Mike Mantel, President and CEO of Living Water International, and Jonathan Wiles, COO, dive into how churches can effectively combat extreme poverty through clean water initiatives. They share impressive statistics showing a decline in global water scarcity and emphasize the transformative role of faith-based partnerships. The conversation also highlights the impact of cross-cultural mission trips that foster mutual learning. Lastly, they discuss creative ways churches can redefine community engagement, particularly through projects like the Advent Conspiracy.

Nicky Lee, co-creator of The Marriage Course with over 1.5 million participants, and Sila Lee, his partner in this venture, discuss the pressing need for systemic support for marriages in churches. They emphasize proactive strategies over reactive ones in nurturing relationships, highlighting the impact of structured conversations. Their courses reach diverse couples, fostering open communication and emotional connection. The Lees share insights on breaking stigmas around marriage enrichment, encouraging churches to champion these vital programs to strengthen community bonds.

In this chat with Dave Miller, co-founder of Leadership Pathway, we dive into empowering Gen Z leaders within church settings. Dave emphasizes the impact of mentorship over traditional education, stressing that effective coaching is essential for young leaders to thrive. He discusses how Gen Z is reshaping leadership dynamics and seeks opportunities that align with their unique skills. The importance of intergenerational relationships and the need for tailored residency programs to nurture these emerging talents is highlighted, offering a pathway for future church leadership.

In this conversation, Natalie Frisk, the Curriculum Director at Raise Up Faith, shares her 15 years of church ministry experience. She discusses the significant challenges parents face in guiding kids through the complexities of digital life. Natalie emphasizes the importance of fostering healthy digital habits and the church's role in supporting families. She introduces innovative curriculum solutions tailored for children’s ministry, highlighting how technology can enrich teaching biblical principles while ensuring engagement and adaptability.

In this discussion, Greg Curtis, Director of First Steps at Eastside Christian Church and founder of Climbing the Assimilayas, shares his expertise on church assimilation. He highlights how newcomers often gauge a church's vibe online before attending, making a strong digital presence essential. Curtis emphasizes evolving engagement strategies in a post-COVID landscape, focusing on fostering community through volunteerism and inclusivity. With insightful tips on making church platforms welcoming, he explores how to adapt assimilation practices for lasting connections.

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with James Griffin, the lead pastor at Crosspoint City Church in Georgia. Is your church working through a difficult season and struggling to see fruit? Wondering how a church can overcome significant challenges and emerge stronger than ever? In this episode of the unSeminary Podcast James shares about the church’s growth following a difficult replanting phase, the hurdles they faced—such as rebuilding trust inside and outside the church—and the effective strategies they used to enhance community engagement. God isn’t done. // Crosspoint City Church was planted in 2006 but an event within the church rocked it to the core early on, causing a mass exodus of people. James took over as lead pastor during this time of recovery, inheriting a wounded congregation and a challenging staff environment. He knew he had to stop the bleeding in the church and earn the trust of its members while also being a positive force in the community and letting them know that God isn’t done with them yet. Build relationships. // People can’t know if you’re a man or woman of character unless you spend time with them. From the start, James made it a priority to be present and accessible, engaging with congregants through conversations, lunches, and community events. By building relationships, he wanted people to see that he is a man of character, hoping it would lead to trust sooner than later. Honor the past. // Things may not have ended well in the church with the people who came before you, but acknowledge the accomplishments and positive impacts made. Don’t dishonor your predecessors. Be honest about the current reality and the challenges being faced without ignoring the good that has been done. Work with other churches. // James also actively sought to establish relationships with local pastors, attending meetings and reaching out for one-on-one conversations. He firmly believes that God puts churches in their communities to be a blessing to them. If you want to have a Great Commission church, you need to think about the impact God is calling you to make on your city. Work in partnership with the other churches in your community to be more effective in your mission. Create a culture of care. // As your church grows, the pastoral care can’t fall entirely on the senior leader. Everyone needs to feel loved, but you can’t worry about everyone feeling loved specifically by the lead pastor. Instead build a culture of care by pouring into your leadership team and empowering them to offer pastoral care to the rest of the congregation. One leader can’t carry all the weight of that burden on their own. Service and compassion. // One of the most significant ways Crosspoint City Church has sought to serve its communities is through the establishment of their Compassion Center, which aims to address various community needs. The Compassion Center includes a counseling center, educational programs for kids and adults, resources for the homeless, support for women escaping sex trafficking, and a mobile medical clinic. This multifaceted approach demonstrates the church’s commitment to not only proclaiming the gospel but also actively demonstrating it through service and compassion. Focus on what each city needs. // Contextualize ministry based on your locale. Before planting a church or launching a campus, go into those communities and identify partnerships with local pastors, churches and community leaders. Start with service. How can you go in and bless the city based on what it needs before you even begin gathering? To learn more about Crosspoint City Church, visit www.crosspointcity.com, or follow James on Instagram. 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! Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast! So glad that you’ve decided to tune in. I’m really looking forward to today’s conversation. A fun chance to deep dive with a great church! If you’ve never heard of Crosspoint City Church, it’s a multi-site church with three, I think, soon to be four campuses in Georgia, and has repeatedly been one of the fastest growing churches in the country. Rich Birch — Today it’s our honor to have James Griffin with us. He’s the lead pastor, and it also serves as a church planting network leader in metro Atlanta with NewThing and Engage Churches. He’s passionate about seeing the Great Commission fulfilled, the church engage in a number of global and community outreaches. Super excited to have you on the show today, James. Welcome. James Griffin — Thanks, Rich. I appreciate you having me. Rich Birch — Oh, it’s going to be great. Kind of fill in the picture. Tell us a little bit more about Crosspoint City. Kind of give us a, you know, the thumbnail people arrive this weekend, but what they experience that sort of thing. James Griffin — Yeah, yeah. Well, a brief history of the church. We are a replant. So I’ve been pastoring the church now for a little over a decade. Rich Birch —That’s amazing. James Griffin — Inherited somewhat of a difficult situation. And then we just took the resources and people who were left and we started over. And so, you know, if somebody showed up this weekend, I think what they’d experienced is, a deep commitment to the word of God. I think they would experience a church that is sold out to the Great Commission, the mission of God, and a great openness and dependency upon the Spirit of God. And so we’re just trying to press into to the work that God’s called us to do in the world. And and it’s a joy and an honor to be a part of it, for sure. Rich Birch — Love it. Well, you have multiple locations, and we love to talk multi-site here at at unSeminary. Maybe give us a thumbnail about the kind of various, you know, what does that look like? The kind of different locations. Tell us a bit of those stories. James Griffin — Yeah. So, original location is in a city called Cartersville, Georgia. So this is where it all began back in 2006. And then in 2011, things here, they went off the rails. And so I was actually on staff at the church that planted our church. Rich Birch — Okay. James Griffin — And in the season where things blew up, my wife and I were, were praying about going to plant a church. And then my pastor asked me if I’d come here and do this instead. And my original answer was absolutely not. Like, I don’t know I don’t know what idiot’s going to do that, but it’s not going to be this one, you know? And then here we are over a decade later. Rich Birch — Yes. James Griffin — But started in Cartersville and from about 2013 to 2018, I mean, things were just going really well, better than expected, which led to conversations about, hey, we need to think beyond just Cartersville. If we’re going to continue reaching people with a gospel, it can’t just be us trying to get people to one spot. And so we planted another location in the fall of 2019, in a city called a Adairsville, which is in the north part of our county, just about five months before the pandemic. So that was great timing. Rich Birch — Perfect timing. James Griffin — Yeah. So we joke and we said we did that one twice. You know, we launched it five months before… Rich Birch — Yes. James Griffin — …and then shut it down and reopen. And it’s going great. And then in 2022 launched a third location in a city called Rome, Georgia. Just had a great group of people driving about 45 minutes to Cartersville to come to church and asked us if we do something there. So we’ve been doing that for a couple of years, going really well. We just launched, about three weeks ago, our fourth location… Rich Birch — Okay. James Griffin — …in Hay State Prison in North Georgia. Rich Birch — Wow. Wow. James Griffin — So we’re in the middle of this discipleship journey right now. Call all to him. just felt a great burden to take the gospel into prisons and started praying for God to open a door. And he opened a door at one of the hardest prisons in the state of Georgia. Rich Birch — Wow. James Griffin — So just to that, and then we’ve got a fifth location coming in January in a city called Acworth, south of Cartersville. Rich Birch — Okay. James Griffin — So we’re we’re in the trenches of that right now, just getting ready to send a group of people out. So that’s a that’s a quick look. Rich Birch — Love it. Well, this idea of like, you know, relaunching, replanting, rebirthing… James Griffin — Yeah. Rich Birch — …you know, that comes with the, the inherent undercurrent there is like something wasn’t working. Like, you know, obviously you don’t take a church that was like, things are going great, let’s shut it down and restart over. Can you you know, I don’t want to dwell on the pain here… James Griffin — Yeah. Rich Birch — …but like, can you talk to us a little bit about, you know, what that inheritance, what that look like and how did you rebuild from there? I think this is a great story of hope. I think there are people who are thinking about this. And man, now to hear all the growth that you’ve had as a church. But let’s go back and kind of look at where things started. James Griffin — Yeah. Well, I will say first and foremost, there is no good reason that our church should be here right now. Honestly. Rich Birch — Okay. James Griffin — Other than other than God is kind and God is faithful. Rich Birch — So good. James Griffin — And I will say as well, the fact that that the church that planted our church stepped in when they did. Westridge Church is the name of the founding church. If if Westridge and Pastor Brian Malloy had not stepped in when they did, our church would not be here right now. So I praise God for that. But, you know, the quick story is, church is planted in 2006, about four and a half years into the life of the church, the founding pastor had a moral failure. And and it was significant. It involved, more than one staff member, a few staff members. And it just rocked the church to the core. Rich Birch — Right. James Griffin — And so immediately there’s a mass exodus of people. Left behind is a very, very wounded staff. A lot of confusion, a lot of brokenness. And so I stepped into that less than a year after it happened. Rich Birch — Wow. James Griffin — And and I just remember in year one it was like, all right, we’ve got to stop the bleeding. We’ve got to stabilize. I’ve got to earn the trust of these people. We’ve got to love these people well. And I need to to let this community know that we’re not going anywhere. Rich Birch — Oh that’s good. James Griffin — That that God is not done with us yet and that we want to be a part of what he’s doing here. And so in year one, it really was about just getting healthy, man. And, I tell this story. I still remember the moment that I knew we were going to be okay. I was in the lobby after preaching a gathering, and this little old lady, she comes up to me and she gives me a hug and she said, thank you for talking to us. And I was so confused, like, what do you mean? As she said, the guy before you never talked to us. She said he’d preach and tell us that he didn’t really like people, and then he’d hide in his office between gatherings. And he never talked to us. And she said, I’m just glad you talk to us. And in that moment, I knew if all I have to do is love these people, well, I think we’re going to be okay. And and we’ve been okay by the grace of God. Rich Birch — Right. Well, let’s double click on that a little bit. You talk about earning the trust of these people. Let’s let’s dig in on that a little bit. What did you do when you look back on it? You know, I love the simple thing of like, hey, you should talk with people. That’s a good you know, that’s a good insight. But other things that were, you know, you look back now and say, oh, wow, like, the Lord really used that to help us rebuild trust here. James Griffin — Yeah. Well, I mean, I remember at 16 years old, I read the very first leadership book I ever read by John Maxwell, “21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership”. Rich Birch — Love it. James Griffin — And I learned that leadership is influence. Influence is gained by trust. Trust is gained by character. And I don’t think people can know if you are a man or woman of character unless you spend time with them. Rich Birch — That’s good. James Griffin — You have to be real and vulnerable and transparent and present. So that is what I tried to do, man. I just I started trying to get in front of as many people as I possibly could, whether it was on Sundays or scheduling lunches or coffees or whatever it might be. But it was like, I’ve got to build relationships with these people so that they can see I am a man of character. And the prayer was, this will hopefully lead to trust sooner than later, and then we can start to make some forward motion. I knew that what I couldn’t do is just come in and, you know, be guns blazing, which is… Rich Birch — Right. James Griffin — …very much how I’m wired. We got work to do. So let’s get after it and pull back on what came naturally to me and go, okay, I just I’ve just got to be a pastor and love people and build relationships. And really, that’s what it was both inside and outside the church. Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s good. Let’s talk about, you know, one of the signs I think of a of a weak leader is they they dog the guy before them. They dog the leader before them. They’re like, but in this case, you’re like, there was actually some stuff that went sideways. James Griffin — Yeah, yeah. Rich Birch — And so how did you face that? What did that look like? How do you actually like okay, we gotta kind of acknowledge that’s where it’s at. And like both inside the church and outside the church, what did that look like? How did you kind of actually stare down, you know, owning that. James Griffin — That’s great. Well, number one, I thought it was very important to honor the past because everything that had happened in the past was not bad. Rich Birch — Right. That’s good. James Griffin — And in all honesty, the first four and a half years of the life of the church, they were doing some great things and they were reaching people, and they were meeting a need in this community that that needed to be met. So I wanted to honor that. Rich Birch — That’s good. James Griffin — I have a mentor that always talks about how God can draw straight lines with crooked sticks. And so let’s not fail to give God glory for the things that have happened. So that’s first. Secondly, I did not want to in any way dishonor the guy who came before me. Rich Birch — That’s good. James Griffin — Dude, at the end of the day, here’s the reality, man. We’re all one bad decision away from blowing our lives up. And, I didn’t want to be that guy acting like, you know, he did something that that none of us could do. And so I didn’t want to dishonor him. But then we also needed to be honest about current reality. Hey, there there were problems. And there are issues that we still need to overcome. And I even needed to address with the other pastors and churches in our community, hey, this this church was not on your team for a while. We we we weren’t fighting for the kingdom alongside of you. And so I needed to own that and be honest about that without being dishonoring, because that was the reality is that that the church in the community had positioned itself against the other churches. And we were not playing well in the sandbox the other churches that were here, which was very problematic. Rich Birch — That’s interesting. Talk a little bit more about that. Like that that’s interesting to me that, you know, it seems like you see, which I think makes sense, the connection between, hey, we’ve got to kind of restore some relationships internally, but then, hey, there’s these external other pastors in town. Talk to us about what that looked like. How did those those conversations go? What did you learn to that process? How did you kind of rebuild those relationships? And then maybe draw the connection for I think there’ll be some people that are listening in there, like, what does that have to do with restoring your church? How do those things, how does that connect, solve the problems internally? Yeah. James Griffin — Yeah. That’s a great question. Well, again, it was very relational in nature. So when I first got here, one of the first things that I started trying to figure out is where do all these guys hang out? Like where, where are these pastors… Rich Birch — Right. James Griffin — …and and how can I put myself in environments where they are present, where I can just let these guys know, hey, man, I’m on your team. And I want to be on your team. James Griffin — And so and I remember in the early days I would go, we’re a non-denominational church, but in our community there are several Southern Baptist churches that all get together once a month and they have their meetings. So I just invited myself. I was like, hey, man, I’m coming out. Rich Birch — Right. James Griffin — And and some of the meetings were fine and some of the meetings were a little painful, but… Rich Birch — Right, right. James Griffin — But I showed up, but I showed up every month because I just wanted to be in the room with these men and get to know them. And just let them know, like, moving forward. It’s not going to be like it was before. And so I just wanted them to know that. And then I started hanging one-on-one. I was just trying to find the most influential guys in the community, lead the most influential churches, because I felt like if I can establish trust with them, hopefully they’ll go to bat for me and our church… Rich Birch — Right. That’s good. James Griffin — …and the other guys know, hey, he’s legit. So I just started having coffees and lunches and meeting with guys one-on-one and really working to build relationships in that respect. And so going back to the second part of the question, what did that have to do with like reestablishing our church? I mean, from the beginning, I’ve wanted our people to know God has put us in this community to be a blessing to the community. Rich Birch — That’s good. James Griffin — Like, we’re not just here to meet together on Sundays and to do all the church stuff. But if we really want to be a great commission church, we’ve got to think about the impact God is calling us to make on our cities. And if we’re going to do that effectively, we have to work in partnership with the other churches here. We have to be unified with the other believers in these cities for the sake of the gospel. And so we can’t be at odds with these other churches. Rich Birch — That’s good. James Griffin — We’ve got to work in partnership with these churches. So that was an important piece, I think, of seeing our church move forward. Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s great. I love that. That’s great. Great insight there. A part of what you’ve talked about is, you know, this idea of communicating with your people, which ultimately they have to feel, which is like, hey, we’re not going anywhere. Like, I’m I’m here. And I’m sure there are leaders that are listening in today that are there in that phase where it’s like where it’s like the long-suffering phase. We’re not really sure. Like I don’t see that, we’re not launching campuses, we’re just not seeing the fruit. But like, we’re we’re when you look back on that, what were some of the signposts that were, you know, there’s that one conversation. Hey, thanks for talking to us. Were there other signposts that were like, oh, we’re moving in the right direction here. Things are are heading and kind of talk through what that timeline looked like. James Griffin — Yeah, that’s good. Well I remember one of the signposts was the relaunch. So as I said earlier, you know I took over January 2012. Rich Birch — Yeah. James Griffin — And for a year we operated under the umbrella of our mother church. So Westridge basically took us back in for a season. I came started leading the church under Westridge just covering. And and that first year was really telling, you know, we got to see God show up, restore health. And then by the end of that year, my pastor came back and said, hey, I think we need to turn you guys loose and you need to replant. And so mid 2013, when we relaunched the church as Crosspoint City Church, that was like a new stake in the ground, you know? God, God took what was dying and and on the verge of of being in the grave. He has breathed new life into it, resurrected it from the dead. And and here we go, man. It was like a rebirth, you know. James Griffin — So that was huge. Now, during that same season, not long after, I remember another moment where I was like, okay, I think we’re going to be all right. We needed to refinance our building. At the time, we were trying to get it out of the former name and into the current name, which forced a refinance. And, we needed to come up with $100,000 in ten days to be able to to refinance. Rich Birch — Oh wow. James Griffin — Okay. Now at the time… Rich Birch — That’s clarifying. James Griffin — …you know, at the time, our church was considerably smaller. Our annual budget was like $650K a year. Right. And because of the former issues, we didn’t just have a bunch of money in the bank. And so I remember I met with our leaders on a Thursday night and I said, hey, guys, here’s here’s the reality, here’s the need. If we don’t do this now, mortgage costs go way, way up. That impacts our ability to do ministry. So, hey, I think we need to just challenge our people to give 100 grand in ten days. And so the next Sunday, I stood up, told the church, ask people to pray and to give. And ten days later we had $103,000 that was given. Rich Birch — Wow. James Griffin — And we were able to refinance the building and save a ton of money. So that was just another moment where I knew… Rich Birch — Right. James Griffin — …okay, God, God has us and and and we’re going to make it and we’re going to be all right. So and we’ve just seen God be faithful like that time and time again. And so it’s been a fun ride, man. Rich Birch — What would you coach leaders in that or in that phase around, like there’s got to be a tension in that moment between like we’re going to push forward, we’re going to do new stuff, like we’re going to try to take some new ground. You know, the kind of the former’s behind us. And then all the relational stuff you’re talking about, like, you know, hey, we’re going to hold people’s hands. We want to have conversations, build trust. How did you pace that out? How did we you know, that’s like a there’s obviously no easy formula there. But what how did you do that? What did that look like? James Griffin — Yeah that that pace conversation. That’s a fun one because I feel like since my time here, we’ve just been trying to keep up, man. It’s funny. Rich Birch — Okay. James Griffin — We, an executive team recently and it’s like we have done a lot of responding, and reacting over the years because God has just been on the move, which has been amazing. But I will say a couple of things, man. I had to make dramatic changes to my schedule. Dramatic changes. Rich Birch — Okay. Right. James Griffin — And it continues to happen until this day, like the relational piece I had to start and even to this day, I had to start pouring a lot more into executive team, key staff leaders, key leaders within the church, and then release a lot of the other, pastoral care, situations and things like that to my other guys. I have a mentor who who said to me years ago that there comes a point as your church grows, you’ve got to stop worrying about everyone feeling loved by you. And you just have to worry that people feel loved. Rich Birch — So good. James Griffin — And there’s a lot of ways, a lot of ways that you can make people feel love that doesn’t all fall on you as the leader. So again, it’s I think for us, it was building a culture of care and a culture of relationship that wasn’t entirely dependent upon me. Rich Birch — Right. James Griffin — And so we had to take a shared approach to that so that we could continue driving the work of mission forward. so I do think that’s a really important piece to this, is, is that the leader can’t carry that weight and burden alone. Rich Birch — Right. James Griffin — Whether it’s other staff or elders or key leaders within the church. You’ve got to lean on other people to get that right. Rich Birch — Right. Okay. This is like, well, first of all, super rich conversation. This is fantastic. So helpful. I’m hoping people that are listening in that are in these kind of situations are feeling encouraged, because I think you’ve you’ve offered some really great insight here. Rich Birch — Kind of going in a slightly different direction, super tactical. So you rebranded new name, all that stuff. How big deal was that? How, you know, what did you learn through that process? Was there anything that, you know, any kind of transferable lessons there as you, you know, thought about the future and how did that all fit together? James Griffin — Yeah, yeah, it was a massive deal. You know, I think what what we saw there were a couple. I will say one thing that surprised me, and maybe this will help somebody. One thing that surprised me, you know, we put this new stake in the ground. Here’s the vision for the future. Here’s where we’re going. It surprised me that not everyone wanted to go with us. Rich Birch — Okay. Yes. Interesting. James Griffin — What I mean by that is we had people. We had people live through the the train wreck. That was before. They stayed with us through this whole period of transition. They they got a chance to see God resurrect this dying church. And then we put a stake in the ground and and we said, here’s where we’re going. And again, I was a younger leader at the time. Now, I’m not so surprised by this, but it did surprise me. I’m like, hold on, you guys are leaving now? Rich Birch — Right. James Griffin — Bro, we’re we’re full steam ahead. We’re about to charge the gates of hell together. Rich Birch — Right, right. James Griffin — And and you’re going to leave now. But I will say on on the other side of that, what surprised me in a good sense is I think that was God pruning people away that needed to be pruned so that we could make forward progress. Rich Birch — Yep. James Griffin — And so when we got a little bit further down the road, I started to realize we would not be where we are right now if those people hadn’t left. Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s good. James Griffin — They would they would have stood in the way of the missional work that we set out to accomplish. So it was actually a strange blessing that that they left. Rich Birch — Yes, yeah. James Griffin — But man, after the relaunch and the rebirth, we picked up a lot of steam. Within about two years, we needed to start looking for another facility. Rich Birch — Okay. James Griffin — So in our former facility, we, we had 320 seats and 29 parking spaces. Rich Birch — Wow. Oh my goodness. James Griffin — It was crazy. Old renovated bar in the downtown area of our city. Rich Birch — Yep. James Griffin — So we, we started looking for property, man, and had a Christian school here in our city that was, meeting in an old church building was the old Cartersville Church of God. And they approached us and talked to us about buying their property, and we could not afford it. And we just basically told them, here’s what we can do and here’s what we can offer. Rich Birch — Right. James Griffin — And, praise God, they ended up saying, alright, we’ll work with that. Rich Birch — Wow, wow. James Griffin — So we in 2018, we, we moved facilities and, and went from 300 seats to 900 seats and 12 acres of land. And, you know, it’s been a fun ride. Rich Birch — Wow. James Griffin — And, and again, shortly after that started launching location so that, I mean, that rebirth, like I said, it was like stake in the ground. Rich Birch — Yes. James Griffin — And then we were off and going. Rich Birch — Yes. James Griffin — But without that year of just building trust and building relationships, I don’t think any of that would have happened. Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s good, that’s good. Yeah, that’s an encouragement. I love you know that that other that church of God like they’re heroes in the story… James Griffin — Absolutely. Rich Birch — …because they, you know, they they could have they could have held on tightly and said, no, forget it. And you know, who knows? You know, obviously God can do anything you don’t know. You can’t live in two different worlds. I don’t know what would have happen. But man, what they’re heroes in that story. James Griffin — Yes. Rich Birch — So I, I’m, I feel a little bit dumb. Here we are like two thirds into the interview and I’m just asking this question now. James Griffin — Yeah. Rich Birch — What was Westbridge connection with this church originally like? Why did Brian step in and help in the first place? Because there might be leaders that are listening in that are like, hey, maybe I’m that person in this story. Rich Birch — I need to think about that. James Griffin — Well, Westridge has a long history of planting churches. And, several years ago, they they started a church planting school. And the guy that planted the church that I now pastor was graduate number two from their church planting school. Rich Birch — Oh, wow. Okay. James Griffin — Did a year long internship at Westbridge and they actually sent him out to plant. So there was a partnership and a part of the story that I haven’t shared. I’ll make it really quick, but this is it just it just shows the sovereignty of God. So this guy was going to leave and go plant another church in another city. While there was hidden sin in the back stage of his life, and he had come to Crosspoint in 2010 or Crosspoint excuse me, Westridge in 2010, and asked Brian if they would consider taking the church on as a campus. And so Brian and the elders prayed, hey, yeah, we’ll do it. They decided in in 2010 will do it. And so in January of 2011, this church officially became a campus of Westridge. And the news of this moral failure broke two months later in March of 2011. Rich Birch — Oh wow. James Griffin — So man, it was the providence of God like God before the situation in a very significant and apparent way. Rich Birch — Absolutely. Yes. James Griffin — And again, if Westridge wouldn’t have stepped in, I don’t know if we’d be here. So I’m just so grateful for them and for Pastor Brian. Rich Birch — Yeah. Amazing. Yeah, that that’s one of those like that’s you know, you can’t just say that’s a coincidence, right? Like that’s the Lord at work and stepping out in front and and saying, hey, we’re going to we’ve got I’ve got a different plan for this. We’re not letting this one go. James Griffin — Sure. Rich Birch — That’s that’s amazing. So changing directions. Totally this is an incredible story. I want to make sure people track with you on this, but I want to hear a little bit about what you guys are doing with the Compassion Center. So this is a way that you’re investing in the community. Can you tell us kind of a little bit about that and how that fits in? It seems to connect to your story you were talking earlier about, man, we want to be we want to be a blessing to the community, want to improve the city that we’re in, that sort of thing. Talk to us about the Compassion Center. What’s that look like and how does that fit in the overall mix of the church? James Griffin — Yeah. So the idea for this came back in like 2019. We had already moved into our facility and renovated a portion of the facility. What we bought was 83,000 sq ft of building space on 12 acres of land. Rich Birch — Wow, wow. James Griffin — So initially we renovated about 30,000 of it for kids, space worship, all of that. And then in 2019 we were getting ready to launch another financial initiative. And we just knew because I mean, we had prayed for a property that we could give back to the community, told our elders, like if we buy this and it sits empty throughout the week, we are horrible stewards. So we had to figure out ways to keep the doors open… Rich Birch — Right. James Griffin — …Sunday through Saturday. So we just started praying for clarity on that, and I went and met with our county commissioner. I met with our city mayor, and I met with our school superintendent, and I just said, hey, we’re getting ready to raise money. We want to bless the community. We’ve got about 50,000 sq ft of building space we’re trying to figure out what to do with. Rich Birch — Wow. James Griffin — And I just asked, what does the community need? Rich Birch — That’s so good. James Griffin — What are needs exist that are not being met, that we could meet if we renovated this space in the right way. And so between the three guys, they said, hey, we need more counseling space. We need more space to mentor our kids. We need space to serve the homeless population. We need space for adult literacy, job training, all this stuff. So they gave us all these answers. And so we came back and as an elder team and executive team, we started praying through it. And we just decided, man, let’s let’s make this happen. So out of that came this vision for the Compassion Center. James Griffin — So it’s basically, there’s four pieces to this thing. One piece. We have a counseling center so people can come and and they can get professional biblical counseling at discounted rates. It’s all on a sliding scale based on income. A part of the center is devoted to education. So we’re mentoring kids. We are teaching adult literacy, those types of things. James Griffin — Another portion of the center is dedicated to serving the homeless population. So we have a laundromat. We’ve got bathrooms and showers. We’ve got resources available for them. And we got people serving in there that are praying with them, hearing their stories, sharing the gospel. It’s absolutely incredible. Rich Birch — That’s cool. James Griffin — And then two other pieces, we’re also serving women who are being rescued out of sex trafficking through the center. Rich Birch — Oh, wow. James Griffin — Which was happening previously, but we we just relocated them. And then the final piece of this, we have a mobile medical clinic. Rich Birch — Wow. James Griffin — Because because part of it was, hey, we’ve got under-insured and uninsured families in our communities that don’t have access to medical care. So we’re like, I think we can do something. So, when we were working on the project—this is when the pandemic hit—inflation went through the roof. And our building costs went up by a million and a half dollars. Rich Birch — Wow. James Griffin — So we step back and we said, how do we still make this work? Because we can’t afford that. And then we came up with the idea of a mobile approach. Well, what if we what if we buy a big RV and retrofit it and we take it on the road and we serve people where they’re at? Rich Birch — That’s so cool. James Griffin — So we found a company that does it, man. They just they take RVs and build out mobile clinics on top of the the frames. Rich Birch — Yes. James Griffin — We’ve got this clinic that we’re taking into all of our cities and it’s it’s taken off, man. So it’s been cool to see it all working. Rich Birch — That’s amazing. Yeah, again just want to commend you for that. You know we see this time and again with fast growing churches that there is a clear imperative for the the proclamation of the gospel. But there’s also a clear demonstration of the gospel at work in people’s lives that there’s like this, hey, we got to actually make a difference. Rich Birch — And that, you know, we don’t see those in conflict with each other. We want to we want to really work both sides of that equation. James Griffin — Yeah. Rich Birch — And I just love that. You I answered the question there a little bit at the end, which was, as you’re looking at new locations, how are you keeping that embedded in the in the story? This idea of, you know, being, you know, improving the cities you go in, when it’s, you know, when you have something like the compassion center embedded in one location, how do you spread that to other locations without, you know, necessarily duplicating all of that in all these different locations. What does that look like? James Griffin — Yeah, yeah. Great question. You know, part of it for us, when it comes to locations, we try to contextualize ministry based on the city that we’re we’re starting in. Rich Birch — Okay. James Griffin — So we have always been very intentional about going into these cities before we ever launch and trying to identify partnerships, establishing relationships with local pastors and churches and community leaders. And we start with service. We don’t start with gatherings. Rich Birch — That’s good. James Griffin — We’re like, how do we go in and bless the city based on what this city needs? And so some of it’s unique, based on city, and then some of it is very much the same. So like in Cartersville and Rome, we’re placing a big emphasis right now on foster care. And so we’re working with local organizations that really do a great job with foster care. The mobile clinic, we can take anywhere, and that’s what we’re doing. Rich Birch — Right, right. James Griffin — And then some of our bigger initiatives, like all church initiatives, we do a big Christmas event and we just serve thousands of kids in our cities. We have just reproduced that. So like Acworth, that we’re planning in ’25, that starts in January, but we’re actually doing Hope for Christmas event this December of 2024. Rich Birch — Love it. Love it. James Griffin — And we’re starting with that because we just want people to know… Rich Birch — Love it. James Griffin — …we’re not just showing up and like singing and teaching on Sundays. Dude, we’re here to love and serve. We want to be a blessing to the to the cities that God’s called us to. Rich Birch — Love it. Yeah, yeah. That’s so good. And what a great way to enter into a city. You know, even people who don’t necessarily aren’t excited about what the church is about. They look at that stuff and say, well, that’s a good thing. Our our hope over time is that they see you as not just a good thing. It’s a God thing. It’s what what God’s called us to do. So yeah, I love that. This is this has been just what, a rich conversation. So fantastic. Rich Birch — You know, anything else? Just as we kind of. There’s a lot we could talk about here. There’s a ton we could continue to dive into. But anything else you’d love to kind of make sure we’re aware of just as we wrap up today’s episode. James Griffin — Yeah, I would say with anybody trying to figure this stuff out. Any church leaders trying to figure this out, I would just encourage you be patient. Be patient. Rich Birch — That’s good. James Griffin — I think, shifting culture, building trust, establishing a strong reputation in the community of what you talked about earlier. We’re not just here to tell you stuff. We’re here to do stuff. We’re going to proclaim the gospel, and we’re going to do justice because both matter to the heart of God. It just takes time. And so I think you got to plug away. You’ve got to be consistent, stay focused on mission, keep doing what God’s called you to do. And over time, the tide will turn. But, but, but be faithful. Be patient is what I would say. Rich Birch — That’s so good. What a great way to end. I know there’s people that are in that seat today and have, you know, our hope, our prayer is that they’ve been they’ve been encouraged. If people want to track with you or track with the church, where do we want to send them online? James Griffin — Yeah, a couple places. The church: crosspointcity.com. That’s our website. So you can find us there. Reach out to us. I have an Instagram page, @pastorjamesgriffin. I don’t manage that at all, but, but you can find me there. My team does that. But you can find us there as well. And and, stay connected. So, yeah, man, would love for you guys to to look us up – if we can help in any way, reach out. Rich Birch — That’s great. Thanks so much, James. I really appreciate you being on the show today. James Griffin — Yeah. Thanks, Rich.

Jared Kirkwood, Executive Pastor at Mariners Church Irvine, shares his insights on ministry strategy with over 16 years of experience in pastoral roles. He discusses Mariners’ 'transformational loop’—a four-part discipleship framework aimed at aligning all ministries to amplify impact. Jared emphasizes the importance of a 'map' over a 'menu' for guiding church members through their spiritual journey. He also delves into strategic leadership in multi-site settings and the significance of engaging the online community for ministry success.

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Pat Gillen, the Executive Pastor of Families and a teaching pastor from First Baptist Simpsonville / Upstate Church in South Carolina. How are you cultivating leaders at your church? Are you trying to figure out your next step for developing Gen Z? Tune in as Pat unpacks his church’s innovative strategy for nurturing young leaders through their comprehensive residency program. The need for more leaders. // As one of the fastest growing churches in the country, First Baptist Simpsonville  / Upstate Church is currently operating eight campuses, with plans to add a ninth. A distinguishing feature of their approach is the commitment to live teaching at each campus, rather than relying on video sermons. However, as the church has grown, so has the need for effective leaders who can embody the church’s vision and mission. This need for leadership development led to the establishment of a residency program aimed at nurturing young leaders who can step into various roles within the church. A two-year program. // The residency program is designed for recent college graduates and spans two years. During that time, residents are integrated into a ministry team, working closely with ministry leaders who act as mentors. This structure allows residents to invest around 30 hours a week in various ministry roles, gaining practical experience and exploring their calling while contributing to the church’s mission. At the end of that two-year timeframe, residents have the opportunity to apply for a position within the church, or take what they’ve learned and use it elsewhere. Look within your church. // Sourcing residents can be a challenge, but Pat suggests starting by building and nurturing the leaders you have growing in your church. Begin by developing students in your youth ministry who are looking for opportunities to lead and serve. By investing in and nurturing their leadership potential, you can create a pipeline of future leaders who are already familiar with your church’s culture and mission. Set expectations. // Pat explains that working in the residency program at the church won’t necessarily guarantee residents a job there. The focus is on personal and professional development, helping residents discover their calling and equipping them for future ministry roles. Pat recommends that after the first year of residency, mentors should have a conversation with their resident about their next steps and how the church can best equip them moving forward. Assign a mentor. // During their time learning from the church, assign the resident a ministry leader to mentor them. Residents should be integrated into the church’s ministry teams, where they participate in discussions, discipleship, and practical training. Mentors are responsible for guiding residents, helping them identify their goals, and providing the necessary support to achieve those objectives. Offer expert sessions. // First Baptist Simpsonville / Upstate Church also has equipping sessions for their residents. Some of the church’s best leaders will spend two hours on Wednesday mornings sharing their expertise on a variety of topics, such as counseling, budgeting or other real-world ministry challenges. These sessions gives residents the benefit of the entire staff and not only the ministry leader they work alongside. Developing leaders takes time. // Pat warns against viewing a resident as free labor to help out with menial tasks, rather than a chance to invest in future leaders. It’s a time commitment to develop leaders effectively. This investment not only benefits the residents but also multiplies the church’s capacity for ministry. Invest in future leaders. // Prioritize investing in the next generation, starting with your kids’ ministry and youth ministry. By identifying and nurturing potential leaders early on, your church can create a pipeline of talent that will sustain your ministries for years to come. Visit upstatechurch.org to connect with Pat and follow along with what First Baptist Simpsonville / Upstate Church is doing. You can also find our interview with Brian Owens, the Executive Pastor of Operations here. EXTRA CREDIT // Get the Leadership Residency Program Progress Tracker Templates! If you’re serious about developing the next generation of church leaders, the Leadership Residency Program Progress Tracker Templates is an invaluable resource. This fillable PDF includes: Monthly Progress Check-In Tool – Help residents reflect on their growth and stay focused on their goals. Reflection & Goal-Setting Prompts for Residents – Encourage deeper thinking and alignment with the church’s mission. Quarterly Performance Review Template – A structured way to review progress and set actionable plans for future growth. Perfect for churches looking to support their leadership residents, this tool streamlines progress tracking and goal-setting in a practical, easy-to-use format. Available exclusively through unSeminary Extra Credit. Download the Leadership Residency Program Progress Tracker Templates here and take your leadership development efforts to the next level! 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: Portable Church Your church is doing really well right now, and your leadership team is looking for solutions to keep momentum going! It could be time to start a new location. Maybe you have hesitated in the past few years, but you know it’s time to step out in faith again and launch that next location. Portable Church has assembled a bundle of resources to help you leverage your growing momentum into a new location by sending a part of your congregation back to their neighborhood on Mission. This bundle of resources will give you a step-by-step plan to launch that new or next location, and a 5 minute readiness tool that will help you know your church is ready to do it! Click here to watch the free webinar “Launch a New Location in 150 Days or Less” and grab the bundle of resources for your church! Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary Podcast. Wow, I’m so excited for today’s conversation. Really looking forward to this because two reasons. One, ah it’s another leader from a church that we had on a few months ago and it’s always good to keep leaning in and learning from churches that are prevailing, making a difference. And then the second, what we’re talking about today is one of those areas that I know all of our churches are wrestling with. We’re thinking about how do we do what we’re going to talk about today. So you’re going to be rewarded by ah leaning in today and and learning. I’m super excited to have Pat Gillen with us. He is from First Baptist Simpsonville/Upstate Church, a fantastic church located in South Carolina. ah They’re one of the fastest growing churches in the country with, I believe, eight or nine campuses, if I’m counting correctly.Rich Birch — They offer services in Spanish and Portuguese in addition to English. Brian is the executive pastor of operations. Sorry, Brian is executive pastor operations who we had on in the spring. Pat is the Executive Pastor of Families and Fountain Inn Teaching Pastor and has established a residency program in the church. So really excited to have Pat with us today. Welcome. So glad you’re here.Pat Gillen — Yeah, so glad to be here with you today.Rich Birch — Yeah, it was great having Brian on back in the spring and excited to have you here today. Why don’t you fill out the picture a little bit? Yeah. I, when people say like good things about other people they work with, that’s positive.Pat Gillen — Yeah. Pat Gillen — Yeah, nobody doesn’t like Brian. He’s so.Rich Birch — Ah, that’s fun. Rich Birch — Well, why don’t you kind of fill out the picture there a little bit, maybe for people that didn’t catch our episode in the spring or how, you know, people say, Oh, tell me about the church. What’s it kind of describe it to us? Tell us a but little bit about it.Pat Gillen — Yeah, sure. We’re we’re kind of an established church that probably 20 years ago got into multi-site and didn’t really um fully get into the model we’re in until ah about eight years ago, where we started replicating ourselves in other places instead of just having sort of a daughter campus, you know, that was somewhere else. Pat Gillen — And so it’s been a part of our DNA, maybe even in the background for quite a while, but in the past eight years, truly, God’s used it in a special way. So you said eight or nine campuses that’s actually pretty accurate. We’re at eight and voting on a ninth right now… Rich Birch — Oh, oh great. Love it. Pat Gillen — …trying to figure out that step so we’re in that same kind of limbo stage where we’re about to get nine locations. But it’s such an exciting thing for us because what’s unique about us is we do live teaching at each campus so we don’t do ah video venue or anything like that. We’re not against it. We don’t think it’s bad. But especially in our area, there are a lot of other churches that are doing that. So kind of what helps us stand apart and be unique is having campuses with live teachers. Pat Gillen — And so and that’s kind of created even our conversation today. What’s brought us to that is it’s almost created a vacuum of of need for leaders that can step up that are a part of our vision and understand it and kind of step into those spots. So that’s been an exciting thing for us as we’ve grown from, when I got here, we had three campuses. Two of those, like I said, we’re almost really like daughter churches. They kind of did their own thing. And then we we covered the bill if they didn’t cover everything. And now ah those campuses have have been reformed once spun off as really truly a mission or daughter church in that way. Pat Gillen — The other one is was our first ah Upstate Church campus, our Harrison Bridge campus. And then since then, we’ve added so many more. And so it’s such a great thing to be a part of ah communities here in the Upstate. And that’s really our goal and our mission is to reach the Upstate of South Carolina for the kingdom, to connect people to Jesus here. So it’s been awesome. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Well, I, you know, just to kind of put this conversation in context for folks that are listening in that may not know, but we’re still at a place where over 50% of multisite churches don’t get beyond three locations. So your church is rare air. I know you know that is rare air in the fact that you’re eight looking at nine, you know, that we’re down into single digit percentage of multisite churches in the country that have that many locations, which is amazing. Rich Birch — But then even more notable, like you said, on the teaching front, so the shorthand we say all the time, which is statistically true, but you got to have somebody that bucks the statistics is the larger the church and the more campuses they have, the more likely they are to to use video content. So the fact that you are continuing on with um you know, in-person teaching at all these locations does put you in in a rare air. Part of why I think it’s a great conversation to have today. Rich Birch — Maybe before we get into specifically about residency programs, which we want to kind of dive into, how are you training those people? Talk to me through that kind of campus pastor, teaching campus pastor, teaching pastor role. Why is that, you know, you kind of gave us the the quick answer, oh, all the churches are doing video. But talk us through that a little bit more. Because it’s a huge investment to say like, hey, we’re going to try to keep, you know, growing people and making that happen. Why are you doing that? What are you learning on that front? Why do you think continue to think that’s the best move for the church?Pat Gillen — Absolutely. Yeah I think a lot of that comes from our lead pastor and his humility. Rich Birch — Yep. Pat Gillen — And this is not in any way to say that a pastor would be prideful on video. But his humility and letting other people lead and and have that ah pulpit in those locations is such a um a great leadership tool for him. Pat Gillen — I think ah part of the way we’ve looked at it is like we can be more effective if we know the people and we’re face to face with the people, if we have that opportunity. So ah most of our campuses we operate in kind of a huddle model, hub model where ah within our original campus or original location there are four churches or four other campuses rather that are within probably 12 to 15 minutes of that. Pat Gillen — So we’re kind of hitting um the extension of where people you know may still feel like it’s it’s possible to drive here, but they would love one more in their community. So it’s also a little unique because one of our campuses is 3.1 miles away. Rich Birch — Wow. Wow. Yeah, that’s very close.Pat Gillen — So it just feels like it’s a crazy idea, um but it’s something that really birthed out of our pastor. If we’re going to reach the upstate, then we need to have ah campuses that are in these communities that are trying to reach those communities for the kingdom. And so it’s really less about um us trying to put everybody in one building or try we say, instead of building up, we’re trying to build out. Rich Birch — Love it. Pat Gillen — So a lot of our efforts are that way. It does mean we duplicate a lot of processes in those campuses that other a church that runs our size that maybe in one location would not have to reproduce You don’t have to have ah nine communicators on a Sunday morning. Rich Birch — Right. Pat Gillen — You just need one. And so there’s a lot of that that I think we’ve had to figure out through the years. But it’s really allowed us to have a touch point in the upstate that’s unique and different and um kind of have our own um and flair and ministry.Rich Birch — Love it. Pat Gillen — Yeah. Rich Birch — So good. And well, let’s talk about the residency program. So this is a part of kind of there’s there’s ah there’s a problem in churches, which is how do we develop leaders? And you’ve you know clearly outlined why there’s even kind of you’ve decided to have a whole other layer on top of that, which is you know nine communicators. That’s a big piece of the puzzle. But let’s talk through first just the you know the kind of problem part of the equation. Rich Birch — So um why residency, what got you into this? Why what what led you to the place was there you know that said, hey, this is the area, then we need to spend more time on this. what do what’s the What’s the itch you’re trying to scratch? What’s the pain you’re trying to solve through you know this effort?Pat Gillen — Well, I probably like a lot of people. I went, I graduated from Liberty University. Went from Liberty to Southeastern, right Seminary in North Carolina, right out of high school, or right out of college. And I was just figuring life out. Rich Birch — Yes.Pat Gillen — And I joined a church staff and it was ah it was a great church. I loved it. I still love the people, still connected with those people there, even though it’s been over 20 years. But I just didn’t have anybody pouring into me. I didn’t have anybody helping walk along with me. And of course I had seminary classes but the whole point of your podcast they weren’t teaching practical leadership ah skills. You know we were learning how to teach the word and we’re learning how to preach exegetically. Um, we did a lot of great things there, but, uh, learning some of those practical skills, I had to learn on my own. Pat Gillen — And if so, it was just a difficult thing. Um, I feel like I didn’t figure out till maybe I was closer to 30 in ministry before I really started, you know, kind of hitting my stride and feeling like I’m, I’m getting a lot more effective here and I know what I’m doing and I’ve kind of figured things out. So really kind of started even almost from that standpoint for me, how can I help young leaders, not be thrown into the fire or or thrown to the lion, so to speak, where they’re trying to figure it out. They’re making mistakes that could be career ending mistakes for some of them, even if they’re not a moral failure, but just um they lose the leadership of the people, or they deal with all kinds of other things.Pat Gillen — And so we wanted to create a scenario where we could develop leaders, help them walk them through that process, help them discover their calling. That’s really the the itch that we’re trying to scratch. Obviously, here, every time we launch a campus, we we launch it with a campus pastor, a worship ah leader, and then a kids coordinator. So for every one of those campuses we launch, we’ve got to have another kids person in the boot.Rich Birch — Yeah.Pat Gillen — And then soon after that, a student person, ah depending on size.Rich Birch — Yep.Pat Gillen — So um it’s it’s something that we’re constantly trying to find new faces and new leaders. And so as a church, we are feeling that pain at the pace we’re growing. You mentioned I think we’re a ninth fastest growing church in the nation ah this past year and the fastest growing Southern Baptist Church. So for us, it really has been a pain point of how can we get the right leaders in there, not just a warm body, not just somebody who um you know can can stand there and do a halfway decent job. But how can we get the right leader that’s going to help and and actually be somebody we can trust in that campus?Rich Birch — Love it. So let’s let’s talk about when you say residency, what does that mean? You know what is I’ve heard churches use that word. When you use the word residency, what do you mean by that?Pat Gillen — Yeah, we’ve talked a little bit about even changing the name to School of Ministry or something along that lines. But essentially for us, what a residency is, is two years post-college. We encourage them to do graduate school, seminary, depending on what they do. ah So if we we may have a communications person or a worship person that doesn’t pursue a seminary degree but gets a certificate instead… Rich Birch — Right. Pat Gillen — …or um does a different kind of training. But we pursue seminary education as a part of that and that’s that’s really a process. So college graduates, they spend two years with us and after that two years, man, we’re just we’re really hoping whether it’s a two-year job interview that they are able to come on with us, or we actually get to send them out. And our hope and our prayer is to impact the upstate of South Carolina, so you know we want people that we can feed into churches to be leaders in the upstate and lead their church to healthy models too.Rich Birch — Love it. Let’s talk about where you find these residents. Cause I think people could agree like, Oh yeah, I’d love to find… Pat Gillen — Yeah. Rich Birch — …like, that seems like a sweet spot. Man, if I could, if I could find a regular batch of, you know, post, you know, graduate kind of folks that are just finished school and they’re looking for this kind of thing, how how are you finding them? What’s been your, your sweet spot on finding folks?Pat Gillen — Oh, that’s great. I think part of it for us is we’re not in a college town. Rich Birch — Yep. Pat Gillen — We’re also we’re not close to a lot of seminaries or anything like that. Anderson University is about 45 minutes to an hour away. We have a campus there. Rich Birch — Yep. Pat Gillen — And North Greenville is about the same distance away. We don’t have a campus up there yet. But we do have some connections. So there are some relationships that have helped, I think, through that. But I think the main thing for us, we’re actually trying to develop um our leaders here when they’re in high school. We’re trying to pour into them, disciple them… Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good. Pat Gillen — …nurture that calling that they have, and actually create a pipeline to to keep building into them. Because we know, and you know you’ve heard it said, like students are not the leaders of tomorrow. They’re the leaders of today. We’ve heard those kind of sound bites. But a lot of people aren’t giving them opportunities to lead, giving them opportunities to serve. So we elevate those leaders, give them opportunities to lead, and then always try to develop in them a sense of… Rich Birch — That’s good. Pat Gillen — …hey, when when you are ready to discover that calling, we wanted you to be a part of this back. So I would say probably a number of of our residents are ones that were either a part of our ministry before or at least while they were in college, ah connected with us to some level. And so that’s probably the majority of us. Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good Pat Gillen — We’re trying to say, hey, how can we develop leaders in-house. And honestly, the people that we may even hire one day out of the residency program, and we hired two full-time just recently with this last group that graduated for us, is they know us better than anybody that we could bring in, you know?Rich Birch — Right, right. Yeah, yeah, for sure. They get a huge head start. That’s great. I love that. I remember um just recently I was at a church where they were talking about a young adult weekend. They had like a bunch of young adults went away to a conference. And at the conference, it was like a weekend thing, and the um the speaker, they had like a it felt really old school like back from when you and I seemed like similar generation when we started ministry where there was like a, do, are you sensing a call to full-time vocational ministry we want to get you, you know, come to the front now we want to pray for you kind of thing. And I was and I was encouraging this church I was like man we got to do that. Pat Gillen — Right. Rich Birch — Like because it feels like we dropped that out of the equation in a lot of our student ministries that was like it’s just not a part of the conversation. And we’re missing that. So I love that you’re, hey, even with high school students trying to raise the value of that and trying to get out in front of that. Rich Birch — Talk me through the tension of, um you know, this is a ah training process. We’re trying to actually develop leaders. um This isn’t like a ah two year job interview. Like they, it’s they’re not guaranteeing people like, hey, you’re going to get a job. How do you talk about that with people with potential residents? And then how do you think about that? How do those two things kind of relate together?Pat Gillen — Yeah. I mean, we, uh, we tell them from the beginning, it’s not a promise… Rich Birch — Right. Pat Gillen — …to a job here at our church. Rich Birch — Yep. Pat Gillen — And who’s to say we would even be in the financial situation by that point… Rich Birch — Right. Pat Gillen — …that we could hire them on. Um, so we, we, you know, would be willing to have that conversation, but we’re really just upfront from the beginning about that. Rich Birch — Right.Pat Gillen — Usually about a year into the residency, we start talking, all right, next steps. Uh, what do we need to start looking at? How can we help equip you the best… Rich Birch — Good. Pat Gillen — …to be prepared for those, whatever’s next for you, whether that’s here or somewhere else. And even ones that we would really love to hire, I’ll I’ll get phone calls from people and I’ll still pass their information along… Rich Birch — Oh, really? Good for you. Yeah. Pat Gillen — …because I want I don’t want to stand in the way of what God may be leading them to do. But that’s not what what we’re about. We’re really kingdom-minded in the way that we’re approaching this to say, that’s That’s our goal is not to say, hey, how can we build up ourselves? But really, how can we build up those next leaders? Pat Gillen — You’re right, man. Like I don’t know I don’t want to blame student ministries or student pastors, but as a church as a whole, we are not um inviting people to step up and pursue the calling that God has on their lives for ministry.Rich Birch — Right.Pat Gillen — And so oftentimes it’s like, well, they just don’t make money, or they work crazy hours. And that’s true. Those those things are all a factor.Rich Birch — Yeah, those things are true.Pat Gillen — But in reality, the best part about this program that we tell them is we’re helping you discover your calling. Rich Birch — So good.Pat Gillen — So, you know, I came out of ministry. I felt like I had a specific calling to student ministry when I started out. And that’s where I started while I was in seminary. I’ve been in several different roles since then, obviously. But I felt that kind of clarity. A lot of ah Gen Z is coming out of college and going, I don’t know yet. I don’t know what I want to do.Rich Birch — Right.Pat Gillen — I don’t know how I want to fit. And so part of what we’re trying to do is say, okay, let’s let’s investigate that. What are you interested in? What do you feel led toward? Let’s kind of steer you that direction. And then six months in, if that’s not a fit, you know, and it’s not working, let’s try something else.Rich Birch — Right.Pat Gillen — And I love that because it really gives you the ability to have your finger in multiple ah levels or multiple areas of ministry to see this is the one I’ve been really passionate about that God is leading me down that path. And so that I mean I wish I had that even though I felt that certain conviction of myself myself in the student ministry at the beginning. I love that heart and that passion that that students can have or or our ah residents can have to to discover that.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I love it. Now what about, I’m sure a part of what you end up doing is having a conversation with the leaders at your church and trying to help them catch a vision for like, Hey, there’s like a, my impression of, of this kind of situation is it’s like, it’s two steps backwards to go one step forward or other way around two steps forward, one step back, two steps forward. Like there’s a, we’ve got to slow down and develop leaders.Pat Gillen — Yeah.Rich Birch — I’m sure, or is it just everybody at upstate, it’s like, we’re all for developing leaders and I don’t mind spending extra time on this stuff. How do you work that through with your team internally who might be hesitant to you know want to invest in a resident, spend time with them, that sort of thing? Cause they’re like, I got lots going on already.Pat Gillen — Yeah, you’re right. Everybody’s schedule is full. I would say it’s probably less that they’re not interested in developing leaders than we do have some that may not know how to. Or know how they’re supposed to invest in those leaders.Pat Gillen — Kind of what we do is in the residency program is we bring them in. We are a team and we function as a team. And there are things that we cover as a team that we talk about, we discuss, we do discipleship together, we do what we call equipping, which is practical ministry and in many ways, theological ministry, ah discussing through, um you know, some even deep theological issues through that as a team to kind of really help them develop ah depth ah to what they believe. Pat Gillen — But we set them in a ministry and we consider that ministry leader their actual boss. So um that ministry leader has the ability, for instance, ah Steve, our missions pastor, executive pastor missions, has the ability to actually pour into the resident that he has, spend an extreme amount of time with him, finding out what his specific goals are and how he can help him meet those goals.Pat Gillen — And so it’s kind of a, um it’s kind of a win-win because we’re helping the residents meet those goals. They’re helping us reach goals.Rich Birch — Yep.Pat Gillen — You know, they’re a part of our team. um We get somebody who’s here that is ah not just an, not an intern or anything like that. They’re putting in you know, 30 hours a week with us. Rich Birch — Right. Pat Gillen — And, uh, and able to help us move the, move the ball forward, especially as we continue to expand. But really we’re able to put that time in. They’re not just moving chairs, you know? Rich Birch — Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, right.Pat Gillen — We’re trying to develop as a leader. I mean, that was the old idea, like, Oh, you got an intern, have them set up the tables. Rich Birch — Yeah. Pat Gillen — Like this is, this is not that at all.Rich Birch — You’ll pick up the Chick-fil-A or whatever. Yeah, it’s not that we’re doing more than…Pat Gillen — Yeah, exactly. Now there may be, so there may be some of that… Rich Birch — Yeah, but that’s normal in ministry. That’s not That’s a part of life for sure. Rich Birch — Well, one of the things I I love about this is, and I’ve said this for years, I’m like, man, you can in school, you can learn like the right thing to say or the right kind of theologically true stuff. But there’s it’s very different when, you know for instance, the first time someone that you’re sitting across the coffee table with, a volunteer, somebody that we’re at your church says, I’m thinking about leaving my wife. You know, man yeah what we don’t want is people you know to flub that interaction. And you know the getting people real world experience like that in ah in a in a safe environment where that’s not all lies on you, because um unfortunately, like you know, what you say in the next 30 seconds after someone says that to you matters. Like it it’s it’s… Pat Gillen — Yeah, that’s right. Rich Birch — You know, and there’s lots of those. There’s lots of examples of that kind of stuff. Talk me through, um you know, what does that look like? I’m trying to give people some real world, um whether it’s pastoral care or, you know, maybe it’s like a preaching thing where it’s like, hey, the stakes are a little bit higher here, but we’re doing it in a way that gives them some support so that they can gain that experience, but that we’re not also dropping the ball with our people.Pat Gillen — Well, that’s so true. And I iI think a lot of us learn that the hard way. Rich Birch — Yeah, for sure. Pat Gillen — And, you know, I tell people you can never surprise me when when I’m in a counseling session. And there’s sometimes I’m like… Rich Birch — Just did. Pat Gillen — …that actually I’m just not a game face right now.Rich Birch — Yes.Pat Gillen — So I think what we do with our equipping sessions, we bring some of the best leaders on our church staff to actually adopt one of those times. Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good. Pat Gillen — And they’ll spend two hours with them on a Wednesday morning and they’ll pour out like ah their expertise on counseling, or their expertise on how to handle a funeral, or how to handle a wedding, or um or just how to how to deal with somebody who’s struggling with same-sex attraction, or or somebody who’s depressed or has anxiety, or even just like how to how to create a budget. Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Pat Gillen — Like these are things that you did not learn in class.Rich Birch — No, sure.Pat Gillen — So we have our top leaders just just meeting with them, helping them develop ah pipelines, making sure they’re they’re making disciples who are making disciples. And ministry can easily become just, hey, I’ve got to get there to set up the chairs. I’ve got to make sure the lights are on. And we’re not truly pouring into people. And so equipping them to to look at ministry, not as the tyranny of the urgent… Rich Birch — Right. Pat Gillen — …but to look at ministry as this is my opportunity to develop leaders, even as a 22 to 24 year old… Rich Birch — Love it. Pat Gillen — …looking ahead. And so they really get the benefit of our entire staff. It’s not like it’s… Rich Birch — Yeah, just you. Pat Gillen — …there’s one of us. I’m certainly not the expert that goes in there every week and tries to tell them how to how to do everything. So they get that benefit. Probably something our entire staff would but would really benefit from us doing um if we needed another meeting that would [inaudible]. But it is it is a ah great advantage for them. Pat Gillen — And so we scope kind of a two-year curriculum for that, if you want to consider it that way, so that we can repeat it every two years. So no matter where somebody comes in on our residency program, they’ll ah they’ll actually get all of those pieces.Rich Birch — That’s so good. Yeah, I love that.Rich Birch — I love that. That’s, you know, that’s so fantastic. So it’s just you and me, Pat, you know, there’s nobody else listening in.Pat Gillen — All right.Rich Birch — What’s that thing about, you know, it’s kind of like the dirty secret or the pothole to avoid about residency programs that like, hey, nobody told us this. Nobody said there would be this problem. You know, I know that there’s like real issues with doing this. What are the thing that you, you say to friends, that they’re they’re like, Hey, we’re thinking about this. You may not say it in a podcast in front of people, but you know, you’re, you’d you’d love to [inaudible] it’s just us. We’re just just just chatting about what’s going on.Pat Gillen — Right, right, right. Well, I think the biggest thing when I’m talking to other people is churches see what we do and they think, oh, I get free labor. Rich Birch — That’s good. Pat Gillen — And so um I can take advantage of that and get some free labor. And they’re looking just to offload work… Rich Birch — Right. Pat Gillen — …instead of looking to develop a leader. Rich Birch — Right. Pat Gillen — So the number one thing I would say, and you kind of hit on earlier, that people overlook is the time investment… Rich Birch — Right. Pat Gillen — …that it actually takes to develop a leader. But ultimately you’re multiplying yourself. You’re able to do far more than you could by doing that. I think a lot of people don’t see that. Rich Birch — Appreciate that. Pat Gillen — And I would I would also say the the generational thing is probably always a challenge. Just um with Gen Z, we tell our our group, we’re like, this residency is designed for you to take initiative. And so there’s a fundraising component to what we do. Rich Birch — Okay.Pat Gillen — And we thought, we’re like, hey, at one point, maybe we should do what we can to pay them instead of doing the fundraising, if we could ever get to that point, which would be great. And then really, the more we prayed about it, the more we thought about it, we’re like, this fundraising component actually helps them realize they’ve got to get out there… Rich Birch — Right. Pat Gillen — …they’ve got to make connections, they’ve got to talk to people, they’ve got to hustle. And that’s what our residency is about. It’s about kind of putting them in scenarios where, excuse me, it putting them in scenarios where if they’re waiting on somebody else to tell them what to do. This is going to be a long two years. Rich Birch — Right. That’s good. Pat Gillen — But they’re connected with the ministry leader. They’re seeing holes that they can uniquely identify um because they have fresh eyes. They have fresh experiences and trying to fill those holes and step up… Rich Birch — That’s good. Pat Gillen — …and help us excel and improve as a ministry. So I think a lot of people overlook that. They think, hey, it’s this is just going to be a a free person and they should be lucky. They should be thankful for us that we’re giving them a house to live in or whatever the case is.Rich Birch — Right.Pat Gillen — And so instead, we we feel grateful that we have these young leaders who’d be willing to spend two years with us and develop their skills as a part of our community.Rich Birch — That’s cool. What what do you say, you know, what’s the kind of time commitment on on your side? Like if you were to say, like one of those, the super people that’s a supervisor, what does that look like? And then what would you say at kind of a central team, whether it’s yourself or like, give us a sense of what that kind of time commitment is on both sides. So if I’ve got a resident in my area that, what does that look like? And then kind of as an organization, what what do you, what do you feel like you’re investing?Pat Gillen — That’s good. Basically, it’s like having a part-time employee with you.Rich Birch — Okay.Pat Gillen — So what we have been doing in the past is almost probably the opposite way of what we should be doing it. We have a resident that would apply and that resident is interested in student ministry. I’ll contact our student ministry and say, let’s interview this person. Let’s see if they would be a good fit. Rich Birch — Okay.Pat Gillen — And we go that direction. What we’re trying to move toward is actually having those ministry leaders say, hey, I’m looking for somebody and I would love to have somebody develop. Rich Birch — That’s good. Pat Gillen — And so that way we can be more intentional as we interview these residents and bring them on to to plug them up with a need that we have specifically as well.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.Pat Gillen — So it’s just going to help us maybe multiply a little better in that way. But yeah, I would say 20 to 25 hours that they spend with the ministry hands on, depending on the ministry, some of those can be, um you know, nights or or weekends. And some of those are in the office, you know, just a regular type job. It just depends on what type of ministry they’re in. And I tell residents or future residents, if we have it at our church, you can do it. So, communications ministry, or um senior adults, or kids, if if you’re interested in any of those things, you can apply as a part of our residency. And so…Rich Birch — That’s cool.Pat Gillen — …part of that’s going to really be birthed out of now those leaders saying, okay, I could really use somebody to work with senior adults. And that may be a more difficult resident to find, but there’s some out there. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pat Gillen — And so we’re going to try and and dig into what that looks like. And um a lot of our residents have two responsibilities or or what we call dual roles. Rich Birch — Okay. Yep. Pat Gillen — So they may have, ah they may be in one ministry for 10 to 15 hours, another ministry for 10 to 15 hours,. Or one one for 15, one for five or something like that. So just kind of gives them a little opportunity to to put their toe in a few different spots and see which one they’re more passionate about too. So um it really helps us having them around. I would say as part of our central resident team is is about a five hour or so commitment every week with us.Rich Birch — Okay.Pat Gillen — And then we tell them they’re full-time seminary students and they’re part-time with us. So we really want them to have time to focus on education and we believe that’s important.Rich Birch — Right. Right.Pat Gillen — So the way we particularly set that up from a financial standpoint is we actually give them a scholarship to pay for their seminary. Rich Birch — Oh, interesting.Pat Gillen — And then we contribute toward their fundraising and then they raise the remaining of that fundraising on their own. And so ultimately, our church’s commitment is around $15,000 a year per resident… Rich Birch — Wow, that’s great. Pat Gillen — …ah but then they raise an additional amount of money ah for them as well. And then when we have a how housing option, we make that available to them. So I’ve got three houses right now that were parsonages from a church that merged with us. Rich Birch — Right. Pat Gillen — Or a church that we or a house that we bought that’s because we wanted to to get the land next to our church or whatever. And so I’ll I’ll house them in there when that’s available too. So that really does become a ah huge benefit when they start counting the number.Rich Birch — Oh, yeah.Pat Gillen — Yeah.Rich Birch — Yeah, for sure. Well, and you can see where that, you know, that makes a lot of sense. I can see if somebody’s going to seminary, they’re like, okay, I could piece this together. I know there’s like that part of it. And I, you know, I like that, that fundraising piece. I could see, you know, that’s a, that’s, those are helpful skills to kind of work and exercise and, and yeah, the housing, all that. That’s yeah, that’s so good. Good stuff. Rich Birch — Well, when you think about um kind of the future of the program and you’re thinking about where where did this could go, what are some of the questions you’re asking, or you look up over the horizon and you’re thinking, man, it’d be kind of fun to do this someday. It’s not necessarily today. What’s what’s the future look like for this, ah for Upstate? Pat Gillen — Yeah, the future is exciting and scary all at the same time. As we continue to put campuses, ah you the most recent one we’ve been talking to is about an hour away. Rich Birch — Right. Pat Gillen — As we continue to do that and think through how do we develop this program and have leaders in that program, we’ve really got to think next level about that connectivity and making sure that we’re all on the same page and where we’re going to.Pat Gillen — So that’s a big challenge for us for any multi-site churches that are looking into that. I think I would love to learn from them too on how they’re best communicating with one another in that central team and looking at that ah from these guys. Because they won’t really be a part of a central team except for their connection with the residency. So um that’s probably the biggest question mark for us moving forward as we… Rich Birch — Sure, sure. Pat Gillen — …if we get two and three hours away, how do we stay connected? How do we set that up? But it’s exciting as God continues to bring um amazing leaders our way. We’re we’re really still ah learning at this in many ways, but we have 10 residents starting in January… Rich Birch — Wow. Pat Gillen — …and we’ll open up a few more spots next year.Rich Birch — Yep.Pat Gillen — And so we hope to continue to be able to grow that as we move along. Rich Birch — Yep.Rich Birch — That’s great. Man, it’s so exciting. I love it’s been so good to kind of get a little bit of behind the scenes curtain look into this. It’s just so ah we’re behind the curtain look in this. It’s so so exciting. Anything you’d like to share just as we kind of look to wrap up today’s episode?Pat Gillen — Oh man, just my heart to see leaders developed and my heart to see us lean into the next generation is something I feel like, you know, God’s given me a passion for. And certainly just as a challenge for churches if they’re trying to figure out where to start, um they should start with their kids ministry. Rich Birch — Good call.Pat Gillen — They should start with their student ministry. I think sometimes we look for a leader to come in and fix things and we ourselves are not discipling the next generation to be leaders today right now where we are. So my challenge would just be that. I’d be like, hey, you you have what you need in front of you. And the churches that are struggling, the churches that we talk to often that are even closing their doors, are the ones that did not prioritize… Rich Birch — Yep. Pat Gillen — …the next generation and letting them lead. Rich Birch — So good. Pat Gillen — So that’s certainly my challenge and encouragement, yeah. Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s so good. I love a part of what I you love about what you’re saying here is for me, what is strikes me about churches like yours, yours specifically, um who are doing a good job on this residency, you know, thing or developing next generation leaders in even more broader sense is, you know, you’re not thinking about solving today’s problems residents are gonna solve they’re gonna solve some but they’re not gonna solve your January, February problems this year. You know what they are but but what you do know is, man, if we can train some people now and get really strategic about that now and apply effort to that and do that consistently. Man, two years from now, three years from now, four years from now, you’re going to have this pipeline of of of young leaders that you can plug in that, man, that gives you a huge leg up long term. So I just think that’s that’s just so encouraging to see, ah you know, your church you’re really trying to get intentional about this. So so good on you. Great stuff.Pat Gillen — Well, that’s true. One more thought, Rich, is a lot of churches will not have a problem with paying a fee to a hiring firm to get a pastor in. And if you think about what that fee generally costs and you invest that in the next generation instead, you can develop those same leaders… Rich Birch — Yes. Pat Gillen — …for probably less money than you’re paying just somebody else to to bring somebody in. Rich Birch — Oh, absolutely. Like that. Well, that to talk about dirty secrets, like that is the dirty secret. The like man, like we all the reason why and I have friends that are in the kind of search business, like I get it, you know, that want to go and find…Pat Gillen — It’s a great ministry; it’s needed.Rich Birch — It’s very it’s needed, but those people end up hired. And I’ve hired those folks in the past when I’ve like, I’ve got a burning hole right now that I’m like, we have got to solve this problem. But the thing is, those come around with fair regularity, and if we can get ahead of it and think, okay, I don’t know, you know, I don’t know like In four years, I’m going to need more leaders. I know that. I don’t know what they’re goingI don’t know what we’re going to need them to do, but we’re going to need them somewhere. Pat Gillen — Right. Rich Birch — What can we do today to try to even get, like you’re saying, get into student ministry even earlier in the pipeline, starting to think about who are the young leaders? How do we identify them? What can we do? I just love that. That’s so good. Well, Pat, this has been a rich conversation. I really appreciate you ah being here today and helping us through this.Pat Gillen — Yeah.Rich Birch — Where do we want to send people online if they want to connect with you or with the church?Pat Gillen — Yeah. Upstatechurch.org would be a great place. Rich Birch — Love it. Pat Gillen — So I’d love to talk to anybody that wants any help or can help us. That’d be great.Rich Birch — Love it. Thanks so much, Pat. Appreciate you being here today.Pat Gillen — Yeah. Thanks a lot, Rich.

Andy Hill, Executive Pastor at Mobberly Baptist Church, shares insights on maintaining staff alignment in a growing church. He discusses the challenges of managing a dispersed team and emphasizes the importance of intentional weekly meetings that blend spiritual connection and practical planning. Innovative strategies like 'hot seat' sessions foster personal bonds among staff, while resources for self-care and personal reflection are highlighted. Hill urges nurturing spiritual well-being to enhance the church's mission and create community.

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Jay Kranda this week, the online campus pastor at Saddleback Church in California. What are you doing with online church? How does it fit in with your digital strategy? How can digital tools strengthen in-person community? Tune in as Jay discusses a team-based approach to digital integration, how to align digital initiatives with your church’s mission, and avoiding the pitfalls of over-reliance on technology. Be strategic with digital ministry. // Be wise and strategic about how you use the online aspect of your ministry. Streaming services have become a staple in many churches, but Jay advises leaders to consider the purpose behind it. Digital elements should complement rather than replace in-person interactions. Ask your team what they are trying to accomplish and explore how digital can help achieve those objectives. Enhance the church experience. // Jay uses the Alpha Omega tool, a resource for church teams to identify and focus on one digital integration over the next 6 to 12 months. This tool helps in tracking progress and encourages digital involvement from all ministry areas, not just the online pastor. Talk with all your leaders about one way they can use digital to enhance what they’re doing in their ministry areas. It could be as simple as sending parents a text about what their children learned in kids ministry in order to foster family engagement at home. The idea is to enhance the church experience through digital with the goal of helping people produce more fruit in their lives. What is the role of digital in your larger strategy? // One of the significant advantages of digital tools is the ability to engage with newcomers immediately. Instead of relying solely on large events, Saddleback also uses a podcast strategy for connection and support in certain contexts. Determine where your line is when examining what could be done digitally versus in-person. Bring together everyone with influence in your church and discus what you believe needs to happen in the room versus what can be decentralized. Don’t be distracted by trends. // It’s easy to get distracted by all the new digital trends out there. Be aware of the allure of “silver bullet” tech solutions where a single app or tool is seen as the answer to all ministry problems. Focus on tools that align with your church’s overall strategy and objectives. Avoid replicating what others are doing without considering its fit for your specific community. Enhancing discipleship. // Jay’s book, Online Church is Not the Answer: Beyond Just Streaming Church to Hybrid Disciple Making, delves deeper into these concepts, urging church leaders to move beyond merely streaming services and instead use digital platforms to enhance discipleship. Pick up copies for your team and discuss how to embrace digital in your various areas and determine how it fits with your church’s objectives. Visit jaykranda.com for a hybrid disciple making starter guide, information on his book Online Church is Not the Answer: Beyond Just Streaming Church to Hybrid Disciple Making, and more helpful resources. EXTRA CREDIT // Level Up Your Church’s Digital Ministry: Exclusive Resource! Are you ready to transform your church’s digital presence? In this episode, we’ve tapped into the wisdom of Jay Kranda, Saddleback’s Online Pastor, to help you expand your reach and engage your congregation online. But listening alone won’t get you there. We’ve crafted a downloadable guide to take this learning further and turn it into action. Introducing the 10 Essential Tools for Church Digital Ministry, a resource designed to give you the step-by-step tools to engage, grow, and serve your community more effectively online. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to fine-tune your digital strategy, this guide will help you make the shift and keep your church moving forward. Don’t miss out—unlock your church’s digital potential today by downloading this resource through unSeminary Extra Credit. Grab it 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! 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 have a repeat guest today, which if you’re a longtime listener, you know, that just does not happen that often. And the reason why is because you are going to want to lean in and listen to ah this conversation. And I think it’s going to just have huge impact on you and your ministry. It’s asking one of those questions that literally I get all the time. This is not theoretical. This is this is like a real conversation that’s impacting churches today.Rich Birch — Excited to have Jay Kranda with us. He is a part of a church you may have heard before, Saddleback Church, ah which was planted by Rick and Kay Warren. Their first public service was in 1980. They have 14 locations in California, Spanish locations, five locations internationally, and a robust online community. This is why we’re talking with Jay today. He is the online campus pastor, has helped build an online community of thousands viewers thousands of viewers weekly, hundreds of online groups in small to mid-size in-person gatherings who are just connected with Saddleback. This is really incredible. He has a website, jkranda.com. Jay, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.Jay Kranda — Thanks for having me on. I’m, I’m excited to be back. I’m, I’m excited that I’m one of the few repeat. So I’ll put that on my trophy case.Rich Birch — Yeah, it does not happen that often. So I knew, ah you know, I wanted to get you back on. So I’m honored that you’re you’re here. Let’s kind of catch people up before we, well, first of all, what did I miss on the just bio? What was it, you know, what did I miss about you or about, ah you know, Saddleback that we need to make sure people are aware of?Jay Kranda — Yeah, I I would just say at a high level, you know, we are a, um you know, obviously a very big church, but we’re all also very practical in the sense that we’re always trying to be, um you know, even big organizations have limited resources in the sense we have to be super narrow and focused.Jay Kranda — So one thing that I think most people don’t understand is When we’re doing something, we’re trying to align it with our objectives pretty clearly. So even online has been this, and because I’ve been, you you know, the online pastor full time since 2013… Rich Birch — That’s old school. Jay Kranda — …um, there’s been waves of what does that look like pre COVID, during COVID, now post COVID. Rich Birch — Yep. Jay Kranda — And so I would probably add that we’re pretty practical and dogmatic with like how we think about digital. And, uh, it’s been fun. And a lot has changed even as we’ve transitioned from our founding pastor to our our new pastor, Pastor Andy, and it’s it’s been a fun fun journey. Rich Birch — Yeah, I love it. I’d actually love to start there. You were on ah before the transition to Andy, who we’ve also had on the podcast. Love him. He’s a great leader. And it’s been, I’ve said to him and other members of your team, I I love as an outsider cheering for you guys in that transition. And it’s like, man, so much of what ah he and Rick, you know, not surprising, world-class leaders have done such a good job in the handoff. But what about in your area? What is your diagnosis on like, here’s a few things that have changed or shifted in our approach under Andy rather than under Rick. Jay Kranda — Yeah, you know, the thing that I I always notice with Pastor Rick was Rick was always a believer in um using technology to accomplish the objective. But I think at times Rick was an anti-technology. He just was probably, you you had to convince him it was a good idea because um probably because of when he was born, he had seen a lot of things come and go. Rich Birch — Right. Jay Kranda — And, um, and so with, he he was never against what we were doing. He was just, okay, we got to prove it. And so I think there was a little bit of a generational, like, okay, the great idea. Let’s see if it delivers. Rich Birch — Right. Jay Kranda — Where I’ve noticed with, uh, Andy, because he is younger, you know, he’s in his early forties. We’re only separated by a couple of years. I’m only a couple of years younger than him. He is more in the, in the arena like he just kind of uses technology and he gets it. And so it’s been really interesting to watch somebody that’s maybe grown up around it in a very different way where it’s not a, you know… Rich Birch — That’s good. Jay Kranda — …I know this with my kids, you know, I have a 13 year old, 11 year old and an 8 year old, you know, I’m not gonna be arguing why the internet is a thing. Like they’re not even gonna have a concept of what the internet is because it will just be like the air they breathe. Rich Birch — Yes. Jay Kranda — And with Andy, it was more of just the air he breathes. And so I just noticed, like for example, like a big thing with Saddleback starting in the eighties, we were one of the first churches on the internet. We were one of the first churches in the early 2000s to stream. But we did it primarily as a, uh, it accomplished like, for example, we started streaming in the early 2000s because we have a location in Orange County. People go to John Wayne and travel for work during the week or the weekend. And we wanted to just provide this very simple, uh, supplement. Jay Kranda — I think now what we’re seeing more and more, and this started under Rick, but I think Andy more just believes like, hey, you know our job is not to ah get people in a building, our job is to produce fruit in people’s lives. Rich Birch — Amen. Jay Kranda — So can digital enhance that objective? Rich Birch — Right. Jay Kranda — And so it’s and it’s almost like, and we can get into this, but one of the things I always kind of encourage church leaders is this idea that you’re asking your people to do a lot at a base level. Like come on Sunday, serve in a ministry, maybe be part of a Bible study or group. Then they’re probably bringing their kids to things. And then anytime you add another thing, that’s another thing on top of their work, their marriage. Rich Birch — Right. Jay Kranda — And the question is, does it need to be another, hypothetically, does it need to be another event in your building? (Let’s say, as as an example.) Rich Birch — Right. Right. Right. Jay Kranda — Or could a deliverable be a digital experience? And those are the things I’d like to bring up. Like, I think, for example, I don’t think the core physical experience is ever going anywhere, but I do think digital can be laid on top of things in such a way, if the objective isn’t just to fill a room. And I always like to challenge, like, I think there’s a lot of things we do as churches, like we just always run the same play because we’ve always run it. Rich Birch — Right. Jay Kranda — But maybe like, for example, like a great example is this podcast. Like you could do a in-person event. Rich Birch — Right. Jay Kranda — Or you could do a podcast… Rich Birch — Right. Jay Kranda — …and maybe in some cases the in-person event’s super valuable, or maybe the monthly podcast or the weekly podcast is a better deliverable. Rich Birch — Right. Jay Kranda — And so I think I’ve just noticed more of the question of like, can we use digital this way… Rich Birch — Oh, it’s good. Jay Kranda — …while also keeping the in-person experience as kind of maybe our core kind of thing we offer. Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. Well, man, it’s so good. There’s a bunch there I want to dig into. But before we get there, I want to frame up the conversation a little bit. So friends, if you’ve been listening in to the podcast, you know, it’s actually very rarely have authors of books on like, I get people all the time reach out to me and are like, I got this book. And like and it’s like, oh, I’ve really been lit paying attention to your podcast. I’m like, yeah, that’s not true. I know why you’re coming on. Like, I know that. Rich Birch — Jay has a book that just came out that I wanted to get him on the podcast, and I want to be really explicit about this, because I think every church leader that’s listening in should pick up copies of this book. Rich Birch — This question of what are we doing with online church? How does this fit in? It’s like, if it’s not top of mind, it’s like in the top five questions that I keep hearing people wrestling with. And so his book, so what I’m hoping is you’ll listen in, well there’ll be some helpful stuff in here, but the outcome I’m going to ask each of you to take is to buy 10 or 15 of these, put it on your list for, it might have to be 2025, kind of your next reading round with your team. And wrestle through and get more clarity on why your church is doing this. So the name of the book is Online Church is Not the Answer—fascinating when I saw this with the title of your book… Jay Kranda — I know. Rich Birch — …ah Beyond Just Streaming Church to Hybrid Disciple Disciple Making, I think, and that’s Jay Kranda. So what I want to do is is dig into this. Let’s start with that opening volley question. So what do what we’re thinking in-person versus how do these tools, how do these digital tools, how can they strengthen in-person community and not just run in some sort of parallel ministry? Jay Kranda — Yeah, so I think at a high level, and and I’m kind of obviously, I’m playing around with ah with my title in a very direct way. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Jay Kranda — And I was afraid I was afraid I was going to lose some of my friends in this space. Rich Birch — Oh. Kenny wouldn’t like you anymore. Jay Kranda — Like yeah, Kenny, Kenny, Kenny wouldn’t like me. Uh, Dave wouldn’t like me. Rich Birch — Yeah. Dave Adamson. Jay Kranda — I would have, I’ve all sorts of friends. There’s a, there’s a, I have a couple of friends that I will say that I feel they haven’t texted me back as quickly. Rich Birch — That’s funny. Love it. Jay Kranda — So, um, and so, um, but I, I, but I, so to me, one of the things that I just noticed is I am a strong proponent of, and I think it’s really hard for anybody to argue against this, that in-person ministry is the, is at the top of the experiences. So I use this example in my um and my book that I got from another friend, um this idea that digital should be used as the way you use digital in a relationship or in your marriage. Jay Kranda — So like my wife and I, we text, send each other reels and we’re constantly interacting. I was just traveling earlier this week and you know I text her an emoji when I landed in Texas… Rich Birch — Yep. Jay Kranda — …and we’re texting, but I come home to her. Rich Birch — That’s good. Jay Kranda — And the reason is because I think our primary way that our relationship should function is proximity based. And I think that that is a, that’s a good illustration that um digital, that’s how you should think about using digital… Rich Birch — Right. Jay Kranda — …and any technology in the context of your geo type of ah strategy of a church. And so like, yes, don’t be afraid of digital, use it in a way to enhance, but always come back to the primary expression, which is in-person. Rich Birch — I love that. Jay Kranda — And, but I also am very aware that digital can get in the way of our relationship. I can send the wrong texts. I can look at the wrong thing online. I can get disconnected. Like there’s all these things. Rich Birch — Right. Jay Kranda — And so you got to be aware of this tool. It’s both a something we got to wield very wisely and strategically. And so to me, I, this is where like, there are a lot of cool things that are happening online. Jay Kranda — But I also like when somebody does a story like we we launched a couple a year ago, we launched a virtual reality service online. And the problem is with that is we did it because we have somebody in our community that builds VR spaces. We didn’t have to spend a dime. Rich Birch — Right. Jay Kranda — And but everybody wants to talk to me about it. And and I’m like, I’m like, our VR ministry is not for everybody. Rich Birch — Right. Jay Kranda — It’s for like the one, one-percenters. Rich Birch — Right, right. Jay Kranda — And the average church shouldn’t be thinking about this. Rich Birch — No, yeah, yeah, that’s good. Jay Kranda — Because really VR is just modern day evangelists. That’s all it is.Rich Birch — Right, right. Yeah, it’s so fringe. Jay Kranda — And so they want to look at guys doing this or and and don’t don’t get distracted. Rich Birch — Yeah. Jay Kranda — So with with kind of what I lay out some tools and I have I have this on my website too if somebody doesn’t want to buy it. But like one of the one of the things with this is to kind of go, okay, getting your team together and going, okay, everybody on the team, if it’s staff, volunteers, whoever, what are we trying to do with our team, our ministry? And going, okay, our primarily, this is what we’re trying to do. The question is, can digital help with that outcome? Rich Birch — Right. Oh, good, good, good. Jay Kranda — And so it’s being very practical. And healthy 100% digital integration doesn’t mean replacing physical. It just means it’s integrated. Jay Kranda — So I have this example that um I was like with our kids ministry. Like if you look at most kids ministries at church, the healthy, a hundred percent healthy digital integration into kids ministry is not canceling your in-person programming on the weekend And during the week. Rich Birch — Right. Jay Kranda — Of course, of course. Ah during, even during COVID, um, my kids, I’m here in Southern California and we were like crazy locked down during COVID. I remember when our kids ministry launched Zoom groups during COVID… Rich Birch — Love it. …I didn’t want to do it. Rich Birch — No? Jay Kranda — Because my, because my, my kids were on Zoom all week… Rich Birch — Right, right Jay Kranda — …for school. Rich Birch — Yeah. Don’t need more Zoom. Jay Kranda — And I told, and I remember one of my friends was like, Jay, how are you not like, you’re the, online… I go, no, no, no, it’s a balance. Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah. That’s good. Jay Kranda — It’s a, I believe in it, but when they’re on Zoom all week, like I don’t want, I, I, you know, and so we figured out some other things. So like a practical example is… Rich Birch — Yep. Jay Kranda — …like I remember I had a I had this moment where my my daughter was, I was talking to my wife about something I was learning in my own devotion time and it was about the flood and there’s something cool I read in a commentary and my wife kind of like glazed over. Like she didn’t care about, she like jokingly didn’t care about something I thought was cool. Rich Birch — Yeah.Jay Kranda — And she said, but do you know your daughter just learned about the flood in um our kids small group this past week. Rich Birch — Oh, wow. That’s cool. Jay Kranda — And I had this realization that I had no idea what my kids learn in our kids small group. Rich Birch — Right. Jay Kranda — And I actually, I went to our kids pastor at the time and I said, Hey, have you thought about maybe monthly or weekly sending a text to every parent of a talking point? Rich Birch — That’s good. Jay Kranda — Like, hey, you’re your kid just learned about this. Here’s one question you can ask to engage. And so I bring that up as as as an example. The digital technology integration for our kids ministry could be a simple texting plan, like strategy. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Jay Kranda — It doesn’t need to be, you’re going full YouTube and you’re introducing, you know, VR chat and no, no, no, no. It’s a very simple integration. And so part of it is going, telling all your leaders from staff to volunteer, what is a simple integration that can enhance what you’re doing? Rich Birch — That’s good. Jay Kranda — And this is the flip side. Everybody thinks digital is going to transform everything. No, no, no. Some things will be transformed and some things will be enhanced. A taxi industry was transformed by digital because of Uber. Rich Birch — Right. Jay Kranda — The hotel industry was enhanced. You still go to a hotel… Rich Birch — Right. Jay Kranda — …just your experience has been enhanced. Rich Birch — Yep. Jay Kranda — And so I think the church experience is not being transformed. I think it’s being enhanced. And it’s just, what are the small little things that we can do to really focus on your objective? And I think there are things you can integrate that are really simple and help you do more of what you need to do. Rich Birch — Love it. Love that. I had a friend, we were talking about apps in the church and they said something very similar, just a different way to frame exactly what you were saying. They were like, you know, Starbucks doesn’t think about their, you can’t get coffee from the Starbucks app that, you know, like you can’t, you don’t go to your phone and like beep, beep, beep. And then, you know, ah whatever mochaccino comes out or whatever. You know, Carmel Macchiato, that’s not what happens. ah But the app makes the in-person, in their case, delivering coffee makes it better, more efficient. It solves problems. It makes that a better experience. And this this church leader was saying, that’s really what we’re trying to think with our app. We’re not trying to replace the, you know, the in-person. But we do want an app that will end up improving that experience.Rich Birch — So help us frame this. Let’s double click on that idea of like, Hey, we’re trying to in, in use a digital tool, the drive that. You give some good examples there. Let’s think of the church of like a thousand people. You know, maybe I’m an executive pastor listening in and like, there’s a guy, there’s like a 23 year old who oversees this stuff. And how do I, how do I help that person discern what would be a few things that we should be thinking about? Rich Birch — Cause I think so many of us got streaming our services and we just did it before whatever reason, but we’re not sure what kind of the, you know, what would, should some of these steps look like? What could, what could be a couple examples of things that churches of that size should be kind of wrestling through? Jay Kranda — Yeah, I think one of the best exercises as like a team, a leadership team potentially is to figure out where your line is of what you are more open to be done digitally and what should happen in person. I think everybody’s line is going to be a little different. And so II usually kind of like one of the helpful exercises that I kind of lay out is um getting everybody that has influence in your church um in the same room and kind of going, Hey, like, here’s here’s what we believe needs to happen in the room and here are the things that we believe we can decentralize. Jay Kranda — And I think sometimes just having a very honest conversation about it, like we had this conversation during COVID and I remember like I had one of our senior leaders who’s a super wise dude. he I remember we were talking about moving our, ah we were exploring at the time, ah stop printing our programs and moving to a, digital program. Rich Birch — Yep. Jay Kranda — And we’re having this tension because we were kind of being forced because of COVID and some of the restrictions. Rich Birch — Right. Jay Kranda — And I remember we were going to kind of move more to a digital app strategy. And one of our senior leaders said, um he said, I just don’t want to encourage people to pull out their phones in church because they’re going to start doing other things. And… Rich Birch — Interesting. Jay Kranda — And I, it was a good thought… Rich Birch — Right. That’s an issue. Yep. Jay Kranda — …like it is a, it is a thought. And I, so and I, I just push back. And I bring this up as an example, because you need to have these conversations. so everybody understands the role of digital in your larger strategy. But I said, I go, I go, I totally understand that. I go, but what if, what if we don’t treat the phone or the device as like this plague that’s ruining them, but we actually talk about it in a way to help them have better discipline with it. Jay Kranda — So like, for example, I’ve seen some churches do this and we’ve stole this like, Hey, by the way, you know, we have, we have this, we have some notes in front of you, or you can download our app. Hey, I want to encourage you, if you open up your app, can you put your phone on do not disturb and just zero in the next one hour. Rich Birch — That’s good. Jay Kranda — And I know it’s going to be easy to go add something to your card on target or Amazon, but just, to you know, right, right now, just put your phone or do not disturb, but you can use this. But use it to help them reign that device in like. And so I think we need to have these questions around how do we think about this? Rich Birch — Right. Jay Kranda — And like, for example, like very practically. Um, we like a funny example would be like, uh, we’re, we’re a church that believes baptism is by full immersion. That’s one of our convictions. We’re never going to do an online baptism. And so like, like I I’m, I’m not going to argue against what somebody’s doing online. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, you’re not dissing the people that do that, you know, yeah. Jay Kranda — But like, I know my lines. Like even like simple things like communion, all these things, you got to figure out what are the things that… Rich Birch — Right. Jay Kranda — And this is where like a younger person can bring those things. And if you can have an open dialogue about the role of digital, and I lay out some things in, in kind kind of the resource to kind of think about this. Like, where’s the line? Rich Birch — Right, right. Jay Kranda — And to go, and then you might find out, like, one of the things I really encourage younger leaders especially is, you you want you want an older leader to give you all the authority right away. And I would encourage you to prove yourself in small ways that you can… Rich Birch — Right, take some steps. Jay Kranda — Because because ultimately you’re a steward of your pastor or your elder board’s vision. And you got to function under that leadership. Rich Birch — Right. Jay Kranda — And so I’ve done this where I’ve proven myself in small ways over years, and I’ve been entrusted with more. And so this is where it’s like, sometimes the young leader wants to do all this crazy stuff. And I would just say, take small steps. So I think having a, a really honest conversation where the lines are, and then I would even encourage, even if that conversation doesn’t go right. Rich Birch — Right. Jay Kranda — Check in. Rich Birch — Oh, good. Yeah, I love that. Jay Kranda — Like you check in like six months, a year later and go, what has moved? Because I’ve noticed that I’ve seen things my church changed their mind on… Rich Birch — Right. Jay Kranda — …stuff that I pitched a long time ago. Rich Birch — Right. Jay Kranda — And I’m like, Oh my goodness. And I could be like, I could be whiny about it. Or I can be like, Oh no, because we were faithful in these areas, stuff has grown. Jay Kranda — So I think that’s one area. And then, and then I I just think at a high level, one of the biggest things is figuring out what the real win is. So like, for example, Like I think a lot of churches are, are talking about this idea of the role of streaming your church services. Jay Kranda — Like what, why do we do this? How do we do this? I think practically you don’t need to stream everything. Rich Birch — Right, right. Jay Kranda — You can stream one thing; you can let’s talk about that. And, and then how do you drive those people to take next steps? But those are some of the outside of having, you know, I have this Alpha Omega tool where I encourage every, every team to kind of think about one integration over the next six to 12 months. And then you kind of track that. And I think that’s one of the more helpful things is to get, um, every team member, every volunteer thinking about digital integrations. Jay Kranda — Cause that’s, that’s the one thing I’ll say, Rich… Rich Birch — Yep. Jay Kranda — …that drives me crazy is when you hire an online pastor, which is not a lot of us, that’s not a normal thing. Rich Birch — Yeah. Get them to think about it. None of us need to think about it now. Jay Kranda — Yeah, yeah, nobody else has to think about it. And I go, we have, I’m an online pastor at my church because we’re one of the largest churches in the world. Rich Birch — Yeah.Jay Kranda — Like the average church is not going to have an online pastor… Rich Birch — Yep, yep, yep. Jay Kranda — …doesn’t need an online pastor. I just need the, I just… Rich Birch — Shots fired. Jay Kranda — I know. I need the kids pastor, the student pastor, the executive pastor, the secretary, whoever they see, I need them thinking about digital. Rich Birch — Yes. This is so good. Dude, that’s good. Jay Kranda — And not, and not outsource it to one team member. Rich Birch — Yeah. Love it. Jay Kranda — And I need all the volunteer teams. Rich Birch — Yes. Jay Kranda — Like I need everybody. Because honestly, and that’s half of my job now is like, I’m trying to paint that vision of like, let’s think bigger than just, Hey, Jay does that in his team. Rich Birch — Right. Jay Kranda — Cause I think that’s the future. Rich Birch — Right. They’ll Jay will tell us; Jay will figure it out. Jay Kranda — I know. Rich Birch — Yeah. I love that. And that’s a part of why I’m encouraging people to pick up copies of the book. Cause I think that’s actually a much more compelling position… Jay Kranda — Yes. Rich Birch — …which is how do we find, how do we embrace digital in our various areas? All of us saying, okay, what’s our, where how does this fit in what we’re doing? What’s that look like? um And this could be a way to kind of encourage that. One of the things you talk about in the book, one of my core convictions of a leader is that one of the definitions, the things we do, is we leave things better than we found them. That are, by definition, you know, are you leading? It’s like, well, things should actually be getting better. You’re you’re taking people from where they are to a more desired future. That is kind of its core with leaders. Rich Birch — And you really talk about, ah you know, always be improving, looking for ways to, you know, how do we, you know, kind of keep on top of our strategy, keep it fresh, keep it improving, like looking at like, what should we be doing different? Talk us through what that looks like. How do we balance the like, we want to improve, do a better job on this front versus we’re constantly chasing the latest, you know, silver bullet, you know, the latest. Do all of us really need to be on TikTok, and whatever came after TikTok? You know, how do we, how do we, bring how do we brace, you know, kind of work through that? And this feels like a tension in this area. Jay Kranda — Yeah, there I I I just came from a tech conference, a church tech conference, and and it was a really good one, but I I was funny. I was sitting on like the conference floor… Rich Birch — Yep. Jay Kranda — …kind of where they had all the booths, and I kept hearing all these pitches, you know… Rich Birch — Yep. Jay Kranda — …things.Jay Kranda — And I understand the role of that. Rich Birch — Yep. Jay Kranda — But I really have disliked the save your tech model of if you get this app or get this thing, it’s going to solve all your church’s problems. Rich Birch — All your problems. Yeah. That’s just not true. Jay Kranda — And I think the answer is, that’s not going to happen most likely. Rich Birch — Right. Jay Kranda — I think it will solve a problem if it’s a problem for your church. Rich Birch — Yep. Jay Kranda — But I saw this with, um you know, we were one of the first churches um to get an app, a mobile app. And I remember hearing some of these pictures how the mobile app is going to like help you do this, this, this, this. And I was just like, really, a lot of our apps are just media players. Like the YouTube app can do the same thing. Rich Birch — Right, right. Jay Kranda — And, and I, that’s an exaggeration… Rich Birch — Yep. Jay Kranda — …but I think to think the average church needs a media player that’s, that’s, you know, folded into an app. No, like that doesn’t solve problems. And so I think first I, and I, and I think this is why it gets distracting. There are so many things that we need to be doing. and so many new trends that um it’s easy for us to get clicks or say the thing like, this is going to save you. This is going to, if you buy this thing, it’s going to, you know, AI. Like if you, if you use AI, it’s going to help you do this. And I’m like, yeah, if it aids in your objective, like. Jay Kranda — And so this is where like one of the things is I think church leaders, unfortunately, you know, one of the, one of the strengths of the internet is an abundance of information, but the weakness of that is that it’s super distracting. And so I think church leaders leaders have to be more focused on their target on their objectives. And so like the problem is it’s really easy for you to copy and paste what I’m doing. But the problem is that might not work um in Florida, in Washington, in Canada. Like you have to know. And so the platforms that are relevant to me may be different. Jay Kranda — And so this is the the strains we’re the strange aspect of the internet is that we’re connected to everybody, but we’re more segmented than ever. Rich Birch — Right, right. Jay Kranda — And it’s it’s a really, I mean, you you see this with TV shows and movies, it’s really hard to get people to go to the movies now. Rich Birch — Right. Jay Kranda — The type of viewers that are showing up to the movies or even watching TV shows is a fraction of what it used to be back in the day, because it’s so distracting. You can just go on YouTube or TikTok or Instagram. Attention is the new kind of scarcity type of thing. And so I say that like, I would encourage any church leader, like do not get distracted by the new thing, but ask the question, okay, if we get on TikTok, hypothetically, how is that helping us? Rich Birch — Right. Jay Kranda — Where does that help in our methodology of how we’re producing disciples? And this is where I’m going. Yeah, like I believe in being on those platforms. But I believe on it because of my church’s strategy and our objectives. Rich Birch — Right, right. Jay Kranda — And so like for a very practical example, um I I’m I’m the online pastor of my church. I have a community of people that engage online and we also start house churches connected to our online stream. I’m not on TikTok, I’m on Instagram. Rich Birch — Right. Jay Kranda — And I zero in just on Instagram. And there’s reasons for that. And, and so now could I easily duplicate our strategy on TikTok? Rich Birch — Sure. Jay Kranda — Yeah, I could, but I’m not because I don’t believe, um, that’s where my community, I would rather have a hundred percent of my people on Instagram. Then 60, 30 kind of split it between two. Rich Birch — Right. Jay Kranda — Now that doesn’t mean TikTok isn’t a bad platform, but I’ve made this strategic decision to introduce a little bit of scarcity of our time and our kind of our platform. And so this is why it’s tough is that there will always be something new around the corner another device, another thing and I think you just got to be super focused. And but the the the I I’ll say it this way that the crappy part of this is the average pastor doesn’t get to think about this stuff. Rich Birch — Right, right. Jay Kranda —Like they just don’t have the bandwidth. And this is why this is why um I I wish we could be better at being honest about what the thing delivers. Jay Kranda — This this is why, for example, I have an iPhone 13 and not an iPhone 16… Rich Birch — Right. Jay Kranda —…because my 13 does 95% of what the iPhone 16 does. Rich Birch — Yes. Ouch. Ouch. You’re sounding like an old man, Jay. You’re sounding like an old man. Just kidding. Just kidding. Jay Kranda — I know, no, and I know, I know, I know I I am, and I I am aware that, you know, I think the older you get, you do have to be more aware that maybe I could get a little bit more, uh, you know, grounded in my own history. Rich Birch — No, no, I’m just kidding. Jay Kranda — But I think you got to ask, like, of course it would be fun to have that. It’s funny. My, my, we just got our oldest, his first phone. He’s about to turn 14. And he has an iPhone 15. Rich Birch — Love it. Jay Kranda — And I had to have this real conversation with myself internally. Like, does it really bother me that my son has a better phone than me? Rich Birch — Or what does it say about me that it bothers me? Jay Kranda — Yeah, I know, I know. Rich Birch — And that’s the question I would be, yeah, yeah, exactly. Jay Kranda — And I’m like, so I keep, but it’s funny, like, like my, my internal dialogue, that’s dumb. Like, no, like I’ll just get a phone. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Jay Kranda — Cause we were going to upgrade, but I haven’t seen this. But like the, I say all this like fun and games, but I think it’s like, don’t just get the new thing cause it’s a new thing. Rich Birch — Yeah, don’t get to get the latest thing. Jay Kranda — Like, does it move your strategy forward? And and that’s hard. It’s hard. It’s even hard for me at times to navigate. B ut I provide some things to kind of outline, to kind of think about that more strategically. Rich Birch — Well, and yeah, this is true on, you know, this is listen, I’ve had that a version of that conversation with a lot of church leaders where um I’m and this is I i get now i’ll it’ll be take my turn to sound like the crabby old man. But like, so many churches will be like, man, we need to get—and it’s like whatever the latest thing is—like the app, the whatever, whatever everybody’s thinking about. But then I’ll come back to him like, yeah, but like, what are you doing with your new here guest data that you collect every single weekend? Like people show up to your church and they fill out a card, or they fill out some online form. Are you leveraging that? Like, how about we start with the kind of low hanging fruit, stuff that’s right in front of you while we’re also looking at all this other, um you know, kind of the latest thing. Jay Kranda — Which like one of the most ah compelling reasons to move to a more digital type of um program or next step in your service is before, for example, somebody fills out a response card or whatever you call it at your church. Rich Birch — Right. Yeah. Jay Kranda — Somebody would have a card. Then that would have to go to some volunteer that documents it, maybe puts it on an Excel spreadsheet or something. And then that information gets to a team and hypothetically if you’re really quick, maybe you’re doing it on Sunday afternoon or Sunday evening. Or maybe in some cases, a lot of churches Monday or even Tuesday, because they take Monday off Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. Yeah. Jay Kranda — But one of the things we got to do when we went to primarily digital in this moment, like, Hey, scan this or go here and fill it out. We get to say stuff like… and Pastor Andy’s like a master at this. But We get to say, hey, if you fill out this response code right now, by the time you get to your car… Rich Birch — Love it. Jay Kranda — …we’re going to have the information in your inbox. Rich Birch — Love it.Jay Kranda — And like that. So why did we go to a digital program? Not because we’re scared of COVID, not because of whatever. And yeah, did we save money on printing every week? Rich Birch — Sure. Jay Kranda — Yeah, we did. But primarily it was because if we moved to digital, we can respond to them immediately. Rich Birch — Yep. Yeah. Love it. Jay Kranda — That’s a compelling reason to do that. Rich Birch — Yep. For sure. Jay Kranda — And so I think you gotta you gotta think, what are the areas that are compelling? Like like i I tell this story in the book of like, we ah we had this big parents event and um and this is kind of like a famous story internally at Saddleback where we we wanted to encourage parents to raise biblical kids and do all this stuff. But we planned this big of event. It happened on a but on a Saturday and it kinda, it was a dud. It didn’t go well. Rich Birch — Okay, okay. Jay Kranda — And we kinda had this big internal, kind of conversation around, well, we’re asking parents to come on Sunday, serve in a ministry, be part of a group. Rich Birch — Right. Jay Kranda — They also have kids activity. They’re married. They’re doing… Like maybe doing a Saturday morning event… Rich Birch — Yeah. Jay Kranda — …isn’t the great deliverable. And because there are other priorities, um, maybe the deliverable shouldn’t be a twice a year big event. And we actually decided to move that event to a podcast strategy. Rich Birch — Right. Love it. Love it. Jay Kranda — And, and, and again, podcasts are not the savior. Rich Birch — Yes. Jay Kranda — I know like so many people are doing podcasts, but I would go like, that’s a very, like maybe, like, I think there are a lot of affinity type of strategies at churches, like men’s women’s podcast, single, single pay, like you can do a monthly or a couple of times a year, but maybe a podcast or some kind of group experience, um, could be a good deliverable. Jay Kranda — And that’s where I go like that’s where digital can enhance the strategy, doesn’t have to completely transform it. But those are the type of things um and then this is why I will say I want to get everybody in the room together to kind of walk through what the lines are… Rich Birch — Let’s talk about it. Jay Kranda — …because you need more people pulling triggers and figuring out what are the integrations that make sense. Rich Birch — That’s good. Jay Kranda — And you as the senior leader cannot be the one figuring this out. I do not have all the answers. Rich Birch — Right. Right. But if you get trust me I know there are people small business owners or you know large business owners that at attend your church. They’re thinking about this and they might have a really good idea. ah to help you integrate digital and technology in a very strategic way. I’m always being introduced to new stuff and I’m like, Oh, I had no idea. Rich Birch — Right. Jay Kranda — But again, this is where like, if you’re the curator and you’re the one only figuring out the answers… Rich Birch — Right. Jay Kranda — …I think your strategy can be very limited, but you got to empower more people. And this is why this is why having an exercise where you get everybody in your room, you talk about this, and you go through the Alpha Omega tool and you kind of think about it. You’re going to have a lot of cool ideas. And and that’s what I try to encourage is get everybody engaged in thinking about integrations. Rich Birch — So good. So good. Well, as as you can see, friends, this is why I want to encourage you to pick up copies. Obviously you can get it at Amazon and and, you know, Jay’s website and stuff, which we’ll come to you in in a minute. But any kind of final words, just as we’re looking to land today’s episode, that you want to make sure that, you know, leaders think about this whole area, um you know, of digital strategy, church online streaming, all that stuff. Jay Kranda — Yeah, I would say one of the things is I would really encourage you to, especially as church leaders, one of the things is that church leaders, we tend to be a good at preserving the truth. It’s part of the strength of Christianity. Like we we kind of have preserved the truth. But at the same time on the flip side, we have a long history of killing people when we introduce too much change at once. Rich Birch — Okay. Jay Kranda — And I think it’s very natural to revolt against change. I think there’s reasons why we preserve things. So I say that like, I think some of the internal muscles that ah Christianity has is that we don’t adapt sometimes quick quick enough. And I say this as, there are tools and technology and things you might need to use at your church that may not be your preference, but it may be the preference of the people you’re trying to interact with or reach. Rich Birch — That’s good. Jay Kranda — And I say that like, I get it. Like like I watch this with my own kids. There are things they do even with the generation difference between us. Like I don’t really love how much they scroll on YouTube. Like like they scroll so quick. And I’m constantly ah like, I’m like, Oh my goodness. They have the spazziest brains sometimes because of these 30 seconds, 60 second clips. But I also am aware, like I have on the flip is the people I’m trying to reach that might be how they’re wired. And there might be opportunities for me to, I need to adapt. Jay Kranda — I’m way more adapt to make stuff that’s 30 minutes long versus 60 seconds long. And I might need to adapt if that’s my thing. And so I would say try to focus on what are the people you’re trying to reach. Um, and even if you’re less digitally savvy and you’re less on new tech, again, I kind of jokingly say this, if, if Paul, uh, Paul got Timothy circumcised for the sake of the gospel, I think we can use some tech and digital in a way that, uh, that I know that’s going to be the lasting thing. Rich Birch — Yes, that’s good. That’s the quote. Jay Kranda — I think we can use some things that we’re a little uncomfortable with. Rich Birch — Yes. Jay Kranda — So I would encourage you for, for the sake of the gospel. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good, so good. Well, friends, you can see why I think you really should be tracking with Jay and picking up a copy. I said Amazon, are there anywhere else where we want to ah you know encourage people to pick up copies of this book? Jay Kranda — Yeah. So you can get on Amazon and Apple books. There’s also an Audible version… Rich Birch — Oh, nice. Jay Kranda — …that you can go through. And then the Audible, I do provide a PDF… Rich Birch — Great. Jay Kranda — …so that all the graphs and tools you can follow along. I also sell some team bundles. If you wanted, uh, the MP3 and kind of a PDF, I sell some team bundles on my website that are way more affordable as well. Rich Birch — Oh, nice. Yeah. Jay Kranda — But thank you, Rich. You’re, you’re, you’re like a life coach too. You’re super encouraging. So thank you for, uh, I love this. I love, I love being on. Rich Birch — Well, I appreciate you. What would give us your web address again? Jay Kranda — Yeah, jkranda.com, j-a-ykranda.com. Rich Birch — Okay. Great. Thanks so much. I really appreciate being here and I hope, uh, you know, wish you the best and, uh, you know, just thank you for what, for all you’re doing both at Saddleback and in this part of your world. You could just be working away on your own thing and the fact that you’re trying to help people, I really appreciate that. So thanks so much, Jay.