New-here tent and first-week step

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with John Sellers, Executive Pastor of Locations and a location pastor at Journey Church in Central Florida. Journey is one of the fastest-growing churches in the country, with a thriving online community, three campuses, and a fourth location on the way.

Is your church struggling to help new guests take meaningful next steps? Wondering how to move people from attending on Sunday to fully engaging in community and serving? Tune in as John shares how Journey Church creates clear pathways for connection, builds consistency into its systems, and celebrates every step of faith along the way.

• The power of simple next steps. // Journey Church, once a traditional congregation, has experienced steady growth over the past 20 years—especially in the last five, averaging 10–15% annual increases. Rather than overnight success, it’s been the result of consistent focus on helping guests take simple next steps. Many churches lose first-time guests because they underestimate the courage it takes for someone new to walk through the doors. When someone visits your church, it means God’s already working in their life. Our job is to remove every barrier that keeps them from taking their next step.
• The “New Here” tent. // Every Journey Church location features a New Here Tent – the church’s first relational on-ramp for new guests. Volunteers greet visitors with warmth, celebrate the faith step they’ve already taken by attending, and offer a $5 gift card to a local coffee shop as a thank-you. This simple gesture opens the door for meaningful conversation, helps the team collect contact information, and lays the foundation for further follow-up.
• Six-week follow-up system. // From the moment a visitor shares contact information in exchange for a gift card, Journey’s six-week workflow ensures consistent and personal connection. Every new guest receives a brief video message from the lead pastor, followed by texts, calls, and emails from their location pastor and staff team. The messages include vision, invitations to next steps, and reminders about upcoming opportunities. If a guest doesn’t take a next step within that timeframe, Journey continues periodic follow-ups, keeping the door open for future engagement.
• A clear next steps pathway. // Journey’s Next Steps class provides the structure for moving guests toward increased connection. Held every weekend at every campus, the class runs on a monthly rhythm. Week 1 introduces the church’s vision and the gospel, inviting people to follow Christ or sign up for baptism. Week 2 focuses on serving, helping people discover their gifts and join a team. Week 3 is Baptism Sunday, offered every month across all locations. Week 4 celebrates new team members as they serve for the first time. Guests can join at any step, and every class includes free food, childcare, and relational discussion around tables.
• Lowering fear, increasing clarity. // Journey intentionally crafts weekend moments to affirm guests and point them toward next steps. A brief welcome moment after the first worship song specifically addresses new people: “We don’t know what it took for you to get here, but you made it—and that’s a big deal.” That language of affirmation lowers fear and builds belonging. Clear signage, follow-up stories, and visible next step options make it easy for guests to respond when they’re ready.

To learn more about Journey Church, visit journeyconnect.org or follow @journeyconnect on Instagram. Download their New Here 6-Step Follow-Up Workflow here.

Thank You for Tuning In!

There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!

Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live!

---

Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Risepointe

Do you feel like your church’s or school’s facility could be preventing growth? Are you frustrated or possibly overwhelmed at the thought of a complicated or costly building project? Are the limitations of your building becoming obstacles in the path of expanding your ministry? Have you ever felt that you could reach more people if only the facility was better suited to the community’s needs?

Well, the team over at Risepointe can help! As former ministry staff and church leaders, they understand how to prioritize and help lead you to a place where the building is a ministry multiplier. Your mission should not be held back by your building. Their team of architects, interior designers and project managers have the professional experience to incorporate creative design solutions to help move YOUR mission forward.

Check them out at risepointe.com/unseminary and while you’re there, schedule a FREE call to explore possibilities for your needs, vision and future…Risepointe believes that God still uses spaces…and they’re here to help.

---

Episode Transcript

Rich Birch — Well, hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in and you’re gonna be rewarded for that because today we’ve got a great conversation. I know this is the kind of thing, in fact, I know this is helpful because I feel like every other day I get people asking about this area and this is the kind of thing that many of us can do just a much better job on and we’ve got really an expert on the line today to help us with. We’ve got John Sellers. He is Executive Pastor of Locations and is also a location pastor at Journey Church which has repeatedly been one of the fastest growing churches in the country. If I’m counting correctly, they’ve got three locations in Florida and a fourth in the works, plus church online. They exist to help people connect with Christ, community, and their calling.

Rich Birch — Super excited to have you on the the show today, John. Thanks for being here.

John Sellers — Thank you, Rich. I’m excited ah to be on. God’s been moving here and we’re just so thankful for you. I know we’re one of those churches that I don’t feel like we do anything unique or novel. Like we just learn from other people and learn from other resources.

John Sellers — And your resources have been a part of our story. And so one of one of your books, in fact, over the last couple of years about creating an inviting culture at your church has been one of the one of the best resources we’ve had in the last couple of years.

Rich Birch — That’s super kind.

John Sellers — And so we’re one of those churches that’s benefited from you.

Rich Birch — Wow. You and my mom read my book. I appreciate that.

John Sellers — Yes, yes.

Rich Birch — No, that’s good. I really appreciate that. Super kind of you to say. That’s that’s humbling, frankly, for you to say that. And so why don’t you kind of tell us a little bit about the church? Kind of tell us about Journey. Give us a sense. Talk about your role. Kind of set the table for us.

John Sellers — Yes, you’ve, you said it pretty well. We’re in central Florida. We’re a little ways north of Orlando. So we’re in a ah county called Volusia County, which is the same county that has Daytona Beach in it.

Rich Birch — Oh, nice.

John Sellers — And, uh, our area is a lot of kind of blue collar people. They’re just incredible, um, men and women of God. There’s incredible men and women who are moving here. Um, and they’re the kind of people that would just give you the shirt off their back. They’re ready to serve. They’re ready to be engaged, ah to make a difference in the world around them.

John Sellers — And so for us, we’re not in a big metropolitan area. So sometimes when we hear from other churches that are in big, you know, massive cities, sometimes it’s hard to relate to how that translates into small towns like we’re at, and medium sized cities. And so for us, what’s been helpful is podcasts like these, where I hear the principles I’ve read in a book at a church that’s maybe normal size or a little bit smaller or more kind of a normal size city. And so that’s kind of us.

John Sellers — We’ve been multi-site for about 10 years…

Rich Birch — Great.

John Sellers — …and we’re continuing to see God kind of multiply our ministry. And ah yeah, that’s about it for for where we’re at.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. What’s your, ah I know this is, this is germane because of what we’re talking about today. Give us a sense of the kind of growth trajectory of the church. I know you’re a humble guy, so you’re not going to be like, oh, this, is we’ve grown by this and this and this.

John Sellers — Yeah.

Rich Birch — But kind of tell us a little bit of that story. That’ll help set the table a little bit for where we’re going.

John Sellers — So we were um kind of a traditional, you know, First Baptist Church of Orange City. And our lead pastor came a little over 20 years ago, and he brought just kind of a church planting mentality with him and really a new vision, a new direction for the church.

John Sellers — And so I would say our growth has been really just steady growth over those 20 years. And really in the last five to six, we’ve seen some incredible back-to-back years of double-digit growth, you know, in the, you know, 10 to 15% growth year over year.

Rich Birch — Love that.

John Sellers — And it’s just been kind of a steady year after year, making slow, small progress is the way I would describe it.

Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good.

So it has not been one of those overnight, hey, we went from a hundred people to 10,000 or anything like that.

Rich Birch — Yes.

John Sellers — It’s just been a slow go every year. How do we get better? How do we continue to be a church that reaches people right here in our community?

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. And that’s actually really common. I’m working on a book right now about breaking the 2000 barrier. And typically, actually, one of the interesting benchmarks is when a church breaks the 2000 barrier, actually, it’s common the most common thing is for the lead pastor to have been there for 15 years. And so…

John Sellers — Wow.

Rich Birch — You know, I think oftentimes people think like, oh, you like you say, it’s like, oh, it’s just something happens. You know, those stories because they’re unique, you know, they’re…

John Sellers — Yes.

Rich Birch — And so, you know, that this is is great to kind of dig into some of, you know, like you say, the more normal…

John Sellers — Yes.

Rich Birch — …you know, obviously what God’s doing is not totally normal, but but we’re we want to learn from it.

Rich Birch — So one of the things that we all struggle with is this idea of getting people to take next steps and plugging into connection, get you know, how do we move new here guests, get them to actually make, um you know, some sort of connection to the church. From your vantage point, why is that hard for for so many churches or maybe so many guests ah to actually make those steps?

John Sellers — Yes, I think there’s a lot of factors that go into that. I think the problem we keep running into or have run into over the years is we have so many new people walking through the doors and many times we find, hey, they kind of get stuck in this. They’ll visit once or twice, maybe three times. We don’t see them again. And we saw that gap of how do we connect those that walk in the doors and help them take that step um to really engage for the long haul.

John Sellers — And so I think some of it, what I’ve found is it can be multifaceted. Like I think sometimes as people who’ve been in the church for maybe many years, we forget what it’s like walking through the through the doors of a church.

Rich Birch — Yes. It’s true.

John Sellers — And so we have to constantly, as leaders, keep going back to ah what is that like?

John Sellers — And so the way we talk about it a lot at Journey Church is when someone walks through the doors um of your church, it means God is working in their life. The Holy Spirit is doing something to create a desire for them.

Rich Birch — So true.

John Sellers — And what that means is I think anytime God leads people to take any kind of step, um the enemy and the flesh and sin ah wants to creep in and use anything as a distraction to kind of keep them from taking the next step.

John Sellers — And so what I found sometimes that ah where that can happen is um when when people walk in the fear of, am I accepted? The fear of, you know, what do I do?

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

John Sellers — There’s not a, you know, clarity on what they’re wanting me to do. And so for us, what we’ve prayed about and what we try to hone in on is we want to do everything in our power to recognize that those who walk through the door, God has led them to make that step, that it’s a big step. And we want to do everything we can to remove the barriers.

John Sellers — And so how we do that, I think, is greater clarity. Like what steps do we want them to take? And how do we make it as clear as we absolutely can can, as clear as possible…

Rich Birch — Yes, yes.

John Sellers — …for them to know when and how to take that step?

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

John Sellers — And then beyond that, what we found is is a lot of times the question people are asking when they’re new is, do I belong here? Like, am I a fit here? So no matter what those steps are, what we found is it it needs to be relational. And you have to put some of those people on your team that are gifted with hospitality, with making somebody who’s brand new feel like they’re welcome and at home. And try to put them in those on those teams and on those next steps areas to help with that process. Because a lot of times people are asking the question, like, I don’t know if I’m a fit here. I don’t know if they want me here.

Rich Birch — Right.

John Sellers — And so we have to go up above and beyond to to kind of help them know they’re welcome. We’ve thought of you. We’ve prayed for you. And here’s that very next step that we want you to take.

Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good.

John Sellers — Here’s it’s as clear as day for you.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I know, and we’re going to get into this, but I often say to churches that I do coaching with, I’m like, you cannot make this too clear. Like you’ve got to keep, we’ve got to work on how do we, what is the step we need people to take? How do we, how do we make it more obvious? How do we make it more clear? It’s literally a bottomless pit of like, we just got to keep making it.

John Sellers — Yes.

Rich Birch — And and I think it’s true. One of the things I’ve noticed in my own, so, you know, I’m in, you know, whatever my third, fourth decade of leading now, I guess. And which is weird to say, but the um I do think people have changed. I think there was a time when I first started where I think people showed up at church and they weren’t really sure why they were there.

John Sellers — Yep.

Rich Birch — But I think that has shifted over time as we’ve become a more and more unchurched. All of our churches, all our communities are more unchurched today than they were 20 years ago. People don’t just stumble into a church and they’re not sure why they’re there. They’re showing up looking for something. They’re they’re asking questions when they arrive and we want to meet them with that.

Rich Birch — So when someone visits for the first time, actually talk us through that. What are the first couple weeks look like? What is that experience like? How do you help move them from I arrived and I’ve I maybe have got some fear. I’m asking, do I belong here? What are some of those kind of meaning, the first steps you you you lead them through to get them towards meaningful connection?

John Sellers — So at our church, every location has a tent. It’s a new here tent. And so the first step that we’re communicating, the the clear step on that first or second week is, man, stop by the tent. Like I know that’s a big step and we have to remind our serve team and behind the curtain, that seems simple to us, but like to a new person at a church, even going to a tent or making themselves known by filling out a Connect Card, even if it’s digital, like that’s a big step for somebody.

Rich Birch — Right.

John Sellers — And so a lot of our communication is go to the tent. We’d love to meet you. We’ve got a gift card for you just to celebrate the step of faith you took to be here today. And so once they take that step, um it starts us being able to follow up you know through text messages, emails, phone calls, and really encouraging them to step into our Next Steps class. And so when they step into our Next Steps class, one of the things we’re even constantly trying to think through what we call it, because class…

Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.

John Sellers — …probably isn’t the best ah way to describe it, and we’re actually revamping it right now.

Rich Birch — Yes.

John Sellers — But for us, even that Next Steps class is a round table, it’s relational, it’s getting them around our Next Steps team that wants to hear their story. You know, what brought you through the doors, wants to begin to hear you know about maybe what’s on their heart, where are they at, what’s their next faith step?

John Sellers — And so those are are the first couple of weeks. If we can encourage them to stop by the tent, that allows us to stay in contact with them relationally. And then the next step would be, man, go to one of our next steps classes after a service.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Can we pull apart a bit of the detail there?

John Sellers — Sure.

Rich Birch — Just because I know people are wondering this because I get these questions. So it sounds like when you arrive at the New Year tent, there’s a gift card there. Where’s that gift card for? What is that and what is the value of that?

John Sellers — Yeah.

Rich Birch — What do you what do you, and why a gift card? Talk to us about that.

John Sellers — Yes. So for now we’ve, and we’ve experimented, we’ll change, we’ll change this up like constantly. But right now it’s for a local coffee shop.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great.

John Sellers — And it’s, it’s literally a $5 gift card.

Rich Birch — Yep.

John Sellers — It’s just a thank you to say, thank you for coming. It’s it’s a little gift bag. It’s got information about our church, obviously. And um it’s just a step to the way we phrase it is we know it’s a big step of faith you took to be here today.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

John Sellers — And so we just want to celebrate…

Rich Birch — Yeah, I want to celebrate that.

John Sellers — …the fact that you have made it in the room.

Rich Birch — Oh, I like that.

John Sellers — And so that that’s what it is. Five dollars. On big events. We’ll do, you know, a Journey Church cup…

Rich Birch — Right. Christmas or something like that.

…and make it a little more, you know, more substantial.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

John Sellers — But it’s just a five dollar gift card to a local coffee shop.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. And I love the, you know, the the thinking behind that, friends that are listening in, is sometimes when I see churches do, they’ll be like, hey, if you want to get connected, or if you if you’ve got interested about your next steps, or if you’re wondering where to go, drop by the the tent in the you know outside. People are not asking that question when they first come.

John Sellers — Yes.

Rich Birch — So we’ve we’ve we’ve got to take a celebratory ah step. And I like what you’re saying. I love that language of like, we want to celebrate the faith step by being here today. And we want to give you a gift in exchange for that. People will do that for a $5 gift card. They’ll or a you know or you know coffee mug or whatever. You know. That’s good.

Rich Birch — And then the other thing that caught my attention, you said, was you said and we follow up with texts and emails.

John Sellers — Yes.

Rich Birch — Talk about how, you know, how many of that, what’s that communication process look like? This is another area where I see churches drop the ball all the time.

John Sellers — Sure. It’s a variety. There’s a workflow that we use through our database system planning center…

Rich Birch — Yep.

John Sellers — …that is owned by our weekend experience, ah you know, team members. But basically it starts with an email from our lead pastor with a short video…

Rich Birch — Yep.

John Sellers — …for them to watch a message directly from him. It includes a text message or phone call from the location pastors within two weeks. It includes other text messages and emails. So it lasts about six weeks…

Rich Birch — Yep.

John Sellers — …and it’s more information about how to take steps at our church.

Rich Birch — Yep.

John Sellers — And so some of its vision, a lot of it is is geared towards stepping into the Next Steps class. But yes, it’s multiple and it’s a variety and it’s over the span of six weeks.

Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.

John Sellers — And then we even have, you know, workflows built out that, you know, if somebody goes through that six week process without taking a next step, that periodically we’ll check back in with them just to see how we can serve them.

Rich Birch — Now, I’m just because I know how this goes, would you be willing to share like a one pager that kind of explains what those six weeks are? Do you have that? Even just a screen capture of the workflows?

John Sellers — Sure, sure.

Rich Birch — Would you be open to that?

John Sellers — I can put that together for you. Yeah.

Rich Birch — Because what I know will happen is this is going to go out and then people are going to ask you, you’re going to get flooded with email.

John Sellers — Yes.

Rich Birch — So I’ll save you that step. You can look at the show notes below. We’ll we’ll link to that. People are very are interested in that, ah you know, that step for sure. So um that’s super helpful. Also love, how often does the next steps class? Talk us through…

John Sellers — Sure.

Rich Birch — …what does that look like? How often does that happen? Give us a sense of what goes on in that.

John Sellers — I would say this has been one of the one of the biggest, it seems like a small tweak for us, but it’s been a game changer in kind of back to that question, how do you overcome the barrier of helping people get connected consistently, is we’ve just made it a consistent month-to-month process.

John Sellers — So week one, weekend one is step one, no matter what weekend it is, there’s maybe a couple of weeks out of the year, you know, where we it may shift it a week, but week one is next steps one. That’s where you connect to, you hear more about our vision as a church. You can, learn about the gospel, like we’ll share the gospel, give people a chance to receive Christ, sign up to be baptized.

Rich Birch — Yep.

John Sellers — Step two is join a team. So you’re discovering how God’s wired you and what teams are on your location that you can plug in.

John Sellers — Week three is baptisms across all of our location. And so if you went to step one, accepted Christ, you’ve never been baptized and you want to be baptized that month – every location, every single month on the third weekend.

John Sellers — And then the fourth week is um typically there’s no class or any step that week other than that’s the week that most of our new team members on our serve team will serve for the first time or shadow for the first time.

John Sellers — And so we want to celebrate them that morning. We want to make sure to connect them relationally as they join the team. And so we just do that every single month.

Rich Birch — So good.

John Sellers — And so it just it gives in those next steps classes happen after every service on every location.

Rich Birch — Wow.

John Sellers — Those were some of those little tweaks for us that seem small, but taking that step has actually allowed more and more people to take the step when they’re ready, when God moves in their life.

Rich Birch — Yeah, I want to underline that. That is best practice. We’ve heard something similar like that in lots of churches, similarly modeled on Church of the Highlands Growth Track. Some of the lessons that they’ve learned around the consistency is a huge issue for sure.

Rich Birch — Can you jump in at any one of those? Or do you, so like are all the people that are here this month, they’re going to be invited to the first step or can they jump in on any step?

John Sellers — They can jump in on on any step.

Rich Birch — Wow.

John Sellers — And so the the communication to the new person is, man, here’s the…

Rich Birch — Next weekend.

John Sellers — …yep, here’s next weekend or today. Like if they’re in the service today, right after service…

Rich Birch — Wow.

John Sellers — …walk into the into the next steps room. We’ve got free food for you, lunch if it’s lunchtime. You know, we’ve got Journey Kids going on. So your kids will be taken care of.

John Sellers — And so we try to make that as easy as possible, whether it’s that day or, you know, sometimes it’s six months later after they visited for the first time. But we want to always have it available for when God moves and they’re ready.

Rich Birch — That, John, that’s a gift where you just gave to people here. Like this, friends, I’ve joked in other contexts: boring stuff grows churches. And this is an example of one of those.

John Sellers — Yes.

Rich Birch — Putting together a class like that, that is going to go every single weekend, week-in, week-out, like, man, the the kind of the amount of momentum that builds for a church like Journey is, is incredible. That’s, that’s amazing.

Rich Birch — So when you think about weekends, you know, you, what moments in a weekend have you found is like the most effective for both lowering fear and inviting that next step? Are there times during the service or are there moments that you’re saying like, Hey, we want to make sure that we’re communicating clearly, doing what we need to do to make sure that we’re, we’re helping people take these steps.

John Sellers — Yes. For us, obviously there can be fluctuation and variation week to week, but for us, most weekends after the very first worship song is just a quick welcome moment.

John Sellers — And that welcome moment is specifically for new or newer people. And so it’s just a chance to say thank you for being here. We highlight the tent. Um, we usually, we’ve started using language that I don’t know how difficult it was to get in the room. I don’t know how smooth it’s gone, but you made it. That’s a big deal. You’ve made it in the room.

Rich Birch — Yeah, I like that. I really like that.

John Sellers — And we’ve been praying for you. Man, we’ve been expecting you. We just want to celebrate you. So, you know, you pass it on the way in, but if you haven’t had a chance to stop there on the way out, it’ll take, you know, less than a minute. Just stop by, let us meet you real quick and give you that gift. Talk about the gift card.

John Sellers — And then usually that will be, if it’s a next steps class weekend, that will mention something there because we’ve already got their attention. But on those weekends, we will also allow that to be the very last thing that we say. And so if next steps class is that day, as you leave, we make it as clear as possible. People with signs. I mean, we we don’t want them to miss it. That remember next steps is today. Like we mentioned earlier in service, we’d love to have you, you know, step into next steps class.

John Sellers — And so kind of that welcome moment. And at the very end is the norm. And then periodically our lead pastor will mention it in his sermon time, like in his, in his main message.

Rich Birch — Right.

John Sellers — And sometimes we’ll strategically use a video, you know, how someone took a step into that class and and the difference it’s made. But I would say most weekends is that welcome moment in the very end.

Rich Birch — Yeah, kind of the top and the end to kind of cap the service with that. I love that. I really like the language that you’re using there. I think I’m going to steal that. I love this idea of like, man, I don’t know what it took for you to get here. Man, you did an incredible thing. Like it’s it’s validating to people. You did the right thing by being here today.

John Sellers — Yes.

Rich Birch — And man, like God is already at work in your life. Like, and you may not say it like that, but that’s what we believe.

John Sellers — Yep.

Rich Birch — Like the fact that they’ve just showed up, man, we don’t want to miss that. Like, I often think of particularly when we deal with a lot of unchurched people who don’t normally attend church, like that first step, man, is a giant step.

John Sellers — It’s a big deal.

Rich Birch — Like that they’re changing something huge in their area. That’s incredible.

John Sellers — And and I think that’s the thing that’s so easy to forget is like, especially if you follow Jesus for years…

Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah.

John Sellers — …you know, you forget what that experience is like and what God’s doing.

John Sellers — I had someone explain this to me yesterday. He’s been at our church for a number of years now. And when he came in, he was absolutely broken. And he’s like, I just don’t want you guys to forget, like the people who walk through your doors on Sunday, he’s like, I was ready to end my life.

Rich Birch — Wow.

John Sellers — And I was given one last shot and I walked through the doors. And the conversation I had in the parking lot. And the conversation I had and then the message and how God used it. And I just told him, I was like, thank you for sharing that because I don’t ever want to lose that perspective.

Rich Birch — A hundred percent.

John Sellers — I don’t ever want to lose what a big deal it is when somebody who’s unchurched or far from God or doesn’t know the Lord takes that step just to walk through the doors on a Sunday or a Saturday night. It’s a big deal.

Rich Birch — Yeah. Not that people need more vision, but i’m going to layer on a similar story I had two weeks ago with a guy. And he was reflecting back on his experience when he first came. This is at our church. And he’s like, ah he’s a man’s man, drives a truck, all this kind of stuff. And he’s an incredible young, incredible guy. And God’s done amazing thing in his life in the last couple of years. And he was talking about the very first weekend.

Rich Birch — And he said, you know, he said, when I showed up, pulled up in my pickup truck and there was some guy out front with the Mickey Mouse hands where like so many churches, you know, they got the guys with signs and Mickey Mouse hands and come and park here and all that. And he said, I remember I pulled into a spot where they told me to park and I sat there for like a few minutes and just watched people come in. Because I just didn’t know, like, are these, and it gets back to your belong thing. Who are these people? Like, are these, and he said, I saw a few people that were like, okay, like they’re, you know, they’re dressed normal. I guess I didn’t have to wear a suit. I guess it really is okay.

Rich Birch — And, and I thought, wow, like, I would have, the way this guy presents himself, I would have never thought that like he would have struggled with like, oh, I don’t know if I can go in. I don’t know if I can go in. But man, people come with that, that kind of anxiety when they arrive for the first time. We can’t lose that.

Rich Birch — Let’s talk about baptism specifically.

John Sellers — Sure.

Rich Birch — One of the things I want to kind of double click on is kind of focus in on that. I know many of us want to see people take that step. It’s an important step, obviously, in their spiritual journey. It also helps us understand kind of what’s happening in our church. How have you found kind of the right way to inject the baptism experience? It’s obviously step three. It’s a big part of the the the puzzle. But how do you build towards those moments? What does that look like? Kind of talk to us about how baptism fits into this.

John Sellers — Sure. It’s it’s a big deal for you know for us as well. And um it’s been one of those things on our, as we think about new people, how do we continue to make this step available? It’s part of the command of what Jesus gave the church was to make disciples and baptize them.

Rich Birch — Yes. Yes. Yes.

John Sellers — And so um as we were thinking about that, that’s part of offering it every single month. The direct feeder of that, if you want to think about it behind the curtain, is Next Steps Class Step One. And so that’s where they’ll indicate that they’re interested or that they need to be baptized or want to be baptized.

John Sellers — And then we have a volunteer team ah that follows up with them as well, just kind of hearing their story. Sometimes there’s gospel conversations you can have in those relationships there, just sharing the gospel you know with them.

John Sellers — Sometimes that’s where they come to Christ is their they’re interested in this baptism thing. They don’t know what it’s all about. And so they’ll follow up, get their story, kind of listen to them, connect with them.

John Sellers — And then the way that we do it right now is the baptisms are just a part of our worship moments. So as the band is singing, um you know, we use iMag up on the screen real close up in the baptistry. And, um you know, those are moments where they have a baptism shirt. So they’ll come that day, meet with the baptism team that’s already followed up with them. And that team just walks them through relationally through the whole day with pictures, kind of celebrating that. We encourage them to bring their family on those weekends.

John Sellers — And so That’s probably the main kind of um stream for us…

Rich Birch — Yep.

John Sellers — …is we use that as our main on-ramp every single month, every single location we offer it.

John Sellers — Now that’s to say, I know this will be encouraging to to some people out there. That doesn’t mean that there’s baptisms happening every service on every location. We offer it every single month, but depending on the size of the location and the congregation there, it doesn’t mean that that’s happening in every every campus, every service, every single month. But a lot of months there are because we offer it and we have that on-ramp.

John Sellers — And then for us, we do two strategic events a year…

Rich Birch — Okay, yeah.

John Sellers — …where that step is incorporated into our worship services and people can take the step to receive Christ and be baptized on the very same day in the very same service. And so those two for us is the weekend after Easter,

Rich Birch — Okay.

John Sellers — And then we do a special event. It’s our only event that we do on a weekend that’s all church. So all locations in one place. And it’s actually coming up in October.

Rich Birch — Okay.

John Sellers — The reason we strategically placed it there is many times for us. I don’t know about other parts of the country or the world…

Rich Birch — Yes.

John Sellers — …but ah right here in central Florida, October, November is like dead season for for us as a church.

Rich Birch — OK, right.

John Sellers — We would see attendance dip and all these different things. And so we just prayed through what what can we do to leverage this time to reach more people? And so we do that as an all church event. It’s outdoor. We call it church at the park. And we share the gospel, encourage people to invite their friends and family and they can be baptized on that day.

John Sellers — So we’ve done that kind of rhythm for two years in a row.

Rich Birch — Yep.

John Sellers — And we’ve had over, so our church averages a little over 2000 people in person. It’s continuing to to grow. In the last two years, both years, we’ve had over 400 people take the step of baptism.

Rich Birch — Wow. Praise God.

John Sellers — And those are just students and adults. So we’re Baptist and we we don’t baptize infants.

Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.

John Sellers — And so that’s just adults and students that are taking this the step of baptism.

Rich Birch — Wow.

John Sellers — And this last year, it’s felt like even beyond what we would ever expect, like 400, over 450 people across the the year.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s amazing. Praise God. That’s incredible.

John Sellers — So it just feels like God has breathed on that um in a way that we ah we didn’t expect.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

John Sellers — So…

Rich Birch — I love I love that. So i I want to come back to those two times a year in in a second, but I just, I want to underline just so I understand in the rest of the year on that week three. So the anticipation that that’s week three, you’re doing kind of baptism Sunday every month during the year, except for in these two big months months of the year. That’s what, that’s what’s happening there. And again, not necessarily every campus, every service, but that’s kind of the kind of cadence is pushing towards that.

John Sellers — Yeah. And every campus, every service is offering it. It’s just a matter of how many people sign up for that for that month.

Rich Birch — Yes. Yes. Okay.

John Sellers — So the expectation is, man, Lord willing, if God moves, we’ve prepared the way and we’re ready. If someone in every, you know, who attends every service, every location is ready to take that step.

Rich Birch — I love that. That’s so good. And the, the do you, are they doing like a story? Do they give a little bit of their testimony? Does, how does that work? I’ve seen what you’re talking about with like during the worship experience. I get that, but is there some part of it where we get to hear from them or no? Obviously the baptism team hears from them.

John Sellers — So the way the way we’re currently doing it, we we do not hear their story. So we don’t, um there was a time, it’s funny to how those iterations have happened. When I first came to our church, we had every person who was going to be baptized film a video…

Rich Birch — Yes, yes.

John Sellers — …with their story that would play. And then we’ve reached times where they would share, ah you know, in the moment.

Rich Birch — Yes.

John Sellers — Then there was times where the pastor would share. What we’re currently doing…

Rich Birch — Yeah.

John Sellers — (And I’m not saying this this may not change.)

Rich Birch — Yes. No, that’s good.

John Sellers — …is what we’re currently doing is they share the story with the baptism team, sometimes with the location pastor. And in that moment, we’re letting them know in the welcome moment, what’s about to happen. And, you know, we may share some specifics there. Like we had some, some middle school girls and it was almost their entire small group was being baptized on the same day. So in the welcome, we said, what you’re going to see is these are, these are middle school girls that have been taking steps of faith and bringing their friends.

Rich Birch — Okay.

John Sellers — And they’re about to get baptized. But in the moment, it’s during worship, people are celebrating, but we’re not stopping to share every single story.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

John Sellers — And in fact, kind of back to the barriers, that’s been one of the barriers that we’ve and we’ve encountered, where people aren’t ready to take the step of baptism because they’re afraid they’re going to be put on the spot to talk in front of hundreds of people or something like that.

John Sellers — So, but that’s currently how we’re doing it.

Rich Birch — Yeah. Okay. And then let’s talk about these two times a year, the week after Easter and October, I get a sense of why you would do those. Then what are you doing differently to kind of prepare people to move towards that? Obviously, you know, apart, you know, I gotta be careful on all this stuff. I know that like the Lord is moving. I understand that. I get that.

John Sellers — Sure.

Rich Birch — There’s a part of this we can’t, we’re not manufacturing. I get that. But there must be some communication process we’re doing to kind of give people a heads up. Talk us through what that looks like leading up to those kind of big baptism days.

John Sellers — Yeah, for the for the one after Easter, there’s not a lot in regard to communication to people who would be taking the step. It’s more behind the curtain preparation for our teams.

Rich Birch — Okay.

John Sellers — Obviously, the baptism team, the weekend experience and next steps teams, like they’re preparing for, you know, what could be 10, 20, 30, or even over a hundred, depending on the size of the location.

Rich Birch — Right.

John Sellers — And so they’re making sure they have enough. We do baptism shirts in all the different sizes on those days. We’ll even have all kinds of shorts available for people.

Rich Birch — Yes. Yes. Spontaneous. Yep.

John Sellers — We’ll have towels, all those kinds of things. They’ve got the whole system planned. But as far as that person who’s new to our church and the anticipation is they came on Easter. And the step at Easter is: join us next week. It’s a big, weekend. And we are following up that week from every new person from Easter, and probably the six weeks before Easter, just encouraging them to be there on that day with their families.

John Sellers — And so a lot of it’s more behind the curtain and in that sense. So it feels like though, like it does feel like I get the question all the time, especially the last two years from our church members of like, man, did you have all those people pre-planned and ready to to go?

Rich Birch — Right.

John Sellers — And um And I’m like, no, like on the day, it literally feels like you’ve created the altar…

Rich Birch — Wow.

John Sellers — …and you’re praying, Lord, let your fire fall. Like we we don’t, it’s a step of faith, but God’s been faithful to do it.

Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yeah.

John Sellers — With the one in the fall, so the one we do in October, we we do kind of our play like we would any bigger reaching event, like like like an Easter, as far as invite cards, marketing, social media, all that kind of stuff. And the idea is bring somebody with you. This is a reaching event in our community and we’re going share the gospel. And it’s the same kind of play as far as um obviously it takes a lot more to to lift off. So it’s an all call for our staff. We bring a lot of our baptism resources to the park. It’s it’s a pretty intense week before and obviously months of planning, kind of getting ready for it. But we kind of run a play as a reaching event for that.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. And is the size of that event, like couple thousand people, ah you know, how big can that thing get before you’re going to have to find somewhere different?

John Sellers — Yeah. That’s what we’re, that’s what we’re at right now. You’re exactly hitting it. Yeah. I mean, it’s we’re taking over a city park and it’s hard to count, right?

Rich Birch — Yes.

John Sellers — I mean, we we take over a community building to do our Journey Kids experience that day and and pack out that building.

Rich Birch — Yes.

John Sellers — But as far, I mean, it’s just a sea of people, like it’s thousands and thousands of people. So I think we’ll we’ll be there soon. So that’s obvious.

Rich Birch — Yes.

John Sellers — One of those things where we keep evaluating, like when’s the time that we may not be able to do this anymore? Should we continue to do it? Are there larger venues?

Rich Birch — Yeah.

John Sellers — But for now, that’s kind of how we’re looking at it.

Rich Birch — Yeah, I was talking to a church a couple of weeks ago, maybe a month ago now, and they do a similar once a year. And they’re like, we’re in the biggest venue that there is. They like they’re like, we’re not sure where to go. And so I said to them, I was like, well, you’ve got to find a bigger venue. Like, like you know, like.

John Sellers — Yeah.

Rich Birch — I don’t know, or move it to a different time of year where you can get outside or, you know, whatever. Obviously that’s a nice time of year. have some friends live in central Florida. That’s a nice time of year. People, it’s like the opposite of up north. Up north they’re like going indoors at that time of year.

John Sellers — Yes.

Rich Birch — But there it’s, everybody’s coming outside.

John Sellers — It’s pleasant.

Rich Birch — You know, the, the, the might be reverse logic if you were, you know, in northern part of the country, you know, do something like that in the spring…

John Sellers — Right.

Rich Birch — …because people want to be outside. So yeah, that’s interesting. Well, there’s obvious there’s an interesting balance here. How do you think about, this might be a bit of a curveball question. How do you think about and lead, we want to motivate people towards baptism. We want them to be like, hey, this is a positive step. We want to cast vision towards that. While at the same time, we don’t want to pressure them. We don’t want them to feel like…

John Sellers — No.

Rich Birch — …they’re being guilted into it. How do you balance that out? What’s that look like? How do we how do we kind of walk with people through that? I know that’s your heart to find that balance, but what what’s that look like for you? How do you think about that internally?

John Sellers — Yeah, I think internally we think of it as we want to do all the work to prepare. So we use that kind of language, that idea that when it takes the Holy Spirit of God to move in someone’s heart in life, to lead them to have a desire to take a faith step. So whether it’s baptism, whether it’s coming to Christ in the first place.

Rich Birch — Right.

John Sellers — And we can’t do that. We can’t manufacture that.

Rich Birch — Yep.

John Sellers — That’s that’s the sovereignty of God. We pray for it like crazy, like we bathe it in prayer…

Rich Birch — Yep.

John Sellers — But we’re going to do all we can that when God does move in someone’s heart that we’ve made it so clear and we’ve prepped for them to take that step that it’s as easy as possible.

John Sellers — But in our language, as we’re walking with those people, if they’re not ready, there’s always next month, right? I mean, there’s always, you know, if it’s not, you’re not ready at this big event. And that’s a common conversation that we have as team members, even our serve team, volunteer team that we have with people is, hey, you know, if you’re not ready today, don’t worry. There’s next month, there’s the month following.

John Sellers — I do try to encourage them to have the conversation, but if the Spirit’s moving in your life, don’t hesitate, like don’t don’t wait.

Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, that’s good.

John Sellers — And so that’s kind of how we handle it. Like I don’t think there’s any kind of set strategy or anything like that that we have in place other than that’s the vision we cast, that’s what we try to encourage our people to have. And so I would say it’s pretty common. Like there’s there’s people when they go through Next Steps class, they’re not ready and it may take six months.

Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah.

John Sellers — Sometimes they’ll go through a Next Steps class, they don’t wanna do it that month or even the months following. But then one of these big events comes and you see them in the, in the, in the baptistry.

Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, so good.

John Sellers — And so it kind of works differently for everybody, but yeah, I would encourage, don’t put the pressure on, but use the language of man, but when God’s leading and be obedient to what he tells you.

Rich Birch — Yeah, if you’re looking for a practical training on that, friends that are listening in, I’ve actually found it really, this is going to sound like a bit of an old school thing, but find a a couple videos of Billy Graham doing his crusades years ago. And I felt obviously he was so good at that moment of like not letting people off the hook because the Spirit might actually be moving in their life, but also not trying to pressure them.

John Sellers — No.

Rich Birch — It’s not like, Hey, we’re trying to, we’re trying, trying to humanly coerce you to the front. And obviously it’s, it’s a different, it’s a different ask, but I yeah I would, whoever’s doing your teaching or doing that moment, watch a couple Billy Graham’s and kind of pick up on your, you’ll get a sense of, Oh, wow. That’s a good, you know, that’s a kind of a good way to, to kind of find that tension in those things.

Rich Birch — This has been incredible.

John Sellers — That’s really good.

Rich Birch — What I’m, I know, friends that are listening in, John had like a whole other bunch of stuff he wanted to talk about. And I was like, let’s talk about this one thing.

John Sellers — This is awesome.

Rich Birch — So maybe we’ll have you on again in the future sometime if you’re if you’re open to that. But anything else you’d love to say just as we wrap up today’s episode as we close things down?

John Sellers — Yeah, I think I’m just encouraged like to anybody listening that we’re in a unique moment. I know if if other churches are like ours, we’ve had just people showing up. We had the numbers of people that would be like a reaching event, not like an Easter, but like a Christmas, like a big event on just a normal weekend that we did not plan, that God is causing questions.

Rich Birch — Yes.

John Sellers — There’s people coming, asking, you know i had someone come and say, how do I do that thing that you guys do? And I’m like, what thing are you talking about? And he was trying to describe baptism, but he didn’t know the word.

Rich Birch — Yes. Love it.

John Sellers — And he’s like, how do I how do I do this?

Rich Birch — Yeah, love it.

John Sellers — And so my encouragement is, man, in your community where God’s planted you, God is still wanting to use the local church to be the kind of catalyst to bring life change, transformation in people’s lives. And so I would just encourage you to pray through with the giftings God’s given you, the resources God’s given you, even in the next two to three months, what might you need to shift? How can you kind of change your language…

Rich Birch — That’s good.

John Sellers — …even small tweaks to make sure you’re speaking whatever sermon series you’re doing or whatever passage you’re preaching through, that you’re speaking directly to those people that are asking, man, I want to get back in church. Or man, I want to figure out this whole church thing and make sure my family’s coming there. How do you apply those scriptures to their lives and give them a very clear, very specific faith step?

Rich Birch — That’s good.

John Sellers — One of the things that that we did is we weren’t ready for it. We had just kind of um been through our groups onboarding season and, you know, still assimilating people. And now we’ve got all these people showing up and we created just, and God led us to create just a new group environment that’s literally launching this week.

Rich Birch — I love it.

John Sellers — We didn’t plan on it. Right.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

John Sellers — And, ah but it was God.

Rich Birch — What are you doing? I’d love to hear what’s because that’s funny. We’re literally talking about the same thing at our church. What are you guys doing to to to kind of catch these people?

John Sellers — Yeah. Yeah. So we just doing an eight, like a six, I think it’s a six or seven week short term group. And it’s literally just following, you know, it’s not a long commitment.

Rich Birch — Yep.

John Sellers — The language we’re using is we’ve been hearing a lot of your questions. Like we’ve been hearing a lot of you coming and asking, man, what about evil? What about all these things? So we’re actually going to address some of those questions in our weekend services.

Rich Birch — That’s cool.

John Sellers — And there would be this group environment where you can ask those questions and process with other people ah for a short term. And so, that’s what we’ve done. They’re launching this week on every location and there’s people signed up for all of them that we didn’t have planned. It was like God just kind of laid it in our lap.

John Sellers — And so that’s my my challenge to people listening is just thinking that way of, Lord, you’re your Spirit is who has to move for people to take those steps.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

John Sellers — Help me. What can we do as a church to be good shepherds, stewards…

Rich Birch — That’s good.

John Sellers — …of that faith step and lead them with little one step at a time?

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Well, John, this has been a great conversation today. Super helpful for people. I really appreciate you taking some time out of your busy schedule to be with us. If we want to send people to somewhere online to track with you, to track with the church, where do we want to send them?

John Sellers — Probably our Instagram page. It’s @journeyconnect. Our website’s journeyconnect.org. And so those would be the two spots.

Rich Birch — Great. Thanks so much, John. I appreciate you being here today.

John Sellers — Thank you for having me.