Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Russ Ewell, Executive Minister at Bay Area Christian Church (BACC) in California and founder of Deep Spirituality.

How can churches meaningfully engage and empower the next generation of leaders? With campuses across Silicon Valley and a deep commitment to developing future leaders, Russ shares the practical strategies BACC is using to integrate Gen Z into leadership while staying grounded in spiritual formation.

Build for the future while leading the present. // Many churches struggle to reach Gen Z because they unintentionally lead only within their own generational context. Resist the comfort of the status quo and instead build a culture that invests in young people while still meeting the needs of the present. This mindset shift is crucial to sustaining long-term health and growth.
Let relationship with God be the foundation. // The foundation of everything is a relationship with God. You can’t build the culture you need in your church unless everyone is focused on walking with God and obeying Him. Because the congregation at BACC was surrendered to what God wanted to do, they were eager to see the younger generation of leaders developed in the church.
Create a church culture that welcomes the next generation. // Gen Z needs to feel seen and heard in church life. Examine everything from the worship experience to leadership opportunities. By inviting young people to write songs, develop areas of focus, and make decisions, you create a space where the next generation is shaping the future of your church.
Make room for mistakes and growth. // Raising up young leaders means letting go of perfectionism and allowing space for failure. Russ models this by stepping back, staying quiet, and resisting the urge to micromanage. Through internships and mentorships, BACC provides young adults with practical experience and spiritual training—essential ingredients for long-term leadership development.
Deep Spirituality. // With Gen Z’s growing skepticism toward organized religion, Russ created Deep Spirituality—a digital resource platform filled with devotionals, podcasts, videos, and tools to help people explore faith on their own terms. The Best Life series, for example, offers life skills like goal-setting and financial literacy through a biblical lens, meeting Gen Z where they are.
Be intentional about developing leaders. // Bay Area Christian Church’s goal is for more than 50% of its leadership to come from Gen Z and Millennials. Russ is working directly with young couples and individuals to teach, mentor, and prepare them to lead. By investing early—in some cases, as young as 15—the church is building a deep leadership bench for the future.
Be adaptable and innovative. // Russ’s book, He’s Not Who You Think He Is, reflects on his journey from focusing on the church and its structure to focusing more on God and how His Spirit was moving. He encourages leaders to be adaptable and innovative—especially if they want to remain relevant and impactful in the 21st century.

Learn more about what’s happening at Bay Area Christian Church by visiting BACC.cc and check out the many resources Russ mentioned, including The Chemistry Lab newsletter, at deepspirituality.com. To connect with Russ and see what he’s doing with special needs kids, E-Life, and special needs adults, visit russewell.com. Plus, tune in to Gail Ewell’s unSeminary podcast episode, Beyond Accessibility: Gail Ewell’s Vision for Church Inclusivity.

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Episode Transcript

Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So excited for today’s conversation because we’re talking with someone who’s right in the thick of a conversation that I know that you and I are interested in – something that all of our churches should be wrestling through, which is reaching and raising up the next generation of church leaders. Russ Ewell is the Executive Minister at Bay Area Christian Church and the founder of a few innovative companies as well. Russ, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.

Russ Ewell — Thank you, Rich. Thanks for having me. It’s great to be here.

Rich Birch — Oh, I’m so honored that you’re here. Why don’t you fill in the Russ Ewell picture, kind of tell us a little bit about yourself, tell us about your background, that sort of thing.

Russ Ewell — Well, ultimately, it’s, you know, my life situation is always about team and family and people. So everything I’m doing in my life is doing with other people because that’s what God has done.

Russ Ewell — I am the executive minister, as you mentioned, of the Bay Area Christian Church. We’ve got nine campuses here in the Bay Area so that just about anyone, anywhere can get to one of our services, which is exciting. We have two lead minister couples. My wife and I are the executive minister and she’s the women’s ministry leader here. But we’ve got two lead ministers and their wives who lead the day-to-day work now. So we’ve been in the transition to a leadership for the future for a while. And that plays in, of course, to our topic today.

Russ Ewell — I started out, though, in being an agnostic. And eventually, through a number of circumstances, ended up finding the Bible and reading the New Testament for the first time in college as a sophomore. And that’s when I became a Christian. And it was a couple of years later, I decided not to go into politics and instead to do this.

Rich Birch — Nice.

Russ Ewell — And so part of that, I loved chemistry. I’ve just recently started the chemistry lab newsletter. I love chemistry and I wanted to be a scientist at first and then politics and then ended up in the ministry. So it’s a little bit of a journey. But that has led us to be in Silicon Valley. That’s where we are in the Bay Area. And we’ve developed, obviously built the church here and it’s been a great church. We have great people in our church, great leaders.

Russ Ewell — But also, we’ve built an eLife ministry, which basically is for inclusion of kids and adults with special needs and the community. It includes sports, it includes all kinds of different things from tutoring to buddies to being able to go to our camps. And our camps are inclusive, our teen devotionals are inclusive, our campus devotionals are inclusive. We’re really into that. And that’s been a big part of helping our young, the younger people in our church, I think, find enthusiasm about doing good.

Russ Ewell — And that’s really the basic focus and model of the Bay Area Christian Church, is we’re a church that believes in making God known and doing good. And you mentioned the company. I started one for my boys and people like them that have speech challenges, that develops inclusive software and utilizes tools in the market to be able to see how they can be part of being inclusive software.

Russ Ewell — So there’s a number of different things we do. And Deep Spirituality, which I think we may talk about later, which is a place we’ve created for people who don’t go to church maybe or don’t know how they feel about God. They can learn about spirituality there and learn about God and learn about the Bible there. And do it in a way that is, I think we try anyway, relatable and relevant to their day-to-day life.

Rich Birch — Love it. We’re definitely going to get to Deep Spirituality. I want to make sure we connect with that.

Rich Birch — But we want to start, I want to start with the Gen Z question. You’ve said that churches often want to reach Gen Z or lead with Gen Z, have them a part of the conversation, but actually are struggling to do it. What do you think we’re missing when it comes to understanding this generation?

Russ Ewell — Well, I think church leadership is a challenge. And I think sometimes that people outside of churches don’t always understand even how that works. But inside church, even sometimes people don’t understand how it works. It’s very difficult for a leader of a church to go outside of the demographic of his current membership, so to speak, or the body.

Russ Ewell — So if he’s in a church that the median age is 40, then it’s going to be real difficult to do a great job reaching people who are 15…

Rich Birch — Right.

Russ Ewell — …while also reaching people who are 50. And one of the reasons for that is that when you speak, teach, and put together everything you do to make the gospel known and to meet the needs of people in the church, oftentimes we as leaders, we speak to our own generation first because that’s the most natural.

Rich Birch — True. Right.

Russ Ewell — So I speak to a lot of people that are younger. So one of my favorite guys is Bruce Springsteen. I love Bruce Springsteen.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Russ Ewell — But when I mentioned Bruce Springsteen, you see blank faces. They’re like…

Rich Birch — Sure, who?

Russ Ewell — I think I heard about him and Washington and Adams and Hamilton. I think they’re the ones…

Rich Birch — One of the founding fathers.

Russ Ewell — Exactly.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s hilarious.

Russ Ewell — Which I agree he’s a founding father. I’d put him right on it.

Rich Birch — Him and Bono, all the founding fathers of rock and roll.

Russ Ewell — That’s it. That’s how you figure it out. That’s how you know.

Rich Birch — That’s funny.

Russ Ewell — So part of it, I think, is understanding or getting the culture of the church to understand that you always have to build for the future. Historically, you see a lot of churches that can get to 1,000, 5,000, 10,000, or 500, 250. But then once the people who were the leaders of that church or the founders of that church, once they get old enough, they no longer can do that. Their generation ages out, and suddenly you see no young people and these churches die out.

Rich Birch — That’s true.

Russ Ewell — In fact, the building we own is a building that was a church that had, at one point done fairly well, but they had to sell it because once the current population of people got older and passed away or moved away, the church was no longer vibrant. So I think it’s essential that we do it. The challenges are, can we build a culture that says it is essential we build our future even while we build our present.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Russ Ewell — And will you have a body of people who say what’s most important is that we reach out, then we always meet our own needs. Because one of the challenges in a church, any organization, a company as well, they may have a software that’s selling great now, but when AI comes into the picture, that software is not going to be super relevant.

Rich Birch — Right.

Russ Ewell — So you either build for the future or you end up dying. The phrase in Silicon Valley used to be used all the time, change or die. And so I think a lot of the challenges are, can you get yourself, ourselves, to be able to relate to and build for future, and can we build a culture in the church that does that?

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I think a lot of church leaders, I think, would give mental assent to that. They’d be like, yes, that sounds like a great idea. I understand that the message of the gospel is one generation away from extinction. I’ve got to work to pass this thing on. I think you’ve done a good job at kind of outlining that problem.

Rich Birch — What is it though that Bay Area Christian Church is doing to kind of structure in a way that’s actually helping to reach Gen Z and beyond? What’s that look like?

Russ Ewell — So I think the foundation of everything, and I’ve listened to you before, so I know you agree with this. The foundation of everything, I think, is a relationship with God, and it sounds cliché, but the reality is that you can’t build the culture you need in your church unless everyone is 100% focused on walking with God and doing what God wants. And so the platform that we use, when I look at scriptures, 1 Corinthians 9, “become all things to all people”.

Russ Ewell — And so one of the great things about our church is we have people that are 45, 55, 65 and older who believe deeply in the need to develop young leaders. And one reason they love it is it’s their kids. And so when you see your kids becoming Christians and then your kids contributing to leading the future, that’s exciting. So it starts with a relationship with God.

Russ Ewell — Secondly, I think it starts with examining what does it feel like to walk into the church? I had a friend of mine come to church with me once, and he goes, man, all these songs are so old. Like, where do you get these songs from? I had never thought about that before, ever. Even when I was younger, I didn’t think about that because they’re classic spiritual songs and they are relevant and important.

Russ Ewell — What we did during the pandemic when we were doing a live stream is we had a contest where we said, hey, we want to have a contest for writing new music. And we were going to give out prizes and awards for those who won. We had a top 10, I think it was. And what happened is about a half to three quarters of the winners turned out to be Gen Z people.

Rich Birch — So good.

Russ Ewell — And so we now sing in our church songs that have been written by Gen Z. The same with everything, themes, what we focus on, projects we take on. We try to allow people that are younger to be a part of leading us, and they’re involved in decision making. So that means that when you have one of the campuses, and one of the goals we have is to at least get to 50% here in the next few years where we have Millennial and Gen Z leading the campuses. And we’re close to that right now.

Russ Ewell — And I personally am working with my wife with three couples who fall right into that category. And so we’re building all the time to develop leaders, but that means you have to allow them into the decision making. And I made a lot of mistakes when I was that age. So you have to also allow mistakes. So you have to have a church that’s resilient. And instead of being critical of young leaders, you encourage them and you help them develop knowing that the mistakes they make today provide the experience they’ll need tomorrow to build the church.

Rich Birch — That’s so good. And I wonder, I recently was listening to a kind of culture person talking about Silicon Valley culture specifically and said, you know, one of the unique innovations of the part of the world you’re from is it introduced this idea that mistakes are good, that we’ve got to make some mistakes along the way towards, and that there’s lots of cultures in the world where that just is not accepted. Like it’s like we can’t make a mistake, but enabling a church to say, yeah, it’s okay for us to take on for the greater good to take on next generation leaders.

Rich Birch — That means we’re going to make a few mistakes along the way. There’s going to be a few bumps, but that’s okay. I think that’s incredible. That would be a big change for lots of churches. Maybe double click on that. What has that actually looked like for you as you’ve given away leadership to the next generation? What are you doing to ensure that we’re making appropriate level mistakes that aren’t blowing the whole thing up, that aren’t pushing the thing over the edge? Talk about that.

Russ Ewell — Well, first of all, I have to deal with my own perfectionistic controlling behavior…

Rich Birch — Right.

Russ Ewell — …that has nothing to do with the Holy Spirit or righteousness.

Rich Birch — Yes. That’s good.

Russ Ewell — It just has to do with my sinful nature and my human nature.

Rich Birch — So good.

Russ Ewell — So I first of all, have to deal with that. And I’ve not conquered that. So I can get worked up, bent out of shape by things that aren’t done the way I would do them or the way I think they should be done. So I have to first tackle myself.

Russ Ewell — The other thing is that our church has allowed myself and others to grow here because I’ve made a lot of mistakes. And one of the things I love about the church is I can make mistakes in things I say. I can make mistakes and have us going in a certain direction and then have to change that direction. I just try to change it quickly.

Russ Ewell — And so I think they’ve already learned to do that because they’ve allowed those of us who lead here in the Bay Area Christian Church, they’ve allowed us to make tons of mistakes. And those mistakes have helped us develop the experience.

Russ Ewell — And so I think part of what it is is more us, those of us who are older, being willing to say, let’s give the younger folks a chance to make mistakes. And so what it practically looks like, Rich, and your question is so great, is I have to be willing to stay out of the way, keep my mouth shut, not give off body language that says, “oh no”, not overreact, and be a great teacher. And that’s one of the things that I think has really challenged me, is that how great of a teacher am I? How good am I at helping someone maximize their potential and develop their skills and teach them from the ground up? How do you want…

Russ Ewell — Like, for instance, this summer, we hired 17, what we call scholars and interns, men, young men, and 17 young women. And so we’ve got a total there of 34 this summer who will be interns and scholars, and they’re all Gen Z. And the whole idea is to give them a summer where we help them a little bit financially, but we also put them in situations and circumstances where they can be trained in how to be in the ministry.

Russ Ewell — Now, they don’t have to go into the ministry. So we help them with their careers as well, their career path, but we’re trying to develop a group of people who have that experience. And so it looks like, I’ll just quickly enumerate it, one, me as a leader, letting go and not gripping and holding tight for control.

Russ Ewell — Two, giving them the opportunity to make mistakes. Our church is already there, so we built that culture because we kind of have, as you said, Silicon Valley, but the whole Bay Area is pretty tolerant and friendly. And then three is giving them the financial support to be able to give them summers and years where they can have an opportunity to learn what it means to be spiritual and to make an impact on people.

Rich Birch — Love it. Well, let’s pivot and talk a little bit about Deep Spirituality, this platform that you’ve launched and how does that fit into this whole idea of reaching a generation that lives online, that is, you know, is actively engaged, you know, on all things, phone, apps, all of that. Talk us through how does Deep Spirituality fit into this?

Russ Ewell — I feel like you’ve already figured out what we’re doing.

Rich Birch — Nice.

Russ Ewell — So, I think that the statistics, the numbers say that in society in general, that people are gravitating more toward wanting to be spiritual and less toward the institution of church. I don’t think churches should feel bad about that. Every institution is being doubted in question right now. We’re just living at a time, or some people would like to say a season, of institutional doubt in question. So we know that.

Russ Ewell — Gen Z is more among the nones, N-O-N-E-S, you know, when they give them options of the different churches they might go to, they say none of the above.

Rich Birch — Right.

Russ Ewell — And so what we realize is that there’s got to be some place we meet people where they are, and spirituality is where they are. And I personally love the topic and love the idea and have really tried to learn a lot about it myself.

Russ Ewell — So we create content there for people that may not be church goers, may not believe in God. They may come from a science background. That’s why I started a newsletter called The Chemistry Lab, to try to help people understand that science and God are not in opposition to one another. We have a Best Life series that we started specifically for people that are younger; the older people need it too. It’s basically life skills that are laid out throughout the year. We put, I think it’s 20 different ones together.

Russ Ewell — And so you can learn how to build your finances, you can learn how to get self-awareness, and you go on there. And what we’re able to do is we’re able to have people partner up and be buddies and study and work on these things. And especially with the pandemic, it took people out of life development, not just educational development, life development. Especially here in California, where we were off the streets and out of social for a long, long time.

Russ Ewell — And so we try to provide those tools so people can get the life skills they need socially, emotionally, mentally, in regard to work and education, to be able to have success in life. Because at the end of the day, if Christianity doesn’t practically change your life for the better in day-to-day experiences, not a lot of people are going to look to it for being able to help their life in even the crisis moments.

Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. I was actually, The Best Life, that series caught my eye when I was looking through your resources. You know, I’ve said in other contexts, following Jesus is best for you and makes you best in life or makes you best at life. And I love what you’ve done here, practically packaged up discipleship with really, I would say a fairly fresh new perspective that it feels like, yeah, like a fairly, I think pretty progressive approach that is helpful and packaged for a generation that’s looking for this kind of thing.

Rich Birch — Oftentimes, you know, it’s talking about goal setting, planning, time management, effective communication, all from a biblical perspective, all from, hey, how can the Bible help you? The stress management, financial literacy. Talk to me why taking this kind of practical approach, is this something that you’ve seen as you’ve worked with Gen Z and beyond- this kind of a doorway to these kinds of issues?

Russ Ewell — Oh, yeah. I mean, well, one, you’re seeing amongst Gen Z, higher, they say, the statistics say higher rates of anxiety and higher rates of depression. You’re seeing more ADHD diagnosis. There’s lots of opinions about that. One opinion I’m developing just antidotally is that they tend to be more comfortable talking about those subjects. So the question is, are they really having more cases, which I think that’s probably true, but I think that they’re also much more willing to talk about it, especially young men are more willing to talk about emotional issues.

Russ Ewell — So in working with them, like all the time, which is what my wife and I do, and working with Gen Z, and especially again, because of the pandemic, they’re trying to figure out, how do I move out of my parents’ house and get roommates?

Rich Birch — Right.

Russ Ewell — How do I pay an enormous amount of money it costs to live in the Bay Area? How do I go to school and work a job at the same time? They’re very practical things they’re trying to figure out how to do. How do I date? How do I build a relationship with a young man or a young woman? Those are real questions that people have that oftentimes we just assume they’re going to figure out. And the church ought to be a place where they can come and they can learn those things.

Russ Ewell — And so, yeah, it’s been day-to-day hands-on work, and being in groups, having our scholars, our interns, these 34 kids, that’s helped us learn what they need. And they tell us, these are things we have questions about. How do I even have a budget? What’s a budget? My budget is called my parents. That’s my budget.

Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Russ Ewell — You know what I’m saying? Those are some of the ways we’ve learned.

Rich Birch — To be honest, I was a little shocked as I went through Deep Spirituality. I’m like, where am I paying for this? This is incredible resources. It’s well done, well packaged, great design. It’s just available out there. How are you guys using this? How are other people using this resource? How is this fitting in? I’m trying to picture how this is actually being used. It’s very well done; compliments to you and the team.

Russ Ewell — Well, yeah, and we do have a great team. And I think, again, it goes to our church.

Rich Birch — Right.

Russ Ewell — The people in our church, they believe in doing good and in helping other people.

Rich Birch — Right. Love it.

Russ Ewell — And they believe in doing that regardless of what they get back. And so they support it. And I think locally in our church, for instance, I’ll give you a story. One of the guys in our church met with one of the professionals in our church, one of the (he happens to be single) and he was having financial trouble. He actually took, these are older guys, not old, but older than teenagers or college students, they sat down and had a time where they went through the financial literacy one. And the guy was blown away. This person in our church never looked at Deep Spirituality.

Rich Birch — Right, right, right.

Russ Ewell — He wasn’t looking at it at all, didn’t see the point. But once he saw it, he goes, where’d you get all this? He goes, it comes from Deep Spirituality. And so we give it to our leaders. We make sure they know what’s on there. So they can use it to help people in our church be able to conquer some of the challenges they might be facing.

Russ Ewell — But we also have churches outside who will email us. We had actually a set of churches in Canada that reached out to us…

Rich Birch — Oh wow.

Russ Ewell — …and said, is it okay for us to take your stuff and use all your stuff? And we’re like, yeah, that’s what it’s for. And we’re not in some doctrinal debate or doctrinal. The point we have is the more we can spread and make God known, the better life gets for all of us. And if it empowers other people’s work, we’re really happy to have it happen.

Rich Birch — Love it. Well, let’s loop back on something you said earlier that you just blew over, that I was like blown away when I saw this. It sounds like the kind of thing that people would say, well, that’s a good idea, but man, you guys are actually taking steps towards it.

Rich Birch — You have a vision of having 50 plus percent of your church led operationally by Gen Z and Millennials. That’s wild in the very best of ways. I love it. That’s so good. How are you making that a reality? I know you’re taking steps towards that. What are you noticing about Gen Z as they lead differently? And what really can the rest of us learn?

Rich Birch — I think that’s a noble goal for all of us to think about. How can we pass this thing on to the next generation? In fact, I was a part of, or was aware of, really more than a part of it, a group of leaders who had a similar pledge around, hey, we were going to hand our ministries off by a certain date. And only one of them did it. Most people continue to hold onto it and not give it away. So when I saw you’re actually doing this, I was super encouraged. So talk me through what that actually looks like.

Russ Ewell — Well, one of the things I’ve tried to learn from Silicon Valley, from corporate world, is—in how they build and how they innovate—is the idea that, for instance, when I got here, all the technology companies from Apple—Facebook didn’t exist when I got here. And neither did Google.—But Apple and names of companies many people here wouldn’t necessarily know, they all called their corporate locations campuses.

Russ Ewell — And so I went and visited and got to know people. And then that’s why I came down to Silicon Valley. And we started with a pretty small group and it grew because I went, I want to immerse myself in this and I want to learn from it. Because I’d come from DC, which is the opposite in many ways, culturally.

Russ Ewell — And so one of the things I realized is they weren’t afraid of young people. In fact, they saw younger people as a way to be able to innovate, new ideas, new thoughts.

Rich Birch — That’s so good.

Russ Ewell — And so that’s part of what we do. So what we do is we start by trying to just teach them how to do basic things, get with people and help people. And that’s a lot of work. Like even in our own church, some of the challenges are people that are older who lead, they don’t like the hassle of having to work with somebody who’s still trying to figure out how to keep his gas tank full…

RIch Birch — Right.

Russ Ewell — …and get from point A to point Z on time. They don’t like that. But that’s what you have to do. So what we do is we look and say, okay, we got a 15 year old kid who’s got a lot of ability, just like a college football team or a college basketball team would be. They have a lot of potential. And so we look at it as: in six years, they’re going to be 21. And in eight years, they’re going to be 23. And they’ll be capable of leading a lot of people. So we start young and we try to give them opportunities when they’re young.

Russ Ewell — So every year is about development, the spiritual relationship with God. That’s foundational. Relationships with people, that’s foundational. They have to learn resilience and to take input. And a lot of times it’s hard because a lot of the kids I work with, they have a lot of negative thoughts about themselves already. So if you tell them something they need to get better at, they can become defeated inside. And so you have to work, that’s something I’ve had to learn how to deal with.

Russ Ewell — Now, here’s the positive thing. They’re collaborative. They tend not to be power hungry. They tend to like working together with each other. And sometimes one of these we have to work more on is them taking more leadership and directing and not just kind of waiting and that kind of thing.

Russ Ewell — So it’s really, it’s a comprehensive effort to try to figure out how to develop them in their character, their faith, then how to teach them leadership. And so that’s a lot of what we work on and then giving them opportunity. So we’re about to hire another set of about three new couples that all have potential to be in that space where they can be a leader of the campus.

Russ Ewell — And in some ways we’ll throw them in the water and go, okay, let’s see how it goes. Our church is great. Last thought on this is our church is great because we have older people who are more than willing to be the deep center fielder, to catch the balls that go over their head. And so it’s really a collaborative effort on the part of the young, the staff, and those who are older in our church to make sure they’re successful.

Rich Birch — If I was to come like this weekend, I show up at one of your campuses, what would I notice? What would I see that might be like a bit distinctive that this is kind of working its way out? You mentioned the music piece, obviously you’re singing songs that have been written by folks that are in this demo. Are there other things I would notice that would be like, oh, this is a little different than maybe if I went to insert other multisite church in another part of the country? What would I notice, you think?

Russ Ewell — I think the first thing you’d notice is that we’re deeply committed to the Bible. I think it would be a huge part of our culture.

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

Russ Ewell — The second thing, I mean, these are in no particular order.

Rich Birch — Yep.

Russ Ewell — You’d also notice the God-focus. People are very God-focused. The other thing you notice is when you come in, now every church has weaknesses and we do. So I wanna be clear on that.

Rich Birch — Yep, yeah, for sure.

Russ Ewell — But when you come in, people are gonna, they’re gonna meet you where you are. And we have people who’ve been going to our church for three or four years who don’t feel comfortable with being a member of a church and they’re a part of our church. We have people who are deeply committed and they become Christians and they’re deeply committed. It all forms a community and a culture that’s inclusive.

Russ Ewell — So probably the biggest sort of relational thing you’d notice is the number of people with special needs and families with special needs who are included. There’s a children’s ministry aspect just for kids with special needs to make sure they’re included. But I think if a person walked in and this happens all the time, they’d go, oh, I’m accepted here. I can be who I am here, just the way I am. And whether or not I decide to believe in God or not, I’m gonna have friends and I can be participant in it.

Russ Ewell — And the final thing you’d notice is we have a number of events like Easter egg hunts that are inclusive. You can come to our event. You don’t have to come to our service.

Rich Birch — Right.

Russ Ewell — You can come to one of our soccer things and you don’t have to become a Christian, believe in God. You can be Hindu, you can be Buddhist. You would definitely notice that.

Rich Birch — Very cool. Well, I know you’ve also written a book, He’s Not Who You Think He Is. Can you tell us a little bit about that? I’d love to kind of include that into the kind of conversation here, as we’re chatting through these things.

Russ Ewell — Well, one of the things I had to do is, and you’ve asked a lot of great questions and they kind of point to the book in a way. I had to change the way I thought about God. I had to change the way I thought about church and that meant I had to change me.

Russ Ewell — I had to change some of the ways I was trained to be in the ministry. And the book in some ways explains that journey and explains how much I was people-focused, how much I was structure-focused and how much I was built in a way that I wasn’t focusing on God and the way the spirit was leading. I was focusing on the church and the way we were trying to structure and implement our structure.

Russ Ewell — And I’m not saying you don’t have structure, but I’m saying you have to be adaptable and you have to be innovative in order to meet people where they are, 1 Corinthians 9. And a lot of that started for me in my relation with God, understanding that being legalistic, a lot of people out there understand that term. Some people who are not familiar with church won’t.

Russ Ewell — Being legalistic is not effective. You have to be spiritual and you can be powerful and that way you can be adaptive. And so the book really is great for people who are maybe an agnostic, an atheist. Maybe they don’t go to church, but they’re interested in God. It’s a great book for them. But for people who are Christians that have been going to church a long time, I think it’ll help you consult and look and reflect on, do I need to change the way I think about God and change the way I think about church in order to make a difference in the 21st century?

Rich Birch — Love it. Yeah, you know, I really do think your church, I think you specifically are the kind of ministry that people should be following and tracking with. I think you’re asking questions that, and finding answers to, that frankly, lots of us are wrestling with. They’re not even sure what question to ask. And so I wanna encourage people to track with you. Where do we wanna send them online to connect with you, to connect with the church, Deep Spirituality – where do we wanna send people?

Russ Ewell — So the BACC.cc, Bay Area Christian Church, that’s a great place to go to find out everything we’re doing and keep up with what we’re doing. Deepspirituality.com is different, and it’s where all the resources are. And I hope you’ll take a look at the new newsletter called The Chemistry Lab, because it’s built exactly on what you’re talking about. And then any of the stuff I’m doing with special needs kids, e-life, special needs adults, you can find at russewell.com. So those are three places you can go, and you can find out probably everything you would wanna know about what we’re doing.

Rich Birch — Love it, so good. Well, any final words that you’d have for leaders who are listening in? Particularly, we’ve obviously talked a lot about engaging next gen, engaging Gen Z in our ministry. Anything kind of encouragement or direction you’d give us today, just as we kind of land the episode?

Russ Ewell — Well, two things I’d say to end. One, I don’t wanna give the impression that we’ve mastered all this.

Rich Birch — Right. Sure.

Russ Ewell — We’re in the learning mode, and we’re trying to grow and trying to understand it. The second thing is don’t get discouraged. Every single victory we’ve had started small, took time, and eventually was successful. And so be patient, and don’t get down on yourself and get discouraged and feel like, why am I not being successful?

Russ Ewell — Pick one thing, work at it, and over time, God will come through. He’ll bless it.

Rich Birch — Love it. Thanks so much, Russ. I really appreciate that. Say hi to Gail for us.

Russ Ewell — Will do.

Rich Birch — Great to see you guys. We were joking early on. I think this is the first husband-wife combo that have been on the podcast, but not at the same time. So, which says a lot. 800 plus episodes in to have a new combo. That’s pretty amazing.

Rich Birch — So Russ, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. All the best in everything you’re doing. Appreciate you being here today.

Russ Ewell — Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

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