unSeminary Podcast

Exploring the Diffusion of Innovation Curve in church leadership, the podcast discusses the different segments of the curve and how leaders can navigate them. It emphasizes the importance of understanding where your congregation falls on the curve and crafting strategies to facilitate change effectively within the church community.

Thanks for tuning in to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Todd Elliott, a writer, speaker and audio engineer serving the local church. He’s also the founder of FILO: First In, Last Out, which is built around supporting technical artists who serve the local church. Do you ever feel like there is a disconnect between the senior leadership of your church and the production team? Do you wonder how to foster better communication between the teaching or worship pastors and the technical artists? Tune in as Todd offers help in technical skill development, community, inspiration and more. Foster reconnection. // Technical artists can often feel alone in their roles behind the scenes at churches. A key component of the work FILO does is to help production team members become more effective, not just as tech people, but as followers of Christ. It’s important to remind tech people that they are more than what they do, and their relationship with Jesus matters more than their relationship to the gear they work with. Give direction for tech. // We live in a technology-based society. Much of what our churches do revolves around it—from social media or streaming services online to lighting during worship services. Church leaders need technology, but we don’t necessarily know how much we want to use it or allow it to influence our decisions. Todd encourages senior leaders to give direction and cast vision in this area, even if they don’t fully understand it. Without their leadership, tech people can make the focus or use of technology bigger than it needs to be. Foster good communication. // A tech person’s job is to be invisible in their work. One of the challenges is that people notice when things go wrong, but not when everything goes smoothly. This focus on the negative causes production team members not to feel trusted. There can also be a language barrier between church leadership and technical artists in regard to what it takes to achieve what’s being asked. It’s important that senior leaders and creative staff work together and share the responsibility to figure out what it will take to accomplish the ideas being discussed. Recognize the good. // Don’t only talk about the things that didn’t work. Identify the excellent work the production team is doing and discuss that too. Don’t just tell technical leaders that they did a “great job”, but communicate that you recognize the time that went into their work and the high quality of it. Noticing the good work and calling it out does a lot to build trust. Define reality. // The range of spending on tech can be vast because you’re making decisions on what you want your church to be about technology-wise. It’s the senior leader’s job to define reality for what the church is about and what is the best way to accomplish the vision, even on the technology side. Todd advises senior leaders to ask to see or hear the differences between equipment options when trying to make purchase decisions rather than simply taking someone’s word for what to buy. Resources for your team. // FILO offers a number of resources for church tech people to become more well-rounded and effective as human beings, which then helps the church become more effective. Todd’s book, “I Love Jesus, But I Hate Christmas: Tackling the Challenges of Being a Church Technical Artist”, provides chapters that foster discussion on a variety of topics from collaboration and community to the difference between perfection and excellence. The FILO Conference this spring provides an opportunity for professional and spiritual development with breakout sessions, worship and more. You can find out more about FILO and all the resources they offer for your production teams at www.filo.org. Download a chapter from Todd’s book here. Thank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: 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. So glad that you have decided to tune in today. Man, super honored that you would tune in. We have got a great conversation today, uh, with a new friend, Todd Elliott. He was recommended to us by our friend, Brittany Crimmel, from out west. Todd is a writer, speaker, and technical artist in the local church and the founder of an organization called FILO – First In and Last Out. And they really are built around this idea of supporting technical artists who serve the local church. And they do all kinds of things around skill development, community inspiration. They have a great conference, a book. I want you to get to know Todd, get to know FILO. Uh, welcome. So glad you’re here today, Todd.Todd Elliott — Yeah, thanks so much for having me. It’s great to be here.Rich Birch — Well, this will be good. You know, the name of our podcast is unSeminary, stuff they didn’t teach you, or you wish they taught in seminary. Uh, you know, and there’s nothing like the technical side… Todd Elliott — Right. Rich Birch — …that is this fits this category perfectly. Uh, so tell us a little bit about your background. You know, bring us up to speed. Tell us about FILO. Yeah, give us this full the full story.Todd Elliott — Yeah. So my, uh, my story starts like a lot of, uh, people doing technology in the local church. I was in high school. I, uh, had a friend who was sitting behind the soundboard, uh, and he didn’t show up one day, and I got kind of sucked into… Rich Birch — Love it. Todd Elliott — Okay, uh, how do we do this? So, I mean, and I would say this is dating me a little bit, uh, you know, back in those days, it was one microphone and a cassette recorder, you know? Rich Birch — Yes. Todd Elliott — So that was all I had to deal with. Uh, but, uh, just through that experience, I grew as the church grew. I learned new stuff. I, um, and so, you know, the next day it was there was a guitar and then there was some drums. And, you know, it just kind of added as as the church grew, my skills kind of grew with it. And I thought, I would love to do this for a living, but I had no concept of people doing that. Rich Birch — Right. Todd Elliott — So just volunteering like crazy, um, helped start a church, um, in, in Michigan. And then when I graduated from college, I started working there, uh, doing everything. I mean, it was, you know, uh, like most people do in a church start up, just like I had like, ten jobs and loved every second of it. Uh, but as time went on, uh, realizing, like, I started hiring production staff people. And then, yeah, just sort of leading a group of, uh, you know, volunteer team and a staff team. And really, the story of FILO, uh, comes out of this time. Because for me, I’m like, I, I’m an audio engineer. I have no idea what I’m doing leading people, leading teams. Rich Birch — Sure. Todd Elliott — I don’t know how to do it. Um, and I just felt like, who else is doing this that I could talk to? Rich Birch — Right. Todd Elliott — And at that time, there really weren’t too many places. Uh, but I reached out, I called information. This tells you how long ago it was. I called information on the phone, like Saddleback. Rich Birch — Yes. Todd Elliott — Uh, give me the number to Saddleback. Who’s there? Who can talk to me? Rich Birch — Yes. Todd Elliott — Um, Willow Creek, all these big churches. Rich Birch — Yes. Todd Elliott — And, yeah, people would respond and, um, yeah, got to talk to all these people and realized that my challenges weren’t unique. They were challenges that everybody was having. Um, you know, well, what do I do about the the youth pastors asking for too much technology? Rich Birch — Right.Todd Elliott — You know, Willow Creek’s like, well, we haven’t cracked that code either. So when you solve it, call us back, you know… Rich Birch —And let us know. Todd Elliott — Yeah. So there was a lot of that, which, uh, you know, really helped me feel like, oh, geez, I’m not alone. These these problems aren’t unique. And there are other people dealing with them. And, you know, I bet there are other people around me in the, I was in the Detroit area at the time, people in this area that that maybe be struggling also. So I just, again dating myself, I put, I sent out a postcard… Rich Birch — Love it. Todd Elliott — …uh, to, I don’t know, uh, hundreds of churches, you know, in a radius around where we were. Rich Birch — Right. Todd Elliott — And, hey, we’re going to have this thing Thursday night, this date. Just come, we’ll share ideas. It’ll be a time to hang out. And 250 people came. Rich Birch — Wow. Amazing. Todd Elliott — And they were all just staring at me like, tell us what you’re doing. And I’m like, wait… Rich Birch — You’re the leader. You sent us the postcard. Todd Elliott — Yeah, that’s right. I’m like, I want to know from you guys, what are you doing? Like, I don’t have all the answers. Rich Birch — Love it. Todd Elliott — Um, but it really, that was the beginning of me realizing that all the things I was feeling as a tech person in the local church, feeling misunderstood, alone, um, you know, overworked, under-appreciated—whatever that list was—there’s a lot of other people that are feeling the same thing. And so I need to be about doing this for people. Rich Birch — So good. Todd Elliott — Um, you know, it’s one of those, like, you see a problem and wonder why isn’t somebody doing something about it? Well, that’s probably a sign you should be doing something about it. Rich Birch — Yes. Todd Elliott — And so, yeah, just kept gathering people, um, in the Detroit area together. This time with a little more expectation, like, okay, they’re coming to learn something, so we’re going to give them something instead of just, uh me not being prepared. Rich Birch — Yeah.Todd Elliott — Um, and then, uh, I ended up, uh, going to work at Willow Creek Church. Uh, on the production team, uh, for about ten years, uh, leading that team for part of that time and having an amazing experience. Um, all the time doing, you know, Willow Creek was doing conferences and that sort of thing… Rich Birch — Yep. Todd Elliott — …and so that was part of my jam. Like, okay, I’m into this. And then, uh, when that sort of ended, uh, kept trying to figure out how do we keep resourcing tech people Rich Birch — Right. Todd Elliott — They still need it, just because Willow Creek’s not doing it anymore. Rich Birch — Yep. Todd Elliott — Um, and so when I ended up leaving, uh, my time at Willow Creek, uh, in 2014, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with my life. Um, uh, but I thought this probably there’s something here… Rich Birch — Right. Todd Elliott — …that I need to keep doing. And so…this is probably turning into a longer story than we planned…Rich Birch — No, it’s wonderful. It’s good.Todd Elliott — …realizing that, um, okay, uh, gathering tech people together, helping them feel understood, and being in community with each other is kind of how God has wired me. I’m going to go down this road and see what happens. Rich Birch — Love it. Todd Elliott — Um, and if it if it falls on its face, then yeah, I will stop doing it. But if it keeps going, let’s keep going with it. And so that was nine years ago. Rich Birch — So good. Todd Elliott — Um, did our first FILO in 2015 and yeah, just learning as we went and um, yeah, just really seeing God move in great ways, just in people’s lives to become, for us, the important part is helping people become more effective, not just as tech people, because, I mean, they they do need to become more effective as tech people, but just as people. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Todd Elliott — To reconnect with you’re not. You’re more than just a tech person. You’re a Christ follower and a church member… Rich Birch — Yep, yep. Todd Elliott — …and a part of the body of Christ. And you happen to do technology stuff too. So, um Rich Birch — Yeah, I love it. Todd Elliott — …trying trying to reconnect them with the fact that, uh, you have a relationship with Jesus that matters more than your relationship to gear.Rich Birch — Yeah. So good. Todd Elliott — Yeah. Rich Birch — Well, there’s a ton to unpack there. I love the magic, uh, skill of calling people and, like, hey, I, you know, do you have, you know… and this is very this is very similar to my own story. Like, I in fact, our story intersects a little bit around Willow. I was, in early 2000s, I literally did the old 411 call… Rich Birch — Yep. Rich Birch — …and I to find Willow Creek’s number. And I called the front desk at Willow and I said… Todd Elliott — Love it. Yeah. Rich Birch — …our church is like doing something. We didn’t know it was called multisite at the time. I know that you guys are doing something similar. Who do I talk to there? And the person on reception is like, I think there’s this guy, Jim. Todd Elliott — Jim, yeah. Rich Birch — And Jim Tomberlin, who has become one of my best friends, and we spent a lot of time doing a lot of ministry together, but it literally came out of just calling the front desk and saying, hey, Todd Elliott — Yeah. Rich Birch — …uh, and here we are. And, you know, this podcast came very much out of that. We’re 800 episodes in and it really is very similar. Todd Elliott — Amazing. Rich Birch — I just love talking to church leaders and love, you know, learning from and and you know, so many people are so generous with their with their time. Well, let’s talk about kind of let’s talk about conceptually start to start. And then I do want to get really practical leverage… Todd Elliott — Sure. Rich Birch — …particularly for executive pastors, senior pastors who are listening in, some advice from your seat, you know, at dealing with the tech people and the technology in our in our world. Todd Elliott — Yeah, yeah. Rich Birch — But but man, there’s a time, you know, I made this joke lots with my own people. We dance with technology, like there was a I can remember back to those days where we like it didn’t seem like our ministries were so intertwined with technology. But but it is now. Todd Elliott — For sure. Rich Birch — Talk to us a little bit about that. What’s going on there? You know, we are it’s at the core of what we do – video, audio, video, lighting. Talk us, talk to us about that tension a little bit.Todd Elliott — Yeah, I mean I think the, yeah, you’re right in that we, we can’t escape it. We, we live in a, in a technology-based society. And so much of what our churches are about revolves around technology, whether it’s social media or our services streamed online, our services in person, um, message graphics, um, yeah, just there’s a TVs in the lobby with the right information on them. I mean, there’s you can’t escape it. And so the reality is that, um uh, I guess there’s two parts of it. We need it. We desperately need it. On the other hand, I feel like we don’t necessarily know how much we want to use it, or how much it we want it to influence all of our decisions. Rich Birch — Right. Todd Elliott — I guess from a production person’s standpoint, the I want to go for it. I want to go all out. I want all the bells and whistles. I want all the haze. I, you know. Rich Birch — Yes. Todd Elliott — Uh, if you let me loose, I will do all the things. Um, I think, uh, you know, there’s something really great about that, that, you know, that there are people out there that want to, like, let’s push this envelope. I think a lot of times, and I’ve had seasons in my own life as a tech person, that without a whole lot of direction, I could become the biggest thing going at my church. Rich Birch — Sure. Todd Elliott — And so, you know, like the there was one Christmas service that I remember, I went to like a party after one of the services with just like regular people who were attending the service. Everybody was like, the lighting was amazing. That was everybody’s response to the service.Rich Birch — Okay. Uh oh.Todd Elliott — If you notice the lighting being amazing, we probably overdid it. Rich Birch — Um, yes. Oh gosh, yeah. Todd Elliott — Because the goal is all these things, uh, all this technology is the purpose is to advance the mission of the church, and to, to create a, like a, um, a transparent layer between the message and, and the people in the seats. And I think so often I think we see what other churches are doing online. We, you know, look at their Instagram feeds, we see all this cool stuff, and we feel like we got to be doing that, too, when it’s maybe not exactly right for our church. And I think… Rich Birch — That’s good. Todd Elliott — …uh, I would say the one of the tensions that exists then, for like an executive pastor or a senior pastor, you’re looking at the technology stuff. You don’t totally understand it. Rich Birch — Right. Todd Elliott — You don’t totally get the person who’s running it. You know, they’re just like, they’re so different than you. Rich Birch — Sure. Todd Elliott — And so part of what I’ve experienced in my own life is that then there’s a little bit of abdicating of leadership by that person to say, because I don’t understand this and I don’t understand you, I’m just gonna I don’t feel like, I don’t know what to say here. Rich Birch — Let them do it. Yes. Todd Elliott — But the reality is, without direction, like I said, uh, we’re gonna blow this thing up bigger than it needs to or should be…Rich Birch — Yes. Todd Elliott — …because that’s what we see other people doing. Rich Birch — Yeah. Todd Elliott — And so my encouragement to senior leaders is like, just because you don’t understand it doesn’t mean that it it doesn’t still require your your direction and leadership and vision. Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s good, that’s good. Let’s stay there for a little minute. Todd Elliott — Sure. Rich Birch — I’m sure I want to leverage your expertise. You talk to a lot of technical leaders, a lot of senior leaders across the country, and I’m sure there are some repeated conversations that maybe a tech director is having with you where they’re like, you know, help me with my executive pastor, or help me with my… And they they insert a common conversation that when they say it to you, you don’t like roll your eyes because you’re a good, caring Christian, but you’ve heard it so many times. Todd Elliott — Yeah. Yep. Rich Birch — What is that conversation that they’re having behind our back, and how can we help them? Uh, not in a not in a negative way, but, you know, how can we help… Todd Elliott — Yeah, no, no. Yeah.Rich Birch — …with that discussion?Todd Elliott — Yeah. I mean, it’s so interesting. Uh, there’s probably a million things that are going on. Um, um, I would say from the executive pastor, senior pastor side, I hear a lot like, it’s so expensive. Rich Birch — Yes. Todd Elliott — And they all they want to do is spend money. Rich Birch — Yeah. Todd Elliott — Um, and I would say, um, on the production person side, they don’t really understand what it takes to do what they’re asking. And…Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good. Todd Elliott — You know, they, um, frankly, the one of the challenges that we experience as tech people is that if the goal is to be transparent and invisible when things are going well, uh, nobody really notices that we’re doing excellent work Rich Birch — Right, right. Todd Elliott — They only notice when things are going poorly. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so true. Todd Elliott — And so the only time I’m having a senior leader conversation is, how could you let that happen? Or, uh, what are you doing wrong? Or, like, how did you screw this up? You know that. And so those things combined, uh, you know, make for a very kind of the tech person not feeling trusted, uh, the leadership, not really trusting them. Um, I think there’s also probably a language barrier there. Rich Birch — Right. Todd Elliott — You know, the language that a tech person speaks is different from a senior leader. Rich Birch — Yep. Todd Elliott — Um, and so all those things combined makes for lots of misunderstanding about what it takes to do what we’re asking. Um, and, um yeah. Just that, that thing. There’s a lot going right that nobody even notices. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Yeah, yeah. Let’s talk a little bit about that. You know, I can see that temptation of, and I’ve seen this, you know, and just even conversations, you know, you, you you mentioned the Instagram thing. It’s like a senior leader, they look at a they look at a 30-second clip from a church’s last year’s Easter celebration. Todd Elliott — Right, yeah. Rich Birch — And they walk in, you know, four weeks before Easter. And they say to their tech team, let’s do this.Todd Elliott — Yeah. Rich Birch — Um, you know, it’s crazy, right? It’s crazy. Todd Elliott — Yeah. Rich Birch — You know, anything that’s got that kind of traction, you know, churches have been working on for months, you know, maybe half a year kind of thing to pull off. They don’t do it last minute. Um, help help us unpack that a little bit. You know, what are some questions I should be asking as a leader, um, you know, in that if I see something that I’d love for us to replicate, how can I engage with my people well, on that? Todd Elliott — Yeah. I mean, I think the one of the things that I really struggled with in my earlier years was just the, the idea of, um people are asking for stuff and they there’s it’s not open to discussion. You know, we just need to do it. Um, and really the, um, I don’t know that anybody was presenting it that way, but just in, in the time since, if a senior leader said, hey, I saw this online and I’m interested in, you know, could we do this for Easter? Let’s talk about it. Rich Birch — Right.Todd Elliott — And creating a safe place for me to kind of shoot holes in it, or bring bring up some of my concerns instead of it feeling like we’re doing this, figure it out. Rich Birch — Right. Todd Elliott — And so, yeah, I think I’m in some conversations with a church right now. And, you know, the pastor’s really struggling with I want to be able to do more last minute changes. Um, I’m like, yeah, okay. I could totally I totally get that. But you have, you know, ten plus campuses of varying degrees of, you know, people who know what they’re doing and people who don’t on the technology side. It makes for a very difficult, uh, you know, time to just do last minute changes if, you know, at at campus “X”, you have a volunteer who, you know, they’re an accountant during the day and, you know, just happened to be doing sound, you know, on the weekend. They don’t, the last minute change doesn’t really work for them.Todd Elliott — So, um, anyway, just the the idea of let’s have a conversation about it. And I would I don’t know how many tech people listen to this, uh, podcast, but the, the thing I’m usually encouraging them is, uh, don’t, uh, don’t come at this defensively… Rich Birch — Right. Todd Elliott — …but just open-handedly ask questions and be realistic about if we did it, this is what it would mean, or it would mean this. And to to be willing to share the responsibility of pulling it off with the person asking. Um, and so even for a senior leader to say, hey, I’m not asking you to solve this by yourself, but let’s talk about what it would actually take to do this. Um, instead of just coming out and say, we’re doing this, and figure it out.Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s good. I feel like this is as an executive pastor, this has been one of those areas where, um, as I can really help, particularly mitigate between the various departments, whether it’s maybe my lead pastor who’s got some great idea, or the creative folks, the worship folks, and they’re trying to work with the technical people.Rich Birch — And, you know, even I found just calling out the tension, hey, that’s a good example. There are content people, maybe a lead pastor, teaching pastor who they want maximum flexibility. They they want to because they’re responding to what the Spirit’s saying. And they’re like, they want to they want to be able to change things. And and if you let them, they would love to be able to change it right up until, you know, the moments before the service. Um, while on the opposite end, there’s the people that actually have to pull this stuff off… Todd Elliott — Yeah. Rich Birch — …and they would love like six months notice and… Todd Elliott — Right, they want to lock it down. Yeah. Rich Birch — …let’s lock this thing down. Todd Elliott — Yeah. Rich Birch — And neither of those are going to happen. We’ve got to find some sort of tension in the middle. Todd Elliott — Right. Yeah, yeah. Rich Birch — And, and um, and I, you know, I find particularly it’s like being an executive pastor can be like a it’s like air traffic control in the midst of that. Todd Elliott — For sure.Rich Birch — Hey, let’s try to find where we can take, you know, take it, you know, one step forward, one step back on both sides of the dialogue. Um, it’s interesting stuff.Todd Elliott — Yeah, and I would say to the, the, um, so the tension that I always felt as a tech person is that it needs to be perfect. It needs to, I need to execute this without distraction. And so if you’re asking me to do something that I don’t think I can do without distraction, my immediate response is, no, we, you know, we can’t do it. And so what I really appreciated for my senior leaders was the, the, um, so the permission to fail. Like, hey, if I, if I spell out, um, here’s three options. And I think option A is the best one, option C feels like more what you want to do, but I don’t have confidence that we can actually get it done. Um, and let’s say the senior leader says let’s do C. That the senior leader then says, hey, if it doesn’t go well, I’ll take the heat Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good, that’s good.Todd Elliott — I will take responsibility um, instead of you. Like I, I, I’m seeing that, you know, this is not going to be your problem. And I think even that little exchange is such a trust-builder for the for the production person to see. Hey, somebody’s willing to go to bat for me even, you know, even though I’m saying I don’t think this will work. Um, and I think maybe on the flip side, let’s say they choose option C and it actually works. You know, you know, the tech person said, I don’t think it’ll work, but it does. I think there’s a follow up conversation for the senior leader to engage in with the production person. Hey, let’s talk about why did it go well and why did you think it wouldn’t. Rich Birch — Right, oh good. Todd Elliott — You know, just so we can kind of instead of it being a trust, uh, you know, diminisher that, uh, but there’s a there’s still a chance to to build trust in that moment um, even though what the production person said would happen didn’t.Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. That’s so good. Love it. So I love that you, you know, named your community and events FILO, first in, last out. I think that’s great. And and that is, you know, that’s my experience with these folks. You know, these are the people who are, you know, it’s dark in the morning when they’re open in the door and everybody’s gone at the end of the day when they’ve packed up. Talk, kind of sticking with that idea. Talk to us from a pastoral point of view around how can we care for these folks? How can we, what are some other tips we could do, some other ways that we could engage that will kind of care for some of their unique concerns, some of their unique… Todd Elliott — Sure. Rich Birch — …maybe even personalities. You know, you’ve said it there. It’s it’s almost like this funny stereotype that, like, these groups of people have a hard time interacting with each other. Todd Elliott — Yeah.Rich Birch — Talk to us at a, you know, at a pastoral level. How can we help? Todd Elliott — Sure. Yeah. I think that there’s, um, there’s a couple things. And one, I’ve kind of alluded to a little bit, like we usually only are getting spoken to when things are going poorly. So the, the, um, the exercise of looking for something going well is something that I noticed, even as a tech person, changed my perspective of what, you know, being a part of a service. I’m looking for good things, so that I can communicate good things. Um, instead of I think so many of us are geared towards how can we make this better? Okay, this didn’t work. This didn’t work. Let’s fix this. And they’re not bad things, but it creates this culture of we’re only talking about the things that didn’t work. Instead of, uh, saying, hey, I, I know that you spent a little extra on this and it worked. And it was amazing. I think goes a long, long way.Todd Elliott — And I it’s interesting. I feel a little bit of a tension even as I’m answering the question, because part of it is the senior pastor or the executive pastor don’t fully understand what’s involved. And I don’t know that they ever should. You know, it’s not it’s not like… Rich Birch — Right, right. That’s not their role. Todd Elliott — …you know, they’re not wired that way. And you know, the the production team, that’s what they’re there for. That’s how God’s wired them. And so sometimes, you know, like, uh, just, uh, I was going to say flippant, maybe that’s not the right thing, but just a casual, hey, great job. You know, the tech person’s like, you have no idea. You know, that that’s how they that’s how they’re receiving it… Rich Birch — Yes. Todd Elliott — …a little bit like versus, uh, being very specific about, hey, I, I noticed something, and I wanted to tell you about it. Yeah. It’s, uh, so important. Now part of it is the you know, the the role of a production person is to be first and and last out. There is no getting around the reality that you got to show up, you got to prepare, you got to execute, and then you got to put it all away. That’s how it is. And so we’re not even necessarily trying to minimize that. We’re not trying to make that go away. That’s just the way it is. But um, I think for me, when I look back at kind of interactions with senior leaders and the ones that really mattered, yeah, there were specific and even, uh, something as simple as and I’m not sure, maybe this would be harder to do than, than I’m imagining. But there was a point for me where I, I realized the senior pastor is spending hours preparing a message, and I don’t have to I don’t have anything to do with that. Rich Birch — Right. Todd Elliott — I don’t have to be there. I don’t have to be there. You know, he’s working all Saturday to get ready for Sunday. I don’t, I never see that. And so there’s an unseen component to everybody’s role. Rich Birch —Yeah, that’s good. Todd Elliott — Um, it’s not just me as a tech person. Um, uh, but if nobody’s if nobody’s, uh, calling it out or mentioning it, then I just feel alone. Do you know what I mean? Rich Birch — Totally, totally. Good. Todd Elliott — Because the because the pastor just kind of waltzes in at the last minute. And here’s my last minute changes to the slides. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. [inaudible] Todd Elliott — [inaudible] It feels very much like that. Yeah. I’ve been here all day, and you’re coming in, you know, you’re just waltzing in at the last minute. Well, no, they’ve they’ve been busy, and I haven’t had anything to do with that either. So. Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s good. Yeah. That’s good, that’s a good, uh. Found myself a lot of times trying to hero that, uh, you know, lead pastors, teaching pastors who spent a do you spend a lot of tremendous amount of time working on, you know, that whole message thing, and we don’t see that. And I you know, I’ve said many times, listen, none of us have to stand up there for 40 minutes every week and do that thing. Todd Elliott — Yeah. Rich Birch — We’re doing our piece. But like that comes with a unique pressure that none of us have Todd Elliott — Right, right. Rich Birch — Which is amazing. So.Todd Elliott — Yeah. And I think for for me, on the production person side, uh, we’ve really encouraged people to say, when’s the last time you, you, uh, said an encouraging word to your senior pastor? Rich Birch — Oh good. Todd Elliott — I think so many, so many, uh, tech people just kind of, uh, you get up there, you talk for 40 minutes. It’s just what you do. It’s a foregone conclusion. You know, it’s easy for you. Uh, but I think, you know, most senior pastors or teaching pastors, you know, they don’t get any positive feedback from their coworkers, you know, from the congregation, maybe. But, um, yeah, to be able to say, hey, I know you’ve been working hard and I’ve noticed and great message this weekend. Yeah, it goes a long way too.Rich Birch — Dude, that’s a great insight for tech leaders. Because there is that like you’re in the trenches with this person week in, week out. You know, you might be the the if you’re an audio person backstage, you might be the person that hands them their mic, you know, hits, fixes their lapel, you know, whatever that is. And even a quick like, man, that was great. Or here’s something that impacted me – that goes a long way. Todd Elliott — Right. Rich Birch — That’s you know, that’s…Todd Elliott — Even how can I pray for you this weekend?Rich Birch — Oh. So good. Yeah, yeah. So good.Todd Elliott — I, I was, uh, when I worked at Willow Creek, uh, I used to do a lot of work for the Leadership Summit that they do once a year. Um, and so interacting with all kinds of speakers from all walks of life and, you know, uh, I don’t know, like, uh, levels of fame or whatever, you know, the, the, the audiences that they normally speak to.Todd Elliott — And I was always amazed at how, even saying to one of them, hey, is there a way I could pray for you, or can I pray for you right now? Or, you know, knock them dead, or great job, all that. You know, it meant so much to them. And I’m just like… Rich Birch — Yeah, so true. Todd Elliott — …you’re like a, you know. Yeah, you’re you’re so big, you know, in our culture… Rich Birch — Yes. Todd Elliott — …it doesn’t seem like you would need that. But yeah, everybody needs that.Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s good, that’s good. All right. Let’s pivot in a different direction. Uh, talk to me straight here. There seems to be some aspects of this technology particularly. It’s like a bottomless pit of spending, like and I’ve made this joke before, like, how much do you want to spend on video stuff? Well, how much do you have? Todd Elliott — Right, all of it. Rich Birch — You can do something for 20 grand, 200, 2 million, 200 million. You know, you could build the sphere in Las Vegas if you wanted.Todd Elliott — Uh, for sure. Rich Birch — Help us think about that. I know there’s people in projects right now that are, you know, and you talk to an AVL company and they’re going to give you one idea. You talk to, you know, somebody like me, we’re going to give a different idea. How do you think about that? How do you help churches think about that? Todd Elliott — Yeah, I mean, yeah, I’m with you. I mean, it’s a bottomless pit of money. I mean, just there’s no way around it. You could spend a lot, a lot of money on technology. And it’s different than, so I would say, you know, the most expensive thing around churches is facilities and, you know, HVAC, but that’s very, you know, it’s a thing that you can… Rich Birch — Yep. Todd Elliott — …you know, we need to cool this space – this is what it costs. versus technology. You’re making choices on uh, like what what do you want to be about? What do we want the, uh, our church to be about technology-wise? And, yeah, the range of of spending is vast. And as a production person, it’s a lot of it’s a lot of money to me. You know, it feels like… Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Todd Elliott — …a ton of money, let alone to someone who, you know, isn’t in the middle of it every day. Um, and I would say this, this kind of comes back to the beginning of our conversation is that even though you don’t understand all the bells and whistles and the widgets and whatever people are asking for, the senior leader’s job is to define reality for what are we, what are we about? And then what’s the best way to accomplish that? Um, because I think, um, yeah, the, uh, for example, when I was at Willow Creek, very complicated setup. Um, by, by just by the very nature of the facility. Like it’s complicated. Complicated means expensive. I mean, there’s just no way around it. And so. Yeah, okay, there are varying degrees of how expensive can it be? Um but there’s no way around it. Todd Elliott — For a church that’s smaller, if you’re if you’re wanting to, um uh, yeah, it costs less. It’s less complicated, but it’s still you have that range that you can talk to. I would say, I would encourage, uh, any senior leader, if you’re in a building program or an upgrade process, ask to see or hear the differences. Um, any any integrator, any manufacturer, if you say, hey, you know, I could spend $10,000 on a camera, I can spend $20,000 on a camera. I could spend $100,000 on a camera. Show me. Show me the difference. So that I can make an informed decision instead of just taking somebody’s word for it. Um, because I think, um, yeah, then if the if from a senior leader says, okay, wow, that $100,000 camera really makes the difference. How are we going to, uh… Rich Birch — Right. Todd Elliott — …justify that expense and raise that money? You know, then then it becomes a conversation about values, not about what’s the best thing out there or um… Rich Birch — Right.Todd Elliott — …and I think one of the challenges that we keep talking about is, you see, you know, Elevation Church on social media and they’re, you know, the things they’re doing are amazing. And we want to do those at our church. Well, gosh, I mean, they have their systems are crazy amazing/expensive. Rich Birch — Yes. Todd Elliott — The other part of it is, they have people there that know how to use them. Right. Yes. Todd Elliott — A lot of the the systems, the production systems that are happening there are built around a knowledge base at that church. RIch Birch — Right. Todd Elliott — And I think I was in a conversation with a church earlier this week and they’re they’re growing and need to expand. And the equipment that we’re starting to like, recommend to them, I’m like, this is a very dangerous step because now it’s more complex…Rich Birch — It requires staff of a certain level.Todd Elliott — …and you don’t really have the people who know how to, okay, this is an IT problem. We got to dig, you know, deeper, versus, you know, when I was coming up, it’s like an analog console. You plug the mic in with a mic cable and it works. You know, there’s no like hocus pocus going on there. But now, yeah, you can get so deep, so fast. And if you don’t have the people that that understand how to get it done, you know, you’re probably, uh, you’re spending a lot of money for a lot of, uh, headaches later for sure. Yeah.Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s fascinating. I know, it’s like with this, the switch from analog to digital boards. I know it was I feel like we’ve been for years, at least from my seat. It was sold on this idea. Like, it makes everything so much easier. All you have to do is load up the last… Todd Elliott — It’s true. Yeah. Rich Birch — And it’ll be great. Yeah, but it really has not ended up like that, at least from my perspective. It’s like, gosh, it’s it is this a complex. It can be really complex or it can be simple…Todd Elliott — I mean, I think one of the burdens of proof exists on the production person to talk about, what is this going to get us? And I think, you know, uh, it’s going to make everything simpler. It’s going to solve all our problems. I think, yeah, you’re just creating a lot more. It’s going to solve some and create a lot more. Rich Birch — Right. Todd Elliott — And, um, a again, I feel like the purchases of production equipment need to be tied to some kind of church value/mission… Rich Birch — Right. Todd Elliott — …thing. Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good. Todd Elliott — Because otherwise, yeah, it’s just it’s going to be, uh, you know, dealer’s choice. Whoever the production person is… uh, and I, you know, one of the other big challenges is in a lot of churches, the the production person is a young guy with not a lot of experience. And so, like, yeah, when you spend 50 grand on a soundboard, you know, it’s easy for them to kind of throw around, um, you know, when the, you know, the senior leaders are the ones having to figure out how to pay for it. Um, it’s just a lot of responsibility put on a, you know, somebody who’s 25 or something like that, uh, to expect them to really, um, own it fully. Rich Birch — Right, right. Todd Elliott — And so, I mean, one of the big challenges is finding, uh, like a production integrator that you trust, um, uh, for senior leaders to trust. Because, uh, yeah, that’s a lot of money. It’s a lot of money.Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely. Well, and I love that even practical advice around, hey, let’s line up this gear, you know, and let’s actually look at the difference. And, you know, we did that in one of our buildings where, you know, we had an audio, uh, our audio tech was really pushing a certain set of speakers that were, you know, certain amount more. And I remember thinking, like, I just don’t know. But we did exactly that. The vendors brought the speakers in. We hung them in the exact room, you know, on this temporary scaffolding stuff. And I was like, oh, yeah, I can hear that. yYou know, like you… And I’m like, I get it right. And then and then the question is, you’re right, it goes back to the values and okay, do we, you know, is that is that does that make a difference for the, you know, the community that we’re trying to develop and all those kind of things? Todd Elliott — Yeah. And I think too, there’s a I have a friend, uh, Marty O’Connor, who used to be the production director at Willow Creek Way, way back in the, in the 90s. And, uh, he used to have this thing called “the Kay factor”. So his wife was, her name was Kay. Will Kay know the difference?Todd Elliott — Mic X, Mic Y. Like one’s twice the money. Can she hear the difference? She can hear the difference. We’re going for the more expensive mic.Rich Birch — That’s good. Yes. That’s very good. That’s very good.Todd Elliott — I think I think from a production person’s perspective, it’s hard to hear that because, you know, uh, it’s not all about gear, but, I mean, you know, the latest and greatest is pretty cool. Rich Birch — Yeah. Todd Elliott — More expensive, but not always necessary, you know? Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. Todd Elliott — So that that is a challenge. But yeah, the Kay factor was something that…Rich Birch — That’s a great. I love that. That’s a great shorthand.Todd Elliott — …that’s been helpful.Rich Birch — Yeah. Super, good shorthand. Well I really appreciate this, Todd. This has been so thankful. Tell us a little bit more about FILO. I know you guys do a conference. You’ve got a book. Kind of give us a sense. I think this would be a great resource for us, as you know, executive pastor types to lean in on. But man, you might win points by reaching out to your tech people and say, hey, have you heard of FILO? And I want to send you to their conference. That, you know, that would be a great way to help on that relationship. But talk to us about FILO a little bit as we wrap up today’s episode.Todd Elliott — Yes. So FILO the the whole idea I said it earlier, is to help tech people become more effective, with the end goal of they’re more effective as a human being, but the church becomes more effective. If the if the tech person is a more well-rounded individual and better at their skill and inspired to, you know that what they do matters, the church is going to benefit from that. So that’s that’s our really that’s our big goal. Um, and so yeah, we do the conference May 7th and 8th this year, uh, at Willow Creek, uh, South Barrington is the location. And we do kind of, uh, breakout classes or all different skill development, uh, things audio, video leadership. Uh, you know, basics, advanced, uh, all kinds of stuff. And then we do, uh, worship and a message, uh, main sessions that the idea is just we’re reconnecting with, uh, who we are in Christ. Rich Birch — Love it.Todd Elliott — And for most of these people, you know, when they’re in a worship service, they’re behind a console, they’re running graphics. Rich Birch — So true. Todd Elliott — At FILO, they just sit and receive. They’re just, uh, they’re like a regular person, and you don’t have to worry about anything. We’ll take care of it all. Uh, sometimes it’s hard for them to stop, uh, you know, caring because that’s how you are. Rich Birch — Yes. Todd Elliott — But, like, this is not your problem to solve. We got it. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s great. Todd Elliott — But yeah. So that’s a great resource and something that, you know, with Covid we’ve we’ve done a lot of streaming of the event and that sort of thing. But nothing compares to being with other people that are in the same boat as you are, who get you, who understand, you know, a sea full of, uh, uh, you know, black shirts and beards and, you know, uh, some, some females. But the, yeah, just like we’re we know we can laugh at the same jokes. Uh, we’re here together. Such a useful, um, uh, thing. And I call it, like, summer camp for tech people. Rich Birch — Love it. Todd Elliott — Like, bring your whole team, pile in a van, uh, share life outside of Sunday morning rehearsals. Rich Birch — So good. Todd Elliott — Um, and, you know, uh, be together for dinners and, you know, late night, hang in the hotel lobby and all that stuff, uh, has been so we’ve seen so beneficial for teams. Um, the other big thing for us, we do, uh, something called cohorts. So it’s small groups for tech people. So we do these over Zoom. Uh, it’s a facilitator, and ten people. And we we have people from all over. I had one cohort I had two people from Germany and one person from Hawaii… Rich Birch — Love it. Todd Elliott — …in the same group. Uh, and even one of those weeks, the guy from Germany was on vacation in Turkey. So it was like.Rich Birch — Oh my goodness.Todd Elliott — Yeah, the time zone differences were crazy.Todd Elliott — But the thing that was so amazing is same challenges… Rich Birch — Right, yeah. Todd Elliott — …uh different churches, portable, permanent Hawaii, Germany. Um, but you know, we we all were wrestling with the same things. And it was so just a great place to feel understood and seen and, and that sort of thing. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. Todd Elliott — Um, and then uh, uh, we have a book called “I Love Jesus, but I Hate Christmas”. Rich Birch — I love this. So great. Todd Elliott — Tackling the challenges of being a technical, uh, church technical artist. So the whole idea behind the book is just, you know, based on my own experience, uh, but a a way to facilitate discussion on teams, to think, what do we think about the difference between perfection and excellence. Rich Birch — So good. Todd Elliott — Or, um, you know, just how do we do community together? Uh, how do we collaborate with the creative team? Um, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the production team and the worship team feel like two different groups, and yet God has, you know, designed it in such a way that we have to work together. Rich Birch — Yes.Todd Elliott — So how do we do that the best way possible. So, um, it has discussion questions in the back and um, of every chapter. And there’s just like short, you know, 1500 word chapters, real easy to digest. But the idea is to facilitate discussion. Rich Birch — So good. Todd Elliott — Um, and I think we’ll have a sample, a couple chapters, um, that will make available to your listeners just so they can check it out. Rich Birch — Oh that’s great. Todd Elliott — Yeah.Rich Birch — That’s that’s sweet of you. We’ll drop that in the, in the show notes. I’ll link to that. Todd Elliott — Cool. Rich Birch — We’d love to, uh, point people in that direction, but. Well, this has been great. Todd, I really appreciate you appreciate what you’re doing. Love the the work that you’re doing to help so many people. Todd Elliott — Thank you. Rich Birch — And and it’s just, you know, it’s just so fantastic. So we want to send people to filo.org to learn more. Is there anywhere else online we want to send them to kind of connect with you or with FILO?Todd Elliott — Yeah.Todd Elliott — I would say the, uh, if you’re looking for social media stuff, uh, we’re @filocommunity at both, uh, Instagram and Facebook is kind of where we have a lot of stuff going on. Rich Birch — Love it. Thanks so much. Appreciate you being here today, sir. Todd Elliott — Yeah. Thanks for having me. 

In today’s solo episode, I’m diving deep into a topic close to my heart and crucial for any growing or multi-site church considering expansion: church mergers. This isn’t just another growth strategy; it’s a pivotal approach that could significantly impact how we reach more people and foster an inviting church culture. The Growing Trend of Church Mergers Reflecting on the wisdom shared by my good friends Warren Bird and Jim Tomberlin, it’s evident that the landscape of church growth is evolving. The trend towards church campuses being birthed from mergers has spiked dramatically, from 15% to an eye-opening 40% in recent studies. This shift highlights the increasing relevance of mergers in today’s church growth strategy, especially in the post-COVID context. How Do We Start the Conversation? The big question on many leaders’ minds is, “How do we even begin to approach the conversation about mergers?” Drawing from my own experiences and the invaluable insights of the late Kristy Rutter, an incredible leader in church mergers, I’ve seen firsthand the power of starting with relationship-building. The Letter Method One effective tactic I’ve employed and coached others to use is the “Letter Method.” This involves reaching out to 50 to 100 churches in your target community with a personalized, physical letter. These letters are not just about proposing a merger; they’re about introducing your church, sharing your mission, and most importantly, offering to partner and help. This approach isn’t about acquiring assets but about fostering genuine relationships and exploring how we can collectively serve our communities better. Dear [Recipient’s Name], Greetings from Sample Community Church! I hope this message finds you and your congregation thriving and filled with peace. My name is [Your Name], and I serve as [Your Position] at Sample Community Church. Today, I reach out to you with a spirit of unity and partnership, inspired by our shared mission to serve and impact our community for Christ. Introduction to Sample Community Church Sample Community Church has been a part of [Your City/Community] for [Number of Years], dedicated to creating a welcoming environment where individuals and families can grow in their faith and serve alongside one another. Our mission is to [Briefly Describe Your Church’s Mission], and we’ve witnessed God’s grace as we work towards this vision. Our Mission and Desire to Partner As we look to the future, we are guided by a vision to expand our reach and deepen our impact within our community. We believe that through collaboration and shared resources, we can achieve more together than we can separately. It is in this spirit that we reach out to Friends Bible Church, hoping to explore how we might support one another in our respective missions. Proposal for Partnership We are keen to understand the needs and opportunities within Friends Bible Church and to discuss any potential for partnership. Whether it’s through shared community projects, resources, or even exploring more formal ways of coming together, we are open to discussions that will mutually benefit our congregations and, more importantly, our community. Offer of Support Our approach is one of humility and service, and we extend our hand to offer support in any area you might need. Whether it’s volunteer resources, shared community outreach programs, or simply a listening ear for pastoral exchange and encouragement, we are here for you. Next Steps We would be honored to have a conversation with you to discuss any possibilities for collaboration. Please let us know a convenient time for you, and we can arrange a meeting to explore this further. Our goal is to foster a relationship that not only strengthens our churches but also exemplifies the unity and love of Christ to our community. Thank you for considering this invitation. We look forward to the possibility of serving together and making a greater impact in the name of Jesus Christ. Blessings, [Your Full Name][Your Position]Sample Community Church[Contact Information] Building Meaningful Relationships At the heart of successful church mergers is the spirit of collaboration and support. It’s crucial to approach these potential partnerships not with a mindset of what we can gain, but how we can help. Through dropping in on church leaders, engaging in meaningful conversations, and remaining genuinely curious about how we can support each other, we pave the way for more than just mergers; we open doors to transformative partnerships that can amplify our impact on the community and the Kingdom at large. A Call to Action For those of you leading churches, whether you’re already multi-site or contemplating your first expansion, the journey towards a successful merger begins with a step of faith and a commitment to genuine partnership. It’s about more than just growth; it’s about unity, support, and the shared mission of spreading the Gospel. I encourage you to consider how the Letter Method might open new doors for your church. If you’re intrigued or even ready to take the first step, check out the link below in our show notes for a sample letter template that you can tailor to your context. This isn’t just about starting conversations; it’s about fostering relationships that could lead to impactful, Kingdom-focused mergers. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you have any questions or need further assistance, don’t hesitate to reach out. Let’s make this journey together, one step at a time. Take care, friends.

Join us as Joseph Berkobien, Lead Pastor of Frankenmuth Bible Church in Michigan, shares their story of transition, recovery, and intentional steps taken for growth. Discover the importance of stability, building a solid staff, and implementing small group ministry. Also, learn about the significance of casting a compelling vision for the future.

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Jon Thompson, the lead pastor at Sanctus Church in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Being a Christian leader is a marathon, not a sprint. In the middle of the social media and the politics and the pressures and the fear and the questions, we can be tempted to lose heart. Tune in as Jon shares wisdom and encouragement for staying faithful and running the race well to the end. Recognize how you were called. // As Jon celebrates his 26th year at Sanctus, he reflects on the concept of calling. Many who feel the call to go into ministry find themselves discouraged and working outside of the church years later. In his book Perseverance: Fifteen Reflections on Christian Ministry at the Halfway Point –– An Invitation to Make It to the Finish Line Well –– Oh God, Help, Jon talks about how persevering in our callings has been lost. It’s important to realize there are four calling theologies in scripture rather than just one. Church leaders need to recognize how they were called and return to it when they wrestle with discouragement and doubt. The four callings. // Embracing your unique calling is the bedrock of sustained ministry. If you only have one view of calling, you are more likely to end up leaving when things get difficult. Calling can look like a sovereign decision, like those of Jeremiah and Paul. It can also be a recognition of spiritual gifts which intersect with vocational ministry, as with Timothy. Another type of calling is demonstrated in the Book of Acts where there is a vote, a communal decision made for the church. Finally, for the prophet Samuel, familial prayer dedicates him to the Lord. Loving God vs trusting God. // From the pressure to perform, to the rapid pace of ministry, to the challenge of maintaining one’s spiritual health, fears plague many Christian leaders. You can love God deeply, yet be filled with fear rather than trust in God. The amount of fear that sits in leaders’ lives in exponential. God is the one who casts out fear with his perfect love; we have to systematically invite him in to do that. No before yes. // One of the most important ways to persevere long term is actually hearing God’s “no” before His “yes.” Ask God what spiritual gifts he’s given you, what gifts you will never have, and where you will never have influence. God’s “no” creates boundaries because you can’t go beyond the decisions he makes. Rest in his “no” rather than going after the gifts that aren’t for you. The heart of victory is working in your place of spiritual gifting rather than pursuing natural or acquired gifts. Encounter Him. // At Sanctus, they’ve based their discipleship and evangelism not in class but on encounter. Where does God say he’ll be encountered beyond omnipresence? When you start teaching everyone about where scripture says guaranteed places of encounter are and create an expectation that they will meet with the living God, suddenly everything moves from a programmatic approach to real encounter. Perseverance. // Jon has written a book reflecting at the midway point of his own ministry walk. Written for those who are considering entering ministry, those who have been in the trenches for any period of time, and even those who are coming near the end of their Christian leadership journey, this book shares fifteen observations that are transcultural, timeless, and transportable to many different settings. Perseverance: Fifteen Reflections on Christian Ministry at the Halfway Point –– An Invitation to Make It to the Finish Line Well –– Oh God, Help is a great book to pick up and discuss with your church team to see where everyone is in their own ministry journeys. You can learn more about Sanctus Church at www.sanctuschurch.com and find Jon’s books on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and with other resources at jonthompsonresources.com. Thank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: 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. Really looking forward to today’s conversation – we have got Jon Thompson with us. He is the lead pastor at Sanctus Church. This is a multisite church with four campuses, if I’m counting correctly, in the greater Toronto area—you know I love Canadians here at unSeminary. Ah, plus they do you know services online. Jon is just an incredible leader, but I also count him as a friend. He’s a speaker, teacher, he travels, and has written a number of books that I think are just so important for us. And he’s got a book coming out that frankly today friends I’m going to declare my bias right up front – I want you to pick up copies of this book. So. Ah, Jon, welcome I’m so glad that you’re here. Jon Thompson — Thanks Rich. It’s great to be with you again, and yes I count you as a good friend too. Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s nice. Jon Thompson — Yes. Rich Birch — We’ve been in each other’s orbit for twenty-ish years, and so the thing, friends, like Toronto is not an easy place to lead a church. It is not the kind of place that’s like ah, an understatement. Ah, you know, very post-Christian. Um, and Jon is leading a thriving church called Sanctus that I’m you know count as a real brother in the faith. They do great things, but my son is also ah a part of the team there. So I pay particular attention to Sanctus. So Jon and tell us a little bit about it. Kind of fill out your story, tell us a little bit about the church, that kind of thing. Jon Thompson — Yeah, so I’ve been on staff 26 years in this church. Rich Birch — Amazing. Jon Thompson — This has been my whole run and this is a multisite church. There’s four physical locations now, and like you said one, one virtual. And when I joined this church, I joined this church actually when I was fourteen years old. I had an encounter with Jesus, was told to come and have never left. Um and it’s yeah, it’s an interesting church. Jon Thompson — It’s had 4 or 5 very significant iterations, as you know. We, you and I, have talked about this. We were historically, you know, like a very Willow seeker church. And the joke you and I have had is I’m a contemplative exegete Calvinist charismatic who leads the megachurch and what? Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes. Jon Thompson — Anyway, and how that transformation has happened. And so wrestling through multiculturalism, you know, leading in the fourth largest city in North America, totally, you know, post-Christian to re-paganizing, working through spiritual gifts and disciplines and spiritual conflict and politics. And we now 55 nations part of our church so wrestling through how you do multiculturalism well and keeping unity in Jesus. And all the things. I used to have a lot more hair. We both did… Rich Birch — Yeah, I love it. Jon Thompson — …in an ancient time. Rich Birch — Well tell us a little bit about your family too. Just give us kind of the the personal slice a little bit too. Jon Thompson — Yeah, so been married for 23 years. Interestingly I was planning on not getting married. I had actually done sort of the small “C” catholic thing where I was going to be celibate and single for the sake of the church. And then the Lord actually, and I don’t believe this is true in all cases… ah, my wife became a Christian actually at a mutual place that you and I both love at Muskoka Woods. Rich Birch — Love Muskoka Woods. Yep. Jon Thompson — So she became a Christian there. And then um she came to our church and Lord… she encountered the Lord said, like you need to marry that guy. So that was interesting conversation because she was supposed to marry me and I wasn’t marrying… Rich Birch — I’ve never heard that before. I don’t know why I’ve never heard that! Amazing. Jon Thompson — Yeah, yeah, yeah, and yeah. And pulled the Martin Luther. Anyway, so we um got married. We got 3 kids. I have a sixteen year old, I have a 14 year old, and I have a twelve year old, and life is interesting, all the time. Rich Birch — Um, nice. So good. Well so first of all, I just want to take a moment and honor you publicly – 26 years at Sanctus. That’s that’s a milestone that’s not the kind of thing that happens all the time. You know it seems like the average pastorate is is measured in months, let alone years. Jon Thompson — Yeah. Rich Birch — And so the fact that you’ve been serving there for 26 years, as a friend I want to say thank you. Thank you for your faithfulness to that community. You know, you are, you know, you’re just a gift to the body of Christ in the greater Toronto area and I’m just honored ah, to to kind of celebrate this milestone. And you know I was saying this to ah ah, another friend of mine who reached 25 years, I said you know there just ah we don’t have enough of these stories out here. We have enough of these people that we get a chance to kind of say like, hey wow you know good for you. And I count that um and myself I’ve had the privilege of serving in another number of contexts. But ah, just amazing that you’ve been there for that that season. Rich Birch — Why don’t we start with, okay so tell us about that. What was it that, you know, got you started at the church, and then kind of give us your story over those 25 years? That’s that’s I know is a big question – compress 25 years in a couple minutes, but tell us that story. Jon Thompson — Yeah, so no. Like so I I come from a generation, my parents were missionaries, so I come from the generation the eighties. I grew up overseas, pre-internet. You know, I’m a Gen Xer and so lived in that world and um and came back off the mission field as they used to say don’t say that anymore, and that’s okay. And and so was attending this little church in Toronto on the east side of Toronto and in grade 7 and 8. It was a very pivotal moment, youth pastor basically saved my spiritual life. And in the middle of that grade 8 to grade 9, I had a calling to ministry which is a different conversation maybe for later. And then and then basically um as that took place in grade 9 I had an encounter with Jesus. And he basically said, I want you to go to this other church. And so I came. Jon Thompson — I was in youth group. Two weeks later the youth pastor said, hey, have you ever preached before? I was like no. And he’s like well you need to start learning. And that’s how it started. So was there… Rich Birch — Wow. Jon Thompson — …served in youth group as one of the crazy, you know, youth guys. And then from there, started my undergrad and theology and then ran the young adults thing. And then wanted to become a professor, never wanted to be a pastor and all that stuff. And then suddenly became the youth pastor of that church unexpectedly, was youth pastor for a very long time. Ah young adults, youth, junior high, introduction of like you know adolescence, and then all that stuff. And then at thirty years old, became senior pastor and that led multiple iterations of the church from that point forward. Rich Birch — Yeah let’s let’s stick with the calling piece there. Let’s talk about that a little bit. Because I know this is one of the things you talk about in your book, but but I also want to talk. You know, often I have not done a lot of um, counseling premarital counseling, but I have done a little bit. And one of the questions I’ll ask is, you know, this isn’t on the first session, it’ll be a couple sessions in. I’ll say, hey so you know, there’s a some percentage of of marriages that don’t make it. And um obviously none of the people that are in pre-marriage counseling are thinking that they’re going to be in that that percentage that don’t make it. They everyone stands on their wedding day and says well this is going to be great. I’m going to be, you know, this we’re going to make it for the long haul. But sadly they don’t. The same is true with our calling. I feel like, man, there are people who at certain points in our lives they like say God called me into this thing and then then we find ourselves, whatever, ten years later, discouraged, you know, and we end up in real estate. Like how does that happen? What’s the connection between understanding our calling or listening to our calling and persevering in ministry? How do those connect? Jon Thompson — Yeah, so I think it’s the ball game. And I think calling’s been lost. And so you know, in this one of the things I have two or three chapters at the beginning I talked about this. So um, ah I’ll so talk about it in three different ways. Number one, you got to realize that there are four calling theologies in scripture. Not one. And this ah actually leads to part of the problem. We all know that marriages break when expectations are not clear. And so if you only have one view of calling, and you don’t have that, you probably will end up leaving. Jon Thompson — So I jokingly say ah, my calling experience is like Jeremiah and Paul: oh crap, I have no choice. It is so. But there was no debate with the living God. Rich Birch — Ah, yes. Jon Thompson — I I was literally in grade 7 and 8 and my parents weren’t pressuring me. There was no zero conversation about ministry. And I literally encountered the Lord and he said, you need to be a pastor, to a grade 12 boy ah sorry a twelve year old boy. And I remember saying to him I don’t know if I want to obey you sexually. That was my first statement. And my second one was I don’t know if I’d love your church enough. And I wrestled for two years. And in grade 9, which again is very young and weird, when I got baptized, I also said to the Lord, I’ll I’ll obey. I’ll obey. And that was a vow moment for me. Rich Birch — Wow. Jon Thompson — And and so um, that’s, you know, a profound sort of shocking story. Um, and then of course that started making sense because as this happened longer and longer my parents said, oh that’s really weird that happened to you because we never told you this but when you were six months old we were at this evangelistic thing by a guy named Barry Moore who was like the Billy Graham of Canada in the 70s. And very conservative dude and he walked up and put his hand over my head and said this child will be a pastor [inaudible], like set all this stuff over me and walked away. My parents were like baptist people like that’s weird… Rich Birch — Wow. Jon Thompson — And what what’s that about? Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Jon Thompson — And they totally forgot about it, and it was confirmed. So that that sense of sovereign decision affected how I did high school, everything. The dark side of it was I thought that was the only view of calling. So I would dismiss other people’s calling. I’d be arrogant and look down. But there are three other callings. So you’ve got like the Timothy – there’s a spiritual set of gifts that you have and that intersection of those gifts says, yes, there’s longevity and vocational ministry. You got the boring book of Acts where they literally vote and say, I think you’ll do it great at this. And there’s no fire tunnel or Gabriel or anything at all. And then there’s the very un-North American one, right, which is the Hannah and Samuel one. Which basically says like we as the family have prayed and you you are called into this. Jon Thompson — So I I found that a lot of us need to ah find out how we were called, in what style we were called, and then know it’s true, compare our stories with others so there’s no disunity, over-spiritualizing, under-spiritualizing, all that stuff. That’s the epicenter to keep going when things suck. Because if you don’t know if you’re called, and things are bad… Rich Birch — Right. Jon Thompson — …you won’t… like, we live in a culture you and I both know this that it’s all about epicness and amazing and it’s adrenaline driven. Rich Birch — Yes. Jon Thompson — And and it’s and we want to live life like ah like a Marvel movie. It was this, and it was this, it was this… And we read the bible the same way. This happened and that happened it was so incredible. And we miss the hundred years and 20 years and 30 years between the verses. Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes. Jon Thompson — Like in marriage, if marriage always is epic. We all know who are married long term, it’s not always epic. It’s boring, it’s not great, sometimes it’s terrible, sometimes it’s fine, sometimes it’s awesome. And so what I have found is there’s been a generation or two of leaders that have forgotten calling theology, don’t have language for it, haven’t compared this story, so when the tough thing comes, you don’t persevere because you’re not really sure… Rich Birch — Right. Jon Thompson — …if you were asked in the first place. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s that’s good. I love that. You know, I think there is it’s similar I find in my own kind of reflection on ministry that um, it’s comparable to to marriage in that like I, you know, there are lots of days that are not that, to your point, not that interesting. There are lots of days that are just work, you know, there are but I find over the long haul, man, that being able to walk the long road and look back and see God at work consistently over the years, man, what a gift that has been ah, to me personally. Sticking with calling for a second. Um, one of the things you talked about was, you know, fleshing this out in community. What does that look like? How do we do that? Let’s say I’m a young leader. I’m in my twenties. I’m thinking about this. I think maybe I’m, you know, maybe this is the kind of call I’m, you know, this is what I’m called to do. Um, but I’m serving in a church as a youth pastor for the first time and I’m like, gosh I don’t know. How do I flesh this thing out in community? What do I do? Who do I talk to? Jon Thompson — Yeah, well I would say one of the most significant things is um, back to you know in leadership studies they will say go back and find out how life affected you. So you know, 0 to five, five to ten, ten to 15, 15 to 20, whatever. And they say what books did you read? What podcast you listen to? What major events happen in the world? What never happens is tell me what was prayed over you. Tell me the experiences you had with the Lord. Like no one goes back… Rich Birch — Oh that’s good. Jon Thompson — …and looks for the pattern of dots. You need to do that. If you come from a family of faith, some of you don’t, but lots of us who do, what did Grandma pray over you? What what happened when they found that they were pregnant and they started praying? What what was stated or prayed over you? And then sit with mature Christians and start saying, I think I’m vocationally called, can we sit and pray over this and talk about this? But have the four categories of calling. Because again, 1 Corinthians 4 to me is the passage about this where Paul says you must view us as those who are entrust with the mysteries of Christ and and our stewards of the household of God. And the word steward is wild because the word steward means the one who is a slave but owns nothing, but still in charge. If you don’t know you’re called… Rich Birch — Right. Jon Thompson — …you won’t think you have the authority to lead, and you’ll also forget you own nothing. But to evaluate if you got that position, you’re going to do in community – pastors, friends, leaders. Because if you think you’re called and everyone else says you’re probably not, you need to pay attention. There’s a lot of people and, Rich, you and I know this, there’s a lot of people who went into ministry because they couldn’t hack it somewhere else. And it’s devastating. Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, yeah. Jon Thompson — Because this is not what you get into long term. Rich Birch — No. Jon Thompson — What why be a pastor or leader a faith leader, like being a faith leader now is incredibly personally dangerous. It’s dangerous to your reputation, your family. It’s not great pay. We all know it. And it’s like being a politician these days, but God and the devil’s involved. Who would want that? I don’t. Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, so true. Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. Okay, at you putting down kind of your thoughts at you and you called it out, halfway through your journey, you, you know, you you flagged it. Um, what was, as you pulled this together, what would you say was the hardest part to pull pull together from a kind of a transparency point of view? Felt like, ooh this is the most vulnerable piece of this dialogue. This is the piece that that feels a little bit like, ooh I’m not sure I want to say this. Ah but I know you; you’re a transparent kind of communicator. You want to ah you know let people in. Talk to me about that. Jon Thompson — Yeah, so I started writing this in 2019 just before the pandemic began. So the joke I Rich Birch — Great time. Great time. Jon Thompson — Ah yeah, the joke always is that the world ended because I was writing a book on perseverance and it’s all my fault. Um, yeah, so here’s here’s what happened um, to me while I was writing it. And and the thought process, the theology, the experiential on the ground stuff was there, but I knew that I had to talk about fear in this book. I I knew I had to in 2019. Leading to the pandemic for any of us was terrible. Leading through the pandemic in Toronto was horrific. Rich Birch — Yeah, it was. Yep. Jon Thompson — Um, and there was 5 sort of volcanoes that happened all at once. And so you, know you, anyway there there’s lots that happened here. Rich Birch — Yes. Jon Thompson — And not saying oh our life was worse than yours. I’m just saying our lockdowns were way longer than most of the world. Um, you know the the death of George Floyd the murder of him had massive impact here. A very significant megachurch collapse during um during covid also that affected all of us, that both Rich and I are connected to relationally and historically. Um and then there was all sorts of staff issues that happened, and then on and on and on. So here’s here’s what I would say: I was struck about how much I loved God and how much I didn’t trust him. And um, love and trust are fundamentally two different things. Rich Birch — Oh unpack that. That’s good. That’s good. Jon Thompson — And yeah, so I I love God deeply, deeply. I um I can’t wait to see Jesus. I can’t wait to see him. You know what Paul says in Corinthians, I think it’s 2 Corinthians. You know I think I’m maybe I’m going a misquote, but you know it’s better to be away from the body, at home with the Lord. Like that that’s not true for me every day, but I do love him. I love him more than my wife and kids, and I love them a lot. Um, but I realized that ah, leading during covid and leading for 25 years and being ah, an exegetical preaching type guy who goes through books and doesn’t avoid difficult topics, talking about that and having now a global sort of platform, not just a small little one. And I don’t mean the arrogantly just the influence is wider than it was. I was like, oh crap, I’m actually really vulnerable. Like I I’m really… Jon Thompson — And so what happened was I realized how much fear was inside my head. And and so what I did is I I um I wrote down ah, on notes on my computer every fear in my head… Rich Birch — Oh wow. Jon Thompson — …whether it was logical, whether it was rational. And I suddenly I couldn’t believe how many things about me, my marriage, my identity, my life, my future, life, death, reputation. And see, got to remember too like um because of my upbringing, my parents are awesome, but my mom had horrific post-partum depression so didn’t hold me for six months so there’s attachment issues. My dad clinically burnt out on the mission field. I moved 14 times. I was exposed sexually to stuff way too young, not by them but in other contexts. So you know there’s a presupposition or ah to to abandonment. And then I was like so I love God deeply and I’m a Calvinist, not angry, but I’m a Calvinist. We always, you and I, joke. And so I I have a high view of sovereignty, and a high view of God’s glory. Jon Thompson — And I said to God, so I’ve read my bible and I’m under no illusion that I get out okay. And I’ve I’ve read church history and I’ve been to 40 countries… Rich Birch — Right. Jon Thompson — …I’m under no illusion that Christianity equals safety. Rich Birch — Right. Jon Thompson — And then I was like, oh my goodness so I am so afraid. And then I said to the Lord, and actually I don’t know if you’ll have my back. I know you’ve got it at the resurrection. and I know you’ve called me. But wonder if you destroy me in the middle because it brings you glory. And I was like I and it just it just fro… it just froze me. It just it just undid me. And so, I think what I’ve realized is. There is doesn’t matter your personality, background, even to what theological way you ebb. The amount of fear that sits in leaders lives is just exponential. It’s our our families are no different than anyone else’s. And then we have, you know, the pressures of leading in the twenty first in 2023 with social media, and automatic responses, and all this stuff. But then there’s all the soul stuff and that can I keep my soul going at the pace I’m supposed to be leading at. Jon Thompson — And so just to end this part, what happened was I started realizing Romans 5 says that the Holy Spirit is the love of God poured out in my heart. And then I realized that Paul said in Ephesians 3 that we can know the unknowable love of God which is paradox. So I started saying to the Holy Spirit, if you’re the love of the Father already in me. And I can know an unknowable thing. And perfect love casts out fear, which that means you’re the one who casts out fear, that I have to start inviting you systematically… Rich Birch — To do that. Wow. Jon Thompson — …into the fear, each one of them, and say to them, are you going to destroy me? And even if you say yes, what am I going to do with that? Rich Birch — Hmm. Jon Thompson — Massive. And not done by the way, Rich. Rich Birch — Yeah, I was going to say that that feels like a lifelong journey though. That feels like a, you know, second half ah journey. Let’s let’s pivot in ah in a slightly different direction, obviously related. So I um, when I think about the gifts of the spirit, when I think about um, you know the fruits of the spirit, you know, things the power side, I often think of you, and you’ve shaped my thinking on this front in a bunch. And I got thinking about this this whole area of our gifting and then the place we bring to it from like, you know, that we have to invest in growing what God has given us, or invest in the skills that we have. You know, you’re a gifted communicator. I put you and I use that word very specifically. God has gifted you as a teacher. You’re and I I think of that from a like the results are greater than the input. I think what you do is really good. But man, when you speak God uses you. But there’s a part of this that you have to keep working on, that you have to keep saying like I’ve got to invest in that. I’ve got to spend time there. It’s not just magical. It’s not just like, hey God’s given you this and it’s it’s magical. Here you are halfway through your your ministry career. How are you thinking about that – areas of gifting and then your need to continue to invest in those things. How does how does that how do those interplay with each other? Jon Thompson — Yeah, so I’m going to start um I’m going to start in one angle and end up in the other, as you know I will. Rich Birch — Love it. Jon Thompson — So ah I think one of the most important ways to persevere longterm, and I want to qualify this. I’m not saying I’m going to make it. As I get going here. Rich Birch — Right. Jon Thompson — Like I’m only 48. Rich Birch — Yep. Jon Thompson — Ah the scriptures are clear only 30% of leaders make it to the end well. And church history tells us the same. So the stats aren’t great for us. Lord, have mercy. Christ is mercy, as our Anglican brothers and sisters say. Rich Birch — Amen. Jon Thompson — But here’s here’s one of the other things that helped me in and around gifts and perseverance, and then I’ll get to the craft. One of the most freeing things for me, which I’ve shared with you before, is actually hearing God’s no before his yes. And I think most North American leaders have been taught, you can do basically anything if you work harder. And I say it’s a lie. It’s a total lie. And actually as I interview leaders that have fallen or walked away, almost all of them talk about this expectation dream they had of what ministry would look like. And when it didn’t culminate into that expectation, They say either God lied, I didn’t hear him, the devil’s too strong, or I was never called, and it breaks. Romans 12, which is actually ah a passage about spiritual gifts. Most people only preach the first 2 verses. Just keep going everyone. Keep going. Right? Rich Birch — Yes. Jon Thompson — Paul not only talks about the sovereign assignment of gifts. In other words, it’s not a buffet – he chooses what you get, which by the way, a lot of leaders need to humble themselves and really have that conversation. There’s also this phrase – he says, the measure of grace. And so the implication is I not only don’t get to choose what spiritual gift I get, he determines how much influence behind that gift I get. So I always use the illustration of like a river and there’s riverbanks. In other words, you can’t surpass the sovereign decision of where the river banks are, no matter how much you work on your craft. Jon Thompson — So if let’s say there’s four people with the gift of teaching and they’re all sovereignly gifted. The Spirit of God might give one a creek of influence, or to use charismatic word, anointing or baptist umph, whatever. Right? Right? So a creek. Someone might have a river. Someone might have a major river. Someone might have an ocean. All four of them have the same gift. But if the person with the creek believes they should have the ocean and they’ve never asked if God’s going to give them the ocean, they’ll think they’ll get the ocean if they work hard enough, and they won’t, and then they’ll think they’ve failed. So I say to leaders all the time, no matter how long just ask God: What gifts do I have? What gifts will I never have? And the real question actually ask, people, is please ask God what you will never have in influence. So you can actually base your ministry excitement and dreams in God’s no. Because then you can rest. Rich Birch — Right. Stop pursuing that. Yeah. Jon Thompson — You can… Because so many of us don’t rest because we still believe this thing’s going to happen, or we’re gonna accomplish this thing. And if you sat with a group of honest friends, they’re like that is never going to happen because you’re not even spiritually gifted that way. And have you asked God’s no. So the reason why I’m saying this to your question is, for me, God’s no… I know what gifts I don’t have and I’ve also been told by the Lord what influence I’ll never have. Rich Birch — Right. Jon Thompson — So every time I’m tempted to look over like Peter did to John after his restoration, say but what about John? Jesus goes, what a business is that is what, what, what? I’m, why are you looking at that leader with that platform or that… Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. Jon Thompson — I’m talking to you. So that’s free. And then once I know the limitations, then it is just the due diligence of doing that work consistently. The 10,000 principle is still true in the natural sense of getting better, getting feedback, learning through it. But the heart of the victory is not the working on the craft. It’s actually knowing where if it’s a spiritual gift, not a natural or acquired gift, and deeper than that, knowing when God has said no to me. It’s… Rich Birch — That’s good. Jon Thompson — It’s revolutionary. I tried to do 80% of my ministry only in spiritual gifts. Rich Birch — Right. Dude, that’s that right there… I hope you were listening, friends. Ah you know there there could be, particularly if you’re a younger leader, listen in, rewind what Jon just said. Go back and ask the Lord where what is his no for you. Man, I think that is a great ah, great word. Rich Birch — Again, pivoting in a totally different direction. Not really about your book, but I just value your thinking on this and I want to keep, you know, asking these kinds of questions. So for folks that don’t know Sanctus’ is history, you mentioned this on the front end, you know, Sanctus at one point in our part of the world was like middle of the bell curve um you know, attractional like they did the skits like Willow kind of church. like that was the church. Um, and that’s not the case today. And the church has ah has I think is a forefront leader in providing, or providing is the wrong word, cultivating accessible encounters with God in a way that is accessible to people who in a culture that is maybe post-christian, pre-christian or like you said cultivating pagan today. I thought wow that’s an interesting that’s an interesting phrase. Um talk to us about accessible encounters. Because I see this happening all over the place. Rich Birch — I see I see churches that came from the attractional background saying, hey, if people just show up and find us. There’s a problem because that if it’s just about us, that’s a problem – that’s not good. And then the same I would say churches that are more on the charismatic side are saying we need this to be accessible. We need this to actually reach people outside of our our doors. It can’t just be about creating a great kind of holy huddle here. Talk to us about accessible encounter. What should we be thinking about? How should we be leading in that in our areas? And I realize I asked that with like two minutes left… Jon Thompson — Yeah. Rich Birch — …but you know, take our time. What what what… Let’s let’s unpack that a little bit. Jon Thompson — Yeah, I think one of the best ways to talk about this is we’ve based our discipleship and our evangelism not in class but in encounter. And so what we did is we took a lot of time to read through the scriptures and asked a question. And the question is, where does God say he will be encountered beyond omnipresence? So the phraseology we use here all the time is, where does God move from omnipresence to palpability? And interestingly, ah the when the gospel is shared, the life death and resurrection of Jesus is shared, that’s… Ah you know, gathered worship, communion, baptism – there’s all these areas. And we would say like for example at communion, we don’t think he’s in the elements. We we don’t have a Catholic perspective but we don’t also have the historic Baptist perspective, it’s bare memorialism. We would say he’s at the table. He’s not in the elements. Jon Thompson — But what happened was when we started being honest about what the scripture said where he was. We started saying to our people, he’s actually here because he says he is. Right when that happened, the whole church changed. Because then people said, oh my goodness I’m going to meet the living Jesus. And the whole spiritual atmosphere of the church changed. Because we started using phrases like this is a guaranteed place of encounter. And then you know this, in our context regularly we talk to seekers, skeptics, people from other faiths. Like we don’t just say seeker – I can’t stand when churches say, hey if you’re a seeker here today. I’m like don’t presume they’re a seeker. Rich Birch — Right. Jon Thompson — There are seekers among us, and there are skeptics, and there are people from other faiths, and there are spiritual people, and agnostics, and atheists – we call them all out in our services. And we invite them also to encounter, but encounter through repentance. And so I would say when you start teaching your whole community where guaranteed places of encounter are, and the expectations reorient themselves biblically, suddenly the atmosphere of the church moves from programmatic understanding to encounter. Jon Thompson — So spiritual gifts is one of those like we talked about. I think that builds such longevity. But then you have to and as we’re literally ending, then you have to have a theology of disciplines and gifts, and you also have to think through how you ah, not only invite into encounter, but how you interpret. One of the biggest problems we’ve got in multiple churches is that they don’t have an understanding of spiritual theology. Spiritual theology is the systematic evaluation of spiritual experiences from a biblical worldview. If you can’t do that, then you can’t invite encounter. Most of us want to dismiss encounter or experience because it’s too complicated and we’re trying to run a church. But the role of pastors and leaders is not to dismiss encounter. It’s actually to interpret the source of it – God, Satan, the tacos from last night, mental illness, or too much Netflix. That’s our responsibility. And when it’s from the Lord then we have to start saying that’s important. And for some of you more conservative living out there, maybe a little passing throwing of a grenade as I end. Don’t presume weird is wrong. Weird is weird. The question is what’s the source of the weird. And remember weird is cultural. Just want to say that. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s so good. Rich Birch — Yeah, Jon there’s a lot there, and you know I appreciate your I would really encourage people to follow you, follow what you’re doing. This is one of the books you’ve written, you’ve written. Ah you know others that touch on some of that stuff in a deeper ah way. But I you know I just value your leadership and in so many ways. And again just want to honor you, thank you for for being here today. Um, if people want to pick up this current book. So this is “Perseverance: Fifteen Reflections on Christian Ministry at the Halfway Point –– An Invitation to Make It to the Finish Line Well –– Oh God, Help”, um, which which I love. I like that’s a fantastic title. Obviously you can get it at Amazon. Are there other places we want, and we’ll link to it in the show notes, but where do we want to send people online if they want to pick it up? Jon Thompson — Yeah, yeah, anyone can you can grab that anywhere on Amazon and any Amazon store globally. If in United States you can get it digitally and physically through Barnes and Noble. If you’re in Canada and you want a virtual copy, like we got it on Kobo, Kindle, all those places. Yeah. Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. And you know, what I, to be honest, friends, when I I had got a chance to see ah a early copy of this and I thought, man, this would be a great gift for teams to do together. Like let’s actually have this conversation. You know, this a great time of year to be thinking about, Okay, what are we doing next quarter. Let’s buy a bunch of copies of these books and read them together as a team and then say let’s talk about these in relation to our ministry, and where we’re at. I think, personally, I think, Jon, you’ve done a a favor here to leadership teams to really spur some really next level conversations with our with our people. So I I would strongly encourage people that are listening in to pick up. Don’t pick up one copy, just buy a bunch for your whole team and and go through it together. Jon, I’m going to give you the final words here. Anything else you want to say just as we close off today’s episode? Jon Thompson — Yeah, all I would like to say is if you are considering Christian leadership, if you are a Christian leader, or you’ve been a Christian leader, I just want to encourage you marathon not sprint. And keep being faithful. At the end of the day, everyone, when we see Jesus face to face, we’re going to want to give him everything. Just don’t don’t forget in the middle of the social media and the politics and the board stuff and the people and the pressures and the fear and the questions. Um, when you see him, you’ll want to give him everything. So don’t give in and don’t give up. Rich Birch — Thanks so much, Jon. If people want to track with you online or with the church, where do we want to send them? Jon Thompson — Ah, Instagram @pastorjon_T, sanctuschurch.com and then just because inundation jonthompsonresources.com that’s J-O-N. That’s got all the books, the sermons, and everything. It’s just it’s a place to have all the things. Rich Birch — Yeah, totally. Great. Thanks so much, Jon. Appreciate being here. Always a great and come back anytime. I’d love to have you back on in the future. Jon Thompson — Thanks, Rich.

This episode tackles a critical yet often overlooked aspect of church services: announcements. Far from being mere placeholders, announcements have the potential to drive engagement within your church significantly. We start with a relatable discussion on why church announcements typically induce eye rolls rather than enthusiasm. Recognizing this issue is the first step towards transformation. Learn about this potentially game-changing approach that focuses on reducing the number of announcements while enhancing their quality and relevance. This strategy is all about making announcements a pivotal part of church engagement. Five-Step Process for Focusing Your Announcements Time Plan with Purpose // Select a strategic three-month period to focus your announcement efforts. Engage Stakeholders // Bring together departmental leads to align on announcement priorities. Optimize Messaging // Use a collaborative session to decide on one or two key messages for each week. Create a Calendar // Develop and refine an announcement calendar based on stakeholder input. Implement and Evaluate // Firm up plans and adjust based on feedback, setting the stage for continuous improvement. The episode emphasizes the goal of moving congregants from passive listeners to active participants, highlighting the crucial role announcements play in this transition. Listeners will gain practical strategies to make their church’s announcements more impactful, turning a traditionally dull moment into an opportunity for meaningful connection and action. Transforming your church’s announcements from eye rolls to engagement is not just about changing the content but about changing the approach. It’s a shift towards strategic, intentional communication that resonates and motivates. Tune in to learn how to elevate your church’s announcements from mere information sharing to a dynamic engagement tool. Discover the power of intentional announcements and see how they can help foster a more vibrant, involved church community. Let’s embark on this journey together, from eye rolls to engagement, one announcement at a time.

Thanks for joining us at the unSeminary podcast. We have Jon Delger with us today, the Executive Pastor at Peace Church in Michigan—one of the fastest growing churches in the country.  Whether your church is growing a little or a lot, change to the people making up your church will change your culture. How can you protect your church’s DNA and reinforce culture during growth? Tune in as Jon shares best practices for guarding and building your church’s culture among your staff and congregation as you grow. Face the challenges. // Peace Church has experienced remarkable growth in the last three years, more than doubling in size and expanding to two locations in Michigan. Despite the many challenges that come with rapid expansion, such as space constraints and the need for additional services, protecting our church culture is the most important problem we’ll face during growth. Clearly communicate. // Every new person at our churches brings a unique set of beliefs and expectations that can influence the church’s dynamics. The key is to integrate these individuals while maintaining the church’s distinct identity. To protect their culture at Peace Church, they have implemented strategic steps in the assimilation process to communicate the culture clearly. From newcomers’ lunches to membership classes, they ensure that each step reinforces the church’s core values. Be honest about fit. // At membership classes Jon and his team talk about who they are and what it’s like to be a part of the Peace Church family. Rather than pushing people towards membership, they address reasons why Peace Church might not be the right fit for some, directing them to other great churches in the area. This level of honesty and clarity is crucial in building a cohesive community. Three key parts. // There are three key parts of the Peace Church membership class: theology, ministry philosophy, and commitments of being a member. In theology they talk about what Peace Church believes about the bible and hot-button cultural issues. Ministry philosophy talks about the church’s size and what people can expect. Membership commitments talk about giving and serving in the church and what’s expected of members. Have a distinct hiring process. // With attendance growth, a church also needs to grow its staff. Jon emphasizes the need for a clear and distinct hiring process in order to vet who joins our teams and protect our cultures from rapid change. Peace Church has a hiring process that begins with a phone screening and then a minimum of two in-person interviews. The final interview is with Jon and the lead pastor, at which point they’re only asking culture questions. Onboarding, developing, and improving. // After hiring, Peace Church uses three processes for staff management: onboarding, leadership development, and a performance improvement process. In addition, one-on-one meetings are the cornerstone of staff management at Peace Church and have been instrumental in maintaining a thriving church culture. Care, clear, and coach. // Jon has provided us with a PDF that offers best-practices for effectively leading one-on-one meetings with staff. At Peace Church they recommend that the one-on-one is twice a month and includes three aspects: care, clear, and coach. We need to spend time caring for our direct reports, make sure tasks and priorities are clear and understandable, and offer leadership development to team members through coaching. You can learn more about Peace Church at www.peacechurch.cc and download the 1:1 Meeting Guide here. Thank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Well, hey, everybody, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Super excited that you’re tuned-in. Really looking forward to today’s conversation. I’ve been looking forward to it for a while. Jon Delger with us, Delger is with us today from Peace Church. He’s executive pastor. You know we love executive pastors here at unSeminary. Peace Church is a, get this, gospel-centered, family-focused, kingdom-minded church—love that. It’s also one of the fastest-growing churches in the country. They have more than doubled in recent years. They have two locations in Michigan. I know I’m going to love this because Michigan is not the kind of place that you say, you know what? There’s a place where churches grow fast. So super-excited to have Jon on the the call with us today. Jon, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here. Jon Delger — Thank you, Rich. Appreciate it. My honor to be here. Rich Birch — Yeah, sorry for flubbing your name there too. You know, right off the top. Jon Delger — Oh hey, it’s all good. It’s all good. Rich Birch — Jon, fill in the picture, if people were to arrive at peace church this weekend, what would they experience? Kind of give us a sense of the church, kind of fill in the the the painting there a little bit for us. Jon Delger — Yeah, definitely. Ah, the main thing they’d experience is a church that loves Jesus, that loves the bible, ah that preaches it loud and clear. That’s the main thing that we talk about at Peace… Rich Birch — Love it. Jon Delger — …and that we would attribute our growth to. God has just been doing an amazing work. Especially the last three years we’ve been 30% growth year every year… Rich Birch — Amazing. Jon Delger — …for 3 years straight now. Just the grace of God. Rich Birch — That’s amazing. Jon Delger — It’s not it’s not me it’s not our our other leaders. It’s just the Lord is doing something amazing and we’re humbled to be part of it each week. So, yeah, we we’re we’re hovering around 2000 people or so on Sunday mornings at our main campus, and then we just launched this fall our first secondary campus. And actually our vision is to plant campuses that become churches, independent churches, over the course of 3 to 5 years. Rich Birch — So cool. Jon Delger — And so we’ve actually launched out a guy who preaches live every Sunday there. Um, so we do full live worship and preaching and all of that at the secondary campus, and that’s been going great. So. Rich Birch — Love it. So good. Well I know um, you know, the fact that you’re growing at 30% a year, that’s that’s incredible. That’s amazing growth rate. That is, you know, puts you in super rare air across the country. Just to kind of, you know, calibrate that for folks that are listening in. So um, less than 5% of churches make it over 1000 people. Less than half a percent of people make it over 2000 people. And you know, even rare air are growing at that rate. So super honored that you would take some time to to talk with us today to help us understand a little bit about what God’s using um, and to hear more of the peace church story – pumped for that. Rich Birch — But I know it sounds great, having worked and and led in actually multiple churches that have grown like that. It sounds great from the outside, but on the inside, it’s a lot of work. It’s a lot to kind of keep all those plates spinning. And I’d love to talk a little bit about that. You know, when you when we we think about growing, you think about, Okay, what, you know, how do how do we sustain that? What how do we going what would be some of the kind of pain points, the pressures you’re experiencing um in with that kind of growth? What are some of that what’s that look like for you, particularly from your seat as executive pastor? Jon Delger — Yeah, definitely. So we all we often say here that we’ve got lots of problems, but they’re good problems. And so we’re so thankful to be blessed with the challenges we have… Rich Birch — Um, gold plated problems. Yeah. Jon Delger — …but they are definitely. That’s right, They are definitely problems, challenges. Rich Birch — Yeah. Jon Delger — Ah, there’s all kinds of um I mean physical space is one that we’re facing right now we just um just wrapped up a capital campaign and are doing a building project here on the main campus. We opened that second campus, we’ve been doing the video venue thing, just to just to create enough space. Rich Birch — Right. Jon Delger — We actually created some dirt parking up up in our grass field next to the church just because we’re running out of parking every Sunday. Ah so so the space is one of the issues, but I would say if you had to take all the issues that we face and talk about what’s the most important one. What’s the heart of it, the center of it? I would say it’s protecting our culture as a church… Rich Birch — Okay, yeah. Jon Delger — …um as a whole church and especially as a staff. Rich Birch — Okay. Jon Delger — You know, even if, you know, whether you’re growing a lot or whether you’re growing a little bit, any kind of change to the people in your church changes your culture. Right? That’s that’s just kind of how that works. You bring in these people who have a different DNA, a different set of expectations, a different even theology. You know, um at Peace we’ve just been growing by people from all different tribes. So there’s plenty of people coming that are secular – they don’t have a church background. Or actually in West Michigan one of the most common stories we hear is, yeah I grew up in church, but I haven’t been back in 10, 20, 30 years… Rich Birch — Right. Jon Delger — …and now I’m just coming back to church. Or there’s a lot of I would say our primary demographic at Peace is people who, you know, maybe grew up going to church but haven’t been since high school. And now they’re in their late twenties, early thirties, they got kids… Rich Birch — Right. Jon Delger — …and they’re like, that’s right I grew up going to Sunday school and now I want my kids to have that experience. Rich Birch — Right. Jon Delger — So they’re coming back, but they’ve got all these different backgrounds there. We’ve got lots of, from Catholic backgrounds, or Baptist, or Reformed, Non-denom, um, Presbyterian, you know, or no church background. Just all these different people with different theology, different expectations, different sense of what does my pastor do? All those different kind of expectations and just trying to figure out: how do we make sure that we protect who we are and actually bring people into a culture, not just a church that doesn’t have a distinct identity. Rich Birch — Oh that’s so good. Just to underline that for our listeners. You know, you rattled off all kinds of logistical, practical, you know, new parking, video venues, you know, keeping up with kids space, you know, raising money – all of that kind of stuff to try to keep on top of it. And I I don’t want you to miss this, listeners. Rich Birch — You know, what you came back to ultimately was something that could seem really soft, like oh, we got to protect our culture. Like um, but that just is not, you know we see this time and again with fast-growing churches – that actually at the end of the day if we want to continue to sustain our growth, a part of what we’ve got to do is get really clear on our culture. We’ve got to be, you know, rabid about it. We’ve got to clarify it. We’ve got to keep it in front of our people. We have to keep thinking about it. Sometimes it’s like rearticulating it. So let’s unpack that a little bit. How what when you when you talk about, you know, protecting your culture, um, what does that look like for you? How have you had to do that as a leadership team? Jon Delger — Yeah, definitely. So we try to make it a part of just about everything that we do. Um, we especially look at each step in the assimilation process. So when somebody comes into Peace Church, you know, what are the steps that they take, and how do we make sure each of those steps very clearly communicates our culture? Jon Delger — So for us, um, the first step in the assimilation process after you’ve, you know, come, checked in, maybe met somebody, you know, done the follow-up process via text and that kind of thing. The first event that we push everybody to is we’ve called it two different things. We’ve called it, sometimes we’ve called it The Newcomers Lunch. Or recently we’re calling it Meet the Pastors. It’s got a little bit more of a down-home church family kind of feel to it. Jon Delger — And so at that event, people come, and we usually have 3 or 4 of our pastors there. And they have lunch and, you know, we go around as pastors and just sit with people, talk with people. And then about halfway through the event we get up and sit behind microphones and we have a moderator. We just do so kind of some Q and A. We have some prepared ones. And then we let the group ask questions. But what we make sure and do is we make sure as pastors that we just come back to some of the core things that make Peace Church Peace Church. We talk about, you know, what is our, you know, what is it that makes us unique and distinct. So that’s one of the tactics we use. Jon Delger — The next step in the assimilation process is the membership class. And for us that’s a huge – that’s the point… So I think I’ve been a part of churches in the past where the membership class is the place where you try to convince people to stay at your church, and and I get that. I get that mentality. I understand, you know, where that comes from. But for us we actually spend that class kind of talk about maybe why you shouldn’t be at Peace Church. Rich Birch — Right, yeah. Jon Delger — We we open by saying, hey, we’re just here—we repeat this throughout the class—hey, we’re just here to tell you about who we are and what it’s like to be a part of this church family. And if that’s not a fit for you, that’s totally okay. There’s other great churches around. We’re not the only ones who preach the bible around here. Um, and we actually I actually usually name a couple of other churches that are good bible preaching churches, but are different than us in size, or in style or and things like that. Jon Delger — Um, yeah, but we just tried to be really clear, hey if you came, you know, and you thought, man, I want to be a part of this church, but I really wish this church did nothing but sing hymns. Well, hey, we love you, but we’re not changing. We’re, you know, we’re committed to what we’re doing, and that’s going to stay the way it is. And so if that’s not a fit for you, that’s okay. Rich Birch — Rght. Jon Delger — So those are some of the main things that we that we do. We just try to be really clear. This is who we are. It’s not changing. We’d love to have you part of this church family if that fits for you. But if it doesn’t, then hey, there’s other places you can go. Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. I um, you know for years I had a a friend of mine who in those contexts, he would say something I would actually would explicitly say that. He would like, hey… So let’s say he was a leader at Peace Church. He would say, if you’re if you come to the end of this conversation and you’ve said, you know, I really love Peace Church, but I wish…and then insert whatever. He would say, tell me what you would insert in there. I wish, like you say, you sang more music, you were more Charismatic, you were whatever, that whatever that thing is…and let me help but you find a church that is that. Because what I what we’re looking for is we need people who are fully engaged on mission with us. Rich Birch — Now when you when you talk about some of those distinctives, what’ll be some of those things you come back to that that are you would say got a bit of an edge to it, that would say, oh I’m not sure I’m really, you know, um, but people may not stay over this. They they, you know, we always think about culture stuff that’s like oh hey, this is great. But what are the things that might actually encourage someone that maybe they should look somewhere else? What’ll be some of those things… Jon Delger — Yeah. Rich Birch — …that you articulate that kind of push people to make that kind of step? Jon Delger — Yeah. Yeah. Our progression in our class we kind of we say that we kind of have three, three key parts of the membership class. We talk about theology, then we talk about our ministry philosophy, and then we talk about ah the commitments of being a member. So so in each of those we try to hit a few different things. So in theology, we talk first and foremost about how Peace Church believes in the inerrancy of the bible. It’s true. It doesn’t have any errors in it. It’s from God. And so. And then we talk about some of the outworkings of that. We talk about sexuality. We talk about gender. Um, we talk about just all kinds of different, any kind of hot cultural issue and we just say, this is where we’re at loud and clear. Um and we just try to be super abundantly clear about those things. We try to draw these are these are some people that might disagree with us and this is how. I can get more into some of the theological specifics if you want. But ah Ministry philosophy-wise we we talk largely about church size because that’s new for us, because we’ve been growing so much. Rich Birch — Right. Jon Delger — We talk about, hey you know, if you came expecting to be able to get your lead pastor on the phone in ah in a heartbeat, then hey, this might not be the place for you… Rich Birch — Right, right. Jon Delger — …or you’ve got to change your expectations. Rich Birch — Right. Jon Delger — You know, we have a ah several different pastors. We also have elders that do a great job of caring. Their emails are right on the website. You know, there are people that are there to care for you and love you. But the lead pastor you’re not going to be able to get them on the phone quickly. Rich Birch — Right, right. Jon Delger — Um, so I talk about that. I’ll also talk about just some of the um some things that people aren’t maybe used to in a larger church, such as just how structured and organized we are. You know, we have to be pretty strict with how we do things. Um, which means that, you know, most most ministries are led by staff rather than volunteers. Um, but so I give I give usually an apologetic kind of explanation of how actually having staff-led ministries leads do more volunteer involvement, not less. Rich Birch — Yep, yep. Jon Delger — So that’s one big thing I talk about in the philosophy part. When we get to the last part, talking about membership commitments. We’ve used Thom Thom Rainer membership book before. We’ve had people read that. That does a good job. We talk about giving. We talk about, hey we believe that the tithe, 10 percent, is what should be going to the local church. That that’s not a, we don’t get legalistic about it. You know the bible doesn’t say that explicitly, clearly the new testament, but we say hey we believe that the tithe is the biblical minimum, and that it should go to the local church. Rich Birch — Right. Jon Delger — And if you want to give to other things, that’s awesome, but that should be on top of that. Um talk about how you must serve. Hey, if you’re not here to be involved in serving, then we might not be the right church for you… Rich Birch — Right. Jon Delger — …because we, you know, we invite members to be involved. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. I love all that. That’s that’s so good. I love love, talk is through kind of even practically so I understand that kind of meet meet the pastors. That’s has a high relational edge. This is one of the things we’ve seen, again, friends, as churches grow you actually have to work harder on the relational side of what we do. You have to be way more intentional about that. And so I love that. And then going into membership class, how long is membership class? Is that like multiple weeks? Is it one class, literally one unit, or is it like, you know, five weeks, or how does how does all that work? Jon Delger — Right. We’ve played with different different lengths. Two to three weeks has been our our norm. So right now we’re at two weeks and that’s mostly because of kind of some practical reasons with the church calendar. Ah three weeks I think was probably better – that was probably the right place to be in terms of the membership class itself, but you got to balance that across other things going on. Um, so we’ve done it either as um, as a 3-hour thing, or a kind of 2-hour thing. And we’ve offered it sometimes we’ve offered it um on Sunday morning during one of our three worship services. Sometimes we’ve offered it as a Saturday morning thing. Other times we’ve done it as a couple of evenings. So we’ve done it a few different ways. Rich Birch — Um, okay, that’s cool. Now are there any other kind of steps in the assimilation process that you you find that actually continuing to stay focused on the the DNA, or the culture of the church is, you know, is effective or important? Jon Delger — Yeah, I would say another key one, and and normally you wouldn’t think of this as a part of the overall church assimilation process. But for me, it’s critical and that is our hiring process for staff. Rich Birch — Oh yeah, for sure. Jon Delger — Um, you know with growing in attendance, you’ve also got to grow your staff. And so yeah, our staff has increased enormously over the last few years. And you know if we weren’t protecting who it is that comes on our staff, then we’re to our cultures going to change rapidly. So our hiring process has been very clear and distinct. Um, you know we do kind of the typical things you think of. We do a phone screen and then we do a minimum of two interviews for anybody, even if they’ve been at the church for 20 years, um, minimum of the interviews. Jon Delger — The final interview is with ah with myself and the lead pastor – lead pastor, executive pastor. And by the time they get to that point, we’re asking only culture questions. Ah so, you know, we assume that talent and all that kind of stuff has been evaluated by this point. But they’re coming and they sit down. And I usually give them a speech um a little speech about a few different distinct aspects of the Peace staff culture. So I usually say—I’ll rattle them real quickly—I say hey, ah the the, you know, the Peace staff culture one one key point is that we are hopelessly optimistic. You may have been a part of other workplaces where people get cynical about initiatives that management bring. But here we say that we are hopelessly optimistic. When the lead pastor or the executive pasture get up and say here’s where we’re going, we’re going to take that hill. Nobody rolls their eyes and says yeah, that’s that’s cute. That’s the the initiative of the week. Everybody says, awesome! We’re doing that. Rich Birch — Right. Let’s go. Yeah. Jon Delger — Um and it gets done because the whole team believes in it. Rich Birch — Right. Jon Delger — Um, yeah, one of the things I say is that we are scrappy and stretchy. Rich Birch — Oh that’s good. Jon Delger — So those are kind of kind of kind of cheesy words for me, but you know so in our location we’re outside of the city. We’re in a little bit more of a country area um sort of on the the outside of the city. And so, you know, resources, financial resources are not quite as readily available as they would be in other parts of our area. I mean I’m not complaining – the Lord’s blessed us abundantly. Rich Birch — Yeah. Jon Delger — But we’re just not one of those churches that has lots of money… Rich Birch — Right. Jon Delger — …sitting around. You know we are blessed. We have what we need. Um but you know I know of other churches that are our size and they’re actually asking the question, how do we spend all this money that God’s given us? That’s not really the question we ask. Rich Birch — That’s not your problem. Jon Delger — Yeah, yeah. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Jon Delger — So so I tell our staff, hey guys we’re scrappy… Rich Birch — Right. Jon Delger — …which means that we’re the underdog in the fight. You know, we have the resources God’s given us and we’re going to use them to the absolute maximum that we possibly can. Rich Birch — Right, right. Jon Delger — And then we’re stretchy in the sense that things are always changing and adapting, and you got used to that. We joke a lot about our office space. We make offices out of closets. We’ve got we’ve got 40 people on staff right now, and I think we’ve got probably what should be about offices for maybe 12. Rich Birch — Sure.. Jon Delger — So I mean we just are packing everybody in whatever space they can go… Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Jon Delger — …and moving them all the time Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. We went through a similar phase where our lead pastor would joke. He would say this felt like the election campaign season of officing, like it was like we were our offices had that kind of like yeah, everybody’s just everywhere. You know, we, you know, even the idea of we had an office felt kind of like, okay you’re really stretching it. We have rooms where lots of people are packed into. But yeah, I love that. Jon Delger — Totally. Rich Birch — Yeah I think that’s great on the hiring piece. The other interesting thing too, I wonder, is um, are you seeing the dynamic…there’s this weird interesting dynamic that shifts that as the church grows, there was a time where you were just like amazed that people wanted to work for you. It is like, oh my goodness, people want to be on our team. Jon Delger — Yeah. Rich Birch — That’s amazing. But then if you stay there, you’ll end up hiring people you shouldn’t hire. And what happens is eventually you have to change that polarity, and I find you have to discount their enthusiasm for working for you. You have to discount that in the conversation. It’s like, okay, that’s fine; I’m glad you’re excited, but we have to get to will, you know, will, you know, will you actually line up with our team culture, you know, performance, all that. Jon Delger — Totally. Rich Birch — Let’s stick with the staff thing for a second. What about on the other side someone gets hired and I’m sure this is purely theoretical, but let’s say you have someone who maybe is not aligning with the culture. You’re struggling to get them to kind of um, you know, align with what’s happening at the church. What does that process look like? How are you kind of helping people stay connected, stay plugged into the the mission, the vision. What is it God’s called Peace Church to look like? Jon Delger — Yeah, yeah. So formally we have ah sort of three processes. One is our onboarding process that we put people through. Another one would be our leader development process. And these second two, not everybody goes through them, but we use them as needed. And then the final one, of course, is the um the PIP process… Rich Birch — Yep. Jon Delger — …performance improvement process, which we hope for people not to land in, but they do sometimes. We try to do that well. So onboarding-wise um we use a few resources. We use ah The Ideal Team Player – we use that book, and so we walk every new staff member in their first ninety days. They either read that book or read I wrote a short so like a 4-page summary of it, so they have the option they can just read the summary if they want. And then they discuss that with their supervisor and what that looks like. And we also do quarterly we do a presentation on one aspect of ideal team player. So we use that just to kind of… Rich Birch — Oh that’s cool. Jon Delger — …try to keep us on track and keep that as normal, everyday language of our staff. Rich Birch — Is that like at your all-staff meetings, like it just it’s inserted… Jon Delger — Yes. Rich Birch — …in that month’s all-team kind of thing – here, we’re talking about this? Jon Delger — Yeah, we do we do what we call Staff Chapel twice a month. Rich Birch — Okay, yep. Jon Delger — Um, and so one of those presentations is ideal team player. Yeah, um. Yeah, and then yeah, just kind of the normal leader development process, especially with our upper level leaders, we try to just always be talking about who we are, and what it’s like to be part of the Peace staff and our culture, and just try to have I mean the way I kind of visualize is that we try to have a thick enough culture, it’s it’s sort of you could reach out and grab it in the air that it deters people or or um galvanizes people. You know, it either it either makes it really clear that they are supposed to be part of this, or that they’re not supposed to be part of this. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. Well I I would assume I know that a part of this too is just even how you engage in kind of one-on-one meetings with your people. You provided a great resource for us here. This is a template to think about how to effectively lead ah, one-on-one conversations. Talk us through what do one-on-ones look like within Peace Church. How how do what’s the normal rhythm?You know, ah, what do what are your what do you tell tell your team to expect? Or what do you tell your managers to they’re required to have one-on-ones… Jon Delger — Yeah. Rich Birch — …and then let’s dive into this this particular resource. So helpful for folks. Jon Delger — Yeah. Yeah, I hope it’s helpful to people. Um, it’s it’s been helpful for us just to clarify across the board what does a one-on-one meeting look like. And so what we say in it is that um, it’s the bread and bread and butter of meetings at Peace Church – that the one-on-one is where real work kind of happens between supervisor and staff member. We recommend that they’re twice a month, not every week we recommend. They’re 45 to 60 minutes long. And then I’ve given this as a presentation, and it’s in the document as well, but we talk about three aspects: care, clear, and coach. Jon Delger — So care. You’re supposed to spend some time caring for your staff member. And I often say, you know, yeah we put we publish this document to the whole staff. So on the one hand, you know, that your supervisor is required to care for you. But I hope, you know, that that actually also comes from their heart. Rich Birch — Sure. Jon Delger — I say that to my my direct reports. I do care about you. We put it on paper because I want to make sure it happens, and we don’t ever forget about it. Rich Birch — Yes, yeah. Jon Delger — But I do care about you. I care what’s going on in your family and your personal life as well as professional. Jon Delger — Then clear is kind of the to me it’s got kind of a dual meaning of on the one hand you’re kind of clearing the table,, clearing the things that um, that need to be checked off. But also you’re making sure things are clear, understandable, clarity. And so we use Asana as our project management management software. And so every meeting uses an Asana project and so we walk right through it. And so we um, you know, we check off things that we discuss or that we accomplished. We make notes in the comment section. We add subtasks. So that’s kind of the bulk of the meeting is you got your laptop out and we’re just walking through what are the discussions we need to have, and then writing down decisions we’ve made… Rich Birch — Love it. Jon Delger — …which is, you know, so we don’t get to the next one-to-one meeting and it’s like, hey last meeting we talked about this, but what in the world did we decide to do? And we try to avoid that… Rich Birch — Yes, yeah. Jon Delger — …by by making records, and setting tasks, and knowing who’s responsible for what. That’s a big part of the one-to-one. Jon Delger — And then coach. Coach.We say that supervisors you do have something to offer to your employees. We just gave that I just gave that that speech kind of at our last, we call them department leaders department leaders meeting. We talked about how supervisors, you know, I know because you are all so humble, which is awesome, that’s why that’s part of why you’re a great leader. But because of your humility I know it’s sometimes tempting. It’s like I don’t have anything to offer to these people. You know, I’m just here to kind of direct and kind of make sure they’re doing their thing. Rich Birch — That’s good. Jon Delger — Um, but no, you really do. You’re in your position because you have something to offer, so think about it, write it down, maybe shoot a video, or at least, you know, get on YouTube and find ah, thing that you’re thinking about that your staff member should hear. So we encourage that at most one-to-ones you’re providing some kind of resource – a video, an article, or just some kind of, you know, thought-provoking thing that you’ve thought of yourself. Rich Birch — Oh that’s good. I love that distinction. I think particularly on that coach part, I don’t know that I’ve ever heard anyone articulate that, that it’s like hey let’s make that a formal part of this. Like let’s actually ensure you’re coming to I love that push of like, hey you are ah, you’re you’re humble. You may not, but you’ve got all kinds of stuff going on in your head that has brought you to the place where you are where you’re leading today. Let’s just pass that on to other people. I think we often think of that at like a team level, or you know, at a kind of at a a whole church level. But I think that’s what that’s a great that’s great tool. Love that. Rich Birch — Um and how often are you coaching your managers on one-on-ones? What does that rhythm look like? Is that like it just a normal part of your I’m assuming you are obviously modeling this with your people who then are modeling it down, but is there, you know, how often do you actually work through this, through three C’s with them? Jon Delger — Yeah, good question. It’s maybe not as consistent as I would love. Rich Birch — Sure. Jon Delger — It’s ah like you said with the main thing is trying to model it. And unfortunately I don’t always, you know, I’m just like every other manager, I get busy. Rich Birch — Yes. Jon Delger — And is tempting to let those one-to-ones become, hey what do you need from me? Okay, we’re done. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Jon Delger — Ah, you know it’s easy to let that happen. But that’s part of the reason that we give the guide to all staff so that supervisors and employees know what’s supposed to happen. Ah, that way we can kind of hold each other accountable a little bit when we’re, you know, if I do that to one of my staff, they can say, hey, you know, last couple of meetings it hasn’t been 45 to 60 minutes and we haven’t actually covered the three C’s. Rich Birch — Right. Jon Delger — You know, they can say that to me so that’s an important part of it. Um, so modeling it we try to do. But then ah twice a month we have what we call our department leaders meeting. So that’s ah, that’s most managers. It’s our it’s our upper level managers. So there’s about there’s about eight of us in the room or so. And each of those meetings it’s a requirement, we have it on the Asana every time there’s a leader a leader development presentation, either by myself, or our family pastor, or our lead pastor. Um, and so one-to-ones is a regular topic brought up in those referred back to the three C’s. Um, but we use other topics as well. But that’s that’s the main thing where it probably comes through. Rich Birch — Love it. So good. Um, now kind of stepping back in a slightly different direction. So there’s been, you know, accelerated growth over these last three years. Um, what happened four years ago like what what was it that kind of preceded this, you know, this growth? Jon Delger — Yeah. Rich Birch — And, you know, what what’s your read on that? I know sometimes it’s hard. It’s like the it’s hard to read the label from inside the jar. But what what is it that has, you know, that shifted or changed or maybe you do have total clarity on what exactly that was? Jon Delger — No great question. It’s it’s actually a little bit of a wild story. It’s ah so, you know, that was 2020 basically was the turning point for us. Rich Birch — Yeah. Right. Jon Delger — So um, you know, headed into 2020 we were we were experiencing growth, but it was it was probably you know 5 to 10 percent a year, which is still great. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, it’s amazing. Jon Delger — You know, statistically across the nation. We’ve been at that. We were at we were at that rate probably steadily for the past ten years leading up to covid. Rich Birch — Yep. Jon Delger — We’re at steady kind of growth five, ten percent – sometimes a little bit more. Um but in 2020 covid came um, restrictions in Michigan were heavy, so we we were shut down for a period of time. And actually during that period of time. The guy who was our lead pastor and who had been there for 10 years felt the call to go elsewhere. Rich Birch — Okay. Jon Delger — So he moved elsewhere and right in the middle of 2020 the guy who was the executive pastor became the lead pastor. And then I was the community pastor and I became the executive pastor. Rich Birch — Okay, yeah. Jon Delger — So right in the middle of 2020 was that leadership change. Rich Birch — Wow. Jon Delger — And then as we launched out of 2020, we we said a few different things. I think the main thing is just that people were so hungry for truth at that point. Rich Birch — Right, right. Jon Delger — And we happened to be a church that was just really really clear about what we believed about gender and sexuality and every other topic that the bible talks about, topic of life. And so ah, by January of 20… you know we had relaunched in the middle of 2020, under new leadership, and we thought, man, after you know, this this other pastor had been here for 10 years and we thought, you know, statistically we’re going to decline, right? Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, yes. Jon Delger — We’re going to decline for a few years before we get going again. Um, and so we were… Rich Birch — And a once in a hundred year pandemic. You know they’re throw that in there. Jon Delger — …oh yeah, yeah, totally. Rich Birch — Yeah. Jon Delger — Yeah. We got going at 2020 and our new kind of leadership role’s thinking, all right, we’ll we’ll take it easy for a few years. You know, we’ll just kind of rebuild relationships get the get the foundation set again and and then we’ll, you know, kind of pick up and hopefully get growing again. Rich Birch — Right. Jon Delger — And you know, we kind of had a very casual approach to things. And so we relaunched at maybe four five hundred after being at 800. Rich Birch — Yep. Jon Delger — Um and then by January of 2021 we had already broken a thousand. Rich Birch — Oh wow. Jon Delger — And we’re running out of room. We actually after only two Sundays over over 1000 we made the decision to invest like 150 grand in in reshaping our worship center to seat more people. Um I think people were excited about the fact that we were going to respond to growth quickly and so more growth happened. Um and it just things just took off from there, and we just have been holding on for the ride. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s Amazing. That’s cool. What a cool story. Love ah, love hearing what’s happening at Peace Church. So cool to see and, you know, fun to hear about, you know, some of those pivots and changes. And that’s you know, hopefully encouraging for folks that are in who maybe are at the at that, you know they’ve just stepped into a role, they’ve just kind of reconstituted leadership. I think… so were both you and the current lead pastor were existing. How long had you been at the church? That’s kind of an interesting, piece of that puzzle. Jon Delger — Yeah, he had been around for maybe seven years or so before that. And then I’ve got an interesting background. I had only been on staff for about a year um, but I had I actually grew up at this church as a kid. Rich Birch — Um, ah, interesting. Jon Delger — And so I’ve kind of been here and gone a few times. I went away during college, did youth ministry at another church, but in the area not too far away. Rich Birch — Right. Jon Delger — And then I came back during seminary, did a 4 year internship as kind of like a pastoral resident kind of thing. Rich Birch — Yep. Jon Delger — And then went out and was a pastor at two other churches – associate pastor and then lead pastor. And then I and then I got to come back in 2019, and then we rolled into this. Rich Birch — Interesting. Jon Delger — So both of us had history and background. Rich Birch — Well and then even your your seat at the table there, there is that kind of—um I’ve seen this in other contexts—there’s the ah, call him the the outsider insiders. They’re like you were you had an insider knowledge because you had been around. You knew the church. But had been outside for a while. And there’s that is a really valuable seat to be in because you give you all kinds of trust. You’re like oh that guy’s been around and he knows us, but you have experience to bring to bear that that can add a fresh kind of perspective and spin. Um, that’s great. Jon Delger — Yeah. Rich Birch — That’s cool. That’s really cool to hear, and interesting. Well this has been great. Anything else you’d like to share, Jon, just as we wrap up today’s episode? Jon Delger — Man, thanks so much for talking, Rich. Yeah, I I just hope and pray for everybody listening God’s blessings on your leadership out there, pray that God grows this church not just at Peace but everywhere. Rich Birch — So good. Jon Delger — Preach the gospel and I hope people come to know it and have eternal life. Rich Birch — So good. Thanks, Jon, I really appreciate you being here today. Thanks for being on. If people want to track with you or with the church where do we want to send them online? Jon Delger — Yeah, peacechurch.cc is our main church website. Actually in January of 2024 we’re launching a platform called Resound where there’s gonna be more media coming out from Peace Church. We’re excited about that but peacechurch.cc is great place to find us and find resources like this. Rich Birch — Thank you so much. Thanks for being here today, Jon. Jon Delger — Thank you, Rich. Appreciate it, brother. It’s been a pleasure.

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