Embracing Change: Vision, Youth, and Strategic Growth in Church Planting

“There’s shared vision or there’s vision that’s shared.” Meet Ray Johnston, Founding Pastor of Bayside Church in Sacramento. We asked Ray to come on an episode of the podcast to share his wisdom on church planting… we should have asked him to come on five! Planters, Ray’s knowledge is vast… be ready to take quick notes! In this episode, Ray challenges planters on how to lead with vision, how to create momentum in your plant, and how to determine which voices will be the loudest on your journey. He encourages, “Planters need to be really discerning about who they are listening to. Ask yourself, “What are the outcomes I’m looking for?” Once you can define those outcomes, you can better manage the millions of tools to help you get there.”  

Welcome to Episode 002 of The Unfair Advantage Podcast with Andy Wood. 

INSIGHTS FROM RAY

The Story Behind the Story: Bayside Church, 1996

• You have to be crazy to be a pastor. There’s too much attention, affection, and attack. I didn’t want to be a pastor. 
• Nothing great ever happens without fresh vision. Fresh vision comes to people who have hope. To get hope, you have to recharge your spiritual batteries. 
• Our goal was to own Christmas, Easter, and kids. When we launched Bayside, we set out to own these three things. That would have defined success for us. 
• Whoever wins the kids wins. Wins your community, wins the future, wins the battle for values. 

To Preview or Not To Preview

• All church plants need to go through four critical stages of planting. Each of these stages should be 3-6 month long. 
• 3 out of 5 new church plants fail, primarily because of low birth weight. Don’t plant too fast. 
• The 4 stages of church plants:
• Stage 1 - Core Group Gathering 
• Stage 2 - Core Group Development - train your core group, start assigning roles and responsibilities
• Stage 3 - Preliminary Worship
• Stage 4 - Grand Opening, Public Worship
• Too many churches go from Stage 1 to Stage 4. 
• We did preview services to draft people into the launch team. 
• Planters need to be really discerning about who they are listening to. Ask yourself, “what are the outcomes I’m looking for?” Once you can define those outcomes, you can better manage the millions of tools to help you get there. 

“Secrets” of Church Planting

• Creating momentum - people support what they help create. 
• There’s shared vision or there’s vision that’s shared. 
• 5 questions we asked 100 of our core leaders in the church: 
• What should we do in the next 1-2 years to reach our community for Christ?
• What are we going to do to disciple our people? How do we grow our people spiritually? 
• How do we get people who are seeking God to serve God?
• What are we going to do to unleash passion in our community and around the world? 
• Got any dreams? 
• Most people can’t dream what they haven’t seen. They only know the church from what they’ve seen and experienced in the past. Show them a church that will help them dream big about theirs. 

Am I the right leader to plant a church? 

• Go do assessment center testing
• Disc profiles - high I or high D are ideal church planters
• If you’re wired to lead, you reach for one of 4 things first in the morning: a steering wheel to lead and direct, a microphone to speak, people to care and develop them, a computer to organize it all in a God-honoring way. Church planting tends to do better if the leader is a microphone, steering wheel person who does pretty well with people. 
• Do most what you do best. Too many people climb the wrong ladder only to realize it’s the wrong ladder. 

EPISODE LINKS

Find your top 5 core strengths - Gallup StrengthsFinders 

Thrive Conference - May 5th & 6th - Dream Again with Bob Goff

Text “refuel” to 56316 for a daily resource from Bayside 

Be on the lookout for catalytic relationships. One of the ways you may be called to invest in these relationships is by joining the first ever Ascent Leader Church Planter Cohort. Get more information today at: https://theascentleader.org/cohorts/ 

WHO IS RAY JOHNSTON?

Ray Johnston is the founder of Bayside Church in the Sacramento, California area, which has grown to one of the largest congregations in the nation with more than 20,000 people gathering every weekend, and the founder of Thrive Communications and Thrive Churches International (TCI), which host the largest pastors and church staff conferences in the western United States.

A master communicator, Ray is well known for his books The Hope Quotient, and Jesus Called. He has spoken face to face to more than 2 million people over the past 45 years. He has also served in an “interim'' pastoral role to help hurting congregations that range from smaller local churches to megachurches.

Ray has a rich and varied background as a university and graduate-school professor, speaker, and writer, and. A graduate of Azusa Pacific University and Fuller Theological Seminary, he was Chairman of the Department of Youth Ministry at North Park College, an adjunct professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and is a veteran of both youth and adult ministry, having crisscrossed the nation for years as a top instructor for Youth Specialties.

Ray and Carol Johnston have been married for almost 40 years, have four adult children, and a growing number of grandchildren.

To learn more, visit:

• www.RayJohnston.com
• Conference: www.ThriveConference.org
• Twitter: @rayjohnston
• Instagram: @rayjohnston77
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ray.johnston.3150?fref=ts
• Blog: www.RayJohnston.com

SPONSOR

Thanks to our sponsor: Food For The Hungry.

Combine your church's heart for the poor and Food for the Hungry’s global experience at fh.org/churches.