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

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Pat Gillen, the Executive Pastor of Families and a teaching pastor from First Baptist Simpsonville / Upstate Church in South Carolina. How are you cultivating leaders at your church? Are you trying to figure out your next step for developing Gen Z? Tune in as Pat unpacks his church’s innovative strategy for nurturing young leaders through their comprehensive residency program. The need for more leaders. // As one of the fastest growing churches in the country, First Baptist Simpsonville  / Upstate Church is currently operating eight campuses, with plans to add a ninth. A distinguishing feature of their approach is the commitment to live teaching at each campus, rather than relying on video sermons. However, as the church has grown, so has the need for effective leaders who can embody the church’s vision and mission. This need for leadership development led to the establishment of a residency program aimed at nurturing young leaders who can step into various roles within the church. A two-year program. // The residency program is designed for recent college graduates and spans two years. During that time, residents are integrated into a ministry team, working closely with ministry leaders who act as mentors. This structure allows residents to invest around 30 hours a week in various ministry roles, gaining practical experience and exploring their calling while contributing to the church’s mission. At the end of that two-year timeframe, residents have the opportunity to apply for a position within the church, or take what they’ve learned and use it elsewhere. Look within your church. // Sourcing residents can be a challenge, but Pat suggests starting by building and nurturing the leaders you have growing in your church. Begin by developing students in your youth ministry who are looking for opportunities to lead and serve. By investing in and nurturing their leadership potential, you can create a pipeline of future leaders who are already familiar with your church’s culture and mission. Set expectations. // Pat explains that working in the residency program at the church won’t necessarily guarantee residents a job there. The focus is on personal and professional development, helping residents discover their calling and equipping them for future ministry roles. Pat recommends that after the first year of residency, mentors should have a conversation with their resident about their next steps and how the church can best equip them moving forward. Assign a mentor. // During their time learning from the church, assign the resident a ministry leader to mentor them. Residents should be integrated into the church’s ministry teams, where they participate in discussions, discipleship, and practical training. Mentors are responsible for guiding residents, helping them identify their goals, and providing the necessary support to achieve those objectives. Offer expert sessions. // First Baptist Simpsonville / Upstate Church also has equipping sessions for their residents. Some of the church’s best leaders will spend two hours on Wednesday mornings sharing their expertise on a variety of topics, such as counseling, budgeting or other real-world ministry challenges. These sessions gives residents the benefit of the entire staff and not only the ministry leader they work alongside. Developing leaders takes time. // Pat warns against viewing a resident as free labor to help out with menial tasks, rather than a chance to invest in future leaders. It’s a time commitment to develop leaders effectively. This investment not only benefits the residents but also multiplies the church’s capacity for ministry. Invest in future leaders. // Prioritize investing in the next generation, starting with your kids’ ministry and youth ministry. By identifying and nurturing potential leaders early on, your church can create a pipeline of talent that will sustain your ministries for years to come. Visit upstatechurch.org to connect with Pat and follow along with what First Baptist Simpsonville / Upstate Church is doing. You can also find our interview with Brian Owens, the Executive Pastor of Operations here. EXTRA CREDIT // Get the Leadership Residency Program Progress Tracker Templates! If you’re serious about developing the next generation of church leaders, the Leadership Residency Program Progress Tracker Templates is an invaluable resource. This fillable PDF includes: Monthly Progress Check-In Tool – Help residents reflect on their growth and stay focused on their goals. Reflection & Goal-Setting Prompts for Residents – Encourage deeper thinking and alignment with the church’s mission. Quarterly Performance Review Template – A structured way to review progress and set actionable plans for future growth. Perfect for churches looking to support their leadership residents, this tool streamlines progress tracking and goal-setting in a practical, easy-to-use format. Available exclusively through unSeminary Extra Credit. Download the Leadership Residency Program Progress Tracker Templates here and take your leadership development efforts to the next level! Thank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Portable Church Your church is doing really well right now, and your leadership team is looking for solutions to keep momentum going! It could be time to start a new location. Maybe you have hesitated in the past few years, but you know it’s time to step out in faith again and launch that next location. Portable Church has assembled a bundle of resources to help you leverage your growing momentum into a new location by sending a part of your congregation back to their neighborhood on Mission. This bundle of resources will give you a step-by-step plan to launch that new or next location, and a 5 minute readiness tool that will help you know your church is ready to do it! Click here to watch the free webinar “Launch a New Location in 150 Days or Less” and grab the bundle of resources for your church! Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary Podcast. Wow, I’m so excited for today’s conversation. Really looking forward to this because two reasons. One, ah it’s another leader from a church that we had on a few months ago and it’s always good to keep leaning in and learning from churches that are prevailing, making a difference. And then the second, what we’re talking about today is one of those areas that I know all of our churches are wrestling with. We’re thinking about how do we do what we’re going to talk about today. So you’re going to be rewarded by ah leaning in today and and learning. I’m super excited to have Pat Gillen with us. He is from First Baptist Simpsonville/Upstate Church, a fantastic church located in South Carolina. ah They’re one of the fastest growing churches in the country with, I believe, eight or nine campuses, if I’m counting correctly.Rich Birch — They offer services in Spanish and Portuguese in addition to English. Brian is the executive pastor of operations. Sorry, Brian is executive pastor operations who we had on in the spring. Pat is the Executive Pastor of Families and Fountain Inn Teaching Pastor and has established a residency program in the church. So really excited to have Pat with us today. Welcome. So glad you’re here.Pat Gillen — Yeah, so glad to be here with you today.Rich Birch — Yeah, it was great having Brian on back in the spring and excited to have you here today. Why don’t you fill out the picture a little bit? Yeah. I, when people say like good things about other people they work with, that’s positive.Pat Gillen — Yeah. Pat Gillen — Yeah, nobody doesn’t like Brian. He’s so.Rich Birch — Ah, that’s fun. Rich Birch — Well, why don’t you kind of fill out the picture there a little bit, maybe for people that didn’t catch our episode in the spring or how, you know, people say, Oh, tell me about the church. What’s it kind of describe it to us? Tell us a but little bit about it.Pat Gillen — Yeah, sure. We’re we’re kind of an established church that probably 20 years ago got into multi-site and didn’t really um fully get into the model we’re in until ah about eight years ago, where we started replicating ourselves in other places instead of just having sort of a daughter campus, you know, that was somewhere else. Pat Gillen — And so it’s been a part of our DNA, maybe even in the background for quite a while, but in the past eight years, truly, God’s used it in a special way. So you said eight or nine campuses that’s actually pretty accurate. We’re at eight and voting on a ninth right now… Rich Birch — Oh, oh great. Love it. Pat Gillen — …trying to figure out that step so we’re in that same kind of limbo stage where we’re about to get nine locations. But it’s such an exciting thing for us because what’s unique about us is we do live teaching at each campus so we don’t do ah video venue or anything like that. We’re not against it. We don’t think it’s bad. But especially in our area, there are a lot of other churches that are doing that. So kind of what helps us stand apart and be unique is having campuses with live teachers. Pat Gillen — And so and that’s kind of created even our conversation today. What’s brought us to that is it’s almost created a vacuum of of need for leaders that can step up that are a part of our vision and understand it and kind of step into those spots. So that’s been an exciting thing for us as we’ve grown from, when I got here, we had three campuses. Two of those, like I said, we’re almost really like daughter churches. They kind of did their own thing. And then we we covered the bill if they didn’t cover everything. And now ah those campuses have have been reformed once spun off as really truly a mission or daughter church in that way. Pat Gillen — The other one is was our first ah Upstate Church campus, our Harrison Bridge campus. And then since then, we’ve added so many more. And so it’s such a great thing to be a part of ah communities here in the Upstate. And that’s really our goal and our mission is to reach the Upstate of South Carolina for the kingdom, to connect people to Jesus here. So it’s been awesome. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Well, I, you know, just to kind of put this conversation in context for folks that are listening in that may not know, but we’re still at a place where over 50% of multisite churches don’t get beyond three locations. So your church is rare air. I know you know that is rare air in the fact that you’re eight looking at nine, you know, that we’re down into single digit percentage of multisite churches in the country that have that many locations, which is amazing. Rich Birch — But then even more notable, like you said, on the teaching front, so the shorthand we say all the time, which is statistically true, but you got to have somebody that bucks the statistics is the larger the church and the more campuses they have, the more likely they are to to use video content. So the fact that you are continuing on with um you know, in-person teaching at all these locations does put you in in a rare air. Part of why I think it’s a great conversation to have today. Rich Birch — Maybe before we get into specifically about residency programs, which we want to kind of dive into, how are you training those people? Talk to me through that kind of campus pastor, teaching campus pastor, teaching pastor role. Why is that, you know, you kind of gave us the the quick answer, oh, all the churches are doing video. But talk us through that a little bit more. Because it’s a huge investment to say like, hey, we’re going to try to keep, you know, growing people and making that happen. Why are you doing that? What are you learning on that front? Why do you think continue to think that’s the best move for the church?Pat Gillen — Absolutely. Yeah I think a lot of that comes from our lead pastor and his humility. Rich Birch — Yep. Pat Gillen — And this is not in any way to say that a pastor would be prideful on video. But his humility and letting other people lead and and have that ah pulpit in those locations is such a um a great leadership tool for him. Pat Gillen — I think ah part of the way we’ve looked at it is like we can be more effective if we know the people and we’re face to face with the people, if we have that opportunity. So ah most of our campuses we operate in kind of a huddle model, hub model where ah within our original campus or original location there are four churches or four other campuses rather that are within probably 12 to 15 minutes of that. Pat Gillen — So we’re kind of hitting um the extension of where people you know may still feel like it’s it’s possible to drive here, but they would love one more in their community. So it’s also a little unique because one of our campuses is 3.1 miles away. Rich Birch — Wow. Wow. Yeah, that’s very close.Pat Gillen — So it just feels like it’s a crazy idea, um but it’s something that really birthed out of our pastor. If we’re going to reach the upstate, then we need to have ah campuses that are in these communities that are trying to reach those communities for the kingdom. And so it’s really less about um us trying to put everybody in one building or try we say, instead of building up, we’re trying to build out. Rich Birch — Love it. Pat Gillen — So a lot of our efforts are that way. It does mean we duplicate a lot of processes in those campuses that other a church that runs our size that maybe in one location would not have to reproduce You don’t have to have ah nine communicators on a Sunday morning. Rich Birch — Right. Pat Gillen — You just need one. And so there’s a lot of that that I think we’ve had to figure out through the years. But it’s really allowed us to have a touch point in the upstate that’s unique and different and um kind of have our own um and flair and ministry.Rich Birch — Love it. Pat Gillen — Yeah. Rich Birch — So good. And well, let’s talk about the residency program. So this is a part of kind of there’s there’s ah there’s a problem in churches, which is how do we develop leaders? And you’ve you know clearly outlined why there’s even kind of you’ve decided to have a whole other layer on top of that, which is you know nine communicators. That’s a big piece of the puzzle. But let’s talk through first just the you know the kind of problem part of the equation. Rich Birch — So um why residency, what got you into this? Why what what led you to the place was there you know that said, hey, this is the area, then we need to spend more time on this. what do what’s the What’s the itch you’re trying to scratch? What’s the pain you’re trying to solve through you know this effort?Pat Gillen — Well, I probably like a lot of people. I went, I graduated from Liberty University. Went from Liberty to Southeastern, right Seminary in North Carolina, right out of high school, or right out of college. And I was just figuring life out. Rich Birch — Yes.Pat Gillen — And I joined a church staff and it was ah it was a great church. I loved it. I still love the people, still connected with those people there, even though it’s been over 20 years. But I just didn’t have anybody pouring into me. I didn’t have anybody helping walk along with me. And of course I had seminary classes but the whole point of your podcast they weren’t teaching practical leadership ah skills. You know we were learning how to teach the word and we’re learning how to preach exegetically. Um, we did a lot of great things there, but, uh, learning some of those practical skills, I had to learn on my own. Pat Gillen — And if so, it was just a difficult thing. Um, I feel like I didn’t figure out till maybe I was closer to 30 in ministry before I really started, you know, kind of hitting my stride and feeling like I’m, I’m getting a lot more effective here and I know what I’m doing and I’ve kind of figured things out. So really kind of started even almost from that standpoint for me, how can I help young leaders, not be thrown into the fire or or thrown to the lion, so to speak, where they’re trying to figure it out. They’re making mistakes that could be career ending mistakes for some of them, even if they’re not a moral failure, but just um they lose the leadership of the people, or they deal with all kinds of other things.Pat Gillen — And so we wanted to create a scenario where we could develop leaders, help them walk them through that process, help them discover their calling. That’s really the the itch that we’re trying to scratch. Obviously, here, every time we launch a campus, we we launch it with a campus pastor, a worship ah leader, and then a kids coordinator. So for every one of those campuses we launch, we’ve got to have another kids person in the boot.Rich Birch — Yeah.Pat Gillen — And then soon after that, a student person, ah depending on size.Rich Birch — Yep.Pat Gillen — So um it’s it’s something that we’re constantly trying to find new faces and new leaders. And so as a church, we are feeling that pain at the pace we’re growing. You mentioned I think we’re a ninth fastest growing church in the nation ah this past year and the fastest growing Southern Baptist Church. So for us, it really has been a pain point of how can we get the right leaders in there, not just a warm body, not just somebody who um you know can can stand there and do a halfway decent job. But how can we get the right leader that’s going to help and and actually be somebody we can trust in that campus?Rich Birch — Love it. So let’s let’s talk about when you say residency, what does that mean? You know what is I’ve heard churches use that word. When you use the word residency, what do you mean by that?Pat Gillen — Yeah, we’ve talked a little bit about even changing the name to School of Ministry or something along that lines. But essentially for us, what a residency is, is two years post-college. We encourage them to do graduate school, seminary, depending on what they do. ah So if we we may have a communications person or a worship person that doesn’t pursue a seminary degree but gets a certificate instead… Rich Birch — Right. Pat Gillen — …or um does a different kind of training. But we pursue seminary education as a part of that and that’s that’s really a process. So college graduates, they spend two years with us and after that two years, man, we’re just we’re really hoping whether it’s a two-year job interview that they are able to come on with us, or we actually get to send them out. And our hope and our prayer is to impact the upstate of South Carolina, so you know we want people that we can feed into churches to be leaders in the upstate and lead their church to healthy models too.Rich Birch — Love it. Let’s talk about where you find these residents. Cause I think people could agree like, Oh yeah, I’d love to find… Pat Gillen — Yeah. Rich Birch — …like, that seems like a sweet spot. Man, if I could, if I could find a regular batch of, you know, post, you know, graduate kind of folks that are just finished school and they’re looking for this kind of thing, how how are you finding them? What’s been your, your sweet spot on finding folks?Pat Gillen — Oh, that’s great. I think part of it for us is we’re not in a college town. Rich Birch — Yep. Pat Gillen — We’re also we’re not close to a lot of seminaries or anything like that. Anderson University is about 45 minutes to an hour away. We have a campus there. Rich Birch — Yep. Pat Gillen — And North Greenville is about the same distance away. We don’t have a campus up there yet. But we do have some connections. So there are some relationships that have helped, I think, through that. But I think the main thing for us, we’re actually trying to develop um our leaders here when they’re in high school. We’re trying to pour into them, disciple them… Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good. Pat Gillen — …nurture that calling that they have, and actually create a pipeline to to keep building into them. Because we know, and you know you’ve heard it said, like students are not the leaders of tomorrow. They’re the leaders of today. We’ve heard those kind of sound bites. But a lot of people aren’t giving them opportunities to lead, giving them opportunities to serve. So we elevate those leaders, give them opportunities to lead, and then always try to develop in them a sense of… Rich Birch — That’s good. Pat Gillen — …hey, when when you are ready to discover that calling, we wanted you to be a part of this back. So I would say probably a number of of our residents are ones that were either a part of our ministry before or at least while they were in college, ah connected with us to some level. And so that’s probably the majority of us. Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good Pat Gillen — We’re trying to say, hey, how can we develop leaders in-house. And honestly, the people that we may even hire one day out of the residency program, and we hired two full-time just recently with this last group that graduated for us, is they know us better than anybody that we could bring in, you know?Rich Birch — Right, right. Yeah, yeah, for sure. They get a huge head start. That’s great. I love that. I remember um just recently I was at a church where they were talking about a young adult weekend. They had like a bunch of young adults went away to a conference. And at the conference, it was like a weekend thing, and the um the speaker, they had like a it felt really old school like back from when you and I seemed like similar generation when we started ministry where there was like a, do, are you sensing a call to full-time vocational ministry we want to get you, you know, come to the front now we want to pray for you kind of thing. And I was and I was encouraging this church I was like man we got to do that. Pat Gillen — Right. Rich Birch — Like because it feels like we dropped that out of the equation in a lot of our student ministries that was like it’s just not a part of the conversation. And we’re missing that. So I love that you’re, hey, even with high school students trying to raise the value of that and trying to get out in front of that. Rich Birch — Talk me through the tension of, um you know, this is a ah training process. We’re trying to actually develop leaders. um This isn’t like a ah two year job interview. Like they, it’s they’re not guaranteeing people like, hey, you’re going to get a job. How do you talk about that with people with potential residents? And then how do you think about that? How do those two things kind of relate together?Pat Gillen — Yeah. I mean, we, uh, we tell them from the beginning, it’s not a promise… Rich Birch — Right. Pat Gillen — …to a job here at our church. Rich Birch — Yep. Pat Gillen — And who’s to say we would even be in the financial situation by that point… Rich Birch — Right. Pat Gillen — …that we could hire them on. Um, so we, we, you know, would be willing to have that conversation, but we’re really just upfront from the beginning about that. Rich Birch — Right.Pat Gillen — Usually about a year into the residency, we start talking, all right, next steps. Uh, what do we need to start looking at? How can we help equip you the best… Rich Birch — Good. Pat Gillen — …to be prepared for those, whatever’s next for you, whether that’s here or somewhere else. And even ones that we would really love to hire, I’ll I’ll get phone calls from people and I’ll still pass their information along… Rich Birch — Oh, really? Good for you. Yeah. Pat Gillen — …because I want I don’t want to stand in the way of what God may be leading them to do. But that’s not what what we’re about. We’re really kingdom-minded in the way that we’re approaching this to say, that’s That’s our goal is not to say, hey, how can we build up ourselves? But really, how can we build up those next leaders? Pat Gillen — You’re right, man. Like I don’t know I don’t want to blame student ministries or student pastors, but as a church as a whole, we are not um inviting people to step up and pursue the calling that God has on their lives for ministry.Rich Birch — Right.Pat Gillen — And so oftentimes it’s like, well, they just don’t make money, or they work crazy hours. And that’s true. Those those things are all a factor.Rich Birch — Yeah, those things are true.Pat Gillen — But in reality, the best part about this program that we tell them is we’re helping you discover your calling. Rich Birch — So good.Pat Gillen — So, you know, I came out of ministry. I felt like I had a specific calling to student ministry when I started out. And that’s where I started while I was in seminary. I’ve been in several different roles since then, obviously. But I felt that kind of clarity. A lot of ah Gen Z is coming out of college and going, I don’t know yet. I don’t know what I want to do.Rich Birch — Right.Pat Gillen — I don’t know how I want to fit. And so part of what we’re trying to do is say, okay, let’s let’s investigate that. What are you interested in? What do you feel led toward? Let’s kind of steer you that direction. And then six months in, if that’s not a fit, you know, and it’s not working, let’s try something else.Rich Birch — Right.Pat Gillen — And I love that because it really gives you the ability to have your finger in multiple ah levels or multiple areas of ministry to see this is the one I’ve been really passionate about that God is leading me down that path. And so that I mean I wish I had that even though I felt that certain conviction of myself myself in the student ministry at the beginning. I love that heart and that passion that that students can have or or our ah residents can have to to discover that.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I love it. Now what about, I’m sure a part of what you end up doing is having a conversation with the leaders at your church and trying to help them catch a vision for like, Hey, there’s like a, my impression of, of this kind of situation is it’s like, it’s two steps backwards to go one step forward or other way around two steps forward, one step back, two steps forward. Like there’s a, we’ve got to slow down and develop leaders.Pat Gillen — Yeah.Rich Birch — I’m sure, or is it just everybody at upstate, it’s like, we’re all for developing leaders and I don’t mind spending extra time on this stuff. How do you work that through with your team internally who might be hesitant to you know want to invest in a resident, spend time with them, that sort of thing? Cause they’re like, I got lots going on already.Pat Gillen — Yeah, you’re right. Everybody’s schedule is full. I would say it’s probably less that they’re not interested in developing leaders than we do have some that may not know how to. Or know how they’re supposed to invest in those leaders.Pat Gillen — Kind of what we do is in the residency program is we bring them in. We are a team and we function as a team. And there are things that we cover as a team that we talk about, we discuss, we do discipleship together, we do what we call equipping, which is practical ministry and in many ways, theological ministry, ah discussing through, um you know, some even deep theological issues through that as a team to kind of really help them develop ah depth ah to what they believe. Pat Gillen — But we set them in a ministry and we consider that ministry leader their actual boss. So um that ministry leader has the ability, for instance, ah Steve, our missions pastor, executive pastor missions, has the ability to actually pour into the resident that he has, spend an extreme amount of time with him, finding out what his specific goals are and how he can help him meet those goals.Pat Gillen — And so it’s kind of a, um it’s kind of a win-win because we’re helping the residents meet those goals. They’re helping us reach goals.Rich Birch — Yep.Pat Gillen — You know, they’re a part of our team. um We get somebody who’s here that is ah not just an, not an intern or anything like that. They’re putting in you know, 30 hours a week with us. Rich Birch — Right. Pat Gillen — And, uh, and able to help us move the, move the ball forward, especially as we continue to expand. But really we’re able to put that time in. They’re not just moving chairs, you know? Rich Birch — Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, right.Pat Gillen — We’re trying to develop as a leader. I mean, that was the old idea, like, Oh, you got an intern, have them set up the tables. Rich Birch — Yeah. Pat Gillen — Like this is, this is not that at all.Rich Birch — You’ll pick up the Chick-fil-A or whatever. Yeah, it’s not that we’re doing more than…Pat Gillen — Yeah, exactly. Now there may be, so there may be some of that… Rich Birch — Yeah, but that’s normal in ministry. That’s not That’s a part of life for sure. Rich Birch — Well, one of the things I I love about this is, and I’ve said this for years, I’m like, man, you can in school, you can learn like the right thing to say or the right kind of theologically true stuff. But there’s it’s very different when, you know for instance, the first time someone that you’re sitting across the coffee table with, a volunteer, somebody that we’re at your church says, I’m thinking about leaving my wife. You know, man yeah what we don’t want is people you know to flub that interaction. And you know the getting people real world experience like that in ah in a in a safe environment where that’s not all lies on you, because um unfortunately, like you know, what you say in the next 30 seconds after someone says that to you matters. Like it it’s it’s… Pat Gillen — Yeah, that’s right. Rich Birch — You know, and there’s lots of those. There’s lots of examples of that kind of stuff. Talk me through, um you know, what does that look like? I’m trying to give people some real world, um whether it’s pastoral care or, you know, maybe it’s like a preaching thing where it’s like, hey, the stakes are a little bit higher here, but we’re doing it in a way that gives them some support so that they can gain that experience, but that we’re not also dropping the ball with our people.Pat Gillen — Well, that’s so true. And I iI think a lot of us learn that the hard way. Rich Birch — Yeah, for sure. Pat Gillen — And, you know, I tell people you can never surprise me when when I’m in a counseling session. And there’s sometimes I’m like… Rich Birch — Just did. Pat Gillen — …that actually I’m just not a game face right now.Rich Birch — Yes.Pat Gillen — So I think what we do with our equipping sessions, we bring some of the best leaders on our church staff to actually adopt one of those times. Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good. Pat Gillen — And they’ll spend two hours with them on a Wednesday morning and they’ll pour out like ah their expertise on counseling, or their expertise on how to handle a funeral, or how to handle a wedding, or um or just how to how to deal with somebody who’s struggling with same-sex attraction, or or somebody who’s depressed or has anxiety, or even just like how to how to create a budget. Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Pat Gillen — Like these are things that you did not learn in class.Rich Birch — No, sure.Pat Gillen — So we have our top leaders just just meeting with them, helping them develop ah pipelines, making sure they’re they’re making disciples who are making disciples. And ministry can easily become just, hey, I’ve got to get there to set up the chairs. I’ve got to make sure the lights are on. And we’re not truly pouring into people. And so equipping them to to look at ministry, not as the tyranny of the urgent… Rich Birch — Right. Pat Gillen — …but to look at ministry as this is my opportunity to develop leaders, even as a 22 to 24 year old… Rich Birch — Love it. Pat Gillen — …looking ahead. And so they really get the benefit of our entire staff. It’s not like it’s… Rich Birch — Yeah, just you. Pat Gillen — …there’s one of us. I’m certainly not the expert that goes in there every week and tries to tell them how to how to do everything. So they get that benefit. Probably something our entire staff would but would really benefit from us doing um if we needed another meeting that would [inaudible]. But it is it is a ah great advantage for them. Pat Gillen — And so we scope kind of a two-year curriculum for that, if you want to consider it that way, so that we can repeat it every two years. So no matter where somebody comes in on our residency program, they’ll ah they’ll actually get all of those pieces.Rich Birch — That’s so good. Yeah, I love that.Rich Birch — I love that. That’s, you know, that’s so fantastic. So it’s just you and me, Pat, you know, there’s nobody else listening in.Pat Gillen — All right.Rich Birch — What’s that thing about, you know, it’s kind of like the dirty secret or the pothole to avoid about residency programs that like, hey, nobody told us this. Nobody said there would be this problem. You know, I know that there’s like real issues with doing this. What are the thing that you, you say to friends, that they’re they’re like, Hey, we’re thinking about this. You may not say it in a podcast in front of people, but you know, you’re, you’d you’d love to [inaudible] it’s just us. We’re just just just chatting about what’s going on.Pat Gillen — Right, right, right. Well, I think the biggest thing when I’m talking to other people is churches see what we do and they think, oh, I get free labor. Rich Birch — That’s good. Pat Gillen — And so um I can take advantage of that and get some free labor. And they’re looking just to offload work… Rich Birch — Right. Pat Gillen — …instead of looking to develop a leader. Rich Birch — Right. Pat Gillen — So the number one thing I would say, and you kind of hit on earlier, that people overlook is the time investment… Rich Birch — Right. Pat Gillen — …that it actually takes to develop a leader. But ultimately you’re multiplying yourself. You’re able to do far more than you could by doing that. I think a lot of people don’t see that. Rich Birch — Appreciate that. Pat Gillen — And I would I would also say the the generational thing is probably always a challenge. Just um with Gen Z, we tell our our group, we’re like, this residency is designed for you to take initiative. And so there’s a fundraising component to what we do. Rich Birch — Okay.Pat Gillen — And we thought, we’re like, hey, at one point, maybe we should do what we can to pay them instead of doing the fundraising, if we could ever get to that point, which would be great. And then really, the more we prayed about it, the more we thought about it, we’re like, this fundraising component actually helps them realize they’ve got to get out there… Rich Birch — Right. Pat Gillen — …they’ve got to make connections, they’ve got to talk to people, they’ve got to hustle. And that’s what our residency is about. It’s about kind of putting them in scenarios where, excuse me, it putting them in scenarios where if they’re waiting on somebody else to tell them what to do. This is going to be a long two years. Rich Birch — Right. That’s good. Pat Gillen — But they’re connected with the ministry leader. They’re seeing holes that they can uniquely identify um because they have fresh eyes. They have fresh experiences and trying to fill those holes and step up… Rich Birch — That’s good. Pat Gillen — …and help us excel and improve as a ministry. So I think a lot of people overlook that. They think, hey, it’s this is just going to be a a free person and they should be lucky. They should be thankful for us that we’re giving them a house to live in or whatever the case is.Rich Birch — Right.Pat Gillen — And so instead, we we feel grateful that we have these young leaders who’d be willing to spend two years with us and develop their skills as a part of our community.Rich Birch — That’s cool. What what do you say, you know, what’s the kind of time commitment on on your side? Like if you were to say, like one of those, the super people that’s a supervisor, what does that look like? And then what would you say at kind of a central team, whether it’s yourself or like, give us a sense of what that kind of time commitment is on both sides. So if I’ve got a resident in my area that, what does that look like? And then kind of as an organization, what what do you, what do you feel like you’re investing?Pat Gillen — That’s good. Basically, it’s like having a part-time employee with you.Rich Birch — Okay.Pat Gillen — So what we have been doing in the past is almost probably the opposite way of what we should be doing it. We have a resident that would apply and that resident is interested in student ministry. I’ll contact our student ministry and say, let’s interview this person. Let’s see if they would be a good fit. Rich Birch — Okay.Pat Gillen — And we go that direction. What we’re trying to move toward is actually having those ministry leaders say, hey, I’m looking for somebody and I would love to have somebody develop. Rich Birch — That’s good. Pat Gillen — And so that way we can be more intentional as we interview these residents and bring them on to to plug them up with a need that we have specifically as well.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.Pat Gillen — So it’s just going to help us maybe multiply a little better in that way. But yeah, I would say 20 to 25 hours that they spend with the ministry hands on, depending on the ministry, some of those can be, um you know, nights or or weekends. And some of those are in the office, you know, just a regular type job. It just depends on what type of ministry they’re in. And I tell residents or future residents, if we have it at our church, you can do it. So, communications ministry, or um senior adults, or kids, if if you’re interested in any of those things, you can apply as a part of our residency. And so…Rich Birch — That’s cool.Pat Gillen — …part of that’s going to really be birthed out of now those leaders saying, okay, I could really use somebody to work with senior adults. And that may be a more difficult resident to find, but there’s some out there. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pat Gillen — And so we’re going to try and and dig into what that looks like. And um a lot of our residents have two responsibilities or or what we call dual roles. Rich Birch — Okay. Yep. Pat Gillen — So they may have, ah they may be in one ministry for 10 to 15 hours, another ministry for 10 to 15 hours,. Or one one for 15, one for five or something like that. So just kind of gives them a little opportunity to to put their toe in a few different spots and see which one they’re more passionate about too. So um it really helps us having them around. I would say as part of our central resident team is is about a five hour or so commitment every week with us.Rich Birch — Okay.Pat Gillen — And then we tell them they’re full-time seminary students and they’re part-time with us. So we really want them to have time to focus on education and we believe that’s important.Rich Birch — Right. Right.Pat Gillen — So the way we particularly set that up from a financial standpoint is we actually give them a scholarship to pay for their seminary. Rich Birch — Oh, interesting.Pat Gillen — And then we contribute toward their fundraising and then they raise the remaining of that fundraising on their own. And so ultimately, our church’s commitment is around $15,000 a year per resident… Rich Birch — Wow, that’s great. Pat Gillen — …ah but then they raise an additional amount of money ah for them as well. And then when we have a how housing option, we make that available to them. So I’ve got three houses right now that were parsonages from a church that merged with us. Rich Birch — Right. Pat Gillen — Or a church that we or a house that we bought that’s because we wanted to to get the land next to our church or whatever. And so I’ll I’ll house them in there when that’s available too. So that really does become a ah huge benefit when they start counting the number.Rich Birch — Oh, yeah.Pat Gillen — Yeah.Rich Birch — Yeah, for sure. Well, and you can see where that, you know, that makes a lot of sense. I can see if somebody’s going to seminary, they’re like, okay, I could piece this together. I know there’s like that part of it. And I, you know, I like that, that fundraising piece. I could see, you know, that’s a, that’s, those are helpful skills to kind of work and exercise and, and yeah, the housing, all that. That’s yeah, that’s so good. Good stuff. Rich Birch — Well, when you think about um kind of the future of the program and you’re thinking about where where did this could go, what are some of the questions you’re asking, or you look up over the horizon and you’re thinking, man, it’d be kind of fun to do this someday. It’s not necessarily today. What’s what’s the future look like for this, ah for Upstate? Pat Gillen — Yeah, the future is exciting and scary all at the same time. As we continue to put campuses, ah you the most recent one we’ve been talking to is about an hour away. Rich Birch — Right. Pat Gillen — As we continue to do that and think through how do we develop this program and have leaders in that program, we’ve really got to think next level about that connectivity and making sure that we’re all on the same page and where we’re going to.Pat Gillen — So that’s a big challenge for us for any multi-site churches that are looking into that. I think I would love to learn from them too on how they’re best communicating with one another in that central team and looking at that ah from these guys. Because they won’t really be a part of a central team except for their connection with the residency. So um that’s probably the biggest question mark for us moving forward as we… Rich Birch — Sure, sure. Pat Gillen — …if we get two and three hours away, how do we stay connected? How do we set that up? But it’s exciting as God continues to bring um amazing leaders our way. We’re we’re really still ah learning at this in many ways, but we have 10 residents starting in January… Rich Birch — Wow. Pat Gillen — …and we’ll open up a few more spots next year.Rich Birch — Yep.Pat Gillen — And so we hope to continue to be able to grow that as we move along. Rich Birch — Yep.Rich Birch — That’s great. Man, it’s so exciting. I love it’s been so good to kind of get a little bit of behind the scenes curtain look into this. It’s just so ah we’re behind the curtain look in this. It’s so so exciting. Anything you’d like to share just as we kind of look to wrap up today’s episode?Pat Gillen — Oh man, just my heart to see leaders developed and my heart to see us lean into the next generation is something I feel like, you know, God’s given me a passion for. And certainly just as a challenge for churches if they’re trying to figure out where to start, um they should start with their kids ministry. Rich Birch — Good call.Pat Gillen — They should start with their student ministry. I think sometimes we look for a leader to come in and fix things and we ourselves are not discipling the next generation to be leaders today right now where we are. So my challenge would just be that. I’d be like, hey, you you have what you need in front of you. And the churches that are struggling, the churches that we talk to often that are even closing their doors, are the ones that did not prioritize… Rich Birch — Yep. Pat Gillen — …the next generation and letting them lead. Rich Birch — So good. Pat Gillen — So that’s certainly my challenge and encouragement, yeah. Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s so good. I love a part of what I you love about what you’re saying here is for me, what is strikes me about churches like yours, yours specifically, um who are doing a good job on this residency, you know, thing or developing next generation leaders in even more broader sense is, you know, you’re not thinking about solving today’s problems residents are gonna solve they’re gonna solve some but they’re not gonna solve your January, February problems this year. You know what they are but but what you do know is, man, if we can train some people now and get really strategic about that now and apply effort to that and do that consistently. Man, two years from now, three years from now, four years from now, you’re going to have this pipeline of of of young leaders that you can plug in that, man, that gives you a huge leg up long term. So I just think that’s that’s just so encouraging to see, ah you know, your church you’re really trying to get intentional about this. So so good on you. Great stuff.Pat Gillen — Well, that’s true. One more thought, Rich, is a lot of churches will not have a problem with paying a fee to a hiring firm to get a pastor in. And if you think about what that fee generally costs and you invest that in the next generation instead, you can develop those same leaders… Rich Birch — Yes. Pat Gillen — …for probably less money than you’re paying just somebody else to to bring somebody in. Rich Birch — Oh, absolutely. Like that. Well, that to talk about dirty secrets, like that is the dirty secret. The like man, like we all the reason why and I have friends that are in the kind of search business, like I get it, you know, that want to go and find…Pat Gillen — It’s a great ministry; it’s needed.Rich Birch — It’s very it’s needed, but those people end up hired. And I’ve hired those folks in the past when I’ve like, I’ve got a burning hole right now that I’m like, we have got to solve this problem. But the thing is, those come around with fair regularity, and if we can get ahead of it and think, okay, I don’t know, you know, I don’t know like In four years, I’m going to need more leaders. I know that. I don’t know what they’re goingI don’t know what we’re going to need them to do, but we’re going to need them somewhere. Pat Gillen — Right. Rich Birch — What can we do today to try to even get, like you’re saying, get into student ministry even earlier in the pipeline, starting to think about who are the young leaders? How do we identify them? What can we do? I just love that. That’s so good. Well, Pat, this has been a rich conversation. I really appreciate you ah being here today and helping us through this.Pat Gillen — Yeah.Rich Birch — Where do we want to send people online if they want to connect with you or with the church?Pat Gillen — Yeah. Upstatechurch.org would be a great place. Rich Birch — Love it. Pat Gillen — So I’d love to talk to anybody that wants any help or can help us. That’d be great.Rich Birch — Love it. Thanks so much, Pat. Appreciate you being here today.Pat Gillen — Yeah. Thanks a lot, Rich.

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

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

Thanks for joining in for the unSeminary podcast. Today I’m looking forward to talking with Drake Farmer, the Executive Pastor of Ministries from Beulah Alliance Church in Alberta, Canada. Are you curious about how churches manage leadership transitions smoothly? Learn about the strategic and intentional planning behind the leadership transition as Daniel Im (interviewed here) succeeded Keith Taylor as Beulah’s lead pastor. Tune in as Drake highlights the critical role of proactive succession planning, building trust, and maintaining a mission-focused mindset to ensure successful transitions. Get ready ahead of time. // Keith Taylor initiated the succession conversation at Beulah Alliance six years before Daniel Im stepped into the role. This foresight and intentionality were crucial in preparing the church for a smooth transition. Think not only about the immediate future, but about the next 30 years of leadership for the church. Start preparing five to ten years before the lead pastor might be ready to leave. Be intentional about talking about succession in your church’s growth stage in order to set it up for future success. Remember the mission and plan. // Focus on the mission during this time of preparation and searching for a new pastor. Remember it’s not about the departing pastor’s accolades or personal legacy, it’s about Jesus, the church and spreading the gospel. Have a plan in place and foster trust so that when the time comes you won’t be scrambling to get through it. Cultivate a mindset of readiness, always being prepared for the possibility of being called to a different role. Gradual transition. // There was a strategic overlap between Keith Taylor and Daniel Im, allowing for a gradual handover of responsibilities. Clear communication and collaboration between the outgoing and incoming leaders were essential in building trust and ensuring a smooth transition. If possible, identify when various responsibilities of the previous lead pastor will be transitioned during the succession process. Strategically roll out the announcement. // Daniel had previously worked at Beulah in adult ministry, but when he returned as the Senior Associate, the succession process wasn’t immediately revealed. Because the transition between Keith and Daniel was a 24-month process, Beulah’s leadership had to discern when to make the announcement. Strategically invite your staff, your key leaders, and your congregation into the transition at the right time so they can process the change without the runway being too long. Role clarity. // Clearly defining roles and responsibilities during leadership transitions is crucial. Key areas such as preaching, staff leadership, and strategic vision need to be addressed to ensure a smooth handover. Identify who is leading the meetings. Who is laying out the org charts and who is reporting to whom? Role clarity behind the scenes aids in a seamless leadership transition. Don’t be afraid to ask. // As you consider pastoral succession, who would you like to see step into that transitioning role? Don’t assume “no” from a person before asking. Identify who would be at the top of your list. Don’t be afraid to approach them and ask if they would consider coming to your church and leading. Finally, churches may benefit from partnering with organizations that specialize in consulting and coaching for succession planning. External support can provide valuable guidance and resources during transitions. Visit drakefarmer.com to learn about Beulah Alliance Church, The Unstuck Group and connect with Drake. NEXT STEPS // Are you navigating a leadership transition in your church? Download our 2-Year Succession Timeline Template, inspired by insights from the episode Stability in Transition: Insights on Church Succession from Drake Farmer. This free resource offers a step-by-step guide to planning a smooth, strategic transition over 24 months. With clear phases, actionable steps, and tips directly from Drake’s experience, this template is perfect for church leaders looking to make their next leadership handover stress-free and successful. Get your copy today and ensure a confident path forward for your church! Thank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Risepointe Do you feel like your church’s facility could be preventing growth, and are you frustrated or maybe even overwhelmed at the thought of a complicated or costly building project? Are the limitations of your church building becoming obstacles in the path of expanding your ministry? Have you ever felt that your church could reach more people if only the facility was better suited to the community’s needs? Well, the team over at Risepointe has been there. As former ministry staff and church leaders, they understand how to prioritize and help lead your church to a place where the building is a ministry multiplier. Licensed all over North America, their team of architects, interior designers and project managers have the professional experience to help move YOUR mission forward. Check them out at Risepointe.com/unseminary and while you’re there get their FREE resource “10 Things to Get Right Before You Build”. Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary Podcast. Man, I am so looking forward to today’s conversation. This is one of those conversations that I know that there are leaders in the midst of this situation that we’re talking about, or on the brink of this situation that we’re talking about that are gonna lean in and get so much value out of this, not only because the leader that we’re having on today is is ah has living through this, is working through this, but he’s a repeat guest, which you know when we have repeat guests, that means I think they’re great. Rich Birch — And so super excited to have Drake Farmer with us. ah Drake is at a church called Beulah Alliance Church. It’s a multi-site church with three locations as well as a Spanish campus in Alberta, Canada, was founded in 1907 in the growing city of Edmonton, has become a multi-ethnic and multi-generational church experienced rapid growth in these last few years. Drake sits in the seat of executive pastor of ministries. ah Plus, he’s also a friend. He’s a great guy. Super excited to have you on the show today, Drake. Thanks for being here. Drake Farmer — Awesome, I’m happy to be here. Rich Birch — Yeah, the other Canadian Drake. That’s what I like to say. You know, there’s there are two in Canada that that we know of. You’re one of them. Drake Farmer — Yeah, but before nobody would ever get my name right when I introduced, but now, cause you know, Drake the rep. Rich Birch — ah Just kidding. Oh, really? That’s hilarious. Drake Farmer — Oh, Greg, Craig, Frank, I got truck once. That was a, yep, yep. Rich Birch — That’s great. I love it. No, that’s that’s great. Well, yeah, that’s an upside for sure of of Drake. So why don’t you fill in the picture? Kind of tell us a little bit more about Beulah. Give us, you know, if people were to come this weekend, what would they experience? That sort of stuff. Drake Farmer — Yeah, like you said, we’re a multi-site. We’ve got, what’s interesting is we’ve got, as you said, three locations, but four campuses. So there’s an English campus and a Spanish campus in one of our locations. Drake Farmer — And so we’re in, our our vision statement is to awaken greater Edmonton to King Jesus. And so even even through COVID, even understanding, we have a ah quite a ah large online presence, but our focus isn’t to have necessarily an online campus because really, you know, and it’s been true of the church the last 103 years as Greater Edmonton, it’s kind of grown up with the city um in that sense. And so we’re really focused on that incarnational, how are you how is that, you know the you know, now the screen door is, you know, online church. And so being intentional there, but then wanting really to drive people in. Drake Farmer — And so, um again, it would just it would depend a lot on the campus that you’re you’re at. So with with real estate and what you have and the buildings you can get, we would say, you know, we want to we want to have the experience, our values, our philosophy, our vision, the experience would be really much Beulah, but at the same time, it could be size and location. Edmonton is ah is a a hugely, diversely cultural um city. And so we have multigenerational multi multi-campus, multi-ethnic campuses across the board. um But the biggest thing is going to be if you come to our West Campus, which is running around 2,000 people or three services. Drake Farmer — We’ve got a campus in there in the southwest part of our city that’s running about 600 people with two services and then all the way down to you know our our Spanish campus and our smaller campuses ranging from around the 50 to 100 or you know to the 200 mark with our Spanish and our English one there is our newest and we’re in the midst of long-term planning in the next couple of years launching our next campus. So. Rich Birch — So good. Yeah, we, we, you might remember if you’ve the name Beulah is not a name you run into all the time in churches. It’s not like another, you know, whatever Northview, you know, Community Church or whatever. Drake Farmer — Yep. Rich Birch — And now I just made fun of way too many people who listen to our podcast. But ah you might remember we had Daniel Im on the the podcast. We had him on multiple times. And Daniel is the lead pastor. We’ll link to that episode. And the reason why so oftentimes, you know, I I go to a church and I’m like, I’d love to what’s going on, I’d love to hear… But actually, in this conversation, I’ve seen from afar what’s happened with ah yeah Daniel stepping in as the lead pastor, the kind of succession stuff that’s happened there. And I really wanted to get Drake’s kind of vantage point on this view on this as executive ah pastor, or senior leader in the organization, kind of get his perspective on that. Rich Birch — This is an issue that I know is just, it’s incredibly important for so many of our churches. So talk us through kind of at a high level first, uh, what, what, tell, talk us through what has happened on the succession. What does that look like? And then we’ll get into what did you learn through that? What would you say some of your, your learnings for 30 years from now, when Daniel leaves, you can think next guys can pull out this one and and talk about what that looks like then. But yeah, let’s first tell us kind of describe the succession that has taken place there. Drake Farmer — Yeah, totally. Oh, it’s interesting, like, even from my my vantage point was, in our in our greater Edmonton area, ah probably all the major, there was a lot of successions are happening right around the time, even before COVID. And especially some of our larger churches. And so it’s fascinating to see what was happening. Rich Birch — Right. Drake Farmer — And then a lot of even taking the risk of going a little bit younger than what we expect, you know, the 30s mark and even some being 20. And I was just like, oh, this is so fascinating to watch. You know, I’m from an outsider’s perspective, and I wonder how it’s going to turn out. Rich Birch — Right. Drake Farmer — You know, and then I joke around that I’m like, Oh, yeah, now i’m I’m, I’m hitching my, you know, my my wagon to that being part of Beulah, you know, and even through COVID, what was what was what was crazy was, um you know there was a season there where in our and our district, in our denomination, in our province, there was 21 vacant lead pastor roles, just lead pastor roles. Rich Birch — Wow. Wow. Drake Farmer — And so there was this crisis, you know. And we’ve been talking about an aging demographic of lead pastors for a while now. Rich Birch — Yes. Drake Farmer — But but you know the intentionality of going, oh, we’ll think about it eventually. And COVID hits, it expedites all of this stuff. And all of a sudden now, all these churches and our our district, our denomination is scrambling, right? Rich Birch — Right. Right. Drake Farmer — And so what what was a privilege, I would say, for me, um being walking into this, probably about a third or a quarter into the process I guess of this of, or at least I’m sorry not the process of there was much more intention which we’ll get into later. But of the third end of the process of of the actual overlap between our previous lead pastor, Keith Taylor and then our current Daniel Im um and being able to kind of watch that happen . And seeing the intentionality that there was that in that Keith brought that he started this process like six years I think before it was done or six years before Daniel came on. I can’t remember the exact number. Rich Birch — Right, right. Drake Farmer — But he I think he even triggered this even though like we should think about this, like ten years before. Rich Birch — Wow, wow. Drake Farmer — You know and and always just kind of going, and eventually was like, alright guys, we need to seriously start looking at I know you don’t want you know they didn’t want him to. You know he you know those sort of things and I think this would be a really good kind of you know succinct way to put it of Keith’s heart. You know it’s my second week he’s taking out for lunch. um COVID hasn’t hit yet. So my claim to fame is I started here at Beulah, two weeks later COVID hits, and I become the COVID crisis manager. Rich Birch — Wow. a Great time to start. Drake Farmer — Yeah. COVID crisis manager for all of our campuses and we have to rethink ministry from the get-go. Rich Birch — Yep. Drake Farmer — But yeah, so that hasn’t hit yet. Keith’s taking up for lunch and I just, I asked him, I say, Hey, Keith, you’ve easily got another 5 to 10 years. Like, like why now? Why are you, why are you thinking succession now? And he goes, cause I’m not thinking for this church. I’m not thinking about the next five to 10, I’m thinking in the next 30 plus. And the next 30 plus needs a new leader. Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good. Drake Farmer — um And it’s not that I couldn’t keep leading it. But if we if I’m doing it on the high and that kind of growth stage, this is the time to do it. And and and let’s be intentional about it instead of waiting until it’s needed, in a sense. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s amazing. One of the things, this struck me, I don’t know Keith that well, having a little bit of interaction with him, um you know, over the years. A great leader and, you know, incredible guy, obviously loves the Lord, has been there for 30 years so that, you know, he was, you know, had been obviously deeply loved in the community, loved in the church. Rich Birch — Talk to me about, like one of the hallmarks, I think, of these successions. A lot of it does rest in the heart of the leaving or the departing pastor and their orientation towards this. Maybe talk to a a person that’s listening in today that so finds himself there like at some age where they’re like, I should start thinking about this. How how what how would you encourage them to be kind of cultivating their own inner life in these this moment… Drake Farmer — Yeah. Rich Birch — …even before they kind of flag it and say, okay, I think we need to start talking about this? Drake Farmer — Yeah, I think I think part of it is just, I mean, I say this to any staff person to kind of alleviate when they feel like it’s time for them to step off the bus. Rich Birch — Yep. Drake Farmer — And they’re handing me that letter of resignation. And and they’re a little bit like conflicted about it, obviously, because it’s like, I’m feeling called out of it. But I don’t want to give this sense, like, I hate this place or something. Rich Birch — Yeah. Drake Farmer — And I’m just like and I have I had to learn too because I was like I don’t want to overreact emotionally or under-react, like oh you don’t care that I’m leaving. Rich Birch — Yes. Drake Farmer — So says I just need you to understand like, hey I’m I’m super sad, like you’re you’re amazing that you’re stepping off the bus, but I don’t own you, like Jesus owns you. And then Jesus and and so if Jesus is moving the pieces across the board and is wanting you in a different location, then he has somebody for us. So I think and think the difference there is that you’re needing to be in that kind of almost like I’m I’m here now because I’ve been called here… Rich Birch — Right. Drake Farmer — …um but always being ready, the sense of going at any point, right? I could be called out, and what we’ve seen so much over the years is, well, now that call’s there, so now I’m leaving, and then the church now needs to walk through that. um So I think more so than any other role as that as that voice, as that lead pastor, um is going, how do I prepare my church? I think I think the difficulty is um I mean there isn’t I mean, there is an employment risk in that to say, hey, I think i think it might be time and you’re you’re putting your neck out there. So so I can understand there’s there is a sense of like, what does that look like? um Rich Birch — Right. Drake Farmer — And so I I don’t want to assume and the um the unique dynamic. Because I said our story here at Beulah is going to be different than your story. Rich Birch — Right. Right. Drake Farmer — So I’ll i’ll just share it from this perspective to go what Keith did… Rich Birch — Yes. Drake Farmer — …and why it worked well for us, but recognizing the dynamics that were there. He was a loved beloved leader that he had the trust and the relational credit with the board of the church and you know all of that stuff. And and ah and it did revolve around retirement which also helps. Rich Birch — Yep. Drake Farmer — So to keep that in mind as well. Rich Birch — Yeah. Drake Farmer — um But yeah, so I mean, he was, I don’t know if it was GLS or maybe it was some other conference he was saying that he was at, and they were talking about succession. This is about 10 years before, and he’s like, oh, that’s, yeah, that’s a really important conversation. So he he kind of let the board know, hey, this came up, you know, I don’t have any plans, but at some point, we if we’re gonna do this, we should be intentional about it. Rich Birch — Right. Drake Farmer — And then it was ah the five to six year mark that he said, okay, guys, Well, guys and gals, we’re egalitarian, but um okay, team. Rich Birch — Yep. Drake Farmer — ah to say, hey, we need to think about this. Rich Birch — Right. Drake Farmer — We need we need to be intentional about this. Rich Birch — Right. Drake Farmer — So let’s start praying. Let’s start discerning. Let’s start planning, you know. And a big part of that was, well, who who do we believe the next person is? And and what what is the prayerful discernment of that and then and then the plans of like what is the overlap and those different pieces. And so there was a lot of intentionality there and a very open posture of the sense of like it’s about the mission, it’s about Jesus… Rich Birch — Right. Drake Farmer — …it’s about you know you know continuing to see the legacy. And when you’re and part of being a part of a church, and for some churches it might seem like 100 years is normal, um but in the west of Canada, 100 years is is very abnormal for for a church to have that legacy. 50, maybe 60, sure, but you know having that legacy in this area um definitely builds into that as well, that we’ve seen multiple pastors come. Drake Farmer — And there are people in this church Church is 103 years old. We had somebody um who who recently um who passed away that was like 102 years old… Rich Birch — Wow. Drake Farmer — …and had been a part of that church the whole entire time. Rich Birch — Oh my goodness. Drake Farmer — So i like there’s some of these dynamics that you have these voices and trust and stuff. Rich Birch — Right. Drake Farmer — Yeah, a big part of that posture and that thinking was, you know, it’s not about me and having that sense and praying into it and wondering when, you know, Jesus, let me know or let me think about it. Rich Birch — Right. Drake Farmer — Or let me be prepared. Or, or maybe, maybe for you, it’s just, well, I, I got in a situation where we’re not in a situation that we could be as intentional as six years. But do you have a plan in place to say, Hey, let’s think about that now so that when the call comes that we can enact because we’ve thought through it and we’re not scrambling. Maybe it’s as simple as that. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Right. Yeah. That’s great. I’d love to hear about the kind of intentional plan. You know, there’s, there was this overlap. I’d love to, you know, pick apart what that looked like. And, um, you know, kind of set that up for us, help us understand what that kind of intentional, those intentional steps look like. Drake Farmer — Yeah, and what’s interesting is like, for Daniel, when Keith approached Daniel, he said, would you consider putting your name forward and be a part of this process? There was two main candidates that they had kind of fought through and reached out to to consider. And Daniel wanted, and he was at Lifeway, he was at Nashville. I mean, like he legit just got his green card and then was back to Canada. Rich Birch — Right. Yes. Drake Farmer — right like So it’s just like, oh, we were we were there planning the roots deep, they weren’t looking. um And one of the things for Daniel was because there was an intentional overlap, if that wasn’t there, he would have said no. Drake Farmer — Now I know another contexts, having that intentional overlap may not be helpful. I know of other, I could share stories of churches I’ve spoken with and and walked with as well um that because of that but it was because of the attitude or or the posture… Rich Birch — Right. Drake Farmer — …maybe of the of the exiting pastor where it didn’t allow for that, where there needed you almost need to have like ah a season where there’s like a reprieve or like a gap. But because of Keith’s posture because of how how he saw and how he spoke about publicly and how Daniel spoke of Keith. And there was a big part, what was interesting, was it was so fascinating. I would get these text messages from, you know, people from churches across, you know, the nation and internet, you know, North America as well. But I just knew there were, kind like you said, we’re looking and outside looking in and we’re going, man, is it, is it actually going as well as it looks? Rich Birch — Sure, sure. Drake Farmer — And I was like, and I could say, actually, yeah. Rich Birch — Yeah, it is. Drake Farmer — You know, being able to sit in the you know as an exec team and and senior leadership team, was it perfect? Were there never any tensions, and especially going through COVID? Of course not. You know, and and I know that there were conversations, because at that point, you know, Daniel was reporting to Keith, this wasn’t a, like, dual leading thing. Rich Birch — Yep. Right. Drake Farmer — It was I’m bringing you in, and then helping you move that forward. And so there were reporting systems there, Keith was still our lead. He was leading. And I’m sure there were probably some, you know, some good, healthy, you know, conflict type conversations behind closed doors. But when it came to in front of the staff, when it came to at the congregation, it was all just, you know, how they spoke of each other was huge. Rich Birch — Right. Drake Farmer — And then another part that was a big part was there was an intentional plan of knowing what pieces in this lead pastor job description would be passed over, you know. And and in what part through those two years at the at the one mark mark, you know the three month, at six month, at the nine month, at the one year, they are very strategic about the different pieces that way they would hand over. Drake Farmer — And and it was interesting. So when covid and covid happened and covid hit. We had to go online, 100%. And I think there was the the strategy side piece of the church. I think it was still at least another three or maybe six months—I don’t know what the exact timeline was—that was still supposed to be firmly in Keith’s you know purview. But he said, at his age, and he was looking, moving online, he goes, I’m the least informed person. And Daniel’s way better equipped to help us as a church right now strategically to as a lead side of things to be able to lead us through that. And so he said, Daniel, I need to hand this over to you sooner. And here’s why. Rich Birch — Wow. Yeah. Drake Farmer — So it was Keith that was driving some of that stuff and recognizing the benefit. And so he was driving that posture. He, you know, same thing. He said, Daniel, it’s like, if there’s some hard decisions that we need to make as a church, be it who’s on the bus, or who you want to bring on the bus, or change a vision or values, let’s do that now, so that i can you can lend my voice or I can echo in that. Right? Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good. Drake Farmer — And so there was a lot of reframing of going, what is our vision? What is our values? And what was amazing when when we un we did our values and did a message series on it, the message series was called Unchanging. Because it was like, these have been the values… Rich Birch — Right, right. Drake Farmer — …of Beulah for the last 103 years and they’re they’re they’re the same. They’re just packaged differently. Rich Birch — Yeah. And maybe different words, but yeah. Drake Farmer — And and and Daniel did that and Keith was a part of that message series, even though he had already retired. And even now, we’re going into a capital campaign in or in sort actually we’re in the middle of one in this in this month, and Keith is a part of that because of the voice and the weight that he has in that. Rich Birch — Oh, that’s great. Yeah, he’s got, yeah, he’s good yeah. That’s good. Drake Farmer — And you know, but even now, like it was so fascinating, even after the fact, where Keith you know, he was going, okay, I’m retired now, but he still attends Beulah and he’s still a part of this church. And people still view him as their pastor, which is totally cool. And he was like, how do I how do I have a posture of supporting Daniel? So at first he was sitting up front to show, I’m for him, I’m for him. And then he started realizing people were watching how he would react. And he was like, no, no. So now he sits in the back. Rich Birch — Right, right, right, right, right, right. Drake Farmer — It was just like, okay, if this, because if it if it if it impacts mission, if it impacts our reaching people… Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. Drake Farmer — …and stuff, he’s like, not going to do it. Rich Birch — Yeah. Drake Farmer — It’s not about me. Rich Birch — Yep. Drake Farmer — You know it’s about the church and it’s about Jesus and it’s about the mission. And a big part of that is how do we set up you know Daniel. So that was really his posture. And Daniel reciprocated in the same way of how he respected him and how he he honored, you know even in the baton pass and everything. So yeah. Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. That’s even that intentionality of like sitting up front. You know, I’ve said I like that he’s at least started there. That’s an interesting, um even tactic. I’ve said that to teaching pastors in the past when we’re trying to have, you know, somebody who on that or join the teaching team. Rich Birch — It’s like I’ve said to them, I’m like, I need you to sit down front when they’re here. Don’t take that weekend off. Drake Farmer — Yeah. Rich Birch — Please show up and you know, open your notebook, take notes. Drake Farmer — Yeah. Rich Birch — You know because that and people do pick up on that, right? Drake Farmer — Yeah. Rich Birch — They do pick up on that, you know, subtle cue. I get why he doesn’t I understand the like hey, I don’t want to be the other people are looking at all the time. I get that. Drake Farmer — Yeah, yeah. And, and, and that would have been the posture. Rich Birch — Yes. Drake Farmer — I mean, and that’s how Daniel leads too. Rich Birch — Yes. Drake Farmer — He’s upfront worshiping, he’s upfront and part of those things too. And, and, but it just had the unexpected negative consequence with some people. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, for sure. Drake Farmer —And he said, well, we’re going to do what makes the most sense. Rich Birch — Yeah, totally. Okay. So let’s talk a little bit about, when you say Daniel started as he was intentionally, so when he joined the team, it was known publicly: Hey, he, this is the guy who’s going to be the successor. Was the timeline known? Drake Farmer — No. Rich Birch — Talk us about what… Drake Farmer — We we joke around. Rich Birch — And, and, and, you know, pull pull apart what was in his head, what was in Keith’s head, what was in the team’s head, the community’s head, all that. Drake Farmer — Yeah, if I were to have any question, if I were to go back and ask, would we do something differently? The one thing that was like… Drake Farmer — So they hired Daniel functionally and you know as a title, which is just a different version of my role, which was kind of fascinating. So he had the title of my predecessor, Senior Associate. And that’s where he was hired as. And then as at the congregational level, they were like, oh, Daniel. Like Daniel used to be on staff at Beulah before he went to Lifeway. Rich Birch — Yeah. Drake Farmer — And he was in Adult Ministry. And so like, oh, Daniel’s back, and he’s our Senior Associate Pastor. But there was no like right up their get-go… Rich Birch — Yeah. Context or whatever. Drake Farmer — But so was it was fascinating at the congregational level, I don’t know if they fully understood that, but at the staff, and there was some conversation there. But even at the denominational level, we just joked around, it was like the worst kept secret that was coming back. Rich Birch — Okay. Drake Farmer — Right. So and I, you know, and it’s one of those hard things to go. Well, it’d be hard to know if you were to do it differently, you know, would that get the results? Because a lot of these things are, you’re throwing a dart and you’re you’re taking the best out of the information you have and you have to make a decision where you’re gonna go. Rich Birch — Right. Drake Farmer — So yeah, there wasn’t this there wasn’t this very public, that and again, there was a very clear you know we’re going to start with this. We’re going to get used to them again. You know the staff level, they understand it. He gets more of that strategy thing, the staff development, and you know those pieces. And at some point, as things are going, then they’re going to announce it. So that because that two-year mark of, I think this is probably where the wisdom comes in. If you announce it from the get-go, hey, here’s my successor, and then it’s two years… Rich Birch — Yeah. Drake Farmer — …like it’s like mourning somebody dying, but they haven’t passed yet. Rich Birch — Yeah, for a long time. Yep. Drake Farmer — And I thought, obviously, Keith died, because that’s a… Rich Birch — Yep. Drake Farmer — …very morbid way to look at it. Rich Birch — No, no. Yes, yes. Drake Farmer — But it’s there’s this sense of like, oh, you’re in this weird space. Rich Birch — Yeah. Drake Farmer — And when do you strategically invite your staff, when do you strategically invite, you know, key leaders, when do you strategically invite, you know, the congregation into knowing that, so there’s enough runway, um but not so much that you’re just like, so what does this mean? And you know, and then yeah, this, this, sense. And I mean, for us, it was it was interesting because obviously with COVID, it it and both made things very difficult. Rich Birch — Right. Drake Farmer — Everything was difficult. um Rich Birch — Yep. Drake Farmer — And it was it was it was, I think, hardest on Keith because he’s such an extrovert and such, you know, very pastoral where some of his, we had to do some stuff after his succession because, you know, he did, we did a succession baton pass with nobody in the room at the time. And to serve him we got people to send in pictures and we do these cardboard cutouts and put them in the seats and stuff so we could see the faces of the people that he’s been pastoring for 30 years. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s hard. That’s a hard season. Drake Farmer — But he couldn’t he couldn’t say like eyeball to eyeball so we got to do that later. But some of that was difficult. But some of that too was like I think people were just like you know Beulah’s always been great, we’ve always trusted them. Why is this any different? Rich Birch — Right. Drake Farmer — And right now, I’m just trying to figure out how to live my life. And so there’s a couple of town hall meetings that I was leading with, I was going to be interviewing the two of them. And and it’s all on Zoom, right? So then maybe that was pretty… Rich Birch — Part of it. Drake Farmer — But it’s like a church of 3,000 plus people and six people show up. Rich Birch — Right, right. Drake Farmer — And then you do a second one and six people show up. And I remember saying to both of them, this is either a really good sign, or not. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah. Drake Farmer — And I don’t know which one, right? Like, you know, and, and it turned out to be… Rich Birch — Well, I think there’s something… Drake Farmer — Yeah. Rich Birch — There’s an interesting principle there where I think our, like this stuff is really important to us. Drake Farmer — Yeah. Rich Birch — And, you know, that, that I would take that as the, like, yeah, the people trust the leadership at the church… Drake Farmer — Yep. Rich Birch — …and are like behind you, but yeah, there is some of this where it’s like, and but and that was obviously an extreme season for that, where it was like… Drake Farmer — Yep. For sure. Rich Birch — …yeah, I got enough fish to fry in my own world. Like, you know, I, you know, we we want to walk through that. I’m interested in that. But like at the end of the day, just tell me when it’s done and we’ll be great. Rich Birch — You know, kind of thing ah this idea of kind of um the the typical lead pastor’s role being carved up, and, you know, um hey, so this is this is Keith’s up until this point. And then it gets handed off to Daniel. Drake Farmer — Yeah. Rich Birch — All of that. Was there any part of that looking back on that process uh, that you would say, Oh, that, that was either like a transferable lesson we should pass on or like, is there something that people that are listening in should think about when they’re thinking about how to kind of carve up the role? Are there any kind of advice you’d pass on to that? I think cause I think that’s an interesting way to to process it. Drake Farmer — Yeah, I think I think the biggest thing, because, without getting into the specific of details… Rich Birch — Yep. Drake Farmer — …because I would want to be real careful that you don’t go… Rich Birch — Yep. Drake Farmer — …oh, this is how Beulah did, so this is how I’m going to do it. Rich Birch — Yes. Drake Farmer — I think you need to look through what are some of the big mantle pieces that if we don’t figure out who’s leading what and when—things like you know preaching. Rich Birch — Yep. Drake Farmer — And it was like basically during that season nobody else preached on our you know… Rich Birch — Right. Drake Farmer — …our main stage in broadcasting other than a few exceptions because they need, we needed to hear from both. Like that was very strategic. Rich Birch — Yep. Drake Farmer — And when you’re looking at the HR side of things, who’s leading our senior leadership and exec team… Rich Birch — Yep. Drake Farmer — …you know like at what point does that turn over the strategy for ministry, you know and and the in the the pieces of that. And yeah the part that I’m not doing I obviously isn’t exact, but the the part that the lead is giving vision and understanding of like, here’s the lens that we see everything through. Those those different pieces, the the staffing and culture pieces and stuff like that. You know, who’s owning the staff, all staff meetings. And and and re-thinking through org charts and who’s reporting to who and you know and how you want your team to be you know managed. Drake Farmer — So it’s like there are some of these pieces and going, and then it’s I think it’s laying that out. And a lot of it, and like that was done before Daniel showed up. That was the board. Rich Birch — Right. Drake Farmer — And Keith that walked through that so that when he was invited into it, this is the plan as we’re going to walk things out. Rich Birch — Yep. Drake Farmer — And and a big part of it too is because Daniel’s coming into the posture to go like, yeah, I’m not Keith. Rich Birch — Yep. Drake Farmer — And I recognize I’m not i’m not trying to just learn to to be mini Keith because that wouldn’t have served anything. But at the same time, there’s so much I can learn from Keith. So how do I in these two years not only are we figuring how to co-lead… Rich Birch — Right. Drake Farmer — …and how do we pass things off, but it’s good to do that because then I get to I get to sit walking into it and not just getting everything at once… Rich Birch — Right. Drake Farmer — …I have all this relational credit that Keith has. I have all this leadership experience that I get to pull from. And I get to get piece by piece by piece kind of handed to me and then continue getting coaching. And then Keith giving him the freedom to go here’s my advice but recognizing… Rich Birch — That’s your thing. Drake Farmer — …you got to lead and you’ve got to walk out the consequences of your decision. So you always had this posture… And there’ll be some things that you know, yeah like I said, you would have good healthy dialogue because it’s different convictions and understanding in that. I think the one thing I think ah that we kept trying to right size, because at the congregational level, you know, I think for the most part, that came clear. There was good people. They knew Keith was honored. They knew that they knew that, you know, because it was around retirement, that there was the right steps to honor him, both on stage and off stage. Drake Farmer — And, you know, did a thing in the parking lot where every person can come and he could shake hands and stuff like that. um People felt like, OK, and you he wasn’t leaving. Right. Rich Birch — Right, right. Drake Farmer — And because of the healthy relationship… Rich Birch — Yeah. Drake Farmer — …obviously, sometimes that doesn’t work. But because of that, you know, they get to still see Keith. He’s still is doing funerals. He’s still, you know… Rich Birch — Right. Drake Farmer — …like um less obviously, for a lot of different reasons. Drake Farmer — And then, but for us, I think the biggest thing was for the staff, it was like, what does this mean? and And I think part of it too is even just making it clear that’s… Drake Farmer — I remember chatting with one of our teams and they were struggling with something and they said, it just feels like the succession is just the most important thing. And I looked at him, I said, yeah, because it is. And they’re like, what? I said, I get it. Like boots on the ground, ministry is important. But and and we wouldn’t want to pause all that stuff. Rich Birch — Right. Drake Farmer — And we’ve got to figure out the tension of doing both these things. But if we don’t do succession right… Rich Birch — Yeah, stakes are huge for sure. Drake Farmer — …then there might not be a ministry for you to run. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Drake Farmer — Or you might not have a, like I hate to say, you might not have a job, because there’s not enough payroll because the people left and the giving went down. Rich Birch — Yeah. Drake Farmer — And you hope and you hope that people don’t do that. But we’ve seen examples where done wrong, I mean, the church can implode there, you know, they can’t bounce back. There could be church splits because of unhealth and all that stuff. So it’s like, yeah, this is really, really important because it trickles all down from that. Rich Birch — Yep. Drake Farmer — Now is everything about the lead? No, it shouldn’t be that. and we’re seeing the opposite it is a new personality driven thing… Rich Birch — Yep. Drake Farmer — But still, like if this isn’t done well… Rich Birch — Yeah. Drake Farmer —And you know and for us, it was like a joke around because we… And this was actually helpful for our staff, you know where our strategic ends. We don’t have attendance as one of our strategic… We still track attendance, obviously, for loads of reasons. But as our one of our main priorities isn’t there. But during COVID, it was you know our strategic end stretch goal is a negative 15% in attendance in this next year and the first part of the succession. Drake Farmer — And part of it was like, well, you know with succession, that’s about what you’re supposed to expect, 15% drop at least… Rich Birch — Right. Yep. Drake Farmer — …and you hope if your strategy will bounce back. But you add succession and COVID into the mix. Rich Birch — Right. Drake Farmer — We joke around the big great shuffle of everybody switching churches, depending on where people landed on stuff. Rich Birch — Sure. Yep. Drake Farmer — So we’re like, yeah, it’s a stretch goal because let’s not go to negative 30%. Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Drake Farmer — But it also communicated to go, in this season, it’s not just all about up and to the right. Rich Birch — Yep. Drake Farmer — The season for right now is recognizing it isn’t just go, go, go. Rich Birch — Yeah. Yep. Drake Farmer — Now, we don’t ignore opportunities and the movement of you know Jesus and to evangelize and to disciple, but hey, in this season, as you think about growth stages of any organization, it’s normal when they when they’re doing the flow to go up to the next stage, there will be a dip and to not freak out. Rich Birch — Yes. Drake Farmer — It’s okay. Rich Birch — Yes. Yes. Drake Farmer — But a lot of it too, just to be, I think, I think if we would have done more um town halls with our staff, I think, and kind of like inviting them into instead of relying fully on the cascading, you know, um communication. And maybe if COVID wouldn’t have happened and a lot of needing to reorg everything because of COVID, maybe that would have been better. Rich Birch — Right, right. Drake Farmer — But with that combination, there was a lot of people that felt kind of like displaced. Rich Birch — Right. Drake Farmer — And with that, felt like in the dark, unintentionally… Rich Birch — Yeah. Drake Farmer — …because it it wasn’t like this is just some secret. But so I think if I were to go back in light of what we’re walking through would have been more, hey, let’s just talk about this. Let’s have these two [inaudible]. And so we did that and more in the tail end because we were noticing this. But if we were to do a front load hat would probably had… Rich Birch — Do a bit more of that. Yeah. Drake Farmer — …a less angst for people. So that would have been one definite learning lesson. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Yeah, the the the interesting thing there, you know, you had brought up with this, which I think is good, is just kind of practical. Like, hey, you might see a dip in attendance. That’s just a normal thing. That’s a factor. You know, I’ve said that to people on the, you know, in the fundraising side. That’s like one of those things fundraising consultants won’t tell you. They’ll be like, you’re probably going to take a hit in your in your attendance during the public phase. Drake Farmer — Yep. Rich Birch — And ah that’s okay. Like, don’t freak out. It’s going to be okay. and You’re not losing people. Drake Farmer — Yep. Rich Birch — Your church is going to have a church on the end of it, but it’s a normal part of the process. Rich Birch — But I appreciate that you brought it up because um there is a dynamic, and Keith will be an an example of a leader like this where, um so three quarters of the reason why people attend church—and this is any church, three, according to our friends at Gallup—is because of the teaching on Sunday morning. That’s that’s a true statement. People, teaching is a teaching leads. It’s a critical part of what we do. And obviously when you switch out the person who’s doing a lot of that teaching that’s going to have impact on the organization. That is just true. And as staff, executive whether you’re an executive pastor or a staff leader in a church, we have to stare down that reality. Rich Birch — I do think that that is fuzzy in a lot of our team’s heads. It’s not clear what that looks like. And the reason why I say that’s that’s apropos for a leader like Keith, is Keith is not a, my, my impression of him. He’s not like a super self-centered guy. He’s not like, Hey, it’s all about me. He’s not, and Daniel’s definitely not that way. He’s not like, Hey, this is all about me. But it is a critically important part of, you know, of what we do. And so obviously if you’re going to switch people that you you know you’re going to see, um you know, an impact on that. We just have to be sober about that. That’s going to be be normal. what Rich Birch — What is Keith doing now? Like, I know retirement is like a very funny word. What does that mean? Where is he spending his time? Drake Farmer — Yeah. Rich Birch — This is a critical piece of the equation, kind of what these people do on the other side of transition is important. Drake Farmer — Yeah, so um without getting into too many details, because it’s it’s not my story to tell, but there were some health stuff with his wife… Rich Birch — Sure. Yep. Drake Farmer — …that came right around that time. He’s been public about it, so I know I’m not breaching confidence. Rich Birch — Yep. Drake Farmer — But and so a big focus for him is is caring for his wife. And then the other part on the sides is, yeah, he has he is doing some with, well, they’re called the pastorate now, but the Canadian Church Leaders Network we have here. Rich Birch — Yep. Yep. Drake Farmer — And he does with emerging leaders, and so he’s a part of that. Rich Birch — That’s great. Drake Farmer — He gets to do that on the side of his desk. And then, I mean, he just recently walked the church through a succession, and then there’s other some church consulting. And then there’s some speaking here and there, but he’s just very picky and choosy about how that is… Rich Birch — Right. Yep. Drake Farmer — …so that he can manage some of that stuff. And so part of it is he gets to continue using his gifts. And then, yeah, just he gets to be part of our congregation. And then there are places where he’s still doing funerals, he’s still speaking at you know on stage you know as a pulpit fill. And like anybody else, we give him an honorarium. Rich Birch — Yep. Drake Farmer — And and then other other different pieces where he’s a part of, and so he gets to still utilize those pastoral gifts and still gets to use those leadership gifts. Rich Birch — Yep. Yep. Drake Farmer — And there’s moments where it’s like, hey, we should probably get Keith’s input on this, right? Because it’s just knowing the history and the relationships. And and he’s just he just ah he just continues to be a cheerleader… Rich Birch — yep Drake Farmer — …for us as a staff, for the church, for the organization and the relationships that he’s built. Rich Birch — Yep. Drake Farmer — He’s still he still shoulder taps those because he just he really wants the kingdom to win. He wants Jesus people to be awakened to Jesus for him to be made to be made you know known. And And with other people just to help them get on mission and to get clarity, he just he’s just he’s in the hallways and he’s yeah galvanizing in in in the alleyways and the hallways and things like that. Rich Birch — That’s great. Drake Farmer — So that’s kind of, I mean, far as far as I can tell. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s great. No, I totally get that. Obviously not asking you to speak on his behalf, but just as a team leader in the, you know, in the midst to see that I think it and is an important piece of the puzzle for sure. There isn’t. You know your retirement is a funny concept when it comes to you know serving the kingdom. Drake Farmer — Oh, yeah. Rich Birch — Right? It’s always a strange you know you know a strange thing. So um I think this has been great. What a ah great conversation. The other kind of encouragement I would say to people that are listening in is, um and we’ve kind of talked around this a little bit, but um obviously Keith pursued or the church pursued Daniel and like went after him and was like, hey, we would love for you to come and and think about this. I would encourage leaders that are thinking in, thinking around that, like but like there there are probably people out there… Drake Farmer — Yeah. Rich Birch — …that are on your short list of people that you… And you you, I think in those situations, we discredit those, like we say no for the people before they say no. Drake Farmer — Yeah. Rich Birch — Like we, and we don’t even ask them, because we think there’s no way, and I would have. Like I remember we’re hearing when Daniel was going back to Beulah, I was one of those people that was like, really, wow, fascinating, I did not see that coming. Drake Farmer — Well, on and yeah, on his resumé, I mean, Daniel’s never been a lead pastor. Rich Birch — Right. Drake Farmer — Like he has tremendous amount… Rich Birch — Yeah, huge leadership chops. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Drake Farmer — …like with his leadership chops, he did a lot of like his speaking, he was a, when he was a national, you know, as a communicator in the church he was at. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Drake Farmer — Obviously with all the church consulting he’s done with LifeWay. But it wasn’t your, the obvious at his at his age, at his experience, his resume… Rich Birch — Yeah Drake Farmer — …and but when you pray into that… I think another example I would go is, you know, the church that I came from, um you know When that lead, he had been he had been working with somebody and they figured you know the next five to 10 years, it’d be great. I think you know he could be the next lead. And a lot of it was just due to his age, you know? And and then it was this very clear call… Rich Birch — Right. Drake Farmer — …to say, like he this does lead is needing to leave. And it was funny, his first reaction was even when he told me, he asked me, would you come back and become the lead? Now, out of respect, I said, I’ll pray about it. But I came back and said, you like you know, I’m not a lead pastor. Rich Birch — Right. Drake Farmer — I’m not wired that way. It’s not what the church needs. And then him and and they’re his associate were both like, yeah, but both were saying, well, I’m not ready. I’m not ready. And as I was praying about it, I was like, why not? And so I challenged them. Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good. Drake Farmer — I go, don’t like, yeah, okay, on paper, sure. But is could God be something in it? Now, of course, pray about it and discern because you guys have to walk out of the consequences. And then I got to, in my my consulting side of things, I got to actually come back and coach with them. Because I said, i you know, I’m not going to come back on staff, but I’d be happy to help Bridge because we’re in the same city. Rich Birch — Right. Drake Farmer — And so getting to be a part of that and seeing that, but it was even there it was fascinating the age gap was crazy and you know this guy’s like not even in his 30s. And the church just they accepted him you know. Rich Birch — Good. Drake Farmer — And they and they walked within this. Al of his staff are older than him but they follow him. But there was a risk there. And it wasn’t, but so, yeah, so what exactly what you’re saying is going, that person might be in your midst and you don’t even know it. So be praying and wondering, if I feel called out, who do I have that I am working with that at any point I can hand the baton off to you? Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Drake Farmer — And maybe you don’t have that person, then you need to think differently. And maybe it’s networks and um organizations or your part of a denomination or you know have sort of having those conversations to figure out what is the global pipeline… Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, for sure. Drake Farmer — …or the national, or states, or province, or whatever that is. But you we need to be thinking differently… Rich Birch — Yeah. Oh, for sure. Drake Farmer — …about who are who are you raising up and who is in the wings. And it may not be in your congregation. Because I know for us in our country and Canada, it’s like predominant churches are rural and small. Rich Birch — Yep. Drake Farmer — So you don’t have these multi-staffed circumstances. Rich Birch — Yeah, they’re complex organizations. Yeah, yeah for sure. Rich Birch — Yeah, I’ve been I’m kind of a peek in on a transition succession situation where they did exactly that where they they went and they they it was like, um and I, you know, my one encouragement was I like was like swing for the fences, like who, because they didn’t have somebody inside and they were like, who I’m like, who is that person? I was like swing for the fences. And so sure enough there, it’s not a done situation yet, but it’s like that person that one of the people, or actually two of the people that they reached out to, that were in there like, man, it would be amazing if we could get them to come and think about this. Rich Birch — Both of them are engaged in the conversation. Drake Farmer — Yeah. Rich Birch — Like they’re like, oh, we’re actually talking with them, which it would have been easy on the outside to be like, no, there’s no way. They will not, you know. You just never know what God’s doing in in inside a leader and and so I’d encourage people that’s… This has been great. Drake, this has been super helpful. I appreciate you. Appreciate you coming on the show. Anything kind of final words you’d say just as we wrap up today’s conversation? Drake Farmer — Yeah, I think um you know something we were talking about offline beforehand was just going like, you know, one of the things I’d really recommend is obviously some intentionality. But there might need to be you know an outside partner in your or you know from your organization. Rich Birch — Yes. Yes. Drake Farmer — Especially if you you know haven’t walked through this or those other things. And I mean, there are loads of of organizations that actually help consult and coach in this area. Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes. Drake Farmer — And you know and so I’d I’d offer a couple of things. I mean, one for us, like I’m i’m a part of the you know The Unstuck Church Group. um And so one of the things that we do, obviously, helping churches get unstuck. Rich Birch — Yep. Drake Farmer — And so, you know, that’s one one of those organizations that, you know, heavily… And actually, before I even joined The Unstuck team, we actually worked with Unstuck… Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Drake Farmer — …as a church to kind of figure out with our multisite and stuff. And it was such a great process. Rich Birch — Yep. Drake Farmer — And then that evolved into something and you know so. I’m one of the Canadian reps so um but as an organization that’s a great partnership. The other thing too is I you know I just be happy like hey if it a phone call you know just as you know subjective, you know I’m not you know just looking to kind of pick pick my brain, happy to do that as well. um you know And and all all of that information, both like you want to learn more about you know Beulah, us as is a church. um If you want to kind of just understand a little bit more about Unstuck and what we do, or just want to connect with me, all that information you can find on drakefarmer.com. And you click there, it’s got the church link, it’s got Unstuck, and then there’s ah there’s a personal way you can reach out to me. Rich Birch — Love it. Drake Farmer — And I’d be happy to I’d happy to to connect and whatnot, but and but those could be some different options. And and to not be scared to go, hey, you know I we could figure this out alone. um But because of how important this decision is and how like you know um sometimes just getting some of that bench strength, even if you are in a larger organization, to have that outside perspective… Rich Birch — For sure. Drake Farmer — …to be able, that’s not closest to it, to help coach you and has some of the data and experience um finding… And maybe it’s not Unstuck. Maybe it’s you know, I know Daniel was a part of a cohort that walked through some of this. We were very intentional about that as well. And we also worked with Unstuck with some of our structural stuff to go you know… We as an organization as Unstuck to be happy to work with any churches, I’d be happy as a phone call. But it’s figuring out that partnership to know who could come alongside us. And maybe maybe maybe it’s a maybe it’s another church or another lead pastor or somebody who’s gone through it… Rich Birch — 100%. Drake Farmer — …um that you just kind of go, hey, could we have some coffee together, right? Like, it doesn’t need to be complicated. But there, I think there’s just some different layers there to just like, don’t walk that out alone. um And if you can’t find that, that network isn’t there and your denomination or a church or something like that, yeah, reach out to me and I would be happy to help make some connections, be it with Unstuck or maybe another church that I know that might fit well with your context to just kind of go like… Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. Drake Farmer — …hey, we can learn from each other and that’d be amazing. Rich Birch — Yeah, just to give a hearty amen, particularly on the ends. Well, Drake, that’s really super kind of you to say, hey, reach out. I’m happy to jump on the phone. I would encourage you to do that, friends, if you’re listening in, that Drake is actually that kind of leader. He is like, we’ll actually want to talk to you. So please do that. Just drop by drakefarmer.com. And then also to give a hearty amen to the Unstuck side of the equation. I know obviously Um, we haven’t actually talked about it publicly on the podcast, but you man, just so sad to see the passing of Tony Morgan and, um, and you know, what a, what a monster, uh, loss for the kingdom. Rich Birch — What an incredible guy he was, but the thing, The Unstuck Group has always been a group of leaders. And, um, I want to give an extra endorsement for like for them in general… Drake Farmer — Yeah. Rich Birch — …on this specific issue on multi-site, you know, and if you’re, if you feel stuck, you should reach out to The Unstuck guys… Drake Farmer — Yeah. Rich Birch — …and they’re, you know, they do great work. Drake’s one of their, their coaches, but they got a lot of other folks too that can help. Drake Farmer — Yeah. Rich Birch — They’re just incredible organization for sure. Drake Farmer — Yeah, and let me let me just say one thing because I just just, as you said to talking about with Tony, obviously, our prayers for us as a team and Tony’s family is is very much appreciated but also like, as as we were meeting, it was a testament to Tony’s leadership… Rich Birch — Yeah. Drake Farmer — …that he had been building a team, he didn’t want it to be about him. Rich Birch — Yes. Drake Farmer — He assumed he had another five to 10 years, and that was his plan. Rich Birch — Yes. Drake Farmer — But because he was building a team and was handing things and has you know wasn’t all thrown around him, there is a team now that that he was moving people into these roles… Rich Birch — Yep, yep. Drake Farmer — …that they are now just stepping into this. So during this season, that the legacy that Tony started with Unstuck and the work that they do with churches, it’s the model. It’s not the person. Rich Birch — Yep. Drake Farmer — Right. And you get that same benefit if it was Amy or Tony or any other one that would be working with the church and all the infrastructure built around it. Rich Birch — Yeah. Drake Farmer — um You know, that Unstuck will continue to move because because of what he built and and how he raised up leaders. Rich Birch — Yeah. So good. Yeah, that’s obviously, that is, it’s funny. I didn’t even think of that. It’s an interesting angle on the whole succession thing. Drake Farmer — Yep. Rich Birch — Obviously we’re, you know, it’s unfortunate that when there, but that kind of transition can happen in… Drake Farmer — Yep. Rich Birch — …you know, lots of organizations where like, you know, nobody, you know, Tony didn’t think that day, was at work in his backyard, that that would have been kind of the beginning of the end. Drake Farmer — Yeah. Rich Birch — And so, you know, and that unfortunately can happen. So, Drake, I really appreciate it. Again, that’s drakefarmer.com. um If you’re, if you want more information, please drop by and see him and connect with him um and you can connect with the church and all that from there. So it’s a great, a great starting point. Thanks so much, Drake. I appreciate you being here and be on the show today. Drake Farmer — My pleasure.

In this deep dive episode of the unSeminary podcast, we explore Jenni Field’s insightful book Nobody Believes You: Become a Leader People Will Follow. This conversation delves into practical strategies and timeless leadership principles tailored especially for those guiding teams in a church context. Field’s book offers a fresh perspective on becoming a credible leader that people genuinely want to follow. Here’s a look at some key takeaways from the episode: The Credibility Conundrum Many leaders struggle with what Jenni Field calls the “credibility conundrum”—doing all the right things but still failing to earn the trust and buy-in of their teams. This issue is especially pronounced in church environments, where leaders face high expectations and complex dynamics. It’s not just about authenticity but about blending several core leadership practices to connect and lead effectively. The Eight Practices of Credible Leadership Jenni Field outlines eight essential practices that leaders must embody to build credibility: Empathy: Understanding and valuing the diverse experiences of your team members. Field emphasizes the importance of recognizing others’ experiences as truthful, even if they differ from your own. Trustworthiness: Built on honesty, reliability, and transparency. Especially in church leadership, trust is foundational, and it’s eroded when leaders become overly focused on external tasks at the expense of their team. Vision: Clearly communicate the ‘why’ behind your plans. Field highlights the power of storytelling and visual imagery in casting a vision that resonates and motivates the team. Support: Balancing guidance with autonomy. Creating an environment of psychological safety allows team members to share ideas, admit mistakes, and feel valued. Vulnerability: Being real without oversharing. Vulnerability is about acknowledging your limitations and showing your humanity, which fosters a culture of authenticity and openness. Likeability: It’s not about being everyone’s friend but about being approachable and having a sense of humor. Field stresses the importance of creating an environment where people enjoy working together while still respecting the leader. Integrity: The cornerstone of credible leadership. Integrity involves aligning your actions with your values and being consistent, even in challenging situations. It’s about being transparent, accountable, and building a foundation of trust. Capability: Demonstrating competence without needing to be the expert in everything. Effective leaders know when to delegate, seek outside expertise, and focus on continuous learning and growth. Applying the Principles in Church Leadership The conversation emphasizes how these practices are interconnected. For church leaders, embodying these qualities not only builds effective teams but also reflects Christ-like leadership. Integrity, in particular, is highlighted as the foundation upon which all other practices are built. Without trust, no amount of empathy, vision, or support can truly connect with the team. Practical Takeaways for Leaders It’s a Journey, Not a Destination: Leadership is a continuous process of growth. Focus on blending these eight practices authentically into your unique context. Seek Support and Accountability: Don’t be afraid to ask for help, whether from a mentor, colleague, or therapist. Building a network of support is crucial for sustainable leadership. Prioritize Self-Care: Leading a church can be demanding. Set healthy boundaries and take time for rest and renewal, recognizing that you can’t pour from an empty cup. Reflecting Christ in Leadership Ultimately, this episode encourages leaders to see these practices as strategies for effective leadership and ways to reflect Christ in their roles. By building on the foundation of integrity and continually seeking to grow in empathy, trustworthiness, and vision, church leaders can foster a culture where their teams thrive, and their ministries flourish. Want to dive deeper? Check out Jenni Field’s book Nobody Believes You: Become a Leader People Will Follow here to explore these principles further.

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. This week we’re talking with Andrew Hopper, the founding and lead pastor of Mercy Hill Church in North Carolina. Andrew has also started Breaking Barriers, which provides pastors and churches with biblical strategies to help them grow in order to go. Are you curious about how to effectively grow your church while maintaining a strong focus on discipleship and outreach? Don’t miss this insightful discussion as Andrew reveals the correlation between invite culture, discipleship and sending members out on mission. Plus discover how the multisite model is the best tool you can use for leadership development at your church. Connect crowds to mission. // Andrew observed a clear ratio in his church’s data correlating the number of sent ones, baptisms, and first-time guests, which he believes is consistent in churches focused on both evangelism and sending. Over ten years, his church saw approximately 150 individuals committed to long-term missions, 1,500 baptisms, and 15,000 first-time guests, aligning in a 10:1 ratio at each level. This means that for every one sent one, there were ten baptisms, and for each baptism, there were ten first-time guests. Focus on the lead measure. // Effective church growth relies on focusing on the lead measure rather than the lag measure. This approach helps connect the church’s larger attendance numbers to its mission goals, showing how initial engagement leads to disciples being sent out. Crowd-based evangelism. // Based on the examples shown throughout the New Testament, Mercy Hill Church believes that most life change happens when there is a preacher in front of a crowd. While both one-on-one encounters and larger gatherings can lead to conversions, the latter is more effective in reaching larger number and so the congregation is encouraged to invite friends. Andrew believes that when congregants see the church service as the most impactful time for both evangelism and discipleship, they are more likely to embrace inviting others, making the process of reaching new people feel natural and significant. Multisite and church planting. // Andrew argues that the multisite model complements church planting rather than competing with it. In multisite contexts, there is a continuous need to cultivate new leaders for multiplying groups, services, and campuses, which naturally prepares individuals for the challenge of church planting. At Mercy Hill most leaders who have joined their church plants come from the satellite campuses rather than the main broadcast campus. These members have already shown commitment to the mission by adjusting their lives, and this willingness to adapt primes them to take the larger step of moving to a new area to support a church plant. Develop communicators. // The multisite model allows the pastors on your team to grow and do more preaching than they’d get the chance to do at just one location. Mercy Hill has had numerous leaders—27 in the past year alone—preach, demonstrating that multisite structures can facilitate the growth of multiple communicators. To develop other teachers, church leaders should create opportunities for different leaders to preach and lead services, which can be done through multiple services and campuses. Breaking growth barriers. // Breaking Barriers helps churches break through barriers that hinder mission success. It celebrates church growth and doesn’t disconnect it from going after the lead measure. Visit their website to listen to their podcast, check out events and connect with other like-minded leaders. Follow what’s happening at Mercy Hill Church and visit Breaking Barriers for resources that will help your church grow to go. NEXT STEPS // Unlock the Power of Public Proclamation! Dive deeper into the Book of Acts with our Preachers in Front of a Crowd: A 16-Day Study on the Power of Public Proclamation in the Expansion of God’s Work. Inspired by Andrew Hopper’s insights on the unSeminary podcast, this guide is designed for church leaders and communicators looking to explore how public preaching has transformed lives and built the early church. Each day includes scripture, practical reflections, and thought-provoking questions to help you uncover the timeless power of sharing the gospel boldly. Download today and discover how you can grow more, so you can send 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! Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Portable Church Your church is doing really well right now, and your leadership team is looking for solutions to keep momentum going! It could be time to start a new location. Maybe you have hesitated in the past few years, but you know it’s time to step out in faith again and launch that next location. Portable Church has assembled a bundle of resources to help you leverage your growing momentum into a new location by sending a part of your congregation back to their neighborhood on Mission. This bundle of resources will give you a step-by-step plan to launch that new or next location, and a 5 minute readiness tool that will help you know your church is ready to do it! Click here to watch the free webinar “Launch a New Location in 150 Days or Less” and grab the bundle of resources for your church! Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey friends, Rich here from unSeminary. So glad that you decided to tune in. Really looking forward to today’s conversation. You know, sometimes I get a chance to talk to people that I’ve interacted with in real life and today’s one of those days. Super excited to have Andrew Hopper with us. He is, if you don’t know Andrew, first of all, you should know him. He’s the founding and lead pastor of a great church ah in North Carolina called Mercy Hill Church. They’re they’re constantly on the one of the fastest growing churches list in the in the country. They’re really a gospel-centered church. They have five locations. Rich Birch — This is an incredible church because they’re not only growing in North Carolina, but they’re encouraging church planting ah in a bunch of different places. And he’s recently started, or in the last little bit, has launched ah Breaking Barriers, which is is on mission to guide churches to lead with biblical strategies to help churches grow ah so that ultimately they can go. So Andrew, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here. Andrew Hopper — Thanks, man. Excited to be here, man. We’ve ah we’ve really learned a lot from you and gotten some of our foundational stuff from you around growth years and years ago. So this is fun, man. Rich Birch — Yeah, nice to get a chance to connect. Well, why don’t you fill in the picture there a little bit. Give me the Mercy Hill story, the Andrew story, fill out the picture a little bit. Andrew Hopper — Yeah, we planted Mercy Hill in 2012. We had a chance to be fortunate enough, I got mentored in a great church in Raleigh during North Carolina. They’re called the Summit Church so um people might know Pastor JD Greer. So he’s probably 10 years ahead of me. So it was a really good relationship there, just being mentored by him. And and then I was a campus pastor there at that church. And so, man, I love the multi-site model. I think it’s probably the best leadership development tool that I’ve ever seen in churches and obviously it was benefited by that. So um you know I got a chance to learn Andrew Hopper — And and then we moved here in 2012 to plant a brand new church, an autonomous church. We have a team of 30 young professionals that came with us, um you know 10 graduating college students, and they they turned down job offers all over the country… Rich Birch — That’s amazing. Andrew Hopper — …to come and landscape and paint houses and and that kind of thing. We had about 20 others that ah quit jobs and moved over here. And and um yeah, we about an hour and a half from Raleigh Durham. And man, it’s it’s been awesome. We’ve been here, we’ve been at it for 12 years. There was never just some big flash in the pan. There was a couple of moments where God just kind of, you know, really brought brought some kind of unique growth. But but generally speaking, it’s just sort of been added to their number uh, month by month, almost, you know, for the last 12 years. Andrew Hopper — And, um, we started planting churches in 2019. So we were, we partnered with church churches forever, you know, just giving money and and people, but we actually moved from partner planting to parent planting in 2019. And so we have five, um, five little duckling church plants from Halifax, all the way down to Tampa. And and then we we’re multi-site also. We have a five we have ah six campuses, five locations. One of them is an Español campus. So that gives you a little bit of picture of of maybe who we are. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s fantastic. One of the things when I think about your church is sometimes people lodge the unfair criticism against growing churches. They say, ah, they’re just all about fluff. They’re all just, you know, they’re they’re they’re just about gimmicks. It’s about doing things that will just, you know, get in the door. But, you know, then there’s no real depth there. They’re not gospel centered. And and to be honest, you and your church come to mind all the time when I think about that. Rich Birch — Because I’m like, no, man, like, a church like Mercy Hill is is doing a good job holding up the message of Jesus ah while at the same time really growing rapidly, and then and then also ah helping churches, you know, up and down, you know, all over the place, which is pretty amazing. Rich Birch — But what do you say? I’m sure people have lodged that kind of complaint against you as well. Like, hey, isn’t it just all like, why are you so obsessed with seeing churches grow? Why why do you keep talking about that? Andrew Hopper — Yeah, I’ve, you know, I’m 40 years old. So I’ve I’ve realized there is a generation that has wrestled with this before us, right? Rich Birch — Yes. Andrew Hopper — And it’s, um you know, I pendulum swing. I understand that, you know, I think, I think, you know, the 80s, 90s, you had a lot of church growth stuff. Before that as well. And, the you know, with Peter Wagner and different, different guys. I’ve I’ve gotten back into some of the original you know, literature they had. It was no different. I mean, it was exact same stuff. You have a ah ah brand a brand of Christianity when they think of evangelism, they think of, you know, ah the Ethiopian eunuch. And you have another brand of evangelism that when they think of evangelism, they think of the 3000 at Pentecost. Rich Birch — Yes. Andrew Hopper — Why people are wired in different ways like that, I don’t know. Rich Birch — Right. Andrew Hopper — Generally speaking, I don’t mean to take a shot here. I don’t think the people that are wired for the crowds take much of a shot at the people that are wired for one-on-one, but I do see it the other way, big time. Rich Birch — Yeah, I know. I think that’s true. Andrew Hopper — You know, I don’t know why. I’m like, man, if you got the gift of evangelism and you’re a soul winner, I love that. I have no problem. Rich Birch — Right. Andrew Hopper — I love seeing people get saved on a college campus, one-on-one evangelism. But you know, that’s just not, that’s not where most of it’s going to happen. And, um, and so I don’t know why it’s that way. Andrew Hopper — So anyway, I’ve taken, yeah, I’ve taken some, we’ve taken some shots like that, but I just, man, I don’t really care that much. I mean, I think for us, uh, sending is, is the ultimate goal. And we see that as a big fruit of discipleship. And so, uh, we’ve sent just under 200 of our members out long-term that’s two years or more… Rich Birch — Wow. Andrew Hopper — …ah either with a church plant or with um a you know with international missions. We want to share the gospel, baptize people, we get them in groups. We feel like if they jump in the stream, they’re going to move in the river. And um as long as we’re getting to see that output side of people you know continue to be sent out, then I’m not going to be too concerned with your shallow or whatever, you know? Rich Birch — Right. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. That’s good. Well, so there obviously there’s like a mindset shift there. It’s like, hey, we got to get our head around, you know, that that we want to see both of these things happening. We want to be um reaching people in our community. And that I love that, you know, when you said there that going is really an outcome of discipleship, that that that really should be ultimately kind of the aim. Rich Birch — What does that actually practically look like for Mercy Hill? Like 200 people is is a lot. I know that just rolled off your tongue like it’s not a big deal, but like that’s a big deal. That’s a lot of people to go long-term somewhere else. I know that’s how your church started, but how do how do you continue that? That feels like the kind of thing the first generation does and it doesn’t get passed on to other people. Andrew Hopper — Yeah, yeah, totally, man. I get that. I mean, I think for us, we’ve just sort of rejected the either you’re a missional sending church or you’re a big evangelism church. um And we talk about all of them all the time. I mean, we talk about it all the time. So I will like, we’re, we’re, we’re in a new, we’re about to be in a new facility at some point here in the next couple of months and, um, triple the seating size. It’s 80,000 square feet. It’s, it’s everything that the anti-church growth movement hates. Okay. And, and it’s like, I mean, it’s… Rich Birch — You got lights, you got smoke, you got projected screens, all that. Andrew Hopper — Yeah. Oh man, we got it all. Huge lobby, you know, 70 foot ceilings or whatever. Rich Birch — Yeah. Andrew Hopper — I mean, you know, it’s it’s like you walk in this building and people are going to be like, well, you are who we thought you were, you know? Rich Birch — Yes. Andrew Hopper — But what we’re going to do is, like I was talking about last night, we have sermon, we have, you know, service on Thursday night. I was talking about it last night. I will never talk about that building and the evangelism that we can see in it without connecting it to church planting and campus multiplication and and sending missionaries. Rich Birch — That’s good. Andrew Hopper — I mean, our church had the most, we’ve we’ve multiple times the largest sending agency in the country, the International Mission Board, we’ve had multiple times now where our church had the most people. And they they do you know they do like a like three or four times a year, they do kind of a class that goes through and then they get mobilized. And we’ve had a couple times now where we have the most most people there from any church in the country. And I will I will always connect that to seats, to crowds to I will never let that… So I mean what we want to do is bifurcate that every discipleship conference or or church thing you go to nowadays… Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s true. Andrew Hopper — …it is a giant wedge that they’re trying to push between church growth is is a different category than discipleship and we’re not we don’t care about church growth, all we care about is depth and discipleship. And we just say, well, I think the ultimate fruit of discipleship is sending. So if we can keep sending you know connected where we never talk about crowd seats, new sermon series without talking about the fruit of it may be one day being these kids that are in these families that are getting saved. They’re going to go out and they’re going to be, you know, some of our missionaries one day or whatever. So we just try hard to keep that stuff together. You know, I’ve tried…oh, go ahead. Rich Birch — No, you go ahead and go ahead. You go and finish. Andrew Hopper — I’m trying to teach our church. So we came, we got to the 10 year anniversary of our church. Okay. And I knew, I knew the numbers were going to be very close, something like this. I didn’t know how exactly they were, but I knew it was something like this. um And and I bet I bet if you go test this against a bunch of sending churches that are serious about um evangelism and they’re serious about sending, you’re gonna see this to be true. Andrew Hopper — I went in and I said, okay, what’s going on in our church? And this was two years ago. We said, okay, we’ve seen about 150 sent ones. And I’m talking about two years or more. This is not like going on a mission trip or six months or something, okay? Rich Birch — Right. Andrew Hopper — And then I said, okay, we’ve seen 150 sent ones. Guess what? We had seen 1500 baptisms. Rich Birch — Oh interesting. Andrew Hopper — Okay. And then I was like, I was like, I know what this is going to be. Guess how many first time guests we had? 15,000. Rich Birch — Wow. 15,000. Oh, wow. Andrew Hopper — And so it was 10 to one, 10 to one. And so I’ve taught our church like, Hey guys… Rich Birch — Fascinating. Andrew Hopper — …if you want to get one sent one, you got to see 10 baptisms. If you want to get one baptism, you got to see 10 first time guests. But the big connection that I think that the anti-church growth movement, um, you know, really just wants to reject um is that you don’t focus on the lag, you focus on the lead. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Andrew Hopper — I mean, that’s the kind of leadership 101, man, you focus on the lead measure. Rich Birch — Yes. Andrew Hopper — The lead measure for us is every time we see 100 people come to that first time guest head, I’m like, dude, down the road, there’s gonna be one set one that goes out. Rich Birch — Dude, that’s amazing. Andrew Hopper — And if I can keep that, if I can keep that tight, then I think it it helps people connect the crowds to the mission and and that kind of stuff. Rich Birch — Dude, I I have I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone make that connection before. What a fresh ah connection. I think it’s, you know, I spent a lot of time thinking about the top end of the funnel, a lot of time about that piece of the equation. But I love that, that idea of, hey, what is the ratio connection ultimately between those? Rich Birch — Let’s talk a little bit about that. how how What is God using at your church at that kind of top end? Why is it that people are arriving? What is the you know what are some of the things that you’re seeing to be able to, frankly see a bunch of guests come in an environment where ultimately you’re asking people to take steps that are… Andrew Hopper — Yeah. Rich Birch — …you know, go live somewhere else or, you know, a bunch of years. What’s that look like? Andrew Hopper — That’s exactly right. Well, I mean, it’s, you know, we did, we did see this modeled incredibly well at The Summit. The summit… Rich Birch — Yeah, for sure. Andrew Hopper — …is a, I mean, Pastor JD said, I mean, they, they can be a punching bag for, you know, everything that the anti-church growth movement thinks. But at the end of the day, they have more missionaries on the field than any other Baptist church in the country. It’s 40,000 Baptist churches. Rich Birch — Right. Andrew Hopper — So it’s like, we got the see very up close. You don’t divorce these things… Rich Birch — Right. Andrew Hopper — …you know, the, the weekend stuff, and the sending stuff, and discipleship stuff, it doesn’t it all has to go together. So we we saw that. I would say for us… so I’m grateful for that. I would say for us, man, ah I and I know this gets into La La Land a little bit for people, but I really I really believe it’s philosophy and it’s how you think about stuff. Andrew Hopper — Like our church um you know, we our our church buys into, and you you helped us with this years ago, our church buys into the concept that, and this is where you’re gonna get comments put on your on your podcast here. I think they buy into most life change happens when there’s a crowd and the preacher. Andrew Hopper — And because of that, inviter evangelism is not demonized. And it’s it’s like, man, we want, you know, we try to equip, you know, in every way we can, we talk about it. And we don’t, you know, we don’t, we don’t downplay. We don’t do the normal Christian thing now, in my circle. And and all circles not like this, okay? Rich Birch — Yep. Andrew Hopper — The circle I’m in is like this, the Baptist world… Rich Birch — Yeah. Andrew Hopper — …um where, you know, the one-on-one evangelism story over years that happens in a coffee shop is so high elevated above… Rich Birch — Right. Andrew Hopper — …the student who comes to Christ in a crowd at a youth camp. Rich Birch — Right. Andrew Hopper — And we just don’t do that. We’re like, man, I don’t, I’ll put those two right together. Rich Birch — Yeah. Andrew Hopper — I’m glad and And also what we have no problem doing, and our people know this, is I’m like, hey, people can get saved in one-on-one encounters, and they can get saved in you know where there’s a preacher in a crowd. But don’t kid yourself to think they’re both equally as effective in terms of numbers. Rich Birch — Oh, wow. Yes. Andrew Hopper — 99.9% of everybody that got saved in the book of Acts, it happened when there was a crowd and a preacher. Rich Birch — Right. Andrew Hopper — That’s just facts. Rich Birch — Right. That’s good. Yeah. Yeah. Andrew Hopper — I mean, I’ve gone through at our breaking barriers conference, I literally went through every single time that people were baptized or whatever. And it’s like almost every one of them, there is a crowd and there’s somebody preaching the gospel. Rich Birch — That’s good. Andrew Hopper — Now the crowd might be 10 people, it might be 3000 people. but that And so I’m like, hey, that is just, it’s just what it is, man. And our um… Rich Birch — Right. Right. Right. Andrew Hopper — And in our church, we have no problem saying the most effective hour for both evangelism and discipleship during the week is is the church service. Rich Birch — Yep. Yeah, that’s good. Andrew Hopper — If our people believe that, they don’t you know they really believe that, then suddenly I think inviting their friend to come is not second class… Rich Birch — Right. Andrew Hopper — …and they’re not getting graded because they’re not a one-on-one evangelist, soul winner all the time. Rich Birch — Yep. Andrew Hopper — I want our people to be able to share the gospel, and I think many of them can, especially the ones that are gifted. Rich Birch — Yep. Andrew Hopper — But you know I think that that’s probably… And so then, man, from there it all just kind of flows, man. Rich Birch — Yes, love it. Andrew Hopper — Then then then we’re like, once once your people are bought into inviting, um, you know, then we do all the stuff everybody else does kind of, we do… Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah. Andrew Hopper — …but we just, we just don’t [inaudible] about it. You know…Rich Birch — Yeah. I love it. Dude, I love that. Yeah. And I’m doing a totally steal that because, you know, when people ask me that question, I go right to the pragmatic. Because people will go after me on the church growth stuff. And I mostly don’t engage, but sometimes I’ll engage when it’s a friend or somebody and I’ll be like, Hey, well, let’s talk about it. Rich Birch — And and I go to the like, listen, I, cause they’ll be like, yeah, but shouldn’t we really be teaching people evangelism? And I’m like, yes. And I I give my my EE qualifications. I’m like listen when I was in high school I did Evangelism Explosion. I’ve knocked on a lot of doors, hey if you were to die tonight what, you know? I’ve done that. But what I do know is not everyone will do that. Not everyone will that that is such a high bar. And do I wish everyone will do that? Uh yeah, I do. I wish everyone would have that kind of conversation. But actually, what I what I do know is, man, if I can move a bunch of people in our church to take the step towards just inviting someone, that’s like the first step towards evangelism. It’s like the first step in that ah direction. Rich Birch — But I am going to rip off the crowd in a preacher, look at the book of Acts. That is a great, that’s so good. Andrew Hopper — It’s crazy. I mean they got, Rich, they have like, you know, the the thing that is so elevated is three years of relationship finally won them over at a coffee shop, sharing the gospel. Rich Birch — Right. Andrew Hopper — And I’m like, hey that never happened in the Bible one time ever. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Dude, that’s so good. Andrew Hopper — Nobody ever nobody ever in the book of Acts did pre evangelism. So there’s no pre-evangelism, there’s evangelism, even the one-on-one encounters. It’s like, hey, they happened within 20 minutes or two hours, or but it was never like… Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah. Andrew Hopper — …we’re gonna go make a friend for a year so we can share the gospel with them one day. Rich Birch — Yeah, dude, that’s good. Andrew Hopper — You know and ah you know I just think we’ve got to kind of try to stick to the text a little more. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. Okay, so pivoting in a slightly different direction. Help me understand how you think about and another, what I see as a false dichotomy. So I’m going to set this up a little bit as a devil’s advocate, but I don’t actually have the energy behind this that I’m going to express. Multisite versus church planting. Like one of them is better than the other. Like, you know, that you one of them is efficient. The other is a resource hog. Rich Birch — How do you guys think about that? Because you’re doing both. You’re actively engaged in both of these. You seem firmly committed to both. How do you talk about that? How do you think about that as a leader? Andrew Hopper — Well, one one leads to the other and that’s that’s what people don’t understand. They look at them as if they’re in competition. What they don’t understand is almost every really awesome church planting network that is actually planting churches, not affiliating a million churches, they are born out of, guess what, multi-site churches. Rich Birch — Right, right.Andrew Hopper — So, you know, I mean, just go down the list. Fellowship, you know, Fellowship Associates… Rich Birch — Right. Yeah. Highlands, whatever. Andrew Hopper — …Acts 29, Seacoast, Summit, Summit. Rich Birch — Yeah. Yep. Andrew Hopper — Okay, well, what is it about the multi-site model then that produces so much church planting? It’s the the radical commitment to leadership development. Rich Birch — That’s good.Andrew Hopper — When you when you multiply anything, you need more leaders. And so what happens is you end up with, you know, if you wanna multiply a group, you gotta have another leader. You wanna multiply a service, you gotta have more serve teams. You gotta multiply a campus. Now you gotta have elders and leaders. It’s just that next step of of going to church plants. Andrew Hopper — So we, for example, man, we um we’ve sent out 124 of those almost 200 that have gone to domestic church plants. We have five, okay? The the ah overwhelming majority of that 124 do not come from our, “broadcast campus”. Rich Birch — Oh, interesting. Andrew Hopper — They all come from satellite. Rich Birch — That’s an interesting insight. Interesting insight.Andrew Hopper — They all come from the, so the “satellite campuses”. And the reason is, it’s very strategic. The reason is that they have already said yes to moving their life for the mission once. Rich Birch — That’s good. Andrew Hopper — They’ve already said, you know what, convenience wise, I like going there. I like seeing him live. I like being at the big thing. But you know what? I live in this community. I’m going to plant my life here. Andrew Hopper — And what what people keep doing is, you know, the way churches get planted are when people ultimately say yes to something that is very uncomfortable. Well, they’ve already said yes to moving to group. If they’ve already said yes to moving to service time, you know, we’re very strategic. Hey, you need to go to Thursday night instead of Sunday to make room for the mission. I don’t wanna go to Thursday night. I know, but you need to go. Now now go to the campus. Now by the time we plant a church, we’re like, hey, you know, it’s like, well, okay, I can go move somewhere else. Andrew Hopper — So I think that for us, um I think multi-site church, and it’s a tool for me, man. If I saw a better tool, I’d throw it down and pick something else up tomorrow. I’m not philosophically committed to it. Rich Birch — Right. Yep. Andrew Hopper — I do believe it’s the best leadership development tool I’ve ever seen. And, you know, I know this is not exactly what you asked me, but most multi-site critiques, are listen, they’re not just wrong, they are exactly backwards, okay? So what people will say about multi-site? Well, it’s just a celebration of one leader, you know? I mean, one one guy up there. Rich Birch — Yeah that’s not true. Andrew Hopper — Do you know how many guys preached in our church last year? 27. Rich Birch — Right, right. Andrew Hopper — You know why? Because we’re multi-site. Rich Birch — Right. Andrew Hopper — You know, that’s why people get in that plant church. It’s not about, I mean, it’s not about one leader. Rich Birch — Yeah. Andrew Hopper — It’s about the ability to, I mean, you tell me what’s more about the leader. Let’s build a huge building where 10,000 people crowd in and hear you on the stage live versus planting little things all around. Like I could go on and on. But you know, so some of that stuff is really just kind of, they’re potshots that don’t hold a lot of weight.It’s not church planting or campus-ing. It is one that leads to the other. Andrew Hopper — And the last thing I would say about it, Rich, is I think what people say is, well, if our church grows, we’ll plant a church. It takes 10 years to develop a church planter. Rich Birch — Right. Andrew Hopper — And I know that. Rich Birch — Right. Andrew Hopper — We’re we’re about to plant our first church in Greensboro ah that we’ve that we’ve planted we’ve planted campuses in our town, obviously. But we’re about to plant our first church in our town. Nico’s gonna go plant this church. We met him when he was 19 years old on a college campus. He’s 29. It takes 10 years. Rich Birch — Right. Wow. Andrew Hopper — you know? Rich Birch — Right. Andrew Hopper — And and when you go, the most people I’ve ever seen go on a church planting team is like 40, you know?Rich Birch — Right. Andrew Hopper — It’s very, you could plant a campus in six months and 500 people go. My point is, church planting is not a viable option for a real growth problem. Rich Birch — Right. Andrew Hopper — Okay. I mean, it’s just not. It’s a different category. You’re talking about apples and oranges. Rich Birch — Yes. Yes. Andrew Hopper — And so, man, we love multi-site because we think that we think it helps us get to more church plants, and raising up pastors and preachers. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. I kind of related to that. Talk to me about the video teaching, because that’s the other kind of kind of criticism that comes up. So statistically, the more the larger a multisite, this is just true, statistically larger a multisite church is, and the more campuses they have, the more that video teaching is a part of what they do. That’s just universally true um like from a from like an industry point of view, or from like a movement point of view. Rich Birch — And so sometimes people will lodge against the multisite movement. They’ll say like, well, it’s it’s all about whoever’s on video, which we all know is not true. But talk to me through how you how you think about that and developing communicators and how does all that fit together? Andrew Hopper — Well, I think that, I think that, I mean, I just would reject the premise that something inherently about video is more, um is more celebratory of the lead, whoever the lead communicator is. I mean, like when people say that they’re like, hey, you got five campuses and four of them are on video. That’s like a big celebration of you. I’m like, well, our church is 3000 people. I mean, we could just build a three or 4000 seat auditorium in the old days. Would that be less celebratory of me? Rich Birch — Right. Right. Yes. Yes. Andrew Hopper — You know, and what if we build a 5,000 person building, and we pack them all in and they all are there. Rich Birch — Right. Andrew Hopper —We’re all 5,000 eyeballs are on me on the stage. Rich Birch — Yeah. Andrew Hopper — I’m the only one on the stage. Like so kind of analytically, like I’m just like, man, I just that doesn’t really make, like in my head, that don’t make a lot of sense. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah. Andrew Hopper — I don’t think something inherently about the video um you know is more celebratory or not. So then to me, it’s a pragmatic issue, a consecrated pragmatism type issue. And the issue is… Rich Birch — Yeah. Andrew Hopper — You know, man, you can, you know, there’s a reason why multi-site has taken off. It is so much easier to develop smaller venues. It’s cheaper, it’s easier, and it’s more strategic because of where you can put them. And so to me, that’s, it’s just more of a pragmatic issue. And but I do, but I do, I will say this, man, there is no doubt that the raising up of communicators happens at an exponential clip in multi-site churches compared to a single site church. Um, you know, and I don’t, I mean, I got, I got friends that are really committed to the single site thing and committed to live preaching and that’s fine. Rich Birch — Yep. Andrew Hopper — Like I’m not, they can do whatever they want. Rich Birch — Yep, yep. Andrew Hopper — I mean, they’re, they’re getting after it. I’m getting after it. Um, but you can’t, you can’t deny that the, ah you know, the preaching opportunities are multiply. I mean, you got one single site and the guy preaches 40 times a year. That’s only 12 opportunities. Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, for sure. Andrew Hopper — You got five different sites. You have 60 opportunities in that same time. Rich Birch — Yep, yep. Andrew Hopper — And that’s just what we’ve experienced. I mean, I think that why we have so many guys that can preach, why guys, this is my story. I’m 24 years old. I’m getting a preach to five, 700 people, 24, 25 years old. The only reason for that was because of how many services and how many campuses we were having. And I feel like it was really beneficial for me. Rich Birch — Yeah. Oh, a hundred percent. Andrew Hopper — You know so I think the leadership development is such a big deal. Rich Birch — Well, a hundred percent. And and there’s that there’s the whole context on multisite that not only were you preaching, but you were doing that in a team context that was giving you feedback, that they loved you enough to not just be like, well, do whatever you want, Andrew. Or, you know, or some nice person at the end of the service was like, that was great. It was like, well, yeah, there was a lot of that that was great, but here’s some stuff you could do to get better, which in a lot of churches, that just doesn’t happen. But that’s naturally built into the multisite system because there’s like some standards there around, Hey, we need to be, in your case, you know, when you were at Summit, it needs to be kind of fit our thing. It needs to be a part of who we, you know, we are. Yeah. I love that. Rich Birch — We did a study last year… Andrew Hopper — And I see, yeah… Rich Birch — Yeah. Go ahead. Andrew Hopper — Go ahead, go ahead. Rich Birch — I was going to say, we did a study last year of, ah so we have this, this group, we do this private coaching group called Church Growth Incubator, and it looks at, you know, invite culture stuff. And we do research on fast growing churches, firsthand research. And one of the things I was actually shocked when I was working with an associate who was helping us with this, and we were actually looking at a different issue. Rich Birch — We were looking at, um, some stuff around teaching, but this person said, you know, I’ve noticed that there’s a lot of these churches have a lot of different people that are on stage on Sunday morning in their main campus over a year. And he said, I just happened to look at a couple of them. And I noticed it was like more than a dozen people on their main stage preaching in a in a given year. Rich Birch — And I was like, that seems really high. And then we went and actually looked. We looked at 30 churches who they, who is actually preaching on the main stage at these locations. And the average for 2023 in 30 of the fastest growing churches was like 11.2 individual different communicators on the main stage. Rich Birch — Now, obviously there’s a lead communicator who’s there a lot, but there’s a lot of other people that are rotating through. Again, think about then all that development that’s happening. And these are the largest, most influential churches in the country. Andrew Hopper — Yeah, I totally agree with that I mean and and I think another thing is for the discipleship model, because people people naturally say, well, hey, that’s fine. Well what you’re saying is great. Well, then do it all the time, you know, don’t do any video. Rich Birch — Right. Yeah. Andrew Hopper — And what I would say is, again, this is a pragmatic issue, but it’s um it’s it’s twofold. Number one, we love to develop, but let’s don’t let’s don’t kid ourselves. If somebody’s got their 10,000 hours in, it’s a different level of communication. Okay. Rich Birch — Right. Right. Andrew Hopper — So, you know, we want to develop, but when you, when you say, Hey, we’re going to have seven of these churches and they’re all going to be preaching live… Rich Birch — Right. Andrew Hopper — …there’s a…you know, you can end up with some real sort of… The other thing I would say is, um, you know, we, we are a group model. We have a group model that is sermon-based. And so, you know, the idea of having seven different communicators and then people from different campuses that co-pollinate, you know, cross pollinate with groups, that doesn’t work. And so, you know, cause we do a lecture lab. So we’re going to go talk about this during the week. Rich Birch — Yep. Yeah. Andrew Hopper — So we need that sermon to be pretty streamlined. And one of the most effective ways to streamline it is to just do all the same sermon and do it on video. Rich Birch — Yeah, dude, so good. Well, so you’ve, you’ve launched a podcast, a conference, one day, that kind of stuff called ah Breaking Barriers. You can check this out at breakinggrowthbarriers.com. Tell us about this. Why, why did you do this? What does this got to do? What’s the heart behind this? Talk, talk to us about this. Andrew Hopper — So I um I I just have a real burden and and God has put a kind of a fire in my belly. Number one, I really believe that to whom much is given, much is required. Rich Birch — So good. Andrew Hopper — And I feel like our church has grown and we’ve we’ve we’ve seen some cool stuff and we want to try to and we have been poured into unbelievably. And I’ve I’ve been in a situation to to receive such good coaching and stuff like that. I want to try to multiply that. Andrew Hopper — But the the heart of it, really, man, is that that we are we really believe that a lot of the church non-success that we’re seeing and the plateauing and all that kind of stuff is by our own design. And I think that you know what you believe about success is probably the greatest determiner of whether or not you’re ever going to have it. And trying to help free people from these sort of anti-church growth you know kind of chains that they’re in. Andrew Hopper — I mean this this is my world okay and I know this is I know your podcast goes out every you know a lot of different worlds. But it is regularly reported in the Baptist world that between 70 and 80 percent of Baptist churches are plateaued or declining. Okay? Well we have this is what’s crazy to me, rich. We have figured out how to simultaneously mourn decline without celebrating growth. I… Rich Birch — Dude, that’s a great insight! Andrew Hopper — You know what I mean? We will say, the church is dying, the church is dying. And then someone says, hey, man, my church is growing. And we’re like, oh, we’re cynical about that. And I mean, it’s it’s just kind of crazy. Rich Birch — Dude, that’s so true. Andrew Hopper — And so Breaking Barriers is ah fundamentally all about trying to make some shifts in the way we talk. Rich Birch — Right. Andrew Hopper — We want to celebrate church growth. And the way we want to do it is what I was saying earlier. We don’t disconnect it from growing. And I’m sorry, from going. So our our tagline is churches can grow without going, but they can’t go without growing. Andrew Hopper — And so we just try every time we talk about a sent story, we want to talk about a growth story, and we just want to put those things together. Then what the, what the podcasts, what the, um, the one day things we’re doing, you’re coming to do one of our one days – we’re really grateful for that. It’s going to be great. Andrew Hopper — Um, and then, uh, certainly our conference is all about saying, okay, if that’s true, that, that going after the lead measure is, is something we should do, need to do, be excited about we need to speak more positively about the lead measure of people coming in the door. I’m talking to icky stuff, man. Website views, first-time guests, raising money, like all that. Andrew Hopper — Okay. Then um then, yeah, we’re gonna we need to be talking about that stuff positively. Then then we need to equip people for it, which you do a lot of, you know. We want to equip people for it very practically. So like on our podcast, I mean we’ll have three podcasts in a row that are just all about the pragmatics around how to go to two services… Rich Birch — Right. Yep. Andrew Hopper — …for example, you know Rich Birch — Love it. Yep. Andrew Hopper — …or, you know, just all that. I mean, just super practical in the weeds. And it’s gotten some traction, man. I think it’s cool. I think a lot of, um a lot of you know, lead church, like leaders in churches are are are are learning from it stuff. So we’re excited about that. Rich Birch — Yeah, I really would I’d strongly encourage you to drop by breakinggrowthbarriers.com. The podcast is is great. I love your guys um affect like great conversations, engaging to listen to, ah really fantastic. And so I would strongly, ah you know, endorse you you guys, you really should, ah you know, follow along. Rich Birch — And and Andrew, I really appreciate your your candor, I appreciate your passion for this stuff. I appreciate how God’s using you. And I think you do have a unique voice ah in the in the church landscape. Multiple things I was writing down today. I’m like, man, that’s just so good, so fresh. So is there anything else you want to say just before we wrap up today’s episode? Andrew Hopper — Nah, man, I appreciate it. I hope people will go and check it out. I just think people have got to sort of get freed up to run hard because if you have a divided heart, you will always stop short. You know? If you feel internally a little bit of slime and ickiness around some of the real practical matters, you will not chase them as hard as you as really what’s needed to see some movement happen. And so um, yeah, that’s it, man. Excited for what you guys are doing and looking forward to the one day event. Rich Birch — Nice, that’s great. If people want to track with you or with the church, where do we want to send them online? Andrew Hopper — Yeah. So, um, my, my primary outlet is just, uh, you know, you can go to, you can follow me on Instagram. Um, but our, our, our church stuff in terms of this Breaking Barriers stuff. Yeah. You said it breakinggrowthbarriers.com. We have an Instagram Breaking Barriers, Instagram, Andrew Hopper — Um, and, uh, really that website is pretty good. I mean, it’s always just about the next thing. We also have a private Facebook group that you have to have come and sort of be buying into what we’re doing to get in. Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good. Andrew Hopper — And that, that, that Facebook group is awesome because it’s like, it is just so dripping with pragmatism. I love it. Rich Birch — Love it. Love it. Andrew Hopper — You know, it’s just like, man, it’s just, how are you guys doing this? How are you doing this? And it’s not just us. I mean, it’s everybody just kind of firing off and people are putting stuff in chat. Rich Birch — Right. So good. Andrew Hopper — And so that’s a really cool thing to jump into if you’re into this stuff as well. Rich Birch — So good. Appreciate you, Andrew. Thanks for leading today. Andrew Hopper — All right, thanks, man.

Welcome to the unSeminary podcast! This week we have with us Justyn Smith, Executive Kids Pastor at Cornerstone Church in Arizona and a story catalyst at Plain Joe. What does an effective children’s ministry look like? What does kids’ ministry at your church look like when you put yourself in the shoes of a child, or their parents? Tune in as Justyn shares how to transform your kids’ ministry into a thriving ministry that serves the families at your church with vision and intentionality. Challenges in ministry. // Kids’ ministry is an interesting place in today’s church because of growing challenges that church leaders are facing. Navigating societal divisions and strong political opinions, changes in technology that have affected both ministry and parenting, and a lack of clear vision or understanding of what effective kids’ ministry looks like lead to a reactive approach. Questions to ask. // Effective children’s ministry is about much more than simply the curriculum or administrative duties. What does it look like when you put yourself in the shoes of a child at your church. What does it look like when you put yourself in the shoes of a mom or a dad? What could that partnership look like? What questions are parents asking when they drop their child off and they pick their child up? All of these things help shape and inform what an effective children’s ministry should look like at your church. Engage with parents. // Meeting a practical need is a part of what makes an effective kids’ ministry. Strike up a conversation with a visiting parent, asking them to observe and provide honest feedback on their child’s drop-off experience. Reach out to long-time attenders and inquire if kids’ ministry is partnering well with them and meeting the needs of their children. Organize roundtable discussions with parents to gather their thoughts and experiences. Opening yourself up to honest feedback can help shape the direction of the ministry. Listen to children. // You can put yourself in a child’s shoes by literally bringing yourself down to their level. Justyn suggests getting on your knees and walking through your kids’ experience. Observe what you see, hear and feel. Engage with children to understand their preferences and interests. Ask kids what they enjoy and what would draw their friends to the church. This feedback can help shape programming and events that resonate with the target audience. Justyn believes that using “hooks” to attract kids is acceptable as long as there is substance behind those efforts. The ministry should remain focused on effective discipleship while creating engaging and memorable experiences for children. Welcome neurodiversity. // Children’s ministries need to be inclusive of diverse learning abilities and styles. This trend is not going away and churches must be proactive in creating environments that welcome all children. Your church doesn’t need to do everything, but every church can do something. Begin where you can and develop a long-term plan. Engage with families who have children affected by special needs and have open conversations about how to make the ministry more accessible. Invest in kids’ ministry. // Many churches are beginning to recognize the importance of investing in children’s ministry, moving away from the notion that it is a lesser priority. Executive pastors need to conduct an honest assessment of their funding priorities. If children’s ministry is consistently underfunded compared to other ministries, it can lead to unrealistic expectations for performance. Investing appropriately in children’s ministry is essential for its success. Email Justyn with any questions and find him on social media @pastorjustyn. He also invites listeners to download this interview with Theron Skees from his book, Kidmin, Trust and Pixie Dust: Unlocking the Magic of Children’s Ministry. NEXT STEPS // Is Your Children’s Ministry Thriving?  Whether you’re a seasoned children’s pastor or just getting started, it’s essential to regularly assess the health of your ministry. Is your volunteer team engaged? Are kids excited to return each week? Are parents feeling connected? Download our Children’s Ministry Health Assessment Checklist and take a deep dive into key areas like volunteer engagement, parent involvement, spiritual growth, and more! This practical tool will help you identify strengths and opportunities for growth, setting your ministry on a path to long-term success.  Get the checklist today and build a thriving, impactful children’s ministry! 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 everybody, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Super excited for you to listen in today. You know, I’ve said in other environments that I think some of the most creative people in the local church are kids’ ministry people. They just do incredible things. And today we’ve got not just a kids’ ministry person, but really a person who’s an expert in this whole area. Rich Birch — We’ve got Justyn Smith with smith with with us. He really carries a couple different hats. One, he’s a story catalyst at Plain Joe. This is Storyland Studio. Plain Joe partners with churches, nonprofits, faith-based organizations, and educational places to create unbelievable ah strategic, digital, and spatial stories that ultimately lift the spirit. We’ve had a number of folks from Storyland on in the past. We just love these guys. They do such a good job. But he is also the Executive Kids Pastor at Cornerstone Church in Chandler, Arizona. So not only is he an expert, he’s also a practitioner. Super glad to have you on the show today, Justyn – welcome. Justyn Smith — Rich, thank you so much. It’s an honor to be here. I mean that, and I’m looking forward to our conversation for sure. Rich Birch — Yeah, why don’t you fill in the picture a little bit? Tell me a little bit about ah what the last couple decades of kids’ ministry has looked like and, ah you know, before you joined Storyland, but but talk to us about kind of your background and and all that. Justyn Smith — Yeah, so for sure. Well, one, I mean, I’ve I’ve been married for over 24 years. I’ve got seven children myself. Rich Birch — Wow. Justyn Smith — So all the way from young adults, all the way to ah five years old. Rich Birch — Love it. Justyn Smith — So I feel like I have a children’s and student ministry built into my own home, which is which is phenomenal. Ask them, we’ve experimented on them many times, which has been fun. And we’ve been all over the country. So we’ve been ah in places like Las Vegas, Southern California, Minneapolis, Tampa Bay, in Phoenix, Seattle. I’m just all over the U.S. ah ministering in churches in all those places, really been in next-gen ministries.Justyn Smith — So I’ve been serving the church either in children’s ministry, student ministry, ah both, parenting, all those types of things. So I’ve got but really over 22 years of experience ah working with ah churches from start-up churches to mega churches of 10,000 people. So I feel like I’ve just I’ve just been blessed to have just a a broad ah stroke of just what what church looks like across the board. And ah one thing I’ve learned over the years is no matter if you’re a startup and you have a budget of whatever you made working your other job… Rich Birch — Yeah, so true. Justyn Smith — …cause because there is no budget. Or whether you’ve got, ah I mean, $1.5 million dollars to play with a year, ah Ministry is not about is not all all about the money. It’s not about all about the resources. It’s really about your heart, your calling… Rich Birch — That’s good. Justyn Smith — …ah and ah all all those intangibles. Although let’s admit those tangibles do help a lot, which I’m sure we’ll get into a little bit today. But it really starts with some of those intangibles. Justyn Smith — And ah kids’ ministry is I think it’s it’s it’s an an interesting place today ah specifically because there’s this tension of ah, one, just our culture. Our culture is is a little bit, if you’ve paid attention to any sort of news lately, I mean, it’s it’s out there, right? I’s ah no matter where you land on ah the political spectrum, societal spectrum or whatnot, there’s definitely um ah some division, there’s definitely some strong opinions. And so that’s made children’s ministry ah maybe a little bit challenging, more challenging than it has been in the past. Justyn Smith — Technology has has has made it interesting. There’s been a lot of positives with technology, but with it has also brought a lot of ah a lot of negatives. And so how do how do you maneuver through that? That’s impacted kids’ ministry, parenting, and everything across the board. So I’m I’m sure we can dive into a lot of things, but those are just a few of the things that that come to mind ah come up to mind. Justyn Smith — But ah real quick, it is um it’s thriving today, though. It’s it’s ah It’s a lot of fun. Rich Birch — So true. Justyn Smith — Kids’ Ministry was in a position, I think, years ago where ah didn’t feel very valued. Maybe it felt valued, spoken from a lead pastor or leaders from the stage, ah but wasn’t really resourced well, ah didn’t really have high quality leaders. Although the church would say, we want to give them our best, ah rarely would give them their best. We’re starting to see all that change where churches are are really seeing the value. Like no when we say we want to give them our best, we really want to give them our best. Rich Birch — That’s good. Justyn Smith — So sorry, that’s a long answer to probably your short question, but…Rich Birch — No, no, no, that’s good. No, no, I love it. I love your perspective. And I kind of want to take advantage of the fact that you do see, you know, wide swath, like you say, the kind of the entire, for lack of a better word, industry and um really want to camp on that and understand, you know, what’s happening across the country. And maybe let’s talk a little bit more about the challenge. Rich Birch — What would be like, if you think about a common challenge that, you know, kids’ ministry pastors, children’s pastors are encountering today um or faced with, what would what would be a challenge or or two that would kind of bubble to the surface for them? Justyn Smith — I think something that I like to challenge children’s pastors with is ah really I mean why do you why do you do what you do, at the end of the day? Like hat does an effective children’s ministry look like? I think when you talk to maybe some children’s pastors of some well-established, ah we’ll call them, you know, maybe larger churches, ah they seem to have, you know, um I don’t want to say they’re ducks in a row, but they definitely seem to have to have an order and an expectation that’s different from 95% of the churches out there. Justyn Smith — Because because most churches in America, they’re they’re they’re rather small and um and I think some churches out there, it’s, you know, they’re they’re desperate looking for someone to lead ah children’s ministries. So what it looks like is a pastor walking through the lobby and seeing maybe a… Rich Birch — Hey, you! Justyn Smith — Yeah, really. It’s like, Hey, you’re breathing. Hey, you’ve got kids. And they assume, Hey, you’re not doing anything. And Hey, would you do this? And some people that just the goodness of their heart, maybe an obligation or whatnot, they’re like, yeah, we’ll give it a try. And, um, two years later, they find themselves still in it. Rich Birch — Right. Justyn Smith — But with that comes, I mean, they they didn’t really go into it with vision. They didn’t really go into it with expectations or or or or ah education or or any of that kind of stuff. They went in there to really kind of fill a need. And I think that’s that’s a lot of churches that are out there. And I’m not saying that’s not a ah bad place to start, but because of that, some people don’t know, like, where do I go from there? And so what happens is like, what does an effective children’s ministry look like? Rich Birch — Right. Justyn Smith — They don’t really know because all they’re trying to do is they’re trying to hang on from week to week. they They know that, hey, we’ve got to prepare for Sunday. And really in a lot of churches, then we got to prepare for Wednesday. And really every three days or so you’re you’re preparing um a lesson, and and and trying to find volunteers, and ah do special events outside of that, and maybe a child care moment. And there’s so much going on that what is effective ministry looks like? And so I I like to start there is is to kind of if we can slow people down, ah take take a few days, and and let let’s talk about what what it looks like. Justyn Smith — It’s not just about the curriculum. It’s not just about administrative duties. It’s not just about all all those things. Those things are important. But what does it look like when you put yourself in the shoes of ah a kid? What would it look like if you put yourself in the shoes of of a mom and dad and what that partnership could look like? Or what it looks like when ah they drop their child off and they pick their child up? And and have you asked yourself the questions, you know, what are mom and dad asking them when when they get picked up? All these all these little things I think would help shape and inform what an effective children’s ministry could and should look like. Justyn Smith — And and I think that obviously I something that’s great about—sorry—the the children’s ministry community is I think they’re very ah collaborative. And um I don’t want to and want to pick on other ministries in the church, but I think there’s some who are maybe a little more competitive. Rich Birch — Okay. Justyn Smith — In in this space, I would say there’s there’s a there’s ah massive willingness to collaborate. Rich Birch — Right. Justyn Smith — And you’d be shocked if you reached out to people and just said, hey, could I have some time? Rich Birch — Right. Justyn Smith — And and they’ll give you your time, and and help you and not not charge you or or make you do something crazy. So I encourage people, you know reach out to other ah children’s ministries that you feel like are doing a a good and effective job. But put yourself in the shoes of of parents. I mean, have the conversation with your pastor on on their expectations, and and and and figure out, like especially putting yourself in the shoes of parents. Because they don’t sometimes know um the questions to even ask or or what to do. Rich Birch — Right. Justyn Smith — And so so when you do that, I think that you can you can meet a real practical need, ah which is a part of what makes an effective kids ministry, meeting a real practical need… Rich Birch — Right. Justyn Smith — …not just the spiritual growth, which also is, you know, huge priority. Rich Birch — Yeah, incredibly important. But I, yeah, I totally agree on the, you know, people are, you’d be amazed how many people will answer your questions or be willing to talk. That’s actually really the core of what started even our podcast. Justyn Smith — It’s awesome. Rich Birch — Like, you know, you’d be amazed. People people are willing to to help each other, which is amazing. But ah you you talked about, I’d love to kind of zero in on one thing you talked about. You talked about the fact that um you’ve got to put yourself in the shoes of kids and adults, parents, that that are dropping their kids off. Give us a few ways that we could do that. I think that’s a good insight. How do we, because we can always see our thing just from our perspective. We see what we do from our vantage point, um which is one vantage point, but it’s not it’s not obviously the entire picture. Justyn Smith — Yeah, so, I mean, a couple of really practical things ah is, one, is you can literally ask a parent—I’ve done this a couple times, and you’ve got to be pretty confident, I think, in ah maybe a visitor or whatnot. I’ve literally done this with with with a visitor. I’ve struck up a conversation in the lobby, and I was like, I literally said, hey, I know this is going to sound really strange, but as you drop your child off and you go through our kids’ ministry, would you just take note of what that experience is like for you? Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good. Justyn Smith — Uh, I, really I just, and I really, I had no background with them. I had no, I didn’t know what they would say. I didn’t even know if they were saved, to be quite honest. And, but I just, I just felt like I wanted to do that. And one, because I knew I was going to get a very real, raw ah answers, and I wasn’t going to get someone who’s kind of hopped from church to church, or who grew up in the church and gave me some churchiness and and be you know a little too kind. I wanted something real and and honest, and they did that. Justyn Smith — But if that’s too far out there for you, I think it’s just literally just just ask ask a parent who attends your church, “How is the experience like ah for you?” And and you know maybe just do like a little roundtable. Bring you know four or five you know parents, ah take them out for coffee or just just come into one of your kid’s spaces and and just talk for 60 minutes. Maybe there’s ah maybe there is someone who’s who’s somewhat new to the church. you know maybe they’ve been coming for six months. That’s enough time for them to remember their experience um there is especially their first time experience, what it’s like. Justyn Smith — But then and then don’t forget about the parents who have been attending for a long time. They have a lot of they have a lot to say. And they probably [inaudible] the backbone of your church and I think sometimes we might forget about them. Because they start to blend into to the background. Rich Birch — Right, right. Justyn Smith — Bring them in. Hey, you’ve been attending here for 5 years, 10 years or or whatever. ah Do you feel like we really partner with you? Do you feel like we are meeting the needs… Rich Birch — That’s good. Justyn Smith — …of of of your children? I mean, just ask the questions. It puts you in a vulnerable in a vulnerable spot, but that’s okay. We’re leaders. And leaders need to put ourselves in in that spot and be humble enough to say, hey, we’re missing the mark here and we want to do better. Rich Birch — Yeah. Justyn Smith — Or we ah or we’re we’re doing a great job and we just want to keep building upon it and and and and doing better. And then I think when you put yourself in the in in a kids’ shoes, you can literally do this. You can literally get on your knees and you can walk through your kids experience and what do they see, what do they feel, what do they i mean what is that like for them literally, physically on that level? Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good. Justyn Smith — And then two, ask ask the kids. You know I think it’s sometimes funny, we’re always racking our brains around, man, what would be a fun thing to do for kids? What would be ah ah what would they want to do? You literally talk to them every single week… Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.Justyn Smith — …um sometimes twice a week. And so i would I would take time and say, hey, what do you guys think would be fun? What would be what what would be something that we could do that would draw your your friends to our church? I’m not against hooks at all, as long as there’s substance behind the hook. If it’s only hook and facade, we’re not being effective. But if you’re using that hook to get people into your church, to expose them to effective discipleship, I think that’s a win. Justyn Smith — And so um ask them. They they they know and they’ll come up with some maybe absurd things, but they’re going to come up with the answers because it’s the things they like to do. And then it’s our job as leaders, okay, how can we take what what they want to do and and and and make that work and and brainstorm that with creative people in your church. And so, yeah. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. It’s funny you say on the oh yeah to get on your knees, we did a training thing a while ago, probably a month ago, and they were handing out like, it was like a guest services thing in our church. And so we had like all these random different kind of personas that we were supposed to play. And so I was with someone, was paired with someone, and that was exactly what it was supposed to be. It was like a parent and child. And they were trying to check their kid in. And it was like a slightly different check-in situation. Justyn Smith — Sure. Rich Birch — And so I got on my knees and walked through ah you know with the with the person that was supposed to be my parent. And it was it was fun. And a part of what you know my takeaway from it was like, yeah, man, the kids are standing there a long time… Justyn Smith — Yeah. Rich Birch — …waiting for their parents to do some sort of administrative thing. And I said the exact same thing. I’m like can we put something fun here like what can we do something, you know give them something or have I don’t know candy or something… Justyn Smith — That’s brilliant. Yeah. Rich Birch — …in this environment um that I wouldn’t have thought of if I wasn’t and obviously my knees were hurting too. So I was like, oh man. But yeah, I love that. Put put them in their in your shoes. Ask lots of questions. Participate in the experience. that’s ah you know That’s so great. Rich Birch — Can you think of a time from your leadership where your perspective has been changed by maybe talking to kids or talking to parents, engaging, um that it’s actually changed a bit of what you’ve done? Justyn Smith — Yeah, I would I would say, I mean, to your point of, of you know, you put you were on your knees and and and walking through that. We’ve done that exercise, and and we found out that, yeah, we wanted to put something in the kid’s hands. And so we would have a welcome, like a little welcome bag ah with, you know, had our had our logo on it and had a couple things in it. So had ah had a first time button, had a little thing they could fidget with. And so literally as mom and dad are are completing you know, the the short form for check-in, they were able to ah fidget with some things. Justyn Smith — But not only that, but we also tried to make it personal where we have a someone there who’s giving the kids attention. And so mom and dad can focus on, you know, typing the stuff in, writing the stuff in, however, however you would do that. And we’d have someone asking kids questions, hey, what school what school to go to? Hey, what’s your favorite part of, you know, and just um and just really kind of engaging them. And then what that did for mom and dad, it kind of gave them a sense of, oh, man, these people really do care… Rich Birch — Right. Justyn Smith — …about our children. They’re giving them attention and really kind of on on their level. And so I i think it it it just built some trust in right away, which I think is really important, especially if you’re a first-time guest. You’re leaving your kids. I don’t know this organization. I don’t know this church. Rich Birch — Right. Who are these people? Justyn Smith — Are you guys a cult? Are you like what are you? Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Justyn Smith — And I’m just giving you my kids. And so it’s important that trust right off the bat. So that helped with that. And I think like yeah with a with mom and dad, um, some of the things that we’ve we’ve changed is, you know, we found out that, you know, handouts on a weekly basis, they don’t like those. Rich Birch — Right. Justyn Smith — And some of the churches, I’ve been in some churches and they do value those. But I’ve been in some, they’re like these end up… we don’t do anything with them. And I’m like, Oh my gosh, you know, we’re spending so much time and thought and effort, uh… Rich Birch — Right. Producing this stuff. Yep. Justyn Smith — …producing this stuff and and you’re not using them. But we do it because, because I think it’s effective. Because it’s what I like to do. And I’m like and like, I’m not here for me. I’m here to serve, to serve Jesus. I’m here to serve you. And, um, if I’m not being effective, if I’m wasting these resources, that’s ridiculous. Justyn Smith — So then we went to, um you know ah you know, we did like a seven week series, so we just produced something that we made available for at the beginning of the series. And and that’s it. Rich Birch — Here it is. Right. Right. Justyn Smith — And and that kind of went with it. And and parents appreciate that. They’re like, oh, hey, it felt bite-sized enough where where they could get into it. Justyn Smith — And then we just moved some stuff to social media. So if some people still wanted a a weekly connection or questions, prompts, et cetera, they could still get that on a weekly basis. But in a not not wasting resources and things like that. Rich Birch — Yeah. Yes, exactly. When all the time we spent printing all that stuff, yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense for sure. Rich Birch — So let’s let’s roll out a scenario. Let’s say I’m an executive pastor, church of 1,500 people, and you know I I really like our kids’ people. They’re good folks. But like I just have a sense that we’re not you know keeping up. That it’s like It feels like we’re like it’s like the same as it was 10 years ago. Like obviously, there’s new kids, new leaders, all that, but but it just feels like maybe we’re not um you know learning, growing. What advice would you give to me as an executive pastor as I’m working with my team to try to help them um stay current. Because I’m not an expert in it. It’s not my this isn’t my area. Justyn Smith — Right. Rich Birch — But I it’s it’s a hunch. So what should I be thinking about? How do I explore that kind of hunch? What what what kind of advice could I be, you know, could I give to the kids, ministry people in my church? Justyn Smith — Yeah, I mean, I think I think the first thing I mean the first thing I would do is I would be reflective as an executive pastor. So is this a is this a specific ministry challenge that you’re having, or is it an overall church challenge that you’re having? Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good. Justyn Smith — So I think it’s easy sometimes for us to sit in a chair and say, oh, hey, this could be better. Rich Birch — Yes. Justyn Smith — But then if I’m being really if I’m being honest and reflective of myself, hey, our whole church is down 20%. Or our whole church is struggling with this this this cultural thing. It’s not just the kids’ ministry. It seems like an easy target, or the student minister, or fill in the blank. It seems like an easy target. So I would i would encourage them, first, just be reflective and and make sure you’re really asking the right question. Ifif you do come to the conclusion that, hey, yeah, this children’s ministry is the lowest um hole in the bucket and and and that that’s where we’re leaking. Then, yeah, ask the tough questions. Justyn Smith — And I think what some of those questions are is, for you for an executive pastor, one, do we have do we have the right leader ah in place? And um again, just just you know how did we get this person? What’s what’s the backstory? Some executive pastors didn’t hire this person. So I mean, it’s it’s important to understand who who this person is. Rich Birch — Right. Justyn Smith — Where where are you going as a church? You know, I’ve been a part of some churches who, it’s like, there’s there’s there was nothing necessarily wrong with the children’s pastor, but the but the church made a a a dramatic shift in in their strategy and how they approach ministry in their community and reaching out. And they found out this children’s pastor who wasn’t doing a ah bad job, just didn’t have the gift mix and the capabilities to make this shift. And so um that’s a hard that’s a hard conversation um to to have, but but it’s one that’s necessary if you want, obviously, your children’s ministry or whatever to to to to get on board and go the direction you’re having. Justyn Smith — And so it could be a shift and in in leadership. If it’s someone you’re like, no, I think i think this person has it. They’ve got they’ve got the capability, they got the capability, they’ve the gifting, all that type of stuff, then um how are you resourcing this person? I mean, there’s there’s great conferences out there that you could send them to. there’s ah roundtables. I mean think I would say I as an executive ah as an executive pastor, all those things that you might be a part of, why would you not want your staff to also be a part of? Rich Birch — Right. Right. That’s good. Justyn Smith — And so um help them find a community and your kids pastor again um could have just been thrown in there, may not have the experience. Or or when ah and and and surround them, find a community of kids pastors who um who are are are big on leadership or big on spiritual disciplines and discipleship. I mean, what is it that you want for your church and and help them find that church, those people, and get them, expose them to what you are are wanting, if they don’t have that experience. Justyn Smith — Because I found that many kids’ pastors, they’re open. They just they don’t know. They feel under they just feel under-resourced, undervalued. Rich Birch — Right, right. Justyn Smith — And I think sometimes when you start to encourage, you start to show value. And some of that is is the resources you give them. It’s the um It’s the budget you give or don’t give them. All those things communicate something to them. And so ah you know that’s why I said earlier, you know, it’s one thing to say, hey, we value you. We we value Kids’ Ministry, but then they have the lowest budget ah line, you know, they have the lowest budget in the church. Rich Birch — Yes. Justyn Smith — Or or the student ministry, they’ve got you know they’ve got a full-time student pastor there, but we’ve got this part-time stay-at-home spouse that is running the Kids’ Ministry. But yet our expectation is that the Kids’ Ministry is at this level. Justyn Smith — And so it’s like, I think sometimes, and that’s where you got to take an internal and an internal inventory of of how, of your expectations and and what you’re doing in kids ministry. But but all those types of things. But I think it’s i think it’s mainly like what what helped my growth the most was me being exposed to people who um who our church wanted to emulate, who I wanted to emulate. And that just radically changed and put me on on the right trajectory. So I think that that’s a big deal. Rich Birch — Love it. Yeah, that’s good. So I want to come back to the under-resourced question in a minute. So I’m just putting a little a little pin in that. But but kind of related to this whole area, I think one of the things that’s changed a lot in the last, maybe even the last 10 years, for sure in the last 20, 25, is we’re trying to create, particularly kids ministries that really are can host a series of kids from a wide variety with a variety of learning um abilities, learning styles, neurodiversity, all that stuff. Talk to me about that both from like the volunteer team side and from you know put your Plain Joe hat on and and think about it from that perspective. What should what are some of the kind of key questions we should be thinking about when we think about that issue? Because this seems like one of those big changes over the last 10, 15 years. Justyn Smith — Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me just, yeah, let’s be honest. It’s it’s not going away. Rich Birch — No. Justyn Smith — it’s it’s it’s only It’s only expediting. And I find that you’ve got a couple churches you’ve got churches that are um they’re pretty resistant. They’re like, this is just how we do ministry. And to be honest, I’m I’m a little I’m I’m a little ah I’ll just use the word disappointed with churches who are just unwilling to um entertain the idea that that they could make some changes ah to minister, to maybe not the whole spectrum that’s out there, but but to to to some, to to what you can do. Justyn Smith — And so I have ah I have a lot of ah respect and high regard for churches who um who are also honest with themselves. They’re like, hey, we know this is a challenge, um but ah we can’t do it all, but this is what we can do right now. Rich Birch — Right. Justyn Smith — But then to maybe have a long-term plan of like, hey, how can we get there? Rich Birch — Right. Justyn Smith — Because again, it’s it’s not it’s not going away. And some churches are just like, we’re just not going to do that. I’m just like, it’s just kind of a bummer because I feel like there’s a whole, and I feel like maybe you mentioned it, so you you might feel it as well, is there’s just a whole community out there that is just looking for a faith community… Rich Birch — Yeah. Justyn Smith — …um that will invite them in. And I think a lot of times we’re either intentionally or unintentionally unwelcoming them. And I think it’s important that that we strive to do what we but we can do. But then I hope that our churches would would get together and and and create a plan to to invite them in in the long term. So maybe, hey, ah this year we can do… you know we can you know handle this level, but maybe you know two or three years we can increase that. And I think those are positive strides. Justyn Smith — And then there’s some churches who kind of go all in and and they’re just doing a fabulous job at reaching that community. My Plain Joe had ah had on is just just being mindful of of people who um ah who are not, I guess what people say would call typical typical kids. And so when you’re designing, when you’re creating a space, when you’re creating environments, make sure that they’re ah inclusive of of all all kids of of of their abilities. I think it’s it’s it’s not as challenging as it seems to be. It’s as easy as this: it’s as easy as connecting with a family who has a child who who who’s going through that and having a conversation with them. Hey, how can we make our ministry more ah more friendly, more welcoming an environment for your child? Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s that’s so good. I yeah I agree. Like we don’t want to get be caught asleep on this one. I think particularly as churches grow… Justyn Smith — Yeah. Rich Birch — …it it we end up in a really responsive, you know, way with this. It’s like we’re reactive because it’s like there’s families that are showing up and they are like, OK, you basically deal with my kid. And then we’re caught like, oh, I don’t know what to do. This is an area where we really should be thinking ahead… Justyn Smith — Right. Rich Birch — …getting ahead of the curve, trying to figure out, you know, there’s some studies that show somewhere between I think it’s I think it was 17 to 20% of kids in America are neurodivergent. So that’s like… Justyn Smith — Yeah. Yeah. they’re They’re saying, yeah, they’re saying, yeah, it’s it’s more than one in 10 kids are doing with something. Rich Birch — …one in five. Yeah. Yeah. Justyn Smith — And then just real quick too. And I feel like there’s a place I can just kind of be blunt ah with of my assessments is that I think sometimes we don’t do it because it takes work. Um, and and, and it, I’m, I’m just being real. It’s a, it takes a lot of work. Rich Birch — That’s true. Justyn Smith — It gets us out of our comfort zone and we don’t know.Rich Birch — Yes. Yes. Justyn Smith — And so, and so let’s just, let’s just call it what it is. Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah. It’s like a new skill. We got to learn, right? We got to lean in. Justyn Smith — And as a leader, go out there and learn it, go out there, do the research, talk to the people and do the work to meet that need. So there you go. Rich Birch — Okay, so sticking with the being blunt theme. Let’s go back to the underfunded question. So you got a bunch of executive pastor people that are listening in. And I know that they, when they hear that, and that like oh our area is underfunded, I know they’re like, yeah, like everybody’s. Like they’re trying to balance the budget, they’re like give me a break, like you know, it’s it’s all underfunded. But what what is the thing that you would say or that you wish you could say on behalf of kids’ ministry people all across the country if you had an earnest executive pastor that was sitting down and saying, Hey, like, help me understand. Are we underfunded? Are we? I know everybody wants more money. You know, they’re not going to go to their people and, you know, if you go to, I’ve never had a staff member say, you know what, I need less staff and I less need less resources. Justyn Smith — Right. Rich Birch — They’ve never said that. So um but let’s say it’s like an earnest person. They’re like, really, hey, ah help me understand, Justyn. You’re an expert in this area. What does what kind of funding percentage wise? Is there a way for me to think about that that really would be an appropriate level of funding for, you know, our church Justyn Smith — Yeah, I mean, and I think it’s like really two conversations. One, it’s to the kid’s pastor. Like don’t don’t take on a victim mentality. Rich Birch — Right. No, that’s good. Justyn Smith — Like like I would I would I don’t know if the executive pastor says that, it probably comes off differently. If I said that to peer, a children’s pastor, they’d take it better because I’ve been in that like the victim mentality, woe is me. Rich Birch — Yep. Justyn Smith — Like don’t do that. Rich Birch — Yep. Justyn Smith — You said yes to this, and and you know what you’re getting into. Rich Birch — Right. Justyn Smith — And so ah but but yeah, the the underfunded thing, I think it’s, again, it’s just having an honest assessment. So as you look at the ministries, how are they being funded? And if you have like, I’ve gotten some churches where student ministry is like, you know, 50, 60% more than kids ministry. But yet there’s this there’s this expectation that kids’ ministry is doing, you know, XYZ. And I’m like, dude… and it’s not necessarily about like, like the the like you get more, I get more. I I don’t like that per se. Rich Birch — Right. Justyn Smith — It’s just that um oftentimes you’re getting you’re getting what you’re paying for. And so if you’re paying um if you’re paying someone like, ah a low yeah, if they have a low budget, if you if they have low salary, I just often say, you get what you’re paid for. Rich Birch — Right. Right. Justyn Smith — And so I have that honest assessment. It’s hard to say; every church is different. I just say, man, what what do you value? Rich Birch — Right. Justyn Smith — If you like you value kids, Oh, hey, your your budget’s $25,000 for ministry. Man, and and and you can make some changes to to do whatever. There’s some churches here, they’re trying to be they’re trying to minister to everyone and everything. And there’s it’s it’s a hard conversation to have, but um I get the I get the idea that, hey, woe is me, everyone wants more money. I’m I’m a very practical, I feel like very realistic, but I think that most executive pastors, if you really just reflected um on your stuff, I think I think you could figure out like if you’re underfunding it or not Rich Birch — Sure. Justyn Smith — it’s It’s challenging without knowing what the vision is, the values are… Rich Birch — Yeah. Justyn Smith — …it could be any number of things. So I know I’m not really answering the question, but. Rich Birch — Well, no, no, that’s fine. That’s good. I get it. I understand that your, you know, yeah people could reach out and ask you if they got specifics, you know, I’m sure you’d be happy to help. Justyn Smith — Yeah. Rich Birch — But it’s it because I think that’s a real issue. I do think, um you know, from my seat over the years, we’ve, you know, I’ve been such a champion for kids ministry specifically. I think it’s strategically important for the church. It’s the gospel from a big picture point of view. The gospel is one generation away from being extinct. We’ve got to invest in that. um but it But then just also from a like, I would say like a pragmatic church growth point of view, like prevailing churches invest heavily in kids ministry. Justyn Smith — Yes. Rich Birch — Like, you know, if you if you were to go visit really in kind of every stream of you know, Christian church, if you were to find the churches that that that stream considers prevailing, one of the common things that you’ll see in all of those, kind of regardless of the stream, is when you walk around their kids’ ministry or talk to their kids’ ministry people, they’re very well led… Justyn Smith — Right. Rich Birch — …they’re well-funded, there’s like energy coming off that. There’s like, wow, there’s lots of good stuff going on there. And so it’s highly unlikely that your church would become prevailing without ah without a killer kids’ ministry, I think, personally. Justyn Smith — Correct. Rich, I love you, man. That’s awesome. Yes, yes, yes. Rich Birch — Yeah, I’ll give you a hug across the across Zoom. Justyn Smith — I know, right? Rich Birch — Well, let’s you know you’ve given us a chapter of ah your book. It’s its so I want to hear a little bit about this. So first of all, I’m a Disney guy. I love Disney. So the fact that it’s just a former ah Disney Imagineer you’re talking about. But tell me about this chapter and then tell me about your book. Justyn Smith — Yeah, so the book, Kidmin, Trust and Pixie Dust. I’m a big Disney guy. And so in the Children’s Ministry world, I’ve I’ve got a few resources written on on Disney and and do a lot of that. And I know it gets it’s it’s like it goes back and forth with how people are receptive to it because Disney is always in the headlines… Rich Birch — Right. Justyn Smith — …for whatever. But I like to if I like to focus a lot on like classic Disney, Walt Disney the person, and just the thing that he built. I think there’s no doubt that ah Walt Disney built something I’m gonna use the word magical, even though some people are allergic to that word in the church, ah but it but it really is. It’s like he he he created something that was ah brought a lot of value to families and to communities and has really was a pioneer in shaping a ah yeah entertainment today. Rich Birch — It’s true. Justyn Smith — I mean, we do what we do today in large part because of Walt Disney. And so um I think there’s a lot of things that we can take from Walt Disney and even the Disney company today and apply that to Kids’ Ministry and take the best from it. I’m not saying everything they do is great. Rich Birch — Right. Justyn Smith — Everything they do is is is replicable or or or that. But there is still a lot of ah good things that we can learn from that apply. And so this book does that. It’s Kidmin, Trust and Pixie Dust. It takes some practical ah leadership lessons and creative lessons that Walt Disney and um and and that the Disney ah teams over the years have put into place and how does that what does that look like in a kids’ ministry environment? Justyn Smith — And so and obviously, was like with my Plain Joe hat, I’m really big on environments and creating memorable experiences. I think those are super important. I think our organization does a phenomenal job at storytelling and helping churches tell their story, ah which includes, um you know, children’s ministry spaces and environments, you know, whether you’ve got 50 grand or 5 million, ah you know, we can make come to life. Justyn Smith — And this chapter specifically talks with a ex-Disney Imagineer, Theron Skees. And ah he talks about his story and just all that he he created and led throughout the years. And he’s a person of faith, ah which is amazing. Some people think, you know, there’s no way there’s Christians there, but there is um a faith community within the Disney Company. And Theron was one of them for many years. And his stories and the way he is so passionate about um about just ah the the local church and and creativity and telling the story is is um it’s it’s yeah it’s it’s it’s exciting and fun. And so I so I wanted to include this this chapter because I wanted it to inspire people to um to put their ah best into kids’ ministry. And I feel like i feel like this is a chapter that that can do that. And I hope it i hope it’s helpful for people. Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. Well, I would encourage friends, listen, I back talking back to that executive pastor that we were talking about earlier, go click the link, read this chapter. And then maybe what you could do, a practical next step is why don’t you buy copies of of this book um and read it with your kids’ ministry people. Say like, hey, I you know I heard this interview. What if we spent the next couple months we read through this and then we just talked about it, all got got the copies. It’s on my budget, not yours. Don’t worry about it. And would love to talk a little bit about you know what can we do to kind of increase the, try to get a a learning environment going with with your kids’ ministry people? I think that would be a really practical. I know when I saw this book I thought man, this would be a great book to kind of um use in that kind of training environment. I think it could be a really cool tool Um, yeah, Mel McGowan, uh, from Storyland, he, he knows, uh, the path to my heart. Justyn Smith — Yeah. Rich Birch — He once hosted me at Club 33 there at Disneyland. So it was like, I feel like I’m forever indebted to Mel. So, um, which is, uh, you know, if you don’t know what that is, don’t worry about it friends, but, um, yeah, I appreciate the, uh, appreciate Disney for sure. Rich Birch — So, well, this has been great. What a great conversation today. Is there anything else that you want to cover just as we wrap up today? Justyn Smith — I mean, on a search, I know we’ve kind of gone over time a little bit and we talked a lot ah a lot, but I mean, I just, you know, I guess I would say, you know, I never thought that, you know, that I would have to, in kids’ ministry, be a salesman or a talent a talent seeker. And it’s just it just goes with… Rich Birch — That’s so true. Justyn Smith — …with with with ministry and and we need people to do ministry. And so that’s something that I learned along the way. And I’m just appreciative of you. I’m I’m thankful for unSeminary. I’m thankful for your ministry and what you’re doing. ah You’re helping a lot of people and it was definitely an honor to to be part of this. Rich Birch — Well, thanks so much. If people want to get in touch with you or, you know, track with, uh, you know, with Plain Joe or any of that stuff, where do we want to send them online? Justyn Smith — Yeah, I mean I mean, you can go to plainjoestudios.com. You can find me on any social media. I’m usually the you know hashtag or ah yeah ah Pastor Justyn is usually my my name on ah on everything. It’s Justyn with a Y, so J-U-S-T-Y-N. ah Pastor Justyn, so you can follow me on any of the social medias. ah Find me on ah on a yeah the the Plain Joe or Storyland website. And I would love to connect with you, have conversations, and help in any way that I can. Rich Birch — Love it. Thanks so much for being here, sir. I really appreciate your time today. Justyn Smith — Thanks, Rich.

Discover how to transform your church into an inviting community! The conversation dives into impactful teachings that resonate with members, making sermons feel like essential life support. Learn about creating memorable experiences during major events, capturing attention both online and in person. Explore engaging volunteer initiatives that foster a sense of belonging. Hear success stories from various churches that demonstrate how empathy and connection can turn guests into dedicated members, inviting others to join the journey.

Thanks for joining in for the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Will Hutcherson, a Next Gen and Student Pastor who has become increasingly passionate about finding practical ways to bring hope to kids and teens who are facing anxiety, depression, and despair. This led to him starting Curate Hope, a non-profit that focuses on suicide prevention, mental health awareness, and partnering with schools, churches, and parents to help heal despair in teens. Recent years have shown an alarming rise in mental health challenges among young people. Adolescents desperately need connection, and the church is uniquely positioned to help them take healthy next steps using practical strategies as well as spiritual tools. Tune in as Will shares his insights on how churches can come alongside youth struggling with anxiety and depression. People, places, and purposes. // Recent statistics underscore the urgency of addressing mental health issues among young people. These diagnoses are not just a medical issue, but also come from social, political, and environmental influences around us. In order for people to recover from mental health challenges, they need people, a place, and a purpose. The church can play a crucial role in providing a sense of community, belonging, and God-given purpose as people discover who God has called them to be. Conversations and connections. // The foundation for helping kids and teens through these issues is to cultivate more opportunity for conversations and connection within church settings. For decades, as a society, we’ve been trending towards less and less connection. The church needs to create more face-to-face opportunities where kids and teens feel seen. Ask yourself these questions. // Explore with your team what it might look like to create programs and environments to have more conversation spaces. What would it look like to build in more connection time in the Sunday service? How can you create more conversations? Build connection first. // Connection is like vitamins to the brain. When we feel seen on a deep level, it releases happy hormones and builds resilience. When someone is experiencing despair, hopelessness, or high anxiety, physiologically it’s more difficult for them to receive left brain logic. Instead, speak to the right brain first and meet them with heart. Help a person “emotionally exhale” before you work on reframing, focusing on the truth of scripture, and taking healthy steps towards building resilience. Student small groups. // Small groups are a core need of adolescent development. Youth need connection and creating spaces for them to have conversations with a caring adult is one of the best things for their mental health. Through student small groups, you’ll have a better chance of seeing when a mental health issue arises and helping guide adolescents through it. Coordinate youth ministry small groups to be on the same the night as adult small groups to make it easier for families. Emotions and God. // Churches can unintentionally demonize emotions. Emotions like fear and anxiety are natural human experiences and should not be viewed as indicators of being far from God or lacking faith. Instead, churches should create an environment where individuals feel safe to express their emotions and seek help without fear of judgment. Practical connection tools. // Will’s book Seen: Despair and Anxiety in Kids and Teenagers and the Power of Connection is a great tool for church leaders to read with kids and youth ministry leaders. It offers practical connection tools that are very simple to understand and will help move the brain towards healing. To learn more about Will, his books and access the resources on his website, visit willhutch.com. NEXT STEPS // Unlocking Deeper Youth Connections: Free Cheat Sheet Download Looking for practical ways to build deeper, more meaningful connections with the youth you serve? The Connection Strategies Cheat Sheet offers five powerful, actionable tools to enhance your relationship-building efforts, inspired by the latest episode of the unSeminary podcast with Will Hutcherson. Will explains how connection is “vitamins for the brain”—a necessity for emotional and mental well-being. This resource distills his expert insights into easy-to-follow strategies, like leveraging the “3-Second Rule” for engagement and using small wins to boost confidence. Download the cheat sheet now and start fostering stronger connections that support the mental health and spiritual growth of the next generation! Thank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you’ve decided to tune in. I’m really looking forward to today’s conversation. This is one of those conversations that ah quickly we’re gonna get into and you’re gonna be able to apply. You’re not going to be wondering, hey, this doesn’t apply to me in my ministry context. I just know ah that so many of us are wrestling with ah the issues that we’re going to be talking about today. Honored to have Will Hutcherson with us. Will has been a next gen and student pastor for over 15 years. Rich Birch — Over the past several years he has become increasingly passionate about finding practical ways to bring to hope to kids and teens who are facing increasing amounts of anxiety, depression, and despair. This led him to starting Curate Hope, a nonprofit that focuses on suicide prevention, mental health awareness, and partnering with schools, churches, and parents to help heal despair in teens. Will is also the co-author of a couple books on anxiety for kids and teens. Welcome to the show, Will. So glad you’re here. Will Hutcherson — Oh, thanks for having me, Rich. Rich Birch — This is going to be great. Tell us kind of fill out the picture. That’s, that’s the bio, but kind of give us a bit more of the will story. Will Hutcherson — Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I’ve been an next gen pastor for many years and I remember early on in my ministry, you know, kind of as youth pastors, it was really about reduced risk, you know? Help kids make good choices, right? Follow Jesus. And somewhere around the mid-2000s, mid-teens rather, around 2015, 2016, I started to notice a change that I think all of us in ministry started to notice, that there was an uptick in mental health challenges.Will Hutcherson — And I remember as a pastor feeling like I had these amazing spiritual tools. Like I knew that there’s power in Jesus name, there’s power in scripture reading. I knew that there’s there’s power in biblical community and getting people plugged into biblical community. But oftentimes I just wondered what can I do practically to help these kids and these students, and these parents, who are really facing some some challenges in regards to mental health. And so at the time, the best the best response was, you know, we’ll send them to a counselor. But even even you know nearly 10 years ago now, like we had affordability issues, we had access issues. And now post COVID, that’s increased even further. Rich Birch — A hundred percent. Will Hutcherson — And so um so that’s where the passion came from. You know oftentimes people ask me, how’d you get into mental health? Did you have a mental health challenge? And it really is ah, no, I really care about the next generation, feel called to the next generation. Rich Birch — Right. Will Hutcherson — And so this is their problem, so it became my problem. Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think yeah you we were talking a little bit before we got started. This is not one of those that I think everybody that’s listening in is like, ah yes, ah we have seen this in our context. Will Hutcherson — Yeah. Rich Birch — We are wrestling with these issues. It’s not like, I don’t know what you’re you’re talking about. So let’s let’s talk about that uptick. You know, is your sense that you know this kind of uptick in mental health issues that we’re seeing in our ministries, is this is this like an actual rise, or is it that we’re more aware of it, or is it a combo of both of those things? You know, what’s what’s your sense around around that? Will Hutcherson — Yeah. That’s a great question. You know, I think sometimes leaders and parents ask that question of like, okay, we see the rise of anxiety disorders being diagnosed. Or we see the rise of depression and disorders being diagnosed. Is it just that all of a sudden it popped up, or are we just better at catching it, diagnosing it? Will Hutcherson — I would say when you look at the hard data specifically, when it comes to, ah let’s say, self-harm. We can see that non-fatal self-harm admissions to a hospital have increased drastically for ah each demographic, both for 15 to 19, but then the biggest one was actually 10 to 14 years old. Rich Birch — Wow. Will Hutcherson — Specifically for non-fatal self-harm hospital admissions, just for the 10 to 14 years old, we’re looking at 188% increase for girls. Rich Birch — Wow. Wow. Will Hutcherson — And so when you look at those hard data points, you’re like, regardless of the diagnoses, we’re seeing some behaviors that didn’t exist in previous generations… Rich Birch — Right. Will Hutcherson — …that show us that there is a a challenge. Now, The other very startling statistic in the hard data is the suicide rates as well. And so, again, ah that’s not just a better diagnosis, quote unquote, that we can we can say that that really is like things that are happening. Will Hutcherson — Now, I will say here’s the ah good news. We have started to see that those statistics are getting a little bit better in the last year to 18 months. So I think we’re moving in a good direction. I think the church plays a huge part of helping communities cope. In fact, mental health professionals are recognizing that, by the way. Rich Birch — Yes. Will Hutcherson — ah Mental health professionals are recognizing, you know what? Hey, the solution is medical, but it’s not just medical. In fact, Dr. Thomas Insel, who was a former national director of mental health institute ah did it for 10 years. He, about two years ago, came out with a book and said, the problem isn’t just medical, it’s also social, um it’s political, it’s environmental. And he said this, he said, the solutions have to be medical, but also people, in order for them to recover from mental health challenges, especially severe mental health challenges, they need—listen to this—people, place, and purpose. Rich Birch — Oh, wow. Will Hutcherson — Now this is a doctor, a scientist, who’s saying the research shows in order to have long-term recovery with mental health challenges, they need people, place, and purpose. Now what institution exists in our world that gives people… Rich Birch — Yes. Yes. Will Hutcherson — …people, a place where they feel safe and they belong, and a sense of purpose knowing that God created them and they’re here for a reason. Rich Birch — Interesting. Will Hutcherson — It’s the church. I believe 100% that we are uniquely designed to help move people away from mental health challenges and illnesses to exactly who God’s called them to be. But we have to recognize that there’s spiritual tools and there’s also practical tools to that. Rich Birch — Right. Will Hutcherson — And I think that’s what we’re we’re moving towards. we’re we’re We’re becoming a lot wiser in our approach um than previous decades. I think, you know, the church is kind of moving along with this as well. Previous decades is kind of like we solve every problem with prayer, you know?Rich Birch — Yeah, just keep praying and it’ll be fine. Yeah, yeah. Will Hutcherson — Yeah. Just pray, pray the anxiety away. And and that prayer is good and it’s powerful, but the brain is also an organ. And so there’s practical things that we could do to, to help that organ move in a positive direction. So. Rich Birch — Yeah, for sure. And, you know, there even the question around where where did all this come from in some ways is like a head fake. It’s like, well, you know, it’s here. Will Hutcherson — Yeah. Rich Birch — And so the reality of it is we, you know, I know there’s so many leaders that are listening in today that are, um they’re like, hey, I we want to know what we can do. Like what, how can we be the kind of church that supports parents, that supports um you know young people who are wrestling with these issues? What would be some of those kind of common telltale signs of a church that is structuring their ministry in a way to help support um a ah young people that are wrestling with you know with these issues? Will Hutcherson — So, I mean, the basic foundation that I could say, and it’s gonna almost sound too cliche, so but but go with me for a minute. Rich Birch — Go with me. Yeah. Will Hutcherson — It it’s cultivating more opportunity for conversations and connection. Because the core root problem that we’ve kind of ah evolved to, because you know everyone wants to point it to social media. Like mental health crisis was caused by social media and Instagram. That that didn’t help. I mean, social media did not help, especially youth mental health. However, for decades, we’ve been kind of trending in a direction as as a society of less and less connection. And that influences the brain in a big way. So we need to create more face-to-face opportunities for people to feel seen, where they feel connection with another person. Rich Birch — That’s good. Will Hutcherson — And so what can we do within our churches? I think, ah one, there’s some practical things that we could do, and we can get into those in a minute. But just even programmatically, what does it look like for us to create ah programs and environments, redesign our our churches to have more soft spaces and conversational spaces? Will Hutcherson — What would it look like for us to figure out how to create more ah connection time within the Sunday morning gathering, you know? I don’t know how this would work, but you know look at your neighbor and ask them this question. You know it’s like It sounds too cheesy, but like how can we create more conversations? Will Hutcherson — Because, conversations are the seeds to friendship. Every friendship starts with a conversation. And friendship really is the seed to discipleship. It’s through a trusted relationship that people are able to be discipled. And so one of our best discipleship process happens to also be very good for mental health. It’s just creating more connection where people can feel seen, where they feel that they have a place where they belong, people that they belong to, and a sense of purpose. Rich Birch — That’s good. Will Hutcherson — And so that’s kind of a ah bigger philosophical macro side of it. But the practical side, I think it really looks like um creating trainings for ah small group leaders, for leaders on how to slow down, how to see someone. It really stems through understanding, I would say, how God has wired our brains. Will Hutcherson — So going back to that, that illustration I said, or I’m sorry, the ah analogy I said, that um our brain is an organ, right? And I was i was talking about the brain as an organ. If I were having a heart attack, my hope would be that you would say, Will, you’re having a heart attack, I’m going to pray for you and I’m going to call any ambulance, right? Rich Birch — Right. Right. Yeah. Will Hutcherson — We understand that there’s faith and action together. When it comes to the brain, I think we forget sometimes that it’s an organ of our body, and we just kind of result to, well, let’s just work on steps that you can take, or reframing your thoughts. You know, kind of almost keep it only in the head space. You know, I’m going to pray for you or focus on scripture, you know, and and it’ll go away. Will Hutcherson — And again, those are powerful things. I don’t want to minimize the power of of ah all of those things. But knowing that the brain is an organ, there are sometimes some very practical things that help the brain move in a positive direction. Connection is like vitamins to the brain. Rich Birch — That’s good. Will Hutcherson — So when we feel seen on a deep level, it releases happy hormones. It helps build resilience. Will Hutcherson — Specifically, when we face stress and anxiety, ah cortisol floods the brain. Well, cortisol tends to increase processing on the right side of the brain, the amygdala fires off, blood flow increases on the right side of the brain, and actually decreases on the logical left side of the brain. So when somebody is experiencing despair, place of hopelessness, or they’re experiencing high anxiety, and we try to give them left brain logic, like here’s how you should think or focus on the truth of scripture, the problem is is that the left brain is actually decreased in processing, and it’s hard for them to actually even grasp it.Will Hutcherson — So it’s kind of like the, like think of like the right side and the left side of of the brain are almost like dis-paired, like detached when somebody is experiencing despair. So when we recognize that as church leaders, we could say, okay, this is a dis-paired brain or this is right brain energy that this person’s experiencing. Let me meet them first right there. Let me meet them with right brain. Will Hutcherson — As we meet them with right brain, we’re going to meet them with heart. We’re going to meet them with emotion. We’re going to help them to what Dr. Chinwé and I like to talk about a lot is emotionally exhale. That decreases the right side of the brain activity and actually increases the left side of the brain. So then you could do the work of reframing, focusing on the truth of scripture, um helping them take some healthy steps and and processes towards building resilience. Rich Birch — That’s so great. Will Hutcherson — So ah when somebody feels connection, when they feel seen, um oxytocin, yeah which is the hormone that’s resulting or responsible for emotional attachment, oxytocin is released and it can actually bring the two sides back together in reengage logical processing. So this is why when I talk about conversations, I talk about connection, it’s really the science behind how God has wired our brains of why that’s so powerful. Rich Birch — Right. Will Hutcherson — It’s not just a nice little catchphrase of like, we just need more connection. No, it’s like research back. Rich Birch — Right, yes Will Hutcherson — Like we need more face to face connection to help promote healthy mental health. Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. And and you know, I think that’s what a great, I love that connection is, is like vitamins to the brain. That’s a great sticky statement. But also just a great thing for us to be thinking about framing it as we’re thinking about our own ministries, our own student ministries. And for sure, you know, I started in student ministry, have been, you know, in senior leadership for a bunch of years. And one of the things that’s changed for sure in student ministry is like, and I sound like an old man, but it was like back in my day, like it was like, it was all about like entertaining kids. It was like, and oh, we would never say it like that. We would have a lot more spiritual words to say that, but it was like, let’s put on the biggest show. Let’s get them in, you know, rows somewhere, you know, we’ll have something funny happen. Rich Birch — But for sure, we’ve seen over time that actually it seems like prevailing ministries, particularly to students, Man, there’s ah there’s a there’s a real groups undercurrent there. Like how do we get people talking with each other? What would be some of those things that particularly, maybe on the student ministry front that that we should be thinking about um, you know, adding to our ministries on the practical side? Like what what are some you know is there, are there certain habits we should have in the way we do our programming to try to increase ah you know that connection particularly with students? What would that look like? Will Hutcherson — Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for that question, by the way, because I’m still surprised that despite um where student ministry has gone, that we still have quite a few churches that do not prioritize small groups within student ministry. And I just want to pause and say… Rich Birch — Right. Will Hutcherson — …if you are not doing small groups, in your student ministry, you are missing a core need of adolescent development. Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good. Will Hutcherson — Adolescents desperately need connection, and it’s really helpful for their mental health. Like so creating spaces for them to have conversations, intentional conversations, with a caring adult is possibly one of the best things you can do for their mental health. Because if a mental health challenge pops up, as a youth ministry, you’re going to have a better chance of recognizing it, seeing it, and being able to help guide that student towards some some healthy steps, whether that’s seeking professional help, having a conversation with their school counselor, um whatever those extra steps are. If you don’t have a ah small group ministry that is really intentional about connecting once a week, at least, with their kids, with a small group leader and students, it’s going to be really hard to to identify that. Will Hutcherson — And and you know if you’re listening to this, you’re you’re a senior leader, and you’re like, ah, but our student ministry is only like 15. Our youth pastor, it’s a small group in itself. I would I would say um, even with a ah small group of 15, you still need to have a small group ministry because you can’t track with the stories of more than maybe eight people. Rich Birch — Right, right. Will Hutcherson — And so you can’t show up at the games and it takes a lot of relational building, as we all know as pastors. It takes a lot of time to build that relational trust. And so empower leaders to be part of the ministry, create a small group ministry within your student ministry if it’s not already existing. Will Hutcherson — And I would also say, so here’s the last caveat to that, I would say in terms of student ministry, I would say um don’t necessarily put your small groups at a different time from your youth ministry programming. Rich Birch — Okay. Will Hutcherson — Put them on the same night. Rich Birch — Right. Will Hutcherson — Parents are way too busy. So what often happens is we want to check the box of small group ministry and we say, well, we have student ministry at this time and then our small groups happen at all these other times. And what I’ve seen is that usually you have 10%, maybe 15% participation because they’re busy. Rich Birch — That’s good. Will Hutcherson — They got soccer games, they got football games, they got a whole bunch of other things. Rich Birch — That’s good. Will Hutcherson — And depending on your city, that can be really, really challenging. So, put it in the same night, the same time. Youth pastors don’t need to preach for 45 minutes, even 30 minutes, 25 minutes, and then put them in small groups. Let the preaching happen… Rich Birch — That’s good. Will Hutcherson —…in the context of conversation. Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s good. That’s great. I love that. Beyond kind of um the over-spiritualization, which for sure happens, right? There are churches that, you you know, we kind we kind of made the joke earlier today, right? Like, pray the anxiety away. But, you know, beyond that, because I think there’s a lot of churches that obviously understand that that’s ah a pothole that we’re you know we’re not going to fall into. But what would be some common potholes that churches fall into on this front that they’re like maybe a common mistake they make, or a common um thing that you’ve seen where you you know you’re in a church, maybe you’re visiting you’re coaching a church, and like you wince a little bit and you’re like oh I kind of wish we weren’t doing that. And you know you can be totally honest because you don’t have to be nice to people. You’re they’re just listening in now. What would be ah you know a common pothole that you’ve you’ve seen um you know churches or maybe ah you know run into um from time to time? Will Hutcherson — I mean, the one that comes to my mind is, you know, I was, I was at a conference not too long ago. And that they there was a speaker before me who was giving an altar call. And he was having, you know, people come forward and, he’s you know, he’s just praying. He’s like, we’re going to pray in Jesus name that the anxiety will be, will be gone, you know. And, and like, just kind of that, again, praying the anxiety away. Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Will Hutcherson — And, and I’m not saying that there isn’t power in prayer and there isn’t power in something being “broken off of us” you know if, I’m just saying that sometimes there’s a process of how God moves us into um that peace and stillness and the fruit of the Spirit, you know? Will Hutcherson — I think about the disciples. I’m like the disciples, they they were a mess throughout those three years, you know? Like they still had anxiety. They still were fearful. Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s true. Yeah. Will Hutcherson — You know like there wasn’t a moment that they just believed that Jesus was the son of God and all of a sudden they didn’t face mental health challenges to a degree, you know? Now, despite those mental health challenges, they still took steps towards Jesus, right? So it’s like… Rich Birch — Right. Will Hutcherson — …it’s it’s I think just maybe even recognizing that, especially with anxiety, anxiety is like the common cold for the brain, by the way. So it’s it’s sometimes it’s a big problem. Sometimes it’s like, you know, you get a cold and sometimes it turns into a sinus infection, right? Or it turns into bronchitis.Rich Birch — Right. Will Hutcherson — So it can become more, but then sometimes anxiety is just a common cold. Like sometimes it just kind of comes and it goes away and it doesn’t mean that there’s necessarily something that needs to be “broken off of you”. It’s just something to be even aware of. Will Hutcherson — I would say the other pitfall is that churches will unintentionally, at times when we’re preaching, we will kind of, for lack of a better words, demonize emotions, where in our phrasing, in our language, um will put emotions in such a negative light that it makes people feel like, if I feel this emotion, I’m far from God.Will Hutcherson — And again, like take fear, for instance. You know, some people will say like, you know, the Bible says do not fear 360 times. Based off of what I I did with a lot of research and looking at all the instances that I could find in both Hebrew and Greek, I found the specific phrasing of do not be afraid. I think I found it 167 times throughout the scriptures. So we can look at that and say, so if we are afraid then we’re obviously not doing what God calls us to do. Will Hutcherson — But the reality is is that fear is just an emotion. And again, we were created with these emotions. It’s what we do with that fear. Rich Birch — That’s good. Will Hutcherson — Like did Jesus feel the emotion of fear… Rich Birch —Right. Will Hutcherson — …on the cross. Possibly. Did that mean he had no faith? No. Rich Birch — Yes, right. Yes. Will Hutcherson — Did that mean he didn’t trust God? No. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Yeah. Will Hutcherson — But did he feel the emotion of fear? Sure. Rich Birch — Sure. Yep. Will Hutcherson — He felt all the emotions of humankind. So I think it’s important for us to recognize that emotions are just emotions. Rich Birch — Yep. Will Hutcherson — Like and it’s okay to acknowledge those emotions. It’s okay to let people kind of sit in them for a little bit. like Don’t be afraid to let someone just sit in the emotion for a little bit. It doesn’t mean that they’re somehow moving away from Jesus. In fact, sometimes our emotions can actually draw us a whole lot closer to Jesus. Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, that’s good. Yeah, I like that. So, um you know, well, first of all, I think that’s great kind of coaching, great, um you know, reminder, great direction for us. I was thinking specifically on that whole, you know, like, um you know, “break off the anxiety, Lord”, kind of prayer that could, you know, that, you know, and I can imagine myself saying that. Like I can imagine myself ah so I appreciate you call that out cuz I’m like yeah that’s true. I guess would you is a better way, and I realize it’s like maybe a bit weird to say it that way, but like a better way to pray in that kind of situation it’s it’s more about like, you know, Lord, give them more, more peace, more comfort, Lord, extend, you know, your goodness, restore what has been, you know, uh, you know, isn’t necessarily, I don’t know, I’m not sure what the language is to use there. Rich Birch — How would you suggest is kind of a better way for us to pray? Um, obviously we know from a theological perspective, the Holy Spirit intercedes for us and translates all that, but you know, we’re also leading in the room that we’re in and we want to, we want to ensure that we create a place where I don’t want somebody who’s in, I don’t want a student, because we’re talking particularly about student who’s in our environment today, to feel like we’ve somehow, you know, [inaudible] them, made them feel terrible um through my prayer, but I do want to show care and I do want to kind of point towards like, Hey, I would love for them to take steps in a new direction. Will Hutcherson — Yeah. Rich Birch — Is that the kind of thing, like more, more peace, maybe fruit pray through the fruit of the Spirit. You had mentioned that. Will Hutcherson — Yeah. Rich Birch — Like, Hey, love more joy, more peace, more of that kind of thing.Will Hutcherson — I think you just mentioned it. Rich Birch — Yep. Will Hutcherson — Like we want them to take healthy steps, right? Rich Birch — Right. Will Hutcherson — And so pray those prayers, like God help us to to take the healthy steps to overcoming our anxiety. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Yeah, that’s good. Will Hutcherson — God help us to acknowledge and know that you’re with us… Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Yep. Will Hutcherson — …in the midst of our anxiety or in the midst of our fear. God help us to be brave and to do the hard thing even when we’re afraid, right? Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good. Yeah. Will Hutcherson — Like it’s it’s the recognizing that “even when, help us do” …and move in the right direction. So it just, I think it’s a little bit more mindful… Rich Birch — Yep. Will Hutcherson — …that this is where we are and it’s okay for where we are, you know? And we don’t want whether it’s a student or someone in our church to feel like just because they have anxiety or because they’re facing fear or depression that somehow they’re disappointing God or they’re far from God. Rich Birch — Wow, that’s good. Will Hutcherson — It’s just a condition. It’s just something that they’re experiencing. And and I think the more that we can use language that helps people to recognize mental health challenges, because our brain is an organ, is just part of how our bodies sometimes get out of whack. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Will Hutcherson — And so yes, we do need the healing of the Lord, but it’s both faith and action. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. Will Hutcherson — And so just like you know if I had a heart condition, we would never ever say it’s because of my lack of ah faith that I need to take… Rich Birch — Yeah. Will Hutcherson — …you know ah cholesterol or… Rich Birch — Yep. Will Hutcherson — …or high blood pressure pills, you know. Rich Birch — Right. Will Hutcherson — But sometimes I think unintentionally, whether it’s within our ah you know our sermon, I don’t I don’t think it’s really within our sermons, but I think people just tend to generally equate because I’m struggling with a brain thing, it must be that I’m not, you know, close enough to God or God’s not helping me in some way. And it’s like, no, that’s not true. Rich Birch — Right. Will Hutcherson — Like it’s just a condition that you’re facing and and God is very much present in the midst of that. Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, that’s good. That’s so good. I appreciate that. And I know he just even in my own family. Like we, my uncle tells, he had a really ah terrible internal, um, you know, disease, condition. And he was really pressing in with the Lord asking for healing. And he ended up at a church where like the pastor, you know, they were praying for him like over a bunch of time. And then eventually the pastor literally unrolled the like, so let’s talk about the unacknowledged, the unforgiven sin in your life. Because we’ve been praying about this for a long time and it hasn’t been healed and what, you know, what it’s got to be a problem with you. And and literally my uncle like walked out of the church that day and it was decades was like, you know, because of that. And this is the kind of thing that we’re, this is the weight that we’re carrying as we engage with students, with people around these issues. We’ve got to be very careful with the language we use. Will Hutcherson — We do. We do. We got to guard and have good theology. I mean… Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s bad. …because I hear those kinds of things all the time and I’m like, what about Paul’s thorn? Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely. Will Hutcherson — How do you resolve that? You know? Rich Birch — Yes, yes, no, absolutely. Well, this has been good. Well I know there’s a ton we could talk about here. And I know, like I say, I know there’s lots of people that are leaning in asking questions, but I actually do want to get to a resource that I think would be really helpful for ah leaders that are listening in today. Rich Birch — You’ve written a couple of books, but one of them particular is called Seen: Despair and Anxiety in Kids and Teenagers and the Power of Connection. I bumped into this book and I thought, man, this would be great for leaders. It could be a great tool for maybe, maybe you’re a senior leader listening in and you’re like, Man, what if I should read this with my student ministry team or with my kids ministry team? We could kind of go through it together, help us try to cultivate a more you know positive environment on this front. But tell me about this book. What were you thinking when you ah put this together? Will Hutcherson — Yeah. So Dr. Chinwé and I wrote this ah specifically because of the youth mental health crisis. Rich Birch — Yep. Will Hutcherson — But these principles apply regardless of the relationship. So whether it’s a parent to a child relationship or a small group leader to a child, or even just a leader to a staff member you know, or pastor to a staff member or pastor to an adult. Because they’re connection tools and there’s really a lot of science and research behind how God wired our brains and how connection asked believe actually influences the brain towards healing, especially when they’re facing mental health challenges. Will Hutcherson — So I’ve actually had a few few senior leaders actually ask me to rewrite Seen even in the context of leadership because it’s easily applied to leadership. So… Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good. Will Hutcherson — Yeah, the the principles are are very simple to understand, but it’s really ah practical connection tools and how those connection tools will move the brain towards healing Rich Birch — Love it. Love it. So good. I also loved as a just as ah a sidebar—this caught my eye as an author—I love that you right up front you said a two hour read to build strong relationship with your kid or a teenager. Will Hutcherson — Yeah. Rich Birch — Which is wonderful. Like I love that. You’re calling out like, hey, you’re not going to get swamped by this book, like, which again, you know, a team member, you could give this to your team and say, hey, we’re going to read this next week. You you can find the time in the next week for us to, you know, to read that. Rich Birch — Any um you know kind of reaction or response as you’ve had this book out there you know that has been particularly encouraging? Any stories of like, oh, it’s been kind of cool how this tool has been used by you know churches or people or individuals over the years? Will Hutcherson — Yeah, I’ve been, I mean, surprised and shocked at how much um this book has helped so many parents, ah small group leaders, youth pastors. We get stories nearly every week… Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. Will Hutcherson — …from somebody who says, hey, this changed my parenting. Hey, this changed the way that I led. It changed the way that I connected with my kids. Rich Birch — Right. Will Hutcherson — And it’s ah you know I don’t think Seen is necessarily something that people read and it’s like, oh wow… Rich Birch — Right. Will Hutcherson — …this is like revolutionary. But I think what people enjoy about what we did is we made the neuroscience really simple. Rich Birch — That’s good. Will Hutcherson — In fact, almost almost too simple where sometimes I apologize to the smart people. I’m like, I’m sorry. Rich Birch — Yes. Will Hutcherson — I made it, you know, we made it this simple, but, um, but we wanted like the average person to be able to read it and… Let me redo that. We wanted the average person to be able to read it and read it within two hours, you know, very quickly. And ah be able to process the information and apply it to their life right away. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so great. This is fantastic. Well, just as we wrap up today’s ah episode, anything else you want to share just as we we close out today’s conversation? Will Hutcherson — No, thank you so much for what you do. Thanks for empowering leaders and helping leaders to to lead this church. Rich Birch — Appreciate that. Thanks so much, Will. If people want to track with you, ah kind of connect with your ministry, where do we want to send them online? Will Hutcherson — Yeah, you can go to willhutch.com and that’ll kind of direct you in any direction you like. We have a couple of books, like I said, that we have and then courses and you can reach out to me there. Rich Birch — Nice. Thanks so much, Will. Really appreciate you being on the show today. Thank you.