unSeminary Podcast

Why add another service? Growth and multiplication are signs of a healthy church. This isn’t just about getting more people in seats in the building; it’s about creating new opportunities for reaching out, engaging more volunteers, and widening your church’s impact. Remember, every empty seat is a missed opportunity to change a life. Breaking the 200 Barrier Many churches hit a growth ceiling of around 200 in attendance. Expanding to two services is a strategic move to help break this barrier. It’s about more than numbers; it’s about making room for more stories of life change. This change pushes your church to develop new systems and processes vital for sustainable growth. Volunteerism: The Growth Engine Volunteer growth precedes congregational growth. It’s a leading indicator. Expanding to a second service gives a fantastic opportunity to mobilize more people into meaningful service. Remember, engaged volunteers don’t just fill roles; they invite friends, they bring energy, and they embody the mission of the church. Training: Seize the Moment Adding a service is an incredible chance to level up in training and outreach. It’s the perfect opportunity to fine-tune your volunteer training and create standard operating procedures to benefit your church long-term. Outreach: Internal and External Promotion Internal promotion is about getting your existing congregation excited and informed about adding a new service. This involves clear, consistent communication through channels your members are familiar with. Use your Sunday announcements, church newsletters, and social media platforms to share the why behind the additional service. Emphasize how this change aligns with your church’s vision and mission. External promotion is about reaching out to the community and letting them know they are welcome at your church. This can take many forms, from traditional methods like flyers and community bulletin boards to digital strategies such as targeted social media ads and updates on your church website. Fostering Community in a Multi-Service Church A big question we often wrestle with is how multiple services affect the sense of community. Here’s the thing: community isn’t confined to a single service. It’s about creating connections that go beyond Sunday mornings. This shift is a call to innovate in how we foster community – through small groups, teams, and social gatherings that bridge service times. Vision Alignment: More Than Adding a Service This move should be a direct reflection of your church’s vision. It’s not just a logistical decision; it’s a visionary one. Aligning the addition of a service with your church’s mission to reach more people, deepen faith, and serve the community is crucial. It’s about making your vision tangible, one service at a time. Maximizing Service Times: Strategic Decisions And finally, let’s get practical about service times. Whether you choose an additive or split approach, the key is strategic decision-making that considers your community’s needs and rhythms. Communicating these changes is just as important – it’s an opportunity to remind your congregation why we gather and the importance of our mission. If you’re considering this significant step, or even if you’re just curious about what it might look like for your church, tune into this episode. “Doubling Impact: Navigating the Shift from One to Two Church Services” isn’t just a discussion; it’s a roadmap for church growth and impact.

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. This week I’m talking with Trevor DeVage, the lead pastor at Pantano Christian Church in Tuscon, Arizona. Trevor has talked with us before and is back sharing how to recognize opportunities at your church and embrace best practices to create space for growth. Opportunities, not problems. // Pantano recently launched a third service to address parking issues and accommodate their expanding congregation. Aware that people were being turned away at the parking lot, the congregation was so committed to making space for more guests that they asked for another service to be added. Time changes for all services had to be shifted yet were welcomed with enthusiasm. Solving issues, like this one, that your church faces aren’t “problems” but rather opportunities to get your congregation to catch the vision. Gather to scatter. // Pantano engages in Serve Our City, a practice where the church mobilizes its congregants to go out on a Sunday and serve in different capacities around Tucson instead of holding services. While it might be tempting to worry about giving when services are canceled, Trevor encourages churches not to miss this type of outreach opportunity. From bringing care packages to first responders to building almost 1000 bikes for kids, mobilizing Pantano Christian Church actually stirs people’s hearts to be more generous because they are reminded that the reason they gather is to scatter and serve their community. Pantano Anywhere. // Trevor believes we can’t neglect to engage people online or we will miss out on reaching a significant portion of the world. One of the church’s strategies for online ministry is Pantano Anywhere, where they encourage people to launch house campuses in their own homes or businesses. Pantano provides training and tools for these individuals to lead and host gatherings and make a difference in their communities.  Spreading outward. // Looking to the future, Pantano is exploring multisite options by partnering with other churches so their legacy can continue. By resourcing their Pantano Anywhere participants, they also look for pockets of people near each that could be targeted for a future campus or church plant in a different part of the state, country or world. Simplicity saves souls. // Instead of looking at how you can do more, focus on how you can do less more effectively. Pastors and churches may be tempted to make things more complex because it is a form of job security. However complexity fails to empower others. The mantra Pantano communicates to their staff is that simplicity saves souls, complexity causes confusion. By simplifying, the church can reach more people and extend its impact. You can learn more about Pantano Christian Church at pantano.church. Thank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: The Giving Church As a church leader you know that your ability to execute your vision comes down to Staffing, Facilities and Programming. All of those needs are fueled by one thing: Generosity. The Giving Church, led by Generosity Coach and Founder, Phil Ling, has worked with nearly 1000 churches of all sizes in over 40 different denominations and raised over a billion dollars to fuel ministry. Don’t run out of fuel for your ministry. Transform your ministry with innovative capital campaigns and leadership coaching. Visit thegivingchurch.com/unseminary for a FREE PDF, 5 Ways To Grow Your Church Giving. Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey, friends welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you’ve decided to tune in. Really excited for today’s conversation. We’ve got a repeat guest and this is like just a few months later so you know that there’s got to be something good coming up in today’s conversation. Super excited to have Trevor DeVage with us. He is at Pantano Christian Church – this church is located in Tucson, Arizona. They were started in 1961 and are one of the fastest growing churches in the country. Trevor is the lead pastor, been there just since 2022. This is really a follow up conversation from what we had back in the spring. We’ll link to the the conversation back in the spring and that was called it was all about growing, just kind of tremendous amount of growth. This is kind of the back end of that conversation I want to talk a little bit more about that in a little more detail. Trevor, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here. Trevor DeVage — Well, man, it’s good to be back. I think I joked with you right before we went live is a, man, you you must be at the bottom of the barrel of people, man, because ah… Rich Birch — No, no. Trevor DeVage — …you had to bring to bring me back. So ah… Rich Birch — Not at all, no not at all. Trevor DeVage — …really, really excited to be with you, man. I’m ah I’m a purveyor and a frequent listener a weekly listener of your podcast and so I’m a humbled, honored to get be in ah in this company… man, it’s good. Rich Birch — I really appreciate that. Well I’m excited to to dive in. Friends I’d encourage you to go back, we kind of covered a bit of Trevor’s background and the history of the church in our previous episode. Without that some of this will be out of context, but would love to kind of dive in. So your church has continued to grow. Kind of bring us up to speed. How did the fall launch go? Where are things at on that front? Kind of bring us up to speed, you know, in the last six months or so, where are things at? Trevor DeVage — Yeah, so when we talked last we were two services with no parking left. Our parking lot was… Rich Birch — Yes. Trevor DeVage — …abysmal at best. People were being turned away the parking lot. We’ve added a third service actually um. And seasons in Arizona are weird because we we don’t really have seasons. We have two – we have ah hot and and slightly less hot. Rich Birch — Love it. Trevor DeVage — Ah but actually school goes back mid-July here. So we um, we waited till about the third week of July and we launched a third a third service actually on Sundays and we actually shifted our service times so all of our services changed. We went to 8:30, 10:30, 12:30 and we moved about 5- or 600 people to that 12:30 service… Rich Birch — Oh nice. Trevor DeVage — …to alleviate some pressure on parking. And it’s held real steady there for the last last four or five months, which has been great. We also as we went into the fall I thought man we’re gonna get to breathe maybe a little bit. And well apparently will breathe at some point, I’m just not sure when the breathing’s gonna happen. Make you come up for like oxygen but we are we’re in such a sweet season right now. We’re um, we’re at 530 baptisms for this year um. Rich Birch — Wow. Praise God. That’s amazing. Trevor DeVage — Yeah, we’ve got another baptism Sunday coming in two weeks we’ve already got 20 plus people signed up which means we’ll probably have another 30 or 40 that weekend. And and then we do we’re doing six Christmas Eve services this year. We’ve added a service from last year and um. Rich Birch — Good. Trevor DeVage — We do we do baptisms on Christmas Eve and last year we had 99 baptisms Christmas Eve so we’re we’re really excited to see what God will do in our Christmas season. We’re we’re about to shut our campus down next Sunday for a this coming weekend for we do a giant event called Serve Our City. So we shut down our campus services and we do worship service in the community. We go serve all over the city. So we’ll send out across the city of Tucson, partnering with 16 other churches in the area, and and we just go do service projects all over our city. Rich Birch — Love it. Trevor DeVage — So that’s been our last six months man like we’ve just kind of been our student ministries exploding. I think last time we talked I may have even shared, our first time I’ve been in a church where our growth was not predicated on children and students. It was actually adults specifically. Our student ministry has caught up massively. And about two years ago there was about 40 kids in our high school, middle school ministry last Wednesday night. They did a big event had over four hundred kids here as a part of that. Rich Birch — That’s amazing. That’s amazing. Trevor DeVage — Um, so we’re just seeing God infiltrate in some really crazy ways, and we’re just trying to shut up, get out of the way, and not screw it up. Rich Birch — Great. Well you know unSeminary, we love to dive in on some of the details here. There’s a couple of those things I’d love to hear um, a little bit more about. So you mentioned parking and I so this is like, man, this is literally they do not teach this in seminary. But talk to me about your parking problems and was it just the shift to three services that helped that, or did you do anything else to kind of help with that issue? Trevor DeVage — Yeah, well the shift to three services had to happen because the problem in our parking lot is we’ve got parking, but we don’t have enough parking for capacity, if that makes sense. Rich Birch — Okay, yep, yep. Trevor DeVage — So when our auditorium gets to about 90% full our parking lot is 110 percent full. and so… Rich Birch — Okay. Trevor DeVage — …we literally our cops in security on site they’re like we’re literally watching 10 and fifteen cars a weekend just drive off the lot… Rich Birch — Right, right. Trevor DeVage — …because I can’t find a space. Going to that third service we shifted we literally told our two services, we need about 250 to 300 per service to move to that 12:30 timeframe. Ah, we have a full cafe here that serves full breakfast and the whole deal. Well now we serve lunch. We have food trucks on site as well. And so we’re supporting local and our and our church as well. And so we we did the first weekend we had about 750 people go over to 12:30 and then it settled in right around 5- or 600 people a weekend are going to that service. And it’s alleviated some pressure but we’re already back in the space of all right, what’s a fourth service going to look like? It’s probably not going to be on Sunday… Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Trevor DeVage — …it’s probably going to be a different day week. Um, and so really, that’s the biggest shift. It it drove us. We sat as uncomfortable as we could for as long as we could. And there’s there’s a principle of leadership I learned from my friend Brandon Beard. I don’t if you know Brandon down in Dallas. But um Brandon said let people sit as uncomfortable as they can for as long as they can because they’ll drive the vision for you. Rich Birch — Right. Trevor DeVage — So we did we. We sat for three months with people going, hey when are we going to do something about parking? And I’m like well if you just give me a couple hundred thousand dollars we can go buy something. Rich Birch — Right. Trevor DeVage — And um, but there’s nothing to buy. We’re trying to buy property for parking, actually… Rich Birch — Right. Trevor DeVage — …and there’s just nothing right now. And so people started going, hey when are we going to change services? And I was like, oh that’s a great idea, even though we’d already been planning it. And then about twelve weeks out we were strategizing internally and then about six weeks out we started rolling it out. I’ve never been in a church where people cheered for changing all service times. Rich Birch — Right, right. Trevor DeVage — Like we said, hey right change all services and we’re adding a service and we’re going to feed you lunch, and people cheered. Rich Birch — Love it. Trevor DeVage — And people are filming videos on their phone and tagging us on social media of: how beautiful is it that I can’t get out of the parking lot at church. I’m like, usually people lose Jesus in that moment. They don’t they don’t praise Jesus in that moment. Rich Birch — Yes. Trevor DeVage — So um, that has really been the most indicative thing that we, parking dictated us having to go to a third service. Rich Birch — Okay I love that. Let’s dive in on that on the third service stuff. What else what you when you look back at that kind of communication process. So I want to highlight you changed all the service times. You know, I’ve seen that over the years as we’ve messed around with service times. That’s one of those things I think we we get so nervous about it, like oh my goodness it’s gonna you know it’s gonna, you know, tank or whatever. But I’ve actually found it as a growth every time we’ve made those changes. It’s like we end up seeing growth because I think it’s like there’s something about the communication getting out in front of people and all that. But what were some of the other things that you did that you think helped make move people to that? Obviously there was the pressure behind it. Was there any other communication stuff that you look back on and say, hey, that was particularly helpful? Trevor DeVage — You you know, I mean Easter last year was a really good indicator for us because… Rich Birch — Right. Trevor DeVage — …we had a parking issued Easter. Mother’s Day is actually the other largest day outside of Christmas and Easter here for us. And Mother’s day was a parking nightmare, and we we probably should have we probably should have made the leap then. Ah, but again I just went to let’s leave them as uncomfortable as we can as long as they can. And then we just hyped it up. Rich Birch — Right, right. Trevor DeVage — And we made it a celebratory thing. It was not a what are we going to do? It was ah this is this is not a problem, this is an opportunity. We don’t have problems at Pantano, we have opportunities. Rich Birch — Love it. Trevor DeVage — Um, you know, parking is not a problem if you have if you don’t have enough. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah. Trevor DeVage — People think it’s problem. It’s an opportunity. Um, there’s something happening at our church when you can’t get in and out of the parking lot, when traffic is backed up down Houghton Road Now we tick off most of the neighborhood every weekend. Um, cops are out directing traffic and and so people see we’ve just, that’s become our language. These aren’t problems These are opportunities. There’s a lot of churches that would fail to have full parking lots and not know where to put people. And I’ve been in those churches I’ve been a part of those churches, and so to be on this side of it where it’s like what are we going to do? Well here’s the options and really our people here have been so excited about everything every option we’ve given. It’s lack of a better term is like shooting fish in a barrel, man. They just get excited about about God moving. Rich Birch — That’s great. Sure. Trevor DeVage — And then we’ve seen it in our other ministries too. Like student ministries on Wednesday nights, they were all together in one space running a couple hundred kids. Going into the school year they split middle school and high school back out into the the respected spaces. And it’s almost doubled our student ministry by just, again, adding more opportunity… Rich Birch — Creating space. Yep, yep, for sure. Trevor DeVage — We’re creating space and growth happens when you create space. And so I firmly believe, probably after Christmas, I’m trying to get through Easter of next year, which is early, that we’re probably going to add a Thursday night service will probably be our next. But um, those service times I was going to do 9, 11 and 1, keep the other two the same, and then just add a one o’clock. And my predecessor, Glen, I said hey I want your opinion on this. He goes, I wouldn’t do that. And it’s the first time he’s paused me. Rich Birch — Um, interesting. Yeah yeah. Trevor DeVage — He’s like we used to do a one o’clock, we barely got 2-, 300 people to come to it. Um, he’s like there’s something about that 1pm number that feels really late. Um, he said I would do 8:30, 10:30, 12:30. And I went back to our team I said, the guy that’s been doing this for the last twenty years here… Rich Birch — Right. Yes. Trevor DeVage — …it’s the only time he’s looked at me and gone, I wouldn’t do that. I’m like I think we ought to listen. And he was right. And for me that was a moment to honor him, but it was also a moment of his wisdom for him to go… Rich Birch — Right. He’s been in the community. Yeah. Trevor DeVage — …Yeah I want to help you; this will help you. And so finding that wisdom from Glen and then he was an advocate with our people too. He was so pumped up and excited and going around and telling people why this is a good thing. And so again it I’d love to tell you there was some massive crazy strategy. It was just we’re out of parking and we had to do something. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. How far out did you go from between kind of communicating you’re doing three services, to three services, till actually doing it? How how what was that kind of look like? Trevor DeVage — It was twelve weeks. Rich Birch — Okay. Trevor DeVage — We started priming the pump… Rich Birch — Like, counted down and all that kind of thing. Yeah. Trevor DeVage — Yep, then about six weeks out we got real real intentional with it. And then I I was on my summer break in June, and then July when I came back, they started the last week of June. And then I came back and I just kind of I blitzed it every week. Rich Birch — Right. Trevor DeVage — I was like, here’s the deal. We need you to make room for one more because our whole thing is about the 1, right? And so we were like if we’re going to make room for one more to come, for your one to be here, I need you to move so we can make room for one more. And our people just did it. They were happy about it. They bought lunch. There’s food trucks there. They’re, man, they’re just happy people. They’re excited. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Trevor DeVage — And the 12:30 crowd, man, I love them because the 12:30, they they want to be here if they come to 12:30. Rich Birch — Yes. Trevor DeVage — Like it’s you know you’ve had some sleep, you’ve been able to go on a hike, you’ve been able to go to the store, you’ve had lunch. If you have not had lunch, here. Rich Birch — Yes. Trevor DeVage — And so man they’re just fired up, ready to go. They’re pumped up. And it’s it’s a lot of fun, man. But we we ramped it up for about twelve weeks to get our people there. Rich Birch — Right. Okay, great. Um, so tell me about this Serve Sunday this idea of mobilizing people. We’ve seen this time and again in fast-growing churches that they one of their key strategies to build and invite culture is they want to be seen as a church that’s making a difference in their community. That they’re actively engaging in making the community that they live in a better place. And so great to see that that’s happening at your church. Talk to us a little bit about the history of that. What does that look like? Kind of fill out the paint the picture there a little bit. Trevor DeVage — Yeah, this is something that pre-dates me here. Something I’ve been a part of in other churches but actually it’s one of my favorite things we do is that it literally we’re mobilizing people to go out. And it’s funny because I’m sure you’ve heard this too. But I’ve heard other guys around the country go, Well what about your giving on that weekend? And I’m like, what about it? And they’re like well are people going to give if they’re not there? I’m like, we live in a mobile world. Are people give mobilely anyhow. Rich Birch — Yes. Trevor DeVage — We actually see our giving go up when that happens because people are a part of mission and vision. Um people give to what they can be a part of. Rich Birch — Yep. Trevor DeVage — And so they’re serving, like we’re in schools. We’re building 960 bikes that are going to be given to kids, almost a thousand bikes. Rich Birch — Wow. Trevor DeVage — Um, we’re in schools, we’re in playgrounds, we’re in local community areas. We have I don’t know how many groups we have that go to first responders, they go to firehouses, police stations, they take food, they take care packages. Rich Birch — So cool. Trevor DeVage — And so for us this is very synergetic. This is we just came off of a mission trip to Rocky Point, Mexico, which is every year we take a couple hundred people to Rocky Point, Mexico and built houses. Here we are three weeks later getting ready to just serve our entire city. Um, the history of this that I best I know and I’m only giving you just kind of Cliff Notes because I don’t know the total history. But it used to be strictly our church ran this for all the city. We turned to a local organization who now kind of disseminates for all the other churches. Some churches don’t shut down on Sundays; they they do a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. We just find that getting our people out of the regular rhythm of Sunday to go serve in their city is a really good reminder of why we gather on Sundays. And we we just did a series called The Church Has Left the Building. And the whole series has been we we we gather so we can scatter. And week one of the series I literally got on stage and threw birdseed all over our people like [inaudible]… Rich Birch — So fun. Trevor DeVage — And it was great. People were getting it in their drinks and their clothes. And um, but at the end of that I just said, this this is why we gather not to gather for the sake of gathering; we gather to scatter into our community. And I told them week one, this leads us into Serve Our City. We’re going to scatter all over our city in a couple weeks in a massive way. Trevor DeVage — Um, but then we we just finished up this weekend with this series knowing that next Sunday we’re going out, but then we also gave out um we’re going to play the world’s largest game of tag with our city. We’ve got cards that say, tag you’re it. And random act of kindness cards. So um, literally we created a website tagyoureit.fun. And it’s not branded with us and so we told our people go randomly throw kindness on our community and then give them a card that says now it’s your turn. And let’s see how far it goes in our city, and our country, and our state, um and beyond. And so ah for us building into our DNA, it’s not just this one big event that we’re gonna do. But it can be everyday events that we do, because we scatter every week when we leave this place. And so it’s kind of a both/and for us it’s like what’s the big thing that we’re doing, but there’s these little random acts of kindness that you can do every day and tag people to to just see life, you know? Rich Birch — Yeah, I love it. Well, let’s so so I do coaching with churches and one of the things we do. We have this group called the Church Growth Incubator and we’ve had 3 or 4 of those churches this year have gone to 3 services. And one of the things I’ve said to churches over the years, when you go to 3 services and it sounds like you’re experiencing it. It it kind of is like just a stopgap measure. Typically it’s like you move to three but then right away you have to start thinking about what is next. It sounds like you’re thinking about a Thursday service or maybe another service time. Are there other questions on the horizon for you as you look, you know, campusing, other types of things? Where where’s where’s your brain going to next as you think about, you know, for Pantano? Trevor DeVage — Yeah. Well for us, it’s both/and, maybe even another piece. Like our online ministry is very robust. Um, so our online campus engagement, we don’t we don’t count you if you’ve been on for like 2 seconds, we we don’t we don’t do that. We um, we really look for engagement and our engagement is high. We’ve got a couple thousand people that are fully engaged online each and every weekend. Our online audience is about and we do a 1.2 multiplier. We that’s we don’t want to go any higher… Rich Birch — Sure, sure. Pretty conservative. Yep, yep. Trevor DeVage — Yeah, we we want to lean on the end of because Facebook doesn’t really let you see that metric. But like our actual church church um, what is it that Life Church gives out… Rich Birch — Yeah, church online. Yeah, their tool. Yep. Trevor DeVage — Um, we can actually see how many people are on with that. And so 1.2 seems pretty conservative. But we’ve got about 23-, 2400 people fully engaged online with us on the weekends. So that’s already robust and going. And we do um, every service is streamed live to that. We actually acknowledge those people online. So if you’re on with us um and you let people know in the in the chat, I can be like, oh we’ve got Rich on with us from here. And we’ve got people watching and we’ve got one guy that watches from France and Switzerland every week. We’ve got another guy that watches from Tucson every week. Rich Birch — Yep, yep. Trevor DeVage — And we call them by name. So that’s one strategy is our we call it Pantano Anywhere. And you can launch a house campus inside anywhere. If you’re a college student you can launch it in your dorm. If you’re on the other side of the country you can launch it in your living room. And we actually provide you tools, we actually take you through training. There’s ah, a matrix that we use, Robert, who oversees all of our Pantano Anywhere stuff, he he literally leans in and goes, all right here’s what this means: you’re a serving campus, you’re a giving campus, you’re a living campus. And he actually meets with the, we don’t call them volunteers, they’re difference makers. And we so we have a difference maker that leads those. So if you were going to lead one in your home and you’ve got 10 people coming to your house, um, there’s a whole different training that we take you through for that. So that’s our first strategy we’re already doing. Trevor DeVage — Um I think I think when we talked last time we also have a campus at a local mission here called Gospel Rescue Mission. And we have anywhere from 30 to 50 men and women that are in recovery, in a yearlong recovery program. They come to chapel on on Sunday nights to our service. We stream that down there. The next piece is we are going into multisite. And what is happening right now, there’s a local community close to us that has called and said hey this guy said, I’ve got a building that I’d like to give you. And I I like free I like free buildings. Like those those are great buildings to get. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Trevor DeVage — Um and it’s in a community where there’s really not a church presence. I’m not interested in putting campuses in a place… Rich Birch — Right. Trevor DeVage — …there’s already a viable church. Um, but we’ve got a couple hundred people that are driving from this community about 45 minutes away. Rich Birch — Right. Trevor DeVage — And so the the viability of in the spring of this next year I would say probably more the fall of ’24 um that we could be launching a campus in this other community is is pretty substantial. Um, and really it’s going to be upgrades and updates to a facility that’s been sitting empty for a while. It is an old church building. It’s in a great community, but that’s that’s kind of our next. We’re actually getting ready go do a site plan for that. And um I like equitable equitable places given to us… Rich Birch — Yes. Trevor DeVage — …because with that just, again in the future if we decide hey we want to make this its own church in its own community, we can just launch that thing in a new community and it becomes a church plant versus a campus at some point. But right now we’re looking at multiple campuses. That’s our next kind of strategy. Rich Birch — Yeah that’s great. And you know we’ve seen one of the shifts post-covid for sure has been towards that kind of thing. For yearst here was like 10, 15% of new campuses were, and that’s by like actual numbers not just like made up numbers, where we’re seeing those kinds of things where actually the 2022 numbers showed that 40% of campuses launched in 2022 came because of that kind of either gift or an extremely low purchase of a building. And so I would suspect you’ll have more of that. And I love the fall 2024 the kind of longer term. We’ve seen that time and again. the success of campuses actually. That initial launch course so taking time to build that. That’s, you know, that’s fantastic Trevor DeVage — Well, you know… Rich Birch — I Love the Pan…. Go ahead. Trevor DeVage — Well I was going to say, I don’t know if you you’ve talked with Gene Appel about this… Rich Birch — Yep. Trevor DeVage — …but this has been a strategy for multisite. I mean they’ve got a Minnesota campus. They’ve got a Vegas campus. Rich Birch — Yes. Trevor DeVage — Um, and they’ve been given millions of dollars of equitable property that um their their debt ratio to building ratio is very small. Rich Birch — Yes. Trevor DeVage — Like they they’re able to do this for pennies on the dollar and launch really viable churches. And I would say too for some of your listeners that maybe you’re a part of a church that you’re you’re like what are we gonna do? We’re gonna have to close our doors. There are churches that you can partner with that will honor you well um, and and help the legacy continue. And um I like there’s a legacy aspect. It’s not we’re partnering now, we’re not I don’t it’s not hostile takeovers. Rich Birch — No. Trevor DeVage — These are partners. Um, and if you’ve ever talked to Gene about this. They do a really good job of honoring pastors and leadership in these churches. And it’s pretty beautiful what I think God is doing right now to unify the church… Rich Birch — Totally. Trevor DeVage — …in the United States especially Rich Birch — Oh absolutely. For sure and and that yeah, definitely if you’re listening in, feel free to reach out. I can connect you with churches that are looking for that kind of arrangement. And and then on the on the lead church side, you know, there are very few church buildings that if, particularly if you got it debt-free, that you wouldn’t want to take on. Because essentially from a financial point of view, you take your cash flow, the equity that’s tied up in that building, and you can you can do renovations on that for you know, relatively low kinds of dollars. You could even write a mortgage over an extended period of time. It gets pretty easy to step in and make that kind of thing happen. So um, that’s exciting. Rich Birch — Tell me a little bit more about Pantano Anywhere, like what’s the what do you think the end game there is? I know it’s like early, maybe, you know, as you’re thinking about that is that you think eventually those might become campuses, or is it just like, hey you want to service people wherever. Talk us through what that – I think that’s a super-innovative great, you know, great solution. Trevor DeVage — Yeah, I think it’s a I think it’s a both/and because what we’re looking at is if you say you’re a local business owner in a community and you’re like, man, I I’ve got a restaurant that doesn’t open till dinnertime, or it doesn’t open until noontime, well I could have church in my sports bar at nine o’clock on Sunday and promote that in the community. And we’ve got a Pantano Anywhere location now that is, we’re actually talking to a local restaurant on the north side here that they don’t open till like like one o’clock. And it’s like what is the possibility of us putting a campus? They’ve got 40 TVs. I’m like so all you have to do is turn on the lights and open the door. We’ll do the rest. Rich Birch — Right, right. Trevor DeVage — You have to do nothing and then we just staff it with Difference Makers that we take through training, and put them at that location. So we’re looking at businesses, we’re looking at houses. We’re looking at all the above. But then the the other side to me in that both/and of that is if we find a pocket where we’ve got say 3-, 400 people that are starting to all have Pantano Anywhere locations maybe in their home and their business, and we start to target that. Then we go, wow we’ve got a big pocket of people that are online with us right here in this place now that’s where we start going, Okay, do we target a facility in this location? Do we do we look at a school? Do we look is there a church in the area that, man, there need to partner with and potentially come alongside of, and help them move into the next phase of legacy? Um, what does that look like? And so as we’re looking at these Pantano Anywhere locations, and that could be anywhere in the country, or anywhere on the globe… When I was in Ohio we were kind of doing very something very similar and we had um we had four house campuses in Ghana, Africa. We had 1 in Pakistan where there was 150 people that were gathered around a laptop… Rich Birch — Wow. Trevor DeVage — …and watched church in a bombed out building in Pakistan. And um and they were with us every week. Rich Birch — Right. Trevor DeVage — And we we would acknowledge them and they were they literally they we sent them t-shirts we like they were wearing their Christ Church t-shirts when I was there. Um it’s the same thing here with Pantano. We we literally I think anywhere around the globe because of technology. I mean just like you and I are doing this, right? I’m looking at you. We’re not in the same state. Rich Birch — No. Trevor DeVage — In fact, you know we we got our time zones crossed a couple times… Rich Birch — Yes. Trevor DeVage — …because we get technology. Rich Birch — Yes. Trevor DeVage — But but reality is is that you can do this anywhere and when you find a pocket that starts to blow up, you can go, we viably need to put something in this pocket now that’s not just on a screen but is probably in a community. Rich Birch — Right. Love it. Yeah I love that. And you know I think our I love that you’re tackling that thinking through those issues. You know we all need to be wrestling with, you know, this kind of digital age we live in and I think that kind of solution like Pantano Anywhere for sure, you know, we should be wrestling with thinking about, particularly if you’re a growing church. So as you look to the future, any other kind of questions on the horizon? When you look up over, you know, where do you I know it’s like the dogs running down the street and, you know, you’re grabbed that grabbed it by the tail, ah, but, you know, what what do you think it about as you look to the future? Trevor DeVage — Yeah I I think for me a couple things one the the mantra we keep preaching inside of our staff is simplicity. Like we are not looking how we can do more. Rich Birch — So good. How do we do less more effectively? So um, the mantra we kind of keep springing into our staff here is simplicity save souls, complexity causes confusion. Um. Rich Birch — It’s so true. Trevor DeVage — And the reason most most pastors or most church staff complexify things is because complexity is job security. If you’re the only one that can do the complex thing, we’ve got to keep you. I keep telling our team and our system if you make it complex, you will not be here very long. We need simplicity… Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Trevor DeVage — …because if we’re going to reach. The way we’re reaching and then simplicity is key. That’s the first thing. I think the second thing um I’ve always kind of leaned towards what is coming in like what is the new thing in the world that we can use to leverage for the gospel? Um, and so I’m looking at, you know, this has been a big hot topic, but AI right now. Ah. Rich Birch — Mmm-hmm. Trevor DeVage — And a lot of people in church are scared of AI. They’re like, oh the bots are taking over. Um I got news, the bots took over a long time ago. Rich Birch — Right, right. Trevor DeVage — Um, we’re we’re slaves to these bots. I look at one all day. Um, but how do we leverage things in the church with AI to reach more people in a shorter amount of time? And you know, like Chat GPT, um, like it’s I literally I’ve been messing with I’ve not even used it for anything live yet. But um I took all of my sermon notes for the last series and I put all my notes in and said write small group material with questions. And I’ve got enough stuff on the internet that I can say “and write it in the voice of Trevor DeVage” and um… Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Trevor DeVage — …and then put scripture references and crosscheck. In it in 10 minutes it generated six weeks worth of small group material with questions. And I read through it I’m like, this is exactly how I’d write this and it just saved me. Rich Birch — It’s close, hey it’s amazing. It’s amazing. Trevor DeVage — And so I can go through that and I can edit it. Now I’m not using it. now I think you got to be really careful with this technology because um it it is going to produce other people’s content that you’re gonna say is your own and is not. And I think there’s all sorts of nuances in that. Rich Birch — Yeah, you gotta work through all that. Yep. Trevor DeVage — But but I think the church a lot of times we we kind of, like online right. I so I spoke at a conference three weeks before covid and I talked about the viability of online and if you’re not there now there’s going to come a point where you have to be, and if you’re not ready… All the people that conference thought I’d caused covid because they were like, did you try to prove your point? And I’m only like, no, but my point is now proven. Like if you were you… Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Trevor DeVage — …online is, well that’s just streaming. We’re not gonna engage those people. Well three weeks later proved that if we’re not engaging people online, you’re missing 99% of the world and where they’re living. Rich Birch — Yes. Trevor DeVage — I think the same thing with AI right now. If we as the church are not, how do we pioneer AI in the church versus running away from it? And and so as we’re looking at digital campuses like what does that mean? Like how does that how does that play out for us? Um I even look at our production team, what we’re doing with video, what we’re doing with with graphics. I’m ah I’m a creative by nature so like Photoshop and Premiere right now, AI is a part of editing. And so… Rich Birch — Yes, yep. Trevor DeVage — If I’m able to cut down some of my staff’s time with Ai tools… Rich Birch — Totally. Trevor DeVage — …We can reach more people in a shorter amount of time, which I think is is biblical. Rich Birch — Yes. Trevor DeVage — Like how do we reach the most amount of people in the shortest amount of time? You can run from technology, you can lean in. Every side has a good and an evil side. Let’s use the good side of it to reach more people. So I think for me, simplicity and then leveraging the tools that are coming in technology that we can use to reach more people. Those are the two things I’m looking at. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I love this simplicity thing there. You know there’s that old axiom that you can either have growth or you can have control. You can’t have both. And a part of that is the simplicity thing. It’s like, you know, if we so as we simplify ironically as we simplify, we can reach more people, scale faster. And actually connecting those two together, AI is a part can be a part of that workflow of like how do we… And very similarly anybody that’s in the content business which a local church is, you know, we produce a lot of content. We should be thinking about these tools, thinking about how we can use them. I keep saying let’s think about it like a megaphone or like a, you know, a speaker or a sound system. It’s just another tool to amplify the work that you’re doing. Think about how you can use it to extend the work that you’ve already done rather than like, it’s not going to replace you. There isn’t a day while it might someday. But it’s not going to replace ah, you know, you, Trevor, there’s still we we still need you. But, man, if we could in the if we could find a way to use these tools to get your message out in front of more people, man, I think that that’s a really wise use of our time effort and energy for sure. Trevor DeVage — Yeah, and I think if I think if you simplify, if you want to multiply you simplify, and that’s how you amplify. That that’s the aspect to it. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. Trevor DeVage — That’s the formula: multiplication through simplification is amplification. Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. Trevor DeVage — And I think that’s… Rich Birch — That’ll preach. That’ll preach. Trevor DeVage — Yeah, like I could probably put that on a t-shirt for sure. Rich Birch — Ah, ah, Trevor I really appreciate you, appreciate your leadership love to kind of catch up here how things are going at Pantano. Where do we want to send people online if we want them track with you or to track with the church? Trevor DeVage — Yeah, if you if you want to track with Pantano, which is where I would go, is um, you can go to pantano.church um and find our website there. Um, or you can follow us um @wearepantano on Instagram and all of our social media. Um, and then for me I’m just @trevordevage everywhere um but if you go to Pantano, you’re probably going to find me there most of the time on all of our social media platforms. We have we’ve got arguably one of the best social media specialists in the country. She’s a rockstar and so um, you want to see how somebody does it well, go watch what Amanda on our team does – she she kills it. Um, but yeah, that’s that’s all our places you can find out. I got a website to trevordevage.com that I’m probably not touched in two years but it’s there. Um, you can go you can go see that and look at some past content. But I would go to pantano.church or wearepantano on social media and we’d love to connect with you there. Rich Birch — Thanks so much, Trevor. Really appreciate you being here today. Trevor DeVage —Thanks, buddy, appreciate it.

This podcast discusses innovative ways for churches to increase revenue, including successful year-end campaigns and the potential of fundraising in the final 48 hours of the year. It emphasizes the importance of empowered leaders and dedicated staff in raising revenue, and offers strategies for improving offering talks and connecting giving to the church's vision. Additionally, it explores donor engagement techniques such as hosting events and tracking giving patterns.

Thanks for joining us for the unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to have with us Sam Beatty, the executive pastor from Grace Church outside of Cleveland, Ohio. As our churches grow, they naturally become more complex. It’s important to keep them focused and drive towards simplicity so we don’t drift from the mission and vision. Tune in as Sam shares how Grace Church works to stay healthy and focused on the mission/vision so it can yield fruitful ministry. Focus on the mission and vision. // Leading a fast-growing church comes with its own set of challenges. Amidst the growth churches become more complex and can start to be distracted by the complexities. During growth it’s important to stay healthy as a team and constantly evaluate if you are staying on mission and pursuing your God-given vision.  Examine metrics. // Grace Church has a weekly staff gathering and devotes part of that time to examining metrics for the purpose of both celebration and determining possible opportunities. It’s easy to forget to celebrate because you become focused on the next step in your mission. However celebration is an important step in itself because it highlights what God is doing and contributes to church team health. Heart checks. // Another way Grace keeps their team healthy and stays focused on the mission/vision is through regular check-ins with both staff and volunteers. By implementing “heart checks” every six months it provides an opportunity to ask questions, discuss experiences, and address any frustrations or concerns. Not only do these check-ins prevent issues from spiraling out of control, they also help to re-focus people in the right direction and get them excited about the mission and vision again. Listen to others. // In your one-on-ones, have humility as a senior leader and let your staff know you hear what they are saying. Redirect people who have drifted from the mission/vision by asking more questions, rather than making only declarative statements and having all the answers. In our minds we can believe there is only one right way to do something. But often there are many ways to approach a situation. Listening to the other person talk about the way they see things allows us to see a different way too. View opportunities as discipleship. // It can be hard manage the tension of not wanting to make things complex, but also wanting to create opportunities. When you view opportunities as discipleship and equip others to do them, it will multiply your impact without taking a lot of staffing hours. Grace Church uses vision dinners to bring ministries and groups back to the mission and vision of the church. These simple vision-casting events help to align people while empowering and equipping others for ministry. You can learn more about Grace Church at www.gracecma.ocg. Thank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Risepointe Do you feel like your church’s facility could be preventing growth, and are you frustrated or maybe even overwhelmed at the thought of a complicated or costly building project? Are the limitations of your church building becoming obstacles in the path of expanding your ministry? Have you ever felt that your church could reach more people if only the facility was better suited to the community’s needs? Well, the team over at Risepointe has been there. As former ministry staff and church leaders, they understand how to prioritize and help lead your church to a place where the building is a ministry multiplier. Licensed all over North America, their team of architects, interior designers and project managers have the professional experience to help move YOUR mission forward. Check them out at Risepointe.com/unseminary and while you’re there get their FREE resource “10 Things to Get Right Before You Build”. Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Well, hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. You’re in for a real treat today. I’m really looking forward to today’s conversation. Sam Beatty from Grace Church. This is a church in Ohio, had its beginnings back in the 1950s, and now is one of the fastest growing churches in the country. Sam is the executive pastor there, which, you know, we love executive pastors here at, uh, unSeminary. On top of church online, they also have campuses in Middleburg Heights and Olmsted Falls, if I’m pronouncing that correctly, as well as a third campus where they serve an incarcerated community, uh, at the Lorain Correction Center. Uh, they’ve also planted churches across the country. Uh, super excited to have Sam on the show today. Welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.Sam Beatty — Thanks so much, Rich. I appreciate you taking the time and inviting me to the show. And, uh, like I said, uh, we, uh, this is one of the podcasts I listen to frequently. So you and your guests have both taught me a ton, uh, over the years. Rich Birch — Thank you so much, Sam. That, uh, we were joking beforehand. I was I’ve always been looking for my other listener, my mom and you. Now I know. So now I know who the person is. And so you don’t have to listen to this one. My mom will hear it, and we’ll be fine. So. No, I’m just kidding. I really appreciate you. Uh, yeah, I really appreciate you tuning in. Rich Birch — Why don’t you fill in the picture a little bit? Kind of tell us a bit more about Grace. Give us a sense of of the church. Um, it keeps, you know, some of that kind of stuff. If we were to come this weekend, what would that look like? And every church, when we say executive pastor, it looks a little bit different. So kind of tell us a little bit about your role as well.Sam Beatty — Yeah for sure. I, uh, I’ve been here for 17 years. Uh, we’re in the Cleveland area just outside of, uh, Cleveland. And, uh, it’s been a church that’s been been here for a long time, since the 50s, like you’d said. And just has a legacy. Uh, we’ve had two senior pastors in that amount of time. The second one is is currently here. So Donald Schaefer, uh, was the founding pastor, and, uh, now Jonathan Schaefer, uh, is also, uh, he’s as his son, he took over. Sam Beatty — And, uh, Grace is just an amazing place to find healing. We hear that a lot. Uh, so we do a lot with Recovery Ministries. We do, uh, we find a lot of people who maybe have been wounded in the past at churches that end up showing up at our door. So I feel like God’s used us in that way. Um, and like you said, we’re a multi-campus church. Uh, we have one other physical campus. We also have, um, the Lorain Correctional, but but in addition to that, we have, uh, several cultural churches. We have an Arabic church that meets on site, uh, a Spanish church, and a deaf church. Rich Birch — Okay, oh wow. Sam Beatty — So just trying to see, you know, how can we take the mission and vision of, of Jesus to bring the gospel to the world? And, uh, and the Christian Missionary Alliance, uh, as a denomination really focuses on a global, uh, global mission. So that’s a big heartbeat of ours as well.Rich Birch — You know, everybody wants to be a part of a fast growing church or not everybody. Lots of people are like, hey, that would be a great thing. Uh, but I know that leading from within one of those can have tremendous pressure. Uh, it can be hard to kind of keep everybody focused. What have you found on that front? How as a church are you keeping your team, keeping your volunteers kind of pointed in the same direction? Give us a sense of what that’s look like for Grace.Sam Beatty — Yeah, that’s a great question. You know, um, I had a conversation with our founding pastor when I first came. He was my mentor, Donald Schaefer, and I remember he he had been asked he would be asked a number of times, you know, how is how is the church growing? You know, what’s your secret sauce, basically? Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Sam Beatty — And he would say his answer for that was I just minister to who the person is right in front of me. So I think sometimes in the midst of as you grow and, you know, lots of people will tell this, you know, if you’re if your things are going well, you’re going to start growing. And as you start growing, you become more complex. And I think that’s the Craig Groeschel, uh, uh, quote there. But as you do that, then you start to focus on the complexities. Sam Beatty — And, and I think what, you know, I’m reminded of is always pointing people back to what do, what are we here for, what’s our vision, what’s our mission? And really helping people to see, is this an opportunity that is worth, uh, jumping into? Is it part of our vision or mission or, um, or are we just going to be sort of distracting ourselves with more complexity? So I think it’s a combination of staying healthy as a team and then also evaluating, like, are we staying on mission? And sometimes that’s in the midst of complexity.Rich Birch — Yeah that’s good. I love that thought. You know as as our churches grow they can you know they naturally drift towards complexity. And we’ve got to find a way to keep them focused and actually drive towards simplicity and to try to, you know, drive towards more focus, at least. So talk to me about how how you’ve been able to help or how the church has tried to stay focused on vision and mission. What does that kind of practically look like at, uh, at Grace?Sam Beatty — Yeah. Uh, so I think that, um, the challenge is to see, you know, are we striving to make disciples? And I think every church probably has, in some form or another in their vision, making disciples, as, you know, the vision of Jesus. But how do you how are you doing that practically? And I think, um, we’ve seen, you know, situations where are we just doing a cognitive approach? Are we just saying we’re just going to have Bible classes and just for the sake of Bible classes? Or is it just a relational thing, or maybe just an experiential thing? And the reality is, it needs to be a combination of all three of those pieces to be effective discipleship.Sam Beatty — So I think a lot of it is, is being able to see from our team’s perspective, how do we come outside and take a look at the big picture? And really go through almost a sense of, are we looking through filters? Are we trying to raise people up, or are we just trying to hire for a position? Uh, because ultimately that can be the death of a of a church is when you stop having the people who are in your congregation do the work of the ministry. Uh, so I think always reminding people of those truths, uh, and reminding myself of that, uh, just to be able to see, you know, where, Lord, where are you taking us today, tomorrow, and then next year, you know?Rich Birch — And and how what does that look like kind of at maybe at a team level or kind of an organizational level. How do you keep that in front of your people um, when it, you know, beyond just kind of individual conversations, you know, how do we how do we kind of scale that up? What is what’s that look like for you guys?Sam Beatty — Yeah, we do, um, as a staff team, uh, and we have a, you know, a decent sized staff team. We do a weekly, um, staff gathering. And at that gathering, it’s an opportunity for us to celebrate where we are doing those things, because I think a lot of times we forget to celebrate because you’re always thinking about the next, you know, the, the next piece of that. Rich Birch — True. Sam Beatty — And, um, so I think celebrating is a huge as a huge one, um. Having those team approaches and saying there are certain metrics that we want to be able to to filter through and we look at, you know, is this an opportunity for us that, um, is going to allow us to grow in the right direction or not? So so I think some things are, um, more celebratory and, and other things are, you know, we’re looking through a number of lenses, and are those lenses things that are taking us in the right direction.Rich Birch — Okay. That’s cool. One of the I know, one of the pressures, um, you know, in growing churches, let alone fast-growing churches is how do we keep our staff from burning out, from, you know, uh, flaming out, you know, ending up making all kinds of unwise decisions? How has, how have you avoided that at Grace? Or what have you done to try to avoid that at Grace? I know it’s not always a we don’t always bat a thousand on that. Sam Beatty — Yeah.Rich Birch — Um, how what what have you done to try to build a positive team culture?Sam Beatty — That’s good. I would probably even. I would probably even roll in volunteers in my answer to that question… Rich Birch — Good. Sam Beatty — …because I think, you know, our staff team is is one thing, but really we have a huge staff if you’re looking at a volunteer base. Rich Birch — That’s very true. Sam Beatty — As, as a, you know, a total organization. And there’s one thing in particular, before I was in this position at Grace, I was the head of the worship department. And so I would lead worship and led the teams. And and I think you, you, you learn about a lot about complexity and conflict management and those kinds of things… Rich Birch — True. Sam Beatty — …within the worship department area. And we started to to do this thing called heart checks. And the heart checks were things we would do every six months. We would take the entire team and we would meet individually with all of them. And this took a while. Um, but what we found is at about that six month mark, we could really help to re navigate people in the right direction. Rich Birch — Right. Sam Beatty — So where people maybe were getting, you know, to a point where there were frustrations bubbling up, but but they didn’t really have they weren’t open enough to bring it up, you know, in a conversation with you. But when you had an intentional time to sit down and, um, and go over that. And so what we did find is if we would skip that and wait like a year, then that’s where things would spiral with certain volunteers. And we’d find a ton of so we found a ton of health from incorporating those heart checks. And so I can’t speak enough for like, your one-on-ones with staff members. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s huge. Yeah. Sam Beatty — Because what happens is you get off the same page. And even where you think you’re on the same page, you know, you think you’re going in the right direction together uh, you’re really kind of getting off page. So if you can have those strategic conversations more, more frequently, those are huge, both from a staff perspective and a volunteer perspective.Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. Let’s talk about that from a volunteer perspective. I don’t know many churches that do one on ones with volunteers. Like that’s that’s a that’s a huge investment of time, effort, energy, resources. You know, is the goal has that kind of rolled out for all your, your, your volunteer teams, like you’re trying to do them twice a year? Um, yeah, talk us through that a little bit.Sam Beatty — Yeah, I’d say we try to do that with every ministry area that’s that’s looking at staff, uh, having having volunteer teams, I mean. And what we do is not program it in exactly the same way. Rich Birch — Right. Sure. Sam Beatty — But we say at least twice a year, have a touchpoint with your with your teams. And, and so as far as the worship department would go, we would take, uh, we would do it four times a year, split up between two different departments. You know, the musicians were every six months and we’d stagger three months and do… Rich Birch — Right. Sam Beatty — …vocalists. And, uh, and so we would meet with them for 10 or 15 minutes, make it very quick so it was not this long thing. But we would just say, what’s God been teaching you? And what are some, you know, things that you what’s something that you want to tell us that you haven’t told us? And just amazing things would come out of those times. And we also found, interestingly, a lot of them were thematic. We would see the same thing happening with a number of people. Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.Sam Beatty — Um, but the whole next, you know, the next few months, people are just pumped – they’re excited. They see the mission and vision more clearly. Uh, and I think you’re just on the same page.Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s cool. Well, let’s talk about that then, at a staff level and maybe bring it back to the vision/mission piece. You know, talk us through. I’m sure this has never happened, but theoretically, if you were engaged in a conversation with a staff member where you felt this person is straying a bit from the mission, or maybe their area is, there’s a little bit of vision leak there. We’re not quite pointing in the direction we should. Um, talk us through what does that look like? How do you engage that person? How do we kind of keep them, you know, how do we try to steer them back? Those kind of talk us through what that would look like.Sam Beatty — Yeah. And, um, I think this is an opportunity um, it’s an opportunity. Really, you know, when you’re in ministry, this is an opportunity to always help take people two degrees in the right direction. Rich Birch — Yeah, sure. Sam Beatty — Because what’s going to happen then is you’re going to head toward, you know, toward the right, uh, the right thing, get people back on mission and vision. So the way I like to do that, and, you know, where we’ve discussed with other staff members is seeing, how do you feel like things are going? You know, you ask lots of questions. And I think a lot of times where people get into trouble, especially as they’re overseeing others, is they make more authoritarian kind of declarative statements to people, as opposed to making it more of a question. Sam Beatty — Like, you know the right answer. We read the same Bible. Like, we just need to ask the question and people will think like, oh, wow, that that’s true. So I think being good at question-asking always helps people go. Taking a humble approach. I think humility is so huge. Um, especially when you’re in more of a senior leadership. Uh, because people will say things that will offend you. Or you’ll think like, hey, I was, I, you don’t know, ten things that were happening in the background. But just to take a humble approach and say, I hear you, I hear what you’re saying, and we need to heal together in those situations, you know.Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. Years ago, I had a coach, uh, say to me, we had to, you know, person that helps teams for a living. Um, and, you know, they spent some time with us and with our teams, and then it came to some feedback from them, and we were, you know, we were deliberately saying like, hey, we want to we want some help, how can we get better? And this leader said to me, he said, you know, Rich, um, you should you should ask way more questions than you answer. And I was like, oh, that kind of hurts a little bit, you know? And it’s true, right? How do we we need to position ourselves as question-askers, not as question-answerers. I think particularly as we as we become more senior in an organization, it can become tempting… Sam Beatty — Yeah. Rich Birch — Because and part of it’s true, it’s because like you’ve seen a lot of stuff, you’ve done a lot of things. Um, but man, we need our people to really grow into that. That’s, uh that’s good.Sam Beatty — I think I think, too, leaders are inherently problem solvers. I think I’ve found a lot of good leaders who are really good problem solvers. Because that’s what happens – problems arise and you make the right decision. So I think often we can go into a conversation with another staff member or a volunteer, and we already have the right answer in our own mind. But there’s often 10 or 12 different ways to do something. And so asking the question gives them the opportunity to help you to see a different way as well. So I think having the humility to say, I’m not always right… Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, exactly. Sam Beatty — …I think it’s important.Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s so good. Good stuff. Well, I know one of the functional problems we face as our churches grow larger is it’s actually the fact that they grow larger. And, you know, I made the joke before – the only people that like big churches are pastors. You know, most people, if you talk with them, they would prefer a smaller church just because of all the stuff around, you know, who do we who do I connect with and all that? How are you facing that at Grace? What are you doing? You know, this is a big organization. Lots of people, lots of staff. What are some of the practical ways that you’re attempting to try to make Grace feel like, you know, it gets people, can still get connected and be a part of, you know, what’s happening here?Sam Beatty — Yeah, that’s a great question. I think that’s such an important piece because as people stay anonymous, you know, if there’s an anonymity, that’s where they just don’t feel like this is part of my family. And I think part of the this is where the complexity issue comes back in. Like, um, is there a positive to being complex? It’s only if your folks still focused on the strategic pieces. So offering within, you know, men’s ministry, for example, having lots of opportunities for people to be at consistent tables, you know. And that’s that’s kind of like their small group where I’ve seen a number of churches say we do only life groups, and it’s only this way, it’s only this specific program. So you’re sort of programming out an ability for people to to engage with others in the way that God might be sparking them to do. And so I think giving lots of opportunities, but also keeping things very strategic, uh, is, is is important. And that’s I think that’s where we’ve seen a lot of healing. So we have a lot of recovery ministries where people would say, wow, if I miss, I’m people are going to know I’m missing. Rich Birch — Right. Sam Beatty — Uh, or you’re at a, you know, a smaller, um, we do the thing called Ladies Latte. It’s kind of an outreach opportunity. Our senior pastor’s wife, Mary, uh, speaks at that. And and people go there, and they they build community with just that table. Rich Birch — Right. Sam Beatty — And they look forward to it every month. So I think being able to have those those opportunities are important.Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s how do you balance those, the tension of those two off of, um, you know, wanting to create opportunities, uh, on one side while on the other side, trying to keep things simple and not, not complex. How do you… there’s no easy answer to this question; I understand that. Sam Beatty — Yeah. Rich Birch — But what are some of the ways that you’re wrestling with that tension? It’s probably a tension to live with rather than a problem to solve.Sam Beatty — Sure. Yeah. I think if you’re not living with that tension, you’re probably not growing. Because you’re always, you know, having that complexity back in your face, so to speak. Uh, I think as long as you’re looking at.Sam Beatty — So, for example, if you are, um, given an opportunity – somebody is starting a ministry or they’re excited about something and you can you can empower someone, you can equip them to do it. It’s not taking a ton of staffing hours, but but you’re really equipping that person. You’re doing you’re really doing discipleship. So when you see the opportunities as more of discipleship opportunities, and if you’re constantly equipping others to do them, then then you can have a broader sense of, we could have 10 or 12 things happening. But the reality is we’re not we’re not investing 10 or 12 times our current output. Sam Beatty — We’re having one…another thing, I mentioned the heart checks, but another thing we do sort of staff-wide, ministry-wide is really challenge people to have a vision dinner or a vision cookout or some kind of vision-casting event. So no matter what, if you’re in men’s ministry and all these different guys are going all different directions, there’s, you know, some complexity there. You still have a central point of vision-casting… Rich Birch — Oh, I love that. Sam Beatty — …where you’re doing that for everybody. So that’s the bigger picture. Rich Birch — And that’s that’s at like the ministry level… Sam Beatty — Yeah. Rich Birch — …like, hey, what are you doing this year? Because I think a lot of times we, we look at like a lead pastor or someone in your seat, executive pastor, and we’re like, well, that’s kind of their thing. They’re the people that are the vision people. But I love that idea of of saying, hey, at a ministry level, we’re expecting you to do something around casting the vision.Sam Beatty — For sure. Yeah. And we all have different, you know, every ministry area will have different things that they desire for their purpose to be within the scope of that vision/mission. But we make very clear, like children’s vision and mission is equal to men’s is equal to women’s is equal to small groups. Like that it has to have a central vision and mission. And then within that you can have your own purpose. But that’s an opportunity for them to really cast that when they have something like a dinner, or something to gather together and do that. Yeah.Rich Birch — That’s cool, I love that. That’s again, I don’t I don’t know that I know anybody that does that. That’s a great, you know, I think we we see it typically roll out as like a corporate thing. It’s like a hey, we’re kind of doing this as an organization. That’s that’s a, that’s a really cool. Well pivoting in a little slightly different direction. Talk to me about your, you know, campus, the ministry that’s connected with the prison. Um, how does that all work? That’s a, you know, tell me a little bit about that kind of fill in that picture, and how does that connect to the the vision/mission of the church?Sam Beatty — Yeah. Um, that’s a great question. We we had a guy who, Mike Swagger, he’s he works for a ministry that works in the churches. And he approached us. And this is where I think coming with that if an opportunity comes to you, you’re not always just turning it down because, well, we’re too complex already; we just have to turn things down. Um, but he approached us and, and really said, here’s, here’s the issue. The issue, we we do discipleship well in prisons. We don’t have any church feature that’s healthy. It’s not like a community that’s gathered together. And, uh, and the other thing is we don’t have anything for families. So what we sort of came up with and Scott Lessing, one of our associate pastors, he was the men’s pastor at the time and ended up being that campus pastor. So that’s part of his role, did a phenomenal job with it. But what we offer is we we go in multiple times a week. There are lots of different things happening. And the guys have an opportunity to hear the service. So we do it in a very similar way to that we do our other campus, our other physical campus. We have a video of the sermon. Uh, they have their own worship team inside the inside the prison. And, uh, we have a whole team of people who do kind of announcement type things and gathering and praying for people. So it’s a it’s an opportunity to bring volunteers in. And it’s really almost all volunteer led at this point. Sam Beatty — Um, um, and, and what we’ve found is some just some amazing things where guys are getting out of prison and they’re coming to our, uh, one of our campuses now. And, and one interesting conversation in the beginning of this is that the guy who is proposing that we we do something had already approached another large church, and they said, well, actually, if if those people are going to come to our church, then we’re not going to do it. We thought, wow, that is not the heart of Jesus.Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.Sam Beatty — And so so what we’ve seen is not only people beginning to come, but also the families of the incarcerated guys are able to attend or watch live stream. And so you have this separated family that’s both now gathering and worshiping in the same way. Um, in obviously a different, you know, a couple different ways. But, uh, one other thing cool that’s happening within that. And this all sort of birthed out of seeing opportunities and really taking advantage of them. Um, but we’re starting a school of ministry within the, the prison itself. And the school of ministry is now training and equipping, uh, incarcerated guys… Rich Birch — That’s amazing. Sam Beatty — …to be ministry leaders, really to be pastors. Rich Birch — Wow. Sam Beatty — And the CMAs on board, their their you know, it’s been complex just trying to figure out the how do we… Rich Birch — Really? Sam Beatty — …license somebody to be a pastor… Yeah. How do we license somebody to be a pastor and he, uh, you know, is is currently in prison. Rich Birch — Right. Sam Beatty — Because it’s separated into, they call it the cadre. And the cadre are long term guys that have been there for a long time. Rich Birch — Okay. Sam Beatty — And so the goal is, as these guys can travel around the state of Ohio, they can be given opportunity to minister to others as well. Rich Birch — Wow. Sam Beatty — So so a lot of cool things happening. But I think it birthed out of that, you know, that are we taking advantage of the opportunities that God gives us? Rich Birch — Yeah. I just want to underline two things I want to underline there. First of all, like I, I love your heart and I appreciate what you’re saying. Like, hey there, you know, there might be other churches that are like, man, if those those folks are coming here, uh, we don’t, you know, we don’t want them here. You know, to be honest, I think that’s probably the way most churches would react. We wish we wouldn’t, but I think, you know, lots of us would have that kind of reaction. And the fact that Grace, your church, your leadership would say no, like we should do something here. You know, we’ve seen this time and again that fast growing churches, there’s always a sizable portion of their ministry that is it is about reaching people. It’s about making the community that they’re in better, even when it’s it doesn’t when it seems selfless. It’s like, hey, this isn’t this is not really a huge benefit, or at least it’s a long term commitment. you know, literally if guys are in for a long time, you know, before, you know, we’re going to see some trickle down, you know, these this isn’t going to solve a staff thing next week. You know, this is going to be a long time. Sam Beatty — Yeah. Rich Birch — And so um I just love that. And I also just want to underline the opportunistic thing too, that it’s like I think we all should be looking for where is it that, you know, it’s the old Henry Blackaby thing. Where is it that God’s working and how do we get alongside that and say, hey, I want to be a part of what’s going on there. So yeah, I love that. Yeah. When you… Sorry. Go ahead.Sam Beatty — No, I was just going to say we, we’ve, we’ve seen a number of different models, prison campus models. But the most common is Monday morning you drop off the DVD and then the guys can just watch it. You know, this is this is much more than that. This is actual ministry. Our senior pastor goes out there, I think, every 6 or 8 weeks and preaches. Rich Birch — Wow, wow. Sam Beatty — And he and he’ll just, uh, you know, preach the same message he did on Sunday. And they know him because they see him every week. You know, he he’s on the screen for them. Rich Birch — Right. Sam Beatty — But to be able to gather with them and, and pray with them. And we’ve just seen God move in some amazing ways, even within the, the correction officers and the, the leadership of the of the prison, and so forth. Yeah. Rich Birch — That’s amazing. That is uh, I love that. You know, I think that’s inspiring. What would you say to a church who’s, you know, maybe there’s a leader or two that are thinking that might be something, or maybe God’s already put something on their heart and they’re they’re hearing this and they’re thinking, maybe we should take a step towards that. What would be step one, step two that you would suggest, hey, here are some kind of initial steps to even take to explore, you know, beyond reaching out and talking with you? I would suggest that. But, you know, beyond that, are there any kind of steps that people should think about if they’re thinking about prison ministry?Sam Beatty — Yeah. And we’d be we’d be glad to come alongside people. But I, I think the biggest thing for us is we, we had that connection. So there was a connection point with a ministry that’s currently in a prison. So I think if you’re looking to get involved, uh, that would be probably the first step is try to find another ministry that happens to be in there and partner with them. So we’re not trying to redo what you’re doing from discipleship standpoint. We’re trying to make a church and and also incorporate the families. We have other teams here in our, you know, current campus, um, that minister to the families of and that’s been cool to see, you know, and when people get out, there’s a whole process where we meet with them. We help them get jobs, we help them get. So there’s all kinds of things cascading from that. Sam Beatty — Um, but but I think, uh, another thing that you would want to do is really contact the warden. Uh, the warden is sort of the… if the warden doesn’t want it, it is not going to happen. So. Rich Birch — Right, right, right. Sam Beatty — We’ve even thought about do we go to a couple more around us in the Cleveland area and, and just jump in and we thought, oh we really need an open door. Rich Birch — Right. Sam Beatty — So I think having some of those conversations and, and knowing where there’s a successful, uh, it’s successfully happening. If you were to have that warden talk to our warden here, um, she would tell you, wow, there’s amazing things happening. Like, you should do it, you know, and I think can be an advocate.Rich Birch — Right. Interesting, interesting. Well, this has been a great conversation. Um what else is going on in Greece. Anything else you want to share? Just as we we look to kind of land today’s episode.Sam Beatty — Yeah. I, um, I think one other cool opportunity that we’ve seen and taken advantage of is being able to, uh, incorporate cultural churches within our congregation. So we found that, um, being in an area Cleveland has a larger immigrant population. Um, we have more languages spoken than probably a lot of places around. And. Rich Birch — Right. Sam Beatty — So what we decided was, is there a way that we could have, you know, churches or campuses that are in different languages? And that’s been something I think that’s been really, uh, uh, a God thing where, where we’ve seen a lot of, uh, people who can’t speak English, uh, come coming out. But I would say just in kind of in closing, uh, as a ministry, I think the more that we can focus on being healthy, the healthier what comes out of you is going to be. Rich Birch — Right, so true. Sam Beatty — So no matter what God is directing you in, you know, you may not there may not be a prison opportunity for you, but your opportunity might be small groups or something else. The goal is always to say, how are we making this healthy? And when we when we talk about things like heart checks and vision meals – these are all areas to to bring greater health, you know, to to people, congregants, volunteers and staff alike.Rich Birch — Yeah. So good. Well, Sam, this has been a great conversation. I really appreciate you spending some time with us today. If people want to connect with you or with the church, where do we want to send them online?Sam Beatty — Yeah, we have um, if you just go to GraceCMA.org, GraceCMA.org, uh, and then there’s a whole staff page there. You can look me up. I’m the only Sam on staff, so feel free to email me. Happy to have you email me and check and reach out. Yeah.Rich Birch — Well, I really appreciate you being here today. Sam. Thank you so much for your time.Sam Beatty — Thank you. Rich. 

As we step into the fresh possibilities of 2024, it’s vital for church leaders to discern between fleeting trends and enduring challenges. In this episode of the unSeminary Podcast, we delve into the “2024 Unpredictions,” a guide to the timeless challenges and solutions that will shape church leadership this year. Core Themes: Parents Will Still Worry About Kids: The digital age continues to present new challenges for parents. Churches have a unique opportunity to provide guidance and support, particularly in the realm of kids’ ministry. Whether it’s through sermon series focused on raising children in a digital age or offering comprehensive family counselling, there’s ample space for churches to make a significant impact. Marriages Will Be Struggling: With nearly half of American marriages facing challenges, churches must bolster their support for couples. This might mean enhancing premarital counselling, hosting marriage enrichment retreats, or using resources like the Alpha Marriage Course to provide practical, relatable guidance. The Bible Will Need Explanation: The majority of the 181 million Americans who opened the Bible last year found it confusing. Churches need to double down on making Scripture accessible and relevant. Consider additional resources like post-sermon podcasts, companion readings, or broader reading campaigns to deepen biblical understanding. The Poor Will Be Among Us: Globally, 700 million people live in extreme poverty. Churches can play a pivotal role in addressing this through partnerships with local and global charities, advocating for social and economic policies, and creating job opportunities. Gathering Together Will Still Matter: Despite the rise of digital platforms, in-person church experiences remain irreplaceable. Focus on creating unique, engaging in-person experiences that can’t be replicated online. The World Will Be Smaller: As global connections grow, leveraging technology for global communication and learning becomes crucial. Churches should aim to develop global relationships and share their ministry more widely. The Next Generation Will Matter More: With lower church attendance rates among millennials and Gen Z, it’s crucial to engage and empower these groups. This means adapting styles to resonate more with younger demographics and inviting them into leadership roles. While we embrace the advancements and shifts of 2024, these seven areas remain steadfast challenges for church leadership. By focusing on these enduring issues and adapting our strategies to the current context, we can ensure our churches not only remain relevant but thrive in serving our communities. Let’s embrace these “Unpredictions” as a roadmap for impactful ministry in the year ahead. We’d love to hear how your church is addressing these challenges. Share your stories and strategies with us, and let’s grow together in 2024!

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Sats Solanki, the founder of Reflect Church in London. Sats is not just a pastor but also a coach, speaker, and host of the podcast, Digital Rabbi. Tune in as he shares about the unique journey of Reflect Church and its strategically slow approach to rebuilding after COVID-19. Make space for rest. // Coming back from the pandemic in London, Sats explains that what Reflect Church sensed its people needed was rest and a deeper connection to God. So they began stripping away elements that felt like more of a drain and a distraction rather than something that energized congregants and created space for connection. Make it about discipleship. // One change the church made was to simplify Sunday services. They also stopped talking about money on a weekly basis and have actually seen an increase in giving. Sats explains that Sundays are now more about discipleship. As the leadership has stepped back, it has created a sense of ownership and buy-in among the congregation. Reflect Church’s leadership recognized that it is God’s church and while they have a significant role to play, they needed to pause in order to keep in step with the Spirit and not run ahead in their own strength. What works in your area? // Reflect Church’s strategically slow approach is influenced by the unique geography and culture of London. People in the city work late and have limited energy for volunteering and attending events. Look at your geography and demographics when you make decisions for your church. Your personality, gifting and staff team are unique. Recognize that certain things will work in your location whereas other things won’t. Energizing vs draining. // At Reflect Church they are now more intentional about creating room for the presence of God and ministry during services rather than having everything precisely planned and structured primarily around teaching. They incorporate more silence and waiting on God in their services, allowing for moments of encounter and reflection. It’s important to help people get connected in the right environments but we also need to examine if we are offering something energizing or draining. People need to come away from church feeling like they have received something.  Use your gifts outside the church. // Digital Rabbi was built around helping people discover and pursue their dreams and desires. People should feel alive and energized using their God-given gifts and the work that they do. Part of seeing the kingdom of God expand means helping people love the work they do outside the church as well as inside the church. Through his podcast, Sats encourages creatives, in particular, to recognize the urgency and sense of stewardship in using their gifts, rather than viewing them as mere hobbies or optional pursuits. You can find out more about Digital Rabbi and the podcast and coaching Sats offers at www.digitalrabbi.co. You can also find Sats online on Instagram and connect with Reflect Church at www.reflect.church. Thank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Well hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. You’re really going to be rewarded for that today because we have got a great interview lined up. Really been looking forward to this. We’ve got Sats Solanski. He is from London, which is kind of cool, international guest. Always great to have folks from all over the world on the podcast. He planted his church in 2021—it’s called Reflect Church—out of another church. They have two locations in London, plus they’re part of an international movement called C3 Church Global. If you’re not familiar with them, you should be – a fantastic movement. On top of being a pastor, he also runs a website called Digital Rabbi, which he offers coaching, speaking and hosts a podcast as well. We love having podcasters on. Super excited to have you on Sats. Thanks for being here today. Sats Solanki — Well hey, Rich, thanks for having me on. Rich Birch — No, this will be great. It’ll be yeah, I have this funny thing with London. I had never been. I should have said this before we even began. I’ve never been to London in my life, ever, in my entire life. And I was three times in the last 12 months, which is very odd… Sats Solanki — No way. Rich Birch — …very, very strange. So I love London, love, love getting a chance to talk with with folks in London. So fill in the picture, tell us a little bit about Reflect. Tell us about your background. Sats Solanki — Yeah, yeah, sure. So yeah, as you said, we we planted the church a couple of years ago that was out of an existing multi-site church which had been going for, I don’t know, 20, 30 years, something like that. We’d been a part of that church, my wife and I, since really going to university, so it was quite a big change. Sadly, there was a little bit of the, you know, leadership transition, a bit of drama, a bit of difficulty. So that was a thing. And that happened. Rich Birch — Yeah. Sats Solanki — That happens. Um, and so really it was like, what do we want to do? You know, we’ve got this, you know, group of people. It was around Covid. And London is the sort of city where, you know, a lot of people just left, you know, because, you know, they want to go home. They’re not originally from London. Or it’s a terrible city to have Covid in… Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Sats Solanki — …because it’s all about what you can do out and about in this city. So yeah, it wasn’t great for a lot of people. So that obviously had a massive effect on the church. So we had this small group of people like, what do we want to do, you know? So we just take a break or should we give it another go. So yeah, we felt like it was the right thing to kind of try and lead people through. That was the word actually. I kind of felt like there were people there and it just felt almost wrong just to abandon ship, you know, in a time of crisis. So so that’s how it kind of came back and, and really we’ve been rebuilding very slowly. I would say strategically, slowly, but I think that makes me sound a bit smarter than maybe I am. I would say we’ve we’ve leant into that to try and create, um, what we’ve really felt the church needs, which is rest, and what we needed as well. So it’s changed how we’re doing things. And we have this really unique opportunity to start something with some people who are already with us. So it’s not completely from scratch. Rich Birch — Right. Sats Solanki — So it gives us a bit of space to explore, um, yeah, without thinking, no one’s going to want to be a part of this. It’s too different from what people are expecting. Rich Birch — Right, right. That’s cool. I’d love to talk about that. I was when I was doing a little bit of research, I see, you know, you have two locations, one in Bellam, I don’t know London very well, although when I was there once, I had a, I had a great after I had this amazing pizza in this really cool spot, sat for a whole afternoon and it was in Bellam. So I’m like, I feel like. I’m no way. Yeah, which is hilarious. So right off the kind of town square or this, I don’t know what they call it, like the square there is beautiful. One of these I remember because it was a bright, sunny day and I was like, wow, this is not London. This is not my picture of of London. So, so anyways, love I love that part of the world. So that’s fantastic. Rich Birch — Well let’s come back to that strategically slow. You know that doesn’t really connect with church planting. You know we have this picture of church planting which is like go, go, go, you know, push hard, do everything, ring all the bells, do everything we can. Talk to us. And that can lead ultimately to unhealthy patterns. I think ultimately that can, you know, you hear this all the time. It’s almost like a stereotype. It’s like we got that’s how you get going. And then ten years later, the pastor or the leadership team burns out and they’re like, they have this come to Jesus moment and they’re like, oh, we should not lead like this. And I’ve sometimes joked where I’ve said, like, has anybody ever started without that? Like, is there a way to do it that’s not that way? So unpack that. Talk to us about being strategically slow. What’s that look like? Sats Solanki — Yeah. Wow. I mean, great question. I think it’s probably worth just saying like, um, I think often we as leaders and maybe just as people, we tend, we do tend to react and overcorrect. So I would sense just looking at my own journey that the past few years has been a correction, but it could be an overcorrection as well. And I do feel the the pendulum swinging a little bit back, you know. Um, just to give you an example, you know, for a while we just we just a lot of the things you would associate with our sort of church…you got lyrics. We got. If we just we scrapped lyrics when we came back to church. Like we didn’t even bother putting them on a screen. It was that minimal. Rich Birch — Right. Sats Solanki — And for those listening, obviously people don’t know me, so they don’t know how I’m wired. But just to help everyone, I’m wired in a way that is visionary, that is driven all of the classic, you know, traits of a lot of church planters. Rich Birch — Ok yes. Sats Solanki — And so for me, that was like very strange. But I think one of the things one of the I wouldn’t call it—maybe, maybe, let’s call it a mantra, it’s a mantra now—was this phrase which was, we’ll do what we can do. Because we went from an environment where we had very hard working team, you know, it was all about, come on, let’s build the church. Let’s build the kingdom of God. Let’s go. You know, you know, London for Jesus. All that jazz, which I’m still into. I was totally into that as a concept. But but but you know, it was just it was very, very busy. And so we realized actually what Covid did is it created a lot of space, and it created space for people to think about what their priorities were. And, and one of the things we realized is that Sundays took so much energy. And what it really meant is that most people didn’t have any energy for throughout the week, which, you know, there’s obviously one Sunday in the six other days. So what does that mean for what it looks like to be a Christian the rest of the week? So we just realized it wasn’t it wasn’t bad. It was our love for the church. And we wanted to create something. We want to create space for people to connect with God, etcetera. But the way we were going about it was actually not accomplishing that in the overall across the week. So that seemed to be a pretty big error. And I know it’s not just me because I’ve heard a lot of other conversations, you know. I think there has been something globally across, you know, the global church of people getting this revelation and shifting. And yeah, it’s felt really good. Rich Birch — Sure. Yeah. Yeah, I love that. I’d love to unpack that. You know, that that’s a contrarian position obviously. You’ve you know, you’ve you know, you’re talking about, you know, something that I think is the reason why we’re talking about it is because it grabs your attention. You think, okay, this is a little bit interesting. So, you know, that idea that Sunday takes so much energy, I think is true. I think all of us can resonate with that. It feels like, gosh, it is so much push to make the weekend happen. And is this really a day of rest, like what’s happening here? Unpack that a little bit more. What’s that look like for you to kind of, you know, take a step back from, okay, we’re not even going to have lyrics. What else has that kind of what other things, other ways has that impacted your thinking or the way things are done at reflect? Sats Solanki — Well, I think I think it’s interesting, isn’t it, because we didn’t not have lyrics forever. You know, it did change. But what was really funny in the first couple of weeks that we did that is I was getting text messages from people who are almost like jittery about it. And they’re saying, oh, and they were suggesting, do you want us to print some lyrics? It was almost like they thought maybe they can’t figure it out how to do it. So so we let people do it. We, we let them print them out. And what it did is it created a sort of environment where it was kind of the opposite of consumerism because because now it’s not like we’re going to create all this stuff for you. Which, which there’s nothing wrong with that but but it does it does slightly disempower people from actually contributing, because we’ve kind of got a top down sort of hierarchical structure. This is what we’re doing. This is what we’re, you know, all of that sort of stuff. And what it did is it created a little bit more sense of, this is our church, obviously it’s Jesus’s church, but, you know, and we do need leaders and all of that jazz. But but it created it created a sense of of of more buy-in actually, like more ownership, which when you really think about what you want as a leader, that is what you want. Sats Solanki — So another shift we made is we stop talking about money, like not completely, but on a weekly basis. And still, and I imagine this will change, so again, I’ll come back to the overcorrection. But for a little while we just thought, you know what, we’re just going to rest this conversation. Rich Birch — Take a break from that, Yeah. Sats Solanki — We would talk about it in a few messages, maybe in the year, but we’ve seen our giving go up. So there’s something about the spirit of it that is attractive. I think when we’re not pushing, we’re not forcing it just in that we’re going to make something happen. We actually understand that it is God’s church and he is the one building it. And we definitely have a significant role to play, but when we just step back a little bit and we get, you know, in step with the Spirit, we’re walking with God, I think God can do things that we couldn’t do in our own strength. And and I think there’s a lot we could do in our own strength. You know, I think there’s a lot we can create in a church without God. And that’s okay… Rich Birch — It’s true. Right. There’s that, and I’ve said that for years, like one of the I would say like one of those, you know, how you have these like discontenting questions you walk with for a long time. One of them in my life has been so what was actually happening during all those revivals years ago? Was that… And there’s like two really dissatisfying answers. One is it’s like, no, like the Lord was moving and and it was all him. And he loved those people more than he loves the communities we’re in today. And I’m like, that doesn’t sound right. Like there’s a part of that that sounds off. Rich Birch — But then the other end of that spectrum is like, well, no, those people were just more committed, and they did something and that feels like, oh, you know, and obviously we know it’s it’s, you know, there’s a lot mixed up in there. But for sure, we don’t want it to be all about us. We want it to be about about him. And I love that idea of creating space. And how do we do that? When, you know, when you look at the idea of reducing clutter in people’s lives, you know, there’s Sunday’s one piece of it, but there’s lots of other stuff that we do that that can create all kinds of just kind of meaningless clutter. And what has, as you’ve pulled those away, what were some of those things you pulled away? And then as you’ve started to add things back, because it sounds like you’re, you know, you talk about the overcorrection, you’ve started to have to add stuff back, what has driven you to do that? What have you added back? And how are you doing that trying to do that in an intentional way that looks a little different? Sats Solanki — Yeah. Well, I think there’s a lot of factors. The first one I think is geography; it has to be acknowledged. We’re in a we’re in London, we’re in a very specific city. We’re in a very specific culture. The world is very different. And and one of the it’s I wouldn’t say it’s a joke, but but I think sometimes when, when on this side of the world, we talk to American or North American pastors, there is a bit of a we do smile, because it’s just so different. Rich Birch — Yes. Sats Solanki — And often there’s not that kind of awareness. But but I think, you know, every city is different. You know, every demographic is different. I think we’re all called to do slightly different things. And obviously there’s some commonalities, but it’s been very freeing for me to realize I don’t have to do what everyone else is doing because no one else is where I am, with this group of people in this time, and no one else is me. So so that really changes. No one no one else has got the same team as I do, et cetera. So the more you look at it, the more unique it becomes. And I think that gives you a lot of freedom to actually have the courage to go, well, we’re not going to do this and we’re going to do this. Sats Solanki — So I think to go to some of the practicals, I think there will be quite geographic. You know, I realized that, you know, people just work really late here. So they’re working really hard and often people have moved to the city for their job, you know, for their career, for their things. So it’s almost like some of the more traditional models of come on, let’s get people volunteering and coming to stuff, it’s almost like people just do not have the energy for it. Rich Birch — Right. Yes. Sats Solanki — And that that was quite hard to acknowledge because you’re like, well, you should have the energy for it. You know, you should be more committed. But just to embrace that rhythm of, of the, of the city. So, so what that’s, that’s meant is that Sundays has become less invitational and more discipleship-orientated, because it’s a major point of connection, because we don’t have a… we can get people midweek, but it’s it’s a little bit difficult. And I suspect that will change, you know, over the next few years because as we’ve created space for rest. And this is the weird tension, and I think tension is a great word to describe everything we’re talking about here, because again, you can overcorrect. But it’s things in tension, isn’t it? Is it God? Is it us? Well, it’s in tension, isn’t it? It’s both. So everyone, we’ve all got to interpret it, haven’t we, for ourselves and figure out where that is. So I hope no one thinks I’m preaching this really extreme. I’m just about I’m just I’ve got conviction about what we’re doing. Rich Birch — Yes, yeah. Sats Solanki — And I think ultimately that’s what it comes down to, because you have to know that you’re doing what God is asking you to do. And that is the definition of success, isn’t it? That’s faithfulness. Um, so I forgot where I was going, but there was there was something practical. I think you would have to know what we actually stripped out. Was that the question? Rich Birch — Yeah, what we stripped out and then and as you’ve added back in, because it sounds like you’ve added a few things back in… Sats Solanki — Yes. Rich Birch — …or maybe you’ve been thinking about that, what would kind of what’s the framework you’re using to think about that? Sats Solanki — Yes. Okay I got it. It’s come back. Rich Birch — Great. Love it. Sats Solanki — So so so I’ve realized that, you know seasonally, post-Covid as we’ve created rest um we’ve done something amazing, we’ve given people space. But the flip side is, is also true that people have actually lost the capacity to gather as much. So so it’s been good to rest, but now it is time, I sense, for us to be encouraging people a little bit more. So we’ve given people a lot of space, like come on Sunday, you know, we have maybe one other midweek event, which is not which is like once a month. And that’s for the core core of the church in something we call influencers, which is a sort of equivalent of membership. But what we tried to do with membership is make it less church-orientated and more your life-orientated. That’s another story. But I think in realizing people need to increase their capacity, there is a case to bring back all the typical things. We have had groups, but we haven’t put a massive push on them yet. Rich Birch — Right. Push on that. Sats Solanki — So so we feel that coming back in okay, it’s time. It’s time to come on you do need to be in a group. You do need to do something other than work. You know, like we do need to tell people it’s so so yeah, that would that would probably be it. I would say in the service itself, we’ve stripped back a lot of, as I said, talking about money. It’s not doesn’t take, you know, it’s not something that’s really there. We don’t have a lot of announcements. But but again, we’re in a very youthful environment. Everybody’s digitally connected. So we can just go see the website. You know, we don’t have to spend a long time telling you what’s on Tuesday evening, Wednesday night, Thursday, et cetera. Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. Sats Solanki — So we’ve just got rid of a lot of that fluff that didn’t really need to be there for us. Um yeah. Rich Birch — Well, yeah. So I’d love so there’s a lot we can learn here. So London, you know, obviously it’s a global city and in a lot of ways is, you know, leads in so many areas. And, you know, the fact that, you know, it is really in some ways peering into the future because it’s so post-Christian. You know, I my this was the context I’m used to, you know, worked for years in the Manhattan facing suburbs. And, you know, those are communities we have to keep staring at and learning from. So this is super helpful for us. Rich Birch — You know, let’s talk more about that loss of capacity issue. I think there’s a real issue there. One of the things in the UK for listeners, you know, may not be aware of this, but the UK government has identified loneliness as like an issue at like the highest level. There’s literally like a I don’t know what they call them loneliness [inaudible]. It’s like, hey, we got to work on this. And so let me be the devil’s advocate or maybe the angels advocate. So like in a season when the culture is identifying, hey, people are not connecting with each other, is it the right move for us to pull back? Shouldn’t we be leaning in? Shouldn’t we, isn’t there just practically something we can do by trying to get people connected, or am I thinking about that incorrectly? Sats Solanki — Yeah. No, I think you are right. I think we want to help people get in the right environments. But but I think I think the key thing is, is that we need to ask about what we do and what we create for people to attend and connect with… Rich Birch — That’s good. Sats Solanki — Is does it does it give them energy, or does it drain energy? Rich Birch — Right. Sats Solanki — Because I think that’s that’s it, isn’t it? If you come to a service and you feel like I’m obligated to serve, and I feel like I’ve got to do this, and there’s and you just feel it’s not so much about what you’re doing, it’s more about just where the person is in themselves. If they are operating in a place where they’re just giving a little bit more than they would like to, or they’re able to, then they’re going to come away from that event feeling a little bit drained, and that affects how they’re going to show up in the future. And so what we’ve really tried to do is, is just try and be really sensitive with that so that we’re not, you know, when you’ve got a machine which is church, you’ve got roles you’ve got to fill, you’ve got things you’ve got to do, and then you get stuck because you end up prioritizing the overall vision over the individual. And, and we have to flip it the other way and understand that the vision will be built when people are built. And and so we do want to engage people, but we have to figure out a way that’s going to give them energy and make them… And for me, if we want to talk more theologically or practically… Rich Birch — Sure. Sats Solanki — …for me, that’s about creating more space for the presence of God, more space for… Rich Birch — Love it. Sats Solanki — …you know, ministry, not just teaching, you know? So we do a lot more space in our services, a lot more like awkward silences, you know, like where we’d be like, cool, next thing, next thing. It’s like, no, we’re just going to wait on God for a bit and just see what happens. So I think that that is what people need when they come to church, right? They need to come away feeling like they’ve received something. Rich Birch — Yeah. That’s so true. Yeah. That’s that’s very true. And you know, so my, my background folks that are listening and know this, but I, you know, I really come out of the attraction church movement. That’s where I spent most of my time, and still spend a lot of my time thinking. And 100% agree that like the if you just held on to what we did 20, 30 years ago, that isn’t, you’ve missed the boat. Because it’s like people have changed, and obviously Covid accelerated. And I totally agree on this idea of accessible encounters. How when people come to our experiences, they need to they need to actually experience something. Even just last weekend at our church, Jeff, our lead pastor, you know, he took ten minutes and did a lectio divina. You know, it was using different language and it was, you know, it was clarifying what was happening for folks who maybe have never experienced that before. But I’m like, we would have never done that 20 years ago. Like we would have never said, let’s stop our service and have, you know, vast moments of just quiet where we’re giving people a piece of scripture to chew on, that we just would have never done that. Rich Birch — Give us some examples of what does that kind of accessible encounter look like for you. How how are you how are you creating that space for people, for them to actually have some sort of encounter with the Holy Spirit? What’s that look like for you? Sats Solanki — Yeah, good. Good question. I think it’s very individual to the leader, to the team, to the pastor. Rich Birch — Sure. Sats Solanki — Because and I think the reason that is, is because we all have it’s about gifting, isn’t it? There’s all areas where you you can deposit more, let’s say. So personally, for me, I’ve grown to learn that I’m quite prophetic. And so that involves sharing words of encouragement, et cetera. So I always try and incorporate that into, whether that’s one on one, not necessarily, but just group. There’s just time where I try and get into that space. And the really cool thing, actually, Rich, is that, you know, I’ve noticed that maybe, maybe over the last two months in particular, I don’t know why it is, but for whatever reason, my my sermon prep time, I’ve just stopped doing as much sermon prep. And what I mean by that is like prep on the the teaching side of it. I’ve spent a lot more time just waiting on God. And just saying, God, what do you want to do? And then I’ve had courage… Rich Birch — Shocker. Sats Solanki — I know, right? Rich Birch — Taken more time to ask the Lord, hey, what is it that you’d like to say? Sats Solanki — What am I doing? Rich Birch — What is my snappy statement? Sats Solanki — 100%. Rich Birch — What’s my bottom line? Sats Solanki — Yeah, 100%. So so I think that has increased people’s experience and encounter with God. Because I’m now not trusting so much in my gifting; I know I can communicate, I know I can talk, people like me. Like, you know, I’m a charismatic person. Like, but actually all those things are cool, but like, it’s nothing if I don’t have the main thing, which is, what is God wanting to say? Because God wants to speak to people. And when people encounter God, it’s it’s it’s not even like a hack. It’s just the thing. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Totally, totally. Love it. So good. That’s that’s fantastic. I think that’s even encouragement for folks that are prepping, you know, on the message side, like, what if we took more time to just open up space to say, hey, Lord, what is it that you’re what do you want to say to people today? Like, that’s great. Love it. So good. Rich Birch — When you think to the future, you know, when you think about this kind of strategically slower trying to figure out how do we do this in a way that, you know, is in rhythm with our community, I think that’s another thing you’ve it’s been lacing in here that I think is a really good insight, which is, hey, let’s look very carefully at our local context, what we’re actually doing. You got to understand the people of London, that’s where God’s called you to, to lead. When you look to the future, are there other questions or other things you’re wrestling with that you’re thinking about for the future? Like this might be something where, you know, we might be pointing in that direction in the future, might be some something on the horizon? Sats Solanki — Um, I think I think it’s probably just in the tension between everything we’ve learned in this last season, and what we reclaim back from in terms of organization and systems and all of those things. I mean, we’re in a small context right now, like the church is not massive. So that allows us to be very sensitive and very individualized in how we approach what we’re doing. But obviously we will grow. And and we want to grow, you know, we want to reach more people. That’s good. So how do we grow in a way that still keeps that. That’s that’s going to be I don’t know if I have the answers, but that’s probably going to be the the one thing I’m thinking about. Yeah. Rich Birch — Love it. That’s cool. Love it. So good. Good stuff. Well, tell us about Digital Rabbi. This is kind of fun set of resources. And yeah, tell us a little bit about what’s going on there. Sats Solanki — Yeah. So I kind of have a background in a lot of creative stuff. So mostly a lot of it was just on the side freelancing just over the years, kind of alongside doing church stuff and, you know, design and copywriting and video. And you just, I think in the age of social media has just meant that you kind of need it all the skills. Right now, job descriptions are like, hey, he needs to be able to do this, you know… Rich Birch — Yes. Sats Solanki — …it’s like, wow, where are people going to get this? So, so I’ve kind of grown up in that, you know, just learning a bit of everything. And and so I’ve always been involved in doing creative services and things like that. But more recently in the last few years, I’ve just been thinking about, you know, okay, I can do all of these things, but what do I want to do? You know? And that was like a pretty big question I don’t know if I’d done. Because I’ve been in environment, which there are a lot of positive things about the church environment we’re in. And, you know, I mentioned the drama. It wasn’t all drama. There was much to take away from it. Rich Birch — Sure, sure. Sats Solanki — But but I think when you’re in an environment where you’re part of something bigger than you, which is a good thing, you don’t always stop to sit down and ask the question, what do I really want? So I think we’ve just found ourselves in a place of like immense freedom, suddenly thinking, I can do anything, so what should I do? You know? Rich Birch — Right, right, right. Yes. Sats Solanki — And so there was a whole process there of like, do I trust myself to make the right decision of what I want to do? Rich Birch — Right, yeah. Sats Solanki — You know, and, you know, it was almost like scary, like the freedom. And and so I think I’ve just gone in a whole learning curve around desire, which maybe we could just tap into for a moment, you know, like Rich Birch — Yeah, totally. Let’s talk about it. Sats Solanki — It’s like when you talk about desire, like instinctively, it sounds kind of like, um, potentially sinful. You know? That’s kind of the word, when you think about desire or going after the things that you desire, it kind of sounds like, oh, you shouldn’t trust that. You know, like what it… I don’t know, maybe that’s just me, but like, that’s that’s been my experience I think. Rich Birch — Yeah I can see that. Yeah, for sure I get that. Sats Solanki — Yeah. And so um, just going on this process of like actually realizing that God created desire, and it’s good. Rich Birch — Right, yeah. Sats Solanki — And, you know, actually, you should feel alive and feel energized by the things that you do. And and wouldn’t it be strange if God created us to hate doing his will, to hate. You know, because because it’s that classic thing that when you’re gifted in something, you know, I’m a musician as well. When you when I’m playing music, it does not feel like work. It feels too good. And I go, well, I shouldn’t be I shouldn’t be doing this. This is too much fun. Rich Birch — Right. Yes. Sats Solanki — And I often find that we trick ourselves and we go, oh, but this is too easy. So I can’t sell that to people because it’s too easy for me. But the fact is, is that it’s actually the reason it’s easy for you is because you’re gifted for it, and that’s actually part of your calling, your purpose. So the whole Digital Rabbi thing has just come out of that. Me asking questions about what do I really want to do? And one of those things I realized was, I just love sitting down and conversations, like this one and helping, you know, talking to people. And I was just doing it anyway. Talking to people was giving me so much energy, and I realized that there’s a whole coaching thing in this that gives me so much energy. So that’s one of the threads is podcasting. But but really it is around, I think, it’s really around dreams and desires. You know, I think people, especially people who have worked in church or volunteered a lot in church, often sacrifice some of the things that they want for the good of the kingdom. And that’s not a bad thing. I think there’s times to do that, but I do think it’s a bad thing when it’s permanent and when those dreams don’t come back off the shelf and we just get we’re on the treadmill of church life. And then it’s ten years later and you think, well, I never did do those things. And you start to feel a bit resentful and whatever it is. Sats Solanki — And I think, for me, seeing the kingdom of God expand has to fit into things like that, not just in church environment. You know, I think when people create music, there’s something of beauty in it that is good and necessary. And we must move from a, oh, this is something I’d like to do. This is something I must do, you know? So for all the creatives listening, I just want to encourage you don’t, don’t, you know, don’t don’t feel like, oh, this is like maybe something I should. I want you to really feel like the urgency and the sense of, like, stewardship. Rich Birch — Right. Sats Solanki — That was the big one for me. Realizing, actually, God has given me these gifts. I have to use them like it’s it’s not good for me to ignore them… Rich Birch — Right. Sats Solanki — …for other things that are important as well, but maybe have taken too much urgency in my life. Rich Birch — Well, and I think, you know, we’ve and we’ve had I can think of we had my one of my friends, Mike Brennan, this is two years ago, three years ago in the podcast. And he’s definitely a creative as well and had served in churches for a long time. And there’s that I think the can be a problem sometimes as a creative in that if you’re doing creative services in a church, there’s that weird thing where it’s like, you know, it’s like it can feel like the thing that I do is just getting wrung out of me. Like it’s like a it’s not actually, it doesn’t feel like worship anymore. It doesn’t feel like it doesn’t feel like, you know, and we’ve got to pay close attention to that I think particularly Rich Birch — And that’s I think is true for for all of us. We all, anyone who is, you know, if we have the honor or the privilege of of working in a church, there’s a line there that we’ve got to watch carefully. And so, yeah, there may be people like you say, there may be people that are listening in that that resonates with you. I’d encourage you to drop by Sats’s website and check out Digital Rabbi, and we’ll put links to it in the show notes, maybe even jump on our coaching call, you know, grab a half an hour time slot and say, hey, like, this is the kind of stuff I’m wrestling with. And he’s all the way in London so, you know, there’s, you know, he can give you some good outside perspective, good strategic outsider. So yeah, that’s, that’s that’s fantastic. So just as we’re coming to land today’s episode, anything else you’d love to share with us just as we wrap up today? Sats Solanki — I don’t think so. This has been a great conversation. I just want to say thanks, Rich. Thanks for having me on, and appreciate what you’re doing. I think I came across you possibly a few years ago on Carey Nieuwhof’s podcast. I knew I’d seen your name when it came up. I feel like I know this guy, so yeah. Thanks for everything you doing, man. Rich Birch — Yeah, appreciate that. Carey is a dear friend. You know, I knew Carey before he was Carey Nieuwhof, and so which is great. And yeah, I appreciate that. He’s a good he’s a good guy a good friend. So appreciate that tha. So well thanks so much. If if people want to find you online where do we want to send them? Find the church, find you? Sats Solanki — Yeah. So all the Digital Rabbi stuff you can go to digitalrabbi.co also on Instagram @satssolanki. And we’ve got a podcast as well, just Digital Rabbi. Church is reflect.church – that’s our website address. Nice and clean. Rich Birch — That’s [inaudible]. Amazing you got that. That’s good. All right. Well thanks so much. I appreciate you being here, Sats, and thanks for spending time with us today. Sats Solanki — Thanks, Rich.

As church leaders, we often find the post-Christmas period a time for reflection and planning. The festive season’s hustle has settled, and it’s time to ponder on our successes and the areas where we yearn for growth. In this latest episode of the unSeminary podcast, we delve into crucial insights and strategies to transform your Christmas achievements into sustained church growth. Reflecting on Christmas: More Than Just Numbers Christmas is often marked by increased attendance and heightened church activity. But what does this mean for your church beyond the holiday season? This episode encourages leaders to view Christmas not just as a one-off event but as a benchmark for potential growth. It’s about asking the big question: What if every week was like Christmas at our church? What changes and strategies would be required to accommodate and nurture this level of engagement year-round? Five Key Areas for Church Growth Shareable Weekend Teaching: The content of your sermons matters. How can you make your teachings more relatable and shareable so that your congregation feels compelled to invite others? Eventful Big Days: Apart from Christmas, identify other significant days in your church calendar. How can you make these days special and inviting to both members and newcomers? Captivating Online Conversations: Utilize your social media platforms not just for announcements, but to engage in meaningful conversations. What online strategies can you implement to foster community and outreach? Magnetic Community Service: People are drawn to churches that actively make a difference. How can your church’s service to the community be a catalyst for growth? Appealing Volunteer Experience: Volunteers are the backbone of any church. How can you enhance their experience to not only retain but also attract more volunteers? A Call to Action As we step into the new year, let’s reframe our perspective. Let’s harness the energy and success of Christmas and channel it into long-term growth strategies. This episode isn’t just about reflection; it’s a call to action. It’s an invitation to envision and work towards a future where the extraordinary becomes the norm in our ministries. Join us in this insightful episode to discover how your church can grow beyond the Christmas season. Remember, what was special for Christmas this year can be normal going forward.

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with repeat guest, Kyle Isabelli, the lead pastor from Avenue Christian Church in the western suburbs of Chicago. Did you know that as many as one third of people working in church ministry will be forced to resign or be fired from their position? If you’ve ever had that experience, or been the leader making the tough decision, the question is: how do you handle it? In today’s podcast episode Kyle shares his story of being unexpectedly fired from his previous ministry position, the internal work he had to do to recover, and the importance of transparent communication. Where is your identity? // Kyle’s movement to his current church wasn’t by choice. When he was let go from his previous position in youth ministry, it came as a complete shock to him, forcing him to reevaluate where his identity was rooted. He realized that much of his identity was tied to being a successful youth pastor, rather than being rooted in Christ. Candor is kindness. // As people in church leadership, it’s critical that we are candid and transparent about where people on our staff stand in their positions. Communicate expectations and the consequences of unmet expectations clearly. Provide written documentation to help the person understand the gravity of the situation if things don’t change. A firing should never come as a complete surprise. What is God trying to teach you? // If you are let go from your ministry position, rather than focusing on what might feel unfair, ask God what he’s trying to teach you. How is he trying to refine your faith and grow you? Kyle realized he needed to learn to let go of self-sufficiency and embrace a complete dependence on the Holy Spirit. This shift in mindset set him up for success in his current ministry position at Avenue Christian Church. Practical steps. // Use a journal to record what you’re learning during this time. Write down the pain, struggles, and remorse you’re feeling. Working through these strong emotions can help to free you from bitterness and confirm what you are really passionate about in ministry. Take a break from social media and relationships that feed your jealousy or ego. Kyle wishes he had done a better job of setting boundaries and not seeking affirmation from others during his time of grieving and transition. Refined By the Fire(d). // Kyle has written a book called “Refined by the Fire(d): How to Process Pain, Regain Purpose, and Persevere After Being Fired by Your Church.” Coming out in January 2024, this book is the result of Kyle’s desire to create a resource for people going through what he went through. Being fired from a church position doesn’t have to be a fatal blow to a person’s career in ministry. Kyle’s book helps others reflect on their own stories and the work God wants to do after what they’ve experienced. It also can help senior leaders have more empathy, kindness, and grace when something isn’t working and they have to make difficult staffing decisions. You can download the first chapter of Kyle’s book, or preorder it, at www.kyleisabelli.com. Find Avenue Christian Church at www.avenuechristian.com and check out the other organizations Kyle mentions, including Pastoral Transitions and Pastors’ Hope Network. 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. Rich here from the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Super excited for today. You know, we don’t often have repeat guests on the podcast. In fact of the 700 plus episodes, there’s very few that have come on more than once – most people come just once. But I wanted to have Kyle back on. It was a number of episodes, probably twenty, thirty episodes ago we had him on. He’s at Avenue Christian Church. He was talking about Gloo and all their lessons. But we had this sidebar conversation that I was like, ooh that’s a fantastic conversation. If you’re willing to talk about it, I would love to tell ah to hear more about this. So. But Avenue Christian just to kind of remind everyone is a multi-generational church in the western suburbs of Chicago, is a fantastic church, Kyle is the lead pastor there. Kyle, welcome to the show, again. Thanks for being here. Kyle Isabelli — Absolutely, Rich. Thanks for having me. Rich Birch — Well I’m looking forward to this. Tell us a little bit about Avenue, just bring us up to speed again on that. Tell us about the church for folks that might not remember. Kyle Isabelli — Yeah, yes, as you said, we’re locating the western suburbs of Chicago um. Church has been around for sixty plus years. I came here in 2017 as the student pastor in the summer, and then ah about two and a half years later I transitioned into the role as senior pastor. So January 2020, started as the senior pastor and have been great. Rich Birch — Great time, Great time. Great time. Kyle Isabelli — Great time to to start leading a church. And it’s you know, I think like every church there’s a lot of transitions that’s happened over these last few years. But a lot of health a lot of growth has come out of it, and it’s exciting to see the future that the Lord has for us here. And I love the Chicagoland area. My wife Marie and I grew up in the Chicagoland suburbs so we love the area, love the culture and just love seeing the work that God’s doing here in western suburbs. Rich Birch — So good. Well um, you had shared on our ah last kind of after the episode we had talked a little bit about the fact that you ended up in your current ah ministry placement because of it an earlier transition and you were open to talking about that. Ah, why don’t you unpack that a little bit? What ah, you know, what what ended up leading you to the place where you ended up at Avenue Christian? Kyle Isabelli — Yeah, yeah, no, it wasn’t by choice. Rich Birch — Right, right. Kyle Isabelli — So when I was ah I was a student pastor high school pastor at a church in the Chicagoland area from 2015 to 2017. And it was the, about the spring of 2017… Rich Birch — Right. Kyle Isabelli — …I was pulled into my supervisor’s office with another kind of executive level pastor, thinking I was going to have a conversation about specific roles they wanted me to do for Easter, if I had to go to a, we were a multi-site church, or was I going to be at the main campus on Friday, somewhere else for Saturday service, you know, I thought that was more of the conversation. And to my surprise it was, hey we don’t feel like you’re a good fit here… Rich Birch — Wow. Kyle Isabelli — …to lead the Youth Ministry anymore, so after Mother’s Day after the end of the kind of student ministry year we’re gonna let you go. And so that was a ah complete shock to me um… Rich Birch — Wow. Kyle Isabelli — …didn’t didn’t see that coming, you know. And um, it it brought me to a place of really beginning to find find my identity in Christ again. I know we say that a lot as like christians and as leaders in Christian circles, and churches that our identity in Christ. But um it was clear that a lot of my identity was was found in being like this this youth pastor, being in ministry, and being successful. And even over the course those last couple years of the church, seeing up into the right movement in in the ministry. Kyle Isabelli — And um it was really hard just to hear that like hey, you’re a good youth pastor but you’re just not a good fit here. And not fully understand that. And so that that really began that journey for me of processing that pain, figuring out what my identity is, beginning to think about transitioning – all in the in the realm of I have a wife at home, I have 2 kids under two, and… Rich Birch — Who, wow, wow. Kyle Isabelli — …I have to like provide for them in a very short amount of time because time was ticking at that point. Rich Birch — Wow. So let’s there’s a lot we want to unpack here. There’s a lot I’d love to talk about.And I appreciate you being willing to kind of talk through this because, you know, there are for sure people who are listening in who have been through this, and um, you know it’s a in some ways a normative part. But man, you never think it’s going to happen to you. Kyle Isabelli — Yeah. Rich Birch — And so I really appreciate you being willing to talk about that. When you say it was a surprise, unpack that for me. Was that like were there so were there any signs, or was it completely out of left field when you kind of…? Now I realize at the moment there’s the shock… Kyle Isabelli — Yeah. Rich Birch — …of like oh my goodness. What’s happening? Ah, but when you look back on it now, years and in in kind of hindsight, what did you see what do you see looking back on that moment now? Kyle Isabelli — Yeah, yeah. We, you know, I’ve been at the church my first year I had three different supervisors. Ah people hired me, then were not my supervisor. And then I had a new supervisor that first year, and then he ended up being let go. And so I was on my fourth supervisor. And the the expectations that that supervisor had of me, or my the junior high pastor who worked with me, were very different than the expectations that the other supervisors had of us, the other executive level pastors had of us. Kyle Isabelli — And so um I think for those first 3 to 6 months of working for for him, it seemed like things were going well. But then slowly began to see some of those, you know, they call philosophy of ministry differences, or mission/vision felt like it was a little bit off. And um, just expectations weren’t clear. And so probably in January February we began to have those conversations of like, okay, what’s a win for ministry, and what does this look like? And we really started to dive into that. And I began to realize okay, we don’t see eye-to-eye and everything, but to me these are not necessarily like essentials for leading student ministry. So okay, if you want me to do this instead of doing that um, ah, okay, we can we can try that and see what happens. Kyle Isabelli — Um, and so like those those conversations had started to happen. Um and so to hear that maybe I’m not a good fit in the long run isn’t as surprising is probably how I felt back then. But for it to happen so quickly without like an extended amount of time to like evaluate, and talk about it, and say oh well… Rich Birch — Right. Kyle Isabelli — …let’s talk more about this, and let’s have some deeper conversations about this. And how does this fit within the realm of our entire student ministry, within the realm of our church. And um, those conversations just they they never got to take place prior to that firing. Um. Rich Birch — Right. Kyle Isabelli — And that and that was hard. But yeah, so there were there were some things then that were made very clear. A unique part of my story that um is probably different than what a lot of people have gone through um is that after I had that conversation—it was a week before Easter spring of 2017—we kind of kept it on the down low for a while because Easter was coming. Rich Birch — Right. Kyle Isabelli — It’s like that’s what we need to focus on. And so within those couple weeks a few of the elders and other executive level pastors found out. And they weren’t happy with my supervisor about it. Rich Birch — Oh no. Okay. Kyle Isabelli — And so it almost got like taken back. Rich Birch — Oh wow. Kyle Isabelli — And so they wanted them to have us with ah a mediator in the room, talk through some of these differences, talk through… Rich Birch — Oh wow. Kyle Isabelli — …why why don’t you guys see eye-to-eye? Why did you feel that you were at this place to make this decision? Why don’t you feel like he’s a good fit? Like so then we had like 3 or 4 conversations over the course of the next month where it was very clear that like we were on different sides of… Rich Birch — Right. Kyle Isabelli — …what it looks like for the student minister to be successful. Um. And just even just overall general expectations for me… Rich Birch — Right. Kyle Isabelli — …as as the youth pastor. And so it was like in that season where it’s like, oh this is very clear. And so at the end of that it was I was like, hey, like you’ve made it clear that I’m not the guy you want leading. I get it. Let’s continue on with this. This is your decision; you’re making it. I respect that. I understand more of where you’re coming from. Um but it wasn’t a surprise at that point anymore, you know, because we had those conversations. Rich Birch — Right. Yes. Kyle Isabelli — So um, a little bit of clarity prior. But then after that initial firing and then more talking about it, there is a lot more clarity after that. Rich Birch — Well yeah, that’s a good there’s good insight there around us, if we’re on the on the management the leader side of this equation, um, you know, we we cannot be too clear, like we have to be painfully clear… Kyle Isabelli — Yeah. Rich Birch — Candor is kindness. You know being as clear as if this does not change I will have to let you go. Like you know we’re not there yet, but that is where we are headed. Kyle Isabelli — Yeah. Rich Birch — Um and and you know here is this um here is what I’m saying in a piece of paper that you can take home, because and that’s just compassionate. Kyle Isabelli — Yeah. Rich Birch — Because man, when you start talking like that, people’s brains shut down. Like they’re like man, what? Like as you start thinking about, how am I going to pay my mortgage? What about my kids? Like although, rightfully so… Kyle Isabelli — Yep. Rich Birch — …though all those things come to the fore forefront. But let’s talk about, like okay so let’s let’s talk about how you then kind of what what was the internal work that that had to go on? You you, I would imagine, you know, like working in any any ministry position, it’s more than a job. We have an identity to it that and and some of that or a lot of that is good. Some of that’s maybe not so good. Ah, but it’s definitely more than than, you know, you’re not punching a clock. You don’t become a youth pastor because you want to make lots of money. So like how did you process that at a personal level, what that look like? Kyle Isabelli — Ah, yeah, so as you kind of shared earlier, this has probably happened to quite a bit of people. There’s some studies/research that have been done that say anywhere between 1 and 3 and 1 in 4 people in ministry at a church… Rich Birch — Right. Kyle Isabelli — …will be forced to resign or be fired from their position. Um, so just even in America 300,000 churches, that’s 75,000 to one 100,000 people. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, it’s a lot of people. Kyle Isabelli — So like this is common. Rich Birch — Yeah. Kyle Isabelli — Um, it’s a lot of people. And so it just so happened that probably 10 years prior, my youth pastor growing up um, he’d taken a job in California, he was from the Chicagoland area, taken a job in California, he was there for fifty-three days. Rich Birch — Wow. Kyle Isabelli — And on that fifty third day they said, hey, you’re done here. Pack up your family of four kids and wife and go back to Chicago. Rich Birch — Wow. Wow. Kyle Isabelli — And that was it. He didn’t get any explanation. Didn’t get any conversation. Rich Birch — Wow. Kyle Isabelli — And so I remember calling him the day I first found out. And he really challenged me, and his name’s Justin. And he’s like, Kyle, before you think about: this is unfair, this isn’t right, whatever; he’s like: what’s God trying to teach you? Rich Birch — Oh that’s good. Kyle Isabelli — How is God trying to refine your faith? How is he going to try to grow you? How is he… At first I was like, I don’t want to hear this from you; I want you just to be on my side. Rich Birch — Yes. Kyle Isabelli — Tell me that I’m right and he’s wrong, that I’m smart and he’s not. Rich Birch — Yes. Kyle Isabelli — And like and he wasn’t and I mean that’s why he’s been ah, a mentor and someone who’s spoken truth into my life for years upon years upon years. And so he’s like, whatever now you’re learning, you need to write it down. You need a journal, you need to think about it. And so that’s how I really began to process just the the struggles I was feeling, the pain I was feeling, the remorse I was feeling, the um just the anger that was really building up inside of me. I’m a pretty like happy go lucky person, always positive, you know. And I just began to see bitterness take root in my soul. And those were the things that like I began just to pour out on paper and then type it on a computer and just like try to make sense of it all in that season. And then obviously when we started having these like post-firing conversations about like what went wrong, I began to learn more about like, well what am I passionate about in ministry? Rich Birch — Right. Kyle Isabelli — What do the things I really do care about the most? You know it’s like you’re a youth pastor. I mean you want to see kids love Jesus. You wanna see students grow in their relationship. Yes, we like see a full room; every pastor youth pastor like seeing a full room – that doesn’t change. But um, there’s more to it than that. So like what are the things that really I care about the most in ministry? And those things I began to really wrestle with and think about. Not that I hadn’t previously, but now I was putting it on paper and I was typing it out. Kyle Isabelli — Um, and then to your point of going into ministry, like we’re not. It’s just it’s a little bit complicated because, and and Carey Nieuwhof has written a bunch about this. And um, he talks about how when you’re in ministry your work is your church, your your friends are in your church, and your church is your church. And so when all three of those things are taken away from you all of a sudden, you lose all of those support systems and those close relationships that you have. Rich Birch — Right. Kyle Isabelli — And so we were wrestling with that and what that was going to look like. We were in a season where my wife had experienced some um just difficulties in in labor and deliveries was still in a lot of pain, and we were relying on our church family. My high school ministry volunteers to like be there for us, like 24/7. And we were we were having to do doctor’s appointments, different things like that to help help my wife out. And it was just it was a hard season in that regard. So it’s like, well what’s what’s going to happen to that support system? Rich Birch — Right. Kyle Isabelli — All of those things were beginning to [inaudible] and process. However, I was starting to learn those things about myself, and I was starting to see oh this is how I handle stress. And this is how I handle when really I’m dealing with conflict and issues in my own life. And the Lord really began to grow um those things in me and grow those fruits of the Spirit in me that needed some pain and suffering in order to develop. Rich Birch — Love that. I, you know, I love that that advice from your your mentor. The the, you know, isn’t that that’s like ah a true friend in that moment… Kyle Isabelli — Yeah. Rich Birch — …to say, hey, stop. Ah, you know, stop that. Kyle Isabelli — Yeah. Rich Birch — Ah, let’s use this to try to ah grow ourselves, as opposed to just go inward and become bitter. You know, I think all of these kinds of moments, right, they have an opportunity for us to either get bitter or better, right? And how do we how do we find that? Talk more about how kind of your own emotional spiritual depth um, you know, deepened in this in this season. Because I I think that can be um, that could be really difficult to, you know, to see that through in a moment like this where I think, man, we just go to survival mode, and we and we go back to animal instincts rather than, you know, maybe some of those deeper questions. Talk to me about what what that looked like. Kyle Isabelli — Yeah. No, yeah, I would say for me it was the dependency on God was lacking in my life. You know I was just ah, you know…6, 7 years already in student ministry. Everything grew up and to the right. Everything was, “Kyle’s doing a great job.” And, “We love Kyle.” And and it it was just, you know, we just experienced a lot of “success in ministry.” Um, and so to really see that um that I had to be more reliant on God and less self-sufficient in the gifts or the abilities, or the skills that God, God has given me. They’re of him, they’re not of me. But to, like a small example is just when prep prepping for youth group nights, or preparing for whatever it was, and even like interacting with students, like prayer just was not existent. Kyle Isabelli — I knew what to do, I had my rhythm. I knew how to prepare, I knew how to get the game ready. I knew how to do X, Y and Z. Rich Birch — Right. Kyle Isabelli — And it was like those thoughts are coming from the Holy Spirit obviously, and those giftings are coming from the Holy Spirit, the power’s in the Holy Spirit. But I wasn’t like consciously aware of like, God, this isn’t gonna happen unless you show up. God, these things I’m writing down or saying in the moment on stage, you know, it’s like as ah as a communicator you have everything prepared then you say something like a little bit off but it really resonates, like I know that’s a Holy Spirit. Rich Birch — Right. Kyle Isabelli — That’s not me. But I just… Rich Birch — Right, right. Kyle Isabelli — …I wasn’t in tune with him. I wasn’t focused and just being with him consistently in my my time with him. And so that was huge. And that really set me up when I did enter into my next ministry position. It’s like, okay, as I prepare, as I go forward, as I invest in the students and the leaders and build teams and get volunteers, prayer has to be a consistent part of that. This complete dependence on the Holy Spirit for everything that I do has to be a part of just my daily rhythm, my my consistent check-ins throughout the day, whatever it is. Rich Birch — That’s good. Kyle Isabelli — So that was that was a huge thing. It just took away that self-sufficiency that had been there for years that I can get it done. I’m the one that can take charge of my own destiny. And it’s like, no this is all God’s. And if he wants to take it away, he’ll take it away. If he wants to bless it, he wants to bless it. And if he wants to refine and grow my faith in dependency on him, he’ll he’ll do that as well. And so that that to me was one of the biggest shifts that I had, and have had in ministry over these last 6 or 7 years. Rich Birch — Love that. Well, let’s talk about the kind of practical side of it. So this is like maybe the opposite end of the spectrum in that. were there some decisions you made in the early days after or during all that on the practical side that were particularly helpful that you might say to someone who’s who is facing this? Or um, are there things you wish you did that you that you didn’t do that looking back on, you’re like, oh maybe should have made that call then. Kyle Isabelli — Yeah, Rich Birch — Just you know, if there are any of those kind of practical things? Kyle Isabelli — Yeah, I’ll I’ll give you one of each. The one positive thing was what my youth pastor had told me to do was was journal, was process… Rich Birch — Good. Good. Kyle Isabelli — …these emotions and feelings, get them on the paper and allow, you know, your quiet times in scripture, like spend extra time on it; really journal what you’re thinking and feeling. Um and be more intentional with that. That that was huge. Because we do we have we’re a mixed bag of emotions when something like this happens and I needed that. I really needed that. Kyle Isabelli — One one such instance, it was probably like three or four months into my new position here at at Avenue, and I I’d taken this position because it was a position where I would supervise someone. So in back in my mind’s like I I’m gonna do things the right way. I’m not gonna be a jerk boss and you know all these favorite things. It’s very self-sufficient, prideful. And I remember leaving a conversation with that person one day and I was getting in my car, and I was and I was like, man, it just be so much easier if I could have someone else here like that I that I know of or whatever. And I was like oh wow. Like I’m three months into this new position. I’m like five six months from being fired and that thought crossed my mind instinctively. Rich Birch — Wow, wow. Kyle Isabelli — So then I had to like process that and write that down. And and and in the moments of processing, writing things down, you begin to meet with other people. I met with mentors, met with counselors, like sought help in this. That that was huge. So that was that was a big big thing for me. On the flip side of it, there were things that I ah wish I had done. One of which was I, because in the Chicagoland area you’re still like thirty, forty minutes away from your church and from my church and I was still around people… Rich Birch — Okay, yeah. Kyle Isabelli — …you’re still – I had to take like ah a year and a half break from social media. So those first six months I was still kind of on social media, kind of checking things out a little bit. Um and I don’t remember when I started, I don’t remember when I stopped, and and all… But like there is a season where I just got really jealous; I got envious. I would still follow the old youth groups like Instagram page and see what they’re doing. I would, you know, like to hear from former students who’d be like, ah, youth group’s terrible that you’re not here anymore. And that would like feed my ego and stuff like that. Rich Birch — Yes. Kyle Isabelli — Like I had to really, I wish I would have, not gonna say cut off those relationships, but not seek out that affirmation from them. I still wanted to be in connection with them and hear how they’re doing and stuff like that. But I needed to do a better job of just saying like, no, like this isn’t time to gossip. This isn’t a time to slander the other church. This isn’t a time to um for you to tell me how amazing I am, and how terrible the new youth pastor, or the youth group is. And blah blah blah. Rich Birch — Right. Kyle Isabelli — Like I love you and I care about you but like I can’t keep hearing these things. So I had to like cut off social media for a season. I had to um, just you know, not meet students for coffee or different things like that, or leaders for coffee. And just be like you know what, like I appreciate you. Thanks for checking in on us, and that means a lot. And ah you know, hey can’t can’t meet right now. I’m “busy at church” right now… Rich Birch — Yes. Kyle Isabelli — …but you know like let’s connect at some point. I just wasn’t in a good space. I wish I had done that better on the onset. Rich Birch — Interesting. Well yeah I can see that, you know, creating, you know, understanding, hey what is like a healthy boundary there? And that’s probably an imperfect one, but even just thinking about that and thinking consciously about that, and trying to make an active decision around, Okay, what is that? Where is the, you know, the best place, you know, for those kinds of things? So. Interesting. Well, you’ve put together a book on this that I want to I want to make sure we’re gonna give people a chapter to that. We’ve got a link in the show notes. It’s called “Refined by the Fire(d).” Love the title. It’s a great title. Ah “How to Process Pain, Regain Purpose, and Persevere After Being Fired by Your Church.” Ah this must have been a painful book to put together, must have been hard… What what are you hoping, who are you hoping reads this book, and how do you hope it’ll help in the midst of, you know, what can be really difficult days for people? Kyle Isabelli — Yeah, yeah. I mean the the book it really it came together pretty quickly within that first year which is kind of crazy because I never thought I would like write a book. Once I got done with seminary I was like, I’m never writing a paper more than 20 pages ever again. You know? Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Kyle Isabelli — And so but in that process of like journaling and typing things out, um and then at the same time looking for resources. Rich Birch — Right. Kyle Isabelli — There’s not really that many like books or resources on something like this. And there’s random blog articles, but there is there’s there’s really nothing. And so more has obviously come out over these last five or six years, but at that point I was like, I want to create a resource for people who are gonna go through what I’m gonna go through, who have gone what I’ve gone through. And I began then to have more conversations with different youth pastors that I knew that had gone through that, or then subsequently went through it after I was let go. And was able to talk with them, and encourage them and it’s like, I want to do something and have something for the the ministry staff person who had to resign, or was forced out, or was fired. They need something that they can walk through and utilize and not only hear my story, but then also reflect on their own story, and the the work that God wants to do in their life. The the “refining by the fired” work that God wants to do. And so um um I’m grateful that, you know, Morgan James Publishing took ah took a chance on my proposal and and they thought it was a story worth sharing. And so, yeah, primarily that’s that’s who I’m hoping it reaches is is the ministry staff who have been let go. Kyle Isabelli — But you know secondarily, ah, it’s going to be for people that are in leadership positions. I think about myself now as a senior pastor like, if this would happen, how do I want to work with someone if we have to get to this place? You know, what are the expectations I want to be crystal clear about, like you like you said earlier. Like you know you know, being candid – I can’t remember is it. It was a great phrase. So someone go back and hear that – it was good. Rich Birch — Candor is kindness. Yeah yeah. Kyle Isabelli — Candor is kindness. Yeah, like how am I clear about my expectations? Rich Birch — Right. Kyle Isabelli — How am I clear about what is a win and if things aren’t going well, how do we intervene?How do we track progress? How do we right the ship? And then how do we gracefully work with someone if it’s if it’s not the right fit? If it’s not going to work out long term? Like how do we have empathy and kindness and grace? And and I would hope that like because of what I’ve gone through, I can encourage that in someone else’s life, or help senior leaders then in ministry positions um, have more empathy, have more kindness, have more grace when they are having to wrestle with some of these decisions. Kyle Isabelli — So that, and then even just the people in the church. Like one, you know, I think about the students and families especially. Like one day I was there, and then the next day they got an email saying that I’m done. And like they’re like, what, wait a second? Rich Birch — That’s tough. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kyle Isabelli — It’s tough. It’s like this is now we’re wrestling with, like do we stay in the ministry. Do we stay in the church? What do what do I believe about Jesus? Like this doesn’t seem loving. And all these different things. And and so there’s even just a little bit in there for them of like well how do you evaluate that? How do you maintain or strengthen your faith when you feel like the church isn’t acting like the church? And those feelings may be valid, you know. And so like how do you wrestle with that? And um, yeah, so it can really help the entire church, but it is focused really on that ministry staff person who has unfortunately gone through a firing in their ministry career. Rich Birch — Yeah, do you know do you have any sense of what percentage of people who go through this experience end up in ministry after that? Because I would my gut says that there’s a lot of people who when this happens to them that that’s it. Kyle Isabelli — They check out. Rich Birch — Like they become real estate agents. They, you know, they they end up in some other thing. Um, but you… Kyle Isabelli — Yeah, they sell insurance. Rich Birch — Yeah they sell insurance, you take those relational skills and you figure out some other way to monetize them. Um, but you fought the odds there. You’ve ended up in ministry, and for all intents and purposes feels fairly healthy. You know? Kyle Isabelli — Yeah. Rich Birch — So yeah, what’s your sense on, you know, does it is it kind of a fatal blow for lots of people? Kyle Isabelli — I think it is. I wish there were statistics about it more. I know Barna has done a lot with their statistics about pastors wanting to quit during the pandemic and everything like that. Rich Birch — Yep. Kyle Isabelli — Those coming back? I guess I don’t know the numbers. I do know this, is that there were issues that you were struggling with or wrestling with while you were at your church that you were let go from, and you do find yourself at a new church, those same issues are still going to be there unless you actually deal with them, unless you actually work through them. Kyle Isabelli — If you experience an unhealthy leadership situation and now you’re the leader, if you didn’t deal with that you’re just as susceptible to doing the same thing to someone else. You know, like case in point, like I said I thought, “man, I wish I would have had I have someone else here to work for me instead of this person,” like three months in. So I don’t know what the percentages are. I would say probably more take, ah I would say more probably take a break for an extended period of time. Kyle Isabelli — For me, um I just had a strong calling and passion for student ministry that um, was validated by a couple people just close to me – my youth pastor. Like if this is what you feel called to still, then you should pursue it. And and it it just so happened, you know, the lLord was working. There were three different churches in the Chicagoland area that offered me positions, you know, in the span of those like couple of months. So like, Okay, Lord, like you you still are calling me to this. You know that that it’s a sign, that like even though like there’s the baggage of whatever it was I had, I was probably bringing in, these these people looked at me and were able to talk with some of the other pastors and staff and leaders there and say, no Kyle, here’s how he’s been. He’s been above reproach. He’s had integrity, here’s what he brings, here’s what he’s passionate about. And so to me the Lord really affirmed that in my heart, and obviously I didn’t know, you know, having the perspective that I have now, but you know two years later he was preparing me to to be a senior pastor at this church, and to be a part of this church community. Kyle Isabelli — So um, ah you know, I think you have to be careful about taking a step forward, but I understand if if there are a lot of people who do take breaks, who do something else for a career, do work in some other industry for now, that can be a good thing. Because it can help them get some good just help and encouragement, and ah I would say a refocusing on what their identity in Christ is, what their purpose here on this earth is. Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. Well I really appreciate, Kyle, I appreciate you taking time to unpack this, and I hope people will pick up a copy of your book, before – I think it comes out in January, right? Kyle Isabelli — Yeah. Rich Birch — If I’m correct it comes out January 2024. Kyle Isabelli — Yep. Rich Birch — But before then you can actually get a chapter of it. So if you just go to the link in the show notes to scroll there on your phone, click on that drop in your email address, and I’m sure then Kyle and his team will loop back around with you when the book comes out. But you can download the first chapter, a great starting point for sure. Anything else, you’d like to say just before we we wrap up today’s episode? Kyle Isabelli — Yeah, you can also pre-order the book anywhere you get books. It’s you know it’s all the links are there for all the big books stores, book websites, so feel free to do that, pre-order. Pre-orders are always great for authors – I’m learning this as an author. So that’s a good thing. Rich Birch — Yeah, first time author – love it. Kyle Isabelli — Yeah, and and I would say this too, Rich. I in the course these last couple years I’ve come across a couple of organizations that are actively helping churches as well as pastors or ministry workers who have been let go: Pastoral Transitions is one of them in California. And Pastors Hope Network, mainly in Texas, is another one. Bill, Tom, and Dana Harrison – they’re doing some great work for each of those organizations. And so if you find yourself in that season, you need career coaching, you need counseling, you need resume building skills, whatever it is, to really go to organizations I’ve come across that can be a great benefit to those who have been fired from a ministry position. Rich Birch — So good. That’s great. Super helpful. I appreciate you being on the show today, Kyle. If people want to track with you or with the church, where do we want to send them online? Kyle Isabelli — Yeah I mean for me, it’s it’s website www.kyleisabelli.com I-S-A-B-E-L-L-I. Find me on Instagram, Facebook, that way as well. And as you said our church is Avenue Christian Church so avenuechristian.com Rich Birch — Love it. Thanks so much, man, appreciate you being here again. Appreciate it. Take care. Kyle Isabelli — Thanks, Rich.

Explore the uncertain economic landscape of 2024 and its impact on churches. Focus on enhancing offering talks as an effective revenue generation strategy. Learn tips for increasing generosity in the church such as expressing gratitude, rethinking language around offerings, and reintroducing offering buckets. Discover the power of visual communication in conveying the value of donations, especially in uncertain times.

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Mary DeMuth today, an international speaker, podcaster, and author of nearly fifty books. You may have read through the Bible in a year, but have you considered reading the entirety of scripture in just 90 days? In today’s conversation, Mary shares how this 90-day challenge started as a personal practice for her and has since revolutionized her life. Tune in to hear how you can use this practice with your staff and your church to increase biblical literacy, reorient hearts, and jumpstart spiritual growth. An overarching view of scripture. // Many people tend to pick up bits and pieces of the Bible rather than exploring the book as a whole. Reading the Bible in its entirety over a short period of time can help people understand that it’s not just a collection of isolated sayings, but a cohesive whole that tells the story of God. Mary’s new book, “The 90 Day Bible Reading Challenge” gives us the tools to read all of scripture in only three months. Three times day. // The 90 day challenge is broken into a morning, noon, and night approach, and includes a daily devotional as well. It’s a chronological read through the Bible so you get a good idea of the story of scripture, and the readings are designed to take about an hour each day. Listen to scripture. // Mary suggests engaging with the Word in a format that suits you, whether you read or listen to it. By listening to scripture, you can take advantage of your time commuting to work or while out on a walk. Mary recommends listening to the Bible on 1.5 or 2.0 speed because the scriptures are usually read slowly. Create space for time and focus. // To make room for this discipline, Mary had to take some things off her plate. We fill our lives with so many things that take up our time and focus. Participants will need to set aside time for reading that might otherwise be devoted to other activities, for example social media or entertainment, effectively helping them fast from the world’s standards and ways of thinking. Try a new translation. // It’s convenient to read the digital version of the Bible as we go about our busy lives. But Mary suggests that it can be an interesting practice to have a printed Bible in a translation that you haven’t read before in order to break away from familiarity and engage more deeply with the text. She also encourages journaling and writing down questions and insights while reading, either on a separate piece of paper or in a wide-margin Bible, so you can return to them later.  Increase biblical literacy. // Scripture is clear that believers need to move from consuming milk to meat, therefore engaging with God’s Word needs to be active rather than passive. Chew on what you are reading and really think about the words. If we know the Word we’ll become a lot better at discerning truth from error. Join the challenge. // Mary is kicking off a group 90 Day Bible Reading Challenge in the new year. It can be easy to start strong and then fall behind in big goals so Mary has created a FaceBook group where participants can encourage one another and discuss what they are reading each day. Working through this practice with a group can make a significant difference in a person’s consistency and motivation. You can find out more about Mary and her book “The 90 Day Bible Reading Challenge” at www.marydemuth.com. Plus, click here to participate in the group challenge this January. 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 turn tune in today. You’re going to be really rewarded for this. We’ve got a great conversation lined up. Every week we try to bring you someone who will inspire and equip you; today is no exception. Super excited to have Mary DeMuth with us. Ah, she is an international speaker, podcaster, and author of nearly fifty books, which is incredible, as someone who’s working on his third the but to get to 50 is amazing. Germane to today’s conversation she’s an avid bible reading and has guided so many people ah, really back to scriptures to really supercharge their faith. We’re super excited about Mary’s upcoming book called the “90 Day Bible Reading Challenge” or not her upcoming, her current book. And I want you to pick up copies of this and so I’m just declaring that right up front today. Mary, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here. Mary DeMuth — So great to be here. Thank you for the privilege of being to being able to be on this platform. I’m excited. I love church leaders. Rich Birch — Nice. Give us a little bit of your background kind of fill out the story there beyond just the kind of standard bio stuff. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Mary DeMuth — Yeah, So actually I was not raised in church, a little bit raised by wolves, had a very traumatic upbringing, lots of um, difficult things happening and I didn’t even know really anything about the church until I became a Christian at 15 through the ministry of YoungLife. Rich Birch — Love YoungLife. Mary DeMuth —Then started to go to church right away and it was actually a it was something I had to choose to do because I was um, my family wasn’t going to go. Thankfully I had a car. And I just started back then and have been blessed. Ever since. Um, and we all have gone through our rocky moments with church. She’s messy. Ah, but um, yeah, so that’s that. And then I’ve got three adult kids who are ah making their way in the world and they don’t live in our basement. We live in Texas so there isn’t a basement, so that’s good. Rich Birch — Love it. Mary DeMuth — And I’ve I’ll be celebrating the thirty third year of marriage to my husband, Patrick, in a few weeks. Rich Birch — Congratulations. That’s that’s great. Well for friends that have listened to the podcast for a while they would know we don’t normally have authors on as like just a standard practice, and but when I saw this book I was like we got to get Mary on to talk about this. I think this is a really exciting topic and and you have done I think a huge favor to so many church leaders. So there’s so many of people in our churches seem to have a Chicken McNuggets approach to scripture. They like pick up little bits and pieces of it as opposed to the whole meal and you’re really challenging us to think about a 90 Day Bible Challenge. Talk us through why are you trying to encourage people to really read scripture, you know, in a fast-paced way kind of see the big story? Help us understand why would you encourage people to want to do that? Mary DeMuth — Yeah, it started from my own journey and something that I’ve been doing for the past five years, a couple times a year. And a friend of mine was doing it and I thought, that sounds fascinating. And I had read the bible in a year before and… But this to me sounded more interesting because I was going to be able to make those hyperlinks and those connections between Old and New Testament and become a better Bible teacher. What I didn’t realize when I started it was it was going to revolutionize my life… Rich Birch — Wow. Mary DeMuth — …and it was the best spiritual practice I have ever done in my life, and I’ve done a lot of different spiritual practices as a longtime believer. So I just wanted to share this with others. The little story about that is in the chicken nugget story is a friend of mine is a professor at Dallas Theological Seminary and she was teaching a class and this was a seminary a brand new seminary student raised their hand and said, “I thought the bible was just a bunch of little sayings like things that you would find on Instagram…” Rich Birch — Wow, right. Mary DeMuth — “…I didn’t realize it was a whole book.” It was like oh no, oh dear. Rich Birch — Oh my goodness. Wow. Yes. Mary DeMuth — So, this will help people know that it’s not chicken nuggets, like a whole turkey that you stick in your oven and you can make soup with later and it’s it’s everything. And the fact that it’s in three months makes it so amazing and beautiful and it will absolutely change your life. So I’m so excited about having this book out. Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. We um number of years ago. We did a 40-day challenge of reading the new testament as a church. We did that in the new year. And I was amazed in my individual small group. We had so many similar comments like that where people were like, I didn’t know that was in there. Like I didn’t know that. You know, they ran into all kinds of new stuff, which is is incredible. Rich Birch — Now you’ve broken this up, which I I think is fascinating, this kind of morning, noon, and night reading kind of approach. Talk us through that from ah you know helping people, you know, how is that, why is that a good practice? How have you seen that been helpful for folks? Mary DeMuth — Well backing up a little bit the question I usually get is how long does that take? Rich Birch — Right. Mary DeMuth — And it takes an about an hour. And and so and I’m an all or nothing girl. So originally I wrote this as just one big chunk because I’m just like let’s get this done. Check it off the list. Um, but my editor was like, there’s some people that it life is really crowded, and so how can we make this a little easier? So I have two big chunks – morning and noon – and then I throw in a psalm at night because I feel so bad. But um and it’s it’s a chronological read. So it’s not like as you read the bible chronology but based on the Bible Project’s chronology. So so 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel are in different places. And so that you get a good idea of the story of scripture. So um, that’s kind of how I did that, but I wanted to because I know people have busy lives, I wanted to be able to give them those three sets. And the other thing to think about—sorry I’m talking so much, but I get really excited…um… Rich Birch — No, it’s wonderful. It’s good. Mary DeMuth — …is it says the 90 Day Bible Reading Challenge, but you can listen to your bible. And my little hack is when you’re having a crazy day but you have a commute, or you’re taking a run, or you’re taking a walk, or you’re in the car, listen to it, but listen to it on 1.5 or 2.0 speed, because usually the bible is that’s like this really awesome person with a very slow voice. Rich Birch — Ah’s so true. Mary DeMuth — So if you’re trying to get it into that one hour um that will help you. Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. So good. Um, so now you’ve put this together, package this into a book, but I’m ah, assuming that this would be the good a good kind of thing to do as a community. I can picture small groups doing this, or maybe um, you know, church teams doing it. I was like, hey this could be a great way we could we could still order these books and maybe say hey why don’t we challenge each other to do this together as a team to kick off ah the new year. Ah but but talk to me about how you’ve seen or what your, you know, thinking was around particularly how people could do this together. Mary DeMuth — Yeah, I’m definitely facilitating that myself the first of the year. People can go to marydemuth.com/bible to sign up for free. Um, but I also know of a ministry that’s taking their people through it. Rich Birch — Love it. Mary DeMuth — I’ve heard of churches taking their people through it, which is awesome. And I also have heard, like you’ve mentioned, leadership teams. And um, yeah, the book is it has everything, you know, put out like what you need to read. But um, my my editor said, you know, I’ve been reading the bible a really long time. I’m a bible teacher, I’m married to a theologian, all these things. Um so she said on every page I don’t want a summary because but that’s so boring, who wants a summary. She goes I want something that will surprise me on every page. And keeping that orthodox of course, you know, just don’t… Rich Birch — Um, that’s a challenge That’s a big challenge Mary DeMuth — Yeah, so I had to really like pray through and bring something fresh every day. So it was kind of like a devotional through the whole bible. So it was a huge challenge personally for me, but it also kind of brought in all of that work that I’ve been doing all those years. And just the amazing “Ah-has!” that the Lord has brought me, I have been able now to share with people who are reading. And that’s a it’s not a lot because you’re already reading a whole bunch of the bible… Rich Birch — Yes. Mary DeMuth — …but it’s just hopefully something insightful. Rich Birch — Yeah, to be honest, when I I so I had heard about your book and then I I got a copy of it. And and I was like oh this will be interesting because because reading you know, ninety days of reading that’s a lot. You know, like you say an hour a day that and then I was like, I wonder what she wrote on top of that. Like how is that ah… Mary DeMuth — What more could be said? Rich Birch — …you know, as opposed to just here’s a checklist of what to read? It’s like now we’ve got a bunch of you know we’ve got more content. But I think you really nailed the like, hey this is ah, an appropriate amount of of other reading kind of appropriate context, like you say, drawing it together. I think that’s you know, fantastic. Earlier in the conversation you talked about how reading the scripture like this, you know, kind of this big read idea um, revolutionized your spiritual life, revolutionized your relationship with Jesus. Tell us a little bit about that and and it give us kind of an insight into what you’re hoping happens in the lives of people who participate in the challenge. Mary DeMuth — Well I am a very busy person and I wear a lot of hats um, as an author, and a literary agent, an artist, all these things. And so to do this challenge I had to take something off my plate. It doesn’t work anymore to have a smorgasbord and have things falling off. You have to take some of the potato salad off, and add something. So the potato salad that that I took off was social media and maybe some Netflix. And oddly pulling those things off was its own beautiful spiritual practice… Rich Birch — Right. Mary DeMuth — …because I was realizing I was being discipled far more by the world’s standards and way of thinking and systems than I was by the word of God. And so the sheer act of pulling that off and then adding the bible for such a long period of time, and it caused me to also be thinking christianly throughout the day because I’d had this chunk of scripture. Rich Birch — This rhythm, yeah. Mary DeMuth — Um, and then the thing that I guess the last part of that question is every time I read through, the Lord does something new. And this last read through it was like God, this thought: God is a relentless pursuer of his people. Rich Birch — So good. Mary DeMuth — And a lot of times erroneously we feel like God’s kind of like ticked off in the old testament, but the new testament he’ssuper cool and like Surfer Jesus and everyone’s welcome to the party. You know we just have this…it’s wrong, but that’s what we think… Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yeah. Mary DeMuth — …because we’ve been presented that. But I was reading through the old testament last and God just, I almost got mad at the Lord, like, come on! These people, these Israelites they are worshiping idols and they keep doing it, and the cycle of judges where they just keep turning around and turning around. Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, and once again. Mary DeMuth — And ah and and I was like ok, wait. He is just as much the one, I mean his heart in the old testament is that this nation of Israel, the chosen people would be the city on the hill gathering all people to himself. They did not do that because they got very distracted by their idols. But that was God’s intent for them all along. I mean you hear the Abrahamic covenant and, you know, I’m going to bless the whole world through you. It was always there, and his heart was always there. And so that made me fall in love with him all over the all over again. Rich Birch — Um, so good. That’s great. Fantastic. Love it. I’m going to ask you to weigh in on a controversy, you know, people like doing that. Mary DeMuth — Sure, but… Rich Birch — Um, obviously your and you you mentioned this earlier. We obviously want people to read. There’s lots of different ways to read scripture. You can listen to it on your phone, you can, you know, you can listen to it on a CD, you can read it in a, you know, a paper form. Um, there’s lots of different ways and and our overall message is, hey we want people to read scripture. That’s what we want people to take away. But talk us through, from your perspective, you’ve seen people do this, you know, paper versus phone, paper versus digital. Talk us through what should we be thinking about or questions we should be thinking about on on, you know, again, it’s a little bit of an unfair question because I know your answer is whatever, both of them. We want people to read. But but talk us through that. What would what what should we be thinking about on, you know, like an old school paper bible or, you know, digital version. Mary DeMuth — Well I do think that it is convenient to do the digital version… Rich Birch — Yes. Mary DeMuth — …because if you if you have a busy life and you’re in the carpool lane, it makes sense to have that. Rich Birch — Right. Mary DeMuth — However, as a spiritual discipline and as an author who writes books typically on paper, um I I think it might be an interesting practice to have an empty bible of a translation that you’d like to read that you haven’t read before… Rich Birch — Oh that’s cool. Mary DeMuth — …to kind of shock you out of what you’re used to seeing. And then journal your way through or just you know write questions in the margins. One of the things I encourage people to do is that this is such a rapid read that people who are deep thinkers are going to be like, I can’t do this, I can’t do this. I want you to write down all of your questions and your insights on a little piece of paper, on a little notebook, but you could also do it in a wide-margin bible and just go through and come back to it later. You’re not missing anything. You will always keep those insights, but you’re just going to continue to move on, because there is a blessing in in both ways of studying scripture, both in the deep and the the overarching way. So in that sense I think paper would be a really great way to go about it. Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. That’s good. I know um I was you know, encouraging some young people around ah a read through the bible, like a big read experience. And you know, very similarly I was saying like, listen what, you know, the the phone is super convenient, but you, you know, it yourself if you get super distracted there all the time there is something about putting the phone in the other room, and saying, okay for these, you know, this 30 minutes or whatever we’re going to sit down, we’re going to do this. Um, you know, not in ah in a legalistic way but in a, hey, like we want to help you kind of be as distraction-free as you possibly can. Rich Birch — Let’s talk about biblical literacy. You know, biblical literacy is something we’ve seen time and again. We hear lots of people saying like, hey, you know, this is it’s waning in the church. The kind of your average person that attends the average church in the country knows less about the bible. Even that example, you used from, you know, from seminary. Pretty dramatic example. Um, talk us through biblical literacy – where’s your heart on that? What what should we thinking about? Obviously this is a potential solution for that. It’s one piece of the puzzle. But what what are some things we should be thinking about as church leaders around biblical literacy? Mary DeMuth — I would say this, that Christianity is active not passive, but we have lulled ourselves into a passivity, thinking that if we go to church on Sunday we will be spoon-fed like little babies ah the word of God. But we are supposed to move from milk to meat. Rich Birch — Oh so good. Mary DeMuth — In order to do that we have to chew on it ourselves. We have to actively read it. And also we need to take into example, the example of the Bereans who when they heard all of this new stuff about Jesus, they went back and they searched the scriptures to make sure that what the apostles were saying was correct. And we have lost our discernment. And we are receiving all sorts of heresy in all different kinds of ways and we have no idea that we are. But if you know your word, if you know the bible, and especially doing a rapid read-through, it’s going to give you so much of a foundation. You’re going to be a lot better at discerning truth from error than you would have been in the past. Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s really good. So good. Um, any other benefits that come, you know, that might be not self-evident around doing a ah rapid read like this, you know, really bringing then you know the whole council of scripture in in ah in a short period of time like this that’s something we might not be thinking about? Mary DeMuth — Yeah, another one of the read-throughs that I went through I was just so struck by the heavenly tabernacle – this whole idea of it’s there in heaven and then it’s on the earth and then it’s a temple and then we’re the tabernacle and then, you know, then we go through the book of Revelation. And so you begin to have these most profound connections of the story of God and the story of scripture and you also realize, wait a minute. In my narcissistic, um self-centered world of American Christianity, which can be that way sometimes, this book is not about me. This is about the majesty and the holiness and the story of God. Rich Birch — So good. Mary DeMuth — And I think we need to elevate our eyes from always looking at our belly buttons, you know, and it and it thinking about everything for us which is what I think that person that went to seminary was looking at, all the pithy nugget sayings that are all about us. We need to graduate to a grander view of who the Lord is and what his story is. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Well talk to us about this ah you know this read-through you’re doing in the new year. Again that’s marydemuth.com/bible. We want to send people there who are interested in learning more, signing up for that. But talk us through what that what is that experience going to be like? What you know what are you hoping people will do? Give us the kind of fill out that picture for us. Mary DeMuth — Well, there’s a private Facebook group, and if someone signs up and they’re not on Facebook they will also get an email from me every day for ninety days. Rich Birch — Nice. Mary DeMuth — And I’m so grateful I’m done with that task; that was a lot to do. And I actually added art to every post because um, it’s I think it’s fun to see biblical interpretations of art throughout the centuries, and how they connect to scripture. So it’s just kind of fun. So it’s illustrated as well. And ah in the group we will be ah, talking about what we have read, and hopefully that will cause people to want to keep going. I know that there are a lot of starters. I’m raising my hand – I’m one of those starters in the New Year, I’m going to work out every single day. I definitely do that. But it I actually do work out a lot more now now that I have a community of working out friends around me. There’s something about that accountability and friendship that causes me to want to be with those people. And so that’s kind of the hope of that. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s so good. Yeah, I think it’s ah there is that natural kind of rhythm that happens at that time of year when we’re thinking about hey New Year, new you. You could start anytime a year… Mary DeMuth — Yeah. Rich Birch — …but this is inappropriate time year to get this ball rolling. So, so good. Mary, I appreciate this – any kind of final words as we wrap up today’s ah conversation? Again, I want to send people to pick up copies of “90 Day Bible Reading Challenge.” I’m assuming we can pick these up at Amazon, but where else do we want to send people to to pick up copies of this book ah, you know, to learn more to take some steps towards doing this challenge? Mary DeMuth — Yeah, it should be in your churches bookstore if your church has a bookstore, any Christian bookstore, and any normal bookstore as well should be able to get it for you as well. Um, everything’s changed in the past twenty years… Rich Birch — So true. Mary DeMuth — …so mostly you can get it on, you know, all the online sites is a lot easier. Rich Birch — Love it. Thanks so much, Mary, I really appreciate you being here. Thanks for being on today’s episode. Where do we want to send people online if they’re if they want to connect with you, kind of track with you, where do we want to send them? Mary DeMuth — Yeah, my web website marydemuth.com and then I’m on socials at @marydemuth. Rich Birch — Love it. Thanks so much, Mary. Appreciate you being here. Mary DeMuth — It’s been a blessing. Thank you.