unSeminary Podcast

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast during our All About Multisite month. Today we’re talking with David Ashcraft, CEO and President of the Global Leadership Network (GLN), and former Senior Pastor of LCBC Church in Pennsylvania. Are you wrestling with growing pains as your church multiplies? How does an expanding multisite church keep its vision clear and equip its staff and leaders? Tune in as David shares his invaluable experience leading a thriving multisite church and now, leading an organization that is equipping leaders worldwide to make a lasting impact. From rural roots to statewide reach. // David recounts LCBC’s growth from a church of 150 people in Manheim, Pennsylvania, to over 25,000 attendees across 19 campuses in the state. A major turning point was the township’s refusal to allow further expansion of their original campus, leading LCBC to embrace the multisite model in the early 2000s. Be the gatekeeper of the vision. // Clarity of vision and consistent messaging are critical for keeping a growing church aligned. Vision leaks and leaders must repeat the core mission often and creatively to keep it alive. Weave the vision naturally into communication, culture, and decision-making. David served as the gatekeeper for the vision, helping the church discern between “good” opportunities and those which truly aligned with their mission. One key filtering approach was the 90/10 rule: LCBC aimed to excite 90% of their people and accept that 10% might be unhappy. This mindset protected the church from trying to please everyone and allowed leaders to stay focused on their mission. Take strategic risks. // Young leaders sometimes want to try new ideas that could be detrimental to try throughout the whole church. David advocates for testing innovative ideas on a small scale—at one campus—before rolling them out church-wide. This mitigates risk while fostering a culture of experimentation. Structure for scale. // As LCBC grew, so did the need to restructure. The church went through six or seven major organizational shifts over 32 years. These changes were often prompted by rising communication challenges or blurred responsibilities. Simplifying communication lines and reestablishing clear reporting structures helps the church maintain momentum. Utilize video teaching for alignment. // David holds a strong bias toward using video teaching as the backbone of multisite strategy and believes that if you want to expand beyond 6 locations that video teaching is almost a necessity. Video becomes a core teaching strategy when a church branches out because it helps maintain alignment among multiple congregations and prevents campus drift. Strong teams, thriving church. // A cornerstone of David’s leadership was hiring people better than himself in specific areas. From kids’ ministry to communications, his goal was to empower others to lead beyond what he could do alone. That culture of excellence and humility helped LCBC build a team-driven organization. Hire people with the potential to become experts and give them room to grow. GLN’s Summit as a tool. // Today, David leads the Global Leadership Network, home of the Global Leadership Summit. His goal is to be an “advantage to every pastor,” helping churches raise leadership capacity and thrive. GLN offers world-class leadership development from both church and marketplace leaders, equipping churches leaders to grow their influence and mission. LCBC Church hosts the Global Leadership Summit annually as a way to equip and inspire staff and community leaders at their church. To learn more about the Global Leadership Network and register for the upcoming Summit, visit www.globalleadership.org and use the promo code GLS25UNSEM to get $10 off the registration rate online or at local host sites. EXTRA CREDIT // Is your structure built for where your church is—or where it’s going? Inside unSeminary Extra Credit, we’ve created the Restructuring Readiness Checklist—a powerful tool to help you assess whether your current staff model and systems are holding you back. Inspired by LCBC’s journey to 19 campuses, this resource helps you: Spot signs it’s time to restructure Ask the right questions with your team Avoid common mistakes that slow growth Realign your structure for long-term health and scalability This resource is exclusively available through unSeminary Extra Credit, our affordable membership that fuels the podcast and provides you with valuable tools like this and many others! Click here to join unSeminary Extra Credit and get instant access to this resource and more! 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! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: SermonDone Hey friends, Sunday is coming… is your Sermon Done?Pastor, you don’t need more pressure—you need support. That’s why you need to check out SermonDone—the premium AI assistant built exclusivelyfor pastors. SermonDone helps you handle the heavy lifting: deep sermon research, series planning, and even a theologically aligned first draft—in your voice—because it actually trains on up to 15 of your past sermons. But it doesn’t stop there. With just a click, you can instantly turn your message into small group guides, discussion questions, and even kids curriculum. It’s like adding a research assistant, a writing partner, and a discipleship team—all in one. Try it free for 5 days. Head over to www.SermonDone.com and use promo code Rich20 for 20% off today! Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. You’ve reached us during our All About Multisite Month, where we’re having conversations with leaders from prevailing multisite churches. And today, we’ve really got a two-for-one. We’ve got a leader who has been in the trenches leading an incredibly prevailing multisite church, and now is leading an organization that’s literally making difference all over the world. It’s our privilege to have David Ashcraft with us. He is the CEO and president of GLN. If you’re unaware, GLN is the Global Leadership Network, is a global organization passion about inspiring and equipping leaders to transform the world for the better.Rich Birch — David was formerly the senior pastor of a church, LCBC, which is in Pennsylvania, a multi-site church with—if I’m counting correctly, although it’s hard to count, they have so many—19 campuses, and he’s also involved in lots of other great stuff. David, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.David Ashcraft — Thank you, Rich. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. It’s fun to talk to you and your audience. So thank you.Rich Birch — Oh, thank you. I appreciate you taking the time to be here. Well, for folks that are unaware, why don’t you kind of share a bit of the story of LCBC’s growth, from a single location of less than a couple hundred people to 19 locations serving 25,000 plus people. Give us I know it’s like, summarize all that in three minutes. I get that’s hard, but kind of tell us a little bit of that story for folks that are unaware that don’t know LCBC.David Ashcraft — Yeah, definitely. Well, Rich, LCBC stands for Lives Changed by Christ. And so we just say that’s who we are. We’re a community of people whose lives have been, continue to be changed by Jesus Christ. And in 1991, I had opportunity to come to this little church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, actually Manheim, a small town in Pennsylvania, about 150 people.David Ashcraft — And I had been a pastor in Dallas, Texas. And so God brought us here to what all of my friends in Texas called the Rust Belt. And they thought, why in the world would you go to the Rust Belt? But you God brought us here.Rich Birch — Why are you going there? Can anything good come from Manheim?David Ashcraft — Exactly. Yeah. So the first five or six years were incredibly difficult. Just trying to figure out who we were, what we were trying to accomplish as a church. Had three different board chairmen over three years get up in the middle of meetings and resign. Rich Birch — Wow.David Ashcraft — And so I’d say that only to say I understand what it’s like to have turmoil with the board, and turmoil in the church. There was there was a guy named Abe, and every time I would speak, he would tell me all the things that I was doing wrong. He would stand up in congregational meetings back then. And back then, congregational meetings were well attended because there were going to be fireworks so they wanted to be there to see what was going to happen.Rich Birch — Right.David Ashcraft — And so anyway, we somehow survived those first five or six years and God began to really work and do amazing things. So ultimately over a 32 year period, we grew from 150 people to 22,000. Two and a half years ago, the church has continued to grow. And so it’s about 25,000 people now. And we got into multisite in about 2003 or ’04. We had grown to about 8,000 people in our first location. And several things were happening.David Ashcraft — One, our little town of Manheim has about 4,000 people in it. And so there were people driving 45 minutes, an hour to come. And then the township told us that we were taking up too much space. We were creating there were problems on the roads. And so they said, we couldn’t expand our facility anymore. And we were devastated and thought, oh man, you know that’s going to kill us as a church. And yet multisites were just kind of starting then. David Ashcraft — And so we went around the country, looked at several different models and landed on one and thought, okay, we can do this. And so the fun thing is now, if there are 25,000 people attending LCBC, 20,000 or so are at other locations. Rich Birch — It’s amazing.David Ashcraft — And so it’s just fun to watch that see.Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s amazing.David Ashcraft — Yeah, so God’s been doing cool things. It’s just been fun to be a part of that. And one of our kind of unwritten rules all the way through it was let’s not do anything stupid to mess up what God is doing. And oftentimes I think church leaders do stupid things and it messes up what God’s doing and they miss out on being a part of what God really wants. So.Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. There’s there’s a ton to unpack here. And I like I feel like we could do five episodes on the stuff you just talked about there. And friends, I’ve had a chance to visit multiple locations of LCBC and you just rolled over it. You were like, well, you know at that point we were 8,000 people. Manheim has 4,000. I remember the first time I was at that that location, it is a mind bender to be like… This is not like I’m used to suburban, large, you know, population areas. And the fact that LCBC has thrived and continues to thrive is I love it. It’s a great story to to kind of just to be a part of. Rich Birch — Now, you’ve pivoted to this new role as president and CEO of the Global Leadership Network. Connect those two together. How does leading at LCBC connect with what you’re currently doing?David Ashcraft — Yeah, so probably about 10 or 12 years ago, Rich, had opportunity to sit in a group with Jim Collins, the good to great author and other books. And in that group, there were probably about 15 of us. And so he’s talking about his levels of leadership. And in my mind, I’m hoping that I’m his level five, which is his highest level. But as he’s talking, he said, you’ll never be a level five leader until you’ve actually left your organization, the organization you’re leading. Rich Birch — That’s good. David Ashcraft — And when you’re gone, it’s actually better when you’re gone than when you’re there. And so that kind of messed me up because I was hoping that one, that I was already a level five leader.Rich Birch — Right.David Ashcraft — And I was probably on the dark side of my mind, hoping that when I stepped away from LCBC, that there would be a little bit of turmoil and people would be crying. I told the congregation I was hoping for weeping and gnashing of teeth when I stepped away. And he just said, if that happens, then you’re a bad leader. And so it started me on a trajectory to say, how do I need to be setting things up for LCBC so they’ll thrive when I’m gone?David Ashcraft — So that was kind of the first step. And so I mapped out a 10 or 12 year plan to kind of work to that direction. And so about two and a half years ago, it just was the right time for me to step away. And Jason Mitchell, who’s the new pastor, was ready. He’d been a part of our team for a long time. And had spent six or seven years getting him ready for that leadership role. And the church was ready and so I stepped away. And told the congregation, I’m not retiring, but I don’t know exactly what I’m going to be doing. David Ashcraft — And so I had been on the board at the GLN for a number of years. We’ve hosted the summit for a long time. There was a change in leadership there. And, So they invited me to step into that role. It was one of those kind of things where um I was wrestling, trying to think, okay, is Ruth, my wife, is she how’s she going to receive this? Is she going be happy? Is she not? David Ashcraft — And so you know how when you have something to say at home and and if things are going real well, then you don’t want to say anything because you don’t want to disrupt that it’s going really well and you’re connecting well. If you’re not connecting well, then I don’t want to anything because I don’t make things worse. So I was kind of hem-hawing around for three or four days to bring it up to her. And once I did, she was like, oh, it’s a no-brainer. It’s like you’re made for this.David Ashcraft — And um and then the other thing she had told me probably two or three weeks before that, I’d been away from LCBC for about three or four months. And she just at one point sat me down said, you need to go find something else to lead. And then she followed that very quickly with, but it’s not me. Rich Birch — That’s great. David Ashcraft — I was trying to give too much direction to the house and she wanted to me out. So so anyway, um so stepped into that role. Rich Birch — I love that.David Ashcraft — Yeah.Rich Birch — I’ve joked in other contexts about my wife, Christine. I’ve said, you know, the voice of the Lord and the voice of Christine, they’re they sound very similar. Like there’s ah there’s definitely a rhyme there between ah those two. I love that.David Ashcraft — Rich, it’s funny you say that because one of our early decisions at LCBC, we would meet as a board on we met every third Monday night of the month, and um we would bring up a decision, it discussion, would make a decision that night.  David Ashcraft — And then we would go home and we’d come back the next month and would all say, oh, that probably wasn’t the best decision. And so we would like to say that we went home and prayed about it for a month. What really was happening is we were going home telling our spouses. And they were going, that’s a terrible decision. And then we’d all come back and say, yeah that probably wasn’t such a good decision. So we came up with an unwritten rule that we’ll discuss something one month, come back after praying about it and after talking to our spouses about it and make the decision the following month. So, yes, it’s amazing how the Holy Spirit, the voice of the Lord, whatever you call it, seems to speak through our spouses as well.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s so good. Well, I’d love to kind of dig in a little bit on the LCBC story. As as a lead pastor, part of your role is to cast vision, provide clarity. And and there’s been a tremendous amount of change from that, you know, you know the town of Manheim saying, hey, you can’t keep growing, all the way to, okay now what it appears like as an outsider, and and I’ve said this behind your back, behind the church’s back, I’m like, there’s lots of churches that talk about wanting to reach their entire state. LCBC is getting busy doing it. Like, you know, there’s all kinds of great things going on.Rich Birch — Discuss you know talk me through when you’re in that kind of lead role, keeping your team aligned and keeping them around the vision, how, what were some of the things that you did as a communicator, as a leader to ensure that people were aligned? To, you know, to help things, you know, continue to kind of stay focused as a church?David Ashcraft — Yeah, well, Rich, one of the things, and it’s been said countless times, I don’t know who said it first, but vision leaks. And what we tend to do as leaders is we say it once, and we assume everybody’s gotten it, and they’re not ever going to forget it. But it does leak. And I think probably when I first heard that statement, maybe 20 or 30 years ago, the idea was you needed to repeat it every 28 days or so. And I think the reality now is you have to say it a whole lot more because what happens… Rich Birch — It’s true. David Ashcraft — …you know, the number of weeks that people actually show up in church. I mean, I’ve heard everything from it used to be 1.6 times a month to now I hear a lot of people saying once every six weeks people show up. And so if you don’t say it a lot, then people aren’t going to hear it. And if you don’t say it a lot, they’re going to forget it, even if they’re there.David Ashcraft — And so, and we always just focused on let’s be very clear of what we’re about. And it’s just introducing more people to Jesus and then together fully following him. And so we’d find different creative ways to say it, but we’d say the same thing over and over and over. And I think sometimes people worry about if you repeat it too much, they’re going to get tired of it. But that wasn’t our case. And sometimes we try to get too creative and people don’t even know it’s the same vision or you’re saying the same thing.Rich Birch — Right.David Ashcraft — So I think redundancy is real important.Rich Birch — And and what how did that work its way into your rhythms as a communicator? Like, were you finding ways to weave that in on Sunday morning through, is it just kind of every way possible? What did that look like? How did you kind of think about that? How do how do we keep that in front of people?David Ashcraft — Yeah, so I don’t know that it’s so much saying, okay, let’s talk about our vision, but you just kind of weave it in a natural conversation… Rich Birch — That’s good. David Ashcraft — …and just becomes who you are, I think. And so even with the staff, I think the leader’s responsibility is kind of set the boundaries or the guardrail of where you’re going as an organization. And then my job if I saw starting to get out of the boundaries or out of the guidelines, guardrails that were going to take us towards introducing more people to Jesus, or fully following him, then it’s my job to say, oh wait a minute, we’re straying some. And because what happens, Rich, is everybody in the church has some good idea of what you ought to be doing as a church. And so they’ll come and I mean, just umpteen different. Your imagination can run wild of what it is. And they will say God spoke to them and this is what we ought to be doing as a church. And so we would constantly evaluate and say, okay, that may be a good thing, but it’s not best for us. David Ashcraft — And so I felt like one of my jobs was to kind of be the gatekeeper. And so we just say to people, man, that’s a good thing you’re involved in. It’s cool that God put that on your heart, but here’s where we are as an organization. This is what we’re striving for. And son man, we’ll do everything we can to encourage you as you go do that good thing, but we’re going to stay focused on what’s best for us. And so I would say the last 10 years or so at LCBC, for me, a lot it was just saying, man, that’s good, but it’s not us. Rich Birch — Right. David Ashcraft — And we’re not going to kind of step but into that that area you want us to step into.Rich Birch — Let’s double click on that because I think that is um that’s a real tension ah for particularly senior leaders to hold this balance of because there are sometimes those ideas are actually great and and they’re innovative. And LCBC is, as an outsider, I would say that’s an innovative organization. You guys have tried a bunch of different stuff, but have been able to stay aligned. How, what kind of filters were do you use or have you used to try to filter out that? Okay, what’s just a good idea or what’s maybe a God idea that, Hey, we should take a risk on ah to to try something here, that and we’ll see maybe it’ll change the trajectory of what, where God’s leading us.David Ashcraft — Yeah, you know, it’s funny, Rich, when when we were small, 150 or 200 people, it was easier to try new things because if it didn’t work, it’s not like we’ we’re going to hurt all that much. And yet it was hard then, too, because if we tried something and it failed, the church wasn’t big enough to bounce back from from a failure.David Ashcraft — But some of the guiding principles for us, I mean, one, we constantly talk about the 90-10 rule for us. And I know everybody’s heard of the 80-20. For us, 90-10 means that you can’t keep everybody happy. And what I watch a lot of pastors do is they try to keep everybody in the church happy. And so if you come to me with a good idea, then I don’t want to hurt your feelings, Rich. And so, yes, we’ll do your idea. But then somebody else comes along, yes, we’ll do your idea. And then all of a sudden, you’re doing so many things… Rich Birch — Right. David Ashcraft — …that you’re not doing anything well. And so when we talk about 90-10, we just said we’d rather 90% of the people be wildly enthusiastic about us. 10% of the people can be wildly upset with us and we’re okay with that.Rich Birch — Love it.David Ashcraft — And so we just kind of operate that way. And and so we say, here’s who we are. Here’s how we behave. Here’s how we’re, where we’re going. If it’s not for you, that’s totally okay. But if it is for you, then jump in. And so it pretty well works out. David Ashcraft — I don’t know that we’ve ever hit 10% wildly upset with us. Where that rule has helped us is we’ll do something and it doesn’t quite go the way we think, or there may be people upset with us and we’ll get all worried about it. And then we’ll say, okay, wait minute, let’s stop. We’ve 22,000 people, or now 25,000. We just got 40 or 50 emails from people that weren’t happy. So let’s say 10% of 25,000 is 2,500. Rich Birch — Right.David Ashcraft — So we got 40 or 50 emails. We’re fine.Rich Birch — Yes.David Ashcraft — We’ve got another couple thousand to go and then we’ll start getting worried about it. So just not trying to please everybody was a big piece of it. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. David Ashcraft — And then constantly, is this is this a good thing or is it a great thing? And let’s focus on the great things.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. yeah I had a mentor early on in my ministry talk about, he said the exact same thing, he but the way he cast it was he was like, we really should have about 10% of the church upset with us at any given moment. If we’re not, then we’re probably not taking new ground. David Ashcraft — Amen. Rich Birch — They, you know, and I was like, oh – that that has stuck with me for sure.David Ashcraft — Exactly. Yeah. And we would definitely say the same thing where, man, we’re not getting much, many complaints. So maybe we need to be trying some different things.Rich Birch — Yeah, let’s try something new.David Ashcraft — The other thing we kind yeah, the other thing we kind of learned as we went, Rich, is you know, a lot of times young leaders want to try things that could be devastating to the church. And what’s nice is we’ve gotten bigger and we’ve got more locations. If we’ve got an idea… Rich Birch — That’s good. David Ashcraft — …then let’s try it in a location and see how it goes there. And instead of doing something that’s going to sink the whole ship, then it might have a negative impact on that one location, but at least it’s not going to hit all of the locations.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.David Ashcraft — And if it works well, then we’ll go ahead and spread it to the whole church. So there’s some advantages of multisite from that standpoint.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Well, kind of sticking with that same theme, you know, LCBC has experienced incredible growth, you know, in a lot of ways. It’s like your history is, you know, the the shift to multisite was a transformative moment. You know, the the the growth of the church has accelerated, um you know, beyond Manheim and all these other locations.Rich Birch — That has, I’m assuming, has forced a certain amount of organizational change over the years. You’ve had to make some shifts. What what did some of that restructuring look like? Very few churches, you know, some of the stats show that um close to 50% of multisite churches aren’t getting beyond three locations.Rich Birch — And so, and some of that, I think, is because of some of this restructuring. What were some of those that was that restructuring that you went under, that you led the church under, that you think were particularly helpful as you look back on it to accelerate the mission?David Ashcraft — So Rich, early on, I used to listen to Carl George. Fuller Institute used to have a number of different people. And so they would, back then they were cassette tapes.Rich Birch — Yes. Love it.David Ashcraft — Carl George was one. And he had a thing he talked about where churches are kind of like animals and animals are animals, churches are churches. But then he would say, um not all animals are alike. And so he would talk about a mouse and he’d compare a mouse to a cat, to a dog, and say they’re all animals, but they’re very, very different. A cat is very different from a dog that’s different from a horse or and so on. And he would say churches are the same thing. Just because you’re a church doesn’t mean all churches are equal. David Ashcraft — And so he’d say a mouse church might be 35 people, a cat might be 75, a dog 200 and so forth. And his whole point was, as you grow from a mouse to a cat… Rich Birch — That’s good. David Ashcraft — …to a dog, to a horse, you’ve got to restructure every time because you’re a whole different animal. Rich Birch — Yep.David Ashcraft — And so I would say over the course of 32 years, we restructured probably six or seven times at least. Rich Birch — Right.David Ashcraft — And we could tell when it was time. And it was some of it was just feeling, but you’d start noticing that communication wasn’t going well in the organization, that people were frustrated with each other. And it wasn’t, you know your tendency is to think, oh it’s just some bad actors on the team. And it really wasn’t that, it was a lack of clarity. What are we trying to do? It was a lack of communication lines. David Ashcraft — And so we would simplify and say, okay, let’s go and simplify. Let’s make sure everybody has direct lines of communication and redundancy. And so we did that probably, like I said, six or seven times in the process.Rich Birch — Well, that’s a good insight. Even the fact that because I think we can if we’re the people that led the restructuring last time, we can really love our restructuring. We think, hey, that was a great you know that this is the perfect system. We took all this time, effort and energy, pain, all this pain to get to this restructuring. And then now here we are two years later…David Ashcraft — Yeah.Rich Birch — …and it can be hard to give that up. I think that’s a great insight. Hey, we had to restructure six, seven times over all those years. And, you know, that’s that’s a pretty regular cadence to be thinking about that.David Ashcraft — Yeah.Rich Birch — That’s good.David Ashcraft — Rich, I don’t know. You made the comment that a lot of multisite churches are struggling and don’t get past three or four. And I don’t know if we’re sharing strong biases or if you want to hear strong biases… Rich Birch — Sure. Sure. Yeah, absolutely.David Ashcraft — …but I have a strong bias towards that. Rich Birch — That’s why we have you on.David Ashcraft — Yeah. Well, what I watch happen all the time is guys decide, churches decide they want to go multisite. Typically, they go multisite. One, they want to see their reach expand. But oftentimes, they’ll also be somebody else on staff. So if I’m the senior pastor and you’re one of my associate pastors, I start thinking, okay, Rich has strong leadership gifts. He’s got strong speaking gifts. Rich is getting antsy to go and lead on his own. And so I’ll send him out and he can start a new location for LCBC.David Ashcraft — And you want, Rich wants to do it so badly. He says, yes, I’ll, you know I’ll follow the party line and I’ll, I’ll be LCBC, whatever. And I’m wanting it to happen so badly. Then I’m that’s a great way to send you out. And so we do that and you go out, maybe somebody else on staff, and all of a sudden we’ve got three locations. David Ashcraft — But what happens over a couple of years is you drift apart and you start realizing you do have speaking gifts, you do have leadership gifts. And before you know it, you start thinking, even though our communities are only 20 miles apart, we’re just different in this community than you are in your community, 10 or 20 miles away. And so I really need to lead differently than what you did at the original location. David Ashcraft — All of a sudden you get this split, this divide and frustration. And I just, um my strong bias, Rich, is I think if you want to scale, if you want to go beyond three, four, five, or six locations, um video teaching is almost a necessity. Rich Birch — That’s good.David Ashcraft — Otherwise you’re going to have, and to my knowledge, I don’t know of any churches that are truly multisite, um, that have more than six or seven with live teachers. There are some that say they do, but they’re almost like little denominations. Their churches all have the same name… Rich Birch — Right. David Ashcraft — …but each church is very independent, doing its own thing. And so I just have a real strong bias towards video teaching and, and replicating the model, not just sending out new people.David Ashcraft — And there’s nothing wrong with me sending you out to a new location if I know that essentially what I’m doing is planting a new church 20 minutes away. And that’s…Rich Birch — Right, right. But that’s different than multisite.David Ashcraft — Yeah, and that’s a great strategy for planting churches, but it’s not multisite.Rich Birch — Yeah.David Ashcraft — And if you really want to scale, then you’ve got to replicate the model.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. And statistically, that’s true. The larger a multisite church is and the more locations it has, the more it implements video as a core teaching strategy. So you statistically, you see it’s it it is, um and I’ll say that because but lots of even teaching pastors have this bias against video teaching because it feels like, oh, no, we should find someone to do that.Rich Birch — And I’m I’m not a teaching guy. And I’ve had this conversation, ah you know, hundreds of times with with teaching guys where I’m like, no, like this, the what you’re doing is super unique. And it is core to what the church is doing. It’s three quarters of the reason why people attend, statistically. Man, we’ve got to, you know, I think that’s great. That’s a good I would I hold the same strong bias. So I agree, um which is.David Ashcraft — Yeah. And Rich, I would say it also just helps you clarify everything… Rich Birch — Yes. David Ashcraft — …if you know you if you know you’re doing that, because then you know what kind of campus pastors to hire.Rich Birch — Right.David Ashcraft — And so we’ll just say if if you’re wanting to be a teacher, and we’ve got a couple of our campus pastors that are great teachers, and so they’re part of our teaching team.Rich Birch — Yep. David Ashcraft — But if you really want to be a teacher, ah campus pastor for us, it’s not where you ought to land. Rich Birch — Yep. David Ashcraft — And um our campus pastors are incredible leaders. We say so they’re the strongest leaders in our organization, but they’re not wanting to teach on a regular basis. And that’s not, it shouldn’t even be in their skill set for most of them. So they’ve got to communicate and talk from the stage. They’ve got to teach in smaller environments, but if they want to preach, it’s not the right place.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Let’s pivot in a slightly different direction. Talk more about your kind of own, your own personal leadership leading through all of that and your, and and about how you balanced all that out. Just, want to honor you in front of our audience. You know, they’re good things radiate off of LCBC when people talk about you behind your back. They are thankful to lead, to be led by you. You know, there, people don’t have to say nice things to me, but they do. And, and that is, unfortunately is ah is a notable exception. And and you seem to, you’ve you’ve held your life together. You know, you you haven’t train wrecked, you know, your family, ah you know, and and all of that. I honor you for all of that. That…David Ashcraft — Thank you.Rich Birch — That’s incredible. But talk us through what practices have you adopted to balance the demands of leading an aggressively growing ministry and your own life, your own kind of internal life, family wellbeing, that sort of thing. What what have you done to try to keep that all together?David Ashcraft — So I’ll go in a couple different directions, Rich. On a professional level, ah just realizing I can’t do it myself. I need a team around me. And so my practice was always to hire the best possible person I could. And there’s a tendency sometimes to if you are on a scale of 1 to 10, if you see yourself as an 8, then there’s a tendency to hire 5, 6 and 7s, people that you can still be a little bit stronger so that you’re perceived to be the leader. And for me, I just said, I’m looking to hire people that can be better than me… Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good. David Ashcraft — …in their specific area of expertise. And so when we were smaller as a church, we didn’t have the money to hire experts yet, but we hired people that we thought could become experts. And so then I would meet with them and we’d go visit other churches and we’d figure out what style we wanted to be.David Ashcraft — I would keep them pretty close to me the first 6 months or so, maybe even 12 months. And um then once they were able to take off, I would just say, and the mantra we always had that I had with everybody we hired was I really want you to be the best kid min person, the best student ministry person… Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s good. David Ashcraft — …so that people are going to come from all around the country to learn how to do student ministry from you. And I want you to take it way further than I ever could possibly take it. Rich Birch — That’s good.David Ashcraft — And so I think part of our, and I don’t want to use the word success, part of our growth was that we just kept hiring people, I kept hiring people better than me. And didn’t want to limit it that way. So from a professional standpoint, we would do that. David Ashcraft — And then personally, um you know, sometimes people complain about the busyness of ministry, but one of the beauties we have is we’ve got flexibility. And so we’re not locked into an eight to five schedule. And yes, we have to work on the weekends, but we get to take other times off. And so like when my son was fourth, fifth, sixth grade, he was into baseball. So I coached as a little league team for three years. I knew nothing about baseball, but I got other people to help me with that. But I was, I was able to do that. And so another kind of job I might not have been able to. So yeah, we work a lot of hours and, you know, 55, oftentimes 60 hours a week, but we’ve got flexibility. Rich Birch — Yep.David Ashcraft — And so I think really putting the family first that way was real important. My kids now are grown. Our, my son is one of our campus pastors. My daughter just stepped away from being a student min director at one of our locations for 10 years. And it’s real fun to have them involved and be a part of that. David Ashcraft — And, the one other thing I’ll just say real quick is… Rich Birch — Yeah. David Ashcraft — …one of our mantras at LCBC is let’s not do anything stupid to mess up what God is doing.Rich Birch — Right. Right.David Ashcraft — And so, I mean, stupid is a lot of things. It could be just relational issues where you and I get crossways and we don’t resolve it quickly.Rich Birch — Right.David Ashcraft — And so one of our unwritten rules is keep short accounts and don’t let things fester.Rich Birch —That’s good.David Ashcraft — Stupid could be crossing or playing with lines around morality or sexuality that we shouldn’t be playing in. And so we get burned all of a sudden. So we’re just constantly saying, man, let’s not do anything stupid, not to mess up what God’s doing because he’s doing great stuff.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. You know, kind of tagging on, just double clicking on that. Sometimes you’ll see it’s like, well, the lead person, they seem to have life balance, but the rest of the team, like that, not so much. But that isn’t the case with what I’ve seen. And obviously, I don’t know all your team, but with the people I know in your orbit, that seems to have rippled out Anything that you’ve done to model that for your people, to try to ripple that down? I love that, you know, let’s not be stupid. Or is there anything else on that front to kind of model that with your team?David Ashcraft — Well, so even in the early days, I was a senior pastor when I came. And it’s always funny that I was a senior pastor. I was the only pastor… Rich Birch — Sure. David Ashcraft — …for the first about four years. Rich Birch — Yep.David Ashcraft — And we were gonna hire a worship leader. And we did hire a worship leader. When he came in, he, like a lot of worship leaders, he’s not most creative early in the morning. He’s most creative late at night.David Ashcraft — And so his hours, I gave him lots of freedom. And as long as he was putting in the 45 hours or so that we were asking, then it was fine. But I had an elder come to me and say, well, I come by the office on Monday or Tuesday morning and you know it’s 8:30 and—his name was Brian—Brian’s not in the office, and we need him in the office. And so I just said, well, so wait a minute, let’s think about this. Did we hire him to be a sit in his office from 8:30 to 5, Monday through Friday? Did we hire him to be great on the weekend and great to lead people in worship? And so my philosophy is always whatever it takes to be best at your job. So we try to get flexibility that way.Rich Birch — That’s good.David Ashcraft — And there’s certain times, usually Mondays and Tuesdays, everybody needs to be in for team meetings. After that, we, you know, once we know that you can manage your time well, then we’ll give you lots of flexibility.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.David Ashcraft — And so I think that’s but something that permeates through the whole staff. And then, now, as we’ve gotten bigger, then we have lots of opportunities to help staff in a variety of ways so that they stay strong in their marriage, stay strong in their relationship with Christ.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Love that. Okay, pivoting to your current ah your current role, talking a little bit more about Global Leadership Network. When you talked about cassette tapes, that took me back. I, early on in my ministry, I was a monthly subscriber to the Global Leadership Network tapes, and those tapes would come in, and and literally, I can say, they were like this encouragement, that I I I still think of like talks… David Ashcraft — Yeah. Rich Birch — …from 30 years ago that that still impact me. And then I remember the first time I had, like thousands of leaders, I had an experience in the Lakeside Auditorium where I just came on a weekend. It was not and it wasn’t a conference, and it was a transformative experience for me where I I literally the experience I had was, oh church doesn’t have to suck. Like I I, and I was working in a church at that that that point. Like it it was ah and and GLN has had has influenced so many people has had, you know, it’s ah has it had monster influence, done incredible work for years.Rich Birch — But let’s talk a little bit about it. What’s kind of bring bring us up to speed on what’s going on with the summit? What’s kind of the most recent things? You know, what are your aspirations for the Global Leadership Summit? There’s a lot there. But but what what do we think of these days when you think about Global Leadership Network?David Ashcraft — Yeah. So Rich, yeah, like you, it has had a huge impact on my life. I think I’ve only missed one in 31 years. And so, like you, I would listen to cassette tapes, especially early mid nineties. And so whether it was Bill Hybels or whether it was John Maxwell and my kids, my family would complain whenever we’d go on vacation because we’d get in the car and I had all these cassettes we were going to listen to. And so they always say, oh man, does John have to come with us again on vacation? And so they grew up on that, but real impactful for me.David Ashcraft — And um there’s been a couple of hard years at the summit after just leadership situations, 2018, COVID, was hard on the summit. And so when I stepped in, there were a couple of things we wanted to correct. We just wanted to get back in balance with our vision, mission, and then just get us sound again financially.David Ashcraft — And our mission, our vision is really to be a tool for pastors. And when I say that, it’s not meant to be a pastor’s conference, but it’s meant to be a tool so that a pastor can come in, he can get better, she can get better as a leader, but so that they can lead their church and leaders in their church to thrive as a church, so ultimately more people can come to know Jesus.David Ashcraft — And so not a pastor’s conference. We bring leaders in from around the world, business leaders, nonprofit leaders, educators, things like that, church leaders as well. And it’s also a huge evangelistic tool for people in the community that are strong leaders, want to grow in their leadership capacity. Would never come to your church for anything else, but they come for the summit because it’s so strong.David Ashcraft — So bottom line, we just say, we just want to be a tool to more more pastors, help your churches thrive, help them reach their community. Ultimately, so more people can come to know Jesus. And that’s, that’s the real focus. Though it’s, I would talk about about it as being more pre-evangelism where again, it just begins to soften people’s hearts towards Jesus. We don’t do altar calls. We don’t do worship. It truly is a leadership training development thing, but we love it when um leaders, CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are there, they’re speaking, and they just happen to say, I’m a follower of Jesus, just subtly in their in their comments. So it’s that kind of thing.Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s it’s and obviously the centerpiece of the strategy is the summit. It’s obviously not everything that GLN does, but that’s kind of the the core of it. We’re coming into summit season. Friends that are listening in, this is like—and David didn’t ask me to do this; it’s like unabashed—you should get to the summit this year. If it’s been a couple years since you’ve been there, like go to a site close by, go join the studio audience, you know, in, in Barrington there. It really is. It’s going to be an incredible summit. Rich Birch — When, when you would say to a church leader, they would say that this is the kind of church that’s benefiting the most from a partnership with GLN. What does that look like? Like what the people that are kind of leveraging it, if you were to have like a hundred more of these churches, you were like, man, we could change the world. What what would be some of those things that you’d say like, Hey, that that’s a church that’s really kind of on board with what we’re doing and and we’re, it’s a good partnership. What’s that look like?David Ashcraft — Well, I’ll use LCBC as an example because we’ve hosted for over 20 years. We typically have between 2,500 and 3,000 people attend the summit at our different locations.Rich Birch — That’s amazing.David Ashcraft — And so, if as a church you think, oh, let’s have the summit, but you just view it as an event where somebody wants to come in and use your building to put on this event, it’ll be a flop. It’ll be a failure because it needs to become part of your, just who you are as a church. And so for us, it’s kind of the capstone of how we do leadership development at LCBC.Rich Birch — Love it. Yep.David Ashcraft — And it’s not going to tell you a church model and how to do church or how to do kid min. That’s not the purpose of it. You’re going to have to teach your people that. But what it’s going to do is bring leaders in that’ll speak at the summit. They’ll say, this is how to create culture. And it’s up to you to create your culture, but this is why you need to have a healthy culture. Here’s how to create a healthy culture. Rich Birch — That’s good.David Ashcraft — And it’s going to look different from church to church, but we’ll talk about culture. Or we’ll talk about you know why it’s important to cast vision and here’s how to cast vision. But your vision is going to be different than my vision. And so we don’t tell you how how your church ought operate. We just tell you how to be better at all those different areas that are required for a leader. So what it’s done for LCBC, we teach the basics of how we want it to happen at LCBC. The summit though, just kind of gives you this overarching, man, if every leader that’s in the church can be there, it just raises the capacity for them.Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s good.David Ashcraft — And so then everybody’s better. And what it does, you know, a speaker will talk, they’ll tell a story, they’ll tell a joke, they’ll make a point. And all of our leaders are there. And so then all I have to do as the leader of the church is just, man, remember when so-and-so said this and everybody’s got it. And it just seems to just catalyze and move you forward faster. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.David Ashcraft — So huge from that standpoint. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. And, you know if you just go to globalleadership.org, you can see, ah like, you know, obviously, it’s too late to host this year, I think, it’s still too late to host, but you could get a group of leaders together and say, hey, let’s go to what let’s go to there’s, there will for sure be a church that’s within a reasonable driving distance of you to go and, ah you know, to go be a part of it.Rich Birch — And I love that. I think the common language thing is a massive deal. I know over the years, it’s been really helpful to have like the same people in the room to be like, hey, when, you know, Craig Groeschel talked about that thing, or, you know, Christine Cain there this year, or John Maxwell, John Acuff. You know, any any of the folks that are there this year, incredible leaders, ah David Ashcraft, when he spoke, you know, ah yeah all of that to then link back to that and say, okay, let’s talk about what difference that makes at our church, man, what a gift that is. And it’s so incredibly inexpensive.Rich Birch — I’ve always thought that about the GLN stuff. I’m like, I can’t believe we’re getting this. Like if this was a normal business conference, it would be 10X what the cost is. And so…David Ashcraft — Oh yeah.Rich Birch — …it’s it’s incredible. So I just want to honor you for that. I think it’s a great, great thing. Is there a particular speaker this year you’re you’re looking forward to? Anything, you know, kind of a highlight this year or something behind the scenes we can be we should be looking forward to?David Ashcraft — Yeah. And I’ll just comment on the price real quick. It is incredibly inexpensive. And so oftentimes the board will say we need to raise our prices, need to raise our prices. But one of the things in our in our bylaws is we want to make it accessible to as many people as possible in the local church.Rich Birch — Okay, that makes sense.David Ashcraft — There’s actually another organization that pretty much waits each year for us to announce our speakers. Then they get the same speakers, but they charge $4- or $5,000 a person… Rich Birch — Yeah. David Ashcraft — …where we charge $150, $170 a person… Rich Birch — Yes. David Ashcraft — …and they sell their [inaudible] out. Rich Birch — Yes. David Ashcraft — So we could charge more, but that’s not our goal. So yeah.Rich Birch — Yes.David Ashcraft — As far as speakers, we’ve got great speakers. And one the things that’s fun at the summit, we’ll have people that are well known in different environments, but then we’ll also have people that are kind of unheard of yet at this point… Rich Birch — Yep. Yep. David Ashcraft — …but they’ve got great, great content, great experience. So we’ve got several of those that would be new or unheard of. But we so one of the real fun ones, we try to have somebody that’s just kind of a fun but great leader. And so Nick Saban, the Alabama coach, will be that speaker this year, which I think is going to be incredibly exciting.David Ashcraft — We’re going to recognize John Maxwell. We do last several years, a what we call a legacy leader and and just thank them for, honor them for the difference they’ve made.Rich Birch — Oh, that’s great.David Ashcraft — And so John’s going to be honored that way this year. So yeah, we’ve got a great lineup. It’s it’s going to be real good and excited about it. Rich Birch — That’s good.David Ashcraft — And you mentioned different sites. We’re actually at about 450 sites the United States.Rich Birch — Wow. Wow.David Ashcraft — And then around the world, another 700 more. So about 350,000 people take part in the summit around the world.Rich Birch — That’s amazing.David Ashcraft — And so, yeah, it’s just really exciting to see.Rich Birch — This has got to be one of the largest of this type of event, right? Like I don’t know anything else that runs that size. That’s um that’s incredible.David Ashcraft — It is. And especially to do it for 30 years now… Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. David Ashcraft — …is also not the norm. So, yeah.Rich Birch — No, that’s amazing. Well, that’s, that’s great. So friends, again, I would strongly encourage you to go over, go over to globalleadership.org. You can see all the local sites. You can, they’re, you know, still announcing some speakers. You’ll see there’s lots of information there. Again, I wouldn’t do it by yourself. Don’t just go you and and one person like, pack the car out, get a van, go with 10 or 15 people. That will exponentially make it more valuable to you as a leader as in what you’re doing. The more people you have around you doing this, ah it will help you as you lead at your you know at your organization. Well, just as we as we come to land, any kind of final words you’d have for us today, David?David Ashcraft — No, I just, you know, one of the things that changed for me probably seven or eight years ago was coming across a passage in the book of Acts about Apollos. And Apollos, it describes in very glowing terms. And so as I’m reading that, I’m thinking, I’m nothing like Apollos. And was almost discouraged. But then there’s just one little phrase that was at the bottom of a passage I’m sure I’ve read many times before. It just said he was a great benefit or advantage to every believer that he came in contact with. And reading that, I thought, okay, I can do that. I can be a benefit. I can be advantage. And specifically, I said, I want to be an advantage or a benefit to pastors. David Ashcraft — And so just kind of at that point said, that’s what I want to do the rest of my life. And so um doing that here in Pennsylvania, we work with the largest churches in Pennsylvania, but also with a GLN and just a real natural tie in to say, whatever I can do, we can do to help pastors thrive and their churches thrive. Then that’s a win and more people come to know Jesus. And so I just encourage each person listening, whatever their role, whatever capacity they can be as well a benefit or an advantage to others. And so I hope that’s really their focus as they step away from this.Rich Birch — That’s great. Well, thank you, David. Thanks for your leadership. And, you know, I’m cheering for the GLN, cheering for your leadership there. Thanks for for leading and thanks for being on the show today.David Ashcraft — Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. Good to talk to you, Rich.

Let’s face it: talking finances can be uncomfortable, but it’s a critical conversation, especially in multisite ministry. Today, I’m tackling one of the toughest—and most essential—questions in multisite: How do we fund, sustain, and scale financially healthy campuses? Throughout our All About Multisite series, I’m providing practical answers every Wednesday and hosting insightful interviews with leaders from thriving multisite churches on Thursdays. Now, let’s dive into the details of multisite financial strategies to help you avoid costly pitfalls. Episode Highlights: Choosing the Right Financial Model: About 71% of multisite churches use a centralized budgeting system. Personally, I advocate for this “one pot” approach to avoid unhealthy competition between campuses. An alternative is the “central tax” model used by churches like Community Christian, allocating funds with clear percentages (70-20-10) to campus operations, central operations, and expansion. Determining Financial Sustainability: Only 7% of campuses break even at launch. However, by year two, 53% achieve financial sustainability, and by year three, this number climbs to 79%. Aim to become financially sustainable by year three. If you can’t foresee a clear path to sustainability after two years, you likely need to adjust strategy quickly. Increasing Generosity Without Campus Competition: Teach stewardship church-wide regularly. Integrate new givers from day one, making generosity part of the volunteer onboarding process. Promote transparency with your finances, regularly communicating budgets, needs, and successes openly. Conduct unified generosity initiatives, reinforcing the message that every campus contributes to—and benefits from—shared success. Hidden Launch Costs to Anticipate: Many campuses underestimate startup costs, typically averaging around $200,000, significantly higher than the average church plant ($25,000). Be aware of hidden costs such as increased insurance premiums, custodial fees, additional equipment for rental venues, and expenses related to being a generous tenant (meals, facility improvements, etc.). Staffing Costs and Strategies: Staff your new campus based on projected attendance, typically one full-time equivalent staff per 75-100 attendees. Consider central staff requirements. Plan for roughly one central support staff for every three campus-based staff. Key initial roles often include a campus pastor, worship and kids ministry coordinators, tech support, and a connections director responsible for guest assimilation. Balancing Economies of Scale with High Standards: While multisite launches tend to cost more upfront, aiming for economies of scale is crucial. Launch effectively but economically to increase your potential for future growth. Portable setups are typically more cost-effective initially, with organizations like Portable Church Industries providing significant long-term savings through efficient equipment solutions. Practical Tips to Implement Immediately: Clearly define and communicate your financial model to all staff and volunteers. Regularly evaluate campus financial health quarterly. Prioritize generous transparency in all financial communications. Invest strategically in initial equipment and staffing to balance immediate needs with future scalability. Don’t let finances stop your multisite vision. Equip your church for sustainable growth, keeping your ministry thriving long-term. Additional Resources: Join our upcoming webinar: “Why Most Multisite Churches Stall Launching and How to Keep Growing.“ Explore more multisite insights in the Spring 2025 issue of EXECUTIVE PASTOR digital magazine available now.

Thanks for joining us at the unSeminary podcast. In this All About Multisite month podcast episode we’re talking with Omar Giritli, Lead Pastor, and Carlos Cardenas, Executive Pastor at Christ Fellowship. With campuses spread across Miami, the Caribbean and South America, Christ Fellowship has truly become a model of how to lead a diverse, multi-generational church with a powerful mission. What does it take to lead a multisite church with a global reach? Tune in as Omar and Carlos share how they’ve developed a robust leadership pipeline, fostered a culture of empowerment, and navigated the unique challenges of international church planting. A leadership development culture. // Leadership development at Christ Fellowship is not an option—it’s a requirement. Each staff member has annual goals, and one goal is always centered on developing other leaders. Staff are encouraged to delegate responsibility, not just tasks, helping others grow into influential roles. Their internal development program, “Level Up,” formalizes this process, encouraging team members to train potential successors—redefining success as equipping others to step into greater leadership. Raising up leaders from within. // Recruiting from outside rarely works in Miami. The cultural uniqueness of the city—especially its heavily Hispanic influence—means long-term success requires deep contextual understanding. One of the secrets to Christ Fellowship’s healthy culture is staff longevity. Many leaders—including all members of the directional leadership team—have been with the church for over a decade. This consistency creates visible pathways for growth and strengthens team culture. Staff can look up and see real examples of advancement built on trust, integrity, and commitment to the local church. Global campuses, local DNA. // When Omar stepped into the lead pastor role, he reevaluated the church’s missions giving strategy. Rather than sending money to organizations with little oversight or visibility into outcomes, Christ Fellowship decided to launch and support its own global campuses. This strategic shift allows for greater accountability, stewardship, and relational investment. Each campus receives support in leadership development, sermon content, graphics, and operational tools, resulting in a globally unified movement that shares one vision, one strategy, and a recognizable culture. Building global campuses. // When establishing international campuses, some of the relationships have been mergers with dying churches. Other times Christ Fellowship begins with small groups led by an identified local pastor. These pastors are mentored and assessed for alignment with Christ Fellowship’s vision and theology. Once critical mass is achieved, a public launch is held with leadership support from Miami. Ongoing training and support. // Launching an international campus can fail if the global campus pastor does not share the mission and strategy. Christ Fellowship maintains strong relationships with global campus pastors, providing regular Zoom training, creative workshops, and even hosting an annual global leadership conference. This depth of investment ensures that international locations mirror the Miami experience in quality and culture—despite contextual differences. Missional generosity fuels growth. // Local outreach is just as important as global expansion. Through Caring for Miami, Christ Fellowship operates mobile markets, dental clinics, and clothing buses to serve under-resourced communities. The result? People give more generously—not because of flashy campaigns, but because they see their gifts changing lives in tangible ways. You can learn more about Christ Fellowship at www.cfmiami.org and follow them on social media @cfmiami. For local outreach updates, check out @caringformiami. 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 during this All About Multisite month. We’re having conversations, getting behind the scenes with some prevailing multisite churches. And to be honest, I’ve been looking forward to this conversation for a long time.Rich Birch — Excited to have a couple of leaders from Christ Fellowship. This church was founded in 1917 to impact Miami by helping people and their families follow Jesus. Today, Christ Fellowship really is a model church, a church you should be following, multi-generational, multicultural, international church with multiple locations. I can’t keep track in Miami, the Caribbean, Latin America, and online. We’ll get to how many later. Excited to have Omar Giritli with us, ah lead pastor, and Carlos Cardenas, the executive pastor and leads the directional leadership team. Welcome, guys. So glad you’re here.Omar Giritli — Hey, glad we’re here.Carlos Cardenas —  It’s good to be here. Yeah.Omar Giritli — Absolutely.Rich Birch — This this is going to be good. Why don’t we start with kind of filling out the picture a little bit. Omar, kind of fill out tell fill out the kind of the picture. Give us a bit more kind of on the bones of that description that I gave there.Omar Giritli — Yeah, you know, we we are a church here in Miami that really even started before 1917. We’re the oldest church in Miami. In fact, our downtown campus opened a day before the city of Miami was incorporated.Rich Birch — Wow!Omar Giritli — And so we have a long, rich history here in Miami. Our downtown campus, back in the day, you know, sent sent off the the Palmetto Bay campus back in 1917. And ah that grew, God you know really showed a lot of grace to our to our church here in the Palmetto Bay area. And from there on out, we kept growing. The downtown campus, which was Central Baptist Church, became us, or like our sending church, merged with us. And so now we have five campuses all throughout Miami-Dade County in the different key regions in Miami. And then we also have ah campuses all throughout kind of Latin America, the Caribbean, and South America.Rich Birch — Wow. Well, we’re definitely going to get to that ah today.Rich Birch — Carlos, why don’t you tell us little bit about your story? How did you get connected to the church? You know, oftentimes the the great thing about, people understand what lead pastors do and they talk about executive pastors. It looks different in every church. Give us a bit of a profile. Talk to us a little bit about where you spend your time.Carlos Cardenas — Yeah, absolutely. Well, it’s good to to be here with you, Rich. And I actually have been on staff for 15 years already. And when I transitioned, when I came to Christ Fellowship for the first time, I actually started as a volunteer. I was a volunteer, worship ah member. I was, well, still played music, but I was a musician, played a keyboard, was part of band directing and things like that. And so I started as a volunteer and I became an intern for just a couple months, like three months. But right when I became an intern, a couple months later, I was was I was given the opportunity to come on staff as a worship director at one of our campuses.Carlos Cardenas — That being said, throughout the years, you know, with other previous leaders, you know, I’ve been able to be developed as a leader, you know, and growing my leadership, growing my not only knowledge of God’s word, but knowledge of, you know, ministry life and and all that. And so I’ve had several positions here, from being a campus pastor, to eventually, you know, being the pastor of campuses. And then um became officially ah an executive pastor, you know, our, our lead pastor, Pastor Omar, he became the lead pastor in 2019. And a couple years after that, you know, um, the previous executive pastor was only here for a season. It was just a transitional thing and I would become a successor. So officially I became an executive pastor of Christ Fellowship about two and a half years ago. Carlos Cardenas — So it’s been ah a fun ride. I mean, you know, I’ve learned a lot. I’ve made a a lot of mistakes and but but it’s been interesting and it’s just been a great experience to to learn the ins and outs of multisite, of ministry, of being in a city like Miami. You know, ah there’s there’s challenges that we have that other churches, other cities, you know, you may not come across these challenges. So, but it’s been ah it’s been an interesting and a good, really good experience, healthy experience overall.Rich Birch — Love it. that’s That’s so good.Rich Birch — Omar, you were talking earlier that you started as a part-time role at the church as well. To give us a little bit about your history, because this is, I think, super you know fascinating. Here’s two leaders leading at a senior level in a really influential growing church. Talks about how your journey from where you started to the role of lead pastor.Omar Giritli — Right. So, you know I was you know, I was going to the University of Miami. I went to I was going to be an attorney, actually. And so, you know, I got i was going to be an accountant and then I and then went to law school. And between my first and second year of law school, I felt like God called me to the ministry.Omar Giritli — So I decided, felt like God called me to ministry, but I decided just to finish off law school. And so after law school, instead of going to the law profession, I literally went to I started working at Christ Fellowship. Rich Birch — Love it.Omar Giritli — And I started working as an intern um during law school. I was not an intern at a law office. I was an intern at church. And and when once I graduated, ah by the grace of God, there was an opening here at CF, and it was a very entry level you know, position in small groups ministry. I was an intern in the student ministry. Then I came into in the small groups. Omar Giritli — And then from there on out, kind of my journey is very kind of very similar to Carlos. I was a ah small group associate. I became the small group director, small group pastor. Then it became, then I transitioned to a campus pastor later on. Then I became the director of campuses. And then after that, there was a season where I kind of was doing executive pastor role without the official title. But then eventually, ah yeah, then eventually I just transitioned into the lead pastor when our former lead pastor, Pastor Rick Blackwood, transition retired. Rich Birch — Love it. Omar Giritli — But we both had a very similar similar journey. Rich Birch — Yeah, that I love that. And that speaks to, we were joking about this ahead of time, your reputation as a church is you have like a great robust leadership culture. And, you know, have done a great job but um kind of helping people develop and helping, you know, your people develop people.Rich Birch — Carlos, talk to us a little bit about maybe at a staff level, at when you’re encouraging your staff to develop. I think this is one of these things that all of our churches, we say we want to do, but it’s actually very hard to operationalize. What does the developing of particularly volunteers look like for the team at CF?Carlos Cardenas — Yeah, absolutely. We we definitely try to create ah and cultivate a dynamic and an environment where there’s a lot of leadership development that takes place. Not only do we encourage that, we it’s part of our goals. So every year at our church, we, our staff, we have about four to five, sometimes six, you know, goals that we want to accomplish. And one of them always has to do with leadership development.Rich Birch — Love it.Carlos Cardenas — So, you know, you have your attendance, you have like small groups, you have volunteers, which is great, right? But one of them always has to do with developing a leader. And so, and so it is it is the norm here to to empower volunteers, to empower other staff members to do some of the some of the responsibilities that you’ve been entrusted with.Carlos Cardenas — And one ah jokingly, I always tell people, listen, ah we don’t want Superman leadership here. Like, we don’t want you to be a Superman and do it all, right? Like, you’re the one that’s going save the world, and you’re the one that’s going to save the day, and you’re the one that’s going to know all the answers. No, we want to be able to delegate and empower as much as possible. Rich Birch — That’s good. Carlos Cardenas — You know, if you, you know, I heard Andy Stanley many, many years ago share, if you, you know, delegate tasks, you’re just going to create followers. But if you delegate authority, you’re going to create leaders. You’re going to develop leaders. And so that is very, you know, as part of our culture, you know, something that we talk about often. And and we’ve actually throughout the, so, a lot of the leadership of development, ah some of it happens sort of organically, right? Because it’s the culture and you’re bringing alongside alongside someone with you. You know, when you go into a meeting, you’re, you know, you bring someone just to be a fly on the wall so they can hear how the dynamics of that meeting goes. You know, people that you entrust, right? Second Timothy 2.2, you know, entrust into reliable men who will entrust into others, you know, entrust into people that you’re going to, you trust and are are competent and have the character.Carlos Cardenas — But throughout the years, ah several years ago, we actually formalized our leadership development process and we call it Level Up. So it’s like you’re leveling up someone ah to take on more leadership and possibly even taking on your position. Rich Birch — Oh wow.Carlos Cardenas — And so I know at times people can become insecure because they’re like, oh, my gosh, is this competition?Carlos Cardenas — You know, I’m leveling up this person and then they’re no longer going need me. But vice versa. We we actually ah reward those who have leveled up someone to take on their position because if you level up someone to take on your position or another one, you’re you’re always going to have a job or a seat in the bus, right?Rich Birch — 100%. 100%.Carlos Cardenas — Because you’re just helping you know God’s mission move forward.Rich Birch — Yeah.Carlos Cardenas — And one of the things that will will will be a hindrance to the mission that God has given us as a church is lack of leaders. Omar Giritli — Yeah.Carlos Cardenas — You know if you don’t have, you you can have the the resources. You can have the venue. You can have the finances. You know you can have even like the volunteers. But if if you if the Lord provides a campus for us, right? And we don’t have the right campus pastor or the the right person to lead that campus, then guess what? It’s it’s going to create a a lid or it’s going to create a barrier into what we want to do in the future. Carlos Cardenas — And so not not only do we encourage it, Rich, but we we make it part of our goals to to you know that you are required to develop someone or develop leaders.Rich Birch — That’s good. We’ll come we’ll come back. I’d love to talk about Level Up, kind of the formal program, what does that look like in a minute.Carlos Cardenas — Sure. Sure.Rich Birch — But Omar, let’s talk about the culture side a little bit first.Rich Birch — How do we develop, before we just jump to a program, how do we develop a culture? How have you been seeing the culture encourage at CF around leadership development? It’s that nuance. It’s that caught versus taught thing, right? Somebody can get up and say, hey, we got to develop leaders, but it’s a whole different thing when it becomes a part of who we are. What does that look like? How have you been able to develop that culture, Omar, at the church?Omar Giritli — You know, I I think just to like what Carl’s saying, I think, you know, you know we I think part of it is that, you know, we have a a system in place. And I think part of it is, is the the the the, when our staff looks up to the leadership of the church, not only Carlos and I, but even like our directional leadership team and our campus pastors, I can’t even think of one person we brought in from the outside.Rich Birch — That’s good.Omar Giritli — So what happens is, is anybody that’s in our staff and looks up in the organization, they, you know, they, they can, you know, you know, they can see, wow, if I stick around it long enough, if I’m faithful, if I work hard, if I’m a man of a woman of integrity… Rich Birch — That’s good. Omar Giritli — …if if I do what is asked of me and I’m faithful, what Ii have to do, there’s always opportunity for me here at Christ Fellowship. I, you know, I’m not a big fan of bringing people from the outside. Rich Birch — Yep. Omar Giritli — And really, the few times that we’ve done it, it’s very expensive, and they don’t last. Rich Birch — Yep. Omar Giritli — Good people, they just, they just don’t last. I mean, it’s they they’re here for two or three years, and they go. And whether, you know, Miami is very different. Miami is very Hispanic. I mean, little you know, you cross a Broward line, which is a county above, you know, Miami-Dade. And it’s it’s it’s a very unique place. It’s it’s it’s a very unique place. There’s a lot of, you know, Hispanics. It’s a melting pot of South America. And so there’s a lot of things going on here that, honestly, it’s not it’s not for everybody.Omar Giritli — And so um so usually people just come and they’re here for just a few years and it’s not even us. It’s sometimes the cost of living, and the people, and you know the i just they just rather go somewhere else. But the people that stick around for long-term are all people who’ve been here 10, 15 years.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.Omar Giritli — I think, if you think about it, like between Carlos and I, we’ve been here both over 15 years. The directional leadership team, every single person has been from 35 years to somebody else is probably like, all of them are over 10 years in directional leadership team here within CF.Rich Birch — Yep. Yep.Omar Giritli — The campus pastors, for the most part, have been here easily six, seven to 10 years. So what happens is you start looking up the organization and at any young intern, any young staff member entry level position, they see you know, we can talk a lot about leadership development and we can talk about, hey, but where the proof, you know, where the proof, you know, the proof is in the pudding, right?Rich Birch — Yes, yes.Omar Giritli — Look up and everybody here are people that have been here for a long time. So I think that in itself screams, you know, you know, you know screams, um says a lot more than anything we could ever say.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.Omar Giritli — And I think people recognize that. And I think um the people that ah that are in our staff are here. And the truth of the matter is you want people that you raise up because not only are they they, they, you know, you know, you, they know, you you know who they are. You know that they love the Lord. They understand how we operate as a church. They understand our history of our church. But the reality is that they also love our church. There’s a deep passion not and love, not only for the Lord, but for our church, our church family. Rich Birch — Yes.Omar Giritli — And so I think that’s, you know, you know you can have all you can have all the leadership development pipelines and strategies in your in your church. But if the top people are not longstanding people that have developed through the ranks, it’s it’s kind of like you’re you’re you’re preaching something, but it it’s doesn’t really come to fruition, you know?Rich Birch — Right.Carlos Cardenas — You’re not you’re not modeling you’re not modeling we’re not you don’t not be modeling what you’re preaching what you’re what you’re you know vision casting for.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s a good insight. You know, and and there’s no doubt, you know, Miami obviously is a unique place, but every part of the country tells the same story, which is like, hey, this part of the country is just different for one reason or another.Omar Giritli — Sure. Right.Rich Birch — And it’s everybody’s convinced that they’re, but you know, that is obviously true in Miami. And you can see that where, you know, and we I think we get tempted by the cross country hire. We get tempted by the like, oh, here’s a person that was in a similar church and like we can just transplant them into here and like they’ll, but that it really is, it’s the rare person. And I did that. I made the 12 hour move and thought I was going to live there forever. And eight, nine years later, we moved back. I didn’t even think that was going to happen, but there it is.Rich Birch —Carlos, tell us, talk…Carlos Cardenas — And I think, and just to add to what Omar said about it, if you don’t mind if I can just add to what Omar said, because I completely agree with that.Rich Birch —Yeah, yeah, absolutely.Carlos Cardenas — I think when you don’t when the culture is not healthy and it and it it’s in a specific ministry, then you may need to hire from the outside… Rich Birch — Sure. Carlos Cardenas — …like someone that may need to fix you know the ministry or fix whatever area department because the culture is toxic and and all that. But by the grace of God, we we’ve tried as much as we can within the last four to five years, especially when Omar became the lead pastor, to, to make sure the culture is healthy. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. Carlos Cardenas — Like we work hard at trying to, you know, you know, reward people, you know, care for them, celebrate them, and encourage them. Omar Giritli — Yeah.Carlos Cardenas — And I think one of the biggest mistakes that people but fail in ministry is that they don’t want to let go of responsibility. They don’t want to like, and we are all about like, man, releasing, here’s an opportunity for you. You’re young, whether intern or yeah or a volunteer. I mean, we have volunteer staff that that and we hold accountable to.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great.Carlos Cardenas — Like they we hold them accountable. They go to staff meetings and they’re volunteers.Rich Birch — Love it.Carlos Cardenas — Lay men, lay women, you know, that love our church. But, you know, the the I think Omar brought up an excellent point. The high-performing leader stud from across the country, they know a lot, but they they don’t have that love for for the church… Rich Birch — Yeah. Carlos Cardenas — …like like like like someone else who may not be, you know, a five-star, you know, leader, but they they’ll get there. They’ll get there, you know? So, yeah.Rich Birch — Right. Well, yeah and I’ve, so I’ve said in other contexts, like what we do is not rocket science. Like I think sometimes we make it more complex than it is. But the culture stuff—and I love that both of you have hit on this—the love for the church, man, you can’t replace that.Carlos Cardenas — Yeah.Rich Birch — Like the, the, the heart, the heart for the house, man, we love this place.Omar Giritli — Yeah.Rich Birch — You know, God’s changed my life here. I want to be a part of that. That’s a very good, that’s a very good insight.Rich Birch — Omar, pivoting in a totally different direction. As an outsider, Miami seems to be the capital city of Latin America, and your church has is in is taking that mission on very seriously. You’ve done the international campus thing. I’d love to hear more about that, just to put ah in a little bit context for our listeners. The vast majority of multisite churches are, in fact, less than 1% are more than an hour away from the original location. So the fact that you’re doing international campuses, very rare. It just doesn’t, statistically just doesn’t happen.Rich Birch — But I’d love to hear the story of that, Omar. How did you get into that? What’s the vision behind that? Tell us a little bit of that story.Omar Giritli — Yeah. So what happened was when I stepped into this role of lead pastor, one of the things that, and and it was a little bit also when I was doing the kind of the XP role, you know, I was noticing that we would send a lot of money to our, to different mission organizations. And what I noticed was we’re sending a lot of money, and I had no clue what they were doing with that money. Rich Birch — Yes.Omar Giritli — I mean, it was so much money. Yeah. Mission, mission, mission, but okay. Where’s the report? Rich Birch — Right.Omar Giritli — Where’s, help us understand how do we know what how you handle that money? You know, and again, it’s not I don’t think anybody was you know doing anything fraudulent, but there wasn’t any any real, you know, you know, what was the fruit of that? What was the fruit of all of our sacrifice to give to this mission organization, you know?Omar Giritli — And so at some point we we we started we we have like ah we’re supporting some churches in Cuba. And at that juncture, we went to go see them and um the previous um executive pastor before Carlos, ah his name is Jim Tomberlin, you probably know who he is.Omar Giritli — You know, I started thinking myself, why we start funneling all of our missions budget, not just to some random mission organizations that we have no clue how they’re using the money and how effective they’re using that money. But what about if we just plant our own churches? How what about we establish our own churches?Omar Giritli — And these will be churches that have our same mission, vision, strategy. Our same name. Some places would have Christ Fellowship in some Latin American countries where there’s English speaking people. If not, they’re called Familia Cristiana, which is a very similar name with the same low, same thing. And they will be independent churches. They’re not ours, but they’re independent churches that ah we support the pastor. We provide resources, graphics, a sermon. I mean, anything that they they need. And how come, you know, what about we did this?Omar Giritli — So we what we started doing is instead of giving all this money just to some, you know, random mission organization that we don’t know how effective they were being. We know that when we establish, when we plant our church ourselves, we know how to do it. We know that’s going to be effective. And we know that we can, with integrity, I could stand before the congregation and everything that you sacrifice and you gave towards this church, we know what every penny went to. And we, and here’s the proof. These are churches you have started or helped revitalize.Omar Giritli — And it’s been awesome. It’s been awesome because they they, lot of these churches, we plant them and with the strategy, hey, we want to get you off the ground. And you’re free to go. You’re you’re like you’re you’re literally free to go and become your own church if you want to. But most of them just stay with us. Rich Birch — Right.Omar Giritli — They just want to just stay with us really. Rich Birch — Wow. Omar Giritli — And they have a great, great partnership. And it’s been really a really great, a really great thing for us where, you know, we’re able to establish all these churches in all these different places and, and we’re learning and we don’t have it perfected. But if you look at any of these other campuses globally, they’re going through the same series we are. Carlos Cardenas — Yeah. Omar Giritli — Same graphics, same, you know, sermon, you know, same teaching. I mean, It’s kind of funny. Some people have said that they go to these global campuses and they look more Christ Fellowship than some of our local campuses. I mean, they have really taken the identity, our strategy, our logos, pictures, and they’ve own it. They’ve taken ownership of.Omar Giritli — And I think with those churches, when they realize, well, we’re being led by by a church who is not trying to you know be over-controlling, but we’re here, we’re together in this, right? We’re together we’re and we’re and, man, they really appreciate it. So, so yeah, so we have um campuses. I believe we have nine campuses right now um all over.Omar Giritli — We’ve there’s been times that we’ve had 15, 16. There was a moment, for example, in Cuba where we came to a point, we had about six, seven campuses in Cuba that they said, you know, with the political tensions, better if we completely go independent because of everything going on.Rich Birch — Yeah. Sure.Omar Giritli — And so they they went off and they’re still doing great and we love them. They love us. But, you know, that’s, you know, our goal is not having a Christ Fellowship campuses. It’s really establishing and and planting new churches where there are no churches, you know. Rich Birch — Right. Omar Giritli — It’s been great. And I think our people are really appreciate it. Because they really feel that when they give their tithe and their offerings and they sacrifice to give to Christ Fellowship, that we’re really funneling that to to to to further the gospel to all nations.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s amazing.Carlos Cardenas — Yeah.Rich Birch — Could, Carlos, unpack that a little bit. When you say that you guys have planted, what does that typically look like? Like, are you identifying planters in the communities that you’re, you know, that you’re launching in? Talk us through some of the, how does some of the mechanics of that work?Carlos Cardenas — Yes, some of them have been a—great question—some of them have been a church merger, you know, so it’s a church, a church that is, you know, a dying church. And then we’ve so we have a global pastor, you know, and our global pastor is the one who is ah but building these relationships with these men or these pastors, right? And and in those countries. And so then some of them have been of church merger. Carlos Cardenas — Others have started just like we would start a local campus where they start with small groups. You know, we first of all, I identify the leader. So we have the pastor. Then that pastor, I can tell you one campus in Colombia, Villavicencio, this was the their their their pathway. Actually for several of them, on Honduras as well and Guatemala, where they begin ah small groups, right? In someone’s home.Carlos Cardenas — And then they start having multiple small groups. And then they identify a venue. So usually they they lease space, you know. We do help them financially in that in that process. And then from there, we have our our grand our our our launch date, like our grand opening. For the most part, either Omar, myself, will be a part of that. We’ve even done ordinations and in in in some of these pastors.Rich Birch — Wow.Carlos Cardenas — We’ve gone there to do ordinations, like do the whole ordination process and the the ceremony. So it usually starts with identifying the pastor, starting off with small groups, investing and serving the community. And then we have our grand opening launch, launch date in, in, in, in that, in that community, in that city of of of the country that we we go to.Carlos Cardenas — And just to, to really just to kind of add to what Omar shared, you know, there, if you were to go to one of those campuses, it feels like you’re at Christ Fellowship Miami. Like in in the context of that nation, it’s like, oh, like same graphic branding, um you know, even the vibe like guest services.Carlos Cardenas — Because the other thing too, is that our ministry directors here, they spend some time ah developing their leaders there. So for example, Like our creative director will have a Zoom meeting with all the creative leads from all the different global campuses. So you will have like 15 people from all over the country, from all and over the world, right? From all over really South America, and Latin America and the Caribbean. So you have someone from several people from, you know, um Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Colombia, you know, Honduras.Carlos Cardenas — And, and, and we’ll, you know, they’ll still have like a a workshop, you know, on hey here’s, here’s some of the best, you know, common practices when it comes to, you know, graphics and when it comes to, you know, ah videos on social media, think things like that. Right?Carlos Cardenas — And then um not last year, but in 2023, we were going to do it this year, but we had to we we we we pivoted and we’re not gonna do it this year. But in 2023, we had our our first global conference…Rich Birch — Wow.Carlos Cardenas — …where we had about 200 volunteers. Some were staff, but most of them were volunteers from all these global campuses. And we did a full-on conference for them. So we took about 25 staff members, including myself, you know. That included the band. So we took like the bands, you know. Rich Birch — Wow. Carlos Cardenas — We did a full on, you know, main session, like I was able to preach in one of the main sessions. And then we have breakouts, you know, like, it was ah it was I think it was a day and a half. No, sorry, it was a it was a full day of a conference. And then we visited many of the locations that we we had in that in that country that we went to.Carlos Cardenas — So um we not only do we want to provide financial support, like, you know, to Omar’s point, you You know, one thing is to write a check. Another thing is to, like, we’re going to invest in your leadership. We’re going to invest in you as ah as a as a leader, as a volunteer, as a person, as ah as a congregation, as a campus. We’re we’re going to invest in you. We’re going to walk alongside you and… Rich Birch — I love that. Yeah, I love that. Carlos Cardenas — …and tell you, you know, here’s how we do follow-up. Here’s how we do small groups. So we’re one church. You know, it’s it’s just a it’s we call it global campuses. Omar Giritli — Yeah.Rich Birch — Yep.Carlos Cardenas — And and every year, at least once a year, we bring our global pastors together. We have them on stage. They share, you know, we have a video. They share something. We cast vision. We remind, you know, God’s people like, hey, part of your giving, part of your generosity… Rich Birch — Yeah, it goes to this. Carlos Cardenas — …you know, goes to fund these ministries and these campuses that we have in all these different countries. So it’s it’s it’s been very fascinating. Pretty cool experience.Rich Birch — Yeah, when sticking with you, Carlos, ah there may be churches who have had, you know, maybe interest from ah pastors in a different part of the world, or, you know, they might have people that are tracking with them. What would be like ah a pothole, like a thing that you would suggest, hey, watch out for this, because this part of it is the way that it could you know go bad or not go great. Is there something in that maybe you haven’t necessarily directly experienced that, but you could see, oh, hey, this could go bad if we don’t navigate this well in these kinds of relationships.Carlos Cardenas — It always starts with the leader, with the pastor. Rich Birch — Okay, good.Carlos Cardenas — And and I think of it the same way with local campuses. Rich Birch — Yep.Carlos Cardenas — To me, the pastor is everything. Rich Birch — Yep.Carlos Cardenas — We call them campus pastors, global campus pastor. If the global campus pastor is not excited, fully on board, doesn’t believe in the vision, mission, and strategy. We’ve had different meetings where we’ve identified pastors and they, let’s be honest, like they they want to go into in a relationship with us. They want to get some funding… Rich Birch — Right. Sure. Carlos Cardenas — …but we know that their heart is not there. Like they don’t want, they, they, they don’t want to, ah ah you know, and, and contextually we, there’s, there’s certain things that we are, are flexible on, right? Like contextually, you got to tweak couple of things, right?Rich Birch — Sure. Sure. Yep.Carlos Cardenas — Because you you can’t be so boxed in and and we’re not in the States, right? So you have to, you have to also be contextual to the nation that you’re in. But but for the most part, you’ve got to have, you’ve got to adopt our discipleship pathway. Rich Birch — Yep. Carlos Cardenas — You know, our strategy, which is, you know, connecting to God, connect connect to God, connect to others, connect to ministry and connect to the mission. You know, and you have to, you know, doctrine is important, of course. And and understand, like, we’re we’re we’re aligned when it comes to our teaching, right?Carlos Cardenas — Now, are there are there certain weekends that the pastor may have a one-off? Like, you know, it may not do the the not be a part of the sermon series. That’s okay. We we we we have to navigate those tensions, right? Rich Birch — Sure.Carlos Cardenas — But for the most part, they’re they’re aligned with us. So you you got you got to identify the right person. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Carlos Cardenas — It always starts with them.Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s so good. Well, just as we’re coming to land, Omar, as you think about the future, you think about the future of Christ Fellowship and you know campuses, multisite, what what’s on the horizon? Or maybe what are some questions you’re asking as you think about the future as ah you know as a church, as related to this, all the stuff we’ve been talking about today?Omar Giritli — Well, as we look to the future, um you know, I think one of the things that we want to continue just to increase is, um you know, when it comes to here at Christ Fellowship, it’s really our local outreach. Because, know, we’ve been talking about our global outreach, our local outreach here at Christ Fellowship.Rich Birch — Yep.Omar Giritli — And one of the things that um that that really that we’re really just proud of as as ah as an organization ah is that we have two missional arms of Christ Fellowship. One of them is to families, which is Christ Fellowship Academy. We we have a school. Rich Birch — Very cool.Omar Giritli — But we also have Caring for Miami, ah which is ah really a nonprofit that really focuses on reaching the under-resourced and hurting in our city.Rich Birch — That’s good.Omar Giritli — And, man, we have it’s an amazing thing where ah we have a, Caring for Miami does, you know, different things. For example, we have a more a brand new state-of-the-art mobile market that goes through all the hurting parts of the city and people… Rich Birch — Wow. Omar Giritli — …you know, the the Miami-Dade down the the county down donated one of their their buses and we gutted it and we renovated it to be a state-of-the-art market that they goes through all these different hurting parts of the city. Rich Birch — That’s cool.Omar Giritli — And people could go on there shop free of charge. We have a mobile dental clinic that goes to all these different parts and provides free resources, free services to cancer patients, to all these hurting people.Omar Giritli — We have our, we’re just about to launch our mobile clothing market, which is a bus that actually goes to all the same places and people go on there and shop for, and not shop, but pick the clothes they want ah free of charge and and and all that.Omar Giritli — We have a park marketplace. We have a backpack program which gives to children in schools. And so one of the things is that, you know, we need to continue reaching out, you know, being very missional.Omar Giritli — One of the things that, you know, Carlos and I were talking about that part of our our giving has really increased in the last several years. And I think it’s not because we’ve done a great a huge sermon series on giving. We do talk about it you know regularly, and we’re not you know we’re not afraid to talk about giving.Omar Giritli — We’re giving as examples. We’re taught to be good stewards of what God has given to us. But I really do think that when the people of God see the church being missional, whether it’s locally… Rich Birch — That’s good. Omar Giritli — …for example, through Caring for Miami, or globally, really it’s, I think it really motivates people to want to really sacrifice and give towards a mission because they see that what they’re sacrificing for is not just to keep the lights open, but it’s to really reach more people for Christ, not only here in Miami, but abroad.Omar Giritli — And so that’s one of the things that we do. We really want to celebrate what a God is doing through us and locally and and globally. And whether you know we’re you know ministering to a cancer patient through our dental clinic or whether we are planning a new church and do an outreach you know in you know in Costa Rica, they know that, hey, when you give to this church, we might not be perfect, but man, we’re going to be our best, do our best to be the best stewards of what God has entrusted to us through the generosity of God’s people, and and do that. So that’s one of the things that we’re that we’re looking to do as we move forward is continue just to be as missional as possible.Rich Birch — That’s good.Omar Giritli — And and I think our people really buy into that. And they they really their hearts are really behind that because you know we all want to see people reach reach people you know. We all want to see people being reached for Christ, right so.Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely.Omar Giritli — That’s one of the things, you continue to be missional and and and develop leaders because as as people give, as we’re missional, as people give, more opportunities come up, which is that we need to be have the leaders ready to go, you know… Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Omar Giritli — …which kind of ties into the inner circle of like leadership development.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Well, I really appreciate you guys being on today and thank you for letting us look under the hood a little bit. Carlos, if people want to track with the church, where do we want to send them online? Where where should we get to send them to stay connected with what you guys are up to?Carlos Cardenas — Yeah, our website, cfmiami.org. Rich Birch — Love it. Carlos Cardenas — cfmiami.org, yeah.Rich Birch — Love it.Omar Giritli — Yeah, and social media.Carlos Cardenas — Follow you can follow us on social media too, Instagram, you know Facebook, @cfmiami as well. That’s our account.Rich Birch — Nice. You’re going to say something there, Omar, as well?Omar Giritli — Yeah, so our social media handles are CFMiami.Omar Giritli — And then also, if you want to look more and into like our Caring for Miami, which I just mentioned, it’s just @caringformiami.Omar Giritli — It’s on social, on, on, on, and you’ll see it’s like, it’s pretty amazing. Rich Birch — That’s so cool. Omar Giritli — So on our main website, you’ll see us celebrate their global campuses. And then on Caring for Miami, we’ll celebrate all that we’re doing in the community.Rich Birch — Love it.Rich Birch — Thanks so much, gentlemen. I appreciate you being here today. Thank you.Omar Giritli — You got it. Thank you so much, Rich.

Explore the complex world of multisite churches and bust common myths that hinder growth. Discover how campus and central leadership can collaborate effectively while navigating tensions. Learn why launching with a strong volunteer core is essential for success and why small launches often flounder. Delve into strategies for diagnosing struggling campuses, focusing on financial health and attendance, and uncover revitalization tactics that can breathe new life into these important community hubs.

Join Bo Chancey, Senior Pastor, and Jeremy Peterson, Executive Pastor, from One Church in New Hampshire as they discuss their innovative multisite approach. They emphasize the power of prayer in fostering community and unity across locations. Delve into their model of local communicators delivering live messages, enhancing engagement. They also share insights on nurturing future leaders and adapting church practices to connect in a post-religious culture. Discover how their focus on discipleship is transforming lives beyond just attendance.

Exploring the challenges of multisite ministry, the discussion highlights the balance between centralized identity and local campus adaptation. Key strategies for maintaining unity are shared, including the importance of strong governance and effective communication. The role of campus pastors evolves as they lead larger frameworks, ensuring alignment with the church's mission. Successful churches identify non-negotiable constants, while allowing localized adaptations to thrive, exemplified by Life.Church's meticulous service replication.

Rick Langston and Daniel Simmons from The Summit Church share their insights on successfully leading a multi-site church with clarity and purpose. They discuss the church's evolution and the importance of maintaining a unified identity across campuses while ensuring flexibility in local engagement. The conversation emphasizes empowering leaders, effective communication, and the PACE framework to foster mission-driven growth. Listeners will appreciate practical strategies for building community and nurturing leadership in a growing church environment.

Multisite churches are booming, growing from a few hundred to over 5,000 in just two decades. Discover why this model excels in reaching more people and engaging volunteers. Learn the critical prerequisites for launching a multisite, including the importance of a healthy growth momentum, a clear mission, and a robust volunteer base. Avoid common pitfalls that can derail your plans and understand that multisite is more than just expansion—it's about meaningful outreach and impact in the community.

Thanks for joining us at the unSeminary podcast. In this episode we’re talking with Kara Powell, the Executive Director of the Fuller Youth Institute and Chief of Leadership Formation at Fuller Theological Seminary. How is your church engaging with the next generation? Building connection and trust with young people can be difficult in today’s world. Kara’s work is all about helping churches equip leaders and engage young people, and in this conversation, she shares powerful insights for creating a church that truly connects with today’s youth. Hope amidst declining trust. // One of the biggest reasons young people are stepping away from the church is a crisis of trust. Many view the church as hypocritical, unkind, and full of moral failure. However, research shows that while many teenagers are hesitant about church, they remain deeply intrigued by Jesus and His teachings. This means churches have a unique opportunity to rebuild trust by embodying Jesus’ love and authenticity. Five keys to faith formation. // Kara outlines five essential components for fostering faith in young people and what it means to relationally disciple them. To start, young people need adults who share their faith and invest in them personally. Second, young people crave authentic spiritual practices, like prayer and worship, and need to be learning them in trusted communities. Third, this generation is passionate about justice and serving and wants to contribute meaningfully. Fourth, families are partners in shaping the faith of young people, and churches must equip them for that role. And lastly, a thriving church intentionally integrates young people into its vision and ministry. Diversity is an expectation. // Today’s younger generations expect diversity because they experience it daily in their schools, extracurricular activities, and communities. If a church does not reflect the ethnic and economic diversity of its neighborhood, young people perceive it as out of touch. Ask yourself, does your church really reflect the diversity of your neighborhood? If not, how can you be more intentional about engaging with the broader community in authentic ways? Love your neighbors. // Evaluate what percentage of your church’s resources are focused on yourself versus serving and loving your broader community. Too often, churches focus inward, investing the majority of their time and finances on internal programs. Seek ways to love your community through service and outreach, as these acts of love make a profound impact and draw people in. Build a Transformation Team. // To implement meaningful change, Kara recommends assembling a Transformation Team—a group of 5 to 12 individuals from different areas of the church who are committed to driving change. This team should include young people and representatives from various ministries (for example, children’s ministry, worship, missions, etc.). By working together across departments, churches can ensure that engagement with young people is woven into the fabric of the entire church. Four zones to help change. // Kara’s latest book, Future-Focused Church, co-authored with Jake Mulder and Ray Chang, provides a roadmap for enacting change in the church. The book introduces a four framework that includes: Who (who can help catalyze change), Here (what’s your church’s current reality), There (where is God calling you), and How (how will you actually make the change). This structured approach helps churches strategically plan for the future and avoid common pitfalls in implementing new initiatives. Visit futurefocusedchurch.com to learn more about Kara’s new book, Future-Focused ChurchLeading Through Change, Engaging the Next Generation, & Building a More Diverse Tomorrow, and explore the resources available. Plus, check out Fuller Youth Institute at fulleryouthinstitute.org for help coming alongside the young people in your community, and connect with Kara on social media @KPowellFYI. Click here to listen to the unSeminary podcast episode Healing the Racial Divide in Your Church with Derwin Gray. 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. I’m really looking forward to today’s conversation. You know, this is one of those topics… in fact, I was reflecting recently, it revolves around one of the saddest things I ever heard a church leader say, which was, “It’s been decades since there were young people at our church.” And man, we don’t want that to happen at any of our churches.Rich Birch — And today we are in for a real treat. It’s our honor to have Kara Powell. She’s the executive director of the Fuller Youth Institute and the chief leadership and the chief of leadership formation at Fuller Theological Seminary. That’s a lot. That’s a long title. she’s really an expert in this whole area. She speaks regularly at national parenting and leadership conferences, and is an author and co-author of a number of, from my perspective, must-read books. She’s got a brand new book that’s just come out that we want to make sure you read. But, Kara, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.Kara Powell — Thanks, Rich. It’s wonderful to be with you and all of your awesome listeners and viewers.Rich Birch — This is great. I’m I’m honored that you would be with us. For for those that might not be familiar, kind of unpack a little bit about your role at Fuller Youth Institute and Fuller Theological Seminary in general.Kara Powell — Yeah, well, I’m a faculty member, and I certainly love that role at Fuller Seminary. You already mentioned another role I’m passionate about, which is I’m the executive director of the Fuller Youth Institute. And our mission there is to equip diverse leaders so that faithful young people can change our world. And we do that by turning research into resources. Rich Birch — That’s good. Kara Powell — So we take the best research that Fuller and others are doing and turn it into practical resources. One of FYI’s major initiatives is the ten by ten collaboration. So an additional role is that I’m the founder of the ten by ten collaboration, which seeks to help faith matter for 10 million US teenagers in the next ten years in the spirit of John 10:10. Kara Powell — And then my broadest role at Fuller is I’m the chief of leadership formation, as you said. And that means I oversee all of Fuller’s non-degree training. And so really, in all these roles, I’m about turning research into resources. Rich Birch — Love it. Kara Powell — And in many cases, that aligns with the needs and opportunities of the next generation.Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s so good. Well, you’ve been influential in my own thinking. And so many. I know you’ve helped so many people. And so I’m really looking forward to today’s conversation. You know, one of the things that I mentioned, this on the top, literally one of the saddest conversations I had was with a church leader in a church that we ended up that the physical building we ended up adopting. And one of the things they said was, man, there, it has been decades since there were young people at this church. Rich Birch — And, you know, this is a major challenge for many of our churches engaging young people. I’d love to dive right in. What are some key reasons younger generations disconnect from the church and and what can we do to address that? That’s like a huge question, but let’s start there.Kara Powell — Yeah, absolutely.Rich Birch — I feel like you’d say, well, that’s my life’s work. So, you know…Kara Powell — Sit down. We’re gonna have a long conversation about it.Rich Birch — Yes, exactly.Kara Powell — So, you know, it’s impossible to point to just one factor that is causing young people to distance themselves from the church. But I’ll say, one that we’re hearing about more and more these days is that young people are not trusting the church. Now let’s let’s back, you know, zoom out a little bit. I will say, in general, people are not trusting institutions. Rich Birch — Yep. Kara Powell — Young people are not trusting institutions. And in particular, young people are not trusting the church. They view the church as unkind, hypocritical, full of moral failure. And so as a result, young people are skittish about being connected with the church. As one pastor’s 13 year old daughter said to him recently, like, why should I tell others I go to church; people who go to church or jerks? Rich Birch — Oh wow. Kara Powell — And that’s that’s kind of the reputation in our world. Now, I’m an optimist. And so, you know that that’s the bad news. But I’ll say, here’s the good news, and the Barna Group has done some fantastic research on this, that while well, while teenagers in the US and globally are often, distant from the church, like, they’re very pro-Jesus. Rich Birch — That’s good. Kara Powell — There’s a lot about Jesus that they find really intriguing and appealing. While they might say the church is unloving, they understand that Jesus is a person of love. So the good news for us is the more and more that we can all state the obvious: be who Jesus wants us to be… Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Kara Powell — …and do what Jesus wants us to do, I mean, that’s gone on for so many reasons. Rich Birch — Yes. Kara Powell — But we also think and have seen that that’s really attractive for young people.Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s like, so I’m classic Gen X and, you know, when I get to heaven, I think Bono’s going to be leading worship there. Kara Powell — Totally. Rich Birch — And he said, you know, I love Jesus. I’m just not so sure about his friends. And you know, that that seems to continue to resonate in, you know, in generation. I know in your work you’ve emphasized, you know, trying to break that down a little bit more. How do we build trust, relational discipleship, kingdom diversity and loving neighbors? Why are these important? Why are these important to kind of unpack those? What do you mean by those? Why are those important for us to be thinking about?Kara Powell — Yeah. Well, here’s what they all share. First off, I want to say they’re very grounded in scripture, and scripture’s invitations and commands. Secondly, they reflect some of the most important opportunities according to what we’re seeing through research and real recent data. And then we also have seen them be really powerful catalysts for churches. And so so that’s what all three of them have in common. You know, when it comes to relational discipleship, especially of young people, too often we in the church, and this is very much Kara including herself in that “we”, we’ve offered program maybe we’ve offered teaching, but we haven’t offered real relational discipleship. And when churches do that, especially when the next generation, especially investing in the next generation, what’s so exciting is not only our young people changed, but the whole church has changed. Rich Birch — So true. Kara Powell — So we think one of the most, you know, exciting catalysts for revival, renewal, whatever you want to call it based on your theological tradition is, is emphasizing relational discipleship. Kara Powell — And secondly, when it comes to kingdom diversity, you know, God’s made us in God’s image and yet we all reflect that in different ways, different ethnicities, different cultures. And, you know, in the US, we crossed a line in 2020, according to the US census, that now half of those under 18 are young people of color. So, you know, the US has never been more ethnically diverse than it is now. And how can churches not force that, but how can we reflect the communities in which we live? I mean, that’s our that’s our ongoing question to churches. Kara Powell — And then lastly, I mean, we just can’t get away from the importance of love. I was on an early morning prayer meeting this morning with folks, and we were looking at what’s going on in our world. And, you know, one of one person said, what we need to do is kind of move away from culture wars and instead lean into love wars. Now, you know, I don’t love military, violent metaphors. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Kara Powell — So I’m I’m not saying let’s like, go brand that and hashtag that and all that, but but like, wow! You know, back to what young people think of the church. Like what if, what if we could be known… Rich Birch — Right. Kara Powell — …as some of the most loving people on the planet? What a difference that would make. So we think that young people and kingdom diversity and really loving our neighbors is Jesus’ command. They just offer amazing leverage right now for churches.Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. Why don’t we why don’t we step through those, double click on each of those and kind of unpack it a little bit at a practical level, this idea of relational discipleship. Kara Powell — Yeah. Yeah. Rich Birch — Yeah, I went I found it convicting when you said that I’m the one that’s thinking systems and scale and like, okay, how do we scale this thing up? Let’s come up with a new program. Kara Powell — Yeah. Rich Birch — But it’s deeper than that. Unpack that. Relational discipleship. What do you mean by that?Kara Powell — Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Well, we we especially expand this on the ten by ten website, but we’ve identified five keys to faith formation, for young people, and what it means to relationally disciple young people. And I’ll just I’ll just hit them real quickly.Kara Powell — Number one, it starts with an adult young person relationship where faith is shared with adults. Adults are sharing faith with young people. As Paul describes in first Thessalonians 2:8, I was so delighted to share with you not just the gospel, but my very life. Rich Birch — That’s so good. Kara Powell — Second, that young people are engaged in spiritual practices and learning. I mean, that’s something exciting we’re seeing with this generation. They really want to experience God. You know, they love prayer and worship, when it’s in a community they trust. They’re really drawn to that, as well as interesting teaching. Third, that young people are serving, like that’s one of the great things about this generation. They want to be involved, sharing their faith, seeking justice. Kara Powell — And then the fourth and fifth are that families are partners in the faith formation of their young people. And then lastly, that the overall church prioritizes and emphasizes young people. So when, as we’ve looked at the research on youth discipleship as well as scripture, those are the five drivers that we think are most important.Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s specifically on the adult, the kind of adult-young person relationship… Kara Powell — Yeah, yeah. Rich Birch — …there’s I know you’ve done a lot of work on this area, but that to me that that is a profound understanding. I think we’ve so much of our programming bands to like, let’s keep everybody together… Kara Powell — Yeah, yeah. Rich Birch — …as opposed to cross-generational. Talk a little bit about that.Kara Powell — Yeah. Yeah. Well, one of the metaphors that I like to use is, you know, growing up when Grandma and Grandpa Eckman—my grandparents—had all of us over, it’s way too many people to sit in one room, say, on a holiday meal. So they created the adults’ table and the kids’ table.Rich Birch — Kids’ table. Yes.Kara Powell — Yeah. And that’s what we tended to do in churches… Rich Birch — Yeah, yep. Kara Powell — …is create the adults’ table and the kids’ table, two separate experiences. And let me tell you, we’ve been well intentioned, like I’ve been part of the professionalization of youth ministry. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Kara Powell — I have championed that. And yet we’ve been so well-intentioned. And yet the, the, the backlash is that young people are separate, silo-ized, segregated, which is not a verb I use lightly. And so, you know, when they graduate from high school, they they know the youth group, they know their youth pastor, but they don’t have a vision for what it is to be part of church. So, you know, do 16 year olds need to be on their own, some talking about life stage issues? You bet. Just like 46 year olds and 76 year olds do. Rich Birch — Sure. Kara Powell — But how do we find the right balance when, yes, there’s some of that, but there’s also a lot of intentional mentoring that’s happening in a faith community.Rich Birch — Yeah, I know in my own life this when particularly when you’ve talked about this in the past, this has had profound impact on me, reflecting on my own experience, where I’ve had this weird disconnect in my own life, where the churches I lead in, I’m not sure the church would that would be that would appeal to my parents. When we first became Christian… Kara Powell — Interesting. Yeah. Rich Birch — …you know, we we were in a very small church and very multi-generational. Kara Powell — Yeah, yeah. Rich Birch — And, you know, then I’ve led in these very like you say, kids table, adult table churches over the years, which has been fascinating.Rich Birch — Let’s talk about kingdom diversity. Kara Powell — Yes. Rich Birch — Every zip code in America is more diverse today than it was ten years ago. Kara Powell — Yes. Rich Birch — It will be more diverse ten years from now. And and it seems like young people have always been appealed, you know, have always wanted kind of a diversity. Is this different than just normal kind of maturation we’ve seen, or is there something behind this that’s even more like, hey, this is an emphatic thing we need to really be leaning into?Kara Powell — Yeah, well, I think all of us, but especially our young people, are experiencing diversity more, so they expect it more… Rich Birch — Yes. Oh that’s good. Yeah. Kara Powell — …other spheres. And so when you know, when they’re when their school experience from 8 to 3 is very ethnically diverse, culturally diverse, and then they show up at youth group that night or church on the weekend and it’s not that way, well, then they get a sense that the church is out of touch. Rich Birch — Right. Kara Powell — And is it really engaged in the community. Rich Birch — Right. Kara Powell — So so yeah. And you know, we constantly say you mentioned zip codes, like we encourage churches like ask yourself, do I reflect the ethnic and economic diversity of our neighborhood? And if not, then how do we be more intentional in building relationships, and who we have up front in leadership and the kind of communities that we create? So, you know, we’re not asking you to force diversity, but if you’re loving your neighbors, then hopefully that’s reflected in your neighbors being part of your community.Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s good. That’s good. I had Derwin Gray on this podcast… Kara Powell — Oh, great. Rich Birch — …take me to town on this issue. Kara Powell — Great. Rich Birch — And I would highly recommend you go back, friends, and listen to that. I think it could be, you know, just an eye opening experience for sure. So loving neighbors is the last one of these. This is can be a soft thing, but I know you don’t mean it that way. Kara Powell — Yeah Rich Birch — There’s like it’s got to have hard traction make a difference in our churches. What does it look like for a church that’s actually loving its community, and how does that connect with young people?Kara Powell — Yeah. Well, I think a poignant question that I’ve been convicted by when I’ve been a pastor is what percent of our churches’ resources are focused on ourselves, and what percent are focused on what it means to love our neighbors. Rich Birch — Ouch! Kara Powell — And, and for a lot of churches, it’s like 90/10, 95/5, maybe 85/15. But, you know, as we think about Scripture, I’m not going to suggest a percentage. I’ll let the Holy Spirit convict all of us on that. But you know what? What kind of allocation would we think Scripture would have to say when it comes to our own internal community versus understanding the needs of our external community, and then tangibly responding? And, you know, the good news is we tell churches all the time, like, please don’t start a bunch of new programs. There’s probably already nonprofits and other ministries in your community already trying to love people. And so, you know, let’s let’s let that kind of love be what’s compelling. You know, we’re we’re recording this not too long after the fires in Los Angeles.Kara Powell — So I’m sitting in my dining room in Pasadena, and we were evacuated for five days. Rich Birch — Oh wow. Kara Powell — And we know so many who have lost so much. And we have a 22 year old living with us who’s been displaced, and a friend of our family, and honored to do that. There’s just a lot of brokenness, but I’ll tell you, there are bright spots in churches when churches are loving. Rich Birch — It’s true. Kara Powell — What one one friend was telling me that, you know, when they were evacuated, they they came to our church, which had opened its facilities in the middle of the night to be a home. And their parents live in their back house. Dad’s an atheist. He’s had no interest in church. What he saw in our church’s community in those first 24, 48 hours. Like he started coming to church now, because he saw the body of Christ in action, loving each other and loving the neighborhood. Rich Birch — Love it. Love it. Kara Powell — And so, so it’s often I mean, at least what we’re seeing in in LA is in the midst of the brokenness, there’s some real beauty that comes from us loving others.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I love that. Just even in my own backyard, there was a tornado that went through a number of years ago, and I was super proud of our church. We leaned in and and in fact, there’s a whole ripple. I was just reminded yesterday, there’s a whole ripple in our church of like, families that got connected to our church, not because of some fancy program… Kara Powell — Yeah, yeah. Totally. Yeah. Rich Birch — …not because of some thing. It was like the tornado ripped through and within, literally within hours, people from our church were over there helping… Kara Powell — That’s awesome. Rich Birch — …and and that had huge impact. That’s, yeah, that’s great. Okay. One of the things I was struck by in your work is this idea of a transformation team. Kara Powell — Yeah. Rich Birch – It’s it’s like a super practical kind of we’re thinking about change. What is the transformation team? Why is it important to help us understand this concept?Kara Powell — Yeah. Well, I’m guessing most people who are listening or watching this right now, like you’re probably watching it on your own. Rich Birch — Yes.Kara Powell — And while you can listen to a podcast on your own, you can’t bring about change on your own. Rich Birch — That’s true. Kara Powell — And so as we’ve journeyed with over a thousand churches who have successfully made changes toward what we’re talking about, as well as other areas. Like, well, while our book focuses on young people, kingdom diversity, and loving our neighbors, this is true for any change you want to bring about. You want to become more prayerful. You want to become more worshipful. You know, whatever it might be, we highly recommend starting a transformation team. And that’s a group of 5 to 12 who are very focused on the change, who are really who are really dialed into that. That’s probably 1 or 2, pastors, but maybe it’s not led by a pastor. Maybe it’s led by a member of the congregation who really has the vision and skills to lead. One of the interesting things that we’ve seen is transformation teams—like, let’s just let’s double click on young people for a second. A lot of churches want to become more, you know, mindful and more focused on the next generation. Well, we would encourage your transformation team then to have a few young people in it. RIch Birch — Right, right. Kara Powell — You know, have people who who you’re trying to better love be part of what you’re of your transformation team. But, you know, we’ve also seen churches have great success by having a few young people, but then really bringing together people from all different areas of the church. Rich Birch — Oh that’s good. Kara Powell — Someone from children’s ministry, someone from worship, someone from tech, someone from missions, someone from prayer. And so, you know, you can think about now, how can young people or whatever change you’re wanting to make, become woven into the fabric in all these areas? So, you know, we have a lot of specific recommendations: meet every 2 to 4 weeks, you know, commit to something like six months, most likely, etc. But really, it starts with getting the right people. And we, we recommend some of some who are really core to what the change you’re trying to be and represents that change, but then also diversity across the church.Rich Birch — Yeah. Love it. What about the mixture of like kind of the big idea people versus the like, guys that love the spreadsheets or people that love the spreadsheets. Talk us through. What does that look like on that?Kara Powell — Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, like with most everything, we love all of that. Rich Birch — Yes. Kara Powell — Like, it’s important to have, it’s important to have both. So you know I think a question becomes where what is our team biased toward, and how do we need to correct for that? Rich Birch — That’s good, that’s good. Kara Powell — So, you know and I see this. In fact, I lead two teams at Fuller where one is very big picture and struggles with execution. And the other is awesome at execution, but sometimes can lack vision. Rich Birch — Right. That’s good. Kara Powell — And so so, you know, we’re we’re constantly trying to compensate for that. Who who can we add who can we bring in, even for just a time period to really help with execution or to really make sure that we’re dreaming the right big God sized dreams?Rich Birch — That’s cool. That’s good.Rich Birch — Well, yeah. There’s a lot we could talk about there but I love that. Just even practical takeaway. Kind of a bit of a meta conversation or discussion about you as a leader. I, so this area, working with young people, thinking about the future, I feel like there’s a lot of people in this area who are like all doom and gloom. Who, like, are like, oh my goodness, the world is falling. It’s all terrible. But you seem to be able to hold this balance of like you’re realist. I don’t get the sense of like, oh, your head’s in the sky, like, hey, things are everything’s perfect. But you do come to the best days of the church are ahead of us. Kara Powell — Yeah. Rich Birch — Which I love. I find as I just want to honor you for that. I think it’s incredible that you have that kind of posture. At least that’s my opinion of you. Kara Powell — Yeah. Rich Birch — That’s what I’ve seen you lead from. What gives you confidence in that belief? Kara Powell — Yeah. Rich Birch — What gives you the confidence that like, hey, there’s good days coming when you’re staring into some tough realities that we face as a church?Kara Powell — Yep. My theology gives me that confidence.Rich Birch — Love it. Love it. Yes.Kara Powell — So, so, yeah, I, I’m very realist. I’m married to an engineer. Like, we are two realistic people. We are a realistic family. Rich Birch — Yes, yeah.Kara Powell — But. And I think I’m realistic about the struggles that young people have connecting to the church. I see it in, you know, close friends of our family, etc. But in the midst of those challenges, I believe in a big, loving God… Rich Birch — That’s good. Kara Powell — …who’s constantly renewing, who’s constantly reforming, who’s constantly drawing people to God’s self. So, you know, we would say we’re not we’re not necessarily in an era of decline and decay, but we’re in an era of reimagining and renewal. Rich Birch — That’s good. Kara Powell — So I would say it starts with my theology, but then I’ll it a second less important but still important reason is it has to do with what we are seeing with young people these days. Like young people, again, open to Jesus, they are open to Jesus. And then secondly, when adults can build trusted relationships with young people, young people are hungry to get time with adults.Kara Powell — So, you know, it takes time. But, you know, some of the very encouraging research on trust by Brené Brown and others is that when it comes to building trust in general, it’s not grand, heroic gestures that build trust. It’s small, everyday acts of listening… Rich Birch — That’s good. Kara Powell — …remembering, caring, asking again. And so, you know, for listeners right now. Like if you want to build trust, maybe there’s a young person who’s come to your mind like, why don’t you just text them… Rich Birch — Right. Kara Powell — …and right now and say, you know, thinking of you, how can I be praying for you? And then, you know, if they respond, then ask 3 or 4 days later, hey, I was praying for you. How did that test go? How are you doing in that conflict with your girlfriend? You know, whatever it might be. And so the good news is, any of us really, any adult, can build a trusted relationship with young people, and young people are hungry for that.Rich Birch — Love it. So good. Well, you’ve got a book that just came out “Future Focused Church: Leading Through Change, Engaging the Next Generation and Building a More Diverse Tomorrow”. Talk to us. So this is a big project, pulling together a book with a couple co-authors on this. What’s your what was the drive? What’s the thing that kept you up at night that you’re like, we’ve got to get this into a book? What are you hoping that people will get from this?Kara Powell — Yeah. Well, I’m so glad that Jake Mulder and Ray Chang, my two co-authors, they shared my hunger to help churches understand what needs to change. A lot of what we’ve been talking about here, Rich. But but I think a tougher question often is how do you bring about change? Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good. Kara Powell — How does the church actually change? And, you know, leaders listening to this now, you know, this struggle of bringing about change. According to Harvard Business Review, about 70% of changes that leaders try to enact end up failing. So, you know, if you’re if you’re batting average is around 70%, well, then you’re right on par. Rich Birch — Yes. Kara Powell — Jesus sometimes struggled to bring about change.Rich Birch — Yes, yes.Kara Powell — So so based on scripture, based on really good research that others have done and based on how we’ve journeyed with over a thousand churches at the full youth institute, we’ve come up with a four-step map, a four-zone map that any church can use to make change. The three areas we’ve been talking about are really any area.Rich Birch — Love it. So good. Well, I want to encourage friends that are listening. And you know we don’t do this. We don’t typically have authors on. I really I personally, I think, you know, I got a chance to kind of sneak a little bit into the book, and I think this could be a great book to do as a leadership team, maybe elders, your staff team, that sort of thing… Kara Powell — Yeah, yeah, yep. Rich Birch — …to really help us think through, hey, what does the future look like? So, you know, there may be a pastor who’s listening in, who’s feeling stuck. They’re like, you know, things are are not going well in our church. What’s kind of one practical insight from the book that, you know, could help them be a future focused church, that could help them think about, okay, how do we get unstuck? How do we how do we kind of become more ready for the future?Kara Powell — Yeah. So I mentioned we have a four-zone map in the book. Rich Birch — Yep. Kara Powell — And it’s who, you know, who is trying to bring about the change. Who’s your community here? What’s your current reality there? Where is God calling you? And how, how do you actually make the change? Rich Birch — That’s good. Kara Powell — So in the book we start with who and we start with who are the people who can help you catalyze change? Rich Birch — That’s good. Kara Powell — And how do you start listening to your community. You know, really, almost without exception, when churches listen to their community, they’re better able to love their community. Rich Birch — That’s so good. Kara Powell — I can’t tell you how many churches have come to us with, well, we just started this new thing for young people. And we just started this new thing for our neighborhood.Rich Birch — I’m laughing because I feel like I’ve been there. Kara Powell — You’ve done that. Oh, thank you. Yes, Rich, I’m actually confessing here. In addition to sharing our research.Rich Birch — I started this thing. Why are they not coming?Kara Powell — Exactly. It’s like because you talked to none of them. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Kara Powell — And so so, you know, and we have seen churches pause and say, okay, wait, we thought we thought young adults, for instance, we thought we’d host a young adult new worship service. Or a young adult Sunday school. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Kara Powell — And they offer it. Young adults aren’t drawn to it. You know, a lot of times what young adults want is they want like vocational mentoring. Rich Birch — Right. Kara Powell — They they twenty-somethings want to have dinner with people in the church. Rich Birch — Right. Right. Kara Powell — And so they don’t necessarily want a more separate programming. They want more cross-pollination. Rich Birch — That’s good. Kara Powell — But you only learn that when you’re spending time with them. So. So, who? First step, first zone. And it starts with actually listening to those you’re trying to serve and creating that transformation team.Rich Birch — That’s so good. I love that. Any, can you think of any kind of interesting stories you’ve run into? Churches that have done a particularly good job on the listening piece, that like, oh, hey, they did a great job listening. You can think of an example of that?Kara Powell — Yeah, absolutely. It’s one of my favorite stories to tell, actually. There was a church that we studied in the Upper Midwest that had really struggled with their growth and had shrunk quite a bit, like they were contemplating shutting their doors. They were a church of 50, 75, something like that. But the leadership came together and said, you know what? We are not too old, it is not too late, and the road ahead is not too hard, and felt called by God to to do what we’re talking about, loving their neighborhood, prioritizing and listening to young people. They were near a college, and so they deployed more resources to build relationships with college students. Listen to college students. Well, that church that was about to shut its doors, it’s now a church of 1500 people, a thousand of whom are under 30.Kara Powell — Now, in all fairness, Rich, that was actually one of the more dramatic turnaround stories. Rich Birch — Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Kara Powell — It’s much more likely to be slower incremental growth. Rich Birch — Yep. Kara Powell — But you know, I thanks for asking me to share a story because I love that story just as a sign of you never know what God’s going to do. Rich Birch – Right, absolutely. Kara Powell — And so, you know, we say not only the best days of the church are ahead, but we believe whoever you are, the best days of your church are ahead.Rich Birch — Oh that’s so good. See this is, friends, this is why you should be following Kara and and doing read everything she produces and this great stuff. It’s super inspiring. So let’s talk a little bit about the book. I’m sure people can get it at Amazon. Are there other places we want to send them to pick up copies. Kara Powell — Yeah. Rich Birch — You know, where do we want to send them online to to get this?Kara Powell — Yeah – futurefocusedchurch.com, futurefocusedchurch.com – one word. We have a host of resources there that you can check out as well as order the book. So that is a great place to dive into our content.Rich Birch — Nice. That’s that’s so good. I’m I would love for, like I say, friends, I really do think it’d be a great kind of team study. Something to do together. Don’t buy one, buy ten. And, you know, get together with a group of people. Because I think, by definition, like you were saying, I think there could be a problem with this book in that you read it and then you’re like, yes, I want to change. Kara Powell — Right. Rich Birch — But really, we should be doing this, like you said, in a team, in your group. Kara Powell — Yep, yep. Rich Birch — And let’s talk about this, you know, this together. Any other kind of thoughts about the book or anything else you want to share just as we kind of wrap up today’s episode?Kara Powell — Yeah, I will say we see this all the time with churches. And this was true at my own church as my own church went through the change process. Churches often under… excuse me, overestimate what can be done in a year and underestimate what can be done in 2 or 3 years.Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s great. That’s great. Kara Powell — Part of what we map out in the book actually, is we have a six month and a 18 month change process that helps you set the right goals for that first year, and then continue towards God’s best future for you over that years two and three. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. Kara Powell — So I wish there were really quick fixes. There’s certainly some quick improvements, but it usually takes months if not years to really change culture.Rich Birch — So yeah, that’s good. I’ve joked in other contexts that, you know, some of the stuff, some of the work I’ve done is like similar. It’s like how to grow your church in 1000 days, but no one would buy that resource. Kara Powell — Right, right, right. Rich Birch — Like no one is interested in that. They want the quick fix. Kara Powell — Yep, yep. Rich Birch — But that’s not how it works. It’s got to be methodical and process oriented.Kara Powell — So true, Rich.Rich Birch — Well, Kara, this has been amazing. Thank you so much for being on today’s episode. Where do we want to send people online if they want to track with you with FYI all of that, where do we send them to connect with you?Kara Powell — Fulleryouthinstitute.org is our website. I’m on I’m on Twitter/X, Facebook, and Instagram at @kpowellFYI. It’s my first initial KPowellFYI as in Fuller Youth Institute.Rich Birch — That’s great. And I know I said this earlier, but I do want to honor you for the great work you’ve done. Thanks for being a gift to the church and thanks for being on the show today.Kara Powell — I am honored in return to be on your show. Thanks, Rich.

Diana Rush, the Senior Director of Build Community at Eastside Christian Church, shares her expertise on navigating the complexities of middle management in large church settings. She discusses the critical balance between communicating effectively with senior leadership and supporting direct reports. Diana emphasizes the importance of self-awareness in leadership and building trust through reliability and transparency. She also addresses the challenges of fostering a supportive culture while managing team dynamics and streamlining operations across multiple campuses.