unSeminary Podcast

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of unSeminary! A quick heads-up: Rich experienced some sound issues during the recording; thank you for bearing with us. Fortunately, our guest, Robert Watson, comes through loud and clear, and you won’t want to miss the incredible insights he shares. Thanks for your grace and enjoy the conversation! Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Robert Watson, Teaching Pastor at Sun Valley Community Church, one of the fastest-growing churches in the U.S. With over two decades at Sun Valley, Robert has seen thousands take steps toward Jesus and is passionate about helping new believers grow in uncomplicated, practical faith. Is your church making it easy for new believers to follow Jesus? In this episode, Robert shares how Sun Valley breaks down barriers to discipleship, creates clear next steps, and equips people to live out their faith in real relationships. Removing barriers for new believers. // Many new Christians struggle with church “insider language” and cultural assumptions that can make faith feel inaccessible. Sun Valley intentionally explains biblical basics—like chapters and verses, or the difference between Old and New Testament—to ensure guests and new believers feel included. This approach doesn’t alienate mature believers; instead, it fosters a culture where everyone can invite friends knowing they’ll be understood and welcomed. Simplifying without watering down. // Pastors can unintentionally overcomplicate teaching by focusing on academic discoveries or niche theological debates that don’t serve most attendees. Keep the main thing the main thing—offering practical, actionable truths while giving seasoned believers a “bone to chew on” for deeper thought. This balance helps churches disciple people at every stage without overwhelming newcomers. Creating moments of decision. // Robert emphasizes the importance of “line in the sand” moments—clear invitations for people to say “yes” to following Jesus. Drawing from Jesus’ ministry pattern of “come and see” and “follow me,” Sun Valley uses high-attendance weekends and special events to present the gospel and call for commitment. Baptisms, held five times a year, provide a public step of faith and an opportunity to connect people into the life of the church. Relationship and responsibility. // Long-term discipleship happens best in the context of relationships and shared responsibility. At Sun Valley, new believers are encouraged to join small groups and serving teams. Serving not only builds community but also engages people in mission—helping them grow by using their gifts to serve others. For many, serving feels like a more accessible first step than joining a small group, especially for those unfamiliar with church culture. Simply Following Jesus. // Robert’s new book, Simply Following Jesus: Practices for Living Out an Uncomplicated Faith, distills foundational truths for new believers into a practical, accessible guide. Given to every adult and high schooler baptized at Sun Valley, the book starts with a clear presentation of the gospel, explores the habits Jesus modeled, and shows how to live out faith through healthy relationships. The goal is not to overwhelm with “to-dos,” but to invite people into rhythms that help them experience God’s grace daily. Pursuing new believers. // Robert urges churches not to assume new Christians will naturally integrate into church life. Instead, proactively pursue them through personal connection and follow-up. Early faith is a fragile time, and intentional relational investment can help new believers remain rooted and growing. To learn more about Sun Valley Community Church, visit sunvalleycc.com. You can find Simply Following Jesus at Amazon, Baker Books, or Barnes & Noble. 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. So glad that you have decided to tune in. You’re going to be rewarded. Today is a fantastic conversation around an area that I know that many of our churches wrestle with, and we want to try to give you some practical steps, some kind of resources to move forward today.Rich Birch — This is one of those episodes you’re going to want action on when we get to the end of it. Excited to have Robert Watson with us. He is a teaching pastor at Sun Valley Community Church. It’s one of the fastest growing churches in the country with, if I’m counting correctly, seven locations in Arizona. He speaks at camps and conferences across the country, trains communicators both locally and internationally. He’s also written a new book that we’re going to get a chance to talk about today. Robert, welcome to the podcast. So glad that you’re here.Robert Watson — Rich, thank you so much. It’s a huge honor to be here and and join you on the podcast. And yeah, I’m excited about what we’re talking about as well.Rich Birch — No, this is on this is our honor. Thanks so much for for taking time to be with us. Why don’t you share a little bit about your journey to come to Sun Valley? Maybe tell us a little bit about Sun Valley, kind of what led you to this this point. Talk about your current role. Kind of give us the Robert story.Robert Watson — Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I felt called into youth ministry when I was a student and my life had kind of blown up and there were people in the church world that kind of opened up their their lives to me, and it made a radical difference. And so I thought, okay, maybe God’s calling me to to be a youth pastor. And I’ll try to do this—you know, some, sometimes pastors can talk a little bit too long when they tell stories—so I’ll try and do this as condensed as I can.Rich Birch — It’s okay. It’s okay.Robert Watson — But basically, I was as I was going into college and going to Bible college and thinking about seminary and all of the things, I started thinking about who has you know, just great legacy in ministry. And I looked around kind of the East Valley. I’m from Arizona. And so the East Valley of Arizona, and there were a handful of youth pastors that had a massive impact.Robert Watson — And I said, okay, what is it that they all have in common? And the answer was absolutely nothing. They were all totally different. Like some were great organizational leaders. Some were really good communicators. Some could just, they knew how to, how to attract people. People they were fun to be around, but they were all so different except for every single one of them had longevity in ministry. Rich Birch — That’s good.Robert Watson — And so I decided, okay, that’s going to be part of my strategy is I want to, I want to find a church that’s not just a job. I want to find a church that this would be my church community. This would be a place I could invite friends and family and neighbors and not be cringing when they walked in. And so I, again, long story medium, I got a phone call from Sun Valley Community Church and they said, Hey, we know you love where you’re at.Robert Watson — (I didn’t. They didn’t know that. I was actually going to go into banking.) And they said, would you consider taking on a youth pastor role out at Sun Valley? And so I went to the church service and I walked in and this was 20, over 21 years ago now, almost 22 years ago. And I walked in and I went, there’s just something about this place. I’m going to go to this church, even if I don’t work here.Rich Birch — That’s cool.Robert Watson — And I did. I ended up taking that job and I still feel that way about Sun Valley. When you walk into Sun Valley, there’s something about it. God’s anointing is on it. The Holy Spirit is working. People are being loved in Jesus name. Rich Birch — That’s so good.Robert Watson — And we see a lot of people meet Jesus in that environment.Robert Watson — And so I just committed to, yeah those days when you get tired and you’re like, maybe I should do something else, just to stick with it and and to work through conflict with people, get to the other side of it. And I found that’s been so rewarding just to stick with it long term. And so that’s how, so it’s actually my first ever full-time job… Rich Birch — Oh nice – love it. Robert Watson — …and I’ve been on staff now going on 22nd year.Rich Birch — So good. I love that. I love the idea of longevity. You know one of the things that we’ve said in other contexts from like a church growth point of view, one of the telltale signs of a church that gets to multiple thousand people is the senior leadership team has is going into or is in their third decade. Robert Watson — Yeah. Rich Birch — Like they they’ve been at this for a long time.Robert Watson — Yep.Rich Birch — And so I think we often, you know, we think of those churches that just seem to explode out of the box, but that’s just not normative. Robert Watson — Yeah.Rich Birch — And I love what Sun Valley’s done. It’s a great church. If you’re if you’re not tracking with Sun Valley friends, you really should. Doing all kinds of things right. And today we want to talk kind of specifically around as people take steps towards Jesus. Sun Valley, your ministry, is known for people who are are actually coming to faith, which is amazing. It shouldn’t be like a rare thing in churches, but unfortunately it is sometimes. I said that, you didn’t say that.Rich Birch — So we want to talk through some of that today. Every church leader wants to see people take meaningful steps in following Jesus. From your experience, what are some common barriers that but new believers, people who are just starting to follow Jesus face when they’re starting out in their faith.Robert Watson — Yeah, there’s there’s this secret language in the church world that we don’t realize we pick up. If you’ve grown up around church, there’s so many things, and we use acronyms, we use letters, we’ll refer to things like, oh, VBS or whatever. And people are like, what in the world are they talking about?Robert Watson — Even when we open up the Bible, we’re like, what are the big numbers and what are the little numbers? Like, we we forget if you grew up around church, which a lot of people that are in church ministry, they they grew up around it or they’re somewhat familiar with it. We don’t realize how foreign some of the language and the thought process when we start singing songs about the blood and people are like, what are we… Rich Birch — What are you talking about?Robert Watson — What is this place? Why are we singing? You know? And so one of the things that that we’ve tried to be intentional about, of making it really easy to understand what we’re talking about. Like we’re still going to open up the Bible, but we’ll explain, hey, the big numbers, those are chapters. The little numbers, those are verses.Rich Birch — Yeah.Robert Watson — And these are just tools to help us find different things in the Bible, because the Bible is actually a collection of books. Like we we do the same kind of introduction anytime we talk about Old Testament, New Testament. What is the Old Testament? What is the New Testament? And so we’ve found that by giving kind of those easy steps to understanding, one, it doesn’t make our church dumber. Rich Birch — Right. Robert Watson — Like people aren’t, you know, that grew up around church or people that have their their doctorates, they’re not sitting back going, I can’t believe they’re explaining this. We’re creating a culture where they know they can bring their non-Christian friend and they’re not going to feel alienated. They’re going to understand. But we’re going to get into what does the Bible actually say? What is the meat of it? But we’re going to do it in a way that we can take everybody on that journey with us.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I yeah, I think sometimes there’s this false dichotomy in churches where it’s like on one side are like the like trivia driven churches where it’s like they think like, hey, if we just get people understanding all kinds of trivia about the Bible, that’s somehow the goal. And that’s not the goal. That’s the goal is is discipleship, actually seeing people grow. And so we’ve got to take people from where they are to where we want them to be. Robert Watson — That’s right.Rich Birch — Let’s double click on that. What are some other ways you’ve seen kind of this over complexity, this kind of like our way of making things more complex than they should be as it relates to kind of um following Jesus that we might be not aware of – there’s like a forest for the trees thing, if we’ve grown up in the church.Robert Watson — Yeah, I think because a lot of times the voices that we listen to, first of all, are our own. And so if I’m a pastor and I’m putting together a sermon and I’ve done this sermon before and I’ve done you know I’ve done something on this passage before, I get excited about discovering new things when I when I’m preparing a message.Robert Watson — I get excited about a new book that I just read. Or I get excited about this new archaeological discovery. And we found this manuscript here and it actually matches that. So those are things that I get fired up about. And I’m like, oh, man, this would be great fodder for this message coming up this this next weekend. Or this would be great content. And instead of listening to those, or my friends that are you know church people or other pastors, we get excited about things that sometimes are confusing.Rich Birch — Right.Robert Watson — And it’s a new it’s a new conversation that started in the academia world, and it’s things we want to engage in. It’s just not helpful, especially for the person that doesn’t have that framework. Robert Watson — And so for me, I think one of the reasons why we do make things a little overly complex is because we’re just excited about a new thought, even though we’ve been growing in our understanding of the Bible for decades. And it’s been layer by layer. We’ve been building kind of this foundation of our understanding. We have to remember, most 99.9% of the people who are, you know, in church on a weekend, they don’t have that same background and foundation.Robert Watson — And so it’s, it’s important once again to go, okay, what is actually practical here and what is helpful? And I’m all for Bible studies. So don’t, don’t hear that I’m, I’m not a fan of…Rich Birch — Yes.Robert Watson — …you know, go read N.T. Wright, go study your, you know, do your commentary stuff and all of that. I’m, I love doing that. I get excited about that because I think God’s word is incredible and it’s full of so many deep truths, but sometimes the deepest truths are the obvious ones that we should do something that are very practical, that are very simple. Those to me are the deepest things. The other stuff is just interesting. It’s fun. It’s it’s exciting.Rich Birch — Yes.Robert Watson — And one of the terms, we have a a mentor, Chad, who’s our lead pastor. He and I have been working together. He got hired on just two months after I did. So we’ve been in this long run together. And we have a mentor who’s now a retired older gentleman. And he always says, sometimes when it comes to church people in the church, you got to remember every message, give the dog a bone. Robert Watson — And what he what do he means by that is is people who’ve been around it for a while, they want something interesting, thoughtful to chew on. But once you give that to them and they can gnaw on that bone for a while, you’re good. Like you can actually now go back to the simple message and and the preaching.Robert Watson — And so we try to do that when we whenever we present, that there’s something that the church person goes, I never thought of it that way, or I never heard it explained quite that clearly or from that angle, or that was a new thought on that that old idea. And and and we just make it really practical from there.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. ah You had a a friend, a mentor of mine who said, you got to put the cookies on the bottom shelf, like make the main thing the main thing.Robert Watson — Yeah.Rich Birch — Like, how do we ensure that we don’t make things more complex than they need to be? And then also there’s there’s a profound thought there, friends. It applies to so many areas of leadership that I don’t want you to miss, which is we’re not the target for what we’re working with as a leader in all areas, you are, you’re leading. And so you’re in a different place. And so it’s not about impressing you or impressing, you know, your friends who are at the same spot. You’ve got to think about where are people at? You know, that’s why they’re called sheep. We have to lead them. You know, we’re called to be shepherds to move them from where they are to a more desired future. Rich Birch — Well, at Sun Valley, ah let’s double click on this, kind of keep digging into this idea. You know, you see thousands of people come to faith every year and and we want to learn from that. What have you learned about helping people move from that initial decision? So let’s say they’ve decided to say, hey, I want to follow Jesus into a growing active relationship with Jesus. We we want to move people from that kind of like, hey, I feel something. I had this initial experience into an active growing relationship. What are you doing to to help see that happen?Robert Watson — Yeah, that’s a great question. So there’s there’s a few things that we see Jesus do in his his ministry, and and I want to cover them real quickly because I do think it is important. If you want to know how to help people who say yes to Jesus, you got to have a line in the sand moment where you invite them to say yes to following Jesus. Robert Watson — And so if you look at if you look at like John and you look at the ministry of Jesus, it kind of had four parts to it. So there was come and see, which is woman at the well. Jesus has this interaction. She goes to the whole village and says, hey, come and see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could it be this is this is the Messiah? Come and see. Robert Watson — Follow me. There are line in the sand moments where Jesus gives a hard teaching and he says, are you in or are you out? So he draws in a crowd and and then there’s a line in the sand. Are you following me? Are you just here because I multiplied fish and loaves and that that was impressive and you guys followed me around Galilee and you want to see it again?Robert Watson — So “come and see” and “follow me”. Those are things that we can do up front on stage. That’s kind of one on many. But then there’s there’s “be with me” and “remain in me” are kind of the the next stages. Robert Watson — And those things only happen in the context of conversation and close up and community. And so at best as a upfront communicator, the the best that I can do is you know, the big crowd moments, the come and see, and then a line in the sand, follow me. But I do think the more we invite people to say yes to following Jesus, the more people we will see say yes to following Jesus. Rich Birch — For sure.Robert Watson — I think sometimes we’re just waiting for that to happen organically. And it’s okay on a big weekend when we have like coming up soon, we’re going to have a big weekend with a lot of guests because we’re back to school in Arizona and it’s one of our highest attended weekends of the year. And so we’re going to do a line in the sand moment because people invite friends… Rich Birch — Right. Robert Watson — …we do some fun stuff and we’ll go, Hey, this is what Jesus did for you. And if you want to put your trust in him, he’s already said yes to you. If you’d be willing to say yes to his invitation, he’ll transform your life. And here’s how he does that and invite them to say yes. And we’ll have, you know, hundreds of people go, I’m in. That’s good. Robert Watson — And then we do baptisms five times a year, which is, again, this is now a public profession of that that inward decision. And from there, our goal is if we can get people into real relationship and then also give them real responsibility. Rich Birch — That’s good. Robert Watson — Because if if they have real relationship, meaning there’s somebody who knows their name, there’s somebody who knows when they’re there, when they’re not there, they know what’s going on in their world. They know what’s most important to them that week because they got this big thing going on. It’s impossible to do that from stage one on many. And so that’s why we push things like small groups. We push things like serving because it’s one thing to go, okay, I’m going to show up. But if you say, hey can you, we’re doing small group at my house. Can you bring the soda or whatever? And, and I’m, now I have responsibility.Robert Watson — Now, if I don’t show up, like the group’s not going to have any Dr. Pepper, like I can’t do that to them. Rich Birch — Right. Robert Watson — And so there’s any time we can get people into that, that relationship and responsibility, now they’re into kind of the life of the church. Rich Birch — That’s good. Robert Watson — And the goal of “remain in me” is that as they, as they start serving others, they start to experience more of Jesus, no longer just in their head of like, okay, I’m getting knowledge. Now I’m practically serving others. Robert Watson — And if you think about in your own story, Rich, and if I think about my own story, one of the times we’ve grown the most in our relationship with Jesus is when we really started using the gifts that he’s given us to serve other people.Rich Birch — Yeah, so true. Yep.Robert Watson — That’s Jesus, when he washes the disciples’ feet, he doesn’t say, I’ve given you a a really good teaching. You should go teach other people. He goes, I set you an example. Go do this, and you’ll be blessed if you do it. And he’s he’s telling us there’s something about serving others that’s kind of that that deeper level of understanding who Jesus is, and that’s his invitation to us.Rich Birch — Yes. Yep. yeah I love that. This is the thing we’ve seen. So I’ve seen in multiple contexts where on the like, I would say and maybe on the like church assimilation side, which is I realize is kind of connected to what we’re talking about, but it’s it like slightly different where, but it’s, it’s a related, it rhymes, that I’ve really seen I would say post COVID, like in the last five years, churches shift to a lot more, like we always want people into teams and You know, and or on, you know, on groups or sorry, on teams and in groups, you want to see them do both of those things.Rich Birch — But there has been, I would say, a stronger emphasis ah around getting people plugged into helping somehow. That there’s been like, hey, there’s a there’s an inherent understanding that people need to be a part of the mission. That’s actually a part of what discipleship is like. What is that? Robert Watson — Yeah. Rich Birch — I know this is a little bit off from what we said we were going talk about, but tell me a little bit more what that looks like at Sun Valley. Because I think that is, I think this is definitely a trend we have seen. I’ve seen it echo in other other contexts. What’s that look like for you guys? As someone takes a step toward Jesus, you’re trying to say, hey, we want to help you actually plug in and and get connected, not just a learning phase, but like a doing phase as well. What’s that look like?Robert Watson — Yeah, that’s a great question. And I think a lot of times, especially you get a bunch of us executives together and we want a nice linear path, right? We want to we want to map it all out.Rich Birch — Right.Robert Watson — It’s going to look really good on a whiteboard.Rich Birch — It’s going to be great on the whiteboard. Exactly.Robert Watson — Yep. They’re going to go from here to here to here.Rich Birch — Yes.Robert Watson — That’s just not how humanity works. People are messy.Rich Birch — That’s true.Robert Watson — People are in process. And so there needs to be, I think, a a willingness and an openness to go, okay, it depends on the person… Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Robert Watson — …and and what is best for this individual might not be that they follow this exact assimilation track. And so I think the reason why probably you’re noticing and sensing more of an emphasis on plugging people into serving, because the things that you get out of like a small group or some churches, they’ll do, you know, more of the like Sunday school model or whatever.Robert Watson — When you plug somebody into serving, you kind of get all the good things that come from being in a group thrown into that. So if you’re, if you have a team, that’s a solid team, you have your coaches, your mentors on that team. Usually you’re teaching some kind of content and to kind of go back to even the premise of this conversation, the deep truths of Scripture, we’re teaching in our elementary school. Rich Birch — Right.Robert Watson — We’re teaching these things in our with our students. Rich Birch — Yep. Robert Watson — The deep things of of Scripture, they’re accessible to everybody. And so even if you’re not in this context where it’s geared directly towards you, the content’s there, the relationship’s there. You have real responsibility. Kids are asking you questions.Rich Birch — That’s good.Robert Watson — And you’re having your leader huddle before the service starts or you’re hanging out afterwards.Robert Watson — I was just on a mission trip with 43. It was a high school mission trip. And me and the other leaders on that trip, man, we built great connections. We’re going to one of, they live far away. We’re going to their house next Sunday with our family because we just built these connections serving students together.Robert Watson — And I do think there’s a lot of that that naturally happens. I think in some people’s minds, though, they’re like, I’m not ready to serve yet. But for some, that’s before they ever go sit in somebody’s house and like knock on the door of somebody’s house… Rich Birch — Yes. …and go sit in the living room and talk about their feelings. Rich Birch — Right. Robert Watson — I invited—this is a funny story—I invited my next door neighbors in our previous house. They had just given their lives to Jesus. They came to Sun Valley, said yes to following Jesus. We had baptized them. And I was like, hey, we do Bible study at my house. We do the small group, you should come over. And they walked in and they saw a circle of chairs. And I saw them look at this circle of chairs like, what kind of a cult am I walking into right now?Rich Birch — That’s true.Robert Watson — And everybody’s sitting down in these chairs and nobody, there’s no alcohol. So for my, so I say all of this for my neighbors, they’re like, who does this? Like they, they understood a party.Rich Birch — Right, right.Robert Watson — They knew that you hang out at parties. People have drinks, you bring them food. It’s a potluck. Sitting in a circle in a living room talking about your feelings was very scary for my neighbors. Rich Birch — Right.Robert Watson — But then when I was like, Hey, do you guys want to, we go a hour early before service and we we serve. They’re like, yeah, we’re in. And they were more than willing to jump in and serve.Rich Birch — Right.Robert Watson — For them, that felt like that is the right next step for them. Rich Birch — Right. Robert Watson — And so I was just reminded, oh yeah, I’m so used to this. For the rest of the world, sometimes this looks a little weird what we do and we just it’s normal.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.Robert Watson — Yeah.Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s a good insight for sure. And, and yeah, there’s something about asking people, they can kind of picture what the serving thing looks like. They can picture, Hey, this is what those first steps look like, but, but we don’t have a lot of kind of dynamic equivalents of the, like you say, sit in a circle and, it goes in all kinds of crazy directions.Robert Watson — Yeah.Rich Birch — Well, you’ve written a book. I want to make sure people pick up copies.Robert Watson — Yeah.Rich Birch — My bias is just right out there, friends. I think you should be buying copies of these with your team and maybe even as a resource as a church. It’s called “Simply Following Jesus: Practices for Living Out an Uncomplicated Faith”. This a huge deal. What led you? What was the kind of spark that led you to write this book?Robert Watson — Yeah. So because of the the context of our church and the number of individuals that that we’ve seen say yes to following Jesus and just in massive numbers, and it’s overwhelming for them because they don’t know, okay, what do you do first? Where do you start? How do how do you really get this thing? Like I’m all in, they hear the gospel, they’re excited about following Jesus, and they’re just kind of: now what? And, and, and so to go, well, you know, we do this class couple times a year, you know, you can join us for that.Robert Watson — And and so we just decided, what if we gave them a resource that really took, cause we’ll talk about all the things that are in, in the book that I wrote. We’ll talk about that over the course of a couple of years. Like what if we took really the foundational pieces, we put it together in one resource and we gave it just as a gift to people.Robert Watson — And so we’ve started now, we, we do baptisms five times a year. And now whenever somebody gets baptized, if they’re a high schooler or an adult, we give them a copy of this book. Rich Birch — So good. Robert Watson — And it really lays out, it starts with the gospel, because I think where a lot of people are confused, and this is Christians and non-Christians, is understanding the gospel.Rich Birch — Right.Robert Watson — Is understanding that we are this is not a works salvation. We’re not trying to earn something. We’re not trying to earn back something, that this is a gift from God. And so really understanding the foundation of the gospel and and that it is because God loves us that he’s invited us into this relationship. It’s not if we do these things, then he will love us. No, God loves you no matter who you are, no matter what you’ve done, no matter what’s been done to you. So it really starts with kind of laying that foundation.Robert Watson — And I think it’s important if you grew up in church like I did, you know, you have to keep coming back to the gospel again and again and be reminded of it again and again.Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s true. It’s true.Robert Watson — And so really wanted to start with that foundation, understanding who is Jesus, the nature of God’s love for us. So that’s kind of the the beginning, which is a little bit theological. But I try to make it a simple as as possible. And I’m stealing that idea from Jesus who said, hey, all the law, all the prophets, let me take the whole Jewish scriptures and let me sum sum it up for you.Rich Birch — Right.Robert Watson — It’s love the Lord your God with all your heart heart, soul, mind and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. And when Jesus does that, that to me is kind of the the model, the example. Okay, can we take these big truths that, I mean, you and I, we could get in a room and we could unpack verse by verse and we would love it. And it would be brilliant and beautiful and wonderful. And Jesus goes, okay, but also let me just sum it up and simplify it for you.Rich Birch — Right, right.Robert Watson — So that’s, that’s kind of that first part. So simple foundation. And looking at what are the habits that Jesus modeled and that Jesus taught. Because if you look at the early church, you had a lot of people that that were illiterate. You had a lot of people that they didn’t understand all the Jewish scriptures and everything, but they understood the example that Jesus set and that his disciples are going, here’s what Jesus did. Follow me as I follow Jesus. This is what this looks like practically.Robert Watson — And there are some habits. There are things that Jesus expects us to do, like spending time with him in prayer, you know spending time in relationship with others. And then the third part of the book is just simple relationships. Rich Birch — Right.Robert Watson — It’s how do you take this foundation of the gospel, these habits that Jesus modeled, and apply it into your relationships? Because at the end of the day, the Bible, it’s it’s a relational book. It’s a book about how to have right relationship with God and right relationship with the people around us, which again, to back to where Jesus says, all the law, all the prophets hang on these two commands. Rich Birch — Yeah.Robert Watson — And the and the first is like the second, it’s love God, love people.Rich Birch — Love it. Well, I want to dive into that a little bit, but but let me give a little hearty endorsement. I really do think that this resource could be, I think is is fitting in a great spot when I was going through it, I thought the same thing that that you said there, man, this would be so fantastic for people that are getting baptized, for people that are taking that first step. Maybe someone’s you know, just had some sort of encounter at something like Alpha and they’re like, hey, they’re looking for something next. Like, what is that? Is that resource?Rich Birch — But I want double clip click on the simple relationships part. So reflecting on my own early discipleship experience when I first became a Christian, I feel like there was that tension of like, the gospel is a free gift and you don’t need to do anything, earn anything. And then immediately the discipleship went into, and then here are things you should do. Robert Watson — yeahRich Birch — Here are, do this, read that, all that. And you don’t handle it like that in the habit section at all. I love the way you frame it, but but I think early discipleship can kind of land in that way. Like it’s a free gift. Now here’s 10 things you’ve got to do.Robert Watson — That’s right. Yeah.Rich Birch — This relationship part I found as an interesting nuance. Unpack that a little bit more. Robert Watson — Yeah. Rich Birch — Why was that in there as a, or why do you see that as a critical piece, ah kind of an an an initial conversation someone should be having around their faith?Robert Watson — Yeah, I think because there are there are things that are disciplines in following Jesus, but they’re not disciplines in the sense of like, oh, I got to do this difficult thing because it’s the secret handshake that gets me in, you know. Rich Birch — Right. Yes. Robert Watson — Or it’s the I’m climbing this proverbial mountain. They’re just new ways to experience God’s grace.Rich Birch — Right. That’s good.Robert Watson — And so when there’s habits, the habits are actually invitations. It’s not you you ought to and you should, and and we feel like we’re just guilted into, I need to read my Bible more. I need to pray more. These are open invitations that God has provided these ways for us to experience His grace each and every day. Rich Birch — That’s good. Robert Watson — And it’d be transformed by His grace each and every day. And so even just that that little different way of looking at it. It’s an invitation and it’s not one that God’s forcing upon you. It’s open to you. It’s available to you. And what, what I’ve experienced when I’ve stepped into that invitation. it’s scary in my mind, but it’s so rewarding in actual practice.Rich Birch — That’s good.Robert Watson — Like it’s usually just in my head space. I’m like, oh man, I’m gonna read my Bible every day. Now I genuinely, and I’ve been reading my Bible for a long time. I genuinely enjoy starting off my day. I have I use the Bible app now because I have a streak counter and I’m a little bit competitive. And so I can be like, oh man, I’m on this many days in a row. Rich Birch — Yes. Robert Watson — And I use that and I and I just go, okay, Holy Spirit, what do you wanna speak to me this morning? And I’ll start reading through ah a passage. Sometimes I’ll get through a whole chapter, sometimes just a section. And I walk away and it’s like, it’s recalibrated my day. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Robert Watson — And and my day now is it’s pointed in a right direction. I’ve experienced God’s grace. Sometimes I get a little whisper from the Holy Spirit. Sometimes I’m just groggy and I did it and I move on, but I’m experiencing God’s grace in new ways by doing that. Rich Birch — That’s good.Robert Watson — And so that’s, I think that’s the important thing for any new believer to understand. God is not trying to like force you. He doesn’t want to rob you. He actually comes to to give. He comes to to share in his grace, to share in his love. And anytime he asks us to do something, it’s ultimately for our good. And it’s an invitation, not a, hey, I’m going to make you do this thing because now you you obey every every word that I say. No, it’s an invitation to to experience his grace in new ways.Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good. This is a fantastic resource. And have you seen, you know, any impact as, it’s been used at Sun Valley or maybe in some other context, maybe a story or two of like, you know, how it’s been particularly effective or been, you know, a tool in the hands of somebody who’s taken some next steps, some early steps towards Jesus.Robert Watson — Yeah, it’s, it’s always, it’s always fascinating to me. I just, as a, as an author, as a writer, I never know, like, hey, is this good? Is this helpful? Rich Birch — Right. That’s true. Yes. Robert Watson — Is this you know is this going to is this going to resonate with somebody? I don’t know.Rich Birch — Yeah.Robert Watson — And I’m always amazed at how God has has used these resources in in different ways. This one in particular. So the book’s only been out for a couple months now. And I there was an older gentleman who actually…he was being forced into retirement. And so his job, his time, his whole company was kind of disbanding and he was being forced into early retirement, but he was going to throw a retirement party for all his fellow employees. And this is not, these these employees are far from Jesus. And he goes, Hey, I read your book. And as kind of my last parting gift, I want to give it as a resource. You know, can I come by with a box of these books and you sign it?Robert Watson — And so at his retirement party, he gave, you know how like at kids’ birthday parties, they get the little bag of candy when they leave, they get the little door prize.Rich Birch — Yes.Robert Watson — He had my book there. And so I just wrote little notes about how how much God loves these individuals and prayed over them. And he handed them out as kind of a, hey, I would love for you to have what I have. And it’s this relationship with Jesus. And this this book will actually help you understand what it is. And and so he gave that out. I thought, man, what a cool evangelism tool.Robert Watson — And for this person, you know, and his kind of last is probably the last time these people all be in a room together. And he thought, hey, this is a great opportunity to maybe share the gospel with with my coworkers one last time.Rich Birch — That’s cool. That’s so cool. I love that. Well, if there’s a pastor that’s listening in that that wants to better serve people who are taking early steps, outside of buying copies of your book, because I want them to do that. But outside of that, what’s one thing you know you could encourage them to take kind of an early step they could take, maybe even the next month, to try to help those people who are taking early steps in their relationship with Jesus? What’s one kind of practical advice you give to them?Robert Watson — Yeah, I do think because so much of following Jesus has lived out in the context of relationships, what I what I think it’s important for all churches, especially large churches, and I know a lot of the people who listen on your podcast here, they’re churches over a thousand. It’s easy for people to become numbers in all of that.Robert Watson — And the reminder that every number has a name, every name has a story, every story matters to God. The the more we can get those stories, one, and think in front of our staff to remind our our staff, hey, these are real people. These are people that you know. These are people that you’ve been in conversation with. The more we can get those names, those stories in front of our staff.Robert Watson — And I would just say for those new believers, especially when somebody says yes to Jesus, Don’t just hope that they kind of naturally assimilate. Have some way that you pursue those individuals.Rich Birch — That’s good.Robert Watson — Let them know that they’re seen. Let them know that they’re known. Go out of your way because for some people, it’s going to take several times of saying, hey, we should grab coffee. Hey, we should hang out.Rich Birch — Right.Robert Watson — Let me hear your story before they say yes to that. I think those are people worth pursuing. And I think, too, if you look at you know the parable that Jesus gave, when that seed’s planted, there’s a lot of things. That soil can be rocky, can be thorny. The enemy can come snatch that away. I think it’s a fragile time in those early stages of a new believer that if ever there’s a time for us to go out of our way to relationally connect and pursue, that that is the time to do it.Rich Birch — Yeah. Love that. I yeah when I first became a christian when i was a student there was a guy youth leader in my church that he like jumped on it, and which was amazing and like we met every week for a year. Which when I look back on that this guy, Rick Peet, incredible leader in my life.Rich Birch — You know, I look back on that man, the impact that that had on me because he took the he took the kind of first step there. He was the first mover in that relationship. Hey, let’s let’s get together. Let’s talk about it. that’s that’s That’s fantastic. Robert Watson — Yeah.Rich Birch — Well, we want to make sure people pick up copies of your book. Again, it’s “Simply Following Jesus: Practices for Living Out an Uncomplicated Faith”. I’m assuming people can get it at Amazon. That’s usually where good books are sold.Robert Watson — Yep.Rich Birch — It’s always a funny question to ask.Robert Watson — Amazon, Baker Books.Rich Birch — Where do people get books? You know, that kind of thing.Robert Watson — Yeah. Yeah.Rich Birch — And where else do we want to send them?Robert Watson — All those places, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Baker Books – usually they run some kind of a discount off their website. That’s the book publisher. And so usually they have some good deals run in there as well.Rich Birch — Great. Well, just as we wrap up today, any kind of final parting words you’d have for people that are listening in today?Robert Watson — I would, oh man, I would just say enjoy the journey. I think there’s so much…Rich Birch — That’s good.Robert Watson — …joy that comes from following Jesus. Like when I think about all the things I could be involved in, in my life and all of that, when I get to hear somebody taking, not, not just you know intellectually, I’ve got this new information and I’m believing it, but they take something and apply it.Rich Birch — That’s good.Robert Watson — And they experience the transformation and they experience a strengthening of their relationships. Jesus said that we would be known by the quality of our relationships, our loved one for another is how he he says it. And so when I see people that are new in faith experiencing forgiveness for the first time, or experiencing the the gift of listening to others and asking good, thoughtful questions and and something starts to come alive in them, I just, as a pastor, what more can you ask for than than seeing and life change?Robert Watson — And so the the relational life change, being around that, like constantly celebrating those stories, sharing those stories, being excited about that, I find no greater joy than to see people genuinely following Jesus. Rich Birch — That’s goodRobert Watson — And ah so I don’t know if that is the right closing thought, but yeah.Rich Birch — No, it’s wonderful. It’s great. It’s good.Robert Watson — Rich, thank you so much.Rich Birch — Well, I appreciate being on the podcast today. Where can we send people if they want to track with you or track with the church online?Robert Watson — Yeah. So Sun Valley Community Church is the name of our church. We’re in Arizona, sunvalleycc.com. And then we’re on you know Instagram and all of that. And I think mine is just robertsvcc is my Instagram. But yeah, you can you can look up us look us up online. And if there’s  anything that anybody has questions about, you can reach out to me. You can find me through the the website, whatever, and I’d be I’d be happy to follow up with you.Rich Birch — That’s great. Thanks so much. Thanks for being on the podcast today.Robert Watson — Thanks, Rich. 

In this special roundup episode of the unSeminary podcast, we highlight key insights from three previously recorded interviews focused on strengthening church staff teams. In celebration of the Summer 2025 issue of Executive Pastor Magazine, this curated compilation revisits rich conversations with leadership experts Dr. Ryan Hartwig and Dr. Warren Bird, executive pastor Ken McAnulty of Arise Church, and Diana Rush from Eastside Church. Each segment dives into unique aspects of staff development—from shared leadership and onboarding strategies to the art of leading from the middle in multisite churches. Healthy Leadership Teams: The Power of Shared Leadership [Listen to the full episode]With Dr. Ryan Hartwig & Dr. Warren Bird Hartwig and Bird, co-authors of Teams That Thrive, argue that shared leadership isn’t just biblical—it’s practical. Thriving church leadership teams intentionally embrace collaboration and commit to daily disciplines like running effective meetings and distributing leadership tasks evenly. One surprising insight from their research of over 140 churches was that many teams couldn’t even agree on who was actually on their team. This pointed to a broader lack of clarity and intentionality in team design. Bird challenges the myth that advising the senior pastor equates to real team leadership. Instead, churches must foster environments where diverse voices are heard, decisions are made together, and leadership is seen as developmental—not pre-baked. Hartwig shares compelling profiles of senior pastors who made humility-driven shifts in their leadership posture—either by stepping back to allow others to lead or stepping in to fill critical gaps. Onboarding That Sets the Pace for Staff Success [Listen to the full episode]With Ken McAnulty, Executive Pastor at Arise Church McAnulty unpacks Arise Church’s robust onboarding week, a deliberate strategy designed to eliminate the awkward, often disconnected experience new hires typically face. Instead of simply orienting staff to logistics, the goal is to shape culture, build community, and prepare new team members to run. Arise focuses on four key areas: Culture, Care, Competency, and Course. From pre-arrival office setups to custom music playing on a new hire’s first day, the details matter. Arise also includes intentional relational components like storytelling sessions with existing staff, which accelerate trust and cultural understanding. A unique highlight is their “Last Day at Arise” document, where new staff articulate how they want to be remembered. This future-focused exercise helps shape present-day behavior and sets a clear tone for engagement and legacy. Leading from the Middle: Managing Up, Down, and Inward [Listen to the full episode]With Diana Rush, Senior Director of Build Community at Eastside Christian Church Rush provides practical advice for navigating the complexities of middle management in a large, multisite church. She emphasizes that effective leadership begins with self-awareness and spiritual integrity—what comes out when you’re “squeezed” reflects what’s inside. Trust is the currency of influence. Whether managing upward to senior leadership or downward to direct reports, trust is built through consistency, transparency, and a track record of responsible leadership. Rush describes her role as a “salesperson” of vision—translating ideas both up and down the chain of command while remaining faithful to the church’s overall mission. Her approach includes robust preparation, honest feedback loops, and an openness to negotiation. She advocates for creating shared ownership of ideas by involving others early and often in the planning process. Ultimately, Rush calls leaders to be flexible, collaborative, and committed to turning vision into reality by aligning strategy with relational trust. This episode is a powerful reminder that great teams don’t happen by accident. Whether it’s building collaborative leadership structures, creating intentional onboarding experiences, or navigating the tensions of middle management, strong staff culture is essential for sustained church growth. Each segment provides actionable takeaways and fresh inspiration for executive pastors and church leaders who want to lead better teams and foster healthier staff environments. Download the free Executive Pastor Magazine Summer 2025 issue at unSeminary.com. 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 — Yeah, hey friends, happy Thursday. Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Super pumped that you are tuned in.Rich Birch — Listen, today we are celebrating the release of Executive Pastor Magazine’s Summer 2025 edition. It’s completely free. Just drop by unseminary.com and pick up copies of it. This season’s edition is all about staff. It’s all about helping you have a more productive team. We’ve got great articles in there by Paul Alexander, Todd Rhodes, Dan Reiland, Gavin Adams, and Dave Miller. You’re not going to want to miss it. Incredible resource and it’s completely free. Just drop by and pick it up.Rich Birch — But today on the episode, what we’re doing is we’re pulling out three, what I like to call the heart of the episode, from the vault that deal with this same topic. In this first segment, you’re gonna hear from Ryan Hartwig, Dr. Ryan Hartwig and Dr. Warren Bird. They’re co-authors of a book called Teams That Thrive.Rich Birch — And 10 years ago, May 2015, we had them on the podcast and they unpack what makes healthy senior leadership teams tick and why shared leadership is both biblical and deeply practical. You’ll also hear some behind the scenes stories, including frankly a candid moment from my own leadership at Liquid Church. If you’re navigating leadership tension or wondering how to build a stronger team culture, this part is gold. Stay tuned for this. This is Ryan Hartwig and Warren Bird from an episode about 10 years ago on Teams That Thrive. Rich Birch — Stay tuned for this. And we’ve got two more great segments coming up… Ryan Hartwig — What do we find? Oh boy, there’s so many things we find. Really, we identified five disciplines of collaborative church leadership.Ryan Hartwig — And I can kind of get into those five disciplines. But probably before that, probably if we could sum all that up, what we realized is that Teams That Thrive are convinced that shared leadership is a biblical way to lead and is a preferable way to lead. It was kind of the first thing.Ryan Hartwig — There was a strong conviction, like we’ve got to figure out how to do this thing well. So that was the first piece. Then the second piece was that they were willing to do the fundamental disciplines day in and day out to enable their team to thrive.Ryan Hartwig — I mean, quite honestly, a lot of the stuff we talk about in the book, I don’t know that it’s incredibly groundbreaking. It’s like, oh wow, I’ve never even heard that before. I mean, a lot of the things I think, generally, we’ve heard some of these things at least before.Ryan Hartwig — But really, these teams were the ones that said, okay, we’re gonna actually run our meetings well. We’re gonna actually really think through who’s going to serve on these teams. We’re gonna really make sure that leadership tasks and team are actually shared. And not just kind of have these things as platitudes, but we’re gonna discipline ourselves to do these things all of the time.Rich Birch — Very cool. Well, we had a surprise guest join us on the podcast. If you’re watching the video, you see Warren Bird jumped in. Warren, the co-author of Teams That Thrive also is joining us today. Warren, welcome to the show.Warren Bird — Thanks! Ryan, I love what you’re saying. I can’t wait to read that book.Rich Birch — No, that’s fantastic. So Warren, just to kind of bring you up to speed, we kind of talked a bit about the research process that went on, which you, I’m sure, had a part to do with. And then we’re just kind of getting into a little bit of what are some of those insights, some of those key insights that came out.Rich Birch — For you, Warren, as you talked with and interviewed so many churches, 140 some odd churches that ended up giving all the information, what were some of those insights that jumped through to you as patterns as you interacted with different churches?Warren Bird — Well, affirming everything that Ryan said, I just became convinced that everybody wants to do team, but they don’t know how to do it well. And they don’t even know, are we doing it well? They don’t even know.Warren Bird — We started the book with like these myths that people think, well, I guess a team means that we all advise the pastor and then the pastor makes the decisions and we’re working as a team. No, you’re not! You’re losing huge potential if that’s how you approach the idea of team.Warren Bird — And in today’s fluidity of who’s on the team, who’s not, we even, in our survey, we were amazed at how many churches the members of a team disagreed with who all was on their team. So it was quite a stretch.Rich Birch — That’s funny. Now, so playing a little bit of the devil’s advocate here. So team leadership, that sounds like a—I’m playing devil’s advocate here. I don’t actually believe what I’m about to say—But team leadership, that sounds like some sort of Namby Pamby, wow, woohoo deal. Isn’t it, doesn’t God give the vision to a person and then we’re all just supposed to march in behind that person, Ryan? Isn’t that, aren’t that, isn’t that the evidence of like a great thriving church?Ryan Hartwig — Well, sure. I mean, we see that, yeah, certainly God gives the vision to people, but he doesn’t give all of the vision to only one person. The beauty of a leadership team is that, is recognizing that God speaks to everyone.Ryan Hartwig — And so why would we just limit ourselves to only hearing God speaking to one individual and not to many? If we believe that the Spirit lives inside of us, right, then he can speak to all of us. And so the beauty, I think, of the team is being able to come together and saying, okay, what is it that God is saying to us?Ryan Hartwig — How can we use different perspectives, the different expertise, the different experiences that we have, and ultimately be able to make better decisions and implement greater ministry throughout the church by sharing leadership together. So that’s really the idea there. I mean, we’re not suggesting that a leadership team precludes someone from providing strong leadership.Ryan Hartwig — In fact, a lot of the teams that we see, there is a strong leader. That’s okay, there’s nothing wrong with having a strong leader. But not so strong that that leader precludes others from also being able to fully contribute the things that God has put into them.Rich Birch — Interesting. Now, Warren, you know, you’ve been studying kind of leadership and looking at leadership over a number of years. Is there anything in this, what you found here, that you feel like is a kind of a shift, either culturally or kind of generationally? Are you seeing any differences on that front?Warren Bird — Yeah, the whole idea of leadership development, this is just one more piece of it. On your team, you don’t hire pre-trained people who’ve all got it together. It’s a team growing together, getting better together, making better decisions with a better process and building into each other.Warren Bird — So in a way, this models what you hope the whole rest of the church will be all about, that we’re forever taking people, to use a Willow Creek expression, from total pagan to a dedicated missionary. And that being part of a team is different steps on that journey.Rich Birch — Interesting. Well, when we had the privilege, I had mentioned this earlier, we had the privilege when you were in the process of writing this book to sit down and spend some time. And it was actually great. I loved the coaching that you both provided to our team. Rich Birch — And actually, to this day, one of the things that Ryan said, kind of a challenge to us as a lead team, said, you need to not answer all the questions. You need to allow some of the questions to hang. And you need to create space for people to maybe deliberately allow a few things to kind of hang out there, create some space, so that your leaders who are around you will rise up and help and obviously push the mission forward. Which actually that has continued to shape our thinking over the last couple of years. So that’s, and that was just one kind of piece of an overall conversation, which I really appreciated. Rich Birch — Tell us about some of the other churches that you ended up highlighting throughout the book. Is there any others that stick out for you, Ryan?Warren Bird — Well, before Ryan answers, let me just brag on you guys at Liquid Church. That was so, you were in the survey and then we kind of picked the top 10% of churches and tried to visit different ones. And that was you.Warren Bird — And I have to say, I’ve sat in a lot of church senior leadership team meetings and yours was distinctly different in the engagement level, in the buy-in, in the use of different people’s talents, in the humility that you expressed, in the esprit de corps. So I just wanna cheer that that was a great day for us too, to be able to learn from you. And you’re really different from a lot of churches that really struggle.Warren Bird — And I say all that to say, it can be different. Churches can incrementally come to that kind of thing where team members look forward to interacting with each other and taking another step in their journey of leading God’s church right.Ryan Hartwig — Yeah, yeah, two quick thoughts there. And I don’t remember if we actually named these churches in the book or not, so I won’t use their names. But two, I think, two kind of senior pastor profiles a little bit in terms of how they have tried to build these teams.Ryan Hartwig — One of the pastors realized that his predecessor was this very, very organized, organized guy who would have, in any sort of an event, would kind of pull out the color-coded spreadsheets and assign everyone a task and so on. Everyone would just kind of march out those orders. And as he took over the church, he really realized that was preventing, even though the team was able to kind of be cohesive in the sense of marching out orders, it was really preventing all the team members from offering their best to the team.Ryan Hartwig — And so he realized, okay, I really have to back off a little bit on some of this direction that I’m offering. And so he stepped back. Ryan Hartwig — I thought that was kind of, that’s a little bit different than a senior pastor at another church, church down in Tennessee. As we listen to that pastor, he’s really realized that his gifts really don’t reside in kind of managing day-to-day. And I think a lot of senior pastors have realized that. They don’t reside there.Ryan Hartwig — And so he’s really handed that off to other folks, lets his executive pastor really manage the leadership team. But he said, it’s really important for me to stay engaged in the leadership activities. Ryan Hartwig — And so there was a time when there was kind of a hole in their small groups ministry. This was a very large church, about 5,000 people. And rather, there was a hole there for small groups. He said, okay, I’m going to take on small groups myself for this season of time.Ryan Hartwig — And so he led the small group ministry as a senior pastor of the church in every facet, where I think it was about six months to a year. I think it’s such a great indication of what healthy teams do, is that leaders say, okay, what is it that the team needs right now? And I’ll go ahead and provide that.Ryan Hartwig — That senior pastor realized, okay, the best thing for me to do is to give up some of this more visionary kinds of things to others. And let me step into this place and provide leadership to our small group ministry in a way that he was kind of accountable to the other team members for small group ministry during that time. Ryan Hartwig — I thought those two were just great profiles of, I think, the humility, of the thoughtfulness, of the strategicness, of how do we adjust things that we’re really able to lead collaboratively. Warren Bird — Let me give one more example, if I could. Journey Church, Newark, Delaware. Ryan and I did separate visits on that. When Ryan was there, he captured the senior pastor, Mark Johnson, saying, you know, I used to lead the church, but now I lead the team as they lead the church.Warren Bird — And so on my visit, I met some of those team members, and I thought, you know, here’s a 30-year-old woman who’s overseeing kind of the assimilation piece, the welcome, how do we get you connected. And she has been really mentored and given challenges and invited to rise to the challenge, and I thought that just being one case of, okay, Pastor Mark, if that’s the kind of people you’re leading and they’re rising to the challenge, you are just multiplying yourself all over. Rich Birch — Absolutely. Ryan Hartwig — Yeah. Rich Birch — Yeah, one of the things I’ve found in just our little world is, as we take new ground as a church, so I’m a part of that four-part leadership team, senior leadership team, whatever we want to call it. As we take new ground, by definition, we’re moving into areas that it’s not really clear whose responsibility it is, that there are these areas where we’re doing new things, we’re trying to innovate, we’re trying to make something happen, and it kind of requires all of us on that team. We all have to pitch in, we all, you know, Tim from a teaching vision point of view, he’s got to talk about it, Dave from kind of a finance point of view, we’ve got to figure out how are the teams going to plug into this whole thing.Rich Birch — And so you do end up having, and in fact, I just had one this week with Dave, where there’s this like, okay, so what part of this is yours and what part of it is mine? Like, and, because we don’t want to step on each other’s toes, we’re not trying to like, you know, offend each other, but we have to kind of be cognizant of talking through the actual process of how we’re going to lead, not just go ahead and lead. Like, how do we actually, you know, how are we going to make this thing happen?Rich Birch — Because there’s enough potential there to rub each other the wrong way, which is, for me, is exciting, because I’m like, hey, we must be trying to do things that, you know, that aren’t just natural, don’t just happen, you know, independently, so, which is kind of cool, so.Ryan Hartwig — I love the fact, Rich, that you’re having to have those conversations. One of the other things we found is that, is that churches that tend to have these stronger leadership teams are also facing challenges related to growth.Rich Birch — Yeah.Ryan Hartwig — And I think that it’s tempting to kind of explain that, well, we have a good team, and so, of course, we’re growing. I would explain it the other way. I think it’s that we’re growing, which is forcing us to have a good team.Ryan Hartwig — Like, in your case, right, because you’re growing, there’s this unknown stuff that’s out there causing you and Dave to sit down and have conversations that you would otherwise not have to have. Rich Birch — Yeah. Ryan Hartwig — Now, because you and Dave are working through these things and making decisions together, and you’re making decisions that are benefiting from both of your perspectives, right, you’re growing in your capacity as a team, which is then, of course, fueling the church’s ability to grow and so on.Ryan Hartwig — So I love the fact that you’re pursuing this new territory, and you realize the only way we can actually do this well is if we do this together as a team, which is one of the things we found, is that the best teams tend to make decisions together rather than to have individuals who make these really key strategic decisions, but instead they do it together as a team.Rich Birch — Yeah, there was this moment a few years ago where, there was a distinct conversation where Tim, our lead pastor, who is our lead pastor, there isn’t, although we lead together with the four of us at the end of the day, he’s our lead pastor, he’s the founder of the church, and there was a real active conversation where there was some consideration of maybe we should hire or identify one of the four of us as kind of the second in command person, and that, from his perspective, and at the end of the day, he’s the only one that can make that decision. That is one of those things where it’s like, we can give our input, but at the end of the day, you’ve gotta figure out what you’re the most comfortable with, and we’re gonna talk it through, and there was this decision point where he said, no, I actually, and we obviously affirmed it in the end, we were like, no, I like the creative tension that it causes that we work together as a group rather than let’s make really super clear lines on everything.Rich Birch — Now, functionally, what that means is we end up talking a lot. You end up having a lot of conversations about things, but I think the Lord honors that, and I think it’s a positive way to move forward as we try to grow and develop and try new things. Because the reality of it is, if you’re a growing church, a lot of times, you’re in the largest church you’ve ever been in, let alone worked in the largest church you’ve ever been in, and so it’s all unknown territory for most of the people around the room. Rich Birch — All right, fantastic stuff there from Ryan. You really should pick up that book. His and Warren’s book is a must read. And that’s really the secret of this episode. What we’re doing is pointing back to content that is so, we think, foundational. We think it’s super important for you. In fact, they’re things that we come back to time and again, and this next segment is one of those. Rich Birch — We’re doing this to celebrate Executive Pastor. Just drop by unseminary.com. Pick up this season’s copy. It’s all about staff issues.Rich Birch — In this next segment, you’ll hear from Ken McAnulty. He is the executive pastor at Arise Church, one of the fastest growing churches in the country. And listen, Ken unpacks what they call their onboarding week: a super intentional, high impact way that sets new hires up to thrive. Rich Birch — It’s not just about orientation. Lots of us have orientation. Tell people where the bathroom is. It’s about shaping culture from day one.Rich Birch — If you’ve ever wondered, really, how do we start our staff? Well, this is going to be super helpful for you. This clip gives you some practical inspiration with a strong dose of vision. Let’s tune in. Rich Birch — Onboarding staff. You know, I think as we hire staff, I think oftentimes, at least I know I do, and I think there’s a lot of friends who would be in a similar boat.Rich Birch — We identify a problem area that we’re looking for someone to solve, and so we’re like, okay, we really need to, maybe the area’s grown, or like there’s a part of our church that just is not going well, and so we’re like, we really need to get some more time associated with this, and so we hire some staff. And we spend all this time, effort, and energy, money, to get them, and then they arrive, and we just want them to start solving problems. But getting those first couple days, weeks, months can be really tough to kind of, what do we do, how do we onboard people? What does that look like for you? Ken McAnulty — That’s a great question. Rich Birch — How have, you know, what would be some of the, or why is that such a tension? Maybe we’ll start with the tension piece. Why is that such a tough time? Why is that such a tough place when we first have new staff arriving?Ken McAnulty — Well, Rich, I know that many of your listeners have been through that transition point, and I’ve been through that transition point, and man, it can be such an awkward time. This moment where, you know, like you said, all this time, and energy, and effort, and money even is spent on bringing this person in, and then so often, those folks are just released to the wild and expected to do ministry without an understanding of really what’s going on. And really, we discovered that it creates this awkwardness, this weirdness.Ken McAnulty — You know, one of my staff told me this. One of the weirdest feelings is to be brought into a place with an unspoken culture, an unspoken taboo, and unspoken jokes, and have no idea what things you’re gonna step on. And we really felt that tension. We really felt that problem. Ken McAnulty — And so our lead pastor, Pastor Brent, looked at me, and one of my counterparts, my co-workers, Tina Blunt, and said, I would like for you guys to really kind of develop an onboarding. I don’t know what that looks like, and so we just began to dream, and we said, you know, well, what would it look like if we got to come onto, you know, a great team? What would we want that to look like? What do we want people to understand? What do we want their first week experience to look like? Ken McAnulty — And so we really just began to tailor this one-week experience that we call our onboarding week that really helps resolve those problems, and sets the pace for our staff. Because what we really wanna do is we want to, we wanna set a healthy pattern and pace so that when they get done with that one week, they feel like they can run, and there are less hindrances for them. Ken McAnulty — One of the things that we’ve just kind of discovered is the pace that you set the first week is the pace that they’re gonna live by for the first year. Rich Birch — Oh that’s good. Ken McAnulty — And too often, there are churches who don’t set a pace, and so then they wonder why their staff are not doing what they want them to do. Well, I think it’s our fault. We’ve gotta take that responsibility.Rich Birch — That’s so good, I love that. What a great word, hey, this pace that we said at the beginning really is how they run, how they’ll, you know, how they’ll be a part of it. So let’s pull that apart a little bit.Rich Birch — When you think about, I don’t know, well, the best way to do this, the first day, maybe even pre-first day, how are you setting that pace well? How are we kind of setting up this conversation in the earliest moments? What’s that look like?Ken McAnulty — No, it’s a great question. You know, some of the first things that we wanna do is we wanna make sure that before they get there their first day, that we have things set up for them. We don’t wait for them to arrive to begin to set things up.Ken McAnulty — So we wanna make sure that we have a dedicated space. We wanna make sure we communicate with them about office furniture. You know, we have a budget set aside for them to get office furniture, and we talk to them about pieces that we may have already that could be adopted into their office.Ken McAnulty — And so we set up a basic office setup for them. We make sure that we order their computers. So that means we have to communicate. Hey, do you want a Mac, a PC? What do you want on it? And then we put together a communication binder that’s ready for them on their desk.Ken McAnulty — And one of the cool things that we do, and this has been communicated to us by the staff that just kind of came organically, is we kind of do some research on them. And so we find maybe their favorite song or favorite type of music, and we make sure that’s playing on their computer the day that they come in their first day of work, which is kind of one of those really cool things. We try not to be too stalkerish with it, but, you know, we wanna make sure that…Rich Birch — How are you finding out their favorite song? What do you, are you, do you like a form ahead of time or like, what’s that look like?Ken McAnulty — So it really depends on the person. Sometimes we’ll reach out to the spouse who is, and we, you know, we kind of dig into that because their spouse oftentimes loves to have, you know, they want, they’re invested in their spouse being, having a great first day experience. And so we include them in on that.Ken McAnulty — Sometimes we’ll do a little research on social media, a little social media stalking we can find out there because some of that stuff is listed on Facebook and other social apps.Rich Birch — I love it. That’s so good. A little bit of research goes a long way. That’s a great thing.Ken McAnulty — It really does.Rich Birch — It’s amazing how the, we were joking earlier, we knew we were gonna head in this direction. I was talking with some friends recently about their first day experience. And I was like, hey, what was your worst first day experience? It’s amazing how quickly those conversations come up and simple stuff, even just the computer having, you know, so many people in that circle were saying, wow, like I showed up and there was like no computer there. Or like they found a computer under a back desk somewhere and like threw it on my table. You know, it’s like some terrible thing. It’s amazing how that’s, that’s incredible. Rich Birch — Well, how do we go maybe beyond? So I love the physical setup stuff. I think that’s fantastic. What are we doing to kind of drive maybe a little bit deeper into what they can expect to be as a part of the team, as a part of, you know, what it means to be a part of the team.Ken McAnulty — Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, it’s funny, this conversation that you and I’ve had have helped what we call put clothes on the baby that we birthed.Rich Birch — Sure.Ken McAnulty — And so we really have been able to kind of narrow down some things that we really wanna give to people in that first week that we really wanna impart to our staff. And so we discovered four things that we really wanna impart. And since I’m a preacher by nature, I did four C’s, you know, cause that’s how we work.Ken McAnulty — It wasn’t three, so I didn’t get the whole preacher thing in there. So we really want people to walk away from that first week with a sense of culture, a sense of what am I walking into? What’s OK? What’s taboo? Ken McAnulty — We want them to walk away with a sense of care, that they’re more, about more than what they do. We want them to walk away with a sense of competency, of an understanding of how they can be successful and a sense of course, which way do they go?Ken McAnulty — So ideally after that first week, they’re gonna feel like they can run. Now we’re not gonna solve everything that first week, but those four big areas are the things that we’re trying to solve. And we did things intentionally, unknowing beforehand, because we were just creating the baby, but really intentionally to kind of resolve these four issues.Rich Birch — Love it. So let’s, I love, so first of all, preacher at heart, love that. Let’s walk through those. Let’s talk about maybe each one of those. Culture first. Man, this is such an important piece of the puzzle.Rich Birch — I love that you’re saying like, hey, what’s okay, what’s taboo? That’s an interesting way to think about it. What are you doing to ensure that people are kind of onboarding with the culture?Ken McAnulty — No, it’s a great question. First of all, we think that culture is way more important than competency. In fact, if you look at great organizations like Chick-fil-A and we’re associated with a great supermarket down here in Florida called Publix, they do a great job with this type of stuff.Ken McAnulty — Those kinds of organizations say that culture trumps competency just every day of the week. And so we wanna make sure that we communicate that well. And so we give our pastor two hours to take that staff member to lunch and to walk them through the history and the story of our church, to walk them through the future vision.Ken McAnulty — One of the really cool things that he does, and I don’t wanna spoil this for any future employees, but one of the cool things that he does is he takes them out to a local highway right by and really begins to talk about the percentage of people driving by that are not saved, that don’t know Jesus. And that’s the mission of the church, just to really kind of get their eyes in the right place. And then we take 30 minutes at a time and we set them down in front of the staff that they’re gonna work with and allow them to hear the stories of those staff members, which is really cool.Ken McAnulty — In fact, the staff that we’ve onboarded have said that that is the most impactful thing that we do this week, is to set them down in front of those people. One of our staff members said it like this. He said, it humanizes the staff and creates open doors for deep conversations later.Ken McAnulty — Another staff, I’m giving you quotes because I did my research. Another staff said: the intentional getting to know each other faster rather than hoping it occurs over time. And so it’s this intentionality of saying, hey, listen, we’re gonna plug you into relationships because those relationships will communicate culture.Ken McAnulty — And as part of those 30 minute stories, what we tell our staff is, tell them why you love working at Arise. Because oftentimes the why somebody loves working at Arise surrounds the culture and it surrounds the mission success. That’s why people love working at.Ken McAnulty — So when we allow our staff to communicate that, it just, man, it increases the impact of our culture. And then we do simple things like reviewing core values and proverbs and things like that. And then we do a couple of really cool things. We do, and this is gonna sound a little funny, but we do a truth or dare lunch with our staff.Rich Birch — Truth or dare lunch? Things get spicy right off the top. Ken McAnulty — They do, they do. We do that the last day of that week, but we really do that to allow some authenticity there and to really open up the door.Ken McAnulty — What we’ve done at the beginning of the week is our staff has been authentic with this new staff person. And then at the end of the week, it’s really their opportunity to be authentic back. And man, when they walk out of that moment, they walk out of that moment, not feeling like they’re an outsider, but now all of a sudden they’re an insider because now they’re inside jokes that we all have together.Ken McAnulty — And so it’s not just about, well, I’m trying to find my way to fit into this team. Now I fit because I have the inside jokes with them. And then the last thing in this culture component that we do is we have a document that’s called our Last Day at Arise document, where we ask them to fill that out.Ken McAnulty — And then their last day of that week, they check in with their direct up and they go through that document. And what that document does is it really helps them to intentionally think about how they will be known at Arise, what they’re gonna be known for, who they’re gonna be. Because when we start at the end and we build a culture looking at the end, we can be intentional about that.Ken McAnulty — So if I say, I wanna be somebody who’s kind, who that when I leave the staff say, I was always listening to them, that empowers me to now be a listener. Rich Birch — Oh gosh – this is so good. Ken McAnulty — And so we wanna be really intentional about allowing those folks to really kind of create their own path in our organization and really build those strengths.Rich Birch — Oh, I love this. Now you gave me a sneak peek at this document. Would it be okay with you if we included this in the show notes for people? Ken McAnulty — Absolutely.Rich Birch — I think this, to be honest, friends, this is one of those things, you should just rip this thing off. It’s a word doc and you should put your church name into it. If that’s okay, Ken.Ken McAnulty — Absolutely.Rich Birch — This would be a great thing for even to kick off the new year as a staff team and say, let’s actually think about this and then let’s build it into our onboarding. I just love that. Rich Birch — All right, fantastic. Love that. We also have got that in the show notes. You’re gonna wanna pick that up.Rich Birch — Okay, so the first, the last segment, not the first segment, the last segment, I wanna remind you, drop by unseminary.com, pick up this month’s edition, this season’s edition of Executive Pastor. You’re gonna love it. It’s free there. Just give us your email. We’ll email it over to you. Rich Birch — And this last clip from just this last spring, it’s been an instant classic. Diana Rush from Eastside Church unpacks the unique challenges and challenges and opportunities of middle level management in a large multi-site church. This really was a fantastic episode, super practical. She provides you some great wisdom on how to manage both upward to senior leadership and downward to direct reports while trusting both sides.Rich Birch — It’s really a fantastic clip. So listen to that, drop by unSeminary. Hope today’s episode has been inspiring to you. We’ll just end with this clip. I won’t be coming back at the end of this, but thanks so much. Thanks for being on this journey. Take care, friends. Rich Birch — And one of these things that we’re gonna really dig into today is this whole idea of mid-level management in large churches. And this brings some really unique complexities. And we wanna unpack those for folks today. Rich Birch — Talk to me about the tension between managing both upwards, so like executive pastor, senior pastor, but then also downward, direct reports, campus teams. Why are there, and again, I’m sure you never have any struggles at Eastside, but why do other churches struggle with that? Why is that? Why is this a common thing that we see? It’s a struggle. t’s hard to do that, to manage those tensions.Diana Rush — I think some of the tension, it first starts with self. Like I always say, you have to start with the source material, your own person. And before you can lead others, you have to really understand yourself and be able to lead yourself well.Diana Rush — And so it’s really getting to know who you are, who you’re made of. I love the illustration of, you have like an orange. And if an orange is squeezed from the top and bottom, it’s eventually going to burst. And what’s gonna come out is orange juice. It’s the same on the outside as the inside. Diana Rush — And oftentimes in management roles, we are gonna be squeezed from the top. We’ve got the top coming down on us. Like we’ve got goals. We’ve got things to achieve. We’ve got expectations, but then we’ve got the expectations of those beneath us.Diana Rush — People that maybe they’re struggling in their own journey or whatever it is, everyone’s wanting something from you. You’re gonna get squeezed in management. And if you are presenting this, like I am perfectly okay on the outside, that I’m not letting God form me on the inside, what’s gonna come out is gonna be really obvious.Diana Rush — So if you’re struggling with anger, it’s gonna come out when you get squeezed. If you’re struggling with a multitude of issues, those will all reveal themselves. And so it starts really with like being good about making sure that you’re pursuing Christlikeness in your own life, that you’re actually asking, hey, Jesus, I wanna lead like you led others and I wanna shepherd my teams.Diana Rush — So I think that’s where it starts. And then secondly, I would say it’s about building trust, both with those above you and those below you. If you are known for success, people will expect success. But if you are constantly making mistakes or going outside the lines, going rogue, then you’re never gonna build that trust and you’re not going to be handed things to further your path, or even you’re just gonna feel that upward tension of being micromanaged, right? No one likes to be micromanaged, but how do you get out of being micromanaged? You build trust.Diana Rush — And then you have honest conversations with those above you. And so that, it’s a little bit of boldness as well. You have to not be afraid to ask hard questions. But again, when you have a trust in a relationship, I know for myself, I can talk to my executive pastor who I report to about nearly anything because we have this trust that we’ve built. Even before I started in this role reporting to him, I had already had an existing relationship with him where I felt like I could go to him if I had questions, concerns. So I had been building that trust even before I stepped into this role.Diana Rush — And then the same thing with the staff below you. My team trusts that I’m gonna advocate for them, that I’m not going to overstep them, that I’m gonna let them lead and them shine. And so we can work together to make something great, make their plans into realities because I’m gonna sell it.Diana Rush — I look at myself, middle management, I’m a salesperson. I’m gonna take their ideas and then I’m gonna sell it upwards and I’m gonna craft it into something so that I can convince everybody else that this is a great idea and we should try it out. So.Rich Birch — Let’s double click on that idea of the salesperson because you captured their a tension that I’ve seen, I’ve been in, I have felt as a leader in this kind of middle management is like my senior pastor, the person that’s leading the organization, they’re getting filtered information and it’s frankly, it’s being filtered by me. I’m telling them this is what we see happening. Here’s what’s going on.Rich Birch — Now, vice versa, the people who report to me, I’m filtering what my senior pastor would like them to do. And I’m helping kind of translate the vision of the church. I’m leading at the vision, at the intersection of vision and execution. So like, I’m trying to translate that. Rich Birch — If I’m just selling, there’s an opportunity there to break trust because it could be like, I’m gonna just send, it’s all rainbows going up, rainbows and unicorns. Everything’s amazing. Everything’s going great. I tell my senior leader that and then vice versa. I can just report all good news to my direct reports.Rich Birch — How do I avoid that tension and make sure that the true information, that good feedback’s building, that we’re building trust and that it’s built on, yeah, actually care for each other and reality, not just kind of what everybody wants to hear, which I think is a tension in these middle, mid-level roles.Diana Rush — Yeah, so I’m just gonna say unpopular opinion, but we’re all in sales, and that’s just the reality. We’re all selling something, whether you’re selling an idea or yourself. But I think A, you have to be 100% sold out for the vision. Rich Birch — That’s good.Diana Rush — So we’ve got the best product on earth, right? We are, you know, we’re representing Jesus. We’re representing eternal life and transformation and the hope that you can only find in Christ. And so right there, as long as your heart is connected to the vision of your senior pastor, it’s like, that’s not that difficult. Diana Rush — Now, when you are presenting ideas, whether it’s a vision that your senior pastor is saying, hey, I have this idea of something I wanna do. You have to first wrap your mind around it. You have to get in with the vision, but it’s okay, in my opinion, no matter which way you’re going, to plant a naysayer. You have to think through all the complaints that might come or all the people will, but what about this? And so you have to be willing to prepare.Diana Rush — And so honestly, I prepare for any presentation or any conversation, probably a little too much. One of my top strength finder is communication. And so for me, it’s just a natural thing that I talk my way through any scenario and any conversation. But it does allow me to walk into any situation prepared to explain.Diana Rush — So whether it’s, Gene Appel, my senior pastor, has an idea for an all churchwide initiative that we’re going to be doing. We’re actually doing it right now. And I’m gonna be leading teams for this. I have to think, okay, well, what are all the pitfalls? What are the things that are going to cost us time? What are the negotiating tactics I need to have?Diana Rush — So if I need my entire staff to now show up on a Wednesday night, what am I going to have to give them in return? And where can I give them space in their schedule so that they’re excited to be here and they don’t feel like it’s a burden. And so it’s that way I’m selling it.Diana Rush — But then maybe Greg Curtis has an idea. He wants to get rid of our four week next steps program and move to one week first step. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Diana Rush — And so he’s gonna change our entire assimilation program. Well, I mean, for something like that, you have to really get prepared because I know I’m about to take a group of people on a journey who aren’t there with us already. I’m going to have to help some people who have long held sacred cows. Well, we always done it this way and release it. Rich Birch — Yes.Diana Rush — And so, honestly, it’s in your prep work, but it’s in your constant communication. You have to, again, you have to be sold out and believe in what the person wants and have those questions. I mean, Greg and I, we would sit in my office and talk over and over and over again about what changes he was gonna make because I have to be prepared for any questions from an executive pastor, senior pastor, even our director of finance, all these roles, I have to be able to go in and say, that’s a really good question and let’s process that together.Diana Rush — And it’s never, as a salesperson or just anyone in leadership, you never wanna have a hard no and you never wanna be unbending. You wanna be flexible… Rich Birch — Oh that’s good. That’s good. Diana Rush — …and be able to receive the feedback and then say, okay, that’s a really good thought. And you wanna make the person feel heard at all times because that’s part of the process. It’s never a hard line. It’s never, you have to do this. Let’s talk about this. Let’s make it a conversation. Diana Rush — Because I want senior leadership, but I also want those reporting to me to have ownership over any idea and any direction that we go, which means I have to let them speak into the plan and speak into the idea so that they do feel that sense of like, okay, I can be a part of this. I can do this. And I think this is gonna be a success.

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Steece Hayes, a bi-vocational pastor and account manager at Higher Ground Managed IT, part of the ACS Technologies family. Is your ministry struggling with unreliable tech, security risks, or outdated systems—and you’re not even sure where to begin fixing it? Tune in as Steece brings practical insights to help churches focus on ministry—not troubleshooting printers or battling cyber threats. Understanding the scope of IT. // IT infrastructure includes tangible devices like computers, servers, printers, routers, phones, and Wi-Fi networks. It doesn’t cover production gear like sound, video, or media systems—though those systems rely on strong IT infrastructure. Higher Ground Managed IT helps churches get their networks and devices talking to each other efficiently, reliably, and securely. Top IT pain points in churches. // Many churches operate with outdated or underpowered equipment—especially phones and computers. Phone systems are commonly antiquated, difficult to manage, and lack proper support. Churches also often rely on cheap, consumer-grade devices not designed for larger environments, which creates more issues as they grow. C.A.R.E. Framework. // To address these challenges, Higher Ground uses a four-step approach: Clarify, Architect, Reinforce, and Evolve. The process begins with an assessment to clarify a church’s current technology infrastructure, identifying equipment, systems, and security risks. Next, the Architect phase helps design a tailored IT solution that meets the church’s size, budget, and future goals—this can include options for full-service management or co-management with existing staff or volunteers. The Reinforce phase implements the recommended systems and ensures everything is operational and secure. Finally, the Evolve phase focuses on strategic planning for future upgrades, budgeting, and reducing long-term vulnerabilities. This gradual improvement ensures churches can move from a “band-aid” approach to a sustainable, well-managed IT environment. When to ask for help. // If your church has five or more computers and your staff or volunteers struggle to manage IT, it’s time to call Higher Ground. Often, tech responsibilities fall to youth or children’s pastors simply because they’re “young” or know how to use equipment. Higher Ground comes alongside those overwhelmed staff or volunteers to lighten the load and offer scalable support. Cybersecurity is a very real problem. // Phishing—emails or texts designed to trick users into handing over sensitive info—is the #1 threat churches face. Higher Ground proactively trains church teams using simulated phishing attacks and real-time coaching. Other key vulnerabilities include unpatched servers, open Wi-Fi networks, and the absence of proper firewalls. The risk of network intrusion. // Churches are increasingly targeted by cybercriminals due to lax security practices. Some cases have involved hackers sabotaging worship services by penetrating a church’s network. Steece emphasizes the importance of treating your inbox as “hostile territory” and taking preventive steps before tragedy strikes. Better than hiring full time IT staff. // For growing churches, partnering with Higher Ground is often far more cost-effective than hiring an in-house IT manager. The support allows churches to redirect funds toward ministry roles like youth pastors—without sacrificing operational excellence. Learn more about Higher Ground IT and schedule a free call with Steece to walk through your concerns at www.highergroundit.com. 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. So glad that you have decided to tune in. You know, our tagline here at unSeminary is stuff you wish they taught in seminary. And today’s podcast, I can guarantee you is one of those things that you wish they taught you in seminary because they don’t teach this stuff in seminary.Rich Birch — And so today we brought an expert on, you’re gonna wanna lean in because I know this is an area that you have had frustration and could actually be holding your ministry back and it shouldn’t. And there’s people out there that want to help you. Rich Birch — Super excited to have Steece Hayes with us. He’s a bi-vocational pastor, is also an account manager at an organization called Higher Ground Managed IT. They’re a part of the ACS Technologies family and they founded with a really simple mission they want to help churches focus on ministry and not troubleshooting or fixing technology. He has a doctoral degree in church revitalization and wants to help churches or struggling churches; this really is a passion of his. Steece, welcome to the showSteece Hayes — Thanks, man. Glad to be here.Rich Birch — Honored that you have taken some time. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about your background? You sit in it you know an interesting vantage point, being both a bi-vocational pastor and working with in kind of helping IT solutions in churches. Tell us a little bit of your journey. How did you end up here? Talk us through all of that.Steece Hayes — Well, it’s kind of an interesting story. It’s a little bit part of my testimony. Actually, I was not really living as a Christian whenever I first started working at ACS Technologies. Uh, uh, shortly thereafter I got married to my wife, who had been at ACS for several years prior to me. Rich Birch — Oh nice.Steece Hayes — And she, and I’m sure there’s a lot of other guys out there who have the same story. She grabbed me by the nap of the neck and dragged me into church and said, you’re going to sit here and listen. And and, you know, so I did. And you know being at ACS, surrounded by other Christian brothers and sisters and working with churches, and then, of course, the influence of my wife and church, I really started feeling the call to ministry. And I was encouraged by my pastor at the time and just started down that road of learning, being engulfed in what it means to be a follower of Christ. And then also being able to, in a professional sense, work with churches every day and helping them with their ministries.Steece Hayes — And originally I was working with our our software and the the software side of things. And so, you know, several, about 10 years ago or so, did that. Just went to seminary, branched out, started pastoring small churches and have just continued that to this day. So I have a passion for the smaller church.Steece Hayes — Although we work with a lot of very large churches. You know, the small church is the majority. And so I love helping them, especially with IT, because they really struggle in that that regard. Even the bigger ones struggle with it as well. So ACS and and the church and me being a pastor are all kind of intertwined into one big story.Rich Birch — Love it. So good. Well, let’s define terms ah even before we begin. Because I know even IT, information technology, that can be like a buzzword that people aren’t really sure, like, what does that actually mean? Like when you say IT, what does that cover? What is that kind of the spectrum ah you know for a church leader that might be listening in?Steece Hayes — Yeah, really, IT is going to be the network infrastructure, meaning the actual devices, the things, right? The computers, the servers, if you have any switches, which you may or may not even know what that is. But, you know, all the actual devices, the wireless in the building, the things that are tangible that you can touch.Rich Birch — The printers! Why can’t we get the printer to print?Steece Hayes — Yes.Steece Hayes — Yeah. And why my computer talked to that printer yesterday and it doesn’t talk to it today.Rich Birch — Yeah.Steece Hayes — Why?Rich Birch — Yeah. Yes.Steece Hayes — Yeah.Rich Birch — They’ll never fix that. They’ll never fix that problem. That’s like a, you know, that my son and I were joking about that. My son just started kind of at his first full-time big person job. And we were joking about that. Like, listen, listen, I’m a few years older. It’s never, going back to dot matrix this has been a problem. Rich Birch — So, sorry, I’m already explaining some of my pain to you as an IT professional. So it’s all the devices. It’s the things. It’s the network. It’s the switches, the laptops, the desktops, all of that. That’s, when when we say IT, that’s that’s the kind of scope of what we’re talking about?Steece Hayes — Yeah, yeah, it’s keeping all that stuff intertwined, working together, talking with each other, efficient, effective, those sort of things. Now, I will say that what it it does not include is going to be production, media, sound, video, all that. That that’s while they’re very related and the media side, the production side of a church, depends very heavily on the IT infrastructure, we’re not sound engineers and mics and and video and that sort of thing.Rich Birch — Right. That’s good.Steece Hayes — So that’s a little more specialized. Now we’ve worked with those folks quite a bit in churches. But we talk IT, we’re not getting to that point.Rich Birch — Okay. That’s good. Okay. That makes sense. So most churches obviously don’t have a full-time person who thinks about these things. This just isn’t, this is not, you know, and in fact it, it’s, you know, it may maybe be a rare exception of churches that have someone who they can call up to help with this kind of thing. What are some of the common problems, tech problems that you see churches struggling with? Maybe what are some of the pain points that bring them to even reach out to you guys? What’s that look like?Steece Hayes — Yeah, there’s several. And actually one we didn’t mention a second ago, but phone systems, we we help a lot of churches with phones.Rich Birch — Oh, of course. Yeah, yeah, of course.Steece Hayes — Phones are a big one because churches are outdated. I mean, they’re they’re just antiquated with their phone system because most of us are in the mind that we go to the Bell, right? We go to Southern Bell or AT&T or one of the the legacy phone companies. Or nowadays, even the cable company will go to them for their phone system.Rich Birch — Right.Steece Hayes — Generally speaking, they’re not great. Customer support is terrible.Rich Birch — Right.Steece Hayes — The phones are outdated. They don’t work. We don’t know how to change the voicemail. You know, how do I transfer calls?Rich Birch — Okay.Steece Hayes — All these sort of things. So phones are a big thing right now. We’re seeing a huge shift in churches getting away from using personal phones, personal cell phones and stuff like that, and start to incorporate that into a more of a corporate idea or a church phone system. Rich Birch — Okay. Steece Hayes — So that now when you call the pastor, instead of calling his personal number, you’re calling him on the church’s number and it just rings directly to him. And he answers it on his cell phone, even if he’s you know… Rich Birch — Right. Steece Hayes — …making a visit at the hospital or whatever. But it’s kind of bringing all of this. So so phone is a big area that we see a lot of churches really struggling with. Another one, which is sort of related, is outdated equipment. You know, when was the last time they updated their computers in the office or, you know, their switches or just the wireless, the Wi-Fi in the building? I mean, you know, we put that thing in 10 years ago and it’s sort of working, but we’ve been band-aiding it the whole time. Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, that’s good.Steece Hayes — So, you know, that’s another one. Underpowered equipment, they they’ve grown, but they never updated their IT. They never updated their network.Rich Birch — That’s so good.Steece Hayes — And then I think probably the biggest one is security. They’re just not secure. Rich Birch — Oh, wow. Steece Hayes — Churches are very insecure when it comes to cybersecurity. And we’re seeing a pretty huge trend of cyber criminals attacking churches because they see them as low hanging fruit, because honestly, they are.Rich Birch — Yeah.Steece Hayes — So I would say those are the big ones.Rich Birch — Yeah, let’s we’re gonna put a pin in that. I do wanna come back and ask you specifically on the security question, because that’s an area wanna highlight a little bit. In fact, that might be like a whole other conversation, but well, I wanna highlight that. We’ll come back to that.Rich Birch — But talk to us about, um just because we’re getting a sense of the scope here, there there’s also this like um underpowered, overpowered thing where I don’t know whether this has been your experience, but my experience has been, you know, so all the churches I’ve worked for have been fairly large churches, like statistically a thousand plus, thousand to 5,000. There’s not a lot of those out there, but even in a church like that, it’s, it seems like the squeaky wheels get the get get the best computers. Yeah.Rich Birch — Like, it’s like you have some people have these like killer systems that feel like we could send someone to Mars with them. And then somebody who might actually, maybe they’re a graphic designer or they might actually need like a really a computer that does a lot, but they’re just like friendly. And so they don’t get the most powerful computer. They’re maybe are underpowered. Do you see that where there’s like an imbalance of like tool to meet task? Is that an issue that you bump into?Steece Hayes — Yeah, that and generally speaking, with in your scenario, it’s going to be the media guys, right? Rich Birch — Right. They’ve got the $5,000 supercomputer that they’re using to run production… Rich Birch — Right. Steece Hayes — …and and the soundboard and they’re they’re doing all these things. Rich Birch — Yep.Steece Hayes — They’ve got all this equipment that’s really, really expensive. And yet the, you know, the ministry assistant or the secretary is using a Windows 7 computer that’s 35 years old. you know So we we do see that quite often. We that that’s a thing. Rich Birch — Yeah.Steece Hayes — What more specifically of what I’m referring to about underpower and overpower is things like wifi. You know, people don’t understand. And what most people, when they think of computers and technology, they think more power is better. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.Steece Hayes — You know, let’s get more. And actually that can be counterintuitive. We’ve we’ve been in several churches where they had wifi in the building, but all their antennas or the, what we call access points are set to 11, right? They’re, they’re, they’re at max level.Steece Hayes — And what happens is, is that the signals are bouncing off of each other and the signals terrible in the building because everything’s turned up to the max. Or the other way is we’ve had churches that, you know, they they have 1,000, 1,500, 2,000 people, and they’re using equipment that they bought from Best Buy. Rich Birch — Yeah.Steece Hayes — And it’s like, that’s just not, that’s intended for your house. Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.Steece Hayes — That’s not great for this environment. Rich Birch — Right.Steece Hayes — And Wi-Fi is just an easy one to pick on, but that’s kind of an idea of…Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.Steece Hayes — …you know, churches will go down to Best Buy or order something off Amazon all the time that will, you know, kind of scratch the itch they have…Rich Birch — Right.Steece Hayes — …but it’s not really designed for what we would call an enterprise application.Rich Birch — Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Totally makes sense. Okay. So yeah I know that you guys have something called the care framework for churches. Help us kind of unpack that a little bit. Talk us through what does that look like and how does it help us be effective on this front to think through how we manage our IT well? Because frankly, to be honest, this is one of those areas where I see churches stumble. Rich Birch — Like it’s like, this is, man, if like, it would be a sin for our computers to hold us back. Like we just, we should fix this. There’s people out there that can actually solve these problems. So how do you help them? What’s that look like? Talk us through that framework.Steece Hayes — Yeah, and kind of with that idea and what you had said earlier, you know IT generally, in a lot of churches, is a very, very bottom of the barrel budget item. Most churches don’t spend a lot of money on them. Most churches don’t even have an IT budget. And if they do, it’s very underpowered, to use that same phrase. So what we do is is we have care, and that simply means clarify, architect, reinforce, and evolve.Steece Hayes — So clarify would be our first engagement with a church, would be to understand what they have. You know, what devices do you have? What computers do you have? Are they up to date? Are they not? What are your security issues? Are you secure? Are you not secure? Kind of talk through educating them – basically getting a good understanding of what their IT system and situation currently is. So that would be the clarify side of it.Steece Hayes — Then we get into architect. That would be the A. And so architect would be starting to design and build out what should your IT look like for the church. And so that may be, do you need servers or do you not need servers? That’s a big conversation a lot of churches are having today. How do we want to work with you? Do we want to manage the entire thing for you and you are hands off? Many of our churches choose that because they don’t have anybody that knows how to do it anyway. So they allow us just to handle it all. Steece Hayes — Some of the larger churches are like, hey, we will co-manage with you. So in other words, they are still involved. They’re doing a lot of work, but we are are there sort of as an umbrella to help them, to guide them, to do a lot of the minutia that they don’t have time for. But it’s also sort of putting everything in place, making sure the reporting is there, making sure all the devices are hooked up, everything’s working, everybody’s there. So we build that architect for them and then show that to them.Steece Hayes — And then once they decide that we’re we’re a good fit for them, we implement it. So we put all those in place, all the workflows, the automations, making sure that all the tools are in place, helping them with any kind of remote workforce stuff that they may do, because a lot of people work remotely nowadays.Steece Hayes — But basically getting all that set up and running. And then they’re in good they’re in a good shape. And then the last would be evolve. And so evolve would be, okay, we’re we’re managing it. Everything’s working. Life is happy. Everything’s going well. Now let’s start looking at the next step. So back to those devices and that equipment, you know, how many of your computers are out of date? How many of your switches are 10 years old? All right. We decided in the whole process that you probably didn’t need that server after all. Remember servers are $6000-$10,000 to replace. Oftentimes, and in today’s cloud world they’re just not needed a whole lot. Rich Birch — Right. Steece Hayes — So maybe know after we’ve gotten everything set up and running, now we look at, okay, let’s start simplifying some of these things. Let’s put in a budget and a plan for replacing a few switches over the next year or two years. Let’s get you out of that server um you’ve got a handful of computers that are just out of date. What’s our plan for for doing that. So all of that is working with the church on budgeting. Churches don’t have unlimited funds, as we all know. How can we do this in steps? We triage it, what’s the most important. And over the next you know couple of years, we will evolve them from being a band-aid shop to really state-of-the-art, but inside of their budget.Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s great.Steece Hayes — So that’ that’s sort of the evolve.Rich Birch — Yeah.Steece Hayes — So clarify, architect, reinforce, evolve. And there’s a lot of little small steps in all of that.Rich Birch — Sure. Of course. Steece Hayes — But it’s trying to get them from where they are today to where they really need to be.Rich Birch — Yep.Steece Hayes — And we work with large and small churches. So that varies a little bit depending on their size and scope.Rich Birch — Yeah. What’s the kind of, what’s the sweet spot? Obviously, like, you know, you’ll work with, with anybody obviously, but what is the kind of sweet spot of a church that you would say, Hey, here’s a church where you probably should bring us in. I’m assuming if it’s like, even if you have just two staff, cause already you’re like, you’ve got some sort of network, you’re printing some stuff. You’ve got a couple of computers. You got to get them to talk well together, but what would that look like? What does it give us a sense of the size question?Steece Hayes — It varies a little bit, but I would say once a church, well, first of all, if a church finds themselves needing IT help, they they are struggling with it. Maybe they have some volunteers that are kind of helping with it. Volunteers are wonderful. We love volunteers, even corporate. I mean, we just, we love that the church has those volunteers and we never want to take the volunteer out of the equation because that may be their giftedness, right? That may be their way of serving the kingdom. So we don’t want to take them out. Steece Hayes — But oftentimes volunteers are limited in their time and their scope and what they can… And also volunteers tend to lot of times be limited in their understanding. They don’t know all of this.Rich Birch — Right. Yeah. They’re not thinking about it all day long. Yeah.Steece Hayes — They’re not. And so really, once you get up, I would say probably five computers. Rich Birch — Yep. Okay. Steece Hayes — And you’re you’re working with a staff that is not knowledgeable, the staff is busy… Rich Birch — Yep. Steece Hayes — …and you you see your IT starting to kind of go backwards a little bit, we’re having problems. And we’re having to call the local IT shop down the street to come in and fix things. Generally speaking, that’s when we would like to have that engagement. So that five, maybe on the small end to 10, although we’ve got some clients that have two computers.Rich Birch — Right, right.Steece Hayes — But that 5 to 10 computer size, and everything is being run by by volunteers or staff that… and here’s what we’ll see a lot of times in churches is the youth pastor is usually the one that’s assigned to it because he’s the young guy. Rich Birch — There’s some stereotypes that just are true.Steece Hayes — Yeah [inaudible] it’s either the the youth or the children’s guy or or lady… Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah. Steece Hayes — …and they’ll tap them because hey you’re in your 30s, you know what this you know this technology stuff is. Rich Birch — Yes. You seem to know how to use your cell phone. You can fix this. Yeah. Steece Hayes — Sure, you know how to do all this stuff. And so they’re over their head and this isn’t their job. Rich Birch — Yeah. Right. Steece Hayes — And so that’s where we come in and we kind of take that burden off of them. Rich Birch — Yeah.Steece Hayes — And for the volunteers, we still use them quite often. You know, we’ll we’ll help. They’ll do some stuff around the church. They’re still involved in the process. But, you know, we’re taking all the heavy lifting and we’re doing all the minutiae and we’re there to to back them up and support them.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Well, and I can imagine if I, and this may not be the kind of thing you’re thinking about, but if you’re thinking, you know, in the next couple of years, I can imagine us hiring a few more people, that this would be like something you want to get done on the front end. Rich Birch — It’s like, Hey, I’m envisioning a season of hiring. Hey, we should bring somebody in now and kind of get this set up right. Get it kind of clearly aligned before. So that by the time those staff land, man, things are are set up and and well. Rich Birch — I want to go back to the cybersecurity question. This is ah is a real issue, obviously. I don’t want to be like fear mongering to people, but I do also want to be really clear. What are some real risks that that we that frankly some leaders might not be aware of and that really we should be taking some steps towards? I know a friend of mine, they had their organization had a security breach that was like tragic, like it’s very bad for the organization. And so I don’t want people to live through that. So help help us understand what are some of those risks. Without a fear mongering kind of thing, what are some real things we should be thinking about on this front?Steece Hayes — Yeah, cybersecurity is a hard conversation to have with now without coming out sounding fear-mongering… Rich Birch — Yes. Yes. Crazy. Yeah. Steece Hayes — …because it’s a it’s a very real problem and it’s a very real threat. So ah the the number one threat out there today is phishing. Rich Birch — Yep. Steece Hayes — So for for those of your audience that may not be familiar with phishing, although I think most people are today, it’s those emails. And and we even have smishing, which would be SMS, same idea. And it’s some bad actor out there, a bad guy has sent you an email with the idea that they want you to click on something or interact with it in some way. Right? Steece Hayes — And when you do interact with it, they are stealing information, whether it’s credentials or something they’re getting from you that they can then turn around and penetrate your network, penetrate your system, do something, do some bad act with it. And so it usually comes through an email or through an SMS or something like that. Steece Hayes — That’s number one. That is hitting everybody across the board. So one of the things that we do is that we engage the church with phishing. So we phish them. We have on staff what I call white hat hackers. I mean, these are really scary guys who are very good at that. Rich Birch — Sure.Steece Hayes — And but but they’re good guys, right? And they’re they’re serving the church. And they will use what’s called social engineering means they’ll go to your website. They’ll look around, they’ll see some events and things like this. And they will then send an email to the church saying, Hey, we see you’ve got this event coming up next week. Click here to enter in a, get an offering or not an offering, but a… Rich Birch — Right. Steece Hayes — …a raffle or something we’re going to have at the event you can enter here. And so they’ll click on that button because it sounds innocent.Rich Birch — Right.Steece Hayes — And the bad guy, if it were truly a bad guy, has them. So we’ll do that. And then we follow that up with training. And, hey, here’s what you look for. Here’s how to recognize it. Here’s how to avoid it. Rich Birch — That’s good.Steece Hayes — And our risk manager here at ACS, you know, his his whole mantra is your inbox is hostile territory. Just assume everything that comes in is bad.Rich Birch — Yes. Yes. Yeah, it’s true. Be very suspicious.Steece Hayes — Oh, 100%. And it’s not only true for you know your professional world at the church or your job or wherever you are. It’s true in your personal life. Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s very true.Steece Hayes — You know that this is is a big problem. So phishing is a big one. That’s a huge problem today.Rich Birch — Yeah.Steece Hayes — The next next one would just be network intrusion in general. That would be having vulnerabilities in your network, having servers that’s not patched, not having a firewall, you know having your Wi-Fi that’s open to the whole universe and anybody can just come in and have access to it and they’re in your network. So those are the two big ones.Rich Birch — Yeah. And and friends, this the interesting thing about this whole area is I think for some reason, there’s like shame or like embarrassment out there around when this stuff actually happens and people don’t talk about it. And so, you know, this stuff actually happens in organizations. It actually happens in churches. And it happened in my organization. My finance person got an email from me saying—and this is a really common one—saying, hey, could you get five ah gift cards online from for these volunteers? And um I’m just in between meetings – can you can you book them, and just send me back the codes and sent a link to it or whatever.Rich Birch — And she almost took action on it. She almost took the step. And she’s an incredibly smart person. Like this is this is not she’s but then she she gave me a ring and she said, hey, I just want to double check on these gift cards. Well, that’s the first time I heard about that. And then as she was talking to me, she was like, oh, of of course this was not true. But it was socially engineered close enough. That’s just outside of something I would do. Like it was it was like not that strange. Hey, we want to thank these volunteers. We you know, we and wouldn’t be crazy for me to say, let’s get gift cards and give to them like that’s not like a crazy thing.Rich Birch — But it, you know, smart enough. And another, and I’m just saying this friends, not to freak you out, but again, to make you aware: church I know, I’ve done some work with, church of a couple thousand people, they have, and all of their systems are super automated. They have a lot of production stuff that’s super automated. And um they were having repeated technical problems, like repeated technical problems. Like stuff in their audio, stuff in their lighting, stuff on their phone you know their phones, like all this over weeks and could not figure it out.Rich Birch — And finally came to the end of it and realized, oh, they have someone who’s intruded their system and is it’s just they’re just a vandal. Like they’re in, you know, destroying their lighting system, in destroying you know audio, at like during services, like canning stuff and like. So they had to go through a significant thing like, hey, we’re changing it all. We got to go back. Everybody, you know, two factor authentication, all that stuff again. Again, and this was this is a smart church. They’re doing good work. These people are not knuckle draggers. They’re smart people. But there’s like an embarrassment out there to even talk about this stuff. But it happens, friends. You want someone like you. Rich Birch — So how how do you, let’s pivot and talk a little bit more specifically about the services that you provide. Give us a sense of how does this all fit together? How does Higher Ground or ACS, how do how do they actually help a church in this area? What does a typical engagement look like?Steece Hayes — Well, it would be the care would be sort of the the overall framework… Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah. Steece Hayes — …but but it would basically be to talk to the church and find out, you know, where are you? You know, what what’s your current IT situation? And then trying to to raise them up a level. Like we want them to level up in what they’re doing. There’s almost no way that we’re going to 127 percent prevent all cyber crimes. Rich Birch — Right. Steece Hayes — I mean, unfortunately, the days of the Nigerian prince emails are gone.Rich Birch — Right. No, it’s true.Steece Hayes — Today, the cyber criminals are way sophisticated. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Steece Hayes — And so what what we want to do is is is really twofold is one, make them as secure as possible. So we want to take them from being really low hanging fruit to being a little further up on the tree. So if something, if a bad guy is out there kind of shotgunning, looking around for vulnerabilities, your church isn’t going to be one of those he’s going to find, because you’re going to be a lot more difficult, a lot more fortified for the bad guy. So that’s going to be one of the things we’re going to look at. Steece Hayes — And the other thing is, is just internal efficiency. What do you guys, I mean, the number of churches that we run into that have both Microsoft 365 and Google workspaces, it’s like you guys aren’t efficient. Rich Birch — Right, right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that’s good.Steece Hayes — You know, they’re they’re not backing up their data. Rich Birch — That’s good.Steece Hayes — They’re like, hey, we we’ve got all our stuff is in Microsoft 365. Yeah, guess what? Microsoft doesn’t back that stuff up. If one day it goes away, you’ve just lost it. And so how do we back up your data? How do we keep your data safe, right? And secure and accessible.Rich Birch — That’s good.Steece Hayes — So, I mean, there’s a ton of different things and ways that we engage with the church. It really is what does that church need today? And then that evolve part, of course, would be what are you going to need tomorrow and the next day and going so forth.Steece Hayes — But I want to hit on something you said earlier about looking to grow and add staff and things like that.Rich Birch — Yep. For sure.Steece Hayes — Generally speaking, working with a managed service provider like Higher Ground, we’re going to be significantly less expensive than hiring a full-time person.Rich Birch — Right, right.Steece Hayes — A lot less expensive. Rich Birch — For sure. Steece Hayes — And so if a church is looking to grow and you’re wanting to expand and things like that, we, I personally, would rather you spend that money in hiring a youth pastor or a children’s minister or growing the ministry… Rich Birch — That’s good. Steece Hayes — …and not spend a whole lot of money in your IT staff. Again, some churches need it because they’re a large church and they need to have an IT person there. But we can do a lot of the work that a full-time person would would do and you don’t necessarily need to to add staff for that. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Steece Hayes — Yeah, those those are all the different areas that that we look at.Rich Birch — So good. Now, this I didn’t we didn’t talk about this ahead of time, but let’s picture I’m a church of like a thousand people and I let’s say I’m an executive pastor and I’m like, I just have this niggling feeling that we’re not performing well on this front. Like this is an area that, you know, we, we have the kid who is like, I’m not sure whether they’re any good at this stuff or not doing it. And I’m like, I don’t know. Do you guys provide a service or is there a way for you to come in and kind of do like an audit, help us understand, even get clarity? Will you do like the first step and be like, Hey, just help us understand that kind of see where are we at? Is that, is that the kind of thing that you, you provide? Is there ah an opportunity for that?Steece Hayes — Yeah, yeah, yeah. We actually have. And we we can provide a security assessment for them.Rich Birch — Okay, nice.Steece Hayes — What it is, is basically we we would send to them this assessment and they would go through it. It’s a series of questions, lots of different questions, and they would answer the questions. And at the end of it, it will give them a score where they scored on their assessment. And as you may imagine, the vast majority, and I would say probably 80 to 90% of, of every church has ever taken this assessment score at 50% or below, which is really bad.Rich Birch — Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And this is not like golf where you want a low low score.Steece Hayes — No, no, no.Rich Birch — But I’m also thinking more than just the kind of security stuff.Rich Birch — What about IT in general? Like, I feel like I’ve got problems on, you know, it’s maybe not on the security side, but it is in the like, I man, like we got problems with, in order to get that printer to work, we have to like, you have to stand on one foot and, you know, shake your hand a certain way to get it to work. Those kinds of problems. Can you help us audit that too?Steece Hayes — Yeah, I mean, that’s part of sort of the clarify is when we have that conversation is… Rich Birch — Yes. Part of that service. Yeah. Steece Hayes — …you know, come to us and say, hey here’s our problem. Rich Birch — Yes. Steece Hayes — And these conversations don’t cost the church anything. Rich Birch — Right.Steece Hayes — I mean I, you know, I do this every day. Rich Birch — Right.Steece Hayes — And this is, you know, here’s our problems. These are the things we’re running into. And then we can guide you. And I’ve worked with many churches where we never charge them. Imean, they never bought any of our services, but we had conversations just to help them.Rich Birch — Right. It’s not a great business. Just kidding.Steece Hayes — But at the end of the day, I mean, we still want to help the church. I mean, this is a ministry… Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Yeah, that’s good. Yeah. Steece Hayes — …even though it’s a business, it’s still a ministry. And so we can talk them through some steps on things that they can do. For instance, you know, having a password manager. You know, a password manager is a really inexpensive way for the church to control and to make all their passwords all in one place. They can keep them. They can make their passwords complex. They don’t need to spend a whole lot of money on that. It’s a pretty inexpensive, cheap way of doing that.Steece Hayes — The phishing awareness training and everything I was talking about earlier, they can do that up front day one, and it’s really cheap. I mean, it’s really inexpensive to do that. And we will even walk through, you know, what are your computers? When was the last time they were updated? Are you patching them? Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s good. Steece Hayes — You know, things like that. So, you know, we have a lot of conversations with with churches about easy things that they can fix without spending a lot of money on. But that’s that conversation. We just need to talk to them and find out what what problems they’re having.Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s so good. I noticed, so friends, you want to go to highergroundit.com, top right-hand corner. There’s a “schedule a call” button. You can do that literally while we are on that while we’re wrapping up this episode. You could do that today.Rich Birch — If I go and click on that “schedule a call” button, what happens? Who do I talk to? Reduce some anxiety around that being like, oh, they’re just going to try to sell me on something. Tell tell me about how you can help me. Because what I hear you saying is, hey, you want to help churches, which I know that’s what you want to do. Obviously, I’m paying a little of the devil’s like a advocate here, but help us understand a little bit of, of, of what would that look like if I was to do that today?Steece Hayes — Yeah, and that would be it. I mean, we would just simply talk about your your system, where you are, what your struggles are, what your pain point, what you’re concerned with, your worries. And we simply talk through that.Steece Hayes — And again, I am perfectly happy with us having a conversation and getting off the phone and you never buying anything, but you feel better.Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah. That’s good.Steece Hayes — And you’re going to go do a few of these easy, easy fixes, right? I’m perfectly happy with that. But for many folks, they’re like, hey, we need this and we need it every day. We need it 24/7. We need you guys to help us be a part of the solution. And so in that case, we’ll we’ll have a longer engagement and work with the church to to make them better.Rich Birch — That’s great. So again, ah you want to go to highergroundit.com and click on that schedule a call button. That would be a great way to kind of get the ball rolling today. Anything else you’d like to share with us, Steece, just as today as we kind of wrap up today’s episode?Steece Hayes — I would say for all the churches out there, small, medium, or large, IT needs to be something you’re thinking about. Rich Birch — That’s good.Steece Hayes — It needs to be something that that’s important to you. Many churches don’t even have an IT budget. Have that conversation. Figure out where your budget needs to be. Steece Hayes — And I will say, for all those out there that are weren’t running anything outside of Windows 11, Microsoft ends their support of Windows 10 coming up in Nov or in October. So as of October, if you are not using a Windows 11 computer… Rich Birch — That’s good. Steece Hayes — …it is no longer supported, which means security is going to be a major problem for you. That’s a big tip there.Rich Birch — No, that’s good. That’s really good. So ah again, if you don’t know what that is, you can click the “schedule a call” button. He’d even help you understand if you’re using Windows 10, that might save you right there. So, or you maybe send an email. Maybe that might be an easier way ah to to do that.Steece Hayes — That’s right.Rich Birch — Well, this has been fantastic, Steece. I really appreciate highergroundit.com. Anywhere else we want to send people online to kind of track with you guys?Steece Hayes — That’s the main area. And all of those inquiries will come to me. Rich Birch — Great. Steece Hayes — I’ll be the one that that will field those and we’ll have the conversations. We’ll help them out. So looking forward to talking to folks.Rich Birch — Great. Thanks so much for being here today.Steece Hayes — Thanks, man.

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of unSeminary! A quick heads-up: Rich experienced some sound issues during the recording; thank you for bearing with us. Fortunately, our guest Yolanda comes through loud and clear, and you won’t want to miss the incredible insights she shares. Thanks for your grace and enjoy the conversation! Do you ever feel like your church’s decisions are more emotional than intentional? Is your church struggling with inconsistent processes or reactive planning? In this episode of the unSeminary Podcast, we’re joined by Yolanda Stewart, Executive Pastor at Mosaic Church in Tennessee—one of the fastest-growing churches in America. Tune in as Yolanda shares a practical, Spirit-led decision-making framework that’s helping Mosaic Church thrive at every level. Emotional leadership to strategic clarity. // It’s not uncommon for churches to make decisions based on emotion and urgency rather than shared understanding and strategy. Drawing on her military experience, Yolanda began equipping the team at Mosaic Church with tools for clarity—helping them work smarter, not harder. But instead of demanding change, she approached the team with humility, offering help and building trust. Define, Discern, and Decide. // Yolanda created a framework that her church has used that is called Define, Discern, and Decide. It is inspired the military decision-making model from an infantry handbook and was modified into three steps. Define. // The first step is to clearly define your problem or objective as well as your non-negotiables. Without clarity on what you’re solving for, teams risk wasting resources or solving the wrong problem. What is the ministry culture in your church? What has the pastor established as the non-negotiables? The collaborations should be within the boundaries that the pastor has set or culture has established. Discern. // Involve the Holy Spirit throughout the entire process. Leadership isn’t just practical—it’s deeply spiritual. Discernment guides when and how decisions get made. Decide. // Rather than defaulting to one idea, generate multiple potential solutions. Yolanda encourages at least three courses of action, but underscores it is critical to at least have more than one. Discuss pros, cons, and alignment with the vision before choosing the best course—or blending the best parts of each. Collaboration over command. // One of Mosaic’s core values is “we refuse to do it alone.” Yolanda emphasizes the importance of inviting the right people to the table—including those on the ground level—when making decisions. Collaboration leads to buy-in, richer insights, and stronger execution. Whether you’re the lead pastor or on the executive team, humble leadership and inclusive dialogue are key to implementing transformational change. Spirit-led strategy. // While structure and tools are important, they must be anchored in spiritual discernment. Yolanda emphasizes that “your spirituality is your greatest asset.” Church leaders must integrate spiritual maturity with leadership excellence to avoid importing secular strategies that don’t reflect the heart of the Kingdom. Even hard conversations should be framed with grace, humility, and the fruit of the Spirit. Download the framework. // Yolanda has created a free PDF outlining her Define, Discern, Decide framework, offering guiding questions and practical steps for church leaders. Whether you’re facing a big decision or looking to shift your church culture, this resource can help bring clarity and alignment to your leadership process. Learn more about Mosaic Church by visiting mymosaic.ch. Thank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey friends, Rich Birch here from the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Really looking forward to today’s conversation. Today, we are talking about something that I know is going to be super applicable to all of us. We are often faced, how do we make decisions? How do we move forward? How do we push our ministries to what we believe God’s calling to us next and today’s conversation is going to help us think through those yeah those kinds of conversations. It’s going to be great. We’ve got Yolanda Stewart with us. She’s the executive church pastor at a church called Mosaic Church. It’s led by pastors Anthony and Julia Daly, it’s a multi-site church with locations in Tennessee as well as church online, it’s one of the fastest growing churches in the country. Yolanda, so glad to have you here – welcome!Yolanda Stewart — Rich, thank you for having me. I’m glad to be here.Rich Birch — This is an honor. Thank you for taking time. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about the church and tell us about your role, maybe a little bit of the background, ah help us understand a little bit about Mosaic.Yolanda Stewart — It’d be my pleasure. So Mosaic, you mentioned it earlier, is a multi-site church, and we are mission-focused. Many of the things that we get to do for the kingdom happened outside of the United States, outside the walls of of our church.Rich Birch — Love it.Yolanda Stewart — So we have ministry in Africa. We have ministry in Honduras, ministry in China. And of the things that is near and dear to us is reaching people who are ah the underserved, if you will, those who are, there’s not a lot of people in mind to help those types of people. Rich Birch — Love that.Yolanda Stewart — And and which we feel a mandate for us to to to do that. And so we are we are entrenched in missions and we love it. Also, Mosaic is very busy making an effort to impact our community. And so we have several nonprofits that we are are the pioneers for, and in they are in partnership with the city of Clarksville.Yolanda Stewart — Our there is that if the doors of our church close that the mayor would be beating on the doors asking what can he do to open our doors again? And so we we are busy doing that. We have a transitional home for ah foster care children. We do senior accessibility modifications so that they can age in place… Rich Birch — So good. Yolanda Stewart — …and we also have ah developed a community housing development organization where we’re building affordable homes, and I get the privilege to be the executive director of those three programs. Rich Birch — Wow. Yolanda Stewart — And so at the church, my role also includes executive oversight of discipleship, military support, pastoral care, um outreach. And yeah, so that’s what I’m busy doing.Rich Birch — That’s everything. Well, you’re busy. You’re not sitting around looking for stuff to do. That’s for sure.Yolanda Stewart — It’s an adventure.Rich Birch — Tell us. Yeah. Tell us that’s great. That’s so good. Love hearing about all the stuff that Mosaic is engaged in and the real difference, tangible difference you’re making in both here locally and internationally. It’s really great.Rich Birch — Tell us a little bit about your background. What what was your kind of life journey that brought you to Mosaic?Yolanda Stewart — Sure. Well, Rich, I’m a 29-year veteran. I served in the United States Army. Rich Birch — Thank you. Yolanda Stewart — And my last duty station was Fort Campbell, Kentucky, which is just right up the road from Mosaic. I was invited to Mosaic by a a friend that that I’ve I’ve been friends over 30 years now. Our children ah grew up together. But um My time in the military really cultivated leadership qualities that I didn’t know that I possessed, but um you know that was a a training ground for me. And it’s really cool how Uncle Sam prepared me, and leveraged the Holy Spirit ah to, excuse me, leverage my military experience. And then ah coupled that with the Holy Spirit, um I’ve been able to ah bring many of the things that I’ve learned, tools and disciplines, if you will, ah into into ministry. So from the from the military to the marketplace to ministry. And so I retired just a few years ago. I started as an enlisted soldier and went through ROTC, Wright State University graduate… Rich Birch — Very cool. Yolanda Stewart — …and um retired as a lieutenant colonel 2015. Rich Birch — Very cool. Well, you know, I’ve said in other contexts that I really do believe the U.S. military is the the greatest leadership development organization in the world, maybe outside of the church, but like doing amazing work, developing leaders. And it’s a, you know, it’s a real just incredible, you know, just a fertile leadership development kind of engine. And so I’d love to explore that a little bit today and, and talk about how, you know, and learn a little bit about how that journey from, um you know, the military to the marketplace, ultimately to ministry, how you brought some of those decisions along, maybe take us back to when you first joined the team and you were, you know, in that at Mosaic. When you compared the the kind of decisions that were being made, maybe in the military versus the decisions you were making at the church, how did they compare? How were they similar, different? You know, how did they, you know, how did that all fit together?Yolanda Stewart — It’s very different. I will tell you.Rich Birch — Yeah, I can imagine.Yolanda Stewart — The thing that stood out, and and our church was, the staff was very young and very small, was very small ah staff when I came on board. But it was very different in terms of how decisions were made. And what what stood out to me was that there was no ah real framework. It was, it was emotional. It was ah perhaps, um ah you know, opportunistic maybe. You know, and ah it it just, it it made for a very frustrating process for me, having come from an organization that is very structured in how we make decisions.Rich Birch — Right. Yes.Yolanda Stewart — And and so that really stood out to me that, hey, this is an emotional decision. It’s not a well thought-out decision. It’s spontaneous. Fly by the seat of the pants, last minute, you know? Rich Birch — Right, right. Yolanda Stewart — And it resulted in a lot of of frustration… Rich Birch — Yep. Yolanda Stewart — …wasted resources, missing the objective, repeating the same mistakes over and over again. And so, yeah, that stood out to me. Very, very different than what I come from.Rich Birch — Yeah, well, that I think you’ve described, and this is why I’m excited that you’re on the podcast today. You’ve described a lot of churches. That’s where a lot of us are at. We’re in this kind of, like you’re saying, you know emotional, opportunistic. We just kind of, um there’s like a “ready, fire, aim” you know, kind of mentality. Let’s just go.Yolanda Stewart — Yeah.Rich Birch — And, you know, we could, we might understand at a theoretical level, yeah, we need to have some sort of framework. Help me think through when you kind of started thinking about, hey, we’ve got to bring a framework here to make these decisions. How did those conversations go? What did were some of those initial kind of conversations to say, hey, we’re going to try to build a framework here for making decisions? Take us through that.Yolanda Stewart — And that’s a great question. Yes, it makes sense. um I will tell you just just a little insert in here. Coming from the military, going to the marketplace, and then coming to ministry, boy, each of those were were culture cultural differences that really, really stretched me as a leader.Yolanda Stewart — And so in in ministry, um because of just the mindset of ministry, it was it was a challenge for me to remind myself, these are not soldiers. And, you know, they’ve come from so many different backgrounds that I needed to take my time. I needed to throttle myself, if you will, and change my perspective and my approach. Yolanda Stewart — So I didn’t do it right the first time, you know, first you know because in my mind, I was the I just that it was the wrong approach. And with the help of the Holy Spirit, and I’m just telling you, the Holy Spirit is underrated. But with the Holy Spirit, it’s like, it’s not what you say, Yolanda. And it’s not that what you bring to the table isn’t valuable and meaningful and and suitable for this organization. You have to you have to deliver it better.Yolanda Stewart — And so once I worked through that leadership lesson, they were very receptive when I offered…offer. Not, let me tell you what you need to do to be better. It was like, hey, this is a tool that I’ve used in the marketplace. They were amazed. They thought, does everybody in the military make decisions like this? Well no, but listen I got wind of this tool many many years ago and I thought, hey, this works. And so I used it in the marketplace. And so I offered. And, um, pastor was very receptive, very receptive. The staff was very receptive. And to this day, and that was several years ago, Rich, to this day, I smile on the inside when I hear a staff member refer to a course of action, which is, you know, elements of the decision-making model that we’ll talk about. Rich Birch — So good.Yolanda Stewart — But so they were very receptive. And, I was able to do a presentation to the entire staff and and all the pastors came as well. And yeah, that’s how we navigated it. I offered it, and then they accepted my offer.Rich Birch — Love it. Yeah. Yeah, that’s great. Well, that that’s great coaching there even um and um I want to make sure we dive into the the actual framework here for a second, but I think it’s good to pause and even just talk about how how you ended up kind of rolling this out. That’s a great insight for us, kind of regardless of what we’re trying to come with as from the second seat or executive pastor, you know we’re not necessarily the lead or not the lead pastor. And so we’re trying to, to offer help and assistance in a way that, you know, that is seen as help, not like, Hey, we’re trying to come down on you and, and clip your wings or whatever.Rich Birch — Well, talk us through the framework, help us understand ah what what is this framework that you’ve, you’ve installed that has been so helpful?Yolanda Stewart — Yes, it’s my privilege. And I did prepare a PDF… Rich Birch — Perfect. Yolanda Stewart — …that you’ll be able to make available to to your listeners.Rich Birch — Yeah, we’ll link to that in the show notes for sure.Yolanda Stewart — One hundred percent. So, so I call it, and this is, this is something that is so ingrained in me. It’s not like I, I pull my sheet out, you know… Rich Birch — Right. Yolanda Stewart — …but I did my best to capture it on paper because this is just what I do. I just, you know, it’s second nature to me now. But I call it Define, Discern, and Decide. Rich Birch — Okay. Yolanda Stewart — And and I what I did was I, um this tool is inspired by ah the military decision-making model that I adopted from an infantry handbook, mind you.Rich Birch — Love it.Yolanda Stewart — I was a medical service corps officer and so they we heal them. That’s kind of just what we say in the army. But I got wind of this and and what I did was I modified it into three steps.Yolanda Stewart — Essentially, the first step is to clearly define your your problem or your objective. And you can’t sleep on this step, Rich, because it’s anchor for the whole ah process of making a good decision. And if you’re not clear on your objective, then you risk wasting resources, missing you know the the intent of the whole conversation, if you will, hold the whole collaboration, if your objective is not clear. So you’ve got to ah do the work to, take your time, not rush through it. Rich Birch — So good.Yolanda Stewart — You’ve got to clearly define the objective. And the the second step that that I lay out there in the in the document that I prepared for your listeners is to clearly define the non-negotiables. Because sometimes, and this is from experience, too often, one, if you don’t clearly define the objective, and if you don’t, secondly, clearly outline the non-negotiables, then you run the risk of, you know, collaborating and getting all excited about things that your pastor is like, we’re not doing that. Rich Birch — Right.Yolanda Stewart — We’re we’re not doing that. Rich Birch — Right. Yes.Yolanda Stewart — Now you’re frustrated because you didn’t consider what we call, and and they’ve adopted this term in in ministry at Mosaic, but we call it the commander’s intent. That’s what we call it in the military. So so you’ve got to know your pastor. You’ve got to know what has your pastor established ah that are non-negotiables or what is the ministry culture that should function as guardrails or boundaries, if you will, so that your collaboration is within the confines of the boundary that either your pastor has set or the culture has established. Does that make sense?Rich Birch — Oh, that makes that makes total sense. I’m familiar with the commander’s intent idea, but I think that’s really good to early on, why is that immediately after the kind of the problem? So clearly understanding the problem and then next clearly identifying non-negotiables. Why what’s the interplay between those two? Why is that so important right up front?Yolanda Stewart — Right up front, it’s important because it sets the the the the restrictions, the guardrails, the boundaries.Rich Birch — That’s good.Yolanda Stewart — If you start outside of the boundaries, you’re never… Rich Birch — Right. Yolanda Stewart — …going to make the the type of decisions efficiently without going back and and redoing and going back and redoing, if you don’t start with those two keys. If you don’t start with clearly defining the objective or defining the problem… Rich Birch — That’s good. Yolanda Stewart — …and if you don’t, um then establish what those or identify, because they’re already established, but identify those non-negotiables, you’ve already started on the wrong foot.Rich Birch — That’s good.Yolanda Stewart — Does it make sense?Rich Birch — Makes sense. Total sense. Yep, absolutely. For sure.Yolanda Stewart — Yeah, and so then from there, and let me just go back just for one micro moment to talk about the non-negotiables and talk about the importance of knowing your leader. Discernment is important at all three steps. And also just, you know, discernment, not just from the standpoint of your experience, what the pastor has said, um what the culture dictates, but what is Holy Spirit saying?Rich Birch — Very good. Very good.Yolanda Stewart — And and and I am I am sold on the necessity of the Holy Spirit.Rich Birch — Yeah that, which is good. That’s good.Yolanda Stewart — I’m entrenched. It’s too late to change my mind now, you know.Rich Birch — Well, and this this, I’d love to double click on this because this will actually, you’re pre-thinking a question that’s bubbling in the back of my head, which is, I think that there can be a really beautiful coexistence of a fairly defined process, not rigid, but defined process, while at the same time, a high value on pursuing what the Holy Spirit wants to do and holding those two in harmony. I think sometimes we think, or there may be leaders who think that those are in opposed to each other.Rich Birch — Maybe talk to a leader who who is saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m all in on the Holy Spirit, but why do if I’m all in on the Holy Spirit, why do I need to do all this other stuff? Why do I need to have this? You know, how do those two kind of coexist together?Yolanda Stewart — That’s so that’s such a great question. It it made me think, immediately, when you began to elaborate on that question, I thought about a physician. Okay, a physician at spirit field. He still needed to go to school.Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good. Yep.Yolanda Stewart — And he had to garner the knowledge, the education that was necessary for him to perform that function. And so don’t negate the the the education that a physician and the continuing education necessary for that physician to achieve the objective.Rich Birch — That’s good.Yolanda Stewart — What the Holy Spirit does is he’s able to ah be the governor how that education is applied, how, what you do, how you do it, and leverage all that you have experienced by way of education, by way of practice and, and, and, and so on and so forth to achieve something far more than just the, the, the tangible, the, you know, the physical, you understand?Yolanda Stewart — And so for me, I am, I am a spirit-filled Christ follower that have been called to leadership. They’re not I’m not two different people. And for me to think that I can function in excellence and please the Lord in a place where I have to choose whether I’m going to apply the Holy Spirit, give Holy Spirit access, give Holy Spirit influence, it makes absolutely, I can’t even make sense of it. It’s like, I need the Holy Spirit and I want, and I invite him to, to, to partner with me. I bring something to the table. I bring education. I bring my due diligence. I bring my experience. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Yolanda Stewart — And what I’m asking Holy Spirit to do is to leverage, do what only you can do… Rich Birch — That’s good. Yolanda Stewart — …you know, that is bigger than me. Rich Birch — Yeah, 100%.Yolanda Stewart — But i’m not, and so what we do, Rich, sometimes is we idolize our intelligence so much so that we diminish the necessity of the Holy Spirit.Rich Birch — So good. So good.Yolanda Stewart — You understand?Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. So good.Yolanda Stewart — I don’t know if I answered your question.Rich Birch — No, you did. Absolutely. No, that was super helpful. That’s that’s great. Okay. So I understand kind of commander’s intent, clearly identify the non-negotiables. Then what’s the next step in in the process? Then I want to ask a couple kind of follow-up questions.Yolanda Stewart — Sure. And then the the final step is to begin developing the courses of action. Rich Birch — Okay. Yolanda Stewart — And so I do go into um more detail on the document that the tool I’ll refer to. There’s some key identifying, um excuse me, key considerations and and ah ah guiding questions that serve as just, you know, some good insight for a person that is new to this process. Rich Birch — Yep. Yolanda Stewart — I kind of do them in my head and sometimes I will capture them on the agenda and the in the the tool that I’m using when I’m leading a meeting or leading a collaboration, but it’s develop the courses of action. And my encouragement is always, and I’ve learned this from the process, is having more than one course of action is crucial.Rich Birch — That’s good.Yolanda Stewart — And so I always encourage three, but always more than two, more than one, excuse me.Rich Birch — More than one.Yolanda Stewart — Three ideally, but more than one, because it’ll stretch you. It’ll cause you to, it’ll force you to think outside of the box, be innovative, not get caught in this rut of this is what we’ve always done. So you, you know, you’re afraid to do new things. And that collaboration of, ah that takes place when you’re developing the courses of action. When you invite key people to the table, In collaboration, one of our core values at Mosaic is collaboration. Rich Birch — Yep. Yolanda Stewart — The tagline to that is we refuse to do it alone. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Yolanda Stewart — When you collaborate, you get access to people’s experience, you get their buy-in, and you get to leverage their insight and their innovation to help you make a good decision. But developing that course, the three courses of action, ideally three, more than one always, is is going to give you the opportunity to stretch, give you the opportunity to weigh the the pros and the cons and help you go to this through this, excuse me, critical thinking process. So when it’s all done, you’re able to identify, hey, we thought that was a good idea or a great course of action until we developed or identified the pros and the cons. And do they ah speak well to the non-negotiables? Do they marry with the commander’s intent? So now you’re able to go through these processes of of elimination. And when it’s all said and done, you’re able to land on either one course of action… Rich Birch — That’s good. Yolanda Stewart — …or an amalgamation of the three to make a decision.Rich Birch — Right. Yeah. Oh, I love that. And man, I think that that right there is gold. I think so many times we get caught in binary thinking as church leaders. It’s like, well, we’re either going to do this or that. I love the idea of let’s force to three, or maybe more even, to try to get us to think outside the box, even if it’s at the front end seems like that’s a ridiculous, that third option is ridiculous, but let’s actually go down the course, figure it out, pull it apart. And and we might you might find some gold there that we can then apply ah you know, even to some of the others. That’s that’s fantastic. Rich Birch — So as you’ve run this process multiple times and helped you make some decisions, could you give me an example of how this process helped you make a clearer decision that that felt like hey, we’re we’re not just reacting, we’re we’re making a better kind of long-term, you know not emotional, not necessarily opportunistic, although it it may have emotions and opportunity involved in it. But how do, give me an example of of something that you feel like, hey, this process helped make better at Mosaic.Yolanda Stewart — Oh, that’s so good. Well, I’m in it right now. Rich Birch — Love it. Yolanda Stewart — And this is the the second iteration, by the way. And so so Mosaic, I’ll just preface my my example with this: Mosaic grew exponentially over the last few years.Rich Birch — Yep.Yolanda Stewart — And when I ah ah came to Mosaic, I want to tell you that we were about 150 people. Rich Birch — Wow.Yolanda Stewart — We have since grown to, I think we’re around about 2,300 regular average weekly attenders.Rich Birch — Yep.Yolanda Stewart — That that include… Rich Birch — That’s amazing. That’s huge growth. Yolanda Stewart — Yeah. And that includes around 600 or so children. Rich Birch — Yep. And oh there there were um areas where it’s like we we crafted, I say we, but it predated me, but we’ve crafted these narratives that we weren’t quite achieving them. So let me say say use this as an example. So our our vision mission statement, if you will, was we make disciples and we release ministers. And so here I come along and I say, well, how? How are we making disciples?Rich Birch — That’s good.Yolanda Stewart — And um the answer was inadequate because the answer was we do it through connect groups. And so then here I am with myself, you know, coming along and being the challenge to to just provoke us, right?Yolanda Stewart — I said, okay, if if if there’s if there’s a very low expectation for connect group leaders. If anyone can be a connect group leader, if you’ve been saved 20 minutes, you can be a connect group leader. Then tell me how a baby Christian who is just motivated to lead a group can be called a disciple-maker, when we have no way of of certainty that they’ve been, well, we do, but when they’ve not been discipled.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.Yolanda Stewart — And so I said, we need to do better. So let’s come to the table and let’s talk about what we can do to raise the level of expectation, rather raise the standard for what it looks like to be a group leader. And then let’s build what I call a transformational leadership pipeline. Rich Birch —That’s good. Yolanda Stewart — Let’s build a real process, a framework that at the end of it, we’ve got to make sure it’s simple because that’s our pastor. He’s like, look, don’t complicate stuff to where now it’s a deterrent, right?Rich Birch — That’s good.Yolanda Stewart — But I’m okay with it being robust enough to be effective, but it can’t be too too robust to be a deterrent for people. But I said, let’s build framework that’s simple, measurable, and meaningful so that at the end of the day, we can stand back and say, okay, we truly do… Rich Birch — That’s good. Yolanda Stewart — …make disciples and release ministers. Here’s the framework that we do that. Here’s the process. It’s measurable. There’s accountability in there. Rich Birch — That’s good.Yolanda Stewart — There is benchmarks, if you will. It’s simple and achievable and effective. And so anyway, I’m in the process. And and this, I said, it’s the second iteration. We’ve already made some progress, but we’re not done yet. Rich Birch — Okay.Yolanda Stewart — But the culture that we’re in, I had to give my pastor time to to digest where I had already gotten us to. Rich Birch — That’s good. Yolanda Stewart — And so now he’s at the place where because of my approach and you’ve got to be humble, Rich, when you’re bringing ideas that is going to shift the whole paradigm of a ministry.Rich Birch — Yeah.Yolanda Stewart — If you come in—I learned this the hard way—if you come in with the wrong approach, it could take years for you to achieve a good momentum…Rich Birch — that’s goodYolanda Stewart — …you know, unnecessary delay because your approach your approach was wrong. And so I’m in the middle of taking a team of leaders that I invited to the table and we have identified our objective. Our objective is to establish a transformational leadership pipeline… Rich Birch — That’s so good. Yolanda Stewart — …that we can roll out to group leaders and group coaches that when they are gone through this process, it’s not a transactional process, it’s a transformational process. It can’t be classroom setting. Rich Birch — Right. Yolanda Stewart — So we we are identifying, we identified the objective and you’ve got to do one at a time, but we identified the objective. Now we’re putting the meat on the bones… Rich Birch — Love it. Yolanda Stewart — …and and what I call building the gooey center… Rich Birch — [laughs] Yolanda Stewart — …building the gooey center…Rich Birch — So good.Yolanda Stewart — …so at the end of it all, we will have a framework that we have gone through this process of different courses of action and we will land on what we know is is effective, simple, measurable, and transformational.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Well, when you think about these steps, is there one of them that seems to be the place that things get stuck? Is it that it’s like, or or is there a common pothole with one of them that, man, we want to make sure we avoid as we think about ah these these three steps?Yolanda Stewart — It’s step number one.Rich Birch — Right, okay. Not being clear on what the problem is we’re trying to solve.Yolanda Stewart — It’s not being clear on what… Rich Birch — Yeah. Yolanda Stewart — …because it becomes emotional. Rich Birch — Yeah. Yolanda Stewart — And you you’ve got to focus on the objective that you are trying to achieve or the problem that you’re aiming to solve, not what you feel or what you’re experiencing. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Yeah, I can see that.Yolanda Stewart — So so that seems to be a common pothole where people get stuck.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s… Yolanda Stewart — I’ve been stuck there before.Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Well, no, I can see that. Or you get it’s that whole, know, you’ve you’ve climbed up the ladder and realized the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall. It’s like we’re solving a problem and get halfway there and you realize, oh, this isn’t actually the right problem to be solving. That, you know, that makes that makes a lot of sense.Rich Birch — Well, when you think, let’s, you know, let’s think I’m maybe an executive pastor or a lead pastor that’s leading it, that’s listening in today. And they’re thinking about, Ooo there’s a decision coming up. What advice would you give them for some initial steps to try to help build a stronger alignment around maybe even understanding what that problem is? If the first if step one is the critical piece of the puzzle, how can what what advice would you give to us on defining the problems that we should even push through a process like this? How how do you how do you help us help us think through what that could look like for us?Yolanda Stewart — That’s such a great question, Rich. Collaboration. Invite the right people to the table.Rich Birch — That’s good.Yolanda Stewart — That’s my advice. I mentioned that I started my military career as a private. If you know anything about the military, the private is the voiceless person, right? So we’re polishing pipes and doing, you know, police calling, picking up trash and things. But what I learned as a sergeant and what I learned as a cadet and what I learned as a colonel a commander, is that that private is the key to my success.Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.Yolanda Stewart — I’m the ideator. I am the person, you know, at certain levels of leadership. Sometimes my head is is, you know, at the 30,000 foot perspective. And like I’m not aware that the the the real challenges are, you know, fill in the blank because I’m not at the execution level. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s goodYolanda Stewart — And if you don’t invite the right people to the table, then you risk, you know, the the the you you forfeit the the the beauty of their contribution and the importance of of its influence to the outcome.Rich Birch — No, that’s good.Yolanda Stewart — And so my my encouragement to leaders is humble yourself, humble yourself exclamation. And look around. Refuse to do it alone. Leverage the experience, the perspective… Rich Birch — That’s good. Yolanda Stewart — …of the folks who are going to be most impacted by the decision that you’re about to make. Leverage the the insight of the people who are going to be expected to execute, communicate, coordinate, if you will, the decision that you’re about to make. Invite them to the table… Rich Birch — That’s so good.Yolanda Stewart — …so that they can get buy-in, you can get their buy-in, and you can get the benefit of their experience and their perspective. So that would be my advice.Rich Birch — Well, Yolanda, this has been great. I can see why God is using your leadership at at Mosaic. This has been a rich conversation today. I really appreciate this. And thank you for this handout. Super helpful for ah for people. As we’re kind of coming to land the plane, anything else you’d ah you’d like to share with us today?Yolanda Stewart — Yes, and and I want to circle back because I think, you know, what one of the things that we say at Mosaic is your spirituality is your greatest asset. And um sometimes, especially leaders at the level that I’m leading at, sometimes they come from the marketplace and they have been indoctrinated by the culture of of the secular, you know, market, if you will. And I want to just say, as as spiritual leaders, we cannot lose sight… Rich Birch — That’s good. Yolanda Stewart — …of the importance of our spirituality being the greatest influence in all of the things that we do, especially our leadership. We are being trusted to lead. We have been positioned and assigned to lead. And if we choose to do it independent of, of total dependency on the help of the Holy Spirit and our spirituality, we risk many of the, the, the what I think are counter-kingdom, counter-kingdom consequences ah in church because leaders bring secular culture into the church and and and leverage those types of things to be leaders. And we lose lose sight of servant leadership, what that really looks like.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.Yolanda Stewart — And become transactional leaders, you know, disconnected versus transformational leaders.Rich Birch — So good.Yolanda Stewart — You know, people are used as tools and we ah we exploit people. And this just mindset from the secular world, my my encouragement would be just be careful as a leader. Don’t forget that your spirituality is your greatest asset. Bring it to the table every time, even when you’re bringing correction. You know, you should bring a basket of fruit. Galatians 2 conversations, the hard ones, you know, bring the basket of fruit and don’t lose sight that you are a disciple-maker. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good.Yolanda Stewart — Even when you’re having the hard conversations to bring corrections. So there’s good insight from the secular market. But we must not allow the secular market to influence our dependency on our spirituality to lead God’s people.Rich Birch — Well, this has been fantastic. So helpful today. First, just want to honor you for your service. Thank you so much for what you’ve done in the military and then how you’ve brought this with such wisdom and insight and applied that to Mosaic. It’s just been fantastic. If people want to connect with the church or with you, how do how do we do that? Where can we point them online to connect with the church?Yolanda Stewart — Yes, mosaicchurch.us is how you find us. And we are in the process of of uploading some of these tools that we are developing in-house.Rich Birch — Love it.Yolanda Stewart — And um I’m looking forward to the opportunity for those things to be available online as well. But just to hear some messages and just to get some inspiration, that’s how you can find us online.Rich Birch — Love it. Great. We’ll link to that in the show notes. Thanks so much, Yolanda. I appreciate you being here today.Yolanda Stewart — Rich, thank you so much. Bye-bye now.

Many churches yearn for a significant impact during Christmas but often find themselves disappointed. The key lies in a structured invitation strategy rather than random efforts. A full system is essential, as simply adding more tasks won't suffice. Passionate communication from the congregation can ignite growth, while repeated messaging fosters momentum. Utilizing tools like the Christmas Invite Accelerator can enhance outreach, ensuring that the invitation process is effective and engaging.

Devin Goins, Executive Pastor of Strategic Development at Biltmore Church, discusses the challenges of aligning staff in a rapidly growing church. He emphasizes that growth brings complexity, requiring constant adjustments and preparation for future needs. Devin introduces a diagnostic tool to evaluate team alignment and shares insights on engaging with volunteers for clarity in communication. He also presents a framework to assess emotional zones within staff, advocating for a culture of appreciation and teamwork to enhance organizational health.

Discover how churches can leverage Christmas for growth! Learn about a Texas church that ignited excitement with a pre-Christmas service challenge, inviting attendees to bring friends. Explore a California church's VIP experience that enhanced first-time visitor engagement through digital promotions. In Canada, a church created a competitive volunteer program encouraging outreach and spiritual growth. These innovative strategies show that Christmas can be more than a tradition; it can be a powerful tool for community connection and expansion.

Thanks for joining us at the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Mike Winger, Executive Pastor at Mosaic Christian Church in the Baltimore-Washington area. What does it take to launch a bold new vision while carrying the weight of financial obstacles? Tune in as Mike unpacks the multi-year process that led to Mosaic’s Unlimited campaign—one that wasn’t about buildings, but about unleashing ministry by removing financial barriers and reigniting the church’s collective imagination. See the community with fresh eyes. // Mosaic’s transformative journey began with a simple question: What would it look like if Maryland resembled heaven? The team began viewing their community with fresh eyes, noticing the stark contrast between wealth and poverty—even in their own backyard. Mike and Lead Pastor Jonathan Moynihan were stirred by the suffering happening along Route One, an area plagued by human trafficking and hourly motels. Their conversations led to a renewed vision of spiritual and physical restoration in their region. Vision first, then strategy. // Mike’s role as Executive Pastor is to turn vision into action. While Jonathan cast a grand vision, Mike focused on the how. They reverse-engineered a plan by identifying bottlenecks and brainstorming long-term steps to remove them—eventually deciding to launch a financial campaign. But unlike traditional efforts tied to buildings or facilities, this campaign was about removing the “weighted vest” of debt to unlock greater impact. Prayer walks, not just planned meetings. // Before casting the vision to the church, the team engaged in prayer walks and “vision tours” through the affected neighborhoods. They asked God to open their eyes and hearts, and invited staff and volunteers to see the problem up close. The campaign’s purpose became clear: not just to raise funds, but to inspire spiritual growth and collective dreaming. The vision is more important than the campaign. // Generosity campaigns aren’t about raising money for money’s sake. They’re about reaching more people with the gospel. Like past campaigns that helped Mosaic, this effort was merely a tool to advance the mission. Teaching from Jesus’ example, Mike explained that God could have provided everything miraculously—but He invites people to be part of the story through generosity. Corporate goals and individual goals. // Mosaic encouraged everyone to dream both corporately and personally. The church asked, “What dream has God placed in your life?” and “What blocks have you allowed in your life that you want God to open up?” As people considered giving, Mike challenged them to see their gifts as spiritual steps representing their faith in God to move in their lives, not just financial contributions. Results and reinvestment. // Though not tied to a building or campus expansion, Mosaic’s Unlimited campaign raised over $8.5 million in pledges—well above expectations. Just eight months into the 25-month campaign, the church had already received $4.4 million. Mosaic committed to giving 10% of all campaign donations to partner with 10:12 Sports, a Christian organization mentoring underprivileged youth in West Baltimore. The funds will help renovate space for them to further this work. A Generosity Guide to rally everyone. // To keep the whole church aligned, Mosaic created a comprehensive campaign guide integrating sermons, devotionals, small group resources, and personal reflection tools. The church paused all other ministries and aligned every group to journey together. The guide provided a day-by-day roadmap and gave group leaders materials to help people connect their personal timelines with the broader vision of the church. Visit Mosaic Christian at mosaicchristian.org. Plus, check out their campaign website and download their generosity guide 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! 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. Really looking forward to today’s conversation – this is to be a great one. I know it’s going to be helpful and challenging. It’s the kind of thing we should be leaning in on. Excited to have Mike Winger with us. He is the executive pastor at a fantastic church in the Baltimore, Washington, D.C. area called Mosaic Christian. They were started in 2008, and it has consistently been one of the fastest growing churches in the country. Mike, super glad to have you on the show. Welcome.Mike Winger — Thank you. It’s an honor to be here. Really pumped.Rich Birch — Why don’t you kind of tell us a little bit about Mosaic and maybe the impact you’re experiencing as a church? And also, how does, ah you know, what’s the scale, the scope of executive pastor? I know it looks different at every church. And so it’s always good to kind of hear how different people have sliced up that role.Mike Winger — Yeah, so like you said, we were started in 2008, so we’re like 16 going on 17. And like our vision statement is that we want to be a church for people who don’t go to church. So everything that we do needs to be contextualized for someone who has never stepped foot in a church before.Mike Winger — And that’s really important to us. And so we like I said, we we we’ve kind of gone through the journey of like meeting in a movie theater, then going through different spaces. And now it’s just been awesome to see what God’s doing. Rich Birch — Love it.Mike Winger — My role has shifted every single year. I think being on staff from being like the junk drawer, I came on staff and I was the junk drawer person.Rich Birch — The junk drawer.Mike Winger — Yes, I had to do like facilities, students, missions, the office and all the things. Rich Birch — That’s hilarious. Mike Winger — So then I got more focused with creative arts.Rich Birch — Yeah.Mike Winger — And now I’m back to the junk drawer position of like the executive pastor role because everything just kind of comes back to me. So I’ve seen God kind of use every single step on the chapter of my existence here at Mosaic and it’s all come full circle at this point.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s amazing. I love that. I’ve never heard the executive pastor role referred to as the junk drawer. I might steal that. I might steal that, Mike. Mike Winger — It’s so true. Rich Birch — That’s true. It’s true, yep. Mike Winger — Because I’ll go from like a budget meeting to like a pastoral care to something else. I’m like, you got to switch your lines all the time.Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s that’s true. I’ve served for years in that role and it it does have that feeling of like, it’s like constantly shifting gears and trying to think about, okay, you know and has a lot of that. Obviously, that’s why we call it stuff they didn’t teach in seminary because there’s lots of times you’re like, I never thought I’d be dealing with this in church world, but here it is.Mike Winger — Oh yeah.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. Mike Winger — Oh yeah.Rich Birch — Well, Mosaic’s a fantastic church, prevailing church over an extended period of time. It’s always been about making an impact. But I kind of want to bring us up to speed. You know, you’ve talked a little bit about something, there was something stirring in your team that you needed to, you know, realize, hey, we’ve got to maybe change some things, think about the next level, think about where we’re going next. Kind of bring us up to speed on that part of the conversation.Mike Winger — Yeah, so back in ’22, we went through a pastoral lead change. So our founding pastor stepped down, went back to his home church. And then our new pastor, who was on staff with me for the previous 10 years, his name Jonathan Moynihan. So we were serving together for a long time and we’re both born and raised like in the area. So we’re from Baltimore. We didn’t parachute here. So like we know Baltimore because it’s in our DNA. Mike Winger — And so we live in a very wealthy area, part of the country, sandwiched right in between Baltimore and DC, but like it’s the haves and the have nots. And it’s not even just the case that’s like the inner city of Baltimore is the have nots. It’s like in our backyard here, outside of the city as well. And so as we’ve continued to want to like make an impact in the lives of people spiritually, like that’s the main thing. The win is when someone gets in the tub and gets baptized.Mike Winger — But we also didn’t want to turn a blind eye to like, the plight that was going on down the street where there’s hourly motels where human trafficking, sex trafficking, and everything is going on down there. So was like, we’ve started asking questions. What would it look like for Maryland to look like heaven? Rich Birch — So good.Mike Winger — And asking those questions, seeing our community with fresh eyes, what would it look like? How can we make a bigger impact? So that just started a lot of conversations between Jonathan and myself. And he did a staff retreat. This was all like one of his sessions.Mike Winger — So then I come back to him and I’m like, hey, if you’re really about that, we need to have like some deeper conversations to make that possible because you have really big, grandiose ideas. But where I come into play is like, how can I make those happen? So he sets the vision and um my job is to figure how are we going to get there? And then that comes with dollar signs and all of that. Mike Winger — So that kind of got us on this journey to say, Hey, if we have a vision, what’s the bottleneck to this vision? How can I open it up? And so that’s when I started pitching to him the idea of doing a financial campaign. But that was still two years in the making before we would even launch anything like this to accomplish what we want to do long-term in our community.Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. I love the, well, there’s there’s a ton there to unpack, but I love this idea that, well, first of all, there’s a tool, a video that you guys have produced that caught my attention because right from the beginning, I think the opening line of the video is, you’ve probably all thought about leaving Maryland sometime, right?Mike Winger — Oh yeah.Rich Birch — And which I was like, what? Like, what a way to to lead out. Let’s kind of stick on this idea just for a little bit around, let’s make Maryland look like heaven. When you were casting that, like kind of before we got to the campaign, as that was kind of bubbling around, what was it that had you thinking like, oh my goodness, this is this is a big deal. This isn’t just like, oh, we’re going to rebrand some stuff. Like what what kind of led you to that thought?Mike Winger — Yeah. So I would say a lot, Jonathan’s very passionate about leading our church and growing up spiritual muscle. That was definitely like atrophied, the spiritual muscle prayer. So we even just started doing like prayer walks and vision tours up and down what we call route one, where a lot of those hourly motels are. So just getting our people, our staff, our volunteers, people that call Mosaic home around, the what’s going on in our community to get them to see the problem.Mike Winger — And we needed them to feel it, even before we even publicly talked about how can we be a part of the solution. So we just ask God to like open our eyes to these problems and just see them, and do what we could at the time, the best that we could to serve those within our own reach. But we just tried to say, God, what’s what open our eyes beyond just our own four walls.Rich Birch — I love that. That’s good. You know, this idea of getting our people engaged, starting with prayer, I think this is fantastic. So then bring us a little bit farther along. You know, I think we’ve all been there or if you’re in the executive pastor seat, we’ve been in that conversation with our lead pastor where it’s like, Oh my goodness. Like that, like what you can just hear the dollar signs in your head start going off. But I think some people could at that moment try to pull back, but you’ve chosen to lean in and say, no, let’s actually look at that. Talk, take us through that conversation. What did that look like?Mike Winger — Yeah. So as we were like praying through it, we’re like, what would it look like for us to buy one of these hotels and turn it into like a dream center? And in my head, I’m like, dollar signs are just going up and up and up. But I’m in the position where I’m not trying to like stifle vision. Like the how can totally stifle the wow. So I’m just like embracing this wow mindset. Mike Winger — And I’m thinking, man, wouldn’t it be awesome if we did have a dream center where we can start empowering people with job job training? and teaching people how to manage money and to bring families together instead of splitting them apart. Like, what would it look like for this building that was cause for division and actually have it be used to bring unity instead?Rich Birch — Wow.Mike Winger — And so just asking, having that long term vision, what would what would need to be true of us in order to make that happen? And so if we just started with the end in mind, with that clear vision of what could be, then we could reverse engineer and say, well, this needs happen and that needs to happen and that needs to happen.Mike Winger — So then our, Jonathan and I, the lead pastor, we just started asking the questions. Well, this needs to be true. This needs to be… And we started reverse engineering. And this isn’t like six months of like what needs to be true in six months. This might be what needs to be true in 25 years. Rich Birch — Right. That’s good. Now what, what, so love that. I think we can jump so quickly to the, the campaign. We can jump to like, okay, let’s get into the tactics… Mike Winger — Yeah. Rich Birch — …and there’s, we feel that rush, but I like that you slowed down and say, no, like, let’s, we gotta be really, it’s what the vision is more important than the campaign.Mike Winger — Yeah.Rich Birch — And it’s really easy for those to get confused. How did you keep the campaign from becoming preeminent rather than the vision being preeminent? What did that look like for you?Mike Winger — Yeah. So we’ve done many campaigns in our history. And so when I started gathering a team of people, the campaign team, I just called it quick timeout when we started like, giving out the task and the roles and all of that. And I did a reverse, I said, what was Greater for? And they said, oh, that was to get us into a building. And I said, what was whatever the other campaign name was?Mike Winger — And it was, oh, it’s to get us out of the movie theater. And so then I I called the timeout. I said, we need to readjust our mindset around those. Those were all tools. All of these campaigns were to reach more people. It wasn’t to get a building. It wasn’t to get out of the theater. We wanted to reach more people. We thought that getting out of the theater… Rich Birch — Right. Mike Winger — …or we thought that a permanent 24 seven space would be the best tool for us to reach people. So I said from the jump with this campaign, we need to teach people that we want to continue to reach more people. And so we’re going to do the campaign in order to reach people. Mike Winger — And so we we kind told the story of like Jesus, has he’s all powerful. He has everything at his fingertips. He could have looked at the dirt or sand and said, become money. And he had some money to go do his ministry… Rich Birch — Right. Mike Winger — …but he didn’t. He actually included women to fund his ministry, his gospel preaching tour that him and his buddies were going to go on. And he invited people to go in through generosity in order to enable him to go preach the gospel and do his ministry. He didn’t just say, “sand become money”. Mike Winger — So we would try to, how can we position ourselves to say, hey, we want to continue our ministry and ask God to do more. And we’re going to show him that we mean what we say through our actions, through a campaign. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Why I love that focus of, you know, the engaging people is a part of what he wants to do. It’s actually, you know, he could just write in your case an $8 million dollar check and just give it to you. Or he could engage a whole bunch of people to be involved. And I remember and last year, I got a call from a donor who had a very large sum of money and they could just solve a problem for their church.Rich Birch — And he was like, well, do you think I should give that money to church? I was like, well, you got to wrestle that with the Lord. But I said, if you’re asking me, I would say no, like, don’t just solve the problem.Rich Birch — Come alongside the church, find a way to like, what if, what if there was a maybe God’s got an even bigger dream for the church and you’re just one piece of that puzzle. And, you know, ask this bigger question to stay focused on, Hey, what is the vision of the church? Not just like, Hey, we were trying to do this tactic.Rich Birch — What practical steps did you take to kind of, to both craft and then clearly communicate this narrative to keep your people focused on the bigger thing rather than just giving, what did that look like?Mike Winger — Yeah. So there’s the aspect of like the corporate goal, but also the individual goal. So the individual goal is going to feed into the corporate goal.Mike Winger — And so we really try to say like, we have a problem as a church. We want to reach more people, but we have this debt that’s on our hand that we’re going to apply the campaigns for. But then we try to twist the story and make it like…let me start over.Mike Winger — We were saying like, what would it look like for us to dream again as a church? We kept on going to the dream analogy. And so we’re trying to open up, but then we went back to the individual: what would look for you to dream in your own life? Like what is being, what, what blocks have you allowed in your life that you want God to open up?Rich Birch —That’s good. That’s good.Mike Winger — And so we started hearing stories like on the individual level what people sacrifice would be. And it’s not just a dollar amount that they’re giving to so the church can accomplish a goal or reach a vision. But it’s saying, Hey, God, I’m asking for you to do something in my own life. And I’m showing you with my hands, with my wallet that I want you to do something through it. So there’s tons of stories of people sacrifice that really hit. And that is like the culmination, the collaboration of, of, of the corporate campaign.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Well, let’s jump ahead to ah the results side. How are you, you know, so where are we at in the process? How are you feeling that’s gone, um you know, on both sides, both the ability to raise the resources that you’re hoping to raise and then also the engagement with individuals, you know, people actually taking this more than, hey, this is a financial thing. It’s like, this is ah an opportunity to dream of what God wants to do in my life.Mike Winger — Yeah, so ah the people responded so well to this, we were really kind of blown away. The campaign that we did, ah our coach called it the phantom campaign because we weren’t doing a campus. We weren’t doing a new building. We already had that. We had enough space. But we weren’t we felt like we were running a marathon with a weighted vest. And we were like, what if we could run this marathon without this weighted vest? And our weighted vest was the debt.Mike Winger — And we could continue to ministry as a way we knew how to do it and keep going. But we said, what if God wants to do something a little bit more, but the thing that’s standing in the way is our own selfishness and not doing a campaign. So I just wanted to ask the church, what would it look like for all of us to sacrifice and see how they responded. Mike Winger — And they coached us through, like they were saying for a 25-month campaign, you could probably expect 3 to 6 million above and beyond like normal giving. And so we did the campaign series and at the end, our church committed almost $8.5 million dollars.Rich Birch — Wow. That’s amazing. Praise God. That’s incredible.Mike Winger — So that was in October. It was unbelievable.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s incredible.Mike Winger — Like we were really, really, really, really shocked. And so that was October. So we’re about um seven or eight months into the 25 months. And so we’ve, people have already given 4.4 million.Rich Birch — Wow. Wow.Mike Winger — It’s unbelievable.Rich Birch — That’s amazing.Mike Winger — And so to really to show that we wanted to because we didn’t want the campaign even to just be about what’s coming in to like pay off debt. Rich Birch — Right.Mike Winger — Like we really fought hard, because we’re not like anti-debt. Like we may need to go into debt in the future. But to really say like, hey, we want to make a difference in our community in the future, but we want to make a difference in the community now. So we are taking 10% of what’s coming into this campaign and we’re partnering with an organization called 10:12 Sports.Mike Winger — It’s a Christian organization that serves underprivileged youth in West Baltimore, primarily men who grow up in like fatherless situations and they use sports to reach out to this community, whether it be football, basketball, whatever. And they do memory verses, they do sports, all the things.Mike Winger — And so we’re coming alongside of them because they were operating out of the the the president of that organization they were operating out of his basement. Rich Birch — Oh, wow. Mike Winger — And so they were actually able to buy three row homes across from where they do ministry because there’s so many vacant row homes in Baltimore, so you can buy them for like a thousand bucks. But they didn’t have the money to do any renovations. So we committed to give 10% of the overall of the campaign to them. So we’re going to renovate and just come alongside and help them run further and faster than what they could do on their own. And we want to prop them up to be the heroes in the community and make a difference. And so, like I said, we want to make a difference in 25 years, but we also want to make a difference this year.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s amazing. What do you have a sense of, and this may be unfair. I didn’t tell I was going to ask you this question, a percentage of the church that participated or like any of that to get a sense of the, the depth of the, you know, the engagement.Mike Winger — Oh yeah. So it’s all written down. I’m so bad remembering the stats off the top of my head, but it’s it’s it was…Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s fine. No, no, that’s fine.Mike Winger —…it was pretty high. I’m gonna see if I can find it after keep talking. Rich Birch — Yeah, no, that’s great. That’s…Mike Winger — But it was it was a it was ah it was a large amount of people. Like I look at it in terms of family units that are giving. Rich Birch — Yep.Mike Winger — And so we had 557 family units commit.Rich Birch — That’s great. That’s great. That’s amazing. Dude, that’s incredible. That’s, ah yeah, that’s that’s great to hear and great to see, you know, what God’s using to kind of push this forward. That’s that’s amazing. Rich Birch — Now, I’m sure, so that’s all the good news, but, you know, campaigns do get resistance. Mike Winger — Yeah.Rich Birch — There is the like, why are we doing this? It’s not all just, you know, hear we love the punchline, but there’s always usually some stuff we’ve got to push through there. What were some of the objections you or fears you heard from people? How’d you address them? What does that look look like? You know, how did you deal with that side of the equation?Mike Winger — Yeah. So when we were doing this for a year prior, we knew that we were doing this in October of going into November of 2024. So in our nation’s history, that’s election time.Rich Birch — Yes. Yes.Mike Winger — And we live in like Washington, DC.Rich Birch — Yes.Mike Winger — Like it’s like the world news is our local news.Rich Birch — It is going to be it. Love it.Mike Winger — And so we, we, we had some people advise like, you don’t know, like we, maybe we shouldn’t do it. You probably not a wise time to do a campaign. And we heard that. And we just said, what if we want to tell a better story than the typical narrative of people being anxious about something that really can’t control outside of their one vote. But what if we can actually cast the vision to our church that doing it during the campaign to actually make a bigger difference is going to be the perfect time to do it. And people responded to that. Mike Winger — So that was kind of one early on. Should we do this campaign during an election season? And then there’s always people that are going to ask questions like, is this the best time to do it because, you know, the economy.Rich Birch — Right, right.Mike Winger — But like, what does that even mean? Rich Birch — Yes. Mike Winger — Who can actually really even say what the economy is anymore? Rich Birch — Right.Mike Winger — But like, so we kind of joked about that. We heard some people say, well, we just did one of these like eight years ago. Should we be doing it again? And I’m like, well, we’ve had so much turnover in our church. Rich Birch — Right. Mike Winger — There’s probably only 25% of our church who’ve actually even been through one.Rich Birch — Right. Right.Mike Winger — So we just coached a lot of people through it. And we had so many great conversations with people. And I could stand in front of people in integrity and say like, hey, if you and your spouse, because I would meet with people individually. And I was like, if you and spouse are at odds about like what the total amount should be, give the lesser amount. Rich Birch — Wow.Mike Winger — I’m not after your, I’m not after your money here. Rich Birch — Right. Yes.Mike Winger — Like, I want to know like, what’s the heart story? What’s the sacrifice story that the money is representative of?Rich Birch — Yeah.Mike Winger — And so we constantly had those conversations like what, okay, tell me the dollar amount, but I want to know what are you trusting God what is this number representing?Mike Winger — And so we’d had constant conversations with people. There was one single woman who her husband left her many years ago and I had a conversation with her and she just wanted to like write a bigger check, but the man who helps with her finances to keep her organized was kind of, he’s not a Christian and was a little leery about like saying you should give X amount.Mike Winger — I said, you know what? I’m going to tell you to give even lesser than what he said, because I don’t know what kind of influence you’re going to have in his life. But if he hears that a church said, take even less, maybe that’s going to be an in for him to trust the church.Mike Winger — And so my mindset from the jump was just like, Hey, I’m going to trust God for the end results. And I’m just going to just tell people to like, act in integrity with what they’re going to do. And like, let’s hear the stories of trust that people are going to be building through this experience.Rich Birch — I love that. I want to underline what you said there. I think, my experience has been when we come up against these opportunities that our mindset as leaders is so important and how we approach people is so important. And um if we say this isn’t about just trying to get money out of you, but then all the signals we give them are about just getting money out of them…Mike Winger — Yeah.Rich Birch — …people read that from a mile away, right? Mike Winger — Yeah. Rich Birch — And we’re asking them to take a faith step financially, but we’re also taking a faith step and we have to exercise exactly what the kind of thing you’re saying. Like, hey, maybe you should take, maybe give the lesser number like that. I just love that. I just want to honor you for that. I think that’s fantastic. Rich Birch — The other part I want to underline for folks that you’ve just kind of rolled over, ah which makes sense because it’s it’s your lived experience, is the amount of time that this campaign has taken from like the initial conversation through to the kind of whatever the big pledge date was. That’s like, that was like a couple years of discussion, right? Mike Winger — Yeah.Rich Birch — Talk us through that piece of it. Cause I feel like sometimes there are churches that feel the pressure of like, we got to solve this now. But it’s like, that’s, if you’re feeling that pressure now, you’re probably too late. Like, you know, we you’ve got to start way out. Talk us through the kind of timeline, you know, how long did it take to work through it all? Get it put together, that kind of thing.Mike Winger — Yeah, so I remember being on the golf course with John and we were probably on like hole four or five. And I said, hey, like you’re just coming back from your study break. I’ve been doing some planning, love forecasting three years in advance. But do you remember when you said that you want to make an impact on Route One? And what if we had a dream center? What if we could change lives and all that? I was like, if you’re really about it, here’s what I think we need to do. We had that conversation probably in like June of ’23.Rich Birch — Yeah.Mike Winger — Actually, probably even before that… Rich Birch — Yeah. Mike Winger — …because we we pitched to our our board of, hey, we feel like this is where God’s leading us. Will you join us in prayer? So we pitched it to them in May of ’23. So John and I talked before that. We didn’t even make a decision as a board to move forward with this until September. So we gave our board of overseers… Rich Birch — Yeah, lots of time. Mike Winger — …a full summer to just pray and feel like, is this is the is the soil right? God, are you prompting, or is this just me coming up with an idea, saying that we should run after it? So we I did the due diligence to come up with a full outline of here’s the steps we would take. We’re going to pause and commit this to you. And if you we all come back together in September and say, yeah, we should move forward, then we will. That was still a year out from even executing the five week series.Rich Birch — Right.Mike Winger — So we were way far in advance of like prayers. We’re going to coat this thing in prayer. And then we’re going to start working in September through the next year to make that campaign actually happen.Mike Winger — So this was a really like a two, two and half year process… Rich Birch — Right. Mike Winger — …before we even get to the 25 months… Rich Birch — Right. Yeah. Mike Winger — …of actually living in sacrifice.Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s, that’s pre the 25-month countdown. Mike Winger — Exactly. Rich Birch — So yeah, in the end it’s a four or five year process, you know, but from, from that golf course all the way through. Yeah. And I, I highlight that, listeners, because um you know, this takes time. And you know, there are, you know, there’s a multiplicity of steps before the public phase and, you know, you know, they’re, they’re everything from, you know, all the private conversations all the way up through this. It takes time. You cannot, you know, had a friend of mine said the bigger the plane, you know, the longer the runway, it just takes time. It takes, it you know, you can’t just do it overnight. It’s not the kind of thing you can wake up tomorrow and say, Hey, let’s raise $8 million dollars. It’s not going to happen.Mike Winger — Yeah.Rich Birch — You’ve given us your generosity guide. This looks fantastic. In fact, I would, we’ll just link to this in the show notes, but this is a great kind of inside look to the campaign and to the at least the public facing side of it. Talk us through this. Give us a sense of of this document. How might it be helpful for someone else who who’s been thinking about these kinds of issues?Mike Winger — Yeah. So from my experience of participating and leading other campaigns that we’ve gone through, one of my critiques has been, I hate handouts and getting so many different things at so many different dates.Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah.Mike Winger — And I was like, why don’t we just work ahead? Let’s work smarter, not harder. Rich Birch — Yep.Mike Winger — Let’s not overwhelm people and confuse them with, is it this handout? Is it that handout? It’s like, let’s just spend the four months before we go live and say, what is every single piece of paper document that we want and put it all into one spot?Rich Birch — Love it. Love it.Mike Winger — But this this guide isn’t just information about how to give or the tax implications and all this sort of thing. We wanted to integrate it with what the series was going to be about on Sunday. So on Sundays, we rarely even mentioned, like we talked about, hey, we have a financial goal, but the even the sermons were more about what’s God doing in you, and stirring up. And so then we made sure that all of our groups for the fall are all on the same thing. Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good.Mike Winger — We’re all we’re not doing a volleyball group. We’re not doing FPU. We’re not doing… We’re all doing these journey groups. We’re going to just come together and answer these questions so everybody’s pushing to it. And then we also created like a daily devotional.Mike Winger — So everybody like page by page, like, you know, for the next five weeks, we’re going on a campaign, but it’s really a journey together. And so there’s questions. There’s everything is 100% in order of like day by day, what do I want people to see when and how. And there’s we’ve gave these we’ve printed them out. We wanted people to bring them back. And like this is where you would take notes in the sermon and then have your daily devotional, but then also bring it to group. Uh, ’cause we were talking about like timelines, like what’s mosaics timeline then, but what’s, what’s God been doing in your own life and then bring that conversation. So we even equipped our group leaders with like big rolls of, uh, paper. Rich Birch — Love it.Mike Winger — And we said, make a timeline and then go through and have a conversation for the group of like, just introduce yourself and you and your spouse and talk about your family timeline.Rich Birch — So good.Mike Winger — So this guide was just so important to get everybody rowing in the same direction.Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah. It’s a great piece. You know, I, I love the, like throughout it, there’s, um, you know, like a little testimonies sprinkled throughout. Mike Winger — Yes. Rich Birch — There’s lot of content right down to like, here are the special events we’re doing. Here’s everything all in one place. There’s a ton of work that’s been put in up there. Are you using that kind of throughout the campaign too? Cause a part of this, I would assume a part of this is also, um, you know, you used as people who are, might be coming to the church new now. And they’re like, Hey, what is this all about? This could be a tool you could give to them as well.Mike Winger — Yeah, we could definitely dust it off and give it to them. We haven’t done a great job of like incorporating it since we’ve like gone live for the previous seven months.Rich Birch — Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.Mike Winger — But we do have a plan like midway through of this fall doing a three week series of like a halfway point… Rich Birch — Yep. Mike Winger — …encourage people to keep going, give them an update, and then inviting people in who and may have joined the church or started coming since then. But we haven’t necessarily, like it was really just like for the 35 days of this campaign journey how are we all going to be on the same page?Rich Birch — Right. So good. Well, this is fantastic. Well, um there’s ah a lot here. There’s also a website we’ll link to, we’ll link to your, you know, the direct website, but then your church’s website, but then there’s also a campaign related website. It’s is’s super helpful. Lots of good. And that video I talked about earlier is on that ah site friends.Rich Birch — Anything else you’d like to share just as we wrap up today’s conversation?Mike Winger — I would say if I’m speaking to primarily executive pastors, I would say our excitement behind something like this is a lot of the how. I love executing. I love thinking of how to make a plan come to reality, but it has to come with vision first.Rich Birch — That’s good.Mike Winger — So you have to make sure that you know why you’re doing something and like what the goal is. Like I said, our goal was not to just raise funds. Our goal is to change lives spiritually, but physically as well.Mike Winger — And so that’s what I want to accomplish. It’d be like me going to the store, a construction store, go to Lowe’s and buying a hammer. The goal wasn’t to get the hammer. The goal is to use the hammer to build something.Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good.Mike Winger — And so the campaign, I’m inviting people in to use a hammer, not go buy something.Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good. It’s great. Super good. Well, I appreciate you being here, Mike. This is super great. Where do we want to send people online if they want to track with you or with the church?Mike Winger — Yeah, so mosaicchristian.org is our website, mosaicmd on Instagram. And I’m kind of not that active on Instagram, but it’s just mwinger87. So I’m right there.Rich Birch — Love it. Thanks so much, Mike. Appreciate being here today.Mike Winger — Thank you.

Is your church treating Christmas like the massive growth opportunity it truly is? In today’s solo episode, Rich explores why Christmas remains the most strategic moment in the church calendar for reaching new people, even in a post-pandemic world. Drawing on compelling stats and years of experience helping churches grow, Rich makes a compelling case for why Christmas shouldn’t just be a warm, nostalgic season—it should be one of your highest-impact outreach moments of the year. Here’s what you’ll learn in this episode: Cultural Opportunity: With 84% of adults celebrating Christmas, this holiday season still holds a unique cultural weight—even among those who rarely attend church. Rich explains how this opens the door for meaningful invitations and deeper community connections. The Power of a Personal Invite: Research shows that 57% of people say they would attend a church service if personally invited by a friend. Rich reflects on why this stat matters so much during Christmas and how churches can reframe their planning around it. Growth Mindset Shift: Many churches unintentionally miss the full potential of Christmas by treating it as a “maintenance” Sunday or simply a tradition to uphold. Rich unpacks why growing churches view it as a launchpad for the new year—and how that shift can change everything. What Growing Churches Do Differently: You’ll hear stories and observations from churches that have doubled their attendance on Christmas weekend—not because of gimmicks, but through strategic, intentional systems that align vision, volunteer culture, and invite momentum. Planning Starts Now: While it might seem early to talk about Christmas, Rich makes the case that what you do this summer determines how effective you’ll be this December. From team conversations to invite campaigns, now is the time to prepare. This episode is a reminder and a rally cry: Christmas still works when you work it. This episode is part 1 of a special 3-part series designed to help your church plan ahead for Christmas, starting this summer. Whether you’re looking to increase attendance, improve your systems, or reach more people than ever before, this series is packed with insights to help you make the most of the biggest season of the year. Be sure to catch all three episodes!

Charles Stone, a seasoned pastor, leadership coach, and author, brings a wealth of knowledge on managing stress and building resilience. He discusses the dual nature of stress, highlighting both external pressures and internal responses. Charles introduces nine biblical and scientific practices for resilience, including deep breathing techniques that can reset the stress response. Listeners will learn how chronic stress impacts leadership and discover actionable strategies to cultivate peace and adaptability through faith and contemporary brain science.