unSeminary Podcast

Learn how to double church attendance sustainably by retaining 26% of new guests. Shift focus from assimilation to engagement for a more personalized experience. Find out the three key elements of an effective engagement pathway: One Experience, One Invitation, and One Connection.

Nathan R. Elson, Founder of A Better Theory, shares a framework for problem-solving in churches. Focus on exploiting resources efficiently, thinking creatively within limitations, and tackling universal problems effectively. Learn how to maximize your impact with less and overcome obstacles in ministry.

In this episode of the unSeminary Podcast, we delve into the transformative impact of magnetic community service on building a vibrant church invite culture. Drawing inspiration from outreach initiatives at prominent churches like Elevation’s Love Week and Church of the Highlands’ Serve Day, we explore how strategic mass outreach can drive your congregation’s growth and engagement. Key Factors That Shape Magnetic Community Service: The More Volunteers Factor: The first key to driving invites is the sheer number of volunteers mobilized. When 60-70% of the adult community actively participates in impactful community service, engagement skyrockets, leading to natural conversations and opportunities for members to invite their friends to church. By empowering people to leave their seats and make a tangible difference, they naturally want to share their experiences. The T-Shirt Factor: Visibility is essential. Wearing matching shirts and being seen doing good in the community reinforces the positive image of the church. People feel a sense of pride and fulfillment when they’re visibly making a difference, and this visibility motivates them to share their stories, post photos, and invite others. The Day Of Factor: The holy ruckus created by community-wide outreach spills over into conversations, social media posts, and networking opportunities that naturally generate buzz and invites. Mobilizing large groups to help neighborhoods, host events, or run awareness campaigns creates a memorable spectacle that leaves people curious and engaged. The Afterglow Factor: The positive ripple effects from a mass outreach initiative can last months or even years. People who participate continue to talk about it, share photos, and tell stories, all of which reinforce the culture of generosity and outreach that the church embodies. This afterglow can be leveraged in future outreach, campus launches, and community engagement efforts. Ready-to-Implement Outreach Ideas: Shop of Wonders: Create a dignified and empowering Christmas shopping experience for hundreds of families in need. Display donated gifts like a shop, providing families with hope and joy. Serve Day: Mobilize your entire church to serve the community by cleaning parks, running garage sales, offering free services, and more. Night to Shine: Host a prom for individuals with special needs using the resources from the Tim Tebow Foundation. Magnetic community service, as outlined in this episode, can catalyze your invite culture and make a lasting impact on both your congregation and your local community. It’s time to unlock new potential by moving your members from their seats and into the streets!

Join us on the unSeminary podcast as we chat with Brad Dreibelbis, Next Gen and Operations Pastor at The Journey, a church in Delaware. Discover how to identify and empower young leaders, take risks on the next generation, and focus on making disciples. Learn about the church's strategy for developing young leaders through internship programs and ministry boot camps, balancing character and competence, and empowering emerging changemakers by trusting instincts in leadership.

Exploring how a church can grow from 1,000 to 2,000 members in 1,000 days. Discussing the ideal growth rate, attrition rates, and specific metrics like attracting 3% new guests weekly and retaining 26% of them. Emphasizing the importance of tracking and follow-up for effective growth management.

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Zach Zehnder, the co-founder of Red Letter Living. Zach is a pioneer in creating 40-day challenges that have transformed discipleship and church growth in over 1000 churches. He’s also the teaching pastor at King of Kings in Omaha, Nebraska. You know that disciple-making is important, but do you feel stuck on how to make it happen at your church? Wondering how to align your whole church, from kindergarten to adult, so everyone is focused on the same teaching and growing together? Tune in as Zach shares how a 40-day challenge can jumpstart your church’s growth and discipleship. Discipleship-centered challenges. // The 40-day challenges offered by Red Letter Living are not just about absorbing information; they are about taking action and experiencing life change. Included are message series, daily readings, and small group materials. There are also resources for kids and students. The beauty of this approach is its ability to align the entire church around a common idea, focusing on Jesus at the center. Whether you use one of Red Letter Living’s 40-day challenges or not, Zach recommends that you rollout an all-in church series once or twice a year. A huge impact on churches. // Over 1000 churches have participated in Red Letter Living’s 40-day challenges and the results speak for themselves. Most notably, it has helped to grow church small groups by about 40% during the 40-day challenge. A church could spend about 700 hours creating just first drafts of all the resources Red Letter Living already provides. Taking advantage of this turnkey solution removes a huge burden so church staff can focus on other aspects of ministry. And in times when division can easily creep into our congregations, these challenges also serve as a unifying force, centering us on Jesus and his teachings. The best way to follow Him. // The premise of the Red Letter Challenge is that the best way to follow Jesus is to simply do what he said and did. Rather than reinventing discipleship, this and other challenges by Red Letter Living focus on the words, life, and habits of Jesus. The Red Letter Challenge revolves around five key targets found in Jesus’ words: being, forgiving, serving, giving, and going. The first five days of the challenge introduces those five targets, and then a full week is spent on each of the targets, equaling 40 days. Each week participants engage in daily challenges and devotions that bring Jesus’ words to life. More challenges to offer. // In addition to the Red Letter Challenge, Red Letter Living offers other 40-day challenges that zero in on a particular topic Jesus talks about. For example, the Being Challenge focuses on practicing the five keystone habits of Jesus. The Forgiving Challenge is about receiving God’s freedom for yourself and then giving it away to others. The Serving Challenge looks at five aspects of how Jesus served us and then how to implement them. Special offer and more resources. // Any pastors and church leaders who would like a free copy of a Red Letter Living book can request one here. You can choose which book you’d like to sample and Red Letter Living will cover shipping costs within the United States. If you’re outside the US, a free digital copy is available. There are other supplies for the challenges that are offered for free on Red Letter Living’s website, including sermon manuscripts, videos, kids church curriculum, small group guides and videos, and more. Plus check out Red Letter Challenge in Spanish too. You can find out more about the Red Letter Challenge and the other 40-day challenges available at www.redletterchallenge.com. Plus, join us Wednesday, May 1, 2024 at 12:00pm ET/9:00am PT for a webinar with Zach to talk about discipleship processes churches should be thinking about. Thank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Listen, listen – this is not a normal podcast. Today you are going to want to listen in, lean in. This is gonna be packed full. You’re gonna try to pack as much value into the next thirty minutes of your life as possible and I really do believe what we’re talking about today could not only grow your church but help your people take steps closer to Jesus. We’ve got my friend Zach Zehnder with us. He has he and his wife Allison founded Red Letter Living. They’re really on a mission of challenging all people to become greater followers of Jesus. They offer turnkey churchwide 40-day challenges that are simple to understand, challenging in concept, highly practical and always squarely aimed at Jesus. Zach has written and co-authored 10 books that have helped people literally hundreds of thousands of people ah, become greater followers of Jesus. And he currently serves as a teaching pastor at one of my favorite churches in the country, King of Kings in Omaha, Nebraska. Zach, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here. Zach Zehnder — Thanks, Rich! And yeah man, super pumped to be back with you. Thank you for all that you do. You know, you you said we’re gonna pack as much value into 30 minutes as we can. You are a value packer, my friend, so I appreciate I appreciate all that you do. I’m ah I’m a longtime listener and and great supporter and friend of yours and um, and really just super super honored to be with you today, my friend. Rich Birch — Yeah, good. Okay listeners I want to tip off tip you off here. You’re going to want to listen right till the end of today’s episode. Because Zach just before we got on told me something crazy that he’s going to do but it’s going to be at the end so you’re going to want to stay until the end. Ah, because yeah, yeah, he’s doing something pretty amazing for you. So you’re going to want to be here um all the way to the end. But I wanted to get Zach on because he’s really, he’s an expert in these 40 day challenges that we’ve seen many churches do. And I love these because really I like to say they’re like the peanut butter and chocolate of church growth and discipleship. They they are great from a church growth point of view because they focus us they are you know they’re something that we can kind of rally our whole church around. They’re easy to invite friends to. But then they’re also like this amazing discipleship opportunity because you’re getting people into groups. You’re focusing them in a short period of time on like a great common idea and it all points towards Jesus. And Zach really is the expert on this. He is the guy who who you want to talk to about this today. And so I’m just going to say it right upfront folks my bias is I want to convince you to do one of these this fall. That’s that’s where we’re headed here. I want to spend the next thirty minutes of your life trying to convince you that you should do it at your church. But Zach, let’s let’s unpack that. When you say 40 day challenge, what do you mean by that? Kind of unpack that – what does that look like? Zach Zehnder — Yeah, thanks, Rich. So for us a 40 day challenge would be for forty days what would it look like for each of us to be challenged in our faith to grow as disciples of Jesus. So our 40 day experiences, um, they’re not just any type of experience. They are discipleship-centered experiences as well. And so for us we love working with churches. We worked with over a thousand churches up to date now through these 40 day experiences. And several of them done multiple with us. Zach Zehnder — But but really it’s an opportunity to for everybody to come in and be doing the same thing um for 40 days. And so on a weekend message series, the message series is all all there about the topic. You’ve got daily readings through the books for individuals. You’ve got small group materials for those that want to jump into a small group. And then we even have kids and students stuff to go alongside of it. So it really is kind of an all-in – we want everybody in. Zach Zehnder — You know as pastor, you can’t all the time every single week of the year get everybody in on the same thing. But growing churches um, ah usually can pull that off once, maybe even twice a year. And so that’s our plea to churches is whether you use our material materials or not, once or twice a year you should be doing an all-in church series because it does exactly what you just said. I like the chocolate and peanut butter analogy – I might use that. It gets all the church growth stuff but it also adds the discipleship metrics that were really um, important for each of our churches too. Rich Birch — Yeah I love this. So just to be completely honest friends, like at Liquid Church—church I was at in in New Jersey—this is a part of their strategy. Twice a year they do one of these – in the fall in the spring or in the winter um, and you know and kind of the Lent timeframe. And and I’ve seen this you know, front row I’ve seen the stats. It drives more people into small groups. It increases our overall attendance. We see you know all kinds of great stuff come back from families as they’re kind of all talking about stuff. So this is not, you know, it’s like the hair club for men guy. I’m like not only do you know do I love it, but I’ve also seen it for myself. So, you know this is a great thing. Talk to me more about why why the alignment is so important for us. Why you know going across both our adult teaching, kids, kind of the you know small groups, having all of those kind of, you know, hammering in the same direction. Why does that why is that so important with these series? Zach Zehnder — Yeah, I think it’s super important whenever you are wanting to really reinforce like what some of your values are, what what’s important to your church. Again I don’t I don’t think every single week you have to although I think it’s really great when when we’re aligned with our whole church. Zach Zehnder — And so there are certain things, and to me discipleship is one of those, where we want to really make sure we’re speaking the same language um from from newborn all the way up until ah 100+ years old. Um and that’s really I think the the problem with so many churches in our day today is ah when it comes to discipleship is we don’t know what we’re even shooting at. We know that we need making great disciples. Um, but but what where churches really struggle is identifying what targets they ought to be shooting at. Zach Zehnder — And so that’s what our materials hopefully hopefully provide is common language that everyone in the church can be using throughout the forty days that we hope then of course would be language that carries on um into into the future. And so that’s really the power of alignment is we’re all sort of saying the same thing for forty days. Zach Zehnder — And, Rich, I know you’re unSeminary but I’m I’m thinking back to my seminary days of you know there were certain classes—I’ll be real with you—where I didn’t always do the homework and didn’t do the reading. Rich Birch — Sure, sure. Zach Zehnder — Shocker, right, I know. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, exactly. Zach Zehnder — How how dare I. But then there were some professors that really did pull the best out of me and I actually wanted to do the homework because I knew the discussions were gonna be really great. And I’ll tell you every time I went into a class where I’d done the reading, my energy level and my focus was so much better. Zach Zehnder — The energy is just palpable when everybody’s doing the same things, hearing the same things. They’re doing the readings. In ours, we actually make them a challenge. So there’s actually things to do each day outside of just the reading because a disciple is a hearer and a doer. And so there’s just this real palpable, tangible excitement and energy when everybody’s doing the same thing for forty days um that you can capture that we believe and we’ve seen um, doesn’t just impact the forty days but can carry on into the future as well. Rich Birch — Yeah, so true. That’s that’s amazing. I love that. Talk to me a little bit about what you know maybe think of a church who has gone who’s done one of these. Talk to me on the results side. So I get a sense I get ah you know hopefully people have a sense of the kind of thing we’re talking about. It’s a lot of work. You got to pull things together. You gotta, which we’ll get to, but it’s like you know how can you help, but but we’ll get to that in a minute. But let’s talk about the results side first. Maybe a church describe, you know, how what do they what do they do, what kind of impact do they see, how has that helped them as they’ve done maybe one or multiple of these over the years? Zach Zehnder — Yeah, it’s great. So so first off, there’s lots of individual wins as well. So if a person is really going through this, they’re going to see fruit in their own life. Rich Birch — Right. Zach Zehnder — But but you asked about the church. So let’s talk about the church. What what happens in a church when they do an all-in series, at least one of ours. What we’ve seen and what we what we love talking about is more than anything else they’re going to learn great discipleship stuff, but they’re going to you’re going to grow your small groups. We’ve we’ve done this enough we actually have a free downloadable that I’d be happy to send um called Our 5 Step Simple Super Simple, Easily Doable Guide to Grow Your Small Groups. Ah, we’ve seen small groups grow by an average of 40% in just forty days. Rich Birch — That’s crazy. Zach Zehnder — Now Rich, what I what I want to be careful here because what I I want to pitch this in the way that’s most appropriate. And so like what I look at this as as a pastor is if you’re like out at the ocean and you’re riding the waves… Rich Birch — Yep. Zach Zehnder — …um, what what a 40 day challenge or what an all-in series will do is it’ll give you a really a nice wave. It’ll be a big boost. You’ll see 40% increase. Now what happens after the wave is the current will come. And so the current will come and it will draw back and that’s normal and to be expected. And we can talk about things and it’s important to make sure that as the current draws back, we don’t lose all the momentum. Rich Birch — Right. Zach Zehnder — Um, but what these once-a-year or twice-a-year things do is they *boom* they bring another wave, they bring another wave, they bring another wave. And we’re hoping that as they do this year after year after year that of course that wave is bigger every year. Rich Birch — Right. Zach Zehnder — And so we can be a catalyst to either jumpstart small groups from nothing to something really great, or we can grow your small groups by 40% in just forty days. Um expect some current but it’ll be better than it was. And then when you come back six months or a year later with another one. So that’s a huge piece is the small small group piece. Zach Zehnder — On the church side as well, Rich, we I am a pastor. I’ve led a church myself and now I get to serve in team ministry as a Teaching Pastor. Ah I know the grind of what what it takes for Ministry day in and day out. And so ah we say a church can create their own stuff. Any church can do that. We’ve estimated it takes about 700 hours to create first drafts of all the resources we provide. Rich Birch — Wow. Zach Zehnder — And so you have ah you you probably have in each of ours 3000+ hours of work… Rich Birch — Wow. Right. Zach Zehnder — …that have gone into each one of these. And so there’s just so much. And so we love creating every resource from scratch so that everyone on your church team doesn’t need to create anything from scratch. Now they can add to it. They can take our graphics and insert their logo. Um they can look at my sermons and nitpick what they want and take what they want but nobody’s starting from scratch. And so from a church burnout side of things, staff burnout um, these things are are wonderful. Zach Zehnder — And then the last thing—there’s so many more I can tell you about—but the the other tangible one that I think is going to be even more evident this year in 2024, um is our challenges really focus on the words, life, and habits of Jesus. And and trying to get people to do his words and practices, habits. And we have found that an all-in series that includes kids and students and has stuff to do during the week, it really brings great unity. Zach Zehnder — And and so I’m thinking fall of 2024 there’s going to be a thing happening here in the U.S. of A. Rich Birch — What what possibly could be that that will potentially strain the unity… Zach Zehnder — Right. Rich Birch — …of our churches… Zach Zehnder — It happens. Yeah. Rich Birch — …in say you know early November? Zach Zehnder — It happens every 4 years and we’ve seen this… Rich Birch — Yes, exactly. Zach Zehnder — …cast characters before and how divisive it was… Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Zach Zehnder — …just four years ago. So here’s what I’m saying, it’s going to be a divisive time. Rich Birch — Yep. Zach Zehnder — So one of the best things you can do for your church is to bring unity in a divisive time. Rich Birch — Right. Zach Zehnder — And I’ve just found there’s nothing more unifying in a Christian church than centering in on Jesus – what did he say, what did he do – let’s focus on his words. Let’s do what he said. That’s a premise that’s really hard to argue against and brings just a ton of unity as more and more jumping in. So those are a few things um that we’ve seen from from churches that implement these. Rich Birch — First of all, ah that I love that you’re hitting on that. Because this is a conversation that I’ve had with multiple leaders as we’ve gone into this year. I know we were kind of joking about you know the election and all that and what’s going to happen there. But but this is a real issue. People are worried about this. Like I I was at a church a month ago and they were having their all staff meeting. And I pop my head in and they were at the all staff meeting talking about the boundaries around posting about political things. And they were you know and they the boundary was don’t do it um on social media. And um, you know and they it was all in the context of, friends, we don’t want to do anything that would you know that would drive disunity in our churches. And so I could see I think that for that reason alone if you’ve never done one of these, doing an all-in series this fall could be a great thing. Like if you started maybe after Labor Day, somewhere in there, it wouldn’t look like you’re trying to just avoid, you know. But it would line up and it would be like, hey we’re in this this same timeframe, really trying to push towards unity. I love that. Rich Birch — Can we take a step back? You talked about groups – coach me on this. We might have been doing this incorrectly. When we’ve launched these in the past we’ve talked used language like, hey join us for the, you know, the Red Letter Jesus series, or the whatever we’re calling it. And and we’re saying this a very special series. It’s only forty days long and it’s so X number of weeks. And we would love to we want everyone to sample a group. And we’ve deliberately said hey why don’t you try a group. We tell people you don’t have to be in it. You only have to do it for the weeks of this series. Is that a good idea or is that like bad practice and we should think about something different when it comes to small groups? Zach Zehnder — No I think it’s great, Rich. I think and I think that’s the key to jumping and and bolstering small groups to being a catalyst, or to go from X number to Y number – whatever that is… Rich Birch — Yep. Zach Zehnder — …is offering a season that has an an easy entrance and an easy exit. Now we hope and we believe that as people are jumping into our small groups and through the small groups that you’re providing, especially if they’re ones that like you are really focusing on and everybody’s in this. Like it’s got to be a material you believe you believe in. Rich Birch — Right. Zach Zehnder — And so if it’s a material you believe in and that’s actually doing something in somebody’s life, we of course believe that um a number of those people, significant number of those people are going to want to continue in groups afterward. And so it’s it’s good to think about what to do following one of these. But but we also need strategic times—again I say at least once, maybe twice a year—we need strategic times where we’re helping ourselves by offering something that is really polished, well done, produced, got proven results um to get those numbers up. Zach Zehnder — And then of course as you’re going through this and even in the early process, training those leaders on on identifying potential future leaders, and what does it look like to then proceed after you know, a 40 day series. What does that what does that look like? And we we love, like one of our partners is Right Now Media, all of our stuff’s on Right Now Media so if yout churches, I know many of them are. We love Right Now Media and you know the library of small group studies they have, and so there’s so many great ones on there that people can jump into after one of these all-in series. And maybe even find some of those on Right Now Media as well. Um, so I think that’s a totally ah absolutely great strategy. Keep keep at it and again, if the material you’re providing is is moving people in the right direction in their lives, they’re going to want to stay in groups. Rich Birch — Right, right. Zach Zehnder — Um, here’s I think maybe a key distinction with our materials than than most others that I think is really important and why they want to keep in it. Is the the word “challenge” at the end of ours is intentional. Um, it’s it’s we want you to not just read and get the information from this particular study. We want you to do something with it. Rich Birch — Right right. Zach Zehnder — And so life change for me, Rich, happens um with information at times. But it also happens with experience. Rich Birch — Right. Zach Zehnder — And with me me being challenged. Rich Birch — Right. Zach Zehnder — And I’ll tell you, the times in my life where I’ve grown the most are the times when either life has come at me and it’s been a challenge, or when I’ve challenged myself. And that’s when the Spirit of God moves and does something. And so that’s where I think if you can if you can match um, a small group series that has ah a cause where people are doing something with it, I think you’re going to find the retention in the future seasons to be higher than just an information only series, which I’m all for those – we need those. Rich Birch — Yep, yep. Zach Zehnder — But that’s what I’m saying that there’s a difference there. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. I love that. That’s that’s so great. Well, let’s talk about specifically your challenges. So um, if people want more kind of information on this, they can dive in at redletterterchallenge.com, but kind of talk us through so the thing that I’ve I’ve been impressed with what you do is the quality of of your work, the actual like printed materials, everything you provide. It’s like ah you know it’s like a whole menu of different resources that you provide for each of these. But kind of talk us through maybe the core offerings. What are the challenges? How do they fit together, that sort of thing. Zach Zehnder — Yeah, so yeah, our initial our initial 40 day challenge is called Red Letter Challenge – obviously the red letters of Jesus. And it’s a 40 Day Challenge where our premises is this: the best way to follow Jesus is to follow Jesus. We don’t need to reinvent discipleship. Rich Birch — Right. Zach Zehnder — Let’s get back to see, to do what he said. He he already told us that in the final words in the sermon of the mount, blessed are you who are hearing these words and putting them into practice. And so it’s a 40 day challenge to help people put his words into practice. Zach Zehnder — The human element I think, Rich, is I looked at all the red letters of Jesus with specific emphasis on the commands, the imperatives, um, especially in the Greek language – not that I know Greek but I I know enough to find where the imperatives are. And and and in that I located what I believe are the 5 targets that came out of his mouth the most often. Rich Birch — Ok. Zach Zehnder — And so it’s organized around those 5 targets which for us are being um, being in a real relationship, growing in a relationship of God being, forgiving, serving, giving and going. And so we spend the first five days just introducing each one of those 5 targets. And then we spend a week on each of those 5 targets, and obviously that equals a perfect forty days. Zach Zehnder — And and so the Red Letter Challenge what it’ll do is it’ll take a command of Jesus and then it will um have a little devotion on that, something to read as well um, from the word of God. And then it will give them a challenge to practically do that day. Rich Birch — Yep. Zach Zehnder — So a couple quick examples. So like in the “being” week, you know, uh Jesus once said, abide in my word. And so the challenge that day is hey let’s everybody spend 30 minutes reading God’s word and reflecting on that. Um in the serving week, that you know Jesus once said, um, let us love our neighbors as ourselves. And so the challenge that day is to physically, literally do something to love your neighbor. Rich Birch — Right. Love it. Zach Zehnder — Do something. And then of course share what you did. And and so as we do these things, and obviously there’s way more than just that… Rich Birch — Right. Zach Zehnder — …as we do what Jesus said, um, what happens is your church grows, your community’s always better when you put the words of Jesus into practice, and the one that surprised me the most—because we did this at our church and that I planted in Florida several times before it even became a book—the one that surprised me the most, Rich, was people who had been longtime Christians talked about how fulfilling and rewarding it was, even though it was outside of their comfort zone to actually do the words of Jesus. But because they knew we were in a challenge and they knew other people in the church were doing it, they were more inclined to do it and it took them out of their comfort zone. Zach Zehnder — And so um, that’s what started it was Red Letter Challenge. And um from there you know churches had great ah experiences with it and many pastors were um asking my wife and I to consider writing more discipleship centered stuff. And so we really prayed and pondered that. Um and and and we stepped into that and actually left being the full-time lead pastor of that church in Florida to be a part time teaching pastor at a church I love, that I grew up here in Omaha. Um, so that I can spend time so that we can spend time creating these resources. Rich Birch — Love it. Zach Zehnder — And and so we have more challenges than just that. We we encourage a church to start with Red Letter Challenge. Rich Birch — Okay. Zach Zehnder — That’s kind of our our pinnacle one. Rich Birch — Yep. Zach Zehnder — But since then we’ve got ah ah 40 day challenges and we’re we’re in the process of writing one on each of those 5 targets. Rich Birch — Okay. Zach Zehnder — And so we have Being Challenge which is all about practicing the 5 keystone habits of Jesus. We have Forgiving Challenge which is all about receiving God’s freedom for yourself. And then of course giving it away to others. And then we have Serving Challenge which is looking at how Jesus served us and implementing the 5 aspects. And and then we’ve got a few more years of writing to finish Giving Challenge and Going Challenge. So… Rich Birch — Love it. Love it. Zach Zehnder — …anyway, it’s a chance for them if they had a good experience in Red Letter Challenge to go deeper in one of the 5 targets, or maybe even all 5 if they would consider going, you know, every year, annually perhaps um through this just to reinforce the importance of discipleship. Rich Birch — Love it. And so help me understand at like a church level. So if I’m let’s say so let’s say I’m listening in. I’m like, okay, I’m a church of a thousand people. I’m like,Hey I’d be interested in in talking a little bit more about this. So the idea would be we would have books that we make available for people at our church. They pick them up, but we also have kids materials. How how does that part of it all work, like how. um, yeah, how to talk us through what that kind of the practical like takeaway side of it is. Zach Zehnder — Yeah, great question. So what we always say is to really have an effective 40-day like all you all you really need from a ah purchasing standpoint is the books. We have books that we we have a regular books and then we have kids books… Rich Birch — Yep. Zach Zehnder — …that are designed for K through 5. Um, the the the normal books I write in a simple enough way to understand um that student ministry, middle school and up actually do really well with them, including older adults as well. Rich Birch — Right, right. Zach Zehnder — Um, so um, get the books on site for your church. Get them ah there a few weeks early. We we recommend about a four week lead in time with promotion and distribution. Rich Birch — Okay, okay. Zach Zehnder — And and we have we can coach we can coach churches on how to do this well um, that get in. But then outside of the books, there are a few other things you can purchase but you don’t have to. And then everything else is free. Rich Birch — Right, It’s crazy. Zach Zehnder — So if a church wants to purchase wrist bands or shirts or something too, you know, because atmosphere and vibe is important. Awesome. We’ve got that ready to go. But you don’t need those things. And then everything else is free. So Rich, I’m talking we have sermon manuscripts for the pastor. Both manuscripts that are fully written out as well as videos if they’d rather watch it by video. We’ve got um Sunday school or kids church curriculum that is free. The kids’ books are a cost, but the kids’ curriculum for Sunday school or kids church is free that’s going to reinforce what you know we’re learning um in big church. We’ve got small group guides and videos that are free on our website. They’re also on Right Now Media, as I mentioned earlier for those that have Right Now Media. Zach Zehnder — We’ve got a graphics package that has graphics for you every day of the challenge um, as well as things that lead into the challenge to help with promotion, distribution. And again we’ve done this over 1000 times. And so we typically listened early on like what more can we provide? And we have provided all of that. It is very rare that someone says, hey do you have this? And the answer for us is no. It’s like of course we do. Rich Birch — Right, right. Yes. Zach Zehnder — Um and so again, our hope, I have a pastoral heart to want to help a not just a lead pastor but an entire church staff. So for forty days, think, you don’t have to think from scratch. Which means you can get ahead on your other sermon planning. Or you can plan um more deeper um conversations with your staff for those forty days. Or you can plan to see more people in the hospital those forty… Rich Birch — Right. Zach Zehnder — Whatever it might be because you’ve got this ready to go. Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. So friends, like just to recap here. So a thousand churches have done this. The question is why hasn’t your church? That really is what we’re trying to get you to think about today. I really do think um, you know, like friends like Zach’s not paying me to say this. He’s not like he’s a friend. I would I love his resources. I’ve seen churches, churches that I’ve coached have used them. It’s been super helpful. And I want it to help you as well. It’s here we are the end of April, we’re still in time for this fall. I know, friends, that you there’s a bunch of you that don’t have your fall planned out yet. I know you I know that’s true and you’re thinking about what are you going to do in October, November, September, October, November, somewhere in there. This would be you know great for you. I love all the resources you provide to try to make it so easy for a church. I also notice that you provide your core book in Spanish as well, which is fantastic. Am I seeing that correctly? Zach Zehnder — That’s correct. Yeah, we have the original Red Letter Challenge also available in Spanish. Rich Birch — Right. Zach Zehnder — So for those that have the the dual speaking or ah Hispanic Ministry… Rich Birch — Yep. Love it. Zach Zehnder — …Yeah, we wanted to come alongside and provide that. Rich Birch — Love it. Zach Zehnder — And you’re you’re definitely right about the fall. Earlier you said, Rich, um that fall any falls a great time. This fall is a really great time because of what we talked about earlier. But that Sunday after labor day is really ah a awesome time to launch, and again that’ll get you kind of through mid -October… Rich Birch — Yep. Zach Zehnder — …and and and so that’s a really strategic time. Rich Birch — Perfect. Zach Zehnder — Of course it’s totally good if a church launches, you know, in October as well. But yeah September… Rich Birch — Yeah. Zach Zehnder — …that’s Sunday after Labor Day is a great one. Rich Birch — Yeah, I also thought this could be an interesting you know launch kind of backing up against Thanksgiving. So like going from this into the Christmas season could be a really cool, so a little bit later in the fall could be another time. Okay, so again, I I had told you, friends, that the Zach’s got this crazy thing he wants to give people. You’ve listened here. You know, you’re 26, 27 minutes in. Ah so what is it that that you’re going to give people – this is crazy. I can’t believe this. Zach Zehnder — Hey Rich, we’re happy to give free copies of our books away… Rich Birch — Wow. Zach Zehnder — …to ah to pastors and church leaders… Rich Birch — Okay. Zach Zehnder — …and well we’ll cover the shipping too. That’s of course to anyone in the United States. Rich Birch — Yep. Zach Zehnder — To Canada we can send a digital sample… Rich Birch — Yep. Zach Zehnder — …and and work out it deal with shipping only if if that’s of interest. Um, but we want to get this book in your hand. We’re we’re confident in it. Um, we’ve got the proven results of over 1000 churches. Rich Birch — Love it. Zach Zehnder — And so we want you to thumb through it and see it for yourself. There was like, you mentioned earlier, heavy investment on the the graphic look feel design. Um, it’s ah it’s a unique book size. It’s a lay flat bind… like it’s just a really like awesome… Rich Birch — Yeah. Zach Zehnder — …thing to hold and to look through that your people get excited about too. And so we’re happy to do that. And so I imagine link, Rich, the link will be kind of in the show notes for folks. Rich Birch — Yep, we’ll link to it there. Zach Zehnder — I can send you that link and… Rich Birch — Yep for sure. Zach Zehnder — …we’ll send them directly to it, and they can choose a challenge of their choice. If they want to see a kid’s book too, just put it in the notes. But we want to be as generous as possible as getting this material to you. Um, as we said it’s it’s late April now. Um, this fall’s a great chance and so that way you have time to look through it a little bit with your leadership team and and see. And we’ve we’ve got plenty of time to get ready for fall. Our materials get to you super quick as well. Rich Birch — Right. Zach Zehnder — And so we’d be happy to resource any church that would want to link in with us. But yeah, free book for any pastor leader out there. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s fun. I was just thinking while we were talking here what about like if if I’m say a network, you know, I’m I’ve got a network of churches that I meet with with you know that are folks that I either lead. I’m in a denomination – that sort of thing. Would you send me a book that I could take a look at? Ah, what would that look like? Zach Zehnder — Totally. Yeah, we’d love to do that. We’ve worked with a couple denominations and then a couple of districts as well, inside of a denomination. Rich Birch — Love it. Love it. Zach Zehnder — And and so yeah, we’d love to send that. I would say if that’s you, um and anybody can email hello@redletterchallenge.com – let’s talk about that. We’ve done some things before where, you know, obviously the the more churches that can get in on one… Rich Birch — Yep. Zach Zehnder — …um, we can do even greater rates than you can find on our website… Rich Birch — Right. Zach Zehnder — …when we do it in bulk um through discount or through denominations in districts. And so ah, it can really save and it can be something that a denomination or district can help even fund, and get into their their district or denomination for a really powerful forty days that that we know is going to not just change each church but could change a whole denomination or district in forty days. It was pretty cool. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. I could see where like, yeah, let’s say yeah maybe I had maybe we had three or four churches in our in our kind of direct close, you know, network you could get them all shipped to one place. Get cheaper price for everybody. You know, we’re all going to be together in the summertime anyways. We’ll put the boxes in the back of your car, go home, that kind of thing. I think that could be ah, you know, super amazing. We friends, so again, the link’s in the show notes we’ll make it super obvious there. Click that link, pick up that that free copy. Rich Birch — Now’s the time though, friends. Don’t don’t wait. Don’t like don’t put this off till like next month. Pick up that copy now. It’ll arrive in a bit and then you can make that decision here in May and get that slotted in for this fall. I think that would be that would be amazing. Actually, we also have another thing that we want to say to folks that are listening in. Next week on May 1st, Wednesday May 1st we’re at 12 noon Eastern, or 9am for our friends on the Pacific coast, we’re actually going to host a webinar with Zach which will be amazing. Kind of dual purpose of this – one if you if you want to talk directly to Zach, you got questions you could come to that. We’ll make sure we get those questions. We can talk specifically about if you want to you know more questions on you know 40-day all-in church challenges. But then we also this is really one piece of an overall kind of discipleship process that churches should be thinking about. Help us help me understand a little bit about what we’re gonna be talking about on that that webinar. Zach Zehnder — Yeah. Rich, we’ve seen our materials work super well and and give 40-day experiences that are unparalleled. And and early on a church would say, now what? And I’m like I don’t know, man. I’m a lead pastor. You you do, you do you and I’ll do me. Rich Birch — You go figure it out. Zach Zehnder — But but over the over the last um 7 years especially, but really decade, I’ve been blessed to be able um to sit in this discipleship space more than most, and really look at Jesus as the answer. And not just create materials for forty days, but my heart, like where I find the most fulfillment and joy is when I can help a pastor. Rich Birch — Right. Zach Zehnder — Um, I’m a 4 generation pastor myself and I love resourcing and helping pastors. And so, Rich, I’ve taken everything that I’ve kind of learned in the discipleship space over the last seven to ten years, and I’m I’m really now wanting to help church leaders and pastors develop a full-on disciple-making strategy at their church. Rich Birch — Love it. Zach Zehnder — So think going beyond the forty days, but long term what does it look like to do disciple making in our nation right now? And I’m just convinced that it is the answer um to the perennial problem we’re having in the western church that we know how to create believers but we don’t know how to create followers. Zach Zehnder — And and so I’ve spent years in this and tailor-made some content specific to pastors and church leaders for how to help them get going. And I’ll say one last thing about that and then I can’t wait to talk with you more. In 2022 Lifeway Research did a study, and on the greatest needs of pastors, the one that they knew they needed to invest needed to invest in and were willing to invest in, at the very top of the list 63%—above technology, communication, internet, all those things—63% said disciple-making which tells me pastors and church leaders know it’s important but they don’t know how to do it. Rich Birch — Right, right. Zach Zehnder — And and I get the grind of daily taking care of your people. And to to know that disciple making is important and to not think that you’re crushing it can lead you to feel guilty and with a lot of shame. And so I want to come alongside as an ally and say I’ve got a decade into this. I can I can help you get started. We can help you get started. And that way you can do what God’s called you to do, but hopefully with the start we can give, we can really start making disciples, not just for forty days… Rich Birch — Right. Zach Zehnder — …but for 40 years and and beyond. Rich Birch — Love it. Zach Zehnder — So anyway I can’t wait to get into it and talk about more of the disciple-making high level church stuff for pastors and leaders. Rich Birch — So good. This is going to be good. So that’s next week, that’s May 1st. You know click the link in there, you’ll you’ll see you’ll see all that. Sign-up, we’d love to see you. I love that soundbite. Hey we you know we’re going to have a conversation on that day that’s going to help you. It’s going to help frame this whole idea around, you know, not just creating believers but ultimately followers. How do we how do we become the kind of church that that is behind us is a wake of discipled people who are following Jesus ah, you know for years to come? That’s the kind of change we need to see in our churches. So really looking forward to that conversation. This is going to be fantastic. Rich Birch — Zach, this has been a great conversation today. Thank you so much for ah for being on. Any kind of last words as we before we wrap up today’s conversation? Zach Zehnder — Yeah, for me, you know, this whole thing started with ah sometimes pastors, church leaders can be guilty of this as well. Sometimes that we you know, we can put off that following Jesus is a burden and ah we have a cross to bear. And I don’t want to minimize the fact that ministry has its challenges and its burdens. Um, but following Jesus is the opportunity of our lifetimes and none of us deserve it. And not only have we been saved but we’ve been called to follow. And my heart just reaches out um to pastors and church leaders specifically um because for far too long like we’ve struggled in this area of discipleship specifically. And God’s been too good in all of our stories to settle for this mediocre, halfhearted, unintentional shadow at best representation. Um, and we have answers and we have answers in the name of Jesus. Zach Zehnder — And and so um, yeah, I’m just really grateful for pastors that care about discipleship and are intentionally trying and and want to help in as many ways as possible. Because this really is the opportunity of a lifetime that none of us deserve and I’m grateful. Yeah. Rich Birch — Um, it’s so good. Well Zach, I appreciate you being here where do we want to send people online if they want to connect with you, learn more about what you’re up to, that sort of thing. Where do we want to send them? Zach Zehnder — Yeah, they can go to our main website redletterterchallenge.com and again I’ll give you the link, Rich, that you can put in, you can hyperlink it on the show notes for where to find the free book. They can also Google “free book for pastors Red Letter” and it’ll it’ll pop up at the top there too. Rich Birch — Perfect. Zach Zehnder — But, yeah, redletterterchallenge.com is the best place and if you want to email me or my team hello@redletterterchallenge.com. We we’re there and would love to ah would love to help. Rich Birch — Thanks so much, Zach – appreciate you being here today. Zach Zehnder — Appreciate you, Rich! Thanks, man.

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Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Ted Coniaris, the Lead Pastor Apprentice at Community Christian Church. One of the fastest growing churches in the country, Community Christian is an entrepreneurial church which has been a ministry “teaching hospital” and vanguard for decades. Whether it’s five years or fifty years, every lead pastor is called to shepherd their churches for a season. At some point they will step down from their role and pass the baton to a successor. How do we transition well and ensure that what we are building lasts beyond ourselves? Tune in as Ted shares about apprenticeship, team culture, and how to set your church culture up for a successful transition. 5 steps to apprenticeship. // Apprenticeship is fundamental to how Community Christian operates as they develop leaders and people to be activated into their mission. Taken from Dave and Jon Ferguson’s book, Exponential, the five steps of apprenticeship have also been core to the pastoral transition process. Current lead pastor, Dave, is in the process of leading Ted through these five steps, which include Step 1: I do, you watch, we talk. Step 2: I do, you help, we talk. Step 3: You do, I help, we talk. Step 4: You do, I watch, we talk. Step 5: Someone else watches you—the next apprentice. A culture of humility. // The transition process at Community Christian Church is marked by a clear timeline and benchmarks for progress. Ted attributes much of the success of this transition to the humility and leadership of Dave. In addition to setting a humble example, Ted stressed the importance of being deeply committed to Jesus, and prioritizing teamwork. These elements are crucial in fostering a culture of humility within the church, which is essential for any successful leadership transition. Tend to your soul in the transition. // Pastoral transitions bring with them a sharp learning curve and juggling a lot of different responsibilities. Build a support network of other lead pastors and talk about what you are going through. Continue to develop a culture of humility by sharing how you’re doing with your team. Ask them for grace when needed. Create daily rhythms that will help to nurture your relationship with God and the most important people in your life. Be open-handed. // There are things that will change in the leadership team and infrastructure as a church transitions to a new lead pastor. Be open to the new vision that God is calling the church to in this new chapter. What changes will best serve where God is leading you? Don’t be afraid to make changes that may benefit your church as the leadership changes. Plan ahead for transitions. // Think about how your church culture sets up for a transition. If you are building something that you want to last past you, you have to imagine what it will look like when you are gone. Aggressively remove parts of your culture that will reject a transition, and align your culture so transition will be viewed as a good thing. You can find out more about Community Christian Church at www.communitychristian.org and email Ted. 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: The Giving Church As a church leader you know that your ability to execute your vision comes down to Staffing, Facilities and Programming. All of those needs are fueled by one thing: Generosity. The Giving Church, led by Generosity Coach and Founder, Phil Ling, has worked with nearly 1000 churches of all sizes in over 40 different denominations and raised over a billion dollars to fuel ministry. Don’t run out of fuel for your ministry. Transform your ministry with innovative capital campaigns and leadership coaching. Visit thegivingchurch.com/unseminary for a FREE PDF, 5 Ways To Grow Your Church Giving. Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Every week we try to bring you a leader who will both inspire and equip you and I’m really excited to have Ted Coniaris with us today. He is from Community Christian Church. They are a multisite church in Illinois. If you do not know them I don’t know where you’ve been. There, ah if if I’m counting right, 7 physical locations. Although they always seem their launch another, one micro-churches, online space, Community Freedom locations at correctional institutions and treatment centers in the area. Ted is the Lead Pastor Apprentice at Community Christian. He has been ah a campus pastor in one of their locations but is in the midst of a transition. I’m looking forward to today’s conversation because we’re catching a story as it’s happening. So really looking forward to this, Ted. Welcome to the show. So glad you’re here. Ted Coniaris — So glad to be here, Rich. Thank you so much for having me. Rich Birch — Why don’t you tell us, kind of fill out the picture a little bit about Community. You know that was just kind of the standard boilerplate stuff. Give us kind of the passion, if we were to come this weekend, what would we experience? Fill in the picture there a little bit. Ted Coniaris — Yeah, I mean you could really say so much about the legacy of our church over the last 35 years, but the unifying thread that ties it all together, and and really still is going to be pointing us towards our future is our mission, which is helping people find their way back to God. I mean from the very first day that Dave and John Ferguson founded this church that was the unifying passion. It’s still our unifying passion today and as we’re in the midst of this transition, you know, part of my stewardship is stewarding that mission into the future. I mean that’s that’s my heartbeat. That’s Dave’s heartbeat. That’s the heartbeat of our future as well. So that’s that’s the big idea that ties us all together. Ted Coniaris — But I think you pretty much covered we had got a lot of stuff going on. We’re entrepreneurial kind of church. We love doing whatever we can help people find the way back to God. So that’s starting churches in prisons. Yep, we’re in. Rich Birch — Nice. Ted Coniaris — That starting micro-churches all around the world. We’re in. You know, we’ll do whatever it takes. And we kind of joke sometimes like we’re willing to be the first person to like kick through the door, and then we expect people to come in behind us and do it a whole lot better than we’re doing it. But… Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ted Coniaris — …that’s been the model for the thirty-five years. One of the first churches to go multisite. Rich Birch — Yeah. Ted Coniaris — I think one of the first churches to leverage a micro expression in the way that we’re doing it. And you know that’s that’s a fun part of being here. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, the Community Christian is a vanguard, a teaching hospital kind of church place, that you you’re taking the the hits and making stuff up and then the rest of us are ah you know are benefiting from that. And that continues I would say that continues with this current transition that you find yourself in. Like this is one of those areas where I think a lot of our churches are looking at and trying to figure out, Okay, how do we pass this on to the next generation. So talk to me about kind of your connection kind of up to this point where you were ended up being identified as the Lead Pastor Apprentice with Community Christian. How did that work, kind of kind of where’d you come from, all that kind of stuff. Ted Coniaris — Yeah, I mean there’s so many different places to start the story, but just for sake of time, I was at large church in Chicago area. Not so far from our Community locations, maybe 45 minutes away. Ted Coniaris — And God had really been doing so much through our time there in all kinds of different roles, was like executive pastor teaching pastor kind of role there. And we started having this really uncomfortable nudge from the Holy Spirit that maybe we should plant a church. And of course with great faith we said, No. We don’t want to do that. Rich Birch — And like a good multiplying leader I said no. Ted Coniaris — And yes, and I heard from the Lord and said, no thank you. Rich Birch — Yes. Ted Coniaris — But we were at least willing to explore it a little bit. Rich Birch — Yeah. Ted Coniaris — You know, we felt that we’re like okay, let’s let’s go to this conference. We had heard about called Exponential. And so actually it was like ten years ago my wife and I went to an Exponential Conference in Orlando. truthfully like the most engaged I could tell you was halfheartedly sort of exploring the idea of planting with this seed… Rich Birch — Interesting. Ted Coniaris — …that the Lord had planted. And I remember in the first session I leaned over to Melissa because Dave Ferguson and John lead Exponential. If you’re not familiar with what it is. It’s the largest global gathering of church planters. And if you are at all interested in that you should definitely go stop what you’re doing right now and register for Exponential next year in Orlando. it’s an incredible… Rich Birch — Yes. Ted Coniaris — …Spirit-moved experience. And I was like you know hey these guys are in Naperville did you know that? And she’s like oh wow. I’m like yeah, maybe I should reach out talk to them sometime. And little did I know about a year later I’d be sitting at a table with John and Dave connected through a mutual friend who is—you talk about Community being kind of like a teaching hospital, my friend, John Peacock who launched Mission Church also in Illinois he had did he had done his residency at Community. And Community actually had helped launch Mission and sent about a hundred of their people to go help start Mission along with our number one giver to help launch that really well. So that’s kind of our legacy. Ted Coniaris — He’s like you know you got to talk to Dave and John. So ended up talking with them and as we were exploring church plant we’re looking at the same community in Downers Grove, which suburb of Chicago here. And really came away from that conversation thinking to myself, the only reason I wouldn’t plant with Dave and John as a part of Community is if it had to be about me. And that is a horrible reason to plant a church to make a name for yourself. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes. Ted Coniaris — And they’re like who I wanted to be when I grow up you know? Rich Birch — Right. Ted Coniaris — I’m sitting with these guys. They’re being so gracious and generous with me. And I had read some of their books and stuff and I was like man, I hope when I’m sixty I can be sitting across a table from somebody like this and encouraging them in the way they’re encouraging me. Ted Coniaris — And so long story short we ended up planting. I’ve planted one of our churches in Downers Grove six years ago. And God really blessed that; amazing things have been happening – they’re still happening there. And then I started overseeing some of our locations, leading network is what we call it. And now I oversee all of our locations and expressions. So our physical locations and then you mentioned our micro churches, our online church, and our churches in prisons, Community Freedom. And then Dave and I started talking about this next step about apprenticing to become the next lead pastor of Community. So that’s the story in a nutshell. Rich Birch — Um, and yeah, that’s so that’s yeah, that’s amazing. So the, you know, let’s let’s kind of zero in on the part of the story where you know Dave it takes you off for lunch and is like so what’s your future? You know God has a God loves you and I have a wonderful plan for your life. Like what does that look like? How do you know where what was that what was, you know, yeah, how does how does he broach that conversation? What’s going through your head? You know, obviously you’re a humble leader you’re you know you’re you’re not like you’re like of course I’m the guy. But like how does all that work? What’s going on inside you when you know when that conversation’s happening? Ted Coniaris — Well first of all I’ll say a part of our culture that’s really important is we are like a very relational culture. And so Dave and John are brothers, if you don’t know, Dave and John Ferguson. They have co-founding pastors of our church. Dave is the lead pastor. And I often will tell people that we’ve inherited—they’re kind of like our family of origin, as a church culture. And there’s like a brotherly sort of vibe to our staff and our team and our church – nobody’s too big for their britches. You know like if you start trying to act like some kind of big shot around your brother, you’re gonna get punched, you know? Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, you’re gonna get it. Yep yep, you’re gonna get it. Yep. Ted Coniaris — And so yeah, so we don’t nobody’s too big here. And so Dave and I had a great relationship, have had a great relationship. And the way it started was just very natural… Rich Birch — Yep. Ted Coniaris — …me where I see myself and frankly replacing Dave or being the next lead pastor was not something I was really considering at the time. All focused on planting Downers Grove and seeing it flourish and reaching the community that we live in and my neighbors and friends and kids’ families’ friends and all that. That’s about all I could think about. But as my ministry role expanded and thinking more globally about the church, I think the first time we had the conversation came on the heels of talking through some significant challenges that we’re facing as a church. And at the end and Davis one of those leaders is always just looking for everybody’s perspective on it. You know, he doesn’t come in front line high with the one answer you know he wants to hear. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Ted Coniaris — And they after that conversation he’s like, you know, if you ever would you ever consider, you know, stepping into to this role? Like, oh well yeah, I would consider it. You know… you know I guess I consider it. Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, honored to consider it humbling. Yeah yeah, yeah, totally, yeah yeah, yeah. Ted Coniaris — Yeah and then we just kept meeting and talking about it and became more and more of a reality. And ah, then went through some of the formal steps and got to where we are here today. Rich Birch — Interesting. So then what does what is the process look like kind of where are you at in that process? You know what what have you learned so far? I know we were joking before we recorded I was like I’m I’m really looking forward to this conversation, then 5 years from now we’ll follow up and hear, everything was great. Um, you know here’s the stuff we learned. Ted Coniaris — Yeah. Rich Birch — But what kind of where are you at now in the process? What is what have you kind of what’s that look like, you know help us help us understand that. Ted Coniaris — Yeah, absolutely. So one of the things that’s really fundamental to how we operate as a church is apprenticeship. You know, we are always developing leaders, always developing people to be activated into the mission that the Lord has called them to, however, they’re called and equipped to help people find their way back to God. And so our Kid City leaders have apprentices. They’re apprenticing people in the role that they’re in. our small group leaders. Our [inaudible] leaders, our Community Freedom leaders, ourCommunity Cares, our ministries out in the community. We always want all of our leaders to be apprenticing somebody… Rich Birch — Yep. Ted Coniaris — …from top to bottom. Rich Birch — Yep. Ted Coniaris — And so that’s like our operating system. Rich Birch — Yep. Ted Coniaris — And so that’s the most significant positions and the most, you know, small minor positions you might think of in our community. It’s that relational apprenticeship. And and the way we’ve talked about apprenticeship is that it’s 5 steps to apprenticeship, and you could look this up or read it in the book Exponential that Dave and John wrote. But step 1 is is “I do, you watch, we talk.” Step 2 is “I do, you help, we talk.” Ted Coniaris — And then it’s “You do, I help, we talk.” And then “You do, I watch, we talk.” And then “You do, someone else watches,” and that’s the next apprentice, right? Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Ted Coniaris — And those are the 5 steps of apprenticeship. And so we thought what better way to go through this transition than to have an apprenticeship process where we are visibly and publicly walking through these 5 steps in front of our church to reinforce this value, say nobody’s nobody’s too big to be apprenticed. You know what I mean? Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes. Ted Coniaris — We can always look and grow and develop. And so that’s what we’re doing. We’re publicly walking through the 5 steps of apprenticeship in front of our church which has just been awesome. Rich Birch — Wow. And what’s the you know when you think about timeline. First of all, I love that framework. Obviously that’s… the thing I love, we you know we’ve talked about this in other contexts where you know we we talked to our people about hey everybody should have an apprentice. But then that seems to be not the case when it gets to the actual lead people. It’s like all you people need to get apprentices. But the fact that you’re structuring it that way I think is fantastic. Um, so kind of where are you at in that process? Is there a timeline, or how are you is it what are the benchmarks that you’ll know kind of you’re moving along? What’s how are you talking about that internally? Ted Coniaris — Yeah, absolutely. So we the the finish line is May May 1, 2025. So that’s just over a year away now. And we started about six months ago in the public phase. Rich Birch — Yep. Ted Coniaris — And it so we’re we’re in this um I do, you help; you do, I help transition. So in between steps 2 and step 3 right now, where there are parts of what I’m doing now, which is me doing and Dave helping. Rich Birch — Right. Ted Coniaris — And there are parts of what I’m doing right now that is Dave doing and me helping. Rich Birch — Okay. Ted Coniaris — And we’re kind of transitioning more and more where I will be the primary doer and Dave will be a primary helper. So that’s that’s the transition. So Dave is going to be the lead pastor. He is the, like in terms of clarity organizationally, he is the lead pastor until May 2025. Rich Birch — Yep. Ted Coniaris — However, how we operate and how we function is these 5 steps of apprenticeship in terms of our day-to-day reality. Rich Birch — Okay, that makes sense. I like that. I love the kind of clarity there around hey there is like ah there’s a tripwire date that we’re pushing towards, but then also we’re following this process that there is a it’s a handoff. I like that there’s like a baton there. That’s you know that’s really good. What, so far, good, bad, missing, confusing? What’s been good? You know what’s been bad? Anything that you’re like oh like hey this next time I do this, next time I transition into becoming a lead pastor, I’ll do that differently? No, but what a, yeah, what’s kind of what’s your evaluation so far? What advice would you give to other leaders maybe who are listening in? Ted Coniaris — Yeah, great question. So much I could say. First of all I hope I never do this again, right. My goal in step is through this process is… Rich Birch — Yes. [inaudible on the other side, this will be on the other side right? Ted Coniaris — Yeah, I I’m deeply committed to being on the other side of this process in the future… Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, yeah, yes. Ted Coniaris — …and I’m excited about that. But I I do not I’m sort of packing the coffin in this one. Like I don’t I don’t see myself going anywhere else like I want to be committed here. Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, Ted Coniaris — But you talk about what were the categories used good, hard, or bad, and confusing… missing confusing? Rich Birch — Yeah, good bad missing confusing. Yeah, just like kind of general of that evaluation. What’s you know, kind of what’s you already thinking so far? Ted Coniaris — Yeah, um, the good I’ll start with that. Rich Birch — Yep yep. Ted Coniaris — This has felt inside and outside, and when I say inside and outside—like between Dave and I—in the inside, and the outside—like our leadership and our church—incredibly healthy and it really passes the smell test. Rich Birch — Um, that’s good. That’s good. Ted Coniaris — Like it just feels right. Like when we talk to people about, oh this is what we’re doing, and this is the amount of time we’re taking. like we decided to take a significant amount of time because we just didn’t feel like this is something that needed or should be hurried. Like let’s do this well, let’s take time. Rich Birch — Right, right, right. Ted Coniaris — Let’s give people time to adjust. And I don’t need that, Dave doesn’t need that, like it’s it’s it’s felt super healthy. And if Dave were here he would say the same thing. There hasn’t been a point for either one of us where it’s been like oooh is this the right thing to do? Is this… Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, right, right, right. Ted Coniaris — It’s just like felt natural… Rich Birch — Right. Ted Coniaris — …healthy, really really good. And I would say a lot of that is a credit to Dave’s leadership and his humility. You were just going to ask a question. Rich Birch — Well I was going to ask that. So um I so I was a part Connexus Church in in Canada. And um, you know Carrie Nieuwhof handed off to Jeff Brody – both great leaders. And but I would say both of them have the humility that you’re talking about. Like there’s that they are and I don’t know how we get at that. How do we cultivate that? With you know, and maybe we can talk about this on the the person coming into the role. How have you kind of been able to keep your ego in check? Keep your you know is it close relationship with Jesus, is that all it comes down to? Or is there anything that you’ve you know that’s been helpful to keep your you know the humility, because I do think if man if we can stay humble through this process I think there’s a much higher likelihood that it’ll actually, you know, take kind of thing. But what’s what’s been helpful for you in this to kind of keep close accounts and stay humble? Ted Coniaris — Yeah I think there’s so many ways I could answer that. I think one of the ways is Dave setting the tone. Um it paints a picture of somebody who’s been able to accomplish a ton. I mean in our church nationally, globally. I mean by all measures and on all accounts you could look at Dave’s ministry and be like man that guy he’s done so much incredible work. Rich Birch — Yeah yep. Ted Coniaris — But he’s just so humble… Rich Birch — Yep. Ted Coniaris — …and just a regular guy. I mean my wife and I often joke like our goal is to bring normal back to church leadership. Like we’re bringing normal back, baby, like we are normal people. Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. I love it. I love it. Yes, yes, true very much. Ted Coniaris — You know what I mean? Like why do we have to pretend like we’re not normal people. Rich Birch — Yeah, yes, yeah. Ted Coniaris — Like I’m deeply committed to Jesus, I’m deeply committed to my wife, I’m deeply committed to the ministry of the church, to preaching, to to learning, to growing, to all of those things, to the spiritual disciplines. But but I’m not, you know, anything other than a normal person who’s deeply committed to those things. Rich Birch — Right, right, right. Ted Coniaris — And so I think the example of Dave, and just saying that on the outset, like I never try to be a superhero. Rich Birch — Right. Ted Coniaris — I never set myself up to be that. I think that is so dangerous. And and another piece of it that I think is really key is—like of course relationship with Jesus like you mentioned—I’m going to talk about some of the other things, is your commitment to team. I think is really key. Rich Birch — Yep. Ted Coniaris — You, I believe cannot be a really good team leader and create a really good team culture if you are not humble. Rich Birch — Yep, yeah, true. Ted Coniaris — I think you could be really successful… Rich Birch — Right. Ted Coniaris — …and you might have some teams that do successful things, but I would argue, you know, your team culture is probably not what you think it is… Rich Birch — Right, right. Ted Coniaris — …if you’re not a humble person. I love team. I believe that our teams are going to end up with better decisions, better sermons, better everything that I could produce on my own. I genuinely believe that. Rich Birch — Right, right. Ted Coniaris — So what place would pride have… Rich Birch — Yeah. Ted Coniaris — …in that world. Of course pride is something we all struggle with. I’m not my life isn’t absent of pride by any means. Rich Birch — Right. Ted Coniaris — But if pride were to poke its head out in a meeting… Rich Birch — Yep, yes. Ted Coniaris — …we’re so team-centric and we have such incredible people on our staff team here, I think they’d be like all right big guy like why don’t you sit back down, you know? Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, that’s good. That’s good, dude. Ted Coniaris — Like our culture, our culture will correct itself in that way. Rich Birch — Yeah the culture would reject that. Yeah it would reject that, it would be like that’s not that’s not who we are. Ted Coniaris — Yeah. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s not who we are. Ted Coniaris — No. Rich Birch — Yeah. Ted Coniaris — Like somebody trying to build a brand, things like that in our culture, it’s like yeah that doesn’t fly here. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, that doesn’t. Yeah that would be as an outsider that has been my experience with both Dave and John. Like I I bumped in while I was talking talking to both of them. We just you know were recording this the week after Exponential and bumped into both of them and Dave I’ve had a fair amount of interaction back and forth with. John I I really haven’t. And like he stops me in the hallway and is like, hey Rich, and like shakes my hand. And I was like, what? Like how do you know me? Like what is you know, what’s that connection? And you know he doesn’t need to go out of his way to like say hi, right? Like you don’t need to do that. Um, but, you know and obviously he’s got those guys got a million other things going on at a thing like that. Man, that’s that’s great. Rich Birch — What about on the, you know, bad, missing, confusing? We’ll lump that all together, stuff that maybe like, hey early on here’s some stuff we’re working through um, you know, that you know, we’re we’re so taking a bit to adjust to as we’re you know as we’re going through the process? Ted Coniaris — Yeah. I mean I’ll speak to that one personally. Rich Birch — Yep. Ted Coniaris — Because I think that’s been the hardest part honestly. We’re in a phase right now where I have been wearing a bunch of different hats, as often happens in a church context. I’m sure all of you listening right now, men and women working in the church… Rich Birch — Yes, yeah. Ted Coniaris — …my hunch is that most of you wear multiple hats. Um, that’s how we operate too, being entrepreneurial as a community. Rich Birch — Yeah. Ted Coniaris — We maybe wear more hats than what would be typical… Rich Birch — Right. Ted Coniaris — …in a different culture. And so I got I’m wearing a bunch of hats, and now I’m putting on more hats… Rich Birch — Yeah. Ted Coniaris — …and I’m not yet where I’m able to take off some of those hats. Rich Birch —How many hats can I get? Yeah. I look like one of those Carnival people selling hats, honestly, you know? Like I’ve got all the hats. Rich Birch — Yes, yes here you go. Ted Coniaris — And if you want a hat like come into a hat. like I’m gonna be dishing out hats. Rich Birch — Okay, yeah, yeah. Ted Coniaris — But um, that’s been the hardest part. I I’m in like what I think and hope will be the most um, strenuous time-wise… Rich Birch — Yeah, yep, yep. Ted Coniaris — …season of the transition in these middle sections of the apprenticeship process, which I anticipated would be the case. Rich Birch — Yep. Ted Coniaris — But I think I underestimated how I would feel in this time. And so for me, that’s the thing that is the hardest that I’m actively working on right now. And actually coming out of Exponential that was kind of a light bulb for me where I was like, okay, I’ve accepted this storyline that I need to do these things right now. What if I don’t? Like what if what if there are parts of what I’m doing that I I actually need to hand off sooner or we need to stop doing sooner than what we had planned. And so that’s that’s like the rough and gritty middle… Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, right. Ted Coniaris — …of the process that I’m feeling right now. Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely. Ted Coniaris — Everything is wonderful, but it is not I am not operating at a sustainable pace at the moment. Rich Birch — Yeah. Ted Coniaris — And that’s something that I’m I’m peeling back and it will take some time, but I’m definitely committed to. And now I’m saying it to you and to whoever’s listening. So you guys feel free to send me an email say, hey Ted, did you actually follow through on that? Rich Birch — Did you do that? Did you act? Ted Coniaris — Like give me some accountability. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. That’s great. Yeah, that’s that’s so good. What I yeah I can see that that makes sense. There’s like ah I think the idea of a pinch point here like we’re in a transition going across a bridge and it’s like hey you know things are going to be a little bit overwhelming. You know on the on the kind of personal human side, that is ah that could be a recipe for things to go sideways, right? Ted Coniaris — Yeah. Rich Birch — Because it’s like hey things are busy. What are you doing anything different in this season to kind of stay connected, pace yourself to try to, you know, or is that what you’re identifying like I got to get more of that in my life. What are what are you doing to try to keep/tend to your soul in the midst of that kind of transition? Ted Coniaris — Yeah, great question. I mean I have a pretty robust kind of personal—ah I don’t know what you want to call it—infrastructure around me… Rich Birch — Yep, yep. Ted Coniaris — …or scaffolding around me… Rich Birch — Yep, yep. Ted Coniaris — …maybe is a better way to put it. And I think in this season of transition I’ve I’ve amped up some of the scaffolding… Rich Birch — Yep Ted Coniaris — …that I don’t think will be like permanent… Rich Birch — Yep Ted Coniaris — …for me moving forward, but it’s a helpful as I’m I’m building in this really crucial stage. Rich Birch — No, that’s good. Yep. Ted Coniaris — So I mean I’ve got a group of other lead pastors that I like who are my dear friends that live in the area here. We’re friends on mission together. We can share anything and everything. Rich Birch — Yeah. Ted Coniaris — That’s really really important. Another part of like creating a culture of humility that actually helps me in this is I will share this with my team. So I’m not hiding this from anybody.If somebody comes and asks me how I’m doing I’ll tell them this. Rich Birch — Right, right. Yes, yeah, yeah, exactly. Ted Coniaris — The people who are reporting to me right now I say, hey I just want to apologize to you. Rich Birch — Right. Ted Coniaris — I feel like I haven’t been present as I need to be in as you need me to be in this season. And I’m wrestling in this in between to try to figure that out. So can you give me some grace in this as we’re moving forward because I might need a little bit more room than than we would we would want than either of us would want in any other circumstance. Rich Birch — Right, right. Ted Coniaris — And so just putting it all above board, not trying to appear like I’ve got I’ve got all of it on my back and I have this is all perfect. You know it’s like things are going great like I do feel good. But I know I can’t keep this pace long term. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Ted Coniaris — So those some things. And then my mornings are really important to me. That’s my space before the kids wake up, you know, my wife and I have a pretty regimented morning. We get up real early. You know, exercise is a part of that. Our quiet time is a part of that. Our connection is a part of that, just for us. We have three young boys 14, 11, and 8. Rich Birch — Right. Ted Coniaris — If we don’t do it then it’s just not gonna happen. Rich Birch — Right. Ted Coniaris — So that’s that’s a big part of it. Rich Birch — So good. You know, um in ah Warren Bird and William Vanderbloemen’s book Next, where they talk about pastoral succession, one of the things, there’s lots of great insights in there, um you know, but one of them that that struck me as like so practical but like ah ah, kind of um, a stumbling point in these successions is oftentimes the the lead pastor who is transitioning out, they don’t have anything to do once they transition out. They don’t have like… Ted Coniaris — No yeah. Rich Birch — And and part of what they coach there is like you they need to get a hobby. Like they need to they need to find, you know, they you know… Now, Dave this is not the problem that Dave, you know, has. This like you know I can’t keep… Ted Coniaris — Yeah. Rich Birch — …he’s got a lot of hats, right? Ted Coniaris — Yes. Yeah. Rich Birch — Like he’s got New Thing, Exponential has got a lot of different things going on. How are you guys thinking about the kind of how does the post transition, you know, your connection Community’s connection with New Thing, with Exponential, how does all that fit together?Because you know I think it’s I think there’s lots of opportunity and good there’s good things there. But you know, how how are you navigating the kind of local mission of Community to reach the Chicagoland area versus, you know, the church’s connection as a teaching hospital, frankly for lots of other, you know, other churches? Ted Coniaris — Yeah. Rich Birch — What’s that look like for you? Ted Coniaris — Yeah. Wow. So those of you maybe not aware we talked a little bit about Exponential… Rich Birch — Yes. Ted Coniaris — …which is a community with a cause is how we describe it. It’s a collection of conferences, gatherings, equippings for church planters all around the world and Dave is the leader the principal leader of Exponential. There’s Exponential USA, Español, Europe… Rich Birch — Yeah, Australia Ted Coniaris — …Asia, you know, it’s all over the world. And then there’s also New Thing which is the church planting arm of Community Christian Church which is now it’s on separate entity and organization as of this last year. Which has last year planted over 8000 churches alone… Rich Birch — It’s amazing. It’s amazing. Ted Coniaris — …help catalyze planting 8000 churches in one year. I mean it’s incredible like what God is doing through these things… Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, it’s amazing. Yeah yeah. Ted Coniaris — …and Dave is also the principal visionary and leader of that. So yeah, he’s got a lot going on. And and in God’s timing here it’s really been a season where those things are what Dave can uniquely bring to the table in the season of his life and leadership as a bridge builder and as somebody who can get different leaders at the kingdom table to work for the kingdom good. Dave is uniquely gifted in that. It’s really like an anointing. There’s no collection of things that he has or does where you say, oh that’s how you do that. It’s more like just who God has made Dave to be and the vision that that he’s set before him. Ted Coniaris — And so definitely as we go through this transition Dave, I think, is stepping into his season of greatest contribution and most significant kingdom impact. And not not one of lesser kingdom impact. It’s going to look different but I also believe that a part of what I’m stewarding here is as a community to accelerate those things as well. Maybe the best correlation to a model that people may be more familiar with if you’ve been around the church for a while is ah and some churches still do this and it’s a wonderful thing to do but you have like your missionary partners who maybe are in this part of the world. And then every once a while they come back to the church and they speak you know this is what’s happening in Ukraine, and here’s how we’re helping people in the community and what we’re doing. And and we’re financially supporting them. We’re prayerfully supporting them. And we try to send teams and we’re. We see like this is a part of what we’re doing as a church. It’s not just what this missionary is doing. It’s like we have that like in spades, right? It’s like we have this amazing missionary named Dave Ferguson and John Ferguson… Rich Birch — Yeah. Ted Coniaris — …and by the way these ministries have grown out of this church. Rich Birch — Right. Ted Coniaris — They are us. Rich Birch — Yes. Ted Coniaris — And we’re planting churches all over the world and we want to be their number one financial supporter. We want to be their number one people supporter, their number one leadership capital supporter. Like like we are all in for this mission to see more and new people find their way back to God And and we still believe that the best way to do that is to plant new churches. And so Exponential and New Thing are our chief partners in that ministry and we’re deeply involved. I’m personally involved in those things. Ted Coniaris — And so Dave’s role here at the church pragmatically he’ll step into a founding pastor role. And he’ll still be involved with me relationally. He’ll still be teaching around the church. But it’s almost like ah like a chief missionary… Rich Birch — Yep, yep. Ted Coniaris — …and kind of like he and Sue, it’s like mom and dad. Rich Birch — Right. Ted Coniaris — You know it’s like a real healthy relationship… Rich Birch — Yep. Ted Coniaris — …and a really beautiful thing honestly. And and there’s zero part of me that feels threatened to have Dave around, have him teaching. And there’s zero part of Dave it feels threatened by me – that one makes more sense, you know. But ah ah well… Rich Birch — That’s funny. Ted Coniaris — But it’s just just works because we love and respect each other. Rich Birch — Right. Ted Coniaris — And we’re both are cheering for the same things you know. Rich Birch — Yeah. Ted Coniaris — So that’s kind of how we’re seeing it. Rich Birch — Are are you thinking, so this is like super tactical kind of nitty gritty thing… Ted Coniaris — Yeah. Rich Birch — …and this might not be sorted out and so you’re like, I don’t know; come back and ask me in a year. But you know, post the Dave transition, is there any discussion publicly around um, you know, restructuring how the leadership team works, or is it going to be is it literally like a one for one. You’re going to plop into what you know, kind of all the functions he used to have, you’re going to plop into that. Or is there what you know is there any kind of spread of some of the stuff he did and again it might be too early for that conversation. I don’t know. Ted Coniaris — Yeah, I think we’ll see. Rich Birch — Sure. Ted Coniaris — The bigger thing is, you know, what is this new vision that God is calling us to in this next chapter. Rich Birch — Yep. Ted Coniaris — While there are parts that we’re deeply committed to and will not change… Rich Birch — Yeah. Ted Coniaris — …like really significant parts of who we are like our mission and and our part of culture, there are new things that we’re going to be chasing. And so that structure, part of that will see what best serves as we move down that road towards this new vision. Rich Birch — Yep. Ted Coniaris — But there are some things that were we are already changing. So yeah, we’re restructuring our leadership team which actually starts next Tuesday on March 19. Rich Birch — Oh okay. Ted Coniaris — And so we’ve been working through that with our team. And and I’m sort of the impetus for that change… Rich Birch — Yep. Ted Coniaris — …and Leanna Weber who’s a key member of our team here, like an executive pastor. She’s gonna be leading that new team. And so we’re we’re starting to implement some of the infrastructure… Rich Birch — Oh that’s smart. That’s smart. Yeah, that’s smart. Ted Coniaris — …that we’ll need through the season of transition with Dave’s affirmation but with my leadership. Rich Birch — Yep. Ted Coniaris — And so that becomes I think the the best of both worlds. Rich Birch — Right. Ted Coniaris — …where you can use the influence and the leadership capital of the last thirty five years of faithfulness in Dave, but also the new vision and excitement for what’s yet to come. Rich Birch — Yep. Ted Coniaris — And Dave is fully on board with all of it where he’s like, as we talk about it’s like man, let’s just do it all right now! Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, exactly. Ted Coniaris — You know like this this is what I would want to do if I was here. Rich Birch —Yeah yeah, great. Ted Coniaris — Like he’s he’s as ah, excited as I am about it. And and that really is a gift. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Well Ted, this has been just such a rich conversation. I’ve loved we’ve you know like I say it’s ah hopefully you know we could come back in ah in a bit and kind of hear the next part of the the the journey. But anything else you want to share just as we wrap up today’s episode? Ted Coniaris — Ah, no I think one thing you had mentioned earlier just kind of the who’s listening in here. Rich Birch — Yeah. Ted Coniaris — And I think there’s probably some lead pastors who are listening in… Rich Birch — Yep. Ted Coniaris — …who are maybe considering like what might be next for you. And then there are probably a bunch of other people who are in second and third chairs who might be working with somebody. You know there’s transition talk. Um I’d like to say some to them and I’d like to say something to the younger group. Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. Ted Coniaris — So like the group that might be thinking, you’re nearing a transition… Rich Birch — Yep. Ted Coniaris — …my encouragement to you is start talking to other church leaders right now. Rich Birch — That’s good. Ted Coniaris — If you don’t feel like you can talk about it publicly, that’s fine. I totally understand the sensitivity of that conversation. But shoot me an email. Shoot somebody else an email. Like talk about how you can do this with wisdom. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Ted Coniaris — So it’s not just like ah you don’t have to do the model where you just drop out and somebody else drops in. Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, yeah. Ted Coniaris — Like you don’t have to do it that way. In fact, that might be the worst way… Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yep. Ted Coniaris — …for your church to transition. And you need to start talking to other people about how that can happen – somebody that you trust, people that you can trust if it’s not within the context of your existing church. Ted Coniaris — And then what I would say to the younger crowd who are in some of those same seats who aren’t thinking about a transition yet, be thinking about how your culture sets up for a transition. Rich Birch — Oh that’s good. Ted Coniaris — Because if you are building something you want to last past you, you have to imagine what it will look like when you leave. And so if there are parts of your culture that are going to reject a transition, remove them from your culture, aggressively. Rich Birch — That’s so good. Ted Coniaris — Part of what makes this work so well is that I don’t think Dave was thinking about a transition. But he aligned our culture in such a way where a transition is received as a good thing… Rich Birch — Right. Ted Coniaris — …and a healthy thing and actually something people expect, even though we never talked about it and Dave is a younger guy. It’s something that people weren’t they weren’t expecting it. But when we talked about it, when I came up and Dave and I and John talked about it with the church, everybody’s like oh yeah, that makes sense. Rich Birch — Right, right. Ted Coniaris — And it makes sense because of our culture, right? Rich Birch — Right. Yes, so good. Ted Coniaris — It wasn’t like, oh my gosh! It’s you think it could happen with someone like Dave. Rich Birch — Yes. Ted Coniaris — Our culture is receptive because it’s a multiplying culture. And so… Rich Birch — That’s good. Ted Coniaris — …um, I would really really encourage the young leaders to be looking at their culture honestly through that lens… Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good. Ted Coniaris — …because if it’s if it’s going to receive and grow past you, you know you got to you got to align the culture now because it takes time. Rich Birch — Yeah I love that. I know you know I’ve talked with a number of folks that are in those placement, you know, different placement companies, and I’ve heard I heard the term recently a crash landing crash landed succession, where there are these like it’s it it and I and it sounds exactly how it sounds, right? They they show up to the, you know, those organizations and it’s like we you know it’s like a board chair or something from a church and it’s like our lead guy just told us he’s leaving in six weeks. He’s been here for 35 years. We have no way to we we don’t know where to start. And I was like that is terrifying, like that that’s tough, man. And so um, what a great word. You know, particularly on that side for leaders to, you know, raise the banner and say like hey let’s talk about it. Let’s let’s let’s engage with it. That’s yeah, that’s really really good. Ted Coniaris — Yeah. Rich Birch — Ted I really appreciate your generosity I appreciate your humility and and you know just jumping on the call and and talking through with us today. Really really appreciate that. If people want to connect with you or with the church, where do we want to send them online, where’s kind of the best place for that? Ted Coniaris — Yeah, you can just check out my email tedconiaris@communitychristian.org you could send me email. That’s the best way to get a hold of me. And then communitychristian.org that’s our website you can check us out there. Connect anyway through there. But yeah feel free to shoot me an email, check out our website, check us out online, whatever you need. And we love to help churches and we love to help churches think about multiplication and planting, and you know multiplying discipleship. So if there’s any way that we can help you with that, not that we have all the answers, but we love talking about it, and helping, and you can join the community of us trying to figure that out. Rich Birch — That’s great. Thanks so much, Ted, appreciate being here today. Ted Coniaris — Hey, thanks, Rich. Really appreciate it.