began to go to counseling, and I’m sure we’ll talk about that later on. But at that time, I really didn’t know what happened to me, Rich.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Bob Riedy — I knew that I was tired. I knew that I was wrestling with profound anxiety, which was just kind of overwhelming me. And so I realized I just I couldn’t keep going on. So I ended up taking the summer off. And, you know, you know, by God’s grace, picked up again in the fall, ah but in in a totally different way. So it was yes, it was scary.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Bob Riedy — It was it was traumatic. You know, I mean, I was the yeah I was the Energizer Bunny. You know, I I could work I could work, you know, 12 hours a day and, you know, work weeks at a time. At that time, I was preaching, you know, six, seven times in a row…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Bob Riedy — …which now that I realize was not healthy, you know.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Bob Riedy — But I think and we had had we had just experienced some loss on our staff, some difficulties and turnovers. I had had some personal disappointments as well. We had bought ah some property with our son and we were going to build with him. And we just kept running into these, um you know, walls. And and then we were I was, you know working at the church. And at the same time, ah you know working on these properties and stuff. And so there was um it was like a perfect storm…
Rich Birch — Right.
Bob Riedy — …of of you know exhaustion that that but really brought you know brought me to to a wall. And in the end, it really revealed that there were some faulty, there was some faulty thinking, there were some faulty ways that I was living and doing ministry that I think, you know, really caught up to me. And it it took me going to counseling and things to figure some of those things out.
Rich Birch — Okay. I want to put a bookmark in that…
Bob Riedy — Okay.
Rich Birch — …and come back to your understanding of kind of the faulty ways that you’ve kind of undone, but let’s just stay a little bit longer in the tension part. You’re a smart leader leading a prevailing ministry. And what you’re describing is I think what a lot of us find ourselves into, like there’s lots of opportunity. You’re, you know, you’re doing some investment stuff. You’re there’s lots going on.
Rich Birch — I had a friend of mine has said, you know, leading a ministry over an extended period of time is a series of unmitigated losses. It’s like things just fall apart in life and you just kind of, they just, they just add up and you just kind of move on. But can you kind of pull apart a little bit from the the side of the loss, the side of the pressure, kind of what what led to the the kind of profound anxiety? Help us understand that.
Rich Birch — I’m thinking from the perspective of people that are listening in that are saying, hey, like, ah we don’t want to get to the place where we’re waking up on a Sunday and we can’t get in. But what would be some of those signs ah that that you now see that maybe you didn’t quite see so clearly at that point?
Bob Riedy — Yes. I I really do think that loss and especially not properly processing and grieving loss was a big part of what was behind all of this.
Rich Birch — Right.
Bob Riedy — In 2018, I lost my brother, um my younger brother, who was, you know, really my wingman in so many ways. That was a loss that, you know, I think in some ways I’m still wrestling with. We, during the pandemic, we lost, you know you know, pick a number…
Rich Birch — Right.
Bob Riedy — …you know, a lot of loss as far as, um ah you know, attendance and stuff. At first, we were off for, you know, we were off for about four months. But then when we came back, ah you know, it was people began to trickle in. And it was clear to me that we lost hundreds of people, you know, as well from our church that during that time.
Bob Riedy — That was probably a profound thing for me. We lost some key staff members members as well, you know, during that time. I lost some friends because of the politics and some of the difficulty of that. And so I think loss was ah was a big part of that. My counselors really helped me a lot with that not properly grieving loss.
Bob Riedy — You know, Terry Wardle is one who said that, ah you know, ministry is a series of ungrieved losses. And and and if we and and I found that I I really wasn’t doing that good. I was shaking it off and just moving forward, shaking it off and moving forward and not really grieving it and and and bringing God into it and surrendering it to him.
Bob Riedy — And, and I think part of, part of what happened with that as well was I was, I was concerned about what people thought, you know, with we were, you know, this powerhouse of a church growing like crazy. And all of a sudden, you know, like every other church we were, we were struggling.
Bob Riedy — And, you know, I remember the day that, you know, I burned out that afternoon. My children all came to our apartment. My wife and I were living downtown. And ah my daughter reminded me of this the other day. And she said, Dad, do you know what you said to me that day? And I said, no. She said, Dad, you said to me, “What are people going to think of me that this happened to me?” And I you know, that was a that was a loss that I wasn’t, you know, I wasn’t able to really properly wrap my head around.
Rich Birch — right
Bob Riedy — And I was more concerned about how this was going to look, you know, with me as, you know, a Christian leader in our community. And and then I think one of the places that the anxiety came from as well was shame. Like one of the things the enemy, I think, came after me with was like, you’ve been telling people here in York how to live for the, you know, the last 15 years, and you let this happen to you.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Bob Riedy — And wow, I wrestled with that as well. And I so I think, you know, that that loss and, you know, worrying what people were concerned about or what they were thinking of me. And then the shame of wrestling through that…
Rich Birch — Right.
Bob Riedy — …as a senior pastor, you know, whose church had been top 100 churches.
Rich Birch — Right.
Bob Riedy — You know, I mean, I I taught church leadership and and biblical preaching at Lancaster Bible College. And, and this happened to me. And, and so I really wrestled with, you know, just the fallout of all that.
Rich Birch — Well, there’s a ton there.
Bob Riedy — Yes.
Rich Birch — I have I wrote like half a page of notes of like, oh, there’s so much there I’d love to unpack. Let’s start with the grieving piece.
Bob Riedy — Yes.
Rich Birch — So proper grieving of loss. I think anybody that’s listening in, I mentioned this already, like we don’t have to come up with a list of, it’s very easy for us to come up with a list of things that we have lost in ministry.
Bob Riedy — Yes.
Rich Birch — It’s like we’re consistently, that’s like a part of it. It’s what what did you learn about proper grieving? What does proper grieving look like for you now? How how have you found a better path forward on that front?
Bob Riedy — That’s a great question. You know, I think for me, I had to go back to the word of God and the example of so many people in scripture who experienced loss. You know, Joseph, Moses, Job, Jesus, Paul. I mean, it’s all throughout. David, it’s all throughout the Word of God. And, you know, I had one of the things I had to do is go back to just the the understanding that, ah you know, in the midst of loss, God is doing things in my life that he wouldn’t wasn’t doing when everything was amazing, you know? And so I realized that ah that that this was you know a big work of God.
Bob Riedy — I also began to, you know, study some of the people in in Christian you know ministry, specifically D.L. Moody, you know who lost so much in the Chicago fire. Everything was destroyed. And yet you know it was through that that Moody Bible Institute and some of these amazing things, you know, happened. And just began to think about, you know, Martin Luther and John Wesley. And and then just, you know, present day people who have been honest about their issues. Louis Giglio, Craig Groeschel, Jenny Allen. I mean, these people, you know, really, really ministered to me.
Bob Riedy — And I think another thing for me, another piece was was being somebody who really experiences and sits in the love of God.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Bob Riedy — You know, Rich, I have preached the word, I’ve preached the word of God for 40 years and I’ve talked about God’s love over and over again. But honestly, there were parts of that, some big parts of that, that I really never applied, you know, to my own life. And, you know, like, and I I remember Tim Keller saying, nothing changes us, you know, like the a deep understanding of the love of God.
Bob Riedy — I think as well, just reading, widely from people who also had experienced burnout and loss.
Rich Birch — Right.
Bob Riedy — You know, a young woman by the name of Bethany Dearborn Hiser wrote a beautiful little book called “From Burned Out to Beloved”. And, ah you know, she has a great line there: “Behold the one beholding you and smiling.” And honestly, I I didn’t ever see God smiling at me. Isn’t that crazy?
Rich Birch — Wow.
Bob Riedy — And I’m not a legalist.
Rich Birch — Right.
Bob Riedy — You know, I mean, I’m not a legalist, but I I really never, I think, really grappled with the gaze of God. The love… You know, the Bible says that Jesus saw that young man that time. He looked at him and he loved him. And so these were all things that I had to learn to process to help me understand that even in the midst of loss, I have a God who loves me profoundly and that is and that he’s doing things, that he’s sovereign, he’s over the loss. And just like he’s done in so many other lives, he’s working in my life as well. Those were powerful things, I think, that have helped me deal with loss.
Rich Birch — That’s beautiful. That’s beautiful. One of the things you mentioned resonated with another conversation I had. A friend of mine, mentor, someone who I’ve looked up to, super influential in my life, they had stepped out, retired from ministry, came to the end. And we were out for, you know, coffee maybe a year later. And I asked them, I said, hey, what what’s been your biggest surprise now that you’re out of the kind of weekly rhythm of all of this? And they said, without hesitation, looked at me and said, you know what? I didn’t realize the pressure I was feeling to speak on behalf of Jesus every week,
Bob Riedy — Wow.
Rich Birch — That the that the weight that that had on me, I didn’t realize. And you talked about, you know, this idea that a part of you you were wrestling with, you know, Hey, here you were telling people how to live. I think it’s the language you used. Talk about that pressure. I think particularly for folks that are living, listening in one of the things I’ve tried to do as an executive pastor, and I’ve tried to coach other people towards is, Hey, a part of what we’ve got to do is create space in the lives of our lead pastors and communicators so that they can properly carry that weight because it’s unique. It’s, it’s it’s very different than the kind of pressure I see many of us under. Talk about what that weight was like. How you know when you what what impact do you think negatively was having on that? And then we can pivot to whats what are some changes you’ve made.
Bob Riedy — Yeah.
Rich Birch — But let’s talk about that that weight particularly.
Bob Riedy — Yes. I think that for myself, I was I was carrying I was carrying weight that Jesus didn’t want me to carry.
Rich Birch — Right.
Bob Riedy — You know, one of the verses of scripture that really ministered, has ministered to me is Matthew 11:28-30, where Jesus says, come to me, all of you who are weary and weighed down by cares, and I’ll give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am, you know, gentle and humble in heart and you’ll find rest for your souls.
Rich Birch — Beautiful.
Bob Riedy — So, you know, like like I said, I was preaching six to eight times in a row. I shouldn’t have been doing that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Bob Riedy — Especially when I was trying to, you know… So I think I was so, it was, it was for some reason, I thought I had to be the person who was speaking. I had to lead clearly during this time. And I think I was I was taking too much of that on myself. And and it is a weight. And I should have been sharing that weight.
Rich Birch — Right.
Bob Riedy — To me that was to me, that was the big lesson for me. And, you know, you’ll see when we talk a little bit later here about what’s what’s changed. But you know I put it all on my shoulders. And and it’s crazy because I had a staff who was more than willing to help me. And…
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Bob Riedy — But when it came to speaking, you know, for God, and I I put that on myself.
Rich Birch — Right.
Bob Riedy — And that’s that was, it was unnatural. And what what what happened was, and I think this happens a lot with pastors who preach, you know, as much as I did. It was to the place where I was preaching truth. So I’m I’m I’m committed to expository preaching. So I was preaching truth. but But that’s about it. I wasn’t I wasn’t taking time to really let that truth, ah you know, go deep into my heart where I could preach from the overflow…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Bob Riedy — …of what God was doing in my soul, you know.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Bob Riedy — And I have to admit that.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Bob Riedy — I I I wasn’t a heretic.
Rich Birch — Right.
Bob Riedy — I was always preaching truth.
Rich Birch — Right.
Bob Riedy — And I think that’s a trap that pastors can get into. Okay, I preach truth today. I gave people truth. But if it’s not truth that ah we have really lived and um and that’s really made a difference in our lives, it’s not going to sustain us. I think that’s the big thing that I learned.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s, that’s wow. That’s profound. That idea of you were carrying more weight than Jesus was probably asking you to carry. And you weren’t sharing that. It’s like the double whammy of like, oh my goodness.
Bob Riedy — Yes.
Rich Birch — Well, let’s let’s talk a little bit about what has changed. What are some of those new rhythms look like? Yeah. When you said, you know, six, seven, eight, wow, that is a lot. But what, what are some of those kind of new rhythms in life and ministry that have been helpful in this shift?
Bob Riedy — Yes. So, you know, when I burned out, I went on medicine, Lexapro. And, you know, my joke has been, Jesus loved me. This I know, for he gave me Lexapro. Because it…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Bob Riedy — Yeah, it really helped me.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Bob Riedy — It simmered it simmered me down, you know.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Bob Riedy — I went to counseling. You know, I was like Carrie Nieuwhof, who said, I send people to counseling.
Rich Birch — Right.
Bob Riedy — And I was the same way until I needed it. I’d never been to counseling in my life. I found out that after knowing Jesus and marrying Karen, going to counseling was the best thing that that I could do. And I’ve had…
Rich Birch — Just before, how did you find your counselor? How did you talk about those? Because I think there’s a lot of people in the exact boat you’re in there where like, I’m not even sure where to start. I’m not, I know our church has a list of people I’ve met with and think they’re great counselors. But do I really want to go talk to those people? How did you find that person? What what does that look like?
Bob Riedy — That’s that’s a great question. I mean, here, thankfully, in central Pennsylvania we have and we have a lot of great Christian counselors. And so I knew of a counseling agency in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which is about 45 minutes from where I live. And I knew the guy who who runs it because he was a fellow adjunct professor at Lancaster Bible College. And so I didn’t want to go to counseling in my own city.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Bob Riedy — You know, I didn’t want to show up in an office where, you know, I know somebody and whatnot. I really needed privacy, you know.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Bob Riedy — And and so I drove to an amazing place in in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, New Life Counseling. And my first counselor was a young woman whose father was a pastor. And she got me. She got exactly what I was going through. And then she then she went off and got married and moved away. And so I II got another counselor. He is an amazing, insightful man. And so he and so he kind of picked up where she left off and, you know, really, really has helped me. So that’s where I started with a place that I you know, that I knew. And those those were really my two first steps.
Rich Birch — Right.
Bob Riedy — And then I I just began I began to read about what happened to me. The first book I read was Craig Groeschel’s book, “Winning the War in Your Mind”. I knew that there was something going and on in my mind that was causing this anxiety, you know? And, I took the summer off summer of 2021 took off completely. And you know, I probably read his book three times that summer.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Bob Riedy — And I read other books that really helped me. Bethany Hiser’s book, J.P. Moreland’s book, “Finding Quiet”. These are all books that deal with you know you know what’s going on when you’re wrestling you know with anxiety. And so then I just began to realize that I had a to I had to change a lot of things. I had to change the way I walked with God. Honestly, Rich, I always had my devotions.
Rich Birch — Right.
Bob Riedy — I have read through the Bible for the last 35 years. I usually have, ah you know, I’ve really been helped by “Emotionally Healthy Spiritualit”y by Pete Scazzaro.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Bob Riedy — And so I I was doing all of those things. But honestly, I have to say that, you know, I would spend that 15 or 20 minutes or so in the morning.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Bob Riedy — And then I was off to the races, man.
Rich Birch — Right.
Bob Riedy — And, uh, and it, I, and I wasn’t reconnecting with God throughout the day. And so that’s changed, you know. You know, I really do. I practice silence, stillness, gratitude, reading scripture slowly, contemplative prayer, I’ve memorized scripture. I’ve put one of the things that Craig Groeschel talks about is his declarations. I’ve I’ve put those together. And so it really began, I think, with my walk with God. That had to change. It had to be more profound in my life.
Bob Riedy — I think secondly, I mean, that’s probably third or fourth…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that’s good.
Bob Riedy — …but you know after that, I had to learn to put limits on my time and energy. I had no limits, Rich.
Rich Birch — Right.
Bob Riedy — I had I had no limits on my time. I was always on.
Rich Birch — Right.
Bob Riedy — I never really disengaged. You know, I didn’t realize what Henry Cloud says, that the most productive leaders engage fully, and then disengage fully.
Rich Birch — Right.
Bob Riedy — I wasn’t really practicing that. And of course, the pandemic was a perfect storm for that.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Bob Riedy — You know, everything was changing so quickly. You just had to be on all the time.
Rich Birch — Right.
Rich Birch — And everything felt super consequential, right?
Bob Riedy — Oh yeah. Yeah.
Rich Birch — It was like every decision, every like what we do this weekend is going to define the future of our ministry. All of that. Yeah.
Bob Riedy — Yes. And then, of course, you know, you got the the the nasty letters from people…
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah. Right.
…who thought you were capitulating to the governor and, you know, all that.
Rich Birch — Yeah. It’s a no win. Yeah. This it was a perfect no win scenario.
Bob Riedy — Yeah.
Rich Birch — It doesn’t matter what we did. People on both sides are not happy. For sure.
Bob Riedy — And especially with somebody like myself who, you know, was it was it was always important to me what people thought. I mean, honestly, deep in my soul, you know, that that was devastating to me. And so…
Rich Birch — So how how did you go from the always on? I’m getting a picture of you, Bob, like, and I wish it wasn’t a mirror, but, you know, ready to go, you know, making stuff happen. Always, you know, kind of jump into the next thing. I get that. How did you go from that to, okay, now I’m measured, I’m taking time to be contemplative, I’m practicing gratitude. That obviously had trickled down in how you organized your day, how you organized your week, how you organized your team, the people around you. I would imagine that would have seismic impact.
Bob Riedy — Huge.
Rich Birch — What what did some of those impacts look like?
Bob Riedy — Yeah. I think the reason why I did it is because of the trauma of burning out.
Rich Birch — Right.
Bob Riedy — That was traumatic for me…
Rich Birch — Right.
Bob Riedy — …and the the exhaustion, you know, and and I knew I had to change. You know, I I just knew I had to change. And and so the result of that is, you know, I mean, I’ve taught, I, and I’ve talked very, very freely to our church, to my staff, you know, about all of this. And and so I think that, you know, to answer your original question, just the trauma of that and me saying to myself, I don’t want to ever go back there again.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Bob Riedy — You know, I can’t go back there again. And so, yeah. I think another thing for me was just the importance of good sleep.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Bob Riedy — Taking time for things that fill me. I never practiced Sabbath, Rich. I always had a day off. And so now I practice Sabbath. Every Saturday is my Sabbath. And I’m religious about that. And I love that time of just, you know, I exercise, walk, read, spend time with my wife. I don’t, I don’t, I try not to do work after five o’clock. I mean, in the past I was on my computer till 9, 10 o’clock at night.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Bob Riedy — You know, um another thing for me was deepening my friendships So here I was, a pastor of you know, 2,500 people. I know so many people, scads of people would say, oh, yeah, I’m ah I’m a friend with Pastor Bob. But, you know, the problem is, is that there weren’t a lot of people who really I allowed to really see me, you know. And so that has, you know, that has changed.
Bob Riedy — And, you know, my counselor said that to me, my second counselor, Josh, he can be salty at times, but he’s he’s such a godly man. And he said to me, he said, you know, Bob, I meet with a lot of pastors just like you. And the problem with pastors is that you guys all have crap just like everybody else does, but you have nowhere to go with it.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Bob Riedy — And so you’re all alone. And, and the enemy then just creams you, you know, with shame. And so I I learned that shame is lifted when you are honest with somebody about your issues. And, you know, I joke with my counselor. I said, you know, i pay you $120 an hour to be my best friend. But that relationship and then other relationships that I’ve but i’ve grown and worked on, ah that that’s just been golden, you know, for me.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, it’s interesting. Isn’t that interesting? Like I, you know, this is one of those, it’s like, it’s like what old guys say, but the older I get, the the more I realize the like friends that I have in my life that are really are friends. And there, I once heard a definition of: a friend isn’t someone that would call you and ask you for help. It’s someone that you would call and ask for for help. It’s like somebody that you would call and be like, and know that they would reciprocate without like, you can cash that in kind of thing.
Bob Riedy — Yeah. Right.
Rich Birch — And I remember years ago, I had a friend or a person was saying to me, like, how many people in your life are like that? And was like, oh, not as many as I would think. Like there’s a ton of people who, who would, could call me and I would help them for sure. But other the way around, I don’t know who those people are. And so maybe talk a little bit more about that, the the friend piece. What does that look like? How have you cultivated those relationships? What’s, you know, kind of what’s been helpful there.
Bob Riedy — Yes. So, you know, for me, it’s been I had I’ve had I had to be intentional about this because I knew I needed it. But, you know, let’s face it. I think one of the reasons why pastors respond the way you just responded is because everybody turns to us. And so we’re expected to be the answer person or the the one who helps. And, you know, we’re not good at receiving ourselves.
Bob Riedy — And so, you know, for me, it was it was like I have a friend here by the name of Andy. And you know, it’s it’s been Andy and I, you know, we we go for walks now on on Sunday. A lot of times on Sunday, Sunday afternoons, we go a state park and we just hike and we talk and we’re honest with each other about, you know, our issues. And, you know, we pray for each other, you know, regularly. It was, I have a a couple people on my staff, similar to that. Don, one of my good friends on our staff.
Bob Riedy — And so I think for me, it was, ah it was finally being honest with the people who are close to me…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Bob Riedy — …that, hey, I need some help.
Rich Birch — Right. Good.
Bob Riedy — I can’t, I can’t live, you know, the way I was living, ah you know, previously.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. What about your staff team? I’m I’m assuming that there was like a certain amount of restructuring. I know there’s executive pastor type people that are thinking about org charts and all that kind of stuff. I’m sure there was, because frankly, I would think as ah trying to get outside of this, the organization was taking advantage of you. They were they were overusing you and you allowed it to be structured that way. There wasn’t like a nefarious, there weren’t people sharpening knives behind your back…
Bob Riedy — Right.
Rich Birch — …but it got to that point.
Bob Riedy — Right.
Rich Birch — And in order for that to readjust, the organization would have had to pick up some stuff.
Bob Riedy — Right.
Rich Birch — So what what did that look like?
Bob Riedy — Yes. So immediately at that particular time in the life of our church, we didn’t really have an executive pastor, believe it or not.
Rich Birch — Okay. Yep.
Bob Riedy — Now think about that. So I was in too many meetings.
Rich Birch — Right.
Bob Riedy — You know, too many meetings. I was dealing with too many problems. And so one of the things I did that fall was moved a young man by the name of Jeremy in our church into the role of executive pastor.
Bob Riedy — And for him, it was a baptism by fire because, you know, I was incapacitated, you know, and everything just kind of went on his plate.
Rich Birch — Yeah, you figure this out.
Bob Riedy — You figure this out. Again, our other pastors, Pastor Don, Pastor Brett, they had to take a whole bunch of things. So that was, I think that was probably the key thing.
Bob Riedy — Another thing was, I you know we we weren’t live streaming at that time, believe it or not. We were still taping. So I was, at that point, I was having to put a sermon together by Thursday morning. And that was part of the exhaustion because I was trying to take Monday off, but I wasn’t really taking it off because I had to start working on the sermon.
Rich Birch — Right.
Bob Riedy — So it would be perfect by Thursday morning. And so if we could got it get get it in the can and send it out. And so that was another thing that we did. We stopped doing all that. And we ended up you know purchasing and and and putting live streaming in. That was that’s been, I thought that was a huge you know thing that that we did.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Bob Riedy — Those two things really helped us. And and then I just determined there are a lot of things that I am going to truly delegate and and not worry about. And, you know, honestly, I this was my fault. You know, I operated by this mindset that if I wasn’t in the meeting, you know, the right decision wasn’t going to happen. And that was, again, that was part of the faulty thinking, you know.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Bob Riedy — And so, yeah, so those were some big pieces, you know, that that really helped me.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. Super, super helpful. So there’s probably, I know there’s pastors that are listening in today…
Bob Riedy — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …that find themselves either at the beginning of, or maybe in the middle of a raging burnout, you know. What would you, and there’s a lot, even just listening to this conversation, there would be like, man, there’s a ton there to, to unpack, but what would be step one for them? What would you, as a friend who’s been down this road, you would say, Hey, this, this would be, this is where they should begin. This is what, you know, what they should do. What would be a first step?
Bob Riedy — Yeah. I think the first thing I would tell them to do is to gather a few trusted people around them and be honest with them about what’s going on.
Rich Birch — Right. Yep.
Bob Riedy — Maybe it’s anxiety, maybe it’s depression. Shame. I mean, the enemy uses this kind of exhaustion to just come in at our weak spots. I think that’d be the first thing. Secondly, you know most of the time with with burnout, there’s a lot of exhaustion. I think I would go to my doctor and you know tell my doctor what’s going on. Thirdly, again, I would go to a counselor. That piece for me was was huge.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Bob Riedy — Because most people do not burn out just by exhaustion alone. It’s it’s the faulty thinking…
Rich Birch — Right.
Bob Riedy — …that really contributes a lot to it, you know? And so I think those would be the those… And then I think, you know, depending upon what your counselor and what your ah doctor says, you know, fourthly, you’re going to probably have to take some time off, right?
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Bob Riedy — Like for me, it was three months almost. And sometimes I wish I would have taken six months off, you know? And, but, you know, you need that time to pull away and to, you know, figure out what’s going on in your in your head.
Bob Riedy — Wayne Cordeiro, Cordeiro, I mean, he, he, he, you know, he had a burnout a number of years ago and he wrote a beautiful book about it. And, you know, in the book, he says, even though you work through burnout, it’s it the woods, you can always see the woods.
Rich Birch — Oh, wow. Yeah, that’s good.
Bob Riedy — And so, ah you know, you you realize that with the the right perfect storm going on in your life and you not thinking correctly, you can always drift back to it.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Bob Riedy — And and so that that’s been, that was ah that was a great book that really helped me. I’m forgetting the name of his book. I probably have it here somewhere. But that book helped me a lot.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Yeah, I remember a couple years ago, a friend of mine, pastor, friend of mine, dear friend, was was in, you know, was in pretty burnt out state and was pursued their board over like, hey, I need to take some time. And so this friend, I thought, did the brave thing and came to me and said, hey, I need you to help me advocate for myself to my board. Like I need… And I was like, let me at them! You know, like, you know, and and the board wasn’t, the board was very supportive. Like it was not, that they they wondered, you know, hey, what my friend wondered, I wonder what that’s going to be like. And they were, in the end, it was really, I was kind of a non-job. I didn’t have to really do much.
Rich Birch — I but really, I as another pastor, I felt it an honor to stand by my friend and say, you you know, you need to take that time.
Bob Riedy — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And they similarly, you know, they were thinking about, well, maybe I’ll take six weeks. And I was like, man, I think you’ve got to start with at least three months.
Bob Riedy — Yeah.
Rich Birch — If not more. And, you know, they were a teaching pastor, are a teaching pastor of a church. And and I and I was like, I spoke was trying to speak on behalf of the church. I said, selfishly from the church’s perspective, we need you to be healthy. We need you to go away and then come back in a better place. And then there’ll be many years ahead that we can repattern all this stuff.
Bob Riedy — Right. Right.
Rich Birch — But if we if we don’t address this now, man, there’s we have the there’s just a train wreckage of people out there that this has gone sideways on.
Bob Riedy — Yeah. Amen.
Rich Birch — So yeah, I would i would echo the like, hey, you you are probably going to need to take some time. And it probably sounds a lot longer than you need. It sounds scary. Whatever the amount of time, it sounds scary.
Bob Riedy — Yes.
Rich Birch — You’ve put together a resource. Speaking of resources…
Bob Riedy — Yes.
Rich Birch — …you put your together a resource, “Burn out and Life Lessons Talk”. Tell us a little bit about that. We want to make that available to people. You’ve been, I appreciate it – even today, you’ve referenced a number of resources, but here’s here’s another one. Talk us through that. What were you hoping about how would you help it would how would you hope it would help in the midst of all that?
Bob Riedy — Yes. Before I do that, I want to just put a plug in here for my staff, the board of our church and my church. They have been amazing to me during this time. If it weren’t for them, I would not be in ministry. Honestly, that was one of my big fears. What’s going to happen to me? This I was 63 when this happened to me. And ah I thought, you know, what am I going to do? And my church, people, I mean, the letters, the notes, and especially when I started getting vulnerable and letting them know what really happened to me. Man, people have come out of the woodwork.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Bob Riedy — And I’ve sent so many people to counseling as well. But I just want to say, to me…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Bob Riedy — …having such a supportive church and staff and board has been truly amazing. And I praise God for that. I’m actually in the process of writing a book. Probably about you know halfway done. And the resource that I gave you is like just a little compilation you know of what happened.
Rich Birch — Right. Okay.
Bob Riedy — I’ve given this talk, you know, in a number of places. I gave it at our church. I’ve given it to mission agencies, retreats and things like that. And so what what I’ve just tried to put together there is hey, here’s what happened to me. Here’s what I needed to wrestle through. And then, here are the disciplines that I’ve put in place in my life, you know, to get to a better place.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Bob Riedy — And so, you know, I hope that, you know, people who are, you know, wrestling with the same thing can read it and at least be encouraged to take the right, you know, the right steps.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I really appreciate that, Bob. And we’ll we’ll link to that. It’s in the show notes there. But I, you know, I know there are people that are listening in that are thinking through these issues. And I also just want to underline what you said there. You might be listening in today as a staff leader, as a volunteer, as an elder. And, you know, what happens is when someone comes with this kind of, when they’re when they reach out and say, hey, I’m struggling with this, what you say in the first 30 seconds really does matter.
Bob Riedy — Yes.
Rich Birch — And, you know, being reflexive to support and to say, yes, like we want to help you get healthy. We want to help you find, we need more leaders. Like it sounds like your church has been, you know, they were there. They, they helped you walk through it, help you get the time you needed. And then look on the other side, like you’ve continued to serve there and you know, it, it, you know, didn’t end up in all the negative situations that we have seen.
Bob Riedy — Yes.
Rich Birch — So yeah, it’s, it’s great.
Bob Riedy — Glory to God for that.
Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s amazing.
Bob Riedy — In fact in fact, here’s what’s happened. So now you know we’re on the other side of a lot of things. And I believe our church is stronger than it’s ever been before.
Rich Birch — Praise God.
Bob Riedy — We’re seeing more we’re seeing more life. We’re we’re almost back to our pre-pandemic numbers. But we’re seeing more life change than I have ever seen in 40 years of ministry. And I and one of the things that taught me, Rich, was that when when it it stopped being about me… I think there was too much about me. I have to be honest about that.
Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good.
Bob Riedy — There was too much that was about me. And when it stopped being about me and when I was at my weakest, Rich, Jesus was at his strongest.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Praise God.
Bob Riedy — And the church, I think, is stronger than it’s ever been. And it, you know, it took a burnout for me to see that in living color.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Bob Riedy — And and we saw, I see that in living color and I praise God for it, you know.
Rich Birch — Well, and I want to honor you. It wasn’t just a burnout because you then went through the work to pursue Jesus and get healthy and readjust your life and and then walk through the other side. Like that, you know, God’s using that. He’s using all of that. And yeah, there was a time, and I I’m sure that you remember this time, where I think people were looking for religious leaders that seemed superhuman, that were like, those people are they’re transcendent. They’re like totally different than us, but that just isn’t the case. People today, they’re wanting someone, their question they’re asking isn’t, is it true? They’re saying, does it work? And they’re they’re looking at you as you go through that and say, wow, like it it’s changed Bob. And man, if it can change Bob, maybe it can change me. And so that doesn’t surprise me at all. That doesn’t surprise me at all that you’re seeing the kind of impact in your community. Because at the end of the day, people want that.
Bob Riedy — They do.
Rich Birch — I think too many of us, we build up these walls around us where it’s like, oh, I don’t want to let you in. But actually, ironically, I think that’s the thing that that ultimately Jesus is asking us to do.
Bob Riedy — Yeah. Amen.
Rich Birch — Well, Bob, this has been amazing. Where, I want people to connect with you, to connect with the church. Where do we want to send people online?
Bob Riedy — Yes, they can go to codyork.org. And that’s our church’s website. And really everything ah is on there that people can…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Bob Riedy — …they can connect with me. There’s a place where they can reach out to me if they’d like to do that. But our resources and and all that is, is they’re all there.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Appreciate you, Bob. Appreciate you being on and just want to honor you.
Bob Riedy — Yes.
Rich Birch — Thank you for taking time to come back and and look forward to the that continuing story. Thanks so much, sir.
Bob Riedy — Thank you so much, Rich. God bless you and your ministry.
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today, we’re talking with Quovadis Marshall (Pastor Q), Lead Pastor at Hope City Church in Waterloo, Iowa. Caught up in a life of gangs and violence, he became incarcerated at nineteen years old. However, Pastor Q experienced a life-transforming encounter with Christ through the Prison Fellowship Academy Program. Now he leads a thriving, outreach-focused church that’s deeply embedded in the life of its local community.
Is your church truly aware of your city’s needs? Are you engaging in a way that brings hope to overlooked or hurting parts of your community? Tune in as Pastor Q explores how churches can build bridges to their local neighborhoods and become known for joy, healing, and transformation.
- Find your city’s needs. // Every community has a story beyond its polished exterior. Start by asking questions: What are people struggling with? What are students and teachers experiencing in the school system? Where is there pain? Look for the deeper needs that may not be visible on the surface.
- Crack the outreach code. // Every city has a unique “code” for outreach, and every church has a core strength or competency. The key is aligning those two things—cracking your city’s code and contributing your church’s unique gifts. That’s where you’ll see the biggest spiritual return for Christ.
- Listen in the local community. // Pastor Q encourages leaders to get out and talk to people at the “watering holes” of the city—those central hubs where families, students, and residents gather and you can get a pulse on the community’s needs. Reach out to schools, civic leaders and nonprofits in the area. Ask residents what their pain points and aspirations are. Listening with empathy is the first step in meaningful outreach.
- Create partnerships. // Rather than creating new ministries from scratch, find local nonprofits already meeting needs and partner with them. Cultivate rhythms of celebration within your church in order to build relationships with people in the community, hear their stories, and encourage one another.
- Be the church known for joy. // Strive to be the kind of church people associate with joy—much like how people were drawn to Jesus. At Hope City Church they intentionally work to build a life-giving culture through three rhythms: internal celebrations (big days like Christmas and Easter), external celebrations (such as fall festivals), and external communications (stories of life change).
- Angel Tree: A practical next step. // Through Prison Fellowship’s Angel Tree, Hope City began serving children of incarcerated parents. For Pastor Q, this was personal—his daughter received Angel Tree gifts while he was in prison. The church now delivers gifts, hosts Christmas parties for Angel Tree recipients, and uses the opportunity to build long-term relationships with affected families.
- Planting a campus in prison. // Hope City didn’t stop with Angel Tree gifts. In partnership with Prison Fellowship Academy, they now run a full prison campus where 100 incarcerated men worship, serve, and are discipled every week. Thirty men have been baptized. It’s not just a broadcast—it’s church. Volunteers serve weekly, and the church views this ministry as a full extension of their body, not merely a project.
Learn more about Hope City Church at www.myhopecity.net and discover how you can get involved with Prison Fellowship’s Angel Tree program at www.prisonfellowship.org/about/angel-tree/.
EXTRA CREDIT // *Inbox to Impact – Outreach Email Swipe File for Churches*****In this episode, Pastor Quovadis Marshall shares how listening well unlocked transformational outreach at Hope City Church. Want to do the same in your city?
We’ve created a helpful resource to help you take action: Inbox to Impact is a swipe file of copy-and-paste emails your church can send to civic leaders, school officials, nonprofit directors, and more — all designed to open doors for listening and relationship-building.
Get access to the resource if you’re an unSeminary Extra Credit member.
Not a member yet? Join now and get instant access to this and other practical tools for church leaders.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Really looking forward to today’s conversation. You’re going to want to lean in. This is going to be a conversation that’s going to impact all of us. I really think it’s we’re talking through an issue that all of our churches should be thinking about and wrestling with. And we’ve got a real expert on today, someone who ah is going to help you think differently and hopefully take some different steps today out of this conversation.
Rich Birch — Excited to have Quovadis Marshall with us. He was caught up in a life of gangs, violence, and robbery until at 19 years old, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison. While incarcerated, he became involved with Prison Fellowship’s Academy program, where a relationship with Christ transformed his life and gave him tangible skills to succeed in life beyond prison.
Rich Birch — Now, he goes by Pastor Q. At In 2015, he planted Hope City Church, a prevailing church, that you should be following in Waterloo, Iowa. He also works with Prison Fellowship today to advocate for legislation that changes the lives of those behind lie law are behind bars and their families. Pastor Q, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.
Quovadis Marshall — Oh man, it’s a great joy, kind of kind of a dream come true. Listen faithfully to unSeminary, read your books. Just man, love being here. Thanks for having me, Rich.
Rich Birch — Well that that well, that’s super kind of you to say it. That’s humbling that that you would you’d say that. We were joking earlier, you and my mom, I always wondered who’s the other listener. So, you know, ah that’s a great thing.
Quovadis Marshall — It’s me, it’s me, bro.
Rich Birch — Really, that’s super kind to you to say. Well, you know, your your life story transformation from, you know, incarceration to pastoral leadership to accelerated influence to just making all kinds of difference is remarkable. Unpack that for us. Maybe talk us through how your life experience ultimately shaped what has become Hope City Church?
Quovadis Marshall — Yeah, Rich, I mean, we you know we know the miracle worker. He always takes more than, well, he takes the little that we have of our lives, and he does a lot with it when we put it in his hands. And that’s true for all of us. We’ve all got a origin story, you know, you’ve heard the adage, every, every, every saint’s got a past and every sinner’s got a future, right? And so that’s true for all of us. Jesus got the bad end of the deal when he got all of us. Like yeah we we got the upgrade, you know. He’s the cute one in the relationship, not us, you know?
Quovadis Marshall — And so, yeah, man, I am born and raised here in ah Iowa, and in a good old Midwest, a single parent home, kind of run the gamut of, you know, poverty, grown up around crime, all those kinds of things. My life changed at 17, was in a crisis, knew I needed God. Knew… Let me say it a different way. Knew I needed something different. I didn’t know that I need God.
Quovadis Marshall — And and and that’s true. Every Sunday morning, people show up to our churches not looking for Jesus.
Rich Birch — That’s so true.
Quovadis Marshall — They come looking for hope and healing and change and transformation. And we know they need Jesus. So at 17, in my living room, cried out. Guy showed up the next day at my door. Door-to-door, old school door-to-door evangelism, that old evangelism explosion flow. And ah…
Rich Birch — Oh, hey, me too.
Quovadis Marshall — Yeah, yeah, man. Come on, bro. Come on, bro.
Rich Birch — I got two questions for you. You know, knock, knock, knock.
Quovadis Marshall — Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Well, you know what? That that shaped my outlook and approach to ministry.
Rich Birch — Me too, for sure. Yeah.
Quovadis Marshall — You know, I’ve got a philosophy. Don’t know if it’s true, but either you get saved in the church or outside the church. And that shapes the way that you view evangelism and the role of the local church. And I find a lot of folks who get saved outside the church naturally have a bent toward ministry outside the church because that was their experience.
Rich Birch — Oh yeah, that’s true.
Quovadis Marshall — Whereas those who got saved in a church setting, they see that as the birthplace of their new beginning.
Rich Birch — Right.
Quovadis Marshall — And so really, Rich, met the Lord. I knew four things that day. I was 17 years old. It was 1997. Number one, I knew God was real. Number two, I knew my sins were forgiven. I don’t know how I knew it, but I knew what I would do for the rest of my life. That’s number three. And I knew exactly where I would do it.
Quovadis Marshall — And, um you know, I like to say that it went from glory to glory, but, you know, I spent a little time building my testimony, in a as they say. And so, you know, you know salvation happens in a moment. Transformation takes a lifetime.
Rich Birch — Amen.
Quovadis Marshall — And about 18 months after following Jesus, I committed a crime. I robbed a store and I did it a guilty. Worst day of my life. Praise God ah that he’s a comma God, you know, he’s a but God, you know.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Quovadis Marshall — And so ah while in prison, got connected with PF, but knew that I would spend my life doing what had been done to me, right? That God sees, he knows, he hears, he wants to deliver, and there are people who are crying out. And that’s why our churches exist in response to someone’s cry. God sends someone to answer that cry. And Prison Fellowship was instrumental in that change and transformation.
Rich Birch — Very cool. Well, I want to dig in today around the difference that Hope City is making in your community. And, um you know, you you as a church have really positioned yourself to try to meet the needs of the community, address, you know, real issues. When you began, what were the pressing needs there in Waterloo that you aim to address through the church’s outreach that you kind of said like, hey, here’s something we’ve got to lean in on?
Quovadis Marshall — Yeah, every every community, every city has a, there is a life happening outside the life of what seems to be good about our community. So your downtown could be thriving and booming or whatever, um you know, whatever thing it is, if it’s a college ah town, if it’s whatever it is, there’s always an underbelly, so to speak. And that’s where the need is. That’s where the ah physical, um more expressive need is, because we’ve all got needs, right?
Quovadis Marshall — And so what we did, um honestly, was we we tried to crack our our city’s code, our outreach code is what we call it. It was the outreach code of the city. Where are the felt needs? And we started with our school system, actually. We just know, I mean, you know, Gen Z, millennials, you know, now coming up Gen Alpha, um there’s obviously a pressing need for mentorship, for relationship. Teachers retired. This is 2015.
Quovadis Marshall — I’ll never forget at one of our social gatherings before we launched the church, we got done with the social gathering and we could hear sirens and we got the report that a little girl in our community had just been shot.
Rich Birch — Oh, man. Oh, my goodness.
Quovadis Marshall — And that was a marking moment. It made sense.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Quovadis Marshall — That was a key trigger in that core team, at least. You know, only about 75% of them, you know, 75% of them will kind of seventy five percent of them will will kind of off load within the first three years, but that initial group, it got in our DNA that there’s a need, we get to be the answer to the problem.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Quovadis Marshall — And and so we started with our schools and then we started looking around and asking ourselves, by asking the people, not guessing, we started asking the people…
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah, yeah, that’s good.
Quovadis Marshall — …um really, what are the pressing needs? What are the things you’re struggling with? You know, you look at data, you look at trends, Barna, ah who’s who’s great, you know they had just come up with a survey about our city being one of the least 100 biblically minded cities in the nation.
Rich Birch — Oh wow.
Quovadis Marshall — And so it it made a lot of sense to find the felt need. And that’s going to be different every city. Just the headline there is every city has got a missional code or an outreach code to be cracked. But then every church has a core competency where it can contribute to those needs.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Quovadis Marshall — And it’s aligning those two things. That’s really where you see Christ get the most out of what it is he’s put within your your church context.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. Let’s let’s double click on that. This idea of really trying to learn our communities. And I like the distinction you made. There’s like, there’s the how our cities present themselves. And then there’s this kind of what’s actually going on. And that’s very true. You know, you peel back the onion and you start to get a sense of that. Let let’s, you I like that you talked about, hey, we actually asked people. We actually got out and talked with folks.
Quovadis Marshall — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Can you talk us through what that looked like? How did you, how did you actually engage with real people and understand rather than just like, oh, I think this is what the problems are. These are the things I think we should, it’s not even problems. This is how, is how we want to engage with our community.
Quovadis Marshall — Yeah, I think you know ah step one is um is is look for people within proximity. And so you ask the people who are gathering in your local congregation, you know if you’ve already launched a church. First, we were planting the church, so it was a little bit different. But if you’ve you’re in an established church, start asking those people. Do focus groups.
Quovadis Marshall — Hey, what are your felt needs? What are the things that make most sense to you? um Where are you feeling the pain? What are your aspirations? What are your goals? And I would do that. And you want to know how to really meet the needs of your families. Don’t ask the children ministry workers; ask the families in the children’s ministry.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Quovadis Marshall — So so one, I would start with people who have the closest proximity to. Number two, I would I would start for what we said is we wanted to go to the watering holes in our city. We would look for the watering holes.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Quovadis Marshall — And in the jungle, the watering hole tells you everybody that’s in the jungle. You know, watering holes are are demilitarized zones unless you’re alligators. You know, they’re eating anything and everything, you know, that comes near them.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Quovadis Marshall — But you’ll see antelope and buffalo and everything. And so what are the watering holes? Well, um a couple of the watering holes are going to be the local school system, which was for us, it is our our missional strategy, ground zero. Whenever we go into a new city, it’s the first thing we do. We look to partner with the schools. And all we’re doing is trying to be good news to them. And so we’re asking them because they know the most.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Quovadis Marshall — They’re interacting with all the kids in that zip code…
Rich Birch — Every day. Yes.
Quovadis Marshall — …yeah, every single day. Hey, what are you finding are struggles for the kids? What are you finding um families need? What are you finding are pinch points? Is it mentoring? Is it is it food insufficiency? Is it support for the staff? You know, honestly, asking the mayor of your city if you can get access to your city officials. That’s another great watering hole because they’ve got a great pulse.
Quovadis Marshall — Number three would be nonprofit organizations and agencies that are already meeting felt needs. And so instead of duplicating services, can we partner with you in the services that you’re already that you’re already providing.
Quovadis Marshall — And then number four, one of the things we did is started building rhythms of celebration, which gathered the community. And in that context, we got to build relationships and hear stories of people and what they were going through. And then honestly, you know, Waterloo or not Waterloo, but for us, it’s Waterloo. It’s your police, fire departments and asking them what are the felt needs of the community.
Rich Birch — Right.
Quovadis Marshall — And so again, every city is different. Some cities are battling immigration. Some cities are battling food insufficiency. Some cities are battling crime. In more affluent cities, they’re not battling external crime and food insufficiencies, but they’re battling loneliness. They’ve, they’ve, the thing, you know, it’s a lot of brokenness in the home because you, it it takes a lot to build a great business, right? It takes a lot. It’s a a lot of wear and tear on a family…
Rich Birch — Right.
Quovadis Marshall — …to kind of excel through the corporate ladder.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Quovadis Marshall — And so those felt needs are going to be more relational and spiritual than they are going to be physical.
Rich Birch — Right.
Quovadis Marshall — That’s been our experience because our downtown campus is in the heart of our city.
Rich Birch — Right.
Quovadis Marshall — It’s, it’s, you know, it’s it’s where it’s it’s where the crime happens at and in poverty and all of that. Whereas our broadcast campus is in a more affluent community. And so um you learn the different needs of just those social you know, socioeconomic demographics. And so, yeah.
Quovadis Marshall — But I do think if you will listen, I find it interesting, Rich. Jesus spent 30 years walking among us before he ever started correcting us.
Rich Birch — Oh, wow. Yeah, that’s a great insight.
Quovadis Marshall — So he had a lot to say because he’s the Word…
Rich Birch — Right. Yes.
Quovadis Marshall — …but but right but the Bible says, let your speech be seasoned with salt so that it can help the hearer.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Quovadis Marshall — And and so learning to listen, people will talk if you ask them.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I remember years ago we had, ah we were doing, you know, a similar heartbeat. As a church we wanted to serve our community. And what we had ah kind of charged our campus pastors to connect with the highest kind of official in, in their community that they could as possible. If you get to the mayor, great…
Quovadis Marshall — Yep.
Rich Birch — …but kind of whoever they could. And this one, I love this story. I had nothing to with it. I just heard it, which is fun.
Quovadis Marshall — Yeah.
Rich Birch — But the, um the campus pastor, one of our campus pastors ended up getting to the mayor in, in town…
Quovadis Marshall — Wow.
Rich Birch — And, and, let’s just say that this mayor would have a reputation of not necessarily someone who would engage with church people. We’ll just say it that way.
Quovadis Marshall — Right, right.
Rich Birch — And but the mayor took the took the meeting and our campus pastor met with them. And and the way we phrased it was we were saying, hey, we’ve got X amount of dollars and X amount of volunteer time.
Quovadis Marshall — Yep.
Rich Birch — We want to just serve the community. And we want you to direct us. You tell us what that, how you’d want to do that.
Quovadis Marshall — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And it was interesting that the the mayor, again, no right right reputation, leaned way back in their chair and said, you know, people come in here every day and are asking for things. They come in looking for stuff from me.
Quovadis Marshall — Yeah. Yeah.
Rich Birch — And he’s like, I’m not really sure what to say…
Quovadis Marshall — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …because it’s, you know, normally ah people want to get something from us.
Quovadis Marshall — Yeah.
Rich Birch — But the fact that you’re coming wanting to help me, I really want to measure this and think about this.
Quovadis Marshall — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And then they ended up, you know, it ended up actually, you know, flourishing into this incredible relationship.
Quovadis Marshall — Yeah.
Rich Birch — It’s amazing when you just listen to people, the difference it makes.
Quovadis Marshall — That’s right.
Rich Birch — One of the things you had said there was rhythm of celebration, actually celebrating with your community.
Quovadis Marshall — Yeah.
Rich Birch — That caught my attention. What what does that look like?
Quovadis Marshall — Yeah.
Rich Birch — How does that, you know, I feel like so many times we’re inviting people to our stuff, but that sounds not like that. Let me tell you, tell us about that.
Quovadis Marshall — Yeah. You know, there’s there’s um there’s two thoughts that you just reminded me. One of the things we did is, which is key, is we didn’t just ask the community what it needed, but we asked ourselves, what are we good at?
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Quovadis Marshall — like who’s in our church, right?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Quovadis Marshall — What what need are we um able to meet?
Rich Birch — Right.
Quovadis Marshall — Which which really built the relationship with Prison Ministry, Prison Fellowship. And so I would love to talk a little bit more about that.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Quovadis Marshall — But um yeah, rhythms of celebration, I mean, it’s so interesting. You know, Jesus shows up on the scene and they say, this guy likes to party too much.
Rich Birch — That’s true. That’s true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right.
Quovadis Marshall — Right, right. This guy, he’s always throwing parties.
Rich Birch — And lots of churches don’t have that reputation.
Quovadis Marshall — They do not, they do not. It’s like everybody in the church sucked on the lemon before they came. You know what I mean?
Rich Birch — That’s so true. That’s so true.
Quovadis Marshall — Yeah, yeah.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Quovadis Marshall — The psalmist says, I was glad when they said to me, let’s go to the house of the Lord. And…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Quovadis Marshall — Yeah. And I think we’ve lost some of our joy. And and I get it. Satan, you know, if I can, if I can go this direction, Satan wants to sap your joy because then he can he can sap your strength. Because the joy of the Lord is our strength.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good. So good.
Quovadis Marshall — And so churches that don’t have a high celebration culture at times, I’ve noticed, aren’t very strong. They can be very disciplined, but but discipline and strength are not the same thing. Discipline is is just…
Rich Birch — Dude, that’s good.
Quovadis Marshall — Right? It’s doing what I know to do, which becomes ah it can become autopilot almost.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Quovadis Marshall — Whereas there’s ah there’s a real strength. Let’s let’s be the kind of church that when our city thinks of joy, when our city thinks of serving, when our when our city thinks of a life-giving culture, they think of us in the same way they would have thought of Jesus. Like they looked at the Pharisees and thought, no way. Looked at the disciples and thought, maybe. But the prostitutes looked at Jesus and said, that guy…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Quovadis Marshall — …I can go to him. Yeah.
Rich Birch — Dude. Yeah. Wow. That’s the reputation we want.
Quovadis Marshall — That’s the repetition we want.
Rich Birch — We want that reputation.
Quovadis Marshall — Absolutely.
Rich Birch — So so, what did that, what’s that actually look like? How have you, how have you tried to model that as a church in your community?
Quovadis Marshall — Yeah. Yeah, I think it’s, I’ll i’ll give three three ways we do that.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Quovadis Marshall — There’s three ways we do that. So one, there are some internal rhythms that we’ve created. I can talk to you about that, that we’ve done.
Quovadis Marshall — Number two, there are some external rhythms that we’ve created as in terms of things we do. And then number three there are some external communications that we intentionally kind of push out.
Quovadis Marshall — And so internally what we’ve created most churches live with the mindset of there’s three primary big days on a Sunday where we get to celebrate, or where attendance is going to be good and if we’re wise we’ll turn those into celebrations. They’re not going to remember what you said they’re going to remember how they felt. Right?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s true.
Quovadis Marshall — And so I want them to walk away going. I really loved that. What I remember launch Sunday, realizing I had a moment of panic because I realized so I can’t make anyone come.
Rich Birch — Right.
Quovadis Marshall — I’ve done the mailer, I’ve done the social media, but for them to get up and get here, I can’t control that. And so, you know, and so it was the Lord helping me kind of get me over the attendance stuff and all of that. But what I did discover is that I can’t make them come, but I can make them not want to leave.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good. That’s good.
Quovadis Marshall — And I can make them, can’t, you know. I can build within them a desire to go, this is over, but I can’t wait to go back. And so most churches think about that opportunity, Christmas, Easter, Mother’s Day.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Quovadis Marshall — And those are the kind of three big days.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Quovadis Marshall — What we’ve done is we’ve built out 16 big days outside…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Quovadis Marshall — …outside of Mother’s Day, Christmas and Easter. And I’ll tell you what they are. It’s Baptism Sunday, Baptism and Child Dedication Sunday, our fullest dedication. If you do infant baptism or something, that could be a day. Those are big days. Those are big days, right?
Rich Birch — Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Love it.
Quovadis Marshall — Because we’ve trained our people, invite your family, bring them in.
Rich Birch — Right.
Quovadis Marshall — And so when they come in, we you know give them that loving touch, you know give them special seating, address them specifically in the room. Thank you for being here. Those are 16 different times. So that’s 12 because we do baptisms once a month. And then the fifth Sunday of of the year, we bring all our kids on stage and they lead worship during the offering moment.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s fun. That’s fun.
Quovadis Marshall — Now, you know, as you get bigger, you got to kind of manage how many kids you can bring on stage, right?
Rich Birch — Yes.
But but I’ll tell you what, man, you you put little Susie on stage, grandma, great grandma, auntie…
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Quovadis Marshall — …the auntie, that’s not really the auntie, but this mom’s, you know, cosmetologist is showing up.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah
Quovadis Marshall — And so you get those 16 big days plus plus those three other big days…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Quovadis Marshall — …and it invites the family into a celebration. That was the question, right?
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s so good.
Quovadis Marshall — What’s the celebratory thing? And then externally in your calendar, you look at what are some big days. And so for us, we lean into Father’s Day, a car show, barbecue. We do a Fall Fest, kind of our version of trunk or treat. And um you know then you got Christmas, another big day that the community… And actually my perspective is I think more people are likely to go to Christmas than they are Easter.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah.
Quovadis Marshall — Because Christmas, Christmas right? It’s everything’s Christmassy. And I think you talked about this a little while ago. And then Easter is like, it’s the resurrection is Easter bunnies.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Quovadis Marshall — So those are internal things. And then externally, what we try to do is intentionally communicate what’s going to be a benefit to them, not necessarily who we are.
Rich Birch — Right. OK, good.
Quovadis Marshall — So the the the communication, when it comes to celebrating, is um we, you know, ah an example would be real time. We just came out of Easter, but we didn’t we didn’t put our numbers up. Right.
Rich Birch — Right.
Quovadis Marshall — We didn’t we didn’t say here’s the numbers from the church. I’m not opposed to that. But rather what I would what I would rather have us do is communicate a story of life change of somebody whose life has changed.
Rich Birch — Right. Right. That’s good.
Quovadis Marshall — Someone who looks like someone in our community…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Quovadis Marshall — …to kind of go, that could be me. Right. And so um creating rhythms, which really goes down to calendaring. How do we make an impact? And yeah.
Rich Birch — Love that. I love so much there. there’s a you know That was like a masterclass there. So much there about how do we create rhythms and using the calendars. That’s that’s so good.
Rich Birch — Let’s pivot and talk about PF. I love that you know you obviously were impacted, deeply impacted as…
Quovadis Marshall — Yes.
Rich Birch — …you know an individual by this ministry and then have continued to build this partnership with them. What does that look like for your your church? I love how you talk about, how your church talks about even your ministries into institutions where, you know, it’s like, Hey, we’re, you’re not a project. You’re not, there’s not, you know, you’re not just something we’re trying to do. You’re a part of our church. Unpack that. Talk us through, what does that look like for you? How have you been partnering with Prison Fellowship? What does that look like?
Quovadis Marshall — Yeah. Well, you know, there’s a little unique story in that, you know, I went to prison and and so while I was in prison, I went through the Prison Fellowship Academy. You know, the part of the story that really for us makes a lot of sense because it resonates so deeply is that not only was I in prison, but I left my daughter and her mother behind. And so PF in the local church came around them…
Rich Birch — Oh wow.
Quovadis Marshall — …and walked with them while I was in prison. Prison fellowship program called Angel Tree. And so every year my daughter got a Christmas present from her dad, but delivered through the local church. Now, the truth is is, I didn’t pay for the gift. The local church did. So the church…
Rich Birch — Right.
Quovadis Marshall — But the church didn’t make itself the hero. The church made me the hero. And so they said, hey, your dad bought you this gift and he wrote you this note. And it helped strengthen that relationship with me and my daughter and her mother while I was in prison. And at the same time, it it provided an on-ramp for my daughter and her mother to be a part of this local church.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that.
Quovadis Marshall — And so when I was released, guess what church I went to?
Rich Birch — Right.
Quovadis Marshall — I went to the church that cared for my family.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Quovadis Marshall — And so that’s actually where we started as a church family. We started doing Angel Tree.
Quovadis Marshall — Through no fault of their own, those children have been left without a parent, right? And the Bible says, pure and undefiled religion is this, to visit the widow and the orphan in their time of need and keep one unspotted from the world is what what what James says. One of my favorite verses is in Psalm 68. The writer says, the Lord sets the lonely, I think it’s 68.6 says, the Lord or or God sets the lonely in families. It causes the prisoner to sing.
Rich Birch — That’s so sweet. Yeah.
Quovadis Marshall — And so what’s the pathway towards freedom getting sent in the family? because he’s sets the lonely in families.
Rich Birch — Right.
Quovadis Marshall — And it’s in that place you get free from the things that had you bound…
Rich Birch — Right. That’s good.
Quovadis Marshall — …which gives you the freedom to do what you were made to do, which is worship. And so we started out just saying, how can we set these kids in families? And so we started with Angel Tree. It felt safe, right? It felt safe for our church to go, you know, I don’t know about the parent, but I can start with the kid.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Quovadis Marshall — And, you know, then you celebrate those stories. And, you know, we do a Christmas party and the kids are picking up Christmas presents.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Quovadis Marshall — And, Some kids hadn’t heard from their dad in years. And you just you watch the joy and you watch the impact. And again, in the mind of that parent, the church has now become a safe place, not just a religious place.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Quovadis Marshall — What a place of celebration, a place of safety, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that.
Quovadis Marshall — We we have our students help deliver the gifts to the kids. And so these kids are meeting kids that are their age. And so they’re building some natural relationship and connection. And you invite them back to kids church. You invite them back to youth group. And by God’s grace, you know doors continue to open to be involved in the things that Prison Fellowship is doing to help the church fulfill its mission.
Quovadis Marshall — I’ll say one more thing. You know, Jesus shows up on the scene, Luke chapter four, and he’s quoting Isaiah 61. And I appreciate the spiritualizing of the text. I do. I really do. You know, we’re all free. We all, you know, set the prisoners free, set people blind. You know, I love the spiritual, all of that.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah.
Quovadis Marshall — But what I find interesting, Rich, is he says he’s come, you know, to proclaim liberty to the captive, right, in the opening of prison doors. And I appreciate that. Yes, I need freedom. Yes, open those prison doors in my heart, Jesus. But then Matthew, you know, Matthew 25, doubles down. Right?
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Quovadis Marshall — So his opening and closing sermons are the same.
Rich Birch — Interesting.
Quovadis Marshall — Hey, right? Matthew 25. Then I’ll say, you came to visit me in prison.
Rich Birch — Right.
Quovadis Marshall — So he like doubles down on this literal reality.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah. It it seems to be more than just a metaphor. This is not this is not a metaphor.
Quovadis Marshall — Yes.
Rich Birch — There’s something about engaging with prisoners.
Quovadis Marshall — That’s right. Yeah. And and then, you know, because the foundation of his throne is is righteousness and justice. And so the salvific nature of Christ’s work was, I am guilty in the courtroom of God. I am a prisoner sold into sin. Therefore, who more could relate to a physical prisoner than ones who’ve been spiritual prisoners?
Rich Birch — Love that.
Quovadis Marshall — And then he puts an exclamation point on it. You ready?
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Quovadis Marshall — Who’s the first person to enter paradise with Christ?
Rich Birch — Yeah. The thief on the cross.
Quovadis Marshall — The thief on cross.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Quovadis Marshall — He goes, I’m serious about this.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Quovadis Marshall — I’ve come I’ve come for the prisoner.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Quovadis Marshall — And I do I do believe we’ll see, you know, the joke, not the joke, the cliché statement is, we in America, we took the Bibles out of school, so God put them in the prisons. And ah Frederick Douglass said… right, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Quovadis Marshall — And So Frederick Douglass said, um it’s it’s it’s um it’s easier to train the child than it is to fix a man. And when you can’t train the child, the good news of the gospel is that he can fix the man. And so we’re able to do that. And so we launched the campus and yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah. So, I well, first of all, we will we’ll definitely link to Angel Tree. I think this could be, I hope there’s people that are listening in today that would say, you know, that that could be a step we could take. We’ve got time now to even line that up for this Christmas.
Quovadis Marshall — Yeah.
Rich Birch — That could be a real practical next step for churches that are, for leaders that are listening in.
Quovadis Marshall — Yeah.
Rich Birch — But let’s talk about kind of the the campus the campus, your work in prisons. What does that look like? Kind of give us a flavor you know, of that.
Quovadis Marshall — Yeah.
Rich Birch — I think Angel Tree is a great starting point.
Quovadis Marshall — It is.
Rich Birch — And and would be, like you say, it’s kind of a safe step for most churches.
Quovadis Marshall — Yep.
Rich Birch — They could, you know, every church that’s listening in could do that.
Quovadis Marshall — Yep.
Rich Birch — There could be too many churches signed up and they would still have opportunity.
Quovadis Marshall — Right?
Rich Birch — Prison Fellowship would fine would find kids for sure.
Quovadis Marshall — Yeah.
Rich Birch — So, um but let’s talk about what does that look like for you…
Quovadis Marshall — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …kind of when you took beyond that step?
Quovadis Marshall — Yeah, yeah. On on that note, you know, kind of ah as a pivot, you know, there’s 1.6 million children and who have an incarcerated parent. Last year, PF serviced 270,000 kids. The thing that I try to tell pastors about Angel Tree is it’s the easiest way to grow your church. And here’s why. You’re going to get the address, phone number and location of people in your community who are waiting for you to show up.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Quovadis Marshall — Like if you can’t, I’m handing you a handful of families. If you If you can’t grow your church…
Rich Birch — Who have said we’d be willing to talk to these people. Yes.
Quovadis Marshall — Yes. If you can’t grow your church, you need to get into insurance with that number. You know what I’m saying? Like my brother, you need to pick a different profession.
Rich Birch — That’s great. I love it. Love it.
Quovadis Marshall — So, you know, so um ah so yeah, you were, you were asking about the campus.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Quovadis Marshall — And, and so for us, really, it was, it was, it was the, it made the most sense as a next step. Not all churches have a prison around them. But what we found was that there was a group of men in a prison about an hour away who had been tracking with us. And part of the the way they have been tracking with us is that some of the people who were in our church had committed crimes and went to prison. But also we, during COVID, didn’t double down online because Iowa is so rural that internet, like like I’m in a city of 100,000 and we just got fiber. You know I’m saying?
Rich Birch — Right. Okay.
Quovadis Marshall — And so like internet wasn’t the the winning strategy. Television was.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Quovadis Marshall — So we went to television.
Rich Birch — Yep. That makes sense. Yep.
Quovadis Marshall — And so a lot of guys started watching and then they started sending in letters is all they did was send it in letters. And, you know, the Bible says a person’s gift will make make make way for them and bring them before great men. That’s what it says in Proverbs. And and so we did the same thing as we did with the schools, with the mayor, we just said to the prison, how can we help?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Quovadis Marshall — Are there any volunteer slots? And and so that door opened we started partnering with Prison Fellowship Academy that’s already in that prison. So they were really the gatekeeper for us to get into the prison. And kind of full circle now we’ve we’ve been in that prison about a year.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Quovadis Marshall — And about 100 men gather every Sunday morning.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Quovadis Marshall — We take the the teaching from Sunday, the worship and everything, put it on a thumb drive. We load it up. And they so they are they’re what they’re literally they’re worshiping on Sunday mornings. They’re serving on teams. They’re ushers. They’re greeters. Like they’re involved at a high level in the overall service.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s amazing. Yep.
Quovadis Marshall — And then many of them are getting baptized even, you know.
Rich Birch — Wow. Praise God.
Quovadis Marshall — Yeah, they’re getting baptized. And I think about 30 guys have been baptized since we launched the campus. And so they’re a small group. I mean, everything we’re doing as a church outside the prison, we’re doing in the prison. And and so, because the truth of the matter is, is like ah Hebrews 13 says, remember those who are in prison. And if in for those in prison who are believers, if you could think of it this way, your arm or your leg, if you’re a part of the body is in prison. Right.
Rich Birch — Yep. Yep.
Quovadis Marshall — And 95 percent of those men and women in prison will be released.
Rich Birch — Right.
Quovadis Marshall — And so the question isn’t, are they coming home? But but but who’s who’s coming home?
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Quovadis Marshall — Have they met Jesus? Have they found life-giving community?
Rich Birch — Right.
Quovadis Marshall — And so by God’s grace, it’s a thriving community. We’re so grateful to be in those prisons and and a part of what’s happening there. We love those men. And in Prison Fellowship, honestly, they opened the door for us to to be able to do that.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love that. Well, I love that. And that, you know, could be a natural extension. You know, I know that the, I don’t know a lot about the prison system, but I don’t do know one thing I do know it’s designed for isolation, even where they put these things…
Quovadis Marshall — Yes.
Rich Birch — …they put them way far out in the middle of nowhere.
Quovadis Marshall — Yes.
Rich Birch — So it’s hard for people to get to them.
Quovadis Marshall — Yeah.
Rich Birch — It’s hard for, you know, families to get there.
Quovadis Marshall — Right.
Rich Birch — And the fact that your church is, you know, making that effort to be there week in week out is incredible. I know that that would be life giving ah to folks that are, you know, that are there in that, in that prison. So that’s incredible. So thank you for, for doing that.
Quovadis Marshall — Yeah, it is. And I think it’s mobilizing to our churches. I think we underestimate ah people’s desire to make a difference at times. I think there was a thought process coming in the nineties with churches where let’s not ask a lot from them. Let’s give them a lot of anonymity. Let’s, you know, let’s kind of let them kind of find the way. And that’s great. And I’m all for that. I don’t think you have to, I don’t think you have to choose between attractional or missional. There is the, there is the, the attractional model is the Nathaniel or Philip to Nathaniel, come and see. Right?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Quovadis Marshall — He says, hey, man, just come and see.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Quovadis Marshall — And I appreciate that. But Jesus said, go and tell.
Rich Birch — Amen, amen.
Quovadis Marshall — You know, and so and so i don’t think you have to choose between the two. And as I look at Jesus’s model for for ministry, it was high invitation. Anybody can come. But then it was high challenge. You know, you got to drink my flesh, you eat my blood. It’s like, what? And and my mentor says, he says, and this is going to be gender specific, but the idea is not gender specific, just the analogy. He said, call men to play a man’s game and men will show up.
Quovadis Marshall — And and I think when you call people to make a difference, you know, I tell our church, I said, hey i’m not trying to I’m not trying to make you safe. I’m trying to make you dangerous. Like, I want you to be a force for God’s kingdom. And not all people buy in, but those who do change the world.
Quovadis Marshall — And eventually that middle group, you know, those kind of, you know, you’ve always got the the early adopters, you’ve got the middle group and then you got those that are not coming. That middle group will start to follow as you celebrate what you’re doing and life change and all that.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good. That’s so great. Well, when you look to the future, kind of up over to the horizon, what aspirations? Where’s kind of the, what are the questions you’re asking? You’re thinking about the future at Hope City Church and its role in your community. What what would be some of those things you’re wondering about as you look to the future?
Quovadis Marshall — Bro, ah man, it’s been great. It’s been great. Yeah, we like to say we’re big plate people. And so I like ah I like my food falling off my plate. And so we just we’ve just got into our broadcast facility and we’ve kind of we’ve outgrown it.
Rich Birch — Nice.
Quovadis Marshall — So now we’re trying to figure out what to do next. And you know, so for sure, campus launches, you know, there’s a plan, there’s a strategy to launch campuses throughout throughout the state.
Rich Birch — Great.
Quovadis Marshall — There’s some favor there. Getting to more prisons, for sure, but also building that leadership pipeline. You need resources, leaders, and vision. And so those three things you’re always working on as a point leader. So, um yeah, man, the future’s bright. God is good. The the gospel must go forth. And he’s with us, man. So let’s let’s get after it, baby.
Rich Birch — Love it. Let’s get after it.
Quovadis Marshall — Yeah.
Rich Birch — So good.
Quovadis Marshall — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Well, any final words just as we wrap up today’s episode?
Quovadis Marshall — Well, one, I want to just honor you and tell you thank you.
Rich Birch — Oh, thanks, man.
Quovadis Marshall — Honestly, you you didn’t know me up until 45 minutes ago, but but for years, Rich, I’ve listened to your podcast faithfully…
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s sweet. That’s sweet.
Quovadis Marshall — …to be stretched, to be to be challenged, to learn new insights, getting things from you and the people you have on that I couldn’t get anywhere else. So just honestly, sincerely, thank you for that.
Rich Birch — Thank you.
Quovadis Marshall — The other thing I say is that, man, I just encourage churches like, man, guys, we’ve got the good news of the gospel…
Rich Birch — Amen.
Quovadis Marshall — …and we have an opportunity to impact the world. And shameless plug, Prison Fellowship has been the easiest. All the other stuff I talked about, we had to build.
Rich Birch — Right.
Quovadis Marshall — We had to put the structure behind. We, you know, have to develop the leaders for.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Quovadis Marshall — I don’t have to do that with Prison Fellowship.
Rich Birch — Right.
Quovadis Marshall — It’s literally plug and play.
Rich Birch — Right.
Quovadis Marshall — And it’s been transformational in terms of lives being touched. It’s been transformational in mobilizing our church. And it’s been transformational in our reputation in the city as the good news people.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Quovadis Marshall — So ah get plugged in. Keep listening to Rich’s podcast. Buy Church Growth Flywheel, and like let’s get it.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Love it. Love it. Thanks so much, Pastor Q. Appreciate the, really appreciate the kind words. That’s so nice of you. Where do we want to send people online? We’ll link to Prison Fellowship, specifically to Angel Tree, just to make it super easy for people to take that step. But you should check out Prison Fellowship in general. Anywhere else we want to send them online to track with you or with the church?
Quovadis Marshall — Yeah, yeah, you can check out, ah you can follow me on socials, Quovadis Marshall, Q-U-O-V-A-D-I-S Marshall on Instagram. I’m I’m pretty active on there. Go to our website, myhopecity.net. Yeah, and you’ll find some links to some other stuff I get to do, coaching. And I wrote a book a little while ago.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Quovadis Marshall — And ah yeah, man, I love I love to connect with you guys.
Rich Birch — Love it. Thanks so much. Appreciate you being here today.
Quovadis Marshall — Thank you.
Thanks for joining us at the unSeminary podcast. In this episode of the unSeminary Podcast, we’re joined by Danny Anderson, Lead Pastor of Emmanuel Church in Indiana, and Rachel Long, founder of the Joshua Center. They share their story of navigating a significant transition when Rachel moved from being the Executive Pastor at Emmanuel Church to working full time for the Joshua Center, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting grieving children and families.
Is your church facing the challenge of a key staff member transition? Wondering how to handle leadership changes in a way that honors both the individual and the mission? Tune in as Danny and Rachel discuss the importance of fostering a healthy organizational culture where open communication and support can thrive, especially during times of transition.
- It’s okay to talk about transitions. // Staff transitions can feel threatening for church leaders, which often leads to avoidance and breakdowns in communication. Conversations about change should be welcomed—not feared. Leaders must create environments where team members feel safe to explore God’s calling without being met with suspicion or disappointment.
- *Create safe, coaching-based conversations*. // As an employee, be open and honest about what God is doing in your life. As a pastor or church leader, embrace your role as a shepherd, not a gatekeeper. Regular check-ins, prayer, and coaching allow conversations about transition to evolve organically over time, giving both parties space to discern God’s will. When staff members sense they are truly supported, they are more likely to leave well and continue to champion the church’s vision from a new place.
- Each departure is a culture shaping event. // Team members are always watching how transitions are handled, and poor exits can instill fear across staff. By proactively discussing what it means to leave well, leaders can model open-handedness and reinforce a healthy organizational culture. Without surrendering their staff members to God, church leaders open themselves up to feelings of offense and betrayal, leading to toxic staff transitions.
- Work through the gap. // When a key leader leaves, the gap is real—but it’s also a chance to elevate others. What follows a staff transition is one of the indicators of how good a leader was. Danny shares how Rachel’s former direct reports stepped up and excelled, thanks to her development and empowerment. A well-prepared team can carry the mission forward, even after a major transition.
- Follow where God is leading you. // For anyone sensing a shift in their calling, follow God’s leading with courage and integrity. It’s your responsibility to be authentic and follow God’s leadership in your life first. Don’t wait until you’ve made up your mind to speak with your pastor. Engage early, pray fervently, and seek wise counsel. You’re responsible for obeying God’s voice, not for managing your pastor’s emotional reaction.
- Start the conversation now. // If you’re a lead pastor, assume someone currently on your team needs to have this transition conversation. Don’t wait—create the space. Even dedicating a staff meeting to discuss how to leave well can set the tone for a more open and trusting culture.
To learn more about Joshua Center, visit them on their website at www.joshuacenter.org and reach out to Rachel Long here. You can follow along with Danny Anderson on Instagram @dannyanderson23 and check out the Church Growth Unleashed conference at churchgrowthunleashed.org and the podcast here.
Listen to previous unSeminary podcasts featuring Danny Anderson or Rachel Long:
- Big Dreams, Healthy Rhythms: Avoiding Burnout in Growing Churches with Danny Anderson
- Increasing the Impact of the Serving Experience on Volunteers with Rachel Long
- Moving a Fast Growing Multisite Church from Centralized to Decentralized Leadership Structure with Rachel Long
- Danny Anderson on Assuming the Leadership of a 29 Year Old Church When He Was 28
EXTRA CREDIT // *Staff Exit Debrief Template***This episode is all about leaving well — and we’ve created a practical resource to help your church do just that.
Whether you’re a lead pastor, executive pastor, or team leader, the Staff Exit Debrief Template gives you a clear framework for holding honest, honoring conversations when someone transitions off your team. It helps you celebrate their contribution and capture valuable lessons to strengthen your culture going forward.
This downloadable doc is included inside unSeminary Extra Credit. Members can access it here.
Not a member yet? Join today for instant access to this resource and more tools to help you lead smarter: unseminaryextracredit.com
Click here to join unSeminary Extra Credit and get instant access to this resource and more!
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: SermonDone
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Really looking forward to today’s conversation. It’s going to be a really helpful one. You know, over the years I’ve had people reach out and say, Hey, you should talk about this thing that we’re going to talk about today. And frankly, I’ve resisted talking about it because I haven’t known what to talk about and how to kind of refer to it. We’re talking about team transitions today, and specifically two people that have been on the podcast before who used to work together that are now leading in two different organizations. And we’re going to talk about what that looked like.
Rich Birch — We’re honored today to have, again, Pastor Danny Anderson with us. He’s the lead pastor of a great church, Emmanuel church, a multisite church with seven campuses, if I’m counting correctly, in Indianapolis, Indiana plus an online, a number of microsites. They’ve repeatedly been been one of the fastest growing churches in the country. And ah Rachel Long, who was one of the executive pastors there. In 2022, she founded the Joshua Center that we’ve talked about before, a non-profit bereavement center for children and families. We’re going to link to all of that so that you can find their two organizations. But welcome to the show, again, Rachel and Danny, welcome. Glad you’re here.
Danny Anderson — Thanks for having with us, Rich.
Rachel Long — Thank you.
Danny Anderson — It’s an honor.
Rachel Long — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Why don’t we start with you, Rachel? Kind of give us a little bit of, tell us a little bit of your story. Talk to us about, you know, remind people that maybe don’t listen to every single episode. I know for my mom…
Rachel Long — For sure.
Rich Birch — …she, she will have listened to every episode, but not everyone listens to every episode. So ah tell us a little bit about you and your background again.
Rachel Long — Sure. Well, I started at Emmanuel Church after a season of being a developmental therapist. So I’ll start with the Emmanuel piece. About 13 and a half years ago I started working in Emmanuel, but before that I Emmanuel had been my church for 10 years. And I was a key impact team member there and both the students and in the children’s area. And so raised my kids there. I am married for 26 years and have three kids a girl and two boys. And so we had been at Emmanuel for years and years and so getting to work there was certainly an honor and a privilege.
Rachel Long — And in, like you said, in 2022 I started just part-time, you know, just part-time working founding the Joshua Center. And it is a bereavement Center for grieving children, adolescents and their families in Greenwood, Indiana and ah it grew faster than it’s we call it unfortunate growth, right? Like it’s bereaved children.
Rich Birch — Right.
Rachel Long — It’s not something that I’m like trying to raise the bottom line on.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Rachel Long — But so…
Rich Birch — Let’s increase the amount of breathing children. No one wants to set that KPI.
Rachel Long — No, no, no. However, I will say I’m happier that they’re here than the than with not getting help.
Rich Birch — Yes. Good.
Rachel Long — So my husband and I launched Joshua Center. It is in honor of my little brother that we lost in ’05. And when that happened, there was ah really nothing for my children. And then specifically speaking to grief, I had a highly negative encounter with a therapist. Now I will say this, my church was there for me every step of the way, my small group was. So they helped me get back on my feet and keep moving. However, I needed more mental help with it too.
Rachel Long — And so I went into what’s called delayed grief. And I don’t wish that on anyone. And it was about seven years of like…
Rich Birch — Oh, wow.
Rachel Long — …if I heard the word Josh crying and like there was no hope and healing. And that’s what Joshua Center is really all about, helping those families find hope and healing. That’s why we exist. And so it grew and grew and grew and I was spending evenings and Saturdays here at Joshua Center.
Rachel Long — And there just came a crux, a time when it was time to talk to Pastor Danny and he had set the stage. And I mean, just 30,000 foot view, it we were able to talk through what was going on. It took a little while, which is fine. We didn’t want to rush anything. I loved Emmanuel and would never cheat my church. And so. But Danny loved me and so he didn’t want to cheat me. So there was a lot of support there.
Rachel Long — So that’s like, uh, just a little snapshot of what has happened to us recently. And so over the past three years, it doubled the first year and has already doubled again since leaving, since my leaving of Emmanuel in October. So it’s more than doubled, but not tripled yet. So. Although thats that’s, again, not great news. There’s kids with grief, loss, and trauma that we’re working with. The the good news is is’s that they’re receiving faith-based interventions. So.
Rich Birch — Cool. Danny, why don’t you fill in the picture about Emmanuel again for folks that that haven’t, you know, that would that would haven’t listened to your episodes or don’t track closely with you who kind of tell us a little bit of that story.
Danny Anderson — Yeah, you know as you mentioned, you know we’re a multisite church in central Indiana, and I took over as the lead pastor in 2006 for our founding pastor and made it through that transition barely. And you know since then, you know we’ve we’ve been building a great team. God’s been so gracious to us. Rachel’s been ah a part of that from the beginning.
Danny Anderson — And yeah, it’s just been a ah fun journey to figure out the multisite strategy and reaching people. And our passion is to see people come to Christ and grow in Christ. You know, we we say we’re on a relentless pursuit of people who are far from God. And you know it’s pretty simple vision. And we try to you know basically use our campus model to to fulfill that vision. And so, yeah, I’m here with Rachel because, you know, she decided it was a little bit less than a year ago to to part ways with our church. And and that has been probably the best transition we’ve had so far off of our team. And we were and we were really super intentional with that. So, yeah…
Rich Birch — Yeah. but Let’s talk about that.
Danny Anderson — …that’s where we’re at.
Rich Birch — Why don’t we start with you, Danny? Like I I feel like so many times these transitions don’t go well. You know Rachel was a senior leader, executive pastor in your organization, and from your seat as the lead pastor, why do you surmise that that these transitions maybe don’t necessarily always go well. You know what why am I hesitant to even talk about this? What is you know what why is why do I feel anxiety about today’s conversation, Danny? Talk to me about that.
Danny Anderson — Yeah, I, you know, I think it’s a hard thing because senior leaders, man, they’re, we’re weird people. We are control freaks, we, we, ah we like we think we own people sometimes. They’re they belong to us. You know, we don’t want to talk about or even think about departures. It’s it’s just it’s uncomfortable conversation. You know sometimes we think we’re going to do the ministry with the same people forever.
Rich Birch — Right.
Danny Anderson — So we we function in that and that idea, which is not true. But I think I think a lot of it the tension around this topic comes because there’s no, kind there’s no, there is no communication. And I would say the first, the the first thing that helps that we’ve tried to do, Rachel and I have seen it. We’ve been together so long. She was together with me for seven years on the leadership team, but on staff for 13. We’ve seen three or four or five, six scenarios that just did not go well. So we’re, you know, we had this conversation like, how do we fix that? I don’t want that culture.
Rich Birch — Right.
Danny Anderson — I want the type of culture where we love each other so much, we respect each other so much that it’s okay to leave our team without there being hurt feelings or a feeling of betrayal. Or and so how do you do that? And the first thing that that we discovered is that you have to start the conversation.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Danny Anderson — I have and it starts with the senior pastor…
Rich Birch — Right.
Danny Anderson — …you know…
Rich Birch — You’ve got to you’ve got to lead. You have to kind of like even I would imagine even that’s a gift of even saying, hey, like we want to kind of be counter cultural on this thing here. Like we want to be open to having that conversation as opposed to giving off, like people can read that a mile away where it’s like if you ever leave, I will cut you.
Danny Anderson — Absolutely.
Rich Birch — You know, like so even just being open, ah you know, to the conversation, I think is is that’s a big deal. Rachel, what about you?
Danny Anderson — And it starts it…
Rich Birch — Oh, sorry.Go go ahead there, Danny.
Danny Anderson — Yeah, sorry.
Rich Birch — What were you going to say?
Danny Anderson — No, I was gonna say and it it starts with get really giving permission to have the conversation and letting your team know that it’s okay for them to communicate with you.
Rich Birch — Right that’s good. That’s good.
Danny Anderson — And that you’re for them in in that ah because you’re on their team and you want what’s best for them. And so that is what I think kind of triggered the I guess the openness on Rachel’s part, but that that’s the only thing I wanted to jump in on.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Rachel, from your perspective, kind of unpack a little bit of what was going on in your mind and heart. Obviously, this was growing. And then it it looked like, okay, it’s going to reach a tipping point here. How did you you know, how did you kind of try to keep that conversation open? And what would you suggest to other people to try to broach that conversation?
Rachel Long — Sure. It is what Pastor Danny said. Before any of this happened the stage had been set by saying, like, I don’t know why people just throw a two week notice at us and walk out the door. If they have transitions in their life, like he is our pastor first. So he wanted to help us work through that.
Rachel Long — But and honestly, um I would love to say like, oh, I was so self aware that this happened this way. But the truth is being in close connection with Danny, like he knows I would have worked both jobs until like we celebrated that at my funeral. So, uh, that being said, he, he also was still there as my coach. So I was open and honest about like, Hey, this is growing. Hey, I’m working these nights. Hey, I need, I need to talk to you about this in my check-ins. And then there was coaching, just like there was coaching when I led the first church adoption for Emmanuel. I still have my coach with me all the time in it.
Rachel Long — So it wasn’t ever like this chomp. It was more like, okay, I’m feeling this. Okay. Let’s separate and pray about it for a couple of weeks. We come back. Okay. This is happening. Then he went on a study break. And so that gave us more time to think and pray and come back and talk about it. And it wasn’t, it wasn’t an abrupt quit and it wasn’t a quiet quit. It wasn’t, he helped transition me off of staff and launch me into what God was building in our lives. And I think that takes a leader that has a bigger than themselves vision, like a kingdom mindset. And it takes an employee that um that knows that even though it’s going to be hard and you’re going to have to make space for the conversations, you got to tell the truth when you know it, as soon as you know it.
Rachel Long — Yeah, I would say that um there was also some coaching around that too, like, okay, let’s look at this. Because at that point, your pastor’s looking into your life as this third party, you know, and but still with you in it. And they’re able to see some things that maybe you aren’t able to see. But none of it would have happened if I worked under a spirit of fear or like as an employee, if I didn’t feel psychologically safe to say what I needed to say, then that…
Rich Birch — Okay. Let’s talk about that issue. Because I don’t think there’s any—this is a part of, I think, with the tension in this—I don’t think there’s any lead pastor out there that believes that they’re cultivating an environment that is psychologically unsafe. They all say, every lead pastor, and I love the lead pastors who are listening in, everyone, we all believe that we create these positive work environments that actually, of course, just come to me, tell me anytime I’m happy to. But that isn’t actually what happens.
Rich Birch — When you think about Danny’s leadership, and then Danny, I’m going to ask you kind of the mirror of this question. But when you think about his leadership, Rachel, what was it that indicated, Oh, he actually means this. Like he actually wants to have the conversation. He doesn’t just say, Oh, let tell me, cause I think there’s lots of pastors that would say that. Oh no, come and talk to me. But actually everyone knows now that isn’t what we should do. What was it about Danny’s leadership that led you to believe, oh, he actually wants to engage on this conversation. He’s not he’s not scared of this.
Rachel Long — Oh it’s future behavior is predicted by past behavior. The only time that we’ve had issues that were significant in departures, there was always a chance for that individual to leave well. There was always a chance.
Rich Birch — Right.
Rachel Long — There was always an opportunity for that…
Rich Birch — They chose not to for whatever reason.
Rachel Long — Yes, you’re correct.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Okay. Yep.
Rachel Long — You also have to be the employee that knows that like you’re not working for a robot. You’re working for a pastor. Like they love their congregation. And so when you come to them with something hard, if you got to give them space to be a human too. I mean, like but you can’t just expect, oh, that’s what you want to do here. Let me write a a plan with you. I mean, there is back and forth.
Rachel Long — So I feel like I watched the behavior. I mean, when my brother died, he and his wife drove an hour and a half to go be at the funeral when I was one of his volunteers in youth ministry.
Rich Birch — Right.
Rachel Long — That’s not a person who’s going to say: Get out. This is dumb. What are you doing?
Rich Birch — At your desk!
Rachel Long — Like you’re fired; get out.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah.
Rachel Long — You know, like that’s nobody’s taking a cardboard box with me when you when you have invested so much. As an employee you invest a lot in the church, but also your leaders are investing in you. And so he’d already invested in me, why would he not want to see like a kingdom return on that investment?
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Rachel Long — That was that’s how I felt safe in it.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Rachel Long — Because it was always about me more than my product.
Rich Birch — Right. Danny, I’d love to hear your perspective on that. Like the, you know, a part of the tension in, in these, I think in these transitions to be, obviously I was kind of kicking lead pastors there, but the reality of it is our, we’re consumed with the mission. We’re like, man, what we’re doing is, you know, is so important. And for, and I know you weren’t the founding pastor, but you, you’re a long time pastor, long term, long time lead pastor. It’s even more so with founding pastors. And I’ve said this to many founding pastors. I’m like, they, you care the most about this. This thing started in your living room.You know, and, and they, the thought that anyone else would ever want to transition. It’s not that they’re evil people. They just are like, love the the vision so much and the and our mission, there you cut them and they bleed it. And and so they give off, ah inadvertently, they give off this like, if you even think about it, I am you know I’ll be disappointed in you. Are there are there things that you’ve tried to do actively to try to cultivate a trust environment, to cultivate you know a ah place where people would be willing to kind of reach out and talk about it?
Danny Anderson — It’s a great question, Rich. I think that we’ve learned that each departure is a culture shaping event.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Danny Anderson — And so if you, how did you handle the how how did you handle the last staff departure? Because staff members talk to each other they’re observing they’re watching…
Rich Birch — Yep. Yep. That’s true.
Danny Anderson — …and so they’re they’re actually learning the culture of whether or not it’s safe to talk about these things from the last experience.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Danny Anderson — And so I I after two or three poor, you know, departures. I’m like, man, um I think we don’t we don’t have a healthy culture. We don’t have a we don’t have a culture where, so I’ve got to change that. How do I change that? Well, you know, the the only way I knew is is to start having the conversation with people. And in my mind, I had to make a shift um from these people don’t belong to me, they belong to God.
Danny Anderson — I am I have to be open-handed with Rachel. Every senior pastor has has to be open-handed with their staff. They do not belong to me. But that’s really difficult because, especially if someone on your leadership team like like Rachel was such an integral part of everything we did at this church. I mean, she had her fingers in everything, almost. And, which was a good thing. And so when she and it even when she initially shared with me what she was feeling, I bucked it. I’m like, oh, no, that’s not true. That’s not what the Lord is doing.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Danny Anderson — You know, we got to rethink this.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Danny Anderson — You know, I’m not sensing that. You know, but so even when I told her that, I even felt after that conversation like, dude, who do you think you are? Like you’re not, you don’t own Rachel. And of course, the Holy Spirit was working on me. And and and so I had to I had to repent of that. Like, OK, Lord, these are like this this staff is your staff.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Danny Anderson — And I’m more interested in what you are calling them to do in their life…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Danny Anderson — …than how they can help me to fulfill the vision of Emmanuel. And so I think a big decision is to decide in your heart to be open-handed with your staff…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Danny Anderson — …and give literally surrender them over to God.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Danny Anderson —And I know that might sound mushy, and but but that is ah that is a conviction that you have to have. Or else you’re going to get mad. You’re going to get ticked off.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes.
Danny Anderson — You’re going to feel betrayed. And then you’re going to once they share it with you, you’re going to be like, OK, well, your last day is Friday. You know you you you’re screwing me.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Danny Anderson — So you know let’s let’s get you out of here as fast as possible.
Rich Birch — Let me bite back at you or whatever. Yeah.
Danny Anderson — Oh, man, it’s so so toxic.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Now let’s double click on that, Danny. I’m glad you brought it up because I’m I was like, there’s there were had to have been a moment where where, I’ll put it this way, it would have been natural at some point to have thought, no, I want to steer this conversation back to, let’s serve Emmanuel. Like, you know,
Rich Birch — Talk to us about that internal tension. How, what did that look like? How did you wrestle through that? And then, you know, then you probably, obviously you came to a place where you’re like, no, like, obviously I think this is probably the best for, for, for Rachel. And then ultimately the best for us. Like we, you know, we got to believe that the Lord is working this out somehow. Talk us through what did that transition look like? I’m assuming at some point you wanted to kind of steer that conversation back. How did you kind of weather that as a leader, Danny?
Danny Anderson — Well, I definitely tried. And and and that was part of what Rachel said. We we had several conversations, and we created space in between those conversations to…
Rich Birch — Yeah, great.
Danny Anderson — …you know I would I would say, hey, I think we could work this out. I don’t think it’s coming to an end.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Danny Anderson — You know let’s let’s let I gave her some thoughts. I gave her some ideas. And then I let her have space to pray about it with her husband. And and so but then when I realized you know that that the burden that God had put on her heart for children who’ve lost loved ones and the experience that she had with her own brother, like this this is the work that God is doing in her life.
Rich Birch — Right. Right. Yeah, that’s good.
Danny Anderson — And I if I stand in the way of that, I’m I’m blocking, you know, what God wants to do in her life. And I don’t want to be that guy.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Danny Anderson — And so I think I finally got it took me a while to get there, honestly.
Rich Birch — Right.
Danny Anderson — Because there is, Rachel knows this, there’s a lot of work to be done and where would it’s not a, so I did feel that like, oh gosh who’s gonna pick up who’s gonna pick up all the work that she’s leaving behind?
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Danny Anderson — And so there was a bit of that you know, I guess the space, there’s a void there that t was left. But you know I had to trust God with that. You know like, okay, Lord, I’m going to trust that you’re going to provide other people. And other, you know.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Danny Anderson — So I just didn’t want to be that person that was blocking what God was doing in her heart, if that makes sense.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. I love that. I hope you’re listening in, leaders, today. I think what you’re leading us here, Danny, with even just the way you’re you’re reflecting on that.
Rich Birch — Rachel, what about you? How did you continue to lead? And you’re doing this in today’s conversation. So I’m I’m asking you to kind of think about this at a meta level. My my experience has been that you have continued obviously to honor Danny, to honor his leadership, to honor the place that you know he has had in your life and has in the community. Talk to us about some of those decisions, actions that you took through this process to continue to you know to honor the the place that that Danny’s had as a pastor and leader in your life.
Rachel Long — Wow. I don’t I don’t know that I could fully honor all that he taught me there. Every single day I have some leadership piece that I’m like, yes, I learned that at Emmanuel. I learned that from pastor Danny. But I will say something that I would want all senior pastors to hear that he did was, if I can, is that the beauty of how this transition went is like, I got to serve at Christmas at my church. And people were coming up to me asking me how my, the number one thing is how’s your project going? I love that. But how’s it going? How’s it… like people genuinely wanting to know how Joshua Center is.
Rachel Long — My son got to keep his youth group. My other two are adults and they live on their own. But my son, who’s still a junior in high school, gets to gets to still go to youth group and not feel awkward. So basically we got to keep our church because of this. So deciding early on that like, when when I left, there were two ah new multisites in the and the pot. They could choose which one was going to come next, or, you know, or based on how attendance and and things like that go, and availability of other churches to adopt.
Rachel Long — And so leaving feeling like okay, I’ve left our left my church in a good spot because it wasn’t just my pastor, it’s my church…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Rachel Long — …and I served there for ten years before I left. So really keeping focus like I want to honor Danny, but I want to honor Jesus.
Rich Birch — Right.
Rachel Long — I mean when I meet with him every morning if if at any point during this conversation I would have felt like I No, you did what, this was Abraham and Isaac moment. You did what I asked you to do. You don’t have to give up your job at Emmanuel, which by the way, I loved and still love my church. Then I I would have gone back and said…
Rich Birch — Right.
Rachel Long — You know, I think I was wrong. Oops. You know…
Rich Birch — Sure, sure.
Rachel Long — And I know there would have been grace and space to talk it through. But I think continuing to seek God’s will in it and and take the steps allows me not also to be a saboteur for for Emmanuel which I would love to see them reach, us – I’m still part of that’s still my church.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes, yes.
Rachel Long — Like so I would love to see us reach our 12 campuses. That’s that’s still in my heart. And I think that’s something, I’ll stop in just a sec. I think that’s something the senior pastor needs to know is you’re still on vision, even if you’re in a different capacity.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Rachel Long — I live to see people come to Christ and grow in Christ.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Rachel Long — I’ve gotten to lead two kids to Christ in the counseling room with their parents there. Like there don’t negate that like that person might still be on vision, even though they don’t get the privilege of being on staff anymore.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Danny Anderson — Absolutely.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I can I can say that I’m I’m also attending a church that I was on staff at. And I’m like a volunteer. I was about to say just a volunteer, but I’m you know, I I actually it’s a privilege and honor to and I’ve you know, it’s fun to like stand back and be like I am a cheerleader and excited for that and excited for, you know, our leadership as we continue to move forward.
Rich Birch — Danny, what about you? What happened to the Rachel-sized hole in the organization? You know, like, you know, when a senior leader like this leaves, that that does create, you know, you’re being kind, but that can create a bit of chaos in the organization. Because it’s like, okay, well, every my experience has been, and I’m sure this is the case with Rachel, the little bit I know her. She’s incredibly competent and you know there in some ways the organization ends up getting built around these people. That you know that we kind of end up we massage the org chart and it’s like there really is one person that could do this job. Their name’s Rachel Long and that’s normal. I don’t think that’s bad. That’s a normal part of this process.
Rich Birch — So what did what did you do? How did the organization shift? What happened? Because I think it’s actually an interesting opportunity to think about it more from the positive side. Hey, we can make some changes here. We can look at this in a slightly different way. What happened in that you know, after Rachel stepped out?
Danny Anderson — Yeah, so we’re in that right now. Still, it hasn’t been that long. So I think one of the indicators of how good a leader is, is what happens when they leave.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Danny Anderson — And you know, Rachel had three people that were reported to her directly: Allison, Aaron, and Cody. And those three people carry a ah heavy heavy lift across our entire church. And she led our church basically through them and others, but those were the three the three big players. And so those those team team members report directly to me for now. And it’s actually been it hasn’t been easy but it’s been it’s been delightful to learn like, okay these guys, like Allison’s incredible. Aaron Beasley’s a hustler, and you know Pastor Cody will do he’ll he’ll run through a wall for you. And so Rachel has she did there is a gap but there’s people there that are able to do the work. So so right now, I I have stepped into her role. It’s temporary until we until I can find another executive leader, but it hasn’t been chaos. It’s like, holy cow, what’s going on?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Danny Anderson — It hasn’t been that way. And so, Rachel, I don’t know if I haven’t had a chance to tell you this, but they those guys are killing it. And and I…
Rachel Long — I love it.
Danny Anderson — …and I attribute that to you training them, empowering them, building them…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Danny Anderson — …giving them confidence. And so, ah yeah, it’s it’s it’s pretty cool right now what’s going on.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. The the way I hear that, it Rachel, is that he replaced you with three people. That’s the way I hear it. But you know. The work that used to be done by Rachel is now done by three people. That’s what I hear.
Rich Birch — Rachel, kind of pivoting in a slightly different direction. It’s related, but it’s kind of in the neighborhood of this conversation. Let’s say I’m on staff at a church. I’m, you know, just give me a picture, a church of 1,500 people, maybe not quite as large as as you guys, but and I’m thinking, I’m thinking maybe I should reach out to my lead pastor. Maybe I’m an executive pastor. And I’m like, I’m I’m, I’m thinking the Lord might be leading me to this.
Rich Birch — I had someone recently say this to me and they were like, what should I do? Um, should I go and, and there’s probably more than two options, but should I go and start having, should I talk to Vanderbloemen first, or should I go and talk to my lead pastor? You know, what help us through that, navigate that conversation.
Rachel Long — Sure. Well, the first thing I think that you have to remember in this, as an employee, is it’s your responsibility to be authentic and to be following God’s leadership in your life first.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Rachel Long — It’s not your pastor’s responsibility to make sure you’re following what God has led you to do. And you’re not responsible for your pastor’s reaction to what you’re going to say.
Rachel Long — I think if you come in there, like Joshua Center was never an exit strategy.
Rich Birch — Right.
Rachel Long — So if you come into a situation and you’re like, Hey, I’ve got this exit strategy. I’m ready to, I felt this way. I’ve talked to these head hunters. I’m ready to go. I mean, that is one way to do it, but you have to understand you’re choosing a corporate path. You’re not choosing a church path. And so, although we have a business to run inside a church to be good stewards, we are not a corporation in that manner.
Rich Birch — Good. Yep.
Rachel Long — So there has to be space to prayfully consider it, seek wise counsel, like you would for anything as an executive pastor. And then you have to have the courage, the courage is in the telling.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Rachel Long — And then knowing that you’re telling this to a human, that you could be hurting them…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Rachel Long — …and God’s plan could be hurtful to them. So leave space for that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Rachel Long — You would leave space if you were counseling a couple and you had to tell them something hard.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Rachel Long — You would leave space if you were telling something hard to an employee you manage. So, I mean, pastors are people. Your lead pastor’s a person. But you have to act in your own integrity in it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Rachel Long — And and I wouldn’t say that I did that perfectly. I would say that there were pieces of the coaching that were super helpful to bring clarity. So if your pastor is for you and they’re seeking God’s will for like their staff, then then you’re going to get some more clarity in this.
Rachel Long — Because we always think like, oh, it could go so terribly wrong. But what if it goes…
Rich Birch — What if it’s a go terribly great?
Rachel Long — …like hard, but good. Yeah.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Rachel Long — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah.
Rachel Long — It doesn’t have to be easy. This has not been easy. I miss my staff every day.
Rich Birch — Yep. Yep. Yeah, that’s good.
Rachel Long — Every day.
Danny Anderson — We miss you too.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s good coaching. Because I think there are people who sit on this conversation and and are thinking like, hmm, you know, like, I don’t know, like I’m I’m feeling, I’m sensing the Lord might be moving me on, but I just don’t know what to do with that feeling. I don’t know what to do with that sense. And…
Rachel Long — Sure.
Rich Birch — and yeah, I think having the bravery to say like, Hey, I want to talk about this. But then also giving space. I think that’s a good word there, Rachel, like giving space to be like, Hey, this may not go well. This may be, and that’s okay…
Rachel Long — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …but just because it won’t go well, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it.
Rachel Long — Yeah
Rich Birch — Danny, what about you? So you yeah maybe there’s a, maybe you’re a lead pastor and you sense that there might be somebody on your team that is thinking about this. And maybe it’s just through, like, this is a unique situation because, you know, Rachel had, which I understand, folks that are listening in. Rachel had been working on this. It’s obviously an incredible passion project. And so in some ways you could kind of see that, but what would you say to a lead pastor who sees something like this bubbling in their team with a senior leader, somebody, you know, like an executive pastor type person?
Danny Anderson — Yeah, I mean, I think that senior leaders, can they have an intuition about this stuff. You can see you could see some things ahead, otherwise you wouldn’t be the lead pastor.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes.
Danny Anderson — And so I think you when you when you sense that, I think it’s it’s appropriate to start the conversation…
Rich Birch — Right.
Danny Anderson — …to initiate the conversation and let the person know on the front, I am for you personally.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Danny Anderson — I am I am I am more passionate about you as a person than the product you produce for the church. And and you have to mean that and in in the core of your being. And that’s hard because we’re pastors, as you’ve already mentioned, Rich. We’re so focused on the work product and the productivity and the loss of the productivity, if this person should leave. And who’s going to fill that gap? And that’s going to cause, you know oh my gosh, do we have enough money? Like what where we…
Danny Anderson — There’s all kinds of things that that happen. But you have to you have to get in a mental space, in a spiritual space, where it’s like, Lord, I care about this person. I truly want to shepherd them through this process. And I want to be for them. I want to help i want to help them.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Danny Anderson — God, if you have something else for this person, let me be part of helping them get to that space.
Rich Birch — Right.
Danny Anderson — I mean, and that’s our jobs as pastors. We’re we’re trying to take people from where they are to where God wants them to be…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Danny Anderson — …in every aspect of their life.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Danny Anderson — And so why would that be any different for Rachel or anybody else on my team? It’s like, hey, let me be part of the solution with you. I love you. And, and so that. And now if you’re not there, you got to get there. Because that’s the ball game.
Rich Birch — Right, right, right.
Danny Anderson — If you, if if that’s not true about you, you’ve got to kind of mature into that space. And, you know, I don’t know what to say to a person who’s not in that space, you know, other than you got to get there.
Rich Birch — Right, right. Yeah, that’s good. Well, and it feels like um this, if you’re a lead pastor listening in today, or you’re any, we’re using that as the framework, but it could be any, so any person that oversees people. And you suspect that you don’t have the kind of relationship where someone would come to you, that that’s the place to start. It’s like, oh, okay, we’ve got to have a lot of that. What’s it like to be on the other side of me conversations?
Danny Anderson — Oh yeah.
Rich Birch — How, how can I grow? And what, you know, how can I serve you better? And what, because if you sense that your people aren’t, are so afraid to talk to you about this, then it’s like, we’re on a whole bunch of fronts, we’re losing already, right? We’re already behind the eight ball and we’re not able to, you know, necessarily live out the vision that God’s called us to. That’s good.
Danny Anderson — Rich, I would I would also say, I know we’re coming down to the stretch here, but I would also say the pastors have to understand that that fear is there. It is there.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Danny Anderson — So it’s not like, is it you don’t have to wonder, it’s just there.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Danny Anderson — So you have to be the one to to to alleviate that.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Danny Anderson — And I would even go as far as to say that senior pastors should teach should do a staff development on this with their team.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Danny Anderson — Like devote a whole staff meeting. Like, hey, I’m gonna I’m gonna do 35 minutes of teaching on how do you leave well from our organization. And here’s my heart on the issue. And that, I mean, just coming from you in a staff meeting, that would be so, that’s setting the culture. That’s not gonna solve it necessarily, but it’s definitely gonna make it a little bit easier ah to that conversation.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, that’s so good. We wedid an interview a number of years ago with Jesse DeYoung from Flatirons. And they, Flatirons had a moment where um they actually asked their people if they would like to step off their team.
Danny Anderson — Wow.
Rich Birch — They provided, it was they kind of, it was during COVID and they they said like, hey, we would like, and I forget the number, but it was like 30 or 40% of their staff raised their hand and were like, yes. And that led them to this massive cultural change that they that they led through. And it was like, it was a a concrete moment when they realized, oh my goodness, there’s a large portion of our people would prefer not to work here than to work here. And but now on the back end of that, and they would say, man, God has used that transition.
Rich Birch — And I’m not saying you should do that, but but that idea of us going first and leading and raising the hand and saying, hey, we want to make this the best place for you, the healthiest place for you to to work at, which in this case, in the context of this conversation means you should be able to raise this conversation and not be in fear of it. That’s so good.
Rich Birch — Well, as we come down to land, um why don’t we do kind of last words, Rachel, what would be your last piece of advice? Maybe for somebody from your seat that’s sitting in an organization thinking the Lord might, you know, have something for them. What would you say to them? And then Danny, same thing. But then the reverse of that from your seat.
Rachel Long — Well, this is going to be a churchy answer. You need to pray through this. You need to fast over it.
Rich Birch — That’s good. Yep.
Rachel Long — You need to seek wise counsel…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Rachel Long — …and you need to do what you know you’ve been instructed to do in your own life. Because again, you don’t know if this is Abraham and Isaac moment, or you don’t know if this is Esther – at such a time as this. You don’t know. So and then I would say engage your leadership as soon as you can. I would have probably, if I had it to do over, have engaged even sooner with my leadership because…
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Rachel Long — Engage them as soon as you can.
Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s a good little piece of advice there. Like, Hey, that’s a good nugget here at the end of that. Like if anything, default towards early is, you know, the way I would say that. Let’s get the conversation out there rather than, you know, don’t get so far down the road that it’s like, you’ve already decided you get one foot out the door. Let’s have the conversation early. That’s good. I like that.
Rich Birch — Danny, what about you from, from your seat as a, as a lead pastor?
Danny Anderson —Yeah, I mean, just a closing thought. I again, I guess I’ve already said this, but you know put put your people in God’s hands. They belong to him. They’re not yours. They’re, God has loaned them to you for a period. Everybody’s an interim pastor. My friend, Shawn Lovejoy says that. And so hold them loosely, love them well. And when it’s time for them to move on, be their biggest advocate. You know, just go go to bat for them and honor them. You just can’t go wrong with that.
Danny Anderson — And then I’ll the last thing I’ll say, Rich, is that for for senior leaders listening, ministry leaders, executive pastors listening, I guarantee you, guarantee you right now on your team, there’s two or three people that need to have this conversation, right now.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Danny Anderson — And not and they’re not having it because they don’t have permission.
Rich Birch — Right.
Danny Anderson — And so I would I would act immediately…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Danny Anderson — …and because it’s it’s real. And so anyway, just put that little thought in people’s minds there. They need to take action quickly.
Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s a good nugget again, a great nugget at the end here. Hey, like the next all staff meeting, we should be talking about this. I should, I should reference this. You know, we need to create this kind of culture. That’s, that’s fantastic. Well, this is great.
Rich Birch — Rachel, where do we want people? We’ve got past episodes we’ll link to that you’ve been on. But where, if people want to get in touch with you, kind of track with what you’re up to these days, where’s that? And then the same with you, Danny. Where do we want to, what do we want to let let people know about on on each of your sides? Start with you, Rachel.
Rachel Long — You can go to joshuacenter.org, very simple, joshuacenter.org. And if you want to email me rachel at joshuacenter.org, you’ll find everything we’re doing there and what the organization is about, upcoming events, information, everything’s there.
Rich Birch — Love it. What about you, Danny?
Danny Anderson — Yeah, you guys can check check things out on Instagram @dannyanderson23. I also have a podcast, Church Growth Unleashed. Rich, you’ve been ah an honored guest on that podcast. And also just wanted to let people know that we’re doing a leadership conference, Church Growth Leadership Conference in September. And Rich, you’re gonna be there.
Rich Birch — Love it. Looking forward to it.
Danny Anderson — It’s very, very exciting. You’ll be one of our breakout speakers. So if people are interested in that, they can find that at Church Growth Unleashed. I think there’s a new website that just came out for that. So yeah, it’s pretty exciting.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. That’s churchgrowthunleashed.org. You should check that out. It really will be a great, it’s gonna be a great conference. The lineup’s amazing. Except for me, somehow I squeaked in. So I’m excited to be there. That’ll be fun and to be there for sure.
Rich Birch — So thanks so much, friends. I appreciate you being here. Thanks for what you’re doing and just want to honor you for the good things that have happened in this transition. Take care, friends.
Danny Anderson — Thank you, Rich.
Rachel Long — Thank you.
Thanks for joining us at the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Eric Smith, founder and lead pastor of Hope City Church in Florida and co-creator of SermonDone.
Are you a pastor who’s feeling the pressure of sermon prep each week? Wondering how you can save time on research and content creation without compromising the quality of your messages? Tune in as Eric shares how his experience as a church planter and pastor led him to create a tool that helps pastors streamline the sermon preparation process, saving valuable time while ensuring biblical accuracy.
- *Leveraging AI for sermon preparation*. // Eric created SermonDone to help pastors simplify the sermon writing process. Recognizing that 83% of people choose a church based on the teaching, he developed a “sermon assistant” that provides biblically sound, personalized content to save pastors time on research without compromising theological accuracy.
- Built to match your own style. // With SermonDone, pastors build a personal profile by uploading 15 of their best sermons. This allows the platform to learn each pastor’s teaching voice, theological background, preferred Bible translation, and style. Then the ideas and outlines generated by SermonDone feel authentic rather than generic.
- Accelerate the research process. // SermonDone wasn’t created to write sermons for pastors but rather to accelerate research and brainstorming. It saves time on the heavy lifting of initial idea gathering and structure, allowing pastors to invest more energy into refining and internalizing their messages.
- Series planning made easy. // The Planning Tab within SermonDone allows pastors to quickly outline sermon series, whether a six-week topical series or a 20-week walk through a book of the Bible. If the initial suggestions don’t fit, pastors can easily generate more options until they find the right fit for their context.
- Designed with pastors in mind. // Unlike general AI tools like ChatGPT, SermonDone has theological guardrails and a pastor-centric design. It prioritizes scriptural integrity and helps pastors create small group questions, discipleship resources, and sermon slides—all from a single sermon upload.
- Focused on better sermon delivery. // Eric’s vision for SermonDone is not just faster sermon preparation but deeper sermon impact. By saving time on early stages of writing, pastors can spend more time letting the message take root in their hearts, leading to more dynamic, engaging preaching.
Access SermonDone at www.sermondone.com and use it for free for five days, or use the code *Rich20* to get 20% off the price. Learn more about Hope City Church at www.hopecityflorida.com.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Risepointe
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Super excited for today’s conversation. We have got a repeat guest and you know what that means. We don’t, we rarely have repeat guests. We’re 800 some odd episodes in and it’s only been a handful of people that we’ve had on more than one time. And so you know what that means. You’ve got to lean in today because we’ve got somebody that we want you to hear from.
Rich Birch — We have got Eric Smith with us. He’s a part of an organization called SermonDone that I want to ah introduce you to today, if you’re unaware of them, but he’s also a practitioner. He is leading a church in Florida. He’s the founder and lead pastor of a church called Hope City Church, HopeCityFlorida.com. And he was ah previously a part of a church called Vaughn Forest City. Sorry, Vaughn Forest Church. Excited to have you on the show today, Eric. Welcome.
Eric Smith — Thanks so much for having me back. It’s an honor to be with you and excited for our conversation today.
Rich Birch — Yeah, this is going to be a good conversation. Why don’t you kind of fill in the picture? Tell us a little bit of the Eric Smith story. Tell us little bit about what you’re up to now. What what’s been on what’s been going on in your world since we last connected a few years ago?
Eric Smith — Yeah. So, uh, since we last connected, ah my family and I moved to Southwest Florida, planted a church down here called Hope City. And we launched three and a half years ago. It’s been a wild ride. It’s been amazing.
Eric Smith — And yeah, God’s just been doing incredible stuff, seen a lot of incredible growth numerically, spiritually. It’s been a lot of fun. I’m also in the business world with my wife, in the medical business ah that we have. And then ah about a year ago, started learning more and more about AI and just kind of had this conviction of how can we as the church leverage this tool to serve churches and to serve pastors. And so that’s what led me down this journey of SermonDone.
Rich Birch — Love it. Why tell us a little bit about Hope City? Kind of unpack that story a little bit. It’s been pretty amazing what God’s been up to. You’re a humble guy. So I know you you know you don’t want to brag about it. It’s obviously a whole team of people. God’s at at work there. But tell us a little bit of what’s gone on the last three years, three and a half years.
Eric Smith — Yeah, so we moved here December 19th of 2020. We knew a handful of people…
Rich Birch — Great time to move. Great time to move.
Eric Smith — Great time to move right in the middle of COVID. Yeah, I know. I had a lot of friends that were like, are you stupid, man? What’s wrong with you? You’ve lost your mind. Why are you moving to plant a church?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Eric Smith — And I was like, I don’t know, man. I’m just you know I’ve already planted once in Jackson, Mississippi, the Metro Jackson in ’09. And God did incredible things there with a church called Vertical Church that’s still going and doing great things.
Eric Smith — But anyway, so we, yeah, we moved here and we started ah medical practice that we have. And we started building our launch team. We launched the church 10 months after we moved. We went from 15 people to about 160 on our launch team.
Rich Birch — Amazing.
Eric Smith — Launched the church with over 400 October of ’21. And yeah, it’s just kept growing. Right now we’re seeing over 1,500 people in attendance…
Rich Birch — That’s incredible.
Eric Smith — …each weekend and we’ve launched a second campus back in October of late October of 24. It’s doing really, really well. But we’ve got we’ve got an incredible team. I’m blessed to have guys who’ve worked with me in the past who are part of my team again here.
Rich Birch — So good.
Eric Smith — And so just a lot of comfort familiarity and understanding of what we’re doing. And so, yeah, it’s been a blast. God’s doing some incredible stuff. We’re in a big capital campaign. We’re building a future facility for our Bonita campus, which is the original location. And so it’s just full speed blazing ahead. So we’re having fun.
Rich Birch — Love it. Good. Well, excited to to watch that journey. It’s fun to watch for sure. So want to talk about SermonDone and AI. One of my convictions is there are two kinds of church leaders out there when it comes to AI. There’s those that are attempting to leverage it and figure out how can we use this tool to advance the gospel, to ah you know to lift those things that we do that you know maybe we can get a computer to help us with that. And then there’s those that are being left behind.
Rich Birch — And I want to convince friends that you’re listening in. I want you to take steps towards um learning more about SermonDone, leaning in. But let’s talk about kind of the genesis of this. Where did SermonDone come from? Why you know why why are you investing time, effort, and energy into this? What’s the problem that you’re attempting to solve with SermonDone?
Eric Smith — Yeah. So just a tiny little bit of a backstory. Pretty much my whole ministry career, and I’ve been doing this over 20 years, uh, has, I’ve just had a burning desire to help other churches and pastors. So I’ve, I started a church planting network in Mississippi called 242 that’s still going, helping plant churches. I’m part of Strategic Launch Network here, ah in the US now, and I get to volunteer and help with them. I’ve consulted, done all different types of stuff.
Eric Smith — And so um it was about a year ago as the conversation of AI was continuing to grow and accelerate. I was like, man, I love this tool. And I’ve always been kind of a forward thinking, open to using tools to be better in technology. And so it’s never been something I’ve been scared of. And so I was like, how do we utilize this to really serve pastors? And we all know that the top thing that pastors wrestle with is is delivering the sermon each week.
Eric Smith — 83%, according to studies, 83% of people come to the church based on the sermon. It’s it’s a big deal. And so how can we serve these churches? And so I began to research what’s out there what’s going on?
Rich Birch — Right.
Eric Smith — And I’m not being critical of anything else at that time that was out there. I just couldn’t find anything that I felt like this really works for pastors which led me on a journey to connect with John Michael, who’s my business partner in this whole project. And we came together. He’s kind of the marketing/tech side. I’m the pastoral, and he’s been a pastor as well.
Eric Smith — But after writing hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of sermons, I was like, how do we create something that really comes alongside of a pastor and is the sermon assistant that they’ve always wished they had…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Eric Smith — …that could accelerate and generate content that’s biblically sound, that lines up with their theology, ah that lines up with their unique voice? How do we create something that’s like that? And so that began the journey of developing SermonDone. Our team of developers started working together, and that’s how we developed where we are today.
Rich Birch — Love it. You know, one of the things, so I, you know, most of my career has been in the executive pastor seat, that kind of secondary seat, supporting some incredible communicators. And, you you know, one of the things I’ve seen over time, and you mentioned it, you know, 83% of the reason why people attend a church is because of the teaching.
Rich Birch — And, um I remember, I don’t know, 15 years ago when that really, that light bulb went off inside of me. I’ve been working in church for a long time. I realized, man, we’ve got to organize as an executive pastor, I’ve got to help organize the life of the the rest of the stuff in a senior pastor’s world, a lead pastor’s world, to make it so that they can produce great messages, so that they can do a great job at that piece. It’s critically important.
Rich Birch — And I when I heard about SermonDone, I was excited to learn more about it because I do think that, man, this is a tool. Love that idea of a sermon assistant you’ve always wanted. Tell us more about that. What how are you kind of living out that that dream with this tool?
Eric Smith — Yeah, so we, one of my primary visions and passions in developing this was how do we create something that’s going to be really easy to use, because most pastors are new to new to AI, so that they can easily use that’s very easy to understand and learn, that also would line up with their voice and their unique writing style and come alongside them and give content to accelerate the research side of things. And so when we developed this, we wanted to make sure that there was almost like these guardrails or a fence, a protection ah that the pastor would have ah a confidence and a trust in what it was delivering and the content it was giving them.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Eric Smith — And so we really worked hard on that. And yeah, so it’s it’s got several different elements within the platform. You know, you can sign up for free and use it for five days and use it as much as you want for those five days and play with it. And you’re going to see…
Rich Birch — This weekend’s sermon. You could do this weekend’s sermon. That’s great.
Eric Smith — Yeah, well, and you know, it it has a lot that it offers.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Eric Smith — But I always tell pastors, use each element that it has or each section that it has based on your convictions, right? Everybody’s got different convictions about technology. And what we’re seeing, though, even since we launched SermonDone, is a lot more pastors are now warming up. Because what happened when AI first came out, everybody was like, oh, no, I don’t want the robot to write my sermon. I don’t want the robot to help me. I don’t It’s all going to be, how’s it going to be accurate and sound and all these type things?
Eric Smith — I think some of those fears are starting to come down. And really creating SermonDone was to help pastors have something they could use and have confidence in it rather than just any type of chat that would be available online. This one actually has theological guardrails.
Eric Smith — You build your own personal pastor profile, with your teaching style. You have the ability to upload up to 15 of your own sermons that you’ve written so that it knows your voice. And so when it’s giving you stuff, it’s understanding who you are, your theological heritage, your preaching style, the Bible translation that you prefer to use when you preach. All those type things to really come alongside you and help you and building out, outlines, planning sermon series, doing research.
Eric Smith — I’ll tell you one of the things that’s been so cool to me because sometimes you hear AI and people are like, oh, it’s going to make us all dumb. It’s just going to do all the work for us. Actually, it’s the reverse. I don’t know if you’re experiencing this, Rich, in many ways, but with me, with SermonDone, and I use it constantly, obviously, was the research side of things, it’s connecting dots in scripture that I never saw.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes. Yeah.
Eric Smith — And I’m not trying to brag, but I’ve got an undergrad degree in biblical studies, two masters, and I have a doctorate.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Eric Smith — Now my doctorate is a DMin. I’m not a PhD. I’m a practitioner.
Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, yeah.
Eric Smith — But I mean, it’s just connecting dots. And I’m like, oh my goodness, I never saw this. This is amazing. And it’s just bringing things together for me. And I’m learning more than I’ve ever learned before.
Rich Birch — Love it. I want to underline one of the things you said there. One of the things I’ve noticed as I’ve done research and worked with very large, fast-growing churches is we often, we get this perception that the teaching, it’s like some lone person, they go into a room and pull all that together and do it themselves and then get up there.
Rich Birch — Now, that’s actually just not true. Teaching is a team sport in in lots of churches across the country where it’s a group of people behind the scenes. I’m literally talking about researchers, writers, comedians, people who are helping these communicators do what they do. And the part of what I love what you’ve done here is you’ve said, Hey, we want to give that to everybody.
Eric Smith — Yes.
Rich Birch — Like, how do we hand that off to, because if I’m a church of, you know, 200, 500, 2000, I can’t afford to have a bunch of people working on my message, but I can’t afford SermonDone.
Rich Birch — Let’s talk about the pastor profile. Cause this is one of the things when you told me about it, ah that really got me intrigued. You kind of blew up through a bunch there. Talk about the sermon style, the theological kind of tradition background settings. How does all that work?
Eric Smith — Yeah. So just to be you know clear, SermonDone in general has a fence around it.
Rich Birch — Yes. Okay, good.
Eric Smith — And then and then what what brings it in even tighter for you that personalizes it is your profile. And so everything from uploading the 15 sermons, I think that’s maybe the most important element. I have 15 of my sermons and pick your favorite 15 that you’ve written. Oh, this is how I like things. Put those in there. Pick your theological heritage, because there are some nuances that in the sermon builder that it will pick up on on that. And then also what translation you use, right?
Eric Smith — I don’t want it to be giving me ideas and then I’ve got to go in and change…
Rich Birch — Right.
Eric Smith — …the, you it’s like only giving me NIV and I use New American or whatever translation you use. And so that’s, that’s a big part of it. And then your preaching style, right?
Eric Smith — So it’s going to help It’s really, it’s we never created this to like write sermons for you.
Rich Birch — Right.
Eric Smith — It was created to be a partner and to assist you. And I loved what you said. Some of the greats that we’ve all looked up to, whether there be Charles Spurgeon, ah John Wesley, all these guys had assistants.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Eric Smith — Like they had people that served them. And so this is now available to all of us. And so the technology, it’s a beautiful thing.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Eric Smith — But yeah, so it takes all that information, along with already the fence we’ve built, and it curates that content uniquely to you. So it’s just an idea machine. It’s it’s giving you incredible ideas. I’ve had pastors that are using it and we’ve been trusted by hundreds of pastors now, which is pretty cool to see, even though we’re very early. And yeah, it’s it’s it’s amazing what some of the pastors have told me. Some of them that are like, man, I just, I get stuck on not knowing what to call the points that I have that go back to my main idea. And and they can put that in there and it’s it’s speaking in their language and their voice and it’s giving them those ideas.
Eric Smith — And I know that, yeah, there’s an investment financially. It’s $99 a month. You can get it cheaper if you do a year, but you’re thinking 20 bucks a week. How much is your sermon worth?
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Eric Smith — If it’s the key factor that grows your church…
Rich Birch — Right.
Eric Smith — …we I spend more than that every week on coffee creamer in our church.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes, yes.
Eric Smith — And I mean, I listen, I love the coffee. We have really good coffee at our church, like really good coffee.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Right, right.
Eric Smith — But the sermon is a little more important.
Rich Birch — 100%.
Eric Smith — And I can make that investment, even if it just gives me a little bit extra, even if it just helps me a little bit more with my my research. The research is amazing in there as well.
Rich Birch — Yeah, the way I think about it when I’ve been in there and messed around with it, I think about it like, you know, it’s a well-educated seminary student who’s doing my initial work. It’s like, hey, I’m going to do a message on this. And can you gather up a bunch of ideas for me? Which which I don’t know that that’s got to save hours, an hour, two hours. It’s the initial kind of, I find the highest value of it is the initial kind of heavy lift part of this, which isn’t, isn’t actually sermon writing. That’s like the, that’s the initial part. It’s like the gathering together, but then I got to get before the Lord wrestle with him.
Eric Smith — Sure.
Rich Birch — Hey, what is it that you want to, what is it that I should be saying? How do I um you know, how do I, whats what’s the kind of unique thing that I want to say? What is he wanting me to say to my people this weekend? But like, all let’s pull together all those initial ideas. Let’s get AI to do that initial work so that I can actually have more time and more energy to focus on the part that actually has got more, I would say, it’s more important to the overall kind of delivery ah you know of the message itself.
Rich Birch — I love, I don’t want to go over. You talked about this, but I want to underline it for us. I love this idea of uploading your sermons. I, I think that’s super unique because it’s not just generic ideas. It’s like, here are some messages that when I think about what are kind of my core messages, I upload those and then your engine will will kind of take that into consideration as it’s producing.
Rich Birch — Can you give me a sense of how that’s modifying? Not the backend, the technology side of it, but what’s it doing to kind of modify or you know influence messages going forward? What’s that look like?
Eric Smith — Yeah, so if it’s giving you ideas of, like, say say you’ve got your sermon, and you’re looking for, like, a big idea.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Eric Smith — Or you know some people call it a big truth or or big idea…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Eric Smith — …whatever your your main statement, ah just as this one simple example, right? It’s going to give you ideas that are in your, the way you would talk…
Rich Birch — Right.
Eric Smith — …not just generically…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Eric Smith — …where it’s like, that doesn’t sound anything like me.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Eric Smith — Because it’s got 15 of your sermons where it’s already studied you and understands uniquely how you communicate your unique voice, um your style, how you write. And so, yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s super helpful in that way, how it can help develop that content for you that’s unique and that fits your unique voice.
Rich Birch — Love it. There’s a ton we could talk about here. I want to jump to the planning the planning area. To me, as somebody who’s you know involved in worship planning, but not necessarily speaking, you know, I’m in the room when we’re talking about, hey, we need a six-week series on, we’re thinking about three weeks on that. I’m in that conversation pretty consistently. Talk to us about the planning tab. What how does that work? what give Give us some examples of what that looks like.
Eric Smith — Yeah, so you just go into that tab and you put in, I want to a five-week sermon series on fear or whatever your topic is, and it’s going to give that to you. Or you could say, want to do a 20-week series through the book of Acts, and it’s going to give that to you. And if you don’t like what it gives you, just ask it to give you another option.
Rich Birch — Give some other options. Yep.
Eric Smith — And it’s just going to keep giving it to you until you get what you want.
Eric Smith — But yeah, that’s that’s a really powerful tool. I’ll give you ah a real practical story.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Eric Smith — Last last year, during the summer, I try to back off my preaching schedule a little bit like most leads pastors do. And so me and our campus pastor for our Alico campus, we were working and we spent like a day and a half, two days going through the Psalms. And we were like, we don’t want any Psalm to have the same theme. And and and and every different pastors are going to preach different things. And so literally we spent like two days just working on that.
Eric Smith — And it was like, it was meaningless. I mean, I hate to say it that way, but it was, it was work it really didn’t, I mean, it just was organizational work.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Eric Smith — After I created SermonDone, it hit me one day and I put the same thing in and I was like, I did that in two minutes and it took me two days.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah. Oh gosh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Eric Smith — So that’s, that’s, that’s the kind of stuff where it’s like, man, that just saved me an insane amount of time.
Eric Smith — And just just to be clear, the vision behind why I wanted to create this was I wanted to help pastors save time on the research and create an idea machine that would accelerate the writing process. Because I’m convinced that most pastors spend the vast majority of their time writing their sermon. They run out of time to work on the prep of delivering the sermon. And the result is sermons that are not that engaging.
Rich Birch — Yep. Yep.
Eric Smith — What if we could create a different reality? What if we could cut the sermon prep in half and then they could take that time and really focus on the delivery? There’s a there’s a option there’s a section in our website on SermonDone where I’ve created a masterclass on delivering sermon content. It’s completely free. It’s just part of the platform. And so that was the reason I created that masterclass.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Eric Smith — I created that masterclass because the heart behind this is not to just write people’s sermons. I don’t want a robot writing my sermon. I want as much assistance as I can get to write better sermons faster so that I can allow that sermon to take root in my soul.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Eric Smith — Because what makes a great sermon is not what’s on the paper. It’s what’s in the pastor’s heart.
Rich Birch — Oh, amen. Amen.
Eric Smith — And when it gets into your soul, you’ve heard the analogy. We don’t want to microwave our sermons. We want them in a smoker or a crock pot.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, it’s true. Yep.
Eric Smith — You know, we we those sermons that get in the crockpot, that get in the smoker, man, when those are delivered, they’re fire. I’m convinced that most pastors are not engaging in their preaching, not because of what’s written on the paper.
Eric Smith — If you took… Pastor A and Pastor B, and one of the sermons was super engaging and amazing, and Pastor, the other one was not. You could look at their notes and go, wow, those are pretty much the same. Like they had the same points for the most part, scripture, all that. What is it that sets them apart? It’s the pastor who’s willing to spend the time in prayer and preparation…
Rich Birch — Amen, amen.
Eric Smith — …not just what’s written, but for what’s written to get into their soul, to get into their heart. And so if we can accelerate that, that’s the vision behind SermonDone, right? Let’s accelerate that.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Eric Smith — And help a guy curate that information, help the the person curate that information faster so that they can really spend the time that they’re not getting now in the actual study of the sermon, getting it into their hearts so that when they deliver it, it is dynamic, it’s authentic as it should be. And it’s, it’s truly connecting with the hearer.
Rich Birch — Amen. That’s so good. I love that. One of my, um I worked for Tim Lucas at Liquid Church, fantastic leader. I, you know, I put him up against, he’s like top five in the country in my mind. This guy’s a monster communicator. He is so good. And had the privilege of years of, you know, journeying pretty close with him on the sermon side of things. And I know still to this day, um I really am convinced a part of why he is such a good communicator is exactly what you’re talking about. They he does um out loud practicing of the message. Still, he’s you know almost 30 years in on this, you know church of 5,000 people, master communicator and he still stands in front of virtually empty room and is like I’m going to redo this and then gets feedback on that.
Rich Birch — Man, if we could get people to to let’s get the boring, and again this this is my words not Eric’s words, don’t don’t send him emails, don’t send hate emails to him, send them me. If we can get the boring heavy lift part of it, the research part of it, the early steps…
Eric Smith — Yeah.
Rich Birch — If we can pull that off and give pastors more time on the the part that I agree is the part that actually connects with our people, man, we’re going to drive up engagement in in in churches all across the country, which is just incredible. I think that’s that’s amazing.
Eric Smith — Well, and and I don’t want to sound like a heretic, but somebody may say that I am. I don’t know. But I’ve studied the Bible and I haven’t found a scripture yet that actually tells me to write a sermon.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Eric Smith — I’ve actually found a lot that say to preach the word.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Eric Smith — And so now I’m not saying don’t write your sermon. I write sermons.
Rich Birch — Yep. Yes.
Eric Smith — I’ve written hundreds of them. I’m just saying, if you really want to get technical about it, our calling is to preach God’s word…
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Eric Smith — …to preach the Bible in an engaging and dynamic way that in the art, the art. And I have what you just said about preaching out loud. I have all that in the in the free masterclass.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Eric Smith — And I talk about the art of preaching. The art of preaching is really, man delivering the message contextually where you are to connect with the people that you’re talking to in a way that makes sense.
Rich Birch — It’s so good.
Eric Smith — And a lot of guys, I’m not being mean, but they’re just not making sense.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Eric Smith — And I really believe it’s because they’re spending all this time writing and they’re getting bogged down in the writing and they’ve written it and they think, oh, I know it. And then they step on stage and they really don’t know it.
Eric Smith — And what Tim has done, I’ve done as well. I mean, I’ve preached my, I used to preach my sermon to my dog when I didn’t have anybody but me. And we started the church in Mississippi.
Rich Birch — Yep. Yep.
Eric Smith — My dog heard every sermon.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Eric Smith — That dog was, that that that dog was a strong Christian, man.
Rich Birch — Sanctified, that’s a sanctified dog
Eric Smith — That’s a sanctified dog. He got saved and born again so many times, man. It was wild.
Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely.
Rich Birch — Absolutely. Love it. Yeah. Well, Mark, Mark Clark, we had Mark Clark from ah Bayside on early in this year.
Eric Smith — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And I I dove in with him around teaching and same thing. I was like, hey well, let’s let’s pull the lid off. Tell me about your actual process. And he talked about the same thing. He’s like, listen, Saturday morning, I’m out in a shed in my backyard and I’m, and I am preaching. And again, giant church, hugely influential communicator working on the delivery part of it. Man, if we could get more churches working on that.
Rich Birch — Now, I I would be remiss if I don’t ask. I know there’s people that are listening in and they’re thinking, like, wait a second. Why don’t I just use ChatGPT for this? Why don’t I why don’t I just use Llama or you know some other AI model that’s out there? Um, why why invest with you guys? Why spend the money to do that? Uh, playing a bit of a devil’s advocate, help us understand that.
Eric Smith — Sure. Yeah, no, that’s that’s a great question. I use Chat for a lot of things um that are, you know, outside of my my Bible, biblical research, sermon research stuff. But one of the things that’s unique about Sermon Done is it’s built with those biblical guardrails. And so it’s going to deliver content to you that you can be confident in.
Eric Smith — Where Chat, you know, it’s it’s it’s kind of more open, where this is going to prioritize the answers to be scripture driven. It’s designed to reflect that that biblically grounded response, the scripture rooted responses. It’s also understands that you’re a pastor because of your profile, it knows your voice, all those unique things.
Eric Smith — And so it’s delivering that content uniquely to you. And so I think those are the big things. And then the other thing too is we’ve spent, I don’t know, I can’t even tell you how many hours…
Rich Birch — Right.
Eric Smith — …building out these prompts on the backend that you can’t see as the user…
Rich Birch — Yep. Yep.
Eric Smith — …that are helping, you know, even on the research, when you go in there, all the different prompts that are prebuilt to help you. And so it’s a great, great tool, especially for those who are just getting into AI for sermon writing. And so those are some of the other, some of the things, obviously.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love it.
Eric Smith — You know, that’s that’s the big thing, right? Is the theological framework, your sermons, all those type things compared to using ah any other source.
Eric Smith — And you know every pastor that would watch this, and I know there’s a lot of XP, so make sure to share with your pastor on this one, if he whoever preaches at your at your place. But I would say that we all, most pastors have a budget for research and books.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Eric Smith — This is only $100 a month.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Eric Smith — And actually, I think people can use RICH20 and get 20% off.
Rich Birch — Yep. Yeah, that’s great.
Eric Smith — And so, yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s a small investment. Give it a shot. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to use it, at least download and use it for five days for free…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Eric Smith — …and go watch the sermon masterclass that’s on there for free. And then you can, you know, you can cancel your membership if you don’t like it. But at least do that because I’m telling you truly my heart and desires to just help pastors to be more successful, to build the kingdom, to reach more people.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Eric Smith — And I believe the greatest way we reach more people is by writing sermons that connect and preaching sermons that connect. At least that’s what the stats tell me.
Rich Birch — Yeah, so good. Listen, friends, I want a hearty endorsement. I really do want you to try sermondone.com. Drop by there. Like you say, try the five, five day trial, use that code rich done. You’ll, get you’ll save some there. The amount of money we’re talking about is small in comparison to the value of the importance of the teaching. Even if you try it for a couple months, I’ll push back on Eric a little bit and say, I would try it for a couple months.
Rich Birch — Like, you know, there are going to be, there are going to be a time, use it week in, week out, and you’re going to, you’re going to hit on a week where you’re like, man, things are extra busy this week. There’s a crazy thing going on. The fact that I was able to jumpstart into my process, still do all the stuff I need to do to make it deliver. Man, you’ll see you’ll see huge value you know throughout your time with it.
Rich Birch — So again, just drop by SermonDone. I would strongly encourage you to do this. There’s a bunch of stuff in here we haven’t talked about. There is kind of post-sermon resources, discipleship resources. You can upload upload your sermon and it’ll generate for you. Talk us through what does what is that part of it as well.
Eric Smith — Yeah. So it does small group curriculum, does small group questions. You can upload your sermon and it’ll extract and create a TXT file that you send to your production director for your sermon slides.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Eric Smith — It really has a lot.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Eric Smith — And we’ve got some other amazing features. I don’t know when this ah podcast is going to air…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Eric Smith — …but we’ve got one that being developed right now when you upload your sermon, it’s going to help curate develop a children’s curriculum that goes along with the sermon.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Eric Smith — Now, in your Sermon Builder, you can actually write youth sermons. You can pick your audience when you get into the Sermon Builder. But this is going to be a little different where you upload the completed sermon and it creates that content. So we’ve got pre-sermon research. We’ve got outline ideas. We’ve got sermon planning, series planning. We’ve got the discipleship side of things. There’s so many different features that are in there. It’s really… a one-stop shop for all sermon content development. And we’re continuing to improve and make it better every day.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s two things to to underline there that I want people to hear. This is just at the front end. You guys are working on new stuff that’s going to make this even better down the road. At some point, I’ve told them, I think 100 bucks is too cheap. I think they should charge more, but that’s just me.
Rich Birch — And you eventually they’re going to say, hey, we’ve added all this other stuff on. I would get in now. Now’s a good time to jump on board – SermonDone. And the other thing, i I had sent this tool to a number of teaching pastor friends of mine. I said, hey, can you mess around with this? And one guy came back and said, Dude, the resource, the discipleship resource tab alone is worth $100. Like ah coming up with those questions at once the thing is done is painful. So, you know, ah just doing that alone um is is worth the, you know, the price of admission.
Rich Birch — So ah friends, I would, ah you really should pick this up and, and you know, get this ball rolling again, sermondone.com. Just as we as we come to land, I’m sure we’ll have you on in the future, there’s going to be new stuff that’s going to come out. I want to make sure people try this. Anything else you want to say eric just as we wrap up today’s episode?
Eric Smith — Yeah, just thanks so much for taking the time to hear about what’s going on. And, you know, I’m just I’m thankful to have the time together and excited to see how the Lord’s going to use this to serve pastors, to help you get better to develop content faster. And I was joking about just cancel. I agree with Rich. Give it given a couple months.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Eric Smith — Give it a couple months. And once this becomes part of your process, and I just want to say one last thing. When we created SermonDone, a lot of the sermon writing assistant type things that are out there, they want you to change your process and fit into their box.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Eric Smith — One of the things I did not want, I’ve been preaching for over 20 years, and a lot of the listeners on here have been preaching for many years. They’ve got a system. And once a pastor finds a routine and a system, they like it.
Rich Birch — Oh, 100%. Yes.
Eric Smith — Right? This is a tool to improve and speed up your process, not change your process.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Eric Smith — I think that’s a… when I, when I built the way it works and I saw it in my mind, I wanted it to fit. And this is created by pastors for you as a pastor to preach and to create content.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Eric Smith — And even for XPs that preach, you know, just a few times a year, it would be well worth your investment.
Rich Birch — Absolutely. For sure.
Eric Smith — And you can get even a bigger discount with the annual membership. So.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Great. This has been so good. So we’ll send people to sermondone.com. If people want to track with you, ah Eric, or at the churches, where do we want to send them on online if they’re interested in kind of tracking along with you?
Eric Smith — Man, I have to confess, I’m pretty terrible when it comes to building a brand. I’m like…
Rich Birch — All good. All good.
Eric Smith — …just Hope City, hopecityflorida. Florida is spelled out dot com.
Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s great.
Eric Smith — And then, you know, my name is so generic. You can find me on Facebook, though. I think I need to open some other social media accounts, but I’m I’m not good at that. So maybe I’ll have my team focus on that.
Rich Birch — It’s all good. Yeah, that’s great.
Eric Smith — Thanks so much, though.
Rich Birch — This has been great. Thanks for being here today, friends. Again, heartily endorse SermonDone. I really would encourage you to to try to check it out. It really is a great way to get the the kickstart to your sermon process. Thanks so much for being here, Eric. Appreciate you being here today.
Eric Smith — Thanks.
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re joined today by Aaron Stanski, founder and CEO of Risepointe, a church design and project management firm that helps growing ministries align their physical spaces with their mission. With a background in engineering and church leadership, Aaron brings unique insights into how churches can strategically plan for future growth through facility design and proactive planning.
Are you leading a growing church and starting to feel the squeeze? Wondering what to prioritize when your parking lot’s full, your kids’ spaces are stretched, and your worship center is near capacity? Tune in as Aaron shares a practical framework for addressing facility constraints, avoiding project panic, and preparing now for sustainable growth in the future.
- Not all churches are in decline. // Despite negative prevailing narratives, Aaron affirms what many leaders are seeing: healthy churches are growing—rurally, urbanly, and everything in between. These ministries are investing in evangelism, discipleship, and their communities. With that momentum, however, comes the inevitable question: are your physical spaces ready to support your growth?
- The constraints framework. // To help churches think clearly about facilities, Aaron introduces the “constraints framework.” Ask: If your church attendance doubled in the next year, what would break first? By identifying constraints early, leaders can focus resources strategically—before growth stalls.
- Predict the pinch points. // Common facility constraints include parking shortages, overcrowded kids’ environments, and limited worship center seating. But other “second-tier” constraints—like insufficient special needs space or lack of adult discipleship areas—can also hinder growth in less obvious ways. Proactively identifying and solving these limitations is key to unlocking your next wave of impact.
- Don’t skip the site plan. // Church expansion is often slowed by regulatory issues related to zoning, parking ratios, or city permits. Many churches underestimate the time involved in updating or expanding a site plan. Aaron recommends master planning early so leaders have options when space gets tight.
- Plan, don’t react. // Too many facility projects begin in panic—after leaders realize they’ve hit a wall. Instead, Aaron encourages a posture of proactive planning. A key part of that is Risepointe’s Needs Analysis—a one-day, on-site process that results in a strategic plan outlining opportunities, costs, and next steps to prepare for the future.
- Stewarding the opportunity. // While building costs and material prices fluctuate, Aaron warns against letting fear hold churches back. Instead of being reactive to market pressures, leaders should focus on what they can control—clarity of vision, alignment of resources, and readiness to act when God opens doors.
- Facilities as a gospel stage. // Aaron shares the inspiring story of Downtown Cornerstone Church in Seattle, a congregation that endured significant delays, regulations, and even seismic retrofitting—but ultimately moved into a new building that now serves as a powerful platform for mission in the city. Facilities, Aaron reminds us, are not the mission—but they enable the mission.
To learn more about Risepointe’s Needs Analysis, visit risepointe.com. Download the free resource, 10 Things to Get Right Before You Build, here.
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Portable Church
Your church is doing really well right now, and your leadership team is looking for solutions to keep momentum going! It could be time to start a new location. Maybe you have hesitated in the past few years, but you know it’s time to step out in faith again and launch that next location. Portable Church has assembled a bundle of resources to help you leverage your growing momentum into a new location by sending a part of your congregation back to their neighborhood on Mission. This bundle of resources will give you a step-by-step plan to launch that new or next location, and a 5 minute readiness tool that will help you know your church is ready to do it!
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. I am really looking forward to today’s conversation. Got both an expert and a friend on the podcast, a return guest, which means we got high value here. We’ve got Aaron Stanski with us. He is the founder and CEO of Risepointe. They’ve got 15 plus years of church design, leadership, project management experience. They provide creative design solutions that really remove lids ah that prevent growth in ministries. They work with churches and schools and nonprofits on architecture, interior design, graphic design, branding, so much more. They are incredible leaders. And Aaron is the guy at the tip of the spear. Welcome to the show, Aaron. So glad. Welcome back.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah. Thanks, Rich. Good to be here.
Rich Birch — Always good to always good to see you. And yeah, maybe for folks that don’t know, give us the Aaron Stanski story.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Compress that down, and then we’ll jump into today’s I got a burning question for you today, Aaron.
Aaron Stanski — Sweet. Yeah. Well, I mean, I grew up in ministry, Rich. My dad was a pastor. We actually planted a church out in Boston when I was a kid. So I like to think I have some church planter blood in me there.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Aaron Stanski — Went to school for engineering, did that for a while with Harley Davidson motorcycles before ending up leaving that and ah joining staff with Cru and then with my church. So I was on staff at my church for a while.
Aaron Stanski — We went through a big building project. And since I had engineering experience, I sort of got tapped to help out there. So I had to hire, interview architects and engineers and AV consultants and all that stuff. And so I loved it. I actually got to take the engineering mind that God had created me with and sort of the ministry heart and bring those two things together.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Aaron Stanski — And now that’s what I get to do. I get to help churches and Christian schools all over the country figure out how to align their facilities with their mission and vision and go through big projects. So it’s super fun.
Rich Birch — Love it. I love I love to have Aaron on when we’re thinking about, you know, really anything to do with facility stuff. He is, if you were to email me and say, Hey, I’m thinking about facility stuff. Who should I talk to? I would say, talk to Aaron cause he’s a great, he’s super generous. Thing I love about him is he actually does love the local church. There are folks in this space who are like, they’re just trying to sell you something, or at least that’s the impression I get. I don’t know if that’s true. I can’t read a person’s heart, but I get that impression from other folks. That’s definitely not Aaron. He really loves churches. And I was thinking about this question recent, Aaron…
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …and I thought, man, I want to get him on the show to talk about it. So, you know, I my mission is to help a hundred churches grow by a thousand people. I interact with growing churches…
Aaron Stanski — Sure.
Rich Birch — …all across the country and which is fantastic. And just recently I had a mutual friend say, you know, there’s this, this neg this negative narrative about the local church that it’s like, oh, all churches are in decline. They’re all not going anywhere. Things are terrible. But that’s just not true.
Aaron Stanski — No.
Rich Birch — There are hundreds, thousands of churches that are making a difference all across the size spectrum of all different sizes.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — You know, 200, 2000, 20,000 that are growing. And I’d love to kind of talk about it from that perspective today.
Aaron Stanski — Sure.
Rich Birch — Hey, let’s assume that our churches are growing, and I come to you and I’m like, hey, we’re growing. What should I be thinking about? What are some kind of questions we should be wrestling with?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah. And I mean, I get that same thing too, Rich. I mean, I had ah an interview with a potential employee last week, and he was like, you guys just work with churches and Christian schools. He’s like, is there going to be work like next year? Are churches doing well?
Rich Birch — Yes. Aren’t they all closing? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Aaron Stanski — And I was like I was like, well, first off, we’re working with amazing churches that are like rolling up their sleeves, that are getting after it when it comes to evangelism and discipleship and serving their local community. And I was telling this guy, I was like, man, I don’t put a whole lot of stock in like political solutions for some of the problems that we’re facing.
Rich Birch — Right. It’s so true.
Aaron Stanski — But man, when I see the local church just rocking it and engaging their community…
Rich Birch — So true.
Aaron Stanski — …wrestling with tough questions, serving the poor, preaching the gospel. I mean, those churches, they’re growing.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Aaron Stanski — And we see those all over the country um in really difficult, ah you know, downtown urban environments, all the way out to rural ah people driving 45 minutes to an hour to experience what God’s doing. So it’s really exciting.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good. It’s true. The local church done well is an unstoppable force for good.
Aaron Stanski — It is.
Rich Birch — I really do believe that. And, you know, it’s a privilege to serve some of those folks. But I know, like, let’s try to get in the head of a growing church.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Like, you know, maybe you’re ah maybe you’ve gone from two services to three services and you’re like, oh, gosh, I and how many services are we going to do? Are we going to end up with 25 services? Or like you stand out on a Sunday morning, you just happen to come in late and your parking lot is like completely full.
Aaron Stanski — Right.
Rich Birch — Or like your kids ministry people are sending you pictures mid-service of like, there are way too many kids in this room. What what would what are some of the questions? How would you help a church like that start to wrestle through this question?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and those are great questions. Those are great problems to have. Right?
Rich Birch — So true.
Aaron Stanski — But one of the things ah that we’ve been working on a little bit is, is kind of what we call our, the constraints framework.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Aaron Stanski — And this certainly isn’t original thought with Risepointe. I mean, this is just a business principle that says, Hey, ah if you had to, if you, if you had to grow or double the size of your business, what would be the first things to break? What are the constraints that are preventing you from doing that?
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — And you take that first constraint and you throw all your resources, you attack that first constraint until it’s solved, and then you move on to the next one.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Aaron Stanski — And I’d say so, you know, we’ve been walking a similar process through with churches and saying, OK, you know, if you had to double your attendance over the next year, like what would break first?
Rich Birch — Right. That’s good.
Aaron Stanski — Or if you had to bring online twice as many seats in the next year, like how would you go about doing that? And so to, you know, predictively look at, okay, what breaks first, certainly like their systems and their strategies, there’s people processes involved in there. But when we’re looking at buildings, right, when we’re looking at projects and facilities and sites, those problems tend to take years to solve.
Aaron Stanski — And so we have to look at those things and say, okay, when is the building, when is our parking, when do seats or kids space, when do one of those things become the lid? And then start to plan around that solution.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Aaron Stanski — And there’s lots of different solutions, right? I mean, multisite and add like you mentioned, adding services and stuff. But measuring the cost of those and figuring out what we are going to do in order to continue to grow.
Rich Birch — Are there… Well, first of all, I love that. What you know, what would happen if your church, if your attendance doubled in the next year, what would break? That is a compelling question. That’s, man, that’s a great even let’s pull our leaders together for an afternoon and ask that question together and say, hey, let’s let’s think about this really clearly.
Rich Birch — Because, man, what I would hate is that it’s actually constraints we’ve put in. Maybe we’re we’re actually preventing that growth because of the way our facility or whatever is built. Now, are there areas that you’re seeing on the facility side that are just common constraints that are like, you know, man, we just see people bumping up against this issue or that issue time and time again. Is there an area that you would kind of direct people to be thinking about?
Aaron Stanski — Well, the easiest ones to just sort of see and observe, ah you know, if you’re in church leadership…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Aaron Stanski — …you know, parking lot is pretty easy to see and observe.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Aaron Stanski — Like you’ll probably have some volunteers report back to you or even your first impressions guests say, hey, we saw some people drive through the parking lot, not find a spot and drive out.
Rich Birch — Yep. Yep.
Aaron Stanski — And that’s just heartbreaking, right, on the ministry side of things.
Aaron Stanski — Also seats in the auditorium. That’s a really easy one to measure and see just because we can observe it. I’d say we we tend to look out at a 60% full auditorium and think like, man, this is it’s pretty full. There may be some capacity there. So you do want to like actually count, ah but seats are a little, an easy one. Obviously kid space. If you’re If you’re like, hey, we had to start turning families away. The second grade classroom was you know at capacity for volunteers or something.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — So those are those are the easy ones. I think the the second tier of things tends to be a little bit more difficult. And that tends to be like, hey, like meeting some of the you know maybe specific needs in and around your community. We’ve had lots of churches say that, hey, we didn’t realize there was such a need for you know special education, ah you know, you know, people with disabilities and things like that for our kids ministry. And so opening space for them actually really grew that ministry because we we weren’t even thinking about it.
Aaron Stanski — Same can be true for like adult education or like, you know, providing small group space for people that might not want to meet in homes, ah maybe people who recently accepted Christ, you know, young Christians, things like that. So there’s sort of a second tier of space that we take a look at to say, hey, is there something else where if we if we could provide that space, we’d help we’d see our ministry grow.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s interesting. Yeah, you can see, you know, the kind of those big three, the adult space, the kids, the parking, how those would bubble to the top pretty quickly. But there might actually be some of these other, you know, special needs for kids or adult meeting space that could that could actually be holding us back that that we’re not seeing clearly.
Rich Birch — Is this related to, I know there’s this whole area in your, I’m going to sound dumber than I actually am on this question. So, because I want to be like, I know a little bit about this, but just enough to be dangerous. This connects to like site plan type stuff too. I often wonder, like I’ve heard of churches, they’re like, oh, we’re going to add on to this thing. But then they bump into a site plan issue.
Aaron Stanski — Right.
Rich Birch — What is a site plan? And why is it that why should we be thinking ahead on that when we think about here are these things that take multiple years to wrestle through. I’ve heard of people like, oh, it took us two years to get the site plan sorted out with our town or, you know, X number of months whatever.
Aaron Stanski — Right. Right.
Rich Birch — How does that relate to this issue?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah. I mean, part of it is just like, it it’s a process of planning ahead, right? And so being intentional and strategic with our planning.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Aaron Stanski — Hopefully the site plan doesn’t take a couple of years to pull together. That seems a little ridiculous to me…
Rich Birch — Excessive.
Aaron Stanski — …just as a church guy out here. But what we really need to do is is start to measure and say, okay, what are what are some of the need, once we have the constraints, what are the options that we have to solve those constraints? And if you go to try to start solving those things, whether it’s parking lot flow or access or more kid space or something, and your site taps you out, that’s an indication that you might need to relocate or look at a different strategy, multisite or something else like that.
Aaron Stanski — And so that master planning, that needs analysis looks at all of your needs and that would include like deferred maintenance, roofs, air conditioning units, all of those things, and then future planning, and then combining that with costing…
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — …and saying, okay, what are what are the steps we’re going to have to take to continue to make room for more as we grow? And so when we see churches doing an amazing job of this, they’re planning ahead. They have a strategy for their facilities, like they would um their programs and things like that.
Rich Birch — Yeah, groups ministry or whatever, yeah.
Aaron Stanski — And they’re saying, OK, over time, this is where we want to move to. And those same churches, I mean, they’re due they’re overlapping the the strategy for their physical spaces with um like hiring leaders, right? And getting the right staff people in place, people who have been there before, have gone through projects, have led multisite stuff. And so it’s ah it’s a planning, it’s process, and then it’s the the physical as well. And and having sort of an all-inclusive strategy for all three.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I’ve I got to be honest. I feel like a lot of the projects I’ve been involved with are mostly reactive. It’s like, we’re like, oh my goodness, we’re growing. Or like we had this building given to us. Or we’re thinking about, you know, this opportunity and we’ve kind of scrambled rather than, I love that idea of kind of being, hey, let’s be a bit more thoughtful, methodical. Hey, when we hit this, you know, we hit this level that should really trigger us to be thinking about that sort of thing. Is that what that looks like when I’m literally trying to imagine…
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …what would it be like to be proactive on the facility…
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …side rather than just constantly reactive.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah. I mean, if we’re fighting fires, that’s a, that’s a bad sign, right?
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah. True.
Aaron Stanski — Especially since, I mean, and I deal with this a lot. I mean, churches will call us and say, Hey, we’re out of space. And I’m like, shoot, if we had started a year and a half ago, like we could be having a much, a much more productive conversation around some of this…
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — …rather than ah putting together a plan to get us through the next couple of years, instead of putting together a plan, they’ll actually like multiply impact over the next couple of years.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. And this is what this is, you know, editorial note for folks that are listening in. This is part of the reason why I love Aaron and his team is really, you you should see them as like ah a facility partner, a, you know, somebody that’s going to journey with you over an extended period of time. You actually do this thing called Needs Analysis that I’ve I’ve recommended multiple friends do. Can you kind of tell us about what that process is? I find, I you know, I bet you every couple of weeks I’m in conversation with somebody like, do you know so Aaron Stanski at Risepointe. You should talk to him about Needs Analysis. What is that? That’s
Aaron Stanski — Well, thanks for telling people about us, Rich. I appreciate it. No, um the Needs Analysis is a customized process for each individual church or ministry…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Aaron Stanski — …where we get on site with you and your team for an entire day. And we really wrestle to the ground ah the issues that you’re facing with your facility, the questions that you have. And we we come back to you 30 days later with sort of a master plan, some some sketches, some recommendations around how to move your facility forward. And we do that alongside of some costs. So what are most churches spending in order to solve these issues? And so for a lot of church leaders, that’s what they need, right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — They need a report that says, okay, here’s the three options. Here’s what it costs. Great. Now we can pray through those things and figure out what God’s calling us to move forward. So ah most churches that work with Risepointe, like have us do a Needs Analysis at some point in time.
Rich Birch — Right
Aaron Stanski — It’s a great first step if we’re you know trying to get out ahead of things and really plan.
Rich Birch — Yeah. And it’s, it’s, uh, I think, as an outsider, as I’ve seen churches that have benefited from that, it’s the this great kind of peanut butter and honey or peanut butter and chocolate of it’s high level enough that, Hey, we can make some strategic decisions on this thing. Like it’s like, Hey, we’ve, we can see. But it’s detailed enough that we can dive in and get a real clear sense of where things are at. Obviously it’s not a full plan it doesn’t drive to the you know the the the final paint color on a wall somewhere.
Aaron Stanski — Right, right.
Rich Birch — But it does give you enough it gives you a enough knowledge as a leader to say, okay here’s something we should be thinking about. Here’s you know here’s here’s where here’s some decisions we need to be making in this next step. I think it would be great for folks.
Rich Birch — I’d love to pivot in one other direction.
Aaron Stanski — Sure.
Rich Birch — And then actually two other things I want to talk about. One, it’s little bit of a curve ball. It’s up on, you know, the tip of our tongues. Tariffs, ah you know, is this impacting on the facility side? You know, we got to but buy lumber. We had a project that we were a part of…
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …where we literally delayed, because of the price of steel, we delayed the project by six months. Because we thought, hey, that we can, and we it worked out. The price of steel went down and we, because we we’re buying this giant hunk of steel for the roof for the roof of this building.
Aaron Stanski — Wow. That’s great.
Rich Birch — Talk to us about, you know, are you getting those calls? What do you think it’s going to impact your people? What do you think?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I mean, we’re definitely getting that question a lot. I mean, you know, there’s a lot more, you know, energy and hype around the social media than actually exists…
Rich Birch — Sure.
Aaron Stanski — …when you talk to contractors and suppliers and some things like that. We’re definitely seeing some prices go up and some prices go down. And really, there’s more of an emotional response to the tariffs at this point…
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — …than than an actual physical response that we’re seeing. So, yeah, I mean, I’m sure it’s going to affect some things positively and some things negatively. For most churches that are going through a construction project, though, there’s enough variety in what it is they have to buy…
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — …that if one item was a little bit more and another item was a little bit less, it typically would offset each other.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Aaron Stanski — I mean, in the example that you gave where you had like this huge chunk of steel, if you have someone that can predict what the the market is going to do and predict what ah the president may or may not tweet, then I would definitely recommend that strategy. Wait until prices come down.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Aaron Stanski — But for the most part, I mean, it’s unpredictable. There’s definitely a cost there. We’re just paying attention to it. We’re just like leaning into the things that we can control and we’re leading out with what God calls us to do.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Aaron Stanski — And, and we’re kind of leaving the the rest of him, you know?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s very similar. I’ve said in other contexts around this, like, I don’t think we should let this hold us back. You know, they if you’re, we don’t want to be on the back foot. We want to be on the front foot.
Aaron Stanski — Yep.
Rich Birch — And, you know, the reality of it is, I think from a kingdom opportunity point of view, we’re in no better season than I’ve seen in my ministry career. I think it’s a great time for us to be out thinking about projects like this. And so, man, I I would hate for us to hesitate in this moment. I understand, even when I asked the question, I realized the tariff situation can change really quickly.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — It’s like, you know, by the time we do this, maybe there’ll be no more tariffs.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, who knows?
Rich Birch — But actually get it out. But but I wouldn’t want it to hold us back. Like let’s keep focused, friends, on what we, you know, what we’re called to do. And we want to be wise. We don’t want be silly, but I also don’t want us to to delay. I think we want to keep focusing on the future for sure.
Rich Birch — Related to that, would this whole idea of like, how do we keep you know leaning in and keep moving forward on this front? I was in a building recently that I was a part of. It was not a Risepointe project that was a part of. It’s it’s now 15 years old.
Aaron Stanski — Okay.
Rich Birch — I walked into that building and I was like, oh, wow, this feels very old. This feels out of date very quickly. When we built that building, it was like very modern. It felt very but it’s amazing how quickly things get kind of out of…
Aaron Stanski — Trend.
Rich Birch — I don’t know what. Trend, or whatever. And, and it didn’t, it wasn’t even that it was like we were using colors that… it just felt the thing felt tired. How do we avoid that? How do we, and are, are there rhythms we should be thinking about on this front? Like not always just thinking about the next campus, but going back and kind of backfilling, you know, our existing locations.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I mean, ah design changes and it it feels like design is changing about as rapidly as technology is changing these days. You know, so you know one of the things that we’re really kind of you know trying to lean into, you know is this this idea of creating like almost canvases. So how do we create canvases? How do we create you know sort of these these neutral palettes where we can come in and accent those things with things that feel on trend, relevant, ready to go. But then we can actually, you know, kind of replace some of those things, whether it’s furniture…
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — …or, you know, materials or signage or some things like that, so that it doesn’t like sit stagnant for 15 years. Anything that just sits there for 15 years ah is going to feel old. Even, i mean, even car manufacturers and what they’re trying to do to reinvent car designs at a much rapider pace than they used to.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Aaron Stanski — So a car that’s like five years old looks like an old Honda Accord versus the ones that just came out. Right?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Aaron Stanski — And so we’re going to see the same thing. And so, yeah, I mean, just trying, you know, trying not to be too trendy to begin…
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — …with is actually really going to help you out.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I think that makes sense. I can see that. When we’re doing our projects on the front end, let’s think about the fact that five years from now, we’re going to have to come back and do something.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — So how do we design it in a way that, you know, we can make a few replacements, we don’t need to like, you know, rip out this entire wall or whatever, you know, it’s that’s interesting.
Rich Birch — You were telling me a story about a church. I want to make sure we tell that story…
Aaron Stanski — Oh, yeah.
Rich Birch — …to folks that are on, that are listening in. This is incredible. You should lean in friends. This is a really cool story of kind of how God has used this whole conversation ah to really help a church make impact.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I mean, I’ll go for a little bit here for sure, Rich. But yeah, I mean, I was just reflecting on the fact that, I mean, construction projects and raising money and and dealing with our facilities. I mean, this is not the reason most of us got into ministry, right?
Rich Birch — So true. Yes.
Aaron Stanski — And there’s definitely you know these seasons ah you know that God calls us to anyway ah that just require a different level of resilience and a different level of stick-to-it-edness.
Aaron Stanski — I was thinking ah ah back about Hebrews 10:35-36. It says, therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has great reward. For you have need of endurance so that when you’ve done the will of God, you may receive what is promised. Right? And the writer of Hebrews, it’s like, you know, um you know, really pushing this idea of resilience and living a life that glorifies God. Right? And he’s exhorting us to preserve, to persevere ah during hard times.
Aaron Stanski — And so I was just thinking about some of the most difficult projects at Risepointe that churches have kind of gone through. And one of them ah is actually the story of downtown Cornerstone Church. This is a church that we worked with in Seattle. And ah they were a church plant about 14, 15 years ago. So they did the whole portable thing for a few years. And then they actually leased an old nightclub. And so they moved into that nightclub, ah saw God do some tremendous things, but they really quickly, you know, kind of ran out of space there.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Aaron Stanski — And they’re just in a jurisdiction that doesn’t like church, right? Like they don’t they don’t they don’t like seeing, you know, very expensive real estate, you know, being taken up by nonprofits and things like that. And so they prayed for years ah to find a space, to find a building, and God provided this awesome building for them. That’s a story in and of itself.
Aaron Stanski — But it turned out that this this building was historically protected. And that means that they had to go through, you know, yeah we had to walk them through a completely other process with the historic board in the city of Seattle. And then the building itself had some really difficult challenges with code issues and energy. And it just felt like it kept dragging on and on. We had to seismically upgrade the building. So it it stood it stood fine for 60 years. But if there’s an earthquake, we have to seismically upgrade it so it won’t fall down. And it was just like delay after delay, either on the permit side and stuff. And then, of course, this is right in the middle of COVID and trying to even get materials to the site.
Rich Birch — Oh my goodness.
Aaron Stanski — And, you know, ah we got to walk alongside them through all of that.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Aaron Stanski — And the week before they moved in, ah their senior pastor, Adam Sennett, he wrote he wrote this in a blog about what spaces mean to them as a church. And so I was just going kind of share this with your audience.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love it.
Aaron Stanski — He said, he said this about their experience: “We endured a once-in-a-century pandemic, political chaos and social upheaval all at once. COVID effectively cut our church in half. Yet by God’s grace, here we are stronger, more mature and deeply rooted than ever.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Aaron Stanski — “God uses spaces. Yes, of course, God uses people, but notice that he uses people in specific spaces. Gardens, arcs, prison cells, tents, deserts, whale bellies, castles, baskets, stables, islands, and more. Such spaces are unexpected miniature stages upon which his story continues to unfold in ways big and small. Recognizing the temporary nature of God’s stages helps us be thankful for them in every season, without growing too attached to them. After all as in any play the stage is merely a platform for the drama.”
Rich Birch — So good.
Aaron Stanski — And so then he goes on and talks about you know some their story and their buildings but then he comes back and says: “So DCC [Downtown Cornerstone Church], let’s remember this as we move into our new building this weekend. Let’s pray that the Lord will use this space as yet another stage for his unfolding drama of redemption in Seattle, and through Seattle to the nations. Let’s pray that he would use this space as a gospel outpost and megaphone for generations to come. Imagine how many people might come to know Jesus there. Imagine how many missionaries and church planters may be sent from there. Imagine how many hearts will be thrilled with the excellence of Jesus, sins defeated, marriages reconciled, and legacies forever redeemed there. Let it be, Lord.”
Rich Birch — So good.
Aaron Stanski — And so like when I when I hear that story and like, man, what a beautiful written testimony, but what it took to get him there was so hard. I mean, four or five years…
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — …of like slogging through it and wrestling through it and dealing with the city. But on the other side, is is even more room to be able to invite their neighbors, you know, invite the people of Seattle to, to come and hear the gospel. So it’s just ah an amazing testimony to kind of walk through that. We’re going to be posting some ah brand new pictures and stuff of that project up on our website pretty soon here.
Rich Birch — Oh, cool. We’ll link to it for sure.
Aaron Stanski — So, so stay tuned for that. Yeah.
Rich Birch — Dude, that’s great. I love that. What a great encouragement. Like these projects are like, we don’t want to make it sound like it’s just super simple. Like all you do, it’s work. Like it is a ton of effort. It’s literally, I don’t know, hundreds of thousands of, feels like hundreds of thousands of decisions. It’s like, you know, you you’re, you’re pushed through. They all have complexity in them. You got to raise money to make it happen. And then, you know, then the hard part comes, actually doing it.
Rich Birch — But I love that encouragement, even for maybe people that are listening in today that are in the midst of some of that push to realize, no, there is something on the other side of that. And I could say that even in my own church, where the campus I attend, we were portable for 17 years, and which is crazy.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And then now we’re in a, you know, we’ve just since last fall, we’ve been in a building. And just recently, we’re recording this shortly after Easter. And I was standing in the lobby of that location and, you know, record attendance. And I I was really struck by, we were giving away Bibles to people. And we’re handing out Bibles to folks. And I was like, so excited to see all of these people. And I thought, man, like all of that work we went through was worth it for this. Like all of that, if, if, if all it’s, if all of, all of this is comes at the other, at the other end of all of that comes this amazing life change, man, let’s just get after it.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Let’s, let’s figure out what it looks like and and do the hard work, do the heavy lifting to, to make it happen and not be super intimidated. Like, oh, there’s no way we could ever do this. Like, no, you can. You can get experts, friends like Aaron and his team to help you with it, uh, to get out the other end of that.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah. And part of the hard work, right. Is just, is being able to navigate some of these like really difficult challenges.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Aaron Stanski — You know, like you mentioned, it’s like a, it’s a leadership exercise in walking your church through this. It’s a project management exercise in kind of walking through these things.
Rich Birch — Yep. That’s great.
Aaron Stanski — And, you know, I mean, we’ve seen inflation kind of go crazy, right, over the over the course of the last couple of years. Tithing hasn’t gone crazy like inflation has, right?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Aaron Stanski — And so we have this situation where, you know, we have less dollars than we used to, and those dollars only buy us half what they what they did a few years ago, right?
Rich Birch — Right, what they used to buy. Yeah, yeah.
Aaron Stanski — And so we have to be really clear about how are we deploying those dollars and and what are we accomplishing with these projects…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Aaron Stanski — …versus all of the other things we could spend on.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. And that reinforces if it sounds like I’m trying to get you to call Aaron and his team, trust your instincts. All of that is because, you know, in an environment like we’re in that you just described there, it’s even more reason why early in this process, you need to find friends like Aaron to say, hey, how can please help us with this?
Rich Birch — You know, this for most church leaders, a process like this is a, you know, it could be a once in a career experience. It’s a, it could be a once every decade or once every couple decade experience. And you need to get someone like Aaron and Risepointe on your size or them specifically. There’s a resource we’re going to link to. I want to make sure people pick up on this. This is 10 Things to Get Right Before You Build. Tell us about this resource and we’ll, we’ll make sure we link to it.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah. I mean, we just wanted to, I mean, we polled a few of our previous clients and said, Hey, going back, what are some things that you wish you would have gotten in place first before you started the process?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Aaron Stanski — And some of it’s pretty self-explanatory. Some of them, you might be like, man, I’m doing good. Check, check, check. Oh, that’s something I didn’t think of before. And so just kind of trying to provide a resource to kind of get your head, start thinking about if you think you might have a project coming in the next couple of years, definitely grab that resource. Think that through. Walk that through with your leadership team. If it if it elicits questions, if there’s things that you’re not sure about, reach out. We’d love to connect with you um on that.
Rich Birch — That’s great. You can look for the link in the show notes here. It’ll be in the email and all that we sent out this week too. Yeah. Number two, I thought was interesting team consensus and this I would echo. You know, we’ve got to make sure we have the conversation upfront and get a real clear picture and be all on the same page. Because when we say we’re thinking about a project like this, we can have multiplicity of different ideas.
Aaron Stanski — That’s right.
Rich Birch — And that’s, that’s where having a trusted partner like Risepointe actually can help you with that process. Let’s get let’s do a needs analysis, get a sense of where we’re actually at. What are the actual constraints that are that we should tackle first? Here’s what that could look like. Here’s the scope scale of that kind of thing. Could be super helpful for sure.
Rich Birch — Well, I want to give you the final word here, Aaron. What would you say encouragement or challenge would give to church leaders today as we wrap up today’s episode?
Aaron Stanski — Oh man. I just say, you know, as I get to travel across the country and and hang out with a lot of your amazing listeners and a lot of just amazing churches, it’s so cool to hear the story of life change that is happening at the local level.
Rich Birch — So true.
Aaron Stanski — And I think keeping, you know, keeping our eyes and our perspective on what God is doing in and through our communities. We were sharing at staff meeting today, one of the one of the churches that we worked with, they baptized 47 people last weekend.
Rich Birch — Amazing.
Aaron Stanski — And I mean, we can get really excited about like building launches or projects or some things like that, but man, 47 people making a decision…
Rich Birch — That’s incredible.
Aaron Stanski — …to follow Christ and getting baptized. I mean, that’s what, that’s what it’s all about. And so, I mean, if you’re, if you’re scared of going through a big project or you’re not sure, you know, where to turn to, we would love to come alongside you and partner in with you in that, so that you don’t have to carry that burden alone, so that you do have a trusted partner that can walk you through a difficult process, ah but one that we’ve done hundreds of times before. So you have any questions on that, we’d love to connect, you know, definitely reach out.
Rich Birch — Yeah, where can people go online if we want to send them to to connect with you?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah. I mean, just go to risepointe.com. That’s Risepointe—we got an E at the end there—dot com. There’s a “schedule a call” button. You just fill out some information about your church and where you’re located and then that just links right up to our Zoom account. And then myself or one of our other architects will get that call scheduled with you. We want to hear about your church uniquely. What are some of the unique challenges that you guys are facing and really kind of understand that to see how we can serve.
Rich Birch — Love it. Thanks so much, Aaron. Appreciate you, sir. We’ll have to have you back on. I’d love to have you on in the future.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, let’s do it.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Appreciate you being here today, sir. Take care.
Aaron Stanski — Thanks, Rich.
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast during our All About Multisite month. Today we’re talking with David Ashcraft, CEO and President of the Global Leadership Network (GLN), and former Senior Pastor of LCBC Church in Pennsylvania.
Are you wrestling with growing pains as your church multiplies? How does an expanding multisite church keep its vision clear and equip its staff and leaders? Tune in as David shares his invaluable experience leading a thriving multisite church and now, leading an organization that is equipping leaders worldwide to make a lasting impact.
- From rural roots to statewide reach. // David recounts LCBC’s growth from a church of 150 people in Manheim, Pennsylvania, to over 25,000 attendees across 19 campuses in the state. A major turning point was the township’s refusal to allow further expansion of their original campus, leading LCBC to embrace the multisite model in the early 2000s.
- Be the gatekeeper of the vision. // Clarity of vision and consistent messaging are critical for keeping a growing church aligned. Vision leaks and leaders must repeat the core mission often and creatively to keep it alive. Weave the vision naturally into communication, culture, and decision-making. David served as the gatekeeper for the vision, helping the church discern between “good” opportunities and those which truly aligned with their mission. One key filtering approach was the 90/10 rule: LCBC aimed to excite 90% of their people and accept that 10% might be unhappy. This mindset protected the church from trying to please everyone and allowed leaders to stay focused on their mission.
- Take strategic risks. // Young leaders sometimes want to try new ideas that could be detrimental to try throughout the whole church. David advocates for testing innovative ideas on a small scale—at one campus—before rolling them out church-wide. This mitigates risk while fostering a culture of experimentation.
- Structure for scale. // As LCBC grew, so did the need to restructure. The church went through six or seven major organizational shifts over 32 years. These changes were often prompted by rising communication challenges or blurred responsibilities. Simplifying communication lines and reestablishing clear reporting structures helps the church maintain momentum.
- Utilize video teaching for alignment. // David holds a strong bias toward using video teaching as the backbone of multisite strategy and believes that if you want to expand beyond 6 locations that video teaching is almost a necessity. Video becomes a core teaching strategy when a church branches out because it helps maintain alignment among multiple congregations and prevents campus drift.
- Strong teams, thriving church. // A cornerstone of David’s leadership was hiring people better than himself in specific areas. From kids’ ministry to communications, his goal was to empower others to lead beyond what he could do alone. That culture of excellence and humility helped LCBC build a team-driven organization. Hire people with the potential to become experts and give them room to grow.
- GLN’s Summit as a tool. // Today, David leads the Global Leadership Network, home of the Global Leadership Summit. His goal is to be an “advantage to every pastor,” helping churches raise leadership capacity and thrive. GLN offers world-class leadership development from both church and marketplace leaders, equipping churches leaders to grow their influence and mission. LCBC Church hosts the Global Leadership Summit annually as a way to equip and inspire staff and community leaders at their church.
To learn more about the Global Leadership Network and register for the upcoming Summit, visit www.globalleadership.org and use the promo code GLS25UNSEM to get $10 off the registration rate online or at local host sites.
EXTRA CREDIT // **Is your structure built for where your church is—or where it’s going?*Inside unSeminary Extra Credit, we’ve created the Restructuring Readiness Checklist*—a powerful tool to help you assess whether your current staff model and systems are holding you back. Inspired by LCBC’s journey to 19 campuses, this resource helps you:
- Spot signs it’s time to restructure
- Ask the right questions with your team
- Avoid common mistakes that slow growth
- Realign your structure for long-term health and scalability
This resource is exclusively available through unSeminary Extra Credit, our affordable membership that fuels the podcast and provides you with valuable tools like this and many others!
Click here to join unSeminary Extra Credit and get instant access to this resource and more!
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. You’ve reached us during our All About Multisite Month, where we’re having conversations with leaders from prevailing multisite churches. And today, we’ve really got a two-for-one. We’ve got a leader who has been in the trenches leading an incredibly prevailing multisite church, and now is leading an organization that’s literally making difference all over the world. It’s our privilege to have David Ashcraft with us. He is the CEO and president of GLN. If you’re unaware, GLN is the Global Leadership Network, is a global organization passion about inspiring and equipping leaders to transform the world for the better.
Rich Birch — David was formerly the senior pastor of a church, LCBC, which is in Pennsylvania, a multi-site church with—if I’m counting correctly, although it’s hard to count, they have so many—19 campuses, and he’s also involved in lots of other great stuff. David, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.
David Ashcraft — Thank you, Rich. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. It’s fun to talk to you and your audience. So thank you.
Rich Birch — Oh, thank you. I appreciate you taking the time to be here. Well, for folks that are unaware, why don’t you kind of share a bit of the story of LCBC’s growth, from a single location of less than a couple hundred people to 19 locations serving 25,000 plus people. Give us I know it’s like, summarize all that in three minutes. I get that’s hard, but kind of tell us a little bit of that story for folks that are unaware that don’t know LCBC.
David Ashcraft — Yeah, definitely. Well, Rich, LCBC stands for Lives Changed by Christ. And so we just say that’s who we are. We’re a community of people whose lives have been, continue to be changed by Jesus Christ. And in 1991, I had opportunity to come to this little church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, actually Manheim, a small town in Pennsylvania, about 150 people.
David Ashcraft — And I had been a pastor in Dallas, Texas. And so God brought us here to what all of my friends in Texas called the Rust Belt. And they thought, why in the world would you go to the Rust Belt? But you God brought us here.
Rich Birch — Why are you going there? Can anything good come from Manheim?
David Ashcraft — Exactly. Yeah. So the first five or six years were incredibly difficult. Just trying to figure out who we were, what we were trying to accomplish as a church. Had three different board chairmen over three years get up in the middle of meetings and resign.
Rich Birch — Wow.
David Ashcraft — And so I’d say that only to say I understand what it’s like to have turmoil with the board, and turmoil in the church. There was there was a guy named Abe, and every time I would speak, he would tell me all the things that I was doing wrong. He would stand up in congregational meetings back then. And back then, congregational meetings were well attended because there were going to be fireworks so they wanted to be there to see what was going to happen.
Rich Birch — Right.
David Ashcraft — And so anyway, we somehow survived those first five or six years and God began to really work and do amazing things. So ultimately over a 32 year period, we grew from 150 people to 22,000. Two and a half years ago, the church has continued to grow. And so it’s about 25,000 people now. And we got into multisite in about 2003 or ’04. We had grown to about 8,000 people in our first location. And several things were happening.
David Ashcraft — One, our little town of Manheim has about 4,000 people in it. And so there were people driving 45 minutes, an hour to come. And then the township told us that we were taking up too much space. We were creating there were problems on the roads. And so they said, we couldn’t expand our facility anymore. And we were devastated and thought, oh man, you know that’s going to kill us as a church. And yet multisites were just kind of starting then.
David Ashcraft — And so we went around the country, looked at several different models and landed on one and thought, okay, we can do this. And so the fun thing is now, if there are 25,000 people attending LCBC, 20,000 or so are at other locations.
Rich Birch — It’s amazing.
David Ashcraft — And so it’s just fun to watch that see.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s amazing.
David Ashcraft — Yeah, so God’s been doing cool things. It’s just been fun to be a part of that. And one of our kind of unwritten rules all the way through it was let’s not do anything stupid to mess up what God is doing. And oftentimes I think church leaders do stupid things and it messes up what God’s doing and they miss out on being a part of what God really wants. So.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. There’s there’s a ton to unpack here. And I like I feel like we could do five episodes on the stuff you just talked about there. And friends, I’ve had a chance to visit multiple locations of LCBC and you just rolled over it. You were like, well, you know at that point we were 8,000 people. Manheim has 4,000. I remember the first time I was at that that location, it is a mind bender to be like… This is not like I’m used to suburban, large, you know, population areas. And the fact that LCBC has thrived and continues to thrive is I love it. It’s a great story to to kind of just to be a part of.
Rich Birch — Now, you’ve pivoted to this new role as president and CEO of the Global Leadership Network. Connect those two together. How does leading at LCBC connect with what you’re currently doing?
David Ashcraft — Yeah, so probably about 10 or 12 years ago, Rich, had opportunity to sit in a group with Jim Collins, the good to great author and other books. And in that group, there were probably about 15 of us. And so he’s talking about his levels of leadership. And in my mind, I’m hoping that I’m his level five, which is his highest level. But as he’s talking, he said, you’ll never be a level five leader until you’ve actually left your organization, the organization you’re leading.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
David Ashcraft — And when you’re gone, it’s actually better when you’re gone than when you’re there. And so that kind of messed me up because I was hoping that one, that I was already a level five leader.
Rich Birch — Right.
David Ashcraft — And I was probably on the dark side of my mind, hoping that when I stepped away from LCBC, that there would be a little bit of turmoil and people would be crying. I told the congregation I was hoping for weeping and gnashing of teeth when I stepped away. And he just said, if that happens, then you’re a bad leader. And so it started me on a trajectory to say, how do I need to be setting things up for LCBC so they’ll thrive when I’m gone?
David Ashcraft — So that was kind of the first step. And so I mapped out a 10 or 12 year plan to kind of work to that direction. And so about two and a half years ago, it just was the right time for me to step away. And Jason Mitchell, who’s the new pastor, was ready. He’d been a part of our team for a long time. And had spent six or seven years getting him ready for that leadership role. And the church was ready and so I stepped away. And told the congregation, I’m not retiring, but I don’t know exactly what I’m going to be doing.
David Ashcraft — And so I had been on the board at the GLN for a number of years. We’ve hosted the summit for a long time. There was a change in leadership there. And, So they invited me to step into that role. It was one of those kind of things where um I was wrestling, trying to think, okay, is Ruth, my wife, is she how’s she going to receive this? Is she going be happy? Is she not?
David Ashcraft — And so you know how when you have something to say at home and and if things are going real well, then you don’t want to say anything because you don’t want to disrupt that it’s going really well and you’re connecting well. If you’re not connecting well, then I don’t want to anything because I don’t make things worse. So I was kind of hem-hawing around for three or four days to bring it up to her. And once I did, she was like, oh, it’s a no-brainer. It’s like you’re made for this.
David Ashcraft — And um and then the other thing she had told me probably two or three weeks before that, I’d been away from LCBC for about three or four months. And she just at one point sat me down said, you need to go find something else to lead. And then she followed that very quickly with, but it’s not me.
Rich Birch — That’s great.
David Ashcraft — I was trying to give too much direction to the house and she wanted to me out. So so anyway, um so stepped into that role.
Rich Birch — I love that.
David Ashcraft — Yeah.
Rich Birch — I’ve joked in other contexts about my wife, Christine. I’ve said, you know, the voice of the Lord and the voice of Christine, they’re they sound very similar. Like there’s ah there’s definitely a rhyme there between ah those two. I love that.
David Ashcraft — Rich, it’s funny you say that because one of our early decisions at LCBC, we would meet as a board on we met every third Monday night of the month, and um we would bring up a decision, it discussion, would make a decision that night.
David Ashcraft — And then we would go home and we’d come back the next month and would all say, oh, that probably wasn’t the best decision. And so we would like to say that we went home and prayed about it for a month. What really was happening is we were going home telling our spouses. And they were going, that’s a terrible decision. And then we’d all come back and say, yeah that probably wasn’t such a good decision. So we came up with an unwritten rule that we’ll discuss something one month, come back after praying about it and after talking to our spouses about it and make the decision the following month. So, yes, it’s amazing how the Holy Spirit, the voice of the Lord, whatever you call it, seems to speak through our spouses as well.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s so good. Well, I’d love to kind of dig in a little bit on the LCBC story. As as a lead pastor, part of your role is to cast vision, provide clarity. And and there’s been a tremendous amount of change from that, you know, you know the town of Manheim saying, hey, you can’t keep growing, all the way to, okay now what it appears like as an outsider, and and I’ve said this behind your back, behind the church’s back, I’m like, there’s lots of churches that talk about wanting to reach their entire state. LCBC is getting busy doing it. Like, you know, there’s all kinds of great things going on.
Rich Birch — Discuss you know talk me through when you’re in that kind of lead role, keeping your team aligned and keeping them around the vision, how, what were some of the things that you did as a communicator, as a leader to ensure that people were aligned? To, you know, to help things, you know, continue to kind of stay focused as a church?
David Ashcraft — Yeah, well, Rich, one of the things, and it’s been said countless times, I don’t know who said it first, but vision leaks. And what we tend to do as leaders is we say it once, and we assume everybody’s gotten it, and they’re not ever going to forget it. But it does leak. And I think probably when I first heard that statement, maybe 20 or 30 years ago, the idea was you needed to repeat it every 28 days or so. And I think the reality now is you have to say it a whole lot more because what happens…
Rich Birch — It’s true.
David Ashcraft — …you know, the number of weeks that people actually show up in church. I mean, I’ve heard everything from it used to be 1.6 times a month to now I hear a lot of people saying once every six weeks people show up. And so if you don’t say it a lot, then people aren’t going to hear it. And if you don’t say it a lot, they’re going to forget it, even if they’re there.
David Ashcraft — And so, and we always just focused on let’s be very clear of what we’re about. And it’s just introducing more people to Jesus and then together fully following him. And so we’d find different creative ways to say it, but we’d say the same thing over and over and over. And I think sometimes people worry about if you repeat it too much, they’re going to get tired of it. But that wasn’t our case. And sometimes we try to get too creative and people don’t even know it’s the same vision or you’re saying the same thing.
Rich Birch — Right.
David Ashcraft — So I think redundancy is real important.
Rich Birch — And and what how did that work its way into your rhythms as a communicator? Like, were you finding ways to weave that in on Sunday morning through, is it just kind of every way possible? What did that look like? How did you kind of think about that? How do how do we keep that in front of people?
David Ashcraft — Yeah, so I don’t know that it’s so much saying, okay, let’s talk about our vision, but you just kind of weave it in a natural conversation…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
David Ashcraft — …and just becomes who you are, I think. And so even with the staff, I think the leader’s responsibility is kind of set the boundaries or the guardrail of where you’re going as an organization. And then my job if I saw starting to get out of the boundaries or out of the guidelines, guardrails that were going to take us towards introducing more people to Jesus, or fully following him, then it’s my job to say, oh wait a minute, we’re straying some. And because what happens, Rich, is everybody in the church has some good idea of what you ought to be doing as a church. And so they’ll come and I mean, just umpteen different. Your imagination can run wild of what it is. And they will say God spoke to them and this is what we ought to be doing as a church. And so we would constantly evaluate and say, okay, that may be a good thing, but it’s not best for us.
David Ashcraft — And so I felt like one of my jobs was to kind of be the gatekeeper. And so we just say to people, man, that’s a good thing you’re involved in. It’s cool that God put that on your heart, but here’s where we are as an organization. This is what we’re striving for. And son man, we’ll do everything we can to encourage you as you go do that good thing, but we’re going to stay focused on what’s best for us. And so I would say the last 10 years or so at LCBC, for me, a lot it was just saying, man, that’s good, but it’s not us.
Rich Birch — Right.
David Ashcraft — And we’re not going to kind of step but into that that area you want us to step into.
Rich Birch — Let’s double click on that because I think that is um that’s a real tension ah for particularly senior leaders to hold this balance of because there are sometimes those ideas are actually great and and they’re innovative. And LCBC is, as an outsider, I would say that’s an innovative organization. You guys have tried a bunch of different stuff, but have been able to stay aligned. How, what kind of filters were do you use or have you used to try to filter out that? Okay, what’s just a good idea or what’s maybe a God idea that, Hey, we should take a risk on ah to to try something here, that and we’ll see maybe it’ll change the trajectory of what, where God’s leading us.
David Ashcraft — Yeah, you know, it’s funny, Rich, when when we were small, 150 or 200 people, it was easier to try new things because if it didn’t work, it’s not like we’ we’re going to hurt all that much. And yet it was hard then, too, because if we tried something and it failed, the church wasn’t big enough to bounce back from from a failure.
David Ashcraft — But some of the guiding principles for us, I mean, one, we constantly talk about the 90-10 rule for us. And I know everybody’s heard of the 80-20. For us, 90-10 means that you can’t keep everybody happy. And what I watch a lot of pastors do is they try to keep everybody in the church happy. And so if you come to me with a good idea, then I don’t want to hurt your feelings, Rich. And so, yes, we’ll do your idea. But then somebody else comes along, yes, we’ll do your idea. And then all of a sudden, you’re doing so many things…
Rich Birch — Right.
David Ashcraft — …that you’re not doing anything well. And so when we talk about 90-10, we just said we’d rather 90% of the people be wildly enthusiastic about us. 10% of the people can be wildly upset with us and we’re okay with that.
Rich Birch — Love it.
David Ashcraft — And so we just kind of operate that way. And and so we say, here’s who we are. Here’s how we behave. Here’s how we’re, where we’re going. If it’s not for you, that’s totally okay. But if it is for you, then jump in. And so it pretty well works out.
David Ashcraft — I don’t know that we’ve ever hit 10% wildly upset with us. Where that rule has helped us is we’ll do something and it doesn’t quite go the way we think, or there may be people upset with us and we’ll get all worried about it. And then we’ll say, okay, wait minute, let’s stop. We’ve 22,000 people, or now 25,000. We just got 40 or 50 emails from people that weren’t happy. So let’s say 10% of 25,000 is 2,500.
Rich Birch — Right.
David Ashcraft — So we got 40 or 50 emails. We’re fine.
Rich Birch — Yes.
David Ashcraft — We’ve got another couple thousand to go and then we’ll start getting worried about it. So just not trying to please everybody was a big piece of it.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
David Ashcraft — And then constantly, is this is this a good thing or is it a great thing? And let’s focus on the great things.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. yeah I had a mentor early on in my ministry talk about, he said the exact same thing, he but the way he cast it was he was like, we really should have about 10% of the church upset with us at any given moment. If we’re not, then we’re probably not taking new ground.
David Ashcraft — Amen.
Rich Birch — They, you know, and I was like, oh – that that has stuck with me for sure.
David Ashcraft — Exactly. Yeah. And we would definitely say the same thing where, man, we’re not getting much, many complaints. So maybe we need to be trying some different things.
Rich Birch — Yeah, let’s try something new.
David Ashcraft — The other thing we kind yeah, the other thing we kind of learned as we went, Rich, is you know, a lot of times young leaders want to try things that could be devastating to the church. And what’s nice is we’ve gotten bigger and we’ve got more locations. If we’ve got an idea…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
David Ashcraft — …then let’s try it in a location and see how it goes there. And instead of doing something that’s going to sink the whole ship, then it might have a negative impact on that one location, but at least it’s not going to hit all of the locations.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
David Ashcraft — And if it works well, then we’ll go ahead and spread it to the whole church. So there’s some advantages of multisite from that standpoint.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Well, kind of sticking with that same theme, you know, LCBC has experienced incredible growth, you know, in a lot of ways. It’s like your history is, you know, the the shift to multisite was a transformative moment. You know, the the the growth of the church has accelerated, um you know, beyond Manheim and all these other locations.
Rich Birch — That has, I’m assuming, has forced a certain amount of organizational change over the years. You’ve had to make some shifts. What what did some of that restructuring look like? Very few churches, you know, some of the stats show that um close to 50% of multisite churches aren’t getting beyond three locations.
Rich Birch — And so, and some of that, I think, is because of some of this restructuring. What were some of those that was that restructuring that you went under, that you led the church under, that you think were particularly helpful as you look back on it to accelerate the mission?
David Ashcraft — So Rich, early on, I used to listen to Carl George. Fuller Institute used to have a number of different people. And so they would, back then they were cassette tapes.
Rich Birch — Yes. Love it.
David Ashcraft — Carl George was one. And he had a thing he talked about where churches are kind of like animals and animals are animals, churches are churches. But then he would say, um not all animals are alike. And so he would talk about a mouse and he’d compare a mouse to a cat, to a dog, and say they’re all animals, but they’re very, very different. A cat is very different from a dog that’s different from a horse or and so on. And he would say churches are the same thing. Just because you’re a church doesn’t mean all churches are equal.
David Ashcraft — And so he’d say a mouse church might be 35 people, a cat might be 75, a dog 200 and so forth. And his whole point was, as you grow from a mouse to a cat…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
David Ashcraft — …to a dog, to a horse, you’ve got to restructure every time because you’re a whole different animal.
Rich Birch — Yep.
David Ashcraft — And so I would say over the course of 32 years, we restructured probably six or seven times at least.
Rich Birch — Right.
David Ashcraft — And we could tell when it was time. And it was some of it was just feeling, but you’d start noticing that communication wasn’t going well in the organization, that people were frustrated with each other. And it wasn’t, you know your tendency is to think, oh it’s just some bad actors on the team. And it really wasn’t that, it was a lack of clarity. What are we trying to do? It was a lack of communication lines.
David Ashcraft — And so we would simplify and say, okay, let’s go and simplify. Let’s make sure everybody has direct lines of communication and redundancy. And so we did that probably, like I said, six or seven times in the process.
Rich Birch — Well, that’s a good insight. Even the fact that because I think we can if we’re the people that led the restructuring last time, we can really love our restructuring. We think, hey, that was a great you know that this is the perfect system. We took all this time, effort and energy, pain, all this pain to get to this restructuring. And then now here we are two years later…
David Ashcraft — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …and it can be hard to give that up. I think that’s a great insight. Hey, we had to restructure six, seven times over all those years. And, you know, that’s that’s a pretty regular cadence to be thinking about that.
David Ashcraft — Yeah.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
David Ashcraft — Rich, I don’t know. You made the comment that a lot of multisite churches are struggling and don’t get past three or four. And I don’t know if we’re sharing strong biases or if you want to hear strong biases…
Rich Birch — Sure. Sure. Yeah, absolutely.
David Ashcraft — …but I have a strong bias towards that.
Rich Birch — That’s why we have you on.
David Ashcraft — Yeah. Well, what I watch happen all the time is guys decide, churches decide they want to go multisite. Typically, they go multisite. One, they want to see their reach expand. But oftentimes, they’ll also be somebody else on staff. So if I’m the senior pastor and you’re one of my associate pastors, I start thinking, okay, Rich has strong leadership gifts. He’s got strong speaking gifts. Rich is getting antsy to go and lead on his own. And so I’ll send him out and he can start a new location for LCBC.
David Ashcraft — And you want, Rich wants to do it so badly. He says, yes, I’ll, you know I’ll follow the party line and I’ll, I’ll be LCBC, whatever. And I’m wanting it to happen so badly. Then I’m that’s a great way to send you out. And so we do that and you go out, maybe somebody else on staff, and all of a sudden we’ve got three locations.
David Ashcraft — But what happens over a couple of years is you drift apart and you start realizing you do have speaking gifts, you do have leadership gifts. And before you know it, you start thinking, even though our communities are only 20 miles apart, we’re just different in this community than you are in your community, 10 or 20 miles away. And so I really need to lead differently than what you did at the original location.
David Ashcraft — All of a sudden you get this split, this divide and frustration. And I just, um my strong bias, Rich, is I think if you want to scale, if you want to go beyond three, four, five, or six locations, um video teaching is almost a necessity.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
David Ashcraft — Otherwise you’re going to have, and to my knowledge, I don’t know of any churches that are truly multisite, um, that have more than six or seven with live teachers. There are some that say they do, but they’re almost like little denominations. Their churches all have the same name…
Rich Birch — Right.
David Ashcraft — …but each church is very independent, doing its own thing. And so I just have a real strong bias towards video teaching and, and replicating the model, not just sending out new people.
David Ashcraft — And there’s nothing wrong with me sending you out to a new location if I know that essentially what I’m doing is planting a new church 20 minutes away. And that’s…
Rich Birch — Right, right. But that’s different than multisite.
David Ashcraft — Yeah, and that’s a great strategy for planting churches, but it’s not multisite.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
David Ashcraft — And if you really want to scale, then you’ve got to replicate the model.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. And statistically, that’s true. The larger a multisite church is and the more locations it has, the more it implements video as a core teaching strategy. So you statistically, you see it’s it it is, um and I’ll say that because but lots of even teaching pastors have this bias against video teaching because it feels like, oh, no, we should find someone to do that.
Rich Birch — And I’m I’m not a teaching guy. And I’ve had this conversation, ah you know, hundreds of times with with teaching guys where I’m like, no, like this, the what you’re doing is super unique. And it is core to what the church is doing. It’s three quarters of the reason why people attend, statistically. Man, we’ve got to, you know, I think that’s great. That’s a good I would I hold the same strong bias. So I agree, um which is.
David Ashcraft — Yeah. And Rich, I would say it also just helps you clarify everything…
Rich Birch — Yes.
David Ashcraft — …if you know you if you know you’re doing that, because then you know what kind of campus pastors to hire.
Rich Birch — Right.
David Ashcraft — And so we’ll just say if if you’re wanting to be a teacher, and we’ve got a couple of our campus pastors that are great teachers, and so they’re part of our teaching team.
Rich Birch — Yep.
David Ashcraft — But if you really want to be a teacher, ah campus pastor for us, it’s not where you ought to land.
Rich Birch — Yep.
David Ashcraft — And um our campus pastors are incredible leaders. We say so they’re the strongest leaders in our organization, but they’re not wanting to teach on a regular basis. And that’s not, it shouldn’t even be in their skill set for most of them. So they’ve got to communicate and talk from the stage. They’ve got to teach in smaller environments, but if they want to preach, it’s not the right place.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Let’s pivot in a slightly different direction. Talk more about your kind of own, your own personal leadership leading through all of that and your, and and about how you balanced all that out. Just, want to honor you in front of our audience. You know, they’re good things radiate off of LCBC when people talk about you behind your back. They are thankful to lead, to be led by you. You know, there, people don’t have to say nice things to me, but they do. And, and that is, unfortunately is ah is a notable exception. And and you seem to, you’ve you’ve held your life together. You know, you you haven’t train wrecked, you know, your family, ah you know, and and all of that. I honor you for all of that. That…
David Ashcraft — Thank you.
Rich Birch — That’s incredible. But talk us through what practices have you adopted to balance the demands of leading an aggressively growing ministry and your own life, your own kind of internal life, family wellbeing, that sort of thing. What what have you done to try to keep that all together?
David Ashcraft — So I’ll go in a couple different directions, Rich. On a professional level, ah just realizing I can’t do it myself. I need a team around me. And so my practice was always to hire the best possible person I could. And there’s a tendency sometimes to if you are on a scale of 1 to 10, if you see yourself as an 8, then there’s a tendency to hire 5, 6 and 7s, people that you can still be a little bit stronger so that you’re perceived to be the leader. And for me, I just said, I’m looking to hire people that can be better than me…
Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good.
David Ashcraft — …in their specific area of expertise. And so when we were smaller as a church, we didn’t have the money to hire experts yet, but we hired people that we thought could become experts. And so then I would meet with them and we’d go visit other churches and we’d figure out what style we wanted to be.
David Ashcraft — I would keep them pretty close to me the first 6 months or so, maybe even 12 months. And um then once they were able to take off, I would just say, and the mantra we always had that I had with everybody we hired was I really want you to be the best kid min person, the best student ministry person…
Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s good.
David Ashcraft — …so that people are going to come from all around the country to learn how to do student ministry from you. And I want you to take it way further than I ever could possibly take it.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
David Ashcraft — And so I think part of our, and I don’t want to use the word success, part of our growth was that we just kept hiring people, I kept hiring people better than me. And didn’t want to limit it that way. So from a professional standpoint, we would do that.
David Ashcraft — And then personally, um you know, sometimes people complain about the busyness of ministry, but one of the beauties we have is we’ve got flexibility. And so we’re not locked into an eight to five schedule. And yes, we have to work on the weekends, but we get to take other times off. And so like when my son was fourth, fifth, sixth grade, he was into baseball. So I coached as a little league team for three years. I knew nothing about baseball, but I got other people to help me with that. But I was, I was able to do that. And so another kind of job I might not have been able to. So yeah, we work a lot of hours and, you know, 55, oftentimes 60 hours a week, but we’ve got flexibility.
Rich Birch — Yep.
David Ashcraft — And so I think really putting the family first that way was real important. My kids now are grown. Our, my son is one of our campus pastors. My daughter just stepped away from being a student min director at one of our locations for 10 years. And it’s real fun to have them involved and be a part of that.
David Ashcraft — And, the one other thing I’ll just say real quick is…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
David Ashcraft — …one of our mantras at LCBC is let’s not do anything stupid to mess up what God is doing.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
David Ashcraft — And so, I mean, stupid is a lot of things. It could be just relational issues where you and I get crossways and we don’t resolve it quickly.
Rich Birch — Right.
David Ashcraft — And so one of our unwritten rules is keep short accounts and don’t let things fester.
Rich Birch —That’s good.
David Ashcraft — Stupid could be crossing or playing with lines around morality or sexuality that we shouldn’t be playing in. And so we get burned all of a sudden. So we’re just constantly saying, man, let’s not do anything stupid, not to mess up what God’s doing because he’s doing great stuff.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. You know, kind of tagging on, just double clicking on that. Sometimes you’ll see it’s like, well, the lead person, they seem to have life balance, but the rest of the team, like that, not so much. But that isn’t the case with what I’ve seen. And obviously, I don’t know all your team, but with the people I know in your orbit, that seems to have rippled out Anything that you’ve done to model that for your people, to try to ripple that down? I love that, you know, let’s not be stupid. Or is there anything else on that front to kind of model that with your team?
David Ashcraft — Well, so even in the early days, I was a senior pastor when I came. And it’s always funny that I was a senior pastor. I was the only pastor…
Rich Birch — Sure.
David Ashcraft — …for the first about four years.
Rich Birch — Yep.
David Ashcraft — And we were gonna hire a worship leader. And we did hire a worship leader. When he came in, he, like a lot of worship leaders, he’s not most creative early in the morning. He’s most creative late at night.
David Ashcraft — And so his hours, I gave him lots of freedom. And as long as he was putting in the 45 hours or so that we were asking, then it was fine. But I had an elder come to me and say, well, I come by the office on Monday or Tuesday morning and you know it’s 8:30 and—his name was Brian—Brian’s not in the office, and we need him in the office. And so I just said, well, so wait a minute, let’s think about this. Did we hire him to be a sit in his office from 8:30 to 5, Monday through Friday? Did we hire him to be great on the weekend and great to lead people in worship? And so my philosophy is always whatever it takes to be best at your job. So we try to get flexibility that way.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
David Ashcraft — And there’s certain times, usually Mondays and Tuesdays, everybody needs to be in for team meetings. After that, we, you know, once we know that you can manage your time well, then we’ll give you lots of flexibility.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
David Ashcraft — And so I think that’s but something that permeates through the whole staff. And then, now, as we’ve gotten bigger, then we have lots of opportunities to help staff in a variety of ways so that they stay strong in their marriage, stay strong in their relationship with Christ.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Love that. Okay, pivoting to your current ah your current role, talking a little bit more about Global Leadership Network. When you talked about cassette tapes, that took me back. I, early on in my ministry, I was a monthly subscriber to the Global Leadership Network tapes, and those tapes would come in, and and literally, I can say, they were like this encouragement, that I I I still think of like talks…
David Ashcraft — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …from 30 years ago that that still impact me. And then I remember the first time I had, like thousands of leaders, I had an experience in the Lakeside Auditorium where I just came on a weekend. It was not and it wasn’t a conference, and it was a transformative experience for me where I I literally the experience I had was, oh church doesn’t have to suck. Like I I, and I was working in a church at that that that point. Like it it was ah and and GLN has had has influenced so many people has had, you know, it’s ah has it had monster influence, done incredible work for years.
Rich Birch — But let’s talk a little bit about it. What’s kind of bring bring us up to speed on what’s going on with the summit? What’s kind of the most recent things? You know, what are your aspirations for the Global Leadership Summit? There’s a lot there. But but what what do we think of these days when you think about Global Leadership Network?
David Ashcraft — Yeah. So Rich, yeah, like you, it has had a huge impact on my life. I think I’ve only missed one in 31 years. And so, like you, I would listen to cassette tapes, especially early mid nineties. And so whether it was Bill Hybels or whether it was John Maxwell and my kids, my family would complain whenever we’d go on vacation because we’d get in the car and I had all these cassettes we were going to listen to. And so they always say, oh man, does John have to come with us again on vacation? And so they grew up on that, but real impactful for me.
David Ashcraft — And um there’s been a couple of hard years at the summit after just leadership situations, 2018, COVID, was hard on the summit. And so when I stepped in, there were a couple of things we wanted to correct. We just wanted to get back in balance with our vision, mission, and then just get us sound again financially.
David Ashcraft — And our mission, our vision is really to be a tool for pastors. And when I say that, it’s not meant to be a pastor’s conference, but it’s meant to be a tool so that a pastor can come in, he can get better, she can get better as a leader, but so that they can lead their church and leaders in their church to thrive as a church, so ultimately more people can come to know Jesus.
David Ashcraft — And so not a pastor’s conference. We bring leaders in from around the world, business leaders, nonprofit leaders, educators, things like that, church leaders as well. And it’s also a huge evangelistic tool for people in the community that are strong leaders, want to grow in their leadership capacity. Would never come to your church for anything else, but they come for the summit because it’s so strong.
David Ashcraft — So bottom line, we just say, we just want to be a tool to more more pastors, help your churches thrive, help them reach their community. Ultimately, so more people can come to know Jesus. And that’s, that’s the real focus. Though it’s, I would talk about about it as being more pre-evangelism where again, it just begins to soften people’s hearts towards Jesus. We don’t do altar calls. We don’t do worship. It truly is a leadership training development thing, but we love it when um leaders, CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are there, they’re speaking, and they just happen to say, I’m a follower of Jesus, just subtly in their in their comments. So it’s that kind of thing.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s it’s and obviously the centerpiece of the strategy is the summit. It’s obviously not everything that GLN does, but that’s kind of the the core of it. We’re coming into summit season. Friends that are listening in, this is like—and David didn’t ask me to do this; it’s like unabashed—you should get to the summit this year. If it’s been a couple years since you’ve been there, like go to a site close by, go join the studio audience, you know, in, in Barrington there. It really is. It’s going to be an incredible summit.
Rich Birch — When, when you would say to a church leader, they would say that this is the kind of church that’s benefiting the most from a partnership with GLN. What does that look like? Like what the people that are kind of leveraging it, if you were to have like a hundred more of these churches, you were like, man, we could change the world. What what would be some of those things that you’d say like, Hey, that that’s a church that’s really kind of on board with what we’re doing and and we’re, it’s a good partnership. What’s that look like?
David Ashcraft — Well, I’ll use LCBC as an example because we’ve hosted for over 20 years. We typically have between 2,500 and 3,000 people attend the summit at our different locations.
Rich Birch — That’s amazing.
David Ashcraft — And so, if as a church you think, oh, let’s have the summit, but you just view it as an event where somebody wants to come in and use your building to put on this event, it’ll be a flop. It’ll be a failure because it needs to become part of your, just who you are as a church. And so for us, it’s kind of the capstone of how we do leadership development at LCBC.
Rich Birch — Love it. Yep.
David Ashcraft — And it’s not going to tell you a church model and how to do church or how to do kid min. That’s not the purpose of it. You’re going to have to teach your people that. But what it’s going to do is bring leaders in that’ll speak at the summit. They’ll say, this is how to create culture. And it’s up to you to create your culture, but this is why you need to have a healthy culture. Here’s how to create a healthy culture.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
David Ashcraft — And it’s going to look different from church to church, but we’ll talk about culture. Or we’ll talk about you know why it’s important to cast vision and here’s how to cast vision. But your vision is going to be different than my vision. And so we don’t tell you how how your church ought operate. We just tell you how to be better at all those different areas that are required for a leader. So what it’s done for LCBC, we teach the basics of how we want it to happen at LCBC. The summit though, just kind of gives you this overarching, man, if every leader that’s in the church can be there, it just raises the capacity for them.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s good.
David Ashcraft — And so then everybody’s better. And what it does, you know, a speaker will talk, they’ll tell a story, they’ll tell a joke, they’ll make a point. And all of our leaders are there. And so then all I have to do as the leader of the church is just, man, remember when so-and-so said this and everybody’s got it. And it just seems to just catalyze and move you forward faster.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
David Ashcraft — So huge from that standpoint.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. And, you know if you just go to globalleadership.org, you can see, ah like, you know, obviously, it’s too late to host this year, I think, it’s still too late to host, but you could get a group of leaders together and say, hey, let’s go to what let’s go to there’s, there will for sure be a church that’s within a reasonable driving distance of you to go and, ah you know, to go be a part of it.
Rich Birch — And I love that. I think the common language thing is a massive deal. I know over the years, it’s been really helpful to have like the same people in the room to be like, hey, when, you know, Craig Groeschel talked about that thing, or, you know, Christine Cain there this year, or John Maxwell, John Acuff. You know, any any of the folks that are there this year, incredible leaders, ah David Ashcraft, when he spoke, you know, ah yeah all of that to then link back to that and say, okay, let’s talk about what difference that makes at our church, man, what a gift that is. And it’s so incredibly inexpensive.
Rich Birch — I’ve always thought that about the GLN stuff. I’m like, I can’t believe we’re getting this. Like if this was a normal business conference, it would be 10X what the cost is. And so…
David Ashcraft — Oh yeah.
Rich Birch — …it’s it’s incredible. So I just want to honor you for that. I think it’s a great, great thing. Is there a particular speaker this year you’re you’re looking forward to? Anything, you know, kind of a highlight this year or something behind the scenes we can be we should be looking forward to?
David Ashcraft — Yeah. And I’ll just comment on the price real quick. It is incredibly inexpensive. And so oftentimes the board will say we need to raise our prices, need to raise our prices. But one of the things in our in our bylaws is we want to make it accessible to as many people as possible in the local church.
Rich Birch — Okay, that makes sense.
David Ashcraft — There’s actually another organization that pretty much waits each year for us to announce our speakers. Then they get the same speakers, but they charge $4- or $5,000 a person…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
David Ashcraft — …where we charge $150, $170 a person…
Rich Birch — Yes.
David Ashcraft — …and they sell their [inaudible] out.
Rich Birch — Yes.
David Ashcraft — So we could charge more, but that’s not our goal. So yeah.
Rich Birch — Yes.
David Ashcraft — As far as speakers, we’ve got great speakers. And one the things that’s fun at the summit, we’ll have people that are well known in different environments, but then we’ll also have people that are kind of unheard of yet at this point…
Rich Birch — Yep. Yep.
David Ashcraft — …but they’ve got great, great content, great experience. So we’ve got several of those that would be new or unheard of. But we so one of the real fun ones, we try to have somebody that’s just kind of a fun but great leader. And so Nick Saban, the Alabama coach, will be that speaker this year, which I think is going to be incredibly exciting.
David Ashcraft — We’re going to recognize John Maxwell. We do last several years, a what we call a legacy leader and and just thank them for, honor them for the difference they’ve made.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s great.
David Ashcraft — And so John’s going to be honored that way this year. So yeah, we’ve got a great lineup. It’s it’s going to be real good and excited about it.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
David Ashcraft — And you mentioned different sites. We’re actually at about 450 sites the United States.
Rich Birch — Wow. Wow.
David Ashcraft — And then around the world, another 700 more. So about 350,000 people take part in the summit around the world.
Rich Birch — That’s amazing.
David Ashcraft — And so, yeah, it’s just really exciting to see.
Rich Birch — This has got to be one of the largest of this type of event, right? Like I don’t know anything else that runs that size. That’s um that’s incredible.
David Ashcraft — It is. And especially to do it for 30 years now…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
David Ashcraft — …is also not the norm. So, yeah.
Rich Birch — No, that’s amazing. Well, that’s, that’s great. So friends, again, I would strongly encourage you to go over, go over to globalleadership.org. You can see all the local sites. You can, they’re, you know, still announcing some speakers. You’ll see there’s lots of information there. Again, I wouldn’t do it by yourself. Don’t just go you and and one person like, pack the car out, get a van, go with 10 or 15 people. That will exponentially make it more valuable to you as a leader as in what you’re doing. The more people you have around you doing this, ah it will help you as you lead at your you know at your organization. Well, just as we as we come to land, any kind of final words you’d have for us today, David?
David Ashcraft — No, I just, you know, one of the things that changed for me probably seven or eight years ago was coming across a passage in the book of Acts about Apollos. And Apollos, it describes in very glowing terms. And so as I’m reading that, I’m thinking, I’m nothing like Apollos. And was almost discouraged. But then there’s just one little phrase that was at the bottom of a passage I’m sure I’ve read many times before. It just said he was a great benefit or advantage to every believer that he came in contact with. And reading that, I thought, okay, I can do that. I can be a benefit. I can be advantage. And specifically, I said, I want to be an advantage or a benefit to pastors.
David Ashcraft — And so just kind of at that point said, that’s what I want to do the rest of my life. And so um doing that here in Pennsylvania, we work with the largest churches in Pennsylvania, but also with a GLN and just a real natural tie in to say, whatever I can do, we can do to help pastors thrive and their churches thrive. Then that’s a win and more people come to know Jesus. And so I just encourage each person listening, whatever their role, whatever capacity they can be as well a benefit or an advantage to others. And so I hope that’s really their focus as they step away from this.
Rich Birch — That’s great. Well, thank you, David. Thanks for your leadership. And, you know, I’m cheering for the GLN, cheering for your leadership there. Thanks for for leading and thanks for being on the show today.
David Ashcraft — Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. Good to talk to you, Rich.
Let’s face it: talking finances can be uncomfortable, but it’s a critical conversation, especially in multisite ministry. Today, I’m tackling one of the toughest—and most essential—questions in multisite: How do we fund, sustain, and scale financially healthy campuses?
Throughout our All About Multisite series, I’m providing practical answers every Wednesday and hosting insightful interviews with leaders from thriving multisite churches on Thursdays. Now, let’s dive into the details of multisite financial strategies to help you avoid costly pitfalls.
Episode Highlights: Choosing the Right Financial Model: + About 71% of multisite churches use a centralized budgeting system. Personally, I advocate for this “one pot” approach to avoid unhealthy competition between campuses. + An alternative is the “central tax” model used by churches like Community Christian, allocating funds with clear percentages (70-20-10) to campus operations, central operations, and expansion. * Determining Financial Sustainability: + Only 7% of campuses break even at launch. However, by year two, 53% achieve financial sustainability, and by year three, this number climbs to 79%. + Aim to become financially sustainable by year three. If you can’t foresee a clear path to sustainability after two years, you likely need to adjust strategy quickly. * Increasing Generosity Without Campus Competition: + Teach stewardship church-wide regularly. Integrate new givers from day one, making generosity part of the volunteer onboarding process. + Promote transparency with your finances, regularly communicating budgets, needs, and successes openly. + Conduct unified generosity initiatives, reinforcing the message that every campus contributes to—and benefits from—shared success. * Hidden Launch Costs to Anticipate: + Many campuses underestimate startup costs, typically averaging around $200,000, significantly higher than the average church plant ($25,000). + Be aware of hidden costs such as increased insurance premiums, custodial fees, additional equipment for rental venues, and expenses related to being a generous tenant (meals, facility improvements, etc.). * Staffing Costs and Strategies: + Staff your new campus based on projected attendance, typically one full-time equivalent staff per 75-100 attendees. + Consider central staff requirements. Plan for roughly one central support staff for every three campus-based staff. + Key initial roles often include a campus pastor, worship and kids ministry coordinators, tech support, and a connections director responsible for guest assimilation. * Balancing Economies of Scale with High Standards:* + While multisite launches tend to cost more upfront, aiming for economies of scale is crucial. Launch effectively but economically to increase your potential for future growth. + Portable setups are typically more cost-effective initially, with organizations like Portable Church Industries providing significant long-term savings through efficient equipment solutions.
Practical Tips to Implement Immediately:* Clearly define and communicate your financial model to all staff and volunteers. * Regularly evaluate campus financial health quarterly. * Prioritize generous transparency in all financial communications. * Invest strategically in initial equipment and staffing to balance immediate needs with future scalability.
Don’t let finances stop your multisite vision. Equip your church for sustainable growth, keeping your ministry thriving long-term.
Additional Resources:
- Join our upcoming webinar: “Why Most Multisite Churches Stall Launching and How to Keep Growing.“
- Explore more multisite insights in the Spring 2025 issue of EXECUTIVE PASTOR digital magazine available now.
Thanks for joining us at the unSeminary podcast. In this All About Multisite month podcast episode we’re talking with Omar Giritli, Lead Pastor, and Carlos Cardenas, Executive Pastor at Christ Fellowship. With campuses spread across Miami, the Caribbean and South America, Christ Fellowship has truly become a model of how to lead a diverse, multi-generational […]
The multisite journey isn’t always smooth—even thriving churches experience growing pains. Today, I’m busting some of the biggest myths and offering practical insights to overcome common struggles within multisite churches. Every week during All About Multisite month, I’m diving deep into practical solutions on Wednesdays and hosting behind-the-scenes conversations with multisite leaders on Thursdays. Today’s […]
Welcome back to another special All About Multisite episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re joined today by Bo Chancey (Senior Pastor) and Jeremy Peterson (Executive Pastor) from One Church, a growing multisite church based in New Hampshire. With four physical “outposts” and a thriving online presence, One Church is reaching communities across rural and suburban […]
Multisite ministry sounds great—one church, many locations—but practically speaking, balancing centralized consistency with local campus adaptations is a real challenge. In today’s episode of the All About Multisite series, I want to help you manage this important balance effectively. Throughout this series, I’m sharing practical wisdom every Wednesday and insightful interviews with successful multisite churches […]
Thanks for joining us for this special episode of the unSeminary podcast as we kick off All About Multisite month. In this conversation, we’re joined by Rick Langston and Daniel Simmons from The Summit Church in North Carolina. Rick serves as the Executive Pastor of Strategic Initiatives, and Daniel is the Executive Pastor of Campuses […]
Multisite churches have dramatically increased—from just a few hundred in the early 2000s to over 5,000 today. I’ve had the honor of being at the core this movement for nearly 2.5 decades, having led 13 multisite launches and coached many more. My goal in this solo episode is to share insights from my own experience […]
Thanks for joining us at the unSeminary podcast. In this episode we’re talking with Kara Powell, the Executive Director of the Fuller Youth Institute and Chief of Leadership Formation at Fuller Theological Seminary. How is your church engaging with the next generation? Building connection and trust with young people can be difficult in today’s world. […]
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today, we’re talking with Diana Rush, the Senior Director of Build Community at Eastside Christian Church, a multisite church with locations in California, Nevada, and Minnesota. Are you a middle manager in a church trying to balance the pressures from both your senior leadership and your […]
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Amy Anderson, the managing director at The Unstuck Group. Unstuck helps pastors grow healthy churches by guiding them through experiences that align vision, strategy, team, and action. Is your church feeling stuck or overwhelmed by its growth? Wondering if you have the right […]
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Tyler Vance, the COO of Apollos, a digital platform designed to help churches thrive by using technologies for personal growth. Despite being more digitally connected than ever, people lack deep, meaningful relationships. Gen Z has often been called the loneliest generation in history. However, churches are uniquely […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Rick and Patti Love, founders of the organizations Love New Canadians and Love New Internationals. These ministries equip churches to serve new immigrants, refugees, and international students in their neighborhoods. Since 2014 Rick and Patti Love have worked with more than 700 churches and ministries in […]
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Chad Bickley, the executive pastor at Skyline Church in California. Is your church experiencing growth, but you’re struggling with how to maintain a healthy team culture? Wondering how to create a culture that drives growth while ensuring your staff remains aligned and healthy? In this episode […]
Thanks for tuning in to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Danny Anderson, the Lead Pastor at Emmanuel Church in Indianapolis, Indiana. Is your church growing quickly, but you’re feeling the pressure? Wondering how to balance church growth with spiritual health for yourself and your staff team? Danny shares his journey of leading a fast-growing […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Adam Ader, the Groups Director at Parkview Christian Church in Illinois. Is your church looking to improve how you connect people into life-changing groups? Wondering how to lead a growing group ministry that truly impacts people’s lives? Tune in as Adam shares valuable insights on […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Nick Stumbo, the Executive Director of Pure Desire Ministries. According to a Barna study, 75% of Christian men and 40% of Christian women view pornography at least occasionally, with 67% of pastors having a personal history of porn use. How can churches effectively address pervasive issues […]
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. This month we’re focusing on key “Unpredictions”—timeless truths that church leaders need to be focusing on in 2025 and beyond. In this episode, we’re learning from Mark Clark, the founder of Village Church, a multi-site church with locations in multiple cities across Canada and online around the world. He is […]
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. This month we’re focusing on key “Unpredictions”—timeless truths that church leaders need to be focusing on in 2025 and beyond. In this episode, we’re learning from Kenny Jahng, founder of Big Click Syndicate and AI for Church Leaders, and Editor in Chief of Church Tech Today. We’re talking about how […]
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. This month we’re focusing on key “Unpredictions”—timeless truths that church leaders need to be focusing on in 2025 and beyond. In this episode, we’re hearing from Mike Mantel, the President and CEO, and Jonathan Wiles, the Chief Operating Officer, of Living Water International (LWI), a faith-based global humanitarian organization. Together […]
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. This January we’re focusing on key “Unpredictions”—timeless truths that church leaders need to be focusing on in 2025 and beyond. In this episode, we’re joined by Nicky and Sila Lee of The Marriage Course // Alpha International, and are talking about how marriages will still be struggling. Nearly half of […]
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. This January we’re focusing on key “Unpredictions”—timeless truths that church leaders need to be focusing on in 2025 and beyond. In this episode, we’re joined by Dave Miller, co-founder of Leadership Pathway, and are talking about how the next generation will matter more. Are you curious about how your church […]
Thanks for joining in for the unSeminary podcast. We’re continuing with our special series called unPredictions 2025 – these are timeless topics that will keep shaping church leadership in 2025 and beyond. Today we’re talking with Natalie Frisk, the director of curriculum at Raise Up Faith, about how parents will be worrying about their kids. […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. To kick off the new year, we’re focusing on key “Unpredictions”—timeless topics that are consistent and crucial for church growth in 2025 and beyond. In this episode, we’re joined by Greg Curtis, the Director of First Steps and Content Development at Eastside Christian Church and founder of Climbing the […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with James Griffin, the lead pastor at Crosspoint City Church in Georgia. Is your church working through a difficult season and struggling to see fruit? Wondering how a church can overcome significant challenges and emerge stronger than ever? In this episode of the unSeminary Podcast James shares […]
Thanks for joining us at the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Jared Kirkwood, the Executive Pastor of Ministries and Lead Pastor at the Irvine location of Mariners Church in California. A church’s mission isn’t much without a strategy. How are you aligning, training, and equipping people at your church to take their next steps […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Pat Gillen, the Executive Pastor of Families and a teaching pastor from First Baptist Simpsonville / Upstate Church in South Carolina. How are you cultivating leaders at your church? Are you trying to figure out your next step for developing Gen Z? Tune in as Pat […]
Thanks for joining the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Andy Hill, the Executive Pastor at Mobberly Baptist Church in Texas. How do you keep your church’s staff aligned? The more your church grows, the more challenging it is to keep everyone connected and moving in the same direction. In this episode of the unSeminary […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Jay Kranda this week, the online campus pastor at Saddleback Church in California. What are you doing with online church? How does it fit in with your digital strategy? How can digital tools strengthen in-person community? Tune in as Jay discusses a team-based approach to digital […]
Thanks for joining in for the unSeminary podcast. Today I’m looking forward to talking with Drake Farmer, the Executive Pastor of Ministries from Beulah Alliance Church in Alberta, Canada.
Are you curious about how churches manage leadership transitions smoothly? Learn about the strategic and intentional planning behind the leadership transition as Daniel Im (interviewed here) succeeded Keith Taylor as Beulah’s lead pastor. Tune in as Drake highlights the critical role of proactive succession planning, building trust, and maintaining a mission-focused mindset to ensure successful transitions.
- Get ready ahead of time. // Keith Taylor initiated the succession conversation at Beulah Alliance six years before Daniel Im stepped into the role. This foresight and intentionality were crucial in preparing the church for a smooth transition. Think not only about the immediate future, but about the next 30 years of leadership for the church. Start preparing five to ten years before the lead pastor might be ready to leave. Be intentional about talking about succession in your church’s growth stage in order to set it up for future success.
- Remember the mission and plan. // Focus on the mission during this time of preparation and searching for a new pastor. Remember it’s not about the departing pastor’s accolades or personal legacy, it’s about Jesus, the church and spreading the gospel. Have a plan in place and foster trust so that when the time comes you won’t be scrambling to get through it. Cultivate a mindset of readiness, always being prepared for the possibility of being called to a different role.
- Gradual transition. // There was a strategic overlap between Keith Taylor and Daniel Im, allowing for a gradual handover of responsibilities. Clear communication and collaboration between the outgoing and incoming leaders were essential in building trust and ensuring a smooth transition. If possible, identify when various responsibilities of the previous lead pastor will be transitioned during the succession process.
- Strategically roll out the announcement. // Daniel had previously worked at Beulah in adult ministry, but when he returned as the Senior Associate, the succession process wasn’t immediately revealed. Because the transition between Keith and Daniel was a 24-month process, Beulah’s leadership had to discern when to make the announcement. Strategically invite your staff, your key leaders, and your congregation into the transition at the right time so they can process the change without the runway being too long.
- Role clarity. // Clearly defining roles and responsibilities during leadership transitions is crucial. Key areas such as preaching, staff leadership, and strategic vision need to be addressed to ensure a smooth handover. Identify who is leading the meetings. Who is laying out the org charts and who is reporting to whom? Role clarity behind the scenes aids in a seamless leadership transition.
- Don’t be afraid to ask. // As you consider pastoral succession, who would you like to see step into that transitioning role? Don’t assume “no” from a person before asking. Identify who would be at the top of your list. Don’t be afraid to approach them and ask if they would consider coming to your church and leading. Finally, churches may benefit from partnering with organizations that specialize in consulting and coaching for succession planning. External support can provide valuable guidance and resources during transitions.
Visit drakefarmer.com to learn about Beulah Alliance Church, The Unstuck Group and connect with Drake.
NEXT STEPS // Are you navigating a leadership transition in your church?Download our 2-Year Succession Timeline Template, inspired by insights from the episode Stability in Transition: Insights on Church Succession from Drake Farmer. This free resource offers a step-by-step guide to planning a smooth, strategic transition over 24 months. With clear phases, actionable steps, and tips directly from Drake’s experience, this template is perfect for church leaders looking to make their next leadership handover stress-free and successful. Get your copy today and ensure a confident path forward for your church!
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Risepointe
Do you feel like your church’s facility could be preventing growth, and are you frustrated or maybe even overwhelmed at the thought of a complicated or costly building project? Are the limitations of your church building becoming obstacles in the path of expanding your ministry? Have you ever felt that your church could reach more people if only the facility was better suited to the community’s needs?
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary Podcast. Man, I am so looking forward to today’s conversation. This is one of those conversations that I know that there are leaders in the midst of this situation that we’re talking about, or on the brink of this situation that we’re talking about that are gonna lean in and get so much value out of this, not only because the leader that we’re having on today is is ah has living through this, is working through this, but he’s a repeat guest, which you know when we have repeat guests, that means I think they’re great.
Rich Birch — And so super excited to have Drake Farmer with us. ah Drake is at a church called Beulah Alliance Church. It’s a multi-site church with three locations as well as a Spanish campus in Alberta, Canada, was founded in 1907 in the growing city of Edmonton, has become a multi-ethnic and multi-generational church experienced rapid growth in these last few years. Drake sits in the seat of executive pastor of ministries. ah Plus, he’s also a friend. He’s a great guy. Super excited to have you on the show today, Drake. Thanks for being here.
Drake Farmer — Awesome, I’m happy to be here.
Rich Birch — Yeah, the other Canadian Drake. That’s what I like to say. You know, there’s there are two in Canada that that we know of. You’re one of them.
Drake Farmer — Yeah, but before nobody would ever get my name right when I introduced, but now, cause you know, Drake the rep.
Rich Birch — ah Just kidding. Oh, really? That’s hilarious.
Drake Farmer — Oh, Greg, Craig, Frank, I got truck once. That was a, yep, yep.
Rich Birch — That’s great. I love it. No, that’s that’s great. Well, yeah, that’s an upside for sure of of Drake. So why don’t you fill in the picture? Kind of tell us a little bit more about Beulah. Give us, you know, if people were to come this weekend, what would they experience? That sort of stuff.
Drake Farmer — Yeah, like you said, we’re a multi-site. We’ve got, what’s interesting is we’ve got, as you said, three locations, but four campuses. So there’s an English campus and a Spanish campus in one of our locations.
Drake Farmer — And so we’re in, our our vision statement is to awaken greater Edmonton to King Jesus. And so even even through COVID, even understanding, we have a ah quite a ah large online presence, but our focus isn’t to have necessarily an online campus because really, you know, and it’s been true of the church the last 103 years as Greater Edmonton, it’s kind of grown up with the city um in that sense. And so we’re really focused on that incarnational, how are you how is that, you know the you know, now the screen door is, you know, online church. And so being intentional there, but then wanting really to drive people in.
Drake Farmer — And so, um again, it would just it would depend a lot on the campus that you’re you’re at. So with with real estate and what you have and the buildings you can get, we would say, you know, we want to we want to have the experience, our values, our philosophy, our vision, the experience would be really much Beulah, but at the same time, it could be size and location. Edmonton is ah is a a hugely, diversely cultural um city. And so we have multigenerational multi multi-campus, multi-ethnic campuses across the board. um But the biggest thing is going to be if you come to our West Campus, which is running around 2,000 people or three services.
Drake Farmer — We’ve got a campus in there in the southwest part of our city that’s running about 600 people with two services and then all the way down to you know our our Spanish campus and our smaller campuses ranging from around the 50 to 100 or you know to the 200 mark with our Spanish and our English one there is our newest and we’re in the midst of long-term planning in the next couple of years launching our next campus. So.
Rich Birch — So good. Yeah, we, we, you might remember if you’ve the name Beulah is not a name you run into all the time in churches. It’s not like another, you know, whatever Northview, you know, Community Church or whatever.
Drake Farmer — Yep.
Rich Birch — And now I just made fun of way too many people who listen to our podcast. But ah you might remember we had Daniel Im on the the podcast. We had him on multiple times. And Daniel is the lead pastor. We’ll link to that episode. And the reason why so oftentimes, you know, I I go to a church and I’m like, I’d love to what’s going on, I’d love to hear… But actually, in this conversation, I’ve seen from afar what’s happened with ah yeah Daniel stepping in as the lead pastor, the kind of succession stuff that’s happened there. And I really wanted to get Drake’s kind of vantage point on this view on this as executive ah pastor, or senior leader in the organization, kind of get his perspective on that.
Rich Birch — This is an issue that I know is just, it’s incredibly important for so many of our churches. So talk us through kind of at a high level first, uh, what, what, tell, talk us through what has happened on the succession. What does that look like? And then we’ll get into what did you learn through that? What would you say some of your, your learnings for 30 years from now, when Daniel leaves, you can think next guys can pull out this one and and talk about what that looks like then. But yeah, let’s first tell us kind of describe the succession that has taken place there.
Drake Farmer — Yeah, totally. Oh, it’s interesting, like, even from my my vantage point was, in our in our greater Edmonton area, ah probably all the major, there was a lot of successions are happening right around the time, even before COVID. And especially some of our larger churches. And so it’s fascinating to see what was happening.
Rich Birch — Right.
Drake Farmer — And then a lot of even taking the risk of going a little bit younger than what we expect, you know, the 30s mark and even some being 20. And I was just like, oh, this is so fascinating to watch. You know, I’m from an outsider’s perspective, and I wonder how it’s going to turn out.
Rich Birch — Right.
Drake Farmer — You know, and then I joke around that I’m like, Oh, yeah, now i’m I’m, I’m hitching my, you know, my my wagon to that being part of Beulah, you know, and even through COVID, what was what was what was crazy was, um you know there was a season there where in our and our district, in our denomination, in our province, there was 21 vacant lead pastor roles, just lead pastor roles.
Rich Birch — Wow. Wow.
Drake Farmer — And so there was this crisis, you know. And we’ve been talking about an aging demographic of lead pastors for a while now.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Drake Farmer — But but you know the intentionality of going, oh, we’ll think about it eventually. And COVID hits, it expedites all of this stuff. And all of a sudden now, all these churches and our our district, our denomination is scrambling, right?
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Drake Farmer — And so what what was a privilege, I would say, for me, um being walking into this, probably about a third or a quarter into the process I guess of this of, or at least I’m sorry not the process of there was much more intention which we’ll get into later. But of the third end of the process of of the actual overlap between our previous lead pastor, Keith Taylor and then our current Daniel Im um and being able to kind of watch that happen . And seeing the intentionality that there was that in that Keith brought that he started this process like six years I think before it was done or six years before Daniel came on. I can’t remember the exact number.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Drake Farmer — But he I think he even triggered this even though like we should think about this, like ten years before.
Rich Birch — Wow, wow.
Drake Farmer — You know and and always just kind of going, and eventually was like, alright guys, we need to seriously start looking at I know you don’t want you know they didn’t want him to. You know he you know those sort of things and I think this would be a really good kind of you know succinct way to put it of Keith’s heart. You know it’s my second week he’s taking out for lunch. um COVID hasn’t hit yet. So my claim to fame is I started here at Beulah, two weeks later COVID hits, and I become the COVID crisis manager.
Rich Birch — Wow. a Great time to start.
Drake Farmer — Yeah. COVID crisis manager for all of our campuses and we have to rethink ministry from the get-go.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Drake Farmer — But yeah, so that hasn’t hit yet. Keith’s taking up for lunch and I just, I asked him, I say, Hey, Keith, you’ve easily got another 5 to 10 years. Like, like why now? Why are you, why are you thinking succession now? And he goes, cause I’m not thinking for this church. I’m not thinking about the next five to 10, I’m thinking in the next 30 plus. And the next 30 plus needs a new leader.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Drake Farmer — um And it’s not that I couldn’t keep leading it. But if we if I’m doing it on the high and that kind of growth stage, this is the time to do it. And and and let’s be intentional about it instead of waiting until it’s needed, in a sense.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s amazing. One of the things, this struck me, I don’t know Keith that well, having a little bit of interaction with him, um you know, over the years. A great leader and, you know, incredible guy, obviously loves the Lord, has been there for 30 years so that, you know, he was, you know, had been obviously deeply loved in the community, loved in the church.
Rich Birch — Talk to me about, like one of the hallmarks, I think, of these successions. A lot of it does rest in the heart of the leaving or the departing pastor and their orientation towards this. Maybe talk to a a person that’s listening in today that so finds himself there like at some age where they’re like, I should start thinking about this. How how what how would you encourage them to be kind of cultivating their own inner life in these this moment…
Drake Farmer — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …even before they kind of flag it and say, okay, I think we need to start talking about this?
Drake Farmer — Yeah, I think I think part of it is just, I mean, I say this to any staff person to kind of alleviate when they feel like it’s time for them to step off the bus.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Drake Farmer — And they’re handing me that letter of resignation. And and they’re a little bit like conflicted about it, obviously, because it’s like, I’m feeling called out of it. But I don’t want to give this sense, like, I hate this place or something.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Drake Farmer — And I’m just like and I have I had to learn too because I was like I don’t want to overreact emotionally or under-react, like oh you don’t care that I’m leaving.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Drake Farmer — So says I just need you to understand like, hey I’m I’m super sad, like you’re you’re amazing that you’re stepping off the bus, but I don’t own you, like Jesus owns you. And then Jesus and and so if Jesus is moving the pieces across the board and is wanting you in a different location, then he has somebody for us. So I think and think the difference there is that you’re needing to be in that kind of almost like I’m I’m here now because I’ve been called here…
Rich Birch — Right.
Drake Farmer — …um but always being ready, the sense of going at any point, right? I could be called out, and what we’ve seen so much over the years is, well, now that call’s there, so now I’m leaving, and then the church now needs to walk through that. um So I think more so than any other role as that as that voice, as that lead pastor, um is going, how do I prepare my church? I think I think the difficulty is um I mean there isn’t I mean, there is an employment risk in that to say, hey, I think i think it might be time and you’re you’re putting your neck out there. So so I can understand there’s there is a sense of like, what does that look like? um
Rich Birch — Right.
Drake Farmer — And so I I don’t want to assume and the um the unique dynamic. Because I said our story here at Beulah is going to be different than your story.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Drake Farmer — So I’ll i’ll just share it from this perspective to go what Keith did…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Drake Farmer — …and why it worked well for us, but recognizing the dynamics that were there. He was a loved beloved leader that he had the trust and the relational credit with the board of the church and you know all of that stuff. And and ah and it did revolve around retirement which also helps.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Drake Farmer — So to keep that in mind as well.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Drake Farmer — um But yeah, so I mean, he was, I don’t know if it was GLS or maybe it was some other conference he was saying that he was at, and they were talking about succession. This is about 10 years before, and he’s like, oh, that’s, yeah, that’s a really important conversation. So he he kind of let the board know, hey, this came up, you know, I don’t have any plans, but at some point, we if we’re gonna do this, we should be intentional about it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Drake Farmer — And then it was ah the five to six year mark that he said, okay, guys, Well, guys and gals, we’re egalitarian, but um okay, team.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Drake Farmer — ah to say, hey, we need to think about this.
Rich Birch — Right.
Drake Farmer — We need we need to be intentional about this.
Rich Birch — Right.
Drake Farmer — So let’s start praying. Let’s start discerning. Let’s start planning, you know. And a big part of that was, well, who who do we believe the next person is? And and what what is the prayerful discernment of that and then and then the plans of like what is the overlap and those different pieces. And so there was a lot of intentionality there and a very open posture of the sense of like it’s about the mission, it’s about Jesus…
Rich Birch — Right.
Drake Farmer — …it’s about you know you know continuing to see the legacy. And when you’re and part of being a part of a church, and for some churches it might seem like 100 years is normal, um but in the west of Canada, 100 years is is very abnormal for for a church to have that legacy. 50, maybe 60, sure, but you know having that legacy in this area um definitely builds into that as well, that we’ve seen multiple pastors come.
Drake Farmer — And there are people in this church Church is 103 years old. We had somebody um who who recently um who passed away that was like 102 years old…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Drake Farmer — …and had been a part of that church the whole entire time.
Rich Birch — Oh my goodness.
Drake Farmer — So i like there’s some of these dynamics that you have these voices and trust and stuff.
Rich Birch — Right.
Drake Farmer — Yeah, a big part of that posture and that thinking was, you know, it’s not about me and having that sense and praying into it and wondering when, you know, Jesus, let me know or let me think about it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Drake Farmer — Or let me be prepared. Or, or maybe, maybe for you, it’s just, well, I, I got in a situation where we’re not in a situation that we could be as intentional as six years. But do you have a plan in place to say, Hey, let’s think about that now so that when the call comes that we can enact because we’ve thought through it and we’re not scrambling. Maybe it’s as simple as that.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Right. Yeah. That’s great. I’d love to hear about the kind of intentional plan. You know, there’s, there was this overlap. I’d love to, you know, pick apart what that looked like. And, um, you know, kind of set that up for us, help us understand what that kind of intentional, those intentional steps look like.
Drake Farmer — Yeah, and what’s interesting is like, for Daniel, when Keith approached Daniel, he said, would you consider putting your name forward and be a part of this process? There was two main candidates that they had kind of fought through and reached out to to consider. And Daniel wanted, and he was at Lifeway, he was at Nashville. I mean, like he legit just got his green card and then was back to Canada.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes.
Drake Farmer — right like So it’s just like, oh, we were we were there planning the roots deep, they weren’t looking. um And one of the things for Daniel was because there was an intentional overlap, if that wasn’t there, he would have said no.
Drake Farmer — Now I know another contexts, having that intentional overlap may not be helpful. I know of other, I could share stories of churches I’ve spoken with and and walked with as well um that because of that but it was because of the attitude or or the posture…
Rich Birch — Right.
Drake Farmer — …maybe of the of the exiting pastor where it didn’t allow for that, where there needed you almost need to have like ah a season where there’s like a reprieve or like a gap. But because of Keith’s posture because of how how he saw and how he spoke about publicly and how Daniel spoke of Keith. And there was a big part, what was interesting, was it was so fascinating. I would get these text messages from, you know, people from churches across, you know, the nation and internet, you know, North America as well. But I just knew there were, kind like you said, we’re looking and outside looking in and we’re going, man, is it, is it actually going as well as it looks?
Rich Birch — Sure, sure.
Drake Farmer — And I was like, and I could say, actually, yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it is.
Drake Farmer — You know, being able to sit in the you know as an exec team and and senior leadership team, was it perfect? Were there never any tensions, and especially going through COVID? Of course not. You know, and and I know that there were conversations, because at that point, you know, Daniel was reporting to Keith, this wasn’t a, like, dual leading thing.
Rich Birch — Yep. Right.
Drake Farmer — It was I’m bringing you in, and then helping you move that forward. And so there were reporting systems there, Keith was still our lead. He was leading. And I’m sure there were probably some, you know, some good, healthy, you know, conflict type conversations behind closed doors. But when it came to in front of the staff, when it came to at the congregation, it was all just, you know, how they spoke of each other was huge.
Rich Birch — Right.
Drake Farmer — And then another part that was a big part was there was an intentional plan of knowing what pieces in this lead pastor job description would be passed over, you know. And and in what part through those two years at the at the one mark mark, you know the three month, at six month, at the nine month, at the one year, they are very strategic about the different pieces that way they would hand over.
Drake Farmer — And and it was interesting. So when covid and covid happened and covid hit. We had to go online, 100%. And I think there was the the strategy side piece of the church. I think it was still at least another three or maybe six months—I don’t know what the exact timeline was—that was still supposed to be firmly in Keith’s you know purview. But he said, at his age, and he was looking, moving online, he goes, I’m the least informed person. And Daniel’s way better equipped to help us as a church right now strategically to as a lead side of things to be able to lead us through that. And so he said, Daniel, I need to hand this over to you sooner. And here’s why.
Rich Birch — Wow. Yeah.
Drake Farmer — So it was Keith that was driving some of that stuff and recognizing the benefit. And so he was driving that posture. He, you know, same thing. He said, Daniel, it’s like, if there’s some hard decisions that we need to make as a church, be it who’s on the bus, or who you want to bring on the bus, or change a vision or values, let’s do that now, so that i can you can lend my voice or I can echo in that. Right?
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Drake Farmer — And so there was a lot of reframing of going, what is our vision? What is our values? And what was amazing when when we un we did our values and did a message series on it, the message series was called Unchanging. Because it was like, these have been the values…
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Drake Farmer — …of Beulah for the last 103 years and they’re they’re they’re the same. They’re just packaged differently.
Rich Birch — Yeah. And maybe different words, but yeah.
Drake Farmer — And and and Daniel did that and Keith was a part of that message series, even though he had already retired. And even now, we’re going into a capital campaign in or in sort actually we’re in the middle of one in this in this month, and Keith is a part of that because of the voice and the weight that he has in that.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s great. Yeah, he’s got, yeah, he’s good yeah. That’s good.
Drake Farmer — And you know, but even now, like it was so fascinating, even after the fact, where Keith you know, he was going, okay, I’m retired now, but he still attends Beulah and he’s still a part of this church. And people still view him as their pastor, which is totally cool. And he was like, how do I how do I have a posture of supporting Daniel? So at first he was sitting up front to show, I’m for him, I’m for him. And then he started realizing people were watching how he would react. And he was like, no, no. So now he sits in the back.
Rich Birch — Right, right, right, right, right, right.
Drake Farmer — It was just like, okay, if this, because if it if it if it impacts mission, if it impacts our reaching people…
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that.
Drake Farmer — …and stuff, he’s like, not going to do it.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Drake Farmer — It’s not about me.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Drake Farmer — You know it’s about the church and it’s about Jesus and it’s about the mission. And a big part of that is how do we set up you know Daniel. So that was really his posture. And Daniel reciprocated in the same way of how he respected him and how he he honored, you know even in the baton pass and everything. So yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. That’s even that intentionality of like sitting up front. You know, I’ve said I like that he’s at least started there. That’s an interesting, um even tactic. I’ve said that to teaching pastors in the past when we’re trying to have, you know, somebody who on that or join the teaching team.
Rich Birch — It’s like I’ve said to them, I’m like, I need you to sit down front when they’re here. Don’t take that weekend off.
Drake Farmer — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Please show up and you know, open your notebook, take notes.
Drake Farmer — Yeah.
Rich Birch — You know because that and people do pick up on that, right?
Drake Farmer — Yeah.
Rich Birch — They do pick up on that, you know, subtle cue. I get why he doesn’t I understand the like hey, I don’t want to be the other people are looking at all the time. I get that.
Drake Farmer — Yeah, yeah. And, and, and that would have been the posture.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Drake Farmer — I mean, and that’s how Daniel leads too.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Drake Farmer — He’s upfront worshiping, he’s upfront and part of those things too. And, and, but it just had the unexpected negative consequence with some people.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Drake Farmer —And he said, well, we’re going to do what makes the most sense.
Rich Birch — Yeah, totally. Okay. So let’s talk a little bit about, when you say Daniel started as he was intentionally, so when he joined the team, it was known publicly: Hey, he, this is the guy who’s going to be the successor. Was the timeline known?
Drake Farmer — No.
Rich Birch — Talk us about what…
Drake Farmer — We we joke around.
Rich Birch — And, and, and, you know, pull pull apart what was in his head, what was in Keith’s head, what was in the team’s head, the community’s head, all that.
Drake Farmer — Yeah, if I were to have any question, if I were to go back and ask, would we do something differently? The one thing that was like…
Drake Farmer — So they hired Daniel functionally and you know as a title, which is just a different version of my role, which was kind of fascinating. So he had the title of my predecessor, Senior Associate. And that’s where he was hired as. And then as at the congregational level, they were like, oh, Daniel. Like Daniel used to be on staff at Beulah before he went to Lifeway.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Drake Farmer — And he was in Adult Ministry. And so like, oh, Daniel’s back, and he’s our Senior Associate Pastor. But there was no like right up their get-go…
Rich Birch — Yeah. Context or whatever.
Drake Farmer — But so was it was fascinating at the congregational level, I don’t know if they fully understood that, but at the staff, and there was some conversation there. But even at the denominational level, we just joked around, it was like the worst kept secret that was coming back.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Drake Farmer — Right. So and I, you know, and it’s one of those hard things to go. Well, it’d be hard to know if you were to do it differently, you know, would that get the results? Because a lot of these things are, you’re throwing a dart and you’re you’re taking the best out of the information you have and you have to make a decision where you’re gonna go.
Rich Birch — Right.
Drake Farmer — So yeah, there wasn’t this there wasn’t this very public, that and again, there was a very clear you know we’re going to start with this. We’re going to get used to them again. You know the staff level, they understand it. He gets more of that strategy thing, the staff development, and you know those pieces. And at some point, as things are going, then they’re going to announce it. So that because that two-year mark of, I think this is probably where the wisdom comes in. If you announce it from the get-go, hey, here’s my successor, and then it’s two years…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Drake Farmer — …like it’s like mourning somebody dying, but they haven’t passed yet.
Rich Birch — Yeah, for a long time. Yep.
Drake Farmer — And I thought, obviously, Keith died, because that’s a…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Drake Farmer — …very morbid way to look at it.
Rich Birch — No, no. Yes, yes.
Drake Farmer — But it’s there’s this sense of like, oh, you’re in this weird space.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Drake Farmer — And when do you strategically invite your staff, when do you strategically invite, you know, key leaders, when do you strategically invite, you know, the congregation into knowing that, so there’s enough runway, um but not so much that you’re just like, so what does this mean? And you know, and then yeah, this, this, sense. And I mean, for us, it was it was interesting because obviously with COVID, it it and both made things very difficult.
Rich Birch — Right.
Drake Farmer — Everything was difficult. um
Rich Birch — Yep.
Drake Farmer — And it was it was it was, I think, hardest on Keith because he’s such an extrovert and such, you know, very pastoral where some of his, we had to do some stuff after his succession because, you know, he did, we did a succession baton pass with nobody in the room at the time. And to serve him we got people to send in pictures and we do these cardboard cutouts and put them in the seats and stuff so we could see the faces of the people that he’s been pastoring for 30 years.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s hard. That’s a hard season.
Drake Farmer — But he couldn’t he couldn’t say like eyeball to eyeball so we got to do that later. But some of that was difficult. But some of that too was like I think people were just like you know Beulah’s always been great, we’ve always trusted them. Why is this any different?
Rich Birch — Right.
Drake Farmer — And right now, I’m just trying to figure out how to live my life. And so there’s a couple of town hall meetings that I was leading with, I was going to be interviewing the two of them. And and it’s all on Zoom, right? So then maybe that was pretty…
Rich Birch — Part of it.
Drake Farmer — But it’s like a church of 3,000 plus people and six people show up.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Drake Farmer — And then you do a second one and six people show up. And I remember saying to both of them, this is either a really good sign, or not.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Drake Farmer — And I don’t know which one, right? Like, you know, and, and it turned out to be…
Rich Birch — Well, I think there’s something…
Drake Farmer — Yeah.
Rich Birch — There’s an interesting principle there where I think our, like this stuff is really important to us.
Drake Farmer — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And, you know, that, that I would take that as the, like, yeah, the people trust the leadership at the church…
Drake Farmer — Yep.
Rich Birch — …and are like behind you, but yeah, there is some of this where it’s like, and but and that was obviously an extreme season for that, where it was like…
Drake Farmer — Yep. For sure.
Rich Birch — …yeah, I got enough fish to fry in my own world. Like, you know, I, you know, we we want to walk through that. I’m interested in that. But like at the end of the day, just tell me when it’s done and we’ll be great.
Rich Birch — You know, kind of thing ah this idea of kind of um the the typical lead pastor’s role being carved up, and, you know, um hey, so this is this is Keith’s up until this point. And then it gets handed off to Daniel.
Drake Farmer — Yeah.
Rich Birch — All of that. Was there any part of that looking back on that process uh, that you would say, Oh, that, that was either like a transferable lesson we should pass on or like, is there something that people that are listening in should think about when they’re thinking about how to kind of carve up the role? Are there any kind of advice you’d pass on to that? I think cause I think that’s an interesting way to to process it.
Drake Farmer — Yeah, I think I think the biggest thing, because, without getting into the specific of details…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Drake Farmer — …because I would want to be real careful that you don’t go…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Drake Farmer — …oh, this is how Beulah did, so this is how I’m going to do it.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Drake Farmer — I think you need to look through what are some of the big mantle pieces that if we don’t figure out who’s leading what and when—things like you know preaching.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Drake Farmer — And it was like basically during that season nobody else preached on our you know…
Rich Birch — Right.
Drake Farmer — …our main stage in broadcasting other than a few exceptions because they need, we needed to hear from both. Like that was very strategic.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Drake Farmer — And when you’re looking at the HR side of things, who’s leading our senior leadership and exec team…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Drake Farmer — …you know like at what point does that turn over the strategy for ministry, you know and and the in the the pieces of that. And yeah the part that I’m not doing I obviously isn’t exact, but the the part that the lead is giving vision and understanding of like, here’s the lens that we see everything through. Those those different pieces, the the staffing and culture pieces and stuff like that. You know, who’s owning the staff, all staff meetings. And and and re-thinking through org charts and who’s reporting to who and you know and how you want your team to be you know managed.
Drake Farmer — So it’s like there are some of these pieces and going, and then it’s I think it’s laying that out. And a lot of it, and like that was done before Daniel showed up. That was the board.
Rich Birch — Right.
Drake Farmer — And Keith that walked through that so that when he was invited into it, this is the plan as we’re going to walk things out.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Drake Farmer — And and a big part of it too is because Daniel’s coming into the posture to go like, yeah, I’m not Keith.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Drake Farmer — And I recognize I’m not i’m not trying to just learn to to be mini Keith because that wouldn’t have served anything. But at the same time, there’s so much I can learn from Keith. So how do I in these two years not only are we figuring how to co-lead…
Rich Birch — Right.
Drake Farmer — …and how do we pass things off, but it’s good to do that because then I get to I get to sit walking into it and not just getting everything at once…
Rich Birch — Right.
Drake Farmer — …I have all this relational credit that Keith has. I have all this leadership experience that I get to pull from. And I get to get piece by piece by piece kind of handed to me and then continue getting coaching. And then Keith giving him the freedom to go here’s my advice but recognizing…
Rich Birch — That’s your thing.
Drake Farmer — …you got to lead and you’ve got to walk out the consequences of your decision. So you always had this posture… And there’ll be some things that you know, yeah like I said, you would have good healthy dialogue because it’s different convictions and understanding in that. I think the one thing I think ah that we kept trying to right size, because at the congregational level, you know, I think for the most part, that came clear. There was good people. They knew Keith was honored. They knew that they knew that, you know, because it was around retirement, that there was the right steps to honor him, both on stage and off stage.
Drake Farmer — And, you know, did a thing in the parking lot where every person can come and he could shake hands and stuff like that. um People felt like, OK, and you he wasn’t leaving. Right.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Drake Farmer — And because of the healthy relationship…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Drake Farmer — …obviously, sometimes that doesn’t work. But because of that, you know, they get to still see Keith. He’s still is doing funerals. He’s still, you know…
Rich Birch — Right.
Drake Farmer — …like um less obviously, for a lot of different reasons. Drake Farmer — And then, but for us, I think the biggest thing was for the staff, it was like, what does this mean? and And I think part of it too is even just making it clear that’s…
Drake Farmer — I remember chatting with one of our teams and they were struggling with something and they said, it just feels like the succession is just the most important thing. And I looked at him, I said, yeah, because it is. And they’re like, what? I said, I get it. Like boots on the ground, ministry is important. But and and we wouldn’t want to pause all that stuff.
Rich Birch — Right.
Drake Farmer — And we’ve got to figure out the tension of doing both these things. But if we don’t do succession right…
Rich Birch — Yeah, stakes are huge for sure.
Drake Farmer — …then there might not be a ministry for you to run.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Drake Farmer — Or you might not have a, like I hate to say, you might not have a job, because there’s not enough payroll because the people left and the giving went down.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Drake Farmer — And you hope and you hope that people don’t do that. But we’ve seen examples where done wrong, I mean, the church can implode there, you know, they can’t bounce back. There could be church splits because of unhealth and all that stuff. So it’s like, yeah, this is really, really important because it trickles all down from that.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Drake Farmer — Now is everything about the lead? No, it shouldn’t be that. and we’re seeing the opposite it is a new personality driven thing…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Drake Farmer — But still, like if this isn’t done well…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Drake Farmer —And you know and for us, it was like a joke around because we… And this was actually helpful for our staff, you know where our strategic ends. We don’t have attendance as one of our strategic… We still track attendance, obviously, for loads of reasons. But as our one of our main priorities isn’t there. But during COVID, it was you know our strategic end stretch goal is a negative 15% in attendance in this next year and the first part of the succession.
Drake Farmer — And part of it was like, well, you know with succession, that’s about what you’re supposed to expect, 15% drop at least…
Rich Birch — Right. Yep.
Drake Farmer — …and you hope if your strategy will bounce back. But you add succession and COVID into the mix.
Rich Birch — Right.
Drake Farmer — We joke around the big great shuffle of everybody switching churches, depending on where people landed on stuff.
Rich Birch — Sure. Yep.
Drake Farmer — So we’re like, yeah, it’s a stretch goal because let’s not go to negative 30%.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
Drake Farmer — But it also communicated to go, in this season, it’s not just all about up and to the right.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Drake Farmer — The season for right now is recognizing it isn’t just go, go, go.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yep.
Drake Farmer — Now, we don’t ignore opportunities and the movement of you know Jesus and to evangelize and to disciple, but hey, in this season, as you think about growth stages of any organization, it’s normal when they when they’re doing the flow to go up to the next stage, there will be a dip and to not freak out.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Drake Farmer — It’s okay.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Drake Farmer — But a lot of it too, just to be, I think, I think if we would have done more um town halls with our staff, I think, and kind of like inviting them into instead of relying fully on the cascading, you know, um communication. And maybe if COVID wouldn’t have happened and a lot of needing to reorg everything because of COVID, maybe that would have been better.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Drake Farmer — But with that combination, there was a lot of people that felt kind of like displaced.
Rich Birch — Right.
Drake Farmer — And with that, felt like in the dark, unintentionally…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Drake Farmer — …because it it wasn’t like this is just some secret. But so I think if I were to go back in light of what we’re walking through would have been more, hey, let’s just talk about this. Let’s have these two [inaudible]. And so we did that and more in the tail end because we were noticing this. But if we were to do a front load hat would probably had…
Rich Birch — Do a bit more of that. Yeah.
Drake Farmer — …a less angst for people. So that would have been one definite learning lesson.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Yeah, the the the interesting thing there, you know, you had brought up with this, which I think is good, is just kind of practical. Like, hey, you might see a dip in attendance. That’s just a normal thing. That’s a factor. You know, I’ve said that to people on the, you know, in the fundraising side. That’s like one of those things fundraising consultants won’t tell you. They’ll be like, you’re probably going to take a hit in your in your attendance during the public phase.
Drake Farmer — Yep.
Rich Birch — And ah that’s okay. Like, don’t freak out. It’s going to be okay. and You’re not losing people.
Drake Farmer — Yep.
Rich Birch — Your church is going to have a church on the end of it, but it’s a normal part of the process.
Rich Birch — But I appreciate that you brought it up because um there is a dynamic, and Keith will be an an example of a leader like this where, um so three quarters of the reason why people attend church—and this is any church, three, according to our friends at Gallup—is because of the teaching on Sunday morning. That’s that’s a true statement. People, teaching is a teaching leads. It’s a critical part of what we do. And obviously when you switch out the person who’s doing a lot of that teaching that’s going to have impact on the organization. That is just true. And as staff, executive whether you’re an executive pastor or a staff leader in a church, we have to stare down that reality.
Rich Birch — I do think that that is fuzzy in a lot of our team’s heads. It’s not clear what that looks like. And the reason why I say that’s that’s apropos for a leader like Keith, is Keith is not a, my, my impression of him. He’s not like a super self-centered guy. He’s not like, Hey, it’s all about me. He’s not, and Daniel’s definitely not that way. He’s not like, Hey, this is all about me. But it is a critically important part of, you know, of what we do. And so obviously if you’re going to switch people that you you know you’re going to see, um you know, an impact on that. We just have to be sober about that. That’s going to be be normal. what
Rich Birch — What is Keith doing now? Like, I know retirement is like a very funny word. What does that mean? Where is he spending his time?
Drake Farmer — Yeah.
Rich Birch — This is a critical piece of the equation, kind of what these people do on the other side of transition is important.
Drake Farmer — Yeah, so um without getting into too many details, because it’s it’s not my story to tell, but there were some health stuff with his wife…
Rich Birch — Sure. Yep.
Drake Farmer — …that came right around that time. He’s been public about it, so I know I’m not breaching confidence.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Drake Farmer — But and so a big focus for him is is caring for his wife. And then the other part on the sides is, yeah, he has he is doing some with, well, they’re called the pastorate now, but the Canadian Church Leaders Network we have here.
Rich Birch — Yep. Yep.
Drake Farmer — And he does with emerging leaders, and so he’s a part of that.
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Drake Farmer — He gets to do that on the side of his desk. And then, I mean, he just recently walked the church through a succession, and then there’s other some church consulting. And then there’s some speaking here and there, but he’s just very picky and choosy about how that is…
Rich Birch — Right. Yep.
Drake Farmer — …so that he can manage some of that stuff. And so part of it is he gets to continue using his gifts. And then, yeah, just he gets to be part of our congregation. And then there are places where he’s still doing funerals, he’s still speaking at you know on stage you know as a pulpit fill. And like anybody else, we give him an honorarium.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Drake Farmer — And and then other other different pieces where he’s a part of, and so he gets to still utilize those pastoral gifts and still gets to use those leadership gifts.
Rich Birch — Yep. Yep.
Drake Farmer — And there’s moments where it’s like, hey, we should probably get Keith’s input on this, right? Because it’s just knowing the history and the relationships. And and he’s just he just ah he just continues to be a cheerleader…
Rich Birch — yep
Drake Farmer — …for us as a staff, for the church, for the organization and the relationships that he’s built.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Drake Farmer — He’s still he still shoulder taps those because he just he really wants the kingdom to win. He wants Jesus people to be awakened to Jesus for him to be made to be made you know known. And And with other people just to help them get on mission and to get clarity, he just he’s just he’s in the hallways and he’s yeah galvanizing in in in the alleyways and the hallways and things like that.
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Drake Farmer — So that’s kind of, I mean, far as far as I can tell.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s great. No, I totally get that. Obviously not asking you to speak on his behalf, but just as a team leader in the, you know, in the midst to see that I think it and is an important piece of the puzzle for sure. There isn’t. You know your retirement is a funny concept when it comes to you know serving the kingdom.
Drake Farmer — Oh, yeah.
Rich Birch — Right? It’s always a strange you know you know a strange thing. So um I think this has been great. What a ah great conversation. The other kind of encouragement I would say to people that are listening in is, um and we’ve kind of talked around this a little bit, but um obviously Keith pursued or the church pursued Daniel and like went after him and was like, hey, we would love for you to come and and think about this. I would encourage leaders that are thinking in, thinking around that, like but like there there are probably people out there…
Drake Farmer — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …that are on your short list of people that you… And you you, I think in those situations, we discredit those, like we say no for the people before they say no.
Drake Farmer — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Like we, and we don’t even ask them, because we think there’s no way, and I would have. Like I remember we’re hearing when Daniel was going back to Beulah, I was one of those people that was like, really, wow, fascinating, I did not see that coming.
Drake Farmer — Well, on and yeah, on his resumé, I mean, Daniel’s never been a lead pastor.
Rich Birch — Right.
Drake Farmer — Like he has tremendous amount…
Rich Birch — Yeah, huge leadership chops. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Drake Farmer — …like with his leadership chops, he did a lot of like his speaking, he was a, when he was a national, you know, as a communicator in the church he was at.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Drake Farmer — Obviously with all the church consulting he’s done with LifeWay. But it wasn’t your, the obvious at his at his age, at his experience, his resume…
Rich Birch — Yeah
Drake Farmer — …and but when you pray into that… I think another example I would go is, you know, the church that I came from, um you know When that lead, he had been he had been working with somebody and they figured you know the next five to 10 years, it’d be great. I think you know he could be the next lead. And a lot of it was just due to his age, you know? And and then it was this very clear call…
Rich Birch — Right.
Drake Farmer — …to say, like he this does lead is needing to leave. And it was funny, his first reaction was even when he told me, he asked me, would you come back and become the lead? Now, out of respect, I said, I’ll pray about it. But I came back and said, you like you know, I’m not a lead pastor.
Rich Birch — Right.
Drake Farmer — I’m not wired that way. It’s not what the church needs. And then him and and they’re his associate were both like, yeah, but both were saying, well, I’m not ready. I’m not ready. And as I was praying about it, I was like, why not? And so I challenged them.
Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good.
Drake Farmer — I go, don’t like, yeah, okay, on paper, sure. But is could God be something in it? Now, of course, pray about it and discern because you guys have to walk out of the consequences. And then I got to, in my my consulting side of things, I got to actually come back and coach with them. Because I said, i you know, I’m not going to come back on staff, but I’d be happy to help Bridge because we’re in the same city.
Rich Birch — Right.
Drake Farmer — And so getting to be a part of that and seeing that, but it was even there it was fascinating the age gap was crazy and you know this guy’s like not even in his 30s. And the church just they accepted him you know.
Rich Birch — Good.
Drake Farmer — And they and they walked within this. Al of his staff are older than him but they follow him. But there was a risk there. And it wasn’t, but so, yeah, so what exactly what you’re saying is going, that person might be in your midst and you don’t even know it. So be praying and wondering, if I feel called out, who do I have that I am working with that at any point I can hand the baton off to you?
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Drake Farmer — And maybe you don’t have that person, then you need to think differently. And maybe it’s networks and um organizations or your part of a denomination or you know have sort of having those conversations to figure out what is the global pipeline…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Drake Farmer — …or the national, or states, or province, or whatever that is. But you we need to be thinking differently…
Rich Birch — Yeah. Oh, for sure.
Drake Farmer — …about who are who are you raising up and who is in the wings. And it may not be in your congregation. Because I know for us in our country and Canada, it’s like predominant churches are rural and small.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Drake Farmer — So you don’t have these multi-staffed circumstances.
Rich Birch — Yeah, they’re complex organizations. Yeah, yeah for sure.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I’ve been I’m kind of a peek in on a transition succession situation where they did exactly that where they they went and they they it was like, um and I, you know, my one encouragement was I like was like swing for the fences, like who, because they didn’t have somebody inside and they were like, who I’m like, who is that person? I was like swing for the fences. And so sure enough there, it’s not a done situation yet, but it’s like that person that one of the people, or actually two of the people that they reached out to, that were in there like, man, it would be amazing if we could get them to come and think about this.
Rich Birch — Both of them are engaged in the conversation.
Drake Farmer — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Like they’re like, oh, we’re actually talking with them, which it would have been easy on the outside to be like, no, there’s no way. They will not, you know. You just never know what God’s doing in in inside a leader and and so I’d encourage people that’s… This has been great. Drake, this has been super helpful. I appreciate you. Appreciate you coming on the show. Anything kind of final words you’d say just as we wrap up today’s conversation?
Drake Farmer — Yeah, I think um you know something we were talking about offline beforehand was just going like, you know, one of the things I’d really recommend is obviously some intentionality. But there might need to be you know an outside partner in your or you know from your organization.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Drake Farmer — Especially if you you know haven’t walked through this or those other things. And I mean, there are loads of of organizations that actually help consult and coach in this area.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes.
Drake Farmer — And you know and so I’d I’d offer a couple of things. I mean, one for us, like I’m i’m a part of the you know The Unstuck Church Group. um And so one of the things that we do, obviously, helping churches get unstuck.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Drake Farmer — And so, you know, that’s one one of those organizations that, you know, heavily… And actually, before I even joined The Unstuck team, we actually worked with Unstuck…
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Drake Farmer — …as a church to kind of figure out with our multisite and stuff. And it was such a great process.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Drake Farmer — And then that evolved into something and you know so. I’m one of the Canadian reps so um but as an organization that’s a great partnership. The other thing too is I you know I just be happy like hey if it a phone call you know just as you know subjective, you know I’m not you know just looking to kind of pick pick my brain, happy to do that as well. um you know And and all all of that information, both like you want to learn more about you know Beulah, us as is a church. um If you want to kind of just understand a little bit more about Unstuck and what we do, or just want to connect with me, all that information you can find on drakefarmer.com. And you click there, it’s got the church link, it’s got Unstuck, and then there’s ah there’s a personal way you can reach out to me.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Drake Farmer — And I’d be happy to I’d happy to to connect and whatnot, but and but those could be some different options. And and to not be scared to go, hey, you know I we could figure this out alone. um But because of how important this decision is and how like you know um sometimes just getting some of that bench strength, even if you are in a larger organization, to have that outside perspective…
Rich Birch — For sure.
Drake Farmer — …to be able, that’s not closest to it, to help coach you and has some of the data and experience um finding… And maybe it’s not Unstuck. Maybe it’s you know, I know Daniel was a part of a cohort that walked through some of this. We were very intentional about that as well. And we also worked with Unstuck with some of our structural stuff to go you know… We as an organization as Unstuck to be happy to work with any churches, I’d be happy as a phone call. But it’s figuring out that partnership to know who could come alongside us. And maybe maybe maybe it’s a maybe it’s another church or another lead pastor or somebody who’s gone through it…
Rich Birch — 100%.
Drake Farmer — …um that you just kind of go, hey, could we have some coffee together, right? Like, it doesn’t need to be complicated. But there, I think there’s just some different layers there to just like, don’t walk that out alone. um And if you can’t find that, that network isn’t there and your denomination or a church or something like that, yeah, reach out to me and I would be happy to help make some connections, be it with Unstuck or maybe another church that I know that might fit well with your context to just kind of go like…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great.
Drake Farmer — …hey, we can learn from each other and that’d be amazing.
Rich Birch — Yeah, just to give a hearty amen, particularly on the ends. Well, Drake, that’s really super kind of you to say, hey, reach out. I’m happy to jump on the phone. I would encourage you to do that, friends, if you’re listening in, that Drake is actually that kind of leader. He is like, we’ll actually want to talk to you. So please do that. Just drop by drakefarmer.com. And then also to give a hearty amen to the Unstuck side of the equation. I know obviously Um, we haven’t actually talked about it publicly on the podcast, but you man, just so sad to see the passing of Tony Morgan and, um, and you know, what a, what a monster, uh, loss for the kingdom.
Rich Birch — What an incredible guy he was, but the thing, The Unstuck Group has always been a group of leaders. And, um, I want to give an extra endorsement for like for them in general…
Drake Farmer — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …on this specific issue on multi-site, you know, and if you’re, if you feel stuck, you should reach out to The Unstuck guys…
Drake Farmer — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …and they’re, you know, they do great work. Drake’s one of their, their coaches, but they got a lot of other folks too that can help.
Drake Farmer — Yeah.
Rich Birch — They’re just incredible organization for sure.
Drake Farmer — Yeah, and let me let me just say one thing because I just just, as you said to talking about with Tony, obviously, our prayers for us as a team and Tony’s family is is very much appreciated but also like, as as we were meeting, it was a testament to Tony’s leadership…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Drake Farmer — …that he had been building a team, he didn’t want it to be about him.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Drake Farmer — He assumed he had another five to 10 years, and that was his plan.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Drake Farmer — But because he was building a team and was handing things and has you know wasn’t all thrown around him, there is a team now that that he was moving people into these roles…
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Drake Farmer — …that they are now just stepping into this. So during this season, that the legacy that Tony started with Unstuck and the work that they do with churches, it’s the model. It’s not the person.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Drake Farmer — Right. And you get that same benefit if it was Amy or Tony or any other one that would be working with the church and all the infrastructure built around it.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Drake Farmer — um You know, that Unstuck will continue to move because because of what he built and and how he raised up leaders.
Rich Birch — Yeah. So good. Yeah, that’s obviously, that is, it’s funny. I didn’t even think of that. It’s an interesting angle on the whole succession thing.
Drake Farmer — Yep.
Rich Birch — Obviously we’re, you know, it’s unfortunate that when there, but that kind of transition can happen in…
Drake Farmer — Yep.
Rich Birch — …you know, lots of organizations where like, you know, nobody, you know, Tony didn’t think that day, was at work in his backyard, that that would have been kind of the beginning of the end.
Drake Farmer — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And so, you know, and that unfortunately can happen. So, Drake, I really appreciate it. Again, that’s drakefarmer.com. um If you’re, if you want more information, please drop by and see him and connect with him um and you can connect with the church and all that from there. So it’s a great, a great starting point. Thanks so much, Drake. I appreciate you being here and be on the show today.
Drake Farmer — My pleasure.
In this deep dive episode of the unSeminary podcast, we explore Jenni Field’s insightful book Nobody Believes You: Become a Leader People Will Follow. This conversation delves into practical strategies and timeless leadership principles tailored especially for those guiding teams in a church context. Field’s book offers a fresh perspective on becoming a credible leader that people genuinely want to follow. Here’s a look at some key takeaways from the episode:
The Credibility ConundrumMany leaders struggle with what Jenni Field calls the “credibility conundrum”—doing all the right things but still failing to earn the trust and buy-in of their teams. This issue is especially pronounced in church environments, where leaders face high expectations and complex dynamics. It’s not just about authenticity but about blending several core leadership practices to connect and lead effectively.
The Eight Practices of Credible LeadershipJenni Field outlines eight essential practices that leaders must embody to build credibility:
- Empathy: Understanding and valuing the diverse experiences of your team members. Field emphasizes the importance of recognizing others’ experiences as truthful, even if they differ from your own.
- Trustworthiness: Built on honesty, reliability, and transparency. Especially in church leadership, trust is foundational, and it’s eroded when leaders become overly focused on external tasks at the expense of their team.
- Vision: Clearly communicate the ‘why’ behind your plans. Field highlights the power of storytelling and visual imagery in casting a vision that resonates and motivates the team.
- Support: Balancing guidance with autonomy. Creating an environment of psychological safety allows team members to share ideas, admit mistakes, and feel valued.
- Vulnerability: Being real without oversharing. Vulnerability is about acknowledging your limitations and showing your humanity, which fosters a culture of authenticity and openness.
- Likeability: It’s not about being everyone’s friend but about being approachable and having a sense of humor. Field stresses the importance of creating an environment where people enjoy working together while still respecting the leader.
- Integrity: The cornerstone of credible leadership. Integrity involves aligning your actions with your values and being consistent, even in challenging situations. It’s about being transparent, accountable, and building a foundation of trust.
- Capability: Demonstrating competence without needing to be the expert in everything. Effective leaders know when to delegate, seek outside expertise, and focus on continuous learning and growth.
Applying the Principles in Church LeadershipThe conversation emphasizes how these practices are interconnected. For church leaders, embodying these qualities not only builds effective teams but also reflects Christ-like leadership. Integrity, in particular, is highlighted as the foundation upon which all other practices are built. Without trust, no amount of empathy, vision, or support can truly connect with the team.
Practical Takeaways for Leaders It’s a Journey, Not a Destination: Leadership is a continuous process of growth. Focus on blending these eight practices authentically into your unique context. * Seek Support and Accountability: Don’t be afraid to ask for help, whether from a mentor, colleague, or therapist. Building a network of support is crucial for sustainable leadership. * Prioritize Self-Care*: Leading a church can be demanding. Set healthy boundaries and take time for rest and renewal, recognizing that you can’t pour from an empty cup.
Reflecting Christ in LeadershipUltimately, this episode encourages leaders to see these practices as strategies for effective leadership and ways to reflect Christ in their roles. By building on the foundation of integrity and continually seeking to grow in empathy, trustworthiness, and vision, church leaders can foster a culture where their teams thrive, and their ministries flourish.
Want to dive deeper? Check out Jenni Field’s book Nobody Believes You: Become a Leader People Will Follow here to explore these principles further.
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. This week we’re talking with Andrew Hopper, the founding and lead pastor of Mercy Hill Church in North Carolina. Andrew has also started Breaking Barriers, which provides pastors and churches with biblical strategies to help them grow in order to go.
Are you curious about how to effectively grow your church while maintaining a strong focus on discipleship and outreach? Don’t miss this insightful discussion as Andrew reveals the correlation between invite culture, discipleship and sending members out on mission. Plus discover how the multisite model is the best tool you can use for leadership development at your church.
- Connect crowds to mission. // Andrew observed a clear ratio in his church’s data correlating the number of sent ones, baptisms, and first-time guests, which he believes is consistent in churches focused on both evangelism and sending. Over ten years, his church saw approximately 150 individuals committed to long-term missions, 1,500 baptisms, and 15,000 first-time guests, aligning in a 10:1 ratio at each level. This means that for every one sent one, there were ten baptisms, and for each baptism, there were ten first-time guests.
- Focus on the lead measure. // Effective church growth relies on focusing on the lead measure rather than the lag measure. This approach helps connect the church’s larger attendance numbers to its mission goals, showing how initial engagement leads to disciples being sent out.
- Crowd-based evangelism. // Based on the examples shown throughout the New Testament, Mercy Hill Church believes that most life change happens when there is a preacher in front of a crowd. While both one-on-one encounters and larger gatherings can lead to conversions, the latter is more effective in reaching larger number and so the congregation is encouraged to invite friends. Andrew believes that when congregants see the church service as the most impactful time for both evangelism and discipleship, they are more likely to embrace inviting others, making the process of reaching new people feel natural and significant.
- Multisite and church planting. // Andrew argues that the multisite model complements church planting rather than competing with it. In multisite contexts, there is a continuous need to cultivate new leaders for multiplying groups, services, and campuses, which naturally prepares individuals for the challenge of church planting. At Mercy Hill most leaders who have joined their church plants come from the satellite campuses rather than the main broadcast campus. These members have already shown commitment to the mission by adjusting their lives, and this willingness to adapt primes them to take the larger step of moving to a new area to support a church plant.
- Develop communicators. // The multisite model allows the pastors on your team to grow and do more preaching than they’d get the chance to do at just one location. Mercy Hill has had numerous leaders—27 in the past year alone—preach, demonstrating that multisite structures can facilitate the growth of multiple communicators. To develop other teachers, church leaders should create opportunities for different leaders to preach and lead services, which can be done through multiple services and campuses.
- Breaking growth barriers. // Breaking Barriers helps churches break through barriers that hinder mission success. It celebrates church growth and doesn’t disconnect it from going after the lead measure. Visit their website to listen to their podcast, check out events and connect with other like-minded leaders.
Follow what’s happening at Mercy Hill Church and visit Breaking Barriers for resources that will help your church grow to go.
NEXT STEPS // Unlock the Power of Public Proclamation!Dive deeper into the Book of Acts with our Preachers in Front of a Crowd: A 16-Day Study on the Power of Public Proclamation in the Expansion of God’s Work. Inspired by Andrew Hopper’s insights on the unSeminary podcast, this guide is designed for church leaders and communicators looking to explore how public preaching has transformed lives and built the early church. Each day includes scripture, practical reflections, and thought-provoking questions to help you uncover the timeless power of sharing the gospel boldly. Download today and discover how you can grow more, so you can send more!
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live!
Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Portable Church
Your church is doing really well right now, and your leadership team is looking for solutions to keep momentum going! It could be time to start a new location. Maybe you have hesitated in the past few years, but you know it’s time to step out in faith again and launch that next location. Portable Church has assembled a bundle of resources to help you leverage your growing momentum into a new location by sending a part of your congregation back to their neighborhood on Mission. This bundle of resources will give you a step-by-step plan to launch that new or next location, and a 5 minute readiness tool that will help you know your church is ready to do it!
Click here to watch the free webinar “Launch a New Location in 150 Days or Less” and grab the bundle of resources for your church!
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, Rich here from unSeminary. So glad that you decided to tune in. Really looking forward to today’s conversation. You know, sometimes I get a chance to talk to people that I’ve interacted with in real life and today’s one of those days. Super excited to have Andrew Hopper with us. He is, if you don’t know Andrew, first of all, you should know him. He’s the founding and lead pastor of a great church ah in North Carolina called Mercy Hill Church. They’re they’re constantly on the one of the fastest growing churches list in the in the country. They’re really a gospel-centered church. They have five locations.
Rich Birch — This is an incredible church because they’re not only growing in North Carolina, but they’re encouraging church planting ah in a bunch of different places. And he’s recently started, or in the last little bit, has launched ah Breaking Barriers, which is is on mission to guide churches to lead with biblical strategies to help churches grow ah so that ultimately they can go. So Andrew, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.
Andrew Hopper — Thanks, man. Excited to be here, man. We’ve ah we’ve really learned a lot from you and gotten some of our foundational stuff from you around growth years and years ago. So this is fun, man.
Rich Birch — Yeah, nice to get a chance to connect. Well, why don’t you fill in the picture there a little bit. Give me the Mercy Hill story, the Andrew story, fill out the picture a little bit.
Andrew Hopper — Yeah, we planted Mercy Hill in 2012. We had a chance to be fortunate enough, I got mentored in a great church in Raleigh during North Carolina. They’re called the Summit Church so um people might know Pastor JD Greer. So he’s probably 10 years ahead of me. So it was a really good relationship there, just being mentored by him. And and then I was a campus pastor there at that church. And so, man, I love the multi-site model. I think it’s probably the best leadership development tool that I’ve ever seen in churches and obviously it was benefited by that. So um you know I got a chance to learn
Andrew Hopper — And and then we moved here in 2012 to plant a brand new church, an autonomous church. We have a team of 30 young professionals that came with us, um you know 10 graduating college students, and they they turned down job offers all over the country…
Rich Birch — That’s amazing.
Andrew Hopper — …to come and landscape and paint houses and and that kind of thing. We had about 20 others that ah quit jobs and moved over here. And and um yeah, we about an hour and a half from Raleigh Durham. And man, it’s it’s been awesome. We’ve been here, we’ve been at it for 12 years. There was never just some big flash in the pan. There was a couple of moments where God just kind of, you know, really brought brought some kind of unique growth. But but generally speaking, it’s just sort of been added to their number uh, month by month, almost, you know, for the last 12 years.
Andrew Hopper — And, um, we started planting churches in 2019. So we were, we partnered with church churches forever, you know, just giving money and and people, but we actually moved from partner planting to parent planting in 2019. And so we have five, um, five little duckling church plants from Halifax, all the way down to Tampa. And and then we we’re multi-site also. We have a five we have ah six campuses, five locations. One of them is an Español campus. So that gives you a little bit of picture of of maybe who we are.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s fantastic. One of the things when I think about your church is sometimes people lodge the unfair criticism against growing churches. They say, ah, they’re just all about fluff. They’re all just, you know, they’re they’re they’re just about gimmicks. It’s about doing things that will just, you know, get in the door. But, you know, then there’s no real depth there. They’re not gospel centered. And and to be honest, you and your church come to mind all the time when I think about that.
Rich Birch — Because I’m like, no, man, like, a church like Mercy Hill is is doing a good job holding up the message of Jesus ah while at the same time really growing rapidly, and then and then also ah helping churches, you know, up and down, you know, all over the place, which is pretty amazing.
Rich Birch — But what do you say? I’m sure people have lodged that kind of complaint against you as well. Like, hey, isn’t it just all like, why are you so obsessed with seeing churches grow? Why why do you keep talking about that?
Andrew Hopper — Yeah, I’ve, you know, I’m 40 years old. So I’ve I’ve realized there is a generation that has wrestled with this before us, right?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Andrew Hopper — And it’s, um you know, I pendulum swing. I understand that, you know, I think, I think, you know, the 80s, 90s, you had a lot of church growth stuff. Before that as well. And, the you know, with Peter Wagner and different, different guys. I’ve I’ve gotten back into some of the original you know, literature they had. It was no different. I mean, it was exact same stuff. You have a ah ah brand a brand of Christianity when they think of evangelism, they think of, you know, ah the Ethiopian eunuch. And you have another brand of evangelism that when they think of evangelism, they think of the 3000 at Pentecost.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Andrew Hopper — Why people are wired in different ways like that, I don’t know.
Rich Birch — Right.
Andrew Hopper — Generally speaking, I don’t mean to take a shot here. I don’t think the people that are wired for the crowds take much of a shot at the people that are wired for one-on-one, but I do see it the other way, big time.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I know. I think that’s true.
Andrew Hopper — You know, I don’t know why. I’m like, man, if you got the gift of evangelism and you’re a soul winner, I love that. I have no problem.
Rich Birch — Right.
Andrew Hopper — I love seeing people get saved on a college campus, one-on-one evangelism. But you know, that’s just not, that’s not where most of it’s going to happen. And, um, and so I don’t know why it’s that way.
Andrew Hopper — So anyway, I’ve taken, yeah, I’ve taken some, we’ve taken some shots like that, but I just, man, I don’t really care that much. I mean, I think for us, uh, sending is, is the ultimate goal. And we see that as a big fruit of discipleship. And so, uh, we’ve sent just under 200 of our members out long-term that’s two years or more…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Andrew Hopper — …ah either with a church plant or with um a you know with international missions. We want to share the gospel, baptize people, we get them in groups. We feel like if they jump in the stream, they’re going to move in the river. And um as long as we’re getting to see that output side of people you know continue to be sent out, then I’m not going to be too concerned with your shallow or whatever, you know?
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. That’s good. Well, so there obviously there’s like a mindset shift there. It’s like, hey, we got to get our head around, you know, that that we want to see both of these things happening. We want to be um reaching people in our community. And that I love that, you know, when you said there that going is really an outcome of discipleship, that that that really should be ultimately kind of the aim.
Rich Birch — What does that actually practically look like for Mercy Hill? Like 200 people is is a lot. I know that just rolled off your tongue like it’s not a big deal, but like that’s a big deal. That’s a lot of people to go long-term somewhere else. I know that’s how your church started, but how do how do you continue that? That feels like the kind of thing the first generation does and it doesn’t get passed on to other people.
Andrew Hopper — Yeah, yeah, totally, man. I get that. I mean, I think for us, we’ve just sort of rejected the either you’re a missional sending church or you’re a big evangelism church. um And we talk about all of them all the time. I mean, we talk about it all the time. So I will like, we’re, we’re, we’re in a new, we’re about to be in a new facility at some point here in the next couple of months and, um, triple the seating size. It’s 80,000 square feet. It’s, it’s everything that the anti-church growth movement hates. Okay. And, and it’s like, I mean, it’s…
Rich Birch — You got lights, you got smoke, you got projected screens, all that.
Andrew Hopper — Yeah. Oh man, we got it all. Huge lobby, you know, 70 foot ceilings or whatever.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Andrew Hopper — I mean, you know, it’s it’s like you walk in this building and people are going to be like, well, you are who we thought you were, you know?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Andrew Hopper — But what we’re going to do is, like I was talking about last night, we have sermon, we have, you know, service on Thursday night. I was talking about it last night. I will never talk about that building and the evangelism that we can see in it without connecting it to church planting and campus multiplication and and sending missionaries.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Andrew Hopper — I mean, our church had the most, we’ve we’ve multiple times the largest sending agency in the country, the International Mission Board, we’ve had multiple times now where our church had the most people. And they they do you know they do like a like three or four times a year, they do kind of a class that goes through and then they get mobilized. And we’ve had a couple times now where we have the most most people there from any church in the country. And I will I will always connect that to seats, to crowds to I will never let that… So I mean what we want to do is bifurcate that every discipleship conference or or church thing you go to nowadays…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s true.
Andrew Hopper — …it is a giant wedge that they’re trying to push between church growth is is a different category than discipleship and we’re not we don’t care about church growth, all we care about is depth and discipleship. And we just say, well, I think the ultimate fruit of discipleship is sending. So if we can keep sending you know connected where we never talk about crowd seats, new sermon series without talking about the fruit of it may be one day being these kids that are in these families that are getting saved. They’re going to go out and they’re going to be, you know, some of our missionaries one day or whatever. So we just try hard to keep that stuff together. You know, I’ve tried…oh, go ahead.
Rich Birch — No, you go ahead and go ahead. You go and finish.
Andrew Hopper — I’m trying to teach our church. So we came, we got to the 10 year anniversary of our church. Okay. And I knew, I knew the numbers were going to be very close, something like this. I didn’t know how exactly they were, but I knew it was something like this. um And and I bet I bet if you go test this against a bunch of sending churches that are serious about um evangelism and they’re serious about sending, you’re gonna see this to be true.
Andrew Hopper — I went in and I said, okay, what’s going on in our church? And this was two years ago. We said, okay, we’ve seen about 150 sent ones. And I’m talking about two years or more. This is not like going on a mission trip or six months or something, okay?
Rich Birch — Right.
Andrew Hopper — And then I said, okay, we’ve seen 150 sent ones. Guess what? We had seen 1500 baptisms.
Rich Birch — Oh interesting.
Andrew Hopper — Okay. And then I was like, I was like, I know what this is going to be. Guess how many first time guests we had? 15,000.
Rich Birch — Wow. 15,000. Oh, wow.
Andrew Hopper — And so it was 10 to one, 10 to one. And so I’ve taught our church like, Hey guys…
Rich Birch — Fascinating.
Andrew Hopper — …if you want to get one sent one, you got to see 10 baptisms. If you want to get one baptism, you got to see 10 first time guests. But the big connection that I think that the anti-church growth movement, um, you know, really just wants to reject um is that you don’t focus on the lag, you focus on the lead.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Andrew Hopper — I mean, that’s the kind of leadership 101, man, you focus on the lead measure.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Andrew Hopper — The lead measure for us is every time we see 100 people come to that first time guest head, I’m like, dude, down the road, there’s gonna be one set one that goes out.
Rich Birch — Dude, that’s amazing.
Andrew Hopper — And if I can keep that, if I can keep that tight, then I think it it helps people connect the crowds to the mission and and that kind of stuff.
Rich Birch — Dude, I I have I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone make that connection before. What a fresh ah connection. I think it’s, you know, I spent a lot of time thinking about the top end of the funnel, a lot of time about that piece of the equation. But I love that, that idea of, hey, what is the ratio connection ultimately between those?
Rich Birch — Let’s talk a little bit about that. how how What is God using at your church at that kind of top end? Why is it that people are arriving? What is the you know what are some of the things that you’re seeing to be able to, frankly see a bunch of guests come in an environment where ultimately you’re asking people to take steps that are…
Andrew Hopper — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …you know, go live somewhere else or, you know, a bunch of years. What’s that look like?
Andrew Hopper — That’s exactly right. Well, I mean, it’s, you know, we did, we did see this modeled incredibly well at The Summit. The summit…
Rich Birch — Yeah, for sure.
Andrew Hopper — …is a, I mean, Pastor JD said, I mean, they, they can be a punching bag for, you know, everything that the anti-church growth movement thinks. But at the end of the day, they have more missionaries on the field than any other Baptist church in the country. It’s 40,000 Baptist churches.
Rich Birch — Right.
Andrew Hopper — So it’s like, we got the see very up close. You don’t divorce these things…
Rich Birch — Right.
Andrew Hopper — …you know, the, the weekend stuff, and the sending stuff, and discipleship stuff, it doesn’t it all has to go together. So we we saw that. I would say for us… so I’m grateful for that. I would say for us, man, ah I and I know this gets into La La Land a little bit for people, but I really I really believe it’s philosophy and it’s how you think about stuff.
Andrew Hopper — Like our church um you know, we our our church buys into, and you you helped us with this years ago, our church buys into the concept that, and this is where you’re gonna get comments put on your on your podcast here. I think they buy into most life change happens when there’s a crowd and the preacher.
Andrew Hopper — And because of that, inviter evangelism is not demonized. And it’s it’s like, man, we want, you know, we try to equip, you know, in every way we can, we talk about it. And we don’t, you know, we don’t, we don’t downplay. We don’t do the normal Christian thing now, in my circle. And and all circles not like this, okay?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Andrew Hopper — The circle I’m in is like this, the Baptist world…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Andrew Hopper — …um where, you know, the one-on-one evangelism story over years that happens in a coffee shop is so high elevated above…
Rich Birch — Right.
Andrew Hopper — …the student who comes to Christ in a crowd at a youth camp.
Rich Birch — Right.
Andrew Hopper — And we just don’t do that. We’re like, man, I don’t, I’ll put those two right together.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Andrew Hopper — I’m glad and And also what we have no problem doing, and our people know this, is I’m like, hey, people can get saved in one-on-one encounters, and they can get saved in you know where there’s a preacher in a crowd. But don’t kid yourself to think they’re both equally as effective in terms of numbers.
Rich Birch — Oh, wow. Yes.
Andrew Hopper — 99.9% of everybody that got saved in the book of Acts, it happened when there was a crowd and a preacher.
Rich Birch — Right.
Andrew Hopper — That’s just facts.
Rich Birch — Right. That’s good. Yeah. Yeah.
Andrew Hopper — I mean, I’ve gone through at our breaking barriers conference, I literally went through every single time that people were baptized or whatever. And it’s like almost every one of them, there is a crowd and there’s somebody preaching the gospel.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Andrew Hopper — Now the crowd might be 10 people, it might be 3000 people. but that And so I’m like, hey, that is just, it’s just what it is, man. And our um…
Rich Birch — Right. Right. Right.
Andrew Hopper — And in our church, we have no problem saying the most effective hour for both evangelism and discipleship during the week is is the church service.
Rich Birch — Yep. Yeah, that’s good.
Andrew Hopper — If our people believe that, they don’t you know they really believe that, then suddenly I think inviting their friend to come is not second class…
Rich Birch — Right.
Andrew Hopper — …and they’re not getting graded because they’re not a one-on-one evangelist, soul winner all the time.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Andrew Hopper — I want our people to be able to share the gospel, and I think many of them can, especially the ones that are gifted.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Andrew Hopper — But you know I think that that’s probably… And so then, man, from there it all just kind of flows, man.
Rich Birch — Yes, love it.
Andrew Hopper — Then then then we’re like, once once your people are bought into inviting, um, you know, then we do all the stuff everybody else does kind of, we do…
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah.
Andrew Hopper — …but we just, we just don’t [inaudible] about it. You know…
Rich Birch — Yeah. I love it. Dude, I love that. Yeah. And I’m doing a totally steal that because, you know, when people ask me that question, I go right to the pragmatic. Because people will go after me on the church growth stuff. And I mostly don’t engage, but sometimes I’ll engage when it’s a friend or somebody and I’ll be like, Hey, well, let’s talk about it.
Rich Birch — And and I go to the like, listen, I, cause they’ll be like, yeah, but shouldn’t we really be teaching people evangelism? And I’m like, yes. And I I give my my EE qualifications. I’m like listen when I was in high school I did Evangelism Explosion. I’ve knocked on a lot of doors, hey if you were to die tonight what, you know? I’ve done that. But what I do know is not everyone will do that. Not everyone will that that is such a high bar. And do I wish everyone will do that? Uh yeah, I do. I wish everyone would have that kind of conversation. But actually, what I what I do know is, man, if I can move a bunch of people in our church to take the step towards just inviting someone, that’s like the first step towards evangelism. It’s like the first step in that ah direction.
Rich Birch — But I am going to rip off the crowd in a preacher, look at the book of Acts. That is a great, that’s so good.
Andrew Hopper — It’s crazy. I mean they got, Rich, they have like, you know, the the thing that is so elevated is three years of relationship finally won them over at a coffee shop, sharing the gospel.
Rich Birch — Right.
Andrew Hopper — And I’m like, hey that never happened in the Bible one time ever.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Dude, that’s so good.
Andrew Hopper — Nobody ever nobody ever in the book of Acts did pre evangelism. So there’s no pre-evangelism, there’s evangelism, even the one-on-one encounters. It’s like, hey, they happened within 20 minutes or two hours, or but it was never like…
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah.
Andrew Hopper — …we’re gonna go make a friend for a year so we can share the gospel with them one day.
Rich Birch — Yeah, dude, that’s good.
Andrew Hopper — You know and ah you know I just think we’ve got to kind of try to stick to the text a little more.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. Okay, so pivoting in a slightly different direction. Help me understand how you think about and another, what I see as a false dichotomy. So I’m going to set this up a little bit as a devil’s advocate, but I don’t actually have the energy behind this that I’m going to express. Multisite versus church planting. Like one of them is better than the other. Like, you know, that you one of them is efficient. The other is a resource hog.
Rich Birch — How do you guys think about that? Because you’re doing both. You’re actively engaged in both of these. You seem firmly committed to both. How do you talk about that? How do you think about that as a leader?
Andrew Hopper — Well, one one leads to the other and that’s that’s what people don’t understand. They look at them as if they’re in competition. What they don’t understand is almost every really awesome church planting network that is actually planting churches, not affiliating a million churches, they are born out of, guess what, multi-site churches.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Andrew Hopper — So, you know, I mean, just go down the list. Fellowship, you know, Fellowship Associates…
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah. Highlands, whatever.
Andrew Hopper — …Acts 29, Seacoast, Summit, Summit.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yep.
Andrew Hopper — Okay, well, what is it about the multi-site model then that produces so much church planting? It’s the the radical commitment to leadership development.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Andrew Hopper — When you when you multiply anything, you need more leaders. And so what happens is you end up with, you know, if you wanna multiply a group, you gotta have another leader. You wanna multiply a service, you gotta have more serve teams. You gotta multiply a campus. Now you gotta have elders and leaders. It’s just that next step of of going to church plants.
Andrew Hopper — So we, for example, man, we um we’ve sent out 124 of those almost 200 that have gone to domestic church plants. We have five, okay? The the ah overwhelming majority of that 124 do not come from our, “broadcast campus”.
Rich Birch — Oh, interesting.
Andrew Hopper — They all come from satellite.
Rich Birch — That’s an interesting insight. Interesting insight.
Andrew Hopper — They all come from the, so the “satellite campuses”. And the reason is, it’s very strategic. The reason is that they have already said yes to moving their life for the mission once.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Andrew Hopper — They’ve already said, you know what, convenience wise, I like going there. I like seeing him live. I like being at the big thing. But you know what? I live in this community. I’m going to plant my life here.
Andrew Hopper — And what what people keep doing is, you know, the way churches get planted are when people ultimately say yes to something that is very uncomfortable. Well, they’ve already said yes to moving to group. If they’ve already said yes to moving to service time, you know, we’re very strategic. Hey, you need to go to Thursday night instead of Sunday to make room for the mission. I don’t wanna go to Thursday night. I know, but you need to go. Now now go to the campus. Now by the time we plant a church, we’re like, hey, you know, it’s like, well, okay, I can go move somewhere else.
Andrew Hopper — So I think that for us, um I think multi-site church, and it’s a tool for me, man. If I saw a better tool, I’d throw it down and pick something else up tomorrow. I’m not philosophically committed to it.
Rich Birch — Right. Yep.
Andrew Hopper — I do believe it’s the best leadership development tool I’ve ever seen. And, you know, I know this is not exactly what you asked me, but most multi-site critiques, are listen, they’re not just wrong, they are exactly backwards, okay? So what people will say about multi-site? Well, it’s just a celebration of one leader, you know? I mean, one one guy up there.
Rich Birch — Yeah that’s not true.
Andrew Hopper — Do you know how many guys preached in our church last year? 27.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Andrew Hopper — You know why? Because we’re multi-site.
Rich Birch — Right.
Andrew Hopper — You know, that’s why people get in that plant church. It’s not about, I mean, it’s not about one leader.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Andrew Hopper — It’s about the ability to, I mean, you tell me what’s more about the leader. Let’s build a huge building where 10,000 people crowd in and hear you on the stage live versus planting little things all around. Like I could go on and on. But you know, so some of that stuff is really just kind of, they’re potshots that don’t hold a lot of weight.It’s not church planting or campus-ing. It is one that leads to the other.
Andrew Hopper — And the last thing I would say about it, Rich, is I think what people say is, well, if our church grows, we’ll plant a church. It takes 10 years to develop a church planter.
Rich Birch — Right.
Andrew Hopper — And I know that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Andrew Hopper —
We’re we’re about to plant our first church in Greensboro ah that we’ve that we’ve planted we’ve planted campuses in our town, obviously. But we’re about to plant our first church in our town. Nico’s gonna go plant this church. We met him when he was 19 years old on a college campus. He’s 29. It takes 10 years.
Rich Birch — Right. Wow.
Andrew Hopper — you know?
Rich Birch — Right.
Andrew Hopper — And and when you go, the most people I’ve ever seen go on a church planting team is like 40, you know?
Rich Birch — Right.
Andrew Hopper — It’s very, you could plant a campus in six months and 500 people go. My point is, church planting is not a viable option for a real growth problem.
Rich Birch — Right.
Andrew Hopper — Okay. I mean, it’s just not. It’s a different category. You’re talking about apples and oranges.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Andrew Hopper — And so, man, we love multi-site because we think that we think it helps us get to more church plants, and raising up pastors and preachers.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. I kind of related to that. Talk to me about the video teaching, because that’s the other kind of kind of criticism that comes up. So statistically, the more the larger a multisite, this is just true, statistically larger a multisite church is, and the more campuses they have, the more that video teaching is a part of what they do. That’s just universally true um like from a from like an industry point of view, or from like a movement point of view.
Rich Birch — And so sometimes people will lodge against the multisite movement. They’ll say like, well, it’s it’s all about whoever’s on video, which we all know is not true. But talk to me through how you how you think about that and developing communicators and how does all that fit together?
Andrew Hopper — Well, I think that, I think that, I mean, I just would reject the premise that something inherently about video is more, um is more celebratory of the lead, whoever the lead communicator is. I mean, like when people say that they’re like, hey, you got five campuses and four of them are on video. That’s like a big celebration of you. I’m like, well, our church is 3000 people. I mean, we could just build a three or 4000 seat auditorium in the old days. Would that be less celebratory of me?
Rich Birch — Right. Right. Yes. Yes.
Andrew Hopper — You know, and what if we build a 5,000 person building, and we pack them all in and they all are there.
Rich Birch — Right.
Andrew Hopper —We’re all 5,000 eyeballs are on me on the stage.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Andrew Hopper — I’m the only one on the stage. Like so kind of analytically, like I’m just like, man, I just that doesn’t really make, like in my head, that don’t make a lot of sense.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Andrew Hopper — I don’t think something inherently about the video um you know is more celebratory or not. So then to me, it’s a pragmatic issue, a consecrated pragmatism type issue. And the issue is…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Andrew Hopper — You know, man, you can, you know, there’s a reason why multi-site has taken off. It is so much easier to develop smaller venues. It’s cheaper, it’s easier, and it’s more strategic because of where you can put them. And so to me, that’s, it’s just more of a pragmatic issue. And but I do, but I do, I will say this, man, there is no doubt that the raising up of communicators happens at an exponential clip in multi-site churches compared to a single site church. Um, you know, and I don’t, I mean, I got, I got friends that are really committed to the single site thing and committed to live preaching and that’s fine.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Andrew Hopper — Like I’m not, they can do whatever they want.
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Andrew Hopper — I mean, they’re, they’re getting after it. I’m getting after it. Um, but you can’t, you can’t deny that the, ah you know, the preaching opportunities are multiply. I mean, you got one single site and the guy preaches 40 times a year. That’s only 12 opportunities.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, for sure.
Andrew Hopper — You got five different sites. You have 60 opportunities in that same time.
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Andrew Hopper — And that’s just what we’ve experienced. I mean, I think that why we have so many guys that can preach, why guys, this is my story. I’m 24 years old. I’m getting a preach to five, 700 people, 24, 25 years old. The only reason for that was because of how many services and how many campuses we were having. And I feel like it was really beneficial for me.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Oh, a hundred percent.
Andrew Hopper — You know so I think the leadership development is such a big deal.
Rich Birch — Well, a hundred percent. And and there’s that there’s the whole context on multisite that not only were you preaching, but you were doing that in a team context that was giving you feedback, that they loved you enough to not just be like, well, do whatever you want, Andrew. Or, you know, or some nice person at the end of the service was like, that was great. It was like, well, yeah, there was a lot of that that was great, but here’s some stuff you could do to get better, which in a lot of churches, that just doesn’t happen. But that’s naturally built into the multisite system because there’s like some standards there around, Hey, we need to be, in your case, you know, when you were at Summit, it needs to be kind of fit our thing. It needs to be a part of who we, you know, we are. Yeah. I love that.
Rich Birch — We did a study last year…
Andrew Hopper — And I see, yeah…
Rich Birch — Yeah. Go ahead.
Andrew Hopper — Go ahead, go ahead.
Rich Birch — I was going to say, we did a study last year of, ah so we have this, this group, we do this private coaching group called Church Growth Incubator, and it looks at, you know, invite culture stuff. And we do research on fast growing churches, firsthand research. And one of the things I was actually shocked when I was working with an associate who was helping us with this, and we were actually looking at a different issue.
Rich Birch — We were looking at, um, some stuff around teaching, but this person said, you know, I’ve noticed that there’s a lot of these churches have a lot of different people that are on stage on Sunday morning in their main campus over a year. And he said, I just happened to look at a couple of them. And I noticed it was like more than a dozen people on their main stage preaching in a in a given year.
Rich Birch — And I was like, that seems really high. And then we went and actually looked. We looked at 30 churches who they, who is actually preaching on the main stage at these locations. And the average for 2023 in 30 of the fastest growing churches was like 11.2 individual different communicators on the main stage.
Rich Birch — Now, obviously there’s a lead communicator who’s there a lot, but there’s a lot of other people that are rotating through. Again, think about then all that development that’s happening. And these are the largest, most influential churches in the country.
Andrew Hopper — Yeah, I totally agree with that I mean and and I think another thing is for the discipleship model, because people people naturally say, well, hey, that’s fine. Well what you’re saying is great. Well, then do it all the time, you know, don’t do any video.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah.
Andrew Hopper — And what I would say is, again, this is a pragmatic issue, but it’s um it’s it’s twofold. Number one, we love to develop, but let’s don’t let’s don’t kid ourselves. If somebody’s got their 10,000 hours in, it’s a different level of communication. Okay.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Andrew Hopper — So, you know, we want to develop, but when you, when you say, Hey, we’re going to have seven of these churches and they’re all going to be preaching live…
Rich Birch — Right.
Andrew Hopper — …there’s a…you know, you can end up with some real sort of… The other thing I would say is, um, you know, we, we are a group model. We have a group model that is sermon-based. And so, you know, the idea of having seven different communicators and then people from different campuses that co-pollinate, you know, cross pollinate with groups, that doesn’t work.
And so, you know, cause we do a lecture lab. So we’re going to go talk about this during the week.
Rich Birch — Yep. Yeah.
Andrew Hopper — So we need that sermon to be pretty streamlined. And one of the most effective ways to streamline it is to just do all the same sermon and do it on video.
Rich Birch — Yeah, dude, so good. Well, so you’ve, you’ve launched a podcast, a conference, one day, that kind of stuff called ah Breaking Barriers. You can check this out at breakinggrowthbarriers.com. Tell us about this. Why, why did you do this? What does this got to do? What’s the heart behind this? Talk, talk to us about this.
Andrew Hopper — So I um I I just have a real burden and and God has put a kind of a fire in my belly. Number one, I really believe that to whom much is given, much is required.
Rich Birch — So good.
Andrew Hopper — And I feel like our church has grown and we’ve we’ve we’ve seen some cool stuff and we want to try to and we have been poured into unbelievably. And I’ve I’ve been in a situation to to receive such good coaching and stuff like that. I want to try to multiply that.
Andrew Hopper — But the the heart of it, really, man, is that that we are we really believe that a lot of the church non-success that we’re seeing and the plateauing and all that kind of stuff is by our own design. And I think that you know what you believe about success is probably the greatest determiner of whether or not you’re ever going to have it. And trying to help free people from these sort of anti-church growth you know kind of chains that they’re in.
Andrew Hopper — I mean this this is my world okay and I know this is I know your podcast goes out every you know a lot of different worlds. But it is regularly reported in the Baptist world that between 70 and 80 percent of Baptist churches are plateaued or declining. Okay? Well we have this is what’s crazy to me, rich. We have figured out how to simultaneously mourn decline without celebrating growth. I…
Rich Birch — Dude, that’s a great insight!
Andrew Hopper — You know what I mean? We will say, the church is dying, the church is dying. And then someone says, hey, man, my church is growing. And we’re like, oh, we’re cynical about that. And I mean, it’s it’s just kind of crazy.
Rich Birch — Dude, that’s so true.
Andrew Hopper — And so Breaking Barriers is ah fundamentally all about trying to make some shifts in the way we talk.
Rich Birch — Right.
Andrew Hopper — We want to celebrate church growth. And the way we want to do it is what I was saying earlier. We don’t disconnect it from growing. And I’m sorry, from going. So our our tagline is churches can grow without going, but they can’t go without growing.
Andrew Hopper — And so we just try every time we talk about a sent story, we want to talk about a growth story, and we just want to put those things together. Then what the, what the podcasts, what the, um, the one day things we’re doing, you’re coming to do one of our one days – we’re really grateful for that. It’s going to be great.
Andrew Hopper — Um, and then, uh, certainly our conference is all about saying, okay, if that’s true, that, that going after the lead measure is, is something we should do, need to do, be excited about we need to speak more positively about the lead measure of people coming in the door. I’m talking to icky stuff, man. Website views, first-time guests, raising money, like all that.
Andrew Hopper — Okay. Then um then, yeah, we’re gonna we need to be talking about that stuff positively. Then then we need to equip people for it, which you do a lot of, you know. We want to equip people for it very practically. So like on our podcast, I mean we’ll have three podcasts in a row that are just all about the pragmatics around how to go to two services…
Rich Birch — Right. Yep.
Andrew Hopper — …for example, you know
Rich Birch — Love it. Yep.
Andrew Hopper — …or, you know, just all that. I mean, just super practical in the weeds. And it’s gotten some traction, man. I think it’s cool. I think a lot of, um a lot of you know, lead church, like leaders in churches are are are are learning from it stuff. So we’re excited about that.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I really would I’d strongly encourage you to drop by breakinggrowthbarriers.com. The podcast is is great. I love your guys um affect like great conversations, engaging to listen to, ah really fantastic. And so I would strongly, ah you know, endorse you you guys, you really should, ah you know, follow along.
Rich Birch — And and Andrew, I really appreciate your your candor, I appreciate your passion for this stuff. I appreciate how God’s using you. And I think you do have a unique voice ah in the in the church landscape. Multiple things I was writing down today. I’m like, man, that’s just so good, so fresh. So is there anything else you want to say just before we wrap up today’s episode?
Andrew Hopper — Nah, man, I appreciate it. I hope people will go and check it out. I just think people have got to sort of get freed up to run hard because if you have a divided heart, you will always stop short. You know? If you feel internally a little bit of slime and ickiness around some of the real practical matters, you will not chase them as hard as you as really what’s needed to see some movement happen. And so um, yeah, that’s it, man. Excited for what you guys are doing and looking forward to the one day event.
Rich Birch — Nice, that’s great. If people want to track with you or with the church, where do we want to send them online?
Andrew Hopper — Yeah. So, um, my, my primary outlet is just, uh, you know, you can go to, you can follow me on Instagram. Um, but our, our, our church stuff in terms of this Breaking Barriers stuff. Yeah. You said it breakinggrowthbarriers.com. We have an Instagram Breaking Barriers, Instagram,
Andrew Hopper — Um, and, uh, really that website is pretty good. I mean, it’s always just about the next thing. We also have a private Facebook group that you have to have come and sort of be buying into what we’re doing to get in.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Andrew Hopper — And that, that, that Facebook group is awesome because it’s like, it is just so dripping with pragmatism. I love it.
Rich Birch — Love it. Love it.
Andrew Hopper — You know, it’s just like, man, it’s just, how are you guys doing this? How are you doing this? And it’s not just us. I mean, it’s everybody just kind of firing off and people are putting stuff in chat.
Rich Birch — Right. So good.
Andrew Hopper — And so that’s a really cool thing to jump into if you’re into this stuff as well.
Rich Birch — So good. Appreciate you, Andrew. Thanks for leading today.
Andrew Hopper — All right, thanks, man.
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast! This week we have with us Justyn Smith, Executive Kids Pastor at Cornerstone Church in Arizona and a story catalyst at Plain Joe.
What does an effective children’s ministry look like? What does kids’ ministry at your church look like when you put yourself in the shoes of a child, or their parents? Tune in as Justyn shares how to transform your kids’ ministry into a thriving ministry that serves the families at your church with vision and intentionality.
- Challenges in ministry. // Kids’ ministry is an interesting place in today’s church because of growing challenges that church leaders are facing. Navigating societal divisions and strong political opinions, changes in technology that have affected both ministry and parenting, and a lack of clear vision or understanding of what effective kids’ ministry looks like lead to a reactive approach.
- Questions to ask. // Effective children’s ministry is about much more than simply the curriculum or administrative duties. What does it look like when you put yourself in the shoes of a child at your church. What does it look like when you put yourself in the shoes of a mom or a dad? What could that partnership look like? What questions are parents asking when they drop their child off and they pick their child up? All of these things help shape and inform what an effective children’s ministry should look like at your church.
- Engage with parents. // Meeting a practical need is a part of what makes an effective kids’ ministry. Strike up a conversation with a visiting parent, asking them to observe and provide honest feedback on their child’s drop-off experience. Reach out to long-time attenders and inquire if kids’ ministry is partnering well with them and meeting the needs of their children. Organize roundtable discussions with parents to gather their thoughts and experiences. Opening yourself up to honest feedback can help shape the direction of the ministry.
- Listen to children. // You can put yourself in a child’s shoes by literally bringing yourself down to their level. Justyn suggests getting on your knees and walking through your kids’ experience. Observe what you see, hear and feel. Engage with children to understand their preferences and interests. Ask kids what they enjoy and what would draw their friends to the church. This feedback can help shape programming and events that resonate with the target audience. Justyn believes that using “hooks” to attract kids is acceptable as long as there is substance behind those efforts. The ministry should remain focused on effective discipleship while creating engaging and memorable experiences for children.
- Welcome neurodiversity. // Children’s ministries need to be inclusive of diverse learning abilities and styles. This trend is not going away and churches must be proactive in creating environments that welcome all children. Your church doesn’t need to do everything, but every church can do something. Begin where you can and develop a long-term plan. Engage with families who have children affected by special needs and have open conversations about how to make the ministry more accessible.
- Invest in kids’ ministry. // Many churches are beginning to recognize the importance of investing in children’s ministry, moving away from the notion that it is a lesser priority. Executive pastors need to conduct an honest assessment of their funding priorities. If children’s ministry is consistently underfunded compared to other ministries, it can lead to unrealistic expectations for performance. Investing appropriately in children’s ministry is essential for its success.
Email Justyn with any questions and find him on social media @pastorjustyn. He also invites listeners to download this interview with Theron Skees from his book, Kidmin, Trust and Pixie Dust: Unlocking the Magic of Children’s Ministry.
NEXT STEPS // Is Your Children’s Ministry Thriving? Whether you’re a seasoned children’s pastor or just getting started, it’s essential to regularly assess the health of your ministry. Is your volunteer team engaged? Are kids excited to return each week? Are parents feeling connected?
Download our Children’s Ministry Health Assessment Checklist and take a deep dive into key areas like volunteer engagement, parent involvement, spiritual growth, and more! This practical tool will help you identify strengths and opportunities for growth, setting your ministry on a path to long-term success.
Get the checklist today and build a thriving, impactful children’s ministry!
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey everybody, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Super excited for you to listen in today. You know, I’ve said in other environments that I think some of the most creative people in the local church are kids’ ministry people. They just do incredible things. And today we’ve got not just a kids’ ministry person, but really a person who’s an expert in this whole area.
Rich Birch — We’ve got Justyn Smith with smith with with us. He really carries a couple different hats. One, he’s a story catalyst at Plain Joe. This is Storyland Studio. Plain Joe partners with churches, nonprofits, faith-based organizations, and educational places to create unbelievable ah strategic, digital, and spatial stories that ultimately lift the spirit. We’ve had a number of folks from Storyland on in the past. We just love these guys. They do such a good job. But he is also the Executive Kids Pastor at Cornerstone Church in Chandler, Arizona. So not only is he an expert, he’s also a practitioner. Super glad to have you on the show today, Justyn – welcome.
Justyn Smith — Rich, thank you so much. It’s an honor to be here. I mean that, and I’m looking forward to our conversation for sure.
Rich Birch — Yeah, why don’t you fill in the picture a little bit? Tell me a little bit about ah what the last couple decades of kids’ ministry has looked like and, ah you know, before you joined Storyland, but but talk to us about kind of your background and and all that.
Justyn Smith — Yeah, so for sure. Well, one, I mean, I’ve I’ve been married for over 24 years. I’ve got seven children myself.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Justyn Smith — So all the way from young adults, all the way to ah five years old.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Justyn Smith — So I feel like I have a children’s and student ministry built into my own home, which is which is phenomenal. Ask them, we’ve experimented on them many times, which has been fun. And we’ve been all over the country. So we’ve been ah in places like Las Vegas, Southern California, Minneapolis, Tampa Bay, in Phoenix, Seattle. I’m just all over the U.S. ah ministering in churches in all those places, really been in next-gen ministries.
Justyn Smith — So I’ve been serving the church either in children’s ministry, student ministry, ah both, parenting, all those types of things. So I’ve got but really over 22 years of experience ah working with ah churches from start-up churches to mega churches of 10,000 people. So I feel like I’ve just I’ve just been blessed to have just a a broad ah stroke of just what what church looks like across the board. And ah one thing I’ve learned over the years is no matter if you’re a startup and you have a budget of whatever you made working your other job…
Rich Birch — Yeah, so true.
Justyn Smith — …cause because there is no budget. Or whether you’ve got, ah I mean, $1.5 million dollars to play with a year, ah Ministry is not about is not all all about the money. It’s not about all about the resources. It’s really about your heart, your calling…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Justyn Smith — …ah and ah all all those intangibles. Although let’s admit those tangibles do help a lot, which I’m sure we’ll get into a little bit today. But it really starts with some of those intangibles.
Justyn Smith — And ah kids’ ministry is I think it’s it’s it’s an an interesting place today ah specifically because there’s this tension of ah, one, just our culture. Our culture is is a little bit, if you’ve paid attention to any sort of news lately, I mean, it’s it’s out there, right? I’s ah no matter where you land on ah the political spectrum, societal spectrum or whatnot, there’s definitely um ah some division, there’s definitely some strong opinions. And so that’s made children’s ministry ah maybe a little bit challenging, more challenging than it has been in the past.
Justyn Smith — Technology has has has made it interesting. There’s been a lot of positives with technology, but with it has also brought a lot of ah a lot of negatives. And so how do how do you maneuver through that? That’s impacted kids’ ministry, parenting, and everything across the board. So I’m I’m sure we can dive into a lot of things, but those are just a few of the things that that come to mind ah come up to mind.
Justyn Smith — But ah real quick, it is um it’s thriving today, though. It’s it’s ah It’s a lot of fun.
Rich Birch — So true.
Justyn Smith — Kids’ Ministry was in a position, I think, years ago where ah didn’t feel very valued. Maybe it felt valued, spoken from a lead pastor or leaders from the stage, ah but wasn’t really resourced well, ah didn’t really have high quality leaders. Although the church would say, we want to give them our best, ah rarely would give them their best. We’re starting to see all that change where churches are are really seeing the value. Like no when we say we want to give them our best, we really want to give them our best.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Justyn Smith — So sorry, that’s a long answer to probably your short question, but…
Rich Birch — No, no, no, that’s good. No, no, I love it. I love your perspective. And I kind of want to take advantage of the fact that you do see, you know, wide swath, like you say, the kind of the entire, for lack of a better word, industry and um really want to camp on that and understand, you know, what’s happening across the country. And maybe let’s talk a little bit more about the challenge.
Rich Birch — What would be like, if you think about a common challenge that, you know, kids’ ministry pastors, children’s pastors are encountering today um or faced with, what would what would be a challenge or or two that would kind of bubble to the surface for them?
Justyn Smith — I think something that I like to challenge children’s pastors with is ah really I mean why do you why do you do what you do, at the end of the day? Like hat does an effective children’s ministry look like? I think when you talk to maybe some children’s pastors of some well-established, ah we’ll call them, you know, maybe larger churches, ah they seem to have, you know, um I don’t want to say they’re ducks in a row, but they definitely seem to have to have an order and an expectation that’s different from 95% of the churches out there.
Justyn Smith — Because because most churches in America, they’re they’re they’re rather small and um and I think some churches out there, it’s, you know, they’re they’re desperate looking for someone to lead ah children’s ministries. So what it looks like is a pastor walking through the lobby and seeing maybe a…
Rich Birch — Hey, you!
Justyn Smith — Yeah, really. It’s like, Hey, you’re breathing. Hey, you’ve got kids. And they assume, Hey, you’re not doing anything. And Hey, would you do this? And some people that just the goodness of their heart, maybe an obligation or whatnot, they’re like, yeah, we’ll give it a try. And, um, two years later, they find themselves still in it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Justyn Smith — But with that comes, I mean, they they didn’t really go into it with vision. They didn’t really go into it with expectations or or or or ah education or or any of that kind of stuff. They went in there to really kind of fill a need. And I think that’s that’s a lot of churches that are out there. And I’m not saying that’s not a ah bad place to start, but because of that, some people don’t know, like, where do I go from there? And so what happens is like, what does an effective children’s ministry look like?
Rich Birch — Right.
Justyn Smith — They don’t really know because all they’re trying to do is they’re trying to hang on from week to week. they They know that, hey, we’ve got to prepare for Sunday. And really in a lot of churches, then we got to prepare for Wednesday. And really every three days or so you’re you’re preparing um a lesson, and and and trying to find volunteers, and ah do special events outside of that, and maybe a child care moment. And there’s so much going on that what is effective ministry looks like? And so I I like to start there is is to kind of if we can slow people down, ah take take a few days, and and let let’s talk about what what it looks like.
Justyn Smith — It’s not just about the curriculum. It’s not just about administrative duties. It’s not just about all all those things. Those things are important. But what does it look like when you put yourself in the shoes of ah a kid? What would it look like if you put yourself in the shoes of of a mom and dad and what that partnership could look like? Or what it looks like when ah they drop their child off and they pick their child up? And and have you asked yourself the questions, you know, what are mom and dad asking them when when they get picked up? All these all these little things I think would help shape and inform what an effective children’s ministry could and should look like.
Justyn Smith — And and I think that obviously I something that’s great about—sorry—the the children’s ministry community is I think they’re very ah collaborative. And um I don’t want to and want to pick on other ministries in the church, but I think there’s some who are maybe a little more competitive.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Justyn Smith — In in this space, I would say there’s there’s a there’s ah massive willingness to collaborate.
Rich Birch — Right.
Justyn Smith — And you’d be shocked if you reached out to people and just said, hey, could I have some time?
Rich Birch — Right.
Justyn Smith — And and they’ll give you your time, and and help you and not not charge you or or make you do something crazy. So I encourage people, you know reach out to other ah children’s ministries that you feel like are doing a a good and effective job. But put yourself in the shoes of of parents. I mean, have the conversation with your pastor on on their expectations, and and and and figure out, like especially putting yourself in the shoes of parents. Because they don’t sometimes know um the questions to even ask or or what to do.
Rich Birch — Right.
Justyn Smith — And so so when you do that, I think that you can you can meet a real practical need, ah which is a part of what makes an effective kids ministry, meeting a real practical need…
Rich Birch — Right.
Justyn Smith — …not just the spiritual growth, which also is, you know, huge priority.
Rich Birch — Yeah, incredibly important. But I, yeah, I totally agree on the, you know, people are, you’d be amazed how many people will answer your questions or be willing to talk. That’s actually really the core of what started even our podcast.
Justyn Smith — It’s awesome.
Rich Birch — Like, you know, you’d be amazed. People people are willing to to help each other, which is amazing. But ah you you talked about, I’d love to kind of zero in on one thing you talked about. You talked about the fact that um you’ve got to put yourself in the shoes of kids and adults, parents, that that are dropping their kids off. Give us a few ways that we could do that. I think that’s a good insight. How do we, because we can always see our thing just from our perspective. We see what we do from our vantage point, um which is one vantage point, but it’s not it’s not obviously the entire picture.
Justyn Smith — Yeah, so, I mean, a couple of really practical things ah is, one, is you can literally ask a parent—I’ve done this a couple times, and you’ve got to be pretty confident, I think, in ah maybe a visitor or whatnot. I’ve literally done this with with with a visitor. I’ve struck up a conversation in the lobby, and I was like, I literally said, hey, I know this is going to sound really strange, but as you drop your child off and you go through our kids’ ministry, would you just take note of what that experience is like for you?
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Justyn Smith — Uh, I, really I just, and I really, I had no background with them. I had no, I didn’t know what they would say. I didn’t even know if they were saved, to be quite honest. And, but I just, I just felt like I wanted to do that. And one, because I knew I was going to get a very real, raw ah answers, and I wasn’t going to get someone who’s kind of hopped from church to church, or who grew up in the church and gave me some churchiness and and be you know a little too kind. I wanted something real and and honest, and they did that.
Justyn Smith — But if that’s too far out there for you, I think it’s just literally just just ask ask a parent who attends your church, “How is the experience like ah for you?” And and you know maybe just do like a little roundtable. Bring you know four or five you know parents, ah take them out for coffee or just just come into one of your kid’s spaces and and just talk for 60 minutes. Maybe there’s ah maybe there is someone who’s who’s somewhat new to the church. you know maybe they’ve been coming for six months. That’s enough time for them to remember their experience um there is especially their first time experience, what it’s like.
Justyn Smith — But then and then don’t forget about the parents who have been attending for a long time. They have a lot of they have a lot to say. And they probably [inaudible] the backbone of your church and I think sometimes we might forget about them. Because they start to blend into to the background.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Justyn Smith — Bring them in. Hey, you’ve been attending here for 5 years, 10 years or or whatever. ah Do you feel like we really partner with you? Do you feel like we are meeting the needs…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Justyn Smith — …of of of your children? I mean, just ask the questions. It puts you in a vulnerable in a vulnerable spot, but that’s okay. We’re leaders. And leaders need to put ourselves in in that spot and be humble enough to say, hey, we’re missing the mark here and we want to do better.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Justyn Smith — Or we ah or we’re we’re doing a great job and we just want to keep building upon it and and and and doing better. And then I think when you put yourself in the in in a kids’ shoes, you can literally do this. You can literally get on your knees and you can walk through your kids experience and what do they see, what do they feel, what do they i mean what is that like for them literally, physically on that level?
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Justyn Smith — And then two, ask ask the kids. You know I think it’s sometimes funny, we’re always racking our brains around, man, what would be a fun thing to do for kids? What would be ah ah what would they want to do? You literally talk to them every single week…
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Justyn Smith — …um sometimes twice a week. And so i would I would take time and say, hey, what do you guys think would be fun? What would be what what would be something that we could do that would draw your your friends to our church? I’m not against hooks at all, as long as there’s substance behind the hook. If it’s only hook and facade, we’re not being effective. But if you’re using that hook to get people into your church, to expose them to effective discipleship, I think that’s a win.
Justyn Smith — And so um ask them. They they they know and they’ll come up with some maybe absurd things, but they’re going to come up with the answers because it’s the things they like to do. And then it’s our job as leaders, okay, how can we take what what they want to do and and and and make that work and and brainstorm that with creative people in your church. And so, yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. It’s funny you say on the oh yeah to get on your knees, we did a training thing a while ago, probably a month ago, and they were handing out like, it was like a guest services thing in our church. And so we had like all these random different kind of personas that we were supposed to play. And so I was with someone, was paired with someone, and that was exactly what it was supposed to be. It was like a parent and child. And they were trying to check their kid in. And it was like a slightly different check-in situation.
Justyn Smith — Sure.
Rich Birch — And so I got on my knees and walked through ah you know with the with the person that was supposed to be my parent. And it was it was fun. And a part of what you know my takeaway from it was like, yeah, man, the kids are standing there a long time…
Justyn Smith — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …waiting for their parents to do some sort of administrative thing. And I said the exact same thing. I’m like can we put something fun here like what can we do something, you know give them something or have I don’t know candy or something…
Justyn Smith — That’s brilliant. Yeah.
Rich Birch — …in this environment um that I wouldn’t have thought of if I wasn’t and obviously my knees were hurting too. So I was like, oh man. But yeah, I love that. Put put them in their in your shoes. Ask lots of questions. Participate in the experience. that’s ah you know That’s so great.
Rich Birch — Can you think of a time from your leadership where your perspective has been changed by maybe talking to kids or talking to parents, engaging, um that it’s actually changed a bit of what you’ve done?
Justyn Smith — Yeah, I would I would say, I mean, to your point of, of you know, you put you were on your knees and and and walking through that. We’ve done that exercise, and and we found out that, yeah, we wanted to put something in the kid’s hands. And so we would have a welcome, like a little welcome bag ah with, you know, had our had our logo on it and had a couple things in it. So had ah had a first time button, had a little thing they could fidget with. And so literally as mom and dad are are completing you know, the the short form for check-in, they were able to ah fidget with some things.
Justyn Smith — But not only that, but we also tried to make it personal where we have a someone there who’s giving the kids attention. And so mom and dad can focus on, you know, typing the stuff in, writing the stuff in, however, however you would do that. And we’d have someone asking kids questions, hey, what school what school to go to? Hey, what’s your favorite part of, you know, and just um and just really kind of engaging them. And then what that did for mom and dad, it kind of gave them a sense of, oh, man, these people really do care…
Rich Birch — Right.
Justyn Smith — …about our children. They’re giving them attention and really kind of on on their level. And so I i think it it it just built some trust in right away, which I think is really important, especially if you’re a first-time guest. You’re leaving your kids. I don’t know this organization. I don’t know this church.
Rich Birch — Right. Who are these people?
Justyn Smith — Are you guys a cult? Are you like what are you?
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Justyn Smith — And I’m just giving you my kids. And so it’s important that trust right off the bat. So that helped with that. And I think like yeah with a with mom and dad, um, some of the things that we’ve we’ve changed is, you know, we found out that, you know, handouts on a weekly basis, they don’t like those.
Rich Birch — Right.
Justyn Smith — And some of the churches, I’ve been in some churches and they do value those. But I’ve been in some, they’re like these end up… we don’t do anything with them. And I’m like, Oh my gosh, you know, we’re spending so much time and thought and effort, uh…
Rich Birch — Right. Producing this stuff. Yep.
Justyn Smith — …producing this stuff and and you’re not using them. But we do it because, because I think it’s effective. Because it’s what I like to do. And I’m like and like, I’m not here for me. I’m here to serve, to serve Jesus. I’m here to serve you. And, um, if I’m not being effective, if I’m wasting these resources, that’s ridiculous.
Justyn Smith — So then we went to, um you know ah you know, we did like a seven week series, so we just produced something that we made available for at the beginning of the series. And and that’s it.
Rich Birch — Here it is. Right. Right.
Justyn Smith — And and that kind of went with it. And and parents appreciate that. They’re like, oh, hey, it felt bite-sized enough where where they could get into it.
Justyn Smith — And then we just moved some stuff to social media. So if some people still wanted a a weekly connection or questions, prompts, et cetera, they could still get that on a weekly basis. But in a not not wasting resources and things like that.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yes, exactly. When all the time we spent printing all that stuff, yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense for sure.
Rich Birch — So let’s let’s roll out a scenario. Let’s say I’m an executive pastor, church of 1,500 people, and you know I I really like our kids’ people. They’re good folks. But like I just have a sense that we’re not you know keeping up. That it’s like It feels like we’re like it’s like the same as it was 10 years ago. Like obviously, there’s new kids, new leaders, all that, but but it just feels like maybe we’re not um you know learning, growing. What advice would you give to me as an executive pastor as I’m working with my team to try to help them um stay current. Because I’m not an expert in it. It’s not my this isn’t my area.
Justyn Smith — Right.
Rich Birch — But I it’s it’s a hunch. So what should I be thinking about? How do I explore that kind of hunch? What what what kind of advice could I be, you know, could I give to the kids, ministry people in my church?
Justyn Smith — Yeah, I mean, I think I think the first thing I mean the first thing I would do is I would be reflective as an executive pastor. So is this a is this a specific ministry challenge that you’re having, or is it an overall church challenge that you’re having?
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Justyn Smith — So I think it’s easy sometimes for us to sit in a chair and say, oh, hey, this could be better.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Justyn Smith — But then if I’m being really if I’m being honest and reflective of myself, hey, our whole church is down 20%. Or our whole church is struggling with this this this cultural thing. It’s not just the kids’ ministry. It seems like an easy target, or the student minister, or fill in the blank. It seems like an easy target. So I would i would encourage them, first, just be reflective and and make sure you’re really asking the right question. Ifif you do come to the conclusion that, hey, yeah, this children’s ministry is the lowest um hole in the bucket and and and that that’s where we’re leaking. Then, yeah, ask the tough questions.
Justyn Smith — And I think what some of those questions are is, for you for an executive pastor, one, do we have do we have the right leader ah in place? And um again, just just you know how did we get this person? What’s what’s the backstory? Some executive pastors didn’t hire this person. So I mean, it’s it’s important to understand who who this person is.
Rich Birch — Right.
Justyn Smith — Where where are you going as a church? You know, I’ve been a part of some churches who, it’s like, there’s there’s there was nothing necessarily wrong with the children’s pastor, but the but the church made a a a dramatic shift in in their strategy and how they approach ministry in their community and reaching out. And they found out this children’s pastor who wasn’t doing a ah bad job, just didn’t have the gift mix and the capabilities to make this shift. And so um that’s a hard that’s a hard conversation um to to have, but but it’s one that’s necessary if you want, obviously, your children’s ministry or whatever to to to to get on board and go the direction you’re having.
Justyn Smith — And so it could be a shift and in in leadership. If it’s someone you’re like, no, I think i think this person has it. They’ve got they’ve got the capability, they got the capability, they’ve the gifting, all that type of stuff, then um how are you resourcing this person? I mean, there’s there’s great conferences out there that you could send them to. there’s ah roundtables. I mean think I would say I as an executive ah as an executive pastor, all those things that you might be a part of, why would you not want your staff to also be a part of?
Rich Birch — Right. Right. That’s good.
Justyn Smith — And so um help them find a community and your kids pastor again um could have just been thrown in there, may not have the experience. Or or when ah and and and surround them, find a community of kids pastors who um who are are are big on leadership or big on spiritual disciplines and discipleship. I mean, what is it that you want for your church and and help them find that church, those people, and get them, expose them to what you are are wanting, if they don’t have that experience.
Justyn Smith — Because I found that many kids’ pastors, they’re open. They just they don’t know. They feel under they just feel under-resourced, undervalued.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Justyn Smith — And I think sometimes when you start to encourage, you start to show value. And some of that is is the resources you give them. It’s the um It’s the budget you give or don’t give them. All those things communicate something to them. And so ah you know that’s why I said earlier, you know, it’s one thing to say, hey, we value you. We we value Kids’ Ministry, but then they have the lowest budget ah line, you know, they have the lowest budget in the church.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Justyn Smith — Or or the student ministry, they’ve got you know they’ve got a full-time student pastor there, but we’ve got this part-time stay-at-home spouse that is running the Kids’ Ministry. But yet our expectation is that the Kids’ Ministry is at this level.
Justyn Smith — And so it’s like, I think sometimes, and that’s where you got to take an internal and an internal inventory of of how, of your expectations and and what you’re doing in kids ministry. But but all those types of things. But I think it’s i think it’s mainly like what what helped my growth the most was me being exposed to people who um who our church wanted to emulate, who I wanted to emulate. And that just radically changed and put me on on the right trajectory. So I think that that’s a big deal.
Rich Birch — Love it. Yeah, that’s good. So I want to come back to the under-resourced question in a minute. So I’m just putting a little a little pin in that. But but kind of related to this whole area, I think one of the things that’s changed a lot in the last, maybe even the last 10 years, for sure in the last 20, 25, is we’re trying to create, particularly kids ministries that really are can host a series of kids from a wide variety with a variety of learning um abilities, learning styles, neurodiversity, all that stuff. Talk to me about that both from like the volunteer team side and from you know put your Plain Joe hat on and and think about it from that perspective. What should what are some of the kind of key questions we should be thinking about when we think about that issue? Because this seems like one of those big changes over the last 10, 15 years.
Justyn Smith — Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me just, yeah, let’s be honest. It’s it’s not going away.
Rich Birch — No.
Justyn Smith — it’s it’s it’s only It’s only expediting. And I find that you’ve got a couple churches you’ve got churches that are um they’re pretty resistant. They’re like, this is just how we do ministry. And to be honest, I’m I’m a little I’m I’m a little ah I’ll just use the word disappointed with churches who are just unwilling to um entertain the idea that that they could make some changes ah to minister, to maybe not the whole spectrum that’s out there, but but to to to some, to to what you can do.
Justyn Smith — And so I have ah I have a lot of ah respect and high regard for churches who um who are also honest with themselves. They’re like, hey, we know this is a challenge, um but ah we can’t do it all, but this is what we can do right now.
Rich Birch — Right.
Justyn Smith — But then to maybe have a long-term plan of like, hey, how can we get there?
Rich Birch — Right.
Justyn Smith — Because again, it’s it’s not it’s not going away. And some churches are just like, we’re just not going to do that. I’m just like, it’s just kind of a bummer because I feel like there’s a whole, and I feel like maybe you mentioned it, so you you might feel it as well, is there’s just a whole community out there that is just looking for a faith community…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Justyn Smith — …um that will invite them in. And I think a lot of times we’re either intentionally or unintentionally unwelcoming them. And I think it’s important that that we strive to do what we but we can do. But then I hope that our churches would would get together and and and create a plan to to invite them in in the long term. So maybe, hey, ah this year we can do… you know we can you know handle this level, but maybe you know two or three years we can increase that. And I think those are positive strides.
Justyn Smith — And then there’s some churches who kind of go all in and and they’re just doing a fabulous job at reaching that community. My Plain Joe had ah had on is just just being mindful of of people who um ah who are not, I guess what people say would call typical typical kids. And so when you’re designing, when you’re creating a space, when you’re creating environments, make sure that they’re ah inclusive of of all all kids of of of their abilities. I think it’s it’s it’s not as challenging as it seems to be. It’s as easy as this: it’s as easy as connecting with a family who has a child who who who’s going through that and having a conversation with them. Hey, how can we make our ministry more ah more friendly, more welcoming an environment for your child?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s that’s so good. I yeah I agree. Like we don’t want to get be caught asleep on this one. I think particularly as churches grow…
Justyn Smith — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …it it we end up in a really responsive, you know, way with this. It’s like we’re reactive because it’s like there’s families that are showing up and they are like, OK, you basically deal with my kid. And then we’re caught like, oh, I don’t know what to do. This is an area where we really should be thinking ahead…
Justyn Smith — Right.
Rich Birch — …getting ahead of the curve, trying to figure out, you know, there’s some studies that show somewhere between I think it’s I think it was 17 to 20% of kids in America are neurodivergent. So that’s like…
Justyn Smith — Yeah. Yeah. they’re They’re saying, yeah, they’re saying, yeah, it’s it’s more than one in 10 kids are doing with something.
Rich Birch — …one in five. Yeah. Yeah.
Justyn Smith — And then just real quick too. And I feel like there’s a place I can just kind of be blunt ah with of my assessments is that I think sometimes we don’t do it because it takes work. Um, and and, and it, I’m, I’m just being real. It’s a, it takes a lot of work.
Rich Birch — That’s true.
Justyn Smith — It gets us out of our comfort zone and we don’t know.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Justyn Smith — And so, and so let’s just, let’s just call it what it is.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah. It’s like a new skill. We got to learn, right? We got to lean in.
Justyn Smith — And as a leader, go out there and learn it, go out there, do the research, talk to the people and do the work to meet that need. So there you go.
Rich Birch — Okay, so sticking with the being blunt theme. Let’s go back to the underfunded question. So you got a bunch of executive pastor people that are listening in. And I know that they, when they hear that, and that like oh our area is underfunded, I know they’re like, yeah, like everybody’s. Like they’re trying to balance the budget, they’re like give me a break, like you know, it’s it’s all underfunded. But what what is the thing that you would say or that you wish you could say on behalf of kids’ ministry people all across the country if you had an earnest executive pastor that was sitting down and saying, Hey, like, help me understand. Are we underfunded? Are we? I know everybody wants more money. You know, they’re not going to go to their people and, you know, if you go to, I’ve never had a staff member say, you know what, I need less staff and I less need less resources.
Justyn Smith — Right.
Rich Birch — They’ve never said that. So um but let’s say it’s like an earnest person. They’re like, really, hey, ah help me understand, Justyn. You’re an expert in this area. What does what kind of funding percentage wise? Is there a way for me to think about that that really would be an appropriate level of funding for, you know, our church
Justyn Smith — Yeah, I mean, and I think it’s like really two conversations. One, it’s to the kid’s pastor. Like don’t don’t take on a victim mentality.
Rich Birch — Right. No, that’s good.
Justyn Smith — Like like I would I would I don’t know if the executive pastor says that, it probably comes off differently. If I said that to peer, a children’s pastor, they’d take it better because I’ve been in that like the victim mentality, woe is me.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Justyn Smith — Like don’t do that.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Justyn Smith — You said yes to this, and and you know what you’re getting into.
Rich Birch — Right.
Justyn Smith — And so ah but but yeah, the the underfunded thing, I think it’s, again, it’s just having an honest assessment. So as you look at the ministries, how are they being funded? And if you have like, I’ve gotten some churches where student ministry is like, you know, 50, 60% more than kids ministry. But yet there’s this there’s this expectation that kids’ ministry is doing, you know, XYZ. And I’m like, dude… and it’s not necessarily about like, like the the like you get more, I get more. I I don’t like that per se.
Rich Birch — Right.
Justyn Smith — It’s just that um oftentimes you’re getting you’re getting what you’re paying for. And so if you’re paying um if you’re paying someone like, ah a low yeah, if they have a low budget, if you if they have low salary, I just often say, you get what you’re paid for.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Justyn Smith — And so I have that honest assessment. It’s hard to say; every church is different. I just say, man, what what do you value?
Rich Birch — Right.
Justyn Smith — If you like you value kids, Oh, hey, your your budget’s $25,000 for ministry. Man, and and and you can make some changes to to do whatever. There’s some churches here, they’re trying to be they’re trying to minister to everyone and everything. And there’s it’s it’s a hard conversation to have, but um I get the I get the idea that, hey, woe is me, everyone wants more money. I’m I’m a very practical, I feel like very realistic, but I think that most executive pastors, if you really just reflected um on your stuff, I think I think you could figure out like if you’re underfunding it or not
Rich Birch — Sure.
Justyn Smith — it’s It’s challenging without knowing what the vision is, the values are…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Justyn Smith — …it could be any number of things. So I know I’m not really answering the question, but.
Rich Birch — Well, no, no, that’s fine. That’s good. I get it. I understand that your, you know, yeah people could reach out and ask you if they got specifics, you know, I’m sure you’d be happy to help.
Justyn Smith — Yeah.
Rich Birch — But it’s it because I think that’s a real issue. I do think, um you know, from my seat over the years, we’ve, you know, I’ve been such a champion for kids ministry specifically. I think it’s strategically important for the church. It’s the gospel from a big picture point of view. The gospel is one generation away from being extinct. We’ve got to invest in that. um but it But then just also from a like, I would say like a pragmatic church growth point of view, like prevailing churches invest heavily in kids ministry.
Justyn Smith — Yes.
Rich Birch — Like, you know, if you if you were to go visit really in kind of every stream of you know, Christian church, if you were to find the churches that that that stream considers prevailing, one of the common things that you’ll see in all of those, kind of regardless of the stream, is when you walk around their kids’ ministry or talk to their kids’ ministry people, they’re very well led…
Justyn Smith — Right.
Rich Birch — …they’re well-funded, there’s like energy coming off that. There’s like, wow, there’s lots of good stuff going on there. And so it’s highly unlikely that your church would become prevailing without ah without a killer kids’ ministry, I think, personally.
Justyn Smith — Correct. Rich, I love you, man. That’s awesome. Yes, yes, yes.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I’ll give you a hug across the across Zoom.
Justyn Smith — I know, right?
Rich Birch — Well, let’s you know you’ve given us a chapter of ah your book. It’s its so I want to hear a little bit about this. So first of all, I’m a Disney guy. I love Disney. So the fact that it’s just a former ah Disney Imagineer you’re talking about. But tell me about this chapter and then tell me about your book.
Justyn Smith — Yeah, so the book, Kidmin, Trust and Pixie Dust. I’m a big Disney guy. And so in the Children’s Ministry world, I’ve I’ve got a few resources written on on Disney and and do a lot of that. And I know it gets it’s it’s like it goes back and forth with how people are receptive to it because Disney is always in the headlines…
Rich Birch — Right.
Justyn Smith — …for whatever. But I like to if I like to focus a lot on like classic Disney, Walt Disney the person, and just the thing that he built. I think there’s no doubt that ah Walt Disney built something I’m gonna use the word magical, even though some people are allergic to that word in the church, ah but it but it really is. It’s like he he he created something that was ah brought a lot of value to families and to communities and has really was a pioneer in shaping a ah yeah entertainment today.
Rich Birch — It’s true.
Justyn Smith — I mean, we do what we do today in large part because of Walt Disney. And so um I think there’s a lot of things that we can take from Walt Disney and even the Disney company today and apply that to Kids’ Ministry and take the best from it. I’m not saying everything they do is great.
Rich Birch — Right.
Justyn Smith — Everything they do is is is replicable or or or that. But there is still a lot of ah good things that we can learn from that apply. And so this book does that. It’s Kidmin, Trust and Pixie Dust. It takes some practical ah leadership lessons and creative lessons that Walt Disney and um and and that the Disney ah teams over the years have put into place and how does that what does that look like in a kids’ ministry environment?
Justyn Smith — And so and obviously, was like with my Plain Joe hat, I’m really big on environments and creating memorable experiences. I think those are super important. I think our organization does a phenomenal job at storytelling and helping churches tell their story, ah which includes, um you know, children’s ministry spaces and environments, you know, whether you’ve got 50 grand or 5 million, ah you know, we can make come to life.
Justyn Smith — And this chapter specifically talks with a ex-Disney Imagineer, Theron Skees. And ah he talks about his story and just all that he he created and led throughout the years. And he’s a person of faith, ah which is amazing. Some people think, you know, there’s no way there’s Christians there, but there is um a faith community within the Disney Company. And Theron was one of them for many years. And his stories and the way he is so passionate about um about just ah the the local church and and creativity and telling the story is is um it’s it’s yeah it’s it’s it’s exciting and fun. And so I so I wanted to include this this chapter because I wanted it to inspire people to um to put their ah best into kids’ ministry. And I feel like i feel like this is a chapter that that can do that. And I hope it i hope it’s helpful for people.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. Well, I would encourage friends, listen, I back talking back to that executive pastor that we were talking about earlier, go click the link, read this chapter. And then maybe what you could do, a practical next step is why don’t you buy copies of of this book um and read it with your kids’ ministry people. Say like, hey, I you know I heard this interview. What if we spent the next couple months we read through this and then we just talked about it, all got got the copies. It’s on my budget, not yours. Don’t worry about it. And would love to talk a little bit about you know what can we do to kind of increase the, try to get a a learning environment going with with your kids’ ministry people? I think that would be a really practical. I know when I saw this book I thought man, this would be a great book to kind of um use in that kind of training environment. I think it could be a really cool tool Um, yeah, Mel McGowan, uh, from Storyland, he, he knows, uh, the path to my heart.
Justyn Smith — Yeah.
Rich Birch — He once hosted me at Club 33 there at Disneyland. So it was like, I feel like I’m forever indebted to Mel. So, um, which is, uh, you know, if you don’t know what that is, don’t worry about it friends, but, um, yeah, I appreciate the, uh, appreciate Disney for sure.
Rich Birch — So, well, this has been great. What a great conversation today. Is there anything else that you want to cover just as we wrap up today?
Justyn Smith — I mean, on a search, I know we’ve kind of gone over time a little bit and we talked a lot ah a lot, but I mean, I just, you know, I guess I would say, you know, I never thought that, you know, that I would have to, in kids’ ministry, be a salesman or a talent a talent seeker. And it’s just it just goes with…
Rich Birch — That’s so true.
Justyn Smith — …with with with ministry and and we need people to do ministry. And so that’s something that I learned along the way. And I’m just appreciative of you. I’m I’m thankful for unSeminary. I’m thankful for your ministry and what you’re doing. ah You’re helping a lot of people and it was definitely an honor to to be part of this.
Rich Birch — Well, thanks so much. If people want to get in touch with you or, you know, track with, uh, you know, with Plain Joe or any of that stuff, where do we want to send them online?
Justyn Smith — Yeah, I mean I mean, you can go to plainjoestudios.com. You can find me on any social media. I’m usually the you know hashtag or ah yeah ah Pastor Justyn is usually my my name on ah on everything. It’s Justyn with a Y, so J-U-S-T-Y-N. ah Pastor Justyn, so you can follow me on any of the social medias. ah Find me on ah on a yeah the the Plain Joe or Storyland website. And I would love to connect with you, have conversations, and help in any way that I can.
Rich Birch — Love it. Thanks so much for being here, sir. I really appreciate your time today.
Justyn Smith — Thanks, Rich.
In this Deep Dive episode of the unSeminary Podcast, the hosts explore how to make your church irresistible by discussing Rich Birch’s book, Unlocking Your Church’s Invite Culture: Strategies for Church Growth That Work Today. The conversation unpacks Birch’s insights on how churches can cultivate an environment where members naturally want to invite others into the community. This episode centers on five practical “gears” that drive a thriving invite culture:
- Shareable Weekend Teaching: The hosts discuss how impactful, relevant sermons can become topics of conversation that members feel compelled to share with others. Birch’s advice is to make messages feel like “painkillers” that address immediate needs rather than “vitamins” with general advice.
- Eventful Big Days: By making the most of holidays and major events like Christmas and Easter, churches can create engaging, buzz-worthy experiences. The hosts share examples of churches that take an innovative approach to draw in those who might not usually attend, transforming these days into memorable outreach opportunities.
- Captivating Online Conversations: More than just live streaming, Birch emphasizes creating engaging, shareable online content that feels authentic and connects with people digitally. The hosts explore ways churches can boost their online presence to build digital community and increase shareability.
- Magnetic Community Service: The best community service is both meaningful and fun, creating a welcoming space for all. Birch recommends organizing service activities that not only help others but also foster a sense of connection among participants, making it easy for members to invite friends to join.
- Appealing Volunteer Service: By creating an inviting, easy-to-join volunteer experience, churches can help members feel invested from the start. The hosts discuss how Birch’s insights show that a strong volunteer culture can lead to greater community involvement and natural growth.
Throughout the episode, the hosts emphasize Birch’s approach to building an invite culture step-by-step, celebrating small wins and focusing on intentional growth. For church leaders looking to make their church a place people can’t resist inviting others to, this episode is packed with actionable insights and examples.
Disclaimer:
This episode was generated with the help of NotebookLM, an AI tool from Google designed to enhance content creation by analyzing documents and providing in-depth insights. NotebookLM assists in generating summaries, exploring themes, and crafting key points from the material provided. We used it in this episode to bring you an engaging and thorough exploration of Unlocking Your Church’s Invite Culture by Rich Birch.
We’re always looking to improve, and your feedback is invaluable to us! If you have any thoughts on the episode or on how we’re using NotebookLM, please reach out—we’d love to hear from you.
Episode Transcript Speaker 1 — All right, let’s jump into this whole idea of invite culture. I’m sure it’s something you’re already thinking about…
Speaker 2 — Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1 — …especially as church leaders, you know trying to figure out how to reach more people and build a thriving community. We wanted to take a deep dive into Rich Birch’s Unlocking Your Church’s Invite Culture. He’s got some great insights on how to create that kind of environment.
Speaker 2 — It’s interesting because he really focuses on it’s not some like magic solution, right? He breaks down this concept of an invite culture into five key areas that churches can focus on.
Speaker 1 — Okay.
Speaker 2 — And kind of gears working together to propel the church forward.
Speaker 1 — I like that. Like a well-oiled machine.
Speaker 2 — Exactly.
Speaker 1 — So what are these gears? What’s what’s the first one?
Speaker 2 — The first one is shareable weekend teaching.
Speaker 1 — Okay, so that’s really about making your sermons and teaching so compelling…
Speaker 2 — Right.
Speaker 1 — …that people want to share them.
Speaker 2 — Exactly. So it’s so good, they can’t help but talk about it.
Speaker 1 — But how do you actually do that? How do you make a sermon something people want to talk about on Monday morning, you know at work or with their friends?
Speaker 2 — Well, he uses this great analogy of painkillers not vitamins.
Speaker 1 — Okay.
Speaker 2 — And he argues that your teaching needs to address real problems people are facing.
Speaker 1 — Felt needs.
Speaker 2 — Yeah, not just offered general spiritual advice.
Speaker 1 — So it’s like when you have a splitting headache, you’re not reaching for, you know a multivitamin. You’re looking for that that Advil that Tylenol.
Speaker 2 — You want that quick fix.
Speaker 1 — Yeah, something that’s gonna address that problem right now.
Speaker 2 — Yeah, people are drawn to things that offer solutions to their immediate problem
Speaker 1 — So, how do you how do you as a church leader even figure out what those what those problems or what those headaches are?
Speaker 2 — Well, he suggests looking at things like Amazon bestseller lists.
Speaker 1 — Okay.
Speaker 2 — And you know, they can actually give you a window into what are people thinking about, what keeps them up at night?
Speaker 1 — That’s so interesting. So it’s like market research but for but for the soul, it’s like what are people really struggling with at their core?
Speaker 2 — Yeah, and then how can you craft your teaching to address those needs directly?
Speaker 1 — I like that.
Speaker 2 — Yeah.
Speaker 1 — And and you know, it’s not just what’s being said, right? It’s also who’s saying it.
Speaker 2 — Yeah.
Speaker 1 — Birch stresses that you know leaders need to embody the message they’re preaching.
Speaker 2 — Authenticity is key.
Speaker 1 — Yeah, are you living out what you’re asking others to do
Speaker 2 — Right.
Speaker 1 — You know, there’s that whole, you know practice what you preach kind of idea.
Speaker 2 — Exactly.
Speaker 1 — He gives the example of Crossroads Church and how they’re known for their creative and really visually engaging sermons. It’s not just you know, someone’s standing behind a podium.
Speaker 2 — Right. It’s an experience.
Speaker 1 — It’s an experience. You want people to leave right feeling inspired feeling energized…
Speaker 2 — And wanting to share.
Speaker 1 — …and wanting to share what they’ve experienced. Okay, so we’ve got shareable weekend teaching. That’s gear number one. What’s the next gear in this invite culture machine?
Speaker 2 — Gear number two is eventful big days.
Speaker 1 — Okay, so we’re talking about like Christmas, Easter – those big holidays?
Speaker 2 — Exactly.
Speaker 1 — Those marker points in the year.
Speaker 2 — Yes, times when people are already thinking about you know, faith tradition.
Speaker 1 — And he’s arguing that churches should really lean into those moments.
Speaker 2 — Absolutely. Go beyond the expected. Don’t just you know have your regular service
Speaker 1 — Right.
Speaker 2 — He actually shares a story about Liquid Church in New Jersey.
Speaker 1 — Oh, I’ve heard of them.
Speaker 2 — Yeah, they did this incredible Star Wars themed Christmas…
Speaker 1 — Oh, wow.
Speaker 2 — …a couple years ago, complete with dancing stormtroopers.
Speaker 1 — Wait, seriously like stormtroopers in the church?
Speaker 2 — I mean they had Chewbacca in the manger scene, Darth Santa.
Speaker 1 — Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2 — It was a huge hit.
Speaker 1 — Okay, I can see that generating some buzz – that’s thinking outside the box.
Speaker 2 — Yeah, and they actually drew people in who might never have stepped foot in a church otherwise.
Speaker 1 — So you’re meeting people where they are and and using something that they’re familiar with and comfortable with…
Speaker 2 — Yeah.
Speaker 1 — …to kind of draw them in.
Speaker 2 — Right.
Speaker 1 — That’s really cool.
Speaker 2 — And then there was Hope City Church. They dropped 10,000 easter eggs from a helicopter.
Speaker 1 — A helicopter? Okay, that’s that’s next level.
Speaker 2 — It’s memorable.
Speaker 1 — It’s definitely memorable.
Speaker 2 — Right. It’s exciting. And it’s something people would naturally want to invite their friends to.
Speaker 1 — Right. It’s it’s something people would talk about. I can imagine people being like hey, you’ve got to come to our church. We’re dropping easter eggs from a helicopter this year.
Speaker 2 — Exactly
Speaker 1 — And they’re not even thinking about it as like, oh I’m inviting you to church. They’re thinking about it as I’m inviting you to this awesome event.
Speaker 2 — Exactly. It’s about creating an experience that’s both meaningful and fun and something that gets people talking and wanting to share it with others.
Speaker 1 — So that’s shareable weekend teaching and eventful big days. What’s the third gear in this invite culture thing?
Speaker 2 — The third gear is captivating online conversations.
Speaker 1 — Okay, so that’s that’s really relevant these days.
Speaker 2 — Very relevant.
Speaker 1 — As we think about how how present everyone is online and how much interaction we have in that digital space.
Speaker 2 — And he really emphasizes that it’s not just about live streaming your services.
Speaker 1 — Okay.
Speaker 2 — It’s really about creating genuine connections online and fostering a sense of community in that digital space.
Speaker 1 — So how do you do that? How do you translate invite culture into the online space?
Speaker 2 — Well, he actually points to groups like IF:Gathering as a great example. They really nail that native to the internet feel.
Speaker 1 — So their content It just feels it feels natural right in that digital space. It’s not like you’re trying to force a square peg into a round hole.
Speaker 2 — Exactly.
Speaker 1 — It’s just it just works.
Speaker 2 — Yeah. Think you know short shareable videos, interactive discussions, visually appealing aesthetic.
Speaker 1 — So it’s it’s designed for how people actually consume content online.
Speaker 2 — Exactly.
Speaker 1 — And it feels authentic and relatable.
Speaker 2 — He also mentioned some Barna research that shows people are willing to invite friends online if the experience is engaging.
Speaker 1 — So it’s not just about reaching people online.
Speaker 2 — Right.
Speaker 1 — But it’s also about equipping…
Speaker 2 — Yes.
Speaker 1 — …your current congregation to feel comfortable inviting others into that space.
Speaker 2 — Absolutely.
Speaker 1 — Okay, that makes sense like creating that digital welcome map. Okay. So gear number four -magnetic community service.
Speaker 2 — Yes.
Speaker 1 — I think this one is really at the heart of what it means to be a church, right?
Speaker 2 — Absolutely. It’s about putting your faith into action. And serving those in need. And he makes this crucial point, it needs to be both meaningful, and fun.
Speaker 1 — It can’t just be like, you know drudgery and and you know work. People need to enjoy it.
Speaker 2 — Right.
Speaker 1 — Want to be a part of it.
Speaker 2 — He talks about churches organizing service sprints, you know providing t-shirts, having great music, creating volunteer care teams. So you’re you’re making it an event.
Speaker 2 — Exactly.
Speaker 1 — An experience that people want to be a part of
Speaker 2 — Yeah.
Speaker 1 — He also shares a powerful story about His church rallying after Super Storm Sandy.
Speaker 2 — Yeah.
Speaker 1 — And it wasn’t just about helping people clean up. It was about creating community.
Speaker 2 — Yeah.
Speaker 1 — It was about sharing meals.
Speaker 2 — Right.
Speaker 1 — And it was about embodying the church’s values in a tangible way.
Speaker 2 — And it’s not just about doing good for the sake of doing good.
Speaker 1 — Okay.
Speaker 2 — It’s about making it something that people naturally want to invite their friends to join.
Speaker 1 — Yeah. They see you making a difference and they think I want to be a part of that…
Speaker 2 — Right.
Speaker 1 — …and I know my friend would too.
Speaker 2 — Absolutely.
Speaker 1 — Okay. What about the last gear in this invite culture framework?
Speaker 2 — The final gear is appealing volunteer service.
Speaker 1 — And that one almost feels a little counterintuitive, right, because we often think of volunteering…
Speaker 2 — Yeah.
Speaker 1 — …as something that we ask people to do…
Speaker 2 — Right.
Speaker 1 — …once the church is already thriving.
Speaker 2 — Once you have momentum.
Speaker 1 — Yeah, it’s not necessarily seen as a driver of growth. Yeah.
Speaker 2 — Yeah. But he argues that attracting volunteers is actually crucial to building an invite culture.
Speaker 1 — Okay, how so?
Speaker 2 — Well, he talks about how multi-site churches are particularly good at this.
Speaker 1 — Okay,.
Speaker 2 — When you give people ownership of a new location it creates massive buy-in.
Speaker 1 — It makes sense. Because they feel like they’re a part of something from the beginning.
Speaker 2 — From the get-go.
Speaker 1 — Yeah, they’re not just coming in after everything’s already established.
Speaker 2 — Right.
Speaker 1 — They’re they’re part of building it from the ground up.
Speaker 2 — He mentions East Side Church’s Climbing the Assimilayas framework, which is all about moving people from being guests to being contributors.
Speaker 1 — I like that.
Speaker 2 — Yeah.
Speaker 1 — It’s a good visual. So the key takeaway here is you don’t wait for growth to magically produce volunteers…
Speaker 2 — Right.
Speaker 1 — …you focus on attracting volunteers…
Speaker 2 — Yes.
Speaker 1 — …as a way to fuel growth.
Speaker 2 — Exactly. When people feel invested in the church, they’re actively serving, contributing. They’re much more likely to invite others to be part of it.
Speaker 1 — Makes sense. They’re they’re bought-in, they’re invested. They want to share that with others.
Speaker 2 — Absolutely.
Speaker 1 — Okay, so we’ve we’ve covered a lot of ground just in these first five gears: shareable weekend teaching, eventful big days, captivating online conversations, magnetic community service, and appealing volunteer service.
Speaker 2 — It’s a lot.
Speaker 1 — It’s a lot. I mean, what are your initial thoughts, as you think about this framework and you think about these five gears does anything stand out to you?
Speaker 2 — I think what’s striking me is how intentional each of these gears is.
Speaker 1 — Yeah, it’s not just hoping people will invite their friends.
Speaker 2 — Right.
Speaker 1 — It’s actually creating a culture…
Speaker 2 — Yes.
Speaker 1 — …that leads to invitation
Speaker 2 — Exactly.
Speaker 1 — So it’s it’s being proactive about it. It’s looking at everything you do from your Sunday services to your online presence to your volunteer programs through the lens of how can we make this more inviting?
Speaker 2 — And I think what’s really helpful about Birch’s approach is that he breaks it down into these manageable chunks, right?
Speaker 1 — Right.
Speaker 2 — So it feels less overwhelming.
Speaker 1 — Yeah, you can kind of focus on one gear at a time…
Speaker 2 — Right.
Speaker 1 — …and kind of master it and then move on to the next one.
Speaker 2 — So we’ll dive into some specific examples and actionable steps in the next part of our deep dive. But for now, I’d encourage you to think about which of these gears feels like the biggest opportunity for your church right now.
Speaker 1 — That’s a great question to ponder.
Speaker 2 — Where could you make a small tweak or adjustment that could have a big impact on your invite culture?
Speaker 1 — That’s fantastic. We’ll be back in just a moment to explore even more practical tips and strategies from Rich Birch’s book. Stay tuned.
Speaker 2 — Welcome back. I’m excited to kind of dig into some real world examples of churches that are putting these five gears of invite culture into practice…
Speaker 1 — Yeah me too.
Speaker 2 — …and seeing incredible results.
Speaker 1 — Let’s hear it. Give us the inside scoop. Who are some of these churches and what are they doing that’s so effective?
Speaker 2 — One church Birch highlights is Mosaic Church, which has locations all over the U.S.
Speaker 1 — Okay. Yeah.
Speaker 2 — And they’re known for their incredibly diverse and welcoming atmosphere.
Speaker 1 — I’ve heard great things about Mosaic’s. They seem to have a real knack for connecting with people who might not feel comfortable in a traditional church setting.
Speaker 2 — Yeah, they’ve really cracked the code on creating a space where everyone feels like they belong.
Speaker 1 — So what’s their secret sauce? What are they doing that’s so effective?
Speaker 2 — Well Birch points out that they’re very intentional about creating a culture where people feel comfortable inviting their friends regardless of their background or beliefs.
Speaker 1 — It’s not about fitting into a mold.
Speaker 2 — Right.
Speaker 1 — It’s about being yourself.
Speaker 2 — It’s about celebrating diversity and making everyone feel welcome and valued
Speaker 1 — So you can bring your your friend who’s you know may be a little skeptical or may be from a completely different background…
Speaker 2 — Right.
Speaker 1 — …and know that they’re going to be accepted and loved.
Speaker 2 — Absolutely.
Speaker 1 — That’s awesome.
Speaker 2 — Yeah.
Speaker 1 — So it’s about creating a space where people can truly be themselves…
Speaker 2 — Yeah.
Speaker 1 — …and they feel safe bringing their friends into that space.
Speaker 2 — Exactly.
Speaker 1 — I love that, and it’s clearly working for them.
Speaker 2 — Yeah, they’ve seen tremendous growth and a lot of it is attributed to their strong invite culture.
Speaker 1 — It’s amazing what can happen when you create that kind of environment
Speaker 2 — Absolutely. Birch also talks about New Song Community Church in Oceanside, California. And they’re a great example of a church that leverages those eventful big days we discussed earlier.
Speaker 1 — Oh, yeah those high felt need campaigns.
Speaker 2 — Yes. They’re masters at tapping into what’s already on people’s minds and creating events that address those needs in a compelling way.
Speaker 1 — So it’s not just about fun and entertainment.
Speaker 2 — Right.
Speaker 1 — It’s about offering real solutions…
Speaker 2 — Exactly.
Speaker 1 — …to the challenges people are facing.
Speaker 2 — It’s about meeting people where they are both emotionally and geographically.
Speaker 1 — I love that.
Speaker 2 — Yeah.
Speaker 1 — And that approach has created this infectious energy within the church. People are excited to invite their friends because they know they’re going to experience something meaningful and impactful.
Speaker 2 — Yeah, it taps into that deep desire within people to be a part of something bigger than themselves, something that makes a difference.
Speaker 1 — Okay, so we’ve got mosaic church. We’ve got New Song Community Church. Any other churches we can learn from?
Speaker 2 — One more that stands out is Beach Church in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
Speaker 1 — Okay
Speaker 2 — And they have a fascinating story because they were actually in decline for a while, but they managed to turn things around by focusing on building a strong outward-focused culture.
Speaker 1 — That’s encouraging.
Speaker 2 — Yeah.
Speaker 1 — Proof that it’s never too late to shift gears and start building that invite culture.
Speaker 2 — Absolutely, and their ethos statement really sums up their approach: to become a connected people cultivated by Christ whose changed lives are changing lives.
Speaker 1 — I love that. So it’s about discipleship transformation and empowering people to reach out to others.
Speaker 2 — Exactly. And they’re living proof that focusing on creating that inviting life-giving culture can lead to incredible growth.
Speaker 1 — They’re a great example for churches that might be feeling discouraged or stuck.
Speaker 2 — Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 — So as we’re hearing these success stories, are there any common threads?
Speaker 2 — Yeah.
Speaker 1 — Any key takeaways that we can glean from these diverse approaches?
Speaker 2 — That’s a great question. There are definitely some overarching themes that emerge from these success stories.
Speaker 1 — Okay, let’s hear them.
Speaker 2 — One thing they all seem to have in common is a deep understanding of their community.
Speaker 1 — Makes sense.
Speaker 2 — They’re not just throwing ideas at the wall and seeing what sticks. They’re taking the time to really understand the people they’re trying to reach.
Speaker 1 — So it’s like they’ve done their market research, but it goes deeper than that.
Speaker 2 — Yes.
Speaker 1 — It’s about empathy, about really connecting with people on a human level.
Speaker 2 — Absolutely.
Speaker 1 — And it’s reflected in everything they do.
Speaker 2 — Right. Another thing that strikes me is that all of these churches are very intentional about creating a welcoming and inclusive environment.
Speaker 1 — They’re not just focused on attracting new people.
Speaker 2 — Right, yeah.
Speaker 1 — They’re focused on making sure those people feel welcome, valued and loved…
Speaker 2 — Exactly.
Speaker 1 — …once they walk through the doors.
Speaker 2 — It’s about creating a sense of belonging. A feeling that this is a place where they can truly be themselves and connect with others.
Speaker 1 — So that leads to another key takeaway.
Speaker 2 — Yes.
Speaker 1 — These churches are all about empowering their members to be inviters.
Speaker 2 — Absolutely.
Speaker 1 — It’s not just relying on the staff or a few key volunteers.
Speaker 2 — Right.
Speaker 1 — It’s creating a culture where everyone feels equipped and encouraged to invite their friends
Speaker 2 — Yeah, it’s about creating a movement a ripple effect that spreads throughout the community.
Speaker 1 — It’s about recognizing that everyone has a role to play in building this invite culture.
Speaker 2 — And they’re doing this in all sorts of creative ways from providing simple conversation starters to hosting invite-focused small group gatherings…
Speaker 1 — Okay.
Speaker 2 — …to celebrating those who are actively bringing new people into the church.
Speaker 1 — It’s about making invitation the norm…
Speaker 2 — Exactly.
Speaker 1 — …not the exception.
Speaker 2 — Right.
Speaker 1 — Okay, this is all fantastic. But I have to ask is there anything Birch says about navigating the potential pitfalls…
Speaker 2 — Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1 — …of building an invite culture?
Speaker 2 — Sure.
Speaker 1 — Because it all sounds great…
Speaker 2 — Right.
Speaker 1 — …but I can imagine there might be some challenges along the way.
Speaker 2 — Absolutely.
Speaker 1 — Are there any common mistakes churches make or anything leaders should be aware of as they’re trying to cultivate this kind of environment?
Speaker 2 — Yeah, you’re right. It’s not always easy and Birch doesn’t sugarcoat the potential difficulties.
Speaker 1 — Okay, good.
Speaker 2 — One challenge he addresses is the risk of becoming too focused on numbers and losing sight of the bigger picture.
Speaker 1 — That’s so easy to do, especially when you’re talking about growth and reaching new people.
Speaker 2 — It is and Birch cautions against becoming so fixated on attendance figures that you lose sight of the real goal, which is to connect people with Christ and help them grow in their faith.
Speaker 1 — So it’s about keeping the main thing the main thing
Speaker 2 — Right.
Speaker 1 — It’s about remembering that behind every number Is a person, a soul, a story.
Speaker 2 — Absolutely. What are some of the other challenges?
Speaker 1 — Yeah, what else does he talk about?
Speaker 2 — He also talks about the importance of balancing the desire to attract new people with the need to nurture those who are already part of the church.
Speaker 1 — Right. You don’t want to create a culture where long-time members feel neglected or overlooked…
Speaker 2 — Exactly
Speaker 1 — …in pursuit of new faces.
Speaker 2 — Yeah, he emphasizes that a healthy invite culture is not about replacing existing members. It’s about expanding the circle to include more people.
Speaker 1 — I like that.
Speaker 2 — It’s about growing together as a community.
Speaker 1 — So it’s not us versus them.
Speaker 2 — Right.
Speaker 1 — It’s we.
Speaker 2 — It’s all of us together.
Speaker 1 — All of us on this journey together.
Speaker 2 — And that requires being sensitive to the needs of both long-time members and newcomers, making sure everyone feels valued and connected.
Speaker 1 — That’s a great point. It’s about creating a sense of belonging for everyone.
Speaker 2 — Yes.
Speaker 1 — Regardless of how long they’ve been a part of the church.
Speaker 2 — Absolutely. He also acknowledges that you might encounter pushback or resistance from within the church…
Speaker 1 — Oh, yeah, I can see that.
Speaker 2 — …as you begin to implement these five gears.
Speaker 1 — People don’t always like change.
Speaker 2 — Right. Change can be difficult and not everyone might be on board with the idea of actively inviting outsiders, especially if they’re comfortable with the status quo.
Speaker 1 — Yeah, they might think, we’re doing just fine. Why rock the boat.
Speaker 2 — Exactly. So, how do you navigate that?
Speaker 1 — Yeah, how do you bring people along on the journey?
Speaker 2 — Well, he emphasizes the importance of clear communication, of explaining the why behind the shift towards invite culture.
Speaker 1 — So it’s not just telling people to invite their friends…
Speaker 2 — Right.
Speaker 1 — It’s helping them understand the vision…
Speaker 2 — Exactly.
Speaker 1 — …the purpose, the potential impact.
Speaker 2 — It’s about casting a compelling vision that resonates with people’s hearts. Not just their heads.
Speaker 1 — So you’re painting a picture of what’s possible, of the lives that could be changed, of the community that could be built if everyone embraced this idea of inviting others in.
Speaker 2 — And it might take some time.
Speaker 1 — Yeah, because people have to have to get on board with that vision.
Speaker 2 — Absolutely.
Speaker 1 — Okay, so that’s the why. What about the how? What are some practical tips…
Speaker 2 — Yeah.
Speaker 1 — …for actually implementing these gears?
Speaker 2 — Well, Birch is a big believer in starting small.
Speaker 1 — Okay.
Speaker 2 — Not trying to overhaul everything overnight.
Speaker 1 — So don’t try to do all five gears at once.
Speaker 2 — Right. It’s about taking incremental steps, celebrating small victories, and building momentum over time.
Speaker 1 — So it’s a process.
Speaker 2 — It is.
Speaker 1 — It’s a journey.
Speaker 2 — Yes, and it’s about being patient, recognizing that changing a church’s culture takes time, effort, and a lot of grace .
Speaker 1 — What’s something specific churches can start doing today…
Speaker 2 — Yeah.
Speaker 1 — …to move in the direction of creating a more inviting environment?
Speaker 2 — One of the simplest yet most effective things churches can do is to simply start using language that encourages invitation in all of their communications.
Speaker 1 — Oh, okay So instead of just saying come to our new series…
Speaker 2 — Right.
Speaker 1 — …you say: invite a friend to our new series.
Speaker 2 — Exactly. It’s subtle but it shifts the mindset from inward to outward.
Speaker 1 — It normalizes the idea of invitation.
Speaker 2 — Yes and you can do this in your bulletins, on your website, in your announcement.
Speaker 1 — It’s just kind of weaving it into the fabric of how you communicate.
Speaker 2 — Absolutely. He also suggests leveraging small groups and teams as a way to create natural accountability and support for inviting.
Speaker 1 — So instead of just relying on announcements from the pulpit…
Speaker 2 — Right.
Speaker 1 — …you’re creating a culture where inviting is happening organically…
Speaker 2 — Exactly.
Speaker 1 — …within those smaller communities. I like that. And of course don’t forget to celebrate success.
Speaker 2 — Yes, celebrate.
Speaker 1 — Make sure you’re acknowledging and appreciating those who are actively inviting others.
Speaker 2 — It reinforces that this is a value that your church embraces and celebrates. It creates a positive feedback loop
Speaker 1 — The more you celebrate it, the more people will do it.
Speaker 2 — The more likely people are to keep doing it.
Speaker 1 — Yeah.
Speaker 2 — …and it helps create a contagious enthusiasm that can spread throughout the church.
Speaker 1 — This has been such a great overview of the potential challenges and rewards of building an invite culture. As we wrap up this part of our deep dive, what’s one final thought you’d leave with our listeners?
Speaker 2 — Okay.
Speaker 1 — Something to really chew on as they start putting these ideas into practice.
Speaker 2 — What’s really resonated with me throughout this conversation is Birch’s belief that a thriving invite culture isn’t just about getting more people in the door.
Speaker 1 — It’s about more than just numbers.
Speaker 2 — Right. It’s about moving beyond a consumeristic mindset when it comes to church.
Speaker 1 — So it’s not just about what we get out of church…
Speaker 2 — Right.
Speaker 1 — …it’s about what we can give back…
Speaker 2 — Yes.
Speaker 1 — …how we can contribute to something bigger than ourselves.
Speaker 2 — Exactly. It’s about shifting from being passive consumers to becoming active participants, inviting others to join us on this journey of faith and transformation.
Speaker 1 — And when that happens, something truly remarkable is unleashed.
Speaker 2 — Exactly. It’s about creating a movement of love grace and generosity that extends far beyond the walls of the church building and into the very heart of the community.
Speaker 1 — We’ll be back in a moment to unpack some practical strategies for putting these five gears into action.
Speaker 1 — All right. Welcome back to the final part of our deep dive into Rich Birch’s Unlocking Your Church’s Invite Culture. We’ve talked about the why, we’ve looked at some inspiring examples, but now let’s get down to the how.
Speaker 2 — Exactly, let’s get practical
Speaker 1 — What are some tangible steps our listeners can take right now to cultivate that magnetic inviting atmosphere in their churches?
Speaker 2 — Birch is all about practical application. And he packs the book with actionable advice. But for our deep dive today, let’s zoom in on some key takeaways for each of the five gears we’ve discussed.
Speaker 1 — Sounds good to me. Let’s break it down gear by gear, starting with shareable weekend teaching.
Speaker 2 — Okay, great.
Speaker 1 — We’ve already talked about making those sermons relevant, authentic, really hitting those felt needs. What else can churches do to turn those Sunday messages into something people can’t wait to share?
Speaker 2 — One thing Birch highlights is being strategic about how you promote those messages. Are you simply announcing the topic? Or are you giving people a sneak peek into how it will connect with their lives, the lives of their friends?
Speaker 1 — Yeah, it’s like those movie trailers.
Speaker 2 — Exactly.
Speaker 1 — You know, you see a good trailer and you’re like, I have to see that movie.
Speaker 2 — Gotta see it.
Speaker 1 — You’ve got to know what happens.
Speaker 2 — Right.
Speaker 1 — So, how do we create those kind of trailers for our sermons?
Speaker 2 — Birch offers a whole menu of promotional tactics. Give us a taste. For instance, imagine sending a text blast a week before a series kicks off.
Speaker 1 — Okay.
Speaker 2 — Encourage people to reply with the name of someone they plan to invite.
Speaker 1 — I like that.
Speaker 2 — Gets people thinking about inviting right from the get-go.
Speaker 1 — It’s so simple, but it plants that seed.
Speaker 2 — Right.
Speaker 1 — It gets them thinking outwardly.
Speaker 2 — Exactly.
Speaker 1 — What about after the sermon is over. How do you keep those conversations going?
Speaker 2 — Birch is a huge proponent of providing follow-up resources that are easy to share.
Speaker 1 — So things like?
Speaker 2 — Discussion guides, social media graphics, even short video clips of key takeaways. All of this can help extend the conversation beyond Sunday morning and into people’s everyday lives.
Speaker 1 — It’s equipping them to share the message in a way that feels natural.
Speaker 2 — Exactly, not just handing them a bulletin and hoping for the best.
Speaker 1 — Right, and maybe even think about having the teaching pastor record a short behind-the-scenes video…
Speaker 2 — That’s a great idea.
Speaker 1 — …about the series. Let them share their heart for the message. Why they think it will resonate with people.
Speaker 2 — That personal touch can go a long way.
Speaker 1 — Okay, that’s great. Let’s shift gears now to eventful big days.
Speaker 2 — Right.
Speaker 1 — We had some fun with those over the top examples: helicopter egg drops…
Speaker 2 — Right. While those might not be for every church, the principle behind them is gold.
Speaker 1 — Okay
Speaker 2 — It’s about being creative thinking outside the box and leveraging those cultural moments when people are naturally more open to invitations.
Speaker 1 — So thinking about like what’s already generating buzz.
Speaker 2 — Exactly, and how you can tap into that energy.
Speaker 1 — So you don’t necessarily have to reinvent the wheel.
Speaker 2 — Right. You’re just finding those existing opportunities and putting your own spin on them,
Speaker 1 — Right. And it doesn’t have to be expensive or elaborate.
Speaker 2 — No, it doesn’t.
Speaker 1 — Even something as simple as a themed potluck or a movie night…
Speaker 2 — Exactly.
Speaker 1 — …can be a great way to attract new people and create a natural environment. And what’s powerful about those big days is that they create a shared experience.
Speaker 1 — Yeah, something people can talk about afterwards.
Speaker 2 — Something they can bond over.
Speaker 1 — All right. Let’s jump into captivating online conversations. This is where I think a lot of churches feel both excited and overwhelmed.
Speaker 2 — Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 1 — There are just so many platforms and trends.
Speaker 2 — It can be a lot.
Speaker 1 — Where do you even begin? What’s Birch’s advice?
Speaker 2 — He encourages us to think about creating content that is native to the internet.
Speaker 1 — Okay. So what does that mean?
Speaker 2 — In other words, you need to understand how people consume content online, and tailor your approach accordingly.
Speaker 1 — It needs to feel authentic…
Speaker 2 — Yes.
Speaker 1 — …relatable and designed for how people are actually engaging.
Speaker 2 — Exactly. Like we talked about before, it’s about meeting people where they are.
Speaker 1 — He mentioned IF:Gathering as a prime example of a ministry doing this well.
Speaker 2 — Yes, their content feels so organic to the platform. Think short shareable videos, interactive discussions, visually appealing aesthetic.
Speaker 1 — It just feels like a natural extension of their ministry, not an afterthought.
Speaker 2 — Right, exactly.
Speaker 1 — It’s important because people can spot in authenticity a mile away.
Speaker 2 — Especially online.
Speaker 1 — Yeah.
Speaker 2 — Yeah.
Speaker 1 — What about social media specifically?
Speaker 2 — Birch encourages churches to think beyond just posting announcements or sermon quotes.
Speaker 1 — Okay, so what else?
Speaker 2 — How can you use social media to spark conversations, share inspiring stories, and highlight the real-life impact your church is having?
Speaker 1 — It’s about creating content that people actually want to engage with.
Speaker 2 — Yes, he talks about using humor, asking questions, responding genuinely to comments, really being social.
Speaker 1 — Be social on social media.
Speaker 2 — Exactly!
Speaker 1 — Novel idea, right?
Speaker 2 — It is.
Speaker 1 — I like it. He also suggests leveraging those those social media holidays. You know National Donut Day, International Dog Day. It might seem silly.
Speaker 2 — It does. It’s a fun way to create light-hearted content that people are more likely to share.
Speaker 1 — Yeah, you know and tag their friends in.
Speaker 2 — Absolutely.
Speaker 1 — Okay, I’ve got to admit those are always my favorite posts to see.
Speaker 2 — Mine, too.
Speaker 1 — It humanizes the church.
Speaker 2 — It does, makes it feel more approachable.
Speaker 1 — Okay on to magnetic community service. We’ve talked about making these events both meaningful and fun. What are some specific things churches can do to create those irresistible service experiences?
Speaker 2 — Birch emphasizes starting by truly understanding the needs of your community.
Speaker 1 — Okay.
Speaker 2 — Connect with local leaders schools or non-profits. Find out what the most pressing issues are it’s about being a good neighbor…
Speaker 1 — Demonstrating that you care.
Speaker 2 — Yes. He tells the story about a pastor who asked the mayor what the biggest need in their city was.
Speaker 1 — Oh, wow.
Speaker 2 — And the mayor was taken aback. Apparently no one had ever asked him that before.
Speaker 1 — That’s amazing.
Speaker 2 — It’s a simple question.
Speaker 1 — Yeah.
Speaker 2 — Yeah, but it speaks volumes about the church’s posture.
Speaker 1 — It’s about being proactive not reactive.
Speaker 2 — Exactly.
Speaker 1 — And then of course, there’s the fun factor.
Speaker 2 — Oh, yes.
Speaker 1 — We got to make it fun. Big t-shirts, great music, maybe even a dedicated volunteer care team.
Speaker 2 — Yes, to make everyone feel appreciated.
Speaker 1 — Birch is a big fan of those service sprints, too.
Speaker 2 — Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1 — Those short focused bursts of activity.
Speaker 2 — Much less intimidating.
Speaker 1 — Yeah, than a long-term commitment.
Speaker 2 — Right. It’s about making it doable, enjoyable, something people will naturally want to invite their friends to.
Speaker 1 — Create that camaraderie…
Speaker 2 — Positive energy.
Speaker 1 — Okay, last gear – appealing volunteer service. This is the one that feels a little counterintuitive.
Speaker 2 — Right.
Speaker 1 — But we’ve talked about how vital it is for building an invite culture.
Speaker 2 — Yes.
Speaker 1 — What are some specific things churches can do to create those, I want to be a part of that volunteer opportunities.
Speaker 2 — It starts with having a clear and streamlined onboarding process.
Speaker 1 — Okay.
Speaker 2 — Make it easy for people to sign up, understand their role, and feel equipped to serve.
Speaker 1 — So no one wants to feel lost or confused when they’re trying to get involved. It’s like rolling out the red carpet for your volunteers.
Speaker 2 — Exactly. Create a welcoming environment. Supportive, provide adequate training, make sure they feel like valued members of the team.
Speaker 1 — Make them feel appreciated. And just like with those community service events, think about ways to create opportunities for volunteers to connect outside of their serving roles.
Speaker 2 — That’s a great idea.
Speaker 1 — Host social gatherings.
Speaker 2 — Yes. Team building activities.
Speaker 1 — It’s about creating a sense of community
Speaker 2 — Not just checking tasks off a list.
Speaker 1 — And don’t forget to celebrate and appreciate your volunteers.
Speaker 2 — Absolutely.
Speaker 1 — Make it clear that their contributions are essential.
Speaker 2 — Yes.
Speaker 1 — It goes a long way in creating that culture where serving is seen as a joy, a privilege…
Speaker 2 — It really does.
Speaker 1 — …a way to connect and make a difference. This has been such a fantastic deep dive. We’ve covered so much ground from the big picture concepts to the nitty-gritty steps. What’s a final nugget of wisdom you’d leave with our listeners?
Speaker 2 — I think the most important takeaway from Rich Birch’s book and from our conversation today is that creating a thriving invite culture is a marathon not a sprint.
Speaker 1 — It’s about small changes consistently applied over time.
Speaker 2 — Exactly. So don’t get overwhelmed trying to do everything at once.
Speaker A — Start small. Pick one gear to focus on.
Speaker 2 — Yes. And build from there.
Speaker 1 — And he talks about the aggregation of marginal gains It’s the idea that small improvements in a lot of areas can add up to a significant advantage.
Speaker 2 — Right. It’s all those little things.
Speaker 1 — You’re not looking for that magic bullet.
Speaker 2 — Nope.
Speaker 1 — You’re cultivating a culture.
Speaker 2 — And that takes time, intentionality, and a whole lot of grace.
Speaker 1 — And speaking of going deeper, if you’re ready to really dive into these ideas, I highly recommend picking up a copy of Rich Birch’s Unlocking Your Church’s Invite Culture. It’s full of even more insights examples and actionable steps you can start implementing today.
Speaker 2 — It’s a great resource.
Speaker 1 — Well, it’s been such a pleasure unpacking these ideas with you. And until next time, keep diving deep and keep unlocking that invite culture.
Thanks for joining in for the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Will Hutcherson, a Next Gen and Student Pastor who has become increasingly passionate about finding practical ways to bring hope to kids and teens who are facing anxiety, depression, and despair. This led to him starting Curate Hope, a non-profit that focuses on suicide prevention, mental health awareness, and partnering with schools, churches, and parents to help heal despair in teens.
Recent years have shown an alarming rise in mental health challenges among young people. Adolescents desperately need connection, and the church is uniquely positioned to help them take healthy next steps using practical strategies as well as spiritual tools. Tune in as Will shares his insights on how churches can come alongside youth struggling with anxiety and depression.
- People, places, and purposes. // Recent statistics underscore the urgency of addressing mental health issues among young people. These diagnoses are not just a medical issue, but also come from social, political, and environmental influences around us. In order for people to recover from mental health challenges, they need people, a place, and a purpose. The church can play a crucial role in providing a sense of community, belonging, and God-given purpose as people discover who God has called them to be.
- Conversations and connections. // The foundation for helping kids and teens through these issues is to cultivate more opportunity for conversations and connection within church settings. For decades, as a society, we’ve been trending towards less and less connection. The church needs to create more face-to-face opportunities where kids and teens feel seen.
- Ask yourself these questions. // Explore with your team what it might look like to create programs and environments to have more conversation spaces. What would it look like to build in more connection time in the Sunday service? How can you create more conversations?
- Build connection first. // Connection is like vitamins to the brain. When we feel seen on a deep level, it releases happy hormones and builds resilience. When someone is experiencing despair, hopelessness, or high anxiety, physiologically it’s more difficult for them to receive left brain logic. Instead, speak to the right brain first and meet them with heart. Help a person “emotionally exhale” before you work on reframing, focusing on the truth of scripture, and taking healthy steps towards building resilience.
- Student small groups. // Small groups are a core need of adolescent development. Youth need connection and creating spaces for them to have conversations with a caring adult is one of the best things for their mental health. Through student small groups, you’ll have a better chance of seeing when a mental health issue arises and helping guide adolescents through it. Coordinate youth ministry small groups to be on the same the night as adult small groups to make it easier for families.
- Emotions and God. // Churches can unintentionally demonize emotions. Emotions like fear and anxiety are natural human experiences and should not be viewed as indicators of being far from God or lacking faith. Instead, churches should create an environment where individuals feel safe to express their emotions and seek help without fear of judgment.
- Practical connection tools. // Will’s book Seen: Despair and Anxiety in Kids and Teenagers and the Power of Connection is a great tool for church leaders to read with kids and youth ministry leaders. It offers practical connection tools that are very simple to understand and will help move the brain towards healing.
To learn more about Will, his books and access the resources on his website, visit willhutch.com.
NEXT STEPS // Unlocking Deeper Youth Connections: Free Cheat Sheet DownloadLooking for practical ways to build deeper, more meaningful connections with the youth you serve? The Connection Strategies Cheat Sheet offers five powerful, actionable tools to enhance your relationship-building efforts, inspired by the latest episode of the unSeminary podcast with Will Hutcherson. Will explains how connection is “vitamins for the brain”—a necessity for emotional and mental well-being. This resource distills his expert insights into easy-to-follow strategies, like leveraging the “3-Second Rule” for engagement and using small wins to boost confidence. Download the cheat sheet now and start fostering stronger connections that support the mental health and spiritual growth of the next generation!
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you’ve decided to tune in. I’m really looking forward to today’s conversation. This is one of those conversations that ah quickly we’re gonna get into and you’re gonna be able to apply. You’re not going to be wondering, hey, this doesn’t apply to me in my ministry context. I just know ah that so many of us are wrestling with ah the issues that we’re going to be talking about today. Honored to have Will Hutcherson with us. Will has been a next gen and student pastor for over 15 years.
Rich Birch — Over the past several years he has become increasingly passionate about finding practical ways to bring to hope to kids and teens who are facing increasing amounts of anxiety, depression, and despair. This led him to starting Curate Hope, a nonprofit that focuses on suicide prevention, mental health awareness, and partnering with schools, churches, and parents to help heal despair in teens. Will is also the co-author of a couple books on anxiety for kids and teens. Welcome to the show, Will. So glad you’re here.
Will Hutcherson — Oh, thanks for having me, Rich.
Rich Birch — This is going to be great. Tell us kind of fill out the picture. That’s, that’s the bio, but kind of give us a bit more of the will story.
Will Hutcherson — Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I’ve been an next gen pastor for many years and I remember early on in my ministry, you know, kind of as youth pastors, it was really about reduced risk, you know? Help kids make good choices, right? Follow Jesus. And somewhere around the mid-2000s, mid-teens rather, around 2015, 2016, I started to notice a change that I think all of us in ministry started to notice, that there was an uptick in mental health challenges.
Will Hutcherson — And I remember as a pastor feeling like I had these amazing spiritual tools. Like I knew that there’s power in Jesus name, there’s power in scripture reading. I knew that there’s there’s power in biblical community and getting people plugged into biblical community. But oftentimes I just wondered what can I do practically to help these kids and these students, and these parents, who are really facing some some challenges in regards to mental health. And so at the time, the best the best response was, you know, we’ll send them to a counselor. But even even you know nearly 10 years ago now, like we had affordability issues, we had access issues. And now post COVID, that’s increased even further.
Rich Birch — A hundred percent.
Will Hutcherson — And so um so that’s where the passion came from. You know oftentimes people ask me, how’d you get into mental health? Did you have a mental health challenge? And it really is ah, no, I really care about the next generation, feel called to the next generation.
Rich Birch — Right.
Will Hutcherson — And so this is their problem, so it became my problem.
Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think yeah you we were talking a little bit before we got started. This is not one of those that I think everybody that’s listening in is like, ah yes, ah we have seen this in our context.
Will Hutcherson — Yeah.
Rich Birch — We are wrestling with these issues. It’s not like, I don’t know what you’re you’re talking about. So let’s let’s talk about that uptick. You know, is your sense that you know this kind of uptick in mental health issues that we’re seeing in our ministries, is this is this like an actual rise, or is it that we’re more aware of it, or is it a combo of both of those things? You know, what’s what’s your sense around around that?
Will Hutcherson — Yeah. That’s a great question. You know, I think sometimes leaders and parents ask that question of like, okay, we see the rise of anxiety disorders being diagnosed. Or we see the rise of depression and disorders being diagnosed. Is it just that all of a sudden it popped up, or are we just better at catching it, diagnosing it?
Will Hutcherson — I would say when you look at the hard data specifically, when it comes to, ah let’s say, self-harm. We can see that non-fatal self-harm admissions to a hospital have increased drastically for ah each demographic, both for 15 to 19, but then the biggest one was actually 10 to 14 years old.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Will Hutcherson — Specifically for non-fatal self-harm hospital admissions, just for the 10 to 14 years old, we’re looking at 188% increase for girls.
Rich Birch — Wow. Wow.
Will Hutcherson — And so when you look at those hard data points, you’re like, regardless of the diagnoses, we’re seeing some behaviors that didn’t exist in previous generations…
Rich Birch — Right.
Will Hutcherson — …that show us that there is a a challenge. Now, The other very startling statistic in the hard data is the suicide rates as well. And so, again, ah that’s not just a better diagnosis, quote unquote, that we can we can say that that really is like things that are happening.
Will Hutcherson — Now, I will say here’s the ah good news. We have started to see that those statistics are getting a little bit better in the last year to 18 months. So I think we’re moving in a good direction. I think the church plays a huge part of helping communities cope. In fact, mental health professionals are recognizing that, by the way.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Will Hutcherson — ah Mental health professionals are recognizing, you know what? Hey, the solution is medical, but it’s not just medical. In fact, Dr. Thomas Insel, who was a former national director of mental health institute ah did it for 10 years. He, about two years ago, came out with a book and said, the problem isn’t just medical, it’s also social, um it’s political, it’s environmental. And he said this, he said, the solutions have to be medical, but also people, in order for them to recover from mental health challenges, especially severe mental health challenges, they need—listen to this—people, place, and purpose.
Rich Birch — Oh, wow.
Will Hutcherson — Now this is a doctor, a scientist, who’s saying the research shows in order to have long-term recovery with mental health challenges, they need people, place, and purpose. Now what institution exists in our world that gives people…
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Will Hutcherson — …people, a place where they feel safe and they belong, and a sense of purpose knowing that God created them and they’re here for a reason.
Rich Birch — Interesting.
Will Hutcherson — It’s the church. I believe 100% that we are uniquely designed to help move people away from mental health challenges and illnesses to exactly who God’s called them to be. But we have to recognize that there’s spiritual tools and there’s also practical tools to that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Will Hutcherson — And I think that’s what we’re we’re moving towards. we’re we’re We’re becoming a lot wiser in our approach um than previous decades. I think, you know, the church is kind of moving along with this as well. Previous decades is kind of like we solve every problem with prayer, you know?
Rich Birch — Yeah, just keep praying and it’ll be fine. Yeah, yeah.
Will Hutcherson — Yeah. Just pray, pray the anxiety away. And and that prayer is good and it’s powerful, but the brain is also an organ. And so there’s practical things that we could do to, to help that organ move in a positive direction. So.
Rich Birch — Yeah, for sure. And, you know, there even the question around where where did all this come from in some ways is like a head fake. It’s like, well, you know, it’s here.
Will Hutcherson — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And so the reality of it is we, you know, I know there’s so many leaders that are listening in today that are, um they’re like, hey, I we want to know what we can do. Like what, how can we be the kind of church that supports parents, that supports um you know young people who are wrestling with these issues? What would be some of those kind of common telltale signs of a church that is structuring their ministry in a way to help support um a ah young people that are wrestling with you know with these issues?
Will Hutcherson — So, I mean, the basic foundation that I could say, and it’s gonna almost sound too cliche, so but but go with me for a minute.
Rich Birch — Go with me. Yeah.
Will Hutcherson — It it’s cultivating more opportunity for conversations and connection. Because the core root problem that we’ve kind of ah evolved to, because you know everyone wants to point it to social media. Like mental health crisis was caused by social media and Instagram. That that didn’t help. I mean, social media did not help, especially youth mental health. However, for decades, we’ve been kind of trending in a direction as as a society of less and less connection. And that influences the brain in a big way. So we need to create more face-to-face opportunities for people to feel seen, where they feel connection with another person.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Will Hutcherson — And so what can we do within our churches? I think, ah one, there’s some practical things that we could do, and we can get into those in a minute. But just even programmatically, what does it look like for us to create ah programs and environments, redesign our our churches to have more soft spaces and conversational spaces?
Will Hutcherson — What would it look like for us to figure out how to create more ah connection time within the Sunday morning gathering, you know? I don’t know how this would work, but you know look at your neighbor and ask them this question. You know it’s like It sounds too cheesy, but like how can we create more conversations?
Will Hutcherson — Because, conversations are the seeds to friendship. Every friendship starts with a conversation. And friendship really is the seed to discipleship. It’s through a trusted relationship that people are able to be discipled. And so one of our best discipleship process happens to also be very good for mental health. It’s just creating more connection where people can feel seen, where they feel that they have a place where they belong, people that they belong to, and a sense of purpose.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Will Hutcherson — And so that’s kind of a ah bigger philosophical macro side of it. But the practical side, I think it really looks like um creating trainings for ah small group leaders, for leaders on how to slow down, how to see someone. It really stems through understanding, I would say, how God has wired our brains.
Will Hutcherson — So going back to that, that illustration I said, or I’m sorry, the ah analogy I said, that um our brain is an organ, right? And I was i was talking about the brain as an organ. If I were having a heart attack, my hope would be that you would say, Will, you’re having a heart attack, I’m going to pray for you and I’m going to call any ambulance, right?
Rich Birch — Right. Right. Yeah.
Will Hutcherson — We understand that there’s faith and action together. When it comes to the brain, I think we forget sometimes that it’s an organ of our body, and we just kind of result to, well, let’s just work on steps that you can take, or reframing your thoughts. You know, kind of almost keep it only in the head space. You know, I’m going to pray for you or focus on scripture, you know, and and it’ll go away.
Will Hutcherson — And again, those are powerful things. I don’t want to minimize the power of of ah all of those things. But knowing that the brain is an organ, there are sometimes some very practical things that help the brain move in a positive direction. Connection is like vitamins to the brain.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Will Hutcherson — So when we feel seen on a deep level, it releases happy hormones. It helps build resilience.
Will Hutcherson — Specifically, when we face stress and anxiety, ah cortisol floods the brain. Well, cortisol tends to increase processing on the right side of the brain, the amygdala fires off, blood flow increases on the right side of the brain, and actually decreases on the logical left side of the brain. So when somebody is experiencing despair, place of hopelessness, or they’re experiencing high anxiety, and we try to give them left brain logic, like here’s how you should think or focus on the truth of scripture, the problem is is that the left brain is actually decreased in processing, and it’s hard for them to actually even grasp it.
Will Hutcherson — So it’s kind of like the, like think of like the right side and the left side of of the brain are almost like dis-paired, like detached when somebody is experiencing despair. So when we recognize that as church leaders, we could say, okay, this is a dis-paired brain or this is right brain energy that this person’s experiencing. Let me meet them first right there. Let me meet them with right brain.
Will Hutcherson — As we meet them with right brain, we’re going to meet them with heart. We’re going to meet them with emotion. We’re going to help them to what Dr. Chinwé and I like to talk about a lot is emotionally exhale. That decreases the right side of the brain activity and actually increases the left side of the brain. So then you could do the work of reframing, focusing on the truth of scripture, um helping them take some healthy steps and and processes towards building resilience.
Rich Birch — That’s so great.
Will Hutcherson — So ah when somebody feels connection, when they feel seen, um oxytocin, yeah which is the hormone that’s resulting or responsible for emotional attachment, oxytocin is released and it can actually bring the two sides back together in reengage logical processing. So this is why when I talk about conversations, I talk about connection, it’s really the science behind how God has wired our brains of why that’s so powerful.
Rich Birch — Right.
Will Hutcherson — It’s not just a nice little catchphrase of like, we just need more connection. No, it’s like research back.
Rich Birch — Right, yes
Will Hutcherson — Like we need more face to face connection to help promote healthy mental health.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. And and you know, I think that’s what a great, I love that connection is, is like vitamins to the brain. That’s a great sticky statement. But also just a great thing for us to be thinking about framing it as we’re thinking about our own ministries, our own student ministries. And for sure, you know, I started in student ministry, have been, you know, in senior leadership for a bunch of years. And one of the things that’s changed for sure in student ministry is like, and I sound like an old man, but it was like back in my day, like it was like, it was all about like entertaining kids. It was like, and oh, we would never say it like that. We would have a lot more spiritual words to say that, but it was like, let’s put on the biggest show. Let’s get them in, you know, rows somewhere, you know, we’ll have something funny happen.
Rich Birch — But for sure, we’ve seen over time that actually it seems like prevailing ministries, particularly to students, Man, there’s ah there’s a there’s a real groups undercurrent there. Like how do we get people talking with each other? What would be some of those things that particularly, maybe on the student ministry front that that we should be thinking about um, you know, adding to our ministries on the practical side? Like what what are some you know is there, are there certain habits we should have in the way we do our programming to try to increase ah you know that connection particularly with students? What would that look like?
Will Hutcherson — Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for that question, by the way, because I’m still surprised that despite um where student ministry has gone, that we still have quite a few churches that do not prioritize small groups within student ministry. And I just want to pause and say…
Rich Birch — Right.
Will Hutcherson — …if you are not doing small groups, in your student ministry, you are missing a core need of adolescent development.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Will Hutcherson — Adolescents desperately need connection, and it’s really helpful for their mental health. Like so creating spaces for them to have conversations, intentional conversations, with a caring adult is possibly one of the best things you can do for their mental health. Because if a mental health challenge pops up, as a youth ministry, you’re going to have a better chance of recognizing it, seeing it, and being able to help guide that student towards some some healthy steps, whether that’s seeking professional help, having a conversation with their school counselor, um whatever those extra steps are. If you don’t have a ah small group ministry that is really intentional about connecting once a week, at least, with their kids, with a small group leader and students, it’s going to be really hard to to identify that.
Will Hutcherson — And and you know if you’re listening to this, you’re you’re a senior leader, and you’re like, ah, but our student ministry is only like 15. Our youth pastor, it’s a small group in itself. I would I would say um, even with a ah small group of 15, you still need to have a small group ministry because you can’t track with the stories of more than maybe eight people.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Will Hutcherson — And so you can’t show up at the games and it takes a lot of relational building, as we all know as pastors. It takes a lot of time to build that relational trust. And so empower leaders to be part of the ministry, create a small group ministry within your student ministry if it’s not already existing.
Will Hutcherson — And I would also say, so here’s the last caveat to that, I would say in terms of student ministry, I would say um don’t necessarily put your small groups at a different time from your youth ministry programming.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Will Hutcherson — Put them on the same night.
Rich Birch — Right.
Will Hutcherson — Parents are way too busy. So what often happens is we want to check the box of small group ministry and we say, well, we have student ministry at this time and then our small groups happen at all these other times. And what I’ve seen is that usually you have 10%, maybe 15% participation because they’re busy.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Will Hutcherson — They got soccer games, they got football games, they got a whole bunch of other things.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Will Hutcherson — And depending on your city, that can be really, really challenging. So, put it in the same night, the same time. Youth pastors don’t need to preach for 45 minutes, even 30 minutes, 25 minutes, and then put them in small groups. Let the preaching happen…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Will Hutcherson —…in the context of conversation.
Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s good. That’s great. I love that. Beyond kind of um the over-spiritualization, which for sure happens, right? There are churches that, you you know, we kind we kind of made the joke earlier today, right? Like, pray the anxiety away. But, you know, beyond that, because I think there’s a lot of churches that obviously understand that that’s ah a pothole that we’re you know we’re not going to fall into. But what would be some common potholes that churches fall into on this front that they’re like maybe a common mistake they make, or a common um thing that you’ve seen where you you know you’re in a church, maybe you’re visiting you’re coaching a church, and like you wince a little bit and you’re like oh I kind of wish we weren’t doing that. And you know you can be totally honest because you don’t have to be nice to people. You’re they’re just listening in now. What would be ah you know a common pothole that you’ve you’ve seen um you know churches or maybe ah you know run into um from time to time?
Will Hutcherson — I mean, the one that comes to my mind is, you know, I was, I was at a conference not too long ago. And that they there was a speaker before me who was giving an altar call. And he was having, you know, people come forward and, he’s you know, he’s just praying. He’s like, we’re going to pray in Jesus name that the anxiety will be, will be gone, you know. And, and like, just kind of that, again, praying the anxiety away.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Will Hutcherson — And, and I’m not saying that there isn’t power in prayer and there isn’t power in something being “broken off of us” you know if, I’m just saying that sometimes there’s a process of how God moves us into um that peace and stillness and the fruit of the Spirit, you know?
Will Hutcherson — I think about the disciples. I’m like the disciples, they they were a mess throughout those three years, you know? Like they still had anxiety. They still were fearful.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s true. Yeah.
Will Hutcherson — You know like there wasn’t a moment that they just believed that Jesus was the son of God and all of a sudden they didn’t face mental health challenges to a degree, you know? Now, despite those mental health challenges, they still took steps towards Jesus, right? So it’s like…
Rich Birch — Right.
Will Hutcherson — …it’s it’s I think just maybe even recognizing that, especially with anxiety, anxiety is like the common cold for the brain, by the way. So it’s it’s sometimes it’s a big problem. Sometimes it’s like, you know, you get a cold and sometimes it turns into a sinus infection, right? Or it turns into bronchitis.
Rich Birch — Right.
Will Hutcherson — So it can become more, but then sometimes anxiety is just a common cold. Like sometimes it just kind of comes and it goes away and it doesn’t mean that there’s necessarily something that needs to be “broken off of you”. It’s just something to be even aware of.
Will Hutcherson — I would say the other pitfall is that churches will unintentionally, at times when we’re preaching, we will kind of, for lack of a better words, demonize emotions, where in our phrasing, in our language, um will put emotions in such a negative light that it makes people feel like, if I feel this emotion, I’m far from God.
Will Hutcherson — And again, like take fear, for instance. You know, some people will say like, you know, the Bible says do not fear 360 times. Based off of what I I did with a lot of research and looking at all the instances that I could find in both Hebrew and Greek, I found the specific phrasing of do not be afraid. I think I found it 167 times throughout the scriptures. So we can look at that and say, so if we are afraid then we’re obviously not doing what God calls us to do.
Will Hutcherson — But the reality is is that fear is just an emotion. And again, we were created with these emotions. It’s what we do with that fear.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Will Hutcherson — Like did Jesus feel the emotion of fear…
Rich Birch —Right.
Will Hutcherson — …on the cross. Possibly. Did that mean he had no faith? No.
Rich Birch — Yes, right. Yes.
Will Hutcherson — Did that mean he didn’t trust God? No.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Yeah.
Will Hutcherson — But did he feel the emotion of fear? Sure.
Rich Birch — Sure. Yep.
Will Hutcherson — He felt all the emotions of humankind. So I think it’s important for us to recognize that emotions are just emotions.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Will Hutcherson — Like and it’s okay to acknowledge those emotions. It’s okay to let people kind of sit in them for a little bit. like Don’t be afraid to let someone just sit in the emotion for a little bit. It doesn’t mean that they’re somehow moving away from Jesus. In fact, sometimes our emotions can actually draw us a whole lot closer to Jesus.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, that’s good. Yeah, I like that. So, um you know, well, first of all, I think that’s great kind of coaching, great, um you know, reminder, great direction for us. I was thinking specifically on that whole, you know, like, um you know, “break off the anxiety, Lord”, kind of prayer that could, you know, that, you know, and I can imagine myself saying that. Like I can imagine myself ah so I appreciate you call that out cuz I’m like yeah that’s true. I guess would you is a better way, and I realize it’s like maybe a bit weird to say it that way, but like a better way to pray in that kind of situation it’s it’s more about like, you know, Lord, give them more, more peace, more comfort, Lord, extend, you know, your goodness, restore what has been, you know, uh, you know, isn’t necessarily, I don’t know, I’m not sure what the language is to use there.
Rich Birch — How would you suggest is kind of a better way for us to pray? Um, obviously we know from a theological perspective, the Holy Spirit intercedes for us and translates all that, but you know, we’re also leading in the room that we’re in and we want to, we want to ensure that we create a place where I don’t want somebody who’s in, I don’t want a student, because we’re talking particularly about student who’s in our environment today, to feel like we’ve somehow, you know, [inaudible] them, made them feel terrible um through my prayer, but I do want to show care and I do want to kind of point towards like, Hey, I would love for them to take steps in a new direction.
Will Hutcherson — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Is that the kind of thing, like more, more peace, maybe fruit pray through the fruit of the Spirit. You had mentioned that.
Will Hutcherson — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Like, Hey, love more joy, more peace, more of that kind of thing.
Will Hutcherson — I think you just mentioned it.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Will Hutcherson — Like we want them to take healthy steps, right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Will Hutcherson — And so pray those prayers, like God help us to to take the healthy steps to overcoming our anxiety.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Yeah, that’s good.
Will Hutcherson — God help us to acknowledge and know that you’re with us…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Yep.
Will Hutcherson — …in the midst of our anxiety or in the midst of our fear. God help us to be brave and to do the hard thing even when we’re afraid, right?
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good. Yeah.
Will Hutcherson — Like it’s it’s the recognizing that “even when, help us do” …and move in the right direction. So it just, I think it’s a little bit more mindful…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Will Hutcherson — …that this is where we are and it’s okay for where we are, you know? And we don’t want whether it’s a student or someone in our church to feel like just because they have anxiety or because they’re facing fear or depression that somehow they’re disappointing God or they’re far from God.
Rich Birch — Wow, that’s good.
Will Hutcherson — It’s just a condition. It’s just something that they’re experiencing. And and I think the more that we can use language that helps people to recognize mental health challenges, because our brain is an organ, is just part of how our bodies sometimes get out of whack.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Will Hutcherson — And so yes, we do need the healing of the Lord, but it’s both faith and action.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great.
Will Hutcherson — And so just like you know if I had a heart condition, we would never ever say it’s because of my lack of ah faith that I need to take…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Will Hutcherson — …you know ah cholesterol or…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Will Hutcherson — …or high blood pressure pills, you know.
Rich Birch — Right.
Will Hutcherson — But sometimes I think unintentionally, whether it’s within our ah you know our sermon, I don’t I don’t think it’s really within our sermons, but I think people just tend to generally equate because I’m struggling with a brain thing, it must be that I’m not, you know, close enough to God or God’s not helping me in some way. And it’s like, no, that’s not true.
Rich Birch — Right.
Will Hutcherson — Like it’s just a condition that you’re facing and and God is very much present in the midst of that.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, that’s good. That’s so good. I appreciate that. And I know he just even in my own family. Like we, my uncle tells, he had a really ah terrible internal, um, you know, disease, condition. And he was really pressing in with the Lord asking for healing. And he ended up at a church where like the pastor, you know, they were praying for him like over a bunch of time. And then eventually the pastor literally unrolled the like, so let’s talk about the unacknowledged, the unforgiven sin in your life. Because we’ve been praying about this for a long time and it hasn’t been healed and what, you know, what it’s got to be a problem with you. And and literally my uncle like walked out of the church that day and it was decades was like, you know, because of that. And this is the kind of thing that we’re, this is the weight that we’re carrying as we engage with students, with people around these issues. We’ve got to be very careful with the language we use.
Will Hutcherson — We do. We do. We got to guard and have good theology. I mean…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s bad.
…because I hear those kinds of things all the time and I’m like, what about Paul’s thorn?
Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely.
Will Hutcherson — How do you resolve that? You know?
Rich Birch — Yes, yes, no, absolutely. Well, this has been good. Well I know there’s a ton we could talk about here. And I know, like I say, I know there’s lots of people that are leaning in asking questions, but I actually do want to get to a resource that I think would be really helpful for ah leaders that are listening in today.
Rich Birch — You’ve written a couple of books, but one of them particular is called Seen: Despair and Anxiety in Kids and Teenagers and the Power of Connection. I bumped into this book and I thought, man, this would be great for leaders. It could be a great tool for maybe, maybe you’re a senior leader listening in and you’re like, Man, what if I should read this with my student ministry team or with my kids ministry team? We could kind of go through it together, help us try to cultivate a more you know positive environment on this front. But tell me about this book. What were you thinking when you ah put this together?
Will Hutcherson — Yeah. So Dr. Chinwé and I wrote this ah specifically because of the youth mental health crisis.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Will Hutcherson — But these principles apply regardless of the relationship. So whether it’s a parent to a child relationship or a small group leader to a child, or even just a leader to a staff member you know, or pastor to a staff member or pastor to an adult. Because they’re connection tools and there’s really a lot of science and research behind how God wired our brains and how connection asked believe actually influences the brain towards healing, especially when they’re facing mental health challenges.
Will Hutcherson — So I’ve actually had a few few senior leaders actually ask me to rewrite Seen even in the context of leadership because it’s easily applied to leadership. So…
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Will Hutcherson — Yeah, the the principles are are very simple to understand, but it’s really ah practical connection tools and how those connection tools will move the brain towards healing
Rich Birch — Love it. Love it. So good. I also loved as a just as ah a sidebar—this caught my eye as an author—I love that you right up front you said a two hour read to build strong relationship with your kid or a teenager.
Will Hutcherson — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Which is wonderful. Like I love that. You’re calling out like, hey, you’re not going to get swamped by this book, like, which again, you know, a team member, you could give this to your team and say, hey, we’re going to read this next week. You you can find the time in the next week for us to, you know, to read that.
Rich Birch — Any um you know kind of reaction or response as you’ve had this book out there you know that has been particularly encouraging? Any stories of like, oh, it’s been kind of cool how this tool has been used by you know churches or people or individuals over the years?
Will Hutcherson — Yeah, I’ve been, I mean, surprised and shocked at how much um this book has helped so many parents, ah small group leaders, youth pastors. We get stories nearly every week…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great.
Will Hutcherson — …from somebody who says, hey, this changed my parenting. Hey, this changed the way that I led. It changed the way that I connected with my kids.
Rich Birch — Right.
Will Hutcherson — And it’s ah you know I don’t think Seen is necessarily something that people read and it’s like, oh wow…
Rich Birch — Right.
Will Hutcherson — …this is like revolutionary. But I think what people enjoy about what we did is we made the neuroscience really simple.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Will Hutcherson — In fact, almost almost too simple where sometimes I apologize to the smart people. I’m like, I’m sorry.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Will Hutcherson — I made it, you know, we made it this simple, but, um, but we wanted like the average person to be able to read it and… Let me redo that. We wanted the average person to be able to read it and read it within two hours, you know, very quickly. And ah be able to process the information and apply it to their life right away.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so great. This is fantastic. Well, just as we wrap up today’s ah episode, anything else you want to share just as we we close out today’s conversation?
Will Hutcherson — No, thank you so much for what you do. Thanks for empowering leaders and helping leaders to to lead this church.
Rich Birch — Appreciate that. Thanks so much, Will. If people want to track with you, ah kind of connect with your ministry, where do we want to send them online?
Will Hutcherson — Yeah, you can go to willhutch.com and that’ll kind of direct you in any direction you like. We have a couple of books, like I said, that we have and then courses and you can reach out to me there.
Rich Birch — Nice. Thanks so much, Will. Really appreciate you being on the show today. Thank you.
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with return guest Aaron Stanski, the founder and CEO of Risepointe. They provide creative design solutions so that your church’s mission isn’t held back by its building.
Is your kids’ ministry space feeling tired? Churches often take more design risks with kids’ environments through use of color or theming, but that also means they age faster than spaces for adults do. Tune in to learn how you can improve your kids’ spaces and make a positive first impression with your guests.
- The first impression. // Kids’ spaces are often the first point of contact for new families visiting a church. While adults can tolerate less-than-ideal conditions, children require environments that are engaging, safe, and conducive to both learning and play. A well-designed children’s space can significantly influence a family’s decision to return to a church.
- Address security. // Churches need to strike a balance between creating a secure environment and maintaining an inviting atmosphere. The biggest risk is something happening internally at your church. While a large part of security is making sure volunteers are screened and trained properly, there are steps you can take to improve your environment too. For example, security can start at the kid’s check-in area, but then you can open up the space past that. The key is making sure you have good transparency in and out of kids’ spaces, you’re using security cameras, and eliminating blind corners around your church.
- Flexible kids’ spaces. // Creating large, flexible spaces that can accommodate various activities and age groups is a growing trend in children’s ministry design. Design kids’ environments that can be easily adapted for different types of programming, such as worship, games, and small group discussions. Flexible spaces also allow for more efficient use of volunteers, as they can be reconfigured to meet the needs of different activities. Ensure that larger areas have proper acoustic management to maintain an environment conducive to learning and interaction.
- Design for children’s needs. // Consider the wide range of needs for the kids coming into your church. What are they walking into church with? How are you providing them spaces to play and get their energy out? Where are you providing them a place to sit down and learn about Jesus? Create spaces that are inclusive and accessible for children with special needs. Include sensory rooms or quiet areas for children who may feel overwhelmed. Reducing stimuli in kids’ spaces and providing calming areas allows children to retreat if they need a break from the main activities. Ensure that all children have opportunities to engage in play and learning, regardless of their abilities.
- Design for parents and volunteers too. // Make it easy for parents to navigate the kids’ space with clear pathways and signage. Providing a lobby outside the kids’ area can encourage parents to slow down and connect. Considering volunteers is important when designing children’s space as well. Include dedicated areas for them to store materials, prepare for activities, take breaks, and securely leave their personal belongings.
- Today’s design trends. // Gone are the days of having over-the-top, boldly themed kids’ areas. We live in an overstimulated world and kids can easily get overwhelmed. Today’s designs are trending towards creating kids’ environments that are calming with simple geometric shapes and colors, bringing down too much noise and color clash. Remember to create environments that help kids feel like they’re maturing towards the next phase in their lives.
- Needs Analysis. // Risepointe offers the Needs Analysis for churches, where they come on site to take a look at your entire facility. They meet with your team and go through fun exercises to get a sense of who you are as a church and what your ministry DNA is like. They then work to align your facility to your mission and vision by drawing up plans detailing how your ministry spaces could be altered.
NEXT STEPS // Risepointe Collection, V.25Grab Risepointe Collection, V.25, a fun and FREE resource for churches that highlights the latest design trends, and will help you freshen up your kids’ spaces. Visit www.risepointe.com and scroll to the bottom of the page to download it.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Man, I’m super excited that you’re tuned in today. We’ve got a return guest today. And you know, when we have a return guest, it means because this person got so much good stuff to say that we cannot contain them to a single episode. And that is so true. We’ve got Aaron Stanski today. He is the founder and CEO of Risepointe with 15 plus years experience of church design, leadership, project management experience. If you don’t know Risepointe, where have you been? You’re living under a rock.
Rich Birch — They provide ah creative design solutions to really remove the lids. I love their help because they really are helping churches figure out how do we keep growing ah to really prevent growth in their ministry. Their church architects and designers have years of experience working in churches, schools, nonprofits, really fantastic people doing interior design, graphic design, branding, lots of stuff to really help churches like yours. Aaron, welcome to the show. Thanks for coming back on.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, it’s great to be here, Rich. Thanks for having me.
Rich Birch — Yeah, i’m you know it’s gonna be good, I’m looking forward to to talking. You know we’ve had you on in the past, we’ve had a couple different episodes. One about a campus opening that you had had to you know a part of, and the impact that had happened and kind of a general design stuff. And I was talking to Aaron, I said, man, I’d love to have you come back on, because you might not know friends, but a part of what I do is actually I’ll visit churches, I do this, it’s kind of like secret shopper, but it’s not secret. I’ll end up in churches. And I feel like when I’m in the churches in churches all the time, I’m walking around kids’ spaces and I’m like, they feel tired. They and I um… And so I’m, frankly, I’m using Aaron here…
Aaron Stanski — Sure.
Rich Birch — …to try to um um trying to suck the brain information or information out of his brain to learn about kids in spaces. Why are kids spaces so important to churches? Maybe let’s just start there. What why should we even be worrying about that part of what we do?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I mean, it’s super important, especially for guests and stuff like that who are checking out your church for the first time. I mean, we can put up with a lot as adults, right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — I mean, we can like make excuses for things, like we can find a chair that’s a little bit more comfortable or in a place that we can hear a little bit better or something like that. But for our kids, right, like we’re dropping them off, we’re handing them to someone. We really just want to make sure they’re gonna they’re safe, they’re going to be taken care of. We want to make sure they’re going to have fun, they’re not going to be bored. And so really some of those first impression pieces, I mean, it goes a long way for guests in walking into those environments.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s it’s so true. And you know so many churches I talk to when they say, hey, our target is to reach a 32 year old couple, or a 32 year old male, or a 35 year old whoever…
Aaron Stanski — Right.
Rich Birch — …you know those people have kids and they’re thinking about kids…
Aaron Stanski — Right.
Rich Birch — …and they’re wrestling through, hey, what what does that look like? And so this space is, um yeah, it’s critically important. Well, I’d love to, if you’re if you’re up for it…
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …to maybe walk through some of the, low hanging fruit, you know, think about maybe we’re a church of a thousand people and I’m, you know, I might wander around my space. Are there some things that I should be thinking about ah that really maybe I should be improving on in my, you know, in my kid’s space?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, and I think what happens a lot of times too, right, is we take some design risks with kids spaces. We introduce lots of color, ah like lots of theming, or, you know, I’ve seen a lot of bad murals and stuff like that painted in churches. And so because we take those risks, our kids ministry spaces actually age faster than a lot of our adult spaces do.
Rich Birch — Yes. Oh, that’s good. That’s good.
Aaron Stanski — And so that’s why that’s why you’re feeling that way, Rich, when you walk in.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Aaron Stanski — It’s like, man, why does it feel tired?
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Aaron Stanski — And it’s like, well, we took some big risks and some of those things trended out very quickly. But yeah, I mean, I came up with a list of things here that I’ve just seen lots of churches really kind of go all in on to make sure their kids’ ministry is aligned with their mission and vision and helping them grow.
Aaron Stanski — The first thing that like every church talks about that is security, right? It’s always on the top of the list. You know we don’t, we don’t want security at the expense of like really great space. Right? Like we don’t want it to be so secure that it’s creepy. So we’ve seen lots of churches say, hey, we really want to make the entry points right behind ah sort of that kid’s check-in area. That’s where we want our security to start.
Aaron Stanski — But then we really want to open up the interior spaces, allow lots of visual connection between all of those, um oversize the rooms, make sure the parents feel really comfortable kind of coming in and out of all of those environments. And that’s always security is always number one on the list.
Rich Birch — What how do we balance out those two? It feels like, it’s almost like they’re two contradictory ideas. One is like, you want it to feel secure…
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …but then the other is, I want it to feel welcoming and engaging. And are there kind of some things we should, I like what you said there even about like oversizing the space a little bit, making sure, but are there other things we should be thinking about as we look at our space?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I mean, ah you know the biggest risk is you know always something happening internally at your church. And so ah you know when we when we think about security, we’re talking about like making sure we don’t have any blind corners, ah using security cameras, and really like making sure we have good transparency in and out of all of those spaces.
Aaron Stanski — And I’m sure you get into this, Rich. I mean, that’s just the architecture. That’s just 5% of what security means. The rest of it is making sure our volunteers are trained, they’re screened, that we are always have two adults in the classroom at the same time and stuff.
Aaron Stanski — But from a design perspective, like that’s really what it’s about, making sure all those spaces are are open and connected and transparent as as as we can make it. And then making sure people aren’t back there who shouldn’t be.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Aaron Stanski — So having some security at the check-in spots to to provide that.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. I know I remember years ago I was visiting a name brand church that you you all would know and I, you know, I’ve said this to a bunch of leaders over there. I’ve I’ve retold this this story. i I just happened to be there and I was, you know, I was a leader from a church and I um was just poking around and was kind of looking at stuff and trying to see, you know. And then I was like, well, let’s go take a look at the kid’s space. And I like, and it was in between services, but like their security guy, he, he totally picked me out of a crowd.
Rich Birch — Like he comes up. He was friendly. He was a guy with a thick neck, uh, super friendly, but was like, Hey, sir, so good to see you. How can I help you today? And, uh, which I loved.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — I was like, listen, if I’m, if I’m a parent…
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …and you know, the, you know, that they he identified quickly you’re, you’re a person by your, with no kids and you’re looking around, you look kind of like.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, you don’t want creepy Rich ah back in your kids ministry area.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Guy with no hair. Yeah, but that’s to say, you know, obviously the people side of that is a big, you know, this the physical space can do so much, but the the the people is ah is a big place.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Okay, so security was first on your list. What what else were you thinking about?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, another trend that we’re really seeing in kids ministry today is like large, flexible spaces. So, you know, it doesn’t matter if you’re running a couple hundred on a Sunday or a couple thousand. We’re seeing lots of churches say, hey, let’s open up some of these smaller classrooms and let’s actually create some of these larger, more flexible environments for ah either more kids or multiple age groups. And so…
Rich Birch — Really? Interesting.
Aaron Stanski — …it opens it up. There’s there’s less volunteers required because then you can go, you know, one volunteer per smaller group of kids. It gives you some more flexibility with things, for like worship, group worship, and games, and crafts, and even small group times. And so we’re seeing, we’re really seeing that as a trend as well as like providing some of those larger environments.
Rich Birch — How do we, so that’s, let’s talk a little bit about that. So I was in a church recently where, um, literally they’re asking that question. And they do have quite large open spaces, but their concern, then they were thinking about going in the opposite direction. They were like, Oh, like maybe we’ll close some of these in, because they were like, when we get an, you know, a hundred kids in this room, it, man, it’s loud.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Is there stuff we can do to treat those spaces…
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …to, you know, or or should be thinking about treating those spaces to try to make them so they’re not crazy?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah you’re You’re jumping down to the bottom of my list.
Rich Birch — Oh, I’m so sorry.
Aaron Stanski — No, no, that’s acoustics is a big deal, right? Because kids are loud.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Aaron Stanski — And so how do we trap the sound and make spaces indoors…
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — …that are conducive to play, but still feel good for parents and volunteers and it feels like it’s under control? So there’s a few products and stuff that we use quite often to really make those larger spaces feel that way. And then ah we have done quite a bit with ah like movable partitions and some things that can fold out from the walls…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Aaron Stanski — …that provide acoustic separation when you go into small group time.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — I’m a small group leader. I have sixth grade boys ah in my small group at church.
Rich Birch — They’re very quiet, very quiet.
Aaron Stanski — And so trying to keep 11 sixth grade boys like on task, it’s important.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Aaron Stanski — So, you know, where where we meet, ah you know, is it helpful for that or is it something that kind of hurts ministry?
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, that’s good. I love that. Good for you being a volunteer there.
Aaron Stanski — Oh, yeah, they, yeah yeah, they take the energy out of me. I mean, they they they run me ragged, that’s for sure.
Rich Birch — No, that’s good. I like it. You’re a, you know, you you speak not just as an architect, but as a, as an operator as well.
Aaron Stanski — That’s right. Put me in, coach. I’m ready. I’m ready to go.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Rich Birch — All right. That’s great. What else should we think? So large, so we’ve got security, we’ve got these kinds of large flexible spaces. What else should we be thinking about?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I mean, and another big trend that we’re seeing is, I mean, churches that are growing that are really getting after it are addressing a really wide range of needs for their kids.
Rich Birch — Oh, so good. Yep.
Aaron Stanski — And so, I mean, every kid is unique, right? And so when we think about, man, what are they walking into church with, right? Like, what is their home life like? Like, what are ah What are their emotional needs, their spiritual needs, and how do we address that? How do we pay attention to all of those things?
Aaron Stanski — And so, I mean, we see a big trend in addressing special needs as well across a wide range of spectrums. And so, um whether that’s calming areas or break spaces, or even you know churches that are having dedicated environments for special needs, ah we see that as ah you know as a big trend, as well as just realizing, hey, kids need to be kids. So how are we like providing them space to play? And providing them space to like get some energy out and really kind of learn in tactile ways? As well as, you know, like we mentioned with the acoustics, a place for them to sit down and have a conversation about Jesus and what that means in their life. So, yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. We’ve had a number of conversations um about, you know, really creating accessible opportunities for kids. We did a podcast podcast back with Kerri-Ann Hayes. That was maybe two months ago. And then…
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, that was a great one.
Rich Birch — …ah Gail yeah, and then Gail Ewins or Ewell on, you know, really trying to create a church that’s that’s inclusive. And I would agree, this is one of those areas where I would say expectations have shifted in the church world , um definitely from when I started serving years ago, that um you know that the creating space whether and and having a team of people who are serving kids of a wide variety of backgrounds um and trying to figure out how to integrate them into or what that looks like, really asking that question, and It looks different in different places…
Aaron Stanski — That’s right.
Rich Birch — …but is um is critically important. Are you seeing um You know, when you think about that kind of chill space, are there, you know, rules of thumb on the kind of percentage of space that people are dedicating to that? Like, is it like a, you know, or or how do you think about that chill space thing? Or is that not really maybe developed even into a ah rule of thumb yet?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, it’s not it hasn’t really developed like that far yet. I think um more often than not, it’s it’s letting the parents know that we’re listening, that we’re caring, um that we’re capable and ready to address a need.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Aaron Stanski — If a child is like, wow, this is just way too much stimulus. I’m really struggling emotionally here. We have a plan to be able to kind of like take them, ah allow them to like sit down, refocus, and then kind of rejoin the group. So it doesn’t take up a lot of space for the kids who are like participating in regular church ministry, but just might need some of that chill space. For churches that are like really kind of getting into like more advanced special needs, it does require dedicated space. You do have to have volunteers that are trained a little bit more ah to be able to address some of those needs. But we I mean, we see it a lot. We see parents like asking for ah those types of things you know from their church.
Rich Birch — Yeah, and this this, like I’ve said to a lot of churches, if they don’t have a ministry or space like this, and they’re a church of a thousand, let’s say, if they made it without this kind of thing, I will say, listen, you you, and you know, often I’m talking to like an executive pastor or lead pastor. And I’m like, talk to your kids ministry people. I bet you that they have families who are asking for this; that this is a part of the conversation that’s already there.
Rich Birch — And you know for my seat, I think it’s a table stakes kind of thing. It’s like, we’ve we’ve got to provide this. We have to figure out, you know as the church grows. Just you’re ignoring too big of a population you know to to say, hey, we’re not going to do something on that front.
Aaron Stanski — Yep.
Rich Birch — You know, you you can’t just ignore that. You can’t just be like, ah, we’re gonna, you know, we’re just not gonna do that. We’re gonna leave… there’s a church across town that does that. I think, man, it’s too important to, you know, to do that, so.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, and we should talk about it on our website, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Aaron Stanski — And we should, you know, we should have that entire, you know, stream of communication ah with the parent, right, all the way throughout. And it’s ah it’s a big deal.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah. Okay, well, let’s let’s talk about whatever, what’s what’s next on the the list.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I mean, a few of these we could probably shoot through really quick.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Aaron Stanski — But ah like some of them end up being really important. We see a lot of churches, you know, wanting to provide some sort of like secondary lobby or gathering area for families. So sometimes that’s either like right outside the the kids area or the kids check in area or even back inside there just as a secondary place for families to to gather, some furniture, allow the kids to kind of run around and play.
Aaron Stanski — Again, you know, we’re not what we’re not trying to do is create the most efficient engine for getting parents in and out as we possibly can in a single file line. We’re trying to provide like some eddies and some places for them to like stop, connect, right?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Aaron Stanski — We want to we want our kids’ environments, like we want to resource parents. Like we want to come alongside them on this journey. And so we have to have some of those conversation places. And so we see that a lot in some of the design trends and some of the spaces that we’re creating and and designing today is trying to figure that piece out as well.
Rich Birch — Talk to me about, um, so when I’m thinking about my kids space, am I, there’s like an interesting dual, um, kind of target audience here. One is like the space for the kids, but then there’s, then there’s the, the parents. Um, and I would think the needs are different. Like there’s the actual program needs and then there’s, hey, does this space actually deal with… How do you think about, you know, that issue and how you balance those two kind of distinct groups out?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I mean, they have to be, ah from a design perspective, they have to be considered simultaneously. You know, none of the kids are choosing to drive themselves to church either, right? Like, and so, like…
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — …the parents are the ones who are ultimately making that choice. And so understanding…
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — …like, what is it like for mom ah with a couple kids to navigate down, is this hallway like narrow? Is it Is it hard to navigate? Is it easy for her to understand where she needs to go next or what needs to happen? And so, yeah, we have to pay really close attention to that, what it’s like, you know, how are we dropping off? Are we inviting the parents into the classroom to pick up, and doing the security check on the way out? Or are we doing that at the door? And, you know, how do we make it as relational as we can and less transactional, right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — And so like that’s ah that’s a big part of it. And so we’re designing for the kids. That’s super important because we want them to be like, that was fun.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Aaron Stanski — I learned something about Jesus. I want to go back.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Aaron Stanski — We have to design for the parents because like they’re like navigating it and they’re trusting us with their kids. And then I’d say the third thing we have to is we have to um design it for the volunteers as well.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Aaron Stanski — You know, you know, people do ministry, not buildings.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Aaron Stanski — And so, you know, those volunteers, they’re coming in early, and they’re, you know, they’re staying after, they’re taking care of our kids, like they’re loving on them. So how do we set them up for success? What kind of spaces do they need? Do they need a secure area, you know, to be able to drop off their stuff on Sunday and and be able to grab a cup of coffee or something? How are we creating those types of environments?
Aaron Stanski — And so we see churches like having dedicated volunteer space um at the at the ministry level. We see them paying really close attention to how volunteers interact with storage and all their supplies, right? We want it to be a great experience for those volunteers…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Aaron Stanski — …so they can spend more time loving on the kids and less time you know fighting with ah storage or setup or any of those things.
Rich Birch — Yeah, this this is, so I totally echo what you’re saying there for sure. That’s like a hearty Amen. There’s like an interesting connection between I think a lot of times when we’re so when we sit down and design, we’re thinking about like on the church side rather than, you know, on your side of the table as a professional. I’m thinking about where are the kids going to check in? What is the program space? But then there are things that can get squeezed out of our program really quickly. One of them is volunteer space because it’s like, we don’t think about that as like, uh, that’s not worth, you know, it’s like, ah it’s a support area, but it’s a critically critical support area.
Aaron Stanski — That’s right.
Rich Birch — If it’s done well, people will love it. They’ll be like, this is amazing. Like what it’s a, make it a great experience. I got a place to put my purse, all that. It it feels great.
Rich Birch — And then the same on the storage issue. It’s like that gets squeezed in so many of these projects. Cause it’s like, yeah, but I need more space for kids to sit. But it’s like, but if we don’t have any place to put the googly eyes, it will not matter. You know, when they, you know…
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …they’ll have a place to sit, but they won’t be able to do anything. Or it’ll be a hassle for, you know, for your team.
Rich Birch — So that’s one of the reasons why partnering with Risepointe when you’re thinking about this, or really thinking about redesigning, I think is critically important. Because there’s some of those kind of secondary, but but critically important, not secondary in the like, it’s not so important. It’s like it’s like a support area. It can be easy to overlook that.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Can we talk about bathrooms, washrooms, toilets? I like I feel like I’ve spent a lot of time in my ministry career thinking about sinks. What’s the…
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — It feels like this is an area that it it is we know, and I don’t want to get into all the issues around this, but we know like in schools, it’s a real issue that these are like have become like a hotbed. How do we do this? What’s the kind of state of the art on that front? What should we be thinking about in kids areas for bathrooms?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, so I mean, i’ll I’ll skip the obvious, right? Like you got to have bathrooms for kids and stuff like that. I mean, you know lots of ministries do like do a great job. We can put a large bathroom bank inside the secure area for elementary kids to kind of use. I would say a design trend that we’re seeing ah is utilizing like single occupancy toilet banks.
Rich Birch — Yeah, for sure.
Aaron Stanski — And so like the way that’s helpful, especially for the younger kids, is a volunteer can send a younger kid into like a single occupancy, like toilet stall. They can close the door and use the bathroom and then they can come out and we can help them wash their hands at the sink and stuff. And so rather than having two adults go in there into a larger bathroom bank or a bunch of kids go into a larger bathroom bank and mess around, um we’re just seeing it. It’s easier to manage. It’s safer for the volunteers. It’s cleaner for the younger kids.
Aaron Stanski — And so we’re really seeing that as a design trend, um you know especially for like the preschool age group, kindergarten age group. And then you know it takes up less square footage. And so there’s some less you know there’s some cost savings and stuff there. But we’re seeing a lot of churches kind of go in that direction.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. we did a We did a building years ago, this is 15 years ago, where we did, in all of our preschool spaces, we did like a dedicated restroom um you know for each each one of those. And it was right in the room, which was was great.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, because then a teacher can just send the kid in, right…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Aaron Stanski — …and they can use the restroom and come out. I think if you have a room of 100 kids…
Rich Birch —Yeah.
Aaron Stanski — …like you mentioned, right…
Rich Birch —Yes.
Aaron Stanski — …well, you can put dedicated boys and girls restrooms with like, let’s say two girls and two boys, but then like they have to just kind of go in there by themselves. And are there other people? And you got to check, and you’ve got to go in there with two adults, right, and all of those things.
Aaron Stanski — Well, instead of doing those two restroom banks, you could just do three stalls or four stalls. And a and a sink on the outside, and you you reduce all of those problems that you get with sort of that traditional bathroom.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s good. As as crazy as it sounds, man, critically important.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch —Restrooms are a big deal in, you know, in these spaces, important to think about for sure.
Rich Birch — What about, um it talk me through, so I was in a ah church recently in the last couple months where they’re redoing their kid’s space. And they have on the walls, like this floor to ceiling, hand done, like drawing stuff, cartoons, which like looks great. And they were reflecting the internal leadership stuff of, there was a person on staff that did that and then now they want to change it. And there’s all these interesting conversations around that. So we’ll ignore that for a minute. But but what they were saying, what they wanted to go to was something that was less stimulating. It was less kind of like, it was, it was like, they felt like they’ve overshot, you know, it’s kind of like, and some of it, I think it’s just the style has changed…
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …but like, hey, they they overshot. It was kind of too stimulating. What’s the balance there? How do we, how do we have environments that are fun? We don’t want it to look like a school. We wanted to walk in and it’d be like…
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …this is something great. But we also, you know, we don’t want it to be so bonkers that it’s hard for, for kids to focus.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I mean, I think gone are the days where, you know, we’re having these huge themed kids areas, and and let’s kind of taking it up over the top. Most of the time, you know, kids, I mean, like us, I mean, we we just live in an overstimulated world, um you know, whether it’s screens or, you know, technology or any of those things.
Aaron Stanski — And so a lot of times we’re trying to create kids environments that are calming, ah that are you know that reduce some of that stimuli. And ah so I’d say you know we’re we’re moving more towards you know geometric shapes and colors, vinyl graphics, and things like that. And and so we’re trying to kind of bring down ah you know, like too much noise, that kind of gets back to what the we said with the acoustics. And same thing with too much color clash, too too much of that that over- overstimulating idea.
Aaron Stanski — And I think that kind of leads into you know sort of the next thing that ah that we’re seeing is we’re really kind of trying to design up ah for a lot of kids ministries. And so um you know we’ve been doing a lot with you know what we would consider pre-teen ministry, right? So how do we ah how do we make the fourth and fifth grade environment feel like it’s a middle school environment? Right?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Aaron Stanski — How do wehow do we create a space for them that’s separate from the kindergartners that feels like it’s something that’s elevated. And then same thing with middle school, right? Like we’re designing, you know, middle school environments to feel more like high school environments. And we’re designing high school environments to feel more like adult, right? And so we’re kind of designing up ah in a lot of those trends to kind of help those kids, you know, feel like they’re maturing towards something. And we see that as a huge trend, especially as you get up into student ministry spaces.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s interesting. That’s a ah, yeah, you can see that where, even just programmatically, there’s a lot of churches that are doing like Club 56…
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …and it’s like a fifth grade, sixth grade kind of thing. It’s like a interesting kind of in between.
Rich Birch — That got me thinking about kind of a related issue, which is um, the balance of dedicated kids space versus making, designing these spaces in a way that they can be used for other things during the week.
Aaron Stanski — Sure.
Rich Birch — You know, the kind of extreme example is like the men’s group doesn’t want to meet in the the fluffy kingdom, you know, you know…
Aaron Stanski — That’s true.
Rich Birch — …preschool space or whatever, right? They’re like, it’s a great room, but like, we’re not, we’re not meeting in there. Um, you know, ah how do you think about that?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Or if there’s some kind of interesting ways around that?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah. Well, I mean, if you if you design a space for all things, it’ll be really boring, right? I mean, it should be a gray room with like big storage closets and stuff.
Rich Birch — Right. That’s good.
Aaron Stanski — So at some point, we do have to pick who is going to win, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Aaron Stanski — Are are the fluffy bunnies gonna win or is the men’s group gonna win? And so what I’d say is, you know, for spaces that we know are going to be multi-purpose, we’re gonna we’re going to take some intentional design choices and we’re gonna kind of put those in and throughout.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Aaron Stanski — So we’re still gonna have the accent colors, we’re still gonna have those sorts of things. But if we have enough storage, then we can move a lot of those kids things out of the way and sort of reset that room. If we have the right technology in the room, that can play a big role. And so, you know, trying to identify those spaces that we want to be ah used a lot more multi-purpose and adding some things to of them ah goes a long way in helping that.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Aaron Stanski — But I’d I’d say you have to pick a winner.
Rich Birch — Right. That’s good. That’s good advice. Yeah
Aaron Stanski — Like you have to pick like on Sundays, like we want this to knock it out of the park for a mom who’s dropping off her second grader.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Aaron Stanski — Well, then let’s let’s knock it out of the park and ah you know, the men’s group, we’ll figure it out. We’re good.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. That’s even good kind of practical advice around like, hey, we’re you might it might think like you can get or make everybody happy, but that just isn’t going to happen.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Like, it’s just not going to take place. And so, you know, let’s let’s pick one. There is no, you know, it’s like there’s no one room to rule them all. This is the ideal room that will be, you know, that’s just not going to happen. So let’s start with, OK, what’s the primary use and and how do we go from there
Rich Birch — You know, when i’ve when you’ve been talking today, it’s got me thinking about it. I know you have a solution where you’ll come actually on site at a church and help us think through these issues. I know there’s leaders that are listening in today, and I didn’t tell you this ahead of time, so but if you could tell me about that Needs Analysis.
Aaron Stanski — Sure.
Rich Birch — What is that? Because I feel like this is one of those things. We’ve raised a bunch of questions. I’m thinking about our kid space, and I’m a little bit overwhelmed, but i’d I’d love to get your team’s help. What does that look like?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah. So most churches that reach out to Risepointe, I mean like they’re just not sure. Like ah should we do we have to demo out all of the kids space? Do we need to build new kids space? Like is our kids space even big enough? You know, they have lots of questions. And so most churches, yeah I mean they bring us on site to do a Needs Analysis. And that’s where we’re taking a look at your entire facility. We meet with you know your team for an entire day. We walk through some really fun exercises about who you are as a church and your DNA and what it’s like to do ministry, specifically where God has put your church.
Aaron Stanski — Um, and then we, yeah, we take a look at the entire facility. We draw it all up in, uh, in our AutoCAD program. And, and we sort of come back to you and say, Hey, based on what you told us and the trends that we’re seeing and and how other churches are using their space, here here’s a list of things that you would have to do in order to align your facility to your mission and vision that God’s given your church.
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Aaron Stanski — And so, yeah, that might be, Hey, we think you need a ah light renovation of your kid’s space. And so we we’ve done all the math and all the square footage. And so here’s what it would cost to do that. And it might be, hey, you need to you know fix some things on the exterior to help people understand where the entrance is. Or ah you know you know might think about moving some things around.
Aaron Stanski — We did this recently ah with a church and um they were out of kid space. Kids was packed. And I mean, packed.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Aaron Stanski — And the auditorium was about 60% full. So they still had some room there.
Rich Birch — Oh, interesting.
Aaron Stanski — But they were trying to figure it out. And so we did the whole Needs Analysis with them. It was a great day. Got to meet their entire staff. And then I met with the pastor at the end. And I said, hey, man, I don’t i don’t know how tied you are ah to junior highers meeting on Sunday morning. But they also meet on Wednesday nights and they have a space that’s really it was a great size space.
Aaron Stanski — And I’m like, for a season, if you ask those junior highers to either sit with their parents in church or even better, volunteer in kids ministry on a Sunday morning, ah you would free up that space for fourth and fifth graders. And then if you moved the rest of your kids around. And so we did the math. They’re running ah they’re running three services on a weekend. They could add 500 people in attendance at their church…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Aaron Stanski — …by simply making that shift and moving those things around.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Aaron Stanski — Now, I’m not sure like that’s that’s what they want to do or if that’s what’s best for their church or their programming. But the Needs Analysis is meant to evaluate all of those types of things and say, man, are we using our space the best we can? And is there anything we should do ah to help it improve?
Rich Birch — Wow. That’s amazing. That I love that. Like that, what a great example. And you know, this is the part of what I love about you, Aaron, and your team is it’s like. You could have easily said, you well, you need to build a whole new thing. And like, here’s all that stuff.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And like, it’s going to cost you a gajillion dollars. Uh, but you’re like, Hey, before that…
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …what if we did this? Um, this might be an interesting, uh, middle stuff. I love that. You can obviously reach out to, uh, Risepointe. We’ll put a link in the show, show notes there. You also have a, um, a tool that you’re going to hand out to people. We’re going to link to it here.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Talk to us about the, uh, The Risepointe Collection 25. Tell me about this.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, ah ah we like to release The Risepointe Collection. This year it’s version 25. This is really just kind of what are some interior design trends that we’re seeing? What are some really hot colors and palettes? What are some of the carpets and finishes that we’re seeing that we’re really loving? How are they being applied? What are some example pictures and stuff of some churches that have applied some of these things? ah We really just kind of see it as ah as a fun resource for churches to kind of pick it up and say, hey, ah we were thinking about repainting something. ah What are some of the hot colors or what are some of the things that Risepointe’s recommending?
Aaron Stanski — So we’re gonna be ah we’re releasing that. It’s actually already already completed here. It’ll be up on our website right down at the bottom. But if you’re interested in that, yeah, go to our website. It’s risepointe.com – risepointe with an e. Scroll down to the bottom and you’ll find The Risepointe Collection, Version 25. Just click that. We’ll email that. It’s a big PDF, but we’ll email that over to you. It might be something fun for you just to kind of check out and see what see what we’re recommending and what’s what’s coming.
Rich Birch — That’s so cool. What a great tool for folks, you know, as you’re, as you’re thinking about, you know, these kinds of changes in the, in the coming year. I just love that. That’s, that’s so fantastic. Oh, Aaron, I I appreciate you. Thank you so much. I got a couple of pages of notes here, stuff to think about in in kids ministry area in areas, which I really appreciate. So is there anything else you want to say just as we wrap up today’s episode?
Aaron Stanski — No, I just say, I mean, you know ah you know, kids are the future of the church, right? And so like loving on our kids and loving on our families, and knowing that, I mean, there’s a lot of crap they’re dealing with out in the world and with schools and all of that stuff. If we can welcome them in and resource our parents and love on them and teach them about Jesus, I mean, that’s gotta be at the top of the list for why we, like why we got into ministry, right?
Rich Birch — So true.
Aaron Stanski — And so I mean, the environment plays a small role in all of that. And I i know that. But if that’s something that we can help you with, like if that’s something that we can, I mean, just give you a fresh idea on, would love to do that. So if we can help out in any way, reach out to Risepointe, um and we’ll we’ll figure it out.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. You know, and and the thing many church leaders they do, if they do renovations like this or this kind of project, they do like one in their entire career or maybe two…
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …like that’s the, you know, the where you guys do this all day long, you know, you really should bring in ah the folks at Risepointe to help you think through this. So I can’t, I heartily endorse Aaron and his team. You really should, ah you know, talk with them. Again, we’ll have the link in the show notes, but you can also just search Risepointe with an E and find them online. Thanks so much for being here, sir. Thank you for for being on the show.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, thanks, Rich.
Thanks for joining in the unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to have Jeff Beachum with us. He’s part of Portable Church Industries (PCI), which has helped thousands of churches launch and operate successfully in mobile settings. Jeff serves as the Multiplication Specialist and Director of Marketing.
Is your church running out of capacity, but looking for ways to keep momentum growing? Are you ready to establish a presence in a new community? Tune in as Jeff walks us through how to leverage our time, capacity and money to open up more seats and send out our congregations on mission.
- The advantage of rental. // There are only five ways a church can establish a presence in a new community: a new build, commercial buy, commercial lease, a rental, and a merge. PCI assists churches in utilizing rented spaces such as schools, community centers, and even unconventional venues like movie theaters and bars. The flexibility of a rental will allow you to reach your community more quickly and cost-effectively while you grow your congregation. By leveraging portable solutions, churches can also focus on building their capital for that next environment.
- Maintaining church culture. // Your church has a culture that has begun to shape the expectations of the attendees. Even if you want to open another location, congregants will still expect to be a part of the same kind of church. PCI’s designers go to great lengths to design a system that maintains the DNA, culture, branding, and expectations across a church’s locations so people feel at home in a new environment.
- Handling expansion. // When you’re stretching the limits of your current location—whether its parking, seating, kids’ space or service times—it’s time to explore the alternatives. Do you need to open another location, or move into a bigger one? Solutions can include going multisite or planting a segment of your congregation in a nearby community. Jeff recommends reaching out to PCI early on in the exploration process and getting answers to your questions sooner rather than later.
- Design process. // The Portable Church design process begins with an in-depth consultation with your church leadership to learn about your unique culture, vision, goals and environment. This process includes discussions with the children’s team and tech team to assess operational needs. Finally Portable Church explores the venue that you’re considering. After gathering this information, PCI’s team spends time designing a custom solution that meets your church’s requirements.
- Launch weekend. // When the product is delivered, a team from PCI travels to your church’s location, typically on a Saturday, to assist with the setup and training of your volunteers. The goal is to make the setup process as efficient as possible. Jeff notes that with the right number of volunteers, all equipment can be unloaded and set up in a remarkably short time—often in a little over an hour. After everything is torn down and put away, the team returns on Sunday morning, stepping back while your team leads the setup process. Afterwards they review what went well, what needs improvement and anything that was missing.
NEXT STEPS // Executive Church Leader Resource BundleVisit portablechurch.com/jeff for the Executive Church Leader Resource Bundle that will help you operationalize your vision, plus grab a $10 Starbucks eCard and a FREE zoom pre-consult opportunity with Jeff.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Risepointe
Do you feel like your church’s facility could be preventing growth, and are you frustrated or maybe even overwhelmed at the thought of a complicated or costly building project? Are the limitations of your church building becoming obstacles in the path of expanding your ministry? Have you ever felt that your church could reach more people if only the facility was better suited to the community’s needs?
Well, the team over at Risepointe has been there. As former ministry staff and church leaders, they understand how to prioritize and help lead your church to a place where the building is a ministry multiplier. Licensed all over North America, their team of architects, interior designers and project managers have the professional experience to help move YOUR mission forward.
Check them out at Risepointe.com/unseminary and while you’re there get their FREE resource “10 Things to Get Right Before You Build”.
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. I’m really looking forward to today’s conversation. This person, if you haven’t had a chance to interact with them, ah you’re going to be blessed by leaning in and learning from this individual. You’re going to ah be encouraged and hopefully inspired to take some new steps. Excited to have Jeff Beachum with us. He is a part of an organization called Portable Church Industries. If you don’t know, Portable Church, these guys are amazing. For over 25 years they have helped literally thousands of churches, thousands and thousands of churches, launch strong in mobile settings. They designed custom solutions that are fit for every budget, every vision, and literally every venue. I’ve seen some crazy places that these kids have helped ah people launch into. They provide everything ah that really you need to launch for a mobile mobile church. This is really from an inviting worship space, kids ministry, welcome area, storage case, all the way from like sound systems to a place to put the diapers. Really is amazing. Jeff, so glad you’re here today. Thanks for being here.
Jeffrey Beachum — Oh, I’m so glad to be here. I love talking about the church and expanding it.
Rich Birch — Nice. So your title is multiplication specialist and director of marketing. Tell us what you do at PCI; kind of fill in that picture. Tell us more about PCI in general.
Jeffrey Beachum — So I got ah a variety of things in my background that I am just amazed at the way God brings it brings it all together. I never thought that what I did in my past, he could figure out and use. And marvelously, I’ve done commercial real estate appraisal work a couple of times. I’ve been a pastor for 15 years, ah marketing and sales, organizational leadership, all kinds of things.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Jeffrey Beachum — And God brings me to portable church industries and and sets me up really well…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Jeffrey Beachum — …to hopefully understand the church, understand the kind of decisions and how hard it is to be a church leader, whether it’s a lead pastor or ah an executive pastor or a campus pastor. And to come alongside of them and help them ah sometimes figure out their strategy and sometimes just be able to help them with their strategy and get to where they want to go. So that’s really the the nuts and bolts of what I get to do. And I love my job.
Rich Birch — So good.
Jeffrey Beachum — I’ve had ah opportunities to go somewhere else, but I just love what I get to do and who I get to do it with. And so my role at PCI has has changed a little bit. I used to strictly come alongside of pastors and work with them and and getting them to where they want to go. And now they’ve asked me to, for a little while, fill in on the marketing role, which is my skill and background. So I’m just having the time of my life.
Rich Birch — That’s so good. I love, ah you’re like such an encouraging leader to interact with. I know at the times we’ve had a chance to connect over the years, I’ve been you know encouraged by you and your and your leadership. So I’m i’m hoping that, I know, that’ll rub off with folks that are listening in today.
Rich Birch — So but the we want to kind of talk, for folks that don’t know Portable Church, don’t know your organization, um I yeah I remember the first time I heard about PCI and I hadn’t reached out to anybody. And they were like, I know there’s this organization out there that like helps churches do stuff portably. And I was like, man, that is so smart because the, where we meet is a critical piece of the puzzle. And you guys have really opened up a lot of different opportunities for churches when they’re thinking about. But kind of define, when you say portable church, what does that look like? Like who are the kind of churches you’re helping? What are they, why do they come to you? What does that look like?
Jeffrey Beachum — So um in an elevator, giving my five-story elevator pitch. From the first to the second story is we help churches that are are dealing with capacity issues. Now, it might be first time launches, it might be multi-site, it might be churches that love to plant and are good at it. And we help them get into portable facilities such as a high school, any any place that can be rented—a high school, middle school, um ah elementary school, YMCAs, movie theaters. And you were talking about some of the oddest places we’ve been in. We’ve helped churches launch in bars and we’ve helped them launch in a train station, right between train tracks that are working.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s crazy.
Jeffrey Beachum — So, we can go into all kinds of situations, but we help churches go into rented spaces that helps them leverage time, um capacity, and money. If you look at the, there’s only five ways that a church can put a new presence into that community, and it’s a new build with new grass, commercial, commercial buy, commercial lease, a merge, or a rental. Those are the only five ways. And we help them do that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeffrey Beachum — The rental is we can get you in quicker, we can get you, than any of the others. We can be cheaper than all of the others.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeffrey Beachum — And we can be at least as effective or better than all of the others. And so if you’re trying to develop capital, it’s a really good idea to leverage the idea of portability, so that you can go in and while you’re already building your congregation, you can be developing your capital for that next environment, like the permanent building or the merge or the commercial build out.
Jeffrey Beachum — So that’s that’s generally what we do. We are all about capacity and giving churches a better opportunity to send. A growing church typically gets the woo and win phase down. They get the disciple and equip phase down. And they get the serve phase down. But it’s harder—and I just wrote an article about how the church needs to become uncomfortable—it’s harder to do the sending.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Jeffrey Beachum — And so we help churches with the sending process. We make it financially feasible and leverage to whatever is next in that growth pattern.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I know in in um you know the times we’ve interacted over the years, there’s like there’s a lot of churches, if they are thinking about either church planting or maybe they’re thinking about going multi-site, they start to see some signs internally. And one of the sticking points can be like, but there’s like just some of the like logistic problems. Like, gosh, like it it is, you know, sure, we want to go into this community. um We’re sensing that we should go there. But if we dig a piece of dirt, it’s going to be X number of years to before we can make anything happen there. And I’ve got people now that I want to you know get into that location.
Rich Birch — When you think about the the helping a church go portable, what is it that you think PCI kind of brings to the table to make um that that move into, say, a school or into a movie theater. How how do you guys actually do that? Like, what does that look like? When if someone calls you up, what does that look like?
Jeffrey Beachum — Well, um, and that’s a great question because there, I’m I’m just amazed within the church, how many people don’t understand the portability concept. Um, for us, we, we have the capacity to take a, uh, a group of people, and I like to call them a momentum of people. So if a church wants to go into that community, they can heat map their congregation and, and determine what that momentum is and grow that. And that at some point they have to launch. And we can launch them into a portable facility, again, that is cheaper and faster and um really, really effective. And it’s a street to seat mentality. So we’re not just thinking that you can go there and worship in the up auditorium.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeffrey Beachum — We’re thinking that it’s a balanced system. And it cuts out the chaos that could be involved.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Jeffrey Beachum — It creates an opportunity for people to flow through that and leaders and volunteers to flow through that nice and evenly. The wayfinding from out on the street all the way through the building, the first impressions and having a good impression is important. And and when we talk about street to seat design and thinking, even in a school or a theater or in a YMCA, we think about the children’s area. And no family is going to come into any environment and put their child in an iffy children’s environment. They’re just not.
Rich Birch — That’s true. That is so true.
Jeffrey Beachum — And if they do, they’re going to put them in there and you won’t have their minds in the worship setting.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeffrey Beachum — Because they’re going to be thinking about what they just did to their child.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeffrey Beachum — So we we think of the holistic environment…
Rich Birch — Right. That’s good.
Jeffrey Beachum — …paying attention to all of it, and then doing it with a level of expertise that your church requires. Your church has a culture. It has DNA. It has already begun to shape the expectations of its attenders. Now, if you take them and you want to move them over there and say, you’re still a part of us, you’re just going to be away from us. They still expect you to be that kind of a church. And so our designers go to great lengths to design something that is keeping the DNA culture, branding, ah expectations. The children could go from the sending facility to the new facility and see all the same branding…
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeffrey Beachum — …and feel very comfortable with what’s there. So it’s really important that we ah design a system so your people can feel very comfortable going into those settings. And yet, usually they’re going closer to home…
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeffrey Beachum — …which is another aspect of that.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great.
Jeffrey Beachum — So we that’s what we do is we help churches who may be surprised by their growth be an alternative until they can figure out next.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeffrey Beachum — In fact, we’ve got a… surprisingly enough, we’ve got a couple of um churches now that are trying to figure a few things out. And and proposing they leave their environment, their permanent facility, and using portability as a leverage to whatever is next for them…
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeffrey Beachum — …because their building became too expensive.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeffrey Beachum — So we we kind of come alongside the church, determine where they are, where they want to go, and what we can do to help.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. I love that. You know, I know, um you know, when when a a church is maybe thinking about this, when really do they reach out to you, typically? I’m I’m sure there’s like a there’s kind of a ah ah number of points along the way. They’ve either they’re they’re in like the hunch phase. They’re like, we’re thinking about either launching something or we’re wrestling with that. Is that when they should call? Or is it like they should call once we get the actual location, or should they call the week before they want to open?
Jeffrey Beachum — You know, um one of the painful things that I’ve discovered is that pastors, like all of us, we don’t know what we don’t know.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Good.
Jeffrey Beachum — And oftentimes, it will surprise us what we need to know. And so I would I would encourage you that if you are in a growth phase, and you’re at the level of growth where your, man, our our auditorium is getting filled. Our children’s space is getting filled. We need to add chairs. We need to add services. We have two services. We need to add a third. Or you could be at at a place where you’re, how about if we turn the cafe into a worship space? You know? You’re stretching the limits of what you already have. If you’re already there and God is just blessing you, then that is the time when you begin to figure out what are the alternatives.
Jeffrey Beachum — And, um, you know, then you then, and with my real estate background, it’s real easy for me to to reach back in and help pastors think through, uh, so what does it take look like for us to make this facility bigger? And do you really want to do that?
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeffrey Beachum — And what does that do to the maintenance costs, the upkeep? And, uh, then you, you know, you have a Willow Creek on your hand where things change and all of a sudden you’ve got massive buildings.
Rich Birch — Right, right, right.
Jeffrey Beachum — And a lot of churches have been surprised by that.
Jeffrey Beachum — Or an option could be to begin either multisiting, or planting a piece of your congregation in a nearby ah community. And we’ve got churches now that are building a family of churches. And they all have the same DNA, culture, branding and everything except they have a different name. But so they they react differently in a community. And yet they work together because of who they are, their family.
Rich Birch — That’s cool. Yeah, that’s cool.
Jeffrey Beachum — So there’s a variety of ways to handle it. The idea is get get your answers sooner rather than later.
Jeffrey Beachum — We had, in fact, the whole reason I was hired on a PCI back in 2015, ’16 was to help lengthen the runway in which churches that were growing would engage us.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Jeffrey Beachum — And so the longer the runway, the better.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. So I love that. Like if you’re, if you’re in even that early hunch stage, it’s a good time to reach out. I know I’ve said that behind your back, I’ve been like, you should call the friends of PCI. They’ll jump on the phone, have a call with you. Even if it’s early stage, there’s a couple of signs I know I’ve said to churches before.
Jeffrey Beachum — Yeah.
Rich Birch — These are like super tactical. So if you are launching a third service, you should be talking to PCI. Because the third service is not going to do what you did when you went from one to two services. You’re, you know, you, you go from, and we’ve talked about this before, you have 50% of your services. When you have two services, you have 50% of the services that are in a non-optimal service time.
Rich Birch — When you go to three, two thirds of your services in a non-optimal time. You’re not going to get the bump that you need. If you’re having to add a third service, it’s going to be just a stopgap measure. You’re going to have to think about something beyond that. That’s the first one. The second one, when I’ve heard people say, we’re having to buy extra chairs to like pile them into the back of our rooms, like to figure out how to get, you know… I’m like, you need to call PCI. Like you’re going to spend a bunch of money on chairs.
Jeffrey Beachum — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Well, like why not think about a system? Why not think about maybe we should plant? Or the other one that I’ve said before is if you’re more, if you’re big days, Christmas, Easter, Mother’s Day, if they’re more than 2X your normal attendance. So if you have more than two times your normal attendance on those days, which some churches do…
Jeffrey Beachum — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …um that’s an indicator of like, oh, we’re not, we’re not, ah we’re not reaching every week the normal, ah the the people we could be reaching. You’ve got like an assimilation issue and you could assimilate those people into a new location. And the more than 2X is a telltale sign that like, okay, we should we should find new ways to try to potentially launch or launch a campus or church plant or something like that.
Jeffrey Beachum — Absolutely, absolutely.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool.
Jeffrey Beachum — Those are all the scenarios…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jeffrey Beachum — …that we love to come alongside. And and I mean, those are exciting problems.
Rich Birch — Yeah, they’re good problems to have, for sure. Yeah.
Jeffrey Beachum — Yes, it’s it’s it’s difficult and you got to figure it out. You have to be innovative, you have to be creative. But that’s who God made us to be.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jeffrey Beachum — And so it’s exciting to work in that environment and help churches and and really good leaders say, oh, this is great, let’s do this. And you were one of those leaders back in the day.
Rich Birch — Yeah, early on. Yeah, it’s true.
Jeffrey Beachum — Yeah.
Rich Birch — It’s true. Yeah, like we’re kind of playing coy. Like, I don’t know about PCI, but yeah, I’ve we’ve bought a lot of systems over the years from PCI and and love what they do. In fact, I was I was joking ah earlier before we got recording, we one of our campuses, we just moved um from a movie theater, into a permanent location, like literally just open the last month. And ah that location was open for seventeen years. And in fact on the last day we had like a clean out day at the theater. I was getting like a little choked up. Because there’s these cases that were, and I’m literally taking pictures of ’em, that seventeen years later, they’re like still on the road. And yeah, they’re vacuum them out and they look brand new.
Jeffrey Beachum — Yep.
Rich Birch — Like they they, you know, all these years later continued to be ah you know well used and really helped, empowered our church to literally reach thousands of people. We wouldn’t have been able to do that. And and we’re in that location for all of those years because ah the system was designed with volunteers in mind, designed to make it easy for those people. Yeah, incredible. And and you were saying, tell me the thing you were saying about your competition, because I thought that was funny.
Jeffrey Beachum — Well, so our our um our second ah our second piece of competition against us is ourselves.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Jeffrey Beachum — Our cases have been so durable over the years.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jeffrey Beachum — The shelf life of our cases is long.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Jeffrey Beachum — And um what so what that tells me is that churches, even when they get out of portability, I’m guessing that you guys didn’t drop your cases or leave them…
Rich Birch — No, no.
Jeffrey Beachum — …but you took them into your building.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s true.
Jeffrey Beachum — Yeah. And i I go into a lot of permanent facilities and I see a lot of our cases because they are just functional, and they’re very helpful. And so they just renew what’s in the case and keep it updated and they utilize the case into perpetuity.
Jeffrey Beachum — And then there are some churches that they know the cases and the system, and I don’t want to go too lightly on that thing, a system helps create continuity and clarity and gets rid of chaos.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah.
Jeffrey Beachum — And that’s really important when you’re offsite. Um, but, um, those, those cases, um, can, um, because a lot of churches say, so if we’re in this three to five years, what do we do with the stuff when we’re done? Well, you can keep it and use it in your permanent facility, or you can, uh, bless it and move it on to a planter.
Rich Birch — 100 percent. Yeah.
Jeffrey Beachum — And again, that kills our business, but it builds the Kingdom.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I’ve said similar things to other churches that, you know, it’s the same thing. Like I’ve, like another thing is to think, OK, well, we could we could be in this location – maybe we’re there three to five years. But our hope is that we’ll keep opening locations and you could, again not great for PCI, but great for the church.
Jeffrey Beachum — Yeah.
Rich Birch — So we’re going to take that system. We’re going to pull it back in. We’re going to change a few things, maybe change some signage and stuff like that. But then we’re going to go into a whole new community because, PS, it’s portable. We can roll it somewhere else and reuse that stuff. It’s amazing.
Jeffrey Beachum — So, you know, to that point, I was going to share in a little bit, um the the Outreach Top 100 came out, and for whatever it’s worth, we did a little bit of an examination of what it was there.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Jeffrey Beachum — And 60% of the fastest growing churches and 85% of the largest churches are multi-site.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jeffrey Beachum — And over 40% of them have utilized Portable Church.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jeffrey Beachum — Because it is a a good, solid system that they can leverage to get to their next.
Jeffrey Beachum — And another piece of that was, so we were curious about the longevity of our cases. How do the churches do? And so we went back to some of our previous years, 2019, and just finished this. 95.6% of the churches with Portable Church that launched in 2019 through COVID are still up and running.
Rich Birch — What? Wow, that that’s incredible. That’s amazing.
Jeffrey Beachum — 95.6, yes.
Rich Birch — Wow, that’s amazing. That well and so, friends, I think the thing that that speaks to, and this it’s like hard to articulate, but a part of what I have found, like front row seat with with a Portable Church system, is it’s designed with longevity in mind. It’s designed, at the core, one of the reasons why portable doesn’t work is you burn out your volunteers. Like it they just are not excited to show up. They’re not excited to, um, you know, to do this thing. And the thing about PCI systems is they are, they’re built for simplicity. They’re built for how do we make this easy? How do we, um, you know, not have people carry things?
Rich Birch — Like the telltale sign of your portable system is bad is you have people you know walking around with items around your spot. Well, no, like there’s put everything on wheels, figure out how to get it into a box that, you know, that rolls. And, and that…
Jeffrey Beachum — Everything’s on wheels.
Rich Birch — Yeah, and and put it into a spot that that your volunteers will actually enjoy ah you know serving. How do you guys balance in kind of your process a system where you can leverage all the good things from the thousands of churches, like the kind of shared learnings with the customization piece? How how do you how do you actually functionally do that? Because I’ve seen you do that. What does that look like?
Jeffrey Beachum — Well, it is actually a cornerstone of what we do. And churches love this piece, and that is the custom design piece, as well as the custom launch and training weekend that we have with the church where we’re actually face to face with them.
Jeffrey Beachum — But in the custom design piece, we’ve learned a lot in the last almost 30 years now. We’ve learned a ton of things. And we learn it from what the church is telling us they want to do.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeffrey Beachum — And and so if they say, yeah, we’re a little odd, so you might not be able to do that. To our guys, that’s a challenge. And they come back. And and that actually…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Jeffrey Beachum — …was one of the catalysts for us working with a um ah TV screen, LED wall.
Rich Birch — Oh, LED walls. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure.
Jeffrey Beachum — So we worked with ah a company that produces LED walls. And we they helped us design a portable LED wall.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Jeffrey Beachum — And so we are able to go into many environments that are light rich, which is fine, but we’re able to help them instead of throwing a video, we can actually use LED walls and that’s helpful. Many times we’ll say, ah you don’t want the expense of an LED wall, but then there are churches that that’s who they are. And that’s the quality that they want to have.
Jeffrey Beachum — So our design process is we we come in, and we we spend a day with you in your sending church. And that gives us the idea to visually see what your church is like. We talk to the the lead team and say, why on earth do you think God wants you to create another church? You know? What is your vision? What are you trying to do?
Jeffrey Beachum — And then we talked to the kids environment, the directors and ask them, so what are you trying to do, so we see what it looks like, so we can see the branding and the process. The tech team, you know, what’s the environment like when people come into worship? What do you want them to feel?
Rich Birch — Right. Love it.
Jeffrey Beachum — What do they see? Who do they touch? All of those kind of things. And we take all of that information. And then they show us the venue that they’re looking at.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeffrey Beachum — And we apply all of that together with them in the venue. And we say, here’s here’s what we see this becoming you by utilizing these pieces and this function and flow and these different pieces of who you are.
Jeffrey Beachum — So our guide will take all that on the first day, spend a whole day ah up in a hotel room, and he designs. And then on the third day, we present back to them what we think we heard them say.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool.
Jeffrey Beachum — And we say, you told us that you would like your environments to look like this, that your price point is this, that your goals are these, and this facility gives you A, B, and C, and we can put that together.
Jeffrey Beachum — And then from there, it’s just a matter of them fine tuning what they told us and us what we heard. And then when they pull the trigger, it’s usually, well, back in the day when supply chains were friendly, it could have been 10 weeks. But now it’s 12-ish weeks.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeffrey Beachum — 12 weeks later, we’re building a custom product to deliver to them in the weekend.
Rich Birch — Wow. Yep. Yeah, it’s amazing.
Jeffrey Beachum — So that’s our process.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s incredible. And again, having seen that up front, I love the work that PCI does to really try to understand. It’s funny, I’ve had telling a little secret behind your back. I’ve sometimes had people say like, you know, they they’re like, oh, I’m so nervous. Like, I don’t know. It’s so it’s like they feel like they’re in this relationship. Like sometimes with vendors, you’re like, you don’t want to tell them everything. I’m like, tell them everything. Like, be super clear the more clear you can be up front that you’ll you’ll end up with a system that’s closer to. And that that gets back to like scale of like how much money do you want to spend. And like you know what what kind of restrictions do you have. Like we do not want, we want this system to be able to set up in x amount of time with x number of people, all that kind of stuff so that you know that that our our friends at PCI can ultimately figure out how to get all that and make that happen. And they’re they like the constraint. They like the like help us understand the way to do that.
Jeffrey Beachum — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Talk to me about Launch Weekend because it’s not just that you build stuff and then you FedEx it to our house um or to our you know office. What what happens on the kind of Launch Weekend training weekends?
Jeffrey Beachum — So let me make one distinction, then I go to launch weekend.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jeffrey Beachum — You said something, and you keep doing that. So um I I personally don’t like “vendor”…
Rich Birch — Sure.
Jeffrey Beachum — Because, and it’s not not anything I have to do with you.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jeffrey Beachum — But i for my whole career, I’ve occasionally been a vendor. And I know what that is.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Jeffrey Beachum — But at PCI…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Jeffrey Beachum — …everybody at our facility, it has the heart to be with every church that we work with…
Rich Birch — That’s 100% true.
Jeffrey Beachum — …and what they’re trying to do. We we our main metric is how many open seats how many seats can we open up for the hearing of the gospel?
Rich Birch — Yeah, so good.
Jeffrey Beachum — You know? So we open up seats at the sending campus and the new campus.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Jeffrey Beachum — So anyway, we love to be a partner, not necessarily a vendor, but I get ya.
Rich Birch — Love it. Yeah, definitely.
Jeffrey Beachum — So now launch weekend is very exciting because it’s like a vision becoming a reality. And we, on launch weekend, we fly in to wherever you are. And there’s a team of usually two to four of us, depending on the size and what we need to do. And then our, before we fly in, your system has been shipped, either by trailer or by freight to the site.
Jeffrey Beachum — And it’s in trailers. Everything is in trailers. And I could talk to you offline about that. But your trailer or trailers show up. And we spend all day Saturday morning with all of your volunteers introducing your system. And the key part of a system is that we got to get everybody to understand how it works, the process, the orderliness, what goes first. And in in the system that we build, every volunteer ah can make it happen because…
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeffrey Beachum — …everything has a place.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeffrey Beachum — Everything has a place in the case. And every case has a place in the trailer. And we’re very meticulous about weighing all of that out because we can’t have cases falling on any kids. And we can’t have trailers breaking the axle of trucks. We just, it doesn’t work. So we’re very meticulous about that.
Jeffrey Beachum — And so we spend an hour or so orienting the the volunteer team to what is going to happen and the products themselves. And then and they divide up by teams and they run the cases in. And usually, um no matter how many trailers you have, if you have the right number of volunteers, all of your gear can be in the building within nine minutes.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Jeffrey Beachum — So everything is out of trailers in place in nine minutes. And then you spend maybe an hour setting everything up. That LED wall I told you about, 9 by 16 LED wall – it takes two guys 45 minutes to set up in its entirety…
Rich Birch — Wow. That’s amazing.
Jeffrey Beachum — …if you if you have the right stuff. So it’s within an hour.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeffrey Beachum — And that’s one of the things we sell the best is time.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Jeffrey Beachum — If you are having your volunteers spend three hours in the morning setting up and four hours tearing down, you’re killing them.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Jeffrey Beachum — And a system can help save you money because you’re not paying rent. And it can save your volunteers.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Jeffrey Beachum — So anyway, we go through it and we put it all up in the facility once and then we take it all back down. That’s typically a Saturday, and it’s all back in the cases. The next day we designed so that it is a real life service. Now it might be just a practice, or it could be real service. But our team then is a little more hands off and your team is a little more hands on. And we actually go through everything like you would on a Sunday morning.
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeffrey Beachum — And it’s it’s very exciting because on Sunday morning we get to, um if they do a video venue, we get to have the video come in and the pastor at the sending church says, Hey, to our new site…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Right.
Jeffrey Beachum — You know, and everybody says, Hey, and, and it really happens. And then we, after the service or services, we crash it all down back into the trailer. And then we kind of gather up and we pray with the, uh, the volunteer team, and we we say, all right, so what worked, what didn’t work? What do we need to fix? Because it it is a a pretty big system. And so there are typically you know little things that we have to fix and, oops, we forgot to add this piece and and we’ll go and do that.
Jeffrey Beachum — So if you’re in a venue where you think, man, what you just described is not what we have. We really aren’t doing portability very well. We have a thing called efficiency upgrade and we’ll come in to your venue and we’ll help you figure out how to put it into a system…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Jeffrey Beachum — …where you can get control and time back.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, that’s so good. Like I know there’s a lot of churches out there, surprising number, who like rent space on a Saturday to set up because it takes like four or five hours to set up. And then, um, and you know, and I’ve said to those folks over the years, I’m like, you know, you can do this and actually should do this all on Sunday morning. Like it’ll save you resources. It’s actually easier for your volunteers. It’s easier on your team. I know it sounds crazy, but you should be able to get this all done in…
Jeffrey Beachum — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …you know, on Sunday morning.
Jeffrey Beachum — Yep.
Rich Birch — So yeah, that’s, that’s amazing. Well, I know there’s a ton we could talk about here…
Jeffrey Beachum — All day.
Rich Birch — …but this has been a great, ah yeah, really great kind of primer introduction. Now we want to send people to portablechurch.com/Jeff and tell me what this…Well, first of all, I think this is great. What what are they going to get when they would drop by portablechurch.com/Jeff?
Jeffrey Beachum — So we put together a landing page that will give you four resources having to do mostly with multi-siting. In the operational, operationalizing the vision resource bundle, we have mapping your multi-site journey. And so that gives a timeline of that process that we were talking about. How soon should a church engage? So that’s just a map on how long it takes.
Jeffrey Beachum — A facility comparison, cost comparison, building out mistakes to avoid, some recommendations that we’ve heard from design, build firms, and then 10 bonus benefits of portability. 10 reasons why, and to be honest with you, I consult to the church’s needs. And if the church really believes they need to be in a different kind of facility, that’s fine. And I’m glad to defer and say that commercial environment is awesome. That’s what you should do.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Jeffrey Beachum — However, in probably 80% or more of the cases, I think they could benefit by leveraging portability. It would make them stronger. It would give them time to raise more funds so that they can go into that new environment stronger. They could grow their congregation. They could develop their volunteer team. They could develop new leaders. But there’s 10 bonus benefits of portability there. And the best thing is if you land on that page and pick a date, just have a conversation with me. I will buy you a cup of coffee.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Jeffrey Beachum —And you can get your cup of coffee and then come on and we’ll do a Zoom together. And we’ll just have a good old time.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Yeah, I would encourage you to to to to do that. So that’s again, just portablechurch.com/Jeff. Even if you’re early, like maybe you’re an executive pastor, a couple thousand person church and you’ve you guys have kind of kicked around, maybe we were thinking about this down the road. You really should start early in the conversation that, you know, I would do that. Or if you’re like a church planter and you’re like, you know, even you’re like thinking it’s going to be maybe 2025 before we do that. You know, reach out now. it It would be great to kind of get in the pipeline, have a conversation. Uh, that would be fantastic.
Rich Birch — Anything else you’d like to say, Jeff, just as we, as we kind of land today’s episode.
Jeffrey Beachum — No, the only the only stat that I don’t think I was able to share is one that kills me. Warren Bird and Ed Stetzer did ah a study a little while ago, and probably the stat needs to be updated. But they determined, on the positive side, 68% of all new location launches are still viable after four years. So of course, me being me, I looked at, that means 32%…
Rich Birch — Right.
Jeffrey Beachum — …of all churches that are launching were not successful. And that that kills me. And so I don’t want any church that I ever have to work with or get to work with to be in that 32%. I want to put them in a system that they may not realize it upfront, but is really good for them, and will give them everything they want in their wish list for launching a new location.
Rich Birch — Nice. That’s great. So good. So again, friends, drop by portablechurch.com/Jeff. Is there anywhere else we want to send people online if they want to track with PCI, kind of track with your story, that sort of thing?
Jeffrey Beachum — Our website, we’re in the process of redoing it.
Rich Birch — Nice.
Jeffrey Beachum — We’ve got a ton of resources. And actually that is a place you could catch on to our newsletter, which is kind of rich – we’re sending out once a month. And so ah portablechurch.com is is our our website. That would be a good place.
Rich Birch — That’s great. Thanks so much, Jeff. Really appreciate you being on the show. Look forward to having you back in the future.
Jeffrey Beachum — Thanks, Rich.
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to talk with Kim Tarlton, the General Manager of Church Communications Group which helps church communicators navigate the complexities of the modern communication landscape.
Many churches operate under the misconception that crises won’t happen to them. However, crises can arise from various sources, including issues in the larger community, financial scandals, or natural disasters. The key is to acknowledge the possibility of a crisis and prepare accordingly. Tune in as Kim delves into the strategic planning to effectively communicate about and manage various crises that may arise both internally and externally.
- Get a plan in place. // Not only do churches need to be prepared for crises, but also crisis communication with the congregation and the public. What message do you need to convey? What is your brand communicating? What are people hearing from your church? Who needs to be the one communicating? Churches need to be prepared for what God is calling them to do and preserve the message of Jesus. Acknowledge that any number of crises may occur at your church and put a plan on paper so you know what you have agreed to.
- Get a crisis response team. // One of the first steps in crisis preparation is forming a crisis response team. Who are your go-to people? This team should include key staff members who are integral to the church’s operations, elder board members who can provide outside oversight and guidance, and legal counsel to navigate any legal implications that may arise. Create a crisis management plan that clearly outlines who is responsible for what during a crisis and how to communicate with the congregation and handle media inquiries. Include each individual’s contact information so everything you need is readily accessible.
- Plan out your areas of response. // Develop good relationships with your local news groups. Invite them to events your church holds and have coffee with them. By taking time to build these relationships, you will be able to use them as a resource when you need to interact with the press during a crisis. Additionally, prepare press releases ahead of time that can be used in these situations.
- Levels of communications. // Many churches fail to communicate effectively during a crisis, leading to confusion and frustration among staff and volunteers. Share information first with the elders and executive leadership. Then inform the staff of the situation and how it will be handled. Finally, communicate with the congregation. This tiered approach helps to ensure that everyone is on the same page and reduces the likelihood of misinformation spreading.
- PRAY with your crisis team. // Every crisis situation is different and it can be difficult to discern what information to share. Kim underscores that before doing anything, church leaders need to seek God for wisdom and cast all of their cares onto Christ. Use the PRAY acronym—Pause, Repeat what is true about God, Ask God and others for help, and Yield, taking time to listen to God and each other. Don’t be in crisis response mode, but rather crisis management.
- Get together to look at the plan. // Gather the crisis management team annually and audit the team and the plan every year. Fill empty positions if a member of the crisis response team is no longer there. Spend a couple of hours to review your plans for crisis management and make any necessary changes.
NEXT STEPS // Editable Crisis Communication Manual Template for ChurchesBased on today’s podcast episode, here is a starting point for a basic crisis communication manual that you can use to begin preparing your church for unexpected situations. Download the editable template to customize for your specific needs.
To get help from Church Communications Group in crisis management or any other aspect of church communications, visit their website at churchcommunications.com and connect with Kim there.
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary Podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Really looking forward to today’s conversation with Kim Tarlton. This is going to be a fantastic conversation if you are in your church today and you’re thinking about the future and you’re wondering, are there things I can be doing today to get ready for stuff in the future, even if it’s some stuff I don’t want to think about today, will be a great episode for you.
Rich Birch — If you’re not familiar, she is the General Manager of Church Communications Group, which began really as an idea to create a space where church communicators could find support, resources, and inspiration, needed to gap navigate the complexities of the modern communication landscape. She has 26 plus years of being a creative leader in mega churches and excels in communication, strategy, and leadership. Super excited to have you. You’re a bonafide expert, Kim. Glad you’re on the show. Thanks for being here today.
Kim Tarlton — Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here. And and, you know, obviously not a great like exciting subject, but still being able to lean in in this way um is really is really something that like we want to do. And so thank you for inviting me into this conversation.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I know it’s going to be great. So why don’t you kind of fill out the picture? You’re kind of owns a little bit of your story. Tell us a little bit more of the but Kim story, kind of fill out that a little bit before we jump in.
Kim Tarlton — Yeah, so um like you said, 26 years full-time ministry, I was working in the church. And I have been, I’ve been at three mega, well, I guess they’re like giga churches now because that’s the thing. And so I’ve been a part of three churches that ah the first one that I was a part of, there’s 300 when I left there, not because of me, all because of God, but like when I left there, they were running upward of 10,000.
Kim Tarlton — And so these churches and the church growth and the multi-site and all of that, being able to be a part of that for so many years, leaning in on um all areas, from production to creative ministry to stage management, and all those things as well as communications, ah God called me to the Big C church. And to allow the use of what he was giving me and training me and um leaning into me with…
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Kim Tarlton — …for so many years, allowing me to take that to a bigger audience outside of these walls into multiple walls. And so um I was able to join the Missional Marketing Group of Companies, which is where the Church Communications Group is a brand under the Missional Marketing Group of Companies now. So yeah…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Kim Tarlton — …that’s just the the elevator version.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Love it. Well, you know, today we want to talk a little bit about crisis communication. Which um again, this is one of those episodes that I think it’s so good. It’s like leaning us forward thinking about the future.
Rich Birch — And we’ve got a dog, which is great. I love dogs on the podcast.
Kim Tarlton — Sorry about that. Yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s all good. The um but but but first, let’s talk about like what do we mean by crisis communication? Like how do I know? Like obviously, there’s like the super extreme version that we probably can think of and we wish we never had to think of. But but but what does that look like, crisis communications? What is that?
Kim Tarlton — Yeah. So, um, for us, you know, first of all, I’ll start with the fact that like, when it comes to churches, we are, we’re kind of is some, not everybody, but some of us are kind of in denial mode. And we’re kind of thinking through this lens of like, that’s not going to happen to us.
Rich Birch — So true.
Kim Tarlton — Um, and maybe that, that might not be something that’s happening in our church or with our pastors or our people. But the bottom line is is that like the church is actually in crisis right now. It is becoming more and more obvious. We are seeing things that have happened in the past, like years ago, coming to light now.
Kim Tarlton — And so crisis is an actual thing. It’s something that we need to not be scared of.
Rich Birch — Right.
Kim Tarlton — But we need to be prepared for.
Kim Tarlton — And so when we lean in for crisis communication, it’s saying there’s crisis management that your church needs to lean into, your staff, your pastors, everybody. But then there’s also crisis communication. And there’s that side of like, what is it that we’re saying? What is our brand like putting out there to people? What does this what are people hearing from us as a church?
Kim Tarlton — And when we look at crisis, there there’s so many opportunities for crisis to happen.
Rich Birch — Right.
Kim Tarlton — It’s not even just in our walls, right, Rich?
Rich Birch — Right.
Kim Tarlton — Like there’s crisis internally. There’s the church crisis. There’s community crisis. There’s there’s shootings in schools right now. There are things happening within our communities that are causing crisis and we need to manage those well.
Kim Tarlton — And then there’s world crisis, you know. Like right now where I am at, I’m probably dating this a little bit, but like where I am at in Indiana, we’re fine. But Florida is looking like it’s getting hit by hurricanes.
Rich Birch — Right.
Kim Tarlton — How do we help manage that? That is happening not here in my state or with my church, but it is happening with churches around the world, or in cities, states, regions outside of our walls.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Kim Tarlton — So when looking at crisis, it’s really going, how do we manage it? But how do we communicate better? And and making sure that we are thinking through that process too…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Kim Tarlton — …to make sure that we we don’t go into it kind of stumbling through our words, not sounding right, and not not really like following after what God is calling us to do…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Kim Tarlton — …and care for people. Not protect the accused, but to protect the church, to protect the all around idea of like, and not protect Jesus even, I don’t even want to say that, like protect him, but protect the message really.
Rich Birch — Yeah, for sure. That’s good. Like and so you know to put a little more meat on the bones, we’re talking about like you know the the unfortunate situation, you you know. The ah report comes out that the youth pastor was having inappropriate sexual relations with a kid in the youth group. Unfortunately, friends, like these things are they’re like so common that it’s not even hard to think about what the problem is, right?
Rich Birch — It could be in a situation from 10, 15 years ago. There could be a financial issue. But it also could be, like you’re saying, like maybe one of your campuses burns to the ground. Or like you know which is or you have um you know some some sort of you know problem like that that happens to your church that does nothing really, it’s not like a sin issue, it’s just something terrible has happened.
Kim Tarlton — Right.
Rich Birch — Like you say, shootings in in in town, that kind of thing.
Rich Birch — And and so um you know we wanna be thinking, that’s kind of the frame that we wanna have as we’re as we’re thinking about these things today. But when we think about, you know, we’re sitting here today, first of all, before we get to kind of what we should be doing, why is it that, and I’m putting a little bit on the spot here…
Kim Tarlton — No worries.
Rich Birch — Why is it that there seems to be resistance with executive pastors, lead pastors—I say that as an executive pastor—on seeking help around communications? Like we don’t do that. I’ve said in other contexts, and maybe I’m just going to answer my own question. I’ve said in other contexts, yeah, when the church is really small, you have, you know, maybe the church planter’s doing the bookkeeping. And then eventually you pass it on to somebody else.
Rich Birch — And then eventually you might have like a whole department of people, CFO, the whole thing. And like, but there’s a something with communications where I would say communications is a professional function similar to finances, but there’s like a resistance to wanting to interact with an organization like yours. Why is that?
Kim Tarlton — Honestly, like, and I don’t have any, a lot of backing to this…
Rich Birch — Sure.
Kim Tarlton — …but what I hear is like, as soon as you bring light to something, a couple of things end up happening, right? So like I had a pastor give me this example, and this is like this is a terrible example, but I’m going to share it anyway, because it came from a pastor. He’s like, you know like when you are young and you like the girl, um but you don’t know if she likes you, and you’re kind of like unsure, but all that stuff.
Kim Tarlton — And then it comes out. And all of a sudden it’s like, Well, okay, I like you. Whether she liked you or not, now she’s thinking, I like you too. Or maybe there might be something there.
Kim Tarlton — And so there’s this idea of like, as soon as we start talking about it, as soon as we bring light to this, is that going to now shine like this extra spotlight on us at the church? Is this going to make it seem like we’re having that we have something that we’re looking into or that we want to hide or that we’re trying to figure out how to get our way past it. Instead of us looking at it and going, we’ are we want to prepare ourselves. We want to be prepared as a church, and we want to be prepared as a community.
Kim Tarlton — Instead, we’re looking at it and we’re going, oh, that might not make me look good. So I’m going to hide. I’m going to kind of hide it in the background. And so that’s kind of one…
Rich Birch — Interesting.
Kim Tarlton — …probably there’s multiple reasons…
Rich Birch — Right.
Kim Tarlton — …but that’s one of the reasons I am hearing most from churches right now.
Rich Birch — Right.
Kim Tarlton — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Okay. So what, what can we do to be prepared for this? Like with this, is one of these things we don’t want to think about, but like insurance, we’d none of us want to pay insurance, but like, cause it’s like, where does all that money go? But this is similar. It’s like, we’ve got to be thinking ahead about these things.
Kim Tarlton — Yes.
Rich Birch — How could we start thinking ahead, um, for kind of a multiplicity of, of situations? Um, obviously by definition, it’s it’s a crisis so we don’t, you know, we didn’t plan for it. But what what can we be doing now?
Kim Tarlton — Yeah, so um there’s there’s there’s obvious there’s levels and layers to preparing yourself. And when we talk about crisis, you know you mentioned some some of those things as well. Like there’s there’s not ah It’s not always just sexual abuse…
Rich Birch — Right.
Kim Tarlton — …or or something of sexual nature. I think there’s that this list that’s out there, um and if you it might be Barna Group or somebody has a list, like the top five areas that um cause crisis management to happen within a church. And sexual abuse of a minor is number one. And then I believe on that list is like zoning issues, um and personal injury.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Kim Tarlton — Somebody actually like getting hurt on site, property disputes. And then I think the other one is insurance issues.
Kim Tarlton — But like one of the things that we’re also seeing a lot in the church right now, um and I believe um I believe I heard this from ah one of our team, um is that like what we’re seeing in church right now, too, is um there’s a high percentage of, even when it comes to the finances of the church, um embezzlement things like that are happening, and it’s happening behind closed doors. And we’re not we’re not prepared for that. We we think, okay, that we’re okay there in the finance side. And then all of a sudden it comes out and it’s like, well, maybe somebody’s been pocketing a few too many of the the giving and the tithes.
Kim Tarlton — And so there’s kind of this like layers and elements of like there’s so many different things and so preparing how do we prepare for all of those things that could happen? And the first thing that I’m going to say is being prepared. Like, that’s probably just being willing to say, you know what? We are willing to, as a church, understand that anything could happen. And even if it doesn’t happen in our walls, like I was saying, there’s stuff happening in your community, happening in your world, and being prepared. How do we respond in these situations?
Kim Tarlton — So number one is just actually leaning into, it’s time to be prepared. I would say every single church staff needs to come together. They bring their staff in the room and they need to say, we are willing to be prepared. And so we’re going to invest in that. And you have to look at your budget and you have to go, what does this look like financially?
Kim Tarlton — It probably is going to look like your communications person, which a lot of those communications leaders are coming right out of college. They maybe have not experienced a crisis of their own. They’re not really…
Rich Birch — They’re good on Instagram. Give it to them.
Kim Tarlton — Exactly, exactly.
Rich Birch — There’s a lot of that in the church world.
Kim Tarlton — There’s a lot of that. And and and that like, as much as we need them to step in because they are our communications leaders, at the same time, they don’t know what they’re supposed to do.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Kim Tarlton — They don’t know how to write a press release correctly and and all those things. And so getting them the help that can help them prepare. Bringing in the right people to help go, let’s put a plan together. And I think that’s like such a huge need, is making sure you put your plan on paper so that when something happens, we all go back to the book and we pull the book out together and we say, we know, we have agreed, this is the plan.
Rich Birch — Right.
Kim Tarlton — And we’ve put our team together and we’ve put our, you know this is what this is what a press release is gonna look like, and how this should feel. And this is who should be sending it and doing it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Kim Tarlton — I had a i had a situation come up um at a church that I was working with that we had the plan, right? Like the plan was there it was visible it was ready to go and then when crisis hit, all of a sudden the pastor went, oh i should be the voice. No, no, no we had discussed this…
Rich Birch — This is why we did it
Kim Tarlton — …that that you are not the voice. And so you have to make sure you plan, you put it on paper, and we all agree to it. So bringing everybody into that conversation is really important.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Kim Tarlton — You don’t just have the pastors and the executive pastors do that. You bring your communications team in. You bring your family ministry team in. Because they need to know when that kid breaks their arm at camp, what do we do?
Rich Birch — Right.
Kim Tarlton — We need to call. Or when that kid is at camp, um I’ve had that experience. When this kid’s at camp and they’re like, hey, my parent, something’s happening at home that shouldn’t be happening at home.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Kim Tarlton — You know what the wrong thing is to do is to be like, okay, yeah, let’s go home. No, no, no. I’m going to talk to your parent about that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Kim Tarlton — I, again, I’ve experienced it myself. We’re we’re going to talk to your parent. Whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa. That is the wrong thing for us to do.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Kim Tarlton — We need to report this.
Rich Birch — Right.
Kim Tarlton — That is the first thing we should be doing is reporting that. Because that is an actual complaint of something that we need to lean into and deal with. And our churches are going, but I don’t want it, I don’t want it to come out. Like I don’t want us to be linked to that.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Kim Tarlton — Like I don’t want to report that. And so making sure we have a clear plan as a team, bring in the right people. If your communications team, or your executive pastor, or somebody has experience in this, make them the crisis management lead, and allow them to lean in and start start preparing your church. If not, start reaching out…
Rich Birch — Yep. Yeah, that’s good.
Kim Tarlton — …finding the right people to help you build this plan. You have to have a plan, or you’re just going to go into it.
Kim Tarlton — But I literally, a church I was at, we found out about a crisis as we arrived to the office and the news reporters were there.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Kim Tarlton — And we were just like, I don’t know what to say.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Kim Tarlton — Like we didn’t know who to say, you know, talk to this person or do this. We were just all like, what are you talking about? Like, I i don’t know what to say. Wait, what’s happening? What’s in the news?
Rich Birch — Right.
Kim Tarlton — What are you reporting on?
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That’s good.
Kim Tarlton — So prepare yourself for sure.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. I’d love to talk a little bit more about some of those things you think would be in that plan ahead of time, but I should have a personal experience with this. I for years ran a ah large Christian camp and ah literally my very first summer being in charge of the entire thing, we had a kid go missing…
Kim Tarlton — Oh gosh.
Rich Birch — …and it was, um yeah, it’s like the it’s like the worst case scenario. Like by definition, when people send their kids to camp…the the end of the story was very happy in the end. It was it was fine. But this this person went missing and we have this like alarm and it went off and and it went ah and we all this was thought out ahead of time. When that alarm got to a certain point it had been going for a certain amount of time, it triggered our crisis response.
Rich Birch — And it’s funny how to this day, I still have this very positive visceral memory of taking the crisis manual off the wall and flipping to the page where it’s like, OK, what do I do? And and it included all what you’re talking about. It was like, here’s who you call. There was a pre-written, like, basically fill in the blank you know press release. Here’s the only people that are going to talk you know to the press. Here’s, even just simple stuff for me, like please call you know like, and I was the Executive Director, but it was like the board chair that like and it was like listed their phone numbers had that all right in front of me.
Kim Tarlton — Good.
Rich Birch — Because in that moment you’re like, oh my goodness, like all you’re just seeing red, right? You’re like you know and now it was thankful that it ended up in a positive situation.
Kim Tarlton — Yeah.
Rich Birch — But it man, if I hadn’t done that ahead of time, we would have been scrambling.
Rich Birch — So what would be some of those things when you think about, okay, we’re gonna work on this ahead of time, what would be a couple of those things that we should think about that maybe are not intuitive that we should be planning ahead?
Kim Tarlton — Yeah, yeah. So a few things. One is getting a crisis response team is what we would call it. And so putting together, who is your response team? Who are the people…
Rich Birch — Right.
Kim Tarlton — …that are going to be our go-to, right?
Kim Tarlton — Um, one person from, from your church staff, absolutely. An elder, um, or the elder board, maybe. Your leadership team, your executive pastor – who are these people, these key people who are going to be the people that number one, when this happens, we call them in and we go, here’s what’s going on. What do we need to do? And let’s all start leaning into our areas.
Kim Tarlton — Don’t make this just all about your staff. Do not just have your pastor, your executive pastor, and your communications person. You need to bring in some of those outside resources.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Kim Tarlton — You need those key volunteer or a professional who is maybe associated with your church, um an attorney, something along those lines.
Kim Tarlton — You always want to in, in most given situations that are crisis, you want to contact your attorney and get them on that team. But then also making sure that we have this, you know, a crisis management plan is super important.
Kim Tarlton — So that’s the first thing. And, and I would document that, like you did. I would document that and have their names, their email address, their phone number, like what is our easy access?
Rich Birch — Right.
Kim Tarlton — Um, I, you know, I would even like in the day and age of cell phones and text messages, I would even build a crisis response kind of text message chain that it’s like, we’re not going to always be, this isn’t a group text where we’re sending like cat memes or anything along those lines.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
But this, this is like that group that when something happens, we basically, we have our, it’s all in, you know, all hands on deck and everybody knows where you meet up and it’s time to talk.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Kim Tarlton — Um, and I think that’s, that’s just so key.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Kim Tarlton — I would say another thing is, um, kind of, plan out um your your areas of response. So there’s there’s media response, right? And one of the things that you can start doing is—there’s so much you can do—but like one of the things I highly recommend to churches all the time is let’s start leaning into um our local news. Let’s start building that relationship. Because nothing can save you more from bad press than having a good relationship and good press.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s true.
Kim Tarlton — And so if you start building that relationship now with somebody and you are inviting them, you know, every quarter come and have some coffee and let’s chitchat about the church. And we have this big event coming up and come out and see what’s going on there. When that crisis hits…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Kim Tarlton — …and you have that person to call and you say, hey, you know we’ve been building this relationship and I need to I need you to step aside as the journalist for just a second and help me know what questions are going to come my way and help me prepare for that.
Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good.
Kim Tarlton — I will absolutely talk with you and I will absolutely lean in because we have this relationship, but can you help me…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Kim Tarlton — …build into what I’m about to say or or these conversations I’m about to have.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so critically important.
Kim Tarlton — I would say um also preparing you know some of those press releases, like have that prepared ahead of time? Just a general note, you know, for immediate release press release. We’ve received this information or we know this information and this is ah what you need to know and how we are handling it. Being prepared in that kind of way to where you can go, let’s just say your communications director is is involved in the situation that is happening. For your leadership, your volunteers to be able to go, great, we now have a well-formatted press release. We have well-formatted email that would go out to all church. Um, we have this and it’s, it’s taken care of like, it’s already ready to go. We just fill in the gaps. What a win, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Kim Tarlton — Cause we don’t want to send out something that has spelling issues and all of that’s never fun.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Exactly.
Kim Tarlton — Um, and then I would talk, of I would like from there, I would just go through like, what are the levels of communication? Um, one of the things that I’ve seen done really wrong. And again, this is, this is churches that I’ve been at. And so, you know, I, I was there too. Um, and we didn’t handle things right all the time. Um, and it’s those levels of communication. And what we end up doing is we go, there’s a crisis. We need to tell everybody what we’re doing.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Kim Tarlton — And we need to let everybody know. And then there’s this small group of people called our staff. And then there’s other group of people, our key volunteers, and then this other group of people, our church, that all start to go, gosh, why am I finding this out when the world is finding this out?
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Kim Tarlton — Why am I being communicated to when everybody else is being communicated to?
Rich Birch — Yeah. It’s so true.
Kim Tarlton — Um, and we’re not honest too. Sometimes we’re like, Hey, there was a problem and we took them off our staff list and like, everything’s going to be great. You know what? No, there’s a problem. Here’s what the problem was.
Rich Birch — Right.
Kim Tarlton — We’re going to be honest with you. But build up that levels of where do we start? We’re going to start internally, and we’re going to make sure all the elders and all the executive leadership know. Then we’re going to make sure all the staff know what is the situation, how are we handling this. Then we’re going to build and we’re going to build those layers.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Kim Tarlton — I think one of my staff members calls it something about like communicate to the egg. And so I like you know you the yolk. And then you have the like messy part of it, the egg white.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yep.
Kim Tarlton — And then you’ve got the frying pan, you know, you’ve got all the pieces.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Kim Tarlton — And so like starting like, we have to start with the yolk and we have to build it out from there and put together our plan. I could go on and on and on, but I would definitely be leaning into um all these. And honestly, like you could you go into Chat GPT right now. Who doesn’t love Chat GPT nowadays? And you could say, Chat GPT, what are the things that I need to prepare in order to prepare my church, my organization for potential crisis? And you will get a list of things just like this…
Rich Birch — Right.
Kim Tarlton — …that you lean into and questions to to get answers for.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. It’s interesting that there seems to be, I think in these situations, there’s like two tendencies. There’s what you talked about, which was the like, it’s almost like an over communication.
Rich Birch — It’s like, okay, you are like very quick to like, I think there’s a lot of, and and some of my best friends are lead pastors.
Kim Tarlton — Yes.
Rich Birch — They believe if I just get in front of people, I can solve this. Like we can stand up and just figure it out.
Kim Tarlton — Right.
Rich Birch — Or there’s the opposite, which is, leaders just go silent. Like something happens someone’s making accusations, they’re posting stuff online, and then we don’t say anything. And it’s almost like and in some cases they’ll even have like a like a gag order. We’re not talking about this and they believe if they just turtle, it’ll it’ll pass over.
Kim Tarlton — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Help us to discern, and I know every situation is different. It’s really hard to speak in generalities about this. But help us to discern when should we be thinking about, okay, we’ve got to do some kind of strategic communication here, or maybe we should just be quiet. What is too much? Again, I know, I know it’s a super nuanced question…
Kim Tarlton — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …but help us through that.
Kim Tarlton — I’m probably not going to give you the answer that ah that you expect.
Rich Birch — Yes. Sure.
Kim Tarlton — Um, and for me, it’s like, one of the first things we have to do is stop and pray.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Kim Tarlton — And I I do believe, like and now now I’m not one of those, like I need a new job, so I’m gonna sit on my couch and I’m gonna pray, and then God’s just gonna drop a job into my lap.
Rich Birch — No, no, that’s good. Yep.
Kim Tarlton — I don’t believe that at all.
Rich Birch — Yep. Yep.
Kim Tarlton — But I do believe that if we go to God for wisdom and we go to God for what is it that we should be doing…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s good.
Kim Tarlton — …in this situation, I believe that pastor that is maybe frustrated, that pastor that maybe is like, okay, we gotta do this, and we gotta do this, and we gotta do this, yes, we do. I want you to stop for a second and I want you to lean into prayer…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Kim Tarlton — …and I want you to lean in heavy. And let’s let’s come together, this crisis management team that we’ve put together, we’re gonna come together and we’re gonna start by the first thing we’re gonna do is we’re gonna pray.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Kim Tarlton — And Putting that prayer time in there is gonna allow you to now go, Okay, we’ve now cast all of our cares on Christ.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Kim Tarlton — So now now, what is it that we need to do? And we’ve calmed and we’ve relaxed ourselves and we’re going, okay, let’s think through this responsibly. Let’s think through this well. I think the the prayer acronym, there’s like a prayer acronym, it’s ah p the P-R-A-Y, so you pause, you repeat, like repeat, God is good, he’s in control, he’s got this, right? We ask, God, we ask news reporters. We ask those people that that relationship, we ask. And then we yield, right? And so making sure we’re leaning in in that way and we’re learning and we’re listening to each other and we’re not, we’re not like in that crisis response. We’re in crisis communication, crisis management…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s good.
Kim Tarlton — …not crisis response. So that’s, that’s what I would say. Stop. And just remember who who were her we’re for…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, that’s good.
Kim Tarlton — …like who are like this is this is all about. This is all about Jesus. And so like, let’s start there.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I love it. Yeah, I think that’s a great word ah for sure, because I think there are times where, um you know, we want to jump… by definition, leaders are biased for action kind of people. And even if that action is, we’re definitely not saying anything. But but slowing down and saying, no, like let’s let’s take this to the Lord and say, hey, what is it that you, how do we, at the end of the day, we want to see, kind of regardless of what the impact on our ministry is, we want to see the message of Jesus lifted up in this. And what is that? What? That’s hard to that’s hard to discern, right? It’s hard to know, okay, what and what is the best way to go from here?
Kim Tarlton — It’s really hard to discern. And and um what it’s ah fear, it’s like fear-based, right? We we have a we, our discernment ah we have an inner fear that comes and we start to ask these questions like, you know do people really need to know what’s going on there? What you know what what’s what is this all about? Like is this is this reflection of the church, or is this a personal thing? So it’s like and then that those are all things that start to build up in us with fear. And so we start to respond wrong instead of saying, you know, I’m going to cast, ah I’m going to cast my cares on God. The fear of the Lord – that’s like, that’s the only fear that I have to deal with right now.
Rich Birch — Yeah, totally.
Kim Tarlton — And so, yeah, bringing it, bringing it to God is like, um, it, it helps us calm the fire, you know? Cause like, as soon as crisis hits, it’s like this flame ignites, right?
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Kim Tarlton — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah, are there any principles there around, you know that we should be thinking about? And again, I understand, friends. I’m sure there’s people are listening in like, Rich, every situation is different but, but are there some general principles for us to be thinking about? You know, should we try to do a cascading communication here? How quick do we respond? Is it generally like is, or is it asymmetrical? Like, you know, over responding has a greater risk than under responding. So you would default towards, well, maybe we’ll try to take a more measured approach. Is there, are there any principles around that that we should be thinking about in this area?
Kim Tarlton — I would, ah but you know, I’m, I would, for me, being prepared…
Rich Birch — Right. Sure. Sure.
Kim Tarlton — …you’re going to answer those questions before they come. Okay?
Rich Birch — Yep. Yeah, that’s good.
Kim Tarlton — So like, in you being prepared, you’re not gonna go into this and go, are we responding too much, or are we not responding enough? Because you’re gonna think about the situation…
Rich Birch — That’s good. Yeah.
Kim Tarlton — …and you need to think about every, like we talked about like property disputes.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Kim Tarlton — Okay, that’s like a thing. You know, we had a ah church the within Church Communications Group that we were working with where um there wasn’t anything that happened like within the church. They they went and they did flyers on doors. And somebody was not happy that they received a flyer on their door. So they went into their social media account and posted a really ugly thing about the pastor. Not true, not at all true, but they were unhappy about this situation…
Rich Birch — Right.
Kim Tarlton — …so they said something about the pastor, which now all of the sudden people are like, oh, well, this church is a massive mess.
Rich Birch — Yeah, wait a second. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Interesting.
Kim Tarlton — If we’re not, we didn’t talk about like, how do we handle this, which they hadn’t. Like, you have to be able to go any situation that could happen…
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Kim Tarlton — …whether it is it is this, or it is that, how do we handle it? And that preparedness is going to allow you to respond the correct way.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great.
Kim Tarlton — Now, there are things that you probably need to be doing as a church um that, like you can prepare your crisis plan, but there’s things that you need to be doing as a church on the regular that help keep you away from and help protect the church from potential crisis. I would say things like a background checks, right? There are so many churches out there that, number one, are not running background checks. Why? Because it’s expensive.
Rich Birch — Crazy. That’s crazy. Yeah.
Kim Tarlton — That’s the worst reason to not be running a background check.
Rich Birch — 100%.
Kim Tarlton — Number two, they’re only running background checks with kid people that works with kids’ ministry. Okay?
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kim Tarlton — That’s a problem because you now have some, you know, you now have open volunteer positions.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Kim Tarlton — That’s hard. You’re you’re hiring on staff. If you’re only working with kids ministry, that’s one layer.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Kim Tarlton — So I always encourage like do the background check. I know it’s expensive. but do the background check on anybody that comes into contact with people.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, that’s good.
Kim Tarlton — And that’s like people go, whoa! Hold on!
Rich Birch — No, no, no, that’s true.
Kim Tarlton — So lot, now, obviously, if you’re coming into the church, that’s one thing. But if you are serving, if you are directly you know working with student ministry, kids ministry, if you are handing out flyers and um and and programs on the weekend, and you are coming in contact. There was a church that um, that reported like there was some, there was a guy just looking at women. Interestingly enough, they ran the background check and he had a background with women.
Rich Birch — Right.
Kim Tarlton — And so it’s one of those like, you need to know who it is that you’re putting into service.
Rich Birch — Right.
Kim Tarlton — I’m not telling you don’t have them serve. But what I’m telling you is make sure you have that background check. And make sure if you have somebody and you’re like, okay, this is somebody that maybe has had, uh, a questionable past, but we’re going to put them behind the counter doing guest services. Okay. So now you got to put a plan together with that person. We’re going to do a monthly check-in or a quarterly check-in and just see how you’re doing.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yep.
Kim Tarlton — Because if you’re struggling with coming in contact with men or women or anything like that, I want you to know that I’m a safe place to talk about that. And we are not going to like, we’re not going to put you in front of the church and make you feel bad. I just want us to have an open conversation and know that I am here.
Rich Birch — Right.
Kim Tarlton — I am here to check in on. If you are struggling with something and I know that you want to follow what God has for you. I know that. And so but if you’re struggling, I want you to know I’m a safe place for you to come to and struggle. And and that I might have to pull you out for a season. But know that I am here for you, to care for you, and to love on you.
Rich Birch — Right.
Kim Tarlton — And that I am a safe place. Doing those background checks, did you know like ah too, um you were supposed to, ah most churches are doing it, like if they do it, they do it with kids ministry. And then um one, they’re either not redoing the background check ever again, or they’re doing it every three to five years.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Kim Tarlton — But you’re supposed to do it every year.
Rich Birch — Right.
Kim Tarlton — Every year.
Rich Birch — Right.
Kim Tarlton — These are those kinds of things that like, oh my gosh, it costs so much money. Yeah.
Rich Birch — Right.
Kim Tarlton — But let me tell you how much it’s going to cost you when that crisis happens.
Rich Birch — No, a hundred percent. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kim Tarlton — Because that…
Rich Birch — And and ultimately, like I think on these things, that’s a really good good word for sure. And I’ve definitely seen that with the churches I coach, that where the standard is shifting to anybody that is in a regular volunteer position, regular by defined as it’s ah you’re on a schedule. We’re moving towards getting all those people um background checked.
Kim Tarlton — Yeah. Yes.
Rich Birch — Because they have a level, even if they’re never over in the kids space, they have a level of influence because they have a name tag that says staff or volunteer. And you know there’s there’s risk there. And it also, I think the other piece of this, which is like um well back to when I was running that that summer camp, this is a really kind of dark way to think about these things. But oftentimes, when we would think about this, I would put it through the lens of, OK, so when I’m standing in front of the judge down the road, because something really negative has happened in our midst, and I have to explain what got us here, I want to be able to say, I’m I feel really terrible that XYZ thing happened. But let me explain to you the layers of stuff that we did that that could have prevented it.
Kim Tarlton — Absolutely.
Rich Birch — And we still had an accident. We still had something terrible go wrong. But we weren’t negligent. We weren’t like we don’t have like years of email saying, we’re not affording the $25 thing for for this. Because, man, you do not want to stand in front of a judge eventually and say, well, Yeah, we it would have been an extra thousand bucks a year.
Kim Tarlton — Right? Right?
Rich Birch — Like, what are you talking about? Like, that just isn’t, it’s just not worth it.
Kim Tarlton — No.
Rich Birch — And so, yeah, that’s a good word. How how often would you encourage churches to to review the this kind of crisis communications manual? Is this like an annual thing, every couple of years? What would you suggest?
Kim Tarlton — Yeah, I would suggest every year…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Kim Tarlton — …that our crisis management team gets together.
Rich Birch — Yep. That’s good.
Kim Tarlton — First of all, you need to audit the team every year.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Kim Tarlton — Um, let’s just say something happens within the team, or somebody leaves the church, right? You want to replace that position.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Kim Tarlton — You don’t want it to just be like, Oh, we’re fine. We can do it without Susie or we can do it without Rob.
Rich Birch — Yep. Yeah, that’s good.
Kim Tarlton — No, no, no. There was a reason they were in there. So let’s make sure we’re replacing if we, if we lose somebody we’re replacing. And then we want to look at it every year. The reason I’m saying every year, is because COVID, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Kim Tarlton — Like, did we know COVID was coming?
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah. No, that’s true.
Kim Tarlton — No.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Kim Tarlton — Were we prepared for COVID? No. We don’t know what is coming. We don’t know what we don’t know.
Rich Birch — Right.
Kim Tarlton — And so us just continuing to refresh it, to keep our eyes on it, to know what is our plan and to make sure we’re building that right team. It’s it’s something, once a year, for a couple hours get together.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Kim Tarlton — That’s not that big of an ask, again, when it comes to protecting your church.
Rich Birch — Yeah, totally. Yeah, good. It’s it’s again, it’s like insurance. It’s it’s preventative work. I understand every church has stuff that is crisis related in the fact of not this kind of crisis, but the like there’s always things right in front of you, but this is one of that stuff that we’ve got to push back and say, okay, let’s let’s take some time. You know we can we can invest a couple year couple hours a year, bring up the Google doc, let’s talk, let’s take a look at it.
Kim Tarlton — Yes.
Rich Birch — Do we need to update? What are we missing? That sort of thing.
Kim Tarlton — Yes.
Rich Birch — Um, this has been, this has been fantastic. A little bit depressing, Kim. We got to have you come back on and have, I don’t know, like how to make great Christmas flyers, like something very fluffy…
Kim Tarlton — We can have a better conversation. Yes.
Rich Birch — …next time.
Kim Tarlton — Count me in. Count me in.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Is there anything else you’d like to say just as we wrap up today’s episode?
Kim Tarlton — No, I’m I you know I like I so ah like I said earlier, um you know I come up with a plan um and there are there are a lot of resources out there. Church Communications Group does work with churches on your crisis communication plan. There are some great great options out there and I would just encourage every church, like I can’t say that enough, encourage you to start building that plan and and reach out and find somebody that can help you dig into that plan.
Rich Birch — That’s fantastic. Kim, this has been great. Yeah, I’d recommend you reach out to Church Communications, Kim, specifically. If you’re, you know, you might be listening in, maybe you’re listening to this a couple of years from now and something is happening at your church that you need some help.
Kim Tarlton — Yeah.
Rich Birch — You should reach out. If people want to get in touch with you or with Church Comms, how can they do that?
Kim Tarlton — Yeah, you can just go to churchcommunications.com and um and right there um is all of our information. You can schedule a call. You can even just say on there, hey, I would like to talk to Kim directly and we’ll make sure that that happens. It’s a lot easier for me to give you churchcommunications.com than to try to give you my email address…
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah, I get that.
Kim Tarlton — …which is probably too hard to remember.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. Well, I appreciate you, Kim. Thanks for being on today and thanks for all the help. Take care.
Thanks for joining us for today’s unSeminary podcast. Carey Nieuwhof has been a guiding light in the church leadership space for decades and this week we’re celebrating the ten-year anniversary of his podcast. To mark this special occasion, we’re revisiting an interview we did with him 10 years ago.
Do you have things at your church that you wish would just change? Do you have people that are resisting change, pushing against what you think is God’s vision for the future of your church? Tune in for the timeless wisdom and powerful insights Carey shares on leading change in your church.
- Don’t expect automatic change. // Leading change is a skill, but the good news is that it’s a skill that can be learned. Leaders want change, but may expect others to buy into it before it’s been rolled out. Leaders then become frustrated when people don’t change. The reality is that people don’t automatically change and typically don’t like change. As the leader, it’s your job to show people a preferred future and to lead them there.
- There will be resistance. // Opposition is a normal part of leading change. Everyone who is in your church today is there because they like it as it is now. There will be alienation among some of the congregation who will think things were better before the change. One mistake a lot of leaders make is assuming that loud equals large. Often the loudest opponents are only a small part of your congregation. It’s up to you to do the math and see what percentage of your people is really pushing back against the vision you feel God has given you. This group usually doesn’t have a competing vision for a better future and it’s not worth sacrificing 90% for the 10% who are discontent.
- Have the humility to listen. // When you are addressing opposition, ask two questions. One, is there a biblical argument in the pushback? If there is, you do need to listen. The leader doesn’t always know best and doesn’t speak for God. Have the humility to listen but the wisdom to act on the things that will determine a better future.
- Is this your target? // Secondly when facing opposition, ask are these the kind of people you are going to build the future of the church on? You need to focus on who you are going to reach, not who you are going to keep. You’ll only ever hear from the people already there, not from the unchurched people you’re trying to reach. Think about the person who isn’t in the room, not just the one who is.
- Focus on the why. // Disagreements usually aren’t an issue of character, mission, or vision. Instead they are usually an issue of strategy. When leading change it’s critical to explain your “why” in all of your communications before talking about the “what” and the “how”. Why almost always unites while what and how almost always divide.
- Rolling out communication. // Communicate change in concentric circles, starting with the core team to gather input before expanding the conversation to broader circles. This approach helps build support and creates a sense of ownership among team members and congregation.
- Innovate and experiment. // Maintain core successes while exploring new ideas on the side. The longer you’re in leadership and the more successful you are, the more tempting it is to avoid change. An organization that loses it’s experimental and entrepreneurial side will fall off the cliff at some point. Preserve what God has built but never stop pushing yourself to innovate, experiment, and fail.
To follow along with Connexus Church, visit connexuschurch.com. Explore Carey’s website and listen to his podcast at careynieuwhof.com.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Happy Thursday, everybody. Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Super excited for today’s episode. You know, my friend, Carey Nieuwhof, has been podcasting for ten years. I just want to say that unSeminary was launched before Carey’s – I remember we got started the year before and but man, his podcast has gone just meteoric. He’s become so incredibly influential, through his podcasts, through all the different things that he does. And I just want to celebrate him. Carey’s a friend of mine, personal friend, know him from the real world. We actually live in the same town. I’ve had the privilege of working for Carey and we continue to do stuff together, but I thought what would be fun to celebrate the launch of Carey’s podcast is to actually go back into the unSeminary vault from ten years ago and replay a podcast interview that we had with Carey all the way back then.
Rich Birch — And I was really listening to this episode recently, and man, it just does not get old. Carey is really evergreen when it comes to content. And in this particular episode, I was talking to Carey about change, and he talks about the fact that change is a skill. He gives some great stuff around handling resistant resistance, focusing on who you want to reach, building consensus, navigating personal challenges. It really is a fantastic episode. So I thought in celebration of Carey’s ten years of podcasting, that we’d go back and look at an episode from ten years ago and you’ll catch some of the brilliance of Carey that really is timeless.
Rich Birch — Carey, my hat goes off to you. You, I love that your influence continues to grow. I love that you continue to help people. For friends who are listening in, Carey’s the real deal. You should follow him. He’s a man of integrity. He’s the kind of leader that you should spend time getting to know. So for a long time listeners, you’re going to hear some retro unSeminary goodness. Our old opener, and some other fun stuff that we haven’t done in a long time. But here we are. Without any further ado, a ten-year-old interview with our friend, Carey Nieuwhof.
[unSeminary Opener]
Rich Birch — Hey everybody, happy Thursday. Rich Birch from the unSeminary podcast. Thank you for tuning in.
Rich Birch — Do you have things at your church that you wish would just change? Do you have people that are resisting change, that you’re just are pushing against what you think is God’s vision for the future of your church? Well, today you are in for a treat because we’ve got a special guest, Carey Nieuwhof, who I think is one of the smartest leaders in the country on the whole organizational change issue.
Rich Birch — He’s got some great stuff to say. Let’s jump into the podcast and make sure you come back after the interview because I’ve got a few resources I want to share with you.
Rich Birch — Alright, well welcome to the show. I’m so privileged to have Carey Nieuwhof on with us. Carey is a leader, writer, he’s a pastor, blogger, author. And I’m privileged to call him a friend.
Carey Nieuwhof — Yeah, Absolutely.
Rich Birch — And so thank you, Carey, for being on the show.
Carey Nieuwhof — Hey, thanks for having me, Rich. I’m really excited to be here, and excited about your podcast too.
Rich Birch — Thanks so much! Well, you know, Carey, you’re one of those leaders I feel like has been through a lot of change. You’ve seen a lot happen. I wonder if we could take a little bit and tell the story about the current ministry you’re at, and just a bit of your background, get people to introduce you a little bit, get to know you more.
Carey Nieuwhof — Sure. Yeah, you know, change has been the one constant over the 18 years that I have been in ministry. And it’s one of those things, Rich, that never goes away. So my story, my background, is I was not one of those people who ever thought I would be in ministry. When I was 8 years old, I decided I wanted to become a lawyer. I don’t know what needs to be wrong with you at 8 years old to want to be a lawyer, but it’s true of me.
Rich Birch — (laughing)
Carey Nieuwhof — So, I went to law school, and it was in the middle of law school that I really like, and I’m not a really a supernatural, charismatic person, but God intervened. And even though I was a Christian, and God made it very clear to me that there was a call to ministry. And it took me a few years to discern that. I finished law school.
Carey Nieuwhof — And in 1995 I came up to where I currently am, about an hour north of Toronto, in a little community called Oro, which you know, Rich. And I started with 3 small Presbyterian churches. My background was Presbyterian. We lead those churches through a significant amount of change over a decade. And then about 6 years ago, I left and we started Connexus Church. And, um that was a transition. Some of the same people but certainly not all of the same people, who were part of those Presbyterian churches went on to start Connexus, a church for unchurched people, and a North Point strategic partner. And even in that, even in the midst of that, there has been an awful lot of change in the last 6 years. So change has been the one constant, I guess. That, and Christ.
Rich Birch — Yeah, exactly. Man that, ya know, I often say to people, “Carey, like I said, he’s just been through a lot.” Now what would you say, you know a lot of people who listen to this podcast are obviously leading churches of all different sizes, but I think we’re all trying to figure out how to change our churches. Right? We’re all, you know, I think as in, bred in leaders is this desire to say “Hey, we want to make things better.” Um, how have you navigated, what were some handles that you come back to, time and time again, you’ve seen, Hey, this is some of the things we have to do as leaders to kind of successfully navigate that change?
Carey Nieuwhof — Well probably, and I didn’t know this right away, but I figured out over time that change is actually a skill, and leading change is actually a skill, and the good news is that it can be learned. There are principles that just work. And I think sometimes leaders find themselves in a trap where they really want change—I don’t know a single leader with his or her salt that doesn’t want change of some kind – that’s what makes us leaders—but we kind of expect other people to buy into that change before we’ve sold it, before we’ve really delivered on it. And so we’re waiting for people to change and then we get frustrated because they don’t change. And I think there is something, at first it was just instinct, that told me that that was just wrong, like people do not automatically change, and people don’t like change. And so, it’s up to you as the leader, ah, to really show people a picture of a preferred future, and to lead them there.
Carey Nieuwhof — Now there are good ways to do that, and there are bad ways to do that. And you know the one question I got all the time, because our little Presbyterian churches what we did was, we started to grow, and um, we sold three historic buildings within 5 years, and we moved into an elementary school. And that elicited some opposition.
Rich Birch — (laughing)
Carey Nieuwhof — You give up everything that they had known for over a hundred years. I mean, these are beautiful little red brick, historic buildings, ya know “Anne of Green Gables” type churches. And they sold them and we moved into an elementary school in the name of reaching people. And then we built a two million dollar facility, and then we left it a few years later when we left the denomination to start over again in movie theaters. I mean, because we thought it would help us reach more unchurched people in a non-denominational context, and with the model of ministry that we wanted to run with. So that’s an awful lot of change, and people don’t just stand up and wildly applaud when you announce what your strategy is.
Carey Nieuwhof — So we did get a lot of opposition. The question I would get, and that’s a long way of getting to this question. The questions that I always got is “Did anybody leave?”
Rich Birch — Right.
Carey Nieuwhof — And there’s a point at which, “well of course people left!” Like, what do you think?
Rich Birch — Right.
Carey Nieuwhof — Everybody who’s in your church today is there because they like it the way it is now.
Rich Birch — Hmmmm.
Carey Nieuwhof — That’s something every leader…like everybody that’s at Liquid Church right now, where you serve, likes the way it is now. One way or another. Maybe they may don’t like everything, but they like something about it. So if you are going to change, there is an inherent alienation that’s going to happen with everybody that’s currently a part of your tribe. It just happens, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yes.
Carey Nieuwhof — We liked it better when Rich didn’t do podcasts.
Rich Birch — Right.
Carey Nieuwhof — Right? I mean, you have that. It happens in your tv shows where they start a new character and your’e like, well, it was so much better when they didn’t have that character. Yeah know, it’s like, people don’t like that. And so the opposition get’s intense. But what happens…Here’s one mistake that I’ll share that I think a lot of leaders make, and I had to figure out how not to make this mistake…We assume, because opponents are loud, that loud equals large, loud equals large.
Carey Nieuwhof — So because your inbox is blowing up, or because your congregational meeting didn’t go very well, or because you keep getting pigeonholed after the service, “Hey, can I talk to you?” There’s fingers pointing, you just assume. And if you listen to the opponents, they will always tell you, “Everybody’s upset with this”, yeah know? “I’ve talked to everybody”. Really, you’ve talked to everybody? Ok, just checking. And so they, you just assume as a leader, loud equals large.
Carey Nieuwhof — But if you actually do the math, if you actually go through it, we learned early on, we should just do the math here. Probably that loud group of your organization is probably about 10%. And in the worst days it might be 30. Maybe it’s 50. I doubt it. I don’t think it ever got to 50%…
Rich Birch — Right.
Carey Nieuwhof — …in our worst moments. Um, but they’re just loud. And so you just have to convince yourself, I have to do the math and wait a minute, am I going to sacrifice 90% of the population of our organization for the sake of 10% who are not content? And often the people who are opposed to your vision don’t actually have a competing vision for a better future. So if you ask them, so where, what do you want to do, what do you want to accomplish? They’re like, “I don’t know, it just can’t be that way.”
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Carey Nieuwhof — Well you can’t go back, you can’t go back. So what’s your vision for a preferred future? And often the answer is, they don’t have one. And so then really, ok, so you are going to listen to the 10% of the population that doesn’t have a clear destination, that actually isn’t going to make it better. It doesn’t mean they are bad people, they’re just not going to make it better. And you’re going to sacrifice and jettison your whole organization for the sake of that?
Carey Nieuwhof — And then, if you’re involved in the church, or you’re a business and you think about, well that’s my existing customer base, those are existing users. What about all the market out there? What about, in my case, unchurched people? You’re going to let 10 people in a church of 100 control the future of 100,000 people? You’re going to let 100 people in a church of 1000 control the future of 100, 000 people? Do the math. So those are some lessons I had to learn early on, and we were fortunate enough to try to figure it out.
Rich Birch — Well, Carey, this is why I love you talking about change, cause, ya know it just falls out of you. It’s like, OK, well there might have been a bit of opposition about selling three buildings and merging and all this stuff. That’s amazing. Break down to, you know, maybe a personal story, or a time you remember when there was a bit of opposition there, um maybe from a source where you didn’t anticipate it. How do you deal with that?
Carey Nieuwhof — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Because it’s not so much, I think for leaders that it’s like, there’s that person you don’t like. Maybe it’s just you, but there’s always people in every church where I’m like ah, I don’t really like them.
Carey Nieuwhof — I’m not going to listen to them.
Rich Birch — But then there’s the people that are a little closer, um, ya know, how do you deal with that? How do you deal with, you know, talk about something personal?
Carey Nieuwhof — Yeah. Well let’s do two ways. Number one, in the early days, you do get a lot of opposition, you get people standing up, emailing or pigeon-holing you or whatever. We learned as an elder board to ask this question, or two questions. Number one: Is there a Biblical argument in what they’re saying? Because if there is, I need to listen. And just ’cause I’m the leader doesn’t mean I always know best, doesn’t mean I speak for God. And wisdom does come to us, sometimes, even in the face of opponents. Even with your worst opponents, there might always be a grain of truth in what they are saying, even if their motivations aren’t great. So have the humility to listen, but the wisdom to only act on the things that really are going to determine a better future. The humility to listen, but the wisdom not to act on all of it. So, is there a biblical argument to what they are saying?
Carey Nieuwhof — Second question we learned to ask, and this one I still ask to this day is: Are these the kind of people we are going to build the future of the church on? Are they? And, um, in the early days, a lot of them were older, and there’s nothing wrong with older people. We have some very, very wise, older, senior adults in our congregation that we listen to. But sometimes, ya know, in our case, they were people we just couldn’t build the future of the church on. And even younger leaders, when you look at their lives, it’s like, I don’t really see a track record where you’ve accomplished a whole lot, or maybe your life, you sit in the critics chair all day long, and you say, this guy’s wrong, and that guy’s wrong. That’s just your life. You cannot build the future of the church on people like that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Carey Nieuwhof — People who are cynical, and negative and always opposed to something -you can’t build the future of the church on. Now, where it get’s tough, I remember about 10 years ago I had a letter from, and I haven’t talked about this publicly, but you asked so…
Rich Birch — (laughing)
Carey Nieuwhof — I got a letter from a key elder. She sent me a note and she just said, “I support you 100% and but this time I think you have gone to far.” And we were getting rid of the last of the old hymns. And I sat down with her and I mean we cried together, and I said, I just gotta disagree with you. I’ve gotta focus on who we are going to reach not who we are going to keep. And we tried to keep up our friendship, and she continued to serve in leadership. And I mean, I see her now, I don’t see her as much, our church is bigger and the whole deal. But whenever I see her, I get this huge hug and I mean, she’s well into her senior years now, but just an incredible woman.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Carey Nieuwhof — And sometimes I think you just have to work through that. And I think one of the reasons that people get out of sorts with wise leaders, often it’s not with your best people, it’s not a character issue, it’s not a mission issue, it’s not a vision issue. Usually it’s a strategy issue. And so sometimes if you get to the point where some of your best leaders are saying like, if I’ve got five great leaders telling me I’m wrong, I’m probably wrong. So this is not like, you just go ahead and you just blaze trails. Every once in a while you have a Moses moment where you are going across the dessert all by yourself, you’re speaking for God. But I think a lot of time leaders think they are in those moments when they are not.
Rich Birch — Right.
Carey Nieuwhof — But if you get to the point where if you’re with a leader, if you can isolate that to strategy, and I think the disagreement between this great woman and me, was a strategic disagreement.
Rich Birch — Right.
Carey Nieuwhof — And it was a lot of change at once. So when we work through the strategy, it was just one of those things where I just think that the style of music that we are going to do in the future is going to be more effective at reaching unchurched people, you can sometimes reach an agreement. Or at least you realize why you are disagreeing, at the time, and that one was tough. Actually that incident, combined with a really, really tough month, I remember it was November 2002, sent me to a counselors office for the first time ever.
Rich Birch — Wow!
Carey Nieuwhof — So that was very personal.
Rich Birch — Ya, absolutely! Now, does she continue to be connected to the ministry today?
Carey Nieuwhof — Absolutely! She was there last Sunday, will be there this Sunday, gives, serves, I mean…has a great heart.
Rich Birch — Ya know Carey, I think that commends, that’s a good personal story. I think sometimes when we talk about change, right, that’s amazing. It obviously really meant a lot to her, obviously meant a lot to you, that you can come to a point of disagreement, but still not break relationship, is amazing.
Carey Nieuwhof — I did a couple of her grandchildren’s weddings, you know.
Rich Birch — Ah cool.
Carey Nieuwhof — She had a big birthday and the family invited me, Toni, my wife and I were there last summer. I mean, you can work through those things, but I would say you just have to figure out why you are disagreeing. I know with our current leadership, we try to find people whose character runs deep and who we also have a great chemistry with personally. That often the misalignment happens, never on a mission or vision level, not in the church. We believe in Jesus, we love Jesus, He’s great, ya know we agree on that.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Carey Nieuwhof — The disagreement is strategic. And if you can isolate that, you will often at least understand why you disagree and sometimes find agreement even in the midst of that.
Rich Birch — So now what would you say to a church leader that says, “I want to make a strategic shift this fall or early next year, and I’ve got a core group around me that agrees with that,” but they anticipate a bit of resistance. What are couple just practical tactics to start with – you know, it’s not going to be the whole thing….
Carey Nieuwhof — Right.
Rich Birch — But one or two little first steps toward that change.
Carey Nieuwhof — Number 1: Focus on why. I think a lot of leaders get tripped up on what and how. And so the reason…its what Simon Sinek says that people buy why you do it, not what you do. And I think that’s true. You know, every time you open your mouth as a leader you need to explain why. So lead with why. Pepper all your private and public communication, your written communication, your vision casting with why, and then talk about the what and the how. But why almost always unites, and what and how almost always divides.
Carey Nieuwhof — The other thing I would talk about is, Patrick Lencioni calls it cascading communication. You can also look at it in terms of communicating in concentric circles.
Rich Birch — Right.
Carey Nieuwhof — So start with your core team where you actually get input, then go a little bit wider to your next level. So we have a level of government in our system, the North Point system, call MTR’s, Ministry Team Representatives. We’ll bounce change off them first. Like, hey, this isn’t a decision, we just want to get your input. And then when people who are close to you, and share your strategic alignment but aren’t necessarily around the table, when they get input, just like well what about this, or what about that, buy in is much higher. And then you sorta go to the crowd, you know, and then you go to the community. So start layering it. And you know what else, people love to be the first to know. If you can give them…
Rich Birch — That’s so true.
Carey Nieuwhof — ….an inside track and we’ve just really in the last year really ramped that up. It’s like hey, I want you to be the first to know that this is something we’re looking at. And really not keep any secrets. I think once in a while a personnel decision is something you don’t talk about, but we always say, there’s no secrets at Connexus. We’re not going to communicate this publicly yet, but you’re in the room and you can know….we’re negotiating with Cineplex Odeon on a permanent deal. You know, if you can make it public, do. And then people feel like, I’m part of this. They feel some skin in the game, some ownership, even before it get’s trotted out publicly. And when you’ve got a hundred people sitting in a Sunday service where something is announced and they already knew it, you’ve already got 100 evangelists for change.
Rich Birch — Oh totally. Absolutely. Yeah, for sure. Anything else on this change topic? There’s a lot here. You’ve written a book on it. Anything else that you want to make sure we get in?
Carey Nieuwhof — I would just say, you know the big goal, and real short, is focus on who you want to reach, not who you want to keep. And the biggest thing that I find hangs up leaders in the midst of change, is that you are only ever going to hear from the people that want you to keep them. You’re never going to hear from the people who you want to reach. Unreached people don’t randomly email you and say, hey if you did this I would come to your church.
Rich Birch — Right.
Carey Nieuwhof — They don’t do that. They don’t call you, they don’t text you, ya know, they’re silent. And so in the same sense that if you’re in a position of power, or influence, you need to think about how God wants you to use that power and influence and affect people who don’t have power and influence. I think when you are a church leader, or even if you are an organizational leader, you’ve got to think about the customer you haven’t reached, not just the customer you have. You gotta think about the person that isn’t in the room, not just the people who are in the room. And I think leaders that are able to maintain that focus and are able to share that focus widely in the organization are going to do the best when it comes to change, and creating a culture of change.
Rich Birch — Ya, friends, if I can just reinforce what Carey is saying, he actually lives out. A part of what I appreciate about Carey, his leadership, Connexus (their church), is when you cut them, they bleed “Hey, we wanna be a church for unchurched people.” That’s what they talk about all the time. They’re obsessed with it. Which really, I think does drive, like we were talking about there, leading with the why. It becomes the conversation piece – that is the benchmark upon which they judge everything. I appreciate Carey, your leadership, not only on the change, but then also on the focus of staying clear on that mission.
Carey Nieuwhof — I appreciate that Rich and you know just to encourage people, when we started to grow, most of our growth did not come from unchurched people. I’m 18 years into this. In the first decade it was probably about 30% unchurched people and 60% church growth. But that’s flipped. In the last few years, we’re 60% of our people are self-identified unchurched people. We don’t think, hey I think they are unchurched. They tell us they’re unchurched. And that’s great. And so remember that you can change something in 2 or 3 years, but it takes probably 5-7 years to transform it. And the transformation happens with change when it becomes part of who are and embedded in your culture. And so if you’re in the middle of change, don’t give up, you’re probably going to be most tempted to quit moments before your critical breakthrough.
Rich Birch — Alright, I said we are coming to the end but I have one more question I want to slip in.
Carey Nieuwhof — Go ahead.
Rich Birch — This is, again, a bit more personal. Do you feel, as you progress along in your leadership journey, just personally, you’re more open to change and more open to risk, or less? What is your own personal dynamics on that?
Carey Nieuwhof — Yeah, you know what, that’s a great question and I’m kinda in the middle of that right now. I think as you get older, and I think the longer you’re in leadership, and the more successful you become, the more change-averse you become. Particularly if something is successful, you’re really worried about wrecking it. I also think we are in the middle of a massive cultural shift. You write about it all the time, Rich, and you’re up on trends like crazy. So the way I am looking at it now, and I hope to write another book. The third book in the change trilogy will be on creating a culture of success. But the early notes on that for me at least are, maintain what you’ve got but constantly innovate and experiment.
Carey Nieuwhof — You can experiment on the side, and I think an organization that loses it’s experimental entrepreneurial, let’s just preserve at all costs, you just coming close to the cliff. And it’s just only a matter of time until you fall off. So I think when you’ve got success, and you’ve got momentum, and we’re in a season of momentum right now, you want to make sure that yes, you’ve got to preserve what God has built and what you’ve accomplished, but never ever lose. So I am pushing myself to innovate and experiment and fail. But you have to fail in areas that isn’t…Sometimes you gotta fail in areas that might cost you the whole organization. But I think it’s smarter to experiment on the side.
Carey Nieuwhof — And so we’re doing an social media experiment right now, and we don’t even know whether it’s going to to work. But it doesn’t cost us $50,000, it costs us $5,000. And we’re going to find out whether it works. We’re always adjusting the sails, and always playing around. And we’ll play, like we are doing something off model for a North Point Church, you know, we are not being disobedient or whatever, but we’re just trying some stuff that we’re just experimenting with. And if it doesn’t work, you just shut it down. So I think you can lose that and I think the older you get, the more successful you get, older in age but also older as an organization and the more successful, the less you will innovate and the less you will experiment.
Welcome to an Office Hours episode of the unSeminary podcast. In our Office Hours episodes I’m happy to answer your questions that you can submit via an audio file through our website.
Mark Strickland is the lead pastor at Milton Bible Church in Milton, Ontario, Canada. His mid-sized church has about 300 attending on Sunday mornings, has a relational family vibe, and also ministries that connect with the community. They don’t want to stay comfortable with just filling two services and cruising along. They want to fulfill the Great Commission and expand, whether with church planting or multi-site.
Mark asks: When is the right time to church plant or go multi-site? What are the best practices when considering expansion as a mid-size church? And lastly, are there any permanently mid-sized, healthy churches that are models to look at?
- When is the right time to multiply? // Healthy things multiply. In the ECFA New Faces of Church Planting study, one of the indicators for church multiplication is conversion growth. Take a look at the people who are coming to your church. If 51% or more of them are new people coming to know the Lord, that’s a good indicator that you should be thinking about multiplying.
- Start casting vision now. // What is your current vision for multiplying? You may not be ready to start a new campus or plant now, but how can you start casting that vision, even if it is a couple years down the road? Start casting vision with your elders and your team around what God’s calling you to do in the future. Don’t look just at a growth spurt but a pattern of growth over time. Ask yourself if you are seeing sustained growth from people coming to know Jesus.
- Are members ready to launch? // Post-COVID, the average church plant core team size is 18 and the average multi-site core team size is 45. The size and health of the launch team is critically important. Are there a healthy 45 people you could send to a community on the other side of town to launch something new?
- Prepare for the financial side. // Another aspect to think about is the financial side of expansion. It’s financially taxing to launch a new site or plant a church. Often church planters rely heavily on fundraising the first few years. How could you start building financial resources to gift to a church planter to help them launch strong in a couple years?
- Questions to ask yourself. // Not every church needs to be big, but every church needs to have a big vision for what God is calling them to do. What is the big vision that God could call your community to? What is it that He’s calling your church to that ultimately looks like the transformation of your community for the message of Jesus?
If you’ve got a question that you’d love to get answered, drop by the Office Hours link to upload an audio file.
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Risepointe
Do you feel like your church’s facility could be preventing growth, and are you frustrated or maybe even overwhelmed at the thought of a complicated or costly building project? Are the limitations of your church building becoming obstacles in the path of expanding your ministry? Have you ever felt that your church could reach more people if only the facility was better suited to the community’s needs?
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Rich Birch here. Super excited for today’s Office Hours episode. What is an Office Hours episode, Rich, you might be asking? Hey, great question. I’d be happy to answer. I’m already starting off the top talking to myself.
Rich Birch — Man, this is going to be a fun episode. So Office Hours are where you go over to our website, unseminary.com, and you’ll see at the top, there’s a place where you can drop an audio file, and I would be happy to answer your question. So why don’t you do that after today’s episode.
Rich Birch — Super excited to hear from Mark Strickland. Let’s listen to his question, and then I’ll come back and try to offer whatever insight I can. Let’s listen in: Pastor Mark Strickland.
Mark Strickland — Hey Rich, Mark Strickland here, hope you’re keeping well. I’m currently serving as a lead pastor at Milton Bible Church in Milton, Ontario. We are a Fellowship Baptist church, word and spirit church, kind of a Bapto-costal flavor, if you will.
Mark Strickland — And we are a mid-sized church. We’re about 300 butts in the seat on Sunday mornings, and over two services, we believe we could be around 400 or 500 potentially, and we probably have about 500 people who call our church home.
Mark Strickland — And so the question our elders are really wrestling with right now is this: We believe that being a mid-sized church is our sweet spot. We have a great kind of tension between having kind of a relational family vibe, but also providing a lot of great ministries and programming to both our church and our community. So that’s great.
Mark Strickland — But we don’t want to get comfortable filling two services and then just kind of cruising. We want to fulfill the Great Commission. We want to see churches planted in our region. And so we’re aspiring towards that end. We’re planning towards that end.
Mark Strickland — And I guess some questions we’re wrestling through is like, when is the right time to church plant or go multi-site? I’d say for us as a church, we’re at 300 right now, but we could grow still probably comfortably to be 400 or 500 on a Sunday morning.
Mark Strickland — And then on top of that, coming from a larger church setting of say 1,500 people, when we went multi-site, it was a bit easier to say to 50 to 100 people, hey, would you consider going to plant this new site? You didn’t really lose that many people from your congregation. Whereas being a mid-sized church, if you send 50 to 100 people to go do a church plant, then you are sending away maybe 25, 30 percent of your congregation. And that can absolutely impact many things in your current context.
Mark Strickland — So yeah, we’re wrestling through, when’s the right time to church plant or go multi-site? What are best practices when considering church planting or multi-site as a mid-sized church?
Mark Strickland — And then we’re also wondering, are there any permanently mid-sized 300, 600 person churches that are exemplars or models to look at of churches that have done this well that are functioning healthily, mid-sized, but also fulfilling the Great Commission in doing church planting or multi-site or something like that? So yeah, those are just questions we’re wrestling through and would love to see if you have any thoughts on that. Thank you so much. Bye now.
Rich Birch — All right. Great questions from Pastor Mark. Thanks so much for leaning in and for asking this question.
Rich Birch — First of all, I need to declare my conflicts of interest right up front. So Mark doesn’t know this. I don’t think Mark knows this, but I actually lived in Milton, the town that he is currently ministering in when I was a kid. That’s part of why this question caught my attention. I lived there for a couple of years when I was in grade school. And so that’s probably good and bad for this question.
Rich Birch — So really Mark is asking three questions. When is the right time for a church to multiply? Then there’s really this whole question around best practices of launching out of a church of 300. And then finally, are there really any exemplars of permanently mid-size churches?
Rich Birch — Well, let’s take each one of those in order. First of all, when is the right time to multiply? So Mark, if I was sitting across the table from you, I would say, listen, healthy things multiply. At the end of the day, healthy plants, healthy people, healthy organizations multiply. Healthy churches multiply.
Rich Birch — I was doing a little bit of research getting ready to answer your question, and I’ll link to these in the show notes. But the ECFA study on the New Faces of Church Planting might be interesting for you to go through your team with. And often one of the indicators for multiplication is actually conversion growth.
Rich Birch — So I would look at the people that are coming to your church, the kind of new folks that are coming in. And because the reason what happens there is, as a church is seeing people come, if it’s brand new people, that would ultimately say, man, you are unlocking something in your culture that’s making a difference. In fact, specifically, churches with a conversion growth rate of 51% or more. So that’s half or more of your people are coming from people coming to know the Lord. Man, that’s a good indicator that you should be thinking about multiplying.
Rich Birch — I think there’s a vision gap here. I think there’s an opportunity for you. When I think about this whole idea of when is the right time to multiply, I would be asking the question around, could you be casting vision to this? I’m going to talk into both sides of my mouth. I’m kind of tipping my hand where I’m going, Mark.
Rich Birch — But being permanently midsize, that’s fine. But I would say, man, the mission is still to reach more people in Milton and beyond. And so what is your current vision for multiplying? Maybe there’s an opportunity for you to reach out and say, hey, we anticipate church planting down the road. We’re not sure what that looks like. We’re not sure what that looks like or when that looks, but we believe that God’s calling to us. So how could you start casting vision even now, even if it’s a couple of years out?
Rich Birch — Maybe you take your leadership team to the Exponential Conference. Now, I know the Global Conference is sold out, but the Regional Conference in Chicago this fall. Or maybe you go to California for one of those regionals. You start to try to cast vision with your elders and with your team around maybe God’s calling you to plant a church down the road. Maybe there’s an opportunity for you there.
Rich Birch — So interesting, one of the patterns that we’ve seen for churches that multiply, that either church plant or do multi-site, it’s not just a growth spurt, but it really is a pattern of growth over time. So multi-site churches that launched in the pandemic still have a median launch size of 60 people, and they grew to 95 within a year.
Rich Birch — So think about that. Could you send out 60 people, which I know in a church of 300 is like a real number, 20%. That would be hard to do, could be hard to do.
Rich Birch — But in order to sustain that, really what you want to discern is, is our church having sustained growth over multiple years, or have we just experienced a growth spurt? Because if you’ve been able to show sustained growth, then your ability to launch either multi-site or church plants long-term will be easier. Does that make sense? Do you understand what I’m saying there?
Rich Birch — So when is the right time for a church to multiply? I really think healthy things multiply. I think you should be thinking about it now. I think you should be casting vision towards it. Even if it’s up over the horizon, the diagnostic tool I would ask you to think about is, are you seeing a kind of sustained growth?
Rich Birch — Or is it the kind of thing where it’s not just that we had an extra 50 people show up, and there are 50 people from because our community grew, and there are people from out of town who moved into our town, but we’re actually seeing people who’ve come to know Jesus. All of those things would lead me to the place that would say, man, we should be thinking about. So does that make sense?
Rich Birch — All right. So best practice number two. Best practice for launching out of a church of 300 or so. So this one is close to my heart, and I think you expressed the actual problem or concern of multiplying out of a church of 300, and I’m just going to declare my bias right now.
Rich Birch — So I’ve talked about in other locations, in other… I talk about it all the time. It’s literally every week in my email. I say, I’m on a mission now to help 100 churches grow by 1,000 people. I do think that churches should grow larger, and there’s all kinds of reasons for that. And a part of the reason is to help with this multiplication issue.
Rich Birch — So I think you have rightly diagnosed that sending 100 people could be really difficult. Now, that isn’t actually the normal size. So if you look at the actual statistics of people that were sent out, it’s actually quite smaller than that post COVID. The average church plant core team size was 18. Multisite, it was 45 on the core team. But this is my issue for you.
Rich Birch — What I do know on both church plants and multisite campuses is the size and health of the core team is critically important. And oftentimes, we just think about the size of that team. But the question I would ask you is the health.
Rich Birch — Could you send out a healthy 45? Is there a healthy 45 people that you could send to a community to launch something new? What could that look like? Could you find a planter and go to an outlying community or to the other side of town? Is there an opportunity for you to do that? Because I think you have rightly diagnosed the issue.
Rich Birch — Another piece to think about is really the financial piece. And when I think about multiplying, whether it’s multisite or church plants, one of the things we just know is that it is expensive. It’s financially taxing to either be a church planter or to launch a multisite campus. You’ve lived in that world, but it’s difficult to pull all the cash together to make it happen.
Rich Birch — And I wonder if there’s an opportunity for you now to even begin to build a war chest for your 300 people to start building financial resources to gift to a church planter, to give them, instead of giving them $25,000, which is apparently the number that church planters are using, according to this study, post-COVID. What if you tried to build a war chest of $100,000 or $200,000 to give to them in a couple years to launch them strong?
Rich Birch — Because one of the things I do know about church planters is one of the things they joke about is, man, the first couple of years, they become really good at fundraising because that’s what they have to do all day long. Financial is a real issue, often. So 73% of church plants become financially self-sustaining at the end of year three.
Rich Birch — So if you’re thinking about planting, multiplying, you’re going to think about how do we give them enough resources to keep them sustained over those years? I would start wondering about that now. Could we start setting those resources aside and try to accelerate the financial sustainability, basically give them more cash up front and shorten that runways to the point where they could be on their own?
Rich Birch — Does that make sense? Okay, then number three, are there any exemplars of permanently mid-sized churches?
Rich Birch — Okay, this is the part. First two answers, you’re probably going to like me, Mark. Third answer, you’re not going to like me. So I would challenge you on this. I’m not sure that staying small is a great vision. I’m just not sure. So this is where the fact that you’re in Milton is going to be a disadvantage for this question. It’s not just a random town.
Rich Birch — So I know that Milton has exploded. I was looking up some statistics between 1991 and at 2021, Milton has grown by 350%. And it continues to grow at a rapid rate. And so my question for you is if all the churches in town just stayed the same size, the influence of Jesus is a third of what it was in 1991. And if we all stand around and say, man, we believe that God’s called us to be a church of 300, 300 and no more, then we’re limiting the message of Jesus in our community.
Rich Birch — God has clearly given you something. You know that. God has helped you and your leadership team to figure out how to reach your community. Why would you put a cap on that? I would love for you to cast vision.
Rich Birch — Listen, I don’t think it’s about, I don’t think all churches need to be big churches. I don’t think everything needs to be a giant church. I totally understand that. But maybe you, I do think you need to have a giant vision, even if your church is not giant. So could it be that God’s calling you to plant 30 churches of 300 in the next 10 years?
Rich Birch — Before Jesus, before the 2000 anniversary of the birth of the church, before 2033. Maybe there’s some big vision there. So I understand that why you don’t want to be seen as like, hey, we want our church to be a big church. But my question for you is if Milton stays on the trajectory where it is now, and your church stays at 300, and it triples again in size over, you know, the next 15 years, 20 years, man, the voice of Jesus will continue to be extinguished in your community.
Rich Birch — So I would challenge you to think about what is a big vision that God could call your community to? And what is it that he’s calling your church to that ultimately looks like the transformation of your community for the message of Jesus?
Rich Birch — Well, Mark, man, love you so much. Thanks so much for stepping in and leading. I love what you’re doing at Milton Bible there and excited to see the future.
Rich Birch — If you’ve got a question, if you’re listening in and you’d love to get a question answered, I would love to do that for you. So just drop by unseminary.com. See at the top, you’ll see a link there. Click on it for Office Hours.
Rich Birch — Thanks so much, friends. Have a great day. Take care.
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. This week we’re talking with Greg Griffith, Lead Pastor at King of Kings in Omaha, Nebraska.
If your church does what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten. But when you take a risk and step out of your comfort zone, who knows how God can use it to reach your community. Tune in to hear how King of Kings has taken some risks to reach out to their community in unique ways and the impact and growth they’ve seen.
- Keep it simple. // As with many churches, the COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted King of Kings, cutting their attendance in half. Despite these challenges, Greg focused on the new attendees who began to come during this time, many of whom were eager to engage with the church and share their faith with others. To encourage growth and help foster a culture of invitation, King of Kings focused on a couple of simple, actionable items that they could put into place.
- Big Sundays. // One of the key strategies they implemented was to create four big “inviteable Sundays” outside of Christmas and Easter services and encourage their people to think of at least two where they could invite someone to church. One example of a Big Sunday is “Jersey Sunday” which is held over Labor Day weekend and everyone wears their favorite sports jersey. Around Halloween, King of Kings holds “Super Sweet Sunday” and children are encouraged to dress up in church-friendly costumes and enjoy the candy that’s distributed.
- It’s ok to be attractional. // Greg acknowledges that some people may view these initiatives as gimmicky, but he believes that they serve a greater purpose. If Jesus used simple elements like turning water into wine and feeding people with bread and fish to connect with them, then churches can also use creative and fun events to draw people in. Take a risk and do something that may make you a little uncomfortable and see what happens. You won’t see different results if you just keep repeating what you’ve always done.
- Other invitable days. // King of Kings also holds four non-church invitable events. These are community events that don’t include a church service, for example a back-to-school event where school supplies are distributed, or offering a gift-wrapping service to the community around Christmastime. Greg underscores that the community events are meeting a need and helping in an area that stresses out non-churchgoers. The events are a gift to the community and have to be free. If someone wants to give money at the event, Greg encourages people to instead come to a church service to give, or donate online.
- Church Growth Incubator. // Greg and his team are taking part in Church Growth Incubator, which is a one-year coaching experience that includes two calls a month and two retreats a year. It’s designed for churches who want to increase their invite culture. The program has offered actionable steps that have helped King of Kings grow and work toward their attendance goal.
- Honor all generations. // As they look toward the future, one thing Greg and his team are wrestling with is how they lead to truly be a church that honors all generations and households. Regardless of where people are in life—single, widowed, empty nest, married with kids, married with no kids, divorced—King of Kings wants to help the church to honor one another in their neighborhoods and worlds so that all people can feel welcome and connected to each other.
You can learn more about King of Kings at their website www.kingofkings.org, and find Greg on Facebook and Instagram under the name “GregGriffithLeads.”
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Risepointe
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you’ve decided to tune in today. Really looking forward to today’s conversation. Today we’re talking with a good friend of mine, Greg Griffith, from an incredible Lutheran church in Omaha. First of all, Omaha is a great city. Lots of good things happening in Omaha. King of Kings is an incredible church in Omaha, and Greg is a friend. This is a fun podcast because often I’m talking to people who I’ve just met online. But Greg I know from the real world.
Greg Griffith — Yeah.
Rich Birch — So it’s so great to have Greg on the show today. Greg, welcome. So glad you’re here.
Greg Griffith — Thanks so much. It’s so great to be with you, Rich, and good to see you. And it’s been too long since we’ve seen each other in person. So.
Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely. It’s true. Well, why don’t you fill in the picture? Tell us a bit of the King of Kings story. Give us kind of the flavor. Fill out the picture a little bit. Tell us more about the church.
Greg Griffith — Yeah, I’ve been at King of Kings for five years. Started in August of 2019, so I was called here to stand on the shoulders of a giant, in our church body and a giant in Christendom, I believe, named Mark Zehnder. And, I had a charge to just take off further where he went. And then obviously, eight months later, I did the unthinkable, which is we had a church attendance of zero, so, due to Covid. But, so we’ve navigated through that over the past five years.
Greg Griffith — But, King of Kings has been a church that’s always been innovative. They’ve been a pioneer, really, in our church body, from music style in the 80s, obviously making a shift from more traditional into a contemporary style, to making their own music. And then even moving from a church that look like a church into a 250,000 square foot industrial software microchipped warehouse, and making that their church home. And then and then today we’re continuing to innovate in how we do multi-site. And, King of Kings is a place that, truly, the people have a wonderful heart and posture to say, let’s do anything short sin to reach those who don’t know Jesus. And, it’s really been a joy and a thrill to be a part of this great church and this great community.
Rich Birch — Nice. Yeah. It’s fun to, you know, to to interact with your church and get to know your team a little bit. Over these last couple of years and we’ve had I’ve had a chance to visit your church, which is which has been great. And so I’m really looking forward to kind of diving in a little bit.
Rich Birch — A part of what caught my attention was, you know, I don’t know, at some point, you know, we’ll stop talking about Covid, but like it is a benchmark in all our brains. Like, I don’t know, you know, it’s like a it was such a dramatic moment. And then, you know, you’ve you’ve seen some really significant growth at the church…
Greg Griffith — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …really from that milestone to today, which is, you know, there’s so many people, even I know there’s people that are listening in when when you said, oh, I started August 2019, every everybody knows, like, oh my goodness, what a crappy time to start in a church right before all that. But, you know, kind of post Covid, talk us through, you know, what does that look like? You were running about where and then today. And then what I want to do is unpack some of that. So tell us a little bit of that story.
Greg Griffith — Yeah. So, post-Covid, as we came out and really got back up and running we experienced, what every church in America and maybe the world, I think experiences. We we had people that stayed fully engaged. We had new people that came, but we also had a lot of people that left. And so we went from worshiping pre-COVID of around 13-, 1400, to about 750. And so it was about, two years in, we started, I think, 500 and then about, two years into Covid, right around 2022 or so like that, we were like right at that 750 mark and it was like, gosh, we know these are raving fans. We have new people that are on board. They’re loving what we’re doing, but there’s a significant drop here. And, and church just looks different. And so, so what are we going to do? And how do we do this?
Greg Griffith — And so, we really began looking at certain things to say how do we increase our invitability? Because I think one of the the keys that was important for us is we did have a significant portion of people who were new, new to King of Kings. And, kind of had come out and said, I’m like, I’m in for Jesus. Like Covid has taught me that, that I needed something stable and church and Jesus is that. And so they’re actually the dream of like when you have new people, they want to be your number one cheerleaders. They’re ready to tell their neighbors, they’re ready to invite people. So but we needed to say, here’s, here’s the things that are invitable and the things that we can do for those invitability.
Greg Griffith — And so we really began to hone in and say, all right, for our campuses, and at that time, we only had one campus. We, we looked at a couple just really concrete, actionable items that were simple that we could put into place. One of the things I think I had heard on your podcast or heard part of our, our, our incubator group, was that, you know, every one of us, as pastors, always wants people to invite every single weekend. The reality is people aren’t able to invite every single weekend.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Greg Griffith — And so it’s an unrealistic expectation. And if you just keep laying it out there, eventually people go, I can’t do this. So it just becomes white noise to them. And so we really honed into that and we said, all right, let’s find for invitable Sundays and let’s, let’s really dive into this and say, hey, church, we’ve got four and invitable Sundays. We’re asking you to just find two, outside of the Christmas and Easter…
Rich Birch — Right.
Greg Griffith — …but like find two that you go, this really resonates with me, my neighbor, my friend, someone like that. And so we identified four, really big, identifiable Sundays. Big Sundays, as we call them. And then we also, said let’s, let’s press into four non-church invitable events. What are what are four things we can do for the community that aren’t church events, that you can invite someone to that isn’t inviting them to church? Because a church invite is a high bar, and that’s really hard for someone to go to.
Greg Griffith — A back to school event for my kid, which every parent I mean, you know, my kids are all back to school here, this week. And, you know, every parent, my wife, as I was leaving the house the other day, said to me, “Hey, by the way, Greg…” She’s the money person in our family. She goes, “By the way, Greg, it’s been a really expensive month with, shoes and backpacks and this and that, and the other thing. If you could not spend money the rest of the month, that would be great.” And so luckily, I just bought my new running shoes. And so I was like, yeah, I can do that from now on.
Rich Birch — I can do that. Yes.
Greg Griffith — So I think we just really tried to press into, how do we get people to invite into the community? And and then I and then I think the other piece that we really look…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great.
Greg Griffith — Yeah. Go ahead.
Rich Birch — Well, I’d love to lean in on those big days things…
Greg Griffith — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …to start there. So, you know, I don’t one of the ways I describe a church like King of Kings, it’s like the it’s like the church of record, like it’s a, it’s a large church that has had, you know, a have a well-established, kind of, for lack of better word, brand or reputation in town that’s positive. People know the church. And Christmas and Easter, I can imagine that those are big days already in the in the life of your church because of that. What would be a couple of those other days that have been particularly helpful for encouraging your people to invite? And what does that look like from your side? Like, what have you done to try to help encourage those?
Greg Griffith — Yeah. So one of our big, big Sundays, we call them is we do something in October. And it’s called Super Sweet Sunday. And so, our, our thing is we actually invite our all the kids. We invite the adults, we invite everyone. We have our our worship team wears them on stage. And so what they do is we say, hey, it’s usually the week before Halloween. And we say, you know what? Come to church in a church friendly, Halloween costume. And, and then we have more candy everywhere. I mean, the entire corridor is with all the candy. The entire kids area gets all the candy. I mean, kids walk out with more candy from church than they do from going out on the evening that that is actually where they’re going neighbor to neighbor and door to door.
Greg Griffith — And, and and really what we want is this is where kids get super excited to come to church. They hear, I can wear my costume to church. And they just think it’s so fun. They invite their friends because they say, hey, why don’t you come with me? and they come to church and they have a great time. So that’s one of them.
Greg Griffith — Another one that we do. Labor Day is always a hard day. And so it’s what we do call a big Sunday. It’s a hard day for the church. And and so what we do on Labor Day, that’s fun, kind of invitable is we actually call it Jersey Sunday. And we have some jerseys that are King of Kings jerseys that people can buy.
Rich Birch — Oh okay.
Greg Griffith — But also we say, wear are your favorite sports jersey. College football’s big in Nebraska. We really still believe that we will win a national championship again in Nebraska, we believe that.
Rich Birch — This is the year! This is the year!
Greg Griffith — Yeah, yeah, we’ve got a God of miracles in Nebraska. So, so we do that. But then the other thing we do that’s, I think a lot of fun is, and it’s a lot of work on our worship teams, but they do it. They will have songs, and they’ve got two songs cued up for each one of our song sections. And the congregation live votes which song they want to sing. And so they do it via texting.
Rich Birch — Oh, wow – that’s fun.
Greg Griffith — Yeah, it’s so fun. People love it. And actually we also love it because we get due their texting, we get their information and can correct either cell phones we don’t have, or add cell phones that we need. So there’s always a piece there.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good. I like that.
Greg Griffith — Yeah. So so those are those are a couple of our kind of big Sundays that we do. In July, it’s not one Sunday, we actually July we call Sundays are for Sundaes. And so all of July, we just give ice cream away.
Rich Birch — Right.
Greg Griffith — So your kid can have ice cream for breakfast. I can have ice cream for… like, who doesn’t want ice cream for breakfast? Like, we’ve just been told we can’t have this. Well, at church you can. And it’s calorie free…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. I love it.
Greg Griffith — …because, you know, Jesus has made it, turned, He turned water into wine. He can turn ice cream into healthy. So, I’m just kidding. But, you know, so.…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. I love it.
Greg Griffith — …so those are those are the types of things we do. Just super low invitational. And and our goal is we want to attract people that go, hey, you think church is like what you think in your head. Come with me this week. You’re just going to it’s just going to be radically different.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Greg Griffith — And and we know some people will say, well, that wasn’t for me. Some people though, or their kids, they love it. We’ve had many, many families who come and say, our kids say, can we come back? And that’s our goal. We really want kids to say, can we come back?
Rich Birch — Yeah. Totally. Yeah. And you know, your church is has served so well, you know, so strong on the kids ministry front. Definitely, you can see that. What do you say to a leader who is listening in who may not know you? You know, I know the church. You guys love Jesus. You like actually talk from the Bible. You have like actual, you know, like you really want people to take steps towards him.
Greg Griffith — Yeah.
Rich Birch — But they hear all this stuff and they’re like, it just all feels very gimmicky. Like I, you know, I are, man, I just why am I a part of it? I wouldn’t, I don’t want to do that stuff. What would you say to a church leader who’s who’s who would say that to you about these kinds of things?
Greg Griffith — Yeah, I do think it’s gimmicky. And I think gimmicks are okay.
Rich Birch — Yes, yeah.
Greg Griffith — I, I’m okay with that. And, and I get it that that’s not everyone’s cup of tea. But I would say this: I think if, if Jesus can use, right, water into wine, if he can use a couple breads, loaves of bread and, and fish and, and if Jesus is always looking to grab people where they’re at and then take them to a step that they didn’t even know they were wanting to go. And it really comes, I think, from our our theology is, you know, I think I really believe everyone everyone wants to love Jesus. They just don’t know it yet. And and so if you can get them in a door to, to have that preconceived notion that they have that they’re not welcome, church isn’t fun, Jesus God doesn’t laugh. Yes he does. I think God laughs all the time, I think. And so so if we can get people to see that, that God is good and God is gracious and God is fun, and that your kids can have fun. And and faith, is not this just kind of what we have in our mindset of like or what we grew up with that we think as a child that probably wasn’t fully true. I think we can.
Greg Griffith — I also I I think when you were on our site visit or I think it was maybe an, in a podcast, I heard with you, right? Every one of us has attraction in some way, right? If you have a sign outside your church, that’s an attraction.
Rich Birch — It’s true.
Greg Griffith — If you clean your bathroom.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Greg Griffith — Like you are saying, we want you to say, this feels nice. Like I can go to the bathroom here. Like that’s attractional. So we’re all attractional to some level. And and I do think you as a church have to just find where is your level, and, and that’s okay. And then and then sometimes I would say if your level is pretty low, maybe, maybe just say, hey, what if we tried one thing, right? What if we…
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, that’s good.
Greg Griffith — …what if we tried something, something a little bit different? Maybe, maybe if you live in a beautiful place, like like I used to be in, in Michigan, one of the things they tried is they said, let’s move service in the summer outside because Michigan summers are amazing, right?
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Greg Griffith — And so, yeah, have an outdoor service…
Rich Birch — Right.
Greg Griffith — …like that’s a new attraction, a way to invite someone. So that’s what I would say.
Rich Birch — Yeah that’s good. I love that. I think there’s something to there too about like, hey, you know, if you, if you’ve always done what you’ve always, if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got.
Greg Griffith — Right.
Rich Birch — You know, if you just keep repeating what we’ve always done, you’re not going to see new results. And so, you know, trying something new, trying to say like, hey, well, maybe we could take a risk here and do something that maybe makes us a little bit uncomfortable. And and see what happens. You know, I think is, is good advice. I think, you know, at the end of the day, you know, why people arrive as the people arrive at our church for all different kinds of reasons. The question is, when they actually get here, you know, what are they, what are they encountering and they encountering, you know, teaching that points them towards Jesus? Are they encountering a community of people that love them, that want to care for them?
Rich Birch — Let’s talk about those non-church events. You know, back to school. What would be some of those other things that you’ve done as a church that have helped you, you know, become more invitable, help you be the kind of place where people will, you know, invite their their friends and connect with their, their community?
Greg Griffith — Yeah. Our back to school event is a huge invite. And that’s something where we just we give away backpacks and school supplies. It’s grown every year. When we started here at King of Kings, we had just under a thousand people come. Last year, we had about, 1800 to 2000.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Greg Griffith — This year we just had it. We had 3000 people on campus. It just continues to grow and grow. We also do, at our northwest campus, our second campus, they do a, they do a Trunk and Treat, and, invite just congregation and community to, you know, decorate their trunks. And then kids and families can kind of walk around and pick up candy and do things in their costumes. And that started that started with a thousand people on their, their first year doing that. So I’m not sure what it will look like this year, probably even greater.
RIch Birch — Wow!
Greg Griffith — And and our key, so we have two keys in, in all of our community events that we do. First, they have to be free. So that’s just us. We really say if we’re going to invite the community in, we want it to be free. And and so when, and occasionally someone will walk up to one of our staff or me and say, hey, I have some money, can I give a free will donation? And our answer’s: no, you can’t. And they go, why? And we say, well, this is this is our gift from our congregation to the community. And they say, well, how can I do this? And I say, if you want to come on Sunday and put it in the offering plate or you want to give online, you’re welcome to do that. But but this is a free event for our community.
Greg Griffith — And, and then one, I think that that actually is not necessarily a community event, but we’ve seen some really great traction out of it is we do we are we are one of the site locations for the Tim Tebow Foundation Night to Shine. And, people love to serve. And we’ve been noticing we we have more non-church people, and I would say even some just non-Christians, but they have a heart to want to make a difference, especially in the lives of kids and people with developmentally disabilities. And so, so, so that’s been something where people have experienced just a heart of Jesus in a way, that’s for our community, and, and where they’re actually then serving into our community. So those are, those are a few of the things that we do.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. We talk about those, you know, community service type events as magnetic community service. This idea of getting people, you know, out of out of their seats and into the streets to actually make some sort of difference. And, you know, people want to be a part of a church that not only makes a difference, but is seen making a difference. And they will, you know, they’ll tell their friends about that. They’ll, they’ll communicate that. And, and the the Tim Tebow Foundation has done just such a good job packaging up that experience into like a… It’s still a ton of work. It’s not like it’s plug and play. It’s not it’s not easy. I don’t want to give that away. It’s a it’s a ton of work, but it is a compelling idea. This idea of like, hey, here’s some kids who don’t, have a prom. And what if you were to provide that experience as a as a church. Like, it’s also a huge volunteer ask, which and, you know, it’s, it’s the kind of thing that people want to be a part of. They want to engage and they want to say, hey, I would I’d love to be, you know, I’d love to do that for sure.
Rich Birch — That’s good. Well, you and I are a part of I lead a thing called the…Oh, sorry. Go ahead.
Greg Griffith — Oh, no, no, no, I was just going to piggyback off that, Rich, real quick. I think one of the things we’ve really learned with, especially community events, is asking the question, around our community and our non churchgoers, of what are some things that stress them out, and then how can we do a community event that meets that need? And so the back to school event is there’s a lot of families like like this time is a really expensive time for them. It’s really hard. And for many families living paycheck to paycheck, it just gets really tough.
Greg Griffith — I think the other thing is, you know, we do a Christmas event, and wrapping gifts and getting gifts when your kid is always around. So we’re like, hey, give us your kid. Go shopping for the day. And then when you come back, we’ll wrap the gifts you bought for your children. So so really, how do we… We’ve learned here in Omaha, one of the biggest needs right now is people feel super stressed out. And so we’re saying, how do we alleviate some of that stress and not add on to it through our events? That was all. That’s the last thing I want to say.
Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good. No, that’s good. Well, you you I’m a part of it. I run a thing called Church Growth Incubator, and it’s been such an honor to have you be a part of that. That’s a it’s a one-year coaching experience. Includes, you know, remote calls we do, or two calls a month, and we do two retreats a year. It’s really designed for churches that are wanting to increase their invite culture. We try to provide some kind of consistent coaching feedback, really pressure on this issue, trying to help, you know, help churches ultimately increase, you know, their invite culture. What part of that for you has been the most helpful? When you think of like, oh, hey, this this piece of Church Growth Incubator, this, this part of it has been the part that, man, has has been the most helpful for us through these last couple years, as we’ve been as we’ve been plugged in.
Greg Griffith — You know, I think I would say this, I’m I’m always thankful for anyone that’s willing to pour into another church and expertise that they have. I’m especially thankful, Rich, when it’s in ways that are applicable that can be implemented. And and it’s not like, here’s 45 things. Choose the ones you like. Like that’s too much. It’s really it’s you give actionable steps, and simple things to do, and we do them.
Greg Griffith — So case in point, right around before Christmas in our first year, you asked the question, what is your Christmas recall? And and you said, here’s a couple things I do, right? What is your January series? have that marketed out in your A-frames. have that on your guest information cards. And then and then here’s a couple templates for how to send that out after Christmas Eve to invite people back to the January Sunday.
Greg Griffith — And New Year’s, people have resolutions. And church is always a resolution for those who aren’t attenders. I mean, it’s just one of the ones. It’s like losing weight, right? Like I’m going to lose weight this year, right? I’m going to go to church.
Rich Birch — Right.
Greg Griffith — And so, we employed that. We did, we did. And we plan on that series. We employ that. And the the weekend after Christmas that we meet again is is now in our top five highest Sundays, which before was always a lower Sunday.
Rich Birch — Wow, that’s incredible.
Greg Griffith — But but now it’s just, it’s, it’s right up there. So the, the, the Church Growth Incubator for me has been really helpful because our teams can take a couple things and say, oh yeah, and then put that into place. We’ve changed all of our, our terminology. We’ve, we’ve now gone to, Are you newer here? Right? Rather than necessarily first time guest, or go to our next steps rooms. Now it’s a new here area. And because some people be coming in for a month and you go, are you first time? And they go, no, I’m not a first time. I’ve been here a month, but I haven’t wanted to engage. And so so this this allows them to still do that.
Greg Griffith — We’ve just gone to for, for our newer here people, one of the things we learned was give people options. So now we offer a coffee mug, a water bottle, or a t shirt. And we’re seeing connections of more connections now, people going, Oh, yeah. I would love to pick one of those. Right? Because if I bring another coffee mug to my house, my wife’s going to kill me. So I can’t bring any more coffee mugs, right? You know?
Rich Birch — That’s hilarious. Yeah, sure.
Greg Griffith — But a t-shirt? Man, I love a t shirt. I mean, for some reason people love t-shirts. I don’t know why. So, yeah, it’s been it’s been.
Rich Birch — It’s true. It’s true.
Greg Griffith — This is a been a coaching thing, a coaching incubator, not only where I’ve met really great pastors who are all, have the same mission, mindset and teams that are saying, let’s go and just reach more people for Jesus. But the the actual implementation of ideas, is stuff that we can actually do. And, and that when I bring them to our teams, they don’t go, oh. Like, because as a senior pastor, we can bring ideas and ideas and ideas. But a lot of times we bring ideas and your teams are exhausted already and they’re just like, okay. And they have a pressure.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Greg Griffith — And this has been, hey guys, here’s here’s what we learned today. And they go, oh yeah, we can do that. We just haven’t had that system all fully put out. And so then they do it. And then we see these great results. So, yeah. So today I mean since we’ve been a part of this we’re now worshipping over 1200 people a weekend. So in the last two years…
RIch Birch — That’s amazing.
Greg Griffith — …we’ve had a growth of 500 people, new people. I love it. Our staff continually say, we look around and we’re not we don’t see people we always recognize. And I go, amen. That’s great.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah. That’s great. Well, it’s it’s super encouraging. It’s encouraging for me as a coach to hear that. And, and, you know, I’m on my personal mission is to help 100 churches grow by a thousand people. And like, I, you know, I’m super, it’s an honor to engage with you guys as you’re on that way, you’re on that path towards, you know, you’re halfway there towards seeing…
Greg Griffith — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …you know, that kind of growth. And I and I think the trajectory is heading in that direction. When you think about the future, Greg, you kind of look up over the horizon, what are some of those questions you’re asking? What’s kind of coming down the pipe for you at King of Kings? What are some of the things that you’re looking at, looking at or up over the horizon, you know, that you’re wondering about as a leader?
Greg Griffith — Yeah, I think we’re we’re wondering right now about, and actually we’re just really wrestling through this, how do we, as a church lead to be truly a church that honors all generations?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Greg Griffith — I think we’re we’re discovering and I think it’s a subconscious issue. You know, all of us kind of look at, like, right now, boomers are not seen in the greatest light. And and gosh, that’s not honoring. I mean, we’re standing where we stand because of what boomers have paved the way for. And then and then too, it’s really simple to cast shade. Every generation has been cast shade upon by generations above them. And and we’re really saying, I think God’s calling us to honor all generations, right? Love your father and your mother.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Greg Griffith — Right? And so so we’re saying, how do we, as a church, honor all generations and and all households? Single, widowed, empty nest, married with kids, married with no kids, divorced. Like, so so we’re really pressing into how are we, how are we as a church helping one another honor each other, in our world, in their neighborhoods…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Greg Griffith — …and where they’re called to minister as a priesthood of all believers. So so that’s something we’re really wrestling through. Not only what will Sundays look like for that, but even our language and even who’s on stage. Who’s, you know, who’s on our websites? Who are the pictures? All those things.
Rich Birch — That’s good. I love that. I love the, you know, as a church looks to try to reach, you know, more of its community as you start to wrestle with, like, oh, like, I think, you know, God’s given us a shot here to make a huge impact in Omaha, as you link arms with other churches. And, I love that heart of trying to say, hey, like, maybe, you know, maybe that means we’ve got to figure out how to to broaden who we connect with. Not just like, hey, this is it’s just a church for people with kids. And, you know, if you don’t have kids, forget it, you know, kind of thing. So that’s cool, man. I love that, Greg.
Rich Birch — Well, Greg, I appreciate you, love you, love your church. I love, you know, you’re you have such a huge heart. And it’s it’s fun to see you lead and to see you connect with, you know, with your people. So I just want to honor you today, on the podcast.
Greg Griffith — Thanks, man.
Rich Birch — So thank you so much for that. I want to give you the last word. Anything else you want to say just as we wrap up today’s episode?
Greg Griffith — You know, I think my last word is, I would say I thank you, Rich, because you’ve helped us. And I hope you help many, many more churches figure out how to break through the, the ceiling that they’re at. We all get to a ceiling and we either get to where we say, you know what? This is just who we are, and we get stuck there. Or we get and we say, oh, there’s no way to get to get higher. And we fail and we quit. Or we figure it out. And, I thank you for helping churches like us, and I pray many, many more, to figure it out and to break through that next ceiling. And know when they hit another ceiling, like we’ll hit another ceiling that we know, Okay, we can just figure this out. So so thank you.
Rich Birch — Thank you so much, sir. Appreciate you, appreciate your leadership. If people want to track with you or with the church, where do we want to send them online?
Greg Griffith — Yeah, you can track with our church at our website: kingofkings.org. And then on social media, my handles on Facebook and Instagram are @greggriffithleads. And, yeah, and anyone can reach me anytime.
Thanks for tuning in for the unSeminary podcast. This week Drew Karschner is joining us. He’s the Lead Pastor at Northridge Church in Rochester, New York – one of the fastest-growing churches in the country.
While church growth is a blessing, it often comes with hardships that must be navigated carefully. Whether your church is wrestling with racial tensions, political division, or simply difficult life events, your leadership skills and resilience will be tested. Tune in as Drew shares how to foster an environment where all voices are heard, lead with empathy and understanding, and build the resilience of your staff.
- Acknowledge the hard times. // Church leaders often find themselves in a position where they must balance optimism with realism. You may be trying to cast situations in a hopeful light when people aren’t ready to see it. Acknowledge when things are hard and be honest with your staff and congregation about the challenges they face. Make space for lament and empathize with your congregation’s struggles, but also cast a vision for the future and where God is leading you to go.
- Be open and honest. // People want their leaders to be real; they know when you aren’t being authentic in your leadership. Drew believes that being real and honest with your congregation helps to bridge the gap between different perspectives within the church.
- Be a “church in the middle.” // If churches want to grow and reach their communities, by definition they have to get used to a wide variety of people. Rather than taking a polarized stance, Northridge Church seeks to empathize with all the people they shepherd in order to lead them all to Jesus. Listening to different perspectives and engaging in conversations that may be uncomfortable are necessary for growth. This approach has allowed the church to grow in unity and diversity as they strive to represent the entire community.
- Navigate through the pain. // Leadership can take a toll on you personally, particularly when navigating pain and conflict. Your capacity is often determined by the amount of pain you can endure. Yet Drew expresses that it is a joy to navigate through the pain and see how God uses it on the journey. Similarly, it’s important to maintain relationships and trust even when faced with challenges. Resist the urge to become isolated and stay open to connection and support from others.
- Create open conversations. // It’s critical to build a resilient team so that you can stand strong together when facing difficult times. Hold open conversations with the church staff so people can talk about their feelings surrounding complex issues. Create a safe space for expression and dialogue to help people heal. Drew also maintains an open-door policy, letting his staff know that he’s available to them.
- Let staff know how valuable they are. // Staff members want to know they’re valuable. They want to be paid well, but churches don’t always have the budget to give their staff the money they wish they could. However, you can come up with creative ways to let your team know they are appreciated. Northridge Church demonstrates this in a variety of ways, from monthly catered lunches and family retreats, to honoring staff members with sabbaticals for their service, gift cards and more.
You can learn more about Northridge Church at www.northridgerochester.com.
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Portable Church
Your church is doing really well right now, and your leadership team is looking for solutions to keep momentum going! It could be time to start a new location. Maybe you have hesitated in the past few years, but you know it’s time to step out in faith again and launch that next location. Portable Church has assembled a bundle of resources to help you leverage your growing momentum into a new location by sending a part of your congregation back to their neighborhood on Mission. This bundle of resources will give you a step-by-step plan to launch that new or next location, and a 5 minute readiness tool that will help you know your church is ready to do it!
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Man, I’m really looking forward to today’s conversation. You’re gonna wanna lean in for this one. Today, we’ve got Drew Karschner with us. He is the lead pastor at Northridge Church. This is one of the fastest growing churches in the country. And I can tell you, it’s in a part of the country that frankly, they don’t make fast growing churches there. Rochester, New York – they’ve got three locations if if I’m counting correctly, and they aim to make more and better followers of Jesus by creating environments ah for people to belong, ah to belong, sorry belong, believe in Jesus, and become more like him. Ah Drew, so glad you’re here today. Thanks for for being on the show.
Drew Karschner — Yeah, dude, I’m excited to be here. Thanks for having me.
Rich Birch — Nice to get a chance to connect. I’ve actually had a little bit of a chance to interact over the years with Northridge. This is a fantastic church. And so I’m pumped to get a chance for to introduce you to some new friends. So kind of fill in the picture. Tell us a bit more about Northridge. Kind of give us the flavor of the church. Kind of tell us a little bit of the story.
Drew Karschner — Yeah, we’re your typical modern church. We got we’re multi-sites. We have three locations. We aim to saturate Rochester with the gospel. We’re growing. It’s amazing to see what what God’s been doing in an area where I feel like the church has been forgotten. Um he’s bringing it what’s cool about Northridge is he’s really bringing people who with no church background and they’re experiencing and getting to know and growing in Jesus. And so, um man, I love it here. Rochester is our home and I love taking back what the what feels like the enemy stole.
Rich Birch — Oh, so good. So good. Well, I know that leading in a fast growing church, it’s just easy all the time. There’s just never any problems. Obviously, that’s tongue in cheek, obviously leading. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about your your kind of history with Northridge to kind of set up the context? How long have you been there? Kind of tell us a little bit of that story.
Drew Karschner — Yeah, I’ve been at Northridge for about eight years. Um It was really an answer to prayer. I served in the South for 10, 12 years in ministry. And I’m from the North. So Ashley and I started to have kids, and we’re like, okay, God, like it would be awesome if you brought us home. And Northridge was an answer to prayer. And so it’s like you said, it’s just been an easy, amazing eight years, right? Seamless, no problems, perfect picture of what I wanted it to be.
Rich Birch — Yeah, obviously tongue in cheek. There’s obviously always a certain amount of hard stuff that we’ve got to navigate in, ah you know, in any church. But we were joking about this before we got started. I, you know, I think there’s lots of people that say, man, it’d be so great to lead in a fast growing church. I’ve had a chance to do that. But it is ah just a lot of hard work. There’s always seems to be something going on.
Rich Birch — Kind of tell us a bit about that. Give us some context. What would be some of the things that come to mind when you think about navigating kind of difficult situations as a lead pastor of a fast growing church?
Drew Karschner — Yeah, just for the record, I was one of those young bucks who thought leading a a large church would be amazing. And let me just preface this. It is amazing. It’s a blessing from God. But sometimes blessings from God comes through difficulties. And so over eight years, we’ve had to navigate some hardships, right? From, you know, COVID was just a wild, transition disaster of like, what what in the world do we lead? And to make matters worse for me, um my dad died surprisingly two months before COVID ever came out.
Rich Birch — Oh wow.
Drew Karschner — So like, I’m trying to navigate grief and lead a church through a really difficult time from disease to racial tensions. Um We had racial tensions in downtown Rochester. One of the clips on the news was right in our backyard.
Rich Birch — Wow. Okay.
Drew Karschner — Um, so we’ve had a lot of staffing issues…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Drew Karschner — …transitions. And so I, you know, when things are going good, I have this running joke with our executive pastor. We’re all like waiting for the shoe to drop. Like what…
Rich Birch — Waiting for the other shoe.
Drew Karschner — …what’s coming next.
Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that’s that’s incredible. What about, you know, so when you think about these things, um I’m sure you’ve had a chance to reflect a little bit on them. What would be you know some of your go-to kind of advice or axioms that you would give to another lead pastor or another, you know, leader when they’re trying to navigate some of these? What would be some of those things that kind of come to top of mind for you?
Drew Karschner — Yeah, I think one of the biggest thing I’ve I’ve learned is usually when you’re leading people, there’s two camps, right? You have your half glass full, and you have your half glass empty people, right?
Rich Birch — So true.
Drew Karschner — I am a positive person, okay? And so like, it doesn’t matter what I’m going through, you can ask my wife, my favorite expression is, “the good news is, baby,” because I can see light in any darkness. Here’s the problem when you’re leading people is you might be casting that light and they can’t see it. And so one thing that I’ve learned when you go through a hard thing with a team or a church or a business or whatever it is, you have to be willing to admit it sucks.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Drew Karschner — You have to be willing to just be honest with ah you’re the people you’re leading. Like, guys, this is hard. And really meet people in the midst of the hurt or what they’re feeling. Because there have been times where I’ve tried to lead and just just express the positive, express the positive…
Rich Birch — Right.
Drew Karschner — …and and I really lost trust because people are wondering, like, does he not see what I’m seeing?
Rich Birch — Right, yeah.
Drew Karschner — Like, is he not feeling what I’m feeling? And you can almost alienate people who are feeling different than you. And so I’ve learned, hey, man, I gotta to be willing to admit the hardship and not try to spin it in a positive way, but just sit in the darkness, right?
Drew Karschner — I think this is scriptural, right? Lamenting is not something we love to do, but it’s something we need to do. And I’ve learned, as a positive person, it’s okay sometimes to just admit when things are hard and difficult.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I can see that tension. I know as a leader, you know, by definition, we’re trying to move people from where they are to ah to a more desirable future. And so we live in the future. We live in the like, hey, how things could be. And when things are negative, part of what our job is to try to cast a vision for a better future.
Drew Karschner — Yep.
Rich Birch — And but if you’re so far out in front of people, man, you can just let people look at you like, who is that guy? That guy’s just not, he doesn’t live in the same world that that you and I live in. How do you, how do you manage that tension? Maybe give us an example of that where you’ve tried to acknowledge where we actually are, but in order, but also try to catch a cast a vision for a better future. What’s that look like?
Drew Karschner — Yeah, I think just admitting it’s hard, you capture those people, right? I’m not saying, hey, we need to camp out in the darkness and get to a place, like I think people, you can go too far that way as well, where you just depress people and they can’t see.
Rich Birch — Right.
Drew Karschner — So the the hard job as a leader is to help not lead half your church, but all of your church…
Rich Birch — So good.
Drew Karschner — …including people who are negative and people who are positive and say, hey, I’m going to walk with all of you. And if that means I got to admit some things are hard, but I’m also going to say, hey, this is hard, but here’s where we’re going. I’m gonna cast a vision to like, God’s gonna use this; he’s gonna move us to a better place. But some sometimes we have to admit God uses, like almost all the time God uses hardships in our lives…
Rich Birch — Right.
Drew Karschner — …to make us more like him. And so you gotta be able to admit the hardship, but cast a vision for the future and where you want people to go. And I think when you do that, you lead everybody, not just people like you.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. There definitely seems like there’s a generational thing. I know when I first started in ministry, when I looked at the kind of generation that was ahead of us, um that generation, I think people were actually looking for leaders to be completely disconnected from real life. It was like they were, you know, they were wholly different, where I i don’t think that’s true now. I think people are looking for authenticity.
Drew Karschner — Yeah.
Rich Birch — How do you balance that out as a key ah key leader? Obviously part of what we’re talking about here is this authenticity to kind of acknowledge where we are, but that also bleeds into your teaching, bleeds into, you know, when you communicate. What, how does authenticity work out in your, in your leadership?
Drew Karschner — Yeah, I’m you get what you get, right? Whether you like it or not.
Rich Birch — Right.
Drew Karschner — And I’m real. I think you’re right. I think the culture is shifting and people just want real, authentic you. And when you’re not that, they can tell. They’re really good at being like…
Rich Birch — Yeah, they can smell that for sure.
Drew Karschner — Yeah, you’re faking it.
Drew Karschner — And so I just be me, right? And God wired me the way I am. And I’m an emotioner, emotional guy, I’m a feeler. And so when I feel something, people are going to see it in my face, they’re gonna, they’re gonna see it in my expressions. And so I am real, when I lead. And so when things are hard, I’m just like, guys, this, this is hard. And man, I don’t want to be here. When things are good, I’m gonna you’re gonna see it in my face, I’m gonna be full of joy. I’m gonna walk around joking. And so I’m like, If I got a bad day, there’s going to be times where people are like, you’re having a bad day.
Rich Birch — Right.
Drew Karschner — I’m not going to try to spin things. And I’ve learned that. When I was a young, insecure leader, I think I think some of it is we have to be secure leaders, right? And we have to be OK leading people from a place of hurt or pain and letting them in into that. And I think some people are afraid to do that. I was when I was younger, right?
Drew Karschner — I wanted people to like me. I wanted them to think like, oh, everything is, you know, rainbow peeking unicorns. Everything’s good. Um but what I failed to realize is people saw past that anyway. So I might as well let them in and see what what the real Drew is feeling and going through.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Okay. That’s so good. I love that. That’s a great word, uh, for folks, you know. Hopefully we can go there, hopefully our our relationship can sustain this. You know, so many of our churches over the last number of years have been navigating, um, you know, racial injustice in our, in our communities. And, you know, as you, you mentioned this, you know, right off the top, obviously Rochester was, was on all our news stories, you know, for a long time there in, particularly in 2020. And then. But, you know, that those issues, I know when we’re we’re not in the kind of the heat of it or not in the neighborhood where those things are going on, it can kind of slip out of our mind and be like, okay, that was something that happened.
Rich Birch — I’m sure leading, you know, that has has been a continued dynamic for your church. Unpack what that looked like for you. What did you learn through that, you know, that this season? I don’t want to talk about this, even bringing this up, at it’s like, how do I talk about this in a way that’s you know that’s appropriate, but I’d love to learn from you. I think so many leaders that we’ve I’ve talked to over the last number of years, when we say, hey, what are the things we’ve wrestled through? This has been an issue. This is in um, you know, this is on their list of stuff they’re wrestling with. Obviously unique situation where where you are in Rochester. Ah talk to us about that.
Drew Karschner — Yeah, I think one of the greatest things I learned was the value of having different perspectives in my life.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Drew Karschner — Disagreeing perspectives. I think our culture has just gotten to the place where we dig our heels in the camp that we live in.
Rich Birch — Oh, it’s good.
Drew Karschner — And we only surround ourselves with people who affirm what we already believe. And one thing that I did during this whole unrest was like, man, I’m going to hear from different sides. And what it did is it allowed me to empathize with all the people that I shepherd, right?
Drew Karschner — I have ah, like one of my big passions is leading all of my church. And we we’re in Rochester, so we have all kinds of people who believe different things about different different areas of topics. And so I called ourselves the church in the middle. We weren’t we weren’t going to pick a side. We were going to stand up, empathize with everybody to lead everybody to Jesus.
Rich Birch — That’s good, that’s good.
Drew Karschner — And so I think it’s really important to be able to hear opposing sides and being able to say, hey, what what’s the chicken and what’s the bones and and and leave some on the table…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Drew Karschner — …and just be okay. People are afraid to read people who they disagree with. And I just think it it makes us shallow.
Rich Birch — Well, and there’s no doubt that’s a dynamic that I think many of our churches are facing as we grow, which is we we have to get used to a wide variety of people. We want our churches to be an expression of our community, which means by definition, we can’t narrowcast.
Drew Karschner — Right.
Rich Birch — We can’t just be like, hey, we’re going to be assert. And we’ve seen some churches do this in the last number of years where they’ve pivoted one way or the other. And Uh, part of what I admire about your church is you’ve tried to say, like you say, their church in the middle, we’re trying to be a place for all of Rochester. Um, which I think is really commend commendable.
Rich Birch — How have you been able to do that? It’s like, ah you know, I was talking to a friend recently that was wrestling with similar issues and I was like, I to them, this wasn’t to you. I said, you know, I feel like you’re trying to get people to move, to walk across the road, but you’re, so you’re now stuck in the middle and it’s like just trying to dodge cars. Um, how have you been able to, to lead in that space? You know, what has there been anything, you know, that you’ve been kind of, as you’ve been processing and learning that has kind of enabled you to continue to, uh, you know, to lead well in that, like you say, and you know, church for everybody.
Drew Karschner — Yeah, I think the one thing I’ve learned is being in the middle is the most painful place…
Rich Birch — Oh yeah. Good.
Drew Karschner — …because you got people yeah people shooting you at both sides, right?
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, that’s so true.
Drew Karschner — So it’s not a fun place to be, um but I think it’s the right place to be, at least for our context. I think some people, maybe it would be different. Um but I think being in the middle allowed us to speak to both sides, to guide both sides, not just speak to one side of of the coin or whatever the argument was.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Drew Karschner — And I think it gave us influence um in both camps. And what was beautiful is we saw God grow our church in unity and diversity, which was something that we’d been praying for. And so we stood up for—it was so hard—but like we stood up for cops and minorities at the same time.
Rich Birch — Right.
Drew Karschner — We we didn’t we weren’t like, we’re gonna, we’re not picking sides here. We we clearly said that.
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Drew Karschner — Like no, we’re not picking sides. We’re going to stand up for both people because both people deserve it. And so I think people appreciated the realness and the authenticity and the fight we had for everybody.
Rich Birch — Well, they’ yeah, and it’s a very Jesus approach. You know, I commend you on that. You know, we know this, that people, when they would have looked at Jesus’s closest group of friends, his followers, they would have said, those people don’t belong together.
Drew Karschner — Right.
Rich Birch — Like those, that is a crowd of people who don’t normally hang out. And I love that you’re trying to live that out, um you know, in in today. Were you going to say something else, sir? I think I cut you off.
Drew Karschner — No, you’re good. I was just gonna say in that journey, I’ve had to deal with a lot of pain.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Drew Karschner — And I think that’s one thing I’ve also learned in leadership is like, the, your your capacity of leadership is ultimately the amount of pain that you can endure. My mentor told me that and I was like, Oh, wait. Do I want to do this? But…
Rich Birch — Yes! Yes, true.
Drew Karschner — It is a joy, honestly, to navigate pain and see how God uses it. And to stand up at the end of the day and be like, that was worth it. Man, God used that.
Rich Birch — Well, why don’t we talk about that then on the personal level? You know, I love that Sam Chan idea for sure that you’ve brought up. What what have been some of the practices, some of the habits, some of your go to ways that are healthy ah to deal with the pain that you’ve experienced in leadership over these years?
Drew Karschner — Yeah, ah one of the things that I’ve tried to do is not stop trusting people.
Rich Birch — So good.
Drew Karschner — In ministry, um it’s so easily to become isolated and alone. And when you’re isolated and alone, when you walk through pain, it just it it causes you to become recluse and introverted. And what I’ve learned is I can’t allow myself to do that. No matter how much pain, no matter how much people have maybe turned their back on me, walked away, said hard things, I constantly have to open myself up to relationships because I need them to help me navigate and to pray for me as I lead our church.
Drew Karschner — And so one of the things that is so hard for me is trust. But God keeps teaching me I have to trust the right amount of people and the right people and because I I need them as much as they need me.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. I know our friend, Carey Nieuwhof, talks about the fact that, you know, when you’re leading for any amount of time in a local church, there is, ah I think the phrase he uses, unreconciled loss, ah you know, ah unreconciled relational loss, where you you get used to, like, people just leave, or they you know they they storm out and they they really have no intention of wanting to ever reconcile with you. And that, man, you’ve got to deal with that. If you don’t, you’ll end up in a really a really negative place. So, that’s good.
Rich Birch — What about your staff team? In the midst of all of this, it’s one thing for you to be in a healthy place, it’s one thing for you to be able to deal with the pressure. How have you been able to bring your your team along in navigating hard things? What have been some of those practices that have been helpful, as you’ve looked at with the you know the people that you’re you’ve been given to lead?
Drew Karschner — Yeah, I think one thing that we’ve done pretty well is when we do face hard stuff staff-wide, we have open conversations. So we gather everybody together and we just say, guys, how are you feeling about this?
Drew Karschner — How are you processing this? And we we literally, and we’ve we’ve spent, you know, two hours in the room just letting people express, ask questions. You know, hey, this is a safe place and these are hard things. And so um and then we we, outside that large group, we give people a chance to say, hey, if you need to talk to anybody, you know, I have an open door policy. I think every pastor says that, but I genuinely like, dude, I’ll cancel any meeting for our staff, right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Drew Karschner — They they they to me, they’re my family. Um I’ve lived far away from family, and so the church staff has become my family when I was away from family. And so, man, I love our staff. I deeply, genuinely care for our staff, more than they probably know, and I should probably tell them more. Um but anything and everything, you just come talk to me and I’ll I’ll fight for you. I’ll I’ll cry with you. I’ll mourn with you. We’ll laugh together. Whatever you need, I want to be that for you. And so we just have open dialogues. We try to build a culture of you know just honesty and openness. And I think it’s allowed us to heal and just talk about hard things.
Rich Birch — Talk to me about what that looks like with with, I don’t know whether it’s rhythms or like, how often are you meeting, that sort of thing. That I know, you know, you talk about the family feel, I think we can have that early on in our churches, but as we grow, man, that’s hard to sustain, because you know the the family, it’s like the the family becomes a family business, becomes some sort of organism, then becomes an organization, then becomes a corporation. Like It’s very hard to fight that trend.
Drew Karschner — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Um how what’s that look like for you? How are you kind of keeping connected? Because your church is, you know, you continue to grow and add new people and add staff and all that. So talk us through that. What’s that look like?
Drew Karschner — Yeah, I mean, you’re definitely right. The the larger you get, the larger your staff gets, the harder it it does get. And so I think you got to just put systems in place. One of the systems I’ve put in place, as I told my assistant, you need to schedule me time to float, right? To just go knock on staff doors…
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Drew Karschner — …and be like, yeah hey, how’s it going? How are you? Um we meet as a staff, you know. We have a staff meeting once a week, and so our our whole staff is together. We rub shoulders.
Rich Birch — Oh, wow.
Drew Karschner — We have donuts. We have we actually have a lunch together once a month, so all staff…
Rich Birch — Okay.
Drew Karschner — We have lunch. It’s made. We bring it in, and we do training there. Um I’m a relational guy. So I feel for the lead pastor or the, you know, business owner who’s an introvert, I love people. Right? I’m in ministry because I genuinely love being around people.
Rich Birch — Right.
Drew Karschner — And so for me, being around our staff as much as I physically can within my job parameters is a joy to me. Um I think it’s one of my gifts. I’m a relational guy. And so I try to be around as much as I can. But I’ll be honest, right? I think there are some staff members that wish probably they had more time with me…
Rich Birch — Right.
Drew Karschner — …or or whatever. And that’s why I try to at our staff meetings, and I need I honestly need to do a better job of reminding them: guys, if you need anything, my door is always open. Come see me. I’m available to you.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. There is something about even just the like creating space, like you’re saying at staff meetings at once a month, kind of something a little more casual, having a meal together. I remember years ago, lead pastor I worked for, we were doing um, you know, it was like, we were serving a staff lunch, just, you know, it was like a buffet kind of thing. And I, it really stuck with me. He, he kicked this person off of serving and it was like, no, no, let me do that, I want to be… And a part of the reason why for that is, Hey, he wanted to see every single person as they went through, here’s your, whatever lettuce or whatever it was that he was, you know, dishing out. It’s like, uh, it would have been easy for him to just sit, sit on the side, talk to, you know, his other lead team folks or whatever.
Rich Birch — Uh, but he was going on his way to say, no, I want to make myself available. That’s, uh, yeah, that’s, that’s so good. Uh, good, good stuff.
Drew Karschner — One thing we do too is we do a staff retreat. So we’re getting ready to do it. We do two days in the Adirondacks.
Rich Birch — Oh, nice.
Drew Karschner — And we don’t we don’t schedule anything.
Rich Birch — Right.
Drew Karschner — So like it is basically, it’s for you, your spouse and your family. So you bring your kids, you bring the whole family.
Rich Birch — Oh, wow.
Drew Karschner — And we want to just be together.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Drew Karschner — So we’re playing volleyball. I got no problem smashing a volleyball and in staff members faces, right? Like talking trash. Some of that is just builds that camaraderie, being together, eating together.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool.
Drew Karschner — You know, something that we’ve, it’s expensive, but it’s it’s worth the dollars that it builds back into our team, and and the trust it builds just being present with each other.
Rich Birch — Yeah, let’s talk about that. That’s that’s incredible. I love that. I that’s ah what a cool thing. But that touches a bigger issue around, you know, generosity with staff. I’m sure it’s not just this thing in general, you’re trying to… I feel like there’s a balance in all that stuff. We’re always trying to figure out like, hey, you know, how do we how do we find ways to be generous to our people, you know, you know, it’s not just paying them while it’s all this, the kind of the full thing. What does that look like for you guys? How does that fit in your head around it? And what’s the connection between that and, and building a resilient team that can, that can deal with all this hard stuff when it comes?
Drew Karschner — Yeah, I think one thing I’ve learned leading staff members is one of the biggest things they they want to know is that they’re valuable. And we often, you know, equal value to dollars and cents, but I’m not sure that’s accurate, right?
Drew Karschner — Obviously, people want to be paid well. So we we do our best. You know, I think some people lead from a place of being stingy. I just lead like, hey, I want to give as much as I can to our team and honor them.
Rich Birch — Right. Right.
Drew Karschner — I want them to feel valuable. But let’s be honest, we’ve we’ve served on ministry teams.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Drew Karschner — We always wish we had more money.
Rich Birch — Yep. Yeah, yeah.
Drew Karschner — Like the budget is the budget.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Drew Karschner — So we’ve come up with creative ways to tell our staff they’re valuable. So like right now, um our worship pastor is on a five week sabbatical. And so we’ve created a system at 10 years, you get a sabbatical.
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Drew Karschner — It doesn’t cost us anything, but it allows us to say, “You’re valuable to us.” We do anniversaries, we give away stuff, we play games together. We just try to build a culture that just constantly reminds our team, whether it’s dollars and cents, a gift card, a trip: we love you, you’re valuable to us.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Yeah. And there’s something there around, you know, that I think a lot of times the comp… the pay compensation can just get lost in the, you know, you know, and an extra 500 bucks or whatever. It just doesn’t really go anywhere. But man, if you give that as like like you’re saying a gift or, uh, you know, something for the family or, you know, some sort of special experience to someone, man, that goes a long way. It, it, it seems it grabs people, people’s attention more. That’s uh, yeah, that’s really good. Good stuff.
Drew Karschner — Another thing I do, Rich, I think this might be one of the most impactful things I do at Christmas time. So we, if we do, we give out bonuses. I shoot a personal video to the family.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s great.
Drew Karschner — It’s about two to three minutes long where I just honor their family, and I just speak from my heart. I’m not, it’s not, it’s not to say it’s different for every person, and I just tell them how much I value them, what I’ve seen from them in their year. You know, it’s what I call the new handwritten card. Because we have video, I’m a communicator. I hate writing on a card. It’s my handwritten video card to them, just literally honoring them.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Drew Karschner — And I’ve gotten so much like good feedback from our team being like, you don’t know how much those words you said that my wife listened to meant to our family.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s, yeah, I I get choked up just thinking about that. That’s amazing. I love that. Like when you think about like somebody that’s serving out your staff on their staff and their kids get to see you, the lead pastor, honor their their mom or dad who’s serving on your team. And man, let’s talk about a context shifter for them. Like I know a mom or dad’s hardworking and they love their work, but the you know the person that’s in charge of that organization slowed down and said, hey, this is why I love you know, whoever this person is that’s serving on the team. That’s amazing.
Drew Karschner — Yeah. We get, we get the kids gifts as well.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool.
Drew Karschner — So like when it comes to Christmas time, we’re not just blessing the employer because ministry is a family thing.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so true.
Drew Karschner — And so we want to break that PK mold.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Drew Karschner — I want the kids of our team to be like, I’m a pastor’s kid. And at my church…
Rich Birch — Right.
Drew Karschner — …that means something awesome. Not like, aw…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Drew Karschner — …I got to, my dad’s got to do this. You know, my mom’s got to do this.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah. Yeah. That’s great. That’s so cool. Well, Drew, this has been a great conversation today. Is there anything else you’d love to say just we wrap up around this whole thing around how, as a lead pastor, are you you know really handling, navigating some of the hard stuff that comes your way, or or or just anything in general, really, as we’re wrapping up today’s conversation?
Drew Karschner — Yeah, I mean, I think through all the hard things, I’ve been reminded, man, we serve a God who’s so faithful. And through the hardship, like God’s always there with you. He walks with you through the hard things. And man, over and over again, as I see hard things coming over the horizon, man, I just know I’m not alone. I am not alone.
Rich Birch — Amen.
Drew Karschner — And what a, what a gift that is to walk with a God who sees the storm before it comes.
Rich Birch — That’s so good. Thank you so much, Drew. Appreciate you being here. If we want to send people online to connect with you or with the church, where do we want to send them for that?
Drew Karschner — Yeah, you can go to NorthridgeRochester.com. Our emails are there. I mean, you can connect with me at my email, send me a text message, whatever. I’m um i’m open to whatever you contact, so.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. Thanks so much, Drew. Appreciate you being here today, sir. Thank you.
Drew Karschner — Yeah, I appreciate you.
Thanks for tuning in for the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Kerri-Ann Hayes today. In addition to being a senior consultant at Ministry Architects, Kerri-Ann has worked in children’s and family ministry for over 20 years and has a heart for making churches more inclusive for families with special needs.
At our churches we want to create a place where families have a place at the table. Increasingly this looks like supporting children and youth affected by special needs or trauma. Tune in as Kerri-Ann shares practical advice on fostering a welcoming environment at your church.
- How much focus do you give special needs? // The CDC reports that 1 in 6 children ages 3-17 have a diagnosed disability, 1 in 36 are diagnosed with autism, and 6.1 million have ADHD. Looking at these numbers, if these people are not represented in our churches, the question we need to ask is why?
- Initiate communication. // Parents may not share the special need when first attending or registering their child at church. It’s up to churches to provide a place where parents not only can identify information such as a child’s allergies, but also note needing additional support for their participation in kids ministry. During a child’s registration, include an area about special needs they may have.
- Start with the one. // Rather than feeling overwhelmed by the need to create an entire special needs ministry from the outset, start with the one. Who is the one child you have in mind who you can help? How do you create a plan for this child to participate in your church? Create a volunteer position in the children’s ministry that will be this child’s “buddy”. Their entire role is about becoming an expert on what that child will need to successfully participate in church. By creating a supportive environment for one child, churches can gradually expand their efforts to include more families.
- Seek advice. // Church leaders do not need to be experts in special needs to make a difference. Seek out local experts, such as occupational therapists or speech therapists, who can provide guidance and support on what could be improved in your children’s ministry. What are the physical barriers? Is the size or lighting of the room holding the ministry back?
- Simple changes. // Signage throughout a church can help visitors navigate the space with ease. Clear signage is particularly important for families or youth affected by special needs, who may already face challenges in social situations. In addition, provide clear directions and what-to-expect in your different environments. This guidance will help the neuro-divergent teenager to feel more independent and comfortable in the church and student ministry.
- Sensory rooms. // The sensory room Kerri-Ann’s church created was strategically placed in a back section of the children’s ministry. Placement of sensory rooms are important, both to accommodate situations where children might try to run away, and also to provide a quiet space away from noise and activity. Sensory items and dimmable lighting in the room are also key.
- The Accessible Church. // Kerri-Ann’s book, The Accessible Church: Making the Church a Welcoming Place for Children with Special Needs and from Traumatic Backgrounds, is a great resource for churches that are thinking about these issues. Kerri-Ann provides practical tips and tools that will help your church be more welcoming for families with special needs as well as families fostering or adopting children. In addition you can follow the stories of several children who have found their place within the church through a team that learned to serve them well.
- Focus on teenagers too. // As churches learn how to serve vulnerable and neurodivergent children, doors will open for them to serve teenagers as well. Rather than buddies, provide a hang-out sensory room for teens with appropriate lighting and cooperative versus competitive activities. Rethink your youth and worship spaces and how you can create awareness in your volunteers that these students are coming to the ministry.
You can reach Kerri-Ann to talk more about working with families with special needs by emailing her. Find her book The Accessible Church: Making the Church a Welcoming Place for Children with Special Needs and from Traumatic Backgrounds on Amazon.
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey, friends welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you’ve decided to tune in. Really excited to have Kerri-Ann Hayes with us today. She has been in children’s and family ministry leader in central Florida since the late 90’s. She’s led children’s ministry in both a single and multi-site church context. During her years serving family Kerri-Ann has developed a passion for and really an expertise, particularly for those struggling to find their place in a church due to the special needs of their children. She loves supporting and equipping churches to be accessible to families with special needs or from therautic ah therapeutic background. So super excited to have Kerri-Ann with us. She also serves as a senior consultant with an organization called Ministry Architects. Kerri-Ann, so glad that you’re here today. Thanks for being on the show.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — Thanks so much for having me, Rich. I’m so excited to be here.
Rich Birch — Oh this is going to be great. I’m really looking forward to kind of diving in. I think this is incredibly important topic. But kind of fill out the picture there a little bit tell us a bit of the Kerri-Ann story. tell us a little bit more about your background to kind of fill in the picture for us.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — Sure. I live in beautiful Claremont, Florida and I love that ah you mentioned I’ve been in ministry to children and families since the 1990s. I always say for over 20 years because that’s what you say when you don’t want to give the exact years you’ve done something.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes, yeah yeah, yeah.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — But I I did over that time really develop a specific passion, which is to serve families who struggle to be a part of our churches. Beyond being a ah, children’s and family Ministry Leader, I am also a consultant. I’m a lead consultant with Ministry Architects which allows me to now work with churches all over the country.
Rich Birch — Love it. So Good. So glad to have you on. I think this is a critically important area around, you know, our church is becoming more accessible. And I had a friend recently tell me that, and I don’t know if this is true but they said it sounded true, it resonated true, that 1 in 5 kids in the country have what could be deemed as a special need. Um, but only only 15% of churches in the country actually do anything around this. 85% of churches don’t do anything around special needs. And to me that’s just tragic. Like we want to create a place where where families have a place at the table. But what is why don’t we start with kind of talking through the problem. Like what, you know, this is a huge issue for all of us. Why should we even be thinking about this as an issue for us in our churches?
Kerri-Ann Hayes — Well I think it comes down to ministry math. If we do understand the statistics, and you know the CDC says that 1 in 6, which is 17% of our children ages 3 to 17 have a diagnosed disability.
Rich Birch — Wow. Wow.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — Then 1 in 36 are diagnosed with autism and that’s a brand new. That’s a fairly new statistic.
Rich Birch — Wow, wow. One in 36. Yeah.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — And 6.1 million have ADHD.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — So if we look at those numbers and then we look at the number of people who are participating in our churches, if these people are not represented in our churches, there’s another question we need to ask, which is why? Why are they not in our churches?
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, what’s happening there? Yeah. Yeah, it seems like you know if if ah, you know if a family showed up with a child in a wheelchair and we didn’t have a ramp. We would notice that. We would be like, oh my goodness. And what I know of the church leaders that are listening in is that tomorrow we would figure out how to get a ramp in. We’d be like okay we got We got to figure this one out…
Kerri-Ann Hayes — Definitely.
Rich Birch — …because people are loving and caring. But it’s not the same with you know when you talk about autism, ADHD, you know, even like severe anxiety, those sorts of things. Help us understand why you know why that is. Why why is this the kind of thing that is has been difficult or could be difficult for churches to try to think about how do we create space for kids or families that are, you know, that are struggling with these kinds of issues?
Kerri-Ann Hayes — Well some families may not share that when they initially register their child to come into children’s ministry, or their teenager. And it can be because we might not be asking the right questions.
Rich Birch — Right.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — We may have a space when we’re registering them that asks them, do you have a medical need? Do you have allergies? But just adding, “Will your child or student need additional support to participate in our ministry?” might get parents thinking in the direction of, okay, now I need to share if there’s autism, ADHD. Is there something else that can be put in place so that their child can be successful in the ministry? Because when parents don’t share this, we usually find out when it plays out in a behavior in in our ministry context.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I can see that for sure. If we don’t it’s like if we don’t create the space, they don’t communicate and then there’s like a bit of a vicious cycle there. Well you work with churches all across the country and help them in so many different ways. I’m sure, let’s assume, I’m I’m sure there’s leaders that are listening in today who are like, man, we want to create space where I don’t feel like we’re doing enough on this front. What would be some of those first steps that you would in encourage a church to think about. Like they maybe be understand in a broad sense that, hey we should be doing more, but they they haven’t you know they don’t they haven’t set anything up. They haven’t done… What would be some of those first steps that we should be thinking about.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — So my favorite thing it seems to be that every time I’m working with a church…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — …the first thing that they have to say to me is we’ve got this one child. We’ve got this one.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — There’s this one. And as they start to tell me about the one I’m thinking, I’ve seen that one before. So I think that the first thing to keep in mind is that we start with the one. We don’t necessarily need to create this entire ministry within the church. We need to start with the one. How do we create a plan for this child to participate in our church.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — And and that was our story. We started with the one who turned our Sunday morning, my very well crafted message and worship and ah volunteers in place, and the one child came in and turned things upside down, but also changed the face of our church for for the better because we became passionate…
Rich Birch — Yeah, tell me more about that. I’d love to hear that story. Tell us tell us more about that.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — Yeah. So well this little guy who came in, he was in first grade and didn’t even have a diagnosis yet.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — But because of his behavior that played out in our children’s ministry environment that started a conversation with mom and dad which helped me to find out that they were in the process of trying to find out what was going on with him. And the church was able to walk with the family through a diagnosis, finding out that he had ADHD and autism, and then we needed to create a plan that was going to help him to be able to be a part of our church. Because it’s just again, it’s ministry math. If we could figure out a way for this little guy to be successful and participate in children’s ministry, then mom and dad were going to be able to be a part of our church as well.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — So we started with the one. We created a position in our children’s ministry, which we called a sidekick, who came alongside this little guy and they didn’t have to be an expert on anything besides him.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — They needed to become an expert on what did he need to be a part of our church. And it grew from there.
Rich Birch — I love that. You know, I this I think this area can be a little bit intimidating for for church leaders. And I think I can imagine um how you know this area could be the kind of thing where we like feel like, gosh, I’ve got to start so many things. I’s like we need you know it’s like we need a bunch of special super-specialized volunteers. We need people with all kinds of background in this. I’m like I’m not I don’t have those people here. We don’t have the space. Talk us through those kinds of concerns.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — The first thing I want to say is I’m not that person.
Rich Birch — Right. Okay. Love it.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — Like I came into children’s ministry with a hospitality management background…
Rich Birch — Okay, yeah. Love it.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — …when the Lord called me into it. And now I’ve been in it for well over twenty years. So when I started you know this passion started burning inside of not just me, but the people serving in our ministry to be able to open the doors to other families, we didn’t have the experts. So I did go looking for the experts. I looked in my local area. Like who out there could come in and even assess my ministry? What can we do better? Ah, what do I need to look at? Are there physical barriers for our children? Because if a child has autism or sensory processing disorder, just the lighting in the room, or the size of the room and the amount of children that we’re packing into it, bringing in somebody who helped me have fresh eyes to the ministry was very helpful. But an interesting thing happened: the more that our volunteers and families started talking about people with disabilities and special needs, I felt like experts came out of the woodwork in my church.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s cool. Yeah. Love that.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — And so so many people that were um, occupational therapists physical, physical therapists and speech therapists started coming forward and saying I hear you have a need. How can I help?
Rich Birch — Love that.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — So I I think what has helped me most when I’m talking with other churches is the fact that I’m not an expert.
Rich Birch — Right.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — I I didn’t study this.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — I learned from the children. I’ve learned from the families and from the people who have come alongside our ministry.
Rich Birch — Is there, you know when you talk about low hanging fruit, is there particularly say in the in kids ministry specifically, is there like changes that most or like, you know, you walk into a church and you’re like, here’s change that you see all the time. You’re like, man, if we just did this, it would at so many churches across the country we it would make us more inclusive as an entire movement. Um, what would be a, you know, couple of those things that kind of come to mind, that low hanging fruit?
Kerri-Ann Hayes — Okay, so I’m not going to direct this just at children’s ministry.
Rich Birch — Sure.
I’m going to say all areas of the church.
Rich Birch — Yep, for sure.
Signage, signage, signage.
Rich Birch — Oh okay, good. Tell us about that.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — So so um, I’m share I visited a church recently and I was I was speaking there and I wanted to find the restroom before before the message began. And I stepped out into the lobby and I went walking through this cavernous church and could not find it. Okay, no one wants to have to go and ask.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — Let’s let’s think about the teenager who comes into Youth Ministry who has autism, who already struggles building relationship. They don’t want to come in and have to ask questions to get their needs met. They want to come in and they want to feel independent. The same thing goes for do we post or share what to expect in our service.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — So some churches might share in a bulletin or something like that. But when we’re talking about a youth coming into Youth Ministry and they’re going to participate ah in your Wednesday night, maybe. Do they know when they walk in the door that this is a time of fellowship, that we’re moving into a time of worship, that there will be message, and small group, and that we’re eventually going to send them home.
Rich Birch — Right. Love it.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — Those clear expectations help people feel independent, but also move through transitions because they can anticipate them.
Rich Birch — They know where things are going. Man, that’s just great practice in general for for all humans, which is good signage. I’ve said in other contexts you know next time you’re in an airport, you know, dear church leader, look around at the amount of signage that’s there. And that’s the benchmark. That’s like your baseline, starting point of the kind of the amount of signage you should have at your church. Because you think about an airport is designed for people who’ve never been there before to move them along and to try to not slow them down and that’s the same thing that you’re saying. Is like hey we want to make it super obvious.
Rich Birch — And I love that what to expect. Again, that’s just a good practice in general. But if we went out of our way to make that, I can see that, particularly if you know if if there’s parents or kids that are coming, you know, to be able to talk through and know, hey, this is what’s coming next. That you know, that makes that makes total sense.
Rich Birch — When you think about kind of where, so those would be some kind of low hanging fruits, when you think about um, where this is headed, and you’re like down the road you’re thinking about, Okay, we’ve we’ve gone beyond caring for the one. I love that idea of being like an expert in the one. And we’re thinking, man, we might want to add like a ministry. We might want to actually build some infrastructure there. Where is that headed? Is that headed towards like um, like an inclusion model where we’re trying to have, or what’s your best approach – inclusion where we’re having kids or families or young people or adults included, or is it like we’re going to have a whole separate thing, um where we do kind of ah a separate service a separate experience? What is the best practice from your perspective as the person who’s not an expert but really is, you know?
Kerri-Ann Hayes — I’m not an expert in that is not my education.
Rich Birch — I get that. Yeah, I understand what you mean.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — It has been my on the ground learning, which honestly I think might be the best way to learn is from from the kids, from the families.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — So…And I forgot your questions.
Rich Birch — Oh no, that’s fine. I was saying like, so yeah, let’s say we’ve taken a couple steps, and we’re caring for the one, and then we’re thinking down the road is are we really heading towards inclusion, or like an exclusive ministry.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — Yes, so no. I I prefer inclusion, inclusion all all the way. But in saying that there are also people who will be a part of our church that the accommodation that they will need will be something separate.
Rich Birch — Right.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — So in in my experience we started with that one. We created a ministry within a ministry. So our church never had a disability ministry. They never had a special needs ministry. We had a way to include families who had special needs or disabilities. That started in the children’s ministry. So just by creating a position that someone could fill, which for us was a sidekick – some churches call them pals or buddies. But creating that position that people can be a part of – got to have a job description, have to have an invitation into being part of this. That ministry within our ministry grew and grew on on its own. So that’s where we started.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — In our original church building we did not have space to have a separate room if if a child needed that type of accommodation. And we had to take an approach of that we would never say no but we might say not yet, or not now can we take that child in without having a family member present.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — When we moved into a larger church building, we were able to strategically build a room that was for these children. That allowed us to serve children across a spectrum of needs.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I’ve found a similar thing as our church years ago 10 while more than ten plus years ago now is we added ah ah you know more and more kind of accommodations for kids with special needs. It’s word spreads, right, in a good way, in a beautiful way where families, these families are very networked and um, which is a wonderful thing. That’s what you’re yeah, that’s what you’re hoping for. We want to serve more families. And so, you know, over time, you know, we um, you know, we found that we had to add more infrastructure, more people, which I loved as a leader an executive leader in our church. It’s it’s a it’s a really fulfilling area to serve in. It’s it’s um, you know, it can be challenging volunteer service but it’s, and there’s kids that you know are to be able to create this kind of experience is just amazing for ah the families and they’re so thankful, and so you know appreciative of it.
Rich Birch — When you say that separate space, what what is what what did we typically see that, you know, this would be like a sensory room? You know, a place where they can have a bit of a, you know, a place to kind of distance themselves a little bit? Talk us through what that looks like.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — Yep.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — Yes, so a sensory room. And what we did when when our new building was being built was strategically placed our sensory room in the farthest area back in the children’s ministry.
Rich Birch — Okay, yeah.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — And are are thinking in this was we had a few children that we were not able to accommodate. And we wanted to move to a place that we could, but they were elopement risks meaning they were going to run away at any chance they were given. And we wanted to put as many doorways between them and the parking lot as possible.
Rich Birch — Nice. Okay, yes, yes. That makes sense.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — So just the placement of where this room was. But then also the room was outfitted with things that would be needed in a sensory place. So the ability to turn the lights down. It was was a quiet space just based on its location. And then there were sensory items that were in the room as well. We had very few children who use that room only, because our goal was we wanted them with our typical kids. But that room quickly became the room that everyone wanted to be a part of.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — Because sometimes we all need a moment of quiet…
Rich Birch — Right.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — …to step away from all of the activity.
Rich Birch — Right. Well and I think there’s, particularly I think in in kids ministry, we can, on the programming side, our programming can lead towards you know, loud, energetic you know, ah over the top which can be fun is fun for some folks, but is not universally fun, right? It’s not. It’s not like not everybody loves that. And and particularly as the church grows you get a lot of kids, like you said earlier, in a room. Um, that can be just very overwhelming…
Kerri-Ann Hayes — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …you know, for some people for sure.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — Yeah, and I’ll tell you, Rich, a funny story because we we were in this church that was really known for how they served families so we had tons of kids. We could have 150 children in one room. And that’s a lot of energy and could be a lot of sounds.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — And we had to train the volunteers who are up on the stage leading everything not to get the kids to cheer, to yell, or to clap.
Rich Birch — Sure. Yeah.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — We had to come up with other ways for them to show their enthusiasm. Otherwise that room was not a welcoming place for a lot of our kids, not even those who are neurodiverse, but for some of our typical kids as well.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah, that’s a good, yeah I would agree. I think that is a that’s a shift for sure over the time I’ve been in ministry where it like that we didn’t even think of that when I was in student industry or kids ministry. But now it’s like a real thing. You’re thinking about it and you’re thinking about, Okay, how do we what’s the best way for us to do that. That’s, you know, that’s fantastic.
Rich Birch — I know for me one of my journeys in this area has been even just the terms we use. Um, you know, I remember years ago so, you know, I I talked about special needs kids and I had a loving friend ah you know and I thought I was using a term that was like appropriate and I and I was saying it in an endearing way. And they’re like, oh that’s actually not a great way to use that term.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — Yeah.
Rich Birch — It’s it’s kids with special needs. And I was like, oh of course. Like that’s a way better way to talk about this. And it’s a fairly that’s a nuanced switch.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — It is.
Rich Birch — But how do how does someone who maybe isn’t in this space all the time even just keep up with the the language changes, and even the words you use there neuro-typical or, you know, neuro-divergent neuro-divergent. Um help us understand how how do we keep there?
Kerri-Ann Hayes — Yeah, oh so they call it disability etiquette. And it is not an easy thing to keep up with. I I remind ah, church leaders often that in Luke 14 Jesus referred to people with disabilities as the lame, crippled, and blind.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — We would never use those terms today.
Rich Birch — No. Yeah, yeah yeah.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — And then we used handicapped, and then it became disabled, then special needs came in. And now the the buzz word, which has been around for a long time, ah is neurodiverse. It’s just not been used in everyday language…
Rich Birch — Right.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — …by by families, by teenagers, by ministry leaders. So I think the important thing for us to is to not get too caught up…
Rich Birch — Right.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — …in the wording. The best thing that we can do is ask our people what are they comfortable with.
Rich Birch — Right.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — I I sat in a ah conference setting recently where somebody was sharing that as ministry leaders we get very caught up in all of the terms.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — Ah, but families who have special needs don’t get caught up in those terms as much as we do.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — One thing to keep in mind is that an adult with a disability doesn’t like to be referred to as special needs. Yet families who have children with special needs often don’t like their child with autism to be referred to as disability. That’s where the nuance comes in that we need to know our people and and ask some questions.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — I had a young woman who served in our 2-year-old classroom who was deaf. And I actually asked her one day how did she like people to refer to her?
Rich Birch — Right.
Kerri-Ann Hayes —And I was thinking is it hearing impaired, is it deaf? And she was so quick to respond to me and say, I am deaf and nothing about me is impaired. And I went, Wow.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — But she wasn’t offended by my question.
Rich Birch — Right.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — And I think that’s an important thing for us to keep in mind that.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I I have found similarly around this issue, I think that’s a good that’s a good insight there around, I think sometimes maybe we we might get more um, worked up about this than than than the folks that we’re interacting with. And just having an open heart and open spirit to be like, hey, like and being willing to learn and be like, hey, we it’s okay, like I need to learn, is ah goes a long way as you interact with people and even if you stumble on the wrong term. Ah you know, not not there’s no need to get defensive, or no need to, you know, it’s okay, like it’s fine. You can just change and be different. It’s really okay, It’s not a big deal at all. That’s good.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — Yeah, exactly.
Rich Birch — Well you’ve actually written a book about this that I want to make sure people check out. It’s called “The Accessible Church: Making the Church a Welcoming Place for Children with Special Needs and from Traumatic Backgrounds”.
Rich Birch — This is I think a fantastic resource for so many churches as they’re thinking about these issues, wrestling with what a great kind of resource for them to pick up. But talk to me about you know what led you to this a huge project to pull a book together, and you know think about these things in an area that is constantly changing. That’s a that’s a struggle. So yeah, what what brought you to the point of saying, yeah, this is this is what I should be doing next. This is a good step here.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — So as as our church began to grow, as more and more of these families started coming in, and the reason why the book refers to traumatic backgrounds as well is because we started off in special needs and then all of a sudden saw this huge influx of families from foster care and adoption. And we realized that some of the trauma that they had experienced caused them to struggle to be a part of our church. But, what we were doing for our families with special needs…
Rich Birch — Is similar. Yeah.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — …worked for them as well. So as as I was learning, as I was walking alongside these families I was journaling as well and through this process, I had a local church reach out to me and say, I have a family with autism. We’re sending them your way because we know that you can serve this family well. And immediately my thought was, but this family didn’t choose our church. They they chose your church…
Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — …and I want them in your church. So how do I take what we saw work in our church and package it in a way that I can hand it to you and say, you could do this too. It’s part of there not being a PhD behind my name to say, here ministry leaders, you you too can do this. And in the book we actually, ah you know, someone recently referred to it as case studies. And I said, I didn’t think about that. But there’s actual stories of kids that if you read their story you might say, oh, I’ve seen this child in in my church. And hopefully the tips and the tools that that are shared there will help that child in your church as well.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Well I’d love for people to pick, ah you know, pick up there’s ah there’s so much in here. You know we’ve got The Beauty of an Accessibility Ministry, Rethinking Ministry, Redefining Effective Ministry, The Power of Story, Special Needs, Trauma in the Church – there’s so much here. Um, yeah, that’s interesting the connection on trauma. Literally just this week I was talking to a parent of who they identified their child as um, struggling with PTSD. And I was like, oh that’s interesting. Like and had a fascinating conversation with them around those and was struck by the same, you know, the same kind of stuff that they, you know, here’s a kid that’s been through some really tough stuff, but, you know, we were able to help them and have tried to create some space, you know, for them.
Rich Birch — When when you think about, um, you know, churches out there who’ve maybe taken the first couple steps or, you know, they’re thinking about this area, they’ve they’ve tried to serve a few people and now they’re starting to get more and more families, you know, come on board, is there a tipping point here where it goes from we’re just helping a few families to like, okay, I think I think we have declared we actually do have a ministry to, you know, kids with special needs. What is that, you know, what’s that line look like or is it fuzzy in different churches? What’s that look like?
Kerri-Ann Hayes — Well I would say it’s definitely fuzzy in different churches.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — But I will say for from my experience what happened in our church was we started out with the one. And we started to develop some practices in our ministry that we didn’t just focus on the one, we started saying, well what if we did this for the whole ministry? Like if this child can’t sit still through our teaching time, maybe we need to rethink our teaching time.
Rich Birch — Right.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — Maybe we need to break it up into segments that are are easier for the child to consume and to be a part of. As we did that, more and more came in. So I would say when we reached a place of 5 to 10 was when we started saying, okay, this is an actual ministry within our ministry. And it really did grow from it really grew from there. And it was word of mouth.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — And we all know that when a pastor stands in the front of the church and says we need volunteers that that tends to fall on deaf ears. But I will say that as this story played out in our church, our pastor on one Sunday shared a story of a boy with autism who was going to be baptized.
Rich Birch — So sweet.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — He had brought his whole family to church and now he’s going to be baptized. And he shared this story. And I’m standing in another wing of the church. And 26 people come up to me to sign up to be part of the special needs ministry.
Rich Birch — Wow, Right. Wow. That’s amazing.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — You know, that’s the that’s the power of story. And I would say it’s it’s word of mouth that helped us to organically create this team that allowed us to welcome more and more children in.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I love that. Now what happens, so as obviously as kids grow, they become adults. You know that one year after another. And then in a beautiful way I’ve seen churches as a whole start to say hey we need our entire ministries need to become more accessible. What are we seeing as now churches like yours in Florida, and others across the country who’ve been you know, really pioneering this, seeing this journey over decades, what impact is it is it having on the broader really beyond children’s ministry and looking at the entire you know entire ministry? What’s that look like?
Kerri-Ann Hayes — So it’s interesting because I think that children’s ministry got the largest focus in the beginning because, like I said, if the child can’t participate in the church then the entire family can’t participate in the church.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — But what has happened is once some churches have figured out how to serve those families, those kids are now moving into youth ministry as well. What I’m seeing across the country right now is more of a focus on how do we welcome youth who are neuro-diverse, who are coming in with those invisible challenges. Ah putting a buddy with a thirteen year old in a middle school youth group is not attractive. So there’s a different way that we have to serve them so how how do we walk that out? I’m also seeing churches, I worked with a church in Indianapolis that put in a sensory room for their teenagers. It’s probably one of the coolest places. They called it…
Rich Birch — Oh that’s cool.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — The Chill Out Spot. And it was an inexpensive endeavor for them to take on. They hung Christmas lights from the ceiling. They put in ah puzzles and you know more cooperative activities versus competitive. There has been this theme in youth ministry, and I think we kind of get away from it then we come right back into it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — And it’s that big game competitive, but that doesn’t work for our kids…
Rich Birch — Right.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — …who have autism. But you give them something that’s collaborative and they soar.
Rich Birch — Right.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — And it’s great for them. So I think what we’re seeing is the rethinking of youth ministry now as well as how do we create spaces? How do we create awareness in our volunteers that these students are coming in?
Kerri-Ann Hayes — Here’s the interesting thing. Our teenagers know the term neurodiverse.
Rich Birch — Yeah, hundred percent.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — I have had I’ve had teenagers introduce themselves to me as, I am neuro-divergent. They’re okay with this.
Rich Birch — Right.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — We need to make sure that our volunteers who are serving them know the best practices for getting to know them. Ah, who said it, was it Ted Lasso or was it Walt Whitman, nobody knows. But we need to be curious, not judgmental.
Rich Birch — Right.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — So finding out by working with teenagers to ask what is going to be the best way for us to incorporate them into our worship environments.
Rich Birch — Um, yeah, that’s so good. I love that. And that’s true. You know about about young people and and, man, we want. Um I think that’s amazing. Like you think I think I think it’s great that we live in a world where. You know a young person can can introduce himself as neuro-divergent, and then we can be, roll with it and say, hey, let’s – great! We’re so glad you’re here. Come on in, you know, we’re happy for you to be a part of our ministry. And and um, yeah, that’s just beautiful. That’s a beautiful picture for sure. I hope the church can get this right as we continue to move forward in this area.
Rich Birch — Well, I would love people to pick up, if people want to get copies of your book, where… To me, what I was struck about this was this seems like the kind of book that we should read as a team. Like maybe if I’m if I’m you know on the next gen team at our church, like hey maybe 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 of us we should all buy this and and read through it together. That really struck me as a way to kind of use this. But where where do we want to send people to pick up copies of the book?
Kerri-Ann Hayes — Yeah, the book is available on Amazon.
Rich Birch — Nice. That’s where people get books these days, apparently.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — That is where they get them.
Rich Birch — That’s great. Well this has been fantastic. As we wrap up today’s episode, anything else you’d like to share?
Kerri-Ann Hayes — Yeah I just I want to encourage churches and church leaders to not feel like they have to do everything.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — I work with churches that say, you know we do respite events and we do it really well and we’re working to include families on Sundays. There are some churches that do big events like Night to Shine and that’s really they there that’s where their position when it comes to disability. I think that every church can do something.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — But I will so and I and I want to end with this. I shared that 1 in 36 children has autism. I worked with a church recently with 100 children and fifteen of them have autism. We as the church need to ask the question why? Why is there a larger ah population of children and teens in our churches? I think, as I’m researching, I think the answer is because they need community and they want to find it in our church.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Well this has been a fantastic conversation. I really appreciate you being here today Kerri-Ann. If people want to get in touch with you reach out, maybe they’re you know wrestling through these questions. They’d love to get, I know you’ll you’ll definitely help them, even with some one-on-one support. What’s the best way for for them to reach out to you?
Kerri-Ann Hayes — So the best way would probably be by email and now I can give it to you now.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — It’s super long but it’s ah ah K-E-R-R-I kerri-ann.hayes@ministryarchitects.com.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — I’m also on Instagram and Facebook.
Rich Birch — Love it. So good. And that’s Hayes with an “e” so H-A-Y-E-S.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — Y-E-S, yes.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. Kerri-Ann, I really appreciate you being here today. Thank you so much for what you’re doing and for, you know, just pointing us to I think a better future in so many of our churches. So thanks for being here today.
Kerri-Ann Hayes — Thanks, Rich! Thanks for the opportunity to talk about something that I think is so important to our churches today.
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. This week we’re sitting down with Brian Tome, the founder and senior pastor at Crossroads Church in Cincinnati – one of the fastest growing and most innovative churches in the country.
Whether we realize it or not, the systems in our churches are often set up to cater to women more than men. Many Christian men are dissatisfied with their faith and the current state of men’s ministry. How do we attract and engage more men in our churches? Tune in as Brian talks about men’s ministry, Man Camp, and spiritual awakening.
- Understand your church’s systems. // Many churches aren’t naturally set up to to attract men. The current demographic makeup of a church is not accidental; it reflects the underlying systems in place. Church leaders need to examine the structures at their churches consider how they might be unintentionally excluding men. Even the programming or worship songs we choose can appeal more to women while alienating men.
- Challenges men face. // If we want to reach our culture, Brian believes that we need to acknowledge that men are a vulnerable demographic that we need to focus on. Men face significant challenges in society, including higher rates of suicide and substance abuse, a declining life expectancy, and gradually being locked out of opportunities. Churches need to recognize and address these issues to effectively reach men.
- Engaging men. // To address the challenge of attracting men, Crossroads Church chose colors and messaging that resonated with a male audience from the beginning. Over time, the church has continued to evolve its approach, focusing on creating environments where men feel comfortable and engaged. One of the standout initiatives at Crossroads is “Man Camp,” which Brian describes as a transformative experience for men.
- Man Camp. // Inspired by a motorcycle trip where he witnessed the power of vulnerability and connection among men, Brian envisioned an event that would facilitate similar experiences in a camp setting. Man Camp provides an opportunity for men to bond over shared activities, engage in meaningful conversations, and step out of their comfort zone in the great outdoors. The weekend includes a variety of activities, from competitive events to more relaxed gatherings around a campfire. Participants are required to bring their own food and supplies, creating a primitive camping experience that challenges men to take ownership of their time together.
- Spiritual awakening. // Looking ahead, Brian’s desire is for Man Camp to contribute to a broader awakening among men, and women, in the church. He believes that the church is overdue for a significant spiritual revival and that initiatives like Man Camp can play a crucial role in facilitating this change. Church leaders need to think outside traditional church growth strategies and explore new avenues for outreach and engagement to continue to reach our culture with the gospel.
- Challenge your faith. // Man Camp isn’t just for members of Crossroads Church, or even just believers – it’s open worldwide to men who are ready to be challenged physically, mentally and spiritually. If you’re ready to move beyond your spiritual comfort zone, this year Man Camp will be held from September 27-29 in Ohio. Register before September 1st at mancamp.us.
- Authenticity in ministry. // Many men, both believers and non-believers, are dissatisfied with their lives, faith, and the current state of men’s ministry. Church leaders need to create environments that are genuine and relatable, rather than overly polished or traditional, when trying to engage the men in their communities. Authenticity in ministry can help men feel more comfortable and open to exploring their faith.
Visit www.mancamp.us to register for Man Camp on September 27-29, 2024. You can also learn more about Crossroads Church at www.crossroads.net and Brian Tome at www.briantome.com.
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. I’m really looking forward to today’s conversation. We’ve got Brian Tome with us. He’s the founding and senior pastor at Crossroads Church in the cultural epicenter of the world, Cincinnati, Ohio. Crossroads has started in 1995 under Brian’s leadership. Crossroad has since expanded to becoming one of the largest churches in the country. But these guys are super innovative. Everything that Crossroads does, every time I interact with anybody from Crossroads, I’m leaned in, I’ve got my notepad open, and I’m learning. So honored to have Brian with us. He’s an author of a number of books, including The Aggressive Life, The Aggressive Life, which is a podcast that he hosts. And he leads a movement called Man Camp. Welcome to the show, Brian. So glad you’re here.
Brian Tome — Great to be with you, Rich. I actually don’t have a book called Aggressive Life. That’s the podcast. Five Marks of a Man – not that I’m trying to hawk my wares right now. But no, it’s good. No. It’s good. It’s good to be with you, man. Thanks for having me on. I’m honored.
Rich Birch — I appreciate you correcting that. That’s good stuff. Talk to us about Crossroads. Kind of give us the story there. If people were to arrive this weekend, what would they experience? Give us a sense of the church.
Brian Tome — Oh, gosh. Well, if they arrived here this weekend, they probably would be very similar to any mega-church, really. I mean, we all look the same, you know. You know, a lot of people, a lot of loud music, you know, some half decent teaching and a lot of video. And you know, free coffee and away you go.
Brian Tome — Now that was that was not the way it was way back when. You know, when we when we started Crossroads, there were a lot of things that we were doing that no one was doing before.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Tome — But those things are very common. Like we were giving away coffee before I think any anybody was. They would have to have a little, you know, coffee cup that was there. When people were selling tapes, literally selling tapes, we were giving it away with with stickers on the tapes that said, please reproduce.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Tome — When we were making sure we had 100 DB in our worship music because we knew people needed a concert environment. When believers would come to our midst, it was, you know, that was not what they expected.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah.
Brian Tome — So but right now it looks pretty much like any other church. A lot of people, a lot of people don’t, wouldn’t be willing to say that or admit it, but there’s differences. There certainly is. But but they’re very similar…
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Tome — …which is kind of what I’m most excited about, Rich, if you just want me to babble for a little bit here.
Rich Birch — Sure, yeah.
Brian Tome — I love unSeminary. You know, when I was, when I was in seminary, cemetery, seminary, I was when I was in seminary…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Brian Tome — …I chose the seminary I went to because I was in a local church that I knew was undergoing a lot of changes, and I would get a lot of leadership lessons there. So I went to a small seminary in Pittsburgh, knowing that I would also get a practical education from North Park Church…
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Tome — …in how to transition to church from traditional hymn singing pews into something contemporary and all that stuff, you know?
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah.
Brian Tome — That’s why I stayed there. I knew that seminary was not going to be preparing me practically for ministry.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Tome — That’s why I thought I needed theologically. But second, prepare me, prepare me, practically.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Tome — And then from there, it was about innovating and thinking through, okay, what is it that I’m supposed to do? How does God want to use me?
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Tome — And a lot of the moves you make when you first start a church or first start leadership, they’re copy and paste moves.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Brian Tome — You find out what works and you copy and paste, but then eventually, you start innovating and branching out.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love it. One of the things that for me as an outsider looking in at Crossroads that has, I think, been a hallmark of, of your ministry… So many of our churches, we talk about what we’re trying to create, a place for guys to come. You know, we’re trying to create a place where, you know, whatever it is, 35 year old male, 28 year old male, what we all talk about in different ways, we would love for those guys to come. But when we look at the actual people attending our church, it’s 60/70% women, which is not a that’s not a not degradation of the women that are attending our churches…
Brian Tome — Right.
Rich Birch — …but our churches don’t seem to be naturally set up to want to attract guys. Why is that? What what what’s happening there. Diagnose that problem for us.
Brian Tome — Yeah. Well, you you to build a large church or a large organization, you have to understand the basic rule. Your systems are set up to give you exactly what you’re currently getting. You’re not getting what you’re getting by accident.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Brian Tome — Your systems are set up for it. And so when and you may not even know you have a system.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Brian Tome — You may have never planned it, but you have a system that’s producing the results that you have right now. Excuse me, excuse me. So you’re right. When we look at churches, we’re clearly we have a system, clearly, that works for women and clearly not for men. I mean, can we just start there and admit that?
Rich Birch — Admit that. Yeah.
Brian Tome — And there’s a bunch of signs, a bunch of reasons for that. I could go into the normal litany, of course, that a lot of people know, but we just got to just say, hey, if we want to reach a culture and we actually want to reach right now, believe it or not, the most vulnerable part of our culture, which is men. Men.
Rich Birch — Unpack that, unpack that, talk about that a little bit more.
Brian Tome — Men are four times more likely to commit suicide than women.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Tome — Men are decreasing in life expectancy, unlike women. Men are two times more likely to have an alcohol abuse related or chemical dependency issue than women are. Grad schools right now are 70% female. We know from our history he or she were the best education that has the most money. So we’re men are being locked out of opportunities, or at least will be very very soon. We have an ongoing discussion about toxic masculinity.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Tome — It’s it’s I when I get asked I get to ask that all the time. And my, my first response is, have you ever heard the phrase toxic femininity?
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Tome — Of course you haven’t, because you would get stoned if you did.
Rich Birch — Right, right, right.
Brian Tome — But yet we talk about toxic. Like if someone has a gun and a pickup truck, then is that toxic masculinity? We say if someone drives a pink car and wears eyeshadow, is that toxic femininity?
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Brian Tome — Not everybody has to have those things. But I’m just going, like, even how we talk about it with men. We we belittle men. If a man is having a friendship, we don’t know how to categorize it. So we call it a bromance. We call it a man crush. Because we we…
Rich Birch — Yeah, we don’t know what to do with it.
Brian Tome — And our churches are structured to have women. They just are. Our worship songs or love songs to Jesus.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Tome — They’re not the kind of songs that men connect with from of old. Things like Our Mighty Fortress is Our God. My gosh, Onward Christian Soldiers! You couldn’t even do that today. I don’t know what you’re saying about Christian Soldiers. Are you saying we’re pro gun? Are we are we saying we’re going to… Just freaking relax?
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Take a take a breath. Yeah, yeah.
Brian Tome — Take a song. You know what a beautiful name it is. Wait, no, no, no. What a beautiful name it is, the name of Jesus. You know that that that that thing.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yah.
Brian Tome — That’s weird. I love that song. It’s weird.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Brian Tome — What a beautiful name, Rich, is the name of Rich. What a beautiful name.
Rich Birch — Right, right. You would never say that.
Brian Tome — You’ll be okay hearing wonderful name, powerful name, but it’s just. And we don’t think much about it because it’s in the water. It’s our system to reach and communicate women to, not men.
Rich Birch — Right, right. Okay, so so I know churches will do they’ll be like, okay, we’ve got to fix this problem. And so then we end up with, like I would say, real milquetoast solutions. We end up with like, Saturday morning, you know…
Brian Tome — Pancake breakfast.
Rich Birch — …pancake breakfast, which is not what Crossroads is doing by any means. Compare and contrast why is that? Like so that is like so, you know, repulsive to me. I’m like, I don’t want to be a part of that. I don’t want to sit around in a, you know, a pancake breakfast. But yeah, talk to us about what is it that that Crossroads has done to try to tap into guys to connect with them?
Brian Tome — I so we started, at the very beginning, even before we started to have a focus on men, and God started to refine some things in me, from the beginning, this came from our marketing team. We used to have a mailer – all of our people were all volunteers…
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Tome — …a lot of them from Proctor and Gamble, which at that point still arguably today is still the the king marketer in the world. Right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Tome — I mean, they’re making money convincing people that soapy solutions, they should buy theirs versus somebody else’s.
Rich Birch — Right, right. Yeah.
Brian Tome — I hate the target is men. We have to reach men. There they were saying. And a woman led that up, Vivienne Bechtold. We got women, if if we reach men, then we can get women. And men are decision makers and all that. That’s what we believed in 1995. So we chose the colors we had, and we chose the copy we had, thinking about men. So that was the that was the beginning of thinking that. Right?
Brian Tome — And then as and then as time went on, you start to say, all right, well, who is God uniquely made me? He’s made me a man. And what would I like to do as a man? Well, let’s start doing that at Crossroads. And so we just kept building from there, really.
Brian Tome — And I don’t think I don’t think our church can do that, Rich.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Tome — I think, I think, nor do I think all churches should do that. I’m really big right now on 2 Timothy 4:5 where Paul’s talking to Timothy and he tells them things. Three of them everybody should do. One of them, no. One, he says be sober minded. Great. Let’s be sober minded. Let’s think clearly. Two, two is endure affliction. We’re all going to have crappy times. And the reason we have so many people deconstructing, leaving the faith, not giving people a proper doctrine of difficulty, that life is just hard. Sometimes you just have to suck it up and embrace the suck.
Brian Tome — Third thing he says is do the work of evangelism. Doesn’t say have the gift of evangelism. All of us, no matter what our gifting are, we’ve got to be sharing our faith. And the fourth thing and this is the thing that’s unique to everybody. He says, fulfill your ministry. Emphasis YOUR – fulfill your ministry. Timothy never wrote any books that went in the New Testament. Timothy never went to other countries on ships to share the gospel, at least not that I know of. Timothy never, as far as I know, you know, went and started a bunch of other churches.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Tome — Maybe maybe on that. But he didn’t. What I’m saying is he didn’t have the Apostle Paul’s ministry. Fulfill his ministry.
Rich Birch — Right, right, right.
Brian Tome — And we’ve got to get more people in the kingdom of God that know uniquely what they can do in fulfilling your ministry. Not Steven Furtick’s ministry…
Yeah, it’s true.
Brian Tome — …not Brian Tome’s ministry, not anybody. Your ministry.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. I love that. I’ve said in other environments that one of my impressions of being around, you know, multiplicity of lead pastors who have led churches that have grown, you know, they’ve gone beyond a thousand, 2000, 3000, they’re growing 4- or 5000 people, is it does seem like over time those ministries become, you know, it’s like the lead pastors and the leadership of the church. They become more of themselves. They become more of like they take on a unique personality. That’s a part of what I think God uses. So I love that. That’s a great a great reminder from Scripture.
Rich Birch — Well, let’s talk about a specific outworking of this kind of approach to trying to connect with guys. Man Camp. What is Man Camp? Explain this to me.
Brian Tome — Okay, so I was on a motorcycle trip once where we camp off of our motorcycles. And it was a tough day before. It rained at night. We got up in the morning, we were having coffee around a fire, and somebody opened up and shared something real vulnerable about their life. And I realized this happens all the time. We’re pushed. We’re in an uncomfortable place. We’re standing in the fire. We’re having some beverages at night or in the morning or whatever it is. And someone and someone opens up and stimulates a great conversation.
Brian Tome — And I said, yo, we should do this, but not expect people to have a motorcycle. What could you do? You know…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Brian Tome — …what could we do that would give people a sense of adventure, a sense of mystery, of unknown, where they sit around a fire and talk? And that’s when man camp was born. And all those people around that, around that campfire, were the leadership became the leadership core for Man Camp and are still serving at Man Camp, to this day on everything. And we we did a we found a guy with a farm in Indiana, and we sold out tickets. Like, people put credit cards in to open up at 6 a.m. Sold out 90 seconds. 500 tickets sold out in 90 seconds.
Rich Birch — That’s crazy.
Brian Tome — We said, okay, let’s do that again. So we did another one. A make up in two weeks. Same thing. 500, 500 gone like in minutes, you know. Done. And then we went to an abandoned ATV park and then did. And then we bought our own land, and then we just bought more land to add on to our land. So, and, and we’re seeing, yeah, we’re seeing, quite breakthrough in men’s lives and people coming to Christ like crazy supernatural stuff like, tongues…
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Tome — …tongues, breaking out in the prayer tent where people are hearing Portuguese that they have never spoken or heard.
Rich Birch — Wow, wow.
Brian Tome — And we had four countries come to the last one.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Amazing.
Brian Tome — 41 states and four countries. And we had the situation with, people came from Portugal.
Rich Birch — Right. Wow.
Brian Tome — And one of the guys speaks the gift of tongues inside of the personal prayer language thing. And he said, I’m, I’m just gonna try this and see what it goes with this thing. And he did it. And they all there was one of them spoke English, and the guy who spoke English said, we don’t know what you’re speaking. But we all understand, stood every word you heard you said, and we understood it exactly. Here’s what you said.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Brian Tome — It’s interesting when you read Acts 2, you’re not sure if there’s a supernatural ability for people to speak ah speak Portuguese who haven’t heard it, or if the people in Portugal are hearing it the way they can understand.
Rich Birch — Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Brian Tome — It’s uncertain. So, and we got right beside that is that crazy stuff is happening. We’ve got a beer a beer truck right beside. We went through 100 kegs of beer last time. And, and that’s kind of the magic of Man Camp. It’s all the things that men normally do, all wedged together. And you think it shouldn’t work, but it does.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Tome — When you have guys together camping, someone’s going to be drinking.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Tome — And when you have guys who are together and they, a good percentage of them know Jesus, they’re going to be talking about Jesus. Let’s put it all together. And that’s really where the power is.
Rich Birch — How does the programming work? Is it is it overly programmed, or is it just kind of like a menu? Here’s a whole bunch of stuff to do. How what are you finding is working on that front from a like how you know what’s actually happening during the few days that you’re away?
Brian Tome — Yeah. All I mean, all men are different, you know, some drive minivans, some drive trucks, some like to shoot guns. Some people hate guns. Some are married. Some… But there’s no prototypical man. I don’t think. So Man Camp has to be, meets different men where they are. If you want to do a machismo arm wrestling competition, if you got muscle mass, great, we got it for you.
RIch Birch — Sure.
Brian Tome — If you want to, you know, have some, have some beers. Great. If you don’t, we make a big thing like a lot of people shouldn’t drink. And some of the most manly men are in recovery and some people here should be in recovery. Great. We, you know, we we do that sort of thing. But we do the common thing is we try to meet men where they are and let them be off. Let them be themselves. Let them have a different environment with other men who understand them, quite frankly, more than any other woman.
Rich Birch — Right. Interesting. Now our so people are bringing all their own stuff. It sounds like they’re bringing their own food. It’s like, you know, it’s pretty primitive. Is that by design…
Brian Tome — Yes.
Rich Birch — …or are you hoping long term, like, talk us through that part?
Brian Tome — No, it’s very it’s primitive by design.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Tome — We are we are not looking to give you another thing you can buy, we entertain you with. You got to figure it the freak out. You got to figure it out. That’s that’s a major problem.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Tome — So we’re not going to build, like, retreat facilities because it would be a financial and maintenance nightmare. No, you got to bring something to the thing. We’re going to give you one lunch, and we’re going to give you a program and structure. But no, your group have to figure out who’s doing breakfasts, who’s doing dinners, how all that stuff’s happen. No, that that that’s very intentional.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Interesting. Now what is when you think about the future, you know, as you’re obviously this has grown. It started you know, with a couple of weekends and you know now you’ve got a lot of folks showing up. What’s your heart for this for the long term? Obviously this doesn’t seem like the kind of thing, this isn’t a passing fad. You guys are committed to this. You bought land. You’re trying to you know, this is like a significant deal you’re thinking about here. But talk to us where do you think this is going?
Brian Tome — I think where it’s going and where I’m praying for is a is an awakening. An awakening on a mass scale in our country for men and women. That’s where I think it’s going. I think we’re way overdue for an awakening. And I’m tired of just incrementally growing the church on pastoring. I’m tired of just adding another campus that needs to happen, and I knighted somebody else here to do that work while I’m still engaged with it.
Brian Tome — But like, you know, if an if a church growing by 20% was going to change America would, if another campus was, it would…
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Tome — We got to start trying some new things. Where where are the future Jim Rayburns, who started Young Life and ship people from all over the country and got his bus company to take kids out? Where where’s the Bill Brights that had a vision put Campus Crusade on every single campus and four spiritual laws and people raise money. Where are those ideas? All we’re doing is trying to replicate somebody else’s success. And I think this may be the thing that maybe God is asking us to do. And it may be the thing that unlocks the masses of people. We’re way overdue, Rich, for an awakening on a mass scale.
Rich Birch — Yeah, amen. Absolutely.
Brian Tome — And they all happen outside, by the way.
Rich Birch — Well talk to you about that. That’s an interesting idea. Talk talk to me about about your conviction about a revival is happening outside.
Brian Tome — Yeah. Well okay. So revivals if you’re going to revivals, like Christians having their faith revived, that can happen inside.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Brian Tome — But if you’re talking about awakenings, which is where the Spirit of God descends in a region and there is conversions on a large scale and the structures are changed and shifted, we have a bunch of those that we can study. George Whitfield, George Whitfield, gosh, Wesley, all that stuff. Well, the most recent revival that took place, which was amazing down in Asbury. I’m so bummed I didn’t go to that because it’s an hour away, and I found out about it. I could have gone the next day after it happened.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Tome — And I just waited too long. Too late. But, you know, Francis Asbury was named for Francis Asbury. Francis Asbury wrote 300,000 miles on horseback…
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Tome — …going outside, preaching in the settlements, 300,000 miles, you know.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Brian Tome — And so these things, is it outside because it’s cheaper? Is it outside because people aren’t boxed in? Outside you feel closer to God. Outside because the walls are blown out and you can see. Outside because the most palpable presence of God seems to be in the tabernacle versus the temple.
Brian Tome — You know? You ever notice that? Like the description in the Pentateuch is very clear – pillar of fire, cloud. It’s, and then when it goes inside the temple, it’s like, waa-waa.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Brian Tome — Like there’s some stuff going in there, but it’s just. So there’s something, I think, in the history of the Spirit of God, there’s something about the sanctuary of outside. We’re ready for another one of those things. We’re ready for a Woodstock of spiritual proportions.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s a great insight. You know, I think, like, even in even you look in the book of Acts, right? Like Paul is going from place to place to place. He goes somewhere, a riot breaks out, then he’s got to go somewhere else, like, that, you know, that’s a fascinating insight. I can see where, you know, I wonder if a part of it is when the church kind of settles down and finally gets reasonable and has a, you know, a building and all that, the risk goes out of it.
Brian Tome — Right.
Rich Birch — The, you know, the our faith isn’t stretched as much. And so we’re not, you know, we’re not leaning out there where, you know, by definition, if you’re if you’re taking people out into the middle of nowhere, there’s a ton of risk in this.
Brian Tome — I’m pro-buildings.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Brian Tome — We’re building a very expensive building in Dayton, Ohio right now. Very, very, very, very. The construction costs are ridiculous. So I’m pro-buildings.
Brian Tome — I just also know that if you look at the history of Christendom, there’s big jumps that happen spiritually outdoors. And if I look at some of the things I’m really excited about, it’s, It’s what’s happening in our camps. Are you familiar with that that study that came out of, came out of Gordon Cromwell, what was it? Four years ago, about how much it cost to baptize a person?
Rich Birch — Oh, I remember that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Brian Tome — Yeah, yeah. I’m gonna look up the up the things right now. They they they basically looked at all of all the money given to Christian causes, churches, non-profits and the number of people who were baptized.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Tome — And they divided it, which that’s a pretty big deal, right? It’s like…
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Tome — …great commission. And and in 2017, the number, the number per baptism, what it costs, excuse me, 2014, is $753,000. So to get someone saved and baptized cost $753,000. They’re projecting that 2025, it would be $1.4 Million dollars…
Rich Birch — Right, it’s unscalable.
Brian Tome — …per baptism. Wow. Now so I just looked at Crossroads and I said, okay, I’m curious, where are we?
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Tome — At 70 million bucks given last year, we baptized 2000 people, it was came out to be like, I don’t know, 30,000 bucks or what is that, the person in my room, whatever it is. So not bad. But I tell you what was really crazy when I looked at, when I looked at what it meant for camps, you know what camps was?
Rich Birch — How much?
Brian Tome — Camps was it was, oh, where is it I’m giving $769 a baptism. When we factored in all the land, all the staff, all the all the, the program 769. So that is like the most…
Rich Birch — Super compelling.
Brian Tome — Oh my gosh.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah..
Brian Tome — I don’t know. Is that what it is? I don’t know. I just think we’ve got to get back to our roots, and our roots as human beings is spending more, more time outside.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. Now, is is Man Camp open? Like, is this just a Crossroads thing or is it open to guys outside of Crossroads? Talk us through that. How does that work?
Brian Tome — Well, we have 41 states and four countries. So Crossroads is not in 41 states and four countries.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah, yeah.
Brian Tome — No. This is a this is a movement of men. In fact, what we have is we have some churches bring some of their men. Like, well, pastor, come and bring some folks. Or another guy one guy comes, just he saw it on social media, and then he’ll come the next year with three people, and it builds that way. So it certainly is a Crossroads, Crossroads is the financial engine behind that where the creative driver of it, but no, this is this is a man thing. This isn’t this isn’t a Crossroads thing.
Rich Birch — Yeah that’s great.
Rich Birch — So if I’m if I’m listening in today, I’m, you know, I’m a church leader, you’d encourage people to say, hey, like, maybe load up a maybe there’s even a small group of guys, a van load. Hey, let’s let’s jump in the car and go check this out. This year’s Man Camp is at the end of September. September 27th to the 29th. If people want information, they go to mancamp.us. What else we want to say to that kind of leader that’s listening in? I’m hoping they’ll be inspired to think outside the box, but is there anything else around, you know, Man Camp specifically that we want them to be thinking about?
Brian Tome — I think it’s like with the rest of life, Rich. If you want something different, you got to try something different.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Tome — This is something very different. I don’t meet many people who are satisfied with what’s happening with men. I don’t meet many people who are satisfied with the ministry endeavors that are gone towards men.
Brian Tome — In fact, I meet very few Christian men who are satisfied with their faith.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s true.
Brian Tome — I and this is we’re talking unbelievers. We’re talking believers. This this is not like a Christianese event. If it was a Christianese event, we wouldn’t be wouldn’t be going through 100, 100 kegs of beer last time.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Tome — We had to make another beer run. You know, this is like…
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Brian Tome — It’s not Kumbaya or trying to impress all the churchy people. You’re going to hear language here that you might not like. We’re it’s men. It’s a it’s a men’s event. So I would say, why don’t you push yourself? Why don’t you try something.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Tome — God’s using something here. Give yourself a different experience. There’s something that happens to us where we stop trying new things and exposing ourselves to new ministry methods.
Rich Birch — Love that.
Brian Tome — I push people to try it. Give it a try.
Rich Birch — Well, so let’s talk about, so this is working. This is in the category of working. I think oftentimes we talk as church leaders. Hey you should try something new when we are referencing the things that are working. What’s something that you guys have tried at Crossroads that was like a giant wet fart that just did not go anywhere. That was like, oh, that didn’t work out. Like that was, you know, not a great.
Brian Tome — A wet fart. I love that.
Rich Birch — Sticking with the Man Camp theme.
Brian Tome — Right. Well, we’re pretty, we’re pretty, we’re pretty, we’re pretty well, we’re pretty well known in church circles for our digital strategy, and our app, and how we engage people. We actually don’t count attendance anymore. Well, we do count physical attendance, but we count engagement. And we track a bunch of different things to tell people where they’re engaged. But the failure thing. We wasted millions of dollars. Millions. We’re having huge success right now. But we were a bit too, too rambunctious, too whatever, too high ourselves just to having rooms full of coders who were coding stuff that shouldn’t have been coded. That was a, that was a, a really, really huge, huge failure.
Brian Tome — Our first our first Christmas show. We thought, man, Cincinnatians love Christmas things. They go to the same right Ebenezer Scrooge thing again and again and again. We should we should try to do a Christmas show that’s that’s spiritual in nature that has the Christian message in it. First one was just horrible. It was horrible. I mean, we wrote it; it was awful. It was called Imagine. You can’t imagine how bad it was. Seriously. I was getting I was getting emails like, what are you?!? I mean, it was so bad, like we didn’t have Christmas music. It didn’t even mention Jesus. It was really weird.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Brian Tome — I’m serious. It was weird. We had light bulb guy that sort of looked like Christmas tree. That was it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Tome — It was it was horrible. Like people left the church over it. It was like, this is what we give you a Christmas. Boom. Well, but that was the beginning of, Awaited, Christmas show that we did that reached when we, before we shut down, it was last year. There was 125,000 people…
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Brian Tome — …at that thing. And, we’re actually working to bring it back. But that was a massive wet fart…
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Tome — …That that that led to that. We’ve, our student ministry. Oh my gosh. Our student ministry has struggled since day one.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Tome — And it’s only been we’ve had a lot of people doing some good work there, but never been happy with where it’s been until the last two years. And like, we’ve got the right guy and it’s going it’s going good. But it’s been horrible. So we’ve had a lot of duds.
Rich Birch — Right. Well this has been great. That on the innovation side, I think that’s one of those things, churches that have or organizations that have innovated do you have a long list of things that have not gone well and I appreciate you just even, you know, tapping into that.
Rich Birch — Well, Man Camp, I really do want to encourage church leaders to check out mancamp.us for more information. I would, you know, I think this is fantastic. I love what you guys are doing. I just want to honor you for your leadership, for the good things that have happened at Crossroads over all these years. And in this kind of current iteration, I think it’s inspiring for sure. Going to give you the last word. What’s the last thing you’d love to say just as we wrap up today’s episode?
Brian Tome — Jesus is Lord.
Rich Birch — Love it. Nice.
Brian Tome — Okay. That is that is the most important thing. But…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Brian Tome — …I would encourage I would encourage people, look, hey, fulfill your ministry. Your ministry.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Brian Tome — Cover bands don’t change the world.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Brian Tome — You’ve got you’ve got to learn your instrument by playing cover man cover band tunes, but if you want to change the world, you got to start writing your own stuff and doing something and it hasn’t been seen before. We need more people doing that. And seminaries aren’t preparing people for that. And the megachurch culture isn’t even encouraging people to do that. But we need more people who are doing their ministry, fulfilling it and finding it.
Rich Birch — Love it. Well, thanks so much, Brian. Again, I would want to get people to check out mancamp.us. Is there anywhere else online we want to send people as we wrap up today’s episode?
Brian Tome — If you want to do a deeper dive, you can go to briantome.com. And, if you want to see my day job, it’s Crossroads.net.
Rich Birch — That’s great. Thanks so much. Thanks for being here today, Brian.
Brian Tome — My pleasure Rich. Thanks for having me. A huge fan of what you’ve done and how you’re serving people. Really, really great, man. So I’m honored to be able to spend some time with you.
Thanks for tuning in for the unSeminary podcast. Today, we have repeat guest, Nick Blevins, the Children and Student Team Leader at Community Christian Church in Maryland. He is also the cofounder of Ministry Boost which helps leaders fast forward their growth in ministry through training, coaching, and consulting.
Every church out there could use more volunteers. How can we recruit them consistently, not only when there’s an urgent need? Tune in as Nick offers a proven framework to help your church recruit, train, and empower more volunteers.
- Take time for recruitment. // Most church leaders don’t learn volunteer recruiting in seminary, have a strategy for it, and don’t spend much time doing it. Yet volunteers are the backbone of our churches. Nick has written a book called “The Volunteer Playbook: A Proven Framework to Help Your Church Recruit, Train, and Empower More Volunteers” which provides a structured approach to building your volunteer team. He recommends taking 2-3 hours a week to get started with this process.
- Five-part framework. // The first step in the framework involves identifying and making initial contact with potential volunteers. Think about how many volunteers you need and multiply the number by ten. This is the number of prospects you need, or your volunteer conversion ratio. For example, if you need 50 volunteers, you’ll need to look at 500 prospects.
- Identify prospects. // Use your updated church database to identify individuals who are not currently serving but could be potential volunteers. Nick recommends sending two emails and a text message over a span of three to four weeks. The initial email should invite prospects to a conversation, allowing them to share their stories and experiences with the church. Remember many potential volunteers may need a gentle nudge to engage. This process is about building connections.
- Have a conversation. // Once you’ve identified prospects, the second step is to have a genuine conversation. The framework is not just about recruiting, but about ministering to people. Put your pastor hat on and think about what someone’s next best step is. Listen to what is going on in their lives. Volunteering may not be the next best step right now, but what other connections can you make, or steps can you help them take?
- Cast vision. // The third step, orientation, serves as a bridge between initial interest and commitment. Orientation isn’t about policies and boring handbooks, but rather gives potential volunteers the opportunity to learn about the ministry, its impact, and the specific roles available. Cast a compelling vision during orientation and help potential volunteers understand why they should say yes to serving.
- Onboarding and placement. // Once individuals have committed to serving, the last two steps involve onboarding and placement. These steps are essential for ensuring volunteers feel supported and equipped in their roles. If you onboard and train well, then volunteers get placed and serve well, and that sets up good retention. Have new volunteers apprentice with experienced ones for a few weeks. This mentorship approach allows new volunteers to learn the ropes in a supportive environment, increasing their confidence and commitment to the role.
- Build a foundation. // Once you have your volunteers in place, then you can focus on building your foundation. Creating a culture of volunteerism within the church is crucial for long-term success. Focus on structuring for growth and empowering your volunteers. Identify the things that will move the needle and boost future recruitment.
You can pick up a copy of Nick’s book at www.volunteerplaybook.com and find out more about Nick at www.nickblevins.com.
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. We’ve got a repeat guest which is, you know when with that happens that we’ve got good things coming. Today we’ve got Nick Blevins with us. He is he serves currently as the children and student team leader at Community Christian in Maryland. He’s also the co-founder of a great organization called Ministry Boost. He started it with two friends of his, Kenny and Kevin, and where they help leaders fast forward their growth in ministry through courses, training, coaching, consulting. I I just think the world of Nick, think the world of what he does. He is in the corner of church leaders. Friends, like I say this totally honestly, there’s folks like Nick who are selling things who I think are just trying to sell things, but Nick’s not one of those guys. He actually wants to help you. So I’m honored to have Nick on the show today. Welcome, Nick – so glad you’re here.
Nick Blevins — Hey, Rich. Thanks for having me. That’s quite the intro there. Because I got to say you I mean you know you’ve actually helped my church far more than I’ve ever helped you. We still refer to like the way you helped us with our guests and assimilation and kind of like our whole re- kinda we basically redid it years ago. I mean it’s been so good ever since. And so thank you, I um, appreciate your podcast and your writing, and everything you do.
Rich Birch — Nice. So glad it’s fun to connect a little bit in chat today. But kind of fill out the picture, tell us a little bit about you, just kind of fill out the Nick Blevins story a little bit, and the details there that I didn’t catch.
Nick Blevins — Yeah, yeah, sure. I’ve only been in two churches my whole life. I grew up going to church but was in one church until I thought I’d attend church my whole life. I went to school for information systems management, thought I’d be a you know volunteer that gives lots of time and always love the church, but didn’t think I’d work for the church until my young 20s, and felt like you know what? Maybe this is where God’s calling me.
Nick Blevins — But we wanted to be part of a new church. We felt like where I live north of Baltimore, Maryland we needed a lot of churches. We still need a lot of churches, Rich. It’s kind of like Canada; it’s it’s all over the northeast…
Rich Birch — So true. Yeah.
Nick Blevins — …and northwest. And we heard of a new church starting and I jumped on board as the Kids’ Pastor. It’s been 18 years now, I lead kids, I lead our next gen and our operations. I joke that I approve my own budgets, but that’s not really true. Um, but it is two fun worlds to live in, right?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Nick Blevins — Kids, student ministry, operations with building budget finance. And then like you said we started ministry boost. We have online courses and coaching, primarily for next gen leaders.
Nick Blevins — And then I also work with Slingshot Group, helping churches hire next gen staff, which has been fun.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Nick Blevins — So I love doing lots of things to help the church – that’s kind of my heart and passion and I’m I’m glad, you know, God led me here so many years ago.
Rich Birch — Nice. Well for folks that are longtime listeners, you know that I don’t really love to just there’s lots of people that reach out and say, oh I’ve got a book. And we turn down probably for everyone that someone that says yes they send us something, we probably turn down 15 or 20, like we turned down the vast majority of them. But Nick actually he’s got a book and I’ve wanted to have him come on. And so the fact that here we are a year later, ah you know, I’m just so honored that we’ve have you here. You got a book that came out last year called “The Volunteer Playbook: A Proven Framework to Help Your Church Recruit, Train and Empower More Volunteers” and I want to talk about that today. This is such an important topic. Kind of set this up. What led you to the place where you’re like, hey, now’s the time. We got to pull this together, got to pull this playbook together. What kind of got you in that in that when you were back working on this project?
Nick Blevins — Well, that’s a good question, Rich, because it actually took me 10 years to write. But that’s because I’m an awful writer, I’m not the most disciplined worker.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Nick Blevins — And so and and ten years ago my thought was, I’ve learned so much from so many other people about recruiting. Because like very little in the book, Rich, is me or my ideas, or my thoughts.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Nick Blevins — I mean like literally maybe 3%. But I learned so much from other people that I thought was helpful and was working and I’d seen it work in other churches. What if I could put it together in a playbook of sorts, like almost ordered. You know do this first, and do this.
Nick Blevins — And and then there’s so many things that impact volunteerism, right? Both positively and negatively. Like how how can we address a bunch or at least the most important ones. And so that was the idea. And then finally it took some some big time accountability for me to get it finished ah last year.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Nick Blevins — Which I could share that story. But essentially I had to deliver a chapter every week to the editor or else I owed money that I wasn’t going to get back. That was the agreement I set up.
Rich Birch — Oh nice.
Nick Blevins — And it worked, it worked. I didn’t have the money. So I finally wrote it um, which is great.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Nick Blevins — And my whole goal was like let’s take this stuff that we’re doing with churches, that we I do in my church, we just did it—I told you about that before we hit record…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Nick Blevins — …and put in a book that hopefully would help, you know, so many people get access to it. Because books are cheap…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Nick Blevins — …relatively speaking.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. I love it. Well there’s a ton we could talk about in here. And and, friends, the punchline in this: I think you should pick up a copy, go to Amazon, grab a copy. Go to nickblevins.com, pick up a copy. Um, but I want to try to leverage the fact that you’re here for this half an hour or so and there’s ah, part of this book that I think is particularly helpful, literally for everybody. Every every church I know out there, um, whether you think you need more volunteers or not. Like whether you feel the pain or not, you do like your your church needs more.
Rich Birch — And so you talk about this kind of five-part ah framework to recruit volunteers more consistently. I’d love to unpack that. What’s some of the low hanging fruit? You know you’re into a lot of churches. You’re talking to a lot of churches. Let’s assume I’m a church of, I don’t know 1500 people, I’m the executive pastor. And what’s the advice you find yourself giving those churches all the time around ah recruiting, particularly.
Nick Blevins — Yeah I mean, when we whenever I talk about this, before I hit the 5-part framework, which I would consider that to be like in the weeds. That’s like on-the-ground, nuts-and-bolts how to recruit. Kind of like 10,000 foot level…
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Nick Blevins — …is most leaders don’t spend enough time recruiting, or have any type of strategy.
Rich Birch — Right.
Nick Blevins — Ah, your your podcast is a great ah example of this. Like nobody learns volunteer recruiting in seminary…
Rich Birch — Yes, true.
Nick Blevins — …at least not when I ask.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Nick Blevins — You know when we teach when we teach this in like a conference breakout or with a church, we’ll say, how many of you learned how to recruit, like somebody taught you how to recruit volunteers? And typically, I don’t know like 2 or 3 out of people out of a hundred might raise their hand. You know most people didn’t learn this, so they have no strategy for it. And and ah the other question we’ll ask is be honest, how much time do you spend a week recruiting volunteers? And you could probably guess the most common answer is zero hours.
Rich Birch — Zero. Yeah, yes.
Nick Blevins — One a guy one time at one of the times we were doing this in a workshop um, we asked them to hold up their hands and show how many hours, with their eyes closed. So nobody’s boss is looking at them. And this guy had half a finger. He held off like you know, not a whole one hour…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nick Blevins — …like a half hour a week is like…
Rich Birch — 20 minutes.
Nick Blevins — …that’s great. Ah, it’s very honest. And every now and then you know you’ll see a handful of people say two, three hours. But most of us if we’re honest, it’s like, yeah, I don’t. I mean I probably spend 10 hours a year. And then you need them, when it’s Sunday or Wednesday night or whenever your ministry is meeting.
Rich Birch — Right. You feel the pressure, and it’s like oh my goodness. Yeah.
Nick Blevins — Yeah, you do. Yes and then you go back and the pressure’s off again. You know it’s like that next meeting or that curriculum to write, or that message. And so that’s the the principle mostly is if you could give it the time, and we recommend I would recommend starting out, especially 2 to 4 hours a week.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Nick Blevins — Because you’re probably going to build some of the things we’re going to talk about in the framework. Maybe even more than that. Maybe 8 hours a week if you’re really building some of these other pieces. Which a lot of people listening are like, wow, 8 hours a week. I don’t know if I have that time. But it’s like, if you want a full volunteer team. And it’s not 8 hours a week forever.
Rich Birch — Right.
Nick Blevins — You’re like there’s ah, there’s a benefit where eventually it’s maybe 2 hours a week on maintenance mode. And you use a strategy. You know you can you can see success.
Nick Blevins — So we put together the five-part framework. It’s really just a way to think about somebody in your church. You said the church at 1500. Imagine those people that are attending. They’re involved. I don’t know if they’re attending once a month or once a week or whatever. Maybe they’re in a…
Rich Birch — Yes, who knows. Yeah.
Nick Blevins — Yeah, maybe they’re in a small group. Maybe they’re not. But they call your church home. They attend.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Nick Blevins — What are the steps to take them from there to serving on a team? And it’s you know as we broke it down to 5 steps, 5 parts. And and I say you could make you can change it make it 6, make it 3. Don’t make it 24, like nobody’s following that, you know I mean?
Rich Birch — Yes, nobody’s going to do that. Yep.
Nick Blevins — But you know have your steps that that you can follow. And so for ah for us our framework that we teach – the first part is prospects.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Nick Blevins — People that aren’t serving that could be serving.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Nick Blevins — And for me the way I define it is anybody who’s not currently serving. Like I don’t want to go recruit you know the volunteers who are already serving over here in Student Ministry or whatever.
Rich Birch — Yes, get him to come into our thing.
Nick Blevins — All the churches certainly do that.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Nick Blevins — Um, but you know who are the all the people that aren’t currently serving? They are prospects. Now you haven’t vetted them yet. Like you don’t know if they’re a fit, if they’re interested. But they’re prospects. And this is the number that probably shocks people the most, Rich, and I think you’ll appreciate this as a numbers guy. We recommend that you figure out how many volunteers you need to recruit, which that’s another problem. Sure a lot of leaders don’t even know how many.
Rich Birch — Yeah, right.
Nick Blevins — Like how many how many volunteers do you need? A lot. Like exactly. How many? Ah whole a whole lot.
Rich Birch — A lot. Yes. More.
Nick Blevins — Yeah, yeah. More. You have to know how many. You know you got to clarify the need to figure out how many do I need.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Nick Blevins — But let’s say in that church of 1500, I’m a ministry leader, I’ve got a team of 50 volunteers, but I want a hundred. Like I’m 50 short which, would be a lot.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you’d notice it.
Nick Blevins — I mean you’d be really in in desperate mode there if you only have the volunteers. Well if you need 50 volunteers, we have a thing that we call the VCR. Not the old video device that some of us of a certain age are used to using.
Rich Birch — Yes, remember.
Nick Blevins — But yeah, we call it the volunteer conversion ratio. And we recommend that it’s 10X…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Nick Blevins — …meaning if you need 50 volunteers, you need 10 times that number of prospects: 500 prospects, right?
Rich Birch — Wow.
Nick Blevins — Yeah, and a lot of people that’s their response, which I get.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s a lot.
Nick Blevins — It is a lot.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And a lot of people like your church of 1500 is a good example. Rich, and I’d love to ask you this I would like to get your thoughts. In a church of 1500, average attendance, how many people do you think really call that church home? Like they show up at Easter and Christmas or, you know what I’m saying? Like what’s the total number of active attenders?
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s well a lot lots of lead pastors love this number and live by this number. They’re like oh they, you know they’re they’re averaging 1500, but they’re like you know we’re really a church of three thousand or four thousand or something like that.
Nick Blevins — Yeah, yeah.
Rich Birch — And and some of that can be true. You know I think it’s probably you know it’s probably in that range 2500/3000 doubling…
Nick Blevins — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …is probably you know, we see that. The the number I’ve talked about in the past on that is you know on those big days, you should be seeing double attendance…
Nick Blevins — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …so Easter, Christmas. And and that’s us that that community is people that are within like you don’t have to do Facebook ads to get those people. They’ve already arrived.
Nick Blevins — Yes, true.
Rich Birch — They’re connected to your church. And so I would say whatever the size of however many people came at Easter last year is a good starting point for you to think about, okay that that’s probably the size of our community.
Nick Blevins — Yeah, and I would agree with you – I think it’s 2X to 3X…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Nick Blevins — …depending on the church, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Nick Blevins — So that church of 1500 would have 3000, not usually, I wouldn’t usually see 4500, but let’s call it 3000.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Nick Blevins — So when you think of 500 prospects are there 500 prospects in a church of 3000? For sure.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Nick Blevins — That aren’t serving? 100%.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Nick Blevins — Yeah, I mean like your church could have really good volunteer numbers and you have at least 500. And every now and then ah you know somebody will say I’m in a church of 120, ah I need 10 volunteers. You’re telling me to get 100 prospects from a church that averages 120. It so it’s like it’s it’s not exactly a one size fits all. It’s just that what we have found is most church leaders reach out to far too few people.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Nick Blevins — Like they they need that 50 volunteers, like that number I said…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Nick Blevins — …and they’re thinking I need to contact 50 people.
Rich Birch — Who are the 50 people.
Nick Blevins — Well that’s just not going to work.
Rich Birch — No. Yeah.
Nick Blevins — Yeah, I mean so many of them aren’t even going to reply to you. So many of them are going to say no. So we say 10X. It might be different. It might be 8, whatever. But I actually I used to teach it as 4.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Nick Blevins — But what I learned was church leaders wouldn’t get even four…
Rich Birch — Right, right, right.
Nick Blevins — …so I raised it feel like I graded on a curve…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Nick Blevins — So it’s like okay, let’s increase it to 10 and maybe you’ll least get 4.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Nick Blevins — And so that’s the first step is just making your list of prospects and it can literally be a database search. A church database search of who’s not serving
Rich Birch — People who are not serving.
Nick Blevins — Yeah. And you can either whittle it down if you want, or segment it by, you know, these are parents or these people have been active in the last six months. I mean you could do whatever you want there. And that’s you know that’s another problem church leaders face is most of them don’t have an updated database. You know that’s that’s a chronic thing.
Rich Birch — Database. Yeah yeah, yeah, totally, yeah.
Nick Blevins — But that’s the easiest way to do it is figure out who’s not serving and that can be your prospects. And then after that the whole our whole thing that we teach is you reach out to them. And I like to send two emails and a text over a span of 3 to 4 weeks.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Nick Blevins — So I would email you, Rich…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Nick Blevins — …and like and I wouldn’t even know you. If I knew you I’d send a different email.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Nick Blevins — But if I didn’t know you, it could be a mass email too that’s merged. And it’s like, Hey Rich, I’m Nick one of the pastors on staff here at CCC. I was wondering if you’d have 15 minutes to talk before or after a service one Sunday. I’d love to hear your story, how you got connected here, and what it’s been like so far. You got time in the next couple weeks? And I’d send send the email. And then I would do that to, like if I was recruiting 50 volunteers which is a lot…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Nick Blevins — …um I would send that to 500 people. So imagine that, 500 automated emails you know going out.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Nick Blevins — But I’d merge I’d merge names – it’d say “Hey Rich”, you know.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nick Blevins — Some people would respond. And I’d start setting up meetings. And some people won’t and I’ll email them next week, you know, kind of a reply.
Rich Birch — Okay. I see what you’re saying. Yeah.
Nick Blevins — And ah I like to do a little hack too where I kind of put the reply in and make it look like it’s a reply to the original, even through an automated thing. Like I will go.
Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. I Love it. I Love it. Yes.
Nick Blevins — Yeah I’ll remerge it. Like at the bottom it’ll say “hey
Rich Birch — Yep.
Nick Blevins — So even if you merge their name, they know. And so they’re going to a lot of times ignore that first one. But then that second one it’s like, oh Nick’s paying attention.
Rich Birch — Grabs their attention.
Nick Blevins — Yeah, like ah he noticed I didn’t respond. And then I’ll text the third or fourth week, but only if I don’t have enough people responding already…
Rich Birch — Right.
Nick Blevins — …if that makes sense. Like that’s kind of like my last resort.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that makes total sense. Well and I think the thing to underline there, and I’ve seen this… so this is going to sound like a bragging kind of thing. It’s not trying to… But when um so I’ve done a lot of multisite launches over the years—thirteen of them—and directly recruited 1500 volunteers for all of those. And the one of the things I learned through all of that was that second step of following up with people, I think way too many church leaders they do the initial ask, and then they don’t actually follow up with the people that they don’t hear from. They don’t…
Nick Blevins — Yeah.
Rich Birch — I don’t know why that is. It’s like you’re like you feel bad or you’re like oh I don’t want to bother them or whatever. But it’s amazing how many people just in the follow-up will be like, oh yeah, absolutely. I’d love to get connected. Let’s let’s let’s grab a coffee.
Rich Birch — So now you in the first step you’re going immediately to let’s get face-to-face. Like you’re, you know, like let’s let’s try to… Why that? Why first to like, you know, the relational…
Nick Blevins — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …let’s grab a coffee after church on Sunday kind of thing?
Nick Blevins — Good question because there is a shortcut method, which I can mention later. I prefer this method, if you have the time, either individually or as a whole staff or whatever. And mainly because what I like about it is the second step is conversation. So first step was prospects. You know they could serve. You may or may not know them. The next step is when they’ve responded to your communication. Now they’re in conversation with you. And that could literally just be that reply to email, or reply to a text. Like you haven’t actually had the conversation yet…
Rich Birch — Right.
Nick Blevins — …but here’s where you do. And the reason I like this method, Rich, is because the way I say it is, in this moment, you pastor those people.
Rich Birch — Right.
Nick Blevins — Like it’s not just about recruiting. In fact, the thing you’re asking yourself while you’re talking with them, like if I was talking with you and meeting you for the first time, in my mind I’m thinking what is Rich’s best next step in faith?
Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good.
Nick Blevins — Not and I’d love for him to serve in my ministry – that’d be great if that’s the fit. But what’s Rich’s best next step. And so in that moment I put my pastor hat on, and again always say it doesn’t matter if pastor is your title or not or not. In this moment we’re all ministering to people. And you know it might be serving in your ministry and that’s great, and you’ll keep moving them forward in the the framework. But if it’s, I mean I think of a guy I talked to a couple years ago, where he had moved to our state probably a year before. He had just lost his job. He told me about how he had been in prison about ten years ago.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Nick Blevins — Ah he had 3 kids. And so the urgent thing in his life is getting a job and you know…. And so I’m thinking at the end of the call I’m like serving is probably not his best next step. But I know a guy who works in the same industry he just worked in. And that guy also leads a great group at our church. I’m gonna get him connected to John.
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Nick Blevins — John’s gonna be great for him. So sometimes, and then sometimes you talk to somebody, I talked to a guy, he actually is a my small group, his name’s Kyle. We do these volunteer tours which I can mention later. And Kyle did one about serving. And at the end of the tour Kyle says, Ah he either wants to serve in pre-teen ministry, which would be in my world, or worship arts because he can play some instruments. And I was like well dang it, I really want you in pre-teen ministry. We need we literally need some guys in pre-teen ministry right now.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Nick Blevins — But not everybody can play instruments.
Rich Birch — Right..
Nick Blevins — Not everybody has that skill.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Nick Blevins — So let me connect you with Andrew, our worship arts pastor. And sure enough he did. And then Kyle actually played for the first time about seven weeks ago…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Nick Blevins — …played again three weeks ago. It’s so cool.
Rich Birch — That is cool.
Nick Blevins — And I miss that he’s not in pre-teen, but that’s an example of like the conversation helps me figure out what what is your best next step. So it does take longer.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Nick Blevins — That’s the downside is I mean you know if you were doing this if we were using our number of 50 volunteers, I’m contacting 500 people.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Nick Blevins — If it works, I’m having 60 to 70 conversations over the span of a few months. It’s a lot.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, yeah.
Nick Blevins — Now most churches 50 is a large number.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Nick Blevins — A lot of churches don’t have to recruit 50 volunteers by themselves.
Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, yeah.
Nick Blevins — Like one person, you know what I mean? Um, so yeah, you do that and you get those conversations going, and hopefully this goes back to the the VCR number, the 10X. Hopefully you’ve got 70-ish people that responded from the 500.
Rich Birch — Okay, yep, yep.
Nick Blevins — And that’s why it’s 10X.
Rich Birch — Right.
Nick Blevins — Because 430 people may never write you back.
Rich Birch — Yes, Yes, Yes, yes.
Nick Blevins — You know what I mean? So it’s kind of like it’s only 10X because you know so many people are just going to not reply. Um I’ve had people, um, actually this is another real story recently, where I contact a couple that I know. They live, I’m pointing on my camera here, they live through the woods right over there.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Nick Blevins — Um, they’re a great great couple. And I was recruiting them like specifically, like this wasn’t even a mass thing. And they never replied to any of my three emails. It was a way it was a soft way for them to say no.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Nick Blevins — And I could tell it was even awkward when I’d see ’em in person. You know it’s almost like can they look at me, you know?
Rich Birch — Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nick Blevins — And I want to be the guy that’s like I want to be bold enough to push you to take the kind of steps that I feel like we should all take.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Nick Blevins — Like we’re not selling time shares…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Nick Blevins — …so I want to be bold.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Nick Blevins — But at the same time if the answer’s no, the answer is no, you know?
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s fine. Yes.
Nick Blevins — So I think a ton of people just aren’t gonna reply – that’s their way of saying no without you know getting into it, like the awkwardness of it.
Nick Blevins — But now you have these 70 that you’re working with, and again if your church think your church is 150, maybe it’s seven, seven people. And now they’re in conversation with you.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Nick Blevins — And the next step is what we call orientation.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Nick Blevins — It’s a little confusing because I feel like orientation usually means like I just started a job. It’s my new orientation.
Rich Birch — Right.
Nick Blevins — We treat it more like the sales pitch.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Nick Blevins — It’s not it’s not policies and boring handbooks, you know. Save that for after they say yes
Rich Birch — Yes.
Nick Blevins — It’s it’s here’s why you should say us to serving in this ministry.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Nick Blevins — Here’s why you should give two two to three hours a night on Sunday nights with our students for the next 3 years, maybe 7, you know what I mean?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Nick Blevins — Or you know an hour a week with our third graders ah you know playing in a band once a month. And you just cast vision and tell stories at that orientation, and and get them the whole goal get them to say yes to serving.
Rich Birch — Yeah, we’ve…
Nick Blevins — And so this oh go… I was gonna say the first 3 steps are really the core of the whole framework. You know you’re just getting people from you don’t know them, to now we’re talking, to now I’ve said yes to an orientation.
Rich Birch — Yeah. I love that. A couple things to underline. I love the focus on conversations because I do I do think that the conversations, you know, lead to relationship. And and that you know ultimately leads to them taking some sort of step. I love the focus on, hey we you know we’re I’m trying to help you find your next step, not necessarily into this. You know obviously you know I need to fill my issues. But I you know we should be caring for people more where they’re at.
Rich Birch — You know we we’ve called that orientation step “shadow serve” in other environments where we deliberately say to people like, hey you’re gonna come and um, we’d love for you to just actually see it. Like you’ll you know whether it says you say you’re coming on the greeting team, like you’re going to spend Sunday morning with a team member and you’re gonna get a chance to see 3 or 4 different roles. But this is before they’ve even committed. It’s like we’re not asking you… this is you haven’t said yes yet, you’ve just it’s it’s kind of an information step.
Rich Birch — Um, why do I think there are churches that that skip that step and jump too quickly to like okay, let’s get you on a schedule. Let’s get you signed up.
Nick Blevins — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Why is that kind of orientation step an important piece of the puzzle do you think, Nick?
Nick Blevins — Oh good question. I think well you alluded to it. It’s a big step. So if I imagine me talking to, like pretend like Kyle did want to serve in pre-teen, or let’s say Kyle wanted to serve in student ministry. We really do want our student small group leaders to serve with a group of kids—let’s call it sixth grade guys—for at least 3 years: sixth, seventh, eighth.
Yeah.
Nick Blevins — Maybe all the way through twelfth.
Rich Birch — Right.
Nick Blevins — That’s two that’s three hours of the night on Sunday nights during the school year…
Rich Birch — Right.
Nick Blevins — …plus trips and retreats retreats. I mean that is the biggest ask.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s a big ask.
Nick Blevins — Now that’s, you know, there’s other smaller ones. Let’s say it’s every other week in some role for an hour. It’s a smaller ask. It’s still a big step from like I’ve never served maybe in a church to that. And so the way I say it is, there’s something in marketing, I’m sure you’re familiar with this called “the yes ladder”.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Nick Blevins — And it’s the idea that in marketing they try to get you to say yes to one small thing before yes to the next thing, before that… You know, it’s a small steps on a ladder as opposed to the big jump of, hey, buy this boat. I don’t know whatever whatever it is. So I don’t know what the boat store does, but maybe they’re like, you know, here download this PDF about you know scams to avoid in boats.
Rich Birch — Yeah, sure.
Nick Blevins — And then come in for a visit and drive one. Like and of course again, we’re not selling boats or anything like that. I think you know serving is a huge part of discipleship. So I want to make the steps as simple and easy as possible. And so an orientation saying yes to that, like you said, where there’s no commitment yet, way easier than yes, let me give, you know, 3 years of my life away.
Rich Birch — Right.
Nick Blevins — And I just think you’ll get people, especially if you can get them there, one of the secrets of the orientation is if you do it well, most people do say yes.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah.
Nick Blevins — Because by the time they got there, they’re warmed up. And then you tell him like I tell stories about Keith in our church. Keith has probably baptized at least thirty fourth and fifth grade boys. At least. Because he’s been a fourth fifth grade small group really for multiple decades.
Rich Birch — Right.
Nick Blevins — I think of Shannon who’s a small group leader that’s had, you know, kids in kindergarten and right now she’s got a group of ninth grade girls. Um, she shows up at their soccer games. She gets prints like big pictures of their face, you know, like these huge like and it holds them on the sideline to embarrass them.
Rich Birch — So well.
Nick Blevins — Ah I tell stories about Shannon because it’s like think about the difference Shannon’s making in these kids lives.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool.
Nick Blevins — I literally just joked with Shannon a few weeks ago. My our oldest daughter is 8 and I was doing the math and I was like, Shannon, you’re gonna be finished with your girls in twelfth grade the same year my daughter goes in sixth. I think you should come back around.
Rich Birch — Another seven!
Nick Blevins — I will pay you to be my kids small group leader. You know I’m just kidding.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nick Blevins — But anyway, and then you know we all have volunteers like that who just… So I think you just cast a vision for like, man, this is why this matters.
Rich Birch —Yeah.
Nick Blevins — Like you’ve got 83 priorities in your life. We’re not asking you to make this 84. We are asking you to make this number 4 or 5, which is a big deal.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Nick Blevins — But here’s why you should do it. Here’s why you should do it.
Rich Birch — Yeah, talk, talk to us about that. Because I’ve the people who I’ve seen that are really good at recruiting um, they’re ah good at doing exactly what you’re talking about, which is not lowering the bar. It’s actually raising the bar. It’s not saying, hey we’re gonna, all I need you to do is just… all I need you.
Nick Blevins — Yeah.
Rich Birch — It’s like no, like you’re going to change the world, and let me show you how that’s going to be. Um, talk to us about that. Like I think we we feel it can it can be, but we can believe this lie that like if we just make it real easy for people, more people, like when they actually get to what they’re serving, more people will come in. But that’s not actually true. Talk to us about that.
Nick Blevins — Yeah, and you you could get more people serving and then they’re not the people you want.
Rich Birch — Yes, good call. Good call.
Nick Blevins — And you know with a culture of low commitment and low turnout.
Rich Birch — Yep, yeah.
Nick Blevins — Yeah, I think, I mean my mentor Jim Wideman was big on this. He could recruit, literally Jim has recruited people off the street to serve who don’t even go to the church.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Nick Blevins — Like so Jim was the ultimate like that kind of recruiter.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Nick Blevins — Most of us are not that person. I’m not that person. But with this system I don’t feel bad at all, calling you to something bigger. Because I think deep inside all of us, you know we want our lives to matter. But the problem is we’re all spinning so many plates. And so you just need somebody to come along and say, here’s why you should drop some of those plates and pick up this one.
Rich Birch — Right.
Nick Blevins — And and you got to make the case that this is why this matters both for your faith. Is the church going to be fine without you? Probably. Aways has been. It’s God’s church. But will will you look back, you know, a year from now, three years from now…
Rich Birch — Man, so true.
Nick Blevins — …after serving in this role and regret it? No, you will thank me, even though this is a ah, huge commitment. So I think and then that’s what you want to raise the bar because that creates then the standard and the culture.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Nick Blevins — Um I think of like my elementary director years ago. Um, you know we have weekly volunteers as the commitment in our our elementary ministry, and most of our kids all of our kids in student ministries really, but especially if you’re leading a group of kids or students. And one of the moms who they’d been attending for a while, she had two boys, she wanted to serve as a small group leader in elementary, but she only wanted to do every other week. And it was almost like the standoff between her and our elementary director, like no that I’m sorry but the commitment’s weekly. And my elementary director wanted to cave and say yes…
Rich Birch — Right.
Nick Blevins — …because she liked this lady a lot.
Rich Birch — Yeah, great person and all that kind of stuff. Yeah.
Nick Blevins — Uh-huh. Yeah, you know, she wasn’t just a warm body with a pulse or whatever, you know I mean like she was great. And so she knew but she stood strong and she held her ground and she said um, you know we could find some other roles, you know…
Rich Birch — Right.
Nick Blevins — …but this one is weekly. And that lady ah, said all right. Yeah, sorry I’m not gonna be able to do it. And she left she walked back in like 5 minutes later, and she goes, all right I’m gonna do it. This has been so good for my boys. I’m gonna do it.
Rich Birch — Ah, that’s great.
Nick Blevins — And so as part is like Lisa just had to hold her ground. And then she did she did that for years. And and then, you know, it doesn’t always work out like that. A lot of people say no.
Rich Birch — Right
Nick Blevins — You know they they don’t rise to that level…
Rich Birch — Right.
Nick Blevins — …of the commitment, but some do. And that’s those are the ones you want, right? You have enough of those leaders and you’ve got the kind of volunteer team you want to have.
Rich Birch — Love it. Well what what are the others, so we’ve got up through orientation.
Nick Blevins — Orientation.
Rich Birch — What are the last two steps?
Nick Blevins — Yeah, and those are the easiest because at that point at orientation, hopefully…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Nick Blevins — …they’ve said yes.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Nick Blevins — And the way I say it is probably 90 to 95% of people that come to orientation should should say yes.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yep.
Nick Blevins — And that’s true if it’s a churchwide volunteer orientation, or even just your ministry.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Nick Blevins — Because at that point you’ve already decided this might be their best next step, right? You’ve filtered that out, and you are starting to do some vetting. So people that don’t make it here. There might be something questionable about them. And you got to be careful about that that might be a reason they don’t make it, but most of them will make it.
Nick Blevins — And then the last two steps are just onboarding and placed. And we can skip over these but we really shouldn’t because to me these two determine how long they serve.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Nick Blevins — Like if you onboard well and train well, then they serve and they get placed and they get help and you meet with them, and you know get feedback and how are they doing. Like if you do all that well, I just feel like it sets up good retention.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Nick Blevins — Versus if they just get thrown in there I mean we we all probably experienced that on one side or the other…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Nick Blevins — …where you just show up and it’s like, what am I supposed to be doing?
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, so true.
Nick Blevins — Or maybe you’ve done that to a volunteer.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Nick Blevins — I’ve certainly done that to a volunteer. And that’s you know, sometimes they don’t survive that. You know, that they’re like oh I got to get out of here. So.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Nick Blevins — The last two steps, I get it. They’re the easiest in some ways, but you got to be careful not to just make them too short and do too little. Like you got to interview well, gotta to vet people. Well I mean think about protecting you know, especially if you’re in kids or student ministry.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so true.
Nick Blevins — And then you kind of play some well like you mentioned the shadow thing as an observation. We’ve done that too. The other thing I love is if you can get new volunteers to apprentice with existing volunteers for like four weeks.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, love that. Yep.
Nick Blevins — And I’d rather, if I had to, I’d rather leave a group empty without a leader and just make it work for four weeks so the new leader can apprentice, then to throw them in by themselves, you know.
Rich Birch — Yeah, so true.
Nick Blevins — And you know, in any example, you can put that in. I just think it helps, you know, train them up and set them up well for the long run.
Rich Birch — Well and that’s respecting, you know, respecting the leader, the the new volunteer well. It’s like hey ah we want to, you know, it’s not just that we want you to fill a slot. We say that, hey we don’t want you just to fill a slot, but the way that we prove that is when they finally say, Yes, we don’t just slot them in. We actually, you know, have a way to kind of process them and onboard them, do some training, give them some exposure, answer questions, and then ask the feedback. Hey is this, would you think now that we’ve done all this, do you think this is still good?
Nick Blevins — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Or you know should we should we find something else and be okay with that? Of those 5 steps, where are churches dropping the ball most consistently? Is it way at the beginning like they’re just not even doing the asking, or is it maybe an onboarding, or where do you see? Or is it all 5 it’s just you know consistently we’re just not doing it.
Nick Blevins — Yeah I would actually say it’s I think it is the beginning.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Nick Blevins — Which I think is shocking, Rich. Because think about it…
Rich Birch — Right.
Nick Blevins — …of all the things we just talked about, what is the easiest? Putting 500 names on a list and sending an automated email.
Rich Birch — Right.
Nick Blevins — That is the easiest thing. Like we worked with a leader who did one of our courses online that has the same content. And in follow-up calls, you know, she told me, hey it’s it’s not working for me. I was like okay, let’s get under the hood. Let’s it’s not exactly magic, but let’s figure it out. And I said how many volunteers do you need to recruit and I think the number was something like 30. And I said how many prospects do you have? And she said 23. I’m like okay hold on.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, hold on. Time out.
Nick Blevins — Let’s go back to the beginning.
Rich Birch — This is how math works.
Nick Blevins — 30 volunteers times yeah times 10 equals 300. You have 23 that’s definitely not going to work. And what happened was what I didn’t know was her church did like a push from stage and she got 23 filled out a card.
Rich Birch — Yeah yeah.
Nick Blevins — I said, okay, here, let me reframe this a little before you. Because in my mind when you’re talking from stage everybody in the audience is a prospect who’s not serving.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Nick Blevins — The 23 that filled it out, they’re actually now in conversation. So that’s great. They’ve I mean, you know, now my experience of course is the hit rate on those is a lot lower. I’m sure you’ve seen that too.
Rich Birch — Lower. Yes, yes.
Nick Blevins — But still, they’re in conversation. You still need another, you know, whatever 200 and whatever the math is on that in there to get to your 300 prospect level. So I told her, let’s do that, and then let’s do another call in a month. So we come back and do the next call next month. How many do you got? 47. Like she’d added like very few.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Nick Blevins — And it turns out and it’s not all her fault. Part of it is it’s the classic example where the church didn’t have a great maintained church database. So it was not easy for her to just search for who’s not serving. I think she wasn’t sure if she could contact them. And it’s funny, Rich, how many times we run into that. We we coached a church, a very large church through this whole thing, taught their whole next gen team. We helped them kind of build the teams and the pieces of this whole framework. And then they came back and it it turns out at the same tim the campus pastors were meeting, creating a different strategy.
Rich Birch — Oh hilarious.
Nick Blevins — Basically a so a push from stage strategy.
Rich Birch — Yep yep.
Nick Blevins — Which I love. It’s great. Ah so they run in two different directions, and so this one took a back seat, which is fine. But it’s funny how many churches just in this early phase, I think is’s the easiest part of the whole thing.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Nick Blevins — And they just you just don’t contact enough people.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Nick Blevins — You like there the rest of it I mean the conversations doing the work. The orientation. Um, it’s definitely harder. But the people don’t miss the easiest thing…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Nick Blevins — …which I think makes the biggest difference.
Rich Birch — Well and we’ve seen, I’ve seen in other work I’ve done um, really as churches grow, as you get beyond the thousand, two thousand, three thousand – those that grow to that size get really clear around maintaining that contact information. And they they understand that that information is how we stay connected with people, and if people fall through the cracks there, that’s it’s not just like we’re losing data in a database. It’s like no, no like those are contacts that are could potentially fall out of relationship with our church, and all kinds of bad things can happen. And so we do have to get really good at that phase.
Rich Birch — I’ve also found too that there is like ah again, and I think some of it might be even a spiritual dynamic, I think the the leaders the churches that take the care of people in this way, like hey we’re going to try to contact five hundred people, hundred people, and I’ve got the names and I’m going to really diligently reach out to them and actually talk with them, and actually try to have those conversations. It’s like the Lord blesses that kind of activity, right? He’s like okay well these people are trying to care for the these. That’s a shepherd that’s trying to care for their sheep. And so like let’s make sure we send them some more sheep.
Nick Blevins — Yeah.
Rich Birch — You know because they’re ah, you know, they’re they’re caring for those people. Well we’ve obviously just scratched the surface of this. This has been fantastic I love that. I’ve got like a page of notes here are things to think about. And like oh we get ah to that’s a little different um, which is good.
Rich Birch — But what what else is covered? So this obviously just one piece of it. You talk about recruiting, training, empowering – what other kind of give us some of the the other big rocks that you’re you’re dealing with in the volunteer playbook that um, you know, that churches will find particularly helpful as they as they think about this as a resource they could potentially use?
Nick Blevins — Yeah, and I actually wrestled with the order of this book so many times, Rich, and then part of maybe that’s part of why it took me 10 years.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Nick Blevins — But because part of me like I wanted to write it like, hey let’s start and build the foundation.
Rich Birch — Right.
Nick Blevins — Let’s create a healthy, let’s get your mission, vision, strategy, values. Let’s get all your volunteer systems in place. But what I of course learned, you know, doing this with other church leaders was like they just need volunteers now.
Rich Birch — Right.
Nick Blevins — They can’t work on these other things without this in place.
Rich Birch — Right.
Nick Blevins — So I put this first in the book. And then it kind of shifts gears and you get into, Okay, let’s build your foundation. You know now that you’ve kind of plugged all the leaking holes on the ship…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Nick Blevins — …you have enough volunteers to spend time on other things um…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Nick Blevins — And which I mean that right there for a lot of leaders is like, you can have enough time to spend on other things? It’s like, yes, you can. You actually can. And so you know building that foundation of values and culture and mission/vision. What is that? Structuring for growth, I mean I know you’re big on this but the whole section of the book is dedicated to okay, now you have maybe you got your 50 volunteers. You have a hundred.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Nick Blevins — You can’t lead a hundred volunteers yourself. So how do you get, I call them coaches, but you know 10 coaches to each lead 10 people…
Rich Birch — Right. Love it.
Nick Blevins — …and build that out. You know and give ministry away to them. And then I finish with, and I’m sure a lot of people would love this section first, I finish with empowering them. So kind of like think just leading volunteers. But the last section is like boosts, almost like hacks. What are the things that, you know, kind of move the needle, sometimes quickly. Think of a push from stage. Um think of students serving…
Rich Birch — Right.
Nick Blevins — …removing some competition, like different things like that that, hey, if you need a big jump in recruiting volunteers, here are some hacks you can try. Can’t do them all the time. Can’t rely on these only, which I think a lot of churches do.
Rich Birch — Right. Okay.
Nick Blevins — I kind of put it at the en. It’s like please do some of the important work first, save save the one-offs you know for the end.
Rich Birch — Right. Love it.
Nick Blevins — And that’s that’s essentially the book right there, hoping to help people you know, recruit enough volunteers to get it, you know, sustainable and then make it really healthy.
Rich Birch — So good. Well, where do we want to, ah friends, listen I think this would be a great resource here. We are in the summertime. This would be a great resource to pick up with a team and say, hey let’s look at this over the summertime. Yeah, you know I know we don’t have like lots of extra time, but it’s like a different it’s a different kind of energy going on at our churches. What if we took some time to read this together, go through it together? It’s a great resource to do use as a team, pick up some things we could try, and to try to implement even this year at our church. But where do we want to send people if they want to pick up copies? What’s kind of the best place for that?
Nick Blevins — Ah, probably I mean it’s on Amazon. it’s where you get it but volunteerplaybook.com has a page on my site where we you can get some of the all the supplemental resources too.
Rich Birch — Yep, love it.
Nick Blevins — If you like if you someone likes audio books, you can buy the physical or the Kindle copy and then get an audio version free.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Nick Blevins — You’re gonna get two for one if you like that. And my biggest recommendation for especially if you are going to do this with other people on staff or with some volunteers, or even if you do it alone, is get accountability for it.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Nick Blevins — You know I was listening to a podcast the other day, Rich, about um, what was the stat something like 5 or 10% percent of people finish an online course.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Nick Blevins — And that saddens me, as a company that has courses to help leaders.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Nick Blevins — But it’s I’ve also so I’ve also seen it, you know, sadly on our end. So That’s why we like coaching more, but you know it takes more time and costs more money. So what my recommendation is either get with your a team and meet every every week, or every other week. And you’re just talking about where are people. Here’s who I’ve contacted, here’s where they go. Ah, my staff has done that many times – it’s been really really helpful.
Nick Blevins — Or if you’re by yourself, go to your boss and say, hey, please hold me accountable. Ask me every other week how my, you know, my framework is going, how many people I have in it. Because man what a shame if we learned about it, but didn’t actually do it.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Nick Blevins — We’d be back in the same place six months from now. You know like I need more volunteers.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Nick Blevins — And so volunteerplaybook.com has all that stuff.
Rich Birch — Love it. Well Nick, I really appreciate you being here today. Is there anywhere else we want to send people online? Obviously nickblevins.com, is there are other places we want to send people if they want to track with you or with the church that sort of thing?
Nick Blevins — Yeah, Ministry Boost is where we have all you know we have a lot of courses. It’s really geared towards next gen leaders, kids and youth pastors, and next gen pastors. But because half of our content or more is about volunteers, we get all kind of people that engage with that, from executive pastors to assimilation directors, and all those kinds of things.
Nick Blevins — And then um, yeah, if any church is looking to hire a kids or youth pastor, wants the Slingshot’s help, they can email me…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Nick Blevins — …might be able to help them out.
Rich Birch — It’s good. All right. Well thanks so much, Nick. Appreciate being here today. Cheering for you and I highly recommend folks reach out to Nick. He’s a great guy, has been in this for a while, and is super helpful when it comes to helping churches on these issues. So thanks so much thanks for being here today, sir.
Nick Blevins — You bet. Thank you, Rich.
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Kristin Flynn, the Outreach Director at Liquid Church in New Jersey. She leads the charge in both local and global outreach.
Putting our faith into action through loving service is an important part of following Jesus. So how do we help the people at our churches do this on a regular basis? Tune in as Kristin shares about the power of a few focused outreach initiatives, creative ways to engage your church, and cultivating long-lasting relationships with community partners.
- Limited focus. // At Liquid Church they’ve limited their outreach focus to three primary compassion initiatives locally: serving the hungry, serving the homeless, and making space and inclusion for the special needs community. Concentrating on specific areas allows for very strategic partnerships where they’ve been able to multiply their impact. At the same time, however, there is room on the campus level to expand service into some niche areas that address critical needs in specific neighborhoods.
- Collaboration, communication and flexibility. // There’s a tension to manage between different campus needs and the Liquid’s narrow outreach focus. Maintain open communication and collaboration between campus leaders and the central office. By fostering a culture of creativity and flexibility, unique campus initiatives can be integrated into the broader outreach strategy while staying aligned with the larger mission.
- Choose partners that work best. // By understanding the goals and needs of community organizations, Liquid Church can align its outreach efforts with their partners’ missions. Kristin encourages churches to start slow in a partnership, beginning with an exploratory conversation about what they’re doing currently, and what is their five-year plan and “wish list.” Start with a small group of volunteers serving with the organization and review their experience. Maintain open lines of communication with partners and volunteers, and implement regular feedback sessions to address any issues and improve future initiatives. As trust is built, you can expand the scope and depth of your partnership.
- Two types of outreach. // Liquid engages in two types of local outreaches: churchwide, evangelistic outreaches, and campus-specific, community outreaches. Large churchwide events, such as a Christmas outreach, include church-branded t-shirts, attract new people and create excitement. Meanwhile smaller campus-specific initiatives allow for deeper engagement and relationship-building with your neighbors.
- WASH Program. // Globally, Liquid Church partners with Living Water International to help with their WASH Program, providing Water Access, Sanitation, and Hygiene to communities around the world. In addition to working in countries like Rwanda and Zambia to provide clean water, Liquid keeps the community at home engaged in this mission through a variety of creative approaches. For example, they’ve opened a coffee shop which is run by adults with special needs and all proceeds go toward the clean water cause. In addition they’ve raised money and raised awareness about the global water crisis through a community 5K run. Use out-of-the-box ideas to both educate your community and fund outreach initiatives while keeping your church connected to the mission.
- Funding outreaches. // Liquid Church tithes 10% of its income, allocating these funds specifically for outreach efforts, both locally and globally. This commitment to tithing is a significant aspect of Liquid Church’s financial strategy and allows them to actively partner with other organizations throughout the year. In addition, they keep the congregation informed about specific ways their contributions are being used. Regular celebration encourages future generosity and generates excitement about the impact the church is having in its community.
You can learn more about Liquid Church at www.liquidchurch.com and connect with Kristin through email.
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Portable Church
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey, everybody, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. I’m really looking forward to today. You know every once in a while I get to bring on friends who I know like in the real world and expose you to them. And today is one of those days. You need to lean in. Turn off whatever you’re doing – if you’re cutting your lawn, stop cutting your lawn. You’re going to need a notepad. You’re going to lean lean in and listen. Today we’ve got Kristin Flynn with us. She is a part of the leadership team at Liquid Church. She’s the Outreach Director there, really really leading the charge in both local community outreach and global outreach, like clean water cause. Ah for folks that don’t know Liquid Church is one of the fastest growing churches in the country. About a month ago we had Lauren Bercarich on, if you remember that episode. Ah they have 7 campuses, if I can count correctly, in New Jersey, plus church online. Um this is a fantastic church, had an opportunity to be on the team there a number of years ago and got to work with Kristin and so honored that she’s on the podcast today. Welcome, Kristin.
Kristin Flynn — Thanks, Rich! Thanks so much for having me today. It’s great to be back and working with you and connecting. You definitely ah left your mark at Liquid. So thanks for having me here today.
Rich Birch — I don’t know if that’s a positive thing… that could not be positive.
Kristin Flynn — It is! No way!
Rich Birch — I’m just kidding, just kidding.
Kristin Flynn — So good. Yeah.
Rich Birch —That’s great. Well why don’t you kind of fill in the story a little bit. Tell us a little bit about your role, about you, about Liquid – kind of what what do we miss there in the internet introduction about you and what you do at Liquid?
Kristin Flynn — Sure. Yeah, so um, as Rich said I’m the Outreach Director at Liquid. I’ve been in the role just about 10 years, which is wild, um…
Rich Birch — Amazing. A decade!
Kristin Flynn — A decade’s crazy. Um, and I have the honor of supporting our campuses. Like Rich said we’re a multi-site church and so um I help drive our initiatives and our compassion focuses, which is hunger and homelessness, special needs, and our global cause is clean water. And so year after year we’re looking on our calendar planning where we can serve our community locally. How do we bring our global cause even locally to our for people to experience. And how do we make an impact for Christ in each of our counties that are we have campuses. So I strategize that work with our teams and then help our campus implement those as their boots on the ground, taking ground for Jesus in their community.
Rich Birch — So good. You know I’m really looking forward to unpacking this. Kristin, it was ah it was a while ago… maybe it was last spring, you helped out in our church growth incubator, which is a private coaching group that we do, and unpacked a lot of great insight. And so I’m really excited to have you bring ah, some of that to our our our community today as we’re kind of listening in on this conversation. But why don’t so there’s I think there’s a lot of different things we could talk about here, but one of the things that Liquid’s been known really from the beginning has been, you know, a church that really is trying to put faith into action. That it’s not enough to just kind of create, you know, or ask people to have a faith that’s just kind of between their ears or is just their kind of thinking um but it ultimately needs to kind of work itself out in in how we kind of react in the world around us. Can you kind of expand a little bit on that part, just even on the philosophical or, you know, discipleship or kind of big picture?
Kristin Flynn — Sure.
Rich Birch — Why is that important? Why do why do we see that as you know a critical place critical thing for us to invest in to ultimately try to move people towards?
Kristin Flynn — Absolutely. I mean I always go back to the passage where Jesus saw the crowds and he had compassion on them. Then that sprung into action.
Rich Birch — So good.
Kristin Flynn — And so for me I’m always thinking like how do we get our people—we say out of their seats into the streets—to meet the needs of their neighbors and start building those relationships. And so um I think it’s a huge part of our discipleship process because God’s gifted all of our people with amazing talents, unique perspectives, and gifts. And so those are able to be expressed through outreach.
Kristin Flynn — We might come to church and be on the worship team or guest connections and that’s beautiful. But there’s a pocket of your people that are your activists that want to activate their faith and be part of bringing Jesus to their neighbors, to the shelters, to the schools, all of that. And so ah outreach is a real key piece to have um, everyone in every age and stage say like, I can be a part of what God’s doing outside of my church and my community and show that love of Christ and ah have our actions show who he is before sometimes they’ll even step in church. And so outreach really is that vehicle for our people, which are our best ambassadors, to serve their community and show Jesus. But then also um, allow people to see the church in action and to be like wow, what what who are these people and what’s different about them? And so um, yeah, so…
Rich Birch — So good.
Kristin Flynn — …I think outreach is just such a key piece for discipleship.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so great. I love that. And you know one of the things that, frankly has been just inspiring to watch over the years as you’ve led this area, has been your tenacity around staying focused. You talked about this in the introduction – you have a few areas that Liquid focuses on, which I could be this is one of those kind of principles we see in general. That um, you know, Liquid’s a large growing church by kind of every metric you can look at. And and this follows the principle that like large churches do less. You know there’s lots of small churches I talk to where they ask about community outreach and they’ll rattle off a menu of a hundred things they do. But but Liquid has really, and you’ve done such a good job keeping Liquid focused on a few areas. Can you talk us through those three areas again and then why. And then, is it important to stay focused? How does that fit into kind of your thinking around outreach?
Kristin Flynn — Sure. Yeah, and and, Rich, there’s really it could go two ways, right? But for Liquid we’ve said, hey we were going to focus what we felt God called us to is to serve the hungry, to serve the homeless, and to make space and inclusion for the special needs community. And so our our outreach um focus has stayed really in those channels, but they’re very broad, right?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Kristin Flynn — So that may mean providing lunches for school children. That may mean um helping those that are with that are in transitional housing that are just about to be on their own with job placement, and and resume writing or just even, like a spa day for the moms, right? Like things like that that, you know, don’t you don’t traditionally think of of helping, you know, serving the homeless, the unhoused, or the hungry. But that’s like kind of changing the curve a little bit to before someone finds themselves homeless.
Kristin Flynn — Um here in New Jersey, like the cost of housing is insane. So everyone really is just on that cusp of being unhoused. And so we’re we partnered with organizations that are serving those that are currently unhoused, but also those that are trying to get ahead of that, right? So young adult training, after school programs, things like that. But also working in shelters – those that are really face-to-face with those aren’t housed right now. And so having that focus has allowed us to be really strategic with our partners and who we link arms within in the community. However, there is space for us at the campus level to have a kind of a once in a while expansion of that.
Kristin Flynn — And so an example would be young lives our Middlesex County campus has a great relationship with Young Lives, serving young parents, women and children. And so we’ll support them with ah like a meet the need every quarter or so, twice a year, with a diaper drive served maybe at their ah their special event. And so it’s not necessarily falls into the categories of our compassion focus, but it’s still something that we can integrate at a campus level. Maybe just not our churchwide ah focuses.
Kristin Flynn — So we do deviate a little bit because each campus is in different communities, right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Kristin Flynn — And the communities are different. We are our Passaic County campus that is our their neighbors are Patterson, right, which has great need. Um and then you have Middlesex County which is a little bit different. So we have to be able to be flexible at times um, but our churchwide initiatives, our large outreaches as well as most of our ah midsize outreach, you know, do triyto stay within ah serving the homeless and and that food insecure, so or special needs. We love the special needs community.
Rich Birch — Yeah let’s let’s kind of pull that apart a little bit.
Kristin Flynn — Sure.
Rich Birch — So you know I’ve said in other contexts about multisite that it takes one kind of leader to get ten leaders around a table and, say okay, everybody think something different. And then it takes a different kind of leader to get 10 leaders around the table and say we’re going to focus on these things. Like you know, and and I think frankly I think it takes um, a more adept leader, I think it takes a stronger leader to do that, to keep people focused, to keep particularly leaders focused.
Rich Birch — And you talked about kind of the differences between campuses. I think this is one of the things that we can struggle with is, you know, you’ve got different campuses that all see their communities differently by definition. You’re in different locations, and so things are a little bit different. Can you talk us through how do you have those conversations, or is this a non-issue? Everyone’s just happy to be aligned and happy to do whatever Kristin says. Do you, you know, what’s that look like for you?
Kristin Flynn — Um, listen this is a great like tension and challenge we face, I would say quarterly, right?
Rich Birch — Okay.
Kristin Flynn — Someone from our congregation, they’re part of a mom’s group that wants to do X, Y and Z and so the campus leaders come like, hey we want to get around this thing. And so it is a conversation, right? A lot of it I would say from what kind of ah dictates or informs how we move is really what’s happening on the calendar, right? So if we have a big church initiative happening and we need to be focused on what we’re putting our all our resources to, then maybe that thing won’t happen this quarter. But I always try to say like, where in your campus calendar can it fit in, right?
Kristin Flynn — And again, it’s not something that is going to be an ongoing monthly community outreach for us. It probably wouldn’t be something that we would ah do churchwide, right? But I do want to kind of fan that flame – if you got someone on your church that’s like, “hey, I’m really into this,” do look for ways to say, how can we partner? And it could be resources, right? They may say, hey we’re going to go out the streets and we want to pack out hygiene we want to hand out hygiene kits – can can we do that as a life group? Yeah, let’s maybe perhaps do that on your campus. You guys can pack them and X amount are going to go to our partners at City Relief and the others we’re going to have this other group that’s going to go out in the streets in New Brunswick and they’re going to hand them out, right? And so it’s really getting creative.
Kristin Flynn — I’ve I think ah him over my time I’ve learned just kind of pull back and hear what they want to do and that those they want to serve and say, okay, like how can this fit it? And sometimes it is like ah it’s not a no; it’s just a not now.
Rich Birch — Right.
Kristin Flynn — But I do I do my best to keep it in my head to say this is something unique for this campus. That’s fine. Our Union County campus is gonna be different, but to really be open to the possibility of where it can fit in at the campus level, and how we can support it. So yeah.
Rich Birch — That’s good. I want to come back to the partner question in a in a second…
Kristin Flynn — Sure.
Rich Birch — …because I think there’s I think there’s some really valuable insight there, but I’m saying that mostly for myself so I remember. Ah but you know you talked about um kind of big I don’t, you know, community-wide, like we’re gonna, or churchwide – we’re gonna do these big, you know, pack a million meals kind of thing. Those are flashy, or like in other contexts that’s like love week, or you know I know at Church of the Highlands there’s Serve Day. It’s like, Hey we’re going to put we’re going to put special t-shirts on everybody and do something, get the social media team there. We do all that.
Kristin Flynn — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And then there are the like um, you know, smaller things where it’s like we’re showing up and maybe my small group is going to serve. Talk to me about how you think about those two different things. How do they work together? Are they in competition with each other? Are they, you know, how how does all that fit together in in outreach at Liquid?
Kristin Flynn — Yes, so this is a ah nut we’ve been trying to crack for a really long time…
Rich Birch — Okay, good.
Kristin Flynn — …and try to figure it out. But I think um, what we’ve identified is ah kind of inserting these community outreach partners is key for us to be woven into the fabric of our community. We can do the big things and have the promotion which is amazing. It’s a huge activation for our church, a space for new people that have never walked into a church or heard of Liquid, but they’re like, yeah I can pack a million meals for the hungry. I I want to serve at Night to Shine to serve the special needs community. That’s amazing. I would never want to do to choose either/or. I always want to ah move towards both/and.
Kristin Flynn — And so with community outreach, it’s really key the partners you select. And so I’ve kind of just ah created, we’re almost like dating each other for a little bit…
Rich Birch — Okay, yeah.
Kristin Flynn — …to build trust, right? So like Liquid Church – maybe we’ve they’ve heard of us. Maybe they haven’t. But we want to get to know the organization as well as them to get to know us. And so I move this process really slow. So starting with an an exploratory conversation, hearing what they’re doing now. And I always ask like, what’s your 5 year plan, like what’s on your like dream list, just to see like how could we partner and and come into line with them.
Kristin Flynn — Um, and then what we do is that we’ve like started starting with our small groups and our campus teams to serve. However, that organization has like ah a serving opportunity, we’ll serve just exactly how um, a typical volunteer session would be. And then we evaluate like, hey was this a great was this a great volunteer experience? Did I know where to go? Did I get communication?
Rich Birch — Right.
Kristin Flynn — Was I walking in totally blind, which is just like us getting information so we know how to better prepare our people should we more move forward…
Rich Birch — Right.
Kristin Flynn — …with the partner and the ongoing serving opportunities. Um and so there’s kind of a strategy behind that, but the key of community partnership is that you’ve got these nonprofits that are busting every single week, serving the ah the homeless or the food insecure, and they’re running super fast, right? And so my heart is that we would be able to encourage them and take some weight off once a month and be a solid group of volunteers that can come help move their mission forward.
Kristin Flynn — And it’s key, right? Because not all our people can um, go to the big outreaches. But also it’s part of our group strategy, right? So we have tried to make big church small and bring it into a group context where you’re in a group of maybe 12 people meeting weekly. This is a great opportunity for them to say, hey we’re going to go serve and have this experience together and activate our faith that way.
Kristin Flynn — So um I love our community partners. Our campuses have done such a tremendous job this past year in taking ground and really linking arms with community teams. And the beautiful thing is is it kind of sets us up then to say, remember that thing you mentioned that initial meeting about how you wanted to…
Rich Birch — Oh, so good.
Kristin Flynn — …revamp your your food pantry and create this community center. We’re like, hey we would love to partner with you on that in this…
Rich Birch — Right.
Kristin Flynn — …you know campus specific churchwide outreach, which is what we’re about to get ready to do in a week so um so…
Rich Birch — Oh wow, nice. You get to be everybody’s best friend.
Kristin Flynn — Yes…
Rich Birch — You say, hey we want to help you with this…
Kristin Flynn — Yeah, I mean it’s it’s a beautiful part of being part of a church that really wants to put their faith in action, and um, it desires to make an impact in the community. So yeah, we’re really blessed.
Rich Birch — That’s great. What so I’m sure I love that even that vision that picture of like the positive side of partnership, hey things are heading in the right direction and it’s like we’re going to start with like maybe a couple small groups serving there. And then eventually come back around and say, hey we might do some kind of bigger project.
Rich Birch — I’m sure that there’s been some partnerships over the ten years that have been here that have not been that positive, that maybe have been more negative. Give us some of the telltale signs of like, ooh this is not going how we thought it would go, and or or have they all been perfect? Maybe there haven’t been any that have gone kind of sideways. But have there been any kind of things that if something starts to happen you start thinking, Oh we might want to address this. Or maybe we want to take a step back or reevaluate, or have a crucial conversation with them. What what’s that look like? Ah
Kristin Flynn — Yeah, that’s that’s no, it’s never happened, Rich. It’s just been great; roses…
Rich Birch — Roses every time.
Kristin Flynn — …um roses every time. Listen it it can happen, right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Kristin Flynn — And so um my goal is that our volunteers have a wonderful experience so that they, ah serving, so that they want to return and serve at that organization. And that their service is meaningful and making the impact, right? But sometimes it could be that we’re not receiving receiving communication, right? Or a lot of times, to be quite honest, it could be like their registration process has so many clicks, no one’s ever going to complete it, right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Kristin Flynn — And so we’ve had to figure out how do we have a conversation? And you know we’re in these conversations now of like how can we get you the data you need, and have this be a really simple sign-up process for our people, right? I remember you saying like one click, one click – you don’t want people clicking through [inaudible]…
Rich Birch — And make it as easy possible. Yeah, yeah for sure.
Kristin Flynn — …as easy as possible. Yeah. Um, and so that’s really actually informed how we actually plan our year with our community outreach. So it used to be, all right, we’re going to do every every second Thursday of the month. Well your church calendar changes.
Rich Birch — Right.
Kristin Flynn — The relationship might be going sideways and you need to ah, you know, recalibrate. And so what we’ve been doing is planning by quarter. The the key that what’s that’s been a gift to us because one we’ve be able to say what’s happening in the next quarter? Like you know, the fall is insane.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Kristin Flynn — Do we need to pare back? Do we need to go to every other month?
Rich Birch — Right.
Kristin Flynn — Um, or you know are we doing every other month, but you got people asking you, hey I want to serve; I want to serve. Do we need to add another session and start having those conversations…
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Kristin Flynn — …halfway through, you know, the the current quarter. So that flexibility, and it’s actually ah I find it very like it’s kind that the organization wants to do it, but allows us to do that, but it’s also kind to them to say, hey like I don’t want to say we’re coming and we can’t, right?
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Kristin Flynn — And so it allows us to continue to have communication. And that’s that’s another key thing is it’s easy to schedule these things, and then be like okay sending volunteers, but not…
Rich Birch — Done!
Kristin Flynn — Yes, done. And not fostering that relationship…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good.
Kristin Flynn — …and not having those touch points to check to your point of contact there. Even simple things of like bringing doughnuts and be like, surprise! Here’s a little sweet treat; just thinking about you guys. You know want to encourage you, outside of what’s scheduled. Um, really nurturing those relationships so it becomes a really healthy partnership, and they know they can call on us and we know when we send our people it’s going to be a great organized… You know, it doesn’t have to be clean. It doesn’t have to be grit like not gritty. I’m okay with a little grit. You know getting our people’s hands dirty. Um, but you know, I just want to make sure that it’s it’s it’s impactful…
Rich Birch — Sure.
Kristin Flynn — …and meaningful for both parties.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I love that. You know, I know in in this area there can be this tension. And you even just there at the end you were kind of um you know hinting towards it. There’s this tension, and I’ve joked about it earlier. It’s like that get everybody with a nice t-shirt on. You know, make sure there’s like really good snacks when people arrive – all of that stuff – which is is like positive volunteer experience type stuff. But some people might criticize that and say, oh that’s actually taking away from whatever the good work that this organization is doing.
Rich Birch — How how do you help manage that tension as, you know, I see um—and again, you know I you know I love Liquid obviously, obviously—but like it would I think it could be easy to be, and maybe you don’t get this criticism. It could be easy to look from the outside and say we’re going to pack a million meals and, which is an amazing experience. But then I look at those videos and I’m like there’s a lot more going on there than just packing meals. Like man, there’s all the other kind of elements and that all costs money. How do you think about all of that in the greater kind of picture of, Okay, we’re we’re trying to do good in these areas. We’re trying to actually push forward God’s Kingdom in these various things.
Kristin Flynn — Yeah, for me, Rich, there are two different lenses to look at, right?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Kristin Flynn — So our our Christmas outreach that’s an evangelistic ah outreach, right?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Kristin Flynn — We know ah that people want to serve at Christmas. It’s an outreach that can host 6000 volunteers – it’s 2 hours.
Rich Birch — Amazing.
Kristin Flynn — Like it’s in and out and and allows us to really roll out an amazing volunteer experience…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Kristin Flynn — …of greeting shirts, all the holiday stuff, which quite honestly our campuses do an amazing job Sunday to Sunday with their dream teams and having…
Rich Birch — Right.
Kristin Flynn — …shirts for them to serve so our new guests can identify who’s there to to greet them, answer their questions. And so it’s a little taste of you know, not all the the all of all the celebratory things…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Kristin Flynn — …that you might see the Christmas outreach highlight video.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Kristin Flynn — But um, when it comes to community outreach, that’s really pared down. That’s like more heart work in the sense of…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Kristin Flynn — …I want our people to know their neighbors. And so we just come as we are. There is no like t-shirts for that. It is we are serving as another team would from Pfizer, or from another organization just to come and be what they what but they need our hands to do that day. That’s what we’re doing.
Kristin Flynn — And so um, and really the the care comes from comes from the campus leadership of preparing them to serve, as well as a follow up. Um and then at the campus level taking some like ah pictures while they’re making a meal or something that I like that and hosting it on their campus social media. It’s not the big flashy outreach. It’s where we go deep. So if you think of ah churchwide outreach. It’s ah we cast a wide net, it pulls a lot of people in, which is amazing. But then what with the vertical and going deep is a community outreach where it’s smaller pockets of people saying, yes, I want to serve my community in this intimate way. Um. And and so both are needed, but they both look a little bit different. Yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that and you know obviously I’m play a little bit of a devil’s advocate. One of the things I love, and and you have been I think been such an elegant advocate for this over the years that um I really do think that ah that what’s best for all of these partners, from our perspective as a church, what’s best for the the causes that we’re trying to partner with is that our church grows and that we get more people in on this stuff. And it’s like’s there’s ah, there’s a virtuous loop there that if we, man, if we work on those kind of large things that are, like you say 6000 people all doing something on a weekend, man, we can convert some of those people into helping out a you know food soup kitchen, you know, monthly. But if we don’t get a chance to actually have a conversation with them in the first place, we’re never going to get there.
Kristin Flynn — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Let’s let’s pivot to a slightly different kind of part of this, which is the global aspect of what Liquid’s up to. One of the things, you know breaking the third wall, that I would say one of the things I’m the proudest of is how Liquid has stuck with the water cause over all of these years. And it’s encouraging for me to see the global numbers continue to come down, the number of people who who don’t have access to clean drinking water, and Liquid’s been a part of that. Um, first before you, brag on Liquid first, talk because I’m sure you’ve got them start a statistic…
Kristin Flynn — Yes.
Rich Birch — …around how you know how many people Liquids helped.
Kristin Flynn — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And then let’s talk about how you how you’re doing that. What’s that look like?
Kristin Flynn — Sure. So um, yes I would love to brag on Liquid. Um, so we’ve actually completed our WASH program in Rwanda. WASH Program is Water access, Sanitation, Hygiene – so an entire community in Rwanda now has access to clean water.
Rich Birch — Incredible.
Kristin Flynn — We’ve had the people are incredibly generous. We’re able to buy a purchase a deep water drill ah drill so that we can you know access, clean, safe drinking water. Um, and now because we’ve saturated that area, our partner Living Water International has asked us to move into Zambia.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Kristin Flynn — So we’ve recently moved into Zambia last year drilling wells there, partnering with a school for kids with special needs. I had the opportunity to go and it was it was just eye opening and like so inspiring to see the work that LWI is doing and that we get to be a part of it is just a huge blessing. And then we have some future plans too to stay tuned towards that for.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love it.
Kristin Flynn — But yeah, we’ve definitely, our church is passionate about bringing providing safe, clean, drinking water to those that don’t have access to it. So when you turn on our tap, we’re like, wow, today my friends in Rwanda in some areas don’t have access to this, right, or in Zambia.
Kristin Flynn — And so um, yeah so clean water is our global cause. We recently opened up the Clean Water Cafe which it’s a cafe run by adults with special needs, and the proceeds go towards clean water. So it’s bringing our global cause locally um and spreading that mission through a coffee shop, which is incredible. Um, and you know the challenge can be though, Rich, is that we have 3 teams this year going internationally…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Kristin Flynn — …to serve on the ground, boots on the ground, teams of 12, right? And so it’s one of the challenges is how do we bring the global cause locally to ignite our people and to have them engage in this. And so a few years ago we did ah a run for Rwanda, which was a 5K um, you know, chiptimed race. So we were able to invite the community and everyone else that was trying to build their their race stats. And it was all ages and stages and that you know that event which it did it had had the t-shirts. It had the DJ. It had a water walk with statistics of like how many hours ah a day, or year, that a young girl is going to catch or to fetch to dirty water. And then you know on the backside it showed the statistics of the impact of clean water, and the education that children can can receive, and all these amazing things when you provide clean water to a community, how it transforms it.
Kristin Flynn — And so we use that opportunity to say, you know, let’s engage our entire church in this 5K run, all ages and stages, and they raise money for Rwanda. And so it went towards our goal in of supporting that cause there. And so sometimes at the global cause you do have to get a little creative um to say…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Kristin Flynn — …how do I do this? But that worked for us really well. I’ve had so many people say, “Are we doing that run again?” so many times, so we’ll see – maybe 2025. Um but yeah, yeah, we’ll see, we’ll see um…
Rich Birch — That’s so good. What else can you do so that, you know, obviously there’s only a certain number of people that can go, you know, ah to to Rwanda or to even really to anywhere you know internationally. I love the idea of the run. Are there other things, maybe Sprint for Zambia, trying to think what is you know of other names that are you know how’s that work. But how could you how could what are other ways that you’re trying to engage people in that cause ah, that you know maybe not everybody can go yes, yes.
Kristin Flynn — Yeah, so it is challenging, you know.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Kristin Flynn — But we do pack like Hygiene kits and salvation bracelets and things like that. So small groups have the ability to do that. Um, that way they’re meeting as a group and having this impact of supplies that will then go with our teams. Um, there are ways to run for our do different races that raise money to for clean water. Um, it’s it’s it’s a little bit more of a a challenge quite honestly. Um, but definitely sharing stories at our campus level. We’ve had the founder of LWI come and speak to our legacy teama. So I know we’re trying to bring some things, you know, once a year, or twice a year to the greater, our churchwide audience just to keep this cause on the forefront. So it takes a little more creativity Um, but we’re we’re getting there.
Rich Birch — Love it. Yeah, we had Mike Mantel from LWI, the partner, your partner.
Kristin Flynn — Yeah.
Rich Birch — On the podcast in the past. I’d encourage folks that are listening to go back and listen to that particularly. I really do think that the water crisis is a fantastic kind of global initiative for churches to partner with, and LWI Living Water International does such a good job. Um, they’re great people for sure.
Rich Birch — Can we talk about the money side of this? Man, there’s a lot of different stuff that’s going on here.
Kristin Flynn — Yeah.
Rich Birch — How is Liquid funding all of this? How does this how how… I think there’s a lot of churches that would be like wait, man. We would love to do this, but where does all the money come to do this?
Kristin Flynn — Sure. So um, Liquid tithes 10% that we receive. 10% of that goes out to the community. It’s outreach allocated, right? So that would be their clean water, that would be our our community outreach, our churchwide outreach. Um, and then there’s folks, there’s ah, there’s a beautiful couple in our community, our church community that every year they’re like, hey, I want to do the Night to Shine sign. This is like this big billboard type sign and they donate donate it. So there’s people in our congregation that have donated resources or their time…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Kristin Flynn — …or physical items to help enhance those things. Um, and but but, you know, true I’m truly best in my position that that is Liquid structure that 10% goes out to the community, and so that really sets our budget for the year as to you know what things we can do to reach the unreached, and to serve the unserved.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good. And, friends, um like this is what I love about you, Kristin, you just blew past that like that was no big deal. That’s a massive deal. There’s a bunch of executive pastors just like spit their coffee out and said 10% goes external – that is that’s amazing. Like that um, that is super rare. Like I know there’s lots of churches that would count the percentage that would be deemed, you know, that the way Liquid counts this in like single digit percentages or fractions of percentages. Um it it it really is amazing. And I think it is a part of what has made Liquid I think it’s a part of frankly why God has blessed continue to bless Liquid is because of this kind of thing.
Kristin Flynn — Yeah.
Rich Birch — So yeah, so friends, I don’t want you to miss this. Part of the reason why this happens is because at a leadership level they made a decision, hey, we’ve got to we if we’re going to ask people to tithe, maybe we should tithe. Maybe this should be, which doesn’t sound at at a high level as that big of a deal, but it’s significant. That’s that’s a huge deal.
Rich Birch — How do you report back on that stuff. What does that look like? How does Liquid kind of celebrate these things? You know, because obviously when people give to Liquid, good things happen like this.
Kristin Flynn — Yeah.
Rich Birch — What does that process look like for the church?
Kristin Flynn — Yeah, so we have an amazing Communications Director – you might know her Lauren Bercarich, who was on recently um and our creative team. So we’ll…
Rich Birch — Yeah, she’s incredible.
Kristin Flynn — …yeah, love Lauren. Um, so we’ll actually help we’ll celebrate these things um usually typically like a week or two weeks on a Sunday, whether it’s in the highlight reel or the offering prep, because we want people to know like where they’re giving is going and the impact…
Rich Birch — Right.
Kristin Flynn — …that it’s making outside our walls. So typically that’s over we’ll highlight that. It’s also part of our quarterly updates that Pastor Tim and Pastor Dave send out. Um, so people are knowing where the impacts that their resources are having, as well as highlighting perhaps they were boots on the ground serving, right? And so our creative team, our video/photography team will be at these events, take amazing shots and videos, put them together as an inspirational piece. And really it’s it’s I think our responsibility to highlight these things as people are giving up their Saturday, they’re giving up you know time from their job to come serve. And so I want them to be celebrated, like I think God celebrates that they’re serving, right? And so we’ll highlight these typically in our Sunday services.
Kristin Flynn — We have thank you postcards that go out to our volunteers. That’s been a key one for our campus teams after, you know, hours upon hours that some of these large outreaches take and are volunteers are moving the project forward. We want to thank them. And so our campus teams write thank yous to key volunteers that really made a difference in making the outreach happen.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Well this has been a fantastic conversation. I really appreciate you being here today, Kristin. And and just so helpful and inspiring. And I hope, listeners, as you listened in today you were inspired, that you could be the kind of thing that would move you to action. One of the things we’ve seen time and again is in fast-growing churches the language I’ve used is they’re involved in magnetic community service. This idea that, hey, we want to serve the community in a way that ultimately um, you know, we do what Jesus says, we’re not going to do our good works in a hidden off somewhere. We’re going to let our light shine to the community around us. And that does resonate with people and it does help us ultimately reach folks and and, Kristin, you’ve given us some inspiring ideas today, so I really appreciate that. Any kind of final words you’d like to say just as we wrap up today’s episode?
Kristin Flynn — Yes, I’m so glad you asked. I just want to circle back on that community outreach partnership. And like you said, Rich, big church can move fast. You’ve got to slow down when you build in your community outreaches and those partnerships…
Rich Birch — So good.
Kristin Flynn — …that we’re we’re moving now in a partnership that’s fifty/fifty, right? So our Liquid timeline may not align with theirs, and that is okay.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Kristin Flynn — We have to be able to be willing to kind of meet in the middle, and just take time. If that’s if if they can’t if we can’t do something together now, then maybe just let it simmer for a little bit and revisit it in a couple months when they’re out of their gala season or whatever it is.
Kristin Flynn — Um, and so I don’t want you to be discouraged. It will be a stop, go, stop, go with those relationships, and that’s okay. Um, we really just need to be flexible and open to the meeting them where their needs are and when they need us. And so it’s a little bit different then having the agenda and pushing it forward. You got to pull back and slow down and let that relationship build.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s so good. I love the relational um angle push. You know, I think so many times we can particularly, you’re right, in large growing churches. It’s like well can you do this next week and that’s just the timeline we’re used to. And lots of organizations are like, no. That’s not going to work. And that doesn’t mean that we can’t partner with them long term. That’s that’s so good.
Kristin Flynn — Right.
Rich Birch — Well Kristin, if we want to send people online to learn more about outreach at Liquid or Liquid or you, where do we want to send them if they if they want more information?
Kristin Flynn — Sure. Yeah, you can reach me at kristin@liquidchurch.com k-r-i-s-t-i-n and I’d be happy to connect with you, even jump on a Zoom, whatever. Our resources at Liquid are open to anybody. So even it’s not just outreach or there’s something else that you want to ask about, I am happy to connect you with some of our amazing leaders there too. So thanks so much for having me, Rich. This has been great.
Rich Birch — So good. So good to see you today. Great to connect a little bit. And yeah, just all the best as you continue to push forward in the areas that you are. Thanks, Kristin, for being here.
Kristin Flynn — Thanks so much.
Thanks for joining us at the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Bryan Smith, the lead pastor of Summit Christian Church in Sparks, Nevada.
We are increasingly living in a culture where many are completely unchurched, having no preconceived notion of what church looks like. Yet this can provide just the opportunity where people are open to learning about Jesus. Tune in as Bryan talks about the power of invitation, vulnerability, and embracing people with messy lives.
- The power of vulnerability. // Summit Christian Church has a unique story, having been founded in response to the area’s status as one of the most unchurched regions in the United States. Bryan highlights the importance of creating a comfortable and welcoming environment for newcomers, emphasizing that vulnerability and authenticity are key to connecting with unchurched individuals. At Summit the pastors will share personal struggles and life experiences, countering the stereotype of judgmental Christians. Rather than telling unchurched folks what they need to do, invite them into community and a journey with Jesus.
- Make time for pastoral care. // One of the telltale signs of a church that’s reaching unchurched people is that you have messy, complex, pastoral care. Summit Christian Church is dedicated to creating a welcoming environment where individuals who have faced challenges in their lives can find hope and healing. Pastors and elders have a rotating schedule so each day someone is available to meet with people seeking counsel or help.
- Use events to reach out. // Summit also works to create a noticeable presence in the community to ensure that if the church were to disappear, the community would notice its absence. From teacher appreciation initiatives and community service projects to outreach events such as RC car races and dodgeball tournaments, get creative about drawing people in who might not think about attending church. Surprise unchurched people with fun outreach events to show them church isn’t what they may have expected.
- Four team values. // To keep the staff moving in a positive direction, Summit has four team values they embrace: health, focus, whole life generosity, and achievable excellence. Bryan emphasizes that achievable excellence is particularly pertinent to staff health. The church wants to set the bar at a place where they can achieve without feeling defeated or putting in too little effort. The goal is to create sustainability in their staff, encourage healthy relationships and practices, and have them committed for the long haul while still pursuing excellence.
- Build relational health. // Health is a huge priority among the leadership and staff team, especially because Summit is a fast-growing church. Weekly staff meetings incorporate elements of fun and celebration, such as recognizing birthdays and engaging in team-building activities, like an optional, 30-minute 9-Square tournament each Tuesday. Have fun together, but don’t force these activities. Enjoy each other’s company in order to have a greater impact in the church and community. Building a strong relational foundation among the staff team makes it easier to tackle challenging issues. Setting realistic expectations, encouraging a sustainable work-life balance, and offering free counseling to the staff also helps prevent burnout.
- Trust what He’s doing. // Bryan wraps up by encouraging church leaders to stay humble and hungry for that one more person to come to Christ. Rather than worrying about the outcomes, continue to look at what God is doing and where He’s leading you. Surrender to His plan and He will help you lead your people well.
You can learn more about Summit Christian Church at www.summitnv.org.
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Risepointe
Do you feel like your church’s facility could be preventing growth, and are you frustrated or maybe even overwhelmed at the thought of a complicated or costly building project? Are the limitations of your church building becoming obstacles in the path of expanding your ministry? Have you ever felt that your church could reach more people if only the facility was better suited to the community’s needs?
Well, the team over at Risepointe has been there. As former ministry staff and church leaders, they understand how to prioritize and help lead your church to a place where the building is a ministry multiplier. Licensed all over North America, their team of architects, interior designers and project managers have the professional experience to help move YOUR mission forward.
Check them out at Risepointe.com/unseminary and while you’re there get their FREE resource “10 Things to Get Right Before You Build”.
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Well hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you’ve gotta that you’ve tuned in. You’ve really tuned in for a great conversation today. You know every week we try to bring you a leader who will both inspire and equip you, and I’m real excited for today’s conversation – get a chance to meet a new friend, ah, Bryan Smith. He is the lead pastor at a church called Summit Christian Church, a nondenominational church located in Sparks, Nevada. They’re one of the fastest growing churches in the country and they’re launching a campus this fall, and somehow Bryan found his time in the middle of all that to sit down with us. Bryan, so glad you’re here. Thanks for being on the show today.
Bryan Smith — Awesome. It’s great to be with you. And I appreciate that you pronounced our state’s name correctly. “Nevadda” not “Nevahda” -that is painful. Yeah.
Rich Birch — Oh ok, that didn’t even know I was doing that right.
Bryan Smith — You crushed it right out of the gates. Way to go.
Rich Birch — Ah okay, that’s good. Well, that’s good. Well, tell me a little bit about Summit, kind of give me this story. Tell us a little bit about, you know, if I was to come this weekend, tell us give us a bit of the flavor of the church, that sort of thing.
Bryan Smith — Yeah, Summit’s been around for 25 years, since Sparks; it’s a right I mean adjacent to Reno, Nevada, which is for people listening about 7 hours north of Vegas. Most people think we’re real close. We’re not. So it’s light years away from sort of what people think of in terms of Las Vegas.
Bryan Smith — But Summit launched, our our founding pastor and his wife, Steve and Pam [inaudible], they launched because at the time Reno was the number one unchurched place in the nation. And so they said we’re going to launch a church there. Um, and so Summit has been in two different locations. We started you know at a YMCA, bought property kinda what felt like, at the time, out in the middle of nowhere. But right now it’s in the middle of everywhere…
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Bryan Smith — …as our community is expanding. Yeah, we’re on a sort of a highway, but it’s it’s got stop lights on it. And the the city put in a stoplight right in front of our church…
Rich Birch — Wow. Okay.
Bryan Smith — …that is the dumbest stoplight in the community. So lots of people get stuck and we joke about why’d you come to Summit? Was it our stoplight? So that’s kind of been kind of cool. So that’s worked out really well for us.
Bryan Smith — But um Summit is from from day one just been about introducing people to Christ, seeing them grow the Lord, experience life change. We welcome in. We’re kind of messy. We don’t celebrate the mess, but we’re definitely messy as folks come in in our community they they are extremely unchurched, usually have blown up their lives, and show up and want to know, you know, what do I do at this blanken church? All right. We can work with that. You’re not churched. I like it.
Rich Birch — I love it. Yeah yeah, yeah.
Bryan Smith — I have one time—this a fun story—I had a guy come down the risers, our stadium seating, and and say, “hey pastor;” he’s kind of a bigger dude. And I’m like ah yeah? He goes I just want to tell you, and he starts crying. He’s like this church has f-ing changed my life.
Rich Birch — Oh love it. Love it.
Bryan Smith — And I’m like, you’re not from around here. Okay. And and you could tell the church people because they all kind of, you know, their head popped and around their neck jerked and they looked at me, and and I just gave a hug. And about a year after that got to do his wedding.
Rich Birch — So good.
A year after that just a couple months ago we got baptized. So.
Rich Birch — So good.
Bryan Smith — Yeah, so we’re and we’re known in our community as a church that serves, which is great. We we wanted to be that church if we disappear the community would notice. And man, we’re just humbly serving downtown. We’re serving in the schools this week. Teacher appreciation we’re serving meals breakfast or lunch to a bunch of different schools and caring for the teachers.
Rich Birch — So good.
Yes, we work really hard in welcoming people in and serving in our community, introducing them to Christ, and just seeing life change…
Rich Birch — So good.
Bryan Smith — …which is fantastic. Yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah, Bryan, I love that. And I you know people already are hearing why we’re so excited to have you on the on the podcast. I love the focus of reaching unchurched people and actually seeing that happen. I think lots of churches talk about that, but then when you have evidence like that, it’s just such a good thing to see.
Rich Birch — But why don’t you give us a bit of context fill up fill out the picture a little bit more. To me if I was thinking of places in the country where churches would grow, Reno would not be on the list, and the fact that you’re growing there seems amazing, by God’s grace. Kind of tell us about that story. What’s what’s happening there? What’s God using at Summit to see that that happen?
Bryan Smith — Yeah, it’s it’s fun. The the northern Nevada no one ever says I want to move to northern Nevada, but once they get heren once they get here… Like I’m a So. Cal. guy, came up in ’05 from Orange County, and and once once you get to northern Nevada, it’s a beautiful spot. And so we’ve got lots of like the community is growing. We’ve got lots of political refugees, they call themselves, from from California. But we’re we’re growing as a church because we make the place comfortable. Every church wants to be welcoming and and we work hard at that. We’ve we’ve got folks that come in and say, I felt welcome from day one.
Bryan Smith — Um and and then we’re pretty vulnerable, whether that’s teaching from the stage or in our kids ministry, student ministry. And and I think we need that in an unchurched environment the the vulnerability where people have this preconceived notion of what Christians are – the judgmental, the kind of putting up a facade, and we work hard to push back against that and be just vulnerable and open and honest and present and show lots of grace. Um I do wish that everyone in our church sinned just like I did so I wouldn’t have to show as much grace, but they sin differently…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good; I like that.
Bryan Smith — …and and so yeah, so I’ve got to extend grace to them. They extend grace to me. Our our staff is, you know, we we hire people that we have to pump the brakes on, not light a fire under. So they’re going to get after it regardless of what we’re putting in front of them. And so that that filters down into our volunteers, and and then into the congregation of people that are like, man, this is a place where I feel loved, and I meet Jesus, my life has been changed where, you know, that that old thing a bunch of beggars telling other beggars where the food is.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love it.
Bryan Smith — So we’re not. We’re not pretentious. We’re not showy. I think probably we work hard at just being understated…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Bryan Smith — …because that’s who we are.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Bryan Smith — And and that’s our community too. Our community is not flashy. Um, we’re not terribly showy. But um, yeah, so I don’t…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Bryan Smith — …there’s some shooting from the hip things.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I’d love to talk a little bit more about that. Even you know, pulling back the curtain a little bit, I love before our our interview today you’re like, I’m not sure why you why you called us. And I’m like well, which I which are you’re living that out here. You know that you’re living out your you know, kind of not flashy, just kind of norma, which I love, I think is great. Let’s talk about the vulnerability thing a little bit. From your perspective, how do you cultivate that as a leader? There was a time—I think you and I are a similar generation—there was a time I think when we first started that there were it was like people wanted religious leaders to be like something different and like they’re like we want them to be like a totally different person, but that’s just not true anymore people are looking for people that are like them that are vulnerable. Talk to us about how do you cultivate that kind of culture where people can come as they are um, and you know it’s it’s not doesn’t matter why you came but obviously it’s because of Jesus that we stay. And and but so talk us through that. What’s that look like for you as a community?
Bryan Smith — Yeah, I think the vulnerability part is we we don’t tell people, “and you need to do this.” We’re inviting them into something that that…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Bryan Smith — …and hey if if your life you’ve blown up your life, I can tell you what you need to do. Like I know I should probably eat less fast food, but I’m going, to I love Del Taco it’s like Taco Bell but way worse. And…
Rich Birch — Yes. Or better, depending, you know.
Bryan Smith — Yeah, it’s all about perspective. But but if you tell someone what they need to do, ah, you know there’s that backfire effect and and they’re just going to dig their heels in. So we go, Okay, here’s here’s where you’re at; here’s where you could be. Let’s let’s invite you into that life change.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Bryan Smith — Let’s invite you into interacting with with Jesus, interacting with the community. And that the things that are um, destroying your life, let’s get rid of those. I think so the invitation the the inviting culture.
Bryan Smith — I think too um, we’re we’re pretty open about our past. And and not celebrating our past. Like I hate to say it, but my past um, in in high school convinced mom to get cable, and found Cinemax, became Skinemax late at night at the age of 16 without a dad in the house, and so porn was part of my story for 10 years until I came clean and I thought I’ll get married and and that’ll solve all the problems. No, it didn’t. And and so like I’ll share that from stage. And I always have dudes come up afterwards in hushed tones, “How’d you do it?” And and so you know and every time I share, I’m I’m trying not to cry right now. But when I share it, I I cry because that that part of my story sucks. And I wish it weren’t the case.
Bryan Smith — And so we can be vulnerable with that, own it, and say, but God’s got something better. And and our other teaching pastor, he’s just really open and honest, wisdom and and how we share what we share. But when people see that from the stage, when people see that in the lobby when they’re talking to our staff, where we’re like, hey I remind our staff God’s got a deep depth chart and he could choose from the 8 billion other people to do what we’re doing today. We’re pretty lucky that he chose us.
Rich Birch — It’s true.
Bryan Smith — And and and so we just kind of, you know, we’re not going around crying in our beer kind of thing. But we just know man we’re blessed be doing what we’re doing.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Bryan Smith — And we’re we’re nothing special. God us breathed life into us on purpose, and we got a story and we’re hungry to see other people experience the the um life to the full that Jesus promises us in John 10:10.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that.
Bryan Smith — Yeah.
Rich Birch — I love the, you know, the focus on, you know, how are we going to kind of create a community where people can be just truthful and honest and open. I’ve said in other contexts that one of the telltale signs of a church that’s reaching unchurched people is that you have messy, complex, pastoral care. That’s just normal. Like it’s normative that okay we’re wrestling, if you’re just reaching church people, it’s not that they’re not messy. They’re messy. They just hide it. They just don’t know…
Bryan Smith — They know better.
Rich Birch — Um, so how do you how do you kind of build a staff team that is able to um, you know, kind of accept people and, you know, pastor them and lead them when people are coming with, you know, that kind of messiness? Ah talk us through what that that’s looked like for you and your team.
Bryan Smith — I think, yeah, half of our I don’t know, don’t quote me on this…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Bryan Smith — …but a lot of our staff will say that comes…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Bryan Smith — …from didn’t come from a bible school or seminary background.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Bryan Smith — My degree is an aquatic biology from U. C. Santa Barbara.
Rich Birch — Okay, nice.
Bryan Smith — And in in God’s humor, I’m pastoring in a desert. So thank you, Jesus.
Rich Birch — Ah, that’s true! That’s funny.
Bryan Smith — Um, so I came into student ministry, I mean I was involved with Intervarsity on the college campus when I was a student and then in lay ministry after that. And so I kind of came in through the back door. And then we’ve got a lot of our staff that we’ve hired from within. And and so they don’t have that bible college background, which Ilove bible college, seminary. I went back to seminary. Um, but but I think having folks that that didn’t grow up in the church…
Rich Birch — Right.
Bryan Smith — …didn’t grow up with a ministry mindset, had been invited into it, there’s they have a different perspective. And then we get the wisdom and the knowledge from the bible college or seminary background folks, and and that really kind of helps create this this kind of cool mix of people.
Bryan Smith — I think the the other thing um that that has helped is we we schedule we’ve had to schedule a pastor each day to be available to counsel and meet with people. Because what would happen is…
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Bryan Smith — Yeah, we have lots of people that are coming in and they’re they’re looking for help. And then it’s the secretary’s responsibility, and suddenly it’s like whack-a-mole, and all the staff disappeared. Ah yeah, and and she’s like, hold on – let me find a pastor… is there anyone? You know?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Bryan Smith — Um, and so we scheduled that and just said, hey we’re going to be available.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Bryan Smith — And and and so we make sure that we’re available when people come in, when people have a need. They’re going to meet with a pastor, or an elder. Our elders are part of that as well. Um, does that answer some of your question?
Rich Birch — That’s great. Absolutely. I love that even practicality of like scheduling people. I can see that, have been in exactly the scenario you’re talking about where it’s like, I got stuff to do. Um, yeah, that’s good. So kind of sticking with this this theme, um, you know, a church of 25 years, you know, quarter of a century, over time churches become more insider-focused. That’s just true. Like unless you push against that they become actually older and more insider- focused. But but your church hasn’t. You you’ve been able to keep a focus on reaching unchurched people. How are you doing that as ah as a senior leader? What does that look like for you? How are you keeping your people focused on that mission?
Bryan Smith — That’s so your your premise is interesting to me that the older churches get the more internally-focused they become. And that’s never been my experience in ministry. So that’s part of it’s kind of like, hey you know ask the fish, how’s the water?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Bryan Smith — I don’t know because that’s water I’ve swam in.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Bryan Smith — So with Intervarsity at the college campus, we were always hungry for for one more student.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Bryan Smith — Ah in the dorms I moved into the freshman doors my sophomore and junior year which was like social suicide. Um, and but it was just what we did…
Rich Birch — Right.
Bryan Smith — …because we want to lead kids to Christ. Um, and then Eastside Christian Church where I came from in in Fullerton, California at the time, man, it was the same way. And and so then when I moved up here, took over as the student pastor, um at it Summit, man, ah that was our our whole thought process is, you know, we were giving invitations all the time. We were baptizing like crazy. So this has been something that that has been part of the church. And this is why um during covid we—yeah, that was a fun season to lead through said no one ever—um during covid we said, hey, we’re going to build a building and we’re we’re and we didn’t let off on that…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Bryan Smith — …and finished the building and moved in in ’21.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Bryan Smith — Um and yeah 1200 seat worship center. And it it was kind of empty at first. We had a lot of online folks. But they’ve been coming back, and now we’re we’re seeing record attendance, record baptisms, and looking at launching a campus east of us by about 45 minutes. And and this is all we, like our from our kids ministry, we’re creating events. Where can we bring, how can we get these kids who invite their friends, student ministries having events that are um, you know, not terribly church-focused. So that… and that sounds bad but ah, you know, like a dodgeball tournament.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Bryan Smith — There’s nothing Christian about that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Bryan Smith — But it’s super fun.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Bryan Smith — And so kids come…
Rich Birch — Yeah..
Bryan Smith — …and then they go church isn’t what I thought. This this place doesn’t suck; I want to come back. And with adults you know, like for Father’s Day, they don’t know this yet, but we’re going to we’re doing like all these activities in our plaza, and doing an RC car race. Like…
Rich Birch — So fun.
Bryan Smith — …this is not rocket science kind of stuff, but it’s like how can we create space where people want to be there, and they go, wait a minute, this isn’t what I expected. And so we’re we’re just staying hungry like crazy – that’s hungry for one more that we we talk about at Summit a lot. In fact, we put plexiglass boards, lit up boards, in our in our entry into our worship center and, said who’s your one? Write their name on that.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Bryan Smith — And I had this few weeks ago I had a lady come and say, hey I want introduce you to my one. She got baptized a couple weeks ago.
Rich Birch — So good.
Bryan Smith — And and that lady said, I want to introduce you to my one that I invited.
Rich Birch — Wow. Praise God. That’s great.
Bryan Smith — And I’m like oh this is working. Yeah, yeah.
Rich Birch — Yes, that’s good. I love that. I love the practicality of like, hey we got to operationalize this. We got to come up with things that will, you know, keep that in front of people and just even the plexiglass stuff. That’s, you know, that’s fantastic.
Rich Birch — Pivoting in a slightly different direction, so you like you lead a staff team, fairly large staff team. Um, you know keeping people as hard. This is one of those times where, and and you know I’ve led within fast-growing churches. And it sounds great. Everyone’s like, oh that sounds like a fun place to work. But it’s just a lot of work. It’s it’s ton of you know, to keep the thing running is a lot. Talk to me about what you’re doing on the staff health front to kind of keep your team focused on, you know, and on their own well-being and kind of keeping them positive and serving. What’s that look like for for you guys?
Bryan Smith — Yeah, um, that we have four team values, and they’re health, focus, whole life generosity, and achievable excellence. And two, two of those are really pertinent I think to staff health, obviously health and then the achievable excellence. The achievable excellence – I’ll start there. Um, we we want to we want to do things that are excellent, but we we only have ah so many dollars, and so many people, and so much time…
Rich Birch — Right.
Bryan Smith — …and so let’s set the bar reasonably high. But not so high that we’re gonna be defeated, or so low that we’re just going to sandbag it. And and so I’ll push on our staff and and like I said earlier, oftentimes so we hire folks we got to pump the brakes on rather than light of fire. Um, yeah, and so oftentimes I’ll say, hey, with this achievable excellence idea, you’re you’re burning the cantle at both ends. And we want sustainability. We want you in it for the long haul. I want your marriage healthy. I want you to have joy. And you got it now, but you’re not sowing seeds in that direction for the future.
Rich Birch — Right.
Bryan Smith — So let’s let’s pump the brakes a little bit. Then health, health is a huge priority for me. Um, and and this isn’t like ah a circle to wagon, so we got to kumbayas, fours no mores. No if we’re going to be if we’re going to reach others, then I have to be healthy. Our elder team has to be healthy. Our ah staff team has to be healthy, because somehow in God’s economy what happens in in the the elder team filters into the staff filters into the…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s true.
Bryan Smith — …the church. And and so as an elder team, we’re we’re meeting with our wives for dinner for an hour. Then my wife takes the elder wives and they talk and pray. And then us elders, we get down to business. And our elders are a bunch of guys, number one, I always tell our in our our—we call it the trailhead lunch—but newcomers lunch, you probably wouldn’t ever know an elder is an elder at our church. Because they’re already serving and they’re not wearing it as a badge.
Rich Birch — Right.
Bryan Smith — Bunch of humble dudes that love the Lord and want what’s best for the church. And they’re critical thinkers and they get after me at times, and and encourage me, and we laugh together and we cry and we pray, and so there’s that health aspect. Then um at the staff level, um, man we want to keep our people around who are creating an environment that is fun, that is welcoming. Um, and and so I have an open door policy. If my door is open, it doesn’t matter who you are on staff, you can walk in and we can sit down and talk. I like that most of the time except when I’m about to close the door cause I got to get something done. But I’m I’m an extrovert and so I would rather be hanging out with people than doing something on my computer.
Rich Birch — Right.
Bryan Smith — Um, we have month… or weekly staff meetings, rather. I know a lot of folks have ah, monthly. But we have weekly staff meetings and there’s ah, a regiment, not a regiment that sounds not fun. There’s a routine that we go through monthly whether it’s celebrating birthdays or worship or a fun game, and then some kind of huddle or teaching. We have I talk about crucial conversations and part of health is you got to talk about the hard stuff.
Rich Birch — Right.
Bryan Smith — We celebrate the wins like crazy. Um, we cast vision of why we’re doing what we’re doing and lead with the why (thank you Simon Sinek) um and and lead with that so that people know this is what I’m about and then we help define the win so that they know they’re winning.
Rich Birch — Right.
Bryan Smith — But and then we also we provide counseling for our staff. So we have a counselor that we have two sessions a month and it’s a use it or lose it, kind of like a gym membership. And those are never empty. People have been very grateful for that. And then…
Rich Birch — Um, two for your per staff, or two…
Bryan Smith — No, two just two standing meetings a month.
Rich Birch — That are open slots. Okay, great.
Bryan Smith — Yeah, and so they work through my assistant to get signed up, and and they always come in to say, hey thank you. Um, but here this is the lowest hanging fruit that we fell into…
Rich Birch — Okay, love it. We love the low hanging fruit here.
Bryan Smith — I know. Nine Square. We play…
Rich Birch — Nice.
Bryan Smith — We have. Ah yeah, our our it it just happened like in 2021 our our middle school director, now pastor, she said, hey um, can we play Nine Square for half an hour today ah, with the staff? And I’m like, yeah I guess. I mean it’s always set up. Let’s do it. So what ended up from that conversation was we play there’s a weekly standing Nine Square tournament on Tuesdays for half an hour from 1 to 1:30.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Bryan Smith — Yeah, and and then it’s morphed into we had to buy more so it’s now 18 square because we’ve got like facilities showing up. We’ve we’ve got the preschool director showing up. Um, if there’s a volunteer in the office they’re like, can I play? And I said how good are you? No. In fact in it we we have we have a trophy. And so the last ten minutes is is single elimination, and we have two trophies – one for the winner that week. And if you win you get to write your name on the trophy, kind of like Stanley Cup.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
But you have to then play opposite-handed for eight weeks after that just to even it and…
Rich Birch — Oh ah, you’re punished!
Bryan Smith — This is great. We have we have a little um like ah we serve in Cambodia and someone brought home this little miniature kind of version of Angkor Wat, and we call it immunity idol. And if you’re the first person to lose, you get back in the next week after single elimination is down to 8 people.
Rich Birch — Oh nice.
Bryan Smith — So we’ve created all these rules. And and what happens is we’re goofing around. People love it when they spike on me or or block me. Um, and and we’re we’re just having a ton of fun. So we work hard at playing together, enjoying each other’s company, and then being reminded that that we’re we’re a crucial piece of the mission of what God is doing. And and this is where so it it sounds internally-focused but then we’re like, no wait a minute. What we’re doing in the health of this team has an impact in our church, has an impact in in Sparks High, or out in Fernley, where we’re going to launch, or that marriage that is struggling that that we’re seeing in the community group is getting healthier. And so people are just stoked. Our team is excited about… now that not to say we don’t have our tough days and we go to have our tough conversations.
Rich Birch — Sure.
It’s It’s not all you know, whistling, skipping down a yellow brick road there. There’s some hard parts to it as well.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, I love that. Well and I think the rhythm of I love the encouragement around you know the Nine Square, kind of fun weekly thing, you know, for you as an organization you as a leader to say, hey there might be something here. That’s kind of fun that a a team member came to you and then we, hey let’s put some energy on that. There’s probably churches that are listening in they’re like, oh we we do something similar around ping pong, and I never thought of it as being something we should really try to build into. I also love the thing there too around, it being it sounds like it’s like an optional thing. It’s like, hey show up if you want to. It’s between this time. If you’ve got time, we’d love for you to come. Because there is sometimes when you do fun stuff like that, mandatory fun never feels fun. You know, like if it’s…
Bryan Smith — forced fun isn’t fun.
Rich Birch — Yeah. The like, you know, and sometimes you have to do that as a team. Sometimes you have to um, you know, find ah like we’re going to see a movie or we’re going to go do some activity together. Like that that that has its place, but I love to kind of like hey if you’re available Tuesdays at whatever you said twelve thirty one o’clock, come by and have fun. That’s I think that’s fantastic. That’s so cool.
Bryan Smith — Yeah, we had best Christian workplaces come in and assess the health of our team. We’ve done that 3 times with them, and then they did a 360 assessment of me. I still have yet to read that – it’s too painful probably. No, I was actually it was, it was insanely helpful. But…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Bryan Smith — …one of the things in the open-ended responses. There were so many mentions of the the half an hour of Nine Square…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good insight.
Bryan Smith — …in terms of the joy factor on our team. And it helps I have the play drive of a golden retriever. And and so wanting to make things fun and light is really important so that then if we’re enjoying each other’s company and having fun together, then we can really get down to the the ministry stuff, and it doesn’t feel like we’re carrying ah this heavy load. It’s like man we’re carrying a load…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Bryan Smith — …but we’re doing it together, and there’s this fun atmosphere. And when one person wins, we all win. We’re all going to celebrate…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Bryan Smith — …and and that really helps with the the team dynamics. And then the retention that you’re asking about it and keeping people here, keeping them hungry was proven very beneficial.
Rich Birch — Yeah, and I think there’s something to, you know when there’s a connection there on even like the crucial conversation side of day of having a you know a high performing team where if there’s strong relational connection, it does make it easier to have a more pointed conversation with someone because they see, oh this person is for me, like they’re in my corner. They you know their total view of me isn’t just this one issue that we got to get traction on. They you know they and and as goofy as Nine Square sounds, it’s like hey I I played Nine Square with them, I see I see that they like interacting with me. And then I’m I’m willing to take the feedback or the, you know, hey we got to work harder on this, or we got to stay focused on this when it’s in the context of, I know for me, that’s for sure the case.
Rich Birch — Um, one of the things you talked about kind of as we were preparing was you were in um Virginia, you served there and then you came to Reno. Um two different contexts two, you know, you got the beach you got like you say the desert, um talk to us about what that’s been like to kind of serve in you know, two different contexts. Any learnings from for you as a leader you know, serving in those different environments?
Bryan Smith — Yeah, I think um so I came to to Reno in ’05 at Summit Christian Church. Then I moved out to Virginia Beach in a lead role from 2014 to ’17. And then I was invited back to Summit in a co- like a shared leadership position with our founding pastor. And so I’ve worked I’ve worked at ah, two physical location churches, but very much three churches. Because the the church I I left to go to Virginia to pastor, the Summit of ah the first part of my career, is different than the Summit now. So that’s why I say it’s kind of…
Rich Birch — Right. Yep.
Bryan Smith — …two locations, three churches.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Bryan Smith — Um, but in in Virginia, you know, it’s it’s very much in kind of in the bible belt of sorts even though it’s way east. And I remember talking to my neighbor when we moved in and and I said, oh yeah I pastor ah, Real Life Christian Church down down the road here, and love to have you come. He goes, ah nah, me and the big man upstairs are okay, right? And we hear that.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Bryan Smith — And then I realized… and this isn’t a critique of the church, it’s just the cultural differences.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Bryan Smith — In where I was in Virginia, people were comfortable with God, comfortable with their sort of faith that they decided that faith level they’ve decided to walk in, which is really no faith at all. And it was hard because ah, you’d have to deconstruct that…
Rich Birch — Yeah, for sure.
Bryan Smith — …to have them see their need for God, their need for grace, what relationship with God looks like on his terms not dictated by our terms, and then supported by popular culture kind of thing. And and so there was always a struggle when when folks would come in I’m like, man, if if we could just break down this idea of, you know, me and the big man upstairs are okay. And you would really see your need. You would really jump into it, embrace the grace that God has for us, and and live as the church name said that real life that Jesus offers us. And again not a critique of the church, but just the culture.
Bryan Smith — Well here in Reno, like I said earlier, and people come in and they’ve blown up their life. They’ve never gone to church. And and I realize in our post-Christian ah, context kind of thing we’re we’re really going to see more and more of this.
Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely.
Bryan Smith — But it’s especially seems more prevalent here in in the community that I serve and where people they’ve never been to church.
Rich Birch — Right.
Bryan Smith — They they don’t know what it looks like and and they have these these notions, and I’ll say it from stage and I’m glad that you’re here. I don’t know what brought you here, but maybe you wanted to prove that Christians are weird. And you’re going to discover we are but not the weird you kind of thought of, you know.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Bryan Smith — And and and so it’s just been in some ways I would rather take someone that that has zero idea of what it looks like to walk with God and say let me introduce you to Jesus. Let’s disciple you. Let let’s you know see see what God has for you. Versus having that kind of you you built your life on a lousy foundation. We got to tear the whole thing down and start from scratch. Yeah, and and so this is I think this is why God has me in in Reno because I love that kind of challenge and I I love…
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Bryan Smith — …I just I like messy people. Um I like people that don’t have it all together that um I love teaching with um to that kind of mindset and and topic, and really introducing Christ and the the the aha moments where people go… And I been doing like I think this is why we’re we’re seeing this this resurgence of Church attendance and baptism. Buddies and I’m talking to across the US are like, man, God is on the move. Because people had decided I’m going to build my life on this, Covid destroyed that, and they said that I’m going to try these other things. And they’re realizing, wait a minute, this feels just as empty. Maybe there’s something to be said for church. And and so in our community we got lots of folks that are coming in saying, you know, the world sold me a bad bill of goods. I don’t like where I’m at. And so what what does Jesus have to offer me?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I know, you know, I think it’s really important for us as the kind of broader church to continue to learn from places like Reno, or like I’ve served in the northeast and Canada. Um in these kind of for years I used to say post-Christian context, where it was… But but I really feel like that’s shifted and I’ve increasingly heard people using the language of pre-Christian context, which I which resonates is true. That I feel like in the first half of my career, we spent a lot of time deconstructing people’s ideas of church. You know there was the joke of like we ain’t your mama’s church kind of thing. Well the reality of it is most of the people that we see in these contexts, and sounds like this is true in Reno, that are coming in that are unchurched, their their mom didn’t go to church, their grandma didn’t go to church. They’re a couple generations away from this. They don’t have any preconceived notion of what this thing looks like.
Bryan Smith — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And so it’s not like we’re trying to deconstruct from there. We’re trying to start from the ground up, like you say, hey, let’s start from the very beginning, which I just think is an exciting time so that, you know, this would be a great church. You would be your church would be great church for us to be learning from as we think about the future. So this has been a great conversation today.
Bryan Smith — Awesome.
Rich Birch — Just as we kind of come to to land land the plane, is there anything else you’d like to say to to leaders that are listening in today that are thinking about, hey how do we make our church, you know be the kind of place that’s always looking to reach one more, that’s kind of got that, you know, you know, in their mission, or anything that we’ve talked about today you want to reemphasize?
Bryan Smith — Yeah, it’s not easy if I if we were just if we did circle the wagons and just preach to the echo chamber of us. It’d be a lot easier.
Rich Birch — So true.
Bryan Smith — But it’s not as fun.
Rich Birch — Yeah yeah.
Bryan Smith — And you know, I think um it’s incredible, like so there’s there was ah a guy that he he kind of blew up his life. And he had a good life from from outside looking in. And then he got connected to the church. His son had a medical issue. He joined our Rooted group. We we were in Rooted through our church, which is awesome, a great discipleship tool. And and he gave his life to christ in my living room and then I got to baptize him. And to see where he’s at now and helping facilitate another group is just incredible
Rich Birch — So good.
Bryan Smith — And I think, man, had we just circled the wagons and said, Bro, you’re a little too messy for us. We miss out on all that joy. And I don’t think that that I “us four, no more” is definitely not in line with the great commissioner or Acts 1:8. In in all of this too, I have a friend and in um the Baltimore area Ben Cachiaras. He talked about staying hungry and humble, and that has resonated with me. We’re going to stay hungry for that one more, and we’re going to stay humble, like you know God’s got a deep depth chart. He chose us. This is great.
Bryan Smith — Um, and then Psalm 181 it says “the Lord has done this and it’s marvelous in our eyes.” And and so we just continue to look at what God is doing, whether it’s our vision for one more ,vision to launch a campus and and help out in Kenya. We’re we’re going to be building ah an office building on our current site because and then pull all of our offices out of our other buildings so that we can have more ministry space for kids because…
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Bryan Smith — …we got a lot of young families coming and we got a lot of young families that like to reproduce. And and so we got to make space. And and we’re just going, man, this is awesome – like look what God is up to.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good.
Bryan Smith — And I feel like my biggest role right now is to continue ah to shepherd our people well, and and to die to self, my own concerns of is this thing ever going to spin so fast that it gets out of control? I hope not. But in the meantime God help me raise my lid, help me lead well. Help me be available to your people.
Rich Birch — So good.
Bryan Smith — And and we’ll, you know, kind of trust God with with the outcome.
Rich Birch — So good. Well, Bryan, this has been such an encouraging conversation today. Thank you so much for your time. Where do we want to send people online if they want to track with you or with the church?
Bryan Smith — Well, it would be to the church. I’m not on social media at all. I I got off of that just a few months ago. And but you can check us out summitnv – our states initials – summit and then nevada.org summitnv… wait a minute…
Rich Birch — It is summitnv.org.
Bryan Smith — I I don’t know why I blanked; you’re gonna have to edit that, bro, or just allow it in there.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s all good. It’s all good.
Bryan Smith — So you can check us out at summininv.org and see what we’re up to, see what we’re doing and check our church out.
Rich Birch — That’s great. Thanks so much, Bryan. Appreciate you being here today, sir.
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Patrick Quinn, the lead pastor at Century Church in Alabama. Century has a vision to plant one hundred churches across America in order to see more people brought into a life-saving communion with Jesus Christ.
Can you imagine a church so ingrained in a local community that the core values of that local congregation become the core values of the entire town? This is precisely the goal for Century Church. Tune in as Patrick unpacks this innovative approach where a church transforms its community through loving service.
- Build the town. // Churches are no longer seen as the hub of activity for their communities as they were in American history. But Patrick believes the church is always at its best when it’s solving problems for its local community and loving it in very specific, tangible ways. Rather than building the church, early on Century Church made a decision to prioritize building the town they were in and then let the town build the church.
- Community first. // The community-first mindset of Century Church is reflected in everything they do, from staffing to budgeting and programming. A lot of church budgets are focused primarily on church programming. Century decided to flip that, prioritizing community initiatives and their programs, which are designed to serve the entire community rather than only church members. The church then works off of a smaller portion of the budget. Similarly, the staff members are all very involved in the community, even having bi-vocational roles, such as serving as chaplain of the local football team.
- Partner with the community. // What it would look like for us to lose the church in order to find the true essence of the church? Where is the church supposed to serve? Previously Century Church used pole barns on their 23-acre property to host outdoor church services. As they grew, they took a unique approach to property development by inviting the community to design the church’s space based on the town’s needs. They hosted a five-day charrette involving architects, town planners, and engineers from eighteen states and two countries to create a mixed-use space that prioritized community needs. The church would then use some of that space for weekend services.
- Adapt your plans. // Initially the church was going to build a performing arts center, but they tabled the plans in favor of constructing a gym and recreational space, which better met the needs of the town. Listen to the community and families around you and be willing to adapt your plans based on the evolving needs of the community. This builds momentum and demonstrates your commitment to making a difference. People not looking for Jesus will realize Jesus has been looking for them as they make use of these spaces and programs.
- Expand your reach. // Century Church operates its 23-acre space as a separate entity called “The Well.” The church has a voice on the board and has put guardrails in place that outline how the space can be used within the community. They also seek like-minded partners who are committed to excellence and want to bring opportunities to the town. With lease agreements and contracts, these partnerships fall under the umbrella of The Well rather than falling other the umbrella of Century Church. Partnerships can amplify your impact and reach. Look for organizations and groups that share your values and commitment to excellence.
You can discover more about Century Church’s ministry model at www.centuryproject.org.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: CDF Capital
Since 1953 CDF Capital has helped church leaders and individuals bring light to the world through the thoughtful stewardship of their capital. The Church, including your church, requires more than just financial capital, it also needs spiritual and leadership capital. While separate in purpose, these three forms of capital are intertwined and inseparable for the cause of kingdom growth. Together, when we partner with the Lord to bring spiritual, leadership, and financial capital to a church, the results are transformational. At CDF Capital our ministry is simple: we lend money to churches.
CDF Capital, in partnership with Barna Group, conducted a research study to better understand what happens in churches after a new leader comes in. Barna Group interviewed 111 pastors online who have experienced a leadership transition within the last 12 years. Click here to get your free download of the study.
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Super excited for today’s conversation with Patrick Quinn. He is the lead pastor at Century Church. This a church plant that was established in 2017 in Alabama. It’s an independent Methodist Church and this church, man, they, Patrick and I got a chance to interact a little bit at Exponential earlier this year I was inspired by what was going on. Ah but this church really has a vision to plant 100 churches, which is amazing, in communities all across America in order so to to see more people brought into a life-saving communion with Jesus Christ. Patrick, we are so glad you’re here today. Thanks for being here.
Patrick Quinn — Rich, thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be a part of the conversation today.
Rich Birch — Well, fill out the picture. Kind of tell us a little bit about Century. You know, if people were to come this weekend, what would they experience? That kind of thing.
Patrick Quinn — Yeah, so what they would experience currently is probably something that’s not happening in many other places in America.
Rich Birch — I love it.
Patrick Quinn — You and had talked about that at Exponential. But during covid we were meeting in a public elementary school in a fast-growing small town ah, that doesn’t have a lot of other facilities. And so when covid hit we needed to get out of the public elementary school for obvious reasons. If everybody goes back to thinking about what was going on there and how you had to have everything clean for five days and all of those things. And so we did not want to be a church that all of a sudden shut down our public elementary school for the next week due to ah worshipping.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Patrick Quinn — So we moved out of there. A lot of people went virtual. We certainly did that but we had purchased ah a 23-acre piece of property. It’s completely raw land, and we ultimately ended up ah building an outdoor venue. And we thought that this was going to be somewhat…
Rich Birch — That sounds real fancy. That sounds fancy. Outdoor venue sounds very fancy. That’s not necessarily what I picture.
Patrick Quinn — Yeah, okay, I’ll bring it down for you because we’re in Alabama. We we have two pole barns.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. Love it.
Patrick Quinn — Pole barns, now they’re large, they are large pole barns.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Patrick Quinn — Fifty feet wide by eighty-four feet long…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Patrick Quinn — …and 9 shipping containers which I’m sitting in one right now while we’re doing this recording that we built…
Rich Birch — Really, this is in one of those? But if you see the video it’s that I wouldn’t even know you’re in a shipping container.
Patrick Quinn — Yeah.
Rich Birch — That’s amazing.
Patrick Quinn — Yeah, yeah, I’m in a shipping container right now.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Patrick Quinn — So not headed to China.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Patrick Quinn — But but we are we are here on the property. So we have 9 shipping containers, 2 pole barns, lot of raw land, and we are currently building our first building. But we went outside and our people did not want to go back to the elementary school when it was all said and done. They wanted to stay where we were on this property. They felt called to it to then begin the process. Well we have been an outdoor venue every Sunday for the last almost four years now.
Rich Birch — Wow, that’s incredible.
Patrick Quinn — No matter if it’s snowing, raining, hot Alabama summer.
Rich Birch — Gosh.
Patrick Quinn — No matter what it is and somehow, Rich, people keep showing up, like it looks like the field of dreams out here every Sunday.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I there’s so much of this story. I I we just before the episode I was like, I’m not entirely sure how we’re gonna tell this whole thing because there’s so much here. Tell tell us about when you put up the tents. This is a to me this talks about resilience. I think there’s a lot of leaders that when you put up the tents and then what happened, you tell us that story…
Patrick Quinn — Yeah, so…
Rich Birch — …I think would be like, okay I’m not sure the Lord’s called us to this, you know.
Patrick Quinn — Yeah, so we’re outside and we’re and we’re literally on a raw piece of property, nothing on it. No utilities, nothing. And we are outside and we have fire pits for the winter. We’re trying to like figure out what to do next. And I was like okay, we’re going to build this outdoor venue. What could we do that would be ah, you know, enticing for the community to want to come check it out? So we we purchased two huge tents – Barnum and Bailey style tents.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Patrick Quinn — I mean big massive tents. And you know, one we were going to put the children’s ministry in, the other we were going to do worship in. And Rich, we got one worship service in before Hurricane Zeta came up through the Gulf of Mexico…
Rich Birch — Oh no.
Patrick Quinn — …went went across the beach, you know, down in the panhandle of Florida, and we are about 2 hours north by driving distance and we still had a Cat 1 hurricane come through and it wiped our tents out.
Rich Birch — Oh gosh.
Patrick Quinn — We literally only worshipped for one Sunday with the tents.
Rich Birch — Oh my goodness.
Patrick Quinn — So yeah, we were standing out there on the field after the hurricane came through and we had worked so hard to try to, you know, we don’t have any facilities. Our people have been worshipping completely outside. It’s cold, rainy, all of that. We put up these tents. We finally are excited. And there’s no doubt my team and a lot of lay leaders, we just stood there on that property pretty dejected at first, you know, like what are we doing?
Rich Birch — Yes, understandable.
Patrick Quinn — Like this doesn’t seem to be some something maybe we should be doing.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Patrick Quinn — And but the community showed up and cleaned it all up. And then the town helped us with some zoning…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Patrick Quinn — …to allow us to get these really nice pole barns constructed on the property, and for us to continue the mission and we’ve been growing ever since. We started with 100 people at Century Church – that’s part of Century.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Patrick Quinn — Psalm 100 is another part of that in scripture. But um, we started with about 100 and now we we shrunk back like everybody did in covid and we grew it back to we’re we’re approaching 600 people out here on a raw piece of property.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s amazing. That’s amazing. Well you know you might be listening in, friends, and think, oh we’re going to talk about the zaniness of being meeting outdoors for 4 years, but that’s not actually the part of the story. That’s a part of it. But that’s not the part that caught my attention. This was it. You know when I hear ah, Patrick and his leadership team talk, um I really hear a church that is trying to be for the community in a very real way, and has done all kinds of things to try to engage and serve and love the community they’re in. And frankly to be honest I found a little bit convicting. Because I feel like we try to be that in our church, but and sometimes I feel like maybe it’s just a marketing thing as opposed to you know the actual acting it out. I said that; Patrick didn’t say that. Don’t worry, friends. Ah but tell us about, you know, how is it that Century Church has been for your community. What’s that actually look like? Give us kind of a picture of what that is and then I’d love to unpack that for us as we think about our churches.
Patrick Quinn — Yeah, so when I I have a lot of my experience was in the megachurch previously. And I ended up in a small town. I’m a military kid, originally, so I didn’t have a lot of small town experience. But I end up in a small town that is fast-growing with a brand new school system.
Patrick Quinn — And you see all of the needs in in a small town, sometimes more clearly than in a large metropolitan area that that ah you know I’ve obviously had the opportunity to pastor in. And so as you start looking at it, we had a choice early on. Do we build the church, or do we build the town?
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Patrick Quinn — And I think that’s where we made some decisions early on to say, you know what? I feel like God’s called us to build the town, to really embed the gospel of Jesus in this community is to build the town, and let the town help build the church. And so that’s where we started leaning into this idea of putting our community first.
Patrick Quinn — And I started thinking through it a lot and a lot of research – I’m ah I’m a researcher by nature. I stay up all night, read too much, do all sorts of things, all kinds of conversations. A lot of things I’ve I’ve followed you and a host of other people. And so ah, along the way we just started thinking through, how how can we, in a small medium-sized, growing town have influence with the current generation.
Rich Birch — Um, so let’s talk about that. Like so I think there’s lots of us that talk about putting our community first. We say that. Like we’re like we’re like… but what does that actually look like for you? What what are some examples of where you’ve said, hey we’ve we’ve actually tried to, whether it’s been strategic or whether it’s just been by positional opportunity, like hey, we see an opportunity. What have been some of those examples of that?
Patrick Quinn — Yeah, so for the beginning of this we we just started talking about the fact that a lot of ah churches in general that I’ve even pastored are not seen as the hub of activity for their communities, like they were in American history and even in the history of the church where where people can come and dream big dreams, reach ambitious goals, get loved through hard and sticky situations. But mostly this: solve community problems, be an incubator for new growth, help build the community around some excellence based on, you know, Jesus’s teachings. So in short I would say that the church is always at its best when we’re loving on the community in very specific, tangible ways. And so I’ll tell you about a few of those.
Patrick Quinn — So so for instance for us all of our staffing, um, we we expect our staff to actually be involved in our community and not just at our church.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Patrick Quinn — And that works out in some very tangible ways. Like for me, I am the mental coach chaplain for the local football team. I I am constantly in meetings with the town council, mayor, school board. I I am very much engaged in the community as a whole. And we are one of the places that when there’s a problem in the community, they call us to help be a part of the solution.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Patrick Quinn — And and I mean in a very not like come paint a fence or we have like a little local mission project.
Rich Birch — Right.
Patrick Quinn — I mean like we have issues in our community, how do we solve them? But that’s because we have positioned ourself early on that we really care about the direction of the community. Another thing that happens with our staffing is like, for instance, we have one of our staff members is a bus driver. And um, you know he drives the bus every morning and every afternoon, and he’s our youth minister and our director of operations, and he’s a bus drive full time bus driver.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Patrick Quinn — And that is part of the mission of the church is that every single one of us find a, if you will, a bi-vocational role.
Rich Birch — Right.
Patrick Quinn — And so so our staff is geared out into the community. Our budgeting, so a lot of times in church world, our budgets are—I mean if we’re honest with ourselves and we really reflect, and I and I’ve had 21 years to do this now,—a lot of our church budgets are focused on church programming.
Rich Birch — Right.
Patrick Quinn — And I mean to to a large extent that’s okay. But what we’ve endeavored to do is to flip the model a little bit and look at our budgeting as how can we take the dollars that God has given us and truly put them into community efforts, and and initiatives, and ways that we can help build the community. And then let the church function off of, you know, a smaller portion, if you will. nd so we look at that from a budgeting standpoint.
Rich Birch — That’s cool.
Patrick Quinn — Um, so so in in staffing, and budgeting, and then also our programs.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Patrick Quinn — So our programs are not… We have very few. And I mean very few internal programs.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Patrick Quinn — Like it’s it’s it’s almost a rarity for Century to have ah a program that would be centered primarily on church folks. So much so that sometimes, Rich, one of the challenges is actually getting church people to to our church folks to come to the event because they almost feel like the event is actually for the whole community, and maybe they’re they’re not as an… I mean we’ve had some challenges on trying to figure that out because we’re like, oh this isn’t the church potluck. It’s the community, you know, huge festival.
Rich Birch — Right.
And so whether it’s an easter egg hunt, a trunk-or-treat, or we’re hosting fundraisers on our property.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Patrick Quinn — You know, here’s one ah one story that I would say was ah was a catalyst for putting our community first.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Patrick Quinn — We’re meeting in the elementary school early on and this seven year old little girl, her name was Zana, and I still see her face and I still think about her family. And um, she she passed away in a in just, you know, a shocking way through the flu.
Rich Birch — Oh.
Patrick Quinn — And the school called me and said, hey can you come help us with this family. And I’m like, sure no problem. I’ll be glad.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Right.
Patrick Quinn — But there was a there was a wrinkle to this. The the little girl’s family was Muslim.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Patrick Quinn — An active Muslim family. And so I come up there to meet and I had no idea what I was exactly getting into.
Rich Birch — Right.
Patrick Quinn — And through the course of the next hour this mother who has lost her 7-year-old little girl looks at me, a Christian pastor in deep south Alabama…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Patrick Quinn — …and says, ah, will you do my little girl’s funeral?
Rich Birch — Wow. Wow, that’s so cool.
Patrick Quinn — And I’m like what? Um and then and then I said yes. I said yes, we’ll absolutely do it. Well here’s the problem, Rich. We didn’t have a building…
Rich Birch — Right.
Patrick Quinn — …to do a funeral in.
Rich Birch — Right.
Patrick Quinn — So we had to unroll our box portable church…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Patrick Quinn — …into the school, do this whole funeral. Well I leave there and I’m thinking to myself, I have not consulted my leadership team.
Rich Birch — Right.
Patrick Quinn — I have not asked my staff. We are about to have to unroll all of this portable equipment on a day that we normally wouldn’t have to do it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Patrick Quinn — People are gonna have to take off of work.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Patrick Quinn — I mean there’s all of these things that are going to have to happen. And by the way I’m gonna tell them it’s not a church member.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Patrick Quinn — It’s not even an unchurched person.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Patrick Quinn — This is a Muslim family in deep south Alabama.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Patrick Quinn — And we gave ah and I say that the way that I’m saying it because this was a this was a moment early on in our church to say, are we gonna put our community first…
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Patrick Quinn — …and love people right where they are?
I love that.
Patrick Quinn — And our community was shocked. I had so many people coming up to me and saying, I’m pretty sure our church wouldn’t have done that.
Rich Birch — Right. Well, that’s what I was thinking as you as you were saying that. I think there’s a lot of leaders who who would have made even the reasonable, you know, like I don’t know, I’m not sure. Ah you know, but I love that your knee-jerk reaction was like, hey we want to serve. And then my assumption is that that then has opened up other opportunities to partner in town. And you know that must have kind of ended up, you know, creating those kind of discussions where then as a church you’re trying to come up with how do we decide, how do we figure out who to partner with? How do we figure out who to align with?
Rich Birch — I know a lot of churches have pretty, you know, really clear boundaries on that kind of thing, which does which we think of as boundaries, but really sometimes just create um you know obstacles to folks in our community. Talk us through what does that look like for when you’re trying to, you know, forge partnerships with with organizations, or the you know government all that kind of stuff. How how how are you doing that with your town?
Patrick Quinn — Yeah, so two things that guided us in our development of this church in in our town was really two statements early on. One of them was I wanted to create a place where people not looking for Jesus come to realize that Jesus has always been looking for them.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Patrick Quinn — And if and if I could do that then I have the opportunity to reach new people. Because when you plant a church, obviously you’re you’re not wanting to just steal everybody else’s sheep, you want to reach new people with the gospel. The other thing was ultimately, if we’re going to put our community first, what would it look like when Jesus says lose your life for my sake and you will find it? What would it look like—I would tell our leaders this early on—what would it look like for us to lose the church in order to maybe find the true essence of the church?
Rich Birch — Oh wow.
Patrick Quinn — Like where are the churches supposed to serve?
Rich Birch — Wow.
Patrick Quinn — Where the church is supposed to grow and go? And so like when we did that little girl’s funeral, you’re right, Rich. I mean what happened next was the whole like several people in the community were like, whoa. Why? How?
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Patrick Quinn — And so all these questions and unchurched people started looking at us differently. And I’ve baptized probably half our church members now, and I mean unchurched people coming to this church and being a part of what we’re doing. And I think it’s because, you know, you always grow up you you grow up in churches and people say oh you, you know, people should be curious about your faith. They should, you should be contagious.
Patrick Quinn — But I mean really and truly a lot of times I look around—I’m not being, I don’t want to be judgmental about this, but I want to challenge everybody—like are people today really curious? Like are they?
Rich Birch — Right.
Patrick Quinn — Um and I think when you do some stuff like what we’ve done. And some of it has just been put on our doorstep. I mean that that situation got put on our doorstep, you know?
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Patrick Quinn — But it was an opportunity to say, all right, I think Jesus would do this.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Patrick Quinn — I think Jesus would walk with this family.
Rich Birch — Right.
Patrick Quinn — And it made a whole bunch of other people curious. And so yeah, we ended up with visitors. We ended up with people having theological conversations with me. People that had that walked had walked away from the church for 20 years or more going, wait – why did you just do that? What’s going on? And it messed with people theologically. It messed with their constructs of what a church looks like and should behave like. And so before you knew it I’m in conversations that I would have never had…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Patrick Quinn — …had I just played the normal role of a pastor in a small town.
Rich Birch — Well, I love it. I think this is such a great, powerful example to me. It feels very Jesus. It feels like that feels, smells very much like when I you know the kind of thing that Jesus would do. He had the reputation of being, you know, he was surrounded by people that the religious people in town were like I’m not sure I want those people hanging around with me. And you know doing a a funeral for a Muslim family, um, you know you were leaning in and trying to care for people. Your heart obviously open to them and were like man, what a terrible, tragic, like we can get on the same page here. We know that it’s a tragedy that your kid. It’s no parent should ever you know bury their child. That’s just unnatural. That’s not how life is supposed to go. And the fact that you stepped in there. But to me I look at that and I’m like, man, that feels like Jesus talking to the Samaritan woman, right? People, you know, same kind of like oh are we really supposed to talk with them, are we, you know, are you when you’re doing a funeral, what does that mean? Are you questioning, you know? Are you saying you know? Are you agreeing with everything? Like no, no, we’re we’re trying to love a family and who’s going through a tragic moment which does very much feel like ah, that feels like Jesus. Has that spilled out you know that are there other examples of that where where when you think, oh this may be a bad idea, but it feels like Jesus is leading us in that direction?
Patrick Quinn — Oh yeah.
Rich Birch — Um, you know there’ve been other of those that have have kind of come across your path over the years?
Patrick Quinn — Yeah, so then I would say another primary example is, so this church with no facilities on a raw piece of property hosts today the largest fundraiser in our community for our schools.
Rich Birch — Okay, that’s cool.
Patrick Quinn — We will and we do it in the next couple of weeks. It is called the Crawfish Boil. It’s by the Patriot Fund. Our mascot for the local schools – the patriots.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Patrick Quinn — And so the Patriot Fund puts on this ah, crawfish boil. And they outgrew their space next down the road from us in a local neighborhood. And when they outgrew it, they were looking for a place, they couldn’t find one, couldn’t find one, and it looked like it was actually gonna die off. And these are seriously needed funds for our for our schools.
Rich Birch — Right.
Patrick Quinn — Um, and and so we we said we would host it. But here’s the problem. Um, once again I’m in deep south Alabama, Rich.
Rich Birch — Yes.
And and they they allow you, for years, when it was in this local neighborhood, they allow you to bring your own alcohol to the event.
Rich Birch — Okay. Yes.
Patrick Quinn — And so, you know you’re allowed to bring your own, they don’t serve it. They don’t they don’t, you know, provide it but you can bring whatever you’d like to bring in your coolers or whatever. And so we had another decision to make.
Rich Birch — Right.
Patrick Quinn — We had a piece of property. We have the facility to to be able to pull it off. Um do we let this thing go by the wayside and let $100,000 go out of our schools…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Patrick Quinn — …or do we try to figure out how to make it work and our leadership team looked at it again and said this is the type of thing that we feel like Jesus would figure out. Um and so we started figuring it out. And we didn’t we didn’t become teetotalers um, in in Alabama.
Rich Birch — Right.
Patrick Quinn — Um, we we still allow it. But we also put some guardrails…
Rich Birch — Sure.
Patrick Quinn — …and turned it a little more family friendly.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Patrick Quinn — But we still got people asking, you know, obviously some folks that are a little more hard line. Why are you allowing this? What are you doing? Is this really what a church should be, you know, about?
Rich Birch — Yeah, engaged in or whatever. Yeah, yeah.
Patrick Quinn — Yes, all of those things, and and yet today we’re 4 years into providing this event, and I cannot tell you the amount of conversations that I have on our own property with people who yeah, maybe even have had a few drinks. Or people who haven’t but are looking around going, wait a second. This is a church?
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, this different kind of thing.
Patrick Quinn — And you all are having this huge festival.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Patrick Quinn — And it’s it’s pretty incredible. Ah so we are we are known as that kind of place that we’re we are going to support our community. We are going to love people where they are. And if we can even get them on our property and you know people not looking for Jesus that come to realize Jesus has been looking for them. And so we’ll we’ll wade into the messy and into the gray areas of life in order that we might earn the right to have a conversation.
Rich Birch — Now that’s this this kind of there’s so much here. Like we could talk that we could have 5 episodes here, friends. There’s like so many things I want to talk about. But this kind of intention um to like serve the community has ultimately led you to think about how you develop that property. Um, it’s led you to a place where you’ve made a bunch of decisions and kind of pulled together, you know, I think a different kind of approach to land development. Tell me about that part of the story. This is fascinating, friends, lean in.
Patrick Quinn — Yeah, so I I started out a long time ago in management at Sandestine Golf and Beach Resort…
Rich Birch — Okay.
Patrick Quinn — …in the panhandle of Florida. And so I learned a lot in hospitality management, resort management, learned a lot in in just how spaces and places matter to people – those kind of things. So you take that as the backdrop and then I end up in theology school and on as a pastor. And so as we started to look at the property and what we could do and helping to build the town and what the town needs. How could we put our community first? and a lot of times we design things in the church for the church first—what does the church need—and then we’ll let the community come use it.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Patrick Quinn — What if we could create a different model where we actually invite our community onto our property and into an incubator, if you will—we called it a charrette—and we let the community design our own space.
Rich Birch — Oh wow.
Patrick Quinn — Like what are the needs of this community that the church could uniquely try to meet, and then the church will figure it out on the backend. So what that looks like today is we we ended up with a five day charrette that we, through a, through a lot of different relationships, we were able to host 23 architects, town planners, engineers from all over America – from 18 states and 2 countries.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Patrick Quinn — We have them even from Canada. And so so we had some from Canada, Rich, that was good.
Rich Birch — Nice.
Patrick Quinn — And and they came here for five days. And I mean they had resumes that would blow your mind.
Rich Birch — Amazing.
Patrick Quinn — And they were mostly from the Christian Caucus of the Congress for New Urbanism.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Patrick Quinn — So you could look them up.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love it.
Patrick Quinn — And and they came and they helped us map this out, invite our whole community, and what we have now today is is really a mixed use 23-acre space that is designed for profit for for-profit entities, nonprofit entities, incubator-type opportunities, mission and ministry, but it’s all been leaning out toward the community, and then the church would figure out ways that we’ll use it. So every space is intended to be dual use, but dual use in the way that the community wins first, and then the church. And I’ll explain just here’s a here’s a anecdotal piece of how that works.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Patrick Quinn — So a lot of churches will have, let’s just use coffee shops for example. A lot of churches will have coffee shops. But if we’re honest with ourselves, most of the coffee shops that I’ve ever been around in in all of our churches, they are um, well, they’re not sustainable, one.
Rich Birch — Right.
Patrick Quinn — And they they just we’re not coffee people.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Patrick Quinn — Like we’re just not. We’re we’re church. We know how to run churches.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Patrick Quinn — We we don’t know how to run coffee shops.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Patrick Quinn — And so what I endeavor to do on this property and what our leadership has has said Okay, let’s do this is. There’s somebody in this community that can run an amazing coffee shop, and wants the opportunity to do it. And and and will and we’ll also give glory to God in doing it. So let’s let them come run a coffee shop…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Patrick Quinn — …and do it with excellence. And then we will support it. We’re not going to make our own coffee on top of you. Um, we’ll we’ll support it and let you be a part of our overall master plan. So if you could take that example and extrapolate it out over every other type of business opportunity…
Rich Birch — That’s incredible.
Patrick Quinn — …mission opportunity, all of that. So what will ultimately happen on these twenty-three acres will be we’ll have dozens of partners…
Rich Birch — Right.
Patrick Quinn — …with dual use spaces that the church will figure out how to utilize as well as as the community.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s it’s literally turning upside down, I feel like there’s a lot of churches that and and in one way this is like a noble thing. It’s like we’ve got 100,000 square feet and but it sits empty for most of the week – let’s figure out some use of that. You’re you’re literally looking at it the other way around which is, hey let’s design a space—if that’s what I understand—design is that’s designed spaces—it’s not just a space, a number of spaces—that will get used all week long. And then we’ll figure out how to shoehorn into it on the weekend or when we need it. Um, I just love that. And you’re in the process of building a first space. Talk talk about that space. What is that? What’s that going to be used for and then how how does that fit together with this whole vision?
Patrick Quinn — Yeah, so um, well one thing about the coffee shop by the way that I’ll parlay into the building is that um, you know, then the coffee shop can become a place on Wednesday nights where youth meet for a small group
Rich Birch — Right.
Patrick Quinn — Or where on Sunday mornings um, we use it for what you’d maybe even think of as a traditional Sunday school class. So that’s what I mean by the church figures out what to do with it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Patrick Quinn — We’re not going to dictate the space on the front end. We’ll figure out how to utilize it through some dual use lease agreements, bringing down the cost, share it across these different platforms, and then ultimately the church gets to figure out how to… And let’s be creative about it and that looks more interesting to people than you just build your children’s wing and then say, all right, y’all can come use some of the space if you want to during the week, right?
Rich Birch — Right, right. Yeah, yeah.
Patrick Quinn — So like it’s a lot better approach and more fresh for a community. And unchurched people to go, geez you really care. So get to the building. We are building a gym. And in our community, we don’t have anything like this. Like we’re building a we’re building for our first building is ah is a large gym, high school basketball-size basketball court that’ll also be able to turn two volleyball courts and or basketball or two smaller basketball courts…
Rich Birch — And hopefully some pickleball courts, You gotta be pickleball.
Patrick Quinn — Yeah, actually there are pickleball lines.
Rich Birch — You know there better be.
Patrick Quinn — And and we have positioned a couple of large soccer fields next to it.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Patrick Quinn — Because in our community there’s not a lot of recreational space yet.
Rich Birch — Right.
Patrick Quinn — And so we have found that I mean, once again, and this was not the original plan. The original plan was to build more of a performing arts type center where we had a worship space.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Patrick Quinn — But as, and and and this is an important point, Rich. As we started to finish up the construction documents of that, inflation was a part of the decision um to move away from it. We moved away from our initial building, but we also realized that wasn’t the biggest need in our community right now. And so we literally are putting on the shelf…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Patrick Quinn — …completed construction documents that we will have paid, you know, a large sum of money for.
Rich Birch — Yes, yep.
Patrick Quinn — And we’re putting it on the shelf in order to build another building that we actually feel will benefit our community even more.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Patrick Quinn — And so we’ve listened to families. We’ve listened to the community. We’ve we’ve we’ve heard how um, so many of them are looking for things that are more recreational…
Rich Birch — That’s so cool.
Patrick Quinn — …and so, okay, well if that’s what our community wants, then we’ll build that. And so now we’re gonna worship in a gym instead of worshiping in the space that we thought we were gonna worship in because our community throughout the week will be able to utilize it so much more.
Patrick Quinn — And people not looking for Jesus will come to realize Jesus has been looking for them. Because they’ll be here with their kids doing all those kinds of things. And by the way this isn’t upward. This isn’t like for us I’m not saying anything bad about any other program.
Rich Birch — Oh no, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Patrick Quinn — But what I’m saying for us, we’ve decided that we want everything that we do out here to be done with absolute excellence. And so we want developmental athletic programs to come that will raise up kids to even become D1 athletes.
Rich Birch — Cool.
Patrick Quinn — Um, now that doesn’t have to be for every child and other children will find ways into these programs that they can still have fun and develop. But our partners – you get back to who’s partnering with us. We want partners that want excellence in everything that we do. So we would so we have already partnered with a soccer/football club.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Patrick Quinn — They call him a football club…
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Patrick Quinn — …you know, because if you’re really serious, you’re a football club. You’re not a soccer.
Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, yeah, love it. Love it.
Patrick Quinn — So we have a football club. They’re called the Yellow Hammer Football Club.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Patrick Quinn — And they have started out here and they are a developmental soccer program. And so when we say that we’re doing things for the community, it’s not your typical um least common denominator type of activity.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Patrick Quinn — It is we want we want people being wowed by the… The church historically has been able to solve problems. I feel like when I read church history, the church when we are at our best, we are solving problems for our local community.
Rich Birch — Yeah, so true. Yep.
Patrick Quinn — And somewhere along the way, and I don’t know if it’s our fault or just, you know, natural vision leaks if we’re not careful, I don’t know, but somewhere along the way, we are not, if we’re honest if we look at ourselves in the mirror as leaders, we are not the first stop where people think to solve problems in our communities anymore.
Rich Birch — Right, right, right.
Patrick Quinn — And I just wanted to do something where hopefully we can position ourselves every step of the way, whether it’s a soccer program, or a coffee shop, or something with the town council that they look at the church of Jesus Christ as a place. It doesn’t have to be the only place. But but we sure should be in the in the conversation if we’re doing our job well. Where we are helping to solve the community the community’s issues. And if we’re doing that then a whole new generation of unchurched type people, I feel like, start looking at the church differently.
Rich Birch — Yeah it’s so true. I love that. And that’s great historical context. It’s true. Like universities and hospitals and so many kind of public good institutions that now have either been taken over by the government, or are just you know there are independent nonprofits, that sort of thing, when you trace back their history they were you know Jesus-loving leaders who saw a need and said, hey we can help with this. We can pull this together. And I love that I love that you’re kind of standing in that stead in that history to try to see something great happen in your ah community.
Rich Birch — Well there’s so much more we could talk about, but I know there’s like executive pastor type people that are listening in that want to get into some of the details around how are you structuring those those relationships, or or how do you think you’ll structure those relationships? There’s a lot we could talk about there, but like take the football club you’re working with. So like did you are did you build the building, like you you raised the money to raise it, and then you’re leasing it back? How does all that work, just to give us just give a sense of that. And if people can reach out to you and talk to you if they got questions about that, I’m sure.
Patrick Quinn — Absolutely. I would love to talk to anybody who wants to look at the model more. But I would say the the way that we’re trying to structure it is we call the twenty three acres The Well.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Patrick Quinn — So century church meets at The Well.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Patrick Quinn — And what we endeavor to do is to make The Well a 501c3. We’ll put a board in place. Church governance will have a big voice in that, obviously.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Patrick Quinn — We create partnerships that fall up underneath The Well. And then what happens next is we have these dual use relationships that some people smarter than me, obviously, XPs that are listening know already, right, that the lead pastor is not the one that’s going to be doing all of this, right?
Rich Birch — It’s good vision. It’s good vision. It’s good… Yeah, yeah.
Patrick Quinn — Right. Yeah, like I’ve run out of my bandwidth pretty quickly on this. So so we we will create these partnerships through these lease agreements and contracts that will that will help our church, you know, we’ll have some guardrails.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Patrick Quinn — But you can already see the type of church we are where we’re willing to you know flex into some gray.
Rich Birch — Yeah flex on that stuff. Yep.
Patrick Quinn — But but we will create some guardrails, and then ultimately these contracts will will fall up underneath The Well. They will operate not not under Century Church’s umbrella. Century Church will be another entity that meets at The Well. And then and then as what we look for in partners are obviously some like-minded people. But we look for people who want to do things with excellence. And we want to bring opportunity to ah both the people that want to do something, but also to the town.
Patrick Quinn — So in other words, another way to look at this is that I heard someone once say that I loved is that we want to create a canvas where other people can come paint their dreams.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Patrick Quinn — So if we can figure out how to do that, and we’re still in the beginning stages of this, but the football club is our first you know example of that that I could that I could share with you, is they’ve come out and they have a contract with us. We will share the space, the fields, and things of that nature. But we give them priority to set their schedules, and we will work with our calendars. But ultimately we want them to be very successful. We want to root them on. We want them to be very successful in all that they do. Um, but communication is obviously going to be key.
Patrick Quinn — And look some people listening to this are going to say that’s way too messy, like I don’t want to get into all of that. But for me, the brain damage of figuring that out means that we get to sit at the table in our wider community. And the brain damage is worth it to me. Also what I hope will be um something that the Lord uses even through this podcast is that the brain damage of us figuring it out means that the next small/medium-sized town that has a pastor that may be listening to this that wants to figure it out, maybe we’ve paid some of the stupid tax. You know? Yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. Love it.
Patrick Quinn — Maybe we’ve gone through some of the brain damage and we can help be a catalyst. That ultimately gets us, when you said we want to launch a hundred churches, um I’m just fine with if Century ever is called into a hundred churches that that are that are absolutely part of Century I’m I’m fine to go to more small towns and be a part of that. I’m also fine in resourcing other pastors and helping other church leaders figure out how to launch something very similar with similar principles. And I feel like that’s every bit as much a part of what the Lord might be doing through our church family.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that is so good. Well I just want to honor you, Patrick. I just love what you’re up to here. To me this just smells so much like Jesus. It just it smells like him. You know it’s it’s very, you know, Jeremiah 29 – seek the prosperity and peace of our community. It feels like Luke 10, hey find a man of peace and, you know, work with them. There’s like it’s it is messy. Like it’s not you know, but but I think it’s the kind of work that God’s calling us to. And I think you’re, you know, you’re kind of projecting for us a new way to think about these things. There’s a ton we could have talked about here, but I want to encourage people to connect with you. So where do we want to send them online if they want to connect with the church, kind of hear more of the story, where where do we want to send them?
Patrick Quinn — The the best place, I mean we have our church website, but the best place to go if you want to learn more about the model of what we’re doing is centuryproject.org – centuryproject.org. And I actually have put my cell phone number literally on that website, so they could text me if they want to, reach out to me via email. But I love to talk about this. And I love to be a part of brainstorming and dreaming with other pastors. I literally was doing it in Huntsville, Alabama just a few days ago, standing on a 40-acre piece of property…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Patrick Quinn — …and having an opportunity to have a conversation with another pastor about what they are looking to do to bring a similar type concept of what we’re doing here. There’s about probably 10 to 12 other pastors that have reached out to me in the last even couple of years that we’ve engaged in conversation all over America about what this looks like in their small/medium-sized town context and how to actually implement some of these core principles. So, I enjoy doing that work and look forward to hearing from some people.
Rich Birch — Yeah it’s so good. I would love, friends, obviously a part of what we’re talking about is like the development of land and pictures and you know obviously you can’t do that in audio format. But I would encourage you to drop by centuryproject.org ah, to even get a sense of when you talk about the development of the property and that there’s some images on there that give you a better sense of what we’re talking about here. Um, it’s pretty inspiring stuff. So I really appreciate you being on today, Patrick. Thank you so much for taking time to be with us, and you know and just Godspeed as you take steps here towards you know, just the next things that God has for you and your ministry. Thanks for being here today.
Patrick Quinn — Thank you so much much, Rich, for having me. I appreciate it. It’s been a great conversation.
Thanks for joining us at the unSeminary podcast. We’re excited to talk with Brian Owens, Executive Pastor of Operations at First Baptist Simpsonville / Upstate Church in South Carolina.
In American culture it’s very normal to want your own voice and identity. Yet this can be challenging when you’re trying to align a church with multiple campuses to function as one unified whole. Tune in as Brian talks about campus alignment, recruiting talent, what to expect with church mergers, and more.
- Alignment essentials. // One of the significant challenges of a multisite church is maintaining alignment. Committing to unity from the top down is essential to ensure all campuses are one, pursuing the same mission. Communicate that each campus is important and has a vital role in the mission, regardless of their size or location. At First Baptist Simpsonville/Upstate Church, each site has the opportunity to interact with all of the teaching pastors and leadership staff.
- What are the constants? // In order to create a unified weekend experience across all of their locations, Brian explains that they’ve established a set of core campus constants. These guidelines ensure that for everything, from worship and teaching to kids ministry, each campus knows what to expect, what approach will be taken, and how everything will flow. Core campus constants also offer confidence to congregants that they will have the same experience no matter what campus they attend.
- Prepare ahead with staff. // When hiring staff members for any level, Brian and his team look for talent that is high capacity, high caliber leaders, and people who buy into the mission and vision. It’s critical for growing churches to be proactive when recruiting so that you aren’t left with a sudden empty spot that remains unfilled for an extended amount of time. Consider partnering with a seminary and implementing a residency program to develop future leaders. Give recent seminary graduates hands-on ministry experience that will grow their skills while helping you develop potential leaders for your church.
- Take time before merging. // First Baptist Simpsonville/Upstate Church has a passion to reach the upstate of South Carolina, and along with that, a heart to revitalize struggling churches. When considering a church merger or rebirth, take time to discuss everything with the senior leadership of the struggling church. Talk about what would be the benefits of the merger and what it would look like and mean for everyone. Let the people of the joining church have the time they need to decide if the merger is what would be best for their mission.
- Consider the liabilities. // Churches want to have a nice facility no matter how many attend, but buildings do depreciate over time. When considering a merger, look at both assets and liabilities, and the impact of older structures on insurance and risk management. On average, Brian estimates that mergers will cost $750,000 to a million dollars, between updating an older building and installing the necessary technology for services. Finally, be prepared for the legal aspects of merging, including any voting and filing paperwork with the secretary of state.
You can learn more about First Baptist Simpsonville / Upstate Church at www.fbcsimpsonville.org.
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Well hey, everybody, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. I’m really looking forward to today’s conversation. We have got Executive Pastor of Operations at First Baptist Simpsonville Upstate Church – one of the fastest growing churches in the country with, if I’m counting correctly, six campuses which I which I think 7 coming up this fall, ah in South Carolina. They offer services in Spanish, Portuguese, and English. They also have a child enrichment center for infants and toddlers through fifth grade, and their Upstate Sports Ministry which provides sports and recreation for the whole family. This is a robust and growing ministry. Brian, welcome to the show. So glad that you’re here today.
Brian Owens — Thank you so much, Rich. Glad to be here.
Why don’t you kind of fill out the picture. Tell us there what did I miss? That’s obviously kind of the boilerplate stuff, but kind of give us a a broader picture; tell us a little bit about the church.
Brian Owens — Yeah, the church is an amazing place. My family and I, we moved here fifteen years ago. I’d been in Kentucky in Louisville for about 14 years at Citibank. And coming here, it was a great experience to be able to plug into a great community.
Brian Owens — Um, Upstate of South Carolina in general has been growing crazy, especially over the last 8 to 10 years. They’re anticipating, you know, within the next six years or so another 1.53 million people total living here in the upstate. And so our passion and our goal is to try to hit each of the 11 counties that make up the upstate…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Brian Owens — …and figure out that we need to have a gospel presence there. Not that there isn’t already gospel presence there. But we just feel like that’s the kind of the vision that God has given us – the calling to is to reach the upstate.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. That’s that’s fantastic. Well obviously multisite is core to your strategy, and although we kicked off at the beginning um, you’ve got 6 locations now and I think launching another one soon. And you know, that that puts you in rare air. Like that we were saying this beforehand. You know we’re still seeing about 50% of multisite churches not getting beyond 3 locations. And the fact that you’ve you know six, seven locations, plus you’re doing gatherings – obviously something’s working there. What the one of the questions that jumps to mind right away is alignment. Why is alignment so difficult in so many churches – you know, multisite church is hard to kind of keep things rowing in the same direction. Why why is that?
Brian Owens — You know I think some of it is ah reflective of just the culture that we have. Everybody seems to need to have their own voice. Everybody wants to have their own identity. And so that happens quite a bit. So working against that to say, as a church, we’re going to be one. And we’re going to be one for the same mission. It doesn’t happen by accident, I can tell you that. It definitely takes a lot of energy and a lot of commitment. But it starts from the top down. I think that’s really key.
Brian Owens — Our leadership and especially our Lead Pastor, Wayne, has been very, very focused on this since at least 2018, 2019 when we started a couple of initiatives, one around “all in” and then “one”. Both of those drove the same general message that regardless of what campus that you are sitting at, wherever you’re having your weekend experience, wherever you’re doing your life, we’re doing it together. And on the top of that, you get the opportunity to interact with all of our teaching pastors and all of our leadership staff.
Brian Owens — So we are intentional about going to see each of the campuses. Um, and so each campus pastor isn’t just parked there for fifty-two weeks a year. They will go and spend other other weeks during there in the church year at other campuses. It’s very intentional – about once every six weeks we do a fruit basket turnover is what I call it. I don’t know if there’s another term for it or not, but that’s what we call it. Yeah.
Rich Birch — I like that – fruit basket turnover. That’s good – I like it.
Brian Owens — And that’s where even our lead pastor, he will go to our campus that’s running 600 on an Easter to, you know, two months later he’ll be at the one that’s running 175. So it’s not about the size of the congregation. It’s about each campus, wherever they’re at, are vital. They’re important. They’re plugged into the mission. And they deserve the opportunity to hear from everybody that’s on staff and make sure that we focus on doing that consistently.
Rich Birch — That’s cool.
Brian Owens — So that’s one of the key things that I think we do that’s unique from other things.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. You know I’ve said in other contexts, you know if it doesn’t it takes a certain kind of leader to get 10 leaders in a room and say, Okay, everybody think a different thought. It takes a different kind of leader to get 10 leaders in the room and say Okay, this is what we’re going to focus on – let’s focus on these, you know, this in common. And um I love that you’re trying to figure out how do we do that. How do we kind of keep people pushing in the same direction. Can you kind of talk us through, when you say multisite, what what does that look like from like a programming, teaching, um, you know, kids ministry? How do that, you know, what do you hold in common among your various locations? Kind of give us – I realize that’s a giant question, so try to give us a thumbnail sketch of that.
Brian Owens — Yeah, we we used to have different we’ve tried different models over the fifteen years that I’ve been here. Some have been successful, most were not, but I think the one that we’ve kind of hit our honey spot here in the last six years or so has been driven around we established like ah Wayne, our lead pastor, established with the team a set of core campus constants, so that each campus this is exactly what you’re going to get regardless, this is how it’s going to flow. This is the approach that we’re going to take. That being like, for example, just music, it’s the same music on any campus. It’s a live band regardless, but it’s it’s gonna be the same track list. It’s gonna be the same music and [inaudible]. We have two different styles that are on all of our campuses – modern and then we also have a vintage which is a little bit more pullback. It doesn’t have all the lights and the haze and all the other It’s just really more kind of a forward sound experience. But we have both of those happening on all of our campuses and so regardless of where you go, you’re gonna get the same experience.
Brian Owens — And likewise it goes to the kids. It’s been very intentional. It took us about a year to hire our Director of Kids, Emily Toole. She came to us from up in Northern Indiana and she has been great because she and her team have come together and our target is, although we want to reach everybody, our target is young families in the upstate with kids at home who are unchurched. And so we want to create an environment where families will feel safe coming, bringing their children. And when the kid leaves they’re like, you know, that was a great experience. Mom, Dad, I want to come back and be a part of that. And a lot of that is driven around the kids. So not only consistency in the worship experience but also in the kids experience.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Brian Owens — So that if you’re at one campus on one side of town, or you’re even in another campus thirty, forty miles away, you’re getting the same core teaching. You’re getting the same setup. You’re getting the same experience each one of those locations.
Rich Birch — That’s good. And are have have you defined those, when you say campus constants, are those um is that like a ah written document? Are they all, how are you kind of communicating those among the various locations?
Brian Owens — Yeah, we we work with each of our campus pastors and our leadership on the team. We have, for our structure-wise, we’ve we played around with this over the last couple years. We have now what’s called our executive team. And our executive team is made up of Wayne, our lead pastor, our director of strategy, Kathy, um Wes Walker, who is our executive over creative services, Pat Gillen, who’s our executive over family ministry, Steve ah, Genoble who’s our executive over mission, Stephen Williams who’s our executive over discipleship, making it myself. And we get into a room once a week and our our our philosophy and our approach is, as far as vision is concerned as far as where we’re going direction wise, we take that responsibility. That’s our that’s our tool to play and use for leadership.
Brian Owens — But then the execution of that goes to the campus pastors, the teaching pastors, and then the directors who are over all of the sites. And so what we’ve done, we created a document “Upstate Constants” and its core around unified foundation, ah, unified identity, a unified leadership and our unified function. So all those things kind of pour into the, if you will, it’s the gasoline in the tank that drives everything that we do and all of the decisions that we make.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. Now is there, this all sounds great. You know it sounds like man, this is great alignment. I’m sure there’s never any problems. There’s never any disagreement. It’s always all day long at Upstate. But if you were going to imagine, where there could be potentially conflict on defining (obviously I’m saying all that tongue in cheek…)
Brian Owens — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …you know around constants, are there common areas where you do see rub or or you maybe in the past have seen like hey it took us a while to kind of get alignment, you know, in this particular area on our constants?
Brian Owens — Yep. I think one of the big areas and this is just because of the experience that we had, we grew so fast…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Brian Owens — …we were having ah many of our staff and to ah to a large degree most of our our senior leaders serve in dual roles.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Owens — They’re doing not only like a teaching pastor but they also could be serving over connections, or they could be serving over recreation. And so we had to share a lot of staff and leaders in different seats during the week, and even on the weekend experience. And so um, there was a lot of um, not that we were siloed or we were in our lanes. It wasn’t any of that because we very we have very much a collaborative environment of how we work and our model is set up on that. But when you are trying to go as fast as the growth was happening and we just couldn’t keep up.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Owens — We were just we were pulling that rubber band as, a way Wayne kind of refers to it, and it just just stretching, stretching, stretching. And it’s only so far you can stretch it before it snaps.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Owens — And I think when we were just having to utilize so many staff in so many positions for example, creative arts, worship arts, bringing somebody in who not only handled the weekend experience leading on the the praise band, but then likewise immediately take that hat off and run upstairs and do students and kind of be a director for student areas we’re growing.
Brian Owens — So kind of like your split personalities was some of the the feeling that you could get when we were when we were having folks doing that into a degree. We still have folks that are doing it. But these guys and gals that are on the team, they’re amazing. They’re doing a great job, but we’ve we’ve kind of worked through that I think. But we’re continuing to grow.
Brian Owens — One of the things we’re doing different now I have to say, Rich…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Brian Owens — …is we’re trying to be proactive in our hiring. We’re trying to identify and recruit talent now, even though we might not have an official place on the bus for them to sit at the moment.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Owens — We know we’re gonna need them.
Rich Birch — Right. That’s good.
Brian Owens — And so we’re trying to go ahead and go after folks and anticipate what our needs are instead just being reactive and trying to say oh, there’s a hole. There’s a need. Let’s fill it and get whoever comes along.
Rich Birch — Oh I love that because yeah, by the time you see the hole and feel the pain, it’s too late.
Brian Owens — Exactly.
Rich Birch — And you know, it’s like you know we’ll start it’ll take a year before we can find the right person. So what does that look like? How are you kind of proactively, you know, looking for people out there, kind of pursuing, and then how does the multisite thing fit into that, you know, trying to ensure that they align with your approach to the way you’re doing church?
Brian Owens — Yep, regardless of the position that we’re bringing in, whether it’s kind of a a director level or above or even just from a support position, it doesn’t matter. We look for talent that is high capacity, high caliber leaders, folks who buy into the vision and the mission.
Brian Owens — One of the things that our executive pastor of family ministries, Pat Gillen, has done in the last three years is he’s helped us establish a residency program.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Brian Owens — And by that is if you are in seminary, you just graduated with your undergraduate when you’re going to work on your graduate degree, your master’s degree. We bring you on for 2 years it’s a split half and half. We provide the covering we pay your tuition for your master’s degree and your study, but you raise support to live off of. We provide you housing…
Rich Birch — That’s cool.
Brian Owens — …we provide you opportunities to serve and those kind of things but that process has allowed us to identify young talent who gets into the ditches with us while they’re growing, whether it’s in students, whether it’s in worship arts, whether it’s in recreation. They get to feel what’s happening, be a part of what’s happening, they buy in to the vision, they buy in…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good.
Brian Owens — …to what we’re doing. And then we’re able to continue to use them once they’re done with that 2-year process. We’ve got openings that we’re going to be filling. As a matter of fact, we’ve got two individuals that are going to be finishing up. We’ve got more than that that are finishing our residence program right now, but two have expressed interest in going into full time ministry.
Rich Birch — Nice.
Brian Owens — And so we are looking at spots for them on the team already, just moving them over a little bit. And since they’ve already been here, they know they know what we’re all about, who we are, and and where we’re going. And so that’s building a lot, I think, of a longer runway for retaining top talent as well.
Rich Birch — Yeah I love that. That’s like, you know, um, we’ve had Dave Miller from an organization called Leadership Pathway on which is ah they they help churches like yours build a residency program. And you know the the thing that he says all the time is it is like the, well he doesn’t say it like this, but I always think it’s like the JV team. Or the you know it’s like the up and coming. It’s the, you know, the you know, the the pool that you can draw from, and people that there are and it’s a way for you to serve even if they don’t end up at your church. Man, what a what a huge experience for them to be able to be at a growing a growing, thriving church that’ll take that with them wherever they go. And that’s a great way to kind of expand the the influence of the church.
Rich Birch — Well again, this is I’m sure never comes up comes up at at your church, but there can sometimes be tension in multisite churches between um, the kind of campus leadership and then the central leadership, the people that are responsible for stuff across all locations. How do you work that out at you know, obviously we talked about constants. That’s a part of it. But was there anything else around that that that you found that has been particularly helpful to to kind of drive alignment and keep everybody rowing in the same direction?
Brian Owens — Yeah, I think right out of the gate one of the things that we did, because we had been doing multisite since the mid two thousands.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Brian Owens — We had multi-campuses previously but each of those campuses were very unique. So we had one campus that was kind of built around a horse cowboy horse cowboy culture.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Brian Owens — So it was our cowboy church. We also had one that was kind of like 20 young pros. It was downtown Greenville kind of had a yuppy, bougie feel to it, if you will.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Brian Owens — Then we had one that was kind of just here on the west side of Simpsonville. It was our west end campus. So we just had different approaches, and each one of those um had a live teacher. Some of them at at that time our our lead pastor was Randy Harling, he would go and actually teach on Sunday evenings or wherever it was at. But it just had very unique styles. Kind of a Henry Blackaby model, I guess. If God is moving, we just gonna are gonna join him there and…
Rich Birch — Yeah, let’s just get behind it and do it. Yep.
Brian Owens — …just do it, which is great. But each one of them were going in the same direction but we were completely misaligned. So you could go to any of the campuses and you didn’t really feel that connection.
Brian Owens — So what we have really worked towards in the last couple of years as as a staff is we brought in Tony Morgan and The Unstuck Group back in 2016, 2017 and they did an assessment with us. And one of the key things that we walked away from in that is the decision making rights. And so for that it was a major turning point for us to decide, Okay, who gets the opportunity to so have the influence in the decision, but where on this decision making rights chart are those executed against.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Brian Owens — And so it really clarified for the teaching pastor on the campus, Hey your your day of game on something’s going on, you need to make a ah call, you don’t have the ability to get on the horn and find somebody at the central campus to say, hey this is what’s happening. Make the call, do the decision. We’ll go with whatever happens on that Sunday morning. If the computers break down or whatever, don’t worry about it. We’ll just we’ll we’ll work through it and then we’ll get up on the other side and try to figure it out. So that kind of helped alleviated each of the campus pastors having to feel like they were having that decision rights always hanging over them.
Brian Owens — Plus when we instituted each of the directors, for example Emily – I talked about her earlier. She handles all the kids’ stuff for any campus. So she’s the one that’s on each campus ensuring the constant um rollout of all of it and ensuring that you’re getting the same experience. And so for a lot of campus pastors that alleviated them from even have to worry about, well are we hitting our targets for folks checking in in the quicken amount of time? Are we getting the security badges back? You know all the other things that you would normally think of in the day-to-day, campus pastors didn’t have to worry about that because that decision-making chart, decision-making right process clarified that for all of us going forward. And we still tweak it and adjust it as we go, but by and large that really was a huge defining moment for us.
Rich Birch — That’s cool. Yeah, like just taking the time to define that and to get real clear on exactly, you know, who’s responsible for what what is the sandbox that we’re asking you to play in, man, can be can alleviate so much pain within a multisite church for sure.
Rich Birch — So let’s talk a little bit about um you know mergers or rebirths, that sort of thing. We see this pretty common. I would imagine in a church or size that you’ve had at least one or two of those. Talk to us about that kind of experience. Obviously mergers is a really broad category for lots of different kinds of relationships as you you know have worked with other ministries, but talk to us what that’s look like for your church.
Brian Owens — Yeah, for us it’s been a very unique opportunity. We have been able to partner our denomination is this Southern Baptist denomination and we have what had historically been called Directors of Missions who were kind of like associational missionaries that were in each of the associations and had a network with all the churches, like the 68 churches in the Greenville baptist association, and they were all plugged in to the 2,100 other churches in the South Carolina convention. Our partnership that we’ve had for the last several years with Al, our director, he knows what churches are struggling. He knows which ones are prime and ready. He takes them through, he’s got his own program that he uses for revitalization to help them try to replant, repurpose, revision where they’re at.
Brian Owens — But in in that process sometimes they come to a place where they’re like, you know, we’ve got 30,000 square feet of facilities. You know, we’ve got $300,000 in the bank. We’ve had four pastors in 7 years, but you know we we just keep going back and we’re still doing the same thing and we’re not getting the results. And we know that God’s called us to have a vibrant active part in the gospel and in the kingdom work. And so sometimes Al will connect us to have those conversations. Sometimes we just naturally have those connections with other people. And when that happens we have been able to come alongside and it’s incredible. The the process that we go.
Brian Owens — It’s not it’s it’s not a very light or flippant approach; it’s a very intentional approach. We meet with senior leadership of of the the church that we’re talking with. We lay it out on the line and say you know if you move forward with this, this is what this is going to look like. And each of the times that we’ve done it, they have gotten to a place where they’re like, you know, we see that the mission is so much bigger than us. You’ve got resources…
Rich Birch — Praise God.
Brian Owens — …not that we are the the end all be all, but you know they’re just like you know this this this is what this church was founded on 80 years ago.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Brian Owens — Or this is what this church has been about for the last 30 years.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Owens — We want to see a gospel presence. We want to see the kingdom keep advancing. And so they make that decision and and we merge. And we do it legally just like any church. They vote, we vote, we have to file the paperwork with the secretary of state…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Brian Owens —…do all the things behind the scenes that have to get done to make it legal and official. But it’s been an incredible process for us.
Rich Birch — Yeah that’s cool. First I just want to call out Al and say man, great job. You know being, ah there might be people that are listening in today that they they you could play that kind of matchmaker, encourager kind of role. You might be engaged in a conversation with a church that’s either, you know, that that could maybe take a step towards joining another church. But but frankly, your encouragement could really help that process that, you know, you could play a role as a third party in. That that could be just so effective. So you know good on Al for being, you know, open to having that kind of voice. That’s that’s fantastic.
Rich Birch — What about some of the nuts and bolts part of that, you know, some of that, you know, we don’t get into those. My experience has been that the malt I’ve been through multiple of those as well and I found them just amazing kind of from a kingdom point of view. That’s so cool to see. And lots of good stories that you know come out. And um, but let’s talk about maybe some of the practical side around facilities and properties and that sort of stuff, from your seat in operations. Um has that been smooth sailing, super easy, anything any potholes we should be looking out for there? Advice you’d give to us as we engage in those conversations?
Brian Owens — Yeah, man, absolutely. I’ve slept like a baby through all of them. I’ve never had a restless night ever once.
Rich Birch — Yeah, exactly.
Brian Owens — Ah, no man, it it really has not been all that bad of process because typically most churches want to to have a great facility. They want to have a safe facility. So even if they don’t have a hundred people showing up there each week, they still try to take care of the best they can of the facility. But like any fixed asset, it will depreciate over time.
Brian Owens — And so when we go into these situations after now doing this about 4 or 5 times, we finally figured out there’s some key things you want to be looking at on the front end. And it’s not just ledger. It’s not just how much money is in in the the savings account, or how much money they may owe still on a bank note, but it’s the totality of the property and what is there. And um with that you also um, you you acquire new new new footprints, but you also acquire new liabilities.
Rich Birch — Oh yes.
Brian Owens — And so one of the things that we picked up in this last year is, um and and it’s to be understood, and there’s a lot of changes that’s happened with the insurance agency, but we merged with a couple of churches that have older structures, older buildings with more things that need to be mitigated. And our insurance company didn’t like it. Not that we filed anything against it. But just that we’re taking on a greater degree of risk.
Rich Birch — Just increased risk. Yeah, yeah.
Brian Owens — Exactly. And so we had it there some policies that got dropped. So we’ve had to go back out and and shop the market for that. But that’s one of the the things that we view as essential for the kingdom is is that, not that we have deep pockets, because we don’t. We have very limited um amount of money that we’re able to operate with. But if we feel that the mission that God is called that campus to have, whether it was with us, or eighty years ago when it was a completely different campus. Um, if there needs to be a gospel presence there and we feel God is moving there, we’re gonna we’re gonna step up to the plate and do it.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Brian Owens — And each one of those typically require um on average three quarters of a million dollars, $750,000 to a million bucks that we have to invest over two or three years in fixing that footprint, whether that’s foundational issues, that’s plumbing, windows. We need to mitigate issues with lead paint or asbestos…
Rich Birch — Asbestos. Yeah.
Brian Owens — …or any of those other things, you just kind of get that on the front end knowing full well that yeah, you’re going to get a you’re going to get a building. You’re going to sink half a million dollars in there for AVL production when you have a worship, but you’re also going to need to sink in more just to take care of the bones of the building.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s a good kind of even round number to have in in mind and to be able to… how have you typically funded that? Have you funded that through like additional special offerings or have you tried to, you know, have you bankrolled that some of that into debt or what’s that look like?
Brian Owens — What we do is we have done a little bit of all. We’ve bankrolled at some of them by going back to the bank, getting a little loan. Likewise we’ve used to raise it within initiatives, two-year initiatives like our “One” or our “All-in” which kind of fall [inaudible] Generis approach for 2-year vision mission initiative. Or ah likewise we’ve also had some scenarios where folks have um, gifted the church through their estate. And that’s for example, our upstate church Haywood campus um had a gentleman who passed away this last year, Mr. Leland, um basically left us almost $1,000,000 out of his estate.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Brian Owens — That was able to be poured right back into the same campus that he had been worshiping at when it used to be Laurel Baptist for 90 years. We took that and was able to to do some upgrades and things within the facility and now it is it’s a church that when we merged with them were running around 30 or 40 um, this past Easter Sunday they had almost 500 people there.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Brian Owens — So [inaudible] do incredible do things like that. God’s faithfulness to his people is amazing.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s amazing. That’s so encouraging. Yeah, as you look to the future, are you when you’re looking I’m assuming you’re thinking about new campuses, is the merger rebirth this kind of thing is that on the kind of priority scale, is that high priority or kind of low priority? Just wait and respond? Or are you is there anything you’re doing to kind of, you know, actively, you know, kind of inculcate those conversations?
Brian Owens — Yeah, we are doing a little bit of both of it. It’s some of it is a wait and see, hurry up and wait…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Brian Owens — …because we know that, you know, things could come together with of the churches reaching out to us proactively. But at the same time, for example, our Fountain Inn campus that we’re launching this fall and just six miles down the road from where we are, we’re going into a community center and we’re going to launch out of there. We have no idea what the timeframe’s going to be, but we just bought eleven acres for our Five Forks campus which has been worshipping where they are for 7 years and they’ve been waiting. Um I hope we don’t have to wait seven years for our Fountain End campus to find a permanent location but we’ve already started meeting with real estate agents and folks within the church who have connections with land in that area to say, you know what, if if you think you can connect us with a place that’s got 8, 10, 11, 12 acres of land, we’d love to be able to think about building, which could be anywhere from 7, 8, 9, 10 billion dollars to build on some dirt. Or merging, and if you merge with a church, you know you go in you update the facilities, you spend about a million, a million and a half in a couple of years to update. So there’s cost scales you’ve got to look at on both sides. And so we we’re just keeping our ear to the ground and just kind of seeing which way the wind blows.
Rich Birch — Yeah that’s good. That’s good. Well that’s fantastic. Well this has been a great conversation today, Brian. I’m I’m just so thankful that you’ve taken some time out. I know you got a lot going on. I’m honored that you took some time to be with us. Any kind of last words as we wrap up on anything we’ve talked about today, keeping your campuses aligned, or you know, the campus merger type conversations? Anything else you’d love to kind of, yeah, you’d like to encourage us today as we as we leave the conversation?
Brian Owens — Yeah I think one thing I would remind everybody who’s listening is is that have fun. You know, ministry is hard, but it is also there’s nothing in the bible that says you can’t have fun while you do it. And so I would encourage…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Brian Owens — …everyone no matter where they’re at, where God’s planted them, find the joy, find the fun that’s there and have a good time. I believe that there’s joy and laughter in serving the kingdom. I believe that there’s something attractional to that. And mean people are just stink so there’s just no need to be mean, you need to be nice and have fun.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Oh I love that. That’s a great word to end on. You know I’ve ah in other contexts I’ve reflected on the fact, you know, we have the good news, and you know if we have good news and it really is good, that should be generating joy within us and we should be known as a community that’s having fun. You know we we shouldn’t be known as like oh that’s place is a drudgery to be a part of for sure. That’s a good encouragement, Brian. Appreciate that. Where do we want to send people online if they want to track with you or with the church? Where’s the best place for us to send them?
Brian Owens — Yep, they can go to our website: fbcsimpsonville.org, or they can go on our social media page and like us on Instagram or on Facebook.
Rich Birch — Thank you so much. I’m honored that you were here today. Thank you, sir.
Brian Owens — It’s great to be here, Rich. God bless you and thank you for giving me the chance to visit with you.
Thanks for joining us at the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Dawn Nicole Baldwin from Mavericks, an organization which helps churches be more effective in their communications.
Is there a major change your church is thinking about, but you’re not sure how to communicate it? How do you ensure that your messages are aligned and you are communicating the right things to the right people at the right time? Tune in as Dawn talks about the keys for communicating change in your ministry.
- Three reasons why change falls apart. // How change is communicated can make or break your efforts. Dawn explains that from a communications perspective, there are three reasons why rolling out change tends to fall apart for leaders: People either don’t agree with the change that’s coming, they don’t understand the change that’s coming, or they don’t know what to do. Tackling these three areas will make it much easier for church leaders to accomplish their goals.
- Two sides to the change. // There will be people who aren’t on board with every decision you make and that’s okay. Help the people who have the most to lose from the change feel heard, but don’t water down plans to satisfy them. Help them understand how the change fits with the church’s vision and how it benefits the church as a whole. Giving them permission to leave if they’re just not on board is a good thing. On the flip side are supporters who are really bought into your vision and have the most to gain from the change. Equip them with tools and messaging so they can help to be advocates and motivate the masses.
- Communicate from the inside out. // Communicating change to everyone all at once is overwhelming. Look at communicating change as if it were a bullseye and work from the inside out. The inner-innner circle includes just a handful of trusted elders or advisors that you feel comfortable sharing something that is only “half-baked”. They will help you get to where you can have a pretty good feel for where you want to go before you roll out the idea to other groups. Then, your inner circle might be your directors, senior staff, key lay leaders, and high level donors. It’s important to communicate to these people before laying it out to the whole church, giving them the chance to ask questions and give support.
- The pain of staying the same. // Another common mistake senior leaders make is focusing on what the change is but not why its necessary and why the church should care. Making the pain of staying the same feel greater than the pain of changing is a critical part of the communication process. Many times leaders will be tempted to skip this part and move on to the exciting, feel-good part of where they’re going. Help your people first understand why things can’t stay the way they are.
- Get everyone involved. // Once they have information about the change, helping everyone participate in a meaningful way plays a huge role in creating momentum. Leaders need to motivate their people and make sure they have a vested interest in the change. However, don’t overwhelm them with options during the process. Instead, provide them with clear, simple next steps.
- Coaching with Mavericks. // Mavericks comes alongside churches to help them reach more people more effectively. They partner with senior leadership, offering one-on-one coaching around how to get the rest of the team on board and how to be more effective in communications. They also provide community coaching groups to help participants learn from each other while being exposed to best practices from the world of communications. Dawn describes it as the best parts of conferences, one-on-one coaching, and community learning all rolled together in an online environment.
You can download the free PDF Dawn is offering, The Keys For Communicating Change, and learn more about Mavericks at www.mavericks.cc as well as email Dawn directly.
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey, friends, Rich here from the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. I’m really looking forward to today’s conversation – we’ve got Dawn Nicole ah Baldwin. She is from an organization called Mavericks. They are about helping ministries reach more people more effectively. They are for a number of resources including downloadable blue downloadable blueprints…(that’s I don’t know why that’s sticking in my tongue today) a focus on specific ah topics like community coaching leagues, workshops, coaching calls, and so much more. Dawn is the founder and the lead strategist. You might know Dawn in this organization, they used to have the name Aspire One. She’s definitely a friend and I just I love talking with Dawn because she’s been in this game for a few years and not reveal, you know people’s ages, but has been around the block a few times. So so glad to reconnect Dawn. Thanks for being here today.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — Thanks so much for having me, Rich. I really appreciate it.
Rich Birch — It’s great to see you. What fill out the picture kind of tell tell us a little bit more about Mavericks, tell us about kind of your area of expertise.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — Thanks, Rich. Well we, actually you’re right, we’ve been under Aspire One for a very, very long time. And with that we’ve done a lot of one-to-one custom help with churches, um specifically churches that are wanting to go the next level.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — Um, but with that we also want we realized there’s an opportunity to help more people more efficiently. And so we’ve adopted ah a one-to-many approach by packaging a lot of these resources and making them more accessible for churches. And so that was what Mavericks is all about, why we had changed our name. We’re offering some new resources. So in addition to one-on-one help we’re packaging a lot of these things so they’re either downloadable, or the community coaching you’re talking about, or one-day workshops, just so it’s more efficient both in time and in cost.
Rich Birch — I love it. Well this idea of reaching ah more people more effectively, that definitely gets my attention. So kind of fill out the picture. What are the kinds of either problems that people are coming to you for, or you know, how you’ve helped, what kind of solutions have you been offering to people.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — You know, oftentimes the churches that we work with they they feel like they’re the best kept secret. You know they’ve been in their community for quite some time they’re doing everything that they can, but it’s like ah how can we get the word out. There’s so much that’s competing for someone’s attention. And not even just against other churches just anything that they can do with their time. And so it’s like we we need to get on the radar in a more intentional way. And so that’s what we help them to do, whether it’s reaching new audiences, or raising their awareness, or really rethinking how they’re communicating to people. It’s all part of helping them grow and to take that next step.
Rich Birch — No, that’s cool. That’s cool. Well I want to take advantage of the fact that you’re an expert in this area particularly. If when I think of you I think, man, Dawn’s just so good at the communication piece and how do we ah you know, ensure our messages are aligned, and ensure we’re communicating the right things to the right people at the right time. But you know, when we think specifically about change, you know, I think so many leaders are listening in and they’re thinking, Yeah there’s a we either need to launch a new campus, or we’re going to be you know, maybe changing our name. Or you know maybe we’re maybe maybe there’s like ah a change in theological position or you know something like that where there’s like a major change that we’re thinking about. And sometimes we can get stuck just because of the communication. Like we’re convinced that change is the right thing but we’re just not sure how to communicate it. We’re not sure where to where to begin. And I’d love to kind of unpack that today with you. When you think about that, unpack that problem. Why is it that we get stuck there? Why is it that even just thinking about, you know, communicating change just seems to raise our temperatures and get us nervous?
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — Well, you know it is so true. Most of the churches that are probably listening to your show or that we work with it’s like if they’re not in the middle of some sort of change, there’s one probably right around the corner.
Rich Birch — That’s so true.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — And how it’s communicated really can make or break their efforts. I can’t tell you how many senior leaders have come to us frustrated because their plans had failed just simply based on how they had communicated it. And as doers, you know when we’re thinking about executive pastors, we’re in the business of getting stuff done, right? And so we’re not always thinking so much about all of the steps needed to make sure folks are on board from ah from a um, big picture perspective. And so there’s really kind of three reasons that we found from a communications perspective with why this tends to you know, fall apart for a lot of leaders.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — And it’s usually that people either don’t agree with the change that’s coming.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — They don’t understand the change that’s coming. Or they don’t know what to do.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — And so a lot of leaders, they will spend time talking about what the change is, but not thinking about why people should care about the change, why it matters to them, um, how to get them on board. If we try to get everyone on board at the same time, it tends to be a very difficult process because we can’t make everyone happy, you know, they’re not going to all come on board equally. And so there’s some strategies to make that easier. Or we’ll give them a million different ways to get involved and then they get overwhelmed. And so you know that’s that paralyzed, you know, decision making sort of a thing. It’s like there’s so much going on. We have no idea how to get involved. So they tend to not want to do anything at all.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — So don’t agree, don’t understand, don’t know what to do. And tackling those three things can really make it easier for leaders to accomplish their goals.
Rich Birch — Let’s talk about the understand and agree. You know, I I sometimes think people don’t get… I think that’s a really good framework, those three are really good framework framework, but particularly this kind of understand and agree idea, that you know, we sometimes we make the problems more complex than they are. A part of our job is to try to streamline and clarify them. Pushback on that. Is that a bad theory? React to that; you know, unpack that for us.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — You know, the don’t agree thing. Um, when you have a clarified vision, there are going to be people that don’t think that that’s for them.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — And that’s actually not a bad thing.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — As soon we take a stand on anything and say, “This is where we’re going moving forward,” there’s going to be some folks that are like, you know what? I don’t I don’t think that I’m on board. This doesn’t seem like it’s the place for me. That’s okay.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — I think oftentimes leaders will um, for fear of disappointing people, or people are going to leave, they may try to water it down or try to make everyone happy. And my advice would be don’t don’t let people hold you or your vision hostage, you know, um by their own version of what reality should be. There are going to be some people that leave because they are not excited about the direction that we’re wanting to go. Um and that’s okay. Because that just makes room for people who are excited about where we’re wanting to go.
Rich Birch — Yeah. I’ve heard I had a mentor early on in ministry who said, if you don’t have 10% of the people in your church upset at you, you’re not really leading. I think there’s some truth to that, right?
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Whether the number is right or not, right? But it’s like, hey, if we’re not being the goal is not to get everybody to agree, right? The goal is to is to, you know, align with the mission and um, you know, push forward. What would be some common mistakes that you see church leaders make when they’re trying to build consensus, they’re trying to get agreement, they’re trying to get clarity of understanding? What are the kind of low hanging fruits? You’re like oh gosh, once again, I see us making the same mistake. Are there any of those?
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — Yes, there’s actually two of them. One is trying to get everybody on board equally at the same time. And if you want to picture like ah a bell curve. And if there’s like in the middle is the masses. That’s where the majority of folks are. But on the left side you may visualize people who have got the most to lose. And on the right side you’ve got the people who have the most to gain. Focusing on the fringes, these are your influencers, will really help to motivate the masses in a much more efficient way.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — When we think about, let me talk a little bit more…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — …like when we think about those who have the most to lose, like these are folks that they’re your Negative Nellies. They’re they’re threatened by any kind of change. They’re going to fight you tooth and nail no matter what it is that you do. Helping them to understand how this fits in with the church’s overall vision, how it’s going to benefit them, or giving them permission to leave—you know, if that’s something that they’re just not on board with—is a good thing. And then with those that have the most to gain, these are your biggest supporters.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — You know it’s going to benefit them or they’re really bought into your vision, so you want to equip them with tools and messaging so that they can help other people get on board. So focus on the fringes, not trying to get everyone on board. But your influencers can motivate the masses.
Rich Birch — Okay, so this is good. We’re already I’m like you’re already getting my my gears going, thinking about something differently. So I, you know, I’ve said in other contexts, count the yes votes. You know I understand with the most to gain, Hey let’s run with those people. But unpack the most to lose. I like I I’ve kind of swum a little bit in the school of thought of like ah just ignore those people. Why do we care about those folks? Don’t… but but convince me I’m wrong on that. Why why should we spend a bit more time with the most to lose people?
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — Because those folks tend to have very loud voices. And if they feel like if they’re being ignored, they can start to pick up momentum that may or may not be based in reality.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — And so I’m not saying you address every person who disagrees, or every single person who’s not on board. But think about who are those that have got the loudest voices who probably view themselves as having the most to lose, and spending a little bit of time on the front end, sitting down with them, helping them to feel like they’re being heard, and that they truly understand where this change is coming from, how it benefits the church as a whole, can really going a long go a long way to sometimes converting those folks. Sometimes they push back just because they feel like they they don’t understand or they’re being ignored. And so sitting down with them, spending some time, can really really benefit you know leaders in the long haul.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that makes sense. I can I can see that. You know there’s there’s something about, you know, it’s like a double whammy – if I disagree with where we’re going, and I don’t feel like I have been heard, or I’m trying to express some concern about it and like I’m a person that has, you know, I’m a volunteer, I’m a donor, I actually help here on the church, I’m staff or whatever, and it’s like no one’s listening to me. Well, then that’s really going to agitate me if I’m in that “most to lose” category. I not only don’t agree, but it’s like I don’t even feel like you’re listening to me. You’re not even, you know, connecting. How how does that, what does that look like for churches in that, you know, what have you seen some kind of effective practices there for for connecting with those that kind of most to lose, or most to gain, really those people in the fringes. How do you weed out who those people are?
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — Well usually they’re the ones that are going to have super loud voices.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — So they can be fairly easily, you know they self-identify so that does help.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — But when we think about tailoring communications and tapering it, that’s another part of that process. And so if we try to tell everyone everything all at once, it tends to be overwhelming. Um, and so if you try to picture a bullseye of sorts that have different rings. And at the very center of that bullseye is your inner circle. Um people who are closest to the vision, closest in to what it is you’re wanting to accomplish. You’re going to want to give them more information sooner than people that are all the way on the outside.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — So if we think about kind of your inner circle, weeding out your advocates and your Negative Nellies, there is a great place to um to focus your time and energy. You don’t want to worry about the Negative Nelly that might be in the community or just weekend attenders, because you know, who knows who those people are. But the ones that are on your inner circle, the ones your next level out, might be your directors, your senior staff, key lay leaders, high level donors. Like those two circles those are the ones that it does matter to try to weed out the ones that are having a hard time. Set aside some time to connect with them, whether they might be roundtable discussions. Maybe they’re one-on-one discussions. You know it really kind of depends on the type of change that you’re wanting to initiate. But you’re going to hear from them sooner versus later and sitting down with them and hearing their just their concerns and addressing those is is ah an important part of that process.
Rich Birch — Yeah, how much of that at that level, and and this the answer might be it just depends, but I’m thinking about a change initiative and we’re trying to you know, push things forward. And, you know there’s there’s that moment where maybe as a core leadership team, we’re pretty sure we’re going to make this change. We’re pretty sure things are going to go in that direction. We haven’t really made the decision yet. We’re still wrestling with it. Is that inner circle ah is it about going to them to kind of get their input? Or is it, Hey this is I’m trying to sell you on something that we are already have, you know, decided. And again, it might depend on what it is. But I’ll help me understand the kind of nuance there. Um, how far along should this thing bake, be baked before we start talking to the more to lose, more to gain, you know, group?
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — That’s a really good question. Um, the inner circle is usually your taking shape stage. You know, you’re you’re half baked.
Rich Birch — Okay, yep, yep.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — Um, that’s your your inner circle, your directors, staff, key lay leaders – that would be a level out is how I would view it. Usually you want to have a direction established.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — And you’re looking for maybe input in buy-in you’re looking for that second level um to help support the vision. Maybe they’re the ones that are asking questions. These are the ones you’re starting to equip with information or addressing concerns.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — Your inner inner circle – these are the people that might be your elders, a handful of trusted advisors, people you would feel comfortable sharing something that is half-baked. You don’t want to take something that’s half-baked to your staff.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — You know they’re going to poke all kinds of holes into it.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — They may have some questions or suggestions to refine the direction a little bit or to shape it a little bit, but you should have a pretty a good feel for where you want to go when you’re wanting to roll it out to that group.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good, that makes that makes sense. Any other when you think about kind of the the rollout the conversation. You know this kind of particularly they don’t agree. They don’t understand. Any other common mistakes you see, you know, making beyond, you know, just trying to make sure that, you know, we we can’t we we can’t just dump it on everybody at the same time. We’ve got to kind of segment our audience, get out and and talk about most most to lose, most to gain. Are there any other kind of common mistakes you see that that we should be thinking about?
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — Well with the don’t understand, a lot of times is that they they are they don’t understand why the change is necessary. And so as senior leaders a lot of times we focus on what the change is, but not necessarily why the change is necessary, or why they should care. And so um making the pain of of staying the same feel greater than the pain of changing is is a critical part of the process. A lot of times leaders will skip this part just to get to the good part, you know talking about where we’re going. And everybody loves to think about where we’re going. That’s a good thing. But helping them to understand why things can’t stay like they are is super important.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — So a quick example. Um one pastor we are working with, he wanted to raise funds for a new air conditioner. And when he originally had pitched it to the congregation, they’re like, oh you know, ours kind of works. Do we really need it? You know I mean maybe it needs some maintenance and they were not super excited. So he he was like, okay, and he let it ride. You know by the time July rolled around and it was hot and it was sticky and things, you know, everyone was super uncomfortable, they were a lot more motivated, you know, to want to support the sacrifices to invest in a new HVAC system. So I mean now that’s like a real simple example. But helping people to see why things can’t stay the way they are, and then share where we’re going and how we’re going to get there is really important.
Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good. Yeah, the idea of I think sometimes particularly I can see that with, listen I spend most of my time in that’s that second chair executive pastor type seat. I’ve worked with some amazing lead pastors who are great people. But one of the things that makes that person a great those great people is they are so good at defining the future. They’re so good. They’re like optimists. They’re so like, hey let’s go take this hill. But sometimes we’ve got to stop; what I hear you saying is we’ve got to stop and define why, before we can take that hill, we got to define why this hill is not the hill we want to stay on. We got to go. You know, that there’s problems here that, you know, that people, you know, unless they see, hey it’s important for us to move, they won’t they won’t move. That’s I think that’s a really keen insight.
RIch Birch — Um, when you think about you know, then this whole idea of they don’t know what to do next, man, talk to us about that. I think this is so true. People, um you know, it’s like we define the problem, they have a clarity where they’re going, but with but then now what am I supposed to do? What I’m supposed to do with all this information?
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — Well, there’s two things. Um one, helping everyone to feel involved is ah is is super helpful. And so this is kind of it doesn’t mean that everyone is involved in the decision making or the direction setting process. But they feel like they’re taking part of where we’re going is ah is a big thing. And so this is um, what Jim Collins he’s the author of “Good to Great”. He described this as the flywheel principle. And so once it starts to pick up, it’s hard to stop. It’s kind of the power of everyone. When you get everyone involved and help them to see how this matters to them, really it’s great.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — Like Nehemiah was a great example when he was building the wall of using this technique, where he asked a lot of the people to work on the part of the wall that faced their house. You know? And so they felt involved. They had a vested interest in what was going on. They were participating in a meaningful way. And so leaders motivate others to get involved so that’s important.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — The second big part is not overwhelming them with options. Sometimes um as leaders will we’ll give folks you know, 80…485 ways to do something, you know, whether it’s listed on the website or it’s a verbal announcement or it’s whatever. If people get overwhelmed with options, they’re they’re not going to make any choices, if they are given too many. So provide some clear simple next steps for how people can get involved is ah is a good thing to do.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — One other thing that you had mentioned um with senior leaders. When we think about executive leaders and then we’ve got our our pastors, especially visionary pastors um…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — I don’t know if this is something you’ve run into, Rich, but we run into it often with ah visionary pastors who kind of have a flavor of the month mentality.
Rich Birch — It’s so true.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — They get so excited, right?
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — They get they just are so excited about all of the ideas and the opportunities that they see, you know, for what God can do through their church that they get they they have a little bit of a flavor of the month mentality.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — And what I I think where executive pastors can really help um, those that they team up with from a senior or a lead pastor, is that focuses their friend. And that not now doesn’t mean not ever. You know those are like the magic words for visionary leaders and and trying to contain the crazy that they ah can unleash on their teams. Because if we’re not allowing at least 12 to 18 months to a foreign idea to take root…
Rich Birch — Right
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — …your congregation, they get whiplash.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — You know they they just see one thing after another after another, you know. So try to encourage them to to focus, allow an idea to take root, and that “not now” doesn’t mean “not ever”.
Rich Birch — Yeah I think that’s that’s really good, Dawn. There’s there’s something, again this is a positive part of visionary leaders, like that in that they’re good at defining the, and the reason why that works, the kind of like “hey this is the next hill we’re going on – let’s go over there” is there is nothing like new to generate new momentum. Like when you do something new in an organization, it generates new momentum. But if we do so many new things all the time then it can be like you say it it can grind the organization down and a part of our job is to try to help get some alignment, some some you know some wisdom around what are the things, you know, that we should, you know, be focusing on.
Rich Birch — So pivoting it kind of in a bit of a different direction, but or maybe more of a kind of a meta question, a larger question. You’ve been journeying in this whole area of communication for a few years, what has changed over the years? When you look at kind of like how has our you know our needs as people who communicate, our need as people who are trying to steer this kind of change, you know, with our communities, what has what’s changed? What’s been like, okay this is something ah, we need to think more clearly about today than we did um, you know, whatever number of years ago, ten, fifteen years ago?
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — That’s another really good question, Rich. Um I think that there is more competing for people’s attention than ever before, you know.
Rich Birch — It’s so true.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — And so being clear, trying to focus our efforts our and initiatives and our communications is is absolutely critical. And especially with churches, because oftentimes we’re competing with ourselves. You know, not even outside when we have ministries that are competing with each other for the congregation’s attention. We’re trying to give people all of these different ways to get involved and to get you know to grow in their relationships. They just get overwhelmed. And so there’s this like information overload
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — And clarity is kind, but it takes discipline.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — And I think that the reason why this happens is we want to make sure nothing is is left out. And so we tend to give everyone all these options, all this information, but it’s just it’s like drinking from a firehose.
Rich Birch — Um, yeah, that’s good. So why is it um, so I’m asking this question, I’m not I’m not saying that you’re that you’re the one that said this. But for whatever reason I feel like, so from my perspective communications is a it’s a professional function. It’s it’s like um the example I use with senior leaders, I feel like more and more these days, is I say to them you know, similarly to say the financial side of your church, when you’re when you just get started you might have you know a volunteer that looks after the finances and then eventually you start to think like you know, maybe we should hire a bookkeeper and then eventually maybe like a CFO and that sort of thing.
Rich Birch — The same is true on communication. It is a professional function. Like you, you need to approach it with an air of professionalism. But it seems like there is like resistance to that with some church leaders. And I don’t know why that is. Again I’m the one that asking – maybe you don’t think it’s true. But why do you think that is? Why do you think there’s like a there’s some resistance to saying, hey maybe we should get some help in this area? Maybe this is an area that we shouldn’t just kind of wing it. We should we should actually talk with someone like yourself.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — Well not just with me, but with thinking of the roles that they have internally, communications historically has been viewed as a tactic, and when we—instead of a strategy.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — And we really view strategic um communications as a strategic channel for connecting people to the church and helping them to grow in their relationship, not only with the church but the relationship with God. And so when we’re thinking about it from a tactical perspective, it tends to not get the attention of senior leadership. So when we first started teaching about this, um almost thirty years ago, you know, oftentimes the church secretary would be the one that would be updating the bulletin or or something like that.
Rich Birch — It’s so true.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — You know, they didn’t really have the skills. Now we have made some progress over over this period of time where we have Communication Directors and folks that do have skills and and the talents needed to manage it. But it still isn’t taken seriously by senior leadership. You know, a lot of times the ministries are treating communications as kind of a drive-through service, you know, when they want to promote opportunities and events. It’s like do you want fries with that? You know and it’s like here’s all the things that we want done.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — And these communication leaders are just order takers, when they really should be viewed more as like a Chief Marketing Officer for the organization.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — Just like the the weekend worship is viewed as a strategic channel for connecting people to the church, helping people from a communications perspective is the exact same thing. Because if they can’t connect to your church, if they don’t hear what your message is, then does it really matter how great are weekend service is…
Rich Birch — Right.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — …if we’re making it hard for people to connect.
Rich Birch — So true.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — That’s the role of communications. It’s so strategic but oftentimes not viewed as such by senior leaders just because it’s not something that they were taught you know or that they think about or it’s not super [inaudible] um, but it needs to change.
Rich Birch — Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I wonder too on that literally just last weekend I was at it I was at a church and I was talking with the person that kind of sits in that communications um seat and you know I was saying to them, because we were talking about some of the challenges they were having, and and I was trying to encourage like give courage to this person to say like, hey you you are the expert in this area. Like you are the person that can help give direction. And like you don’t just keep coming to these meetings with the notepad open saying okay, how high do you want me to jump? Like come and proactively say like, hey you want to, I’ve got some ideas on how we could help you know use communication to push the mission of the church forward. Ah yeah, I just think there’s so much so much there.
Rich Birch — Well let’s pivot and talk a little bit about Mavericks. So you provide a number of services and you know, approaches and helps for churches. Um talk to us about the kind of coaching that you do that the kind of assistance. When if you if you wanted if you were if we were thinking, hey maybe you’d like to have somebody come alongside us and help us with that. What does that look like?
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — Well, we can do one on-one coaching,. Um, one in-one coaching is something that ah churches have teamed up with us for a super long time. You know whether it’s kind of partnering alongside senior leadership of thinking through how can we get the rest of the team on board? How can we be more effective in our communications? How can we use this to get the church to the next level?
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — But we also offer community coaching groups, you know, we call them leagues. And this is where they can really learn from each other. So the idea here is that we’re taking the best parts of conferences, one-on-one coaching and community learning, and kind of mashing it all up together in an online environment. So that not only can folks learn from each other but they can get best practices from you know what’s going on in the world of communications and um the one-on-one coaching that I’m able to provide.
Rich Birch — So good. Well this is this has been a great conversation today. We do have a PDF we want to? um, we’ll link to it’s called The Keys for Communicating Change – obviously is around what we’re talking about here. Anything else you want to say about this ah, this resource? I’d encourage people, we’ll put a link in the show notes, go down there, click that so you can pick up a copy of that. But anything else you want to say about this this resource for folks?
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — Um, it’s really just kind of a great overview of what we were talking about today. But if there’s anyone who wants to go a little bit deeper or if they want to think about how they can be more intentional with communicating change, you know, I’m more than happy to to have a conversation with them. We can talk about what potential next steps would be, and so shooting us an email would be a great place to start.
Rich Birch — That’s great. Dawn, I really appreciate you being here today, cheering for you. I think, you know, highly recommend, folks, if you’re if you’ve been intrigued a little bit, I would reach out ah to Mavericks. That’s just mavericks.cc for more information. Dawn’s an incredible leader. Super helpful. She wants to get in your corner and help. Ah, so I’d highly recommend her, but is there anywhere else online where we want to send people if they want to connect with you or connect with Mavericks?
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — Um, the website’s a great place to start. Um or they can shoot me an email. You know if they have a specific question I’m happy to answer, I’m happy to help. And so just dawn@mavericks.cc is a simple way to get in touch with me.
Rich Birch — Great. Thanks so much appreciate; you being here today.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — Thanks, Rich, for having me. I really do appreciate it and I’m so excited about what you’re doing to to help ministry leaders to to go to the next level. So thanks for having me.
Rich Birch — Thank you so much.
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Dennis Allen today, a former fighter pilot who became a six-time Turnaround CEO and now helps churches rethink discipleship.
The vast majority of younger people who were raised in the church are leaving at alarming rates. 80% of the people sitting in our churches are spiritually inert and disengaged. What’s the problem? Tune in as Dennis explores the symptoms and root causes of the disciple dilemma in our churches and how to move forward.
- The dilemma in the pews. // Many people sitting in our churches today aren’t fully engaged in the mission. About 65% of millennials (age 45 and under) and 70-80% of Gen Z (age 25 and under) who were raised in the church are walking out because they say the church is intolerant, irrelevant, immoral, and irrational. In addition, 93% of evangelicals believe that talking about Jesus is not their job, it’s the pastor’s responsibility. 80% listen to sermons but have no small group, prayer, or bible study in their lives.
- Mission versus institution. // The church, while being the body of Christ, is also an institution. Institutions, by nature, tend to prioritize the urgent over the important, often losing sight of their mission. This phenomenon, which Dennis refers to as “churchianity,” can lead to a focus on maintaining the organization rather than making disciples. If everything we do isn’t driven by the mission of our churches, the mission will slowly be subsumed by the institution.
- Recognize the root causes. // Once you’ve identified the symptoms of a discipleship problem, it’s time to dig deeper and address the root causes. In his book The Disciple Dilemma, Dennis lays out six very old traditions that are not right, good, or biblical, but they’ve been around so long they are seen as normal and may be hindering true discipleship. The second half of The Disciple Dilemma lays out a path for how to biblically go after the problem.
- The dynamic of power. // One of the root causes of disciple issues is the dynamic of power that began with Constantine. Modern Western Christianity thinks about power as a means to achieve the end of serving God. Because of our fallen nature, power infects the system and it becomes about dominating and being in control. Churches and the people who occupy them want their agendas to be picked up. However what we see in Jesus, and in discipleship, is a servant who connects with people in humility and builds relationships.
- Discipleship over growth. // Dennis challenges the notion that numerical growth is the sole indicator of a healthy church. Growth is good, but when you start packing growth into the pews at a rate that exceeds your ability to disciple, you’ll have a problem. Assess whether your programs are fostering genuine discipleship or merely attracting attendees. Encourage personal relationships and mentorship within the church community.
- Discipleship at the top. // One of the tell-tale signs of whether churches are discipling well is looking at the leadership team and asking if they have actually been discipled and who is walking alongside them right now. Church leaders must be actively involved in discipleship, modeling it for the congregation. Is the leadership doing what it wants the rest of the church to do? Is the church launching other churches? Does it have a structure that allows one-on-ones and one-on-twos of disciples on disciples to develop?
- Help from The Disciple Dilemma. // By understanding the scale of the disciple problem, diagnosing the symptoms, and addressing the root causes, church leaders can cultivate a culture of discipleship that prioritizes the mission over mere institutional growth. For those interested in diving deeper into this topic, Dennis is offering a dozen free downloads of his book, The Disciple Dilemma. You can enter to win a free copy of the e-book here or pick up a physical copy.
Learn more about The Disciple Dilemma at thediscipledilemma.com and enter to win a free copy of the e-book. Twelve entries will be chosen at random on July 11, 2024.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Risepointe
Do you feel like your church’s facility could be preventing growth, and are you frustrated or maybe even overwhelmed at the thought of a complicated or costly building project? Are the limitations of your church building becoming obstacles in the path of expanding your ministry? Have you ever felt that your church could reach more people if only the facility was better suited to the community’s needs?
Well, the team over at Risepointe has been there. As former ministry staff and church leaders, they understand how to prioritize and help lead your church to a place where the building is a ministry multiplier. Licensed all over North America, their team of architects, interior designers and project managers have the professional experience to help move YOUR mission forward.
Check them out at Risepointe.com/unseminary and while you’re there get their FREE resource “10 Things to Get Right Before You Build”.
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Well hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Man, I’m really looking forward to today’s conversation. We’re so honored that you’ve decided to tune in. You know every week we try to bring you a leader who will inspire, equip you, and today I’m excited to have Dennis Allen with us. New friend, he’s a six-time turnaround CEO. That alone should get your attention. But he also would like flew fighter pilot was a fighter pilot at one point in life and has helped all kinds of you know people across the country, and has got a real passion for discipleship, and we’re really looking forward to diving in on this conversation. Dennis, welcome to the show today.
Dennis Allen — Rich, amped to be with you on unSeminary.
Rich Birch — This is going to be good. Fill in the picture, kind of give us the story, the Dennis Allen story. I know that’s hard to do, but kind of tell us a little bit about your background.
Dennis Allen — Yeah, well my background looks like an attention deficit disorder nightmare, if you take a look at my resume, right?
Rich Birch — Love it.
Dennis Allen — I’m just kind of tracking through. Um so I was raised in a Christian home. At the age of 8 my parents, exasperated with me, decided to drag me down to the pastor’s office to try to understand who Jesus really is and how broken my life really was. I became a believer at that point and then I went inert. That’s a conversation I’d like to carry on a little further today when we talk about discipleship. Off into the military, got to fly airplanes. That was crazy, wild ride. Um the Lord had some really interesting issues to throw out at me there which was basically I was told my heart is got the same problem that Pistol Pete Maravich’s heart had on the Boston Celtics…
Rich Birch — Oh no.
Dennis Allen — …and you’re going to die in a couple of years.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Dennis Allen — That didn’t happen but I couldn’t fly anymore…
Rich Birch — Right.
Dennis Allen — …and that sent me reeling off into the business world. The business world I’m working on turning around companies that are either underperforming, struggling, or in just disaster mode. And along the way my bride, Karen, and I are living in lots of different places, and we’re in different churches as members, and we’re getting a chance to watch discipleship live, full and free. And that led me to think a lot about it. And then as I mentioned to you, we were chatting before the podcast, a bunch of theological thugs at gunpoint made me write a book, and that was The Disciple Dilemma. So, here we are.
Rich Birch — Ah, ah well one of those thugs was Os Guinness.
Dennis Allen — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And listen, when his recommendation on your book, like anybody who knows him, obviously is giant, has had so much influence. It’s definitely one of those quotes you want to lean forward and be like, ooh I should probably pay attention to what we’re talking about. What we’re talking about the disciple dilemma. And man, there are so many people, you talked about this inert people that are sitting in our pews or in our seats that are not engaged fully in the mission. They’re, you know, they’re kind of floating through life. But then you’ve got, you know, so many nones in our cultures, ex-evangelicals, deconverted, all that. But help us understand the problem, the scale of this problem. You’ve obviously seen it as a person in a lot of different churches across the country and are now obviously thinking about it. But let’s unpack that problem a little bit. What’s what’s actually happening here with discipleship, or and maybe not happening with discipleship across the country?
Dennis Allen — That’s a great way to set it up, Rich. So here’s here’s kind of the framework of this. I’m gonna I’m gonna lean to some statistics for a couple of minutes. And I’ll start with some of the more recent ones. If your folks are probably familiar with The Great Dechurching, Jim Davis, Michael Graham’s book. There’s work with Pew, there’s Barna, IPPR. Even The Humanist Society of the UK. And let me just lay some numbers out…
Rich Birch — Okay.
Dennis Allen — …so pastors can go, hey this really isn’t my fault; this really is going on all around us, right?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Dennis Allen — So what’s what’s happening in the world? About 65% of millennials, think sort of 45 down, and about 70 to 80% of Gen Z’s, think now 25 and down, who were raised in the church are walking out. They’re saying, this isn’t for me. The church is intolerant, irrelevant, immoral, irrational. I’m not a part of this anymore. I can be a part of a running club or whatever and go do that. So they’re walking out. Those people exit the church. That’s one problem.
Dennis Allen — Second problem that you face in the pews today: 93% of evangelicals would tell you that talking about Jesus is not my job – that belongs to, Rich, the pastor, the guy in the pulpit. He’s supposed to do the heavy lifts on this sort of thing. 80% of the people in those pews are spiritually inert. They have no bible study. They have no prayer life. They have no small group. They have nothing more than 1.7 times a month going to a sermon series. That’s Protestant, mainstream…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Dennis Allen — …and the evangelical traffic altogether. So when we think about the people walking out and the folks that we’ve got in the pews, the question that began to taunt me is, do we have a problem? And if so…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Dennis Allen — …what’s the symptom and what’s the root cause? What’s going on here? That’s kind of the setup.
Rich Birch — Okay, that’s good. I love that. I you know, I know I wondered for a while, you know, if when we the the average church in the country is 75 people. That’s you know that number is super sticky. And you know, ah the the irony of that and, listen, we’re all friends here that are listening in, just a couple of friends sitting around having a coffee. You know, the irony of that in that number to me in other contexts I’ve wondered, I’d love for you to get your thoughts on this, 75 people is about the number of people that you need in a church to pay for one pastor. Um, and that may sound like a really cynical thing but I wonder if so many of our systems in the church really are kind of reinforcing the system, rather than making disciples, rather than making people who ultimately follow Jesus. We’re really, it’s like we’re building organizations. Ah, react to that. Am I just way too cynical? Is that too dark of a thought? Talk to me about that.
Dennis Allen — I love the way you’re setting this up, Rch. So when you think about the world of a church, I’m going to say some things that some of the people in the pews that would get really mad about.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Dennis Allen — But if you really really get angry and upset about this, it’s Rich’ a’s fault for let me on not mine. So.
Rich Birch — Sure, yes.
Dennis Allen — So here’s kind of the setup. The setup is that we have the body of Christ. We have the community of believers that gathers together to worship. But the flip side of that exact same entity is an organization. And when you have an organization, you have an institution. Now here’s where we get into the tension that you’re facing as a pastor and executive pastor. Institutions always want to strip away mission. Institution wants tyranny in the urgent, Charlie Hummel’s book, to take over. You need to fire fight, you need to work the crises, you need to work the budget, you need to work the PowerPoint decks that make all the elders or the board of directors or whoever really happy. You’ve got to churn out administrative, you got to crank out great sermons, you got to take care of the kids on Sundays, bury the in-laws, you got to do all this sort of stuff. That’s the institutional side of the church.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Dennis Allen — And as a CEO in the turnaround space. What’s always killing businesses is they get lost in institutional world, in our terminology we might say churchianity. You get lost in the churchianity and you lose the Christianity. There’s a mission statement and if everything we’re doing doesn’t drive by the mission, the mission doesn’t drive everything we’re doing from the flavor of the donuts at the coffee break to the sermons that we’re teaching and the way we’re interacting with human beings. The mission will slowly be subsumed by the institution. And that’s something that in seminary I bet you don’t have a lot of conversations about.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that that is a that’s a really fresh idea there that you know institutions drive towards the tyranny of the urgent, that you know at the end of the day we we ignore the long-term is is the mission is why are we here? Why are we kind of driving, you know, why why are we doing all these things? And how are we aligning towards that. That’s that’s ah, that’s a bold idea.
Rich Birch — Well, let’s unpack this at a local level. How how does a church leader when, let’s say we’re looking around and it’s like you, you know, you go into a room and it’s like I feel like there’s like a piece of rotten, you know, tomato under the table and you can kind of smell it, but you’re not sure where that smell’s coming from. Let’s assume that we know we have a sense that something’s wrong, but how do we diagnose that? How do we find the root cause? What do we, in our own church, what do we how do we figure that out for us?
Dennis Allen — Well, the first thing that I would want to say is it’s not your fault, but it is your responsibility.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Dennis Allen — If you’re a pastor. It’s not your fault. This problem ranges back, arguably 1800 years and more deep into the church.
Rich Birch — Wow, wow.
Dennis Allen — And in our book, The Disciple Dilemma, we tried to lay out six very, very old traditions that have been around us for so long we think of them as good, right, and normal, but they are not good. They are not right. They’re not biblical. They’re not normal. And so, shall I toss one or two out for fun?
Rich Birch — Yeah I was going to say, that’s a you we’ve got to unpack that. Because I feel like we often hear that like, oh things were so much better. But we talk about like that was like thirty years ago. You’re you’re saying we got an 1800 year old problem here. Let’s talk about those good, right things that are not actually good or right.
Dennis Allen — Let me start with the thing that we were just conversing about. It’s the sixth root cause that we talk about that kills discipleship. And we call it in the book “the not main thing”. It’s we’re chasing stuff, but it’s not the mission. It’s the stuff that’s on fire, screaming and yelling for attention.
Dennis Allen — And as you think about some of your churches that you were just setting up. You know we’ve got churches that are very small, churches that are very large. The dynamics of the urgent in a megachurch can be quite different from the poor, lonely pastor who doesn’t even have enough cash to keep the lights on in a church. However, comma, “the not main thing” is to fail in what Christ called us to be as leaders making disciples, to go after the symptoms instead of chasing the symptoms hoping that eliminates the problem, which it never ever does. So “the not main thing” is one. Let me let me park that one on the table. Let me put one other one on the table, just as ah as an example.
Rich Birch — Yeah, let’s have it.
Dennis Allen — It’s the dynamic of power. Modern Western Christianity thinks about power as a means to achieve the end of serving God. In other words, for Christendom’s sake, for the nationalists sake, for the ability to dominate the world for the Lord, I’m going to go out and conquer these people and beat them down and bring them into subjugation so that they will either by my logic, or by our social influence, surrender. They’ll fall; they’re gonna say oh, you beat me up, you’re right. I give up. I want to be a Jesus person. That power dynamic actually began with Constantine. It began with Constantine because Christianity used to be 5, 6, 7, 8 people meeting in a little barn somewhere and hoping that the soldiers didn’t come in and take them out and kill them or throw them in the arena.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dennis Allen — Constantine switched that to a power dynamic that said, hey, it’s legit; I’m on board with it, and you better get on board with it too.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dennis Allen — Now I’m all for leaders saying, I’m a believer and I’m really into this. However, there’s a problem. When you start packing growth into those pews at a rate that exceeds your ability to disciple, you’re about to have a problem, whether it’s a commercial business or a church. Growth can kill you.
Rich Birch — Um, okay, let’s talk about that. This is one of the the oddities of and this goes back to when I was school in school. It’s like we have lots of historical examples of when the the gospel, the good things of Jesus, the good news are fused with political power, like it’s not good long term. Like it’s like we got tons of examples of that. This is not good for the message of Jesus, but I feel like we just keep reliving that as as a movement. We keep coming back to this. We keep coming back to this place right back to Constantine. Ah, why is that why? What’s driving that?
Dennis Allen — Well I’d reach in first to Francis Schaefer and “the manishness of men”. It’s kind of in our recipe. You know we’re broken. We’re fallen and we like power. We want to be in control, and hey I love it when I walk into a room and I say, thus speaketh Dennis, here is my wisdom, and everybody goes, oh that is so cool. Oh that’s so profound.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Dennis Allen — Okay, that’s a little cynical. But the flip side of it is, churches and the people that occupy them want their agenda to be picked up. Some for the most noble of reasons: I’m following Jesus I want people to get to know Jesus. Some for some darker angel’s reasons which might be the idea of, I just want to get rid of those people over there. If we get them out of the way we have a lovely nation. We have a lovely government. We have a lovely church. Power is always infesting the system. And what we see in the Lord, in discipleship, is a servant who is connecting with people in humility, and reason, but building relationships. This this is that ethos. But power has told us you got to have a brand, you got to have a venue, you got to have growth, you got to have cash flow, you got to have people in the seats, you got to have baptisms…
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Dennis Allen — You got to have great programs. We stole that from the commercial marketplace, Rich, and interestingly, they stole it from Constantine. So we’re in a “do” loop.
Rich Birch — Right, right. Okay. Now let’s kind of similar area but pivot to slightly different conversations. So you know, I think so many times when we when we hear the word “discipleship,” we think of like programs and products and um, like the, you know, the latest system or like some, you know, do these 12 steps, that that sort of thing. That’s not what you’re talking about, is it?
Dennis Allen — Not at all, not at all. Let me let me set this on the table and you can um if you could just have somebody tell me I’m irrational and stupid and ridiculous. I can quit doing this and go back to the regular stuff I do in life.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Dennis Allen — Um, we tend to think of discipleship in the truncated view of the Old Testament. What I mean by that is the the Old Testament and the New Testament and Jesus’s model of discipleship showed three phases of a disciple’s life.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Dennis Allen — And here’s some terms I’ll be familiar to some of you guys, this, I’m talking to a bunch of theologians so I know you guys will get it…
Rich Birch — Sure.
Dennis Allen — …but let me just throw this out. There is the Bet Sefer S-E-F-E-R, the Bet Sefer which is kind of elementary school. Typically it was children learning about the Torah. It was children learning about being in synagogue. It was children learning about the community of believers they were around. That’s the Bet Sefer. And actually in the west we do that quite well. We have fantastic preaching. We have wonderful resources online, ministries like unSeminary. We’ve got these magnificent things going on in the Bet Sefer stage. The problem that we find statistically, Rich, is that most people don’t get part 2 and part 3.
Dennis Allen — Part 2, Bet Midrash. Think of that as vocational school for disciples. You know you might have a vo-tech school that’s going to teach you how to weld to repair cars or cook. Jesus’s model, the New Testament’s model, the Old Testament’s model was you’re going to come alongside a Rich and you’re going to learn how Rich thinks and how he talks and you’re going to start actually imitating him, using his phrases, using his style. And it may not ultimately and forever work for you. But you begin with the basis of somebody showing you the pragmatics in a laboratory environment. That is the Bet Midrash, that is this middle vo-tech phase that is so very rare. Statistics say 90% of your people have never been through this.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dennis Allen — 80% of pastors have never been through this, so go the surveys.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Dennis Allen — Then we get to the third phase, which is the Bet Talmud. And the Bet Talmud, T-A-L-M-U-D, Talmud, is where you become a practitioner. Now you’re walking out with your mentor, Rich, into the public square, into life. It might be at work. It might be in your community. It might be in recreation. It might be in church. You’re walking out amongst other people. And you’re watching Rich for a little while, but all of a sudden you notice Rich is a little quieter and you’re talking a little bit more. And pretty soon you’re looking around and Rich isn’t even there anymore, and he slid somebody up alongside you who needs to start learning how to imitate you. This is not a small group of 10, or a congregation of 75 or a 1000 or 10,000. This is one on one, maybe arguably one on two. Deep, infinite, transparent, intimate walking alongside somebody else. How’s that for a start?
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s great. I love what you’re pointing towards here. Um, because I I think ultimately I think within your bang on is that discipleship is ultimately about a culture. It’s about how, you know, there there isn’t it’s not step 1, step 2, step 3 – that can be a part of it. But it’s ah, really about how are we helping people transform their entire lives, to reform their entire lives in the way of Jesus, ultimately.
Rich Birch — The thing I find interesting is there is like a years ago, maybe 2, 3 years ago, I heard the CEO um, of a large company. They somebody asked them, it’s like off the top of their head. They said, hey, what are the three things you worry about all the time as a CEO? And I was a little struck by this. They said without hesitation they were revenue, culture, and vision. They said, you know, I I I’m the chief salesperson’s, it’s a big company, chief salesperson. Um, but then the other two culture and vision, I’m worrying about how we’re interacting with each other. And then I’m worrying about the vision, are we staying aligned to what we’re called to as an organization. I thought, man, there’s a lot of churches that aren’t doing that. There’s, you know, we’re not worrying about how we’re cultivating the culture. Talk to us more of on the culture side, maybe bringing in some of that CEO turnaround stuff. How does all that fit together in this thinking around the disciples dilemma?
Dennis Allen — Well, I mean I’m going to really tee up on what you just said because it’s really important. And the question that I want to ask everybody just to pause for a moment and think about is, what is the fungible currency, the revenue of the church of the most high God. And the answer to this actually is, I’m gonna I’m let you just pause on that for a second, just think about it.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good question.
Dennis Allen — But the answer to this is really quite fascinating.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Dennis Allen — I’m going to tell you that the fungible currency of the church of the most high God is not what’s in the offering plate. What it actually is, is it’s disciples who make disciples who make disciples. That’s capital formation. That’s the kind of stuff CEOs are really thinking about when they talk about revenue, they’re talking about how do I form capital at my bottom line after all my costs have been paid so that I can move forward more powerfully, more strongly, more…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Dennis Allen — …more deeply into the market to do more of what I do.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Dennis Allen — That’s that’s the currency of disciples who make disciples who make disciples. Now, you brought up the idea of culture, which is so incredibly important. And a lot of people don’t get culture. And I bet your seminaries don’t talk an awful lot about church culture…
Rich Birch — No, no, no.
Dennis Allen — …other than you know, yeah you got to have one.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Dennis Allen — I find that all of my turnarounds, it’s a common script. Number one, nobody knows why they’re there. They know they build widgets or they sell stuff, but they really don’t know why they’re there.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Dennis Allen — If you want a Millennial or a Gen Z to get excited, tell them why. That amps people up when they know the why. My generation, it was a little different. It was like, tell Dennis to go do this, the what and the how. Don’t don’t talk to him about the why, we don’t have time to do that. Go out and produce stuff, right? But what we see in this generation today, and I suspect many of your exec pastors are in this role is, our people in the pews, and I don’t mean this to be an insult, but perhaps a lot of people in leadership don’t know the why that they’re actually there.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dennis Allen — And I’m going to say that the mission of the, here’s where here’s where you can burn me at the stake, right – send your cards letters and ethanol to Dennis. And the mission of every single believer is the same mission as the church. It is to be and make disciples. That’s what a church is. It’s disciples. And that’s what we do as a church. And when you have disciples, as Jesus defined those disciples, the symptoms are worship, praise, ministries, missions, passion, evangelism, conversations, relationships, statesmanship in political dynamics and in civic spheres, this stuff goes wild when you really get what Jesus was doing with discipleship. That’s the kind of culture that we’re trying to build inside a church. If the mission is actually discipleship, if that’s really the mission and Matthew 28 got this assert if that assertion is right, that everything else we hear Jesus talking about is saying, disciples do these things, all these other things, then we’ve got this preeminent statement before us.
Dennis Allen — Leaders you got to go first. You got to eat your own dog food. You’ve got to disciple someone else, even if you’ve never been discipled…
Rich Birch — Right.
Dennis Allen — …so that people can see you doing that and then you can turn around and say, and now my expectation, the culture, the atmosphere, the DNA of this community of believers, is we make disciples.
Rich Birch — Right? Yeah, I love that. So good. You know so you wrote this book, The Disciple Dilemma; let’s pivot and talk about it. You know, specifically to give people a bit of sense of that. Tell us a little bit about the story. What drove you to this point? What you know you got lots of other fish to fry in your life. What what got you to like, okay, I want to spend some time effort and energy you know pulling this together?
Dennis Allen — I kept noticing in churches, even when I wasn’t in leadership roles, I just kept looking around and seeing families going, my kids don’t believe. My kids are angry. My kids are walking out. My kids think we’re hypocrites. My kids have become X, Y, or Z other faiths, no faith, whatever. And of course as we all knows he mentioned a few minutes ago, we’re seeing the nones, the dones, the deconverts, the ex-vangelicals, the spiritually but not religious people, on and on it goes. And I’m watching this and I’m going this is interesting and it echoes in a way my commercial world. I walk into broken companies and people are leaving because they don’t know why they’re there.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dennis Allen — There’s no purpose to it, right? We sing songs and we speak words up into the air and hope that somebody or something hears us, and then we have this TED Talk and, you know the music is awesome, but it’s not exactly doing anything for me. And so I’m watching these people leave, and I’m going, that’s fascinating. What’s what’s the root cause underneath this? What’s going on? And…
Rich Birch — Right.
Dennis Allen — …it drove it drove me to start giving some talks about this. And eventually I gave the talk in the wrong place and a bunch of theological thugs made me write a book about it.
Rich Birch — Love it. Love it. What what are you hoping for? What’s the kind of target that you’re like when I, so taking a look at the book, getting a sense a little bit about it, to me it strikes me as this would be a great conversation with my leadership team. Like let’s let’s pull this together, read this book maybe over the summertime, and you know and really try to you know, reflect on, Okay, how do what should we shift about what we do our own behavior based on this. But what were you kind of hoping for, what kind of church were you hoping to impact, that sort of thing.
Dennis Allen — The goal that we set when we got the book out was we’re going for 3000 churches to actually scrimmage this issue. Now there’s 300,000 protestant churches-ish…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Dennis Allen — …in the in sort of the North American space of which, you know, if you if you look at the numbers you can you can kind of debate how the the people of the world all flow into. But about half the people that go to church go to a megachurch. And the rest go to the 75 that you were just talking about that’s kind of sort of the starkness of this thing. I wanted 3000 churches—small ones, mid-size, large, and megas—I wanted them to start look at this and go like we do have a problem. Maybe we don’t have their problems, but we have problems. What’s going on here? And is it really at the root a discipleship problem, or is it just we need to preach harder, teach better, have more programs, which I think statistically and historically have proven, they don’t work. You could just keep plowing them and you get one generation of a disciple and then they leave or they quit and then it’s done.
Dennis Allen — So the book is really trying to say, there’s a deeper root cause, a historical set of root causes, and you’ve got to evaluate which of those six belong to you. And then start scrimmaging as a leadership team. Do you want to take the second half of the book which says here’s how you take a path forward out of this, biblically, to go after the problem. That’s really what we were aiming for with with the book.
Rich Birch — That’s cool. When you think about churches ah that are doing this well that is like our, you know, beacons of hope for you. What are some of the telltale signs of that that are like, oh here’s here’s a church that’s actually discipling, kind of regardless of size and all that. What is what does that look like for you? What are some of those kind of like oh that that’s when it’s actually working well?
Dennis Allen — Well some of the first symptoms that you can pick up on is when you look at the leadership team and you ask the question, have you ever been discipled, and who’s walking alongside you right now as a follower Christ in your life? I don’t mean like the amazed student who’s looking up and going, Oh gosh you know, Rich, you’re so awesome, so cool. But who actually can look at you and go, you’re not doing very well, Rich. I’m looking at you. Or Rich, it looks like things are going really well. I know you really well, that’s that’s sort of piece one for me as I walk in as a turnaround guy and I look at an organization. Ah is the leadership actually doing what the leadership wants the people to do.
Dennis Allen — The second thing, which are interesting symptoms, is not growth. Growth is a really poorly understood concept and the church tends to run for it saying growth, growth, growth. If you’re not growing, we need to fire the pastor and find somebody else. And heavens, how many pastors I’ve interviewed that are in despair over the way they’re being banged about because you haven’t delivered the numbers, like some stockholders report, right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Dennis Allen — So challenging. So the second piece that I look at is is this a church which is launching other churches and has structure that allows one on ones and one on twos to develop. Small groups are wonderful. Big worship is wonderful. And we need all that and we want all that and God encourages to have all that. But do we see disciples on disciples…
Rich Birch — Right.
Dennis Allen — …moving and working together? And so that gets to be a much narrower slice of our “market”. When you start saying leadership is in it, and the people in this world, some percentage of them, are actually engaged dynamically in disciples. Living as disciples who make disciples who make disciples.
Rich Birch — Okay, let’s talk about that growth thing. You’ve cut you you’ve tapped that a couple times. So one of the one of the I think ah personally I think it’s a false dichotomy is that there’s like a you know real churches that we comfort ourselves with like, oh real churches that are really discipling people, like they don’t worry about growth at all. Like you know that’s not, you know, there if we really were doing what we would we do and it doesn’t matter whether we grow, which I know is not what you’re saying. But unpack that a little bit more. You know, you know you talk about growth being poorly understood, a poorly understood dynamic in the church. Talk to us about that a little bit.
Dennis Allen — One of the quickest ways you can wreck a business is to grow it too fast.
Rich Birch — okay.
Dennis Allen — You’re not prepared to take on either the client load or the production load or the marketing load. Growth kills businesses and it kills it rapidly, if you think about it. 75% of all businesses at startup die in the first five years because they overgrew.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dennis Allen — Churches are equally susceptible to that because there is an organization there. And as people begin to load up, one, you have to ask yourself the dynamic is this a cash rich area that I’m living in so I’ll have plenty of cash resources. It can build lots of buildings…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Dennis Allen — …hire lots of staff. Or am I in a cash poor region where I don’t have enough resource to be able to build and scale on this sort of thing and and get running with that. But I would wager that the growth paradigm is pitched both in seminary and I’ve talked to the seminary professors about this. I’ve had a lot of pastor talk about this. If you ain’t growing, you ain’t going. And that’s the falsity. What’s actually true, I think biblically, is if you ain’t discipling the rest of it doesn’t matter. But if you are discipling, some of you are going to grow numerically. Some of you are going to spin off numerically, launch other ventures…
Rich Birch — Right.
Dennis Allen — …and some of you aren’t going to grow an awful lot for a long time but you’re going to start replicating disciples and your growth’s coming. It may take you years, but your growth is coming. And then you got to decide how you allocate that capital formation we were talking about, the revenue of disciples who make disciples who make disciples.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. I…
Dennis Allen — We are looking at ah there’s there’s a book called the great evangelical recession. And the great evangelical recession is an economist theologian who is saying today that by the year 2040 30% percent of our churches in North America will not be able to afford the facilities that they’re in.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, absolutely.
Dennis Allen — Growth has its lovely side and it has its challenges. Growth’s not a strategy.
Rich Birch — Yeah, no I get that. You know there’s some stats of there that show that 94% of the churches in the country are losing ground against the growth of the communities they’re in. So there you know there’s there’s the more encouraging statistic that 80% of churches are plateaued are in decline. But actually there’s a whole percentage of churches that are growing that aren’t growing as quickly as their communities. So the problem with that long term is we’re losing influence. Now I agree with you that um you know there’s we have a there’s a discipleship sublayer for sure in this issue that we’re not actually converting people to actually follow Christ. We’re just making more you know Christianitians and not necessarily Christians, you know people who are followers of our organizations, but not necessarily followers of Jesus.
Rich Birch — Yeah, this has been this has been a great conversation. Well where do we want to send people if they’re if they want to pick up copies of The Disciple Dilemma. This is Rethinking and Reforming How the Church Does Discipleship. Where do we want to send them to pick those up?
Dennis Allen — Well, all the usual places. If you want to pick them up and if if it’s at all worthwhile to you, Rich, I’d be happy to toss 25 copies of Kindle, Ebook, Nook codes out for people to get a free download if you got folks who would like that. Um.
Rich Birch — Oh that’d be great. Yeah, that’d be amazing. Yeah, that’d be great.
Dennis Allen — So you can find all that stuff. You can also check us out at www.thediscipledilemma.com…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Dennis Allen — …or Youtube or Linkedin or Instagram or Rumbly or Facebook – we’re out there @thediscipledilemma.
Rich Birch — All that stuff. That’s great. Good stuff. Well, Dennis, this has been a great conversation I really appreciate you being on today, and and love your book. And I really would encourage you listeners to pick up a copy I think. A great time of year to be thinking about you know staff training that sort of thing and I think Dennis’s work here would really help us think about and ultimately take some new steps as a church. So Dennis, thank you for being here sir appreciate being on the show today.
Dennis Allen — Thanks for your ministry, Rich.
Thanks for tuning in to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with generosity expert Phil Ling today. He offers strategic and energetic leadership to The Giving Church consulting team, helping churches fuel their ministries.
The largest transfer of wealth in the world is going on right now. With four generations alive at the same time, churches must adapt their strategies to cater to diverse age groups and their distinct giving behaviors. Tune in as Phil offers help on creating a culture of generosity, understanding giving metrics, and executing successful vision campaigns.
- Increase participation. // 45% of the people in the average church give less than $200 a year. While there’s no silver bullet to fixing this problem, it’s important to remember that God built His church around intentional generosity. Every year churches lose 18% of their people. Even when you grow in attendance, more people don’t necessarily solve your money problems. Instead, your number one goal should be how to raise participation while building intentional generosity.
- Offer more to the community. // Some churches tackle fundraising by creating multiple revenue streams. Think about a way your church can serve the community you’re in. For one church that looked like building a state-of-the-art event center attached to their location, creating a steady income stream. Instead of constructing a church building, another church transformed an Anheuser-Busch distribution center into an athletic training facility, attracting 500,000 paying visitors annually. Then their portable church meets in the facility on Sundays. You can use something your community needs to both draw people to your church and increase revenue.
- Pay attention to giving metrics. // Your job as the pastor of a church is to lead by example, cast a compelling vision, and raise the generosity quotient. People aren’t giving to the church like they did in the past. If you want to change that, it’s crucial that you understand and analyze your giving metrics in order to gauge the church’s financial health.
- Celebrate giving. // Vision campaigns create an opportunity for people to feel a sense of urgency to take steps to participate. Ask yourself how do you encourage someone to give money for the first time? What is your strategy? How do you celebrate and communicate about people doing that? How much an individual gives isn’t important, but celebrating the fact that they contributed to the mission is. Communicate the impact of generosity and provide multiple, convenient ways for people to give.
- Fuel vision. // If you’re going to do a vision campaign, you need to measure mobilization. How many people will get attached to your vision? Leaders cast vision, but generosity fuels vision. Churches must build a track record of transparency and accountability to gain the congregation’s trust. This involves providing regular updates on the campaign’s progress and financial status, and celebrating key milestones and achievements to keep the congregation motivated and engaged.
- Financial analysis. // Phil advises churches to conduct a thorough financial analysis before embarking on major projects. This involves examining giving data over time to understand income sources, giving patterns, and capacity for funding projects. Use The Giving Church’s financial analysis as a tool for discipleship and stewardship. By categorizing giving units based on their trends (above pace, on pace, falling down, or in the watch category), churches can proactively engage with members facing challenges and provide support.
You can learn more about how The Giving Church can help increase your generosity, and download the free PDF 5 Ways to Grow Your Giving at www.thegivingchurch.com.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Portable Church
Your church is doing really well right now, and your leadership team is looking for solutions to keep momentum going! It could be time to start a new location. Maybe you have hesitated in the past few years, but you know it’s time to step out in faith again and launch that next location. Portable Church has assembled a bundle of resources to help you leverage your growing momentum into a new location by sending a part of your congregation back to their neighborhood on Mission. This bundle of resources will give you a step-by-step plan to launch that new or next location, and a 5 minute readiness tool that will help you know your church is ready to do it!
Click here to watch the free webinar “Launch a New Location in 150 Days or Less” and grab the bundle of resources for your church!
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Well, hey, everybody welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Man, I’m really looking forward to today’s conversation. You know, every once in a while I get to have somebody on the podcast who um, you know, I know in real life, have had an a chance to interact offline, and today’s one of those days. Excited to have Phil Ling back on the podcast. Ah, he provides both strategic and energetic leadership and direction to The Ling Group and The Giving Church consulting team. They’ve worked with nearly a thousand churches of all sizes and over 40 different denominations, if we’re counting correctly. And this is the number I say all the time, I said you know you know that Phil Ling guy? He’s helped churches raise a billion dollars that’s with a “B” – that’s incredible. So he’s amazing guy, been in this for quite a while, worked with friends like the Billy Graham association, Franklin Graham, um Injoy with John Maxwell, great great guy. Phil, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here. Welcome back to the show.
Phil Ling — Honored to hang out with you.
Rich Birch — Thanks for being here. This is going to be good. Well fill in the picture, you know, there are people who would have listened but kind of give us the the 2 minute Phil Ling story, fill in that picture a little bit, tell us a little bit about ah yourself before we jump into today’s conversations
Phil Ling — I call it the “how great I am” part. This is the “how great I am” speech. Ah so yes, when you’re trying to sell something. It’s like let me tell you how great I am. So first I am ah I grew up in a pastor’s house. My dad was a church planter and planted a church in Ohio. And so I grew up there and he never moved so I was one of those preacher’s kids that never moved. And then when I came out of college I planted a church in Seattle in the Seattle area and hung out there for 10 years. God blessed us, did a lot of cool stuff, got to help start school.
Phil Ling — And change gears, ah, did some radio talk show stuff with Salem radio that’s across all across the country. But that introduced me to a guy named John Maxwell. Ah I became executive president of John’s company and for 8 years ran around the country with John and which was ah a hoot.
Phil Ling — And whenever the phone rang and at Linda that meant John that was his assistant and that meant it was fun either I was in trouble or something fun to do. And that was cool ah, but at long story short he wanted to downsize some things and I didn’t want to work for anybody else because he’s too good. And I slid over to become vice president Billy Graham Association. And they were going through a huge change. They had just moved the headquarters from Minneapolis where it had been for 50 years to Charlotte, North Carolina. If you fly into North Carolina and Charlotte and the airport you’re on Billy Graham Parkway. And so that’s right where they are. Address, I think, is number 1 Billy Graham Parkway.
Rich Birch — That’s amazing.
Phil Ling — And they built the library and all kinds of cool stuff. I got to fly in on Mondays, home on Thursdays for a period of time and helped them build ah a revenue stream that was more twenty first century. Because they had invented direct mail basically in the 50s. They were the kings. And now direct mail is different and everybody’s aging and how do we do that and embrace technology and all that kind of stuff. So they were gracious, but they also opened the door for me to have my shingle and work with folks and so I did both. And eventually transitioned.
Phil Ling — So we’ve got two little worlds. The Giving Church – we work with churches. The Ling Group – we work with faith-based nonprofits. Those those are our two little worlds. We’re a boutique group, relationships, all that stuff. I love church planters because I used to have hair and I used to be a church planter.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Phil Ling — And that is our deal and I here I this is longer than the two minutes you asked for. Why do I still do what I do?
Rich Birch — It’s all good. It’s good.
Phil Ling — I’ve got I got two and a half million Delta miles just so that registers – all domestic. Not not international. Those guys cheat they go really long trips.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Phil Ling — I do national. So the reason I still get on planes and do that stuff. I know that if I show up at a church or a organization and say, hey what are you guys really dealing with right now? It’s going to be usually facilities, finance, um facilities, finance and personnel. It’s one of the three areas. And all those relate back to money. And it’s like Okay, how do we pay for that stuff?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Phil Ling — What are we gonna do? How are we gonna do it? And most leaders… I always tease, the only guys that like to ask for money go to jail. Most leaders aren’t well aren’t comfortable with that stuff. And they haven’t had a lot of training in that stuff.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yep.
Phil Ling — And they haven’t really the people that they’re helping with it often have never sat in their chair. And so I’ve got those scars and sat in that chair.
Rich Birch — Right.
Phil Ling — And so that’s where I come from. It’s like how do we raise leaders attached on the vision?How do we build intentional generosity? And how do we do that in 2024?
Rich Birch — So good. Yeah, so good. Well Phil was ah part of ah a retreat we did with… We do this we have a small cohort called the Church Growth Incubator and Phil was with us for a couple days and it was it was incredible. I we were joking beforehand. We did a feedback at the end of that survey with everybody that we surveyed everybody that came. And you know all the different parts of the event and all the stuff we did, and Phil was the only thing that was 5 out of 5 of in the thing. People just could not believe how much value he dropped in. And so I’m honored to have him on the podcast today to try to extract some of that. Obviously we can’t get into everything but there’s really kind of a couple conversations. I wanted to take advantage of the fact that you’re coaching and leading churches all across the country around, you know this whole you know how do we help raise more money raise generosity in our church.
Rich Birch —So a couple different questions. First, you know we’re feeling pressure points. Ah you know the the idea of raising money and creating kind of multiple revenue streams. How do we do that as a church? Is you know it it feels like you know how does that connect to creating a culture of generosity? What’s that actually what is that looking like in the here and now today you know, not you know, not fifty years ago? That’s a part of what I love about you. You’re on the cutting edge of you know helping churches in the real world today. When we’re thinking about, particularly multiple revenue streams, help us think that through. What’s that look what is that looking like for in churches today that you you’re working with, that you’re seeing out there?
Phil Ling — Okay, so first of all, it’s a subject I love and I got some great examples I can share with you. But what I always warn everybody: be careful, don’t look for silver silver bullets. There’s there’s not a silver bullet. There’s this to all kinds of little bullets. There’s all kinds of things that we have to do.
Rich Birch — Good. Yep.
Phil Ling — And and one of them is understand understand the landscape today of church, especially North America, of church. So largest wealth transfer in the history of the world going on right now. For the first time in the history of our world. We have four generations alive at the same time. It’s never happened before. So a lot of the folks that have kept your church going as they age and die are transferring their wealth to their heirs. The people that are receiving that are much more consumers of church than stewards of church.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Phil Ling — They sample, they like certain stuff, they move around. Okay, it is what it is. It’s the blameless autopsy. That’s the patient and in the average church in America—and this is less stat that I’ll throw out just because I know nothing about stats except for what smart people do for us—45% of the people in the average church give less than $200 a year. 45% of the people in the average church give less than $200 a year.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Phil Ling — So they’re they’re pre-donors. They’re really not donors. Collectively that whole 45% so nearly after your people give about 1% of your income.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Phil Ling — So you have a couple of different issues. One when I talk about alternate revenue streams, they are important, but they’re they’re not the stable they’re not that, Okay, this is what I need to do.
Rich Birch — Okay, yep, yep.
Phil Ling — It does not take the place it does not take the place of God’s design for his church. So hear that piece.
Rich Birch — Okay, good, good.
Phil Ling — So I believe God designed his his church around intentional generosity.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Phil Ling — So how do we build intentional generosity? And a reason I I shared those stats first because I think why you’re building your intentional generosity, your number one goal in that world is: how do I raise participation? How do I get more people to do it?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Phil Ling — It’s not how do I squeeze and dry. It’s not how do I shake them upside down. It’s like how do I broaden that participation. Because one other stat I’ll throw in there: in the average church in North America, you lose 18% of your giving units every year. Every year 18% are gone or replaced by somebody else. That’s a churn.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Phil Ling — So those new people coming in are gonna give less than the people that left because they haven’t been there very long. So you’re ah, more people attending doesn’t necessarily solve all your your money problems just because you grew in attendance.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes, so true.
Phil Ling — So it’s like okay, that’s that piece. The revenue piece I think there’s I can probably go into a lot of sociological stuff. But what I’ve seen from some of our clients are some really interesting ways to use how people think today to help fund God’s church. So I’ll give you an example. So I have I have a church in the midwest that they, and they’re a large growing church, and God’s blessed them. Um I think they had ah a big baptism they recently and had like 700 baptisms or something crazy. So you know, they’re they’re they’re a cool church. Ah they…
Rich Birch — Wow. Yeah, that’s amazing.
Phil Ling — …they said, you know, if you’re an unchurched person, if you’re a secular person, when do you when are you more open to spiritual thoughts? And they said well one there’s couple of times in your life that often happens. One is when you’re thinking about getting married and when somebody dies and you need to [inaudible]. And so like many at our contemporary churches, they were kind of a big box church. You know it’s really utilitarian, but it’s not necessarily pretty.
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Phil Ling — And they said what if we built a a section of our facility, really went face forward into it, and built a really nice state-of-the-art event center kind of a thing that would be fantastic for weddings, fantastic for funerals, and some other stuff like that. And why don’t we do that as a separate org that’s owned by the church so it could actually generate revenue. And then push those funds back.
Phil Ling — Um, and so I started working with them at conception early on. So they’re they’re like a ten year client, and worked all through those those issues.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Phil Ling — We raise money. I think we raised like $8,000,000 ah to get the thing off the ground.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Phil Ling — I was able I’ve been back multiple times, going back next month, but to celebrate with their leaders when the 8,000,000 came in and when the facility was actually finished, and so forth.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Phil Ling — Today they have that facility; it’s called The Reverie. It and I’m not you know my my son’s already married so I don’t have to worry about wedding crap. But in that world if you’re studying do wedding you get on and you look you look at Knot. That used to be like Knot Magazine. Knot everything, deal with Knot.
Rich Birch — Yes, yep, yep yep, tie the knot.
Phil Ling — So they’re the number one Knot wedding venue in the state of Ohio. Number one rated two years in a row.
Rich Birch — Wow. Yep.
Phil Ling — They, it is fantastically thought out from how the kitchen works to how they do events. They’ve got over two hundred events scheduled there this year. Some weddings, funerals, those kind of things of course…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Phil Ling — …but they do corporate events. They worked out deals with hospitals for ongoing education. This is fantastic and they worked out the security how that part of the building can be separated from the other part when it needs to be. All that. And fast forwarding…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Phil Ling — …it now throws back positive cash to the church. And ah…
Rich Birch — Wow!
Phil Ling — …and in they pass the million million dollar mark very quickly. Ah so I don’t…
Rich Birch — Huh, fascinating.
Phil Ling — …when I share those stories and it’s really cool and I take people through it say, hey come visit. We’ll walk you through and show you how they’re doing this stuff. It’s not say, hey do this so you don’t have to ask your people to be generous. That is not how it works. But it is an opportunity using understanding of our society, it says you know what? People expect to pay for these things. And they want to do them in a really cool and nice environment, and hook to ah a healthy church…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Phil Ling — …is a good thing. It gets unchurched people walking into your building…
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Phil Ling — …looking around and say, well this is not the freaky thing I thought it might be. You know this looks really cool. This is nice. Maybe I should come back?
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, that’s cool. Yeah.
Phil Ling — And then they’ve got great stories.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Phil Ling — Now because it’s been up and operational for a couple of years they got great stories now of people that first came to event, first had a wedding there, ends up coming back to church, accepting Christ, getting involved. They have volunteers that work in The Reverie that came through The Reverie. And now they’re circled back around. The coolest story recently is they had…
Rich Birch — That’s cool.
Phil Ling — …a couple that got married there had their first child and they named the child Reverie. So I thought that was hilarious. Ah so there’s one one story.
Phil Ling — Ah I’ve got a another client that went a different angle. They bought an Anheuser-Busch distribution center. So this thing is huge. You could pull your semi-truck in, unload all the eggs…
Rich Birch — Wow!
Phil Ling — …and wash it before it went out the other side. Monster.
Rich Birch — Yeah, huge thing. Yeah.
Phil Ling — They were a church that had it been they’ve been in existence in a school bouncing around, even though they’re a good sized church, bouncing around for like 15 years. Never had their own space until they bought this. But when they bought it, they did not build a church.
Phil Ling — They built a state-of-the-art athletic training facility. Indoor soccer fields, basketball, anything you can imagine, and they have church in it. So when you go, I’m I’m honored to preach there every fall, and they’ve got this one one section of it that’s for basketball is 3 high school sized gymnasiums all in one big room. And they set it all up.
Rich Birch — Right.
Phil Ling — Put carpet squares down, pull out the chairs, all that kind of stuff for their 3 services because they do church in this facility that invites unchurched people to come. They have 500,000 paying people a year come through it. Do the math.
Rich Birch — Wow, that’s amazing.
Do the math. So and then…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, that’s amazing. That’s amazing. That’s cool.
Phil Ling — …their motivation was they live in a very secular city of our country…
Rich Birch — Right.
Phil Ling — …that were not receptive to big churches coming in and building big red buildings with steeples
Rich Birch — Right.
Phil Ling — And said, what if how do we build something that the community might view as a positive income see…
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Phil Ling — …and at the same time it creates revenue. It’s ah it’s a revenue stream.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. Yes.
Phil Ling — So I loved doing the revenue stream stuff got other stories…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Phil Ling — …but I always say this is not in place of generosity.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. That’s good. The um, yeah, that’s something for us to be thinking about I think as we look to the future. I’ve heard this in multiple conversations as you know churches are looking to the future realize, hey we need to kind of stretch our thinking, be thinking you know thinking about a bit outside the box, color a little bit outside the lines, to think about what are some different ways we can engage with the community, and you know how does that kind of work from a ah, revenue model point of view. You talked about something earlier. I love that idea. And we’ll kind of loop back into kind of more traditional kind of the generosity side.
Rich Birch — Um, you talked about increasing participation that, hey that should be our goal that there’s you know where we’re when we’re trying to think about the kind of mass of our church, the people who are are disengaged or aren’t giving or are giving less than $200 a year, talk us through that a little bit. Unpack that – what does that look like? How do we do that? How do we increase participation? What are churches seeing? Because I think we often just think about like the other end of the spectrum when we think about generosity. It’s like I got to engage with high net worth individuals to try to extract more cash out of them. But this is kind of the opposite end of the the spectrum. How do we what does that look like?
Phil Ling — So first of all, this is my soapbox. So you know if you can shut me up on I just keep going rambling on. This is my soapbox. This is nothing. It’s jacked up. I’m jacked up on Mountain Dew. Ah, the I think this is a if you look at what your job is as the pastor of a church, leading leaders never goes away regardless of how large your church gets. You always lead leaders. You always cast vision. You want a vision castor and a lot of echoes of vision. So it’s all clear, clear and it’s all the same vision. And you’re always raising that generosity quotient. Well one of the things in order to do the race to generosity quotient, because I’ve already painted the picture. Society’s changing. People don’t just hang out in your church and decide to tithe. That ain’t happening. And we’re going to have more and more of our church’s crater in the next ten years that still have people in them.
Phil Ling — So we we were used to churches dying where there’s 5 cars. There’s one down from my house. But I see every Sunday when I drive by and I it usually has 9 cars and it’s a cute little church, probably been there 130 years. And it’s got 9 cars. So we’re used to that. Okay everybody has died. It’s it’s dying. What we’re not used to is, well attendance isn’t that much isn’t that far off what it was a year ago, but we keep going down financially. Because the people that are there are consuming your product, not necessarily stewards like their moms and their grandmothers were. So all that’s changed. So all right, if you’re going to change that paradigm, one is you have to to actually pay attention to what’s real. What are the metrics?
Phil Ling — And I’m not a huge numbers person. Hired a guy with a degree in statistics years ago. We studied 4000 churches and how they give money. And we came up with an analysis that we use with our our clients. And it’s it’s what I call and I said I think I said it earlier the blameless autopsy. This is the patient. Let’s look at the patient.
Phil Ling — So number of giving units – at what levels do those those units give you dollars? How many are below that $200 ah year threshold we talked about? We’re 45% usually or below that – let’s see about your church. And then we break it down 200 to 1000, 1000 to 5000, 5- to 10,000, 10,000+. Those are the categories for every church in America – big ones, little ones, doesn’t matter, all those. So you want to see where are you in those categories.
Phil Ling — When we talked about the churn rate – 18% of the your giving units leave in a year. All right. Are you different than that? Maybe you’re higher. Maybe you’re lower. Let’s see what that looks like. Those are things you have… If you don’t know this, and I like I say I’m not a numbers guy, but if you don’t know this then you’re what you do is every year when somebody says, how’s church doing? You go by emotion. Well, it feels good. Feels really good.
Rich Birch — Right.
Phil Ling — …[inaudible] on Sunday? How things? Oh felt great. People told me it was a great message. It felt great. But if you don’t have some kind of a metric to say, all right, how many new people are coming in? You know, I I come from a a background of churches that that really stressed baptism, water baptism. And one old pastor you say are you getting your arms wet? You know, are you getting your arms wet? So it’s like, all right. Let’s let’s [inaudible].
Rich Birch — I love that. Yeah, yeah. I love that.
Phil Ling — One of the things you want to count is, how many people give us money? So it’s not just, did we hit budget?
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Phil Ling — Where the money? Did we bring in the money…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Phil Ling — …that keeps this place operational? But how many and how many are we losing and how many are we gaining in the year…
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Phil Ling — …and then break it down and say, are they moving up as they’re here? So if I’m in your church…
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Phil Ling — …and I love what you’re doing and I feel called to your vision, then the longer I’m here I’m probably feeling more and more comfortable and I’m growing in my generosity. If you don’t look at that measure, you don’t know that. So A, you got to do that. You gotta do that.
Phil Ling — I still, and I know I’m the old guy yelling “get off my lawn”, and I’m I’m that old guy. But I still believe in initiatives. We call them campaigns.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Phil Ling — I know that’s not sexy. We call them vision campaigns not capital…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Phil Ling — …because it’s not always capital, it’s not always buildings, but it’s still an initiative where you create an opportunity for people to feel a sense of urgency to take a step to participate. So I’ll give you an example. We had a church recently—a good church, growing church, all this stuff, and and strong financial—but they did a a an initiative and a project. And we stressed participation in entry; people that really weren’t participating before getting involved. 39% of the $5,000,000, 39% – they raised $5,000,000 – 39% of the people that gave that $5,000,000 had never given to the church before. They were there…
Rich Birch — Wow, wow!
Phil Ling — …but they were below the $200 a year.
Rich Birch — That’s incredible. Yeah, that’s amazing.
Phil Ling — And so it’s the reason you do it is not it’s not like for sermons on generosity and tithing. It’s not, you know it’s got to be ah…
Rich Birch — Vision.
Phil Ling — …a whole process ah of building a culture generosity that celebrates how many people are doing it. You know, my big thing with pastors…
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Phil Ling — …is that never talk about money upfront unless you talk about how many people did something. Because it’s it’s the number of participants…
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Phil Ling — …that actually get involved. You your number one message in the big room on Sunday is we want everybody to get in the car and go on the trip or we don’t go. That participation…
Rich Birch — Right, right. That’s good. That’s good.
Phil Ling — …is how we’ve used this, how many people did something. That’s why I don’t jump up and down say, hey, Bob gave a million bucks. Well Bless Bob’s pea-picking heart. I would love to have Bob give a million dollars, but I’d also like to have 500 Marys and Bobs and Joes and Johns all give a thousand bucks or something too.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Phil Ling — So it’s like I have to celebrate that. So you when we’re hanging out out west, you heard me do my small, medium, large room stage. You know it’s like the rooms we communicate in. So the big room is participation.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yep. Yeah, and so when we’re trying to encourage participation in that in that big room is that so part of it is not stressing that you know it’s not about like, like you say, Bob gave a million dollars. It’s more like, hey we’re all we’re all in we all want to be engaged in this. We all should be engaged in this. This is ah kind of an all skate. Everybody’s in. What are what are some things that churches are doing to try to increase that participation that are trying to encourage that um, you know that aren’t thermometers hanging on the wall. What is what is that? You know how how do we do that?
Phil Ling — Ah, okay, so in in my world when you talk about generosity in church. You’re always trying to get people to do one of three things.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Phil Ling — Why three? Because I used to be a preacher and everything’s in three. You know, you got to have three.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Phil Ling — So number one, how do I win the first gift? So how am I encouraging somebody to give us money for the very first time? What’s my strategy?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Phil Ling — How do I celebrate, how do I communicate and talk about how many people are doing?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Phil Ling — That that can be a very simple thing. I’ve got churches that really buy into it and get it and there’s one in Delaware that we work with. And they might get up on a Sunday and say, man I am so excited we just talked to our financial secretary and they let us know that we had 27 families last month give money to our ministry for the very first time. How much they gave is not important.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. Yep.
Phil Ling — It’s just that we’re going to celebrate that.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. That’s great. Yep.
Phil Ling — So talk about the appropriate things and talk to rooms. The big room which is the most diverse audience.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
People don’t know God, people been walking with God…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Phil Ling — …all over the place in the big room. So what am I doing in the big room? It’s the same. I’m always stressing participation.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Phil Ling — I’m talking about what that looks like. I’m celebrating those numbers. I’m telling the stories of people that do things for the first time. That’s big room conversation.
Phil Ling — Medium size rooms are like-minded groups. How do they look at things? How we’re going to identify the likeminded groups and what their key questions are? And then small room conversation are are my leaders. My high capacity those folks. It’s like I have to keep my leaders a safe place to ask me a question. That’s why you have small room talks.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Phil Ling — Biggest checks come from [inaudible] smallest room. And they’re the only people that ask questions in groups, want audiences more than answers. But that doesn’t mean the question [inaudible]. So like give me a safe place to ask my question.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, that’s good.
Phil Ling — So so my long-winded answer to you on that…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great.
Phil Ling — …is understand which room you’re communicating in. What is your what is your goal in that room’s communication for the next twelve months?
Rich Birch — Yeah, what’s the goal there. Yeah, that’s good.
Phil Ling — And then how are you going to actually measure it to see if it’s working? So if I’m trying to win a first time gift, like I said one, of our strategies, well then I can measure that. How many first time gifts did we get this year? You know that’s ah that’s a win. Second is I’m trying to lift…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Phil Ling — …people that that give us funds. Well, that’s that’s maturation. So can I kind of look down say you know what we had 83 families last year give month ah give more than they did the year before. How much is not important. That’s growth.
Rich Birch — Right.
Phil Ling — So that is that lift. And then third…
Rich Birch — Right, right. That’s good.
Phil Ling — …how am I keeping my donors? And keeping is just the care and feeding, is how am I showing love and appreciation and gratitude to those people that that financially drive our ministry?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Well so you you mentioned it, you know they’re not capital campaigns, their vision campaigns. Do people still do these things? Like you know, I feel like the interesting thing about folks in this particular kind of slice of the Christian world is I feel like like they… I’ll sometimes hear people who do similar work to you and and um I feel like they spend a lot of time trying to convince us that we shouldn’t it’s almost like, well don’t do capital campaigns, like they’re terrible. You know, which is kind of weird. It’s like isn’t isn’t that what you do? But to be but I do that does it still work? Do is this still a strategy we should be thinking about, you know, or is that just like something that’s like when I… Listen, I talk a lot about church growth and the joke I make there is I know when I say church growth what you think of as a guy standing with a you know ah a folder of cassette tapes from the 80s. I get that.
Rich Birch — Um, is this the same kind of thing? Like the capital campaigns that that vision campaigns, that all went out with the Carter administration? Or where where are we at here?
Phil Ling — Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, like I say, I’m the old dude. So I as a church planter I had 18 years as a lead church planter that was never a year when I was not in a project or campaign. Because you’re when you’re planting, you don’t have anything…
Rich Birch — Right.
Phil Ling — …so you’re always raising money, or doing something. And then now for the last twenty years you know I’ve been running all over…
Rich Birch — Yep, sure.
Phil Ling — …the country working with folks. And you said I’ve worked with a thousand churches. So here’s the deal. Um I don’t try to be clever. I don’t try to call things different names so that it sounds different so I can sell you a product that was probably the same thing, but you think it’s different and new, improved, like toothpaste.
Rich Birch — Right? yep.
Phil Ling — You know it’s like it’s like no. What I describe to you, you can call it whatever you want to call it, and you don’t have to do it, but you need to do something just like it. It it it is what is because if you’re going to do a vision campaign—that’s just what I call it; you don’t have to call it that—the vision campaign.
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Phil Ling — It is all about what are we gonna measure? We’re gonna measure mobilization. How many people did we get attached to our vision?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Phil Ling — Unanswered questions are stumbling blocks to my participation. You’ve got a great idea, a great vision. If you cannot answer my questions, I don’t participate or I don’t participate very deeply. And that’s why if you just get up on Sunday and say, let’s talk about this cool thing we want to do, and you haven’t done the hard work behind the scenes, you’re might not going to be very successful. So what is my mobilization strategy, my participation strategy? How are we going to measure that? And how are we going to have those conversations in those three rooms? Leaders cast vision; generosity fuels vision. Now think about this.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Phil Ling — So when I was a young pup, you know, I grew up in churches where you walked in in the auditorium had a ah, number are a little board up front with little black numbers. They’d slide in what the offering was last week.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes.
Phil Ling — And then might even have a [inaudible] off, you know, or or budget need…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Phil Ling — …you know this is how much we need.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Phil Ling — And so everybody’s gonna watch see what it is.
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Phil Ling — Those worlds that that’s over. That day’s over. A lot of the folks wandering in your in your building, it’s not that they don’t want to give to God. They don’t know if they should give to you.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Phil Ling — If you will get money to people, not projects. So your trust level.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Phil Ling — Do you do what you say you’re going to do?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Rich Birch — The first time you ever raise money. You do it on a promise. If you give me money I promise to do this. From then on, it’s a track record. And you can’t outrun bad track records.
Rich Birch — Right.
Phil Ling — So all that to tell you, do campaigns still work? If if they’re well run with a clear purpose, they’re hugely successful. The best thing I can say is after all the years I’ve done this thing, half of the people that we work with every year, we’ve already worked with in the past. So…
Rich Birch — No, that’s good. That’s good.
Phil Ling — …that to me is the endorsement. We’ve got some that we’ve literally…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that tells you for sure.
Phil Ling — …um, 3, 4, 5 projects with. Why are you doing them? It’s not to get the people that give you money just to give you a little more. That’s the problem with fundraising. I hate that term.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Phil Ling — You have to increase the participation. That has to be an intentional plan.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Phil Ling — So now if you can do all that without doing a campaign plan, fine and fantastic – do whatever you’re going to do. But you got to still measure and accomplish the same things.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Phil Ling — I’ve not found anything better. They’re they’re they’re fads that come and go, and and all that kind of junk. And that I get that and that’s fine. Um I think that there is in this my last 2 seconds on the on the campaign. I believe in my heart that the people in your church have different pockets with money that they give. And so their ongoing gift and participation in your ministry is one pocket.
Rich Birch — Right.
Phil Ling — A specific project, appeal, vision to do something unique is another proj… or another pocket. So every so often you create those…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Phil Ling — …because that second pocket could actually be the first pocket for a lot of your new people.
Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s so good. Phil, that’s fantastic. So here we are in the spring, I know oftentimes and maybe it’s just me but I feel like a lot of churches think about this stuff in the fall. It’s like you know I know I’ve had that as an executive pastor. It’s like I’m looking at, man, we are running behind. We’re like. Or there’s some new thing we want to do next year and I start thinking about in the fall. But you know should we get started now? Is is spring/summer a good time to you know, even engage with you, start the conversation, start working on things? Are there things we could be working on now to kind of set us up good, either for the the fourth quarter this year, or even into next year if we’re thinking, man, we might need to raise some additional funds in 2025. Talk to us through that.
Phil Ling — Okay, so first of all, all my answers are self-serving.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Phil Ling — So of course, Rich. Yes, you’ve got to.
Rich Birch — Love it. Yes, of course now’s the time.
Phil Ling — Okay here here here’s here’s the world I work on.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Phil Ling — Number 1, the bigger the plane you have, the longer the runway you need. So if I’ve got…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Phil Ling — …I’m just trying to raise a little bit of money for a bite size project, well I can run with my face on fire for a few weeks and maybe you do that. But if I’ve got to raise a ah, a large amount of money and participation for a large project, well then of course I need more time.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Phil Ling — You always want to start earlier, doesn’t cost you anymore to start early start earlier. We selfishly like being at the table early because the first thing we’re going to do with you is that financial analysis I talked about. Which is to me, it’s kind of like preapproved before you go shopping for your house. It’s scary accurate it.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Phil Ling — There’s capacity and giving trends in your church. So then when we sit down with you and and this happens all the time, and you know I’ll sit down with the church and they’ll say, hey we don’t want to go into debt. We want to do this and and cash flow with this project, and we would like to do $10,000,000 project, which is a huge project – $10,000,000. And so I come in…
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Phil Ling — …and do the analysis and say okay, that’s great. I think you can safely raise 5 to six million bucks.
Rich Birch — Wow, yes.
Phil Ling — I think that that is within your capacity based upon what I the analysis.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Phil Ling — And and you know then it’s like, well what we think God could could do more. And I said I know God I can do more. I can tell you those stories. But I can also tell you what he does on average. So let me let me just know that what the problem…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, it’s good. Yeah, talk to us a little bit more about the…Oh sorry. Nope go ahead. Sorry.
Phil Ling — Ah well the problem is where far down the road on saying this is what we want to do before you come back and say, well how how do we know what our capacity looks like? So so that’s why my my argument bring somebody like us to the table earlier, so we can do an analysis with you. It doesn’t limit God. But it says, all right look the blameless autopsy number of giving units.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Phil Ling — At what levels they give…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Phil Ling — …how often you gain a new one. That paints the picture forensically of what people will do. Now there can be outliers.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Phil Ling — You can have, you know, Edith decides to give you two million bucks and and historically she gives about $20,000 a year. Okay, that’s cool. That’s an outlier. That’s fantastic. That’s great. But do that.
Phil Ling — As far as seasonal, um you want to raise money because we’re going for participation so we want most of our people to be here. So in most churches that’s spring and fall projects. So it’s like all right if we want money for the fall of 2024, then right now in the spring we should be building this machine. If we want money in the spring of 2025 and it’s a good big plane that’s got to get off the ground, and we still want to start about now. So pick when and then back up and say, okay, do we have enough time? I won’t be a lightning rod for your failure. I will stand on the table if you don’t have enough time. I say you’re you’re, you’re smoking dope; that this is too much this is too short a window. Um, ah…
Rich Birch — Right. Yes, too fast or whatever…
Phil Ling — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …you got to push it back. We got to push it back a season or something like that. Yeah.
Phil Ling — Correct, correct. So so let somebody like us help you figure that out as far as when you want to do that as far as scope of project. But that means you start earlier have these conversations early summer goes dead so you want to get a lot of stuff in figured out in the spring before you get into a dull time in the summer. And then what’s that fall look like. Fall windows are different for different churches in different parts of the world. People like you up in Canada have a little snow sometimes in the winter. Not much where I live.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s true. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Phil Ling — So so go ahead I interrupt.
Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good. Well and I think that you know and it probably goes without saying but I would strongly suggest you reach out to Phil um, before like if you’re thinking about a building project, like to get to super tactical, if you’re thinking about like we’re you know we got a new campus or we’re trying to build something, man in the same way that you’d be crazy to you know to start shopping houses before you looked at the mortgage, you know you know, this is the same thing. You really should talk with Phil before you even really get too far down that process. This should be the first step. Not the second or third step. Not after you’ve talked to some architect who’s drawn some pretty paper. It’s like no, let’s let’s have this conversation early on. The size, having been through a number of these, the size and scoping is so important on the frontend financially and will save you so many hassles, you know, down the road. Um, you know that’s that’s a great, you know, that’s a great thing.
Rich Birch — Um, talk to us a little bit about the financial analysis. We’re kind of wrap up here. I think this is a great practical step. You know I’ve said to multiple church leaders, you should just hire Phil’s guys to do the financial analysis. This is what a great tool. You know your numbers better. Talk to us about the financial analysis a little bit more detail. What is that? How do I access that? All that kind of stuff.
Phil Ling — So it’s great. Honestly, if somebody reaches out and tries to hire us to do something, most of the time I’ll say, hey, slow down you know before you you hire the the whole enchilada, buy this little piece. I’ve never had anybody buy this little piece in all these years and complain that it wasn’t worth the money, because it’s it’s worth it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Phil Ling — So the analysis, like I said, we’ve analyzed a whole bunch of churches to try to figure out what churches should look like on paper. And then we look at yours. We’ll go back a couple of years and you’re you’re giving and we use everybody’s databases. We can figure it all out. Sometimes we just get backdoors to their processes and and pull those numbers. What I tell churches, they’re your numbers. So when I sit down with the church board, it’s like some of you guys, know these numbers, and gals. You know these numbers. I’m going to tell you what they mean.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Phil Ling — So when I look at it and say, all right, your church brings in $2,000,000 a year. It’s like, all right, where does it come from? Well it comes from this many units. And they come in these categories. So we have this percentage in this category, this category, this category. Every one of those things means something about you going forward. So what does your capacity look like? So you say well we like to do a project that this size. All right. Well that that’s within your capacity.
Phil Ling — If if God has laid something on your heart that’s bigger than what I see, that doesn’t mean you don’t do it. It’s just that means, Okay, how are we going to eat the elephant one bite at a time.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Phil Ling — It doesn’t mean that we’re going to say no to the vision. It’s like we just want to be prudent…
Rich Birch — Right.
Phil Ling — …about don’t build a tower without counting the cost right.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Phil Ling — The analysis in my humble but accurate opinion, (that’s what I tell my son: my humble but accurate opinion), analysis…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Phil Ling — …is something that you do every year for the rest of your life. Once we do it for you and show you how to do it, it’s like here, this is how you pull your numbers, run them through. You can have us do it or you can try to do it yourself. That’s fine. And it it will it’s a discipleship tool. So this one little caveat, one little caveat. We’re going to break down your giving units and put on in four categories. So if Phil and Georgia Ling, if my family is in your church, and Phil and Georgia were there in 2023, and they were there in 2024—so both years—how much did they given 23? How much they given 24?
Phil Ling — All right, what we’re going to look at is that are they above pace where they were the year before? Are they kind of about on pace of where they were the year before? Were they a little off pace or falling down a [inaudible] percentage is falling down. And then the fourth category is what I call watch.
Rich Birch — Right.
Phil Ling — The watch category says Phil and George are giving less than half the year before, or they quit giving completely. Here’s what I know. People quit giving you money before they physically walk out your door. And so it’s one of your disciples opportunities…
Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good.
Phil Ling — …where they’re waving their hand and saying I’ve got a crisis; something’s going on in my life. It’s usually not that they’re mad at you. Pastors always think everybody’s mad at and that’s why they left. Sometimes. Sometimes it’s just stuff happened.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Phil Ling — And so now what if you had a list and you printed it off and said, hey you know what? There’s 32 families here in the watch category. Are they physically still here? Are their kids checked into our children’s ministry? What’s going on in their lives? Are they in any of our small groups? It’s a discipleship tool for you. So that’s why I say you need to do that every year for the rest of your life.
Rich Birch — Yeah that’s good. That’s good. Well friends, I would encourage you, I’ve said that off the podcast, I’ve said that to lots of church leaders. This is a super helpful first step, great way to kind of begin ah the conversation. And you know, Phil, you’re just just a wealth of knowledge as I’ve been taking pages of notes here today. Again I really appreciate that. If let’s, as we wrap up today’s conversation, if people want to track with you ah or with the organization, where do we want to send them online? I know we’ve got a ah resource that we want to download. Talk to us all about that.
Phil Ling — So go to our website is thegivingchurch.com, thegivingchurch.com and there’s some things there you can download for free. There’s ah a pdf that’s “5 Ways to Grow Your Giving” and it’s worth it. Of course it’s free. Of course it’s worth it. But it has value. There’s a book on there that we wrote a few years back that talks about the changing giving patterns in North America. It’s The coming tsunami. So that’s a little bit of a horror show on things that are happening.
Phil Ling — So covid was a wake up call. Covid and the pandemic…
Rich Birch — Man, so true.
Phil Ling — …and and shutting down churches was a wake up call. We were told by society that we’re not an essential institution.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s crazy. Right.
Phil Ling — And it’s like okay so strip clubs are essential, bars were essential, liquor stores were essential. We weren’t essential. I don’t blame the world. I’m not a person who screams at the world. I think that’s our fault that we weren’t essential.
Rich Birch — Right, right, right.
Phil Ling — So what are we doing to be healthier going forward. If all you try to do is hope your offering is good every week so you can pull off next Sunday, eventually you’re going to have something crater. Ah, it’s just the patterns are changed. So what is your intentional plans? We try to give you some values.
Rich Birch — Right.
Phil Ling — Go and get the “5 Ways to Grow Your Giving” PDF – it’s free – thegivingchurch.com
Rich Birch — Love it. Yeah, we’ll put links to that in the show notes as well. Phil, I really appreciate you being here. Thanks so much for all that you’re doing to help so many different churches. Appreciate being on the show today. Thank you, sir.
Phil Ling — Honored to be here. Thanks, man.
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re joined today by Lauren Bercarich, the Digital Director at Liquid Church, with seven campuses in New Jersey as well as a robust online campus.
Digital ministry is no longer a supplementary aspect of church operations; it has become a cornerstone for reaching and engaging people. Tune in as Lauren delves into the strategic launch of the Liquid Church app and how to use digital to both invite and disciple people.
- Digital is your front door. // The stories of so many visitors have digital beginnings, whether they discover your church on social media, stumble across an ad on Google, or begin attending church online. But more than a reach strategy, Liquid Church wants to use digital ministry to encourage seven days of discipleship. This approach extends gospel influence beyond 90-minute Sunday services, fostering continuous spiritual development 24/7.
- Engage in the app. // Rather than a static “billboard” of announcements, the Liquid Church app is designed to encourage ongoing spiritual connection between congregants. The homepage includes three daily habits—gratitude, prayer, and scripture reading—and is intended to shepherd people through experiences based on what’s happening in the church. The prayer requests feature allows users to submit requests and pray for each other in real time. Devotionals and reflection questions include space for journaling and sharing responses. And users can journey together with others in similar life stages while engaging with current teaching series.
- A three-legged stool. // Lauren underscores that there are three essential components needed to launch an app well: financial resources, leadership buy-in, and promotion. Adequate funding is needed for developing and maintaining digital platforms as well as building a dedicated team to manage and create content. Support from church leadership is critical, ensuring that digital initiatives are prioritized and integrated into the church’s overall vision. This is a cultural shift for your organization, not just a departmental initiative, and your leadership needs to become advocates. Lastly, promotion needs to go beyond the initial launch to include an ongoing adoption strategy.
- Maintaining your church app. // It’s essential to have a plan beyond the launch of your church app. It won’t create engagement on its own; you’ll need staff to maintain it and create new content that connects with what’s happening in the life of your church. Look at the people already in your organization and identify those who are super engaged and passionate about digital. Rather than hiring from outside, elevate people internally.
- Digital and in-person. // For the first time since the pandemic, Liquid Church is seeing both in-person attendance and online church attendance go up and to the right. Rather than seeing these two options as competing, view digital and in-person as a dual strategy. Digital is your front door and reaches people. But it also can shepherd people seven days a week, making them feel more a part of your community and helping to close your back door.
You can learn more about Liquid Church at www.liquidchurch.com and download their app from the App Store or Google Play, plus connect with Lauren by sending her an email.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Risepointe
Do you feel like your church’s facility could be preventing growth, and are you frustrated or maybe even overwhelmed at the thought of a complicated or costly building project? Are the limitations of your church building becoming obstacles in the path of expanding your ministry? Have you ever felt that your church could reach more people if only the facility was better suited to the community’s needs?
Well, the team over at Risepointe has been there. As former ministry staff and church leaders, they understand how to prioritize and help lead your church to a place where the building is a ministry multiplier. Licensed all over North America, their team of architects, interior designers and project managers have the professional experience to help move YOUR mission forward.
Check them out at Risepointe.com/unseminary and while you’re there get their FREE resource “10 Things to Get Right Before You Build”.
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey, friends, Rich here from unSeminary. Super glad that you have decided to tune in today. This is, listen, you’re in for an incredible treat today. Ah you know every week we try to bring you a leader who will both inspire and equip you, but this week is like par excellence. We’ve got Lauren Bercarich with us. She is the Digital Director at Liquid Church, which is one of the fastest growing churches in the country with 7, if I’m counting correctly, in-person campuses in New Jersey, plus a robust church online. Ah Lauren is a friend. It’s always fun to meet new people online ah, through the podcast, but today it’s great to talk to someone who I know in the real world. So Lauren, welcome. So glad that you’re here today.
Lauren Bercarich — Oh I’m so honored to be here, Rich. Thank you so much.
Rich Birch —Yeah, this is going to be great. Fill in the picture like tell us that that’s like the super boilerplate about Liquid kind of you know, paint that that picture a little bit more vividly. Give us a sense of the ministry and your role within the church.
Lauren Bercarich — Sure. So Liquid Church, we are in New Jersey, which sometimes we joke we’re like, yes there are Christians in New Jersey, folks. We do have 7 physical locations. Our vision is to saturate the state of New Jersey with the gospel of Jesus Christ, but we also have a very robust online and digital ministry. Um, we are just a very dynamic ah church. We like to be culturally relevant. We like to be bold and engaging. You know we often people would describe us as seeker-friendly. We want to get people in the door but man we want to go deep with you once you get inside.
Rich Birch — So true. Well friends, I Liquid is…so there’s a number of churches across the country that I that I point to all the time and Liquid is one of them ah for a lot of reasons. But I was so you know pulling back the curtain a little bit, I was saying to Lauren, I keep telling people you should be downloading Liquid’s app. And like literally I’ve stood there and got people to download it while we’re meeting face-to-face. And I’m like you need to register for this thing and engage and then you need to do what they’re doing. And so I’ve said that enough times that I said I actually probably should get Lauren on the on the podcast to actually talk about it and kind of look up under the hood a little bit. But so we’re going to get to the app. But but before we get there, let’s take a step back and just talk about digital ministry in general.
Rich Birch — When you think about digital ministry at Liquid, kind of set that parameters for us. What do you mean by digital ministry? What is that? What are you trying to do? How does that fit into how do you think about that? How does that connect to the kind of overall mission of trying to saturate the state with the with the message of Jesus?
Lauren Bercarich — Yeah, that’s a great question because digital is all encompassing, really, but my vision is that we would um, pursue seven days of discipleship.
Rich Birch — So good.
Lauren Bercarich — That church is more than just 90 minutes on a Sunday. We want to encourage people to read their bibles, to pray, to go deep, and to grow throughout the week and we can use digital tools like the app um in order to do that. And so we’re creating amazing content that’s different content that we’re creating. And when I try to paint the picture for people, I tell them about my team. And it’s like hey we’ve got the techies, right? We’ve got the the developers and the people who are making it all happen. We’ve got content creators who are creating amazing devotionals, written blogs, and audio content, etc. We’ve got our communications and marketing team who’s helping getting the word out there. And then we’ve got church online, so you can actually have that service experience in community and feel like you’re part of that campus as well. So it’s kind of all of that. But really I’d hone in on the idea of like we want to be available, reaching people and discipling people 24/7.
Rich Birch — So good. I love that. And you know, friends, I’ve said in other contexts that I really do think the future of the this is exactly what we’re going to be getting ourselves into in in the future. That we are our, for lack of better word, our business model, our approach what we’ve done, we’ve typically been seen as an event organization. You come on the weekend. We provide a 90 minute compelling experience. But what we’re seeing increasingly with fast-growing churches and churches that are making huge impacts in their community is they’re seeing themselves in that same way. You you know the way Lauren described with their seven days of discipleship. It’s really a flow and yeah events are a part of that. The weekend is a part of that, but it it doesn’t end with that. Talk us through um ah so I want play bit of a devil’s advocate…
Lauren Bercarich — Sure.
Rich Birch — …and and be um, you know the person who is super skeptical of that. And say like yeah isn’t that all just razzmatazz, like don’t shouldn’t we just be trying to get people to show up on Sundays? How does it relate to, how does all of this online stuff and digital relate to the in-person stuff we do?
Lauren Bercarich — Oh my goodness. It’s it’s just incredible. So first of all, let me say that digital is your front door to your church.
Rich Birch — So true.
Lauren Bercarich — So it is directly connected. We just had a staff meeting at Liquid Church and each of our campus pastors got up and shared a baptism story. We had baptisms and they’re telling the story of one individual that stood out to them. Let me tell you how those stories started. Um somebody they found us on social media. We were telling them to put their football jerseys on, they decided this is wacky, let’s go to church.
Lauren Bercarich — Ah somebody was googling. They had some concerns and they found one of our Google ads – digital got them in the door, right? That’s part of our SEO strategy. Somebody else actually asked a friend. The friend told them about Liquid and they thought, you know what? There is a physical location 6 minutes from my house. I’m going to go to church online. I’m going to be there for six months or so…
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s true.
Lauren Bercarich — …feel comfortable, and then show up. So many of the stories have digital beginnings. So think of it as both a reach strategy, right? The first time somebody walks through your door, I just want to be clear. They’re not just showing up…
Rich Birch — Right.
Lauren Bercarich — …having never researched you, looked at you, checked you out, all of that. So that’s part of it. Um, but also, you can go deep digitally. Um, so on our app it’s just incredible. There’s the ability, we have a lot of discipleship tools to pray for others in community. You can submit your own prayer requests, um, you can pray for others, and really get a sense of what’s going on and support them. You can be reading the bible and going through um, bible reading journeys with us and devotionals.
Lauren Bercarich — And just to make this real for you, I want to paint a picture that some of these digital interactions lead to deeper physical interactions. So I attend a physical campus on Sundays. I go to our um…
Rich Birch — How old fashioned, how old fashioned.
Lauren Bercarich — I know, right? I’m a Digital Director who goes to physical campus. But I’m always in the app. I’m submitting my prayer requests.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Lauren Bercarich — And you know, um, one of my children has been struggling this year in school, had a really important meeting at the school coming up, and man did I need prayer. Not only did I put it in the app, I told them the exact time of the meeting, be lifting me up in prayer. I show up to church on Sunday and my child’s um, small group leader in Liquid family in the kids ministry pulls me to the side and says, how did the meeting go?
Rich Birch — Wow.
Lauren Bercarich — I’ve been praying for you.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s vivid.
Lauren Bercarich — Oh my goodness, I wanted to know how it went.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lauren Bercarich — So we had this deep interaction. She reveals to me, I had no idea, she’s been an educator for 27 years.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Lauren Bercarich — She knows all about the process we’re going through. She offers her support. How can she help us, how can she support us through the season. I mean we’re hugging we’re crying in the lobby.
Rich Birch — So good.
Lauren Bercarich — It would have been one of those cursory, hey how you doing interactions. Oh fine. You know I’m not just going to kind of spill my beans um at the check-in station at Liquid family. But what I found is when you’re putting yourself out there in some of these digital ah formats, we’re forming these deeper bonds that are spilling over into our physical location. So…
Rich Birch — Um, that’s good.
Lauren Bercarich — it is not just um, smoking mirrors. It’s the real deal.
Rich Birch — Oh I love that. So let’s talk a little bit about the app. So you know you’ve caught, friends, as you’re listening in um, even just this one function of like, hey I want to share a prayer request. So kind of talk us through for someone who who hasn’t seen it hasn’t you know it isn’t isn’t on your app. Talk us through kind of how are you going beyond, what like I’ve seen and maybe it’s just maybe I’m just not looking in the right place. But I feel like I see so many church apps that feel just like billboards they feel just like oh this is just an ad or it’s just a wrapper on their webpage. It’s like, yeah, I know it’s an app but it’s like this is all the stuff that’s there. That’s not what you’re doing. Talk us through how you’re making these kind of these digital engagements with real people.
Lauren Bercarich — Yeah, sure so we actually relaunched our app um this past year. So I just want to share with everybody that previously we were in that same camp. Our app was kind of just this marketing billboard. It was kind of static content. Um, you know, maybe it had the give functionality that you could use weekly, but there wasn’t really a reason for you to engage in that app beyond a Sunday. And Sunday was really kind of cursory functionality.
Lauren Bercarich — We actually found a strategic partner in Apollos. They’re um, a company out there who is developed this beautiful app template that you can take and make your own by being part of their community. And the goal there is to create an app that really promotes um, discipleship and community and engagement. So it isn’t static at all. So if you downloaded the Liquid church app, which I encourage everybody to do, when you landed on our homepage what you’re going to see are our daily habits, which we want to promote to everybody out there. There’s 3 daily habits: gratitude, prayer (which I was just speaking about), and scripture, which is reading the bible. But we actually shepherd people through um experiences so we have seasons of what we’re reading through a particular book of the bible or it’s thematic or we’re doing video devotionals. And then there’s always reflection questions and you can actually journal in the app and you share those journals with the community as well. So you’re like learning from each other and seeing each other’s personal reflections.
Lauren Bercarich — And you can go beyond that. Like we’re putting in custom digital content for our core audiences. Um, you might think of them just as blogs, but for parenting, for young adults. Um, we have ways that we’re just going to um launch new communities where people can engage in communities and go on these journeys together by location, but also by felt needs. So we’re going to launch here shortly a 21 day journey it’s 21 days um to foster a thriving marriage.
Rich Birch — So cool.
Lauren Bercarich — And so we’re all going to be in there doing that together. So it’s really about community engagement, spiritual habits. Um, it’s not a marketing billboard at all.
Rich Birch — So I love that. So gratitude prayer and scripture. You know you can get a sense even by what you’re when you’re hearing what that looks like, friends, that how those could be kind of engagement pieces or designed for kind of community engagement. There are like social network-esque feel to it, right? It’s like you can, talk us through what what does that look like. So how how do I , you know, how do I kind of identify myself within the app?
Lauren Bercarich — Right. So you have a profile. So if you went in there and you were to follow me, you could, you’d see my little photo holding my daughter. You can follow people, right? So you could search for your friends, follow them in the apps. You get notified when they submit a prayer request or they submit a journal. So that way you’re really tracking with those individuals.
Lauren Bercarich — And I hear that from people. they’re like I’m praying for you all the time like they’re they’re tracking with me in the app you can like somebody’s journal, right? So you’re saying, oh wow, I really liked what they wrote on that give them a heart.
Lauren Bercarich — You pray for people so you actively you see their prayer requests and you’re actively pressing that button saying that you’re praying for them, and they’re going to get notified that hey the community is praying for you right now. So you get that gosh I feel so good when you really need somebody praying for you and you get that. So it really is this give and take.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lauren Bercarich — And what I’d say is it’s just the beginning.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lauren Bercarich — Um, what’s so exciting is that, you know, digital’s always evolving and there’s always new features and I think it’s just going to get better and better.
Rich Birch — Yeah, the thing that struck me and it correct me if I’m wrong on this. This is one of the things I’ve said behind your back, is you know like I’ve got the Starbucks app and the Starbucks app is a digital experience. But it actually enhances my in-person experience. So like I can order ahead of time. And I get those stars and stuff – I really don’t know what those stars are for. I I feel good when I get them I’m like wow that’s nice. Um, but it it enhances the I it it makes my like it makes my better experience when I go in to to go to Starbucks.
Lauren Bercarich — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And there is all kinds of other content. They have the like if I really want to know where the beans come from. My my impression of your experience. What we’ve done with Apollos here is similar where it’s like it it I get that it would be a standalone experience that it could be a standalone digital experience. But it’s even better when you pair it with and in person. Is that how do you think about that? How do those two work together?
Lauren Bercarich — Oh my goodness. So we think about this in such incredible detail. We have our year mapped out with like every day what is getting in the app…
Rich Birch — Oh very cool.
Lauren Bercarich —…and how are we partnering what we’re doing with our teaching series and what we’re going through on Sundays.
Rich Birch — So good.
Lauren Bercarich — So let me give you an example that just knocked our socks off. We did a prayer series um called Moving Mountains…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Lauren Bercarich — …for six weeks and you know we were teaching people essentially how to pray in new ways. Really pushing them outside kind of these comfortable prayers to pray dangerously, to be bold, to try to follow God’s will instead of our wishes. But there was a challenge from the beginning you’re going to do two things with the series, guys. You’re going to get in a group and you’re going to be in the app praying for each other. And we even set a goal – we are going to pray 100,000 prayers in this app over the course of the next…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lauren Bercarich — …six weeks. And we reported back every single week. In fact, when you walked into any physical location, every TV in that location was scrolling prayers from the app.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s cool.
Lauren Bercarich — Our teaching pastors were showing them up on the side screens, actively praying for them in the middle of the sermon. I mean it was interwoven. You couldn’t separate…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great.
Lauren Bercarich — …the app from this series. And then at the end um, we reported back hey it was 150,000 prayers prayed.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lauren Bercarich — And you could feel a spiritual temperature just rising.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lauren Bercarich — Um, it was really incredible. So it is not like, ok yes, there’s this private practice. You can do your daily habits and that can be a part of like your morning devotional routine. But this is something we are weaving into everything we’re doing at church. And it doesn’t stop there so you know you go from Moving Mountains.
Lauren Bercarich — Then you might say hey um at Easter time we did some Lenten devotionals. We read through the gospels of Mark and Luke um up to Easter. We had seven of our pastors reading them. This was an audio product. And they would read the gospel, one chapter a day, reflect on it…
Rich Birch — Oh so good.
Lauren Bercarich — …give everybody a reflection question to journal on in the app, pray us out, and that was leading us up to Easter. People loved it.
Rich Birch — Yes, so good.
Lauren Bercarich — We had thousands of people in there. And even hearing from people who’d never been in the app before saying, that was the thing that got me in…
Rich Birch — Yeah, so good.
Lauren Bercarich — …like that really spoke to me. And so we are constantly creating new content, new ways of reaching people…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Lauren Bercarich — …and tying them to our teaching.
Rich Birch — Yeah, so good. Love that. Yeah, this was ah so ah, friends who are listening in to you know Tim Lucas is the lead pastor at, and a friend of mine. And you know we’re on the texting relationship. We’ll text it quite a bit. And he was, I remember when there was that whole prayer thing going on. And that was like his bullet point. He was like we had, so you know and I was like you know come on. He’s a friend so I could say this kind of thing. I’m I’m like that seems like a teaching pastor kind of thing to say. 150,000 prayers? I’m like how is that possible? Like I that was actually one of the first times I sat up and was like, you’re doing what? What is happening over there? That’s that’s crazy.
Rich Birch — Talk talk to me about the launch of the app. Because I think um, you know my impression is that there’s a lot of churches that kind of halfheartedly commit to this kind of thing, but that isn’t my impression of what you’ve done. It’s like you’re trying to figure out how we integrate this thing in and talk us to what that looked like. So the launch, and then how do you keep it on kind of people’s radar as we go forward?
Lauren Bercarich — Yeah, so I’d say so one of the challenges I feel like for people, Rich, is I I feel like you need three things to launch an app well. And a lot of people don’t have all three.
Rich Birch — Okay. Yep.
Lauren Bercarich — And I say it’s like a 3-legged stool. So if you’re missing one and then the stool topples over. One is that you actually need the money, right?
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Lauren Bercarich — So you need the money to um, get your strategic partner, like we did with Apollos, partner with them. You need the staff to run it, all of that. Some people get the money, but nothing else.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lauren Bercarich — You actually need leadership buy in. So if it’s just a departmental initiative, this is not going to win. Guys…
Rich Birch — If it the nerds are the ones that are going to do it, like go get that, let the nerds do it, that what doesn’t work?
Lauren Bercarich — Ah, yes, sometimes it’s just like a techie project…
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Lauren Bercarich — …and it doesn’t even take on in the staff.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Lauren Bercarich — Guys, this is not a departmental initiative. This is a cultural shift for your organization.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good.
Lauren Bercarich — And um, you need total leadership buy in because you can’t get it to partner with like a prayer series like we did if your lead pastor and your executive team aren’t fully on board, right?
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Lauren Bercarich — So you need them on board. And then they help to be evangelists for this as well. And then third, you need promotion if you build it. They will not just show up. They’re not going to just come.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lauren Bercarich — Um, that’s something as a former coms director I’ve always pushed against. You really need to tell people what this is, how to get it, how it will serve them. So when we launched the app we did a six week um launch period where there was no way that you could escape the fact…
Rich Birch — Right.
Lauren Bercarich — …that we were launching an app. I had it it was total communication saturation, right?
RIch Birch — Yes, great.
Lauren Bercarich — But that is a season and that’s honestly the easiest part. The hardest part is what I call the adoption time, app adoption. And that to me never ends.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lauren Bercarich — That is when we calendar out our whole year and give you reasons always to get in the app, to experience something new. We’re always launching new features and new reasons and ways to engage people. Because my ah goal would be that everybody’s in the app that people would understand, Oh this is how Liquid Church does things. Everybody’s in the app.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lauren Bercarich — Everything we do is through the app. And so it really becomes ingrained in our culture.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Okay, so let’s pick kind of a hypothetical situation. Let’s assume I’m a church of you know like a thousand people.
Lauren Bercarich — Yeah.
Rich Birch — So it’s it’s they’re not um, it’s not a giant church is not, you know, it’s not 10,000. It’s a thousand, but it’s also not a small church. These people have some resources. They’ve got some staff, time. You know what would be some potholes that we should avoid now that you’ve launched or that you’ve talked with other churches that like oh you can see where this kind of launch or, you know, branching out into this kind of thing falls apart. Where it’s like oh that just that didn’t go how we were hoping it would go. What would be a put some potholes to avoid?
Lauren Bercarich — Um, I think that people need to have a plan beyond launch. I think a lot of people don’t have that.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Lauren Bercarich — There is a lot of energy that gets put into the maintenance of the app, right? So if we are doing um, scripture readings. That’s 365 days of scripture readings.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Lauren Bercarich — Now there’s the there’s the way to do that that’s not too complex, but somebody actually has to go in there and say, what scripture are we reading on what date, when does that go live. So I think sometimes people want to make this run without actually devoting any staff or permanent resourcing to it. It is not a tech tool that can just thrive on its own.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Lauren Bercarich — You actually need the staffing behind it to help run it. And I think it pays dividends, of course, you know, hey I’m a digital staffer.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Lauren Bercarich — But you do need to invest in that and I think that’s one of the pitfalls that I’ve heard about.
Rich Birch — Yeah, can you talk to us a little bit about what that what is the staffing structure look like. You know, so folks forget to give some perspective, you know, Liquid Church is 5000 people, in that general in that range.
Lauren Bercarich — Yep.
Rich Birch — You know, this a fast growing church. Um, but so talk to me about kind of staffing investment. What does that look like for, you know, for you? Where are you at today? You know what did you launch with? Obviously you always want more so what, you know, what is what’s it going to look like down the road?
Lauren Bercarich — Ah, so true.
Rich Birch — Advocate for I’m sure Tim’s listening in, Dave’s listening in…
Lauren Bercarich — That’s right…
Rich Birch — …Kayra’s listening in, so now is the time.
Lauren Bercarich — …approve that new staff role.
Rich Birch — Yeah fun.
Lauren Bercarich — Um, so I was already on staff at Liquid Church. I was the Communications Director. Um, but I was just you know banging the drum that we need to lean into digital. We need to invest here and they said hey, you know what? We think you’re right. Why don’t you lead that? Um, which was not the direction I thought we were going to go.
Lauren Bercarich — So it started with me and it’s like what’s your division of what this department needs to be? And what I really wanted it to be was, hey we need the techies kind of under my purview. So what we did is we actually split our IT department.
Lauren Bercarich —So we have a traditional IT department, right, that’s running the infrastructure of our buildings, and the computers for everybody, and taking care of all of that and purchasing products, etc. But we have a Digital Products team that is helping me…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Lauren Bercarich — …with um our church management system Rock RMS, that is helping with the app development, website development, and leading on all of that. So they help us run incredibly fast, and they’re specialists in what they do. I can’t do what they do.
Lauren Bercarich — Then I have digital content creators and to be creative guys we took two part-time employees, made them full time, and halftime. They are doing digital content creation, but it was amazing because they already knew our culture.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lauren Bercarich — They knew our voice, they were people that we could put out front, right? So we took a teaching pastor who was doing 20 hours teaching. Now he’s full time, and he can be ah front facing on our digital content. Same with one of our worship leaders. Um, then we actually invested in a church online pastor. So before it was like oh church online just happens in the margins.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lauren Bercarich — No, we’re actually going to fully invest in the care. And so we actually moved somebody. So we moved staff as well. So we took somebody super equipped for that. So one of the things that I like to say is look in your organization right now. Who are some of the most dynamic people…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Lauren Bercarich — …super engaged, really passionate about digital, and maybe elevate them, shift their role. Because initially I was thinking, hey there’s an expert out there, and they’ve got it all figured out. But there really doesn’t exist because this is a new frontier for churches. So I think that elevating people internally is a great way to advance your digital ministry.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. So what is you know when you look up over the horizon, what are some questions that you’re wrestling with on the digital ministry side, as you kind of think about the future? You know, I’m thinking like additional, you know, channels or other, you know, other you know new things. You’ve got these kind of core, you know, gratitude, prayer, scripture. You’re doing content. Is there other things within the app or other areas that you’re thinking about as you look to the future?
Lauren Bercarich — Yeah, so I’d say one of the challenges with digital is there’s always so many options.
Rich Birch — So true.
Lauren Bercarich — What are the best things to do?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lauren Bercarich — What can you actually get done?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lauren Bercarich — What is should you prioritize? So that’s one of the biggest things. Because sometimes I will just say you can get that shiny object syndrome. Oh! Got to do this new thing.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes, let’s try this.
Lauren Bercarich — Oh no, we got to do this.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Lauren Bercarich — And then you just end up being a little frazzled and frenetic. So where we want to lean into this is actually continuing to enhance some of the features that already exist. So like doubling down in the prayer feature which we feel like as an MVP and we’re working with our developer on that, right? So you can have more interaction, more care, more engagement on some of the existing features.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Lauren Bercarich — Um I mentioned to you the community feature. That will be a whole new tab on our app that we’re releasing here in a couple of months. And we’re putting people through this ah, we’re piloting this marriage journey, these ah campus communities. But if it takes off, I mean we’re going to have tons of journeys, right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Lauren Bercarich — We’re already talking about what are we going to do for our parenting series? Should we launch a parenting journey? Should we be helping moms? Should they have their own community within the app?
Rich Birch — Oh that’s cool. Yeah.
Lauren Bercarich — So that’s one avenue that we’re really leaning into and I think pursuing. Um, yeah…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Lauren Bercarich — …I’d say that’s where we’re really focusing right now.
Rich Birch — Um, talk to me about the um this is kind of taking 6 steps back, but to something we talked about you know earlier on. What what is the connection that you’re seeing between all of this digital work and in-person attendance? Like how are are you able to kind of connect those two? Are you seeing any kind of connection? How does all that you know work together? I know there’s church leaders that are listening and they’re like, yeah that all sounds good, but like I really just want people to show up on Sundays. What are you seeing on that front?
Lauren Bercarich — Yeah, so we truly believe that digital is a contributor to the growth that we are seeing at Liquid Church. Um I’ll just give you an example that um, just a few weeks ago we crossed the 5000 threshold in in-person attendance on a Sunday nd we hadn’t hit that mark ah, post-covid. Ah we had hit that mark pre-pandemic. And it was like wow that’s incredible. Now if you just look at that, you could say, hey we’ve arrived. We’re back. We don’t need to focus on digital. But let me tell you there were another 2700 people on church online.
Rich Birch — Wow. Yeah.
Lauren Bercarich — Both church online and in person are up and to the right. For the first time ever both are growing and thriving.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great.
Lauren Bercarich — And I believed that that was possible when we started launching this ministry back in 2022. I’m like I know both can be up and to the right. And we’re there because we’re investing in both. And I believe that’s a digital products too, and shepherding people seven days a week is bringing them back in through the doors. You know we talk about closing the back door. Digital actually does both things.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Lauren Bercarich — It reaches people, brings them in the front door. Um and it gives you all these new avenues, ways to reach them. But I also think it helps to keep people because they can feel connected…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lauren Bercarich — …more than just at that event-centric Sunday service or any other, you know, events that they’re attending, that they can really feel part of a community.
Rich Birch — Love it. Yeah, that’s great. And and yeah, we’re seeing the same thing in our church. That our the statistics on church online, our digital stuff are accelerating while at the same time are, so very similar, we’re hitting, you know, largest attendance non-holiday attendance ever. Um, and both are driving, you know, we’re in the middle of a capital campaign right now. And it’s like I was just joking with our lead pastor this week, I was like I don’t know that we raised enough money, or are we raising enough money. Like so Both of them are you know are accelerating. And I’ve I’ve seen that from multiple churches that it’s like hey people that are are continuing to invest on both sides are seeing, you know seeing great results. We we live in a digital age.
Lauren Bercarich — Yes.
Rich Birch — People, it’s like it sounds like so um, you know like apple pie, of course we do. But I but there are church leaders that are missing that they’re missing that connection ah between those two things. I want to take this is like side kind of like sidestep this content for a second…
Lauren Bercarich — Sure.
Rich Birch — …and just honor you for your leadership at ah, you know at Liquid. You know, ah so you’re doing such a great job. You’re killing it. You’re doing an amazing, you know I I said earlier in the podcast, friends, that Lauren’s a person I know in the real world. And to me you’re an example of the kind of person that the body of Christ is just so thankful to have working day in day out.
Rich Birch — Tell us a little bit about your background because I’m sure people are listening in are saying, Lauren like speaks in sound bites and is like incredibly articulate and knows her stuff. What is she’ve done all her life? Where does, what is happening? So talk to us a little bit about your your background. And I I say that because there could be church leaders that are listening in today, again that church of a 1000, 2000 people are like, I’m not sure who can run this thing.
Lauren Bercarich — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And it might be someone like who has a background similar to yours so talk us through that.
Lauren Bercarich — Ah yeah, that’s a great point. I’m so glad that you asked that. Actually my background is in journalis. I was a TV news reporter. So I always tell people I’m like, you know those people who stand out in the snowstorm, or like blowing sideways in the hurricane, that was me.
Rich Birch — Yep, that was you.
Lauren Bercarich — So I did local TV news reporting. And then I transitioned into public relations which is, you know, promoting the products and books of your clients. I was attending Liquid Church – it was my church home. And then my campus pastor was just like, well hey, you know we’re hiring a communications director. I had no intention of moving into ministry. And can we peel back the curtain a little bit? Guys, Rich was my first boss at Liquid. So um, I’m just so grateful um, that that that door opened for me and that I was able to walk through it.
Lauren Bercarich — But yes, I was in the role of communications director for 7 years at Liquid Church, running all our um communications and marketing. But I was super passionate about digital and I would say the pandemic gave me a nudge because I just started saying like, hey um we need to be running online things for our parents for liquid family.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lauren Bercarich — We need to be running these online things for um, emotional health and wellness with our discipleship team.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Lauren Bercarich — And I was just so passionate about it and honestly deflated when we started to think that, oh we got to put digital aside in order to lift up in-person.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Lauren Bercarich — But I’m so glad that we recognized actually both can thrive together and at the same time. And so I was promoting it, I was pitching it to our leadership, and then they tapped me on the shoulder, and said you run it. I will say I had a little bit of that impostor syndrome of I don’t know. I it’s the first time I got offered um a job or a promotion, you’re like are you sure? Am I the right person? But.
Rich Birch — Did you get the wrong name? Is there someone else supposed to be here?
Lauren Bercarich — Yes.
Rich Birch — That’s funny.
Lauren Bercarich — But I will say it served me really well because I I can be that strategic thinker. I can be that communicator. I can see the vision for it. But I have the team to do the things that I’m personally not equipped to do.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lauren Bercarich — So I can have the tech teammates who are just phenomenal um, who can help me push forward into the future. And so um I think we make an incredible team.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Lauren Bercarich — But maybe there is a coms person in your organization right? And maybe they’re the right person to lead this.
Rich Birch — Yeah, totally, I love that. And and, yeah, I think when I think about, like one of the things there’s there’s a lot that Liquid Church has done well as a church. And a lot of that does you know though, there’s lines that line right back to you and this is an example of that. You know, the digital stuff, you know, I think it’s amazing. You know there’s somebody who could be sitting in a church today who is doing something that they are happy with and are you know you know they like and whether it was in you know journalism, PR, communications, but maybe a switch to them coming and serving in the local church. Man, that that could open up unlock all kinds of new amazing opportunities for churches that are listening in today.
Rich Birch — So we want to send people to obviously pick up the Liquid Church app – we’ll link to it in the notes. Um, but yeah, just as we’re kind of coming to land, as we’re getting close to the end here, what else would you like to say just as we kind of close out today’s episode?
Lauren Bercarich — I would just say that um don’t consider yourself knocked out of the box here because this is an area where everybody’s learning. You don’t have to be an expert.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Lauren Bercarich — You don’t have to know it all now. You can learn. There’s a lot of people out there to learn from and to see what they’re doing. And what I love about ministry, right, is we’re willing to share and teach and talk with each other. I feel like some people find digital just to be so intimidating that they’ll say you know what? I’m just going to do what I’ve always done because I don’t know how to do that.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Lauren Bercarich — But I don’t think that’s the winning strategy for the future of our church, um of your church, of the big “C” Church, and so I just want to encourage people to to lean in.
Rich Birch — So good. This is great. I feel like during ah particularly during the height of Covid when there were people, including friends of mine, who were like they were like it’s the age of digital. We’re all going digital. No one’s ever going to come back to services. I was like, ah I don’t know that that’s the case. Like I think we’re going to get back to services at some point.
Rich Birch — And then but then now it’s like it’s swung the opposite direction and there are churches out there that are like, we’re getting rid of all that digital stuff and we’re just in person. And I’m like well I don’t think that’s the answer either. Like I think we you know it’s it’s been a funny couple years on this stuff. But I’m just so thankful for what Liquid’s done. I think you continue to lead the way. And I just want to honor you and your team today. So thank you so much, Lauren. We really appreciate you being here today and we’ll link to the the app down below. Um, if people want to get in touch with you or to track with the church, where do we want to send them online?
Lauren Bercarich — Yeah, so if you just want to see what we’re doing, our website is liquidchurch.com. And our website is designed for the new guest so you can kind of get that experience. If you want to reach out to me, I mean honestly email’s the best way. It’s just laurenb@liquidchurch.com.
Rich Birch — Great. Thanks so much, Lauren. Appreciate you being here today.
Lauren Bercarich — Absolutely. So much fun.
Thanks for joining the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with two Aarons—Aaron Stanski, CEO and Founder of Risepointe, and Aaron Mora, the Alma Campus Pastor of Community Church in north central Michigan.
If your church is growing, chances are you’ve wrestled with questions about your location or building meeting your ministry needs. Tune in to hear the story of Community Church’s growth and how Risepointe walked alongside them as they tried to find a suitable location for their Alma campus.
- The Needs Analysis. // Like Community Church, most of the churches that reach out to Risepointe go through The Needs Analysis process. This information helps Risepointe understand who they are as a church, problems they’re trying to solve, their unique ministry DNA, and who they’re trying to reach. For Community Church, not only did The Needs Analysis answer many of their questions, Aaron Mora recognizes it was critical to helping Risepointe get to know them and design what they wanted and needed.
- Take the next step. // A building project is a step of faith. Anxiety and fear that might keep you from moving forward. Aaron Mora admits that while it’s tempting to stay comfortable, Community Church sensed God leading them in this direction. He recognizes that God provided Risepointe and their wealth of experience to offer the encouragement and expertise Community Church needed to move forward with confidence.
- Set the guardrails. // As Aaron Stanski notes, buildings aren’t going to do ministry, people are. Risepointe is aware that they are handing over a tool to church leaders so they can further grow their ministry. As a result, Risepointe approaches a project with a church by measuring kingdom impact and how to unleash it in the area. Laying out a clear budget and cash flow positive plan that lines up with giving in the early phase is critical. Set guardrails in place regarding what is needed and what the budget is so you can drive the project toward success.
- Don’t let doubt creep in. // Expect that people will have opinions on what’s being done in a building project, but don’t receive it all as negative. Recognize that change will be hard for a lot of people; don’t let the comments cause you to doubt your decisions.
- Renovating vs building new. // When considering a building project, it’s important to understand how you’re using your buildings. Be really intentional with the decisions you’re making and examine the pros and cons of building new versus renovating an existing space. Risepointe walks their clients through a decision making matrix to help them understand how they want to develop their sites. Aaron Stanski explains that, in general, you’ll spend about twice as much money building new as you would doing a renovation.
- Follow God’s calling. // If you’re trying to decide whether to move forward with building or renovating a location versus portable church, ask yourself, is this what God is calling you to do? God leads us to different strategies in different seasons. Walking through The Needs Analysis with Risepointe doesn’t obligate you to a building project, but rather can help clarify the direction that’s best for your church in your current season of ministry.
You can learn more about Community Church at www.communitymi.org. Visit Risepointe’s website at www.risepointe.com to schedule a free call, walk through The Needs Analysis, or explore recent projects.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: *The Giving Church*
As a church leader you know that your ability to execute your vision comes down to Staffing, Facilities and Programming. All of those needs are fueled by one thing: Generosity. The Giving Church, led by Generosity Coach and Founder, Phil Ling, has worked with nearly 1000 churches of all sizes in over 40 different denominations and raised over a billion dollars to fuel ministry. Don’t run out of fuel for your ministry. Transform your ministry with innovative capital campaigns and leadership coaching.
Visit thegivingchurch.com/unseminary for a FREE PDF, 5 Ways To Grow Your Church Giving.
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Man, I’m really looking forward to having you tune into today’s conversation. You know every once in a while we have a conversation where I’m like man I wish that you know thousands of leaders could tune in because I feel like I’m having this conversation time and again and today is one of those conversations. Really excited to have Aaron Mora with us. He’s the Campus Pastor of church called Community Church. It’s a large multisite church in North Central Michigan. Ah he leads the Alma campus and today we’re talking about their transition from portable to a permanent location.
Rich Birch — But we’re this is the two for one Aaron show today because we’re also joined by our friend Aaron Stanski, friend of the podcast. He is the CEO and founder of Risepointe and with fifteen plus years of really helping churches design you know and launch, project manage incredible projects at churches but not just churches also schools and nonprofits all across the country. He’s an expert in this area. Super excited to have both Aarons on welcome. So glad you’re both here today. Thanks for being here.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Aaron Mora — Yeah, thanks.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, thanks, Rich. Happy to do it.
Rich Birch — This is going to be good. Now I’m going to use your last names ah because you know I don’t want people to get lost. Um, you know so hopefully we’re like friends it’s like friends on a baseball team or something. Ah, but so Mora why don’t we start with you tell us about what was going on. Give us the kind of the the 50,000 foot view of Community Church. Tell us a bit of the story. What’s what was happening at the Alma campus here?
Aaron Mora — Yeah, and so um, Community Church initial campus in Mount Pleasant, Michigan – right in the heart of the mitten, if you’re a a Michigan familiar…
Rich Birch — Love it. Yes.
Aaron Mora — …and ah church was growing. And so actually a number of years. I’ve been on on staff about 14 years, you know, do you build a bigger building in Mount Pleasant and ah, an increasing radius of people that were driving. And so good things, you know growth, and so like many churches we we kind of walk down the road of multisite as an option of being able to grow. And so the Alma campus launched in a January of 2020 which in our
Rich Birch — Perfect, perfect timing.
Aaron Stanski — Strategy.
Aaron Mora — yeah, all of our strategy planning, ah pandemic was not part of it. But we launched about 20 minutes down the road in a town called Alma…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Aaron Mora — …our first multi-site location. And ended up it was actually a launch with a good core, about 150 people who were already from that community plugged into the church And we started portable. And so we met in a Youth for Christ building. Great ministry partners of ours. Had thirteen weeks before the pandemic actually hit. But you know still through that you know praise God navigated, still still growth, still momentum.
Aaron Mora — And um and so ah, probably a year, two in – probably ’21, end of ’21, start of ’22 – we were starting talking about, you know what is that permanent location.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Mora — And um, yeah, so that that kind of a quick snapshot of what what connected us initially with Risepointe.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. Well I’m going to give away the punchline. So amazing thing, you guys launched here in ah right at the end of last year, 2023, in your permanent facility. And and here we are kind of end of April. Give us the punchline where are you at today. This is astonishing. I just love this. Where are you at from a growth point of view?
Aaron Mora — It’s it’s ah it’s been incredible. In fact, um, you know through through the good portion of last year, 2023, was the project. In fact I think we were doing demolition in the the spring of 2023. Opened Christmas Eve 2023, and the average attendance over the last three or four months since we’ve launched I mean almost ah it’s been about 80% growth.
Rich Birch — Wow, wow!
Aaron Mora — So almost double which…
Rich Birch — That’s crazy.
Aaron Mora — …which praise God has exceeded our expectations. Those that are walking through the doors, it’s been lots of people who have have ah a category we’ve called de-churched. You know they haven’t been attending church for a number of years. And um and so to have a I think a beautiful, contemporary facility, you know a vibrant church, there’s just been God’s been using it powerfully. And so it’s it’s exceeded I think my my greatest expectations in a way that you know can only be I think something God’s doing.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s amazing. Well I’d love to kind of pick apart that process a little bit. I’m I’m sure I know there are leaders that are listening in today that are you know they’re they’re portable in a location and they’re thinking about this. They’re wondering about this. And I want to kind of pick apart that story. So Aaron Stanski, do you remember when you first got connected with Community and kind of what what did that some of those initial contacts look like?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I mean I I remember some phone conversations, Aaron. I think I think we might have even hopped on a quick Zoom. I know you guys were you know trying to figure some things out. We might have even popped up on a Google search or something…
Rich Birch — Nice.
Aaron Stanski — …ah, that you were doing. And so connected with them. We talked on the phone and then I think initially we were already over in your area like working on a different project or something. So we went ahead and swung by and I remembered zigzagging all over Alma, Michigan. I remember ah, looking at ah there was a weird abandoned hotel. Do you remember this?
Aaron Mora — I do remember this.
Rich Birch — Oh fun.
Aaron Stanski — It was like it had been abandoned for like five or six years. It’d be perfect for a haunted house or something. So we looked at some farm fields.
Aaron Stanski — And and we looked at ah yeah, a few buildings and stuff. We’re just trying to imagine…
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — …what a permanent facility would look like for for them, which was great.
Rich Birch — Nice.
Aaron Mora — Yeah, that and and so it going back to that initial look, um and and and, Rich, I think this this ties so well into what you were talking about. It’s our first time doing a building project for most of us on staff at at the church. And so we’d done a building building projects, you know, thirty years ago but it was before…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Aaron Mora — …most of us were there.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Aaron Mora — And so in that was it was ah absolutely a Google search. It was jumping online…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Aaron Mora — …saying you know, who do we look up? And and so I think I had ah I had a list of like 8 or and and then campus pastor Aaron, and they’re like, Aaron go find somebody.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Aaron Mora — Um, and so I I went line some architects. Um, you know so from from both the church world and and also just ones that just came up that did great designs that we saw we we tried to get some referrals. And I think initially for Risepointe it was a sense of a design and build, so not just designing but also you know, walking through the building project. And then even some of the other pieces that were there I think that initial conversation, and Aaron alluded to it already, was just so like, oh you’re telling me all the things I wanted to know are are here. You’re you’re talking about you know, planning and and more than just the build of having a great building. What do you need.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Mora — And so it was ah it was an easy fit to where you know we’ve we’ve vetted through and end up going with Risepointe.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Well the thing you know, Aaron Stanski’s a friend. I love him, and I literally all the time we were saying this before we get started, I feel like I’m consistently saying to church leaders, like have you talked with the guys over at Risepointe? Like they’re they’re so helpful. And um now I think you you do this thing called Needs Analysis, right?
Aaron Stanski — Ssure.
Rich Birch — That what what that sounds fancy, but what what is that, Mr. Stanski. Tell us about what is the ah you know the is that this zigzagging across the you know the Alma thing you did?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I mean The Needs Analysis for us, and it’s a process that most of the churches ah like Community that reach out to us go through. And so it’s a process for us at Risepointe to really learn who are they as a church? What are some of the problems they’re trying to solve? Like what is their unique ministry DNA?
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — Who are they trying to reach? Um and so The Needs Analysis is a process where we spend an extended period of time, usually an entire day, ah walking the the team and the staff through a series of exercises and questions and really getting to know them. And and then it’s asking and answering some specific questions around facility and saying okay, how do we solve these problems? So ah, if Alma already had a campus and they were already up and running we would probably be asking the question, How do we maximize ministry on site? Ah, how do we know when we have to expand or add on? What’s some low hanging fruit that just some some things that we think would be helpful for them to consider with their facility that we might have learned from other churches?
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — And then the last thing is like, man, what’s it all going to cost, right? And so if we can answer those questions and present that back in ah in a format that’s clear to understand, and we’re um and it’s answering those questions, then it gives church leaders a lot of times the what they need to kind of move forward and make some decisions.
Aaron Stanski — And so for Alma campus it was not only those things, it was like what what options exist for a building, right? I mean they could have bought a field and built new. They could have you know they could have you know bought some of these other properties. And so we sort of laid that framework out for them. And then they ended up you know, just finding a gem of a property a ah just a ah, really spectacular looking JCPenny building. And I I say that sarcastically. Ah just this JCPenny building that had been sitting there vacant – it was like five or six years right?
Aaron Mora — It had been a but been a while.
Aaron Stanski —Like it wasn’t it wasn’t occupied, right, Aaron?
Aaron Mora — Yeah.
Aaron Stanski — And so, ah for them, it was like man, Okay, here’s this huge JCPenny building.
Aaron Stanski — Ah, it’s for sale. Ah, do we want to buy it? Ah, do we want to buy some of it, or all of it? Ah, and when we renovate it, how much do we want to renovate? What’s it going to cost? And so we walk them through a Needs Analysis to help them figure those things out.
Rich Birch — Right? yeah.
Rich Birch — Okay so ah, just sticking with The Needs Analysis there for a second. So the thing I’ve said to other people—correct me if I’m wrong on this—is man, I would call Risepointe early in the process, like as you know even when you’re in the like we’re not even sure really the questions we’re asking. Is that true? Because the thing I’ve said behind your back, Aaron Stanski, is like if you call them early, you’re going to leverage all their thinking on some of those early foundational questions that could save you huge dollars and time. And you know sure, you could come and say, ah this is the building. We’ve got this building already; help us renovate it. But man, is it better to call earlier, you know, Aaron Stanski?
Aaron Stanski — Um, yeah I mean the earlier the better.
Rich Birch — Right, okay.
Aaron Stanski — If you feel like you’re getting to a point where you’re either running out of space…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Aaron Stanski — …or if you’re getting to the point where you feel like man, we’re not meeting the needs of the community. We’re not able to say yes to some of the the requests that we’re getting.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Aaron Stanski — Or we feel like the facility just isn’t working as well as we think it should. Then definitely reach out.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Aaron Stanski — Ah for a lot of churches like yeah, it’s time to go. It’s time to raise money and stuff. And for a lot of them. It’s like oh these are the things we need to be thinking about…
Rich Birch — Thinking about this stuff. Yeah.
Aaron Stanski — …as we manage our largest capital asset, right? Our our building. So.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love that. And I know you’ll even just book it on a ah call. Which I think is crazy. Like I’m like you’re not even charging for those first kind of discovery call kind of things, which is crazy to me. I’m like that’s nuts, but people should take advantage of that.
Aaron Stanski — Right.
Rich Birch — Well, Aaron Mora, let’s talk about maybe some surprises in that in those early, the early phases. As you were thinking about the project, what was something that you know, kind of bubbled up in the process that was like, oh here’s some you know some kind of thing that I didn’t anticipate or didn’t really see um, through this that you know maybe was a bit surprising?
Aaron Mora — Sure, and and even going back to that Needs Analysis, um, and um I imagine those listening there’s probably a few out there that are similar to me – we’re pretty cheap, you know frugal.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Aaron Mora — Like trying to say you know how how can we get through this spending the least amount of money…
Rich Birch —Yes.
Aaron Mora — …at least not spending needlessly.
Rich Birch —Yep.
Aaron Mora — And so for a Needs Analysis, I think in that first call was a sense of, you know, is this something that we really need? You know we we know we need a building, so is that something that that’s worth the time? And I think I think um on on one hand um, quick quickly walking through it, that process is first of all gold for us. I think there were a lot of answers that we came to that we wouldn’t have otherwise. But then also I think it was also so helpful for Risepointe to really get to know us as part of the the process of getting to that design, so they were able to design something that just fit what we were wanting to do.
Aaron Mora — And so yeah, that initial kind of drive around exploring the community getting to know the community. That particular hotel that that Stanski was was talking about, I think that their their response was you know, maybe buy it and bulldoze it. Like that’s not that’s not worth going into. But even that sense of like, I I don’t know is that just options that we’re looking around at um.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Aaron Mora — One one of the pieces even even related to the the space that we landed on which was a JCPenny, ah it was the JCPenny itself was about 60,000 square feet.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Aaron Mora — It’s right on the main drag going through… Alma’s ah, a small Michigan town of maybe 20,000 people. And so the the main kind of line through town where all the Walmarts and Meijers and everything’s at, ah this JCPenny was right there. So beautiful location. And the initial thought was oh well, let’s buy the whole thing. Um, and so the the thinking though is if you buy 60,000 square feet based on even with some significant growth, what we’d actually need going back to even that budget question of you know what can you afford for for the congregation? You know what do you need it to to do? And I remember us going through you know. feeling this, like well if we don’t buy it now and you know will we regret it in the future? And Risepointe was instrumental to say you know based on your current attendance, based on growth, this is the square footage that you need.
Aaron Mora — And actually made ah something that would have kept me up at night, just a major decision—like do we buy all of it, do we buy part part of it…
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Mora — …was saying you can do everything you want to in this footprint that you buy.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Mora — So we ended up buying about 30,000 square feet.
That’s great.
Aaron Mora — And in that we we initially built in this phase about 22-, 23,000 square feet of that.
Rich Birch — Okay, yep.
Aaron Mora — And it and it’s ah it’s for right us right now ah, a perfect footprint of what we’re in.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great.
Aaron Mora — And so even walking through those types of decisions, I think it was a sense of saying I don’t know if I don’t think I could have Googled an answer to that solution.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Aaron Mora — I think there there was a part of this process that kind of walked us through um in that. And that didn’t that didn’t finish through the design. I think that Risepointe also being a firm that walked all the way through the project, um like Aaron and then ah Chris, one of the the chief architect on the on the project, were just a constant connection, which not every not every organization does, not every designer does.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Aaron Mora — Um and it it really was a relationship.
Rich Birch — Yeah, for sure. Well and I love that, you know, we and when you come to a key decision like that, like there’s one thing you can’t sure you can Google you can find some sort of calculator online. But man, you want to talk to somebody who’s been through this a bunch and has done a bunch of projects. And you know Aaron and the team you know over Risepointe can do that.
Rich Birch — Talk to us from a kind of a campus pastor, pastoral care, you know the kind of spiritual dynamics that that you went through as a church. There’s a part of this that’s you know 20,000 square feet – it’s colors, it’s color swatches, it’s you know, picking chairs, all that stuff. But what what was some of that kind of internal transformation that you went through as a team? How did that, you know, it’s not just about buildings, obviously. What, talk to us about that.
Aaron Mora — No I think that anytime you’re like a building project is a step of faith. Like you’re probably stepping out into the sense of will will the money come in? You know will will people step in? Will people show up? Is it is it going to be something where you put all this money into something and you don’t grow? And so there is a faith aspect of saying um you know, God we’re we’re we’re we’re sensing you leading us this direction. And that started you know before that even even before we got to multisite. And so there’s there’s a bit of you know, anxiety or fear could keep you in this place of saying, well let’s not do anything. You know, we’re comfortable.
Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, yeah.
Aaron Mora — And um and so I think that the part of the relationship with Risepointe could be the sense of someone who’s there giving you confidence beyond, you know, the Holy Spirit, beyond God. But even this this sense of saying, God using, you know, a firm to be able to to walk alongside and encourage and say, oh nope, we’ve seen this done before. You know other people have walked this road. Different problems or things that we bumped in during the project, even say hey we’ve we’ve seen this in other spots. You know, we we can show up at a town town meeting conversation zoning thing, talk the language. I think all of that was incredibly helpful.
Aaron Mora — And I think in that was this this sense of ah the stress didn’t necessarily go away because a building project, there’s lots of different moving pieces and decisions and and things going through there. But I do think having a good relationship with your designer, um with with the architect allows you to be able to navigate that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Mora — And that was incredibly helpful for us.
Rich Birch – Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. Yeah, there’s that Proverbs 12:15 right, the the way of the fool is right in his own eyes. But the wise listens to counsel. And you know I think this is one of those examples of that.
Rich Birch — Well, Aaron Stanski, talk us through when you you know you approach ah ah, church like this comes to you and is like, hey we’re we’re thinking about this kind of thing, give us some of the steps that your or some of the questions those kind of early kind of decision-making points. How are you helping guide them through you know, this decision making process? How do you come alongside them and kind of integrate with their leadership development, or their leadership not leadership development their leadership process for making decisions?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I mean I think at Risepointe like we’re we’re constantly measuring kingdom impact, right?
Rich Birch — Good.
Aaron Stanski — And so we want to figure out, man, how do we unleash kingdom impact ah in Alma, Michigan? And so we know buildings aren’t going to do ministry, people are. And so like as we as we grow this thing and build it and stuff like as architects, sure, like 60,000 square feet sounds twice as big and twice as much stuff.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Aaron Stanski — And if it was about us and like you know putting projects on our website that would be one thing. But we know we have to hand over a tool ah, to Aaron Mora and his staff and his team that they’re going to use and continue to grow. Ah so yeah, that one big piece that like we’re always trying to you know, develop a plan, a budget plan, a cash flow plan ah, that’s going to set us up for success. So.
Aaron Stanski — Um, you know when we sat down with their leadership and we were looking at their options like the ability to say, no, we can we can only buy half of the building. And then we’re not even going to build all of it out.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — But we’re going to design it in a really unique way with a phase two in mind so that they do have options to grow. Um, and we’re going to create an entrance that looks really cool ah in sort of the corner of this JCPenney building and we’re just going to bring it back to life, you know. And so being able to lay out a really clear ah budget and cash, you know, cash flow positive plan that we feel like ah lines up with um, you know giving and all of those things is really critical in the early phases. Because if we can if we can set set those parameters in place, if we can get the guardrails in place, and say okay we we need this many seats, we need this type of a tool when we’re done, and this is the budgets and you know sort of the things that we feel like God has given us from a resources standpoint, ah then as as Christians and as designers and as partners with the church, we can say, all right, this is the highway we’re on and we can drive that project toward success.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. Yeah you you brought up the money question. I appreciate you bringing that up Aaron Stanski. Um Aaron Mora, talk to us about that piece of it. I’m sure there’s lots of churches out there that are portable right now…
Aaron Mora — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …and they would say, yeah, we’d love to get into a permanent location, but man we just there’s no way, we we can’t afford that. And maybe they haven’t even looked into it. Talk to us through what kind of how did that piece of the conversation – whatever you feel comfortable sharing um, you know on that front.
Aaron Mora — Um, yeah, well and and I think it was ah it definitely was part part of that that part of that step of faith was we’re rural central Michigan. There’s not necessarily deep deep pockets. And not that that you know and every church I think that probably is an aspect of trying to gauge, you know, what is a step of of faith. But for us there really hadn’t been this sense of, you know, ah you know certain individuals that could give write a check…
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Mora — …you know, and build a building type type thing. And so in that was a sense of you know what is what is responsible? What’s reasonable? You know what are we able to to walk into?
Aaron Mora — Um, and so ah and with that having Also you know a faithful foundation that’s within the church. But absolutely it was a sense of how do we get into this to get an amazing building for for the least amount to be good stewards. And you know even going back to the initial thought of looking at fields. There was this thought of you know if you build it from scratch, you get exactly what you want.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Mora — But you know you know what what would it take to make something that right now is an empty box, ah former store, into something that’s incredible. And and I think that ah, this was also helpful in that none of some of those initial conversations just looking at Risepointe’s portfolio and saying oh this is actually stuff that we’ve done in other spaces, in other places. And you can kind of see, okay, that that gives you an example of you know what could be done.
Aaron Mora — Um I I also appreciated I think that Risepointe former projects that they had done, they were able to also talk to ah builders, construction firms in Michigan, and be like hey can you give us right now like you know you just did a project last year, what’s the cost per square foot that you can expect?
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good. That’s good.
Aaron Mora — And then even beyond the construction, looking at FF&E and you know furniture, fixtures, and all those extra pieces. And those were all things that probably wasn’t on our initial list…
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Mora — …but part of that part of that strategic that that ah that initial plan was to say, okay, here’s here’s looking at the whole picture to get into the building. And so it gave us ah a sense of confidence and a plan. Um and praise God I think also a congregation that was saying, but you know let’s keep going; we feel like this is where this is where we’re heading. This is the next step. And so we had you know a lot of unity on that as well.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Aaron Stanski — I love that you threw out just FF and E
Aaron Mora — That’s right and learning the jargon.
Aaron Stanski — That’s right. Like you’ve you’ve learned…
Rich Birch — Yes, that yeah that tells you’ve just come through a project. Yeah, yeah, when you’re saying FF and E. Yeah.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, you’ve learned a lot on the construction and design side through this whole thing.
Aaron Mora — Well and even so even going back to the heart of you know your your ministry, Rich. Like like even going to the heart of of unSeminary. I did not, when I went through seminary, went to reform theological seminary, there was not a class on building projects and…
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Aaron Mora — And I I think in that there I mean what a what a great topic to say there is a lot of it. I remember one of the that initial Needs Analysis, ah the term FF&E was thrown out and I had to Google it on my phone under the table because I had no idea that and no idea what that meant.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Aaron Mora — Ah, but it is It is amazing to see like through that um, yeah, it is kind of a ah learn as you go. And you want wise people around you to help you figure it out.
Rich Birch — Okay, so talk to us about, so you’re you know four or five months into the building. Have you had any experiences now that you’re up and running and you’re like, oh, we should have done this different, or we should have done this different. Is there anything like that that’s kind of, you know, you you pass on, because I’m hoping you’re gonna do for your other campuses you’re gonna do more buildings.
Aaron Mora — Yeah.
Rich Birch — So you know what you what what lessons are you learning?
Aaron Mora — I think one of the biggest lessons actually is before before you get to anything that we’re like I wish I would have done this differently, is um I felt like I was talking to my staff, and also talking to some of my key leaders to say, change is hard.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Aaron Mora — And even if it’s a good change, even if it’s a exciting change, we’re moving into a new building, all this thing, there are some people where change is just hard. Um I want to go back. I want to go you know to you know I liked it, you know, the old way. And so in that to say, you know, people giving comments or responses, A- expect it. It’s going to come. People are going to have opinions about the color. People are going to have opinions about the sound system PA. People and have opinions about everything. Um, expect it. And then also don’t take it just as negative. And I think that was very helpful…
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Aaron Mora — …as I was talking to my staff because you just get this barrage of people saying things. And it would be easy to have this negative mindset of saying, oh man did did we did we mess up or something? Or you are all these mistakes.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Mora — And I think it’s a sense of of you have overwhelming change with things like a building project moving in. We fortunately have a ah I think amazing congregation. Um, but you know through a lot of the design process we kind of kept a certain number of select leaders in that because you didn’t want everyone’s input…
Rich Birch — Right right.
Aaron Mora — …into a lot of those, you know, decisions that are going through. But that being said I think that ah you know, expecting that change is going to be a little bit hard for people.
Aaron Mora — And then there are going to be so there’s ah, there’s a short list of saying, oh yeah I you know I might have changed, I might have done it differently. Nothing overwhelming, but even you know, one small example that I’ve I’ve been going back and forth with Risepointe a little bit is, in our our lobby we have this beautiful lobby as you enter into the building. None of our other campuses have such an intentional space
Rich Birch — Love it.
Aaron Mora — And but sound treatment. So like in that space, it’s a little echoey.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Aaron Mora —And we really didn’t know until you had 200 bodies in there.
Rich Birch — Yeah, so you actually run it. Yeah, yeah, totally.
Aaron Mora —You know what’s it what’s it going to sound like.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Mora — And and then even Risepointe ah Chris who was kind of our our primary connect with saying you know some people love that, you know, kind of the ambient noise echo going through. Um, sometimes it can also be a little overwhelming.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Mora — Um, and so that’s one thing we’re like we got to figure something out, but that’s not so not something we need to figure out today.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Mora — You know in the meantime we have an amazing space that we’re in.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Aaron Mora — Um, other other small things I think that there were there were things that we figured out getting into it that now that we’re now that you’re in the building, you’re kind of living with it, but nothing that was like a complete miss. I think they’re all small tweaks and changes that you expect…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Aaron Mora — …when you’re moving into a new space.
Rich Birch — Well that, good for you. Like I we opened um I’ve opened a bunch of buildings over the years, and this was not a Risepointe project. Another with another outfit and we opened 107-, 8000 square foots of big, giant building.
Aaron Mora — That’s huge.
Rich Birch — And literally on opening weekend I’m standing watching. We we have the one side we had like this big ramp and all this to get you know help people get in because it was on we was a renovated building as well. And um, I’m standing watching moms pick up their strollers and come up this set of staircase. We put the ramp on the wrong side of the building.
Aaron Mora — Oh no.
Rich Birch — I literally opening opening weekend I’m standing there looking and I was like, oh my word. Like we got all the kids ministries here, but the ramps on the other side. Why did we? Ah! You know so good for you that the fact that you don’t that’s like a pain point for me in my life. And it’s still to this day that project’s 20 years old and that ramp’s never been fixed. So it’s ah it’s a funny, a funny project. But and again not a Risepointe project. So you cannot blame our our Risepointe friends for that.
Aaron Mora — Yeah, there you go.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, see there, you go.
Rich Birch — Stanski talked to us about just going back to that decision point around green field versus renovating a box. Talk to us at kind of a principles level around that because I think there’s something there for us to kind of think through a little bit if we’re early on in a project if other people are wrestling through that. Talk to us through just in general maybe not specifically this project..
Aaron Stanski — Yeah I mean in general, ah I mean we have to be really intentional with the decisions that we’re making and understanding how we’re using our buildings and how we’re leveraging those things. Ah so you know for churches that are looking at, for churches that are multisites or ah, you know, or trying to understand how they’re developing their campuses and their sites, like there’s a whole decision make making matrix that we kind of walk through. Ah but in general I mean you’re gonna be so you’re gonna spend about twice as much money building new as you would renovating. Now there’s…
Rich Birch — Okay, wow.
Aaron Stanski — …there’s a little bit there’s a cost, right? You have to buy the renovated building and so you have to add that in just like, and it’s going to be more expensive than buying flat land. But in general, it’s about twice as much to build new. And so ah in in situations where you know churches have, you know, they’ve already, you know, planted or sent multisites out several times, and they no longer have the option of sending out 150, you know, folks to launch the next campus or places where they’re completely landlocked, or may or may not have an open JCPenny, it’s certainly an option to take a look at what does building new look like and and how do we get there. But yeah, if you can if you can find ah a space that’s ah that works for assembly and is going to meet code and do all of those things, ah, it can be an option to you know to buy an existing space and you’ll definitely save some money there.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. We’ve done we’ve done multiple of of those. In fact, I don’t think any of the projects I’ve done have ever been from a green field. But the the thing about a renovating I found as just a leader renovating a space, in a weird way if the church is looking and you’re actively kind of like paying attention to the market. Um, we can move faster in some cases we can move faster than other people can, which on the people that are selling these properties can actually be really positive.
Rich Birch — And so we we had one of our our campuses was exactly that. It was a it was a company that was they were shutting down this particular operation. They were literally and it came down to like there was a guy from Texas who was still running this project, and he was like I want to go back to Texas and like they were done. They had already written off all their their loss as ah as a corporation. And it literally was like, if you guys can move fast enough, we’ll sell it to you. And it was like a significant discount – 30% under under market.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, yeah.
Rich Birch — Because they were just like, hey you know we’re done. And so we were like, let’s jump on it…
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …and see if we can make it happen. That’s so…
Aaron Stanski — Now what you have to do with existing buildings though is have more contingency…
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Aaron Stanski — …because you’re going to run into things that you don’t expect. And ah…
Rich Birch — Yes. You open up a wall and that did not anticipate there was that there.
Aaron Stanski — Now we did we did open up a wall on the Community Church project after we had done all of the inspections to make sure there was no asbestos anywhere, and we were good to go.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Aaron Stanski — And we went and opened up the first wall—do you remember this, ah Aaron Mora…
Aaron Mora — Yeah, it was on the the outside facade.
Aaron Stanski — …and here’s the first wall…
Aaron Mora — Yeah.
Aaron Stanski — …and it was spray painted ah asbestos. Do not do not demo.
Rich Birch — Ah, oh my goodness. Oh gosh.
Aaron Stanski — And so that was that was a stinger right at the very beginning of the project, right? You’re like shoot.
Rich Birch — Ouch. Yeah, yeah, totally.
Aaron Mora — Hard hard to ignore it when they they write it on. But and that was I think that some of that some of thats that you expect walking into it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Mora — And I think rolling with the punches like I feel like my skin’s a little thicker after walking through…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Aaron Mora — …even just a sense of expecting some of those surprises as they come through. Um, but overall I think that you you you can just keep persevering and you get to the finish line.
Rich Birch — Yup. I kind of liked frankly the the constraint of an existing box to fit the thing into. We’re we’re going through a building project right now. It sounds similar size 20,000 square feet. And and I like I walk in there and I’m like this is fantastic, like it’s great. And a part of it is because it’s like we’re not thinking about how big the box is. We’re trying to figure out what we can do to get it into this box.
Aaron Mora — Yeah.
Aaron Stanski — Mmm-hmm.
Rich Birch — And all the creativity’s around that which is is fantastic. Well Aaron Mora, talk to us you know, there’s leaders that are listening in who are hesitating on even maybe starting this kind of project. They’re like ah, you know, I’m not this feels like they get indigestion just thinking about it. Talk to that leader who, and I want to push them over the edge to say, hey let’s let’s actually get the ball rolling.
Aaron Mora — Um, yeah.
Rich Birch — What would you say to somebody now on this end, you know you’re a couple years in. You know you now have actually opened. Talk to us what you’ve learned, how what what kind of words of encouragement would you say to them?
Aaron Mora — Yeah, I think even thinking back to our initial steps. Um I think that you have to say is is this what we’re called to?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Aaron Mora — You know because I think that there is different strategy for different times. And honestly I think that if God if we felt like God was saying, hey stay portable. I think I think we we hope that we would have responded to that well. Because sometimes you can just chase growth for growth’s sake, and I don’t know if that is always good. One of the things that allowed us to even I think land with Risepointe was I think one of the lines Aaron I think you you shared with me one of our first conversations is like, we know churches. We talk church language.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Aaron Mora — You know, even as we’re getting into some of those kind of Needs Analysis. It’s also this it’s this faith component of saying, is this something that A, God is leading us towards? And then B, is feasible? And I think that those should correlate, right, between the the two of them. But even just a sense of saying um ah A Needs Analysis didn’t obligate us to break ground…
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Mora — …or to to get into a building.
Rich Birch — No.
Aaron Mora — It also you know is part of that that discerning part of that figuring out you know where are we sitting? Um, and then I think in all of it like for us um I think that we we felt pretty confident that even as a portable campus, permanency, having a permanent location was going to was gonna also communicate to the community that hey we’re not just trying this.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Aaron Mora — We’re not, we’re not you know as the maybe the bigger church that’s up the road in another town. We’re not just trying to you know, kind of see if we can fleece you know people coming in or whatever else. Um I think that permanency also communicates a sense of, hey we’re part of this community.
Aaron Mora — Um there was also even just some being portable some challenge of ah of even being associated with the the wonderful ministry that we were meeting in. But sometimes that could even create some confusion…
Oh sure.
Aaron Mora — …around like well is is it a church or is it h it is it this Youth Ministry thing…
Rich Birch — Is that a YFC thing? Or yeah, yeah, yeah.
Aaron Mora — …and is it YFC thing? And I think that’s just inevitable just from, again, not not being visibly there. And so walking through the whole thing I think there was a sense of permanency did bring a certain level of hey we’re we’re here to stay. And then surprisingly you can do all the social media advertising you want, all the word of mouth, but just having ah a big old building with ah with a sign on the main drag, I had no idea you guys existed. And so I think there’s also just a sense…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Aaron Mora — …of you know, if you build they will come. Um, we built a auditorium that was actually a pretty big step of faith, and I think that was going through Needs Analysis saying you know what what size auditorium could we build? It was built with a stage that can actually expand to be slightly larger, which is which was wise, and you know thinking about a potential phase two down the road. But we are already at at two services ah close to, I mean we’re we’re at 90 were 95% full in first service last week…
Aaron Stanski — Wow.
Aaron Mora — …which is significant. And then in our other service, it’s a little more open but it’s you know, 70% full. Most metrics I’ve seen is 80% tends to be when you’re feeling kind of…
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Mora — …ah too full on Sundays. And so we’re already looking at a third service which makes me also say, man, my faith should have been bigger. Like why why didn’t we build this bigger?
Rich Birch — Where’s that expansion with with here’s those other 8000 square feet – let’s go!
Aaron Mora — But but in but in that is a sense also also the sense of saying though, you know, we couldn’t have known.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Aaron Mora — And I think that um and not every situation is going to be that way. There’s been other areas of growth where we’ve not seen that same automatic return. So it’s not even like you know that we did something right. But for whatever reason I feel like God is using this, this project and saying, hey like you you just see people walking in who I mentioned before a lot of them walked away from church…
Rich Birch — Yeah, so good.
Aaron Mora — …five years ago at the start of the pandemic, or they walked away from church. They just stopped attending years ago. Lots of wonderful churches but very traditional churches in this area. Not many that are that are, you know, more contemporary in in Mid-Michigan.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Aaron Mora — And so even just that, this sense of coming in and hearing the gospel. Um, ah those who are far from God and you think, man, God’s using this to reach all these people who had disconnected from the the body of Christ. And and I’m like man that was that was worth it because you know there there were a lot of months last year that were a little stressful, you know?
Rich Birch — Yeah, oh for sure.
Aaron Mora — Yeah that were, you know, kind of ah long hours working through different things. But seeing the fruit of it causes me to say, man, that was that was so worth it. I’ll do that again in a heartbeat…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Aaron Mora — …if that’s something that leads to this this sense of you know, expanding ah, God’s reach through this local church.
Rich Birch — I love that. That’s such a great encouragement. And and I’m ah I’m a big fan of portable. This is not like an anti portable conversation. I think there’s a good developmental step for lots of churches.
Aaron Mora — Absolutely.
Rich Birch — I think it’s a great way to get rolling. And but there is I would echo what you’re saying. Um, I’ve said this in other contexts there is a tangible intangibility that about going permanent that is it’s hard to get onto a spreadsheet. It’s hard to know like how does that how does that fit? Um, you know what I do know is if I was to walk around Alma, Michigan today and say, Hey tell me about a good church in town. Where is a good church? And I just talked to people on the street they’re going to point at buildings. They’re going to point at, now we know that the body of Christ and the church is the collected body of believers – that it’s it’s a group of people. It’s not a physical building. We know that.
Rich Birch — But that’s not what people who don’t go to church that’s not what they think about.
Aaron Mora — Yeah.
Rich Birch — They think about the actual physical building. And there’s something to that that is that makes a difference to or the excel it can be an accelerating factor ah in our growth. Aaron Stanski, talk to maybe ah, an executive pastor person who’s leaning in today who’s listening. And they’re like maybe a little bit more of the nickels, and you know measuring the the pencils, and thinking about that. You know I love Executive Pastors, friends who are listening in. I’m not making fun of you. Ah, but what would you say to them if they’re thinking about this kind of step? What should their takeaway be from that side? Um you know, if they’re thinking, man, I wonder if we should move these campuses in or this campus into a physical location?
Aaron Stanski — Ah, yeah I mean, I think there’s a lot of things to count there. Um, but I know I know one of the things that we that we quickly noticed and you know Aaron Mora had pointed this out at their portable location is that there were lids that were preventing them from growing. Um.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Aaron Stanski — They had plenty of seats in the gym that they were you know setting up in and stuff, but there were other places of the facility, some kids rooms that were completely maxed out, zero community space with hallways and some other things. And it it does get cold in Michigan so it’s kind of important to have some indoor gathering space. So there were some lids that were going to prevent them from growing.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — And so like how are we going to address those lids. And you know I’m sure if my wife and I I mean we’re christians already, if we moved over to Alma, Michigan we’d find community and like we’d participate and stuff, and that would be great. Um, but the question becomes like if if they were still portable and those lids were existed existing there, and the Holy Spirit told me, man, I need to invite my lost neighbor or my coworker to come to church with me. If the next thought out of my brain is but I got to tell them to get there early so that they get a parking spot.
Aaron Stanski — Or I have to explain to them, go down the weird hallway and like the, or kids or if there’s some sort of excuse that I have to make ah in that invitation, then that’s a problem, right? And you can address it a lot of different ways, right? And we’ve talked about them on this podcast, and we should consider them, like adding more services ah like, you know, expanding expanding campuses, all of those other things. But when we’ve exhausted those resources and those families live in that community and want to go to a place that loves on their kids and they can learn about Jesus and stuff, that’s when it’s time to make room for more.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Aaron Stanski — And we have to figure out the best most effective way to do it.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. What what um, give us a sense ah if a church has A Needs Analysis, I want to underline something that that was said. Like the assumption isn’t that oh you’re necessarily going to do a building project like.
Aaron Mora — No.
Rich Birch — You know I’ve said to church leaders who are facing facility issues, I’ve said man, you should you really should get Aaron and his team in from Risepointe because you know they they might convince you out of a building project and say actually, let’s make these three changes and that’ll get you another 2 years and then that gives you more time. Talk to us about that Aaron Stanski…
Aaron Stanski — Yeah I mean we’ve done that.
Rich Birch — …that kind of dynamic. Right. Yeah.
Aaron Stanski — We’ve done that plenty of times.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — I mean at the heart of what we do, we’re church leaders ourselves.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Aaron Stanski — We’re all actively serving and like at our churches and stuff too. And so the assumption isn’t that building is the solution, right?
Rich Birch — Right. It’s good.
Aaron Stanski — The assumption is God is doing something unique in and through this community and we have to understand how are we using our building.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Aaron Stanski — How are we aligning our building in our facility to our mission and vision and is there an opportunity to do it at ah at a better scale.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Aaron Stanski — And so yeah for lots of churches iIt’s like man, what what makes you unique? What are how are you serving your community, and what does it look like to do some of those things? Some churches it’s It’s like we’ve moved offices out.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — And by doing that that’s high space and we’re able to add more seats and and some of those other things…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Aaron Stanski — …and for a fraction of the cost of what it would, you know you know, be to do something else we’ve identified a solution that yeah is going to unleash them for the next two years three years four years, and if God continues to bless, you know, then we can look at brick and mortar.
Rich Birch — Love that. Again, bad for business. Great for the kingdom. I’m like you should every solution should be build a new building. Ah, but again, this is why I love Aaron and the team at Risepointe because they really are trying to come alongside. These people love churches and they want to help. And this has been just such a great conversation today.
Rich Birch — Well it’s kind of have last words. Aaron Mora, if people want to kind of track with Community Church and you know track with the church, where do we want to send them online to kind of follow along, to check out the story, that sort of thing?
Aaron Mora — Yeah, because Community Church is kind of a generic name. In fact, a couple years ago we went through a process of rebranding.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Aaron Mora — And we went around, had a whole process of finding finding names for churches and we actually loved, came back to our name, Community Church.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Aaron Mora — Which um so community MI – MI as in Michigan – communitymi.org…
Rich Birch — Michigan. Yep.
Aaron Mora — …is our website. And of course Facebook and other spots as well. Um, and so you want to check it out. I think that ah you know even looking at the the Alma campus specifically, um, we just finished the project but I think there’s some pictures probably getting posted on Risepointe’s site um, to be able to to peek in and see what it looks like. And I just have to tell you I am so stinking proud like of what we ended up with.
Rich Birch — Aw that’s good.
Aaron Mora — Um, you know, even like some of the the colors coming from between the carpet, going up the walls in the kids space, and indoor playground, which in Michigan is killer…
Rich Birch — Big deal. Yep.
Aaron Mora — …place for for moms groups to be able to already start meeting in. Um, it just it it looks fantastic. In fact, I think ah we’re in a more rural context. We’re about an hour north of Lansing, about 2 hours north of Detroit, Michigan. People walk in and be like, I can’t believe this church is here.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love it.
Aaron Mora — So check it out – I’m ah super super happy with the project.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s that’s good to hear, man. That’s that that makes me happy because there are a lot of church leaders who go through these things and they come to the end of them and they’re like, man we just burned so much money, time, effort, energy. I lost way too much time with my kids…
Aaron Mora — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …and I walk around this building and feel like, it’s okay, you know. So I love the fact that you’re you know you’re feeling that. And I did see some of those pictures and it’s funny as we’re going through, I’m like this is the problem with podcasts is like, it’s a beautiful facility – just trust us!
Aaron Mora — It’s good.
Rich Birch — So Aaron Stanski where do we want to send people to actually see pictures of this project?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And if they want to you know, connect with you and do A Needs Analysis, all that stuff, where do we want to send them online?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, you can just go to risepointe.com – that’s Risepointe with an E dot com. And ah yeah, actually the ah the Alma project is going to be right on our homepage. You just scroll down there and you’re going to see it. There’ll be 2 projects down there but you can click on that one. There’s going to be tons of photos. So you’ll see some of the finished photos of the space. Ah there’s also going to be some of the renderings. So some of the initial renderings of what did we what did we pitch and how did it actually get done. And then I think we’ll even have a cleaned up site ah floor plan.
Rich Birch — Oh great.
Aaron Stanski — So if you kind of want to get a sense of what does that floor plan look like, what are some things that ah you might compare to you know, kind of some of your spaces at your church – that’ll be on there. You’ll also notice that we took the entire floor plan and we just kind of kinked it about 15 degrees or so. I think we’ve all walked into a big box store and we didn’t want it to feel like a box. We wanted it to feel very community-oriented. So just a little bit of ah of a tilt there on the floor plan will give you a sense of of some of the things that we did.
Aaron Stanski — Um, and yeah, if you want to get connected with us, there’s buttons right there on the on the homepage of Risepointe as well. Ah, you can click right on that if you want to have a conversation, you just fill out a little form and pick a time that works for you. We’d love to connect, hear more about what God is doing at your church, and how we at Risepointe could help.
Rich Birch — That’s crazy again. I say that right on the front page. I’ve said this to Aaron before, it’s just a click a schedule to call schedule a call button – that’s nuts that they make it so easy. So that’s ah, you really should do that friends I know there’s people that are listening in that you as we’ve been talking today, you’re like, man, that really does describe a campus or that describes our church and man we’re early. We’re not even sure. I feel nervous talking to these guys. No no, reach out click that button, book the call. That’s a great next step.
Rich Birch — I appreciate you guys being on this on the on the call today and being a part of the podcast. Ah, thanks for being here, the two Aarons. It’s been a great.
Aaron Mora — That’s right.
Rich Birch — The first time I’ve had a double Aaron podcast. So glad for you guys being here today. Thanks for being here. Take care.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, thanks, Rich.
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We have Daniel Im joining us, the Lead Pastor of Beulah Alliance Church in Alberta, Canada.
The world is a very different place from what it was just a few years ago. While it’s tempting for churches to try to find a way back to how things used to be, is that actually the best way forward? Tune in as Daniel challenges churches to change their leadership strategies and approach making disciples, evangelism, and preaching in a different way.
- Spiritual hunger. // Beulah Alliance Church has experienced significant growth while accommodating the expanding population of Edmonton, Alberta. The city is a microcosm of the global shifts we’re seeing, with its post-Christian culture and increasing diversity. Yet even in this context there’s a noticeable spiritual hunger and a quest for deeper meaning. People are more open to exploring the supernatural and are seeking purpose beyond the material world, including exploring Christianity.
- Post-everything world. // Everything in today’s world is vying for our attention as church leaders. During the pandemic it was racial tensions and masking mandates. Now it’s everything happening politically. Jesus needs to be our North Star above everything else. Experience the move of the Holy Spirit and share the truth from scripture. Orient yourselves around King Jesus and hold to your convictions.
- Church and growth. // Daniel began digging into the church growth movement asking what assumptions are we still believing? He looked back seventy years to the beginning of the movement and discovered we have assumptions about church and growth, which lead to a lot of shame. We need to lay aside assumptions that, of course, people will come to church and, of course, the church will grow today.
- Focus on the interested. // Most churches focus either more on discipleship for believers or evangelism for unbelievers. Daniel challenges us to consider another axis. Rather than trying to attract and create interest, what if we shifted our focus to engaging those who are already interested? Shift your focus in preaching, discipleship, and evangelism to be focused on the interested, whether they are Christians or non-Christians.
- Leaving room for the Holy Spirit. // Rather than trying to be better than the church next door, give people the truth and word of God in a way that peaks curiosity and holds attention. Be compelling in preaching and have excellence, but also leave room for the Holy Spirit to move.
- The Great Commission. // Daniel wrote a book called “The Discipleship Opportunity: Leading a Great-Commission Church in a Post-Everything World” which digs more deeply into this framework. Here he explores the four quadrants of engagement which include: sleepers (uninterested non-Christians), consumers (uninterested Christians), seekers (interested non-Christians), and fully discipled individuals (interested Christians). The first half of Daniel’s book focuses on deconstructing our assumptions about the church growth movement. The second half explores strategies for reaching, discipling, and preaching to the sleepers, seekers, consumers, and disciples in our post-everything world.
You can learn more about Daniel’s books at www.danielim.com and follow Beulah Alliance Church at www.beulah.ca.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: CDF Capital
Since 1953 CDF Capital has helped church leaders and individuals bring light to the world through the thoughtful stewardship of their capital. The Church, including your church, requires more than just financial capital, it also needs spiritual and leadership capital. While separate in purpose, these three forms of capital are intertwined and inseparable for the cause of kingdom growth. Together, when we partner with the Lord to bring spiritual, leadership, and financial capital to a church, the results are transformational. At CDF Capital our ministry is simple: we lend money to churches.
CDF Capital, in partnership with Barna Group, conducted a research study to better understand what happens in churches after a new leader comes in. Barna Group interviewed 111 pastors online who have experienced a leadership transition within the last 12 years. Click here to get your free download of the study.
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Super excited about today’s conversation. You know from time to time I get to have repeat guests, and you know when we have repeat guests on they’re they’re on because they’ve got something really important to say and today is no exception. Super excited to have Daniel Im with us. He’s the lead pastor of a church that you should be tracking with – Beulah Alliance Church in Alberta, Canada. This is a fantastic church. Daniel, you might know him from there, but he’s also a podcaster, a bible teacher, writer and really has an incredible passion for the local church. He’s got a book coming up that I want to make sure that you pick up for your team. But before we get to that we’re going to hear, talk about lots of other stuff. Daniel, welcome to the podcast.
Daniel Im — Rich, it’s a joy just to hang out with you and to see you know have the record button pushed as well. It’s going to be fun.
Rich Birch — Yeah, glad to have you on today and it’s nice to always connect with other podcasters because you know you got good mic…
Daniel Im — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …and I know that we’re going to get good audio.
Daniel Im — Yes.
Rich Birch — We’re definitely going to get a good audio.
Daniel Im — It’s important.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s a good thing. Okay, so fill out the picture a little bit give me the Daniel Daniel Im story and give us talk about Beulah kind of tell us a little bit more there.
Daniel Im — Yeah, so in a nutshell Beulah is 102 years old, a multiplying church, over 30 churches have been started from this.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Daniel Im — Started streaming not in 2020 but in the 1930’s. So’ve been doing that for a little bit. And yeah, just a a legacy of multiplication in this church. It’s my second time back. So I had served here before and then I lived in Nashville, worked at Lifeway, consulting with churches across North America and and in Australia quite a bit doing just what does multiplication look like? Started something called newchurches.com, did that with Ed Stetszer. So yeah, it’s essentially was loving that, loving living in Nashville. The country music thing didn’t work out so life way was my backup.
Rich Birch —Nice. That would be good, I would love that.
Daniel Im — Not really, not really.
Daniel Im — No, really no, but I ended up coming back to Canada after 5 years living there to do succession. So it wasn’t necessarily something that was on my radar, but as we prayed through the opportunity to come back I was following the footsteps of a incredible leader, Keith Taylor. Led for 30 years so faithfully. And yeah to to do succession here was it’s a long story but definitely sensed God’s leading in it. And it’s been 3 years since, 5 years since I came back and 3 years being in the lead pastor seat. So yeah.
Rich Birch — Love it. So good. When when did you actually move back to Canada? Was that was it 2019, was it right before covid?
Daniel Im — Yeah, August 2019. So, yeah…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s amazing.
Daniel Im — Succession not trying not to be the scapegoat following a 30 year legacy guy…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Daniel Im — …but also doing it through covid was lots of fun.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Daniel Im — …lots of fun. Yeah.
Rich Birch — Well there’s there’s so much we yeah we could talk about there. But ah, but the thing I want to talk about today. So for folks that aren’t listening I think… so first of all things are really happening at Beulah Alliance. There’s some really so exciting times. I want you to tell us a little bit about that. But but before we get there. Um, just some context. So folks that don’t know um Alberta, you’re in Canada, Edmonton. Um, you know I really do think that the context that you’re serving in, man, so many of us can um, can learn from. I think you have a really unique seat as a as a person as a Canadian serving in Canada.
Rich Birch — Because in a lot of ways I feel like our culture here, it’s like 2 or 3 steps—I don’t know is it forward? Is it backward? I don’t know—then then the States.
Daniel Im — Um, yeah.
Rich Birch — It’s kind of like where it’s where our American context is is heading. It feels like the kind of thing and then it’s inside of all of that man, you’re leading a church that’s thriving that’s multiplying. Man, there’s so much there. But kind of give us some of the bullet points about what’s happening at Beulah and then let’s talk about, you know, the context that you’re in.
Daniel Im — Yeah, a hundred percent. So Beulah so we’re four campuses. We just got our a new building that we’re going to be launching a fifth campus in.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Daniel Im — So we’re multiplying within greater Edmonton. We do multi-site outside of greater Edmonton. Our focus is church planting. So that’s a strategic decision in that. Um, but when it comes to Bula and when it comes to Edmonton and we’re the home of the Edmonton Oilers. So that’s often why people know us. If you ah speak at conferences, you probably have come to Edmonton for something…
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — …conference that was called Break Forth ah, for some reason always happen in the winter.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Daniel Im — So that’s typically the second reason people might know Edmonton but…
Rich Birch — Yes, ah their impression plays to stereotype, Edmonton plays to stereotype in the winter time for sure, you know, so cold.
Daniel Im — Ah yes yeah winter five, six months out of the year.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Daniel Im — But beyond that we’re around 1.6 million people as a kind of a metropolis area, very multiethnic, multigenerational. Just to give you a sense, Canada is about 10% the size of the States. So Canada in 2023 grew by 1,000,000 people, okay, which may not seem like a lot compared to how big the US is, but compared in Canada that’s that’s quite a big jump for us.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Daniel Im — And 200,000 of those 1,000,000 people moved to Alberta. Okay, so…
Rich Birch — Wow. Oh my goodness.
Daniel Im — Yes. So just if you think about that growth and then you think about the city of Edmonton and and and the fact that about 50,000 people have moved from elsewhere in the country into Alberta.
Rich Birch — Yeah
Daniel Im — So a lot of the growth is immigration, but 50,000 people are from other provinces. And then in Edmonton over the last five years has experienced probably a 200,000, 300,000 growth in population. Okay,
Rich Birch — Wow, wow.
Daniel Im — So all of that to say the world is moving, You know…
Rich Birch — To Edmonton!
Daniel Im — The world is moving to Edmonton. Yeah yeah, yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely.
Daniel Im — Experiencing a real winter for the first time. Right?
Rich Birch — Yes, yes, oh my goodness.
Daniel Im — But having said that, there are so many people who are moving here. And as a result when it comes to our church context, we are seeing rapid growth happening by and large by a lot of the new people that are coming here and and and either, and um, it’s not just christians but non-christians as well. Just it’s change. It’s transition.
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — And in this post-pandemic, post-truth, really post-everything world that we’re living in, there’s a I’m seeing a greater hunger spiritually than I’ve ever seen before. It’s not it’s not the atheists that are saying God is dead. No, people are like no there is a supernatural. There is more to life than what I see with my eyes…
Rich Birch — So true.
Daniel Im — …and they’re they’re they’re coming to a church.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Daniel Im — They’re they’re finding us. And and I’m not only seeing that in our church, I’m seeing that in other sister churches across Edmonton too.
Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely. I love that. There’s so much I want to unpack there. That part at the end, um, so I would agree. There seems to be some sort of movement. I remember when I started and this is me talking about me, not about you, Daniel, because I’m about to say something self-deprecating. Most of my experience has been in the broadly attractional church movement. You know that’s where and and I was thinking about this and talking about this recently with a leader, a friend of mine who I’ve been leading with for years. And I said you know when we first started leading a lot of what we were trying to do well we used to say we ain’t your mama’s church.
Daniel Im — Yes.
Rich Birch — But now I feel like so many people come into our churches who they they’ve never been to church. Their parents haven’t been to church.
Daniel Im — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Their grandparents have not been to church. This deconstruction, people are showing up hungry.
Daniel Im — Yes.
Rich Birch — They’re showing up. No one is no one is stumbling into our churches, like oh I came because you got a great band.
Daniel Im — No.
Rich Birch — It’s like I’m showing up, I’ve got questions and I am looking for some sort of encounter. You said this here and you said this in another context and it grabbed my attention: post-everything. That really struck me. Talk to me. What do you mean by post-everything?
Daniel Im — Yeah, so so when I sat down and I’m trying to do succession, I’m trying to lead this church to emerge out of the pandemic. I’m trying to make sure that Jesus is our north star. Okay because it was so easy for it to be the racial tensions that was going on politically, masking mandates. Everything was vying I feel for our attention as church leaders. And for us here at Beulah and with our board we were like, no how do we just make sure that King Jesus is our north star, right? And that’s why that’s why we even put that in our vision awakening greater Edmonton to King Jesus.
Rich Birch — So good.
Daniel Im — So with that being our filter um, the the context that we are living in, it’s fascinating right? Because the truth the truth is, according to our world, in you, right? I hate when people say “you be you”. I like I hate that because I know it’s It’s one of those popular slogans.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, it sounds good.
Daniel Im — People just say it.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Daniel Im — Yeah, sounds good. It sounds accepting.
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — And and I actually think a lot of Christians say it without really understanding the worldview that they’re perpetuating.
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — Because you be you essentially is saying truth is inside of you. The truth isn’t objectively, here are the scriptures…
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — …here is the truth.
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — God is the truth creator, the maker, all… the truth isn’t what you feel, you know. Here’s the truth. It’s outside of you. Tim Keller’s talked a lot about it like before he passed. Um, so with all that being said, yes we live in a post-truth world. We live in a post-christian world. Um, we we live in this world where where people actually now we are seeing that it’s it’s not necessarily, Oh you’re Christian no I’m going to check out everything except Christianity. We’re not seeing that anymore, right? People are like well not actually…talk to me about what you believe. What what what what who is Jesus. Like what what is this all about? Like we’re seeing that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — And and some call it post-Christian. Some now say it’s pre-Christianian.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Daniel Im — There’s there’s there’s all these terms flying around. But we’re really seeing a a fresh, it’s really a fresh opportunity to not attract people with our tactics and strategies, to not try to stir up interest but to actually share the truth, be real about our convictions, talk about Jesus, experience the move of the Holy Spirit. People are longing for the supernatural. We’re not we’re not an overly charismatic church. We’re a Christian a Missionary Alliance Church which is a little bit of a centrist middle of the road sort of denomination. But we are seeing the Spirit of God move and and that’s that’s that post-everything world we’re living in.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. A. B. Simpson’s tribe. Love love…
Daniel Im — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …love them. Savior, sanctifier, healer, coming King – gotta love it.
Daniel Im — Yeah, you got it man.
Rich Birch — That’s so good. That’s that’s fantastic. Now so let’s let’s talk about that a little bit more. So if so I think you’re I think you’re assessment of the culture is really true. I think we are living in this culture where you know things have shifted. They’ve changed. That is obviously going to impact the way we ah lead people closer to Jesus, the way we help them grow. What are you seeing, maybe some of the shifts and changes that are different than say. 20 years ago or when, you know, five years ago when you were in seminary, you know
Daniel Im — Yeah.
Rich Birch — I like to have yeah like I saw to think it was just a few years ago…
Daniel Im — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …but I know it was longer than that.
Daniel Im —Yeah, full on full on.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Daniel Im — So so, Rich, you you said earlier that you were you grew up in this attractional movement and and I think most pastors that are pastoring today are heavily influenced…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Daniel Im — …either positively or negatively or some ah it’s in the air that we breathe right?
Rich Birch — Yes, yep.
Daniel Im — The attractional movement, which you know…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Daniel Im — …the predecessor is that that church growth movement right?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Daniel Im — So so it it is just in the air that we are a part of. It’s in the air that our seminaries were formed out of. I graduated from Fuller, which was the center and hub of the church growth movement in many respects. So with that being said, what’s changed? Because as we’ve emerged out of this pandemic, so I didn’t want to write a pandemic book or a post-pandemic book. But as we have emerged out of it, it’s interesting how normal some things feel and how different other things feel. And and and when I think about the books that are on my bookshelf, and the things that I’ve that I learned in seminary, and didn’t learn in seminary, and all that, it’s so easy in a world that sort of feels like it used to, it’s so easy just to go back to what worked and what I was taught.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Daniel Im — And to go back to those tried and true resources. But the world that we’re living in is actually very different.
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — It’s very different the the philosophy the worldviews. All of that is is very different. So what I essentially did was I went back as far as I could, seventy years, seventy years to the beginning of the church growth movement. I did a literature review, went to the fathers the fathers and the grandfathers of that movement. And then I was like, my my main question was what are we still doing that is actually from all the way back then, seventy years old, what are the assumptions that we are still believing? We would never attribute it to church growth movement.
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — We would never attribute it to seeker sensitive, attractional and we would never do that. But it’s just ah, such a part of our the foundation of our thinking.
Rich Birch —Yeah, it’s just in the water, right? It’s in the air. Yeah yeah for sure. Yeah.
Daniel Im — Yeah yeah, and and the two assumptions I uncovered were, of course church, and of course growth.
Daniel Im — And that those two assumptions are still in the bones. It’s in our water that that actually I’m not going to say who said this who wrote it because I don’t want to throw shade. But this is from the 50s and one of the fathers of all this said this: a shrinking church is a sinning church.
Rich Birch — Oh wow.
Daniel Im — Like you never you never hear anyone say that today, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah, right, right.
Daniel Im — Ah, but but but he said a shrinking church is a sinning church. And I think for most pastors if your church isn’t growing, and and I’m I’m I’m so grateful that we are actually larger than we were pre-covid. And and I’m not the only one saying that there’s many who are saying that. But for everyone who’s like actually we haven’t recovered, we’re smaller than we were. That line, right…
Rich Birch — Weighs heavy.
Daniel Im — No one’s going to say that.
Rich Birch — Yeah for sure.
Daniel Im — But it weighs heavy, and I think how we feel it as church leaders today is we feel shame. We feel guilt. We may not say, “I’m sinning,” but we feel the shame. We feel as, we feel as if what am I doing wrong? What is wrong with me? And what shame says is, you are not enough.
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — So so it’s this sense of it’s this weight that church leaders are carrying around. And I just start off I’m like no you know those are assumptions that are no longer true, right? We can’t lead our churches believing that, of course people are going to come to church. Of course people are interested in church, or of course growth is natural. Of course. No, we we need to lay those assumptions aside and lead in a different way today.
Rich Birch — Well, that’s yeah, that’s you know convicting. Obviously it’s you know there’s those that notion that you know hey if we’re shrinking we’re sinning. You know I think that lands hard for people. I you know I think and there are you know I I talk to a number churches who are um, you know who are kind of above covid numbers. As much as we’ve said like I feel like it was two years ago we kept saying please stop talking about you know, comparing ourselves there.
Daniel Im — Right.
Rich Birch — But we’re still you know four or five years later…
Daniel Im — We still are. Yeah yeah.
Rich Birch — …we’re still thinking about that right? And you know the the reality of it is, it’s all of our churches are a brand new church…
Daniel Im — Yes.
Rich Birch — …from where we were in 2019, and you know in more ways than one. So being that that’s the case. So I understand the kind of deconstruction part of it. What were some of those steps that you believe, either you’re taking at Beulah or you believe as churches we should be pivoting towards? What would that what what would be some of those?
Daniel Im — Yeah, okay, so the so the major one would be, it’s it’s from the Engel scale. It is the Engel scale. And and if and if you’re not familiar, if listeners aren’t familiar with that scale, essentially it’s it’s a linear scale left to right: How far away are you from God on the non-christian side of things and how and then and then zero that point is conversion. And then on the other side, the plus side is your discipleship journey, right? So by and large most of our churches either focused on the left side. We’re evangelistic. We want to reach the non-christians, or focus are the non-christians and then we’ll disciple.
Daniel Im — Or you had churches on the right side who are like, no, our focus is discipleship. It’s reaching Christians, and then we’re going to do evangelism. And whether, and this is broad strokes, but but whether you are on more focusing on reaching non-christians or focusing on christians, both had their strengths and both had their weaknesses. What I noticed, and this is that the major paradigm shift that I want to propose and that I propose in this book, is instead of forming and focusing your churches either on the left or the right, either on reaching non-christians or Christians.
Daniel Im — What if we realized that there’s another axis? That there are both the uninterested and the interested. And this wasn’t a pandemic thing. I think what happened in the pandemic is these people revealed their levels of interest and we begin we began seeing this in our churches and in our communities. But this is this has been in in around for a while. I was just harder to see.
Daniel Im — So when you think about it and you think about your community. Yeah, you know what, through the pandemic I’m sure you heard people and and I’m sure you heard people saying, hey wow like I love that I’m watching you. And then watching them and what… Like in following Jesus, watching is not a verb that should be in our vocabulary.
Rich Birch — Right. Come watch me.
Daniel Im — Right? That’s not that’s that’s all so heavily consumeristic, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s yep. Yeah, it’s so true.
Daniel Im — And and and I heard Christians talking about it in a positive regard…
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — …and a positive way. We’re watching. It’s like no, we should worship…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Daniel Im — …actively follow. So so we saw that, right? We saw this this level of interest and faith level of interest in discipleship to Jesus where Jesus says come and die. We saw that interest level go down among many people. They became uninterested Christians, which I call consumers. But I also saw the interest level go up. I don’t know if you saw this too, but I saw so many people I’ve never seen people as frequently come and worship and get involved than I’ve than I’ve ever seen. And and it’s it’s like is frequency every other week, is frequency once a month?
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — Among some yes, but among others, no, it’s more than once a week again
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — And I’m seeing that interest grow. So I saw that interest/uninterest divide happened on the christian side but I also saw it happen on the non-christian side where it’s like all of a sudden Mother’s Day, Christmas Eve, Easter I’m not going anymore…
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — …because there’s no point.
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — There’s no benefit. I want to be safe. I’m gonna stay at home. I’m gonna watch. Are you actually watching, right?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Daniel Im — And there’s this there’s this sense where people spiritually on on we saw this divide some went to sleep, right? They’re the sleepers, and others actually increased in their interest to the point where, I’ll I’ll share a quick story…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Daniel Im — …where where this one guy he had not been in church for over two decades.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Daniel Im — He moved to Edmonton from Toronto last year and stuff’s going on in his life that he doesn’t have answers to. He’s not a person of faith, doesn’t have answers. He’s seeking. Last time he’s been in church is over two decades.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Daniel Im — And he grew up going to catholic school. So he was like, you know what, I’m going to let me try Christianity.
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — Let me see… right? And it was an option. So he googles catholic churches near me.
Rich Birch — And he gets Beulah Alliance.
Daniel Im — Beulah Alliance Church is the number one top result. Okay, and I gotta tell you, Rich, I gotta tell you this…
Rich Birch — Ah, don’t tell the arch don’t tell the archbishop.
Daniel Im — …yeah, yeah! I got to this isn’t this isn’t some like ninja style…
Rich Birch — Yeah yes, it’s a church growth hack.
Daniel Im — …search engine marketing search engine optimization hack.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Daniel Im — We are not doing any sort of Catholic Church keywords.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Daniel Im — We’re not targeting. That’s that’s not a part of this at all.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Daniel Im — And we tried repeating this on multiple devices and it doesn’t work.
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — We were the number one search result we can’t repeat it. And every other search result is a Catholic Church in Edmonton.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Daniel Im — Okay, you try to tell me that that’s not God working through Google.
Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, absolutely.
Daniel Im — Right?
Rich Birch — That’s cool.
Daniel Im — So so what’s interesting is this individual, he would not maybe he would have been asleep.
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — But what’s happening in his life. God is stirring, right? He’s moving. We know that Jesus leaves a ninety-nine, goes after the one, that he’s pursuing people. He’s calling people to himself. He is calling this guy to himself
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — Stirs him up. He now moves from uninterested to interested. We didn’t do that. It wasn’t our ads.
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — The Holy spirit is moving people from uninterested to interested, right?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Daniel Im — We are mindful of our Google reviews. We are mindful of of of being visible. There there’s all the best practices that we are very mindful of he finds us not by our own accord or our own effort. He comes, and he experiences church like he’s never experienced before. He experiences God moving.
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Daniel Im — This isn’t a dead religious thing that some people are observing. He experienced a vibrant church family where the Spirit of God is moving powerfully. He experienced that. He experienced people crying in the service. He experienced people singing with all of their heart.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Daniel Im — He experienced a full room of multiple generations and not just gray hair and a dwindling church right? He experienced that. Like you try to tell me that that’s not God…
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — …stirring in the stirring in his heart, calling him back to himself. And that’s what we’re seeing that there’s this interested and uninterested divide happening.
Rich Birch — Okay so I’ve got the quadrant on my paper in front of me.
Daniel Im — Yeah.
Rich Birch — We’ve got kind of the the far from God and then the fully discipled.
Daniel Im — Yes.
Rich Birch — That’s one way. And then we’ve got uninterested and interested.
Daniel Im — Yes.
Rich Birch — So the far from God uninterested, they’re asleep. That’s the category title. Is that the title you’re using?
Daniel Im — Yeah, yes, sleepers.
Rich Birch — They’re sleepers.
Daniel Im — Then the uninterested non-christians yes sleepers.
Rich Birch — Yeah, and then you’ve got consumers are uninterested christians.
Daniel Im — Yes, that’s right. Yeah.
Rich Birch — And then you’ve got the ah the ah the the interested non-believers are stirred…
Daniel Im — Seekers.
Rich Birch — …seekers. Okay, oh nice, we’re using that word again.
Daniel Im — Yeah yes, read yeah exactly, because they are, right? They are using they are seeking.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes, and then and then the fourth quadrant that kind of interested…
Daniel Im — Yeah, yeah would be disciples.
Rich Birch — …disciples, fully discipled.
Daniel Im — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And so when you when you think about our opportunity, like are what we should be thinking about or wrestling with, which of those quadrants should we really be thinking through and and you know if we’re rallying our team together. Um I love a good four-quadrant conversation.
Daniel Im — Yeah.
Rich Birch — So yeah, let’s talk to us about that.
Daniel Im — And and and what I’m not doing is I’m not saying, hey we were you know bilateral linear, left or right, non-christian or Christian, and now there’s four. No, within each quadrant there’s a spectrum, right? Because.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Daniel Im — Because you can be a brand new disciple and you can grow to be a disciple maker…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Daniel Im — …and you’re right, there’s all of that within there. So what I’m proposing and what we’re doing at Beulah and what I’m seeing happen more and more is instead of focusing on either non-christians or christians, and wrestling with that age-old are you more discipleship or evangelism or evangelism or discipleship?
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — Like that’s been a ah constant conversation…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Daniel Im — …for the last couple decades.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Daniel Im — What if we actually flipped it and said I’m I’m I’m going to be our everything that we do, our preaching, our evangelism, our disippleship, our everything is actually going to be on the interested.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Daniel Im — We’re going to reach actively both the interested non-christians and the interested christians.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Daniel Im — So what we’re not going to do is we’re not going to try to attract, right? And and we’re not going to we’re not going to try to be better than the church next door. We’re not going to be we’re not going to try to do any of that sort of stuff anymore.
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — Because the reality is no matter how great your band was and playing um, ah, Coldplay decades ago…
Rich Birch — Right, yep.
Daniel Im — …like no matter how good even if you try to pull off a Taylor Swift song today, like no matter how good you are today…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Daniel Im — …right, people don’t care anymore, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, it’s true.
Daniel Im — That’s not that’s they don’t because they’re you’re not going to be as good, right? And we were never really as good.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes, that is true.
Daniel Im — We tried right? We tried.
Rich Birch — Yeah and we tried. Yeah.
Daniel Im — Yeah yeah, um, Snow Patrol remember.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, it’s so true. It’s so true.
Daniel Im — So instead of doing that, right, instead of doing that and instead of trying to to teach actually more like a TED talk or with less time because people’s attention spans aren’t as long as they used to be, right? What would it look like for us instead to to give people the truth?
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Daniel Im — To give people the word of God in a way that my preaching coaches taught me, in a way where you’re both your peaking curiosity and your holding attention. So so what I’m not saying is be boring.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Daniel Im — …and right you you need to be compelling. You need to have excellence.
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — That’s that’s all there. But how do we do so in a way where our assumption isn’t we’re trying to stir interest. Our assumption is people are interested.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Daniel Im — Now let’s give them the truth.
Rich Birch — That’s so good. Now talk to me about how this paradigm has shifted. But maybe we’ll talk about just you know there’s a lot we could talk about I can see the implications from this even in you know I in my church I volunteer as an Alpha leader you know, an Alpha helper. And like I’ve seen this I am constantly amazed at the people that end up in my Alpha Group.
Daniel Im — Yeah.
Rich Birch — I’m like the you know I last time round we we had this woman you know, a couple, I don’t know, we’re a couple, maybe week, two week, three couple weeks in. And she sits down at the discussion time and she’s like my mind is blown away. So you’re telling me that Jesus is God? Like you’re telling me that, you know tell me more. Like she’s she’s interested.
Daniel Im — Yes, yeah.
Rich Birch — She’s leaning in like she’s not, you know we’re not having to do jazz hands like that you know which is great. But let’s talk about maybe even just the teaching piece, particularly using this kind of paradigm. How how does this impact the way you communicate or the way you structure services or the way you do you know weekends or that sort of thing you know in your context? What’s that look like?
Daniel Im — Yeah, full on. So we are trying to create an experience with moments, right? So so if our if our if our focus is the interested, and we know that there are both non-christians and christians. What we are seeing in our society today is there is an acknowledgement that there is more to life than this, right? that there is more to life than what we see with our eyes. I don’t know if you ever saw this at Costco, but I recently came across a magazine for witches. And it looked…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Daniel Im — Yeah, it looked like you’re watch you’re you’re picking up Home and Garden. It looks like it looks like a Oprah magazine…
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — …and it was witches.
Rich Birch — Wow. Crazy.
Daniel Im — Yeah yeah, so the normalization of of the of the supernatural.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Daniel Im — The expectation that yeah, there is a supernatural. How do I access the supernatural? What we are saying and what we are doing is, hey yeah there is a supernatural and its God and Jesus is the way. So let’s create moments and experiences where yeah, we’re going to leave room for the Spirit to move in the way that only the Spirit can move.
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — Let’s sow prayer into our service. That old Charles Spurgeon, right? Like what what did what he do? There is like a furnace room underneath his auditorium, underneath the sanctuary of people praying, right?
Rich Birch — Love it.
Daniel Im — Like that’s the fire. What does it look like to do that and to expect God to move in supernatural ways…
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Daniel Im — …not getting weird, right? Um, um, we’re not, we’re not trying to to to chase an experience over the truth. But we know that Jesus said to his disciples in John 20:21, As the Father has sent me so now I send you.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Daniel Im — And then we know we know that the very next verse that 22 comes after 21. Like we know that, right? In math 22 always comes after 21.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes.
Daniel Im — But in our mindset of of being tribal in our in our faith and tribal in our theology and tribal in all of that. And we’re like oh yeah, mission missions first, missions. You know as a Father of sent me I send you. Let’s go. Let’s do this. Let’s ah, let’s accomplish the great commission. Let’s go. But we forget that Jesus in the very next breath said to his disciples receive the Holy Spirit right?
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Daniel Im — Like like it’s not a different book. It’s literally the next verse.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes.
Daniel Im — And and and we forget that.
Rich Birch — Right, right. Good.
Daniel Im — So how do we do this? Yeah we expect the spirit to move. This this isn’t something that we try to do that we are planning to do. Um but I can’t tell you the number of people who when they enter into our space of worship, they just start crying.
Rich Birch — Um, yeah, yeah, yeah, right.
Daniel Im — Like and and it’s not not like ugly crying right? But there’s there’s there’s some there. It’s the Spirit of God right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — Like it’s it’s it’s it’s the prayers of the saints over the last 102 years that’s being poured out right?
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Daniel Im — It’s the presence of God, people are entering into the presence, right? And we know that yes we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we are you know temples of you know there’s all of that. But when they enter into this space of worship that’s been saturated with prayer, it’s amazing to see how people are like Okay, what what is this place? What is going on?
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — And they want to seek God, so let’s give him God right?
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Daniel Im — Let’s give him the truth.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. Our you know our mutual Friend Carey Nieuwhof and he said for years like wouldn’t it be sad if people came to church and all they found was us, you know.
Daniel Im — Wow.
Rich Birch — And and, you know and I’m like oh that’s so true right?
Daniel Im — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Like I you know I Tim Lucas lead pastor I work for at at Liquid Church, I deeply respect, well respect Carey too. I remember him years ago saying he went through a personal I would say kind of transformation where he he came to the end of himself and it was like listen if if this is just about me, if this is just about coming up with some sort of sticky statements, this isn’t enough.
Daniel Im — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Like this will not transform people’s lives. We we have to provide an accessible encounter for people. We have to find a way to usher people to the throne room ultimately.
Daniel Im — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Love that, love that.
Daniel Im — Yeah, and I and yeah, and yeah…
Rich Birch — Well you’ve got a…
Daniel Im — And I don’t think it’s through the newest tactic.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes. Hundred percent. Yes
Daniel Im — I don’t think it’s through any kitschy thing…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Daniel Im — …or or through like airy worship music trying to stir up emotions, right? That’s that’s not the tactic…
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — …and that’s not what you and I believe nor it’s what either of us write about.
Rich Birch — No.
Daniel Im — There’s best practices. And there are things that we need to do create to create welcoming environments and not be distracting, right? And all this isn’t an excuse to throw all that away. But we’re not trying to manufacture something, right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — We’re we’re crafting our services. We’re preaching the truth. And I love what John Stott says about preaching. And and this is this is it’s my it’s my motto. It’s how I it’s how I live. I love this. And and I’m going to butcher it because it’s just to paraphrase right?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Daniel Im — But he said the most holiest moment in a service, right, it’s not the music. It’s not the preacher. It’s not any of this. The most holiest moment in a service is the moment after the preacher has spoken, and before the words have entered into the hearts and minds and ears of the congregation, right?
Rich Birch — So good.
Daniel Im — It’s that split second where the spirit of God transforms what’s been prayerfully prepared and said and transforms it into manna, right? It transforms it into our daily bread, transforms it into what we all need to hear. And and and who does that right? Yes I got to I got to I got to grow as a preacher. I gotta got to learn how to build tension. I got to learn how to craft compelling talks and sermons. But it’s not that’s not what’s going to change people right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — It’s the ministry of Holy Spirit.
Rich Birch — Yeah, so good. Love it. So good. This is fantastic. Now, you’ve got a book coming out that I I want to make sure people pick up. It’s called “The Discipleship Opportunity: Leading a Great-Commission Church in a Post-Everything World”. Obviously we’ve been kind of talking around those those issues today, but give us some context a little bit more kind of flesh out specifically around the book. You know what were you thinking when you pulled this together? What are, you know, what are you hoping for, that kind of thing?
Daniel Im — Yeah, yeah, so the premise of the book is let’s focus on the interested. Let’s stop doing this old divide of being a church that’s more about reaching the lost or more about ah equipping the saints and and discipling. What if we actually could focus on both…
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Daniel Im — …through a new paradigm of the interested. This isn’t a both/and, either/or sort of debate either.
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — It’s a new quadrant. It’s a new perspective on that, right?
Rich Birch — Right. Love it.
Daniel Im — So what would it look like for us to do that. So essentially the first half unpacks the the foundation of that deconstructing some of the assumptions we believe about the church growth movement, not in its entirety because there’s so much good that’s come out of that. But what are the things that we need to stop assuming and carrying. I present this new framework and then essentially I wanted to write, I mean this is the shortest book I’ve ever written.
Daniel Im — When I did “Planting Missional Churches” with Ed when we rewrote that I think that was like 120-, 130,000 words.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Daniel Im — Ah “No Silver Bullets” was like 77-, 78,000 words. “You Are What You Do” was like 60-
Rich Birch — Yep.
Daniel Im — 50-, 60-. This is like 30-something thousand words.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Daniel Im — So I’m like my attention spans lower.
Rich Birch — Yeah way more compressed. That’s good.
Daniel Im — Yeah, so I want it to be punchy.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Daniel Im — And essentially the second whole part of the book is there’s a chapter on how do we reach disciple and preach to the sleepers, to the seekers, to the consumers, and to the disciples. Basically evangelism, discipleship, and preaching – what needs to shift what needs to change.
Rich Birch — So good.
Daniel Im — What does our focus need to be for each of those categories as we move into this post-everything world. So.
Rich Birch — That’s great. It’s this struck me as a great book, you know we’re coming up here maybe this fall, as like a fall leadership book. You could read it together as a team. Um, you know, go through it and really ask the question, Okay, so in light of what Daniel’s unpacking here, what does that mean for our ministry? How you know how I would really encourage leaders to do that. Where do where can people pick up copies of this book? Where do we want to send them online to kind of learn more to dive deep?
Daniel Im — Yeah, totally. So you can get it anywhere books are sold anywhere you like buying your books. It’ll be available everywhere. But if you go to my website danielim.com/thediscipleshipopportunity or and I know that’s a crazy long url. Or you just go daniellem.com and you’ll find the link. There’s some preorder and order bonuses and all that stuff just for more helps as you unpack this with your team. But yeah, you can get the book anywhere.
Rich Birch — Um, so good. Yeah I would encourage people to pick it up. I really do think this could be a great resource for you and for your church as a you know as we look forward as we’re all trying to figure out how do we lead in ah in this context. Well Danielle, I really appreciate you being here today. Where do we want to send people online, obviously daniellim.com, is there anywhere else if they want to track with you, with the church, that sort of thing?
Daniel Im — Yeah, so daniellim.com will get all the links. Beulah Alliance Church is the church. And I I all preaching all that stuff is there and on Youtube. And on social media I’d love to connect. I’m probably the most active on Instagram. Facebook’s a little bit of a necessary evil.
Rich Birch — Nice.
Daniel Im — Ah X or Twitter is just whatever it is now.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, exactly remember when it was fun? It used to be fun.
Daniel Im — Yeah, so it it used to be fun. But yeah, so I’m on the I’m on all the platforms and my my handle is Daniel and then it’s my korean name SANGI – @danielsangi – so love to connect.
Rich Birch — Love it. Daniel, appreciate you being here today cheering for you and thanks for being on the podcast. Look forward to having you come back at some point in the future. I just love what you’re up to. Thanks so much, brother.
Daniel Im — Hey Rich, you have been a staple in my podcasting my podcasting rounds. Like not sorry, not rounds, but what I listen to…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Daniel Im — …and and your books…
Rich Birch — Sure.
Daniel Im — …and your influence. I’ve just been and your friendship has just been I’ve just been so grateful. So thank you, Rich.
Rich Birch — Thanks. Thanks so much, man.
Thanks for joining in the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Joe Platania today, the Executive Pastor of Human Resources, Staff Development, and the Central Leadership Institute at Central Christian Church in Arizona.
Maintaining a healthy staff culture at a growing church is no small feat, particularly when you have multiple campuses. How do you lay a healthy foundation and build upon it well? Tune in as Joe shares a wealth of wisdom about leadership modeling, staff development, deep dives into organizational health, and more.
- Health starts at the top. // Functioning with a healthy staff culture all begins with the foundation being laid by the leadership. A church’s senior leadership needs to model healthy behaviors, being transparent, vulnerable, and accountable. These are the pillars that support a thriving organizational culture. At Central Christian they’ve also developed leadership promises, a set of commitments that guide their leaders in fostering this positive environment.
- Build it and then sustain it. // With the leadership creating a healthy foundation, it’s important to continue to cultivate that health by keeping the church in certain rhythms. Create a church calendar, policies, processes, and practices that keep the church moving forward in ways that sustain health, and then drive it through the organization. Build trust with your staff by addressing the problems they see. Ask them for feedback and then focus on process improvement.
- Be accountable with each other. // Some things that Joe and his team worked on to improve their team culture at Central Christian were leadership promises, model clarity, and role clarity. Every January the leadership go through a 360 review process based on the leadership promises, which allows staff to provide feedback and keeps leadership accountable.
- Maintain alignment. // One of the most challenging aspects of a multisite church is maintaining alignment and role clarity across campuses. Like other churches, Central Christian has their mission and vision. However, they are also crystal clear about being a centralized model of ministry and ensuring decisions, staff roles and job descriptions across their campuses support that model.
- Deep dive with your team. // Joe maintains organizational health by meeting with his ministry teams for “deep dives”. These data-gathering sessions are crucial for celebrating wins, measuring important metrics, evaluating systems and processes, assessing leadership effectiveness, and pinpointing areas for improvement. The data collected from these sessions is then used to develop actionable plans and measure the success of implemented solutions.
Learn more about Central Christian Church at www.centralaz.com and click here to download a Team Reflection Deep Dive PDF which details the six deep dive questions that Joe discusses.
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Well, hey, everybody, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Man I’m so excited that you’re tuned in today. Really looking for today’s conversation with Joe Platania. He is the Executive Pastor of Human Resources, Staff Development, and the Central Leadership Institute at Central Christian Church. This is a multisite church in Arizona that if you’re not tracking, you should be. They’ve got, if I’m counting correctly, 5 locations plus church online. It’s one of the fastest growing churches in the country and they’ve got a mission to lead people to discover and fully own a faith in Jesus. So Joe, just so glad that you’re here today. Thanks for being here.
Joe Platania — Thanks, Rich. I’m excited to talk to you today.
Rich Birch — Yeah, why don’t we fill out the picture – kind of tell us a little bit more about Central. Kind of give us the flavor if people were to come this weekend. What would they experience?
Joe Platania — Yeah, you know I think they’d have a great experience with worship, incredible messaging and a culture that is ah, an inviting culture. We we want to create an environment on weekends where people feel comfortable, they feel welcome, but they are also getting a message that’s very biblically centered. We’ll a lot of times preach really almost in an expository fashion but in a way that’s applicable. So a lot of people really these days seem to appreciate that authentic approach to God’s word.
Rich Birch — Oh absolutely.
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah, for sure, we’ve seen that that’s one of the you know, kind of misnomers of fast growing churches is is they think, oh like they don’t really preach from the Bible. That’s not true at all and Central is a great example of that.
Joe Platania — Yeah, yeah.
Rich Birch — You know, just if that’s what people are looking for. Ultimately they want timeless truths that’s applicable to today. That’s great. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about your role; give us a sense of kind of the every executive password looks a little bit different but give us kind of a sense of of your piece of the puzzle.
Joe Platania — Yeah, and that’s a great way to put a piece of the puzzle. At Central there are 4 of us who sit in that executive pastor space and my part of it is the human resource space, I guess for lack of a better term. I certainly oversee our hiring and are handbook and our practices and um policy when it comes down to that. But I also get to work on our culture and I get to help ah my teammates my peer group ah work on you know, healthy processes and kind of digging in when something’s not quite right in their Ministry space and I’ll tell you that’s.
Joe Platania — That’s tricky sometimes because there has to be a lot of trust between us. Um, you know we’re we’re clearly in it together and I think we the the 4 of us recognize that so that allows me some some true in route to their ministry where I get to work and support them. Yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love that. Yeah that I’d love to really dig into that. Anybody that’s led a church of any size knows that developing a healthy staff culture can be difficult. It can be hard and you know there there can be this kind of misnomer out there – let’s use that word twice in one podcast – that you know people come and work, everybody loves Jesus and the staff will be amazing because of that.
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Ah, but we know that it can be difficult. Why is that why do so many of us seem to struggle to have healthy staff cultures? What’s what’s your diagnosis of that issue?
Joe Platania — That’s a great question. I think I think if you and I could figure that out today, we could retire and and live well and the kingdom would be advanced because of it. Ah boy, I’ll tell you I I think it’s different from place to place. But I think there are some foundational truths that are in place when you have a healthy culture. And then I think there’s a layer on top of that that continue that healthy culture.
Joe Platania — So I I think you have to have that healthy foundation. You know I think that looks like first your leadership from from the top down has to be healthy. They have to act healthy. They have to interact with each other in a way that’s healthy. They have to model health.
Joe Platania — Um, and and then that looks like them being vulnerable, them being transparent even even when it’s hard to be transparent, and them to be accountable. And when when your leadership is that way, boy it’s kind of hard for the rest of organization to to not follow suit. So.
Joe Platania — So I think first of all those foundational pieces have to be in place. But then you have to continue to cultivate that health. And that’s just what I’ve learned. It’s like okay, let’s get this big rock in place, this foundational health in place. And now let’s continue it well, how do we do that.
Joe Platania — Now part of this by keeping the church in certain rhythms and and you do that with with a healthy calendar, with a process um and policies and practices that keep the church moving forward in ways that are healthy um and and driving it down through the organization. I think it’s hard at any size church. I think the bigger the church is, it It gets harder, especially when you start getting into multiple campuses. You know we we I don’t want to use the word struggle but it’s definitely a tension for us to continue to manage alignment not only through our ministries but through our campuses. I have to believe anybody who works in multisite church understands that alignment is tough and and clarity role clarity is tough.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s true.
Joe Platania — And those are those things though that you have to build on top of that healthy foundation. So build it and then sustain it. Yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good.
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah I love that that challenge of even for us at the senior leaders table, hey like it’s got to start with us. It’s not like we can’t point at everybody else and say, hey you got to be healthy.
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — But then when we look at around at our relationships we say, man is this because really I really do believe that that kind of what starts at that level ends up rippling throughout the entire organization, staff team and then ultimately out from there.
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch —Let’s talk about some of those rhythms. You talked about calendar, processes, practices.
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Help us unpack that. Try to get a little practical there around some of those things. What are you doing at Central to try to help drive the healthy staff culture through you know, great calendaring, processes, practices, that sort of thing.
Joe Platania — Yeah, it’s it’s a great question. So with our calendar process, it’s something that we are really developing right now. We have it in place. But when I say developing we’re working on improving even in on that process. Um.
Joe Platania — We did a best Christian workplace survey in the fall of last year. And our score was good and but there’s always room for growth. And you know one of the tension points that our staff shared with us is hey we feel um, overwhelmed. And sometimes it feels like we’re doing too much. So we said hey we need to look at our calendar and make sure that um, it’s clear what we’re doing when we’re doing it that the the return on it. Um, and not only that, what is required for everyone to be at and what is something we’re doing as a church.
Joe Platania — So we went to work on that. We we went through a problem solving process where we we collected a lot of data from our staff after um the survey and then we we went through an orderly process solving um, a solution developing mandates and then really an approach. And now ah where we’re about to execute that. We’ve also put in place some hey how do we know when we’re successful with that approach.
Joe Platania — So we’ve gone to work on our calendar and I’m really excited. We just shared with our lead team on this last week hey here’s here’s some things we’re doing to provide you with clarity, and better detail in organization. And I was just listening to it I’m like wow we are we followed a process of improvement and now we’re providing really, the ask of our staff last fall when they said, hey this is a hard thing about working here.
Rich Birch — Right.
Joe Platania —Like help us, fix this. And like, okay here we go. So now it’s sharing that so we shared it with lead team…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Joe Platania —…next next month at staff meeting we’re gonna share it with them. And then we’re gonna ask them, hey hold us accountable to it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Joe Platania —Like here’s what you said, here’s what we’re doing to fix it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Joe Platania — And here’s how we think we’ll know we’re successful, but you got to help us. You got you know, but that’s where that foundational stuff, Rich, that we talked about. Like if they can’t trust us, if they can’t believe that we’re there, that we’re not going to give them like a beat down for sharing feedback with us…
Rich Birch — Right.
Joe Platania — …then we’ll never hear it. So that foundational health has to be in place ah for for that layered health to continue.
Rich Birch — Oh I love this. I’m fascinated by this. I’d love to kind of pick that apart.
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — I’d love to get to the process of how you got to that. So like kind of the meta idea of…
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …okay, how did we how do you go about listening? And then you know and then okay so we took that feedback, now we’re trying to actually live it out. But let’s stick with just the calendar thing there for a second. Unpack what you kind of discovered. It sounds like there was a tension around, we’re not sure you know even what people should come up, show to, you know what is you know… I know this is like a common thing. It’s like I know I work here. We do you know, Easter’s got 78 services…
Joe Platania — Right.
Rich Birch — …do I need to be at all 78 services for Easter?
Joe Platania — Right.
Rich Birch — Is it that kind of thing you’re wrestling with? Help us understand that a little bit.
Joe Platania — I would say on some level it is. It’s really interesting, I think there’s two things I think first of all, we’re a really active church. We’re trying to reach people um, who who are either far away, who don’t know Jesus. And then we’re trying to provide ah environments for people who know Jesus to grow in him. So you know because of that and that sounds like well yeah, every church is doing that. Well some churches are a little more direct in one or the other.
Joe Platania — One of the things I I find about Central is we try to do a little bit of both. You know we we want to provide environments and ways that we’re reaching the lost but also ways that we’re developing and helping the church grow spiritually. So that probably won’t surprise you kind of ends up in a busy calendar. So yeah, we’ve got Waster and a lot of services. But then we’ve got a lot of other different things that end up on our calendar.
Rich Birch — Right.
Joe Platania — And so then when you have 5 campuses what you realize is, well, you’ve got these big rocks that you know Central services is putting on the calendar. Then each campus has their own things that they’re doing to try to reach their community to try to you know foster ah community amongst their their congregants. And then, what’s funny is then some of those things are like groups and and ministry settings. Well those ministry settings have things, you know.
Joe Platania — So like last weekend I was talking to one of our campus pastors and I was saying man, it’s so funny. I said we we have one thing on the calendar this weeken. But I don’t know about you but I’ve got 5 church things to do in the next day and a half.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Joe Platania — And so so you know, um, and so we we’re trying to solve that – that’s a second tension. So the first thing is we need to do as a church is make sure everything we’re putting on a calendar is in alignment with our mission, our vision, our strategy, that there’s an ROI, and we’re measuring that ROI, and we understand that. But then we’re giving our staff clarity is like hey these are things you really have to do – these are tier 1.
Rich Birch — Right.
Joe Platania — And then these are tier 2. These these are, hey we hope you’ll do them, or if you have time to do them, or capacity to do them, if tier 2. And then I’ll tell you it’s a part of it that we haven’t solved yet and we’re going to need to go to work on—maybe it’s solving 1 before you can solve 2—is like how do we help our staff to even organize things on that third level of like, hey on my campus in my community…
Rich Birch — Right.
Joe Platania — Because you know even though Central’s got one thing in ten days, I’ve got nine. So yeah and it’s helping that. And I think some of that, and you probably you know know this, Rich, in ministry we don’t do so well with boundaries. So we’re often our own worst enemy.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Joe Platania — And I do wonder if some of that’s like ah ah you know teaching our staff on setting boundaries…
Rich Birch — Right.
Joe Platania — …and understanding like, hey it’s okay to say no. Because it doesn’t always feel okay to say no um, in ministry you know. And so that’s it. So that’s I would say we’re we’re making good traction. I love um the work we’ve done in our calendar. I love the the rigor we’re putting to it that’s going to only help keep it keep us in rhythm, but provide clarity. But um I do think there’s work to be done um, on that next level.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, that’s good. There is something about I had a friend who you know always joked. He said you know our mission is a bottomless pit.
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Kind of a little bit of surgeons black humor there of like ah…
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …but it’s true, right?
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Like there is always more to do, but the reality of it is we’ve got to help our teams kind of pick and choose and prioritize because there will always be more to try to accomplish the mission that we’re you know a part of, so. Let’s let’s talk a little bit more maybe about another aspect of your culture that over the last number of years you’ve looked at and said, hey here’s an area where we could pursue towards health. I understand this calendering piece. Are there other things other initiatives that you’ve kind of attacked as an organization to help improve your team culture?
Joe Platania — Yeah I’ll give you three right off the top and we could talk about any of the ones that you’d like.
Rich Birch — Yes, okay. Yeah.
Joe Platania — One kind of speaks to that foundational health I was talking about. And one thing we developed was called Leadership Promises. And I can share a little bit about that if you’d like. But then there’s two other things that we’ve really had to work on, I would say in the last two years that have been really helpful. And they’re they’re that second tier of of health. Um, and one is model clarity and alignment, and then role clarity and then alignment to model. And so you know ah we have mission, vision, model, strategy, you know. I think we’re really clear, in my opinion, very clear in our mission and vision. Um I think we’re clear in our strategy. But I think when we start to get into you know, model, alignment again, especially with multiple campuses and diverse communities, it gets tricky. So you know. So leadership promises was foundational…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Joe Platania — …and that’s going to help keep a strong, and then model and role clarity.
Rich Birch — Let’s talk about Leadership Promises. That that that’s intriguing. What what did you mean by that? What was the problem you were trying to solve with that?
Joe Platania — Yeah, so it’s it’s funny. I’ve been with Central for about two and a half years now and so I wasn’t actually part of this, but um, some of my teammates were telling me right before I joined the team they were in an interview with a candidate. And the candidate said, Hey you you guys ask a lot from the staff. Um, we had something that we shared with them called cultural distinctives, and they were just like hey um, here’s what it’s like to work in a church. And it’s awesome, but it’s hard. And so we were sharing cultural distinctives with them and this was what it’s like really. And they said but what do you promise? What do you promise to the people who work there?
Joe Platania — And and I remember um one of my teammates said to our executive group, hey I think it’d be really wise for us to develop um some things that we promise. So we went about the work. We worked with our executive team, with our lead pastor, and and then our lead team, and we developed like here are promises. These are commitments that our leadership is going to make. These are those foundational things which I was telling you about that. We’re going to commit to you. And then here’s what we’re going to do. Because ah promises are great, but if you’re not going to be accountable, your promises are pretty much useless. And honestly I think they’re negative.
Rich Birch — Right.
Joe Platania — Um, and so what we do is each year, and we do it every January, um we do a 360 review and everyone in leadership. And the basis for that 360 review is our leadership promises. So we we cascade our leadership promises out to our entire staff, and we ask them to evaluate their leaders. And then we also send that to um peers and and supervisors. So leader is going to get feedback once a year on how they’re living out our leadership promises from their their teammates um who they who report to them, their peer group, and their supervisor. And and said it’s an accountability thing. So hey we promise you these healthy behaviors…
Rich Birch — Right.
Joe Platania — …and now we’re going to hold ourselves accountable to them. And yeah I love that. That’s been in place, this is our second year – we’re in or in April now. So we just came through our second cycle of that. I love it. I love it. Big fan of it. We’ll probably go to work this summer on making some improvements to that process now that it’s two years old. But ah it’s working.
Rich Birch — Yeah, talk to me about what some of those leadership promises are – maybe maybe 1 or 2 that ah provided kind of the the biggest leverage point, or maybe area of concern or improvement that you need to as ah as a team. What would be some of those Leadership Promises? What’s the kind of thing you’re you’re holding yourselves accountable to for your team? Which I love that idea, I think it’s fantastic.
Joe Platania — Yeah I would say a lot of it was based on narratives that we had heard from our staff and we talked to them about, but also things we wanted to make sure that we reinforce. So first of all, we wanted to make sure that we committed to our staff that we we were going to our leadership are going to be men and women of prayer. That we were and that’s the first thing on the, hey church, we are going to be praying. We’re going to ask God for guidance and clarity ah above and before all things. So that’s the first
Joe Platania — And then there’s other things in there that are really helpful that we’re going to be living transparently and we’re going to share authentically. We’re going to ask for feedback. You know we’re not going to wait for you to come. So one of the things that was an output of of our leadership promises was something that we do in our monthly reviews. And we call those reps, but it’s ah every thirty days everybody gets a 1 on 1 with their supervisor. And go over the normal things that you would go over in a 1 on 1. But one of the things is like, hey what feedback do you have for me? What can I be doing better? How can I support you better? But that came out of that like, hey we’re going to ask for feedback regularly. So of course we do our 360 once a year, but every month every supervisor should be asking, hey you know what what can I do to help?
Joe Platania — Other things and I’ll just give you one more that’s interesting and maybe this will resonate with you. Um, in the church world we I always like to say I think we’ve we have ruined the word family. I you know, starting in church it’s like, hey my church family. Well we’ve weaponized that word to some degree as a as a capital “C” Church and we use it to make people feel guilty about leaving, or growing and going elsewhere. So one of our promises was like, hey we’re gonna pour into you. We’re gonna invest in your personal and professional development, and then if you take that and leave we are gonna celebrate you for that.
Joe Platania — And and so that is, and you know my previous experience in church. And and not so much even with the church I’m with, it’s just the culture of church that wasn’t it. When you said, I’m leaving, the answer was like, how can you do this?
Rich Birch — Right.
Joe Platania — You’re, you know, you’re traitorous!
Rich Birch — Right.
Joe Platania — And now we’re saying the opposite. Like we’re going to make a kingdom investment in you and we hope you stay forever.
Rich Birch — Right.
Joe Platania — But if you don’t, go with God and and grow the kingdom and we will celebrate that. So those were just some of the things.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Joe Platania — I I think we have about 10 or 12 different leadership promises.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Joe Platania — And um, you know, and it’s just again, it’s a promise to our staff…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Joe Platania — …ah that we’re going to be healthy.
Rich Birch — I love that. I love that even that idea of you know how we what’s our posture as we leave, if you’re leaving…
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …if you’re, you know, I like that going on to a new kingdom assignment.
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Because that is one of the telltale signs, I think, of a culture that’s maybe gone sideways a little bit is, you know, is you… and I’ve had this happen as somebody who’s in the role I’m in. You know, I’ll hear from leaders who are saying like, hey, I’m thinking about moving on, but please don’t tell X. Please don’t you know.
Joe Platania — Yeah, yes.
Rich Birch — And and and the problem is like I I which, I understand. I’m not there’s not any judgment behind that.
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — I understand why people say that. But that is I think once once we trip over that in our brains and realize, man I can’t even talk to my person about the fact that I’m thinking about leaving, or it’s like you’re dead to me, right?
Joe Platania — Right.
Rich Birch — They’ll be like, you know, you’re cut off you know, kind of thing.
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — I love that. That’s so good. Can we pivot and talk a little bit about multisite? I think…
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …you know ah, let’s picture there’s a lot of multisite churches that are listening in, executive pastor of maybe a church of a couple thousand people.
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — We’ve got 3 or 4 locations. And I hear you talking about church health and I’m like I have a hard time getting handle on where things are at in multiple locations. It feels like as church leaders were trained to kind of lead things when we’re in the room, but when we’re not in the room, it’s hard for our influence to continue to ripple, and multisite is you know that on steroids.
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — So talk us through how how are you wrestling with kind of ensuring alignment around some of these health issues across all your locations. What are you learning in that process?
Joe Platania — Yeah, I think that kind of goes to the other things I was talking to you about where I think you have to have some really important things in place like model clarity, model alignment and then you know from that, hey this is what we are we – ah a centralized model church are we decentralized? Okay, great. What does that mean to be and and how should we act?
Joe Platania — And then from there it’s role clarity. Like do our roles align with that model. One of the things that I talked to some friends in the church world that I hear as a disconnect in multiside churches. They have a good idea of what kind of model church. They are not everyone does, honestly. But some do. But then they’ll they’ll create roles and job descriptions that are just not in alignment with that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Joe Platania — Or at least their their staff and we had some of that for sure at Central. And so one of the things we’ve been working on is first like hey guys here’s who we are. This is our model. This is the kind of church we want to be on all 5 campuses. And then here are our roles, here are job descriptions.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Joe Platania — So we yeah, and you know that sounds so easy. But as you can imagine you have I think we’re a well over a hundred staff right now. That’s a lot.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Joe Platania — Yeah, you know it’s a lot to do across 5 campuses. Um, so it’s it’s only a full time job. And and ah yeah, it takes a ah lot of collaboration among all of our team. Not only our campus staff. Our central service staff but our executive and lead team as well.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Joe Platania — But that’s that’s how we drive it. It’s like hey you know, healthy healthy culture, clarity at the model alignment level. And now let’s push that down to the “me” level, the person level, through role clarity. And I you know I do have some some tools that I use that I’ve just developed over the years that help ah deliver us at at spots of role clarity, and and even model clarity. And so when we we kind of start to feel those tensions. We’re like hey, maybe this team needs to do a role clarity exercise and help us.
Rich Birch — Um, yeah, let’s talk about that. Um, you’ve talked about model clarity a few times. And um I suspect that there are people that are listening in that are like, I’m really not sure what he’s talking about there.
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — What what do you mean by model clarity?
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Um, and then let’s kind of scale that down then into role clarity a little bit.
Joe Platania — Yeah, so you know when when you’re a multisite church, there are things that get easier honestly and there are things that get harder. And one of the things that’s harder is keeping everyone on the same page. So you know the way I’ve learned to help keep larger groups on the same page is to be as foundationally strong and to build good solid brick levels at each spot.
Joe Platania — So one of the first spots is just understanding what operating model we’re going to follow. So are are we a church that is going to be, you know one church many locations. You know so really centralized. Are we going to be a church that really allows a lot of autonomy at the campus level. So we’re going to have some synergy and some redundancy from from the broadcast campus. And will allow those efficiencies to help our campuses but largely they’re going to be autonomous to reach our communities the way they think is best
Joe Platania — And I think you know there’s a spectrum of that. And I think you need to decide as an organization, are we going to be…
Rich Birch — Right.
Joe Platania — …and these very well may be my words. I don’t know that everyone uses decentralized and centralized, but it was just the easiest way I could think you know are you going to be a decentralized organization or a centralized. And at Central we’ve chosen to be a centralized model church.
Joe Platania — So we we’re one church, multiple locations, and so everything kind of falls under that banner and follows that order. So then you start to get to a funnel, what I would call a clarity funnel of, okay so everything falls on – we know who we are, now here’s what we do and how we do it. Because of that.
Rich Birch — Well, let’s let so yeah, this is ah so I’ve been doing multisite for you know 25 years, since really since 2000, 2002 – so almost twenty five years. And I was at a thing recently um, was speaking at this conference and we were talking about multisite and and I was joking with a friend of mine. I said you know you, could take the questions from today’s from the leaders in this room today are like the same questions that we were asking in 2001, 2002. It’s like dotted line, solid line. You know campus versus central.
Joe Platania — Yes.
Rich Birch — You know, all of that kind of stuff. It’s like man, we we find ourselves asking the same kind of questions. How do you talk about those issues when you try to define so you say centralized. What does that mean for like staffing and you know those kind of things.
Joe Platania — Yeah, yeah.
Rich Birch — What’s some of the language help us understand how how you talk about that at Central.
Joe Platania — Yeah, that’s really that’s a really good, and and so I would say what we start with with that… First of all, there is always a tension when you have that centralized approach who who leads the staff at the campus level. So you know you have ah you have an executive level that sits under the lead pastor. And then you have a lead team. And then you have a central service, central support level, and then you have your campuses. And that’s not necessarily a hierarchy. Um, but you have to decide, do our campus staff, which is a lot of our you know church-facing staff – the people who are neck deep in ministry, who do they report to?
Joe Platania — So you know we have an org chart that provides really clarity of that. You know we have we have straight lines and dotted lines and everyone knows the answer. And for us what we’ve chosen in this season and, and again I don’t want to say that this is the only right way.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes.
Joe Platania — This is just the way we chose. Rich, I don’t know about you, but the older I get the more I figure out there’s more than one right way to do something. So you…
Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely oh for sure for sure. But I think the take, the key on that though that I want to that I want to underline for people is I think the thing that you’re 100% or 110% true on is you’ve got to be clear in your church what your your approach to these issues. Because if it gets I literally was saying this to somebody two days ago – they were talking about multisite, they got a couple locations. And I was like you got to get clarity because if if you don’t then you’ll leave your team hanging out there and they’ll just guess, and you know and then you’ll have problems.
Rich Birch — So yeah I agree. There’s not there’s not one way to do this, but you got to be super clear on it. Sorry I interrupted you there.
Joe Platania — No, no.
Rich Birch — I was just giving you a hearty amen.
Joe Platania — Yeah, no and I and you’re so right. And so we try to provide that and so what we’ve chosen for this season is that our our campus level staff are going to report to you know central central service leader. So like our our kids staff on our campus report to our lead kids pastor, our student… Now they have a dotted line relationship with the campus pastor who sits on lead team as well. And and then of course the campus staff, associate campus pastors, they’re reporting to our our campus pastor.
Joe Platania — But we have that that we have that organizational alignment. We have a org chart. Again, some of this is just communicating who we are clearly. And so we have that. But it it can’t stop there. You you know you, then you have to continue to add texture and layers and context. And so while we have an org chart, now we have to build job descriptions that are really clear and in line with that that model of church that we want to run. And um and one of the things we’ve done with some of our groups and this will be a summer project is with some others is we not only want to have um, a job description that supports our the alignment of our model. But we want to have success behaviors that fuel our job description. So this is another layer, right?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Joe Platania — So you have a model, you have clear job descriptions. What… Okay, that’s great, but what is what, you know, I can have 15 tasks or actions on my job description. That’s not super helpful. So I got to practice with this a little bit a couple of years ago with our campus pastors. And here’s what was kind of mind blowing. Um, we had we we developed some clarity for them, and and then we worked on hey let’s develop some success behaviors. I think we developed the 123 things that they do on a regular basis. I don’t know about you, but that feels like a lot.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s a lot. Wow.
Joe Platania — It’s a big job that our campus pastors have.
RIch Birch — Yes, yes, yes.
Joe Platania — And I’m confident like no matter who we looked at at staff, it’s going to be in that ballpark.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Joe Platania — And we’re just we have a lot going on.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Joe Platania — But what that does is is it allows now them to understand, Okay, here’s what it looks like for me to be successful. And then there’s another level of that like, hey I need to rank. I need to rank these behaviors. Like these are the behaviors I need to weigh and put first. So if I’m gonna only be able to do eighty of these 123, here’s the 80 I’m going to do first. But this is a multi-generational thing. So it’s like let’s start with this and you gotta work your way down. So these are things I’m hoping to continue to develop as we go into the summer and into the fall and yeah.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — That’s good. I love that. I love the you know continue to just push for for increasing clarity and increasing um helpfulness, really for our team…
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …and and really to define hey here are the success behaviors that we’re attempting to drive towards. When you think about alignment, are there other areas that have been particularly helpful, whether it’s you know across campuses or within your team that have you know any processes or approach or practices that have been helpful to kind of drive clarity for for you?
Joe Platania — Yeah, yeah, so again, maybe we go on to like the maintenance phase of all of this.
Rich Birch — Sure, sure.
Joe Platania — Like hey, it’s great. You have organizational health, and you have model clarity. Now you have role clarity. And okay, well, that’s great. So then we’re going to put all of these best practices in. And we’re going to go into execution mode. We’re gonna operate, right? There’s what we do, every every day every week. And so um, here’s here’s what happens: it doesn’t all work. Um, you know it’s not like the best laid plans, right?
Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yeah.
Joe Platania — You know, um I’m confident. There’s a lot of you know, football coaches who develop a game plan and they they go into the game confident they’re gonna you know, blow out the other team. And they doesn’t work, it don’t work that way. So we go in execution mode.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Joe Platania — And um and so we need to measure, hey how is this going? So one of the things that we’ve been working on and again I’m gonna use the words that I use.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Joe Platania — But I think maybe some of your listeners might be able to, you know, understand it better as a SWOT analysis or something like that. I don’t use that word and I use ah a different process. Um, you know I spent some time in in the secular world and we I was taught a process called DMAIC and it was ah a ah, process improvement process. And so I’ve adopted some of that. And ah we go through the – I call them Deep Dives. So we we meet in a ministry setting and man, I’ll tell you ah the more nuclear the setting the better.
Joe Platania — So what I mean by that is ah I want um I have 6 different questions that you know we’ll go through so you know to help ah, uncover how things are going. Not only what’s working well so we can keep doing, but hey what needs to be changed, what needs to be modified, what needs to be improved.
Joe Platania — Um and we can do that – let’s say we can pull the whole kids staff together. Like you know we have 9 or 10 different kids team members. That’s good. You know what’s better is if I go to our Queen Creek campus and I meet with the kids staff there and 8 of their key volunteers and some campus staff and we do the deep dive at that nuclear level. So I don’t think it’s unimportant to do it at the higher level. But, boy, you just get all sorts of deeper, richer information the deeper you go into the the heart of the church.
Joe Platania —And so we we what happens is because I’m weird, I like to type with my thumbs. I sit there on my phone. I ask these questions and um and I’m just making notes. And ah then I share those notes with with my teammates on lead team and the executive team. And and it just depends on you know, leader to leader how they want to handle it from there. Sometimes they can use those notes um to work with their team. Sometimes I work with them to develop solutions and approaches to improve. But here’s the thing. Um I would say that doing regular, what I call deep dives, is really important to maintain our maintenance mode of of this health.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Joe Platania — And I can just tell you what I learned. Again I’ve only been at central for a little over two years. At other churches ah when I hit the third year of these, and it’s Central I’m really just in about the first year of this practice. Um, The third year was really weird because the first year we had we we uncovered a lot. In the second year we uncovered a few other things. The third year I would say we spent more of our time saying, this is so awesome. You remember the first year we talked about that? It’s better! And and this…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Joe Platania — Now that doesn’t mean we’re perfect and there’s no problems. I’m just saying there’s less. Less problems
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Joe Platania — And we have just a better grasp then hey there’s always going to be problems I feel like are unsolvable.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Joe Platania — Um, you know what what what are the two things that you know we all wish we could control but we can’t. You know time and often money so. You know those are problems that we want to address authentically but you know you got to be really careful about like hey this isn’t a utopian thing where like we can pour all the money in the world on this. So you got to be careful with that too. So.
Rich Birch — I love that. I the thing I think you’ve hit on, well there’s a lot there. There was so much. Friends, if you if you missed anything you got to go back there and unpack there. There was a bunch there that you said was super helpful. But one of the things I think that would be really helpful for many of our churches is as our teams grow, as our church grows, as the complexity of what we do grows, yeah are the information that we get as a senior leadership team can become very filtered, and become very like unclear.
Rich Birch — And you know people know what they want people your people know what you want to hear and so they’ll tell you what you want to hear. They’ll, you know, and it’s not that they’re lying but they’re they just will things get changed. And so this idea of like let’s have some these kind of nuclear deep dives, I love that.
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Um, and man, even just doing that adding that to our practices I think could be super helpful.
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — What are those, you said there were six questions that you ask, common questions.
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Do you mind running through those quickly, even just for documentation? What would those what are those six questions? I’d be intrigued to hear what those are.
Joe Platania — I I don’t mind. Um, you mind if I I’m gonna pull them up on my phone?
Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely for sure.
Joe Platania — Um because you know I did turn fifty this year and I don’t remember them as well as I’d like to tell you I remember them.
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Joe Platania — But I will first of all, um, the first thing I do is I share rules.
RIch Birch — Yep.
Joe Platania — And and the rules are are things like, hey this is there’s no fixing. Um this this is not time to be in problem solve mode. So you want to establish that ah, first. Like this is a data dump. This is like a brain dump…
Rich Birch — Yeah, weere just listening. Yeah yeah.
Joe Platania — …of what you feel. Yeah, because what happens is you get a bunch of passionate ministry people around a table and what they want to do is they start identifying problems and they want to go right into problem solving mode. Like yeah, there will be a time for that. So you know also no arguing. No no, no negativity, but disagreeing is okay.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Joe Platania — So Rich, if you’re like, you know, Joe, I feel like this is it. Yeah I don’t feel that way but let’s share it. Let’s have that.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Joe Platania — Yeah, and then um, here are the questions though. And I’ll I’ll read them to you. The first one is: what do we have to celebrate over the last year? Where are we winning? Why is that happening? How can we keep winning and win bigger? And then I’ll stop and you know we’ll collect things but just let them kind of marinate.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Joe Platania — Second question is: we measure what is important – does this team have an established set of metrics? Do you know what they are? How are you doing in relation to them? How can we improve our metrics? The next one is…
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Joe Platania —Yeah. Systems. Systems and processes are the highways that vision travels on. Are our systems and processes the right one for our teams and church? What needs to improve?
Rich Birch — So good.
Um, couple more. One is leaders. Leaders are vision ambassadors. Do we have the right people in the right places? What changes to our organizational structure do we need to make to be more effective and efficient?
Joe Platania — And actually there are two more.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Joe Platania — One is: we must be consistent in all we do; the rhythm and planning of the church is is critical. How does your team make plans and set goals? How can this be improved? What is coming next that we need to be prepared for?
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Joe Platania — And then finally it’s a it’s it’s a catch-all category. Um, you know, what what did we miss? What what is right that needs to be amplified? What is wrong that needs to be fixed? What is missing that needs to be developed? What is confusing and needs to be clarified? Um, so those are the questions and I’ll be typing away. I would say um I get when we do that exercise usually takes about three hours, two and a half, three hours.
Rich Birch — Wow, yeah.
Joe Platania — And I usually get between 70 and 150 data points.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Joe Platania — And it’s amazing and just the information you get. And man, and you’re sitting with people who like are these are their their babies. They are so passionate and they’re like yes, let me tell you about my baby, and you know, all the… And but then it’s an interesting thing because they also want to tell you some of the things that they don’t like that’s happening with their baby.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Joe Platania — And so you just get the to hear. And then you got to take all of that information and process it and develop plans. Um, and then really one of the worst things you can do is to spend that time and get that investment from folks and do nothing. .
Joe Platania — So one of the things we talk about is like hey this is great information. Let’s glean what we can and let’s really be good about sharing, hey here’s what we heard and now here’s what we’re going to do and executing that. And then checking in, like that’s where I said that’s always cyclical.
Joe Platania — How do I know now that I was successful on that fix? So I did a deep dive, I gather data, I’ve prepared a solution. Um, then I’m going to measure how’d I do. How’d I do, how’d we do with this? Um you know so you’re constantly evaluating and Rich, it never and it shouldn’t.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, that’s so good.
Joe Platania — It’s this we’re living, we’re living a breathing organization, right? So.
Rich Birch — Yes, so good. Well Joe, this has been very rich, super helpful. Thanks for for running through those, but then just all of this has been super, super helpful. As we wrap up today’s episode…
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …is there anything else you’d like to share with us as we kind of you know, look to land the plane here today?
Joe Platania — Yeah, first just thank you for the time. Great to talk to you. Ah the work we do is so important and and the the only thing I would say is um I would encourage people if if they haven’t figured this out, and I’m sure many have, that that health is in my opinion layered.
Joe Platania — And it is does start with a bedrock foundation. Um, and then you just build on top of that. I that’s biblical I guess. Um and so looking at it that way, and so when I’m trying to manage health I want to understand how’s my foundation? How’s my next level? How’s my next level? And just breaking it down um in that kind of detail is so important…
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Joe Platania — …not only to just to developing it, but sustaining the health. Because it’s again, it’s not easy, but a lot of us can make health. The trick I think is sustaining it, like how do you keep it going. That would be it. You know make sure we keep it going.
Rich Birch — So good.
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — So good. I really appreciate this. Joe, if if people want to track with you or with the church online where do we want to send them?
Joe Platania — Yeah, centralaz.com is is the easiest place to go.
Rich Birch — Perfect.
Joe Platania —You can watch us. You can connect with with me or any of our our leadership that way. Yeah, absolutely.
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Joe Platania —Would love to love to connect with anybody who wants to talk more this. Much like you, Rich, I’m sure, this is a passion for me. I would do it for free…
Rich Birch — Totally.
Joe Platania — …if I could afford to. I can’t, but nonetheless um I love it. So love talking about it…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Joe Platania —…and love to talk to other churches and learn.
Rich Birch — Thanks so much. Thanks for being here today, Joe – really appreciate you being on the show.
Joe Platania — Yes, sir. Thanks, Rich.
This is part four of an ongoing series where we explore the “Goldilocks growth rate”—a concept aimed at helping churches grow at a pace that’s impactful yet sustainable.
Understanding the Goldilocks Growth RateThe Goldilocks growth rate is all about balancing rapid growth with the ability to effectively integrate new members into your church community. The goal is to grow faster than the natural population increase in your community while avoiding burnout among your team. To maintain momentum, churches must address the inevitable 15% attrition rate caused by people moving away, disagreements, or life changes.
Three Crucial Metrics1. 15% Attrition Rate: This is a baseline assumption. Every church loses about 15% of its members annually due to various reasons. 2. 3% Documented New Guests Weekly: For a church of 1,000, this means capturing contact information for 30 new guests each week. 3. 26% Retention Rate: Retaining 26% of new guests to become regular attendees is essential. This helps achieve an overall growth rate of 26%.
When these metrics are met consistently over 1,000 days, a church can effectively double its size.
Focus on the Front DoorMany churches concentrate on retention (the back door) but often overlook the importance of attracting new visitors (the front door). Most churches need to increase their efforts on inviting and documenting new guests to ensure sustainable growth. Simple yet effective strategies to enhance your church’s invite culture include:
- Shareable Weekend Teaching: Make your weekend messages compelling and easily shareable to encourage congregants to invite their friends.
- Eventful Big Days: Leverage special events like Christmas and Easter when people are more likely to invite their friends.
- Captivating Online Conversations: Engage with your community online to spark discussions and keep people connected.
- Magnetic Community Service: Organize community service events that attract both volunteers and attendees.
- Appealing Volunteer Experience: Create volunteer opportunities that are enjoyable and fulfilling, encouraging participants to invite others.
Resources to Boost Your Church’s GrowthTo support churches in these efforts, we offer two key resources:
- “Unlocking Your Church’s Invite Culture“: This book provides a primer on the five gears of invite culture, offering practical examples and strategies.
- Church Growth Incubator: A year-long program featuring bi-monthly calls, quarterly intensives, and two in-person retreats to equip church leaders with the latest research and proven tactics for growth.
Success Stories and Proven ResultsChurches participating in the Church Growth Incubator have seen remarkable results, with an average of 4.22% documented new guests weekly, far surpassing the 3% target. This significant increase translates to over 2,000 new guests annually for a church of 1,000 members, showcasing the effectiveness of sustained, strategic efforts.
Read the Book
Unlock the potential of your church’s invite culture with our latest book, “Unlocking Your Church’s Invite Culture“. This book is designed to be a practical guide for you and your team, offering a primer on the five gears of invite culture. Packed with actionable examples and strategies, it’s an essential resource for any church leader looking to make a real impact. You can purchase your copy at unlockinviteculture.com or on Amazon.
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Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Gail Ewell a leader at Bay Area Christian Church and Hope Technology School.
Gail’s story is one of personal struggle and triumph. As a mother of children with special needs, she faced significant challenges in attending church. Her experiences shed light on the isolation and strain that families with special needs often endure. It was through these personal trials that Gail’s passion for inclusivity within the church was ignited.
Tune in as Gail shares how the simple step of a church extending friendship can transform a community.
- Focus on the isolation and strain. // It’s estimated that about one in five children are neurodivergent and yet 85% of churches don’t have ministries that can support them. In California, 1 in 22 children are diagnosed with autism and other types of disabilities are on the rise. Bay Area Christian Church (BACC) is committed to inclusivity and working to address the isolation and strain of special needs families.
- Spiritual Resource Ministry. // It’s not uncommon for parents and children to miss church because it can be difficult to attend with a child’s special needs. BACC has developed spiritual resource ministries which promote the inclusion of people and families with special needs so that they don’t feel isolated. It began with smaller classes that are more sensory-friendly and include both neurotypical and neurodivergent children. From there it grew to creating E-sports and E-life which offer inclusive programs for a variety of activities, from soccer and karate to gardening and photography.
- Partner with others. // Because the goal is to include rather than segregate, Bay Area Christian partners with other youth ministries, professional sports teams, guest speakers and more. Identify the needs in your community and the gifting in your church and how you can pair the two together. Partner with organizations, schools, ministries, businesses and teams in your area to provide inclusive opportunities for children with special needs.
- Start small. // Gail encourages churches that feel overwhelmed and don’t know where to begin to start small. Extend friendship to the special needs community in your area because there is often a friendship deficit here. Anyone can give the gift of listening or friendship. Not only are you building relationships among the children, but their families also benefit from being able to connect with others.
- Provide training. // The success of inclusive programs is largely dependent on the volunteers who bring them to life. Gail emphasizes the importance of training these individuals, underscoring the biblical principles of friendship, encouragement and support for the vulnerable. Recognizing and appreciating these volunteers is crucial, as they are the ones who make a tangible difference in the lives of special needs individuals and their families.
- Seek understanding. // If you’re facing challenges and concerns, open a dialogue with the family affected by special needs in order to know how to best interact with their child. Seek to understand what is needed and what you may not have considered in your program or outreach.
- Meeting a critical need. // While it can feel intimidating to step onto the path of developing a spiritual resource ministry, Gail encourages churches to just begin. Remote areas may not have a lot of services for special needs children and families. There’s a big opportunity for churches to step in and offer purpose and occasions for inclusion. It begins with a heart to love people, extend friendship and meet a need.
Want to learn how to build a spiritual resource ministry at your church? Visit Bay Area Christian Church’s website to download the SRM Manual that Gail mentions. Plus explore E-sports and E-life for examples of inclusive community service programs.
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in today. You’re in for a real treat. Super excited to have Gail Ewell with us. She’s at Bay Area Christian Church. It’s a fantastic church in the Bay Area, obviously. She’s also a part of Hope Technology School. Bay Area Christian Church is deeply committed to creating environments where children and adults with special needs can thrive alongside their neurotypical peers. And ah the the school that she’s a part of, Hope Technology School, is a fully inclusion nonprofit school located in Palo Alto. Ah, super excited to have you on the show today, Gail. Thanks for being here.
Gail Ewell — Hey Thanks Rich! Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
Rich Birch — Now this is going to be great. I’m honored that you would take some time to be with us. Tell us a little bit about Bay Area Christian. Kind of fill out the picture. Give us a you know a flavor of the church. Help us understand more about it.
Gail Ewell — Yeah, we’re we have 8 campuses throughout the Bay area, and Bay is really big and we’re spread all over the place. But yeah, we’re church committed to inclusivity for those with different abilities And it’s been a definitely work in progress. So it’s it’s really been a great light for we’re very um, focused on God and good, doing good and so a lot of our focus is outreach to the community. So we do a lot of community activities and programs. That’s a central focus for our church.
Rich Birch — Yeah, so good. Well I want to kind of zero in a little bit on what you’ve done to create a more inclusive church. And let’s talk a little bit about why this is such an issue. I had heard that and I and I don’t know whether this is true, but it’s one of those things I heard and it was stuck in my brain. I was talking to a friend who’s involved in similar ministry and they were talking about children specifically. But they were saying 1 in 5, I think was the number that they used, of children would be considered ah neuro-divergent different, you know than than everyone else. And 85% of churches don’t do any special needs ah, ministry whatsoever.
Gail Ewell — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Um, and ah those that that struck me. I found that you know, really shocking. So talk to us tell us talk to us about why this is such an issue.
Gail Ewell — Ah, well in California 1 in 22 children are diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.
Rich Birch — Wow. Yep.
Gail Ewell — And and other types of disabilities are on the rise as well across the United States. But around maybe 15% of US children between three and seventeen years old are affected by a developmental disability. And emphasizing of course the need for ministries and churches for inclusion. I actually recently heard of a study conducted by the university of Wisconsin that monitors the stress levels of ah mothers for eight days.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Gail Ewell — And they measured their hormone levels on specific days. And the study found that chronic stress levels experienced by these mothers was were similar to that of a combat foot soldier.
Rich Birch — Wow. Oh my goodness. Wow.
Gail Ewell — So yeah, so what we the problem I guess that we or the need is that we were trying to address the isolation and strain of special needs families that can be a significant problem for not only in our congregation, but also in our communities.
Rich Birch — So how did what was the kind of journey the starting journey for this at Bay Area Christian? Where did this where did this begin?
Gail Ewell — So as a mother and a leader I was going to church and um, we have a strong women’s ministry, and that’s my primary focus – women’s ministry. I’m an executive women’s ministry leader for very large church. And I couldn’t get into church because I was at church the building but because my child had autism I was unable to be a part of the whole service because I was always getting called out at the children’s ministry. And my first son John was born with ah down syndrome – that was a surprise to us. We didn’t know.
Gail Ewell — And then two years later our son Jordan was diagnosed with autism. So we had significant needs in our own family and we experienced our own barriers. Um, and I knew and understood there must be a lot of other people facing this kind of challenge.
Rich Birch — Absolutely.
Gail Ewell — So we created programs for that because I knew the community probably at back then had you know needs. And I just ah understand that you know I realized that a lot of moms and children are missing church because there’s just no way they can even fathom going to church with their child’s needs, you know?
Rich Birch — Yeah, totally.
Gail Ewell — And um, one you know it’s just and so I become you know all, most parents become strong advocates when this they get these kind of needs in their family. For those that have less support needs there’s more advocacy out there. But I always think of Proverbs 31 that says we should speak up for those who can’t speak for themselves.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Gail Ewell — And my my children at that time were nonverbal…
Rich Birch — Oh wow.
Gail Ewell — …and I had a strong conviction about speaking up for the nonverbal…
Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely.
Gail Ewell — …and those literally the had no voice. Yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely. Wow. So What does this look like at Bay Area Bay Area Christian? Like if I’m a parent who’s exploring, thinking about coming to the church, how do you actually engage with them? What does that look like?
Gail Ewell — Yeah, we had two programs we developed out of these needs that we saw in my own life, and in the community, and in our church. And that’s um we developed a spiritual resource ministry that was founded in 1996 but that was mostly to help families who felt isolated and ah couldn’t participate in church. And so what we did is we developed what we call our SRM Ministry – the Spiritual Resource Ministry. Which basically you know for me I didn’t understand sensory sensitivities back then. Now it’s a little bit more known. Sensory friendly is a more common term. But back then I didn’t understand my child was experiencing experiencing sensory sensitivities in church.
Rich Birch — Right.
Gail Ewell — And so you know there’s the loud, there’s the music, there’s the crowds. And you know even for us that are neurotypical, we can experience sensory sensitivities at times, right?
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, for sure.
Gail Ewell — So we’ve had to develop a smaller class and we started from there that was more sensory friendly. And then we did kind of a reverse mainstream where we allowed children to come in who are neurotypical. And it just and from there it kind of exploded and ballooned into over 20 locations.
Gail Ewell — The six sports that we did E-sports and E-life. And E-sports is more like soccer, basketball, football, karate, dance, fitness. It just kind of exploded because the members expertise or talents, they could take their talent and use it wherever their community was. And they caught a vision and it exploded. And then it’s more of late it’s turned into E-life, which is more like activities versus sports.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Gail Ewell — And so not everybody does sports. But you know we anyone at any level can come. I mean even our E-sports program, you know we have ah a child… I’ll give you an example of a boy and who came with a wheelchair and he had Spina Bifida and he did not want to go to the wheelchair programs that were out there. And so what the volunteers did is they gave him a walker and he’s the goalie and he was so excited. Parents are in tears. You know like we’re trying to constantly modify and adapt our program so anyone could come at any level.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Gail Ewell — And the E-life kind of came out of that and that’s more like gardening and theater and photography and academics. And we had a professor do an e-stem class recently for his community…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Gail Ewell — …and then gaming. That’s a big one – the e-gaming. So we have a couple that’s awesome. The Combs and they they run that as well for their children…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Gail Ewell — …and for the community.
Rich Birch — Wow. Yeah, well I I love this.
Gail Ewell — And sorry – tell me when to stop.
Rich Birch — I know – I love it. I love it. Because you know as people that are you’re listening in, you’re realizing, man, there is so much going on at Bay Area Christian in this area, which has been my experience in the past. It’s like when we take some first steps in this direction, we realize oh my goodness, there’s this tremendous need in the in the community and it’s an opportunity for us to step in, and and it does start to balloon. But let’s take a step back to, maybe if a if a church is thinking about or or maybe at Bay Area when you when you first started to offer, you know, the the classroom and stuff like that. How did you build say awareness and education with the church in general? Like you know, obviously the parents who who are wrestling with these issues understood that, hey this is a there there’s stuff here I this is something I need help with.
Gail Ewell — Yeah.
Rich Birch — But with the broader church, what’s that look like?
Gail Ewell — Well we kind of did a needs assessment in our church where we just understand the specific needs of our church community and identified areas that required additional support. The members that needed the support. We are fairly large church. So there were a lot more when we kind of looked at it opened our eyes and looked at it and were able to see the needs. And then we did identified church talents and then we’re able to assess talents. But also looking at professionals who in the field had experience, right? Whether it’s healthcare providers, or teachers, or special educators, or therapists. They were just a lot, boatload of people that we didn’t always understand. We had such a wealth within the church. We just had to go assess that and identify the talent. And we created those programs out of that talent.
Gail Ewell — But early on it was, you know, ah humble beginnings. We across the street was a big field and it was full of duck poop and um geese poop, and that was our first E-soccer.
Rich Birch — Right.
Gail Ewell — And you know and it was just humble beginnings. Yeah, we just started and and it grew from there. And for a lot of churches, I think it’s just honestly believing that you can do something. And I try to encourage people that um, you can start with friendship because there’s a friendship deficit in that community. Um, and so I think anyone can give the gift of listening or being a friend. And that’s that’s where we started. We started with just outreach and friendship and listening and started small.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Gail Ewell — So I don’t know if that answers the question.
Rich Birch — Yeah, no, that’s good. That’s really good. Yeah, maybe unpack that a little bit more. When you think about what some of those, what would be some of your advice. I’m sure you get calls from churches and they you know leaders see the need. They’re like I understand but, man where do we start? I’m a little you know I look at everything Bay Area has done. That’ll be great 5 years from now, but what’s my first step into this area?
Gail Ewell — So we did our first step, I think we started with some sort of evangelistic type outreach for workshops that we did.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Gail Ewell — And so I just took an interest I had and I remember just reaching out to doctors in the field, whether it’s natural medicine, or [inaudible] medicine – something interesting to all people. And I invited a a guest speaker.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Gail Ewell — And we just created our, you know if you have a church building, you can have it there. And then you reach out to your community to come to the guest speaker. Because there are a lot of people who want to hear different topics, whether it’s anxiety or depression or you know or just could be tailored to a specific special need. And…
Rich Birch — Right.
Gail Ewell — …and that’s when we realized we had so many people come that that’s when we realized, wow, you know we could build a ministry from this because the outreach was actually easy. Um, and sometimes we get frustrated with that. But this was so easy. I mean my son went to preschool at special needs preschool, and I invited his friend his little buddy and his mom. And his mom came and then from there she came to church and she became a Christian. Then he grew up, he became Christian. Now he’s trying to help all his friends become christian.
Gail Ewell — And he you know he’s he’s autistic. And how he’s going to school and he wants to be a broadcaster.
Rich Birch — Oh cool.
Gail Ewell — You know he’s been on television. And and that was just a first workshop we did and that was the first thing she came to, and then from there you see the evolution of how you can change lives and help people and serve people in the community.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so cool. Yeah, I love that. I think there’s you know there’s a lot there. When you think about what have you learned in kind of interacting with the various ministries of the church because as you start to provide say hey we’re trying to open our door here to, say kids kids with special needs or you know the broader community with special needs, that starts to have impact on lots of other ministries. You know you start thinking, hey we want to you can’t just have like a there’s just like a special needs ministry and then that’s totally disconnected from the rest of the church. It’s got to be integrated into what do we do. What have you learned on that front? How do you collaborate with existing ministries?
Gail Ewell — Absolutely, yeah, the goal is inclusion not separation.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Gail Ewell — So you you don’t want to have a special needs, you know children’s ministry or a special need… you know the goal is not to segregate, it’s to include. And so we collaborated like you said with existing ministries that we partnered with ah, the youth ministries, and so a lot of our middle school and teens came out. You know they maybe did their high school service hours. So there was ways that we partnered with other ministries to get things kind of rolling um, and that really helped us a lot. We promote volunteering in our church and you know at all the time. And did we did a lot of, I thought back because sometimes you don’t think about what you do, you know you don’t think about I did this now,
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yes.
Gail Ewell — You know God gets all the glory – I mean he had it explode. But but um, we offered a lot of training sessions, you know, where we could just help enlighten people about different areas or needs of special needs, and that helped the volunteers with their skills and knowledge. And um, you know I always like to start with a biblical motivation. So Matthew 5 says be the light, and you know if you shine bright people are gonna be they’re gonna see that light and want to come to it.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Gail Ewell — You know, ah every church community, like you said, you know, it’s it’s unique. And you know the tactics you find are are going to be specific to your city and your needs. But recruiting and dedicate yourself to volunteers is really important for a thriving ministry. And we just went out to the community and we found, you know, university sports teams, the USF, University San Francisco, they actually have their men’s and women’s basketball team come out and help us with e-hoops…
Rich Birch — Oh wow.
Gail Ewell — …you know and help us with the clinics. And then the major league, our major league teams like the Earthquakes and the Warriors, we actually partnered with them to do activities and clinics. And our kids were able to go out and play on play where the play pros play. And and ah play you know sometimes they play on the the actual you know, um place where they’re playing it for the halftime. Or sometimes they’re having a special clinic, and even Ron Adams, one of the assistant coaches came out and spoke to the kids. So we like to partner with, you know, universities or or major leagues in your area, or existing ministries, or just looking for outreach where people want to do good…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Gail Ewell — …because that’s our our conviction to God and good.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, that’s so cool. I love that. When you think about the training of you know, your existing ministries and some of that coaching that you’ve done within your you know your existing you know things that were already running. Was there, is there some go-to advice that you find yourself coming back to time and again to try to help various ministries be more inclusive? Is there like a piece of advice that it’s like, oh you know, I would say these two things to everybody every ministry? What what would be some of those things?
Gail Ewell — Yeah, I think um training for training definitely did a lot of sensory-friendly. Matthew 25 says that you know the parallel shoots a groats it says there’s a part where it says when when did you see you friend…this is The Voice, it says when did we see you friendless or excluded, without friends when did we see you weak or without friends? And Jesus respond when you when you saw the least of these and you ignored their suffering, you ignored me. And I think something we can all relate to is loneliness and friendlessness and and needing friends.
Gail Ewell — And that’s really a critical part of building and training the volunteers because our volunteers aren’t just doing their duty. They’re making friends.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Gail Ewell — They’re going out and being friends.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Gail Ewell — You know they’re volunteering in other ways that we don’t even know. They’re going to homes and you know they’re serving the community on a, not just a buddy. You know a good buddy. It’s their friend, you know? And they’re helping to break that friendship deficit and that isolation and that stress of those families in an incredible way because of their big hearts.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. That’s cool. Well I’m sure over the years you’ve you know there’s some volunteers, speaking of volunteers that have really stood out and have been like, wow these these people are doing an amazing job and…
Gail Ewell — Yeah.
Rich Birch — You know what what would be some of the ways that you’ve shown, you know you’ve recognized those people, you’ve shown appreciation, you’ve you’ve tried to you know, celebrate them internally?
Gail Ewell — Um, yeah, we do recognition appreciation all the time, regular acknowledgement, appreciation of the volunteers. One one of the guys that really stands out to me is Jason Collette because we had volunteered to do a sensory [inaudible] vaccine clinic and the family said that they called him personally and asked if he would come to another time of his doctor appointment…
Rich Birch — Okay.
Gail Ewell — …because the only way this child would get it her his shots was, I think he, was through having Jason there.
Rich Birch — Wow, wow.
Gail Ewell — And so, you know he’s a really bighearted guy. And he went. And you know his own you said, oh sure I’ll come to your doctor appointment, help ya. And you know that he got all his shots and everything you know. And the family was so grateful because there’s so many needs in the community they get so isolated and they can’t do some of the basic things that we take for granted, just go to the doctor, you know.
Rich Birch — Right? Yeah, that’s cool. What a cool story. I love that. You know, going that’s, talk about going above and beyond.
Gail Ewell — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Like it’s you know it’s so much more than just showing up for e-sports or whatever…
Gail Ewell — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …whatever he’s volunteering with. It’s like how do I really get into these families’ lives and help serve you know their their total life.
Gail Ewell — Yeah.
Rich Birch — That’s that’s amazing. What when what is the kind of the support for volunteers look like? How do you what kind of training do you are you doing? I’m trying to kind of get a sense of what that looks like. Obviously there would be whatever you would normally do for for every other volunteer, but then there must be more that you’re doing on top of that to provide additional support and help.
Gail Ewell — Yeah, yeah, definitely. We’ve definitely developed trainings for, especially from some of the sports programs for the volunteers that come out…
Rich Birch — Okay.
Gail Ewell — …on how to interact specifically with the special children with special needs. And we’ve utilized and accessed our own talent in our church to do that, and including um, you know this special some of the ones that have more expertise to come out and help the coaches. We’ve also, so specifically they’re talking about how to interact and how not how not to react, and how to be a friend. And you know how to encourage participation. And you know these are children who otherwise would have no sports.
Rich Birch — Interesting.
Gail Ewell — You know they would not be it. They would not be at sports.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Gail Ewell — I mean it’s beautiful to watch, because you just realize, wow, this is definitely God’s work, you know. Because this wouldn’t otherwise happen. And these these events are they’re they’re monumental in the child’s life. They’re what they remember. They’re their favorite time of the week, you know, when they come.
Gail Ewell — And but we have had to so you know we’ve learned by doing. It’s a work in progress and a lot of hands-on field experience. So we’ve learned by doing and so then we access the talent from the church, and then we continue to have volunteer recruitment, but trainings that can help them learn to be more sensitive sort of to the special needs. You make mistakes, but honestly the parents are so grateful and it’s free, and and they make friends and otherwise at school many times they’re friendless, you know. So not always, but you know they are a lot. And the parents get to have a little break on the sideline…
Rich Birch — Right.
Gail Ewell — …and talk to other parents.
Rich Birch — Yeah, there’s some networking that happens there for sure.
Gail Ewell — And get yes and just get support and encouragement.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Gail Ewell — So that’s just that’s the the favorite time for those families. But yeah, the volunteers are getting trained as much as we can and much as we know, and we’re learning from our mistakes. But I don’t know if that’s specific enough for you.
Rich Birch — No, that’s good. Yeah, that’s good.
Gail Ewell — But that’s what we um do.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I remember um once I was talking to a parent who was reflecting thanking, you know our our our church for having you know of a similar kind of ministry. And they were saying you know my son um, who would have been a teenager at this point you know everyone in my son’s life because of his his special needs are various care workers that are paid to be with him, that are you know these are and and um, and I get choked up every time I think about it. And she said you know when we come to church, these people are choosing to be with my son. And you know they’re they’re you know they’re they’re saying hey I want to be here. This is you know, um and she was reflecting on, man, what that what what that meant to her as a mom…
Gail Ewell — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …that you know there’d be people that were going out of the way to say, yeah I I want to be with your kid. And and like you say it develops into that kind of friendship; it develops into… I like that you keep coming back to that. That this whole idea of isolation and you know friendship ultimately and how do we develop relationships. It’s not about providing some sort of program. It’s ultimately trying to get people connected with each other. I love that.
Gail Ewell — Yeah, that’s a great, that’s a great story because we see that happening and um I appreciate that those ministries so much, because I think it’s sometimes the only thing they have, you know. Like you said the paid versus a real friend or…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Gail Ewell — …someone not being paid to be with me. We like to empower the adults, and that’s on my heart because my kids have grown up…
Rich Birch — Grown up. Yeah.
Gail Ewell — …and are adults with special needs. But um because you know we’ve empowered them to become coaches now. You know they went through the program now they’re learning and training to become the coaches, and that really is inspirational because they’re seeing their purpose you know?
Rich Birch — Yep, yeah, that’s cool. Talk to me about I’m sure there are um, once once you open up as a church and say hey we want to do more of this, and and I I do want to talk more about the adult side of the equation as well. So this is I’m going to ask a kid question, but I want to get to that. You know part of what we’re we’re trying to do is you say hey we want to be inclusive for anybody. And that ends up you know which is wonderful and we’re trying to figure that out.
Rich Birch — But then there can end up being kids or adults that come that have very severe, you know, ah medical needs that are, you know, they’re like complex that they’re you know there’s something we need to think really delicately about. We need to ensure that we you know we handle that relationship in that individual well so that we don’t you know, create any you know further problems. How do you handle that? How do you how do you ensure that kind of the right information is getting the right people that we’re you know we’re handling people correctly, doing everything we need to do? Um, yeah, what what does that look like?
Gail Ewell — So like I think that if you open the dialogue with the families, they know they’re the experts.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Gail Ewell — They’re the seasoned parent, you know. And when you open that dialogue and you have good communication with families then you know best how you can accommodate or modify or meet needs. Ah, and and when you have that listening ear and you’re open to hearing the the the needs and what they need for support. I know we have one family and their child, you know is a wheelchair and has some special needs as far as their physical mobility, et cetera. And that you know coming to Camp was hard because our Camp had hills.
Rich Birch — Yep, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Gail Ewell — Um, some of those camps was like alone pushing the wheelchair up and down the hills…
Rich Birch — Right, right, right.
Gail Ewell — …you know is wearing her out you know. And there was some other complex needs. So you know we just communicated in a way where we could get volunteers to push and make sure her cabin’s on the flat level. And just accommodated make sure her our classes were on the flat levels you know. And thinking about mobility needs right? And that was just talking to the mom and get hearing her feedback and hearing, oh yeah, I’m not even we’re not even. We’re so sorry we oversight you know. We’re not even thinking about the hills, you know…
Rich Birch — Right, yeah.
Gail Ewell — …and how hard that would be for someone to go up and down them hills for the classes a camp, right?
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, yeah for sure. Yeah, that makes total sense. Well let’s pivot in a little slightly different direction. Tell me about Hope Technology School – tell me a little bit about this.
Gail Ewell — Yeah, um, Hope Technology School is an inclusion school which means that everyone’s included in education. There’s no separate classes. Um, it basically we have neuro 60% special those with special needs and then 40% are actually neurotypical .
Rich Birch — Okay, yep.
Gail Ewell — So they so a lot of people but you know that’s a a nonprofit private school, um and a lot of people it’s non-sectarian it’s not religious. Um, but it’s an incredible light because we include. And and we’ve seen I mean we’ve seen the neurotypical people graduate, go to college, get incredible jobs, you know. We’ve seen this kids with special needs go go to college. I mean it’s just the power of inclusion is amazing. And um we’ve learned a lot in the years we’ve done it. You know whatever is a twenty plus years um. And you know we do collaborative teaching and differentiated instruction and you know we have ah kind of a universal design approach to education and modeling. And for anyone out there with education background, they know, kind of these terms. But you know it really helps us have a really successful inclusion model. Um, so is that helpful?
Rich Birch — Um, yeah, that’s wonderful. I love that. And you know I think this is that kind of thing is at least that’s been my experience as well. You see as churches or individuals or leaders, they they start moving in this area. And you start to realize, oh man there are just so many needs. There’s so many pieces of the puzzle here around how do we create a world where you know we can include more people where people can be ah, be you know, get a place at the table. And you know like it’s it’s you know there’s lots of different pieces here which I just think is so inspiring and you know just so incredible.
Rich Birch — So when you look to the future as at the church when you think kind of you know where where does this go next for Bay Area Christian as you think about inclusion down the road? What would be some of the questions you’re wondering about as you look up over the horizon?
Gail Ewell — Um, as far as new programs and outreach and things like that I think our E-life is something we’d like to develop more because we were primarily focused initially on inclusive sports programs and getting people out who otherwise wouldn’t have any opportunities. Ah, so E-life I mean there’s just a whole world of things we can do with that, you know. It basically if they’re cooking or doing yoga or whatever you can make it an inclusive activity and you know. And the E stands for exceptional. So we think they’re all exceptional.
Gail Ewell — Um, so that that’s something we’d like to develop more. And then I think the isolation is something I’d like to tackle more in the adult ministries. It’s something I like to tackle more and do more for the adult ministries. So there’s just not a lot when people age out of the system, so to speak that’s a term, they the parents and adults lose a lot of their support. I mean there’s these day programs they can go to – it depends on the city and the area you’re in what kind of services. Sometimes people in remote areas just don’t have a lot of services. There’s not a lot. And the church can do a lot as far as providing purpose and opportunities for um inclusion.
Gail Ewell — I I don’t know if I should keep so you know hopefully you could edit this out if it’s not a good story there. Yeah, but but ah…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Gail Ewell — You know I don’t know um, but what if some part that inspired but also challenged and convicted me was when I moved to the city I’m in now, and um I heard ah a neighbor asked me at a block party, did you hear about this story? And and I and then I didn’t know what she was talking about. I went and looked it up and it was basically a person in our area who aged out of the system—a mom —and she ended up shooting her son and shooting shooting herself. And…
Rich Birch — Oh how sad.
Gail Ewell — …and it for me I mean we don’t ever want to hear the uplift you only want to hear the uplifting stories. But really honestly that burned a hole in my soul.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, oh man. Yes.
And I said I want to provide something for the adult because she reached out to her neighbor and her neighbor didn’t know what to do. And there was I just keep thinking if someone had reached out to her…
Rich Birch — Right.
Gail Ewell — …her and her son would be alive, right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Gail Ewell — She was so distraught, obviously probably had mental health issues and depression and whatnot. But so that gives you just a window into the isolation that can sometimes occur for those with more support needs. And that there’s just pinnacle moments in my life where like something’s burn in your heart and you go, I’m gonna do some about that, you know.
Rich Birch — We got to do something about that. Yeah. Yeah, totally, yeah.
Gail Ewell — Yeah I’m gonna do some about that. There’s something I’m gonna do. I’m gonna get a conviction about that. And I’m not going to forget about those those individuals who are who are really in need.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. And I think you know that that is such a great example of I think as churches, think a lot the churches that I’ve seen that have got engaged in trying to create an inclusive environment, it typically starts when kids ministry. But then what happens over time…
Gail Ewell — Right.
Rich Birch — …is you know these those young people though they they go from kids to young people to young adults to adults…
Gail Ewell — Yes.
Rich Birch — …and and and which is a wonderful thing, right? Then it creates these new opportunities for a church to say hey what what can we do? And you know man look forward to a future where that’s just a normal part of um, you know what’s happening in in the church.
Rich Birch — Do you have a sense…so ah like this feels like ah it’s still a minority of churches that are doing something. Like this this feels like ah you know what do you have any sense of the kind of percentages what that looks like, how many churches out there?
Gail Ewell — Yeah I don’t know the percentages but when I’m ah in social media and I’m on support groups and I’m following ah parents that have huge followings…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Gail Ewell — …you know with special needs families, there are so there are good works out there. There are people reaching out. There are activities. Um, but I think it’s what you said, it’s It’s few.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Gail Ewell — You know there’s not compared to how many people there are and how many churches there are.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Gail Ewell — I think most people can get intimidated by it. I was telling one of my friends a story about when um I was in high school and you know they ask you what do you want… they kind of help you with what do you want to be career building or whatever. And they sent me to back then an institution where all the ah people with down syndrome were put. And it was terrible experience for me. And I remember walking out of there going I never want to work with people with special needs. I was too afraid of what I saw.
Rich Birch — Right.
Gail Ewell — Of course now they don’t have those institutions, but it’s much different for people now in that sense. But um I think a lot of times fear…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Gail Ewell — …can keep us from opening up our ministries because we fear of the unknown, I suppose.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Gail Ewell — I don’t know anything about it. Or I don’t know oh that’s going to be too hard or it’s going to burn us all out or it’s going to take up too many resources or. And they don’t understand that really it it just starts with a big heart to love people and be a friend and reach out and meet a need. And and I think God blesses it. He he you know was at John 9 where he talks about the man born blind and he says that the parents didn’t sin. It’s because the work of God was meant to be seen through his life.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Gail Ewell — And I think that that’s what God can do.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Gail Ewell — He can show the he can show the light. He can show the work. He can show your hearts.
Rich Birch — Yeah, amen. That’s so good. Well I think that’s a great place to to to land it. I think that’s a great kind of even you know, kind of final thought there. But as we wrap up, kind of any any final words then I want to make sure that we give out contact information, websites, all that stuff so people can track. Because I think this is a great story and there’s going to be churches that are going to want to know more about it. But any kind of final words and then how can people track with you and the church.
Gail Ewell — Ah, final word. My final words would be believe that you can make a difference. Believe that you can listen. You can be a friend. Reach out to your neighbor. Reach out to the people at school. Understand and believe that you can really help, you know.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Gail Ewell — Try not to judge. You know when you see the boy at the Target having a meltdown, you know be just reach out and be a friend. Is there anything I can do for you?
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Gail Ewell — Um, you know I think we’ve developed a spiritual resource manual that’s coming soon. We have updated an old one and so you can register for access and um on that on the website I’ll I’ll give to you all the websites. And you can access that manual which will give you a lot of hands-on tactics and practical advice about how to start your spiritual resource ministry or how to start an E-sports or an E-activities in your community. So there’s a lot of ah resources we have online if people want to register for access…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Gail Ewell — …to the spiritual resource manual.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. I’ll I’ll put a link to that in the in the show notes. But I think that’s just at bacc.cc/srm for folks that are listening in.
Gail Ewell — Yes.
Rich Birch — Um, but we’ll ah we’ll we’ll put a link in the show notes as well for that. I would encourage people to pick that up. Well this has been a fantastic conversation, Gail. I really appreciate you being here today. Thanks so much for being on.
Gail Ewell — Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
This week, we delve into the highlights of the XP Summit 2024, or XPS, as it’s affectionately known within the executive pastor community. Held at the vibrant Flatirons Church in Denver, this year’s event was a powerhouse of insights, connections, and practical takeaways for church leaders. Here are some key points from my solo podcast episode recapping the event.
The Essence of XPSThe XP Summit is an annual gathering that brings together executive pastors from across the country to share, learn, and grow. While the content is always top-notch, what truly sets XPS apart is the emphasis on building lasting relationships. It’s not just about what you learn, but who you meet. These connections become invaluable when navigating the inevitable challenges of church leadership.
Organizational Doubt: A Model for UnderstandingOne of the standout sessions was led by Jesse DeYoung, the lead executive pastor at Flatirons Church. Jesse unpacked a fascinating model for understanding organizational doubt, breaking it down into five levels:
- Suspended Doubt: Complete confidence in the organization.
- Operational Doubt: Questions about the efficiency of processes.
- Ideological Doubt: Concerns about the mission and relevance of the organization.
- Ethical Doubt: Doubts about the integrity or capability of leadership.
- Absolute Doubt: Pervasive doubt affecting all aspects of the organization.
Jesse emphasized the importance of addressing doubts early, as unresolved doubts can escalate, ultimately leading to disengagement or departures. A key takeaway was that individuals often express doubt one level higher than they actually feel, making it crucial to dig deeper into their concerns.
Check out Jesse’ past podcast: Rebuilding a Team Culture That Was Broken with Jesse DeYoung
Leadership Stages: Seasons of ContributionLee Coates from Las Vegas presented a compelling framework for understanding the different stages of leadership based on age and contribution:
- Prince/Princess (18-25 years): Driven by passion and curiosity but prone to entitlement.
- Warrior/Warrioress (25-40 years): Focused on energy and purpose, with burnout as a potential dark side.
- King/Queen (40-60 years): Valued for experience and direction but must guard against disengagement.
- Sage/Muse (60+ years): Offer wisdom and advisory support, yet must avoid pushing personal agendas.
Lee highlighted the importance of recognizing and nurturing the unique contributions of leaders at each stage, ensuring a balanced and effective team.
Check out Lee’s past episode: Reflecting on Seasons of Life, Leadership & Their Impact on Your Team with Lee Coate
Target Audiences: Actual vs. AspirationalKayra Montañez from Liquid Church shared insightful strategies on identifying and targeting different audience segments. Liquid Church focuses on both actual and aspirational target audiences to align their ministry efforts effectively. The key groups they are addressing include:
- Millennial Moms: Helping them navigate the chaos of daily life.
- 20-Somethings: Supporting them through the challenges of adulting.
- Men in Midlife (Aspirational): Addressing the struggles of midlife crises.
- Singles Seeking Support (Aspirational): Providing a community for singles across all age groups.
By clearly defining these audiences, Liquid Church can tailor its outreach and support efforts, ensuring they meet the needs of their community effectively.
ConclusionXPS 2024 was a treasure trove of insights and practical advice for executive pastors. From understanding and managing organizational doubt to recognizing the unique contributions of leaders at different stages and targeting key audience segments, the takeaways were both profound and actionable.
If you missed this year’s event, I highly encourage you to register for XPS 2025, which will be held at Bridge Church in Franklin, Tennessee. Don’t miss the chance to connect with fellow leaders, gain new insights, and build relationships that will support you throughout your ministry journey.
Thanks for joining us for the unSeminary podcast. We’re welcoming back Phil Taylor, a seasoned leader with over 20 years of experience in various pastoral roles and a passion for helping pastors turn vision into reality, which he does through his ministry, Backstage Pastors.
Tune in as Phil shares insights on the importance of the Executive Pastor’s role in the church and how they can build their relationship with the staff and Lead Pastor.
- The Executive Pastor role. // Over the last ten years, there’s been a big shift in churches accepting and understanding the need for the executive pastor (XP) role. Churches recognize that they are more effective when they have strong second-chair leaders that have both the skills and authority to make change happen. Many churches now have multiple executive pastors, often dividing responsibilities between ministry and operations. Sometimes an XP even takes on more of a co-pastor role with the lead teaching pastor.
- When do you need an XP? // Deciding whether a church needs an executive pastor can be based on the style of the lead pastor. A big vision thinker will often need an executive pastor to work with him sooner. A lead pastor who is more comfortable thinking strategically about details may be able to get by longer without an XP. But when you get to the 1500 range in attendance, Phil recommends that your church explores hiring an executive pastor.
- Be attentive to the soul. // Phil has found, in his coaching work, that executive pastors aren’t always as attentive to their own souls as they could be, being focused more on getting things done. Given the task-oriented nature of XPs, they must be intentional about attending to their emotional and spiritual well-being. The updated edition of Phil’s book, Defining the Executive Pastor Role, delves into this crucial topic, encouraging leaders to cultivate emotional intelligence and engage in spiritual disciplines, such as observing a sabbath.
- Be aware of your impact on the staff. // Because executive pastors tend to be more driven and high capacity, it can create feelings of unrest on the church staff when people feel they need to be doing as much as the executive pastor. Don’t make others feel guilty for being gifted differently. Approach your people with a soul-focused attitude, and step back from the focus on the work, turning again to worship.
- Ease into the role. // Two of the chapters in Phil’s book talk about next steps for the new or aspiring executive pastor and their first year in a new church. One thing new executive pastors often forget is that people can struggle with change. Don’t jump into making a lot of changes in your first year unless they are immediately necessary; rather, take time to earn trust.
- Build the LP/XP relationship. // The relationship between the executive pastor and the lead pastor is the most important one in the church because it sets the tone for the church and the staff culture. It requires weekly time together, open communication, honesty, and a commitment to avoiding triangulation. It’s essential to honor each other publicly and work collaboratively to steer the church towards its vision.
- Plain Joe Studios. // Another way that Phil helps pastors turn vision to reality is with his work at Plain Joe Studios. Plain Joe helps churches, Christian schools, and not-for-profits tell their stories more effectively. They have a personality profile that can help churches better understand who they are and how they are different from other churches in their city.
You can find Phil’s updated edition of Defining the Executive Pastor Role on Amazon and learn more about his other resources at www.backstagepastors.org. You can also email Phil for help or coaching.
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: *The Giving Church*
As a church leader you know that your ability to execute your vision comes down to Staffing, Facilities and Programming. All of those needs are fueled by one thing: Generosity. The Giving Church, led by Generosity Coach and Founder, Phil Ling, has worked with nearly 1000 churches of all sizes in over 40 different denominations and raised over a billion dollars to fuel ministry. Don’t run out of fuel for your ministry. Transform your ministry with innovative capital campaigns and leadership coaching.
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Well, hey, everybody welcome to the unSeminary podcast. I am so glad that you have decided to tune in today. Really looking forward to today’s conversation, with today we’ve got Phil Taylor with us. He’s been on before and we’re having him back, a return guest. And you know when we have return guest that means people we really like and we want to continue to tap their expertise. For people that don’t remember Phil spent twenty plus years serving in churches of all different sizes as executive pastor, lead pastor and you know while simultaneously serving pastors across the country through leadership cohorts, individual coaching, teaching at conferences. He’s author of a number of different books Defining the Executive Pasture Role, Elder Leadership ah Development from Application to Affirmation. Really these are two books of a series called The Backstage Pastor Series. On top of this coaching he helps churches through ah um, an organization called Backstage Pastor Backstage Pastors. Plus, he also works, his day job on top of all that, his day job is at Plain Joe. We love the Plain Joe guys – A Storyland Studio. Super excited to have Phil on. Phil, ah glad you’re here. Fill in the picture, kind of tell us a bit what did I miss there? That’s obviously the the bio stuff but what did I miss that we want to make sure people hear about?
Phil Taylor — No, that’s great man. it’s it’s it’s so good to be back on the show. And you know, really the the orienting direction of my life is to help pastors bring vision into reality. And sometimes that happens. Through Plain Joe Studios helping ah a new building get built, or a new brand get realized or something like that. And sometimes it happens through ah coaching an executive pastor, or somebody who wishes they had an executive pastor. Or um, speaking at a conference or writing a book, whatever it might be. But the the orienting direction is bringing vision into reality and how do I how do we help leaders do that most effectively.
Rich Birch — Yeah, so cool. Well friends, I want to be completely honest. I think that Phil’s book, well first of all, you know that we love executive pastor here at unSeminary. You know we’ve got a lot of folks that are in that seat or executive pastor adjacent roles. And Phil’s book, Defining the Executive Pastor Role, from my perspective is ah a must read for anybody in the executive pastor role. It’s I think it’s must read for like a lead pastor who’s thinking about adding an executive pastor. This is a great resource. And I noticed that there’s a second edition coming up and we’ve got it’s a 10 year it’s all I can’t believe it’s been almost ten years since the release of that book, and so I wanted to get Phil back on to talk about really the executive pastor role and kind of what’s changed and what’s new. He has a unique perspective on this because of his ah, you know his vantage point.
Rich Birch — So I wanted to talk a little bit about that so why don’t we start there. When you think about you know the executive pastor role, what has happened what’s changed over the last ten years?
Phil Taylor — Yeah.
Rich Birch — What are some of those things when you look back and you say, oh this is maybe a little bit different than where we were ten years ago?
Phil Taylor — Yeah, it’s crazy. Ten years ago it was still really a new role that a lot of people just didn’t even understand or know anything about. Churches where sort of still discovering that role. And so I think one thing that’s changed is that there’s there’s really wide acceptance…
Rich Birch — So true.
Phil Taylor — …on the part of churches and church leadership on the need for it. So that’s one really big change. Like nobody’s saying like what what now? Why do… who? what? executive what?
Rich Birch — Um, what is that role? Yes, yes.
Phil Taylor — You know so people are a lot more open to just even having one, which is great. And of course that has triggered a lot more people ah, wanting to enter into the space so you’ve got a lot more people that are are aspiring to that role, which I love to see, because I really do believe the churches are more effective when they have strong second second chair leaders that are not just not just operating out of a good skill but also have the permission or authority ah, to be able to make change happen and to bring good things into reality. Um, and so there’s some awesome things that are happening there. I think another big change that I’ve seen is um, the idea that um, many churches have multiple executive pastors now.
Phil Taylor — So that’s that’s ah a really new thing that just wasn’t around before. Churches would have one if they had any, and and maybe you know if you were in a church of 20,000 people or something they might have a couple of people. But ah the idea that that you in a church of say 1500 it’s become much more common to have multiple. Usually it gets split down the lines of ministry or leadership, like staff oversight, and then the other side is usually operations. So you’ll see a lot of churches that are kind of bifurcating the role. Some are having three ah, you know that’s become much more common. And then I think an an interesting trend recently is that sometimes the executive pastor is actually taking on a lead pastor title and functioning in more of a co-pastoring role with a lead teaching pastor. So just some interesting developments happening there. Yeah.
Rich Birch — Um, yeah, that’s interesting how it keeps you know evolving and I think we see this as a real critical role so much for sure for churches as they grow beyond that, you know, eight hundred or a thousand. Actually that might be an interesting reflection, where do you see this role, you know, start to be common. You know where it starts to be like hey this is you know is there a church size, is there a kind of telltale signs that churches end up, you know, starting to see in their environment that drive them towards saying hey maybe we should add this?
Phil Taylor — Yeah I think it actually has more to do at the smaller sizes with the the style of the lead pastor. So if you’ve got like a kind of a classic big vision thinker who is the lead pastor, um, that person is usually going to need an executive pastor at smaller size. Ah whereas um, if you’ve got an executive pastor who, excuse me, a lead pastor who has a little more of an administrative mind ah they perhaps are a little more comfortable thinking strategically, not I don’t mean big picture strategy, but like a little more of the details, they can often get by longer without one.
Phil Taylor — But by the time you’re up into the 1500 range pretty much you know every church nowadays is going to have an executive pastor or at least somebody doing that role whether they carry that title or not. Yeah.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, they might be called something else for sure.
Phil Taylor — Exactly.
Rich Birch — I’ve had that happen you interact with leaders and and they I’m like well what do you do? And they tell you a little bit about. I’m like, oh you’re the executive pastor. You don’t have that title, but that’s that’s what you’re doing.
Phil Taylor — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Um, now so let’s help me ah, ah, kind of debunk this. So executive pastor – there’s people who would say, hey man, those two words don’t fit together. How can you be both an executive someone who is like maybe interested in systems and, you know, it can even come off as like business-y.
Phil Taylor — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And then pastor isn’t that about being a shepherd, caring for people. How do those two fit together?
Phil Taylor — Right. So I think there’s I think we actually tend to fall on one side or the other. In the book I talk about the idea of the the capital “E” versus lowercase “p” executive pastor, right? So do you lean on the executive side, or do you lean on the pastor side? And it’s been my experience that people that lean on the executive side, you know, they often are coming from the business world. Ah, and those that lean on the pastoral side maybe were in a different role in the church before.
Phil Taylor — And so it’s it’s really just a matter of of saying. Okay there are times when I need to put on the executive hat and I need to operate out of out of that part of my skill set. And then there are other times when I need to put that away and put on the pastor hat and and really operate out that out of that skill set. And the trick is to know which, you know, which hat you’re supposed to be wearing when. And I find actually that that can that can be difficult sometimes when you wear the wrong hat at the wrong time that can be that can create some problems in your church. So.
Rich Birch — Um, well one of the chapters I noticed that you added that I’d love for you to unpack a little bit is the the soul of the executive pastor, speaking about really heart issues and kind of the interior life of of these roles.
Phil Taylor — Yeah.
Rich Birch — What was it that led you to the place where you’re like, oh this is the conversation we need to have. We need to to kind of turn up the volume on that?
Phil Taylor — Yeah, absolutely yeah I’m I’m really excited about that particular chapter and the impact that it might have on perhaps even the executive pastor culture. So you know one of the things that I’ve noticed in coaching executive pastors now for, I don’t know, 15 years or so, is that um we as ah, a species of of pastors – the executive pastor type person – we’re not always as attentive to our souls as we could be. We could be a little driven, right? Or a lot driven, you know, or kind of the get stuff done kind of people, kind of task oriented, right? And so um I see that in in the pastors that I coach and I see it in myself as well. And so um, the idea of of looking at matters of the soul sometimes doesn’t come out as strong for us, right? In fact, even the idea the soul of the executive pastor, I had one person joked that it was an oxymoron.
Rich Birch — Oh gosh.
Phil Taylor — That we actually do have souls.
Rich Birch — Oh yeah, yeah.
Phil Taylor — So um, so you know for for me that journey of discovery it really started not long after I wrote the first edition of the book. And so for me, it’s been about 10 years digging into that and really looking into you know the concepts surrounding emotional health or emotional intelligence EQ, right? Some of the softer skills of leadership and just really paying more attention to the way that I even practice the spiritual disciplines. And adding that layer of ability to my leadership I think is super important.
Phil Taylor — For me personally I have to work extra hard at those things. I have to work extra hard on emotional intelligence. I have to work work extra hard and active listening, and just some of the the important pieces around being aware of some of those those less task-oriented skills. I’ll say it that way.
Phil Taylor — And so you know I’ll do this thing with with pastors that I coach in the first session world. We’ll talk through some of the things that they really want to go after in their time with me. And I would say like 75% of the time that I’m coaching a a new or existing executive pastor, the idea of emotional intelligence is almost always in their list of things they want to go after. And the reason why is because they’ve tripped over it, and so have I.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yep.
Phil Taylor — And so when you when you trip over that and you end up you know, causing hurt for somebody or you end up being too direct with someone and you’re not reading the room properly, whatever it might be um, you recognize then that there’s ah, there’s a layer of leadership here that needs to be added for my effectiveness to continue. And so I think that’s super super important.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. Can you give us an example of maybe some coaching that you give to executive pastors to be more aware of their emotional intelligence or to lean into that more or, you know, a telltale sign that maybe they need to do that more. Give us a little bit of what how that conversation goes with that looks like.
Phil Taylor — Sure, sure. So I think um, you know, there’s a lot of different directions that it goes but I’ll try to just pick maybe one or two. Um a lot of times as I’m talking with an executive pastor, one of the things that will that will sort of rise to the surface is that they’re they’re not super aware of how their pace of work is impacting the people around them. So I you know I had somebody tell me one time that that executive pastors seem to have like this, at least some of them, perhaps the classic type of executive pastor seems to have like some sort of superhuman ability at just getting stuff done.
Rich Birch — Right.
Phil Taylor — Like it’s it’s it’s confusing to other people around them. They’re often like threes on the enneagram or something like that, and they just get stuff done all the time. Well, the interesting thing is that for those around them, that can actually create feelings of unrest. That can create you know feelings of like well I’m not doing as much as that person. Or whatever it might be. And so even just recognizing that perhaps God’s giving you a bigger plate. You know we talk about how much can go on a plate and I think God sometimes just gives certain people a bigger plate for whatever reason he’s given them the ability to squeeze more in.
Phil Taylor — And so to be able to say, hey you know what, like one, let’s not make others feel guilty for for being gifted differently. Um, but two, um, where where do the spiritual disciplines fit in for you? What does sabbath look like for you?
Rich Birch — Oh That’s good. Yep.
Phil Taylor — Are you taking a sabbath, you know, or does sabbath feel like an afterthought? Are you actually going to church when you go to church on Sunday? I remember you know realizing one Sunday that our church had had 6 services that day and I had sort of danced around the edges of church all day long. Like I’m standing outside of some amazing party and never going into it, you know. And it was because I was just running around putting out fires and shaking hands and dealing with you know, a big, a big church and thousands of people, and saying, gosh like I actually didn’t go to church today. That’s not good for my soul. And so just you know recognizing that.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Phil Taylor — And and just see looking for ways to um, approach your people with a different attitude, more of a soul-focused attitude. Yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s good. I know for me one of the, yeah, I definitely have seen that pace of work and that may not, can be interpreted, you know, in a like by people around you as like either, you know, you can send messages that you’re not necessarily sending wanting to send.
Phil Taylor — Right.
Rich Birch — And so I know for me a practical thing on that front has been to have a really kind of open conversation around, you know, the form of communication that I use with you articulates what I’m thinking about…
Phil Taylor — Yes.
Rich Birch — …on response time. So like if I send you an email, I’m not anticipating that you’re going to get back to me right away.
Phil Taylor — Right.
Rich Birch — My expectation is that would be within a day.
Phil Taylor — Yeah.
Rich Birch — You know if I send you an email, if I email you on Saturday I’ll have a random thought Saturday afternoon, I send you an email, I do not expect you to get back to me until Monday…
Phil Taylor — Yes.
Rich Birch — …or whenever your next you know, kind of workday is. And then text messages, same thing. Like hey if I text you I’d love to hear back in an hour, but you know it’s not like a, you know it’d be great to hear quickly, but you know you know it’s not, you know you do you don’t have to step out of the conversation you’re in now give it in in another hour. It’s totally fine. Now if I call you, if I actually pick up the phone and call you, then that’s when I’m saying, I actually really do need to talk to you.
Phil Taylor — This is important. Yeah.
Rich Birch — Like there is something… And it’s amazing how much just defining those with people can relieve the pressure. And obviously for the people among us who yeah, most of our staff are not people that are struggling with the opposite problem, which is you know they’re not responding, but that does help with those folks as well. But most people they are like, oh okay I feel better I feel better because I realize the way you’re communicating to me, you know, it kind of matches the communication that I’m expecting back. Because I think it’s that there is that problem of like just because I’m working on stuff doesn’t necessarily mean, I’m clear trying to clear my deck, doesn’t mean that I expect you to be doing the same thing at the same exact time. Um, you know that I found that helpful, um, particularly on that you know you know we have different work pacing and all that as as leaders. Um, yeah, that’s interesting. That’s cool.
Rich Birch — But one of the things I noticed in the book was you talked about um, really new executive pastors, new aspiring first year as a new, you know, at a new church that kind of stuff. Are there some telltale maybe mistakes that executive pastors make where they… help us avoid the pothole, help us avoid maybe the landmine even, of like oh this is a thing I see happen all the time where it goes sideways when someone starts in this role.
Phil Taylor — Yeah, that’s that’s um, two of the chapters. One of them is next steps for the new or aspiring executive pastor and then the other one is your first year in the new church. So I think um I love new executive pastors. I love working with new executive pastors. That kind of freshness is is really fun to work with.
Phil Taylor — But you know one of the things that that I think a new executive pastor might frequently mess up is um, they they recognize that they’ve been hired as a change agent, right? So they know that they’ve been brought in to to bring bring some order to something or get things moving in the right direction. Whatever it might be. There was a need and they were brought in to fill that need. But what what is easy to forget is that people really struggle with change, right? So um I will usually say, hey be really careful what you change in your first year, you know?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Phil Taylor — It’s important that you don’t step into that too quickly. And really ask yourself like is this a change that could wait until like year two when I’ve got a little more trust, you know?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Phil Taylor — So I’ll I’ll give ah I’ll give a negative example from my own journey. Um in in one of my churches there was ah a real need for a refresh of the branding. And and for some unknown reason I decided to tackle that in my first year. And and it it really ah, it really burned some some credibility and trust with the team that I was trying to get to know. And in retrospect I wish I’d waited a few years…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Phil Taylor — …I think I probably could have gotten a better results if I waited a little bit longer on that. Um, but then on on ah on a more positive side, sometimes you step in and there’s change that’s needed right away and the reason why you were hired was to have the courage to make it, you know?
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Phil Taylor — And so it might be something as silly as like um, you know there’s there’s no ushers helping people find seats and you say, well gosh, like where are the ushers? You know?
Rich Birch — Right.
Phil Taylor — We want people to just find their seats on their own…
Rich Birch — Right.
Phil Taylor — …you know, haphazardly. Let’s let’s maybe help them a little bit. It’s a big church.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, yes.
Phil Taylor — Yeah um, and and so sometimes you solve a problem when you’re solving a problem that everybody knows is an issue that nobody’s going to complain that you made that change. One of the churches I was at was really paying its its staff well below proper rates. Nobody complained…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Phil Taylor — …when I fixed their pay in the first year, right? Nobody said could we wait a couple of years to do a raise for me I’d really rather wait…
Rich Birch — Yeah, I’d like to take longer on that. That’s funny.
Phil Taylor — Yeah, nobody complained about that one. So yeah I think just recognizing like what change is appropriate for early and earlier and what needs to wait a year or 2 until you have to trust to do it.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. One of the things you know I do a fair amount of coaching with churches as well and one of the um, kind of it’s a little bit comical, but also speaks to I think some of the issues that we face as as executive pastors is there are two conversations that happen on a fairly regular basis. One would be with an with a lead pastor who at some point in the couple days I’m with them pulls me aside and says you know I just I just love our our executive pastor, man. Phil’s just so good. He gets everything done. So good with the team that guy’s amazing with the checklist. That guy is good on the email but can you help me get along with them, like help me kind of relationally.
Phil Taylor — Rght.
Rich Birch — Or at some point the executive pastor pulls me inside and says, man I just love my lead pastor – that person, Phil’s incredible. Preaches like nobody else – I think they’re God’s gift to communication and cast a big vision, and man, I would follow that person into the fire, but can can you help me with the relationship, like I just feel like maybe we’re we’re missing each other.
Phil Taylor — Yeah, yeah.
Rich Birch — Talk to me about that. What what are you I want to take advantage of your expertise. What what do you say if somebody on either side of those, really, it’s about this relationship with the lead pastor. How on either side of that conversation, what can we do to make that even better?
Phil Taylor — It’s so important. It’s the most important relationship in the entire church staff…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Phil Taylor — …because it it sets the tone for everything. It sets the tone for the church and staff culture. It sets the tone for the staff feeling at ease with their leadership. And and the staff knows when the LP and XP are not getting along very well. They know it.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Phil Taylor —They sense it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Phil Taylor —Just like kids know when mom and dad are fighting. And so it’s super important to give that relationship more attention than probably any other relationship on the staff. And so I think you know very similar to a marriage um, you know time is going to be the absolute key. You’ve got to get a regular amount of time together. I think meeting weekly is critical for the XP/LP relationship. Um, there’s got to be a great deal of honesty between those two people. Um, if if either person is is not sharing fully with the other person…
Rich Birch — Right.
Phil Taylor — …it’s a recipe for disaster. Um, there can be zero triangulation, right? So in other words, if if somebody comes to the lead pastor and says a staff member comes to the lead pastor and says I’m struggling with the executive pastor in this way or vice versa, right? Somebody comes to the executive pastor and says I’m struggling with the lead pastor in this way, you cannot give in the triangulation.
Rich Birch — Right. That’s so good.
Phil Taylor — You’ve got to figure out right away. Well wait a minute is this something that you should have just gone to him about and talked directly to him? Because if you haven’t I’m going to send you back there.
Rich Birch — Right.
Phil Taylor — And and so if you ever if you ever find yourself getting into you know triangulation, three different people. No one’s talking to the right person. You know the lead pastor or the executive pastor has to shut that down…
Rich Birch — Yeah, you got to shut it down for sure. Yeah.
Phil Taylor — …right away. Because it’ll it’ll it’ll just create a toxic culture right away. So yeah I think time, honesty super important. And then I think like honoring each other publicly.
Phil Taylor — So you know let let’s say you’re the executive pastor and and in your church that means that that you preach say 10 times a year, right? Um when you get up to preach you know and you’re referencing perhaps the passage of scripture that the lead pastor was in the prior week. You know, toss in a little man Pastor Steve sermon from last week, I got so much out of that.
Rich Birch — So good.
Phil Taylor — And yeah I learned this from it, and so now as we head into chapter 2, you know, so you’re just got to you’re doing a little plug there, right?
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Phil Taylor — Um, and and just kind of honoring each other publicly I think is super important.
Rich Birch — Yeah that’s so good. I know I found very similarly I think a part of what I found when I was in that role, I found that with our staff team there is like um a weird thing that can happen in a church where if the lead pastor is the primary communicator and they, which is obviously really super common. You know they’re teaching thirty forty times a year. There’s like an assumption that can happen internally around like well we just kind of assume that that person, you know, ah, is going to do that every week and it’s going to be amazing. And and there can be an undercurrent of like how hard is that anyways?
Phil Taylor — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Like all they do is pull that message together. And I found that a part of my job was to defend that internally and to extinguish anything that smells like that internally and say, listen, I am glad—like you said the example of Steve—man I am so glad that that Steve works week in week out to ensure that we’ve got great teaching at the church and that takes you know the the toll that that takes on him as an individual, the toll that takes on her to prep all that to pull that together, man I am just so thankful that they’re willing to do that for us. Um, that even that alone that gets noticed by the you know the lead pastor. They see that kind of like oh they’re really in my corner. And and they also can um you know they can you can say that as an XP and and kind of value raise the value of teaching as an XP in a way that they that’s good for the church but in a way that is the lead pastor Frankly, just can’t do because they’re the one that speaks on a regular basis, you know.
Phil Taylor — Right exactly.
Rich Birch — And it’s just kind of weird for them to be like, you know, teaching’s really important, you know? So um, yeah, interesting. Interesting. Yeah, that that’s I to me I think is such a critical piece of this this relationship piece is so ah, you know is so important to the overall picture of you know how this this works.
Rich Birch — So let’s talk a little bit about the book. So you pulled the book together. You’ve you’ve re- kind of cast it. You’ve you know gone over it, added a few chapters. Was there anything else about this update addition you want to make sure people are aware about that that you know you made changes that you want to kind of highlight to folks?
Phil Taylor — Yeah, I think every page is different. You know it’s It’s even more than just adding a few new chapters. Every single chapter has been expanded or updated.
Rich Birch — Right.
Phil Taylor — There’s not a page that that remain the same.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Phil Taylor — So it’s it’s truly ah, a brand new book. Um, and I’m just super excited to see you know the first one kind of traveled around the globe unexpectedly, and and and had an impact in places that I just wouldn’t have anticipated. And so I’m I’m just really I’m humbled by that and I’m excited to see how God uses this next one.
Phil Taylor — I think um you know I’m sure you’ve seen this with some of your podcast work rich but it’s always amazing to me when somebody says that they actually changed careers based on something that you’ve written or or done, right?
Rich Birch — Oh sure. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah.
Phil Taylor — And and I’m I’m so humbled by that to know that there are actually executive pastors who chose the role after reading the first edition of the book. And so you know some of the new chapters that I added really are are written for those people who are ah maybe you’re functioning as a discipleship pastor, or you know some other role in the church and you’re you’re thinking perhaps I might actually be called into the executive pastor role that critical second chair role. Ah this book is for you. It’s it’s meant it’s meant to encourage you, and and help you discern that, you know to really listen to the Spirit’s guidance and direction and um and and find some discernment there for your own life.
Rich Birch — Love it. Your your book also tell us a little bit about the second book in your series. It’s Eldership Development from Application to Affirmation. Again, one of these, not a lot, in fact I can’t think of any other books that are on that specific ah topic, but man critically important. We all know that the you know the selection and kind of care and feeding of elders. There’s stuff out there on like nonprofit boards. Sure, some of that’s applicable. Um, there’s overlap there but eldership has its you know has some uniqueness to it that we need to do well. Talk to us a little bit about that resource as well.
Phil Taylor — So there’s lots of great books on on eldership that focus on the theology of an elder, right? Or the theory of an elder – how how they should look, what they should do. There’s lots of great books on that. Half a dozen, you know think of Alexander Strauch or Gene Getz, or just a bunch of different good books on that topic. And and usually they’ll those books will spend maybe a few pages or at best half a chapter on what it looks like to actually develop those others. How do you actually get them, right? And so I’m ah I’m a systems guy – I think in strategic systems. And so when I when I built a system over a number of years at a couple of different churches, I had a number of pastors asking me for it and so I…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Phil Taylor — I just put it together into a book and said well, if it’s valuable to me, maybe it’s valuable to others. And so my my goal with the book was to save pastors a hundred hours…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Phil Taylor — …in in building their own system, right? Like I said the the first time that I see an Amazon review that says this book saved me a hundred hours…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Phil Taylor — …I’ll know that I succeeded.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Phil Taylor — Right? And there’s there’s a few of them on there that say that actually…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great.
Phil Taylor — …so I was really pleased. But yeah, that’s that’s the goal is to just say, look um if I happen to be good at thinking this way, let me take what I’m good at and give it to you as a as a gift…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Phil Taylor — …and you can now take it and and build it in your church. And I even I give away the Word files that are associated with it. So people email me and say can I get those Word files. Great take them.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Phil Taylor — Edit them at will…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Phil Taylor — …I don’t care what you do with it. You know?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good.
Phil Taylor — So yeah.
Rich Birch — That’s so good. Well where where can people pick up… I want to so like, friends, I said this at the beginning I think. You know both of these are great resources. Obviously we’re primarily talking about the executive pastor book. But I I really do think that this is essential reading. This is you know it’s it’s a great book for people who are either thinking about this, are you know wrestling with it. Are you know like I said lead pastors who are thinking, hm maybe I should add an executive pastor? Maybe you’re wondering what that could look like or or maybe you know you’re you’re talking about that you know relationship thing that I talked about earlier that. Maybe you’re a lead pastor or an executive pastor and you’d say hey why don’t we read this book together…
Phil Taylor — Read it together. Yeah.
Rich Birch — …to help us, you know, as a third party. Um, obviously on top of that you could actually just get Phil. He’ll help you work through that as well. Ah, but where can people pick up this. So again, it’s Defining the Executive Pastor Role. It’s a part of the Backstage Pastor Series – Bringing Vision into Reality. But where where do we want to send people to pick up copies of that?
Phil Taylor — Yeah – amazon.com easiest place to do it. And the funny thing about republishing a book, Rich, is that Amazon takes a little while to figure out that you you you want to point people towards the new book. So ah…
Rich Birch — Right.
Phil Taylor — So when you go to amazon.com you’re just going to want to make sure that you you grab the one that has a little badge on the front that says 10 year anniversary edition.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Phil Taylor — It it should be pretty obvious when you go there. But otherwise you may end up accidentally buying the old one because it’s somebody’s used copy that they listed for sale or something like that.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s…
Phil Taylor — But but yeah, it’s it’s should be there on Amazon ready to go.
Rich Birch — Nice.
Phil Taylor — And I’m excited to see see it impact others.
Rich Birch — Well, that’s good. Yeah. I’d love like again, friends, I’d love for—we’ll put a link in the show notes to that as well—but we would love for you to pick up ah copies of that.
Rich Birch — So talk to me about your day job as well. So you work with Plain Joe Studios – love those guys. They do good work. But talk to me about what you do with Plain Joe for people that are unaware of Plain Joe.
Phil Taylor — Sure.
Rich Birch — What ah how do you help churches? What are the kind of problems that you’re helping churches solve?
Phil Taylor — Yeah, so we we come alongside of churches, Christian schools, not-for-profits and help them tell their story more effectively. And that’s going to happen in a few different ways. I think a lot of people come to Plain Joe when they’ve got a building that they need to build, perhaps brand new, and they want to think through what that building should be. Or they’ve got a building that they’ve perhaps purchased and they want to renovate it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Phil Taylor — Or they’ve got an old building, they’ve been living in for 50 years and it’s time to update it and bring it up into current worlds, whether that’s kids ministry or lobby space or whatever it might be. Just breathing some new life into an existing building. But the the important thing there is that we’re we’re figuring out what your story is and we’re telling that story well. That’s the goal.
Phil Taylor — And then of course you know you you start to look at this building that you’ve just updated and you say, well gosh, do we want to put our old logo back up on that new building? And so that triggers a lot of conversations around branding and ah, thinking through what that looks like. And a lot of churches really don’t have a good handle on what their story is, and so a lot of times we’re we’re starting off the whole process by just taking a church through what we call our personality profile where we help them really understand what who are you? What is your story? What is what is different about you and in your city compared to other churches? And so you know taking a day to really discover that together.
Phil Taylor — Even renaming a lot of times we’re renaming churches and and helping them think through I’ve renamed gosh, half a dozen churches in the last year and a half.
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Phil Taylor — And and that’s a lot of fun to be able to just take a church that maybe has had had a name that made a lot of sense a hundred years ago and and that name just means something different today that those words meet something different today than they did a hundred years ago. So yeah, telling your story well. Buildings, brands, websites, AR, VR, strategic thinking, all of that, storytelling. That’s it.
Rich Birch — Love it. Love it. Well, that’s maybe a topic for the next ah, next time we have you on. That would be a fascinating tap tap your expertise around renaming and what are some things that churches should think about if they’re if they’re wrestling through that. Because I feel like I bump into that all the time where people are… it’s like ah it’s like a question that’s floating in the back of a lot of church leaders brains.
Phil Taylor — Should we? Yes.
Rich Birch — They’re like ah, man, should we do this? And and then they get tripped up on the you know I’m not even sure what that would look like, so that might be an interesting thing we could talk about.
Phil Taylor — Yeah, so we got a whole process we take churches through on that.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Phil Taylor — It’s it’s it’s actually really fun. It’s it’s it’s pretty fun to help church rename. So.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. Great. Well thanks so much, Phil. Is there anywhere, you know, we want to send people online to connect with you…
Phil Taylor — Sure.
Rich Birch — …or to connect with, you know, Plain Joe, Backstage Pastors – give us where we want to send people online.
Phil Taylor — Yeah, ah my website is backstagepastors.org. And you are welcome to email me phil@backstagepasors.org. And I generally answer all of my email…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Phil Taylor — …so you can be you’ll be sure to get a response back. So.
Rich Birch — Love it. Thanks so much, sir, appreciate you being here and all the best on the relaunch of the book.
Phil Taylor — Thanks, Rich! Good to see ya, man.
We’re aiming for what might be called the Goldilocks growth rate—quick enough to make a substantial impact but sustainable so it doesn’t overwhelm your resources or team. To achieve this, we’ve identified that retaining 26% of new guests is pivotal.
To effectively double a church’s attendance from 1,000 to 2,000 members over 1,000 days, or about three years, it’s crucial to focus on both attracting and retaining new guests. Aiming for a 3% increase in new guests weekly means approximately 30 new guests each week for a church of 1,000 members, totalling about 1,560 new guests annually. The goal is to retain 26% of these guests, which translates to around 406 individuals becoming regular attendees over the year. This strategic approach of engaging and retaining new guests is essential for meeting the ambitious growth target and ensuring a vibrant, expanding church community. These figures highlight the importance of a structured engagement pathway that supports sustainable growth through clear, actionable steps.
The Concept of Engagement Over AssimilationWe’re shifting the focus from assimilation—a somewhat outdated and impersonal concept—to engagement, which centers on the guest’s active participation and integration into the church community. This strategic pivot is more about inviting people into an ongoing interaction rather than merging them into a pre-set mold.
The Three “Ones” of an Effective Engagement Pathway1. One Experience: Create a clear, engaging first step for newcomers. This could be a simple event or orientation session designed to introduce new guests to the church community. Examples include “GT in 60” or “Welcome to Liquid,” which are tailored to be straightforward and accessible. 2. One Next Step: Encourage a single, clear next action for newcomers. Focusing on team involvement over group participation initially can be more effective in building connections and integrating new members into active roles within the church. 3. One Connection Team: Establish a dedicated team responsible for maintaining and nurturing the connections made during the initial engagement. This team ensures newcomers feel valued and are smoothly transitioned into their chosen areas of involvement, with regular check-ins and personal attention.
Avoiding Common Pitfalls The Velcro Myth: Beware of creating too many entry points, which can dilute the focus and effectiveness of your engagement strategy. * Shiny Object Syndrome*: Stick to proven strategies rather than constantly shifting to new trends or ideas, which can disrupt the continuity and stability necessary for sustained growth.
Call to ActionWe discussed how to incrementally increase your church’s capacity to welcome and retain new guests, focusing on the importance of regularly scheduled connection events and the need for a cohesive, community-oriented approach.
We look forward to seeing how your church can implement these practices to not only grow in numbers but also deepen the sense of community and belonging among its members.
In this episode, we also reference into the innovative approaches of Greg Curtis from Climbing the Assimilayas. Greg’s insights into church engagement are reshaping how churches think about integration and connection. His coaching and courses offer deep dives into effective strategies that can help your church not only grow in numbers but also in community strength and cohesion. If you’re looking to further explore and master the art of church engagement, Greg’s resources could be the next step in your leadership journey. His practical, experienced-backed approach provides tools that are both actionable and transformative. For those interested in taking their church’s engagement strategies to the next level, checking out Greg Curtis’s offerings at Climbing the Assimilayas is highly recommended.
Additional resources and coaching are available for those interested in further expanding their understanding and applying these principles. We talk about them at the end of the episode.
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Nathan R. Elson. He is the founder and chief theorist with the organization, A Better Theory.
Every ministry, every church, and every leader has problems they have to deal with. Regardless of the size of your problems, it is possible to develop a pattern of behavior around solving them and continue to push forward in your mission. Tune in as Nathan provides a framework through which you can tackle your problems and accomplish more from less.
- A framework for problem solving. // A common misconception in problem solving is the belief that our problems are unique. While the nuances may differ, the underlying issues are often universal. By recognizing this, we can apply proven frameworks to address our problems in better ways.
- More from less. // There are two things that underpin the framework Nathan has put together: the idea of exploitation and the idea of limitations. We often don’t make full use of the resources God is giving us, whether it’s time, talent, treasure, people, and so on. The result is we end up throwing more at a problem trying to overwhelm it rather than solve it. The idea of exploitation puts the focus on challenging ourselves to do more with what we already have. God also created us with limited capacity so we need to look at how to maximize those limits.
- Think creatively. // Look at your situation and ask: What do we have? What are we limited by? Problem solving is a creative endeavor. Outlining our parameters allows us to exercise creative problem solving more effectively.
- Three maxims in problem solving. // The framework in A Better Theory’s methodology has three maxims: Be realistic, seek simplicity, and remove friction. Being realistic is important because you have to be honest with God, yourself, your team, and your congregation about where you are and what specifically you need. Ask yourself if you’ve really taken the time to think about what it will take to achieve what it is you want. Often leaders start building before knowing what is needed.
- Complex yet simple. // As you approach problem solving, the solution needs to be complex enough to solve the problem, yet simple enough to be replicated. If you can’t replicate what you’re doing and teach it to someone else then it won’t be sustainable. Lastly, identify where you might be introducing friction to your problem and how you can stop that.
- How A Better Theory helps. // The team at A Better Theory can help you identify the problems your church is facing, and find a better solution by doing more from less. To get the free e-book that dives deeper into Nathan’s problem solving framework and start applying it in your church, visit www.abettertheory.com/unseminary.
Learn more about A Better Theory and contact Nathan at www.abettertheory.com.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Risepointe
Do you feel like your church’s facility could be preventing growth, and are you frustrated or maybe even overwhelmed at the thought of a complicated or costly building project? Are the limitations of your church building becoming obstacles in the path of expanding your ministry? Have you ever felt that your church could reach more people if only the facility was better suited to the community’s needs?
Well, the team over at Risepointe has been there. As former ministry staff and church leaders, they understand how to prioritize and help lead your church to a place where the building is a ministry multiplier. Licensed all over North America, their team of architects, interior designers and project managers have the professional experience to help move YOUR mission forward.
Check them out at Risepointe.com/unseminary and while you’re there get their FREE resource “10 Things to Get Right Before You Build”.
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Well, hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. I’m really looking forward to today’s conversation. I’ve been looking for this for a while. You know, oftentimes on the podcast, I’m interviewing somebody who maybe I’ve just met, but Nathan’s actually a friend who we’ve had a chance to do a number of a bunch of work together over the years, and I am just super honored that he’s come on today to talk about his role with an organization called A Better Theory.
Rich Birch — These people are theorists and problem solvers. They’re not consultants. Don’t call him that. He doesn’t like that. As a theorist, they focus not just on the state of things as they are, but they offer solutions of what you want them to be really looking to the future. They look to take a broader view and apply, you know, how they solve problems to really look for a specific outcome. They offer fractional leadership, personalized help, and really a different way to approach the projects that your, your organization, church, obviously today. So Nathan is the founder and chief theorist. Nathan, so glad that you’re with us today.
Nathan Elson — Thank you, my friend. I really appreciate it.
Rich Birch — Why don’t you tell us a little bit about, about yourself? Kind of give us a bit of the background. Obviously that’s the that’s like the corporate, you know, who-is-Nathan bio. But tell us a little bit more about yourself and then a little bit about A Better Theory.
Nathan Elson — Sure. I could go into a lot of different aspects of myself. But in regards to your audience in the church world, there’s a couple of things that I think are pretty relevant. I’ve been in and around either serving in or helping churches since the late 90s. And, and really, I got my start in ministry really early on after becoming a Christian when I was in college. And, just really interesting. I had a background in Near East History…
Rich Birch — Okay.
Nathan Elson — …so I have a minor in Antiquity Studies is what it used to be called.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Nathan Elson —And so, my I guess it would be my senior year in college is when I, found my way to Christ. Or rather, I finally listened to the knock on the door that God had been knocking most of my life. And because I understood the geopolitical framework of the Near East at the time Christ was alive, I helped the college pastor at my church teach people what was actually happening as we’re going through the book of judges. That was the very first Bible study I ever participated in as a leader.
Rich Birch — Wow, that’s a great way to jump in.
Nathan Elson — Yeah. So, you know, it’s the shallow end of the theological pool there.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Nathan Elson — But I I had the pleasure of working with denominations, working with churches since early on in my Christian walk. So right around 2000, I started working with a Christian denomination at the headquarters, and I got to just work with a ton of churches through that. Went on to help churches and some consulting aspects after that, and most of my career, up until a certain point, I was a full time minister, did children’s ministry, youth ministry, college and career ministry, executive pastor work as well as a full time employee. And that took me to places like I was up in Washington. I worked at Logos Bible Software, but eventually I made it down to San Diego and was executive pastor over production, communications and marketing for Rock Church in San Diego for a number of years. And that was the first time I had one job, which was ministry and and work at the same time. And I kind of been in that space since, and that’s over a decade ago when I was down there.
Rich Birch — Right.
Nathan Elson —And so my background is really been in the marketing communications, business development, sales space as far as career, but also in the ministry space. And so I’ve always had this kind of dual viewpoint of everything I did. Is it helping people? Not for any other sake, then the fact that we’re called to help people. That’s why we do ministry, because God’s calling us to help people. Is it helping people? And is it achieving goals that push the kingdom forward? And those have been the two big things about my career. So whether it’s been my own company, whether it’s been working for a group like CDF Capital, one of your main sponsors, or whether it’s been working for denominations or churches, those have been the two overriding questions that I’ve got in my career. Am I helping people as individuals? And I helping advance the kingdom forward through what I’m doing? So that’s kind of my background…
Rich Birch — Right.
Nathan Elson —…have been everything from project manager to C-suite along that particular pathway.
Rich Birch — Love it. So good. Well, the part of what I love what you do at A Better Theory is you is if you stated so, so plainly, we help solve problems; you help organizations. And today we’re obviously we’re talking to churches, solve problems. And so I’d love to kind of take advantage of the fact that you’re the expert in this area and kind of pick apart a little bit, help it to really sharpen us as we’re thinking about, problems. I’m sure everybody who’s listening in can think of one problem or another that they’re facing in their in their church or maybe nonprofit or business if they happen to be listening in. So let’s let’s talk about it. When you think about problem solving, I’m sure you end up interacting with lots of different organizations, and they have various things that you’re trying to get done, stuff that they’re running into, you know, barriers that they have, what would be a common either mistake or pothole that they, you know, end up in or, you know, some common way that we go off course when it comes to solving problems where we kind of head in the wrong direction. It’s like, gosh, we’re already kind of, you know, we’re doing the wrong thing even right from the beginning. Is there a common something common we could think about to try to avoid when we think about problems?
Nathan Elson — Yeah, actually, the biggest thing that I deal with in conversations with people around the idea of problem solving is that their problems are somehow unique. And I’m not saying that they’re not nuanced.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Nathan Elson — What I’m saying is that a problem is a problem.
Rich Birch — Right.
Nathan Elson — And the reality is, if you believe in Scripture and diving back into theology for a moment, there we have Ecclesiastes tells us there’s nothing new under the sun.
Rich Birch — Right.
Nathan Elson — It tells us a time for all these different things. And it ends by saying, vanity, vanity, it’s all vanity, like a passing wind…
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah.
Nathan Elson — …like a vapor and a wind. So what’s left? To fear God and obey his commandments. The Bible makes it very clear if you in certain areas where there’s a simplicity to the theological thing, and that’s really that nothing we deal with has not been dealt with before.
Nathan Elson — Now, the circumstances, the nuance, and the environment it takes in is unique to your situation. But the problems you want to solve aren’t unique. And…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Nathan Elson — And that’s what that’s what underpins the framework that we use as an organization is because our, our framework isn’t geared towards a marketing problem or a business development problem or any of these classic consulting constraints that people look at and look at consultants. There’s nothing wrong with consultants. In fact, quite often the solution to the problems we help solve are consultants. But what I’m saying is that, if you look at it, take a step back, a problem is different than a challenge and it’s different than an obstacle. Right? A challenge is something that, your cost you’re asked to rise to. Can you rise to this challenge? Can you can you meet this thing head on and can you overcome it? An obstacle is something you want to avoid. Like, is there an obstacle to what you’re doing? If you’re marching down the road and with your church and you have this mission, and then there’s something in the middle of the road, well, can you go over it? Can you go around it? Can you shift your course? Those are different.
Nathan Elson — A problem is, hey, Houston, there’s a problem.
Rich Birch — Right.
Nathan Elson — I mean, it’s not an obstacle and it’s not a challenge. There’s something inherently, foundationally that needs to be addressed in what we’re trying to push forward in order to see the most come to Christ. And how then can we view that problem as something to be solved? And most often we don’t think about it in the simplest terms. And the reality is, is that everyone has problems. Every ministry, every person, every leader has problems they have to deal with.
Rich Birch — Right.
Nathan Elson — And some of them are small, some of them are big. But if you look at them all the same way, it you begin to be able to develop a pattern of behavior…
Rich Birch — Right.
Nathan Elson — …around solving them. And and you work out your problem solving muscles.
Rich Birch — Right.
Nathan Elson — Which most of us in the Western Hemisphere, who with American and Canadian style educations are taught basic problem solving in school.
Rich Birch — Right.
Nathan Elson — It’s just not reinforced as you grow in your education, and especially not in the in the workforce. It’s just really isn’t.
Rich Birch — Right.
Nathan Elson — We have a workforce that’s becoming increasingly specialized, and it has devalued the idea of general problem solving, which is kind of where kind of we sit…
Rich Birch — That’s the space you fit in.
Nathan Elson — Mainly because, you know, I like doing it.
Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s great. Well, and I love this idea what that reminds me of is like, hey, how do we get back to the first principles? What’s the thing behind the thing that we’re trying to solve? What’s the kind of irreducible piece of this puzzle? I remember years ago hearing Elon Musk, he was talking about this was before they kept land… they, you know, they, you know, now we see their rockets land and it’s just like, well, that’s just a normal thing. Before he had done that and he was talking about how this is really, you know, how we need to go forward and what we, you know, if we’re going to really make space accessible, we need to reuse these.
Rich Birch — And people thought he was crazy, right? People are like, there’s no way. And and they said, well, space is just inherently expensive. And he was like, no, the reason why space is so expensive is because we blow up the engine every time we go. And he’s like, imagine how expensive a cruise ship would be is at the end of every cruise we blew up the cruise ship. It would be… And I remember when he first said that, I was like, yeah, that’s wow. That’s like a really, a searing insight, right? It’s like a… So how do you help a leader or how could you help us think about our problems? You know, in that way that kind of pushes back to first principles, that gets it to, you know, kind of up underneath. What’s the thing that, you know, could help unlock for us? Okay, what is the principle behind this? What is the thing that I’m kind of missing here? The problem behind the problem, the irreducible piece of this that I should be thinking more clearly about?
Nathan Elson — Yeah, I think that’s a really great question because, you need some sort of framework in which to attach these ideas to.
Rich Birch — Right.
Nathan Elson — And I developed this framework over the years. And well, before we get into the methodology that we use, this framework is crucially important. And I, I call it more from less, because one of the hallmarks of my career has always been getting a high level results by spending less money to get there. And so a long time ago, I was asked, well, how do you…
Rich Birch — All the executive pastors just leaned in. They were like, what are you talking about? More for less? That’s crazy.
Nathan Elson — Absolutely. One of the first things I do when I walk into an organization and help them is tell them to stop spending money.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Nathan Elson — To stop.
Rich Birch — Right.
Nathan Elson — Because you don’t know, most of the time, the effect of spending that money is in the first place. So, like, whatever you can stop spending money on, just don’t spend it. Let’s figure this out.
Rich Birch — Right.
Nathan Elson — And then spend money well. And and so when I first started pondering this and trying to articulate it, I came up with this framework. And and there’s two things that underpin this framework. This is idea of exploitation and this idea of limitations.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Nathan Elson — Right? In the human language, this idea of exploitation has become really interesting, especially in English. Because we hear this word exploit, especially Me Too Movement, especially in the current cultural environment. Exploitation is not a good thing. But if you actually look at the definition of of exploit, it’s actually comes into two batches. One to use a resource for the benefit of something else.
Rich Birch — Right.
Nathan Elson — Which is where the negative implications come when it comes to human interaction.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Nathan Elson — Or a grand adventure. And so…
Rich Birch — Okay, that’s cool.
Nathan Elson — So I have this concept, it’s like, okay, I like grand adventures. How does this work.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Nathan Elson — But as I dive further into that word, I use it on purpose because I want us to shift our thinking, and I want us to be challenging our presumptions from the very beginning. So we have to learn how to exploit what we have. And this is why I, I’ve always challenged myself to get more results from less spending less or doing with less resources. Because if we don’t make full use of what God’s giving us: time, talent, treasure, people, whatever the resource is you identify, then we are just throwing more at a problem trying to overwhelm the problem rather than solve it. So that’s the first thing we have to understand is that it’s okay to exploit yourself. It’s okay to exploit the resources that your organization currently has. That’s okay.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Nathan Elson — The second part, when it comes to problem solving that you hear often, is this idea of thinking out of the box. Now, I’m a kid in the 90s. I’m square Generation X, so I’ve been hearing that my entire adult life…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Nathan Elson — and I’ve always drove me nuts.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Nathan Elson — Because you can’t think of the box if you don’t know what your boxes in the first place.
Rich Birch — Oh, okay. Nice. Love it.
Nathan Elson — And the reality is, is that human beings were created for limitations. God created us with limited capacity. We are not fully an image of God. We were a reflection of the image of God. We can only show parts of the body of Christ, the part that we assigned, the part that God created us for. So we all have limits. And I always tell jokes about this, but I usually when I talk about this, I’ll put a picture of a baby or a little puppy trying to lift a barbell and saying, that dog’s never gonna lift that barbell. He’s got limits, right?
Rich Birch — Sure.
Nathan Elson — So we have to understand that those are the two foundational philosophical things we have to keep in tension.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Nathan Elson — It’s okay to exploit what you have.
Rich Birch — Right.
Nathan Elson — And we all have limits. So how do we maximize those limits? And in the creative space, if you’re going to an art graphic designer, an artist and say, I need X and say I need your best flyer for an event. And you come back a week later, there’s going to have nothing or the artist is going to have nothing.
Nathan Elson — But if you say, I want a 8.5×11 trifold flyer with six different panels, and this panel, I want this on this panel, I want this. On this panel, I want this. On this panel, I want this, so and so forth. And I want it to look similar to this. Here’s the color schemes I want to look for. And here is the reason why we’re doing this, and the audience that we’re trying to reach with this. You’re going to come back and they’re going to have four things for you to look at. Because the limits that are placed on the creative process allows us freedom in order to overcome a lot of things.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good. I like that.
Nathan Elson — I’m a video game guy. Some of the best video games were on a system called the Commodore 64, and what they’re able to do with 64 bit processing, which, by the way, 64 bit processing is so limited that there’s nothing in the current environment for anyone who’s younger than 30 listening right now to tell you what 64 bit computing looks like…
Rich Birch — Right.
Nathan Elson — …other than to, say, get 64 matchsticks and move them around with your fingers, and that’s just a slightly below 64 bit computer.
Rich Birch — Yeah, totally. Love it.
Nathan Elson — But some of the best video games came out of that because there were severe limits…
Rich Birch — So much restriction. Yeah…
Nathan Elson — …on the environment. And people had to come up with creative ways to overcome it. And that’s the underlining thing
Rich Birch — Right. Love it.
Nathan Elson — Problem solving is a creative endeavor.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Nathan Elson — It’s not an intellectual endeavor as much as a creative endeavor. And so if you start there, if you look at, okay, what do we have. What are we lim ited by…
Rich Birch — Right. [inaudible] our own resources. Yep, yep.
Nathan Elson — And what are we limited by. Start there and start applying that type of thinking to whatever problem you’re trying to engage with.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. That’s so good. I know in the in the church growth space that I, you know, the work I do on that side, that idea of exploiting what you already have, man, that’s like a power that definitely undercurrent is under a lot of what we talk about. So many churches have lots of avenues to communicate, to encourage people, to, you know, to grow their church that are, that they’re under exploiting, using the language that you’re using, you know, they’re not taking advantage of it.
Rich Birch — And even just the core idea of, have we done everything we can do to encourage our people to invite their friends? People are always looking for the like, well, there’s some magic Facebook ad campaign. Or there’s some magic…and I talk about it being silver bullets. We’re always looking for the one thing. But actually it’s like, hey, how do we exploit what we’re, you know, we already have access to?
Rich Birch — How do you help an organization? You know, sticking with that idea kind of assess what they are, what they have? Because I can imagine that they’re, you know, there’s a forest for the trees issue there. You can’t even sometimes see what what your you’ve actually got. It’s hard to understand even what your limitations are or even the potential resources you have. You know, how do you help organizations actually just even define what they do have that they could exploit?
Nathan Elson — That’s a great question, because actually this means what I want to talk about next anyway. So this is kismet here.
Rich Birch — Oh bam!
Nathan Elson — This is divine providence, whatever you want to call it.
Rich Birch — Love it, love it.
Nathan Elson — So part of the framework that underpins our methodology are three maxims. Be realistic, seek simplicity, and remove friction. And these are key fundamental things. You can apply these not just to problem solving but to most things in business dynamics. And the first one—be realistic—is really the answer to that question. You have to be honest with yourself, your team and your direct reports. Everyone around you. You have to be honest with your with your congregation and you have to be honest with those your volunteers. You have to be honest. This is what we need and this is why we need it. And here’s where it becomes really, really powerful. On the book of Numbers, God counts the entire nation of Israel that left Egypt. And it teaches us that God is a God of numbers. He tells Abraham, your descendants will outnumber the stars in the sky, or this or the sand, the grains of sand on the ground.
Nathan Elson — Right? God is always referring to numbers, so God likes numbers. It’s one of the first things I do when I work with a church or a Christian organization. And this is even before I get into the exploitation limitations, I have a conversation say, have you ever really sat down and figured out the difference between where you want to go and where you are right now? Have you counted that difference?
Rich Birch — Oh good, good, good, good. Yeah.
Nathan Elson — May I ask him a simple question? Have you prayed to God to fill that gap, instead of praying to God: God, we want to accomplish growth. We want to grow by 10%. Well, if you have a church of 100, 10% is ten people, why don’t you pray to God: I want to grow by ten people. You have a church of 10,000 and you want to grow by 25%. Why don’t you pray to God: we want to grow by 2500 people. Count the difference and be realistic about it. This is where we are and this is where we want to be. We don’t know how we’re going to get there yet and we’re trying to figure that out. But God, this is the difference. Let’s pray for that. Have realistic ideas in your mind.
Nathan Elson — And one of my favorite questions to ask any leader in in the totality of the process is this: Have you spent time really trying to figure out what it’s going to take to achieve what you’re trying to achieve?
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good. Have you counted the cost?
Nathan Elson — Have you counted the cost?
Rich Birch — Have you have you measured the size of the tower? Have you. Yeah, exactly. That’s cool.
Nathan Elson — Because quite often leaders start building before they have an idea of what’s needed. And again, go back to Scripture. Nehemiah, I love Nehemiah because he did this, right? And he sat down and said, this is what I need, King Xerses, this is what I need. Can I have this?
Rich Birch — Right.
Nathan Elson —This is what’s going to take to rebuild the wall.
Rich Birch — Right.
Nathan Elson —And the king said, sure, I can give that to you. It wasn’t some theoretical thing for the king. It was a very specific ask. And so the first thing you have to do is just have to be realistic about where you are, where you want to be, and count the cost of what’s going to take to get there.
Rich Birch — Right, yep.
Nathan Elson — Because sometimes it may not be worth it, and sometimes it’s going to be a whole lot simpler than you believe it’s going to be.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Nathan Elson — Which leads in the second piece, which is Seek Simplicity.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Nathan Elson — Now, I was a debater in college, and when I went to seminary…
Rich Birch — Hey, I was in debate and the debate club, too. That’s why I knew I liked you so much.
Nathan Elson — I talked about my wife. We met on the debate team.
Rich Birch — Dude. Oh, wow. Well, yeah. My wife, she doesn’t. She’ll say, stop debating me. I’m not I’m not in your debate club. You know, that has happened at some points in our marriage.
Nathan Elson — I’m sure. So
Rich Birch — Less now. Less now.
Nathan Elson — So shout out to Cal State Long Beach where we went. They just won the national championship.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. Oh great, good.
Nathan Elson — That’s great for the club. So I have a philosophical bent into how I do everything.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Nathan Elson — And so there’s this idea of simplicity has been simplified in Western culture as keep it simple, like K-I-S-S. And that’s a misnomer about a common idea of simplicity. So there’s two philosophical concepts of simplicity. One was from someone named Ockham, a medieval philosopher, and someone with my name, Einstein. You may have heard of him. He did some physics and math stuff in the 20th century.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Nathan Elson — Ockham’s razor says it’s not necessary to multiply things more than they need to be multiplied, or do not multiply things unnecessarily. And what he meant was, when we solve problems, when we do things, we have to make the solution complex enough to solve the problem, but not too complex. Conversely, Einstein said, whatever you solve for, make this solution as simple as possible, but not so simple it doesn’t do its job.
Rich Birch — Right.
Nathan Elson — So we have to attack simplicity from both ends. So as you approach problem solving, you have to say, how can this be complex enough to do its job, but simple enough to be replicated?
Rich Birch — Right.
Nathan Elson — And that is a fundamental key about church dynamics.
Rich Birch — Right.
Nathan Elson — If you can’t replicate something you’re doing, teach someone else and have it be transferable, chances are it’s not going to be sustainable.
Rich Birch — Yes. Well, and this is for the system side of us. I’m so glad you’re talking about this. For the people who love systems and love, you know, thinking about the world from a systems point of view, we can, geek out on making the checklist so many steps. We can make the process so complex, that you have to have a degree in, you know, project management to get anything done, which then ultimately slows down growth. It ultimately slows down the effectiveness of that tool. I think that’s a great, super great insight.
Rich Birch — You also talked about removing friction, you know, making things, you know, beyond simple, just actually removing friction. I love that that’s I’ve seen, you know, many times in my, leadership and ministry career just focusing on reducing friction on a process, on a, you know, something we’re doing, man makes it can make a huge difference. Talk to us a little bit about that.
Nathan Elson — Yeah. So this one, when I do talk about this I usually put a a picture of an old medal slide.
Rich Birch — Okay [inaudible].
Nathan Elson — I talked about how in in the winter they were really fun because they were ice cold and you flew down them. But in the summer when you’re wearing short shorts back in the 80s.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Nathan Elson — You went down that thing in the summer, you’re a hero…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Nathan Elson — …because chances are you can leave some skin on it. But friction is ideal when you have two two objects that rub against each other energy is transferred from one object to another. That’s friction. And anytime two human beings are involved in anything, transfer of energy is involved. So sometimes some form of friction is involved. Now friction can be good and it can be bad.
Nathan Elson — And so what I usually encourage people is to think about areas where they’re introducing friction into whatever they’re trying to solve, and to stop doing that. Whether it be a relationship, whether it be a way of communicating. Because that’s the simplest thing – you can look at removing friction, but that’s a down the pathway constant thing. The easiest place to start is where my creating friction, and how I can not create that friction anymore?
Rich Birch — Yeah that’s good. What would be an examples, it may be from a from a church, you know, that you’ve worked with, or I’ve seen you know that that we, we have we there’s more friction in a process that there should be?
Nathan Elson — Well how about example from my leadership.
Rich Birch — Sure, yeah.
Nathan Elson — When I was at Rock, I had a sufficient number of departments underneath me that I had to have a certain level of knowledge. So when the lead pastor would ask me what’s going on, I can I can acknowledge things. So I had to induce artificial friction into the process where I had to get reports weekly about what all my, all the teams were doing so that I can speak to them intelligently.
Rich Birch — Right.
Nathan Elson — Well, over time, this necessary friction became unnecessary friction because it created a culture where people are afraid to make decisions without running it by me first. So I had to undo good friction I introduced because it became bad friction. And I said, I don’t here’s your guardrails. Make decisions. Just tell me the decision you make.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Nathan Elson — So I had to go go away from a formal reporting process which initially worked great to more of an informal process because by, by introducing a little bit of friction it, became a lot of friction down the road. And so…
Rich Birch — Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nathan Elson — And so I had to remove myself as a choke point in a process, more than once.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Nathan Elson — And so kind of the arc of this is you have a process. It’s simple, repeatable, sustainable. It gets more complex over time. Because it gets more complex over time, it introduces new sources of friction. The new source of friction causes it to be ineffective. And then you have to go back and be more realistic, make it more simple, and remove the friction as possible.
Nathan Elson — So the key to this is understanding that once you think you’re done with something, you’re just starting over again. You’re not done. It’s just go back to the beginning and…
Rich Birch — Right.
Nathan Elson — …and look at it again. So so that’s an example from my own life where I introduced friction because I needed to. And that friction became so sticky of a point, it became a hindrance to moving forward.
Rich Birch — Wow. That’s cool. That’s great. This has been, this has been fantastic. You know what can you kind of give me a sense of, like, maybe two or three examples of churches that would reach out to you. Let’s say, like, I’ll give you an example. Like maybe I’m a church of 1500 people and we’re hitting our head against what? Like, what is the thing that that I would say, you know, I should pick up the phone and give Nathan a call? What would be the kind of, you know, the neighborhood of problems that you would be, you know, very open to wanting to talk to a church about?
Nathan Elson — So a couple of areas that would come to mind would be resource maximization. Hey, we’re at 1500 people. We have a certain amount of income coming in. Things are getting paid, but we want to grow. But when the [inaudible] growth is not knowing how we’re financially going to get there. Well, okay, let’s take a look at things. Let’s look at where the specific sticking points are and how we can create a set of problems that you need to solve or identify some problems you need to solve around that. And then figure out how to overcome it. But it could also be in logistics. It can be in how do we how do we make better sense of the data that we have? Like we know we have people coming. We just don’t know who they are, where they’re coming from, and these type of things. Or maybe it’s in the sense of volunteer motivation. Like we have 1500 people, but we only have 50 people that show up on a consistent basis. How do we overcome those things?
Nathan Elson — And here’s… I’ll be I’ll be quite honest. We’ve we work best when we are in that space, in between the conceptualization of an idea and the and the strategy of how of what to do about it.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Nathan Elson — Because what we do, it covers everything that’s going to be, not seen from the surface when you’re trying to solve something. So our process that we run organizations through is a collaborative process that’s team-based, that really gets underneath and diagnoses the blocking issues. And and different challenges need to be overcome. We were one organization that wanted to grow. They wanted to grow four times their size. And…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Nathan Elson — …and currently working with them. Great organization, do wonderful things. And we’re looking at it going, okay, there’s an easy path forward. You know how to get the growth done. Why is it not happening. So we ran through our process and what we realized it’s a the senior leader’s new to senior leadership in the last few years, and their executive team, while all seasoned executives, is new to the organization. So when they converse and they talk about things, they’re not speaking the same language.
Nathan Elson — One person says one word. Another person shared in a different way. So and they weren’t aware of the misalignment that they had.
Rich Birch — Right.
Nathan Elson — And so as we as we’re working with them, we’re in the process of helping them overcome that misalignment. Once that misalignment happens and there’s clear understanding who’s responsible for what part of the new things, not their existing work they’re doing for the new things, it’ll move forward towards it. So the problem in their mind was we need, we can’t, we need to grow four times our size and we don’t know how to do it. But the real problem was, well we have some blocking issues that we need to overcome. And so that’s kind of where we sit in that space between it.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Nathan Elson — So it’s a we have a process. It’s a it’s a team-based collaborative process. that takes through five distinct pieces that is a, not a it’s a framework, our methodology for solving problems. And it works within any problem set because it’s not geared around a solution. It’s geared around more of a diagnostic type of understanding of what is going on. So we can remove the friction, do the simplicity, bring in some realism into it, and solve those help organizations solve those problems.
Rich Birch — I love it. So good. This is, this is fantastic. I’m sure there’s people that are listening in that are like, hey, I’d love to think a little bit more about this. Think about this framework. Is there any way, any resources or stuff like that that you could kind of point us towards that would be helpful for folks that are listening in if they’re thinking, you know, they want to learn more, they want to kind of explore this, maybe even before they take a step, to reaching out to you?
Nathan Elson — Yeah. So a book I, I recommend to everybody—it’s a psychology book—it’s called The Paradox of Choice by Dr. Barry Schwartz.
Rich Birch — Okay. Yep.
Nathan Elson — It’s probably on the shelf behind me. It’s one of these yellow books over here. I do have a couple copies. And the reason why I do that, it’s a book that’s geared towards the philosophical understanding of how consumers make choices, but it really helps us understand the different modalities of thought that people have when they make choices.
Nathan Elson — And, and, and that’s really important because quite often in what we do when we work with the organization is we help make a decision making matrix. And this is one of the fundamental things you have to understand about problem solving. In any problem, there’s probably going to be an ideal way to solve that problem.
Rich Birch — Right.
Nathan Elson — But the ideal way is not the best way for most organizations.
Rich Birch — Oh yeah. Tell me more. You’ve got me intrigued.
Nathan Elson — Because organizations have limits.
Rich Birch — Right.
Nathan Elson — And they have issues of exploitation. So what might be the ideal one may be out of reach for an organization.
Rich Birch — Okay. Got it.
Nathan Elson — And that’s where our name comes from.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Nathan Elson — Our name comes from the fact that we’re not after an ideal solution. We’re after a better solution. And we believe that it’s just a quirk back from my debate days. Everything’s theoretical until it’s proven true. So…
Rich Birch — Right.
Nathan Elson — So you don’t know if if a way to solve a problem is going to work until you try to solve your problem with that, with that way, to solve it.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Nathan Elson — So until it’s implemented and works, it’s theoretical. So that’s what we’re after.
Rich Birch — Right…
Nathan Elson — After organizations come up with the better theory for them. Not the best solution. Not the ideal solution.
Rich Birch — Right.
Nathan Elson — Because if you were trying to solve an organizational dynamic issue at your church and come up with a better way to do HR, you would not do it the same way Amazon does it.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes.
Nathan Elson — Amazon may have the ideal solution. You can’t afford that.
Rich Birch — No. No. Yeah. True.
Nathan Elson — So what is the better idea, the better theory for how you can solve it.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Nathan Elson — And and that’s and that’s a space to be in. And so the paradox of choice really helps you understand how people make decisions and how you make decision, what influences your decision making and how you can reset the way you look at things so you can make decisions based on more objectivity and less subjectivity.
Rich Birch — Right, okay. That’s great. So good. And I think you’ve got an e-book, right, we want to point people towards as well. Where would we, you know, tell us a little bit about this and we’ll, we’ll link to it in the show notes. But tell us a little bit about that.
Nathan Elson — Yeah. So I actually have an e-book around the framework I talked about today. The…
Rich Birch — Oh great.
Nathan Elson — …more from less. And it’s and it hits the points, goes in deeper dive into them and kind of lays out how you can apply them to your situation. And again it’s kind of that underpinning for our methodological process for solving problems. But I’ve given this talk at church conferences and other places and so I just want to give it away. And you can get it at abettertheory.com/unseminary. Just go there and that’s where you can you can grab it and it’s free for anyone listening to your podcast.
Rich Birch — Great. So good. We’ll also link that in the show notes, friends, if you’re looking for that. So it’s just abettertheory.com/unseminary.
Rich Birch — Well Nathan, this has been great. I know there’s a lot more we could talk about. This is just the beginning of this conversation for sure for folks. If people want to get in touch with you or connect with A Better Theory, where do we want to send them online? How do we want to do that?
Nathan Elson — Well, if you want to check out our website, which a side note, our website was written entirely by ChatGPT. So…
Rich Birch — Okay.
Nathan Elson — …if you don’t like AI, forgive me. I just want to see if I could do it. I just want to see if I can create a website entirely with ChatGPT.
Rich Birch — Sure. That’s fun.
Nathan Elson — So, but it’s pretty good. We’re working on a new version of it, but it’s abettertheory.com.
Rich Birch — Yep. Love it.
Nathan Elson — There’s a phone number on there. It’s a 714 area code phone number. So if you get on there and you look at that phone number, I don’t have it memorized because I don’t answer that phone.
Okay.
Nathan Elson — So one of my team will ask that phone, but if you want to reach out to me directly, feel free to.
Nathan Elson — It’s just nathan@abettertheory.com.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Nathan Elson — And I’d be more than happy to answer any questions that you have, and listen to any stories you have or tell you stories about debate. Because [inaudible] it’s funny to talk about.
Rich Birch — Well, Nathan, I, I, I really appreciate you being on today. Thanks so much. And again, my friends, I would encourage you to check out abettertheory.com. Check out Nathan’s work. He’s a great guy and trusted friend. And you, you can, you should definitely spend some time with him. So thanks so much, Nathan. Appreciate you being here today.
Nathan Elson — Thank you, Rich, for having me. As you know, I’m a huge fan of your of your podcast and have been for a long time. So it’s an honor for me to be here.
Rich Birch — Thanks so much, buddy. Appreciate you being here.
In this episode of the unSeminary Podcast, we delve into the transformative impact of magnetic community service on building a vibrant church invite culture. Drawing inspiration from outreach initiatives at prominent churches like Elevation’s Love Week and Church of the Highlands’ Serve Day, we explore how strategic mass outreach can drive your congregation’s growth and engagement.
Key Factors That Shape Magnetic Community Service:
- The More Volunteers Factor: The first key to driving invites is the sheer number of volunteers mobilized. When 60-70% of the adult community actively participates in impactful community service, engagement skyrockets, leading to natural conversations and opportunities for members to invite their friends to church. By empowering people to leave their seats and make a tangible difference, they naturally want to share their experiences.
- The T-Shirt Factor: Visibility is essential. Wearing matching shirts and being seen doing good in the community reinforces the positive image of the church. People feel a sense of pride and fulfillment when they’re visibly making a difference, and this visibility motivates them to share their stories, post photos, and invite others.
- The Day Of Factor: The holy ruckus created by community-wide outreach spills over into conversations, social media posts, and networking opportunities that naturally generate buzz and invites. Mobilizing large groups to help neighborhoods, host events, or run awareness campaigns creates a memorable spectacle that leaves people curious and engaged.
- The Afterglow Factor: The positive ripple effects from a mass outreach initiative can last months or even years. People who participate continue to talk about it, share photos, and tell stories, all of which reinforce the culture of generosity and outreach that the church embodies. This afterglow can be leveraged in future outreach, campus launches, and community engagement efforts.
Ready-to-Implement Outreach Ideas:
- Shop of Wonders: Create a dignified and empowering Christmas shopping experience for hundreds of families in need. Display donated gifts like a shop, providing families with hope and joy.
- Serve Day: Mobilize your entire church to serve the community by cleaning parks, running garage sales, offering free services, and more.
- Night to Shine: Host a prom for individuals with special needs using the resources from the Tim Tebow Foundation.
Magnetic community service, as outlined in this episode, can catalyze your invite culture and make a lasting impact on both your congregation and your local community. It’s time to unlock new potential by moving your members from their seats and into the streets!
Thanks for tuning in to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Brad Dreibelbis, Next Gen and Operations Pastor at The Journey, a church in Delaware.
How do you identify and find high caliber leaders, particularly from the next generation? Too many churches wait for young leaders to be trained in other places instead of raising them up from within their church. Listen as Brad shares how The Journey is raising up young leaders and providing opportunities for them to develop both character and competency.
- Take risks on young leaders. // No church ever feels they have enough leaders, and at The Journey they’ve taken a proactive approach to this issue by investing in students and young adults. Think of it like Moses turning over the reins to Joshua and Caleb and leaving that legacy to the next generation. Help people early in their faith to grow in their character and calling to support what God is doing in their leadership.
- Focus on the next generation. // The target demographic of who The Journey is trying to reach is framed through the lens of an 18 to 30 year old man. It’s important to have on-ramps for older followers too and remind them they are important in the church, but investing in and taking risks on the next generation ensures that you are building for the future.
- Make disciples. // Brad’s team completes monthly reports that include identifying an 18-30 year old who could move into their leadership pipeline. Talking about potential leaders as a team adds a layer of accountability and encourages the staff to bring others alongside them and make disciples. It’s important to give young leaders opportunities even though it will be messy at times.
- Play the long game. // Don’t neglect that your kids and student ministries are your best feeder for young leaders because they’ve already been baked into your culture. Start investing in them when they’re young children. Teach them biblical principles and give them chances to lead as they grow.
- 90-day contracted internships. // There aren’t always open staff positions at The Journey so they have created 90-day contracted internships for young people in the church who have potential. The interns are paid as employees for 90 days and are in charge of a particular ministry or objective. This short-term opportunity offers young leaders a chance to grow and build skills while allowing staff to evaluate their character. After the 90 days, some interns may stay on for more growth opportunities or be offered a staff position.
- Ministry boot camp. // The Journey runs a ministry boot camp for 10 weeks during the summer for students and young adults—anyone who has finished eighth grade through 30 years old. The camp is a 20-hour-a-week commitment to help young leaders grow in their relationship with God while learning practical ministry. Participants commit to attending 12 hours during the week on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, and then serving during weekend gatherings so they gain ministry experience while interacting with people.
- Learn to listen. // All of us are wired by God for a calling, even if it may not be in paid ministry. Help young people at your church to hear from God and create enough space to prioritize their faith. In The Journey’s ministry boot camp, the first hour is spent sitting and listening to Him—a new experience for some of the participants.
- Monthly focus. // Every month The Journey sets a different goal as part of their monthly focus strategy. This strategy sets a vision area that the whole church should be focused on, defines a vehicle to achieve it, and establishes measurable goals. Staff connects throughout the month to discuss how they are contributing to the goal and what they have or have not achieved. This approach fosters accountability and unity, aligning the entire church towards a common objective.
You can find out more about The Journey Church at www.yourjourney.tv and download The Journey’s monthly focus document here.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Man, I’m really looking forward to today’s conversation. This is going to be a good one. It’s going to be particularly helpful for you as you’re listening in and thinking about how can you help your church reach more people and build teams and all those kinds of things. Super excited to have Brad Dreibelbis with us today. He is from The Journey, The Journey Church. This a fantastic church, started in 2007 and has repeatedly been one of the fastest growing churches in the country. Its senior pastor is Mark Johnson. They have, if I’m counting correctly, three locations in Delaware. You know, there’s 1.8 million people living in a 30 mile radius of Newark, Delaware. And I love this: they call this region Journey City. They are owning their part of the country. Their dream is to plant locations all across the area. Brad is the Next Gen and Operations Pastor. Brad, welcome. So glad you’re here today.
Brad Dreibelbis — Yeah, Rich, thank you so much. It means the world to have me on. I appreciate it.
Rich Birch — I’m so honored that you’ve taken some time to be with us. Why don’t you kind of fill in the picture? You know, so there’s lots we can learn from your church – that one of the things I just want to point out is people don’t wake up in Delaware and say, hey, we should go to church today. It’s just not, you know, this is like, if there’s if there’s the Bible Belt, this might be the opposite of that. I’m not sure what the opposite of the Bible Belt is. People just don’t go there. And this is a prevailing church in that context. And so I’m excited to share and for you to learn from you. But kind of fill in the picture, tell us about The Journey and then tell us about your role.
Brad Dreibelbis — Yeah, very much so. And first I got a, I got a delineate. You know, I heard you say Newark, Delaware. And, we passionately say it is Newark, Delaware. We are…
Rich Birch — Okay. Okay. That’s a that’s my Jersey coming through. That’s my Jersey coming through.
Brad Dreibelbis — It is. It is. We had to we had to delineate within Journey city. Hey, we are Newark, Delaware. So anybody who is from the region, you know, what’s you know what’s being talked about.
Rich Birch — Okay, okay, fun.
Brad Dreibelbis — We’ve got a fantastic church. And just so thankful for what God’s doing and for the heart of our lead pastor and the vision that God has given him to reach those 1.8 million people that are in our region. And just so many of them need the hope and the message of Jesus. You know, we’re in a region where, to your point, not everybody wakes up every morning and says, hey, I want to I want to go and be a part of a church. So, Pastor Mark, whenever he planted The Journey, felt like the word that he got from God was to be a church that unchurched people wanted to go to. So we are ridiculously passionate about and even militant about keeping our focus on unchurched people, and having ways that that they can come and experience God.
Brad Dreibelbis — So if I had to guess for our people that call The Journey home, I would say that at least at least 60 to 65% of them, The Journey is the place that they would consider their first home church, since they’ve put their faith in Jesus, or become a follower of Jesus.
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Brad Dreibelbis — And it’s just been the great entry point into their their spiritual walk with the Lord. And so our mission is to help people find Jesus and follow him fully. And, I’m so thankful that we get a chance to do it in a region where, to your point, it’s not the Bible Belt. There’s not a church on every corner. And, there’s there’s Bible literacy that is lacking. And, there’s no place that I’d rather do battle than, than do it here.
Rich Birch — So good. Pumped for this conversation. Well, that’s probably a great place to start. You know, too many churches when you look at where they get their, their, their young leaders, their kind of next generation, the people who are going to push the church forward, if you if you peel back the, the wrapper, you figure out, oh, like, these were leaders that were identified or trained in other places, and then we’re just kind of like taking their transfer growth. Like we’re, you know, and when you’re experiencing 60 or 65% of your people are coming in with some sort of, you know, unchurched background or like, you know, having some sort of fresh experience with Jesus, man, that’s got to be hard to find to identify and find high caliber leaders, to kind of make the church happen. Kind of pull that apart, help us understand that problem a little bit. What does that look like for you guys?
Brad Dreibelbis — Yeah. Well, I mean, if you look at if you look at the church as a whole, you know, every I don’t think there’s a single pastor in America that would say, you know what? I’ve got all the leaders that I could ever need. I’ve got all the people on the team that I could ever want to be a part of it.
Rich Birch — Right, yes.
Brad Dreibelbis — And, you know, the average age of our staff is 24, and they’re just killing it. They all love Jesus, are fully committed to God, and it’s just amazing. You know, no one’s saying those things. But we don’t just want to be a church that has leaders for the sake of just leading ministry and helping people find Jesus. We want to have next generation leaders. We want to have people that we can pass it on to. We want to like if we are, if we’re Moses, we want to have a Joshua and Caleb that we can turn and hand things over to and say, hey, I’ve got I’ve got something that’s going to leave a legacy, legacy that’s going to go beyond me. And so that’s part of what we’re doing here that especially in our in our next gen environments, this is where I first started leading in our student ministry. You know, in those next gen environments, we are we are teaching kids and students how to how to know God, how to understand who he is. And we are starting from a very base level, like they have zero Bible literacy.
Brad Dreibelbis — And then so many people, we’re we’re one and a half miles from a from the University of Delaware, which has 25,000 students from all across kind of this northeast region. And basically, if you look at it, I mean, they are coming in, they they know Jesus as a name. They do not know anything about him. They don’t they don’t even know, like feeding the 5000…
Rich Birch — Right.
Brad Dreibelbis — …is not even something that registers in their brain.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes.
Brad Dreibelbis — They like, if I ask who’s Jonah? They don’t have an idea.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brad Dreibelbis — Like if I ask who’s Daniel? The first word is is not like lion’s den.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brad Dreibelbis — It’s just they just don’t even have a have a clue. So a lot of what we’re doing with these young leaders is we we are having to take some risks and take some shots and help people who were, you know, who are early in their faith, grow and develop in their character and in their calling so that that can support what God’s doing in, in their leadership and how that can kind of translate. So, you know, that’s that’s what I’m really passionate about, that we are we’re taking some risks on people.
Rich Birch — Totally.
Brad Dreibelbis — And just like Jesus with the with the disciples, they were they were all young people.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brad Dreibelbis — They were not 45 seasoned, you know, ministry veterans. They were fishermen. They were people who had everyday jobs. And Jesus said, hey, come follow me and let’s do life together. And, you know, that’s what he did.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brad Dreibelbis — So we we follow that same model going, we’re going to take some risks on some people like Peter and some people that just say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing, create a mess, and we’ll walk up behind them and just kind of scoop up with a shovel and, and, you know, follow up and try to help clean up where we can. And when it gets off the rails, we we’re quick to correct it. And we, we do our best to kind of temper, but we’re always we’re always trying to take risks on some young leaders.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Let’s double click on that. Particularly the the young leader piece of that equation. So you know, challenge us a little bit on that. I think this is one of those, so this has been one of the things I’ve noticed, as I do coaching and consulting with churches all across the country and have had a real privilege to be and help with some of the fastest growing churches in the country. And one of the things that I would say is a stark difference that I noticed when I’m engaging with those churches, churches like yours, that there are a lot of young leaders around that, that it’s it’s like a, it’s a it’s very normative. Where when I look at stuck in stagnant churches, I’ll, you know, if I’ve ended up interacting with some of those, it’s like, it’s like the opposite. It’s like, man, these are a lot of people who are holding on in their 50s and 60s. Double click on the why, particularly next generation. Why young leaders? Why do you think why have you kind of articulated internally, it’s like, hey, that’s an important it’s not just that we’re looking for leaders; we’re looking specifically for next gen leaders.
Brad Dreibelbis — Yeah. And I’d give a little bit of a qualifier to say we we are still growing in this. We’re not like killing the game left and right.
Rich Birch — Yep. Sure.
Brad Dreibelbis — We we honestly have had to grow in this out of necessity, going, hey, who do we have? So, you know, average age of our church target demographic of our church is a is an 18 to 30 year old unchurched guy. ‘Cause we say if we can get that 18 to 30 year old guy to come to our church, he’ll he’ll bring his girlfriend or he’ll bring his, his wife or he’ll bring somebody that’s important to him versus if you if you’re targeted towards a young, a young woman, so the guy will kind of sit on the couch and go, okay, have fun. And he clicks the remote and keeps watching TV kind of thing. So everywhere from the beginning part of our target demographic of who we’re trying to even reach as a whole, as a church, that is framed through the lens of this next generation, this 18 to 30 year old. How are we doing it?
Brad Dreibelbis — Now obviously, there’s on ramps for everybody, as there should be in the body of Christ. In every church there needs to be on ramps for the 75 year old person who has tons of wisdom and has been following Jesus for 65 years. I want them to be a part of this. But if we say disproportionately we’re going to put energy here, it’s going to be on that next generation, that target demographic, that 18 to 30 year old unchurched guy. And so the same thing gets translated where we start doing that when we start talking about leadership. So in in like, to get real practical, like in some monthly reports that I get from members of my team that report to me, I have a section where they have to list their leadership pipeline. And in that they must record a person who is between the ages of 18 and 30 who is, they think, could move into leadership. And so every single month they have to report a person. And I don’t let them keep the same person on, or I don’t let them, you know, go several months without putting somebody there, without a conversation going, hey, who are you investing in? Who are you taking a shot on? Who are you who are you kind of bringing in to come alongside of you and just check this out?
Brad Dreibelbis — Because you have to give opportunities. You just have to say, hey, come follow me and recognize there’s going to be a mess because it’s messy. Think about all the times that Jesus had to correct, had to rebuke, had to clean up, had to reorient the disciples, had to point them in the right direction. The same thing is true with us.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brad Dreibelbis — And yes, everybody wants the 27 year old person on their team who has been following Jesus for 30 years who wants to be paid $30,000 a year…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Brad Dreibelbis — …who doesn’t have a family and wants to work 94 hours a week at the church.
Rich Birch —Right.
Brad Dreibelbis — Yeah, everybody wants that person on their team, but they don’t exist. They’re like a unicorn. You look at them and you want. So what do you do? You find the next best thing. Who’s the sharp, young, talented, hungry, driven, loves Jesus, is pointing their life not not perfection, but they’re aimed in the right direction. They’ve got a teachable spirit. They’re likable. They light up a room, like, who are those people? And then just invite them to do life and ministry with you.
Brad Dreibelbis — That’s the entry point that we’ve started to to get behind, and we’ve started to see some success stories there…
Rich Birch —Love it.
Brad Dreibelbis — …which has been really cool to watch.
Rich Birch — Well, let’s dig into the some of the practicality of that. So what kind of what are some kind of approaches… you know, I’ve talked in other environments, I’ve talked about like what are the fishing ponds? Where are you kind of out finding these people? Help, you know, how are you engaging them kind of moving them from there attending, or maybe they’re in a group or they’re on a team to like, hey, we want to move you into a leadership role. What does that look like?
Brad Dreibelbis — Yeah, So I think of a couple of different things. You know, the most natural one is don’t don’t neglect that your kids and student ministries are your best feeder for young leaders. So if you are not seeing young leaders come through your church that have baked in the culture of your kids and student ministry over the course of 10, 12, 15 years in your church, you’re you’re just missing out.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Brad Dreibelbis — Like something’s wrong in your kids and students programs if they’re not graduating out some young, hungry leaders. So there’s a there’s a young woman who’s on her team who just turned 21. We just hired her in a part time role to be our students director. And she grew up in our student ministry. I mean, she she got she took shots and she went through, she would tell you if she was right here with us, she would tell you, hey, I ran away from this. I spent, you know, six months in Mexico doing my own thing. I, like, went through the whole kind of story of her running away from God and eventually came back. And God’s like, I’ve called you. I’ve put something on your heart. Just say yes. And so she did. And we took a shot on her and gave her gave her a chance. But that’s a seven-year long game that was baked into our student ministry, where when I was the student’s director, it was her over at our house eating dinner with us. It was her spending time in her basement when her mom got deported. It was it was all those kinds of conversations that like, you just have to do as a in your kids and students programs that bake in this ability to build up leaders.
Brad Dreibelbis — So my my number one encouragement is like, hey, play the long game and recognize…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Brad Dreibelbis — …if you want young leaders, you’ve got to start when they’re in second, third, fourth, fifth grade.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brad Dreibelbis — Start when they’re two. Like, teach them the biblical principles, and then from there give them chances. So we didn’t just hire this 21-year old. She taught in our student environment when she was 15. She led teams when she was 17 and did a crappy job at it, to be honest. But we gave her a chance.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Brad Dreibelbis — And we cleaned up everything behind her. We gave her a shot at a part time contractor, an internship on our team, going, can she get there? I don’t know. And 60 days in went, I don’t know if she can make it. And eventually she turned the corner and had a moment where she settled it with God. And so we gave her another 90 days. And here she is on a permanent role on our team. And so it’s just like, you got to play that long game.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Brad Dreibelbis — It’s a little bit of a case study, but that’s what’s really worked for us.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Let’s pull apart. One piece of that you mentioned in there there was like an internship. What does that look like for you guys? How has that, you know, what is what does that look like? Is it a paid thing, is it volunteer? What do you mean when you say intern? It’s like, that’s one of those…
Brad Dreibelbis — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …like, you know, it means something different and lots of different locations and, yeah, help me, help us understand that.
Brad Dreibelbis — Sure. So we, we’ve done multiple iterations of this, all kinds of different ways that we’ve made it work. We’ve tried paid internships that are, you know, one way. We’ve tried, hey, we’re going to do all volunteer internships. We’ve done it, you know, a student internship model that summertime focused. And really, you know, we’ve tried different things. And right now we’re about ready to innovate for this summer. We’re going to be rolling out what we’re going to call our ministry boot camp for the summer, which is basically a ten week accelerated program where students and young adults, anyone basically who has graduated or finished eighth grade all the way through age 30-ish is what we’re trying to say.
Rich Birch — Wow. wow.
Brad Dreibelbis — So we’re going to put them in a room. They’re going to get a chance to spend time with God and grow in their relationship with God. They’re going to connect with other like minded young people who are trying to grow in their leadership and explore their calling. And we’re going to give them practical ministry. So they’re going to plan our summer camp for students. They’re going to plan our our outreach events that we’re doing this summer. They’re going to plan and run gatherings and weekend environments. We’re going to put them in production where they’re shot callers. We’re going to have them be in environments where you just let them do it, like let them be a part of it.
Brad Dreibelbis — I think that’s what Jesus was trying to do. Just let them go, do it. And now you don’t let them by themselves. Don’t worry. Like if it gets messed up, we will make sure…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Brad Dreibelbis — …that like church doesn’t fall apart on a weekend.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brad Dreibelbis — We are at that scale where we need to make sure it doesn’t fall apart, but we’re going to give them shots. So that’s this ministry boot camp that we’re going to do that none of those people are paid. It’s just this compelling vision of, hey, do you want to grow in your leadership? Do you want to grow in your calling and understand what God’s doing in your life? Then come be a part of this. And then we’ve got a couple of young people in our church that we want to that we just, like, see God’s hand on their life. We’re not even sure that there’s like this ministry opening or this staff position that they’re best tailored for. We just see God’s hand on their life and we want them on their team. So we’re creating these 90-day contracted internships where they are paid…
Rich Birch — Okay.
Brad Dreibelbis — …they are part time employees for 90 days, and we give them clear deliverables. They’re in charge of a particular ministry area, or a particular thing or objective. So last summer we did this – that 21 year old that I told you about, she was in our student ministry as an intern. So she got paid for 90 days to help lead our student ministry and plan our summer camp and run with it and really, really explore what that looks like.
Brad Dreibelbis — We had another person, very young, new to her faith, probably been following Jesus two years, but I mean, God’s hand is just on her life and her potential is astronomical. So we just said, are you good at communication stuff? Can you run our social media page? So we made her the communications intern and we said, hey, can you run the social media page and make sure that emails go out whenever they’re supposed to and help us think through communication as a church? And six months later, like we we extended her internship as well because we said we think we need to see a little bit more before we turn the reins over…
Rich Birch — Right.
Brad Dreibelbis — …because we’re like, we don’t want to have to fire you for character things, or we don’t want to have to let you go. That’s a whole different kind of conversation. But we did all of that vetting over the course of six months while she was doing it, and then she just was a part of the team afterwards. We transitioned her into a permanent full time role after that. So recently she sat in our pastor’s office, and I think this is a good case study. So if you’re a pastor listening to this and you’re like, what do I do when I take if I take risks on these young leaders? This young woman sat in our pastor’s office, Pastor Mark. And she said, hey, I’m scared that one day you’re going to wake up and realized you hired me for something that I have no idea how to do, and you’re actually going to let me go. And he said to her, Yanni, I didn’t hire you to do communications. In fact, that’s the role that you have to do right now. I hired you because I see God’s hand on your life, and I see the potential that you could, could be.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Brad Dreibelbis — I see what God is doing in you, and your character can support that right now. So I’m giving you a shot. I don’t think your role is going to be communications over the next ten years. I think your role could be limitless if you’ll raise up people and empower people and lead teams. But right now I need you to do the communication stuff.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Brad Dreibelbis — So know your spot’s secure on our team. We love you. We’re for you. Go charge hell with a water pistol and let’s go get after it kind of thing.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Brad Dreibelbis — So that’s that’s what we’re doing where we’re just giving some shots to some young leaders. And ultimately, I mean, 90 days at $17.50 an hour times 20 hours a week. I mean, you’re talking a pretty minimal financial commitment to this…
Rich Birch — Right.
Brad Dreibelbis — …that as long as you’re clear on the front end not dangling any carrots. I’m not saying that this is going to go for the next, you know, nine years or whatever. It’s a 90 day thing. And we actually have three last summer, two of them, two of them swam and one of them sunk.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Brad Dreibelbis — And so we let the third one sink. So.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah. Yeah, I love that. That’s such a clear, that’s a great idea, a great tactic and a great ,you know, there’s, there’s that idea of like, hey, let’s just provide a, it’s a test case. It’s a we’re going to it’s a project. It’s a short run. Let’s see where, you know, where you can do. And hey, we can always roll those into longer. On the ministry boot camp, so, you said there’s a bunch of stuff there I want to loop back on. The one thing you said on the ministry boot camp, you’re saying it’s ten weeks this summer? Is that, like a full time thing for those ten weeks, or are they are they there for like, a part is it like a 20 hour week thing as well? Or how’s that how’s it work? What’s their time commitment?
Brad Dreibelbis — We’ve done different things where we’ve tried to make it a 12 hour a week…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Brad Dreibelbis — …where basically you just need to be there on Tuesdays and Thursdays and then because we have multiple gatherings, we said, gather one and serve one.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Brad Dreibelbis — But this year, what we’re doing with this ministry boot camp is we’ve, we we want to put some more skin in the game. So we’re saying it’s a 20 hour a week commitment. It means that you’re going to be here Tuesday mornings and Thursday mornings. You’re going to be here every gathering on the weekend. Because ministry happens on a weekend. You want to explore your calling, get in the café and talk to people. You want to learn what it looks like to like, do ministry or to serve people…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Brad Dreibelbis — …or [inaudible] people. Get around some people don’t. Ministry doesn’t happen in an office with an email address. Ministry happens with people. So you got to get around those people.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Brad Dreibelbis — So that’s what we we do with them is give them a chance to do that. And they have a practical ministry lens. So, you know, they they basically have to be here Tuesday, Thursday. But then the other, you know, 6 to 8 hours of the week, they’ve got clear deliverables and clear projects that they have to work on and come back, whether it’s, hey, you need to build out all the tracks to make sure that our worship team is ready to go. Or you need to work on kids programming because you want to have a kids focus. Or you’re coming back with what’s the cool, creative, fun, crazy idea that we’re going to do for our student summer camp?
Rich Birch — Right.
Brad Dreibelbis — So you want to buy, you know, inflatable bunnies that do whatever. Okay, fine. Go buy every pool noodle at Walmart and come back. So yeah.
Rich Birch — Love it. Okay. Okay, that makes total sense. And something you’re saying, I’d love for you to kind of talk a little bit more about—you’ve used this language multiple time—explore your calling. You know, helping people wrestle through and think through their calling. I do think, one of my theories is the reason why, one of the reasons why we have a leadership crisis in the local church is at some point in the last—and listen, I’ve been at this long enough, it was it was during my generation, sometime in this Gen X time—like in the last 20, 30 years, we dropped this idea of calling as a regular… Like there was I remember when I was a young person, there was like, you went away to youth camp and there was the like, get to know Jesus call. And then there was the like, hey, Jesus may be calling you to go into full time vocational ministry.
Brad Dreibelbis — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Come to the front now, we’re going to pray for you. And we dropped that somewhere along the line. We dropped that. But I love that you’re picking that up and using that as, help us think through that. How do you talk about that kind of language with young leaders? How do we challenge them? Think about those things.
Brad Dreibelbis — Yeah, that’s so good. So my story is I had a moment when I was 16 where I just felt like God told me, go up on the hillside. And whenever I went up on the hillside, I heard from God. And I heard him say, Brad, you’re going to be a pastor. And so it was a very clear moment for me that any time I’ve gotten discouraged, shaken up, wondered what I should do, even all the mistakes that I made early in ministry. I got I got kicked out of a volunteer role once. I got told I wasn’t going to be hired at The Journey because I was arrogant and unteachable. My pastor told me that. And I still gutted it out and stayed because my calling was the thing that I kept going back to.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Brad Dreibelbis — I had heard from God, I’m going to be a pastor. And I want young people, I want everybody, but especially young people, I want them to hear the voice of God. Maybe not the audible voice of God, but I want to teach them how to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit and what he is leading, because I believe that every single one of us has a calling. Every single one of us is uniquely wired for a purpose that God has for us on this planet.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Brad Dreibelbis — And it’s not limited to vocational ministry. So that’s where some of those summer camps, I think, might have gotten it wrong. They said, maybe you’re called to ministry.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brad Dreibelbis — It’s like, that’s not the only way to be called. Maybe you’re called to go start a business that makes $50 billion a year, and you’re going to fund the next wave of ministry happening. That’s your calling. Maybe you’re called to be the best killer stay at home dad that has ever walked this planet. And in a fatherless generation, you’re going to father your kids well, so that they change the world for Jesus.
Rich Birch — Right. Love it.
Brad Dreibelbis — Like I want people to hear from God, and that’s what I’m trying to help them see and help them step into.
Rich Birch — So good.
Brad Dreibelbis — So I’m having conversations. How do you how do you create enough space where you can listen to the Holy Spirit, not just listen to the voices when you’re scrolling? How do you create enough space where you’re prioritizing your faith, prioritizing what it means to hear from God? So that’s why our ministry boot camp, the first hour of it, the first hour is sitting and listening to God.
Rich Birch — That’s good. So good.
Brad Dreibelbis — Spending time connecting with him. It’s there’s worship music playing in the background. If you don’t want to be in the room, go somewhere else. Journal, pray, do something.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brad Dreibelbis — And yeah, there’s a bunch of 14 year olds in the room that have never spent an hour connecting with God in their entire life. But what God will do with twice a week, one hour a day, that’s 20 hours of connecting with God uninterrupted…
Rich Birch — Right.
Brad Dreibelbis — …that they’ve never had before.
Rich Birch — Yeah, so good.
Brad Dreibelbis — And that’s where they get to hear their calling, and just explore what could it be. If they can build that muscle, when they turn 22 or 27 or 29 and God opens their eyes to see what’s next, they’re ready to flex that muscle because they know how to be sensitive and hear from God and say yes to the opportunities that are in front of them.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Brad Dreibelbis — Or be corrected whenever they need to be corrected so that they can say yes in the future.
Rich Birch — So good, so good. This has been a rich conversation so far. One of the things you’ve talked about is you referenced there this whole kind of in some conversations, it’s like a dichotomy between character and competence or between, you know, who we are versus what we do. And how are you helping young leaders…because we for sure have a character problem in the broader body of Christ. Right?
Brad Dreibelbis — Sure.
Rich Birch — Like there’s sure like we are always it seems like we’re always a few weeks away from some major blow up at some church, unfortunately, right?
Brad Dreibelbis — Sure.
Rich Birch — That’s it’s just what we seem to see. But I love that you’re, you’re, you know, you’re tapping on that issue. Hey, we want we want people to think about who they are, not just what they do. Because I could see in these kind of training environments, could lean towards like, we’ll give you the skills to be an amazing host or be a great video person, or being a great kids person, but then not actually deal with some of the character stuff. Talk me through what that looks like for you guys.
Brad Dreibelbis — Yeah. So we always look at it as it’s it’s not something that can be resolved. It’s a tension that needs to be managed.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Brad Dreibelbis — So there’s always this tension between do I focus more on character, or do I focus more on on competence? Do I focus more on helping you be a great preacher and teacher and host on stage and be great with kids? Or do I really just help disciple you to be a better follower of Jesus?
Rich Birch — Right.
Brad Dreibelbis — And the answer is yes.
Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, that’s good.
Brad Dreibelbis — The answer is both. And different seasons require different things. So it requires this leadership art that every person who’s a pastor, or every person who’s listening to this podcast, you’ve had to do this. But I think sometimes we get it wrong, myself included, where we think, oh, what this person really needs is character development, or competence. They need to grow in their ability to do something. And it’s like the answer is both. So it’s this tension…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Brad Dreibelbis — …where if you can, if you can help somebody grow in their ability to to hear from God, to submit their life to the Holy Spirit, to be renewed each day, if you can help them grow in that, that’s going to carry them further than their competence ever could.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Brad Dreibelbis — Because you can always teach new skills. I can teach you how to run a social media account. I can teach you how to, you know, look at a spreadsheet and make sure that all the finances are right. I can teach you how to do it because guess what? That was me. Nobody, nobody came alongside and said, oh, here’s how you be a pastor, and here’s how you do it. I just did it.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Right, right.
Brad Dreibelbis — So that’s part of what happens is if I had somebody helping me grow in my character, calling out whenever I would, whenever I needed to be. My pastor called me arrogant and unteachable so that I would grow.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Brad Dreibelbis — And I leaned in. I didn’t lean out. I leaned in.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brad Dreibelbis — And from there, because my character was strong and was getting stronger each and every day, I got more opportunities, and I got more chances to flex some new competence muscles in a new way. And ultimately, that’s what helped.
Rich Birch — So good, so good. Well, pivoting in a totally different direction. This is something you had sent this to me ahead of time and I want to I think this is such a great, simple tool, powerfully, you know, deceptively powerful in its simplicity. Talk to us about your monthly focuses as a staff team. As a, you know, as a church, you’ve kind of defined these. You document them, you track them. And you’ve given us a PDF version of, of kind of like a one pager that kind of shows these. But talk us through how, how does these, how does this work at The Journey. And, you know, work us through this. Talk to us about this talk, this document.
Brad Dreibelbis — Yeah. So this is, I would say this is our, our ministry superpower right now as a church.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Brad Dreibelbis — This is like our secret sauce. This is this is the thing that, like, when we trace everything back, this has helped us the most, practically speaking. So, you know, as we’re as we’re thinking about raising up people and raising up leaders, we came into this month of March going we need to focus on leadership development. We need to raise up some young leaders. So we have an existing mechanism in our church that we call our monthly focus, which means that we have a particular vision area of our church that we’re that we’re trying to focus on.
Brad Dreibelbis — So for us, our vision as a church is to gather, connect and serve, born out of Acts 2. And so we said, okay, serve is the area that we want to focus on this month. Then we have a vehicle – that that’s what we call it. It’s the thing that is the tool to help us get there.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Brad Dreibelbis — So for us, our vehicle is steps of leadership. We’ve created these different abilities for people to have different levels of leadership, different steps, different ways that they can have influence. So that’s our vehicle. And then we have a goal associated with that where we say this month we want to see 30 people fill in a steps of leadership assessment, basically raising their hands, saying, I want to be in leadership. I want to I want to have some influence. And now what we can do is every single month, everybody is rallied around this…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Brad Dreibelbis — …from a staff member to a J-team leader to, you know, anybody that’s in our church, they’re aware of what this monthly focus is.
Brad Dreibelbis — We’re talking about it on a weekend. Pastor Mark’s mentioning it in his messages. We’re talking about it in our pre-gathering huddles, getting everybody fired up. Pastor Mark always says every tag-in, every meeting, every conversation, every department meeting starts with, hey, here’s our monthly focus. Here’s where we’re at.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Brad Dreibelbis — We’ve even built-in this mechanism where our staff meets once a week. And we have to come together, we share some quick wins and life change stories, and then we do this, Hey, what’s one thing that you can do to contribute to our monthly focus? And we actually review what somebody said last week. So the whole staff standing in front of each other. And if they said, I’m going to talk to Bill about filling in a steps of leadership assessment…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good.
Brad Dreibelbis — …I leave the environment and go, hey, Rich, did you talk to Bill last week because you said you would? And the staff member has to go, yeah, I did. Great! Or no, I didn’t.
Rich Birch — No, I didn’t.
Brad Dreibelbis — All right. Let’s hold each other accountable.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love it.
Brad Dreibelbis — But that way we’re all focused on the same thing. So it’s become this this monthly focus where it’s not just about the goal, it’s about the vision area of our church…
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Brad Dreibelbis — …and the vehicle that we think is most important. And ultimately we measure it with a goal. And so it’s become the superpower for us, where if you look at that document, you can see our different monthly focuses over the last couple of months and how they’ve had influence. And it’s been really cool to see how it’s helped us push the ball down the field and stretch, in really cool ways how God has shown up when our entire church gets focused on one thing for the power of those 30 days and then we pivot.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. I love it. And are you okay if we link to this in our show notes for people to see this? Are you okay…
Brad Dreibelbis — Absolutely. Go right ahead. Steal everything. Put your church name on it and take credit.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Redo this. The thing I love about this is, well, I think the focus piece of it is so critically important. I think to, you know, you get up over ten staff and there’s people do wonder. They sit they sit at home or they sit at their desk or whatever. They wake up on Tuesday and they’re like, what am I supposed to be doing today? And by providing the clarity of like, hey, this is the thing that we’re focusing on this month, here’s the big win. So I love that. I also love that you guys have the guts, and again, friends, I encourage you to click the show notes and download this to actually take a look at it. You know, each of these a lot of these have, in fact probably all of them, have like some sort of goal that’s a measurable goal. And then there’s you’re at the end of that month tracking that goal. So it was like last month’s February 2024, to see an average of 3,100 people gather across all locations. And it was 2,998 was the actual average. And that marks as a as red NO, did not meet that goal.
Rich Birch — The thing I love about that is I think too many times in the church we, we feel, well, we don’t have the guts to put down a goal like that. And then we don’t have the guts to say, like, let’s actually follow up on that. And we would just we kind of get spongy, and we’re like, well, but we did. We were two short of 3000.
Brad Dreibelbis — No.
Rich Birch — Like, that’s good enough.
Brad Dreibelbis — Nope.
Rich Birch — But to to say no, like, hey, that, you know, we weren’t there. So I just you’ll see lots of examples of it. That’s not to be hard on your people, but it’s to say, let’s keep let’s keep the goal out in front and keep, you know, keep conversations going and have the guts to be able to talk about it.
Brad Dreibelbis — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Have has that been helpful as you’ve looked at those in internal conversation?
Brad Dreibelbis — Absolutely. I mean, it’s the only way to hold people accountable.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Brad Dreibelbis — We’re we’re recording this podcast in the middle of March Madness…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Brad Dreibelbis — …and nobody would watch the tournament if there was not a scoreboard.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Brad Dreibelbis — What would be the point?
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Brad Dreibelbis — People that are highly motivated on teams, in staff and leadership positions, especially marketplace leaders…
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah.
Brad Dreibelbis — …they want to know that there is a goal and a scoreboard, and they want to know if they hit it or didn’t…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Love it.
Brad Dreibelbis — …because no marketplace leader is in their business saying, well, I just kind of maybe fell short or I’m not really sure. No. Did you hit it or did you not?
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Brad Dreibelbis — Now don’t wallow in it. I’m not, you know, punching people in the mouth because they didn’t do something with like, hey, this is really heavy-handed. No, I’m sitting there going, here’s what we learned. Here’s what we should have done differently. Here’s where we dropped the ball, and here’s where we went forward, and here’s what we’re going to do next.
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Brad Dreibelbis — And if we won, Rich, it’s not this place of it felt good. I’m excited that we won. No. Here’s why we did it. Here’s how we did it.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it connects back…
Brad Dreibelbis — Here’s to be celebrated because of it. And we do that in every all staff meeting every month. The person who was responsible for that monthly focus, like who the buck stopped with, they give a report…
Rich Birch — Right.
Brad Dreibelbis — …and they’re the ones that say, here’s what happened. Again, accountability for the whole team so that you get your worship guy thinking and caring about steps of leadership. And you get your kids person thinking and caring about groups.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Brad Dreibelbis — And you get your finance person thinking and caring about weekend attendance.
Rich Birch — So good.
Brad Dreibelbis — We’re not in our silos anymore. We are one church helping people find Jesus and follow him fully.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good.
Brad Dreibelbis — And we are all focused on one thing these next 30 days.
Rich Birch — Yeah, totally. It’s great. Again, I encourage people to to take a look at that. And and it’s probably a whole conversation we could have right there on that. So that’s that’s a fun that’s great. Thanks for sharing that. Well, we’re coming to the end of our our episode here. Anything else you’d love to share kind of in this neighborhood of of calling up young leaders and, you know, motivating folks to reach the next generation and raising up, you know, folks for our teams.
Brad Dreibelbis — I mean, the only thing that I’d say is, is a little bit of what I talked about at the front end. Just be willing to give somebody a shot.
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Brad Dreibelbis — If you’re if you’re a pastor here listening to this, somebody gave you a shot before you were ready. I’m just telling you they did. You had some area of hidden sin in your life that you did not submit to God.
Rich Birch — Yeah, so true.
Brad Dreibelbis — And someone let you be on a platform or be in a meeting that you had no business being a part of. That’s my story.
Rich Birch — So true. So true.
Brad Dreibelbis — So put somebody else in that place.
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Brad Dreibelbis — If they’ve hidden some area of sin, try to flesh it out. Try to get what you can. Trust your gut. If you’re like, hey, I can’t put them in front of somebody, don’t do it. But don’t let this you have to be an expert with a with a seminary degree. You have to have graduated from, you know, Southeastern or you have to have graduated from Highlands College. You have to have, you know, a degree of something. Guys, ministry is with people. And the disciples did not have any of those certificates, degrees, or anything. They just did life with Jesus, who was the ultimate leader. And that’s what we need to do together.
Rich Birch — So good. Brad, this has been so helpful. I really appreciate you being on the show today. If people want to track with you or with the church, where do we want to send them online?
Brad Dreibelbis — Yeah, our website is yourjourney.tv and is a great place to to see any of our resources. We’ve got we’ve got stuff that we will give away. So if you want any of this, my email address is on there and we’ll be able to help you.
Rich Birch — Thanks so much. Appreciate you being here today, Brad. Have a good day.
Brad Dreibelbis — Thanks, Rich.
Today, we’re continuing our series on how your church can expand from 1,000 to 2,000 members in just 1,000 days. We’re focusing on the practical steps and metrics essential for managing such significant growth without overburdening your team or losing touch with the community’s needs. This discussion builds on our ongoing series, where we explore strategic engagement of new guests to achieve a sustainable and impactful growth rate—a growth rate that outpaces the community’s growth, ensuring that our church not only maintains its presence but also amplifies its influence. Join us as we unpack the crucial metrics that can help us double our congregation size while fostering a welcoming and vibrant church environment.
- Sustainable Growth Rate: We unpack the “Goldilocks” growth rate that is neither too fast to exhaust the church team nor too slow to impact the community. The ideal growth rate should outpace the community’s growth, ensuring the church gains influence and doesn’t lose ground.
- Attrition and Growth Metrics: Churches typically face a 15% annual attrition rate, including departures for various reasons—ranging from natural attrition to discontent with church dynamics. A growth of at least 15% annually is necessary to maintain current congregation sizes. However, to achieve a doubling in size, Rich advises targeting specific metrics:
- 3% Average Documented New Guests Weekly: Aim to attract new guests equivalent to 3% of the church’s size each week.
- 26% Retention of New Guests: Of the new guests that visit, retaining 26% is crucial to achieving the desired growth.
Focus on New Guest Metrics
- Average Documented First-time Guests: It’s vital to have documented evidence of first-time guests, which includes obtaining contact information (email, phone number, and ideally a mailing address). This allows for effective follow-up and integration into the church community.
- Weekly Consistency: The focus should be on consistent weekly engagement rather than sporadic bursts, ensuring that every weekend offers opportunities for newcomers to visit and feel welcomed.
Best Practices for Guest Information Collection
- Ethical Bribe: Using incentives like mugs, water bottles, or t-shirts as a welcoming gift can encourage guests to provide their contact information.
- Dedicated “New Here” Area: Churches should have clearly designated areas for new guests, staffed by personable and engaging team members, to make newcomers feel acknowledged and valued.
- Ongoing Engagement: It’s important to maintain an ongoing strategy for guest engagement, with regular prompts during services and events to remind and encourage participation.
Future Steps: The discussion on retaining 26% of newcomers will continue in future episodes, outlining specific strategies and follow-up actions to help solidify the initial contact and integrate new individuals into the church community.
This episode of the Unseminary Podcast lays down a practical blueprint for church growth, focusing on the crucial first steps of attracting and documenting new guests. With a systematic approach to guest engagement and information collection, churches can set the stage for substantial and sustainable growth, moving towards doubling their congregation in a realistic timeframe. The insights discussed provide actionable strategies that can be implemented to help churches make a significant impact in their communities.
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Zach Zehnder, the co-founder of Red Letter Living. Zach is a pioneer in creating 40-day challenges that have transformed discipleship and church growth in over 1000 churches. He’s also the teaching pastor at King of Kings in Omaha, Nebraska.
You know that disciple-making is important, but do you feel stuck on how to make it happen at your church? Wondering how to align your whole church, from kindergarten to adult, so everyone is focused on the same teaching and growing together? Tune in as Zach shares how a 40-day challenge can jumpstart your church’s growth and discipleship.
- Discipleship-centered challenges. // The 40-day challenges offered by Red Letter Living are not just about absorbing information; they are about taking action and experiencing life change. Included are message series, daily readings, and small group materials. There are also resources for kids and students. The beauty of this approach is its ability to align the entire church around a common idea, focusing on Jesus at the center. Whether you use one of Red Letter Living’s 40-day challenges or not, Zach recommends that you rollout an all-in church series once or twice a year.
- A huge impact on churches. // Over 1000 churches have participated in Red Letter Living’s 40-day challenges and the results speak for themselves. Most notably, it has helped to grow church small groups by about 40% during the 40-day challenge. A church could spend about 700 hours creating just first drafts of all the resources Red Letter Living already provides. Taking advantage of this turnkey solution removes a huge burden so church staff can focus on other aspects of ministry. And in times when division can easily creep into our congregations, these challenges also serve as a unifying force, centering us on Jesus and his teachings.
- The best way to follow Him. // The premise of the Red Letter Challenge is that the best way to follow Jesus is to simply do what he said and did. Rather than reinventing discipleship, this and other challenges by Red Letter Living focus on the words, life, and habits of Jesus. The Red Letter Challenge revolves around five key targets found in Jesus’ words: being, forgiving, serving, giving, and going. The first five days of the challenge introduces those five targets, and then a full week is spent on each of the targets, equaling 40 days. Each week participants engage in daily challenges and devotions that bring Jesus’ words to life.
- More challenges to offer. // In addition to the Red Letter Challenge, Red Letter Living offers other 40-day challenges that zero in on a particular topic Jesus talks about. For example, the Being Challenge focuses on practicing the five keystone habits of Jesus. The Forgiving Challenge is about receiving God’s freedom for yourself and then giving it away to others. The Serving Challenge looks at five aspects of how Jesus served us and then how to implement them.
- Special offer and more resources. // Any pastors and church leaders who would like a free copy of a Red Letter Living book can request one here. You can choose which book you’d like to sample and Red Letter Living will cover shipping costs within the United States. If you’re outside the US, a free digital copy is available. There are other supplies for the challenges that are offered for free on Red Letter Living’s website, including sermon manuscripts, videos, kids church curriculum, small group guides and videos, and more. Plus check out Red Letter Challenge in Spanish too.
You can find out more about the Red Letter Challenge and the other 40-day challenges available at www.redletterchallenge.com. Plus, join us Wednesday, May 1, 2024 at 12:00pm ET/9:00am PT for a webinar with Zach to talk about discipleship processes churches should be thinking about.
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Listen, listen – this is not a normal podcast. Today you are going to want to listen in, lean in. This is gonna be packed full. You’re gonna try to pack as much value into the next thirty minutes of your life as possible and I really do believe what we’re talking about today could not only grow your church but help your people take steps closer to Jesus. We’ve got my friend Zach Zehnder with us. He has he and his wife Allison founded Red Letter Living. They’re really on a mission of challenging all people to become greater followers of Jesus. They offer turnkey churchwide 40-day challenges that are simple to understand, challenging in concept, highly practical and always squarely aimed at Jesus. Zach has written and co-authored 10 books that have helped people literally hundreds of thousands of people ah, become greater followers of Jesus. And he currently serves as a teaching pastor at one of my favorite churches in the country, King of Kings in Omaha, Nebraska. Zach, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.
Zach Zehnder — Thanks, Rich! And yeah man, super pumped to be back with you. Thank you for all that you do. You know, you you said we’re gonna pack as much value into 30 minutes as we can. You are a value packer, my friend, so I appreciate I appreciate all that you do. I’m ah I’m a longtime listener and and great supporter and friend of yours and um, and really just super super honored to be with you today, my friend.
Rich Birch — Yeah, good. Okay listeners I want to tip off tip you off here. You’re going to want to listen right till the end of today’s episode. Because Zach just before we got on told me something crazy that he’s going to do but it’s going to be at the end so you’re going to want to stay until the end. Ah, because yeah, yeah, he’s doing something pretty amazing for you. So you’re going to want to be here um all the way to the end. But I wanted to get Zach on because he’s really, he’s an expert in these 40 day challenges that we’ve seen many churches do. And I love these because really I like to say they’re like the peanut butter and chocolate of church growth and discipleship. They they are great from a church growth point of view because they focus us they are you know they’re something that we can kind of rally our whole church around. They’re easy to invite friends to. But then they’re also like this amazing discipleship opportunity because you’re getting people into groups. You’re focusing them in a short period of time on like a great common idea and it all points towards Jesus. And Zach really is the expert on this. He is the guy who who you want to talk to about this today. And so I’m just going to say it right upfront folks my bias is I want to convince you to do one of these this fall. That’s that’s where we’re headed here. I want to spend the next thirty minutes of your life trying to convince you that you should do it at your church. But Zach, let’s let’s unpack that. When you say 40 day challenge, what do you mean by that? Kind of unpack that – what does that look like?
Zach Zehnder — Yeah, thanks, Rich. So for us a 40 day challenge would be for forty days what would it look like for each of us to be challenged in our faith to grow as disciples of Jesus. So our 40 day experiences, um, they’re not just any type of experience. They are discipleship-centered experiences as well. And so for us we love working with churches. We worked with over a thousand churches up to date now through these 40 day experiences. And several of them done multiple with us.
Zach Zehnder — But but really it’s an opportunity to for everybody to come in and be doing the same thing um for 40 days. And so on a weekend message series, the message series is all all there about the topic. You’ve got daily readings through the books for individuals. You’ve got small group materials for those that want to jump into a small group. And then we even have kids and students stuff to go alongside of it. So it really is kind of an all-in – we want everybody in.
Zach Zehnder — You know as pastor, you can’t all the time every single week of the year get everybody in on the same thing. But growing churches um, ah usually can pull that off once, maybe even twice a year. And so that’s our plea to churches is whether you use our material materials or not, once or twice a year you should be doing an all-in church series because it does exactly what you just said. I like the chocolate and peanut butter analogy – I might use that. It gets all the church growth stuff but it also adds the discipleship metrics that were really um, important for each of our churches too.
Rich Birch — Yeah I love this. So just to be completely honest friends, like at Liquid Church—church I was at in in New Jersey—this is a part of their strategy. Twice a year they do one of these – in the fall in the spring or in the winter um, and you know and kind of the Lent timeframe. And and I’ve seen this you know, front row I’ve seen the stats. It drives more people into small groups. It increases our overall attendance. We see you know all kinds of great stuff come back from families as they’re kind of all talking about stuff. So this is not, you know, it’s like the hair club for men guy. I’m like not only do you know do I love it, but I’ve also seen it for myself. So, you know this is a great thing. Talk to me more about why why the alignment is so important for us. Why you know going across both our adult teaching, kids, kind of the you know small groups, having all of those kind of, you know, hammering in the same direction. Why does that why is that so important with these series?
Zach Zehnder — Yeah, I think it’s super important whenever you are wanting to really reinforce like what some of your values are, what what’s important to your church. Again I don’t I don’t think every single week you have to although I think it’s really great when when we’re aligned with our whole church.
Zach Zehnder — And so there are certain things, and to me discipleship is one of those, where we want to really make sure we’re speaking the same language um from from newborn all the way up until ah 100+ years old. Um and that’s really I think the the problem with so many churches in our day today is ah when it comes to discipleship is we don’t know what we’re even shooting at. We know that we need making great disciples. Um, but but what where churches really struggle is identifying what targets they ought to be shooting at.
Zach Zehnder — And so that’s what our materials hopefully hopefully provide is common language that everyone in the church can be using throughout the forty days that we hope then of course would be language that carries on um into into the future. And so that’s really the power of alignment is we’re all sort of saying the same thing for forty days.
Zach Zehnder — And, Rich, I know you’re unSeminary but I’m I’m thinking back to my seminary days of you know there were certain classes—I’ll be real with you—where I didn’t always do the homework and didn’t do the reading.
Rich Birch — Sure, sure.
Zach Zehnder — Shocker, right, I know.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Zach Zehnder — How how dare I. But then there were some professors that really did pull the best out of me and I actually wanted to do the homework because I knew the discussions were gonna be really great. And I’ll tell you every time I went into a class where I’d done the reading, my energy level and my focus was so much better.
Zach Zehnder — The energy is just palpable when everybody’s doing the same things, hearing the same things. They’re doing the readings. In ours, we actually make them a challenge. So there’s actually things to do each day outside of just the reading because a disciple is a hearer and a doer. And so there’s just this real palpable, tangible excitement and energy when everybody’s doing the same thing for forty days um that you can capture that we believe and we’ve seen um, doesn’t just impact the forty days but can carry on into the future as well.
Rich Birch — Yeah, so true. That’s that’s amazing. I love that. Talk to me a little bit about what you know maybe think of a church who has gone who’s done one of these. Talk to me on the results side. So I get a sense I get ah you know hopefully people have a sense of the kind of thing we’re talking about. It’s a lot of work. You got to pull things together. You gotta, which we’ll get to, but it’s like you know how can you help, but but we’ll get to that in a minute. But let’s talk about the results side first. Maybe a church describe, you know, how what do they what do they do, what kind of impact do they see, how has that helped them as they’ve done maybe one or multiple of these over the years?
Zach Zehnder — Yeah, it’s great. So so first off, there’s lots of individual wins as well. So if a person is really going through this, they’re going to see fruit in their own life.
Rich Birch — Right.
Zach Zehnder — But but you asked about the church. So let’s talk about the church. What what happens in a church when they do an all-in series, at least one of ours. What we’ve seen and what we what we love talking about is more than anything else they’re going to learn great discipleship stuff, but they’re going to you’re going to grow your small groups. We’ve we’ve done this enough we actually have a free downloadable that I’d be happy to send um called Our 5 Step Simple Super Simple, Easily Doable Guide to Grow Your Small Groups. Ah, we’ve seen small groups grow by an average of 40% in just forty days.
Rich Birch — That’s crazy.
Zach Zehnder — Now Rich, what I what I want to be careful here because what I I want to pitch this in the way that’s most appropriate. And so like what I look at this as as a pastor is if you’re like out at the ocean and you’re riding the waves…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Zach Zehnder — …um, what what a 40 day challenge or what an all-in series will do is it’ll give you a really a nice wave. It’ll be a big boost. You’ll see 40% increase. Now what happens after the wave is the current will come. And so the current will come and it will draw back and that’s normal and to be expected. And we can talk about things and it’s important to make sure that as the current draws back, we don’t lose all the momentum.
Rich Birch — Right.
Zach Zehnder — Um, but what these once-a-year or twice-a-year things do is they boom they bring another wave, they bring another wave, they bring another wave. And we’re hoping that as they do this year after year after year that of course that wave is bigger every year.
Rich Birch — Right.
Zach Zehnder — And so we can be a catalyst to either jumpstart small groups from nothing to something really great, or we can grow your small groups by 40% in just forty days. Um expect some current but it’ll be better than it was. And then when you come back six months or a year later with another one. So that’s a huge piece is the small small group piece.
Zach Zehnder — On the church side as well, Rich, we I am a pastor. I’ve led a church myself and now I get to serve in team ministry as a Teaching Pastor. Ah I know the grind of what what it takes for Ministry day in and day out. And so ah we say a church can create their own stuff. Any church can do that. We’ve estimated it takes about 700 hours to create first drafts of all the resources we provide.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Zach Zehnder — And so you have ah you you probably have in each of ours 3000+ hours of work…
Rich Birch — Wow. Right.
Zach Zehnder — …that have gone into each one of these. And so there’s just so much. And so we love creating every resource from scratch so that everyone on your church team doesn’t need to create anything from scratch. Now they can add to it. They can take our graphics and insert their logo. Um they can look at my sermons and nitpick what they want and take what they want but nobody’s starting from scratch. And so from a church burnout side of things, staff burnout um, these things are are wonderful.
Zach Zehnder — And then the last thing—there’s so many more I can tell you about—but the the other tangible one that I think is going to be even more evident this year in 2024, um is our challenges really focus on the words, life, and habits of Jesus. And and trying to get people to do his words and practices, habits. And we have found that an all-in series that includes kids and students and has stuff to do during the week, it really brings great unity.
Zach Zehnder — And and so I’m thinking fall of 2024 there’s going to be a thing happening here in the U.S. of A.
Rich Birch — What what possibly could be that that will potentially strain the unity…
Zach Zehnder — Right.
Rich Birch — …of our churches…
Zach Zehnder — It happens. Yeah.
Rich Birch — …in say you know early November?
Zach Zehnder — It happens every 4 years and we’ve seen this…
Rich Birch — Yes, exactly.
Zach Zehnder — …cast characters before and how divisive it was…
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Zach Zehnder — …just four years ago. So here’s what I’m saying, it’s going to be a divisive time.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Zach Zehnder — So one of the best things you can do for your church is to bring unity in a divisive time.
Rich Birch — Right.
Zach Zehnder — And I’ve just found there’s nothing more unifying in a Christian church than centering in on Jesus – what did he say, what did he do – let’s focus on his words. Let’s do what he said. That’s a premise that’s really hard to argue against and brings just a ton of unity as more and more jumping in. So those are a few things um that we’ve seen from from churches that implement these.
Rich Birch — First of all, ah that I love that you’re hitting on that. Because this is a conversation that I’ve had with multiple leaders as we’ve gone into this year. I know we were kind of joking about you know the election and all that and what’s going to happen there. But but this is a real issue. People are worried about this. Like I I was at a church a month ago and they were having their all staff meeting. And I pop my head in and they were at the all staff meeting talking about the boundaries around posting about political things. And they were you know and they the boundary was don’t do it um on social media. And um, you know and they it was all in the context of, friends, we don’t want to do anything that would you know that would drive disunity in our churches. And so I could see I think that for that reason alone if you’ve never done one of these, doing an all-in series this fall could be a great thing. Like if you started maybe after Labor Day, somewhere in there, it wouldn’t look like you’re trying to just avoid, you know. But it would line up and it would be like, hey we’re in this this same timeframe, really trying to push towards unity. I love that.
Rich Birch — Can we take a step back? You talked about groups – coach me on this. We might have been doing this incorrectly. When we’ve launched these in the past we’ve talked used language like, hey join us for the, you know, the Red Letter Jesus series, or the whatever we’re calling it. And and we’re saying this a very special series. It’s only forty days long and it’s so X number of weeks. And we would love to we want everyone to sample a group. And we’ve deliberately said hey why don’t you try a group. We tell people you don’t have to be in it. You only have to do it for the weeks of this series. Is that a good idea or is that like bad practice and we should think about something different when it comes to small groups?
Zach Zehnder — No I think it’s great, Rich. I think and I think that’s the key to jumping and and bolstering small groups to being a catalyst, or to go from X number to Y number – whatever that is…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Zach Zehnder — …is offering a season that has an an easy entrance and an easy exit. Now we hope and we believe that as people are jumping into our small groups and through the small groups that you’re providing, especially if they’re ones that like you are really focusing on and everybody’s in this. Like it’s got to be a material you believe you believe in.
Rich Birch — Right.
Zach Zehnder — And so if it’s a material you believe in and that’s actually doing something in somebody’s life, we of course believe that um a number of those people, significant number of those people are going to want to continue in groups afterward. And so it’s it’s good to think about what to do following one of these. But but we also need strategic times—again I say at least once, maybe twice a year—we need strategic times where we’re helping ourselves by offering something that is really polished, well done, produced, got proven results um to get those numbers up.
Zach Zehnder — And then of course as you’re going through this and even in the early process, training those leaders on on identifying potential future leaders, and what does it look like to then proceed after you know, a 40 day series. What does that what does that look like? And we we love, like one of our partners is Right Now Media, all of our stuff’s on Right Now Media so if yout churches, I know many of them are. We love Right Now Media and you know the library of small group studies they have, and so there’s so many great ones on there that people can jump into after one of these all-in series. And maybe even find some of those on Right Now Media as well. Um, so I think that’s a totally ah absolutely great strategy. Keep keep at it and again, if the material you’re providing is is moving people in the right direction in their lives, they’re going to want to stay in groups.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Zach Zehnder — Um, here’s I think maybe a key distinction with our materials than than most others that I think is really important and why they want to keep in it. Is the the word “challenge” at the end of ours is intentional. Um, it’s it’s we want you to not just read and get the information from this particular study. We want you to do something with it.
Rich Birch — Right right.
Zach Zehnder — And so life change for me, Rich, happens um with information at times. But it also happens with experience.
Rich Birch — Right.
Zach Zehnder — And with me me being challenged.
Rich Birch — Right.
Zach Zehnder — And I’ll tell you, the times in my life where I’ve grown the most are the times when either life has come at me and it’s been a challenge, or when I’ve challenged myself. And that’s when the Spirit of God moves and does something. And so that’s where I think if you can if you can match um, a small group series that has ah a cause where people are doing something with it, I think you’re going to find the retention in the future seasons to be higher than just an information only series, which I’m all for those – we need those.
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Zach Zehnder — But that’s what I’m saying that there’s a difference there.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. I love that. That’s that’s so great. Well, let’s talk about specifically your challenges. So um, if people want more kind of information on this, they can dive in at redletterterchallenge.com, but kind of talk us through so the thing that I’ve I’ve been impressed with what you do is the quality of of your work, the actual like printed materials, everything you provide. It’s like ah you know it’s like a whole menu of different resources that you provide for each of these. But kind of talk us through maybe the core offerings. What are the challenges? How do they fit together, that sort of thing.
Zach Zehnder — Yeah, so yeah, our initial our initial 40 day challenge is called Red Letter Challenge – obviously the red letters of Jesus. And it’s a 40 Day Challenge where our premises is this: the best way to follow Jesus is to follow Jesus. We don’t need to reinvent discipleship.
Rich Birch — Right.
Zach Zehnder — Let’s get back to see, to do what he said. He he already told us that in the final words in the sermon of the mount, blessed are you who are hearing these words and putting them into practice. And so it’s a 40 day challenge to help people put his words into practice.
Zach Zehnder — The human element I think, Rich, is I looked at all the red letters of Jesus with specific emphasis on the commands, the imperatives, um, especially in the Greek language – not that I know Greek but I I know enough to find where the imperatives are. And and and in that I located what I believe are the 5 targets that came out of his mouth the most often.
Rich Birch — Ok.
Zach Zehnder — And so it’s organized around those 5 targets which for us are being um, being in a real relationship, growing in a relationship of God being, forgiving, serving, giving and going. And so we spend the first five days just introducing each one of those 5 targets. And then we spend a week on each of those 5 targets, and obviously that equals a perfect forty days.
Zach Zehnder — And and so the Red Letter Challenge what it’ll do is it’ll take a command of Jesus and then it will um have a little devotion on that, something to read as well um, from the word of God. And then it will give them a challenge to practically do that day.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Zach Zehnder — So a couple quick examples. So like in the “being” week, you know, uh Jesus once said, abide in my word. And so the challenge that day is hey let’s everybody spend 30 minutes reading God’s word and reflecting on that. Um in the serving week, that you know Jesus once said, um, let us love our neighbors as ourselves. And so the challenge that day is to physically, literally do something to love your neighbor.
Rich Birch — Right. Love it.
Zach Zehnder — Do something. And then of course share what you did. And and so as we do these things, and obviously there’s way more than just that…
Rich Birch — Right.
Zach Zehnder — …as we do what Jesus said, um, what happens is your church grows, your community’s always better when you put the words of Jesus into practice, and the one that surprised me the most—because we did this at our church and that I planted in Florida several times before it even became a book—the one that surprised me the most, Rich, was people who had been longtime Christians talked about how fulfilling and rewarding it was, even though it was outside of their comfort zone to actually do the words of Jesus. But because they knew we were in a challenge and they knew other people in the church were doing it, they were more inclined to do it and it took them out of their comfort zone.
Zach Zehnder — And so um, that’s what started it was Red Letter Challenge. And um from there you know churches had great ah experiences with it and many pastors were um asking my wife and I to consider writing more discipleship centered stuff. And so we really prayed and pondered that. Um and and and we stepped into that and actually left being the full-time lead pastor of that church in Florida to be a part time teaching pastor at a church I love, that I grew up here in Omaha. Um, so that I can spend time so that we can spend time creating these resources.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Zach Zehnder — And and so we have more challenges than just that. We we encourage a church to start with Red Letter Challenge.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Zach Zehnder — That’s kind of our our pinnacle one.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Zach Zehnder — But since then we’ve got ah ah 40 day challenges and we’re we’re in the process of writing one on each of those 5 targets.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Zach Zehnder — And so we have Being Challenge which is all about practicing the 5 keystone habits of Jesus. We have Forgiving Challenge which is all about receiving God’s freedom for yourself. And then of course giving it away to others. And then we have Serving Challenge which is looking at how Jesus served us and implementing the 5 aspects. And and then we’ve got a few more years of writing to finish Giving Challenge and Going Challenge. So…
Rich Birch — Love it. Love it.
Zach Zehnder — …anyway, it’s a chance for them if they had a good experience in Red Letter Challenge to go deeper in one of the 5 targets, or maybe even all 5 if they would consider going, you know, every year, annually perhaps um through this just to reinforce the importance of discipleship.
Rich Birch — Love it. And so help me understand at like a church level. So if I’m let’s say so let’s say I’m listening in. I’m like, okay, I’m a church of a thousand people. I’m like,Hey I’d be interested in in talking a little bit more about this. So the idea would be we would have books that we make available for people at our church. They pick them up, but we also have kids materials. How how does that part of it all work, like how. um, yeah, how to talk us through what that kind of the practical like takeaway side of it is.
Zach Zehnder — Yeah, great question. So what we always say is to really have an effective 40-day like all you all you really need from a ah purchasing standpoint is the books. We have books that we we have a regular books and then we have kids books…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Zach Zehnder — …that are designed for K through 5. Um, the the the normal books I write in a simple enough way to understand um that student ministry, middle school and up actually do really well with them, including older adults as well.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Zach Zehnder — Um, so um, get the books on site for your church. Get them ah there a few weeks early. We we recommend about a four week lead in time with promotion and distribution.
Rich Birch — Okay, okay.
Zach Zehnder — And and we have we can coach we can coach churches on how to do this well um, that get in. But then outside of the books, there are a few other things you can purchase but you don’t have to. And then everything else is free.
Rich Birch — Right, It’s crazy.
Zach Zehnder — So if a church wants to purchase wrist bands or shirts or something too, you know, because atmosphere and vibe is important. Awesome. We’ve got that ready to go. But you don’t need those things. And then everything else is free. So Rich, I’m talking we have sermon manuscripts for the pastor. Both manuscripts that are fully written out as well as videos if they’d rather watch it by video. We’ve got um Sunday school or kids church curriculum that is free. The kids’ books are a cost, but the kids’ curriculum for Sunday school or kids church is free that’s going to reinforce what you know we’re learning um in big church. We’ve got small group guides and videos that are free on our website. They’re also on Right Now Media, as I mentioned earlier for those that have Right Now Media.
Zach Zehnder — We’ve got a graphics package that has graphics for you every day of the challenge um, as well as things that lead into the challenge to help with promotion, distribution. And again we’ve done this over 1000 times. And so we typically listened early on like what more can we provide? And we have provided all of that. It is very rare that someone says, hey do you have this? And the answer for us is no. It’s like of course we do.
Rich Birch — Right, right. Yes.
Zach Zehnder — Um and so again, our hope, I have a pastoral heart to want to help a not just a lead pastor but an entire church staff. So for forty days, think, you don’t have to think from scratch. Which means you can get ahead on your other sermon planning. Or you can plan um more deeper um conversations with your staff for those forty days. Or you can plan to see more people in the hospital those forty…
Rich Birch — Right.
Zach Zehnder — Whatever it might be because you’ve got this ready to go.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. So friends, like just to recap here. So a thousand churches have done this. The question is why hasn’t your church? That really is what we’re trying to get you to think about today. I really do think um, you know, like friends like Zach’s not paying me to say this. He’s not like he’s a friend. I would I love his resources. I’ve seen churches, churches that I’ve coached have used them. It’s been super helpful. And I want it to help you as well. It’s here we are the end of April, we’re still in time for this fall. I know, friends, that you there’s a bunch of you that don’t have your fall planned out yet. I know you I know that’s true and you’re thinking about what are you going to do in October, November, September, October, November, somewhere in there. This would be you know great for you. I love all the resources you provide to try to make it so easy for a church. I also notice that you provide your core book in Spanish as well, which is fantastic. Am I seeing that correctly?
Zach Zehnder — That’s correct. Yeah, we have the original Red Letter Challenge also available in Spanish.
Rich Birch — Right.
Zach Zehnder — So for those that have the the dual speaking or ah Hispanic Ministry…
Rich Birch — Yep. Love it.
Zach Zehnder — …Yeah, we wanted to come alongside and provide that.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Zach Zehnder — And you’re you’re definitely right about the fall. Earlier you said, Rich, um that fall any falls a great time. This fall is a really great time because of what we talked about earlier. But that Sunday after labor day is really ah a awesome time to launch, and again that’ll get you kind of through mid -October…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Zach Zehnder — …and and and so that’s a really strategic time.
Rich Birch — Perfect.
Zach Zehnder — Of course it’s totally good if a church launches, you know, in October as well. But yeah September…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Zach Zehnder — …that’s Sunday after Labor Day is a great one.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I also thought this could be an interesting you know launch kind of backing up against Thanksgiving. So like going from this into the Christmas season could be a really cool, so a little bit later in the fall could be another time. Okay, so again, I I had told you, friends, that the Zach’s got this crazy thing he wants to give people. You’ve listened here. You know, you’re 26, 27 minutes in. Ah so what is it that that you’re going to give people – this is crazy. I can’t believe this.
Zach Zehnder — Hey Rich, we’re happy to give free copies of our books away…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Zach Zehnder — …to ah to pastors and church leaders…
Rich Birch — Okay.
Zach Zehnder — …and well we’ll cover the shipping too. That’s of course to anyone in the United States.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Zach Zehnder — To Canada we can send a digital sample…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Zach Zehnder — …and and work out it deal with shipping only if if that’s of interest. Um, but we want to get this book in your hand. We’re we’re confident in it. Um, we’ve got the proven results of over 1000 churches.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Zach Zehnder — And so we want you to thumb through it and see it for yourself. There was like, you mentioned earlier, heavy investment on the the graphic look feel design. Um, it’s ah it’s a unique book size. It’s a lay flat bind… like it’s just a really like awesome…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Zach Zehnder — …thing to hold and to look through that your people get excited about too. And so we’re happy to do that. And so I imagine link, Rich, the link will be kind of in the show notes for folks.
Rich Birch — Yep, we’ll link to it there.
Zach Zehnder — I can send you that link and…
Rich Birch — Yep for sure.
Zach Zehnder — …we’ll send them directly to it, and they can choose a challenge of their choice. If they want to see a kid’s book too, just put it in the notes. But we want to be as generous as possible as getting this material to you. Um, as we said it’s it’s late April now. Um, this fall’s a great chance and so that way you have time to look through it a little bit with your leadership team and and see. And we’ve we’ve got plenty of time to get ready for fall. Our materials get to you super quick as well.
Rich Birch — Right.
Zach Zehnder — And so we’d be happy to resource any church that would want to link in with us. But yeah, free book for any pastor leader out there.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s fun. I was just thinking while we were talking here what about like if if I’m say a network, you know, I’m I’ve got a network of churches that I meet with with you know that are folks that I either lead. I’m in a denomination – that sort of thing. Would you send me a book that I could take a look at? Ah, what would that look like?
Zach Zehnder — Totally. Yeah, we’d love to do that. We’ve worked with a couple denominations and then a couple of districts as well, inside of a denomination.
Rich Birch — Love it. Love it.
Zach Zehnder — And and so yeah, we’d love to send that. I would say if that’s you, um and anybody can email hello@redletterchallenge.com – let’s talk about that. We’ve done some things before where, you know, obviously the the more churches that can get in on one…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Zach Zehnder — …um, we can do even greater rates than you can find on our website…
Rich Birch — Right.
Zach Zehnder — …when we do it in bulk um through discount or through denominations in districts. And so ah, it can really save and it can be something that a denomination or district can help even fund, and get into their their district or denomination for a really powerful forty days that that we know is going to not just change each church but could change a whole denomination or district in forty days. It was pretty cool.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. I could see where like, yeah, let’s say yeah maybe I had maybe we had three or four churches in our in our kind of direct close, you know, network you could get them all shipped to one place. Get cheaper price for everybody. You know, we’re all going to be together in the summertime anyways. We’ll put the boxes in the back of your car, go home, that kind of thing. I think that could be ah, you know, super amazing. We friends, so again, the link’s in the show notes we’ll make it super obvious there. Click that link, pick up that that free copy.
Rich Birch — Now’s the time though, friends. Don’t don’t wait. Don’t like don’t put this off till like next month. Pick up that copy now. It’ll arrive in a bit and then you can make that decision here in May and get that slotted in for this fall. I think that would be that would be amazing. Actually, we also have another thing that we want to say to folks that are listening in. Next week on May 1st, Wednesday May 1st we’re at 12 noon Eastern, or 9am for our friends on the Pacific coast, we’re actually going to host a webinar with Zach which will be amazing. Kind of dual purpose of this – one if you if you want to talk directly to Zach, you got questions you could come to that. We’ll make sure we get those questions. We can talk specifically about if you want to you know more questions on you know 40-day all-in church challenges. But then we also this is really one piece of an overall kind of discipleship process that churches should be thinking about. Help us help me understand a little bit about what we’re gonna be talking about on that that webinar.
Zach Zehnder — Yeah. Rich, we’ve seen our materials work super well and and give 40-day experiences that are unparalleled. And and early on a church would say, now what? And I’m like I don’t know, man. I’m a lead pastor. You you do, you do you and I’ll do me.
Rich Birch — You go figure it out.
Zach Zehnder — But but over the over the last um 7 years especially, but really decade, I’ve been blessed to be able um to sit in this discipleship space more than most, and really look at Jesus as the answer. And not just create materials for forty days, but my heart, like where I find the most fulfillment and joy is when I can help a pastor.
Rich Birch — Right.
Zach Zehnder — Um, I’m a 4 generation pastor myself and I love resourcing and helping pastors. And so, Rich, I’ve taken everything that I’ve kind of learned in the discipleship space over the last seven to ten years, and I’m I’m really now wanting to help church leaders and pastors develop a full-on disciple-making strategy at their church.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Zach Zehnder — So think going beyond the forty days, but long term what does it look like to do disciple making in our nation right now? And I’m just convinced that it is the answer um to the perennial problem we’re having in the western church that we know how to create believers but we don’t know how to create followers.
Zach Zehnder — And and so I’ve spent years in this and tailor-made some content specific to pastors and church leaders for how to help them get going. And I’ll say one last thing about that and then I can’t wait to talk with you more. In 2022 Lifeway Research did a study, and on the greatest needs of pastors, the one that they knew they needed to invest needed to invest in and were willing to invest in, at the very top of the list 63%—above technology, communication, internet, all those things—63% said disciple-making which tells me pastors and church leaders know it’s important but they don’t know how to do it.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Zach Zehnder — And and I get the grind of daily taking care of your people. And to to know that disciple making is important and to not think that you’re crushing it can lead you to feel guilty and with a lot of shame. And so I want to come alongside as an ally and say I’ve got a decade into this. I can I can help you get started. We can help you get started. And that way you can do what God’s called you to do, but hopefully with the start we can give, we can really start making disciples, not just for forty days…
Rich Birch — Right.
Zach Zehnder — …but for 40 years and and beyond.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Zach Zehnder — So anyway I can’t wait to get into it and talk about more of the disciple-making high level church stuff for pastors and leaders.
Rich Birch — So good. This is going to be good. So that’s next week, that’s May 1st. You know click the link in there, you’ll you’ll see you’ll see all that. Sign-up, we’d love to see you. I love that soundbite. Hey we you know we’re going to have a conversation on that day that’s going to help you. It’s going to help frame this whole idea around, you know, not just creating believers but ultimately followers. How do we how do we become the kind of church that that is behind us is a wake of discipled people who are following Jesus ah, you know for years to come? That’s the kind of change we need to see in our churches. So really looking forward to that conversation. This is going to be fantastic.
Rich Birch — Zach, this has been a great conversation today. Thank you so much for ah for being on. Any kind of last words as we before we wrap up today’s conversation?
Zach Zehnder — Yeah, for me, you know, this whole thing started with ah sometimes pastors, church leaders can be guilty of this as well. Sometimes that we you know, we can put off that following Jesus is a burden and ah we have a cross to bear. And I don’t want to minimize the fact that ministry has its challenges and its burdens. Um, but following Jesus is the opportunity of our lifetimes and none of us deserve it. And not only have we been saved but we’ve been called to follow. And my heart just reaches out um to pastors and church leaders specifically um because for far too long like we’ve struggled in this area of discipleship specifically. And God’s been too good in all of our stories to settle for this mediocre, halfhearted, unintentional shadow at best representation. Um, and we have answers and we have answers in the name of Jesus.
Zach Zehnder — And and so um, yeah, I’m just really grateful for pastors that care about discipleship and are intentionally trying and and want to help in as many ways as possible. Because this really is the opportunity of a lifetime that none of us deserve and I’m grateful. Yeah.
Rich Birch — Um, it’s so good. Well Zach, I appreciate you being here where do we want to send people online if they want to connect with you, learn more about what you’re up to, that sort of thing. Where do we want to send them?
Zach Zehnder — Yeah, they can go to our main website redletterterchallenge.com and again I’ll give you the link, Rich, that you can put in, you can hyperlink it on the show notes for where to find the free book. They can also Google “free book for pastors Red Letter” and it’ll it’ll pop up at the top there too.
Rich Birch — Perfect.
Zach Zehnder — But, yeah, redletterterchallenge.com is the best place and if you want to email me or my team hello@redletterterchallenge.com. We we’re there and would love to ah would love to help.
Rich Birch — Thanks so much, Zach – appreciate you being here today.
Zach Zehnder — Appreciate you, Rich! Thanks, man.
You’ve often heard me stress the importance of culture, revenue, and vision in our churches, and our approach to hiring is at the heart of shaping our culture. Let’s explore five counterintuitive truths about hiring that I’ve uncovered through my experiences and coaching other church teams.
1. Judge by the Past, Not by Potential In our line of work, we are naturally inclined towards seeing the potential in people. However, when it comes to hiring, I’ve learned that it’s crucial to focus on what candidates have actually accomplished rather than what they might achieve. This approach reduces the risk of being disappointed by unmet expectations. In interviews, it’s vital to map out a candidate’s past behaviors and achievements to the needs of the role they’re applying for. Ask yourself, “If they replicate their past performance here, would it be a success?” This shift in perspective can lead to more reliable hiring decisions.
2. Enthusiasm is Overrated It’s easy to be charmed by a candidate’s zeal to join our team. However, enthusiasm does not always equate to effectiveness. We must dig deeper and evaluate the substantive skills and real impact a candidate brings. A high energy level can be a great asset, but it’s the combination of passion and proven ability that truly makes a difference. During interviews, look beyond a candidate’s excitement and assess their ability to contribute meaningfully to our goals.
3. Momentum vs. Metamorphosis Deciding between hiring internally and externally can dramatically affect the trajectory of our church’s development. Internal hires often help maintain momentum, sustaining the ongoing operations and preserving the culture. Conversely, external hires can be pivotal when you’re aiming to transform or significantly improve an area. Each hiring decision should be strategic: choose internal candidates to keep the wheels turning smoothly, or bring in fresh external perspectives to catalyze fundamental changes.
4. Hiring Can Hinder Growth It sounds paradoxical, but adding more staff doesn’t always accelerate growth. In fact, it can do the opposite by diminishing volunteer involvement and adding to our operational costs. Remember, every team member should ideally contribute to scaling up our efforts by equipping and empowering volunteers, not just by executing tasks. Reflect on this when considering new hires: Will this person enable more volunteers to engage, or will they fill a role that could be a growth opportunity for a volunteer?
5. Adaptability Over Skill In the dynamic environment of church leadership, the ability to adapt is invaluable. When hiring, prioritize candidates who demonstrate flexibility and a proven track record of adapting to new challenges. The future will likely ask them to handle roles that don’t even exist yet. During the hiring process, explore scenarios with candidates where they’ve had to adjust to significant changes or take on new responsibilities.
These insights into the hiring process are designed to foster stronger, more adaptable teams that align closely with our mission and values. As leaders, we must be intentional and thoughtful in our hiring practices to truly enhance our church’s capacity to thrive and grow.
As we continue to navigate the complexities of church management and leadership, let’s keep these counterintuitive truths in mind to refine our approach and achieve better outcomes. Thanks for tuning in, and here’s to building teams that make a lasting impact!
Thanks for joining in the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Mary Ann Sibley, church leader cheerleader and volunteer ministry ninja who works to make you look like the hero as you improve your volunteer culture.
Does it ever feel like there’s a lack of ownership when people serve at your church? How do you create an experience where your volunteers are excited to be there and make the mission happen? Listen in as Mary Ann offers practical help for shifting your volunteer culture to one of excitement, connection and discipleship.
- Hold things loosely. // During the volunteer recruitment process, never be desperate for volunteers. It’s better to have four who are on-fire for the work you’re doing than twenty who are just showing up to check the volunteer boxes. Let people know they aren’t required to volunteer and it’s okay if this isn’t where they should be right now. Continually cast vision and hold things loosely, trusting that God will bring the increase.
- Find the purpose. // Volunteering is a ministry, not only to the people coming to church, but also to the “one anothers” involved in serving. Part of vision-casting is helping volunteers realize that they are there for a bigger purpose. Discipleship comes into play when volunteers recognize that they aren’t only helping to fulfill what God wants to do at the church, but also allowing Him to work in their lives.
- Debrief and listen. // Bookend serving with a huddle at the beginning and a debrief at the end. A five-minute debrief keeps leaders and volunteers connected. Ask the volunteers two questions during debrief: what was a win that day, and how can you as the leader make the serving experience better. Teach your volunteers what a win looks like – even small wins create a sense of community and family. Debriefing gives volunteers a voice and helps them understand that they are more than just a cog in the wheel.
- Changes and wins. // By sharing wins and receiving feedback, we are valuing what our volunteers are doing. Don’t just listen to the feedback for improvement, write it down and act on it. Mary Ann suggests creating something as simple as a Google sheet that all of your leaders have access to. Then you can review the document to see what could be changed and where there is positive feedback in your church.
- AVERI the volunteer. // One of the barriers to serving could be your current volunteers. Mary Ann has a fictional volunteer she created named AVERI, which is an acronym for volunteers who might be Aloof, the Veteran, the Erratic, the Rebellious, or the Indifferent person. The Aloof person is cold and uninterested. The Veteran volunteer who is involved in everything may be an obstacle to others joining in and may be the most resistant to change. You never know when the Erratic one will show up for services or events. The Rebellious one will argue with you on everything. And the Indifferent one is nice but boring and disconnected.
- Find the AVERIs. // Take time on a Sunday and figure out who the AVERIs are among your volunteers that day. They may be still volunteering because they don’t want to be seen as unfaithful or feel that they need to stay in this position. Provide clear off-ramps to serving and let your volunteers know they can take a break or do something different anytime they need to; they are not required to stay on when they don’t feel this calling anymore.
- Encourage the VICCs. // The other fictional volunteer Mary Ann created is VICC—a volunteer who is Valued, Included, Challenged, and Connected. Someone with these qualities is engaged with the ministry and other volunteers, having fun, excited to serve, owning the mission and seeing God work.
- Volunteers are the mission. // Mary Ann wraps up by underscoring that volunteers are not just supporting the mission—they are the mission. Identify where there are barriers to serving and how you can better serve your volunteers. Intentional leadership and forming genuine relationships with volunteers will lead to discipleship opportunities.
Head over to maryannsibley.com to pick Mary Ann’s brain on a free consultation call and learn more about how she can help your church.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: CDF Capital
Since 1953 CDF Capital has helped church leaders and individuals bring light to the world through the thoughtful stewardship of their capital. The Church, including your church, requires more than just financial capital, it also needs spiritual and leadership capital. While separate in purpose, these three forms of capital are intertwined and inseparable for the cause of kingdom growth. Together, when we partner with the Lord to bring spiritual, leadership, and financial capital to a church, the results are transformational. At CDF Capital our ministry is simple: we lend money to churches.
CDF Capital, in partnership with Barna Group, conducted a research study to better understand what happens in churches after a new leader comes in. Barna Group interviewed 111 pastors online who have experienced a leadership transition within the last 12 years. Click here to get your free download of the study.
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. I’m really looking forward to today’s conversation. This is one of those topics that I’m pretty convinced that 99.996 percent of the churches that are listing in are worrying about this. They’re thinking about it. They’re wrestling with it. They’re trying to figure out what to do about it. This is an incredibly applicable topic to you and for the .004 percent of churches that aren’t, you need to be. So lean in, friends. We’ve got our friend Mary Ann Sibley with us today. She has a really compelling background. She came out of corporate America, worked as a commercial banker, then as a CFO for a global tech company and then God really got a hold of her life and pulled her in, originally to serve as in children’s ministry. But then ultimately saw that blossom into this incredible opportunity to work really in volunteer engagement, volunteer ministry in general. She was a part of seeing a group of 30 volunteers grow to over a thousand. I saw that and I leaned forward I said, man, we got to talk to Mary Ann. She’s a cheerleader for church leaders. I know that you’re going to be encouraged by this conversation. Mary Ann, thank you for being here today. Thanks for being here.
Mary Ann Sibley — Thank you, thank you, Rich. It’s an honor. Thank you.
Rich Birch — This is gonna be this gonna be great. Kind of fill in the picture there a little bit. Tell us a bit about your background. Kind of fill in the details there for us.
Mary Ann Sibley — Um, okay, well thank you again for having me on. And just telling ah again what God has done in my life is ridiculous. Even we hearing again from 30 to hundred.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Mary Ann Sibley — I just it’s crazy. He’s insane. I did not grow up in church. I grew up Buddhist. And my background being in business, you know, everything looked great on the outside. And the other thing I think is important when church leaders hear this, I had never been invited to church ever.
Rich Birch — Oh interesting. How did you get connected then? How… Yeah what did that look like?
Mary Ann Sibley — …for 40 years. I know. Well um I got I was divorced, a single mom at that time. And I moved into a neighborhood with a family that came and was living right behind me to start a church.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Mary Ann Sibley — And because I’m from the South, I never heard of such a thing. And so I thought it was a cult. And so I didn’t want my boys playing with their boys.
Rich Birch — That’s funny.
Mary Ann Sibley — And they kept asking these questions at dinner, and I kept getting angry and defensive. And it took two years of me saying no.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Mary Ann Sibley — When um I always say I didn’t know God, but I knew Becky. She was the mom.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Mary Ann Sibley — And Becky was so patient and she kept saying, you should come. Um, and I was like never in my life. And so as I like to say, Rich, is I was certain because of, you know, growing up in the south and seeing how church people behaved around me. I was convinced that I wasn’t going to like you church people.
Rich Birch — Oh wow. Wow.
Mary Ann Sibley — And I was sure you weren’t going to like me either.
Rich Birch — Yeah, wow. Right. Interesting.
Mary Ann Sibley — So let’s just not meet. So you know that was never going to happen. And but after two years God did what only he could do. And we went to go visit. My primary reason for my very first time in visiting this church was to make sure it wasn’t a cult.
Rich Birch — Mmm checking it out.
Mary Ann Sibley — Because I really thought it was something weird.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Mary Ann Sibley —Yeah I’m like what is it, but this is their meeting in a school, and then they you know this is all new to me. And this was way back long time ago.
Rich Birch — Right.
Mary Ann Sibley — So like over twenty years ago. And um, of course it wasn’t and it wasn’t long before you know I kept thinking I should probably come here. But I remember I had to talk to the pastor and ask permission because I was Buddhist.
Rich Birch — Oh wow. Interesting.
Mary Ann Sibley — And I thought I said and you know and I’m a college grad.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Mary Ann Sibley — I was an international banker. Like you know, I knew stuff. I was smart.
Rich Birch — Yes, you’re a full-on adult.
Mary Ann Sibley — Ah, but when it came to church, and that was intimidating and I knew nothing.
Rich Birch — Oh wow.
Mary Ann Sibley — Um and I remember just saying you know I think I want to come back, but I don’t know if I’m allowed. I’m a Buddhist.
Rich Birch — Right.
Mary Ann Sibley — And you know of course Yes, yes, come.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Mary Ann Sibley — And um so wasn’t long before then then I met Jesus, and then my two boys so and everything exploded.
Rich Birch — Wow. That’s amazing. Well, that’s a great that’s a great reminder encouragement for us, you know to continue to try to drive the invite cultures of our church, because you you just never know right? like and you know God’s obviously ended up using you in in huge ways and so. You know, really cool to see that story. You never know, you know, the people that you engage with and um and I love the persistence there too. Like I’ve heard that so many times and in my own life. There’s been people who you know it’s It’s a long-term conversation. We’re not this isn’t a one-time thing. It’s like we’re trying to build relationships over an extended period of time. So great reminder.
Mary Ann Sibley — Um, oh my gosh, Rich, I mean that’s the key righ there – the relationships.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Mary Ann Sibley — Um because Jeff and Becky, um, they just included me with their family things even though I was saying no, it was like like a natural thing. Oh hey, you know, even if I didn’t have my boys, hey we’re just cooking out. You want you come on over? Or um, something was wrong with my house. Her husband um was a carpenter. Imagine that. And she would say, I’ll send Jeff over – he can fix it.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Oh wow. So great.
Mary Ann Sibley — And you know things like that. So that relationship building is really was the really key you know?
Rich Birch — Hugely.
Mary Ann Sibley — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Well, that’s amazing you use the word “include” because I’ve in coaching I’ve talked about invest, invite, and then include. That you know lots of people talk about invest and invite. But then I’ve I’ve talked about that that third “i” which is include, which is, hey friends, we’ve got to we have to train our people, so the people that are part of our churches, to include people in their lives in their lives.
Mary Ann Sibley — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Like doing exactly what you’re saying. Hey come over for dinner. Why don’t we hang out? Like and it’s not people are not targets. They’re not like hey you’re you know it’s like some sort of project. It’s like no just extend your social circle beyond people at the church.
Mary Ann Sibley — Yes.
Rich Birch — And yeah, that’s great. And God does amazing things.
Mary Ann Sibley — I love I love that you said that, Rich. Because that inclusion part, we’re smart enough, we outside the church to know that you may have an ulterior motive.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Mary Ann Sibley — So it’s going to take longer sometimes, so don’t be discouraged.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Mary Ann Sibley — And so for me, my guard was up even though Becky was being nice to me and until one day I decided I need to ask her point blank what is this church thing all about? Um but I had pre-decided that if she started down this road of like preaching to me…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Mary Ann Sibley — …I was going to kick her out of my house. Like I had already thought if she says this, this, and this, they’re out.
Rich Birch — Right, right, right, right.
Mary Ann Sibley — And um and because I didn’t want to be another notch in her.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Yeah.
Mary Ann Sibley — thing uh trophy. Like oh I got Mary Ann. And she didn’t she just answered a two sentences, and stopped talking, and moved on to something else.
Rich Birch — Right, good for her.
Mary Ann Sibley — And I thought, oh she can stay. Yeah, so.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and she had the faith to be like it’s not it’s not all up to me. I don’t I don’t need you to say some magic words to try to wrestle Mary Ann to the ground right now, you know that kind of stuff.
Rich Birch — Well let’s pivot forward in your story. I love hearing that. Thanks for sharing that. So this like 30 to 1000 – that’s impressive, Mary Ann. That got my attention. Tell me that story. What what is going on there?
Mary Ann Sibley — Ah, ah so not growing up in church, I I chalk it up to not having a lot of church baggage. Or I also people would say well that’s on how we do things. I don’t know how you did things.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes, love it. Love it.
Mary Ann Sibley — Right? So people were saying well we always, and I’m like why? and it didn’t make sense. So I think on the one hand it was I was one to try different things. And if it didn’t work then let’s try something else. So I was doing things that people shake their heads and go I don’t understand.
Mary Ann Sibley — The other part of it I think, I don’t think I know that God um was so gracious in allowing me to be in the desert for forty years before I met him, is that I have a keen like I was not only depressed those last few years, one suicide attempt like it was a bad bad place.
Rich Birch — Oh wow. Right.
Mary Ann Sibley — And so when I consider what he has done for me and he brought me out of it, was and I started serving like first as children’s ministry because I didn’t know anything about church, and I thought well I’m a mom I can hold a baby. Like…
Rich Birch — Yes, I’ve done that before.
Mary Ann Sibley — …that’s kind of where as I don’t know anything about church and um, but through that and and growing and as the years passed, it is to this day so keen in mind that that I’m going to be unapologetic about how we serve God. And I’m gonna always know why we are serving him.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Mary Ann Sibley — And I continually was just intentional about saying y’all are not even praying before you’re serving. Who are you? Like I don’t understand what’s happening around here. And you know everyone’s running around [inaudible] Mary Ann we’re at church. We’re fine. Well we’re gonna go in service and we’ll pray. And I’m going I I think that’s backwards.
Rich Birch — Right, fascinating.
Mary Ann Sibley — And so and so I think it was a combination and deciding early on of Lord I may be the only one standing here in this room. I listened to your podcast about huddles which is I’m a huge fan of. And twenty five years ago nobody was talking about it, but I knew we had to do something like that. And I said if I’m the only one standing in this room, I’m going to stand in this room.
Rich Birch — So good.
Mary Ann Sibley — Because I cannot slap a name badge on after the week I just had. And think I can do anything that will glorify you.
Rich Birch — Right.
Mary Ann Sibley — Like I need to take a breath right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Mary Ann Sibley — I need to take a minute and invite people to join me. And a lot of them were like didn’t. But God’s like, you need to decide if you’re gonna do this because you’re gonna come with a lot of opposition. And so I think um, that determination I know that day I knew where I was standing and God honored it. Like a lot of this was just God. Like I had some strategies.
Rich Birch — Right.
Mary Ann Sibley — I had some ideas, you know I had a lot of fun.
Rich Birch — Right.
Mary Ann Sibley — I was you know the ninja cheerleader…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Mary Ann Sibley — …but God took all that and then he did the increase.
Rich Birch — Right.
Mary Ann Sibley — I mean his word actually is true. Imagine that.
Rich Birch — Yes, amazing. Interesting. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It actually works out.
Rich Birch — Why let’s talk a little bit about that. So you know so many people seem to be, when they serve in our churches there’s there um, there’s like ah can be a lack of ownership, right? It can be it can feel like you’re saying. Like I I just show up. I just you know I punch a card. And man that’s they’re really missing out. And and man, I feel bad that we’re even creating those kind of experiences in our churches. We want it to be a kind of a fulfilling incredible experience. How do we how do we do that? How do we or what have you learned to try to create an experience where people actually own it, where they actually are excited to be there and and want to make the mission happen.
Mary Ann Sibley — Yeah. First of all, never be desperate for volunteers. Never. I always say desperation never looks good on anything except for Jesus.
Rich Birch — Right.
Mary Ann Sibley — Like in dating. It’s not good.
Rich Birch — Right, right, right. Yes, yep.
Mary Ann Sibley — Like, you get the wrong people in the wrong season. And so I had to just decide first of all I’m not going to be desperate. And I would rather have four on-fire volunteers and see what God does with that than 20 that are checking the boxes.
Rich Birch — So good. Yep.
Mary Ann Sibley — Like and I would get permission for people. They would come to my orientations and I would say, you’re welcome to walk out of here. No strings attached. Won’t hurt my feelings. If if you’re here to check a box, this is not the right time for you. And that’s okay. You know someday it will be. But this is this is who I’m inviting. So right from the beginning, it was vision, vision, vision…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Mary Ann Sibley — …and holding loosely, not being desperate so that the ones that it would click with all of a sudden would be telling me, like if it was greeting. They said you know I have to be honest with you, Mary Ann, when you said I had to come to some orientation just to greet I thought you were crazy. Like…
Rich Birch — I could stand in a door be nice to people. Why do I need to come to your thing?
Mary Ann Sibley — Exactly. Yeah, when I when I meet with pastors, I said has anyone in this room ever said, it’s just greeting, how hard can it get right? How hard can it be?
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, lots of people. Yeah.
Mary Ann Sibley — And um I’m like no no, no. It’s not about that. Because that’s not what it’s about. It is a ministry. It’s twofold. Yes, it’s a ministry to the people coming in, but it also is a ministry to the one anothers that are greeting.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s true.
Mary Ann Sibley — And that’s where discipleship comes in and that’s where the volunteers start learning, Oh oh I’m here for a bigger purpose. Not only, yes to fulfill what God may be doing, but also in my life. Like because I believe in bookending huddle. Yes, we do all the talking. And then we debriefed every single time.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Mary Ann Sibley — And that gave volunteers a voice. So now they knew, oh I’m not just a cog in a wheel. They actually want to hear from me. They want to hear my ideas. They want to hear things that I think aren’t working well and they’re inviting me into it. So now I’m going to pay attention, right?
Rich Birch — Okay.
Mary Ann Sibley — Now I’m going to be more engaged. So.
Rich Birch — Yeah, let’s talk about debriefs. That’s that’s ah I don’t know a lot of… I know churches that do huddles, but there always seems to be this velocity at the end of a serving experience towards like people just want to get home. They want to leave. And but but it does feel like a missed opportunity. Like hey, let’s grab those people together even if it’s for a moment to be like, thank you for being here.
Mary Ann Sibley — Yeah, yeah.
Rich Birch — Talk to me about debriefs. What’s that look like?
Mary Ann Sibley — Oh my goodness. Um debriefs, I’m telling you is a game changer. Like if it’s even easier—people would disagree with me, but that’s fine—it’s easier than huddles. Um, and yes I said here’s here’s the thing about debriefs at the end of church. Um I want volunteers, after they’ve served, to um, the question I always want to say is what do you want someone to say at work the next day, or when they get home, or even at lunch?
Rich Birch — Oh good.
Mary Ann Sibley — So do you want them to say, oh yeah I was at church yesterday and that’s it. Or oh yeah I greeted. Or I held a baby. Or or do you want them to tell stories, right? And do you want them to know, and you have to get it in the moment. And so in the beginning when we they didn’t believe us, no one trusted us, or like hmmm I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you’ll really hear what I have to say, a, and, b, I don’t think it’s really going to be just 5 minutes because nothing in church takes 5 minutes, right?
Rich Birch — Right, right, right.
Mary Ann Sibley — And so we had be really diligent and intentional to say not kidding at two questions. What was a win today, and how could make it better? That’s debrief.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love it.
Mary Ann Sibley — What was a win, and then we had to teach people what a win was.
Rich Birch — Right.
Mary Ann Sibley — Like the obvious wins. But there could be some of the most beautiful small wins and that creates community and family. And then we’d always say how could we have made it better? Or I would tell my leaders. How could I have served you better today? And they would tell me, right?
Rich Birch — That’s cool.
Mary Ann Sibley — And then the leaders would go to their teammates and say the same thing. How could I have served you better today? What could we have done differently?
Rich Birch — Yeah. I love that. I love, you know, I love a high kind of feedback culture I think is super important. In fact, recently I was we we did this thing and it was like an event, and we we did like a post event survey. We sent it out to people. And then at a at a subsequent fall on a subsequent call, we had like a you know an online call, I actually just opened up the feedback and showed people, you know, hey here’s what you said about it, and so here’s what we learned. Like this didn’t go well. Here was the thing; look at the graph. This thing shows you did not like this.
Mary Ann Sibley — Yeah, yeah.
Rich Birch — Ah, we got improved that for next time. and then it was like there was one thing that was off the charts. Everyone loved that. And to me that didn’t seem like a big deal. And I so I said hey next time the one thing that was not very good. We got to get better at that. And I appreciate your feedback on that and I had a guy loop back to me and he said, I don’t know that I’ve ever had anyone actually tell me after we’ve done feedback the difference you know that you’re gonna you’re gonna make.
Rich Birch — So when you’re taking that kind of feedback when you’re saying hey what can we improve on next week, um what’s the kind of thing that people were giving you, and then how did you actually follow up on that? How do you keep because but will get cynical, right? If you if you just ask, hey how what are we gonna change? What are we gonna change and if they don’t if you they don’t actually improve anything.
Mary Ann Sibley — Okay, so um your podcast is about very practical things. So this is as practical as you can get – you make a Google sheet…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Mary Ann Sibley — …and you and you let all the leaders have access to it.
Rich Birch — Right.
And I had a high level leaders, not me – this is about again replace ourselves, disciple, let go, let people go. Um, we don’t let enough people go in the church. We’re afraid we’re the only ones that can do it. That’s another talk? Anywho um. So um, so the directors would sit there and ask those questions, and as they were take they I gave a laptop and they would just type the answers. So then I would have them on Monday morning. So if there was something crazy happening I as a staff person did get blindsided by the pastor going, did you hear what happened? I’m like yep, already did. And I know who who’s on it. And all the good stuff.
Mary Ann Sibley — But it also had a thing that would say, who’s to follow up? And if it was me I’d say, got it, got it…
Rich Birch — Right.
Mary Ann Sibley — …sent it to facilities. If it when a greeter tells you door number five doesn’t stop squeaking. I’m walking out.
Rich Birch — Right.
Mary Ann Sibley — You know, something as simple as that, right?
Rich Birch — Ah yes, yes.
Mary Ann Sibley — Um, and so or how did we handle a 911 call?
Rich Birch — Right.
Mary Ann Sibley — Like we had someone that completely fell out and just as church was letting out, and so they had that report in there. And other and then the wins were the big thing though. Like the wins and what people did, I would have other leaders say, I know this is really going to be weird, but I hope it rains on our watch because we are going to crush it. Like we are going to have all the wins. Like I want we want to be on that report, and say it was raining cats and dogs and then da-da-da-da happened.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Mary Ann Sibley — And so that was a great way to communicate it just in a Google sheet and had everyone have access to it, and they could just track it every week. What was going on…
Rich Birch — Oh that’s great.
Mary Ann Sibley — …and it was a great tool for me as well.
Rich Birch — Right. That’s very cool. All right, so pivoting in a slightly different direction, tell me about AVERI and VICC. Tell me about these two these two characters in your world.
Mary Ann Sibley — Ah, oh poor AVERI. Yeah AVERI um, AVERI’s the volunteer I talk about some barriers to serving. And one of the barriers could be your current volunteers. And I know when I go and I see you know go to churches. And what I see on the website, people smiling and doing, and handing things out. I show up and they’re not doing that. And I’m like that’s not…
Rich Birch — Really? I I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Mary Ann. That’s funny.
Mary Ann Sibley — Ah, and the ones that are there…um, AVERI stands for that it’s just ah, an acronym – aloof, um, the veteran, the erratic, the rebellious, and the indifferent person. So real quick, the aloof person, your current volunteer. They’re cold. You know, they’re uninterested. Like why are you here? Why are you even here?
Rich Birch — Right.
Mary Ann Sibley — And so that could be a barrier, and that doesn’t do anything. Um the vet – a lot people think the veteran is your best one. I said not if they’re doing everything and not allowing anyone else to be a part of what’s happening.
Rich Birch — Not letting, not not giving space, right? Not creating opportunity for other people.
Mary Ann Sibley — Right. And they can be the most resistant to change.
Rich Birch — Yeah, totally. Right, right.
Mary Ann Sibley — So now they’re a barrier for trying to create new ideas and and energy. The erratic one, you never know who’s going to come, when they’re going to come. Rebellious – everyone knows the rebellious ones. They want to fight you on everything just because they like a good fight.
Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, very true.
Mary Ann Sibley — And those are the conversations you have and ask them to serve somewhere else or take a break. And then the indifferent one. It’s different from aloof because the indifferent one, they’re nice, um, but they’re very boring, ho-hum. Like where’s the mission here, right? Where’s the mission?
Rich Birch — Disconnected kind of, yeah, yeah.
Mary Ann Sibley — So when you see a group of AVERIs standing around in a church or in anywhere in a ministry, um if I’m looking to come serve or attend your church, that speaks. Like I get that I am highly sensitive to those issues, I get it. It’s what I do. But I can also tell you that um I’m amazed at how often we forget the God-factor when I talk to church people. And because I’ve seen I’ve had so many beautiful stories of what God did when we were able to step up and really, not extravagant, but were able to really provide intentional service that God comes in and does the things that he does. Like people feel seen. And they’re like, I just feel like I want to come back. I really feel very like my family was taken care of, and and that everyone seemed like they genuinely wanted us there.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Mary Ann Sibley — Like I can’t put my finger on it, but that’s what can change, if you have…
Rich Birch — Right. I love that that. Yeah, even just identifying like so how would I as a church leader like those are good handles. I think aloof, veteran, erratic, rebellious, indifferent um, those are I think good kind of, you know, even for me to think about the people… You know we don’t sometimes we don’t see this though even in our own cultures, right? It’s like it’s hard… this is where you know, ah, you know a strategic outsider like yourself can be super helpful because it can just help us like you you see things that we don’t see. But what would be some of the signs that like, hey we’ve got too many AVERIs hanging around – what does that what’s that look like?
Mary Ann Sibley — Ah, well I think what’s interesting, Rich, when I do talk to church leaders and go through they are immediately nodding. They they can identify them.
Rich Birch — Right. They know people. Yeah well I did as well…
Mary Ann Sibley — They know, they’re going, oh I do have AVERIs. But they are so on the spin of every Sunday’s a Sunday, no one’s taking the time…
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Mary Ann Sibley — …to do. So they know but it’s like I would say really like you have got to, if you’re sitting there, and I think this is one of the biggest complaints that I hear from church leaders, it’s about volunteers. It’s It’s the least resourced in terms of time attention, whatever. And so really take take the time on a Sunday, not all Sunday, and really go, who are my AVERIs today? And you will, I mean we know them, right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Mary Ann Sibley — And it doesn’t mean we don’t like them. It doesn’t mean they’re not valuable. They’ve maybe they were never given the mission why. Maybe they’ve forgotten. You don’t do it we don’t do a good job reminding them. They’re in the wrong spot. And they did it for a little while and they don’t know how to quit because they don’t want to feel like um I don’t want to be seen as unchristian or unfaithful.
Rich Birch — Right.
Mary Ann Sibley — Especially your your veterans, and they will hang on and hang on. But you know when I was working and people were starting to come serve, I would say like, you know, so what brought you to start serving? And they’re like well it sounds like you have a, you know, the system we’d set up small baby steps – very caring, very open-handed – and they said because at my last church It was like a ball and chain. And once I got in I never… And of course not growing up in church I thought what?
Rich Birch — Right.
Mary Ann Sibley —A ball and chain? That’s awful!
Rich Birch — That’s awful. Exactly.
Mary Ann Sibley — Like that’s terrible.
Rich Birch — Yeah, oh my goodness.
Mary Ann Sibley — And they’re like, well I just couldn’t or didn’t believe that I could, you know. So when we talk in church about onboarding, onboarding, onboarding, I also talk about offboarding, offboarding…
Rich Birch — Right.
Mary Ann Sibley — …being just as intentional and told upfront, in advance so people are now like trusting you, I can come try it, because you really mean it, and I’ve seen you display it, act on it, that there is an off-ramp that is honoring and healthy as well.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. Well yeah, that that yeah I think the off-ramp thing you know on-ramps and… easy off, easy on and easy off-ramps are a critical piece of this puzzle for sure. So then obviously we want to transition from AVERI. I’m assuming that VICC is like that’s like the positive character we’re trying to move towards, you know, VICC or what. Tell us about that.
Mary Ann Sibley — Ah, VICC well there’s no perfect volunteer, but VICC comes awfully close to it. So VICC the volunteer is valued, included, challenged, and connected.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Mary Ann Sibley — Like if you have someone that feels valued, to your point earlier, I feel included um I’m challenged. And here and talk a lot about that. And I’m really connected, not only to one anothers here, but I’m connected to the mission and what’s happening. Now I can own it. That’s a volunteer that oh boy, they’re having a good time. They’re seeing God work, ministry’s happening across the board.
Rich Birch — Why don’t why don’t we dive in. Can we dive into maybe one of those. Like is there, when I look at those—valued, included, challenged, connected—I feel like the valued one is maybe one that our churches don’t do a great job on. How do we articulate to and ensure that our our volunteers understand how much they’re valued…
Mary Ann Sibley — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …understand how ah critical they are, you know, to the mission?
Mary Ann Sibley — Um, well first of all the most simple thing to do is we don’t say thank you enough. We don’t say it very specifically. And that costs no money.
Rich Birch — Right.
Mary Ann Sibley — Um I’ve I’ve talked to several people and they would just jump in and I know that they’re going through a hard, hard season. Like bad things were happening and they jumped in, they go I didn’t even get a thank you. And lot of volunteers don’t do it for that. But God doesn’t have to do a lot in our lives, but he loves us and he’s so generous and he just wants to just pour out, right? And so just sometimes taking the time to on the spot, I talked to a leader last week and she said I think I have a win. I said tell me, and she said um, one of our ushers actually smiled. I said wow.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Mary Ann Sibley — I said did you tell him? She said well no. And I’m like it’s not too late…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Mary Ann Sibley — …so send him an email and let him know that um… because I’m kind of over the top I get it – we don’t want a lot of Mary Anns out there. But um.
Rich Birch — Right.
Mary Ann Sibley — I went up to this one guy and he just had this really sense of humility and you know the fruit of the spirit, just calm and patience. And um I walked into our auditorium and I walked out to him and I said oh my goodness, thank you for just being here. I said I walked in and you immediately made me feel welcome.
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Mary Ann Sibley — And he looked at me and went, oh my gosh. He said, Mary Ann, I’m sitting here thinking I don’t measure up because I’m not going to be the cheerleader like you. I was like no, no, no, no, no, we don’t want to be all this. You, you have done an amazing work today. So I think really specific. thank yous and taking time. I think when we can share our wins as part of debrief, we value the work that the volunteers are doing. When we talk about…
Rich Birch — Yep. When I when I saw Mary Ann do this thing, man, that was amazing…
Mary Ann Sibley — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …because that reinforces our mission.
Mary Ann Sibley — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And then I the trickle down impact of that is this. And you know isn’t that amazing that kind of thing.
Mary Ann Sibley — And that would have never happened if we didn’t have volunteers here, and volunteers here.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Mary Ann Sibley — Like one person can’t be in fifteen places.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Mary Ann Sibley — And and when we really make sure, again that the non-desperation part. Um, that we care more for them as a person than filling a role anywhere. And we say that a lot but I practically it’s like what does that really look like, right? And it’s like what I call building real teams instead of just gathering pools of people.
Yes.
Mary Ann Sibley — Most churches just have pools of people and they call it a team.
Rich Birch — Yes. Oh man! Wow that is a mic drop moment! Gathering teams rather than pools of people. Oh my goodness, Mary Ann – that’s good. I love that.
Mary Ann Sibley — True story, as my grandson will say, true story.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s true.
Mary Ann Sibley — But I think the value in the very beginning—and this is this may step on some toes you may have to edit this out—um is um churches are looking for volunteers. They’re like we want you, we need you. We want you. We need you. And when I go on websites to say, okay, what does serving there look like? The first thing that pops up is I have to fill out a form blindly. I have to I have to give you all my information and I don’t even know anything about that ministry. I don’t know what the timeframe is. I don’t know how long you want me to serve.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Mary Ann Sibley — I’ve got baggage of ball and chain. So I’m gonna be really hesitant. So you may have some amazing volunteers that would be great, but they have so much baggage and there’s a loss of trust. There’s a lot of that in the church. Like people are trying to re-feel their way around. So when we value someone, we’re gonna really extend and say let me tell you all the things and let you decide.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Mary Ann Sibley — Because I trust God’s gonna bring the right people. I’m go to lay it out for you. And then you’re going to make the decision. We’ll have the right people.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love it.
Mary Ann Sibley — So little things like that.
Rich Birch — So good. That’s great. There’s so much we could unpack here. Um, another kind of again pivoting in a similar like in this same neighborhood but slightly different approach, I’ve heard time and again, um, you know, just as I’m interacting with churches and as we’re working on like church growth issues and trying to work on um, you know, how are we getting people connected, that I’m I’m hearing oftentimes you hear teams or groups, or you know teams and groups, like two different kind of things, but I’ve increasingly heard churches talking about really teams as a primary discipleship thing. That it’s like, man, this is a place where people it’s like a faster way to get people connected, and it’s like they’re man, you could see some real life change take place there. But then I’ll I’ll often hear church leaders push back against that and say no like that’s just about us, you know, we have it’s almost like they it’s like they wish they didn’t have volunteers. It’s like because it’s like it’s like if we could do this without volunteers we would. But I know you’ve got a passion for seeing this be a great experience. Help us think through how volunteering or being a part of a team, whatever the best language is there…
Mary Ann Sibley — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …could be a great discipleship experience for someone who’s connecting to our church.
Mary Ann Sibley — Well, it’s leadership, and it’s having an intentional leadership path. And I was committed to um, requiring and inviting those into leadership at the same level that I would require someone to lead a small group, or lead a bible study. And even though you may be leading, you know, leaders small group leaders for kindergartners or a group of guys in the parking lot. Because my ah my brain is is like why would I want to waste any time when you have people that have raised their hand to serve and they’re going to be with you most of the day, why would you waste it with just things to do, right?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Mary Ann Sibley — Why would you waste that? And so when the heart and the intention is like talking to our leaders to say oh you think you’re going to tell people where to park and train your guys. You’ll train them that’s fine, but that’s not why you’re there.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Mary Ann Sibley — You may be the one that will reach them for Christ. You may be the one that they know Jesus but they’re waning or they want to get deeper. You you you. They may not join a small group because that’s too scary, but they’ll come join a team. And through that experience you, I’ve had so many teams start a small group, or invite people in.
Mary Ann Sibley — And um, one of my roadie leaders I call—the parkers, they wanted to name themselves roadies – it was awesome.
Rich Birch — That’s fun.
Mary Ann Sibley — And he’s a big banker. He travels all across the country. And you know he was so good, but he’d say I know you keep saying this, Mary. And I said, you just wait, Ralph – you just wait. And sure enough one day he said one of his guys he was handing him a t-shirt at the end of the day, and the guy said to him this young guy said, you know what, I was going to quit because my wife is so sick and can’t come. But since we were on break earlier, you sat with me and we’re just having coffee. And this kid shared with Ralph how sick his wife was. And Ralph’s like that sounds like what my wife has. It’s not a very common thing. And he goes, Mary Ann, my wife immediately walks by. And I stopped her and said hey Vic, would you mind connecting with his wife? And she’s like yes, let…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Mary Ann Sibley — …let’s connect. And so this kid says to Ralph, I was going to quit today. But then I realized this is why I’m here; this is why I’m at this church and this is why I’m on your team. And Ralph looked at me and said you don’t have to convince me anymore. Because I get it. And so and so that…
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good.
Mary Ann Sibley — …is not wasted, right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Mary Ann Sibley — This is this is Ralph saying, hey let me pray for you guys even though you don’t want to share your prayer requests, I don’t care. But it’s those little beautiful moments that we do when we’re forming relationships under under the whole umbrella and the and the strength of who God is in our lives in Christ. And then God makes those moments happen. And you know, I’ve just seen enough, Rich…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Mary Ann Sibley — …that it can seem very um like, oh yeah, sure Mary Ann, you know we’ve gotten so blasé. We’re we’re producing, we’re producing. And yet they’re missing an opportunity to form a discipleship opportunity for those volunteers.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love it. So good. That’s that’s fantastic. Now how do you I know you help churches with this. What does that look like? Like how do you when you engage with a a church. What is that? How does that work? What are you kind of how are you helping them think through these things? What’s that look like?
Mary Ann Sibley — Yeah, um, it usually best involves with an onsite visit. So kind of earlier what you said, I get to be the eyes and ears. I don’t I can do the secret shoppers, they call it, but I even prefer to just let me talk to your people.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah for sure.
Mary Ann Sibley — Let me engage with them. They know I’m there. And I can immediately all through the day. So I meet with everyone before I get there in person. I spend the day on Sunday so I can be the eyes and questions and all that. So once we do that, then we come back and we strategize where’s the biggest need, what’s the the biggest path um area of ministry with volunteers. And it could be as a whole or right now I’m working with one church and she’s they’re saying we want our hospitality, our youth, and our children’s ministry. So I’m meeting with each of those groups about their volunteer culture.
Rich Birch — Right. That’s cool. That’s great. Well this is this has been fantastic. We’ve just scratched the surface. I know there’s so much that we could we could talk about, Mary Ann, but I really appreciate you. Any kind of final words as we as we wrap up today’s episode?
Mary Ann Sibley — Um, yeah I always say that the volunteers are not serving just to further your mission, that the volunteers are the mission they are the mission.
Rich Birch — So true. Yep, yep.
Mary Ann Sibley — And we um when we can stop and look at the people that are doing all the incredible things and realize, wow, what’s their story? What what do we know about them? Then that changes everything.
Rich Birch — So good. Well Mary Ann, I appreciate you being here. I know um your website is just maryannsibley.com. Is are there other places online we want to send people to connect with you and and you know connect with everything that you’re up to?
Mary Ann Sibley — Um, yeah I’m on Instagram just @masibley and um, a little bit on Facebook, my page there. But um, yeah, if you go to my website, you click on there, you’ll get my email just send me an email. I also do free consultation. So if you just want to hit that and say, hey Mary Ann, can we chat for 30, 45 minutes – just want to pick your brain and see what you think, I do that for everyone for free. So would love to hear from you. Yeah.
Rich Birch — Oh wow, that’s amazing. That’s great. Yeah I would I would recommend you take Mary Ann up on that. That would be ah that would be amazing. So thank you so much. I really appreciate you being here today and excited for you know for everything that’s going on in your world, and for that I’m just it was such an encouraging conversation. So thanks for being here today, Mary Ann.
Mary Ann Sibley — Thank you, Rich.
Today, we’re diving into the mechanics of rapid church growth, specifically how a church can potentially double in size—from 1,000 to 2,000 members—in just 1,000 days. If you’ve been pondering how to expand your congregation effectively and sustainably, this is the episode for you.
The Balance of GrowthRapid church growth is exhilarating but maintaining a balance so your team can sustain the momentum is crucial. Imagine welcoming 500 new attendees in a single weekend! Such growth spikes can be overwhelming and highlight the need for a well-oiled operational system to handle new faces without compromising the community spirit.
Understanding AttritionEvery church experiences some level of attrition, typically around 15% annually. This includes members who pass away, move away, or leave due to dissatisfaction. Knowing this number is vital because it sets the baseline for the growth needed just to maintain current numbers, let alone grow.
The Power of Documented First-Time GuestsA pivotal metric for growth is tracking documented first-time guests. Aiming for about 3% (or 30 new guests each week for a church of 1,000) sets a solid foundation for potential growth. This approach keeps the community dynamic and engaging, encouraging regular attendees to invite others and thus, organically grow the congregation.
Focusing on Guest RetentionOnce guests visit, the next challenge is retention. Thriving churches tend to keep about 26% of their first-time guests. This means if you’re meeting your target of 30 new guests weekly, you aim to integrate around seven to eight of those into your church community permanently.
Strategic IntegrationTo handle this influx, churches need to think strategically about integrating these individuals. This might involve launching new small groups or volunteer opportunities, creating enough space and engagement points to turn newcomers into regular members.
Sustainable Growth Over TimeBy adhering to these metrics—3% new guests weekly, managing a 15% attrition rate, and retaining 26% of newcomers—a church can aim to grow by 26% annually. This growth rate, compounded over three years, means doubling in size, reaching that 2,000 member milestone within 1,000 days.
Actionable StepsFor church leaders looking to harness these principles, it starts with fostering an inviting culture and ensuring each service is an opportunity for members to bring someone new. Moreover, setting up systems to capture and follow up with first-time guests efficiently can help maintain this growth trajectory.
Growing your church isn’t just about numbers; it’s about creating a welcoming community that continually reaches out and retains new members. If your church is on the brink of expansion and you’re aiming for explosive growth, focusing on these key metrics will provide a clear and structured path to achieve your goals.
For further guidance and personalized coaching to implement these strategies, don’t hesitate to reach out. Our team is eager to support your journey of significantly impacting your community and helping more people connect with your church family.
Episode TranscriptWell, happy Wednesday, everybody. Welcome to the UnSeminary Podcast. Today, we’re talking about from 1,000 to 2,000 in 1,000 days, key metrics for explosive church growth.
You know, friends, what I want to do is kind of look up under the hood and help you understand what are some of the mechanics, the kind of growth mechanics, metrics, numbers, digits that you should be thinking about when you think about growing your church. You know, there are some kind of key numbers, benchmarks that we come across time and again, and I want to expose those to you, to talk you through those, really as a target for your church to be looking at. Now, I’m talking about today, thinking about a church of 1,000. I’m going to use that as an example, but these numbers scale up and down, but that’s an important metric because, you know, it kind of helps us, it’s a round number, let’s be honest. It’s an easy number to kind of get your head around, but the same numbers work if your church is smaller or larger.
You know, there’s really an interesting balance I found in church growth over the years. Really, we want to grow fast enough to make a difference in our community. You want that excitement of like, man, amazing things are happening, but not so fast that your team can’t keep up. I remember years ago, 20 years ago, we had a single Sunday where we had 500 new people show up at our church. We were about maybe 1,000, just over 1,000 at the time. So it was like a 50% bump in a single weekend. Wowzers, it was, you know, it was crazy.
And, you know, although it’s the kind of thing, like everybody says, they would love something like that to happen. It was a ton of work and, you know, we ended up scrambling to try to follow up. We had to scale up groups quickly. We had to scale teams quickly. And you know, the thing about those 500 people, they came literally on the launch of a series and they did not go away. And, you know, although you might, you know, that could happen to your church and it does happen from time to time. Really, I think we should be aiming for something that’s more sustainable, that’s more on pace over an extended period of time.
I have friends of mine, they joke about how the fact that they’re the slowest growing church in America, you know, which is kind of funny. They’ve been growing basically 10% a year, but really since the 90s. And now this church that started as a few hundred people is now pushing three, 4,000 people because they’ve had consistent growth over an extended period of time. And so the question is, could we find some metrics? Could we find some numbers up under the hood based on actual real world experience that we should be thinking about for our church if we’re looking at growing? And so that’s what I want to unpack for you today.
So the first number I want us to understand is really this attrition number. So every church has some sort of attrition. That means, you know, every year there’s a certain percentage of people who go away for whatever reason. You know, they leave and they don’t come back. Now I’ve seen this time and again. There’s a real sticky persistent benchmark here of 15% that lots of churches across the country, they have a 15% shrinkage rate that, you know, they really can’t do anything about. It’s not that there’s something negative happening at their church. 5% of their church just frankly passes every year. There’s a certain percentage of people in every community that just die. There’s 5% that move away. This would be like they moved to a new town. They moved to a new city, you know, job move, that sort of thing. And then there’s 5% that get upset, frankly, for one reason or another. I remember early on, one of my early mentors in ministry talked about if 10% of the people in your church aren’t threatening to leave because they’re upset about something, you’re probably not doing anything right. And I think there’s some truth to that. You know, there are a percentage of people every year that leave and so that just are not happy with what’s happening. In fact, just this week I was talking to a pastor and he was talking about how last weekend they rolled out a vision talk at their church. He was kind of talking about redefining again. Why do we exist as a church? And he said, you know, he got some hate mail for that, but he was like, hey, that’s good. That’s a good part of life. We want that. That’s a critical piece.
So the first thing is to understand that your church does have an attrition number. Now for today’s calculation, we’re gonna set that at 15%. Now that might be more, it might be less. The important thing for us to understand on the attrition number is we have to grow faster than the attrition number just to kind of tread water. So if you, you know, a church would have to grow by 15% if you’ve got a 15% attrition number just to kind of stay the same. And so we’ve got to get, you know, terminal velocity to kind of get out of the pressure of that.
So how do we do that? So one of the key numbers that I talk about all the time, we talk about in our coaching. We work through whether it’s in, you know, my books, you know, Unlocking Your Church’s Invite Culture. We talk about it in our group coaching, the Church Growth Incubator, one-on-one coaching is documented first-time guests. This is a critical number. Recently, we had Paul Alexander. He’s executive pastor at Sun Valley Church, giant church making huge difference. And he talked about the same thing. I asked him what’s a key metric that he looks at across his locations. And he said, documented first-time guests. Now, I like to talk about that as documented first-time guests on a weekly basis. And that number in our calculation today is 3%. So on a church of a thousand people, that means weekend, week out, you should be seeing 30 people. Now, in other contexts, I talk about how a benchmark is 2%. And this is true. Your church, if you’re at 2% a week, that’s kind of like table stakes. You need to, you know, if you’re not there, you need to be investing, doubling down on increasing your invite culture. If you’re not seeing, so in this case, if you’re a church of a thousand people and you’re not seeing 20 a week, weekend, week out, I would say there’s something wrong with your invite culture. We’re not seeing enough guests. Now, what that means is over a year at 3%, you’re gonna see 1,500 first-time guests come to your church. At 2%, which would be the absolute lowest benchmark, the kind of table stakes, it would be a thousand. It would be mirrored. And that’s how our good friend, Tony Morgan talks about it with the Unstuck Group. They talk about, hey, you should have the same number of guests in a year that you have on average in an average weekend attendance at your church. I like talking about this number as average documented first-time guests on a weekly basis because I think it focuses our system better.
So in today’s example, a church of a thousand people, they should say 3%. Again, where this is, we’re aiming towards doubling every thousand days or every three years. So if you see 3% average, that means every week, you’re gonna see 30 first-time guests. And the question is, what can we do to actually integrate or to respond to 30 guests? What can we do to try to get 30 guests connected to our church? If I think 1,500, that would be the annual number. That’s like an overwhelming number. The problem with thinking about it at an annual basis is like, I’m not sure how we follow up with 1,500 people, but can I get my team to think about 30 on a weekly basis? Man, I totally can. We can associate, get our heads around, how can we see 30? The other thing, the other reason why I like talking about it weekly, so 3%, again, that’s the number we’re shooting for here to try to get to this doubling every thousand days. The reason why I like talking about it on a weekly basis as well, rather than annual, is because we should be really forcing, driving invite every week, week in, week out. Every week at your church needs to be the kind of thing that people will wanna invite their friends to. And the problem I see about talking about it at an annual number is we’ll often think like, well, Easter or Christmas or Mother’s Day, we’ll see a bunch of guests come on those days. But oftentimes that doesn’t work out. And so what we need to do is be thinking about it week in, week out.
So the first two numbers, attrition, we’re gonna assume 15% annual attrition. That’s a good benchmark. If you don’t know what your attrition number is, that would be the number I’d pick. We see that, that’s a sticky benchmark we see across the church. The second, again, what we’re aiming towards is to try to double a church and to go from 1,000 to 2,000 in 1,000 days. And so what that document at first time guest number is 3%.
Now let’s talk about guest retention. So how many of those guests, what percentage of those guests are we going to actually try to retain? Now the benchmarks here, the rule of thumbs we’ve talked about is that stuck and stagnant churches keep one in 10 guests. Growing churches keep two in 10 guests. And really thriving churches, churches that are knocking it out of the park, keep three in 10 guests. So the number I want you to be thinking about when it comes to guest retention in our calculation to go from 1,000 to 2,000 in 1,000 days is 26%. And the reason why I say 26% is your goal is it’s aggressive, but it’s also doable. When you think about back to that 30 guest issue every week, weekend, week out, we’re going to see 30 first time guests come. Then what that means is we’re hoping to see seven or eight of those guests stick and stay within that first year. We want to see seven or eight, somewhere in that of those guests.
Now this is important for you to think about because I think sometimes as church leaders, it could be discouraging to think, man, we’re only going to keep seven or eight out of the 30. What about all those other people? But this is just the normal church dynamics. We see this time and again, even growing churches, you have way more people come through the front door than actually stick and stay at your church long-term. This is normal. This is a normative process. And so what we need to be thinking about is what can we do to build a system? Now there’s a ton and we’ll talk about this in future weeks. There’s a ton that we can do to try to figure out what can we do to see seven or eight of those people stick of those 30 every week or 26%. Now, if you follow that, assuming you’re a church of 1,000 people, you have 3% documented average weekly guests, you have a 15% attrition rate and you keep 26% of your first-time guests, that means that you’ll grow by 26% a year. Now the interesting thing about 26% is if you can sustain 26% for 1,000 days or three years, your church would double. You’ll go from 1,000 to 2,000 assuming all of that continuing. You’re losing 15% a year. You’re seeing that 3% week in, week out. If you can sustain that every three years or every 1,000 days, you will double as a church. Now, the reason why I love 26% as a target, it’s aggressive. That puts you in the fastest-growing churches in the country. That puts you among the fastest-growing churches in the country for sure. But what that looks like on the baseline of 1,000 is, man, can we integrate every year 250 new people into small groups? That’s like, can we launch 20 new small groups in this coming year? Could you do that? Could you make that happen? Could you integrate somewhere between 100 and 150 new volunteers in this coming year? We’ve gotta create space for them. That maybe is like launching a new location or that’s gotta expand your teams. You gotta launch new spots. If you don’t do these two things, you’re not going to be building the space to get these folks in. So we need to not just think about attendance on the front end. We need to think not just about how do we drive people to sit in our auditoriums, but ultimately it’s about creating space for them to stick and stay. So at 26% on a baseline of 1,000, it’s what can we do to create space for somewhere between around 250 people this year? And then obviously that number grows. After that first year, you’re gonna be about 1,250 and then you’ll be about 1,600. And then that last year, at the end of that last year, you’ll be 2,000 people. So the key metric, if I was sitting across the table from you today and I was saying, hey, if you’re a church of 1,000 and you’re thinking about growing, you’d like to get on this path towards 26%, I would start with the top end of that funnel and that is the average documented first-time guest. This is a number that you can control. By building your invite culture, by consistently pushing your people towards what can they do to invite their friends, you can increase your average documented first-time guests. Now, how do you gather that information? You gather that information by having an exchange. I like to call it the ethical bribe. On Sunday morning, you stand up every single week, week in and week out, and you say, hey, we’re so glad that you’ve come to Sunnyvale Community Church. Let’s say that’s the name of your church. We’re so honored that you’re here at Sunnyvale Church today. In fact, we’ve got a gift for you. If you’re new here at Sunnyvale Community Church, we’d love to give you this gift. Click on this QR code, fill out this card in the seat in front of you, and take it to our dedicated new here kiosk where we’ve got amazing volunteers who are going to give you one of these coffee mugs that says Sunnyvale or for Sunnyvale on it or this T-shirt. And in exchange for your contact information, we’re going to give you this gift today. And that’s the number that we look at and that’s the number that really should be that documented first-time guest. Obviously, also first-time kids are connected in with that as well.
So that’s some numbers there. So documented first-time guests, your target should be 3%. Annual attrition, assuming we see that lots of times, at 15% of church, your guest retention is 26% is what you’re targeting towards. That will drive overall growth of 26%, which will mean that a church of 1,000 will grow to 2,000 in 1,000 days. Friends, if you’re looking for help for this, particularly if you’re the church that we’ve been talking about today, a church of 1,000 people, we’ve got coaching. We want to get in your corner. We have predictable processes that we do with the churches we coach where we’ve seen this happen time and again. And if you want help with that, just reach out. Email me, I’d be happy to talk about that.
Host: Thanks so much, friends. Pumped to be in your corner. Hope that you have a great week and thanks for being on the path to try to grow your church, to make an impact, to see good things happen, to see people connected, to see marriages renewed, to see people take steps closer to Jesus, to see more people get baptized. Thanks so much, friends. We’ll talk to you later. We’ll see you next week on the Unseminary Podcast. We’ve got a great interview tomorrow. You’re not going to want to miss it. We’ve got an incredible interview coming up. You’re going to see that tomorrow here on the interview show. Thanks so much, friends. Take care.
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Ted Coniaris, the Lead Pastor Apprentice at Community Christian Church. One of the fastest growing churches in the country, Community Christian is an entrepreneurial church which has been a ministry “teaching hospital” and vanguard for decades.
Whether it’s five years or fifty years, every lead pastor is called to shepherd their churches for a season. At some point they will step down from their role and pass the baton to a successor. How do we transition well and ensure that what we are building lasts beyond ourselves? Tune in as Ted shares about apprenticeship, team culture, and how to set your church culture up for a successful transition.
- 5 steps to apprenticeship. // Apprenticeship is fundamental to how Community Christian operates as they develop leaders and people to be activated into their mission. Taken from Dave and Jon Ferguson’s book, Exponential, the five steps of apprenticeship have also been core to the pastoral transition process. Current lead pastor, Dave, is in the process of leading Ted through these five steps, which include Step 1: I do, you watch, we talk. Step 2: I do, you help, we talk. Step 3: You do, I help, we talk. Step 4: You do, I watch, we talk. Step 5: Someone else watches you—the next apprentice.
- A culture of humility. // The transition process at Community Christian Church is marked by a clear timeline and benchmarks for progress. Ted attributes much of the success of this transition to the humility and leadership of Dave. In addition to setting a humble example, Ted stressed the importance of being deeply committed to Jesus, and prioritizing teamwork. These elements are crucial in fostering a culture of humility within the church, which is essential for any successful leadership transition.
- Tend to your soul in the transition. // Pastoral transitions bring with them a sharp learning curve and juggling a lot of different responsibilities. Build a support network of other lead pastors and talk about what you are going through. Continue to develop a culture of humility by sharing how you’re doing with your team. Ask them for grace when needed. Create daily rhythms that will help to nurture your relationship with God and the most important people in your life.
- Be open-handed. // There are things that will change in the leadership team and infrastructure as a church transitions to a new lead pastor. Be open to the new vision that God is calling the church to in this new chapter. What changes will best serve where God is leading you? Don’t be afraid to make changes that may benefit your church as the leadership changes.
- Plan ahead for transitions. // Think about how your church culture sets up for a transition. If you are building something that you want to last past you, you have to imagine what it will look like when you are gone. Aggressively remove parts of your culture that will reject a transition, and align your culture so transition will be viewed as a good thing.
You can find out more about Community Christian Church at www.communitychristian.org and email Ted.
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Every week we try to bring you a leader who will both inspire and equip you and I’m really excited to have Ted Coniaris with us today. He is from Community Christian Church. They are a multisite church in Illinois. If you do not know them I don’t know where you’ve been. There, ah if if I’m counting right, 7 physical locations. Although they always seem their launch another, one micro-churches, online space, Community Freedom locations at correctional institutions and treatment centers in the area. Ted is the Lead Pastor Apprentice at Community Christian. He has been ah a campus pastor in one of their locations but is in the midst of a transition. I’m looking forward to today’s conversation because we’re catching a story as it’s happening. So really looking forward to this, Ted. Welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.
Ted Coniaris — So glad to be here, Rich. Thank you so much for having me.
Rich Birch — Why don’t you tell us, kind of fill out the picture a little bit about Community. You know that was just kind of the standard boilerplate stuff. Give us kind of the passion, if we were to come this weekend, what would we experience? Fill in the picture there a little bit.
Ted Coniaris — Yeah, I mean you could really say so much about the legacy of our church over the last 35 years, but the unifying thread that ties it all together, and and really still is going to be pointing us towards our future is our mission, which is helping people find their way back to God. I mean from the very first day that Dave and John Ferguson founded this church that was the unifying passion. It’s still our unifying passion today and as we’re in the midst of this transition, you know, part of my stewardship is stewarding that mission into the future. I mean that’s that’s my heartbeat. That’s Dave’s heartbeat. That’s the heartbeat of our future as well. So that’s that’s the big idea that ties us all together.
Ted Coniaris — But I think you pretty much covered we had got a lot of stuff going on. We’re entrepreneurial kind of church. We love doing whatever we can help people find the way back to God. So that’s starting churches in prisons. Yep, we’re in.
Rich Birch — Nice.
Ted Coniaris — That starting micro-churches all around the world. We’re in. You know, we’ll do whatever it takes. And we kind of joke sometimes like we’re willing to be the first person to like kick through the door, and then we expect people to come in behind us and do it a whole lot better than we’re doing it. But…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ted Coniaris — …that’s been the model for the thirty-five years. One of the first churches to go multisite.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — I think one of the first churches to leverage a micro expression in the way that we’re doing it. And you know that’s that’s a fun part of being here.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, the Community Christian is a vanguard, a teaching hospital kind of church place, that you you’re taking the the hits and making stuff up and then the rest of us are ah you know are benefiting from that. And that continues I would say that continues with this current transition that you find yourself in. Like this is one of those areas where I think a lot of our churches are looking at and trying to figure out, Okay, how do we pass this on to the next generation. So talk to me about kind of your connection kind of up to this point where you were ended up being identified as the Lead Pastor Apprentice with Community Christian. How did that work, kind of kind of where’d you come from, all that kind of stuff.
Ted Coniaris — Yeah, I mean there’s so many different places to start the story, but just for sake of time, I was at large church in Chicago area. Not so far from our Community locations, maybe 45 minutes away.
Ted Coniaris — And God had really been doing so much through our time there in all kinds of different roles, was like executive pastor teaching pastor kind of role there. And we started having this really uncomfortable nudge from the Holy Spirit that maybe we should plant a church. And of course with great faith we said, No. We don’t want to do that.
Rich Birch — And like a good multiplying leader I said no.
Ted Coniaris — And yes, and I heard from the Lord and said, no thank you.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Ted Coniaris — But we were at least willing to explore it a little bit.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — You know, we felt that we’re like okay, let’s let’s go to this conference. We had heard about called Exponential. And so actually it was like ten years ago my wife and I went to an Exponential Conference in Orlando. truthfully like the most engaged I could tell you was halfheartedly sort of exploring the idea of planting with this seed…
Rich Birch — Interesting.
Ted Coniaris — …that the Lord had planted. And I remember in the first session I leaned over to Melissa because Dave Ferguson and John lead Exponential. If you’re not familiar with what it is. It’s the largest global gathering of church planters. And if you are at all interested in that you should definitely go stop what you’re doing right now and register for Exponential next year in Orlando. it’s an incredible…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Ted Coniaris — …Spirit-moved experience. And I was like you know hey these guys are in Naperville did you know that? And she’s like oh wow. I’m like yeah, maybe I should reach out talk to them sometime. And little did I know about a year later I’d be sitting at a table with John and Dave connected through a mutual friend who is—you talk about Community being kind of like a teaching hospital, my friend, John Peacock who launched Mission Church also in Illinois he had did he had done his residency at Community. And Community actually had helped launch Mission and sent about a hundred of their people to go help start Mission along with our number one giver to help launch that really well. So that’s kind of our legacy.
Ted Coniaris — He’s like you know you got to talk to Dave and John. So ended up talking with them and as we were exploring church plant we’re looking at the same community in Downers Grove, which suburb of Chicago here. And really came away from that conversation thinking to myself, the only reason I wouldn’t plant with Dave and John as a part of Community is if it had to be about me. And that is a horrible reason to plant a church to make a name for yourself.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes.
Ted Coniaris — And they’re like who I wanted to be when I grow up you know?
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — I’m sitting with these guys. They’re being so gracious and generous with me. And I had read some of their books and stuff and I was like man, I hope when I’m sixty I can be sitting across a table from somebody like this and encouraging them in the way they’re encouraging me.
Ted Coniaris — And so long story short we ended up planting. I’ve planted one of our churches in Downers Grove six years ago. And God really blessed that; amazing things have been happening – they’re still happening there. And then I started overseeing some of our locations, leading network is what we call it. And now I oversee all of our locations and expressions. So our physical locations and then you mentioned our micro churches, our online church, and our churches in prisons, Community Freedom. And then Dave and I started talking about this next step about apprenticing to become the next lead pastor of Community. So that’s the story in a nutshell.
Rich Birch — Um, and yeah, that’s so that’s yeah, that’s amazing. So the, you know, let’s let’s kind of zero in on the part of the story where you know Dave it takes you off for lunch and is like so what’s your future? You know God has a God loves you and I have a wonderful plan for your life. Like what does that look like? How do you know where what was that what was, you know, yeah, how does how does he broach that conversation? What’s going through your head? You know, obviously you’re a humble leader you’re you know you’re you’re not like you’re like of course I’m the guy. But like how does all that work? What’s going on inside you when you know when that conversation’s happening?
Ted Coniaris — Well first of all I’ll say a part of our culture that’s really important is we are like a very relational culture. And so Dave and John are brothers, if you don’t know, Dave and John Ferguson. They have co-founding pastors of our church. Dave is the lead pastor. And I often will tell people that we’ve inherited—they’re kind of like our family of origin, as a church culture. And there’s like a brotherly sort of vibe to our staff and our team and our church – nobody’s too big for their britches. You know like if you start trying to act like some kind of big shot around your brother, you’re gonna get punched, you know?
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, you’re gonna get it. Yep yep, you’re gonna get it. Yep.
Ted Coniaris — And so yeah, so we don’t nobody’s too big here. And so Dave and I had a great relationship, have had a great relationship. And the way it started was just very natural…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ted Coniaris — …me where I see myself and frankly replacing Dave or being the next lead pastor was not something I was really considering at the time. All focused on planting Downers Grove and seeing it flourish and reaching the community that we live in and my neighbors and friends and kids’ families’ friends and all that. That’s about all I could think about. But as my ministry role expanded and thinking more globally about the church, I think the first time we had the conversation came on the heels of talking through some significant challenges that we’re facing as a church. And at the end and Davis one of those leaders is always just looking for everybody’s perspective on it. You know, he doesn’t come in front line high with the one answer you know he wants to hear.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Ted Coniaris — And they after that conversation he’s like, you know, if you ever would you ever consider, you know, stepping into to this role? Like, oh well yeah, I would consider it. You know… you know I guess I consider it.
Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, honored to consider it humbling. Yeah yeah, yeah, totally, yeah yeah, yeah.
Ted Coniaris — Yeah and then we just kept meeting and talking about it and became more and more of a reality. And ah, then went through some of the formal steps and got to where we are here today.
Rich Birch — Interesting. So then what does what is the process look like kind of where are you at in that process? You know what what have you learned so far? I know we were joking before we recorded I was like I’m I’m really looking forward to this conversation, then 5 years from now we’ll follow up and hear, everything was great. Um, you know here’s the stuff we learned.
Ted Coniaris — Yeah.
Rich Birch — But what kind of where are you at now in the process? What is what have you kind of what’s that look like, you know help us help us understand that.
Ted Coniaris — Yeah, absolutely. So one of the things that’s really fundamental to how we operate as a church is apprenticeship. You know, we are always developing leaders, always developing people to be activated into the mission that the Lord has called them to, however, they’re called and equipped to help people find their way back to God. And so our Kid City leaders have apprentices. They’re apprenticing people in the role that they’re in. our small group leaders. Our [inaudible] leaders, our Community Freedom leaders, ourCommunity Cares, our ministries out in the community. We always want all of our leaders to be apprenticing somebody…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ted Coniaris — …from top to bottom.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ted Coniaris — And so that’s like our operating system.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ted Coniaris — And so that’s the most significant positions and the most, you know, small minor positions you might think of in our community. It’s that relational apprenticeship. And and the way we’ve talked about apprenticeship is that it’s 5 steps to apprenticeship, and you could look this up or read it in the book Exponential that Dave and John wrote. But step 1 is is “I do, you watch, we talk.” Step 2 is “I do, you help, we talk.”
Ted Coniaris — And then it’s “You do, I help, we talk.” And then “You do, I watch, we talk.” And then “You do, someone else watches,” and that’s the next apprentice, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Ted Coniaris — And those are the 5 steps of apprenticeship. And so we thought what better way to go through this transition than to have an apprenticeship process where we are visibly and publicly walking through these 5 steps in front of our church to reinforce this value, say nobody’s nobody’s too big to be apprenticed. You know what I mean?
Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes.
Ted Coniaris — We can always look and grow and develop. And so that’s what we’re doing. We’re publicly walking through the 5 steps of apprenticeship in front of our church which has just been awesome.
Rich Birch — Wow. And what’s the you know when you think about timeline. First of all, I love that framework. Obviously that’s… the thing I love, we you know we’ve talked about this in other contexts where you know we we talked to our people about hey everybody should have an apprentice. But then that seems to be not the case when it gets to the actual lead people. It’s like all you people need to get apprentices. But the fact that you’re structuring it that way I think is fantastic. Um, so kind of where are you at in that process? Is there a timeline, or how are you is it what are the benchmarks that you’ll know kind of you’re moving along? What’s how are you talking about that internally?
Ted Coniaris — Yeah, absolutely. So we the the finish line is May May 1, 2025. So that’s just over a year away now. And we started about six months ago in the public phase.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ted Coniaris — And it so we’re we’re in this um I do, you help; you do, I help transition. So in between steps 2 and step 3 right now, where there are parts of what I’m doing now, which is me doing and Dave helping.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — And there are parts of what I’m doing right now that is Dave doing and me helping.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Ted Coniaris — And we’re kind of transitioning more and more where I will be the primary doer and Dave will be a primary helper. So that’s that’s the transition. So Dave is going to be the lead pastor. He is the, like in terms of clarity organizationally, he is the lead pastor until May 2025.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ted Coniaris — However, how we operate and how we function is these 5 steps of apprenticeship in terms of our day-to-day reality.
Rich Birch — Okay, that makes sense. I like that. I love the kind of clarity there around hey there is like ah there’s a tripwire date that we’re pushing towards, but then also we’re following this process that there is a it’s a handoff. I like that there’s like a baton there. That’s you know that’s really good. What, so far, good, bad, missing, confusing? What’s been good? You know what’s been bad? Anything that you’re like oh like hey this next time I do this, next time I transition into becoming a lead pastor, I’ll do that differently? No, but what a, yeah, what’s kind of what’s your evaluation so far? What advice would you give to other leaders maybe who are listening in?
Ted Coniaris — Yeah, great question. So much I could say. First of all I hope I never do this again, right. My goal in step is through this process is…
Rich Birch — Yes. [inaudible on the other side, this will be on the other side right?
Ted Coniaris — Yeah, I I’m deeply committed to being on the other side of this process in the future…
Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, yeah, yes.
Ted Coniaris — …and I’m excited about that. But I I do not I’m sort of packing the coffin in this one. Like I don’t I don’t see myself going anywhere else like I want to be committed here.
Rich Birch — Yes, yeah,
Ted Coniaris — But you talk about what were the categories used good, hard, or bad, and confusing… missing confusing?
Rich Birch — Yeah, good bad missing confusing. Yeah, just like kind of general of that evaluation. What’s you know, kind of what’s you already thinking so far?
Ted Coniaris — Yeah, um, the good I’ll start with that.
Rich Birch — Yep yep.
Ted Coniaris — This has felt inside and outside, and when I say inside and outside—like between Dave and I—in the inside, and the outside—like our leadership and our church—incredibly healthy and it really passes the smell test.
Rich Birch — Um, that’s good. That’s good.
Ted Coniaris — Like it just feels right. Like when we talk to people about, oh this is what we’re doing, and this is the amount of time we’re taking. like we decided to take a significant amount of time because we just didn’t feel like this is something that needed or should be hurried. Like let’s do this well, let’s take time.
Rich Birch — Right, right, right.
Ted Coniaris — Let’s give people time to adjust. And I don’t need that, Dave doesn’t need that, like it’s it’s it’s felt super healthy. And if Dave were here he would say the same thing. There hasn’t been a point for either one of us where it’s been like oooh is this the right thing to do? Is this…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, right, right, right.
Ted Coniaris — It’s just like felt natural…
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — …healthy, really really good. And I would say a lot of that is a credit to Dave’s leadership and his humility. You were just going to ask a question.
Rich Birch — Well I was going to ask that. So um I so I was a part Connexus Church in in Canada. And um, you know Carrie Nieuwhof handed off to Jeff Brody – both great leaders. And but I would say both of them have the humility that you’re talking about. Like there’s that they are and I don’t know how we get at that. How do we cultivate that? With you know, and maybe we can talk about this on the the person coming into the role. How have you kind of been able to keep your ego in check? Keep your you know is it close relationship with Jesus, is that all it comes down to? Or is there anything that you’ve you know that’s been helpful to keep your you know the humility, because I do think if man if we can stay humble through this process I think there’s a much higher likelihood that it’ll actually, you know, take kind of thing. But what’s what’s been helpful for you in this to kind of keep close accounts and stay humble?
Ted Coniaris — Yeah I think there’s so many ways I could answer that. I think one of the ways is Dave setting the tone. Um it paints a picture of somebody who’s been able to accomplish a ton. I mean in our church nationally, globally. I mean by all measures and on all accounts you could look at Dave’s ministry and be like man that guy he’s done so much incredible work.
Rich Birch — Yeah yep.
Ted Coniaris — But he’s just so humble…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ted Coniaris — …and just a regular guy. I mean my wife and I often joke like our goal is to bring normal back to church leadership. Like we’re bringing normal back, baby, like we are normal people.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. I love it. I love it. Yes, yes, true very much.
Ted Coniaris — You know what I mean? Like why do we have to pretend like we’re not normal people.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yes, yeah.
Ted Coniaris — Like I’m deeply committed to Jesus, I’m deeply committed to my wife, I’m deeply committed to the ministry of the church, to preaching, to to learning, to growing, to all of those things, to the spiritual disciplines. But but I’m not, you know, anything other than a normal person who’s deeply committed to those things.
Rich Birch — Right, right, right.
Ted Coniaris — And so I think the example of Dave, and just saying that on the outset, like I never try to be a superhero.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — I never set myself up to be that. I think that is so dangerous. And and another piece of it that I think is really key is—like of course relationship with Jesus like you mentioned—I’m going to talk about some of the other things, is your commitment to team. I think is really key.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ted Coniaris — You, I believe cannot be a really good team leader and create a really good team culture if you are not humble.
Rich Birch — Yep, yeah, true.
Ted Coniaris — I think you could be really successful…
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — …and you might have some teams that do successful things, but I would argue, you know, your team culture is probably not what you think it is…
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Ted Coniaris — …if you’re not a humble person. I love team. I believe that our teams are going to end up with better decisions, better sermons, better everything that I could produce on my own. I genuinely believe that.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Ted Coniaris — So what place would pride have…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — …in that world. Of course pride is something we all struggle with. I’m not my life isn’t absent of pride by any means.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — But if pride were to poke its head out in a meeting…
Rich Birch — Yep, yes.
Ted Coniaris — …we’re so team-centric and we have such incredible people on our staff team here, I think they’d be like all right big guy like why don’t you sit back down, you know?
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, that’s good. That’s good, dude.
Ted Coniaris — Like our culture, our culture will correct itself in that way.
Rich Birch — Yeah the culture would reject that. Yeah it would reject that, it would be like that’s not that’s not who we are.
Ted Coniaris — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s not who we are.
Ted Coniaris — No.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — Like somebody trying to build a brand, things like that in our culture, it’s like yeah that doesn’t fly here.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, that doesn’t. Yeah that would be as an outsider that has been my experience with both Dave and John. Like I I bumped in while I was talking talking to both of them. We just you know were recording this the week after Exponential and bumped into both of them and Dave I’ve had a fair amount of interaction back and forth with. John I I really haven’t. And like he stops me in the hallway and is like, hey Rich, and like shakes my hand. And I was like, what? Like how do you know me? Like what is you know, what’s that connection? And you know he doesn’t need to go out of his way to like say hi, right? Like you don’t need to do that. Um, but, you know and obviously he’s got those guys got a million other things going on at a thing like that. Man, that’s that’s great.
Rich Birch — What about on the, you know, bad, missing, confusing? We’ll lump that all together, stuff that maybe like, hey early on here’s some stuff we’re working through um, you know, that you know, we’re we’re so taking a bit to adjust to as we’re you know as we’re going through the process?
Ted Coniaris — Yeah. I mean I’ll speak to that one personally.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ted Coniaris — Because I think that’s been the hardest part honestly. We’re in a phase right now where I have been wearing a bunch of different hats, as often happens in a church context. I’m sure all of you listening right now, men and women working in the church…
Rich Birch — Yes, yeah.
Ted Coniaris — …my hunch is that most of you wear multiple hats. Um, that’s how we operate too, being entrepreneurial as a community.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — We maybe wear more hats than what would be typical…
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — …in a different culture. And so I got I’m wearing a bunch of hats, and now I’m putting on more hats…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — …and I’m not yet where I’m able to take off some of those hats.
Rich Birch —How many hats can I get? Yeah.
I look like one of those Carnival people selling hats, honestly, you know? Like I’ve got all the hats.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes here you go.
Ted Coniaris — And if you want a hat like come into a hat. like I’m gonna be dishing out hats.
Rich Birch — Okay, yeah, yeah.
Ted Coniaris — But um, that’s been the hardest part. I I’m in like what I think and hope will be the most um, strenuous time-wise…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yep, yep.
Ted Coniaris — …season of the transition in these middle sections of the apprenticeship process, which I anticipated would be the case.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ted Coniaris — But I think I underestimated how I would feel in this time. And so for me, that’s the thing that is the hardest that I’m actively working on right now. And actually coming out of Exponential that was kind of a light bulb for me where I was like, okay, I’ve accepted this storyline that I need to do these things right now. What if I don’t? Like what if what if there are parts of what I’m doing that I I actually need to hand off sooner or we need to stop doing sooner than what we had planned. And so that’s that’s like the rough and gritty middle…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, right.
Ted Coniaris — …of the process that I’m feeling right now.
Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely.
Ted Coniaris — Everything is wonderful, but it is not I am not operating at a sustainable pace at the moment.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — And that’s something that I’m I’m peeling back and it will take some time, but I’m definitely committed to. And now I’m saying it to you and to whoever’s listening. So you guys feel free to send me an email say, hey Ted, did you actually follow through on that?
Rich Birch — Did you do that? Did you act?
Ted Coniaris — Like give me some accountability.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. That’s great. Yeah, that’s that’s so good. What I yeah I can see that that makes sense. There’s like ah I think the idea of a pinch point here like we’re in a transition going across a bridge and it’s like hey you know things are going to be a little bit overwhelming. You know on the on the kind of personal human side, that is ah that could be a recipe for things to go sideways, right?
Ted Coniaris — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Because it’s like hey things are busy. What are you doing anything different in this season to kind of stay connected, pace yourself to try to, you know, or is that what you’re identifying like I got to get more of that in my life. What are what are you doing to try to keep/tend to your soul in the midst of that kind of transition?
Ted Coniaris — Yeah, great question. I mean I have a pretty robust kind of personal—ah I don’t know what you want to call it—infrastructure around me…
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Ted Coniaris — …or scaffolding around me…
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Ted Coniaris — …maybe is a better way to put it. And I think in this season of transition I’ve I’ve amped up some of the scaffolding…
Rich Birch — Yep
Ted Coniaris — …that I don’t think will be like permanent…
Rich Birch — Yep
Ted Coniaris — …for me moving forward, but it’s a helpful as I’m I’m building in this really crucial stage.
Rich Birch — No, that’s good. Yep.
Ted Coniaris — So I mean I’ve got a group of other lead pastors that I like who are my dear friends that live in the area here. We’re friends on mission together. We can share anything and everything.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — That’s really really important. Another part of like creating a culture of humility that actually helps me in this is I will share this with my team. So I’m not hiding this from anybody.If somebody comes and asks me how I’m doing I’ll tell them this.
Rich Birch — Right, right. Yes, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Ted Coniaris — The people who are reporting to me right now I say, hey I just want to apologize to you.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — I feel like I haven’t been present as I need to be in as you need me to be in this season. And I’m wrestling in this in between to try to figure that out. So can you give me some grace in this as we’re moving forward because I might need a little bit more room than than we would we would want than either of us would want in any other circumstance.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Ted Coniaris — And so just putting it all above board, not trying to appear like I’ve got I’ve got all of it on my back and I have this is all perfect. You know it’s like things are going great like I do feel good. But I know I can’t keep this pace long term.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Ted Coniaris — So those some things. And then my mornings are really important to me. That’s my space before the kids wake up, you know, my wife and I have a pretty regimented morning. We get up real early. You know, exercise is a part of that. Our quiet time is a part of that. Our connection is a part of that, just for us. We have three young boys 14, 11, and 8.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — If we don’t do it then it’s just not gonna happen.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — So that’s that’s a big part of it.
Rich Birch — So good. You know, um in ah Warren Bird and William Vanderbloemen’s book Next, where they talk about pastoral succession, one of the things, there’s lots of great insights in there, um you know, but one of them that that struck me as like so practical but like ah ah, kind of um, a stumbling point in these successions is oftentimes the the lead pastor who is transitioning out, they don’t have anything to do once they transition out. They don’t have like…
Ted Coniaris — No yeah.
Rich Birch — And and part of what they coach there is like you they need to get a hobby. Like they need to they need to find, you know, they you know… Now, Dave this is not the problem that Dave, you know, has. This like you know I can’t keep…
Ted Coniaris — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …he’s got a lot of hats, right?
Ted Coniaris — Yes. Yeah.
Rich Birch — Like he’s got New Thing, Exponential has got a lot of different things going on. How are you guys thinking about the kind of how does the post transition, you know, your connection Community’s connection with New Thing, with Exponential, how does all that fit together?Because you know I think it’s I think there’s lots of opportunity and good there’s good things there. But you know, how how are you navigating the kind of local mission of Community to reach the Chicagoland area versus, you know, the church’s connection as a teaching hospital, frankly for lots of other, you know, other churches?
Ted Coniaris — Yeah.
Rich Birch — What’s that look like for you?
Ted Coniaris — Yeah. Wow. So those of you maybe not aware we talked a little bit about Exponential…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Ted Coniaris — …which is a community with a cause is how we describe it. It’s a collection of conferences, gatherings, equippings for church planters all around the world and Dave is the leader the principal leader of Exponential. There’s Exponential USA, Español, Europe…
Rich Birch — Yeah, Australia
Ted Coniaris — …Asia, you know, it’s all over the world. And then there’s also New Thing which is the church planting arm of Community Christian Church which is now it’s on separate entity and organization as of this last year. Which has last year planted over 8000 churches alone…
Rich Birch — It’s amazing. It’s amazing.
Ted Coniaris — …help catalyze planting 8000 churches in one year. I mean it’s incredible like what God is doing through these things…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, it’s amazing. Yeah yeah.
Ted Coniaris — …and Dave is also the principal visionary and leader of that. So yeah, he’s got a lot going on. And and in God’s timing here it’s really been a season where those things are what Dave can uniquely bring to the table in the season of his life and leadership as a bridge builder and as somebody who can get different leaders at the kingdom table to work for the kingdom good. Dave is uniquely gifted in that. It’s really like an anointing. There’s no collection of things that he has or does where you say, oh that’s how you do that. It’s more like just who God has made Dave to be and the vision that that he’s set before him.
Ted Coniaris — And so definitely as we go through this transition Dave, I think, is stepping into his season of greatest contribution and most significant kingdom impact. And not not one of lesser kingdom impact. It’s going to look different but I also believe that a part of what I’m stewarding here is as a community to accelerate those things as well. Maybe the best correlation to a model that people may be more familiar with if you’ve been around the church for a while is ah and some churches still do this and it’s a wonderful thing to do but you have like your missionary partners who maybe are in this part of the world. And then every once a while they come back to the church and they speak you know this is what’s happening in Ukraine, and here’s how we’re helping people in the community and what we’re doing. And and we’re financially supporting them. We’re prayerfully supporting them. And we try to send teams and we’re. We see like this is a part of what we’re doing as a church. It’s not just what this missionary is doing. It’s like we have that like in spades, right? It’s like we have this amazing missionary named Dave Ferguson and John Ferguson…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — …and by the way these ministries have grown out of this church.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — They are us.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Ted Coniaris — And we’re planting churches all over the world and we want to be their number one financial supporter. We want to be their number one people supporter, their number one leadership capital supporter. Like like we are all in for this mission to see more and new people find their way back to God And and we still believe that the best way to do that is to plant new churches. And so Exponential and New Thing are our chief partners in that ministry and we’re deeply involved. I’m personally involved in those things.
Ted Coniaris — And so Dave’s role here at the church pragmatically he’ll step into a founding pastor role. And he’ll still be involved with me relationally. He’ll still be teaching around the church. But it’s almost like ah like a chief missionary…
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Ted Coniaris — …and kind of like he and Sue, it’s like mom and dad.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — You know it’s like a real healthy relationship…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ted Coniaris — …and a really beautiful thing honestly. And and there’s zero part of me that feels threatened to have Dave around, have him teaching. And there’s zero part of Dave it feels threatened by me – that one makes more sense, you know. But ah ah well…
Rich Birch — That’s funny.
Ted Coniaris — But it’s just just works because we love and respect each other.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — And we’re both are cheering for the same things you know.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — So that’s kind of how we’re seeing it.
Rich Birch — Are are you thinking, so this is like super tactical kind of nitty gritty thing…
Ted Coniaris — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …and this might not be sorted out and so you’re like, I don’t know; come back and ask me in a year. But you know, post the Dave transition, is there any discussion publicly around um, you know, restructuring how the leadership team works, or is it going to be is it literally like a one for one. You’re going to plop into what you know, kind of all the functions he used to have, you’re going to plop into that. Or is there what you know is there any kind of spread of some of the stuff he did and again it might be too early for that conversation. I don’t know.
Ted Coniaris — Yeah, I think we’ll see.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Ted Coniaris — The bigger thing is, you know, what is this new vision that God is calling us to in this next chapter.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ted Coniaris — While there are parts that we’re deeply committed to and will not change…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — …like really significant parts of who we are like our mission and and our part of culture, there are new things that we’re going to be chasing. And so that structure, part of that will see what best serves as we move down that road towards this new vision.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ted Coniaris — But there are some things that were we are already changing. So yeah, we’re restructuring our leadership team which actually starts next Tuesday on March 19.
Rich Birch — Oh okay.
Ted Coniaris — And so we’ve been working through that with our team. And and I’m sort of the impetus for that change…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ted Coniaris — …and Leanna Weber who’s a key member of our team here, like an executive pastor. She’s gonna be leading that new team. And so we’re we’re starting to implement some of the infrastructure…
Rich Birch — Oh that’s smart. That’s smart. Yeah, that’s smart.
Ted Coniaris — …that we’ll need through the season of transition with Dave’s affirmation but with my leadership.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ted Coniaris — And so that becomes I think the the best of both worlds.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — …where you can use the influence and the leadership capital of the last thirty five years of faithfulness in Dave, but also the new vision and excitement for what’s yet to come.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ted Coniaris — And Dave is fully on board with all of it where he’s like, as we talk about it’s like man, let’s just do it all right now!
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Ted Coniaris — You know like this this is what I would want to do if I was here.
Rich Birch —Yeah yeah, great.
Ted Coniaris — Like he’s he’s as ah, excited as I am about it. And and that really is a gift.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Well Ted, this has been just such a rich conversation. I’ve loved we’ve you know like I say it’s ah hopefully you know we could come back in ah in a bit and kind of hear the next part of the the the journey. But anything else you want to share just as we wrap up today’s episode?
Ted Coniaris — Ah, no I think one thing you had mentioned earlier just kind of the who’s listening in here.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ted Coniaris — And I think there’s probably some lead pastors who are listening in…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ted Coniaris — …who are maybe considering like what might be next for you. And then there are probably a bunch of other people who are in second and third chairs who might be working with somebody. You know there’s transition talk. Um I’d like to say some to them and I’d like to say something to the younger group.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love it.
Ted Coniaris — So like the group that might be thinking, you’re nearing a transition…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ted Coniaris — …my encouragement to you is start talking to other church leaders right now.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Ted Coniaris — If you don’t feel like you can talk about it publicly, that’s fine. I totally understand the sensitivity of that conversation. But shoot me an email. Shoot somebody else an email. Like talk about how you can do this with wisdom.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Ted Coniaris — So it’s not just like ah you don’t have to do the model where you just drop out and somebody else drops in.
Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, yeah.
Ted Coniaris — Like you don’t have to do it that way. In fact, that might be the worst way…
Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yep.
Ted Coniaris — …for your church to transition. And you need to start talking to other people about how that can happen – somebody that you trust, people that you can trust if it’s not within the context of your existing church.
Ted Coniaris — And then what I would say to the younger crowd who are in some of those same seats who aren’t thinking about a transition yet, be thinking about how your culture sets up for a transition.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Ted Coniaris — Because if you are building something you want to last past you, you have to imagine what it will look like when you leave. And so if there are parts of your culture that are going to reject a transition, remove them from your culture, aggressively.
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Ted Coniaris — Part of what makes this work so well is that I don’t think Dave was thinking about a transition. But he aligned our culture in such a way where a transition is received as a good thing…
Rich Birch — Right.
Ted Coniaris — …and a healthy thing and actually something people expect, even though we never talked about it and Dave is a younger guy. It’s something that people weren’t they weren’t expecting it. But when we talked about it, when I came up and Dave and I and John talked about it with the church, everybody’s like oh yeah, that makes sense.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Ted Coniaris — And it makes sense because of our culture, right?
Rich Birch — Right. Yes, so good.
Ted Coniaris — It wasn’t like, oh my gosh! It’s you think it could happen with someone like Dave.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Ted Coniaris — Our culture is receptive because it’s a multiplying culture. And so…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Ted Coniaris — …um, I would really really encourage the young leaders to be looking at their culture honestly through that lens…
Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good.
Ted Coniaris — …because if it’s if it’s going to receive and grow past you, you know you got to you got to align the culture now because it takes time.
Rich Birch — Yeah I love that. I know you know I’ve talked with a number of folks that are in those placement, you know, different placement companies, and I’ve heard I heard the term recently a crash landing crash landed succession, where there are these like it’s it it and I and it sounds exactly how it sounds, right? They they show up to the, you know, those organizations and it’s like we you know it’s like a board chair or something from a church and it’s like our lead guy just told us he’s leaving in six weeks. He’s been here for 35 years. We have no way to we we don’t know where to start. And I was like that is terrifying, like that that’s tough, man. And so um, what a great word. You know, particularly on that side for leaders to, you know, raise the banner and say like hey let’s talk about it. Let’s let’s let’s engage with it. That’s yeah, that’s really really good.
Ted Coniaris — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Ted I really appreciate your generosity I appreciate your humility and and you know just jumping on the call and and talking through with us today. Really really appreciate that. If people want to connect with you or with the church, where do we want to send them online, where’s kind of the best place for that?
Ted Coniaris — Yeah, you can just check out my email tedconiaris@communitychristian.org you could send me email. That’s the best way to get a hold of me. And then communitychristian.org that’s our website you can check us out there. Connect anyway through there. But yeah feel free to shoot me an email, check out our website, check us out online, whatever you need. And we love to help churches and we love to help churches think about multiplication and planting, and you know multiplying discipleship. So if there’s any way that we can help you with that, not that we have all the answers, but we love talking about it, and helping, and you can join the community of us trying to figure that out.
Rich Birch — That’s great. Thanks so much, Ted, appreciate being here today.
Ted Coniaris — Hey, thanks, Rich. Really appreciate it.
In our rapidly evolving digital landscape, the concept of the attention economy has become increasingly relevant, especially for churches seeking to navigate this new terrain effectively. At its core, the attention economy is about the commodification of human attention, where businesses and organizations vie for our focus amidst an overwhelming sea of information. This shift presents unique challenges and opportunities for churches committed to growth and engagement. We delve into the implications of the attention economy for your church’s mission and outline strategies for thriving within it.
The Shift to the Attention EconomyHistorically, economies have evolved from agricultural to industrial and, more recently, to digital. Today, we find ourselves in the attention economy, where the scarce commodity is not goods or services but the attention of humans. This paradigm shift is driven by the fact that in a world saturated with information, capturing and maintaining attention translates to influence and, ultimately, value creation.
Why It Matters for Your ChurchFor churches, the attention economy underscores a vital reality: the competition for your congregation’s attention extends far beyond the walls of your church. With entities like YouTube and social media platforms shaping the beliefs and behaviors of many, understanding and engaging with this economy is crucial for churches that aim to grow and influence effectively.
Increase Communication CadenceIn an era dominated by the attention economy, the frequency and relevance of your communication play a pivotal role in keeping your church’s message in the forefront of your congregation’s mind. Here’s how to enhance your communication strategy:
- Embrace Regular, Targeted Communication: Develop a consistent schedule for reaching out to your congregation. This involves not just the quantity but the quality and relevance of the communications. Each message should serve to connect, inform, or inspire, ensuring that your church remains a constant presence in their lives.
- Utilize Bite-Sized Content: Attention spans are shorter than ever, making it essential to convey your message in concise, engaging snippets. Break down complex ideas into smaller, more digestible pieces of content that can be easily consumed and shared. This approach helps to maintain interest and engagement over time.
Think About Deeper PersonalizationPersonalization is key in making each member of your congregation feel seen, understood, and valued. Here’s how to leverage personalization within your church’s communication efforts:
- Leverage Influencers Within Your Community: Identify and engage with individuals who have a natural influence within your congregation. These individuals can help amplify your message through their networks. Personalized outreach to these influencers can lead to more authentic and widespread engagement across your community.
- Engage in Two-Way Conversations: Shift from seeing digital platforms as mere broadcasting tools to engaging communities where real conversations happen. Respond to comments, initiate discussions, and encourage your congregation to interact with your content. This level of engagement fosters a deeper sense of community and connection.
- Customize Your Messaging: Tailor your communications to address the specific interests, needs, and concerns of different segments within your congregation. This could mean developing specific content for parents, youth, new members, or those interested in missions. Personalized content shows your congregation that you understand and care about their unique journeys of faith.
By focusing on Increasing Communication Cadence and Thinking About Deeper Personalization, you’ll be better equipped to navigate the challenges and opportunities presented by the attention economy. These strategies not only help to keep your church relevant in the digital age but also deepen the connection with your congregation, driving engagement and growth.
Navigating ForwardThe attention economy isn’t just a challenge; it’s an opportunity for churches to rethink engagement and mission in the digital age. By increasing communication cadence, embracing bite-sized content, leveraging personalization, and fostering community engagement, churches can navigate this new economy with purpose and impact.
The journey through the attention economy is complex, but it offers a rich landscape for churches to connect with their congregations and communities in meaningful ways. As we adapt and innovate, the potential to deepen our mission and extend our reach is boundless. Let’s embrace this journey together, leveraging the attention economy to further the Kingdom in this digital age.
Episode TranscriptWell, happy Wednesday, everybody. It’s Rich Birch here from the Unseminary Podcast. Today, we’re talking about the attention economy. What is it and what difference does it make to your church? But before we get there, a little programming announcement.
So, if you’ve been following along, you might have noticed we’ve been doing these experimenting really with these Wednesday episodes. These are solo episodes, less than 20 minutes long. The goal is to provide you some actionable training. These will be the kind of thing that you can apply right away. And we’ll continue on Thursdays with our traditional episodes where we interview church leaders.
If you don’t know, we’re pushing 800 episodes over there. And our goal with our Thursday episodes is we really get you face-to-face with operational leaders in prevailing churches. So, the folks that we interview on Thursday are leading in fast-growing churches, churches that are making a difference. And I wanna get you face-to-face with them to really learn what’s happening in them.
Friends, I’m on a mission. My personal mission is just to help 100 churches grow by 1,000 people. And so, we wanna continue to provide excellent resources. That’s blog posts, and podcasts, and digital magazines, and emails, emails all the time. And we have all kinds of other resources including courses, and I just tell you, we’re actually doing church-based coaching. All of these things put together really to try to get in your corner and say, hey, how can we help your church grow? And so, we’re gonna move this from being a spreader and say, hey, we’re gonna go for the foreseeable future here on Wednesday with a solo episode. And today we’re on the attention economy.
What is it, and what difference does it make to your church? So, the attention economy, this is the economy we’re finding when we find ourselves where we are today. At one point, our culture was an agricultural culture for probably 1,500, and really what we were trying to do there was extract resources out of the ground. We were trying to convert through the cycles of seasons, make food that we could sell to other people. That shifted in the 16th and 18th century to a mercantile economy where really global trade was a big deal. It was about moving that agriculture around the world, moving spices around the world. Then in the 18th century, man, there was a huge shift to an industrial, through the Industrial Revolution to an industrial economy where that’s where we really had the development of the urban centers that we see all over the world as we really built up industrial development at scale, the power of steam, the power of coal, converting energy ultimately into resources that could be sold and traded around the world. Well, then in the late 20th century, things converted one more time to the digital economy.
You know, this is really the information economy. But then more recently, really what’s happened is we’ve shifted to what has been called the attention economy. And what is the attention economy, you ask? It’s where your and my attention, human attention is treated like a scarce and valuable commodity with businesses really ultimately competing to capture and hold our attention and ultimately turning around and converting that into revenue or ultimately, you know, value and wealth long-term. It really highlights the nature of attention that the idea that, you know, at the end of the day, information and media is at the core, but really what we’re trading, what our economy is based on in so many ways is this idea of holding people’s attention.
If you look at this, there’s this group of stocks called the Magnificent Seven, so Meta, Amazon, Alphabet, the folks behind Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, Apple, and Tesla these seven stocks represent the vast majority of growth in the world economy. In fact, actually those seven stocks are worth more than, you know, something like, you know, 50% of the global GDP. These people are worth a ton. Now, Meta, Amazon, Alphabet, and Apple, and probably Microsoft to some extent. So at least four or five of those Magnificent Seven are based on this idea of holding our attention and holding your people’s attention. We have a valuable resource when people come to our events on the weekend, when they log into our websites, when they subscribe to our social feeds, that has actual value. And the difference of where things were even 10 years ago or 20 years ago is that there are companies that are competing for our people’s attention. You know, you’ve seen this happen.
If you’ve bumped into people in your church where you feel like, man, these people feel like they’ve been discipled more by YouTube than by our church or by the Bible. This is an outcome of the attention economy. YouTube has figured out how to capture the attention of your people to hold it, and then ultimately steer it towards a certain kind of outcome. You know, we’ve seen positive outcomes from this. In fact, just last week, we talked about an Easter 2024 study where we looked at churches that were inviting people to come to Easter. And one of the questions we asked is, how many different ways did you ask your people or did you kind of motivate, train, equip, and motivate your people to invite? And what we saw was those churches that did more than seven different things, seven distinct ways to encourage their people to invite saw a 53% bump over the average in Easter attendance.
Why is this? Well, friends, I would say it’s because of the attention economy. The churches that realize, hey, we’ve got to get in front of our people, stay in front of them, are seeing great results. They’re seeing an outcome in their people. In that case, it was a bump in Easter attendance. You know, we see this show up in lots of different places.
One of the things that often we end up talking about in our coaching is the fact that there are vast, there are way more guests that show up to growing churches that ultimately stick and stay. Did you know this? So sometimes I think we think, well, you know, for every guest, we must see a large percent of those people stay. That’s actually not true. In fact, stuck in stagnant churches will see only one in 10 people of their first-time guests actually stick into their church. Growing churches see two in 10, and thriving churches, the most fast-growing churches in the country see three in 10 guests stick and stay. So for every hundred guests, they’ll only see 30% of those actually stick and stay. But you know what we’ve seen over time, the difference between those churches that see guests stick and stay and those that don’t, is the churches that see guests stick and stay, they communicate a whole lot more than those churches that don’t see guests stick and stay.
In fact, we’ve talked in other contexts that, you know, in that when a guest arrives, fills out that new year card, lets you know, hey, I’ve been a part of that. A best practice is to communicate with them seven times in the first 11 days. And you know how many times I’ve said that to church leaders and they’re like, wow, that’s crazy, that’s too much.
In fact, actually just this week, I was talking to a leader and they said the same thing seven times in 11 days. And then we rattle off a bunch of examples. It’s a handwritten card from people at your new here kiosk. It’s a video that afternoon. In fact, did you know one of the largest churches in the country, if you were to go visit it this weekend, if you were to fill out their new here card, you’re going to get a personalized video greeting from a campus pastor at that church. Literally every week, they send out thousands of these videos, they’ve prioritized this.
Why? Because they know that we live in an attention economy. We’ve got to get in front of people. You know, it’s also like midweek emails. It’s maybe sending them some sort of piece of mail. Maybe it’s even just like baking cookies and driving them and putting them on their doorstep. We’ve got to arrest that attention. People have taken a step towards us. We need to take a step towards them.
Listen, Sundays used to be about the big event. Our discipleship used to be about just getting people to show up on Sundays. It used to be just about enough to get them to come for an hour. But really what we’re seeing is prevailing churches now understand that discipleship is much more of a flow. It’s much more about, hey, how do we keep in front of our people consistently throughout of the week?
So the attention economy, you live in it and I live in it. I know, listen, you probably feel some tension around this. You probably feel like, gosh, I wish we didn’t have to communicate so much. I wish we didn’t have organizations vying for our people’s attention. The reality of it is we do. And so we’ve got to make some changes to the way we operate.
So I’ve got two main takeaways for you today that I want you to think about because of the fact that you and I live in an attention economy. The first is you’ve got to increase your communication cadence. You’ve got to increase your communication cadence. What do I mean by that? You’ve got to communicate more. So if you’re a team leader today, let’s say you’re a staff member. Let’s say your church is a thousand people and you’re in student ministry or you’re in small groups ministry. Stop asking to get in front of the announcements on Sunday. Stop thinking, hey, if I just can get in the announcements or if I can just get our lead pastor to say something from the stage to do some sort of broadcast, what you need to be thinking about is, hey, how can I develop a list of my constituents? So these are the people that are connected to my ministry. How do I develop an email list, a texting list? And then what I should be doing is finding ways to communicate more with those people.
Listen, I can guarantee your lead pastor, your XP or whatever, if you’d say to them, hey, I want to reach out to my people on a regular basis. I don’t need to get out in front on a Sunday every week to talk about what’s coming up. They’re gonna cheer for you. So communicate more. Don’t think about just, if I can just get something in the big announcement on the weekend. No, you’ve got to arrest that from your people and figure out how do you get in front of them.
Think bite-sized. When you think about communication pieces, the reality of it is people live with less attention that we’ve had before. It’s been bite-sized. It’s been atomized. It’s been carved up into small little bits and pieces. We’ve seen this with video. A long video now is considered anything over 90 seconds online, which is crazy to me. People just frankly have less attention than they used to have. So when you’re thinking about increasing your communication cadence, a kind of corollary to that or an impact of that is you’ve got to break things down into small bite-sized chunks. So rather than saying, hey, I can send one brochure home as a student pastor about the upcoming retreat, I’ve got to think about, hey, what are the five different communication pieces I need to send to parents over the next month to keep reminding them about the upcoming retreat, keep keeping in front of them about what their kids can expect, keep talking to them about what is going to happen at the retreat. Think bite-sized so that you can increase your communication cadence.
The second takeaway for you is I would be thinking about deeper personalization. Think about deeper personalization because of the attention economy. The one thing when I think about deeper personalization, think about your church today. And the broader kind of attention economy has figured out that there are influencers out there. There are people in the broader economy who have social influence. And now I know you think about influencer as like the cool guy who sits on the hood of the car and says, hey, you should buy this product or whatever. But really all influencers are are people who are looked at by a certain group of a social group and are saying, hey, I wanna follow what those people do. And you know what? Your church has a series of influencers. Now, those influencers are different than your organizational structure. There are people that have influence in your church that don’t necessarily have any authority. In fact, there may be people that have more influence than the staff or pastors in your church that have authority. And so I would be thinking about who are the influencers? And then how can I reach out to them and get them to help us talk about whatever it is that we wanna talk about as a church? How could we be reaching out to influencers and ultimately asking them to help us spread the message and doing that in a personalized way? If I was trying to spread, say an upcoming event, maybe I would think about who are the five parents among sticking with the youth example, who are the five parents who seem to have a lot of social influence? Hey, why don’t I reach out to them, give them some content, ask them if they would be willing to spread it. Just this week, we saw this happen at our church. There’s a really sad story happening of, there’s a young man in our church with a young dad who’s got kids and he’s struggling with cancer. And on Sunday, a group fired up a Facebook chat and invited a bunch of people and said, hey, we’re gonna gather a prayer event the next day, literally 24 hours later. And the next day, 150 people showed up at these folks’ house. I know that there are, and it was an amazing night, a little bit of worship, a little bit of prayer. It was a lot of fun. The interesting thing that I took away from that, beyond the fact that the local church, when done well, is an unstoppable force for good. Can I get an amen from the people in the back? Outside of that, one of my takeaways from a communication point of view was, man, how many church leaders would be thinking, man, I wish I could get 150 people in a room to pray about anything, but here was a group who informally, it was not because of something that we did as a church, which I think is a fantastic thing, said, hey, we’re gonna take it on ourselves and they’re influencers in our culture. Take note of that, friends. Who are the people who pull that kind of thing together? How could you have deeper personalization by leveraging influencers? Okay, I’ve beat that dead horse. You don’t need to think about that anymore. Another thing when I think about deeper personalization is engagement, think about engagement over broadcast. So this is low-hanging fruit for me. This is something I don’t do well, and I’m saying this publicly because I wanna do it well. In the attention economy, people who thrive, firms who thrive, organizations who thrive, think about engagement over broadcast. Stop thinking about your social media feeds as a broadcast, an industrial broadcast. Like, so what used to happen in the industrial age is stuff was made at plants and sent all over the world. Cars were made in Detroit and sent all over the world. And we think about communications in the same way. Things were broadcast from New York City to all across the country. And you can think about yourself, if you don’t think clearly, you can still think of yourself in the industrial age. We’re not in the industrial age anymore. In the engagement age or in the attention age, engagement is paramount. And so when people comment on your feeds, when they comment on a social media feed, when they send you a message on WhatsApp, when they send you a message on Facebook, what are you doing to respond to those? Those organizations that understand the attention economy are responding to folks online. They’re liking comments, they’re saying amen. They’re working to respond with those. Recently, I did a quick study on this, informal study where I commented to about a dozen churches. And it was fascinating how long it took some churches to respond to those comments. The same is not true with prevailing organizations in the attention economy. If you see organizations that, you know, you go on a MrBeast YouTuber, if you comment on his social feed, watch how fast someone will respond to you. Look at an influencer who’s trying to build their influence. Look how quickly they get back to you. And why is that? That’s deep personalization. There’s something that happens inside of people during the engagement economy when you respond to them online at a personal level. So there it is, friends, the attention economy. What is it and what differences does it make to your church? Two outcomes are increase your communication cadence and think about deeper personalization. Thanks for being a part of Unseminary. Super excited for tomorrow’s interview. You’re gonna wanna pay attention because we’ve got a great interview coming up tomorrow. And we’ll see you next week with more practical training on Wednesday. Take care, friends.
Thank you for joining us at the unSeminary podcast. We’re excited to have Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders from World Impact with us. This organization comes alongside church leaders and offers training and support designed for the urban context.
The American Church has devalued the urban space, either fearing it or viewing it as something to avoid. Church leaders in urban neighborhoods struggle to sustain ministry impact and growth because they don’t have the training needed to build healthy churches in communities of diversity and poverty. Tune in as Dr. Sanders offers resources to help with the critical work of supporting urban church leaders and communities grappling with poverty.
- What is urban? // The sociological definition of “urban” involves the three D’s: the diversity of the people, density with more people in smaller spaces, and distance, meaning how we view time and space. Condense all three of those things together and it creates the specific view of the world you live in. The codified evangelical definition of “urban” is black, brown, poor. However, that’s not necessarily what urban is. Whether you understand what urban really is or not, or live in an urban area, it still affects your world and your church.
- Cities spread influence. // In the New Testament Paul planted churches in the major cities because he knew the gospel message would trickle into the countryside from these cultural epicenters. Cities influence everything and so we need to pay attention to urban trends there. If we want to know what suburban and rural ministry is going to look like 10 or 15 years from now, we need to look at what the urban pastors are dealing with today. We will have to engage those cultural values, attitudes, and beliefs and build theologies and do practical ministry around them.
- Reach out to impoverished neighborhoods. // Poverty isn’t only in urban centers, it’s in suburban and rural contexts too. When churches want to help make the lives of the impoverished better, they need to move into the neighborhood. This is where World Impact steps in to help and equip churches to engage in redemptive poverty work.
- Redemptive poverty work. // There are three ways we work in the world. The exploitative way produces work that often does more harm than good, even if it’s well intentioned. The ethical way is focused on the relationship between the person who’s wanting to bring the help and the recipients, and there’s often an exchange of material goods. However, impoverished people have a need that goes beyond material assistance. Just like churched people, they are hungry for relationship and belonging. This is where the concept of redemptive poverty work comes into play—a holistic approach that seeks to address both the spiritual and physical needs of individuals.
- Learn what their needs are. // It’s important to know who you’re dealing with in poverty in the United States. The majority of people in poverty are working, with the biggest segment being the single mother with kids. Their jobs simply don’t provide enough to cover their situation. Find out the actual needs of a neighborhood, as well as its assets and potential, with the Asset-Based Community Development Institute at DePaul University in Chicago. Their website provides resources and tools that will aid in doing an asset mapping of a neighborhood in order to see what the needs and strengths are.
- Additional resources. // Dr. Sanders wrote a booklet called Redemptive Poverty Work which gives an overview of healthy poverty work. His other book, Uncommon Church, talks more deeply about issues in urban spaces and community transformation for the common good. Both are available on Amazon.
- Take responsibility. // As Christians and church leaders, we have a responsibility to care for the poor. This is not just a social mandate but a theological one. When Jesus talks about the poor always being with us he’s making reference to Deuteronomy 15, which outlines how to care for people in poverty. Caring for the poor is truly a mark of the gospel.
To learn more about World Impact and get involved, visit www.worldimpact.org and connect with Dr. Sanders on LinkedIn.
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Risepointe
Do you feel like your church’s facility could be preventing growth, and are you frustrated or maybe even overwhelmed at the thought of a complicated or costly building project? Are the limitations of your church building becoming obstacles in the path of expanding your ministry? Have you ever felt that your church could reach more people if only the facility was better suited to the community’s needs?
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. You know every week we try to bring you a leader who will both inspire and equip you, and today is no exception. Super excited to have and Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders with us today. He’s with an organization called World Impact. You know, many leaders struggle to sustain ministry impact and growth in urban neighborhoods because they don’t know ah because they don’t have the training that they need. World Impact comes alongside church leaders and offers training, support, designed for the urban context. They empower leaders to build healthy churches in communities of diversity and poverty. When urban church leaders are empowered to own their own ministries, individuals, families, and neighborhoods – they flourish because of that. So we’re super honored to have you on the show today, Dr. Sanders. Welcome – so glad you’re here.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Glad to be here. Thanks for having me.
Rich Birch — Yeah, this is going to be great. I we I was saying we just bumped into each other or each other’s organizations last week at at Exponential, and so glad to get to face-to-face. Fill out the picture; tell us a little bit more about World Impact. Help us understand ah the work that you do.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Yeah, so World Impact started in 1971 and it’s been several things over the over the different decades. But for this iteration of World Impact we focus on the problem that 95% of the world’s pastors have no formal ministry training. Ah, they minister in typically communities experiencing poverty. Smaller congregations, about 50 or so folk, and budgets of under $50,000. So we try to be a solution for them by providing accessible, affordable, and effective ministry training. Because we have a we have a ah theory of change that says that trained urban pastors and congregations lead to healthy urban churches which leads to community engagement which leads to flourishing neighborhoods.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — We focus on. um large metropolitan cities within the United States because we believe if you reach the cities of United States, you reach the world.
Rich Birch — So true.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — So for instance, if we train in Dallas we know without us lifting a finger that training is going to go to Mexico and it’s going to go to Central America. And as that training goes there. We support the grassroots leaders to take it.
Rich Birch — Um, love it. Dude, that’s so good. I love um, you know, there’s a lot to unpack there. But I I’m really looking forward to hearing more and learning. And I think, you know, if I can be completely honest, I think this is an area that there’s lots of folks that are leaning in. And are saying yeah you know I don’t feel equipped. I don’t I feel like we might be engaging with ah you know some urban leaders, some folks in in context that are maybe struggling with poverty, and we might not be engaging in a way that’s ultimately helpful. And so I want to hear from you around, you know, if you think about the church leaders that are listening in, help us frame this ah issue, help us understand um how we should be thinking about helping churches in these contexts or helping leaders in this in these contexts.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Yes, so I think it’s always great to start with understanding what we mean by the word urban.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — So I’m gonna talk you a little bit first the sociological definition. Then I’m gonna give you the codified evangelical definition. All right? So, the sociological definition is ah three D’s, right? So when we’re talking about our urban space, we’re talking about the diversity of the people. So most cities ought, well not most, all cities you’re going to find different flavors of folk…
Rich Birch — Absolutely.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — …different races, different social classes, so forth and so on. The other D is density. There’s gonna be a lot of people packed into smaller geographic spaces. So that also affects how we view things and how we interact and live our lives. And then the third D is distance meaning how we view time and space. So for instance, World Impact is ah headquartered in Los Angeles.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — When you and I but I live in Cincinnati, Ohio. So when you ask somebody in Cincinnati, you know, how far is it to point a to point b they’re gonna say, oh 20 minutes. If you ask somebody in Los Angeles, how far is it from point a to b, you’re going to say, with traffic…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders —…then they’re going to tell you, right?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders —So you you condense all these three things together and creates this specific type of way of how we view the world we live in. Now the codified evangelical definition of urban is black, brown, poor. When the typical evangelical says, oh I live in a urban space, that’s kind of what they’re talking about.
Rich Birch — Okay, yeah.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders —Um which it but that’s not necessarily what urban is.
Rich Birch — No. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — But the but the big thing that that the typical Christian needs to understand is that whether you embrace it or understand it or not, the urban space affects your world.
Rich Birch — Absolutely.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Doesn’t matter if you live in the suburbs. Don’t matter if you live in the cornfields. it affects your world. There’s a saying that um when when the city sneezes the suburbs and rural areas catch a cold.
Rich Birch — No, it’s true.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Because, yeah, what happens in the city affects your church regardless of where it’s at, and affects your your your people in your congregations. If you want to know what suburban and rural ministry is going to look like 10, 15 years from now, look at what the urban pastors are dealing with today.
Rich Birch — Love that. I, you know, I I um I’m years ago twenty years ago I remember hearing a mentor of mine talk about this exact issue issue. And he said you know culture emanates from the urban to suburban, and from the west coast to the wast coast. And so you know if you’re looking for, and I don’t know is that true? That that resonated as true. I think all the centers that you’re talking about are cultural epicenters. They’re, you know, the the kind of places where culture emanates from. And so obviously we want to be thinking about them um and really leading in those environments to help under you know to help ultimately inject Jesus into the middle of that. Dig a little bit deeper on that. Help us understand more why it’s important for us to think carefully about those 3 D’s, particularly when it comes to urban ministry.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Yeah, well I mean first off if we if we look at the scriptures, it wasn’t a coincidence that Paul and his missionary journeys planted churches…
Rich Birch — In cities.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — …in urban mega-cities, metros. Because Paul knew that if the gospel could take root in these major routes of trade, these major cities of influence, the gospel would trickle out to the countryside. I think one of the travesties of the American Church is that it has devalued the urban space criminally. Because of the codification…
Rich Birch — Right.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — …of well, that’s black and brown poor folk. And unfortunately, you know, in the capitalized society that cap or the capitalism society, I should say, we live in unfortunately those who who have not in terms of finances aren’t looked upon to be leaders in that space.
Rich Birch — Okay, you’re being you’re being too nice there. I feel like you’re being too nice. You’re talking about devaluing. Unpack that more. What what what do you mean by that? You know, stop using polite language. You know, but or leaders here. Help us understand this.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Yeah well well yeah well I mean it’s that polite. Is just it’s what’s happened. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s it’s it’s what happens.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Well, ah, you know, when you know when I graduated from seminary…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — …Um I went to Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Um, you know, most of the graduates that I graduated with or whatever, they weren’t looking to do anything in the urban space. I was one of the few that was looking to do things in the urban space.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Um, and I’m talking about the school as a whole. Now I actually went through a specialized urban ministry training program. And all of us were urban folk. But every now and then we would have to matriculate to the main campus. Um, but the but the reality was most folk just didn’t think in they did not it. It gets caught up in um, a lot of the social and cultural and political things nowadays. But the reality is if you if you look at things such as sociological phenomena, such as white flight, like when when folk ah from from um who are from the white the brothers of the lighter hue, I like to say. How’s that for polite?
Rich Birch — I like that. I like that.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Brothers brothers and sisters of the lighter hue um…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — …fled to the suburbs.
Rich Birch — Right.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — But there’s also been black flight and there’s also been brown flight. So suburbs have just naturally, it’s just naturally assumed that the suburban location is more valuable and that’s where you want to be.
Rich Birch — Right.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — But the funny thing is, that’s not what influences the world.
Rich Birch — Right.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — The suburbs do not influence the world.
Rich Birch — No, true.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — I mean we’re talking about I’m ah um, a I’m 54. I’m a child of classic hip hop, right? Hip hop turned fifty this year. It’s one of the largest musical forms ever invented…
Rich Birch — Right.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — …in terms of influence. It started in the ghettos of the Bronx.
Rich Birch — Right, right. You mean that didn’t come from Orange County, California. It didn’t come from… of course not, of course not.es.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — So it did not. It did not. Those orange county those orange county kids were emulating…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — …the values, attitudes, beliefs expressed through the idiom of hip hop music…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — …that came straight from the city.
Rich Birch — Yep, absolutely.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — but the reality is the City influences everything.
Rich Birch — Yeah, totally.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — And folk folk have been conditioned to be scared of the city. Or it’s a bad thing to be in the city. Now that trend is reversing through ah a word I’ll use a word called gentrification. And gentrification is essentially taking these urban core neighborhoods and they’re being repurposed and they’re being invested in heavily. So an old factory for instance, becomes loss to live in.
Rich Birch — Yep, right.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — So that’s all the latest craze. That’s all the latest trend. And so now folk of the lighter hue are now moving back in, and other folk are moving back in. So so that’s good and bad. We won’t get in all that. But um but but the whole point is this – that’s what I mean by undervalue. Regardless of where you minister at…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — …you need to pay attention to urban trends and what’s happening because that’s the values, attitudes, and beliefs of culture that you’re going to have to engage.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — You’re going to have to build theologies around. You’re going to have to figure out how to do practical ministry around.
Rich Birch — Yeah, for sure.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — So that’s what I mean by undervalued.
Rich Birch — Well yeah, and I’ve said in other contexts, every zip code in the country is more diverse now than it was ten years ago and will be more diverse ten years from now than it is um today.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Exactly right.
Rich Birch — And and um, which is a wonderful thing. Like that’s um, yeah, that’s ah, that’s a very good thing. And but I do feel like we’re oftentimes I remember when so I was thinking about school when you mentioned it. I I help on a lot of church growth stuff. And I only I had like one class in a whole course on church growth. And it was on the homogeneous unit approach to to church growth.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Oh yeah – HUP.
Rich Birch — Which is a terrible idea. like and is like is like an anti-Jesus idea. But it was like it that was the only thing I learned about church growth, was like go find a whole bunch of people, and ironically it was go find a whole bunch of rich, white people that was, although that was never said, that was what I was kind of the undercurrent of that idea. Um, so when you think about helping church leaders, whether they’re in a suburban, urban, rural context, to understand how to work in the urban urban communities or to support how, how does World Impact fit into that equation? What what are you guys doing on that front?
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — So we we focus on, we have a particular for philosophy um of how it undergoes all of our programmings. And we focus specifically though on churches that are ministering in communities experiencing poverty.
Rich Birch — Okay, yep.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — And you will find poverty, it’s, you know, it’s not only in urban centers.
Rich Birch — Right.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — It is in suburban context. It is in rural context. So we can help churches who have a desire to want to to make people’s lives ah better, and and sort of have um what I would say Jesus move into the into the neighborhood, so to speak. You know, John 1:14 the Message translation the bible says “the word became flesh and moved into the neighborhood”.
Rich Birch — Love that. Yeah, that’s so good.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — I love that phrasing because I believe that’s what a church is supposed to do for its neighborhood and its community. It’s supposed to move into the neighborhood. So then how does the church, Christians, move into the neighborhood, so to speak, when the neighborhood is impoverished. That’s World Impact’s forté and specialty.
Rich Birch — So what does that? What does that look like? I think how how are you helping the church do that, empowering the church to to move into ah, into into a neighborhood, when when they’re you know it’s a community that’s experiencing poverty?
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Yeah. So I think um, it’s good to for folk to be reflective here of how we sort of work in the world. And I got this thing called the redemptive frame from a group called Praxis which talks about three ways that we work in the world. And then I could talk specifically about how that applies to redemptive poverty work.
Rich Birch — Sure Yeah, that’s great.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — So one way is we work in the world as a human, and when I say we I’m talking about as human beings. There’s an exploitative way that we work…
Rich Birch — Okay.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — …in the world. The exploitative way produces work that often does more harm than good. It it may be well intentioned, but it fails to properly understand the complexity of poverty, and consciously or subconsciously we put our own motives above the long term impact on people that we may be having. So I’ve never heard a Christian say I want to go and I want to exploit people in poverty. I’ve never heard him by say that, right?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — That’s my goal. I want to exploit them.
Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Now there are other entities and institutions that exploit folk. But from…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that would say that.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Yeah, but from the Christian perspective, everybody wants to be a do-gooder. They want to do the best they can and they want to change the people’s world around them. But the reality is we are sinful human beings and there’s nothing we need to do to be exploiters. And unless we intentionally look at the track and how we’re going to engage folk, we’re going to exploit them.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — So for instance, most people would want to… when I was pastoring and I used to be an inner city pastor and Cincinnati and like um, from like Thanksgiving to Christmas, all the suburban churches would call me. They want to do stuff. They want to serve Thanksgiving dinner. They want to do this. They want to do that. And um, the rest of the months nobody hear from nobody, and hear from anybody.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — And it’s like, that’s kind of a form of exploitation because you’re coming down here because you want to serve somebody dinner. You…
Rich Birch — Yeah, you want the good feelings of feeling of serving. Yeah, yeah.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Exactly right. You want to give a gift, and things of that nature. And when I would say well, you know what? we don’t really need another Thanksgiving dinner. We don’t really need toys. What we need is, boy, if you send an army of people to help tutor the kids in this local elementary school that um that we’re working with, that’d be awesome.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders —You know stuff like that. Things that were gonna make real life change. So, exploitative is the one way that we work in the world. But another way that we work in the world is if if we’ve evolved to a better place, it’s a ethical way. And when we have them ethical mindset it’s a step in the right direction. It’s focused on the relationship between the person who’s wanting you to bring the help, and the recipients, whenever possible. I mean in this mindset it’s not it’s no longer about us. But it’s our desire to do good, and it’s like a win-win situation. So you’re not coming in, you may come in from a um and in a in a different power dynamic in terms of I’m coming in. I have resources, I’m going to give you resources. But at the very least you want to see ah the people in the neighborhoods do better, and you acknowledge the agency of the people in a neighborhood…
Rich Birch — Yep yep.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — …to contribute to their own ah wellbeing and well good to break the cycle of of generational poverty. And the ethical mindset is a awesome mindset. It is the way that we want everyone to operate. You don’t necessarily have to be Christian to operate with a ethical mindset.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — You know the ethical mindset example is this is the the the church that ah sets up a food pantry, right? There are people who are hungry. Ah, we want those people to eat. So we’re going to help folk who don’t have enough to eat. And we’re going to give them food. And we’re going to give them food ah based on the fact that that’s a need. Ah, it’s It’s typically along the lines of some sort of temporary relief in exchange of material goods. And there’s necessarily there’s not any necessarily anything wrong with that. Um, the problem is that the majority of people who are living in poverty are not people who need relief though. That’s not their main need. Their main need is relationship.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — We just did a a study with Barna Group called Inside the Urban Church and the most fascinating thing around that study was that both the churched and the unchurched folks said they’d look to the church to do the same thing, and that was, “I’m lonely; help me belong to something.”
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — So it wasn’t the things that we thought. You know was it, Oh they hey appreciate the food pantry. They appreciate all the other stuff, but they said the unchurched are literally saying, if you want to help me, help me be less lonely, right?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Which leads to what what we believe at World Impact of what we try to help and why we focus on the local church so much is that is redemptive poverty work. Because redemptive poverty work is focusing on the life pattern of Jesus Christ which was um…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — …creative restoration through life sacrifice. So Jesus says, I sacrifice, we win. Regardless of how you respond to me I’m going to come in. I’m going to do life on life ministry. I’m going to help you navigate this thing called life as best I possibly can. And I’m going to help you come to a better place. And hopefully by me doing that, I have earned the right to share the gospel with you.
Rich Birch — So good.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — I have earned the right to disciple you.
Rich Birch — So good.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — So so so relationally speaking in terms of doing that type of poverty work, that’s where you’re going to make a significant change. It’s the mentoring or the coaching of a kid for 5, 10 years, right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — It’s the um helping ah start and a nonprofit or an organization that is going to help people become more job ready. It’s it’s basically things that are relationship-based and long-term that’s sort of the redemptive thought of doing poverty work.
Rich Birch — Yeah, totally. Love it. Well and that’s a, well first of all I love that framework. What a helpful framework work of exploitative, ethical, and redemptive. Man, there’s a lot there. But I that’s um thanks for doing the work of even just helping us kind of understand that piece that together, you know there’s a there’s a shorthand thing I’m picking up there. Like if, man, if my church is engaged in working with a church um or with another group in a situation of poverty, whether that’s you know in an urban center or around the world, and there’s not a relationship there… it’s it’s like I’m just showing up and dumping resources dumping people. It’s the stereotypical you know like we send kids on a missions trip to Guatemala to like build some house that they’re not looking for. And take away local employment. Like it’s that kind of thing.
Rich Birch — If we’re, if what I hear you saying is, man, if there isn’t someone ah in this leadership pipeline of how you’re developing this relationship that’s sitting down with other people to actually ask, hey, how can we work together. What can we do? How do we how do we um, How do we develop an actual relationship rather than ah, you know, um, an exploitative um one-sided thing. Man, then that’s ah, that’s a telltale sign that things are maybe going in, you know, incorrectly.
Rich Birch — How can we as church leaders build those relationships? What’s that look like? How do we how do we engage… like let’s say we’re a church that’s like we want to do more in this area. We we are self-assessed. We’re not doing a good job on this. We’re we’re too much in the suburbs or maybe we’re an urban church and we’re not engaging in it with poor folks that are, you know, we hire police to move poor people off our front porch. That’s all we do. That’s how we engage with poor people. We don’t want to do that anymore. We want to figure out a way to actually do this well. What would be some of those steps? How could we move through ethical and then ultimately to redemptive?
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Yes, so um, I’ll give some context and then I’m going to give a resource.
Rich Birch — Um, yeah.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — So um, the thing to understand about poverty within the United States is that most of those who are in poverty are working.
Rich Birch — Okay. Yep.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Most people when they think about folk in poverty, they think it’s the homeless person on the street. That’s just a segment.
Rich Birch — Right. Yep.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Most of the the face of poverty in America is a single mother who has a service industry job.
Rich Birch — Right.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — It’s the maid at the hotel.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — It’s the it’s the it’s the Burger King worker. I used to say instead of Soccer Moms, it’s Burger King Moms. They’re working at Burger King.
Rich Birch — Yeah, right, right. That’s good. Yeah yeah, yeah.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — But their their work that’s the the largest segment is a single mother with kids. And they’re doing the best that they can, but the job that they’re working at just does not give them enough money to cover their situation. So the first thing is to understand who we’re actually dealing with if we’re talking about those in poverty within the United States. Most of the services that are set up for folk in poverty within the United States, it’s it’s kind of ironic in that like if you’re like here in Cincinnati, like if you’re homeless, there’s more services for you…
Rich Birch — Right.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — …than if you like have a job and just can’t make ends meet.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — So you’re missing the whole entire major segment of the population that actually needs your help. Okay?
Rich Birch — Yeah, totally.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — So so how do we find out their needs? There’s this great tool called um, and it’s easy to understand – it’s abcd. It’s called asset-based community development. There’s a ABCD Institute at a DePaul University in Chicago. And they have a whole gamut of resources that you can utilize in order to what they call do a asset mapping of your of your neighborhood…
Rich Birch — Okay, that’s cool.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — …to see where the the needs are of the neighborhood. I actually did ah a my my thesis coming out of Trinity was how to use asset based community development to plant a church. And that’s what I actually did. I I studied it. I studied the philosophy. I asked it I ah sort of charted out the neighborhood.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — I seen what the neighborhood needed. And then I started working and volunteering at a place that was filling that need. And then out of that, after after winning people to the Lord, this, that and the other, I built the actual church.
Rich Birch — Ah, very cool.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — And that church is still very connected to the neighborhood. It’s still functioning, I no longer pastor it, but it’s still functioning twenty-four years later.
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — So and it so it was a win-win.
Rich Birch — Right.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — It was a it was a um life on life. It was a a redemptive way. I said what’s the way that we can move into the neighborhood? That we can redeem this neighborhood without coming in with my own preconceived ideas? So did the hard work of utilizing this tool. And I guarantee that any church that uses asset based community development will hit the true need of those in the neighborhood that are experiencing poverty.
Rich Birch — Very cool. Well that’s I love that. So yeah, you can find that. You can search for ABCD Institute, DePaul University if you’re looking for more information on that. That’s that’s fantastic. Now I know you actually have a couple resources too. You’re a humble guy so you didn’t go to your own resources. You have a couple resources you’ve put together to help ah you know church leaders to kind of help frame this conversation. You know, we’re just scratching the surface today. Talk us through these resources. Tell us tell us about these.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Yes. Yeah. So there’s two that that could be very helpful to you. One is I wrote a very small booklet called Redemptive Poverty Work which talks more in-deptly about what I just shared here. Um, it’s a small booklet you can read it over a lunch break. Um so you can get it off of Amazon. It’s like five bucks, but it’s called Redemptive Poverty Work.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — The other more in-depth book that talks about the issues that I talked about is called Uncommon Church. I wrote that book in 2020 and it’s ah it’s a reflection on my over 30 years of work in urban spaces. It talks about the higher level issues of institutional oppression and things of that nature. Um, because the first half of the book talks about vibrant church in the urban space. The second half of the book talks about the institutional forces and things of that nature which shape the urban environment and how the church can address it. So that’s called Uncommon Church that’s on Amazon as well.
Rich Birch — Love it. Yeah, ah, fantastic. Both these resources I would, and we’ll put links to these in the show notes, friends. I think, you know, my encouragement to you would be to pick up one or both of these resources. As you know if you’re a church leader that’s like hey. This is something you feel like maybe we’re scratching something that you need to be thinking more about, I would strongly recommend that you start here. This could be a great resource to kind of start the conversation for you in your, you know, in your leadership circle.
Rich Birch —So you know Dr. Sanders there may be people that are listening in who let me play the devil’s advocate. And I use that that word very pointedly. Like that’s the way I’m I’m intending that. You know that that hear this conversation like what I heard you describe as what I’ve heard in other contexts described as the working poor, you know, ah, but the the Burger King moms. That’s a that’s a great, that’s a very vivid example of that. To me that’s like the um, that’s the grinding part of a capitalist society. That’s what I said. You didn’t say that. I said that. That’s the part of where capital is is um…
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Yes.
Rich Birch — …is taking advantage, frankly of of people with very little power. And there may be people that are listening in today that hear me say something like that, or hear us even ask a question like that and that just gets them fired up and pissed off because they’re like wait a second. What are you are you questioning that the kind of the capitalist approach to life? How how do you respond to that. How do you um respond to a leader who, you know, is genuinely asking that they’re not just trying to pick a fight with you. They’re like, hey they’re coming from a you know, ah, they’re not just trying to, they’re just trying to you know kick you, but they are they actually want to have that conversation. How would you respond to them in that situation?
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Well I would say to realize that there’s three main ways in which um capitals dealt with, in terms of manmade economic system, there’s that’s capitalism, there’s socialism, and then there’s communism. And all three of them are severely flawed and are are sinful. I mean you just have to understand it. None of them are God – God didn’t create any of them.
Rich Birch — Yes, right.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — God created the kingdom of God.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — And if we truly follow Matthew 5 through 7, right?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Which is the if we really look at Matthew 5 through 7 and you really take it for what it’s worth, it’s one of the most radical things of how to live that’s ever been created.
Rich Birch — So true.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — It’s it’s the it’s the it’s the longest sermon that we have from Jesus. I make it a practice to read at least once a week to remind myself of how how what the kingdom God truly looks like and what it is. And the kingdom of God is about people more than it is is about capital. And the I talk about this more in in my book Uncommon Church, but basically our role as Christians is to is number one to take responsibility for those who are in poverty. It is not an option to…
Rich Birch — The poor will always be among us.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — There you go. And that was a reference to Deuteronomy 15 people say oh well Jesus says the poor is all going to be among you so that means we don’t have to worry about them. No, it was actually a reference to Deuteronomy 15.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — And do to write guess what Deuteronomy 15 is about? How to take care of those in poverty. So what Jesus was basically saying is, look if you’re Christian, what did Jesus say to John the baptist… Or John the Baptist was in jail and John the baptist was getting ready to get beheaded. And so he sent his followers to Jesus. Because he’s like look, man, getting ready to lose my life. Are you really the Christ? And one of the criteria that Jesus said and sent back is the work that he did amongst the poor was one of the marks of him being the Messiah
Rich Birch — Amen. Yep.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Matthew 25—now you got me preaching…
Rich Birch — It’s good. It’s good. Dude, come on, come on. It’s good.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — But Matthew 25, he talks about this that separate the wheat from you know the the great separation. It’s going to happen of who truly was for Christ and who truly isn’t for Christ. And one of the marks of the people that are truly for Christ he’s goes when when I was hungry, you fed me. And he talks about other things about taking care of the poor taking care of the poor is a mark of the gospel.
Rich Birch — Yes, come on.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — The buzzword of what is the Gospel. A mark of the gospel is that you take time, talent, and treasure, and you take care of those in poverty.
Rich Birch — Amen. Amen. Dude, that’s so true.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Okay, okay, yeah, Communist, capitalist – doesn’t matter.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — You’re a kingdom of God citizen; you take responsibility for doing your role and playing your part and taking care of those who are in poverty.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. Dude, what a great, that’s fantastic. And I love your your frame there around no political system was ordained by God. Like these are all, you know, against, you know, in some ways you know, they they can be used by him. He supersedes all of them. Like I…
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Yes.
Rich Birch — You know, I think that is just that’s what a great word. I you know, I had a friend, you know, recently in the last couple years say, man did we did we miss the point of Acts 6? You know the the early apostles are like, hey we’re not feeding these these women…
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Yep.
Rich Birch — …and are and are the poor and so let’s get some deacons. And we read that as that’s not important. So let’s get some other people because we’re dedicated to the acts of you know preaching. And they’re like that’s not actually what’s happening here. It’s the up it’s the exact opposite of that.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Exactly right.
Rich Birch — The early church fathers are like this is so important that we do not want to drop this ball. We we have to do this. We have to. Which that has become perverted here I think in some of our circles two thousand years later, where it’s like well just give that to some other people that’s not that important. No-no. That my experience would be the same as what you’re saying. That churches where the message of Jesus is being proclaimed, the poor are being cared for. Those two things are inextricably linked. That ultimately, you can’t you can’t pull those 2 apart from each other. If if you look around and your church is not caring for the poor, I would say you’re not actually presenting the gospel. You’re not, you’re not actually pointing people back to Jesus. Um man this has been a rich conversation today.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Yeah, there’s. Yeah.
Rich Birch — Um, I so I’m going to give you the last word. As we wrap up, we’ll link to those resources. Ah, what would you say what would your kind of final encouragement be to church leaders who are are listening in today?
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — I would say that ah any person or any church that decides to go on a journey of following Christ, which if you remember when Jesus announced his ministry, he he announced it as preaching the good news to those in poverty. And we have a we have a way of trying to super spiritualize that. Oh he means the poor in spirit. No. He means those who are financially without. Jesus literally said the Spirit is a Lord is upon me the preach of good news to the to those who are in poverty, essentially. Right? In financially poverty, in financial poverty even…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — …if I didn’t necessarily get the exact quote right. You get the point.
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — If we follow Jesus down that path, we’re going to see the Holy Spirit show up in ways we’ve never, you’ve never seen Him before.
Rich Birch — Absolutely.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — I’ve never, I mean if you said, Alvin, give me a testimony of how you seen God move. More times than not it’s gonna it’s gonna involve me, either personally or when I pastored church, helping someone or helping a community that was experiencing poverty. If you want to guarantee that the Holy Spirit is going to show up, get involved in the lives and the hearts of those who are experiencing poverty.
Rich Birch — What a great word to end on. That’s that’s fantastic. Dr. Sanders, I really appreciate you being here today. Where do we want to send people online if they want to connect with you, or with World Impact? Where’s the best place for us to to point them to?
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Yeah, so if you want to connect with me, um I am on LinkedIn. So you can just type in “Alvin Sanders World Impact” and I’ll pop up. That’s where I sort of keep a work diary and engage people um online. Um, and then the other thing is if you want to learn more about World Impact. You can go to worldimpact.org and go to our website. And hopefully um, you’ll see something on there that we can help you and steer you in the right direction.
Rich Birch — Thanks so much. Appreciate being here today, sir.
Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — All right. Thank you for having me.
During this episode of the unSeminary, we dived into the Easter 2024 attendance figures, collating responses from a wide array of churches. The total combined attendance hit a staggering 249,377, revealing much about the state of church engagement during this important “Eventful Big Day.”
The Importance of Eventful Big DaysEaster can be an “Eventful Big Day” at your church. This is one of the “5 Gears of Invite Culture,” strategies that play a pivotal role in church growth. It’s not just about celebrating a religious holiday; it’s a critical component of the invite culture that churches need to foster year-round. The data suggests that prevailing churches leverage Easter as a prime opportunity to encourage attendance, foster community, and, most importantly, invite new guests be part of the good things happening at their churches!
Key Findings Average Easter Attendance Bump: Churches should aim to double their regular attendance on Easter. This survey revealed an average increase of approximately 75.42%. * “New Here” Guests: An essential metric for church growth is the percentage of first-time visitors or “new here” guests. Surprisingly, 22.98% of churches failed to track this figure, missing a critical opportunity for growth. For those who did, the median percentage of new guests was 3.33%, surpassing the targeted 2% and highlighting Easter’s potential as an effective outreach tool. * Invite Strategies: The study showed a significant correlation between the variety of invite strategies employed and attendance increases. Churches using five or more methods saw an 85.68% bump, while those employing seven or more enjoyed a 114.53% increase. This suggests a clear path forward for churches looking to maximize their Eventful Big Day strategy. * Guest Follow-Up:* Encouraging return attendance is as crucial as the initial invite. The survey highlighted various follow-up efforts, with 22.63% of churches engaging in direct follow-up contact. Notably, LCBC Church was cited for its innovative 16-week attendee onboarding process, setting a high standard for engaging new visitors in the church community. Also, we talked about Greg Curtis’s coaching offering called “Basecamp” which will help your church build a robost assimilation process to follow up with guests in the future.
Implications for Church LeadersThese insights underscore the need for churches to not only prepare for Easter as a significant event but to integrate it into a broader strategy of engagement and growth. The data points to the effectiveness of diverse invite strategies and the critical importance of follow-up in converting Easter attendees into regular churchgoers.
Easter 2024 has provided a wealth of data that, if properly analyzed and acted upon, could lead to significant growth opportunities for churches. By focusing on expanding invite strategies and enhancing follow-up processes, churches can work towards not just doubling their Easter attendance but fostering a vibrant, growing community year-round. This report serves as a call to action for church leaders to innovate, engage, and ultimately, expand their reach and impact.
For more insights and to join the conversation on church growth and invite culture, visit www.unlockinviteculture.com. Together, we can unlock the potential of our churches and spread the transformative message of Easter far and wide.
Episode TranscriptSuper excited for today’s special episode of the Unseminary Podcast. We are looking at a survey that we did this week where we asked a number of churches to give us some feedback around what actually happened so that we can gain insights for you. In fact, the combined attendance of the churches that we surveyed was 249,377.
This has been a fun survey to do. We have extracted a ton of insights for you. I’d love for you to buckle up and listen carefully, particularly because big days, eventful big days, these are a critical piece of your invite culture strategy.
In fact, it’s one of five core strategies. We call them the five gears of invite culture, and we talk about them extensively in my latest book, Unlocking Your Church’s Invite Culture. You can pick up a copy of that for your team at unlockinviteculture.com. Listen, churches grow because they train, equip, and motivate their people to invite their friends.
And eventful big days are what we talk about in the book. And what we mean by that are big days that are eventful. They’re the kind of thing that your people want to talk about.
Listen, two things happen on big days. Your people are more likely to invite their friends, and their friends are more likely to attend. And so we want to make sure that we rally our resources on these days to train, equip, and motivate our people.
Well, today you’re going to gain insights into a number of things that happened at Easter this year. And my hope is that not only will you just kind of learn what happened, but ultimately you’ll be able to apply these lessons to your church as we look to next year and beyond. Today, you’re going to gain insight into what is the average Easter attendance bump at churches.
This really would be a target for you as you think about future big days. You’re also going to learn about how many New Year guests people are actually seeing on these days. You might be skeptical and thinking like, does this actually drive New Year attendance? Do we see New Year guests actually show up? We’re also going to discuss if there’s a correlation between the number of ways that churches use to encourage people to train, equip, and motivate their friends and the attendance ultimately that people see on a big day. And then finally, you’re going to gain some insights on getting guests to return. Ultimately, the reason why we do these big days is not because we’re trying to stretch our parking lots or figure out how many people we can pack into the room, but we’re ultimately trying to see our churches grow.
And so what are churches doing to see these guests return? Well, let’s dive in and talk a little bit about what is the average Easter attendance bump. You know, in our coaching, when I work with churches, or you’ll read about this in the book, in my coaching, I talk about the fact that we’re really, our goal for our clients and what we’re hoping to see for you at your church is that you double your average weekend attendance on a big day like Easter. Now, there’s also other big days, Mother’s Day in some churches is a big day, Christmas Eve.
Some people have a big day, you know, in the return to school time at the end of, you know, in the end of August or beginning of September. We talk about doubling, we’re seeing 100% growth on those, you know, those days. Now, this is an important number for you to think about, what are we actually trying to drive towards? Regardless of what happened at your church, knowing the bump between kind of what your normal attendance has been in 2024 and your Easter attendance is one way to measure the front door of your church.
And this is a, this is a kind of, can be a difficult thing for your church to measure because, you know, we’re really good at measuring the people that are in our groups or that attend, but it’s hard to measure what’s the kind of scale, the kind of growth potential, the reach potential of our church. And one of the ways to do that is to measure the Easter attendance bump. And the reason why that is, is because that tells you how many people are one relationship removed from your church.
Listen, these people came because your people invited them. That is what happened here. And so this is a good number to know.
It really represents, I like to think, as your next growth tier. If I was with your church today and I would be saying, hey, this is so fantastic. We had this many people attend on Sunday.
That’s really what we should be thinking. We should be asking the question, hey, what can we, what do we need to do to make it, to see, to create the space for our church to be that every single weekend? So again, the target that we put out there is that we’re hoping that they’re double or see a hundred percent growth. Well, in these, these churches that we surveyed again, overall attendance is about, was about 250,000.
The average growth rate between average attendance and, and, you know, for a regular Sunday here in 2024 and Easter was approximately 75.42%. So 75. So again, our goal is a hundred percent. So we’re seeing, you know, that the kind of average, what typically churches are seeing is 75.42. So, you know, and you’ll see, as we dive into the numbers more pointedly, as churches do more inviting, we’re seeing a higher number of attendance.
So this does validate our thinking, our coaching around the fact that we’re hoping for a hundred percent growth or doubling from your average attendance to weekend or to big weekend days, like our big days like this. Now there was a modest correlation between the size of the church and their Easter attendance. This was different than what I assumed.
My assumption had been that basically as the churches get larger, we see larger attendance or bigger bumps. So basically there’s an accelerant factor. The more people you have, the more people you see, you know, come and invite.
Well, actually it’s just a modest correlation. There is some correlation between that too, but it’s not statistically the correlation coefficient is 0.24. For those folks that remember back to algebra when you were in high school, that’s just a modest correlation. So not a huge correlation.
So did your church see 75.42 or greater? If you saw more than that, then you were better than the average here. Again, our target would be to see a hundred percent growth or doubling. Where did your church go? I’d love to hear, respond in the comments or reach out.
I’d love to hear where church, you know, where they actually look like now. Now this is not just about getting people to come. One of the things that we know that happens on these days is this is one way to kind of measure, hey, where are, what’s the kind of size of your community? And you know, do people, obviously if you attend on a regular base or if you don’t attend on a regular basis, but you do come sometimes you’re more likely to come on Easter.
But really we’re doing this because ultimately we’re trying to reach new people, new here people. And so we asked questions around, you know, how many new here guests do churches actually see? Our target for our coaching clients is to what we say is average documented new here guests should be 2% on an average weekend. So what does that mean is over a year that you will average the same number of guests over an entire year that your average weekend attendance is.
But we express that at what we say, the average documented new here guests on any given weekend is 2%. So if your church is a thousand people, that would mean on a typical weekend, you should see, you know, 20 guests to come to your, your church and you should, you should gain this. So first of all, first insight on this nearly 23% of the churches did not answer this question.
Friends, this is a missed opportunity. 23% of you didn’t have an answer. So my question for you is like, why are you doing Easter? We’re trying to do these kinds of weekends.
We’re trying to encourage people to come to be a part of our church because we’re ultimately trying to reach new people. This is a missed opportunity. Now the median percentage of new here guests in the study group that we saw for Easter 2024 was 3.33%, 33 and a third percent.
So this is a, this is incredible actually. So again, remember our target is 2%, but we saw that the median was 3.33%. This is incredible. You know, 1.3% higher than what we typically see.
This is great news. Now, some of this I think is because of the study group. If you’ve been hanging around on seminary for a while, we have been pushing you to think about this number.
We have been talking about this number. We’ve been focusing you on this number. We are trying to gather a group of churches who regularly are trying to get people to grow and to see their churches reach new people.
Now this also pushes against a little bit of the kind of common wisdom. Oftentimes we say that Christmas is about reaching new people. It’s about reaching people who maybe are, don’t normally attend church.
And Easter is about kind of getting our people to attend. That’s getting people to, getting our people to come back. But actually what this statistics tells us, the fact that we were 33%, when it was 3.33% higher than our typical new documented first time guest number.
What this tells me is that this is not necessarily true. That actually lots of churches are seeing people who are new to their church, who have not normally attended, come on these days. This is not just about getting our people to return.
Massive opportunity, big days are a big deal. Now we looked at the statistical significance between large churches and smaller churches around, do large churches see more new here guests? And there was basically no statistical difference between that. In fact, there was a slight, a super slight, razor thin negative correlation of 0.042 between that.
So what that tells us is there really is no difference. Whether you’re a church of 200, 2000, 20,000, we’re seeing that this is a day for you to see new here guests. Okay, so let’s talk about how churches invite their people to invite or encourage their people, train, equip and motivate their people.
Listen, friends, this is the core, this is core idea to what we talk about here. We talk about growing your church here at Unseminary. One of the things that we come back to time and again, in fact, I’ve even said it in today’s podcast already is the difference between stuck and stagnant churches and growing churches is growing churches, train, equip and motivate their people to invite their friends.
This is a value we need to raise. It’s a culture thing. That’s why, you know, the title of my book is Unlocking Your Church’s Invite Culture.
This is like discipleship. We’ve got to move people towards that. Training, equipping, motivate, those are specific words.
Training is like the head part of it. We’ve got to, you know, give them the scriptural backing. We’ve got to, you know, give them the big ideas around why this is important.
Equip, we’ve got to give them tools. We’ve got to hand them things, literally stuff for their hands. And then motivate, that’s about their heart.
We’ve got to move them to want to do this. And so we looked at this question and we asked them, okay, so we listed a whole bunch of different ways that they could train, equip and motivate. And we asked them, which of these did you do? And so I’m just going to rattle off the top ones.
So social media, invite cards, text messages and email marketing. Those were the top at, so social media was 25.28%. Invite cards was 19.52%. Text messages was 12.08%. Email marketing is 11.52%. Those were the top reasons that people use. Now we gave a bunch of different ones, including a message on inviting people the weekend before.
So the weekend before the church actually rolls. In fact, actually, if you’re looking for an example of this, and we found that only 11.52% of people actually did this or churches did this. If you’re looking for an amazing example of this, actually go check out liquidchurch.com and look at their message the weekend before Easter.
And you’ll see an example of this, only 11% of churches that did this. Hint friends, we got training coming up next year. I’m going to try to push you to do this.
I think this is a high leverage opportunity. Community events or outreach, 7.62%. Mailers, 5%. Press releases, only 3%.
Blog posts, 2%. Phone blitz, 1%. Now we did ask the kind of other question, give us a sense of the other things people did.
People did backyard Easter parties, Facebook ads or Google or Facebook ads. We’ll put that in the list next year as an example of how people could do this. Rented local signs, yard signs, community egg hunts the week before, just stuff built into kids programming, student gathering.
There were a couple other things. These are the kinds of other things they said. Now most people use most churches.
So key insight coming up here, friends. Most churches used two to three strategies. Approximately only 25.93% of churches that we surveyed used five or more strategies to encourage their people to invite their friends or family to Easter.
Now here is a key insight for you, friends. For churches that used five or more strategies to encourage their people to invite their friends, train, equip and motivate. They saw the average bump between their normal attendance and Easter attendance was 85.68%. Referring back to where we went, that’s a 13% over the average of what we saw across the board.
So what is this saying? If you do more than five things to encourage your people, if you surround them with messages before big days, you’re going to get an even better result. Now we looked at the group that did seven or more strategies. So these are the real outliners.
We listed only 10 strategies. These people saw the bump between normal attendance and Easter was 114.53%. That is a 51% increase over the average. Friends, what does this say? Friends, friends, friends.
When we train, equip and motivate, when we surround people, when we disciple them, when we build the culture, when we remind them, when we puncture through and get their attention and say, friends, invite your friends. We see that. That translates into actual results.
More people attend on these big days. Now, the churches, we also looked at people that didn’t indicate anything and those churches saw a 58% increase. So what this would indicate, what I think this indicates is if you do nothing, you don’t try to promote these days, you should see a 58% increase in attendance at least.
Now, if you did not see a 58% increase in attendance and you were inviting people, I would say you are in need of an invite culture overhaul at your church. I would strongly encourage you to pick up copies of Unlocking Your Church’s Invite Culture. You can do that at unlockinviteculture.com. Pick up copies of that because what you’ve got to do is move beyond thinking this as just a big day.
There’s actually five different strategies we talk about. We dive deep into them. We give you all kinds of examples.
And what that would indicate to me, if you had less than 60% bump in Easter attendance this year, that man, you’ve got to figure out what you can do to increase your invite culture all year long because we’ve got to move towards a bigger increase next year. All right. So then we also asked around returning.
We asked churches, okay, what are you doing to get people to return? Now, we open this, we ask this as an open forum kind of question as, you know, just like an open text question. Now, next year, we’re going to do this as, I was trying to gather what people actually do on this front. We’ll ask this as a radio box or not radio box, as a checkbox next year.
So then we can drive towards a bit more statistical. But interesting thing here. So first of all, the thing that, you know, I found surprising was there was a number of churches who indicated nothing.
In fact, half of the churches indicated that they did nothing, which was surprising to me. Why are you doing this if you’re not trying to get people to return? But let’s talk about what people did. So there’s a giant contact of the people who said they were going to do percentage of responses.
22.63% did some sort of follow-up contact. So this is the church taking action. So this is a phone call. This is personalized phone calls, emails, text messages, actually sending something in the post. Some churches did home visits where they’re actually getting out and visiting their people. So a quarter, almost a quarter of churches indicated that they were doing some sort of personalized follow-up. Another thing we saw was 13.14% said they were doing a sermon series. They talked about the sermon series on the weekend. That’s a best practice. They were launching a new series to talk about that. 11.68% had some sort of special event coming up. 6.57% had some sort of gift that they gave their people saying, hey, come back and you’ll get a gift next weekend. And then it really started to drop off significantly from there. Communities events, children’s programming, that sort of thing. Now, friends, I wanted our friends over at LCBC. This is a fantastic church, Life’s Changed by Christ. If you do not know this church, you should just search it online. LCBC, my friend Sonia Waltman, literally this morning, as I’m working on this, she reaches out and we were talking about their statistics and their report on what they did. And she talked about the fact that they have a 16-week follow-up process that literally encourages people, engages with them to help move their people into connections.
So it talks about how they are going to try to move people to their second, third attendance. And so what we’ve done is we have linked in the show notes links to this. I put this here because what I want to tell you, friends, is you need to have some sort of follow-up process. We get these guests to come, but what we don’t want to do, there’s literally thousands of them. Based on just this study group alone, there are thousands of guests who arrived last weekend. We’ve got to arrest, we’ve got to take action to try to get those people to connect. I would encourage you to reach out to my friend, Greg Curtis. He runs a ministry called Climbing the Asimileas. It’s all about being an assimilation Sherpa, getting people to connect at your church. He’s been on past podcasts. You can see his search here at Unseminary. Or you can even hire him for a training weekend. He calls them a base camp, which will help you build your own process for really following up with people. If you do not have a clearly documented follow-up process that you’re trying to move people to second time, third time, fourth time returning, and if it’s not immediately implemented, if you don’t have something now in your process that’s doing this, you’re missing out on opportunity, friends. And so I would say that’s a strong call to action for you to think about next steps. So you can check out what LCBC’s done at high level to get a sense of what they’ve done.
But more specifically, my follow-up to you would be to check out Greg Curtis’s work, Climbing the Assimilayas. He could help you from there. Well, friends, what do you think? I would love to hear. Reach out, email me, comment on social, you know, on our various social channels. Thank you so much for the churches that participated in this study. It was exciting to see the 249,377 people that attended your church last weekend.
I would love for you to drop by www.unlockinviteculture.com, pick up copies of my latest book to really help unlock how your church could reach more people, how you could train, equip, and motivate, really disciple your people towards that. And a little hint here for you, a little hint for you here at the end. We have common priced the book. This is a hard sell, I know. We have common priced the book, whether you wanna buy the hard cover or the soft cover, it’s exactly the same price. And for my Canadian friends, it’s exactly the same price in Canadian or American. So we’ve tried to make this as affordable as we possibly can. So if you’re in Canada, go to Amazon in Canada. If you’re in the States, go to Amazon in the States, and you’ll see it’s exactly the same price in Canadian or American. Because why? We do not want there to be anything get in the way, any barriers in the way of your team going through this book.
So drop by www.unlockinviteculture.com or drop by on Amazon to pick up copies of that. Thanks so much, friends. Hope you have a great week. Let me know if there’s anything else we can do to help you. Take care, friends
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Matt Davis from The Jewish Road, an organization that works to help Christians make sense of their Jewish roots while helping Jews make sense of Jesus.
Most Christians have a basic understanding of Jesus and His teachings, but they aren’t getting the whole story. Jesus has been disconnected from His Jewishness, and Christians have been disconnected from the roots of their faith. Meanwhile, many Jewish people today don’t even acknowledge Jesus as one of their own. Tune in as Matt shares resources that can help bridge the gap between Jews and Christians while enriching our faith.
- Drive-by faith. // Recognizing the Jewish roots of Christianity and integrating Jewish heritage with faith in Jesus is not just an academic exercise, but a journey towards a more complete form of worship. Both Christians and Jews suffer from what Matt calls a drive-by faith. Though we read scripture, we often miss many of the important references and connections that link the Old and New Testament.
- Bring both together. // The Old and New Testaments are really one singular story and are full of hyperlinks that create connectedness. If we know where to click, there is wisdom that we can gain which will deepen our relationship with the Lord. The role of the Church is to bring the Jewish people back to Jesus. So bringing the Old and New Testaments together is also about bringing the Jewish people and Gentile believers together.
- Make the connection through scripture. // There are practical aspects of incorporating Jewish traditions into the Christian faith. Hosting a Passover Seder, for instance, can be a powerful way to engage with Jewish communities and deepen our understanding of Jesus’ Jewishness and the Last Supper. Open your church and invite Jewish neighbors to foster a greater connection and promote dialogue between the two faiths.
- The Roman Road and the Jewish Road. // Christians, including pastors, are taught to share their faith from The Roman Road using the New Testament. However, understanding the gospel through the lens of the Old Testament—the “Jewish road”—is crucial for effectively sharing Jesus’ message with Jewish people. Christians need to be well-versed in Old Testament scriptures and to recognize the presence of the gospel within them.
- A resource to help you help others. // Church leaders may fear that when they’ve been a pastor long enough, they should know everything and have answers to questions right away. But there is often a lack of resources and training to communicate the gospel from the Old Testament and understand the context for Jewish celebrations. The Jewish Road is committed to providing support and education to bridge this gap. They offer a podcast, speak at churches, take trips to Israel and provide other resources that enable believers to gain a deeper understanding of the Jewish context of Christianity.
You can learn more about The Jewish Road and find Matt’s podcast at www.thejewishroad.com. Plus, download the free PDF, The Prophets Speak: Uncovering God’s Plan Of Salvation On The Jewish Road.
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: CDF Capital
Since 1953 CDF Capital has helped church leaders and individuals bring light to the world through the thoughtful stewardship of their capital. The Church, including your church, requires more than just financial capital, it also needs spiritual and leadership capital. While separate in purpose, these three forms of capital are intertwined and inseparable for the cause of kingdom growth. Together, when we partner with the Lord to bring spiritual, leadership, and financial capital to a church, the results are transformational. At CDF Capital our ministry is simple: we lend money to churches.
CDF Capital, in partnership with Barna Group, conducted a research study to better understand what happens in churches after a new leader comes in. Barna Group interviewed 111 pastors online who have experienced a leadership transition within the last 12 years. Click here to get your free download of the study.
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. First of all I know here we are in Holy Week. I know many of you are busy and you you maybe are just going to listen to this after Holy Week but I hope you’re listening to it here today, because we’ve got a great conversation that I think fits so well in ah, this particular week. Excited to have ah Matt Davis with us from The Jewish Road. This is a great organization that really seeks to restore the Jewishness of the gospel through teachings and trips. They help Christians make sense of their Jewish roots while helping Jews make sense of Jesus. After serving in a church as ah as ah, both a teaching and executive pastor, Matt started The Jewish Road with his father, Ron. Ah Matt and Ron are both Messianic Jews who talks about who talk about Jesus and connect Act 1 and Act 2, the Old Testament and the New Testament. Ah, super honored to have Matt with us today. Thanks for being on the show.
Matt Davis — Good to be here with you. Thank you and shalom.
Rich Birch — Yeah, thank you so much. I’m so honored ah that you’re here. So like kind of fill in the picture. Tell us a bit of your story. Ah, you know, that’s kind of boilerplate bio stuff, but give us the that give us the Matt Davis story.
Matt Davis — Yeah, ah born into a Jewish family. But really my my parents were already believers um, at the time. Actually grew up at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa – maybe you heard of that. My parents were saved in this thing called the Jesus Revolution, which now everybody knows because we saw the movie. Ah, but I actually got my very first spanking in the nursery at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa. And it [inaudible] one of them.
Rich Birch — That’s a great claim to fame. I love that.
Matt Davis — Yeah, that’s how it all started. Maybe that’s how it all will end. But there was a volunteer named Wally; he gave me back to my dad and said, sorry Mr. Davis we had to spank him. My dad said, he had it coming. So no, no lawsuit, no nothing like that. But really, there was a group there called the Jewish Christian Fellowship that grew to be a couple hundred people, and they asked Chuck Smith for permission to go out and plant the first Messianic Jewish congregation in Orange County. He was in Irvine, California. And ah, large Jewish population there and really, that’s how I grew up for the rest of my life. I got all my spankings from home by that point.
Matt Davis — But um, the the question I got and as I went into ministry later on in the church with the question from all the people in the church was well Matt you’re a pastor but you’re Jewish, how does that work? And all my Jewish friends said, well you’re Jewish, but why are you a pastor? And so the question that comes up for me all the time and even still to this day is, so when did you convert? When did you switch? When did you join the other side? And the implication there is when did you stop being Jewish and then become Christian?
Matt Davis — And I think we have the same question of Jesus. When did Jesus, born a Jew, died a Jew, but when did Jesus become a Christian? And and we have to be careful with how we talk about that because Jewish people believe that in order to follow Jesus, Yeshua, a Jewish messiah, that they actually have to stop being Jewish. And and we want to make sure that they understand that that is actually not the point. So that’s how I grew up was in this Messianic movement and it was very messy, but I also was very much a part of evangelical church as well.
Rich Birch — Very cool. Love that. That’s a fun – I’m looking forward to, like I say, friends, looking forward to diving in on this ah, you know, this conversation. So then then ah, let’s get this part out of the way and then we’ll come back to the conversation. I want to make sure we’re wrestling with ah, how does The Jewish Road, the organization, fit into, you know, this conversation for you?
Matt Davis — Well, we we really had to try to figure out if we are sitting in the middle of this this tension between, really, two peoples, two testaments, Old Testament, New Testament, we really looked at it as as a two-act play, like like you just said in the intro. But we we said really that it’s like every Jew in the world, they bought tickets to this two-act play and the Jews went to the first act and got up at intermission, grabbed a drink, and then went home. They didn’t even see the second act. Meanwhile every Christian the world, they bought tickets to that same two-act play, but they got there late. They actually passed the Jews in the lobby and they saw the second act.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Matt Davis — And the tragedy is that like neither group has seen or heard the whole story. So how do we actually bridge this gap, and then help one another out? So we want to make that there’s just beauty in both sides if we can actually understand the fullness of this story. And I say that both sides really suffer from a drive-by-faith. Now I’ve led a ton of for the last twenty-five years I’ve been leading trips to the Middle East, primarily Israel. But, you know, I’ve been to 120+ cities in Israel, and when you have a 9-day tour in the Holy Land, you have to run where Jesus walked.
Matt Davis — And the most painful part for me is to be in the bus and know that I’m driving by, oh man, that’s where Gideon was, and it’s this amazing piece here, but we we don’t have time so we’ve got to keep driving. And I think that’s what we do. I think Christians do this with scripture is there are parts that we just drive by that we don’t even know we’re driving by. And I think the Jewish people do the exact same thing. They they read through something like Isaiah 53 and it’s pointing to the Messiah and they they keep driving.
Matt Davis — And so I think that scripture—this is how I look at it—scripture has… you know on a hyperlink, on ah on a website, right? It’s usually like blue and underlined so you can click on, it takes you somewhere else. It’s linked to something else. I think that scripture is full of unseen hyperlinks that we are reading right past it and we don’t know that actually you could click there. And what we want to do is let’s highlight this, both in the first act, the Old Testament, and in the second act, the New Testament, and highlight for both groups there is a connectedness. This is one singular story. And if you actually know where to click, there is some wisdom here that we can gain. It will actually deepen our relationship with the Lord.
Rich Birch — Love it. Well from the Christian perspective, and obviously I want to get to the purpose of our podcast. We, you know, we talk to we’re trying to help and equip church leaders. So I want to I want to want this to be a helpful conversation for church leaders, particularly as we’re thinking about. I think this is a good week to be wrestling with these issues. And you know although this year there’s not a direct alignment on Passover it is the time of year where we do have a resonance with our Jewish background just even in our calendar. There’s like this like we know that there’s somewhere in this season we’re celebrating similar days. Ah, we don’t need to we don’t need this to be ah, a deep theological conversation, but I do think we should address some of these things. From a Christian perspective looking back from the Act 2, I think that’s a compelling the second act. I think that’s a ah, that’s ah you know a compelling idea, like we we’re seeing it just from maybe the second act of the play I think is ah is a compelling way to think about it. But from a from a Christian perspective when we look at say Acts 15 where there seems to be a conversation around this very issue. How much does ah, how how Jewish are we asking people to be? Do they need to first become Jewish then to become Christian? Have we just misinterpreted that and said, hey we’ve thrown that that whole thing out? It wasn’t what… we weren’t saying was, yeah, it helped me understand that. What was going on there that maybe we’ve misunderstood from a ah Gentile, you know, Christian perspective?
Matt Davis — Well and the question 2000 years ago was all of the Jews in Acts 15, they’re asking the question, what do we do with these Gentiles who are now professing faith…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Matt Davis — …and wanting to follow Yeshua follow Jesus. And so this is the question they’re like do they need to get circumcised? And the Gentiles are saying, please no! Um, and now two thousand years later the question is the Gentiles, the church asking, what do we do with these Jews who are coming to faith? And so there is a reconciliation that we have to really pull together when it comes to not just the the Old Testament/New Testament. But what does it look like to bring together the Jewish people and the Gentiles? And and in scripture and unfortunately there’s a good segment of the church that says that God is done with the Jewish people. Um, but my my my firm conviction is that that you look at Romans 9, 10, and 11 that that the a Paul that’s telling us, he says may it never be that God has not cut them off. But then the role of the church is to bring them back. And and really this story is is ultimately about God and his people, and that the the church has been grafted into this beautiful story.
Rich Birch — Okay, cool. Very cool. Now what about, so I know so then from kind of the they say the first act, you know, perspective, I know that um, we talked about this before we even started the call, I do know that um Jewish thinkers ah, will often make pretty um, pointed statements around the messianic Jewish movement. And ah talk about it in pretty vile terms, around like hey it’s like the most anti-semitic thing going. Why is that? Help me understand, because that and when I’ve heard that I’m like well obviously I’m you know it’s like you don’t want to be the person hat’s like, you got it wrong, like you’re you know, like you don’t know what you’re saying. I’m like well wait a second isn’t that like now I’m just perpetuating the same kind of thing. If from why is it that some of our Jewish brothers and sisters have a strong reaction to um, you know and understand ah, even you know trying to to weave these two together, and and my outsider opinion or my outsider read on that is that that comes from the sphere of the Jewish world that we would hold a lot in common around a high value of scripture. They would have a high value of scripture as well. But and they’re coming to a conclusion that like hey this whole messianic Jew thing is like it’s not just like that’s a bad idea. It’s like that’s like an anathema to their faith. Why is that? Why do they why do our why did they land there?
Matt Davis — A friend of ours named Michael Brown, he’s an apologist. He’s in North Carolina. He wrote a book called Our Hands are Stained with Blood. And if you can actually go back over the history of the church and unfortunately it’s not a beautiful part of the the history of the church. But we have an anti-semitism that has taken place. Um I could never in in California we had the the crusades with Greg Laurie. I could never take a Jewish person to the crusades.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Matt Davis — Why? Because to the Jewish people…
Rich Birch — Because it was a crusade. Yeah.
Matt Davis — It was the crusade. They you have to deny like deny anything Jewish, get rid of the Torah, and you have to believe. And if you don’t, then we’re going to kill the fathers, rape the mothers, and, you know, throw the kids off the roof. Ah you have the Spanish Inquisition, you have the pogroms in Russia, all the way up until ah World War II and the holocaust. Jewish people today look at Christians and they, whether it’s right or not, this is their mindset. This is their perspective, is that even the Nazis were the ones that went to church on Sunday and the concentration camps on Monday. So for me to put my faith in Jesus, now I have become in their minds, a Christian.
Matt Davis — And now and so really like when you have to count the cost. It’s one thing to count the cost, but in some Jewish families for a Jew to become a follower of Yeshua, of Jesus ah, they will actually have a funeral for them, get rid of all their stuff and never speak to them again. So it’s it’s much harder for a a Jew to actually make that decision. Um case in point, Um, you’ve probably heard of the ah the Outpouring at Asbury which is right down the road from us.
Matt Davis — One of my good friends, he is a Jew. Um his name Zach Mier Kriebs. And and Zach comes from an orthodox Jewish family. His dad is an orthodox rabbi in New York. And and when Zach went to school, he stayed with a family who were Christians and really it started to challenge his faith and and kind of his notion of what a Christian was. And he was really contemplating and he talked to his family about this and they said um, Zach either ah become a Christian or stay Jewish but don’t be a messianic Jew. Because then you’re essentially alienating. And so really, what Zach did was he chose Jesus and he left Judaism. And the conversation that Zach and I have been having lately is how do we actually reintegrate his Judaism, his Jewish heritage roots, into this beautiful relationship with Jesus.
Rich Birch — So good. Well, let’s let’s talk about that. I have a very similar experience with ah you know I feel like I’ve led in churches that are, you know, life giving. They’re positive. Um, you know the kinds of places that you can come and be a part of regardless of your faith background. And um years ago had a very similar kind of conversation with a grown, adult woman who we had invited, friend of ours. We invited lots of times to church. And and and it was like you know we got this series coming up on parenting or like we got this, you know, series on whatever something going on. Like you should come to this. Like and eventually the conversation boiled down to like, listen I love your church. It looks like you guys do a great job. Like I love all the you’re doing like outreach stuff. You’re like making a difference in the community. Fun stuff happening.
Rich Birch — But and again this is a full-grown woman so, you know, as long as my mom and dad are alive, like if I was to just even come, man, the the amount of kind of shame that that would generate in the family, it’s just not not worth it. And and so for me and I’m out like listen I’m a professional Christian, this is why I want to learn from you, Matt, like I that was like a whole new idea. I was like oh, this is like there’s a whole bunch going on underneath of this that I just simply do not understand. So can you give us ah ah, give us a shorthand, you know, maybe even on the with the context of Holy Week. If we’re trying to make our churches be the kind of place where ah, you know we we don’t want to just disconnect from our Jewish roots but actually are open to that conversation, have that be a part of who we are, what what are some steps we should be taking? What should we be thinking about? How how should we be looking at this whole conversation?
Matt Davis — Yeah, I think it’s it’s looking at at scripture with a sense of ah the Jewishness of… I think one of the reasons that people love the show, The Chosen…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Matt Davis — …is we actually get to see Jesus, but in his Jewishness. I love…
Rich Birch — Yeah, true.
Matt Davis — …and I’m friends with some of the people who are advising that—but I love like even in the second episode ever, they they did a shabbat meal, right? What does it look like to actually enter into the sabbath and and to enter into the rest. What what I’m doing right now in this season is going to churches all over the country and we’re sharing a Passover seder. We’re walking people through, and it’s it’s understanding and making the connection.
Matt Davis — So I know lots of people that they will put a little mazuza on their doorpost, right? It’s the little, as you walk in, it’s a literal representation of Deuteronomy 6, which says you should write these words on your heart, but they should be on the doorposts of your house and your gates, right? To be able to incorporate these things that have deep meaning for us as believers as followers of Jesus but also it’s an invitation to be able to say like ah go go to a Jewish person and say like, hey I hear it’s Hanukah. Happy Hanukah! Or ah, you know, we we just celebrated the Passover. Um, and so it’s it’s having an understanding. And it’s not just for their benefit and for outreach sake but it actually is deepening us.
Matt Davis — And that is really, like even in this passion week, um, this is is significant. There’s tremendous opportunity and a lot of churches will open their doors, have us come in. We will do a seder, what we know as the last supper, is really the last Passover seder…
Rich Birch — It’s based on that. Yeah.
Matt Davis — …that Jesus ever had with his his disciples. So to be able to open up your church and and then invite the Jewish people in, and say we actually love the Jewish people. We stand with Israel and there are there are some places that we have intersection in our in our stories.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. What when um I know in the past um we our church hosted a a um, a discussion series with some leaders at a local synagogue and we hosted folks for a meal. And um, it was wonderful, beautiful you know and it was really just a like hey we just want to get to know each other better. Let’s try to you know have a conversation. And um, you know, and it was I was like an executive pasture type person at that point. It was my job to like get the meal sorted out. And so I was like, well we clearly have to make sure that this is a kosher meal. And so I was interacting with a friend from the synagogue and I was like listen, I do do not want to step on a landmine here. I want to do this right. And so he was super gracious and you know helped us, you know, do all that, and you know we bless the kitchen and all that it was great. It was fantastic.
Rich Birch — Ah, but it but the thing to your point around The Chosen there is this, in a beautiful way, there’s like um, there’s all this subtext underneath that there’s like that we I think miss. We just wash over in our churches. We we just ignore that for whatever reason, and I think it’s not you know, probably not a good thing, particularly for our Jewish brothers and sister.
Rich Birch — As we think particularly about this time this kind of Easter season, are there ways, let’s say our church, maybe for next year, you know, it’s we you should not be thinking about whatever you’re doing for this weekend you should do for this weekend friends. But as you’re thinking about in the context of this weekend, would it would it be to like host a seder, what are some things we should be thinking about to to try to help open up our people’s minds around this area?
Matt Davis — Yeah, a lot of people will say, well we did do a seder, it was about ten years ago…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Matt Davis — …and we kind of checked off the Jew-box.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Matt Davis — And I said well you you did an Easter service last year, did you are you going to do it again this year, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Matt Davis — So this is part of the rhythm and the flow of…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Matt Davis — …of what we do and I think it’s it’s good for us to be able to keep it in front of our folks. The story that we’re telling right now is really the narrative of ah scripture is that there’s this throughline of it’s all about the Lamb. And I love like Genesis 22, Abraham and Isaac, they’re going up and to Mount Mariah. And the question that Isaac says is, uh, we we have the wood we have a fire where’s the where’s the sacrifice? And he says the lord will provide for himself a lamb.
Matt Davis — Fast forward to exodus and and now we’re getting through to the tenth plague and and Moses says on the tenth day of the month of Nisan ah, want you to take a perfect lamb without spotter blemish one year old male. And you’re going to on the tenth day of this month you’re going to bring it into your home and you’re going to test it and inspect it and scrutinize it to see if it actually is without spot and without blemish. And on the fourteenth day of the month you will sacrifice it at twilight you will take its blood put it on the doorposts of your house and your gates. Then the angel of death will come see the blood and pass over it, right?
Matt Davis — That’s the Exodus story, that’s act 1, but what we don’t realize is that when Jesus comes into Jerusalem on what we would call Palm Sunday or the Triumphal Entry, Jesus actually rides into Jerusalem on that exact same day – lamb selection day, the tenth of Nisan. And that’s significant, right? In in a lot of churches, and I’ve done this I’ve spoken this for years, but we say it’s Friday but Sunday’s a-coming. And some great churches will say it’s Sunday, but Friday’s coming.
Matt Davis — What we don’t realize is that if that’s the tenth of Nisan, the rest of the week Jesus is tried, inspected and scrutinized. Why? Because you’ll see in Matthew 21 and 22 and we have all the synoptics, but what we see is that Jesus is being confronted, really with the pharisees, sadducees, the scribes, elders, priests. They’re they’re asking these questions like um, well what do we do with ah who do we pay taxes to? Or in the resurrection who will this person be married to? And and what happens in every one of these interactions is Jesus gives them an answer, and in very typical fashion he answers the question with another question.
Matt Davis — But what is significant is at the end of every one of these interactions. It says stuff like they were astonished at his authority. They were amazed. They marveled. Um and then it says they dared not ask another question. They said nothing after that, all the way up until Pilate who says I see nothing wrong in this man. And therefore this Lamb, Jesus, who John said the behold the lamb who takes away the sins of the world, he was found to be without spot and without blemish and therefore on the fourteenth of that same month, at the same time that the lambs are being sacrificed in the temple, Jesus has been found worthy to be slain. And then it is his blood that is not applied to the doorpost. But upon another piece of wood, the cross, the cursed tree, and because of that when the Father looks at the blood, our sins are passed over, and we have salvation, we have life. I mean that story, how significant is that…
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s amazing. Yeah.
Matt Davis — …to really connect those two all the way up until Revelation 5 where they’re looking who will open the scrolls? And says the Lamb, only the Lamb is worthy. This through line, if we miss that, and we’re just looking at act 1 or we’re just looking at act 2, we’re missing a massive part of the story.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s fascinating. Love that. And I think what a rich um, you know, reminder even for us as we’re in the midst of ah this week. Well, you know, we for friends I’m pulling back the curtain here a little bit. We we do on the podcast, we do this preparation process where, you know, we ask our guests to like you know, put some thoughts together and send ahead of time. And ah you wrote something in the prep that convicted me. And and I got to raise my hand and say I think you’re speaking about me. You talked about, you know, so I’m just going to read it to you and then I’m going to say “respond” because it’s like I I will need help. So you said if Jewish people don’t hear the gospel from the New Testament they don’t hear it from the New Testament Roman Road they they really need to to. They’re going. We need to we need to show it from the gospel from the Old Testament Jewish Road. Unfortunately, and this is the part that got me, most Christians, and worst, pastors, can share the gospel only from the New Testament but they cannot do it from the Old Testament. We can help and I was like oh that’s probably me. Like if you said to me hey talk about the coming lamb, and what he’s done, but you can only use the Old Testament, I think I would it would fall apart from me quickly. It would. Um and I’m sure there’s pastors that are listening in. So so comment. How can you help? What am I missing?Talk us through that.
Matt Davis — Yeah, I think a lot of well-meaning Christians, they want to see the Jewish people saved. They have a heart for Jewish people, and so what they will do is they will go to a Jewish person and they will take them down the Roman Road, right? And you know this, Romans 3:23 for all of sin fall short the glory of God. Romans 6:23 wages sin is death. And and then what the Jew’s going to say is you take me down that road, it’s going to lead to a dead end. They’re going to say, show me from my book. And so that was really the the genesis for us of we need to take them down a different path.
Matt Davis — And if I if I told we we actually were doing a trip, we were training house church pastors in Cuba this last year and we asked them the question. How many of you could share the gospel from the New Testament? And now everybody puts that hand up. So what if what if we just said you can only share the gospel using one book in the New Testament, could you do it? And everyone raised their hand again.
Rich Birch — Yeah Romans.
Matt Davis — What if you just had one verse, could you do that in the New Testament, you know? As long as I have John 3:16, I can make sense of something, right? I can make it happen. I said what if I said you can’t use the New Testament whatsoever. How many of you could actually share the gospel? Does the gospel even exist in the Old Testament in the tanakh, and and nobody could raise their hand and say they could do it. And so we’ve done our our church as a disservice and unfortunately like you ask a lot of pastors, I I know this because I went through seminary, we don’t train like this. But the gospel is very much so there. .
Matt Davis — And so um, you know one of the things I have on on this wrist here is I have the Roman Road and it’s it’s all on there. But we’re actually working on something I’m going to put one on my other wrist and it’s going to be the Jewish Road. Um God planned for salvation on on the Jewish Road. So you take stuff like Isaiah 61 that says that there is iniquity. We all have sinned. You can look at ah Ecclesiastes 7:22. You look at psalm 110. Ah, you could look at Genesis 3. Like ah there are so many passages in there all the way up until if you’ve got nothing, if you forget it all, just go to Isaiah 53.
Rich Birch — Okay, nice.
Matt Davis — But what what we’re trying to do is how do we equip the church to be able to share the gospel with the Jewish people, Jesus’s own biological family, from their book. And so that is that is our hope, that is really why we exist. And by us doing that for us as Jews to come to the Gentile church and say, this is how you do it um in the very same way that Paul was magnifying his ministry as he went to the Gentiles, we get to do the same thing. So we want to equip the church to know their roots and it’s again, it’s beautiful for us as believers, and it’s beautiful to actually be able to share the gospel, the good news. Um, so we actually have that if you go to otgoodnews.com um, we actually ah we walk through and say this is the Gospel. Um, but we’re also printing these out in Hebrew and we’re sending these to our partners in Israel that will link to a site that will actually take Jewish people who are reading Hebrew they’ll be able to read the gospel ah, in their own native tongue. So we’re pretty excited about that outreach opportunity.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s that’s fantastic. I think that’s a great um it’s a great exercise. it’s convicting and I think we you know we we should be thinking carefully about this and how do we how do we um, you know, like you say build up lead our leaders in a way that they could ultimately answer that. You’ve actually provided a pdf here that we’re gonna we’re gonna link to um that that walks through exactly that whole thing. It’s called The Prophet Speak: Uncovering God’s Plan of Salvation on The Jewish Road and it walks through exactly what you just talked about there, friends, if you’re looking for more detail on that. Um, but this is a great tool. You know a great obviously introduces you to The Jewish Road as well at the organization. But suggest, you’ve just clicked the link below. You’ll get access to that and um, we’ll make sure that you you get that ah resource.
Rich Birch — Well pivoting in a totally different direction. So I was supposed to be in Israel in May this year on where we’re gonna do the Jesus Trail hike. I was really looking forward to that and a part of what I was looking for was a slower experience through ah through Israel. That trip got canceled. Um. What are what should we be thinking about trips to Israel these days? Like it feels like and I don’t and I go back and forth whether and it was the the person we were working with they’re like I’m just not sure we should be going right now and they canceled. Um, what should we be thinking about that? You know I I had a friend years ago who said she studied in Israel for a while and she said, listen you should just go. There’s never a good time to go, but you should just go. Stop waiting for this perfect season. It feels like we’re in far less than a perfect season right now, obviously. Ah, but give us some coaching on that. It’s been a you know ah obviously key part of what you’ve done over the years. Help us think that through a little bit.
Matt Davis — Yeah, we were set to take 40 people to Israel on October 8th.
Rich Birch — Yeah, oh wow.
And we woke up on October 7th, the world changed.
Wow.
Matt Davis — And I had you know everybody texting us. I had friends who were tour guides and friends in Israel who just got drafted. And they were driving to their their reserve spot in Israel. And so obviously that trip got canceled. Um the trip that we had planned for this month got canceled. The trip that we had for next month got canceled. Um, so I would say that really it it’s if it’s never a good time to go to Israel, then it’s always a good time to go to Israel. And I would say that my heart is that that I still want to go to Israel and we’re working on on what that looks like, but I want to go there and stand in solidarity with the people of Israel.
Matt Davis — And I know that it’s um, it’s it’s ah it’s a landmine. It feels like um how how do you possibly say that I stand with Israel and not come against Palestinian. It’s it’s a very politically charged issue right now. And here’s what I would say about that is if you watch mainstream media, and it doesn’t matter what you whether it’s Fox News or CNN or NewsMax all of those things. I guarantee you that if you watch those those programs you will come away either hating the Jewish people, or hating Arabs. And and really neither of those are are a good option. I believe that if we read the Bible and if we immerse ourself in what God actually says, I think that we will not only come out loving the Jewish people, but we will also come out loving the Arabs. And I think that that’s a biblical approach, and there’s some nuance that is needed with that. But we are going out there um, but it’s going to be a much different trip. But this is not going to be, hey, let’s go float in the Dead Sea and ride a camel and eat lots of…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Matt Davis — …really great, you know, falafels and schwarma. Um, we we want to go there to, number one, we’re going to be seeing our partners and our friends who are are in the battle. We’re going to be meeting um, hostages who’ve come back. There are hostages that have come back. They’ve been freed and they just joined up and they’re they’re back on the front lines of the battle.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Matt Davis — Um, so we want to go there to stand, and I want to be able to say that the Christian community, the evangelical community in the United States still loves you and still cares. Um, and I have friends who are are Palestinians um, who are Christians and who hate what’s going on. Um, so I really think that it really divides into um John 10 is where I go with it is the the enemy comes to to steal, kill and destroy but I’ve come that you might have life and life abundantly. And it’s it’s really a division of those who love life and those who love death. And that’s where I believe we’re going to side with Jesus on that and nowhere else.
Matt Davis — But, yeah, absolutely, I think we should go. Um I think that if we can um love the people in there. Um, but you have to have a stomach for it, right? If you’re going to freak out and have a panic attack because there’s sirens going off, um this might not be the best time, but there are other ways to be involved and to support the Jewish people during these times.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I have a ah I would call him a good friend who lives in Israel. And you know and it’s an interesting um I and he and I text we’re probably on the every other week text plan. You know like we connect every once in a while and he’s got little kids. And um, you know, some of the videos that he has sent of like of like them literally at the park around the corner, playing, and then the iron dome alarms and all that going off, and then his kids scrambling and all that. I’m like I yeah well I get choked up, when I think about it. Because I’m like, man, it’s it’s a lot. And he’s he’s a great man, great father. Um, and ah you know, I know and he’s struggling. He’s and he’s a business owner and so he’s struggling with, okay, how do I what’s the best way to push forward and like how do we, you know, how do that’s all that it’s a complex situation and so… But that’s good. That’s good coaching. Appreciate that.
Rich Birch — Well kind of as we’re coming into land, what should we be thinking about where where’s our, you know, pull this all together, we’ve talked about a bunch of different stuff here. You know, pull this together. What should we be thinking about, Matt, as we think about ah how, you know, assume that there’s church leaders that are listening and are saying you know what I think this is an area I do need to help my my church um understand more clearly, be be um, you know better equipped on. What would be some first steps we should take just as we kind of bring today’s episode to a close?
Matt Davis — Yeah, as we go to different churches—I say we, my dad and I are doing this – my old man um…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Matt Davis — …going around and just sharing years of of ministry experience. He he was formerly a missionary with Chosen People Ministries – you may have heard of but um…You know I I think that there’s a fear that once you’ve been a pastor long enough that you should really know everything. And I remember like 10 years in getting asked a question like, and I’m like I I don’t know the answer to this. I’m going to stall and see if I can look it up on Wikipedia later. Um but I think sometimes people are a little bit nervous to bring us in, even because they don’t want to be found out that they don’t know all of this. Or how come you as a pastor haven’t been teaching us this. And what we want to do is we really want to be a resource for the church.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Matt Davis — I want to be a resource for pastors. Um, we just it it it was started as a joke, but we just we bought url gotojews.com – we want to be your go to Jews. And it just redirects to our website. So if you don’t remember thejewishroad.com … gotojews.com. But really um, we want to be a resource and not just because you want another Hebrew tattoo and you want to make sure it says the right thing. But if you’re looking at a passage and you’re saying um, you know, what does this mean? What what is what are the roots of this? We want to be able to be a resource. We want to be able to help ah, to step into that space and say, man, there’s so much more to scripture. Let me show you where some of the hyperlinks are. And not that I even know it all or even my dad knows it all. But um, we’ve been on this journey for a long time and and we’ve we’ve tapped some of those hyperlinks.
Matt Davis — So we want to be able to be a resource. And so you’re looking for somebody to be able to bring context. What are the spring feasts? What are the fall feasts? What is Hanukkah and how does this connect to Christmas? Where are we at. We’re not we’re not condemning we want to be invitational to this and we want to be teachers and resources because I believe that if we can do this well um, then we will have a fullness of faith.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s wonderful. Well Matt appreciate you being here you gave it a couple uro urls which is great. I love that go to Jews – that’s fantastic. Ah, but theJewishroad.com – I would encourage people to take a look, sign up for all your stuff, get on the list. I think this is an area it should be a bubble it should be bubbling in our brains like, hey this is something we should be thinking about. Um where else we want to send people online if they want to connect with you or connect with the ministry?
Matt Davis — If you like podcasts we have a podcast.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Matt Davis — And we tell we tell jokes um on there. Jewish jokes. Jewish humor is a big part that even amidst suffering, and we are people that loves to suffer but we also love to have a little bit of fun in the midst of it. But my dad and I we have a podcast that really helps to outline a lot of this stuff. We just finished a hundred episodes and I’m you’re excited about that.
Rich Birch — Good for you – congratulations.
Matt Davis — So yeah, that’s a really great spot to go and just get educated and and learn a little bit more.
Rich Birch — Love it. And what is it just called The Jewish Road as well.
Matt Davis — Yeah Jewish Road podcast.
Rich Birch — Jewish Road podcast – great so much. Great. Thank you so much. We really appreciate you being here, Matt. Appreciate being on the show and yeah, thanks so much for for being here today.
Matt Davis — Thanks, Rich.
Thanks for tuning in to the unSeminary podcast. Today I’m joined by Paul Alexander, the Executive Pastor at Sun Valley Community Church in Arizona.
As church leaders, sometimes we can have a natural aversion to strategic planning. Yet we see in the scriptures, from beginning to end, that God has a plan. And He wants to pass it on to His people as they wait on Him. Listen as Paul communicates how the church can use strategic planning to prioritize life change and help more people meet Jesus.
- God has a plan. // Strategic decision-making and evaluation in the church isn’t about business tactics. It’s about partnering with God to fulfill His desire for community impact. Rather than stifling the Holy Spirit, strategic planning is an act of obedience and wisdom, aligning our actions with God’s will for His Church.
- Data informing decisions. // At Sun Valley Community Church, they measure life change through tangible metrics like new commitments to Jesus and baptisms. Tools, like Microsoft BI, connect to their database to track these vital signs weekly. To help them determine where they are going, they use an attender to guest ratio as their primary lead measure with a goal of two guests visiting per every attendee. This data-driven approach ensures they’re making informed decisions that lead to more people meeting Jesus.
- Confront reality. // The process of evaluation and decision-making needs to begin with confronting reality about what’s actually happening, or not happening at our churches. Scripture is meant to be a mirror and when we hold it up to ourselves, it requires a great deal of sober-mindedness, humility and trust on a team. Church leaders are responsible for defining reality at our churches. Then we can begin to dream a preferred future and design a pathway to get there.
- Annual strategic refresh. // Sun Valley uses annual strategic refreshes to keep the church’s momentum going. During this time, each team meets with leadership during the first quarter to review how things went over the last year and discuss where things are. Paul and the other leaders help to steer that conversation, though over time the teams learn to elevate what needs to be confronted. When the leadership recognizes that momentum’s lagging, they aren’t afraid to create a new problem to solve in order to stimulate growth and get the church moving in the same direction. The key is to be proactive, yet not addicted to a plan, so you can flex and make mid-course corrections as needed.
- Wait on the Holy Spirit. // Setting aside time for strategic planning and waiting on God is critical if the Church is going to stand firm and move forward against spiritual opposition. Remember Acts 1:8 and then execute the plan as an act of obedience to Jesus. Planning is not contrary to faith; it’s an essential part of fulfilling the Great Commission.
To follow along with Sun Valley Community Church, you can visit their website at www.sunvalleycc.com and connect with Paul here.
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Risepointe
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Well, hey, everybody welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. You know every week we try to bring you a leader who will both inspire and equip you and today I’m excited to bring you a leader who we’ve kind of been on the outside of each other’s orbits for quite a while online. And it’s so good to get a chance to talk face-to-face and to record that conversation. This is a church that I point people to all the time, and say you want to see people who are doing a good job? You should look at Sun Valley. I have, you know ripped, off stuff from them, pointed people toward them, do you do such a great job. So Sun Valley Community Church is a multi-site church in Arizona. If I can count correctly, 6 locations, an online campus, plus a prison campus. It’s repeatedly been one of the church churches in the fastest growing church category on Outreach 100, which friends if I follow that list really closely, and I can tell you that that’s a rare feat. Lots of times what happens is churches jump on that list and then there there may be a year or two. But the fact that Sun Valley consistently is there is is rare. So we’re going to learn a lot from Paul today. Ah, he’s been an executive pastor at Sun Valley for 13 years. He’s been in ministry for over twenty-five years. He also serves with a with as a consultant with Unstuck Group—we love them—for over a decade. And they work with all kinds of churches on church on health assessments and strategic planning and all kinds of stuff. Paul, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.
Paul Alexander — Rich, thanks for having me, man. Glad to be on here and hanging out with your listeners.
Rich Birch — Come on, honored that you’re here. Ah you just love love what you do, love love what Sun Valley does. Kind of fill out the picture there. I did the boilerplate bio stuff, but kind of tell us a little bit more. Give us a flavor of Sun Valley, kind of tell us a bit of that story.
Paul Alexander — Yeah, man. Ah yeah, everybody wants to look at the numbers, and all that stuff and that’s fun and exciting and everything. But I mean, honestly, what keeps me in the game for now almost thirty years of full time ministry and at Sun Valley is a couple of things. One is the life change. It’s consistent stories every single week of people meeting Jesus and their lives and marriages and um families just being legitimately radically changed by the gospel, and by Jesus.
Rich Birch — So good.
Paul Alexander — And then, you know, here there’s always something new to figure out. And if you’re wired up like me, having a little bit of fresh meat from time to time is really important for you. And just new problems to solve and, you know, as ah as a church grows and goes from one side to two to three to four to five to six and on and on, there’s new things to figure out. And um, you know, people who enjoy that, and can stay on the solution side of things, my goodness, it can be so much fun. So yeah, it’s been a really good fun run, man. Been here from one campus to, like you said, six, the one in the prison now. We just sold a location and we’re relocating it, ground…
Rich Birch — Oh that’s interesting. Yeah yeah, that’s cool. That’s fun.
Paul Alexander — Yeah, ground up to a new site so that’s fun. And uh…
Rich Birch — That’s fun.
Paul Alexander — Yeah, so been we’ve done some mergers. That’s the nice way to say it in church world, right? So we’ve done a couple of those and just learned a lot through that experience. We’ve gone ground up a couple of times.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Paul Alexander — But yeah, I’ve I’ve been here as executive pastor here almost fourteen years. Functionally, I’ve had the same title the same the whole time, but you know every 6 to 18 months my job actually changes…
Rich Birch — So true.
Paul Alexander — …um, based on what’s needed.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yes, yeah, that’s true.
Paul Alexander — You know, what what Sun Valley needs in any given season. So.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s true. Yeah I can I can identify that having been in that kind of, you know, executive pastor second chair seat from in a couple churches that went from a thousand to 4- or 5000 people
Paul Alexander — Yep.
Rich Birch — You know, I I joked that, you know, this was back when we used to have business cards, I’m like I just need to take the title off my business card because it’s just like it’s just not, you know, we’re constantly getting coming up with new things and you know and and you just have to adjust…
Paul Alexander — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …and you know that that really is staggering growth that’s happened at Sun Valley. And you know you’ve seen a lot of change one to six, and the prison ministry. And, you know, I I had heard somewhere 1200 baptisms a year.
Paul Alexander — Yeah.
RIch Birch — That’s amazing. Like that’s, you know, by God’s grace. That’s incredible. That’s amazing.
Paul Alexander — Yeah, last year we baptized more than 1200 people.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Paul Alexander — And um, yeah, it’s it’s kind of, to be candid with you, it’s kind of pinch-yourself weird that…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Paul Alexander — …you know, okay eight hundred to a thousand people getting baptized like clockwork every single year.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Paul Alexander — And you’re like and and covid when everything was shut down and we weren’t physically meeting that was one of our biggest years of of spiritual growth where people were crossing the line of faith and getting baptized. And so, yeah, the Lord’s ah, you know, the Lord’s hand is on it, yes. But there’s also an aspect of partnering with with God and what he wants to do.
Rich Birch — I love it.
Paul Alexander — And so I think sometimes churches are really quick to say well, I don’t know, the Holy Spirit just moving. And while you can’t not give credit to the Holy Spirit because he’s the one who brings spiritual life and spiritual growth. There’s also the book of Proverbs is in the bible too, right? So there is a way to run the kingdom…
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Paul Alexander — …that he’s designed life to work in a particular manner.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I would love to dive into that today. I think that’s a great kind of framework, this idea of partnering with God in what he wants to do. Listen, we know that Jesus wants to impact the communities we’re in, that you don’t have to debate that. Does Jesus want more people to come to know him? Yes. Does Jesus want more but more people to be raised up in a relationship with him? Yes. Let’s not debate that. The question is how do we partner with him? Let’s let’s kind of pull that apart a little bit. What does that look like for you and your role as an executive pastor in a growing church? How do you help the church partner, strategize, you know, planning – what does that look like for you?
Paul Alexander — Yeah, so ah, you know, both at Sun Valley and then with churches I work with around the country with Unstuck, it’s really interesting how church leaders can have a natural aversion to things like strategic planning. Just though the language itself can be something that many church leaders bristle at, right? And usually there’s two big reasons that happens. One is is they’ll use language and say, hey planning is a business practice, and the church isn’t a business. And we don’t want to be a business.
Paul Alexander — Or you hear that planning doesn’t leave room for the Holy Spirit to move kind of an idea. Um, and I’d say okay, they’re right. The church isn’t a business. The scriptures actually describe us as the bride of Christ or the body of Christ, right? It’s not a building that you come to. It’s a movement you choose to be a part of. And and unlike a business. The church doesn’t measure success in terms of your bottom line, or shareholder dividends, or financial profitability, right? We’re we’re measuring success in terms of life change, like you you mentioned earlier. You don’t have to pray about whether we want more people to meet Jesus or not.
Paul Alexander — And when it comes down to decision-making and measuring if things are working or not, I think some church leaders, again they have an aversion to that because um, you know, the whole “is it working” conversation, well what does that mean? In our in our world that means are more people meeting Jesus?
Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes.
Paul Alexander — And so if if we’re gonna go left or we’re gonna go right, the bottom line is which way is gonna lead to more people meeting Jesus?
Rich Birch — Right.
Paul Alexander — And so you’re they’re right? The church isn’t a business, right?
Rich Birch — Right, right, right.
Paul Alexander — It’s a family of God. And then does planning leave room for the Holy Spirit? I mean if if you think through that kind of thinking actually assumes that God only works in spontaneity and in chaos, right?
Rich Birch — Right. Yes, yes.
Paul Alexander — And that would actually be counter to what the bible actually teaches us, and how we actually see God actually behaving in the scriptures, right?
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Paul Alexander — So um, both of those big reasons I hear—you know, leaving room for the Holy Spirit to move in the moment, and then the churches isn’t a business—I think both of those things, while I understand the initial bristling at strategy and planning in a church, um, you know, if we actually use our brains…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Paul Alexander — …that God gave us…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Paul Alexander — …and we’re thoughtful about it, and intellectually honest about it, we we’d be quick to adopt these kind of practices.
Rich Birch — Right. Well, let’s let’s talk about that. So I, you know, I love that great that’s great framing. Life change is the bottom line. So that assumes if it’s a bottom line that we’re measuring that. That we’re, you know, at some level we’re trying to say, hey, are we more effective, or less effective? Is this ministry more effective, is less effective? Is this thing we used to do, is it driving us… Help us think through what are some ways that that we could, you know, I’ll give you a framework. Think you’re imagine you’re a church of a couple thousand people, say 2000 people. You know, you’re maybe an executive pastor and you’re looking at, you know, a bunch of different ministries. How would you be measuring life change?What’s that look like?
Paul Alexander — Well, I’ll tell you how we do it here. How’s that?
Rich Birch — Love it. That’s perfect.
Paul Alexander — Um I’m I’m getting a dashboard every single week. It’s um, for your listeners, it’s all connected to our database. It’s it’s expressed through Microsoft BI, so it’s easy to and dig into as much or as little as we want to. And um, you know we’re measuring and how many people are actually saying yes to following Jesus. And not like the old school raise your hand kind of deal, but we, you know, we have them, we do go old school. We stand up, walk out of the room, meet with someone face to face. You can measure that. Um, how many people are actually getting baptized? You can measure that. How many people are jumping in volunteer teams and being the church, not just coming to church. That’s actually measurable.
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Paul Alexander — Um, how many people are jumping into leadership roles where they have spiritual authority and responsibility over a span of care of other volunteers? Again, you can measure all of that stuff. And so if you measure it, then you can A/B test it and try different things to find out what worked.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Paul Alexander — So um and candidly one of the fun things about multisite is you can run multiple experiments at the exact same time…
Rich Birch — Yes, it’s true.
Paul Alexander — …find out which one works and then just go with that.
Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely. Well, it’s funny, I’ve said that to churches I’ve coached over the years, around like man, we get you got to get to three or four locations, even just for that reason because man it’s like every weekend you have a month of services that, well, let’s try a couple different ways.
Rich Birch — So let’s talk about the dashboard and kind of when you’re looking at numbers and help us understand, you know, the lead measures versus the lag measures. Is there a lead measure or two that you look at that are that you think might be particularly insightful, that are kind of giving you a sense of of where we’re going. Because attendance and how much money you have, this is my framework on that. That tells you what you did a year ago.
Paul Alexander — That’s right.
Rich Birch — It tells you, you know, it’s an it’s an indication of of work you’ve already done. But what are you looking at from a lead measure point of view?
Paul Alexander — Yeah, that’s a good question. One of the ones that I look at in particular is our guest-to-attender ratio.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Paul Alexander — So how many first time guests can we can we identify? And, by the way, guests want to self-identify. And they do self-identify all the time, and probably the ease it used to be like the communication card that churches…
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Paul Alexander — …would like, hey fill out a communication card, and all that deal. Um, people are self-identifying through lots of different ways now. You know, very, like for me personally, if I came to your church where you attend, the first time you knew I was there is probably going to be the first time that I actually give to the church. And so I don’t think that people think that way. Like the first time people self identify to the database, that’s when they’re saying, hey I’m here. And so we have a responsibility to respond to them saying “I’m here”. And so it can be checking in a kid. It can be they want prayer and they identify through some mechanism to to say that. It could be giving. It could be joining a group, volunteering. Whatever way they self-identify for the very first I I time at your church then that begins a workflow of how to follow up with them and how to engage with them and build relationship and connection with them.
Paul Alexander — So yeah, that ratio between how many first time guests or that number to the database each month or each week to attenders. That’s one that we’re looking at pretty heavily.
Rich Birch — Yeah, and and how what is that number? What’s the ratio you’re going for? What’s been the healthy, you know, this is a number I talk about all the time. So and this literally comes up, you know, almost every conversation I have with church Leaders. So what are you guys looking at and, you know, talk us through that.
Paul Alexander — Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you know you’re going to hear all kinds of different things out there in church world. Whatever everybody’s favorite baseline for that…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Paul Alexander — …and you know for years and years was 1 to 1 ratio kind of deal. So if you’re a church of a thousand being able to identify a thousand first time guests over the scope of a year. Understanding that you know each church declines by at least 20% every single year. It’s just a fact. 5% of the people get mad at something the pastor says. 5% of the people move because of work. 5% of the people um, you know they die literally, they just they they are at the end of their life cycle factually.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Paul Alexander — And so, again, that’s 15%. And then so if you can get, you know, one out of 5 guests. You can actually grow at a 5% clip. Does that make sense? So 15% [inaudible]. We push our our numbers honestly that we’re looking for a little higher than that.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love it, love it.
Paul Alexander — So we’re actually looking at a 1 a 1 to 2 ratio is our goal.
Rich Birch — Yep. Okay.
Paul Alexander — Um, most of our campuses for context, you’re talking about how how do we grow? Um, this last year did about a 1 to 1.75 ratio of guest to attender.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great.
Paul Alexander — Um that was that was kind of our norm this last year…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah that’s great.
Paul Alexander — …at each of our locations. Um…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah that’s great. I’ve I’ve talked about that same number um in it’s just slightly different way. I’ve said, you know, I love talking about it in 2% average weekly documented first time guests. So looking—it’s the same number—it ends up being ah, you know… But that’s the bent that’s like the that’s like the table stakes.
Paul Alexander — Yep.
Rich Birch — That’s like the starting point should be there, but then similarly churches we work with we end up seeing 3, 4%. Um and I like talking about it weekly because I think it pushes pressure put puts pressure on churches. So again that same church of a thousand that would mean, you know, every week they should be seeing 20 people a week. Which when I say a thousand guests, people freak out about following up, and what am I going to do. But when you say 20 a week, between 20 and 40 a week, what can we do to actually follow up and build a system to ultimately see those people get connected?
Paul Alexander — It’s super reasonable.
Rich Birch — That’s a great. I love…
Paul Alexander — Right. Yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s for total totally reasonable. That’s great so guest to attend to ratio ratio. Is there any other kind of lead to maybe one more lead indicator that you look at, or is that the primary one? That’s the big one.
Paul Alexander — Oh goodness, gracious. Um, that’s probably the most important…
Rich Birch — The biggest one.
Paul Alexander — …lead generated for me because, you know, whether they know Jesus or not don’t know Jesus, um…
Rich Birch — Right.
Paul Alexander — …that, yeah…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Paul Alexander — …it it’s new people we’re engaging with.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s perfect. And that, you know, friends, that you’re listening in, you know, I want to take that, you know, listen to what Paul’s saying here. You know, here’s an executive pastor at a, you know, a large church by every number, you’d say this is a big church. And this number is a number that you can get. This is not like a, you know, this is he’s not doing some magic mumbo jumbo to find like what is the the crazy thing. It’s literally who’s new? And how do we compare who’s new, and sure we can debate all the places we get that from. But who’s new versus your attendee. Man, like that is, you know, it’s not, in some ways it’s not rocket science. It’s not, you know, it’s like we can we can get that together.
Rich Birch — Um, so when you think about, okay, so we’ve got this lead measure. Let’s say you end up pushing into, okay, we want to institute some sort of change management kind of thing in our church. I don’t know what that could be. Maybe it’s an example of something that maybe you’ve got a campus that you want to readjust, or there’s an overall kind of, you know, total, you know, churchwide change you’re trying to make. What does that look like for you? How do you lead that process? How does how do you, you know, begin the kind of planning process to evaluate what we need to, you know, evaluate what we need to do, come up with a plan, ultimately measure it. What’s that look like for you?
Paul Alexander — Yeah, so you know, most people get stuck in confronting reality. You know, and scriptures are given to us not to be used as a, you know, a microphone or a microscope to look in other people but a mirror to look at ourselves.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Paul Alexander — And most people have the most difficult time in this whole thing getting started being honest about where they are holding a mirror up to to define reality.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s so good.
Paul Alexander — And so I think it takes a lot of sober mindedness. It takes humility. It takes trust on a team. Um, which there’s some big cultural underpinnings that need to happen on a team to be able to actually engage in a conversation like this in a helpful manner. But um, all that being said, essentially it’s the same whether this is your marriage, or whether this is your personal life, or whether you’re leading a church or business, your job as the leaders to define reality, dream a preferred future, and design a pathway to get there.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Paul Alexander — And so all you’re you’re just defining reality. And if if you can’t define reality and confront reality, and be just candid and honest about, hey, there’s some things we’re doing really well and some islands of strength we need to lean into, but there’s also some areas of opportunity of deficiency that we just we haven’t baptized enough people.
Rich Birch — Right.
Paul Alexander — Why?
Rich Birch — Right.
Paul Alexander — Just be honest about that, man.
Rich Birch — Right.
Paul Alexander — Um, and just let’s change it. If it’s not acceptable, then call it out as being not acceptable, man. There’s there’s got to be a different future for us. And then how are we going to actually change it. You know, and then you start getting into change management – who needs to be in the room, who needs to make the decision, who’s the biggest voice that needs to lead the way. Is there a cultural shift that needs to happen, even from leading the stage and from the church from the stage. Um, so I mean the answer is, it depends.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Paul Alexander — But foundationally you, you know, you’re defining reality, you’re dreaming a preferred future, and you’re designing a pathway to get there.
Rich Birch — Let’s let’s talk about that first step. First of all, I think that’s a huge insight most leaders or people get stuck at confronting reality. Can you talk us through a time where, you know, your role was to help a department, an individual, a campus, maybe the entire church, really confront a reality. That like oh here, you know, leaders by definition take people from where they are to a more to a more preferable future. And so we’ve got to define exactly where we are. Can you talk me through a time where you felt like, hey, part of my job now is just to get everybody on the same page. Let’s all agree that this is not good. Um, which is a there’s a function of leadership, right? We don’t, you know, we lots of people don’t see stuff that needs to change. They just think it’ll always be good. It’ll be we’ll just keep going. Can you talk us to a time where you had to do that, where you had to help define reality?
Paul Alexander — Yeah, oh let me start here. I I would say, Rich, the the best leaders I’ve been around when things are just kind of status quo and going okay, they’ll actually create a problem. They’ll actually…
Rich Birch — Right. It’s true.
Paul Alexander — …they will and they’ll do it on purpose. They’ll create chaos a little bit.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yep, yep.
Paul Alexander — They’ll manufacture an issue. They’ll intuitively know things are slowing down, momentum’s lagging, I need to create chaos—a new problem to solve—to get us all moving in the same direction.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Paul Alexander — Back to that old adage: it is a lot easier to to steer a moving ship than to get it going. And so um, yeah, how would I say this? You’re almost asking the fish to describe the water in some respects here because this is a normal conversation for us at Sun Valley. Every single year I’m doing annual one day strategic refreshes with all of our campus teams and all of our ministry teams.
Rich Birch — Oh wow.
Paul Alexander — And so it’s just normal for us to have an annual strategic rhythm to come back and be honest about where we are. They’re getting they’re getting ah vital signs. Ah, you know dashboard for the year of how things went. And they’re just there’s just I give it to them and they come to the table prepared of here’s here’s where we killed it, here’s where Jesus is moving and we’re seeing life change. And here’s some things that aren’t as good as they were, or what we feel they should be. And so um, so a lot of it I’m, over time, they’re elevating what needs to change. And they’re elevating what needs to be confronted. And so then I’m just steering that conversation.
Paul Alexander — So, but no, it starts with simple things like you know, hey what’s going right? If you’re a leader you get this. If you’re a leader your natural bent is to dig into all the problems. And you’re talking about leaders essentially moving people to a preferred future. People don’t follow people who are negative.
Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good.
Paul Alexander — And so I think by nature and I think executive pastors, that word means a lot of things in a lot of different churches…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Paul Alexander — …executive pastors oftentimes can get pinned down with a general sentiment that these guys just pop people’s balloons. And these staff members are slowing everything down. And they always want to like…
Rich Birch — They’re the no.
Paul Alexander — …yeah they’re the no person on the team. You never want to be known as the “no” person on the team.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, that’s good.
Paul Alexander — Because people don’t follow people they don’t like. And they don’t follow people that aren’t positive. So it’s okay to point out a problem. It’s not okay to not bring a solution. And it’s not okay to not be optimistic about the problem.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Paul Alexander — And so I would encourage your listeners, because the audience is predominantly, you know, um XPs, church administrators, people who are a little more operationally lent, you know, bent um, movement doesn’t get built by policy. And it doesn’t get ah built by administration. So…
Rich Birch — Oh! Oh that’s good.
Paul Alexander — Yeah, so policy slows things down actually. So um yeah.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, yeah. Totally. That’s good. Can you talk to us I was intrigued by your annual kind of review process there. Can you, again, this is one of those things I would say there’s lots of leaders who would say, I do not have time to set aside, what however many days that is—fifteen days, ten days, four days…
Paul Alexander — Oh brother.
Rich Birch — …to do that. Um, you know, and so talk to me through talk me through. What’s that look like? How, you know, ah, you know, so I get a sense of it. You’re giving them kind of that’s what happened in the last year, let’s come and talk about it. Let’s frame up some stuff from the future. Talk us through that rhythm – that intrigued me.
Paul Alexander — Yeah, yeah, so we have a tendency to do that every January and ah February, March timeframe because we’ve just landed a previous year. Our data team will elevate and produce the reports, we’ll distribute those to the different team. So each campus leadership team, management team, whatever language that church puts on that, um, they’ll get that team. You know, our student ministry staff, centrally kid staff, next step staff, creative arts, comp I mean I I don’t know, man, I’m probably doing twelve full days…
Rich Birch — Right. Wow.
Paul Alexander — …of just with our staff doing those different meetings. And then we have a senior staff team that goes through the church as a whole. And so…
Rich Birch — On the front end or on the back end? Is it like are you doing it like cascading down, you start with those people, or you go up, you know bottom up kind of thing, or or just kind of when they can fit the days in, or what’s that look like?
Paul Alexander — We do when they can fit the days in. It’s always kind of in the first quarter of the year.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Paul Alexander — One doesn’t, I mean a lot of times, again leaders are like well we got to do the senior staff one first because then that’s going to impact everything else. Well maybe. Um, but…
Rich Birch — Right.
Paul Alexander — But because of the nature of it, if the senior staff finds something that does impact everything else, well fine. Just interrupt everybody do that. Because that’s what’s most important right now, right?
Rich Birch — Right, right, right.
Paul Alexander — So the flexibility um to be masters of midcourse correction is really important. So um…
Rich Birch — Okay, yeah, interesting.
Paul Alexander — …like if you know you’re heading for a wall like, hit the brakes, brother. It’s okay…
Rich Birch — Please turn. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
Paul Alexander — …to turn the wheel, you totally can turn the wheel. Um.
Rich Birch — Yeah, like yeah, that’s good. I like that. That’s good. Let’s explore that a little bit more. The the balance between, at Sun Valley, between having a plan that we’re executing against versus responding, you know, proactive versus opportunistic…
Paul Alexander — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …you know, we see something let’s jump on it. What’s that look like? How do you how does that workout for you guys?
Paul Alexander — Yeah, well I would I would say a couple things. Number one, we’re not addicted to growth. Number two, we’re also not addicted to strategy. We’re addicted to be seeing people meet Jesus and grow in their friendship with Jesus. And um we do have a strategic culture. We do consistently work this plan over time and I think that discipline to work a strategy consistently in a particular direction over a long period of time yields an incredible amount of fruit. At the same time you do have to have the courage and intuition of a leader to not be addicted to that plan, and not be confined by that plan, but to be consistently getting your head above things and seeing what’s happening and how things are…
Rich Birch — Right.
Paul Alexander — …and people are responding and be willing to make some mid-course corrections. Um. Does that make sense?
Rich Birch — Yeah, it does. Can you give me an example of that, like that’s not covid, where you had to you know that you had to pivot. We all did that, right? But it’s like, you know, and and it was great to see amazing to see, but like give us an example of like maybe a department or a campus again or maybe the whole church where you were like hey we, this is just isn’t working. We got to change. Let’s but it’s go in a different direction.
Paul Alexander — So I alluded to this earlier in the conversation.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Paul Alexander — We just sold a campus. Okay. So…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, right, Let’s talk about that.
Paul Alexander — …big decision most, you know. I don’t know a lot of churches that are selling locations or relocating them.
Rich Birch — Right, yep, yep.
Paul Alexander — So it’s not like we had anybody else to go to look at. And so we acquired this particular location. It’s one of our first mergers that we did.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Paul Alexander — And when that happened, about half the people that were there ended up over about two to three year periods leaving, and then it backfilled and ended up um, you know, what? Tripling, Quadrupling in size in attendance.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Paul Alexander — And yet hit this hit this lid because the the real estate, which I think most churches underestimate the power of, the real estate was frankly terrible. At one point their front door was a main, you know, a main road. A Highway went in and they made it inaccessible, and it got buried in ah into a neighborhood. And um, you know, location matters.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s true.
Paul Alexander — And anybody who tells you different is lying to you, or inexperienced. And so um, yeah,
Rich Birch — It’s true. Yeah, it’s true.
Paul Alexander — And so we ended up, you know, we could keep beating our head against a wall knowing that we can get it to a certain size and this is the amount of people that is going to meet Jesus and it’s gonna um, be faithful over time…
Rich Birch — Right. Yep.
Paul Alexander — …and it’s gonna experience incremental growth. Or we could disrupt things and do something incredibly different. And we chose option B. And so um, which meant selling it and now that campus is set up and tear down for a season while we’re going ground up in an an incredibly strategic location. And my hunch is, out of the gate, the a thousand people that are at that location are going to move over. It’s going to be probably 2500 people at grand opening. And it’ll settle into 2000 and then it’ll go from there.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, yeah.
Paul Alexander — And so and we’re talking about making decisions based on how many people are going to meet Jesus.
Rich Birch — Right.
Paul Alexander — Not how difficult it is or how hard it is, or emotionally we got to communicate and lead some people through this. Because that’s not an easy conversation to have with people.
Rich Birch — No, no.
Paul Alexander — There’s emotional connection to that location. People were baptized there and met Jesus there. On and on and on. It was a merger, so there’s a lot of history even there in that, right?
Rich Birch — Right, right. Yeah.
Paul Alexander — But do you have the courage to say, if we go left instead of right, more people are going to meet Jesus. Okay, we don’t need to pray about that. We just need to have courage.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. Well and yeah, that’s that’s there’s, man. There’s a ton there. I feel like that could be a whole episode in in and of itself. But when, you know, when you look at a decision like that, um, you know, how are you, you know, there’s I love that there’s a certain amount of risk ah associated with that. There’s like this might not work, right?
Paul Alexander — Sure.
Rich Birch — It’s like I agree with you on a conviction on the building stuff I do. And this is a guy who’s talked about portable for a long time. But I think, man, I think we underestimate the power of where we meet, and I think but think is to help us think through at a broad strokes, how do you think about the risk around a decision like that? How do you because there is risk, right?
Paul Alexander — Yeah, man.
Rich Birch — It’s like you could do all this, and spend a bunch if money, it doesn’t work.
Paul Alexander — Rich, I’m I’m weird. And I’ll I’ll confess I’m weird. I mean when when I was when I was called into ministry as a high school kid…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Paul Alexander — …and the Holy Spirit you know called me to ministry it was it wasn’t like you go I want you you’re gonna be an executive pastor at a mega multisite church. Man, if you asked me I like I don’t know what’s an executive pastor and what’s a multisite church? I didn’t know. I just had this calling and leading from the Holy Spirit of seeing thousands of people meet Jesus. And so um, to be honest with you, that’s that’s all I’ve really ever worried about.
Rich Birch — Right, right. Okay.
Paul Alexander — Are more people going to meet Jesus?
Rich Birch — Love it. Right, right, right.
Paul Alexander — Is it risky? I guess. But there’s there’s ah, there’s a lot of money at stake, there’s a lot of people at stake.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Paul Alexander — Um, but I don’t know, man, there is a simplicity to just obeying Jesus.
Rich Birch — Right. Sure. Absolutely.
Paul Alexander — And I think church leaders have a tendency to like overcomplicate it. And like, I mean, we either believe Acts 1:8, the Holy Spirit will come upon you and then…
Rich Birch — Right.
Paul Alexander — …you will be my witnesses and there’s a mission and a strategy and a plan that’s laid out there, or we don’t.
Rich Birch — Yeah, right. Love that.
Paul Alexander — And so. I don’t know, man. And again I’m kind of weird…
Rich Birch — No, it’s good.
Paul Alexander — …and I’m probably oversimplifying it a little bit. Um, but.
Rich Birch — No. It’s good. No, that’s good. That’s a good word for sure. And I, you know, I think sometimes we can we stand at ah at a crossroads of a decision like that and we get paralyzed by analysis, right? It’s that paralysis by analysis thing, and we’re like we think of, you know, 25 different ways where this won’t work. We come up with 32 where it will, and then we worry about the 7 in between. And we’re like okay is this going to I don’t know. And then we spent a lot of time, you know. And then but the but the reality of it is, I remember years ago I had a mentor of mine say, he said, if the only thing that’s standing between you and the mission that you believe God’s called you to is money—which a lot of times what we think about when we think about risk—he’s like, just go raise some money. And I remember thinking, oh that’s a lot simpler when you say it than what it sounds like in my head. And but it’s true, right? It’s like hey that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to keep this thing pointed towards reaching people.
Paul Alexander — Yeah.
Rich Birch — How do we do that? I love that. Great kind of overarching, our job is to simplify, keep people at first principles. Um, that’s yeah, love that. That’s so good. Well this been ah, this been a rich conversation, talked about a bunch of different things, but is there anything else you’d love the share just says we’re kind of coming to land today’s episode?
Paul Alexander — Um, yeah, I would. You know, what I think for your listeners um, as we’re thinking through planning and you know is it biblical is it not biblical. What’s our role and all of it? I mean if if they’re just thoughtful about how God has behaved at creation. I don’t think it was the Holy Spirit, Jesus, and the Father sitting around and saying, hey, I don’t know – watch this. Let’s put stripes on this one. And you know, I mean. God actually had a plan at creation, right?
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Paul Alexander — You know, when Jesus entered time and space, when the world was Rome, and there was a road system in place, Jesus didn’t, you know, the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit weren’t sitting around saying, hey Jesus you want to go now? Okay, this looks good.
Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good.
Paul Alexander — Jesus had a plan. The father had a plan. It was strategi when Jesus was sent.
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Paul Alexander — And then if you fast forward to the second coming of Jesus, ah, there’s actually Jesus actually says this. He says no man knows the hour of the time, but my Father in heaven. God has a plan. And when you and I set aside time as a senior staff of a church to plan we’re actually and we’re actually doing something that’s holy. Because holiness is about obeying the scriptures. And so churches that don’t set aside time to plan, leaders that don’t set a aside time to work on their work, they’re missing out on the full power of the church because they’re simply not obeying Jesus in the scriptures.
Rich Birch — So good.
Paul Alexander — And I’m like I’ll land it with this: How arrogant of us as church leaders to think we could out-strategize, out-plan the enemy.
Rich Birch — Oh man, that’s good.
Paul Alexander — The the most strategic being that exists outside of God isn’t us. It’s satan.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Paul Alexander — If he can get you to sin, get you to think, get your heart to be inclined towards things that are destructive for you and people around you, how much more so do you think he can destroy the church. And so for us we’ve we’ve got to set aside time as church leaders to like Acts 1:8, wait on the Holy Spirit. And then go execute the plan. So that’d be my think, if I was going to encourage the listeners on something um man don’t be planning-adverse. You, by doing it, you’re actually obeying Jesus.
Rich Birch — Love it. So good, Paul. this has been super helpful today. I really appreciate being you being on the show. Um, you know, yeah, just it’s nice that you’ve took some time to be with us today. If where where do we want to send people if they want to connect with you to kind of plug into the the Paul, you know, cinematic universe that all the various things you got yourself into?
Paul Alexander — Ah, yeah, and I don’t know honestly if if you have listeners that are interested in having a conversation, or have a few questions, the best place to send them is just my email address paul@theunstuckgroup.com…
Rich Birch — Love it. Easy.
Paul Alexander — …and that’s the easiest fastest way to get me. That’ll keep my Sun Valley things kind of cleared.
Rich Birch — Yep, that’s great. Thanks so much, Paul. Really appreciate you being here today.
Paul Alexander — My pleasure, and glad to be with you.
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Thanks for tuning into this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Lead Pastor Trevor DeVage from Pantano Christian Church in Arizona, one of the fastest growing churches in the country.
Is your church in a season of growth, needing to streamline its ministries? Or are you trying to simplify your systems so that they will be more scaleable? Listen in as Trevor talks about how simplifying your focus to what aligns with your mission can provide the momentum your church needs to grow.
- Gaining momentum. // Pantano Christian Church has a rich history spanning over 60 years, and Trevor is the ninth lead pastor of the church. While the church has been a prevailing force for decades, with the last decade being particularly fruitful in terms of growth and evangelism, Trevor observed that they needed to identify what was leading to their growth. Knowing why you have momentum is the fastest way to catch the next wave of momentum, and Pantano wanted to be more intentional about their growth.
- Set a metric for growth. // Pantano’s leadership began by setting a metric for growth so they had goals to work towards. In the summer of 2022 Pantano was averaging about 3400 people, but they believed God wanted to help them reach 8000 people in the Tuscon area between August 2022 and December 2023. However, do to that and maintain the level of excellence they were known for, they knew they would need to eliminate some of the things they were doing as a church.
- Simplify your ministry. // Pantano’s staff put together a spreadsheet of everything their ministries were doing. In anticipation of growth, the staff then worked to eliminate anything that wasn’t working or didn’t align with the mission of the church. Removing programs and simplifying structures allowed the church to make their systems scaleable. For example, the discipleship pathway was simplified from being a 42-week program to being a 10-week program that uses Rooted. That change alone enabled the church to put almost 1000 people through Rooted in the last 12 months.
- Do less to reach more. // Having seen growth in every area from baptisms to kids ministry to weekend attendance, Trevor is keenly aware that the staff needs to continue to evaluate what needs to be simplified in their ministry so they don’t burn out. Every three months the staff does check-ins to see if anything is out of alignment with the church’s mission. At every growth point identify what else could be removed that no longer fits at your church.
- Simplify evangelism. // Evangelism was already a big part of Pantano’s DNA and Trevor and his team further enhanced that by giving their people the simple vision of reaching one person at a time. In the US, it’s tempting to turn evangelism into a program rather than something we naturally do as Christ followers. But Pantano simply empowers their people to be able to tell their stories well, and encourages them weekly to think about their one person and earn the right to be invited into their life. These stories of redemption are then regularly celebrated during weekend services.
- Lead the process. // Trevor admits that simplification is the hardest thing the church has had to do, but it’s had a tremendous impact on the effectiveness of the ministry. Lead pastors need to embrace simplification and drive the process, rather than expecting the staff team to do it. By simplifying the vision and owning it, you will model it to your staff in return.
You can find more about Pantano Christian Church at www.pantano.church and connect with Trevor on social media @trevordevage.
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Well hey, everybody welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Super excited that you have decided to tune in today. You know every week we try to bring you a leader who will both inspire, equip you, motivate you, point you in ah in a new direction, and today is no exception. I am super excited to have Trevor DeVage with us. He is from Pantano Christian Church – they’re in Tucson, Arizona. They started in 1961, but today they’re one of the fastest growing churches in the country. Ah, it’s it’s launched four church plants in Southern Arizona and they’ve really started thousands of church literally globally. And Trevor joined here in 2022. Trevor, welcome to the show. Glad you’re here.
Trevor DeVage — Well man, it’s good to be on. Thanks for having me. Um, it’s it’s gonna be fun.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I’m really looking forward to this. We were joking ahead of time we have some common friends. It’s always fun to interact with people who are like know each other, and know each other’s friends, which is great. So why don’t you tell us, kind of fill in the Pantano story, kind of what did I miss there? People who show up this weekend, what would they experience, give us a sense of that.
Trevor DeVage — Yeah, so you’re absolutely right. We just celebrated 60 years um last last year. Actually a year ago this week we celebrated 60 years and ah and so this church has got a very rich history. We’ve um I’m actually the ninth lead pastor of this church. And so um, over 60 years that’s ah, I think that’s a pretty good pattern. In fact, um, the the last really the last 25 really last 35 years, that’s been 3 guys. Um, there was a guy named Ed Towne who, man, was just visionary for Tucson, visionary for the church. Um Ed Towne was actually killed in a car accident here in Tucson um, as the church was kind of growing. And they they really thought you know the the leaders of the church thought, man, we we may be done because Ed was, they were kind of at that critical growth point as a church. And um, that’s hard. You lose a pastor in an accident.
Trevor DeVage — And ah, then this guy named Tim Coop came in who’s pretty much a legend on the and the west coast especially, but Arizona. You you say the name Tim Coop out here and everyone’s like oh Tim Coop.
Rich Birch — Right.
Trevor DeVage — And it was really the visionary that that made Pantano a church that was going to be more than just a neighborhood church. It was going to be a church that was gonna pretty much just storming the gates of hell here in Tucson. And they moved the property we’re on now, and then um Tim had this, like like most guys will, we’re all interim pastors by the way…
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Trevor DeVage — …that’s that’s Glen says my predecessor where some of us are in arms for 30 years; some are for three weeks, you know, but…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Trevor DeVage — Um, ah that was when Glen Elliott, who was the executive pastor at the time, um Tim went to him and was like, man I I think you need to lead this thing, and I’m ready to retire. And Glen had never been a lead pastor. And Glen was like and a missionary in Ukraine, he’d been a pastor in Cincinnati but he’d never been lead pastor. And he stepped into that role and Glen built an unbelievable church over the last 22 years.
Trevor DeVage — And so I’m standing on the shoulders of an unbelievable legacy, that I look around our church right now and I’m like, why do I get to be a part of this? Like it’s it it’s like there’s Mount Rushmore and then they put like Homer Simpson on the side. You know what it feels in a little bit.
Rich Birch — [laughs] Ah, come on man, come on that… yeah, love that. I hear what you’re saying. Well I love that you’re taking time to honor, you know, the the legacy the leaders that have come before you. That’s that’s such an important thing, particularly, you know, with a historic church like yours it’s been around, you know, historic. I was just in I spent a bunch of time in in England in the last ah you know last six months…
Trevor DeVage — And we’re not historic.
Rich Birch — I know and I it was such a different perspective. One of the churches I was interacting with there, they’ve been on that site for 1000 years. There’s been a church on that one one…
Trevor DeVage — Wow.
Rich Birch — …which is crazy. It’s crazy. But anyways, ah you know, but something has changed in the last few years, you know. Pantano really seeing ah you know some incredible growth, and I’d love to kind of dig into that. Why don’t you kind of take us back ah, kind of pre- that growth. Give us a sense of the church and then let’s talk through what’s what’s gone on these last few years.
Trevor DeVage — Yeah, well Pantano’s history even… I hate that we have to talk in like PC and and AC, right? Pre-covid, post-covid or after covid.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, it’s helpful though.
Trevor DeVage — It is helpful, but pre-covid I mean Pantano’s been a prevailing church for decades. Um.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Trevor DeVage — The last decade in particular I mean Pantano was pre-covid, man, this church was going and blowing, man. They were baptizing people, they were they were growing, adding services, adding adding seats, ah the whole deal, right? And then of course the the great shutdown of the world happened and everything kind of came to a halt. Um, the word we all hate around here. Our team hates this word but it’s a reality. Everybody had to pivot. Um, which I think I think of a friend…
Rich Birch — Oh yes, if I hear that one more time…
Trevor DeVage — Yeah, ah, the only time I wanna hear it now is Ross screaming it on Friends, right?
Rich Birch — Yes, exactly. Exactly.
Trevor DeVage — Um, but coming out of covid, so Glen decided in the middle of the pandemic I think it’s time for me to step aside. And Glen Glen has got a lot of like he’s got a lot left in the tank like he didn’t have to retire. Um and he actually he would he would even say he didn’t retire, he just kind of reallocated his his time. But coming out of that, um we were we were coming out of a pretty hard season in Ohio. Glenn and I had been friends for for quite some time. And ah I thought Glen already retired and so he he calls me in the midst of us kind of going through our hell on earth and he was like wait, you’re available? And I was like, apparently. And he was like, I wanted you like two years ago; I just didn’t think you were movable. And I was like, oh, okay. Um, well why didn’t you call me two years ago; that might have saved me a little bit pain.
Trevor DeVage — But um, here we here we are, and we step into this and here’s what drew me to Tucson. One that three hundred and so fifty days of sunshine doesn’t hurt. But um, what drew me to here was that this is a church that um they are massively aggressive at evangelizing the community around them. And so Glen’s heartbeat was evangelism. My heartbeat is evangelism. I’m way better with lost people than I am a church people. And so um, I’ve just always had…
Rich Birch — What does that look like? What is that massively… how how did you would diagnose like, okay this this church is massively – that’s huge word, massively aggressive at evangelism. What are some of the things that have happened in the past that [inaudible] towards that.
Trevor DeVage — Well, well even just the like something simple, because service, right? Service is huge.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Trevor DeVage — So I say something simple, but my first weekend on site, we do a thing called Serve Our City where we shut down our church for a weekend. And we we sent like 1700 people into our community to serve for a Sunday.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Trevor DeVage — And people are like well and now church people, they always, like pastors, are like well what do you do about offering?
Rich Birch — [laughs]
Trevor DeVage — I’m like I’m like it’s…
Rich Birch — No, I’m sure the listeners on this show don’t they’re not really that was not their first concern.
Trevor DeVage — Yeah, yeah, yeah, not at all. Ah, but I mean expressly coming out of covid where budgets are…
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yes, yes, yeah.
Trevor DeVage — Um, but what we found, I mean 70 so I got to be secret shopper for one day here. because I’d been hired and nobody knew it.
Rich Birch — Right. Okay. Fun.
Trevor DeVage — So I got to go to all these locations and none of these people knew me. So it was like undercover boss, you know?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Trevor DeVage — And so I go to all these sites around town. And what I found was as I was talking to people, the reason they’re a part of Pantano is because Pantano cares more about the community than it does about itself.
Rich Birch — Oh so good.
Trevor DeVage — And and so I was like, okay this is my heartbeat; this is who we are. Um, and so all the DNA of Pantano, like all the undergirding of evangelism and the verbiage was all there. Um I think covid just kind of put everything on a halt. And so um, we as I came in, you know, Glen on purpose here’s what’s beautiful about Glen and I’s transition: Glen on purpose didn’t start any new initiatives two years before he retired. The only thing he did was remodel our auditorium, which I’m so thankful today because in the old auditorium we would have been out of space six months ago. Now we’re out of space right now. But that’s the only thing he did. He didn’t, no new visionary initiatives. No new like church plant initiatives, multisite, none of that. He was like I wanted the people to be so primed to go when you got here that when you hit the ground, they could just catapult. And and so literally we just infused like this B12 shot of Glen’s excitement about what we were doing, my excitement coming in the door, and ah man it just it’s catapulted in the last really the last eighteen months. We have…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Trevor DeVage — Here’s here’s what’s crazy: I mean just the number of people that have given their life to Jesus in this place in the last eighteen months. We just this weekend coming up, we will we will surpass 700 baptisms since January of 22. So…
Rich Birch — Wow! That’s amazing!
Trevor DeVage — Yeah, so last year we had 412 last year where it ah we’ll we’ll go over over 295 for this year this weekend that we’ve got. Um easter was our our highest baptisms ever on a Sunday; we had 145 baptisms Easter Sunday…
Rich Birch — Wow, that’s amazing.
Trevor DeVage — It was really just God. And it was really really cool because I had Glen and our executive pastor, Roger, doing the baptisms on Easter, and ah—which Glen’s still around; he’s volunteers. He’s a rock star—um, and so he told me before Easter he goes, our our record for one day was 99 baptisms. I said when we get to a hundred I want Glen to get the hundredth baptism and so.
Rich Birch — Oh so sweet.
Trevor DeVage — That that he baptized the hundredth, and he baptized the one hundred and forty fifth, which was really cool. Um, but to see his excitement is the guy that is, you know, you want your predecessor to be proud of what’s going on here. He has just been massively supportive of the growth that is happening; he’s this is why we did what we did is because this next wave. So the last year we’re we’re up about 15- to 1800 people over this time last year.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Trevor DeVage — Um, and I wish I could tell you, man, we’re just brilliant strategists. Um, and I really it come back to something you and I’ve been talking about as just simplicity, is what we’ve really dove into.
Rich Birch — Yes. Love it. Well so ah, well first of all I love all that context. That is so good. And what an amazing um, you know that fact that you’ve, you know, baptized or you’re cross over 700 baptisms since the beginning of last year, that’s that’s just amazing. That’s that’s incredible. Well I’d love to hear about that simplicity piece. So what, you know, what are some of the ways that you’ve simplified? And has that been how much of that was response to growth, because you know as things start to scale it’s like, gosh we’ve got to get simpler because we just can’t keep all this complexity. Or was it proactive like, hey, let’s try to you know pull some of these things out?
Trevor DeVage — Well, it started off as proactive because when I came in the door I hit the ground full time June of last year but I was flying back and forth from January to June, so I was here twelve days a month for like six months.
Rich Birch — Ok.
Trevor DeVage — In that six months I did a lot of just reconnaissance. I was listening a lot to our team. I was listening a lot to our church. And I was watching, without us doing any strategy really that first six months, I was watching our church like hit these waves. I think I can’t remember… I’m going to give Rick Warren credit because that’s who I heard say it. He…or and maybe it was Andy Stanley…
Rich Birch — He’s a good guy to give, either of those guys are good guys to give credit to.
Trevor DeVage — Um, you know just I’ll give them credit. Um, it’s not mine I can tell you that.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Trevor DeVage — Um, but the the whole if you know having momentum and not knowing why you have momentum is the fastest way to lose momentum. Um, but momentum and knowing why you have momentum is a fastest way to catch the next wave of momentum. And so.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Trevor DeVage — Um, we just saw these waves the first six months. One was I got hired and so there was this energy that came with that. And then there was um, there was Easter and I I tried to get Glen to preach that last Easter, and he was like this is not my last Easter, it’s you’re first. And I I fought him on it. I was like, no bro I want you to. I was like, as the new lead pastor I’m telling you you’re preaching Easter. He goes [inaudible] I got news for you, as the outgoing lead pastor I’m telling you I’m not. And but he I’m doing that to solidify your leadership, he goes because that Sunday will solidify for the community your leadership. And it was brilliant. He was right.
Rich Birch — Ah, that’s glorious like.
Trevor DeVage — And then we rode that Easter wave into the sixtieth celebration, and the Glen sendoff, and we moved here in June. So there was just all these waves. So when I finally got on the ground full time, I looked at we did a lead team retreat. We got away for two days and I just told our team I said growth growth is already happening and we’ve done nothing, except ride waves.
Trevor DeVage — Um, I said so if we get strategic so we got away for two days. I said I need to know what is… we got to set a metric of growth. And I know sometimes in the church we start talking numbers and everyone’s like oh all you care about is numbers. There’s an entire book of the bible called Numbers. Somebody cares about Numbers. Um.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes.
Trevor DeVage — Somebody made a count in the book of Acts for the amount of people that showed up on the day of Pentecost. All these lives matter to us. We live in the twelfth largest unchurched city in America, in Tucson. So out of a million people in Pima County, Arizona um, 850,000 don’t know Jesus.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Trevor DeVage — And and they’re not antagonistic towards the gospel. They just don’t know.
Rich Birch —Right.
Trevor DeVage — So it’s not like a Portland; it’s not like a San Francisco. They just don’t know what they don’t know. And so I said to our team, I said, we need to set a metric for December of 2023—this was August of last year. December is coming really quick now that that I…
Rich Birch — It sounded like a long ways away.
Trevor DeVage — It sounded like a long way away for vision back in August. Um, and so we came back two months later, and I’m sitting in a leadership team meeting with our team. and I I just I looked at our team I said, all right, I wanted I had a number in my head of what our growth would look like. And I thought it was a good number. And I thought it was a Godly number. And I thought it was a big number. And and then I looked at one of my lead team members and he looked at me—and keep in mind we were running like 34- 3300 right at that moment—and he looks at me, probably one of the most Godly men on our staff, and he looks at me and he goes, I’ve been praying about it and God told me I think 8000 is what we’re going to reach in 2023.
Rich Birch — What?! Oh my goodness.
Trevor DeVage — And now my face said, man, that’s cool. Inside my head I was like, that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. I’m I’m literally like, I’m looking at trying to be as kind with my eyes as possible; in my head I’m like, you’re an idiot.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Trevor DeVage — Like that’s I would use you might as well said a gajillion, like that’s that’s what it sounded like. The next guy at the table goes, oh my gosh I was praying and I got the same thing. And I’m now…
Rich Birch — What…
Trevor DeVage — I’m like I’m looking at both of them like I’ve got two morons on my staff. That’s that’s literally what’s going through my head. I’m like they’ve lost their mind.
Rich Birch — Two open roles as…
Trevor DeVage — Yeah, [inaudible] they’ve been in the parking lot doing drugs? Like what happened? And I start to look around the table and there’s about 15 people on our lead team and nobody seems like baffled by this. They’re all like, yeah that sounds about right. And I’m like so I had elders meeting that night. I go to the elders I’m like they’ll speak reason into this, right?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Trevor DeVage — I’m like I’ll go to my board. They’ll speak reason. So I primed them too. I was like, guys I got tell you this crazy thing that our staff just said today. And I’m setting them up for like they’re gonna take my side. They’re gonna be in and I told ‘em I was like, our staff said we’re gonna, basically we’re gonna double in eighteen months. and ah I was waiting for it and they were like, oh yeah, that sounds about right.
Rich Birch — [laughs]
Trevor DeVage — And I just in my head I was like, I have moved my family to the land of delusion. Like these people…
Rich Birch — What is in the water? What is in the water in Tucson?
Trevor DeVage — [inaudible] off the mountain, like apparently they didn’t purify their water. Like I’ve seen Naked and Afraid, and I’m afraid right now, like I’m afraid.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Trevor DeVage — And ah so I literally I’m on my back porch two days later and I’m praying. And God literally, if I’ve ever, I don’t hear God audibly speak. Like if it it’s James Earl Jones or Morgan Freeman, right? And and what what I’ve distinctly got is I’m sitting on my patio one morning, is God God literally spok into my soul like, why are you the only one on the team that’s putting limits on me?
Rich Birch — Oh wow.
Trevor DeVage — And I I was like all right, I’ll shut up now.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Trevor DeVage — It feels like Job, you know? All right, I’ll shut up. I’ve already said…
Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Oh man. Wow.
Trevor DeVage — So that started the process, if we’re going to reach 8000 people in eighteen months, um we can’t keep doing everything that we’re doing because Pantano has a history, if you ask anybody in our town anybody in church world in our city, Pantano is known for excellence at all things.
Trevor DeVage — So you walk in everything will be done with the utmost of excellence. And so, I told all of our teams I said I need you—so this is where the process started in September of last year—I said I need you to put on a spreadsheet everything your ministry does.
Rich Birch — Okay, okay. Right.
Trevor DeVage — So ah if you look at just one ministry, it’s like okay they do a lot. But when you look at all ministries, I mean it was pages of stuff.
Rich Birch — Wow. Right.
Trevor DeVage — And and I just told them I said, if we’re going to even get to 5000, you’ve got to cut some stuff out of this. And I said it’s not eliminating bad things, we should stop doing whatever doesn’t fit.
Rich Birch — Right.
Trevor DeVage — But if it doesn’t fit the mission of what we’re trying to accomplish, there’s things we love that we need to stop doing. And I said, this gonna be hard because you guys have some babies that you love in that list…
Rich Birch — So true.
Trevor DeVage — …that you’re going to have to get rid of.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Trevor DeVage — You know it’s like you get the puppy that you get attached to and then it grows and you’re like, oh now we got give the dog away.
Rich Birch — Right.
Trevor DeVage — Well there was a lot of puppies in that list that we were gonna have to give away. And so our our team went through this hard task of, from basically September to October of last year, of eliminating.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Trevor DeVage — And and it wasn’t elimination nearly as much as it was, what do we what are we gonna do that meets our mission which will help us determine what we say no to. And
Rich Birch — Okay.
Trevor DeVage — And I I told our team I said, you can make anything fit.
Rich Birch — Right.
Trevor DeVage — You can you like I can we got basket weaving for Jesus; I can make that fit, right?
Rich Birch — Yes, yeah.
Trevor DeVage — We don’t have basket weaving.
Rich Birch — I can tell that story.
Trevor DeVage — Yeah, yeah.
Rich Birch — So help me understand that was what I… just to drill down on that kind of one layer deeper… Well first of all I love that. I love even just the the task of asking our teams to get it all into one place, like let’s get it all into one document. I think that alone is an eye-opening you know, experience for folks. Give me a sense of some of those things, maybe like easy cuts that were like of course of course that just makes sense, like basket weaving for Jesus, ah, you know. Or ones that maybe were a little tougher, things that were like, ooh I’m not sure that that feels a little bit more close to the bone. Can you just sense the kinds of things that started to bubble out?
Trevor DeVage — Ah, well I’ll use our discipleship department. Um, and ah Cindy who oversees our discipleship department, our Discipleship Pastor, she’s fantastic. Been here a long time. Um, we had we had three we had a pathway discipleship pathway, but it was 42 weeks.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Trevor DeVage — You would have to go through um discovering faith. Um, you would have to go through, um I’m trying to remember – there was three legs to this. And then we started Rooted.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Trevor DeVage — Um and I looked at that and I just went I said, Cindy, I said, we’re asking people, we’re trying to get people to know Jesus faster. But then we we get them in a discipleship pipeline and we’re saying but it’s going to take you 42 weeks before we deem you a mature enough disciple to do anything.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Trevor DeVage — And and she was like, okay. I said and I I told her I said, I’ll let you run this course till till December, and in January will reevaluate. She came back to me in October and goes, I can’t wait till January. She goes, I see where we’re going; I see what it’s gonna take. We’ve got to go all in with Rooted. So she moved these two other pieces into into just electives for people. So our disciples pathway went from 42 weeks to ah to ten weeks.
Rich Birch — Oh wow; that’s a huge cut.
Trevor DeVage — Ah and and so when you expedite by 3 years, that that expedites your church by 3 years.
Rich Birch — Right, right, right.
Trevor DeVage — Um and and actually it expedites it faster because now in the last in the last year we’ve put almost a thousand people through Rooted.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Trevor DeVage — And and so um, the only 2 things we talk about here at Panano, you’ll hear it if you are ever to listen or watch, is we talk about Rooted – sign up for Rooted, get in Rooted, we celebrate Rooted, we talk about Rooted. Um and we talk about inviting your one to church. And actually we don’t talk about inviting them to church, we talk about inviting them into your life first. Earn the right to invite—that’s kind of our phrase—earn the right to invite to church. But the only way you earn the right to invite is invite yourself into their life first. And our people have grabbed the one, like that’s it’s not new um, but it was in our DNA. So I just grabbed low-hanging fruit of we got to stop doing, we’ve gotta focus. Um and really Rooted and One, but that came from Cindy cutting a whole bunch of stuff…
Rich Birch — That’s amazing.
Trevor DeVage — …um that she loved, that she started, but she was like, alright I’m good; I see the vision. Let’s go. And ah…
Rich Birch — Right.
Trevor DeVage — …I mean same thing across the board: kids, students, ah our production, worship and arts team. We’ve got a cafe that feeds couple thousand people a weekend on site.
Rich Birch — Right.
Trevor DeVage — And ah, they’ve had to get more simplistic. Even our even our engagement pathway, like Starting Point, Discover Pantano, Launching Point, um, even we even shifted our mission statement, we didn’t shift it, it was our mission statement, we just leaned into it. We don’t have volunteers here anymore. Um, so a little shift of verbiage for our people, our our mission statement is loving people to Jesus, launching passionate difference-makers.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Trevor DeVage — We we got up in a series called Difference Makers and said we don’t, we thank you for volunteer; we don’t want volunteers at Pantano anymore. We want difference makers.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Trevor DeVage — Um, and so we we got rid of volunteers. But we were like, everybody can make a difference. And we want you to make a difference in your community, make a difference in your church, make a difference in your family, make a difference in your work, make a difference in your school.
Trevor DeVage — And and so those things, man, just the simplicity of that… Here’s what’s crazy: so we we get to Easter, right at 9000 people for Easter…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Trevor DeVage — …um, and then post Easter I thought okay we’ll settle in; we were averaging about 4700 before Easter. I thought okay we’ll be about 5000 after Easter. well we went from 4700 to 5700 in a week.
Rich Birch — Wow. Wow.
Trevor DeVage — And and so now we’ve been we’ve kind of blown through that that 5000 barrier.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Trevor DeVage — And three weeks ago I sat down with our team and I went, remember what we did last summer? Um, we’re gonna do it again.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Trevor DeVage — Um, because if we’re going to go from now almost 6000 to 8000 by December, we can’t do everything we’re doing right now to get to 8000.
Rich Birch — Oh love that.
Trevor DeVage — You guys will be burning out, your team will go… So we’re constantly now evaluating at every growth point. We do three month check-ins. We have a document. It’s called the “smells like smoke” document, which comes from…
Rich Birch — [laughs]
Trevor DeVage — It comes from Jude 23, my favorite scripture: rescue others by snatching them from the flames of judgment.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Trevor DeVage — Um, and we say if you’re if you’re going to help people see Jesus, you gotta get close enough to the pits of hell to get them out. So you better you better smell like smoke. And um and so we we have this document so we just checked the metrics the other day, it was um that we set last year… Average 4500 by Easter; well, we did that. Um it was run um, over over 700 people through Rooted. We did that. Um our student ministry has gone from 50 kids on Wednesday night to 225 kids on Wednesday night.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Trevor DeVage — Our our kids ministry’s gone from 200 kids to almost 450 kids. Like all of these things…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Trevor DeVage — …everything’s up and to the right. Now we also understand there’s a lot of excitement when growth is happening.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Trevor DeVage — Um I’m I’m actually praying for those plateau moments so we can breathe.
Rich Birch — Yeah, take a deep breath.
Trevor DeVage — Right, to plan for the next wave. Um, but now what happened is we’re out of parking. We have no parking.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Trevor DeVage — We can grow in our auditorium, but we can’t park anybody. So.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Trevor DeVage — Um, now we’re adding we’re going to go to 3 services in and July, um in an auditorium that can see just over 1800 we’re we’re out of space in 2 services. So our online ministry is growing. We planted a microsite in ah in a Mission here in town. We’re going to launch a couple more of those this year, but we’ve got to add a third service because God’s God’s bringing people.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Trevor DeVage — Um, but it all goes back to simplicity, man.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that.
Trevor DeVage — Like it it just do less to reach more. That’s what we constantly say…
Rich Birch — I love that. So this…
Trevor DeVage — …do less to reach more.
Rich Birch — I just think that’s so good. So much in there to unpack. I love um I want to come back to the invite culture stuff in um, in a minute. I want to ask kind of get your thoughts on how you’re cultivating that with your people. But on the opposite end of of um, what I hear you saying is, we need to simplify so that we’ve got the energy, the resources, the focus, the the ability, to move people um, you know when things are simpler. I love that. That’s a very vivid example: forty two weeks to ten weeks. We’ve talked about Rooted a bunch of times on the podcast; we had Erin Smith or sorry um Erin Kerr on a couple years ago ah, from Mariners talking about Rooted, and many people have have many churches have talked about a similar kind of experience. Fantastic.
Rich Birch — What what have has there been anything in the last eighteen months that you’ve added, or the church has added, because of this extra the extra cycles that you think is also helping you that are… Are there new behaviors? There may not be but I wondered if there’s any new behaviors, new systems, new pieces of the puzzle that you think you might be using?
Trevor DeVage — You know that’s an interesting question. I haven’t even thought of that. Um we because we we didn’t really add anything…
Rich Birch — Right.
Trevor DeVage — …we just enhanced what we already here. Um I just begin to look at the DNA of our church…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Trevor DeVage — …because I still get 30,000 foot view – I’m getting closer I’m I’m starting to get closer to the ground. Um but I still have the perspective and so here here’s what I knew about Glen, Glen was a systems builder. Glen was a strategist. Um, he was great at strat-ops. He like all of so none of our systems were broken. Nothing was broken at Pantano when I got here. So all I had to do was turn dials to fit my personality and my leadership.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Trevor DeVage — And and so um, not I wouldn’t say we’ve added, I’d say what has shifted in our culture is we have focused so hard on the One. Um, it’s literally our DNA every weekend. You’ll hear it every weekend. We mention every message has something that leads back to the One. And ah our people, this is again southwest versus Midwest. I came to the midwest to the southwest.
Trevor DeVage — I Really thought I would be fighting battles here. I don’t fight. Um the battles I fight are church people that want to move too quickly. Um, in the Midwest I fought church people that didn’t know what quick was.
Rich Birch — Okay, okay, interesting.
Trevor DeVage — Um and so you know I’m saying?
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Trevor DeVage — Like our people are clamoring, like just give us vision to go after. And and we’ve given them just a simple vision: one person at a time.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Trevor DeVage — And so now on our baptism Sundays backstage people are like, this is my One, this is my One, this is my One.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah. Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it.
Trevor DeVage — It’s just in verbiage. Um I don’t I don’t know that we’ve added anything; I think we’ve enhanced is what we’ve done.
Rich Birch — Enhanced. Yeah that makes sense. More focus, more energy, taking the energy from other things and said hey… Yeah like even that 42 to ten weeks example, obviously those ten weeks um you know, you’ve got more time, she’s got more time to focus on that to make that and even better experience – that makes total sense.
Rich Birch — Talk to me more about the invite culture thing. I love… you kind of tip to hitting it there – the one, the one, the one. Talk us through, from your perspective as a lead pastor, you know we see this in fast-growing churches. You know the difference between plateaued—one of my core convictions is—plateaued, stuck, declining churches and growing churches is growing churches training, equip, mobilize, motivate, there are people to invite their friends, and you’re clearly doing that. Talk us through what that looks like from your seat, from you know the things that you’re doing as a church.
Trevor DeVage — Yeah, well I think first of all, it’s like we simplify to amplify.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Trevor DeVage — So what we simplify is what gets amplified.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Trevor DeVage — So what we have simplified as evangelism.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Trevor DeVage — And we’ve made I think traditionally in the church, at least in America, we have made we’ve made evangelism a program. And evangelism is not a program; evangelism is what we are called to be as Christ followers. So the great commission says go and make, not sit and take. We have just leaned into our our culture of our people. Um I’ve told ‘em, I’m like, if you want a church to sit and and take from, you want to just get fat off the church spiritually this is not the church for you.
Trevor DeVage — We love you. We’ll we’ll help you find a church. Um, but this is a mobilizing church. And so we just we have we have shifted our people to be able to tell their story well, and it’s not hard. I’m like it’s your story; just go tell it. And so we what we have literally done is, it sounds so like simplistic and so trite, but the reality is we just tell them every week, earn the right to invite. So who’s your One? Ah we we about once a month I have them re-write it down, write that name down. Do you have that name? I ask them all the time. Do you have a One?
Trevor DeVage — The other piece that I think is more key is our staff, part of our staff um review is who is your One, and what are you doing about it?
Rich Birch — Oh good, good, good.
Trevor DeVage — If our staff doesn’t own it, our church will never own it. So the cool thing is I’ve got staff members that in the last year they’re like, this is the first time I’ve actually invited someone. Great!
Rich Birch — Right.
Trevor DeVage — And they’ve come. You know?
Rich Birch —Yes, yes, yes.
Trevor DeVage — And it’s like great. Like I play golf. That’s that’s my thing; I play golf. Um, I’ve got to baptize about 8 guys that I play golf with in Tucson.
Rich Birch — Right. Love it.
Trevor DeVage — Um, it’s just an invite. Like and I yesterday I played golf with a couple guys. One goes to our church, one doesn’t.
Rich Birch — Right
Trevor DeVage — Um and now they’ve invited me to play golf. And I’m like, sweet. So you just invited me into 4 hours of getting to evangelize you. Thank you. Like ah it.
Rich Birch — I’ll take it.
Trevor DeVage — We tell those stories all the time.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Trevor DeVage — Like you can’t not tell; you have to tell the story all the time. So we’re constantly telling the story about our Ones, and whether that’s in video, whether that’s from the platform, whether that’s in Rooted, whether that’s in a small group, whether that’s in the café. Like everywhere we talk about… There’s a big display in our lobby. It’s seven foot plexiglass 3D letters that say One. We put a ballpit ball with the name of every baptism in the date in there.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Trevor DeVage — Um, and it’s just visual reminders and then we have cards outside our auditorium literally they’re little square like 4 by 4 cards. Um, it’s literally just an invite card that we can’t keep them in stock.
Rich Birch — Right.
Trevor DeVage — People take them every Sunday.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Trevor DeVage — Um, we’ve just created a culture of invite where if you get them, if you invite them here, we’re going to make sure they get Jesus and they get it in a relevant, authentic way.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love it. Well I think, you know, there’s so much I love about this, and you know about a month ago, six weeks ago I was at a church and you know they had me in for a coaching thing. And you know I was on Monday I did not on Sunday but on Monday I was challenging the the lead pastor on exactly this. I said you know some of this stuff is not rocket science. Some of it just comes down to like exactly what you’re saying there, which is like let’s articulate, hey next week is a great week for you to bring your friends for these reasons. Like even just, hey my my message is going in this this direction. Do you know, somebody who’s like this? They should come. You know having those invite cards, doing um you know all those there’s one thousand and one of those little things. I love that such a great example. Friends, ah, you know, Trevor just unleashed a whole bunch of great ideas in a very short period of time. You’ve probably got to go back and write down some notes. They’re so good.
Rich Birch — This has been a fantastic conversation. Trevor, as we’re kind of coming into land, anything else you want to share? Any other kind of pieces of the puzzle you want to make sure that we’re we’re thinking about?
Trevor DeVage — Yeah, here’s what I would say, just as lead pastor to any other lead pastors out there. And I know there’s a lot more than lead pastors that listen this podcast. But um and if you’re not lead pastor, lean in so you can talk to your lead pastor about it. Um, but lead pastors you have to be, one, you have to own your vision of what you’re asking everybody else to do.
Trevor DeVage — And and when you simplify, simplification is the hardest thing we do. Ah ah like our team I’m like it’s easy to be complex because complex is job security, because if you’re the only one that can describe it, you get to keep your job for a while.
Rich Birch — Oh dude, come on. That’s so good.
Trevor DeVage — Um, but but but simplicity, like Craig Groeschel a couple years ago in his leadership podcast. He said he got introduced as the most boring leader in America. And he and he said, I was offended at first. He goes, but what the guy meant was when you go to Life Church, you know exactly what you’re gonna get, and you know what they’re about.
Trevor DeVage — And ah and I told our team we’re going to be known as the most boring leadership team on the planet earth because when you come to Pantano, I want you to know exactly who we are and what you’re going to get. Pastors, stop like stop complexifying your organization—I don’t think that’s the word but I made it one—um make sure that this… when you go simplicity you have to buy the simplicity first, and you have to drive the simplicity. Don’t ask your team to drive it. You have to drive it.
Trevor DeVage — Um, and then if you drive it enough, your team will catch it. And then you’re just managing the simplicity, which is actually job security. The more simple you can make it, I think the more people you reach. Um, again, our line around here is do less to reach more.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Trevor DeVage — And if you do less you will reach more when you understand who you are so.
Rich Birch — Love it. So good. This has been a fantastic conversation. I love that analogy of being you know more boring. One of the things you know we’ve talked about in a bunch of contexts is your people won’t invite their friends if they don’t know what is going to happen at whatever thing it is we’re talking about – a service or whatever. They need to be able to be predictable. It needs to be… because when if you think about at the point of invite, you know, I talk to you I’m like hey you come this weekend, there’s gonna be a great band. There’s gonna be, you know, whatever this kind of music, that kind of thing. Well, let’s say if they show up and there’s a there’s a a giant orchestra there, which you could argue is actually better than a 5-piece band. You could say actually that’s a better thing. But it’s different than what I invited you to. It’s different than what I said. What does that do in the relationship? It enters this like oh I you don’t know actually know what’s going on at your own church. It makes people nervous.
Trevor DeVage — [inaudible] is what it feels like.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Trevor DeVage — And what I’ve found is is most most people in our culture here, they don’t care about our band. They don’t care about the quality.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Trevor DeVage — They care about authenticity.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Trevor DeVage — And so now we do ah really, our team is fantastic.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Trevor DeVage — But what resonates with our people is they feel like there’s no pedestals at Pantano. We have no Pantano pedestals. We kick those over all the time.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Trevor DeVage — Um I’m I’m horrible on a pedestal. I can’t hold my balance anyhow. Um, but we try to be as real as we can be with people. And I think it’s in that that authenticity is what people are looking for.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Trevor DeVage — Um, and as culture is shifting out of a pandemic into whatever the next thing of the world is um, you know the number one thing we did coming out of Easter is we’ve talked about anxiety, mental health. Um, we’ve had a massive growth out of Easter because we just we’re we’re going talk about mental health. Ah talk about things that the church is traditionally not talked about, but do it in a simple way and people will grab a hold of it.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love it. Trevor, I’m just so thankful that you were on the show today. I also just want to pause for a moment, friends, and just honor you for your the way that you’re speaking about your predecessors. Friends, it would have been very easy for Trevor to come on and been like, here’s all the changes I made when I showed up and everything’s amazing. Now he wouldn’t have said it like that because he’s a good Christian so he wouldn’t have, you know, he would have couched it in a better way. But he didn’t. Listen carefully to the way he has honored Glen and the leaders that’s come before him. You know, personally as an outsider looking in I think that’s a part of what God’s doing here. He’s he’s honoring your humble leadership in the midst of all that. So I just I just want to honor you, Trevor, for that. It’s ah it’s great to engage with that. I appreciate you being on the show. If we where do we want to send people if they want to track with you, with the church where do we want to send them online?
Trevor DeVage — Yeah, I mean the best place to go is pantano.church – um that’s our website and you can get everything there. We we actually do have a church podcast called The Make. And so you can you can dive deeper with us there and that’s on our website as well. Um, and then if you want to hang out with me, um, you can find me through all those things. But if you just take my name and put it into any social media. It’s just my first and last name: trevordevage – Instagram, Twitter (I don’t even use Twitter anymore and does that thing is Twitter still thing?
Rich Birch — Is that a thing – exactly.
Trevor DeVage — Um Facebook, TikTok all the all that. We’re on all the places. Um I got a website as well. Um but I don’t care nearly much about my stuff is just what the kingdom’s doing, so if you want to follow along with Pantano, man, pantano.church is the place to go.
Rich Birch — Love it. Thanks so much, Trevor. Appreciate you being here today.
Trevor DeVage — Thanks my man.
Thanks for joining us for the unSeminary podcast. Ken Nash, the Lead Pastor of Cornerstone Church in Michigan, is with us today.
For decades churches measured how well they were doing based on counting nickels and noses, but with the upheaval and loss churches have experienced over the last few years, they need to change their metrics. Listen in as Ken shares how Cornerstone focuses on increasing engagement within its congregation by equipping people for ministry.
- The metric of engagement. // When it comes to measuring success and growth, Cornerstone Church is going after engagement with the people who have stayed with them after all of the ups and downs of the last few years. Using engagement as a metric looks like tracking what they call the 4 P’s: personal, participate, passion, and prepare.
- The 4 P’s. // Personal refers to the staff having numerous personal conversations with people in the church during the month to get to know the larger congregation. As staff meets with them, they find out where these people are participating in the ministry. Individuals who are serving discover their passion. Staff needs to pay attention to what people are passionate about and then identify a few people who are ready to launch something significant. The goal is to then spend time preparing this group to become the next generation of leaders.
- Give authority to the right people. // As the staff at Cornerstone watches people participate in the church, they take the time to get to know them and pay attention to 5 C’s: Does this person show Christ-likeness? Does this person have a calling to this ministry? Does this person have good chemistry with people? Do they have good competency? Do they have great courage? They need to have 4 or 5 of these C’s to be given full authority at the right time.
- The importance of equipping. // There can be a temptation to hire more staff as a solution to declining attendance. However, giving authority away and empowering all members of the church to find their callings and serve in ministry is critical to the success of the Church. As leaders step up to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, it becomes a movement.
- We can’t get in the way. // Ken believes the job of the senior leadership team is to first serve and empower the rest of staff so they can serve and empower the congregation. As lead pastor he brings clarity to the team and provides guardrails while allowing plenty of room for people to come alive in their passions. We need to embrace a messy middle ground between the extremes of having too many ministries and being too focused on controlling everything. It’s important to say “yes” to people’s passions and ideas, yet ask them a lot of clarifying questions to help them succeed.
You can learn more about Cornerstone Church at www.cornerstonemi.org.
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Today, we’ve got a great episode. You know every week we try to bring you someone who will both inspire and equip you and today is no exception. Excited to have Ken Nash with us. Ah, he’s a pastor lead pastor at, ah, Cornerstone Church. This a multisite church in Michigan that’s experienced incredible growth over these last thirty plus years. It’s one of the fastest growing churches in the country, multisite, like we said. Ken has a dual history. He was here ah prior to 2016 and then returned in the last couple of years to serve in the Lead Pastor role. Ken, welcome. We’re so glad you’re here.
Ken Nash — Thanks, Rich, honor to be with you today.
Rich Birch — Why don’t you fill in the picture? Kind of you know if people were to come this weekend to Cornerstone, what would they experience? What what did I miss there? How do… what’s the flavor of the church?
Ken Nash — Yeah, come as you are church. Very dynamic, filled with lots of life, energy, vitality. Just a church that’s fully alive.
Rich Birch — Love it. So good now you so you had this dual history. You were there pre 2016 and then you came back. Tell us that story. That’s kind of an interesting.
Ken Nash — Yes.
Rich Birch — Often times you you know you don’t you don’t hear that do what was that? What’s that piece of the puzzle?
Ken Nash — Yeah, that’s one of the God’s curve balls. God has a way of being the better storyteller than than my plan.
Rich Birch — So true.
Ken Nash — So I actually built a good friendship with Brad Callajanin and he was the planter 30 years, 32 years ago, founder, you know that kind of thing. And so about 15 years into his ministry, he built a relationship with me. I was serving in a church that was growing quite rapidly in mid-Michigan. And he he just said, would you ever consider working here with me? And so as we started to build a friendship, I came on. I was really the first pastor he brought on as the church grew from his basement into, you know, into a thousand people. He said it’s probably time that I bring on a teammate and so our thought was that I would be the succession plan.
Rich Birch — Oh okay.
Ken Nash — So we figured here we’re moving along and we have we’re into you know 6, 8, now we’re into 10 years of ministry. And at that point I had gone off gotten a doctorate and studied research on multisite. So then we had planted a church. We planted another church, but we knew at 3 sites total, we thought it’s probably time to just kind of take a break, make sure our staff is caught up with all the changes and everything. So we weren’t looking at doing any more sites. And at that point he was saying I’m probably looking at 5, 5 or 6 more years until I retire. And I was thinking, Okay, if we’re not going to be planting any more churches, I don’t want to just ride the wave and ride on his coattails. I really felt like I needed to take some leadership challenges. So some job offers came and and this one in Buffalo came up and they ah, really, really healthy church out and just south of Buffalo. I took that job thinking that was gonna be my longterm strategy.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ken Nash — They were looking for a multisite ministry,I got a chance to get to know a lot of Buffalo Bills players, and you’d be in a really healthy area, a great, great church. And so I thought I’m going to be there for 20 years. And so about about 5, 4, 4 or 5 years in he said, I’m looking to retire. And we were going through the pandemic and it was just a really complicated time and so it allowed all of us to kind of ask the question through the pandemic, what’s my calling, you know, where are we supposed to go in ministry? And so we rejoined together as he was going into retirement years. And so and I heard in succession plan, it’s great to have an outsider insider. And so I actually you know I was ah a part of this church for 10 years, helped it grow through a lot of changes together. There’s a lot of that backstory. But and ultimately, um I was still an outsider because I went off to Buffalo for 5 years, got some lead pastor in a large church kind of responsibility so I could come back and spend my time really doing ministry back here in ah in our home um, home base where my wife grew up and where we kind of grew up in this area. So it kind of felt like this is where we want to do long term ministry anyway.
Rich Birch — I love that. That’s so cool. Yeah I love that outsider insider. I’ve used that language in other contexts as well. There is something if you can find that relational connection ah, but but you have enough distance to be able to um, you know, see things maybe as they are, which sometimes when we’re in it there’s a forest and trees issue and so love that. There’s a ton we could talk about there.
Rich Birch — Now you you use the p-word pandemic. And so I you know I’d love to kind of but get some perspective on that at Cornerstone. You know here we are, it’s so funny, right? It’s like I don’t know, when will we ever be post-pandemic? I’m not sure – maybe 10 years from now, you know, who knows, right? But it’s still impacting all our churches, right? Every church leader I talked across the country, you know, it is like this it’s still in the mix. It’s obviously not as it was two years ago, but it’s still a part of what’s happening. Give us the story at Cornerstone. What you know how did that impact the church? Obviously it changed you you ended up changing coming in at that point. But what how did you how do you kind of read that? What what impact did that have on the church?
Ken Nash — People are still afraid of people. I’m I’m noticing that. And so gathering people, I mean we’re in the people gathering business. And so still we you know we get metrics every week and how many devices are still watching online. We’re close to 40 to 50% of our people are still truly watching online and that’s not those aren’t made up numbers. Those are factual numbers that we see. Very discouraging, very frustrating. But in my opening answer to you as we’re a lively church and dynamic. And and here’s why I say I sense Cornerstone is really fully alive right now, because we’re going after one word: engagement.
Ken Nash — So while we care about and try to minister to people online, and we’re finding ways to engage them, We’re looking at who’s looking at us. What the pandemic allowed us to do, and you you know how God works in this sense of redemption, God can take anything and turn it into a redeeming resurrected value. And so we’ve seen through the pandemic, um, we know we’ve been pruned. And so now we know who’s with us. We had people that got mad when we mandated masks, and then when we didn’t mandate masks…
Rich Birch — Right.
Ken Nash — …and when we you know you couldn’t make the right decision. But then the people that stuck with us are really with us. So now we’re asking the question. Okay, who’s looking at us? Well let’s give them all that we’ve got. And so we’re looking for these sparks of of life and energy and and we’re fanning that into flame. And so what we’ve been actually starting to do is metric engagement. So we’ve kind o pandemic has forced us to change our scorecard. It’s not ah nickels and noses, like it used to be.
Rich Birch — So true.
Ken Nash — You always count the number of people in the seats, you count how much money came in and you’re a healthy church. Well, in some ways thank God that we’re not metricking that way anymore as a sign of a church. And we even knew pre-pandemic that we were that that wasn’t a healthy metric anyway. So it forced us to ask, what’s a better metric? So we’re now experimenting over the last couple of years with the 4 P’s.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Ken Nash — And so we’re metricking these now. Um.
Rich Birch — I’d love to hear about… let’s maybe let’s let’s run through them quick and then maybe we can we can dive into them. So what are the four, and then we can kind of dive into each.
Ken Nash — Personal, participate, passion, prepare.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Ken Nash — I’ll I’ll say them quickly with one sentence [inaudible] each one and then you can ask questions accordingly, but it…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ken Nash — Personal… and think of it like a funnel going upside down. And so the the broadest, the biggest group of people would be the personal. Like I can have 25 personal conversations with people in a given month where you sit down have a cup of coffee and hear their story. Like do I know their names? So I’m asking our leadership and our staff, have you had a personal conversation with um, numerous amount of people this this week so that we’re really getting to know our larger congregation?
Ken Nash — And then participate… as you’re meeting with them, are you finding where they’re participating in the ministry? From that participation we find that that’s where people find their passion. as they serve, they find what they’re really on on fire for. They find out either love working with kids, or I love volunteering here, or I love the the missional aspect of caring for the outreach ministry here.
Ken Nash — And then the last one, prepare, is that the bottom of the funnel. There’s going to be out of all these a few people that really are ready to launch something significant. And they’re going to become your Next Gen leaders if you will. And so I’m going to spend my time preparing these people.
Ken Nash — And so every person fits in one of the four Ps. And so as I’m getting to know new people, as I’m getting to know our so hearing where staff are engaging with the congregation, somebody will say, I’m at ah the fourth P person; I’m I’m preparing people now. And so now there’s I mean that’s what we’re metricking to be able to encourage engagement in the ministry…
Rich Birch — Okay. Yeah.
Ken Nash — …in ways that we weren’t before. Does that make sense?
Rich Birch — Oh absolutely. So I love this and I love that it’s driving, you know, like you say it was been a gift that we’re not just ah, you know, nickels and nickels and noses. It’s trying to drive to something deeper. Let’s talk through maybe start with personal. So how how does that actually work? You’re encouraging your staff to have X number of personal conversations a week. What is how does that work? How are you tracking it? What’s the reporting look like? Talk talk us through that.
Ken Nash — It’s literally setting some of our staff free because they used to feel guilty saying, I go out to coffee with these 3 or 4 people and I I would feel like guilty in the past because I’m using the church’s dime. I’m being paid, I’m on the clock right now. And we’re we’re allowing by giving clear metrics in this way, we’re giving them permission to say, this is your job. What that’s changed in some ways is that our office isn’t as much… ah I mean there’s still a lot of activity around the office and there’s a lot of [inaudible] but it’s not as busy as it used to be. People are out and about connecting with people. And so then each person has to report. And so as we go through our quarterly reports and give people, you know at times of the review, we say give me names of people.
Ken Nash — And so it gets it gets much more granular. And so instead of just looking at mass numbers out there, it’s really kind of thinking of the Jethro and Moses kind of model where Moses said how can I handle all these people? And Jethro says, break them down into just smaller chunks of numbers. And so as you get into the deeper P’s then, a personal would be maybe had just one conversation, and I know this family story a little bit.
Ken Nash — And then we have to network, and so as a multisite ministry we’re constantly thinking, how can we net together all of our ministry so they’re interconnected? So we’re constantly emailing one another as a staff and sharing with each other, hey I had this personal conversation. And as we entered into our database we can then look through as I get to know a new family here, I can say, oh they’ve already been talked to by these two people so they’re getting to be known within the congregation. So we’re kind of creating a net this way. You have a personal conversation, jot these this information down, and, you know, CCB is the format that we use [inaudible].
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I love that. And we and we’ve done a similar thing pre-pandemic with particularly our campus staffs, the people that were in our locations where there would be an expectation, you’re having an x number of one-on-one conversations during the week. I love that. But I love the drive of saying, Hey, we’re we’re not just having personal conversations. We’re trying to move people to participation. I would imagine at each one of these transitions there’s like, you know, there’s got to be a certain amount of action. I can kind of see that one. I’m having conversation. Okay, now maybe I’ve talked with this this family 2 or 3 times. Okay, now I need to really be finding out, Okay, how are you actually engaging? Is that how this works? Help me understand that.
Ken Nash — Yeah, exactly. And so then you’re literally watching these people that, because we have to realize this is ah another way of looking at discipleship. If somebody starts to engage and they start to serve, there’s something happening in their soul that says, I want to help serve in different ways.
Ken Nash — And if you watch them start to correct things, which by the way anger to us is a good thing. When somebody’s angry, it’s nothing to be afraid of because anger is a kind of passion.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Ken Nash — So now this metric we’re saying, hey that’s just proof that they’re on level 3 of of the third P of passion. Um, their their anger about that is just trying to improve our system which let them down. and so it doesn’t create this chaos within our staff anymore when there’s tension in from within the congregation. Apathy is our bigger fear, frankly.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes.
Ken Nash — And so if you as you watch this play out, somebody starts to participate, we go ah wonderful! Did you see any passion come out of them where they’re a little bit grumpy about this kind of stuff over here? And so it’s in in many ways much more conversational in ways than we have been before instead of just treating people like a number, we we really get to know their heart in so many ways.
Rich Birch — Talk me through the participation. You’ve set up participation as being a volunteer thing, jumping on a team.
Ken Nash — Right.
Rich Birch — Is that intentional or was that just an example? Talk us through is that kind of the preferred course that you’re kind of seeing people take directions towards getting in…
Ken Nash — Yeah, yeah.
Rich Birch — …you know, on to into participating in the church.
Ken Nash — You know that when when you’re when your ministry is growing and people are coming in from from different avenues, you do want to take some time to vet them and get to know them. We our definition of leadership is… really my job and really our staff’s job is to give authority to the right people at the right time. So um, if you give people authority at the, you know at the wrong time they’re sometimes more passionate about something out over else over here and there end up they’ll end up not being as you know, engaged in the ministry, because they they just ah for whatever reason got trapped by you know, just the busyness of life or whatever, and you just didn’t take the time to get to know them. Or they may be just a toxic person.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ken Nash — And so this allows us to take some time to just engage and get to know them a lot a lot more. Before, you know, as you watch them show some passion, then you actually start preparing them, you need some time to do that. And that’s really the clearest way to say it. It might help um I have so many other ways to look at this.
Ken Nash — The five C’s, and not to give you a whole bunch of acronyms – I know that gets annoying, but this really helps for…
Rich Birch — No, it’s good. It’s good.
Ken Nash — …for memory’s sake, as we’re watching people participate we think of the 5 C’s. And you’ve probably heard of the three C’s, we’ve added 2 more to them. But they’re around this… Does this person show Christ-likeness? Does this person have a Calling to this ministry? Does this person have good Chemistry with people, you know, people skills? Do they have good Competency? And do they have great Courage?
Ken Nash — So a lot of times, you know, they get a voice from, the Lord gives them a prompting and then they just don’t have the courage to say yes to it. And so I’d say, okay would we want to give them full authority. If we’re going to give the [inaudible] to the right people at the right time, then they need to have, in many ways either 4 or 5 of these C’s.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ken Nash — I find like calling, for example, they’re sometimes more called to their you know the PTC or and you know maybe their cottage or some you know retirement plan that they’re going after; they’re not really called to the ministry. So am I going to give them full authority if they don’t have really all 5 of these C’s? I find if you compromise on that, and the only way to find out about the five C’s is to take your time to really study them over time. So we find participation is a great way to get to know people over time. So like well the front door you probably heard this a lot and I’ve heard this actually on your podcast with the front door hospitality is a great way to just get somebody in and plugged in and connected. And get to know them over this time. And then then they say oh but I can’t do it on this Sunday and I can’t do it on this Sunday. And but then they say but I want to launch this over here and you say well they they really haven’t shown a great engagement of ministry. We can’t really trust them to give them full authority yet, if that if that makes sense.
Rich Birch — It makes total sense. I love that ah, that fifth C of courage. I think particularly in this post pandemic world I think one I literally just earlier today I was talking to a church leader about you know we’re just reflecting and this person was reflecting on their own kind of journey, and they were saying you know the thing they were praying for was more courage in this season, that they’re like hey I they’re like ah I don’t have any question on what I need to do. That’s not the question. I know what I need to do. The question is do I have the courage to actually do it…
Ken Nash — Yes.
Rich Birch — …to actually, you know, push forward. And I think our churches, I think that’s just true in… the more our communities become more and more post-christian or maybe even pre-christian um, then we need courageous leaders. I just love that.
Ken Nash — We do. Yeah certainly.
Rich Birch — Yeah, so good.
Ken Nash — To to watch people step up and and truly say, not just complain about it, but actually be willing to help solve it with you. A lot of times they sit back passively and they say I wish the church would do this. I wish the pastor would do this. I wish… you know and, but I love it when people have the courage to be but able to say, but I want to help.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Ken Nash — I want to help you join in with you.
Rich Birch — Love it. I I do want to ask you. We had talked earlier about before the call about some research um that I want to make sure we get to, but one of the things I want to underline for folks that are listening in, um I’ve seen this anecdotally time and again in churches, we saw it at our church, we’ve seen it at our church that um, when people come into our church and get connected, you know, we often give them multiple pathways. You say get in a team, get on a, you know, get in a group and on a team. Um, and we’ve noticed that people who first join a group are less likely to get on a team. But actually if you go the other way around, if people first join a team, they’re more likely then to get in a group. That there seems to be a sticking point that that if we if we move people to mission first, they actually drive deeper into the community rather than ah, you know the other way around. They’re other than going… And I’m not saying groups are bad. Don’t don’t save your cards and letters, friends. I’m not saying that. I just I’m pointing out that we’re seeing, you know, some of that kind of evidence. I’d love you to comment on that. What do what do you think about that?
Yeah.
Ken Nash — I have I have found that to be absolutely true. There’s something about how… we call it around here the great question. Jesus actually coaches us on how to be great. So you want to be great in life? He literally says if you want to be great, serve. And so the great question around Cornerstone is, how can I help? And so um, we don’t want people just to volunteer because they’re trying to please me. We want them to volunteer because they genuinely know, I come alive most when I serve. And so that really fits with what we’re trying to move people into, which is engagement in the ministry. Because when they engage in that way, boy, it’s amazing.
Ken Nash — If you get into a group, it’s oftentimes—and again I don’t want to bring cards or letters your way. Maybe don’t give them my information you can come to you—but when they’re in a group, it can sometimes be selfish because it’s…
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Ken Nash — …you know, what what can you do for me? I need you to to pray for all that stuff is good. I need to be cared for, prayed for, covered in that. But in terms of engagement, when people start serving and they they just Jesus said you will become great. You want to be great, serve other people. And so you some something happens in us spiritually that you come alive in that. So yeah I spot…
Rich Birch — I love that. The great question. That’s good. I wrote that down. That’s I’m going to steal that.
Ken Nash — [laughs]
Rich Birch — That’s really great. Ah tell me talk about this research, you know we chat a little bit about that that that’s impacted your leadership.
Ken Nash — Yeah, years ago when I was doing some research on multisite, I read a research by Roger Fink out of Penn State, and he was just asking the question, not even from an ecclesiological, not even a church standpoint. He was just asking sociologically about a group of people. Um, we’ve just gone through ah a disaffiliation process with the United Methodist Church, but we have a United Methodist roots. We now and are a nondenominational church, but in there he was finding that the Methodist Church grew from 2.5 percent of the population base when our country was founded in 1776, 1 in 50 people were Methodist…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Ken Nash — …when when um, our country was founded. And then it grew to 1 in 3, just seventy years later. So by 1851, 1 in 3 people were Methodist that associated in in any kind of Christianity.
Rich Birch — That’s amazing.
Ken Nash — And so Roger Fink saw this study and he said, how come the Methodists aren’t 1 in 3 today? And so he he did some heavy research looking at what they did, and he came up with this one statement of finding what happened. Cause the Methodist Church grew so rapidly and then in 1850 it started shrinking. And ever since then you haven’t seen as much influence. And this is what he said, and this changed my ministry. He said the dramatic metric rise of the Methodists was short-lived. It’s instructive to note that the Methodists began to slump at precisely the same time that their amateur clergy were replaced by professionals who claimed Episcopal authority over their congregations. In other words, the pastors got in the way. So we were a grassroots movement of all these lay people that were engaged in the ministry. And they were saying, I have been given authority. I’m able to step into ministry and my life matters. And what happened then in 1851 we voted to say you can only preach if you’re ordained, you’ve been to school, or you’ve been trained properly. And we went from this movement to a denominational monument that stopped the flow of the Spirit’s really anointing over the denomination in some ways.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Ken Nash — And so when I read that I said I I never want to get in the way again. And frankly I have been. I’ve been the spotlights. And Dave Ferguson was a ah real strong help for me when I was going through my study of multisite and all of that. And his concept of hero maker is really spot on with what this research actually shows too, where we can’t get in the way. Our job is to get under and serve the Ephesians 4 model of how can I give authority to and to serve, you know, as an apostle, prophet, you know, shepherd, evangelist, and teacher. As as one of these leaders step up to give authority away to equip the saints for the work of ministry um, it becomes a movement then.
Ken Nash — And so our goal here at Cornerstone is to help 100% of our people to find their calling in ministry. And so if you’re a part of this church, our goal is to help you find your calling. And when that happens then we’re going to give you empowerment and authority so that you can move forward. And then we become a movement and not this, you know, top-down, if-Ken-says-that-we-believe-it-that-settles-it, personality-driven church, but to really be a servant-driven church. We’ve even changed in light of this research. We’ve changed our we call the SLT, or a vision team, but our senior leadership team um, Harvard Business review kind of teaches that kind of stuff, but we changed it from senior leadership team to servant leadership team.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Ken Nash — So our our core leaders are here to say, how can we first serve the rest of the staff? And then how can the staff serve the rest of the congregation so that we can help people find their calling and and their their real passion and ministry?
Rich Birch — I love that. That’s that’s so good. And you know we we see that in churches oftentimes um when they plateau or in decline, actually one of the signs of that at a, you know, so that’s at like a movement level, but at an individual church level, actually ironically, there’s this weird thing that happens where churches are like they’re maybe they’re starting to slow down. And so then the leadership says well we need to do is hire people. Let’s hire let’s hire another Youth Pastor. Let’s hire somebody else to do this role. Let’s hire somebody to do that. And and actually that’s counterproductive.
Ken Nash — Yeah.
Rich Birch — We see that time and again that actually ah, more staff per per per attendee or per you know people in your church actually is an indicator of lack of growth, not um, not a [inaudible] not actually spurring growth. There was a church um, just recently I was was a part of this conversation where they were kind of picking apart the… it was a sad conversation. It was like picking apart the decline of a church. And there was like ah a 10 year slide – it was fascinating. It’s a very large church, 5000 people, and it’s it’s shrunk back down to, you know, I think they’re their sub one thousand probably, 500 people something like that. And they had a 10 year slide where they they were 10 years they had they didn’t grow. But what did grow was their staff. Their staff doubled in that 10 year period.
Ken Nash — Yeah, yeah. And I was gonna ask they must have just kept hiring and hiring and hiring…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Ken Nash — …for out for to do the work of the people.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Ken Nash — Unfortunate, so unfortunate.
Rich Birch — Yeah and that’s it it’s a temptation. It is a, you know, and and you can see this in um there’s lots of examples of this. But this is a what a vivid example from this, you know, research from Fink for sure. That’s yeah, that’s that’s good. That’s vivid for sure.
Rich Birch — So when you think about, kind of… so I love this. You’re pushing your people towards engagement. I love the 5 P’s. I love a good alliteration. 4 P’s and 5 C’s – that’s fantastic. When you look to the future, how does this ah, you know, how do you think this is going to impact your thinking when you look up over the horizon, what’s it kind of changing in the way you’re thinking about the future?
Ken Nash — It’s it’s hard, Rich, because I’m a control freak. I’m a first born. You know, my dad was an air traffic controller…
Rich Birch — Oh wow.
Ken Nash — …so I was trained in control. And so I this is contrary to everything that I’m wired to do, which is to control, and be you know that that Moses model of you know, and it’s just so discouraging because I know how to do it right. And anytime I give authority, they do it wrong. They don’t do it my way. And but I was set four years ago as I started to wrestle with this, because I was in a church that grew many years ago in a small church that mid-Michigan church I was talking about it. It grew and then it shrank after I left. And I I cried for several years as I watched all these people that I loved and baptized and walked in ministry with and then they faded away from the ministry. I built the church around me.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ken Nash — And so God finally set me free and said you were trying to control it. And you know, Jesus is the head of the church, not the senior leader. And so when you can get that out of your mind, well I went to this right around that time I learned from Rick Warren; he said somebody was ah as at a conference where he was speaking and somebody said, Rick, I don’t like everything happening at your church. And Rick said the best answer; he said, I don’t like everything happening at my church. And that set me free and it showed me and modeled for me that when you let go of control, it’s going to look different. Because you think you do it all right, and I think my way is best, but you know what? People have their own callings as well, and frankly, they will make it better better because they’re going to bring a passion that you can’t because you’re burned out.
Ken Nash — So if you hold onto the control and say, I want the church to look just like this, and I’m I’m I’m the senior leader and it’s my job to make sure all the parameters in really great shape. You got to let go of that. And so what does the future look like? It’s beautiful because I wake up each day saying, God, how are you going to surprise me with somebody that gets a new holy disturbance within the congregation, this new passion welling up inside of them. And then they they come alive in this. And they’re going to take the church in a direction I never would have…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ken Nash — …had I not had the courage to get out of the way and to to in many ways just give that authority to the right people, the 5 C type of people that are ready to walk in in a humble way of leadership. So as I think about the future, I like I can’t wait to see what this church evolves into…
Rich Birch — Sure.
Ken Nash — …in light of the people God sends us.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love that. You know, one of the things like in ah when I first started in ministry and you know you and I have a similar ah vintage. You know, there were these churches out there that had the they would, they’d brag about it – they’d say 110 different ministries. They would be like we have all these different things, and then and there was a part of that that was crazy, right? Like a part of it was like okay this is like we’re running in a gajillion different directions and it was it felt unfocused. Um, but it did work in the sense of it engaged a ton of people. I know kind of post Eric Geiger and Tom Rainer’s book, Simple Church, it it it um one of the things we learned was, wow, if if we could narrow down on fewer things, we we’d be more effective. We could we could reach more people, but I do think that…
Ken Nash — I get the logic, I get the logic of that. I do.
Rich Birch — Yes. But one of the things, to your to your point, one of the things that was is probably a negative outcome of that, which wasn’t their intention, was it fed it fed all of our controlling instincts. It fed our instincts to be like, hey we just justified it as Simple Church. Simple church. Simple Church. Simple Church.
Ken Nash — Yes.
Rich Birch — How do you balance those two off? How do we because I don’t think we’d want to go—I um could be wrong—I don’t think what you’re saying is let’s go back to the 112 ministries thing. Let’s get back to tons of different stuff.
Ken Nash — Right.
Rich Birch — Ah, but but but we do want to empower people more; help me understand the nuance of those.
Ken Nash — Well, it’s um I was all in on Simple Church. We we actually followed that model for a while because the control freak in me. You just nailed it, Rich. My my control control nature loved that. However, however, it was going contrary to then this research that just right after I started studying Simple Church, I read this from Roger Fink…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Ken Nash — …and so they were diametrically opposed. And so I think where you’re getting at where’s the messy middle in there? And I think the word messy has to be in that like it is a messy middle. But ultimately I would err I would rather err on the side of the word yes, than to err on the side of the word no.
Rich Birch — Right.
Ken Nash — And so I I loved I think it was Andy Stanley who said, I’d rather say wow first before the how. And the controlling nature in me wants to say how? Okay somebody comes to me with a passion and I’d say, Okay, here’s all the parameters. How are you going to pull it off in a church like this where we have a limited marketing budget, and we’ve got a limited this staff, and how are how are… But if you start with wow and say, wow, this is your calling, your passion; I’m going to say yes to you. If you come to me I’m gonna say yes, but I’m gonna say yes with a hundred questions.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Ken Nash — This will probably drive that one more acronym the word FAN. I’m sorry about this…
Rich Birch — No, it’s good.
Ken Nash — …but everybody has a park and a spark inside of them and it’s my job to fan that into flame. And so that means I’m going to meet with you face to face, I’m gonna ask you a bunch of questions, and I’m gonna network you with people who have a similar passion.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Ken Nash — So I’m gonna F.A.N. you. So we’re constantly as a staff saying, how are you who have you fanned today? And as you fan them, they can fit in one of the 4 P’s, you know, and you know so it all kind of fits. But just trying to get clarity. I feel like my job is to bring clarity to our team and make sure we’re all pointed in the same direction. What happens then is we have these guardrails and then there’s lots and lots of room for people to come alive in their passions. Most of the time their passion, as you fan them, it’ll be something they launch in their neighborhood. They’ll launch it in their workplace. They’ll they’ll launch it outside of the church. Or they’ll launch it actually a part of another ministry around the community instead of fighting with the churches, again, a blessing of the pandemic. We realize churches need one another; we need to stop competing with one another.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Ken Nash — So as you fan somebody you start realizing, hey they fit there. So you could say yes to everybody. Yes, with these 100 questions. And so then say do you have a leadership team that would do this? Do you have a strategy in which you’re going to market this over time? So they answer these questions. It may take them nine months to a year to actually answer all the questions, but they have something passionately that they’re going after to launch it effectively. So my job to serve them is to ask them the right questions to help them to succeed, rather than just have me over them kind of patting them on a head saying, here I want you to do this, and I control them. So that’s that’s a difference in philosophy.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Ken Nash — But there’s a that’s a messy middle in there.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Ken Nash — But it’s holding on to it loosely rather than holding onto it with great control that I’m going to say no to most things.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, love it. Love it. That’s I love that, you know, FAN: face-to-face, ask questions, network with others. I just love that. I think I think that’s really clear and the idea of ask lots of questions, yeah, that’s our job. Like that’s and we and we’re not we’re not positioning ourselves as like, hey I’m the the either the rubber stamp that lets you do it, or the or the gatekeeper that’s just going to, you know, close it off. It’s like, hey, let me help you process this. It almost feels like Ephesians 4, like our job is to maybe equip people and like yeah, it’s a very novel idea, like it’s very very New Testament. So just love it. So good.
Rich Birch — Well, this has been a great conversation. Anything else you’d like to say just as we wrap up today’s discussion?
Ken Nash — Yeah, honestly I love your unSeminary podcast around the idea of saying, okay, what would you if I could go back to seminary twenty-some years ago, I would literally say I wish I had been trained in how to give authority away to the right people at the right time. If I had just gotten that one concept. But but of course school of hard knocks is just you learn a lot, so over the last you know 10 years you know first ten years I learned all this, the last 17 years I’ve been able to practice it and live it out. So school of hard knocks taught me but that is a lesson I wish if we can get pastors to get out of the way and to really believe in the calling of the priesthood of all believers, it’s not just a cliche set at conferences. It is the secret sauce to watching us have an influence in this culture for Christ.
Rich Birch — Yeah, so good. Well it’s great. So where do we want to send people online, Ken, if they want to track with you, if they want to track with the church, if people are interested…
Ken Nash — Yeah, thanks.
Rich Birch — …I’d encourage them to you I think you know is a big great church for you to follow along with.
Ken Nash — Yeah, yeah cornerstonemi.org just check out our church and you know I’d love to interact with them and anybody have any questions, I’d love to to care for them in that way.
Rich Birch — That’s great. Thanks so much… thanks so much for your time today. I really appreciate it.
Ken Nash — Thanks, Rich.
Thanks for tuning into the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Lead Pastor, Phil Caporale, and Campus Pastor and Kingsway Leadership School Site Director, George Probasco, from Kingsway Church in New Jersey.
As a church leader, one of the most challenging aspects of your role can be developing leaders. While it can be difficult to identify potential leaders and provide them with the necessary training and support, neglecting this area can have serious consequences for the long-term success of the Church. Listen in as Phil and George share some practical steps that church leaders can take to invest in leadership development.
- A critical issue. // Raising up leaders is critical because pulpits are emptying faster than we can fill them. Whether it’s because of ego, a fear of being replaced, or something else, many church leaders haven’t obeyed Ephesians 4:11-16, instead shouldering the work ourselves. We have to train others for the work of ministry without worrying that they may get more recognition or do something better than us. It’s rewarding when we can fan into flame God’s gift in someone else’s life to help them walk in God’s purpose for them. This process is part of making disciples.
- Leader Track. // Kingsway Church launched a 10-week program called Leader Track which is an onboarding ramp for high-capacity volunteers. It helps people apply principles from the word of God on things, such as character development, creating a personal mission statement, and leading healthy teams, to all areas of their work, homes and lives.
- Ministry Education. // Meanwhile for those interested in full-time ministry and acquiring a degree, Kingsway Church has partnered with Southeastern University (SEU) to create Kingsway Leadership School (KLS). Through KLS, Kingsway can offer 15 degrees, five of which are master’s degrees. Not only is this a more affordable option for students because they can take classes online, it also provides practical ministry experience along with their theological education.
- Head, heart, and hands. // Kingsway Leadership School is broken down into three components: head, heart, and hands. Head represents SEU’s partnership with the church, heart is leadership and character development, and hand allows students to receive college credits through a ministry practicum. This structure allows students to continue to serve in their local churches while also getting a ministry education and hands-on experience.
- Ministry practicum. // Because many of the students have full-time jobs, the program takes place midweek in the evening from 6-9pm. This midweek portion includes leadership and character development while Sundays are a ministry day. In their first year, students are exposed to all the different ministries at Kingsway Church and rotate through working with the various ministry leaders. Students in years two, three, and four are allowed to choose their ministry focus and the church leader in that area then becomes responsible for training that student.
- Lead through others. // To start taking steps towards intentional leadership development in your church, look at your calendar and identify 6-8 hours where you can be investing in other people. Model this to your staff and provide them with regular, practical training so they are equipped to invest in others. Finally, as church leaders we need to make ourselves available to our staff teams and keep developing them as they develop others.
You can learn more about Kingsway Church at www.kingsway.church, or email George to learn more about Kingsway Leadership School.
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Listen, I’m really excited for today’s conversation ah because it’s a great church, but it’s also a great church in New Jersey, even though it’s South Jersey. It’s not central jersey which just does not exist and so ah, you know and we’re already off to the races just only talking to people in New Jersey but so excited to have some leaders from Kingsway Church here, Phil Caporale and George Probasco, just are fantastic leaders from an incredible church. They’re they’re doing some great stuff ah, both in the you know online world with their church online and a couple physical campuses in South Jersey.
Rich Birch — They also have this really innovative partnership with Southeastern University in Lakeland Florida that we want to drill into and learn more. Ah, Phil is the lead Pastor, George is ah the leader of this school and also one of their campus pastors – welcome to the show show, guys. Glad you’re here.
Phil Caporale — Yeah, thanks for having us, Rich.
Rich Birch — Phil, why don’t we start with you. Tell us a little bit about kind of round out the picture, round out the Kingsway picture. What did I miss there? What what, you know, if people were to come to the church this weekend, what would they experience? Talk us through what, you know, give us the Kingsway flavor.
Phil Caporale — Yeah, yeah, thanks. Well um, our church’s been around a while. It started in in Camden New Jersey in 1925, so we’re just a couple years short of our hundredth anniversary.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Phil Caporale — So long, long history and ironically enough they started in a in a grocery store. And you know what they would do on the weekends is go in and take down all the produce off the shelves, canned goods, and and set up church. So before we were multi-campus or even knew it was a thing in in our history, embedded in the beginning of our church, they were set up and tear down in a grocery store. Um.
Rich Birch — That’s amazing. Like they didn’t have it 24/7; they only had it on Sundays.
Phil Caporale — Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, yeah.
Rich Birch — That’s incredible. Wow that’s amazing.
Phil Caporale — Yeah, and then sometime later, a few decades after that, bought ah a purchased a bank in the city of Camden. We have some people in our church that will tell you stories of going to Sunday school in a vault in the bank once they purchased it…
Rich Birch — Amazing. Yeah.
Phil Caporale — …and then move to our current location in Cherry Hill in the ’70s. And and then eight years ago, it’ll be 8 years this fall, that we launched the Glassboro campus that George is the campus pastor at. And that’s been going well, been in a bunch of places in the last several years, actually 8 locations in the seven plus years. Um and if people join us on Sunday in person, online, I think one of the one of the hallmarks of our church is I think authenticity. We hear that a lot from people. It’s very warm and welcoming, people use those words a lot. And even as they’re trying to express the presence of the Lord and how they sense and feel and interact with that. So, love it. Our our heart is for this area South Jersey. Obviously we’re just ten, twelve miles outside of Philadelphia too, so consider ourselves the suburb of that city as well.
Rich Birch — Love it. So good. This is gonna be a great conversation particularly around the whole leadership development issue that so many of our churches are are leaning in, and there’s a lot I want to talk about I want to make sure we we talk to folks. But George why don’t we start with you. It seems like so many churches struggle with developing leaders who are not staff. In fact, recently I was talking to a church, a senior pastor lead pastor at a church, who kind of challenged his team. He gathered them together, and this is a fairly you know thousand person, 1500 person church, that challenges leaders to get together and and asked his staff,Hey like how many of you lead volunteers who lead other volunteers. And ah it was single digit. It ended up being there was just a few of these people in our churches. Man, that just seems to be such ah ah, an issue. Ah, talk to us about this issue, George. Why is this such a critical issue for us as church leaders to be thinking about?
George Probasco — Yeah I think it’s ah important for several reasons. And by the way um, you know all credit to Pastor Phil here because what you see and what you’re going to get from from this is exactly what I’ve been learning from him over the years now.
Rich Birch — Nice.
George Probasco — I’ve been saved and and knew of my faith for about 8 years and Pastor Phil’s always been there every step of the way…
Rich Birch — Love it.
George Probasco — …and so what you hear is a little bit pastor it’s going to be from Pastor Phil.
Rich Birch — I love it.
George Probasco — So I want to say I want to say Ephesians 4 and when we don’t do Ephesians 4:11-16 we are violating the scriptures. And I think so many churches, and this is pertaining to New Jersey um you know, specifically in Assemblies of God and in our network or our fellowship, is that ah pulpits are emptying faster than we can fill them. And um, that’s an unfortunate reality. And I think if I just had to draw conclusions over the years it’s because we violated simply Ephesians 11:14-16. We have not raised up leaders. Because pastors you know, probably themselves or only had a select or a small team to do the actual work of the ministry and they were doing it themselves. And so it’s critical because you know we have churches with empty pulpits now. And we have empty positions and and there’s ah, there’s a serious need in the in in these communities for pastors and ministry leaders to preach the gospel. So.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. Phil, why are church leaders why are we tempted to not develop leaders like why, you know, why do we not do that? Like it seems because Ephesians 4 is, it is very clear. It’s not it’s not like debatable. You can’t be like, oh like I wonder what we’re supposed to do? It’s like pretty clear. But what’s those what’s the temptation. What why do you think we’re we’re tempted to not develop leaders?
Phil Caporale — Yeah, but I think part of it is not knowing how to craft the ask, for one.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Phil Caporale — You know, does it look like if if I’m a pastor, or I’m a ministry leader or director on a staff on a staff team at a church, um, there’s a little bit of that sense of responsibility. Well I was hired to do this. This is this is my job. Here’s my job description with a set list of bullet points that I have to meet some requirements on. And and while that’s true, there’s a part of all of our responsibilities, for those of us that are ministry leaders, pastors, whatever on staff at churches, to to do a part of our job, but we really want to help our our team and other churches as as the Lord allows us to to to really shift that in the sense of, Hey we’ve got to empower people.
Phil Caporale — Right back to what you and George just mentioned a moment ago – Ephesians 4 is pretty clear. You know that God gives the gifts to the church so that we can. We can pastors, evangelists, apostles, prophets, teachers um prepare the people for works of service. But if you read on and get to verses 12 through 16, particularly, there’s a lot of fruit there. Paul talks about growth, and maturity, and building up, and edification, and the body is strong, and people really find um, their groove. They use the gifts and the skills and the natural aptitudes that God’s hardwired into them to be able to um, feel that life-giving sense of purpose, being part of the body of Christ. So I think it it goes back to the the the ability and the awareness to be ah conscientious of the fact that we have to make an ask. I think it’s a little bit too, Rich, of ego that gets in the way of pastors and ministry leaders a lot of time.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s true.
Phil Caporale — If if I train somebody else that could do it as well or maybe even better than me, um, am I going to be needed? Is there is there a need for my position or for my role? So we’ve got to always fight and and and battle against that the need to be recognized, or to get the pat on the back for, you know, any kind of recognition. Um I think one of the greatest greatest things that we can experience—I know this is true of George, of our other leaders, and myself I’ve experienced this—that when you can fan the gift and the flame in somebody else’s life and you can watch them walk in the purpose that God’s designed them for, man, it’s one of the most rewarding things. And then you realize oh no, what Paul is instructing us there, is the same thing he told Timothy, right, in 2 Timothy 2:2. What you hear me say in the presence of others, teach reliable people that can go teach others. So Paul’s saying that you can have influence three clicks removed um and without ever seeing people because you’re passing on what you’ve been given.
Phil Caporale — So I think it’s those couple of things and then I think it’s also there’s not there’s not many good models. And we’re certainly far from having it all figured out. We’ve just been fortunate enough, and God’s been gracious enough to us to put people in our lives that have just said, hey come along, shadow me, let’s do this side by side. We have a little philosophy amongst our staff that, hey whenever you’re doing anything in ministry, whether you’re going to Costco’s and picking up supplies, whether you’re going on a hospital visit, you’re planning an event, take somebody with you, let somebody shadow you. And have conversation, right? So it’s that lead… it’s discipleship’s happening but it’s also developing leaders at the same time.
Rich Birch — Love it. Yeah I was thinking it’s not lost to me that that there’s two of you here today. I love that you’re modeling it, even in this conversation. George talk me through at Kingsway, so let’s say either you maybe in your campus specifically, or on a team in your you know in your campus you you see one of those people who are like, okay that person’s got some potential. How do you begin? What is the conversation? What’s the platform? What’s the ask for trying to move those people towards leading? What does that look like, George?
George Probasco — Yeah, so one of the things that ah that I specifically do is I try to lead through my staff. So they are really the ones having the conversations, or I am if if I’m approaching an individual in the church that I feel has leadership potential, um, what I’m doing is shoulder tapping them and then connecting them with somebody from our um, our team specifically. And so one of the programs that we launched this year, relaunched that I should say, Pastor Phil can go in a little bit more about that would be Leader Track. And that’s something that is a great pipeline onboarding ramp for ah, high capacity volunteers within the church context as far as that that perspective is concerned. And that is a little bit less skin in the game as far as fulfilling an academic requirements through our partnership with SEU, so.
Rich Birch — Love it. Yeah, yeah, Phil, do you want to tell us about Leader Track, kind of unpack that? What does that look like? How do we talk to that ah, you know what’s covered there? How how does that fit? How’s that work?
Phil Caporale — Yeah, yeah, it had its Genesis in about 2015, so we’re going back a few years. Actually George and about 13 others were the pilot of that and we just put together what was then Leader Step, Rich, was really out of our assimilation and what is our Growth Track process. People were going through that, they were doing everything we were asking of them to move in their journey in their faith, and you know, being involved in the life of the church, being connected in a small group—we call life groups—being being on a ministry team. But then we had a handful of people come up to us, and George was one of them then, that said. Hey I’m I’m in but I feel like God has something else for me to develop. I feel like I can lead others. I feel like I want to learn more; I want to lead better. And so after several of those conversations, it was enough at the time our lead team for us to realize, Hey we should probably lean into this a little bit more and and do something a little bit more deliberate in training um, high-capacity volunteers that can really step into some ministry roles, but really fulfill um, what they’re sensing in their hearts and and let’s let’s do that. You know, let’s go back to Ephesians 4.
Phil Caporale — So we started doing that. We did it for several years and took about 70-ish people through that. And we were watching just the fruit of that, which was spectacular because people were owning their part of ministry. They were owning their they were owning that idea of growing their influence in their homes, in their families, on their jobs. I mean some of the stories that were outside the walls of the church were incredible of how God was working in people’s lives. And then um, from that we we launched a year-long program that was very intense that we just called Protégé, like some others have named it and that discipleship program. And then out of that was birth the the leadership school, Kingsway Leadership School.
Phil Caporale — But even even though we’re in our I think 6 year now of of the school, we realized that hey they’re gonna be people that are aren’t going to be preparing for full time ministry, or don’t need a degree, or aren’t interested in that level of commitment. So we’ve got to bring this Leader Step back that was on hiatus for a little while, and we just thought, hey it really is a track for leadership development and potentially not just leading as a volunteer. But if people are wrestling with a full time call to vocational ministry, um, Leader Track can help begin to allow them to explore that. So we just relaunched it this past fall. We named it instead of Leader Step, Leader Track this time. And it’s a ten week commitment. In fact to pilot it, or re-pilot it, we took our our Kingsway Leadership School to students through it in their fall semester, asked them for feedback, asked them to speak to it. What do you love? What do you not like? What do you need more of? What what could we take away?
Phil Caporale — And then we um, we made an invite of um, we’re hoping to take 40 people through it this year, and we just finished a ten week cohort of 22 of them um, that are already leading in many areas of of our church. Some of our pastors and ministry directors have already made specific asks of them in in you know, worship and student ministry, children’s ministry, whatever else. And now the responsibility is on our our staff to meet back up with those people that have gone through it and continue to make an ongoing investment into them.
Phil Caporale — And so some of the early fruit we’re seeing is relationships that are being forged, Rich, in some incredible ways as well. But people really leaning into it. We’re getting reports similar to what it was in the past of people applying the principles at work. I mean some of these people are lead in high-level roles in their jobs, entrepreneurs in business, whatever it is, education, and they’re taking some of the principles from the word of God on character development, and personal mission statement, and leading healthy teams, and implementing that. And they’re coming back and saying things like this, Hey this works! And we’re like yes, of course it does!
Rich Birch — Love it.
Phil Caporale — You know, that’s incredible.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Phil Caporale — So it’s it’s been fun to really watch that. And it just it just continues to ignite that fire in us to go man, this is what we as ministry leaders, as pastors, are called to do. And we shouldn’t be surprised of the fruit that Paul promised in the word.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. You know, one of the interesting things is I saw a stat recently I think it was three quarters I think it was like 76% of this is marketplace leaders who are already managers, so they’re already leading people, say they have never received any training to be a manager…
Phil Caporale — Wow.
Rich Birch — …which is fascinating. And so you can see why as a church if we step in and provide some leadership, it doesn’t surprise me at all, you step in and provide some leadership training, man, it makes a huge difference in in people’s lives. Sticking with you, Phil, how do you balance out the um like the in class, something like Leader Track, with the practicality of leading in context, you know the being with people, the two by two, how do those two balance out together? I sometimes feel like we’re tempted by classes like this; we’re tempted by like say all we need is another curriculum. When clearly obviously you know it’s more than that. h, balance that out. How does that work out for you guys at at Kingsway?
Phil Caporale — Yeah, well and George kind of alluded to it a few moments ago. One of the things that we do is we we want it to be by invitation. So until a couple of months ago during a vision so a recent vision series, we hadn’t really talked about Leader Track. Our so our church knows about Kingsway Leadership School, of course…
Rich Birch — Right.
Phil Caporale — …but Leader Track has always been this shoulder tap, this personal invite from a ministry leader because we wanted to make sure that these people were already they already have a lot of skin in the game. They’re already leading, many of them are leading really well and we’ve identified, our teams identified in them the potential to to take on more, and to and to grow their influence by leading people. Ah, one of the gaps that we noticed, Rich, in our church was between staff and ministry leaders, and others that have led others is this this group of leaders of leaders. How could we get somebody to coach others. Ah, we don’t use this term but it would be like a team captain really where where they’re investing themselves into others, from a volunteer standpoint, which could potentially be a base for us to hire potential staff someday. That’s always a thing that we’re keeping in mind, but it’s not the desired or ah intended end result.
Phil Caporale — So watching people already serve. They’re already in involved, embedded into the life of the church. This is stuff that we’re seeing on display in who they are, and how how consistent they’re involved in the life of the church, and then coming alongside of them and going hey… The content that we provided, a lot of we make it very interactive. We don’t want to just get up and lecture. They can get the information anywhere. We’ve just tried to do our best to contextualize it. And then create even within that large group of the 22 we took through it, um, we put them around small tables. And half of the evening, half of the 3 hours we were together was then building community. And we didn’t ask any of them to do this but one of the neat things that happened out of that, Rich, was very early on they started exchanging numbers together. They were in text threads. They were…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great.
Phil Caporale — …I heard from some that I’m close to, Hey we’re we’re exchanging a prayer requests and so-and-so showed up in my house to encourage me. And nothing we ever said, we just instead of teaching in in rows, like a classroom setting, we said let’s do it around tables so we can naturally facilitate community. And that kind of caught on like wildfire and and expedited a process of us going, Hey here’s some content and curriculum we want to help you with, and if you’ll learn to lead yourself well, you’re going to be able to lead others just as well.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love it. Yeah and I do think this whole leader of leaders issue, man, there’s so many of our churches we we struggle with this. We we’re looking for people to just do stuff for us, if I can be too if I can be a little too pointed. We’re looking for people who just if you could just stand here and hand out these programs, or you could just you know helping kids ministry. As opposed to, man, I want you to lead a group of leaders to make a difference. Um George, let’s talk about the Kingsway Leadership School. Let’s talk through this. Ah give us this so give us a sense of, you know, kind of what is offered through that. How does it work? How is it partnership kind of give us an overview and then let’s dig into it. So give us an overview there, George.
George Probasco — Yeah, so we’re going into our seventh year come…
Rich Birch — Amazing.
George Probasco — …comes fall. So we’ve learned a ton over the years, Rich. I mean a ton. We had to add and bring in some values for our students because we just our culture was just all over the place, and that’s one of the things that I would just say strongly is that we have to, when you’re developing a leadership culture in your church, you need to have strong values, whether it be church values or if you have like a program that you’re taking your your students through, you have to have values. So that’s one of the things that we instituted.
George Probasco — But an overview, we offer 15 degrees…
Rich Birch — Wow!
George Probasco — …in partnership with Southeastern University. Ah, five of those are which are masters degrees. And so students are able to come for our leadership development within the church, so we don’t teach any SU academic accredited courses here in the church – that is all online only. What we do is we come alongside of Southeastern University and we’re ah, developing the student’s heart and hands.
George Probasco — And so we like to break it down into three categories heart, head, and hand. So the head component would be SEU’s partnership with us. The heart component is leadership development, character development. That’s actually what our pastoral staff and and leaders are actually doing and in our students and developing in our students. And then we love to develop our students’ hands, and that’s through ministry practicum.
George Probasco — So the cool thing about Southeastern’s partnership, if you’re an extension site, is every college student gets college credits through something called practicum. That is an actual college level course through Southeastern University. And if you’re a bachelor uh, degree student or looking to acquire your bachelor degree, that’s twenty four college credits that a student can earn through ministry practicum. So what that means is if they’re serving in their local church, working with under a ministry leader, shadowing them, um, really learning from them, they are logging what they are doing in the ministry and they’re getting college credits for that. So that’s a big deal. So long, the days are over I would say with students going away to college, especially ministry students, not being developed, rather they’re just getting all head knowledge and then no practical ministry experience. So we’re looking to really, again, meet that need where we can provide an academic degree for our students, but also train them up and and give them practical ministry experience. So.
Rich Birch — Now so talk to me through ah, you know, so SEU is a fantastic school, very innovative. This is not a, they’re great school. I love those guys. They’re good people so there’s no negative in all of this. But why the partnership with them? What what about them specifically you would say, hey ah, you know they’re good people to work with? Phil why don’t you take this what what was you know, kind of what drew you to a partnership with them? Why is that been a great connection? How does that how has that been for you guys?
Phil Caporale — Yeah, we um we we early on as we were long um, going through what I mentioned earlier, Protégé, Rich, which was developed out of what Leader Track was the first time our first iteration of it. We had come into contact with a couple people, 3 or 4 actually, that said, hey you should look into SEU. They’re making college education really affordable. And I was um I was really excited about that because I’ve I’ve always I’ve always felt like there’s been these two sides of it, and neither one really fully met the um, the requirements of what it would look like for people that, especially wanted to pursue full-time vocational ministry.
Phil Caporale — And what I mean by that is we had people that would have a lot of experience in in church culture, but were missing that educational, the theology, the doctrine understanding of the scriptures, and the the formal education there. And then there were other people, to George’s point of moment they ago, Rich, that were coming out of bible colleges with almost you know, zero zero ministry practical ministry experience. So when we heard of the partnership with SEU, we did some exploration, we connected with them on some calls, and had them come up and visit us. And and the fact that they could package that and a student would never have to leave Jersey, and stay involved in their local church, do it very affordable for less than a third of the cost. There were a lot of um, very obvious pros to that. And we said, all right, well let’s let’s dig into that a little bit more. And as we did we realized that we can bring really the the crux of the discipleship, and and they can they can get an idea of what it means to here’s what a follower of Christ looks like as they’re growing, as they’re learning the lead, as they’re pursuing potentially vocational ministry. Um, and it it very quickly became appealing.
Phil Caporale — It’s funny, Rich, about half of our student body through the last six plus years has not even been within our own church. It was other churches that kids were coming out of youth ministry…
Rich Birch — Oh really? Interesting.
Phil Caporale — …other adults that were serving.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Phil Caporale — Because it allowed… pastors were interested because they’re like wait a second guys. You mean my this person from my church doesn’t need to go down to Florida for 4 years? Like no, no, they can stay involved in your church. We’ll do the discipleship part, you offer the practicum and SEU… So then it was like this three-headed partnership.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s really cool.
Phil Caporale — Um, and that’s appealed to a lot of people, you know. And and and I think the fact, especially in this day and age, where where you don’t have to go away, and it’s going to cut the cost down, again, until less than a third, that there’s ah, there’s obviously an appealing nature to that. Um, but the fact that they cannot just get practical ministry experience, but stay in that church which they’re part of, perhaps even grown up in, um, really continues to benefit, and feed that, and strengthen the local church.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s that’s fantastic. Love it. So so good. George, give me a sense of the kind of week-in week-out for a student, you know, that’s engaging. What does that look like? How do they, you know, how do they connect with with with you guys? What’s that all again, kind of give us it from from their perspective. What does that look like when so, you know, when they’re in class or what I don’t even share the language you use.
George Probasco — Sure.
Rich Birch — When they’re you know when they’re engaged, what’s that look like?
George Probasco — Yeah, sure. So students gather on Wednesday evenings from 6 to 9. We’ll feed our students. A lot of them have jobs, full time jobs, so they’re doing other things. Um, and that’s another thing about ah Southeastern is that it is affordable and students are able to work a part-time job, or work full-time and almost nearly knock out their their student debt right away. So um…
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s great.
George Probasco — …but so a lot of them are coming in from 6 to 9, and then what we’ll do is we’ll we’ll do some leadership development, we’ll have chapel, and then we’ll do some character development as well with them. And then Sundays is ah all hands on deck ministry day. So we are exposing them to to ministry. And we take our year one students through ah kind of a general practicum is what we call it. And we rotate them through all the various ministries here at ah at the local church. And we’re teaching them and giving them a a well-rounded exposure to Kingsway Church Min. So it’s not the end all be all, but it’s just the way how we do it in our context.
George Probasco — And so they’re working with different ministry leaders, and they’re being exposed to those ministries. And and a lot of this is and I say and I highly recommend that because what it does is it’s going to build some character. For students that just want to get up on a platform and and start speaking, well we know that that’s not realistic. And so we’re going to throw them in the kids’ ministry. We’re going to throw them in ah, you know, around teenagers or you know we’re going to really help build that character within them because that’s just what we do. And then for year two, three and four what we do is um, we take our students and we allow them to choose their ministry focus. And so…
Rich Birch — Okay.
George Probasco — …we’ll we’ll get around our our practicum leaders. So one of them being our our youth pastor, and if if a student’s interested in that that our youth pastor becomes responsible for that student. And so literally they have their own curriculum that they have built to develop help develop our students ah, to train them up to be a youth pastor or whatever the gap is.
Rich Birch — Love that. So good. Phil, a part of what you’ve talked about is this whole vocational ministry push, that a part of what… and we all know this, right? Like anybody that’s that isn’t just heads down in their local, you know, they realize, gosh, there’s a giant leadership crisis in every church. I was literally just this week talking to some leaders in a particular movement, they were saying hey we’re going to 1500 pastors retiring—and then we all know these statistics—1500 pastors retiring in the next ten years, and they’re graduating, I think it was 8 per year out of their ministry school.
Phil Caporale — Wow.
Rich Birch — So it’s like, Hey this is going to be a problem. We’re trying to, you know, so what has that what’s kind of been the output on that side? I know not all of these people are going to end up in vocational ministry, but what has that looked like, you know, give us some context on what that looks like, Phil?
Phil Caporale — Yeah, um, some of them um, it really gets it gets interesting, Rich, in the sense of placement. One of the things we are very upfront with about students that are interested in the school, in Kingsway Leadership School, is to tell them, Hey there’s no guarantee of placement upon graduation, whether it’s two years, four years, or six years that you’re with us, but we’re going to continue to walk alongside of you. And because of, you know, our network of churches and the connections that we have to a bunch of them um, we’ve been able to and minimally hook up um a student that’s finishing graduating the program, graduating the school with a degree and whatnot with other local churches and their pastors to at least entertain a conversation that sometimes has…
Rich Birch — Right.
Phil Caporale — …even um, you know turned into an interview, or them pursuing you know ministry credentials, or going down another path ah similar route to be involved in in their local church, or or Kingsway, whatever whatever the case might be. So I think one of the things is always having keeping that out in front of them, especially for those, Rich, that feel or sensing and working through a call to vocational missionary, not just pastoring but even missionary. We have a girl coming through our school right now that where she just finished up her her grad degree, is our first grad student. So she’s got this master she’s got this this Masters of Divinity and she’s preparing to go to India on a two-year term…
Rich Birch — Oh wow.
Phil Caporale — …as a missionary associate. and so that’s been a big deal. She got to go on that as a scholarship for being part of the school this past this past fall, and just felt a real tug and pull in her heart from the Lord to be there. So she’s pursuing that now and I could certainly see her um, becoming a career missionary. Um, there’s a strong call in her life for that, but she’s really leaned into it. And she’s gotten that practicum experience…
Rich Birch — Right.
Phil Caporale — …that George just detailed a moment ago with um, one of our pastors who’s over missions, and has been able to really lean into that, been able to really draw from that. And not just from our pastor that’s leading her in that, but the connections that that Pastor has as well to some other pastors, to some other missionaries that has opened this girl’s scope of potential resource and influence up so she can explore this call.
Rich Birch — Yeah, this is fantastic. I love this. I love what you guys are doing here. I think there’s so much for us to learn from and continue to lean in on. George, when you think about um you know individual students, is there like similar to the student we just heard about, are there any other stories or kind of insights of like, here’s kind of how this is working out practically in in someone’s life?
George Probasco — Yeah I have a student actually, when I transitioned in into the campus pastor role in October of ’22, we had a ah vacant area also I’ve I’ve identified in at the campus.
Rich Birch — Okay, yeah.
George Probasco — And so one of our students one of our students is so high capacity. He actually um, came from another church where he was briefly youth pastoring, but he’s now with Kingsway and in in our program. And part of his practicum it just so happened to work out where he was going to be coming down to the campus with me this year. And so now I have him overseeing um, our guest experience teams at our campus. And um so he’s responsible for for five teams in particular, and caring and pastoring for them. And so that’s just providing alongside of his academics very real ah, very real experience. And and the reason why I say that is because these are just some things that textbooks don’t train you up on.
Rich Birch — Right.
George Probasco — These are things that ah they don’t they don’t tell you how to have a hard conversations, difficult conversations. You just kind of have to be thrown into that. And there’s a lot of coaching with me me and him you know, again, it’s a lot of one on one, so anything that he’s doing, we’re we’re talking about it afterwards. So that’s where the discipleship comes in.
Rich Birch — Love that. Yeah I love that and that that’s been my like very similar experience particularly as people have transitioned into our churches from um, you know the marketplace, is that there is like there’s the academic side that we can deal with it’s like okay you know you can you can learn. There’s a certain amount of theological stuff you can learn. You can take courses, but there is some. There’s real issues around how do we help people get the practical insights around, you know, when you’re sitting across the table for the first time and someone talks about that they want to leave their spouse. You know you know, that the first minute of your response there is really important. And you know you don’t want people being like, I don’t know I’ve never really thought about that before. And so what you guys are doing is, you know, in such a supportive environment is is enabling that kind of thing I think that’s fantastic.
Rich Birch — Well, Phil, why don’t we give you the last word. If I was a ah church leader that was listening in today that was saying, man, I think we need to really step up our game on this front. We need to we need to look to grow. What would be some of those first steps that we should take, whether it’s leader track or maybe even pursuing something more robust like, you know, Kingsway Leadership School. What would be some of those first steps that you would encourage leaders to be thinking about today?
Phil Caporale — Yeah I think I think part of the the first thing ah a leader needs to do is is really look at—this is very practical—look at their calendar and of their week, let’s just call it a 40 hour work week as a pastor or ministry director on staff at a church, and and ask ourselves right now, How many hours a week am I giving to intentional and deliberate leadership development? Um, ah one of the things that we put in front of our staff, it hasn’t been a hard and fast rule, but, you know, could you take up to a day a week, six to 8 hours a week, where you’re developing others. In other words, our theme this year for our our team, Rich, is um, our staff is to I just call it LTO – you’re going to lead through others. We have to lead through others. We can’t just think, hey that’s a good idea, or someday I hope to get to it. No, it’s like we have to, right? Some of us are going to be natural just doers all the time, others of us do have a proficiency to develop others, but we’re really trying to move our whole staff to think, you know, I’m here to develop others; I have to lead other people through those that are right in front of me.
Phil Caporale — And so the practical, my the first thought again practical is just looking at the calendar and it’s not necessarily a full day, like I’m just going to pick oh Thursday’s the leadership development day. It may be a two hour pocket here, and a three hour window there. But what does that look like and how do I continue to do that to make an intentional investment in other people? Because look we all know that battle right of of urgent versus important. But one of the things I’ve learned through ministry and in my experience, and probably took me a little longer to learn than I care to admit is that, yeah, you’re always going to have the urgent, but if you’ll if you’ll focus on what’s important, right? In this conversation we’re talking about developing leaders of leaders. If you’ll give more time to focus on what’s important, it will keep some of the urgent at bay. Not all of it. There’s always going to be the emergency situations, of course, but part of the urgency that creeps up at times is our lack of being purposeful and intentional in building leaders.
Phil Caporale — I think back to Exodus 18, right? This the first this is like this is like the um Old Testament version of Ephesians 4 when when Moses is kind of burned out. He’s judging all the cases and his father-in-law Jethro goes, You can’t do this, right? You got to find some leaders that can lead tens and fifties and hundreds and a thousand. And and he said at the end of that, and we often overlook this part, he said if you’ll do this, then you’ll be able to endure and the people will go home in peace. And I just thought about that like longevity and ministry. If if God’s call in our life is not just for a season but it’s for all our lives, and for those of us that are called to pastoral ministry, um, that man, let’s do this well. Let’s look to make sure that we endure and we pace well through this. And others are going to go home in peace. But there’s also tied to that word a sense of fulfillment in their own lives, you know?
Phil Caporale — And again kind of back to earlier in the conversation when you see that life-giving joy come out of others, it adds to your your sense of of purpose being fulfilled as well. So I think it’s it’s as as as simple even as going, hey look at my calendar how many how many meetings have I had with other people this week?
Rich Birch — Yeah, so good.
Phil Caporale — Am I grabbing lunch or coffee with anybody and making an intentional investment into that time? And then as ministry leaders right on staff I would think um, if I’m in the executive pastor role or lead paster role or on the lead team, what are we doing to train our staff? I realized that a large portion of my job I would I would I would contend that about 25% of what I do is thinking about how I’m training the staff to lead through others. Because if I don’t train them, if I don’t model it to them, I’m I’m going to get the same thing from them, right? So it’s got to be something that’s real. So where we can invite people like Paul said, hey you follow my example as I follow the example of Christ. And and as we do that, it it catches on. And it takes a little bit of time and you’re always going to have those on the team or on the staff potentially that are a little intimidated by it. I don’t want other people to pick up my bad habits, or I’m not quite sure to do this. So we just leverage our chapel every week. We have a two hour chapel where we’ll worship and pray together. And then the second hour of most of that is training. It’s it’s it’s hey let’s get into the nuts and bolts. This was what it looks like, not just philosophically or theoretically to train leaders. But this is how we’re gonna do it.
Phil Caporale — And then keeping yourself available. I think as as the point person or if you’re leading a ministry um to just say to the rest of your staff or your team or those that report to you, hey I’m available and I’ll continue to help develop you as you develop others.
Rich Birch — Love it. So good. I really appreciate this conversation today, guys. This has been super helpful and inspiring. Really, really good. George, um, if people want to connect with you, with the church with you know to kind of follow along, where do we want to send them online, just as we wrap up today’s conversation?
George Probasco — Yeah, they can ah email me personally gprobasco@kingsway.church
Rich Birch — Oh great, good stuff. And then kingsway.church for everything else if they want to track along. Well, appreciate you guys being here today. Thanks so much, and always good to talk to leaders from Jersey. So thanks for being here today.
Phil Caporale — Yeah, it was a blast, Rich, thanks for having us.
Rich Birch — Thank you.
George Probasco — Thanks for having us, Rich.
Thanks for joining us on the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Lisa Penberthy, a church leader and consultant with 20 years of experience and an M.Div and MBA in nonprofit management. She is currently serving as the COO at Dannah Investment Group and is passionate about stewarding people’s callings as well as church resources.
Are you a church leader looking to encourage and empower more women to step into their callings in your ministry? Listen in as Lisa provides practical coaching on identifying blind spots, communicating personal boundaries, and advocating for next generation women leaders.
- Identify what’s missing. // When it comes to women in church leadership, we tend to look at the theological side of the conversation. However, practically speaking we need to recognize that it comes down to helping women fulfill their callings. If you’re fully supportive of them, then the question becomes, how do you help empower them by removing obstacles and providing practical support? Start by looking at the blind spots in your church. If none of your executive leaders are women then you’re missing part of the conversation. Pay attention to how many times women have spoken from the stage or given a message at your church.
- Circle back. // Women may identify that they have a ministry calling but aren’t ready to step into it due to their current family responsibilities. Male leaders may want to ask these women to serve in leadership, but also don’t want to put pressure on them. Remember that it’s important to circle back to these women and present them with leadership opportunities again. Come back to the conversation and hold the women accountable rather than only asking once and assuming they’ll always say no.
- Build trust. // Acknowledge the tension around social interactions with male and female leaders. Each individual needs to establish personal boundaries and points of accountability in their life and leadership. Have honest conversations about those barriers so there’s a layer of trust between the male and female staff and women aren’t automatically omitted from leadership opportunities and interactions. With the right benchmarks and boundaries in place, men and women should be able to travel together or be alone in a room for confidential meetings without hesitancy. Never isolate or penalize women because of your individual struggles.
- Upfront communication. // When hiring women on staff, communicate during the interview any limitations in the leadership relationship between men and women. Be forthright about personal boundaries in your leadership so the woman being interviewed can decide whether she is comfortable with them or not. If this conversation isn’t initiated by the interviewer, the woman needs to have the courage to bring it up so she will know where she might be held back in her calling.
- Raising concerns. // If a situation occurs that causes a woman to no longer feel comfortable with current boundaries, she has to be brave enough to raise the concern. It doesn’t have to be with her superior, but she needs to come forward. It can be with the church’s HR or the administrative people who handle paychecks, or even the advisory board. She should find the person that is safe to talk to and have a conversation early after any incidents happen.
- Encourage upcoming leaders. // Advocate for next generation women leaders in every way you can to encourage them in their work. Invest in upcoming female leaders by giving them opportunities, such as internships, to show their potential. Observe them in their own environments and give them increased responsibility.
- Discipling women. // Most churches have more women in the congregation than men. But if there are more women in the seats and fewer women on the platform, then we’re not doing a good job of reaching and discipling the people God has brought to us. We should see more women in leadership throughout all areas of the church, not just the nursery and children’s ministry.
To connect with Lisa you can meet her at the XP Summit on May 16 & 17, 2023 or you can email her.
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Chemistry Staffing
One of the things that they never teach you in seminary is when to move on from your current church. Over the last couple of years, we have been having a TON of conversations about this with pastors all over the United States. Of all the ministry decisions you make, leaving your position will be the toughest.
Download this two-in-one resource that walks you through the decision-making process.
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey, friends welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Super excited for today’s conversation with my new friend, Lisa Penberthy. She is just incredible leader that you’re going to want to listen in and lean in with. Ah she was executive pastor of operations at San Diego Rock – if you don’t know this church of fantastic ah organization. She’s been a church leader and consultant with twenty plus years of experience. Has both an M.Div and MBA, which is fantastic, in nonprofit management. Ah she currently is serving as the COO at Dana Investment group. She’s passionate really about helping churches and leaders steward their calling and church resources. Ah, Lisa welcome to the show. So glad that you’re here.
Lisa Penberthy — Rich, thanks for the invite. It’s great to be with you.
Rich Birch — Yeah I’m so honored that you are giving us some time today. This is going to be good. Fill out the picture there. What did I miss? What else do we want people to know? I know it’s so hard to, you know, how do I you know what what what do I want people to know about me.
Lisa Penberthy — What I want people to know about me? Um I believe in the local church. I have served in every capacity of the local church, minus a men’s pastor. So I started out ministry um, as a volunteer junior high youth leader, but a paid janitor. So I was paid to clean the toilets and I volunteered to serve the junior highers, and boy, some days it felt the same.
Rich Birch — Oh Gosh. Oh my goodness. That’s hilarious. I love that. So good.
Lisa Penberthy — But yeah, so so those are local church is where it’s at for me. I’ve served in various capacities at denominational levels. So I’m ordained minister with the Foursquare Church.
Rich Birch — Oh great.
Lisa Penberthy — And served by pastoring local church years were mainly in the Foursquare Church. And then I served our denomination both at what Foursquare would call the district level that serves the local church directly, and then the national level that serves all of the US churches.
Rich Birch — I love it.
Lisa Penberthy — So it’s an honor to serve twenty plus years in those capacities.
Rich Birch — Yeah I love it.
Lisa Penberthy — And then I love to teach.
Rich Birch — Oh good. Nice. And where where where…
Lisa Penberthy — So I’ve…
Rich Birch — And that’s been both in the local church context and other contexts? Tell us about that.
Lisa Penberthy — Yeah, so Life Pacific University and and then Ministry Institute. So Rock School of Ministry when I was at the Rock and I currently teach at Western Ministry Institute which is a Foursquare Ministry Institute.
Rich Birch — Love it. So good. Well I’m so honored that you would be on today to to tackle this issue particularly. Ah so what we’re talking about today really is how can we as church churches and church leaders, people who are charged with leading the church, really ah, encourage, raise up ah particularly female, women leaders in our our churches. I think my assumption is that there are people that are listening in today that although cognitively might agree, hey they look around their circles and they’re like there’s just way too many guys here; there have to be more women that ah, that should be leading in our context. But there must be something that’s going on that we’re not encouraging women to take it in these steps. Or we’re providing we’re kind of there’s some something that we’re doing that’s not working right. And I want to I want to, you offered, which I appreciate to help us kind of think about these issues today, and we want to kind of wrestle through that.
Rich Birch — So what should we be thinking about? What when when we think about this issue, let’s assume we’re in that picture we look around and we say but there’s just there’s just too many guys here. How can we, not that guys are bad, but how can we encourage ah you know more women to lead within our context?
Lisa Penberthy — Yeah, great question and my focus is really practical in in just identifying what’s missing. When you sit down at a table, you’ve gathered people to make decisions and you look around and you don’t see any women. Um it it begs the question are we missing part of the conversation? And so starting out really practical is looking around the table – who’s at the tables that you go to? We tend to focus on the theological side in the conversation. But really we need to get beyond that and look at the practical aspect of um seeing women fulfill their calling. So if women know that they’re called, you’ve already determined that that’s where you stand because that’s your belief, then then let’s figure out how to do it.
Lisa Penberthy — So the practical ways look around the table are there women look at your platform, scroll through all of your um, Sunday sermons that you have put on your website and count how many times a woman has spoken. If you can’t find any times then you’ve probably missed the mark. If you’re only seeing it once or twice, but you’ve had 20 plus guest speakers, then you’ve probably fallen a little short now.
Lisa Penberthy — Now if if the primary speaker is just the lead pastor and no one else covers the pulpit then it is what it is. But if you bring guests in for your pulpit, if you bring guests in to speak, and you don’t see any women, then you should probably look a little deeper on your bench.
Rich Birch — Love that. I love that just even really practical, you know, try that. That’s a potential blind Spot we might have. Is that we’re not um, you know we’re not calling in, you know, female guest speakers when we you know when we are bringing in guest guest speakers. That’s great. What would be some other common and blind spots that you see when in churches that would hold ah conviction that would say, yeah we were we’re open to women women leading, but there’s just like a you know there’s just a blind spot that we just don’t see. Are any others that come up?
Lisa Penberthy — Absolutely. Um, male leaders default to ah they need to be in the home. And not because they think that that not because that’s their belief, but because they feel that a woman will say no. And so they don’t even ask women because the woman is focused on their young children or they’re ah really focused on their family, they’re the soccer mom. And so they they don’t want to interrupt or they have spoken to a woman in the past that has said, I’m really busy now – come back to me, and they don’t come back.
Lisa Penberthy — So a really simple way to do that is when you identify a woman who is strong and called, and you know that um ministry speaking, teaching is in their future, and they say, you know what? I really want the first five years of my kids to focus on the first five years. There’s nothing wrong with that. But what they really need is that person that circles back after the first five years and says okay, five years is up. Let’s talk again. So coming back to the conversation; hold the women accountable. They’re the ones that said, I see that call in my life; I just want to wait. And so finding that balance. And really, that’s not everyone. When I started going, for me, it was this is my priority. My husband and I waited 10 years for the kids because I wanted to go after my calls so that when the kids came along, I knew the difference of my calling as a mother, and my calling as a pastor. Because they are two very different things that I know God has prepared me for.
Rich Birch — Um, love that. I know, um, so first of all I appreciate you pushing us on this. We want to keep leaning in here and finding ways that we could be creating undo barriers that that we shouldn’t you know that aren’t there. I know for me one of them that I’ve seen in my own leadership is the um is the unexpected kind of social stuff. Hey we’re going, hey let’s go out for lunch. Or hey we’re going to you know, whatever go to a game together. You know those kinds of things. Ah, talk us through ah well is that a problem am I being anxious about stuff I shouldn’t be anxious about? Or is there is there a real issue there that we need to think about?
Lisa Penberthy — So this is a tension point. And everybody has to individually determine where they sit. For me, I have traveled the world with male colleagues because it’s a part of what I’m called to do.
Rich Birch – Yep.
Lisa Penberthy — And my gender doesn’t limit my calling. My choices can limit it. My actions can limit it. But my gender shouldn’t. And so I have put in personal benchmarks and points of accountability accountability into my life and leadership that affords me opportunity to sit in a meeting room with just me and one male. Um, travel the world with just me and one male. Um, but that’s because of the things I’ve put in place for my accountability. And I know my weaknesses and that’s not my weakness. And now I won’t know the male’s weakness. And so open conversations become important. Knowing who you’re working with, knowing who you’re traveling with, um, putting that layer of trust in place becomes important.
Lisa Penberthy — Um, so so navigating those pieces is really important. So if there is a hesitancy on a male’s end of being in a room um with a woman because I’ve I’ve experienced that. And I had to ask a question of a male that said, is this because you don’t trust me, or you don’t trust yourself? And so and then that conversation was had. And then I took it ah a layer deeper and said, okay you trust me, you trust yourself. Is this a commitment to your spouse because I want to honor those things, but I also don’t want those things to keep us from being effective in the mission. And so let’s put it all out on the table. Never isolate a woman or keep from having a lunch with the opposite sex because of that barrier. Have the conversations up front. Because the reality in today’s day and age is you don’t know who’s sitting across from the table. You could have a transgender across the table. You could have um someone ah that doesn’t that is attracted to same sex and you don’t know and so…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Lisa Penberthy — …having a male and a male at the table is no different today than having a male and a female.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lisa Penberthy — Now if this is your staff and someone you know then there should also be that same level of trust. You’re trusting where it’s at. So putting in your marks of accountability. And if this is an area you struggle with as a leader, you need to be vulnerable enough to say, hey I need to do it different. This isn’t about you. This is about me. Own up to your stuff. And so so it’s a real tension, and everybody has different markers and that’s the reality of the conversation is your personal barriers and obstacles, not the large picture gender barriers and obstacles, because we’re isolating all women because of our individual struggles.
Rich Birch — Yeah, okay, so this is really good, Lisa. I appreciate this. Can you give us some coaching here. So I um, so let’s assume I’m I’m a leader, I’m a male leader who does have conviction around saying hey I one of my own personal convictions is um, I I don’t want to meet alone. I won’t I won’t do the lunch I won’t that’s with with a a female. I don’t know how let’s say I don’t know how to say that without it sounding like I think you’re going to try to seduce me. Or I think I’m going to you know I’m like totally turned on by you. Like I don’t know how to how do I say that in a way. What’s how what can give us some language.
Lisa Penberthy — Right.
Rich Birch — Give us some coaching around how do we use that language? What what would you what would you how would you coach coach us on that?
Lisa Penberthy — Absolutely. First, this conversation should come out in the interview process.
Rich Birch — Okay, good, good, good.
Lisa Penberthy — The woman coming in should know this before. She should know that there’s going to be limitations in the leadership relationship.
Rich Birch — Very good. Okay, good.
Lisa Penberthy — So this should come out in the interview process. And the comfort level of that, whether it comes from the senior leader making the hire, or it comes from the ah HR admin whoever does the hiring process. Either way, that’s where it should come out. The the female leader should not be blindsided…
Rich Birch — Right.
Lisa Penberthy — …um in the role six months in, discovering everybody else got a one-on-one. Everybody else goes to lunch one-on-one, but I don’t. Why? So that’s the wrong time to find out, and the wrong conversation in which to find out. So my first recommendation in this, have that conversation in the interview process. Let the woman make the decision to say, you know what? I’m still all in. I’m okay with that. Here’s the boundaries. Let’s work through this. Um, so what to say and how to say it is is really just coming forth being forthright and saying I have my personal boundaries and leadership, and here they are. You wouldn’t hesitate to say um I have date night with my spouse and I leave at five o’clock on Thursday. So if you’re not going to hesitate to say, I’ve got to be at my kids’ baseball game on Tuesday so I’m leaving. If you’re not going to hesitate on those things, then you need to not hesitate on this conversation. Because this conversation impacts someone else’s calling. So you need to be even more forthright with it. And and the comfort level comes in all the time. That’s that’s always a question. That’s always well I’m not comfortable because then as you said it could really spark a, I’m coming on to you. That’s when you have that other person. That’s why the interview’s a great place because typically the interview involves multiple people. So then that can be had um in a group setting. So so those questions, and as a woman I encourage you to ask the question so that it’s brought out.
Lisa Penberthy — So in interviews that I’ve had I’ve asked, what’s your position? Where will I see it? Where will I be held back that other people aren’t? Is there opportunity? And so as a woman I would say ask the question. It is you need to know what you’re getting into because you can’t get upset for a question you didn’t ask.
Lisa Penberthy — And on the the male leader side I would say if you know that you have hard and fast boundaries and rules, share them upfront. Um, if if you don’t have windows in your doors in your office, get those windows in. Because I wholeheartedly believe every door should have a window on it.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Lisa Penberthy — But I also believe once that window’s there, you can shut the door and have a conversation. And so um, so it’s the balance of what have you done to give space for gender mentoring gender leadership conversations to happen. What have you done to make space for that? And what have you done to put in the obstacles? So if you haven’t put that window in, that’s an obstacle that you’ve put in. You’ve chosen that. Because now you have to leave the door open now those confidential conversations – I mean in my role as an Operations Pastor, all the confidential conversations are there. HR questions and conversations. Finance…
Rich Birch — Yes, so true.
Lisa Penberthy — …budgets, layoffs. All of those are closed door conversations that I can’t have unless there’s that window because that’s one of my boundaries. There there needs to be a window or at least a window somewhere that people can walk by. So if it’s not in the door, you know, there’s the window in the door for where the assistant accesses or however, that works but somewhere there is that layer of accountability there.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I appreciate that. You know I do fair amount of coaching with churches where I’m on site and just recently I was at a church where there weren’t windows in their office doors. And I found it surprising I was like oh well, this still exists. Like I was like um and there was a fairly new building and as you actually we we brought it Up. We talked I talked about it. Because I was like, yeah, how does that like you know and so they choose to do the door open thing. And then I asked that exact same question which is like okay so what happens when there’s a you know a conversation that you can have the door open for um because of the nature of it. And it kind of got into this like, well ah it doesn’t really happen. And I was like, okay well, that’s Interesting. It’s just interesting, right?
Lisa Penberthy — Yeah, yeah.
Rich Birch — It’s interesting to see how people you know, operate. Um, so what about on that you know what about on the balance side. Let’s say that or that you know, kind of the other piece of that that puzzle. Let’s say I am a female leader who is um, you know, um, you know sometimes our convictions our um, our comfortable the way we our comfortableness changes in scenarios. Life is different maybe than when we started. Ah, how would you encourage a female leader to try to speak to this, if their own personal conviction has changed on this. It’s like hey you know I was comfortable but I’m not I’m no longer comfortable. Um, the the reason why I flag this is because there are too many churches where people have been taken advantage of. And so how do we create um, you know, ah a boundary there that’s reasonable. Um, yeah, talk us through that. What does that look like?
Lisa Penberthy — Yeah, so in this area, it’s true. They do, the the position changes. It’s they’re they’re comfortable when they’re hired and and they’re in um, the the blissful state, and then something happens something a a statement’s made, a conversations had, and it changes the dynamics of the the comfort level. It changes the dynamics of the the leadership relationship, and so something has to shift. Um, for for women they have to be brave enough and and this is hard to even say, but they have to be brave enough to raise the concern. Now they don’t have to raise the concern to their superior. That’s not where the conversation usually starts. They need to raise the concern um, with within a peer context, within HR. I know most churches don’t have HR so that’s ah, that’s a hard statement to say. But but within that place like who writes your paycheck? That that technically is your HR person if your church is small and doesn’t have HR. Who writes the paycheck because that’s the administrative person that’s balancing labor laws. So let’s let’s put a little little technically. If that’s the person writing the paycheck then they’re the ones that have to know the labor laws. So that’s the person that I would send you to?
Lisa Penberthy — Um if your church is super small and that’s all done through the senior pastor, then there has to be a church council…
Rich Birch — Right.
Lisa Penberthy — …an advisory board, something that is bringing the leadership structure. And and you don’t have to go to all of them, but find the one person that’s safe. Find that person that you can talk to to help have that conversation, or to go with you to have that conversation. Because sometimes that line was crossed and accountability needs to be put in place. And sometimes that line was crossed out of ignorance – an ignorance statement, a really unfortunate illustration in a sermon. It could be that simple.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Lisa Penberthy — Ah, that the line is crossed and that that comfort is lost. And so find that person to go to and have the conversation and ah appear or someone that holds your leader accountable. Those are the best go-tos to have that conversation with. And if there is still the comfort level to have the conversation um, have it early. And having it early means um, being brave enough to say, I have a concern…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lisa Penberthy — …and I don’t know where I’m landing on this, but let’s figure this out together. You know, going back to the the sermon illustration, you said something in your sermon Sunday that makes me uncomfortable. And had you said that one on one with me, I would have had to leave the room.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, and that’s ah
Lisa Penberthy — And so approaching it that way.
Rich Birch — Yeah, in some ways I feel bad that I’ve steered the conversation in this direction because I don’t want to inject I think sometimes we it’s like we we come to the worst case scenario. But I do I do think we have to talk about it and I think as executive leaders who are leading particularly within the church, this is one of those areas where, and this has been a growth area for me over these last couple of years. I I realized, man, I need to be really clear with our team who is the advocate that they should go to if I as their leader or if they’re particular leaders to people that lead them do something say something that is that is inappropriate, that’s off off bounds. We have to be as clear as that with our people.
Lisa Penberthy — Yes.
Rich Birch — This is who you talk to…
Lisa Penberthy — Yes.
Rich Birch — …this is the advocate that is there on your behalf…
Lisa Penberthy — Yes.
Rich Birch — …um, that is outside of you know, that and that’s their job there. And you have to you have to identify somebody, you have to make it super obvious, say this is how you talk to them. Um, and you know that’s been a growth area for me even these in these years because I’m like, man, we can’t I don’t want someone to wonder in that moment. I’m not even sure to talk to about this, particularly if it’s about me…
Lisa Penberthy — Absolutely.
Rich Birch — …if I’m the person that ultimately this whole thing leads up to, man, I have to create, even more so, I have to create really clear ah, really clear lines there. Um, so another area of this is our own thoughts and beliefs and approaches to how we manage our home life versus how we manage in ah our leadership scenario at church. I think there sometimes can be a tension there where it’s like how we’ve decided how my spouse and I have decided to manage how decisions are made um, you know somebody ultimately has the tie-breaking vote. You know we’ve talked about that in our own marriage…
Lisa Penberthy — Yes.
Rich Birch — …who has that tie-breaking vote. Ah, but then maybe I and maybe even unwittingly, unknowingly import that into my leadership at church. Have you seen that before? Talk to talk us through that.
Lisa Penberthy — Absolutely. So there is a big difference between your theological position and your marital preference. And and in that what I’m saying is in your theological position, you either lean mutualist, also known as egalitarian, or hierarchy also known as complementarian. So mutualist, which I prefer because we live and lead and are married and serve in a mutual submission. So mutualist. So in a mutualist relationship your role at the church and your role at the home may look very similar. However, um your role at home may look more hierarchy, and you know what it’s it’s okay because it’s your preference in your home. You you know what you believe, you know what the bible points you toward, but in your home you’re like, hey this is how we want to live our life. We want um the the husband to to be the decision maker. And I wouldn’t go as far as saying the head of the house because then we go in a whole different conversation and that’s not what we’re addressing. But the decision maker the one that has the final say when there’s a tie. The husband’s a tiebreaker. In in our home when there’s a tie the person who has the most knowledge and understanding of the topic is the tiebreaker. It’s not a default. It’s not, well you’re the male so make the decision. It’s well you know more about this so you make the final decision. So you know, I’ll I’ll use a very lighthearted, when my husband and I are talking about sushi, he is always going to make the decision. He knows, you know…
Rich Birch — He’s the sushi expert. Love it.
Lisa Penberthy — Exactly. But when when we’re talking about Mexican food, I’m gonna be the one that makes a decision. I grew up in Southern California; he grew up in Portland, Oregon. I’m going to make the final decision. So…
Rich Birch — Love it. Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. Love it.
Lisa Penberthy — …so it’s about knowledge, understanding, and experience in in a mutual relationship. Mutual submission means the best person, the best equipped makes the the decision when there’s a tie. Um in and so in your preference if if in your marriage it’s like it doesn’t matter that I know more about Mexican, I’m always going to default to him, and I’m going to stick to the food because it makes it more friendly conversation for everyone, um, it’s always going to default to the husband. That’s okay; that’s your marital preference. It’s not your theological position if you truly are um, a mutualist and egalitarian belief status. This is about the preference in your home.
Lisa Penberthy — And they’re different. And and women get really hung up on that because they find themselves wanting a spouse like that. It’s you know the fairy tale. It’s the prince charming. It’s what they’ve been taught to desire. And really they don’t even know if that’s their desire until they’re in it. But it’s what we’ve been taught. I grew up wanting princesses and castles and then I really said actually I don’t. And my childhood dream adulthood was overseeing an orphanage all by myself because I didn’t need anyone else to help me do it.
Rich Birch — Love it. Love it.
Lisa Penberthy — So, you know, it’s the balance. Um, and so everybody has to find that. So really, that’s that’s your preference and not necessarily your theological position. And being able to separate those out really helps you better understand where you land in leadership overall. And as um, the other side of the conversation, if you are hierarchy complementarian then all aspects of your life will align that way. Then your home and your ministry and and how you seek a job really will take you in that direction.
Rich Birch — Right right. Okay, cool, interesting. That’s great. Super helpful for sure as we think as we try to you know discern you know, pull those those two aspects of our lives apart and try to think critically about that. So so helpful. Appreciate that.
Rich Birch — When you think about um, particularly next generation women leaders, what can we do as leaders who maybe are, you know… So I’m thinking about executive pastor, leadin’ at a church, a female or male who’s like, hey I want to make sure that young leaders, particularly, are getting opportunity. Because it seems like a part of where this goes off the tracks is like very early on it’s like, you know, women coming out of school or like very early on it’s like we’re not creating the right opportunities. Any thoughts on that? What can we do on that front?
Lisa Penberthy — Um, advocate for ’em in every way possible.
Rich Birch — Okay, great. Yep.
Lisa Penberthy — So um I have had interns in my office space, whether it’s at the church, whether it’s in the corporate world, interns in my office raising up the next generation. It’s one of the reasons why I teach it’s because I believe in the next generation of leaders. I teach as adjunct professor because I want to know that they still exist. And I want to know that there’s still interest because the next generation isn’t as interested there as um, as my generation. They’re they’re not the gung-ho um, grind. Then we skip from the millennials to Gen Z who are back to the grind. They’re like I want the job, I want I want the driver’s license. Look at the millennials, they’re like I’ll get my driver’s license one day. And so the balance of that. So being with younger, um younger leaders became really important to me.
Lisa Penberthy — So how do you pour into them? First hang out with them. Know that they exist, know that they have something to offer. Because if all you’re seeing is kids’ noses in screens, you are not going to see the potential of what they have to offer. Give them opportunity to show their potential. And for for women specifically, and there’s many times me growing up in different roles and capacities as a woman that I was overlooked because it was, hey let’s go to the golf course. Hey, let’s go to the basketball court. And it wasn’t invited because those were hangouts. Let’s find the potential. Let’s have a conversation. Ah well there are women that play golf. I’m not one of them because my golf game stinks. My dad will tell you firsthand. Ah.
Rich Birch — I love it. Yeah, love it. Yes
Lisa Penberthy — I have attempted. But yeah, but but there are different ways to do that.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Lisa Penberthy — So find those places where you can hang out. And of course you know a male taking just one female to go play golf isn’t reality, so the pickup game of basketball is probably your better bet. And there are women that play basketball. And we automatically think that… we automatically skip over the invite for the woman.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lisa Penberthy — So we have interns and you invite all the male interns. I’ve I’ve watched it happen in the offices that I’ve been… all the male interns were invited to go to the baseball games. Like guess what? I watch baseball every day. Literally every day. Whether it’s my kids playing, or the Dodgers playing I watch every day.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Lisa Penberthy — So um, so so those are just opportunities. Find those places where you can see the next generation of leaders, and women specifically, in their own environment. See what their potential is.
Lisa Penberthy — Go where they’re at instead of taking them where you’re at. And so when you invest in the next generation, you really want to take the time to listen to them. And part of listening is observing.
Rich Birch — Love it. Yes.
Lisa Penberthy — See how they interact. See how they naturally lead in environments and then you have that follow up conversation that says, hey when I was watching you the other day at the basketball on the basketball court I saw you take charge. I saw this in you. So stirring up that potential in them really ignites them. And then specifically when it becomes the gender issue, go where they’re at. Find out what what they’re doing. And I’m not saying go get your hair done with them. I’m saying, go find, you know, if they’re on the volleyball court, then pick up volleyball instead of golf. So go where they’re at.
Rich Birch — I love that. So good. Um, when you think about the like do you think the trend in this is heading in the right direction or the wrong direction? Like do you what’s your kind of ah, you know, your assessment on this – are we getting better as a church or or not? I can’t discern that.
Lisa Penberthy — Um, we are not getting better as a church.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lisa Penberthy — And here’s the unfortunate thing…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Lisa Penberthy — …but we’re not getting better as a society. So I’m currently in an executive women’s leadership program at Cornell University, and the statistics there are heartbreaking because our society is reflecting the same. And the the thing for me is the church has a mandate. Society doesn’t. So as a church we should be the front leaders. We should be the frontrunners. We should be out there saying, we empower everyone because the Kingdom and God’s people are more important than our bias on genders.
Rich Birch — So good. So good.
Lisa Penberthy — And this is not a salvific matter. This does not determine our salvation.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Lisa Penberthy — So let’s go make this happen, and get out on the battlefield where salvation does matter.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lisa Penberthy — Let’s reach the people where it does make a difference. And so so our trends are still kind of holding steady with less women right around that 45 mark which is better than where it was back in the day. So right around that 45 mark is where we’ll see you know, depending on which statistic anywhere from 45 to 48 of women. Um, but if if you flip it and look at the other aspects of women, and we have more educated women than we do men.
Rich Birch — Yes, yep, yep.
Lisa Penberthy — More more women seek higher degrees but they’re doing all of this to seek the opportunities. Because you have to go after the degrees because a woman won’t be looked at without the degree, whereas it male would be. And so um, so women are going after those degrees so that they have an opportunity. They have a standing chance of well, I don’t have the experience because it wasn’t extended to me, but I have the education. And so finding that balance, getting that education has helped women, but the trends are not in our favor right now.
Rich Birch — Interesting.
Lisa Penberthy — And so that that is what I’m hoping people can discover even just in our conversation is there are ways to empower women. There are ways to advocate for them, and to release them, and to see them um take leadership roles that they haven’t had opportunity in the past. And we can see those numbers reflect those decisions.
Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely. Um so this might be another unfair question in this area. This is one of the great I think one of the great ironies of the modern church is so many churches I’ve been to if you were to stand back on a Sunday morning or a weekend service and look out over the, you know, over the audience, congregation, whatever you call it in your particular slice of christianity, um, you know that’s 60 maybe 70% women ah 30, 40% men, um and and some even higher some 80/20 you know it. It definitely skews. In fact, I think and one ah hundred percent of the churches I ever visit it always skews towards there being more women than men. That’s like a whole other topic of conversation. But then at the same time the leadership skews the other way. Um, where it’s you know, primarily men um, leading. I don’t even know if I have a question. I’m like what is happening here?
Lisa Penberthy — Truth.
Rich Birch — Like what is happening here? Like what what is all of that? Again I realize it’s an unfair question because it’s like it’s this giant issue that’s in front of us. How do you reflect on that you’ve obviously thought about these issues.
Lisa Penberthy — Absolutely.
Rich Birch — So you know what what do you think? What do you think?
Lisa Penberthy — Yeah, so so seeing that, that very thing everything that you said I agree with. It’s the trends. It’s the truth. The numbers will show you. I mean every church that I’ve been into and I’ve been on a lot because I’ve worked a denomination where I that was my job was to visit churches. So um, there are more women in the seats. And if there are more women in the seats and fewer women on the platform, then we’re not reaching and discipling the women that God has brought to us, the people that God has brought to us.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Lisa Penberthy — And so if we truly are raising up and discipling those that God has brought to us, then we should see more women in leadership. We should see more women leading even the simplest of things – our discipleship classes, and and our our trainings that we do um. And yet we oftentimes limit women to our children’s ministry, which ah looking back at my childhood, my favorite ah children’s pastor was a male. And my favorite Sunday school teacher was my grandfather who was obviously a male. And and not because well partly because he was my grandfather, but because he was full of wisdom and all of our friends loved him. He was funny. You know all of those things that you’d hope for. And if if the male voice is absent in the seats, how absent is it in the home. And who do our children need to hear from?
Rich Birch — Yeah.
sa Penberthy — But yet all of our Sunday school teachers are women.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Fascinating. It’s yeah this is ah this is one of the, yeah, we you know didn’t even get into that the stereotyping of women into you know, serving in, you know, just in in “just” I say in quotes…
Lisa Penberthy — Yes.
Rich Birch — …in you know kids ministry areas. Um, that’s like ah you know that’s like, again, a whole other can of worms. Or in some movements you know you’ll have women are allowed to ah to go overseas and do roles with mission organizations.
Lisa Penberthy — Yeah, do everything.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that they are would not be allowed to do in the exact same organization, you know, on this, man, that’s just sad.
Lisa Penberthy — Yes.
Rich Birch — I’m like how are we still living in that world? That’s that’s crazy to me. Well this is…
Lisa Penberthy — It is an unfortunate dynamic.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Lisa, this has been an incredible conversation. I really appreciate you, you know hoping our… Listen, friends, our hope was to to to continue to talk about this issue, to raise this for us to think about it. Again, my assumption is that there are leaders that are listening in today that see all those problems, and are like I see all that. But it’s like hey, what steps can we take today? Give us a kind of final word as we wrap up. What what would you say to a leader that’s listening in that says, yeah I see all that stuff. What what could be a step or two that we should be taking, even practically this week…
Lisa Penberthy — Yeah.
ich Birch — …ah to try to create better, you know, equality equity in our organizations?
Lisa Penberthy — First I would say lean into the discomfort. It’s unfamiliar territory for most leaders and you got to just lean into it. And then I would say set your own personal boundaries. And don’t penalize others because of your boundaries. Make them your own. Own up to them and make them yours and don’t penalize others. It’s very easy to have boundaries that penalize people from their calling.
Lisa Penberthy — And then communicate. Make sure people know your boundaries. Make sure the woman that you’re inviting onto staff knows that there will be limits if you’re putting limitations in there. And if there aren’t limits, then live up to what you’ve committed to.
Rich Birch — Yes, love it. Thank you so much, Lisa. If people want to track with you, we’re going to be at the XP Summit here coming up in very short times.
Lisa Penberthy — Yes.
Rich Birch — So hopefully folks are listening in that are coming to that we’ll get a chance to connect. But if people want to connect with you, track with you, where do we want to send them online?
Lisa Penberthy — Oh that’s a great question. I’m in the process of launching my website.
Rich Birch — Nice.
Lisa Penberthy — Um, but ah and we have not secured the domain because my husband’s one step behind me.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s okay. Love it. All good.
Lisa Penberthy — So um, but ah, but they they can reach me at lisa@penberthy.rocks
Rich Birch — Perfect.
Lisa Penberthy — So that’s my first name lisa@penberthy.rocks and that is my ministry address.
Rich Birch — Love it. Perfect! Thanks so much, Lisa. I appreciate being here. Thank you for helping us think through and wrestle through these issues today.
Lisa Penberthy — Absolutely. Thanks, Rich.
Welcome to today’s special episode of the unSeminary podcast where we are replaying our recent webinar called “Resilient Church Staff: Secrets to Building and Sustaining a Strong Team Culture” with my friends Todd Rhoades and Matt Steen, the co-founders of Chemistry Staffing.
In this webinar, Todd and Matt discuss the importance of cultivating a healthy team culture prior to bringing on new hires, communicating values and expectations during the hiring process to protect church culture, and taking the time to find the right candidate to build and sustain a strong team culture.
In addition they share a FREE assessment that is opening today, April 24th! Visit churchstaffassessment.com and answer the questions there to help you understand the health and culture at your church.
- Protecting your culture. // Whenever we add staff members to our teams, it changes the culture. In order to protect our culture during that hiring process, Todd emphasizes the importance of clearly communicating your values and expectations right from the start. Don’t just have these ideas in your head, but put them down on paper and make sure that everyone on your team is in agreement about what your culture is.
- Be transparent. // Once you have a clear understanding of your values and culture, give candidates open-handed access to what your situation and culture are. Be transparent about where your church is excelling and where you are struggling and need improvement. Hiding key bits of your story when talking with potential hires never ends well. It often leads to disillusionment after they come on staff and employment that doesn’t last.
- The real cost. // We all want to find hires that are going to be long-term team members. We need to be realistic that finding the right candidate can take 12-18 months. While it’s tempting to quickly fill a need, it’s better to go without than hiring out of desperation. Matt explains that hiring the wrong person is costly not only because of the salary and other budget items spent, but also the time wasted, the significant loss of trust on your team, the sideways energy, and impact on your culture.
- Team health. // Before you hire any staff, take a look at your current team and make sure that they’re healthy. If your team is not healthy and you try to bring somebody else in, it won’t correct the problems. To cultivate a healthy culture, remember that kindness and treating others the way you want to be treated goes a long way. Pay attention to providing regular opportunities for your team to offer feedback, whether for concerns or ideas. Invest in staff development, encourage healthy work life balance, and deal with conflicts and concerns in a healthy way. Foster a culture of appreciation, and make sure your team members are recognized for their contributions.
- Potential vs experience. // When searching for candidates we are constantly confronted with the tension of hiring someone with potential versus hiring someone with proven capacity. But it’s important to consider more than just skills, abilities and experience. Don’t ignore key factors such as being a theological fit, aligning with your church’s culture and personality, and if the individual has chemistry with you and your team. While there may be times when a skilled person is necessary, take a chance on someone with potential and pour into them, making time for mentoring and development.
- Staff Health Assessment. // On April 24th Chemistry Staffing is rolling out a 2023 Church Staff Health Assessment for church staff teams to participate in. This FREE assessment consists of 50 questions based on communication, job satisfaction, leadership, team dynamics, compensation and benefits, work environment and more. Take 10-15 minutes to go through the assessment at churchstaffassessment.com and receive a score that will give you insight into your church’s health.
Don’t miss the chance to take Chemistry Staffing’s FREE 2023 Church Staff Health Assessment at churchstaffassessment.com through May 19, 2023 and learn more about the health and culture at your church.
Plus visit Chemistry Staffing to see how their team can help you find the right fit.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live!
Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Chemistry Staffing
One of the things that they never teach you in seminary is when to move on from your current church. Over the last couple of years, we have been having a TON of conversations about this with pastors all over the United States. Of all the ministry decisions you make, leaving your position will be the toughest.
Download this two-in-one resource that walks you through the decision-making process.
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Well, hey, friends, what on earth? Why are we coming in hot with an unSeminary episode on a Monday rather than on a Thursday? You know, for 800 plus episodes every Thursday we have bringed you conversations that we hope will inspire and equip you. But today, on a Monday, we’re coming in with something very special. You see, a couple weeks ago we ran a webinar called “Resilient Church Staff Secrets to Building and Sustaining a Strong Team Culture”. And it was with my friends Todd Rhoades and Matt Steen. And we covered a lot in that webinar that I want you to hear. But even more pointedly, this is what I want you to do to take action on it. Today, April 24th, they are opening up a free assessment. I can’t believe that this is free, but it’s a free assessment called churchstaffassessment.com. And it’s designed to help you understand the, the culture at your church.
Rich Birch — And you do this, it’s 50 questions. At the end they ask for your email address. You don’t actually even have to give it, but if you want to get the assessment, you just give your email. It’s totally free, and it will unpack and help you understand your church staff culture. Now, we’re gonna talk more about this in the episode, but I wanted you to hear this full episode. So we cut out the tops and tails, the kind of frivolous stuff at the beginning of the webinar and jump right in. Uh, but I want you to hear this. Take some time to put this in your ears and listen to this today. And join us on our next webinar. When we talk about this on our emails, you just, you can learn about ’em by just signing up at unseminary.com. We’re constantly unpacking great stuff in those environments, and you get to go toe to toe and ask questions with experts like Todd and Matt. So listen in, and don’t forget to drop by churchstaffassessment.com today. It closes on May 19th, so make sure you get in and do that today. Again, that’s churchstaffassessment.com.
Rich Birch — All right, friends, well, we’re gonna jump in, uh, to today’s conversation. Super excited. We are this, the title of this webinar is Resilient Church Staff Secrets to Building and Sustaining a Strong, uh, Team Culture. It’s gonna be a great time today. Now, just kind of a couple rules of engagement. We will be taking questions. Uh, we’re gonna have a bit of a conversation here. A couple things I want to extract out of these experts minds. Uh, but then we do want to get your questions in. So at any point during today’s call, please just drop them in the chat and, uh, we’ll make sure to get a chance to loop back around to them. Also, I wanna encourage you to stay tuned until the end, because today, uh, Matt and Todd are launching something really cool that you’re gonna get a chance to get it literally in on the ground floor of. So, like, you’re gonna be among the very first people to access this thing today. And so I don’t want you to miss that. Uh, and so we’re just, again, so honored that are, are here.
Rich Birch — So let me give you a bit of an introduction. We’ve got two folks, two friends, uh, on the call today, Todd Rhoades and Matt Steen. Uh, Todd is the co-founder of Chemistry Staffing. You might have heard of them before, if you’ve hung around unSeminary for a while. He’s got over 30 years of experience serving, uh, churches in a whole bunch of different scenarios. Todd, uh, was, has really, you know, helped in a bunch of different contexts as a founder of, uh, churchstaffing.com, which really helped so many churches find pastors and staff online. He worked with Leadership Network, you might know him from, from that context. It’s given really valuable insights, uh, into not only where the church is today, but where it’s going in the future, and how they can continue to operate healthy. He’s a graduate of Cedarville University, uh, so honored to have you on the call today, Todd.
Rich Birch — Uh, and Matt, Matt also, uh, is also a co-founder. We’ve got the co-founders here today of Chemistry Staffing. He served the local church for over two decades as a youth pastor. Yay, for previous youth pastors. That’s good.
Matt Steen — We, uh, you know, we gotta stick together.
Rich Birch — Uh, church planter, executive pastor, he’s, uh, studied at Nyack and at Baylor University. Uh, he’s, uh, he’s got a whole bunch of different certifications. He was up in the northeast; that’s where he and I actually originally met. He’s a strata facilitator, uh, with the Patterson, uh, Institute. So, you know, he is a really smart guy or center. Uh, I know he is a really smart guy. Got lots to offer, so, welcome. So glad that you guys are here. Todd, why don’t you, we’ll start with you. Fill out your picture. What did I miss there? Uh, tell us a little more of the Todd Rhoades story there.
Todd Rhoades — Oh my goodness. No, I, I have such a big head after hearing that, that, uh,
Rich Birch —
Todd Rhoades — No, uh, you not, not too much more to, uh, to mention there. We really, Matt and I, um, started this, uh, Chemistry Staffing thing about, about six years ago, Matt?
Matt Steen — Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Todd Rhoades — Um, really, really out of a, a sense of we want to try and help ch… and this is what we’re gonna talk about today, help churches, uh, hire for, for what we call, what we call healthy long-term fit.
Matt Steen — Mm-hmm.
Todd Rhoades — We want, we want to help churches and candidates find each other where they can serve together for a, at least five years. And that there’s that cultural match, and theological match, and all that, some of the stuff that we’ll get into later. But we started that about six years ago and, and just having a blast helping, helping churches and getting to know candidates and, and trying to make as great a matches as we can.
Rich Birch — Love it. Matt, why don’t you fill out the picture. What did I, what did I miss there?
Matt Steen — Uh you know, Todd, Todd never talks about his family and, and, and Dawn and all that kinda stuff. So I’m gonna go and talk, you know, married for 15 years to Teresa.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Matt Steen — Two of us and a retired greyhound named Nelly down here in Orlando. And so, uh, and like Todd said, you know, never, never woke up and said, Hey, I wanna go be a church headhunter.
Rich Birch — Mm-hmm.
You know, it’s just like, you know, Todd and I, we, we we’re, we’re kind of church geeks…
Rich Birch — Mm-hmm.
Matt Steen — …and, and the whole thing for us is, Hey, how do we help churches get healthy? And this was a low hanging fruit for us. It is really coming alongside in that, in that transition season. So, that’s it, man.
Rich Birch — Yeah. I love it. And friends, the fact that we’ve been able to convince both Todd and Matt to be on here is, is just amazing. And so we’re, we’re looking forward to try to extract from them. So, obviously, you know, they have stuff, they have ways they can help you. Uh, but today we wanna really try to learn from them as we think about, you know, our particular context. You know, and lots of times when we think about hiring, cuz it’s a part of what we’re talking about, we’re adding new staff members, man, that we know that when, at least I know when I add staff members to our team, it changes the culture. Uh, it, it, it adjusts things. You know, you can’t make that kind of thing without some sort of adjustment. But Todd, how do we protect, if we’re adding a team member, how do we protect our culture during that process? How do we but during that hiring process?
Todd Rhoades — Well, that’s a, that’s a a great question, Rich. And I think that’s, it’s really foundational. You’ve gotta get this part right or everything that follows in your staff search is gonna go or has a high probability of going off the rails. Really, the one piece of advice I would say is, man, you’ve gotta clearly communicate your values and your expectations right from the start. And you’ve, and it’s not good enough just to have it in your head, put it in writing.
Rich Birch — Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Todd Rhoades — Um, what we find with a lot of churches that we work with, and we work with some great churches, is that when you’re going to hire a new team member, this is a great time to make sure that everybody is on the same page, and that you’re being honest with where you’re and what your culture is.
Todd Rhoades — So, and, and that has to start with, uh, with putting that down in writing and, and getting agreement on that. because you’re going to start, as you’re start interviewing candidates, you’re gonna start sharing that culture and that DNA with those candidates.
Rich Birch — Mm-hmm.
Todd Rhoades — And if, if, if one person says one thing and another person says something else, that’s gonna be a real tip off that, uh, that maybe this isn’t quite as healthy a place as you can. So, from a practical standpoint, um, just a couple of couple of things that I think uh, once you get that down on paper and you’re in agreement, that’s really huge that you’re in agreement…
Rich Birch — Right.
Todd Rhoades — …um, is give candidates open-handed access to what your, what your situation is, uh, what your culture is, you know, be realistic about, you know, hey, here’s where we’re hitting it outta the park. Here’s some areas that we really need to, to see some improvement or some things that we’re struggling with. Those kind of things. If you find that you’re, this is what we found. If you find that you’re trying to control the situation, as you start to talk to candidates, if you’re trying to control the access or you’re, or you’re, you’re hiding key bits, key bits of your story, to the person you’re trying to hire, chances are that’s not gonna end well for you because you can only hide that for so long. You, you bring them on your team, 12 to 18 months. If you’re hiding something or you’re trying to control access, it’s, it’s not going to go well for you. And we hear, and we, we hear this all the time from candidates when we’re talking to them, is we almost, we need a, a little virtual cuss jar that we can kind of put on our, on our desks every time, every time we hear a candidate say, well, they said they said this, but I got there on the first Sunday and it couldn’t have been…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Todd Rhoades — …you know, we’ve had, we’ve had people say, you know, um, they told us that they had 800 on a, on a Sunday and we got there and there were like 70 people in the room.
Rich Birch — Wow! Oh my goodness.
Todd Rhoades — So, I mean, we, we hear stories like that all the time. So number one, you gotta have your story straight. Number two, you gotta tell the truthful story.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Todd Rhoades — And number three, you gotta be open-handed with candidates and be honest and transparent and open. If you’re, if you are, that’s the start to a healthy staff culture hire.
Rich Birch — Mm-hmm.
Todd Rhoades — If you’re not, it’s, it’s the beginnings of probably doing this again, this whole hiring thing again in the next 12 to 18 months.
Rich Birch — Well, I love that. Like, so I know for me, I, I feel the pressure when we’re in a hiring scenario. It, at somewhere during the conversation, it goes from we’re checking out them, and then they’re, and then eventually it becomes, they’re checking out us. And we get…
Todd Rhoades — Absolutely.
Rich Birch — I know, I feel the pressure of like, in that mode, it’s like, okay, now I want to sell them on like, Hey, what is great about what we do. But I, I love even just that on having that honest conversation with ourselves around, Hey, what, what is the, let’s resist that temptation, let’s resist the temptation, try to make ourselves look better than we are. Um, and what are those, you know, what are those areas that we want to be super truthful on? Yeah. I love that. That’s so good.
Rich Birch — So Matt, what about, so I know I feel this pressure when we hire people, man, this is a costly, expensive process. Like, I’m like, you know, I already feel the pressure. We’re like, you know, by all I would say a hundred percent of the hires I’ve ever done, there’s some gaping hole in our ministry. I’m like, this party is burning and I just need to throw a staff member at that. Uh, and I have told myself more than I’d like to admit, I’ve said, well, someone’s better than no one in that area. I’m sure no one else has ever said that. I’m just not a very good leader. Someone’s better than no one.
Todd Rhoades — Famous last words.
Rich Birch — Yeah and the… Exactly. I’ve done that a couple times, and over time I’ve learned, actually that’s not true. Because the cost of hiring the wrong person is just so high. Um, it’s, it’s just, it’s insurmountable. How do you kind of articulate that with, with people on the culture side, when you hire the wrong person, what’s the real cost of hiring the wrong person, Matt?
Matt Steen — The the real cost 4.7 million, it’s been, you know, scientifically prov… No, I, I, I don’t know that I can put a dollar value on it.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Matt Steen — But sure. But, you know, here’s, here’s where it comes. I mean, the, the, the recruiting cost, just, just spending the money and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. That’s, that’s a real cost. The salary that’s spent, and any budget items, I mean, that’s, that’s real cost. But, you know, I think the more significant cost is loss of trust, loss of, you know, the sideways energy, the cultural hits that, that you take, you know…
Rich Birch — So true.
Matt Steen — …all those, all those soft things that you really can’t put a number on. But what are, what are true, because I mean, the time that goes into that goes into, into a search right now, um, I’m telling churches that, you know, if you’re gonna go into a search process, be thinking 12 to 18 months. Now we’re gonna pray that God, you know, God, God shows up a whole awful lot quicker than that. But we’re saying, think about this as a 12 to 18 month run. And if it goes quicker, great. Right? But that’s a significant…
Rich Birch — Okay. Can I just say something? Can I stop there for a second? Just stop there.
Matt Steen — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Because you just rolled over that; you’re an expert in this area. I, I wonder if people are surprised by that number, because I, I know for me, I, I’m like, man, we need somebody there tomorrow.
Matt Steen — Yeah.
Rich Birch — So, uh, but even this idea of 12 to 18 months. Do you, did you get people surprised when you say that, or no, they’re just like, oh.
Matt Steen — Man, I, I ruin people’s day when I say that. I really do.
Rich Birch — Okay, okay. Right.
Matt Steen — It’s like, yes yesterday, you know, guy’s like, Hey, I really, our worship pastor’s leaving in May, we’d really like somebody here in June. And it’s like…
Rich Birch —
Matt Steen — And it… yeah. I mean, this was, this was literally yesterday. And so…
Rich Birch — Oh my goodness. Wow.
Matt Steen — You know, and part of what I tell people, it’s like, I, I’m good, but I still haven’t figured out how to sync my calendar up to God’s calendar, right?
Rich Birch — Mm-hmm. Yes.
Matt Steen — God’s not surprised by the fact that we’ve got this staff opening, but his timing may not be the same as ours. And so, part of what I tell people is, we’re gonna pray like crazy that it’s gonna go quicker than 12 to 18 months. But part of, part of the role here is this higher, regardless of what position it’s gonna be, is so critically important to your culture, and to the direction forward that you need to be able to say no to somebody who looks amazing on paper. You need to be able to say no to somebody who you hit it off, and it’s just incredibly talented. You need to be able to say no to that person when the only thing that you can come to is the Holy Spirit is just saying, Hey, um, I’m not so sure about that. Right?
Rich Birch — Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Matt Steen — And if we’re in this saying, Hey, it’s, you know, it’s, it’s April and I need somebody in June, it is incredibly tough to say no to that person at that point. And so, part of what I tell our church is, is, hey, publicly communicate 12 to 18 months.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Matt Steen — Um, pray like crazy. It goes quicker. And, and man, I tell you what, we, we we’re shooting to get people in place way quicker than that. But the, the church needs to have that, that sense of, Hey, this is gonna take a little while, and that’s okay. We’re not broken as a church. And so, you know, so much of this, I mean, you, you wanna talk about protecting your culture and, and, and building the sustainable, it’s, you, you need to intentionally go slow and, and realize that, hey, you know, we, we blow this.
Matt Steen — We’re losing trust, we’re losing morale. Um, you know, our congregation is saying, oh dear, we’re going through this process again. What’s wrong with us? Um, all the, you know, all the financial costs in, in involved in that as well. And then just what it’s gonna take to recover, um, the, in that ministry area again as you’re going through the second hiring process. It’s, take the long view on this because, you know, it is, it is so tempting just to go and hire the, hire the guy who, their jokes are funny, you know, and, and they remind us of our nephew, and…
Rich Birch — Sure, sure.
Matt Steen — …yeah, they’ve, they’ve been at this great church and they’ve done the job. You know, it’s really easy just to go pull the trigger on that without digging, digging deeper to make sure that they’re culturally they’re gonna be such a great fit. So.
Todd Rhoades — And that’s, that’s where the tension comes in. I mean, that’s what we hear. That’s the tension that we hear all the time, is…
Matt Steen — Totally.
Todd Rhoades — …we need somebody tomorrow, but we don’t wanna screw this thing up.
Rich Birch — Right.
Todd Rhoades — You know what I mean? Um, and, and so, so even the, even the 12 to 18 months, like Matt said, we, we, when at church is working with us, we, we strive to get somebody way before that time.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Todd Rhoades — But the first thing we tell search committees is, number one, it’s probably gonna take twice as long as what your minimum, at least twice as long as what you think it’s gonna take. Because, because there’s a lot of different factors to make that, to make a good hire so you don’t screw this thing up. Um, and, and number two, just we try to tell them, breathe, you know, this doesn’t surprise God. He’s not surprised at this.
Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s so good.
Todd Rhoades — But give, give, give your leadership team, give your board, give your search committee, give your congregation room to breathe. Uh, kind of the under underpromise, over-deliver type thing…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Todd Rhoades — …that, you know, it’s much better to say, you know, this is gonna be a longer term process than to say, Hey, you know, we should have, we’ll, we’ll have, we’ll have a list of 50 resumes in, in six weeks.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Todd Rhoades — Um, cuz it, it, it just doesn’t work like that. And, and if it does work like that, you’d really need to breathe and make sure that you, if you make two a desperation hire, it’s better to go without it than to hire out of desperation. And a lot of churches do that. So that’s one of the ways we kinda help them hold their hand through that so they don’t make those mistakes.
Matt Steen — That’s the part…
Rich Birch — Friends, this is a part, oh, sorry, go ahead. Go ahead.
Matt Steen — But that, that’s part of the reason. I mean the, the, the average stay right now is what, three, three and a half years. And, and you think, you think about that and there’s, there’s a lot of long-term guys that have 10 years in. So you think about how many are just staying 18 months, 12 months, something like that. You know?
Rich Birch — Wow, yeah.
Matt Steen — It is, it’s got, it’s gotta take us some time. So, I cut you off, man, that’s so rude to me.
Rich Birch — No, no, not at all. I was cutting you off. I I was cutting. I was interrupting you while you were interrupting me. The, um, well, you know, this is a part of why I love, you know, Chemistry Staffing friends. Like this is, uh, so I, there’s a different or similar organization that does a similar thing to Chemistry Staffing. And this is years ago. And we, we had come to the end, like we had exactly that kind of thing. There was like this burning hole in our organization. We’re like, okay, we need to hire somebody to help us with this cuz this, we clearly can’t do this. And so, uh, so we need to get something new. And so we, we brought, we brought in another firm and I was talking to the salesperson and they were like, we got your person. We totally got your person. We’ll find this person quickly, and I’m sure we can, you know, we, we placed these things all day or all night, blah, blah, blah, that kind of thing.
Rich Birch — And then the first time the consultant came and met with us, literally this happened, friends, the first time the consultant met with us, sat down, the very first thing outta their mouth was, man, this is gonna be a very long hire. This is gonna take us forever. I don’t know if we’ll ever find this person. And I was like, what? Like, we just paid you all this money. Uh, and so I really, this is part of why I love, you know, Todd and Matt, because they’re right out front. They’re saying like, Hey friends, this is gonna take a while. No, obviously they’re gonna try to do it, you know, work faster if you end up engaging them. But, uh, really appreciate that and that, you know, uh, that’s not dogging anybody else. That just is, uh, part of why I love these guys.
Rich Birch — Well, let’s, let’s talk about, you know, team, unity, team, you know, health, when we think about the changing culture that happens, we bring somebody else in there, it kind of changes all the relationships. Things shift around a little bit. And we wanna make sure that we, we are hiring people, then that’s increasing unity, that that’s increasing, you know, people feel better about working here after not worse. Um, and that, you know, what, what can we do? How can we keep our team unified and healthy through this process, Todd? How do we, what can we do to ensure that we’re we’re coming out the other end as a more unified team?
Todd Rhoades — Yeah. Well, first is to be a unified team to begin with. So that, that sounds like just a total consultant answer, but I kind of get back to my first…
Rich Birch — No, no, I get it. I get it.
Todd Rhoades — Kind of go back to my first answer. Um, just that first, very first question is, you know, you, you have to clearly know what your situation is, right? So you, you should have, as before you hire any staff, I mean, you really should take a look at your current staff or your current team and make sure that they’re healthy. Um, because if your staff, and if your team is not healthy, um, and, and you try to bring somebody else in, it’s not gonna correct the problem.
Rich Birch — Right.
Todd Rhoades — Um, okay. So I, I, I try to, I always try to, to bring it down to as, as, um, I don’t know, as 30,000 foot view as I can. But I mean, when it comes, when it comes to staff, um, try to be like Jesus, or at least be kind, you know?
Rich Birch — Right. Sure. Right.
Todd Rhoades — And, and I’m convinced that so much of the, so much of the disunity, so much of the conflict that happens in our churches today is, it goes back, this is sounds so simplistic, and I almost hesitate to say it, but almost goes back to the golden rule, right? That you treat other people the way that you would want to be treated. So that goes from the senior pastor all the way down to your staff. How that goods communicated to the volunteers is you really have to treat people the way that you want to be treated. And you have to be kind. Now, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t tough conversations. Of course there are tough conversations and tough things. It’s, it’s, and ministry is messy. Ministry is some of the most messy work you can do, um.
Todd Rhoades — But, uh, you need to try and cultivate that healthy culture, you know, provide regular opportunities for feedback, for communication. If you’re not allowing people to speak up to the leadership and to give concerns and to give ideas and to, to innovate and, and communicate, then that’s a problem. You know, how are you investing in your staff development, in your staff training? Um, how are your encouraging healthy work life balance? Um, how do you, how are you fostering, um, a culture of appreciation? I mean, do your, do the people on your team feel appreciated? Do they feel recognized? Um, when there is a concern, do you deal with it properly? Uh, or do you kind of, uh, let it take care of itself or sweep it under the rug? All those kind of things are, are—and we, we all know this, but it’s much harder to do than to actually talk about—is making sure that before you bring somebody else on your team, that the team that you already have is healthy. It’s the best thing you can do.
Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s so good. I, I was just recently was, um, talking to a senior leader who was reflecting back on their, and this person’s like, driven, done a ton of things, made a lot of impact, and they were reflecting back on their, their career, and was, were saying, you know, it’s not that they had regrets, but they were saying, listen, if I could do it again, I would’ve been kinder and more generous with my team earlier. You know, I’m like, I, and I’m like, man, there’s some real, there’s some real wisdom there for, particularly for up and coming leaders, right? They’re like, you know, hey, like we, you know, we, we have to be guided by that. We have to lead from that, that place. And I thought, man, that’s, that’s so true. I think we all look, you know, we can look at conversations. We’re like, I’m not sure that was a win for the kingdom there. We might have got done what we needed to get done, but like, were we, you know, can we be kinder? Could be more generous? I I love that.
Rich Birch — Well, Matt, when you think about, um, you know, church health. You think about, you know, you guys interact with a lot of churches. I wanna try to take advantage of the fact that you interact with the, with a lot of churches. What, let’s, let’s kind of have a bit of a real conversation. What concerns you when you look at church health these days? What’s kind of like a, something that you’re, you know, a little bit concerned about?
Matt Steen — Yeah. So, so I, I think there’s, there’s, there’s the, the stuff that everybody’s complaining out about out there right now, you know, the, the division society-wise, and all the, the politics and how that’s affecting things and, and all that kind of stuff. And yeah, I think those are, those are big. I think the declining attendance post covid is, is, is an issue. And, you know, I don’t wanna sound sound like a doom and gloom guy. I tell you though, Rich, um, the thing that, the thing that keeps me up at night and the thing that praying most about right now is, is both ends of the pastoral timeline, okay?
Rich Birch — Mm-hmm.
Matt Steen — And so what I mean by that is, um, we are going through a pretty significant wave of succession.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Matt Steen — You know, pastors of a certain age realizing that it’s, it’s time for them to retire. Um, traditionally, um, we’ve done wonderfully with this in the church, you know? No.
Rich Birch — Insert sarcasm emoji.
Matt Steen — Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Let’s, let’s be clear on that one. But I mean, so we’ve, we’ve struggled with this.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Matt Steen — And we’ve got a lot of churches that have never once mentioned the succession word that all of a sudden, you know, have six months. You know, and a lot of the, a lot of the work that I’m doing right now, I call it crash succession, it’s succession processes where, um, it’s been less than 18 months of actually being able to prepare for it. And most, most of that work is less than 12 months. And so that’s, that’s a big one. But the other, the other piece of this, um, and I think it’s, I, I know it’s, I know it’s related, but the other piece of this, Rich, is, is our pipeline and our bench depth, okay? We’re struggling, um, in the capital “C” church.
Matt Steen — Um, right now with our bench depth, um, youth pastor researchers have become the toughest that we do. And a lot of that is because, you know, a lot of the rising generations, you know, have, have said, I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to go in, I don’t want to go into ministry. And one of the big, I think one of the biggest struggles that, or we kind of found ourselves in a bit of a perfect storm here because we’ve got, you know, a lot of bible colleges are shutting down their ministry programs cuz they don’t drive enough revenue. Um, a lot of seminaries are struggling to graduate students that actually want to go into local church ministry. You know, they’re, they’re going out and getting an MDiv and using it as like a vanity degree. It’s like, that’s a huge degree to get if you’re not gonna use it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Matt Steen — But they’re struggling to, to, to, and so we, we need to figure out how do we, um, help people discern a call to ministry? How do we get them to a point where they’re trained and ready to go and equipped and empowered to go do ministry? Um, and release ’em to go do it. And we just, I think over the last, the last few decades we have, we’ve really struggled with this. And I think we’ll have to pay the piper on that. And so, again, gloom and doom. I think there’s hope, you know, God’s not surprised by this, but those, those are the things that keep me up. And those are the two big things that I’m praying for right now local church-wise.
Rich Birch — Yeah. You know, it’s interesting, I was in the last year I was at, um, was onsite at a church doing some coaching stuff and was talking to their young adults pastor and, you know, they had just come back from a young adult retreat and this, you know, couple hundred kids, they went away to this big conference center and all that. And I was like, tell me about it. And, and I was really encouraged because it was so rare and, and, and kind of old school. I said, well, tell me about what was going on. And so he was telling me about people who made first time commitments to Christ, which I was obviously amazing. But then he also was saying, he’s talking about how they, one of the services really focused on the call to ministry.
Matt Steen — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And it was like, it was like, and I remember that from when I was that age…
Matt Steen — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …that was like an old school, like that was a part of those ministries. But I said to this leader, I was like, thank you for doing that because…
Matt Steen — Yes.
Rich Birch — …I don’t know that I’ve heard anyone do that in like 10, 15 years. Like, we need to specifically articulate to that generation, Hey, you know, are you, this is a, this is a noble cause; this is a noble thing for you to, you know, step towards. Love that.
Matt Steen — That’s, that’s awesome. And that’s so good to hear, because Todd, Todd’s tired of hearing me say this. Cuz I’ve, I’ve said for a while, I came, I came to faith, you know, in college, so I didn’t grow up in the church and all that kind of stuff. And when I first started at Bible college, I would hear stories about that. You know, my pastor did a, they did the altar call and then they did the second altar call, who’s, who wants to… And, and really, I thought it was cheesy back then because, you know, I was, you know, twenties and knew everything and everything was cheesy, um. But dude, I, I, so I so regret that we’ve gotten out of that, you know, as the church. So I’m so excited to hear you say that. That, that, that’s pretty, that that gives me hope, man. That’s really cool.
Rich Birch — Yeah. And they do it, they do it every year at their kind of, they’re young, this big young adult retreat thing. And it’s like a whole bunch of churches together, a thousand, 1,500 kids.
Matt Steen — That’s so cool.
Rich Birch — And, and they follow up and they have a whole system for like getting kids, you know, great, you’re interested in that.
Matt Steen — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Let’s get you plugged in, which is, you know, is fantastic. So that was great. Well, I know…
Todd Rhoades — That was, that was a huge pipeline to, to get people to…
Rich Birch — Absolutely.
Todd Rhoades — …get into Christian college and seminary and to start that to talk, nobody talks about calling anymore. And and, uh, so we’ve, we’ve, we’ve essentially, because we’re not doing that, we’ve seen one of our biggest recruitment tools…
Matt Steen — Yeah.
Todd Rhoades — …for ministry, um, kind of dry up. And Matt and I are, are so excited about the future of the church. Um, but, but the little secret is, is most churches don’t do well in, in training up leaders and in discipleship.
Rich Birch — Right. Sure.
Todd Rhoades — And if, if churches did a better job at training leaders from within, a lot of the work that we do with churches wouldn’t be necessary because…
Matt Steen — Yeah.
Todd Rhoades — …they would have this kind of internal pipeline. Some churches do that really well. Other churches just have, you know, they’ve, they’re a generation removed from really investing in young people and saying, Hey, this is a, this is something worthy of giving your life and your calling to.
Matt Steen — Totally.
Rich Birch — Yeah. I love it. Well, I love painting. Oh, sorry, go ahead Matt. I keep cutting you off, man.
Matt Steen — We keep doing that, man.
Todd Rhoades — We’re kinda passionate about this stuff.
Matt Steen — Yeah. We, we, we, we really are. Because it’s like, to to Todd’s point, you know, people keep asking us, well, how do we keep our staff? How do we keep our staff? And it’s the same, it’s the same answer. Right? It’s, it’s…
Rich Birch — Right.
Matt Steen — You know, if, if you’ve got a youth pastor, you know, sit down with him and say, Hey dude, where do you see yourself in five years?
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Matt Steen — And start developing the way for him to get there, you know, and, and, that’s, that’s how he stays an extra five years instead of leaving in 18 months.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Matt Steen — You know, is is that development mindset, you know, go release; let ’em go do their thing man. And that’s, we, we, we get that, we get that throughout the whole church, man. We’re, Todd and I are out of, out of business. And frankly, I’m, I think I’m okay with that. You okay with that, Todd?
Todd Rhoades — You’ll find something else to do.
Matt Steen — You gonna pay the mortgage somehow, you know, Nelly. I’m, I’m cool with that.
Rich Birch — Yeah. You’ll get that dog back running in the dog races there. Yeah. That’s what you’ll do.
Matt Steen — There you go. You’re you’re gonna get me some hate mail now.
Rich Birch — That’s great. Well, I, I kind of like, uh, painting Matt as the negative guy and Todd as the positive guy – that kind of makes me, that makes life better for me. So Todd, what, what are you guys doing about this? What, how, how is Chemistry Staffing helping with this whole church health area? How can you help? What do you, because I know this is a passion area for you guys. You, you know, you’re…
Todd Rhoades — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Obviously you, you, you do searches, but you’re passionate about the whole long-term fit thing and health is a big part of what you do. What are you doing to help them get and stay healthy?
Todd Rhoades — Absolutely. When we started six years ago, um, our, one of our main goals was to try and help the hiring process suck a little less.
Matt Steen — Can we say that?
Rich Birch — Okay. Yes. I love it.
Todd Rhoades — This is, this is our first audience. We can say that I believe.
Rich Birch — Yeah, you could say it.
Todd Rhoades — But no, both for the church and for the candidate. Right? We’ve, and we’ve been, I’ve been doing staffing stuff for a long time. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard a candidate say, I love searching. I love the whole search transition process. And churches never love the hiring process either. I mean, there’s a certain level of excitement. But at the same time, everybody kind of loathes the process.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Todd Rhoades — And, and you know, if you’re a church, you’re, you’re scared about making a bad decision. If you’re a candidate, you’re scared about making a bad decision. Right? So we want to try and, and mitigate that as much as we can. So our framework, and I think we’ve talked with you about this before, but I’m just really…
Rich Birch — Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Todd Rhoades — …really five really quick things. We, we try and…
Rich Birch — Totally.
Todd Rhoades — …to get that healthy long-term fit, really looking at five things, and we tell candidates and we tell churches, look, you can’t compromise. And this is one of the reasons why it may take longer to find the right person. You really can’t compromise on these five things. You’ve gotta have a great theo theological fit. Right? They need to be, they need to believe, uh, the things about Jesus that you believe about Jesus. Um, they need to be a good cultural and DNA fit for your church. Um, so you, and we assess for all this stuff with all of our churches and all of our candidates on the very upfront before we even have a conversation with them. So, uh, they need to match the personality of your church.
Todd Rhoades — That’s number three. Number four, they need to have the skills and abilities, the experience, um, and, and the wherewithal to actually do the job that you need them to do. So, uh, you, you’ve gotta do some skills and ability assessments there as well. And then there just has to be, uh, a what we call it the chemistry factor. Go figure. The, the, the, when it comes to chemistry, it’s, it’s, you only learn that by boots on the ground…
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Todd Rhoades — …shaking hands across the table, doing life together. Um, but, uh, you know, not only, not only do you like this person, but can you see yourself doing ministry with this person for the next five years?
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Todd Rhoades — Can they see themselves living in your community for the next five years? Do you want to have this, this person in their family over to your house for a barbecue on Tuesday night?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Todd Rhoades — Um, do you, as, as Matt puts it, you know, if, if when you pull into the church parking lot in the morning at, at 8:30 before, uh, you know, to start your day and you see that that person just walked in the building, do you need an extra five minutes just to kind of pray yourself through so you don’t feel, and you don’t dread going into the office with this those… But seriously, those things happen all the time, so, if you can get those five things down, um, we really think that increases the likelihood of a, what we call that healthy long-term fit. Uh, so we try to, we try to process our candidates this process with our candidates in the process with our churches as well. And part of the thing that is, every church is different and every candidate is different. There’s no cookie cutters. So, uh, and that’s part of what makes our work so challenging. But part of what makes our our work so exciting is that, uh, every church and every candidate is different. So the, the, the thrill that you kind of get when you find, uh, a candidate and a church that match all five of those is, is really, really cool.
Rich Birch — Hmm. So good. That’s great. Now, I know you are, um, rolling out an assessment that, and this is the part where we’re so glad if you’re listening in, uh, live, you’re gonna get a chance to learn about this. But can you tell us about this 2023 staff, uh, church staff health assessment that you are, uh, rolling out, Todd? Can you let us know about that?
Todd Rhoades — Yes. Well, this is the first time we’ve said anything about this outside of Matt and myself and our small team here.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Todd Rhoades — So it’s, it’s actually gonna launch in a couple weeks on, uh, I believe April 24th. But since you’re listening here, we would love to have you, it’s, it’s all ready to go. Uh, you can kind of preview this. It’s totally free. What this is, is we’re calling our 2023 Church Staff Health Assessment. It’s, it’s 50 really quick questions that are gonna, um, give you, uh, some insight and you’ll get a, you’ll get a score at the end of it. It’ll take you maybe 10, maybe 15 minutes to take. But at the, uh, at the end of that assessment, we’re going to, uh, kind of give you a score, a health score, uh, based on, uh, communication, on job satisfaction, on leadership, uh, team dynamics, compensation and benefits, work environment, and future, your future stability on a on a staff team.
Todd Rhoades — So you’re gonna get a lot of information just by taking it. But what we wanna do, uh, and, and we think this is gonna be huge, um, for us and for the church moving forward, is we want to get a pulse. Really, so much has changed in the past three years. We wanna get a pulse. Okay, so how, how are—and this is open to all full-time and part-time, um, paid staff, people at churches—we wanna find out how, what’s the state of health in, in most church staff; how are they feeling? Are they feeling appreciated? Are they feeling, uh, like their compensation level is good? Do they feel healthy? Do they, do they wanna stay where they are? Do they, do they feel appreciated? Um, all those kind of things are gonna be a part of that.
Todd Rhoades — Uh, and like I said, we’re gonna, we’re gonna, it’s gonna run from April 24th to May 19th. And then…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Todd Rhoades — …I think we’re actually gonna come back and do a podcast with you to kind of announce…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Todd Rhoades — …uh, some of what we, well, all of what we’ve, what we’ve what we’ve learned through this assessment. So our goal right now is just to kind of introduce it, get as many people to take the assessment as we can um, and kind of go from there. And they, anybody today can, it’s, it’s ready to go right now. You can just go to, uh, uh, churchstaffassessment.com.
Rich Birch — Great. Love it. So that’s churchstaffassessment.com. We want you to drop by there and, uh, and take it today. Now is this, so I got a chance to get a little bit of a sneak preview on this, friends, and this is a great thing. Like this when I, and I can’t believe you’re not charging for this, right? This is like a free thing.
Todd Rhoades — No, no. Yeah, yeah. No, absolutely free.
Rich Birch — You guys are crazy. Like this thing, not charge it for this.
Matt Steen — What?
Rich Birch — Yeah, exactly.
Todd Rhoades — Well, we never thought of that, Matt.
Rich Birch — No, but seriously, I’m like, so many people do these kind of things and it feels like, oh, this is like a, I don’t know, like, it’s just like a marketing thing or whatever, but this man, and this looks super helpful for churches, for church leaders. It’s the kind of thing that I think would be great. Are, are you envisioning that we would do this? We’d send it to our teams? How are you picturing that this could kind of be used in our, uh, you know, our church environments?
Todd Rhoades — Well, essentially, I think, um, so come later this year, probably in the fall, this is gonna come from, right now the assessment is a candidate assessment, but I think we’re gonna actually turn that into a church assessment, and there probably will be some paid options for that. But, um, what, what that’s gonna do, what we’re doing with the, with the candidate assessment, is we’re trying to gather as, as large of a pool of candidates and get as much data in there as we can.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Todd Rhoades — So that we can say, Hey, here, on a national average, uh, here, here are on all of these 50 data points, uh, here is how the average candidate feels.
Rich Birch — Right.
Todd Rhoades — And then when we can, what we can do is when we come back to, in the fall, is we can come to a church and say, okay, so here’s, here’s what the heartbeat is nationally. What does it look like for your church? How how…
Rich Birch — Got it. Okay, that makes sense.
Todd Rhoades — …each of those, those areas. How, how are your staff able to do? And the other thing I wanna mention too, Rich, is that this, all of the answers are confidential.
Rich Birch — Perfect. Yeah.
Todd Rhoades — We’ll ask you, we’ll ask you at the end for your name and email only, so that we can send you that full report at the end. But we’re not sharing, we’re not sharing individual answers or anything with, with anybody’s boss or anything…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Right, right, right.
Todd Rhoades — …as a cumulative thing to gather the, the information as a whole.
Rich Birch — Yeah. You gotta attach it to a real person. Make sure it’s not…
Todd Rhoades — If I’m a pastor, if I’m a pastor and I’m getting ready to hire a new staff person, I want to know what the health of my current team is. And I, and other than, uh, I don’t know that there’s a really great tool out there to do that right now other than, you know, just, which is, which is a great tool asking people how they’re doing.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah, yeah.
Todd Rhoades — Kinda doing some of the healthy things that we said earlier.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Totally. Love it. Again, so that is church staff, uh, health assessment…
Todd Rhoades — Just church staff assessment. Yep.
Rich Birch — churchstaffassessment.com. Um, which is wonderful. So I’d love for you to go by and take a look at that. Friends, we’re gonna, we’re gonna pivot here in the last little bit of our call to questions, so make sure you drop those in. Uh, if you’re listening to the recording, why were you not here live? You missed out. You did not get your li your questions answered. But, uh, we will, uh, we’ll get a chance to, to answer those. So, uh, but again, we wanna make sure you go to churchstaffassessment.com. Uh, you can get early access to that.
Rich Birch — Okay. So Tricia’s got a question here. She’s saying, how do you manage the tension of hiring NextGen versus hiring the most skilled and qualified? Tricia, this is a great question, and I’m gonna want both Matt and Todd to answer this. We’ll start with you, Matt, because this, I think is like, this is the quintessential question. Do we hire someone with lots of potential or do we hire someone with proven capacity? And how do we, you know, how do we figure that out? Um, Matt, let’s start with you and then I’d love to go to you, Todd, as well.
Todd Rhoades — I know what Matt’s gonna say. It’s two words. Go ahead, Matt.
Rich Birch — You can tell you’ve been working together for a while.
Todd Rhoades — It depends. That was Matt’s answer. It depends.
Matt Steen — So, so yeah. So, okay, so yes, it, it depends on where you are ministry wise and what the, what the situation that you’re in, in is. But here’s, here’s the deal. And, and I think, and I, I don’t wanna pick on Tricia cuz she’s in the Baltimore area, and I grew up in Baltimore, and you know, we’re where people go, go birds. Um, yeah.
Matt Steen — So, so, but so many times people start there, okay? They start in skills and abilities and, and skillset. Right? And, and so part of why we always go back to the five, the five pieces is because it’s more than just skills. It’s more than just, Hey, what church did they work at? Can they, can they do it there or not? Right? And so, we’ve got to, we, we’ve got to start with theology, culture, personality because if, if this person has all the skills in the world and they, you know, you know, they’re a rockstar Jesus, it doesn’t matter if theologically you guys are, if you theologically you guys are in different places when it comes to women in ministry or something like that. It’s never gonna work, right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Matt Steen — So, so, so yes. Um, there’s times when you want the skilled person; there’s times when you wanna take the chance on somebody that’s coming in. Here’s, here’s the piece though. And I’m, I’m honestly, and this is gonna be an unpopular answer, and Todd’s gonna have to go in PR cleanup for us.
Rich Birch —
Matt Steen — This, this’ll go viral and our competitors are gonna love it. One of the things that I’ve really been thinking about here a lot lately is, is one of the, um, one of the, one of the complaints that we, we hear older generations sharing about the younger generation is that the younger generations wanna start where their parents left off, right?
Rich Birch — Oh, interesting.
Matt Steen — And, and they’re not willing to go and sacrifice and be in the, you know, the cheap apartment and all that kind of stuff. And, and I sometimes wonder if we haven’t taken that, you know, the thing that we’re complaining about and putting it into the church and saying, Hey, we need to we need to start where, where the other guy left off. Right?
Matt Steen — So many times we’re talking about succession and we’re saying, Hey, our pastor’s been here for 15 years and we need somebody that’s gonna be, you know, just like who he is now for the 15 years to come. Well, it took 15 years for that guy to get to that point, right?
Rich Birch — Right, right, right.
Matt Steen — He needed somebody had to take a chance on him or, and, and kind of help them kind of gain their skills and abilities through. Now, I’m not saying don’t take somebody who’s absolutely not qualified, you know? There, there needs to be some ability to think ministry wise, but sometimes we need to realize that going into this, you know, maybe, maybe the person that we hire, they, they may not be, they, they may be a little bit greener than what would be ideal, but they’ve got the fundamentals and we can pour into them.
Matt Steen — And, you know, part of, part of our role has to be pouring into the next generation, whether they’re on staff, whether they’re in our congregation, whether they’re in our age grade ministries, that kind of stuff. We need to be developing this next generation for us to continue to exist. And so, so I think we need to go more towards the side of risking on the next generation. Now, a lot of people of a certain age are gonna say, Hey, now you’re saying I can’t get a job, and I’m not saying that. But I think, you know, I think that we need to take that, that idea of being a little bit more willing to take a, take a risk on somebody who, who may not have the resume yet, but has the potential to pour into it. I think that’s, I think that’s an okay thing as long as they line up in all, in all of those areas. Um…
Rich Birch — Right.
Matt Steen — Now, if, if you’ve got a ministry that’s just, you know, it’s, it’s blowing up and, and you don’t have the capacity to really mentor the next person, then you gotta get somebody who’s, who’s got some seasoning to ’em.
Rich Birch — Right.
Matt Steen — But I don’t, I sometimes wonder if we need to rethink what our workload is if we don’t have the time to really develop the next generation leaders on our staff team.
Rich Birch — No, that’s good.
Matt Steen — All right. Clean me up, Todd.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Todd Rhoades — Yeah, I think everybody, everybody wants somebody that can hit the ground running.
Matt Steen — Yes.
Rich Birch — Right.
Todd Rhoades — Everybody, I mean, everybody we talk to. Um, sometimes that, so I’ll bring out the, the negative connotation of that. Um, sometimes when you say you want somebody that can hit the ground running is we want to hire somebody that we can set it and forget it, right?
Rich Birch — Mmm. Oh that’s good.
Todd Rhoades — And that, that is not a good way to hire. So if you’re a senior pastor and your main goal for hiring a youth pastor is I need to hire a youth pastor so that I don’t ever have to deal with youth…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Todd Rhoades — …is, is a non-healthy way to look at it. Okay?
Rich Birch — Sure.
Todd Rhoades — So if, if, and what Matt said, and it goes back to what we were saying five minutes ago about discipleship and training up leaders, right? Is, sure, I get it. You’re a senior pastor and you want, you want to have somebody that’s competent that can handle an area. But you also need to be available to, to speak in, to train, to build in, to have those conver conversations. Like Matt said, where do you see yourself in five years? How can we help you get there? You know? Those kind of discussions, if you’re not having those discussions, if you’re not building in, um, it’s, that’s where the 18, you know, 12 to 18 months to 24 months where they take off cuz they don’t feel appreciated. The other thing I would say is, is we’re seeing another reason why we’re so, uh, bullish on the church is we’re seeing a ton of really everything we’ve said about, you know, hard time recruiting people. There are some really, really incredibly sharp people—we call ’em Jesus with a guitar, internally—really sharp people coming into ministry that are gonna just absolutely kill it. But they’re not set, they’re not set it and forget it people. Uh, they, they, they actually want the mentoring and the, the hand holding a little. They don’t wanna be micromanaged…
Rich Birch — Right.
Todd Rhoades — …but they, they want, they want that input. Uh, and, and they will hit the ground running, but they won’t do exactly, they won’t do everything exactly the same way the last person did it, nor should you expect them to. So um…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Todd Rhoades — …don’t, don’t if, if you’re trying to do the set it and forget it, you’re gonna look over a lot of candidates that could really…
Rich Birch — Right.
Todd Rhoades — …kill it at your church.
Rich Birch — Well, I was gonna, I was gonna ask a kind of a co-related question, which is how often do you—and we can stick with you, Todd, on this one—how often from your vantage point point are you talking with the church where, and you don’t have to, you know, like how often are you talking with the church where they, you think they, they’re missing a great next hire because of this? Where they’re like, ah, like I, man, I, I just wish they would take a risk on this person. I think it could be a great thing. Is that common and you run into that all the time?
Todd Rhoades — Uh, I wouldn’t say all the time. We run into it quite often.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Todd Rhoades — Where, where we’ve, and, and some of, honestly, and Matt can push back on this, some of our best work, I think are sometimes taking candidates that we think, so this, this person can do exactly what you’ve told us you need to have done, but they don’t look exactly like the person that you thought this person would look like.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes. Oh, that’s good insight.
Todd Rhoades — And, and so is it, is it risky? Um, every hire is risky. But yeah, we, we really try to, to, uh, sometimes we’re even surprised at the people that we find that are like, you know, even some of this doesn’t make sense, but man, could this be cool?
Rich Birch — Yeah, totally. Totally.
Todd Rhoades — So, and sometimes churches are really open and responsive and receptive to that, and other, other times it’s just, you know, a little bit too much. So, and, and we get it. But the, that’s the fun part of the work.
Rich Birch — Yeah. I, you know, I’ve found over the years that man give me a team of, I, I think sometimes when we hire people, we’re looking for the, what is the, the example, the Michael Jordan, the, you know, Wayne Gretzky, the whatever, the, I’m not a sports guy, whatever, whoever the most recent, like the, uh, the superstars, like, we’re looking for that. Or, or we say like, man, I’m not even sure Jesus can do this job. Like, they’re like the, the, that’s what we’re looking for. But actually over time, the more hiring I’ve done, I’m just convinced if I can find solid, like B+ players,
Matt Steen — I I tell you, I tell you what Rich, you know, I know I’m the gloom and doom guy, but that’s what gives me the hope for the church, right?
Rich Birch — Sure.
Matt Steen — That right there.
Rich Birch — You’re not the doom, gloom guy. Matt, come here, gimme a big hug. You’re not the doom and gloom guy.
Matt Steen — I, I feel, I feel I feel better, man. I, I love, you know, so many of the churches that we work with are guys that you are never gonna get published, right? They’re, they’re, you’re, you’re never gonna know their name. They’re never gonna go viral, but they are doing slow and steady work in communities…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Matt Steen — …and having such incredible impact. And it’s like, yeah, you’re never gonna know their name. And, and they, they may not have been the, the, the rising star coming outta seminary or anything like that, but they’re, they’re, they’re seeing people come to faith. They’re, they’re walking marriages through crises, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Matt Steen — They’re, they’re baptized in pe It’s, it is crazy what they’re, what they’re doing. And there’s so many of those people out there. It’s, it’s really encouraging. That’s probably my favorite part of, favorite part of my job besides, you know, working, working with Todd.
Rich Birch — Yeah. I love it. Well, I’ve got a question, uh, that since you’re here and all the people have listened to the end, I’m gonna ask you, I’m gonna throw this one to Matt. This is spicy meatball, spicy meatball question.
Matt Steen — Oh, no.
Rich Birch — Hopefully our relationship can sustain this.
Matt Steen — It depends.
Rich Birch — Um, so you’ve seen where this has gone wrong. Like you’ve seen the, like, okay, we hired somebody and, and either they came through your service or you were talking to a, a church and they’ve now come to your you because they hired somebody and it didn’t go well. Like, it, it was like, you know, x number of months later, and it was like a little bit of a gong show. I’m sure you’ve seen one or two of those. Are there any common things, common factors – maybe it’s in the five, it’s like there’s one of those that keeps coming back time and again, or maybe there’s a common trade or something that we should be looking for when we’re hiring? Where does this just go wrong when it, when it goes wrong?
Matt Steen — So when it, when it goes wrong, here’s the common theme.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Matt Steen — Um, most, more often than not, people forget the first three of our five factors, and they, they start with skills and abilities. They look at a resume, they say, oh, I know that church. That’s a great church.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Matt Steen — I listen to their pastors podcast. That’s awesome. Of course they can do the job, right?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Matt Steen — And then they start to interview ’em based on, based on that alone. And they start to laugh at the person’s jokes and they say, oh, he reminds me of my grandson. You know? And they start to fall in love relationally. And, and there’s a, there’s a, there’s a degree of chemistry there. They, they fall into like, and all that kind of stuff. And, and in the back of their head, you know, you’ve got this question about, yeah, I do know that church, but you know what, they’re, they’re a little bit different than how we operate. Oh, it’ll be fine. Jesus will make it work. And it, and typically somewhere around 12 to 18 months in, they start to realize, oh, maybe Jesus isn’t gonna kind of smooth out our differences on women in ministry. Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe the fact that we’re Wesleyan and, and he’s pretty hardcore reformed um, maybe that’s not gonna work itself out. Right.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Matt Steen — And that’s, that’s, you know, that’s, that’s when it, that’s when it goes sideways. It’s, we, we short circuit things and we really, we, we really don’t think that theology is as important as it is. Or we really don’t realize that, you know, that church of 2000 works a little bit differently than our church of 500. Right?
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Matt Steen — Or, or maybe those, those personality quirks that, that are cute, you know, during the interview, they’re gonna cause us to take a hostage down the road. You know, I, that’s…
Rich Birch — Sure.
Matt Steen — That’s, that’s what, that’s what I’d say. I don’t know, Todd, if you think I’m, if you think I’m off.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Anything else on that, Todd?
Todd Rhoades — Yeah, I don’t know that there’s any, any one thing. I mean, uh…
Rich Birch — Right.
Todd Rhoades — We, but, but we do hear, we do hear the theology and the culture pieces all the time.
Matt Steen — Yeah.
Todd Rhoades — That there are mismatches. And again, what Matt, I’ll reemphasize what Matt just said. A lot of times we fall in love too early before we even ask the tough questions. And I’ll tell you, once you fall in love with a candidate, um, and it’s the same, you know, we say this all the time with assessments. That’s why we do, uh, any of our candidates or churches, we do the assessments on the very front end is because we we’re full believers in assessments. But we, we think churches wait way too long to do the assessments. They, they fall in love with a candidate. They bring ’em in for the onsite visit, and before they, before they offer the, you know, the, here’s, we’d like to bring you on our, here, take this Enneagram or take this, uh, you know…
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Todd Rhoades — …Strength Finders. It doesn’t make any difference. There could be like glaring discrepancies and red flags and those things…
Rich Birch — Yeah. You’re just gonna justify it.
Todd Rhoades — You’re gonna justify it cause you love them.
Rich Birch — Yeah, totally.
Todd Rhoades — They’re, they’re great. We love their family. His wife is awesome. We love his…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Todd Rhoades — …he’s got kids the same age as my kids, man. Um, all that stuff supersedes what could be like the really important things that are gonna cause somebody to leave in 18 months.
Rich Birch — Yeah. One of the smartest things… So I, I had the privilege of working with Tim Lucas at Liquid Church for years with you guys, which you guys know, and he, he’s a smart leader on, brought a bunch of fronts. But one of the smartest things he realized early in his, in his leadership, like really once the church started growing was he was like, I need to be in these conversations at the very end because every one of these, I get in and I’m like, we should hire this person. This person’s amazing. Like, they’re, and and, and then he was like, and he was self-aware. He was like, then I go into sales mode and I’m like, I’m just trying to figure out, I’m trying to woo this person to say, Hey, come here, come here, come here. And so he, you know, smartly was like, I need to pull myself outta this, and only come in when we actually want this person. Like, do not trust me to o be able to, you know… And they’ve built an incredible staff team, you know, on that. And, and, you know, and it’s worked out and they’ve, you know, which is, but that takes a, that takes a, uh, a depth of, uh, emotional intelligence and, uh, and humility to be able to declare that with your, with your leadership team. So, love that. Which is not surprising. He’s a great leader. So he’s good at that stuff.
Rich Birch — Well, this has been a fantastic conversation. I, again, I can’t believe we’ve got both of you guys in one room. It’s been so, it’s been so honored to have you here today. Uh, as we wrap up, Matt, I’ve been kicking you a little bit. I’m gonna give you the final last words today. What, what do you wanna say as we wrap up? How can people connect with Chemistry Staffing? I, I really do, I say this to people, I don’t say this just because you guys are a sponsor. When people are, talk to me on both sides, either they’re a church or a candidate, like about these kind of things. I always say like, Hey, you should talk to the guys over at Chemistry Staffing, give your website, chemistrystaffing.com. But what, what would you say, what would you say, you know, what would your kind of final words for today’s conversation?
Matt Steen — Yeah, I, so, so yes, I am the doom and gloom guy, but man, I tell you what I am, I’m incredibly optimistic for, for, for the church. We, we really are. You know, there’s a lot of, you know, we just need to shift a little bit about what we’re doing, need to focus a little bit about culture, start developing the next generation. Man, I tell you what, we’re, we’re, we’re gonna be in good shape. But we’d love, love to be able to serve you guys and really would love, if you guys do, go to churchstaffassessment.com and, and, and, and take that, I think that’s gonna be an incredible tool for the church. So much has changed over these last three years. Um, I think that’s gonna give us a really good snapshot on overall church health, um, in this country. So…
Rich Birch — Love it. Well, love you guys. I’m so thankful for the work you do for the church. Thanks for being on here. Again, friends, we’d remind you to go to churchstaffassessment.com, uh, to fill that out. You can do that up until May 19th. So you’ve got, you should do it today, be the first people in on it, but you’ve got only got until May 19th to do that. So make sure you get in, uh, and do that. What a great tool. I appreciate you guys providing this. Uh, thanks so much for being on the call today. Have a good day.
Todd Rhoades — Great. Thank you.
Thanks for joining this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Kasey Husen, the Executive Director of Communicatons and Events at Crossroads Christian Church in Corona, California.
Kasey talks with us about the importance of having a Communications Director at the senior leadership level at your church. Beyond branding and marketing, Kasey shares how they can create engagement and clarity to help your church win.
- The role in the church. // Early on in her time on staff at Crossroads, Kasey served as admin to the worship pastor. From her seat she continually observed a problem with announcements not creating the engagement desired, as well as their cutting into the sermon time. Ultimately she was able to bring organization to that area, eventually leading to her becoming the Executive Director of Communications and Events. Now her primary responsibility is to find clarity in all things and make it transferable to the staff to take action.
- Drive for clarity. // Lack of clarity is a major barrier for winning. Churches seem to naturally drift into doing a lot of things that require attention from the staff, the budget, and the congregation in order to be successful. And yet ministry leaders are disappointed with the outcomes. Kasey’s drive for clarity ensures that Crossroads and its ministry teams are winning at the goals they work toward.
- Ask questions and speak up. // Kasey says that her primary role as the clarity champion on the executive team has to be fully embraced by the whole executive leadership. They all have to want to provide clarity to people outside of the room where decisions are made (ie – to other staff and congregation). The role of the communications director requires a lot of question-asking, speaking up, and acting as air traffic controller. They are often the canary in the coal mine and see the needs of all of the different ministries within the organization.
- Part of the senior leadership team. // For most churches, the executive team is the one making the strategic decisions each week. But a lot of the leaders forget that the conversations and decisions being made in those meetings result in the need to collaborate with other ministry leaders outside of that room. Having your communications director in your decision-making meetings can give you an early opportunity to talk through the barriers you need to address to get the people outside the meeting to embrace your decisions.
- Building trust. // Managing the challenge of what to announce from the stage is a continual tension to navigate. Ask questions of your senior leadership to discern what’s most important to them and what they’ll be most disappointed about if there’s a lack of engagement. Communications directors need to learn to lead up to the executive leadership in the church. But Kasey stresses that before providing critical feedback, first you need to build relationships and trust, reiterating that you are on their side and are committed to supporting their God-given vision for the church.
- High engagement opportunities. // In Crossroads’ pursuit of clarity and helping their teams hit their overarching goals, the church works to pair ministry opportunities with major initiatives or messages each week. This often creates the highest engagement because the announcement is getting multiple impressions and moving the hearts of the congregation to action in multiple ways throughout the service.
You can learn more about Crossroads Christian Church at www.crossroadschurch.com and email Kasey. Or find her on Instagram at KaseyHusen.
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Well, hey, everybody! Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Super excited for today’s conversation – you know every week we try to bring you a leader who will both inspire and equip you and today is no example is no exception to that. There’s a perfect example of that trying to say two things at once. Ah, Kasey Husen – I’m super excited to have her ah on the podcast. She is the communications the Executive Director of Communications and Events at a fantastic church Crossroads Christian Church located in Corona, California — one of the fastest growing churches in the country. You, if you’re a longtime listener, you might remember earlier ah, that was maybe a month ago six weeks ago we had Taleah Murray on and she was just fantastic, fantastic episode. And so I said, Taleah, who else should we have? And she said, you should talk to Kasey. So so glad to have Kasey on. Welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.
Kasey Husen — Thank you for having me, Rich. Super excited to talk with you today.
Rich Birch — Oh I’m looking forward to this as well. Communication is so critically important to all of our churches, and so to be able to tap your expertise today is just incredible. So fill out the picture for folks that don’t know kind of talk to us about Crossroads, kind of fill in that picture a little bit. What… tell us about the church and then tell us about your role there.
Kasey Husen — Yeah, so as Taleah shared earlier in the the podcast you did with her, our church is about 130 years old. That’s very unique. And so we’re a multi-generational church located in a beautiful area of Corona, which is located in Southern California. Um, and so kind of funny thing, I have grown up here in this church. This is…
Rich Birch — Oh fun!
Kasey Husen — …Ah yeah, although I’ve done a couple different roles in ministry here, I have really spent my entire life either going to the school or attending the church. It’s a huge part of my story and I really, ah through teachers at our school and then ultimately church leaders here, discovered a lot of my different gifting. My parents were not necessarily um disciples of Christ and raising me. It was actually my grandmother who said, Hey we should send her to a private christian school. And that’s how I ended up here. Um, and my parents worked full time so I spent a lot of time on this campus. And I credit a lot of where I am today, ah, both spiritually and professionally, with the way that people here have developed me into this place…
Rich Birch — So good.
Kasey Husen — …and helped me really recognize my gifts and using my my my gifts to ah to a purpose within the church. And that’s still the same today. For so many people who are part of this church, we are really passionate about the next generation. If you were to take in one of our services online or to come to our campus, that’s just something that you cannot miss about Crossroads.
Rich Birch — So good. Well this is great, and and talk to us about the role Executive Director of Communications and Events kind of frame that up. Help us understand kind of what does that look like. What ah when how do you describe that you you meet someone and they say, so what do you do at the church. What do you say to them?
Kasey Husen — Yeah, well I can give you a little bit of background on how I got here. It’s a little bit funny.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Kasey Husen — Um you know, ah I’ve been in communications now as the Communications Director for the last 11 years at Crossroads. But prior to that I was actually asked to join the staff as an admin to our worship pastor. So ah, you know prior to that, like I said, I had served in this church for pretty much my whole life. But I really had no idea what church staff members could possibly do, working on a church staff for 40 hours a week. No I laugh at that of course.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Kasey Husen — I know most of us are working more than 40 hours a week…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Kasey Husen — …on really important stuff. But I say this because I came in with no experience. But I really had some strong admin skills and some fresh eyes. And since so much of what our worship pastor does is in partnership with our senior pastor, I really learned a lot quickly about our culture. And I got the opportunity to have a front seat to learn our DNA and what was important to our senior pastor, simply by observing interactions that I would see in weekly meetings. One of those meetings included a debrief of the previous weekend service and a look forward to the one that was coming. And at that time we had slated about 5 minutes in our service every week for the announcements. You know, for a talking person…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Kasey Husen — …to get up there and to deliver announcements. And this funny thing happened in this meeting. I observed it for probably a year; ministry leaders would come in to that particular meeting and they would sort of pitch to give their announcement for their ministry that coming Sunday. And as far as I could tell there was really no schedule or max on how many people we could say yes to…
Rich Birch — Right.
Kasey Husen — …that would get airtime that coming weekend. So I just observed most of the time they would say yes to all of them. And we all know what happens…
Rich Birch — Right.
Kasey Husen — …in that announcement space, especially back when most of us were doing, you know, the talking experience for 5 minutes. A lot of people tuned out. They didn’t engage with any of our calls to action. And the funny thing is in the debrief portion of that meeting every week our senior pastor was chronically disappointed with the fact that he had to cut off time from his sermon, because the announcement time inevitably moved from 5 minutes…
Rich Birch — Went long.
Kasey Husen — …up toward 10 minutes.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Kasey Husen — And he’d usually be disappointed that one of the 5 things we talked about that day did not really get engagement. So, to my surprise nobody was really making this connection or tackling this problem because there was no person in this seat…
Rich Birch — It’s all happening right here in this meeting. Right here!
Kasey Husen — Exactly! I’m observing the whole thing; I’m picking up on all the patterns. And ah so eventually I told our senior pastor. I said I think I can help bring some organization to this area of the service…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Kasey Husen — …just this 5 minutes…
Rich Birch — Right.
Kasey Husen — …and create more of a win for our ministries where people would actually engage with what we’re talking about. And keep the part of the service from cutting into his messages every week.
Rich Birch — Right.
Kasey Husen — So he said yes to that, and then that eventually led to me becoming what I didn’t even know was a role in churches at the time, the Communications Director.
Rich Birch — Right.
Kasey Husen — This was just all based off of you know, instinct and so um…
Rich Birch — I see a problem. Let’s fix it. Yeah, I love it.
Kasey Husen — Exactly, exactly.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Kasey Husen — And so it really evolved from from really purely organizing that portion of the service, to really being the primary champion of clarity on our staff.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Kasey Husen — And that’s that’s really what I would say if I can name one thing um I’ve dedicated my time and responsibility to finding clarity, in all things, ah to make it transferable to our staff to take action.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. So let’s dig into that a little bit more. How has… so I think there’s too many people that are listening in that feel that pain.
Kasey Husen — Yes.
Rich Birch — They’ve been in that meeting, maybe yesterday they were in that meeting…
Kasey Husen — Yeah, right.
Rich Birch — …ah, so you know you’ve done a very good job, you know, kind of outlining that, helping us understand understand that. But maybe on unpack maybe on the back end, how has that kind of increased focus on clarity? How has that ah kind of changed your approach, or the church’s approach, to like initiatives and doing things and various tasks—all that—how how has that impacted? And then we’ll dig into some of the how.
Kasey Husen — Yeah, so I’m an enneagram three – Achiever. So accomplish thing… yes, are you with me.
Rich Birch — Yes! Love it! Enneagram threes unite!
Kasey Husen — Okay, all right.
Rich Birch — Absolutely.
Kasey Husen — I’m glad when people really embrace being an enneagram three.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Kasey Husen — So I’m an achiever, so accomplishing a goal or capitalizing on an opportunity is always a primary driver for me. But especially in church because what we’re doing really matters. And so lack of clarity is a major barrier for winning.
Kasey Husen — And I think a lot of your listeners will resonate with this, that churches seem to naturally drift into doing a lot of things that require attention from our staff, attention from our budget, attention from the congregation, all in order to be successful. But yet I see many people are chronically disappointed with the outcome…
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Kasey Husen — …of whatever we’re doing. So that is really what drives me to clarity…
Rich Birch — Yeah…
Kasey Husen — …is I want to make sure we win at the goals.
Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely drive up in outcomes and engagement.
Kasey Husen — Yes.
Rich Birch — Now talk to me about… so one of the things I find super frustrating is, you know, there’s a lot of churches say like a thousand, I—like I I see I feel like I run into this all the time—thousand, maybe maybe even a little bit bigger who they um, they approach communications as a discipline, in like ah in kind of ah in a nonprofessional way. Now some of that is because like the lead pastor, they’re good at communicating and so they think therefore “I should be good at communications.” And the example I use is like, listen when you first start your church, yeah maybe you did the finances or maybe you had like somebody else do like the bookkeeping. But then eventually you need to like hire accountants and like people who do all this stuff…
Kasey Husen — Right.
Rich Birch — …professionally, It’s the same with communications.
Kasey Husen — Yes.
Rich Birch — The church grows to the place where at a senior leadership level, you need someone who is carrying communications. Unpack that for me. I believe you have probably have the same kind of thought around that. Why is that important at a senior level, and how is it helping you drive kind of the kind of outcomes and engagement you’re looking for?
Kasey Husen — Yeah, well, um, it’s certainly true. And I think our senior I know our senior pastor would agree ah that this is imperative. In fact I talked with him before this interview just to get his feedback on, you know…
Rich Birch — Yeah, love it.
Kasey Husen — …how have you seen over us working together for 11 years in this capacity? Like what do you see is most helpful to you? and although being a clarity champion, especially with such a visionary leader is a very difficult tension to manage, he would tell you that he really has embraced that because he knows it’s for the best. I will give the disclaimer that I believe and you know my primary role as a clarity champion, especially on our executive team. It has to be fully embraced by the whole team…
Rich Birch — Right.
Kasey Husen — …that we want to provide clarity to people outside of that room – may it be our staff or our congregation. Because if we can’t agree on that, then the person in this role, especially at that level will be chronically frustrated. It requires a lot of question asking. Um you know the ability to also speak up and say where there’s some incongruency. Um, you know, maybe, and I know I wrote this somewhere and in the notes later on to talk about too is um, is that we’re often in communications really well-versed we’re kind of a neutral ministry within the the ministry teams. We’re serving so many different ministries regularly that were really in touch with their needs.
Rich Birch — Yeah, true.
Kasey Husen — And they’re really more candid with us with their feedback on things that things that um are articulated well, or things that they’re kind of hung up on or don’t make sense.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Kasey Husen — So we’re often those canaries in the coal mine that will come in and say, Hey I know at this level it all seems really clear to you and it seems like everybody should just be falling in line. Um, but we often have to be the ones to say, Hey here’s where people are a little ah stuck on this.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Kasey Husen — We might need to help remove some barriers. And certainly I don’t think that’s the the senior leaders’ propensity. I don’t think that they’re often in those conversations just by design. Um, and they’re not going to get that kind of feedback. And they’re not going to be looking at ministry the way that a Communications Director is. So they can really be an asset beyond even just the promotional side of communications.
Kasey Husen — And when I talk to a lot of executive pastors um and they ask what I do, or you know how I provide value to the executive team often I’ll hear, well we wouldn’t we don’t really devote time to talking about marketing, so I’m not sure that would work in our executive team meetings. And I’m like, wow yeah I think we need to really help people get a clear idea that yes, there’s the function of communications that often is providing you your design, and updating your website, and doing your invite cards and all of that stuff. They’re executing on branding. But the person who’s going to represent them on your executive team is really looking at achieving that level of clarity for the whole team to be able to achieve its goals.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. I was in a ah—you’ll get a kick out of this—I was in a conversation recently with a senior leader. It was like, so the senior leaders there and myself and a bunch of other people. And um, they there was like they had this poster printed up with this slogan on it that I I thought was bad. Like I was like this is not good. And um and the senior leader thought this was great.
Kasey Husen — Yeah.
Rich Birch — They were like oh isn’t this this great. And I’m looking around and I’m like I think everybody else thinks this is bad, but they’re just not saying anything.
Kasey Husen — Yes.
Rich Birch — And so then I said, I was the first one to go, and this is I’m not trying to point myself out…
Kasey Husen — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …but this is an example of the kind of thing.
Kasey Husen — Yeah.
Rich Birch — I’m like I don’t think that’s very good, and like for this reason, that reason, and that reason. And then and then everybody else piled on, oh yeah, yeah; so true, so true.
Kasey Husen — Yes.
Rich Birch — There’s there’s something about having that role of the you know the clarity champion that that’s the kind of thing that you find yourself doing. Can you talk about some examples of how, you know, championing clarity at that level at that kind of senior executive level has made a difference in kind of some of the outcomes? Kind of connect those two together. What would be some examples of that?
Kasey Husen — Yeah, definitely. Well for most churches the executive team is the one that’s making strategic decisions every week. So whether we’re preparing for a building campaign, or we’re trying to increase giving units, or getting people to Easter services, or responding to a crisis, the executive team really is like ground zero for these conversations. But what I think a lot of executive leaders forget is that um the conversations we’re having week to week and the decisions that are being made in that room, they’re going to result in the need to collaborate with other ministry leaders outside of that room.
Kasey Husen — And so like I said, your Communications Director is often the canary in the coal mine – they’re going to be the ones who are going to see the different needs of ministries um, and we’re that neutral player we consider ah, we’re serving all of the different ministries. So we’re trying to we’re getting more feedback on things that don’t make sense or do make sense. Um, so having your Comms Director in that meeting is giving you an early opportunity to really talk through the barriers that we might need to address in order for people to embrace a decision.
Kasey Husen — So um, you know, I think we can often experience ah that when we’re in a room like this, we talk about things for weeks at a time. We’re wrestling through these different things and we walk out and you know forget we haven’t done the whole context with these teams or with the congregation. And I see a lot of executive leaders get ah frustrated with the lack of engagement on their staff teams.
Rich Birch — Right.
Kasey Husen — It can almost drift into the, you know, they’re not on board type of conversation. And we have…
Rich Birch — They don’t get us. They’re not there.
Kasey Husen — Exactly.
Rich Birch — They don’t love Jesus.
Kasey Husen — Exactly. Yes.
Rich Birch — They’re they’re stiff necked sinners.
Kasey Husen — Right. Exactly.
Rich Birch — All that.
Kasey Husen — And we have to remember that the ministry staff, you know, they are over specific goals and functions within the church…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Kasey Husen — …where they’re devoting their time to, you know, a specific ministry and achieving the goals we have laid out with them for that ministry. And most of them they just need a compelling why behind the new work that we’re asking them to do, or you know, whatever it is in order to fully embrace it. I don’t really ever experience anyone combative…
Rich Birch — Right.
Kasey Husen — …about a direction that we’re going in. It’s most often the time that they just don’t have the context that we have sitting in this room for weeks really wrestling this idea to the ground. So I am often the one who’s asking a lot of these questions in these meetings on their behalf. Again because I’m very aware of the kinds of questions that they might have.
Kasey Husen — So I’ll be asking these questions. My goal is to put together, you know, a document of some sort, usually just one page, whatever we’re working on to really answer those questions that people outside of that room might have. Um and oftentimes it’s ah it’s a worthy exercise for that team – the executive team. You know, like you said you might have some in there who have very different opinions about something. And I feel like I’m oftentimes, you know, tearing off a stick of dynamite and throwing it in. Um, you know that’s kind of my job is to even sometimes take a side of something just to see what kind of reaction I get to know…
Rich Birch — Right.
Kasey Husen — …okay, we’re very committed to this, you know and not this.
Rich Birch — Right.
Kasey Husen — Or to at least drive more conversation in there so we leave that room with more clarity.
Rich Birch — Uh-huh.
Kasey Husen — Um, you know and and the thing is is the like the XP of Discipleship really in that room should desire a level of clarity also, but their primary role in there is not to figure out how to make the messaging clear for different audiences…
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Kasey Husen — …so that those people can take action. So um, again having your Comms Director in that meeting early on in the conversation really gives them a chance to organize that communication. And ah to advocate for a great transfer to others, so that it results in greater engagement. If you want to…
Rich Birch — Can you talk…
Kasey Husen — Yeah, go ahead.
Rich Birch — Oh sorry I was going to ask if you could talk through maybe an example maybe where there was a change in direction, or like something new was rolled out and, you know, take us inside that room. give me a sense of your role. You know to kind of talk that through a little bit.
Kasey Husen — Yeah, so, oftentimes ah you know I alluded to before that we can really be like the air traffic controllers. Um, and so again because the church just drifts into a place where we end up doing a lot of different things, or we’re excited about a lot of different things that once, you’re Comms Director, what I typically will provide in terms of value to this team, is that when we’re talking about a new initiative I can tell you what planes or messages are getting ready to take off.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Kasey Husen — And I can tell you which ones are already in the air. And I can tell you which ones have landed, and even those that have crashed and burned…
Rich Birch — Oh gosh.
Kasey Husen — …if we just you know took took the whole illustration…
Rich Birch — Yes, run it right till the end. Love it.
Kasey Husen — …ah to the end. Yes, um, so so I am often you know having in those moments to say, okay, well we just rolled this out right now and we have people’s attention wrapped around this. Um, for instance, we’ve got a series coming up here pretty soon and I’m already sensing that there are quite a few people who have some different expectations and goals of our people, outcomes from this series week to week and then an overall one that will continue moving throughout the year. Um and especially if it impacts people’s finances. And you know I’m often the one who’s saying okay, let’s remember practically if we do this for seven weeks um, if we throw out that this is important each week, but then we’re also asking them to go sign up to do this over here…
Rich Birch — Right.
Kasey Husen — …you know, what are we going to be most disappointed with when it’s not done, when it’s not when people don’t engage with that. And and we can get into more of that as a practical you know how I ask questions with our our senior pastor specifically. Um, but I also do this in um, you know a little ah lesser pressure with like roadmapping a series. Um.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Kasey Husen — So I I get in on the front end of this with our senior pastor, or all our teaching pastors. Ahead of a series I’m sitting down and I’m saying, okay, you guys tell us what you’re thinking about doing for this duration. Um, and then I kind of say like what are the goals? What do we hope people will do um after this series? How will it change them? Then we go week by week…
Rich Birch — Right.
Kasey Husen — …and really talk through, Okay, what do we want them to know, feel, do (which came from Craig Groeschel), but just applying some of that even to our series…
Rich Birch — Right.
Kasey Husen — …um, road mapping so asking a lot of those questions is just another practical way that we do that.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. I love the the air traffic controller example I think is a very um is a very vivid example, and I think is very applicable for sure to this. I can see how that would be of huge value for sure. Can you talk a little bit more about… so one of the pressures I think so many of our churches face is there’s this it’s kind of like where you started. There’s this notion that, you know, somebody runs a department or they’re you know they’re involved in something and they’re like if I can just get somebody on the weekend to stand up and talk about this thing. Like if… And and they there’s I know they think all they need is that. But we know that that’s actually not going to guarantee that they’re going their thing could end up crashing and burning.
Kasey Husen — Right.
Rich Birch — Bring us all together. Why why do you just to kind of weekend stage promotions not the answer. How does that relate with the planes flying around? You know how has that actually benefited what you’ve done at Crossroads?
Kasey Husen — Yeah, so um, we have dozens of ministries in our church, and we also serve a preschool through 12th grade school that’s connected to us. So every day we’ve got planes or messages that are taking off, they’re in the sky, or they’re coming in for landing. So part of my job is to really protect the runway, and the skies from collisions or congestion. You know? So um, my executive team really empowers me in this role to really mine for clarity around the overarching winds of our church. And then to help remove barriers. For the most part they allow me to determine the best time for these planes to take off.
Kasey Husen — This took a while to get to this place. So I just want anyone to know who’s listening ah might sound like we got here overnight. We didn’t. It was it was a process. But one process I would give you just practically is we do a ministry planning cycle. And it really just gives us a proactive look at the schedule ahead. So our executive team will meet in the fall, we’ll really lay out the next year’s initiatives and the sermons series…
Rich Birch — Right.
Kasey Husen — …and then I’ll put that on a spreadsheet, a Google spreadsheet for everyone to see. But a next level thing is that I’ll also back in promotion. We know it’s going to take anywhere from four to six weeks talking about this thing…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Kasey Husen — …to get people to actually show up. So ah then I pass that off to the ministries and they’re really able to map out their 3 to 5 goals for the next six months and work ah with aligning with our overarching goals. So we then we built this culture where ministries understand that they can’t rely on the weekend stage to make their event successful. Um, because there’s limited space to promote things…
Rich Birch — Right.
Kasey Husen — …once we focus on all of those big rocks that we…
Rich Birch — Right.
Kasey Husen — …you know, tackled in the executive meeting and backed in that promotion. So ministries need to detail how they plan to do the work of engaging people around their event or initiative without the support of the weekend stage.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Kasey Husen — So if we’re able to emphasize their event at a time where it’s got a practical application from the message that week, or one of our strategic pushes, then that really is seen as a bonus to them. Again to go a long time to get here. And we could not have done that unless we we embrace this as a culture as an executive team. Because all of our executive leaders are really championing this within the ministries that they oversee.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. You know and continuing to move, I found in the past, moving departments to hey here’s a whole bunch of other ways that you can communicate what you you want to do, and and and don’t be and we can help you with that. We’ll we’ll help you figure through all the different tools that you could use, all the different approaches. And and frankly, a lot of it is like talking with your own people. Like it’s…
Kasey Husen — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …like it’s actually let’s actually you have a defined you know constituency; let’s get in front of them in the channels that make sense to get in front of them…
Kasey Husen — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …instead of just relying on being in front of everyone else.
Kasey Husen — And I find that that when they have that responsibility in order to put on this event, they actually start to ask questions like: is this really what our people need right now?
Rich Birch — Right.
Kasey Husen — And because they’re having to go to those people on their own and they’re not relying on a huge marketing arm of the church to do that for them. Sometimes these ideas get squashed on their own because they say well, yeah, actually we’re not sure…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Kasey Husen — …you know, given all the work it’s going to take that we want to proceed forward with that.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Kasey Husen — We’re not going to get the outcome.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s that’s great. Um, so a little bit in a different direction around the same, you know, the same topic, a lot of what you do is lead up. A lot of what you do is lead and influence the you know your senior leader, but the you know other executives. Um when you think about that aspect of your role, do you have any advice? You know because I’m sure there’s communications people that are listening that are like oh my goodness, I would love to work there. It sounds like they actually appreciate the role of communications. And they’re they’re trying to think about man, how do I how do I influence the organization? Any advice for folks that would be listening in with that mindset?
Kasey Husen — Yeah, and like I said earlier it can really be um, it can kind of be an exhausting seat to sit in sometimes. Especially because um, I understand, you know, and it’s the same way here. Visionary leaders often they have more room for ambiguity than people sitting in this seat.
Rich Birch — That’s so true.
Kasey Husen — And so, you know, it’s a tension to manage. Eleven years in I would say we haven’t solved that problem. Um, it’s just again I go back to it’s been eleven years getting to know my senior pastor…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Kasey Husen — …and how he prefers to do things, and where we’re going. And often that’s led to me having conversations ah with him, you know, throughout the year. He’s in enneagram seven so he loves doing five exciting things at once. And he really believes that it will all work out. And but he would also tell you as a 7 he has to work really hard ah to fight off the tendency to avoid pain. So in situations where he wants to people to focus on five things, it’s kind of painful to have to tell a ministry we’re not going to do all of those things.
Rich Birch — Right.
Kasey Husen — And so I kind of lead up by asking questions like um, okay if we share these 5 things in the Sunday service, come Monday morning which of the 5 things will you be most eager to see results for?
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Kasey Husen — And if you can’t answer that one, you know, usually there’s one that’s like I want to see people do this. Then that’s the most important thing. If you need more questions: which one of these will be the most painful for you if we don’t see engagement around it? Whatever the answer is to that, that’s the most important thing. And then I’m usually able to activate around building messaging for that or even fighting to push off other things to a time where the main thing isn’t going to suffer. But also just you know stepping into ah wanting to remove barriers. And when I notice we’re not on the same page about something, um, it’s important for us as Comm Directors even though in our fight for clarity um that we can often be coming in with feedback, we’re wanting to show honor to our senior leader. But also we’re representing about we’re representing what’s not clear about his vision or his communication and that can often feel like you’re calling his baby ugly.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Kasey Husen — So um, you know someone in this role I think really needs to earn that trust.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Kasey Husen — Um, and to to discern like is this a point where I need to have a conversation because my leader is at risk.
Rich Birch — Right.
Kasey Husen — And, you know, and and I would say if you know that then yeah, that’s a primary function of this role to step into those hard things for the purpose of keeping us on track toward the goal. But I would build that relationship and that trust and there might need to be some calibration throughout the year because it’s such a tension to manage just to continue reiterating: I am on your side, and I’m for you, and I’m in the support of whatever you feel like God is calling this church to do. And so although I’ll come in with some critical feedback here and there I have an opinion about how something might be done best um, you know at the end of the day it’s your call. But I feel like I wouldn’t be doing a service to you if I didn’t share, you know, what what might be a barrier to our success. So we’ve really worked that tension and we’ve established established a lot of trust over the years and I would say if there’s someone in this role, that’s something to focus on.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. I think that’s that’s such a lot of wisdom in that answer around, you know, the relationship side of it, and building trust, and there’s you know there’s wisdom there around, Okay, you know, not every hill is a hill we can die on and um, how do we find, you know…
Kasey Husen — Yeah. Yes, and I like to die on every hill, Rich. I really do.
Rich Birch — Love it. That’s this is been for good…
Kasey Husen — Eleven years in and I’m still pumped to die on all the hills…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Kasey Husen — …but I have to really really and make sure that I’m being wise about that.
Rich Birch — Love it. So good. As we come to close up today’s conversation, Kasey, anything else, you’d like to share? Anything else, you’d like to say to to help her guests as we close out today?
Kasey Husen — I would just say um, you know, in our pursuit of clarity and really hitting our overarching goals, helping our teams do that, there are some really awesome ways that we can pair um ministry opportunities with major initiatives or um, ah messages each week. And I’ll just give one example of that. You know for years we had teams coming to us saying, can you announce our ministry because we need more volunteers for this, you know? And just mentioning that was never really effective and it really just came across needy. Um, so now what we do is every year one of our pastors is preaching on gifts. Um, or they’re preaching on the importance of serving. And so we have now paired the pitch for people to get involved with ministry um, with that service every year, and it’s called Draft Day.
Kasey Husen — So all the ministries are out on the patio doing that. And we have seen the biggest results from pairing messages with opportunities in ministry because you’re getting multiple impressions and actually moving the hearts of people in multiple ways throughout the service to action, once again.
Kasey Husen — So um, there are some great ways, I’m happy if someone wanted to email me I could download them on a couple different ways we do some of the major things in churches…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Kasey Husen — …to get people engaged but um, but that’s one thing that I I hope people have have some energy to explore.
Rich Birch — Love it. So good. Well if people want to get in touch with you, or track with the church where do we want to send them online?
Kasey Husen — Yeah, you’re welcome to email me I’m Kasey, kasey@crossroadschurch.com and I’m also on Instagram – kaseyhusen.
Rich Birch — Love it. Thank you so much, Kasey. I really appreciate you being here today, cheering for you guys. Love what Crossroads is up to and I really appreciate your generosity and being here today. Thank you so much.
Kasey Husen — Thanks for having me, Rich.
Thanks for tuning in for this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Rusty George this week, the lead pastor of Real Life Church in Southern California. In addition to being a pastor, Rusty is a speaker, teacher and author focused on making real-life simple.
As leaders, we all face difficult times and crises that challenge our faith and our ability to lead. Don’t miss this important conversation where Rusty shares his experiences and offers valuable lessons for how church leaders can prepare to deal with a crisis before it hits.
- Crises will come. // The last few years have taught us that crises will come whether our church is ready for them or not. Particularly as a church grows, it will face more complex issues ranging from moral failures and suicide on your staff, to school shootings in the community, or even discord among team members. In addition your church may experience backlash from the larger community when crises hit. Admit that yes, you are broken and you don’t have it all together. Use the issues your staff is facing to reach out to people in the community experiencing the same hardships.
- Care for your staff. // When crises hit, often the executive pastor is the first person who deals with the issue because he is trying to protect both the staff and the lead pastor. Remember that this work takes a toll on your staff and can lead to burnout. After dealing with the immediate needs, make sure to provide your staff with rest and the help they need.
- Managing a crisis. // How do we manage a crisis when we’re in the middle of it? Think about the impact as a series of concentric circles. First evaluate who is the closest to the blast zone in this crisis. What do they need first and how can you help them? Then think about your staff and how to communicate what’s happening and how much to share. Next ask yourself what the church needs to know, and finally what the community needs to know. Lastly, circle back to the impact in your own life after dealing with the immediate crisis. Take time to process your grief and pursue healing with a therapist.
- Plan ahead for crises. // Have the conversation with your elders and church leadership about what you’ll do in the face of crisis before it happens. Having a policy ahead of time prevents people from debating the consequences because everyone will know the plan to work through in that moment.
- Balance grace and truth. // To deal with situations before they become crises, pastors need to create a culture of honesty where staff can come forward if they need help. Talk about your own therapy, sin issues, and problems. Practice what you preach when it comes to seeking help through counseling. But also be intentional about having hard conversations with your staff.
- Look for red flags. // When it comes to protecting your staff against moral failure, there are safeguards you can put in place but ultimately people are going to make their own decisions. Look for red flags with your staff members – for example, do they have any friends on staff or within the church? Do they have any hobbies? If ministry is their only world they can get burned out quickly and make bad decisions.
- Getting help with Rusty’s course. // In Rusty’s course, Leading Through Crisis, he takes an honest look at the crises Real Life Church faced, what they did right, what they did wrong, and what they would do differently if they had to do it again. A must-have for church leaders, the course walks leaders through crises such as dealing with issues on staff, moral failures, suicide, school shootings, grief in the community, handling the press, and more.
To get 50% off Rusty’s course, Leading Through Crisis, use the code unseminary during checkout through April 30, 2023. Learn more about Real Life Church at reallifechurch.org.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Chemistry Staffing
One of the things that they never teach you in seminary is when to move on from your current church. Over the last couple of years, we have been having a TON of conversations about this with pastors all over the United States. Of all the ministry decisions you make, leaving your position will be the toughest.
Download this two-in-one resource that walks you through the decision-making process.
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Well, hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Super excited for today’s interview. We have a repeat guest and friends, you know, we don’t do a lot of repeat guests here at unSeminary. But, uh, this guest is one of those people I said, listen, anytime you want to come on, you let me know cause I would love to have you on. So we’ve got Rusty George – he is the lead pastor of Real Life Church, multisite church in Southern California. He is a global speaker, a leader, and teacher focusing on making real life simple. He’s a author of, uh, several books, he has a weekly podcast called Leading Simple with Rusty George. So I knew he is, his sound would at least be great. I know that. And he’s just recently actually released a, an online course, which is a part of why I wanted to have him on to really wrestle this through. Uh, but Rusty, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.
Rusty George — Boy, it’s an honor to be back. Thank you so much. I’m a a big fan of the show and uh, it’s great to be on again.
Rich Birch — No, it’s so great to, to connect. Why don’t you fill out the picture there a little bit. What did I miss? What was, uh, you know what, yeah, what didn’t I talk about? How, fill out the picture a little bit.
Rusty George — Yeah. So I, I did not grow up in California. Everybody wants to know if that’s where I’m from, but I’m not. Uh, California was always a place you’d visit, not a place you’d live, from where I’ve come from.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Rusty George — Uh, so I’m from Kansas and grew up there and, uh, worked in Kentucky for a few years. That’s where a little bit of my accent comes from, as the people out here to like, to tell me. Moved out to California, took over a church, uh, that Kyle Idleman started, uh, and did just an incredible job, and felt like he did what he was called to do, and he left. I came out and it was almost three years old, meeting in a movie theater, and had great momentum already. And, uh, we were just, were able to, to have some really fun years of life in movie theaters, and then high schools, and building a building and moving in.
Rusty George — And I remember having a conversation with a guy who’s a, uh, seasoned veteran as a pastor, probably been leading for 40 years at the time. And I was all excited cuz we just moved in a new building. And so, you know, everything was up and to the right, and everybody was happy and…
Rich Birch — Sure.
Rusty George — Uh, it was great. And he looked at me and he said, man, you’re gonna see some things. And I said, what do you mean? He said, anytime you take a beachhead against the enemy, the enemy notices.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Rusty George — And you, you just need to prepare yourself. You’re gonna see some things. And over the next 10 years we did. We just saw our share of, of wins, of highs, but also deep lows. And, uh, seminary did not prepare me for that.
Rich Birch — No, no.
Rusty George — That’s why I love your podcast. Um, but it, it left me, you know, kind of wrestling with, you know, my own calling. You know, you ask a lot of deep questions like, is this my fault? Um, you always second guess yourself – should I have done something differently? And you just learn a lot through that. So we had a, a lot of difficult times, a lot of great times too, but it’s been 20 years now at the church and, uh, we still believe our best days are ahead.
Rich Birch — I love it. I, I’d love to actually talk a little bit more about that and get, dig in a little bit, if that’s okay, around some of that, you know, that more negative stuff. I think this is one of those things we often, you know, we love to celebrate when things go well. We love to look at a, you know, a church like Real Life, which is, you know, has had huge impact, continues to have huge impact. Uh, but there’s the, you know, there’s the, you pull up the rock and look underneath and there’s like, Ooh, there’s some stuff under there that’s not so pretty. Fill out that picture a little bit. Talk us through those things.
Rusty George —Yeah. I remember in my early days of ministry, I love to quiz pastors about, hey, tell me how’d you grow? You know, h how’d you win? How’d you succeed? And we all look for those stories, right, cuz we think there’s some kind of silver bullet out there that’s gonna make everything great. But now that I’m older, I like to ask guys, tell me how you failed, uh, how I can learn from that. And so, I’m pretty open about sharing anything that we’ve done wrong, or we’ve experienced that was difficult.
Rusty George — Um, I, I think, you know, we had a variety of things happen. We had, uh, a couple of moral failures that happened on staff that had never happened up until that point. We prided ourself on this will never happen here. Uh, we’re such a spiritual group of people and, uh, you know, we love the Lord. But the reality is no matter how many, uh, things you put in the staff handbook, how many Billy Graham rules you have, it only works for people that really wanna stay faithful in their marriages. So people would put themselves in compromising positions and they’d make bad decisions. Uh, and unfortunately in a couple of those situations that ended in two separate suicides that we had to walk through as a church. And so, uh, that brought with it a lot of negative press about our church, and what’s really going on there. And I told you they weren’t really teaching the Bible. They’re not very spiritual. You know, so you have internal discord, you have, you have grief on staff, and then you have, uh, you know, these, this, uh, uh, the, the communities lashing out at you as to, I thought you guys had it all together.
Rusty George — And so it became a great opportunity for us to talk about, no, we do not have it all together.
Rich Birch — Right.
Rusty George — And we are broken people and we’re all trying to figure this out. And so let’s lean into the mental health side of things and see if we can help people who are struggling with suicide ideation. And, and we were able to do that. We’ve had, um, some staff drama of, uh, you know, a couple of staff members get arrested for various things.
Rich Birch — Oh my goodness.
Rusty George — Whether it’s, uh, you know, somebody, uh… and, and this is the thing about growing churches is when you go after reaching unchurched people and you start to reach them…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Rusty George — …then you want to hire them.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Rusty George — And oftentimes they’re, they’re past, even though it’s forgiven by God, it’s not over with in, uh, you know, our day and age and it catches up to them. Uh, and that’s such a unique dynamic…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Rusty George — …when people from your church come on staff and, you know, you’ve seen this, and suddenly your, your, your boss is, or your pastor is now your boss.
Rich Birch — Right.
Rusty George — Suddenly your place of worship is your place of work, it just gets weird and whatever’s in you comes out of you, it kind of squeezes out. And and we just saw that, that some of that just happened. And we had to kind of pick up the pieces of that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Rusty George — Uh, we had rapid growth and thus, um, a a lot of, we had to hire a lot of new staff, and there became kind of this civil war on staff between the people that were there before the building and the people after the building.
Rich Birch — Right.
Rusty George — And how do you bridge that gap? And so those are just a few of the low lights…
Rich Birch — Amazing.
Rusty George — …so to speak, and, uh, you know, things we had to deal with.
Rich Birch — Well, it is interesting, you know, one of the in other contexts I’ve talked about a similar dynamic where as the church grows, at the senior level, it’s not like you deal with less people issues. It’s, you have just as many people issues. But, and, and like pastoral crisis kind of situations in people’s lives. But what ends up, at least my experience of it has been, as the church grows, you end up obviously building systems and have people that handle, you know, the normal stuff, that handle kind of normal crisis in people’s lives. But then the most complex stuff still continues to bubble up to, you know, the senior leaders in, in the church. And you don’t ever get away, at least my experience is you just never get away from that. That is, that’s a normal piece of the puzzle.
Rusty George — That you’re exactly right. I remember hearing from a seasoned pastor, a guy by the name of Bob Russell tell me, hey, everything at our church was amazing. And I would say, I think he said, 80% of everything at Southeast was incredible. And 15% was bad, and 5% was awful. And he said…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Rusty George — What do you think I spent most of my time thinking about?
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Rusty George — And I said…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Rusty George — The 5%. It’s kind of like, uh, I think it was President Obama said, when stuff lands on your desk, you realize nobody else could handle it.
Rich Birch — Right, Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.
Rusty George — So…
Rich Birch — It’s true.
Rusty George — …when it gets to the senior pastor’s desk, you’re like, oh my goodness. And, and really it’s the executive pastor that gets it first. And, you know, we had a great XP through all of that, that, that shouldered a lot of that. Um, and then, you know, he would call me in when, when only I needed to deal with it or needed to know. But what I failed to recognize was even though I was dealing with my own kind of internal pain and crisis and all that, he was dealing with even more. Because he was carrying weight of protecting me, but also protecting the staff. And that eventually led the burnout for him. And we got him help, and he’s fine now. But you have to remember that, that your staff takes, uh, it takes a toll on them as well.
Rich Birch — Yeah. I love, um, one of the things you say in your, in your online course, I probably don’t love this, that’s the wrong way to say it, but I, it resonates to be true in my life. You’re either, uh, in a crisis or heading towards one. And, and I think post-pandemic, this has become true for all of us. Like we, we can see this, right? Like we were, it was not that long ago, uh, that, you know, we had the Silicon Valley Bank, you know, you know, failure. And it was fascinating. That was an interesting little crisis that was an external, not a little crisis, a crisis that was external. Uh, I remember reading about this thinking, oh, that’s kind of interesting. And then literally within about 48 hours, I heard of multiple people who are pretty close to me, who that was having an impact on them.
Rich Birch — It wasn’t like, it wasn’t just like this, like theoretical something you read in the paper. It’s like, that thing rippled out. And it was like, well, uh, all of our, you know, you know, I knew this one church where their, like, their payroll company had their money in SVP was, and so they were using them as the clearing. And like, you know, it’s, it’s interesting how these crisis, they come, you know, to us. And we’ve all seen this for sure, you know, post pandemic.
Rich Birch — But let’s talk about that around how do, how do we manage it as, you know, as ourselves? What would be some of the, how, how do we as the leader in the midst of all this… um, you know, it’s kind of like doing your kids’ diapers. I remember people would say like, oh, it’s different when it’s your kids. And I was like, no, it’s not any different. They’re just, no one else is going to do it. Like no one, no one else is gonna change their diapers, so you have to change them. The same is, there’s some similar dynamics with crisis. Like, it’s not that it’s… you’re the person that happens to be the executive pastor, the lead pastor, and so it’s your job. How do I manage the crisis uh, if I’m in the middle of it, how do I manage the impact on myself?
Rusty George — Yeah. And this is one of the things we cover in the course is you have to think about it from a variety of concentric circles. The first one is, who’s the closest to the blast zone? Like in the case of, of, of a suicide, it was a family involved in that. Uh, this one individual had taken his life and now, you know, his wife had found him. His kids are coming home from school in a few hours.
Rich Birch — Oh my goodness.
Rusty George — We’re over there on site trying to help out, okay, what does this family need first? Okay. So that’s the, that’s the biggest thing. How can we help them? But then there’s a second tier of, okay, what about our staff? Because they’re gonna need to know about this. And so how do we assemble, uh, the staff together, uh, without just, you know, sending out a text to everybody…
Rich Birch — Right.
Rusty George — …but get ’em in a room and how do we, you know, and, and then there’s that delicate balance of what’s our story to tell? What do we tell, what do we not tell? Because the wife has what’s, you know, what she needs to say. And, and all of that. Everything in me wanted to, to deal with the neighbors who were calling and the people that were coming outta their houses. And, you know, but they, they weren’t on my radar just yet. So then it goes from staff into the church. What does the church need to know? And then from the church out to the community, what does the community need to know? And there’s different checkpoints along the way.
Rusty George — And I, I think, uh, you know, for myself and for our executive pastor, we just decided, okay, we are locked in on these concentric circles. And we’ll just put kind of a date on the calendar about three weeks out when we’ll get back to our grief. I’ll, I’ll, I’ll give you an example. We had another crisis we went through, we had a school shooting in our community, which, uh, took the life of one of the kids from our church, um, and, and injured another. And so it, it was a huge issue, obviously, in our community, but it really devastated our church. And, and truthfully for me, I happened to be in the hospital room when they broke the news to the mom that her daughter had died. And I, I, I will never forget that sound. And, but I had to put a pin in it. I had to kind of put it aside and say, I’ll deal with this in about three weeks.
Rusty George — And this is something we talk about in the video as well, and I got this from some other high level leader. He said, the, the life cycle of a crisis in a church for people of the church or the community is only two weeks. Because they’re so selfish, they gotta get back to their own crisis.
Rich Birch — Okay. Okay.
Rusty George — Which…
Rich Birch — There’s probably some truth to that.
Rusty George — …there’s a lot of truth to that. And we would often…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Rusty George — …joke about long before these horrible crises that put, you know, put a, a mark on the calendar, two weeks from now, this will no longer be that big of an issue, because there’s other stuff that comes up. And to be able to say, I’m in full crisis management mode now, but in two weeks I gotta deal with this myself. Which I went to grief counseling over it, went to, you know, know kind of the PTSD stuff. What did that do to me and my psyche? And how do I heal up from this? Taking some time off for some of your senior staff leaders that were kind of in on this, that helped us kind of process, all right, where’s our energy gonna go? Because you only get so much, you only get so many hours of the day. How are we gonna work these concentric circles to benefit as many people as possible?
Rich Birch — Okay. I, yeah, I love that. Uh, I think that’s really good. You know, even as we’re thinking about our people, like, hey, we, let’s put a pin in it and then let’s loop back on this two, three weeks from now. We need to deal with this situation, what’s immediately here, and then let’s come back to it.
Rich Birch — Can we talk about moral failures? You mentioned this…
Rusty George — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …and, you know, you had this un unfortunately, this is one of those things that has gone through so many of our churches, and we’ve, you know, we’ve, we’ve dealt with this in so many ways. One of the, one of my concerns, I would say, uh, having watched this in, even some of the churches I’ve worked with, it’s, you know, it has racked the, the church is, you know, there’s this spectrum here where leaders make, um, you know, you start with like, maybe silly decisions, and then it’s like unwise, and then foolish. And then eventually you trip over the line of sin. Like, it goes from being like, okay, these were, this was a stupid idea. Like, I shouldn’t have, I shouldn’t have texted her that extra time, or I shouldn’t have, you know, I said, I was like a weird joke. And then eventually you step over the line to sin, and then on the other end of the spectrum, it’s like evil. Like you do terrible, terrible things, you know, to you now avoid, you know, you’re layering sin upon sin to try to avoid detection and all that.
Rich Birch — One of the things that I’ve found interesting is as moral failure comes out—and there is a question here, it’s not me just making statements—as moral failure comes out, there’s so much cancel culture that goes on now. Right? There’s so much like, we’re gonna flush these people out. And I, I think responsibility is important. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t, people shouldn’t take responsibility. I have a high value on that as a person that’s in the church. But my, I think what happens every time that happens when we, we kind of, these people get flushed away is people who have made silly, unwise, foolish decisions, it gets stuffed down deep. They’re like, I’m not talking to anybody about this. I’m not, I am not. And, and then ironically, it actually, I think can propagate even more.
Rich Birch — So, talk me through moral failure. What should we be thinking about as maybe something’s on our doorstep? There is actually, you know, a a a leader’s come to you and said, I listen, I stepped on somewhere I shouldn’t have. Um, or it’s maybe even, you know, you just sense like there’s something awry with a team member, that kind of thing. Uh, talk us through some of your experience on that front.
Rusty George — Yeah, that’s a, that’s a great question. And you know, as one of my counselors told me after our, our second suicide from an individual—it was one of our campus pastors—we, we uncovered, uh, a bunch of stuff that we did not know about. Anyway, my counselor says to me, you can influence the heart of man, but you cannot control it. At some point, they’re gonna do what they wanna do. And I remember in a couple, couple of these instances that we began to notice some strange kind of interaction between two people on staff. We immediately removed them from working with each other. Um, we, we, uh, we sat down with one individual and it was a bit of an intervention. He asked us for help. We granted help, we provided counseling. We separated that job out. Nothing had had come up that was fireable yet.
Rusty George — So you don’t wanna just start, you know, uh, firing at everybody, because sometimes they’re, they didn’t even know that they were being, you know, groomed or whatever. So you begin to, to try to, to mitigate that a little bit. Anyway, but at the end of the day, they, they make the decisions they make. And so I think the next question becomes then how much do you share? Because everybody in your church wants to know every bit of the details, because we do live in a culture where it’s, it’s all accessible. Right? And so I, I think in the situation of, of one of those suicides, what we unearthed later, I did not know ahead of time. And I became accused of you’re hiding stuff. I didn’t hide anything. I didn’t know anything.
Rich Birch — Mm-hmm.
Rusty George — And so, but it, you know, I think from stage, instead of coming out and airing all the dirty laundry, because there’s families involved, there’s kids involved. There’s, you know, uh, people watching from their hometown, you know, during this time. You have to kind of say, listen, we don’t know all the facts. We’re learning as we go.
Rich Birch — Right.
Rusty George — But here’s what we do know. And you just need to know I’m not gonna tell you everything, but I’m gonna tell you what you need to know. And you need to know that we’re gonna do this with integrity, and we’re gonna find out what we need to find out, and we’re gonna help the people involved. Larry Osborne gave me some great advice many years ago. He said, have the conversation now with your eldership. What are we gonna do in the moment of a moral failure? Because it’s gonna happen.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Rusty George — And if you have the conversation before it happens, then you don’t have people picking sides. Cuz what will happen is…
Rich Birch — Right.
Rusty George — …half of your people want grace. The other half want justice. So go ahead and come up with a plan: this is what we’re gonna do. Another thing we offer on the course, so you can look through, all right, in this moment, this person gets counseling, this person gets to stay, this person loses their job. Uh, all those kind of things. But at the end of the day, you can only do as much as you can do because they make their own decisions.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Talk us through that a little bit. Cuz I do feel like that to me is like at the nub of the issue, which is like how… I, I guess I assumed when I started in ministry, I, early on, I, I was coached by some great leaders who said, listen, once you decide to be in ministry, your private life is a public consequence that, you know, you, you pick to do this. And so if, uh, you know, what you do with your private time is actually, uh, is relevant to your ministry. And so how do we, and I get that, that’s like…
Rusty George — Sure.
Rich Birch — …I think an interesting principle for me to live by, but I also understand on the other side, we want to guard people. And we want to provide a certain amount, and we’re trying to balance off that grace and truth. Uh, help me kind of divide out the lines there for me a little bit. Help me understand that.
Rusty George — Well, if I had a good answer for that, I’d market that. I, I , I think that it’s different for everybody. It’s a bell shaped curve. You have people on each end…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Rusty George — …that want to know nothing. And those that want to know everything and somewhere in the middle is a, a healthy balance.
Rich Birch — Right.
Rusty George — You know, I think I, I would start with your, you know, telling your staff, let’s, let’s watch what we post on social media.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Rusty George — I’m glad that you’re out with your friends and having a good time, but it may not need to be a picture of all of you holding beer bottles, just because we have so many people recovering in our church.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Rusty George — I don’t care if you drink. That that’s, you know, that’s every church makes their own decision on that. But let’s, let’s keep in mind what the, uh, the larger scope actually sees. And let’s just, let’s just have a, a core value of we’re going to be honest about things. And this is so much better now than it was 30 years ago.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Rich Birch — Because pastors are so more likely to talk about their own therapy, their own sin issues, their own problems. And so now it becomes a, I think I can lean in, I think I can trust, um, I, I think in these situations, uh, people, they don’t need to know you’re perfect. They, they like to know you’re real. They just know that they, they wanna know that you’re acknowledging your stuff and moving ahead. So I think in these situations, you know, with your staff and, and with your church, you’re constantly educating them that, no, we’re not perfect. We don’t have it all together. Um, we’re learning as we go. Uh, little things like I always tell, you know, lead pastors: don’t tell people to be in a small group if you’re not in one. And don’t lead it…
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Rusty George — …you know, be in one; be subject to one.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Rusty George — Uh, don’t tell people to go to counseling if you don’t go…
Rich Birch — Right.
Rusty George — …because you need someone to talk to and, you know, and, and talk about that from time to time. So it’s just modeling it, I think goes a long ways. And that prepares you for when there might be a problem to say, uh, yeah, we had a, we had an incident, and this is what we’re doing. Now, granted, there are gonna be people that say, I can’t believe you fired him for that offense.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Rusty George — But…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Rusty George — …that’s church policy. That’s just what we do.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Rusty George — Uh, in that particular case, now you need to know we’re taking care of them and we’re, we’re helping the family along the way. Uh, and I’ll, I’ll be with them through that process. But that’s like the complicated thing of being a pastor. You wear so many hats.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Rusty George — Sometimes you’re CEO, sometimes your pastor, sometimes your therapist.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Rusty George —Uh, but it just, it’s different every time.
Rich Birch — Yeah. And I, I love that advice. I think that’s so, so smart around like, hey, we need to have, it’s like we have the co have to con we have to have the conversation before we have to have the conversation. Like, let’s define a bit of what the boundaries are here. Let’s talk that through and agree on that before we get to the point where, like, where is that crisis manual again? Can I pull that off the shelf? Like, now is the time to talk about that. I think that’s so good. I remember years ago there was a, there was a, um, two people on our staff who, um, you know, we were way at this retreat and it was like, um, I just was like, okay, they’re, you’re a little too cozy.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Rusty George — You’re just a little too cozy. And so these were both people that I deeply respected, people that worked for me.
Rich Birch — And, um, you know, on Monday I pulled him into my office and I said, hey guys, like I, I, I’m not accusing you of anything, but I just want to tell you the things I saw. And here are the three or four different things that I saw that were, that, that just rang bells inside of me. Like I, I don’t know that you are being, the language I use was, I don’t know that you are sending the message necessarily that, that you want to send. Um, and again, I’m not accusing you of anything, but this is where that’s at. That took, man, I was like, and I was deep into my career when I did that. This was not like first five years thing. It was years in. It was a, that was a hard conversation. But, you know, it was interesting. Like, I, um, the one person was super pissed, like, I can’t believe, like you’re, you know, you’re accusing me of everything.
Rusty George — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And I’m like, no, I’m not, I’m not accusing you of anything. This is, I’m telling you what I saw. And the other person was really quiet and then looped back around a couple days later and said, you know, Rich, I really appreciate you flagging that. I said, you know, you read it exactly right. I, you know, things were, not, nothing has happened, but like I, this was a sobering moment for me. And I appreciated that.
Rusty George — Right.
Rich Birch — I was like, oh, good. Like that’s, you know, hey, you know, that’s heading in the right direction. Um, but having those hard conversations are really, really tough. I think the moral issue thing is so hard.
Rusty George — What a valuable thing for them to be able to do that. Because first of all, you’re safeguarding the church. We have to always think about that.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Rusty George — But, but you’re also maybe preventing them from going down a road that they think, oh, I’ve gone down too far now and now I’m stuck. A couple of indicators I look for in people now.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Rusty George — I mean, obviously those situations are red flags, but there’s a couple of others that I’ve just noticed. One is, does, do they have any other friends? Um, you know, I I, I often think about the people we let go on staff are often the people that didn’t fit, and they don’t have any other friends on staff, or maybe they don’t even have any other friends in the church of the same sex – that they’re, you know, they, they just have a, a buddy relationship with somebody in their life that can call ’em on something.
Rusty George — And the second one is, do they have any hobbies? I know that sounds like an outlier, but you know, if ministries are only a world, they’re gonna get burned out really quick. And then they start making stupid decisions. And, uh, we, we all know from the host of podcasts that are out there chronicling the failures of people in ministry that, um, you know, it often is a result of a lack of friendship and a lack of hobbies. There’s no…
Rich Birch — Right.
Rusty George — …there’s no value to life other than their work. And then they end up resenting their work along the way.
Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s so good. I remember years ago, similarly another kind of flag that I’ve, that has stuck with me. I was talking with, uh, an individual who coaches a lot of people or councils, really a lot of people who have been through this kind of, um, you know, this kind of experience, a moral fail failure. And I said, well, what, what are your things that, you know, what’s your coaching to us as leaders? What’s the kind of thing we should be looking for without, you know, looking for evil around every corner? Like, let’s not get paranoid about it. And they said, you know, it’s interesting if you just listen to enough stories, you hear a lot of these relationships, if they go sideways with some sort of moral failure, it happens at conferences, away at a camp, away at like, there’s some sort of, like, we’re, and so they were like, listen, just be aware on those kinds of things. Just be, which is interesting cuz that aligned with my other, that my other kind of own personal experience where I was like, okay, that is interesting. Right? And they’re like, it’s just, that’s just how life works. I thought that’s kind of interesting.
Rusty George — It’s true.
Rich Birch — Well this is just one of the kinds of, uh, you know, potential crisis fun thing that churches get to, you know, to deal with. There’s a a lot in this course that I, I really do think… I listen friends, I think this is one of those courses that you should be taking. Um, it should be the kind of thing that you are, you know, you’re, at least from my perspective, you shouldn’t wait till you’re in a crisis to go through this kind of thing. This is kind of good, you know, let’s get ahead with our senior leaders. There’s lots of stuff listed in here. So you talk about dealing with suicide, you talked about moral failure. Um, you talked about, um, you know, this, the tragedy of dealing with the school shooting, which unfortunately, like, it’s just sad that that has to be in a course, like, but it’s it’s unfortunately way too common as you know, it should be. There’s this whole I issue of what do we deal with, you know, the press in these scenarios. Man, there’s a lot in this course. Talk to me a little bit about why you put this course together.
Rusty George — Well, I just saw that, man, we had lived through so much, and a lot of people were asking us about it. I had people will call up and say, hey, what, we’ve got this suicide. What, what do we do with? Or we’ve got, uh, a school shooting, or… I remember after our school shooting, uh, one of the ministers from Sandy Hook called me and said, how you doing? And man, that meant so much to me. Because he’d been through it. Um, and, you know, we were able to reach out to Nashville just, uh, uh, not long ago after their school shooting and, and provide some assistance. So just, I, I think it, it provides some, some healing when you get to share your pain. So we deal with that. Uh, we deal with what do you do when people are leaving your church and it just wrecks your, your soul, which we’ve all been through that. Uh being out here in California, you know, with the death of Kobe Bryant, even though he did not attend our church, uh, the loss of Kobe in the LA area was a huge thing. And he’s, you know, what do you do when somebody dies that’s not always that honorable, but yet your people want you to honor them. Uh you know, how, how do you walk through that? Um, and just staff stuff. I mean, everybody deals with just crazy staff stuff. If you’ve got a staff of two or 200…
Rich Birch — Right.
Rusty George — …uh, people, people bring themselves to the workplace. So how do you manage that? And we deal a lot with internal stuff too, in the counseling that we dealt with.
Rich Birch — Hmm. Yeah. It’s fascinating. Well, if people want to get this course, where do we want to send them online uh, you know, to pick this up?
Rusty George — Yeah. They can just go to my website, pastorrustygeorge.com and for your listeners, Rich…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Rusty George — …if they use the code word unseminary…
Rich Birch — Love it!
Rusty George — …they get 50% off. So…
Rich Birch — What!? That’s amazing!
Rusty George — 50%, baby. That’s right. So, uh…
Rich Birch — That’s incredible.
Rusty George — …just for you.
Rich Birch — That’s amazing. Thank you so much for that. What a gift.
Rusty George — Absolutely. Yeah. And we’re having people buy it not just for themselves, but they watch it with, with their teams or, they’ll gift it to another pastor, which you can do that as well and say, hey, I, I just wanna make sure that you’re taken care of should you go through something like this. Or maybe they are going through something like this.
Rich Birch — Well it’s interesting you say that, cuz actually, as we were talking about this, I was like, man, if I was in a denomination, if I was a part of a network, if I was, uh, you know, if I was in, if I had some leadership responsibility over a number of churches, I would gift this to all those people. I’d use that code and gift it to all of those people and say, hey, here is a great training resource that you can use. Um, you know, it is, uh, it’s super helpful; I’ve had a chance to look through it – it’s super helpful. Um, and, and, you know, put together in a winsome manner that’s not all like paranoid, paranoid, paranoid. It’s like actually helpful. It’s not, it’s, this isn’t hype; it’s help. Um, it’s not fear driven, it’s faith driven. You know, it’s, it’s, uh, but full of lots of helpful resources. So I would highly recommend that people do that. Drop by pastorrustygeorge.com, use that code, which is super gracious of you to, you know, to pick that up. Have you heard any, you know, kind of response back from church leaders as they’ve started using it? Anything that’s kind of stuck, stuck out to them or anything that, you know, has kind of, has kind of resonated as they’ve, as they’ve been going through it?
Rusty George — Yeah, I mean, obviously you hear from some people that say, oh yeah, that’s great. I’ll keep that as a bookmark for when I go through crisis. Uh, but then the people that watch it say, oh, I’m so glad I saw that because now I see a few things that are coming, uh, that I can hopefully prevent or avoid. And, and we deal with the things that we did right. And the things we wish we would’ve done differently, uh, to be able to, to help some people, uh, navigate some of those pitfalls that we didn’t see coming.
Rich Birch — Yeah. I love it. And, you know, and there are in exa these kinds of situations, when they come up with our church, they demand a ton of us. Uh, so taking time now ahead of time to actually dig into them and think about them, man, it’s, that’s the way you want to do that. Even just that one little bit. The one piece around moral failure, Hey, let’s talk about this with our team before we get there. All of these things and a similar kind of category. I was in, uh, an organization where it wasn’t a church, but where we ran into a crisis situation where we literally had to get the crisis manual down off the shelf and look at it and go check by check, okay, when do we call the cops? When do, you know, all of that kind of stuff. And man, if I hadn’t looked at that stuff ahead of time, if I hadn’t thought about that ahead of time, um, that would’ve been a terrifying moment.
Rusty George — Right.
Rich Birch — So this is a perfect course for that kind of thing to, because you might not have, we, you know, I just blew past that. You might not have a, a crisis response, you know, kind of thought about as a church, and this could help you think through this ahead of time. So I would strongly encourage people to drop by, uh, pastorrustygeorge.com, pick up this, uh, today. Anything else you wanna say just as we wrap up today’s episode?
Rusty George — Uh, just that I would, uh, love to help out as many people as possible, not make the mistakes that I made, not deal with the grief that I dealt with, so that we can hopefully, uh, keep some guys in the game a lot longer. Uh, because our, our world is in need of so many more churches, and not just churches that keep the doors open, but healthy, uh, thriving churches, which is why I’m such a fan of unSeminary. So thanks for what you do, Rich.
Rich Birch — Thanks Rusty, appreciate what you do, and thanks for being on the show today.
Rusty George — Thank you.
Thank you for tuning in to this week’s unSeminary podcast. We have Brian Dodd back with us. He’s the Director of New Ministry Relationships at Injoy Stewardship Solutions, as well as blogging at Brian Dodd on Leadership and the author of several books.
Brian is talking with us about the current state of the church post-pandemic and what we are seeing in terms of church growth. Plus don’t miss the practical tool he offers for discipleship and leadership development.
- Connect and restore hope. // Brian has a unique vantage point as he works with growing churches, noting that churches that focus on Jesus, the Bible, and discipleship are flourishing post-pandemic. COVID-19 has stripped away non-essentials, and people are looking for what’s real and authentic.
- The primacy of scripture. // While the attractional model still works, churches that model personal holiness and excellence while focusing on the primacy of scripture without the glitz are thriving. Realize that as a preacher you’ve been given a specific message to deliver to a specific group of people at a specific time, and that message can change people’s lives forever. People are dramatically attracted to these type of leaders and churches.
- Connect people to God’s word. // We’ve raised an entire generation of people who don’t know who God is. They may come to church on Sunday, but don’t have an active relationship with God Monday through Saturday. Give them practical handles to hold onto in the struggles they face each day. Great systems in small groups that route people in to where they can learn about God’s word and what it says about their life are what people need today. Churches that do that are the ones that are bearing fruit and growing.
- Seven skills. // Brian also shared about his process of writing his latest book, “Mighty: 7 Skills You Need to Move from Pandemic to Progress,” and how it can be used as a tool for pastors and church leaders. The book is based on the 31 verses in 2 Samuel 23 about David’s mighty men and pulls out seven skills that are important for leaders to have in a post-pandemic world: production, passion, resilience, teamwork, contentment, courage, and faith. Each chapter has study questions at the end, making it a great tool for discipleship or developing a leadership culture in churches.
- Serving others. // If you want to move forward in a post-pandemic world and become everything God wants you to be, these seven skills will help you develop your leadership. Brian wraps up by underscoring the importance of serving others first in our decision-making rather than serving ourselves. If we make ministry and leadership about other people, it will lead to exponentially greater results in the long run.
You can learn more about Brian’s books at www.briandoddonleadership.com. Plus order “Mighty: 7 Skills You Need to Move from Pandemic to Progress” in bulk here.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Leadership Pathway
If you are trying to find, develop and keep young leaders on your team look no further than Leadership Pathway. They have worked with hundreds of churches, and have interviewed thousands of candidates over the past several years. They are offering a new ebook about five of the core competencies that are at the heart of the leadership development process with every church that they partner with…just go to leadershippathway.org/unseminary to pick up this free resource.
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Well hey, friends welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. I’m super honored to have Brian Dodd with us again on the podcast. We were saying this has got to be maybe the fourth or maybe even fifth time. I just love Brian – he’s got a huge heart for serving church leaders and he there’s a very few small group of people who who I say, listen anytime you want to come on, you come on, and Brian is one of those. Ah, he’s the Director of New Ministry Relationships at Injoy Stewardship Solutions. He’s been blogging since blogging was cool. Ah, it’s called Brian Dodd on Leadership. Feel like you know it’s not a lot of us still doing that but he’s still doing it, which is amazing. And he’s author of many books including his most recent book, “Mighty: 7 Skills You Need to Move from Pandemic to Progress”. Brian, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.
Brian Dodd — Hey, Rich, it it is an honor to be back again. I love hanging out with you, love investing in your audience. Love your heart as well, and you were blogging when blogging what you know was cool also. So…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Brian Dodd — …you you and I have persevered and are are still trying to get our voice out there and serve leaders through that medium. So.
Rich Birch — Yeah I love it. And your you know I love your I still every week um, you know I’ll love where every week you you know you do this post that’s like the top 10 things that you’ve read that week on Twitter. And all still like check that out and look through and you’re a good curation source of like, hey where you know what you know think good the good ideas. So I’m glad you’re here again. So you you and interact well fill out the picture. What did I miss about Brian Dodd what you know, what how else who else are you? What do you want people to know? Tell us about Injoy that kind of thing.
Brian Dodd — Yeah I mean as far as me. Yeah, I mean you’re right? You you hit them. You know my daytime job is I serve pastors and church leaders through Injoy Stewardship, helping with leadership development and developing cultures of generosity.
Brian Dodd — Evening, for fun and it’s actually turned into something more than fun, I run the website briandoddonleadership.com. And coming out of that’s come a podcast for books, you know, just a number of of resources there to help pastors and church leaders. but being a husband of 32 years and, you know, my wife just retired from being on staff where we attend church. And my daughter is 24 and she’s on staff as a worship leader at a church. Thrilled for her. And come November 12th is the expected date she’s gonna make me a grandfather. So.
Rich Birch — Oh my goodness. Brian, how is such a young man like you a grandfather – I don’t know how that’s possible.
Brian Dodd — I tell you it’s Abraham in reverse it’s, you know. Ah, but yeah, I mean so ah, you know so it’s ah it’s a great season for the Dodd family and and we’re just thrilled about everything God’s doing in our lives. So.
Rich Birch — That’s fantastic. That’s that’s so great. I know my ah my wife, we have young adult children who are not in the like thinking about kids mode. But my wife is definitely. She would like to be a grandma so she’s like ready for that. And I’m like you got to just keep that language down a little bit. You know you got to got a few more stages to go here before we get to that. But that’s so cool. That’s great.
Rich Birch — Well you have ah you know you have a unique vantage point um, and I appreciate you coming on to the podcast to try to take advantage of that vantage point. You interact in your day job with church leaders all the time all across the country in your unique slice, you know, folks that are growing and looking to do new things and all that. And I wanted to kind of pick your brain a little bit around what you’re seeing in this I really do think it’s post-pandemic. You know I was last weekend I saw I was at the movie theater in our town, and there was this like hole these holes random holes on the wall. And I was like what what are those holes there. And I was like oh that’s where there used to be one of those like hand sanitizing stations. They obviously have taken it down and not patched the holes. And I was like hey, that means we’re post pandemic not hand sanitizer as much everywhere. But what what are you seeing kind of you know from your vantage point when you think about the church in this kind of current phase.
Brian Dodd — You know, Rich, listen to your story you know, Barna and Gallup they spend all this money you know trying to figure things out and if they would just go to a movie theater and look for hand sanitizer, they would have already had all their answers. Ah…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Brian Dodd — I think I, because all I do is deal with growing churches, you know, churches that need to raise money for expansion, or major renovations, or payoff debt to do more money or new campuses. So I have a very unique vantage point. And here’s what I’m seeing, and I’ve actually talked to pastors at conferences to see if they’re seeing the same thing and it’s it’s been validated.
Brian Dodd — Ah churches today who understand that it really is all about Jesus, the Bible, his word, how he can change your life, and here’s the steps to do that through discipleship. Those churches are flourishing and here’s why: um Covid stripped away all nonessentials. You know, people people lost a lot during Covid. You know, they lost hope, which may have been the worst. You know, they lost family members. They lost careers, they lost money, they lost trust in just life in general. Some of them lost faith in God through that whole process. So they are they are looking for what’s real.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Brian Dodd — And they recognize, if I can use phrases like this flash and dash or glitz or anything like that. Yeah, you know a hazer is not going to reach people for Jesus, you know.
Rich Birch — Sure, sure.
Brian Dodd — And I talk to pastors all the time I say does the attractional model still work? Well in my opinion, yes, and no. No, the opulence, the over the top things, the wow factor – ah those type of things people don’t need that anymore.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Brian Dodd — They they need what’s real. They still they still won’t excellence. But if you give them… it’s it’s strange, Rich. It’s almost a 1980s messaging. If you give them a 1980s messaging with a 2000s level of excellence, those churches are thriving. And those are the churches that I see God blessing tremendously. And what does that mean for pastors and church leaders? I say this if you focus more on your personal holiness than you do your personal preferences…
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Brian Dodd — …and you realize that as a pastor, I am not a communicator, I am a preacher I’ve been given a message by the Ancient of Days to deliver to a group of people at this point in time in human history – a specific group with a specific message at a specific time that can change their life forever, people are dramatically attracted to those type of leaders and those type of churches.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. You know and some of this I think we were seeing movements of this before covid for sure, and I think covid in some ways has accelerated or intensified I do think that idea that you know there was so much stripped back during that time frame um, that you know the kind of flash and dash or the you know like the flash in the pan kind of thing I think faded away is not you know, not around anymore. I know there was a study done by our friends at Gallup before the pandemic, so this was 2018 or 2019, where they asked people who attended religious services—it was not a particularly Christian sort of study—but they were saying why do you attend? And to me I found lots of hope in it actually they were said three quarters of the reason why people attend was because of the message because of what was what was being taught at those. And then they asked those people, what is it that you’re looking for in those messages? And the two things that came out um, and almost neck for neck one is it needs to be based on scripture, and the second is it needs to be applicable to my life on Monday like it needs to have you know applicable you know outside of this you know this thing. And to me I took great hope in that because I would say hey that is that’s what we want our churches to be. We want our churches to ultimately point people back to the person of Jesus, not to ourselves, that we’re not the we’re a signpost we’re we’re hoping that people um ultimately see him and will walk out as changed people. What are some ways what are some examples of that? So this idea of like hey churches that are that seem to be thriving in this day are are ones that are focusing on you know transformation, or focusing on um you know what you know what what are some examples of that that you’ve seen as you’ve engaged with people?
Brian Dodd — Yeah, um, I’ll just I’ll just use you know some churches that I know firsthand. I’ll give you some practical tips and you know some of your listeners may go you’re getting into behavioral modification a little bit, but I would say, you know, these these are the expectations. Um, you know you can no longer lead from the green room. You know you you you will lead from the lobby and the sanctuary. You know your staff needs to be in the front row with their bibles open taking notes. They need to be leading in that spiritual hunger.
Brian Dodd — Um, you know pastors, old testament and new testament, biblical teaching. Rich, you said it best tell me who God is. We’ve raised up an entire generation of people who don’t know who God is. Ah, tell me who God is. Tell me what his plan for my life is. I’ve heard that he loves me but tell me what that means. And as you said, Rich, so well, what does that mean to me on Monday through Saturday? And give me real handles that I can somehow… because what are people dealing with today? Um, you know I’ve got neighbors – one’s got cancer, one’s got a kid that’s wanting to transition, one’s struggling with their marriage. Another’s got financial challenges, another another’s in the banking industry. So their career is in flux. They need something real that they can hold on to.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Dodd — And so you give you give people real… Ah by the way too um, you know this discipleship, whether you want to call it Sunday school, on campus small groups, small groups, community groups, whatever phrase you want to use, but great systems that route people in to where they can learn about God’s word and what it says about their life, and the bible has to become primary and not a reference point.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good. Yeah, that’s so good.
Brian Dodd — The church…yeah, churches that are doing that and elevating the scriptures to a point of primacy, those are the churches that are yielding tremendous fruit currently that I’m seeing.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s I love that. I love that you’re pointing that out. Listen, you know, I’ve made the joke you know, kind of privately for years that I’m like, friends, just because it’s just because it rhymes doesn’t mean it’s true. Like there’s preaching out there that doesn’t have this kind of like um, is it actually pointing people back to God, or is it just like those are your interesting ideas. And we have to come back to part of what you know I worked with a guy by the name it worked for a guy by the name of Tim Lucas for years and one of his coaching on his teaching is you know when when when he teaches like, listen I need to get to what the bible says like with and he was a dog on it whenever we had other communicators preaching. It’s like you’ve got to get to what the bible says like in the first two and a half, three minutes. Like do not don’t where you know there’s some messages you go to and it’s like you’re 20 minutes in and you’re like are we ever going to land on scripture? It’s crazy.
Brian Dodd — Well you you know, Rich, I heard a sermon once and I don’t know if this individual listens to your podcast or not and if if he does I apologize. But you know his whole thing was Adam and Eve shame equals blame. Okay, so that was his whole thing. It was the rhyme. That’s what made me think of it.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Brian Dodd — And so if you just do a bought just a basic Google bible search on verses on shame.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Brian Dodd — What you learn is shame is what happens when you sin and let you know that you’ve missed God’s mark, and you’re separated from God. The issue is what do you do with it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Dodd — Now Adam and Eve blame. But if you shame is ah is an action point or is an impetus for repentance.
Brian Dodd — Shame is not bad. If you don’t have it by definition we live in a shameless society.
Rich Birch — Oh right, right. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Brian Dodd — So we actually need a little more shame…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Brian Dodd — …and a little people responding to shame in a way that’s godly. Now blame is the wrong way to handle it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Dodd — I will I will give that I will give that pastor credit on that. Um, but shame, shame can shame can be a driver towards repentance and you know getting back in a right relationship with with God. So.
Rich Birch — Nice. Now…
Brian Dodd — That’s just an example to support what you’re saying.
Rich Birch — Love it. So now do do you cover this in your most recent book 7… “Mighty: 7 Skills You Need to Move from Pandemic to Progress”? Is that is that kind of stuff you’re talking about in in this book?
Brian Dodd — Well I you know I talk about a number of things in the book. One of the seven skills is faith. You know if you want to move successfully in a post-pandemic world and become everything God wanted you to be and everything you were meant to be, ah faith is the seven skill is the seventh skill. And so it’s actually the most important too. But I do have a page or two dedicated to what I’m seeing in churches that are experiencing post-pandemic growth.
Rich Birch — That’s interesting. Yeah, so talk to me about talk to me about this book. Talk you know this the thing I love about your your books is they’re very grounded in I don’t know how you observe so much that’s going on in the world around you. You have like this giant ability to like see things that are happening and integrate them all together. You see connections between things that I’m always like, man, how does he connect all those dots? It’s pretty amazing. But talk to me about that; talk to me about Mighty – what led you to read write the book, and and what are you hoping people get out of it?
Brian Dodd — Yeah, and so let me address that. But I want to talk about how I connect things because I think this will help the executive pastors…
Rich Birch — Okay.
Brian Dodd — …because I want obviously I want them to get the book but also want them to have some tools that make them better. So whenever I write, or I collect information, or I try to build cases for various things, Rich, it’s always the law of the second question.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Brian Dodd — So the average person will go to church and they’ll they’ll be driving home and they’ll go well that is a great service. I had a wonderful time. And then they’ll talk about lunch, or the football game, or you know whatever they’re doing that afternoon. It’s the law the second question – the ability to stop and then go, okay, exactly why was it a great service?
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Dodd — Well that’s your blog post. That’s how you coach your staff. That’s how you build momentum because you can replicate the things that God’s blessing and the things you’re doing well. But but that’s that’s the process I go through. It’s really not that complicated. It’s the law of the second and third question, and actually collecting that data and leveraging it for future growth. So that being said…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Brian Dodd — …one of the things that fleshes out of that future growth is a book. Okay? So I I did a couple of devotions for work for church and actually for the local business association. And for the local business association I left out chapter and verse. But I really did something on the 31 verses in 2 Samuel 23—David’s mighty men. Because in that that that passage takes place in 1018 to 1014 B.C. David’s on the run from Saul. So I mean he’s he’s in the wilderness, and he’s lost his friends. He’s lost Jonathan. He’s lost his wife. He’s lost his position. He’s lost his income. Sounds a lot like 2020, doesn’t it?
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. True, true.
Brian Dodd — You know and so he’s lost everything. Well he starts attracting all these people that the bible refers to as distressed, in debt, and discontented. Okay, so out of this collection of misfits, he forms this elite fighting force called David’s Mighty Men.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Brian Dodd — And that’s how history remembers them. So I began when I would give devotions on it and give speeches on it, it was really well received, and I’m thinking, Okay, this thing’s got legs.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Brian Dodd — You know it might be the right message for the right time. And so I chronologically go through that particular set of verses. And the different skills, one’s not more important than the other except faith, which is number seven. Because there’s two sections in there where it said, and the Lord worked a great victory. So without the Lord, the other six, you know, aren’t aren’t going to give you the victory that you want. But I just chronologically go through that passage. And so that’s where that’s where the seven skills come from.
Rich Birch — That’s with the seven. So this is production, passion, resilience, teamwork, contentment, courage, and then faith – so these are the seven…
Brian Dodd — Right.
Rich Birch — …kind of truth that you’ve pulled out, the seven skills.
Brian Dodd — Yeah. So for instance I’ll just do the first one because you mentioned it first…
Rich Birch — Sure. Yep, yep.
Brian Dodd — …and it’s the first thing. The the chief of David’s mighty man was a gentleman named Josheb-basshebeth. And what we learn about Josheb-basshebeth…
Rich Birch — Great name.
Brian Dodd – Yeah. I’ve had to practice a lot on the name.
Rich Birch —
Brian Dodd — What we learn about him is he killed 800 men with a spear.
Rich Birch — So crazy.
Brian Dodd — Now here’s the deal, Rich, I am prone to embellishment. Like I go, oh that’s the most awesome thing I’ve ever eaten.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Dodd — Well, it’s a burrito.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right, right, right.
Brian Dodd — Okay, it’s not the most awesome thing I’ve ever.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Brian Dodd — It’s you know it was tasty, but it’s not worthy of awe.
Rich Birch — Right. Love it.
Brian Dodd — And it’s you know and you know so I’m prone to embellishment. But when the bible says he killed 800 men with a spear…
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Dodd — …he killed 800 men with a spear.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Dodd — So if you mentally insert yourself into that story and you’re walking with him, and however he comes upon this army, whether they’re hunting him down, there’s probably a bounty on his head. Or whether he’s hunting them down or whether they just come together, in any event there’s this confrontation between him and 800 men. And I just have it in my mind that he says, okay Brian, back up I need to take care of this. And I back up 50, a hundred yards because I’m sure they got bow and arrow. So I’m backed up a pretty good way and I watch him go to work.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Brian Dodd — And just on him I noticed three things about him.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Brian Dodd — Number one: he’s a master of his craft. He knows how to work a spear.
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Brian Dodd — And I talk about being a master of your craft. Number two breathtaking health. If you’d never watch two individuals get into a fight, and I’m not talking about professional combat, like um MMA or boxing or anything like that. But like your little league game. Okay?
Rich Birch — Yep, yep, yep yep.
Brian Dodd — You’re going to notice two things. Number one, it’s over very very quickly. And number two, both are exhausted, probably from an adrenaline rush. But…
Rich Birch — Sure yep.
Brian Dodd — …you know he had the health to conquer 800 people.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Brian Dodd — And the fourth thing you learn about him is there could be no wasted movement. His level of efficiency was that an elite level. So for instance, if you want high production in a post-pandemic world so that you can be a person who can accomplish great things for God and your organization in your church, yeah, you’re going to need those three things. You’re gonna need to be a master of your craft.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Dodd — You’re gonna and part of that is you’re going to have to master the fundamentals of your craft.
Rich Birch — So good.
Brian Dodd — You’re gonna have to have yeah you got to have great health.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Dodd — Because if your health goes it that’ll take you down.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Dodd — You can recover from a lot of things, but if your health goes that’ll take you down. And number three, you’ve got to be highly efficient. Ah edit your life and eliminate all the nonessentials.
Rich Birch — So good.
Brian Dodd — And so I unpack in that one chapter I unpack all three of those things that we learn from Josheb-basshebeth. So that’s one example and of course you’ve got the other six that you mentioned earlier.
Rich Birch — Yeah I love that That’s so good. And you can see even with those this again this is, friends, this is a part of why I love about Brian’s communication style. Like he’s so good at just you know it’s the the high juice to squeeze ratio. You’ve got like one thing there and we’re squeezing all kinds of um, ah very applicable lessons out of it for you ah you know to really wrestle with I think this could be a great you know an encouraging text for people, encouraging book to pass along. But then you you go from um from the passage and then give some real some kind of contemporary examples.
Brian Dodd — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Talk to me how all that works. How does how did that how do how did you how you weave those in as well.
Brian Dodd — Well you know, Rich, you’ve written a book. Okay? Have you written more than one or just one?
Rich Birch — Yep, two. Yep, two books, working on the third. Oh sure.
Brian Dodd — Okay, so you’re you’re you’re a writer, so I’m gonna and I think every leader has a book in them.
Rich Birch — Sure, sure.
Brian Dodd — So if you’re thinking about writing a book I’m going to walk you through briefly kind of the writing process of the book. Okay?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Brian Dodd — Um, I noticed when I used to read Malcolm Gladwell at the very beginning of his chapters, there’d be a bible verse. And then he would write about whatever he’d want to write about. So in my second book Timeless which was Ten Things That Apex Leaders Have Always Done and Will Always Do, I actually expanded on Malcolm’s thoughts. And so what I did is I I opened up not with a bible verse but with a biblical framework for that particular skill. And then because it’s timeless things that people have always done will always do you had the biblical text but then I brought in modern examples. Okay. So mighty takes that concept.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Dodd — And so I will build out whatever those, you know, courage or contentment or teamwork or whatever it may be, I’ll build out what the text teaches and then have modern stories of people in a post-pandemic world who are living that out.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Brian Dodd — And so that’s that’s how the book is actually structured. And and here’s another thing and and, Rich, I want to say this. And this this is a different point but I do want to invest in your audience a little bit beyond just content of the book.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Brian Dodd — This is my fourth book. Okay. Here’s the big lesson I learned in my fourth book. My first three books were were about me, if you want to know the truth about it.
Rich Birch — Sure, sure.
Brian Dodd — My my first book is I just wanted my name on something. I had this book in me I just wanted to get it out. I wanted my name in the Library of Congress. I wanted to plant my flag in this earth.
Rich Birch — Sure.
I just wanted my name on something.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Now I love all 4 books. They’re like your children you love them all.
Rich Birch — Yep, yep, yep.
Brian Dodd — You know my second book, which was Timeless, that was a question I wanted the answer to. Are there common threads that the best of the best, regardless of industry, regardless of whether you’re a church or and athletic team – the best leaders, are there common threads in um? And the answer is yes. So that was the answer to a question I had is a research project if you will know the truth about it.
Rich Birch — Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally.
Brian Dodd — Third book I wrote 2021: The Year in Leadership was a book I always wanted to write. The reason I started writing my website and my blog is I wanted to write a book. I can’t write fifty thousand, sixty thousand words at one time, but I can write 500
Rich Birch — Right. Yep, yep.
Brian Dodd — And I would just house it on my blog and then kind of scrunch it together and make a book.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Brian Dodd — That was the book always wanted to write.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Brian Dodd — So my flag, my question, my book. This book is the first book and it’s just me maturing as an author. But this is the first book I ever wrote for other people.
Rich Birch — Oh good.
Brian Dodd — In fact in the title 7 Skills You Need to Move from Pain…
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Brian Dodd — So this is the first book I wrote for somebody else.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Brian Dodd — And Rich, here’s the thing and this is what I want all your readers to know, and hopefully you won’t have to wait to your fourth book to learn it like I did. Okay?
Rich Birch — Sure.
Brian Dodd — When you make your ministry and your leadership and what you push and present to the world, it’s the old old Zig Ziglar phrase, if you give people what they want, you’ll get what you want.
Rich Birch — Yeah, so true.
Brian Dodd — Rich, this is the most pre-ordered, pre-sold book I’ve ever written.
Rich Birch — That’s a good lesson.
Brian Dodd — Ah it hit five five days into it it was the Amazon’s number one bestselling new release for Christian leadership.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Brian Dodd — It hit Kindle three days ago and last night, its second day, it was number two.
Rich Birch — Yeah, so good.
Brian Dodd — Now all the glory goes to God, and number two it’s a lesson I wish I learned a long time ago. If I would have made my writing and my leadership about other people sooner, and serving people sooner…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Brian Dodd — um you know it’d look different than it does today. But that’s the logic behind the book. That’s the structure of the book. And I think you’ve got XPs on here today that they’re they’re they’re having to make a decision – is this going to serve me, or serve my church, and if it serves my church, it might hurt me a little bit.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Dodd — I would encourage them to always serve other people and serve their church. It will work out for them exponentially better in the long run.
Rich Birch — Yeah I love that. I love ah, in fact, in our house we have as you leave kind of the door that we mostly walk out of, and we’ve had this since our kids were a little, we have these these these words it just says: help others. Um, you know that we’ve tried to with our kids all the way along say hey you know there’s a more rich and full life ah, if we orient around the needs of other people, and figure out how we serve them, and get around thinking about that. And what a vivid example um even from this most recent you know book that you’re working on.
Rich Birch — I also love that idea of the framework. I found the same thing in the so two books that have been released, third that I’m working on. Um, it’s done actually – I’m just in that kind of like final grooming of it. Um, it’s that actually coming up with the the framework, the the substructure of how it all fits together is a big part of it, and getting that all kind of sorted out. Um, then from there you know it it does tend to flow because you’re just following the the structure that you’ve put together, the kind of the path that you’ve laid out. So um, love that That’s that’s encouraging to hear. I’m, you know, love hearing about this book. As it’s been out there, has there been any part of it… because the thing I found interesting about the things you you write is you write them and then people read them and they react differently, or like hear things that maybe you weren’t really thinking of, or kind of spurs interesting conversations. Has there been any of it—I know it’s just early—but has there been anything that’s that’s happened so far that’s kind of caught your attention as it’s been out in the real world.
Brian Dodd — Well here’s what’s here’s what’s been interesting. Um, and then all 7 skills, I don’t think there’s one chapter better than the other chapter. But people gravitate to what speaks to them. You know like I’m wired for production. You know, I like getting things to done. I like checking things off a list I’m wired for production. I love the production chapter. So I was talking with a friend yesterday. He loved the passion chapter. Okay. He loved Eleazar and they had to pry the sword from his hand. So we spent a lot of time talking about the subject of passion and what that whole battle scene must have been like, you know, and [inaudible] people versus passion people.
Brian Dodd — And so really the the interesting thing for me, and um in my other books there have been specific points that really jumped out to people. But what I’ve learned about this point is whatever a person’s gifting is, whatever their interest is, however, they’re wired, that chapter speaks to them more than the other six.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Brian Dodd — So the good news about that is is it’s a book that no matter who you are as a leader, ah, here’s what I know one seventh of it you’re going to love. You know?
Rich Birch — Which is pretty good! Love it.
Brian Dodd — Yeah.
Brian Dodd — So I you know look if we just get average on the other six we’re ahead of the game…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s funny.
Brian Dodd — …but I know at least I know at least one seventh of the book, you’re going to read that you’re going to see yourself in it.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Brian Dodd — And here’s another thing, Rich, that I’ve had another person tell me, anyone can be mighty.
Rich Birch — Sure. Oh love that. Yeah.
Brian Dodd — And you know, they just need permission to be mighty and they need some skills. And so this book this book is giving people confidence to go, and I don’t have to live in 2020 anymore. I want to leave 2020, I’ve started leaving 2020, but now I can leave 2020 in the most productive, successful, God-honoring way possible.
Rich Birch — So good. Well this is fantastic. I know for me, you know I’m struck by this. I think this could be a great gift book to give to someone. I do think this would be a great maybe even a framework for a series, that kind of thing. I think it could be an amazing ah tool for church leaders and so I’m assuming we could pick it up, or I know we could pick it up at Amazon. Is there anywhere else we want to send people, maybe to your website or there are other places we want to send them to pick up copies?
Brian Dodd — Yeah, you you you can get on my website. Let me tell you who I wrote. You know, I said I wrote the book for other people you, let me tell you who I really wrote the book for.
Rich Birch — Okay, sure.
Brian Dodd — If the business community reads it and loves it, great. The athletic community if they read it and love it, great. And I hope they do. Okay. This book is written for pastors and church leaders, and at the end of each chapter I have a set of study questions. And here’s why I did that. Ah, it is a great discipleship tool.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Dodd — I am praying and my hope is that pastors will do it as a sermon series, and they’ll have an accompanying small group um lesson going right along with them. And they’ll read that chapter and then they’ll do those five study questions at the end of each chapter. And it does build to faith at the very end.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Dodd — Um, and so what I’m really really hoping is that you know because at churches, you know, I love the phrase we want to develop a leadership culture. Well absolutely. Question is how do you do that?
Rich Birch — Yeah, what’s that look like? Yeah.
Brian Dodd — And there’s there’s not many books out there, you know, like okay we can take ah a book and you can pick the name of any book, but let’s read a chapter. What’d you read? What’d you learn? How are you going to apply it? The old Dan Ryland process.
Rich Birch — Mmm-hmm.
Brian Dodd — And really what you’re doing is you’re repurposing a book to make it a discipleship tool in your church.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Dodd — This book is written for fun and enjoyment and learning and application. But it’s also written then know if you want to disciple your leaders, or you want to start a leader group, or a business leader group, or a sermon series, this book is written that you can do that over a seven week process.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Brian Dodd — And obviously buying the book, to answer your question, buying the books on Amazon, Barnes and Noble. But if you go to Xulon press, who I used for my self-publishing, I would get the bulk orders through Xulon Press, if you want to do 10 or more.
Rich Birch — Okay, love it. Good.
Brian Dodd — And Xulon is xulonpress.com
Rich Birch — Press dot com. Okay, great. Perfect. Well this is this has been fantastic. Anything else, you’d like to say just as we wrap up today’s episode?
Brian Dodd — You know, Rich, you and I known each other a long time. Um I just want to thank you that you have given your life to serving pastors and church leaders…
Rich Birch — Well thanks, man.
Brian Dodd — …and you’ve been faithful in that. You’ve been consistent in that, and you’ve done it with unbelievable excellence. You’ve been a great friend for over a decade, and I just want to thank you. I mean to be honest, you are now such a constant in the church leadership world, you can be taken for granted.
Rich Birch — I appreciate that.
Brian Dodd — And trust me, there’s guys like me that we don’t take you for granted. So thank you for everything you’re doing.
Rich Birch — Well I was, you know, it’s I appreciate that that’s super kind of you to say that – means a lot coming from you, Brian, for sure. You know, I was I was joking with our mutual friend, Carey Nieuwhof, we were talking about this. How um you know it’s amazing people come and go in this space all the time. But there’s like some of us have just been around. We just won’t let go. It’s like we just both you know if anything we got staying power, so you know I appreciate that. I really appreciate that. Ah, we want to send people to briandoddonleadership.com – is there anywhere else we want that to send them to get connected with you ah, to follow along with you and your story?
Brian Dodd — Oh sure on Twitter is @briankdodd and Brian’s with an “i” and @briandoddonleadership on Instagram. So yeah, any of those.
Rich Birch — Love it.
We got links to them all on my website so you can go to the website and then springboard off of that.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Brian Dodd — But yeah, if you know love to interact with your audience, love to serve them in any way I possibly can. And yeah, just being an absolute honor to play a very, very small role in helping equip them to become everything God created them to be.
Rich Birch — Thanks so much – appreciate that, Brian. Take care, brother.
Brian Dodd — You too.
Thanks for tuning in to the unSeminary podcast. We have a real treat today. We recorded this interview in person while in London, England with Marcus Gibbs, Vicar at Ascension Church.
Are you looking for innovative ways to reach unchurched communities and serve the next generation?Listen in as Marcus shares the simple yet engaging Bubble Church model and its potential to reach unchurched communities and revitalize struggling congregations.
- Think creatively. // In London and the UK there are far fewer people who are familiar with Christianity or have any experience with church than in North America. That means churches have to really think creatively about how to engage people there. Marcus explains that unless you can answer the question of how to do church, no one will come through your doors.
- Open your doors. // Ascension Church set up a coffee shop inside their 100+ year old building that has become an avenue for drawing people in. Since opening Parish Coffee four years ago, it has transformed their outreach efforts. The coffee shop attracts a thousand people a week, and has provided an opportunity for the church to launch several other ministries, including a debt center, a refugee drop-in, and an eco-station. Marcus notes that 85% of his time is now spent ministering to people midweek, rather than just on Sundays.
- Bubble Church. // During Covid, Ascension Church also started a half hour service on Sunday mornings which is called Bubble Church. Aimed at parents and their preschoolers, the service includes puppets, action songs, a Bible story, and an activity or response. Bubble Church has become a beloved community for families who previously had no experience with church.
- Automatic onramp. // Not only is Bubble Church a great way to teach kids about God and the Bible, but it’s also a no-threatening way to introduce unchurched parents to the gospel. Kids and parents can get involved with serving during Bubble Church too. And as the kids grow older, it provides an automatic onramp to the next service at 10:30. As a result, Bubble Church has become a model for growth that the Church of England is adopting as a strategy for renewal for struggling congregations.
- Planning before you launch. // When Marcus and his team launched Bubble Church, there were elements of the service that they didn’t include initially. Marcus said looking back they would have handled differently talking about things such as serving, giving or even an offering prayer in order to normalize them to an unchurched crowd from the beginning. If certain elements aren’t present from the start, they can be hard to work in later.
- Where is God already at work? // When Marcus first became vicar of Ascension Church, he had his own ideas about the sort of community he wanted to reach and serve. It wasn’t until God opened his eyes and showed him who He was bringing to the church through Parish Coffee that Marcus realized he needed to focus on serving young families. As church leaders we need to recognize where God is already at work and lean into that, adapting to the needs in our community.
To learn more about Ascension Church and Parish Coffee visit www.ascensionbalham.org and explore the Bubble Church model at www.bubblechurch.org.
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Well, hey friends. Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you are tuned in today. We’ve got a, a special episode; today I’m recording live, which doesn’t normally happen. Normally I’m across a Zoom call, but in the room with my friend Marcus Gibbs from Ascension Church. This is a fantastic church in southwest London—that’s London, England for friends that are listening in—that you should, you should really should be tracking with. There’s some really cool stuff that’s happening here. They’re a Church of England church here in southwest London – that’s below the river, fantastic neighborhood. I’ve actually been here for the last couple days spending some time with Marcus and his team. So it’s been, it’s been just wonderful. Thanks for your hospitality in that. But Marcus, welcome. We’re so glad you’re here. Welcome to the show.
Marcus Gibbs — Oh, it’s great to be here, Rich. And yeah, really been awesome hanging out a little bit, and yeah, just great to be on the podcast.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Why don’t you tell us about the church. Kind of give us a flavor, maybe talk a little bit about the community, talk a little bit about, you know, how long have you been here – those sorts of things.
Marcus Gibbs — Yeah, so I’ve been the pastor here for nine years, and it’s a great community. It’s really vibrant. We’re not in central London, but we’re not far out from the center. And they call it Nappy Valley round here…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Marcus Gibbs — So there’s lots of kind of young parents with young kids. And it’s quite a wealthy area, to be honest. People commuting into London, people working in finance, that kind of thing. And when I took on the church nine years ago, yeah, it it needed a lot of love to be honest. There was a lot of different things that I needed to look at, really practically even to do the whole building, which needed a lot of work. It’s a 140 year old Victorian building, and it, the heating at the time didn’t work, so we had to raise some money to put some central heating in and just to kind of get the place up and running really. So, but it’s, it’s, it’s a great community and I absolutely love it here.
Rich Birch — Well, one of the things I, I love about talking with leaders like yourself who are leading in contexts where people don’t just go to church. You know, like give us a sense of the kind of spiritual makeup. Most of the people that are listening are American, but, you know, there’s a vast less number of people, percentage-wise, in London that attend church. Give us a bit of that makeup. Tell us about that.
Marcus Gibbs — Yeah, no one goes to church. It’s, it’s, it’s like no one, like no one.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Marcus Gibbs — There’s a lot of lovely people. They’re kind of good without God. You know, they’re, they’re, they’re kind of wandering around very, very friendly, very polite. They’ll, they’ll stand in line and queue and do really nice things, but, but fundamentally, no one comes to church here.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Marcus Gibbs — You know, if you open a church here in southwest London expecting anyone to come, you’ll be sorely disappointed.
Rich Birch — Right.
Marcus Gibbs — And that means that we have to really think creatively how on earth are we gonna do this thing called church here in this part of London. Because unless you get an answer to that question, nothing will happen.
Rich Birch — Right.
Marcus Gibbs — And I think for us, the, the, the real sort of turning point was when someone in my congregation said, Marcus, we, we need to open a coffee shop in the church.
Marcus Gibbs — And the moment—this guy was called Sandy—he said to me, we’ve gotta open a a coffee shop. I said, you’re absolutely right. I mean, people love that coffee round here. They love their flat whites; they love, you know, hanging out. And actually, it made a real virtue of the fact it was a 145 year old Victorian church. Because sitting, looking up at incredible architecture and stain glass windows, drinking your flat white is something that, you know, the local Starbucks can’t offer.
Rich Birch — Absolutely.
Marcus Gibbs — So four years ago, we opened the coffee shop, we called it Parish Coffee, and it has transformed absolutely everything. Because we now have around a thousand people a week coming through the church to drink coffee, to hang out. And suddenly we’ve become this church for the community. And I often say to people, we don’t wanna be the best church in Balham. We wanna be the best church for Balham.
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s so good.
Marcus Gibbs — We want to be like a church where people say, if they weren’t there, we’d really miss them. And I think that’s, that’s kind of something that’s happened over the last few years where I don’t think they just miss us because they’ve missed their caffeine. Although I think they would, by the way, But I think what we found is on the back of the coffee shop being open during the week…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Marcus Gibbs — …we’ve been able to now launch several other ministries. So we’ve been able to open a debt center to help people with debt problems. We have a refugee drop-in for people who have landed on our doorstep from other countries who need help and support, and so that’s now started. We run a little eco station where people can reuse and refill their kind of empty shampoo bottles and things like that with new products instead of rebuying plastics so that they’re caring for the environment.
Marcus Gibbs — Plus we’ve now become a place where the local sick from college come and visit and, and hang out and eat, eat donuts, and drink coffee. So it feels like this place is now really alive during the week.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Marcus Gibbs — And it’s totally, I mean, it’s ruined my life in the, you know, my life before the coffee shop and before all these initiatives was mainly based around Sunday.
Rich Birch — Right.
Marcus Gibbs — You know, it’s like you spend the week getting ready for Sunday.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Marcus Gibbs — I’d now say 85% of my time is midweek…
Rich Birch — Right.
Marcus Gibbs — …ministering to the people midweek.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Marcus Gibbs — Sunday, Sunday’s great. I love Sundays.
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Marcus Gibbs — But actually, it’s the other days that I, I love even more because that’s when we’ve got unchurched people walking in who, who just look around and say, wow. This is awesome. I love it here.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Marcus Gibbs — And I wander around and chat and sometimes get to pray with them. And then sometimes I sort of help by the, by the way, we I forgot to mention, but we do this thing on a Sunday, we do this thing on a Sunday called church.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Marcus Gibbs — And maybe you should try church. And they look at me and they say, oh, yeah, okay.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Marcus Gibbs — Let’s try church. That sounds good.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Marcus Gibbs — So, so it’s been, it’s been a real transformation for me as well, and it has been and continues to be a lot fun.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love it. Well, the thing, yeah, I think listeners who are listening in, one of the things, I think it’s super critically important that we all learn from leaders like Marcus in context, like in some ways you are peering into the future. listeners. Because every community that, that are people that are listening is becoming more unchurched. And we’ll eventually end up exactly where Marcus’s community will and obviously outside of a dramatic move by the Lord, obviously, but this is what’s happening. Our church, our communities are becoming more and more unchurched. So in some ways, you are looking into the future by listening in today’s conversation and hearing about what, you know, some of the things that have happened at Ascension.
Rich Birch — Now, I, one of the things that I was really excited to come, you know, fly across the pond to come and see was something called Bubble Church. This is a service that your church does first thing on a Sunday morning. I had a chance yesterday to check it out and just loved it. Tell me, what is Bubble Church? Just for folks that are listening, and give us a sense of what Bubble Church is.
Marcus Gibbs — In real simple terms Bubble Church, it’s a half hour service on a Sunday morning, aimed at parents of little ones. I mean, preschoolers kind of up to five, six years of age and, and little kids. And it’s, it’s very simply in many respects, they come in, they sit on a bubble. What do we mean by that? A bubble is a little circular piece of carpet that the family sit on. And like I said, it lasts about half an hour. And there’s puppets, there’s action songs, there’s a bible story that the puppets act out, and then there’s an activity or a response so that after the Bible story, they open a little bag on their bubbles, on their mats, and they open it up and inside there’s maybe a craft activity, or a way of responding to the Bible story. And there’s some words that we use at the beginning and the end, and then all of a sudden, after about half an hour, we say goodbye. And that’s the end of the service.
Marcus Gibbs — So it, it’s kind of family time all together. We kick off with coffee and croissants which is a very southwest London thing to do. And the, the parents and the little ones absolutely love it because it’s a service that is absolutely targeted and designed for them.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Marcus Gibbs — Unashamedly so.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Marcus Gibbs — We’re not trying to reach everyone. What we are trying to reach is is this demographic that we’ve got here of these young families with little kids. They don’t want to be in a church where people look at them and say, shhhh be quiet, you know?
Rich Birch — Right.
Marcus Gibbs — So this service is like totally for them. And just a bit of a background is you know, we went from zero people coming to this service, and you, and, and I just wanna reiterate, no one comes to church…
Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes.
Marcus Gibbs — …here in the UK, or it’s such a low percentage. And within six months we had over a hundred people coming through the door.
Rich Birch — That’s, that’s amazing.
Marcus Gibbs — And 8 out of 10 of these people have never been to church before.
Rich Birch — Right, right, right.
Marcus Gibbs — So just get your head around that.
Rich Birch — That’s amazing.
Marcus Gibbs — They didn’t grow up a Christian, their parents weren’t Christians, they’re coming with their kids, and they have never been to church before.
Rich Birch — Right.
Marcus Gibbs — And so for us, this was like, wow.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s amazing… [inaudible].
Marcus Gibbs — You know, we’ve been trying to get, if, if we could get an extra a hundred people a week coming who had never been to church before, within six months to our normal main service…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Marcus Gibbs — …we’d be like, wow.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.
Marcus Gibbs — And just a bit of background, we launched this during Covid, because here in the UK the government had said they, they clamped down and said, you can hardly do anything. You know, we, we had what was called a lockdown, we could hardly do anything. But one thing we’re allowed to do was to do an hour of excise a day outside. And the other thing was, they said, if you do go to church, you can go to church, but you have to stay in your bubble, which means you have to stay with your close family.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Marcus Gibbs — And so we thought, okay, if you can stay with your bubble, let’s call it Bubble Church and we launched this church.
Rich Birch — Love it! You redeemed all of Covid just for that.
Marcus Gibbs — We did. We did.
Rich Birch — If that’s, you know, and that really is what got kicked off and that’s that, and that’s, that was the initial catalyst.
Marcus Gibbs — Yeah.
Rich Birch — How did, how did you spread the word at the beginning? Because to me that’s amazing. Like, the fact that people, is it just, you know, people talk to their friends? Or what, what was it that kind of, you know, that initially got the word out there that people were able to hear about it?
Marcus Gibbs — I mean, launching Covid times was actually a really good thing because people were hardly allowed to do anything.
Rich Birch — Right.
Marcus Gibbs — And so the moment they found out, wow, we can go with our kids to this church service, we’re allowed to do that, that’s one of the things we’re allowed to do. It really helped. And so it gave them an opportunity to do something with their, their, their children. But also, I mean, we did run a toddler group for, you know, parents and little ones during the week, so we told them about it. There’s a lot of WhatsApp groups and FaceBook groups in this area that we advertised on. And amongst parents around here, word gets round.
Rich Birch — Right.
Marcus Gibbs — You know, if something good is happening…
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Marcus Gibbs — …they’re like, you should check this out. You should, you parents and moms and dads, they all kind of compare notes. And so the word spread and it’s continued to grow. And I’m really pleased to say that even though we are now post-Covid and there’s none of these lockdowns, we’re a little bit concerned, oh, is it gonna continue growing…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Marcus Gibbs — …or is it gonna now decline?
Rich Birch — Yeah, cause people…
Marcus Gibbs — Yeah, it, it’s continued to grow. And what’s awesome is the Church of England in this country who really understandably are looking for ways to, to grow the church, they came to us and said, look, we would love for you to roll out this Bubble Church to other churches around the country.
Rich Birch — Right. Absolutely.
Marcus Gibbs — And so they’ve given us some funding, and now we’ve employed someone whose job it is to basically go and coach and train other churches on how to run Bubble Church.
Rich Birch — Yeah. I love it.
Marcus Gibbs — And I, I’ll just, I just wanna say the, the thing that’s good about it is it is simple.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes.
Marcus Gibbs — It is it is really simple.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Marcus Gibbs — So when you go to explain it to other churches, it’s not like, oh, you need a PhD and you need to have really, like, studied, you know, theology, [inaudible] and…
Rich Birch — Child psychology…yeah, yeah.
Marcus Gibbs — …you know, it is, it is really quite straightforward. But for some reason, and obviously I believe that’s, that’s God, the Lord, it seems like we’ve developed a kind of recipe, a kind of way of doing this church service that really seems to work well. And if we can be part of helping other churches with that, then great.
Rich Birch — Yeah. I love it. Well, and you know, I know so I’m not from a tradition that has a lot of liturgy or we have a different kind of liturgy. We would not call it what we do a liturgy. But one of the things that I found interesting about, you know, participating in in Bubble Church yesterday was there are a couple elements that, particularly at the beginning and the end, that feel very liturgical, but actually very much fit if I was watching a children’s television show. Like it’s the lots of kids TV shows do the same kind of thing where there’s like this, this predictability that that kids like. And, you know, as parents, we get to know all those things, which I think is actually super beautiful and amazing. You actually told me an interesting story about that, about the ending, kind of the benediction, for a lack of a better word, that, you know, impact. Tell me about that again. You told me that story yesterday.
Marcus Gibbs — Oh no, it was lovely. We had we’ve had a couple of parents telling us that their kids, when they go to bed at night or at home, act out those words from Bubble Church.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah. I love that.
Marcus Gibbs — God is bigger than our fears. God is kinder in the kindest person, and they’re kind of doing the actions and they’re using these words. And they come to us and say, we act out Bubble Church at home. You know, and you see the power, actually. You know, we are not hugely liturgical here…
Rich Birch — No.
Marcus Gibbs — …but just a few words with these actions have really kind of lodged in, in the minds and hearts of these little kids. And it’s just, yeah. It’s beautiful.
Rich Birch — Well, and the, the hope is the beautiful thing about those, I was thinking when you told me that story yesterday, I thought, man, there’s gonna be kids… you know, we always have to have an eye for, we’re not raising children. We’re, you know, we’re raising adults, right? We’re raising people who 30, 40 years from now, you know, I’ve got faith for, there’s gonna be somebody who is in a tough part of their life and they’re gonna remember, you know, God’s big, he’s bigger than my fears. He’s bigger than, you know, and he’s close, wants to be closer than a friend. All of that. It just is amazing. I think that’s incredible.
Rich Birch — Do you have any stories of maybe a family that’s connected through Bubble Church that you’re convinced maybe your church wouldn’t have reached before, you just maybe who hadn’t stumbled into your, you know, your main service or any, any, your other programming that could kind of paint that picture a little bit about how this has helped your, your church reach the community?
Marcus Gibbs — Yeah. Definitely. I mean, there’s this one family who – how can I put it? They’re like uber cool. I mean, they’re like, you know, they’re the most beautiful mother and father I’ve ever seen.
Rich Birch — They got all the, the good genetics.
Marcus Gibbs — Literally when God was handing out, like the good looking genes, they’ve got all of them. And, you know, they’re just lovely people, but I don’t think they would’ve ever have kind of come to church.
Rich Birch — Right.
Marcus Gibbs — And something really funny happened. I I, I just know that, you know, their background was not one of church. And I heard them chatting to a new couple just the other week. And the new couple said, oh, are, are you, are you new here? And they said, no, no, we’ve been coming now for six months and this is our church. And I just…
Rich Birch — Beautiful.
Marcus Gibbs — …kind of overheard them say that. And I thought, wow. Yeah. This isn’t just some event they come to. This really, they see it as their church. This isn’t some kind of little kids group or something. They see it as their church. And they’ve now started to volunteer and help with Bubble Church. And their, their, their children are starting to now help lead the service as well. And this is, this is the really cool thing about Bubble Church I’ve found, is that as the children get older, there’s so many roles that they can get involved in, in terms of serving.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Marcus Gibbs — So we’ve got some of the kids who like, you know, were really little when they started; they’re now a little bit older. They’re now doing the puppets. We get them helping us lead the service on the stage. We get them helping with the refreshments. And they just love it. And so this family who previously would’ve had, I, I think very little to do with church, now see it as their church.
Rich Birch — Right.
Marcus Gibbs — And not only see it as their church, but are serving in that church.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Getting plugged in. Incredible.
Marcus Gibbs — And this is this this is just brilliant. There’s another family, there’s, there’s, there’s a chap called Gary, who I think is a single dad, actually.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Marcus Gibbs — Think a single moms is a single dad; he’s got two daughters. And you know, in the nicest possible way, I think he would’ve found normal church services just too much for him.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Marcus Gibbs — Like an hour and a half or an hour and a quarter…
Rich Birch — Yeah, too long.
Marcus Gibbs — …with his kids, I, I think he would’ve just found the whole experience almost too overwhelming, too foreign.
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Marcus Gibbs — Just something he wouldn’t have known about or known what to do, wouldn’t have known when to stand, when to sit.
Rich Birch — Right.
Marcus Gibbs — Just, it would’ve just not been for him.
Rich Birch — Right.
Marcus Gibbs — Whereas I think there’s something about Bubble Church. We all sit on these carpets on the floor, right?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Marcus Gibbs — It’s a bit like, it’s like a great leveler.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Marcus Gibbs — We’re all in this together.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Marcus Gibbs — The adults, the kids – we’re all on our bubbles.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Marcus Gibbs — And everything about it requires no prior knowledge…
Rich Birch — Yep. Yeah.
Marcus Gibbs — …of church, of Christianity. And so I think for someone like him, he doesn’t feel stupid.
Rich Birch — No.
Marcus Gibbs — He doesn’t feel like he’s made to stupid ’cause he doesn’t know where to go to in the Bible when we say turn to this to the Bible.
Rich Birch — Yep. Yeah.
Marcus Gibbs — It’s like, because we are doing it for the kids, the parents can learn as well without being made to feel stupid because because we’re explaining it to the kids.
Rich Birch — Right.
Marcus Gibbs — They can be learning…
Rich Birch — Yes, that’s very clever.
Marcus Gibbs — …without, do you get what I mean?
Rich Birch — Absolutely.
Marcus Gibbs — Without feeling like, oh, I don’t know what this means, or, you know…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Marcus Gibbs — …I don’t know this bit of a Bible or whatever.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Marcus Gibbs — So I think, I think we’ve found that it’s very accessible.
Rich Birch — Right.
Marcus Gibbs — And you know what, it’s just really turned things around here.
Rich Birch — Yeah. I love it. Now talk to me about, I’m sure there’ve been a few times where you’ve maybe stubbed your toe or you feel like, hey, we did stuff that maybe didn’t work. Or like, there was some things that maybe were like, if you were talking to other churches, you’d be like, avoid this. Has there been anything with Bubble Churches you’ve got launched that, that, you know, you would, you would advise people as, as they’re thinking about this kind of thing, you know, to, to maybe do different?
Marcus Gibbs — Yeah, I think—and we’ve talked a bit about this, Rich—I think one of the things we didn’t do at the beginning because we were so excited about people coming through the door, is we didn’t mention giving at all.
Rich Birch — Right.
Marcus Gibbs — And you know, we just wanted them to be blessed…
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Marcus Gibbs — …and feel like this is, you know, kindness of our hearts.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah.
Marcus Gibbs — And, and that was lovely and, and it really is lovely. But I think what I’ve learned is if things aren’t there from the start…
Rich Birch — Right.
Marcus Gibbs — …are quite hard to then crowbar in later. You know what I mean?
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Marcus Gibbs — It’s like you know, if we’ve been doing Bubble Church for a year and then all of a sudden out nowhere, we start to include a little slot in that half an hour talking about, hey, would you like to give to the work of our church?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Marcus Gibbs — Suddenly people like, wait there!
Rich Birch — Wait a second, is this a beat and switch?
Marcus Gibbs — You know, you, you, you never talked about that a while ago.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Marcus Gibbs — You now talking about that ’cause we’re…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marcus Gibbs — And there’s a few things that I think looking back, not just on money, on, on serving, on, on offering prayer at the end, a few things that we’ve added subsequently. And it’s, it’s been all right. But I think if we baked those into it from the beginning…
Rich Birch — Right.
Marcus Gibbs — …I think everyone would’ve gone with it.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Marcus Gibbs — And that would’ve been seen, that would’ve would be viewed as just normal. That’s part of what Bubble Church is. Whereas I think trying to introduce key elements later on…
Rich Birch — Right.
Marcus Gibbs — …is trickier.
Rich Birch — Yeah. That makes sense. Now, so one of the things you mentioned was that, which I think is amazing, is that you’re looking at, you know, helping other churches that are asking these questions. And, and one of the things you and I had talked about was, you know, I’ve had the opportunity to engage with some churches that are unfortunately at the, the end of life. They’re in the kind of, they’re in their, they’re death blows. Things are, you know, they’re, they’re, they’re considering closing. And oftentimes I find the saddest, most depressing part of those conversations are the leaders in those churches saying, you know, there’s, it’s been, and they know the date. It’s been 15 years since they’ve been a kid here.
Marcus Gibbs — Yeah.
Rich Birch — You know, it’s been 20 years since we’ve, you know, we have, we have a, we have a, a nursery that’s completely dusty because we haven’t had any kids here in so long. And the thing I I love about this is I do think from a church renewal point of view, like, man, it could be a great strategy. And obviously that’s a part of the story that God’s writing here. Talk to me about what your thought or your vision might be around some of that. Like, how could you see other churches adopting this? What could, you know, how could this fit in? You know, what’s your heart on that front?
Marcus Gibbs — Well, I’ll tell, I’ll tell you the story of my friend Gabriel, who is based in North London. He’s a pastor of church there. And coming out of Covid, you know, we are good friends and he, he just says, you know, I’m really not sure whether I can carry on. You know, Covid had absolutely decimated his con congregation. They were an older congregation. A lot of ’em weren’t coming back. Things weren’t looking good. And he, he basically said, Marcus, can I steal Bubble Church? I just wanna steal the whole thing.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Marcus Gibbs — Can you send me just everything?
Rich Birch — Send me everything! Send me your puppets!
Marcus Gibbs — Send me the slides, send me the puppets, send me the Bible stories. Send me literally everything.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Marcus Gibbs — Video yourself doing it. Just send me the whole thing. And I said, of course. So we sent him everything and we, we look back now and realize he had the gift of desperation, you know, it was that, you know…
Rich Birch — That’s good. I like that. Yes.
Marcus Gibbs — …and he, he, he, he, he started Bubble Church. And we do it weekly, but he said, look, I, I don’t have the resources to do it weekly on a Sunday morning. I’ve already got my existing services, but I’m gonna do it monthly. And he phones me every month and just tells me story after story after story of how amazing…
Rich Birch — That’s great. Love it.
Marcus Gibbs — …Bubble Church has been. And how it has transformed his congregation. He’s also now built a whole new congregation with it. But he’s got the most incredible stories. I I, can I just share a couple?
Rich Birch — Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely.
Marcus Gibbs — So one is because he does it monthly, he, he was telling me that one of the dads of the little girl who I think she’s only three or four, asks her dad every week, is it Bubble Church Day? Is it Bubble Church Day?
Rich Birch — No, not today.
Rich Birch — And it’s like, not today. And Gabriel and I were saying we don’t know anyone who asked that question of our main service.
Rich Birch — Yes. Right.
Marcus Gibbs — We have no one who says, is it the 10:30 service today?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Marcus Gibbs — You know yet, yet here we have kids literally saying to their parents, is it Bubble Church?
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Marcus Gibbs — And that’s just amazing. And then the other thing, the other story was he had some people who start coming to Bubble Church, and as often happens, London is a very transient place, and he’s in North London, and they said, we’re moving way out of London. And so, you know, we’re gonna be heading outta London. And he spent the next five minutes saying, we’re really gonna miss you. So sorry that, you know, you’re leaving. And they stopped him and they said, oh no, we’re not not leaving. He said, what? He said, we’re gonna travel from where we live outside London every month…
Rich Birch — Wow. To come back.
Marcus Gibbs — …to come back for Bubble Church. And he looked at ’em, he said, are you joking? He said, no, no, we’re gonna come back. And then he thought, yeah, but will they?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Marcus Gibbs — And they did.
Rich Birch — Wow. That’s amazing.
Marcus Gibbs — And so, and for me, the joy in this is—and I know you are like this, Rich, as well—seeing our other leaders, other brothers and sisters kind of see the joy of growth and God bringing people into their church. For me, seeing the transformation in his own life, in his own ministry…
Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s huge
Marcus Gibbs — …in his church…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Marcus Gibbs — …brings me incredible joy.
Rich Birch — Absolutely.
Marcus Gibbs — And I know sort of, this isn’t meant to be one big kind of advert for Bubble Church, but I’m, I’m just excited about it, because the other thing that starts to happen is, and he’s seen this at his church and we’ve seen this at our church, people then say, actually we’re gonna start to stick around for the next service.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
Marcus Gibbs — And or actually we’re growing out Bubble Church now, so we’re gonna stick around for the next service.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Marcus Gibbs — And I have spent seven of my nine years thinking, how do I grow my 10:30, my next service? Right?
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Marcus Gibbs — And ironically, the way it’s growing is because we started Bubble Church, which is before it.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Marcus Gibbs — As those families are growing up…
Rich Birch — Right.
Marcus Gibbs — …they’re going into the next service…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Marcus Gibbs — …and we’re growing our next service…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Marcus Gibbs — …but not in the way I thought we would be.
Rich Birch — That’s great. I love it.
Marcus Gibbs — And so actually it provides the sort of on-ramp to the next service.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Marcus Gibbs — And so that’s, that’s just been fantastic.
Rich Birch — Marcus, That’s that’s so encouraging. That’s, I I love that. And I think the thing, you know, one of the transferrable lessons I want people to pick up here is, you know, Marcus, you know, has a passion for, you know, next generation, trying to help you know, families with kids. That, that is like at the core of what growing churches have done for years, which is, hey, we’ve gotta think about that. We can’t, that, you know, senior leaders, you can’t outsource that to someone else. You can’t outsource the passion. There’s parts of it that like at the end of the day, somebody else has gotta run these things and all that, that makes sense. But the passion for it, the like, hey, I’m excited to, you know, for that is, is that’s your role as a senior leader. You’ve gotta be, you know, fired up about it.
Rich Birch — Actually, one of my, my memories that I’ll take for sure from my experience in Bubble Church yesterday was, yeah, I was sitting at the back trying to be the, like, you know, the guy watching everything and checking it out. And then I, I look up and, and Marcus is a, you know, he’s a vicar in the Church of England friends. He’s a, this is a serious man that’s on a serious agenda. And I look up and there we’re doing actions action songs and the vicar’s up there doing actions. And I, that just warmed my heart. I was like, man, that even for those kids to see, here’s a vicar who is willing to do these actions, personally, I think that’s gonna speak volume to generations. And obviously it speaks volumes to the leaders who are involved because they look around, and they can pick up whether they know whether you are actually passionate about this stuff or not. They know if you’re just trying to paint the, you know, just be like, no, no, this is really exciting and you’re not really that excited about it. And you know, I think Marcus is a perfect example of that. It’s just so great.
Rich Birch — Well, when you think about the future of Bubble Church kind of up over the horizon, you know, where’s your, where’s your head go? What do you think, you know, either here locally or in other churches, where, where’s your your brain go? Where do you think this thing might be going next?
Marcus Gibbs — Yeah. I wanna answer that, but I just wanna say on, on that point you said about me standing up and doing the actions and everything, I just want to quickly share that…
Rich Birch — Sure. Yeah.
Marcus Gibbs — …God had to really break something in me. I, I, I just wanna share this because again, I, I keep repeating. I’ve been here nine years. Bubble Church happened two years ago. And I think maybe for the first seven years I had in my mind the kind of people I wanted to minister to here.
Rich Birch — Oh, good. Oh, right. That’s good.
Marcus Gibbs — I, I, I, I wanted these young professionals. We’re, we’re in London. I wanted these people in their twenties and thirties, probably single, you know who have great jobs in finance up in the city. That’s the kind of thing I did before I moved into church leadership and I, I was pretty much saying to God, look, here are the people I want to minister to.
Rich Birch — Send these people.
Marcus Gibbs — I’ve got, I’ve got some great talks and sermons to give. I can share my experience of when I used to work in London before I was ordained. I, I was pretty much saying to God, you know, I know, I know who my target congregation is.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes.
Marcus Gibbs — And the church wasn’t great.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Marcus Gibbs — The church wasn’t great. And I, I think there was just this moment where insofar as I hear God, I just felt him say to me one day, who are the people I’ve actually given you?
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Marcus Gibbs — And the people he had actually given me were the people in our coffee shop that I mentioned at the beginning. And when I looked around, they were all there with their strollers, and these little kids and loads of parents and little kids, and that’s the area we’re in. And I said, but God, they’re not the people I want to minister to. And he, we, you know, we did that kind of back and forth that…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Marcus Gibbs — …you know, you hear, and he said, yeah, but they’re the people I’ve put on your doorstep. And in that moment, I think suddenly realized, you’re right. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
Rich Birch — No, that’s good.
Marcus Gibbs — You know, I never, I never went into church leadership to do puppets.
Rich Birch — Right.
Marcus Gibbs — I never, I never went into…
Rich Birch — That’s the quote of the episode right there.
Marcus Gibbs — I never went into church leadership to do puppets. I never went into this to do action songs.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Marcus Gibbs — But fundamentally, the, the testimony is this, that since we went with I think the people who God was giving us versus the people he wasn’t giving us…
Rich Birch — Right. That’s, that’s so good.
Marcus Gibbs — …once we started to go with what he was doing…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Marcus Gibbs — …we’ve, we’ve started to see this incredible growth. And like I said, it’s impacting every era of our church. And so for me, you know, I’m just grateful I got there eventually; it took me a few years, but I’m just pleased I eventually got there and realized this was what God wanted to do here in our context, and I’m pleased I kind of finally worked that out.
Marcus Gibbs — In terms of Bubble Church moving forward, you know what it’s not gonna be for everyone, that’s fine. You know, it’s, it’s not gonna be for every context. It’s not gonna be for everyone. But I do believe that because of its simplicity and because we’ve started to see how this works in all sorts of different contexts that it could well be for some people mm-hmm. And if they’re willing to give it a go, I’d say give it a go. And there is just nothing better than seeing a church start to fill up with young people again. So…
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Marcus Gibbs — Yeah. Our hope is that, you know, we are here to serve. That’s it.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Marcus Gibbs — We want to find ways of helping others launch Bubble Churches around the country here in the UK, but as you know, I’m open to traveling globally, and…
Rich Birch — Particularly to warm climates.
Marcus Gibbs — That’s right. Particularly to places with nice beaches.
Rich Birch — Yes, exactly.
Marcus Gibbs — But no, anywhere we, we, we would love to be able to share what God’s shared with us really.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love it. Well, and yeah, I just, I just want to honor you though, like, I think, so essentially what you’re saying is, hey, I saw where God was already at work, and I got on board with that. Which sounds really easy, but you actually did it. You actually leaned in and, you know, had the eyes to look and to look around and be like, hey, who, who’s actually here? And having, you know, I spent some time in your coffee shop today. I’ve been meeting with people and stuff, and it’s, it’s amazing. Like, it is like, yeah, these are all the people that you’re talking about. It’s lots of people with strollers hanging out with their kids. And and I that’s another really good lesson for us leaders as we’re listening in, is, is there’s the perception of who we think we want in our church versus who is actually here, or in our communities. And you know what, if you just leaned into who’s actually there, rather than you know, who you wish, you know, God would send you. I, I just think that’s, that’s so good.
Rich Birch — You know, if people want to to track with you, to reach out, to actually connect with you, connect with Bubble Church, cause we’ve kind of talked a little bit about that. Where do we wanna send them online? Like what’s a website or that kind of thing?
Marcus Gibbs — Just go to bubblechurch.org.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Marcus Gibbs — And from there you can get hold of me and you can find out more about Bubble Church. So that’s bubblechurch.org.
Rich Birch — Okay. Easy. Super easy. And the other thing, the other person I wanna honor and all this is our friend or our mutual friend, Carey Nieuwhof. He, so he Marcus and I are both in an online community that Carrey runs called The Art of Church… The Art of Leadership, not Church Leadership, just The Art of Leadership. And I, it’s a fantastic online forum. It’s like a private forum. You have to, it’s like a thing, you gotta pay for it to get involved and all that. But that’s actually how Marcus and I got connected. And man, Carey does such a good job on that, does such a great job of pulling all that together. And just wanna honor him in, in all of that too, cause it, it really is a fantastic resource. If you don’t know about that, you should check that out.
Rich Birch — Well, as we’re wrapping up, any final words, anything else you’d like to say as we kind of close down today’s episode?
Marcus Gibbs — It’s just been great to hang out, Rich, and I really appreciate you. And I just want to add also how much I appreciate Carey and all that he’s shared online and with that network as well. I’ve learned so much, so thank you.
Rich Birch — Yeah, thanks so much, Marcus. It’s been great to spend time with you at your church and, and just, you know, God’s best. I’m just excited to see what happens and, and I really do think churches, there are probably people who are listening in who today this has moved you, maybe even specifically towards, hmm, maybe we should find out more about Bubble Church. I would take action on that. Go to bubblechurch.org. Learn more, take some steps. Marcus is a great guy, very approachablev would love to help you. So thanks so much. Thanks for letting us be here today. Thanks for being on the, the show.
Marcus Gibbs — It’s been great.
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking today with Erik Henry, the Executive Pastor of Central Christian Church in Wisconsin.
Data is critical to accurately understand what’s happening at your church and what’s changing over time. Listen in as Erik discusses the importance of using data to make informed decisions at your church as well as best practices for creating a survey that collects the needed information.
- Data allows you to make decisions. // As church leaders, we can rely on our gut feelings when making decisions. But what if we could use data to make more informed decisions? Data allows you to make decisions based on what is really happening, but it’s only as good as the question it answers or the decision it helps you make.
- Behavior and self-reported spiritual maturity. // It’s difficult to measure spiritual maturity because it’s so complex, individualized, and often cyclical. However we can measure behaviors and self-reported feelings about spiritual maturity. While this data isn’t useful on its own, tracking the changes to these measurements over time can help you determine what’s working and what needs improvement.
- Create surveys. // Surveys are a useful tool for gathering data and tracking changes over time. However there are also limitations of survey data and we need to interpret it carefully. For example, when measuring the self-reported feelings about spiritual maturity of church members, it is important to consider the sample of the church that is willing to take the survey. Erik warns against overstepping the difference between causation and correlation, as pastors may push certain behaviors as the mark of spiritual maturity, leading to a new kind of legalism.
- *Focused and brief.* // Erik emphasizes the importance of keeping surveys simple, clear, specific, and brief, with no more than 10 short questions. Each question needs to be directly aimed at something you want an answer to. The surveys at Central Christian Church are sent out via email and use Google Forms which most people are familiar with.
- Determine what to ask. // What are the key performance indicators for your church as a whole? Focus your questions on measuring your KPIs to get the most useful data from your surveys.
- Survey Fatigue. // Incorporating surveys into your communication strategy is a helpful assistant in the decision-making process, but be cautious about overusing it. Central Christian limits churchwide surveys to twice a year. After surveying your people, consider distributing the results and connecting it to your decision-making.
You can learn more about Central Christian Church at www.centralwired.com. Plus check out examples of their surveys below:
- Central Check-in // A churchwide survey that assesses Central Christian’s people and finds patterns that may help the staff to help the congregation grow in their faith throughout the coming year.
- Central Check-in Results // Charts of the 305 responses to the Central Check-in survey.
- Example Staff Satisfaction Survey // Used to build healthy staff culture at Central Christian
- Example Volunteer Satisfaction Survey // Used to assess the volunteering experience at Central Christian.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Chemistry Staffing
One of the things that they never teach you in seminary is when to move on from your current church. Over the last couple of years, we have been having a TON of conversations about this with pastors all over the United States. Of all the ministry decisions you make, leaving your position will be the toughest.
Download this two-in-one resource that walks you through the decision-making process.
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey, everybody, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you’ve decided to tune in today. You know every week we try to bring you a leader who will both inspire and equip you. Today is definitely going to deliver that for you. We’ve got Erik Henry with us. He’s the executive pastor at a church that you should be tracking along with, Central Christian Church. Now there’s only one of them in the country;I know this is one of those names of churches – there’s a lot of them out there so which one are we talking about? We’re talking about the one that’s kind of in the middle between Chicago, Madison, and Milwaukee. This is a fantastic church or a multi-site church with both English and speaking congregation. Ah, one of the fastest growing churches in the country. Erik, so glad you’re here. Welcome to the show.
Erik Henry — Thanks for having me, man. I really appreciate that.
Rich Birch — Yeah I’m honored that you’re here. I’d love to love your church. Love what God’s doing there. Can we start with kind of tell us about, for folks that don’t know, fill out the picture tell us about Central and then tell us about your role. What is what do you do as an executive pastor at your church?
Erik Henry — Sure. Yeah, Central is a it’s kind of a… yeah I talk to executive pastors all the time and all of us say that our churches are weird. Um, every…
Rich Birch — Mm, so true. Yes, very true.
Erik Henry — Every church is not like any other church and so ah, but…
Rich Birch — But yours really is. Yours really is.
Erik Henry — Ours really is.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Erik Henry — But you know we we live we’re a large church in a small community. You know 35,000 people in our community and um, it’s not in a big city. It’s not in the suburbs. It’s not in in a growing area. It’s actually in a semi-depressed area, and so you know a lot of it’s very blue collar. It’s not white collar. You know people working in um, in executive roles. It’s it’s very blue collar community and it’s it’s just a different place. And so um I love it. I’ve been at Central for 23 years. I was actually teaching math, high school math…
Rich Birch — Oh wow.
Erik Henry — …and I I was on just coming to church here. They asked me to come on staff and start ah, young, ah like a Gen X Ministry, back when that was a kind of the thing.
Rich Birch — Oh yeah, Gen X. Gen X, remember that? That was like all the cool and hip.
Erik Henry — Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. That’s when we were young.
Rich Birch — It’s going to happen to you, Gen Z friends. It’s going to happen to you someday.
Erik Henry — True story.
Rich Birch — But you’re going to look back and laugh and say, remember when they used to pay attention to us? Well they never paid attention to Gen X. I’m Gen X as well. So.
Erik Henry — Yeah.
Rich Birch — But yeah, that’s great. Love it. So you started there and then kind of works your way up.
Erik Henry — So anyway so I started there. I’ve been here 23 years…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Erik Henry — …and I just kind of I can’t decide whether I kept getting promotions, or I just couldn’t keep a job.
Rich Birch — I love it.
Erik Henry — But I went from um I went from Young Adults to ah Worship Pastor to Creative Arts Director to Discipleship Pastor to a Campus Pastor.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Erik Henry — And then now I’m the Executive Pastor. I and I got into this role in February or a January of 2020. so I thought I was hopping right in at the perfect time…
Rich Birch — Perfect.
Erik Henry — …and then a month later you know what.
Rich Birch — A vision for a new decade. You know, got 2020 vision we know exactly… all those churches that had clear vision for 2020, we know exactly where God’s going to lead us that year. No, not true.
Erik Henry — Bingo.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool.
Erik Henry — So um so yeah anyway so it’s it’s been a blast. I’ve so I’ve got 3 years under my belt as Executive Pastor.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Erik Henry — Um I you know we we had wanted this to be sort of ah a more of a ministry use ah, focused Executive Pastor role. We were going to hire on an Operations focused Executive Pastor, but you know with everything that happened um that I’m filling both of those roles right now.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Erik Henry — And so um, but truthfully I love it. I enjoy it. I but I am doing a job that I was never trained for, especially on the operation side. And so I’m I’m going back to school.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Erik Henry — I’m getting my MBA right now…
Rich Birch — Oh very cool.
Erik Henry — …in data analytics.
Rich Birch — Data. That’s cool.
Erik Henry — And so so it’s something something that I really enjoy. You know I’m a math guy; I’m a geek and so um, so the the data thing is exciting to me. I’ve been really enjoying. I’ll graduate with my MBA in December.
Rich Birch — Right. Congratulations, congratulations on that. That’s so good.
Erik Henry — Yeah, thanks.
Rich Birch — Well you know data is interesting. I know a lot of we have a lot of executive pastors or executive pastor wannabees that are listening in ah and when you said data I know that people perked their ears up and said, ooh this one’s going to be a good episode. I’m excited about that. Because we do we think about… a lot of executive pastors see the world through spreadsheets; we that you know the world is just a series of spreadsheets, different tabs. Um, but you know talk to us about data. Why why is data important for us as church leaders to be thinking about?
Erik Henry — Yeah, great. You know I love this stuff. Data for me, and I think it should be for everybody, data is all about making good decisions. Um, data is only as good as the question it answers or the decision it helps you make. Um and so ah, part of the problem that I see in church a lot is that churches and leaders in churches usually make decisions from their gut. You know? The the sense.
Rich Birch — It’s so true.
Erik Henry — So and and I’m not I’m I’m not denigrating that. There’s there’s a place for that. And and not just your gut but also your spirit. You know there’s a there’s a place when you are um, following and and listening to the Holy Spirit. There’s a place for listening and and ignoring data. But I think I think we do that a little too much.
Rich Birch — Are okay.
Erik Henry — And I think, you know, part of what I think is important about data is it allows us to make decisions based on what’s really happening not based on a gut feeling. Um and the reality you know as well as I do ah a lead pastor is going to hear what the people want him to hear. They’re gonna he’s gonna…
Rich Birch — Sure.
Erik Henry — …he’s going to hear what ah because people love him.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Erik Henry — People want to love him.
Rich Birch — Right.
Erik Henry — People want him to think that they’re really on his side. And so sometimes even though a lead pastor can feel like they’re in the know and they get their people. Um it is not exactly that clear because they have a skewed understanding because people show them what they want him to see.
Rich Birch — Yeah I love that. You know I’ve said for years, there’s there’s no bad information. There’s just information we don’t like. We want data. We have to get, ah you know, the the real information on the ground. But let me play the the you know the negative voice. Ah you know, listen come on, Erik, we’re in a spiritual game here. We’re we’re trying to help people grow spiritually. You can’t get that onto a spreadsheet so don’t even bother. Why would we do it at any level? Isn’t it just all about like you say you know how you know how the Spirit leads, but you know at its core, you know, we can’t; we can’t. The core thing that we hopefully do in our churches, see people take steps towards Jesus, you can’t get that onto a ah spreadsheet, can you?
Erik Henry — And I agree with that, to a point.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Erik Henry — I do because there are things that we can measure and there are things that we can’t. Um and and so I’d like to, you know, first off the bat the first thing that I know that every pastor would love to be able to do is measure spiritual maturity. I can measure if you are where you are when you come here. and then I can measure how spiritually mature you are as you ah go through all of the programs or whatever of our church. My opinion, and this is just my opinion, you cannot measure spiritual maturity.
Rich Birch — Right, right, right.
Erik Henry — It is way too complex. It is it is so clearly ah, an individualized um thing. It’s also it’s it’s circular. It’s cyclical, and it is not an up and to the right trajectory. Rarely is it that.
Rich Birch — Right. That’s a good insight.
Erik Henry — Also it has so so often it has so little to do with our church. The way that people grow we think it’s going to be our church that grows them. But the reality is the way that people grow is when they lose a loved one and they walk through that, and it’s painful, and in the end they see that they have gotten closer to Jesus as a result.
Erik Henry — Now I’m not I’m not saying that there are no, there is no role for the church. Of course, there’s a huge role for the church at this. But to say that we can measure spiritual maturity. Um I think is a little ah overstating.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Erik Henry — But there are things that we can measure.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Erik Henry — We can’t measure maturity, but we can measure behaviors, and we can measure self-reported feelings about spiritual maturity.
Rich Birch — Interesting. Okay.
Erik Henry — Now I want to I want to suggest that those are two different things. Spiritual maturity is different, actual spiritual maturity, is different than self-reported feelings about spiritual maturity.
Erik Henry — Because we’re not always um as self-aware as we want to be, as we wish we were.
Rich Birch — Right. It’s so true.
Erik Henry — And so um and so as we measure these things, it’s just really important that we are are clear and careful about describing exactly what we’re measuring. Um and mathematicians and statisticians, that’s what you’re about. We don’t want to overstate.
Rich Birch — Yes, right.
Erik Henry — We want to be very careful everything that we say is only what we can prove through the numbers.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Erik Henry — Pastors, on the other hand, are not very careful.
Rich Birch — God bless them. God bless them.
Erik Henry — I love them; I’m one of them.
Rich Birch — Yes, exactly. Exactly.
Erik Henry — But we are not careful, usually, about how we use data. And it’s not because we’re…
Rich Birch — Right. Well…
Erik Henry — Go ahead.
Rich Birch — No I was going to say like that’s like one of those standard running jokes, right? Like in fact I think it might even be in my bio where I talk about the sizes of churches I’ve worked at, and I even make the joke I’m like those are not senior pastor numbers. Those are actual numbers. Like because you know we all we all and I’ve… listen, the senior pastors I’ve worked for amazing gentlemen…
Erik Henry — Yeah.
Rich Birch — But they all this the guys I worked for had this propensity of like yeah, there’d be a room of whatever a thousand people, and there’s like there was at least 4000 people there today. And and so and that and we all have that – obviously they’re easy to make fun of. But we all do that. I do that. You know we we kind of skew what we see kind of fits our story. We’re constantly, there’s ah ah you know, ah a confirmation bias that we have. When when you talk about behaviors and then self-reported feeling, can you give us some examples of those?
Erik Henry — Sure.
Rich Birch — Let’s pull apart that a little bit; talk to me a bit about behaviors.
Erik Henry — Sure, absolutely.
Rich Birch — What are some of the behaviors if we’re trying to get at? Look under the hood, what’s actually happening in our churches?
Erik Henry — So questions like, ah how many times a week do you read the bible? That’s a behavior.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Erik Henry — Um, that’s something that we track. Ah another so that there’s sort of the on your own behaviors. Then there’s also the ah are you a part of of participation in some of our church programs, like for instance, are you serving on a serving team? Yes, or no. That’s ah, an important question for us.
Erik Henry — Are you um are you taking advantage of any of our classes or small groups. That’s another question, you know, that we’re trying to track. So those are behaviors. Am I doing a thing; am I um am I participating in a program? But then when it comes to self-reported feelings. It’s how how connected do you feel to other believers? Now that is a very soft number.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes.
Erik Henry — Do you know what I’m saying? That’s a 0 to 5 how connected do you feel to other believers at Central Christian Church. That the number 4 means almost nothing.
Rich Birch — Right.
Erik Henry — Now what it what what it does do is you can start to track over time where that number moves to. So if if on average you’re 2.1 this year, and a year later you’re at 4.2 – whoa! Whoa! We did we must have done something. Something happened. Or you go the other direction. Ooo we’ve got a problem.
Rich Birch — Right.
Erik Henry — But the first time you measure it a 4.0 means literally nothing, you know?
Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, it’s just a…
Erik Henry — And so those are the when it comes to self-reported feelings about spiritual maturity, you’re measuring the change. Not the actual number.
Rich Birch — Okay, that’s good. I love that. Now, so a part of what I hear you saying is actually really driving to doing more surveys, asking people to reflect on their their own.
Erik Henry — Yes.
Rich Birch — There’s obviously a couple different kinds of data – one is just like how many people are in groups. But another one is like are you in a group? That’s two different ways to look at it. Help me understand what place do surveys fit in in the way you’re using data, where you’re gathering gathering data, and then how that helps you in, you know, making decisions at the church.
Erik Henry — Surveys are huge for us. Um, because trying to to, you know, you can you can count the number of people who go to your classes in small groups. You can count your attendance, you can count other things, but it doesn’t doesn’t give you all that much information actually.
Rich Birch — Right.
Erik Henry — So there’s a difference between um, the number of people who show up in seats and the amount of times per month on average your your person, your people attend church. So how many times per month do you… you can’t get that in any way other than a survey. Um.
Rich Birch — Right.
Erik Henry — There’s no real way to pull that off. So surveys for us are really important. We’ve gotten we’ve decided that we’re doing two surveys a year.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Erik Henry — We’re doing one every six months. So for me, there are there are four things that we are really careful about with surveys. Number one simplicity. It’s got to be simple. It’s got to be…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Erik Henry — …clear and easy… and the second one is clarity. got to be absolutely clear with your question. They can’t be they can’t have to think about it like, what do they mean by that? Specificity. Each question has got to be directly aimed…
Rich Birch — Driving behavior. Yep.
Erik Henry — …at a question that you want an answer to. And the fourth one, and I’m this might be the most important one, it’s brevity. You cannot ask more than 10 questions.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Erik Henry — And they but it better be very simple short questions if they’re 10 of them. Um, because people will not fill it out.
Rich Birch — Yeah I… Okay, let’s talk about these two.
Erik Henry — Yeah
Rich Birch — Let’s keep pause here and drive driving on this a little bit. So you’re doing two big surveys a year. Um are you doing those like on weekends, slowing down the service, speed bump. Okay guys, either take out your phone, or you know here’s a piece of paper. Talk us through functionally what does that look like.
Erik Henry — Yeah, yeah, we do. Um we we do two things with each of those surveys. Number one we send out send it out on email to everybody. The truth is we’ve decided Google Form is the best way to do it.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Erik Henry — I mean there’s lots of other things [inaudible]…
Rich Birch — Yeah, there’s fancy stuff but um.
Erik Henry — …Survey Monkeys, but what we found with our people because we are blue collar um, church, our people are like if you’re going to want me to learn a new thing to take a survey I’m not doing it.
Rich Birch — Right, right, right. Okay.
Erik Henry — And so everybody knows Google; everybody knows Google Forms, so we just send a link to a Google form. Click, click, click, click, click – it’s less than a minute usually that it takes to do a survey.
Rich Birch — And what and what um, give me a sense of maybe a couple stories around stuff that’s changed at the church because of these surveys. That like, hey you know we we learned something here or it confirms something that was going on, um you know, that ended up kind of driving a different behavior.
Erik Henry — Yeah, one one of the main there was a huge shift post pandemic in that number that I just talked about when it comes to how many times people come to church. It used to be less than two.
Rich Birch — Right.
Erik Henry — Um, now we’re over three, so which is a major shift. So we have ah you know our our numbers are still not… in-person numbers are still not quite back to what they were pre-pandemic. Um, but the people that we have are coming more often. And so that just changes your communication strategies. It used to be we had to say something for four weeks…
Rich Birch — Right.
Erik Henry — …before everybody would hear it. It’s not the same anymore.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Erik Henry — So that changes our communication. That’s a small one. But they’re just other things.
Rich Birch — No, that’s a good example.
Erik Henry — Yep.
Rich Birch — Okay, so now I so ah one of the churches I served in, um, they had 2, 3 decades of they did an annual survey which was a great great practice. And we worked very hard to not change the questions…
Erik Henry — Yes.
Rich Birch — …because what we were trying to do was to try to get year over year, talk us through that. Ah, what does that look like?
Erik Henry — Very important. And I’m sort of with our staff I’m like, hey what we have is what we have.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Erik Henry — Don’t don’t suggest more. Don’t don’t… because that’s the there I mean listen, and it’s not their fault.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Erik Henry — They’re like, oh man this is great. We’re getting all this information. I would love to get more information.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Erik Henry — I’d love to get different… I’d like to hear and that’s a great thing. You can’t do it. You gotta say, what is the stuff that matters the most? Because you cannot get people who are like, another survey are you kidding me?
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Erik Henry — Or a 25 question survey? Never gonna fill it out. You know?
Rich Birch — Yeah, I wonder if um, would you be willing to share us like a PDF or something that shows that…
Erik Henry — Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah.
Rich Birch — …whatever the 10 questions you use – that that’s great. We’ll put that in the show notes, friends, so you can see that because you should be doing this is a best practice.
Rich Birch — I I want to come back to something you said there, ah because it connected to another idea I was thinking about which was, so you’re saying, hey you’re seeing that people are saying that they’re coming more. They’re actually their average ah number of times a month has gone up which is actually, I would say if you were to ask pastors across the country, they would say it’s gone the opposite direction.
Erik Henry — Right.
Rich Birch — So you’re seeing a trend that’s different now I actually think the deeper point is most people don’t know, they’re just guessing.
Erik Henry — Right.
Rich Birch — They’re blaming their lower attendance on that.
Erik Henry — Yep.
Rich Birch — Um, but you actually know that. How have you seen… how have you used the data to compare to national trends?
Erik Henry — Yeah.
Rich Birch — I’m sure that’s a part of the conversation of you know the way you’ve thought about these things.
Erik Henry — Yeah, so one of the other things that I think is really important is you have to um, you have to think about the the skew of all of your data. So everything that we do, because we do in-person in the services we allow people to do it right in the service and we do email. Everything that you get, we had 305 responses to our survey this last survey. Um every one that you get is skewed because it’s somebody who is willing to fill out a survey. So there is a correlation…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Erik Henry — …between someone who’s willing to fill out a survey and someone who’s willing to come to church more times a week or a month.
Rich Birch — A month. Yeah.
Rich Birch — And so ah so if you… for us to compare our 3.1 number with the national average, which I think right now is 1.6 or 1.7…
Rich Birch — It’s just under 2. Yeah, yeah, yep.
Erik Henry — Yeah um I don’t think that’s a fair comparison.
Rich Birch — Right.
Erik Henry — Because usually it’s Barna who’s doing that research and they know what they are doing. And they are getting very ah um, they are getting sample sizes that are absolutely random. We are not. And so…
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Erik Henry — The the the statistician in me is like we can’t compare those two numbers. Our 3.1 is not equal to their 1.7. because…
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, your 3.1 is compared to, you know, friends that maybe are aren’t tracking along, the 3.1 is most relevant as compared to your 2.4 three, four years ago.
Erik Henry — Exactly right.
Rich Birch — Because that tells you that difference. It’s it’s hard to make that comparison to other churches and understand, you know, what does that, you know, what does that look like it.
Erik Henry — You know and it goes back to it goes back to the question of what being very careful about what you’re saying you are measuring. Because we’re not actually measuring our whole church. We’re we’re measuring a sample of our church…
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Erik Henry — …that’s willing to talk to us. Um, and those are that’s a different question. And it goes back to also to you know what do you do with the information? The pastor always has the best of intentions.
Rich Birch — Bright.
Erik Henry — But you know I hear all the time I hear them saying things like, you know all you have to do is read your Bible every day, pray every day, um join a small group, give, and you know here’s this list of 5 things and you will be spiritually mature. And um, that sounds great… because what they do is they see this data and they’re like hey people who are are spiritually mature are doing all of these things. And so they think it’s a cause and sometimes it is. But the reality is they’re they’re overstepping. There’s a difference between causation and correlation.
Rich Birch — And correlation. Yeah.
Erik Henry — And so um, when you have those those ah the pastors who want to push all of these um behaviors, if behavior is the is the mark of maturity, you end up in the end with a little bit of a new kind of legalism.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s a good insight.
Erik Henry — Because it’s like if if you just check the boxes then you’re good. And that’s not how Jesus led.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Erik Henry — That’s not how he taught. And it’s much more complicated than that and so but data is wonderful. It can be used in a way that can end up getting you to a new kind of legalism.
Rich Birch — Yeah that’s a great insight. Very, very good insight there. You know, I’ve similarly I’ve struggled with this tension of um, we do want to be clear. And so lots of churches, we all have the like whatever the five things are. You know, these are the you know, get on a team, give, be in a small group, you know, attend services, bring a friend – something like that. And ah you know for years I’ve said that that is super reductionist, and is actually not that high of a bar. Like when I when I would look at what Jesus says he says you know, follow the narrow road.
Erik Henry — Yes.
Rich Birch — And like give it all up and follow me. I’m like that doesn’t sound easy. But we have to come up… There’s a tension there because we do want to we have to communicate something…
Erik Henry — Right.
Rich Birch — …that helps people take a next step…
Erik Henry — Correct.
Rich Birch — …but it it can be super reductionist. So let’s look under the hood a little bit on on questions that you’ve asked. So I’m going to ask you either extreme. On one side ah, question that you keep asking that you’re like we probably should stop asking that question because it’s it’s not helpful, like we’ve had the same answer for so long. It’s it’s not helpful.
Erik Henry — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Or what’s the one question that you don’t ask today that you’re tempted by your team. You’re like, oh maybe we should put this one in here. Do you have do you have anything on either side that that would kind of stretch our thinking a little bit?
Erik Henry — Ah sure. Yeah I can give you the one like the first one where you you…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Erik Henry — …we asked a question for a little while that was that had to do with the fruit of the Spirit because we’re thinking okay maturity will produce fruit.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Erik Henry — So love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness – the whole thing. Um and so what we started doing was having people rate on a 0 to 5 how those fruit are being lived out in their lives. Again, this is a self-reporting thing, right? So this is self-reported feelings about the fruit in their life. And we did that over time and guess what? Nothing ever changed it. What what I what you…
Rich Birch —Oh interesting.
Erik Henry — What you found was that the it was just an average of how people feel about themselves in general, and that just doesn’t go anywhere.
Rich Birch — Oh interesting.
Erik Henry — And so it just turned out to be a a waste of time.
Rich Birch — Right. One to cut off the list. Oh that’s good. That’s interesting. Anything on the other side that you’re tempted to be like, oh or or the one, or maybe another way to phrase that, is is there a team member that keeps hounding you that like we’ve got to do this. Like, you know, we’ve got to have this, you know, this question in that you’ve resisted, you know, is there’s anything on that end?
Erik Henry — Yes. One of the thing that comes to mind is ah is marketing.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Erik Henry — So marketing is such a difficult thing to measure, the the effect of marketing. And so when we talk about marketing, we just desperately want ah data. And so we were like what about a question that is about how you were invited to church. Or what you used to invite someone to church. And the problem is it just changes so much.
Rich Birch — Right right.
Erik Henry — And and it’s different we have different strategies all the time. And so I know that there’s there are some people that would love for us to add some of those kind of questions. Um, but I just don’t, again, you just have to make the the call about what are you trying, what is the most important thing.
Erik Henry — And we have, you know, I don’t know if if your your church or other churches you use KPIs – you know, key performance indicators, and and our goals. And so we have KPIs for our whole church.
Rich Birch — Right.
Erik Henry — And so most of our questions are directed toward measuring our KPIs, not just whatever’s out there. But but what are the things that are most the key performance indicators for our church as a whole. What are those things, and we that’s what we use ah to to decide what questions we ask.
Rich Birch — Love it. Um, when you ah survey—so you come up those to twice a year—what’s the tenor of the staff environment? Are people excited by this? Are they looking forward to it? Are they nervous? What do you do to ensure that, you know, that that your your team kind of is prepared and then buys in – what does all that look like?
Erik Henry — Yeah, the plus is we got a fricking great staff culture.
Rich Birch — Love it. Love it.
Erik Henry — I mean our staff culture is fantastic, and so everybody loves it.
Rich Birch — Okay, great.
Erik Henry — Nobody’s… I think there’s a little bit of of nervousness because this isn’t the only surveying we do. We actually do ah volunteer satisfaction surveys…
Rich Birch — Okay, right. Yep.
Erik Henry — twice a year as well. Um, part of the thing is you know you don’t know how volunteers are feeling about your staff because, again, they love them. And I always tell my staff I say listen, if you can’t make your volunteers like you, there’s a problem. You know what I’m saying?.
Rich Birch — Sure sure.
Erik Henry — Like if you can’t get a volunteer volunteer to say, hey I think that this staff member is great…
Rich Birch — Yes, yeah.
Erik Henry — …that’s like that’s the highest priority…
Rich Birch — That’s base. Yep. Yes, yep.
Erik Henry — …that’s bare minimum your volunteers better like you.
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Erik Henry — And so um and so I I do think there’s been a little bit of nervousness surrounding those. But we’ve now we’ve now just this year moved to a single volunteer satisfaction survey that goes to every for every staff member. It took us a while to come up with the questions, and I can share those too.
Rich Birch — That would be great. We’ll take it. That’d be great.
Erik Henry — Um, but you know, what what questions were would work across the board um, that would actually give us an understanding of how a staff member is doing, that kind of a thing. So.
Rich Birch — Um, yeah because I’ve struggled. We’ve struggled, and so we have combined kind of both of these together into one.
Erik Henry — Yeah, okay.
Rich Birch — And um, have done that kind of, for lack of better word, customer satisfaction stuff and that has driven um decisions around staffing stuff.
Erik Henry — Yes, absolutely.
Rich Birch — And so we’ve tried to not like, hey friends like don’t freak out about this. It’s good. Again, it’s the same thing – there’s no bad information. There’s just information if we don’t like. But we’d rather know so that we can improve. And and there was a season—it’s not so much, you know, it’s not all the time—but there was a season where it was like that kind of freaked people out. They were like oh my goodness. What. Because people are worried.
Erik Henry — Yeah, yes.
Rich Birch — And I’m like well, you know, it’s it’s going to be… In in one way I kind of took that as a compliment because I was like okay that means that people are taking it serious and they realize we’re taking it serious.
Erik Henry — Right.
Rich Birch — We’re not just this isn’t just like here’s a bunch of random ideas, and like okay well we’ll go back to doing the things we did the way we did it before. So…
Erik Henry — Exactly right.
Rich Birch — Interesting. Are there any other surveys that you do that you might be kind of interested to kind of touch on? This has been a really helpful conversation.
Erik Henry — Honestly I think we we try to keep it at that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Erik Henry — Those are the two main things. Otherwise we’re we’re going to end up with a ton of… Oh, the other thing that will always happen is the lead pastor is always going to be like, hey we’re thinking about this decision, let’s do a survey. Let’s let’s do a survey. And so unless it is unbelievably important I push back on that.
Rich Birch — Okay, and why is that? Why is that? That seems like a good use of that.
Erik Henry — Right. Survey fatigue.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Erik Henry — I I want to make sure that we continually when we do them um… Oh the other thing I’ll say is that we we feel like we we have dropped the ball, and are going to are trying to do better at finding ways to release the information that people have given us. You know, they don’t want all of the details of every little thing.
Rich Birch — Right.
Erik Henry — But to be able to say, hey thank you for taking this survey, here’s what we found out. Um, we have we’ve dropped the ball on that and this year we’re really trying to to turn that around.
Rich Birch — Yeah, because people are more likely to give us information if we if they see, oh look they they… You know it’s like any conversation, it’s a conversation – you talked and now we’re responding.
Erik Henry — Yep, exactly right.
Rich Birch — We’re saying oh yeah, we heard you say this and here’s some changes. Well this has been just so good. What a rich conversation. And you know hope, friends, as you’re listening in, you’re catching a little bit. There’s a ton we could talk about here. Ah but super helpful. I appreciate you sending us those. We’ll have those links in the in the show notes. Anything else just as we’re kind of wrapping up today’s episode you could share or you’re thinking about, Erik?
Erik Henry — Ah, yeah, like I love your the the unSeminary concept, the you know what do you wish… and I you know I was thinking about that as I prepared and I thought to myself you know what I really wish? I’m not a seminary graduate. Um I’m a math teacher; I’ve been in ministry since I was twenty years old. But um, but I I feel like the people who come out of bible college or seminary sometimes now don’t really understand the complexity of ministry.
Rich Birch — That’s true.
Erik Henry — That um, that it is so much more complex than we like to make it in a classroom. I mean the ah, part of the complexity comes because your your life becomes revolved around this ministry as a pastor, Executive Pastor, whatever you are, which also means all your friendships are part of this.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so true.
Erik Henry — And all of the people that you lead are are part are friends, and those dual relationships are so complex. So I have to lead this person who’s who’s also the person that is my friend, or my wife is best friends with his wife, and now I’ve got to I have to lead…
Rich Birch — That’s so true.
Erik Henry —…and and challenge and make decisions surrounding these things. It is just so much more… and you you have the relational side, but then you also on the other hand have what I call running the church machine. You know?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Erik Henry — As an executive pastor part of your job is to keep the machine running.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Erik Henry — To make decisions that make sure that you have ah a future as a church.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah.
Erik Henry — Um, and so but sometimes that is a tension with the relationships. And learning to live in the tension is one thing I really wish I had known earlier in my ministry, was basically first of all everything takes longer than you think it should.
Rich Birch — True, that is very true.
Erik Henry — Everything takes longer than you think it should. But if you do the right thing, I know that sounds so stupid, I know that sounds so obvious, but man the right thing is is sometimes a hard thing to find when you’re living in the tension between the relationships, the people that you love, the people who are mad, the people the ah the machine of the church that you are responsible for, it gets very very complicated. And you have to ask yourself which voices matter in that conversation.
Rich Birch — Right.
Erik Henry — What priorities matter in that conversation. And and in the middle of it, we can convince ourselves what we what what we think is right because it’s easier. Or other people can help us help convince us of what we should do. But there is this thing I find more often than not, that if I quiet myself I can normally find what’s right. And if I just am willing to do the right thing and give it time to work itself out, everything does.
Rich Birch — Yeah it’s so good. Well and there’s so much, particularly I find in our roles as Executive Pastors, there’s there’s a lot of decisions that we make that are um, they do get at the the very core of why do we exist as an organization. Um and they’re really important but they’re not necessarily seen. They’re like, you know, they’re kind of like secondary or they’re behind the scenes…
Erik Henry — Yes.
Rich Birch — …or they’re… but but man, if we if we cut the corners there, if we um and you know there’s extreme examples of that, obviously, where organizations get into fraud and all kinds of super, you know, bad stuff.
Erik Henry — Right.
Rich Birch — But you know you’re not ah nobody listening in is doing that. But we can make other compromising decisions that aren’t the right decision that aren’t the right thing that aren’t pushing us towards the kind of church God wants us to to be. And yeah, that’s just a really good word. I really appreciate that, Erik.
Rich Birch — This has been a fantastic conversation. I thank you so much for being on today. If people want to track with you, track with the church, where do we want to send them online? And friends I would encourage you to do, this is a fantastic church; Erik’s a great leader. Where where do we want to send them online?
Erik Henry — We’re at centralwired.com and and then we got all the you know Facebook, Instagram, all those other things too.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love it.
Erik Henry — But um, in general that’s that’s kind of the place to catch us.
Rich Birch — Love it.Thanks so much, Erik. I appreciate you being here today, sir. Thank you so much.
Erik Henry — Thank you – really appreciate it, Rich.
Thanks for tuning in for the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Tim Hill, executive pastor at Bear Creek Church, located at the crossroads of West Houston, Katy and Cypress, Texas.
Every zip code in America is more diverse today than it was ten years ago. And it will be even more diverse ten years from now. Listen in as Tim shares how Bear Creek Church paid attention to the opportunities around them and the practical steps they took to serve their changing community better.
- Serving the community. // As Bear Creek grew over the years, they noticed their demographic changing and they developed a significant Hispanic representation in the church. This group of people spoke Spanish as their primary language, but had children that were speaking English as their primary language. So the church arranged for listening devices that could be used during a service, enabling a Spanish speaker to listen to the sermon being translated to their native language.
- A growing Spanish Ministry. // The need for Spanish translation kept growing as the community outside the church saw more Hispanic people come to the area. So Bear Creek decided a separate Spanish service was needed not only to serve this people group better, but also to help them fully connect with the church. Before launching a Spanish service, they made sure they had Spanish speakers as a part of their leadership throughout the ministries of the church. Initially for the Spanish service the church utilized guest preachers, but as they continued to grow they hired a part time Spanish Ministries Pastor.
- Spanish Service. // To ensure that they are one church with two different expressions, the Spanish Ministries Pastor preaches the sermon one week behind from the English services. He gets the written sermon so he can review and personalize it for the people in his congregation.
- One church. // Rather than having separate English and Spanish versions of every ministry, translators are placed in each ministry so they can communicate with Spanish speakers. Kids ministry, for example, is in English, but there are always Spanish translators available to interact with parents or help where needed.
- Take a look at the budget. // To ensure that the Spanish Ministry feels fully a part of the church, Bear Creek makes sure that the budget for that ministry is meeting its needs, whether it’s for more staff, a bigger meeting space, or the latest technology for the service. The budget is growing as the ministry is growing.
- Lead change, don’t introduce change. // Introducing change can freak people out if there’s a sudden culture shift. But leading change will offer you the opportunity to cast vision to your church. Do the research and determine whether the change will be a minor shift or a bigger shift. What are the opportunities there? Come up with a plan and be strategic about what you communicate.
- Set goals to determine your next step. // It’s natural to use attendance as a goal marker, but figure out what is the story behind it and what is your next step. Once Bear Creek moved from Spanish translation to a full Spanish service, they saw that attendance continued to grow. That marker told them that their part time Spanish Ministries Pastor needed to be moved to full time. It also signaled the need to set goals for communications, additional staffing, and raising the quality of their Spanish service. As you seek to serve your community better, pay attention to what an increase in attendance might be signaling for you.
You can learn more about Bear Creek Church and reach out to Tim at www.bearcreek.church.
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Well, hey, everybody welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Man, I’m really looking forward to today’s conversation, been looking forward to this one for awhile. We’ve got Pastor Tim Hill with us. He’s the executive pastor at a church that you should be tracking with, Bear Creek Church. They started as a bible study in the late 70s and currently is one of the fastest growing churches in the country. Ah, they have and they’re located at the crossroads of West Houston, Katy and Cyprus, Texas – fantastic part of the country. We’re looking forward to learning from you today, Tim – welcome to the show.
Tim Hill — Hey, thanks for having me.
Rich Birch — So tell us a little bit about Bear Creek, kind of give us the the flavor if people were to arrive this weekend, what would it look like? Kind of fill out that picture a little bit.
Tim Hill — You bet. So Bear Creek sits right at um, an intersection where you find people shopping and buying their groceries ,where they’re doing life, but right around that it’s all communities and neighborhoods where people live, ah schools near us. We have four or five major elementary schools, two or three high schools. So lots of families live right where we are, and so they do life together as they come to church. When they ah when they arrive we’re we’re really a ah multi-ethnic church. We have um around 25 or 30 different countries represented, both within the Hispanic community, but also quite a few people from the continent of Africa.
Rich Birch — Oh very cool.
Tim Hill — And so they’ll even be wearing those colorful outfits that they wear when they dress up and go to church. And um…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Tim Hill — Anyway, it’s just ah, a place where everybody feels welcome and warm and loved and that’s really important to us that we create that environment and that experience. We have multiple styles of worship services. We’ve got activities for every age group going on at the same time. So…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Tim Hill — …everybody can find their place to fit in and and enjoy worshiping and and growing in their faith.
Rich Birch — So good. Now you know it seems like the executive pastor—we love executive pastors here, executive pastors here at unSeminary; I’ve spent a lot of time in those roles—but every executive pastor you talk to, their role looks a little bit different.
Tim Hill — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Ah, tell me about how you frame up that role. If somebody at a church says executive pastor – what is that? How do you explain that?
Tim Hill — Yeah, well really the the simplest and easiest way is the pastor casts the vision and sets the direction for the course. The pastor and I have a great relationship, but then he leans into me to make sure that I am. working with the staff and driving the church that direction. So…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Tim Hill — …I lighten his load. I am his number one servant is the way I look at it. And so um, he he he…
Rich Birch — So good.
Tim Hill — Yeah. He leads the church, and I run the church.
Rich Birch — Love it. So good. Yeah, in another context I’ve talked about how, you know, executive pastors lead at the intersection of vision and execution; kind of where do those two things intersect you find an executive pastor.
Tim Hill — Yeah.
Rich Birch — That’s so cool. Well you are one of the fastest growing churches; you lead within one of the fastest growing churches in the country. When you think back to the last, I don’t know number of years, what would be some of those changes or areas of growth or development that you’ve seen at Bear Creek that might be interesting for us to kind of kick around and explore today.
Tim Hill — You bet. So like a lot of churches the last few years have been crazy and we’ve had a lot of churn. And so there are times we look in our church and it’s a whole different group of people than what it was say even 5, 6, 7 years ago.
Rich Birch — That’s so true.
Tim Hill — One of those areas is as we just watched the demographics within our community adjust and change, we have a significant um Hispanic representation – folks that in the home Spanish is their primary language but yet their kids are growing up ah in learning English as their primary language. So we we saw as a church that we needed to adapt and adjust. We had always had a little bit of a Spanish ministry, but it was not very friendly to that culture…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Tim Hill — …and that and that group people. So they would come to church. They could go and pick up some really some listening devices. They could go into the service and while they’d be in an English service, somebody live was sitting there translating the pastor’s message while he was preaching it.
Rich Birch — I love that. Let’s let’s dig into this. So what would be some of those signs that you noticed, oh there’s a shift happening in our culture, that you know, you start to say oh there’s you know we’re seeing different folks arrive. What were some of the, you know, some of those things that were kind of telltale signs of that?
Tim Hill — Yeah, so one was the people that we had coming we, just with our relationships with them, were listening and they were letting us know of folks coming in. The other is we have a great relationship with our school district. We have the ah, we sit within the third largest school district in the state of Texas.
Rich Birch — Wow. Okay.
Tim Hill — Over over 100,000 kids are a part of the school district and the school system is excellent. We can go look at each school near us and identify what is the makeup in that school. And we started seeing that the kids going there were were coming from homes where Spanish was being spoken. So they were identifying themselves as Hispanic. And so as we saw that, like and then when I say grown, several of the elementary schools over half the kids identify as Hispanic coming family wise.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Tim Hill — So so as we saw that, we knew there was an opportunity there. When we think when I think about challenges or problems or I just I immediately think, Okay, where’s the opportunity here? What can we do with this?
Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely.
Tim Hill — Is there something we can do with it or not? And if we can, what does that look like? So I just that’s how I go at it is ask those kind of questions, and that’s how we identified the opportunity there.
Rich Birch — Yeah I love that. So then you’ve add you added Spanish translation. We’ve done this as as well at our church. Talk to us about kind of that process. What did that look like um as you started to add that in, and then what impact did that have on the folks that you know you’re reaching?
Tim Hill — You bet. So the Spanish translation, ah we had folks that were the pastor’s voice in Spanish is how we did that.
Rich Birch — Mmm-hmm. Mmm-hmm.
Tim Hill — So there were a couple of people the pastor would have to he scripts out his message. So now it’s it’s fairly rough; I mean he’s obviously going to deviate sometimes in the midst of that, but they would sit in a room with a device watching and listening the service, and then looking at his script, and then doing that for those folks. Now in order to give something a little more personal, we did have a bible study in Spanish at an alternate hour. But as we saw that growing, I’ll tell you we we shifted just before the pandemic and then we almost had to relaunch it after the pandemic, and that is a full out Spanish service.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Tim Hill — So we consider ourselves, instead of multisite, we’re like multisite within our site. So ah, we added at 11:00 at the same time that our English, one of our modern services going on, we have a service entirely in Spanish.
Rich Birch — Okay, I love that.
Tim Hill — And so that led us to have to… oh go ahead.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. So let’s talk about that transition. What led… because I think there’s a lot… So first of all I’ve experienced exactly what you you what you’ve done. We’ve added Spanish in and have found, you know, it’s it’s a fascinating um ah, transition. It came about as we really tried to engage with Hispanic leaders in our community, people that were part of our church, and saying hey that would be a great add. But then obviously you saw that start to meet a need and then what led you to think, Okay, now we want to take the step to a full service, and then let’s talk through what that service actually looks like.
Tim Hill — You bet. So in that first stage with listening devices and people following along and engaging, when we saw that number growing from 20 to 30 to 40, we just knew that in listening to some of those folks, they wanted to worship in Spanish. That’s their heart language. That’s how that’s how they grew up experiencing God in their life. And yet they wanted their kids growing up English to be able to be a part of the church.
Tim Hill — Now, a key focus for us, we’d watched other churches do this. It was really important that we stayed one church, but with different languages. So in order to do that, we strategically started thinking about leaders, like several of those Spanish ah, Ministry leaders, they serve as deacons in our church. They serve on our finance committee. They serve on our personnel committee. And so we made sure that they were a part of um, all the areas of leadership. Um, then we I approached to this just like if you were launching a church.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tim Hill — So if you in all the research of the preview services—so we started off at an Easter—you pick a big day and you launch with a service on that day. Prior to that we did a one just to almost like a practice run.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tim Hill — Is our technology good? Are we in good shape? Because it’s a different service. Our our media and worship guys, they all had to work at finding Spanish worship leaders so they had their ah end of that. So we did a kind of a early test trial run service, then we did the Easter service and then from there we did a once a month Spanish service. Um…
Rich Birch — Okay, love it.
Tim Hill — And we did that in our student building so we had to flex a little bit with our student ministry but use their worship space to help us. In the process of doing that, we started ramping up to use our gym and create it just like if somebody were going into a school. It’s it’s portable church in the gym.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Tim Hill — And we built up to where we could do that every Sunday. Also in that process it was creating an invite strategy for those folks, a promotion strategy to the Spanish speaking families in our community. So that’s where we went. We started with a part time Spanish pastor. So early on the the pastors preaching in those services were just guest…
Rich Birch — Right.
Tim Hill — …preachers coming in in Spanish. But then we knew we had to add a staff person. We started with a we actually started with a part time Spanish Ministries Pastor. Um…
Rich Birch — Okay, so…
Tim Hill — And then it grew from there.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love that. Talk to me about how… so I’d like to dive in on this whole area of um, how do we ensure that we’re one church in really two different expressions. What does that functionally look like? Because for folks that aren’t listening in this is one of the we’ll call it challenges, difficulties, opportunities that can come up with churches as they’ve added any kind of second language ministry is it can start to feel like, oh we’re two separate churches meeting in the same building. So how do you… let’s talk about maybe at the functional level, you know, the services. How do you ensure that it feels like, hey these are kind of two expressions of the same thing? How do you integrate teaching or do you even try to integrate teaching? You know how do you integrate the you know the worship experience, all that? What what does that look like?
Tim Hill — We do. So the Spanish Ministries Pastor, he preaches our pastor’s message one week behind.
Rich Birch — Okay, yep. Love it.
Tim Hill — So he personalizes it. So he has the text, he has the outline, and then he can personalize that so that it’s applicable and relational to the people in the Spanish ministry service and their culture.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Tim Hill — So that’s how we keep that as one church at a teaching level. Now on a weekly basis, one thing as a leader um the Spanish ministry’s pastor, and the pastor, and myself have a weekly meeting so we’re keeping him really close to us…
Rich Birch — Yeah
Tim Hill — …and tied into our vision, and where we’re going, and and maintaining a strong relationship. On a weekly basis in the service it is not unusual for me… obviously the services are at the same time so it can be real hard for our lead pastor to get in there, although he does get in there from time to time and we juggle some scheduling around between the services. But I’m in that room every single week.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Tim Hill — Whether I’m on the platform or not. When I go on the platform, the Spanish Ministries Pastor, he he translates for me. Now a lot of the people in that service are bilingual. I wish I were bilingual but um Spanish with an East Texas boy’s accent does not go real well.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Tim Hill — So I can understand it way better than I can speak it.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Tim Hill — But he does a great job and he translates. So we make sure that they see the all the staff. When they do their their gatherings of new members or membership gatherings to bring people into the church, we as an entire staff, both the Spanish Ministries Pastor and and their leaders, and all the English leaders in preschool and children and students, we all come in and introduce ourselves and they see us. So we’re, from the very beginning, highly focused on identifying and everybody seeing us as one church, one staff, in it together.
Rich Birch — Okay, I love that. And are you doing um kids ministry in Spanish? Ah or is the is the goal to have, because of the kind of first generation/second generation thing, kids ministries in English? Is that… and maybe talk through that decision a little bit because that might not be self-evident for people that haven’t explored in this area.
Tim Hill — You bet. Yeah, our our goal was not to create every single ministry in Spanish and replicate everything. So every ministry there are ah Spanish Ministry volunteers from the Spanish Ministry that are bilingual and so when people come, if the parents are need to speak in Spanish, we have folks there to help them. Ah the the lanyards that those leaders wear are different colors so we can identify who our bilingual leaders are.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Tim Hill — But those kids are growing up English.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tim Hill — They’re going to school ah, with everybody so we know that the dynamic in the home is even sometimes those kids will come and translate for their parents when they talk to us. So but they want to be involved in the English activities. Plus that’s also where their friends are. That’s where everybody they see at school ah, is part of that. So ah, and so when they come and they’re there with their friends. So that’s just the model we adopted, doesn’t have to be the only way to do it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tim Hill — But for us that’s what we decided and it’s worked really well. I can tell you that just to give you an idea that Spanish ministry, prior to the pandemic had reached about 170 people in worship on Sundays.
Rich Birch — Okay, yep.
Tim Hill — And then it dipped down and it got hit real hard by the pandemic. And we came back. We were 40 and 50. We brought in a new Spanish Ministries Pastor; that was one of the turnovers in staff at that time. We’re now up to running 250 in our Spanish service…
Rich Birch — Wow! That’s great.
Tim Hill —…on Sunday mornings. So…
Rich Birch — Wow, that’s great. I love that. And you know that’s um, yeah so cool to hear about. So hopefully our relationship can sustain this. I’m sure it can, Tim, because you’re a good guy, you know, but talk talk to me about how we ensure, in the spirit of hey we’re trying to be one church you know in a under in a couple different expressions, how do we ensure that the Spanish ministry doesn’t feel like, you know, the the you know the redheaded stepsister, or the you know the the second class citizen the you know they don’t get as much as as the English ministry side. How are you trying to address that? That I’ve seen that as a real issue in some of these scenarios where it’s like we we want we want to ensure that um, you know, this ministry that kind of gets everything it needs. And so talk to me through how that how do you think about that? How have you tried to work towards that? What’s that looked like?
Tim Hill — Yeah, so we we we are conscious of that, I can tell you. And we ask that question so we really work to ensure that the budget for the Spanish Ministry is growing as they’re growing. It’s meeting the need when where’s the need for an additional staff, we’re adding that staff. When they need an event that’s unique to them, we’re resourcing their ability to do the events. One of the things that I can tell you one of the next challenges we’re facing is because it’s growing, we foresee over the course of the next year it’s going to outgrow the gym. So we’re looking ahead at that service moving from 11 to probably at a 12:15 or 12:30 time slot.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Tim Hill — But moving into our main worship center.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Tim Hill — Which means they will have access to all of the exact same resources. Now while they’re in the gym we are providing as great a resources as we can.
Rich Birch — Love it. Love it.
Tim Hill — And their worship and the leaders that are there and and they have paid leaders and volunteer leaders on the platform. So that’s how we’re doing that. We’re just we’re super conscious of that. And by incorporating them into as much of the other church activities and events and mingling with them, we’re we’re really tackling a lot relationally but also just some of those things that they can see and feel…
Rich Birch — Totally, totally.
Tim Hill — …and then where it’s gonna go in the future. You know they’re a priority to us and we stress that to them all the time. They are the church; they are Bear Creek in Español and…
Rich Birch — Love it. Love it.
Tim Hill — And so we want them to know that and feel that and that’s us a lot of it just relational being there and saying hi all the time and greeting them. So, yeah.
Rich Birch — Are you still doing English translation, or you know, Spanish translation in the English service, or did you get rid of all that together?
Tim Hill — We got rid of all of that.
Rich Birch — Okay, so that this is the option there. That makes total sense. Okay, that’s great. That’s great. Now any kind of surprises as you know now that you’ve been doing this for a while and, you know, obviously, man, that’s incredible to see the growth that you’ve seen is amazing. Love seeing that. That’s so good. Any kind of surprises, things that struck you as like oh this is maybe a little bit different than we anticipated when we first stepped into this area?
Tim Hill — I’ll tell you here’s what’s surprising. We know that the Hispanic community is out there. The way we promote our church in English, being able to get mailing lists and sending cards out and new movers lists and and having all that, it has been much harder to find that information in Spanish. Now we have found it…
Rich Birch — Interesting.
Tim Hill — but but it was not as easy to go out there. And several of the those companies that we resource out to sometimes when we would ask them, hey do do you do this for Spanish so we can specifically target Um, the Spanish in our community? And the answer was no.
Rich Birch — Interesting, interesting.
Tim Hill — Um and so that was a little bit of a challenge and a little bit of a surprise and we found workarounds for that. But…
Rich Birch — Yeah, very cool.
Tim Hill — Um, but that but that was a little bit of a surprise of, knowing how significant that community was, how hard it was to get the word out there that um we were church. You know so we’ve got a big building, sits on the road, people see it. Ah we had to make sure we had signage out on the ah along that road that was in Spanish so that people knew that. That that was just a little bit of a challenge to overcome that barrier. Some people it was intimidating for them to look at that big church and they just thought it was a big English church.
Rich Birch — Right, right, right.
Tim Hill — So that was a little bit of a barrier but, you know, not a surprise to us just one we had to work through. But getting the word out was ah was challenging.
Rich Birch — Has been challenging. Interesting. Well I I just love this. What a great story. So cool to hear. Um, you know I think all of us ah, every zip code in America is more diverse today than it was ten years ago. And it will be more diverse 10 years from now. And I love this, you know, this story of you know your church seeing this opportunity, stepping in, taking practical steps. I love the idea of like hey we tried this thing and it you know seemed to get a bit of traction and then we grew that.
Rich Birch — What would you say to a church leader who’s listening in today, and maybe specifically on, you know, they they look at the demographics of their community. They’re like, hey there’s a growing Hispanic community in our ah, you know, either around us or even in our church. Um, what would you say to them if they’re thinking about, maybe we want to take some steps. Would you suggest they they take similar steps? Is there anything different you would do knowing what you know now?
Tim Hill — Yeah, I I would encourage them, you know, so when I think about this I know the way we did it. It’s really important to lead change and not introduce change.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good. Good insight.
Tim Hill — You know introducing change or announcing change, that that can freak people out. Particularly something as significant as a a little bit of a cultural shift within your church. Because that’s what will happen is there’ll be a shift there. So um, thinking about strategy and how you do that. Identify those pockets in your community um, and if there’s an opportunity there. But the way that I go about that is I I kind of view view what those opportunities were and then we start praying about it.
Rich Birch — Right. Okay.
Tim Hill — We seek we seek what the Lord’s direction is there. We’ll even, as we start to do that, ask our some of our key spiritual leaders—staff, and even lay leaders—to start praying about that with us. So that’s just a way of seeking God, but also introducing the idea that there may be an opportunity here.
Tim Hill — Then um, while we’re doing that is the research, and figuring out what what is it gonna take? What might it look like? Is it is it a minor shift, like a translation service, or is it um a service in and of itself? Is there another church in the area that’s doing this and are they struggling and can you merge? And I will tell you in merging that you’re going to run into a whole different set of problems because I’ve been in a church where we did that. And when a church comes to you already thinking they’re their own church and if you want to have the idea that we’re one church, two languages, that is a big barrier to overcome. It’s not insurmountable, but it can be really hard. So the way we did it, launching our own we could set the culture right from the beginning.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Tim Hill — Um, when you do run into things that are challenges, I always try to be solution-focused.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tim Hill — So how how are we going to deal with that? You know we we do set some goals in our Spanish Ministry. Um, it’s you know, recognizing the population, but but you got to be real flexible with that and be realistic because it is some of the, for us, the unknown there um…
Rich Birch — Yeah, what what if some of those goals look like; how have you kind of cast those out?
Tim Hill — Yeah.
Rich Birch — What if what is that lean on what’s that look like?
Tim Hill — So, you know so we we kind of set some goals. When you think of so attendance is always the first one that a lot of us in my role and even, you know…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Tim Hill — …we we go straight to attend… but attendance, I I try to figure out what’s the story behind the attendance and what is that telling us to to do next? So with with the launch it’s kind of like I said when we were when we were just um, listening devices and we saw it growing, there’s an opportunity there. What what would be next? So then it’s launching. So then it’s smaller part time. So then at Easter in the promotion, you know, had an attendance right off the bat of like 60 people. But we were already at 40 people on listening devices, so you know it was… But once we launched into a service and weekly and we saw, you know, there’s there’s a hundred people coming every week, that part time person he really needs to be full time.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Tim Hill — So so that was kind of a goal of we need to get him to full time. And full time means, man he he gets all the same salary and benefits that any other pastor on our church gets. So there’s a significant investment there. But also, you know, what 100 people coming. we got to make sure we’re continually raising the quality of the worship. So.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tim Hill — We need to expand the praise team. They need you know some additional singers. We need to make sure they have good technology on the walls and can do things. We’ve we’ve got to expand communication because all of our communications got to be both English and Spanish. And so who how are we going to get that done? So so there’s all those all those things going on. And so goals around that of you know of really staffing, expanding the quality of things, striving for excellence. Um, but a lot of it was attendance driven.
Rich Birch — Yeah, totally. Love that. Talk to me through the um, you kind of mentioned in in passing there. There’s this tension, and this is true with any ministry. This is not necessarily unique to your Spanish ministry. But there’s always this tension between we want to have timelines for goals, like a goal without a timeline is just a dream. Ah we want to have timelines, but we also want to be flexible on those things. We know that there’s going to be, you know, what was that? You know that everybody has a plan until you get punched in the face – was that a boxer said that? You know it’s like, you know, we we all think things and then it’s like okay we then we go into the real world and and we live, we have to… How have you worked that through, maybe in the church in general, or specifically in the Spanish ministry, trying to have hold those two things in tension?
Tim Hill — Yeah, so so with goals, setting checkpoints so, you know, along the way.
Rich Birch — Right.
Tim Hill — So we would you know the goals were short term sometimes, you know, it was… Um, or if even if it was long term, well you know we’re at 50, we want to see it get to a hundred, and at a hundred we can do these things. And the leader that was part time moving to full time, he was well aware of that and we’re meeting with him. We’re saying okay hey we’ve got to 60, how’s it going? What do you need help with? You know is there any ideas, you know we want to get you there as fast as we can. And so um, you know we we check along the way. Um, but ah I know there’s been times where in those goals we realize this this just is, one, we might be looking at the wrong thing.
Rich Birch — Right, right. Yep.
Tim Hill — Um, you know it’s um, ah you know, where with the attendance we backed up and said man how many first time guests are they having in the Spanish service? So where are those first time guests? How do we get the word out to them? How do we reach them? Do we you know, creating a culture of inviting within there. So helping the pastor shift some language of teaching, but then what can we resource? Will they work with invite cards? Will they use that when they’re at the store and they’re inviting folks, or you know at school or wherever they’re at?
Rich Birch — Love it.
Tim Hill — Um so that’s that’s just kind of how we adapted and adjusted when we would see, Okay, this… we’re struggling here. What’s what leads us to that? Again when we think goals we’ve got the goal, but then we think lead measures. It’s what are the behaviors. The ministry things that we’ve got to do to get to that goal, and that’s where we would go back and start looking at those things.
Rich Birch — Love it. So good. Well this has been just a great conversation. I know so many of us are, again, I think so many of us are looking in our community and saying man, what can we do? And I love that you’ve provided just real practical steps and a real clear picture um, you know, vision forward.
Rich Birch — Um, as we’re wrapping up as we’re kind of looking to to land, how has the Spanish Ministry how’s that impacted the English ministry, kind of the fact that you’ve added this, has that had some kind of ah you know positive, you know, impact on the rest of your ah the rest of your community?
Tim Hill — Boy it sure has. Our our church is… so our vision statement, and we tell our people, we vision to be a gospel-centered, disciple-making community for all people.
Rich Birch — Love it. Love it.
Tim Hill — And if we’re gonna live that out, um it is important for us as we reach our community um that we reflect that. So so they’ve bought into that vision and so when we celebrate like um when we baptize people, the Spanish pastor will come over into that 11:00 service and baptize folks in Spanish so our English folks get to see what’s happening. We’re constantly reporting in, hey right now at 11:00, you know, we’ve got our Spanish service going on. And so we’re sharing the story of what’s happening. They’re doing the same thing over on the Spanish side of what’s happening in the church. So…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Tim Hill — …just those celebrations and casting the vision and so people are just excited.And of course they’re they’re in the same part of the building. So we’ve intentionally set things up where they worship and where they go to groups that they have to walk through the hallways. And they’re not in the closest rooms but sometimes even rooms that take a little while. And so it’s just creating community. Um, even in those in-between service times where they’re walking in the hallways together and seeing each other.
Rich Birch — Yeah, so good. So good. Tim, this has been so helpful. Great conversation today. Anything else you want to share just as we wrap up today’s episode?
Tim Hill — You know, I would just ah I would just encourage, you know, all those leaders out there. As challenging as times can be for us as believers that we may feel there are still so many opportunities. People are so hungry for ah, God’s life change that he could make in their life. And I would just encourage leaders look for those opportunities. Pray about that;be open to that. And then as they identify those things, allow God to lead them to see where where he might expand their vision to to to reach out and share the gospel and help make disciples of those folks. That’s what that’s what we’re striving to do all the time.
Rich Birch — Love it. So good, Tim. If people want to track with you or with the church, where do we want to send them online?
Tim Hill — Yeah, if they just want to go to bearcreek.church…
Rich Birch — Love it. Easy.
Tim Hill — …that is our that our website just go to bearcreek.church – they can see us there. They can watch services. They can see our ministries, they can link to us as staff, they can email me from there, or contact me. Anything I could do to help, that’s the best way.
Rich Birch — Thanks so much, Tim – really appreciate you being on the show today.
Tim Hill — You bet. Thank you, Rich.
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’ve got Terry A. Smith with us today; he’s the lead pastor at The Life Christian Church (TLCC) which serves the New York City metro area. He recently wrote a devotional called, The Lord Bless You: A 28-Day Journey to Experience God’s Extravagant Blessings, and today we’re unpacking a story Terry tells in chapter 13, titled “Resistance Training”.
- Resistance Training. // “To actualize any God-inspired calling, we must overcome conflict.” Terry begins chapter 13 of his book sharing about how God placed a dream in his heart to open a new location for the church in some of the last undeveloped land in the urban area where the church served. This dream took 10 years to find fulfillment and Terry said that every bit of that journey was hard. There are practical steps Terry took to lead his church to persevere in accomplishing this dream, and it led to God’s blessings in the end.
- Develop friendships. // Terry knew in his heart this would be TLCC’s property and he began praying to that end. He surrounded himself with people who would believe with him, but he also started developing relationships and friendships with the power brokers and political leaders in his community. Terry set up meetings with each member of the town council, told his story, and asked what the church could do for the community. Connecting with local leaders helped them recognize the value the church brought to the community.
- Build connections. // In the bible, even prophets who were in exile needed to be known and trusted by the ones in power in order to speak with them. You may not agree with everything that local government and political leaders support, but you can look for what you do have in common. Find a way to serve people and recognize that you both want your city to thrive.
- Let them say yes or no. // When talking about big ideas such as purchasing land to build a new location, Terry would speak about it in a way that would give his board, elders, and church leaders the opportunity to offer feedback, critique, and have the power to say no.
- Make it all clear. // When Terry brought the idea about the property to the board, he shared his heart and cast vision in a way where he wasn’t putting his finger on the scale, but made it clear that he was willingly submitting to them. He didn’t want to move forward without their blessing, and would accept whatever decision they made. Don’t act like you’re giving someone the ability to say no to you if you’re not willing to receive their no.
- Celebrate the steps. // After casting the vision, the real question is how to keep the momentum going over years of work. Have a strategy in place. TLCC developed a 12-step checklist to work toward their new location and each time they took one of these steps forward, they would celebrate as a church. Tracking these steps and celebrating over the years helped keep people engaged and encouraged. In addition, they opened their 53,000 square foot building in phases to keep people from burning out on this project.
- Find local leaders. // Outside of local government leaders, pay attention to the business leaders and the other religious leaders in your town. When you’re a new church in town and you’re posturing yourself to serve the community, look for the Rotary Club, Lions Club or Kiwanis in your town. Making those connections is a powerful way to work together to bless your community.
You can click here to read the introduction and chapter one of The Lord Bless You: A 28-Day Journey to Experience God’s Extravagant Blessings by Terry A. Smith, Chosen Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group, ©2023 by Terry A. Smith. Used by permission.
Plus download the free sermon series kit for The Lord Bless You to use in your church. Learn more about The Life Christian Church at https://tlcc.org/.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Leadership Pathway
If you are trying to find, develop and keep young leaders on your team look no further than Leadership Pathway. They have worked with hundreds of churches, and have interviewed thousands of candidates over the past several years. They are offering a new ebook about five of the core competencies that are at the heart of the leadership development process with every church that they partner with…just go to leadershippathway.org/unseminary to pick up this free resource.
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re having a great conversation with Eric Schroeder, the president and CEO of CDF Capital, an organization that helps churches grow in order to transform lives and communities.
Financial matters, like spiritual matters, are very personal. And when you’re dealing with something personal, it can be hard to develop a trusted relationship with the right people. Listen in as Eric shares what to look for when choosing a trusted financial partner for your church, and how to build a positive working relationship with your church’s financial institution.
- It takes time. // When it comes to dealing with finances, we all want to have a trusted relationship with the people we work with, and that goes for our church too. When looking for a company to work with the church, remember that it takes time to develop that trust. Ask yourself is the person you’re talking to on the other side of the table for you? Do they understand the needs of your church and have its best interests in mind?
- Transparency and communication. // It’s important to be honest with your church’s financial institution. Share your annual budget or plan with your financial professional. Communicate with them often. Outside of the financial focus, build your relationship with them. Invite them out to lunch and ask them about their family. Help them to see who you are as a church.
- Develop the relationship. // When it comes to finances, church leaders can feel the tension between wanting to be good stewards while taking advantage of a great opportunity for the church. However, in these interactions with their financial institution what church leaders sometimes fail to steward well is the relationship aspect. If the relationship with your church’s lender has been developed strongly, the lender should loyally stand with the church whenever challenges arise. It’s important to be building a relationship that will be sustained for the long haul.
- Know the endgame. // Bankers can be skeptical about whether a church’s financial growth will continue or decline when the economy hits rough patches. What is your church’s growth strategy? How are you using debt effectively? Debt can be used as a tool if you’re growing and expanding, but ultimately your lender should be helping you get out of debt. There needs to be an endgame for debt.
- Build a strong team. // If a church is built around a strong team then it will be successful no matter what it faces. Lenders are nervous when they evaluate a church that is known because of its “celebrity” pastor because they know that when the pastor leaves the attendance in that church will decline. But churches that really impact their community stand out to lenders.
- Mission-focused. // If your church is looking for a financial partner, CDF Capital has been working with churches for over 70 years. They are passionate about helping churches grow and have strong expertise in the financial operations of a church. Plus, CDF is mission-focused by helping plant new churches through their partnership with Stadia.
- Three pillars. // There are three pillars CDF believes are essential for church growth: spiritual capital, leadership capital, and financial capital. CDF is committed to praying for church leaders and seeing the church further its mission. They pour into leaders by providing them with the resources to be effective and do what God has called them to do. The spiritual capital and leadership capital must be strong before financial capital can come into play.
You can learn more about CDF Capital at www.cdfcapital.org and reach out to a member of their field team to see how they can help your church grow.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live!
Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: CDF Capital
Since 1953, CDF Capital has helped Christians and churches embrace their part in this story by providing the 3 kinds of capital every congregation needs for growth—Financial Capital, Leadership Capital, and Spiritual Capital. At CDF Capital, we care about each of these components. When a church is properly resourced financially, spiritually, and in leadership, lives are transformed.
Sign-up to learn more about CDF Capital and how we can help your church grow. Receive a 50% discount on a monthly subscription to the CDF Capital Subscribe & Save Bundle.
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey, friends welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Super excited that you’ve decided to tune in. Today’s going to be a great conversation I’m really looking forward to. We’ve got Eric Schroeder with us. He has 33 years of banking related or banking adjacent experience. And in 2021 assumed the leadership of a great organization, CDF Capital, fantastic organization that if you’ve been around unSeminary for a while you’ve heard us talk about. Well, today we get the man behind it all. Super excited. He’s the president and CEO of CDF ah, they were founded in in 1953 with really a simple mission to help churches grow. And you might know them for the lending that they do, but they really do so much more than that. They want to get in your corner and help your church grow really ah help your church with sustainability. Super excited to have you on the show today, Eric. Welcome – so glad you’re here.
Eric Schroeder — Well thank you, Rich, I’m glad to be here. Um, so to just tie a bow around what you said.
Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, yeah – fill in the picture.
Eric Schroeder — First of all, first of all I’m a Christ-follower, husband, father…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Eric Schroeder — …then banker.
Rich Birch — Love it. Love it.
Eric Schroeder — So I’m kind of I’m kind of a banker by trade, but I’m really you know a Christ-follower first. And I ah grew up in the church; I love the church. And um I love what CDF Capital gets to do. So thank you for that intro.
Rich Birch — Yeah, so good. I’m so glad that you… and you’ve been involved with CDF for quite a while, even before you were you know took the big chair here. You were on the board for a while, right? Going back to early 2010s, something like that… was it that am I… that true?
Eric Schroeder — Yeah, that’s correct. I was on the board of CDF Capital since 2010, so I’ve been…
Rich Birch — Okay, great.
Eric Schroeder — …you know around the organization for a long time.
Rich Birch — Yeah that’s great. Well I’m looking forward to today’s conversation, and you know we’re friends. So you know if you’ve been listening for a while, friends, you know that CDF Capital are our premier brand partner. Literally every single episode of CDF of the unSeminary podcast is brought to us because of our good friends at CDF because they’ve leaned in. They want to get in your corner. So if you think of all the good stuff that you receive regularly, it happens because CDF has chosen to sponsor. So I really am thankful for ah, for Eric and the entire team. Ah, but but we’re friends, so I want to start with maybe an inappropriate question right off the top, you know.
Eric Schroeder — Oh no.
Rich Birch — What is it what is it with finance people? What is it with banking people? Why why do you make us so nervous? You know why are are can we even trust you can we trust a finance or are you just trying to get money out of, you know, are you trying to take our you see us as a market? Do you just see us as something to extract revenue from? Ah you know obviously I’m asking that in a tongue to cheek manner, but ah, but yeah, tell us why is that? Why are finance people just why are they so hard to trust?
Eric Schroeder — Rich, that’s a great question. So um, if you look at who are the most trusted professions. Gallup has done a study on this – they’ve done studies on this for several years. Do you know the number one trusted profession in 2021?
Rich Birch — Um, maybe nurses or teachers something like that.
Eric Schroeder — Correct. Nurses.
Rich Birch — Oh nice look at that.
Eric Schroeder — Teachers are second. You’ve done you’ve done your research, Rich.
Rich Birch — Nice.
Eric Schroeder — And bankers are right smack in the middle of that.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Eric Schroeder — And you know who’s right there with bankers?
Rich Birch — Church leaders.
Eric Schroeder — Pastors.
Rich Birch — Yeah, totally.
Eric Schroeder — So if you think about it, um I think the reason is because we’re dealing… financial matters and spiritual matters are both very personal, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah, very true.
Eric Schroeder — So when you’re dealing with something personal, it’s hard to develop that trusted relationship in some way. So my banking career, that’s what it was all about. If people didn’t trust me, they were not going to come be a client of the bank I was a part of. They weren’t going to invest in the bank that I helped start. Um, a little bit about my background, I did help start a bank in 2007.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Eric Schroeder — And it had great success, went public in 2019. But it wasn’t because of me; it was because people trusted me and we had a great team that served our clients well.
Rich Birch — Right.
Eric Schroeder — So it’s always been about that trusted relationship. And, Rich, you know this – it takes time to develop. It doesn’t doesn’t happen overnight.
Rich Birch — Yeah, so I’d love to, you know, do this; I’d love to kind of drill in on this a little bit for the people who are listening in. Friends, we’re not trying to convince you to you know, connect with CDF. We’d love for you to, but I want to try to tap on Eric; he has graciously agreed to come in to really tap on this issue around trust. How do we how do we, on our side as church leaders, What can we do what would be some of the kind of telltale signs of lenders that we should be looking for, you know, that really do have our best interest in mind? Like when we’re when we’re evaluating, whether a CDF or other other people, what should we be looking for? What what would be kind of the the types of things that we should be considering?
Eric Schroeder — Yeah, and that’s that’s a great question and this is not about CDF Capital.
Rich Birch — Right. Yep.
Eric Schroeder — This is about the church, and church leaders, and what is best for them. That’s that’s always going to be our approach is what’s best for the church and what’s best for church leaders. So drilling into that, is the person you’re talking to on the other side other side of the table, are they for you? Do they understand your needs? Are they trying to push something? Um, you know, we are not very I would say salesy. We’re more consultant…
Rich Birch — Yes, yeah.
Eric Schroeder — …from their approach.
Rich Birch — So true.
Eric Schroeder — So we’ll direct a client to the appropriate lender to the right solution for them even if it’s not at CDF Capital. That’s that’s always been what we’ve been focused on is what is best for the church. So I’d encourage church leaders to really look at, okay, being transparent with your banker, being overly communicative.
Rich Birch — Ok.
Eric Schroeder — If you have a [inaudible] coming down the road, be talking to your your lender about that, or your banker. Be inquisitive. Ask questions. Find find out if they’re using the banking services, all the banking services that are available to them, and in their appropriate ways. So there just become a learner of how to be a better bank client or better lending institution client is what I’d recommend people to do.
Rich Birch — Love it. Let’s talk about that overcommunicating piece; unpack that a little bit more. When you say I… because I do think are oftentimes, there are some leaders who look at their relationship with whatever bank or lender that they’re dealing with, it’s almost like an adversarial thing. It’s like I’m going to try to only tell them I’m going to make it look real sunny. I’m going to try to you know, spin it in a way that um you know things look amazing. And that’s obviously not helpful long term – you want the most you know, kind of clear picture on both sides of the table. But what would be some of those things we need to say about over, you know, overcommunicate with your your lender or or with a banker, you know, um, on either side. What would you what would be some of those things that you’d be you’d be talking to or you’d encourage people to talk to their, you know, their institutions about?
Eric Schroeder — Well church leaders and churches are always, every year developing an annual budget or an annual plan. So I would share that strategic plan with your your financial professional, who you’re working with. I would share the budget with them. Um, and I would you know have periodic interactions with them. Go have lunch with your lender or banker. Um go meet with them on a regular basis and establish that personal relationship. Ask them about ask that banker about their family. Um, you know, that is making it more less transactional and more relational is always better. Because, Rich, you know, CDF Capital, banks I mean lending institutions, financial institutions, we’re all dealing with a transactional product, right?
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Eric Schroeder — And so how do you take that transactional product and make it relational? It’s hard work. It’s tough, and it just takes time to be overly transparent with your bank or lender and just um, making sure you’re you’re communicating with them often.
Rich Birch — Yeah I know… this wasn’t this wasn’t a banker this was ah someone who we ended up being um you know doing a we rented space from them. They were landlord. We ultimately ended up buying the property from them. And in that transaction we had this little interaction that reminded me how important relationship is in these things. We had pursued this building multiple times. And um, they kept brushing us off. They kept and you know this was in the northeast, and they kept saying oh go away, go away, go away. And I think it was because their perception of what a church is was different than what we were doing. You know we’re a large church 4- or 5000 people. Lots going on. And and they and, you know, this was a big facility, 150- 160,000 square feet, and they were, you know, I think they were like there’s no way, right? Well lo and behold one weekend we were running a special event down the shore. Um, and we had rented out this this thing right off the the beach and it was in the summertime. Great thing. And literally that one of the principles of this organization was riding their bike on the boardwalk past our thing, and saw signs for us. And they called their real estate agent and they said, is this that church that, you know, but keeps bugging us about stuff, you know, about that building? And they said absolutely that’s that’s the same organization. Lo and behold wouldn’t, you know, Monday or Tuesday we got a call back from that broker who was like, hey um I would love to hear a little bit more about what you’re talking about because they saw obviously we had whatever 4- or 5000 people down the shore. They were like okay, that’s a different thing.
Rich Birch — The thing that reminded me in that—and that became actually a great transaction for the church—the thing that reminded me was going above and beyond relationally, trying to connect in a way and that the fact that they saw us, you know, in our environment made a huge difference. You know, I think doing the same thing with our banker, trying to you know, bring them in on the conversations about what’s happening around, you know, and and then but like you say vice versa understand what’s going on in, you know, on their side. So critically important.
Rich Birch — Talk to me about the transactional nature of what we’re doing. You know, I think that can degenerate into into that, and my experience has been if it’s just about interest rates, if it’s just about, you know, where I can get the best here or there, um, if things ever go sideways or if things get a little tougher, ah man, that makes it really difficult. And obviously we all, you know, we all don’t wish those things didn’t happen but sometimes things get tough. We have to figure out how to, you know, redo some stuff. How do how can we push against the transactional nature of this kind of relationship, try to you know, develop more ah, relationally? Anything else on that front?
Eric Schroeder — Oh absolutely. And and trust me, I feel the tension. And I don’t use that word “trust me” lightly, but um I do feel the tension that church leaders have with being good stewards and making sure it’s a great opportunity for the church.
Rich Birch — Right.
Eric Schroeder — However, you know, what I think people fail to sometimes steward well is their relationship, relational capital. So the relationships, if they’re stewarded well too, you know, as you said, Rich, when that church may run up against a hiccup, that relationship has been solid. That lender should stand with that church. So that’s where the loyalty comes into play. That’s we’re not always shopping for the best rate – I wouldn’t always recommend that. But I would I would definitely hold my lender, you know, accountable to make sure that is this rate fair and competitive and competitive in today’s marketplace. And explaining why that rate is is what it is. So trying to, you know, unhitch that, you know, is action from the rate and hitch it up to more the relationship piece I think is really really important for the long term health of the relationship.
Rich Birch — You know one of the things I’ve run into with—and this again is this is not with CDF Capital this would be with with other, you know, with particularly on the lending side—um, with other lenders is you know, I think when when banks look at us or lenders look at us, it’s it’s hard for them to get their head around what our business is. They can look at the the spreadsheet; they can look at they they see this revenue. Um, but I’ve had lenders say, you know, almost these exact words when we’re in dialogue where they’re like, so how do you make money again? Like what how so people just give you this money? And what and so what makes you think they’re going to continue to give this money? This is particularly a problem in growing churches when because you’re seeing, you know, you maybe in the last three years your revenue has doubled or is tripled in the last couple of years, and a lender looks at that. You know, I always thought, well isn’t that a positive thing? They look at that suspiciously. They’re like that’s going up, but… it goes up quick, man it could come down quick. Unpack that for me from, you know, again, taking the the CDF hat off a little bit, just a traditional lender point of view. What are they thinking in that moment? How can I help them understand ah that trends? Or or ah or should I just ignore, you know, more traditional lenders and talk to CDF, frankly? Ah, but help help me understand that.
Eric Schroeder — Now that’s that’s another great question, and one of the things that lenders wrestle with all the time. Um, so thinking about this from the background, and I go back to I grew up in the church. Um, ah I jokingly say I was born on Sunday and I was in church the next Sunday and kind of…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Eric Schroeder — Um now I’m not perfect; I’m I have missed some Sundays, folks, so don’t think that um…
Rich Birch — Right.
Eric Schroeder — But but anyhow the the model where growing up, the plate is past passed every Sunday.
Eric Schroeder — So there’s revenue coming in every week. And if you look at that model, you know, and in healthy growing churches the trend should follow growth, you know, additional additional revenues. And you know bankers or lenders are skeptical about, you know, is that going to continue? What does an economic downturn, how does that play into? Um and you and I both know that, you know, people that are really connected to the church, that impact doesn’t wane in in an economic downturn, for those that are really connected.
Eric Schroeder — Now um, there is some decline in giving during an economic downturn. And if you’re I’ve seen this in capital campaigns, if there’s a capital campaign and you have a sudden economic downturn, that capital campaign may not be as effective. So um, what I have really just talked to, you know when I was on the side of a banker finding out what’s the church’s growth strategy, and how how did they use debt effectively.
Rich Birch — Right.
Eric Schroeder — Debt is a tool.
Rich Birch — Right.
Eric Schroeder — And churches that use debt effectively, it is really good to ah, to know an endgame. You know in CDF Capital, as a lender we’re working to help churches get out of debt, not get in debt. So that that’s our mantra is, hey we can use debt as a tool if you’re growing and you’re expanding, you’re out of space. We can help you with those options. A lender can help you with those options. Not not to have something long term though.
Eric Schroeder — So churches that are growing, if the lender understands there’s an endgame to that debt and there’s a way to get out of debt, I think that’s where it makes a lot of sense as well.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. This is such a funny dynamic because I think again for particularly for folks who maybe don’t come from a church background, it can be difficult when they kind of look under the hood. Because a part of it is they start to understand the dynamics and they’re like, okay well a lot of this seems to rotate around there’s like somebody shows up on Sunday and talks. It’s like people like hearing that person talk and so they give. And they’re like well what happens if, you know, something goes sideways with that person then then what goes on. And and you know it’s an interesting and’s just it’s interesting, having been across the table trying to explain what we do from a business point of view um, you know beyond just the numbers. Because that is a part of the lending equation – at least that’s been my experience. That’s a part of the equation. There’s ah, there’s ah there’s the numbers piece, but then there’s also the do they understand what we do piece. Is that true, or am I just making that up? Is that true?
Eric Schroeder — That’s that’s absolutely true. And it’s understanding the leadership of the church.
Rich Birch — Right.
Eric Schroeder — And it’s um, if a church is not built around one leader. CDF Capital is not built around me.
Rich Birch — Right.
Eric Schroeder — It’s ah built around a great team. And if the church is built around a really strong um, team, the next church is going to be successful no matter what. I think lenders when they evaluate a I’m going to use the word celebrity pastor…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Eric Schroeder — …that would make them nervous…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Eric Schroeder — …because if that pastor leaves, is the giving going to really decline?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Eric Schroeder — Um, the other gauge that we look at, Rich, is—and you mentioned this and when you were talking about um the story with the the bank and the real estate broker—is churches that are impacting the community. Those are the ones that, you know, people can, a lender they can say, I see the impact you’re having in the community.
Eric Schroeder — And we hear story after story of churches that we’re working with that are impacting the community, and that that’s just pointing people to Jesus. And that’s that’s we love that we get to be a part of what God is doing through the local church.
Rich Birch — Love it. Now can we talk a little bit about CDF specifically? I would like to I’d love for you to kind of unpack that a little bit. Help me understand when you think of kind of the core differentiations between CDF and say some other, either lender or bank, place where I could put my deposits. What would be some of those key differentiations that you’d say, hey this is um, you know, this is what makes us different? And and by different I mean better. What is it that… I’m asking you to brag – you’re like a good christian, Eric; you’re not going to brag, but I’d love you to do that. Kind of tell us a little bit – why why would we choose CDF?
Eric Schroeder — Well I think people would choose CDF if they’re mission-focused. And there are a lot lot of great opportunities out there for people to really get connected to a mission. We we’re focused on the local church. Across the United States we’re focused on helping churches grow. And you know, if you’re going to make an investment with CDF Capital um, you’re being a part of what God is doing through the local church in helping churches grow.
Eric Schroeder — If you’re one of the churches coming to us for council, you’re you’re helping um other churches. And we’re a ministry; we’re a nonprofit. So the the dollars that we make is different from my banking background. So that the dollars we made went back to the shareholders, you know? So they’re creating shareholder value.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Eric Schroeder — Um, which what CDF Capital gets to do now is create eternal value and kingdom value by um, helping plant new churches. So that is one of the biggest initiatives of CDF Capital is using the resources that we generate through our our business model—you can you can’t see the air quotes I’m doing…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Eric Schroeder — …um but “business model” is really focused on helping helping plant new churches. Um, so that’s what we’ve been excited about. Um.
Rich Birch — Tell me more about this. Because I think there’s people that don’t know anything about this part of what CDF’s involved in. Unpack this whole thing about how you have been helping plant churches.
Eric Schroeder — Well um, so we have part of our net assets are really part of a quasi-endowment fund which is the church planting fund. And so Stadia has been one of our great partners that we have partnered with for the last 20 years that they’re doing a great job of helping plant new churches. Um, so Stadia was actually a sister um is a sister organization of CDF Capital. Um, so anyhow, it’s it’s been a fun process, you know, to be a part of the church planting effort, you know. Because you and I both know when when I hear the numbers that Barna puts out that the church attendance is in decline, that people are walking away from their faith, that really, you know, Rich, that doesn’t scare me, that challenges me and our team more that we have a lot of work to do. And that we’re going to do our best to make sure we can do what God is calling us to do to turn that tide. Um, so Stadia has just been a great partner um, that we’ve had for several years years in those efforts.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. Yeah, this is one of the things I love about CDF is I keep bumping into, I learn about more about your organization, I keep bumping into all these great things that you guys have done to help and support. This is, you know, one of them obviously helping, you know, Stadia and there’s you know there’s lots of different ways that you have stepped in and and tried to help other, you know, ministries which I just think is amazing. Like and I think that can get lost in in the the communication stuff because, you know, we help churches grow – I think there could that’s actually what you do, which is I know it’s shocking to say, but it’s like it’s not a marketing term, friends. It’s not like oh this is like ah that’s like a slick thing to say when you’re trying to reach churches. It’s like no no, this is actually what you know CDF is all about. Is there anything else on that front when you think about when you say you know “we help churches grow,” um, what else comes to mind when you think about that, you know, that that kind of catch phrase?
Eric Schroeder — Yeah, so um, the three pillars that we believe are essential for church growth, and I would I would say in this order: Spiritual Capital. So are we pouring into the spiritual lives of church leaders across the country? Are we praying for them? Um you and I both know through covid and through the pandemic it’s been tough on church leaders. So spiritually we want to pour into them to know we are for them.
Eric Schroeder — The the second um pillar is really Leadership Capital. Um, that’s another part of really CDF Capital – we’re we’re pouring into leaders, um, making sure that they have the resources to be effective and to do what God has called them to do. Um, you’ve mentioned I heard um the previous podcast you did – the XP Summit that’s coming up at May in Dallas.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Eric Schroeder — I mean that’s a way that we can pour into um, young leaders and a leadership capital component of what we do.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love it.
Eric Schroeder — Ah and then the you know the the third one is the Financial Capital.
Rich Birch — Right.
Eric Schroeder — And really we’re not going to get to that piece unless there’s strong spiritual capital, strong leadership capital, then the financial capital comes into play.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Eric Schroeder — So um, that’s that’s really the three pillars that we’ve used to help churches grow. And really God is used, enabled us to help churches grow. It’s all it’s all him, Rich.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I really appreciate that. And and friends that are listening in, this is true. Like you know my interactions with CDF, this is very much the way this is what they bleed. Like there this is not like a some sort of like weird marketing thing where they’re like, well we’ll tell people we pray for them and then we won’t actually do that. And before today’s call we prayed for you as we were, you know, kicked this thing off. It is, you know, it’s it’s Eric’s heart, it’s the whole team. Everybody I’ve interacted with um that is they they live this stuff out. And so yeah, just just fantastic.
Rich Birch — All right, Eric, I’m going to push you on one other thing here. So I want you to get real crystal clear. So we’ve got 4- or 5000 church leaders listening in. Um and there are people that this has tweaked oh you know maybe I should be thinking about we’ve got some funds. Maybe I should be thinking about putting them somewhere else, putting them in a different kind of savings vehicle or something like that. Or we’re thinking about a project in the future that, you know, our our reach is a little bit beyond our grasp. We need to, you know, I was talking with a church leader recently, a church planner about this, and I said because he was kind of bummed about um you know some financial stuff. And I said well this is the problem. You know, we we always have to we have to have more seats than the people we have today. So we’re always trying to figure out how do we do that? How do we get more places, more spots? How do we create capacity for people? And so if I’m, what kinds of churches are you looking for? What’s kind of the middle of your bell curve, the kind of ideal this is the type of church that we’re looking to work with on either of those sides? So like hey you maybe have a church that’s looking to put some money on deposit, or a church that’s um, you know, interested in lending. Um, how would you describe them? Because because I would love people to actually reach out and connect with you guys.
Eric Schroeder — Absolutely. So, Rich, it’s it’s both/and. Um so we’re looking for investors, church leaders that want to be a part of what CDF Capital is doing across the country. So those investments are how we’re able to fund the loan opportunities that come up, and then the interest income generated from that is what goes into church planting. So if you look at it from that that business model standpoint, investments, loan Interest, church planting. So investors that want to be involved in that journey with us, we’d we’d welcome that. Check us out at cdfcapital.org. The…
Rich Birch — Um, are is that mostly is that mostly individual investors, or is it institutional like organizations?
Eric Schroeder — It’s it’s individual and [inaudible].
Rich Birch — Okay, both/and. Okay, great.
Eric Schroeder — And for church leaders that are listening that think, okay, we’re out of space; we we we have or we’re leasing a building. What we do a really great job of is helping churches get in their very first building. Um, we step in when most banks um, when it’s a riskier loan opportunity for a bank where it’s maybe the first building, they don’t have the track record. We’re stepping in and helping churches um a lot with with their first building. So reach out to one of our field team; reach out to Mark Briggs. Um and cdfcapital.org – you can find the field team representative in your area on that website. And they they’re truly what God is using to make a change across the country in helping churches grow.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love it. And and so, friends, you heard him say churches that particularly are looking for to get into their first space. Um, you know you might be there today, thinking hmm that that could be us. I would encourage you to reach out again. That’s just cdfcapital.org. Um, it’s very simple to navigate, easy to understand website, easy to find what you’re looking for. Ah you know, just step in there and you know you see right on the front page: church loans and more. You just click on that explore button and you know they can go through that.
Rich Birch — Is there when you talk about like, and I know every church is different so this is a little bit dangerous asking you this question, but are there like size of budgets, you know, that you’re you’re kind of is a sweet spot? You know I would encourage everybody to reach out to you, but is there you know, kind of a particular sweet spot and obviously you need to talk to people and get, you know, a custom thing and all that. But are there particular, you know, churches churches that are of interest for sure?
Eric Schroeder — Well um, Rich, what I would say is if we’re not the right um lender partner for you, we can direct that person, that church leader…
Rich Birch — Love it
Eric Schroeder — …to their right partner. We’re happy to connect them to our friends in the marketplace that that can help them.
Rich Birch — I love it. Friends, you so you heard that. Let CDF do the work for you you. You’re not sure who to talk with, call CDF, give them all your information. If it doesn’t work there, ah, they’ll help point you in the right direction to so to somebody else. Man that’s a huge help, a huge assistance ah, particularly if you feel a little bit stuck you know in this area. So so good. Well, Eric, what else what else would you like to share just as we kind of close up today’s conversation?
Eric Schroeder — So Rich, this is February 10th that we’re recording this and so my Chiefs are going to be playing – I live in Kansas City, Missouri, or actually Lees Summit, Missouri suburb of Kansas City, so my Chiefs are playing this Sunday so as I thought about really kind of what are the four quarters? What if you were thinking about a game plan for CDF Capital? So some things I think people should know um, CDF Capital has 70 – first quarter: CDF capital has 70 years of serving churches, have 70 years of experience doing that.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Eric Schroeder — Second quarter, CDF you know the mindset would be CDF Capital has strong expertise in the financial operations of a church.
Rich Birch — Yes, so true.
Eric Schroeder — We’ve we’ve seen this you know over 70 years. Um kind of the third quarter game plan would be we care about church leaders which is why our ministry cares about spiritual and leadership development. We care deeply about the church and church leaders. Um, and the fourth quarter, and this is where kind of the winning strategy comes into play, um, we care about the future of the church and church planting.
Rich Birch — Yeah, so true.
Eric Schroeder — And the reason is we know this is God’s plan A; there’s no plan B. And we know plan A wins. So um, we’re really excited about the future of the church. We’re here to help church leaders.
Rich Birch — Love it.
And we’re just we’re just excited to be a a part of what God is doing. the mantra that I kind of tell our team all the time is work hard, have fun, and give God all the glory.
Rich Birch — So good.
Eric Schroeder — And we as an organization are here to give God all the glory.
Rich Birch — So good. Well, Eric, this has been a fantastic conversation by the the magic of traveling into the future, friends, you’re listening in you knew who won the Super Bowl. So regardless of whether the Chiefs won or not, we know that that’s a 4 part winning strategy for CDF. So really appreciate you being here, Sir. Again, thank you for your support of unSeminary. We really we appreciate It. We couldn’t do it without you. So I really appreciate that and thanks for all, you’re doing to help so many churches across the country grow, whether it’s church plants or, you know, church looking to get into buildings, all of that. So really appreciate that. Thank you so much.
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Taleah Murray, the Executive Pastor of Ministries at Crossroads Christian Church in Corona, California.
One of the areas Taleah oversees at Crossroads is offering talks and using video to share the impact that the church’s generosity is having as people give. Listen in as she talks about finding stories of life change, and how to use storytelling to increase generosity and spread culture at your church.
- Celebrate the good things happening. // Talking about the offering can be our least favorite part of weekend services. But it doesn’t have to be awkward, or feel like you’re begging for money. At Crossroads Christian Church, every week during the services a video is played or a story is shared leading into the offering time. These stories are a time to celebrate the good things happening at the church which are made possible when people give. By highlighting stories of life change, or the impacts of various ministries, the church connects people’s generosity to what the church is able to accomplish.
- Look around you for stories. // If the thought of finding 50 stories to tell throughout the year feels overwhelming, begin by taking a look around you and asking what’s happening at your church because of people’s giving. Taleah suggests to start by looking at the events you’re doing and missions opportunities your church is involved with. Ask your team members where they are seeing stories in the lives of their volunteers, or in their own lives. Share stories from people getting baptized, or tell the story of a big day like Easter or Christmas. How many people visited, and what happened? Then connect these stories to the giving at your church.
- Find help with videos. // If you don’t have a videographer on staff to help with offering talk videos, look for companies or people in your area who film and edit videos. Build a team of volunteers at your church who know how to record and edit videos. Ask the young people in your church who are familiar with using YouTube, Reels or TikTok to see if they can help capture and edit footage. Even if you aren’t able to do a video every week, tell stories of life change using photos on slides.
- Make the connection. // Taleah recommends not going over three and a half minutes in your videos. Even if you capture a lot of footage in people’s stories, zero in on how the church helped them get to the point they are now. Then during the offering portion of your service, work with your host so they can communicate to the congregation the role they’ve played in giving and how it is contributing to the work of the church in people’s lives.
- Create culture through storytelling. // When you show stories about the people in your church, especially if your church is larger, it helps people identify with each other and makes the church feel smaller. Plus as you share stories of life change, it also helps to create a culture of welcoming brokenness.
- Reuse stories. // Beyond the weekend services, Crossroads also shares the stories they capture on social media. In addition, at the end of the year when giving statements are sent out, the senior pastor will write a letter reminding the church of stories shared throughout the year. This helps to remind people where their money goes when they give. Letters are also sent to first time givers with a reference to what was talked about during the weekend they gave.
You can learn more about Crossroads at their website www.crossroadschurch.com or at their Instagram page at CrossroadsCA. Plus check out examples of their offering talks below:
- Boldly Bless // It’s amazing what a church can do together by each giving just $1.
- Chad’s Story // Incredible story of finding Crossroads and getting involved with his family.
- Liz’s Story // How Crossroad’s Spanish ministry is impacting her.
- High School Leadership // Helping the broader church get to know key staff.
- Special Needs Prom // An event highlight video. (So great!)
- Gave Away $215k In One Weekend? // You gotta watch this one.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Chemistry Staffing
One of the things that they never teach you in seminary is when to move on from your current church. Over the last couple of years, we have been having a TON of conversations about this with pastors all over the United States. Of all the ministry decisions you make, leaving your position will be the toughest.
Download this two-in-one resource that walks you through the decision-making process.
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you’ve decided to tune in. Ah, you’re going to love today’s conversation. You know every week we try to bring you a leader who will both inspire and equip you, and today is no exception. Super excited to have Taleah Murphy Murray—I said Murphy! Taleah Murray with us. She’s the Executive Pastor of Ministries at a great church that you should be following, Crossroads Christian Church in Corona, California. (I’ve have friends in Corona and I’m like it’s been a bad couple of years if you live in in Corona because of the name Corona.) It’s about 4000 people attending. They started in the 1890s, and they’re one of the fastest growing churches, now, in the country. Ah Taleah, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.
Taleah Murray — Hi, thank you for having me.
Rich Birch — So glad you’re here. Yeah I know you must have, particularly early in the covered pandemic when it was all like the novel corona virus that you must have had that joke lots for sure.
Taleah Murray — We did. We did. I was part of a coaching network and they um called me and they said where is where are you from? And I’m like I don’t want to say where I’m from because I don’t want to tell people I’m from Corona.
Rich Birch — Yes, absolutely. That’s a beautiful part of the world though, if you got to be from somewhere. That’s great.
Taleah Murray — It is. It’s great.
Rich Birch — That’s great. Well, what did I miss? Kind of fill out the story, tell us a little bit about Crossroads. Give us the picture, you know, talk to us about the church.
Taleah Murray — Yeah, so Crossroads has a lot of history. We’ve been around since 1892. Um, we’re in the suburbs of ah, you know, like we’re kind of um about an hour from LA. Um so yeah and it’s a megachurch. we’re about 4000, 5000 people. You know nobody knows what they are after covid.
Rich Birch — Yes, exactly.
Taleah Murray — Um, but ah, but yeah, we I love I’ve been there for 15 years now, and so um, it’s ah it’s a great church. Um, our pastor has been there I came over with our senior pastor who’s there now for a fifteen years ago, and we’re in the middle of um, a succession plan. And yeah.
Rich Birch — Wow, that’s cool. That’s ah, lots of exciting things going on. Your role is Executive Pastor of Ministries; talk to us about that kind of what does that include? What is that framework, what what are kind of the pieces of the puzzle that you you think about all the time?
Taleah Murray — So yeah, my role is Executive Pastor of Ministries. I’m over Children’s Ministry, Junior High, High School, College, Spanish, Care ministries. Um, and I also because I’ve been there for so long, I just get to do the things that I see that’s necessary…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Taleah Murray — …so I also um am the story curator ah for us. And so if that’s a sermon illustration that we need, a story for or um, a story for offering that we’re going to talk about today. Um, and I also do a lot of like the development of our communicators. Um, and that way. So yeah I get to do a lot of different things there.
Rich Birch — So good. Love it. Well one of the things we want to talk about today is really has to do with story. And it’s this this moment in um, in the church in our in our services where we talk about the offering, or the tithes, or that kind of piece of the service. And it seems like and we were joking about this beforehand I was just a couple weeks ago was at a church that um it was like they just blew past that part of the service. Like they didn’t it was like whoever was, and I don’t think they were actually embarrassed, but it was like they were embarrassed. They were like, okay, and if you want to give, give now. And then they they you can give online. Actually they didn’t even say that. Um they just kind of acknowledge that it was that you could give, and and they moved on. But that’s not what you guys do at crossroads. Why do you think, before we jump into why you do what you do at Crossroads, why do you think so many churches are miss this moment in the service? They don’t… um, you know they kind of miss this opportunity. What why do you think that is?
Taleah Murray — I think that um, it’s awkward for people to talk about money, and so I think that people are afraid to talk about money a lot of times. Um I also think that um it’s a little bit ah like unknown. What do we do, like where’s the the coaching around this section of and can we like just blow past it? Do we sit in there and look like we’re begging? Um, you know like it can feel like we don’t really have intentionality around it. Sometimes we try to make it, and it’s worship, right? It’s a form of worship. So then do we do the whole worship, and do a song through it? So I think we’re just really kind of and we don’t have a great strategy around that moment. Um, and also I think sometimes we’re afraid of that moment because ah we don’t want to look desperate. We don’t we’re thinking about people who invited their friends to church, and we’re saying, gosh what are they going to think if they hear we’re asking for money? So I think that’s probably the problem we have with it.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that makes total sense. So why don’t you talk, first let’s kind of describe what you do at Crossroads. I would encourage people to watch online to, you know, dive deeper. You know when you see this in person, obviously you can only do so much to describe in this kind of setting what you do. But talk to us about what it looks like, and then let’s then we’ll back up and kind of pick apart the process, how do you end up there, and all that. So talk to us what a typical, you know you know, typical weekend what is the offering moment look like.
Taleah Murray — Okay, so I’ll just describe to you our service because that will help a little bit. So we have um you know three songs at the top, then we we’re a church who does communion every week so we have a host that comes out and then does communion. Um, and then we’ll do like baptisms during the next song. So we’ll have another song. And then out of that comes the offering moment. and usually that’s a video. It’s some sort of inspiring story, either it’s a person’s story, it’s a story of a ministry, or an event that we just had, um and so it’s some sort of really great video moment. And then out of that a host will come up and connect what they just saw to people’s giving.
Taleah Murray — So they’ll connect the, whether let’s say last week we showed a um video about kids camp ah kids ministry… ah, actually we’re doing that this week I believe, sorry. So they’ll come up and they’ll say um, because you give here, because of your generosity, 111 kids were able to go to camp this past weekend, and 15 of them gave their lives to Jesus. So if you want to join us in ah, generosity and making these kinds of stories possible, this kind of life change possible, you can join us by giving (and then we give them the way they can give). And then we’ll pray over the kids who made decisions at camp. And then Amen, and then we move off and a transition video will show.
Rich Birch — So good. This is fantastic, friends. Like this again, what Taleah and the team are doing here, this is best-in-class. So If you’re looking to improve this part of your service, you should lean in and learn, you know, from her. So so every week you’re doing this? So you’re looking for 50-some odd stories. Let’s start there. How do you find these stories? What how are there 50 good things happening at Crossroads?
Taleah Murray — There are! There are so many good things. I think you just have to mine for them. So now that um, we have a culture of storytelling, and because I oversee these ministries it makes it easier for me. I mean I’m I’m overseeing these ministries where there’s stories all the time. And my leaders are they they come to me. You know we have this story. You know we have this story. But I’m also looking at just the events that we do.
Taleah Murray — We do a special needs prom; I know I can get two stories out of the special needs prom because we do one where we have um, people that were giving away dresses and giving away [inaudible] they had tried them on. And so I’m you know, looking for stories with that. Anything we do overseas with our missions partners, that’s because of people’s giving, so everything’s an opportunity. I’m like what happens around here because of people’s giving?
Taleah Murray — So that happens and then um, just stories. I mean we have an invitation, you know, we’re a culture that does an altar call every week. And so… and we do baptism. So anytime there’s a baptism, I’m back there asking them, tell me how you came to know Jesus. Tell me what brought you to this moment. Um, and so there’s stories there.
Taleah Murray — And a lot of times um, you know, our team members, because that’s the goal, right? Is to have we want people to serve in the church, because that’s where they find true life change in community. So I’m going to ask every single team member what their story is, how they came to start serving…
Rich Birch — Okay.
Taleah Murray — …what that looks like. So I’m constantly mining and there is something going on every, every week. Um, you can tell the story of Easter. You guys do, you know, every church does big Easter, right? Like get somebody to take b-roll of your Easter story. Tell how many new families came, tell how many baptisms you had that day. Um, there’s a story in everything.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. So first of all I love that like, you know, this I would I would agree, you know, just having your kind of an antenna up for this, and creating the space of saying we’re going to tell one of these stories every week. Um you know you’ve got to find one. It’s got to, you know, it’s got to open up. Now talk to me about the video piece. I’m sure there’s people that are listening in that are like they’re already given up. They’re like there’s no way we can’t do video every week. Friends, I don’t want you to get lost on that. We’ll come back to that idea. But why are you choosing to do video. That’s a significant investment. Tell us kind of what’s happening behind that.
Taleah Murray — Yeah, well video is the medium. Like I feel like video I mean everybody’s watching YouTube um; you know, you hear about the hours that people spend on YouTube. Reels are the thing on Instagram. It’s it’s the way. It’s the way people communicate and so it is a worthwhile investment.
Taleah Murray — And there’s been a time when we didn’t have video people. And there’s people… and I get it I live in California; you know, Hollywood’s right down the street. But there are people you can contract with. And it’s every single time worth contracting. I’ve con… I mean I’ve gotten gritty, you know…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Taleah Murray — …to find whatever we can – whoever does video I will take it and I will direct that piece of it to put it together. Um, but I would say it’s really worthwhile. It pays for itself in the end because people are moved through video. They really are. And there’s young people in your church who do video on their phones and it’s amazing. And they can edit something for you to put together for the weekend.
Rich Birch — It’s so true. Yeah.
Taleah Murray — My son is fifteen years old and he’s loves video, and he’s shooting a lot of the videos that we’re doing today. And for free!
Rich Birch — Love it. Right.
Taleah Murray — He is my son. But yeah…
Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, yeah.
Taleah Murray — But they want to learn and they want to…
Rich Birch — You’re paying him in other ways you’re like continuing to feed him so, you know, yes.
Taleah Murray — I feed him. Yes, yeah.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Taleah Murray — So but they they are willing because they want to get, I mean these young people want to be they want to do their craft. They’re doing YouTube on their own. You know, get them and ask them, hey would you make a video for me? You know, can you go to children’s ministry and video what’s happening this weekend and edit something together for us? So…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Taleah Murray — …I really think that you can do that. You can also tell this story um like some of the things when you said, how do you do 52 videos? Well there are sometimes where we are we’re not doing a video. It’s very rare, but we will pray for our missions teams that are going out, and we connect that story, and the work that we’re doing as we’re praying for them to people’s giving. Um, so there’s things like that too.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Taleah Murray — But but I would say video is a worthwhile investment. It really is. It’s paid for itself…
Rich Birch — Yeah I love…
Taleah Murray — …over and over and over again.
Rich Birch — I love that. I know there’s some executive pastors that are want me to get to that question; talk about the financial impact, but we’ll get there friends but not yet. Um, so one of the things I’ve I’ve coached churches on this area if they don’t… so I do love the the your look at video and kind of how you’re doing that regularly. But but the thing that you might—I don’t want you to get overwhelmed by this, friends—even the the one step to say we’re going to have a picture every week that shows the vision of the church. So the example you used of like the the weekend retreat, the youth weekend retreat, even just showing a picture of that rather than just talking about the youth retreat, having a picture of that is like is way more effective, but too many of us miss that um, you know you know, images speak so much louder than just ah, you know, just words.
Rich Birch — So talk to me about videos. I’m sure there’s some common things that you’re like make a great video, or there’s times where you’re like oh that didn’t really hit the mark. What would be a couple of those coaching things from you? You’ve seen a lot of these videos – what works really well um, you know, with a video that places in this moment in your service?
Taleah Murray — Yeah, so you never want to go over three and a half minutes. Like a video that’s over three and a half minutes…
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Taleah Murray — …is way too long, way too long. And when you have somebody that wants to tell a story… so a lot of times we’ll tell just one person’s life change story. So ah, let’s take, you know, um we told Toni’s story a couple weeks ago. Toni’s a girl. Um, she she talked about how um she was at this place in her life where she grew up with her dad, who was in in and out of prison, her mom who killed herself when she was ten months old…
Rich Birch — Oh wow.
Taleah Murray — …and um, she just had this life that was, you know, terrible. She was abused and all of these things. So ah, we told Toni’s story; we asked her about that. Then she came to know Jesus and she started coming to Crossroads um, when she decided to make a change in her life. She had known Jesus before, but then she came to Crossroads and was like I’m going to jump full full in. She got involved in life groups and in community. Um, and then she had this condition, and she went to our Ash Wednesday service and got prayed for, and God healed her…
Rich Birch — Oh wow.
Taleah Murray — …at this Ash Wednesday service…
Rich Birch — Oh my goodness! Oh my good…
Taleah Murray — And yeah, it was amazing and so she she’s like.
Rich Birch — You got this all in one video?
Taleah Murray — In one video.
Rich Birch — This is amazing. Wow.
Taleah Murray — So but that’s a lot of things, right?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Taleah Murray — So she’s talking about all the things. So I mean I have about 30 minutes of content…
Rich Birch — Oh wow.
Taleah Murray — …and I’ve got to get that down to 3 minutes.
Rich Birch — Right.
Taleah Murray — So when she’s telling this story you have to have a really good eye to say, and a cut you know, like hardcore, you know, cut to say where am I going with this story? And there’s an arc to every story. Give me the down, you know, what happened the before Jesus piece. Then give me the climax moment when you met Jesus or whatever the thing is – for her was the healing. And then tell me what the how the church because it’s always you’re trying to make the church the hero.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Taleah Murray — I know that Jesus is always the hero…
Rich Birch — Right.
Taleah Murray — …but we’re trying to make the church because we’re saying the people in the audience need to see, I did that; I was part of that. Um, and so we do that. So you have to be really cutthroat to say where do I want the story to go? What pieces are going to be important? And then how can I get to the roundup to say at the end of it, Crossroads helped me. So I usually ask them to finish this statement, tell me why you’re thankful for Crossroads. And they’ll say, you know, I’m so thankful for Crossroads because I found community; I found whatever here.
Taleah Murray — Then I’m able to come up and hit the ball out of the park with the host piece to say because of you…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Taleah Murray — …Toni was healed, Toni found Jesus, Toni found family that she’s never had before. And you got to do that, Church, you know, because you give here.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Taleah Murray — So…
Rich Birch — So good. How do you repurpose those videos? So I do you use them in other places? Do they show up on, you know, your social channels and all that? What what else because you know I’m I’m assuming you don’t just produce them and use them on the weekends, use them at other spots too. How else do you use them?
Taleah Murray — Yeah, so pretty much every single one of them, you’ll find on our Instagram page. So um, our social media person puts it up on Instagram, so it’s content also, you know, for the weekend. Look at Crossroads; look at how you’ve helped Toni’s life change. So we use that.
Taleah Murray — And that one we also used for um—I had them do 2 cuts of that one—so we use it for our women’s ah conference. And I asked a different question at the end of it because our women’s conference was called Flourish. So I said, Toni, tell me how you have flourished in this season. So she’s able to give me that ending, and then we’re able to get the Crossroads ending, you know, for the for the weekend service…
Rich Birch — Still good.
Taleah Murray — …so we can repurpose them that way. A lot of times these ministries too want to, like for the kids, can’t video. They’re going to use that to send a parents next year to say, look at how kids camp you know, send your kids to kids camp this year because look at what happened last year; look how fun this is. And so we repurposed them for almost like market target marketing for the events that we have.
Rich Birch — Love it. Fantastic. So friends, you should go over to it’s just @crossroadsca on Instagram and check out. You can see some real live examples of this. Maybe I’ll have you afterwards, if you could if I could impose upon you one other thing, to pick out like here’s 4, you know, here’s 3 or 4 ones that are like, hey these are kind of like the best examples so that our people could point them to their video people, and say we need to make these kind of things. Um, you know that that could be really helpful if you’d be willing to do that for us, Taleah. um, so talk…
Taleah Murray — Yeah I will totally do that.
Rich Birch — That would be amazing. Talk to me about the hosting spot. So you kind of you kind of gave us an overview, but so we have an idea of what’s happening in the video. And then we come out on a live person stands on stage talk us through what that typically looks like – maybe you know common pitfalls, things that that people, you know, maybe don’t they when they fumble it, you’re like somewhere you’re you’re like oh they did it wrong. Or they’re like oh they really did it great. They… What what what makes that moment fantastic?
Taleah Murray — Yeah, so um, the… I script everybody.
Rich Birch — Okay, okay, good, good.
Taleah Murray — So this is what really helps and now a lot of them do it on their own because they’ve grown, but when you’re building the culture, you’ve got to script them to teach them the language. And so I will make the connection for people from whatever the video is to… and so now they can do it themselves. I have all pretty much every one of our hosts – we have um like, you know, eight or something that can do this and they really well. But they understand they are connecting the story to people’s giving. And so there’s certain language that we use: you did this. You know, you made, because of you you made this possible. The thank you for your generosity um, you know. So some of them are a little bit harder because we’re trying to figure out.
Taleah Murray — So um, another idea for a story type video we’ve started telling the stories of our staff members, like so people can see our staff members because… um, so we had our junior high, we have two pastors in our junior high, Katie and Zack, and we asked fun questions of them. Tell me how many, you know, kids you’re reaching, tell me what your biggest ministry fail is, you know, tell me.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Taleah Murray — But then we get down to, tell me why you love why is junior high ministry needed, so needed. And then it gets at the heartstrings, you know, and they’re telling these things about…
Rich Birch — Oh that’s so good.
Taleah Murray — …what they they love. And then the end we ended it with the like what’s a trend that’s happening right now on TikTok? And they did the tortilla slap and it was just hilarious, right? Like so…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Taleah Murray — And so with everybody laughing laughing. So now this host has to come up and tie that to giving. And so they tied it…
Rich Birch — Right. Exactly.
Taleah Murray — So the way they did that was just because you give here we have this ministry that’s reaching 480 junior high students a month. And these pastors are leading them and you see the need for them. They’re talking about all these lies these kids are getting. So sometimes it’s harder, you know, you have to help them make that connection. Um, but it really is only like the host spot afterwards is 30 seconds to a minute.
Rich Birch — Okay, quick.
Taleah Murray — Ah, we’re just making the tie real fast. We’re not trying to sound like we’re begging. We’ve made the you know…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Taleah Murray — …we’ve made the connection for them, and then we just need to always give the how. So text GIVE is our thing, you know, to this number. Or you know, go on our website, or we’re on Venmo, and but let’s pray over our junior high ministry right now. So and then we finish it with prayer.
Rich Birch — Okay, love that. That’s good distinction that hey you’re looking for 30 seconds to a minute. And just to kind of pull one thing apart there that I want to make sure, because again I’ve seen churches miss this, particularly I think post-covid or corona since you’re here, post the corona the novel coronavirus. Um we’ve missed the it was more obvious when we were all of us were passing plates, or whatever, how to give. And we now have multiplicity of ways for people to give, and we might stumble that part of it. So you are telling people every week, here are the ways. Do you talk about all those ways every week, or you just to kind of feature one? What does that look like?
Taleah Murray — So usually we have… ah so I have this script memorized but it’s usually…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Taleah Murray — …the 2 things. You know, so we tell people because there’s people watching online and in the room, so we say you can text this number to give. Or if you’re in the room and you brought cash or check, there’s offering boxes around the room that you can drop your offering in after the service.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Taleah Murray — Um and so that’s how we say it. We just added the Venmo piece and so we’re noticing as we say Venmo people are like we’re tapping into a different audience.
Rich Birch — Interesting.
Taleah Murray — So we’re kind of trying that right now. So we’re giving them the three ways. Um you know so…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Taleah Murray — But normally we wouldn’t do that. Ah, but because it’s new…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Taleah Murray — …we’re doing it and we’re seeing how long we’re going to last with that.
Rich Birch — And do you have any kind of associated graphics with that. Do you do like ah, you know, to stuff come up on the screen, or lower thirds to kind of you know, bring the number up on screen, all that? Tell tell me about that.
Taleah Murray — Yeah, so we have a lower third that just has the “Text GIVE to” the number so that’s… it’ll show up while I’m talking. Um and it doesn’t show up during the video it shows up as soon as like the host comes up and starts talking about the how to give peace.
Rich Birch — Love it. Okay, so let’s talk about outcomes. Let’s talk about the difference you think this piece is making. We’ll get to the finance piece – keep listening, people. But let’s talk about the non-tangible. Ah so for my as an outsider, I would say man this would have driven is driving so much great culture stuff at the church. It’s because you’re celebrating, this is what our church is about. Talk to me about the non-financial kind of benefits of doing this um, you know, to the church and you know the church culture has been what that what what’s been positive on that front.
Taleah Murray — Yeah, so we’re a big church. We’re a megachurch, you know.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Taleah Murray — Like we’re talking 4 to 5000 people…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Taleah Murray — …and so it can feel really big. Now when you’re showing somebody’s story every week, or you’re showing your pastors, and you’re telling who they are, um, it becomes people identify with those people and say, I was an alcoholic too. Oh my gosh, this place welcomes alcoholics. You know, I was that too. Or I know that person is actually my preschool daughter’s teacher. I didn’t know that was his story. And so now they’re becoming small, right? So they’re coming and they’re seeing people and it makes people um more approachable, and it makes them human, you know. So I mean it just it really does connect people, but it also creates a culture of our church where we’re saying and, you know, we’re a church who welcomes brokenness. Um, and so it’s it’s a culture establisher. And then also with my ministry leaders, it’s helping them get to know people and their stories because they know I’m looking for them. So all of a sudden we become a church that’s small because everybody’s asking questions and they’re knowing they know we’re going to be asking for who who do you know? Whose life has been changed? What is your newest team member’s story?
Taleah Murray — Um, and so we just become a church that knows people because we have to know them for their stories.
Rich Birch — Love it! Yes. Love it.
Taleah Murray — So it’s really changed us to be a culture of like people feel known, and and feel welcomed, and um, it really is a leadership development tool as well because you’re having your leader say you need to know people. So make sure that you’re you’re talking to people and asking them their stories.
Rich Birch — Right. I love that; so good. We have a group coaching thing that we do with a church with about a dozen churches and they’re all over 1000. You know some 3 or 4000—in that range—and one of the things we come back to time and again, there is the real “competitor” of a church of that size or is, in some ways, is ourselves. But it’s this idea of um people, like the joke I always make is the only people that like big churches are pastors. Um, you know, we, you know, we we have to make our churches smaller. We have to figure out how do we make it feel more relational. And so this kind of thing you know you’re only telling fifty stories. I’m not and undermining that – stick with me here. You know that’s fifty stories out of 5000 people every year. That’s a ton of work to make all that happen. Um, but you’re doing that, wishing that you could tell 5000 stories, hoping that someday you’ll be able to tell all those stories. But that does in some ways it it shrinks the church makes it feel much more small it makes it smaller.
Rich Birch — What about on the financial side? You keep doing this, you’re investing you’re investing a significant amount of your time. You’re investing obviously video time – we don’t have to get into specific specific numbers, obviously. But obviously you’re convinced internally that this helps financially, I’m assuming. You know, talk about that.
Taleah Murray — Yeah, so um, we started this in 2017, probably November of 2017, we started telling stories because we had launched a campaign where we were um, trying to build ah buildings for our kids ministries and stuff. And so um, when we launched that, we decided we had to tell the story. So it became a priority for us. And at that time we were maybe telling one a month because we were just trying to keep vision in front of people. Um, and so it kind of ties into, you know, the campaign piece that giving went up, giving units went up, significantly.
Taleah Murray — Then in um, 2020 we had to double down because we started realizing, oh shoot you know that was when nobody knew what was happening, and we didn’t know what that was going to look like we were afraid if we’re not meeting every week buckets are not getting passed every week. Are we going to make money? So we started telling a story like intentionally um, weekly because we were doing a lot of things, ah you know overseas, with our food pantry was growing. And so we just did that and we went up in giving all throughout 2020 with those stories.
Rich Birch — So good.
Taleah Murray — Um, and so it has really proven um, and our giving has not gone back down to pre-story levels. You know like we we kind of adjust…
Rich Birch — Right.
Taleah Murray — …you know a little bit since the campaign kind of but but we’ve gone up significantly since we’re telling stories. And we hear a ton of feedback from people who are saying, thank you for telling me where my money is going.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Taleah Murray — Because a lot of times people don’t see, and they don’t know, and so you’re telling them weekly where their money is going.
Rich Birch — It’s so true. Yes, it’s so true.
Taleah Murray — So um, they love that people love that. And they’re proud of their church so they will share these stories…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Taleah Murray — …um from Instagram they will share them to tell people, look at what my church is doing, you know? Um so it really is great for them.
Rich Birch — I love it. Yeah, it’s so true. I think this is one of those things that we take for granted in in local church leadership is that, you know, we don’t have everybody that comes and sits in our rooms every week but we do have a large portion of them that do come and sit in front of us every single week. If we were any other nonprofit in town, ah man, they would kill for that kind of engagement. They would love to be able to have their people in front of them every single week. You think about, you know, the local food bank throws a a giant gala once a year that takes a ton of time, effort, and energy energy and they do that once, where we get to do it 52 times a year. We should take take advantage of that and get in front of our people.
Rich Birch — Um, maybe could you talk a little bit about, and this is kind of it’s adjacent to the offering um the offering portion, the offering segment. What other things are you doing on the kind of donor development side that are kind of connected to storytelling? Are there other ways that you’re you know talking with with donors or people that give to the church, or just the church in general that that are using stories? Is there other ways that you’re kind of spreading this through the rest of that strategy?
Taleah Murray — So the the way we we um will tell, you know, we’ll send statements to people.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Taleah Murray — Um, at the you know the beginning the end of the the tax for their tax deductible or whatever the amounts.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Taleah Murray — And so in that our senior pastor pastor will write a letter. And he’ll use a lot of the stories that we’ve told throughout the year.
Rich Birch — Right.
Taleah Murray — So you know we’re talking how many people we’ve served through our food pantry because of you. So when they’re seeing their tax statement, they’re seeing that story again, those stories retold um in that. And so and we’ll do that like in the middle of the year too, we send out these like, here’s where you are; you didn’t know. And then remember this is what you’ve done with your giving in a letter, a written piece. Um, at the end of the year a lot of times we’ll send a printed piece that’s like beautiful, you know, um pictures and all the things, but we’re using these stories again. Like people are, you know, we remember we’re using all the stories told, um throughout the year with the images and we’re telling people that as well. So that’s how we’re using the stories in those settings. We have somebody who is starting now to do like stewardship pastoring um and he’s praying and pastoring the people. Um, oh and also we’d send like a first time, when when the first time givers…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Taleah Murray — …we’re connecting, we’re sending them a letter and we’re telling them whatever the adjacent story was um, you know that that they just gave that week and because of you we were able to send these kids to camp, or you know whatever the case is. So um, the other thing that we do that’s kind of an align with a giving and it kind of goes to this place is we do this thing called boldly bless.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Taleah Murray — Where we ask people to get $1 more than they normally give. Um and then we bless the family and we tell that story.
Rich Birch — That’s cool.
Taleah Murray — And sometimes we’re not able to give that story on video because it’s one week. You know it’s within one week.
Rich Birch — Right.
Taleah Murray — And so sometimes we can run it over that fast. So we’ll just tell it and like you said show pictures of if the family lets us. Sometimes it’s not… we don’t want to exploit that and so
Rich Birch — Um yes because of the nature of it. Yes, yeah, yeah, because the nature of what it is. Yeah yeah.
Taleah Murray — Right. If we went shopping for a family we’ll show the staff shopping for them. You know, um in stuff like that.
Rich Birch — Yep, Love it.
Taleah Murray — So ah, but we tell the story that way. And then we’ll use that in our first time giver letter that week – because of you we were able to buy groceries for this family.
Rich Birch — Wow. Ah friends, as you have heard, this is best in class. This is fantastic. This is just yeah, so great. This has been super helpful today, Taleah. What um, anything else you want to share just as we kind of wrap up today’s episode? Anything you know in this whole area that you want to ah, encourage people if they’re thinking about maybe stepping into this, thinking about taking some steps towards this? What would you say to them?
Taleah Murray — Um, I would say that this is don’t, like you said this before, don’t leave money on the table. There’s so much that people can be inspired by and there’s different pockets that people give out of. So you’ve got your, you know, faithful obedient tithers that don’t need any inspiration. They’re just going to be obedient. But then you’ve got your on-the-fencers who just need to be inspired and you’ve got your skeptics who are saying, you know, I don’t know that I can trust this church. And what you tell them when you’re investing in this kind of thing is you can trust us. I’m going to show you where your money’s going. This is a wise investment.
Rich Birch — So true.
Taleah Murray — And that’s also language that we use with the host piece, like the church is the best investment. It’s you get the greatest return on investment at the church because you’re investing in life change and people’s eternal eternity.
Taleah Murray — Um, and so I would say invest in this portion. Invest in a video person. Invest in coaching your hosts to be super intentional um, which is why I said like I script them. Because it needs to be succinct. We don’t need people to hate the offering portion. We want them to love it.
Rich Birch — Right. Love it.
Taleah Murray — You know to look forward to that portion of the service. Um, so just be really intentional and invest your time in it. It’s worth it.
Rich Birch — So good. This has been fantastic, friends. Ah make sure you scroll down; check this check the show notes. We’ll have some links to kind of best-in-class ones from Crossroads specifically so you can kind of see that it would give you kind of a visual example of what we’re talking about here today. Taleah, thanks so much for being on. So honored that you took some time to be with us today.
Taleah Murray — Thank you so much for having me.
Thanks for joining us for this episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Kadi Cole who leads the organization Kadi Cole & Company which helps with leadership development, management skills training, executive level coaching and more.
This time Kadi is taking over hosting the podcast as she interviews Rich on how men can open the doors to female leadership in the church.
- Exposure to differences teaches us. // Different cultures, even around North America, look at genders differently. Growing up, Rich was exposed to different cultures as his family moved around often. Our experiences within churches, various denominations, different schools and neighborhoods can impact our views on women working in the church. Those who are exposed to more diverse viewpoints tend to be less locked in to one particular paradigm. Regardless of how we grew up, it’s important to be aware of and address our own biases.
- Learning from what you see. // One person who still stands out in Rich’s mind is a man whom Rich worked with early in his church leadership days. This man helped with tasks that might typically be left to women on a church staff. He honored and spoke highly of the women on his team, and modeled that to the other men in leadership. Most people learn from what they see, not necessarily what they are told to do.
- Different opportunities for men and women. // Rich and Kadi grew up in a time where men and women in church leadership had vastly different experiences. Decades ago when they were new to ministry, Rich and Kadi visited the same church on separate occasions and met with the same pastor. Rich asked to shadow his staff and had the opportunity to spend the day with him, even going to his house where they talked one-on-one with no one else there. Meanwhile Kadi took her sister to the church with her so that she was never alone. She didn’t go out with the pastor anywhere and never considered that she might be able to shadow his staff. This was the dynamic that they grew up in, and it wasn’t until years later that they realized how different the same experience was for men versus women.
- Ask for opportunities. //For women in church leadership, it’s important to learn and ask questions. Ask for the opportunities to learn more. As a female leader, offer those who are new to ministry the opportunity to spend time with you and learn from you. Invite someone along with you as you go about your work.
- Speak truth and encouragement. // Women in church can be held back by their own limiting beliefs. High capacity female leaders are perfectionists and know that there are few opportunities for them, so they put a lot of pressure on themselves. When godly, male leaders who are spiritual authorities speak truth to them about themselves, it helps women change their views of themselves. Speak encouragement to the women in leadership at your church. Let them know when they are doing a great job. Remind them that the gifts they bring to the table are important and needed.
- Advice for men and women. // Rich advises that for the men in church leadership, if these conversations around women leading aren’t already happening, you’ll probably need to start that dialogue. It will require some awkward conversations, but it’s worth it. For women, Rich encourages them to use their voices and to step up. Take risks and take advantage of opportunities. Offer the good gifts that God has given to you.
Listen to the podcast Helping Female Leaders in Your Church Find Their Leadership Voice with Kadi Cole and learn more about Kadi’s book “Developing Female Leaders” at her website www.kadicole.com.
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey, friends welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. We’ve got a different kind of episode today. Um I’ve got my friend Kadi Cole, a return guest, which you know whenever we have a return guest that’s a good thing, but it’s a different kind of episode. But let me tell you a little bit about Kadi. Kadi is an incredible leader. She spent 16 years at Christ Fellowship in Palm Gardens, Florida leading a whole variety of um areas. The church grew from about 3500 to over 20,000 which is incredible. Um, she, a number of years ago, stepped out and leads her own organization called Kadi Cole and Company. Ah she’s had key roles with organizations like Leadership Network, Replenish Ministries, Multi-site Solutions. Ah, she has a passion to help church leaders who want to do a better job, particularly on developing female leadership talent within their congregation. So super excited to have Kadi on because we got chatting and, so this is a little bit weird, but we got chatting and she said, hey Rich, I’d love to interview you on your podcast about that. And I was like, that sounds amazing. So so happy to have you on the show, Kadi. Welcome, or happy for you to have me. I don’t know how this works exactly.
Kadi Cole — Yes, I’ll take over the host microphone now. So yeah, thank you so much, Rich, for letting me come in here. Yeah I I’m just always so fascinated as I work with churches and particularly male leaders around this topic of how do we do a better job developing female leaders, the talent that God’s brought to our churches, or even in our lives. And really male leaders are a huge piece of kind of shifting the conversation of that, opening doors for women, ah equipping, mentoring, challenging, sponsoring. I write a lot about all those different kinds of ways that men really have the power and they many ways hold the keys. And you’re such a champion of women. You’ve certainly been a champion for me; you’ve opened doors for me. I know you’ve done that for a lot of other women and a lot of other churches and places and even on this podcast.
Kadi Cole — And so I’m really curious to hear about your story in this topic. Ah, what it was like for you, when did you realize this was kind of an issue. How have you navigated that? Um, what are some things you’re still working on? So that’s what I want to talk to you about today. And I have a feeling your listeners are going to be fascinated by what we learned.
Rich Birch — Well, thanks. I’m looking forward to it as well. This is I was just looking up. This is episode 747 and we’ve only done this once before with my good friend, Carey Nieuwhof. So I feel a little bit nervous to be honest. I was like I was saying to Christine, my wife, I’m a little bit nervous; I don’t know what’s she going to ask. How’s it going to go? Ah, but yeah, no, this is a topic I am passionate about and super honored to get a chance to kind of chat with you today.
Kadi Cole — Great. Well Rich, why don’t we start by kind of taking us back to the beginning. Talk to us about the context in which you grew up that informs so much of our ideas and frameworks around gender, who we are, who people of the opposite sex are, and how those rules kind of play out, particularly in our faith. So kind of fill us in on the context you grew up and um, some of the the things that when you look back now you start over like, huh, that’s different than maybe how I think now and here’s how I got there.
Rich Birch — Yeah, great question. So um, when we were younger like, you know, like when I was in elementary school, that sort of thing, um, we went to church, but it was not um it wasn’t like ah it was ah definitely a cultural experience. I would say you know our family had this kind of great awakening at one point um, where you know church and kind of the things of Jesus went from those are interesting ideas that it wasn’t like we disagreed with them. It wasn’t that we were like oh it, it just wasn’t a huge deal to us. And and we were my my dad moved a lot when I we were kids. And in every couple of years he would move to a new place, and or we’d move to a new place, and they were super brand loyal to their ah particular slice of Christian world. And we would just literally go to the whatever the church was the closest the kind of brand that we always went to. And we were just about to move at one point and ah the minister at our church had an affair with another minister. And that was ah pretty profound for my parents. Um, they were like oh whoa like maybe we should really maybe take some time to consider when we move the next time what church we should go to because they felt kind of a little bit burned by that. And it’s a very Jesus kind of story because he’s good at taking bad things and making them great, and that was obviously a bad thing, but in our little family it was it was a great thing.
Rich Birch — We we literally were just moving and um, my parents did end up going and looking at a number of different churches. I remember that as a kid. I was like this is like you know I’m in the you know grade 8 you know that kind of timeline. And um, we we ended up at this one church that was this great Presbyterian Church, you know, in hindsight and great evangelical presbyterian church. And I remember distinctly two things. First of all, they they talked about the bible like it was true, which was new was a new experience, like it was like oh like they think this thing’s actually true. And then they prayed like it was actually stuff was going to happen, like that was and even as like ah as an eighth grader that really did kind of stick with me, and it was really there that God got a hold of our whole our entire family’s life. And I would say that’s where we became Christians. I that I think ties into this because even from early days, the church that we were a part of there were there were women in leadership. That was a part of the equation of what was going on there. Um, now kind of over the time you know we shifted, we we moved again like as always happens we moved um a couple years later, and um we went and this struck me, so this is now I’m in high school. You know my parents go to um the the minister at our church and we say hey we’re moving to this other town. This is all pre-internet, right? And they’re like, hey can you help us find a church in the new community? And so he goes and and I don’t know what he did like calls people. What did you do before the internet? I don’t know what they did.
Rich Birch — So they… and he comes back to my parents and says…
Kadi Cole — There are these things called the Yellow Pages, Rich.
Rich Birch — Yes! But he he comes back to them and he says, you know what? You shouldn’t go to the Presbyterian Church in in the town there. And at the time I didn’t you know like I don’t know what all that means. Um, but he’s like there’s this great church and it was a Christian and Missionary Alliance church. It was a different a totally different denomination.
Rich Birch — And even as like ah as a grade 9 kid that really like struck me that here was this guy suggesting, hey you should go somewhere different. Um and because he was like I think you’ll find that is more—and you know I didn’t have the language for this at the time—but it was like that were probably more aligned with, you know, your experience here, what they teach about the bible than necessarily the Presbyterian Church did in the town we were moving into. Um now that kind of started the trajectory leadership change trajectory where I’ve spent most of my time, ironically, not in kind of more mainline churches. I’ve spent more of my time in what we would call you know more of the eventually the kind of. evangelical non-denominational world. That’s where I’ve spent most of my time.
Rich Birch — But I do think those early years did impact particularly the gender thing. And the other thing too in I went to I did go to bible college, like I was one of those people. And the bible college I went to is fantastic – it’s ah, a school in Canada called Tyndale. And they’re they’re proudly what they call transdenominational, and they celebrate the fact that people come from a wide variety of of backgrounds. And that was really formative to me because I I um early on didn’t um like I was kind of like engendered in me in my leadership that like we should celebrate people who look at the bible differently. Like where I think there’s that isn’t necessarily the case with lots of people where I think there are people that are like if you’re not from my tribe, you’re not from my narrow group, then I can’t we can’t work together. And so um, very early on…
Rich Birch — And then I took a great ah class, um Professor Elizabeth Daly, Dr. Daly’s class, on gender in school. I was thinking about this, preparing for this. I’m like wait where did that… and I still actually have the textbook. It’s one of the few textbooks I kept. Um her class really impacted me because I would say that was the first time that I actually thought about this issue that I was like oh like yeah okay, there are people who who think um, you know who are trying to maybe limit women’s abilities to lead. Um that was like ah even like a new idea even at that point. I was like oh whoa, that’s interesting like okay this is something to think about. And that you know I that for sure her class that class impacted my thinking around this whole area. Obviously we got into all the theological stuff. Um, but it it impacted even just practically how we how we even just even how my wife and I have our marriage. Like there was stuff that came out of that class around how she because she was it was all this kind of sidebar stuff around how her and her husband managed their kind of relationship that ended up impacting even how Christine and I manage our relationship. So those would be a few things I think from my early years that impacted my thinking around and just leadership around gender.
Kadi Cole — Interesting. That that’s so fascinating to me because there’s a few things I want to highlight from your story. First of all, you moved around a lot, which means there was diversity even in the kind of cultures you were a part of, the kind of schools you were a part of, the neighborhoods you lived in, the ways families operated. And we do know that in different areas of the country, or in North America in different areas of the world for sure, cultures look at gender differently. Even bible believing really scholarly people we have different views around gender in our culture. And so that probably even ah, maybe shook anything that was sort of like locked in as a paradigm every time you move, you kind of get a new paradigm about those things. And then, like you said, some of these more experiences in churches and dynamics, this class, all of those things really form our view around this.
Kadi Cole — And all of us carry biases along in life that we’re us unaware of. You know, hopefully we spend time thinking, and praying, and experiencing things that kind of bring insight and awareness to those. Ah, but we have seen that people who have a broad variety of diverse experiences tend to have more insight around those, obviously just because you get exposed ah, to so many things.
Kadi Cole — Ah when you um, kind of look back on your leadership journey then, like in Ministry Leadership maybe in bible college or your first couple pastoral leadership roles, when did you realize that gender was kind of like a dynamic in your leadership? Like as you’re leading a meeting, or that maybe there are women on your team that have different backgrounds than you, and so they’re coming and showing up to the table differently. Or there are men who maybe have different views than you and they’re ah treating women differently, or or just that it’s a thing. I think sometimes people don’t realize it’s a thing and then you sort of go, man, there’s something here that’s affecting us. And it’s hard to put your finger on till you all of a sudden you uncover it and you’re like, wow this is actually sucking a lot of time and energy from our productivity.
Rich Birch — Yeah that’s great. Great question. So I I’d love to say it was like super early on, I really understood this. Um, but actually it was it was one of these examples of like a small thing that has had like weird weird disproportionate impact on my thinking. Um I was serving at ah a great church in the Toronto area. And there was ah a leader who I deeply respected – who’s probably 10 years older than me, is just a little bit farther down the the road and it was this is like a silly stupid small thing, but it really did impact me. We were we were having a staff lunch. So at this point our staff probably had 30 or 40 people on it. I was a part of the senior leadership team. This other individual was also a part of, this guy named Darrell was also ah you know part of the senior leadership team. And um, we were just getting you know pulling everything together, getting this lunch ready. and um. You know the way it was being served was it was like you know there’s all this food sitting out and then there was a couple people standing behind the counter, serving the meal. And ah there was I think maybe 2 or 3 people standing behind the the counter. And again super small detail but Darrell he said to there was um, ah one of our assistants was standing there about to start serving out the meal. And he said to her hey, is it okay, if I don’t have you do that? Is it okay, if I step in? Because I just don’t always want it to be like, you know, there’s always a woman who’s handing out the food.
Rich Birch — Um, and I it struck me. I was like that is an interesting um observation, you know, that and although you know it was ah it was a small thing and it was a um, it was a visual thing. Ah but I would say that was one of those early things that I was like oh yeah, that’s interesting, like even just who serves the meal. Who is like the person that’s always handing stuff out um can be perceived, can can say something without us ever saying anything.
Kadi Cole — Mmm-hmm.
Rich Birch — And so I’ve often thought back to that moment that ooh something turned in me that I was like, oh I need to pay more attention to this. You know I respected Darrell; I still respect Darrell. He’s a great leader. Um, you know and and even though it was a small thing… And then you start to notice it, right? Then you’re like oh, here’s a guy I lead and I notice; it’s not just about handing out food. There’s all kinds of things in his ministry where he’s trying to find ways to honor um, you know, provide opportunity for, speak highly of, um, you know, ah you know, cutting down other guys if they’re like, hey you shouldn’t be making a joke like that. That’s not a great joke. Um, you know those kinds of things that um, that you know, I had definitely had an influence on me for sure. And that was that you know that’s in my you know, kind of in those first ten years of ministry that that definitely stood out as one of those kind of turning points. Um.
Kadi Cole — I love the intentionality of that. And those things really do first of all that it says something really significant to that woman. And it gives an example to people like you and other people who are watching. Ah, but the other thing is, and we’ve talked about this before the last time we chatted about this, is just how easy it is for our leadership decisions or our cultures or kind of our habits and practices don’t always exactly match our theology. And most people are picking up on our theology from what they see not necessarily just from what we teach. And oftentimes we don’t teach on this topic because it is kind of controversial and it’s not something you want to, you know, be talking about every other month. And so ah, those intentional movements really do carry a lot of weight. They have ripple effects.
Kadi Cole — And it’s also really encouraging, I think it’s things all of us can do, right? It’s things all of us can be more aware of our surroundings, more aware of the way we program something, or the way a meeting operates, or who we delegate to without even thinking about it. We can really cause some ripple changes and bring more awareness just with that sort of intentionality.
Rich Birch — Well yeah, and I love so the other thing so there was not I don’t like it was I think there was just the three of us standing there. Like there wasn’t a whole big… it wasn’t like he made a big show of it, right?
Kadi Cole — Yeah.
Rich Birch — It wasn’t like a he—and this is Darrell like he’s that’s him to a “T”. He’s like he’s an amazing leader. Um, and is always trying to you know he’s always one of these guys always trying to lift other but lift other people up which is great. But it you know it was one of those, oh wow, like that’s an interesting you know it was a kind gesture ah and and incredibly true, right? Like that it’s it’s one of those like oh yeah, like I would have if it’s always it’s always women handing out the food, that may not that may subtly communicate something that we don’t want to communicate.
Kadi Cole — Rich, what would you say is one of your biggest lessons or stories about how leadership experiences can be different for men and women?
Rich Birch — Well, so this is in a similar timeframe, a couple of years before the the lunch. Um I ah, you know our church was growing. We were, our church very similar… we have a similar our, your, my backgrounds – we very similar kind of background. We started doing multisite before we called it multisite, like it was it was we were doing this we didn’t even know what to call it. We’re doing this thing 35 minutes away. And um I was aware that I had heard through the grapevine—this is like this is 2000/2001—I had heard through the grapevine that Willow Creek was doing something similar, but I didn’t I didn’t really know, and I didn’t know anyone at Willow at the time. And so I literally dialed—you’ll get a kick out of this as a Gen Xer—I literally dialed 411. Like I was like I don’t know their phone number. I dialed 411 and I’m like Willow Creek in and I think I even said somewhere in Chicago, like I don’t I don’t even know where it where it was.
Rich Birch — And so eventually I got through, and and got to the the person that answered the phone. And I and I explained this – I said you know there’s our church is doing this thing, I think you guys are doing something similar. Who can I talk to? And they’re like oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s right. There’s this guy Jim; you should talk with Jim. I’m like great – put me through to Jim. And so I get Jim, didn’t answer his phone, and went to his voicemail. And I I said like hey, I explained a little bit about our church I’d love to chat, and here’s my email address. Um, and so he emails me back and so then I say this crazy thing – I said, hey I would love to come and spend a week with you. Can I? Ah, like I’ll fly down. I said you I you don’t need to do anything. Like I’ll just follow you around, I’ll follow your team around, I’ll sit in on whatever meetings. You don’t ah, you don’t need to book anything specific. I just want to kind of soak in everything I can.
Rich Birch — And he’s like… so we get on the phone eventually and he’s like, that’s a bit odd. Um, but sure if you want to do that, that’s fine. And [inaudible] remember went down in like October and it was initially at the beginning of the week, ah like it was literally I just followed I just following his people around. He just has just gave me a bunch of meetings, and we sat in all that. Well eventually we start talking, and you know by the end of the week he’s like hey, why don’t you come over to my house and we’ll have dinner. And we’re we’re hanging out and um and you know I didn’t end up staying in his place, but was there for quite a bit, and you know we we became fast friends.
Rich Birch — Now for friends that are listening, you see how these two things are intersect. I would say it took me 15 years after that event before I realized something happened at that that will not does not happen for for female leaders: me going over to his house, hanging out, like literally sitting on his couch. You know he was making dinner. Um his wife was away and we were just hanging out. You know the all the informal stuff there cemented our relationship to the point where, you know, I left that week I started that week I don’t know this guy. I left that week still to this day he’s one of my closest ministry friends. You know we we don’t talk all the time, but when we do talk, it’s like we’re right right back in it. And like I say…
Kadi Cole — Well and you two have collaborated a lot over the years around multisight…
Rich Birch — Yes, we’ve done a yes.
Kadi Cole — …and yes, yep.
Rich Birch — And that started from that. It started from his generosity of saying sure, hey why don’t you come in and hang out? But again I like I I wish I could say you know I realized that that was some sort of unique privilege I had. I didn’t I didn’t understand that. It was, like I say, probably 15 years after that until I realized, oh wait a second, like I’m you know what was your experience? You’re you’re friends with Jim. Like you know, tell me about that.
Kadi Cole — Yeah, so yeah I have a I have a story also. And just for the record, I want to say Jim Tomberlin is one of the most amazingly generous leaders.
Rich Birch — Incredible! Yes, incredible.
Kadi Cole —And he has been a huge champion of mine. He’s opened a ton of doors for me, and I know I could call him with a request and he would do everything he could to help me. But this was twenty years ago and I was in the same place you were. Oddly enough I was ah kind of leading the multisite initiative at my church. Again, we didn’t know what to call it. I was looking up, I was on in magazines looking up church magazines…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Kadi Cole — …for churches that had more than one address…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Kadi Cole — …trying to figure out how to navigate this and we were hearing rumors of places. And I’d been to Willow Creek to some of their conferences a couple times. So I’m like they showed up in a magazine and so I ah called up there and emailed and just said in fact, my whole orientation to it was so completely different than yours (Rich’s) because I looked up their services; I just planned to go to a service. I stayed with my sister to save money because I didn’t, you know, I didn’t really have a department. I had a girl title that I worked for the executive team, and I was charged with researching this.
Rich Birch — Right.
Kadi Cole — I didn’t know that people could like request to hang out for a week. So I’m just going to go to a service at their campus.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Kadi Cole — And I did… I think I left a ah voicemail or email and just gave Rich a heads up – I had no idea who he was, and said I’m going to be there I would love to just grab 15 minutes of your time after service to ask you a couple questions. And I went and I took pictures of everything…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Kadi Cole — …and I you know jotted down all the notes…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Kadi Cole — …and learned how to hang a sign in from the ceiling of a school and you know all those early days.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Kadi Cole — Um and so it was great and he was really helpful. He’s probably stayed with us 45 minutes. I brought my sister with me because I didn’t want to be sitting with this guy, you know, just the 2 of us. I didn’t know what the dynamics would be. And so um and that was great. And then I didn’t talk to Rich again for probably 10 years.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Kadi Cole — And ah when we were sharing this story one time a few years ago, that’s when I realized just maybe three years ago, that oh my goodness people had such different experiences. I didn’t even know to ask for those things. I didn’t even know that shadowing a leader at a church was an option. I certainly never got invited to someone’s dinner at their house till maybe five years ago when I wrote a book.
Kadi Cole — And so and ah that isn’t Rich’s ah you know that wasn’t you, that wasn’t Jim, that wasn’t me – that was just the dynamic that we grew up in. And all of those sort of experiences and habits I would say one of my challenges as a leader has been to learn and ask questions, and then ask for those kind of opportunities. Every time I’ve asked someone says yes. And if I would have asked Jim, he would have said yes. I really just never thought of it.
Rich Birch — Right. Fascinating.
Kadi Cole — And not only that but to also offer that to people. Because when you grow up without a lot of those experiences, you don’t know to offer them. It’s kind of like parents who, you know, never said I love you, or never heard that from their parents, they have to work extra hard to offer that to their kids. And so even in my own leadership I’ve had to really challenge myself bring someone with you, invite someone to come, bring them to your house for dinner. You know, just all of those things that I think for many men this is just how you grow leaders and how you do leadership. But for women who are kind of breaking in, these are brand new concepts. And we don’t know that world exists. We don’t know to ask for it, and we certainly don’t know how to offer it to other people.
Rich Birch — Um, oh um, yeah, that’s so fascinating to me. Like yeah, and it’s humbling. You know I think a part of that it’s it is um because I I don’t… so it was odd. It was odd that – it wasn’t like there was lots of other people doing that. I remember him at the time I met with some guy there and he and I was like this is amazing. Like I can’t believe that, you know, you guys, you must get these all the time. And they’re like… Because at that point multisite was like this weird thing that Jim was working on. It was like…
Kadi Cole — Right. I would say though in church ministry people were doing that. If you were a youth pastor you could kind of like find the guy and go hang out.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. No that is very true.
Kadi Cole — Yeah.
Rich Birch — No that’s very true. That’s absolutely true. Yeah, that’s true. It’s interesting
Kadi Cole — So Rich, um over the years then so you’ve kind of had this journey of of having your mind expanded, thinking about it, reflected, but I also know you’ve been a pretty intentional champion for women in different environments and churches that you’ve been in. What are some of the actions that you have ah considered and been intentional about and like purposefully done to open doors for women, or advocate for female leaders that you think of made a good impact? Maybe some of the things you did that actually were terrible ideas. I’m sure people would love to hear about what not to do.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Rich Birch — Just kind of teach us from your experience with 25 years in the game, like what have you learned about how to do this and how you can leverage your ah position and your authority to open doors for female leaders.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. So um, there’s been a number of things over the years. I think the general ah what I’ve tried to do is be a vocal advocate for women um both with them directly, ironically. Like I think there’s a um, like literally just today I was in a podcast interview earlier where there was an incredible woman that unpacked literally best-in-class stuff. Like I’ve never heard this stuff before. And after it goes off the air and and she’s like, oh was that was that any good? Like was that, you know, was this like? And and I’m like, oh I’ve seen this before inside. I didn’t say this to her. I’m like and so I was like listen what you just shared is the best stuff that I’ve ever heard any church leader share on this. Like this is this is a big deal, like it’s it’s amazing what you’re doing. And I know um you know I there’s I guess part of it with women directly I’ve tried to find those moments to be like I want you to know that what you’re doing is amazing, like it’s incredible. And and I want to make ah explicit what I know is implicitly true.
Rich Birch — Um, you know I’ve also tried to be a um, a willing advocate and ally with other men, with other guys. Um, you know there was a church I who I dearly love worked for and you know love them and when we were engaged in the before I went and worked there, you know, your work working through all the different things that you’re, you know, trying to figure out. And um one of the things that I bumped up against was their um you know their theological conviction around women in leadership was different than mine. You know they they they wouldn’t use the word the title pastor with a woman. Um and they wouldn’t they limited, you know, the role of women in leadership. And so we talked about it before we went in, and before I started. I was like well I just disagree with you on this, and like so we need to talk about it. And we talked about it. We had like let’s open scripture and look at how we, you know… I said listen on my side I’m I’m willing to join because I don’t I don’t think, and don’t take this the wrong way Kadi, but like for them it wasn’t like a huge deal. It was just like this is what we think. And like we’re not, they’re not pounding it. But it is like ah but this is this is where we are. This is our conviction. And I’m like, okay well if you’re willing to hire me knowing that I have a difference, you know, of thought on this, and knowing that it’s going to be something that’s going to come up. Like I’m I’m going to talk about it, but I’m not going to talk about it all the time, like it’s not like every meeting we’re going to talk about these things. But don’t be surprised when we bring it up.
Rich Birch — And so over the years, you know, there was ah there was a ah particular woman that was on our staff, and and this probably is I was probably not that atypical of it an experience, but she oversaw our kids ministry, and was probably the most creative person on our team. Like did um, just did amazing stuff. Like and so I started by saying like well she’s does an amazing job pastoring young, you know, or the next generation. And that was like what – what are you talking about? I’m like I know we don’t call her a pastor but like that’s actually what she’s doing. Like we we we may not like we may not use that word but that is actually what it’s happening. Um, and, you know, and she was the kind of leader who was not like I’m trying to you know she was not trying to go for the title. She wasn’t like, hey this is a really big deal for me. But I I was in that same kind of encouraging way like, man, you’re doing an incredible job here. Great stuff, all that.
Rich Birch — And that led to a series of conversations over, it was probably—I was thinking about this before—like it was probably over eighteen months to 2 years, like this was not a like instantaneous thing. It was a protracted conversation. Um, where eventually it came to it came to a head where it was like, ok I either need to stop talking about it, or they need to fire me, or there needs to be some sort of change because it’s it’s not um, you know, we can’t just keep talking about this. And so I um and and eventually they did end up changing their position. You know it ended up being like hey we’re we’re going to, um you know we’re going to take a different view on this. And actually to this day they you know they’ve they’ve done that which is…
Rich Birch — Um, and that’s like a whole there’s a whole other conversation we can have there, particularly I think in multisite churches I think there should be, man, there’s there’s lots of opportunity even if you would hold you know federal headship the you know the most senior roles for men. Even if you hold that to be true, um, man, there’s still a lot of latitude I personally think, um and and would challenge you to to think about that. And and and challenge you to to think about it from like what do you actually think about scripture. Because I think this is one of those areas where people just kind of take they just swallow what’s been given to them. They haven’t really thought about it. They haven’t they haven’t processed it. And you could end up having a lower view of scripture. You just are like I’m just kind of taking what’s come to me; I haven’t never actually wrestled with it.
Rich Birch — So that you know that was pretty dramatic, and the thing I love about that is there’s a lot of incredible women who are serving in that church today who are, you know, doing, you know… And that that woman that I told you about that’s like the most creative person on their team, she serves on their senior leadership team today. They’re you know, doing incredible, you know, incredible things and the church is way better for it. Like it’s like the church is moving forward and reaching more people.
Rich Birch — Um, so yeah, that’d be a few of attention intentional things. But to be honest, I actually think although that was a little bit dramatic and that was with, you know, kind of advocating with guys, I actually find the the kind of like both silent like um, opening doors like, hey why don’t you can you come and speak at this thing? Or like can you be a part of this? Or can I serve the food instead of you? And the like trying to be encouraging along the way I think actually has more impact. I think actually just saying to people, no no like it’s going to be it’s going to be great. You can do this, you’ve you’ve got this. So I don’t know – there’ll be a few things.
Kadi Cole — Oh I love both of those stories. And there is something to be said for people who champion against the systems or ah, you know, take on women being paid less for the same work. Or whatever it is in your context that you see some things a little ah inequitable or could use some championship that those systems and structures do open doors and have long term effects. But I do want to agree and highlight just that ah affirmation to women, that what you’re doing really matters, or you know your stuff, or you’re good at this – you should keep doing this.
Kadi Cole — Ah, we talk a lot about the sticky floor – I think we talked about that on the podcast. It’s kind of those thoughts and ideas women have in their head that sort of keep them from having confidence or keep them from going for leadership opportunities. And if you want to listen to that podcast, we’ll put it in the show notes. (Um you see how I delegated that to you on that.)
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good – I love it.
Kadi Cole — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Well and that’s true though because you know and I and I’ll say I don’t know that I’ve said this publicly. I can’t remember if I said this on the episode with you. But like and I’ve said it to a number of ah female leaders who I’ve had on the podcast. When we first started the podcast 746 episodes ago, Beth, who is like this only happens because she works on it. She’s amazing. Um her and I I was like what I want to do, is I want to have every other episode be 1 female, 1 male, 1 female, 1 male. And and what I want to do is not I want to have female leaders, and not talk about the fact that they’re female leaders. Like just talk about the amazing work that they’re doing.
Kadi Cole — Oh I Love that.
Rich Birch — And so I think we got 5 or 6 episodes in, like and we ran out of women.
Kadi Cole — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Like I was like, I can’t find I can’t find enough. And so you know that’s like super heartbreaking to me. Um, and but interestingly, so over the years we’ve you know we we probably pursue like of the at those 750, call at episodes, like we’ve probably pursued 700 of those like we mostly go and find people. And if we ask 10 guys to be on the podcast, 9 out of 10 will say yes. If I ask 10 women, it’s probably 7 or 6 will say will say yes. Ah if and then um women who express um concern after, like ask to either hear the episode or… because obviously I don’t want I want people this is not I’m not like some hard hitting I’m not trying it’s not gotcha journalism. I want people to walk away feeling great about it. And so I’ll say that, hey just let me know. You know, there’s probably it’s it might be 10x the number of women who express some sort of concern about the content to men. And so I um in my little world I want to do what I can to try to turn that around. So I’m even this woman I was telling about earlier today, I’m like I had the same conversation with her. And I’m like please can you send me ah women leaders because I we want to feature them more. Um, so but I’ve… that to me has been a real stark example where because it’s like statistically true, and I’ve been in all those conversations. I can I can tell you that. And that there’s a part of that that frankly, like really bums me out. Like I’m like, oh, that’s that’s a wide swath of the Christian world.
Rich Birch — Women leaders particularly who are feeling like not great about their own leadership. Or or or maybe it’s the other way around; maybe guys are like just oblivious. They all think they’re experts. I don’t know what it is. Like it’s some… there’s there’s there’s definitely a gender difference there – that my experience has been that there’s a gender difference. Um and uh man, I’d love to turn that around and make that different for the next generation. I would love to create – I’m a Gen Xer born in 1974 the bottom of the bust, lowest birth rate in the twentieth century. And so most of what I’ve been doing in my ministry is taking stuff from the boomers and giving it to, you know, millennials or Gen Z. And man I would I would really hope for women coming after us that this would be like it’s just a non-issue. That like in 10 years we they would listen to this and be like, man, those people were so silly back then. I really hope that happens.
Kadi Cole — That would be great. I actually think that’s going to happen. I believe that. I think and one of the keys is is what you’re talking about. It’s helping the women leaders who are doing it now ah think about themselves from a more truthful perspective. So ah, part of this mindset is that high capacity female leaders are perfectionists, and we want it to be great. And we know that there’s very few opportunities for us. This is actually research that shows up for any minority. And so we put extra pressure on ourselves. We don’t want to do anything that’s going to like embarrass us, or embarrass you, or disappoint someone. So our standards are much higher than what most guys know that they can get away with.
Kadi Cole — And so when you help me know, hey what you did there was excellent. Like I might go, was it good enough? And you’re like that was actually an A. And I’m thinking, if I could just get a C.
Rich Birch — Right.
Kadi Cole — And so every time a male leader, especially a godly leader, right? A spiritual authority person, a pastor, speaks truth to me about me, it changes my own view of myself. The biblical example of this that I talk about a lot is Esther and Mordecai. You know Esther is positioned by God to have this huge influence. And when it comes time, she second guesses herself. She’s like, I’m not the person for the job, and everyone else knows she is. She can’t see it. And it takes a Mordecai to step in and say, listen who knows but you have been put in this position for such a time as this. I see God’s hand on you. I’ve seen him position you. This is exactly why you’re here. Don’t back down; lean in.
Kadi Cole — And as women who grow up in circumstances, sometimes very similar to Esther, we can’t see that for ourselves. And so thank you for doing that. And I just want to encourage everyone out there, men and women, any sort of leader, you know, the more encouragement, the more affirmation, the more we can identify and call out greatness in people, it really does help them see themselves better and opens more opportunities for their future from from just who they are.
Rich Birch — Yeah I would, say so this um one of the things I do in my life is I um help run this ah overnight kids camp. It’s like this great curveball in this environment, people are like what? It’s like a whole other conversation. But it’s it’s great. It’s fun. It’s interesting. It’s the it’s the place that gave me my first kind of leadership um opportunity.
Kadi Cole — Amazing.
Rich Birch — And um and so I’m happy to give back to that. It’s an interesting piece of the puzzle. One of the things that I’ve done there is I pretty regularly with the guys whenever we have like a chance to do, you know, like we’re maybe just with the guy leaders is I’ll ask the question, I’ll say you know at some point you’re going to realize that you’re you’re the most powerful person in the room. (It’s classic Andy Stanley.) You’re the you know you’re the most powerful person in the room. Yeah, that’s going to happen in your life. And the question is, what are you going to do with it? How are you going to use that moment – to serve yourself, or are you going to use that moment to serve others? And um, you know, I I want to be counted as a leader who used that to serve other people, right? That that we like hey I think that’s what Jesus demands of us. I think and you know this is a part of a broader spectrum. We could be talking or a broader conversation around you know I’m a um I’m a white male. You know with has had lots of privilege in his life. There’s lots of things that when I look over the history of my life just doesn’t make sense. It’s like well I think it’s because it’s just who I was, right? And I, you know, have the same conversation, you know, 10 years ago had similar revelation with my black friends, where I, you know, had someone challenge me around said, hey you know sit down with a black friend and ask him ah to tell you about when you know their dad or their parents told them about what to how to interact with cops. Have that conversation. And I’m like what are you talking about? That’s crazy. And so talked with a friend of mine, had this conversation over lunch. I said listen this is going to be a little uncomfortable; I’m so sorry. But I I am trying to learn and grow.
Rich Birch — And this this individual I would say came from a very similar background as mine like I would say like like they grew up in the suburbs, they’re you know all of that stuff. And their experience interacting with the cops was different than mine [inaudible] experience. And so now when I if I get pulled over, and hasn’t happened a lot in the last ten years, but when I do get pulled over by cops, I take my wallet out, I take turn the cars off, I put the keys on the on the counter in front of me. I do all of that stuff that my black friend does because I’m like I shouldn’t have to… he shouldn’t have to think about that. Like he shouldn’t that shouldn’t have to be in his his brain.
Rich Birch — And so you know I think this is a part of a, you know as a part of a whole thing that I you know I think there’s a personal journey. But I think it’s it should be a journey in general I think as Christ’s followers, as leaders, who also happen to be in this case, white and male, are trying to figure out how do we use our power?
Kadi Cole — Right.
Rich Birch — How do we use that to help other people? Or you know because it’s because a bunch of it’s been given to us. It’s actually got nothing to do with me. It’s not that I’m not great.
Kadi Cole — Yeah, we’re well we’re blessed to be a blessing, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Kadi Cole — Like we’re supposed to be conduits of those things. And so when we recognize what we’ve been given, we are more empowered to be able to give it away, and multiply that for the kingdom.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Kadi Cole — So okay as we wrap up here, one last question. I’d love to know what piece of advice you’d like to give to the guys who are listening around this topic? And what one piece of advice would you like to give to women, female leaders who are listening?
Rich Birch — Um, well I would say to guys. In order, it’s unfortunate, but to lead within the ah evangelical church which most of the people who listen would call themselves at least be “small e” evangelical. This area is going to require you to have some awkward conversations. Like it doesn’t if it’s not happening, if there’s not a dialogue already taking place around these issues, you probably you need to raise it. You need to raise your hand and say, hey, like can can we talk about this? Like there’s because this is a part of the world that we’re in. Like this is um and and it probably requires us as guys to pick up that ball and and run with it. Um, that we can um, get the ball rolling in a way that’s different in the same way that that guy Darrell for me was like oh that was like a paradigm shifter because he’s he stepped out and like. That’s a bit awkward, right? To say to explain to someone, hey I I don’t want you to have to serve this meal all the time because I don’t always want there to look like women are people who just serve meals. That’s like an awkward thing to say, right? It’s like because you’re like well I don’t think of you like that. That’s not what I’m saying. I don’t actually think that’s who you are. Like you can get all caught up in that. But I think we have to probably um, be you know we we have to take the lead and and do something here to to lead some awkward conversations. It’s probably going to take that.
Rich Birch — And then I think to women, I don’t know. Man, like there’s just so many incredible women who lead in the church who are doing amazing things. And um, you know, this past fall my wife and I were we got a chance to travel to um HTB out in London and was a great experience. And um, you know my there was multiple times where people had words of knowledge kind of prophecy over her. And they—which I don’t know what you think about all that stuff, but that’s fine, just go with me here for a minute, friends—and multiple of them pointed in the same direction. It was like you have a voice; you should use it. You know, you have a voice. And I’d say I’d say to women like like you have so much to offer.
Kadi Cole — Yes.
Rich Birch — Like I look at the churches that have women empowered in them and I’m like those are such life-giving places where where just so many good things are happening. And um, you know it’s going to take you like stepping up in a weird sort of way to like um for that to for all the good things that you have to offer for those to happen. And I wish that wasn’t the case; I wish just it was I wish every church was just the place that kind of welcomed you. But in the same way that guys are going to have to have awkward conversations, like you’re going to have to take advantage of opportunity that comes your way. Like you’re you’re going to have to um, you know, to stick your neck out a little bit. And um and say yes when someone asks you to be on their podcast. Um, you look you’re you’re gonna have to you’re gonna have to do that. Um, because because it’s about modeling for the next generation. So like on that story but my my wife, there’s a young woman who’s um on our staff at church and she’s she’s in her early 20s and she’s just starting out. And our church is very um empowering to women. Um, but she’s been saying to her like, no, like don’t don’t feel stuck and limited. Don’t you know don’t feel like this is the box you’ve got to run in. You know the sky’s the limit. The church needs you; we need you to step in. And so um, you know I think we we have to get beyond all the just like the Billy Graham rule and all that stuff like there’s so many… you know we’ve got to get to the place where we’re like, how do we find a way for both genders to be fully alive and fully leveraging who we are to reach the people who, you know, God’s put in our path. So those would be a few things I would say.
Kadi Cole — I love it. Well and that’s the goal. And we need we need men at the leadership table. We need women at the leadership table. The goal is not to um, not the goal is it for the future to be female. The goal is for the future to be together. That’s what we’re really trying to do, and we both have to show up and say yes in order to do that. So, Rich, thank you so much for your ah vulnerability, and your authenticity, and just speaking from your heart, and being open for a you know crazy idea from me um, ah to be able to have this conversation. I hope it really blesses people and encourages people to continue to lean into this topic. And ah, we both have resources on this subject so if people want to learn more please reach out to us. And thanks so much. I just really appreciate your championing women and your role in the kingdom.
Rich Birch — Yeah, turning the tables back around on you, Kadi, I how can people get in touch with you, because I know there are church leaders that are listening in that are saying, man, we need to we probably need to do some work in this area. We need to but think about this a little bit. Give us a frame of what that looks like. They’re almost 3 quarters of an hour in at this point. Give us a framework on ah you know how can you help churches think through these issues. What does that typically look like, how do you engage, and where can people get in touch with you?
Kadi Cole — Yeah, so I did write a book specifically for church leaders on this called “Developing Female Leaders”. You can get it on Amazon or Audible. And then my website kadicole.com spelled k-a-d-i-c-o-l-e-dot-com. I’ve got all sorts of resources and downloads. I coach people, I do consulting for churches, I speak at a lot of churches. Um and would love to engage you if you want to move forward on this topic, whether it’s with your elder board, or your staff, or your congregation on a weekend. Um I’m very passionate about it and want to really help churches, you know, make the most of who God is brought to their congregation.
Rich Birch — Thanks so much, Kadi, appreciate you, appreciate your ministry. Thanks so much for ah for interviewing me today. It was great. Thanks so much for being here.
Kadi Cole — Thank you, Rich.
What larger trends are impacting churches across the country? The landscape of our culture continues to shift & evolve. Growing churches respond to those changes and find ways to thrive. Learn from the latest insights on trends and how those impact you and your team.
Don’t miss this special podcast episode as we hear from three Executive Pastors in the trenches who are making a difference today:
Jeremy Peterson is an Executive Pastor at One Church in New Hampshire and Vermont with 20+ years of experience. He loves helping churches and teams break through barriers, and enjoys reading, running, and college football.
Lisa Penberthy is a church leader and consultant with 20 years of experience and an M.Div and MBA in nonprofit management. She was and Executive Pastor of Operations at San Diego Rock Church. She’s passionate about stewarding people’s calling and church resources.
Brandon Beard is a church leader with 30 years of experience and is an expert in church growth, ministry structures, and leadership development. He currently serves as Executive Pastor of Campus Ministry at Compass Christian Church in Colleyville, TX, helps churches navigate the future and experience exponential growth, and loves working in Uganda and cheering for Seattle sports teams.
We’re talking about their outlook and their current strategy for 2023.
- Communicate why giving matters. // It’s not uncommon for churches that went debt-free during covid to now see giving drop 30-40%. Whether you’re going after a particular vision during a capital campaign or going debt free, after you celebrate, it’s important to continue the conversation. Make sure to thank your givers and help them understand why giving matters. Connect the dots for them so they can see how they are helping to move the mission forward.
- Clear entry points for service. // While churches have gotten people back into the seats, we are still struggling to get volunteers to return and serve. A whole new group of people joined our churches in the last year, and people who are new have to learn what it means to serve. If you have a discipleship program, the first step is to help people find an entry point, whether they have made a decision for Christ or are haring about him for the first time. Make that process really easy for them and help them get engaged with opportunities as they move forward in their relationship with Jesus.
- Listen to your team. // Slow down and listen to your staff team to really know where they are at. Listen to some younger people on your staff and learn from them. Set aside short-term thinking and start dreaming about where the church wants to be in five or ten years.
- Support your lead pastor. // Covid has taken its toll on most lead pastors; it’s time for executive pastors to lead up. Be sensitive to your lead pastor’s exhaustion; give them some care and time off for the sake of their mental health. Everyone needs to be honest about where they are right now.
- Business or friends. // It may be harder to develop a relationship with the lead pastor. You need to know if your lead pastor wants to be friends, or wants to do business. You can do both, but know which is priority. Take notice of how involved the lead pastor really wants to be in different aspects of the church. Remember that trust with your lead pastor is built over time.
- Find the needs of the community. // Figure out who you are as a church and what is the need in your community. If something isn’t working to reach your community, make the necessary changes. Engagement is the new way to measure attendance.
- XP Summit. // XP Summit is an opportunity for executive pastors to connect with one another. It allows you to sit down with others and talk about the challenges you’ve all been going through, plus get the coaching you need.
For $50 off the XP Summit in Dallas on May 16 & 17, 2023 use the discount code unseminary, which can be applied until February 15. Learn more at www.xpsummit.org.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live!
Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: CDF Capital
Since 1953, CDF Capital has helped Christians and churches embrace their part in this story by providing the 3 kinds of capital every congregation needs for growth—Financial Capital, Leadership Capital, and Spiritual Capital. At CDF Capital, we care about each of these components. When a church is properly resourced financially, spiritually, and in leadership, lives are transformed.
Sign-up to learn more about CDF Capital and how we can help your church grow. Receive a 50% discount on a monthly subscription to the CDF Capital Subscribe & Save Bundle.
Thanks for joining us for the unSeminary podcast. I’m talking with Frank Bealer, the co-founder and Chief Growth Officer of Phase Family Centers as well as Chief of Staff at Local Church.
Is your church considering a multi-use strategy? Does it seem overwhelming as you think about how to get started and all that you need to learn? Listen in as Frank shares how to get the resources and coaching you need while mitigating the distractions that can come with multi-use.
- Preschool, parents, and events. // Phase Family Centers were started with a desire to help churches both fund their ministry and engage communities differently. The idea was broken down into three boxes: preschool, parents, and events. Frank, along with Reggie Joiner, worked on figuring out how to structure a multi-use strategy that was really intentional about coming alongside churches for the purposes of improved stewardship and community engagement.
- Uniquely suited. // Churches are uniquely suited to help meet the needs of the community around us. It could be something such as offering preschool, which is one of the crises in America right now. Churches already have the facilities and the posture needed to help address the childcare crisis, and permeate the operations of a preschool with warmth, safety, care, kindness.
- Do a site and market analysis. // Rather than assuming that preschool or event space is the thing needed in your community, first do a site and market analysis like any other business would. What are the actual needs in your unique community? Determine what is the business plan, what is the strategy, and what are the end goals.
- Mitigate the distraction. // Any extra program or ministry you do is a distraction from something. It’s important to mitigate that distraction when you get involved with multi-use. Hire a manager who is a good culture fit with your church and also has experience for the business you are adding (ex. preschool, coffee shop, event center, etc.) Then instead of using Google to figure out your manuals and policies, partner with Phase Family Centers to put together the resources you need. You get to run the operation but you’re not alone in figuring things out. When the manager is having a hard time, they can call Phase for help instead of distracting the church’s executive leadership team with their questions.
- Have a marketing plan. // Preschool is a proven business. Events are a proven business. However, don’t assume that people will show up as soon as you open just because you’re a church. It’s important to have a marketing plan and budget as you seek to serve and meet the needs of the broader community.
- Phase helps anywhere on the multi-use journey. // Phase will work with churches who know where they want to go as well as those who are stuck figuring out where to begin. The Phase Family Center website provides more information about working together, and starts by exploring questions with you. Then a call with someone at Phase will unpack your ideas, dreams, and what may be your barriers.
You can learn more about teaming up with Phase at www.phase.center/partners, plus find Frank on social media @fbealer.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live!
Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Leadership Pathway
If you are trying to find, develop and keep young leaders on your team look no further than Leadership Pathway. They have worked with hundreds of churches, and have interviewed thousands of candidates over the past several years. They are offering a new ebook about five of the core competencies that are at the heart of the leadership development process with every church that they partner with…just go to leadershippathway.org/unseminary to pick up this free resource.
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Super excited for today’s conversation – longtime friend Frank Bealer with us. He’s the co-founder and Chief Growth Officer family or Phase Family Centers, and he’s also the Chief of Staff at Local Church. He’s he’s fantastic leader; he’s the kind of person you should be tracking with him. Frank was at one point the Family Pastor at a little church called Elevation there in North Carolina—I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of them before, friends—ah before he moved over and has joined or really launched Phase Family Centers. He he’s also is really which faith family, if you’re not familiar, or Phase Family if you’re not familiar with them are really a leader in this whole multi-use strategy that we really should be thinking about. And so I wanted to get him on and he agreed to come on. Frank, so glad you’re here. Welcome to the show.
Frank Bealer — Man, I’m glad to be here. And as always, Rich, I’m always learning from you and listening to podcasts and other great leaders that are out there. So thank you for facilitating this and being so generous with your time to drive these conversations because I know they’re making me better.
Rich Birch — Oh thanks so much. I really appreciate that, Frank. But why don’t we fill it the picture a little bit. What did I miss there on the Frank Bealer story? What what do we want to make sure people know about about you?
Frank Bealer — Oh gosh. Um, yeah so business guy turned pastor, serving at Elevation full time. Felt led to figure out a way… what I was wrestling with is, Elevation was, at the time we were at I don’t know 17 campuses or something like that 12 to 17 during that journey of campuses. Um, attendance was up, giving was up, small group attendance was up, volunteer participation was up, frequency of attendance was going down. So I was trying to crack the code of how do we engage families different. I saw the children’s ministry data. I was trying to figure it out from both Sundays and during the week.
Frank Bealer — At the same time. A good friend of mine, Reggie Joiner, who created helped launch North Point Community Church with Andy Stanley and created Orange curriculum, was wrestling with an idea of how do we help churches fund their ministry and engage communities differently. So he drew three boxes on a piece of paper that would ultimately be Phase Family Center. He called it Preschool, Parents, and Events. And it was his way of going, Ok can we do a multi-use strategy but be really intentional about it to where we really come alongside of churches to leverage that multi-use for both improved stewardship and greater community engagement.
Frank Bealer — And so fast track. Um, you know that was happened by a mutual friend of ours, Rich, Carey Nieuwhof, you know my best friend, Carey. Carey made the connection with ah me and Reggie. At that point I was a speaker dude for Reggie. Ah, but then we realized that we were wrestling with some very similar things that honestly church leaders across America and across the world have been wrestling with. And we’ve just kind of got our unique take on it at Phase.
Rich Birch — Love it. So kind of ah, pull apart Phase a little bit – tell us a bit more about it. What is the, you know, how do you attack those 3 issues, those 3 areas of engagement? What does that actually look like for folks that maybe are un ah unaware of Phase and what you do.
Frank Bealer — Sure. So at our first location we worked with a site developer, bought thirteen acres, eight acres buildable, about million dollars an acre. I mean expensive land where somebody would want to have a church, but it’s cost prohibitive. Great location. Um, and what we did here was we’re the operator. We’re the master tenant. And we run a preschool, coworking/coffee shop and events. And oh, by the way, there are a couple churches that use the space on the weekends. They pay nominal lease payment or part of the lease payment, but most of the facility, this 62,000 square foot facility, is paid for by the business operations that we run. We carry that.
Frank Bealer — While we’re in the process of building this building, Mark Batterson up in DC said, hey, ended up with this city block; God’s doing some really cool stuff.
Rich Birch — Right.
Frank Bealer — There’s a child care crisis in DC; we’re trying to figure out how to do this. We don’t want to do it alone. Can we partner together? So up there we helped renovate their children’s ministry space. It’s used by the church on Sundays and during the week we operate a preschool.
Frank Bealer — Well all this is happening, and then covid hits. So I end up in the 62,000 square foot building, sitting here by myself, waiting on the world to reopen. The thing that didn’t change were churches were still calling, wanting to figure out multi-use and what a Phase Partnership could look like. And I guess I should point out Phase – PHAC that phrase comes from the idea of parenting idea of us saying this negative statement, it’s just a phase.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Frank Bealer — Like it’s like we just got to get through this, right? And get on to next thing. Well our idea is it’s just a phase; don’t miss it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Frank Bealer — You’re never going to get these moments back. Some of the things that drive you crazy, like that baby not sleeping us means that baby’s not going to sleep on your chest anymore and you’re going to have those special moments, right? So we’re just trying to help parents leverage those moments. So Phase, while I’m sitting here by myself. Um, I’m trying to figure out how I can help more churches because at the pace I was going, I could do 3 to 5 a year…
Rich Birch — Right.
Frank Bealer — …where we’re the operator and we’re dropping in churches and or partnering with churches in some way. And yet the demand and inquiries was way higher than that.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Frank Bealer — So we’re trying to figure out what to do. And so I had created a licensing idea to share our resources and and concepts and things that we’re learning and things we had spent lots of money on, trying to figure out. Well during that I gathered my investors together to give them a financial update due to covid and when we’re going to reopen, and then share this licensing idea.
Rich Birch — Right.
Frank Bealer — And one of the guys that was on the call is the Chief Innovation Officer for Chick-Fil-A.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes.
Frank Bealer — And as I present my licensing idea he says, Frank, that’s a really good idea. Congratulations. You just invented franchising. And we all had a good laugh of like, okay and I’ve never done franchising.
Rich Birch — Right.
Frank Bealer — And the idea of Phase, ah called Phase Partners, the idea of us franchising and partnering with churches to help with the operations, and help give them wisdom, but it be in their business, but not letting them do it alone was born out of that.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Frank Bealer — And so now we have a franchise disclosure document and we’re now helping churches execute on a multi-use strategy.
Rich Birch — Okay, I love this. And friends I want to dive in on this. The thing I love about Frank is was tons I love about you, but the one thing I love about you one of the things I love about you is, you know, you’re trying to solve real world problems. You’re helping real churches, you know, with real things. And here you are providing a great solution for something that I think a lot of us have wondered about, which is, hey we’ve got this facility. And I’ve even heard of, in fact, I know of churches I’ve coached who have spent real cash like actual money like tons of money on space that they envision for multi-use, but then doesn’t actually get used in that manner. Because of they miss this operational in between. They missed this like, hey we’re not sure exactly… how do we do this? How do we how do we run this stuff?
Rich Birch — But let’s take a step back and convince me that I should even be thinking about that. Like I, you know, isn’t like having a daycare, or running an event center, or you know opening up a coffee shop, isn’t that just a distraction to what we’re supposed to do as a church? Isn’t that, you know, it doesn’t that reduce our flexibility? Doesn’t it don’t we become slaves to somebody who’s running a totally different kind of operation? Help us understand how those fit together; how does a multi ah -use strategy actually help push us forward?
Frank Bealer — Yeah, so yeah, those are all complexities that we have to navigate, right? And so let’s rewind a little bit. A few decades ago churches all across America ah we’re doing some kind of multi-use strategy and many of them were doing something that was somewhat lackluster in performance.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Frank Bealer — It wasn’t ah experiencing the evangelism they thought it was. It wasn’t discipling the number of kids they thought it was. Um, there was not a good, healthy, symbiotic relationship. And so it’s us and them, and the preschool took my crayons, and…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Frank Bealer — …we couldn’t find this, and they broke this table, and it became very adversarial.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Frank Bealer — So then you have a crew like Andy Stanley and a lot of people that are going, we’re doing too much stuff in a mediocre way; let’s get back to the thing that matters most. Let’s present the gospel clearly; let’s do a really good job on Sundays.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Frank Bealer — Well I don’t disagree with any of that. That was it was a response that I felt like overall our nation needed to do. We needed to shore things up and get back to some excellence and some expectations and quality in what we offer. It’s not enough to just have good facilities. That’s not a strategy. I have a building; let’s do stuff with it. That’s not a strategy. And so…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Frank Bealer — …there was this kind of reining in. Well now what we’re seeing is there’s a whole funding conversation of like there’s a necessity to this. But let’s put that aside for a second because that’s not really what you were addressing. You were talking to, how do we share space; this is distraction from what we’re supposed to be doing. This relationally what does this look like?
Frank Bealer — Well we know in our nation here in America that top 10 priorities among every presidential candidate and thought leader in our nation, child care is a huge issue.
Rich Birch — So true.
Frank Bealer — So specifically, preschool, it is a childcare crisis in our nation. And the church is uniquely positioned to meet that need. We always want to be able to meet needs in the community. Now here’s where I would push back.
Rich Birch — What why is the church uniquely unique… Why is the church uniquely suited for that need?
Frank Bealer — Great question. Because we have the facilities already. Okay, which is a huge deal.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Frank Bealer — We we have the facilities already and we have the posture that’s needed to help fix our childcare crisis. We need warmth, safety, care, kindness – that needs to permeate the operations of a preschool. And oftentimes that isn’t present. It’s cold. It’s sterile.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Frank Bealer — It’s people that are just taking a check. Um, it just doesn’t have the warmth and extension of family that people long for. So what you have in our nation is everybody is saying we have to increase the quality of care, and decrease the cost. I don’t know how to do that.
Rich Birch — Right. How do you do that? Yeah.
Frank Bealer — The church can actually help do that. We could figure that out. But here’s our problem. Okay, if I go back to all the church that say it’s a distraction. We finally stopped doing it; people hated us because we stopped doing our preschool. Or we no longer open our event center up for other things and people are mad at us in the community, and look what we did. Well I always like to go back to, what was your business plan, what was your strategy, and what were your end goals with your preschool operations, or your event business, or your coffee shop? What was the win, and was it realistic?
Frank Bealer — It’s interesting to me, Rich, that people that talk multi-use oftentimes in the church space talk about it from the lens of saying, hey we have children’s space; we should do a preschool. That’s that’s not at all what you should do.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Frank Bealer — What we should do is do a site and market analysis, like you would for any other business across America, and go should we open a preschool? Anecdotally somebody has said that they had a hard time finding childcare in my community.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes.
Frank Bealer — But what’s the real need? Is it low income families can’t find affordable quality care? Is that there’s simply not enough license spots available for children? Well that determines your business model. In fact, many churches and preschools should have a licensed preschool so they can operate with government subsidies and serve low income families. But they don’t go in with that level of strategy. So…
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Frank Bealer — …so I say okay, so there’s this opportunity to engage the community. This need is real. But is it the church’s responsibility? Is it a distraction? (To go back to what you said.) And the answer is absolutely. It is a distraction.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Frank Bealer — So what we want to do is how do we mitigate the distraction?
Rich Birch — Sure.
Frank Bealer — Any extra program or ministry you do is a distraction from something.
Rich Birch — Right.
Frank Bealer — Like I mean that’s a true statement like it’s not like as long as we split ourselves, that takes more responsibility. Here’s what I believe is the flaw in the multi-use strategy, okay? For across America, okay? Current multi-use strategy, visionary leader plus building facility. Add a manager. Someone who has managed a preschool before, managed a coffee shop—not owned—managed a coffee shop, managed an events business, plus Google. That is the equation for multi-use success in America.
Rich Birch — Right.
Frank Bealer — And it’s ah if we don’t have a handbook, we’ll Google one, find and replace the words. Now we have a handbook.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Frank Bealer — If we need a policy on diaper changing, well Google one on the internet.
Rich Birch — Right.
Frank Bealer — What Phase is trying to do differently is go, well yeah when you do that you’re going to kind of find all these cracks along the way where it’s not cohesive, and there’s going be these flaws and when Google doesn’t give the answer you’ve got to go to your executive leadership team. And now it’s a distraction. So what we’re proposing is a visionary leader with a building, hire your manager. That’s your person. Find the right person that’s a good culture fit.
Rich Birch — Right.
Frank Bealer — And instead of using Google, use Phase. Let us provide your [inaudible] and your manuals, and your resources…
Rich Birch — Right.
Frank Bealer — … and let us figure out how to lock all the iPads in all the classrooms…
Rich Birch — Right.
Frank Bealer — …so inappropriate videos aren’t shown to children…
Rich Birch — Right.
Frank Bealer — …and like all those little nuanced things. How to do background checks properly that are different than church background checks.
Rich Birch — Right.
Frank Bealer — Let us come alongside and help you. It is your business unit. You benefit from the upside of the profits and what’s what’s there. You get to run the operation, but you’re not alone.
Rich Birch — Right.
Frank Bealer — So therefore the manager when they’re having a hard time their first phone call is to Phase instead of to the executive leadership team of the church. We think that mitigates distraction and becomes a game changer to go, we can have better stewardship, engage our community better, but mitigate distractions.
Rich Birch — Love it. So we know we had Mark DeYmaz a couple weeks ago on the podcast, and one of the things that we kind of briefly touched on was how the legal structure of these things all hang together. And you know you’re talk you’re talking about the church owning a business, you know, that’s obviously ultimately trying to generate revenue that would, you know, plow back into the church. Talk us through what you see as best practice on that side, the kind of structure. Obviously there’s a ton there. This is not legal advice. We’re not, you know, we’re not, you know, we don’t provide any of that. But give us a kind of the the back of the napkin; help us get our heads around that piece, you know, as we’re thinking about how this structure is. Because the because the issue again with my pessimist voice on, the issue is, man, who controls this thing? What if it goes sideways? You know, what, you know… I’m I’m a pastor; I’m nervous about kids in our kids ministry and they come for a week an hour a week let alone 8 hours a day five days a week, you know.
Frank Bealer — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Talk us through that. What’s that look like?
Frank Bealer — So at the end of the day most churches that we work with across America will have a…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Frank Bealer — …an a wholly owned subsidiary, an LLC, a for-profit entitity that’s owned underneath the nonprofit.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Frank Bealer — Common board that’s influencing that and guiding that. And that’ll generate some taxes…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Frank Bealer — …on a part of your facility.
Rich Birch — Right.
Frank Bealer — It’s no big deal if it’s in the proforma. You just build it in the financial model. And it either makes sense to do it or not.
Rich Birch — Right.
Frank Bealer — But we don’t have to be worried about that. That’s one of the things that’s unique in multi-use strategy. I rarely see, when I talk to a church has been thinking multi-use, a quality business plan and proforma. There’s a lot of assumptions. It’s not very detailed. And I’m sitting there going, Ok maybe it generates some taxes. No big deal; put it in the proforma. It either works or it doesn’t work.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Frank Bealer — Um, the same with your insurance. We have a standard at Phase that has all these additional coverages that we think you should have for a daycare that aren’t required by state, but help mitigate that exposure for the church. The way you do your additional insurance, all that, we spell all that out for you.
Frank Bealer — That makes the policy cost more money. That’s fine. But does it work in the financial model or not? One of the big things I’ll say about distraction, Rich—this will be helpful – that proforma—one of the biggest tensions between a preschool or weekday school program and a church is the “us and them” nature of sharing the space. Specifically…
Rich Birch — Right.
Frank Bealer — Churches on Sunday morning receiving their space in a condition other than how they expected.
Rich Birch — Sure. Yes.
Frank Bealer — And vice versa Monday morning 6am preschool teachers start rolling in, and it’s other than what they expected.
Rich Birch — Right.
Frank Bealer — Our solution in this world—I do not understand this, Rich; this is crazy to me.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Frank Bealer — Our solution has been, well let’s give good checklists to volunteers at church on Sunday to hand it over on Monday morning. And then on Friday afternoon, after a really long week, let’s give our teachers our preschool teachers that are making 15, 16 bucks an hour a checklist of other things they have to do after all the kids leave to make the church happy.
Rich Birch — Right.
Frank Bealer — That creates an us and them response, right?
Rich Birch — Right. Yes.
Frank Bealer — Easiest solution ever, Rich, $250 to $300 a week, in your proforma…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Frank Bealer — …you hire an outside cleaning service that also moves the furniture.
Rich Birch — Right. Resets everything. Right.
Frank Bealer — Now if there’s a problem, there’s an outside accountability that nobody’s mad at each other. We’re not asking volunteers. We’re not asking teachers to work harder because they’re affiliated with the Church. We eliminate all that. And it either, once again, works in the proforma or not. And so we build our business plan, not overly optimistic, open a preschool at 50% occupancy and ramp up to 87% occupancy. Those are clear benchmarks and goal. We can know this and know that that doesn’t create a lot of capital burn on the front end. And then we can generate some great revenue for ministry. Do whatever you want to with it, okay? Um, it all either works in the proformo or it doesn’t.
Rich Birch — Right.
Frank Bealer — And that’s the thing that I get really excited about. Preschool is a proven business.
Rich Birch — Right.
Frank Bealer — Events… proven business. Coworking, debatably, a proven business. So we can take the good assumptions out of the church space.
Rich Birch — Right.
Frank Bealer — Well, we’re a church. As soon as we open it everybody’s just going to show up. No, no, no. Let’s have a marketing budget. Let’s have a plan. And if people choose to enroll or engage because of your credibility, let’s let that be a blessing…
Rich Birch — Right.
Frank Bealer — …not the business strategy.
Rich Birch — Right.
Frank Bealer — We’re going to build it and they’re going to come? No no, no. Let’s build it so they don’t know who we are. Can we build a sustainable business that serves and meets a need in the community, choosing whether or not to use faith-based curriculum and what guidelines you’re going to put around events, around the facility, and what you’ll allow and not allow in your facility. That’s fine. Put those guidelines in place. This is a very… Rich, I think we’ve overcomplicated it.
Rich Birch — Right. Sure.
Frank Bealer — And that’s why it becomes a distraction and burden because we we downplay some of the complexities and don’t build a plan for those.
Rich Birch — Sure. Now if you’re if I’m a church that’s sitting here thinking, Yeah, okay, maybe we do need to think more clearly on the multi-use side. I feel like you’ve you’ve hit a few buttons, even in my leadership. I’m like, gosh, I feel like we’ve done the thing where it’s like, hey let’s just roll out a coffee shop. People just come in because it’s going to because you know they like us.
Rich Birch — Um, there’s those three kind of different types of businesses you’ve talked about, whether it be a daycare, an events business, or you know a coworking/coffee kind of thing. What is your recommended route between, you know, the kind of starting point for a church? What should they consider? Which is the best of those models to start with – ah you can’t start with all three obviously. But if you were saying, hey wait a minute; maybe you can. I don’t know. Talk us through that. What should I be what should we be thinking about if we’re like, okay, we we should we do want to take some steps in this direction.
Frank Bealer — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Maybe even with Phase.
Frank Bealer — The from a profitability and a financial just just how the numbers work, depending on your location, events can be good. Depending on your locations, preschool could be good. Those can go along at the same time, or separately. Because they impact different people, different sides of the building. They really are two different business models. Candidly, if you get preschool right, the EBITDAR—okay to get technical for a second—so earnings before interest, taxes, all that stuff, and rent. So your number that you produce, you can be in the 25/30% of revenue for a preschool operation…
Rich Birch — Wow. Wow. Right.
Frank Bealer — …if you do it the right way. And that’s an industry benchmark. That’s not overly optimistic. If you’re doing $2,000,000 in in tuition a year, that’s that’s a really big number to fund ministry.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Frank Bealer — Like and that’s very attainable. This can be done pre-rent and you choose to do you pay yourself rent, or fund church planning initiatives. You can do whatever you want to with the money. That’s your call. Um, so from a preschool from an impact in the community, it has the greatest financial impact for the church and impact in the community to open a preschool. Candidly. It just if the need is there, genuinely there, and I believe that you should do a site and market analysis to determine what the real need is there, and we’re happy to help with that. Um, so that’s one. Events is just easier, ok, to do. Overall if you’re in the right location to do that…
Rich Birch — Right.
Frank Bealer — Um, as Mark has said on your podcast. You got to price it the right way and structure it the right way. But I’ll tell you the biggest problem with events is even if they build a pricing structure (a church builds it), they dabble in events. And so maybe it generates a few thousand dollars per per month. Just to give you perspective, at Phase Alpharetta.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, been there. I know I feel exactly what you’re talking about there.
Frank Bealer — Okay.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Frank Bealer — At Phase Alpharetta, 500 seat auditorium, okay.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Frank Bealer — Outside of Sunday, because we have no revenue on Sunday – that’s a church. Outside of Thursday nights because the church is doing worship programming. So I can’t do anything. We run a business over there. We have a sales manager, and like they get along, and they know the church, the partners, no problems. We run a business; it generates about $60,000 a month in revenue. Six. Zero.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Frank Bealer — $60,000 a month.
Rich Birch — Wow. That’s amazing.
Frank Bealer — And that’s on average. Just plug…
Rich Birch — With 500 sq feet?
Frank Bealer — 500 seat auditorium…
Rich Birch — Right. Wow.
Frank Bealer — …burning through like in… Now there’s expenses for cleaning services and things like that. But there’s a eye open. What I want to do with that number is not go, wow I can make $60,000. Maybe you can’t; depends on your location. All kinds of things. But here’s what I’m saying. There’s a different in opening a business and running it like a business unit.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Frank Bealer — And therefore you have marketing, and you go to trade shows, and you’re engaging with the community different, and the rotary and stuff like that. That’s different than we are now providing a clear pricing structure for our events for when people call us.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Frank Bealer — And that’ll be a few thousand dollars maybe a month.
Rich Birch — Right.
Frank Bealer — So it’s very different approach.
Rich Birch — Yeah I could see that. And I’ve been there. Totally get what you’re saying. You know it’s that difference between our our building is available for rent, and we’re running an events business. That’s two totally separate approaches, right? It’s like if someone calls us, sure we’ll rent you. It’s like you can rent a space in the library at in town. But the library is not set up to rent their space there. It’s not what they’re thinking about. There isn’t someone that wakes up every day.
Frank Bealer — Great example.
Rich Birch — Well maybe maybe in your town, not in my town. You know they’re they’re, you know, they’re not thinking about that all day long. That’s ah that’s interesting. Yeah and I could see that on the daycare. You know there’s a recurring revenue side of that, right, that you are… you know, those kids they need to be cared for every day over for years you know and obviously there is you know they eventually age out. But then there’s more kids that come up, you know, underneath all that. That’s interesting.
Rich Birch — Now if there let’s say I’m a church out there today and I feel like, hey we’ve we’re already running one of these things, or maybe all of them. We’re doing all of this. And I’m like, this is not going well; like this is painful. Um, we’ve done the, you know, maybe they was a little too close to home when you said the manager and a Google search. They were like oh gosh, that’s what we did. Um is that the kind of church you’d work with – a church that’s already engaged that they’re like we’ve got to redo all this; we’ve got to rebuild this thing. Talk us about talk talk to us about that.
Frank Bealer — Absolutely. So we will do both. So what Phase does the way it works, simple. So think of ah if you’re not familiar franchising, if you want to franchise a McDonald’s, something else, you pay an upfront fee that comes with training and marketing and things like that, and then a percentage of revenue for your ongoing support, basically. Um.
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Frank Bealer — We are currently in conversations with right now my my database list of active churches that are we’re in dialogue and working through this is we have 239 churches that are currently working with us in some stage of, I’ve got questions; I need help. Maybe they haven’t spent a dollar.
Frank Bealer — There’s 39 that have spent money and are working that direction toward, help us figure this out; help us improve our business model, ask the right questions. We don’t know; we’re not preschool experts. We’re not event experts. We don’t know what we don’t know. But they’re resonating with what we’re saying. Phase will work with both. We think that there’s a tremendous opportunity for churches that have had a preschool and it’s ended up at 62% occupancy, and it never quite had the impact they want, and they can’t figure out why they can’t get more.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Frank Bealer — Or they’re full and losing money and they can’t figure that out either because that was never part of the plan, and now the donations to the church and tithes are now funding the preschool ministry, but it’s not a that that wasn’t the plan.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Yeah.
Frank Bealer — It’s not like we’re meaning to do that. And so I think there’s a coaching element to this and just a way that Phase can serve where there’s gonna be some people that we just share some of our resources with. We’ll give you our handbook; that’s fine if you want it. Like I’ll give it to you; I don’t I’m not gonna charge for that. But there’s some that need they need ongoing support. I’ll tell you here’s how they got there, Rich. Most of the time when you talk about a church that like, yeah, we’ve ended up with this kind of mediocre “not where we thought it was going to be” performance. And we don’t know what to do because we have a great space. We have a good location. We have a big church. Why isn’t this working? Usually what it is is they started with one manager that was somebody that was known and trusted, and somebody they really related with and it was safe, and they understood the vision and culture, and they were really solid. They were confident in that hire. Well then that higher retires, or moves on, or changes. And then we get a new hire. The problem is we don’t know how to train that person.
Rich Birch — Right.
Frank Bealer — Our senior leadership team isn’t an expert in preschool or events business; it’s not what they do. And so now what ends up happening is this senior leadership team ah gets a handful of straws and somebody draws a short straw, and they now oversee that area of ministry. And and so suddenly they’re like I guess I’ll Google some stuff and figure out, how do we fill our school? How do we get better teachers? How do we do training?
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Frank Bealer — And it’s just kind of pushed by the wind. And it’s really what whatever comes top of the Google search is how we’re training. And then we know in church or anything that we’re doing, right, we’ve got to get better and have a strategic approach to improving and constantly maintaining.
Rich Birch — Absolutely.
Frank Bealer — You you teach this; it’s what unSeminary podcast is. It’s all the things you didn’t learn that you need to know.
Rich Birch — Sure, sure, sure, sure.
Frank Bealer — And yet nobody’s raised their hand going, hey, you needed to know this for preschool.
Rich Birch — Right.
Frank Bealer — I’m sorry you they didn’t tell you. And the first person they just knew it because they were awesome, and they just loved the church. And and honestly they weren’t great but they went so above and beyond, they took care of any flaws in your system. When they have somebody working a 9 to 5 job…
Rich Birch — Right.
Frank Bealer — …that’s not going above and beyond and serving your church, and you’re starting to see all the cracks, it’s not an indictment on anybody. It’s just we never put the infrastructure in place. So what Phase is trying to do is if you ever read the book “E-Myth” or “E-Myth Revisited”, it’s that idea of we’ve got all the systems, all the opps. Their first phone call is to us and we’re like, oh we already have that, and let us help you.
Rich Birch — Right.
Frank Bealer — And there’s very few circumstances, we believe, where the church leadership is having to get involved to make decisions about how to operate a preschool or an events business, if that makes sense.
Rich Birch — Right, right. Absolutely. Well this is, you know, fascinating. You know as we kind of come to you know to land here, as we kind of look to the you know the end of the conversation um, if I was a church and I’m interested, I’m like okay you’ve convinced me enough that I’d least need to think about some next steps. What would be some of those next steps. How do we, you know, take kind of some initial steps to kind of get to know you guys better. Maybe start this conversation. Obviously it’s a significant conversation. You’re talking about upfront money. Talking about signing contracts – all that. No one’s going to do that in ah in a whim, but what would be some of those first steps that I could take if I’m if I’m intrigued today.
Frank Bealer — Yeah, so ah, we have a landing page phase.center/partners. Um, we’re continuing adding more and more information on that site. Um I logged in today and it was down. I had to call somebody be like ah our a hub spot I disconnected something, but it’ll be fine by the time this airs. Um.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah.
Frank Bealer — …phase.center/partners – um, ah you go there, visit that. That’ll have good information. It’ll the information on there is designed to spark more questions, okay? Well how do they do curriculum? Can we do it as a nonprofit license center, or do we have to be for-profit? The answer depends on your state – just different rules like that.
Frank Bealer — And then we schedule a call and we jump on, one of our team members jumps on with your senior leadership team, maybe a couple elders or trustees or whatever, and we just dream for 45 minutes. Let’s just talk. Let’s talk about what’s working, what’s not working, what you see. What are the barriers and opportunities? And then build a plan for next steps.
Frank Bealer — More often than not what we find is that if they don’t currently have a multi-use strategy, it’s really really simple. They’re dabbling with it. They don’t really know where to begin, but it’s logical. So they feel like they should be having a conversation; they don’t know where to begin. For more often than not the very first thing that someone should do for an event or preschool operation, coffee shop too I just don’t not have a lot of knowledge around, that um is a site and market analysis.
Rich Birch — Right.
Frank Bealer — They need someone that’s an industry expert in that space to tell us what are opportunities and what our challenges are in opening a preschool in our space, or opening an events business, so that we’re then informed for our next step in conversation. What are the things that are going to make our space great? What aren’t? And so there’s very natural next steps. We’re happy to have a conversation; we’re not gonna charge anything for it. And we may land on, yeah, we don’t think you should do this, or maybe you should pivot. Or have you ever thought about something, you know, very different than what you’re thinking now.
Frank Bealer — But here’s the thing, time and time again when we talk multi-use rarely ever am I getting a hard: no, we don’t want to ever have this conversation. I’m getting a: we’ve had some bad experience in the past but we feel like we should revisit it. Or no, we’re in a season where we definitely need to have a conversation, we just don’t know where to start. That’s the two conversation. There’ve been great leaders like Mark that have inspired church leaders across the nation that they need to do something with it. It’s just a little overwhelming.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Frank Bealer — And so what Phase is trying to do is provide a bunch of those answers to make it a little less overwhelming, if that makes sense.
Rich Birch — Yeah, totally. Well and I think I think that’s a really clear um analogy. I think you know we want to partner with someone who had this is different than running a church. This is you know you I think sometimes as senior leaders, particularly competent senior leaders, you know we have to know where our expertise ends. Like we’re we’re good at a certain number of things and some of that relates to what we’re talking about here. But there’s a whole other school of thought and a whole other, you know, domains of expertise that you need to bring to bear to run a great preschool, run you know an events business, run coffee or you know coworking, all that. So um, I really appreciate this. This has been a great conversation. If people want to track with you, ah, we got it we gave them that web address. We’ll put that in the show notes. So if you if you forgot what that was, or you’re driving, whatever you can come back and check that out. Anywhere else we want people to get in touch with you if they’re you know if they want to track with you, Frank? And then any last words you have to say before we wrap up today’s conversation?
Frank Bealer — You know, just on social media. I’m fbealer – I’m always posting about thoughts and things we’re learning, and reposting other people that are speaking into this space. So I think that’ll be helpful. Um, but yeah going to that Phase Partners page, that’s the way to do it. Um, because that they’ll get to connect with me or whatever and we’ll share ideas and… And we’re going to have a road show this fall. We’ll be traveling around the country…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Frank Bealer — …doing one day sessions around. We’re called the Multi-use Strategy Summit. We’re hosting one in Alpharetta in February, right about the time that this is airing. But we’re gonna have more this fall. We’re actually traveling and going to other places so churches can come – more convenient to them. And just spark a conversation for one day.
Rich Birch — Love it. So good. Well, friends, I would encourage you, Frank is a trusted leader the kind of person you should reach out to. And if you’re even if you’re in the kind of area of like this might be the kind of thing 6 months or 36 months from now that we could be even thinking about, I would encourage you to track along with them. Drop by that website. Follow him on social media. It would be a great thing for you. Thanks again, Frank – appreciate you being here today and cheering for you. Love everything that you’re doing at Phase. Thank you.
Frank Bealer — Thanks Rich! We love you too.
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. I’m talking with Lance Burch from Reality Church in Omaha, Nebraska. He often explores and identifies current cultural phenomena and then tries to find a way to connect them to biblical truth.
Listen in as Lance shares how to pay attention to the questions the culture around us is asking while presenting ancient truths in a novel way.
- Do what Jesus did. // Our churches can be way too predictable, which can hold us back from what God calls us to do. By contrast, Jesus was never predictable; his stories often had surprise endings yet communicated truth in a way that resonated with the culture. If we are to be like Jesus, then we need to do things the way he did.
- Look at things in a new way. // One of Reality Church’s core values is surprise. Adding even small elements of surprise, such as a prop during a sermon or spontaneous baptisms in a service, keeps things from being too predictable. One way the church incorporated this value on New Year’s Day was by changing the seating to be in a circle and sharing stories of God’s faithfulness.
- Holding to the truth. // While digging into scripture and singing truth to each other will always be core, Reality Church looks for novel ways to present these ancient truths. The goal isn’t to change the truth of scripture, but rather to have the church experience it in a new way.
- Be clear to your listeners. // When writing messages and engaging culture, Reality Church is careful to stay true to the Bible by using a framework that asks: Is this accurate? Is it clear? They want to stay true to the scriptures while also creating a bridge to listeners in their cultural context. How are your listeners interpreting their entire world? What “language” do they speak? What questions are they asking? One way to tap into this is by paying attention to the questions that popular music and entertainment are asking.
- Connecting with the culture. // One of the elements of surprise that Reality Church has used is rewriting popular songs to create parodies that can be used for teaching moments and to convey a certain idea from scripture. These songs are fun and really accessible, plus serve as a great invite tool on “big days” like Christmas. A couple of songs from the last few years include We Don’t Talk About Rudolph, which is a parody of Encanto’s We Don’t Talk About Bruno, and also a parody of a song from Hamilton.
- Be clear that it’s a parody. // Creating parodies are legal under fair use, however make it evident that your work is a parody and that you’re not trying to appear as if the music or other content is your original work. It’s not legal to claim that the music or media is yours, so do reference the original work that you’re making the parody from.
You can learn more about Reality Church at reality.church and you can see their parody videos on YouTube at Reality Church Omaha.
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey, everybody, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you’ve decided to tune in. Listen I’m really excited for my conversation today with my friend and brother from another mother, Lance Burch. Now he spells his last name differently, probably the right way. Actually surprisingly when people spell my name wrong, they spell it the way he spells it. You have to look on your player to see how to spell it the right way. From Reality Church in Omaha, Nebraska – fantastic church. He really is I think one of the most gifted people in the country around looking and identifying kind of cultural phenomena, things that are out there, and then trying to find a way to connect that to biblical truth; obviously the goal is ultimately to point people back. Um, Reality’s a fantastic church. And Omaha, I don’t know there’s like a concentration of just amazing people in Omaha and so I’m so glad to have you on the show, Lance. But thanks for being here today. What did I miss? Build that picture a little bit. Tell us a bit about Reality.
Lance Burch — Well okay, Reality is something that we we call an entry level church. It’s something that we came on when somebody left our church. And and I think on the way out the door said you guys are an entry level church. And at first I was like what!? And I got super super kind of mad about it. And then I sat back in my chair and I thought you know, ah like of course we are.
Rich Birch — Yeah, don’t we want to be?
Lance Burch — Yeah. I’m so glad that Jesus is an entry level savior.
Lance Burch — That there wasn’t some sort of hoops or something that I had to jump through, that he finished the work. And so we’re trying to we’re trying to make that really clear. That ah, we don’t want to be cool. We don’t want to be um, like ah kind of out there, or we’re we’re “better than” at all because we’re not, and I’m not cool. But we do want to be really clear and we do want to make it clear that we’re listening to culture. That’s an important thing.
Rich Birch — This is…
Lance Burch — Ah one more thing about the Omaha churches.
Rich Birch — Yup. Yeah.
Lance Burch —You could not be more correct. This is a great place to do ministry. I’m a part of ah a network called Within Reach and the pastors here ah just a great place to move the Kingdom forward.
Rich Birch — Yeah. It it is is fantastic. Like I I am consistently amazed I bump into all kinds of great people from Omaha, and I yeah I just think it’s so so fun.
Lance Burch — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Such a great great community. So so friends I need to let you in on kind of tear down the third wall of the pretend radio show that we run here called the podcast. And um, you know Lance and I have connected a number number of times over the year.
Lance Burch — Yeah, yeah.
Rich Birch — I’ve been to Reality, we’ve talked multisite, ah, count him as a friend, and he and I have had kind of a bubbling conversation in the background over the years around a number of things that recently I was like, listen, I just want to get you on the show and have this conversation in front of everybody so that you can benefit from it. Um, and so you’re going to hear that kind of unfold out here in in front of us and one of the things. You’ve talked about predictability and why this is it’s like the scourge of predictability. Our churches are just can be way too predictable. Why is that a problem? Why is predictability a problem, like big “P” Problem for the gospel, holding us back from what God’s calling us to do?
Lance Burch — Well one of the the big “P” Problem here is that Jesus wasn’t predictable. And we are called to be, you know, with a body of Christ, we’re the hands and feet of Jesus and we’re also you know to develop the mind of Christ. Now ah he told the rich young ruler to sell everything. He didn’t tell Zach he didn’t tell Zacchaeus to sell everything. He said I’m coming to your house; come down out of that tree. He didn’t tell the woman at the well to sell everything. He didn’t tell Nicodemus, you know? Ah it was just like, you got to be born again, Nicodemus. Why? Because Nicodemus was building his world around how he was born, his his heritage. That rich young ruler was building his world around his stuff. And this woman at the well was building her world around like relationships, and you know the next person.
Lance Burch — I think since Jesus knows that we’re individual, ah when he when he comes on the scene, I think he comes to us that way. And if he said the same thing over and over again, then maybe we’d be right to do that. But he didn’t.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lance Burch — He’s he’s ah surprising in the way that he teaches, and the the authority that he takes in the way that he’s listening, and the illustrations that he uses. Almost all of his stories had a surprise ending. So that’s the big problem, if we are are saying we’re following this guy, we’re following Jesus, then we ought to do it the way that he did.
Rich Birch — Love that. So okay, so what does that look like? So I would say the thing when I when we first when I first kind of heard you talk a little bit about that, I was like oh I would say that does um that’s my experience of your ministry is your… my experience of reality is that you’re predictably unpredictable. Like there’s I I know that there’s you guys do things that kind of capture people’s imagination. Ah in ah in a good way. So what does that actually look like for your church? Like what be some of the ways that you’ve tried to lead out of that as a you know as the lead pastor?
Lance Burch — Yeah, you know it’s one of our values. It’s one of our core values. It’s surprise. That… it’s at the end of… it’s the last one: surprise. And the way it shows up is, well like New Year’s day we changed the seating in here to be in the round. Um I didn’t I didn’t talk that day. We just had stories and worship. And really when people we just told them something was going to happen. It’s incredibly powerful to have stories. It’s incredibly powerful to just to see each other for once and kind of use that day.
Lance Burch — Ah, the deal is that we don’t want people to show up, and number one, we don’t want it to feel like chaos. Of course there are going to be some things that we’re gonna do um, we’re gonna go to the scripture. We’re gonna we’re gonna sing truth to each other. But the novelty and the way the perspective the new angle on the same ancient truth is kind of what we want them to experience. So that um so it’s kind of like when you when you see something um and then you see it from a slightly different angle and it it changes the way you view it. We want to somehow do that with… We don’t change scripture. We don’t change the ancient truths. We don’t change what Jesus said, but we say to them what if you were looking at like this, what would that mean? So that we hope that we get emails and maybe lobby talk that says you know I did I knew that, but I never really thought of it that way. And…
Rich Birch — Yeah I love that. So I’m not I’m not a preacher. Folks that have followed the podcast know that’s not what I do. That’s not my primary thing. But one of I but I have a deep respect for that, and I had deep respect for that function within the church, and love to kind of help create cultures and climates that allow that to happen. And what you’re touching on one of the core problems that I that I see so clearly. For someone like yourself that has to teach every week is, we we teach from a fixed text. Like we we don’t actually want super innovative ideas, like we don’t actually want things to be so different. You know, we and so because it’s a fixed text. Ultimately there are only so many words that we’re going to bring people back to. There’s one message, one core of Christ.
Lance Burch — Right.
Rich Birch — Actually don’t want the most innovative teacher ever to preach at me because it’s like I don’t actually want something new. I want I need scripture to be I need the teaching to be based in scripture. But so pull that apart. How do you as a communicator…
Lance Burch — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …how do you flirt with that line? What does that look like? How do we do that? How do we how do we give people a new angle but don’t step into heresy?
Lance Burch — Right. Yeah, the other day we we preached a sermon, and and our bottom line statement, the the sticky statement was: if it’s new, it’s probably not true. You know…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lance Burch — …if somebody’s if somebody’s coming on the scene and I got a new revelation. No the we learn the the truths of christianity at a deeper level, but we don’t learn new truths.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lance Burch — So um, the way we pick that apart is well first of all I’ve got a team…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Lance Burch — …that helps me construct the series and does a pretty cool eval. And I have this framework that asks: is this accurate? Is it is it clear? Is it passionate, delivered with passion? That came from me from my kind of mentor and ministry Joe Duke at LifePoint in in ah Reisterstown, Maryland. He has this framework and I use it. And so we really do look at the accuracy of what we’re talking about. It’s if that’s not there, then that’s an F immediately. I mean you you failed at your one job to make these truths really clear and to lean into scripture. Um at the same time, ah, while you’re being accurate, you’ve got to be clear.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lance Burch — And now what clarity means in any given cultural context is this bridge between this always true thing, absolutely true thing and how they’re interpreting their entire world. Like, what language do they speak? Um, what what questions are they asking? And you don’t know the questions that a culture is asking unless you know what their music is saying. You can’t.
Rich Birch — Right, right. Right, right, right.
Lance Burch — Nobody asks questions like music.
Rich Birch — Right
Lance Burch — I mean movies do, um TV shows do, I guess in a little little sense. But man the music of any given culture…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Lance Burch — …will tell you what do people are what are they really craving, what do they what do they want.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lance Burch — So that gap, that that there’s the gap – clarity to accuracy.
Rich Birch — Okay, I love that. Now. So there’s people that are listening in who are probably thinking wait a second I’ve heard some of this before; this this is that sneaky old attractional church. You’re just trying to entertain people. You’re just a carnival barker. I know that’s not your heart. Obviously I know that’s you know that’s not who you are, ah but how does that fit out in your mind? And then well and I’d love to get into a specific tactic; I want to push you on a specific thing that I’ve seen you do.
Lance Burch — Yeah, yeah.
Rich Birch — But kind of at a philosophical level, what’s entertainment? What… yeah we don’t want to entertain people, do we?
Lance Burch — Absolutely we do. Um, we absolutely want to entertain people. Jesus did this. Um Jesus, I know that I’m we’re not, the pastor is not Jesus and even the church itself is not going to perfectly embody who Jesus was. However, Jesus used creative stories, illustrations, and why? Why? He could have, you know what? He could have just given propositional truths about God. But you know he didn’t. And the reason he didn’t is because he loved the people in the crowd.
Lance Burch — He could say things that they couldn’t understand but they’d be absolutely true. And he could walk away from that, and he could say I gave him the truth; they didn’t do anything with it. But you know what he did instead? He said here’s these people made out of dirt and I’m going to try to communicate incredible truths that they can’t comprehend. But how can I do it? Let me talk about a farmer. Let me talk about some vineyard workers. Let me talk about a tower that fell on some dudes. Let me ah you know even current events.
Lance Burch — So if Jesus did that, um, what what in the world would a pastor want to do with standing up on a platform, saying if you don’t understand me then that just means I’m doing the right thing. That doesn’t make any that doesn’t make any sense to me.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Lance Burch — Um, but you know to your argument about the attractional thing, did the American Church um, spend too much money or or too much energy in putting on a show? Now there’s a difference for me between entertainment and a show.
Rich Birch — Yes, Yes, yeah.
Lance Burch — Entertainment to me means to entertain someone means to hold their attention.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lance Burch — Jesus did that consistently.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Lance Burch — Jesus never put on a show. In fact, he he rejected that when it was a a temptation in the wilderness. I’m not gonna put on it…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Lance Burch — …I’m not here to put on a show. But when I show up and when my truths are are proclaimed, they are attractional. They are. The only thing that’s really not attraction about christianity is the is um, is the sacrifice that it requires to to be like Jesus. The the teaching and the truths, they are attractional, and we don’t need to make church um, what’s the word. Ah you know we we don’t want to you know repel people from church. When when they show up I think every pastor’s glad. You know?
Rich Birch — Right, right. Yeah, yeah, totally. Well…
Lance Burch — I hope I’ve answered that.
Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely. No, it’s good. I think it’s you know that’s a good ah, you mean the other context, I’ve said listen I’m proudly have come from and that is my background is kind of the attractional church movement. And I and yeah have there been excesses like in any movement? Absolutely. Ah, but I think at its core I would agree with you that at the end of the day, I look at so much of Jesus’s teaching was attempting to grab people’s attention to get their engagement, and then ultimately to move some you know closer along obviously to move everyone. But you know that you need to do that and that if you call that entertainment or attractction, that’s fine with me.
Lance Burch — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Okay, so I want to talk about a specific tactic that you do at your church. So for so in my brain I was like, oh I I think for the last number of years Reality has been doing these um like parody songs at like Christmas, and other kind of special times during the year. And then I poked you on it I’m like oh there’s like a deep well here. Oh my goodness this is like decades of work that Lance has been doing. Talk to us about this particular tactic. Kind of describe it first. How have you used these kind of parody songs as a part of your you know, big days. A part of you know, kind of the communications you do as a church.
Lance Burch — You know I went to Creative Church Conference at Fellowship in…
Rich Birch — Nice.
Lance Burch — …in Dallas.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Lance Burch — And I was young in ministry um, and well not not not terribly, but I saw a new tactic. And in their student ministry, this guy was rewriting songs. Um and I was trying to change a culture in Student Ministry at LifePoint that was kind of a toxic kind of cutting people down. So I said, why don’t we take this idea of rewriting songs and make it about an individual. So we called it the comfy chair song.
Lance Burch — And we had kids nominate a kid. They would I would say, Okay, what’s their favorite song? They would tell me their favorite song, and then I would say, would just tell me about them. And they would give me a page of stuff about this person – their quirks, their what they love to eat or what they, you know, what they love to do, or what they were good at. And I just would by a specific set of criteria, syllables and vowel shapings, rewrite that song for them. They would sit in the comfy chair, listen to the song, and then kids would line up at the microphone and say nice things about him. And it changed the culture.
Rich Birch — Ah, that’s so cool.
Lance Burch — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah. Love that.
Lance Burch — So so it got me into this heck I was doing that like 50 times a year, you know.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Lance Burch — So I wrote a ton of them.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lance Burch — And it it got me to where I was I was pretty good at it, like I could count count the syllables, even the you know the emphasis needs to be the same. And so so I had a lot of fun at it.
Lance Burch — And out there at Saddleback, another guy was doing that – one of their youth workers. And he did a couple of videos that I emulated. And now we we found out that the kids were just they loved it. And I thought I wonder if it would work in the church setting. And you know, Weird Al made a career out of this; I’m nowhere near Weird Al status but ah, but he made a career out of it. And while it’s cheesy, it’s also fun and accessible. And so we we started we did Queen, we did that one one time for Christmas Eve, we did of course the Hamilton thing. And this past year we did We Don’t Talk About Rudolph and it…
Rich Birch — Yes. So good. So you just breezed over those. Take just slow down and give us a bit of those like you did Queen and like talk through that what you’ve done the last couple years just to give a sense.
Lance Burch — Yeah.
Rich Birch — We’re going to put links in the show notes, friends; this really is going to be a bit of an incomplete podcast until you go and watch some of these things. So.
Lance Burch — Yeah.
Rich Birch — We’re going to try to describe this. It’s hard to describe in, you know, 30 seconds but kind of talk us through what some of those look like.
Lance Burch — Well ah, the Queen thing was Bohemian Rhapsody, and I remember one of the lines was like ah drama at Christmas time, instead of “Mama”, you know?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lance Burch — And ah we we took it through that whole kind of chaos of Christmas, like things are going on and then kids are up, and so it’s kind of a chaotic scene. And then and then I think we ended with Christmas really matters at Reality. Chris…
Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. Love it. Yes.
Lance Burch — The Hamilton thing happened during covid, you know.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Lance Burch — We had a church member who actually had a barn. That we we didn’t do this on our platform at all; we had a church member that had a barn.
Rich Birch — Oh, I wondered where you shot that.
Lance Burch — Oh my goodness. And we had just hired a guy who had a connection to Midwest Light and Sound; they came in and they lit it on to emulate the Hamilton lighting. Ah, got a choreographer in there. We thought let’s do something special for covid; everybody’s at home. We were doing a Christmas eve video. And I thought baby born in Bethlehem / Alexander Hamilton – same syllables.
Rich Birch — Ah, love it. Love it.
Lance Burch — So we just we wrote it. We wrote it based on that and I loved every minute of that one.
Rich Birch — Love it. Okay, so now the the thing and then this year you did Ah We Don’t Talk About Rudolph which is kind of like a retelling of the Rudolph story, but to the “Encanto” you know that We Don’t Talk About Bruno…
Lance Burch — Yeah, yeah.
Rich Birch — …ah, which which was funny. It was you know I and I’ve joked about this on you know Facebook and stuff I’m like these these have become required viewing for me when it comes up in my feed, does not matter what I’m doing I you know. I apologize, clients, if I’m doing work for you, or I stop and I’m like okay I have to watch these because they’re they’re so well done; they’re so creative. Talk to me about song selection. So I was saying to you this before we got on, I don’t know and I find particularly the last couple of years—the Hamilton one, the Rudolph one, but even the Queen one like you seem to be able to tap the zeitgeist you you. You talked about this a little bit, the music, ah you talked about this, it’s like the questions that are being asked by music are the questions of a generation or questions of a culture.
Lance Burch — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Ah unpack that a little bit. How do you how do you find these songs? How do you find… I feel like I’m pretty connected culturally, but I’m like you just seem to nail it like that is the song that is like perfect for what we’re talking about.
Lance Burch — Yeah, well we we start talking about it, and we um I mean we have a good team of people that are that are really looking around and and kind of thinking about it. What’s weird is old music is new again because of playlist and things like that or it shows up in a movie. Um, and there’s usually one when we land on it it’s like like what you said, of course.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah.
Lance Burch — Of course it’s this one. and we haven’t of course we we haven’t landed on this next year’s.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lance Burch — But when when it happens, it’s just this it cuts across the culture.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Lance Burch — Um I felt a ah little bit of pull toward the Encanto. We adopted two girls from Columbia; the movies about Columbia.
Rich Birch — Okay, okay. That would do it.
Lance Burch — Yeah.
Rich Birch — What what were some of the ones that were in the running for this year – do you remember some of the other ones? I’m trying to catch like what is the…
Lance Burch — Yeah.
Rich Birch — I’m trying to unpack what is kind of… I’m trying to get inside your brain.
Lance Burch — Yeah.
Rich Birch — What is the what are some of the other ones that were thinking of there?
Lance Burch — Well one of the other one was from Encanto. It’s the pressure song about…
Rich Birch — Yep yep.
Lance Burch — …can you imagine a family on Christmas Eve who has the family coming over. They haven’t they haven’t completed the the menu; they haven’t bought all their gifts. That just that kind of tick tick tick pressure thing…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, yeah.
Lance Burch — …which would have been a good one, but we opted against it. We we always choose like there’s always a pop song in there somewhere, like a Meghan Trainor – something that’s you know, vocally sort of interesting. Um and you know Wednesday right now if we were going to do it like say today. Um I think we would probably and this might I don’t know what how people feel about this…
Rich Birch — Who knows? Yeah, yeah.
Lance Burch — But ah, but the Wednesday phenomena.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lance Burch — Why why is that popular, you know?
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Yes.
Lance Burch — I think it’s because a lot of people feel like Wednesday, like kind of kind of out there, a little quirky. If people knew the real me they wouldn’t like me. And now I’m going to now I’m going to pretend like I don’t care. Or maybe Wednesday’s being for real. I don’t know.
Lance Burch — But that’s the idea. We try to figure out what is what cuts across all of the the lines. And we don’t always hit. Maybe some people didn’t even know We Don’t Talk About Bruno but…
Rich Birch — Yeah I don’t… yeah, that’s if you were, had anyone who’s anywhere near any, you know, childhood age of at all, you knew that song. You continue to know that song. It’s one of those that that’s out there.
Rich Birch — Ah, you know I think the other so the other interesting piece of this for me, as someone on the outside looking in, so pull back a little bit from a strategy point of view. Friends that are listening in, these big days—Christmas, Easter, maybe Mother’s Day—you have 3 or 4 days during the year where two things happen, and you’ve heard me say this before, friends. Two things happen. One, your people are more likely to invite their friends, and two their friends are more likely to attend.
Lance Burch — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Now when their friends come, they are thinking—and this brings us back to the predictability thing—they have a framework of what church is. And then Lance and his team rolls out We Don’t Talk About Rudolph and, man, their expectations are shifted. They’re like, this is different. You know over the years I used to love, I would say the same thing, I used to love when we would people would say in New Jersey particularly I loved we would get like ah somebody would kind of greet us on the way out and they would say, man mass has really changed a lot since I was a kid. And I’m like yes, okay, we are we’ve hit it, right? We’re close to where we’re trying to get to. but these days are important for us to put extra effort into. They’re important for us because we are going to have extra people in the you know in the room that are not don’t necessarily attend church.
Lance Burch — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Um, so talk to me about how that fits into that part of your strategy, the kind of like hey we want to do, put extra effort – like this is disproportionate amount of work.
Lance Burch — Yeah.
Rich Birch — You’re thinking about, you heard it, friends. I don’t know if you heard that roll by. He’s already thinking about next year’s Christmas. It’s in… somewhere there’s like a little there’s a bucket open that currently Wednesday’s in, and eventually something else will eventually – it might be Wednesday by next fall. We’ll we’ll kind of click in and then you guys will do something. Tell me how that strategically fits into your kind of when it comes to reaching unchurched people or the friends of the people we’re trying to attend our church.
Lance Burch — Yeah I want our people to have an easy invite. When we we usually promote this like we want it to be a surprise.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Lance Burch — We don’t tell everybody what the song’s going to be. We might throw a little hint out there. But we so but we let them know that there’s going to be something…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lance Burch — …that is going to surprise their friends, and it gives them the easy invite. One thing that you hit on, we do do a lot of work on this. And so I tell our team, and I think this is super important, that if the product looks fantastic and everybody’s ticked off at each other at the end, then we failed. There’s the product goal, and then there’s this process goal. We made a real big goal this year to say let’s have fun the entire time. Let’s laugh…
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Lance Burch — …and not get not get kind of angsty about this, because if we do we’re going off track. And it was fun the whole time. One of the things one of the deliverables about the parody song is that it’s fun for our team, and it’s fun for the volunteers that are a part of it. They get to be in on the secret and they invite, you know, ah a lot of people because they know they’re going to be in it. This year… can I can I mention somebody?
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Totally.
Lance Burch — We we had this girl – um, eighth grader. Her name is Addison, and Addison played our new reindeer in town. And she could… our new elf and she couldn’t wait to meet Rudolph. Maybe you didn’t see the skit before the song, but it’s not on the video. But Addison improvved in front of a group of adults, and she was phenomenal. It was that’s another good side of this. Just let people use their gifts. There are people gifted at singing and dancing and lighting and sound, and I don’t think God wants us to just use those gifts. He does want us to use them in the community. But it’s another way for us to praise to to use ah skillfully use the things that he’s given us, the gifts that he’s given us. And Addison did that in such a great way. So it was cool to see an eighth grader be a part of it too.
Rich Birch — That’s so cool. I love that. The the process again, friends, I know this is like it’s like a half step. Ah when I, folk, I’m going to we’re going to email out on this one and I’m going to send the links ahead of time and say hey you should watch these before you come because it’ll it’ll give you a little more context. If you’re already mid midstream, you got to go watch them. But the the interesting thing on, or another part of this this puzzle, is I’ve heard people push back. In fact, on one of my posts about this I had someone pushed back on the legal side of this.
Lance Burch — Yeah.
Rich Birch — So for the people who are thinking about this thing, talk is talk to us about parody. Why is parody okay.
Lance Burch — Yeah, yeah.
Rich Birch — Ah talk that through from a legal point. Because it’s like Disney is a major company that you’re you, you know, you’re using their, you know, their music.
Lance Burch — Yeah, exactly. And there was a church that did something ah that they used the name Alexander Hamilton; they did a full length thing…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yep.
Lance Burch — …and it was called Scamilton in social media. It was really wrong. I mean they they tweaked the story a little bit, used a lot of the lyrics. Parody songs are completely legal. Parody songs are what they call fair use. It’s what Weird Al made his ah lifestyle on. It is a protected form of speech and it’s great. I mean I think that we ought to be able to parody things. It’s what Babylon Bee does. It’s what ah ah, in in and in a news format. And ah, what the Wittenburg Door did.
Rich Birch — You know, like yeah Saturday Night Live.
Lance Burch — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Like there’s like there’s tons of, you know, there’s tons of parody. The the trick I think from and I listen obviously I’m not a lawyer, I don’t play one on the internet, but my understanding of the line on parody is it needs to be self-evident that it’s parody. That you’re not trying to ah, you know, trying to put yourself off as you know it’s like it it needs to be tongue in cheek. It needs to be like, hey this is you know this is a parody. Um, that’s that’s the line ultimately that you’re um, you know, going to follow. And so some of that you could I’ve seen some churches do these where, which I can’t remember whether you guys do this or not, they literally will sit put like on YouTube it’ll it’ll say like parody song…
Lance Burch — We do.
Rich Birch — …like we’re being as explicit as that so that it’s, you know, super obvious. Yeah.
Lance Burch — Yeah we put that on there. I mean I don’t, but whoever is smarter than me puts that stuff on there.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, that’s so good. Okay I love this. Well let’s bring this back to predictability. When you think about predictability, the thing that’s interesting here, friends, that I want to pick apart is the thing that’s predictable in this case is, which is important for inviting, is that you’re going to do something special. That’s that’s Predictable.
Lance Burch — Yeah.
Rich Birch — You’re going to make that happen. The thing that’s not predictable is what you’re going to do. Ah, how does this how is this permeated… so this obviously is on your big days. How any other examples of how this kind of thinking has permeated other aspects of your ministry throughout the year? Other just examples that we could kind of as we go to and close this thing down.
Lance Burch — Yeah I think every week um, since surprise is one of our values, every week we want to bring in surprise. And that could be mild; I mean it could be just the use of a prop. Um, we had another surprise on Christmas Eve which was we were doing a candle lighting service and there was there was a canister on the stage and it had the candle. We always lit from the front. But I said, you know, in the context of the last few years darkness is a really good context to to see the light, you know?
Lance Burch — And we get distracted with all it and then I walk over to this thing you couldn’t even see a candle was there and I lit my candle from it and every candle was lit from that. A very mild surprise…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lance Burch — …but it’s just different. And I think the deal is we don’t have to spend bucks on this. In fact, creativity I think keeps you from throwing money at stuff. And we don’t need to just invest. We can’t we can’t outsplash Hollywood or Nashville or any of the studios. What we can do is we can use the gifts that God gave us, and on a weekly basis um use a prop or bring somebody up or um, you know, tell the Gospel in ah in ah in an engaging way. Or we do spontaneous baptisms at our church…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool.
Lance Burch — …where we you might you might have shown up, you didn’t know that you were going to get baptized, but you just heard the gospel. We got everything you need. And and hearing that story is a surprise. I mean heck every time Jesus interacts with somebody, ah, they don’t know we don’t know how it’s going to turn out.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes.
Lance Burch — Only he does.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lance Burch — And that’s that’s really cool. So that’s why I like coming in on Sunday and sometimes it’s Jesus that is doing the surprising and not us.
Rich Birch — So Good. This is this is great. Kind of final topic of of conversation and I hope our relationship can sustain this. One of the things I find fascinating about your leadership as a leader you seem to like to have fun with your people. Like you you know like I’ve seen you like a part of these parody videos, you know friends, again, you got to watch these things. It’s not like this is like a group of people doing them and then Lance is standing off stage, clapping. Oh isn’t that great. Like I’ve seen you do all kinds of funny things that are, you know, great, engaging, um, you know you know surprising ah. And I think there would be a lot of pastors that would look at that and say, yeah I’m not doing that. There’s no way. I would love for that to happen on my church, but like I’m not dressing up in the giant um… or the the the head to toe um, ah jack-o-lantern suit I remember seeing you in once. I was like what?! Like talk to me about that. What is you have this fun playful side…
Lance Burch — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …that I think is super endearing from a from a leadership point of view. I think people want to follow people like that, but talk to me about that.
Lance Burch — Yeah.
Rich Birch — What’s what’s what’s that all about?
Lance Burch — Yeah, that it might not be everybody. I grew up kind of in theater; I did comedy for a while. Um, ah, quick throwaway I’ve got this cover band called Silly Joel where we do we go out and we play Billy Joel things. I love karaoke. So part of this is just kind of personality.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lance Burch — However, let me encourage people who wouldn’t maybe be drawn to this. Nobody nobody comes in here thinking the pastor is gonna do something like that no matter what my personality is.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Lance Burch — So when they see that, all the sudden this inaccessible guy with barriers, and I could never be like that guy. If we if we choose to say, I’m gonna act silly. And they might think, well I think I could approach him; he just wore a pumpkin suit in front of me. Um then I think that could be a good thing.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lance Burch — So I would encourage, you know, stretch a little bit. You don’t have to do everything, but um, surprise your crowd with your willingness to to maybe step. We’re asking them all the time to step outside of their comfort zone.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lance Burch — We’re asking them all the time to do stuff that maybe stretches them a little bit. And so I’d say to leaders, don’t be afraid to act silly; it’s it’s it’s vulnerable, it’s authentic. And we all act silly anyway, sometimes when people aren’t watching. So use that, if you can, to to gain access to, you know, just to somebody’s attention.
Rich Birch — Yeah, so good. Well, love it, friends. So good. We know you know that the human mind is a predictability engine. We just ah, you know we we watch patterns – pattern pattern pattern pattern pattern. And then when we can change that pattern when we can do something that’s out of pattern, in this case, you don’t expect the pastor to be in whatever – the the Hamilton play, the you know the orange suit that you know, whatever um that that that causes them literally your brain leans in on that and is like oh that’s different. Something is different about this organization. Well, Lance, I’ve really appreciated your friendship. I appreciate this conversation today. I appreciate you being on. Any final words, and and where do we want to send people if they want to track with you, with the church, that sort of thing.
Lance Burch — Sure. I guess my final word was it’s really easy to be like the guy on the platform or the or the guy, you know. I have an amazing team. The team at Reality Church, my staff, the people that support me. I’m only good at like two things; I can’t even keep a calendar. There’s so there’s so many things that people do for me. So um I just I don’t want to let this thing go without saying ah ah, it’s a privilege to to be able to be here.
Lance Burch — Though the last thing um if people want to see what we do Reality Church Omaha on YouTube, if you search, but you’re gonna have the links anyway. Reality.church is our website. Um, and um I think we’re gonna be out there ah eventually with a podcast called Things I Used to Think which is hopefully…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Lance Burch — Yeah, it’s just basically we start out with some things that um, you know, we used to think. Like I used to think if there was a car following me while I was walking home from my friend’s house that they were going to shoot me. You know there’s all sorts of things that just live in our head and and I think it teaches us something…
Rich Birch — Yeah, love it.
Lance Burch — …when we we talk about the things we so look for that. But reality.church is our website, and we’re on YouTube and Facebook and Instagram and all the socials as well.
Rich Birch — Love it. So good. Appreciate you, sir. Thanks for being on here. Thanks for for sharing with us today.
Lance Burch — Yeah, thank you, Rich. I appreciate it so much.
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to be talking with Mark DeYmaz, who planted Mosaic Church in Arkansas and is co-founder of Mosaix Global Network.
We’re nearly a quarter of our way through the 21st century and yet some churches are still operating on models from the 1960s. In spite of good intentions and a lot of activity, many pastors are merely managing the decline of their churches. Listen in as Mark talks about the 20th century metrics we need to stop chasing and where we need to shift our focus.
- Works over words. // In order for the church to continue to move forward, we need to be thoughtful about the time we’re living in. We are in a Matthew 5:16 century – one where the works of churches impact unbelievers more powerfully than words. Whereas the 20th century was about explanation, the 21st century is about demonstration and getting out into the community rather than staying behind closed doors.
- Play for influence. // In the 20th century churches played for size; in the 21st century churches need to play for influence. Influence is not tied to size, but rather to diversity. The greater your church’s diversity, both in terms of the structures and the demographics, the greater your influence will be in your community. People in a smaller, more multi-ethnic church can go into a larger swath of the community with the messaging of Christ compared to a larger homogenous church.
- Multiple streams of income. // In the 20th century churches were funded by tithes and offerings, but in the 21st century we need to look at multiple streams of income. This doesn’t mean we get rid of tithes and offerings. Rather we revisit what good stewardship looks like according to Jesus’ teachings. Consider the parable of the talents; the wicked, lazy servant is the one who did nothing with his assets. Our assets are people, money and facilities – how are we stewarding them to fund the mission of the church?
- Look at the buried assets. // So many things in today’s world have changed the way that younger generations are giving to the church and how much the church is receiving. Churches should take a look at their buried assets in order to release the economic engine to make money to both pay their bills and provide for their ministry. This includes connections that your people have to others and how you can aggregate money quickly.
- Rent your facilities. // Even pre-pandemic, most church facilities sat empty from Monday to Saturday. That’s not good stewardship. The simplest way to earn income is to rent your facilities. Get a commercial realtor to come into the church and tell you how much unused areas of your church would be worth in the commercial market.
- Monetize existing services. // Another option for earning money is to monetize existing services. One example might be using the coffee shop in the church to cover your costs as well as fund ministry. You may not have enough in tithes and offerings to cover expenses in the coffee shop. However by charging for something like coffee and breakfast biscuits, you can cover your costs as well as generate income to provide for ministry and outreach.
- Earn through business for God’s work. // You can also start a for-profit LLC under your nonprofit. Create a business and hire employees, provide services, or sell items. Some of the profits earned by the business can then help to fund ministry at your church. Create a sister nonprofit under your church to handle outreach ministry in the community. Through the separate nonprofit, pursue grants and donations from local, state, federal, and outside entities.
- Follow the law to keep tax exempt status. // You will keep your tax exempt status as long as you follow the laws. The money you make from the services you offer has to go back into the church. You also have to pay taxes on the property and business just as any other business would in your area.
You can find out more about Mosaix and the services they offer at www.mosaix.info. Plus, pick up The Coming Revolution in Church Economics: Why Tithes and Offerings Are No Longer Enough, and What You Can Do about It and Mark’s other books online wherever books are sold.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Chemistry Staffing
One of the things that they never teach you in seminary is when to move on from your current church. Over the last couple of years, we have been having a TON of conversations about this with pastors all over the United States. Of all the ministry decisions you make, leaving your position will be the toughest.
Download this two-in-one resource that walks you through the decision-making process.
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you’ve decided to tune in. I’m really excited for today’s conversation; we’ve got Mark DeYmaz with us. He is an incredible leader from central Arkansas. In 2001 him and his wife ah, founded Mosaic Church, which is a thriving multi-ethnic ah church in an economically diverse community doing all kinds of great things. Today he serves not only as a directional leader of Mosaic, but is also a champion of a movement of churches really that are trying to be ah, multi-ethnic, make a difference all across literally the world, Mosaic Global Network. So super honored to have Mark with us. Mark, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here today.
Mark DeYmaz — Yeah, Rich. Thanks so much for having me.
Rich Birch — Why don’t we start with kind of fill out the picture. What did I miss there about your background? You know, kind of give people a sense of Mosaic; tell us a little bit more of the story.
Mark DeYmaz — Yeah I’d be glad to I served as a Student Ministries pastor in predominantly white evangelical churches for 18 years coming right out of college at 22 years of age. And the final eight years of those 18 brought me to the city of Little Rock to a wonderful church. At the time in 1993 that church was 2000 people; eight years later it was 5000. My youth group of 7th through 12th graders went from 150 to 600. I was in the top 2% of paid youth pastors in America. I’m living the dream this amazing church I had 500 kids ah you know in small groups, 250 volunteers, 9 full-time staff, built a 3.5 million dollar student center. Again, so I’m living the dream, right?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Mark DeYmaz — And one day in the late 90s I looked around this otherwise amazing church and realized the only people of color were janitors. That was 1997, and that began to bother me.
Rich Birch — Right.
Mark DeYmaz — I didn’t know at the time why that bothered me but it began to bother me. And that took me on into a journey into the new testament doing my own exegesis so to speak, throwing out what I’d been taught in seminary. I had a master’s in exegetical theology at the time, now my doctorate, my DMin in exegetic theology. And so I began to wonder about the things I’d been taught in the new testament or about the nature of the church. Was it, in fact, segregated? Jews, that is Jewish Believers, went to Jewish churches, Gentile believers to Gentile churches. Was the homogeneous unit principle as we had learned it—um, the way to plant, grow, and develop a church quickly is to focus on a single people group—was that beyond pragmatic, was it, in fact, biblical?
Mark DeYmaz — And so I did my own homework, so to speak. By the late 90s I I realized that every church in the new testament was a multiethnic church – men and women, Jews and Gentiles, rich and poor. As we say at Mosaic today, walking, working, worshiping God together as one. And so once that biblical vision and mandate got in my belly, I determined of course ah with a calling from the Lord to stay in Little Rock, to leave that church, to go to the urban center of Little Rock in the summer of 2001 with what Christianity Today would call three years later a big dream in Little Rock – could in fact, men and women of diverse ethnic and economic background walk, work, worship, God together as one? Could they will themselves to do that in order to advance a credible witness of God’s love for all people, not just some.
Mark DeYmaz — Here in the city of Little Rock, the neighborhood we went to 30% poverty, 66% of kids without dads in the home, highest violent crime in the city; determined to lean into Matthew 5:16. You know I believe this is a Matthew 5:16 century. In the Twentieth century you can get away using words to reach people for Christ. Today it’s all about works. He said not let them hear your good words, but let them see your good works, and this is what will shine a light on who God is and how much he loves. Hope for all, not just some.
Mark DeYmaz — So in 2001 after 18 years in the multi… ah I’m sorry in the ah homogenous evangelical ah, predominantly white churches, I came to the inner city, started Mosaic—a church for all people not just some people, multiethnic, economically diverse. And within several years my friend my good friend, Dr. George, the African-American sociologist today at Baylor University, we had connected, we met and we realized that if God was showing me and, and him from a sociological standpoint, that churches ought to be multi-ethic for the sake of the gospel, surely he must be showing others around this country and the world.
Mark DeYmaz — And so we pulled together about 30 people in November of 2004 to consider this in Dallas, Texas. That led to the establishment of Mosaix Global Network and the mission and vision of Mosaix for now almost 20 years is to help pastors and ministry organizations build healthy multi-ethnic and economically diverse, socially just, culturally intelligent, and financially sustainable churches. So I serve as the directional leader of my own church—now we’re 10 years old at Mosaic—but I also serve as the co-founder and the CEO of Mosaix Global Network.
Rich Birch — Love it. One of the things you talked about there I found super intriguing which I know is a part of what you’ve been wrestling with, you talked about how in the Twentieth century churches grew based on the word – on, you know, on you know, speaking, ideas. And then in the Twenty-first century, you know, churches are growing based on works, action, getting people out of their seats, into the street, making a difference actually in their community. Are there any other of those kind of dynamics that you’ve seen as we kind of, you know, pivot from one century to another. You know I was just thinking, gosh, we’re we’re a quarter of our way into ah, the Twenty-first century and we’re still some of us are still living on models from the 1960s. What would be some of those other changes that we need to be thinking about as church leaders?
Mark DeYmaz — Yeah, you know, Rich. That’s a great question. I’ve addressed that for some time and this past year put that in writing in one of the chapters in a book called “Red Skies” published by 100 M the missional community. It’s a compilation book of Alan Hirsch, myself, Deb Hirsch, many others. But in my chapter on economics, I talk about that very thing. And the way I frame that is most pastors in America today, in spite of good intentions, all their activity, etc they are merely managing decline. They are merely managing the decline of their churches. And if you… and of course all the statistics show us that ah, attendance down, giving down, etc, etc. Ah, people’s interest in the church, the pipeline professional ministry leaders, the lack of strong student ministry today providing young people that are fired up to to be Christ-centered folks as well as going to ministry – all those statistics, if you will, show us we’re just managing decline. And if you understand that then, I asked myself several years ago, if that’s true, if you accept that premise, why is that? And the way I framed it in the book, the way I speak about it is that we are still chasing Twentieth century metrics. So the scoreboard, the dashboard is still all lit up by Twentieth century metrics, right? But as you rightly mentioned we’re nearly 25 years into the Twenty-first century and the metrics are still twentieth century.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s crazy.
Mark DeYmaz — So what are those metrics if we’re going to in fact, disrupt and reinvent for the Twenty-first century? You know the [inaudible] understood their times and knew what was right in that moment for Israel to do. We have to be thoughtful about our times to know what is the best course forward, and it is certainly not a return to the Twentieth century metrics. So, all that’s to say yes the twentieth century, the way people came to Christ, is you shared, you brought Billy Graham to your city. He clearly explained the gospel, you shared the 4 spiritual laws, clear explanation of the gospel. You gave people Josh McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict, More than a Carpenter. Later Lee Stroble, The Case for Christ. And all of this is explanatory.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Mark DeYmaz — So in a simple way You can say the twentieth century wasn’t ah the the difference is explanation versus today demonstration. Again, Matthew 5:16 – we’re going to have to lead with the kindness, meeting felt needs, empathizing, entering into people’s stories, and meeting those needs first at the bridge of humanity before we’ll ever get people to consider across the bridge of Christ’s divinity.
Mark DeYmaz — Another one is size versus influence. In the Twentieth century you played for size; in Twenty-first century you better be playing for influence. And influence is not tied to size as it was in the Twentieth century. As I mentioned, I was a part of a thriving church of 5000 white, Republican, suburban upper class, professional people. And in a city like Little Rock…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Mark DeYmaz — …when I was there I thought, boy we have a lot of influence in the city. But when I left that to start Mosaic I realized the Democrats hated that church. People of color didn’t even know that church existed. On and on I could go. And so I realized that yes, it’s a lot of bodies, but they are only getting out on a Sunday and infiltrating, if you will, 1 or 2 slices of a 15 or 20 slice demographic pie.
Mark DeYmaz — So the point is, the greater your diversity, both structurally in terms of ah the the structures of your church and the demographics of your church, the greater your influence is going to be in a community. Because I can have 300 people of ah 30 different nations and economic diversity in all different types of backgrounds culturally. And when they get out on a Sunday morning, both Republican, Democrat, etc, ah black, white, rich, poor, and when they get out, they go into a larger swath of the city with the messaging of the Christ and the messaging of the church. And you could argue which church has more influence in a city. I’d rather play with 100 healthy, diverse people the way I’m describing than 1000 all-white, all-black, all-asian, and I’ll prove to you my influence is 10 times my size. So size versus influence – the greater your diversity, the greater your influence in the city.
Mark DeYmaz — Of course Twentieth century homogenous ah homogeneity Twenty-first multi-ethnicity, right? Twentieth sustaining innovation, Twenty-first disruptive innovation.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Mark DeYmaz — So all of those are just a quick highlight of some of the the things we discuss. And one of the big ones I know you want to talk about today…
Rich Birch — Yeah, totally.
Mark DeYmaz — …is in the Twentieth century tithes and offerings…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Mark DeYmaz — …and in the Twenty-first multiple streams of income. Tithes and…
Rich Birch — Okay, so yeah, yeah.
Mark DeYmaz — In the Twenty-first century it’s no longer enough to not only sustain your ministry but to advance it in a healthy way.
Rich Birch — Okay, so this is to me this one, so there’s first of all, friends, you need to be following Mark ah, if you’re not already. There’s so much that you’re unpacking there that I’m I’m like amen, amen, amen. I remember, like I so ironically I spent a lot of time thinking about church growth and I think I only had one it was like literally one class in one course in school that was on church growth. And it was all on the homogeneous unit model, which which now looking back on it I’m like I’m that’s like sin at its core. Which is crazy, you know, all these years later. Like I’m like and it was just taught as like this is just the assumptive way. But now, man, if you pursue that model, you are yeah your church is just not going to impact at all. So love that. Um, but I would love to dig in on this financial piece. I heard you say this and I’m like I think Mark’s gone off the deep end. He’s being crazy. Obviously tongue-in-cheek – don’t think that. Tithes and offerings – isn’t that the core of how we’re supposed to fund our church? Convince me otherwise.
Mark DeYmaz — Yeah again Twentieth versus Twenty-first century understanding um at the core… and let me just quickly pivot and say the homogeneous unit principle is biblical insofar it’s applied for evangelism, discipleship, and leadership development.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Mark DeYmaz — But once you cross the line to plant, grow, or develop a local church. There’s no biblical license, freedom, or mandate to target a single people group to plant a church. The church is to be for all people wherever possible and certainly in the United States, it’s very possible across a wide swath of this country. Having said that, back to sustainable economics.
Mark DeYmaz — When in the twentieth century again tithes and offerings, Twenty-first multiple streams of income. What am I really talking about? Good stewardship. In the American Church… so let me just start with a biblical framework. The reason why you need to not and when I say move away from tithes and offerings, I don’t mean get rid of tithes and offerings and not not not encouraging generosity. Of course we’re gonna keep doing all that. And that too is biblical. However, we’ve got to do some other things because that in and of itself in the Twenty-first will not be enough like the Twentieth, right?
Mark DeYmaz — So from a biblical standpoint, and I have written a book The Coming Revolution in Church Economics as well as a book called Disruption – it’s into all of this. But very quickly, think about it from a biblical perspective and a sociological perspective, and I’ll just throw in a couple on each. So in the American Church, and again Twentieth century metrics, the way most pastors understand the term stewardship is three ways. One to manage what God has given us. You know, God has given us this building, these assets. There’s a hole in the wall. There’s a pothole in the street. We need to fix it. We need to maintain and manage the resources God has given us. It means recording accurately the the gifts, the tithes, and offerings that you receive. We got to record that accurately, and number three we’ve got to clearly communicate to our donors how we’re spending that money.
Mark DeYmaz — And those are the three ways in which stewardship is defined in the American Church. Now I believe all of those things are part of good stewardship. However, if we’re very ah technical or exegetically sound, that’s not how Jesus defined stewardship. Jesus said, and he taught us in the parable, right? You gave me five – here’s your five, and I made you five. You gave me two – here’s your two, and I made you two. Well done, good and faithful steward.
Mark DeYmaz — One guy, as I like to say, sat on his asset, right?
Rich Birch — I love it. Love it.
Mark DeYmaz — One guy sat on his asset and and he sat on this asset and he’s called the wicked, lazy slave, or or servant, steward if you want. And what what does that mean? He says I was afraid. I didn’t want to lose it. So he he led with fear not by informed faith as the other two. And what does Christ say? Take away the one asset from the guy and give it to the people that know what to do with it.
Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mark DeYmaz — And that is happening all over this country. In terms of Jesus overturned the money changer – what about that? You know, we’re not supposed to touch money. Has nothing to do with fair or benevolent profit. It was all about unjust economics. They were upcharging people for the exchange rate of a Roman coin to a Jewish half shekel. They were marking up the turtle doves so to speak for the survey or for the sacrifice beyond what the poor could otherwise afford.
Rich Birch — Right.
Mark DeYmaz — It was all about unjust economics. So biblically, we need to think deeper about these matters. And then from a sociological standpoint, easy to make the case right? Tithes and offerings completely and consistently dropping. But more than that from a secular standpoint, you’ve got generational shifts and attitudes and approaches to giving. Nearly 80% of all giving to the American Church as of several years ago is given by people born before 1964.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Mark DeYmaz — And doesn’t mean that younger people don’t have money; they just they don’t trust institutions. They believe that their volunteerism and/or their endorsement of the church or the products, the service of the church is equated with their giving, where if you’re older like me at 61 years old you see those as a both/and not an either/or. So there’s generational [inaudible] there’s some attitudes and approaches to giving.
Mark DeYmaz — The rise of dual income households – that’s gone from where in 1960 about 20% of US households had dual incomes, just to live a middle class life today it’s almost 80%.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Mark DeYmaz — And it’s not [inaudible] that have all this extra money. It takes at least two income streams if not more in the American household just to live a generally middle class life today due to wealth inequality income gaps, the inflation the highest it’s been, ah, you know middle class wealth is the lowest it’s been since 1940. So there’s all these factors sociologically, but the mindset of the church continues to be as if the single paycheck of a tithe and offering will help the church, if you will, live a middle class life.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Mark DeYmaz — So remember 80% or so of households in the 60s – the the old Ozzie and Harriet thing, right?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Mark DeYmaz — Theoretically dad went to work, mom stayed home with the kids, got involved the PTA. That one paycheck from dad’s work allowed that family to have a house, have a car, etc. Those days are long gone.
Rich Birch — Right.
Mark DeYmaz — And they’re never coming back so we’re going to have… So the practice of church economics is is to leverage the assets of your church in pursuit of good stewardship. What are those assets? People, money, and facilities. Not just the people you have but the connections to others they have. Not just the money you may or may not have, but your ability to aggregate money quickly.
Mark DeYmaz — Ah, your facilities – most facilities even pre-pandemic sit empty from Monday to Saturday. That’s buried assets. Money in your bank account. That’s buried assets. People. So the point is we’ve got to turn on the spigot, if you will, to release the economic engine and assets of the church. Again, not to go out and make tons of money like as as if it was capitalism, and run amok or we’re in it for a profit. But no, if we keep giving everything away, we’re not gonna be here in five years. It’s the church that owns [inaudible] and I walk in I say well how much do you charge these groups coming in? Oh no, we just let them do it. Just let them come in for free. It’s our ministry. Well who’s… the toilet paper, the water bill, the electric bill, etc.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Mark DeYmaz — You see what I’m saying? That’s not good stewardship. I know the heart is right. But that is not good head stewardship…
Rich Birch — Right.
Mark DeYmaz — And you don’t have to and I tell, like using that as an example. You don’t just charge the cost of it, but you don’t charge top dollar.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Mark DeYmaz — Somewhere in between so you’re covering your costs.
Rich Birch — Right.
Mark DeYmaz — You’re making a little something, but not an exorbitant fee to be benevolent. And the point is when I have the when I’m generating income from ah a profitable standpoint, when I’ve got the tithes and offerings, and the other leg of this by the way, Rich. We talk about three legs of a stool, like offense, defense, special teams – the tithes and offerings starting a for a nonprofit sister organization to your church whereby you can chase local, state, federal grant funding go beyond what your church can otherwise do. And of course as I just lean into in this example of a gym, the for profit side where we’re leveraging assets to generate ah ROI and the aggregate of tithes and offerings, your grants and donations both from local, state, federal as well as outside entities, other churches, [inaudible]…
Rich Birch — Yeah, foundation stuff. Yeah, yeah.
Mark DeYmaz — …with the ah ROI pursuit of for profit entities, that aggregate is how you’re not only going to survive but sustain, become stable, and thrive going forward in the Twenty-first century.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. So good. Now I’m wondering so you you started to get into a couple practical pieces there. I like that three-legged stool piece. I think we have clarity on you know that kind of the the normal church leg of this, you know, the stool. Talk us through a little bit of that um, particularly that that the profit side, that – you gave us the example of the gym. Um, give us some other examples of the kinds of things that either you’re doing or you’ve seen other churches do that like oh that’s an innovative way to to try to generate some income um as a church.
Mark DeYmaz — Yeah, so just let me be clear. The gym example is yes, that’s an example, but I use that to help us free our minds and think with a different mentality. So again, the mentality is we’re giving this away; we’re doing ministry. But you’re not going to be here in five years if you don’t change that mindset. So that’s what that example was about. Um, again, three-legged stool, we’re talking about the third leg – your special teams, if you will, your for-profit ROI side where you’re leveraging assets, generating income. On that side let’s just break it down and think think about it like this… By the way, let me say,
Mark DeYmaz — the simplest way for a church to generate income is to rent its facilities.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Mark DeYmaz — That is the simplest way, the cleanest way; rent your facilities. If you’re going to rent facilities, as many churches do, I’m not the first person to suggest rent your facilities…
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Mark DeYmaz — …or what have you, but but what has happened heretofore is people see it as nice, not necessary.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Mark DeYmaz — Okay, isn’t it nice you have this preschool. Isn’t it nice that we rent our parking lot for this and we pick up a little income. That’s a nice mentality. Today it’s necessary. So in other words, it’s part of a comprehensive strategy that heretofore has not been developed that I put forth in Disruption, Coming Revolution in Church Economics. So with that in mind, again, the simplest way to make money is to rent your facilities. And the way to do that is to get a commercial realtor to come into a certain area of your church, empty classrooms that keep you converted converted to nonprofit centers, counseling offices, law law offices – all kinds of things. They’re sitting there dormant. Get a commercial realtor to come into your church and say on the commercial market, this area would be worth this amount of money.
Rich Birch — Right.
Mark DeYmaz — So I’ll just use an example. These 5 classrooms, this 3000 square feet would be worth $5000 on the commercial market.
Rich Birch — Right.
Mark DeYmaz —Okay, we’re not in it for top dollar again. We’ve got a strategy of the the tithes and offerings, grants and donations, and now the for-profits. So we don’t have to make top dollar, but I can’t give it away for free, as we said, so I might rent that space for $2000 or $3000, which which has an impact on the people I’m renting it to. In other words, it’s lowering their overhead…
Rich Birch — Right.
Mark DeYmaz — …so they can offer their goods and services at lower prices to the community. We call that benevolent ownership. I I as a church, we make something. Small business – we take pressure off of them in terms of their overhead, and they pass on that savings to the community. So everybody wins in that scenario. So the simplest way is to leverage your facilities.
Mark DeYmaz — Here’s another example of that. We talk about monetizing existing services. So put that ah, ah you know under the the renters space benevolent ownership. This other aspect would be monetized existing services. There’s already things churches are doing and paying to do in terms of the space they built, the people they employ, the equipment they have. They’re already doing that, well monetize that. That’s like low hanging fruit.
Mark DeYmaz — Here’s a perfect example: many churches, most have some type of a coffee shop or coffee area, right? And they’re giving free coffee away every Sunday morning. When you think about that, who’s paying for that free coffee? Tithes and offerings in most cases, right? So somebody decides we’re going to take $2000 a month out of tithes and offerings; that’s $24,000 a year. We’re going to let that walk out our front door in the form of free coffee, and with with hospitality hoping somehow not only are blessing people, but hopefully that some of these people will like our church someday so much that they come and they start giving. Okay. But what does $24,000 a year take away from actual ministry?
Rich Birch — That’s a good question.
Mark DeYmaz — I might be able to hire a part-time uni-tasker or part-time some… I might be able to fund the entire VBS…
Rich Birch — Right.
Mark DeYmaz — …and go to whole different levels with $24,000. So I’ve got this space; I want to give away free coffee.
Mark DeYmaz — But you partner here with business people who know how to monetize that space in a benevolent way. So we did this at our church prior to the pandemic. We we had built out our coffee area. I went to ah to Sam’s Club. I buy a microwave. I buy a little tin foil. I buy Jimmy Dean sausage biscuits with cheese for $.95 a biscuit.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Mark DeYmaz — You wrap them up and heat them up. You sell them for $2 on Sunday. McDonald’s sells them across the street for $3.50 so I’m already $1.50 under…
Rich Birch — Right.
Mark DeYmaz — …what you get based on the same thing across the street. The people start buying the biscuits, and let’s just say that the the mark is 2000 a month, all I have to do is sell 2000 biscuits a month to make $2000 to cover the free coffee and recoup…
Rich Birch — Right.
Mark DeYmaz — …$2000 a month in my tithes and offerings to put to direct ministry. We don’t think like that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Mark DeYmaz — Nobody taught us to think like that in seminary…
Rich Birch — No, no. That’s so true.
Mark DeYmaz — …but again business people know how to do this. So your job as a pastor, you don’t have to be the one to do this. You have to understand the strategy, again as I lay out in my books—Disruption, Coming Revolution of Church Economics—and then empower people to to put this thing together. So that’s an example…
Rich Birch — Love it. So good.
Mark DeYmaz — …of monetizing existing services, right? So benevolent ownership of your facility, monetizing existing services, and the last thing is you can—actually most pastors, again, don’t know this—um, you can start for-profit LLCs under your nonprofit. Um and and in other words, real for… real business. So for instance, you might go out and and get two capital partners, and so we want to, you know, we’re always printing these t-shirts; we’re gonna create a t-shirt printing company right here. And we’re gonna move it into the church. We’ll provide the space. We’ll buy the equipment, etc, etc. That’ll be our investment. You get these two other investors; they put money in. And all of a sudden you’re hiring your high school kids, your college kids, you’re providing jobs, you’re doing this marketing, and you’re never paying for t-shirts again. And anything you’re giving [inaudible] selling to your church, you’re making profit.
Mark DeYmaz — How much money do you pay for janitor service in your church? What if you repurpose those funds to actually start a janitor company that employs people, etc, get a couple of capital investors. Now you’ve got a business.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Mark DeYmaz — Everybody gets a third of profit. The janitor company is doing so, you know, goes out gets contracts, and the net that that company makes beyond the employee costs and all the things, salaries, the net pays for your janitor coverage every year. So that company’s cleaning your church but the way you’re they’re being paid is through the net profit…
Rich Birch — Right.
Mark DeYmaz — …of the work they do outside the church. And again you recover significant dollars to repurpose to ministry.
Rich Birch — So good.
Mark DeYmaz — So benevolent ownership, monetizing existing services, and starting new businesses whether under the nonprofit formally as an LLC or not. And that leads to a question, Rich, I know you’ve probably already anticipated; I’ll just roll into it.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Mark DeYmaz — What about my tax-exempt status?
Rich Birch — Sure.
Mark DeYmaz — And most pastors are afraid if we get into these things we’re going to lose our tax exempt status. And that is not true if you play by the rules. And there’s really just simple rules to play by. Number one, um that when you, let’s take a coffee shop, for example – if if I am making money as a church if our church is making money through that coffee shop through the year of course you report that on your taxes as unrelated business income. But let’s say that’s generating a profit and we we made $10,000 this year, $20,000 – whatever it is. That money, the $20,000 net profit that we receive as a church needs to go back into the budget of the general church.
Rich Birch — Right.
Mark DeYmaz — I can’t say, hey $20,000 – awesome. Hey our 5 board members, everybody gets a $4000 bonus, right?
Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mark DeYmaz — You can’t do that, right?
Rich Birch — No.
Mark DeYmaz — That violates a law; you’d lose your tax exempt status.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Mark DeYmaz — The other thing is you have to pay taxes on that property and or that business just like any other business or coffee shop would in your city, state or in the country. You cannot leverage your nonprofit status to try to avoid paying property taxes, or what have you.
Mark DeYmaz — So in our case, for instance, after 15 years we were able to purchase an abandoned 100,000 square foot Kmart, and for the past 8 or 9 years we’ve rented 44,000 square foot to a suburban fitness club that moved into the inner city and took that deal. Now they’re they that off what we make off them is right now I can’t do the math quickly in my head, but probably I’m going to say 40% or 35% of our mortgage is paid just by that one contract.
Rich Birch — That’s great. Wow. That’s fantastic.
Mark DeYmaz — Okay, not only that but 6000 people from the community belong because our price to them is so low they can lower the prices to people for this quality help, you know, physical fitness and all that, and and so all the community joined at $10 a month, no contract.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Mark DeYmaz — And that has an impact on the health and wellbeing, the emotional psyche of a community that today’s 24% at or below poverty.
Rich Birch — Love it. So good.
Mark DeYmaz — So all of that is in the books and again we could talk all day about it. But as fast as I can talk and give you an overview, that’s what’s going on.
Rich Birch — Yeah you you yeah yeah, you anticipated the question there. I was wondering a bit about the if if you could give an overview a little bit about how the legal structure works. But I think you gave some clarity there. Is there anything else on that for for the pessimists in the room that are like, listen we just can’t do this. This is too risky. Ah, you answered it well there, but is there any other kind of because I know it’s actually pretty straightforward. There’s a number of churches that are doing this, but you know is there anything else we need to think about that on the structure side how those three entities kind of interact with each other?
Mark DeYmaz — Yeah, well again, you you mentioned fear if you’re not doing this because you’re afraid, you’re no different than the guy in the bible burying the asset.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Mark DeYmaz — You as a pastor may not understand this. You may not understand; you gotta we we walk by faith not by sight. Now there’s a fine line between faith and foolishness…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Mark DeYmaz — …and what that means is, pastor, I’m looking you in the eyes so to speak right now, you don’t have to do all this.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Mark DeYmaz — You just have to understand it from a theological…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Mark DeYmaz — …sociological pragmatic standpoint, and then go out and empower the people who share your heart…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Mark DeYmaz — …share your vision, share your theology, and let them take these things and run with it for the glory of God.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Love it.
Mark DeYmaz — And now the the last thing I’d say is say what else to add. So picture if you will those of you who are listening, picture a football team and draw it in your head as a three-legged stool. There’s offense on one leg, defense on one leg, special teams on the other. Each team has its own players, its own metrics, its own coaches, its own game plan. Ah, and to win the game, you’ve got to have all three teams functioning at a very high level and minimizing the state, or you don’t win. Most churches only play have an offense, if you will – let’s call that the spiritual game. That’s that’s most churches. Some social game and very few the financial game like we’re talking about.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Mark DeYmaz — So what we’ve got to do in the Twenty-first century is a move away from a single dimensional game to playing a three-dimensional game.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Mark DeYmaz — And and of course the spiritual is already happening. And in terms of and all we need to do the adjustment there is to make sure our churches are moving and leaning in towards the increasing diversity of our society – Revelation 7 on earth to become the embassies in which diverse ambassadors walk and reach the world for the gospel. So there’s innovation there, but on the economic side that’s tithes and offerings. The third leg we’ve already talked about, right? So that’s going to generate for profit ah ROI whether that’s done formally under as an LLC or just as unrelated business income to your nonprofit.
Mark DeYmaz — But the second leg, let me just throw this in there, and answer your question. The second leg I just kind of threw out. What you want to do is create a nonprofit – not many nonprofits, one nonprofit.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good. That’s good.
Mark DeYmaz — That nonprofit is going to have multiple programs within it. Cause most ah, people might approach like I don’t know let’s say they have a heart for foster care. So they start a nonprofit for foster care, or maybe it’s ESL class in immigration. We start an ESL or I’m sorry a nonprofit for that. But when you do that you end up with 8 nonprofits, 8 boards, 8 tax returns, 8 [inaudible] – it’s inefficient
Rich Birch — Oh gosh. Yeah yeah, yeah, super inefficient. Yeah yeah, yeah, super inefficient.
Mark DeYmaz — So what you want to do is create one nonprofit. By the way you don’t want it across town. You want it under your roof so that you’re sharing expenses across the board.
Rich Birch — Right.
Mark DeYmaz — There’s ways the church aggregates that. And this nonprofit—think about it as two sisters in the same house or the defense to the offense—and it’s led by social justice types: compassionate, kind, merciful people. People that go to school for an MSW for instance. Ah that so the first leg is your pastors. The second leg is your MSW types.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Mark DeYmaz — Your third leg is your business people…
Rich Birch — Love it. Powerful.
Mark DeYmaz — …and that’s who [inaudible] right? Now the…
Rich Birch — That would be incredible.
Mark DeYmaz — Right. So the executive director types of your nonprofit, they build out the multiple programs that are meeting and servicing the needs of the community. And again on the economic side where do you get money? You get money by chasing local state and federal grants which are available for these works in ways that they wouldn’t be available if those works were organized under your church.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Mark DeYmaz — So practically what you do is you start with any compassion, mercy and justice work going on in your church, form the nonprofit, and shift those things out from under the oversight of the church, under the oversight of the nonprofit board before you add.
Rich Birch — Right.
Mark DeYmaz — And then you look for money outside. And what happens it’s not just local, state, and federal grants. That’s grants. But donations means there’s there’s Christians in your community, individuals that go to other churches that don’t have a distribution program but they have a passion for food insecurity. And they will donate money not to Mosaic Church, but to the nonprofit Vine & Village.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Mark DeYmaz — Churches will send their money and their people to serve in those programs. You know, churches typically don’t write a check to other churches, right? But they’ll write a check they’ll write your nonprofit a check because and they’ll send people to work. I’ll give you one quick example.
Mark DeYmaz — We have in our city a private Christian school called Episcopal, started by the episcopal diocese, very wealthy school, whatever. And they send, every week, about 6 to 10 of their students in the entire high school (9th through 12th grade)…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Mark DeYmaz — …they send 6 to 10 kids to work in our food distribution program on Tuesdays between 10:30 and 1:30. And they’ve already gone through the entire high school once; now they’re doing it again. And this is partnership for us, right? But they wouldn’t do that if it was Mosaic Church, right? But they do it because it’s a nonprofit. And I’ll just end with this, right now I invite your listeners to pray. But um, for fifteen months we have chased a $3.5 million dollar grant from the state of Arkansas…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Mark DeYmaz — And nonprofit was awarded that grant, and it’s down to one vote of a congressional committee in the state of Arkansas that has to vote.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Mark DeYmaz — And but we’ve already passed 9 out of the 10 tests…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Mark DeYmaz —…and we’re just [inaudible] 10 tests. But that would be $3.5 million dollars to our nonprofit.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s amazing.
Mark DeYmaz — And I and when I met with the State Comptroller fifteen months ago and I sat down to discuss this this work, the first question he asked me was, now is this a church? That’s what he said. Now is this a church?
Rich Birch — Interesting.
Mark DeYmaz — And I said no, it’s a it’s a 501c3 community development corporation that’s a separate nonprofit. And he said it’s hard to give away money. And what he meant was…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Mark DeYmaz — …if you were a church, you might as well walk out now because you’re not getting a penny.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Mark DeYmaz — But because you’re structured as a nonprofit and essentially we have a letter, we’ve been awarded three and a half million pending…
Rich Birch — That’s amazing.
Mark DeYmaz — …the vote ah the the final vote of a congressional committee.
Rich Birch — This one one next step. That’s amazing. That’s amazing. This has been incredible, Mark. I really appreciate you leaning in on this and you know so clear and so passionate. I appreciate you coming back and pushing us. I’m hoping listeners as you’re listening in today ah, you’re thinking, hey man we should take a step on this. And I think a now real practical next step is I would love people to go and pick up a copy of your book. It’s just simply called The Coming Revolution in Church Economics: Why (what we’ve been talking about) Why Tithes and Offerings Are No Longer Enough and What You Can Do About It. People can pick that up at Amazon; is there anywhere else we want to send them to pick up copies of this? Personally what I think this would be a great thing to do, friends, you’re looking for you know your next staff training thing. Buy copies of this book. Buy 10 copies of this book for your entire staff. Read it together and then talk about, hey what what changes should we make? How does this affect the way we’re doing what we’re doing. But where else we want to send people if they want to pick up copies of this book?
Mark DeYmaz — Well, you know I mean I’m pretty simple guy. You already mentioned Amazon. Anywhere where books are sold, Barnes and Nobles, wherever.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Mark DeYmaz — I’m sure Baker, my publisher, would love for you to go to their website and buy it.
Rich Birch — Sure, sure.
Mark DeYmaz — But to your greater point, yes, this is what people are doing. They’re buying a copy…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Mark DeYmaz — …for every one of their elders, every one of their staff…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Mark DeYmaz — …and they’re walking it through, and reading it through because frankly in that book I also talked about the entirety of the three-legged stool.
Rich Birch — Right.
Mark DeYmaz — But but more than that it’s beyond the economics of the all, it’s really about freeing your mind. In fact, there’s an entire chapter called Free your Mind.
Rich Birch — Yes, love it.
Mark DeYmaz — And and even if you your thing wasn’t economics, it will drive you to think differently, and ultimately about the Twenty-first century.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. Appreciate you, Mark. Thank you so much for your leadership. Thanks for your encouragement today. Where do we want to send people online if we want them to track with you or with the church or with Mosaix Global, or where do we want to send them?
Mark DeYmaz — Yeah, the best way and and that’s what we do and I appreciate bringing it up – mosaix.info m o s a i x dot info – we are literally helping churches, organizations—my next call in 15 minutes as was a very large global organization—but again Mosaix has products and services, people to help you build healthy multi-ethnic, socially just, culturally intelligent, financially sustainable churches. That’s what we do day in and day out.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Mark DeYmaz — And and it’s kind of like you just pick one – hey we want to work on our economics, or we want to work on our cultural intelligence, or we’re looking to hire diverse staff. So we have different departments, if you will, that will help you with any one of these angles or aspects you’re looking to move your church forward into the Twenty-first century and move away from Twentieth century metrics.
Rich Birch — So good.
Mark DeYmaz — Again to be healthy, not only survive and be sustainable ultimately sustainable for the sake of the gospel going forward in the century.
Rich Birch — So good. Appreciate you, sir. Thank you so much. Thanks for being on the show and all encouragement to you. I look forward to hearing about that donation coming in from ah you know the gift. That’s so good.
Mark DeYmaz — Yeah, you will pray with us. Thanks so much for having me, Rich.
Rich Birch — Take care, brother.
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Lee Coate, the executive pastor at The Crossing in Las Vegas, and the president of Growmentum Group.
Today Lee is talking with us about Growmentum Group, how they are helping church leaders accomplish their missions, and how to use the different seasons of leadership that are found on your teams.
- Accomplish your mission. // Growmentum works with churches to help them accomplish their missions. They value partnerships and offer a full access relationship with the executive leaders that come to them. By providing an outside voice and reaching out to church leaders on a regular basis, they help you to work on the ministry while working in it.
- Become farsighted again. // The last few years forced church leaders to plan more short-term. As a result we’ve become shortsighted in our leadership and vision and are struggling to think in a more futuristic way. Growmentum works with churches to become more farsighted in their vision and examine if their values are more actual, or aspirational. It’s ok to have aspirational values, but then we need to build some farsighted vision around how to make them more actual.
- Work on it, not just in it. // As leaders we have to be really intentional to model farsightedness by looking ahead in ministry and not only focusing on today. Schedule “work on it” meetings that are isolated from your normal work. Get your team together to work on ministry, uninterrupted, at least once a month. Hold quarterly half-day “work on it” meetings with the decision makers, and annually get away a day or two away to set the farsighted vision.
- Widen the targets. //If most churches could get a 10 year target, paint a three year picture, and operate on a one year plan, quarter by quarter, on a regular basis they would start to see their mission gain some ground. Target more widely and not only specifically.
- Seasons of life and leadership. // Everyone wants high capacity leaders on their teams, but would we be prepared for what they’d demand from us? Different age groups translate to different seasons of leadership, and each brings different strengths and weaknesses to the table. Lee has identified these four main seasons as: Princes and Princesses (18-25 year olds), Warriors and Warrioresses (roughly between 25-40 years old); Kings and Queens, and then Sages and Muses.
You can find Lee Coate on most social media sites or send him an email. If you’d like to know more about Growmentum Group you can learn more at growmentumgroup.com. Or follow along with The Crossing at thecrossinglv.com.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Well hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in today. Super excited for today’s conversation—a repeat guest—which you know when it’s a repeat guest, this is somebody that you are going to want to lean in on. Lee Coate he is the Executive Pastor at The Crossing in Vegas as well as the President of Growmentum Group. Growmentum Group offers executive leadership coaching, strategic momentum consulting, and customized really solutions to help organizations reach their full potential. Lee, so glad that you are here today. Thanks for being on the show.
Lee Coate — Rich, thanks for having me back, man. I enjoyed getting to connect with you, and it’s good to to connect with you even when we’re not riding our Pelotons and actually being able to have a conversation.
Rich Birch — Exactly, exactly.
Lee Coate — So I feel like we should be on our Pelotons riding as we have this conversation. But…
Rich Birch — It’s true. It’s true.
Lee Coate — It’s good to be with you guys and all the church leaders that’ll be listening. Hopefully this will be a helpful conversation.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s true. I do love the Peloton. We’ve gone through this this challenge, every day of the month challenge, which is really fun actually. And it was people all from all over North America and which is really cool. This is small group was kind of a fun. The Peloton’s been fantastic. Yeah.
Lee Coate — I was waking up every day. I was waking up every day to those messages, you know, hey I did my ride I did my ride. So it was very motivational for those of us on the west coast that were coming in later to the process. It was great.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah I don’t I the people that ride at the end of the day, I’m always like that’s impressive. I cannot do that. Like the guys that ride like at night, I’m like that’s crazy. That’s that’s unbelievable.
Lee Coate — Now I’m a first first thing in the morning. Whatever it is has got to happen or it’s not going to happen.
Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely for sure. Well what we want to do today, I want to take advantage of the fact that you have ah a really… well first of all, fill out the story. Tell us a little bit more about Growmentum; tell us about you know the church. Give us what what did I miss there in that description?
Lee Coate — Ah, you you did well; you didn’t miss much. But you know, Rich, you know after about 35, 40 years of ministry, you know, and and this season where I still feel like you know there’s a lot to contribute. I’m still operating on a day-to-day basis as an executive pastor here in Vegas. And so um, kind of boots on the ground on a regular basis, but also over the last few years have come together with K Chung who is really the founder and the CEO of a group that we call Growmentum. And it really kind of accelerated like many things in COVID as church leaders kind of you know took hit after hit and were really looking for some um, someplace to come together.
Lee Coate — And so Growmentum really has evolved, but it’s also accelerated. We’re working with churches all over the country, even have a couple now in Canada, so there you go, Rich.
Rich Birch — Nice. Love it. So good. Okay.
Lee Coate — And it’s it’s really just um, us partnering and our mission is really to help them accomplish their mission. We really value relationships and partnerships in that process. And so some of what we do uniquely is kind of a full access relationship. So we have a lot of guys that are on the executive level that you know are not only doing some of the formal stuff that we, do boots on the ground with them and with their team. But also you know hey they’re reaching out on a regular basis which makes my text messages and emails and all of that really interesting. But if I can contribute from an objective standpoint, right?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lee Coate — We all need those individuals that are not there in it, so that we can work on it with them. So one of our things that we say, our axioms, is we want to be that group that helps you work on it when you’re in the midst of working in it. And what the challenge is when we are pulling away, we’re pulling our team away or we’re just having a meeting that the agenda is work on it, we all realize that the work in it is not happening. And so it has to be really really intentional. Because the drift to the work in it is always going to be the pull. And so part of what we’ve tried to do with clients and then just people that are in our network is just one, that encouragement to work on it. And then tools and things that they can have that conversation around.
Lee Coate — I mean you see this all the time, Rich. It’s like guys going man I’ve got this meeting. Or I want my culture to get better. I don’t know what to do. Like I’ve got a meeting in 20 minutes and I want to build the [inaudible] culture; I have no clue what to do.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lee Coate — And so we try to provide them with regular tools as well, both in conversations and through other resources to do that. And so hopefully today’ll be a bit more of that, maybe on a wider scale as we kind of talk together.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love it. So good. And I love your heart for serving church leaders, and you know, friends, I’m a huge fan of us having a strategic outsider, someone who can provide that like you say work on it ah, you know when you’re in the midst of working in it. And so just so good. And I so want to encourage people to get it make it make sure they get a chance to connect with you and and with Growmentum. I think you guys do great work.
Rich Birch — So you have an interesting vantage point because you see a lot of different churches. A lot of different um, whether it’s you know, direct coaches the churches that you’re coaching or it’s just through you know discussions with other folks in Growmentum. When you think about um, you know, the issues that seem to be top of mind that you keep coming back to time again, or maybe you keep seeing the impact of those like oh here’s here’s like a um, you know a thing that we just keep seeing you know as we’re as I look around the landscape, what would that be? What would be some of those things that come, you know, time and again that that you think might be interesting for us to tackle today?
Lee Coate — I think I’ll start with this one…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Lee Coate — …and what we like to say is this is like you know we we’ve kind of become so shortsighted in our leadership in, in our vision, so we’ve become we’ve got into the habit of being shortsighted in our vision that now we’ve we as leaders are struggling probably in life, but specifically in the church to really begin to think in a much more futuristic way. Let me explain what I mean. Like during COVID, and again I I don’t want to have COVID conversations, as you don’t either, Rich, right? We’re like we’re we’re all so fatigued.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lee Coate — But I think one of the things that we learned there is we were forced habitually to think as leaders in a very shortsighted manner, right? We were you were doing it. We were doing it. You were encouraging and coaching guys like we don’t know what’s going to happen. You’re you’re on a 30 to 60 day plan, right?
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Lee Coate — And that’s what we were doing, and that was necessary. But what happened I believe as I’m starting to talk to guys is that sort of became ingrained.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Lee Coate — And so now it’s like all of the sudden we start to emerge and it’s like how do we get farsighted again? We’ve become so nearsighted in our style. And then you couple that with whatever leadership fatigue they’re they’re dealing with, whatever the team exhaustion they’re dealing with. And then to go, Okay, how do we get farsighted again?
Rich Birch — Right.
Lee Coate — So a lot of the work that we’ve been doing specifically in the last year and a half is helping guys to build some structure that would begin to bring that farsightedness back into view for them, right? When we talk a lot, and we’ll talk in a minute about some team health things, I think one of the key components of team health is also making sure that the team actually understands the unique missional objective that we as a as church are trying to accomplish, right?
Lee Coate — We say something at Growmentum. We say, strategy drives our vision through our values towards our mission, right? And so mission mission is the same for all churches – Matthew 28 Jesus kind of gave it to us, so we can’t really change it, right?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lee Coate — We don’t have that option…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yes.
Lee Coate — …but we all say it in different ways.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lee Coate — We all use our own language, right? So then we get to values, and values are really unique. I think values are actually under underappreciated.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lee Coate — So that’s a secondary thing we’ve been looking at with churches. It’s like sometimes churches just kind of throw values on the wall, or you know it’s something on their website, but values to me should be what’s unique. Why do you exist when our church exists up the street, or that other church exists? It’s because there’s a uniqueness to who you are, what you guys care about, and so we’ve got to filter all of our decisions through that. So we challenge teams right now really to get more farsighted in their vision, and then are your values more actual or more aspirational, right?
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Lee Coate — And really have a conversation around that. Like are these values that were just and it’s okay to have, Rich, a few aspirational things. There’s nothing wrong with that. But to just be aware that currently, whatever it might be, you know we want to be a come as you are environment. Is that actually happening or is that just more aspirational? If it’s more aspirational…
Rich Birch — Oh right.
Lee Coate — …maybe we can build some more farsighted vision around how to make that more true.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lee Coate — And then the last thing really goes to vision, which is like ten or three years, and then strategy which is like what do we need to do tomorrow? Like what do we need to do tomorrow…
Rich Birch — Right.
Lee Coate — …to make sure that that mission gets accomplished. So that’s a long answer but I really see that more and more being the case of like how do we get leaders farsighted, and how do they lean back into why they uniquely are positioned where they are.
Rich Birch — Oh I love that. Let’s talk about that farsighted issue first. What would be some of the kind of evidence that you’re seeing in churches that maybe we’re not thinking far enough down the road that we’re you know we’re we’re being too, you know we’re thinking too much about this weekend or we’re caught too much in in ah, you know this kind of current situation, rather than looking up over the hill.
Lee Coate — Um, yeah I think it’s a continuation of that work in it conversation, right?
Rich Birch — Yep yep.
Lee Coate — The the demands I mean that’s not a new that’s not new ground we’re treading, right? The demands of the day and and all of those things. I think as leaders like if you’re an executive level leader or you’re leading a team, I think part of it is we have to really be intentional to model that. Right? If we’re affirming all the work in it all the time or every meeting that we’re having it has an agenda that’s very “work in it”. That’s going to become just by nature very nearsighted.
Rich Birch — Oh That’s good.
Lee Coate — But if we’re having time that we’re intentionally setting aside to say listen, we’re going to work on it in this in this environment. Like we actually I actually believe that teams need a rhythm in meetings that doesn’t just have a part of the meeting that’s “work on it”. I don’t think that works I think the work in it will always invade and overwhelm. I actually would encourage our listeners, whatever their rhythm of meeting with their team is, to actually isolate that “work on it” time.
Rich Birch — Oh love it. Yeah.
Lee Coate — And it needs and it needs to happen minimally on a monthly basis, right? So then it’s not just a quarterly or ah or a yearly annual offsite. But it’s ah a it doesn’t have to be long. It doesn’t have to be it doesn’t even have to be any longer than your normal meeting rhythm, but just like we’re clearing the decks and we’re going to work on it a little bit. I mean here at The Crossing where I’m at serving every day, man we’ve we’ve we’ve wrestled with that same challenge.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes, yeah.
Lee Coate — So it’s not something I’m just observing as I’m out there doing it. It’s something that I’m I’m living out in a in a real way, you know? And so yeah, so that’s part of it.
Rich Birch — Um, when you think about the ratio, even if we’re thinking at a high level around okay, our team’s time invested. Do we think like is it like a you know a third of our time, 10 percent of our time? How much you know when you think of what is a good healthy rhythm. It probably depends on the church. But how often should we be thinking about like I need to get my team away to be thinking about stuff that’s up over the horizon?
Lee Coate — I would loosely say there should be a once a month rhythm of a normal non non-evasive meeting that’s work on it.
Rich Birch — Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lee Coate — You know where it’s like yeah we’re just in the room and and we’re just all coming together. I would say quarterly I would encourage at least a half day with your executive – those that are decision makers. And then of course annually a day or two away to really set that farsighted vision that’s going. We’ve we’ve we’ve introduced a lot of churches to EOS and using that system; some of your listeners will know it. Um we we don’t dive deep into it because we believe that you know 99% of churches (I just made that number up, Rich), but you know the large large percentage of churches if they could just get a ten year target, paint a three-year picture and operate on a one-year plan, quarter by quarter. If they just did that on a regular basis and just wash, rinse, repeat, they would start to see their mission that we’ve been given this huge mission we’ve been given. We would start to see that actually start to gain some ground. If we could just get there.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lee Coate — So that’s a big deal.
Rich Birch — Right. Love it. Let’s…
Lee Coate — I think it’s funny, Rich, we actually chart we actually challenge guys, we’ll we’ll say hey tell us what your, you know, give us a sentence or two or two or three bullet points when we start a relationship with them, like what is your ten year target? You would be shocked how hard that is for senior level leaders. And I know some of it is because the recent coaching has always been everything changes so fast. You should think further out. I think I disagree with that a little bit because I think target is very wide. It’s it’s not specific, right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Lee Coate — So like here at The Crossing I’ll I’ll rattle off our target. Our target that we’ve come up with is in 10 years The Crossing will be a multi-generational multiethic network of churches with a median age of 35 that has doubled its outward focused impact. Now what does that mean, what does that mean? What is a network of churches? We actually don’t know yet, right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Lee Coate — Like what does that mean, but I’ll tell you what if we have a target of a median age of 35 because our power lead pastor is going to be moving on in that realm…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Lee Coate — …we got to do some strategic thinking around that, don’t we?
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Lee Coate — That’s not going to happen magically.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lee Coate — So we put that in our targets so that now when we start painting a picture and working every every year, and every every quarter, we’re thinking about how does this contribute to that target more likely being hit. And there’s the last thing, if we don’t hit the target and we fall a little short who cares?
Rich Birch — Yeah, you’ve you’ve gone a long way.
Lee Coate — Because the target…
Rich Birch — Exactly.
Lee Coate — Correct. And so we’ve got a coach guys to get them out of thinking that target is like ah is ah is something that’s like restricting. It’s actually free.
Rich Birch — Well and I love that because there’s there’s like ah you’ve identified even in your ten year target there like durable long term um, yeah, aspirational and actual goals for the organization that kind of regardless of what happens between here and there like the getting younger is a durable issue. We’ve got to figure out how to do that. The becoming multi-generational, becoming multiethnic, like those are like it’s not like 10 years from now the world’s going to change so much that we’re going to say, you know what? I think we should have a less multiethnic church like that’s just not the way the world’s going, right? The reality of it is on that issue alone every zip code in the country is more diverse today than it was ten years ago, and it will be more diverse 10 years from now. And so our church unless we get passionate about how we’re going to do that, um, we’ll just drift. We’ll drift in the wrong direction. I love that. I think that’s so good.
Lee Coate — And what’s what’s what’s exciting is as as I mentioned a moment ago as, Rich—that was so good—as as challenging as it is when we get the team in the room, and the and the lead guy has we’ve worked with us ahead of time and he’s got that sentence or that 3 or 4 points. And we we make him the hero.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Lee Coate — So we step away…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Lee Coate — …and he stands up in front and goes, here’s what I believe the target is. And you know what happens to the team that’s sitting there, right?
Rich Birch — No, I love it that. Yeah.
Lee Coate — All of a sudden they’re going, you know, yes! Like right? And some of that is just give us a target.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes. It’s rallying.
Lee Coate —But then on top of that is like I can get excited to get up every day and rally around…
Rich Birch — Absolutely.
Lee Coate — …that objective because that informs what I’m going to do on a daily basis.
Rich Birch — Yeah I love that. That’s so good. Well let’s let’s let’s hone in on the team issue specifically. You know you mentioned the team there. I know lots of folks that are listening in are executive pastors or senior you know, lead pastors and we’ve got a team. What are you seeing on that front? You know as you’re helping leaders lead their teams, are there regular patterns you’re running into or things that we should be wrestling with and thinking through in this age?
Lee Coate — Um, I think this is probably a pattern that has always been there I think it’s probably a little bit accelerated at the moment. Um, and that is the dynamic between some of our more mature leaders and some of our emerging leaders. And that dynamic, again, I know that it’s always been there but I believe that maybe with some of the acceleration that we’ve seen with especially our emerging leaders like maybe a little bit, and I mean this in ah in a kind way, but a little bit of impatience sometimes that emerges there. I think the dynamic between our emerging leaders and our more mature leaders is definitely something that is an ongoing conversation that I’m having and also an observation. So when I’m sitting with teams, it’s like, Okay, how do I rally these younger leaders while also maintaining a bit of like um my experience, or or my desires, or my my best practices as me as the senior leader needs to see. So I’m personally wrestling with that as well you know in this season of my life.
Lee Coate — You know I’ve I’ve changed my life mission in the I went on sabbatical last summer and came out of it. And one of the things—it’s not a perfect statement, but—I’m still wrestling with is you know personally I believe as I’m in my fifties, the next ten years of my life is really you know how is God how is God powerfully positioned me to influence and serve the leader that I once was – these younger leaders.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Lee Coate — So how can I how am I now powerfully positioned by my experience, etc. not to just continue to be Lee accelerating, but to influence and serve the person that I once was, that I can see that was me, right? And so that’s driven a lot of the conversation around that and how leaders… because we want younger leaders, don’t we?
Rich Birch — Right.
Lee Coate — But we really don’t know what to do with them sometimes.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah, let’s let’s pull…
Lee Coate — Because they they can be challenging.
Rich Birch — Yeah, let’s pull that apart like I think you know this is so I think germane is at the core of so many of our of issues whether it’s um, you know, succession issues, or staff development issues, or even that that aging down issue we just talked about. It’s like we all, you know, I remember years ago a friend of mine said you know the the problem with deciding that you want to lead leaders is that they want to lead. And so when you gather young leaders around you the problem with that is they’re young leaders.
Rich Birch — And so um, you know I think you know you and me are in that kind of like I don’t feel like an old leader yet, I just feel like a leader but I’m definitely not a young leader anymore. I know that. So help us think that through a little bit. What how what how should we be wrestling with it? As maybe someone who does have a few more lap laps on the, you know, on the car. What are some things we should be looking at to kind of engage next generation leaders?
Lee Coate — It’s interesting listening to when you said that because I’ve talked to pastors all the time, both with their staff and probably even with the volunteers, which is another conversation, but they’re constantly saying to me (I know you’re hearing this too), like how do I how do I get more high capacity leaders, right? How do I get stronger leaders?
Lee Coate — And I’ve rarely said this but I’ve often thought this that I don’t know if we are actually prepared for what a high capacity leader would demand of us. Think about the high capacity leaders in the workplace. If if I get some of—and I’ve experienced this—if I get some of those people engaged at the church, they’re not playing. Like they need to know what are we doing, where are we going.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Lee Coate — I have a limited time; I have limited resources. What do you need me to do? So I think sometimes there’s a false narrative where leaders go on I need these high capacity leaders. And if they had them, they wouldn’t know what to do with them. It would freak them out.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lee Coate — So I think we have to think about what is that. But specifically with our staff, one of the things, one of the conversations I’ve been working through with my team is something that I jotted down on a napkin at breakfast. I kind of do some of my best thinking with a napkin and a really sharp Sharpie. Um I sit at the same breakfast place all the time. And the other week I was sitting at the same table and I noticed some of my Sharpie was on the table itself. So probably I probably probably owe them a new table.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Lee Coate — But one of the things that occurred to me is I was thinking about seasons of life and leadership right? Not just younger leaders…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Lee Coate — …but like what are the seasons. And there’s probably a little Richard Rohr and a little John Eldredge woven into this…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lee Coate — …but it’s it’s the idea of like it… And what I’m about to share with you is really not about age, though. There’s obviously some age…
Rich Birch — Some connections. Yeah.
Lee Coate — …built in. Correct. What I mean when I say it’s not about age, I don’t think you get to a certain age and you necessarily transition into this next season.
Rich Birch — Oh good. Yeah yeah, that’s good.
Lee Coate — I think that there’s probably some ballpark of like this is a season based on age. Um, so let me just give them to the listeners and then you and I can banter around about them, you know? Um, ah we start with prince or princess, right? And I think that’s probably like our 18 to 25 year olds, right? I’m talking about your staff leaders, and what’s interesting about these individuals is we call them princes and princesses. I think the term is is really great because I think it it makes sense for um, for that season that they’re in. And what’s great about the prince and princesses, Rich, is they have passion…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lee Coate — …and they have curiosity.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lee Coate — Like they are curious, they are asking questions. They are doing all those things.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lee Coate — And so I love having those princes and princesses around. My son is 24; he’s just joined our staff here at The Crossing.
Rich Birch — Love it. Yeah.
Lee Coate — He is a prince, right? That’s where he is. He’s passionate his life his season of life allows him you know a little more leeway. Um, as far as how engaged he is, right? So their biggest contribution as a prince or princess, if you’re listening right now, your biggest contribution is passion and curiosity, right?
Rich Birch — Love it. Love it.
Lee Coate — But but there’s a dark side.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Lee Coate — And we can stop at each of these. There’s four of ’em, Rich, if you want to.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yep.
Lee Coate — There’s a dark side and um, it’s not going to surprise anybody, but the dark side of a prince or a princess is entitlement. It’s the idea of like I want to move fast. I know it all.
Rich Birch — Right. I know it all. Yeah.
Lee Coate — Right? And I want to be at the table, right now.
Rich Birch — Right, right, right.
Lee Coate — You know I’ve been serving here for six months, why am I not making the the decisions for the direction of the organization?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lee Coate — Right? And if somebody’s listening and they feel like I’m an old guy being cruel… I’m not. Because I was that person too.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes.
Lee Coate — So just so you know we’ve all been there and been that person, and felt that tension.
Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, yeah.
Lee Coate — So that’s the prince and princess stage. That’s really important.
Rich Birch — Yeah, let’s so when we think about… so yeah I think that’s a really vivid picture. I think that’s a you know I think we can picture those people in our um, in our circles. If we don’t have those people I think sometimes those those people can be flushed out of our organization because it’s like we’re scared like you say of passion and curiosity. We don’t know what to do with that. And so it’s funny you say that about your own kid, like my the lead pastor at our church recently, my my daughter is 22 and she’s like super creative and all that. And she and he said to my wife recently he’s like, man we got to figure out some way to how do we harness that – that’s just is so exciting. And I thought that’s an interesting word when you think about the prince and princess. It’s like well there’s a lot of good there. But it’s like hey how do we get that kind of you know in in the right spot. Um, what are the other ones? What are the other kind of categories?
Lee Coate — Somebody once said with prince and prince as I was sharing this a few months ago somebody told me there was parallels with Paul the apostle. And they kind of broke it down and said like when Paul was a prince he was the one holding the coats while they were stoning Stephen. You know he’s kind of there, curious about what’s going on. It’s an interesting playout. So the second one is um, warrior or Warrioress, and this is probably your 25 to 40.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lee Coate — You know, it’s that season where there’s a degree of either purpose that has been discovered, or purpose that is at least desired, right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Lee Coate — So it’s like I have a direction that I want to go. Um the warriors in warrioress, man, they are so vital.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lee Coate — Because they bring the energy to your organization.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lee Coate — Like my team right now is filled with warriors, man. And they are getting bloody every day; they’re strapping the sword on. They’ve got the armor; they are going. And they have it seems like they have unlimited energy, right? And they want and and the the healthy warriors want to, you know, cliché but they want to make a difference. They want to provide value. They want to do all those things.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Lee Coate — Ah the dark side of the dark side of warriors is um, burnout, basically. It’s that idea of you know I’m in this prime season…
Rich Birch — Just keep running.
Lee Coate — …feel like um yeah, they keep running and maybe the purpose that they’re chasing is not discovered or it it starts to be elusive. And so I think some of that can also produce the burnout. I’m doing this over and over and over again and nothing I’m not really ah I’m not really getting where I want to go. I’m not winning the battles, right? What does that mean? So that can lead us to some burnout for sure.
Rich Birch — Love it. Love it.
Lee Coate — So prince/princess, warrior/warrioess…
Rich Birch — And then what’s next?
Lee Coate — …um, third is king and king and queen. Um I don’t know where you are, Rich. This may be you. Um I’m definitely a king.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Lee Coate — And when I say those words sometimes people can think well, you know, that’s ah that sounds kind of arrogant. That’s not the direction. What what it really means is the kings and the queens bring experience.
Rich Birch ‑ Right, right.
Lee Coate — That’s their contribution to the organization. And they provide direction, right? So my biggest contribution right now is I’ve got all these warriors…
Rich Birch ‑ Right.
Lee Coate — …and if I’m constantly going hey guys, let’s go this way and here’s what you need to be aware of, right? And let’s sit down together and let’s review everything so that I can use my experience to help you avoid things. And they’re like cool, right? Here’s the thing that’s interesting with my warriors is I need to strap the armor on once in a while; I need to put the sword on. I need to get in it with them.
Rich Birch ‑ Right.
Lee Coate — There’s certain moments where it’s like I need to get in there. But what’s interesting is they love that. But then there’s also a moment where they’ll say, leave; we’re good. We got it.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Lee Coate — We’ll let you know if we need you again, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lee Coate — And so again and and I don’t want I don’t have the energy to be in there now. The the dark side of Kings and queens is they get they can check out, right? We can get to the point where you know we’ve kind of arrived maybe; we’re not as ambitious anymore. Um, we don’t have the energy, and so in some ways we can check out and just put our lives put our leadership lives on cruise control. And nobody nobody even knows it cause sometimes as a king and queen it’s pretty easy to just kind of sit on the throne and not really do anything…
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Lee Coate — …that’s moving the organization forward.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Lee Coate — By the way, Rich, if if you walk into a room and you have to tell someone you’re a king, or you have to announce that. You’re not.
Rich Birch — You’re not a king.
Lee Coate — You’re not a king.
Rich Birch — Yes, exactly.
Lee Coate — So if anybody listening if you’ve got to go in and say, guys, I listened to Lee and Rich and I’m a king.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Lee Coate — You’re not the king.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, totally.
Lee Coate — The king whenever a king walks in the room, people know the king’s in the room, or the queen’s in the room.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, that totally, absolutely, yeah.
Lee Coate — They just know; they defer.
Rich Birch — That’s vivid. That’s very and that’s interesting you say the dark side around that kind of like being checked out that being, you know, like not not as engaged. I remember ten years ago I was with a lead pastor of a very large church and definitely in the king phase, and I remember him saying, he said—and it was like a bit of a shocker—and at the time I was like I don’t get what you’re saying because—maybe it was more like fifteen years ago—he was like well you know this is not like a full-time job. Like this isn’t this doesn’t take all of me. Like I I and I remember at the time thinking that’s very odd, like that’s an odd thing to say. I’m like you’re leading a church, at this point was like you know tens of thousands of people and, but now I can kind of see that where I’m like there’s it. It can create that opportunity for you to just as you know on the negative side of you know, being a king just kind of amass your kingdom and sit back and let all the let all the warriors take care of everything. Interesting.
Lee Coate — Where I where I think this is important to talk about with your team is I think warriors will get frustrated with kings and queens…
Rich Birch — Right.
Lee Coate — …if they experience that, right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Lee Coate — Because again the warriors they just want direction. They don’t need you fighting every battle, but man they’re going to get frustrated if you don’t provide them.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Lee Coate — And by the way if you’re a warrior, nobody wants a warrior that acts like a king.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Lee Coate — So if you’re in a warrior phase, be a warrior, right?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lee Coate — When it’s time to be a King…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yes.
Lee Coate — …we’ll all know that and and lean into it. The last one, Rich, is what we call a sage or a muse. This is you know, what that latter season of life and their greatest contribution is wisdom and being advisory um, as they’re on the team. I think this can also be maybe kind of as a side note something that we can look at even as our church, you know, there’s something about this probably that also speaks to our church, our congregation, our volunteer structure, all of those things, right? Because there’s always that tension between what do we do with the more you know mature people in our church. But man if someone’s a sage and they know that, and they embrace it, that is so amazing.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s huge. It’s huge.
Lee Coate — That is so healthy they can bring that with time now. The dark side of a sage is they have an agenda.
Rich Birch — Okay, what do you mean by that?
Lee Coate — So well I mean and we all experience. It’s like when you’re a sage and I bring you into the room and you say listen, here’s here’s what I’ve learned, here’s what I think, here’s what I would suggest you do, go do that, let me know how that goes. Right?
Rich Birch — Okay, okay, yeah.
Lee Coate — And and and they’re kind of like, you know, it’s not that they’re disengaged. They just understand their role, right. But if you’re a sage and you’ve got an agenda behind the advice that you’re giving, that can be unhealthy, right? It can be it’s that older staff person that really is giving advice based on I don’t I don’t like these changes, or I don’t I don’t think this, right? They’re they’re giving advice with a personal agenda.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lee Coate — That can be the dark side of being a sage or a muse.
Rich Birch — So then…
Lee Coate — And we have to work really hard to move people along, rich, in this. We do…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Lee Coate — I had a prince that was on my team in the last year and as their role evolved, we really needed them to start warrioring and they literally said, not not with words but with action, I’m not ready to do that and I don’t want to do it. And so they chose to do something else, right?
Rich Birch — Interesting.
Lee Coate — Because they like being a prince. I mean think about a prince. Princes aren’t princes are usually like they’re not like; they’re born that way, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lee Coate — Like when you’re a prince, it’s like you just all that’s all you know. I’m a prince.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Lee Coate — And so you have to move them out of that stage…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lee Coate — …into like no, it’s time to go to battle. So.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s I think that’s a really helpful framework. It’s a creative framework ;I think it’s a helpful framework too to think. Because I’ve even said I’ve said to young leaders, like it doesn’t bother me as ah as a leader to look at somebody in their twenties who is kind of they’re still trying to figure it out like they’re they’re trying different things they’re like in and out of stuff. And but there is there’s a weird moment there which I’ve so I’ve said to people I’m like there, I don’t know when it is I don’t have a way to prescribe it, but it’s like if you keep doing that it goes from being like a normal behavior which in this case is I would say is a princely behavior, or a princess behavior, of like hey I’m trying to figure out I got lots of passion I got lots of curiosity I’m trying different things. But then eventually if you just keep keep stuck in that phase then you get passed over. Because people are like no well we actually need warriors. We need we need you to settle down on something and to, you know, take up arms and and push forward. Um yeah I think that’s really fascinating. What a fascinating work.
Rich Birch — Now this is interesting framework. How have you found this helpful as you’ve been engaging with your team at the church or with other, you know, with other churches.
Lee Coate — Yeah I mean I think so pretty simply it’s it’s you know it’s something that you know just trying to kind of build out obviously…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Lee Coate — …it’s something new but you know in the culture meetings that we have here at The Crossing when I stand in front of the team. It’s become language that you’ll hear them use. Right? And so as we’ve kind of unpacked it a little bit…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Lee Coate — …in a facilitated way now you’ll start to hear, yeah, he’s that you know that’s a prince thing. Or he’s not in ah, not in a detrimental way but more in a like understanding way.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Lee Coate — And then as so as as this is something that has started to take some form, there have been a lot of occasions with teams and churches that this has been really helpful, you know in that work on it rhythm that I’m talking about, this would be an example of something where hey we’ve got an hour or 2 hours we’re gonna sit, and we’re gonna we’re gonna wrestle with this. Where are you; where is your team? What is your best contribution? Are you leaning into the dark side a little bit? I mean you know your listeners are already going, yeah, this is a rich conversation that they can have.
Rich Birch — Interesting, interesting. So good. Well I love this. This is so helpful. Um, what ah what a cool framework. As we went through this, you know, I was just recently in the last six months I was talking to a king um, in your language, who um they they were they’ve come to a bit of a a crossroads where they’re they’re feeling that pressure of like okay, so now what? They’re like now now what do I do? And um, are are really asking the question am I going to warrior for the next ten, fifteen years? Am I going to you know do I do I have you know it kind of in me to continue on in a purpose, or do I need to say do I need to really switch to being a sage or a muse? And and and and they definitely are feeling that, you know, I think that checkout thing really strongly because they’re like like my life just keeps running. It’s fine like it’s all it’s all fine; nothing’s not you know there’s no, nothing’s really nobody’s burning the bridges at the door. We can keep going as we’re going, so I just think this is really helpful, Lee. I appreciate this framework; this is great.
Lee Coate — Absolutely. I wonder if there isn’t I mean anything to the quietly quitting conversation again. Not a conversation we want to have again.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lee Coate — But I don’t I think this could I think this could also contribute to some of that…
Rich Birch — Sure. Yeah.
Lee Coate — …if there was frustration on a team where they could have a better understanding of where they currently were…
Rich Birch — Right.
Lee Coate — …and what that would demand of them. So I think I think that would be really key. I would say, Rich, as well before we close up is that, you know, somebody asked me and I think it’s true. I think that again I said this is an age. I think there are things where it’s a season like I would say in my executive pastor work I’m a king. I would say in my Growmentum work I’m probably in a warrior season, frankly. I’m using that king experience and direction. But as far as like what I’m doing and digging a new thing out of the ground. It’s kind of a warrioring.
Rich Birch — Oh yeah, that’s a good phrase.
Lee Coate — So that’s where I think sometimes even a king might say—some of the people you reference—it may be time for them to find, if they’re not ready to be a sage, they need to find an area of their life where they can warrior again a little bit, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah, totally. Yep.
Lee Coate — And lean in a little bit if they’re feeling bored or those things. So I think it’s just a I think it’s a I think it’s just a healthy conversation to have…
Rich Birch — Yeah, interesting discussion. That’s so good.
Lee Coate — …thanks for letting us have it rich.
Rich Birch — Yeah it’s so great. Now we’ll we’ll in our show notes what we’ve got. Like ah you put together a slide that talks through all of these. Um I’d encourage you, friends, you should take that, print it, maybe hang it in your desk somewhere or you know in your office. It might be something that could be interesting to ah come back to time and again as you’re thinking about your team and wrestling through.
Rich Birch — Now, Lee, I want to make sure people get a chance to connect with you just as we close up. Where do we want to send them online to to talk to connect with you, with the church, with Growmentum – where are all the places that they can chase you down?
Lee Coate — Absolutely; it’s really simple. Obviously if you’re a social media person I’m there living life on social media like everybody else. And so it’s just simple; all of the handles there are @leecoate. I haven’t left Twitter yet so you can find me there, but mostly on on Instagram.
Lee Coate — But then more importantly you can follow Growmentum Group. We’re on Instagram and you can email me specifically and I can have some conversations if you’d love for me or our team to have more conversations with you. If this conversation would be helpful to have in person or Zoom we can do that. But it’s Lee—very simple—lee@growmentumgroup.com
Rich Birch — Love it.
Lee Coate — lee@growmentumgroup.com – I’m sure it’ll be in the notes as well.
Rich Birch — Yeah, totally; we’ll link to it there.
Lee Coate — So I love to have a conversation with anybody who wants to have it. But praying for the leaders out there. It’s not easy; lean in. We’re gonna we’re we’re gaining ground. So let’s keep doing this thing.
Rich Birch — Love it. And and, friends, you know I don’t so first of all I think if if anything today you’ve said like oh I think I’d like to talk to Lee or the folks at Growmentum, act on that instinct. Don’t don’t just let that pass you by; reach out. So I I don’t do this for everybody; I really do trust Lee. I think he’s he there’s there are people (shocker) who are in this market who see it as a market, but that like Lee doesn’t. Lee sees it as a chance to try to help church leaders. I know he wants to help you, wants to come alongside you and be a strategic outsider to help you think about these things. And I would strongly encourage, recommend, endorse that you reach out to him if you’ve got any question. This would be a perfect year if you do not have someone like Lee in your corner, this would be a perfect year to do that. So thanks so much Lee; I appreciate you being on the show. Thanks for coming. We’ll have you back in the future. Love, love talking to you. Thanks, buddy.
Lee Coate — Thanks, Rich; appreciate it, bud.
Thanks for tuning in to the unSeminary podcast. We’re with returning guests Scot Longyear and Heath Bottomly today. Heath is the Lead Pastor of the Creative Teams at Pure Heart Church in Arizona and Scot is the Senior Pastor of Maryland Community Church in Indiana.
Scot and Heath talk with us about their book Fight For The Future: Creating The Right Blueprint For Building God-Sized Dreams.
- From dreaming to doing. // Individuals, ministries and churches often talk about things that they should do, things that are a good vision or a good dream, but we don’t take action. In Fight For The Future, Scot and Heath talk about moving from the dreaming stage to the doing stage. This process consists of three key elements: the right things, the right reasons, and the right people.
- Right things. // One of the hardest things churches wrestle with is believing that the right things are simply good things. Because we all want to do good things, churches can have an avalanche of good things thrown in our laps. Before we know it, we’re giving a small amount of energy to a large number of good things and aren’t accomplishing significant milestones in any of them. Fight For The Future asks what is that thing you are called to; what is that dream in your mind and heart, and how can you intentionally pursue it?
- Discovering the right things. // To find what your church is called to do, ask what are your church’s passions? Where has the Lord placed you in your city or in certain relationships that you have? What are your resources, and what is the Lord stirring up in your heart?
- Right reasons. // We are all creative beings and we’re all building something. The question is why we are building what we’re building. Is what you’re building largely about yourself and your empire or legacy, or is it about God’s kingdom?
- Right people. // We all struggle with finding the right people in ministry. At Maryland Community Church, the team filters potential hires through a long process to see if they are the right culture fit. During this process Scot asks the potential hire just two questions: What am I going to learn about you in six months that will surprise or embarrass me? If I have to stand in front of our congregation and read a resignation letter from you because of a moral failure, what would that moral failure be?
- Missional unity. // In some cases we need to hire people who are really specialized at what they do. But if someone is super-talented and not aligned with the mission of your church, they are not the right person. The mission needs to be more important than the talent, and the work can’t be about perfection, but rather excellence – knowing you did your best.
- Hand off leadership to the next generation. // If we’re not in the process of working to figure out how to hand off leadership and responsibilities to the next generation, it goes back to the mindset that we’re building an empire around ourselves. A kingdom-focused mindset goes out and multiplies.
You can learn more about the book at www.scotlongyear.com and pick it up online.
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Leadership Pathway
If you are trying to find, develop and keep young leaders on your team look no further than Leadership Pathway. They have worked with hundreds of churches, and have interviewed thousands of candidates over the past several years. They are offering a new ebook about five of the core competencies that are at the heart of the leadership development process with every church that they partner with…just go to leadershippathway.org/unseminary to pick up this free resource.
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Well hey everybody welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. It is a great day today. We have got, in fact I think this is the first time on in the history, you know, 600 episodes in that this has happened. We have previous guests who have both done solo episodes that now are coming on a combined episode. Super exciting. What does that mean? That means you’re in for a real treat today. We’ve got Scot Longyear and Heath Bottomly with us. Heath is the Lead Pastor of Creative Teams at Pure Heart Church which has two campuses in Arizona if I can count correct. Ah, he’s also the ah the co-owner of Media Maven Publications and he’s a creative strategist beyond incredible experience called the Experience Conference. Scot Longyear is the senior pastor of Maryland Community Church which is one of the fastest growing churches in the country, not in Maryland though, in Indiana just to throw curve balls because he’s so creative. Um, and he is also the Pastor of Experience Conference and is is a co-host of the really popular and incredible Worship Leader Problems or Probs podcast because they’re so cool. Ah Scot ah, Heath, so glad you’re here. Welcome to the podcast. So so thanks for being on the show today.
Heath Bottomly — Thanks for having us.
Scot Longyear — Hey, thanks for having us. Yeah, yeah.
Rich Birch — Now this is going to be good. I’m excited about this. I saw recently that you guys released a book and today, again, we’re breaking with tradition. Normally, friends, I like to talk with our guests, and then if they got a book, talk about it at the end. But actually I want you to check this book out so much I want to get it right up front. So the name of this book is Fight for the Future: Creating the Right Blueprint for Building God-sized Dreams. Um Scot, why don’t you tell us why did you guys collaborate on this book? Why this book? Why take the time, effort, and energy to put this thing together?
Scot Longyear — Well I think, Rich, we’ve we’ve just found you know there are a lot of people that talk about like, man, we should… and we should do this, and man, if our church did this and did this. And and’ll I’ll couch it in a story. Um, ah just ah, probably one of the one of the biggest lessons I learned when I had lunch with John Maxwell, which sounds really awesome, doesn’t it? To say like ah um…
Rich Birch — It’s a nice name drop. That’s a great name drop right there. Just right you should have rolled right past it. That would have been great. Well, you know me and John, so I sometimes call him Johnny ah, love it.
Heath Bottomly — Yeah, yeah.
Scot Longyear — Right, it’ll seem less impressive when I tell you how we did it. So…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Scot Longyear — Years ago we’re at a we’re at a conference. There’s about 2000 people that are there. I’m attending a conference with some of our staff. And John Maxwell is teaching on stage, doing his thing. And in one of the sessions he says, Hey I was teaching you know last year and there you there were three guys in the front row while I was teaching, they just flipped up this sign that said: Lunch – we will buy. And so John just tells the story. And so I look at some of the guys that are with me, and we’re younger and we’ve probably got more ambition than brains. And we’re just like, Whoa.
Rich Birch — Let’s do it.
Scot Longyear — So we break we break from that session. We go back and we’re we’re finding the church staff. We like we need some cardboard and a Sharpie. So we we get a cardboard in this Sharpie. They start the second session. Again, this is there’s about 2000 people. It’s this this new, but very traditional church so they have this giant choir loft. So John starts teaching from stage and as he’s teaching we go up behind him in the choir loft the three of us walk up sit down and then we just flip this sign up that we made says this says: Lunch – we will buy.
Rich Birch — Love it. Love it.
Scot Longyear — So John’s teaching and some people just start they start laughing. And so he stops; he doesn’t know what what to do. And then he turns around. And and I don’t know ah, Rich, if you’ve ever had one of those occasions in your life where time kind of stops. And then you think…
Heath Bottomly — You’re questioning everything.
Scot Longyear — So it was kind of this slow mo thing he turns around and and he looks at the three of us. And I had two thoughts going through my head. I thought this was a terrible idea.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Scot Longyear — And I think I think we’re going to get kicked out of a John Maxwell seminar, right?
Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes.
Scot Longyear — So he looks at us and he’s quiet for like 2 seconds, which seems like three days. And then he starts laughing. And he says, hey Charlie—which is an assistant or something—he says, make room for three more guys for lunch.
Rich Birch — Love it. Love it.
Scot Longyear — And I’m like so takes us in a back room. We have lunch with John Maxwell, and like a few other guys. And we’re like that we’re just we’re just the peasants that came like to the king’s table, right?
Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes.
Scot Longyear — But I didn’t care. We’re in the room do the thing. But the most surprising thing to me, Rich, was after that we’re walking the hallways a little bit as the hero, to be honest with you.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Scot Longyear — And people were like, whoa man, how was lunch with John Maxwell? And I’m like well how was your lunch you know? Like um, but what surprised me is that is that several people in different conversations said this: man, me and my me, my guys, we talked about doing that.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s so good.
Scot Longyear — Man, when we heard John when we heard John say that, we thought about that. And the only the only reason I had lunch with John Maxwell that day is because I acted on the dream, right?
Rich Birch — Right. Bias for action. Love it.
Scot Longyear — And so many times we’re just like here’s a good dream, here’s a good vision, but we get locked up in that, and we don’t do anything. And so we took a real hard look at the book of Nehemiah, put our heads together, and said how is it the Lord teaches in in the book of Nehemiah, which are principles for today. How do we move from just this dreaming stage to this actual doing stage?
Rich Birch — Oh love it. Yeah, and I love this book I think this could be a real gift. Here we are, you know, at the beginning of the year where all this is the natural time of year where we’re all thinking like, hmm I wonder what’s this year going to be. This would be a great thing I think to process with your team together friends. Now um, Heath, I wonder if you could… So this that you’ve broken it up. I love this book because you’ve broken it up into just three really big ideas. Stuff I can get my head around. I’m a simple guy. Right things, right reasons, right people. Talk me through right things. Maybe I’m the guy maybe I’m the person who’s like the bias for action dude. I’m willing to do anything. How do I know if I’m heading in the right direction? I’m doing the right things. Help me unpack that.
Heath Bottomly — Well I mean I think we even jump into a few different myths in the book um, confronting them and and a lot because a lot of times we think the right things are simply good things. And and that’s probably one of the hardest things that churches wrestle with because we all want to do good things. Ah, and so because of that though we end up getting this this avalanche of good things thrown in our laps, and if we don’t come up with them someone else in the community is coming up with and you know what you should do. You know, and and before you know it um, you are giving 2% of energy to each individual thing.
Rich Birch — So true.
Heath Bottomly — And not really accomplishing… I mean I don’t want to say you’re not accomplishing anything but you’re not accomplishing significant milestones in any of these areas, because you’re not actually giving them the energy that they’re due.
Heath Bottomly — And so ah the right things in the context of this book is going, what is the thing that you know that you can do, and that you’re called to? What is that what is that idea that dream in your mind and your heart and focus in on that and then intentionally take the steps in order to pour the the most amount of energy towards accomplishing those things.
Heath Bottomly — Ah and because otherwise the the thing that will derail the the biggest dreams of God for your life are good things. Because they aren’t bad things, because it’s easy to say no to bad; you can just go, no we ain’t doing that. Good things, man, it’s it’s hard to talk yourself out of doing some of these good things.
Rich Birch — Absolutely.
Heath Bottomly — And that’s probably the biggest derailment that I see happening, in in my life and in churches that I work with.
Rich Birch — Scott, unpack that a little bit more I can see that that issue really clearly like so many churches. It’s not that they’re lacking of doing things; they’re doing a lot of different things. The question is how do we pick the right things. What is…
Scot Longyear — Right.
Rich Birch — What does that look like how what how should we be straining that out. Maybe we’re we’re looking around in all the different things that are happening in our church and we’re trying to figure out what are the right things for us to do – not not give we don’t want to give 2%; we want to provide more energy, narrow the focus, all that. What’s that look like?
Scot Longyear — Yeah, well for sure you know you got to lean into the Father and like what are you calling us to and that, and he speaks in a ton of different ways. He’s going to speak to us through our quiet time and and that. But I think you’ve also got to you know, not really read the tea leaves; we got to read the days, right? Like you’ve got to look at what are your passions, you know? Because he’s not going to… I guarantee he’s not going to call me into be in a CPA somewhere, like that’s not that’s not the right thing for me…
Rich Birch — Right.
Scot Longyear — Nor for any organization, right? So what is it your passion or the or a lot of the passions in your church are doing? And what are some of the resources, and we talk about resources. I think one thing that we don’t talk about is the resource of proximity. You know where has the Lord placed you in proximity – whether that’s certain location in your city, whether it’s ah certain relationships that you have. When you when you look at the book of Nehemiah, he was like I was cupbearer to the King, right? And so like like there’s a proximity that’s in the middle of that.
Scot Longyear — And then it’s the whole Blackaby thing of find out where the Lord is moving and get there.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Scot Longyear — You know some of the best things that we’ve done in our church have been because the Lord has started to stir some stuff up, and I’m and I’m like I sense the Lord’s moving here. Maybe we should put some resources here. And ah, you know it’d be easy to go like hey man that’s [inaudible] great leadership and the Lord’s like um, or maybe you’re just doing what I’m already doing…
Rich Birch — Yes, yeah.
Scot Longyear — …and moving that way and you start seeing the traction on that. You know what but one thing that we um ah, we kind of explored in the book—which was real helpful to me that Heath came and brought with—was he talked just a little bit about this whole idea of empires versus kingdoms. And that’s really this that was really eye opening to me.
Heath Bottomly — Yeah, and it really ties it really ties into this whole element of focus is on creatives no matter or in leaders whoever they are. Everyone has a natural bent toward building. We’re all taking items and creating something because we’re all creative beings. I work with my with creative teams and everything I tell them the fifth word in the bible tells us the first characteristic we know about God. in the beginning god created…
Rich Birch — Created, yep.
Heath Bottomly — …and and we are given that same tendency, and and and talent um embedded and it looks different for everyone. But we’re all creative beings. We’re all building. It’s a matter of what it is that we are building.
Heath Bottomly — Now ah we can we can build things that are personal ministry elements and everything um or we can build personal ah companies and things like that. At the end of the day their intention, your mindset towards those things will determine whether or not that’s an empire or is it are you building the kingdom. I know great guys who build incredible companies but they’re kingdom-focused; they go this is for the intention of doing ministry and for taking… A good friend of mine Kevin Rowe he owns a body shop. But his whole thing is I own this body shop and I employ these employees because I am providing for these employees’ families and providing a space where they can hear about God.
Scot Longyear — Awesome.
Rich Birch — Love it. Yeah. Love it.
Heath Bottomly — And so that even though he’s building something he’s building a company, he’s doing it with a kingdom focus. Um but I think a lot of people, even I’ve caught myself doing this, we can lean in toward empirical thinking in ministry. And we start building and putting blocks upon blocks and creating things that are actually more about creating our establishment, and creating our programs, creating our our legacy—you hear legacy a lot as a buzzword around—more than their long lasting impact on the kingdom. So when you start focusing, again the right reasons is when you start taking a look at that, if you’re doing the right things you have to then take a look and go are I doing them for the right reasons.
Rich Birch — Right, right. What’s the drive behind it. Yeah.
Heath Bottomly — Is it kingdom focused or is it empire focused? And ah, and we even talk about a couple things of ways that we can kind of check ourselves and check our teammates too on going, hey if you have a tendency toward this if you react this way towards things, It’s a good litmus test to determining ah the the empire focus or the kingdom focus, even within ourselves.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love it. Heath, sticking with that idea. Um, so let’s assume you know maybe I’m a pastor of a church of 1000, 1500 people; I look around and I’m like man I feel like we’re doing too much. And I’m you know we’re we’re spread thin. You know one of the things we see on the church growth side is larger church churches actually do less things. They do them with more energy than than smaller churches. Like I’m always surprised you know, talk to a church of 150 people and they have like 25 committees, and like all this stuff. I’m like I don’t know how do you do that like it’s crazy. But um, what is the difference… I know you’re a great strategy you’re a great strategic leader. What’s the difference between discernment and strategy? How do I how do those two kind of interact with each other? How do we how do we bring the Lord to bear in our decision making process while at the same time use the brain that he’s given us? How does that fit together in your brain and what’s that look like?
Heath Bottomly — Yeah, well I think there’s some other one of the biblical examples that I’m always drawn to in this because what you’re talking about I get asked a lot. They’re like ah you’re just thinking business strategy. Um, there are things where you have heard the voice of God an angel of the Lord appeared – you know you you see these stories in in scripture all the time of or the Lord spoke or spoke through something… that is you know and discerning which of these voices are true um, which of these are from God. Um, that’s ah, that’s a Holy Spirit connection then there’s also things that are just um decisions that you make based on what you know to be true about God.
Heath Bottomly — And so and it’s going I know this is right; I know these these elements are true because the principles are right. And a great example of that is is um Jonathan ah with his armor bearer. And ah once again, Israel’s fighting you know the Philistines, and so Jonathan and his armor bearer kind of go off to the side or whatever and they go and Jonathan makes this this profound move. He said you know what? Let’s call up to these Philistines that we see at this camp. If they ask us to come up, we’re going to take that as a sign that God’s giving us this army.
Heath Bottomly — Now this wasn’t based on, at least in scripture, it wasn’t based on anything where he had in his devotional time, you know, or a good friend had come to him and said, hey thus sayeth the Lord. This was a moment where he said based on what I’m feeling, and based on what I know about God, I’m going to take a risk. And I’m going to take – this is a gut feeling.
Heath Bottomly — And he went up and the consequences of that were not like if he’s wrong, it’s not like hey, you know, reset you know and better we’ll try again tomorrow. This was I I die. Um, but I love at the end of this little story, ah they end up winning and then it says that the earth shook.
Heath Bottomly — And what hit me so hard is that so many times we are looking for something we need the earth to shake around us. We we just think in our ministry and our lives or whatever and why isn’t something powerful happening? And a lot of times it’s because we’re actually not taking the steps to do the things based on that gut instinct, and also what we know about God to be true. And because here’s the thing with the earth of shook if Jonathan hadn’t taken that step, that wasn’t a thus sayeth the Lord’s step. He took the step and it resulted in the earth shaking.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Heath Bottomly — And so that that that’s how I see those two things working together.
Rich Birch — Yeah I love that That’s so good. Again I love the the framework right things, right reasons, right people. Um, Scott one of the things I appreciated about you I’m a very casual observer of you, ah your ministry. It seems like you’re one of these people who actually believes in team leadership. Like even in this conversation it’s like you guys wrote a book together. Like you know, um, my impression of you as a lead pastor is like you’re always like talking about other people around you and like you’re gathering team around you.
Rich Birch — You’re you know at the Experience Conference like even in the earlier this before our call today you did this. I was like, oh it looks like the Experience Conference went great. And you were like oh the team did such a good job. Like you’re constantly pushing and that so that’s a compliment to you. Right people is we all struggle with how do we find the right people. To attach to, to draw in, to find, to get plugged in – talk us through that. How does the book of Nehemiah… what is it how is that you know story from thousands of years ago relate to us today as we’re trying to build teams here?
Scot Longyear — Yeah, well he’s [inaudible] realize he’s got he has a vision that that he can’t accomplish himself, you know…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Scot Longyear — …which I think God often does, you know. And people like I can’t do this on my own. Are like well yeah, duh. Right? So you’re going to need to you go need some help.
Rich Birch — That’s the point.
Scot Longyear — Yeah. And and I think you know maturity you know realizes that like I don’t want to be the smartest guy in the room. Um, and so you want to you know you want to create a team of just like like go-getters. Let’s go. But having I mean it’s the whole Jim Collins thing, right? The right people on the bus. You know it’s the who, then the what, um and that’s been a hard leadership lesson. Ah, for me probably for a lot of leaders over time because you’re just like I think you’re a nice guy and we’ll get along. Let’s do this. Next thing you know you got to fire your best friend.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Scot Longyear — You know you go through a couple releasing people into some other ministries. We’ll say it like that right help you to find another ministry…
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Scot Longyear — …outside of our ministry, like there you go.
Rich Birch — Finds you better place, position you better in the kingdom.
Scot Longyear — And that is and I’m an enneagram six so it’s like that’s death to me, right? So like that gives you motivation to like you have to have the right people. And so how that’s translated for us is you know on our team at at our local church, we have worked really hard at ah, sustaining attributes and we’ve got the same thing. We call them permission to play. So if you’re interviewing at our church here’s what it means that you have to have to play on our team. We’re looking for that culture fit, right? And we want to go slow in hiring because we’ll be slow because I don’t want to I don’t want to release people. I don’t want to go through that as I don’t want the sideways energy. I mean I need the right people on the team that’s motivating other people, and you’re taking your lane, and you’re even coming out of your lane to help other people, and like we’re going and we’re not fighting about it.
Scot Longyear — But um, here’s ah, here’s and I don’t know it works for everybody but but here’s in our context, we’ll run everybody through ah a, really long hiring process. There’s a battery of tests because again we’re looking for a culture fit. And you might be amazing, but you’re just not in nothing wrong with you. You know nothing immoral…
Rich Birch — Right.
Scot Longyear — …just not a cultural fit. So um I usually by this, unless it’s a really, really high level position, um, by the time the team um, have have done their due diligence and they’re like here’s the person that we want to hire, um, I’ll come in with the person if it’s midlevel or above, and I’ll do ah only a 30 minute interview with them and I’m asking them two questions. And these are my favorite questions and I say to them these may be…
Rich Birch — Love it. Oh lean in, friends, this gonna be good. This is gonna be good. Love it.
Scot Longyear — …these may be the hardest questions that you get all weekend. Um, but they’re going to tell me…
Heath Bottomly — Where’s my coffee? Oh sorry.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Scot Longyear — So the first question I ask ’em is this. What am I going to learn about you in six months that’s going to surprise or embarrass me?
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Scot Longyear — And and I just shut up. And um, it has been super helpful and and I’ve gotten gotten comments all the way from, gosh man, I don’t really don’t know if there’s anything at all. You know, ah to when I was younger I attempted suicide. Um, there’s a bankruptcy in my past. Here’s something… Again, um ah and I’m asking very intentionally. I’m asking for culture fit. How honest can this person be; where are you going to fit on the team? I’m not looking for anything that’s going to disqualify them, right? I mean there may be something that comes up like, hey we need to talk about that…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Scot Longyear — …that guys be like I’ve got pornography in my past. Okay I need to know that because I’m going to help put some fences around you. The second question is sometimes tied to that, sometimes it’s the same answer but sometimes it’s different. And I say to them this I just asked this question last week with the hire that we were doing. I said if if I’m going to have to stand in front of our congregation and read a resignation letter from you because of a moral failure, what is that moral failure going to be?
Rich Birch — Wow.
Scot Longyear — Again then I just this shut up and you know there’s a lot you know people like well I don’t think it’s going to be anything. I’m like okay, no need to talk, brother. Like come on.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Scot Longyear — All of us has something. But again I I want to know when are you going to be a fit, and then two what is how can I help you in that. Because I don’t want us to get to that. And so that kind of helps me determine like is this a right fit, is it not the right person or not. And if not like will and we’ve had to make this hard decision. We’ve had to say no when there’s nobody on the bench.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, those are hard. Yeah.
Scot Longyear — Especially right now. It’s really hard to hire people um for a myriad of reasons and in the church world and so we’ve had to say we’re going to say we would rather hire the right person than than make a ah bad hire and and hope. So yeah, that’s kind of where we are.
Rich Birch — Interesting.
Heath Bottomly — Um I I think a lot of times I think a lot of times too we we get blinded by really talented people.
Scot Longyear — Oh gosh.
Heath Bottomly — Ah and and we we lose sight of this thing called missional unity. Um I’ve had I’ve been on teams where it’s like, okay everyone knows what what they’re doing, but they’re all slightly off…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Heath Bottomly — …target of what we’re doing missionally. Now you know everyone goes, oh well hey you know we got a love on them. We got, you know, yeah, you got to love on them and and encourage it. But at the end of the day you have to make a decision based on is missional is the mission that we’re called to more important, or strong enough ah, to be willing to make some hard calls on this even though they’re really talented at what they do? Is the mission more important than the talent that we’re experiencing? And and that’s a hard thing to do because man there’s some really talented people out there that are not in missional alignment.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. And I you know I think there’s ah when a church gets to a certain size, you can end up hiring professionals. And some of that you have to do you have to find people who are really specialized in things. But that’s a particular risk in that area. It’s like just because this person has done this amazing thing at this other church does not mean that they’re aligned with your particular mission. That’s a very good insight, Heath.
Rich Birch — Sticking with you around this whole idea of the right people, and you know one of the things so one of the things you’re known for is crafting great experiences, and crafting really creative experiences and things that are compelling and people want to be a part of them. There’s an interesting tension there particularly on the creative side between kind of getting the pros—people who are already fully baked ready to do the best thing ever—and they’re like you know, slot them in and they’ll nail it. And then the other side is like developing people; people who are, you knowy or maybe not quite there yet and how do we safely do that. Talk us through what that looks like. How do we wrestle through getting the right people you know the development versus the fully baked situation. What’s that look like for you, Heath?
Heath Bottomly — Well, it’s really tough because a lot of times we see creative elements and we think um, well creativity is is really only happens the stronger the collaborative process is. And that’s actually just not always actually most of times not always true. The collaborative process usually dulls down the creative level to the to a common denominator that is shared by the amount of people in the room. So you could have a really sharp creative idea that those usually stem from 1 or 2 people.
Rich Birch — Right.
Heath Bottomly — Ah collaboration usually so how many people get that creative element. And so that principle that’s in place is happens on the on the talent and development route as well. So you get some really talented people; you can get some really cool traction. You can get some really cool movement. You may not have as much buy-in on it because not everyone gets it. But if everyone gets it. It’s not always the most creative thing.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Heath Bottomly — And so what we tend to do is try to go, okay, let’s you know it’s not a magic formula. But let’s take ah a let’s take your your music team, for example. Um what we tend to do is go, hey, on any given weekend, you only have you have one project on the stage. And so what that what it means by that is someone who you are leaning into and developing who’s not there yet, um, but the rest of team can shore them up and work on them…
Rich Birch — Right.
Heath Bottomly — …and so and then that rotates around. Now every team is going to be different. You got to figure out what that percentage and what that is, but it’s an intentional Lego fit that you’re doing going how many pronged Lego are we going to be. Are we a two-pronged Lego, are we a six-prong Lego – what can fit to it without taking down um, what we have said this is our level of excellence. And this is the other thing I tell my team, we are not in the business of perfection. Perfection will always point out where you fell short. It will because none of us are perfect.
Rich Birch — Right.
Heath Bottomly — But excellence, at the end of the day you can go I brought my best, and I did my best for the guy standing next to me the girl standing next to me over here. We can all look each other in the eye and say yeah we brought it to the very best that we could. So there’s a there’s a book called—what is it—Canoeing the Mountains. And there’s a line in there it says, it’s it’s okay to fail; it’s not okay to suck. And I’m like and I’m going, dude I want I want t-shirts that’s say that.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes, yes.
Heath Bottomly — Because that is our mantra going…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Heath Bottomly — …we can fail all day and that’s part of the development process. We want people to know if you’re you’re not failing, you’re not trying.
Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, yeah.
Heath Bottomly — If you’re you’re not experimenting enough. You know you need to be able to do that. In the process of failing. It’s not okay to suck it.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Heath Bottomly — Don’t let the failure be because you didn’t do it well. You know, and so…
Rich Birch — Yeah, you didn’t put in your part of it. You didn’t develop.
Heath Bottomly — Exactly.
Rich Birch — You didn’t yeah you didn’t practice your craft – all that stuff. Yeah.
Heath Bottomly — But if we are not in the constant business of working to find out how to hand off things and responsibilities and and real leadership to the people around us, the next generation, if we’re hoarding it, again it comes back to that mindset of Imperialistic mindset. It is an empire that we are building around us instead of a kingdom mindset that goes out and multiplies. If I’m not ready to if I’m not okay with handing off some of the biggest authority responsibilities to my team and letting them run, not saying abandon them, but provide the parameters and go here’s what I need at the end of this, but whatever decision you may I’m not gonna overrun you. Um if we’re not doing that meaningfully in some ways, we’re actually without even maybe realizing that we’re building an empire around us. So that when we’re not in the room anymore, it can’t function and it can’t…
Heath Bottomly — I heard a leader say, yeah but it doesn’t it doesn’t feel like me. And I’m like that’s probably one of the best things that you can actually be bringing into an organization is that it doesn’t feel like you. Um, because if it feels like you, then if you’re not there the whole thing crumbles. And that should never be the goal of kingdom-based building. Um, but unfortunately that is the goal of empirical thinking.
Rich Birch — Interesting, interesting. Okay, that’s that’s good that’s good. I think that’s a tension we feel we sense in lots of things, right? We want to find a way to we all we should be developing people, but how do we, you know? I love that – some really good thoughts there.
Rich Birch — Let’s let’s, Scott, let’s talk a little bit about the book. So Fight for the Future. When I so when I checked this out I really did think this could be a great team resource. Could be the kind of thing, hey let’s let’s work on this together as our staff team. Let’s, you know, read through this; you’ve got discussion questions based right in there. Um, tell me what you were hoping its impact would have, you know, particularly maybe in the church context. That’s who’s listening in. How could you see this resource being used by church leaders?
Scot Longyear — Yeah, so you know I’ll go back to the, you know, implementing the dream. And you make such a great point. There’s so many good things to do. We need to you know you got to whittle those down and and do the right things. And so you know, I think it’s I think it’s a unique resource, Rich, because Heath and I come from some different perspectives. Um, but we’re all the the same direction, different voices. You know he is one of the most creative people that I know as you’ve heard, you know, in strategy and all that, and thinks like very he’s he’s like a right brain/left brain like creative. Like like sometimes like you got to break that down like for me a little bit more like it’s like so. And I’m like I’m the I’m the 3-point preacher guy, want tell you some stories and give you some practical like stuff, and and roll. And so…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, sure.
Scot Longyear — Ah way we approached it was we said, man, hey here’s the framework out of Nehemiah. It is right things, right right reasons, right people. And so we each took a chapter in there um and spoke from our own voice in that. And then just ah, you know again, those discussions they’re real practical and I think like anything else they get some discussion going.
Scot Longyear — Because most of the time we’re moving like super fast and we’re just doing this stuff but we just got to pause and go, like now wait a minute. Are we going the right the right way? Are there new things that we need to be to be pursuing? What might that look like?
Scot Longyear — And we take a you know a super deep dive as we go down and and we talk about you know, being the kind of person that God wants to use. And ah you know your how how you know what’s what’s done in in quiet with the Lord really informs everything else. And so it’s it’s much deeper in the middle of all that. But, you know, our dream that people would would read it and go like yeah, let’s start taking action on these dreams that the Lord has. Because if it is his dream, he’s going to use somebody to do it. And so if he’s calling you, like do it. And if you if you pass on it, he’s going to use somebody else.
Rich Birch — Right.
Scot Longyear — And then if we can be a help to you in in that. Um you know I can tell you a thousand ways not to do things…
Rich Birch — Love it. Love it.
Scot Longyear — …you know or a thousand mistakes we’ve made it, like don’t do that. Don’t do that. You know we would.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Scot Longyear — We’d love to come beside you.
Rich Birch — Love it. Heath, want to more add to that?
Heath Bottomly — Yeah, um, something that I really appreciate about about Scott, I mean at first off thank you, Scott, for those wonderful encouraging words; you you pet my ego.
Scot Longyear — You are welcome.
Heath Bottomly — Um, no, but no serious in all all seriousness. Ah you’ll see the chapters that that you know the ones that I’m penning or whatever that I’m writing, they’ll they’ll be very much this is how the structure will look. These are how the pieces move together. This is how these steps. And then you you flip the page and you go to Scott, and Scott really just penetrates right to the heart and he goes, and this is what God is going to need to do in your life in order for this to be something that’s lasting. In that that I love that that mindset um that Scott brings to that. Because at the end of the day, you know, there’s this tension that you hear a lot with strategy and and ministry – I’ll just call it that.
Heath Bottomly — Um, there are people going hey it’s not about strategy. It’s not about that, hey we’re too we’re too planning, you know, we have to be more Spirit. You know, let and everything as if these are two things that are opposite each other…
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Heath Bottomly — And actually they’re most efficient when they work in tandem with each other…
Rich Birch — Yeah together. Absolutely yeah, for sure.
Heath Bottomly — …and in the same way, what is ah the example of, you know, people go, well hey, you guys are strategizing too much on how to build, how to fight. I had someone tell them go this isn’t a fight for the future; God’s got this. And I’m like actually it is a fight because there’s an intentionality. God will build his church. How much, like Scott just said, how much you want to be a part of it is up to you.
Rich Birch — Right.
Heath Bottomly — You know in the same way the kid who had the, you know, the loaves and fish or you told me no one else there had any food. Um but he was the only one who stepped up. And because of that he’s the only one mentioned in that story, you know and was a part of that story.
Rich Birch — Yeah I love it. Right.
Heath Bottomly — When we’re talking about fighting for the future, it’s asking how much do you want to be a part of the story. God’s gonna do what he’s gonna do.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Heath Bottomly — He doesn’t need us to feed the 5000, but he invites us in and going so what are we going to do with that. So.
Rich Birch — Love it. Love it. So good. Well this has been a great conversation. Could you give us you know a two minute shot as well, Heath, on the Experience Conference? So I think you guys do such a great job on this. If I’m an executive pastor—we know there’s lot of executive pastors listening—and to me I think this could be a great conference for you to say, hey I want to take my creative folks together. Let’s go and do this together. I think it could be ah, just a fantastic experience for your team. Ah, give us the you know why Experience? What’s unique about it? Why do I need another conference—those kind of things—but give us that that sense there, Heath.
Heath Bottomly — Yeah, absolutely. And what I love about Experience Conference and what drew me to it to begin with was the fact that it is less about the um, the stage in the floor, and it is more about peers talking to peers from experience, or from you know here’s the journey thus far that here’s some hurdles that I’ve faced. Um and sharing that with each other and in that room you have you have such an even blend of voices on so many levels, both in in speaking but also in you know singing you know in everything. the fact I love how Scott you know has shared in the past that it’s one of the few experiences where he’s been able to sit next to his team and worship together…
Rich Birch — So good.
Heath Bottomly — …you know in in song. Um, but that’s one aspect of it. The mindset, being able to talk to people and share a mindset that tells them you’re not alone in this. Oh you thought maybe you were the only one struggling with this, you’re not. You’re in a room full of people who are all doing this together. Ah, that community is something that’s truly I’ve found unique because it’s less about a concert, and nothing against concert – I love concerts and I think there’s something very powerful about just bringing people together and just celebrating together. Um I don’t I don’t downplay that at all, but this is not that.
Heath Bottomly — Um, this is much more about ah that communication and that bond peer-to-peer. And it’s a great way for whether you are in the music ministry or creative Ministry or any other area of ah your church ministry to come together with the same mindset together as a team. I think there’s a lot of potential there for your team to walk away with something truly unique.
Rich Birch — Um, love it. Yeah that’s just at experienceconference.com – like again friends I would encourage you to check that out. I know you know there’s a lot of it. It seems like there’s a lot of conferences going on obviously all this stuff kind of post pandemic is ramping back up. But I really do think this is one that you need to at least make the decision against like look at it take take a look is this the kind of thing that you could and should take your team to it’s right at the end of August beginning of September – August 29th to September 1st if I’ve got those dates right. Um, so yeah, and there’s discount cliffs and all that, so make sure you check that out.
Rich Birch — Scot, if people want to pick up copies of the book, I’m assuming they can get them at Amazon. I think Amazon still sells books; they seem to sell everything else. They can get them there. Is there anywhere else we want to sell send them online to pick up copies of Fight for the Future?
Scot Longyear — Ah, yeah, several places – you can grab you go through my website scottlongyear.com; grab them there. It is Amazon. Ah Heath, we also he did the other side of the the marketing – we’re on Barnes Noble, right?
Heath Bottomly — Yeah yeah and Apple Books of course for ebooks and everything like that are also available.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Heath Bottomly — Amazon provides both the the Kindle version and they do; they have the physical copies as well. Best way to get a physical copy though is scottlongyear.com.
Rich Birch — Yes, love it.
Heath Bottomly — Um so that that would be the and he’ll I believe he’ll sign copies of the books that leave his his establishment.
Rich Birch — Oh nice. Look at that – great.
Scot Longyear — I’ll sign Heath’s name too.
Heath Bottomly — He’s been doing that for a long time.
Rich Birch — Yeah yeah, yeah, that’s fun.
Heath Bottomly — [inaudible] checks. No wait.
Rich Birch — Well, this has been great. Scot, why don’t we give you the last word; what anything else you want to say just as we wrap up today’s conversation? I really appreciate you guys coming on and investing in us. And this has been super helpful. I’ve got a page of notes here stuff to to chew on. So I appreciate that. Anything else, you’d like to say.
Scot Longyear — Yeah, no I think I would just encourage leaders. Um man um, thanks for staying in the game. I know the latest stats are somewhere between 38 and 40% of us are like if we could if we could take and another job with the same benefits, we’d jump tomorrow. Um. and and I’ll go back to I was I was talking with a friend. I don’t want to name the ministry placement agency they were with, and they just said we’re just talking to a lot of folks and they’re a lot of folks who are looking for jobs and they’re no longer talking about calling. They’re talking about I want this position, and I want it in this city. And so I just want to say thank you for being true to the calling.
Scot Longyear — Ah, that your work, even though it is hard, it is not in vain. It is not in vain.
Rich Birch — Amen Amen.
Scot Longyear — Like this is a this is a holy work that the Lord has called us to. I know it’s hard, man. I know there’s a grind. I know there’s a frustration. There’s an exhaustion that has come. But it is not in vain.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Scot Longyear — And I want to just tell you you’re doing like well done now and we’re one day going to hear from the Father as he turns to us, you’re going to say well done. So keep up the great work.
Rich Birch — Love it. Appreciate you guys. Thanks so much. Again, friends, I would check out their book and you know and jump in with Experience Conference. These are great folks – you should be following along. Thanks so much. Thanks for being on the show today, guys.
Heath Bottomly — Thank you so much. Appreciate it.
Scot Longyear — Thank you, Rich; appreciate it.
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with DeWayne McNally and Paul Schulz from Hill Country Bible Church in Austin, Texas. DeWayne and Paul both serve as executive pastors of ministry by dividing the responsibilities; DeWayne handles the operations, multiplication and family ministries while Paul takes care of the personal/spiritual growth related ministries, including the worship experience and multisite.
To reach people in our communities, our churches can’t just grow; they need to multiply. Listen in as DeWayne and Paul share how Hill Country Bible Church has used both church plants and multisite campuses to reach the city of Austin and how disciple-making starts at the individual level.
- Spread out on each level. // Everything Hill Country Bible Church does is driven by their God-given mission to saturate and reach Austin. Their strategy is two-fold, including both the launch of new multisite campuses, and planting new churches around Austin. The original Hill County location is on the cusp of the suburban part of Austin, so campuses will be placed in locations that are congruent with the psychographics of this area. Church plants, on the other hand, are established in areas that might have a different makeup which Hill Country can’t reach as easily. Either way, the goal is for multisite locations or churches to continue to multiply.
- Multiplication starts with you. // At Hill Country, multiplication starts at the individual level, then moves into small groups, and then becomes what they do at the church level. If you’re a disciple-maker who isn’t reproducing disciples, then you’re not multiplying. Start from that point and then raise up a church planter who will in turn infuse the DNA into the elder board of a new church plant. Here the church planter’s purpose is to reach the people close by, but also send out the next set of church plants.
- Create a disciple-making focus. // Hill Country casts vision for multiplication on all levels of ministry. In addition to small groups there is a disciple-making initiative which is a more focused and intentional program. People either self-identify that they want to grow in this way, or they are invited into discipling relationships. The whole goal of these discipling relationships is to teach people to multiply and become disciple-makers.
- Three step ministry philosophy. // Personal connection and discipling relationships are key to Hill Country’s DNA. DeWayne shares how he is currently discipling three men and they in turn each disciple three men which leads to exponential multiplication. This structure includes a three step philosophy of ministry where they ask: Who are you? Where are you at spiritually? How can I help you take your next step? All of these questions are explored within personal discipling relationships.
- Are you actually creating disciple makers? // If you want to multiply, begin by looking at yourself and how you’re doing discipleship. Are you actually creating disciple-makers or are you just creating scholars filled with head knowledge? How are you multiplying your leadership? Now is the time to think about multiplication and create a strategy. Normalize it while your church is small and make it a part of your culture and DNA.
You can learn more about Hill Country Bible Church at www.hcbc.com and connect with DeWayne or Paul on the staff page.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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Thank for joining us for the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Shaila Visser, the Global Senior Vice-President for Alpha International. Alpha is an 11-week course that creates a space for people to invite their friends for a conversation about life, faith and Jesus.
Worldwide, an increasing number of pastors believe evangelism is wrong. This mindset, on top of the changes of the last few years, has caused the Church to lose sight of its God-given mission. Listen in as Shaila reframes the beauty and call of evangelism, sharing how churches can create a culture of leadership development, love in action, disciple-making, Spirit-led living, church building and more.
- Look outside your walls. // Pastors are working hard right now getting their churches up and moving again after all the changes the last couple years have brought. Many churches have seen a lot of core leaders, volunteers and staff leave which has shifted the focus to what’s going on inside the church. It’s hard to think about how to mobilize your congregation to reach people externally. But Shaila says that we need to get people back on mission and look outside our four walls.
- Focus on evangelism. // Alpha found in their global surveys that 31% of pastors think evangelism is wrong. Among them 46% of children’s pastors and 48% of youth pastors think evangelism is wrong. Furthermore, 65% of pastors are not prioritizing evangelism in their churches. These statistics raise alarm bells because God has given the Church a mission, and there are many people in crisis who don’t know Jesus.
- Redefine evangelism. // Shaila says we have to redefine evangelism and reframe the beauty and call of it. Evangelism isn’t about tactics. Rather her friend defines it as joining a conversation that the Holy Spirit is already having with another person. Thinking about evangelism this way gives people relief in knowing that they’re not converting someone themselves. Instead they are participating in helping others come to faith. It’s okay if they don’t have all of the right answers to people’s questions because it’s the Holy Spirit’s work.
- Evangelism culture. // Evangelism can’t just be a strategy; it needs to be part of the culture of your church. Be intentional about talking about it at every level. Infuse your whole church with a desire to reach their neighbor. Tell stories of evangelism to your staff and during weekend services. Don’t just talk about salvation decisions, but simple stories of someone inviting their neighbor or praying with a colleague.
- Celebrate invitation. // We love to celebrate baptisms and people’s decisions to follow Jesus, which we should. But if those are the only things we celebrate, it gives people the idea that if they can’t convert someone to follow Jesus they are failing. When we celebrate invitation, however, we help the church to realize what their role is. People get on board and take part in it. And when the church starts inviting, people will come to the Lord.
- Alpha as an ecosystem. // More than a course or curriculum, Alpha is an ecosystem that helps build the future church, develops leaders, exemplifies radical hospitality, demonstrates love in action, teaches reliance on the Holy Spirit and so much more. It helps the church be what it was meant to be, and helps to build the type of disciples you want at your church.
Learn more about Alpha at www.alphausa.org or www.alphacanada.org. Or come and participate in the Alpha USA Conference on January 26 & 27, 2023 in Florida to see what it’s all about.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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One of the things that they never teach you in seminary is when to move on from your current church. Over the last couple of years, we have been having a TON of conversations about this with pastors all over the United States. Of all the ministry decisions you make, leaving your position will be the toughest.
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Well hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Man, I’m super excited for today’s conversation. In fact we’ve had this one lined off for quite a while. Super excited to have Shaila Visser with us. She’s the Senior Vice President, International, with Alpha. If you don’t know Alpha, you really should. It’s an eleven-week course that creates a safe place, whether it’s online or in person, where people can really bring their questions. It’s an amazing tool and really an incredible movement that started at a church in London called Holy Trinity Brompton in 1977. You maybe heard of Nicky Gumbel. He took it over in 1990 and really has repositioned this to to make a difference all over the world. I think somewhere around 30,000,000 people have taken Alpha all over the world. It’s been translated in over I think 112 languages. Ah Shaila, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here today.
Shaila Visser — Aw Rich. It’s so good to be with you today.
Rich Birch — So fun to connect and get a chance to spend a little time on the microphone. Fill out the picture – kind of tell us a little bit about Alpha. Give us what did I miss there? Tell us about your role.
Shaila Visser — Well first of all, you didn’t miss much. It is true that just about 30,000,000 people have taken Alpha. We have a massive vision to see 100,000,000 people take Alpha through local churches around the world. And it’s just fun to hear stories of Alpha in Nepal, Alpha in Vancouver, Canada, Alpha in Chicago, Alpha in Lima, Peru and just to know that God is on the move. And I, you know, I think Alpha is the thing that makes Alpha a little bit special is some of our key values that play out in it. And we we really believe in radical hospitality, radical love and warmth, and and acceptance around a table and food. And you know so we just have some key values I think that have made Alpha pretty sweet for this season, and you know for Gen Z and and Millennials in particular.
Rich Birch — Love it. Well friends I need to declare conflict of interest right up front. So I although I’m super excited to talk ah to Shaila really from her perspective globally around some issues that we need to wrestle with and think about as a church, I actually volunteer at my church as an Alpha leader. Love it. I love ah, those conversations. I love being around the table. The thing that I and I love that particular environment I’m just the guy who you know helps with Alpha, which is wonderful. It’s it’s ah it’s amazing and I love seeing consistently the people that end up in our in my Alpha groups. Like man these people are wrestling with huge huge issues and what an incredible environment. What a privilege as a church leader to sit and listen to someone um, explain really where they’re at. It’s it’s amazing. So ah so I declare that right up front I love love Alpha.
Rich Birch — Well why don’t we talk about you have an interesting vantage point on the church because you interact with church leaders, not only, you’re Canadian as well – we won’t hold that against you. Hopefully our listeners won’t hold that against me either. Ah but you not only across Canada but around the world, and you know one of the things that we’re seeing kind of in this kind of post-covid whatever this is this season is, we’re talking to leaders like yourself saying hey what are you seeing? What are some of the things that you’re seeing around you as we kind of pivot out of all that as we look to the future? What would be some of the maybe either problems or issues or things that you see church leaders or churches wrestling with in this season?
Shaila Visser — Well I think what’s common to church leaders, and I’m going to talk about all over the world…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Shaila Visser — …because you know we network and talk to and listen to pastors all over the the world, is their their resiliency has been amazing.
Rich Birch — So true.
Shaila Visser — Like I really like even though they’re exhausted and they have taken hits, I just want to honor pastors that they’ve been resilient.
Rich Birch — So true.
Shaila Visser — But what I’m noticing is in the midst of all that, church leaders are regathering, they’re wanting to know who is in my congregation now.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes yep.
Shaila Visser — It’s a big change. You know, people have moved around, people have left. I mean key volunteers have left which is really heartbreaking. So people have left. And then people have come in and they’re trying to discern who is our new core team of volunteers, and people that we can really count on in the congregation. But in the midst of all that, they might not be looking outside the four walls and wondering, you know, who’s out there who doesn’t yet know Jesus that we need to be thinking about as well. Because it’s hard. I get it. We’ve got to regather, ah get people back on mission. Get people meeting in small groups again. How do we then mobilize them to think outside, especially if you’ve have less people coming. It’s hard to think about how you’re going to run what you’ve got internally let alone what you might need to do to galvanize people to reach externally.
Rich Birch — Love it. Yeah I I love that. I want you to push us on that a little bit.
Shaila Visser — Okay.
Rich Birch — So you’re so you’re super kind. You’re nice, which is great, but I I see this even in my own just my own personal life like it’s easy over this season. It’s like the kind of I’m live closer to home, I spend a lot more time in my neighborhood. It’s easy to not look around and see people around me. Ah, when we think about that at a church level, what would be some of the kind of evidence that you’re seeing that hey maybe maybe we’re not looking outside the walls as much as we should? We’re maybe being a little too insider focus, not enough outsider focus.
Shaila Visser — Well I will say that we’ve done some surveys globally, and particularly in Canada just with pastors, and what we found is that there’s an increase in pastors that think it’s wrong to do evangelism.
Rich Birch — Really? Tell me about that.
Shaila Visser — So the 31% of pastors surveyed say they think it’s wrong to evangelize.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Shaila Visser — What was more alarming for us is 46% of children’s pastors and 48% of youth pastors thought it was wrong.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Shaila Visser — And it goes to 65%…
Rich Birch — That’s stunning.
Shaila Visser — …65% of pastors said they they are not prioritizing evangelism. So if you think about just those stats, it really raises the alarm bells to say, okay Church. We have a mission. God has given us a mission. And yes, it’s been very difficult. But what about all those people that are in crisis that don’t know Jesus?
Shaila Visser — Give you just one small example. Ah this past Saturday I went and met with my husband’s a police officer and his former partner, she just had a baby, she and her husband. And the baby isn’t gaining weight and isn’t doing well. And so I offered to come and pray for them. And neither of them are Christians. She has she went to Catholic school and hasn’t been to church since she was in grade 12. Her husband’s an atheist, but they were desperate. And just the ability to see beyond ourselves to the pain, but not just see it, not just say, “oh I’m going to pray for you” which everybody says fine, thank you.
Shaila Visser — But actually run towards it and offer something in a moment that is beyond our capability to help them, which is offering prayer, which is calling on on the Father to come in by the power of the Holy Spirit and make a difference. And you know I laid hands on their little newborn and they wept and they wept and…
Rich Birch — Oh so sweet. Yeah.
Shaila Visser — And at the end they said you know maybe we should be going to church. I mean here’s an atheist and a person who’s not been to church in years.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Shaila Visser — And it’s because the Spirit of God is calling people, and ministering to people outside of our four walls, and he’s inviting us to have eyes to see them, and hearts to consider their needs…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Shaila Visser — …in the power of the Holy Spirit to meet that need. So I just think I don’t want us to miss it. So we’ve got stats on the church.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Shaila Visser — But then we’ve got an ah increasing need out in the world today of people that are longing for hope. They’re longing for someone to offer them something they can’t access themselves. And if the church doesn’t run towards that, we’re going to miss it.
Rich Birch — Right, love that. I love what a beautiful story. Love that picture of um, you know, people receiving prayer, being really open to that. You know, we I had a very similar experience in my current Alpha group where um, we we actually at our church, we had a mutual friend of ours, Tammy, was speaking and she was offering prayer at the end of the service. And um, a lady who had been actually was only her second week attending on a Sunday, she came to Alpha first before she came to our church, and she was saying you know I’ve never had anyone pray for me in my entire life. And she was she was talking about how like incredibly special that was, and she was like I didn’t really understand it. But wow that was amazing and, you know, in the midst of everything that was going on and, you know, on the wrestling, that’s you know that’s amazing. Interesting.
Shaila Visser — And can I just say, Rich, that I think the secret sauce of evangelism right now, particularly in North America, ah the way into hearts is through prayer.
Rich Birch — Interesting, Interesting.
Shaila Visser — Because it’s so um, caustic, right?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Shaila Visser — …in the world of politics right now. And the church is in the mix there, which doesn’t help the narrative that Jesus is good…
Rich Birch — Yes, yeah.
Shaila Visser — …and loving and kind and compassionate and slow to anger, and all those sorts things. And when we come in just person to person offering a supernatural opportunity when we pray the Holy Spirit’s presence and present with that person. So don’t miss the opportunities around us; don’t get stuck in the greater narrative of the church, you know, what people think of the church and the cultures against us. But get actually stuck in with real people that have real problems…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Shaila Visser — …and offer prayer and see how the Holy Spirit leads you. And watch as he opens eyes and hearts because that’s what he’s inviting us into…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Shaila Visser — …the one by one loving our neighbors.
Rich Birch — Love it. So good. Well I’m hoping ah listeners, as you listened in, that you were shocked by those statistics around you know 31% say it’s wrong to evangelize. 46 and 48 of you know children’s and youth pastors. I’m hoping yeah as Shaila said that, that that shocked you. I know it shocked me. Um, but Shaila, let’s come back to that.
Shaila Visser — Yep.
Rich Birch — That we ah we can’t we can’t be content with that. Ah, we need to push back against that. What is the you know what’s the solution there? How do we um, how can we as leaders push back against that in our own churches? What, you know, maybe we see that maybe we look around and say like, oh man I can kind of see that growing in us. I see this culture maybe growing up around us of of, you know, maybe walking away from evangelism. What would be your coaching for us?
Shaila Visser — I really think we have to redefine evangelism.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Shaila Visser — I think when people especially if they’re you know—I’m a Gen Xer—especially if they’re younger than Gen Xers. As soon as they he… hear the word evangelism, they immediately jump to method. You know it’s like this natural tie-in…
Rich Birch — Here’s this pamphlet; here’s this thing…
Shaila Visser — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Here’s this tactic. Yes.
Shaila Visser — Yes, exactly. And so there’s a hangover of a tactic that may have worked in a different generation that’s been thought to but still be fruitful in some way here, and in Canada and the US, and therefore they opt out. And they have they really don’t like it. So what we want to do is redefine evangelism, reframe the beauty and call of evangelism. And so I want to give you a definition of evangelism…
Rich Birch — Okay.
Shaila Visser — …that my friend Darryl Johnson has given that I think is not only biblical but it’s helpful to address this very issue. And it’s: evangelism is joining a conversation that the Holy Spirit is already having with another person. So let me say that again…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Shaila Visser — …evangelism is joining a conversation that the Holy Spirit is already having with another person. So that means before you go in to talk to anyone, the Holy Spirit’s already been at work. When you’re in the conversation, the Holy Spirit’s at work. When you leave the conversation, the Holy Spirit’s at work. And so we’re not the initiator. And when we start to remember that and realize that evangelism is joining what the Holy Spirit’s doing, it gives you first of all relief that you’re not converting someone. You are participating in someone coming to faith. but it also makes you realize that if you really screw it up, if you really say the wrong thing, don’t have the right answer, can’t answer their very complicated questions, it’s okay.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love it.
Shaila Visser — It’s okay.
Rich Birch — Love it. So this is friends like I this is a part of why I love Alpha as a movement is I, having seen this firsthand of the training that you that you know your organization provides and then the coaching on the ground around like it’s not our job it’s not my job to do like bible jujitsu with people, and like get them to like take a certain step, get them to say a magic thing. That at the end of the day, I love it for me as a Christ follower, it stretches my faith to say you know what? The Holy Spirit’s at work in these people’s lives. My job is to come alongside and to maybe play a role to ask the Spirit, hey what part of my what part of this conversation do you want me to part of? Where do you want me just to shut up and not say anything, you know? How do you want me to listen? Um man that’s that’s really life-giving. I find that incredibly life-giving. So but what does that look like? So how do we how do we in in our churches join that conversation? How could we, you know, find a way to um, really try to cultivate that with our people?
Shaila Visser — Yeah, so I’ll give a couple of examples of churches that I think have done it really well. And it always starts with the senior leadership of any church, right? And it starts with what are the conversations that you as a staff, or you and your elders, or your board are having around this very topic? Because it’s going to leak from there. If you realize as a leadership team at your church that nobody’s talking about who they have relationship with that’s outside of the four walls, that should set off a little alarm bell.
Rich Birch — That’s a problem. Yes.
Shaila Visser — And yeah, but but it does happen. We it happens at Alpha Canada…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Shaila Visser — …that we’re talking all about, you know, strategy and ah the people we’re working with and the church leaders we serve. And then suddenly we realize we haven’t talked about the guest who at the end of the day is our motivation.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Shaila Visser — And so churches like look at your conversations first and say, does this come up at all?And I know the churches that are the most um, activated in reaching their communities are the ones that at the staff level it’s talked about regularly. And I’m not just talking about like the senior staff. I’m talking the janitor talks about it, the person who’s doing maintenance, the person who’s, you know, taking care of the facilities, like everybody’s talking about it. And it’s got to leak out as culture.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Shaila Visser — If it’s not culture and it’s just one strategy as part of the church, it’s not going to infuse your whole church with this desire to reach their neighbor. So I’d say that’s where you start. What does it look like at the top level…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Shaila Visser — …ah um of your church.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love that. That’s a real practical takeaway, like even this week to say, um, maybe you you do a week of just observing your team, just kind of mentally in your head. Like does that ever come up? And does it ever leak out of my life? And you know and where are those conversations I’m having with people? When you know when am I not just, you know, here in Canada it’s becoming winter. It’s very easy for me not to talk to my neighbors in this season because it’s like it’s so cold out, doing that—well at least my part of the country, not and where Shaila lives – it’s never cold there. It’s beautiful there all the time. Ah, but where you know what does that look like in my life. But then and then maybe next week you try to stir that conversation with your team. I love that. Practical.
Shaila Visser — Exactly. And then there’s two other things I’d say to it. What are you storying? And what I mean is ah if you are in executive leadership at any church there are stories you’re telling. So how often are the stories being told by staff members, whether it’s on stage, you know at the front from the pulpit, or whether it’s just like in small groups, how many people are telling stories of evangelism? And not just like someone came to faith, but hey I hung out with my neighbor or I offered prayer for my husband you know partner at work. And you know, how are those stories coming about because that’s also forming culture – the stories you tell. So even having ears to hear, okay, yeah, we’re talking about it on our staff team. But what stories are we telling that are leaking out…
Rich Birch — That’s Good. Oh.
Shaila Visser — …and then becoming intentionally out. And then the third thing I’ll say is what are you celebrating? So in the church as you know we love to celebrate baptisms. We love to celebrate people coming to Jesus. We know that the angels rejoice, as they should, as we should, when someone comes to faith. But here’s what that does in the church if that’s the main thing we celebrate is what it does is it means average Christian who doesn’t have the gift of evangelism, who is terrified to invite their friend, thinks I’m not that person. I can’t convert anyone. I’m not going to do that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Shaila Visser — But when we celebrate what our part is, then people get on board. So let me tell you what I mean by that. Celebrate invitation.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Shaila Visser —I’ll give you a story from my friend Gary who is the senior pastor of a very very large church here in Canada. They decided to do a big Alpha campaign. They wanted a thousand guests to come to their Alpha. They were going to run at workplaces and ah in ah, schools for kids, etc, etc. and in the church. And he had a celebration Sunday. They’re pentecostal so you know they’re going to like do the whole crescendo to the best story, right? So the congregation really gets ramped up to this is exciting.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Shaila Visser — But and you know he started with someone who said, oh I invited two friends; they came to Alpha, you know, I’m so excited see what happens. But the story he ended with was a woman woman in her mid 50s who said she invited 50 people to Alpha – her whole neighborhood.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Shaila Visser — Well you know in a Pentecost Church they’re clapping, they’re like this is amazing.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Shaila Visser — And he said what happened? And she said no one came.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Shaila Visser — And he said, today we celebrate you for doing your part. You invited.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s so touching. Oh my goodness. That’s beautiful.
Shaila Visser — You you invited.
Rich Birch — That’s beautiful.
Shaila Visser — And see when we flip that narrative. We’re helping the church realize: I know what my part is to play.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Shaila Visser — Get them inviting…
Rich Birch — Yes, love it.
Shaila Visser — …and some people will come.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. Well and and we know that you know it takes two or three, five or six, twelve or fifteen different invites with some people, right? They have to hear it about it a bunch. They’ve got to, you know, they they think about it. They might go online, see something. What is this Alpha thing? What is this or what is this church thing? What is this before I would would plug in? I love that. Do you have any examples of so one of the things that Alpha does well as ah I would say as a movement, as an outsider looking in, is this whole storying thing. Like retelling the story time and again just like woven right into what you guys do. You’re constantly even in today’s conversation you’ve done a very good job of that. What are some other ways you’ve seen churches do that well? Um, you know some other examples of that of, you know, kind of, you know, storying the right things as a church?
Shaila Visser — Well, you know for churches that have run Alpha what we have seen is they always bring up people onto stage, you know, during a service to talk about tell us your story. And they asked 3 simple questions. Um, what was your life like before you came on Alpha? Ah, what was your experience like on Alpha? What difference has Jesus made in your life? Just 3 simple questions.
Rich Birch — Yep, love it.
Shaila Visser — It could it doesn’t have to be Alpha, it could be anything.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Shaila Visser — But they do it so regularly that the church is familiar with hearing people that don’t know Jesus or didn’t know Jesus six months ago, three months ago, a year ago, that the the story is being told so often, that the church just thinks this is normal. But the problem is if we just do it one Sunday a year or two Sundays a year, it doesn’t feel like people are coming to faith on a very regular basis. And so what you want to do is tell simple stories. It doesn’t have to take up very much time.
Rich Birch — Right.
Shaila Visser — These stories, typically when I hear Nicky Gumbel do them, or other pastors, it’s a minute.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Shaila Visser — It’s a minute and a half. It’s so quick. But what you’re doing is you’re giving people a vision that this is normal to expect people to come to faith.
Rich Birch — Right.
Shaila Visser — So I think that’s the kind of story I mean people may film it as video because then they can edit it…
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Shaila Visser — …make it as short as they want, but there’s something about the…
Rich Birch — Put some music under it.
Shaila Visser — …yeah, but you know what, there’s something about the beauty of a raw moment. And I love that they do this at Holy Trinity Brompton in London – these raw moments with real people on stage. Because when you do the video, it may be produced beautifully, but in the moment something’s going to be said that’s absolutely hilarious or really deeply touches you…
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Shaila Visser — …because it’s an embodiment of the story in front of them. So don’t get away from that that raw kind of messy testimony …
Rich Birch — Yes.
Shaila Visser — …that you may have scheduled for a minute and a half and it goes four.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Shaila Visser — But but it’s beautiful and the congregation is really motivated to say, that could be my friend. Because what the the congregation is hearing is so many stories that they know people like that.
Rich Birch — Right, love it.
Shaila Visser — And it gives them confidence to invite.
Rich Birch — Okay Shaila, I’m hoping our relationship can sustain this.
Shaila Visser — Oh gosh.
Rich Birch — We are two thirds of the way into this interview and um, you haven’t even told us about Alpha. Like this is a part of what I love about your movement. It’s like humility is baked into what you guys do. Like it is It’s at the core. and and you know earlier you just rolled over ah—which I loved, it was this which again I was like very classically well, it’s classically you and it’s also classically Alpha—you’re like yeah we’re trying to you know, get Alpha in front of 100,000,000 people. Like if that was me I would be like I’d be leading with that and hammering that but not Alpha.
Shaila Visser — Well, because…
Rich Birch — You guys are like there’s there’s humility baked right in. It’s amazing.
Shaila Visser — Could I say, Rich, that this is the reality…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Shaila Visser — …including Nicky Gumbel the pioneer behind Alpha…
Rich Birch — Yes, yes
Shaila Visser — We all want people to meet Jesus.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Shaila Visser — Alpha happens to be a tool…
Rich Birch — Right.
Shaila Visser — …and a ecosystem that really helps everything from church planting…
Rich Birch — Right.
Shaila Visser — …to um to create a culture in a church of Holy Spirit dependency etc. It does lots of things. Like most people think Alpha is just a plug and play tool. They don’t realize it’s an ecosystem that can really help the church.
Rich Birch — Right.
Shaila Visser — And when people get the ecosystem, it really flourishes and it helps build leaders, develop leaders, etc, etc. But we’re we’re so much about Jesus. We’re so much about spirit-filled living that Alpha is not what gets us up every morning.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Shaila Visser — So so people coming to know Jesus does.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Shaila Visser — So really, that’s why the posture is, we’re not trying to sell Alpha.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Shaila Visser — We’re trying to say, guys, if this can help, let us help you.
Rich Birch — Right.
Shaila Visser — But we need the world to know Jesus and that’s what is motivating to us.
Rich Birch — Okay, so I’m going to push you on that though.
Shaila Visser — Okay.
Rich Birch — Because I want people I think there’s folks that have this is what I have this what happens when I talk to people about Alpha…
Shaila Visser — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …Church leaders across the country, they’re like that’s like a curriculum, right? It’s like ah that’s like what is it a bunch of videos and and they think about it at that level. Um I totally understand, appreciate, and have seen how it’s so much more than that. It’s a culture.
Shaila Visser — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Talk to us about that. For folks that maybe have a sense of it. It’s eleven weeks long, there’s a weekend in the middle. There’s videos. There’s a guy from England. Like I don’t know much about it, but help me understand how. Alpha could be or has been used as a kind of culture reinvigoration tool. I know it’s not it’s not the only one. And I know you’re not just interested in that as the only one. But talk to me about what that actually looks like in churches.
Shaila Visser — Well I think what we hear, and why church leaders when they really get to understand Alpha, and we do trips where we take pastors over to London. We have our Alpha USA conference coming up at the end of January in Florida. That’s a terrific opportunity for people to really get a feel and an understanding. But here’s what’s beneath Alpha. so it is what you just said. It’s eleven weeks. It’s you know it’s got an Alpha weekend. But here’s what it does for the church. People that are new to faith or have not even yet heard about Jesus or ever given their lives to Jesus, ah, it is building the type of disciples you want at your church.
Shaila Visser — So that’s why many churches will just say if you’re new to our church, we want you to go on Alpha. And they’ll put one group of Alpha that’s like people that have been christians for a while, but they put it through because they want them to understand what radical hospitality looks like. What love in action feels like. What it is to be Spirit dependent. What it even means to be filled with the Holy Spirit. What it means to pray for people reliant on the Holy Spirit. What it means to develop leaders who come in who’ve never taken Alpha, they don’t know Jesus, they come back as a helper because they’ve come to Jesus. They come back as a small group leader.
Shaila Visser — So there’s leadership development baked into it. There’s a heart for reaching more people baked into it. There’s so many things that a local church is like if I had resilient disciples in my congregation that knew how to pray for others and trust the Lord, how to be outwardly focused, how to be deeply prayerful, I would want that they realized that Alpha creates this ecosystem. And at Holy Trinity Brompton in London they always say Alpha is the front door, and church planting is the back door. And they’ve planted over a hundred churches.
Rich Birch — Right.
Shaila Visser — So it’s like they’re just seeing people come in, but they’ve got a certain type of DNA in them when they’ve taken Alpha that really helps grow the things church leaders want to grow in their congregation. So it’s it’s it’s the secret sauce that if people understand it is more than a tool. It gives you way more than that.
Rich Birch — Love it. Yeah and I’ve seen that firsthand that you can see this kind of cultural. It’s sneaky because you you think about it as a church leader as a program, but it has a much more um pervasive or can have a much more pervasive impact on you know on the entire church, which I just think is wonderful and beautiful. And um and at the core is this idea that we’re trying to create a place for people who don’t know Jesus and are wrestling with what it means with all the big questions in life. We’re trying to create a place for them to feel welcome at the table. One of the things that’s super obvious um is this culture of hospitality in Alpha. Talk to us more about that. Why why why does Alpha see that as a kind of ah it seems to be like a key part of of the of how God’s used Alpha over the years.
Shaila Visser — Well we see it all over Jesus’ life, right? Is just this radical hospitality and welcome of the stranger…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Shaila Visser — …of someone who’s very different but also sitting at a table and eating with people. And so pre-pandemic ah meals and food are a very significant part of Alpha.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Shaila Visser — People often evaluate Alpha looking at the videos. Are they good quality? You know and we create Netflix quality videos. But they’re actually just evaluating that. But what they should see is as Alpha as a mini little ecosystem within the church is actually about the radical hospitality at the table. Then you watch this little 25 minute video, 20 minute video and then you have open discussion. And so what it is doing for people is it’s teaching your already existing church members who are volunteering how to be a listener. Because as you and I know, Rich, ah Gen Z in particular want to know that Jesus is good. And they have to have an experience of it.
Shaila Visser — And Alpha provides an experience of it but also teaches your leaders how to be listeners, how to join the Holy Spirit, how to shut up and not tell people what they should think. And the younger generation needs that so hospitality, food, listening that are those are core components and that is not what the church is known for. And we train it deeply into everyone who’s running Alpha.
Rich Birch — I love it. So good. Well I I’ve just this has been a great conversation today. I love that you’re pushing us on this and thinking in a new way. You know, as you look to the future kind of as you’re wrestling with how do we how do you help encourage churches build this kind of redefined evangelism culture, what are some of the questions that you’re thinking about as we look to the future things that you’re wrestling with?
Shaila Visser — Well I am really wrestling with the next generation. Alpha has always been target locked on on young people in their twenties. That’s who we design Alpha for. So if you’re like I want to hit Gen Z and the youngest millennials, then Alpha is really thinking always about everything we do is about that that age group.
Shaila Visser — But then we also have Alpha for youth which is really radically ah fabulous in our our network of churches around the world because it’s not just, how does a youth worker use it? It’s actually how do students run Alpha for their friends. And we’ve really got a student led movement happening. but in the midst of all of this um and coming out of pandemic life, I hope we’re coming out of pandemic life.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yes, me too, me too.
Shaila Visser — I hope we’re hope we’re through it. Um I’m asking four questions, Rich. I’m asking the question what if the future leaders of the church Aren’t in the church today?
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Shaila Visser — Then the second question I’m asking is what if the future leaders of the church aren’t even christians today? What if the kid you pass at the mall, at the restaurant, wherever is going to be a pastor…
Rich Birch — Love that Love that.
Shaila Visser — …but today they don’t know Jesus. And then the third question, especially in this North American culture where we understand media’s against us. It’s just it just feels like there is there is no longer any Christian majority to speak of. What if the harvest is actually plentiful all around us and we don’t have eyes to see it?
Rich Birch — Wow.
Shaila Visser — And then the last question I’m asking church leaders and Alpha Partners is: what if all three things are true – what should we be doing differently?
Rich Birch — So good.
Shaila Visser — What should we be doing differently? And the Holy Spirit and your team and your friends, they start to actually answer that question. And when you start to answer those questions, you start to see possibility.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Shaila Visser — I think we’re living in the most fabulous possibility time even though the world is dark, even though things are tough. The bright morning star shines the brightest when the night is darkest. And I’m excited. I really think, Rich, the harvest is plentiful all around us. And I can’t wait to see what the church does.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Shaila Visser — Because people are longing for hope. They’re longing for peace. They’re longing for purpose. And we just got to we got to reach them…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Shaila Visser — …in the power of the Holy spirit.
Rich Birch — Love it. So good. Well, Shaila, this has been what a what a gift this has been today. Friends, I hope you’ve been encouraged and ah, reinvigorated. Lots to chew on. I think I’ve got a page of notes here – things I need to wrestle through and think about in the coming weeks and months. So I really appreciate that, Shaila. If um is anything else you want to say just as we kind of wrap up any kind of final thoughts as we as we close down today’s conversation?
Shaila Visser — I think I just want to encourage and challenge church leaders. You know I’m a Canadian, so I say it softly. I I want to encourage and challenge church leaders: in the midst of pulling people back together, don’t miss who’s outside of your four walls.
Rich Birch — So true. Yeah.
Shaila Visser — There is opportunity. Your future best leaders. Your future best um staff members. They’re out there. And they don’t know Jesus yet. And you can make a difference.
Rich Birch — Love it. So good. Well I appreciate this, Shaila. Hey where do we want to send people if they want to track with Alpha? Where do we want to send them online? How do where do we want them to kind of plug in with you guys?
Shaila Visser — Yeah, go to alphausa.org. you’re going to find all of that and then you know please consider going to the conference. You’ll really understand the cultural ecosystem and it’s not just an Alpha sales job. Please like hear us. We don’t do that.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yes, yes.
Shaila Visser — Um, but come to the Alpha USA conference. I think you will love it. And if you’re in Canada, ah, do come over to alphacanada.org, connect with us online. We are so happy to serve churches around the world, and particularly in the US and Canada.
Rich Birch — Love it. Thanks so much. Thanks for being here today. I really appreciate it.
Shaila Visser — Thanks, Rich! Love what you’re doing and so happy to be with you today.
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. I’m happy to be talking with Johnny Scott, the lead pastor of Generations Church in Trinity, Florida.
Ever wonder what a self-sustainable church might look like? Curious about how to use business as ministry? Listen in as Johnny Scott shares how churches can use holy-owned businesses to reach their communities in creative ways while also developing a revenue stream to fuel future missions.
- Theology of city building. // At Generations Church, viewing business as missions is a core part of their DNA. From the very beginning of scripture we see God at work creating. Prior to Genesis 3 work was a gift from God rather than toil. We are invited to partner with God in meaningful work no matter our occupation.
- An exile mindset. // In Jeremiah 29 God’s people living in Babylon are told to pray for and seek the good of their city because if it prospers, they too will prosper. Johnny believes it’s important for us to have an exile mindset while we are on earth. Instead of living comfortably separated from the world, we need to go out into the marketplace and serve our communities.
- Go to them. // Churches can no longer simply wait for and expect our communities to come to us. Jesus taught in synagogues and the temple, but he also often went to the marketplace and into the city. We need to do the same.
- Becoming self-sustainable to give more. // How do we turn the church into a place that is fully sustainable on its own? Johnny’s goal is to get to the point where the church doesn’t need to operate on the money people give. Instead every dollar will go straight to local and global missions.
- Exhale and move forward. // One of the things Generations Church has learned is that they will probably do less in a year than they wanted to, but will do more in ten years than they ever imagined. Growth and reach may start slowly but it quickly becomes exponential. Believe that God wants to do more than you can imagine.
- Change the church mindset. // There is a biblical principle never to be a slave to the lender. Scripture also teaches to use man’s currency to get kingdom currency, which is people. Leveraging the world’s resources to gain influence can help lead people to Jesus.
- Cultivate the resources. // Every resource your church needs to dramatically impact the community around us is embedded in us. Our job is to cultivate that.
You can learn more about Generations Church and their ministries at www.generationscc.com.
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Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Well, hey, everybody. Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Super excited about today’s conversation. Today we’ve got Johnny Scott with us. He is the lead pastor at Generations Church – church in Florida, North Tampa, which has been through a few things ah, recently. Super excited to have Johnny on the show. Was recommended to us by a mutual friend, Chris Hahn. Welcome to the show, Johnny. So glad you’re here.
Johnny Scott — And so glad to be here, Rich. Heard about, you know, what you guys do from Chris and yeah, we’re we’re excited to be where God has us here, in Trinity actually, just north of Tampa ah, you know, kind of like a bedroom community of Tampa Bay. And you know when I started this position as lead pastor—the first time being a lead pastor um—never never never thought you know in 20 years of pretty much traveling the country and playing guitar and being a worship pastor that God would call me to this. But through a series of events [inaudible] and ministry, God does that. Um had an incredible time in bible college. But, you know, I kind of get the premise that you know some of the things, while I I learned how to exegete scripture and expository preaching…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Johnny Scott — …and I had a great time there, some of the things that I’m called to do and I’m doing now in my daily, I just have to step back and be like like God, what what are you doing? Like this is…
Rich Birch — Right.
Johnny Scott — …it’s crazy. And for us, you know, business as missions ah, we call it like maybe maybe even a church 2.0 model is just that idea of what what is a church like that’s you know self-sustainable okay? And and for me this is ah a deep theology of what I call the theology of city building. Um which is our God given DNA. You know the first time we see God, God is creating. That God is a creative God. God is a work God. There is there’s no toil in work before Genesis chapter 3. The famous chapter in my house is my boys quote all the time. Why are we doing this? Because of Genesis chapter 3. They’re like, they quote it. It’s this mantra because…
Rich Birch — Um, ah because we live in a fallen world.
Johnny Scott — But it’s toil.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Johnny Scott — And you you guys, it’s you don’t know work without toil. Well God does work, right? And then Jesus Jesus says I’m going to prepare a place for you. Jesus is working. Our last picture of Jesus is working. I believe that there will be work when we get to heaven. The idea that we’re going to be lounging around on on clouds playing harps, that sounds boring. I’m with Kenny Chesney.
Rich Birch — Right.
Johnny Scott — I don’t want to go right now either if that’s what it’s like.
Rich Birch — Love it. Love it.
Johnny Scott — It’s not going to be like that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Johnny Scott — It’s going to be work with the most creative being ever, right? And and and then we’re going to have no inhibitions of toil. And until that we have got to have ah like a proper exile mindset. And we don’t have an exile mindset. We’re we’re comfortable. I’m comfortable. We live we live in a great neighborhood, and I’ve got you know TVs…
Rich Birch — Right.
Johnny Scott — …in multiple rooms. Okay? I mean like there’s water…
Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.
Johnny Scott — …there’s running water. I don’t feel like, God saved me from Babylon.
Rich Birch — Right.
Johnny Scott — I don’t want to move.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Johnny Scott — But when you get that exile mindset like Jera Jeremiah was preaching to a people that were exiled and they say, God, save us from where we’re at. God’s answer to them, and people misquote it all the time, “Surely I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord.” You know, Jeremiah 29:11. That verse is tucked into a big fat NO from God. I’m not going to.
Rich Birch — Yes, it’s so true.
Johnny Scott — No, you’re gonna be here for 70 years. So if you’re my age, if you’re 46…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Johnny Scott — …you’re not going to live to see it. So what God tells them to do is plant gardens, marry your sons and daughters…
Rich Birch — Right.
Johnny Scott — …pray for the city that you are in.
Rich Birch — Right.
Johnny Scott — And when it prospers, you will prosper. And it wasn’t, hole up in your synagogue, these bastions of isolationism, which is what, you know, church was when I grew up. As a youth pastor I would I would go and say, Hey, why don’t you quit coming to that school event on Wednesday night and come to church.
Rich Birch — And come to and come to our thing. Yeah, yeah, totally.
Johnny Scott — Yeah. And we would say, come to see our show (we never said that but that’s what it is) at 9am or 11am on Sunday morning, and we’ll be ready for you then.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Johnny Scott — It, the the hubris of that, and we never felt that way, you know…
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Johnny Scott — …in the 80s and 90s when I was growing up. And we’re in attractional church model. Jesus, you know, communicated the gospel at the end of the sermon on the mount. It says people were astounded and amazed.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Johnny Scott — I have no problem with having art. And we spend money on that, and we do a good job at that. But we will not demand people, hey come to our show. So we started to get this idea of let’s be a serve first idea…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Johnny Scott — …because Jesus was always invasive with the gospel.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Johnny Scott — Jesus says, Zacchias, I’m going to your house today. We know he was in the synagogue.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Johnny Scott — But most of our stories, he’s out in the city and places where we should just go to the marketplace. So, the deep theology…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Johnny Scott — …the deep theology for this in my life goes back to Moses on the mountain. Marketplace ministry, business ministry, business as ministry um…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Johnny Scott — …for me, it goes to the setup of the temple. Okay, the setup of the temple, if you read Numbers 35, Moses is on the mountain. He’s getting all the all the culture. The first time in the history of humanity the culture has been, here it is. Like we go out and we invent culture through war, and crazy things that happen, in traditions that develop over hundreds of years, and that’s not how culture developed for the the God-made culture, this Judeo mindset. It was given. Here’s your seven festivals. Here’s when you work. Here’s when you party. That’s how it is.
Rich Birch — Right.
Johnny Scott — And wrapped up in that in Numbers 35 is how the temple will work. He says, I’m going to give you these cities.
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Johnny Scott — I’m going to give you the land around these cities. You’re going to do all the livestock and all the wheat, barley, oats. All of that is for the temple. That is that is to sustain sustainability, the work, the Levite family will do at the temple.
Rich Birch — Interesting.
Johnny Scott — God didn’t come to the people and say, I need you to tithe 10%…
Rich Birch — Right.
Johnny Scott — …so that the temple can function. No the temple was going to function. So what was the 10% for? This is very clear throughout scripture. It’s a thread. It and one of the words used in the Old testament is the word lavish.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Johnny Scott — It is for the 7 festivals that God sets up for us to regularly—7 the perfect number—how do we how do we party in God’s culture perfectly? That’s how we party.
Rich Birch — Love it. Love it. Love it.
Johnny Scott — And so there’s this perfect setup of regular parties that the 10% goes… so the storehouse of the Lord is full. So there’s no party like a God party.
Rich Birch — Yes, love it.
Johnny Scott — He owns party.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Johnny Scott — So Numbers gives us that, then you move to the old testament and we see paul Paul’s selling tents. Now Paul wasn’t selling christian tents.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Johnny Scott — Paul wasn’t selling tents for christians.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Johnny Scott — Paul was just selling tents. Now just I’m I’ve been living in this this scriptural narrative of Paul in a city like Corinth. I mean this is a major metropolitan port. Paul…
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Johnny Scott — Paul rolls up in here and he’s like I’m gonna sell tents. And I’m just thinking you think that they don’t have tent sellers already, right?
Rich Birch — Yes, love it.
Johnny Scott — That the people of Corinth are like [inaudible] oh my goodness we’ve been looking for a tent guy. Hey everybody we got a tent guy finally.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Johnny Scott — The tent guys in Corinth, they like: hey bro, I’ve been selling tents here. My dad sold tents here.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, my great Grand Pappy sold tents here.
Johnny Scott — And my grandpa sold…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Johnny Scott — Yeah, who are you? And so Paul is doing this commerce thing. And just think about how that is, you know. He’s not like inviting people over to watch the Superbowl and then the halftime show you know trying to get them at a multilevel…
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Johnny Scott — …marketing thing with tents. Okay. Like I’m going to work your [inaudible]. He’s that’s not what he’s doing, okay. Paul Paul is he’s he’s in the trade. And so I have this picture of Paul in the shop on Monday and he is a christian who’s living out his world faith, and he’s helping other businessmen. And after like a very short season because he is just for other people, there’s a guy’s like I’ve got to get tar. Well go see Paul. Well don’t that Paul guy sell tents? Well yeah, but he helps so and so out with shingles and I know that he does ship tar. Yeah.
Rich Birch — He knows a guy who knows a guy. Yeah.
Johnny Scott — He’s just he and and the word is like yeah but man if you go over there, I mean it’s it’s you’re going to have to put up with like this Jesus thing he’s talking about. You know it’s like yeah but he knows everybody.
Rich Birch — Right.
Johnny Scott — I think that if he would have had a poor quality tent or a tent that didn’t hold up and I’m like, well, you know, he’s a really good motivational speaker but the tents are just crap quality. That…
Rich Birch — Right.
Johnny Scott — …what would that have done to the validity of his gospel?
Rich Birch — Right, right. Oh love that point.
Johnny Scott — So he he had to be in a marketplace, and compete in a marketplace, and go through the politics of the local Chamber of Commerce. And come in in such a way where he brought value, and served people, and did not defame the gospel he preached in any way. And it’s such a a word picture or like a narrative for us to get in and say, how do we is the church enter into a place that is actually our rightful place…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Johnny Scott — …to be fully sustainable on our own…
Rich Birch — Right.
Johnny Scott — …stand on our own feet. And when a when a preacher says, I’ve said this, God we don’t need your money. You you get to give to a church because that’s going to bless you.
Rich Birch — Right.
Johnny Scott — But then really to be able to say, like every dollar that you give here goes straight to local and global missions.
Rich Birch — Fascinating.
Johnny Scott — I’ve never I’ve never been able to say that.
Rich Birch — No, but that’s the goal? Is that is that ultimately like we… I love. Well first of all, this has been great so far. I love we it’s like we jumped in midstream, which is fantastic.
Johnny Scott — I know, I know.
Rich Birch — It’s so good.
Johnny Scott — We just we just went right there.
Rich Birch — But is that ultimately—let’s but let’s get to that—is that ultimately where where you’re hoping things will get to?
Johnny Scott — Um I’ve stated that goal from from the pulpit and there’s a couple of caveats to that. You know, ah first of all I’ve only been here 5 years, church has been around 50 years. There was a great church before the guy before me, before the guy before him. It’s been…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Johnny Scott — …it’s a great church.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes.
Johnny Scott — And so I didn’t come to this church with this missiology. You know when you come to a land…
Rich Birch — Right.
Johnny Scott — …you come into a land, you’re like well what do you already have? And um I was just in ah a I just love church. I grew up – I love church. Church rescued me as a sixth grade boy when my family is going through divorce, and I was just loitering. And so everything about church I believe it is the answer for everything and culture. It’s our birthright.
Rich Birch — Right.
Johnny Scott — You know, Erwin McManus says in “Barbarian Way” it is the the birthright of the church to be the fountainhead of creativity to the world.
Rich Birch — So good.
Johnny Scott — I mean we could do an entire podcast on that.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Johnny Scott — We could just get wrapped up in what does that mean for business as ministry?
Rich Birch — Yeah, what does that look like. Yeah.
Johnny Scott — And that’s that’s a part of our fabric. And so as I come into like this church and I see what they have. And we start looking at this. And you’re like is the final goal here, Johnny, that you’ll be able to tell people on Sunday every dollar given 100% of it goes straight to… I would say yes. But however, however, what’s changed a little bit in my mind is, you know, Jesus says the gospel is Jerusalem, and Judea, then the ends of the earth. Okay?
Johnny Scott — And and I’ve told our people—like famously, I think they’re sick of the line—I’m not in charge of um, you know Target, right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Johnny Scott — The the national the my my wife is drawn to Target like a moth to flame.
Rich Birch — Mine too. Mine too.
Johnny Scott — You know she she’s like a diviner. She’s got a stick in the woods and she’s like it’s over here and she can just kind of find it, right?
Rich Birch — Yes. So true. Yeah.
Johnny Scott — Like finding water underground. And I’m not in charge of Target nationally it’s a national… man, but the Target up the road from our church, I call that my Target. Because I am spiritually responsible. James 3:1 – not many of you should presume to be teachers of law but knowing that you’ll be judged more strictly. That’s what that’s what that means deeply to me that I will be responsible for that Target. I’m not allowed to drive by Target. If my car drives by it on a regular basis, it is in my realm. It’s in my 360 degrees of being able to touch and care. And God always expands our care, right? He is this…
Rich Birch — Mmm-hmm.
Johnny Scott — And we’re creatures that like oh if I just care less. and we’ll eventually get our care down to not-very-much, and it will only be about things that give ah… So God is in this process of telling the people in Babylon, no, you’re not going to pray for just your synagogue of that which you can control, where people who agree with you. You’re going to pray for the whole city. Well you know what? The Jews didn’t care about? Babylonian holidays, Babylonian customs, Babylonian anything. They hated them. And God says, no, you’re going to pray. Think about how difficult that was.
Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely.
Johnny Scott — And what we were not there. I love the school across the street. I mean we we have a school across the street. It’s a high school, has 4000 kids in it. Then there’s a junior high next to it with 2000 kids in it.
Rich Birch — Wow.
And our church built a student center 6000 square feet with an occupants of 350.
Rich Birch — Right.
Johnny Scott — I mean it’s just like we said like well we’ll we’ll try…
Rich Birch — The majority that won’t come here. Yeah.
Johnny Scott — …that it’s it’s going to hell in a handbag.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Johnny Scott — We’re we’re we’re looking at um, $380 million dollars worth of businesses mission growth in the next, I don’t know 2 years, on our property, and MPUD right now on a hundred acre live, work, play community that has no dedicated space for students.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Johnny Scott — And here’s why. Students just go to the business department and book whatever space you want for the rest of the year. You get first dibs. Come early. Because when you’re done booking it, we have a full on event center.
Rich Birch — Right.
Johnny Scott — The largest farmers market in the county. Um, you know a winter concert series.
Rich Birch — Right.
Johnny Scott — Just like guys you’ve got 20 bookable venues, like I don’t care. Book one.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Johnny Scott — And so that mentality of are you going to stand on stage one day and say every dime… Well, when I pay a youth pastor, like we don’t have a youth pastor on our staff. We’re hiring missionary youth pastors. Instead we we have Florida Premier Soccer. They’re 11,000 families, probably one of the most successful soccer organizations on the East Coast, okay.
Rich Birch — Right.
Johnny Scott — They’re here on our campus. We have a turf field. We’re trying to build five more. That whole clubhouse and for-profit entity that is G-Sports for us has the elite of those kids practicing on our turf field on Wednesday nights.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Johnny Scott — And when I first started this journey in my heart, the elders were like okay, we’re going to rent the field out. We’re going to get people here um, but we’re never going to have games on Sunday and we’re not going to let them be here on Wednesday night, right? And I’m like old school youth pastor. I’m like oh yeah, that makes sense. And then I’ve completely changed in the last two years of watching this happen and being on the field and seeing kids. And and now our mentality is instead of telling kids: stop being a soccer player, come to youth group on Wednesday night. We’ll have—today’s Wednesday for us—so we’ll have 300 kids at youth group. That’s just where we’re at right now during junior high and senior high. And I will show up at the beginning of high school tonight because my my whole family’s here. My kids are all here leading worship and serving. Whatever.
Johnny Scott — Then I’m going to walk over to a soccer field where we’re putting a missionary there. And we’re never going to tell the soccer kids to quit soccer and come to youth group. Instead we’re going to say how can we give them a small group experience and be in their coach’s lives, and start to win coaches to the Christ. And serve first, right? Before Jesus heals, before Jesus says follow me, Jesus always served.
Rich Birch — Right. Love it.
Johnny Scott — They never have to come to youth group to be a believer, man. Ever.
Rich Birch — Right, right, right, right. Love it.
Johnny Scott — It’s it’s revolutionary revolutionary.
Rich Birch — Let’s take it I so I love this. Let’s take a step back. One of the things I I love about this. I knew this was going to be a great conversation. For years I’ve said to people, and and you know I’ve been in, you know I think you and I in similar kind of circles in the church world. And for years I’ve said, listen when you read the bible, it is clear that God appears to prefer to work in the marketplace not in the holy places. That’s just scripturally true. He he constantly is reaching people when they’re out in the the real world. Not then it’s not that he doesn’t work in kind of holy places…
Johnny Scott — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …or set aside places, but he seems to prefer to work… Now I bump into your story. Now you as a church, this this minister’s business as ministry, give us kind of the handles. What does that look like for you? How would you be different than kind of the the typical church, you know, around the corner from you. What does that what does that look like for Generations?
Johnny Scott — First of all, this is we’ve not arrived at all.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Johnny Scott — And we we are we a, man, my goodness, everything that we have started has been harder than I thought. Um and I don’t regret any of it. And ah one of the axioms that we have is we can we will acknowledge that we’ll do less than a year than we want to. But we’ll probably do more in 10 years than we ever imagined. And that’s just given us this exhale, okay.
Johnny Scott — And so um there are about 9 business entities right now. We went from 17 church staff to over 100 church staff in the last seven months.
Rich Birch — Whoa.
Johnny Scott — We think we’ll be at 250 church staff or 250 staff overall businesses in the next eighteen months, but we see about a hundred businesses on a hundred acre property in the next five years.
Rich Birch — Wow. Okay, that’s a lot to take in.
Johnny Scott — Yeah it it is. I know dude. I’m…
Rich Birch — That is a lot. Like there’s so lot lots of churches have a coffee shop that like and they’re like oh my goodness we’ve got a coffee shop. I know what you’re doing is different – pull that apart. Why is it?
Johnny Scott — Um, yeah I will well for me God says he’ll do more than more than I can imagine. And I started to think about that. When he says I’ll do more than, I’m like I don’t know. I’m imagining some pretty crazy crap, and you’re telling me more? And I’m one of those guys that you know I’m telling you stuff on a podcast where, you know, people watch this podcast, they’re going to hear stuff that, you know, I don’t I don’t tell all my buddies around the country. Because unless you come here to get your boots on the ground, you’re just not going to get it.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Johnny Scott — I’m having conversations where I’m like okay I’m not going to talk about this to anyone else because this is stupid. But we we are we’re we’re engaging right now with you know, an equity group to buy 49% of a MLS Next Pro Soccer team. The church is going to own 20% and um, we’ve already got a built in fan base. We believe by 2026 World Cup time that that prop, that entity this soccer club could be worth $25,000,000.
Johnny Scott — um that’s that’s cra that’s crazy, right? And like we’re getting into it I’m I’m answering your question in a backwards way because we’re getting into a gray space. because people start to say well, what are you gonna do if, you know, MLS Next Pro, which is their minor league team, if they start to say that franchise is going to do gay pride month, and demand that you have that on your Jerseys. Well here’s my first answer: I don’t know. I don’t know.
Rich Birch — Sure. Yes.
Johnny Scott — And but here but but here’s how this has worked. Grow me, you know, I’m an X’r, you know, son of boomers. I know the greatest generation ever, you know, because they were grandparents. And I I know where we’re at right now is we have this next generation these next generations that we’re trying to pull into ministry. And ah I’ve seen what we’ve done which is, you know, cast people out, tell people that they’ve got to believe before they can belong, and it’s not the model that Jesus had.
Rich Birch — Right.
Johnny Scott — And so all of these entities that we’re doing I’m willing to get into the gray space and say we’re going to make decisions based upon the leading of the Holy Spirit and the facts as they present themselves when we get there. How about that? And we can only move at the speed of trust. And um, we’re God has slowed us down and sped us up, and with the current things that we’re doing and how they’re interacting, our our fear of mission drift you know. Because we’ve got the classic examples. Well did you know that Harvard started out preaching? And how are you going to guarantee not doing mission drift? Well, how are you going to guarantee not doing anything crazy, and and not trying out of the box things are going to do… like seriously?
Johnny Scott — So we feel like we’re in the fight. We feel like the Holy Spirit is leading us. And while we’re not sustainable yet, I see within 18 months, you know, we could be to a place where you know there is 0 debt for our church. And we can say every dollar given goes straight to. But here’s what I’ll do it’s that Matthew 25. We we had a high level leader say to us, when when does this stop? And I just I had a like a a very clarifying moment. I said this is, by the way, this is never going to stop.
Rich Birch — Right.
Johnny Scott — This will never stop. Because when Jesus comes back in Matthew chapter 25, he doesn’t say, everyone without church debt stand in line. He says, I want to examine your point of leverage. That’s what he says.
Rich Birch — That’s a good question.
Johnny Scott — And so for us, um, you know I, man, I’m I’m getting I’m so I’m stepping on some toes, I know.
Rich Birch — It’s good. It’s good. Step away.
Johnny Scott — But but but here’s the deal, bro. Here’s the deal with this, and because it gets me frustrated. Um, we we’ve changed what, you know, like cleanliness is next to godliness. I’m like where is that exactly. And we’ve put like well debt-free is what God wants. And that’s not what God said. God said use man’s money, that’s man’s currency to get kingdom currency. Kingdom currency is people.
Rich Birch — Right.
Johnny Scott — So we leverage man’s money to get that. And so if you’re a church and you have no debt and you’re worth, you know, $30,000,000, I think that our property in the next ten years could be valued at over $100,000,000. Easily, okay.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Johnny Scott — And if our if our loan to debt is like well we just got all of debt. We do everything cash now. I’m like wait wait a minute, wait a minute. What if we leveraged say 35% of that? And put that into church planting globally, right?
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Johnny Scott — What could we do a $35,000,000? Because everyone’s like well you know what the payment on that… Because someone would say to me they’re like, I remember when our payment you know a monthly payment was something like $47,000. And someone said do you know what we could do with $47,000 a month? I was like yeah. A lot less than ten million now.
Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, right.
Johnny Scott — That’s what that’s what you can do. And and so I think that the biblical principle is never to be a slave to the lender. Well when you’re leveraged at such a point that regardless of an economic downturn, you know I think we’re in two we’re in two quarters of you know like GDP downturn right now. So we’re technically in a recession. There are still banks lending, right?
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Johnny Scott — And and we could still go out and get a lender who’s excited to do business with us as we build what’s going to be a ten acre facility with a soccer, a new soccer field, on top of 2 levels of parking.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Johnny Scott — I mean this, it’s crazy architecturally what we’re getting ready to do. We’re not a slave to the lender, right?
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Johnny Scott — Because lenders want to be involved. And so changing church’s mindset to say we’re going to appropriately leverage man’s resources/dollars to get influence. I’m after influence.
Rich Birch — Right.
Johnny Scott — Because if we have influence. Um, now we can use that influence to make it all about lifting Jesus up, right? I mean five years ago when I when I got here I wasn’t meeting with people that didn’t know Jesus. And now I’m I’m in a meeting with people and I had a guy who I count as a dear friend. And he looked at me and he just said, hey man, you’re crazy. And I so and I said, no, I said I really want to reframe that for you. Because I want for you and I to start to have a conversation that I’m not crazy at all. I just believe that God is real, and that Jesus wants to be lifted up.
Johnny Scott — And so all the things I’m doing, it’s not so that you think, oh that pastor is crazy. Or he’s an entrepreneur. No, no, no. I want you to start to say he’s fully believing that Jesus is going to be lifted up in this. And I’m pushing the conversation to be about Jesus lifted up. He says, if I’m lifted up, men will look to me.
Johnny Scott — Then they’ll have to make a decision if he’s the Lord, liar, or lunatic. And he’s where he responds to me and he says, well soccer is my god. And I loved his response because…
Rich Birch — Yeah, now you’re having a real conversation. Right.
Johnny Scott — Because now we’re yeah, and so I said I said here’s the here’s the deal. I said I I’m gonna I I said I I like soccer, and I want to come and enjoy soccer. And God gave us soccer because soccer is super fun, but soccer makes a bad god. So I’m I want to have a God-off with you. And as as you and I enjoy soccer together, and high five, and grow soccer, I’m going to constantly be comparing my God to your god. And my assertion is that your god is fake, not real, and you’re worshipping something that should just be enjoyed. That’s a gift given to you by my God. And now we’re having a six month conversation about is God real?
Rich Birch — Right, now you’re engaged. Yeah, that’s amazing.
Johnny Scott — And you know what God’s doing? God’s showing himself that he’s real. Because this is where he gets glory. I don’t have to do it. I write spiritual checks all day and I’m like you better cash that one Lord it’s got your name on it. You’re you’re my you’re my guarantor. Right?
Rich Birch — Sure, sure, sure.
Johnny Scott — And this this business is ministry. You know as I’ve got ministry teams, because here’s here’s the the rub you get into. I’ve got pastors’ friends that are like oh my goodness, man, I don’t want to do that that sounds like such a headache. Oh yeah, I’ve got 3 schools on my property right now.
Rich Birch — Right. It’s a headache.
Johnny Scott — I’m I’m launching two more schools, 2000 learners in 5 years. Um curriculum is expensive. Startup costs is expensive. FF and E is expensive. Shared ministry space is horrible, and everyone’s fighting. And you know I’ve got traditional 1.0 ministries people going, well, you know, Johnny sometimes you spend too much time with businesses and stuff. Like well no, that’s what I hired you for you know and and guys it’s not businesses versus traditional ministry. Business is ministry.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Johnny Scott — And to get that we are one, right? And this is why Jesus’ is last word to us, his last prayer and his his final discourse in John was all about unity. He didn’t pray for ideas. He didn’t pray for business performance. He didn’t pray for money. He prayed for unity. So here’s the premise I actually believe: that every resource our church needs to dramatically impact the community around us is embedded in us. My job is to cultivate that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Johnny Scott — I continually fight for unity.
Rich Birch — When you so to pull apart a little bit you kind of were heading towards or hinting towards what, you know, there might be some skeptics that are listening in that would say like, isn’t this all just a distraction from church 1.0? Or you know, the preaching of the word? Insert whatever language in there. I understand at a personal level. I love that story because I think that’s a great, you know, soccer is god story – I think that’s at the heart of what you’re trying to do. But how do you do that at scale? I get that you have an opportunity to do that as a leader – you’re engaging with one other leader, but then how does the church do that? How do you kind of do that with the thousands of kids that are on the property and the ten thousands of people that come to watch soccer? Um, what what does that look like for you today?
Johnny Scott — Okay, I’m gonna I’m gonna do two things. I’m gonna dodge your question here real quick…
Rich Birch — At least you admit it.
Johnny Scott — …and I’m all and I am…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Johnny Scott — …but then I’m also gonna give you some very practical things. Okay, my dodge is when I do this on a very personal level um to me that’s that’s stopping mission drift from my heart.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Johnny Scott — And speed of leader, speed a team.
Rich Birch — Yep yeah, absolutely.
Johnny Scott — And I want I want my team to have that ethos about us that, you know, we’re doing this on an individual level and if we do it at the smallest level, it’ll happen on the macro level, okay. And if and if I model that. So that’s how I’m keeping my way pure in all this. I’m keeping my religion undefiled, right?
Johnny Scott — Um, the second more practical answer to that is ah there’s profit from these businesses. I mean the fact that a youth pastor would walk into my office and say um, hey we’re going to take kids to camp and you know my budget is $50,000 this year. Like no one in the business world does that at all ever anywhere.
Rich Birch — Right, right, right, right, right, right.
Johnny Scott — Like and like what I remember, you know, one of my mentors in ministry like we made enough money off summer camp to fund our own intern for $7000.
Rich Birch — Right.
Johnny Scott — We made $7000 profit because we just built it in.
Rich Birch — Right.
Johnny Scott — So that we we’re completely backwards at how we run ministry.
Rich Birch — Right.
Johnny Scott — Like we’re ser… McDonald’s has got a sign that says 50,000 people served. Well we’re serving people.
Rich Birch — Right.
Johnny Scott — But why do they charge and we don’t?
Rich Birch — Right, right, right, right.
Johnny Scott — Do you not believe in what what you’re giving people?
Rich Birch — Right.
Johnny Scott — So we need to have a total transformation on how we serve people. We’re offering a value and there’s something valuable to it. Ah, but on a very practical level. These businesses are making profit. Their performers are set up to make profit. And I’m I’m there’s profit that comes back to the elders oversee everything in our corporate structure. You know there’s no, there’s not a lot of boards set up. It just goes straight to the elders um through a very very really good list of, you know, organizations through with our our org lawyer. Um, and so we’re we are reinvesting those dollars with missionaries that are intentional.
Rich Birch — Right.
Johnny Scott — And we don’t pay people have coffee; people drink coffee for free. You know?
Rich Birch — Right.
Johnny Scott — Like I never want to be that senior pastor that’s like, how big is your discipleship team? It’s like nine people. It’s like what like like that’s everyone to everyone disciples here at church.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Johnny Scott — You know our one of our things is you are God’s plan for your street.
Rich Birch — Right.
Johnny Scott — When people walk up and say you know we should start a program for it like, great. Go do it. God put that on your heart not mine.
Rich Birch — Right.
Johnny Scott — So we’re we’re going to have metrics and like we’re working on what are metrics right now and deliverables for someone who is assigned to that school as a missionary. Because my ministry staff’s doing ministry 1.0. And there’s a piece of me even when you said it a minute ago a minute ago. You said to me, well you know the the gospel clearly shows us that you know missional effort and always happened in the workplace. I was like man he’s so right on the text. And there’s a part of me that reared up. And I was about came at you, I was like, hey bro, the church is the answer for the world man. Hey bro, you know? And so I have that fight within me, you know?
Rich Birch — Sure. Yeah, yeah.
Johnny Scott — And ah so you know as a church, we’re extremely churchy. Like if you come we get to be churchy. I’m I’m pastor first with everything I do. Sunday is not for talking about like it’s the gospel gospel gospel; we preach the gospel Christ crucified on Sundays. And if you want to know about what’s happening like book a meeting on Monday, right?
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Johnny Scott — So practically like we’re just putting embedded missionaries in these entities and giving them deliverables on what they’re really going to do to show that they’re making headway.
Rich Birch — That’s fascinating.
Johnny Scott — So that’s where we’re at, and it’s messy. We’ve not I’ve said it a few times we’ve not figured it all out, but we feel we feel like we’re not getting.
Rich Birch — No, no. Yeah, yeah. I love it.
Johnny Scott — We’re not doing something new I’m getting back to Paul’s framework. I’m just selling tents. Not Christian tents. Not tents to christians.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Johnny Scott — Right?
Rich Birch — Yep, yeah. I love it. I love it. Well, let’s kind of as we come to land. Rattle through we did I love this. We did this interview like completely backwards which is good.
Johnny Scott — I I know.
Rich Birch — Rattle through the 9 the 9 businesses, give us a framework. We talked about soccer. What are some of those other ones that they’re currently, you know, that are are currently running? What are that what do they look like or not all of them just like kind of a flavor of what they look like?
Johnny Scott — Yeah, so you know a full on convention center that serves ah the the entire community would be a big one. I mean the the farmers market might sound like a small deal. It really is a massive influence in in our community.
Rich Birch — Huge deal. Yep.
Johnny Scott — We have ah you know standard christian education on our campus, but the fact that I have non-faith based education franchise on our campus is a really big deal. A sports school, you know, that a parent’s paying $23,000 is a year to send their kid to um, that’s bringing life back to them. Two coffee shops um, that are actually international coffee shops while we’re roasting our own stuff and working with missionaries in 3 different continents around the world to bring single source, fair trade coffee.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Johnny Scott — Um putting all that together. That’s great.
Rich Birch — Fantastic.
Johnny Scott — Um, our sports brand is probably got four or five entities in it.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Johnny Scott — I could just do an entire thing with you on the sports brand. It’s I forget stuff like a counseling center I don’t I don’t even know man.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good.
Johnny Scott — It’s it’s crazy. It’s crazy.
Rich Birch — This is so fantastic fantastic, Johnny. I this has been great. I I do think—just want to encourage you—I really do think you are scratching ah towards, like you say, Church 2.0. I don’t think you’re way off in the deep end on that. I think I think that what you’re doing is pushing towards what I think all of our churches need to do, and you’re asking the questions hey where do we go from here? What does it look like in a particularly in a post-christian culture to reach the culture around us to use the resources God’s given us to make an impact in the world around us. I just think it’s fantastic. Anything else you want to say as we kind of wrap up today’s conversation?
Johnny Scott — I you know I would just challenge pastors that you know might be overwhelmed. This was this didn’t happen in a year. This has been a 5-year journey and I’m not the guy, you know, that God is put together. I mean if I were just to talk about the team that God is miraculously assembled and and folks are like well you know, that’s just Johnny’s personality. It’s it’s not, it’s not. I think this is part of who Jesus is in saying I I want to have a church that, you know, is just out there serving. and maybe for guys like for us we started with just a Crossfit gym. That’s it, man.
Johnny Scott — And God started to put these other things together. And for you, you know, you got to contextualize all this. We we took this from missionaries overseas actually is where the dream started in Kenya – Nairobi, Kenya.
Rich Birch — Very cool.
Johnny Scott — And I challenge guys all the time that are like well that’s just you know that’s your personality. No no, it’s not. Like you can do just one of these things. And it will bring so much fun and you will start to have personal evangelism, and reach in your community like never before. Start somewhere.
Rich Birch — Love it. So good, Johnny. Appreciate that. Where do we want to send people online if they want to check, you know, check out the church, kind of track with your story. Where’s the best place for us to send them?
Johnny Scott — Ah, generations generationscc.com is a church’s address…
Rich Birch — Perfect.
Johnny Scott — …and then The Commons at Trinity is we renamed the property The Commons at Trinity. Um, and you know that that url is up and Instagram… you can follow the journey of the business develop the CDC cool.
Rich Birch — Love it. Thanks so much – appreciate you being here today.
Johnny Scott — Thanks, man. Yeah, God bless, bro.
Thanks for tuning in to the unSeminary podcast. This week we’re talking with Patrick Lencioni, one of the founders of The Table Group and an expert in leadership, teamwork, and organizational health.
Pat’s also the author of 13 books which have sold millions of copies around the world, and today he’s talking with us about his latest book, The 6 Types of Working Genius: A Better Way to Understand Your Gifts, Your Frustrations, and Your Team. Listen in to learn how to help your team tap into their God-given gifts, identify the type of work that brings them joy and energy, and increase productivity while reducing judgement and burnout.
- What is a working genius? // When it comes to getting work done, one task can give someone joy and energy while it feels draining to another person, even when they love their job. Pat identifies six types of working genius, spelling out the word WIDGET, which identify a person’s God-given gifts so they can work from a place of increased productivity while reducing frustration and burnout.
- Understanding WIDGET. // Understanding the six types of working genius gives you a model for understanding yourself, your team members, and why you need all of the working geniuses to be present and working together on your staff. It will also help you to place people in the right roles so that they thrive while helping the church to thrive.
- Wonder. // People who have the working genius of wonder are naturally fed by asking questions. They are concerned with possibilities and potential. Wonder is always the first step; without it our organizations will keep doing the same thing until they stagnate.
- Invention. // People with the working genius of invention are attracted to developing a new and better way. They will partner with the person who has the working genius of wonder to turn questions into new solutions and systems.
- Discernment. // The working genius of discernment is a God-given gift of using your judgement, intuition, instinct, pattern recognition, and integrative thinking. Give the person with this working genius a problem and they can naturally identify the right thing to do.
- Galvanizing. // The galvanizing working genius belongs to people who wake up every morning and love to inspire other people to act. They exhort, encourage and rally people together to take action.
- Enablement. // The positive form of enablement is the next working genius and it’s critical for a team. Being gifted with enablement is all about joyfully coming alongside people and helping them with whatever they need in the way they need it.
- Tenacity. // The last working genius is tenacity and it’s about finishing things and plowing through obstacles. People with tenacity are focused and persistent; they won’t move on to the next thing until the current task is completed.
- Take the quiz to know your gifts. // Without knowing what gifts God’s given you, you can’t fill in the gaps with the team around you. Take the Working Genius Assessment in about ten minutes to identify your working geniuses, your working competencies, and your working frustrations. Plus, complete the assessment with your team and receive a team map that will reveal any gaps in the organization.
Discover your gifts and transform your team at www.workinggenius.com.
Thank You for Tuning In!There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Leadership Pathway
If you are trying to find, develop and keep young leaders on your team look no further than Leadership Pathway. They have worked with hundreds of churches, and have interviewed thousands of candidates over the past several years. They are offering a new ebook about five of the core competencies that are at the heart of the leadership development process with every church that they partner with…just go to leadershippathway.org/unseminary to pick up this free resource.
Episode TranscriptRich Birch — Well hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. You know every week we try to bring you a leader who will both inspire and equip you and today’s no exception. It’s our honor, really our privilege, to have Patrick Lencioni with us. You probably have heard of him before – he’s one of the founders of The Table Group, which is really a pioneering organization around ah, organizational health. They really do a fantastic job – started in 1997. As the president of The Table Group, Pat spends his time speaking, writing about leadership, teamwork, and organizational health as well as consulting with executives and their team. He’s also the author of 13 books, which have sold a crazy number – 6,000,000 copies, translated in 30 languages. His latest book, which we’re going to talk about today, The Six Types of Working Genius. Pat, welcome to the show.
Patrick Lencioni — It’s great to be here. I’m so excited – when I saw this on my schedule a few weeks ago and woke up this morning I thought, this is the kind of podcast I love to do. I love to speak to your audience and so I’m a kid in a candy store today.
Rich Birch — So honored that you that you’d come on – really appreciate it. What what did I miss there? Kind of fill out your story. What parts of, you know, Patrick do we want to let people know in on.
Patrick Lencioni — You know I mean I I I always like when people go: Pat Lencioni – here he is. That’s it. You don’t need to tell. But I think the one thing that your audience might be interested in is 10 years, almost ten years ago, I started an organization with another gentleman called The Amazing Parish. And though I work with like I work with, I know a ton of megachurch pastors and pastors and different denominations and Christian Evangelical all that, I’m Catholic and we started an organization called The Amazing Parish ten years ago that really serves pastors in Catholic Churches…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Patrick Lencioni — …who went to seminary and didn’t learn how to lead didn’t learn how to develop teams. And and we help them with that in a very spiritual, prayerful way. So I love this audience. Not only from my Evangelical friends but I’m steeped in it in the Catholic Church as well. So this is fun.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. I I have to confess—I said this before we got on air—I have been following you for a while – did not know about The Amazing Parish until I was doing research for this and I checked it out. It looks amazing. So yeah, friends, you should go and check out that website. It’s really easy to find. amazingparish.org if you want to check that out. It would be a great thing.
Patrick Lencioni — And you know what’s an interest. What I love is so many of my Evangelical friends have actually come to our annual conference…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Patrick Lencioni — …where we bring people there, and and we’re partners with Northpoint and Andy and the and the folks there who you’re friends with.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Patrick Lencioni — …and they’re serving churches and we’re helping them and they’ve come to our conference and so yes, yes, ladies and gentlemen, in this time of persecution and craziness in the world. Evangelicals, Protestants, Catholics are all realizing we’re all brothers in Christ so it’s wonderful.
Rich Birch — Oh absolutely. Actually I was just in London…
Patrick Lencioni — And sisters.
Rich Birch — …and a couple couple weeks ago and spent a bunch of time with with an organization called Alpha.
Patrick Lencioni — Oh!
Rich Birch — And there’s a yeah lot of the huge Catholic component within that and I dinner with a guy across the table who spent a whole night talking, and it was it was fascinating, you know, sharing across the table about our ministries. How similar, you know, we really are for sure.
Patrick Lencioni — Well and let me tell you the evil one hates the idea that we’re talking, and I mean that but…
Rich Birch — Yeah, so that’s true. That is very true. Yeah.
Patrick Lencioni — …years ago I had the chance to go to London and go to speak at um, um the conference there and meet the Alpha folks, and and be be involved with the with the folks that do that on the Catholic side as well. It’s wonderful to see how we’re cooperating and working together.
Rich Birch — It is.
Patrick Lencioni — It’s great.
Rich Birch — It’s very good.
Patrick Lencioni — Nicky Gumbel. That’s what…
Rich Birch — Nicky Gumbel.
Patrick Lencioni — …Nicky Gumbel. Yup.
Rich Birch — Absolutely. Love it. Well I’m really looking forward to diving into your most recent work here Working Genius – The 6 Types of Working Genius. Talk to us about it. What is this model? You know, like give us a sense of what what we’re talking about here today.
Patrick Lencioni — Essentially this is this is two things. It’s a model for understanding yourself – the gifts God gives you when it comes to getting real work done. Like to the specifics of which kind of task, activities give you joy and energy and God intended you to do because it’s a gift. And which kind did he not give you, and it drains you of your joy and energy, and feeling guilty about not being good at that is not good. It’s not good. And and that’s how I developed it and I came about I came upon this by accident in trying to address my own frustration at work. I was finding myself grumpy at work…
Rich Birch — Right.
Patrick Lencioni — …for 20 years off and on even though I worked with wonderful people doing something I loved. But I would often drift into grumpiness and I couldn’t figure it out. And somebody finally said, hey why are you like that? And I and I said I don’t know. And by the grace of God I came up with this model just for myself. And then we found out people were were just were were saying, no this is universal; this helps me. And and so it went crazy. But what what this also is is not just an individual tool, but it is the fastest and most transformational tool for teams to better appreciate one another, readjust how they get things done in an organization…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Patrick Lencioni — …and certainly in a church…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Patrick Lencioni — …so that they can lean into their geniuses more…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Patrick Lencioni — …and and call other people to work up into their geniuses. It is such a wonderful tool. As it turns out God made us to need one another. We don’t… none of us have everything.
Rich Birch — Right. Love it. The—and I want we’re gonna talk about the assessment I had a chance to take it and it was fantastic, but we’ll get a chance to talk to that—one of the things I loved was you’ve got these kind of six different types, and they spell out the word “widget” but Wonder, Invention, Discernment, Galvanizing, Enabling, Tenacity – widget. That seems kind of crazy to me that you use that as a, you know, as that the the word under it all.
Patrick Lencioni — Well let me tell you it was mostly by accident. So we got as we were. We were really coming up with like what’s the right word for each of these these geniuses…
Rich Birch — Yes, yeah.
Patrick Lencioni — …and we got it was W and I and D and G. And I was like okay, I’m not going to make it spell widget. I’m not going to do that. And then we were struggling with a word for the the fifth one, and we were like there’s only one word and it’s it’s enablement. It’s like in the in the good way…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Patrick Lencioni — …enabling others to. And when I got to that I said, now I’m going to find a darn T word because it’s not going to be widgel or widger. So we and we found a great T word. So we didn’t do it on purpose. In fact, we were kind of worried about doing it that way…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Patrick Lencioni — …because it sounded like, did you do that on purpose?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Patrick Lencioni — Most of it was by accident and then we said okay, we’re gonna we’re gonna finish it. So.
Rich Birch — Yeah, so why don’t you take us through that a little bit kind of unpack that a little bit. Give us a sense of the model; talk us through what that, you know, what those what those six are.
Patrick Lencioni — Great. So I’m going to do it in the order in which they generally occur in getting things done. Although nothing’s that neat and tidy and I’m going to start from the highest altitude – the first thing down to the lowest, like landing the plane. So the first thing, the first genius—which most people who have this don’t think it’s a genius because mostly they’ve been either criticized or kind of looked at funny when they do it, but it’s critical and it’s a first step in anything—is the genius of wonder. The genius of wonder – the W. And and people that have this genius and it’s completely God-given are naturally inclined to, and are fed by, asking questions and thinking about things at a high level – about possibilities and potential. And and and asking questions like, is there a better way? Is this enough? Should we be rethinking this? Why why are things like this? And why do we do it this way? And and it’s it’s it’s how this model came about.
Patrick Lencioni — My colleague Amy said to me one day, why are you like that? What goes on?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Patrick Lencioni — And and that question somebody says—and this is true in any kind of organization—is there a better way to do ministry?
Rich Birch — Right.
Patrick Lencioni — Is is the way we’re doing youth outreach, is it is this really working? They’re they’re not saying they have the answer…
Rich Birch — Right.
Patrick Lencioni — …but they’re the ones that look at and go, I’m going to ask the question.
Rich Birch — Right.
Patrick Lencioni — And it’s critical, and there are certain people that are naturally inclined to doing that, and it’s a beautiful genius, and we need to realize that without it our organizations…
Rich Birch — Right we don’t move forward.
Patrick Lencioni — Yeah, or we keep doing the same thing.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Patrick Lencioni — I I had a group of of executives of a multibillion dollar tech company, who had been behind the curve in innovation for years. They had no new products, and they were just living off of their old products. And when they saw their their their team profile, they realized nobody on their on their leadership team had W. In fact, it was worse than that. Almost everyone had it as one of their working frustrations, their least happy thing.
Rich Birch — Oh gosh – they were repelling it. They were pushing it away. Absolutely.
Patrick Lencioni — Exactly.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Patrick Lencioni — And the CFO who certainly was not a Wonder said, if we don’t learn to wonder we’re never going to figure out this market. So…
Rich Birch — Wow, wow. That’s great.
Patrick Lencioni — So we need people to do that. But that’s not enough somebody has to ask the question, then somebody else says, oh please please. The next genius – the genius of Invention. Please let me try to come up with something new. That’s that person who goes, oh I can think of a better – let me think of a – give me give me a whiteboard with nothing on it and a pen, and I will come up with a new way to do youth outreach.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Patrick Lencioni — You know, this is one of mine and your working geniuses – I’ve seen your results. And you and I are not intimidated by, in fact we’re attracted to the need for a new way.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Patrick Lencioni — And you know what else? Rich, we do this even when it’s not necessary. And that’s how you know it’s a you know it’s a genius…
Rich Birch — Right.
Patrick Lencioni — …because like I would like to do this all the time.
Rich Birch — Right.
Patrick Lencioni — And it’s okay for people to say, hey Rich, I love your Invention, man. God gave you a great gift, but this is not the right medium for it. You know because you know…
Rich Birch — Right. Yes, let’s do that at a different spot.
Patrick Lencioni — Right. You’re about to roll something out and I’m in a meeting in my company and and I’m like, ooh I have an idea! And people go, wait a second, wait a second, wait a second! I think we’re done with the idea phase for now – we’re like two days from implementation. We’ve got the plan. We’re doing great. So sometimes, sometimes it’s a genius that we’re not supposed to use and that’s okay.
Rich Birch — Right. So I when I read when I read this, took this, you know, your assessment and and rolled through it this particular piece of it really stood out to me as true. For years, probably 20 years, when someone would ask me, hey, what is it that you actually do? Because they try to, you know, sometimes be an executive pastor who’s not on the stage all the time people wonder what is your job, like what do you do around here. And I would always say the shorthand I would say my job is I live at the intersection of vision and execution. I love taking the “where are we headed”—the Wonder in your language, the Wonder, what do we think that God’s calling our church to do—and then actually figuring out how we’re going to go and do that. Like let’s actually… so it is like a little bit of vision casting. It is I have to and I and I can live in that space. But then I love then saying ok, let’s figure out what that looks like let’s go make it happen.
Patrick Lencioni — Right. Well and we’re gonna get to let’s go make it happen. I love that that you said that. Um, so so there’s Wonder and Invention, and those two…
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Patrick Lencioni — …the first two—are what’s called idea ideation. That’s where new ideas come from.
Rich Birch — Ok, ok, love it.
Patrick Lencioni — Okay, by the way I’ve had I had we had a pastor right after this model came out. He took the assessment, and he wrote to us and he said, I thought I was a a fraud, and I should have never been a pastor. He’d been a pastor for over ten years and he goes, I thought I was a failure…
Rich Birch — Oh wow.
Patrick Lencioni — …and I I picked the wrong profession. And he said, I realize now I just don’t have W or I, and so writing a homily, writing a sermon, was really hard for him. And so I looked at his type and I said, do you like to counsel people? He goes oh I love to. Do you like to come alongside people where they’re at in their discipleship journey? Oh yeah I do. I love that. Yeah, see a pastor is not a pastor is not a pastor.
Rich Birch — Right, right. Search.
Patrick Lencioni — All you need to do is find somebody on your team or somebody that you know who’s good at W I, and spend a few hours with them every week and they’re going to help you. But don’t feel guilty.
Rich Birch — Right, right, right, right, right.
Patrick Lencioni — And it was he said it it changed his whole view of his pastorship.
Rich Birch — Love it. Love it.
Patrick Lencioni — Okay, so so those first two – Wonder, Invention. Then we get to the D – discernment. Discernment is a God-given gift of using your judgment, your intuition, your instincts, pattern recognition, and integrative thinking. It’s people that just kind of have a sense. You give them a problem and it’s not about data or expertise, but they have great… they look at things and they just see things and they go, this I think this is the right thing to do. And they’re usually right and they and it is an absolute gift. Some people just think that way.
Patrick Lencioni — I love to tell the story of Tracy, a woman in my office who has great discernment. When my wife and I are talking about just about anything, like should we refinance our house, or where should we go on vacation, or or how should we handle this, or does this look good, or what kind of car should we get? Here’s the…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Patrick Lencioni — Laura will say, ask Tracy.
Rich Birch — I I love it. Love it. So good.
Patrick Lencioni — I think the last three cars I bought I finally said, Tracy, I don’t know – what do you think? She was you need this. And I’m like then I probably should get that.
Rich Birch — Ah love it. Yes, Yes.
Patrick Lencioni — And you know what’s funny. She said when she was a kid her friends would ask her for advice because she always had…
Rich Birch — Ah, oh that’s amazing.
Patrick Lencioni — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah, and we all know people like that, right? We all know those people.
Patrick Lencioni — Right.
Rich Birch — That it’s like they they’re just in our orbit and and we just want to listen to what they have to say, and they’re yeah they’re very discerning. I love that. That’s so good.
Patrick Lencioni — Right? And it’s a God given talent.
Rich Birch — Yeah, cool, cool.
Patrick Lencioni — And it’s real and when you say to them, prove it with data. They’re like oh yeah, yeah, that’s not my thing.
Rich Birch — Right.
Patrick Lencioni — I I don’t know. That’s not how I make decisions.
Rich Birch — Yes, love it yet.
Patrick Lencioni — So so discernment is great because when people invent something, like you’re an inventor having somebody that can come along and discern it and go, Hey, three of your ideas are pretty good. This one’s fantastic. This one here would never work. This one needs a little bit more work.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Patrick Lencioni — So we had a guy write to us and say that for years he thought he kind of thought his wife didn’t like him. She was against him. And he said for their anniversary they took the Working Genius Assessment. He goes he goes I’m an inventor and I come up with new ideas all the time. And every time I come up with a new idea, she tells me what the flaws are.
Rich Birch — Oh wow.
Patrick Lencioni — And he goes I thought she was like trying to crush my enthusiasm. And they took the assessment and her lead genius was discernment.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Patrick Lencioni — So he would give her new idea and she’d say, the way I love you is to try to give you feedback because I want it to work for you because I love you. And it changed their marriage.
Rich Birch — Interesting. Love it.
Patrick Lencioni — So it’s one of those things we we often judge people like you’re criticizing me because you don’t like me. And it’s like oh no I’m a discerner and that’s how I love on people is I give them advice.
Rich Birch — Love it. Love it. So good. Yes.
Patrick Lencioni — So Discernment is the third one.
Rich Birch — Okay, great.
Patrick Lencioni — And and the next one comes to one of yours, Rich.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Patrick Lencioni — And that is Galvanizing.
Rich Birch — Galvanizing. Yeah.
Patrick Lencioni — And that’s the G. And that is people that wake up every morning and love to inspire people to act. They love to remind people to exhort people.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Patrick Lencioni — Exhort exhortation is a great word.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Patrick Lencioni — You know they’re like come on! You can do this! We can do this!
Rich Birch — Right, right, right.
Patrick Lencioni — So your your two geniuses are Invention and Galvanizing. The word we use for that pairing is the evangelizing innovator. They come up with new ideas.
Rich Birch — Yeah when I read that…
Patrick Lencioni — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah when I read that again that did that did resonate. I was um and I posted on social I was like okay so I took took the Working Genius. For those folks that know me, what do you think? And you know it’s that little thing on Instagram where they can pull the bar. And it was 100% of the people said 100% of it. Like they were like, yes, that was that’s very much you.
Patrick Lencioni — Yeah.
Rich Birch — This idea of somebody who is out you know, evangelizing saying, hey let’s let’s let’s pull this thing together. Let’s make this thing happen. We can do this, you know, whether it’s in lots of different areas of my life. So that’s kind of fun.
Patrick Lencioni — Yeah, by the way, a little a little personal feedback I I know a lot of I-Gs, G-Is like you. And one of the things I found about all of them I love them. They’re some of my favorite people. But when I first meet them I always suspect that they’re not authentic because I can’t believe anybody could be so excited so often.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Patrick Lencioni — And then my third interaction…
Rich Birch — So now you’re reading my… but Pat this is the first time we’ve met.
Patrick Lencioni — Yeah.
Rich Birch — I’ve had that feedback from people in my life in the past where people have said they’re like are you…? Like yeah like they would say like after we’re friends for a little bit, they were like when I first met you I was like, is this guy real? Like you see is he really honest in that way? Which is so funny so that’s great. Love it. So fun.
Patrick Lencioni — Yeah, um, and praise God that this actually works. You know I don’t think I invented it. I think I discovered it. I really do believe…
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Patrick Lencioni — …God like anointed me with like, hey Pat, here’s an insight that can help other people…
Rich Birch — Right.
Patrick Lencioni — …who are feeling guilty about themselves, or are judging others, without understanding it. St Francis of Assisi said, you know, seek to understand more than to be understood. And the more we can understand other people then the more they can understand us too.
Rich Birch — Love it. Love it.
Patrick Lencioni — So anyway, so you’re a Galvanizer. Now here’s the thing about me, I’m not.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Patrick Lencioni — But I’ve learned how to do it and I I can do it well. But I don’t like it.
Rich Birch — Oh interesting. Okay.
Patrick Lencioni — And so that’s how this whole model came about, Rich. I would come to work every day, ready to invent and discern, and people would go well, you’re the best galvanizer we got so galvanize us. Galvanize us. Galvanize us.
Rich Birch — Okay, okay, okay.
Patrick Lencioni — And it was burning me out. And and…
Rich Birch — Interesting.
Patrick Lencioni — And so sometimes just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean that’s actually what you’re called to do. You know I love that I love that idea that when you make a decision go where you’re where you find peace. And and and if you don’t have peace and when you’re doing something but people say you’re great at it, maybe there’s that there’s probably something a little bit wrong there. You know when Barry Sanders the football player, if you follow football, retired—like the best running back ever—retired when he was like 28. And…
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s crazy.
Patrick Lencioni — …and you know why? I don’t think he loved it. He was just good at it.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Patrick Lencioni — And God really does call us to spend as much time as possible in the things he gave us that give us joy and energy.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Patrick Lencioni — So this isn’t just about talent. It’s about joy and energy…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Patrick Lencioni — …where we and that’s where usually our talents lie.
Rich Birch — Yes I love that.
Patrick Lencioni — So you’re a galvanizer; you love doing that.
Rich Birch — I do. Actually I’ve I’ve seen that many times. So what what’s that what are your two? You said Wonder is your first – are you W I? Is that what you said?
Patrick Lencioni — No – I’m I and D.
Rich Birch — Oh okay.
Patrick Lencioni — So I’m an inventor and a discerner. And that’s called a discriminating um ideator.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Patrick Lencioni — Which means like when I come up with new ideas – this is going to sound very immodest but but humility is not being falsely modest. Humility is actually acknowledging what is true. And and since we know we’re not God and it’s a gift, um acknowledging your gifts is not a violation of humility. In fact, to deny your gifts is.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Patrick Lencioni — Because they’re a gift. How can I brag about my gifts?
Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yeah.
Patrick Lencioni — So when I come up with new ideas a a disproportionately high number of them turn out to work…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Patrick Lencioni — …because because I I have this loop of invention and discernment, invention and discernment. So by the time I I put it out there, I’ve already kind of evaluated it.
Rich Birch — Okay, okay, that makes sense.
Patrick Lencioni — And so it’s just kind of how it works.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Patrick Lencioni — Now I suck at a bunch of other things. That’s also humble.
Rich Birch — Nice. Now these last two. Enablement and Tenacity – those are the last two. Talk us through what those are.
Patrick Lencioni — Those are both your and my working frustrations. By the way, Rich, do you know what a working frustration is? A working frustration to compare it… Your Working Genius is like pouring coffee into a Yeti mug and putting a lid on it.
Rich Birch — Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Patrick Lencioni — You know it holds the it holds the heat for hours and hours. You’re Working Genius – you could spend ah an entire day in your Working Genius and feel like I’m not really tired. You know?
Rich Birch — Right. Yes, yes.
Patrick Lencioni — The the next two areas are what we call your working competency. That’s like pouring coffee into a cup and putting a lid on it – a regular plastic coffee cup. It’ll hold it for a while. You can do that. Your working frustration is the coffee cup you pour into and it’s got a hole in the bottom of it. It’s going to drain you of joy and energy. And it’s hard to spend much time certainly over a period of time. We really aren’t designed to spend a lot of time in our areas of working frustration.
Patrick Lencioni — And so the next area which is both your and I working frustration. It’s hard to admit this as followers of Jesus, but the next genius is called Enablement.
Rich Birch — Okay, yep.
Patrick Lencioni — And it’s a beautiful thing. It’s not enabling an alcoholic or a drug addict. It’s enabling people by coming alongside them and helping them with whatever they need.
Rich Birch — Okay, yep.
Patrick Lencioni — And there are people who have a God-given gift, and you all know it because you see it in your organizations, when somebody says I need help. Their energy, they’re like, oh please I want to help you. What do you need?
Rich Birch — Pick me, pick me. Yeah yeah.
Patrick Lencioni — Right. Because they love to help on your terms. Now you and I love to help people too. But when somebody asks me for help, I want to invent and discern for them.
Rich Birch — Hmm, okay.
Patrick Lencioni — I don’t necessarily want to give them what they’re asking for. Um the best explanation I have of this one is when my wife says to me, Pat, I need your help this weekend. Before she even tells me what it is I start to feel a little bit drained.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Patrick Lencioni — And then I said oh okay, what do you need help with? She says I need help cleaning the garage. So now I’m even a little lower. So what I immediately go to my my strengths and I say, are you sure we need to clean the garage? Tell me why you think we need to clean it. That’s my discernment.
Rich Birch — Love it. Yes.
Patrick Lencioni — And she’ll say, I don’t want your discernment.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Patrick Lencioni — Trust me, we’re gonna I need to clean the garage. Then I go, Okay so what’s your system? Maybe we can come up with a new way to do this. And she says, I don’t want your invention.
Rich Birch — Yeah, just…
Patrick Lencioni — I just want you to stand in the corner. And when I hand you a box, I want you to put it where I tell you to.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Patrick Lencioni — That is paralyzing to me.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Patrick Lencioni — And there are other people that are like no, no, no, no, no. I will get joy out of just watching this person get what they need.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Patrick Lencioni — And that is a God-given genius. Now, I still have to do it sometimes, Rich.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes.
Patrick Lencioni — But there are certain jobs that would require me to do that every day that would send me into the looney bin.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Patrick Lencioni —And that’s why one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. And God didn’t give anyone everything. And I would be a really bad nurse.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Patrick Lencioni — But I’d be a really good diagnostic doctor. I like…
Rich Birch — Right.
Patrick Lencioni — I would be the one in the emergency room where people come in and I would like have to use my discernment to quickly evaluate all the variables
Rich Birch — Figure out what’s going on. Yeah, I love it. Love it.
Patrick Lencioni — Right?
Rich Birch — Yeah, totally.
Patrick Lencioni — Yeah, but then if somebody said okay just give these people whatever they need, would be really hard for me. Not because I’m a bad person. I thought for for the last fifty five years that meant I was a bad person. It’s like oh that’s just not a gift.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Patrick Lencioni — So it’s not an excuse but it’s an explanation.
Rich Birch — Yep makes sense. And then Tenacity.
Patrick Lencioni — The last one is Tenacity. This is the genius of finishing things, and plowing through obstacles, and crossing things off the list, and meeting the numbers, and and fulfilling the the standards. And there are people who wake up if in the morning—I call them freaks, no I love them, but I’m not one of them—who say give me something to do that I can finish…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Patrick Lencioni — …and see the results of it, and that gives me joy and energy.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Patrick Lencioni — Rich, I’m the opposite. I get halfway through a project and I think it’s largely solved, and I want to move on to the next thing.
Rich Birch — Yeah, what is the next thing?
Patrick Lencioni — Yeah, I don’t have angst when things aren’t yet finished…
Rich Birch — Right.
Patrick Lencioni — …which is why I need people around me. And if I’m a pastor of a church—executive pastor, whatever—one executive pastor is not the same as another one, and another one.
Rich Birch — Right, right, right.
Patrick Lencioni — So you have to know what gifts God gave you, and then invite people to work with you that fill in your gaps. And so if you’re the pastor, an executive pastor, and the pastor of your church is is really like the the preacher, the preaching pastor, is really strong in certain areas, you’re probably going to have to fill in some gaps.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yeah.
Patrick Lencioni — And and but more importantly than even the two of you can’t do it all.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Patrick Lencioni — And then you’re going to build a team around you and say, hey let’s look at our team map.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Patrick Lencioni — Because when a team fills this out they get a map with everyone’s type on it. And they look at it and they go, oh we’re totally exposed over here. We don’t have anybody doing enabling. I was I was in a church organization that had no enablers which is rare.
Rich Birch — Right. Well and you know… yeah that is interesting… So that’s actually very quickly as when I did the assessment I could see very quickly how this could work so well in a team environment. I like how you’ve laid out even just the widgets. You know it makes sense how kind of ideas flow from just ah, you know an idea all the way through to execution, or tenacity. You know how do we move the the thing all the way through? I love that. Talk me through what it looks like in a team environment. Go a little bit deeper on that because I think there are people who listen in around these assessments and it’s like it’s like they’re just cynical. They’re like oh gosh another one of these you know personality assessments. I don’t blah blah blah. I don’t want to do this. Tell me how this works and how could I roll this out well.
Patrick Lencioni — Okay I love this. First of all I like people that are skeptical because that means they’re not going to just take anything. And when you convince them that it has value then they’re on, they’re on board even more. So I like that.
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Patrick Lencioni — And I did not think the world needed another assessment. I like them all. I like Myers Briggs. I like um DISC. I’ve done them all.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Patrick Lencioni — But what what I didn’t have is one that translated quickly to how to put people in roles…
Rich Birch — Right. Yes, yes.
Patrick Lencioni — …that brought them alive. This this assessment takes 10 minutes to fill out. And you look at your results, and like you said and the the face validity is super high, like people like this is me. And then when you look at on a team 15 minutes later everybody in the room is going, oh crap. Yeah now I know why we do that really well, and why when we have to do something like this it doesn’t work well. Now I know why Mary is burning out because she’s the only Tenacity person on the team and she’s landing the plane every day.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Patrick Lencioni — And not why… and you know and it explains so much. So I think the the the immediacy of benefit of this is like nothing we’ve ever experienced. I know my Myers Briggs type.
Rich Birch — What does that mean?
Patrick Lencioni — I just don’t know what does that mean I should do every day.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Or who I should interact with, or what is you know, when we think about projects and we think about doing things – that was the thing that that struck me as I was like okay I could see how this could work within our organization…
Patrick Lencioni — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …which I just think is that’s a gift to people for sure.
Patrick Lencioni — Here’s another thing. I think, by the way, churches are more important than any other organization in the world. You know, there’s family—the home church—and then there’s churches.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Patrick Lencioni — And the sophomore company down the street or the restaurant or whatever else, the church is more important. It’s people’s souls. So I think that we should have higher standards. Well I think it’s beautiful when a church becomes a source of wisdom for people in their life. And I think that churches should be introducing this not only to their staff and volunteers, but to their congregation.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Patrick Lencioni — And saying let us, as your as your church, let us help you understand what God gifted you with so that you can bring that into your home, and into your workplace, because church is relevant everywhere. So you know I love that Dave Ramsey, who’s a friend of mine, Financial Peace University has brought so many people to Jesus because they’re like…
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Patrick Lencioni — …I’m I’m struggling with my finances. Well here’s a biblical way to understand your finances. Well I think that this is a very God centered way to help people understand what they what they’re meant to do.
Rich Birch — Oh I love that.
Patrick Lencioni — And it doesn’t only apply to to work like when you’re at work at your church or in your job.
Rich Birch — Right.
Patrick Lencioni — It applies to work at home.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Patrick Lencioni — My wife and I – our marriage changed because we realized the combination of our working geniuses left us exposed into areas that caused a lot of arguments over the years. And now we have grace for one another. And we are outsourcing things that we thought we felt guilty about before, but we’re just bad at.
Rich Birch — Okay, makes sense.
Patrick Lencioni — So it’s really changed our our marriage and our home life as well as our work life. And our and the parishes that use this. in the Catholic world and the churches that use it in the Evangelical and Protestant world are just finding it to be really um, it allows them to reduce guilt and judgment and increase morale and fulfillment.
Rich Birch — Yeah I can see that, I was I was going to ask you if there’s any examples from a church, Catholic or otherwise, who have used this on kind of a wide, you know, kind of a wide margin like you’re saying there a wide part of their church. Because I could see that as a a real gift to a church. Do you have an example of that?
Patrick Lencioni — Oh goodness. I mean yeah, I mean the the pastors some pastors are like I know pastors who are W-I’s, right? So which means is they’re they’re the that’s called a creative dreamer.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Patrick Lencioni — And they can just go for a walk in a park and come up with threes homilies or sermons…
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Patrick Lencioni — …and and and they preach. And then they go, and like in the Catholic world—so it’s ah particularly challenging because we don’t have executive pastors.
Rich Birch — Right, right, right.
Patrick Lencioni — We’re trying to teach them to do that more. Like no, we need to have a team and you need to to give some responsibility to others. But there’s pastors that don’t really like counseling.
Rich Birch — Right, right. Yeah.
Patrick Lencioni — Like E and D, let’s say are there frustrations, and they feel really guilty. Like I know Catholic pastors who don’t like to do the sacrament of confession. Now they don’t have a… they have to do it. But that’s not the thing that gives them the most energy and joy because that’s a very pastoral role.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Patrick Lencioni — It’s a counseling and and…
Rich Birch — Traditionally pastoral. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
Patrick Lencioni — Exactly. And they’re like oh my gosh. I’m a preacher and I love coming up with new ideas. And I like looking at what’s going on and what people need to hear. And it’s like yeah, you’re not a bad person. That’s a beauty. Now find, build up a counseling ministry. And when you go do your confessions, offer that up to God and say, God I’m going to go do something that’s hard for me, but rather than feel guilty about that I’m going to lean into that and say, I’m going in there to do something that’s hard, and I can do it for two hours a week.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Patrick Lencioni — And say, that’s okay. We have a guy in our office named Matt, who you met. He um he does not like tenacity that much. So when he has to do tenacity work, he goes into one of our offices and he goes, I’m going into the T cave. I’m coming out in 2 hours. And and he comes out and he’s like yes! I finished all those things!
Rich Birch — Yeah, I did it all! Check the list!
Patrick Lencioni — Right.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Patrick Lencioni — Whereas we… you know I’ll tell you a really really quick story is when I was a kid my dad used to try to get me to mow the lawn with him. And I did it out of duty, but I hated it.
Rich Birch — Sure, sure.
Patrick Lencioni — And I felt like a bad son.
Rich Birch — Okay, yeah, yeah.
Patrick Lencioni — And and I carried that forever. And I realized he wanted me to do it. He wanted me to be an enablement and tenacity person, follow him around, he’ll tell me what to do. I’ll do it and I have to do it perfectly. And it was exactly my working frustrations.
Birch — Right, right. Love it.
Patrick Lencioni — And so here I am fifty years later going, oh I wasn’t a bad son.
Rich Birch — That’s funny.
Patrick Lencioni — Whereas if it he if he had said, hey Pat, I want you to look at the the yard and I want you to envision how you think it should look.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Patrick Lencioni — And come up with a way to do it. I’m not saying he should have done that, but I would have been like YES! Invention, discernment.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, love it. Love it.
Patrick Lencioni — But he needed T work.
Rich Birch — Well, this seems to me like, yeah I love this. And isn’t that true. That feels like a very true statement. I’m a little bit younger than you – not that many years younger, and I do feel like in this this age is is about figuring out our childhood. It’s like looking back and being like, oh right. That’s what was going on fifty years ago forty years ago.
Rich Birch — Um so to be honest, Pat, I don’t know if other people said this you when I read this and looked at this, this feels like in a different category than your other writing. This feels like wow this has got huge—and yeah, and obviously you’ve had huge influence, you’ve helped so many people so many organizations, your writing is is so helpful and you know catalytic in so many ways—but this feels like it’s in a different category. What’s your thought for the future of Working Genius? What are you thinking about? What’s your kind of dream for this? What’s your hope for this as it kind of continues to ripple out?
Patrick Lencioni — Well as I’ve gone through my own healing in my life, which is really the essence of our spiritual life is healing, you know, it’s be healed. I’ve come to hold things a little more lightly and realize it’s all a gift. And so when somebody first saw this—one of the guys in our office who has who has discernment and galvanizing, which is called a intuitive activator—he looked at this and he said, right away, this is going to be bigger than The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, which is the the most popular book.
Rich Birch — Wow. Yeah, yeah, that’s saying a lot. Yeah.
Patrick Lencioni — We’re convinced that that’s true. I’m also convinced that this is a gift, and that we just want to steward it well.
Rich Birch — Oh love it.
Patrick Lencioni — And so my hope is that nobody ever, you know, I mean that so many so many fewer people feel any sense of guilt or frustration in work because they think that there’s something wrong with them.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Patrick Lencioni — But more that they realize, oh no I’m just meant to do something else.
Patrick Lencioni — And that’s true if they’re 16 years old, or 20 years old getting out of college, or if they’re in the midst of their career and they’re and they feel like they’re failing. Or if they’re retiring and they’re saying, God what else do you want me to do? I think it’s like well I’ve given I’ve imprinted this on your heart. Do things like this.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Patrick Lencioni — So I want the world to be that much more fulfilled in their doing, because they’re aligning that with what God has intended for them.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Patrick Lencioni — So that would be that’s my that’s my dream…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Patrick Lencioni — …but I’m I’m holding it lightly and letting God take it where it goes.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I would echo that. I do it does feel like to me it has that kind of like, oh this has like long burn potential in a lot of different organizations and a lot of places. And I’m hoping frankly the churches that are listening in today that they’ll take steps to do the assessment, pull their team together, have the conversations.
Rich Birch — Where where do we want to send them if they’re thinking, yeah I would I want to do that. I want to take some steps. I want to want to learn more. I want to jump in and and kind of get a better sense of this.
Patrick Lencioni — You know, and it’s so funny because I I have a company we serve the corporate world. And in the corporate world, we price this very low, because we wanted we don’t want it to just be in the corporate world. But then when I talk to a church like oh but it’s $25 to take this assessment, right? And um. And but if ah if if somebody had a volume, like we want this to go throughout our church, we we do discounts and stuff like that.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, sure.
Patrick Lencioni — But take the assessment…
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Patrick Lencioni — …and the report that comes back is usually like super helpful. And and you look at a team map, or you share this with your friends, or your spouse, or your boss.
Patrick Lencioni — Um, we had a guy in a church that—here’s a great way to look at this – a story. A guy who worked in a church who was getting ready to do his performance review, and he knew it was going to be bad. He was he was struggling.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Patrick Lencioni — And he took the Working Genius Assessment. He brought it to his manager. And said I want to go over this with you before, and and the guy looked at it and said well it’s no wonder you’re struggling, we have you in the wrong job.
Rich Birch — Oh wow.
Patrick Lencioni — And and he he literally said, I got promoted because I because they figured out what to do with me.
Rich Birch — Right. Wow.
Patrick Lencioni — And so the first thing people can do is go to workinggenius.com. It’s a it’s our website working genius – two Gs in the middle. And and you can take the assessment. It takes 12 minutes to take or 10 minutes. The results are very powerful. This is a better gift to give somebody than a tie, you know.
Rich Birch — Yeah, totally. Totally.
Patrick Lencioni — And it’s like it’s like what do I give somebody that can change their life? Um so sometimes I think that’s ah, that’s a great thing to do. One day I’ll be glad when we just give it to everybody for free, but we’ve had to put a lot of time and energy into it, and we’re selling it in the corporate world.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s great.
Patrick Lencioni — But in a church this can be a great tool.
Rich Birch — Now, and again friends, I would encourage you to do that – workinggenius.com. Go. I think as a bare minimum that’s a great idea even this time of year. Maybe this is what you do instead of Christmas gifts for your staff. This could be a great, you know, conversation starter. A great discussion piece. Listen particularly, you know, I’m thinking particularly on the staff side. You know, you can. You’ll get more than $25 value. It even sounds stupid to say that because of course it’s more than $25 value.
Patrick Lencioni — Right.
Rich Birch — Repositioning people into their, you know, asking the question of, hey what what is the kind of your seat on the bus, ah, you know, what does that look like? Love it. So I think it could be great.
Patrick Lencioni — You know you know, Rich. We just did a podcast that came out yesterday um about Working Genius and the holidays. And we’re we’re encouraging people to actually do this at Thanksgiving…
Rich Birch — Oh love it.
Patrick Lencioni — …and and or and or just just take a one page sheet of the six Working Geniuses. And say to instead of arguing about politics, or or or playing doing charades, it’s like just say, hey can any be what which of these do, you guys, feeds you?
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Patrick Lencioni — Which of these gives you joy and energy? Which doesn’t?
Rich Birch — Love it. Love it. Love it.
Patrick Lencioni — And it’s like families are like, oh my gosh, I I never realized that about you. That’s so true! When you were a kid you always were drawn to this.
Rich Birch — Right. Love it.
Patrick Lencioni — And and and it’s a really wonderful way for a family to celebrate one another’s geniuses.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Patrick Lencioni — And so anyway.
Rich Birch — Well, Patrick, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for this. Thank you for Working Genius. Thank you for your your work. I got to be honest, just such an honor to get a chance to talk with you a little bit. When your team reached out I was like I’m like, you have the right person? You must have asked the wrong person. You must be looking for someone else. But really, super honored to have you on. And your work has made an impact—I know you know this—has made an impact on lots of leaders lives, and so the fact that you would come on here just really does ah it honors me. And I’m just thankful that you were here today. So thanks for that. Thanks for being on the show today.
Patrick Lencioni — As the people at Chick-Fil-A say, it is totally my pleasure.
Rich Birch — Yeah thank you so much, sir. Have a great day, and like again, friends, workinggenius.com – pick one of those up. Thanks so much for being with us today, Patrick.
Patrick Lencioni — God bless.
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today I’m excited today to be talking with Chuck Fenwick, lead pastor at New Haven UMC in Indiana. How do we build churches that are both reaching new people, and caring for the people who are with us? It’s a universal tension all church leaders face. Listen in as […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’ve got Dr. Warren Bird with us today. He’s the Senior Vice President of Research and Equipping at the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA), and an author of over thirty books. Warren is back to talk about the New Faces of Church Planting survey which was performed back […]
Thanks for joining us here at the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Dr. Derry Long, from the Yellowstone Theological Institute. He’s served for 45 years in many church leadership roles and is here to share his knowledge with us. At churches, it’s not uncommon for 20% of the people to do 80% of the work, […]
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast – so glad that you have decided to tune in. This week we have with us Aaron Tredway, Lead Pastor of Fellowship City Church in Ohio. As church leaders, we know that when we empower others, we can accomplish more together than we can alone. But it can be hard […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today I’m excited today to be talking with Josh Husmann, lead pastor at Mercy Road Church in Indiana. Mercy Road is one of the top reproducing churches in the country with a passion for multiplying disciples, leaders, churches, and expanding the reach of the gospel throughout the state of […]
Thanks for joining us at the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking today with Mark Williams, Executive Pastor at New Day Christian Church in Port Charlotte, Florida. The last few years have seen a lot of changes for church leaders and their congregations. How do you continue to grow and change when people are burned out and […]
Thanks for tuning in to the unSeminary podcast. We’re excited to talk with Joey Speers, a brand builder and digital marketer. He and his wife founded the Speers Collective Inc., the parent company of Creativ Rise and Brand Therapy. Joey is talking about how churches can generate brand clarity that makes growing their mission simple […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Mike Bonem, a coach and consultant who helps church leaders with vision discernment, organizational design and strategy. In the last three years, everyone has had to make massive changes. Now as churches have found their new normal and are looking to the future, there can […]
Thanks for joining us on the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re chatting with Aaron Senneff, the Chief Technology Officer at Pushpay. Pushpay is a digital engagement platform that provides a donor management system, including donor tools, finance tools and a custom community app, to churches. Technology is more important than ever in the church. But how […]
Thanks for joining the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Jeremy Norton, lead pastor at Mountainview Church in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada. Being a church leader in a place like the Yukon is a little like living in the future. Listen in as Jeremy shares how to engage with your neighbors and city in a post-Christian […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking today with Pete Briscoe, who was the senior pastor at Bent Tree Bible Fellowship in Dallas for almost thirty years and preached through the Telling the Truth ministry, reaching an audience of more than 1.2 million people every week. Currently Pete is a coach for church and […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re chatting with Janetta Oni, the Creative Director at The Summit Church in North Carolina. Compassion fatigue is far more common in ministry than we might like to admit. It can be easy to wear busyness like a badge of honor while burning out in the process. But […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re chatting with David Raney, the Executive Pastor of Ministry from 2ND Baptist Church in Arkansas. 2ND Baptist is one of the fastest growing churches in the country, and as a growing church they want to make sure people get plugged in so they don’t fade away. Listen in […]
Thanks for joining us for the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Jeff Henderson, founder of The FOR Company, which helps organizations build a good name where purpose and profit grow together. Many people are more familiar with what the Church is against rather than what the Church is for. What does your church WANT to […]
Thanks for joining the unSeminary podcast. We are talking with Heath Bottomly, the Lead Pastor of Creative Teams at Pure Heart Church in Arizona. Does your church’s organizational structure match the vision that you believe you have been called to? Listen in as Heath shares how to get clarity about what is true, realign your […]
Thanks for joining us for the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Larry Osborne, the Teaching Pastor and Kingdom Ambassador at North Coast Church. North Coast has nine locations in California, one in Ohio, one in Hawaii, and one in both Mexico and Japan. Churches can be tempted to look back to the old way […]
Thanks for joining us for the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Executive Creative Director Melody Workman from California-based Sandals Church – one of the fastest growing churches in the country for several years now. It’s hard for churches everywhere to build high performance volunteer teams. Often our growth strategy for volunteer teams doesn’t match our […]
Welcome to this episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re chatting with Chris Hahn, the Executive Pastor of Missional Spaces at Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago. In the demands and activity of ministry, church leaders can find there is a disconnect between their public leadership and struggles in their personal lives. Don’t miss today’s podcast […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we have Carl Kuhl with us, the lead pastor of one of the fastest growing churches in the country, Mosaic Christian Church in the Baltimore/Washington, DC area. Listen in as Carl shares about the missing piece that will help people in our churches go deeper, both with God […]
Thanks for joining in for the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Vern Streeter, the lead pastor at Harvest Church in Billings, Montana. Harvest Church is one of the fastest growing churches in the country and has had a long-time value of being community-focused. Listen in as Vern chats with us about paying attention to the […]
Welcome back to this episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re chatting with Paula Ley, executive pastor at Radiant Church in the Tampa Bay area. Paula is talking with us about the spheres of influence in our lives and how to balance the busy seasons of ministry while still prioritizing our most important relationships. Ministry is […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Tony Morgan, the founder and lead strategist of The Unstuck Group, which offers consulting and coaching for churches as well as practical resources such as courses, access to research and more – all to help churches get unstuck. The Unstuck Group does quarterly trend reports that […]
Thanks for joining us for the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Dr. Derwin Gray, the lead pastor at Transformation Church in South Carolina. In the bible we see every nation, tribe, and tongue worshiping Christ together, yet in our country and churches we continually see examples of the racial divide. Listen in as Derwin shares […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. In this episode we’ll be chatting with Dino Rizzo, the executive director of the Association of Related Churches (ARC) as well as part of the senior leadership team at Church of the Highlands. ARC was created in 2000 by six pastors and has grown to be a preeminent church […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re chatting with marketplace leader Chris Ducker, who is a serial entrepreneur, bestselling author, and runs several businesses. As churches find themselves more a part of the online world, there is continually a challenge to connect with people in a meaningful way. Listen in as Chris shares how to […]
Thanks for joining in for the unSeminary podcast. This time we’re talking with Brian Dodd, the Director of New Ministry Partnerships at Injoy Stewardship Solutions. He also runs a blog called Brian Dodd on Leadership which provides perspective, encouragement, and solutions for church and ministry leaders. When you look at the world today, there seems […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re chatting with Shawn Lovejoy, the founder and CEO of Courageous Pastors and Courage to Lead. His work is all about coaching leaders around what keeps them up at night and focuses on personal and organizational growth. Shawn is talking with us about building and redeploying healthy teams in […]
Thanks for tuning in for this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re chatting with Kevin Cook, executive pastor at Cross Point Church in the greater Nashville, Tennessee, area. They have six locations in middle Tennessee plus online services. God has entrusted those of us who are executive pastors with a significant leadership. While He may be preparing […]
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Thanks for tuning in for the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Jenni Catron, the founder and CEO of the 4Sight Group which helps both leaders and their teams be healthy and thriving. With the disruptions that covid has brought, many church leaders are struggling with a sense of overload and fatigue. Shifts in how we […]
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Shawn and Sonny Hennessy, from Life Church Green Bay in Wisconsin. Shawn and Sonny are also co-hosts of The Rise After the Fall podcast and together founded The Exchange Collaborative. The highs and lows of ministry, and the trials of life can threaten to destroy pastors […]
Thanks for joining the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Tiffany Henning, founder of HR Ministry Solutions which helps with human resources in churches and faith-based ministries. At the beginning of 2021, many churches were restructuring their staff. Now in 2022 with so much inflation, there are concerns about how to compensate staff fairly. These things […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. This week we’re talking with Scot Longyear, the senior pastor of Maryland Community Church in Indiana, and guest host for the Worship Leader Probs podcast. Two years after the pandemic, church leaders are still trying to figure out where to go from here. It’s been a tough season to […]
Thanks for joining us for this episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Jay Kranda, the online pastor of Saddleback Church in California. Digital ministry is here to stay and churches need to think about how to move beyond just managing their weekend stream to actually connecting people online to the church and each […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re chatting with Sean Morgan, founder of The Ascent Leader, a year-long development program structured around relational cohorts which is designed to engage ministry leaders in transparent conversations and one-on-one coaching with world-class leaders. As we transition from COVID being pandemic to endemic, there are paradigms church leaders have […]
Thanks for joining us for this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Kaylee Estes who was the Connections Pastor at Restoration Community Church in Denver, Colorado. More and more people are single in our churches today than in previous generations. Younger people are waiting longer to get married, the divorce rate continues to increase, and […]
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Joe Boyd, lead pastor of Grace Fellowship in Minnesota. They are one of the fastest growing churches in the country as well as a church-planting church and have started 28 churches during their 34 years of service. Jesus changed the world with a small group. Groups […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Matt Slocum, executive pastor at Victory Life Church in Battle Creek, Michigan. Conflict is inevitable in relationships and it’s important to handle it well. Matt is talking with us today about how Victory Life Church sought to help its staff get better at having crucial […]
Thanks for joining us for this episode of the unSeminary podcast. I’m talking with Warren Bird, the Senior Vice President of Research and Equipping at the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. It’s time for a fresh look to see what God is doing, especially coming out of the pandemic. If you’re wondering how church planting […]
Welcome to this month’s Office Hours episode. This month Rich is taking on your questions about building volunteer teams, and reaching people who might not normally attend your services. Leslie Moffat, administrative pastor, Celebration Church in Brantford, Ontario, Canada: “For churches with multiple services, do you recommend the same volunteers stay on for the entire […]
Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. I know this sounds like some homespun advice from your mom, but it does apply to looking for resources on the internet to improve the weekend services or announcements at your church. A quick search online will reveal an endless amount of templates and done-for-you resources that […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with return guest Benjamin Windle from Life Place Church in Australia. Whether or not churches are going to opt in to the digital revolution is no longer an option. Now the question is, how do churches operate and minister in a digital world, particularly to younger […]
When you have a little pebble in your shoe, it’s hard to focus on anything around you besides that minor discomfort, right? We sometimes do the same thing with our tiny habits during our weekend service announcements. What about that little smudge from your kid’s finger on the TV as you watch the latest Hollywood […]
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we have Rachel Long back on the podcast. She’s one of the executive pastors at Emmanuel Church, a multisite church in Indiana. Today Rachel is talking with us about building healthy volunteer teams within our churches. Take a step back and evaluate. // Back at […]
Do you dread being asked to get up and host a weekend service at your church? Can just talking about hosting the announcements this coming weekend make your stomach turn? Is your team pushing you to drop the announcements? And maybe even more worrying, do you have a good reason not to drop them? Are […]
Thanks for joining in for the unSeminary podcast. This week we’re talking with Kevin Singer, co-founder and co-director of the student-led movement, Neighborly Faith, which brings Christians and Muslims together. There is very little in the church to help equip believers regarding how to engage with our neighbors of other faiths in a way that […]
Just when you thought the word “unprecedented” couldn’t possibly be used any more, we continue to climb into levels of inflation that haven’t been seen in over four decades. In fact, the last time we saw inflation this high, the world was a completely different place. Bread had soared to the cost of 50 cents […]
Thanks for joining us for this month’s Office Hours podcast episode. Today Rich is answering your questions about attracting young families and getting help with hiring your next team member. John Boyle, executive pastor, Calvary Bible Church in Boulder, Colorado: “I wanted to pick your brain on attracting more young families to our church.” Know […]
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Jason Poling, lead pastor of Cornerstone Church of Yuba City in California. For the first ten years of Jason’s ministry as a pastor, he felt like he had been living in “maintenance mode.” While his church was experiencing growth, some of which was due to brand […]
Thanks for joining us for this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Ken McAnulty, executive pastor at Arise Church in Florida. The hiring process is tough, and ramping up new staff can be awkward and stressful if it isn’t done with a lot of intentionality. Ken is with us today to talk about how to […]
Thanks for tuning into the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Jesse DeYoung, the executive lead pastor at Flatirons Community Church in Boulder, Colorado. Jesse is talking with us today about how Flatirons Church worked through a difficult season of ministry, addressed their broken team culture, and witnessed God’s redemption among the staff. Recognize what’s not […]
Today we’re chatting with Julie Hawkins, the Next Steps Pastor at Chapel Hill Church in Washington state. So many churches had to quickly develop an online presence at the beginning of 2020 and it made the area of helping people take their next steps more challenging. Listen in as Julie shares how Chapel Hill Church […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Kadi Cole, the founder of Kadi Cole & Company, an organization created to help leaders of all organizations. Kadi is with us today to talk about encouraging female leaders at your church while removing barriers from leadership opportunities. Find the drop off. // Many men in […]
Thanks for joining in for this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Brian Cook, the lead pastor of ACF Church (Alliance Christian Fellowship) in Eagle River, Alaska. Right now 4.5 million people in the US are quitting their job every month and 50% are looking for a new job. Staff culture is a big […]
Welcome back to this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Eddie Hastings, Executive Pastor of Ministries at Chets Creek Church in Florida. Eddie is talking with us about using personality tests to better build and communicate with your staff teams. Know and trust each other. // When a church grows, especially to have multiple campuses, […]
Are you a senior leader in church thinking about health care options for your team? Did you know that your team is anxious about this aspect of serving at your church? Today on unSeminary we want to help with that worry & stress. We are joined by Marq James, an expert in health care sharing […]
Thanks for joining in for the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Charles Stone, lead pastor at West Park Church in Ontario, Canada. He also is an author and provides training for pastors. 75% of people forget most of what they’ve heard from a talk within an hour. 90% forget what they’ve heard after a week […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Zeb Cook, the lead pastor at Apex Baptist Church in Apex, North Carolina. Zeb is talking with us today about establishing healthy rhythms and boundaries in your life so that you can continue to thrive in the ministry where God has called you. Create a system […]
Thanks for joining us for this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Tommie Bozich, the executive pastor of Trinity Church, a multisite church with locations in Virginia and also internationally. Tommie is talking with us about what led them to launch a location in Stuttgart, Germany, and what a church should think about when considering […]
Welcome back to this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Brian McMillan, from CenterPoint Church in Long Island, New York. Brian is talking with us today about how pastors can keep their souls healthy by being generous and Kingdom-minded toward church plants coming into their area. Challenges of church planting. // When planting a church, […]
Thanks for tuning into this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Stone Meyer, executive pastor from The Bridge Church in Tennessee. Stone is talking with us today about the musical worship part of services and how to develop excellence in your unpaid volunteer musicians. The musical worship aspect. // The musical worship aspect of services […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. This week we’re talking with Van Vandegriff, lead pastor at Cedarcrest Church in Acworth, Georgia. Van is talking with us today about dealing with COVID and helping people at the church to shift out of neutral and reengage with the mission of the church. Reengage with the mission. // […]
Thanks for joining us on the unSeminary podcast. This week we’re talking with Zach Lambert, lead pastor at Restore Austin in Austin, Texas. Zach is with us today to talk about how to take the stress out of sermon planning and coming up with biblical and engaging topics in your teaching. What are you preaching […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Rusty George, the lead pastor at Real Life Church in the Los Angeles area. He’s talking with us today about what it’s like stepping into the lead pastor role after the founding pastor. Don’t squeeze into the previous mold. // When you are stepping into a […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Carey Nieuwhof, a leadership expert, author, speaker, podcaster, former attorney, and church planter. He’s with us today to share about how to address the crisis of overwhelm in our work and lives. Digital scales in a way that physical doesn’t. // After the pandemic, we […]
Thanks for tuning in to this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today I’m talking with Lisette Fraser, the COO/executive pastor of Hillsong Atlanta. Leading through change is at the core of serving as an executive pastor and church leader. Today Lisette is talking with us about where to begin when stepping out and leading change in this […]
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. This week we’re talking with Chad Asman, executive pastor of Heritage Church just north of Detroit, Michigan. He is with us today to talk about developing team culture at your church to create future leaders. Start with culture. // Heritage Church worked to create a leadership pipeline not only […]
Thanks for joining this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Allie Bryant from Trader’s Point Christian Church. Although they have six campuses in Indianapolis, currently four are opened along with church online due to covid. Allie is the Strategic Alignment Executive for Traders Point and she loves getting the right people in the room to […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today I’m talking with Tyler Althof, the associate pastor from Action Church in Florida. Tyler is with us today to talk about tensions to manage when you are leading from the second chair at a church. We need a sense of security. // As church leaders we need to […]
Thanks for joining us for this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today I’m talking with Matt Gilchrist, executive pastor at Hope City Church in Missouri. Matt is talking with us about getting up to speed as a new XP at a church and how to connect with your lead pastor, your staff, and spouse during this season […]
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Ken Fisher, Executive Pastor at Church at the Mill in South Carolina. As one of the fastest growing churches in the country, Church at the Mill has doubled in size in the last five years. As a church grows, the staff needs to consider how they […]
Thanks for tuning in to this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re excited to be talking with Vivienne Bechtold, the Director of Studio and Leadership Development at Crossroads Church in Ohio. Crossroads has been one of the fastest growing churches in the country for several years, but this growth hasn’t happened without being intentional about reaching those […]
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with JD Mason, the online campus leader from Liberty Live Church in Virginia. JD is chatting with us today about how church online has evolved for Liberty Live Church since the pandemic and why they made the decision to transition to live, rather than prerecorded, broadcasts. Trial […]
Thanks for tuning in to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re doing a bonus deep dive about operational reserves and how much our churches should be saving. We have expert Steve Carr from CDF Capital with us to help us think through these questions. Maintain generosity. // During the pandemic, churches trended toward either maintaining their […]
Is your team moving back to an “in-person” office experience? Do you know how your team members feel about working at home once life looks a little more normal? What does the future of church leadership work arrangements look like? We must understand the impact that COVID-19 has had on our church leadership environment and […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. This week we’re talking with Abby Ecker, Next Steps Pastor from The Journey in Delaware. She’s with us today to talk about getting people connected and helping them take steps from just attending weekend gatherings to moving into the core of the church. Help people take steps, not leaps. […]
Thanks for joining us for the unSeminary podcast. This week we’re chatting with Jeannette Cochran, executive pastor Seneca Creek Community Church in Maryland. Jeannette is talking with us today about what it is like being a female executive pastor in a church and how you can empower more women to engage their gifts and lead […]
As the leader goes, so goes the organization. It’s often been said that the mindset of a leader ultimately drives the behavior of an organization. It’s a scary thought when you consider that our internal thought life can express itself in the people that we consistently lead. I think this is a truism when it […]
The coming months hold an unprecedented opportunity to see your church impact more people than ever before. As the country begins to shake off the shackles of COVID-19 and the ensuing economic calamity, we’re seeing new windows of opportunity. We must leverage this season for the message of Jesus. We can echo what Paul said […]
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Dr. Steve Brown, President of Arrow Leadership and author of the book Jesus Centered: Focusing On Jesus In A Distracted World. Steve works to help leaders find clarity, community and confidence in their work as Jesus-centered leaders. He’s talking with us today about how to lead […]
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we’re chatting with Jannet Morgan, the Executive Assistant (EA) to Lead Pastor, Tim Lucas, at Liquid Church in New Jersey. She’s with us today to talk about the role of the EA supporting leadership in the church and how to make the most out of that partnership. Be […]
Thanks for joining in for this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Jenn Clauser, the Director of Communications at Coker United Methodist Church in San Antonio, Texas. She’s with us today to dig deeper into online church and how to integrate it as a core part of our mission to reaching people who are far […]
It’s clear that we’re entering a post-pandemic stress period in the life of the local church. All around us we see signs that our teams are stressed and not sure what to do next. Anecdotally, we’re hearing about huge turnover at churches, and we cannot ignore the rising anxiety in leaders across the country. Recently, […]
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Pete Briscoe, who served as the senior pastor for nearly three decades at Bent Tree Bible Fellowship in Carrollton, Texas, and now consults with and coaches pastors. He is with us today to talk about growing communication skills to improve preaching as well as how […]
Thanks for tuning in to this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Dr. Jonathan Armstrong today, an educator who has also helped run the virtual reality (VR) lab at Moody Bible Institute. Our perspective on what technology is and how it’s affecting our world keeps changing. In fact as younger generations have grown up with […]
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast! This week I’m chatting with a repeat guest, Danny Franks, Pastor of Guest Services at The Summit Church. The Summit Church has twelve locations around North Carolina and the heart of the church is set on sending. They continually want their people to be asking: how does God want […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. This week I’m excited to talk with Bill and Kristi Gaultiere from the organization Soul Shepherding. Bill and Kristi felt called to study psychology for the purpose of ministry, and serve as spiritual directors and pastors to pastors. Soul Shepherding offers resources and training for pastors and leaders and […]
The season between Easter and summer is a strange one in the life of a church. Many churches gain momentum coming up to Easter and then find the weeks that follow before summer arrives, drag on. In any other year, this lull in momentum can feel difficult to climb out of; however, this spring is […]
Thanks for joining us for this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Andy Wood, founding and lead pastor of Echo Church in California. Many times in ministry, the thing that should be an obstacle actually can become an opportunity if we think about it differently. Echo Church held strongly to this idea when it […]
Thanks for joining us for this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with church planter and lead pastor Carl Kuhl from Mosaic Christian Church in Maryland. Mosaic was planted in the fall of 2008, launching first in a movie theater, and has become one of the fastest growing churches in the country. When planting a […]
Recently, a report entitled The State of Virtual Events 2021 was released, which looked at the experiences of 100 leading brands that ran over 20,000 online events in the last year. This study explores these brands’ thinking around online events as they have made the “great pivot” to utilize this option more and more. Like […]
Thanks for tuning in for this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Christa Hesselink, founder of the organization SoulPlay. SoulPlay offers creative experiences, curated resources, and personal support to help individuals and groups dig deeper, listen well, and journey towards loving themselves, others, God, and our world, well. The last twelve months have been incredibly […]
Welcome to this week’s episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Steve Grusendorf who is a part of the denominal leadership at the Christian and Missionary Alliance. He started as a local pastor at a CMA church, always serving in leadership development, and a few years ago became involved in this aspect at […]
The cultural and economic impact of COVID-19 is one of the greatest influences on the local church in at least a generation. Over the last year, we’ve seen COVID-19 impact our ministries in innumerable ways. In some respects, COVID-19 has accelerated positive change in the local church. The shift to equipping the majority of churches […]
Welcome to this week’s episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Renaut van der Riet from Mosaic Church in the Orlando, Florida area. Passionate about making the gospel beautiful however they can, Mosaic is continually pursuing how they can serve each other and how they can serve their community. This heart has led to […]
Thanks for joining in to this week’s episode of the unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to be talking with Michelle Leichty, the Communication Director at Covenant Church in Indiana. For many church leaders, managing their homes and serving in ministry has been especially challenging to balance during the pandemic. Shifting back and forth between work burdens […]
Welcome back to this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Kevin Davis from 2|42 Community Church in Michigan. Kevin is one of the executive pastors and focuses on small groups, culture, and leadership development. What makes a good ministry leader? How can you learn to lead yourself well? How do you work through conflict […]
Thanks for joining in for this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Rachel Long, Executive Pastor of Families and Multisites at Emmanuel Church in the greater Indianapolis area. Making the decision to go multisite and growing to multiple campuses will inevitably lead to a discussion about who answers to who on staff. The dotted […]
Are you wondering why those Facebook ads that you’ve been running for the last few months don’t seem to be translating into people connecting, neither in person nor online? Have you tried multiple flyer drops in your neighborhood and you’re desperately hoping that maybe one person would show up, but it just hasn’t happened? Are […]
This is a special edition of the unSeminary podcast. Many church leaders don’t know what to say when it comes to the revelations around disgraced Christian leader, Ravi Zacharias. Earlier this week I bumped into Tayna Marlow’s article on this topic entitled “But his books are still good, right? – 5 things Christians must stop […]
Welcome to this week’s episode of the unSeminary podcast. I’m happy to have Dave and Jon Ferguson with us from Community Christian Church. Community has nine locations in Illinois as well as online services and works in three correctional facilities. Almost all Christians want to share the love of Jesus with their friends and neighbors. […]
Thanks for joining this week’s unSeminary podcast. This week I’m excited to talk with Toni Nieuwhof. Toni’s extensive experience as a family lawyer, pharmacist, and church leader has given her unique and practical insights on how people grow emotionally, personally and spiritually. Although we don’t know the impacts of the pandemic on marriages and the […]
Does your church have fewer volunteers today than it did a year ago? Are you wondering how you’re going to rebuild your church’s teams after everything that’s happened with COVID-19 and the way our culture has changed as a result of the pandemic? Have you wondered where you go next when it comes to gaining […]
Welcome back to this week’s unSeminary podcast. This week we’re talking with Darrell Roland, from Rock Bridge Community Church. They have six locations in Georgia and Tennessee as well as a Spanish service. One of the roles of the executive pastor is the management and leadership of the staff, and so today we’re talking about […]
If you’re not familiar with YouTube culture, you might not have heard of MrBeast. Jimmy Donaldson (aka MrBeast) is the top content creator on the platform for 2020, and he’s super engaging. Over the years, he’s produced some amazingly creative content that has earned him over 51 million subscribers and all kinds of awards. He […]
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Dave Swaim, pastor at Highrock Covenant Church and president of the Highrock Network in the Boston area. The Highrock Network is a family of churches with a shared vision for locally focused congregations. Highrock Covenant Church began when a group of “spiritually homeless” individuals started […]
This week we’re celebrating YOU, dear listeners! We always want to do everything we can to set you up for success – we’re always cheering for you! We’ve reached out to some friends who love serving church leaders like you and have put together some fun giveaways in honor of hitting 1.5 million downloads on […]
Thanks for tuning in to this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Aaron Graham, the lead pastor of The District Church in Washington, DC. The District Church was started in 2010 with the desire to be a church for the city, impacting it for Christ one neighborhood at a time. In an area where […]
The two minutes before you ask people to give to your church during your services are vitally important financially, both for the future of your church and for your people. Giving moments are an important part of your church’s system for increasing generosity and pushing the mission of your church forward. If your church is […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Chris Bell, from 3Circle Church in the Mobile, Alabama area. When the pandemic started, all we heard about was new restrictions and what we couldn’t do. Chris was immediately challenged to focus on what the church CAN do each day. Listen in as Chris shares […]
Hiring is the single most expensive decision that most church leaders will make over the course of their ministry. In many churches, staffing accounts for anywhere between 30 percent and 50 percent of the annual budget. You want to make sure that, as you hire new team members, you invest what you can at the […]
Thanks for listening in to this week’s unSeminary podcast. We have Zach Zehnder with us today, the author and founder of the Red Letter Challenge. RLC began with the simple concept of trying to help people be greater followers of Jesus. It started as a book, leading the reader on a 40-day life-changing discipleship experience […]
You have no doubt heard all the doomsayers saying that what we’ve experienced in the last year is beckoning a new age of disengagement in your church. You’ve probably heard people say that somewhere around a third of our people have left the church and won’t be returning. It seems like for decades, we’ve been […]
Thanks for tuning in to this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking to Mark Jobe, senior pastor at New Life Community Church (NLCC) in Chicago area and president of Moody Bible institute. New Life Community Church meets primarily in the city and has 28 locations with 40+ worship services. It’s a very multi-ethnic church with […]
Thanks for joining us for this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Drew Sherman, lead pastor of Compass Christian Church in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Compass has four physical locations as well as an online campus and is one of the fastest growing churches in the country. The most fruitful seasons of our lives […]
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Today we have with us Executive Pastor Mark Geissbauer from The Chapel which has three locations near Lake Erie. As a church grows, adding more structure is necessary to keep everyone in the loop and enable systems to operate smoothly. But how do you maintain a personal touch while adding […]
Thanks for listening in to this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Karl Vaters, a teaching pastor at Cornerstone Christian Fellowship as well as an author and speaker. Karl focuses on serving small churches, encouraging their growth and helping them to be healthy. 2020 has been a tough year between the pandemic, economic stress, social […]
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to be talking with Kyle and Justeina Brownlee from Xperience Church in Ohio. At Xperience Church, going beyond their walls to serve their community isn’t just something they do, it’s who they are. Listen in as Kyle and Justeina share about how to build a culture of […]
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re honored to have with us today Scott Lindsey, the executive director at Faithlife. Faithlife is the company which created the Logos Bible Software for digital Bible study. Scott is with us today to talk about Faithlife, how they can help you, and how you can […]
Thanks so much for joining us for another unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Benjamin Windle. A native Australian, Benjamin has worked as a youth and young adult pastor in the US and currently helps churches develop Generational Intelligence in reaching Millennials and Gen Z through an assortment of resources, coaching, and speaking. According to […]
Are you and your team registered for FutureFWD? You should be. Join us. Imagine you could get inside the minds of leaders who are thinking through where the local church is going next. What would it be like to understand how leading churches are thinking about what the future holds? Listen in to today’s special […]
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast! Today we have lead pastor Kyle Mercer with us from Two Cities Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Two Cities was originally planted out of The Summit Church with J.D. Greear in 2016 and grew to about 1300 people before covid, becoming one of the fastest growing churches in the country. […]
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to have David Putnam with us today. David spent many years as a church planter and executive pastor and today consults with churches as a lead navigator with Auxano. David has also founded the organization Planting the Gospel which helps transition churches from a weekend-only disciple-making culture. […]
Designed to help encourage collaboration. FutureFWD will have “future positive” tone that embraces the world we find ourselves in and gives helpful next steps to leaders like you. You and your team will leave energized and focused to lead into 2021 and beyond. FutureFWD is designed to encourage and equip your team to push forward […]
Thanks for tuning in to this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we have Dr. Ben Young with us, who is a writer and pastor at Second Baptist Church, a diverse, multi-ethnic church with over 20,000 people attending weekly services online and on six campuses throughout the city of Houston. Technology and the fact that we’ve become […]
You and your team will leave energized and focused to lead into 2021 and beyond. FutureFWD is designed to encourage and equip your team to push forward with the plan God has in store for your church. Leading voices investing in your team. You’ll get to hear from marquee leaders across the church on how […]
Imagine you could get inside the minds of leaders who are thinking through where the local church is going next. What would it be like to understand how leading churches are thinking about what the future holds? In today’s episode, Kenny Jahng and I sit down and talk about FutureFWD. This is a 2-day online […]
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Bob Riedy from the Church of the Open Door (COD) in York, Pennsylvania. COD was started in the early 50s after breaking off of a mainline denomination. They experienced rapid growth for about 30 years, but then plateaued for the next 30 years. Today COD […]
Thanks for tuning in to the unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to have Gregg Farah joining us from Shelter Rock Church in Long Island, New York. Why is the Church at large struggling so much to help people grow in their relationship with Christ? Many sincere followers of Jesus feel stuck or stalled in their faith. […]
Thanks for joining in for this week’s unSeminary podcast. I’m glad you’ve decided to tune in as we talk with John Finkelde. John has thirty plus years of pastoral experience in Australia and currently runs the organization Grow a Healthy Church. He consults with and coaches churches and church leaders all over the world, helping […]
This is an unprecedented season of opportunity for your church. In today’s episode we’re going to look under the hood at three churches that are involved in some pretty amazing community service and outreach in the reopening phase. Heath Hollandsworth, Executive Pastor of Ministries – Graystone Church, Georgia // Graystone Church believes one of the reasons […]
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to have Ryan T. Hartwig with us today. Ryan is Professor of Communication at Colorado Christian University and has studied collaborative organizations within the church, such as groups and teams. Ryan is with us to talk about a new book that he wrote with Courtney W. Davis and […]
Thanks for joining us for this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Jacob Burgei today from Fuel Church in Kokomo, Indiana. Fuel Church launched in 2016 with about 85 people but as they began to understand the needs in their community, they quickly grew to become one of the fastest growing churches in the country. […]
Thanks for tuning in for this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today’s guest is Todd Elliott from Beach Church in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Beach Church was founded in 1992 and Todd began as the Small Groups Pastor in 2007. During that time, a falling out between the lead pastor and executive pastor led to them both […]
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to be talking with Michael Volbeda, Executive Pastor of Ministries at Brentwood Baptist Church in the Nashville, Tennessee area. Brentwood went from two to four campuses in 2014 and has since grown to eight locations. As time went on, the church realized it was operating as if it […]
How committed are we really to forging the future rather than preserving the past? Today we’ve got another special episode of the unSeminary podcast where we sit down with three fantastic church leaders from around North America—Ben Stapley, Chris Vacher and Brian Tome—and ask them some questions about the future that is the Fall 2020. […]
Welcome to today’s episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Senior Pastor Tony McVickers from RockFish Church in North Carolina. RockFish Church is a multi-racial, multi-cultural church located near Fort Bragg and draws a large number of military members and families to its services. But this also means that RockFish Church has to […]
Today’s episode is a special “rushed” edition of the podcast. We wanted to get you this up to the minute help for your church. Many churches are looking for advice on how to hold outdoor services and in today’s episode, we dive deep with Hal Seed on this issue! Hal is the lead and founding […]
Thanks for listening in to this week’s unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to have Lead Pastor Brent Purvis with us from Cascade Hills Church in Georgia. Cascade Hills Church was started by Brent’s father, Bill, after a dramatic near death experience caused him to give his life to Christ. Cascade Hills has always been a church […]
As we look to the coming months, a tremendous amount of uncertainty still remains. Many church leaders across the country are facing huge pressures from COVID-19 and the ensuing economic crisis. Budgetary pressures are leading us to rethink many aspects of the way our churches invest their resources. We find ourselves in a prolonged reopening […]
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Raul Burgos from Comunidad Cristiana in New Jersey. Raul grew up in the Dominican Republic and emigrated to the US when he was in his 20s. He’s spent the second half of his life immersed in American culture and has helped plant both English-speaking and Spanish-speaking […]
In this season, many churches have been stalled by their plateaued or declining attendance, while other congregations are thriving and making an impact. 94% of all churches in the country are losing ground against the communities they serve. That means that if this trend continues, the message of Jesus will in turn lose ground in […]
Thanks for tuning in to this week’s episode of the unSeminary podcast. In June we helped cohost The Next Normal Conference with our friends at Leadership Network and Church Communications in order to inspire church leaders and spur collaboration between their teams about where we are all heading next. Today we’re bringing you a re-broadcast […]
There’s no doubt that the reopening phase at your church is going to include some of the most complex decisions you’ll ever make. The switch to fully digital a few months ago will look like an easy decision and simple process in comparison to what will come next. Unlike the last transition, the reopening phase […]
Welcome to this week’s edition of the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Ken Costa, the founder of God At Work and author of four books including his latest, Joseph of Arimathea. He is with us today to talk about listening and leading in this season. Stop and listen. // Right now we’re dealing with a […]
One of the core takeaways from 2020 so far is that we all have lacked the imagination needed to see over the horizon. Who would’ve thought that this year would bring all the challenges that it has as it relates to coronavirus? Oftentimes people say that no one could have predicted this, that no one […]
Thanks for listening in to this week’s unSeminary podcast! Today we are joined by Jim Sheppard, CEO of Generis. Generis is in the business of helping churches and ministry organizations with giving development. They’ve been around for a little over 30 years and are most known for their giving campaigns as well as coaching churches […]
It’s already been said a million times, but we are living in an unprecedented age. This is true for your church as well as mine. The impacts of COVID-19 and the ensuing economic meltdown that are rippling across the country are having profound impacts on churches everywhere. As someone who has spent a tremendous amount […]
Kids ministry has always cultivated some of the most innovative church leaders. And kids ministry is a growth engine behind the fastest growing churches today. To reopen your church without a kids ministry, I would contest, is not actually reopening the church. Listen in today as I’ve gathered four kids ministry experts from across the […]
Thanks for listening in to this week’s unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to have Brett Bixby join us from Bridgewater Church – a multisite church with campuses in New York and Pennsylvania. Founded in 1807, Bridgewater Church plateaued for many years with most of their growth being transfer growth rather than new salvations. But fifteen years […]
The multisite church movement is the most pervasive innovation in the local church in the last 20 years. Yes, even more impactful than the current shift to digital. Across the country, this movement has generated tens of thousands of new connections between local churches and those living in the communities around them. Many multisite churches […]
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. I’m really excited to talk with Brent Ingersoll, senior pastor of the multisite Kings Church in Canada. Kings Church was planted in a suburb of St. John, New Brunswick over 30 years ago but then encountered a crisis in 2012 when there was a moral failure within the senior […]
There are a lot of “doomsday conversations” happening in church leadership circles about how COVID-19 and the ensuing economic crisis have brought on the end of the local church. But I am a glass-three-quarters-full kind of leader. I believe that this is actually an incredible season where you can see your church reach more people […]
Thanks for joining us for this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re in for a real treat talking with Steve Stroope from Lake Pointe Church in Texas. Steve started as the first pastor at Lake Point Church about forty years ago and has since passed the baton to Josh Howerton. Lake Pointe began with a launch team of […]
This has been a strange season to be working in the local church. Just a few months ago, we all made the pivot to entirely digital and that felt like the biggest change in our history of leading in the local church. At that point, we thought it would only be a few weeks that […]
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we are talking to Rob Deveney, executive pastor at Twin Rivers Church. Twin Rivers Church is located in St. Louis, Missouri. It started as a small denominational church, but has grown over the last 90 years into three locations around St. Louis. Rob is with us today to […]
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Alan Murdock, who works with the organization Project Connect Nashville. Project Connect Nashville was formed in response to some historic flooding which occurred ten years ago in the Nashville area. But today rather than solely focusing on disaster relief, they primarily build relationships with individuals that are […]
Thanks for tuning in to this week’s podcast. We’re talking with Larry Wren, Executive Pastor at Pathway Church in the Witchita, Kansas area. Pathway Church began in 1959 and has become one of the fastest growing churches in the country as they’ve shifted their focus over the last ten years to children’s ministry and reaching […]
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Daniel Im, the Senior Associate Pastor of Beulah Alliance Church in Edmonton, Canada. We’ll be talking about Daniel’s book You Are What You Do: And Six Other Lies about Work, Life, and Love and its application in today’s world. The gig economy. // The gig […]
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with John Hill from First Church in Wheatfield, Indiana. Being diagnosed with a cyst in his brain made John think about where his life was going and prompted him to pursue his dream to have greater kingdom impact by pastoring a church. In 2014 John and his family […]
Thanks for listening in to this week’s unSeminary podcast. With us today is Wayne Stewart, Pastor of Support Ministries at Christ Community Church in Ames, Iowa. Christ Community Church is in central Iowa near a university and so the church is home to a very diverse crowd of international students rooted in a stable, caring […]
Thanks for joining us on this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Tiffany Henning from HR Ministry Solutions. HR Ministry Solutions is a religious non-profit founded in 2016 which helps with the resources side of running a church. We’re talking with Tiffany today about how to resource your church staff well. More than just […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Lead Pastor Jeremy Jernigan from Abundant Life Church in Portland, Oregon. Every church out there would like to engage more people, but it’s tough when you’re working with finite resources. Listen in as Jeremy talks about the limits Abundant Life Church encountered when it came to […]
He is risen. He is risen, indeed. This coming weekend, the church across the world will be celebrating the death and resurrection of Jesus, a story at the very center of our faith. It’s the story of victory over death. It’s the story of lives transformed. It’s central to what we do as a local […]
CARES Act The impetus behind the funds being issued by the CARES Act is to keep people employed and on your payroll. The default is to the employee and the intent is to keep cash flowing in the economy. As church leaders, we also want to default towards caring for our staff. If you qualify, […]
“You can teach people analysis, but you can’t teach them experience.” – Matt Mashburn We’re heading into a time where the future of staffing and team development will look very different. As church leaders, we will inevitably be facing some tough decisions around staffing in the near future, and that may mean severances of staff […]
“Now is not the time for the church to be on pause, it’s time for her to be on mission.” – Ed Stetzer When thinking about mobilizing our people to meet needs at this time, we as church leaders should be thinking through our strengths, our weaknesses, and our opportunities. Start this process of giving […]
A few weeks ago, streaming wasn’t necessarily a part of your church’s regular operations. Now we’re all video streaming and trying to find solutions before the Easter season. The why, where, and how of video streaming The why, where, and how of video streaming are its first principles. The “why” is pretty evident: to connect […]
A mentorship relationship starts with purpose and intentional relationship. Kevin stated that, “More time with fewer people is greater kingdom impact.” At Radical Mentorship, their mentorship groups are high commitment, as they call their participants to application and high standards. Radical Mentoring’s groups meet once a month for three hours at the homes of mentors […]
Disclaimer: None of this information is legal or tax advice and you are not entitled to rely upon it. If you have any questions, we advise you to refer to your own legal counsel. Families First Coronavirus Response Act This Act requires employers to provide paid sick time to employees who are unable to work […]
Livestreaming Best Practices With church going online, Kevin reminded us that “churches are all equalized now; they’re just a click away.” Your church now has the same tools to bring content to your people as every other church out there. Even so, with the church entering the digital realm like never before, there is a […]
How do we lead well during this time of volatility and uncertainty? Rick pointed to the acronym “VUCA” as one way of understanding our current context: Volatility // This element has to do with the instability of the unexpected. For us today, this includes the shifting financial markets, the constantly changing numbers of the COVID-19 […]
Webinar Notes & Quotes “Churches are about the business of personal growth, whether that’s helping people grow spiritually, or grow in their marriages, their relationships, their finances, their recovery, their career, whatever that might be.” -Brad Hill “Today is about taking capabilities that we’ve really worked hard to build and then how do we apply them […]
Thanks for joining us for this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Charles Stone, pastor at the very multicultural WestPark Church in London, Ontario, Canada. In seminary they don’t teach pastors what to do when starting at a new church, but there’s much more to the job than preaching the Gospel and visiting people. […]
We’re happy to bring you a special roundtable discussion around how COVID-19 is impacting churches across the country. In this episode, you’ll hear from two church leaders on the front lines of responding to the current crisis. In this roundtable conversation you’ll hear more about: The thought process behind how these churches came the decisions […]
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re excited to talk with Bill Krause from Eagle Christian Church in Idaho. Eagle Christian Church is a multisite church with three campuses near Boise, Idaho and is celebrating 25 years in 2020. Bill is with us today to talk about the revamped system and mindset Eagle Christian Church adopted […]
Thanks for listening in to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Jason Held, the Executive Pastor of Administration at Journey Church, which has campuses in Wisconsin as well as a campus in Lithuania. Jason is with us today to talk about how Journey Church overcame the technological challenges that are inevitable […]
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today I’m talking with Josh Gagnon of Next Level Church in New England. Josh leads one of the fastest growing churches in America in an area where people typically don’t go to church. He’s with us today to talk about how as leaders we need to […]
Thanks for joining us for this week’s unSeminary podcast. This week we’re talking with Ben Cachiaras, lead pastor of Mountain Christian Church. Mountain Christian Church was founded back in 1824 and currently has four campuses in Maryland. Ben is with us today to talk about how to foster thriving relationships between the elders and the […]
“None of us, including me, ever do great things. But we can all do small things, with great love, and together we can do something wonderful.” Mother Teresa Have you ever had to let a team member go because of a performance issue? Without a shadow of doubt, it’s a horrible feeling. I know there […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re chatting with Eric Rojas, Executive Pastor of Rolling Hills Church in Nashville, Tennessee. Rolling Hills was started in 2003 and currently has four campuses in the Nashville area. As they’ve grown and gone multisite, they’ve developed a heart for church revitalization and partnering with struggling churches in […]
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to have Steve Smith, Executive Pastor of High Point Church in Chicago, with us today. As High Point Church grew and multiplied, it had to make some key shifts to the way it was structured. Listen in as Steve shares about some of the hurdles that came up […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re chatting with Joel Percy today who is a consultant helping retailers in the area of personalization and loyalty. Listen in as we learn from him about receiving feedback, personalization and how you can use these strategies to help people take their right next step at your church. Focus […]
Thanks for joining us for the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Greg Holder. He is Lead Pastor at The Crossing in the St. Louis, Missouri area. The Crossing was originally planted in the early 1990s. In 1997 Greg was called out of the marketplace to pastor The Crossing, bringing the ancient truth of Scripture […]
Your parking lot is the very first of first impressions that guests at your church experience. When was the last time you thought about how to improve that experience? Is the parking experience at your church turning people off before they even get to your building? What is your parking lot communicating to people who […]
How do you start your morning as a church leader? What happens in the first hour of your day that sets up where the rest of your day goes? Have you ever wondered how highly effective ministry leaders begin their mornings? Today on the unSeminary podcast we dive deep with Carey Nieuwhof, Jenni Catron, Dan […]
When you consider how many guests came to your church last year, do you ever wonder how you could get more of them to return? Every time a new guest comes to your church, it represents a huge step of faith. What can you do in the next month that would help more guests connect […]
Thanks for joining us for this week’s unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to have Josh Finklea with us today. He’s the lead pastor at The Rock in South Carolina. With five campuses, The Rock is one of the fastest growing churches in the country. It attracts people from a variety of backgrounds, ages, ethnicities and […]
Only 6% of churches are growing faster than the communities they serve. [ref] Stop and think about what that means for a moment. A radical minority of churches are having an increasing impact on their communities. This is a problem for all of us. If this pattern continues over time, then the message of Jesus […]
Unexpressed appreciation comes across as a lack of appreciation. Our churches are fueled by a series of unsung heroes. These people serve behind the scenes to make a difference in our churches week in and week out, and they often go unseen and unappreciated. The problem with that is that over time, if we don’t […]
Thanks for joining in to this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Joshua Trombley with Life Boat Church. Life Boat Church started four years ago outside of Halifax, Nova Scotia to reach the unchurched communities there. Joshua is with us today to talk about the challenges of ministering in this type of post-Christian environment […]
Is your church healthy but considering merging with another church? Are you a multisite church that is thinking about helping another church through a merger and adding a campus at the same time? Are you part of a struggling church that is looking at the potential of merging with another church in your community? Over […]
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Joey Salazar, the Executive Pastor from Journey Church in Florida. The road to starting Journey Church began four years ago when the lead pastors had a dream of planting a church that would make Jesus accessible to everyone. In 2016 the church was launched in Winter […]
Are you a church leader wondering how to use team huddles to push the mission forward? Have you ever considered that this small habit might make an enormous difference in the lives of the volunteers at your church? Gathering your teams together before any service opportunity is a great way to keep your people connected […]
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Jordan Rice, pastor at Renaissance Church in Harlem, New York. Harlem is the crown jewel of African American culture in the US, but is currently going through gentrification which is leading to the displacement of local, native folks for newer people, many of which are from […]
Are you a campus pastor who’s wondering how to gain more influence in your campus when your church’s approach to multisite doesn’t allow you to teach regularly? Or maybe you’re a lead or an executive pastor whose campus pastors have come to you requesting more teaching opportunities. Perhaps you’re considering the leadership of your team […]
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today I’m speaking with Pastor Lee Eclov. Lee has been in Lincolnshire, Illinois, in the suburbs of Chicago, for almost 22 years. Set in a transient community, Village Church of Lincolnshire is a church of about 200, where Lee pastors. Lee is the author of the book Feels Like […]
Narcissism is an intense focus on one’s self and typically involves selfishness, entitlement, a constant desire and need for admiration, and a demonstrated lack of empathy. In short, narcissists maintain a me-over-the-rest-of-the-world mindset. Sometimes those who lead deteriorate into narcissistic tendencies, but the nature of leadership positions often draws those who already demonstrate narcissistic behaviors. […]
Thanks for listening in to this week’s unSeminary podcast. I’m happy to be talking with Jonathan Brozozog, lead pastor at Passion Church in Minnesota. Passion Church had small beginnings fifteen years ago, but stayed teachable and grew over time as a result. About six years ago God gave them a new vision and they allowed […]
Your church moves forward largely on the backs of the volunteers you recruit. The local church is a volunteer engagement organization. At the center of any church staff members’ role is the recruitment, reward, and retention of a great volunteer team. Are you sharpening your skills when it comes to attracting new volunteers? Over the […]
Thanks for joining in for another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we have Andy McQuitty from Irving Bible Church on the show. IBC is a non-denominational church in Irving, Texas. Andy was the senior pastor for 31 years until January 2018 and now works as the Pastor at Large, leading and mentoring the next […]
Have you been listening to the buzz about artificial intelligence in the broader culture? Artificial intelligence used to seem like one of those distant technologies that is always five years down the road; however, it is already creeping into our daily lives. Whether it’s asking Siri to text your wife or talking to Alexa about […]
Welcome to this episode of the unSeminary podcast. This week we have Scott Ancarrow joining us. He is a church planter and leader from The Foundry, which launched in 2013 in downtown Baltimore, Maryland. Scott is with us today to talk about church planting in a city and the importance of viewing things through the […]
When you reflect on the last 20 to 30 years, what was one of the changes in the local church that had the greatest impact? When considering the historical changes and growth of the church, it’s difficult to find a movement that has had as large an impact as the multisite church movement. Back in […]
Thank you for listening in to this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re focusing on the multisite movement this month and today we have Greg Ligon, the chief operating officer at Leadership Network joining us. Leadership Network provides tools and resources to help churches reach and impact more people for Christ. They gather innovative church leaders together […]
Is your church considering going multisite? Maybe you already have another location or two and are thinking about launching more campuses in the future. Or is your church a single location that’s not at all interested in multiplying into new locations? The multisite movement has profoundly impacted the church across America over the last 20 […]
Thanks for joining this week’s unSeminary podcast. This is multisite month and I’m excited to have Paul Martel with us today. He is the CEO and cofounder of Resi, formally known as Living As One. Paul began his work doing broadcasts at Hewlett-Packard and managing their transmissions. In the meantime, he was also helping his […]
Are you serving in a multisite church and sensing some tension building between members of your broader team? Do you currently feel a sense of competition with other campuses that isn’t entirely healthy? Do you serve on a central support team and are looking for ways to increase the unity amongst the teams you help […]
Welcome to another special episode of the unSeminary podcast where we’re continuing to chat about multisite. Today I’m joined by Jenni Catron from the organization 4Sight. Jenni and her husband helped plant a church in Nashville which introduced her to the world of multisite. During that time she worked at Cross Point Church as the […]
Are you thinking about going multisite? Following leading churches is a great way to see how others have approached this method of church growth. Are you already multisite but want to improve your processes? Tracking closely with other leading churches can help you debug your own issues! As a practice, you should follow other churches […]
Thanks for joining into this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we have Andy Addis joining us from CrossPoint Church. CrossPoint is a rural multisite church. They now have eleven campuses in Kansas as well as other partner locations across the country and in other parts of the world. Andy is with us today to talk about […]
Has your campus growth stalled out? Have you launched a few locations but they aren’t reaching the community in the way that you’d like? Are you wondering why your campuses aren’t growing as large as your initial location? In a recent study of the multisite church movement, Leadership Network found that the normative multisite church […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. This week I’m excited to have Dr. Warren Bird back chatting with us today. We’re talking about multisite this month and Warren is a great source for insights on this movement. He is the VP of Research and Equipping at the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA). ECFA developed […]
Is your church considering launching a multisite campus in the next year? Do you think a new campus might be the best next step in your church’s growth journey? Have you wondered if this approach could help you reach more people more effectively? Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of talking with scores of […]
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. This week we are joined by Daniel Im, an author and teaching pastor at the Fellowship Church in Nashville. Daniel is from Canada, and he has traveled across the world to help plant churches. He has been in Nashville for the last four years and also works with LifeWay to […]
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today I’m excited to talk with returning guest, Dan Zimbardi, Executive Pastor at Sandals Church in California. Sandals started 22 years ago in the living room of lead pastor, Matt Brown, and today has 11 locations throughout the middle and southern parts of California. Dan is with us today […]
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. This week we are joined by Tim Lucas, lead pastor of Liquid Church in New Jersey. Liquid Church’s name is a reference to how Jesus called Himself the living water; the founders of Liquid use the name as a way to remind people that church should be refreshing, especially in […]
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast – I’m super excited to have Heather Zempel with us. Heather is the Discipleship Pastor and Campus Ministries Director at National Community Church in Washington, DC. In Heather’s role as Discipleship Pastor, she spends a lot of time working with small groups. We’ve talked a lot about groups in […]
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today I’m talking with Bruce Miller, senior pastor of Christ Fellowship in Texas. Today we’ll be talking to Bruce about his book Leading a Church in a Time of Sexual Questioning. Reach out. // Bruce mentions that the idea for the book came from his encounters with people who […]
Thanks for joining us for this episode of the unSeminary podcast. This week we’re talking with Rick Raiford, the executive pastor at Daystar Church in North Carolina. Daystar started as a small country church in Greensboro, North Carolina and over the past twenty years has grown to become one of the fastest growing churches in […]
Thanks for listening to this week’s unSeminary podcast. This week we have Judy West chatting with us. She is the Pastor of Leadership Development at The Crossing in St. Louis. The Crossing has four locations in St. Louis and can also be experienced online. Judy is with us today to talk about the class the […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we have Ben Lueders and Raj Lulla with us from the design company Fruitful Design. The company works with churches to help them reach the visual learners in the congregation. Raj and Ben are with us today to talk about why good design is important in churches and […]
Thank you for joining in for this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we have a fantastic conversation with Matt Piland, the executive pastor at Bethlehem Church in Georgia. Bethlehem Church is a church that’s 110 years old and for years it was in decline with about 200 people in attendance. Eight years ago Jason Britt came […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today Bobby Sasser from Radiant Church joins us. He serves as the executive pastor in multiple locations. Radiant Church, which opened almost six years ago, is based in the Tampa Bay area. They first launched in an old movie theater with about 350 people and have grown to four […]
Thank you for joining in to this week’s episode of the unSeminary podcast. We have a great conversation today with Executive Pastor Luke Erickson from Mountain Christian Church. Mountain Christian Church was founded in 1824 and went multisite 10 years ago with four campuses in Maryland. Almost 50% of all multisite churches don’t get beyond […]
Welcome to this week’s episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today Pastor Mark Zweifel of True North Church in Fairbanks, Alaska is joining us. True North is an 80 year old church and when Mark first came to the church, he was the fourth pastor in four years and there were fewer than 100 people attending. […]
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to have a new friend with us, Justin Herman from the Controlled Chaos podcast. Controlled Chaos is focused on serving youth ministry workers and interviews great leaders in this area while also getting into the tactics of youth ministry. Justin is with us today […]
Thanks for listening in to the unSeminary podcast this week. Today Charles Stone, the lead pastor of WestPark Church in London, Ontario, is joining us again. Charles describes London, Ontario as a melting pot of cultures and people from many different backgrounds. WestPark Church has about fifty different countries represented in the people attending, and […]
This summer, both Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California and Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida are launching massive new “lands” based on the Star Wars franchise. Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge is the largest investment the Disney corporation has made in its North American parks in long time. Not only that, but it’s the largest land […]
Welcome to back to the unSeminary podcast! Today we have on the show Mike Brennan, who works as a freelance graphic designer. Mike knew he wanted to be an artist at an early age. He went to school for graphic design and after a few years working in the corporate marketplace, he felt God’s calling […]
Welcome back to this week’s unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to have Shawn Lovejoy with us, the founder and CEO of Courage to Lead. Shawn has been a pastor, a church planter, an entrepreneur, and a leadership coach. He started coaching pastors in 2001. Courage to Lead is there to help not only church leaders but […]
Welcome to this week’s episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking to Lance Witt, the founder of Replenish Ministries. Lance founded Replenish Ministries as a way to come alongside leaders and help them live great lives, both personally and in ministry. A former Executive/Teaching pastor at Saddleback Church, Lance has been coaching ministry teams and […]
Thanks for joining in for another episode of the unSeminary podcast. This week we’re talking with Beau Jensen from LifePoint Church. LifePoint Church is one of the fastest growing churches in the country with three campuses in Tennessee as well as microsites in other parts of the country. Beau is campus pastor of the North […]
Thanks for joining for this week’s episode of the unSeminary podcast. We have Kadi Cole, who serves as a church consultant, with us today. Kadi has served in full-time ministry for about 20 years and worked with her Christ Fellowship Church in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. During a period of intense church growth, Kadi was […]
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We have Steve Cuss, the lead pastor of Discovery Christian Church in Colorado, joining us today. Discovery Christian Church is located halfway between Denver and Boulder and its people reflect the diversity found in those two cities. Though Discovery was planted before Steve’s time, he has […]
Thanks for joining in for the unSeminary podcast. We have a great conversation for you today with Caleb Kaltenbach, an author, former pastor and founder of The Messy Grace Group. When Caleb was young, his parents divorced and both came out as being homosexual. They became activists and took Caleb with them to Pride parades […]
Welcome to back to the unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to have Chris Wignall joining us today. He is the Executive Director of the Catalyst Foundation. The job of the Catalyst Foundation is to come alongside leaders of charities and churches to help them understand, assess and improve the culture in their organizations in super practical […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today I’m excited to have Kurt Brodbeck with us from Northview Church. Northview has been around since 1980, but has seen the most growth since 2003. It’s currently a church of 11 locations in Indiana, and Kurt is the Family Ministry Pastor. Kurt is with us today to talk […]
Welcome back to our monthly All About Multisite podcast! I’m chatting with a group of multisite ninjas and answering your questions about the ins and outs of launching new campuses. Our group is as follows: Natalie Frisk is our family ministry expert. She is a key leader from The Meeting House. This church has 19 […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. You’re going to be rewarded for tuning in to today’s conversation with Phil Bowdle, the Creative Arts Pastor at West Ridge Church in the Greater Atlanta area. West Ridge started in 2002 and has since planted more than 150 churches all over the world. They focus on trying to […]
Your team had done all this work and is ready for the big day: your musicians have held extra practices, your folks in children’s ministry are excited to welcome larger crowds than normal, and your sermon has been polished and perfected. There’s no doubt that various teams in your church spent the past few weeks […]
Welcome to this week’s episode of the unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to have Eric Smith back on the podcast today. Eric has served in several areas of ministry from pastoring churches to church planting. He also helped start the 242 Network which exists to train and equip leaders to plant multiplying churches. But it was […]
Marchetti’s Constant is a proven principle of urban design that shows the average time a person spends commuting each day, an approximate total of one hour. [ref] That’s thirty minutes to work and thirty minutes back home. The fascinating thing is that this principle has been historically proven time and again. Regardless of the mode […]
Welcome to back to the unSeminary podcast. Today I’m excited to have Kevin Harris with us today, the executive director from Radical Mentoring. Radical Mentoring is an organization and a system designed to help your church develop leaders through intentional men’s small group mentoring. They coach and equip local church leaders with a process that […]
Google is by far one of the most prevailing organizations of all time. Beyond their amazing technological insights and excellent execution, Google is a leadership engine. Google has more than 85,000 employees. Stop and think about the sheer size of that operation. Last year alone they added over 5,000 new people to the team. That’s […]
Welcome back to this week’s unSeminary podcast. I’m happy to have Dan Scott from Orange with us today. Orange is a leading organization for family ministry which partners with churches to help kids dig into a deeper relationship with Jesus, and also provides resources for parents as they influence their children’s faith. Dan is the […]
Welcome back to our monthly All About Multisite podcast! I’m chatting with a group of multisite ninjas and answering your questions about the ins and outs of launching new campuses. Our group is as follows: Natalie Frisk is our family ministry expert. She is a key leader from The Meeting House. This church has 19 […]
Announcements at your church don’t have to stink. This time in your service doesn’t need to feel like a miscellaneous catch-all for things that don’t fit elsewhere in the service flow! When done well, announcements can be the part of the service that moves people to action. Every weekend you have five minutes to move […]
Welcome back to this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today I’m excited to have David A. Miller with us from Slingshot Group. Slingshot is focused on staffing and coaching for churches across the country. David has been in ministry for 15 years and was invited to help launch the student ministry division of Slingshot Group 7 years […]
You’ve been there, in that never-ending meeting where all you can think about is the fact that the next thing on your to-do list is yet another meeting! You’ve thought it before, “There has got to be a better way of doing meetings at the church.” A few years ago, I considered how much time […]
Welcome back to this week’s episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today I have on Jon Thompson, pastor at C4 Church near Toronto, Canada. What’s happening at C4 is really unique. C4 is over 35 years old, but there has been an increase in the membership in the last few years. In 2005 they were hovering […]
Thanks for joining in for this week’s episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Buddy Gosey, a campus pastor at Northridge Community Church. Northridge is a young church, the first campus planted ten years ago. Buddy is at the Gray campus in Gray, Tennessee, which was launched in 2016. He is with us today […]
Thank you for joining this episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re speaking with Greg Curtis, the Director of Assimilation at Eastside Church in Orange County, California. We’re talking with Greg today about the importance of developing a ministry-wide strategy for assimilation that is used throughout your church. Second-nature strategies. // As Eastside Church has launched […]
Welcome back to our monthly All About Multisite podcast! I’m chatting with a group of multisite ninjas and answering your questions about the ins and outs of launching new campuses. Our group is as follows: Natalie Frisk is our family ministry expert. She is a key leader from The Meeting House. This church has 19 […]
Thanks for joining in for this week’s unSeminary podcast. This time we have Jeremy MacDonald, part of the leadership team at Connexus Church just north of Toronto in Ontario, Canada. Today we’re diving into the area around student ministry and what Jeremy would say to pastors looking for advice regarding youth and student ministry. Coaching […]
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today is a whole topic of conversation I’ve been really interested in and you’re going to hear from some on the ground experts. I’m talking with Sean Badeer and David Ramirez from LifeBridge Christian Church. LifeBridge was planted back in 1891 in Longmont, Colorado, just north […]
Welcome back to this week’s episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we have David Kinnan, who is the lead pastor of Fountain Springs Church which is a fantastic church in a part of the country where churches don’t normally grow. Fountain Springs Church is in Rapid City, South Dakota. It is focused on people who […]
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. You’re going to be rewarded with a great interview today. We have Dave Vance, the lead pastor at Crossroads Church in Ohio. They are one of the fastest growing churches in the country. Crossroads is a contemporary, non-denominational church that has launched a few campuses in the last couple of […]
Welcome back to our monthly All About Multisite podcast! I’m chatting with a group of multisite ninjas and answering your questions about the ins and outs of launching new campuses. Our group is as follows: Natalie Frisk is our family ministry expert. She is a key leader from The Meeting House. This church has 19 […]
As church leaders, we know that most churches in our country aren’t growing, but have you ever asked why? [ref] What are the common factors that inhibit church growth? What are the things that we all seem to do that slow us down? What stops us from reaching the people that God wants us to […]
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. I’m so excited for today’s conversation with a genuine friend of the podcast, Lane Sebring. Lane is the executive director at OneLife Church in Tennessee and also runs a resource called The Preaching Donkey. OneLife Church was planted in 2009 in Knoxville, Tennessee, has launched their third campus and is […]
Why do people put themselves through workouts that deliberately push them to their limit? It’s that time of year when many of us are concerned with getting fit, eating better, and improving our health. Some of us might renew our gym memberships (and vow to actually go), while others might sign up for weight loss […]
Thanks so much for joining us for this episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’ve got a great interview today with Doug Dameron, the founding and lead pastor of Orchard Church in Colorado. He is with us to talk about how their church is reaching out in their part of the world. Doug and his family came to […]
You have a lot going on at your church. In an average week, a typical pastor spends time on message prep, counseling, training, attending leadership meetings, and dealing with the administrative hassles that occur when running the “small business” aspects of a church. Just being on the treadmill of keeping the church running every week […]
Today’s podcast is all about the next generation and why we need to focus our concern on them. Joining us is Zach Matchett, the fifth and sixth grade pastor at Northview Church in Indiana. Zach came to Northview—one of the fastest growing churches in the country—five years ago and is on unSeminary today to discuss […]
Have you ever considered why some churches grow while others decline? What is it that seems to drive some churches to make a difference and reach more people while others struggle to keep the doors open? This will be a year of incredible breakthroughs in some churches while others will find themselves at the beginning […]
Welcome back to our monthly All About Multisite podcast! I’m chatting with a group of multisite ninjas and answering your questions about the ins and outs of launching new campuses. Our group is as follows: Natalie Frisk is our family ministry expert. She is a key leader from The Meeting House. This church has 19 […]
If you’ve ever wondered what you and your church can do to better reach out to the next generation, you’ll want to tune in to today’s podcast. We’re sitting down with Jonathan “JP” Pokluda, teaching pastor at Watermark Community Church in Dallas, Texas and leader of The Porch, a young adult ministry. The Porch serves […]
As the year winds down, it’s time for executive pastors to reflect on the past year of ministry. A growing church requires a tremendous amount of effort from a wide variety of people, groups, and communities, and the year’s end offers an opportunity to acknowledge the people who make our churches and ministries possible. […]
Today we’re continuing the discussion on leadership development pathways and pipelines. Training volunteers and leaders is so important, but do you ever feel like you’re not sure where to start? Well, today’s podcast is going to help you with that. We’re chatting with Todd Adkins from Lifeway Leadership. Listen in as we talk about how to […]
Is your church wondering whether to add another service on Sunday mornings? Are you looking to the future and trying to figure out when you should add a second, third, or even fourth time to meet on a Sunday? Wrestling with the right timeline to add a new service is an important process for your […]
Today we’re talking leadership and Biblical hospitality with Jersey’s own Terry A. Smith. God has done some incredible things in Terry’s church over the years. Terry A. Smith is the Lead Pastor of The Life Christian Church (TLCC) in West Orange and Paramus, New Jersey. Over the past 27 years, TLCC has grown from 54 members […]
The scene is set. It’s a Sunday morning, and the band is cranking through the second of a four-song set. You loved the latest Hillsong or Bethel song and things are moving in the right direction. However, at the back of the room is an individual you’ve seen before: the person who loves to say, […]
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. This week we’re sitting down with Regi Campbell, founder of Radical Mentoring, an organization that equips and engages men and their churches to raise up the next generation of all-in-Jesus-followers and leaders. Grab a seat and a cuppa while we talk about providing men with a challenge, mentoring men […]
Welcome back to our new podcast all about multisite! I’m chatting with a group of multisite ninjas and answering your questions about the ins and outs of launching new campuses. Our group is as follows: Natalie Frisk is our family ministry expert. She is a key leader from The Meeting House. This church has 19 […]
Performing funerals is a reality of being the pastor of a church of any size and style. Even if your church is primarily filled with young people, from time to time you will be called upon by families to perform a funeral. These moments, while incredibly touching, can feel somewhat routine for pastors who perform […]
Today we have a returning guest to the podcast! Professor Katie Allred is someone you may know from this show or from the Church Communications group on Facebook. She teaches courses in Consumer Behavior and Audience Engagement at the University of Florida and in Database, Software Development and Social Media Analytics for the University of […]
Over the last 20 years, I’ve spent a lot of time helping multi-site churches wrestle through how to launch and lead thriving campuses. One of the things that often comes up is the “dotted line and solid line” conversation. This is the conversation that attempts to outline how the various aspects of church leadership relate […]
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast! I’m super excited to have Tyler Reagin with us right as the launch of Catalyst: Atlanta unfolds. Tyler is the President of Catalyst, a leadership development organization which exists to equip and empower leaders who love the Church through events, content, and community. Catalyst fuels leaders and has fun […]
We live in a digital age, so why are we bothering to talk about paper invitations? Can these little cards that announce upcoming series at your church still be an effective tool in the here and now? Haven’t we moved beyond mass broadcasting to use platforms like Facebook to get in contact with people who […]
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast! We have the pleasure of hearing from a familiar voice today. Tim Stevens is no stranger to the podcast, and he’s talked with us before about his work with Vanderbloemen Search Group. Today, though, the topic is different. While Tim works with VSG to help churches find staff, he’s […]
Have you ever watched people arrive on Sunday morning at your church and wondered what they’re feeling in that moment? We know that feelings and emotions are incredibly powerful motivators and memory-makers. In fact, studies have proven that we make more decisions based on emotion rather than logic. This is especially true when we think […]
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. We are honored to have Eric Geiger with us. He was recently with LifeWay, but has now transitioned into a new role as senior pastor at Mariners Church in southern California. There are times as church leaders when we are shocked that the people we’ve looked up to have […]
Welcome back to our new podcast all about multisite! I’m chatting with a group of multisite ninjas and answering your questions about the ins and outs of launching new campuses. Our group is as follows: Natalie Frisk is our family ministry expert. She is a key leader from The Meeting House. This church has 19 […]
Are you leveraging your first-time guest gifts effectively enough to move people from being guests to fully connected members of your church? I hope so, because this is an important piece of the connection timeframe; in fact, it’s a critical point in the eight phases of moving anonymous guests towards full community. Everyone loves getting […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. You’re going to love today’s super practical conversation with Doug Garasic from Rust City Church in Youngstown, Ohio. Doug is here to talk with us today about a decision to make major name and brand changes at his church and how to incorporate these sorts of changes into your […]
Are you an executive pastor wondering where you should focus your time and energy? Are you wondering exactly how things are really going at your church? Are you a bit mystified about how to evaluate what’s really happening under the hood of your church? Executive pastors are an incredible gift to growing churches. The best […]
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. We’re honored to have Darryl Dash with us today from Liberty Grace Church in Toronto. Liberty Grace Church is unusual in that it’s a fairly small church with a storefront that meets at four o’clock in the afternoon in the middle of a wealthy section of Toronto. Technically they are […]
In October 2015, McDonald’s made a significant change to its menu that made a huge difference to its bottom line and market reach. That month they added all-day breakfast to their offerings, and in many ways it ended up changing the course of history for this corporation. For years, insiders had been saying that all-day […]
Thanks so much for joining us for this week’s unSeminary podcast. We have a return guest this week: Lee Coate, executive pastor from The Crossing Church in Las Vegas. Lee is with us today to talk about the The Crossing Church’s weekend services and how the creatives and teaching pastors work together to communicate the […]
Too often, church leaders only pay attention to weekend attendance and revenue patterns at their churches. Sometimes these numbers are referred to as “nickels and noses” or maybe the slightly more vulgar “butts and bucks.” However, there are many other factors to consider if we’re trying to understand what’s really happening inside our churches. Attendance […]
How do you know if you aren’t attracting enough people to your church? If your church has plateaued or is in decline, is the problem that you’re not attracting enough visitors or that you aren’t keeping those who are already attending? What signs will lead you to discover the problem? The debate between front door […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We have a fascinating conversation with Executive Pastor Daniel Currie and Lead Pastor Joel Southerland from Peavine Baptist Church in Rock Spring, Georgia. The first thing you’d notice when pulling up to Peavine is that it’s in the middle of nowhere and you wouldn’t know that it’s only 20 minutes from downtown […]
Welcome back to our new podcast all about multisite! I’m chatting with a group of multisite ninjas and answering your questions about the ins and outs of launching new campuses. Our group is as follows: Natalie Frisk is our family ministry expert. She is a key leader from The Meeting House. This church has 19 […]
If the people in your community don’t know that your church exists, they won’t ever join your church. If nobody in your city is aware of your church’s services or Sunday gatherings, you’ve lost a chance to connect those people to your discipleship process. A frequently overlooked step in connecting with a community is simply […]
Thank you for joining us for this week’s podcast. We have a great conversation with Bill Brown, the executive pastor at Parkview Christian Church. Parkview Christian Church was founded in 1951 and is one of the fastest growing churches in the country with three campuses. Bill describes their experiences as being sort of thrust into multisite, […]
Carey Nieuwhof is an influential pastor, podcaster, and thought leader who believes it’s not only possible to predict life’s hardest moments, but also to alter outcomes, overcome challenges, and defeat your fiercest adversaries. In his new book “Didn’t See it Coming” he wants to help you avoid and overcome life’s seven hardest and most crippling […]
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. We have a great conversation today with Jack Warren, the executive pastor at Chase Oaks Church in the Dallas area. Chase Oaks has five campuses, including one with only Hispanic services. The church started traditionally and as it grew it became known as a strong bible-teaching church with a […]
Hey, everybody, and welcome to the unSeminary podcast. We have a great conversation lined up today with Father Michael White from Church of the Nativity in Maryland. Church of the Nativity is a Catholic church, but its approach is a bit different than that of most other Catholic churches you might have encountered. Father Michael […]
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad you’re tuning in because today we have Justin Dosch from Grace Community Church in Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania. Grace was built with the intention of looking like a community center that happened to have services on the weekend so that it would feel less like a church in order to […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We have a dear friend with us today, Pastor Karen Shannon from Liquid Church. Liquid Church is a multisite church in New Jersey, currently with six locations, three of which are permanent. Karen serves as the discipleship pastor and oversees the care ministry, outreach, and small group system. Sometimes […]
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. You’re going to love today’s conversation. We have Pastor Eric Smith from Vaughn Forest Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Vaughn Forest is in a military area with people coming from all over the United States and all over the world to be trained, so it’s a dynamic multi-cultural community. The church […]
Hey, everybody, and welcome to the unSeminary podcast. I’m really looking forward to today’s conversation with Abram Gomez from Cross Church, a fantastic multi-site church in Texas. Cross Church is about 20 minutes from the Texas/Mexico border and they currently have three campuses in the cities of San Benito, McAllen, and Brownsville. The church is […]
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Super excited you’re listening in. You’re going to be rewarded today with a great conversation with Darin Mirante from First Church of Christ in Burlington, Kentucky. The church was founded in 1964 and Darin has been the lead pastor there since 2016. First Church of Christ is one of the […]
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. You’re in for a treat today and will want to lean in. We have Jason Young from North Point Ministries from the Greater Atlanta area chatting with us today. Jason’s work at North Point is focused on elevating the dignity of a guest by creating the most welcoming environment […]
Thanks for joining in for this week’s episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today I have a longtime friend, Dave Miller, from Leadership Pathway joining us. Leadership Pathway partners with churches to start residencies and develop training pathways in order to generate a pipeline of world-class church leaders who are highly desired and hirable. Dave is […]
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to have Dr. Jeff Iorg, president of Gateway Seminary with us today. Gateway Seminary started classes in 1944 with the long time dream of a theological institute to train men and women for ministry in California. By 1959 it had moved to a community next […]
Thanks for joining in for another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today I’m happy to introduce a new friend and guest, Dr. Glenn Daman, pastor at River Christian Church near Portland, Oregon. River Christian is a small church in a rural community near Portland. Glenn is with us today to talk about the struggles that […]
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. I’m so excited to talk today with Kent Richardson, the Communications Director of New Life Community Church. Kent is part of the central services team at New Life and his role includes trying to resource, support, and equip New Life’s twenty-six locations, as well as overseeing […]
Welcome back to our new podcast all about multisite! I’m chatting with a group of multisite ninjas and answering your questions about the ins and outs of launching new campuses. Our group is as follows: Natalie Frisk is our family ministry expert. She is a key leader from The Meeting House. This church has 19 […]
Thanks so much for joining in for another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We have a great conversation today with Jon Usborne, the Creative Arts Director with 2|42 Community Church in Michigan. 2|42 Community Church’s heart beats for its community, whether it’s the neighborhoods where they are located or building community on their teams. Today Jon […]
Welcome back, friends, for a unique conversation today with Brian Dodd, author at the Brian Dodd on Leadership blog and Director of New Ministry Partnerships at INJOY Leadership Solutions. Brian is with us today to talk about leadership and leader development and how he used his research of both to write his book Timeless. 10 […]
I’m so glad you tuned in to today’s unSeminary podcast. Today I’m chatting with McKenzie Schreck, the executive pastor at Capital Church in Salt Lake City, Utah. Capital Church just celebrated their twentieth anniversary this past fall. They began from a group of college kids who followed their professor to Salt Lake City to plant […]
Thanks for joining us for another episode of the unSeminary podcast. I think this will be a bit of a change of pace and so I’m excited to be here with Senior Pastor Dan Stanford from The Well Church in Wisconsin. The Well started as a church plant with twelve people in a living room to […]
Welcome to our new podcast all about multisite! I’m chatting with a group of multisite ninjas and answering your questions about the ins and outs of launching new campuses. Our group is as follows: Natalie Frisk is our family ministry expert. She is a key leader from The Meeting House. This church has 19 (!) […]
Welcome back once again to another exciting episode of the unSeminary podcast. I’m so happy to have Creative Coach and Consultant Stephen Brewster with us today. With missionary parents, Stephen has lived all over the world and then grew up to go to six different colleges, so he’s experienced a lot of transitions. During his senior […]
Is your church doing regular Facebook Live broadcasts? Why or why not? The popularity of this tool continues to grow and flourish, and it is a powerful communication method that your church should be taking advantage of. While the service has been around for almost three years, which is comparative to something like 30 “social […]
Thanks for joining in for another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today I have Chris Hankins with me, the Lead Pastor of The Point Church in Raleigh, North Carolina. The Point Church has about 17 services across 9 locations on Sundays. With a total attendance of between 1500-2000 people, that means an average of under 100 […]
This weekend new guests will arrive at your church. Some will be visiting for the very first time, and they will want to know what your church looks like on a regular weekend. Church leaders who want to make a difference always look at how to make their church’s experience more compelling and engaging for […]
Thanks for joining us for another episode of the unSeminary podcast. I’m so excited to have William Vanderbloemen from the Vanderbloemen Search Group with us today. Vanderbloemen Search Group started out wanting help churches find pastors. They now have branched into doing a few other things such as consulting, succession planning and serving ministries in […]
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re in for a treat today with Lee Coate, the executive pastor in charge of ministry and media at The Crossing Christian Church in Las Vegas. The Crossing began in 2000 as a partner plant coming out of Canyon Ridge Christian Church. It started with a […]
Thanks for coming back for this week’s episode of the unSeminary podcast. I’m honored to have Jeff Beachum of Portable Church Industries with us today. PCI helps churches go portable. Portable Church started one day when a portable church was struggling in a middle school setting. Finally one of the pastors went to a volunteer, […]
Welcome to our new podcast all about multisite! I’m chatting with a group of multisite ninjas and answering your questions about the ins and outs of launching new campuses. Our group is as follows: Natalie Frisk is our family ministry expert. She is a key leader from The Meeting House. This church has 19 (!) […]
Welcome back with this week’s episode of the unSeminary podcast. I’m honored to have our guest Jeff Maness with us today. Jeff is the founding and lead pastor of Element Church in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Element Church is an eclectic church in Cheyenne, passionate about being the type of church that would be missed if it […]
“Be genuine. Be remarkable. Be worth connecting with.” – Seth Godin Your church grows when people tell their friends about it. It really is that simple. In my recent book, Church Growth Flywheel, we explored how to add regular prompts to remind your people to talk with their friends about your church. At its core, […]
Welcome back for another episode of the unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to have Mark Jobe from New Life Chicago with us today. New Life is an amazing church with 25 locations and 43 worship services. It is not only multisite, but also multicultural. Mark is talking with us today about how to keep so many […]
Thanks so much for joining us for another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Ben Gowell, an Executive Pastor of Christ’s Church of the Valley. Christ’s Church is a fast growing church in the Phoenix Valley area with 8 campuses that serve about 35,000 people each Sunday. Ben is with us today […]
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. This week we’re joined by Danny Franks, the Pastor of Guest Services at The Summit Church in the triangle region of North Carolina. The Summit Church has a goal to plant 1000 churches in this generation, and part of that success depends on how they welcome people who […]
Welcome to our new podcast all about multisite! I’m chatting with a group of multisite ninjas and answering your questions about the ins and outs of launching new campuses. Our group is as follows: Natalie Frisk is our family ministry expert. She is a key leader from The Meeting House. This church has 19 (!) […]
There is no doubt that the multisite church movement has blossomed, and has a massive impact on the church today. In fact, today in North America one in six people attend a multisite church campus. That fact astonishes me! Each one of those campuses has had a group of volunteers at the core of the […]
Welcome back for another episode of the unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to have Pastor Phil Taylor with us this week. He is the executive pastor at Mosaic Church in Winter Garden, Florida. Phil is with us today to talk about the elder development process at Mosaic and how you can implement it into your own […]
Easter is a huge deal. You know that. In fact, if you are like most church leaders, you are feeling it right now. You feel the pressure of the day coming on quickly. Easter is one of the four “big days” that your church no doubt puts extra effort into. It’s imperative because two realities […]
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. This week we’re joined by Erin Kerr, the discipleship pastor from Mariners Church in California. Mariners started out as a very small church, but now has a few different campuses with about 20,000 people attending. Erin’s focus at Mariners is how to disciple people outside of […]
How you think about what you do in ministry is very important. The mindset you bring in to your ministry can be a make or break factor in your church’s ability to impact your community. Over the last few years, I’ve had the honor of talking to hundreds and hundreds of church leaders for my […]
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to have Dennis Gingerich with us today. Dennis is the founding pastor of Cape Christian Church in Florida. One way or another, every church is going to lose its pastor. Yet very few congregations are preparing for that. Would your church survive if your […]
Thanks so much for taking the time to join us for another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We have a treat today with guest Pastor Karl Vaters of Cornerstone Christian Fellowship in Orange County, California. Karl is with us to talk about small churches, their unique challenges and how they can be great when they […]
Welcome to our new podcast all about multisite! I’m chatting with a group of multisite ninjas and answering your questions about the ins and outs of launching new campuses. Our group is as follows: Natalie Frisk is our family ministry expert. She is a key leader from The Meeting House. This church has 19 (!) […]
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast! Thanks for joining us for our chat today with Jamey Stuart from Believers Church in Suffolk, Virginia. Believers Church is an active church with a unique story surrounding their building. The church is full of energy with an average age of 35 and lots of young […]
Is your church leveraging chatbots to reach people? Are you leveraging a social media listening tool to understand the sentiment towards your church? What’s your Instagram story strategy to engage people in your community? Is your church ready for augmented reality and the impact that will have people attending your services? STOP! Too many church […]