unSeminary Podcast

In our rapidly evolving digital landscape, the concept of the attention economy has become increasingly relevant, especially for churches seeking to navigate this new terrain effectively. At its core, the attention economy is about the commodification of human attention, where businesses and organizations vie for our focus amidst an overwhelming sea of information. This shift presents unique challenges and opportunities for churches committed to growth and engagement. We delve into the implications of the attention economy for your church’s mission and outline strategies for thriving within it. The Shift to the Attention Economy Historically, economies have evolved from agricultural to industrial and, more recently, to digital. Today, we find ourselves in the attention economy, where the scarce commodity is not goods or services but the attention of humans. This paradigm shift is driven by the fact that in a world saturated with information, capturing and maintaining attention translates to influence and, ultimately, value creation. Why It Matters for Your Church For churches, the attention economy underscores a vital reality: the competition for your congregation’s attention extends far beyond the walls of your church. With entities like YouTube and social media platforms shaping the beliefs and behaviors of many, understanding and engaging with this economy is crucial for churches that aim to grow and influence effectively. Increase Communication Cadence In an era dominated by the attention economy, the frequency and relevance of your communication play a pivotal role in keeping your church’s message in the forefront of your congregation’s mind. Here’s how to enhance your communication strategy: Embrace Regular, Targeted Communication: Develop a consistent schedule for reaching out to your congregation. This involves not just the quantity but the quality and relevance of the communications. Each message should serve to connect, inform, or inspire, ensuring that your church remains a constant presence in their lives. Utilize Bite-Sized Content: Attention spans are shorter than ever, making it essential to convey your message in concise, engaging snippets. Break down complex ideas into smaller, more digestible pieces of content that can be easily consumed and shared. This approach helps to maintain interest and engagement over time. Think About Deeper Personalization Personalization is key in making each member of your congregation feel seen, understood, and valued. Here’s how to leverage personalization within your church’s communication efforts: Leverage Influencers Within Your Community: Identify and engage with individuals who have a natural influence within your congregation. These individuals can help amplify your message through their networks. Personalized outreach to these influencers can lead to more authentic and widespread engagement across your community. Engage in Two-Way Conversations: Shift from seeing digital platforms as mere broadcasting tools to engaging communities where real conversations happen. Respond to comments, initiate discussions, and encourage your congregation to interact with your content. This level of engagement fosters a deeper sense of community and connection. Customize Your Messaging: Tailor your communications to address the specific interests, needs, and concerns of different segments within your congregation. This could mean developing specific content for parents, youth, new members, or those interested in missions. Personalized content shows your congregation that you understand and care about their unique journeys of faith. By focusing on Increasing Communication Cadence and Thinking About Deeper Personalization, you’ll be better equipped to navigate the challenges and opportunities presented by the attention economy. These strategies not only help to keep your church relevant in the digital age but also deepen the connection with your congregation, driving engagement and growth. Navigating Forward The attention economy isn’t just a challenge; it’s an opportunity for churches to rethink engagement and mission in the digital age. By increasing communication cadence, embracing bite-sized content, leveraging personalization, and fostering community engagement, churches can navigate this new economy with purpose and impact. The journey through the attention economy is complex, but it offers a rich landscape for churches to connect with their congregations and communities in meaningful ways. As we adapt and innovate, the potential to deepen our mission and extend our reach is boundless. Let’s embrace this journey together, leveraging the attention economy to further the Kingdom in this digital age. Episode Transcript Well, happy Wednesday, everybody. It’s Rich Birch here from the Unseminary Podcast. Today, we’re talking about the attention economy. What is it and what difference does it make to your church? But before we get there, a little programming announcement. So, if you’ve been following along, you might have noticed we’ve been doing these experimenting really with these Wednesday episodes. These are solo episodes, less than 20 minutes long. The goal is to provide you some actionable training. These will be the kind of thing that you can apply right away. And we’ll continue on Thursdays with our traditional episodes where we interview church leaders. If you don’t know, we’re pushing 800 episodes over there. And our goal with our Thursday episodes is we really get you face-to-face with operational leaders in prevailing churches. So, the folks that we interview on Thursday are leading in fast-growing churches, churches that are making a difference. And I wanna get you face-to-face with them to really learn what’s happening in them. Friends, I’m on a mission. My personal mission is just to help 100 churches grow by 1,000 people. And so, we wanna continue to provide excellent resources. That’s blog posts, and podcasts, and digital magazines, and emails, emails all the time. And we have all kinds of other resources including courses, and I just tell you, we’re actually doing church-based coaching. All of these things put together really to try to get in your corner and say, hey, how can we help your church grow? And so, we’re gonna move this from being a spreader and say, hey, we’re gonna go for the foreseeable future here on Wednesday with a solo episode. And today we’re on the attention economy. What is it, and what difference does it make to your church? So, the attention economy, this is the economy we’re finding when we find ourselves where we are today. At one point, our culture was an agricultural culture for probably 1,500, and really what we were trying to do there was extract resources out of the ground. We were trying to convert through the cycles of seasons, make food that we could sell to other people. That shifted in the 16th and 18th century to a mercantile economy where really global trade was a big deal. It was about moving that agriculture around the world, moving spices around the world. Then in the 18th century, man, there was a huge shift to an industrial, through the Industrial Revolution to an industrial economy where that’s where we really had the development of the urban centers that we see all over the world as we really built up industrial development at scale, the power of steam, the power of coal, converting energy ultimately into resources that could be sold and traded around the world. Well, then in the late 20th century, things converted one more time to the digital economy. You know, this is really the information economy. But then more recently, really what’s happened is we’ve shifted to what has been called the attention economy. And what is the attention economy, you ask? It’s where your and my attention, human attention is treated like a scarce and valuable commodity with businesses really ultimately competing to capture and hold our attention and ultimately turning around and converting that into revenue or ultimately, you know, value and wealth long-term. It really highlights the nature of attention that the idea that, you know, at the end of the day, information and media is at the core, but really what we’re trading, what our economy is based on in so many ways is this idea of holding people’s attention. If you look at this, there’s this group of stocks called the Magnificent Seven, so Meta, Amazon, Alphabet, the folks behind Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, Apple, and Tesla these seven stocks represent the vast majority of growth in the world economy. In fact, actually those seven stocks are worth more than, you know, something like, you know, 50% of the global GDP. These people are worth a ton. Now, Meta, Amazon, Alphabet, and Apple, and probably Microsoft to some extent. So at least four or five of those Magnificent Seven are based on this idea of holding our attention and holding your people’s attention. We have a valuable resource when people come to our events on the weekend, when they log into our websites, when they subscribe to our social feeds, that has actual value. And the difference of where things were even 10 years ago or 20 years ago is that there are companies that are competing for our people’s attention. You know, you’ve seen this happen. If you’ve bumped into people in your church where you feel like, man, these people feel like they’ve been discipled more by YouTube than by our church or by the Bible. This is an outcome of the attention economy. YouTube has figured out how to capture the attention of your people to hold it, and then ultimately steer it towards a certain kind of outcome. You know, we’ve seen positive outcomes from this. In fact, just last week, we talked about an Easter 2024 study where we looked at churches that were inviting people to come to Easter. And one of the questions we asked is, how many different ways did you ask your people or did you kind of motivate, train, equip, and motivate your people to invite? And what we saw was those churches that did more than seven different things, seven distinct ways to encourage their people to invite saw a 53% bump over the average in Easter attendance. Why is this? Well, friends, I would say it’s because of the attention economy. The churches that realize, hey, we’ve got to get in front of our people, stay in front of them, are seeing great results. They’re seeing an outcome in their people. In that case, it was a bump in Easter attendance. You know, we see this show up in lots of different places. One of the things that often we end up talking about in our coaching is the fact that there are vast, there are way more guests that show up to growing churches that ultimately stick and stay. Did you know this? So sometimes I think we think, well, you know, for every guest, we must see a large percent of those people stay. That’s actually not true. In fact, stuck in stagnant churches will see only one in 10 people of their first-time guests actually stick into their church. Growing churches see two in 10, and thriving churches, the most fast-growing churches in the country see three in 10 guests stick and stay. So for every hundred guests, they’ll only see 30% of those actually stick and stay. But you know what we’ve seen over time, the difference between those churches that see guests stick and stay and those that don’t, is the churches that see guests stick and stay, they communicate a whole lot more than those churches that don’t see guests stick and stay. In fact, we’ve talked in other contexts that, you know, in that when a guest arrives, fills out that new year card, lets you know, hey, I’ve been a part of that. A best practice is to communicate with them seven times in the first 11 days. And you know how many times I’ve said that to church leaders and they’re like, wow, that’s crazy, that’s too much. In fact, actually just this week, I was talking to a leader and they said the same thing seven times in 11 days. And then we rattle off a bunch of examples. It’s a handwritten card from people at your new here kiosk. It’s a video that afternoon. In fact, did you know one of the largest churches in the country, if you were to go visit it this weekend, if you were to fill out their new here card, you’re going to get a personalized video greeting from a campus pastor at that church. Literally every week, they send out thousands of these videos, they’ve prioritized this. Why? Because they know that we live in an attention economy. We’ve got to get in front of people. You know, it’s also like midweek emails. It’s maybe sending them some sort of piece of mail. Maybe it’s even just like baking cookies and driving them and putting them on their doorstep. We’ve got to arrest that attention. People have taken a step towards us. We need to take a step towards them. Listen, Sundays used to be about the big event. Our discipleship used to be about just getting people to show up on Sundays. It used to be just about enough to get them to come for an hour. But really what we’re seeing is prevailing churches now understand that discipleship is much more of a flow. It’s much more about, hey, how do we keep in front of our people consistently throughout of the week? So the attention economy, you live in it and I live in it. I know, listen, you probably feel some tension around this. You probably feel like, gosh, I wish we didn’t have to communicate so much. I wish we didn’t have organizations vying for our people’s attention. The reality of it is we do. And so we’ve got to make some changes to the way we operate. So I’ve got two main takeaways for you today that I want you to think about because of the fact that you and I live in an attention economy. The first is you’ve got to increase your communication cadence. You’ve got to increase your communication cadence. What do I mean by that? You’ve got to communicate more. So if you’re a team leader today, let’s say you’re a staff member. Let’s say your church is a thousand people and you’re in student ministry or you’re in small groups ministry. Stop asking to get in front of the announcements on Sunday. Stop thinking, hey, if I just can get in the announcements or if I can just get our lead pastor to say something from the stage to do some sort of broadcast, what you need to be thinking about is, hey, how can I develop a list of my constituents? So these are the people that are connected to my ministry. How do I develop an email list, a texting list? And then what I should be doing is finding ways to communicate more with those people. Listen, I can guarantee your lead pastor, your XP or whatever, if you’d say to them, hey, I want to reach out to my people on a regular basis. I don’t need to get out in front on a Sunday every week to talk about what’s coming up. They’re gonna cheer for you. So communicate more. Don’t think about just, if I can just get something in the big announcement on the weekend. No, you’ve got to arrest that from your people and figure out how do you get in front of them. Think bite-sized. When you think about communication pieces, the reality of it is people live with less attention that we’ve had before. It’s been bite-sized. It’s been atomized. It’s been carved up into small little bits and pieces. We’ve seen this with video. A long video now is considered anything over 90 seconds online, which is crazy to me. People just frankly have less attention than they used to have. So when you’re thinking about increasing your communication cadence, a kind of corollary to that or an impact of that is you’ve got to break things down into small bite-sized chunks. So rather than saying, hey, I can send one brochure home as a student pastor about the upcoming retreat, I’ve got to think about, hey, what are the five different communication pieces I need to send to parents over the next month to keep reminding them about the upcoming retreat, keep keeping in front of them about what their kids can expect, keep talking to them about what is going to happen at the retreat. Think bite-sized so that you can increase your communication cadence. The second takeaway for you is I would be thinking about deeper personalization. Think about deeper personalization because of the attention economy. The one thing when I think about deeper personalization, think about your church today. And the broader kind of attention economy has figured out that there are influencers out there. There are people in the broader economy who have social influence. And now I know you think about influencer as like the cool guy who sits on the hood of the car and says, hey, you should buy this product or whatever. But really all influencers are are people who are looked at by a certain group of a social group and are saying, hey, I wanna follow what those people do. And you know what? Your church has a series of influencers. Now, those influencers are different than your organizational structure. There are people that have influence in your church that don’t necessarily have any authority. In fact, there may be people that have more influence than the staff or pastors in your church that have authority. And so I would be thinking about who are the influencers? And then how can I reach out to them and get them to help us talk about whatever it is that we wanna talk about as a church? How could we be reaching out to influencers and ultimately asking them to help us spread the message and doing that in a personalized way? If I was trying to spread, say an upcoming event, maybe I would think about who are the five parents among sticking with the youth example, who are the five parents who seem to have a lot of social influence? Hey, why don’t I reach out to them, give them some content, ask them if they would be willing to spread it. Just this week, we saw this happen at our church. There’s a really sad story happening of, there’s a young man in our church with a young dad who’s got kids and he’s struggling with cancer. And on Sunday, a group fired up a Facebook chat and invited a bunch of people and said, hey, we’re gonna gather a prayer event the next day, literally 24 hours later. And the next day, 150 people showed up at these folks’ house. I know that there are, and it was an amazing night, a little bit of worship, a little bit of prayer. It was a lot of fun. The interesting thing that I took away from that, beyond the fact that the local church, when done well, is an unstoppable force for good. Can I get an amen from the people in the back? Outside of that, one of my takeaways from a communication point of view was, man, how many church leaders would be thinking, man, I wish I could get 150 people in a room to pray about anything, but here was a group who informally, it was not because of something that we did as a church, which I think is a fantastic thing, said, hey, we’re gonna take it on ourselves and they’re influencers in our culture. Take note of that, friends. Who are the people who pull that kind of thing together? How could you have deeper personalization by leveraging influencers? Okay, I’ve beat that dead horse. You don’t need to think about that anymore. Another thing when I think about deeper personalization is engagement, think about engagement over broadcast. So this is low-hanging fruit for me. This is something I don’t do well, and I’m saying this publicly because I wanna do it well. In the attention economy, people who thrive, firms who thrive, organizations who thrive, think about engagement over broadcast. Stop thinking about your social media feeds as a broadcast, an industrial broadcast. Like, so what used to happen in the industrial age is stuff was made at plants and sent all over the world. Cars were made in Detroit and sent all over the world. And we think about communications in the same way. Things were broadcast from New York City to all across the country. And you can think about yourself, if you don’t think clearly, you can still think of yourself in the industrial age. We’re not in the industrial age anymore. In the engagement age or in the attention age, engagement is paramount. And so when people comment on your feeds, when they comment on a social media feed, when they send you a message on WhatsApp, when they send you a message on Facebook, what are you doing to respond to those? Those organizations that understand the attention economy are responding to folks online. They’re liking comments, they’re saying amen. They’re working to respond with those. Recently, I did a quick study on this, informal study where I commented to about a dozen churches. And it was fascinating how long it took some churches to respond to those comments. The same is not true with prevailing organizations in the attention economy. If you see organizations that, you know, you go on a MrBeast YouTuber, if you comment on his social feed, watch how fast someone will respond to you. Look at an influencer who’s trying to build their influence. Look how quickly they get back to you. And why is that? That’s deep personalization. There’s something that happens inside of people during the engagement economy when you respond to them online at a personal level. So there it is, friends, the attention economy. What is it and what differences does it make to your church? Two outcomes are increase your communication cadence and think about deeper personalization. Thanks for being a part of Unseminary. Super excited for tomorrow’s interview. You’re gonna wanna pay attention because we’ve got a great interview coming up tomorrow. And we’ll see you next week with more practical training on Wednesday. Take care, friends.

Thank you for joining us at the unSeminary podcast. We’re excited to have Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders from World Impact with us. This organization comes alongside church leaders and offers training and support designed for the urban context. The American Church has devalued the urban space, either fearing it or viewing it as something to avoid. Church leaders in urban neighborhoods struggle to sustain ministry impact and growth because they don’t have the training needed to build healthy churches in communities of diversity and poverty. Tune in as Dr. Sanders offers resources to help with the critical work of supporting urban church leaders and communities grappling with poverty. What is urban? // The sociological definition of “urban” involves the three D’s: the diversity of the people, density with more people in smaller spaces, and distance, meaning how we view time and space. Condense all three of those things together and it creates the specific view of the world you live in. The codified evangelical definition of “urban” is black, brown, poor. However, that’s not necessarily what urban is. Whether you understand what urban really is or not, or live in an urban area, it still affects your world and your church. Cities spread influence. // In the New Testament Paul planted churches in the major cities because he knew the gospel message would trickle into the countryside from these cultural epicenters. Cities influence everything and so we need to pay attention to urban trends there. If we want to know what suburban and rural ministry is going to look like 10 or 15 years from now, we need to look at what the urban pastors are dealing with today. We will have to engage those cultural values, attitudes, and beliefs and build theologies and do practical ministry around them. Reach out to impoverished neighborhoods. // Poverty isn’t only in urban centers, it’s in suburban and rural contexts too. When churches want to help make the lives of the impoverished better, they need to move into the neighborhood. This is where World Impact steps in to help and equip churches to engage in redemptive poverty work. Redemptive poverty work. // There are three ways we work in the world. The exploitative way produces work that often does more harm than good, even if it’s well intentioned. The ethical way is focused on the relationship between the person who’s wanting to bring the help and the recipients, and there’s often an exchange of material goods. However, impoverished people have a need that goes beyond material assistance. Just like churched people, they are hungry for relationship and belonging. This is where the concept of redemptive poverty work comes into play—a holistic approach that seeks to address both the spiritual and physical needs of individuals. Learn what their needs are. // It’s important to know who you’re dealing with in poverty in the United States. The majority of people in poverty are working, with the biggest segment being the single mother with kids. Their jobs simply don’t provide enough to cover their situation. Find out the actual needs of a neighborhood, as well as its assets and potential, with the Asset-Based Community Development Institute at DePaul University in Chicago. Their website provides resources and tools that will aid in doing an asset mapping of a neighborhood in order to see what the needs and strengths are. Additional resources. // Dr. Sanders wrote a booklet called Redemptive Poverty Work which gives an overview of healthy poverty work. His other book, Uncommon Church, talks more deeply about issues in urban spaces and community transformation for the common good. Both are available on Amazon. Take responsibility. // As Christians and church leaders, we have a responsibility to care for the poor. This is not just a social mandate but a theological one. When Jesus talks about the poor always being with us he’s making reference to Deuteronomy 15, which outlines how to care for people in poverty. Caring for the poor is truly a mark of the gospel. To learn more about World Impact and get involved, visit www.worldimpact.org and connect with Dr. Sanders on LinkedIn. Thank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Risepointe Do you feel like your church’s facility could be preventing growth, and are you frustrated or maybe even overwhelmed at the thought of a complicated or costly building project? Are the limitations of your church building becoming obstacles in the path of expanding your ministry? Have you ever felt that your church could reach more people if only the facility was better suited to the community’s needs? Well, the team over at Risepointe has been there. As former ministry staff and church leaders, they understand how to prioritize and help lead your church to a place where the building is a ministry multiplier. Licensed all over North America, their team of architects, interior designers and project managers have the professional experience to help move YOUR mission forward. Check them out at Risepointe.com/unseminary and while you’re there get their FREE resource “10 Things to Get Right Before You Build”. Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. You know every week we try to bring you a leader who will both inspire and equip you, and today is no exception. Super excited to have and Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders with us today. He’s with an organization called World Impact. You know, many leaders struggle to sustain ministry impact and growth in urban neighborhoods because they don’t know ah because they don’t have the training that they need. World Impact comes alongside church leaders and offers training, support, designed for the urban context. They empower leaders to build healthy churches in communities of diversity and poverty. When urban church leaders are empowered to own their own ministries, individuals, families, and neighborhoods – they flourish because of that. So we’re super honored to have you on the show today, Dr. Sanders. Welcome – so glad you’re here. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Glad to be here. Thanks for having me. Rich Birch — Yeah, this is going to be great. I we I was saying we just bumped into each other or each other’s organizations last week at at Exponential, and so glad to get to face-to-face. Fill out the picture; tell us a little bit more about World Impact. Help us understand ah the work that you do. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Yeah, so World Impact started in 1971 and it’s been several things over the over the different decades. But for this iteration of World Impact we focus on the problem that 95% of the world’s pastors have no formal ministry training. Ah, they minister in typically communities experiencing poverty. Smaller congregations, about 50 or so folk, and budgets of under $50,000. So we try to be a solution for them by providing accessible, affordable, and effective ministry training. Because we have a we have a ah theory of change that says that trained urban pastors and congregations lead to healthy urban churches which leads to community engagement which leads to flourishing neighborhoods. Rich Birch — Love it. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — We focus on. um large metropolitan cities within the United States because we believe if you reach the cities of United States, you reach the world. Rich Birch — So true. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — So for instance, if we train in Dallas we know without us lifting a finger that training is going to go to Mexico and it’s going to go to Central America. And as that training goes there. We support the grassroots leaders to take it. Rich Birch — Um, love it. Dude, that’s so good. I love um, you know, there’s a lot to unpack there. But I I’m really looking forward to hearing more and learning. And I think, you know, if I can be completely honest, I think this is an area that there’s lots of folks that are leaning in. And are saying yeah you know I don’t feel equipped. I don’t I feel like we might be engaging with ah you know some urban leaders, some folks in in context that are maybe struggling with poverty, and we might not be engaging in a way that’s ultimately helpful. And so I want to hear from you around, you know, if you think about the church leaders that are listening in, help us frame this ah issue, help us understand um how we should be thinking about helping churches in these contexts or helping leaders in this in these contexts. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Yes, so I think it’s always great to start with understanding what we mean by the word urban. Rich Birch — Yep. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — So I’m gonna talk you a little bit first the sociological definition. Then I’m gonna give you the codified evangelical definition. All right? So, the sociological definition is ah three D’s, right? So when we’re talking about our urban space, we’re talking about the diversity of the people. So most cities ought, well not most, all cities you’re going to find different flavors of folk… Rich Birch — Absolutely. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — …different races, different social classes, so forth and so on. The other D is density. There’s gonna be a lot of people packed into smaller geographic spaces. So that also affects how we view things and how we interact and live our lives. And then the third D is distance meaning how we view time and space. So for instance, World Impact is ah headquartered in Los Angeles. Rich Birch — Yep. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — When you and I but I live in Cincinnati, Ohio. So when you ask somebody in Cincinnati, you know, how far is it to point a to point b they’re gonna say, oh 20 minutes. If you ask somebody in Los Angeles, how far is it from point a to b, you’re going to say, with traffic… Rich Birch — Yes. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders —…then they’re going to tell you, right? Rich Birch — Yes. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders —So you you condense all these three things together and creates this specific type of way of how we view the world we live in. Now the codified evangelical definition of urban is black, brown, poor. When the typical evangelical says, oh I live in a urban space, that’s kind of what they’re talking about. Rich Birch — Okay, yeah. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders —Um which it but that’s not necessarily what urban is. Rich Birch — No. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — But the but the big thing that that the typical Christian needs to understand is that whether you embrace it or understand it or not, the urban space affects your world. Rich Birch — Absolutely. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Doesn’t matter if you live in the suburbs. Don’t matter if you live in the cornfields. it affects your world. There’s a saying that um when when the city sneezes the suburbs and rural areas catch a cold. Rich Birch — No, it’s true. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Because, yeah, what happens in the city affects your church regardless of where it’s at, and affects your your your people in your congregations. If you want to know what suburban and rural ministry is going to look like 10, 15 years from now, look at what the urban pastors are dealing with today. Rich Birch — Love that. I, you know, I I um I’m years ago twenty years ago I remember hearing a mentor of mine talk about this exact issue issue. And he said you know culture emanates from the urban to suburban, and from the west coast to the wast coast. And so you know if you’re looking for, and I don’t know is that true? That that resonated as true. I think all the centers that you’re talking about are cultural epicenters. They’re, you know, the the kind of places where culture emanates from. And so obviously we want to be thinking about them um and really leading in those environments to help under you know to help ultimately inject Jesus into the middle of that. Dig a little bit deeper on that. Help us understand more why it’s important for us to think carefully about those 3 D’s, particularly when it comes to urban ministry. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Yeah, well I mean first off if we if we look at the scriptures, it wasn’t a coincidence that Paul and his missionary journeys planted churches… Rich Birch — In cities. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — …in urban mega-cities, metros. Because Paul knew that if the gospel could take root in these major routes of trade, these major cities of influence, the gospel would trickle out to the countryside. I think one of the travesties of the American Church is that it has devalued the urban space criminally. Because of the codification… Rich Birch — Right. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — …of well, that’s black and brown poor folk. And unfortunately, you know, in the capitalized society that cap or the capitalism society, I should say, we live in unfortunately those who who have not in terms of finances aren’t looked upon to be leaders in that space. Rich Birch — Okay, you’re being you’re being too nice there. I feel like you’re being too nice. You’re talking about devaluing. Unpack that more. What what what do you mean by that? You know, stop using polite language. You know, but or leaders here. Help us understand this. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Yeah well well yeah well I mean it’s that polite. Is just it’s what’s happened. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s it’s it’s what happens. Rich Birch — Yeah. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Well, ah, you know, when you know when I graduated from seminary… Rich Birch — Yep. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — …Um I went to Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Um, you know, most of the graduates that I graduated with or whatever, they weren’t looking to do anything in the urban space. I was one of the few that was looking to do things in the urban space. Rich Birch — Right, right. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Um, and I’m talking about the school as a whole. Now I actually went through a specialized urban ministry training program. And all of us were urban folk. But every now and then we would have to matriculate to the main campus. Um, but the but the reality was most folk just didn’t think in they did not it. It gets caught up in um, a lot of the social and cultural and political things nowadays. But the reality is if you if you look at things such as sociological phenomena, such as white flight, like when when folk ah from from um who are from the white the brothers of the lighter hue, I like to say. How’s that for polite? Rich Birch — I like that. I like that. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Brothers brothers and sisters of the lighter hue um… Rich Birch — Yeah. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — …fled to the suburbs. Rich Birch — Right. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — But there’s also been black flight and there’s also been brown flight. So suburbs have just naturally, it’s just naturally assumed that the suburban location is more valuable and that’s where you want to be. Rich Birch — Right. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — But the funny thing is, that’s not what influences the world. Rich Birch — Right. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — The suburbs do not influence the world. Rich Birch — No, true. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — I mean we’re talking about I’m ah um, a I’m 54. I’m a child of classic hip hop, right? Hip hop turned fifty this year. It’s one of the largest musical forms ever invented… Rich Birch — Right. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — …in terms of influence. It started in the ghettos of the Bronx. Rich Birch — Right, right. You mean that didn’t come from Orange County, California. It didn’t come from… of course not, of course not.es. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — So it did not. It did not. Those orange county those orange county kids were emulating… Rich Birch — Yes. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — …the values, attitudes, beliefs expressed through the idiom of hip hop music… Rich Birch — Yes. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — …that came straight from the city. Rich Birch — Yep, absolutely. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — but the reality is the City influences everything. Rich Birch — Yeah, totally. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — And folk folk have been conditioned to be scared of the city. Or it’s a bad thing to be in the city. Now that trend is reversing through ah a word I’ll use a word called gentrification. And gentrification is essentially taking these urban core neighborhoods and they’re being repurposed and they’re being invested in heavily. So an old factory for instance, becomes loss to live in. Rich Birch — Yep, right. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — So that’s all the latest craze. That’s all the latest trend. And so now folk of the lighter hue are now moving back in, and other folk are moving back in. So so that’s good and bad. We won’t get in all that. But um but but the whole point is this – that’s what I mean by undervalue. Regardless of where you minister at… Rich Birch — Yeah. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — …you need to pay attention to urban trends and what’s happening because that’s the values, attitudes, and beliefs of culture that you’re going to have to engage. Rich Birch — Yeah. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — You’re going to have to build theologies around. You’re going to have to figure out how to do practical ministry around. Rich Birch — Yeah, for sure. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — So that’s what I mean by undervalued. Rich Birch — Well yeah, and I’ve said in other contexts, every zip code in the country is more diverse now than it was ten years ago and will be more diverse ten years from now than it is um today. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Exactly right. Rich Birch — And and um, which is a wonderful thing. Like that’s um, yeah, that’s ah, that’s a very good thing. And but I do feel like we’re oftentimes I remember when so I was thinking about school when you mentioned it. I I help on a lot of church growth stuff. And I only I had like one class in a whole course on church growth. And it was on the homogeneous unit approach to to church growth. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Oh yeah – HUP. Rich Birch — Which is a terrible idea. like and is like is like an anti-Jesus idea. But it was like it that was the only thing I learned about church growth, was like go find a whole bunch of people, and ironically it was go find a whole bunch of rich, white people that was, although that was never said, that was what I was kind of the undercurrent of that idea. Um, so when you think about helping church leaders, whether they’re in a suburban, urban, rural context, to understand how to work in the urban urban communities or to support how, how does World Impact fit into that equation? What what are you guys doing on that front? Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — So we we focus on, we have a particular for philosophy um of how it undergoes all of our programmings. And we focus specifically though on churches that are ministering in communities experiencing poverty. Rich Birch — Okay, yep. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — And you will find poverty, it’s, you know, it’s not only in urban centers. Rich Birch — Right. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — It is in suburban context. It is in rural context. So we can help churches who have a desire to want to to make people’s lives ah better, and and sort of have um what I would say Jesus move into the into the neighborhood, so to speak. You know, John 1:14 the Message translation the bible says “the word became flesh and moved into the neighborhood”. Rich Birch — Love that. Yeah, that’s so good. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — I love that phrasing because I believe that’s what a church is supposed to do for its neighborhood and its community. It’s supposed to move into the neighborhood. So then how does the church, Christians, move into the neighborhood, so to speak, when the neighborhood is impoverished. That’s World Impact’s forté and specialty. Rich Birch — So what does that? What does that look like? I think how how are you helping the church do that, empowering the church to to move into ah, into into a neighborhood, when when they’re you know it’s a community that’s experiencing poverty? Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Yeah. So I think um, it’s good to for folk to be reflective here of how we sort of work in the world. And I got this thing called the redemptive frame from a group called Praxis which talks about three ways that we work in the world. And then I could talk specifically about how that applies to redemptive poverty work. Rich Birch — Sure Yeah, that’s great. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — So one way is we work in the world as a human, and when I say we I’m talking about as human beings. There’s an exploitative way that we work… Rich Birch — Okay. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — …in the world. The exploitative way produces work that often does more harm than good. It it may be well intentioned, but it fails to properly understand the complexity of poverty, and consciously or subconsciously we put our own motives above the long term impact on people that we may be having. So I’ve never heard a Christian say I want to go and I want to exploit people in poverty. I’ve never heard him by say that, right? Rich Birch — Yes. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — That’s my goal. I want to exploit them. Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Now there are other entities and institutions that exploit folk. But from… Rich Birch — Yeah, that would say that. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Yeah, but from the Christian perspective, everybody wants to be a do-gooder. They want to do the best they can and they want to change the people’s world around them. But the reality is we are sinful human beings and there’s nothing we need to do to be exploiters. And unless we intentionally look at the track and how we’re going to engage folk, we’re going to exploit them. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — So for instance, most people would want to… when I was pastoring and I used to be an inner city pastor and Cincinnati and like um, from like Thanksgiving to Christmas, all the suburban churches would call me. They want to do stuff. They want to serve Thanksgiving dinner. They want to do this. They want to do that. And um, the rest of the months nobody hear from nobody, and hear from anybody. Rich Birch — Right, right. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — And it’s like, that’s kind of a form of exploitation because you’re coming down here because you want to serve somebody dinner. You… Rich Birch — Yeah, you want the good feelings of feeling of serving. Yeah, yeah. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Exactly right. You want to give a gift, and things of that nature. And when I would say well, you know what? we don’t really need another Thanksgiving dinner. We don’t really need toys. What we need is, boy, if you send an army of people to help tutor the kids in this local elementary school that um that we’re working with, that’d be awesome. Rich Birch — Yeah. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders —You know stuff like that. Things that were gonna make real life change. So, exploitative is the one way that we work in the world. But another way that we work in the world is if if we’ve evolved to a better place, it’s a ethical way. And when we have them ethical mindset it’s a step in the right direction. It’s focused on the relationship between the person who’s wanting you to bring the help, and the recipients, whenever possible. I mean in this mindset it’s not it’s no longer about us. But it’s our desire to do good, and it’s like a win-win situation. So you’re not coming in, you may come in from a um and in a in a different power dynamic in terms of I’m coming in. I have resources, I’m going to give you resources. But at the very least you want to see ah the people in the neighborhoods do better, and you acknowledge the agency of the people in a neighborhood… Rich Birch — Yep yep. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — …to contribute to their own ah wellbeing and well good to break the cycle of of generational poverty. And the ethical mindset is a awesome mindset. It is the way that we want everyone to operate. You don’t necessarily have to be Christian to operate with a ethical mindset. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — You know the ethical mindset example is this is the the the church that ah sets up a food pantry, right? There are people who are hungry. Ah, we want those people to eat. So we’re going to help folk who don’t have enough to eat. And we’re going to give them food. And we’re going to give them food ah based on the fact that that’s a need. Ah, it’s It’s typically along the lines of some sort of temporary relief in exchange of material goods. And there’s necessarily there’s not any necessarily anything wrong with that. Um, the problem is that the majority of people who are living in poverty are not people who need relief though. That’s not their main need. Their main need is relationship. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — We just did a a study with Barna Group called Inside the Urban Church and the most fascinating thing around that study was that both the churched and the unchurched folks said they’d look to the church to do the same thing, and that was, “I’m lonely; help me belong to something.” Rich Birch — That’s good. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — So it wasn’t the things that we thought. You know was it, Oh they hey appreciate the food pantry. They appreciate all the other stuff, but they said the unchurched are literally saying, if you want to help me, help me be less lonely, right? Rich Birch — That’s good. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Which leads to what what we believe at World Impact of what we try to help and why we focus on the local church so much is that is redemptive poverty work. Because redemptive poverty work is focusing on the life pattern of Jesus Christ which was um… Rich Birch — Love it. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — …creative restoration through life sacrifice. So Jesus says, I sacrifice, we win. Regardless of how you respond to me I’m going to come in. I’m going to do life on life ministry. I’m going to help you navigate this thing called life as best I possibly can. And I’m going to help you come to a better place. And hopefully by me doing that, I have earned the right to share the gospel with you. Rich Birch — So good. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — I have earned the right to disciple you. Rich Birch — So good. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — So so so relationally speaking in terms of doing that type of poverty work, that’s where you’re going to make a significant change. It’s the mentoring or the coaching of a kid for 5, 10 years, right? Rich Birch — Right. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — It’s the um helping ah start and a nonprofit or an organization that is going to help people become more job ready. It’s it’s basically things that are relationship-based and long-term that’s sort of the redemptive thought of doing poverty work. Rich Birch — Yeah, totally. Love it. Well and that’s a, well first of all I love that framework. What a helpful framework work of exploitative, ethical, and redemptive. Man, there’s a lot there. But I that’s um thanks for doing the work of even just helping us kind of understand that piece that together, you know there’s a there’s a shorthand thing I’m picking up there. Like if, man, if my church is engaged in working with a church um or with another group in a situation of poverty, whether that’s you know in an urban center or around the world, and there’s not a relationship there… it’s it’s like I’m just showing up and dumping resources dumping people. It’s the stereotypical you know like we send kids on a missions trip to Guatemala to like build some house that they’re not looking for. And take away local employment. Like it’s that kind of thing. Rich Birch — If we’re, if what I hear you saying is, man, if there isn’t someone ah in this leadership pipeline of how you’re developing this relationship that’s sitting down with other people to actually ask, hey, how can we work together. What can we do? How do we how do we um, How do we develop an actual relationship rather than ah, you know, um, an exploitative um one-sided thing. Man, then that’s ah, that’s a telltale sign that things are maybe going in, you know, incorrectly. Rich Birch — How can we as church leaders build those relationships? What’s that look like? How do we how do we engage… like let’s say we’re a church that’s like we want to do more in this area. We we are self-assessed. We’re not doing a good job on this. We’re we’re too much in the suburbs or maybe we’re an urban church and we’re not engaging in it with poor folks that are, you know, we hire police to move poor people off our front porch. That’s all we do. That’s how we engage with poor people. We don’t want to do that anymore. We want to figure out a way to actually do this well. What would be some of those steps? How could we move through ethical and then ultimately to redemptive? Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Yes, so um, I’ll give some context and then I’m going to give a resource. Rich Birch — Um, yeah. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — So um, the thing to understand about poverty within the United States is that most of those who are in poverty are working. Rich Birch — Okay. Yep. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Most people when they think about folk in poverty, they think it’s the homeless person on the street. That’s just a segment. Rich Birch — Right. Yep. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Most of the the face of poverty in America is a single mother who has a service industry job. Rich Birch — Right. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — It’s the maid at the hotel. Rich Birch — Yep. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — It’s the it’s the it’s the Burger King worker. I used to say instead of Soccer Moms, it’s Burger King Moms. They’re working at Burger King. Rich Birch — Yeah, right, right. That’s good. Yeah yeah, yeah. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — But their their work that’s the the largest segment is a single mother with kids. And they’re doing the best that they can, but the job that they’re working at just does not give them enough money to cover their situation. So the first thing is to understand who we’re actually dealing with if we’re talking about those in poverty within the United States. Most of the services that are set up for folk in poverty within the United States, it’s it’s kind of ironic in that like if you’re like here in Cincinnati, like if you’re homeless, there’s more services for you… Rich Birch — Right. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — …than if you like have a job and just can’t make ends meet. Rich Birch — Right. Yeah. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — So you’re missing the whole entire major segment of the population that actually needs your help. Okay? Rich Birch — Yeah, totally. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — So so how do we find out their needs? There’s this great tool called um, and it’s easy to understand – it’s abcd. It’s called asset-based community development. There’s a ABCD Institute at a DePaul University in Chicago. And they have a whole gamut of resources that you can utilize in order to what they call do a asset mapping of your of your neighborhood… Rich Birch — Okay, that’s cool. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — …to see where the the needs are of the neighborhood. I actually did ah a my my thesis coming out of Trinity was how to use asset based community development to plant a church. And that’s what I actually did. I I studied it. I studied the philosophy. I asked it I ah sort of charted out the neighborhood. Rich Birch — Yeah. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — I seen what the neighborhood needed. And then I started working and volunteering at a place that was filling that need. And then out of that, after after winning people to the Lord, this, that and the other, I built the actual church. Rich Birch — Ah, very cool. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — And that church is still very connected to the neighborhood. It’s still functioning, I no longer pastor it, but it’s still functioning twenty-four years later. Rich Birch — That’s great. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — So and it so it was a win-win. Rich Birch — Right. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — It was a it was a um life on life. It was a a redemptive way. I said what’s the way that we can move into the neighborhood? That we can redeem this neighborhood without coming in with my own preconceived ideas? So did the hard work of utilizing this tool. And I guarantee that any church that uses asset based community development will hit the true need of those in the neighborhood that are experiencing poverty. Rich Birch — Very cool. Well that’s I love that. So yeah, you can find that. You can search for ABCD Institute, DePaul University if you’re looking for more information on that. That’s that’s fantastic. Now I know you actually have a couple resources too. You’re a humble guy so you didn’t go to your own resources. You have a couple resources you’ve put together to help ah you know church leaders to kind of help frame this conversation. You know, we’re just scratching the surface today. Talk us through these resources. Tell us tell us about these. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Yes. Yeah. So there’s two that that could be very helpful to you. One is I wrote a very small booklet called Redemptive Poverty Work which talks more in-deptly about what I just shared here. Um, it’s a small booklet you can read it over a lunch break. Um so you can get it off of Amazon. It’s like five bucks, but it’s called Redemptive Poverty Work. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — The other more in-depth book that talks about the issues that I talked about is called Uncommon Church. I wrote that book in 2020 and it’s ah it’s a reflection on my over 30 years of work in urban spaces. It talks about the higher level issues of institutional oppression and things of that nature. Um, because the first half of the book talks about vibrant church in the urban space. The second half of the book talks about the institutional forces and things of that nature which shape the urban environment and how the church can address it. So that’s called Uncommon Church that’s on Amazon as well. Rich Birch — Love it. Yeah, ah, fantastic. Both these resources I would, and we’ll put links to these in the show notes, friends. I think, you know, my encouragement to you would be to pick up one or both of these resources. As you know if you’re a church leader that’s like hey. This is something you feel like maybe we’re scratching something that you need to be thinking more about, I would strongly recommend that you start here. This could be a great resource to kind of start the conversation for you in your, you know, in your leadership circle. Rich Birch —So you know Dr. Sanders there may be people that are listening in who let me play the devil’s advocate. And I use that that word very pointedly. Like that’s the way I’m I’m intending that. You know that that hear this conversation like what I heard you describe as what I’ve heard in other contexts described as the working poor, you know, ah, but the the Burger King moms. That’s a that’s a great, that’s a very vivid example of that. To me that’s like the um, that’s the grinding part of a capitalist society. That’s what I said. You didn’t say that. I said that. That’s the part of where capital is is um… Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Yes. Rich Birch — …is taking advantage, frankly of of people with very little power. And there may be people that are listening in today that hear me say something like that, or hear us even ask a question like that and that just gets them fired up and pissed off because they’re like wait a second. What are you are you questioning that the kind of the capitalist approach to life? How how do you respond to that. How do you um respond to a leader who, you know, is genuinely asking that they’re not just trying to pick a fight with you. They’re like, hey they’re coming from a you know, ah, they’re not just trying to, they’re just trying to you know kick you, but they are they actually want to have that conversation. How would you respond to them in that situation? Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Well I would say to realize that there’s three main ways in which um capitals dealt with, in terms of manmade economic system, there’s that’s capitalism, there’s socialism, and then there’s communism. And all three of them are severely flawed and are are sinful. I mean you just have to understand it. None of them are God – God didn’t create any of them. Rich Birch — Yes, right. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — God created the kingdom of God. Rich Birch — Yes. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — And if we truly follow Matthew 5 through 7, right? Rich Birch — Yes. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Which is the if we really look at Matthew 5 through 7 and you really take it for what it’s worth, it’s one of the most radical things of how to live that’s ever been created. Rich Birch — So true. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — It’s it’s the it’s the it’s the longest sermon that we have from Jesus. I make it a practice to read at least once a week to remind myself of how how what the kingdom God truly looks like and what it is. And the kingdom of God is about people more than it is is about capital. And the I talk about this more in in my book Uncommon Church, but basically our role as Christians is to is number one to take responsibility for those who are in poverty. It is not an option to… Rich Birch — The poor will always be among us. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — There you go. And that was a reference to Deuteronomy 15 people say oh well Jesus says the poor is all going to be among you so that means we don’t have to worry about them. No, it was actually a reference to Deuteronomy 15. Rich Birch — Yeah. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — And do to write guess what Deuteronomy 15 is about? How to take care of those in poverty. So what Jesus was basically saying is, look if you’re Christian, what did Jesus say to John the baptist… Or John the Baptist was in jail and John the baptist was getting ready to get beheaded. And so he sent his followers to Jesus. Because he’s like look, man, getting ready to lose my life. Are you really the Christ? And one of the criteria that Jesus said and sent back is the work that he did amongst the poor was one of the marks of him being the Messiah Rich Birch — Amen. Yep. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Matthew 25—now you got me preaching… Rich Birch — It’s good. It’s good. Dude, come on, come on. It’s good. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — But Matthew 25, he talks about this that separate the wheat from you know the the great separation. It’s going to happen of who truly was for Christ and who truly isn’t for Christ. And one of the marks of the people that are truly for Christ he’s goes when when I was hungry, you fed me. And he talks about other things about taking care of the poor taking care of the poor is a mark of the gospel. Rich Birch — Yes, come on. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — The buzzword of what is the Gospel. A mark of the gospel is that you take time, talent, and treasure, and you take care of those in poverty. Rich Birch — Amen. Amen. Dude, that’s so true. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Okay, okay, yeah, Communist, capitalist – doesn’t matter. Rich Birch — Sure. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — You’re a kingdom of God citizen; you take responsibility for doing your role and playing your part and taking care of those who are in poverty. Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. Dude, what a great, that’s fantastic. And I love your your frame there around no political system was ordained by God. Like these are all, you know, against, you know, in some ways you know, they they can be used by him. He supersedes all of them. Like I… Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Yes. Rich Birch — You know, I think that is just that’s what a great word. I you know, I had a friend, you know, recently in the last couple years say, man did we did we miss the point of Acts 6? You know the the early apostles are like, hey we’re not feeding these these women… Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Yep. Rich Birch — …and are and are the poor and so let’s get some deacons. And we read that as that’s not important. So let’s get some other people because we’re dedicated to the acts of you know preaching. And they’re like that’s not actually what’s happening here. It’s the up it’s the exact opposite of that. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Exactly right. Rich Birch — The early church fathers are like this is so important that we do not want to drop this ball. We we have to do this. We have to. Which that has become perverted here I think in some of our circles two thousand years later, where it’s like well just give that to some other people that’s not that important. No-no. That my experience would be the same as what you’re saying. That churches where the message of Jesus is being proclaimed, the poor are being cared for. Those two things are inextricably linked. That ultimately, you can’t you can’t pull those 2 apart from each other. If if you look around and your church is not caring for the poor, I would say you’re not actually presenting the gospel. You’re not, you’re not actually pointing people back to Jesus. Um man this has been a rich conversation today. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Yeah, there’s. Yeah. Rich Birch — Um, I so I’m going to give you the last word. As we wrap up, we’ll link to those resources. Ah, what would you say what would your kind of final encouragement be to church leaders who are are listening in today? Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — I would say that ah any person or any church that decides to go on a journey of following Christ, which if you remember when Jesus announced his ministry, he he announced it as preaching the good news to those in poverty. And we have a we have a way of trying to super spiritualize that. Oh he means the poor in spirit. No. He means those who are financially without. Jesus literally said the Spirit is a Lord is upon me the preach of good news to the to those who are in poverty, essentially. Right? In financially poverty, in financial poverty even… Rich Birch — Yes. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — …if I didn’t necessarily get the exact quote right. You get the point. Rich Birch — Yep, yep. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — If we follow Jesus down that path, we’re going to see the Holy Spirit show up in ways we’ve never, you’ve never seen Him before. Rich Birch — Absolutely. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — I’ve never, I mean if you said, Alvin, give me a testimony of how you seen God move. More times than not it’s gonna it’s gonna involve me, either personally or when I pastored church, helping someone or helping a community that was experiencing poverty. If you want to guarantee that the Holy Spirit is going to show up, get involved in the lives and the hearts of those who are experiencing poverty. Rich Birch — What a great word to end on. That’s that’s fantastic. Dr. Sanders, I really appreciate you being here today. Where do we want to send people online if they want to connect with you, or with World Impact? Where’s the best place for us to to point them to? Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — Yeah, so if you want to connect with me, um I am on LinkedIn. So you can just type in “Alvin Sanders World Impact” and I’ll pop up. That’s where I sort of keep a work diary and engage people um online. Um, and then the other thing is if you want to learn more about World Impact. You can go to worldimpact.org and go to our website. And hopefully um, you’ll see something on there that we can help you and steer you in the right direction. Rich Birch — Thanks so much. Appreciate being here today, sir. Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders — All right. Thank you for having me.

Discover key insights from the Easter 2024 attendance figures, highlighting the importance of Easter as a key 'Eventful Big Day' for church growth. Learn about strategies to double regular attendance, track new guests, and optimize invite culture for effective outreach.

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Matt Davis from The Jewish Road, an organization that works to help Christians make sense of their Jewish roots while helping Jews make sense of Jesus. Most Christians have a basic understanding of Jesus and His teachings, but they aren’t getting the whole story. Jesus has been disconnected from His Jewishness, and Christians have been disconnected from the roots of their faith. Meanwhile, many Jewish people today don’t even acknowledge Jesus as one of their own. Tune in as Matt shares resources that can help bridge the gap between Jews and Christians while enriching our faith. Drive-by faith. // Recognizing the Jewish roots of Christianity and integrating Jewish heritage with faith in Jesus is not just an academic exercise, but a journey towards a more complete form of worship. Both Christians and Jews suffer from what Matt calls a drive-by faith. Though we read scripture, we often miss many of the important references and connections that link the Old and New Testament. Bring both together. // The Old and New Testaments are really one singular story and are full of hyperlinks that create connectedness. If we know where to click, there is wisdom that we can gain which will deepen our relationship with the Lord. The role of the Church is to bring the Jewish people back to Jesus. So bringing the Old and New Testaments together is also about bringing the Jewish people and Gentile believers together. Make the connection through scripture. // There are practical aspects of incorporating Jewish traditions into the Christian faith. Hosting a Passover Seder, for instance, can be a powerful way to engage with Jewish communities and deepen our understanding of Jesus’ Jewishness and the Last Supper. Open your church and invite Jewish neighbors to foster a greater connection and promote dialogue between the two faiths. The Roman Road and the Jewish Road. // Christians, including pastors, are taught to share their faith from The Roman Road using the New Testament. However, understanding the gospel through the lens of the Old Testament—the “Jewish road”—is crucial for effectively sharing Jesus’ message with Jewish people. Christians need to be well-versed in Old Testament scriptures and to recognize the presence of the gospel within them. A resource to help you help others. // Church leaders may fear that when they’ve been a pastor long enough, they should know everything and have answers to questions right away. But there is often a lack of resources and training to communicate the gospel from the Old Testament and understand the context for Jewish celebrations. The Jewish Road is committed to providing support and education to bridge this gap. They offer a podcast, speak at churches, take trips to Israel and provide other resources that enable believers to gain a deeper understanding of the Jewish context of Christianity. You can learn more about The Jewish Road and find Matt’s podcast at www.thejewishroad.com. Plus, download the free PDF, The Prophets Speak: Uncovering God’s Plan Of Salvation On The Jewish Road. 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: CDF Capital Since 1953 CDF Capital has helped church leaders and individuals bring light to the world through the thoughtful stewardship of their capital. The Church, including your church, requires more than just financial capital, it also needs spiritual and leadership capital. While separate in purpose, these three forms of capital are intertwined and inseparable for the cause of kingdom growth. Together, when we partner with the Lord to bring spiritual, leadership, and financial capital to a church, the results are transformational. At CDF Capital our ministry is simple: we lend money to churches. CDF Capital, in partnership with Barna Group, conducted a research study to better understand what happens in churches after a new leader comes in. Barna Group interviewed 111 pastors online who have experienced a leadership transition within the last 12 years. Click here to get your free download of the study. Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. First of all I know here we are in Holy Week. I know many of you are busy and you you maybe are just going to listen to this after Holy Week but I hope you’re listening to it here today, because we’ve got a great conversation that I think fits so well in ah, this particular week. Excited to have ah Matt Davis with us from The Jewish Road. This is a great organization that really seeks to restore the Jewishness of the gospel through teachings and trips. They help Christians make sense of their Jewish roots while helping Jews make sense of Jesus. After serving in a church as ah as ah, both a teaching and executive pastor, Matt started The Jewish Road with his father, Ron. Ah Matt and Ron are both Messianic Jews who talks about who talk about Jesus and connect Act 1 and Act 2, the Old Testament and the New Testament. Ah, super honored to have Matt with us today. Thanks for being on the show. Matt Davis — Good to be here with you. Thank you and shalom. Rich Birch — Yeah, thank you so much. I’m so honored ah that you’re here. So like kind of fill in the picture. Tell us a bit of your story. Ah, you know, that’s kind of boilerplate bio stuff, but give us the that give us the Matt Davis story. Matt Davis — Yeah, ah born into a Jewish family. But really my my parents were already believers um, at the time. Actually grew up at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa – maybe you heard of that. My parents were saved in this thing called the Jesus Revolution, which now everybody knows because we saw the movie. Ah, but I actually got my very first spanking in the nursery at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa. And it [inaudible] one of them. Rich Birch — That’s a great claim to fame. I love that. Matt Davis — Yeah, that’s how it all started. Maybe that’s how it all will end. But there was a volunteer named Wally; he gave me back to my dad and said, sorry Mr. Davis we had to spank him. My dad said, he had it coming. So no, no lawsuit, no nothing like that. But really, there was a group there called the Jewish Christian Fellowship that grew to be a couple hundred people, and they asked Chuck Smith for permission to go out and plant the first Messianic Jewish congregation in Orange County. He was in Irvine, California. And ah, large Jewish population there and really, that’s how I grew up for the rest of my life. I got all my spankings from home by that point. Matt Davis — But um, the the question I got and as I went into ministry later on in the church with the question from all the people in the church was well Matt you’re a pastor but you’re Jewish, how does that work? And all my Jewish friends said, well you’re Jewish, but why are you a pastor? And so the question that comes up for me all the time and even still to this day is, so when did you convert? When did you switch? When did you join the other side? And the implication there is when did you stop being Jewish and then become Christian? Matt Davis — And I think we have the same question of Jesus. When did Jesus, born a Jew, died a Jew, but when did Jesus become a Christian? And and we have to be careful with how we talk about that because Jewish people believe that in order to follow Jesus, Yeshua, a Jewish messiah, that they actually have to stop being Jewish. And and we want to make sure that they understand that that is actually not the point. So that’s how I grew up was in this Messianic movement and it was very messy, but I also was very much a part of evangelical church as well. Rich Birch — Very cool. Love that. That’s a fun – I’m looking forward to, like I say, friends, looking forward to diving in on this ah, you know, this conversation. So then then ah, let’s get this part out of the way and then we’ll come back to the conversation. I want to make sure we’re wrestling with ah, how does The Jewish Road, the organization, fit into, you know, this conversation for you? Matt Davis — Well, we we really had to try to figure out if we are sitting in the middle of this this tension between, really, two peoples, two testaments, Old Testament, New Testament, we really looked at it as as a two-act play, like like you just said in the intro. But we we said really that it’s like every Jew in the world, they bought tickets to this two-act play and the Jews went to the first act and got up at intermission, grabbed a drink, and then went home. They didn’t even see the second act. Meanwhile every Christian the world, they bought tickets to that same two-act play, but they got there late. They actually passed the Jews in the lobby and they saw the second act. Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good. Matt Davis — And the tragedy is that like neither group has seen or heard the whole story. So how do we actually bridge this gap, and then help one another out? So we want to make that there’s just beauty in both sides if we can actually understand the fullness of this story. And I say that both sides really suffer from a drive-by-faith. Now I’ve led a ton of for the last twenty-five years I’ve been leading trips to the Middle East, primarily Israel. But, you know, I’ve been to 120+ cities in Israel, and when you have a 9-day tour in the Holy Land, you have to run where Jesus walked. Matt Davis — And the most painful part for me is to be in the bus and know that I’m driving by, oh man, that’s where Gideon was, and it’s this amazing piece here, but we we don’t have time so we’ve got to keep driving. And I think that’s what we do. I think Christians do this with scripture is there are parts that we just drive by that we don’t even know we’re driving by. And I think the Jewish people do the exact same thing. They they read through something like Isaiah 53 and it’s pointing to the Messiah and they they keep driving. Matt Davis — And so I think that scripture—this is how I look at it—scripture has… you know on a hyperlink, on ah on a website, right? It’s usually like blue and underlined so you can click on, it takes you somewhere else. It’s linked to something else. I think that scripture is full of unseen hyperlinks that we are reading right past it and we don’t know that actually you could click there. And what we want to do is let’s highlight this, both in the first act, the Old Testament, and in the second act, the New Testament, and highlight for both groups there is a connectedness. This is one singular story. And if you actually know where to click, there is some wisdom here that we can gain. It will actually deepen our relationship with the Lord. Rich Birch — Love it. Well from the Christian perspective, and obviously I want to get to the purpose of our podcast. We, you know, we talk to we’re trying to help and equip church leaders. So I want to I want to want this to be a helpful conversation for church leaders, particularly as we’re thinking about. I think this is a good week to be wrestling with these issues. And you know although this year there’s not a direct alignment on Passover it is the time of year where we do have a resonance with our Jewish background just even in our calendar. There’s like this like we know that there’s somewhere in this season we’re celebrating similar days. Ah, we don’t need to we don’t need this to be ah, a deep theological conversation, but I do think we should address some of these things. From a Christian perspective looking back from the Act 2, I think that’s a compelling the second act. I think that’s a ah, that’s ah you know a compelling idea, like we we’re seeing it just from maybe the second act of the play I think is ah is a compelling way to think about it. But from a from a Christian perspective when we look at say Acts 15 where there seems to be a conversation around this very issue. How much does ah, how how Jewish are we asking people to be? Do they need to first become Jewish then to become Christian? Have we just misinterpreted that and said, hey we’ve thrown that that whole thing out? It wasn’t what… we weren’t saying was, yeah, it helped me understand that. What was going on there that maybe we’ve misunderstood from a ah Gentile, you know, Christian perspective? Matt Davis — Well and the question 2000 years ago was all of the Jews in Acts 15, they’re asking the question, what do we do with these Gentiles who are now professing faith… Rich Birch — Yes. Matt Davis — …and wanting to follow Yeshua follow Jesus. And so this is the question they’re like do they need to get circumcised? And the Gentiles are saying, please no! Um, and now two thousand years later the question is the Gentiles, the church asking, what do we do with these Jews who are coming to faith? And so there is a reconciliation that we have to really pull together when it comes to not just the the Old Testament/New Testament. But what does it look like to bring together the Jewish people and the Gentiles? And and in scripture and unfortunately there’s a good segment of the church that says that God is done with the Jewish people. Um, but my my my firm conviction is that that you look at Romans 9, 10, and 11 that that the a Paul that’s telling us, he says may it never be that God has not cut them off. But then the role of the church is to bring them back. And and really this story is is ultimately about God and his people, and that the the church has been grafted into this beautiful story. Rich Birch — Okay, cool. Very cool. Now what about, so I know so then from kind of the they say the first act, you know, perspective, I know that um, we talked about this before we even started the call, I do know that um Jewish thinkers ah, will often make pretty um, pointed statements around the messianic Jewish movement. And ah talk about it in pretty vile terms, around like hey it’s like the most anti-semitic thing going. Why is that? Help me understand, because that and when I’ve heard that I’m like well obviously I’m you know it’s like you don’t want to be the person hat’s like, you got it wrong, like you’re you know, like you don’t know what you’re saying. I’m like well wait a second isn’t that like now I’m just perpetuating the same kind of thing. If from why is it that some of our Jewish brothers and sisters have a strong reaction to um, you know and understand ah, even you know trying to to weave these two together, and and my outsider opinion or my outsider read on that is that that comes from the sphere of the Jewish world that we would hold a lot in common around a high value of scripture. They would have a high value of scripture as well. But and they’re coming to a conclusion that like hey this whole messianic Jew thing is like it’s not just like that’s a bad idea. It’s like that’s like an anathema to their faith. Why is that? Why do they why do our why did they land there? Matt Davis — A friend of ours named Michael Brown, he’s an apologist. He’s in North Carolina. He wrote a book called Our Hands are Stained with Blood. And if you can actually go back over the history of the church and unfortunately it’s not a beautiful part of the the history of the church. But we have an anti-semitism that has taken place. Um I could never in in California we had the the crusades with Greg Laurie. I could never take a Jewish person to the crusades. Rich Birch — Right, right. Matt Davis — Why? Because to the Jewish people… Rich Birch — Because it was a crusade. Yeah. Matt Davis — It was the crusade. They you have to deny like deny anything Jewish, get rid of the Torah, and you have to believe. And if you don’t, then we’re going to kill the fathers, rape the mothers, and, you know, throw the kids off the roof. Ah you have the Spanish Inquisition, you have the pogroms in Russia, all the way up until ah World War II and the holocaust. Jewish people today look at Christians and they, whether it’s right or not, this is their mindset. This is their perspective, is that even the Nazis were the ones that went to church on Sunday and the concentration camps on Monday. So for me to put my faith in Jesus, now I have become in their minds, a Christian. Matt Davis — And now and so really like when you have to count the cost. It’s one thing to count the cost, but in some Jewish families for a Jew to become a follower of Yeshua, of Jesus ah, they will actually have a funeral for them, get rid of all their stuff and never speak to them again. So it’s it’s much harder for a a Jew to actually make that decision. Um case in point, Um, you’ve probably heard of the ah the Outpouring at Asbury which is right down the road from us. Matt Davis — One of my good friends, he is a Jew. Um his name Zach Mier Kriebs. And and Zach comes from an orthodox Jewish family. His dad is an orthodox rabbi in New York. And and when Zach went to school, he stayed with a family who were Christians and really it started to challenge his faith and and kind of his notion of what a Christian was. And he was really contemplating and he talked to his family about this and they said um, Zach either ah become a Christian or stay Jewish but don’t be a messianic Jew. Because then you’re essentially alienating. And so really, what Zach did was he chose Jesus and he left Judaism. And the conversation that Zach and I have been having lately is how do we actually reintegrate his Judaism, his Jewish heritage roots, into this beautiful relationship with Jesus. Rich Birch — So good. Well, let’s let’s talk about that. I have a very similar experience with ah you know I feel like I’ve led in churches that are, you know, life giving. They’re positive. Um, you know the kinds of places that you can come and be a part of regardless of your faith background. And um years ago had a very similar kind of conversation with a grown, adult woman who we had invited, friend of ours. We invited lots of times to church. And and and it was like you know we got this series coming up on parenting or like we got this, you know, series on whatever something going on. Like you should come to this. Like and eventually the conversation boiled down to like, listen I love your church. It looks like you guys do a great job. Like I love all the you’re doing like outreach stuff. You’re like making a difference in the community. Fun stuff happening. Rich Birch — But and again this is a full-grown woman so, you know, as long as my mom and dad are alive, like if I was to just even come, man, the the amount of kind of shame that that would generate in the family, it’s just not not worth it. And and so for me and I’m out like listen I’m a professional Christian, this is why I want to learn from you, Matt, like I that was like a whole new idea. I was like oh, this is like there’s a whole bunch going on underneath of this that I just simply do not understand. So can you give us ah ah, give us a shorthand, you know, maybe even on the with the context of Holy Week. If we’re trying to make our churches be the kind of place where ah, you know we we don’t want to just disconnect from our Jewish roots but actually are open to that conversation, have that be a part of who we are, what what are some steps we should be taking? What should we be thinking about? How how should we be looking at this whole conversation? Matt Davis — Yeah, I think it’s it’s looking at at scripture with a sense of ah the Jewishness of… I think one of the reasons that people love the show, The Chosen… Rich Birch — Yep. Matt Davis — …is we actually get to see Jesus, but in his Jewishness. I love… Rich Birch — Yeah, true. Matt Davis — …and I’m friends with some of the people who are advising that—but I love like even in the second episode ever, they they did a shabbat meal, right? What does it look like to actually enter into the sabbath and and to enter into the rest. What what I’m doing right now in this season is going to churches all over the country and we’re sharing a Passover seder. We’re walking people through, and it’s it’s understanding and making the connection. Matt Davis — So I know lots of people that they will put a little mazuza on their doorpost, right? It’s the little, as you walk in, it’s a literal representation of Deuteronomy 6, which says you should write these words on your heart, but they should be on the doorposts of your house and your gates, right? To be able to incorporate these things that have deep meaning for us as believers as followers of Jesus but also it’s an invitation to be able to say like ah go go to a Jewish person and say like, hey I hear it’s Hanukah. Happy Hanukah! Or ah, you know, we we just celebrated the Passover. Um, and so it’s it’s having an understanding. And it’s not just for their benefit and for outreach sake but it actually is deepening us. Matt Davis — And that is really, like even in this passion week, um, this is is significant. There’s tremendous opportunity and a lot of churches will open their doors, have us come in. We will do a seder, what we know as the last supper, is really the last Passover seder… Rich Birch — It’s based on that. Yeah. Matt Davis — …that Jesus ever had with his his disciples. So to be able to open up your church and and then invite the Jewish people in, and say we actually love the Jewish people. We stand with Israel and there are there are some places that we have intersection in our in our stories. Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. What when um I know in the past um we our church hosted a a um, a discussion series with some leaders at a local synagogue and we hosted folks for a meal. And um, it was wonderful, beautiful you know and it was really just a like hey we just want to get to know each other better. Let’s try to you know have a conversation. And um, you know, and it was I was like an executive pasture type person at that point. It was my job to like get the meal sorted out. And so I was like, well we clearly have to make sure that this is a kosher meal. And so I was interacting with a friend from the synagogue and I was like listen, I do do not want to step on a landmine here. I want to do this right. And so he was super gracious and you know helped us, you know, do all that, and you know we bless the kitchen and all that it was great. It was fantastic. Rich Birch — Ah, but it but the thing to your point around The Chosen there is this, in a beautiful way, there’s like um, there’s all this subtext underneath that there’s like that we I think miss. We just wash over in our churches. We we just ignore that for whatever reason, and I think it’s not you know, probably not a good thing, particularly for our Jewish brothers and sister. Rich Birch — As we think particularly about this time this kind of Easter season, are there ways, let’s say our church, maybe for next year, you know, it’s we you should not be thinking about whatever you’re doing for this weekend you should do for this weekend friends. But as you’re thinking about in the context of this weekend, would it would it be to like host a seder, what are some things we should be thinking about to to try to help open up our people’s minds around this area? Matt Davis — Yeah, a lot of people will say, well we did do a seder, it was about ten years ago… Rich Birch — Yes. Matt Davis — …and we kind of checked off the Jew-box. Rich Birch — Yes. Matt Davis — And I said well you you did an Easter service last year, did you are you going to do it again this year, right? Rich Birch — Yeah. Matt Davis — So this is part of the rhythm and the flow of… Rich Birch — Yeah. Matt Davis — …of what we do and I think it’s it’s good for us to be able to keep it in front of our folks. The story that we’re telling right now is really the narrative of ah scripture is that there’s this throughline of it’s all about the Lamb. And I love like Genesis 22, Abraham and Isaac, they’re going up and to Mount Mariah. And the question that Isaac says is, uh, we we have the wood we have a fire where’s the where’s the sacrifice? And he says the lord will provide for himself a lamb. Matt Davis — Fast forward to exodus and and now we’re getting through to the tenth plague and and Moses says on the tenth day of the month of Nisan ah, want you to take a perfect lamb without spotter blemish one year old male. And you’re going to on the tenth day of this month you’re going to bring it into your home and you’re going to test it and inspect it and scrutinize it to see if it actually is without spot and without blemish. And on the fourteenth day of the month you will sacrifice it at twilight you will take its blood put it on the doorposts of your house and your gates. Then the angel of death will come see the blood and pass over it, right? Matt Davis — That’s the Exodus story, that’s act 1, but what we don’t realize is that when Jesus comes into Jerusalem on what we would call Palm Sunday or the Triumphal Entry, Jesus actually rides into Jerusalem on that exact same day – lamb selection day, the tenth of Nisan. And that’s significant, right? In in a lot of churches, and I’ve done this I’ve spoken this for years, but we say it’s Friday but Sunday’s a-coming. And some great churches will say it’s Sunday, but Friday’s coming. Matt Davis — What we don’t realize is that if that’s the tenth of Nisan, the rest of the week Jesus is tried, inspected and scrutinized. Why? Because you’ll see in Matthew 21 and 22 and we have all the synoptics, but what we see is that Jesus is being confronted, really with the pharisees, sadducees, the scribes, elders, priests. They’re they’re asking these questions like um, well what do we do with ah who do we pay taxes to? Or in the resurrection who will this person be married to? And and what happens in every one of these interactions is Jesus gives them an answer, and in very typical fashion he answers the question with another question. Matt Davis — But what is significant is at the end of every one of these interactions. It says stuff like they were astonished at his authority. They were amazed. They marveled. Um and then it says they dared not ask another question. They said nothing after that, all the way up until Pilate who says I see nothing wrong in this man. And therefore this Lamb, Jesus, who John said the behold the lamb who takes away the sins of the world, he was found to be without spot and without blemish and therefore on the fourteenth of that same month, at the same time that the lambs are being sacrificed in the temple, Jesus has been found worthy to be slain. And then it is his blood that is not applied to the doorpost. But upon another piece of wood, the cross, the cursed tree, and because of that when the Father looks at the blood, our sins are passed over, and we have salvation, we have life. I mean that story, how significant is that… Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s amazing. Yeah. Matt Davis — …to really connect those two all the way up until Revelation 5 where they’re looking who will open the scrolls? And says the Lamb, only the Lamb is worthy. This through line, if we miss that, and we’re just looking at act 1 or we’re just looking at act 2, we’re missing a massive part of the story. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s fascinating. Love that. And I think what a rich um, you know, reminder even for us as we’re in the midst of ah this week. Well, you know, we for friends I’m pulling back the curtain here a little bit. We we do on the podcast, we do this preparation process where, you know, we ask our guests to like you know, put some thoughts together and send ahead of time. And ah you wrote something in the prep that convicted me. And and I got to raise my hand and say I think you’re speaking about me. You talked about, you know, so I’m just going to read it to you and then I’m going to say “respond” because it’s like I I will need help. So you said if Jewish people don’t hear the gospel from the New Testament they don’t hear it from the New Testament Roman Road they they really need to to. They’re going. We need to we need to show it from the gospel from the Old Testament Jewish Road. Unfortunately, and this is the part that got me, most Christians, and worst, pastors, can share the gospel only from the New Testament but they cannot do it from the Old Testament. We can help and I was like oh that’s probably me. Like if you said to me hey talk about the coming lamb, and what he’s done, but you can only use the Old Testament, I think I would it would fall apart from me quickly. It would. Um and I’m sure there’s pastors that are listening in. So so comment. How can you help? What am I missing?Talk us through that. Matt Davis — Yeah, I think a lot of well-meaning Christians, they want to see the Jewish people saved. They have a heart for Jewish people, and so what they will do is they will go to a Jewish person and they will take them down the Roman Road, right? And you know this, Romans 3:23 for all of sin fall short the glory of God. Romans 6:23 wages sin is death. And and then what the Jew’s going to say is you take me down that road, it’s going to lead to a dead end. They’re going to say, show me from my book. And so that was really the the genesis for us of we need to take them down a different path. Matt Davis — And if I if I told we we actually were doing a trip, we were training house church pastors in Cuba this last year and we asked them the question. How many of you could share the gospel from the New Testament? And now everybody puts that hand up. So what if what if we just said you can only share the gospel using one book in the New Testament, could you do it? And everyone raised their hand again. Rich Birch — Yeah Romans. Matt Davis — What if you just had one verse, could you do that in the New Testament, you know? As long as I have John 3:16, I can make sense of something, right? I can make it happen. I said what if I said you can’t use the New Testament whatsoever. How many of you could actually share the gospel? Does the gospel even exist in the Old Testament in the tanakh, and and nobody could raise their hand and say they could do it. And so we’ve done our our church as a disservice and unfortunately like you ask a lot of pastors, I I know this because I went through seminary, we don’t train like this. But the gospel is very much so there. . Matt Davis — And so um, you know one of the things I have on on this wrist here is I have the Roman Road and it’s it’s all on there. But we’re actually working on something I’m going to put one on my other wrist and it’s going to be the Jewish Road. Um God planned for salvation on on the Jewish Road. So you take stuff like Isaiah 61 that says that there is iniquity. We all have sinned. You can look at ah Ecclesiastes 7:22. You look at psalm 110. Ah, you could look at Genesis 3. Like ah there are so many passages in there all the way up until if you’ve got nothing, if you forget it all, just go to Isaiah 53. Rich Birch — Okay, nice. Matt Davis — But what what we’re trying to do is how do we equip the church to be able to share the gospel with the Jewish people, Jesus’s own biological family, from their book. And so that is that is our hope, that is really why we exist. And by us doing that for us as Jews to come to the Gentile church and say, this is how you do it um in the very same way that Paul was magnifying his ministry as he went to the Gentiles, we get to do the same thing. So we want to equip the church to know their roots and it’s again, it’s beautiful for us as believers, and it’s beautiful to actually be able to share the gospel, the good news. Um, so we actually have that if you go to otgoodnews.com um, we actually ah we walk through and say this is the Gospel. Um, but we’re also printing these out in Hebrew and we’re sending these to our partners in Israel that will link to a site that will actually take Jewish people who are reading Hebrew they’ll be able to read the gospel ah, in their own native tongue. So we’re pretty excited about that outreach opportunity. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s that’s fantastic. I think that’s a great um it’s a great exercise. it’s convicting and I think we you know we we should be thinking carefully about this and how do we how do we um, you know, like you say build up lead our leaders in a way that they could ultimately answer that. You’ve actually provided a pdf here that we’re gonna we’re gonna link to um that that walks through exactly that whole thing. It’s called The Prophet Speak: Uncovering God’s Plan of Salvation on The Jewish Road and it walks through exactly what you just talked about there, friends, if you’re looking for more detail on that. Um, but this is a great tool. You know a great obviously introduces you to The Jewish Road as well at the organization. But suggest, you’ve just clicked the link below. You’ll get access to that and um, we’ll make sure that you you get that ah resource. Rich Birch — Well pivoting in a totally different direction. So I was supposed to be in Israel in May this year on where we’re gonna do the Jesus Trail hike. I was really looking forward to that and a part of what I was looking for was a slower experience through ah through Israel. That trip got canceled. Um. What are what should we be thinking about trips to Israel these days? Like it feels like and I don’t and I go back and forth whether and it was the the person we were working with they’re like I’m just not sure we should be going right now and they canceled. Um, what should we be thinking about that? You know I I had a friend years ago who said she studied in Israel for a while and she said, listen you should just go. There’s never a good time to go, but you should just go. Stop waiting for this perfect season. It feels like we’re in far less than a perfect season right now, obviously. Ah, but give us some coaching on that. It’s been a you know ah obviously key part of what you’ve done over the years. Help us think that through a little bit. Matt Davis — Yeah, we were set to take 40 people to Israel on October 8th. Rich Birch — Yeah, oh wow. And we woke up on October 7th, the world changed. Wow. Matt Davis — And I had you know everybody texting us. I had friends who were tour guides and friends in Israel who just got drafted. And they were driving to their their reserve spot in Israel. And so obviously that trip got canceled. Um the trip that we had planned for this month got canceled. The trip that we had for next month got canceled. Um, so I would say that really it it’s if it’s never a good time to go to Israel, then it’s always a good time to go to Israel. And I would say that my heart is that that I still want to go to Israel and we’re working on on what that looks like, but I want to go there and stand in solidarity with the people of Israel. Matt Davis — And I know that it’s um, it’s it’s ah it’s a landmine. It feels like um how how do you possibly say that I stand with Israel and not come against Palestinian. It’s it’s a very politically charged issue right now. And here’s what I would say about that is if you watch mainstream media, and it doesn’t matter what you whether it’s Fox News or CNN or NewsMax all of those things. I guarantee you that if you watch those those programs you will come away either hating the Jewish people, or hating Arabs. And and really neither of those are are a good option. I believe that if we read the Bible and if we immerse ourself in what God actually says, I think that we will not only come out loving the Jewish people, but we will also come out loving the Arabs. And I think that that’s a biblical approach, and there’s some nuance that is needed with that. But we are going out there um, but it’s going to be a much different trip. But this is not going to be, hey, let’s go float in the Dead Sea and ride a camel and eat lots of… Rich Birch — Yeah. Matt Davis — …really great, you know, falafels and schwarma. Um, we we want to go there to, number one, we’re going to be seeing our partners and our friends who are are in the battle. We’re going to be meeting um, hostages who’ve come back. There are hostages that have come back. They’ve been freed and they just joined up and they’re they’re back on the front lines of the battle. Rich Birch — Wow. Matt Davis — Um, so we want to go there to stand, and I want to be able to say that the Christian community, the evangelical community in the United States still loves you and still cares. Um, and I have friends who are are Palestinians um, who are Christians and who hate what’s going on. Um, so I really think that it really divides into um John 10 is where I go with it is the the enemy comes to to steal, kill and destroy but I’ve come that you might have life and life abundantly. And it’s it’s really a division of those who love life and those who love death. And that’s where I believe we’re going to side with Jesus on that and nowhere else. Matt Davis — But, yeah, absolutely, I think we should go. Um I think that if we can um love the people in there. Um, but you have to have a stomach for it, right? If you’re going to freak out and have a panic attack because there’s sirens going off, um this might not be the best time, but there are other ways to be involved and to support the Jewish people during these times. Rich Birch — Yeah, I have a ah I would call him a good friend who lives in Israel. And you know and it’s an interesting um I and he and I text we’re probably on the every other week text plan. You know like we connect every once in a while and he’s got little kids. And um, you know, some of the videos that he has sent of like of like them literally at the park around the corner, playing, and then the iron dome alarms and all that going off, and then his kids scrambling and all that. I’m like I yeah well I get choked up, when I think about it. Because I’m like, man, it’s it’s a lot. And he’s he’s a great man, great father. Um, and ah you know, I know and he’s struggling. He’s and he’s a business owner and so he’s struggling with, okay, how do I what’s the best way to push forward and like how do we, you know, how do that’s all that it’s a complex situation and so… But that’s good. That’s good coaching. Appreciate that. Rich Birch — Well kind of as we’re coming into land, what should we be thinking about where where’s our, you know, pull this all together, we’ve talked about a bunch of different stuff here. You know, pull this together. What should we be thinking about, Matt, as we think about ah how, you know, assume that there’s church leaders that are listening and are saying you know what I think this is an area I do need to help my my church um understand more clearly, be be um, you know better equipped on. What would be some first steps we should take just as we kind of bring today’s episode to a close? Matt Davis — Yeah, as we go to different churches—I say we, my dad and I are doing this – my old man um… Rich Birch — Love it. Matt Davis — …going around and just sharing years of of ministry experience. He he was formerly a missionary with Chosen People Ministries – you may have heard of but um…You know I I think that there’s a fear that once you’ve been a pastor long enough that you should really know everything. And I remember like 10 years in getting asked a question like, and I’m like I I don’t know the answer to this. I’m going to stall and see if I can look it up on Wikipedia later. Um but I think sometimes people are a little bit nervous to bring us in, even because they don’t want to be found out that they don’t know all of this. Or how come you as a pastor haven’t been teaching us this. And what we want to do is we really want to be a resource for the church. Rich Birch — Yep. Matt Davis — I want to be a resource for pastors. Um, we just it it it was started as a joke, but we just we bought url gotojews.com – we want to be your go to Jews. And it just redirects to our website. So if you don’t remember thejewishroad.com … gotojews.com. But really um, we want to be a resource and not just because you want another Hebrew tattoo and you want to make sure it says the right thing. But if you’re looking at a passage and you’re saying um, you know, what does this mean? What what is what are the roots of this? We want to be able to be a resource. We want to be able to help ah, to step into that space and say, man, there’s so much more to scripture. Let me show you where some of the hyperlinks are. And not that I even know it all or even my dad knows it all. But um, we’ve been on this journey for a long time and and we’ve we’ve tapped some of those hyperlinks. Matt Davis — So we want to be able to be a resource. And so you’re looking for somebody to be able to bring context. What are the spring feasts? What are the fall feasts? What is Hanukkah and how does this connect to Christmas? Where are we at. We’re not we’re not condemning we want to be invitational to this and we want to be teachers and resources because I believe that if we can do this well um, then we will have a fullness of faith. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s wonderful. Well Matt appreciate you being here you gave it a couple uro urls which is great. I love that go to Jews – that’s fantastic. Ah, but theJewishroad.com – I would encourage people to take a look, sign up for all your stuff, get on the list. I think this is an area it should be a bubble it should be bubbling in our brains like, hey this is something we should be thinking about. Um where else we want to send people online if they want to connect with you or connect with the ministry? Matt Davis — If you like podcasts we have a podcast. Rich Birch — Love it. Matt Davis — And we tell we tell jokes um on there. Jewish jokes. Jewish humor is a big part that even amidst suffering, and we are people that loves to suffer but we also love to have a little bit of fun in the midst of it. But my dad and I we have a podcast that really helps to outline a lot of this stuff. We just finished a hundred episodes and I’m you’re excited about that. Rich Birch — Good for you – congratulations. Matt Davis — So yeah, that’s a really great spot to go and just get educated and and learn a little bit more. Rich Birch — Love it. And what is it just called The Jewish Road as well. Matt Davis — Yeah Jewish Road podcast. Rich Birch — Jewish Road podcast – great so much. Great. Thank you so much. We really appreciate you being here, Matt. Appreciate being on the show and yeah, thanks so much for for being here today. Matt Davis — Thanks, Rich.

Learn how church leaders can prioritize life change and help more people meet Jesus through strategic planning. Hear Paul Alexander discuss using data to make informed decisions, measuring life change with tangible metrics, and confronting reality. Explore the growth journey of Sun Valley Community Church and the importance of active partnership with God for impacting communities. Discover the significance of tracking guest to attender ratios for church growth and navigating strategic planning in churches.

Join a panel of Executive Pastors as they share insights on innovative leadership, balancing growth with community, strategic leadership approaches, and the impact of digital platforms in church ministry. Learn about empowering volunteers, fostering connections, and driving growth through bold decisions and staff culture. Discover the critical role of mentorship in developing church leaders and strategies for managing growth post-COVID while promoting engagement and community within the church.

Thanks for joining the unSeminary podcast. Today we have with us Travis Spencer, the lead pastor at The Fields Church in Mattoon, Illinois. We’re talking with Travis about his book Wonderful: How to Live a Fulfilled Life in a Very Full World. Have you ever thought about writing a book? Tune in as Travis discusses the strategic use of his book as a recall strategy for his church, and insights into book writing and how it can benefit your church and larger community. Being filled with the wrong things. // Regardless of where people are in the world, their lives are busy and full. The problem is they are often full of the wrong things, which don’t lead to a life of fulfillment and satisfaction. In the end people feel “bloated” and barely surviving rather than thriving. Travis describes this feeling as a “life ache” in his book Wonderful. Three buckets. // In his book, Travis talks about the three buckets people seem to have a life ache in: personal soul care, relationships with people, and our purpose – why we’re alive. Even when our lives include these things, we can still be unhealthy in them. And church leaders aren’t exempt from these struggles. We can work hard to see the numbers in our churches go up while hiding a depleted soul. Tackling book writing. // Writing a book is a monumental task. It requires discipline and a great deal of vulnerability as you expose yourself to criticism. You need to have courage and push past fears and what might seem impossible. For Travis, getting into a rhythm of writing came more easily when he was able to sit in a relaxing place with his laptop and write about what he was passionate about. Writing to help others. // Travis’s journey to writing Wonderful began with a compelling “why.” His goal wasn’t to write a book, rather he believed that by sharing what he was passionate about, he could help people and offer practical tools that would lead others to true fulfillment. Has God put a message in your heart to share? Consider what’s at stake if you don’t write that book. A book as a recall strategy. // Travis’s book was a strategic tool that has significantly impacted his church community. The Fields Church used Wonderful as a recall strategy to bring people back to church in January after the Christmas season. Everyone who attended on a certain date would be able to get a copy of the book for free; after that it would be available for purchase only. There was such a positive response to the free book offer that The Fields broke an attendance barrier on a non-holiday and crossed over 1000 people. Offering something special that happens only one day is a great way to encourage people to invite friends and family to your church. Creating momentum. // Not only did the book launch create momentum in January, but The Fields Church also used it to kick off a message series. In addition, it enhanced community credibility and created engagement with people at The Fields. Travis is in the process of developing more resources that other churches can also make use of, such as small group discussion guides and how to use the book for sermons. You can learn more about the book at www.readwonderful.com and reach Travis at www.thefields.church. Thank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: 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 — Well hey, friends. welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Really looking forward to today’s conversation. You know every week we bring you a leader who will both inspire and equip you. And I got to be honest, friends, most of the people I don’t know. Or I get a chance to meet them through the podcast. But today that’s not the case. Excited to have a friend and church leader that, you know, we’ve got a chance to know each other over these last number of years. Travis Spencer is at the fields church. This a fantastic church in Mattoon, Illinois in Coles County ah which is in Central Illinois. And they they have two locations. Travis is the lead pastor. This church is started over a hundred years ago if I’m doing my math right. Ah and this is a great church. You’re going to want to get to know them. Travis, so glad that you’re here today. We’re talking about a book that he recently released – this caught my attention and I want to bring that to you. Ah Travis, welcome to the show. Travis Spencer — Rich, thanks so much. What an honor. I love our friendship and I love how you have impacted my life for the last couple years, so thanks so much. Rich Birch — Appreciate that, man. Super super great to have you on. So um, yeah, love this. Why don’t we start tell us a little bit about The Fields, kind of fill out the… Well I’m going first before you do that, I’m going to tell you, I’ve I’ve said this to you in other contexts. I had a chance to visit, I’ve been at your location a couple times. And I, this funny thing happened when I pulled into your parking lot. You know, I thought like oh, you know, so many churches they have like these fun names. And The Fields is a great fun name. And it’s you know it’s like Impact Church or, you know, and they’re like these great metaphors. And I assumed that The Fields was like a metaphor, like it’s a metaphor for, you know, the the harvest is plenty, and you know all that kind of stuff. And then I I remember I distinctly remember pulling into the parking lot and I’m like oh no, there’s cornfields right there. This is The Fields Church. So tell us a little bit about it. Travis Spencer — Yeah, we have dual purpose identity. So you you a re right on the spiritual side. It’s like the fields are reap with harvest. Rich Birch — Yes. Travis Spencer — However, we are right smack dab in the middle of a agricultural area of Illinois. And so there are fields around us. Rich Birch — Yep. Travis Spencer — And so makes great sense and it identifies with our community. It helps people understand there’s purpose, you know, even we talk about new life all the time and looking life-giving. And and I tell people I tell our team like listen like the fields are out there. The people are out there and we need to help them understand a, life-giving relationship with Jesus. And yeah, so our locations and we’re continuing to grow, and as you know you know we’re expanding in some additional locations. And I have a feeling they’re all going to be in fields. That’s just… Rich Birch — The brand will stretch. Travis Spencer — Yeah. I think rural ministry is going to be our, ah, niche. Rich Birch — Yeah. It’s cool. I, you know, I love it. I Think that’s great. The thing, I don’t know how to say this. So this is the problem, I’m like a guy from the suburbs, spent most of my time ah, you know, in the suburbs. And I like I don’t want this to sound demeaning because it’s not at all. You know that I respect you and respect your ministry. But like your church to me doesn’t feel like, like when I’ve been to services, it’s like not what I would so I would think my assumption of like rural ministry would look like. Like it feels very much like, hey if I was, you know, in well obviously you guys are a growing church. But talk us through that a little bit. Like what what is the experience of showing, you have a beautiful, like your physical locations are amazing. Talk us through what what does that look like. Travis Spencer — Yeah I mean it doesn’t really matter where you plop a building down. It’s it’s it’s figuring out what what people need and what they’re looking for. When you start learning and and learning what other good healthy growing churches are doing, you just take notes. Rich Birch — Right. Travis Spencer — And I don’t think it matters if you’re rural or urban or, you know, in the suburbs. It’s, you know, people want quality. Rich Birch — Right. Travis Spencer — People want they want to want to identify with, hey when I walk into this building, it feels like me. It feels like something I see in culture I see on TV. And so I think you actually have to stretch to like what the culture’s needing, not, well this is where God’s put me so I guess I’ll just, you know, have some dumpy little building, you know? Rich Birch — Right, right. Yeah, that’s… Travis Spencer — Yeah, and and we do. We try very hard at being a church that, we are over 100 years old and most people would think we’re less than five years old just because of… Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely. Travis Spencer — …ah, the look, the feel, the vibe. We were very intentional in that. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, that’s cool. That’s good. Well you’ve written written a book recently and I want to make sure we dive into that, get a chance to learn. It’s called “Wonderful: How to Live a Fulfilled Life in a Very Full World” and I want to hear all about this. People are living, you know, it doesn’t matter their context. You know one of the things, ah, one of the joys that I have in my life is interacting with church leaders across the country and getting a chance to visit lots of parts of the country. And everywhere I go people are like, well, you know, people in this part of the country, they’re really busy. They’re really, they’re, you know, they got lots going on. They got tons in their schedule. They’re… But, you know, we’re we’re trying to help people not just live, you know, not just thrive or not just survive but to thrive. It’s like a a universal problem, everywhere we go. And it it literally doesn’t matter. And I you know I always I nod politely and say like oh I totally get that I can understand why your part of the country is so different than the rest of the country. Ah, but it’s true. It’s universal. Talk talk to me about that. What are what kind of led you to think, oh I’ve got to, this is a problem that I want to tackle in written form. Travis Spencer — Yeah, absolutely. Actually I’m entering my twenty-fifth year of ministry… Rich Birch — Oh nice. Travis Spencer — …so [inaudible] to say that. Rich Birch — Love it. Travis Spencer — So 25 years of ministry. And that’s not just church ministry. I was a I was a University Football Chaplain for about 7 years, and then I’m very involved in the community on boards and just I’m a huge believer in community advocacy. And so what you do over 25 years is you’re just with people all the time. And it’s not just church people. You know it’s not just people sitting in pews and rows. It’s like around boardrooms. It’s in… Rich Birch — Right. Travis Spencer — …on football fields. It’s coaches. It’s all these things. And I’ve discovered it’s very easy to feel empty when your plate is full. Rich Birch — Oh good. And and that’s like that that’s not like that that that clash of how can I be empty yet I feel so full. But they’re what they’re what they’re full of is they’re bloated. They’re. Rich Birch — Yes. Travis Spencer — I tell a story in the book. It’s like I remember I distinctly remember being on a cruise boat with my family. And ah my son gets up and goes… You know we’re sitting around the pool floating in the Caribbean going, oh this is great. He gets up he goes and it has a. I go, hey where are you going to, Cody? And he goes, I’m going to get a shrimp burrito. You know? And I’m like oh my goodness, we’re still eating. And then I say, oh pick me up a taco on the way back, you know? But but there’s that feeling that you at some point in that trip, you always feel kind of gross and full and bloated. And I think that’s life because everything is available. Rich Birch — Oh that’s good. Travis Spencer — It’s available all the time. Rich Birch — Yep. Travis Spencer — There’s your calendar can be over full. You can say yes to everything. And so instead of us as humans having a stomachache I think we have a life-ache. I think we’re I think we’re like wow, why don’t I feel good? Why does it why do I feel bloated and full? And it’s because we’re putting all the wrong things in our life. And to be honestly we’re chasing something and it’s not leading to fulfillment or satisfaction. And I do think that’s a human problem. I don’t think that is a where you live in the United States. Rich Birch — Right. Travis Spencer — Like that’s that is everyone’s identifying with that, is I want to feel fulfilled I want to feel satisfied but I feel like everything I’m chasing for is not leading me to that. And so as a pastor I was like, okay like we have to help solve this problem for people. Yeah. Rich Birch — We got to talk about this. Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah, let’s let’s stick there for a little bit. I love… well, I don’t love that idea of the life-ache. But I love that um, you know, that concept I think that resonates deeply, you know this idea of we’re overfull. We’re stuffed. Our culture is, you know, time and again it’s like we all individually are living the lives that for most of human history, you know, only kings lived. You know, like we have instant access to food, instant access to snap our fingers and entertainment comes to us. Um, you know, we’re and we’re not built for that. Like we’re not built for you know this kind of constant consumption, constant… In in your own ministry, how have you seen that work its way, that kind of like, you know, people who are are full, but feel empty. Um tell talk to me about that. How how do you see that as a pastor in in the people you lead over the years? Travis Spencer — Yeah, when I well so I asked a lot of people that question of like so what’s I tried to drill down into that… Rich Birch — Yep. Travis Spencer — …like what’s what’s the real cause. And and it seemed like after the literally hundreds of conversations, interviews – I have a journalism background, so I kind of like digging into this and I interviewed and asked a ton of questions. Seemed like there was three areas that that we were we were had this life-ache in and we were we needed we needed to find this fulfillment. And it was personal soul care. It was it was relationships, the people in our life. And it was the purpose of why we’re alive. So to boil that down, and the book kind of wraps around these three big lanes, is personal care personal soul care, people, and purpose. Because hundreds of conversations I like looked at all of the trends and it seemed like they all fell in one of those three buckets. Travis Spencer — I asked it, and I actually asked the question not why do you feel gross, but what fulfills you; what makes you feel good? And their answers fell in one of those buckets. It was, well when I go to church and I have ah, you know, during worship. Okay, well, that’s a spiritual thing. Or when I’m around my kids, you know, and we go to, you know… So there was a people thing. And then it was why I love, you know, helping when I went on that missions trip, when I did something that was good. And so it really was, it’s either like soul care your personal care, people, or purpose. And then so then it’s like I think that we’re we are filling our lives with those things, but they’re still unhealthy. Rich Birch — Um, okay, well let’s let’s dig into those a little bit. Was there as you’re writing this I know for me as I’ve written in the past there’s a part of it where um I feel like I’m writing for myself. It’s like the most convicting, the part that kind of points at me. Was there any of any of those three, one of those three, or a part of one of those three—whether it’s, you know, wonderful life, wonderful people, wonderful purpose—um, that was particularly kind of self-diagnosing and like self, you know, convicting as you were wrestling through it? Travis Spencer — Oh, all three, because I think that’s what made the book so easy to write is I have personal stories in every single one of those categories. And it’s just so easy to identify that my goodness, like I’ve not I’m not taken care of myself or my soul in the right way. And here I am as a pastor; I have this spiritual title and yet we can feel very depleted spiritually. And um, you know I think we all have gauges and dashboards in our own life. And I told the story that my son one time his name was mentioned on the local police scanner because he ran out of gas. And our names were mentioned on the police scanner too, which is not good when you live in these rural areas. Everyone knows him. Um, he’s on the way. Rich Birch — Ah, that’s Travis’s kid. Travis Spencer — Yeah. So he’s on the way to work, or he’s on the way to class at the local hospital on one of our busiest highways. He runs out of gas. He pulls his car over but doesn’t get it all the way over so now over the police scanner is the vehicle owned by Travis Spencer is, you know, blocking traffic and blah, you know. Travis Spencer — And and so we do the whole, son, you got to, you know, put gas in your tank. But if if you would have just looked at the dashboard and looked at the gauge he would have known like, hey, I can’t get all the way to my job today. And I think if we would take a look at our gauges and go, man, I don’t know if I’m filling up in God’s word. I don’t know if I’m spending some, I don’t know if there’s solitude. I don’t know if there’s…and I don’t know if I have enough rest. Why is there burnout in my life? And so I really think we have to look at the gauges. And I have plenty of personal diagnosis there. I’m like wow I’m, I think I ran on empty way too much, you know? Rich Birch — Right, yeah yeah, you… Travis Spencer — And so that that would be that would be one of those personal care kind of stories. Rich Birch — Yeah, so when you um so I think it’s interesting that you with the way the book is structured, you know, I’ve got it open, I’m looking at the the um table of contents. It’s interesting you you you go from that kind of personal soul care, people, to purpose. And I wonder if, particularly church leaders—obviously there’s a lot of church leaders listening in today—if we go the other way around. We it’s like we start with purpose, like what we and we the thing that motivates us is the mission. We think about the thing we wake up in the morning. It’s a noble thing. We wake up in the morning and we think about lost people in our communities. But then we don’t we end up soul care can feel like, well, yeah, I’ll get to that. That feels like a that’s like a nice to have. Or like that’s like, when I slow down I’ll get to those things. Did you order that in this direction, you know, on purpose? And, you know, what kind of coaching would you give to us for folks that are in our in in ministry, that we do this for, you know, our jobs? We spend our days thinking about these things. Travis Spencer — Yeah, absolutely. I ordered it on purpose. I don’t know if you’ve ever read like Dallas Willard, but Soul Care, if you don’t take care of your own soul like that’s the foundation of who we are. Rich Birch — Yep. Travis Spencer — And so if you’re on an airplane, you’ve been you were on an airplane yesterday, and when we’re on an airplane, everyone hears the little, hey if cabin pressure goes down the oxygen masks, you know, fall down. And then it says if you have a child sitting next to you, make sure you put your mask on first… Rich Birch — Right. Travis Spencer — …before you put the mask of the of the the child next to you. And like what parent is they or what pastor is going to go. Oh I I need to take care of me before I need to take care of the people are in my community that are dying. And so we immediately start putting the masks on other people and we’re saying, hey, I want to help that person, I want to help that person, I want to help that person. And the whole time we have not put the mask on ourselves. The oxygen is not on our in our own lives. And so, again we have to fill up our own lives with God before we can ever try to help someone else. And we mess we mess that up all the time [inaudible] pastors. Rich Birch — Yeah, but what what I was going to say so… I know, so like so help us, pastor us here as pastors. Why? How do we how do we get around that? Like it it it feels like, well it’s like, why Dallas Willard exists because he’s pointing out an issue that that we seem to get wrong. And maybe it’s just me, maybe I’m the only one who who is listening or in but it’s like that you know we we go to putting the masks on other people first all the time. Um, so you know, coach us on that a little bit; talk us through… Travis Spencer — So yeah, let’s let’s be raw here. Rich Birch — Sure. Travis Spencer — Like we can measure church metrics. Rich Birch — Yep. Travis Spencer — So I can work really hard and see church numbers go up. I can see groups go up. I can see people through the front door go up. I can see finances go up. Rich Birch — Yep. Travis Spencer — And so we measure those numbers and we prioritize those numbers. Rich Birch — Yep. Travis Spencer — And the dashboard that I talked about, like your gas light of your soul… Rich Birch — Yep. Travis Spencer — …that’s a harder number to measure… Rich Birch — Right. Travis Spencer — …and it’s an easier number to hide. Rich Birch — Oh that’s good. Travis Spencer — I think there’s a lot of unhealthy pastors that are bustin’ down. You know the numbers are great in their churches, but but how are they doing? Rich Birch — Oh that’s good. Travis Spencer — You know, but but the problem is is it catches up with you. Rich Birch — Yeah, it does Travis Spencer — It really does. Like we can play that game. For some people can do it for seasons, or or years. Rich Birch — Yeah, decades. Travis Spencer — But if you don’t if you don’t tackle soul care, I think I think it could be a house of cards. Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely. Well you know, and I was just I was speaking to someone this week who we’re going to have on a future episode and we’re talking about this exact issue. And I said man, I’m just so tired of um leaders who—and I think this is turning around, which is a good thing—but like there’s there was a ah, real period there where it was like every conference I went to there would be some leader in some massive ministry who’s making huge, like huge influence, and then they would get up and say like don’t do it like me though, like I built this thing and then burnt out. Like I wish I hadn’t have done that. And I’m like where’s the person that’s like, you know, I’ve taken a measured life through my entire ministry, and at the same time had huge impact. And there are those people out there and I would count you as one of those, that it’s like okay, there’s a person who is is actually trying to tend their own garden while worrying about, you know, the people around them. Ah, but it it it’s, man, it just it seems like we run into those all the time. It feel like it’s getting better but I feel like we still got it so much so far to go on that front. Travis Spencer — Yeah, it’d be interesting if as a leadership culture we could instead of so always celebrating the churches that blow up in the pastors to go from this number to some great number, we could celebrate incremental growth. Rich Birch — Yes. Travis Spencer — Yeah, like this pastor helped lead his church to a 7% growth for the last twenty years every year. Rich Birch — Yes, yeah. Travis Spencer — Instead of they were they they started in their living room with 12 people and three years later they have an auditorium of a thousand. Rich Birch — Yes. Travis Spencer — And we hear that all the time, but it’s like one, it’s not very doable and two, I don’t know how you don’t get burnout in that. Rich Birch — Yes. Travis Spencer — Like that’s a story of complete exhaustion. Rich Birch — Yes, well and I love, yeah, so friends of mine in Omaha um Stonebridge Church, Mark Chitwood is the lead pastor there, and he that’s one of his jokes. Like they’re they’re a church of they’re sizable church. They’re south of 3000, like there’re probably 2500 people, something like that. And his joke is we’re the slowest growing church in America, you know. But when you hear their story, they literally it’s like they’ve grown 10 percent a year for 30 years. Like it’s just like, you know, and and that over time that has, and I’m like that’s what we want to do! Like that is, you know, that’s a whole other conversation. But you know, interesting, interesting stuff. Rich Birch — Well, you know, I know that writing a book, this is a huge task, like actually sitting down. Let’s kind of flip and talk rather than about the content. Let’s talk about the process. So what led you to be like, okay we’ve got to, you know, now’s the time I want to write this. Had you been thinking about this for a while? Is this, you know, I feel like every pastor I’ve run into’s got a book in them or thinking about it. But talk us about that talk to us about that part. Travis Spencer — Um, yeah, absolutely. if you would interview my wife she would say I have a hundred books inside of me… Rich Birch — Yes, good! Travis Spencer — …and and up and end up until this time I had zero on print. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Travis Spencer — So you know, I think it’s um I I’m one who is always thinking, dreaming. I do have a journalism background. So I mean I um I enjoy writing. I enjoy that, but this really came down to okay 25 years of experience. if you were to just write one book… Rich Birch — Right. Travis Spencer — …what’s the easiest one? Rich Birch — Right. Travis Spencer — And then, Rich, you helped me. Like, you know, I want you to I want your listeners to hear this. Like you you said every lead pastor should write a book. And something inside of me said, okay, like I’ve been thinking about this. I’ve talked about it. I have a phone full of notes on it. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Travis Spencer — I have never sit down and did it. And and then you actually helped set that plan and go like okay, let’s let’s walk through this. Rich Birch — Let’s do it. Yes, talk about a process for it. Travis Spencer — And let’s let’s create an outline and and so really, it was getting thoughts into an outline. Outline into… and then in that and when when I was in the outline process is when I started, Okay, I know the direction of this book I’m going to start talking to a lot of people and getting content from… Rich Birch — Oh that’s good. I like that. Travis Spencer — …from friends, family, Facebook, everything and start asking, like I know I’m going to write on this. So now I want to hear stories from other people. I started categorizing categorizing or cataloging in my own mind my own personal stories that would connect to some of these. But I also did an audit of people in my life and said this person… so there’s a there’s a great lady in our church that’s a a comedian. And but she became a comedian because her father passed away and she couldn’t laugh for like a couple years. She was a very joyous lady who when her dad died, the the laughter stopped. Rich Birch — Oh wow. Wow. Travis Spencer — And then she had this awakening that, no, I was ah God put this in me; I need to help people laugh. And I’m like, I want to retell that story in the chapter of purpose. Rich Birch — Oh wow. Travis Spencer — Like God’s got that in you. So I was cataloging people that I know. We have some veterans in our church that like have incredible stories of hard work and grit. I tell my own dad’s story if he’s a welder and just smelled like old iron, you know, when he came home from work. But but grit, you know, and it’s missing, and so working hard. And so I was looking at my life, I’m looking at other people’s lives, and then you just have to start writing it. Rich Birch — Right, right. Travis Spencer — You just [inaudible]. And to be honest for me, I sat on my back patio for like a couple hours every night when it was nice out, the sun went down, the patio lights were on. I grabbed my laptop and I just spent a couple hours writing or researching. Um and it just just actually was very enjoyable to me. Like it’s nice out, I’m gonna go sit on the back patio and I’m gonna work on this thing. Rich Birch — Right. Travis Spencer — And I thought if I could do one or two hours and just kind of keep plugging away at it. Now we had a deadline, so just a little bit… we I used this book also to to really catapult for a sermon series and to get back to church in January. So it was strategic. And because of that that put another pressure on you have a real deadline. Like it’s not a, hey I’m going to write a book in, you know, this calendar year… Rich Birch — Sometimes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Travis Spencer — …like we want to hand this book out… Rich Birch — Right. Travis Spencer — …in January, so then you had to you had to you had to go backwards and go, Okay, so for distributing it here… So I did have it so that’s why I was like, okay, one or two hours on my patio – I have to bust this out. But it wasn’t exhausting. I tell people all the time, you know, Rich, you gave me a plan, you gave me some, 4 or 5, simple steps, you opened the door into some relationships of editors, designers. You made it fairly simple and I was like it was much easier than I thought. And it really was. Rich Birch — Right. Travis Spencer — And if I have learned anything and people ask what do you learn reading but writing a book? It was like it was easier than I thought. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, it’s a little bit demystifying. Yeah, yeah. Travis Spencer — Yeah, it’s not this massive mountain. Rich Birch — Right. Travis Spencer — You know, especially if you trust you know an editor to clean up your stuff. I think I think there’s vulnerability in writing a book. You know, like good grief. Not only is everyone going to read it and you’re going to look at your little Amazon stars and see if anybody commented. Rich Birch — Yes. Travis Spencer — But you’re also giving it to an editor that’s doing a very deep dive… Rich Birch — Yes. Travis Spencer — …and going I don’t like this chapter. Rich Birch — Yeah. Travis Spencer — Or I didn’t like the way you said this. Rich Birch — Yeah. Travis Spencer — I’m like, well, that’s that’s my favorite story. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. That’s my son and I want to tell that story about him on the car. That’s a great story. Travis Spencer — Yeah, yeah. Rich Birch — You know like yeah you get pushback. Yeah for sure. Travis Spencer — You push past vulnerability, you push past the fear of it’s impossible to do. Rich Birch — Yep. Travis Spencer — And it’s doable. Rich Birch — Right. Travis Spencer — You know, and I’m like and I’ve already got the next one like, you know, rolling. Rich Birch — Love it. Travis Spencer — You know, I’m like, hey, I I can do this. It was very… Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s fun. I came… I I would can identify that feeling for sure. I just I literally just came off the release of a book, and and I have that feeling of like okay, let’s go going on the next one. Like it and, you know, I want to I personally I want to use that because I know that wanes, like eventually you’re like, okay, you know, you’re you kind of lose that momentum. But I’m like oh yeah, right, there are, you know, let’s let’s get working on this on this next one. Rich Birch — Let’s go back to the moment. So, I appreciate the kind words and, you know, that’s nice of you to to say that, but like in that same group that we were encouraging, there was you know 8 or 9 pastors in that room. You know, half a dozen churches. Um, and you were the one that did it. I was challenging all of them. So if if it’s a measurement of coaching, I’m you know I’m batting 2 out of 10 or whatever you know, 20%, something like that. Ah what what was it in that initial phase that that you walked away saying, no, like let’s do this. Like let’s actually because because, you know, if I look at that and that’s not a criticism to other people actually one of the other churches is working on one as well. Um. But and and one of them had already done it. So maybe I’m I’m being self-critical. I shouldn’t be. But um, but what what think about put yourself in that headspace and what was it that helped you actually get over the like okay, let’s start. Let’s actually get the thing rolling. Um you know, kind of the what what gave you the the internal drive to make the commitment to do it? Travis Spencer — Yeah, one thing was, someone believes that I can do this. Like someone is someone believes in me to write it. And then just some simple steps of I remember you you I think you when you write your books you you speak it out a lot, right? You use like some some… Rich Birch — Yep, yep. Travis Spencer — And so and I was like, man, who can’t talk for 30 or 45 minutes on something that’s so passionate in your life. Rich Birch — Right, right. Travis Spencer — So just get it out. Just get it out of you, and then you’ll clean it up later. Rich Birch — Yep, yep. Travis Spencer — But just get it out of you. And I was like besides sitting in the room going, I have these thoughts. I have these… Rich Birch — Right. Travis Spencer — …you know, I have these ideas. And then you if you match that with people need this content. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, true. Travis Spencer — The why is very important. Rich Birch — Yep, yep. Travis Spencer — The why is not I want to be an author. Rich Birch — Yep. Travis Spencer — You know, I want to be a, you know, church planting same thing. I just want to have extra campuses. No, that’s a horrible why, you know. Rich Birch — Yes, true. Travis Spencer — Because [inaudible]. So the why is I don’t want to I don’t want my name on a book – that can’t be the why and it can’t be ah, you know. It has to be I have a story to tell. I have content that can be valuable. I need to deliver practical tools and steps into someone’s life to help them find fulfillment. And so when you hold on to that and say I actually believe I have something that’s beneficial. And my audience usually is a Sunday morning… Rich Birch — Yep. Travis Spencer — …and then some people online but now this audience is like goes beyond that. Rich Birch — Yep, yep. Travis Spencer — And it’s it’s really incredible. Rich Birch — Yeah that’s good. I yeah I want to underline what you said there just to um to encourage people that might be listening in. You know, if you have got something that will help your people, which I believe you do, like the most selfish thing you can do is to not do the work to release it. Like it’s actually ah it’s a gift of um compassion. I love Seth Godin’s work on that. It’s like a it’s a it’s an act of compassion to ultimately put this together and then to promote it to try to get other people to to actually read it. Um, you’re actually helping people. That’s the goal of it. You’re trying to help the folks that are in this case in your church or their friends or or broader community. Rich Birch — Let’s talk a little bit about the impact that the book had. Um, I know it, you know you guys you use it as a recall strategy. Just for folks that are listening in, that’s, you know, the the kind of big idea there is coming out of a Big Day. Man, one of the best practices like Christmas is to have some really clear call to action to bring people back. You use this as a part of that for a January recall. Talk us through that from ah you know an impact point of view. How did how has it helped the church. Because I know that’s you know that was a part of the driver for you wanting to do it. It’s like hey I want to I want to do this to try to help us reach people and and help, you know, what we’re doing at The Fields. Travis Spencer — Yeah, absolutely. At you know Christmas you have your peak attendance. You have a lot of people showing up at Christmas, but then there’s the lull of the new, you know, New Year’s Eve and that weird Sunday that no one shows up to church after after Christmas. Rich Birch — Yeah. Travis Spencer — And you know and we don’t even have church that Sunday and so… Rich Birch — Yes. Travis Spencer — Yeah, like so on Christmas when we have everyone, we’re like coming back on (then we gave the specific day), everyone’s going to get a free copy of Pastor Travis’s new book called “Wonderful.” And and then we and then we’re very specific. If you come back the next weekend it’s for sale in the lobby. But on this date… Rich Birch — It’s free. Travis Spencer — …everyone’s getting everyone’s getting a free copy. And so there’s a little investment there, but for me, it’s like we’re getting this we’re getting the word out into everyone’s hands. It’s a huge callback. It’s really a great idea. And so we did that and, you know, we were. I’m I’m [inaudible] I don’t know if anyone’s going to show up to church for my for my book. Rich Birch — You, but you said that on a call like the week before. We happened to be on a call and you were like you didn’t quite weren’t quite that pointed, but you were like, well we’ll see. Who knows? You know, we’ll see what happens. The books are here. We’ve got a big, giant pile of books. Travis Spencer — Yeah, you have to preorder these things you’re like, man, do we like, are we going to have hundreds of books sitting in the closet? Like this is a bad idea? I was blown away by that. Our numbers – I don’t know if we were 20% higher than on average. Rich Birch — Wow. Yeah. Travis Spencer — And we hit ah an attendance barrier. I know numbers aren’t everything, but it was the first time we we broke the thousand barrier on a non-holiday. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s huge deal. Yeah. Travis Spencer — And so here’s what’s fascinating is, okay, like that’s the free book day. And we were like 1100 or something like that. And next week, same number. Rich Birch — Wow. Travis Spencer — Next week maybe dropped a you know few families… Rich Birch —Yeah, yeah, yeah. Travis Spencer — But to be honest that whole series, and and today we’re out of that series we’re much higher today than we were pre-, you know, before this this book launch. And it did create some momentum. And the second thing is anywhere I go in community, I just hear people say, hey how’s your book doing? Rich Birch — Sweet. Travis Spencer — I know you said like you know it’s great for a callback. It’s great for your church. You know it’s good for that series. And that’s absolutely worked. But then the the other key is community credibility. Rich Birch — Right. Travis Spencer — And you can be the pastor in town that’s an author. You can be the pastor in town that’s written a book. And and online you just keep sharing it and people seeing it. And that’s a conversation I hear all the time when I’m out at a restaurant or something. Like hey, I’ve been reading your book. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, that’s amazing. Travis Spencer — Or hey how’s it go and how’s the book going? And so there is community credibility. And now we’re going to be able to pass this book out all year long to like whether we haven’t decided if it’s new guests or people who graduate like a leadership program or something. But it’s the gift that keeps on giving. You know we have this tool. Let’s continue to use it. And now we’re packaging a ten week, it’s like 10 chapters, so we’re packaging like a discussion guides. I have pastor friends are like, hey, we’d like to do a small group. Rich Birch — Love it. Travis Spencer — So I’m leading a small group right now. I want to do it myself to see like what are the right questions in the discussion. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Travis Spencer — So as I’m leading this I’m writing the curriculum. And it’s ah you know it’s ah just a small group discussion. But then we’ll be able to even make that available to, you know, some friends and ministry that they want to you know, take this and run with it. Rich Birch — Yeah. Travis Spencer — It’s been a huge gift for our church and it’s been great. Rich Birch — That’s good. Well, that’s great, dude. I yeah I want to encourage people that are listening in well I want you I want you to go and pick up copies. I’m assuming you can get on on Amazon. Travis Spencer — Yes. Rich Birch — Is there somewhere we want to send them to pick up besides that or is any website or that kind of thing we want to send them to? Travis Spencer — Amazon’s the easiest and then the other one the the tool that we’re developing especially for pastors because then we’ll do discussion guides and even… Rich Birch — Yep. Travis Spencer — …give links to how I use the the series… Rich Birch — Yep. Travis Spencer — …is just go to readwonderful.com, readwonderful.com Rich Birch — readwonderful.com Travis Spencer — And then here’s the here’s the you you touched on this is like people kind of are afraid to write a book. I ask myself this all the time, like what’s at stake? I think it’s a Don Miller. Rich Birch — Oh that’s good. Travis Spencer — Don Miller says this when he’s storytelling. He says one of the parts of the great story at the end of like a of any story is what’s at stake? What if we do do this, this happens. And if we don’t do this… Rich Birch — Right. Travis Spencer — …this happens. And what’s at stake if I don’t deliver practical tools and steps of helping people find fulfillment and satisfaction, is if I don’t, the culture will. Travis Spencer — So so in my mind is if we don’t lead people to true fulfillment and satisfaction, they’re going to someone’s going to try to tell them, this is what satisfying is. Rich Birch — Oh that’s good. Travis Spencer — And this is what fulfillment is. Rich Birch — That’s good. Travis Spencer — And so I think we ask ourselves of any book topic or any message that we’re getting ready to teach or any, you know, big series that a church is getting ready to plan is what’s at stake if we don’t do this? Rich Birch — So good. Travis Spencer — And for me, it’s like I don’t want people finding fulfillment in other places… Rich Birch — Right. Love it. Travis Spencer — …because that will be empty fulfillment. Rich Birch — Yes. Travis Spencer — And they’re going to go right back to the life ache that they had before. Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. Travis Spencer — And so what’s at stake? Like what’s the cost of not doing this book? Rich Birch — So good. So good, dude. I love it. What ah what encouragement. I yeah I just want to honor you for for actually doing it and for leaning in. And I think it would be a great, you know, there’s multiple things happening in today’s podcast here. I think it’d be a great book for. I think there’s leaders that are listening in that need to hear the message of this book and would find this as ah, friends, it’s an encouraging book. It’s positioned as, you know, Travis is your friend. This is not the kind of book you’re going to walk away from feeling crappy about yourself. You’re going to be like, okay, no I’ve got some practical steps empowered to take, you know, steps forward. I think it would be a great resource for your staff team, like you could be like hey let’s use this as ah as a resource for us as worth, you know, maybe a training thing this spring or maybe but you know post easter or something like that. Hey, let’s let’s read through this as a staff team. I think that could be a great place. I think, you know, it’s an encouragement to, you know, here’s ah, a leader who who did the work to write a book. I know there are there are literally thousands of pastors who are listening in who have thought the same thing. Well here’s like the 1% who actually did it, and you heard about the response which is amazing. So um, you know, maybe you would encourage you to take a step and and, you know, or maybe you want to do this as a series at your church – that kind of thing. So go to readwonderful.com that would be a great ah you know so starting point. Pickup copies on Amazon. I would really encourage you to to lean in with Travis on that. Rich Birch — Going to give you the final words. Any final words, you’d love to say there, Travis, just as we kind of close out today’s episode? Travis Spencer — So when Bob Golf wrote his book, “Love Does,” he put his phone number in the back. We were we were in the we were in my office and and myself and our executive Pastor Evan we called the number. He answered. He answered. Bob answers. And like Bob, your book has been so powerful in our life. Just thanks for writing. And in in his joyous Bob Goff voice he goes, Travis, you have a book in you, you know. Rich Birch — Love it. Travis Spencer — And he goes everybody should write a book, you know. Rich Birch — Yeah. Travis Spencer — So I tried calling the number again to tell him I wrote that book. Rich Birch — Yeah. Travis Spencer — And he didn’t answer. Rich Birch — I love it. Travis Spencer — But so if I had parting comments, one I really do believe everyone has a book in them. And then secondly I want to be as approachable as he is. If anyone has any questions or wants to dive a little deeper, you know, or you know we can get that contact and and reach out. I’d love to help and love to just walk alongside you… Rich Birch — Yeah, where where do we want to send people if they want to connect with you to be at the church website. Travis Spencer — Like let’s go to the yeah, let’s go to the church. Let’s go to thefields.church… Rich Birch — Yep. Travis Spencer — …and then that would be the easiest contact. Rich Birch — Perfect. Well thanks, friends. Thanks for tuning in. Travis, just want to honor you. You’re a great leader. You’re the kind of people people should follow and so it’s been great to connect with you today. Thanks so much for being on the podcast today.

Bridgetown Church's bold move to cancel livestream services in favor of local engagement is discussed by Rich Birch and Kenny Jahng. They highlight the benefits of in-person community, reevaluate digital strategies post-pandemic, and weigh the pros and cons of this pivot. The discussion emphasizes the power of physical presence in fostering deeper connections within the local Portland community and the potential impact on evangelistic opportunities.

In today’s episode of the unSeminary podcast, we pull back the curtain on an extraordinary gathering that promises to revolutionize the way church leaders envision growth and community engagement. Fresh from the Church Growth Incubator retreat held at Mariner’s Church in Irvine, Southern California, we’re eager to share a treasure trove of wisdom that emerged from two days of deep learning, fellowship, and strategic planning. This retreat, designed for senior leaders of churches approximately 1,000ish in size, focused on nurturing an invite culture to foster church growth. The Power of Collective Wisdom The Church Growth Incubator is not just an event; it’s a catalyst for transformation. With bi-monthly calls and two in-person retreats every year, it creates a sustained environment for growth. This February’s retreat was elevated by the presence of not just one, but two esteemed guest coaches, including Phil Ling from The Giving Church and Greg Curtis, the Director of Connection & Assimilation at Eastside Church, each bringing their unique insights and strategies to the table. Lessons in Generosity from Phil Ling Phil Ling, renowned for helping churches and ministries raise a billion dollars, shared compelling strategies to enhance church generosity. His approach, encapsulated in the “win, lift, and keep” framework, provides a roadmap for attracting new donors, increasing contributions from current members, and ensuring lasting engagement. Ling’s emphasis on genuine support over transactional relationships underscores the importance of viewing church members as partners in growth. A significant portion of our discussion on increasing giving revolved around the concept of the “three rooms” – the big room (weekend services), the medium room (tribes or small groups), and the small room (one-on-one interactions). This framework offers a strategic approach to communication and engagement, emphasizing tailored messages for different congregational segments to maximize impact and foster deeper connections. Greg Curtis on Assimilation and Connection Greg Curtis, known as the Assimilation Sherpa, offered transformative perspectives on engaging and integrating churchgoers, from newcomers to long-standing members. His insights into the “new assumptions about assimilation” challenge conventional wisdom and advocate for a more intentional, personalized approach to discipleship and connection. Curtis’s strategies underscore the critical role of connection in fostering a vibrant, mission-driven church community. The Retreat’s Ripple Effect The Church Growth Incubator retreat has once again proven to be a wellspring of actionable insights and inspiration for church leaders dedicated to growth and engagement. Beyond the sessions, the retreat underscored the importance of community, shared learning, and the collective pursuit of a more inviting, generous church culture. A Call to Action As we reflect on the profound lessons and stories shared at the retreat, we invite church leaders to consider how these insights can be woven into the fabric of their own communities. Whether it’s through enhancing generosity, refining assimilation strategies, or simply fostering deeper connections, the path to growth is paved with intention, innovation, and collective wisdom. For those inspired to dive deeper into the strategies and success stories from the Church Growth Incubator, remember that this is just the beginning. The journey to unlocking your church’s full potential is ongoing, and we’re here to support you every step of the way. Join us as we continue to explore, learn, and grow together in our mission to create thriving, vibrant church communities across the globe. Thank you for tuning in to unSeminary. If you’re seeking to bolster your church’s invite culture, don’t forget to check out the recently released book, “Unlocking Your Church’s Invite Culture,” available now on Amazon. Let’s continue to share, learn, and inspire one another in our collective mission to lead churches toward unprecedented growth and impact. Thank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Risepointe Do you feel like your church’s facility could be preventing growth, and are you frustrated or maybe even overwhelmed at the thought of a complicated or costly building project? Are the limitations of your church building becoming obstacles in the path of expanding your ministry? Have you ever felt that your church could reach more people if only the facility was better suited to the community’s needs? Well, the team over at Risepointe has been there. As former ministry staff and church leaders, they understand how to prioritize and help lead your church to a place where the building is a ministry multiplier. Licensed all over North America, their team of architects, interior designers and project managers have the professional experience to help move YOUR mission forward. Check them out at Risepointe.com/unseminary and while you’re there get their FREE resource “10 Things to Get Right Before You Build”. Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Well, hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Really looking forward to today’s episode. I’m really pumped for this because I want to kind of pull back the curtain a little bit, give you an insider scoop, kind of let you in on something that’s been happening in the background that unless you’re paying attention, you will not know about.Rich Birch — Listen, I’m just back from a two day in-person retreat for the Church Growth Incubator. Now, you might be wondering, there’s a lot of words there that you don’t understand. So what is the Church Growth Incubator? It’s a small cohort that I run, for senior leaders of churches around a thousand in size. And we’re working on growing our churches by increasing invite culture. We do two calls per month and we meet for a year, and we do two in-person retreats during that year. And we just got back from two days in Southern California. We were at Mariner’s Church there in Irvine. It was a great time. We learned a lot. We had a lot of fun. We laughed, we learned we, you know, made new friends, that sort of thing. It was great. But today, what I want to do is pull back the curtain on, you know, really, and give you a bit of a sample of some of the things that we talked about.Rich Birch — You see, at each one of these in-person retreats, one of the promises of the in-person retreats is that we will have a guest coach. This is someone who I really deeply value and who, you know, I believe just has a lot to offer to churches. And we get them to come and spend some time with us. And the amazing thing at this retreat was we didn’t in the past, we’ve had Jenni Catron, Carey Nieuwhof actually was at our last retreat as well. But this time around, do we not only had just one guest coach, we actually had two, which was amazing. So good. And so what I wanted to do is to take a few minutes and kind of unpack some of the lessons. Now, friends, this is two days of conversation. Obviously, we can’t unpack everything, but I wanted to give you a bit of a sample of it, because I think these are some lessons that you could take and apply into your church. Rich Birch — So the first guest was Phil Ling. He’s from The Giving Church. If you don’t know Phil, you really should check out his website, thegivingchurch.com. Phil has helped churches and ministry raise $1 billion. That’s a B, billion with a B, which is, you know, just incredible. And the thing I love about Phil, well, both of our guests, well, it’s all the people that we have come, but particularly these two, these guest coach that we had this time around is they are in the corner of churches like you. They really do want to help churches. They don’t see the church as just like a market. Sometimes you interact with people who have services or provide coaching to to churches. And frankly, to me, they kind of make my skin crawl a little bit. And Phil definitely doesn’t do that. He’s in your corner. He is there to help and help you particularly increase generosity. And there’s there’s really two things I want to talk through. Rich Birch — First, we had a whole conversation around the three things or the three actions that we’re doing as we’re engaging with our people to try to, you know, from a generosity point of view, what are the kind of three outcomes that we’re looking for? And he talks about win, lift and keep; win, lift and keep. So win – this is all about gaining donors. So the question for you, if I was to sit in your corner and Phil was to sit in your corner, would be to ask the question, what are you doing to win new donors? You know, we got talking about weekends and how oftentimes, man, the weekend is a great place to, to find new donors, people who haven’t given to your church before. Phil was talking about the fact that 45% of the people in that give to churches in America give less than $200 a year. But those are those are the people who give. There’s a ton of people, including folks in your church, who don’t give anything. And so the question is, what strategies are you applying towards winning new donors? And we spend a lot of time, effort, energy thinking about that, thinking about what can we do to move people from not giving to giving. The reality of it is it from getting them to go from not giving anything to giving something. Man, that is a that is a phase shift. That is a significant shift. And if we could see that kind of thing happen, it would make a huge, huge difference. So win – that’s the first.Rich Birch — The second is lift. This really is about this idea of increasing revenue from people. We had a fantastic conversation around what can we do to see people’s increasing generosity. Obviously you’re feeling this pressure. I’m feeling this pressure as the cost of things become more expensive. We need to also continually continue to think about what can we do to increase the revenue that comes from our, you know, from our people. We talked about, even the value of something like a quarterly vision report where we get back out to our people, regularly to communicate to them about how they’re giving is, you know, is is being put into action, what difference it’s making to the vision, how it’s pushing the church forward. But the question for you is, what can you do to increase revenue? This is particularly difficult in this age when, you know, one of the the downsides, potential downsides of us moving everyone to digital giving, recurring giving, is unless we interrupt with a regular kind of outreach to them, people won’t necessarily increase their giving. So what are you doing to lift their giving? Rich Birch — And then thirdly, keep, keep. So it’s win, lift, keep. What can we do to show appreciation? How are we keeping the donor? We obviously know that it’s easier to keep a donor than to find a new donor. And this is an area, frankly, I think that many of our churches are lagging behind. We lag behind our nonprofit brothers and sisters when it comes to showing appreciation. And I think we often think of it in a, like, a, a very kind of extreme way. We’re either saying, hey, we need to be putting brass plaques on everything, everywhere across the entire church, which is kind of goofy and dumb. We don’t want to do that. Or we don’t want to do anything at all. There’s got to be other ways to show appreciation. This could be about gathering those folks together. We talked about the fact that particularly the senior pastor time with the senior pastor is a great commodity. And how can you use that to show appreciation to those people that are giving to your, you know, to your church? So we talked a lot about this, but the questions I would have for you, you know, from Phil’s coaching, from The Giving Church around, you know, the three actions that we’re taking when it comes to generosity: win, lift, keep. Rich Birch — But then we also had a conversation around the three rooms, kind of thinking about what kind of communication happens in various rooms. We talked about the big room, the medium room and the small room. So the big room, the weekends. This is really about participation. It’s about trying to get more people to give at some level. It’s it’s it’s about driving high percentage of your people to engage on a regular basis, participation is the win in the big room. It’s actually not about revenue or big numbers. You know, we talked about within like a capital campaign when it gets to that public phase, really what that is all about, once you get to the public phase, it’s just about participation. It’s just about saying, hey, what can we do to get as many people in on this? Rich Birch — Then the medium room. What do we mean by the medium room? This is a, you know, this is the kind of tribes or small groups or volunteer huddles, that sort of thing. These would be segmenting your community up into smaller, bite-sized communities. And really, the question there is, is about how we can engage donors and really to speak to their specific needs, to understand what is it that that kind of donor, what are they looking for? And then how are we packaging up what we’re doing in a way that is, gaining their, is helping them kind of get more plugged into the church, is helping them get more plugged in to what’s happening? And so you divide groups up into various, you know, into smaller, medium-sized rooms, and then you communicate specifically to them. So you might get, you know, young parents together and talk about the kids’ needs and talk about what difference, you know, the church is making in the kids’ point of view and how they’re giving makes a difference to the kids in their community. Rich Birch — And then finally, the small room, really one-on-one. And I think this is one of those areas, we talked a lot about this in our coaching sessions, around coaching lead pastors, particularly, to have one-on-one conversations with, with donors. And we talked a bunch about how to do that, best practices, that sort of thing. And really, the overarching lesson here is the largest checks come from the smallest rooms. And so we’ve got to figure out a way to get in front of people on a regular basis, even if that’s, say, 51 a week, to get in front of those people on a regular basis. And that is more about partnering with people than presentation. So think partnership, not presentation. It’s about sketching out on a piece of paper where the church is going and asking for their input, asking those people to come along. Rich Birch — So, we talked a lot about the three rooms. So big room, medium room, small rooms. So, Phil Ling, super honored to have Phil with us. What and, just incredible gift for the Church Growth Incubator in-person retreat, honored to have him with us. But like I said, although we only really say that we’ll have one, you know, coach or guest at these guest coach at these in-person retreats. We ended up having two this time. Extra value. We had Greg Curtis. He is the Director of Assimilation. Greg has been on the podcast in the past. He’s a dear friend. You’ll be hearing more about him in the future. There’s he’s actually got an offering coming up that I want to make sure you know about, but he, he is my assimilation sherpa.Rich Birch — What do I mean by that? He is the person that I point to when it comes to how are we developing an engagement pathway to get people connected, to go from new here to new volunteer. That new here to new volunteer engagement pathway is critically important. And how are we getting people plugged in? And, you know, our time with Greg was second to none. Incredibly helpful. We got the whiteboard out, and we’re working through some very specifics around people’s individual kind of concerns and comments and, you know, you know, thoughts on what’s happening in their in their community from an engagement or assimilation point of view. But one of the things that Greg talked about in his kind of presentation portion, he had this kind of new assumptions discussion, which was new assumptions about assimilation. And there are five of these that jumped out. There’s a lot more than we talked about, but there are five of these that I thought might be particularly interesting for us to talk about on the podcast to do.Rich Birch — And so the first one is this, no one can make a disciple out of an unconnected person. So we, you know, connection is the first part of the discipleship process. If people don’t get connected to your church, they won’t get discipled. And we might think that connection is like a “nice to have”, but it actually is a “need to have” if we’re thinking about discipling people. So really the first step, no one can become a disciple, you know, you can’t make a disciple out of someone who’s unconnected. And so if you have a heart for making disciples, really your first step is how do we get people connected? And the reason why that is, is because discipleship at its core is it’s life on life. It’s about people seeing other folks who are following Jesus and trying to get a sense of, hey, what is it like to follow Jesus, and learning from those people. So number one, no one made it a disciple out of it, under, an unconnected or under-connected person.Rich Birch — Number two, just making Christians more Christian is not discipleship. Wow. That was one of those like bam, like, you know, mic-drop moments. Just making Christians more Christian is not discipleship. I loved Greg’s push, and this is really one of the hearts of EastSide. We want to be the kind of church where unchurched people are getting connected. We are not trying to sheep steal. We’re not trying to get people from other churches. We’re trying to connect people, people who don’t know Jesus. And so, discipleship is, is about connecting with unchristian people, people who do not follow Jesus, and helping them take steps towards Jesus. It’s not about taking Christians and making them more Christian. Man, what a mic-drop moment. And we had a whole conversation around, okay, what are we doing, particularly, to connect unchurched people? How can we work to ensure that we connect unchurched people to our church? And what can we do to ensure that our assimilation processes are biased towards connecting unchurched people. So love that. Number two, just making Christians more Christian is not discipleship. Rich Birch — All right. Number three, connection could be taken for granted in previous generations. Connection could be taken for granted in previous generation. We have a whole conversation around, you know, in, in previous generations, whether that was ten years ago, 20 years ago, 50 years ago, this idea of connecting with people and the church being a place where you could connect, where you could make relationship, that was maybe taken for granted before. And this is really an accelerating issue. You know, this is, this is true today. I would say it was true five years ago, but it’s more true today and will be more true five years from now. We can’t take connection for granted anymore. We’ve got to take an active kind of in the driver’s seat, helping our people get connected, building systems to help them get connected, building relationships, environments, steps. Clearly thinking about how are we going from one step to the next, thinking about the places where they might fall through the crack, so that we don’t take it for granted. We need to, to, you know, work hard at this. It’s not the kind of thing that can just be taken for granted. So that is number three. Rich Birch — Number four disc…So that was number three was connection could be taken for granted in previous generation; obviously can’t be taken for granted now. Number four: disconnection is the greatest obstacle to mission fulfillment in your church. Disconnection is the greatest obstacle to mission fulfillment in your church. Ultimately, you know, our our mission goes forward the more people we get connected, the more people we get connected to serving, the more people we get connected into groups, the more people that get connected even just as new here guests – more connection drives the mission forward. If if people are disconnected, then your mission is not going to happen. Connection is not secondary to the mission. It is primary to your mission. It is primary to what we’re doing in our churches. And so we shouldn’t be relegating connection or our strategies for connection down, you know, to maybe giving that to, you know, administrative people or giving that to people who, that are maybe lower down in the org chart. It needs to be at the highest levels of concern in our organization. Disconnection is the greatest obstacle to mission fulfillment in our church. Rich Birch — And then finally, number five, it takes our Sherpa mindset towards connection. It takes a Sherpa mindset towards connection. So, you know, Greg has built his, his entire coaching organization called Climbing the Assimilayas, this idea of, you know, we are helping people. And what are Sherpas? You know, he’s got all these great statistics about Sherpas. Sherpas help people climb Mount Everest. They have, they’re built for that trend. They’re constantly, or that that part of the track, they’re they’re constantly starting at base camp and taking people to the peak. And then going back to the base camp and taking to the peak. They literally have,, more developed lungs to be able to operate at such high level, consistently breathing, you know, thinner air, but moving people to those peaks. And really, that’s what our role is in connection. Our role is to literally help people hand-over-hand, help them be connected. It’s it’s about being a Sherpa. So again, we had lots of conversation around what that looks like in our context. But I loved what Greg had to say, again, Director of Assimilation from EastSide Church, Assimilation Sherpa helping so many churches connect so many people. Rich Birch — Well, friends, our two-day, in-person retreat for the Church Growth Incubator. It was just it was a wild success. If you’re a church of a thousand or around a thousand, I like to say a thousand-ish, and you want more information about Church Growth Incubator and want to learn about our upcoming in-person retreat, or those two calls we do a month. We’re seeing actual results from churches. Churches are growing in this. The ones that that buckle down and apply what we’re talking about, man, they’re seeing results. We had all kinds of other stuff at this retreat, including a done-for-you resource, that really is about increasing attendance at Easter this year. We rolled that out last week. Rich Birch — We also rolled out a brand new tool to keep the front door visible. So one of the problems in our churches is if you don’t see the front door, you can’t understand it. Oftentimes, our staff are just thinking about the back door because they can see it so clearly. But how can we keep the front door visible? And we came up with a brand new tool for that, for that. And we had some fun and, you know, went out on Duffy boats and did a bunch of other stuff. It was a great retreat. Thanks so much, friends. Thanks for being a part of unSeminary., if you haven’t had a chance to pick up a copy of my most recent book, Unlocking Your Church’s Invite Culture, you can do that at Amazon today. It’s, the book is out. So you can go and pick it up today; it released this week, earlier this week. All right, friends, well, thanks so much. Thanks for being a part of unSeminary. And we’ll talk to you next week. Take care. 

Zach Zehnder from Red Letter Living discusses church growth strategies with a focus on creating an invite culture and leveraging big events like Easter. They explore the financial strength of churches post-COVID and emphasize the importance of volunteerism for church expansion. The conversation also touches on utilizing 40-day challenges, enhancing Easter attendance, and driving community engagement through creative planning strategies.