unSeminary Podcast

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Russ Ewell, Executive Minister at Bay Area Christian Church (BACC) in California and founder of Deep Spirituality. How can churches meaningfully engage and empower the next generation of leaders? With campuses across Silicon Valley and a deep commitment to developing future leaders, Russ shares the practical strategies BACC is using to integrate Gen Z into leadership while staying grounded in spiritual formation. Build for the future while leading the present. // Many churches struggle to reach Gen Z because they unintentionally lead only within their own generational context. Resist the comfort of the status quo and instead build a culture that invests in young people while still meeting the needs of the present. This mindset shift is crucial to sustaining long-term health and growth. Let relationship with God be the foundation. // The foundation of everything is a relationship with God. You can’t build the culture you need in your church unless everyone is focused on walking with God and obeying Him. Because the congregation at BACC was surrendered to what God wanted to do, they were eager to see the younger generation of leaders developed in the church. Create a church culture that welcomes the next generation. // Gen Z needs to feel seen and heard in church life. Examine everything from the worship experience to leadership opportunities. By inviting young people to write songs, develop areas of focus, and make decisions, you create a space where the next generation is shaping the future of your church. Make room for mistakes and growth. // Raising up young leaders means letting go of perfectionism and allowing space for failure. Russ models this by stepping back, staying quiet, and resisting the urge to micromanage. Through internships and mentorships, BACC provides young adults with practical experience and spiritual training—essential ingredients for long-term leadership development. Deep Spirituality. // With Gen Z’s growing skepticism toward organized religion, Russ created Deep Spirituality—a digital resource platform filled with devotionals, podcasts, videos, and tools to help people explore faith on their own terms. The Best Life series, for example, offers life skills like goal-setting and financial literacy through a biblical lens, meeting Gen Z where they are. Be intentional about developing leaders. // Bay Area Christian Church’s goal is for more than 50% of its leadership to come from Gen Z and Millennials. Russ is working directly with young couples and individuals to teach, mentor, and prepare them to lead. By investing early—in some cases, as young as 15—the church is building a deep leadership bench for the future. Be adaptable and innovative. // Russ’s book, He’s Not Who You Think He Is, reflects on his journey from focusing on the church and its structure to focusing more on God and how His Spirit was moving. He encourages leaders to be adaptable and innovative—especially if they want to remain relevant and impactful in the 21st century. Learn more about what’s happening at Bay Area Christian Church by visiting BACC.cc and check out the many resources Russ mentioned, including The Chemistry Lab newsletter, at deepspirituality.com. To connect with Russ and see what he’s doing with special needs kids, E-Life, and special needs adults, visit russewell.com. Plus, tune in to Gail Ewell’s unSeminary podcast episode, Beyond Accessibility: Gail Ewell’s Vision for Church Inclusivity. 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! Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So excited for today’s conversation because we’re talking with someone who’s right in the thick of a conversation that I know that you and I are interested in – something that all of our churches should be wrestling through, which is reaching and raising up the next generation of church leaders. Russ Ewell is the Executive Minister at Bay Area Christian Church and the founder of a few innovative companies as well. Russ, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.Russ Ewell — Thank you, Rich. Thanks for having me. It’s great to be here.Rich Birch — Oh, I’m so honored that you’re here. Why don’t you fill in the Russ Ewell picture, kind of tell us a little bit about yourself, tell us about your background, that sort of thing.Russ Ewell — Well, ultimately, it’s, you know, my life situation is always about team and family and people. So everything I’m doing in my life is doing with other people because that’s what God has done. Russ Ewell — I am the executive minister, as you mentioned, of the Bay Area Christian Church. We’ve got nine campuses here in the Bay Area so that just about anyone, anywhere can get to one of our services, which is exciting. We have two lead minister couples. My wife and I are the executive minister and she’s the women’s ministry leader here. But we’ve got two lead ministers and their wives who lead the day-to-day work now. So we’ve been in the transition to a leadership for the future for a while. And that plays in, of course, to our topic today.Russ Ewell — I started out, though, in being an agnostic. And eventually, through a number of circumstances, ended up finding the Bible and reading the New Testament for the first time in college as a sophomore. And that’s when I became a Christian. And it was a couple of years later, I decided not to go into politics and instead to do this. Rich Birch — Nice.Russ Ewell — And so part of that, I loved chemistry. I’ve just recently started the chemistry lab newsletter. I love chemistry and I wanted to be a scientist at first and then politics and then ended up in the ministry. So it’s a little bit of a journey. But that has led us to be in Silicon Valley. That’s where we are in the Bay Area. And we’ve developed, obviously built the church here and it’s been a great church. We have great people in our church, great leaders. Russ Ewell — But also, we’ve built an eLife ministry, which basically is for inclusion of kids and adults with special needs and the community. It includes sports, it includes all kinds of different things from tutoring to buddies to being able to go to our camps. And our camps are inclusive, our teen devotionals are inclusive, our campus devotionals are inclusive. We’re really into that. And that’s been a big part of helping our young, the younger people in our church, I think, find enthusiasm about doing good. Russ Ewell — And that’s really the basic focus and model of the Bay Area Christian Church, is we’re a church that believes in making God known and doing good. And you mentioned the company. I started one for my boys and people like them that have speech challenges, that develops inclusive software and utilizes tools in the market to be able to see how they can be part of being inclusive software. Russ Ewell — So there’s a number of different things we do. And Deep Spirituality, which I think we may talk about later, which is a place we’ve created for people who don’t go to church maybe or don’t know how they feel about God. They can learn about spirituality there and learn about God and learn about the Bible there. And do it in a way that is, I think we try anyway, relatable and relevant to their day-to-day life.Rich Birch — Love it. We’re definitely going to get to Deep Spirituality. I want to make sure we connect with that.Rich Birch — But we want to start, I want to start with the Gen Z question. You’ve said that churches often want to reach Gen Z or lead with Gen Z, have them a part of the conversation, but actually are struggling to do it. What do you think we’re missing when it comes to understanding this generation?Russ Ewell — Well, I think church leadership is a challenge. And I think sometimes that people outside of churches don’t always understand even how that works. But inside church, even sometimes people don’t understand how it works. It’s very difficult for a leader of a church to go outside of the demographic of his current membership, so to speak, or the body.Russ Ewell — So if he’s in a church that the median age is 40, then it’s going to be real difficult to do a great job reaching people who are 15… Rich Birch — Right. Russ Ewell — …while also reaching people who are 50. And one of the reasons for that is that when you speak, teach, and put together everything you do to make the gospel known and to meet the needs of people in the church, oftentimes we as leaders, we speak to our own generation first because that’s the most natural. Rich Birch — True. Right.Russ Ewell — So I speak to a lot of people that are younger. So one of my favorite guys is Bruce Springsteen. I love Bruce Springsteen. Rich Birch — Yes. Russ Ewell — But when I mentioned Bruce Springsteen, you see blank faces. They’re like…Rich Birch — Sure, who?Russ Ewell — I think I heard about him and Washington and Adams and Hamilton. I think they’re the ones… Rich Birch — One of the founding fathers. Russ Ewell — Exactly.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s hilarious.Russ Ewell — Which I agree he’s a founding father. I’d put him right on it.Rich Birch — Him and Bono, all the founding fathers of rock and roll.Russ Ewell — That’s it. That’s how you figure it out. That’s how you know. Rich Birch — That’s funny.Russ Ewell — So part of it, I think, is understanding or getting the culture of the church to understand that you always have to build for the future. Historically, you see a lot of churches that can get to 1,000, 5,000, 10,000, or 500, 250. But then once the people who were the leaders of that church or the founders of that church, once they get old enough, they no longer can do that. Their generation ages out, and suddenly you see no young people and these churches die out. Rich Birch — That’s true.Russ Ewell — In fact, the building we own is a building that was a church that had, at one point done fairly well, but they had to sell it because once the current population of people got older and passed away or moved away, the church was no longer vibrant. So I think it’s essential that we do it. The challenges are, can we build a culture that says it is essential we build our future even while we build our present. Rich Birch — That’s good. Russ Ewell — And will you have a body of people who say what’s most important is that we reach out, then we always meet our own needs. Because one of the challenges in a church, any organization, a company as well, they may have a software that’s selling great now, but when AI comes into the picture, that software is not going to be super relevant. Rich Birch — Right. Russ Ewell — So you either build for the future or you end up dying. The phrase in Silicon Valley used to be used all the time, change or die. And so I think a lot of the challenges are, can you get yourself, ourselves, to be able to relate to and build for future, and can we build a culture in the church that does that?Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I think a lot of church leaders, I think, would give mental assent to that. They’d be like, yes, that sounds like a great idea. I understand that the message of the gospel is one generation away from extinction. I’ve got to work to pass this thing on. I think you’ve done a good job at kind of outlining that problem.Rich Birch — What is it though that Bay Area Christian Church is doing to kind of structure in a way that’s actually helping to reach Gen Z and beyond? What’s that look like?Russ Ewell — So I think the foundation of everything, and I’ve listened to you before, so I know you agree with this. The foundation of everything, I think, is a relationship with God, and it sounds cliché, but the reality is that you can’t build the culture you need in your church unless everyone is 100% focused on walking with God and doing what God wants. And so the platform that we use, when I look at scriptures, 1 Corinthians 9, “become all things to all people”.Russ Ewell — And so one of the great things about our church is we have people that are 45, 55, 65 and older who believe deeply in the need to develop young leaders. And one reason they love it is it’s their kids. And so when you see your kids becoming Christians and then your kids contributing to leading the future, that’s exciting. So it starts with a relationship with God. Russ Ewell — Secondly, I think it starts with examining what does it feel like to walk into the church? I had a friend of mine come to church with me once, and he goes, man, all these songs are so old. Like, where do you get these songs from? I had never thought about that before, ever. Even when I was younger, I didn’t think about that because they’re classic spiritual songs and they are relevant and important.Russ Ewell — What we did during the pandemic when we were doing a live stream is we had a contest where we said, hey, we want to have a contest for writing new music. And we were going to give out prizes and awards for those who won. We had a top 10, I think it was. And what happened is about a half to three quarters of the winners turned out to be Gen Z people. Rich Birch — So good.Russ Ewell — And so we now sing in our church songs that have been written by Gen Z. The same with everything, themes, what we focus on, projects we take on. We try to allow people that are younger to be a part of leading us, and they’re involved in decision making. So that means that when you have one of the campuses, and one of the goals we have is to at least get to 50% here in the next few years where we have Millennial and Gen Z leading the campuses. And we’re close to that right now.Russ Ewell — And I personally am working with my wife with three couples who fall right into that category. And so we’re building all the time to develop leaders, but that means you have to allow them into the decision making. And I made a lot of mistakes when I was that age. So you have to also allow mistakes. So you have to have a church that’s resilient. And instead of being critical of young leaders, you encourage them and you help them develop knowing that the mistakes they make today provide the experience they’ll need tomorrow to build the church.Rich Birch — That’s so good. And I wonder, I recently was listening to a kind of culture person talking about Silicon Valley culture specifically and said, you know, one of the unique innovations of the part of the world you’re from is it introduced this idea that mistakes are good, that we’ve got to make some mistakes along the way towards, and that there’s lots of cultures in the world where that just is not accepted. Like it’s like we can’t make a mistake, but enabling a church to say, yeah, it’s okay for us to take on for the greater good to take on next generation leaders.Rich Birch — That means we’re going to make a few mistakes along the way. There’s going to be a few bumps, but that’s okay. I think that’s incredible. That would be a big change for lots of churches. Maybe double click on that. What has that actually looked like for you as you’ve given away leadership to the next generation? What are you doing to ensure that we’re making appropriate level mistakes that aren’t blowing the whole thing up, that aren’t pushing the thing over the edge? Talk about that.Russ Ewell — Well, first of all, I have to deal with my own perfectionistic controlling behavior… Rich Birch — Right. Russ Ewell — …that has nothing to do with the Holy Spirit or righteousness. Rich Birch — Yes. That’s good. Russ Ewell — It just has to do with my sinful nature and my human nature. Rich Birch — So good. Russ Ewell — So I first of all, have to deal with that. And I’ve not conquered that. So I can get worked up, bent out of shape by things that aren’t done the way I would do them or the way I think they should be done. So I have to first tackle myself.Russ Ewell — The other thing is that our church has allowed myself and others to grow here because I’ve made a lot of mistakes. And one of the things I love about the church is I can make mistakes in things I say. I can make mistakes and have us going in a certain direction and then have to change that direction. I just try to change it quickly. Russ Ewell — And so I think they’ve already learned to do that because they’ve allowed those of us who lead here in the Bay Area Christian Church, they’ve allowed us to make tons of mistakes. And those mistakes have helped us develop the experience.Russ Ewell — And so I think part of what it is is more us, those of us who are older, being willing to say, let’s give the younger folks a chance to make mistakes. And so what it practically looks like, Rich, and your question is so great, is I have to be willing to stay out of the way, keep my mouth shut, not give off body language that says, “oh no”, not overreact, and be a great teacher. And that’s one of the things that I think has really challenged me, is that how great of a teacher am I? How good am I at helping someone maximize their potential and develop their skills and teach them from the ground up? How do you want… Russ Ewell — Like, for instance, this summer, we hired 17, what we call scholars and interns, men, young men, and 17 young women. And so we’ve got a total there of 34 this summer who will be interns and scholars, and they’re all Gen Z. And the whole idea is to give them a summer where we help them a little bit financially, but we also put them in situations and circumstances where they can be trained in how to be in the ministry. Russ Ewell — Now, they don’t have to go into the ministry. So we help them with their careers as well, their career path, but we’re trying to develop a group of people who have that experience. And so it looks like, I’ll just quickly enumerate it, one, me as a leader, letting go and not gripping and holding tight for control. Russ Ewell — Two, giving them the opportunity to make mistakes. Our church is already there, so we built that culture because we kind of have, as you said, Silicon Valley, but the whole Bay Area is pretty tolerant and friendly. And then three is giving them the financial support to be able to give them summers and years where they can have an opportunity to learn what it means to be spiritual and to make an impact on people.Rich Birch — Love it. Well, let’s pivot and talk a little bit about Deep Spirituality, this platform that you’ve launched and how does that fit into this whole idea of reaching a generation that lives online, that is, you know, is actively engaged, you know, on all things, phone, apps, all of that. Talk us through how does Deep Spirituality fit into this?Russ Ewell — I feel like you’ve already figured out what we’re doing. Rich Birch — Nice. Russ Ewell — So, I think that the statistics, the numbers say that in society in general, that people are gravitating more toward wanting to be spiritual and less toward the institution of church. I don’t think churches should feel bad about that. Every institution is being doubted in question right now. We’re just living at a time, or some people would like to say a season, of institutional doubt in question. So we know that. Russ Ewell — Gen Z is more among the nones, N-O-N-E-S, you know, when they give them options of the different churches they might go to, they say none of the above. Rich Birch — Right. Russ Ewell — And so what we realize is that there’s got to be some place we meet people where they are, and spirituality is where they are. And I personally love the topic and love the idea and have really tried to learn a lot about it myself. Russ Ewell — So we create content there for people that may not be church goers, may not believe in God. They may come from a science background. That’s why I started a newsletter called The Chemistry Lab, to try to help people understand that science and God are not in opposition to one another. We have a Best Life series that we started specifically for people that are younger; the older people need it too. It’s basically life skills that are laid out throughout the year. We put, I think it’s 20 different ones together. Russ Ewell — And so you can learn how to build your finances, you can learn how to get self-awareness, and you go on there. And what we’re able to do is we’re able to have people partner up and be buddies and study and work on these things. And especially with the pandemic, it took people out of life development, not just educational development, life development. Especially here in California, where we were off the streets and out of social for a long, long time. Russ Ewell — And so we try to provide those tools so people can get the life skills they need socially, emotionally, mentally, in regard to work and education, to be able to have success in life. Because at the end of the day, if Christianity doesn’t practically change your life for the better in day-to-day experiences, not a lot of people are going to look to it for being able to help their life in even the crisis moments.Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. I was actually, The Best Life, that series caught my eye when I was looking through your resources. You know, I’ve said in other contexts, following Jesus is best for you and makes you best in life or makes you best at life. And I love what you’ve done here, practically packaged up discipleship with really, I would say a fairly fresh new perspective that it feels like, yeah, like a fairly, I think pretty progressive approach that is helpful and packaged for a generation that’s looking for this kind of thing. Rich Birch — Oftentimes, you know, it’s talking about goal setting, planning, time management, effective communication, all from a biblical perspective, all from, hey, how can the Bible help you? The stress management, financial literacy. Talk to me why taking this kind of practical approach, is this something that you’ve seen as you’ve worked with Gen Z and beyond- this kind of a doorway to these kinds of issues?Russ Ewell — Oh, yeah. I mean, well, one, you’re seeing amongst Gen Z, higher, they say, the statistics say higher rates of anxiety and higher rates of depression. You’re seeing more ADHD diagnosis. There’s lots of opinions about that. One opinion I’m developing just antidotally is that they tend to be more comfortable talking about those subjects. So the question is, are they really having more cases, which I think that’s probably true, but I think that they’re also much more willing to talk about it, especially young men are more willing to talk about emotional issues.Russ Ewell — So in working with them, like all the time, which is what my wife and I do, and working with Gen Z, and especially again, because of the pandemic, they’re trying to figure out, how do I move out of my parents’ house and get roommates? Rich Birch — Right. Russ Ewell — How do I pay an enormous amount of money it costs to live in the Bay Area? How do I go to school and work a job at the same time? They’re very practical things they’re trying to figure out how to do. How do I date? How do I build a relationship with a young man or a young woman? Those are real questions that people have that oftentimes we just assume they’re going to figure out. And the church ought to be a place where they can come and they can learn those things. Russ Ewell — And so, yeah, it’s been day-to-day hands-on work, and being in groups, having our scholars, our interns, these 34 kids, that’s helped us learn what they need. And they tell us, these are things we have questions about. How do I even have a budget? What’s a budget? My budget is called my parents. That’s my budget. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Russ Ewell — You know what I’m saying? Those are some of the ways we’ve learned.Rich Birch — To be honest, I was a little shocked as I went through Deep Spirituality. I’m like, where am I paying for this? This is incredible resources. It’s well done, well packaged, great design. It’s just available out there. How are you guys using this? How are other people using this resource? How is this fitting in? I’m trying to picture how this is actually being used. It’s very well done; compliments to you and the team.Russ Ewell — Well, yeah, and we do have a great team. And I think, again, it goes to our church. Rich Birch — Right. Russ Ewell — The people in our church, they believe in doing good and in helping other people. Rich Birch — Right. Love it.Russ Ewell — And they believe in doing that regardless of what they get back. And so they support it. And I think locally in our church, for instance, I’ll give you a story. One of the guys in our church met with one of the professionals in our church, one of the (he happens to be single) and he was having financial trouble. He actually took, these are older guys, not old, but older than teenagers or college students, they sat down and had a time where they went through the financial literacy one. And the guy was blown away. This person in our church never looked at Deep Spirituality. Rich Birch — Right, right, right.Russ Ewell — He wasn’t looking at it at all, didn’t see the point. But once he saw it, he goes, where’d you get all this? He goes, it comes from Deep Spirituality. And so we give it to our leaders. We make sure they know what’s on there. So they can use it to help people in our church be able to conquer some of the challenges they might be facing.Russ Ewell — But we also have churches outside who will email us. We had actually a set of churches in Canada that reached out to us… Rich Birch — Oh wow. Russ Ewell — …and said, is it okay for us to take your stuff and use all your stuff? And we’re like, yeah, that’s what it’s for. And we’re not in some doctrinal debate or doctrinal. The point we have is the more we can spread and make God known, the better life gets for all of us. And if it empowers other people’s work, we’re really happy to have it happen.Rich Birch — Love it. Well, let’s loop back on something you said earlier that you just blew over, that I was like blown away when I saw this. It sounds like the kind of thing that people would say, well, that’s a good idea, but man, you guys are actually taking steps towards it.Rich Birch — You have a vision of having 50 plus percent of your church led operationally by Gen Z and Millennials. That’s wild in the very best of ways. I love it. That’s so good. How are you making that a reality? I know you’re taking steps towards that. What are you noticing about Gen Z as they lead differently? And what really can the rest of us learn?Rich Birch — I think that’s a noble goal for all of us to think about. How can we pass this thing on to the next generation? In fact, I was a part of, or was aware of, really more than a part of it, a group of leaders who had a similar pledge around, hey, we were going to hand our ministries off by a certain date. And only one of them did it. Most people continue to hold onto it and not give it away. So when I saw you’re actually doing this, I was super encouraged. So talk me through what that actually looks like.Russ Ewell — Well, one of the things I’ve tried to learn from Silicon Valley, from corporate world, is—in how they build and how they innovate—is the idea that, for instance, when I got here, all the technology companies from Apple—Facebook didn’t exist when I got here. And neither did Google.—But Apple and names of companies many people here wouldn’t necessarily know, they all called their corporate locations campuses.Russ Ewell — And so I went and visited and got to know people. And then that’s why I came down to Silicon Valley. And we started with a pretty small group and it grew because I went, I want to immerse myself in this and I want to learn from it. Because I’d come from DC, which is the opposite in many ways, culturally.Russ Ewell — And so one of the things I realized is they weren’t afraid of young people. In fact, they saw younger people as a way to be able to innovate, new ideas, new thoughts. Rich Birch — That’s so good.Russ Ewell — And so that’s part of what we do. So what we do is we start by trying to just teach them how to do basic things, get with people and help people. And that’s a lot of work. Like even in our own church, some of the challenges are people that are older who lead, they don’t like the hassle of having to work with somebody who’s still trying to figure out how to keep his gas tank full… RIch Birch — Right. Russ Ewell — …and get from point A to point Z on time. They don’t like that. But that’s what you have to do. So what we do is we look and say, okay, we got a 15 year old kid who’s got a lot of ability, just like a college football team or a college basketball team would be. They have a lot of potential. And so we look at it as: in six years, they’re going to be 21. And in eight years, they’re going to be 23. And they’ll be capable of leading a lot of people. So we start young and we try to give them opportunities when they’re young.Russ Ewell — So every year is about development, the spiritual relationship with God. That’s foundational. Relationships with people, that’s foundational. They have to learn resilience and to take input. And a lot of times it’s hard because a lot of the kids I work with, they have a lot of negative thoughts about themselves already. So if you tell them something they need to get better at, they can become defeated inside. And so you have to work, that’s something I’ve had to learn how to deal with. Russ Ewell — Now, here’s the positive thing. They’re collaborative. They tend not to be power hungry. They tend to like working together with each other. And sometimes one of these we have to work more on is them taking more leadership and directing and not just kind of waiting and that kind of thing.Russ Ewell — So it’s really, it’s a comprehensive effort to try to figure out how to develop them in their character, their faith, then how to teach them leadership. And so that’s a lot of what we work on and then giving them opportunity. So we’re about to hire another set of about three new couples that all have potential to be in that space where they can be a leader of the campus.Russ Ewell — And in some ways we’ll throw them in the water and go, okay, let’s see how it goes. Our church is great. Last thought on this is our church is great because we have older people who are more than willing to be the deep center fielder, to catch the balls that go over their head. And so it’s really a collaborative effort on the part of the young, the staff, and those who are older in our church to make sure they’re successful.Rich Birch — If I was to come like this weekend, I show up at one of your campuses, what would I notice? What would I see that might be like a bit distinctive that this is kind of working its way out? You mentioned the music piece, obviously you’re singing songs that have been written by folks that are in this demo. Are there other things I would notice that would be like, oh, this is a little different than maybe if I went to insert other multisite church in another part of the country? What would I notice, you think?Russ Ewell — I think the first thing you’d notice is that we’re deeply committed to the Bible. I think it would be a huge part of our culture. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Yeah, that’s good.Russ Ewell — The second thing, I mean, these are in no particular order. Rich Birch — Yep. Russ Ewell — You’d also notice the God-focus. People are very God-focused. The other thing you notice is when you come in, now every church has weaknesses and we do. So I wanna be clear on that. Rich Birch — Yep, yeah, for sure. Russ Ewell — But when you come in, people are gonna, they’re gonna meet you where you are. And we have people who’ve been going to our church for three or four years who don’t feel comfortable with being a member of a church and they’re a part of our church. We have people who are deeply committed and they become Christians and they’re deeply committed. It all forms a community and a culture that’s inclusive. Russ Ewell — So probably the biggest sort of relational thing you’d notice is the number of people with special needs and families with special needs who are included. There’s a children’s ministry aspect just for kids with special needs to make sure they’re included. But I think if a person walked in and this happens all the time, they’d go, oh, I’m accepted here. I can be who I am here, just the way I am. And whether or not I decide to believe in God or not, I’m gonna have friends and I can be participant in it. Russ Ewell — And the final thing you’d notice is we have a number of events like Easter egg hunts that are inclusive. You can come to our event. You don’t have to come to our service. Rich Birch — Right. Russ Ewell — You can come to one of our soccer things and you don’t have to become a Christian, believe in God. You can be Hindu, you can be Buddhist. You would definitely notice that.Rich Birch — Very cool. Well, I know you’ve also written a book, He’s Not Who You Think He Is. Can you tell us a little bit about that? I’d love to kind of include that into the kind of conversation here, as we’re chatting through these things.Russ Ewell — Well, one of the things I had to do is, and you’ve asked a lot of great questions and they kind of point to the book in a way. I had to change the way I thought about God. I had to change the way I thought about church and that meant I had to change me.Russ Ewell — I had to change some of the ways I was trained to be in the ministry. And the book in some ways explains that journey and explains how much I was people-focused, how much I was structure-focused and how much I was built in a way that I wasn’t focusing on God and the way the spirit was leading. I was focusing on the church and the way we were trying to structure and implement our structure.Russ Ewell — And I’m not saying you don’t have structure, but I’m saying you have to be adaptable and you have to be innovative in order to meet people where they are, 1 Corinthians 9. And a lot of that started for me in my relation with God, understanding that being legalistic, a lot of people out there understand that term. Some people who are not familiar with church won’t. Russ Ewell — Being legalistic is not effective. You have to be spiritual and you can be powerful and that way you can be adaptive. And so the book really is great for people who are maybe an agnostic, an atheist. Maybe they don’t go to church, but they’re interested in God. It’s a great book for them. But for people who are Christians that have been going to church a long time, I think it’ll help you consult and look and reflect on, do I need to change the way I think about God and change the way I think about church in order to make a difference in the 21st century?Rich Birch — Love it. Yeah, you know, I really do think your church, I think you specifically are the kind of ministry that people should be following and tracking with. I think you’re asking questions that, and finding answers to, that frankly, lots of us are wrestling with. They’re not even sure what question to ask. And so I wanna encourage people to track with you. Where do we wanna send them online to connect with you, to connect with the church, Deep Spirituality – where do we wanna send people?Russ Ewell — So the BACC.cc, Bay Area Christian Church, that’s a great place to go to find out everything we’re doing and keep up with what we’re doing. Deepspirituality.com is different, and it’s where all the resources are. And I hope you’ll take a look at the new newsletter called The Chemistry Lab, because it’s built exactly on what you’re talking about. And then any of the stuff I’m doing with special needs kids, e-life, special needs adults, you can find at russewell.com. So those are three places you can go, and you can find out probably everything you would wanna know about what we’re doing.Rich Birch — Love it, so good. Well, any final words that you’d have for leaders who are listening in? Particularly, we’ve obviously talked a lot about engaging next gen, engaging Gen Z in our ministry. Anything kind of encouragement or direction you’d give us today, just as we kind of land the episode?Russ Ewell — Well, two things I’d say to end. One, I don’t wanna give the impression that we’ve mastered all this. Rich Birch — Right. Sure.Russ Ewell — We’re in the learning mode, and we’re trying to grow and trying to understand it. The second thing is don’t get discouraged. Every single victory we’ve had started small, took time, and eventually was successful. And so be patient, and don’t get down on yourself and get discouraged and feel like, why am I not being successful?Russ Ewell — Pick one thing, work at it, and over time, God will come through. He’ll bless it. Rich Birch — Love it. Thanks so much, Russ. I really appreciate that. Say hi to Gail for us. Russ Ewell — Will do.Rich Birch — Great to see you guys. We were joking early on. I think this is the first husband-wife combo that have been on the podcast, but not at the same time. So, which says a lot. 800 plus episodes in to have a new combo. That’s pretty amazing.Rich Birch — So Russ, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. All the best in everything you’re doing. Appreciate you being here today.Russ Ewell — Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Jason Hanash, the founding and lead pastor of Discovery Church in California—one of the fastest growing churches in the country. How do you restructure your staff leadership to keep pace with rapid church growth? Tune in as Jason shares how Discovery evolved from a living room gathering to a thriving church reaching nearly 5,000 people—and the leadership shifts that increased alignment, ownership, and execution. Train your team as you grow. // As Discovery grew past the 2,000–2,500 attendance mark, Jason realized their existing pastoral team model was no longer scalable. The team was too broad, meetings were inefficient, and execution lagged. In response, Jason transitioned to a leaner executive team structure, developing four key leaders over two years and empowering them with oversight based on their unique gifting. Hire from within. // Rather than recruiting externally, Jason believes in developing leaders from within. Each of Discovery’s four executive team members aligns with the church’s culture, vision, and values, making them ideal for executive leadership. This long-term investment in development allowed for high trust and deep synergy across the leadership team. Don’t skip the training runway. // Discovery spent two years intentionally developing its executive team. The first year was spent modeling leadership and included seasonal staff meetings, goal setting, and retreats focused on strategic management. The second year involved gradual empowerment and coaching. This slow-build approach created leaders who understood the organizational DNA and could lead with confidence. Navigating change with vision. // Organizational change inevitably causes friction—especially when some staff members lose direct access to senior leaders. At Discovery, staff are reminded to “marry the vision, not the position,” and flexibility is woven into the culture. Involve key influencers early, explaining the “why,” and selling the benefits of change. Weekly and monthly rhythms. // Discovery uses a two-tiered meeting system for their executive team. A quick weekly huddle every Tuesday creates space for real-time coaching and decision-making. Then, once a month, the executive team meets for a deep dive focused on five pillars: advancing the vision, influencing the culture, managing the systems, multiplying the leadership, and stewarding generosity. Each season emphasizes one pillar, helping the team stay mission-focused and proactive. Daily department huddles. // Each department also holds a five-to-eight-minute daily huddle. These quick stand-ups increase alignment, clarify priorities, and offer real-time coaching. The brief check-ins save time, prevent costly miscommunication and provide a space for the team to exchange ideas. Yearly themes that drive culture. // Jason and his wife take time each summer to fast and pray over the coming year. In 2024, the theme was “Year of Freedom,” which led to a yearlong focus on emotional, mental, and spiritual healing. The theme shaped sermon series, events, small groups, and even the launch of a counseling center. In 2025, the theme is “Identity,” with a new devotional, curriculum, and book—Christ Formed in You—guiding a 12-month journey of spiritual formation. Learn more about Discovery Church at ilovediscovery.church and check out their leadership conference on July 12, 2025 at leadershipconference.church. EXTRA CREDIT // 15-Minute Daily Huddle Toolkit In this episode, Jason Hanash shares how Discovery Church grew from a living room gathering to a thriving church of over 5,000 without losing clarity, culture, or team alignment. One key system that supported that growth? Daily 15-minute leadership huddles. To help you implement the same high-impact rhythm, we’ve created the 15-Minute Daily Huddle Toolkit,  available exclusively to unSeminary Extra Credit members. What’s Inside the Toolkit: Toolkit Overview – A one-pager that explains what daily huddles are, why they matter, and how to lead them with impact Email Sequence – Pre-written copy-and-paste emails to launch the 6-week challenge, keep it moving, and close it strong Printable Prompt Cards – A set of creative conversation starters to keep your huddles focused and engaging throughout the challenge Weekly Leader Tracker – A reflection tool for team leads to identify patterns, highlight wins, and capture learning Celebration Ideas – Fun and flexible ideas for wrapping up the challenge—whether you continue the huddles or pause to reflect Extra Credit members can download the complete toolkit here. Not a member yet? Support the podcast by joining unSeminary Extra Credit. It’s just $7/month  and as a thank you, you’ll get access to this toolkit plus a growing library of practical resources designed to help your church lead better, grow faster, and stay healthy. Join today and start your team’s next 6 weeks stronger than ever. 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. Super excited to have you with us today. Looking forward to today’s conversation. We’re we’re talking with Jason Hanash today, great leader. He is a lead pastor and founding pastor with his wife, Veronica, of Discovery Church. And it’s repeatedly one of the fastest growing churches in the country. So you know, I’ve got a lot of questions. We want to lean in and learn more. Rich Birch — The church is located in beautiful Bakersville, California. Their ministry includes a counseling center that offers biblically-based therapy. And in partnership with Vanguard University. The church hosts a partner site on the church campus called Discovery College or Discover College, which offers students affordable degree programs. I am so glad to have you with us today, Jason. Welcome to the show. Jason Hanash — Hey thanks so much, Rich. Excited to be here, man. Rich Birch — No, I’m excited to talk to you. Kind of fill in the picture for folks that, ah you know, that aren’t aware of the church. Kind of tell us a little bit of the Discovery story. Jason Hanash — We started in 2013. And just to tell the story, I probably take 30 minutes to all the God stories, to be honest, ah to be where we’re at today at reaching almost like 5,000 people after 11 years, almost going to be 12 years this year, is just miracle after miracle, to be honest, doors that were open that I couldn’t open, just grace and favor and provision that we look back and we just say, man, that was that was God. Jason Hanash — So there’s so many God stories to get us where we are, but it truly has been year after year, knocking literal walls down after walls down, expanding and expanding because the Lord has been bringing lost sons and daughters to his church. It’s been beautiful. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Jason Hanash — Yeah. Rich Birch — That’s great. Well, there’s a ton we could talk about there, but I know one of the things that often kind of happens in a fast-growing church ah is we start to see some cracks on kind of the leadership side and being able to find enough leaders, release them. This is a critically important issue. Can you talk us through what has your church’s journey been with that whole side of this this trying to manage what God’s doing at your church, trying to keep up with what he’s, you know, what he’s sending your way. Jason Hanash — Yeah, you know, when you start a church, your church plant, you’re like, do you have a pulse and are you breathing? Let’s go. You can serve. Let’s do this. We used to say at the the beginning, If you can open up a bag of chips and, you know, open up your home, then you can lead a small group. And my goodness, the Lord’s grace on us. Rich Birch — Yes. Jason Hanash — So there’s…Yeah, there’s there’s some things that happened probably in that season that could have been prevented. But honestly, we were so fast moving, fast growing, and there is a messiness on the side of grace. But yes, as you grow, um yeah those cracks become wider and wider. Jason Hanash — And so we have always been a leadership development church focused on leadership development and raising leaders. And we did that, have done that in a variety of ways, but we probably saw the most glaring gap was in our 2000s. Rich Birch — Okay. Jason Hanash — And and I say, that because leadership development and in teams and multiplication has has always been part of our DNA and part of our systems and processes. But at the 2,000, 2,500 mark, we hit a lid… Rich Birch — Okay. Jason Hanash — …that we were not ready to grow beyond. And and that was where we had this pastoral team model. And I’m leading, and you know my wife as well, we lead together, but we’re leading the pastoral team. It’s one meeting. It’s a large team. It’s all the pastors, all the ministry pastors. So It just became too broad… Rich Birch — Right. Okay. Jason Hanash — …too slow, lacked execution and detail at the level that ministries and ministers needed needed it. Jason Hanash — So um this was probably, don’t know how many years ago now we’re at at that stage, maybe just after COVID. It was probably leading into COVID and after COVID, they just COVID kind of lengthened everything. But it was that stage that we were at this 2,000, 2,500 mark that we needed to restructure. Rich Birch — Right. Jason Hanash — And we moved to this executive team model where I was able to focus on some mission-critical things and raise up some leaders to another level. Rich Birch — Right. Jason Hanash — So we kind of identified four leaders on our team, and we took them on a journey of about of two years… Rich Birch — Wow. Jason Hanash — …pouring into them and and helping them understand what executive leadership looked like and modeling it for. Rich Birch — Yep. Yep. Jason Hanash — So even like the first year, what do you doing we didn’t even call it an executive team. We called it an admin team. This is our administrative team. Rich Birch — OK, great. Jason Hanash — We didn’t give them the name. Rich Birch — Right. Jason Hanash — It was like, no, they were right you you haven’t earned that label, that title yet. Rich Birch — Right, right. Jason Hanash — So administrative team. And and we, one year we poured into them and and modeled ah for them. And then the second year they started, they started carrying more. And so now we are in a very healthy executive team model now where… Rich Birch — Right. Jason Hanash — …and we’ve been able to grow, not only grow to the 3,000, but now reaching almost 5,000 people. So it’s it’s been a tremendous shift for us. Rich Birch — That’s great. That’s great. Rich Birch — Yeah, let’s double click on that. When you, because there’s a bunch there I want to unpack. But before we think about kind of where things are at now, how those four roles are structured, that sort of thing. What were some of the kind of things that led you to the place where you’re like, um I’m just not sure, you know, that this is really working. Rich Birch — I’m thinking for leaders that are listening in, they might give a few hearty amens to like pains that you were feeling at that time, that they might see that, hey, may um maybe we need to make a change. Jason Hanash — You know, when when you start noticing the the lack, the gap, the deficiency or the decline… Rich Birch — Okay. Jason Hanash — …in ministry or in baptisms or in team members or in leadership, when you start noticing those pain points after the pain happens, you’re just it happens you’re like, what what happened? You go, oh, we we don’t have that team meeting. We don’t have that, we’re not running that system the way it’s supposed to be. Why aren’t we? And there was so much that we just, we just, we missed. Rich Birch — Right. Jason Hanash — And so we we were now looking in hindsight going, how did we miss that? Rich Birch — Okay. Yeah. Jason Hanash — And whenever that starts to happen, it’s because there’s probably too much bureaucracy or there’s not enough intentional leadership being given to your, to your pastors or your departments. And so where we were planning and looking ahead and we’re able to support our ministries, we got too big to where we were, we were looking behind and see it react… Rich Birch — That’s good. Jason Hanash — …rather than rather than acting. Rich Birch — Then proactive. Okay. So then you ended up restructuring around kind of a four-part leadership team. Talk to us about how those roles kind of work out. What are the kind of various buckets that the people have? And then and then we’ll talk about the transition to that. Jason Hanash — Yeah, so I’m big on on you know the answer’s in the house, and raising up your leaders that you have… Rich Birch — That’s good. So good. Jason Hanash — …your your pastors, your leaders, your team. And we have have not hired out at Discovery. Jason Hanash — And I’m not against it fully. I mean, if there’s a need for that, I’m open to it. I just have always tried to develop the people that God has given me and raise them up. And so that’s why it it took probably two years for our executive team to start humming. But I have people on our executive team that have been here for 11 years and… Rich Birch — Right. Jason Hanash — …and I’ve been able to raise them, them up. So, they have culture, they have the vision, they have the heart of our, of our ministry. Rich Birch — That’s good. Jason Hanash — And there is, there is relationship that there. We have chemistry. There’s a lot of alignment and synergy with that. So, and I say that because, you know, what buckets that they have, are really a reflection of their their gifting and their leader capacity… Rich Birch — Right, right. That’s good. Jason Hanash — …their their passions. And so in working with who you have and raising them up, I think you have to leverage people’s gifts. So our leadership structure is leveraged towards the the giftings of of the elders… Rich Birch — Of the people. Yep. Jason Hanash — …that God has called to lead this church. And so um we you know we have a zone who oversees our experience and creatives They lead all communications experience, creative ministries. We have someone leads all of the worship and and services and moments across all ministries. We have another executive that leads all of our next gen and as well as guest experience. And then we have some leads all of our what we call freedom ministries and our counseling center, pastoral care. And so those are the the four primary executives. And then myself and my my wife, we we you know have some mission critical things ourselves, but we oversee the the executive team. Rich Birch — So that’s great. I love your word there around, um you know, really taking this from who are the people God’s put in in your church and trying to build their roles around them rather than like where we’ve got some artificial, you know, org chart that we’re trying to fit people into. That’s not how you said it, but I but I really appreciate that. Rich Birch — That’s, now you did this, talk to me about this training, this kind of before you launched, what did that look like? I love the intentionality of that. Like, Hey, we’re going to march towards it. We’re bridging towards this, not just saying like, okay, go for it kind of thing. Jason Hanash — Yeah. Rich Birch — Tell me about, tell me about that. Jason Hanash — Well, there’s a lot of things that we do in leading a high impact ah action-oriented, change-oriented staff and and ministry. So from um the goals that we set, how we set goals, our lead measures, lag measures, the org charts, how we plan our staff meetings. We have seasonal you know seasonal meetings with with department heads and what are the goals you’re focusing on. Jason Hanash — So there’s there was a lot that hit just show we had to walk them through and we took them on a few retreats and showed them how to manage a staff and a team, and different departments goals and teams and how to keep keep them looking forward. So it it was just come along let us we’ll do it with you and we’ll actually break away a couple times to to to have you ask questions and and build it out build it out together. So um it was it was a year of modeling what what that looks like. Rich Birch — Right. Jason Hanash — And then this second year was us kind of um but releasing a little bit to them while we coach them is is what it looked like. Rich Birch — That’s cool. Now, what about the people? So I’m assuming that these folks and this this may be a foreign question to you because everybody always gets along at Discovery Church. There’s never any tension. Everything’s perfect. But I’m assuming from what I hear you saying that, like, you know, you’re you’re raising up a few people by definition. Rich Birch — And you know, that might have, there might be some stepped on toes in that feeling. How you know, again, how did you avoid that? Or what did that theoretically look like to try to avoid that? If that’s not really an issue, how how did you navigate that? Do you understand the kind of question I’m wondering about there? Jason Hanash — I think change in any regard is going to cause friction… Rich Birch — Yep. Jason Hanash — …and especially when you’ve got organization structure change, organizational change. Rich Birch — Right. Jason Hanash — So there there is that. I think what we have going for at Discovery though is we have um grown every year and had to restructure quite often. Rich Birch — Right. Right. Jason Hanash — And so kind of in our culture, to be change oriented. Rich Birch — Right. Good. Jason Hanash — And of our staff in our, in our, so that, that is going for us where that is something that is embraced structure changes, meeting rhythms change. We tell people to marry the, the, the vision, not the position. And so you’re going to might have to shift on, um, you know, what hats you’re you’re wearing depending on what season we’re in and and what what the needs are. Jason Hanash — So there’s there’s that in the culture, but inevitably there is going to be, hey, well, I was sitting at this table and now I’m not at at that table. Rich Birch — Right. Jason Hanash — And so with that, I think you have to be, use some change strategy and have conversations with key, not only key influencers, but but people that it’s going to impact the most. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Jason Hanash — And share vision with them, you know, get embodied on the vision and and the why. And that is something that hopefully that they’re going to be able to grow through. Rich Birch — Right. Jason Hanash — That they’re not meeting maybe with me anymore or with Pastor Veronica… Rich Birch — Right. Jason Hanash — …but they’re actually meeting with another executive. And, you know, there’s still value that I add in coaching them. And these are the rhythms of of what that looks like and how I can speak into your life and really selling them the benefit. It’s a benefit to them and a blessing to them… Rich Birch — Right. Jason Hanash — …because I’m not able to give them, honestly what they need to do. Rich Birch — Right. The care they need. Jason Hanash — I cannot. And they need so much more than what I’m able to. And with this structure, here’s what they’re able to do. And I’m able to lean into where I’m strong at. And I can mentor you. Rich Birch — Yep, yep. Jason Hanash — I can care for you. I can stretch your leadership. And and they can actually help you see the details and stay on track and grow faster and larger. And so they just need to understand the why. Jason Hanash — And we try to try to do that, but inevitably there is going to be, you know, feelings and and to navigate people’s very real feelings so its is important. Rich Birch — Yes. Feelings are part of working with people. There’s ah there’s definitely is feeling there. Rich Birch — Talk to me about your ah the you’re meeting rhythm. This is like typical unSeminary question, like love to get in the weeds there. How often do you meet one-on-one? How often do you meet as a group with that executive team? And did that change from before? I’m assuming you reduced your your total, your direct you know headcount that you’re managing. So to talk us through maybe before and after what’s that look like? Jason Hanash — Yeah, so it’s it’s looked different throughout the transition. Rich Birch — Right. Yep. Jason Hanash — And and honestly, our meeting rhythms shift quite often, probably more often than and went then we should, and to be honest with you. And I feel like it is, but honestly, it is because people come and go and hats get shifted and leadership assignments get shifted. So that necessitates maybe some movement. Jason Hanash — So but currently where where our rhythm is at is we have a weekly huddle with our executive team. And this is on our first day. Rich Birch — Okay Jason Hanash — We have a Monday Sabbath because Sunday is a week packed into one day for us. Rich Birch — Yes. Jason Hanash — We have five services, range from 8 a.m. to 6.30 p.m. And so it’s Monday Sabbath. Rich Birch — Yeah. Jason Hanash — And then so but Tuesday, when we come to the office, the first thing that that we do is the executive team meets together. And this is where we just, it’s just a huddle, really. This isn’t a detailed meeting. It’s not we we just want to have FaceTime with with them. What are the the the projects and priorities? What are any problems? And if there’s any people conversations that we need to discuss. And it’s it’s pretty quick. And we we let our our executives give them a room every week to just share. And that’s where we can have some real time conversations. So coaching real-time answers to to barriers or challenges that they’re having and where we can get alignment across our executive team. Rich Birch — That’s good. Jason Hanash — So it’s time for us to so huddle. They have a weekly a daily huddle that they have with their with their departments, and it’s like a five to eight minute things. It’s standing up and they get to, they just do that a quick huddle. And so we kind of model that as well, where it goes a little bit longer though. We probably have about 25 to 30 minutes that, that we, we try to stand too and not sit down. Jason Hanash — And then we do a monthly executive meeting. In the monthly executive meeting we try to stay bigger picture and, and looking ahead. And to do that, we actually, we have a a rhythm that every month is a different a little bit of a different focus. Every month we’re talking about vision and we are going to have our vision metrics that are that, how are we moving people toward the process of discipleship here at Discovery and their the, their vision goals in their specific departments. But we have a different focus every month that we move through. And these are and this is probably going to be more in the weeds that you’re probably looking for, but it’s… Rich Birch — No, no, it’s good. Jason Hanash — Okay. We we have really, there’s five, the five focuses of of an executive at Discovery is: advancing the vision, influencing the culture, managing the systems, multiplying the leadership, and stewarding generosity. And so these these are five focuses that the executive team is is, it’s like a heartbeat that they, they, so every month we shift from what the focus is. So vision is actually going to be the one that’s in every every meeting. Rich Birch — Right. That’s cool. Jason Hanash — But we shift from influencing the culture, managing the systems, multiplying the leadership and stewarding resources. So what it works out, because it’s four of them, it works out, we do a seasonal calendar. We actually focus on one of those habits, if you will, or one of those um pillars every season. Jason Hanash — And so we get to do a deep dive in our systems every season. Rich Birch — Yep. Jason Hanash — We get to do a deep dive in our in our leadership pipelines and our leadership ah team and the goals that we have for leaders every season. Culture… Rich Birch — That’s great. Jason Hanash — …how are we influencing the culture of our church? What what is the culture of our church? We have culture conversation and how we are, we get to talk about how are we shaping the culture of our church this season and how are we going to shape it next season? Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Jason Hanash — What are the stories that need to be told? What are the things that need to be highlighted? There’s a we get to just do a deep dive into that. And then as well as every season, we talk about stewarding generosity. And so we get to do a deep dive into how we have stewarded their budgets. Rich Birch — Yeah. Where are we at and all that. Jason Hanash — And where are they at? And how are we looking? And so it’s it’s both reflective of what has been done and where are we moving moving forward. So we’re able to do just a deeper dive with this team… Rich Birch — I love that. Jason Hanash — …that is that influences the the the background, the heart, the foundation of of the church. It isn’t we’re not talking about events. We’re not talking about you know who’s speaking there and and what what is the that conference looking like. That’s not what we’re talking about in that meeting. We are shaping the heart of the church and moving it forward toward the vision. Rich Birch — Love it. I love that. And I love the just—listeners, as you’re listening in—I love that you’re using the rhythm. Like we have a very, what we do is very routinized in the church. Every seven days, we’re doing a giant event. And you guys in particular, five services that we were joking about this before we went ahead of time. Oooh, that’s a lot. I get tired just thinking about it. But you know we have this rhythm already in what we do. Let’s leverage that. And I love this idea of like, hey, we’re just going to march through these five things and talk about them. We’re going to every, you know, I guess that’s like a third of the year, we’re marching through every one of those areas. I think that’s so good. Rich Birch — You caught my eye with daily meetings, daily huddles with your team. I know we’re not talking about your executive, but they’re having daily huddles. Jason Hanash — Yeah. Rich Birch — I have a friend of mine who runs a business who swears by daily huddles. He’s like, why are you not doing these? And pushes me on it. So, and I do, I, in fact, I don’t know any churches that do daily huddles. I think you’re the first church that I’ve heard of that does that. So tell tell me about that. Tell me what that looks like. Unpack that. Convince us that we should be doing that. Jason Hanash — Well, it gives an opportunity for the executive to look in the eyes of their of their staff and and for that department to get alignment and to talk about their their projects and and priorities, what their focus is for the week. Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah. Jason Hanash — And when they when they come together, they are saying again, what the focus is for the week, what are they accomplishing, what challenges or questions that that they have. Rich Birch — Love it. Jason Hanash — Real-time decision-making feedback is is it so important, man. I think people, there’s so much that doesn’t get done and get stalled because they just didn’t have the line of communication that was that was open, the clarity that was needed, a question that went unanswered. So I think it creates that open line of communication. It creates an opportunity for there to be collaboration across the different team members of your department. But it is a good rhythm of accountability where everyone can work on what they’re working on instead of being in the weeds and like just grinding, they actually have to pick their head up and go, what is my focus this week? What should I be accomplishing? And be able to articulate that in a succinct way. Jason Hanash — And so this is an opportunity for them to become great administrators and time management and task management and project management And as well as an executive or a leader who’s leading them to discern where people are at in that, if they need coaching in that, if they need redirection, if they need focus. Sometimes in a huddle, they’re saying, I’m I’m working on this, this, this. And an executive has to go, and actually, let’s talk about that because I actually I have I have some redirection for you there. Rich Birch — That’s good. Jason Hanash — I need you to focus on a few more things this week, and and we’re going to table some of those. Oh oh, yeah, you didn’t. There was something we actually canceled that or we changed that. We need to connect. And so it creates so much alignment and and focus and momentum when you get people in the room… Rich Birch — Love it. Jason Hanash — …talk about what they’re going to be working on. And it gives opportunity, like I said, for coaching. So it’s been huge for us. We’ve been able to, I think, save so much time… Rich Birch — Yeah, 100%. Jason Hanash — …and energy and mistakes in wrong direction… Rich Birch — Yes. Jason Hanash — …by dedicating 10-15 minutes… Rich Birch — Right. Jason Hanash — …in the morning first thing to just talk about what you’re actually going to be working on together. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I can see that. I remember reading, I think I’m going to butcher the number. I think it was 40% or 45% of staff time is occupied with waiting on management or feedback around, you know, it’s literally just like I’ve communicated. I just need to wait for someone to respond. Rich Birch — And, you know, the the the kind of theories of constraint idea behind that is if you can just get people talking more, you can speed up at the pace of your organization because it’s like, and if you know, in this case, every day you’re going to have a quick check-in, man, we can move from, because then the question becomes, hey, what did you do on that project yesterday? Or I can just wait till tomorrow morning to ask my supervisor about that. And we’ll, you know we’ll move as opposed to like, well, I’ve got a meeting up three weeks from now or whatever. So yeah, I love that. Jason Hanash — Right. And there there’s ways, I mean, you can use systems as well. Rich Birch — Yep. Jason Hanash — We have we use Basecamp. Rich Birch — Yeah. Jason Hanash — A lot of people use different different software. We we use Basecamp for, sometimes they they don’t do the huddle because people are in different towns, in different cities. Rich Birch — Yes. Jason Hanash — They’ll do Basecamp. Basecamp is an ongoing system of communications as well. Must must happen. Rich Birch — Yeah. Love it. Love it. So good. Okay. So let’s pivot in a slightly different direction. You did an initiative called Year of Freedom. Jason Hanash — Yeah. Rich Birch — It caught my attention. Tell me what is Year of Freedom? Give us, give me a sense of that. Jason Hanash — So every, it was 2024, last year… Rich Birch — Yep. Jason Hanash — …we we just ah really felt like the Lord leading us in a direction. And every summer, I take a month off, not just a vacation, but I take about two weeks. I pray, fast—my wife wife and I both—and we’re seeking God for his voice and direction. And not just for like ministry and the church, but for my life and for God to align me… Rich Birch — That’s good. Jason Hanash — …as a father, as a husband. It’s our marriage. It’s Rich Birch — So good. Jason Hanash — …it’s in that time in the summer we’re we’re praying and we’re fasting and we’re seeking God that the Lord will show us some things about our our children. He’ll give us insight as to importance in this next year that we’re leading into and what they need to learn and grow and how we need to lead them. Jason Hanash — And so it’s in that time though, that that we also seek God’s direction for what everything we’re stewarding, including including the ministry and the church. And the Lord has been pretty faithful these last I don’t know, four or five years to to just give us clarity of focus. And and this year was just um was ah one that focus was around freedom. And that was the word that Lord just spoke to our heart. And and it it came in birth out of the the need. There’s such a great need of healing of mental and emotional and spiritual strongholds that that that people have. And and um… Rich Birch — So good. Jason Hanash — …we felt that the Lord wanted to wanted to set people fee free. And and we were going to take people on a journey the whole year of freedom… Rich Birch — Wow. Jason Hanash — …and crafted that journey and through our series and our men’s and women’s nights and experiences, even our youth and young adults and the retreats that we went on – the thread of the year was was freedom. Rich Birch — So you organized, I love this idea. Like I, you know, I’ve heard of churches doing the like, like, you know, whether it’s a word or it’s a focus. Peal that back a little bit. How did that drive your planning process? How did it drive, you know, series selection? Jason Hanash — Yeah. Rich Birch — Give us some examples of what that looked like. Jason Hanash — So it starts for us in the summer. And then when we take our staff on our annual retreat in October, we share the vision with them and they begin to craft the experience and their events and moving into the year with this thread of freedom. Jason Hanash — But for me, with our sermon series, that the the planning is is around that how does this how is this reflective of this this year of freedom that we’re moving into? I began the year with a series called Freedom. We released a curriculum called Freedom as well. Rich Birch — Wow. Yep. Yep. Jason Hanash — A book we wrote that was like small group curriculum called Freedom. The, and then throughout the year, it’s not that every single sermon was about, you know, freedom… Rich Birch — Right. Jason Hanash — …but we, we had like, you know, The Relationship Rehab is one of the series. So we’re relational freedom. We did a series called Anxious for Nothing and it was about anxiety and depression. And we did a spiritual warfare series called Battles and Breakthrough. And this was on a spiritual freedom. We did Truth Over Trend and the deceptions of culture. And so the the thread throughout the year was, was freedom. We were going to see people set free. Rich Birch — That’s cool. Jason Hanash — And then when we did like a men’s night or a women’s night, we were leading intentionally men and women, specifically in the things that they deal with. So we’re addressing some of those things to lead them out and into freedom. Jason Hanash — We did Freedom nights in in January and August. We have those 21 Days of Prayer. And so we we have worship nights during those times. And so those were nights of of freedom… Rich Birch — Wow. Jason Hanash — …that we were intentional about the focus every time we’d gather, a different area of focus where we’re where we were going to break strongholds, and we were going to believe that people were going to be set free and and start walking out a new freedom journey. Rich Birch — I love this from a clarity point of view. I love this. Like, Hey, we’re, where this is like an organizing principle for the, for the year. Have you done this multiple years or is this like a one year thing? Has it been, you know, is it gaining momentum internally? Like we’re thinking, cause I hear you say like, Hey, we’re thinking about in the summer. So that would mean, Hey, you’re thinking about next year. You know, how, how’s that all work? Jason Hanash — Yeah, it really, this last year in 2024 probably was the greatest year of alignment with it that we’ve had. Rich Birch — Right. Right. Jason Hanash — We’ve had focus and and clarity on on maybe a theme and and it would thread through maybe sermons, and um but not the kind of alignment that we had this year. And this probably is, again, a result of empowering people our our leaders to lead at higher levels… Rich Birch — Yeah, I love it. Jason Hanash — …seeing that kind of traction thread through… Rich Birch — Yep. Jason Hanash — …all of the church. I it was it was a result of that. I got to share the vision… Rich Birch — Yep. Jason Hanash — …to a team that’s carrying it and they get to mobilize. Rich Birch — Right. Jason Hanash — And it just thread through everything. We have small groups and like as a curriculum. We launched our counseling center. We launched a freedom prayer ministry. We we started LGBTQ support small group and saw people set free that were going to take hormone blockers and confusion and and homosexuality and and saw people saved and set free from from all of that. It was all like it was it was all because we we shared vision and invited the team into it. Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. Jason Hanash — Yeah. Rich Birch — That’s so good. I love how those two connect together. Obviously this, you know, taking what’s an idea, you know, given to you, but then, hey, accelerated through your team, expanded and even, you know, greater alignment and then obviously impact from all of that. That is, yeah, that’s that’s so good. Rich Birch — Well, when you think about the future, this has been great today. First of all, this has been so good. Lots of, I got a page of notes here, stuff to think about and chew on. But when you think about the future, ah you know, at Discovery, kind of where, what are the questions you’re asking or wrestling with in in the future? Jason Hanash — I think where we’re at right now is is this is 2025… Rich Birch — Yep. Jason Hanash — …and the year or theme for us was identity. And I really felt like it was an identity crisis and has been an identity crisis. And not just culturally that we see maybe with with with gender, um but I think in the kingdom, people do not know are in Christ. They don’t know their identity in Christ. Jason Hanash — And so so I I believe there’s a hunger for for that in the body. There’s a hunger for that in the world because what the world has told people where they would find belonging, fulfillment and meaning has has just leaving them broken, lost and confused. And so there’s a I believe there’s ah there’s a message in a revival coming to the church where we are bringing people into understanding into their, their identity, who they, who they were created to be and their identity in Christ. Jason Hanash — So this year we kind of, we we wrote like a devotional for it. Rich Birch — Wow. Jason Hanash — And in I’m actually, you know, finishing up a new curriculum, a book I’m writing called Christ Formed in You is launching in July 30th, I believe. Rich Birch — Nice. Love it. Jason Hanash — And we’re [inaudible] spiritual formation and a culture of [inaudible] faith. Rich Birch — Yep. Jason Hanash — And we’re going to take people on a year long journey… Rich Birch — So good. Jason Hanash — …where our foundational new believers curriculum needs to be 12 weeks. We’re stretching it out to a year and the 12 habits of the disciple. Rich Birch — Love it. Jason Hanash — We’re just taking people on a deeper journey of spiritual formation so that they’re just not practicing habits, but the habits are shaping Christ’s likeness in them. Rich Birch — Ah, that’s so good. I love that. Yeah, I was thinking that, you know, the interesting thing about launching, you know, you talk about launching a year like that. Jason Hanash — Yeah. Rich Birch — If you launch at the beginning of January, that means you’re writing at the in, you know, the year before. So you’re trying to balance out this year, next year, trying to keep it all straight. That’s, that’s cool. I love, I love that. It’s interesting to hear. Rich Birch — Well, this has been a fantastic conversation. What what else would you like to say just as we come to land today’s conversation? Jason Hanash — Man, it’s it’s been a pleasure, been a pleasure, man, to hang out with you and to share. I think that that there’s, I what I would say is I’m seeing across the the nation, as I talk to pastors, it truly is the sparks of revival. Rich Birch — I would agree. 100%. Jason Hanash — There is such a hunger for the the word of God and the presence of God. And, and what is, what used to be, I don’t know, we’ve moved away from, guess, the teachings, the word of God and, and we tried to attract people and wow people and lights and, and, and music and, and that’s, there’s nothing against that. I, we, I use that. But, but I think what, what’s really attracting the next generation is truth. And this generation is starved of of truth and there’s so much deception and the truth is is is in the Word of God. And as we teach the Word of God and we teach the truth, they’re coming. And I see young adults coming with their Bibles and they want to read the Bible, they want to know the Bible. Jason Hanash — And so I think a church growth recipe is, is you know, teach the Word of God. Get back into the Word of God. Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so true. Absolutely. Jason Hanash — Open it up and dive into and you’ll see a ah spark, I think, in your congregations. Rich Birch — No, that’s so good. What a great encouragement, great place to, uh, to end. Where do we want to send people online? If people want access, is there a way to access some of these resources that you’ve used for the entire year? Is there a place we can send people to kind of see that or where do we want to send them online to track with you track with the church, that sort of thing? Jason Hanash — I mean, you can go to our website, ilovediscovery.church to see a lot of our, all of our content. We’re actually putting on our first ever leadership conference on July 12th. Rich Birch — Oh, great. Good. Jason Hanash — It’s just a one day Saturday. We’ve we’ve been getting a lot of just, you know, questions from pastors and ministry leaders on on how we’re doing what we’re doing. Rich Birch — Good for you. Jason Hanash — So we’re kind of opening up the house and giving our playbooks and resources and workshops and bringing in some speakers and hopefully going to be a really great value add. Jason Hanash — But we’re, we’re we have a ah website, I believe it’s leadershipconference.church. Rich Birch — Ooh, that’s good. Jason Hanash — And if you want more information about that, leadershipconference.church, you can check that out. I believe that’s it. I’m probably murdering it. Let me see. Rich, I’m good my team’s going to kill me here if I don’t get this right. Yep, leadership. Rich Birch — No, that’s right. That is. Yep. That’s right. That’s, that’s the, that’s the address. That’s good. Jason Hanash — That’s it. So if you want more information um and more resources and how we do what we do and how we grew from a living room to 5,000 people, that’s that’s what we’re going be sharing there. Rich Birch — That’s so good. That’s great. You got some great speakers there, Natalie, Ryan, Chris, and yourself. That’s going to be a great. Yeah. We’ll, we’ll link to that in the show notes. Incredible value. Uh, you know, you should check that out if you’re in the area for sure. Rich Birch — Thanks so much, Jason. I really, uh, really appreciate you being here today. Thanks for being on the show. Jason Hanash — Thanks, Rich.

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