Navigating Growth and Cultural Shifts in a Historic Church

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast! Today we’re talking with Craig Smith, Lead Pastor of Mission Hills Church in Colorado—an 80+ year-old multisite church and one of the fastest-growing in the country.

Is your church growing faster than your systems can handle? Do you ever feel like your team is working hard but not aligned? From shifting teaching paradigms to reworking systems, tune in as Craig unpacks what it takes to align a historic church for long-term mission impact.

• Change is inevitable—prepare for it. // Churches must constantly adapt as their environments, congregations, and staff change. Revisit systems and culture regularly to ensure they support growth rather than hinder it. Leaders should resist nostalgia and instead anticipate future needs by assessing current practices with an open hand.
• Purpose before mission. // A major source of confusion in churches is a lack of clarity between purpose and mission. Purpose is why a church exists, while mission is what the church does in response to that purpose. Many churches get caught up in activity without anchoring it in clear purpose, which can dilute culture and cause drift.
• Preach for transformation, not just information. // While Mission Hills was known for its Bible teaching, they lacked clarity on the why. Reestablishing the purpose of Bible teaching—to help people follow Jesus—helped guide everything from sermons to discipleship. Use the Bible to lead people toward life change rather than just sharing information. While biblical knowledge is important, it should always lead to transformation and a deeper relationship with Jesus.
• Build systems to support growth. // Craig inherited a high-capacity church with very few systems in place. Over time, he implemented clear decision-making processes, established team structures, and clarified how different leadership roles (elders, executive team, department leads) fit together.
• Dismantle silos through honest conversations. // A months-long culture audit revealed both strengths and barriers across departments. By facilitating open conversations about what people valued and what they hoped to see, Craig helped unify teams around a shared vision.
• Repeat it—consistently. // Language creates culture. Leaders must say important things not just often, but consistently. If you change the phrasing every time, the message gets lost. Mission Hills is intentional about memorable language that reinforces vision and values over time.
• Speak in clear, accessible language. // In a post-Christian context, leaders can’t assume shared language or knowledge of the Bible. Speak plainly and avoid churchy jargon. Teach with language that invites non-believers while still challenging mature believers. Reaching people today means speaking with clarity and compassion.
• Mission Hills Association. // Mission Hills Church has launched the Mission Hills Association—a support network to help churches strengthen their health and reach. It includes coaching, collaboration, and shared resources aimed at building a regional gospel movement.

Visit Mission Hills Church at www.missionhills.org to learn more about the church and their Beyond initiative.

EXTRA CREDIT // Download The Clarity Conversation 1-on-1 Worksheet

This episode with Craig Smith is all about navigating change without losing your team – and we’ve created a practical tool to help you do just that.

It’s a simple, printable guide with five powerful questions to help you align your staff, surface tensions, and build trust during seasons of change.
Members can download it here.

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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Risepointe

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Episode Transcript

Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in Really looking forward to today’s conversation. We’ve got Craig Smith with us. He is the lead pastor of a church called Mission Hills Church, which was established more than 80 years ago, if I’m counting correctly. A multisite church, it’s been one of the fastest growing churches in the country for multiple years. They’ve got three locations and a Spanish campus in Colorado, and they’re currently engaged in this initiative to accelerate towards their 100-year legacy.

Rich Birch — Super excited to talk to Craig today. Thank you so much for being here today.

Craig Smith — I’m really honored to be here, Rich. You have been you’ve been really helpful to me as a leader, and so I’m really honored ah to be part of this. Thank you.

Rich Birch — Well, that’s kind of you to say. Why don’t you fill in the picture about Mission Hills? Kind of tell us a little bit, give us some context there.

Craig Smith — Yeah, a lot of this is actually in my head right now, because as you said, we’re thinking towards that 100-year milestone. So I can tell you that this church was founded July 26, 1942.

Craig Smith — So right in the middle of ah World War II.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Craig Smith — Everybody was being shipped off to, some of them were being shipped off to boot camps, their people were being shipped off to internment camps.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Craig Smith — I mean, there’s just a lot of uncertainty in the country, and there was a group of people that said, the best thing we can do for this next generation is to plant a church.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Craig Smith — And so they they did that. And here we are – we’re 83 years later, and it’s ah it’s been pretty incredible to see what God has done with this church over these last 83 years. And we know he’s not done. We’re looking forward to the next 17.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Exciting. The you know, one of the things that’s yeah unique about your church is, um you you know, you’re it’s a fast growing church, but you also have this legacy. It’s been around for a long time. And and those are two things that don’t normally fit together.

Rich Birch — A church that’s 75 years old that has obviously seen some accelerated growth. So when you think about, there was must have been some shifting of the culture here when you started. I wonder if we can kind of elaborate that, talk about any kind of cultural underpinnings that needed to transform to kind of help the church in its current state.

Craig Smith — Yeah, so the the church had a season of really substantial growth before I got here. God kind of orchestrated a move from their existing location to a new location, and there’s a whole story in there about what God did.

Craig Smith — But then the new location really it was a more strategic location. I think it was it was the right place. It was the right time. There was the right leadership in place at that time. And so there was some pretty rapid growth that came from that. With with that growth came also some challenges. I think it broke a lot of the systems. And not too long after the the church had moved into the new location and really began to see some substantial growth, the the the executive pastor and the lead pastor sensed God’s call elsewhere.

Craig Smith — And and I think that was true. That was God calling them elsewhere. But it was also, they were a little overwhelmed with what had happened with the growth. And soI and it was about a two-year period before I got here.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Craig Smith — So I came in and sort of looked around and went, wow, yeah, this is a great church, great bones.

Rich Birch — That’s great.

Craig Smith — I tell people a lot of times, I feel like I got handed the keys to a Ferrari. It was maybe a Ferrari sitting on a sheet of ice spinning its wheels a little bit. And I think that was mostly systems and processes. They just hadn’t quite caught up to being the size of church that they had become. So we we settled into trying to figure out like what needs to happen, systems process, what needs happen culture-wise to to begin to to move towards the next season. And by God’s grace, I think we’ve been able to figure a fair amount of that out. We’re still working on it.

Craig Smith — But yeah. Yeah, there were definitely some culture things that had to shift. It’s a Baptist church. We don’t we don’t say that anymore. We’re Converge.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Craig Smith — Converge worldwide, you know which used to be the Swedish Baptist Conference.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Craig Smith — And somebody figured out Swedish wasn’t helping us reach people. And then eventually they became the the Baptist General Conference and they figured out Baptist wasn’t helping us reach people.

Rich Birch — Funny.

Craig Smith — So now we’re Converge worldwide.

Rich Birch — Converge worldwide.

Craig Smith — Yeah. But there, yeah…

Rich Birch — Love it.

Craig Smith — …there definitely was some culture shifts that that needed to happen.

Rich Birch — Yeah, what would be some of those when you look back at this? That’s a good framework of culture and then systems. Why don’t we start with the culture stuff? What were some of those things that you’ve seen evolve over the time you’ve been there on the culture side?

Craig Smith — Yeah, I think from a cultural perspective, the biggest challenge is probably one that I think a lot of churches in the Western world have, and that is not a lot of clarity went around the difference between purpose and mission. And I know people use these words differently, so I’m just, this is the way we use them.

Craig Smith — But ah for me, purpose is why we exist, and then mission is what we do. And so mission flows out of purpose, but I think we get that wrong in the Western church a fair amount.

Craig Smith — And I think what happens is that what happens we we end up focusing on what we do without an underpinning, understanding of why we do it. And so i so here at Mission Hills, we would say our purpose as a church, not just Mission Hills, but the Church in general, is we exist because God loves the world and wants them to know it.

Craig Smith — That’s why we exist, right? Because God loves the world and wants them to know it. And then our mission, which is what we do, flows out of that. And so, I mean, the mission is it’s discipleship and evangelism. I mean, we’re not going to come up with something new for the church, right?

Rich Birch — Right. If you do, there’s something, you’re not a church, right? It’s got to be at its core.

Craig Smith — There’s something wrong that has happened. But I think what happens is we get focused on the mission. So we you know we end up like, well, we’re doing discipleship or evangelism.

Rich Birch — Right.

Craig Smith — And sometimes I think the split in churches today is, are you a discipleship church or an evangelism church? And I’m like, even that question bothers me.

Rich Birch — Right. Right.

Craig Smith — Because I even i you know I often hear it in the discipleship context, and people go, well, the purpose of the church is discipleship. And I’m like, no, it’s not. That’s like saying the purpose of the Marines is physical fitness. It’s not.

Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good. Right.

Craig Smith — Now, is physical fitness fundamental to doing what the Marines exist to do? Absolutely. Is discipleship fundamental? I feel like all I do every day is discipleship.

Rich Birch — Right.

Craig Smith — That’s that’s my gifting.

Rich Birch — Right.

Craig Smith — But my discipleship is built on this understanding that the church exists for a reason, and that is to reach the world with the gospel. And so you can’t do that without discipleship. But when you get that purpose and mission confused…

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Craig Smith — …that creates a culture that can get in the way. And so I think that was probably the biggest challenge was beginning to shift the church to: no, no – understand your purpose first.

Rich Birch — Right.

Craig Smith — And then all this other stuff is building on or building towards that, that purpose.

Rich Birch — How did that exhibit itself in the culture? Like, or where did you identify as like, Hey, here’s some stuff we’ve got to shift because we were not clear on, you know, purpose and and mission.

Craig Smith — Yeah, so Mission Hills has a really long history and a legacy as a strong Bible teaching church. And and I hear this at Mission Hills still. I’ve been here eight years working on nine. I still, you know, we’re a Bible teaching church, and I think that’s true.

Craig Smith — But I would say even in my own personal growth as a as a leader, early on, if you had asked me what my job was as a preacher, I probably would have said my job is to teach the Bible. And then God kind of began to to work some stuff in me, and I I began to grow increasingly uncomfortable with that. And I wasn’t quite sure why, because I love teaching the Bible.

Rich Birch — Right. Yes.

Craig Smith — But I but I just felt like something was missing. And I was talking to a trusted mentor, I was sort of explaining what was going on in my heart. It was it was inarticulate. It was just kind of babbling. And he goes he’s kind of stopping. He goes, oh yeah, I know what you’re saying. You’re understanding that your job isn’t to teach the Bible. And I was like, Yes, it is.

Craig Smith — And he goes, no, it’s not. Your job isn’t to teach the Bible. Your job is to teach people how to follow Jesus using the Bible as your only authority. And it was just a light bulb moment when I, like that’s what I’m feeling.

Rich Birch — Right. Yeah.

Craig Smith — That’s what I’ve been feeling my way towards.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Craig Smith — That’s what I think the Spirit’s been convicting me towards.

Rich Birch — Right.

Craig Smith — And and, and, and so like, does it fundamentally change what I do? Not necessarily, but it does change how I think about it.

Rich Birch — Right.

Craig Smith — And so when I got to Mission Hills, I think I was, and I was still in that process, but I was like, Oh yeah, what I’m seeing here is like the focus on the mission, which is teaching the Bible, but that’s disconnected from the purpose, which is why am I teaching the Bible? Which is to help people follow Jesus, which means not only spiritual growth in their own personal lives, but also joining Jesus on mission in the world.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Craig Smith — That’s why there’s a church.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Craig Smith — And so i definitely saw that there was a church that’s very focused on Bible teaching. Very proud of the fact that there have been multiple pastors here with PhDs in biblical studies. And I had to begin to go, okay, we’re not getting rid of that…

Rich Birch — Right.

Craig Smith — …but we do need to make sure we understand why we’re teaching the Bible.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Craig Smith — You know, and sometimes it manifests even in like, how do we teach the Bible, right?

Rich Birch — Right.

Craig Smith — Like the the previous pastor before me, who I love dearly, he’s become a very good friend. He was very fixated. That that’s a negative word. He he was his his preferred mode of preaching was a version of expository teaching. And I say a version because his version was, we’re pretty much going to go all the way through a book of the Bible. And that’s the only way we’re going to do it.

Rich Birch — Right. Right.

Craig Smith — Nothing wrong with that. It’s not really my way. I’m an expository teacher. like almost I’ve probably preached four topical messages in my life.

Rich Birch — Sure.

Craig Smith — But what I mean by expository is I’m going to unpack. I’m going to expose the meaning of a passage of Scripture. But I may or may not do that as part of a whole book study. Sometimes it it is. Sometimes I’m going to section of a book. Sometimes I’m going to do what people would call topical because I’m going ah walk through a passage about this issue.

Rich Birch — Right.

Craig Smith — And then i’m on ah next week i’m going to walk through a passage about this other issue.

Rich Birch — Right.

Craig Smith — Which some people go, that’s topical. I would say, yeah, but for me, topical is I’m bouncing around picking verses.

Rich Birch — Right.

Craig Smith — Nothing wrong with that either.

Rich Birch — Here’s 10 verses that ah on this. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

Craig Smith — But yes, I think Mission Hills was a little bit locked in on a very specific version of teaching the Bible.

Rich Birch — Sure.

Craig Smith — And and maybe not a really clear understanding of why are we teaching the Bible in the first place. That’s kind of how it manifested.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. I like that. That’s a good distinction there. I think there’s that’s a clear drive. I think sometimes this can, it can just drift towards, it’s almost like a trivia approach to the Bible. It’s like, I want to give you knowledge, information about the Bible. And then I feel like I’ve done my job. If you walk out with some more, you know, facts that you can impress people with.

Rich Birch — But at the end of the day, we want to, we preach for life change. We’re preaching to see people take steps closer to Jesus. I love that. What about on the system side? You said there was some system stuff that needed to change as you looked at this kind of like, okay, we’re, we need to make a bit of a renovation here at the church. What were some of those systems that that need to improve?

Craig Smith — Yeah, i’m honestly, we just needed some systems. Like that that was a big piece of it.

Rich Birch — Okay. Yes.

Craig Smith — I think the Mission Hills was not a small church before they built their their broadcast location that that I’m I’m leading in right now. But in some ways, if I’m going to be perfectly honest, and again, I I don’t want to dishonor anything that’s come before me…

Rich Birch — No, no, no.

Craig Smith — …because I I love the leadership. And the and the former pastor is such a good friend. The former pastor, his name Mike, and Mike would say and has said to me, I wasn’t a an organizational leader. He’s a shepherd. He’s got an amazing shepherd’s heart. In fact, he’s he’s told me, like one of his favorite things to do is funerals. He loves those tender moments with the families, which I, man, I respect.

Rich Birch — Right.

Craig Smith — I love that so much.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Craig Smith — That’s not me.

Rich Birch — Right.

Craig Smith — But when the church grew and he found himself going, wow, now there’s this there’s all these people here. What what do I do with this?

Rich Birch — Right.

Craig Smith — He just, he felt like he wasn’t really equipped to think that way.

Rich Birch — Right.

Craig Smith — And he had an exec pastor, but but honestly, the growth kind of overwhelmed the executive executive pastor. And so when I got here, I felt like I’m not entirely sure how you guys functioned as a church the size you were before you grew.

Rich Birch — Right.

Craig Smith — And we’re we’re woefully ill-equipped to lead in this particular context that we are now, let alone to continue to grow. So yeah, I don’t see it with a lot of us just establishing systems. How do we make decisions? Who gets to decide what decisions get made? Who has responsibility for certain kinds of decisions? What’s the role of the elder team versus the executive team versus the the department leaders and all those kinds of things. So a lot of it was just thinking through that philosophically.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Craig Smith — Yeah, the church, the the departments were very siloed. So there wasn’t a lot of cross communication going on. There wasn’t a lot of fun. I don’t think we, I don’t think we felt like when we got here that there was a sense, oh, we’re doing something incredible together because God’s leading us. It was more like…

Rich Birch — Right. It’s like we got our individual pieces. we do our thing and it’s good. But you know, wow.

Craig Smith — Yeah, it was, it was head down and let’s get the job done. And…

Rich Birch — Right.

Craig Smith — You know, I started seeing things like I remember early on, I discovered that we had a quarter where there were three separate parenting seminars from three separate departments, none of whom knew the other department was doing those.

Rich Birch — You’re doing what? That’s funny.

Craig Smith — Yeah, yeah. And that was it was just it was a result of the growth and the lack of systems and and and…

Rich Birch — Communication.

Craig Smith — …really thoughtful ways of dealing with those kinds of things.

Rich Birch — Wow. That, by God’s grace, when you think about like the delegation and decision-making and how does the elder team relate to staff team, all that stuff, man, it’s by God’s grace that it didn’t blow up. Cause that, the fact that that wasn’t super clear, that could have been, you know, tragic in the life of the church.

Rich Birch — When you, let’s double click on the silo thing. How did you go about breaking down? Cause that’s and a natural thing that happens in churches. As we grow, they kind of become, you know, everybody gets their own little fiefdom and it can be difficult to get them to talk together. What have you done to try to stitch those together?

Craig Smith — So if I’m going to be completely honest, God was really gracious, and we stumbled into some things early on that ended up being helpful. I should probably tell you, I didn’t have any experience in big church.

Craig Smith — There’s there’s a weird story about how I ended up here. I didn’t apply for the job. I wasn’t interested in the job. I made the mistake of guest preaching, and I was a brand new lead pastor.

Rich Birch — And you’re still guest preaching. You’re still guest preaching all these years later.

Craig Smith — I’m I’m still guest preaching all these years later. So I all that’s to say that I came into this role without any real experience.

Rich Birch — Right.

Craig Smith — And I was pretty new as a lead pastor, honestly. I’d only been about a year in that role at a at another much smaller church.

Craig Smith — So I I was trying to figure things out. So I was I was collecting mentors in my life, and I was you know I was in a crazy learning mode. And and again, unSeminary was very, very helpful to me in that season. So again, thank you for that.

Rich Birch — That’s kind of you.

Craig Smith — One of the things I started to to realize I needed to do is we needed to figure out who are we as a church? What’s our culture? What’s our cultural values? And so I spent a lot of time ah talking to members of the staff as well as the congregation to go, hey, what’s true of this church that you want to make sure we don’t lose? And then, you know, what do you think could be true, but we’re not quite there yet? And that was about a six month process.

Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.

Craig Smith — But what happened in the process of doing that was we had a lot of conversation across departments. Because I was kind of moving down into each department and not staying up at the higher level. And I think that actually began to start some of the the movement away from silos. Because I was then going to other people going, well, okay, these people said this. What do you think about this?

Rich Birch — Right.

Craig Smith — Oh, yeah, we like that, but I’m not sure that one’s quite true. And then I’d go back to the first team and go, hey, so they said this about what you said, and what do you but do you think about what they’re responding to? But also, they said this, what do you think about that? I think that was the beginning of breaking some of those silos.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Craig Smith — And then just putting some stuff into place where there’s regular conversation and and meaningful ways to talk about decision-making, about programming. And and so maybe maybe we stumbled into it a little bit.

Rich Birch — Right. Right.

Craig Smith — But it was it was communication, like big surprise there. It was just creating formal processes of thinking through communication.

Rich Birch — Right.

Craig Smith — So the informal benefits of communication began to happen.

Rich Birch — That’s good. Well, even just in today’s conversation, you know, you’re clearly a gifted communicator. Everything from the spinning tires of the Ferrari on the ice, you know, this purpose, mission, conversation. Language is obviously a powerful tool for to drive culture and to communicate.

Rich Birch — I wonder if you could unpack a few examples of maybe where language or messaging strategies have been particularly helpful for you to kind of embed values, what we’re doing, how we do it deeply into what the church does. Can you talk us through what that looks like from your seat? That’s a unique seat that lead pastors have.

Craig Smith — Yeah.

Rich Birch — There’s a language piece that you have that is different than even a senior like executive pastor person. A lot of this language stuff is driven by lead pastors.

Craig Smith — Yeah, so, I mean, you you’ve heard it said that words create worlds. And I think that’s absolutely true. You know, they they say in marketing, what’s the what’s the rule of thumb? You got somebody’s got to hear something seven times before they act on it.

Rich Birch — Right. Yeah.

Craig Smith — And I have I say to our staff all the time, and it took me a while to figure this out, because as ah as a lead pastor and as a communicator, like the worst thing I can do, the greatest sin I can commit as a communicator is to bore somebody. Which means that I’m always going, I I want to say this a new way and a new way. But the problem is every time you say it a new way, it hits different people differently. And and so and they receive it slightly differently.

Craig Smith — So I began to realize, and I tell my staff this all the time, just because you’ve said it doesn’t mean they’ve heard it.

Rich Birch — Right.

Craig Smith — Just because they’ve heard it doesn’t mean they’ve understood it. Because they’ve understood it doesn’t mean they’ve agreed with it. Just because they’ve agreed with it doesn’t mean they’ve done anything with it.

Rich Birch — Right.

Craig Smith — Just because they’ve done something with it once doesn’t mean they’re continuing to do something with it.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s good

Craig Smith — And just because they were doing something with it doesn’t mean they have haven’t forgotten it and need to be reminded of it.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Craig Smith — Which is just really just a way of saying, yeah, they they need to hear it a lot.

Rich Birch — Right.

Craig Smith — I think language begins to beat the drum. And if you beat the the backbeat steadily enough, people begin to bob their heads and like, OK, we’re moving in rhythm together. The problem is if you say it differently every time, you can’t quite count that as a second saying.

Craig Smith — You’d like to think that you can. I used to like to think that I could. I can say this creatively and in a new way and accomplish exactly the same messaging. And I began to realize that’s just not, I’m not able to do that.

Rich Birch — That’s a great insight.

Craig Smith — So I started going, I need to figure out how to say this in a way that feels like me, and also is memorable, so that people can remember it even when I’m not there.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Craig Smith — And I need to say it a lot. So I gave you one example earlier, when we started talking about purpose, we started saying, hey, yeah, the church is here because God loves the world and wants them to know it. And sometimes we’ll say, i mean, what does the Bible say? He loves them so much, he gave them his son. And he wants them to know it so much, he gave them his church. And a lot of times now, I’ve said it enough that I can i can leave off the last word of those, and people will go: son, church.

Rich Birch — Right. And people repeat. Yeah, yeah, yeah, oh good.

Craig Smith — I actually kind of want people to roll their eyes a little bit on some things that are so important that I’ve said them so much, they’re like, yeah, yeah, I got it.

Rich Birch — That’s a good…

Craig Smith — Maybe you do, but not everybody else does.

Rich Birch — Yeah,

Craig Smith — So yeah, we started figuring out how how do we say these kinds of things. You know, when we talk about discipleship, I’ll say things like, listen, it’s not big leaps, it’s small steps. Because enough small steps in the same direction will take you places you never thought possible.

Rich Birch — That’s so good.

Craig Smith — So thats that’s a phrase I say a lot: enough small steps in the same direction will take you places you never thought possible. So I don’t need you to make a massive life change today. I need you take a small step.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Craig Smith — And then another one. And then another one. So those are the kinds of things like I have a, we call them plumb line statements. And when we’re onboarding new staff, like my my development director goes over a lot of those plumb line statements because there’s a lot of them.

Rich Birch — Right.

Craig Smith — They’re just, here’s how we say this. And and we we tend to say it pretty consistently.

Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, that’s good.

Craig Smith — Sometimes you got to vary it because some people just, they can’t handle saying the same thing over and over again. But but I think the more you can say it the same way, the better you’re going to get this sense of oh, we’re all bobbing our heads together and, you know, we’re dancing to the same tune.

Rich Birch — Yeah, I think that’s such a good insight. I, you know, I’ve joked in other contexts that, and you obviously said it way better than I say it, that, you know, people have to start making fun of you for these things. They have to, you know, they have to be like, okay, come on.

Craig Smith — Yeah.

Rich Birch — Like, but it’s true. I was with a i was with a staff member of one of my favorite communicators last week, and I was listening to them. They were presenting, and I was listening to them talk, and it was like I could hear that their leader coming through in their voice. Because it was, you know, they were repeating, like you’re saying, repeating these plumb lines.

Rich Birch — And, and it wasn’t, it wasn’t in like a copy and paste routinized way. It was just like, oh, that, that language is just has seeped into this person and has become a part of who they are. Which is what, what a powerful example. And I think that as a non-communicator, I don’t, I’m not a preacher. I think sometimes we can forget that that kind of repeating thing is such a critical piece of the puzzle and we’ll want to always come up with some new way to say it. But I just love that. I think that’s such a great a great insight for sure.

Rich Birch — One of the things you’ve talked about is the part of the country you find yourself in, Colorado’s front range. That’s a unique part of the country, but as an outsider, it appears like you’re passionate about reaching that part of the country. What’s unique about that? What is it about the front range that has you fired up that, what you know, what is it that’s, you know, kind of given your church, you as a leader kind of a unique mission with that aspect of what God’s called you to?

Craig Smith — Yeah, the Front Range of Colorado, which is kind of a, we we use that, it’s a civic designation. It runs from a city called Pueblo, Colorado in the south to Cheyenne, Wyoming in the north. It’s just east of the Rocky Mountains, which are obviously a big feature here and probably a big part of the culture. And I think a lot of places in the country will say this. It’s absolutely true here as well. This is a graveyard of church plants. Very difficult to get church plants that survive here.

Craig Smith — And and I think there’s a number of things to do that to that. Part of it is it in some ways we probably feel a little bit like the Pacific Northwest. There’s there’s a little bit of a Seattle vibe to to Denver, Colorado.

Rich Birch — Right. Yep.

Craig Smith — There’s a lot of California. We’ve had a lot of transplants from California coming out to to Colorado.

Rich Birch — Right.

Craig Smith — There’s a little bit of that. At the same time, there is a difference. You know, where’re we’re on the plains right next to the big mountains. We don’t have an ocean. We’re not the Bible belt by a long stretch. We’re probably more similar to the the northern parts of the country and the Pacific Northwest. There’s a very strong ah financial component to the Front Range. It’s not cheap to live here.

Rich Birch — Sure.

Craig Smith — So so money is often part of the culture. The mountains, as I said, are a big part of the culture. Let’s go to the mountains…

Rich Birch — Right.

Craig Smith — …and let’s let’s ski or let’s camp or let’s hike or let’s whatever. And so the weather has massive implications even on weekend church attendance. I…

Rich Birch — Okay.

Craig Smith — …you know I coach some guys around the country that will sometimes lament to me like, yeah, I mean depending on you know with the weather, we might see a 10% shift in our weekly attendance.

Rich Birch — 10%?

Craig Smith — And I’m like, dude, 30% is not at all unusual.

Rich Birch — Right.

Craig Smith — A really good weekend, I can drop 30%.

Rich Birch — Yes. Right.

Craig Smith — A bad weekend, it’s got to be just the right kind of bad.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Craig Smith — It’s like, oh, it’s not good to be in the mountains, but it’s not unpleasant to go outside, like 30% up, like wild shifts.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Craig Smith — There’s there’s a fair fair amount of culture of apathy here about spiritual things…

Rich Birch — Okay.

Craig Smith — …because of the money and because of the mountains and and the recreational culture. So yeah, it’s it’s not an easy place. We we think less than 10% of the front range is engaged in ah a life-changing, life-transforming relationship with Jesus. Yeah.

Rich Birch — Yeah, I’ve that’s amazing. On the weather thing, I’ve joked in other contexts that like perfect church but weather is like 70 degrees and overcast. Like it needs to be like, you know, not not crazy hot, not crazy cool.

Rich Birch — But now, so obviously, and you didn’t use these words, but, it you know, the front range is heading towards post-Christian or post-Christian, you know, which is a challenging environment to communicate the gospel in. How have you as a communicator and as a person trying to build a church, how has that context impacted how you talk about Jesus, talk about… Yeah because I think the the rest of the country, we have to learn from environments like yours that are that are really in in some ways, I don’t know what you say, ahead of the rest of the country. There you know It’s a context that most of us are heading towards. Help us understand what how does that impact your your communication or what you do as a church?

Craig Smith — Yeah, nothing real new here, Rich. I’m not I’m not breaking any new ground on this, but I think what it means for us is you can’t assume a common language about spiritual things.

Rich Birch — Right.

Craig Smith — So we’re super careful about what we would consider churchy language. You know, we’ll talk about growing to be more like Jesus. I mean, our our mission statement is helping people become more like Jesus and join him on mission, right? Evangelism, discipleship, right? But we don’t we don’t say sanctification.

Rich Birch — Right.

Craig Smith — We don’t talk about justification. You know we’re just going talk about like growing in your faith because that’s, it doesn’t assume a knowledge.

Rich Birch — Right.

Craig Smith — We can’t ever assume that they know the Bible stories.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Craig Smith — So, you know, I will never say, and I will coach our younger staff when they’re communicating, don’t say, hey, you know the story of Moses. Because a lot of them don’t.

Rich Birch — Right. No, they don’t. Yep.

Craig Smith — A lot of them, I was actually, this is this is wild. I was in um I was in a I was in a screening of a ah a Christian film recently, a Christian TV series. And and the the room was filled with church staff. Okay. That’s key. They they were professional Christians, right?

Craig Smith — And and there was there was a scene where Jesus was making a whip. He was obviously getting ready to go into the temple and do that whole kind of a thing. When the thing was over, somebody asked the, there was a person who in charge of the screening. They said, hey, you know, what are your thoughts? What are your questions? And people said, oh, I really like this. I really like this. And one person says, “I’m I’m super curious – what’s he going to do with the whip?”

Craig Smith — And again, it’s church professionals, right?

Rich Birch — Wow.

Craig Smith — And so the the person who was overseeing it clearly thought it was a joke cause he kind of laughed. And then he had that moment where you could tell he was like, oh, you don’t you real you’re serious.

Rich Birch — Yeah. You don’t actually know.

Craig Smith — And he so he said, “Well, what do you think he’s going to do with the whip?”

Rich Birch — Oh, wow.

Craig Smith — And this this person and this person said, “I have no idea. That’s why I’m I’m so curious.”

Rich Birch — Oh, my goodness. Wow.

Craig Smith — And I just thought that’s a pretty good illustration of where the where the culture has gone, at least in Colorado.

Rich Birch — Right. Yes.

Craig Smith — You’ve got church professionals who don’t know the stories, right?

Rich Birch — Right. Right. Wow.

Craig Smith — So you never never assume that.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Craig Smith — So we yeah, we just we’re just very careful about our language. It doesn’t change the kind of things we’ll preach on, but we’re just always assuming we’ve got nonbelievers, in part because our people are living on mission inviting people to come to church with them.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Craig Smith — And we don’t want the cringe moments…

Rich Birch — Yep.

Craig Smith — …where that person who brought their friend is suddenly going, oh my gosh, they feel so lost because the way we’re talking about this or whatever.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Craig Smith — So a lot of it, again, kind of comes down to language.

Rich Birch — Yep. That’s good. Good stuff. Well, it’s one thing to be a part of a church to see the kind of culture change and then, you know, be the the culture change agent, and and be a part of all that. But then, you know, the the culture around us keeps changing. Our organization demands something new as we grow.

Rich Birch — As you look to the future, the next, I don’t know, 5, 10 years, what do you anticipate as maybe some changes or questions that you’re wondering about, thinking about in the future to kind of support what you believe God’s calling the church to do? As you kind of look to the horizon, what would be some some questions you might be wondering, Hmm I wonder how we’ll have to shift to to anticipate those.

Craig Smith — Yeah, so god God’s given us a pretty big vision. We call it the Front Range Vision, and that is that that Mission Hills would become a catalytic influence for reaching everyone in the Front Range.

Rich Birch — Love it.

Craig Smith — And that that’s very general. Specifically, what we think that means is that we we’re looking at our 100-year anniversary going, when we get there, I think what we want to do is to be able to look around and go, there is no one on the Front Range that lives more than 10 minutes from multiple healthy churches.

Rich Birch — Wow.

Craig Smith — And there’s a lot of gospel deserts.

Rich Birch — That’s a giant vision.

Craig Smith — It’s a giant vision.

Rich Birch — That’s amazing.

Craig Smith — And and and the key word there is catalytic influence. We’re not obviously not going to do that ourselves.

Rich Birch — Yes. Right. Right.

Craig Smith — But we think God’s calling us to to be part of what the church is doing and maybe to maybe to light some fires, maybe to grease some skids, maybe to to provide some encouragement and support. And so we have two strategies around that, and multisite expansion is one of those. We’ll continue to do campuses.

Rich Birch — Love it.

Craig Smith — We’re we’re Like you said, we we’re at we’re at four campuses. One’s a Spanish campus. The other two are are video, and then there’s a broadcast. We’re still figuring out what it means to be a multisite church. But we think there’s going to be additional campuses. But a lot of it, we’ve we’ve got something that we’ve launched recently called the Missionals Association, which is an all give to churches in the front range…

Rich Birch — Love it.

Craig Smith — …just designed to help them become healthy where they recognize they’re not. You know, we’re not going to walk in and go, hey, you’re unhealthy. But when churches are going, hey, I want to be this and we’re not quite there, how do we get there? Yeah, we’re we’re providing all kinds of resources and and cohorts and and learning opportunities and encouragement and equipping and supporting and those kinds of things.

Craig Smith — So that that’s that’s the vision. And yeah, we’re going to be a catalytic influence for reaching everyone by making sure that we’ve got these healthy churches. Because we more and more believe the only way to reach the front range is to unleash an unprecedented movement…

Rich Birch — Wow.

Craig Smith — …of missional followers of Jesus that are fueled by local congregations.

Rich Birch — Wow. That’s amazing.

Craig Smith — So local congregations, whether they’re Mission Hills or other other congregations, we just want to see healthy congregations helping people live on mission with Jesus here. So that that what does that mean for us? I mean, It means raising the money to do that, which is a little tricky because it’s not the, it’s not direct benefit to our people.

Rich Birch — Sure.

Craig Smith — We’re in a campaign right now and I’m realizing that’s one of the challenges. We’re not going, hey, you’re going to get a nicer building to sit in. No.

Rich Birch — Right. Here’s a new kids area. Here’s a whatever. Yeah.

Craig Smith — Yeah, this is actually, this is a little bit like the centurion who helped build the synagogue. You know, we’re going to build places that you’re going to pay for them, but you’re never going to pray in them kind of a thing.

Rich Birch — Wow. Wow.

Craig Smith — I think the centurion who was, who was Gentile probably wasn’t allowed to go into the synagogue, but he helped build it.

Rich Birch — Right.

Craig Smith — That’s a little bit of a mantra. Like, yeah, we’re going to, we’re going to pay for places we’re not going to pray in. That’s a little bit, that’s a culture shift.

Rich Birch — Wow. Yep.

Craig Smith — That’s, that’s about helping our people think of themselves living on mission. So that’s, that’s a change. And then there’s, there’s structural issues as we continue to grow.

Rich Birch — Right.

Craig Smith — I more and more find out that growing churches have really messy org charts.

Rich Birch — True. Yeah, absolutely. And constantly changing.

Craig Smith — Constantly changing, which I kind of like change.

Rich Birch — Right.

Craig Smith — Not everybody that I lead likes change…

Rich Birch — Yep. Yep.

Craig Smith — …or don’t like the way I lead change, which is often, that’s my fault, right? I’m I’m still learning how to do that effectively. But yeah, we’re we’re in the midst of figuring out some more structural stuff going forward. What got us here isn’t going to take us there. Again, lots of people have said that, but we’re seeing it for sure right now and trying to figure out, well, okay, well, what is going to take us there?

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. I love that. That that vision of, you know, a life-giving church within 10 minutes of everybody in the the front range, that’s that’s incredible. That’s a huge vision, you know, to benchmark that for listeners, I know Walmart’s thing is to put, and it’s they’ve achieved it, is 90% of Americans live within a 20-minute drive of of a Walmart. So you think about, man, you’re, you’re trying to have twice the density of, of Walmart is amazing. Obviously for much, something that’s more than twice as important. I just think that’s and incredible. So fantastic.

Rich Birch — Craig, this has been a great conversation. There’s a lot we could dive into, but this has been super good. Anything else you’d say to listeners as, just as we wrap up today’s episode about this whole area around clarity and alignment and how do we keep churches headed in the right direction?

Craig Smith — You know I think probably the the one thing that I would say is you’re probably not as clear as you think you are…

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s true.

Craig Smith — …and you have you’re not as constant as you think you are. You know, I’ve just learned this over and over again in my life.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Craig Smith — What I thought was clear was not nearly as clear as I thought it was.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Craig Smith — And so I had to work really hard, like, how how can I do it again? What what process of distilling it down to its essence do I have to go through again? What what filter do I have to run it through to make sure I’m getting rid of the extraneous so that I’m really focused on the essential? Yeah, I just realized that you’re not as clear as you think you are, Craig, and you’re not as consistent or as constant as you think you are.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.

Craig Smith — You think you’ve said this so many times and you think everybody’s got it and they’re so bored with it. They’re not. They’re they’re not because you haven’t said it nearly as much as you think you have, know.

Rich Birch — That’s so good. That’s so good. Well, this has been great, Craig. Appreciate your leadership, cheering for you, cheering for the church, what you’re, you know, what you’re up to. If people want to track with you or track with the church, learn about what’s going on, where do we want to send them online?

Craig Smith — Yeah, missionhills.org.

Rich Birch — Love it. Thanks so much, Craig. Appreciate you being here.

Craig Smith — Great, Rich. Thank you.