unSeminary Podcast

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today I’m excited today to be talking with Josh Husmann, lead pastor at Mercy Road Church in Indiana. Mercy Road is one of the top reproducing churches in the country with a passion for multiplying disciples, leaders, churches, and expanding the reach of the gospel throughout the state of Indiana. If churches want to exponentially expand their reach for Christ, they need to think differently about how they are multiplying. Listen in as Josh shares about church planting, disciple-making movements, and empowering the body of believers to do the work of the ministry. Family of Churches. // When Josh and his family moved to Indiana, the goal was not to build a big church but rather to to reach as many people for Christ as they could in their lifetime. They decided that the best way to do that was by planting new churches. Mercy Road wanted to see people live on mission so as the church grew and ran out of space, they sent people out in all four directions around the original location. From there, the Mercy Road Family of Churches came to life, each operating as an individual church but with with the Mercy Road DNA, name, vision, and values.Multiply Indiana. // In addition to the Mercy Road Family of Churches, Josh has helped start Multiply Indiana which is a separate church planting nonprofit that partners with national church planting networks to focus on planting churches all across Indiana. To date they’ve seen over 20 churches planted in the state through the nonprofit, not including any in the Mercy Road Family of Churches.Work in teams. // One thing that has helped Mercy Road multiply is doing everything in teams. Rather than preach every Sunday of the year, Josh does it once or twice a month while developing other communicators. The same goes for other ministry teams. Mercy Road teaches its people to live on mission with the goal of being sent out. As a result they build a pool of leaders and communicators that continually help plant new churches.A common pitfall. // Mercy Road Church has the big goal of reaching a million people for Christ in the state of Indiana. Josh acknowledges that’s a crazy goal that will only happen through discipling and sending. A downside of this model is slower short term growth. If Josh had preached every week, he knows the church would have grown more quickly, but that was not the culture that they were trying to create. By not giving people what they want, it can cause financial challenges, but it’s worth breaking those norms to see people understand and join the mission.Empower and align. // Mercy Road is passionate about empowering the priesthood of believers and decentralizing ministry. But this can feel chaotic when things don’t align with what you’ve envisioned. Think about how you can work together to support and empower others to live on mission while not messing up the other work you’re doing.Ministry is free. // On the monetary side of ministry, the first thing Josh reminds his staff is that ministry is free and it doesn’t cost you anything to talk to someone about Christ. On the practical side, Mercy Road doesn’t want the vast majority of their money going to buildings and staff, but rather to serving the community. Part of the way they do that is by allowing people to designate their financial gifts in addition to tithing. In this way they are able to give away 50% of the total giving outside the walls of the church in a given year. Developing pastors. // For the churches that have been planted from Mercy Road, Josh gets on a weekly call with the other lead pastors to talk about what they need help with in their work. They also have a one-on-one with Josh once a month, and he’s always available for calls or texts when they need coaching. To learn more about Mercy Road Church, visit mercyroad.cc, or mercyroad.church to explore the Mercy Road Family of Churches. You can also check out Multiply Indiana at multiplyindiana.com and find Josh on social media @joshhusmann. 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 Christians and churches embrace their part in this story by providing the 3 kinds of capital every congregation needs for growth—Financial Capital, Leadership Capital, and Spiritual Capital. At CDF Capital, we care about each of these components. When a church is properly resourced financially, spiritually, and in leadership, lives are transformed. Sign-up to learn more about CDF Capital and how we can help your church grow. Receive a 50% discount on a monthly subscription to the CDF Capital Subscribe & Save Bundle. Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey everybody, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. You know every week we try to bring you a leader who will both inspire and equip you, and I’m super excited for today’s conversation because I know it’s going to do both. Super excited to have Josh Husmann with Husmann with us today. A fantastic leader from a church called Mercy Road Church in Indiana. It was started in 2010. They have a vision to plant churches that plant churches and they to create disciple making culture that impacts the world outside of the walls of the church. Excited to learn from you today, Josh. Thanks for being here. Josh Husmann — Yeah, thanks much for having me on. I’m pumped and I love that you’re making practical impact saying, Okay, what are what’s actually working? What can we do to expand the kingdom? Rich Birch — Love it. Josh Husmann — So I’m excited to be here. Thanks for asking. Rich Birch — Yeah, so fill out the picture a little bit. So you know you have, if I’m counting right, five kind of churches in the family—the Mercy Road family—and you’re looking at planting more. Kind of tell us a bit of the story; fill in the picture. Josh Husmann — Yeah, our story was I moved from California, believe it or not, to Indiana to started church. Why would you do that? I don’t know. Rich Birch — As people do. Yes. Josh Husmann — Ah, but you know it was just a calling. God, in a moment of prayer, said do this, and it was a crazy story, and it all happened, even told me these three friends of mine from high school would help us start a church. One wasn’t a Christian, one was working for Entertainment Tonight in Los Angeles, and you know all of it happened. And it’s just a wild time the last 12 years of our lives. Josh Husmann — And so we moved to Indiana and the goal was never to to start a big church. The the goal was to reach as many people for Christ as we could in our lifetime, which I’ve been reading a lot of books like Ed Stetzer’s Viral Churches and others that talked about the fastest form of evangelism was new churches. Knew I was called to plant a church, but didn’t know anything practically about how to do that or what that meant. And so we just started with that vision from day one. We wanted to be more about ah multiplying disciples, multiplying leaders, ah multiplying services, and multiplying churches, and networks. And and that’s what um I mean praise God over the last 11 now 12 years, we’ve got to see that occur. Rich Birch — Love it. Josh Husmann — Um, there are five soon to be five Mercy Road Churches. We also before we began starting Mercy Road Churches we just planted churches, and we planted, including the Mercy Road Churches, it’ll soon be I believe 28 churches through Multiply Indiana… Rich Birch — Wow. Josh Husmann — …which is a separate church planting nonprofit we helped start to partner with national church planting networks for church planting only in the state of Indiana. And so yeah, we’ve got to see a lot of multiplication occur. Rich Birch — Love it. There’s so much I want to dig into there, but um, you know so many churches talk about being a multiplying church and wanting to have, you know, actually raising up leaders, and the thing I’m excited for, Josh, to lean in with you is because you are actually doing that. That’s actually a part of the story here, which is incredible. So why don’t you pull back… So first of all, why Indiana? I love that you have a, you know, a pretty solid line built around, hey God’s called us to this state. Tell us that story. What’s what’s going on there? Josh Husmann — Yeah, so the story – it makes a little sense. I grew up in a small town in Indiana but ah, my adult life had been in California. My wife’s from Southern California. We had her first son out there. But in that moment I had I’d gone to this conference, heard a pastor speak. It was the recession was starting – 2010 actually gotten worse. And I remember just ah, being there and being like God, we love our church. We want to be there forever. But if you would have us do anything what would it be? And in that moment of prayer I had the most real moment with God I ever had in my life. It knew he wanted us to move to Indiana, start a church, and these three friends I mentioned would help us. And you know I think the calling to Indiana was largely based on I was going to tell people about my faith in Christ, and in California all my adult life and these people I knew growing up I didn’t know where they stood spiritually. And I think in that moment of prayer God gave me a burden ah for the state of Indiana specifically. Josh Husmann — And so we we never even had what most church planters had which was we want to plant in this city, or this county. Like we had no clue. We mainly planted in Carmel, Indiana because my wife was from the suburbs of California and it was the most easy for her to make the cultural adjustment to. But the vision was always to just plant throughout the state. And so that that’s why we we put the parameters on the state of Indiana itself. What would it look like if we did a regional focus rather than just going anywhere? Rich Birch — Yeah, I love it. So talk through how you’re structured. You’ve made a couple different distinctions – there obviously are you’ve planted these 28 churches. There’s a subset of those that are Mercy Roads. Um. But you’re not multisite; these are independent churches if I’m reading this correctly. Josh Husmann — Yes. Rich Birch — So help me kind of understand how that all fits together. Josh Husmann — Yeah, and and and with Multiply Indiana we will only plant plant in Indiana. With Mercy Roads someday we might do something beyond that, but that’s not really our our we’re not really thinking about those things. Rich Birch — Right. Josh Husmann — Our the the heart behind it was we just wanted to reach more people for Christ. And we always looked around and said what resources and ability did we have? And we had grown rapidly as a church. As a three-year-old church we bought a old Borders bookstore, moved into it. The church began to grow more, and and we were really planting out of the culture, reaching on church people. Josh Husmann — And what started happening was we were running out of space at the building that we had. We had to make a decision. Are we going to build on? Do a project? And we ultimately decided we’re we’re church planters, and if we could raise significant resources we probably wouldn’t invest it in one building. Josh Husmann — And so we started dreaming if we had those resources, what would we do? Well we want to get people to live on mission, and to go reach more people. So what if we just set them out four different directions from Mercy Road to plant churches? And that’s where the Mercy Road family of churches came from, was ah that we wanted to get more people to leave because we were out of space at our building. Josh Husmann — But if you go back even a few years before that when we moved to town and it grew rapidly in those first few years, when we were moving into that first building as a three almost four year old church, ah, we had decided to start multiplying Indiana then. And so we moved into our first building and planted another church a mile down the road, and we had a few families go with it and so we just kept doing that. And what we found was ah it wasn’t that hard to connect with planters, send resources, and, you know, we might have ten people go with them and plant a church. Josh Husmann — Um, and so we were able to do that pretty rapidly, but over time we weren’t getting enough to go, and so that’s why we eventually started the Mercy Road family of churches to plant with our DNA, name, vision, and values. And when we plant those even though they’re one legal entity when they start, we use “church” not “campus” from day one because we want them to get the vision this is going to become a self-sufficient, autonomous church. We just spun off the very first one. Um, they’ve been growing very rapidly and are about 2 years schedule. So ah yeah. Rich Birch — That’s cool. Josh Husmann — As they get that to that state that they’re able to be autonomous, we spin them off. Rich Birch — Yeah, so the goal would be, it sounds like the goal is obviously to get they’re not necessarily autonomous from the beginning but the goal be to get there eventually. That’s kind of the the hope. Josh Husmann — Yeah, and they really from day one operate self-sufficiently, they set up an advisory team. It’s not the legal board, but they set up an advisory team that becomes the legal board. They their staff runs everything; I’m just coaching the lead pastor. Rich Birch — Right. Okay. Josh Husmann — That’s that’s pretty much how it works. Rich Birch — So so obviously behind all this, the kind of substrate ah underneath all of that, has got to be a pretty robust discipleship development, you know, leadership engine. Talk us through that. How what does that look like? What’s the best way for us to understand that? What’s God kind of teaching you through that piece of the equation? Josh Husmann — Yeah, well ah first I would say this: I think in in all of this I have never met anybody, and we’re certainly not that the plug and play solution just do this and you’re gonna do this amazing thing for God. Rich Birch — Sure, sure. Josh Husmann — Right? Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yeah, yeah. Josh Husmann — Like there’s a lot of messiness that goes into this. Rich Birch — Yep. Josh Husmann — And for us ah, the one thing we had right was we do everything in teams. I’ve never preached ah, you know, more than three Sundays in a month from day one. And most most of the time I preach two Sundays a month and sometimes now only one Sunday a month. And we raise up communicators. Our worship team – we always have teams leading worship. Ah we partner with other great communicators and bring them in as regular guest speakers. And so we developed people. When we planted those churches, we had a backlog of communicators and worship leaders. Rich Birch — Wow. Josh Husmann — And and that’s just the Sunday stuff. You know, for us church is not just a worship gathering. It’s a community on mission. And so we had taught people through our discipleship huddles and through our outposts how to be discipled, and then how to live on mission. And so they got that we did not want to be the church where it was come to our gathering, get into a small group so you find friends and stick around here. Our goal was we’re trying to disciple people and send them out. Josh Husmann — The biggest book that I gave to our board to really help get the vision for them was J.D. Greear’s book Gaining by Losing, that they would get the concept of being known for your sending capacity, not your seating capacity. Rich Birch — Yeah, okay, so why do so many of us resist doing things in teams? So I think this is one of those things it’s like we all know intuitively, yeah yeah yeah – I can’t do this alone. We all intuitively and as communicators we’re like, man, yeah I shouldn’t be the only one up here. But then here we are 48 weeks a year the same person’s up front. Josh Husmann — Yeah. Rich Birch — Why are we not pushing against that? What have you been able to unlock in your culture? Josh Husmann — I’m gonna give you my opinion. Rich Birch — Yes, great. Josh Husmann — My idea, you know, I think we tend to like almost demonize people for why they’re doing these selfish things. I actually think a lot of times it comes from a heart of wanting to reach people for Christ and grow the local church, but we’re we’re not able to see the forest for the tree. And what I mean by that is um, we use the analogy of people are trying to reach as many people as they can for Christ, and they think that means they have to grow their local church as big as it can be. We set this vision from day one when there was 40 people in the church. We want to reach a million people for Christ in the state of Indiana. Rich Birch — Okay, wow. That’s a huge vision. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah; it’s huge. Josh Husmann — That’s silly, there’s less than 7,000,000 people in the whole state. It’s ridiculous. Ah, but if we were actually discipling and sending it could occur. And so you know we talk about we’ll never gather a million people in a place… Rich Birch — Right. Josh Husmann — …but if we disciple and send we actually could. So we use the analogy of we don’t want to be the redwood tree. We want to be the aspen tree. The aspen tree is the largest living organism according to mass in the world. And the reason for that is you can have a five thousand square mile forest that operates as one living organism – it’s called a clonal colony. It’s where, in the movie Avatar, they get the concept of these trees thinking. James Cameron’s wife is a big fan. The director of that movie – his wife is a big fan of aspen trees. And you know that vision to ah see this whole forest develop rather than just our one tree, that’s what we’ve tried to communicate to our church. Josh Husmann — We don’t, you know, if if I spoke 52 year weeks a year, and ah Eric, our worship pastor when we first planted, led worship every every Sunday, we would have grown faster. I know we would have. People would come to us all the time. Well why don’t you just preach every week? Why don’t you… and we had to tell people because we’re not building that type of culture. Rich Birch — Right, right. Josh Husmann — We’re looking at the long run – the forest, not the tree. And I think they eventually came around and started getting it. Rich Birch — Yeah I love that. I love that, you know, vision of like, hey we should be looking to the long term win here. The long term game. What are we trying to end up. That’s that’s fantastic. Now you joked about the messiness of that. Josh Husmann — Yep. Rich Birch — What are some of those common pitfalls you’re finding in there your approach, kind of common ways that are like ooh, this is something we’re struggling with. We’re still working through. Josh Husmann — Yeah I think there’s there’s a lot. And I mentioned one – you could kind of hurt the short term growth… Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Josh Husmann — …because you you know aren’t giving people what they want. And and that’s really hard, if we’re being honest, in the Megachurch world. I have a lot of friends in that area and if the lead pastor who preaches 48 to 50 times a year doesn’t preach, 40% of the people don’t show up, right? Like but if we’re ever going to break those cultural norms, we have to fight that battle. And so that’s ah that is a hard pitfall that it creates financial trouble. You know we could have grown faster if we’d done it had done it differently. Josh Husmann — I think the other thing that gets really messy though is when you are about decentralized ah empowering of the priesthood of all believers—something we talk about a lot… Rich Birch — Yep. Josh Husmann — …you get people doing things that… I’m not even talking about the people who are doing bad things, sinful things right? Rich Birch — Right. Josh Husmann — Like I’m just talking about people who are doing great mission-driven things who don’t perfectly align with everything you envisioned. Rich Birch — Right. Josh Husmann — And so it can feel like very chaotic. I can give you a great example of that. Rich Birch — Sure. Josh Husmann — So we we have, rather than small groups, we have a outpost network that includes a variety of different ah communities on mission. Outposts are just groups or communities living on missions. Some of them are micro-churches in the home, and some of them are livi… like doing outreaches or ministries in the community. And we allow people to apply for financial grants that we empower them. We give them video announcements. We give them space in the lobby. We do all this stuff. We tell them if it’s not sinful and the Lord’s calling you to do it, we’re not going to say no. Go do it. Rich Birch — Okay, yep, yeah. Josh Husmann — Well we made that decision early on and I had a guy come to me who was a new christian, who had come to Christ in the ah, through a bar ministry we were supporting. And he’s like Josh, I was at my lowest of my lows. I found amazing friends through the local church, changed my life, I got Jesus, I want other people to experience this. So he’s like I’m a big WWE fan… Rich Birch — Okay. Josh Husmann — …and I want to start an an an outpost for ah wrestling fans. We’re gonna watch Monday Night Raw and then do a bible study. I’m like okay, that sounds cool. Rich Birch — Okay. Josh Husmann — That’s your passion. Go for it. Not my thing, but go for it. So he does. He get six dudes showing up on Monday night. They’re watching Raw. Rich Birch — Right. Josh Husmann — They’re doing a bible study. Some of them aren’t Christians. It’s awesome. Rich Birch — Right. Josh Husmann — I’m I’m high fiving him in my office. He killed it. And I thought that was the vision. He goes well I’m glad you liked it because ah you guys are we are moving into our first building and at first property had high ceilings. And he said when you get that building done, I want to do a live wrestling show. And I want to I want to, you know… Rich Birch — Love it. Josh Husmann — …raise money for charity and talk to people about my faith. And that’s when I was like you know sometimes you like have inner dialogue and it it acts I couldn’t keep it in. I accidentally said like, dude, I think that’s a terrible idea. I would never come to it. But we had just decided I had to say yes to him so I was like, you know, ah, yeah, you can do it. Rich Birch — Sure. Josh Husmann — And so he started wrestling theology. Long story short he did it once a month that entire first year; he had about 150 to 200 people show up every week. They reached more atheists for Christ through that outpost than all our other outposts combined that year. Rich Birch — Wow. Wow. Right. Josh Husmann — I would have squelched that in a second because I was like I don’t want our young church being associated with something that I don’t get. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah. Josh Husmann — Well after we saw that it was like, this is amazing. Rich Birch — Interesting, interesting. Josh Husmann — But, you know, you think, Well, that’s a great story. That’s great to celebrate. No, it’s messy. Rich Birch — Right. Josh Husmann — So, Rich, called it wrestling theology fellowship. One day I show up and the outposts get to put stuff in our lobby and hang up posters and stuff. And he had a life-size cut out of Brock Lesnar in a speedo in the lobby of the church when I showed up on Sunday. And then he had posted posters all over our bathrooms, and they had just gone through a rebranding. And wrestling theology fellowship now was using the acronym WTF on all of their promotions. And I’m getting all these comments from parents with young kids that’s what in the world’s going on?! What is this?! You know… and so we had to walk through like, hey this is a good thing, but also how can we work together and have it not mess up the other stuff we’re doing? And and we’ve worked through those things, and why can’t the spirit of God help us work through those things. Rich Birch — Yeah I love it. I love that. I had a friend of mine who said you know one of the things when you’re when you set yourself out to say we want to develop leaders or surround yourself with leaders is they’ll lead, which is great and also messy at the same time. Totally love that. What a great story. Josh Husmann — Yes. Rich Birch — I love that wrestling theology fellowship. Love it. WTF. That’s hilarious. Josh Husmann — But it’s worth it right? Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Josh Husmann — Like I mean we’re a big believer in that God. The same spirit of God that is in me when I preach is in that other person… Rich Birch — Yeah. Josh Husmann — …if they’ve received Christ and so their body’s a temple the Holy Spirit. We got to empower them to live on mission in the same way. Rich Birch — Yeah, I love it. So there’s a lot of Executive Pastor types who are listening in, and um oftentimes when we think about multiplication efforts, one of the things that comes in is just the financial stuff. Is like how do we do this financially? How do we kind of fund something – by definition we have to we have to get give resources to something before it’s something to make it become something, and so how do we do that? What does that look like for you guys? Josh Husmann — So I think that for one we, you know, I try and keep in mind um, church has been done for two thousand plus years, lived on mission in ways where you didn’t have to have the things that we think we have to have… Rich Birch — Right. Josh Husmann — …in twenty first century culture in order for a church to exist. Rich Birch — Right. Josh Husmann — So I start there. I tell our staff ministry is free. It doesn’t cost anything to talk to somebody about your faith in Christ and disciple them. That said, I get the practical side. I think the one thing that we don’t do, we want to envision the future of the church, and I love that – that’s my heart think how can we do this differently, be more generous. My atheist and agnostic friends often critique the church as you get a 501c3 from the federal government because you’re supposed to be helping the community, but today all of your money goes to your buildings and your staff – how is that meeting the needs of the community? And so we said from day one we didn’t want them to be able to say that about us. Josh Husmann — And so as a church plant just starting from day one, you know, a healthy church usually tries to give away 10% of their resources. We we gave away 20%. Rich Birch — Wow. Josh Husmann — And then we set a goal about year 2 or 3 of over the next decade we wanted to give away, get to the place where we’re giving away 50% of the total giving outside the walls of the church in a given year. Rich Birch — Wow, wow. Josh Husmann — And we we’ve achieved that the last couple of years. Um, it’s not as hard as it sounds. And I’ll tell you the one thing I was going to say is as crazy as that is… Rich Birch — Yeah, yes. Josh Husmann — …it doesn’t mean that we don’t utilize intelligent stewardship that people who have spent a lot of time and energy for decades on have learned. Ah, we have a person on our board who is our treasurer, who is um has been a managing partner for CapinCrouse, one of, you know, the the big consulting firm for churches financially. I we invite him in so that we can learn… Rich Birch — Yep. Josh Husmann —…but then we don’t let that limit us for what we believe God is calling us to do, if that makes sense. And so with that that 50% of the total giving sounds a lot harder than I believe it actually is. It’s not 50% of the general tithe. It usually doesn’t end up being more than ah, 20% of the general tithe, sometimes 15%. And and the rest of that is all in committed designated giving. Rich Birch — Okay. Josh Husmann — It does mean at the end of year the year you’re usually doing an end of year giving campaign for a outside-the-walls mission opportunity – for us has been largely church planting. Rich Birch — Right, right. Josh Husmann — That’s how we’ve been able to plant all these churches is we we were trying to hit our giving goals. Rich Birch — Yeah I love that. I love that. Ah so if I understand that a part of what you’re doing is folks are giving… is it the kind of thing where like there’s say ah a food bank in town and the church is giving X amount of dollars to that. There may be people in your church who are designating through the church to give to that food bank. Josh Husmann — Yes. Rich Birch — So that’s where you’re driving up the 50% number. That’s what… Josh Husmann — Yeah, yes, yeah. Rich Birch — Yeah. Josh Husmann — And I think that is a failure of ah local churches to learn from the nonprofit world. Rich Birch — Yep. Josh Husmann — Every nonprofit finance expert will tell you that ah people prefer to designate their their financial gifts. Rich Birch — Yep, yep. Josh Husmann — Now that said we teach biblical tithing. I believe as a follower of Jesus… Rich Birch — Yes. Josh Husmann — …the first 10% should go to the local church. But you know in ah and our world people could give way beyond that 10% in wealthier communities and make an impact. Rich Birch — Yeah. Josh Husmann — And you know I don’t we’ve proven this in suburban communities. We haven’t proven this in inner city communities. So to my friends who are planting in the inner city, it could look totally different. This is just what we’ve done because we think God placed us in the community we’re in to siphon resources to places of greater need in our world. Josh Husmann — Um, and so, yeah, we’re trying to spend less on our buildings and staff so that we can give more resources away. But we do we open up the floodgates if you are a mission partner of our church, you’re listed on our ah on our online giving that you can select the tab and give directly to them. We also have had people… we give hundreds of thousands of dollars to micro-churches in Africa that we’re helping start. And that’s been largely in partnership with someone who was doing that, heard that we were willing to do church differently like this, and and combined and partnered with us, and we do that together now. So it’s a, you know, it it sounds harder than it is, one. And I actually think that you would actually grow resources financially significantly by doing this. Rich Birch — Sure. Yeah, I well and I could see that. I think so I’ve done something similar, not at that scale. But there are definitely… my experience has been with donors particularly there are donors who would love to kind of give through the church and have frankly the church be able to celebrate the fact that they’re giving more than themselves. Like they, you know, they would rather the, you know, kind of the good news be the good news story be like, wow this Mercy Road has done a bunch of great stuff with all these different organizations. And so yeah, that’s coo.l I love love that. That’s that’s fantastic. Josh Husmann — Yeah, it it does have its challenges too. Rich Birch — Sure. Josh Husmann — You know one of the things we did then was ah… all of our mission partners… So we we don’t work with ah some of the larger mission partners out there for sponsoring a child but we have a local one here that we work with. And when they do child sponsorship, for instance, when they come to the church, we have all the give and go through the church. And some would say well that’s just a ah passthrough. And I argued, no, it’s fighting for the the local church and saying we gotta stop cutting the church out of these things, because the church isn’t gaining anything financially. It’s more work for us. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Josh Husmann — But what it does is. It gets us to actually participate… Rich Birch — Yeah. Josh Husmann — …and stop handing off mission work to the parachurch world. And that’s just a personal ah of theological view of for me is I think the local church has to be more invested in mission, and and that means ah not just handing that off all the time. Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. Yeah and and friends I’d encourage you to to go check out ah their website mercyroad.cc in drive right through. It’s actually one of the things that caught my attention when you drive through to your giving page and then right there. I don’t know that I’ve seen a church do that where you literally list, you know, The Significant Marriage, Multiply Indiana, Dotted Line Divas, Center Ice Ministries – you know 2:8 Ministries. That’s pretty amazing. That’s pretty cool. I love that. Josh Husmann — Yeah, yeah, no and and that list was longer when we planted the churches. Some of them took some of those mission partners with them. Rich Birch — Okay, cool. Josh Husmann — And so you know it’s kind of neat to see each church now beginning to grow that list, and and that’s the stuff that also motivates us gets us excited to see resources going through that. Rich Birch — Love it. Let’s ah pivot in a slightly different direction, back to the kind of coaching and leading of the churches that that have been planted from Mercy Road. How do you structure your time to care for, lead, provide guidance and coaching for the lead pastors who are in that that network? What are you doing – is that do you meet with them weekly, monthly? Is it informal, formal? Josh Husmann — Yeah. Rich Birch — Is it you have like a 2-year residence program? What’s that look like? Josh Husmann — With the Mercy Road family of churches it, you know, and you know again I’m not gonna say… we’re church planters so you know half the time you’re you’re you’re building the plane as you’re flying it, right? And get ready, ready, fire, aim. Josh Husmann — And I think for us ah what we did was we thought God was calling us to send the church in four different directions so we began to raise resources, send people out, found lead pastors for each of those. Some of them came within our church and actually a couple of them came outside the church that just got excited for what we were doing – the DNA of the type of church we were planting. Josh Husmann — And ah, but then as we sent people out, they get on ah a phone call or a Zoom call with me every Monday for at least an hour. We do one-on-ones every month. I’m always available if they call, text, email, whatever. Ah I I find what happens too, if you if you hire good church planters, you know, coaching Church planters is always a unique experience. Rich Birch — Sure. Josh Husmann — And sometimes they really want your help. It usually has to do with setting up systems, or finances, or opinions about next steps as a church, or or building stuff. But sometimes some of the things that that need coaching, they don’t always want that coaching. And so, you know, it’s that’s messy too. Rich Birch — Yes. Josh Husmann — We’ve had to figure that out along the way because part of it with what we did that was also unique was we bought buildings for a couple of these churches as we planted them… Rich Birch — Oh wow. Josh Husmann — …and ah you know that’s something in midwestern culture. Yeah I used to be in Southern California that’d be a way harder thing to do, but here you could do something like that. Josh Husmann — And but that meant that the sending church had a lot invested in this, and so we had to walk through hey we gotta work with you in the early years. And if I had to do it again, I’d be really strict the the first year – this is what we’re doing. And then I would really give them a lot of freedoms after that first year um because the lead pastors we’ve we were very critical about who we hired for that and so far they’ve all worked out great. We have an amazing team. Rich Birch — That’s great. Josh Husmann — And what’s been interesting is I had to be open to to learning from them and them doing some things differently than the way we originally did them. Rich Birch — Right. Josh Husmann — Um and that that’s been great too because sometimes God wires people differently. Rich Birch — Yeah, I love it. So when you look up over the horizon, you think about the future, you think about kind of where’s God taking Mercy Road next, any kind of questions you’re asking, things that you’re wondering about as you look look down the road around this whole multiplication and kind of where where is God leading you around that you know that whole aspect of your ministry? Josh Husmann — Yeah, I’m thinking a lot about it. In fact, we just had some of our team up at Chicago last week with some of the New Thing networking… Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. I love those guys. Josh Husmann — …with Dave Ferguson at Community Christian, and ah you know he was talking about the future of the church, both in person, the meta church, ah, they’re doing some church work in prisons, and ah you know, thinking through like all the different aspects of what we’re trying to accomplish. And for us I think that the next thing in the Mercy Road family of churches we’ve really proven, hey if we send out hundreds of people and we’re highly invested early on, this works. Josh Husmann — But we’re now looking at, hey if if we sent a $100,000 of resources and ah gave you the whole playbook; we wrote we wrote a whole Church Planting Playbook that’s going into print, and here’s how we do this. It’s a different model of ministry because we don’t just do small groups. We do one-year discipling huddles ah, we do ah communities on mission, these outposts. And and then we financially resource those, the the finances operate differently. So here’s how we do it, and then ah I’ll personally coach you, but you could plant this anywhere in the world. That’s kind of the next step for us. Rich Birch — Love it. Josh Husmann — We’re a little ways from that next leap. But I think that’s what gets me excited is we’re trying to reach so many people for Christ, and and when it doesn’t require so much investment up front and people can have more freedom, that gets me excited to partner with planters that way. Rich Birch — Yeah, love that. Josh Husmann — And then also within that you mentioned a residency program. We’re actually working in partnership with Indiana Wesleylan to create that at our church. Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. So good, Josh. This is been a great, you know, I got a page of notes here. Lots of things to chew on – really appreciate this. Is there anything else you’d love to share just as we wrap up today’s episode? Josh Husmann — Well yeah I think in general the thing that I always encourage people that I think they miss is, this is the the practical stuff I wish somebody would have told me, which why I love this podcast. Rich Birch — Sure. Josh Husmann — But you get beyond that and then get practical in your context means take this stuff and go, okay, but in our area what is the Spirit of God telling me? I always think we we hear from these great leaders. Not me but like, you know, they’re really great leaders at the conferences and all that kind of stuff, and we just think I could never be like that. I couldn’t achieve that. And you can’t. You probably are never gonna be as the amazing communicator that some of those people are, or or I know I won’t be. Josh Husmann — So what I’ve had to do is go, Okay, but what is the Spirit of God telling me? Rich Birch — So good. Josh Husmann — Like if we just listen take take this kind of stuff and go, okay but in our context, what would this look like? Rich Birch — Right. Josh Husmann — And stop thinking that we if that if I don’t find the cookie cutter version from the person down the road, I can’t do this. No you you can. And it’ll probably do it better than ah, we ever did it. Because we’re not that organized. We’re kind of crazy church planters. You could probably do this way better. And but be believe that the spirit of God still speaks and could use you in that way. Man I’m telling you really amazing things will happen in the American Church if we start thinking like that. Rich Birch — Love it. Yeah I love that – just that whole like stop trying to live somebody else’s vision, right? Like what’s God called you to do? Josh Husmann — Yes. Rich Birch — What’s he uniquely set you up to be, and and why not run towards that. This has been so fantastic today, Josh. I appreciate it. Where do we want to send people online if they want to track with you or with the church or the network? Where do we want to send them? Josh Husmann — Yeah, ah mercyroad.cc is the original Carmel church – mercyroad.church is the Mercy Road family of churches. And Multiply Indiana is the greater umbrella for church planting in Indiana… Rich Birch — Love it. Josh Husmann — …that we’re doing and you can find me on most social media just Josh Husmann – one S, two Ns. Rich Birch — Love it. Thanks so much, Josh – appreciate you being here, and thanks for being on the show today. Josh Husmann — Thank you.

Thanks for joining us at the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking today with Mark Williams, Executive Pastor at New Day Christian Church in Port Charlotte, Florida. The last few years have seen a lot of changes for church leaders and their congregations. How do you continue to grow and change when people are burned out and trust needs to be rebuilt? Listen in as Mark shares about the slow and steady changes that have helped New Day build steady momentum leading to growth. Make sure both are aligned. // When New Day offered Mark a job, he was hesitant to take it at first. He wanted to make sure the lead pastor had 100% trust in him before he took the job. The lead pastor and executive pastor need to be aligned and trust each other. As part of this process, New Day’s leadership and staff read through The Speed of Trust by Stephen Covey and made it their mantra.Take your time to build trust. // Working the first six months as Executive Pastor was a hard time to build trust with some people. Mark took his time, not making major changes right away. He focused on building relationships so the staff could see he cared about them, and waited two years before introducing changes. Even small changes can bring stress, so you may need to ease into them when building trust in some situations.Trust lay leaders. // One of the things that Mark changed was the mindset around hiring people. Over-hiring can slow down the progression of a church. Instead of hiring another person for every need that comes up, look at lay leaders and volunteers to see who might be able to help with a project. Who can you develop and empower to help with things the staff is planning?Celebrate, don’t beg. // Mark also worked with helping New Day make changes on the finances. One of those was communicating that giving is an act of worship. New Day helped people understand that they have an opportunity to partner financially with the church and see lives transformed. The staff shared stories celebrating the ways that generosity was impacting lives in order to show people how they can participate in that work.Plan ahead and make changes. // New Day knows that some things they’ve always done will need to be changed as the church expands to more campuses. So they are preemptively changing some of their leadership development and processes regarding how events are done. They are making the plans for slow and steady change now before encountering troubles that could quickly arise in the future.Be the one who pushes forward. // It’s easy to start with an idea, but it can be hard to keep the focus and momentum going over the long haul. The executive pastor can help keep everyone pushing forward and stay focused on the goal. You can learn more about New Day Church at www.ndcchurch.com. Thank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Chemistry Staffing One of the things that they never teach you in seminary is when to move on from your current church. Over the last couple of years, we have been having a TON of conversations about this with pastors all over the United States. Of all the ministry decisions you make, leaving your position will be the toughest. Download this two-in-one resource that walks you through the decision-making process. Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Well hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. You know every week we bring you a leader to both inspire and equip you and this week I’m super excited to bring you Mark Williams. He is the executive pastor at a church called New Day Christian Church, this is in Port Charlotte, Florida, which is a great place to be. And and this is one of the fastest growing churches in the country. It was started in 1959; the current lead Pastor Rusty Rusty Russell started in 2010. Super excited for this conversation. Mark, welcome to the show. Mark Williams — Thanks! Thanks! Appreciate you having me, Rich. Rich Birch — Oh this is going to be great. Why don’t fill out the picture tell me a little bit more about the church. What did I miss? If people were to arrive this weekend, what would they experience? Give us a bit of the flavor for the church. Mark Williams — So I mean for New Day, we’re we’re a church that yeah as you said, starting ’59 but to went through some bumps along the way, some leadership decisions that… they built a building in ’04, hurricane hit, boom, set everything… Rich Birch — Wow. Mark Williams — Actually building standards changed, cost of materials went up in ‘05, and um… Rich Birch — Wow. Mark Williams — …and they launched that building. And as soon as they built the building, opened up in 05, so what they were able to pay for and they couldn’t build everything. Rich Birch — Wow. Mark Williams — And so we currently sit in that same 35,000 square foot building. We run… last weekend we had 2000 people on site, and so when you really start to equate that it just doesn’t the math doesn’t make sense. Rich Birch — Sure. Mark Williams — And so we we you know we park in a grassy knoll in the back of the property, and the whole nine yards. So it gets very interesting around here. But as far as ah in 2005 shortly after they opened inadvertently they let their lead pastor go… Rich Birch — Ok. Mark Williams — It was probably ah the the best leadership decision. Rich Birch — Right. Mark Williams — The process wasn’t necessarily the greatest and… Rich Birch — Ok ok yeah. Mark Williams — And so prior to Rusty’s arrival in 2010 they had ah Minister Jamie Snyder was in. And he kind of went through and got things aligned and everything like that. Still you know the growth was there but nothing major. Rich Birch — Right. Mark Williams — And it really wasn’t until probably ’15/’16 that I think that the congregation knowing, the community knows that Rusty’s here to stay. He’s not leaving. And I think and he’s also been very in kind of putting himself into the community a little bit more. He works he’s the development coach so for Port Charlotte high school. So. Rich Birch — Oh that’s cool. Mark Williams — He he goes in there. He’s at every football game. He goes lifts waste with the the boys. And so he is like in the community, and that transition really just started New Day started growing. And and really probably our biggest growth what happened started having it probably right around ’17/’16-’17… Rich Birch — OK. Mark Williams — …amplified up ’18. So we were just been on a a metric growth, adding services and those kind of things. And then probably the biggest thing for the biggest change for us was 2020. Rich Birch — Yes. Mark Williams — Everybody says you know, ah such a horrible thing. We grew. Not… Rich Birch — Cool tell me about that. What that look like? Mark Williams — Now that’s not necessarily in person but we grew. Rich Birch — Sure. Yeah, yeah. Mark Williams — And we were still, you know, we baptized over 100 people in 2020… Rich Birch — Wow. Mark Williams — …coming in from watching us online. We never had that experience before so we leveraged it. A lot of churches they were closed down. I think we were doing online streaming for I think it was only four or five weeks… Rich Birch — Okay. Mark Williams — …and we started meeting outside because we live in Southwest Florida… Rich Birch — Yes, yep. Mark Williams — …and so it was easy to just say, hey we’re gonna meet outside. So in May we started meeting outside. Storms came and we’re just like well, it’s too hot. It’s gonna rain. What do we do? And so we said we’ll meet inside. Rich Birch — Yeah. Right. Mark Williams — And so we just did some creative stuff to get people where they feel comfortable. And we live in the second oldest demographic county in America. So… Rich Birch — Really? Mark Williams — Yes. Rich Birch — Ok, ok. Mark Williams — And the if anybody’s ever heard of The Villages in Florida. Rich Birch — Yes. Mark Williams — That’s the oldest… Rich Birch — OK. Mark Williams — …demographic so… Rich Birch — And then Port Charlotte’s number two. Mark Williams — And Port Charlotte’s number two. So our our, you know, we I’d say 50% of our congregation is sixty plus. Rich Birch — Interesting, interesting huh. Mark Williams — And so um the nice thing is when you’re you’re moving to southwest Florida, you’re you’re more apt to change. And so we don’t have a lot of issues when we want to make changes. And so we make very logical changes. We try to make sure that we’re, you know, how I always kind of describe it to the staff is like, hey when we’re gonna make a change. We’re we’re we’re on a cruise ship and so our changes need to be thought out and we’re gonna make slow changes. We don’t want a bunch of people puking off the side of the boat. So you know… Rich Birch — One step at a time. Mark Williams — And so the larger we get, we just need to keep making small, you know, small changes and small adjustments, but making sure they’re always looking further down ahead – where are we going and where we going to how are we going to get there? So 2020 we grew financially, we grew numerically, and you know, I think last year we were back to pre-covid… Rich Birch — Wow. Mark Williams — …in person. And then we hit snowbird season in the summertime. Rich Birch — Right. Mark Williams — But we’re back to last last last week we had 2000 people. And that is ahead of our pre-covid numbers for this season. So snowbirds don’t come back usually until November. Rich Birch — Right, right. Mark Williams — So based on that we should, you know, we’re probably getting gain another six seven hundred people in November to May. Rich Birch — Right. Wow. Mark Williams — And so so just makes an interesting… Rich Birch — So yeah, strong. That’s great, strong you know results and that’s that’s and that’s interesting, encouraging ah you know even reflection on the you know 2020s impact and then how that’s, you know, what that’s looked like continue to shuffle out. How do you guys define the executive pastor role? It looks different at so many different churches. It’s it’s kind of like I always people ask me what does executive pastor do? I say well the the most true thing is they do what the lead pastor doesn’t want to do, and that looks different in every church. So what what does that look like for you? How do you guys define that role? What’s that look like? Mark Williams — I mean pretty much that’s it. If Rusty doesn’t want to do it. He’s not doing it. I’m gonna do it. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yes, yes. Mark Williams — But ah, probably honestly I came in in 2000… 2018, four years ago, and after a really kind of ah, an interesting leadership shift, and some really, you know, some trust a lot of trust was broken. Um, and so I came in and one of the steps was I I turned them down three or four times to to move here. Rich Birch — Okay. Mark Williams — I really didn’t want to move to Southwest Florida. Rich Birch — Yep. Mark Williams — I like Northeast Ohio where I came from. I know I’m weird but um, but it’s… Rich Birch — Yes, that’s funny. As people do obviously you love the plains of Ohio. You often hear people say that, you know, give me flat cornfields. That’s what I’m looking for. Mark Williams — We we had hills in Ohio so… Rich Birch — Nice. Mark Williams — But it was more about seasons and it’s hard to really get excited for Christmas when it’s nice and warm and you’re at the beach and stuff… Rich Birch — Yep. Yes. Yeah yeah, yeah, fun. Mark Williams — I got so but it was just so kind of coming back to that, my biggest thing was ah, Rusty’s got to have 100% trust in me. And I’m not going to I don’t want to come there until he has a you know he can feel like he can have that. So through prayer and through a lot of conversations, I think few three or four months later, we finally came to terms that okay God’s calling us to another ministry role. We still weren’t sure it was New Day. And and eventually it was just like okay, it’s New Day. And we need to come in here. But we need to come in with, you know, full speed ahead, full tilt. And but at the end of the day, it’s got to be, you know, Rusty’s got to be completely aligned with me and he’s got to trust me. Rich Birch — Yeah. Mark Williams — And so part of that process, they started going through “The Speed of Trust” through Stephen Covey. Rich Birch — Yep. Mark Williams — And we’re going through that book to kind of build the trust back in with the the leadership, and um and the staff, and all those things. And so I read it and it was just pretty much that’s going to be our mantra. So we make every staff member coming on, you read that book. Yes, it has nothing to do with Jesus in there. We get that. But the, you know, the four cores um the four cores of credibility, and the 13 behaviors, those are things that we expect our staff. So we extend a ton of trust to our staff and we really empower them to do that. Mark Williams — So my job is is, yes I do everything that Rusty doesn’t want to do. But I mean my first thing hitting the ground running was to right-side our finances, to ensure that we were able to grow. They started an 8:00 Saturday or Sunday morning service and I was like that’s just we’re not going to grow. Rich Birch — Right. Mark Williams — We can’t do it with the current format. So you got to make a prime time hour. And Saturday night I think it was in February of 2019 we are open start our first two thousand our first Saturday night service. And we grew, and we continue to grow. So we got to make, you know, you got to repool. The only way for growth is to pull seats out or build a big, you know, build more seats. Rich Birch — Yep, yep. Mark Williams — And so and that kind of fits into a model that the church has wanted to launch campuses and those kind of things. Rich Birch — Yep. Mark Williams — So we’re on the we’re on the precipice, hopefully. I’m gonna say we’re there. We’re in permitting stages to open us our second campus in a strip mall in Northport… Rich Birch — Love it. Mark Williams — …which is ah where a next group of group of people are at and coming in. And so we know that’s where God’s calling us to do is to go into multisite. And it’s really to take the local church back to local church. Rich Birch — Yep. Mark Williams — And we want to be in the local community so we could build some massive mega structure or something like that. But we just don’t think that’s what God’s calling us to do. We feel like we would rather be… Rich Birch — Right. Closer to the people. Mark Williams — …a half dozen or more sites. We’ll always keep building campuses until there’s no place for us to go. Or we just you know to to continue to spread the gospel. It’s all about as the mission. Rich Birch — Yeah, totally. Mark Williams — It’s ah it’s not about growing numerically. It’s about honestly keeping people from going to hell. Rich Birch — Totally. Mark Williams — And so that model so that’s my job is pretty much to remove the barriers so that we can hit hit that model, and fulfill the mission that we feel God’s calling us to do to make disciples who make disciples. Rich Birch — Yeah, I love it. Mark Williams — And build the team, and build team synergy. So we’re all focused on that. Rich Birch — Yeah, I love it. Well so I so the thing I love I’d love to pull apart a little bit, get a little bit more into, is a lot of times executive pastors in in the church are um, you know, this isn’t obviously universally true. But you often hear the story of like someone who’s maybe from within the church, they maybe were you know in the different field, and they um you know they were they were brought in they maybe so it’s first time they’ve been in vocational ministry. Or it’s someone who’s maybe come up through a different system. So there used to be the group’s guy, or they used to, you know, they were involved in family ministry. The fact that you moved in in a season where the church was attempting to rebuild trust, that’s an interesting um, kind of um intersection for you to find yourself at, from a leadership point of view. Could you pull that apart a little bit more? When you maybe when you think about your first, you know, hundred days, your first six months, what were some of those things that you found that helped you gain trust? I love the focus with Rusty, but then even with the staff team and others, as you as you found yourself landing in in the community? Mark Williams — It’s it’s kind of it actually the first six months was hard. I think um I think I wanted to quit probably 10 times, personally. It was hard because I mean everybody loved you know my my the guy that… and I mean the congregation kept saying, you know, hey, you got big shoes to fill. Rich Birch — Right, right. Mark Williams — And so it’s like I’m not that guy, and he’s not me. And and we will eat we will eat differently. But so it it really took a long time to build that. I knew… so some of the staff expect me to come in here and start throwing things around and blowing things up. And I felt that, you know, it’s one of those things… moving moving furniture in the room of a disoriented person creates more chaos. So the worst thing that I could do is start changing things. Rich Birch — Right, right. Mark Williams — And so I just was building slowly, building relationships, building trust, going this guy is actually for real – maybe actually does truly care about me, and ministry, and the kingdom. And and so it was it was I would say I didn’t make any major catastrophic changes for almost two years. Rich Birch — Oh okay. Mark Williams — Even though I suggested Saturday night. But it was like kind of hey guys we really should look at doing this and they were like oh yeah, we should do this. So and kind of backdooring it and making it everybody else’s idea… Rich Birch — Right. Yeah. Mark Williams — …helped, you know, helped bring it along. But it was just small, even some of the small changes that I made, it still created some, you know, there was just a lot of… it would brought back some of the stressors that people really weren’t ready for and they were surprised they got. And so as you kind of dove through those things and you’re building that trust, I took basically my thought process I will take two years before I do major catastrophic decisions within some of the staff. And um, and try to model some some things around. Mark Williams — So I tolerate some staff longer than I needed to, and but I thought, you know, just it wasn’t healthy for their congregation. It was changing some mindsets. So through that two years, I changed the mindset from we need to keep hiring people, when I’m looking at the the finances aren’t there to keep hiring people, but it actually is counter-indication to what I think we’re called to do. Ministers are called to develop. And so and basically I looked at them all I says if you’re doing direct ministry, that’s where you’re going to get in trouble. Rich Birch — Yes. Mark Williams — If you if you’re in the middle of the weeds, that’s when you’re going to get written up. That’s how you will get fired. Um and so it’s they’re like, you know, stop shunt you know, like what? But what you’re telling me what? I’m like yeah, I don’t… you need to develop people. So it kind of goes into a leadership model that if the organizational chart of of is you know Jesus first, and we go through to the first person that walks into the door. How are we getting you get that guest to be a regular attender? How are we going to get the regular attender to be a member? How are we going to get that member and, you know, to be on the team, serve teams? How are we going to get that person, you know, that team member on moving up? Our goal should be to develop them to be an elder of the church. How do we do? Is everbody going to be an elder of the church? No. But that doesn’t mean we don’t work hard on the developing them. Mark Williams — And we extend trust to them. We train them. We work ourselves out of a job. Because if I work myself out of a job doing this lane, or that lane, or that lane, then God’s—trust me—God’s not going to make you go, I can sit at home all day long. He’s gonna open up another door. And he’s going to have you you know, bring something else up. So the more we can empower the the lay leader, if you will… Rich Birch — Absolutely. Mark Williams — …the more ministry that we can happen. The the more you know we’re getting more people in, we’re getting visitors coming. We’re going to get people into the baptistry. We’re going to see life changing, life change happen because of the members of the church, not the pastoral staff. Rich Birch — Yes, so true. You know the thing so the thing the two things I want to underline, and then want to come back to a part of that. So friends, you’re listening to executive an executive pastor at one of the fastest growing churches in the country. And I love your emphasis on, hey we’re not going to go quick on this stuff. We’re going to slow down. We’re going to, you know, I want to build trust over an extended period of time. I think there’s this perception of like if you’re going to be a fast-growing church, you’ve got to just like move fast and break stuff. And you know which is often breaking people. And so I love that encouragement around like, hey we’ve got to go slow on this stuff. We’ve got to, you know, work a cruise ship make instrument or make small nudges in the right direction over extended period of time. Rich Birch — And then this whole notion of hiring, and it’s absolutely true. One of the it’s been proven a loss of stuff statistically that actually one of the death knells of churches is actually over-hiring. That actually will slow down the progression and the growth of a church. So let’s talk more about that. Let’s talk about the how did you move? How did you shift your staff culture, your team culture, from you see a problem and the knee-jerk reaction is we need to hire somebody? Ah, you know we need to find somebody, even if it’s ten hours a week, can we just hire somebody ten hours a week? Ah to: no, actually I’ve got to develop others. How how did you do that? How did you articulate that? What does that look like? And then how how have you taken some even early steps in trying to develop that with with your team? Mark Williams — I mean in the early stages, the one thing I didn’t really hide behind it because they didn’t really know how bad the finances were here. Rich Birch — Right. Mark Williams — So I didn’t even know. Rich Birch — Right. Mark Williams — I probably wouldn’t have taken a job if I knew how bad the finance. But um you… So I was like can’t even we just can’t afford. Rich Birch — Right. Right. Mark Williams — I was like, guys we can’t afford to bring somebody on. So it was it was just like, okay so who do you have around you that can do that? And so a lot of it was as I got to know more people it was like, no bring Bill in. Bring George in. Bring whoever, you know. There’s somebody in your ministry that’s immersed in your ministry. They are rocking it. Why are you holding them back? Rich Birch — Right, right. Mark Williams — Why are you afraid to pull them into the fold? Um, you know I talked to a gentleman yesterday, just grabbed coffee with him, was like you know we have a similar… I was a volunteer firefighter; he was a retired firefighter. And so, you know, we have this little bond, and I just I pushed him I says I need you to step in. And he’s like, what does that mean? I’m like, I need you to step in and be this guy. Rich Birch — Right. Mark Williams — And so I laid out who I want him to be and who I desire him to be. And it wasn’t just to go he needed and he’s like, I can do that. I’m ready to do that. Rich Birch — Yes. Mark Williams — I’ve made time in my life to do that. So it’s not just but sometimes it’s just releasing him. Rich Birch — Yep. Mark Williams — And he he’s right, he’s just sitting there waiting. He doesn’t want to offend anybody. I’m going, get in here. Get messy with us. Rich Birch — Yes, jump in, jump in. Exactly. Mark Williams — You know, right? You know we… yeah, so just but is is slowly doing it, but also also kind of releasing others. And I’m the worst person to release stuff. And I I’m I can preach it all day long. But I I… Rich Birch — It sounds so good. Mark Williams — It it does I have a plan for that. And you need to follow my plan. Rich Birch — Yes. Mark Williams — But and so I have to I had to model some as stuff. I got to release stuff. And that was hard. It’s very hard for me to release strategic planning, and releasing some thought process, and some dreaming. So, you know, as I pull back what God’s calling us to do and what we’re doing is like, okay how do I release this? How do I let it go? What do I need to do? And that’s, you know, once he once some of those pages were open, it was like easy to just dive in and say, here you go. Rich Birch — Right. Love it. So good. I think that’s such a critical lesson for us all as we, you know, I think there’s this particularly as we grow as the church we gets to a couple thousand people there becomes enough finances floating around that the staff can think, oh like I can just you know we just buy our way out of this problem. But that’s not the case, you know. We’ve got to continue to it’s Ephesians 4, right? We’ve got to continue to develop people and release them. Um, that’s so good. Rich Birch — Now you you brought up the finances there a little bit. I love the joke of I’m not even sure how bad things were. Can you talk through what did that look like – how did you right the ship financially? Um, maybe on both sides where there’s things that you did on the on the revenue side, or the expense side, to help wrestle through those in your in these these first you know four or five years since you’ve been here? Mark Williams — I would say in the in the initial phases it was more of the fact of just assessing, you know, once I actually peel back all of it and, you know, church of you know church is running probably 1400/1500 people at that point in 2018, so this is, you know, we’re on that I mean we’re in at beginning and trying to release up. And and I closed the you know, my first month and I really shouldn’t give these numbers, but I closed the first month… Rich Birch — Sure. No, that’s fine. You don’t have to. Mark Williams — Um I mean I probably had more… Rich Birch — …in the negative spot. Mark Williams — It wasn’t negative, but I I mean it would be a decent amount for a home. Rich Birch — Sure, sure. Yeah, yeah, Not not an organization. Basically I did not have enough money to to make payroll… Rich Birch —Yep, yep, right. …if money didn’t come in next week so… So that’s that was my tension. I was just like so. Rich Birch — Not where we want to be, obviously. You know you don’t you shouldn’t be measuring cash on hand in days. That’s not the hope, right? You know, like yeah, that’s interesting. Mark Williams — Correct and floating credit card. You know float their credit card. Not always yeah, pay it off. No it needs to be paid off. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Mark Williams — So on the on the payment side. It was like this our goal is we’re paying the credit card off before the end of the year. Rich Birch — Right. Mark Williams — Every month it’s paid off. We’re not floating some finances. And revenue was simply just some of it was just simple. It was like you guys moved from passing the plate, which is great. You put boxes in there. Okay, you know that’s a model. But giving is an act of worship. And we we can’t forget the conversation that since it is an act of worship that it is a part of worship. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Mark Williams — And so we should have a conversation about the fact. you that means so when I walked in it, it was eliminated from the worship service. We didn’t talk about it. Rich Birch — Wow. Oh wow. Oh my goodness. Yeah yeah. Mark Williams — It was just it was just talked in the back. So I mean honestly was just some of this was that. And then going through going, look at this person’s life. Look at this person’s life – share these life stories. Rich Birch — Right, these stories. Yep, absolutely. Mark Williams — Have conversations about the wins. Don’t be afraid to talk about and it’s not. You’re not asking for money as much as you’re saying you, we want you to financially partner with what what you’re doing here. And so just the simple language change and actually having language made a huge milestone step. And then going and and we never did go in and browbeat people for money. Rich Birch — No Mark Williams — We didn’t we didn’t, you know, plead with them. We didn’t ask I never beg and said hey you know we don’t have ah we don’t have enough, you know, there was never fear brought in. It was always about celebration. Rich Birch — Yeah, I love it. Mark Williams — And so through those constant celebration stories, it led us into well we knew we were gonna launch a campus and in Northport. We thought it was going to take us a year you a year sooner than it did, or it’s going to, because you know a horrible thing called 2020 happened and… Rich Birch — Yes. Mark Williams — But you know March 29, that was our that was our commitment Sunday for the capital campaign to pay for the campus so everybody and her brother was like… Rich Birch — Oh gosh! Wowzers! You weren’t even meeting; you weren’t even face to face, if I remember, you said you were four or five weeks not even, you know, just online. Mark Williams — Yeah so we went a week lot later than everybody else did, but we still did a commitment drive. Rich Birch — Wow! Yep. Mark Williams — And we still and we gave everybody the ability to do the commitments online. We offered everybody communion every week. So we did a drive through communion – pick up your communion for service every single week. Rich Birch — Okay, cool. Yeah. Mark Williams — We did that for three, four months. I I called our communion supplier. We I bought 10,000 units of communion. They’re like, what are you doing? Because nobody else is doing this. I says we’re providing communion – we do communion weekly; it’s part of who we are. Rich Birch — Yep, yep. It’s part of our worship environment so we’re going to do this every week, and we’re providing it for our family. So if you need it, stop by. Rich Birch — Stop by; we’ll get it to you. Yeah. Mark Williams — And and so we gave, you know, weeks worth, you know or, you know, ten weeks worth. And part of our success through that five weeks is we, you know, they said 10 people or less. So your small groups gather together, worship together… Rich Birch — Right, right. Mark Williams — …and do the whole thing together, and then the group leaders would come, get communion for ’em and. And so we always had communion ready to go. And just we kept being the church. And that’s how we continued to grow. Rich Birch — Love it. Mark Williams —Because they were they were inviting their neighbors, like oh I come coming over, and their entire subdivision would do Easter that Easter they did all did Easter together. Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. Mark Williams — And then one guy brought in, picked up 3-400 cups of communion, gave it to everybody in their community. I was like can I do that? Like I don’t care. You know… Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, that’s great. That’s fantastic. Mark Williams — You know and so just those kind of things that, you know, and then the money the moneys continue to come in, and people partnered with some ministry and we’ve been able to supplement things, buy things. Um, we’ve been able to celebrate some amazing things. We’ve you know we’ve given a ton of money away, benevolence. Rich Birch — Yep. Mark Williams — Um, the first time I’ve ever done this in my entire life. The end of 2020 because our our staff worked their tails off… Rich Birch — Right, right. Mark Williams — And so I had money left over in the salary budget line, and I went to the elders and said you need to give these guys some… Rich Birch — Oh nice. Mark Williams — …so not a raise but you need ’em a bonus. Rich Birch — Yeah little a gift of appreciation. Yeah yeah. Mark Williams — Yeah. And it was and so they got, you know, it was like first time I ever said, I’m going to give a bonus. And it it was like it was like we want to celebrate what you guys did. Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, that’s great.. Mark Williams — And and you know so they worked hard, and and ah honored that. So money’s always been and one of those things and other things are just it just always been just we’re always just pushing one step further. And I would say that if whenever we see the need, New Day’s gonna step into the gap. Rich Birch — Right. Mark Williams — Right now we’re struggling with getting, you know, we’re very passionate about conservative Christian worldviews. So maybe with a solid solid Christian worldview. True Biblical worldview. So um, when we’re hiring staff and that’s we were having a hard time finding it. And so we partnered with a bible college and this January, will we have a full fledged partnership. We’re gonna be holding classes here at New Day. Rich Birch — Oh wow. Mark Williams — And we hired a pastor to oversee that – just 100% oversee that, get it launched. And and the money’s gonna come in for that. We don’t… Rich Birch — Right. Mark Williams — You know it’s not 100% there yet. But God will provide that. Rich Birch — Love it. Well and I love that being, you know, there’s so many things you said there that I think were so good. That this idea around when churches are struggling financially I think so many times we can look so much on the expense side like okay, let’s find… and you’ve got to be wise on that, right? We’ve got to go through and be you know super wise. But then, just even a few things around you know, clearly articulating the vision, taking time to celebrate, talking about hey wow God’s at work, being clear on where money is being spent, like a sum of those those things, that’s a part of what God uses to ultimately see things turn around. My impression is that things are in a much better place today than they were ah, you know, say four or five years ago even if you’re, you know, just the way you’re talking about even, hey wanting to to launch ah ah, a school partnership, all of that, which is amazing. Praise God – that’s incredible. Mark Williams — Yeah, no God’s God’s done some amazing things. Ah, we’re actually I’m in the finishing up a merger. We have a small church in Sarasota that is that has reached out to us last year, earlier in the year and I’m we are finalizing we will be probably in 2023 launching a campus in Sarasota. Rich Birch — Right, right. Not on our radar, not on our plan, but God brought them to us. They came to us and so we will be launching a campus in Sarasota… Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. Mark Williams — …which is about 45 minutes from here. Rich Birch — Right, right. Mark Williams — Little more missional in experience for us. But you know nothing… God has just completely ordained this whole process. Rich Birch — Right. Mark Williams — And um and so yeah, now we’re ending up with a third campus in six months after we open another campus and… Rich Birch — Yeah, exactly. Not surprising though. That’s, you know, that’s God blessing your church. That’s that’s amazing. So when you look up over the horizon a little bit, what are some of the questions that you have as you’re thinking about the future at New Day? Obviously you’ve got a couple campuses coming down the pipeline. There’s a few other pieces there. Are is there anything else as you kind of look to the future that you’re excited about? I know it’s slow and steady change at New Day, you’re not it’s not next week, you know, we’re looking down a little farther down the road, but what what kind of things are you looking forward to? Mark Williams — Ah, well actually I have two. There’s two campuses I probably see in 2024 we will launch two more campuses. Rich Birch — Oh cool. Mark Williams — Um, and then most of the reason is that we have to find we have to find seats in our current… Rich Birch — Right. Mark Williams — …in the Port Charlotte campus we have to find seats. Northport’s only gonna pull so many but other at the other areas are gonna pull some. And so launching two more campuses will pull more seats which will allow us to grow in both locations. So we can see exponential growth. Rich Birch — Absolutely. Mark Williams — I mean on my radar in 4 years will be everything will double. Rich Birch — Right. Mark Williams — So I told the staff yesterday said, you know, Lord willing 4 years from now we’re going to be a church of 5000, and we’re gonna be a church of with, you know, five, six campuses. And so the question is to them, I trust you so how are we gonna do this? Rich Birch — Right. Mark Williams — And so that was the question yesterday is tell me how we’re going to do this. Rich Birch — Right, right. Mark Williams — What do we need now to to start looking for now? So we’re changing some of our language now, we’re changing some of our our leadership development now. We’re changing some of our processes, and and how we’re doing events. And all those things are there they’re being changed today because we know that we’re gonna have to have that change very, very quickly. Rich Birch — Yeah I love that. Well and there’s no doubt it gets back to even that leadership development piece. The thing about multisite and being, you know, I’ve led in that in environments like that that are fast growing that are, you’re pacing, hey we’re going to double in two, you know, two years from now. You can see where from where we are today. And developing and releasing leaders is core to the middle of all of that. Like that is the um, the limiter, right? iIf we can’t find and release people who are, to your point, you know, the the type of leader that you’re looking for, that they’re um, you know that they’re on brand, they’re missional, they’re exactly what you’re hoping, you know, however, that works that language works for you in, you know, at the church, man, that that doesn’t happen by happenstance. You’ve got to work through that one step at a time. Yeah that’s that’s great. That’s fantastic. That’s great. This been a great conversation. Anything else you want to share just as we’re ah wrapping up today’s dialogue? Mark Williams — While there I mean it’s just you know I think the biggest thing I’d like to share is just you got to love what you do. Rich Birch — So true. And when you love what you do, you know, my assistant yelled at me today because my my calendar is ugly. And and I just said, but yeah, you know what? But I love what I do. Rich Birch — Right, right. OK. Mark Williams — And you know we work six days a week, and we just do yeah we just push through. And I think the key is is that when you truly fall into the fact that I did come from lay leadership in to the ministry, and so I know it can be done. And then I grew, you know, moved up in the organization into an executive pasture role, then came here as the executive pastor. And they original wanted to hire me as a business guy and I said no, if I can’t pastor the staff, if I can’t be that person, I don’t want to do it. Rich Birch — Right, right. Mark Williams — And so so many people think the big executive pastor is they that is the business side of the organization. It’s the human resource of our organization. It’s not it is it is the vision. It’s the dream side. It is the implementation, is the its alignment, it is caring for people, you know, recognizing where the finances were going. You know, we’ve already given next year’s raises in August… Rich Birch — Oh wow. Mark Williams — …because and we also gave a pan… we also gave an inflation stipend in in March because we saw gas price. How are you know y’all are used to… You can’t afford this. Rich Birch — Right. Right, right. Yeah, absolutely. Mark Williams — So it’s coming up with how are we going to do those things? And investing into the staff because I truly care about, you know, all 18 of our staff members. And how I gonna love them through it, and their families. And I want them to stay, and and I don’t want to hire another 10 just to make it easy around here. Rich Birch — Right. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. Absolutely. Mark Williams — So but I think just going back to each one of them is you got to find your call… Rich Birch — Right. Mark Williams — …and you really just, you know, and never let up off the gas. And that’s what I think that’s probably the biggest thing, so the response for 2020 from us is we never pulled our foot off the gas pedal. And we stayed. Rich Birch — Right? Stay focused. So on that. Yeah, totally. Well and that relates even to your cruise ship analogy, right? That it’s like there’s I think too many churches, are too many leaders, it’s like they’re quick starts. They get the ball rolling and then they’re constantly changing as opposed to having the the the focused momentum of like we are heading in this direction. We’re going to keep going in this direction kind of regardless of where there’s like this weight and momentum behind the church that our job is to is to keep pushing forward. Um, and so we’re not going to be erratic and be all over the place. We want to stay focused in in our effort. I think that’s good. Mark Williams — Right. I mean so my job I think probably the thing that I do the best that I do the most is I’m always looking five years ahead. Rich Birch — Right, right. Mark Williams — And so it’s what am I going to do to get there 5 years ahead. I’m now at the point where I can trust the staff to say, this is where we’re going 5 years ahead. They couldn’t have handled that two years ago or even three years ago. Rich Birch — Right, right. Sure, sure, yeah. Mark Williams — And so and so now they’re able to hear and are going and yeah, some do throw up a little bit, and you know get that experience, but it’s that’s where we’re going… Rich Birch — Yeah, right. Mark Williams — …so now you understand why we’re making those changes today to get to that point. And it’s just, you know, I never want I never want to look back and going, yeah, but we could have… Rich Birch — Right. Mark Williams — And I use the analogy that oftentimes we stop, start and stop, start and stop, and it doesn’t take much for the train to keep a train from ever going. Just a small little block they put in, and they bolt it to the track, and that’s it and it’ll never go. But once it’s going, you can’t put that block in it’ll it’ll get it’ll get shot off the track. Rich Birch — Right. Mark Williams — You’re not going to stop the train once it’s going. The issue is so often we we say that we have to have everything too far planned. So we don’t have everything too far planned I would say there’s sometimes we’re put in tracks right in front of the train, as we’re going along too. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yes. Mark Williams — So we want to use the transportation analogy we’re put and there’s a few times that our fingers have been bit. Rich Birch — Right, right. Mark Williams — I’m not good I’m not going to deny that, you know, ah. I think in 2019 when we had we had 7 seats open in the worship center… Rich Birch — Yeah that’s crazy. Mark Williams — …and no seats were next to each other. Rich Birch — Right, right, right. Mark Williams — And so when you bring that family in… Rich Birch — Right, right. Mark Williams — …when there’s 2 to 3 or 4 people and you can’t sit next to each other, guess what they’re not doing? Rich Birch — Right. Mark Williams — Not staying. Rich Birch — Right. No, exactly? Yeah, absolutely. Well I really appreciate this. Thank you so much for your your time today, Mark. If people want to track with you, or with the church, where do we want to send them online? Mark Williams — So I mean our website is ndcchurch.com Rich Birch — Love it. Mark Williams — …and you can always just ah, shoot me an email if you have any questions of anything we’re doing here. It’s markwilliams [at] ndcchurch.com Rich Birch — Perfect. Appreciate that, Mark. I’m so thankful that you were on the show. Appreciate you taking time out today to spend with us. Thank you for that. Mark Williams — Hey thanks – appreciate you. Thanks for what you’re doing.

Thanks for tuning in to the unSeminary podcast. We’re excited to talk with Joey Speers, a brand builder and digital marketer. He and his wife founded the Speers Collective Inc., the parent company of Creativ Rise and Brand Therapy. Joey is talking about how churches can generate brand clarity that makes growing their mission simple and enables them to connect with the people they’re trying to serve. Intentionally shape your brand. // Joey defines a church’s “brand” as the feeling people get when they experience and interact with the organization. It encompasses the logo, the interactions people have when they come to your church, the message they hear, the conversations with staff, and so on. Church leaders have to think about this because if we don’t intentionally shape how our churches are being experienced, we can lose momentum on our missions.Your brand is about the people. // A church’s brand is also about the people it serves. One thing a lot of churches do wrong is make their entire brand about themselves on their websites, social media, and even Sunday services. The brand is not about the church or organization, it’s about what God is doing in the people the church is serving.Understand your brand identity. // The first part of brand identity is the internal characteristics of who you are as a brand. If your church was an individual person walking down the road, what would they say is their reasoning for doing what they do? What gets them out of bed in the morning? Who do they love to help? How do they make people feel?Customer identity. // The second part of brand identity is customer identity. Who would the customer, or community member, that you met walking down the road be? What do they believe about the world and what are some of the problems they’re up against? What are some of their hopes and desires? How do they want to experience change so they overcome their problems?Filter everything through your framework. // Everything within your ministry becomes easier when you have a framework of who you’re trying to be as an organization. Whether you’re making your announcements, planning your groups or sermon series, or even onboarding new staff, people need to know what part they play and how it connects to your mission in the world.Covid gives churches a chance to relaunch. // People have more questions about the role the church is playing in our local and national community than ever before. Churches need to meet people in their questioning. If your organization isn’t clear on why it exists and why someone will benefit from it, people will pass it by and look for something else that can serve their need. Relaunch your brand with the focus of letting people know that you are for them and why.Brand Therapy provides clarity. // Brand Therapy is a consulting system Joey built to help people find clarity in their brand identity, their customer identity, and identity alignment. First Brand Therapy will come in and talk with your team to clarify who your church is, who you are trying to serve, and how these things fit together. Then they’ll put all the data together in a guide that you can use as a framework for your church communications, both internally to staff, and externally to the people you are serving. Learn more about Brand Therapy and how it can help your church at www.ineedbrandtherapy.com. Find Joey on Instagram at @JoeySpeers as well as his website www.joeyspeers.com . Thank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Portable Church Industries Doing Church in a Rented Facility can be a Challenge. Questions about Multisiting or Portability?Click here to connect with our Multisite Specialist for a free evaluation. Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey everybody! Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. You know every week we try to bring you a leader who will both inspire and equip you, and today is absolutely no exception. Super excited to have a newer friend of mine, Joey Speers. He’s a brand builder and digital marketer. He and I are both within Carey Nieuwhof’s leadership community, his private community, called the Art of Leadership Academy. Ah, and we both are active in there and we were talking online. So I said hey Joe, I’d love to have you come on the podcast. He and his wife Christy are founders of The Speers Collective Incorporated which is the parent of Creativ Rise and Brand Therapy. Brand Therapy helps clients like you actually, like churches, generate super brand clarity and makes growing ah your mission possible. Joey, so glad you’re here. Welcome to the show. Joey Speers — Thanks for having me on, Rich. Excited to chat. Rich Birch — Yeah, why don’t you talk to me – give me a bit of the Joey Speers story, for folks that don’t know. Ah, give us a bit of context, your background, that sort of thing. Joey Speers — Yeah, so a little bit of context, I’m ah sitting here recording this from Northern California. I’m not originally from here, however. I am Canadian actually, from where you’re from. We’re not not not too far apart. Rich Birch — Yeah, right around the corner. Joey Speers — Um, yeah so raised raised in Ontario, raised in the church. Ah, for that context for this this conversation. Started a business when I was younger at 14. Really loved it. Got ah just had a knack to want to solve problems at ah at a young age, and it just caught fire in terms of my passion for it. Um, and it’s been I’m 23 now; I’ll be 24 in ah twenty days which is pretty crazy. I feel like I’m getting old, Rich. Rich Birch — Love it. Love it. Joey Speers — But yeah, so it feels funny saying I’m 24, but I will be going on my tenth year of of being an entrepreneur, if you want to put it that way. Rich Birch — Love it. Joey Speers — Um, but I was flying home from LA once, a girl tapped me on the shoulder in the airport, and I married her. So met my wife in the airport. She’s from Northern California. I decided to leave Canada, come down here and pursue her, and best decision I ever made. Rich Birch — Love it. Joey Speers — So I’m now sitting here in Northern California and yeah my wife and I run a couple different businesses. We’ve got a photography content um creation and strategy agency. We’ve got my brand agency, which is Brand Therapy – mentioned. And then we’ve got an education platform in the middle of that. Because when we look at the world, we just believe there should be more creatives, like us, that get to do what they love for a living and succeed. And so ah yeah, Creativ Rise is an education platform – it teaches creators business so they can run a business. So yeah, it’s a blast. We get to do a lot of fun things day to day and so can’t wait to chat all about it… Rich Birch — Love it. Joey Speers — …and how we can give some of your listeners some value. Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. So good. So yeah if you if you’re sitting in front of a browser, drop over to ineedbrandtherapy.com – we’re going to talk a little bit about that. So so there might be people that are listening in that, you know, obviously a lot of church leaders people who, you know, don’t spend their time necessarily thinking about brand. So let’s take a step back. When you say “brand”, what do you mean by that? Joey Speers — Yeah. Rich Birch — What what is a brand? What is it? What is that? What is that idea? Is that just like a logo – are you saying I need a better logo? What is it? Joey Speers — Yeah, and that’s a great question. So I define “brand” as how you are experienced. So your logo is definitely a part of that. But um to go a lot deeper, and at the same time simplify it though, brand is simply just the the feeling that people get when they experience you, when they interact with you. They see your logo. They show up at your church. They hear the message. They shake hands with somebody from your organization. Brand encompasses all of that. So if that’s the definition we’re going to roll with, which it should be the definition everybody adopts, um, it’s undeniably something you’ve got to think about as as a church leader, as a business leader, right? Because it is it is fundamentally how you are being experienced. And if you’re not intentionally shaping how you’re being experienced, then you know you’re still being experienced, and you’re probably going to be getting experienced in a way that you’re not intending to necessarily be experienced. Joey Speers — And I think that’s where a lot of people lose um, momentum on their missions because they’re just not as intentional about how they want to be experienced, and what they want to create in the world, and how people, you know, get involved in that. Um, and yeah so I’m trying to dedicate a lot of my life to help and people get clear on that, and create ah just a better trajectory for their organization, and the people that the organization is impacting. Rich Birch — Yeah, I know it’s been said that we all have a brand. The question is whether we have one on purpose or not, whether we’re intentionally building it and cultivating it… Joey Speers — Exactly. Rich Birch — …like and there’s a lot of churches we’ve walked into and you’re like, gosh there the brand the brand is screaming loud and clear here, and no one’s spent any time thinking about it. Ah, when you think about, so let’s say you’re talking—I’m sure you talk to a lot of churches—and you engage with them, I’m sure there’s kind of common questions or um ideas that you are often finding yourself repeating when you’re talking to them around what they should be thinking about when they think about brand. Are there is there some low hanging fruit, if we’re trying to get more clarity, kind of get better um, you know to position our brand better in our communities, what what would some of that low hanging fruit be? Joey Speers — Yeah, it’s a great question. There’s probably a couple things. But the thing that I would say is potentially the lowest hanging fruit would be that most people think your brand is about you. And it’s actually the opposite. The best brands in the world that are not about them. They’re not about themselves; they’re about the people they serve. Joey Speers — And so from a church perspective, ah, one of the things that I feel see a lot of churches doing wrong, and again simply because they just don’t they’re not intentional about this, is they make their entire brand about themselves. Their entire website is about themselves, all their social is about themselves. Ah, even even sometimes the Sunday experience, you know, is about themselves – the way they ask for people to get engaged in in groups. The way they ask for people to serve. They make it about themselves. The way they ask people to tithe – that one really that one really grinds my gears sometimes, right? I’m like oh this isn’t even… tithings not about you as an organization. Rich Birch — Right. Joey Speers — It’s about what’s happening in people, you know? And it’s it’s about that personal, you know ah, commitment and personal sacrifice. Um, and yeah, like doing what God has you know gifted you to asked you to do in stewarding, you know, what your finances. Again that should not be about the church, even though the money’s going to the church. It should be about here’s what’s happening in you and through you. Joey Speers — Sp all aspects of that. I think the lowest hanging fruit is so many churches because they don’t intentionally shape the brand, the brand becomes about themselves. And when your brand is entirely about yourself rather than the people you serve, ah, you don’t actually connect with a lot of people that you want to serve. Rich Birch — Right. So we’ve talked about that at a like a tactical level, say around announcements. Too many churches get up and and say, hey we’re launching groups and this is when they launch, and they’re on these days, and these times, and you should join. Well, we don’t even say you, they just say, you know, this is a really important thing as opposed to, hey, are you looking for community? Are you the kind of person that you know wants to grow in their relationship with Jesus? Are you looking to improve, you know, insert 1, 2, 3 things. If you’re interested, you know, you should join a group. Is that the kind of thing you’re talking about? It’s positioning what we’re doing really in the eyes of our people, really from their perspective. Is that the kind of thing you’re you’re encouraging us to think about? Joey Speers — Yeah, exactly. And there’s there’s a couple things that I would say are the pillars that you’d have to first foundationally create, that all of that language, all of that communication would come out of. And I think how I would describe that is there’s two, two aspects to your brand. There’s the brand identity, which is the internal characteristics of who you are as a brand. A question that I love to ask if is if your church was a a single person… Rich Birch — Right. Joey Speers — …walking down the road and I ran into them, you know, how would they make me feel?What would they say they believe about the world? What would they what would they say is the reasoning for why they do what they do? What gets them out of bed in the morning? You know, who do they love to help? That’s your brand identity – the internal characteristics of what makes you, you. And then you’ve got the second part of a brand which is your customer identity. Joey Speers — Again, if you met a singular person walking down the road that you serve, who would they be? You know, what age are they? Ah, or they can they kind of just be any age? You know, if you’re a church you got to serve everyone. So um, but what do they believe about the world? What are some of the problems they’re up against in the world, right? What are some of the things that are stopping them from overcoming those problems themselves? What are some of their hopes, and desires for how they want to experience the change in order to get them from problem to a place where they no longer live with that problem, right? Joey Speers — And so I think when you when you can identify some of the brand identity characteristics that you guys want to you want to include in your brand, and who it’s for—the customer identity side of that—I think getting up on stage, and making your announcements not about you but about the people you’re serving, you know. Ah, planning your your groups, planning even just sermons series. Everything becomes a lot easier because you’ve got a framework for who you’re trying to be as an organization that’s clear. And you’ve got a framework for who you’re trying to reach as an organization that’s clear. Joey Speers — And the best part is those go both ways, right? When your entire organization, top down—the person who mops the floors to the person who gets up on stage and speaks—when your entire organization knows who they have to be to build, you know, a bigger, a bigger vision of like what that organization is who they who they claim to be, when everyone’s clear on that the customers—or in my lingo, the customers—the community members, the members of your church, the seekers that are coming for the first time, they’re going to see that. And and see clarity in that and understand who you are and how how being there is gonna benefit their life, right? So it it goes both ways, which is really cool and that’s that’s one of the coolest things about branding. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. I love that idea. You know, I think there’s a lot of great communicators who often they intuitively do this at the level of say the message they preach on Sunday… Joey Speers — Yes. Rich Birch — …where they intuitively think, Hey when I’m preaching this message today, this is the person I’m thinking about. They have this person in their mind’s eye. This is the person that they’re they’re they’re wrestling with. In fact I found over the years that actually the best communicators get very specific, maybe even down to an individual. Like this is yeah, there might be 5000 people at our church… Joey Speers — Yep. Rich Birch — …but I’m hoping that Joey hears this message today. I love that idea of pushing us to think about, okay who is our target as a church? And it could get that specific. Now when churches… say there’s those two different sides. There’s kind of our own if, you know, if we kind of had our, you know, our organization was a single person what they look like versus the people that we’re trying to reach. Is there a side of those that churches particularly, or you found ministries maybe particularly, have had ah had trouble wrestling with, and why? Why do you think there’s one or the other that we we tend to have, you know, more of a difficulty, you know, thinking through? Joey Speers — Yeah, that’s a great question. So I would say it depends on who you ask. Rich Birch — Sure. Joey Speers — If you ask the founding pastor they’re gonna say we don’t have any issues with the brand identity. You know that stuff’s all in my head. Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Joey Speers — And I go, well, that’s the exact issue, you know. Your entire organization, everyone who’s a part of this, the same way we say you know the church is is the body of Christ. Everyone, you know, this part of it’s the arm, this part of it’s the leg. Your brand is the same – each role that someone is serving in your church is an arm and a leg; it’s the nose of your brand. And so if they don’t know what body they’re making up, and you know what fuels it, what what it believes about the world, who it’s serving, then there’s a lot of disconnection. Joey Speers — So from a lead pastor perspective, a lot of them think they have that side clarified. But we often actually have to step in and help them clarify it a little bit more. But our job most of the time is actually helping them distribute it to the rest of the organization. Rich Birch — Hmm, interesting. Joey Speers — Because unless the rest of the organization gets that right there’s there’s ah, there’s a massive gap in efficiency. There’s a massive gap even in retention with people who are serving. The fastest way to kill your retention for your volunteers, or the the people who are serving in your church—paid staff—is to have them confused on on why they’re doing what they’re doing, right? Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, yeah. Right. Joey Speers — And how it builds into the bigger, the bigger vision of what they’re doing. And then on the other side of that, um, I think a lot of churches do struggle, yes, with figuring out who they want to talk to. So here’s my answer, Rich to to kind of gloss over this: I don’t think it’s one of them, I think it’s both of them. Rich Birch — Sure. Okay. Joey Speers — And I think the issue with the customer identity stuff, the community member for the for the lingo of this podcast stuff, is that they go, well in the business world, it’s more straightforward because in business you just want to pick one person, get rid of everybody else, and then scale that one person audience, right? You want to find people who are—if at your a fitness company—who are you know, looking to lose x amount of fat and looking to get abs. We don’t want to talk to anybody else. You can’t do that in the church. The church is for everybody, right? Rich Birch — Mmm-hmm. Joey Speers — So it’s’s ah, you’ve got to be a little bit more intentional on how you create a message, create an invitation, for people to experience your brand that’s welcoming to everybody. Whether they’re six months old going to daycare, or the you know childcare for the first time, or whether they’re 80 and they’ve been going to that church for or they’ve been eighty and they’ve never been into church, and they walk in for the first time. Right? You’ve got to be able to craft a message that is going to speak to everybody. So I think people struggle with both of them for very different reasons. Yeah. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s good flag. I think um oftentimes we think that our churches are trying to reach everybody. They can’t reach everybody. The church universal will reach everybody in our communities. Ah, but our, you know, our church has some sort of unique ah, opportunities. You have unique ability to reach people, and I don’t think it’s a problem for us to kind of say, hey we’re we’re trying to narrow down. Obviously not in an exclusionary sort of way… Joey Speers — Yes. Rich Birch — …probably not as exclusionary as you know as the, you know, like you say the fitness company around the corner. Ah, but I do think that’s something you know for us to wrestle through. Ah, so put this all in context coming out of Covid a part of why I was excited to talk to you is I know the churches I’m talking to, the churches I’m doing coaching with, the ones I’m engaging with, man we are all still it feels very much like we’re still emerging from that – we’re still trying to figure out. And it feels like we’re… ah that there’s a lot of churches that could be really ripe for this kind of work in this season, rethinking these things, kind of you know, pulling back and saying, okay hmm I need to maybe we need to think about these things again. We need to think about brand identity. You need to think about community or customer identity. Have you seen any impact particularly say in the last couple years as we’re kind of coming out of covid around all of this identity stuff in general, brand identity stuff? Joey Speers — Oh my goodness – 100%, right? This that’s a great point, Rich, because you know covid caused so many people in a lot of different ways um to think differently about something, right? We all were were, whether we decided to or whether we were just pressed to think differently, we all had to think about something in a different way over the last couple of years. Rich Birch — Right. Joey Speers — And I think for a lot of churches um it posed the question. Their community was looking at them going, well, what do you guys think about this? Rich Birch — Right. Joey Speers — What do you think about lockdowns? What do you think about the vaccine? What do you think about ah, politics, economics right now, recession? You know, what do you think about my finances right now? And so I think… my father-in-law’s a pastor and he’s been so fun to watch through the last couple of years because he’s going man, we just got a level playing field to recreate the best foundation we’ve ever had in the church, and it is time to relaunch the American Church. Like this is when we need to ramp up. Joey Speers — People have more questions about the role the church is playing in in our local community, our our national community, and the global community than ever before. We’ve got to have answers. We’ve got to have intentionality. We’ve got to meet people you know in the in the questioning. So I think absolutely – Covid created problems. Anytime there’s problems there’s more opportunity, right? Joey Speers — And I think from a brand perspective if your organization is not clear on here’s why we exist, here’s why you’re going to get a benefit from this, here’s why we want to invite you to this, here’s the plan to do that. Like if your brand is not fully built with that stuff, I think people are they’re going to pass you by, and they’re going to go looking for somebody else who can serve them in that way. So yeah I think more than ever, Rich, Covid has given every church a great opportunity to relaunch. Rich Birch — Right. Joey Speers — And you could sub the word relaunch for the word rebrand. Not that you have to change anything… Rich Birch — Right. Joey Speers — …but you need to relaunch your brand. And hey this is we are for you. Here’s why we’re for you. You know all that stuff. Rich Birch — Yeah, I love it. And you know I think there’s ah one of the questions I keep asking leaders are what are the assumptions that were true in 2019 that aren’t true anymore? And and we have to keep asking those questions. And that’s a you know I think that’s a perennial question. We can ask that any time in our ministries. But it does feel like particularly in this season. Rich Birch — Let’s let’s kind of dive a little bit more specifically into your offering, like how you actually help organizations, or how you actually help churches. So like are you the kind of guy when you like or you know coach when you’re coaching on this stuff, is it like, you know, we have a 30 minute conversation and then next week you’re going to show me logos and idea boards with like fancy colors and you’re going to tell me the difference between this blue and that blue and why I should use this blue and that blue? How does all that work? You spend more time on the upfront, the kind of hey let’s dive deep on what is it that actually makes you different. Or are you more on the like the kind of production graphic design we’ll think about that stuff the actual what what it looks like or how it rolls out it. Walk us through what that actually looks like. What what are you actually offering to organizations in your service? Joey Speers — Yeah, 100%. Well this may sound cheesy, but the same way God looks at the heart, not the the outside, I feel like that’s the way I pursue branding. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure. Joey Speers — I don’t touch any of that stuff until we’ve figured out who you’re going to be… Rich Birch — Right. Okay, okay. Joey Speers — …how you’re going to show up, who you’re showing up for, why they need you, what are you helping them overcome in their life? So the brand identity and creating that there’s a ton of questions that go into creating a really good brand identity, and then a great customer identity. But I think it’s just a waste of time to talk about colors and and argue for 40 minutes on which, you know, shade of blue is going to be more beneficial for something if you still can’t get up on stage and clearly tell people why, you know, they should care about what you’re doing and how you’re trying to impact them. So yeah, we spend 100% of our time um, in fact, we don’t even do we don’t we’ve done a few rebrands over the years but that’s not even something I would say we offer. Rich Birch — Right. Joey Speers — That’s probably something more specific to, hey this is really a problem. We’ve done everything else. Now great, let’s also solve that problem. But now it’s I think it’s a waste of time to solve any of those problems until I think the real problems are solved. Joey Speers — So how it looks: Brand Therapy is is just a consulting system that um I had built years ago and had some guidance from ah some people that I really look up to that have been been doing leadership development stuff for years for fortune 500 companies. They kind of helped walk me through the way I viewed the world and the way I viewed branding. And and they’re like, man, you got a really special knack for this, you just get this stuff. And we built a system that I’m just really proud of and it’s it’s really exciting. So we just step in and it generally starts with a full day. And we ask you a ton of questions we call it brand therapy because it feels therapeutic. Rich Birch — I Love it. Joey Speers — People cry. Um, people scream and jump around with excitement when it clicks. People get confused. People find clarity – like it’s all of that in in in one experience. And what’s so cool about it is it’s it’s something that we encourage people to invite their their entire like executive team into. There’s no point in doing this just with the founder… Rich Birch — Right. Joey Speers — …if the founder’s problem again is he already gets most of this, but he doesn’t know how to communicate it. So Brand Therapy is not only so helpful to communicate, or sorry, to clarify all of these things – the brand identity, the customer identity. There’s a third piece to that we actually call identity alignment. Like how do those two things now talk? Because just because we know who you are and who they are doesn’t mean that everything’s still going to line up. So how do we make sure that we’re lining stuff up? Joey Speers — Well, you know, getting to walk your entire team through that. Your executive team, you know, most churches would pick the top 7 people that maybe are are running a bunch of the stuff that they’d be in on the conversation. I think when you can do that not only do you get clarity, we then take all that the data we we shape ah, it’s actually a guide that we deliver to you, print them out and and give them to you. It’s like a we call it like the bible for your brand. I don’t know if that if that sounds bad but we love calling you that. Because it’s like here here’s a step-by-step way to ensure if you follow this, You’re gonna have a brighter future, right? Rich Birch — Right. Yeah. Joey Speers — The same way the bible promises us basically the same thing, right? You’ll have more hope, you’ll have more this, you’ll have more that. And so yeah, we basically just deliver that and then we consult with you on how to implement it. Um, which is so important and more importantly, how to help everyone get a piece of it and everyone understand how what they do builds into the greater vision, the greater purpose, the greater drive of what that organization is doing. It is so fun to be able to watch a team come together, looking like the lead pastor is excited, you know, or has all the vision but nobody else gets it. Joey Speers — And it’s so exciting to watch in a week later after we’ve done all this stuff, you know, an organization that has never been so excited to go out and help people, go so excited to go and serve people simply just because people get why what they’re doing actually builds into what that what’s happening, right? It gives people ownership, which is so cool. And I think every organization could could use a few more employees, few more volunteers, a few more people serving, that that are excited to take more ownership. Rich Birch — Friends that are listening in, I want to ah let me speak to you for a second, as an executive pastor. Um I know there’s people that are listening in that are like, this just seems like really like man we don’t have time for this. We don’t have the money for this. I’m not sure I should spend effort on this. Ah, listen for for a moment. Take it from a person who’s led in fast-growing churches. Communications—which is really what we’re talking about – this is all a part of that kind of communication piece—is a professional function. It is like um… and and there are points in your history where you need to lean in with someone like Joey to say, hey help us get better at that. He he has an area of expertise that you probably don’t have within your church today. And it’s a professional function in the same way think about the way you handle finances at your church. Early on in the church you probably maybe you had a volunteer that did your bookkeeping. And then eventually you’re like, we can’t keep doing that we got to hire a bookkeeper, and then as your church grew you added more professional function on that to the point where then maybe eventually have like a CFO that kind of type of person on you on your team. Rich Birch — Communication is the same thing. I don’t know why we don’t ah handle it the same way though. We it requires a level of professional care to it. Just because particularly our lead pastors think they’re good at communication doesn’t mean that they’re necessarily have the professional function that someone like Joey actually has behind what they do. Because this is all he does all day long. Um, and so something like Brand Therapy can help you accelerate the work, can help you think through, Okay, what should I be doing differently? How can we, you know, kind of guide this part of what we’re doing and make it better? Rich Birch — So question for you, Joey, as you’ve engaged with people, I’m sure there’s churches that you’ve talked with or organizations maybe more broadly you’ve talked with that would say, like I’m not sure – is this really worth it? Is it worth all this time, effort, and energy? Why would I bring an outside person in? Why why don’t we just go away? Why don’t why don’t I just read StoryBrand, tell all my people to read StoryBrand, and then we’ll just like pull out the pdfs from the back of the StoryBrand book and do it ourselves. Why engage with someone like yourself? Why have someone like you there to kind of guide you through the process? Joey Speers — Yeah, that’s a great question. Huge fan of StoryBrand. I feel like ah Donald Miller shaped a lot of the way I view the world. Um, but the the problem with reading a book is there’s no implementation. You’re not getting someone helping you implement that, right? And I think that’s the the biggest fall that a lot of leaders take is they’re so excited to read the book, but they don’t now know how to take what they’ve learned, implement it into the organization, and most importantly, like distribute it through the health of their staff. Joey Speers — And so ah, the same way – I’m recently married I’m I’m a year and a half in. You know, I love what you were saying about communication, Rich. Like communication is so crucial. Communication and marriage is everything. If you get communication wrong, you you get a lot of other things wrong, right? Rich Birch — For sure. Joey Speers — It’s the same thing with your organization. You could have the best groups, the best program, and you could have the best sermon. You could have the best opportunities for kids. But if you can’t communicate how that’s going to benefit someone’s life and how they should be invited into that and all the other stuff, it just falls at the wayside, right? So um I think that’s where there’s a lot of churches who, yeah will look at something, I guess, and go, well I just don’t know if we have the time. My my counter to that would be, well, It’s only one day. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Joey Speers — And even just the the reality of how we’re going to help you, you know, like talking about that brand identity guide that we give at the end. I even give the example all the time I’m like, man, that will cut your onboarding time from weeks… Rich Birch — Oh so good. Yes. Joey Speers — …of them having to get used to your organization. You give them that book, have somebody who’s, you know, an elder on staff type thing someone who’s been there for a while walk them through the brand identity. Here’s who we are, here’s how you’re going to play into that. Rich Birch — Love it. That’s a great idea. Joey Speers — Here’s who we’re serving, here’s how you’re going to help reach them, and here’s how you’re gonna help benefit them. There you go. Like they get started instantly. So you even just save the time on even like onboarding, for one. Joey Speers — If you ever have to, you know, even if you spend time coming up with communication for your website, if you spend time coming up with communication for your next sermon series, for anything, like it just speeds it speeds things up. And so that’s I think that’s my only answer, right? You’ve got to find things in in your leadership that you can you can throw some kind of resource at that’s going to shortcut you, that’s going to that’s going to speed you up, right? Joey Speers — And that’s the best thing about ah you know learning how to steward your money well. If you steward your money well, you’re probably looking at your money from the perspective of how can we use this to buy us speed in our impact. And Brand Therapy is a phenomenal way to do that because it’s buying you massive amounts of speed in in, like you said, your communication getting so much better, in so many other so many other things that become assets that just make the long-term health, and the short-term health, of your organization I think just drastically go up. Rich Birch — Yeah, I love it. So you had said, and and we probably don’t have time to dig into all of it, but I love that you called out um I think I would imagine one of the problems with a process like this is it has that kind of feeling of well we went to the mountaintop, we generated this thing. In fact, we got the amazing brand bible, and then we set it on the table somewhere and then didn’t think about it for 10 years, which I can imagine, are 5 years which I can imagine for you is like super frustrating. You’re like man I just ah, yeah, you know why just invested all this blood, sweat, and tears, energy into an organization and then it just it just became dust on a you know ah, maybe on the the pastor’s coffee table in their office. Then they didn’t actually do anything with it. What are some of the, back to low hanging fruit, some of the two or three kind of distributing, you know, tips for getting this beyond just the ivory tower, the 7 staff who talked about it, and actually pushing it out to the organization? What are some of those channels? What are some of those approaches that when we’re thinking about rolling out a brand change like this or a brand clarification like this, ah what are some of those things we should be thinking about or looking at to kind of help us accelerate the adoption across our organization? Joey Speers — Yeah, totally. So well first of all I think the way we set it up. Everything we do we try and go, Okay, how do we make sure implementing this is fast, effective, and easy? Um, if if we were to do all this and then I was to make implementing this hard, it just would it just wouldn’t be worth it, right? I might as well not do it. So I think the way that we format the guide, we pair the value in the guide to tangible actions you take daily inside of your job, whether you are a lead pastor, whether you’re someone who’s who’s writing programming, whether you’re writing slides for the weekend – whatever it’s going to be. I think we we do a good job of pairing that. Joey Speers — And um the thing that I think hooks people to continue to use it, because I’m yet to actually see somebody drop off and just totally stop using it. I think the reason why is because when you get so much clarity for how you can talk about what you do, um it’s just so much fuel. And it fuels you to keep coming back to the root of where that clarity was. And even better when you as a Lead Pastor Executive Pastor have a couple team members below you now know what you’re thinking, and you know that they know what you’re thinking. It is a phenomenal feeling, right? And I think a lot of people love that. Joey Speers — So when you think about implementing it daily, um I always say just keep coming back to the to the source. Like you you got to write a new sermon series? Use it as a filter. Make sure that the topic for your sermon sermon series, look through this part, this part, and this part of the guide, which is easily laid out, and just filter it. Go, does this align with that? If it does, awesome. We’re on the right track. If it doesn’t, then we probably have to reconsider this, right? And so I think that’s probably the biggest one. The best way I’ve seen people implement it even if it just takes two minutes a day is taking the tasks they’re doing and filtering it. Because when you have a great brand it almost acts as a, in the business world, the business plan. Joey Speers — And in the church world, like a mission, right? It’s like okay, if this is what we say the problem is that we see in the world, here’s how we’re committing to say we solve that problem. And then here’s the result we believe people experience when we solve that problem for them after they’ve been invited into it. You just use it and that’s what we we call that like just your simple brand story that we help people create like a three sentence little paragraph. If you wake up every day, every meeting you start, you go, Okay, this will only be effective if it aligns with this brand story. Filter everything through there. So I think there’s there’s just a lot of aspects of the guide that make it undeniably clear in your head and everybody else’s head in the organization that. just it makes it it makes it hard to ditch it. Um, yeah. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. I love that. Well and I think there’s a key insight there around connecting to people’s daily function. I think is such an important piece that we have to push. We have to when we think about implementing any kind of organizational change, it has to come down to, Okay so what difference does that make on Monday morning? Like how how do we actually um… Joey Speers — Yes. Rich Birch — …make a difference next week? How do we make life better? Joey Speers — Yeah. Rich Birch — And that’s going to require some work. It’s not like, you know, Joey can do all that work for you. As team leaders you’re going to spend a bunch of money to get Joey to come in, but then do the extra work to go the extra mile to say okay, we’ve done that, now let’s figure out let’s keep pushing it, you know, beyond and keep coming back to it time and ah time and again. You know, I just love that. It’s like with any software I always say, like I said this to the church management people all the time, I’m like if we can’t get if we can’t get our people using church management software much as much as they use email um, it’s useless to us. Joey Speers — Yeah. Rich Birch — We have to figure out how to make it as easy as possible that people have email and the church management system up. Or like if you have a human, you know, ah lots lots organizations have human performance, you know, software. If it’s not up as much as email… Joey Speers — Yeah. Rich Birch — …it’s not It’s probably not functional. So love that, love that. Well this has been great conversation, Joey. Is there anything else you’d like to share just as we kind of wrap up today’s episode, as we come to land the plane as they say? Joey Speers — Yeah I mean I’ll just go back to what I said in the beginning, I think it’s so important. I just want to encourage every leader listening to this, ask yourself take two minutes after this episode and just ask yourself: man, how do we make our brand more about the people we’re trying to serve and less about us? Because it’s it’s very hard to do that. You know our brands always become about ourselves. That’s just human nature, you know. That’s that’s even biblical. You know if we don’t focus on intentionally making our lives about other people, it becomes about ourselves. And so if you don’t focus on making your organization about the people you serve very very specifically, and you have tools to back that up to help you do that on Monday morning—like you just said, Rich, which is such a great such a great statement—then your your brand, your organization is going to become become about just maintaining the people within it. Joey Speers — And I just want to encourage everybody um, whether you take something out of this episode, whether you contact me and we try and help you do that, either way I just encourage you how can you continue to make your your brand, your organization, the mission of your organization, more about the people you serve and than it is about you. And live that out daily. And I think that’s a great again, Rich, such a great point. Like if it’s not if you’re not able to implement it daily then it’s it’s not worth it. Um, you know if you think your if you think your organization’s about you know the people you serve. But all you do all day is just things to maintain the organization, and the people within it, which is what I think I see a lot of church leaders doing just trying to get the next Sunday, trying to keep the health of their staff together, you know? Like they spend so much time internally focused on what’s going on inside which there’s obviously a place for and that needs to be accounted for. Joey Speers — But I think when you can rally everybody under one one mission, one team, and everyone’s got clarity on how they build into that I think it just makes everything better. Everybody can spend more time focusing on actually serving the people you want to serve as ah as we’re all called to do. So yeah, leave it with that. Rich Birch — Love it. Love it. Well if people want to get in touch with you, or to learn more about… we obviously gave that address earlier: ineedbrandtherapy.com – is there anywhere else we want to send them online to track with you? Joey Speers — Yeah, Instagram is a great spot. I hang out there quite a bit just due to the nature of what I do. So @joeyspeers on social media across everything, but mainly Instagram is what I hang out on. ineedbrandtherapy.com great if you want to go there and check out more about Brand Therapy. Or joeyspeers.com if you just want to check out some of the other things that I’m working on. It’s more of just kind of a landing page to talk about some of the things that I’m trying to push for in the world based on what I believe, the people I’m trying to help. Rich Birch — Love it. Joey Speers — So yeah anywhere you’ll be able to find me, I would love to connect with you. Rich Birch — Love it. Thanks so much for being here today, Joey. Thanks for all the help. Appreciate it. Joey Speers — Of course, Rich. Thanks for having me on.

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Mike Bonem, a coach and consultant who helps church leaders with vision discernment, organizational design and strategy. In the last three years, everyone has had to make massive changes. Now as churches have found their new normal and are looking to the future, there can be pressure from within to return to the way things were. Listen in as Mike talks through how we can lead our congregations and staff through change which pushes the mission forward. Resisting change. // As churches have made changes about what to start and stop doing, there has been an intense resistance to changes from some people. When people are resistant to change, they may not want to let go of their comfort. Seek to understand where that desire to hold onto comfort is coming from. Are they scared that the change might fail, or pull the church apart? Explore what’s underneath their resistance.Explore different opinions. // When people are resisting, try not to immediately think of them as your enemies. We can’t only surround ourselves with people who think like we do. Lean into them rather than away. Explore their opinions and be open to valid points they are making.Is the mission clear? // Give people the benefit of the doubt and assume that they are committed to the mission. If someone has questions, realize they may have a different interpretation of the mission than you do. Talk through your understanding of what the mission means and the implications of it.The next step. // The classic strategic planning model looks 3 to 5 years into the future, but in the current season Mike encourages churches to simply focus on their next right step as informed by the mission. Given your mission, what is your best interpretation of what the next steps are that you should take over the next six to twelve months?Leading change through the mess. // Mike’s book The Art of Leading Change: Ten Perspectives on the Messiness of Ministry focuses on the part of our work that doesn’t fit nicely into a spreadsheet. Working with people is messy and unpredictable and the ideas in the book will help you move a group of people toward a new destination.Keeping the right mindset. // A leader’s job is to get people aligned, and part of that requires bringing people into agreement with the course of action being taken. But people pleasing refers to a mindset of not wanting anyone to ever be upset or frustrated with you. When church leaders give in to that, it can stall any change or progress in the organization. You can learn more about Mike and his book at www.mikebonem.com. Thank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Leadership Pathway If you are trying to find, develop and keep young leaders on your team look no further than Leadership Pathway. They have worked with hundreds of churches, and have interviewed thousands of candidates over the past several years. They are offering a new ebook about five of the core competencies that are at the heart of the leadership development process with every church that they partner with…just go to leadershippathway.org/unseminary to pick up this free resource. Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Well, hey, everybody. Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. You know every week we bring you a leader who will both inspire and equip you and today is no exception. Super excited to have Mike Bonem with us. He is a coach, a consultant, but more than that he’s a friend of church leaders like you. He’s been in this ah for you know, 20+ years, works with congregations, denominational leaders, nonprofits – really to help through vision discernment, strategy, all different kinds of things, organizational design. But like I say, Mike more than all that is a friend of church leaders and so so honored to have him on the show. Mike, welcome. So glad you’re here. Mike Bonem — Thanks so much, Rich. I’m really excited to be back on the show with you. Rich Birch — Yeah, glad that you’re here. What fill out the picture there a little bit for – what what did I miss on the thirty second “who is Mike” conversation? Mike Bonem — No I mean you nailed it pretty well, and um I really like the way you said you know a friend of pastors and ministry leaders because that’s what I want to be. I’ve I’ve served as an executive pastor for a decade and had a career in business before that. And probably the most important thing of who is Mike Bonem is, I’m married and we have four adult children and a couple of grandchildren. Rich Birch — Love it. So good. Yeah I know my wife as we were talking before we got on. We’re in the the empty nester phase or starting the empty nester phase. And she’s eagerly looking forward to that next phase which you mentioned there at the end. And I’m like don’t rush it. Don’t rush it. You know, but we’ll see. It’ll it’ll be great. Well it was funny before we got on, again I said this to Mike, I was like it feels like you know when were we on again? And I know I know covid seems to have like it makes it has made it weird to think about time, like everything’s kind of strange. And look back it was 2016 last time Mike was on, but I’m actually an avid follower of Mike, read his newsletter. It’s so good. Such great stuff that comes out of him. It’s been quite a while. These last number of years man change has been on the horizon. You have a great position in that you interact with a lot of different church leaders. What what is what are you seeing as some of those changes that church leaders are continuing to deal with that are like hey it’s it’s kind of like top of mind – things that come that church leaders are wrestling with these days in this whatever phase we find ourselves in our churches these days? Mike Bonem — Well, that’s just it. I think we’re not even sure what phase we find ourselves in, right? The there was, you know, it’s it’s it’s interesting to think about change at this stage. You know, kind of beyond the onset of the pandemic because everybody had to make massive changes right when the pandemic hit in the spring of 2020 and I was surprised actually at how well people made those changes—big churches, small churches—how quickly and how well for the most part they adapted. I think it’s been much more of a struggle ah, coming out of the pandemic. I heard lots of leaders in the first 6 to 12 months of the pandemic saying oh this is ah this is a huge opportunity for us to rethink everything. And when we get on the other side of the pandemic, we’re gonna be fundamentally different than we were before. This is ah this is that great opportunity to break the mold and yet many of the people that I interact with, they’re falling right back into that mold. Or or probably more accurately they feel like they’re being pushed back into that old mold by you know by a number of different conditions. And so as much as anything right now I think one of the big change questions is, can we really make some some significant shifts in how we think about doing church? Rich Birch — Yeah I’m a… for longterm listeners to the podcast, they know that I’m an an avid follower of the Disney company as a company, and you know love mostly what they produce. And you know I just read this interesting article where their CEO was talking about the the change on the movie side. How how people consume movies, and how they’ve, you know, the thing that was interesting I thought for us in our little world is is they were saying, hey our read on it is people are fundamentally changed in how the types of movies they want to go and see. And the idea of the event, you know, is still a deal people will show up for, in their case, big Avengers movies, big Star Wars, whatever. But that probably the shift around you know, smaller movies and people won’t go out to buy popcorn for those. They’ll just watch them on their, in their case, Disney+. which got me thinking about our world and like, you know, there was a lot of those conversations two, three years ago – what difference is the church online going to make? And and it does feel like we’re on kind of the shakeout side of all that where like it’s okay. We and I hear it this all the time from church leaders. We have all these people watching online, still no idea who those people are, no idea how that fits in our ministry model. No idea what to do with them. Mike Bonem — Right. Rich Birch — And you know we’re looking at our own kind of what we used to call in-person attendance like all of that we’re we’re still wrestling with kind of the impact of how all that you know what that looks like going forward. Change, it is really a constant. Rich Birch — Um now when I think about change, so you mentioned something interesting there. You talked about they’re being pushed into change. Ah talk to me more about that. And and is because because my experience has been and it could be that at just the seat I’m in. I feel more like resistance from change, like it’s like there’s more people around me saying like, oh I don’t want to change. But tell me more about that. Let’s talk about that idea being pushed in or resistance to change. What’s that look like? Mike Bonem — Well what what I said was they’re being pushed back into the old mold. Rich Birch — Oh, right. Yes, ah yes, yes. Mike Bonem — So it it’s exactly what you’re talking about. It’s the resistance to change. It’s the you know the for many church leaders. The people that are back showing up, and that are still faithfully giving money to the church, ah, many of those people are the ones who are saying can we just go back to the way it was before? Rich Birch — Right, right. Mike Bonem — And so it’s it’s so it is that resistance. So this golden opportunity to do some things differently is running into intense resistance from people saying, we just want to have it the way it was in 2019. Rich Birch — Right. Mike Bonem — Can we go back to our same Sunday schedule? Can we go back to our same you know programming, and do everything the way it was? And so yeah, it’s very, we’re saying the same thing just using a couple of different words, Rich. Rich Birch — Yeah, I love it. So let’s pull that apart. What is it what is what what are some ways that resistance could show up in our people? What is that what could that look like in you know, maybe some of those conversations, or some of the ways people might ah you know engage with us when we when we talk about change? Mike Bonem — Oh you know I’m um, one executive pastor I’ve worked with you know they changed their whole worship format when Covid hit. When they came back in person they said we don’t have enough people to do a traditional and a contemporary service. We’re going to do a blended service. And, you know, this is not a I’m not advocating for or against the blended style of worship, but you know her opinion is it’s really worked for them. And yet ah more than a year into being back in a format that they believe is working and most people are saying is working well, they have a handful of people that are still saying, when are we going to go back to the old schedule with two worship services – one traditional and one contemporary. Rich Birch — Interesting. Interesting. Mike Bonem — You know, why why can’t we have it the way we had it before? Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Well I so literally this morning I was out for a walk, talking to a friend church leader on phone, and he said he was in a fairly senior leadership meeting – similar resistance. Ah, where they were talking in about a change a potential change, and literally the words that were used by—and this is a like church that’s looking to reach people and do you know all kinds of things—he he said you know these these this group of senior leaders, literally one of them said, well I’m just really comfortable how things are now. Like I’m I’m… And and he was like, whoa, wait a second! Like so, you know, when since when did comfortability become the the value as opposed to the mission of our church? How do we not just run over people ah, in that? Because I I guess my tendency is like and I, you know, and I I reacted strongly when this leader said that. I was like, wow you got the wrong people around the table. I didn’t quite say that, but you know that would be my natural a tendency. Now that’s not the right way to go but talk me through how, coach me on that. How should we be thinking differently about maybe the people who are resisting change and not just putting them in a category of like, okay those people we need to get rid of those people. Those people are not the people we want around the table. Mike Bonem — Yeah, no I think it’s a great question, Rich. And the and it it happens all the time. Sometimes people are not as explicit in saying, “I like my comfort.” And and that does become a real obstacle to change. What what I would say is we need to understand what they mean by comfort. You know where where’s that coming from? Is it… because it’s red flag for me too. But like I I know if I heard that from a church staff member today, one thing that would run through my mind is it’s been a hard two and a half three years for church staff. It… Does this “I’m comfortable” just mean I’ve been running so hard for this last two and a half years that I just want to catch my breath for a minute before we launch into something new? Or is it somebody saying, is is comfort really synonymous with I’m scared of what that change might entail. I’m scared we might fail. I’m scared that, you know, that we’re gonna that there’s gonna be major conflict over it that’s going to pull our church apart. Those are those are really different ways… Or is it I’m just comfortable and, you know, I don’t want Jesus to make me uncomfortable, right? Which you… Rich Birch — Right, right, right, right. Mike Bonem — So so I would I what I would hope that a leader would do if they found themselves in that kind of conversation is to get curious about what the person really means when they say “I’m comfortable” and what’s underneath that. Rich Birch — Yeah I love that. And and instead of just volley… I feel like my natural tendency would be to volley back with, hey this is the mission. Here’s the strategy. We agreed to this thing that was on paper. We’re pushing ahead. Instead of what you’re what I hear you saying, I think what I hear you saying is like slowing down. Hey, let’s take some time. It’s the, you know, a lot of executive pastors listing in. It’s the pastor side of Executive Pastor, right? It’s the, Hey let’s actually try to to listen, to care for people in the midst of that. What does that look like, that kind of you know the more relational, we’ll call it the soft side? What are some ways that we could do that um, you know, if we’re find ourselves with some potential resistors to change? Mike Bonem — Well, you know a starting point is we’re being more and more conditioned socially to to think of everything in the world as being divided into into two camps – those who are for me, those who are against me, right? Rich Birch — Oh that’s so good. Mike Bonem — I mean that the and and so the the very first thing you have to do is is try to recognize when that mindset is popping up for you and and and purge it, right? It’s like no, I’m not I’m not going to to immediately think of people who are resisting as being my enemy. Ah and then to to really to lean into them rather than leaning away from them. Rather than saying look I’m, you know, I just want to surround myself with people who think like me, I need to pull back and say no, you know, actually this person who’s resisting may have a valid opinion I need to explore what’s behind that, what’s underneath that. You know tell me more of why you know you think this is not a good idea. Mike Bonem — Maybe, you know, they’re gonna they’re they will have thought of something you’ve not thought of. You know, the I think of the kind of big picture visionary leader who says, oh yeah, we need to we need to charge up this hill. And the more detailed-oriented person in the congregation—whether it’s a staff member or a volunteer leader—who says, wait a minute I have three questions before we charge up that hill. The visionary leader hears that as resistance. The person really actually had some legitimate questions, like which side of the hill are we going up? Rich Birch — Right. Mike Bonem — Right? That that actually makes a difference. Rich Birch — Yes, yes – I love that. That’s a great… I love that – that’s a great analogy. Like and and trying to see folks as not the us versus them that all those which can be often, like you say, false dichotomies. Like let’s slow down, hey we’re we’re you know… People haven’t particularly when we talk about leaders that are still with us, the people that are still journeying with us now, there ah, there have been lots of opportunities over the last two three years for them to opt out. The fact that they’re still with us means that they’re committed to the mission, right? They’re not, they’re at some level have stuck in because there’ve been a number of places along the way where they could have opted out. They could have pulled away. Mike Bonem — Yeah. I think the other thing actually that what you just said brings up for me is you said they’re committed to the mission. And I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt and believe that they really are committed to the mission. But I’m also going to wonder, is the mission clear enough? You know, what like when I’m saying we need to do this, charge up begin charge up this hill… Rich Birch — Yep. Mike Bonem — …because that’s where the mission leads us. And somebody else is raising questions about it, it may be that I have a different interpretation of the mission than they do. Rich Birch — Right. Mike Bonem — And we need to go all the way back to the start, right? And say let’s let’s talk about the mission. What is it what is our understanding and what it means and what are the implications of it? And that can be an incredibly important conversation, especially right now. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s a good insight I think particularly in again, whatever this phase is ah you know that we’re kind of post- whatever in mid- whatever. Um it does feel like we have to come back to revisiting the mission vision stuff and keep in in front of that keeping that in front of people working hard to say, hey, what do what do we what can we do to ensure that people are are with us? And doing the extra work on our side, owning that. Hey, that’s our job. That’s our job to keep that in front of people. Um, now when you think about ah, change in this season, what else is kind of a top of mind as you’re wrestling through what it could look like, how how we should be thinking about change? What are you learning on that front as you’re leading people? Mike Bonem — So, you know, I’ve I’ve been working with with churches, Rich, for 20 years I guess. Or yeah, more than 20 years now. And ah early on um I really was much more of an advocate of the classic strategic planning model that looks 3 to 5 years into the future. And there’s still value in that at times. But but especially in this season I think we need to focus a lot more on what’s the right next step. Mike Bonem — It needs to be and it clearly needs to be informed by the mission. But you know thinking we can make plans that stretch out two years, three years into the future just doesn’t seem very realistic or even very wise stewardship right now. I’d I’d much rather focus on, given our mission, what is our best interpretation of what the next steps are that we should take over the next six to twelve months. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s what I was going to ask you… Mike Bonem — And if we can get agreement on that. Yeah. Rich Birch — What is the what is the time horizon that you’re thinking about because I think that’s a good insight. How far out are you thinking – a year, or kind of like the next budget cycle, or what what does that look like? Mike Bonem — I think yeah I think 6 to 12 months. Rich Birch — Yeah. Mike Bonem — Six six months is long enough to run an experiment to try something new and to either make some assessment that this seems to be working, or or it needs to be it could work but it needs to be tweaked, or this wasn’t a good idea at all. Mike Bonem — So so yeah, kind of and it depends obviously on what kind of initiative you’re talking about. If if we want to do something ministry with a local elementary school, we probably ought to make a commitment to them for the entire school year, right? Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Mike Bonem — Or at least for a semester. Rich Birch — Yep. Mike Bonem — Um, if if if we’re talking about something that actually has implications for the facility that’s going to require some remodeling of the facility, we may need to look a little bit longer, right? Rich Birch — Right. Mike Bonem — Because once once you start tearing up or adding onto a building, you know you don’t change that after six months. Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah that stuff is more permanent than we think. Mike Bonem — But for a lot of those ministry initiatives yeah 6 to twelve months is a good time frame. Rich Birch — Yeah and there’s a new.… It’s it’s true I find myself in similar conversations where we’re we’re exercising our um you know midyear budget reevaluation process more than we have, you know, in the last ten fifteen years. You know, we’re we’re working harder on the, okay you know we’re halfway through this year, what do we need to readjust? How do we need to um, look at… And you know the interesting thing and this this brings us to… you you released a book a few months ago called The Art of Leading Change: Ten Perspectives on the Messiness of Ministry. The thing why I appreciate this book and appreciate this insight is there is a part of this that you’ve captured so well. Ah that um, there’s an art side to what we do that’s not science. It’s not it doesn’t fit super well in a spreadsheet, which I know for us who like spreadsheets ah, that it can be difficult. Talk to me about that – talk to me about what you mean by the art of leading change. Mike Bonem — Yeah, the, and thanks for asking, Rich. The that book that I wrote twenty years ago was um, leading was called Leading Congregational Change, and I often introduced it when I would speak at a conference or a seminar and say, this is going to be more about the science of leading change. The it’s the it’s the process. It was based ah partly on John Cotter’s model from his business book, Leading Change. So it’s you know here’s the steps you need to take, here’s the you know here’s how you think about it in a real concrete scientific way. Mike Bonem — And and I would always say even when I was introducing that twenty years ago is there’s a whole art to leading change. That’s much harder to convey and that I’m not going to be talking about in today’s seminar. And so I finally came back to that idea you know here with this book that was just released, and said you know what, it’s time to talk about the art, the messiness which always comes back to people. It’s always related to people. And actually what we’ve talked about earlier in this conversation are a couple of the points in the book. The the idea that resistors are not the enemy, and the idea of take the right next step are 2 of those ideas that that I draw on in talking about the art of leading change – the the things that are more subjective and harder to to codify in a spreadsheet. Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. And I think that acknowledges it’s that interesting tension, right? That that um, it’s It’s both sides. We need to have we do need to have a science. We do need to have approach. We can’t just be willy-nilly. Talk to me more about the messiness. Let’s talk about that a little bit because ah, you know we all have the short the hand joke for that. It’s like oh Ministry would be so great if it wasn’t for the people. Or you know, like we all have some way of kind of ah you know that’s like the black humor of a surgeon who’s like you know, making fun of the people he’s working on. We have that kind of in our mind like, Gosh this is just tough with people. Ah, talk me through that. Why is it so messy? Mike Bonem — Well because people are involved, and people are messy is is the short answer, right? Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes. Mike Bonem — And so you know we we we we talked earlier about well the people that are there are still committed to the mission. But because we’re humans we all hear that mission through our own filters, and through our own lenses, and we interpret it slightly differently. And so then we say we’re going to make this decision, and this is obvious what we should do because of our because it’s consistent with our mission. And you know in a room of 10 people 3 of them fully agree, 3 of them kind of cock their head and they have a little bit of a question, then and you know 2 of were checked out on their phone so they weren’t paying good attention, right? Rich Birch — Ah, you’re on Twitter. Mike Bonem — But but but but you know what one one or two of them say oh the no, that’s not what I understood the mission to be at all. Rich Birch — Yes. Mike Bonem — And… Right? And that’s just the the human nature. You mix into that that in some of our churches we have. We’ve put people or allowed people to be in leadership positions who are probably not as mature in their faith as they should be to be in carrying those leadership responsibilities. And so they enter into a discussion or a decision, you know, not necessarily asking genuinely seeking what would God want us to do. And that makes it even messier. So so I mean those are just a couple of the reasons that that it gets so messy, I think. Rich Birch — Yeah, and then you you mix on top of that, like that’s a great vivid example of those 10 people, you know, you mix on top of that the power dynamics of who you are versus the people you’re leading. And, man I’ve been in in that where you realize you get you get down a road and you realize oh like six months ago you disagreed and never said anything, and here we are today ah living with six months of ah, you know, what I just didn’t understand what was going on. And um. um, you know we’re now having to retrench and and let’s go back to where we were six months ago and let me lean in as a leader I need to because I didn’t create an opportunity for you to actually speak what your concern was. Um and wow that’s ah you know that can be difficult. I I wish I did not have vivid examples of that in my mind but it it it feels like, man, that’s just a normal part or has been a normal part of you know of leading um. Rich Birch — Talk to me about our desire… so related to all of this is is this whole people pleasing issue. Um, you know so many of us get engaged in leadership and um there’s a part of it that is rallying people. There’s a part of it that’s like, hey a part of my job is it’s like the politician side. It’s the mayoral side. I’ve said in other context of like, hey our job is to kind of get people aligned. And and so there’s there’s a good part of that, but then there’s also a part of that that can be literally just people-pleasing. It’s it’s political at its kind of base level. Talk to me about that. What how… is that helpful, not helpfu? How how do we how do we think about that? Mike Bonem — Well I agree with what you said. Yes, a leader’s job is to is to get people aligned. And so and and so and alignment certainly has an element of, you know, the the people who are are you know agreeing are, you know, they agree. They’re they’re happy with this course of action that we’re talking about taking. We’re going going to, you know, we’re going to launch this satellite campus and we want people, we want our other leaders, to say, yes, we agree. That’s a good idea. Mike Bonem — But people pleasing to me is when a pastor really falls into a mindset of I can’t ever let anyone be disappointed in me, or frustrated or upset with me. And when when that becomes the mindset then it can really stall any kind of change or any kind of progress for the organization because there’s always somebody who’s not going to be happy with the decision. And and so you’ll you’ll end up boiling something down to a much less bold initiative that kind of looks like a lowest common denominator decision. Mike Bonem — And the other thing that people I think don’t realize when they when they go too far towards that let’s-get-everybody-on-board, people-pleasing mentality is you’ll actually upset the more innovative, forward-thinking leaders and you may lose some of them of the process. Mike Bonem — Now that they they often won’t say I’m unhappy with you. But so you think about the person who was most excited about that new idea to launch a campus, and was was actually going to be a part of the core team to to go and they were ready ready to launch out. And then somewhere along the way 3 or 4 people said, oh we’re not sure that’s a good idea right now, and you pull back away from that and say maybe we need to wait six or twelve months before we launch the campus. Now those bold people who are ready to be, who were on board from the start, they may not come back and say, Pastor, I’m really unhappy with you. They might just silently check out. Rich Birch — Right, right. Mike Bonem — And so in your effort to please one group of people you actually just leave somebody else without even knowing it. Rich Birch — Well, yeah, and there’s that—man, I’ve seen that tension over the years—there’s the frankly the most your more innovative um passionate um leaders, they have the ability because of who they are. To check out and to literally leave ah, you know a lot quicker than ah, you know, than than people than maybe some of those resistors that we’re talking about, people that are um, you know that are slowing us down a little bit, because of just who they are. And that you know man that’s that. That could be dangerous because you’re you’re you can lose some of that that innovation pretty quickly. Mike Bonem — Yeah, that’s exactly right. And it may be that they will just check out rather than actually leave, and that’s just a that’s a loss, right? That’s a missed opportunity. Rich Birch — Yep. Mike Bonem — There was some research a dozen or so years ago of really high profile Christian leaders in business, and politics, and and media. And one of one of the most striking findings that came out of that—it’s it’s by Michael Lindsay in a book called Faith in the Halls of Power—and one of the most striking findings was that many of those people were not very engaged in their local churches. They were members, but they were not engaged. And one of the primary reasons they gave for not being engaged is that they found the the slow moving bureaucracy and unwillingness to change in local church to be so frustrating that they decided to give their energies like to a large Christian nonprofit where they felt like they could have better and better impact. And you think about that if you have a business significant business leader has great gifts to offer, but the way we’re doing leadership actually causes them just to check out – what what a loss for our local churches. Rich Birch — Yeah, what a loss – absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Interesting. Well so I when I got to say when I read this, when I saw this book, the thing that struck me on this is that this I think could be a great resource for leadership teams to go through together. It’s felt like one of those great books where like you’re like the what you do so well, being the friend, the consultant sitting on this outside of the circle and saying, hey friends like here’s some things that you should be thinking about. Ah and let’s talk through that together. I felt like, man, you’ve translated that well. When you were writing this book, what were you hoping the kind of impact or the use of it? I pictured it as a great book for our leadership team to do together hey this would be less than like ah just a solo person reading it. Sure you could get something out of it as a solo person reading it by yourself. But man, I think it would be even better even if it’s just one more person, one other person that you could read it with. Really struck me that that would be the best context, but tell me what you were thinking. How how did you hope this book would be used in churches? Mike Bonem — No, very much what you said, Rich. Yeah I would I’d see it as being a book for a leadership team to look at together. Certainly, like you said, I think one person could still get a lot out of it. You know, that that conversation that you talked about with your friend earlier earlier today. I would hope that that when that resistance popped up, when that person said “I’m comfortable” that if your friend had read this book, the idea that would go through their mind is, oh yeah, resistors are not the enemy. I don’t need to immediately, you know, kind of treat this person as as a bad person. Mike Bonem — But it’s even better if a leadership team can can wrestle with those ideas together. And so the the 10 perspectives which are the subtitle, they’re all written as a sort of short, hopefully the readers would find them to be pithy phrases that a leadership team could could all hang on to. So one of the one of those perspectives is “Who is Not in the Room?”. And the idea behind that is that as leaders we we can quickly fall into this pattern of of making decisions just thinking about the perspectives of the people who are around the leadership table. Mike Bonem — But as a church we’re supposed to be thinking about the people who are not there. It goes back to that comfort question again, right? Who’s not here? Who’s and not a part of our church that God is calling us to reach, that God is calling us to have a positive impact with? And and you know again, the the chapter title and the phrase is Who is Not in the Room? because I would love for a leadership team to just embed that phrase into their thinking so that whenever they’re making leadership decisions they say, hey before we make this decision, have we really thoughtfully considered who’s not in the room? Rich Birch — Right, right. Love it. Love it. Well and there’s and and there’s so many of these, friends, in this in this book. So you know… Lead with Trust, Dig Beneath the Surface, Take the Right Next Step, Heavy Loads Require Strong Teams. I think this is a it’s a culture shaping book in that sense where it gives, you know, great kind of concepts to hang on to. Mike, where where could people pick up copies of this? Again friends I’m encouraging you not to pick up one; I’d love for you to pick up a bunch of these, but ah, you know where where can people pick up copies of of this book? Mike Bonem — I mean it’s on all the right, you know, it’s on Amazon and all the regular online ordering spots, and and you know on my website. There’s a link. There’s a short blurb about it and a link to order it as well. Rich Birch — Yeah, and what’s your website address again? Mike Bonem — It’s mikebonem.com so and Bonem is spelled… Rich Birch — Love it. Mike Bonem — …B O N E M. Rich Birch — Yeah I would love for people to go over there, like I say. So I’m a subscriber, I read Mike’s stuff when it comes. I I get a lot of church stuff and I can say when Mike’s stuff shows up in my inbox, I read it, so you should as well. Super helpful content and, you know, thoughtful, and just just fantastic. So I I would go over there and and and subscribe to Mike’s list for sure. Anything else, you’d like to share… Mike Bonem — I appreciate that, Rich. Yeah thanks. Rich Birch — Oh come on. It’s good stuff and anything else… Ah you’ll notice I don’t say that every time other people are on. Um, anything else that ah you’d like to share, or anything else we’d like to kind of talk about just as we’re coming to land today’s episode? Mike Bonem — You know, I guess the one other thing and just in this broad heading of change that I’m aware of is how hard it can be to be the change leader. And so for pastors, senior pastors, executive pastors, others who are listening to this, and you know you’re feeling like, yeah gosh, you know, there’s some change we really need to make. And then at the same time maybe you’re just feeling just discouraged, right? Thinking about how hard it’s going to be. I at least want to acknowledge that and honor that. Yes it’s hard. And I think one of the most one of the most important things you could do for yourself if you if if I’m describing you right now is do a little bit of self-care and soul care. And make sure you’re not doing it all by yourself. If you don’t have a team that’s working with you to clarify what changes are needed and then to… And it goes back again to one of those chapter titles, Heavy Loads – to have a team that’s going to help you lift that heavy load. Do that before you do anything else. Rich Birch — That’s so good. Well, friends, I really appreciate Mike. I appreciate his leadership. You should follow him for sure. Like I say pick up a bunch of copies of this book, and and follow along with him I think you’ll be you’ll be blessed by by doing that. I think it’ll help your ministry as we face a tough season. Mike, I appreciate you ah being here. Thanks so much for being here today. Mike Bonem — Thanks so much, Rich. Really appreciate your podcast and all that you do, and and glad to have this opportunity.

Thanks for joining us on the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re chatting with Aaron Senneff, the Chief Technology Officer at Pushpay. Pushpay is a digital engagement platform that provides a donor management system, including donor tools, finance tools and a custom community app, to churches. Technology is more important than ever in the church. But how do we effectively use it to inform our ministry approach and confirm that our ministry is “working”? Listen in as Aaron shares about how to use data to drive engagement and giving at your church. Technology and churches. // In 2021 Pushpay did a Church Tech Report to find what people were thinking about technology in the church. Almost all respondents said technology was very important or critical to their church and ministry. 94% of churches who started online streaming during COVID say it’s a part of their future ministry. Look at the data. // Technology tools can offer a way to look at who is engaging in the church. Pay attention to giving patterns and what givers attend online. Take a look at who are first time and second time givers, which can show who is making a commitment. We can’t do anything with the anonymous IP addresses of people who attend online. Provide an option, whether it’s a link or a QR code, to have people check in when they attend an online service. Offering some sort of online form enables you to follow-up, whether people are first-time visitors or regular attenders.Have the information online. // Use your church management software to help people take next steps. Information about groups and volunteer opportunities are already there, so highlight them through your app. Having the information readily available online allows it to be accessed by anyone visiting at any time and creates a psychologically safe way for people to engage.Engagement leads to giving, giving leads to engagement. // Don’t focus on how many donors you have or the monetary amounts. Rather use the data you have to figure out how to get people to engage in the church because those people are going to give. Similarly people who give will be more likely to engage and take next steps in other areas of church.A heartfelt thank you matters. // Pushpay’s research has shown that a heartfelt acknowledgement of a monetary gift matters to the giver. It’s an important way for churches to engage with their donors and it doesn’t have to be hard. Recognition can be as simple as an automated email from Pushpay or MailChimp when someone gives for the first time, or commits to give regularly.Technology Pushpay offers to bring data together. // A lot of churches have found that they end up using a bunch of different software to handle everything they need for their services, which can cause a lot of confusion. Pushpay offers systems, such as ChurchStaq, which are built to grow community, generosity and engagement. It brings data together to create the reports you need so you can see how people are moving along the path—from curious to leadership—and lets you know if the ministry is working.   You can learn more about Pushpay and their services at www.pushpay.com. Thank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: CDF Capital Since 1953, CDF Capital has helped Christians and churches embrace their part in this story by providing the 3 kinds of capital every congregation needs for growth—Financial Capital, Leadership Capital, and Spiritual Capital. At CDF Capital, we care about each of these components. When a church is properly resourced financially, spiritually, and in leadership, lives are transformed. Sign-up to learn more about CDF Capital and how we can help your church grow. Receive a 50% discount on a monthly subscription to the CDF Capital Subscribe & Save Bundle. Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Well, hey, everybody! Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in today. Listen every week we try to bring you a guest who will both inspire and equip you. Today it’s our honor, our privilege, to have Aaron Senneff with us. He is the CTO, the chief technology officer, at a little organization called Pushpay. Which you might be familiar with their Pushpay product or CCB Church Community Builder or really a whole bunch of other different things that they’re doing to help churches like you. And it’s our honor to have him with us today. We want to pull back the curtain, learn a little bit more from Aaron. Welcome to the show. So glad you’re here. Aaron Senneff — Yeah, thanks so much, Rich. It is well it is my honor to be here. So thank you for the invitation and I looking forward to the conversation. unSeminary seems like I’m either imminently qualified for this because I have not been to seminary. Rich Birch — Yes. Aaron Senneff — Or underqualified… Rich Birch — No so glad you’re here. Aaron Senneff — …but happy to be here and talk about church technology. Rich Birch — Yeah, this is so great. Well why don’t you tell us for the four people who are listening in who don’t know who Pushpay is, tell us about Pushpay and about your role there. Aaron Senneff — Yeah, so Pushpay is you know just to distill it is in the church technology space. Rich Birch — Yep. Aaron Senneff — So you know one of the things like many people would be familiar with from our organization is a giving platform. There are thousands of churches in the United States that use Pushpay’s giving to help you know manage and collect donations and donors in their church. We make a church management system as formerly known as Church Community Builder, now part of a broader product we call ChurchStaq and then other technologies to offer, you know mobile apps that you can sort of brand and label for your church and communicate with your audience. We’ve we’ve recently acquired a streaming platform by the name of Resi. And so really, really, you know if you just distill it what we’re trying to do is try to figure out, you knowy what kind of technology needs do churches have? How can we assist them and enable them with their mission of, you know, reaching the lost with the gospel and making sure they can run an as effective and healthy of of a church as possible? Rich Birch — Yeah I I really love what you guys do. I’m definitely a fan from afar for years. I kept saying, man, somebody’s got to sort out this giving thing and make it simple. You did it with Pushpay. And then for years I’ve I’ve been in a multi-site space since the early two thousand s and I was like somebody is going to figure out this ah, you know streaming thing to make it work at at scale, and that obviously Resi’s a part of your family now, and ah you know ChurchStaq or CCB. Fantastic solutions. So I just I really, you know, just love what you guys do and how you empower so many churches to, you know, to to really do a great job reaching our communities. You know I think most people who are listening in today if I’m an executive pastor I would say, hey technology is important piece of what I do.You know I I think we all thought we saw this pre pandemic but then the pandemic obviously accelerated all that. In fact, you guys did a study that found I think it was over 90% of church leaders or church churches believe that technology plays an essential role in helping their church achieve mission. Tell us more about that. Aaron Senneff — Yeah, um, well good – thanks for asking. Yes, well recently we did what we call the Church Tech Report. Yeah, this is something that’s accessible on our website if you’re interested. There’s some really interesting observations that come out of that. But you know we serve thousands of churches. So we we took the opportunity in 2021 to send out a survey to about 2000 leaders, you know, maybe people who are directly responsible for technology at their church who are executive pastors, maybe influencers for those technology decisions. And you know we we feel like we know our customers and the church pretty well but it gave us an opportunity just to, you know, make sure we weren’t you know missing the forest or the trees and understood how people were thinking about technology in the church. And you know it’s it’s probably not surprising in the sense that yeah in some ways it just confirmed things that probably most of us really are already understanding. And that’s that technology is important and getting more important… Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Senneff — …in the eyes of Church Leaders. So that’s probably not shocking. Sometimes we look at that data and we think like okay, but the way that is happening is a little bit interesting and unique and thought provoking. So it was a really good chance for us to sort of like step back and ask what is happening in the technology space and and again provide that to the you know the broader church leadership in the country to see how other people are thinking about it. Rich Birch — Were there any ah kind of benchmark findings – things that kind of stood out that were like oh that’s kind of an interesting thing for us to be thinking about when we think about this whole space? Aaron Senneff — Yeah I mean I think like there’s some things where it’s very confirming. So as a good example, if you just ask the question to you know the average ministry leader: How important is technology to your ministry? I think you know 93% of respondents say it’s very important. Over over half a respondents said it’s extremely important, so almost critical to the future of the church. And like I said that is that is probably not shocking. Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Senneff — You know, maybe confirming things that a lot of us already know. I think there were a few things that that have made us think a little bit more about the role that technology is playing. You know you you heard some things in the survey about, you know, not so much that that churches don’t find the tools that they want. It was more like, hey we have too many. Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Senneff — They’re working against each other, or they’re siloed… Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Senneff — …or how do these things work together? So there was this kind of this idea of like, Okay, how do we how do we like wrangle some of these things so that it’s working for us better? Um, you know, live streaming, again, probably not shocking that every virtually every church went online over the last three years if they weren’t already. So some you know some 94% of churches were were in the last year and last two years looking to get online and bring their services through streaming. You know the real question that we’ve had for a long time is what happens over the next two to 3 years as sort of you know covid is put behind us? And the reality is virtually every single one of those churches is saying online streaming is just part of our future. Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Senneff — And so now instead of ah, a tool to kind of get through a period, it is now a tool that will be a part of their ministry going on. And I think like another one that I… this one sticks out for me because I think we’re we’re all used to social media. Rich Birch — Yep. Aaron Senneff — Churches are very very invested in social media right now. Some ninety ninety some percent use it. But if you ask, is it important in the future? That really dropped off… Rich Birch — Interesting. Aaron Senneff — …which I think is interesting – less than 50% thought it would be strategically important to them in the future. And that’s you know there’s some whys behind that… Rich Birch — Yeah. Aaron Senneff — …that are fun to ask questions about, but I think that one was a really interesting observation. So like I said there’s some things in there you go, yeah I get that. Everybody’s talking about that. That makes sense. And there’s other times you think, hmmm what is that telling us? Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, interesting. I do coaching with churches and a number of kind of the fastest growing churches in the country and there’s ah one of the stories I love to retell around the pandemic and streaming—and then really this is a bit of a long question or long introduction to get to a short question. But you know this this church, they, you know, their lead pastor by admission would say listen before March 2020, I was like anti-church online, thought it was a terrible idea, was like hey this is you know I’m not sure that’s like only for those a different kind of church. However, and and he would say like I was probably looked down my nose at churches that did that, and looked down my nose around a church’s use of social media. And he he retells this story about how somewhere there in mid March 2020 he pulled his senior leaders together and said, okay friends this is what we’re all going to do. Everybody’s got to get a Facebook account today. And we have to figure out how to get streaming and you all need to figure out how to how to ah, start using so social media this week, like this has now gone from a low priority to high priority. Rich Birch — Now I think so many of us are on the other side of that now where we’re like yes, we have all these people viewing our streams. Or maybe our attendance is down from where we were before and we we don’t know what to make of all that. We’re not sure… Okay, so who are all those people? How do I connect with them? What are you seeing from your perspective? How how are you seeing churches kind of tackle that? Yes they’ve got into streaming. We have this audience; we’re not entirely sure what to do with it. We’re not entirely sure how to connect with them. What are some of the things you’re seeing on that front? Aaron Senneff — Yeah, well you know the idea of that like who is out there? Rich Birch — Yes. Aaron Senneff — I think one of the things we can acknowledge is that’s probably been a problem for a lot of churches for a long time, especially larger churches. Rich Birch — Yes. Aaron Senneff — You know people walk in. They sit in a service. They walk back out and. Rich Birch — Yep. Aaron Senneff — Um, but we have processes, like churches have installed processes to try to get people to engage. So you’ll often hear like hey, fill out the contact card. Go visit us at the you know the new visitor center or the connect center. And so people who have the choice have this like avenue to to connect. And one of the think the frustrations that we hear as people engage online is some of those avenues are either broken, or they’re just kind of disjointed. Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Senneff — So it’s much much harder to figure out who is there, and how are they engaging in the community? How do we do we form community those people, and minister to them, and disciple to them? So it’s, you know, I don’t think the the idea of who’s out there is a new problem. Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Senneff — But like a lot of things, you know, covid just stretched things that were already happening and so now we’re in the situation where, gosh now it’s a very real problem because you know it’s it’s one thing to see that I have whatever – your analytics tell you that have 20,000 people you know, eyeballs on glass, but who are those people? Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Senneff — And are they returning? And are they engaging? So I I think you hear a lot of you know, continued sort of frustration or thinking about how do we make this a genuine community? Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Senneff — Not just people that are on the stream but people that are a part of our church. Rich Birch — Right. And what what are some of the practices you’re seeing that are helping on that front? You know how how are how are they using in your case this the series of tools that you have? Because you have a number of different touch points. Someone might give once or someone might, you know, check in they might check their kids into kids ministry. Or they might fill out one of those new new here cards on on the website. How is all that working together? What are what are some best practices that we’re seeing bubbling up kind of post-covid and post this current you know period we’re in? Aaron Senneff — Yeah I think there’s a couple things that I think about. And one one is that you’re right that you know we mentioned churches already investing a lot in tools, and sometimes those current tools are providing some windows into how people are engaging. So like giving records might be a good example. We always encourage look at first time and second time givers especially time because that sort of indicates a commitment, you know? You you don’t have to look at your online online analytics only and ask who’s out there. You can look at well how have giving patterns changed? And are there people that when we went online, they’re giving patterns… …talking to a church probably just about a month ago and you know it was one of those churches like you said that probably wasn’t highly organized around online. Very capable church. Very effective church, but online is sort of secondary. And we were we were just talking to some of the staff and the CFO just said, you know, what one interesting thing that did happen is, you know, we just got a gift from someone in New York for $5000. We’re thousands of miles away. Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Senneff — And you know we talked about that being well, you know, nobody just does that. You know, like that’s probably a window… Rich Birch — Yes. Aaron Senneff — …or a ministry opportunity, or a who is that and what community are they in, and how did that happen that you have a chance to follow up on. And because they gave you know a person’s contact information. You know that’s an opportunity to reach out and say hello. But I think also the the other thing that that can happen as like I mentioned that opportunity to connect sometimes gets broken. So we will we are starting to see churches do things like maybe use, you know, we’re we’re familiar with check-in for checking children into you know the the children’s worship. What about asking people to check in when they participate online? You know there’s some really nice mobile tools to do that. It doesn’t have to be awkward, and or maybe just saying hey if you’re just joining us for the first time or joining us for the second time, you know here’s maybe a link to a form, or a QR code to a form – just fill that out real quickly. It’s the same thing as filling out the contact card if you’re sitting in the auditorium, or walking to the connect center. And I think those you know those don’t tell us everybody who’s out there. We still have the problem just like in physical church of the people who walk in and walk out. Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Senneff —But it provides this invitation through your digital tools to let people let you know that they’re there. Rich Birch — I love that. Talk to me more about the adult check-in thing. That that seems like the Holy Grail of, you know, connection ministries if we could get adults to check in. That’s like one of those I feel like for 15 years we’ve been wrestling with that. At the church I I was out for years we did name tags and I was like man, we should automate all of that process. And like let’s let’s get a whole bunch of you know and you know iPads and we’ll check people in. And just even the conversation around that, man that raised the anxiety with folks. But talk to us about that. What… I love that idea. I think from a connections point of view it could… it’s powerful data. Aaron Senneff — Yeah I I totally agree with that. Like this this is one of the things I you know I just wished as as a yeah know giant church organization across the United States we were doing more of this, but there’s some great examples. So you mentioned it – I just visited a church in Houston not too long ago and they use child child check in but they use it for the adults walking in the church. So you walk in, bunch of kiosks for everybody who attends. They check in. They even chose to print name tags just to get over the awkwardness… Rich Birch — Yes. Aaron Senneff — …of not knowing who everybody is. And it’s also just a really great way to say, Okay, now we know who’s here. Well there’s no reason you can’t do that on on an online service. Rich Birch — Yep. Aaron Senneff — So we have churches that have maybe like set up online campuses. Rich Birch — Yep. Aaron Senneff — And they ask people to check in. We have, you know, because like in our product stack the mobile app is very connected to the CHMS so you can surface what we call instant check-in to the mobile app. So one way one way, for example, that we’ve used that in the past even for our own company is we used to we used to have this conference that we call Church Disrupt. Some of your your listeners may have tuned into that. So they might have experienced this. You you listen online; you register you listen online, and when ah when a session starts we would send out a push notification and that push notification would just say, hey can you just check in? Let us know you’re here. And you just go through a really quick exercise in your phone to do. Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Senneff — You know it’s just like child check-in but it’s just on your phone… Rich Birch — Yep. Aaron Senneff — …and it says like my family’s here and participating. So those are like that is a really great way to take, you know, a bunch of data that’s a bunch of anonymous IP addresses that you can’t do anything with, and then say okay now we have people that we can follow up with. We can engage. Whether you’re a first-time visitor, you’re a regular attender, or whatever – we know how you’re participating online. That opens a ton of doors. Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely/ Aaron Senneff — And if you don’t have that information then it’s hard to follow up. Rich Birch — Yeah absolutely. Yeah I love that. And I you know I I think there’s ah, there’s always this tension where the more anonymous… so most of my background I would say would be in the attractional church movement – that’s been kind of where I spent most of my time. And you know there’s always this tension between the more anonymous we make an experience theoretically it makes it more appealing to put folks because they’re totally in control of the experience. But the downside of that—and this is true in in-person church or online—the more we take an active role in trying to connect with people, the better we can get them to stick and stay and and provide a great experience for them. The more, like you’re saying, the more we ask them to check in or do a little bit of friction around the fact that, hey we’re glad you’re here. Um, you know that that helps us ultimately get people connected long-term. Talk to me about the in-person applications of that. Rich Birch — I love that one example used in Houston. Are there other things that churches are doing to add to use technology to kind of drive connection? I’m thinking particularly at a larger church, a couple thousand people church where yeah you you know you look out and it’s like I have no idea who all those faces are out there. Aaron Senneff — Yeah, we this is something that’s really personal to me because one of my you know my wife and I have been fortunate to be part of several churches, just as we’ve moved around the country with our jobs and other things that have gone on. And you know a lot of people probably have the story but we joined a certain church that was 100 people meeting in a high school gym. And a church like that you know everybody, the senior pastor knows everybody. You know you know who’s coming and going you know who’s setting up the chairs. You know who’s you know, wheeling out the worship equipment into the gym. Aaron Senneff — And then we we just kind of like were one of those churches that the growth just was amazing. And we one day woke up in and in a new building. You know a thousand people and it was filled the first Sunday we were opened. And I remember we were on the leadership team. The elder team and you know that that first Sunday we had a meeting and you know was one of these days you should be high-fiving each other, like hey we’re we’ve done great. Rich Birch — Yes. Aaron Senneff — And I remember our senior pastor coming in and saying like, hey I think we we have a problem because I just talked to a few people and they they didn’t connect very well. Like our church felt a little cold to them. And you know this is just breaking his heart that this is who we become, and how do we fix that? Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Senneff — And the funny thing is this is long enough ago that you know here I am a technology executive that is software for a living, and I was like I don’t know. Rich Birch — Right. Yes, right. Aaron Senneff — I don’t know how to do that. But, you know, things have changed a lot. And you know a lot of people are more inclined to engage digitally first now. That’s just the way it is. So I think sometimes just simple things like, hey what is what is the next step? So a church I just visited recently was really good. They they published a form for for visitors. There was a QR code on the chair. Scan the QR Card, it takes you to form. Fill out a form that got the contact information and then it took me to a series of videos about what their church is about. So you heard like you know some of the founding members, the pastor, some of the staff members just talk about like who are we, you know what kind of place of this. I thought that is a really inviting way to just share a little bit and start to get people connected. Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. Aaron Senneff — And then if you think about next steps. Um, you know I think like being public about the types of groups that are available, the types of volunteers volunteer opportunities are available. Maybe like missions your church cares about. And the thing is these are already all in your CHMS. Your groups are already there. You know your volunteer serving opportunities are already there. Your mission opportunities are already there. So being able to just surface those whether it’s through the app or the website gives people a really safe, psychologically safe, way to engage, you know, without having do the scary thing of walking up to somebody you know at a physical meeting and be like, okay I’m new here. I don’t know you, you don’t know me, but what do I do now? Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, love that. I love that. You know it’s interesting – QR codes, right, they like came back with a vengeance here with ah you know the pandemic. It was like they were like they we’re all but dead. But now it’s like you know we’re everywhere you go you see them and it seems to have been, you know it’s like a a relatively easy… people I always… My benchmark for that is always my mom. It’s like if my mom knows how to use them, then there should be some, you know, there and she definitely knows how to use QR codes, which is kind of fun. So… Aaron Senneff — And that’s that’s one that it’s just stuck, right? Rich Birch — Yes. Aaron Senneff — Like you you saw it get wide adoption to solve some problems. Rich Birch — Yes. Aaron Senneff — But I just walked into a restaurant this weekend and guess what there’s no menus. There’s QR codes. Like it has just stuck. Rich Birch — Yes. Aaron Senneff — And I think that’s probably true with a lot of technology changes that happened over the last two years. Rich Birch — Oh totally. Absolutely. I had the same in a restaurant—oh this was in the last month—where they all their payment stuff was done—you would appreciate this as a payment company. Was the same thing – there’s a QR code on the table, and once we were done ordering you just literally scan and opens up to some mobile website where it had our order all there. I put the tip in and all that and paid right there on my phone, which was fantastic as a client, as a customer I loved that. I was like this fantastic. I don’t have to wait for somebody to bring me a check. I can just do it and you know away we go. Let’s let’s talk a little bit about the donor the donor side the donor development piece. You know you guys are at the the nexus of a lot of that um, at at Pushpay. Aaron Senneff — Yeah. Rich Birch — Obviously we’re we’re heading into some uncertain waters on the the economy side. You know the the whole impact of inflation and where is that heading and you know coming recession. All of that stuff. What is the advice that you’re giving to churches kind of at at a top level first around donor development. Um, you know, are there things we should be doing now to get ready for what’s coming ah, you know, assuming that things might turn a little bit sour here in the in the coming you know, couple quarters? Aaron Senneff — Yeah, well valid concern. You know, I think that a lot of large churches are looking into the future and probably rightfully so have some concerns over you know what does what does participation look like… Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Senneff — …and then what does giving look like and you know will our church continue to grow on the path that it’s grown on in the past. So those those are really valid concerns. Um, and by the way there’s so many good churches out there that do this so well that for many of them I just want to say like I am not in a position to give you advice on how to manage that because… Rich Birch — Sure. Aaron Senneff — …you know your ministries and you execute them really well. Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Senneff — But the thing that I always think about when we look at data of how people engage with churches, engagement leads to giving. Giving leads to engagement. So I think that you know one of the things we want to try to do is not so much focus on, you know, Okay, how many donors do we have? Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Senneff — Are they are they reoccurring? What’s the what’s the amount? I think we want to try to use those opportunities or the data we have to try to figure out how do we get people to engage in the church because those people are going to give. so I I would say you know a really good set of giving tools shouldn’t just be a list of transactions. It should be a list of people that says… Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Senneff — …like hey yeah here are the people that are first time. Here are the people that are second time. Again, that opens up the door for you to reach out and ask like, hey you’re you’re new or you’re maybe just giving for the first time, you’ve been around for a while. Thank you. Or what has changed that’s leading to that? And then the other part I’d say—and totally obvious totally obvious—but um, online participation is just how a lot of people are going to show up to churches right now. Rich Birch — Right, right. Aaron Senneff —And so I wouldn’t overlook that. And one of the things you want to try to figure out is, first of all as you engage engage the online audience like like I said engagement is giving giving it is engagement. Those are those those both going kind of go hand in hand. So make sure you give them seamless, easy ways to participate if they choose to do so. Don’t make it hard. There’s some really good technology tools to you know, just kind of link into your stream. Go right here to the giving page and give if you want. And also just realize if you’re getting people to volunteer, if you’re getting people into small groups, those people are going to be much more inclined to give in the future. So it’s a holistic equation. It’s not just about, you know, collecting gifts. Rich Birch — Yeah, I love it. I love the idea of simplicity and how do we make it simple. How to think about it from you know how do we reduce friction through that process. Um, you know how I think that’s so critical. The other thing you said, which I wonder if we could pull apart a little bit, is the acknowledgement side of it. The for some reason you know the church is I’ve seen so too many churches stumble in this area where they they don’t spend enough time actually just thanking people. And I don’t know why that is I think it could be a left hand right hand thing where like we don’t want to you know we don’t want to um, you know we don’t want to have some sort of weird relationship with our donors, and so we don’t want to say thank you to them. But but the reality of it is that people have lots of places they could give and the fact that they’re giving to your church is pretty amazing. You you mentioned a couple of those key milestones: first gift, second gift, setting up recurring. Um, are there any kind of best practices you’re seeing on the acknowledgement side that we should be thinking about? Aaron Senneff — Yeah, well so first of I just think a a well done heartfelt acknowledgement does matter. We actually do see that in our research. It does matter. Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Senneff — That engages people in the church. Rich Birch — Okay, yep. Aaron Senneff — So and the and the funny thing is it doesn’t have to be hard. Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Senneff — So I I was you know talking one of the things we do is we we don’t just meet with church leaders, we meet with people who participate in churches and sort of ask you know what their experiences are like, and you know how are you engaging in the church. And there was just one recently interview that I was in and this individuals talked about like, hey I gave to my church and I got a really nice email from the pastor that was directed to me that just said, thank you here’s where your gifts are going. We really appreciate you participating. And they were just reflecting on that made me feel valued. You know I I just very much appreciate that it just didn’t feel like I sent a bunch of money to the general fund and it disappeared. I felt recognized.And you know the funny thing is, Rich, like I almost just kind of wanted to say, like that probably came out of Pushpay or MailChimp or something like that. Rich Birch — Yes. Aaron Senneff — Like like it is automated. It is simple. It is easy. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yes, yes. Aaron Senneff — But it is valued. Rich Birch — Right. Absolutely. Aaron Senneff — So yeah I totally agree with you that acknowledgement and recognition is a really important next step. Rich Birch — Right, right, right. Yeah, absolutely. That’s good. I just recently I had a guy pull me aside and say—we do we do like a handwritten note process for you know, basically people that have given at a certain level—and and um, you know this this guy pulled me aside and he said you know, Rich, like the fact that you would take time to write that note means a ton to me. Like the fact that you would and and it was it was like this you know like it was a little bit humbling frankly because I’m like it doesn’t take that long. I get generated a report that says here are the people. I have a stack of thank you cards on my desk I write notes and send it to people. It’s it’s not It’s not a big deal. Like it’s you know and you know it’s always if I know them if it’s like, hey you know it was a great seeing ya, or hope things are good with the kids, or you know that kind of thing – pretty straightforward. Um, but it was a good reminder to me again around acknowledgement and we’ve got to work hard on that. We’ve got to keep thinking about what we can do on that front. Now earlier you mentioned a problem that I’m hoping our relationship can sustain this, Aaron. I’m hoping that you know we’re we’re 25 minutes into our friendship and hopefully you can you won’t hang up on me. But one of the problems I find with technology is man, we just keep bolting on new stuff. It’s like the newest tool we got this thing, we got that thing we have all these different pieces of the puzzle, and that is really hard to manage. And and we have data silos and you know and I and I want to say stop it. Stop getting new subscriptions for a $20 a month you know tech solution. So I’d love for you to talk specifically from Pushpay. How are you helping churches solve that problem. What are you doing to help us wrestle through that? Aaron Senneff — Yes, and not I’ll just tell you, Rich, not just you. Rich Birch — Yes. Aaron Senneff — So definitely a theme in churches. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Aaron Senneff — There’s probably a lot of people in your audience that are kind of given a shout for hooray. Someone said it. Rich Birch — Yes. Aaron Senneff — That is really true. Church software like I think churches really over last ten years invested in technology. But now you step back from a technology stack and you’re like okay. We have a volunteer scheduling system over here. Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Senneff — You know we have maybe a database of people over here. We have a giving solution over here. You know someone else is using worship planning over here. Someone else has got maybe a accounting system and and it’s all in different silos… Rich Birch — Yeah. Aaron Senneff — …and hard to connect. And so I’m I am just going to say this. This is an area where Pushpay intends to help solve. Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Senneff — And I think we’ve got some really good head start on some things. But I’ll I’ll just tell you like why I think that’s important and where I think it can go. Rich Birch — Yeah. Aaron Senneff — We we already know this – people are engaging digitally in the church. So if you just think about your systems today, the ones that already listed, you’re giving platform, wherever you register volunteers, where people sign up to be in a group. You know, how people consume information whether it’s through a email or a text message or an app, how they get online streaming, or how they do that. How they you know, how they may be messaged with people who are in a group. What you’re seeing is all these little what I call “digital footprints” of how people are engaging in your church that are collected, you know, just kind of automatically because people are engaging. And what we really want to be able to do is then say, okay we can step back and we can see, you know, how Rich is participating in our church. We can see that he he attends regularly. We can see that he’s a regular giver. And you know maybe we could say like and he’s not an active volunteer right now. That’s a great person to ask to step up. Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Senneff — Because he’s checking the attendance box, checking the giving box. Could we push on volunteering? Could we just reach out and say, hey we got some great opportunities. Do you think you could help? You’re probably inclined to say yes. So I think those types of opportunities of assembling that data, getting a really good 360 degree view of people, and then being able to tailor your ministry approach to those people based on, you know, sort of that engagement journey looks like. Did they… are they just curious? Did they just join the live stream for the first time? Or are they like committed members that have been participating for a long time and it’s time but for them to step into leadership? Um I think the data that we are already collecting can tell us a lot about those things and can help us be more effective at ministry Leadership. And then also I think that outcome is now you can see with a real concrete data how your church can grow. So you can see people moving from, you know, curious to participating, to involved, to committed, to leadership. And and then ask the question that everybody wants to know, like is the ministry working? Rich Birch — Yes. Aaron Senneff — Is this working the way we designed it… Rich Birch — Yes. Aaron Senneff — …with data? So you can do that today with some of our systems. Like I would say ChurchStaq which is the combination. You know you get all the people get linked together, all those records get tied together. You can run some really great reporting on how people are engaging and it also say we should already be way better at this. So if you just want to ask like where is Pushpay going next? This is sort of the next frontier to help people really understand their audiences and and community as well as possible. Rich Birch — Yeah that’s good. Like I I think there’s it’s there’s an interesting kind of philosophical or maybe not philosophical or it’s like approach to technology is the future which, you know, I I think you don’t have to be a technology strategist to figure out what Pushpay’s solution is, is the future one giant solution that kind of does it all, or is it a whole bunch of solutions held together by Airtable and you know that’s like we kind of tape it all together ourselves. Um, which there’s a ton of churches that are doing that – I know you know that. That are like hey we’ve got all these different things and we’re going to pull it all together and then to try to answer the same question. Um, man I’m just just cheering for you from the sidelines. If there’s a way for you to make that work together to ultimately answer the question that you’re saying, which is hey how are people actually taking steps closer to you know a relationship with Jesus and across all of these different you know data points, um, man that would be powerful for so many of us. Aaron Senneff — Yeah, and I do think is moving that way. And I think you see both approaches, Rich. Rich Birch — Yeah. Aaron Senneff — So you do see churches saying hey we are going to figure out how to stitch this together. Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Senneff — So we’ll use these these separate tools and we’ll figure this out. Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Senneff — And I think that’s admirable. That’s also a ah like a hill to climb. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Aaron Senneff — So there’s some effort that goes into that. And then you also see a very common approach of okay, we really need to like make our stack more uniform… Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Senneff — …maybe more in all in one, and that way all the data is all all the way there together. So you see you see both for sure and the one thing I would just want to encourage everybody, you know, obviously I’m part of Pushpay. I like the all in one. We should be doing that for you. We should be making it helpful. But the one thing I would just say to everybody, be sensitive about where your congregant data goes. You know, maybe less critical if you’re thinking about a general ledger, or you know your accounts payable or accounts receivable, because that’s not like how your congregants are engaging. Rich Birch — Yeah. Aaron Senneff — But when you think about who’s volunteering, and when are they volunteering, who’s giving when are the giving, how are they participating you know, are they in groups. Um, that is really important data… Rich Birch — Yes. Aaron Senneff — …to understand how your church is changing. And if you cannot tie that together, you are missing a lot of information. Rich Birch — Yeah, no, that’s good. That’s a good insight. You know I know for years we would look at we do a quarterly report with our campus pastors where we all we looked at was giving trends. So we just were like who’s kind of behind trend and ahead of trend. And the conversation I would ask is ah, like I’m not actually concerned about the money side of it. It’s what is this telling us about our people, right? So people who have been giving at you know they were giving x amount of dollars now they’re giving half of what they were giving a year ago. That’s sending us a message that’s sending us a pastoral care message. There’s something’s happened in their house that is that we need to address, that we need to find out what’s happening there. Not not because we’re the the money is telling us a story, but we’re not actually primarily concerned about the money thing. You know and we could be if obviously if we’re thinking about donor stuff we are thinking about that as well. But there’s there’s so many examples of that, you know. But that if we could get better as churches, hey we used to check our kids in every other week and now you’re once every three weeks. Um what are we doing? It seems like a basic thing. It’s like ah… Aaron Senneff — Yeah. Rich Birch — …but but too many too many of us aren’t doing that. We’re not accessing the data we have today. Aaron Senneff — Yeah, and that’s another thing I would just encourage that’s a good use of data, and that’s a really great segue. Because I think it’s one thing to just look at a donor list, especially if you’re at like a 10,000 person church. Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Senneff — Like okay we have you know 5000 active donors. What do I do with that? Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Senneff — Well if you’re really trying to focus ministry just like you said. Changes in donor behavior mean something. Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Senneff — You know, maybe it’s just something small to celebrate like a job change… Rich Birch — Yep. Aaron Senneff —…or you know our family’s changing. But we have heard story after story after story that those changes were indicating of life events are really important for the church… Rich Birch — Right. Yep. Aaron Senneff —… to come alongside and minister to those people. You know death in the family that led to an inheritance that led to a gift. So your your thank you note is now like ah oh how can we come alongside you and and help your family during this time? Or a job loss or the family’s being disrupted in some way. And so I really encourage people use the data to look for those moments – those changes… Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Senneff — …like what are the windows that we can open to say, Okay, something changed that is a chance that is a time for us to ask what’s going on. And you’re right like checking in every Sunday and then not. Or becoming going from a recurring donor to irregular donor. Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Senneff — Like there’s just different changes like there like those, and it helps distill the 5000 people in your audience to the hundred people that you can reach out to this week. Rich Birch — Right, right. Absolutely. Well, Aaron, I I appreciate this. There’s a ton we could talk about here, but I I appreciate you just opening up a window a little bit. Again thank you on behalf of the thousands of churches out there that use Pushpay and all your various solutions to to help make ministry better. Appreciate what you’re doing I know you probably put out a lot of fires every day. So the fact that you give us some time here means a lot. So I really appreciate that. Is there anything else, you’d like to say just as we kind of wrap up today’s episode? Aaron Senneff — Yeah I’ll I’ll just say to everybody that’s out there. You know, I’ve considered a privilege to be able to work next to churches. It is honestly a privilege to be a part of Pushpay. Hard time to be in church staff. You know, divided churches, a lot of things changing in the work, and so I just I just want to say this – we we meet with ministry professionals every day. It is a very difficult time to be a ministry professional. We love you all and um, just ask everybody to take care of yourselves and hopefully Pushpay can do our part and try to help on the technology side. So that’s all. Rich Birch — That’s great. So we want to send people to pushpay.com – is there anywhere else we want to send them to kind of learn more about what you guys are doing? Aaron Senneff — pushpay.com is a great place. It’ll take you a lot of different ways. Rich Birch — Right. Aaron Senneff — And then if you if you do a little digging, you’ll find the church technology report. There might be some things that are insightful to you. Rich Birch — Okay, thanks so much, Aaron – appreciate you being here today. Thank you so much. Aaron Senneff — Thank you, Rich. Appreciate it.

Thanks for joining the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Jeremy Norton, lead pastor at Mountainview Church in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada. Being a church leader in a place like the Yukon is a little like living in the future. Listen in as Jeremy shares how to engage with your neighbors and city in a post-Christian setting. Challenges in today’s world. // Canada is post-Christian and more secular than the United States, giving us a glimpse of the direction the US is heading culturally. Whitehorse, Yukon in particular is 51% proclaimed atheist or agnostic, making it the most secular city in North America according to Statistics Canada. In addition to the spiritual climate, this area draws individuals with a deeply-rooted independent nature. There is a mix of strong conservatives, a large number of government employees, immigrants, and a population of native Americans, which can create a lot of tension. All of these elements make for hard soil where it’s a challenge to spread God’s word. Be present. // When there is a high secular presence in a community, it’s a long process in building relationships and sharing the gospel, and you need to be patient. Work regularly in public settings and invite people to sit down and talk as you get to know them. Close your laptop and turn your full attention to them.Don’t give up on the game. // As you dialog about faith, people may get angry at the answers to their questions and leave. Graciously allow that and don’t give up. It’s a long game and requires wait time—sometimes a process that can take weeks or months—for them to come back and talk again.Build the relationship between you. // Don’t get caught up heavily on politics or ideologies with someone who isn’t a believer. These are the wrong areas to focus on initially; the relationship has to be built first so that they might trust you to share the gospel with them.Listen to them. // If someone hasn’t given their life to Jesus, don’t let conversations focus on hot topics that cause so many arguments. Instead, ask personal questions and try to politely steer the conversation toward what they are personally struggling with. Move away from the big picture to the smaller one to focus on what they believe and feel.Do, don’t just talk. // A highly secular culture is looking to see what you do, not so much what you say. Mountainview Church has the vision to serve their city to reach the city, and they meet felt needs in the community, whether it’s providing food during Thanksgiving, or serving the homeless in brutally cold temperatures.The journey north. // Jeremy has released a book, Northern Roads: A Journey of Life and Leadership Serving on the 60th Parallel. In it he shares lessons God taught him during his journey which ultimately led to his work at Mountainview Church. He hopes to encourage people through his testimony, as well as help Christians understand that there are missions opportunities in the northern part of North American that are often overlooked. Visit www.leadbiblically.com to learn more about Jeremy’s book, plus find information about workshops and retreats. You can also find a link to a YouVersion 5-Day Devotional Reading Plan related to Jeremy’s book. Visit Mountainview Church at mountainview.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: Chemistry Staffing One of the things that they never teach you in seminary is when to move on from your current church. Over the last couple of years, we have been having a TON of conversations about this with pastors all over the United States. Of all the ministry decisions you make, leaving your position will be the toughest. Download this two-in-one resource that walks you through the decision-making process. Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Well hey, everybody, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you’ve decided to tune in. It’s going to be a great conversation today. Super excited to have my friend, Jeremy Norton, with us. Jeremy is a pastor in a location that in some ways I think is like living in the future. Stick with me friends. Ah, he is at Mountainview Church which is in Whitehorse, Yukon in Canada, which is you could call it north. That’s about as north as I think this is the most northernly interview we’ve had. Jeremy is the lead pastor there. Jeremy, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here today. Jeremy Norton — Thank you so much. I’m a fan of the podcast and you know you’ve been ah a good insight and resource for us as a church and for me as a leader. So yeah I’m pumped to do this. Rich Birch — Ah, super sweet. Thank you for for saying that. Why don’t you fill out a little bit of the picture. Tell us about Mountainview; kind of give us to tell us about the church, and then maybe talk a little bit about your story. Jeremy Norton — Totally, yeah. so Mountainview Church is in the city of White Horse. Now the city of Whitehorse is only 30,000 people so for most it would be like wait 30,000? Isn’t that like a town? Yeah, but it is the capital city of the Yukon. Ah, the Yukon is the territory right beside Alaska. Alaska is our neighbor – for any American listeners that would kind of give them a placing of where it is. It’s a territory, not a province. So we have 3 territories in Canada – very different than provinces and how they function in things, but a part of Canada. To give an idea the viewers or listeners on the ah land mass and population, It’s the same land mass as California ah, but there’s only 40,000 people… Rich Birch — That’s amazing. Jeremy Norton — …in the in the entire land mass… Rich Birch — Wow. Jeremy Norton — …with 30,000 of them living in Whitehorse. So 3 out of 4 people live… so that would be like imagine LA only has 30,000 people and the rest of California has another 10,000. That’s where… Rich Birch — It’s amazing. Jeremy Norton — That’s where I live. That’s how I function. Now the good part of that is that so goes Whitehorse, so goes the territory. So a huge evangelism effort in the city of Whitehorse – if you can reach Whitehorse, which is what we’re trying to do at Mountainview. You know, serve the city, reach the city. Um, it can have a massive impact. So yeah, that kind of gives you a little bit of an idea. I I served for my first ministry was as a youth pastor in Alaska. I served a bit in Alberta, but I grew up in Ontario. I actually met my wife in the Muskokas and so I’ve been around different places, but landed in my calling for the past eight years here in the Yukon. Rich Birch — Love it. Well, there’s a lot I want to dig into, and I appreciate you giving that that overview and the sense to kind of you know, set up a little bit ah of the you know the tension that Whitehorse is in. The fact that it’s you know it really is in like you say 3 or 4 people in the territory live in there and that’s just incredible. Incredible statistics. The thing that caught my attention and as we were kind of connecting, getting ready for this I really do think that the spiritual makeup of your community might in some ways give us a view into the future a little bit. Talk to us about that. What does that look like? What’s the kind of spiritual dynamics in Whitehorse? Jeremy Norton — Ah, yeah, so you have um… so for those that are Canadian or understand Canada. Canada is definitely post-Christian, more secular sensed way further down the road than the United States would be. So the United States a lot of times we say hey, look to Canada to kind of look to what’s happening culturally in the future. I think the UK and Europe is even further down the line than Canada is. Jeremy Norton — But when we look at Canada as a whole and you look at statistics Canada, the city of Whitehorse and Yukon territory has actually has the highest percentage um of atheist agnostic. It’s the most secular city – Whitehorse is the most secular city in Canada, even more than Vancouver, Toronto. Rich Birch — Wow wow. Jeremy Norton — We have around 51% that are that kind of like proclaimed to be atheist or agnostic. Rich Birch — Right. Jeremy Norton —And according to Statistics Canada. So that makes Whitehorse a challenge… Rich Birch — Sure. Jeremy Norton — …in a big way. Um, ah the ideology you know one out of two people that you talk to either rejects the idea of God entirely, or see absolutely no like there’s no importance to it to think about it. Rich Birch — Right, right. Jeremy Norton — So imagine that every other person that’s how you interact with, and so trying to establish churches there, try to establish evangelism efforts there, it is it is hard soil. And and based on the research based on the stats Whitehorse would be the hardest soil. Ah, perhaps ah, perhaps based on the stats in North America… Rich Birch — Right. Jeremy Norton — …which is crazy to think about. Rich Birch — Right. Now why… Yeah yeah, that is crazy, and I and I want to really dive into and talk through what you’re learning on you know, particularly the outreach and evangelism front. But before we get there, why is that? What what is it what’s your theory? What’s the theory of why ah, this community is such a magnet for ah, you know, for like you’re saying agnostic atheist kind of the post-christian culture? Jeremy Norton — Yeah, so there’s the the big factor is the is the deep, deep rooted independent nature. That’s probably the thing that binds everyone who’s in the Yukon, is there is a strong independence in them. So I… it would be interesting to do like an Enneagram study on the Yukon versus versus the rest of Canada, like I don’t know if it’s just it it draws obviously different personalities. But strong convictions heavy independence. Rich Birch — Right. Jeremy Norton — Sometimes the Yukon’s nicknamed as the colorful 5% of Canada. Ah, in in all the people that kind of don’t fit in the rest of the country, they escape to the Yukon. Rich Birch — Okay, okay. Jeremy Norton — Um, so so that’s one piece is no matter what your conviction is in Whitehorse, everyone is deeply independent and it kind of gathers that type of people. The other piece to it is ah Whitehorse is the kind of the hub for northern sovereignty in Canada. For anyone that’s kind of followed you know geopolitical stuff in regards to the north and natural resources and these types of things. It’s a, you know, it’s ah it’s a hub. You’ve got Alaska, Canada, and Russia – you got all these people all these nations that really that we found the north will be important in the future. Rich Birch — Right. Jeremy Norton — And so there’s like this arctic sovereignty, northern sovereignty thing going on. So Whitehorse is the hub of that which increases the level of government employees and government presence. Rich Birch — Right, right. Jeremy Norton — So we’re 33% government employee. Rich Birch — Wow. Jeremy Norton — So one out of three people either… Rich Birch — That’s amazing. Jeremy Norton — …works for like the feds, the territory, or municipal government, or subsequent, you know, organization. So then when you have a high government presence, high independent presence… Rich Birch — Interesting. Jeremy Norton — …and then we also have our second ah, you know so we have mining, which is like one of our major major private businesses. Then the second is guiding, like hunting and fishing guiding into as well. Rich Birch — Okay, interesting. Jeremy Norton — So so for anyone that understands mining, fishing, hunting… Rich Birch — Right. Jeremy Norton — …that is fairly super conservative. Rich Birch — Sure. Jeremy Norton — Then you have this high government populace… Rich Birch — Right. Interesting, interesting. Jeremy Norton — …that’s mixed in these two groups typically aren’t big fans of each other… Rich Birch — Interesting. Jeremy Norton — And so so and then add in a whole other later layer that that we have 25% first nations. Rich Birch — Right. Jeremy Norton — So one out of 4 people is first nations so that adds an element. Rich Birch — Fascinating. Jeremy Norton — And then another strange thing that’s that’s come up in the past five years the Canadian government has allowed fast track immigration for ah for certain certain ah countries. One of the biggest that Canada’s found is Filipino population. So right now if if if ah if someone from the Philippines comes to ah Whitehorse, Yellowknife, or or a Iqaluit for the first five years they can get kind of fast tracked permanent residency. Jeremy Norton — So the last little mix is one out of ten people – we’re 10 percent Filipino in our city. So… Rich Birch — Interesting. What a fascinating mix. Jeremy Norton — Yeah, so if you add ah it is such a strange mix such a strange mix. Rich Birch — Yeah interesting. Jeremy Norton — Um, so all of that creates kind of it’s just a really mixed bag and there’s there’s tensions. It’s just the way it is. It’s people. Rich Birch — Yeah, interesting, interesting. That’s so cool. Well I’d love to hear about what you’re learning on kind of the outreach and evangelism you know side of things. Jeremy Norton — Yeah. Rich Birch — So you step into that culture. You’ve been here for a while, ah, what’s working? How are you engaging the community? What does that look like? Jeremy Norton — Yeah, probably the um the the biggest thing I think is is presence. Um I I choose to kind of work in coffee shops. I have a little studio here that I do some recording in but at home. But um if you’re in a heavy atheist agnostic culture, it’s not that I’m going to share the gospel and someone’s going to be like, oh I need Jesus. Now they might. Holy Spirit can drop and that can happen. But when you have ah such a high secular presence, ah, such a heavy um, spiritual kind of opposition, I would say, it’s a long game. Rich Birch — Right. Jeremy Norton — You you may have someone that asks questions about things; they may sit down at a coffee shop and they kind of know, okay, why are you always here? You know I see on the laptop. You know I see you doing things. Um but something we talked about before is ah something really important for any pastor or leader that’s kind of working in a public setting that wants to reach the public, one of the things I do is if someone sits down or I invite them sit down, I close my laptop. Rich Birch — I like that. Jeremy Norton — And closing the laptop is one of the very first cues. Um that it’s like I I am willing to take the time. Rich Birch — Right. Jeremy Norton — And you have to understand this is going to be a long conversation, and they actually may get frustrated, leave, and you got to kind of politely allow that. But they’re going to come back. And so to reach an atheist agnostic culture, you need to be patient. They may come back to you three weeks later, three months later, and said hey, you know we were talking about it. Just because they may not like what you’re talking about in the moment, talking about Jesus, talking about sin, or the need for a savior, and all these different things, you can’t give up. It’s a long game. Jeremy Norton — And and for me, I’m a fairly conservative guy and there can always be a temptation, always a temptation to get into kind of more conservative ideology, which maybe I’m more lean to as kind of more on the evangelical reform side. But I have to pause that and understand that this person they they are going to reject so much of that. Rich Birch — Interesting. Jeremy Norton — And so I can’t get caught up too heavily in the issues… Rich Birch — Right. Jeremy Norton — …with someone who’s not a believer. Rich Birch — Right. Jeremy Norton — I have to lay that aside and say okay, my relationship with this person has to be built so that they might trust me to to share the gospel with them. Rich Birch — Right. Jeremy Norton — But they’re feeling me out and they’re super skeptical. They’re super independent, and so they’re going to push back just about it as much as everything. I don’t know I don’t know if that all makes sense. Rich Birch — That makes sense. Yeah I’d love for you to pull that apart a little bit more. I love or I’m intrigued, interested in this idea of you know, how do we how do we stay connecting? What are you learning about staying connecting relationally with people over an extended period of time? I know I was just joking with a friend, oh in the last couple months, about how you know when we’re engaged in those kind of conversations, um I know my tendency is like I just want to see this deal close now. Jeremy Norton — Yes. Rich Birch — Like can’t let’s let’s get let’s help how do we get this person across the line, which can um which can just short circuit so much, right? A part of what we’ve got to do is be committed over the long haul. How are you balancing that out with also the need to be truthful, and to not soft pedal, and to not be like to steer away from the issues? …because I know that’s not who you are. How does that balance out? How does that work out for you as you’re engaging with folks? Jeremy Norton — Yeah, and for me I’m I’m not those who would know me would would say I’m not a patient guy. Rich Birch — Sure. Jeremy Norton — Um I’m I’m ah um, I’m pretty I’m an Enneagram Eight. I’m I’m pretty future-minded and and I I like change. I like making decisions. I like moving forward. But I’ve just had to understand that um I have a higher expectation, a way higher expectation, for those who have given their life to Jesus. I i if someone does not have the Holy Spirit, I cannot… Rich Birch — Right. Jeremy Norton — …I cannot expect that they understand any of the deeper issues about identity, sexuality… Rich Birch — Right. Jeremy Norton —You know all the other hot button issues that maybe we get we get tempted to go into. Now if someone is is a believer, I’ll call them to certain things. But if they’re not, if they if they don’t have the Holy Spirit, they haven’t given the life to Jesus, you have you have to kind of politely, kind of share where you stand. Um but try to steer the conversation ah toward what they’re personally struggling with. Rich Birch — Right, right. Jeremy Norton — And and you you have to move away from the big picture and move to the small picture. So ask really personal questions. Jeremy Norton — You know if if if they’re really jazzed about talking about identity, ask them like where do you find your identity? What is your greatest value? So lots of questions. Rich Birch — Love that. Jeremy Norton — Um, everyone including probably you and I loves talking about themselves. So… Rich Birch — Sure, sure, sure. Jeremy Norton — Right? It’s human nature. And so if you ask them those those questions um very few people I think in our day and age want to… very few people in the church—this might sound controversial but—very few people in the church want to give an atheist or agnostic airtime. Rich Birch — Oh interesting. Jeremy Norton — Do you see what I’m saying? Rich Birch — Sure, sure. Jeremy Norton — …like they kind of they’re like, I don’t want to hear this. I don’t you know and… Rich Birch — Right. But we’ve got to listen, right? We’ve got to listen. We have to, right? Like… Jeremy Norton — You gotta. You have to. Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely. Yeah I found we we’ve been like, I love one I love Alpha. We use it at our our church. Jeremy Norton — Excellent. Rich Birch — And one of the things I love about their um, you know the culture there is around just simply listening, listening to people’s stories, and um and letting letting some heresy fly, you know, letting some some bad ideas float out there… Jeremy Norton — Oh yeah. Rich Birch — Because you’re building up relational equity to then end up, you know, helping them take steps closer, you know, towards Jesus. So how does that translate—I get that on the personal front; I love that idea I think that’s a um, you know it’s even practical coaching for us as we’re thinking about leading, what are we doing to be visible? What are we doing to be relationally connected? I think those are all good things. How does that work itself out and in the church context? Jeremy Norton — Oh yeah. Rich Birch — What does that look like kind of corporately as you’re ministering in your context? Jeremy Norton — So yeah, that’s a great question. So ah, corporately a secular highly secular culture, heavy atheist agnostic – they are looking to see what you do, not so much what you say. And so for us we’re we’re gearing up for so we we have this so in our vision we want to serve our city to reach our city. That’s the big part as a church. And so we’re gearing up for for projects that are coming up. Jeremy Norton — We do a project called Stuff the Bus where we get a school bus in front of our biggest grocery store. We make connections with the Whitehorse food bank and we we connect with people as they’re walking in and we do it on Thanksgiving weekend. And we say hey, Thanksgiving’s awesome -we’re going to eat a ton of food. There’s people who don’t have food, would you take this little list and would you think about maybe picking up 1 or 2 of these items… Rich Birch — Right. Jeremy Norton — …while you’re doing your Thanksgiving shopping, and and then we’ll actually put it on this school bus, and we’re gonna drive this school bus over to the food bank and stock all the shelves before Thanksgiving. Rich Birch — Wow, wow. Yeah, that’s amazing. Jeremy Norton — And so we’re we’re not like we’re not standing outside of the grocery store sharing the gospel. And and I understand there’s there’s maybe like one side of evangelicalism like you have them captive audience, like that’s what need to say buy groceries, and give your life to Jesus. Like no no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. They are expecting a bait and switch. This this is simply an initiative to serve our city. Rich Birch — Right. Jeremy Norton — And maybe, maybe—Lord willing, through the Spirit’s leading—we’ll get an opportunity to reach them at a later time. They may show up on a Sunday morning because they’re like I don’t know who this church is but they stuffed a school bus full of food for the food bank. Rich Birch — Right. Jeremy Norton — Okay, that resonates with me. These guys… Rich Birch — Right, right, right. Jeremy Norton — This the the hypocrisy of every church is the hypocrisy of humanity. We we don’t always get it right. Rich Birch — Right. Jeremy Norton — We’re still a sinful people a part of Mountainview. We struggle sometimes. We make mistakes. But at least they can say, okay well they’re trying really hard. Rich Birch — Right, right. Jeremy Norton — And then we do a couple other initiatives. So this this ah another thing that just is is ah is a showing thing we have something called Backpacks of Joy. Rich Birch — Yep. Jeremy Norton — And so after the school season, encourage people to buy up all the backpacks around town that are on sale when when the back to school is in the fall, and keep them. And we stuff them full of gifts and cards and stuff… Rich Birch — Right. Jeremy Norton — …and then on Christmas, right before Christmas Eve we actually walk the streets of Whitehorse. Rich Birch — Wow. Jeremy Norton — Um, and at that time we’re talking like you know negative 30 could be negative 40 by that time. Rich Birch — That’s amazing. Jeremy Norton — And there’s still we still have a homeless community. Rich Birch — Right. Jeremy Norton — And we have a shelter in stuff, but there’s still people on the street when it’s that cold. Rich Birch — Wow, wow. Jeremy Norton — And and You know, giving them things – what their mitts, they’re got mitts, they got hands in pockets, they got… so what we’ve done is we put together their Christmas gifts in a backpack and then we hand out those backpacks. Now in there, yes, there’s a bible. There’s some information about our church, but really, it’s like food and gifts and stuff so that so that people that are are unfortunately living on the street they can get a Christmas gift. So these are these are just a couple of the ways of some of the stuff we do… Rich Birch — Right, right. Yeah, I love that. Jeremy Norton — Um to serve, to reach. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. And you know there’s this we see have seen this consistently, again with churches in all different contexts, that churches that are making a difference, that are growing, that are reaching people, they do have this kind of demonstration and proclamation double… Jeremy Norton — Ah, yes. Rich Birch — …you know, double barrel thing, right? We we there should be things that the church does that you can point at that the community might say that’s a good thing. We think it’s a God thing, but we can we can agree on like, hey this is a good thing to do like Stuff the Bus, Backpacks of Joy. There’s going to be very few people in town that are going to say, wow, that’s a bad thing. I don’t know. You know you’d have to be a pretty hardened atheist to be like man, I wish that church would stop stuffing that bus full of food. You know, like you know of course… Jeremy Norton — Yeah. Rich Birch — …of course you’re going to think that’s a good thing. So and obviously that’s not the end of the conversation, that’s the beginning of the conversation, but love that. Jeremy Norton — Yeah, and then there’s like some unique stuff that happens um related to kind of the north. Like people don’t people don’t know about so third third Monday in January is called Blue Monday. Now Blue Monday is the darkest time. It’s it’s not the darkest day as physically, but it’s the darkest time in the north. Rich Birch — Right. Jeremy Norton — The highest levels of depression, highest levels of suicide, domestic abuse, and everything – it’s up the third Monday – it’s called Blue Monday this is because the nostalgia of Christmas and New Year’s is over. Most people are totally fatigued of volunteerism… Rich Birch — Right. Jeremy Norton — …and charity fatigued from the Christmas season. All the credit card bills are coming in. It’s dark. It’s cold. And so Blue Monday is actually a time it’s a huge need. And we actually partner with Village Church one of the kind of fastest growing biggest churches in Canada. We partner with them to do another initiative called Boxes of Light where we’ve worked with community organizations to put together a help card of all the different resources someone might might need—whether they’re in addiction or depression or suicide and stuff like that—in ah in like this really nice packaged card within this box of of gifts, like hand warmers and and and food and things like that. And and it’s actually like a really nice gift and it’s three weeks after Christmas. Jeremy Norton — And we we work with community organizations – ah First nNations Health and AA and different organizations and we don’t even know who gets these. We actually just drop them off to them. So there’s kind of some you know some security there for who’s struggling. And they know and same with there’s place called Kaushee’s Place which is the women’s transition home for battered women children. So we just hand it to these agencies and then in the at Blue Monday in the darkest time of the year in the middle of January… Rich Birch — Wow. Jeremy Norton — …when there’s when resources are at their kind of slimmest, Village Church helps Mountainview bless these people. And and last year and this year Village Church actually brought a team up from greater Vancouver. So you can imagine the culture shock of for them. Rich Birch — Ah yes. Jeremy Norton — And they actually help us with the project and they actually come up to the north in the darkest, coldest time to really experience, okay, what this is… It’s hard to believe this is a first world nation and, you know, this is Canada, but um, you know it that people live here. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Jeremy Norton — This is dark and cold and depressing. And not that there isn’t those things other places in Canada. Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, that’s interesting. Jeremy Norton — So anyway these these are the different types of things that are that are helping us have conversations about salvation eventually. Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. Now you just earlier this year actually released a book called “Northern Roads: A Journey of Life and Leadership Serving on the 60th Parallel” – love that. Jeremy Norton — Yeah. Rich Birch — Um tell me about this book. Why did you write this book? What you know it’s a lot of time effort and energy to pull together. Ah, what what led you to the place that said like, hey this is probably good time now to pull this together? Jeremy Norton — So working in Calgary, working hospitality. My a a mentor of mine I was just serving in the church like crazy and he’s like you know some people do this full time. And so I was like oh okay, so I went back to school, bible college. And ah then I started putting out resumes, and my wife was from Alaska and so I I actually went on youthpastor.com because I was going to be a youth pastor to start. And kind of internet dated this church in Soldat in Alaska near where she grew up. Jeremy Norton — And and I and then got hired there. And that really started kind of my northern journey and and where God was fostering my call to the north. And I started, not only did I struggle with American-Canadian transition, and we both speak english, but those two countries are so incredibly different. And I think most Canadians and most Americans don’t fully comprehend… Rich Birch — Yeah, understand that. Yep, it’s true. Jeremy Norton — …how radically different we are. And so went through that, as well as living in Alaska. And there’s just there’s so many different things and so many lessons learned. There was tragedies ah, that I walked through, personally and in our church that I served in. And and there was huge highs that like huge lessons learned. And it was actually my mom at the time—it was like twelve years ago now—she’s like, Jeremy these are crazy things – you need to write these down. I was like, okay, I’ll start writing them down. Jeremy Norton — So I started writing them down and then um, my journey continues, settle in the Yukon. And then I start kind of looking back at some of this, and I start putting it together, and I’m like, wow maybe this is a book. Maybe maybe I could put this together. And so I did and I sent it out to some publishers and I’m super thankful and gracious that Ambassador International picked me up. And their editing team worked with me. Jeremy Norton — And um, so yeah I was able to launch a book that basically tells the story my northern roads journey. How a kid from Southwestern Ontario near the Michigan border grew up in like a city like one of the most southern places in Canada. Um, how I ended up, you know, in Alaska and in the Yukon. So yeah, and then all the different lessons that God taught me through that. And so it’s been extremely successful. People have been really gracious and have enjoyed it and so yeah, it’s been fun. Really fun. Rich Birch — Yeah, wow. Well, that’s that’s cool I’d love for people to pick up a copy of this. I think it could be a great read. Um, you know it has that kind of memoir feel – great kind of story. You know ties into some of the the northern, you know, mystique, which I think could be fun. There could be folks that are out there ah that maybe as a gift, or as you know a friend that you know you could pass on. When you wrote this, what kind of transformation or change were you hoping would happen in people who were reading it? What’s kind of what are you writing for? What are you hoping will will take place in ah in the lives of your readers? Jeremy Norton — Um, a couple things. Like the first thing is just um to under to under to become a better leader. I think that’s probably the one thing. I I there was a lot of very biblical, very spiritual lessons that God taught me and I think anyone ah, can see those lessons. And at the end of every chapter I kind of say okay here’s how this might apply in your situation. So that’s kind of the first thing. I want people to grow ah as leaders grow in their faith and and that’s possible because there’s there is so much scripture that I’ve tried to put in the book. Especially at the end of each chapter. Jeremy Norton — Ah, but the other thing is for people to understand um, especially maybe people who have only ever lived in a bigger city and and for those that that live in the southern part of Canada, and the major cities that strip across the US border and those that that live in the United States, ah, that there is a big wide world and there’s way… there’s different challenges and there’s different things that people walk through. And you know sometimes people might think, oh, they’ll think oh missions—and you know and and I’m not saying please don’t hear this. You know I’m not saying we don’t need to go to Africa and Asia and South America and stuff like that. But so often ah the North—Alaska, Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut—the whole strip of North America often gets missed. And yet this is in our own continent. Jeremy Norton — And and there’s massive struggles. And so maybe maybe someone will be called to visit, just maybe for fun. But maybe someone will be called to serve the north as well. And that would be amazing. Rich Birch — Love it. Jeremy Norton — That would be the the biggest win is if someone read my book and was like you know what? The Holy Spirit’s calling in me that I need to serve in the north. Rich Birch — Love it. Jeremy Norton — Ah, there’s a need so that would be great. Rich Birch — That’s so cool. So we could pick up copies of this at Amazon, or there other places we want to send people to pick up a copy of of Northern Roads? Jeremy Norton — Anywhere books are sold. Chapters Indigo, christianbook.com, literally Ambassador International has done such a good job at at making sure that it that it is everywhere. You can just Google it. Jeremy Norton — Ah, the other thing that you could do is you can go to leadbiblically.com which is my site. And there’s lots of resources there. There’s courses and workshops that we can do either online, in person, for for your church, or your team, whether you’re in nonprofit, homeschool co-ops, Christian school, churches. Whatever you want to do? There’s also you can buy the book right there. Jeremy Norton — And then there’s also um Ambassador International worked with YouVersion and if you want kind of a free snippet to kind of see some of the content, they actually took some of the Northern Roads story and some of the they they worked with me to to help me put together a devotional. It’s a five day devotional plan on the YouVersion Bible App. You can just search Jeremy Norton ah A Five Day Journey of Life and Leadership. And yeah, and and ultimately the goal is I want people to come to know Jesus, I want them to get closer with the relationship with Jesus, and this can just give them ah a little it gives them a taste a – 5 day taste. Rich Birch — Right, love it. Jeremy Norton — Drawing closee to Jesus and kind of learning a bit more. So. Rich Birch — So good. We’ll put links to all that in the show notes. This is so fantastic. Well Jeremy, I I’ve loved get to know you a little bit better, and hear a little bit of your story. If people want to track with you outside of that website is there anywhere else we want to send them online to learn more about the church or you know, ah or yourself? Jeremy Norton — Ah, yeah, sure. Um, so mountainview.church mountainview.church. Right now our website is mountainviewwhitehorse.ca but over the pandemic we have we have grown, so depending on when you listen to this, it might still be mountainviewwhitehorse.ca but Thanksgiving/October sort of Canadian Thanksgiving in October we’re transitioning to mountainview.church Rich Birch — Love it. Jeremy Norton — …because we’re becoming less centralized to to Whitehorse. Over the pandemic more and more people are are listening. So yeah. Rich Birch — Love it. So good. Well I appreciate you being here. Thanks so much for being on the episode and I appreciate your ah work with this book, Northern Roads, and just want to encourage you cheer you on as you’re serving in the north. Thanks so much, Jeremy. Thanks for being here today. Jeremy Norton — Thanks for having me. It was super fun.

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking today with Pete Briscoe, who was the senior pastor at Bent Tree Bible Fellowship in Dallas for almost thirty years and preached through the Telling the Truth ministry, reaching an audience of more than 1.2 million people every week. Currently Pete is a coach for church and business leaders and is sharing with us today from his wealth of preaching experience about common mistakes preachers make and how to fix them. Teaching is a critical part of what we do. // Those thirty minutes or so we have each week allow us to speak into the hearts of our people whether we’re leading them, casting vision, encouraging them, challenging them, and so on. Preaching is one of the ways that God speaks to His people, and it’s the most important time of the week for the body of Christ.Create tension early. // One of the things that’s crucial to making a gripping sermon is creating tension early on in the message that is then released by the biblical text. It’s not easy to do creatively and can feel formulaic. Plus it requires a lot of energy and thought-process, such as reading first person research and studies rather than just typical third person articles.Practice your sermons out loud. // Pastors who have been preaching for a long time can be tempted to skip practicing their sermons out loud beforehand, but it’s a very useful discipline. It can help you see what in the message needs to be fixed before you speak in front of the congregation.Don’t break the spell. // You have to work at “casting the spell” in your messages, getting people to a place where they are so focused on what you are saying that they forget about everything else that’s happening and they just want to sit and listen. A lot of times we break the spell by reminding people that they’re listening to a sermon. Instead we want people to soak in the words and really think about the scriptures being shared.Don’t let things slip in. // It’s so much easier to cast the spell at the beginning of the message rather than in the middle of it, and there are many things which we try to sneak into our sermons that can break the spell. Announcements about events within the church, or slipping in cute stories about our family that don’t really fit the message are examples of things that can break the spell. Sometimes we even break the spell with the Gospel by shoe-horning it into the sermon in a formulaic way every week.Look to the Word for the application. // Most communicators are comfortable digging into the text as they preach, but helping people apply God’s word can be a challenge. People don’t want someone telling them what to do, and we can be tempted to talk about the same applications each week. Pete tells us to look to the text for the specific application, rather than creating a new one. Engage them on one point. // The goal of application is to drive home the point of your sermon for the next week. Point people to the application in the scripture and give them one thing to focus on. If you can engage your congregation to do something, with the express purpose of driving home the point of your message so it sticks, then the application has been successful.Training while on the job. // A lot of pastors approach Pete for 1-on-1 coaching, but he recognizes he can’t do that for everyone. So Pete’s put together an online course to make his learnings more accessible. The course, 9 Common Mistakes Preachers Make …and How to Fix Them, provides training to improve your preaching while you’re still fulfilling your other job responsibilities. Explore Pete Briscoe’s pastoral training course at petebriscoe.com. You can also learn more about what Pete is up to at petebriscoe.org. Thank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Portable Church Industries Doing Church in a Rented Facility can be a Challenge. Questions about Multisiting or Portability?Click here to connect with our Multisite Specialist for a free evaluation.

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re chatting with Janetta Oni, the Creative Director at The Summit Church in North Carolina. Compassion fatigue is far more common in ministry than we might like to admit. It can be easy to wear busyness like a badge of honor while burning out in the process. But there’s a way to lead from healthy boundaries for the benefit of both you and your team. Listen in as Janetta shares about getting help in the face of depression, setting boundaries around your work and family, and paying attention to your team’s mental health. Remember Who you’re working for. // Janetta fought through her own compassion fatigue when she didn’t set healthy boundaries and pushed herself too far in her work. As a church leader she now leads from boundaries and protects her team as well. Her job in stewarding creative people is to help them enjoy what they do and take it seriously for the gospel, but also to create margin and guard against the pressures that will come.Receive outside help for your mental health. // Staying busy in ministry makes us feel valued and important, but it easily leads to overwork, burnout, and eventually depression and anxiety can take over. Mental health is not a DIY project and it’s important to talk with someone else, such as a professional counselor, to work through our pain and struggles.Rest and create boundaries. // With the help of her counselor, Janetta realized that she had made an idol of her ministry work, and the importance she derived from her work. To take steps toward recovery, Janetta started to take God’s command for Sabbath seriously. Consistently rest on that seventh day and learn to say no. Then create boundaries around your work week. Identify the hours that you work, and then go home to your family and create boundaries around your time with them.Enjoy a family Sabbath. // Janetta’s family has a traditional Sabbath that begins at sundown on Friday with a meal at home. They enjoy food that they love, and then on Saturday they put their devices away and rest. More than just a day off to catch up on errands or chores, the 24-hour period is dedicated time to enjoy the Lord.Help others protect their boundaries. // In addition to setting boundaries in her personal life, Janetta leads her team from boundaries as well in order to protect them. Set boundaries with your team on what they can and can’t do and then give them creative space to work. In this way they aren’t being micromanaged, but there is still a fence to protect them. On the creative team, this looks like creating margin around events and paying attention to the capacity the team has in their work for different ministries.Ask yourself the big questions. // If you’re struggling with compassion fatigue, burnout, or depression in your ministry work, ask yourself if you’re living with toxic habits, or working in a toxic environment. One of those things you can control. If your work environment is toxic, ask yourself how much longer you can stay there before your health is poisoned and you have to go? Examine yourself if you’re behaving in toxic ways, and find a good counselor to help you find healing. You can find The Summit Church at summitchurch.com and reach Janetta on Instagram @JanettaOni. 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: Leadership Pathway If you are trying to find, develop and keep young leaders on your team look no further than Leadership Pathway. They have worked with hundreds of churches, and have interviewed thousands of candidates over the past several years. They are offering a new ebook about five of the core competencies that are at the heart of the leadership development process with every church that they partner with…just go to leadershippathway.org/unseminary to pick up this free resource. Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey, everybody – welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have tuned in. Super excited for today’s conversation with Janetta Oni. She is at Summit Church. If you don’t know Summit we’re going to get a chance to hear more about them. They’re one of the fastest growing churches in the country in North Carolina with nine locations, plus services in Spanish. It’s a fantastic church and Janetta serves as Summit’s Creative Director. So we’re really looking forward to learning from you today. Welcome to the show. Janetta Oni — Thanks! I’m excited to be here. Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s such an honor that you would take some time out to be with us. I know it’s always a busy time particularly in your seat… Janetta Oni — Yeah. Rich Birch — …so super honored that you would be here today. Why don’t you tell us kind of fill out the Summit story for folks that don’t know. Give us a little bit more detail there around the church. Janetta Oni — Absolutely so I’m actually um, three years into The Summit. I um I guess I’m not as new here as I thought I was, so 3 years in pretty deep. But Summit has just celebrated it’s 20th anniversary. this past year and it was is really cool to be a part of that, seeing it it’s been a part of it came out of a church kind of ah ah just a regular old Baptist church, and then they decided to relaunch, and focus a lot on sending, and missions. And they brought in a newly seminary grad called J.D. Greear to come in and kind of he had all the zeal and the the mission zeal, and he um God really used him and a group of core—we call it the the 300—to really um take Summit in a direction of sending as many people as possible out into the world planting church churches. Janetta Oni — In the three years I’ve been here I’ve been ah able to help with the communications department and now the creative arts department. So it’s is awesome to be a part of…I know it’s easy to say, oh God is doing something when you’re a part of something big like actually literally big. But honestly I I feel like the anointing on The Summit um … it’s not a perfect church, but that the Lord is doing something through the people who have, as we say, put their yes on the table. Rich Birch — Love it. Janetta Oni — And that’s just really cool to be a part of. Rich Birch — Love it. Yeah that you know God’s doing is writing, as an outsider looking in, God’s writing a really unique story through you and through your team at The Summit. It’s been amazing to watch. I love the church planting stuff. You know on the on the path to planting a thousand churches, which is pretty amazing, and… Janetta Oni — Yeah. Rich Birch — Um, and just incredible. Just just love it. What why don’t you tell us about your role? Janetta Oni — Yeah, we just hit the halfway mark on that, by the way. Rich Birch — Amazing! Isn’t that incredible? Like that’s amazing. Janetta Oni — Yeah, 502. Yeah. Rich Birch — That’s yeah, that’s incredible. That’s ah, it’s amazing. Janetta Oni — Yeah, it’s cool. Rich Birch — Why don’t you tell us about your role? So Creative Director – what does that look like? Give us the kind of scope of that. Janetta Oni — So um, I’ll back up like ah a year. Um I was ah I was the Communications Director, and I’ve been doing communications in the local church for about 10 years. I was serving at another church before I got to The Summit. And um communications for a church like this is ah a big undertaking. Um and communications is anything that people see, read… um content they consume from the church, about the church, for the church. And what I was noticing is that um in the day-to-day processes of just getting out all the communications, talking about events, the Creative Arts element was kind of on the to-do list, and not something that kind of took precedent. Um, and and if you think about it in the church world, Creative Arts for some reason seems frivolous. It seems like, oh well if we have time to do something like that we will. Rich Birch — Right. Janetta Oni — But I just don’t see that in the bible. I see creation and cultivation from the very onset. I mean God created something we see that in um, Exodus when ah God is giving the instructions for how to, okay people are going to meet with me – I’m gonna get some priest, but before we even get them in their role, I need some people who can make stuff in order to make that happen. Rich Birch — Hmm, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Janetta Oni — And so I just had a passion for creative arts. So I um, me and a couple people I kind of ah just asked my my supervisor, I was like you know what? Let’s just move creative arts to its own thing. We’re still a part of the whole system, but let it be its own thing so we can just focus on that. I love the arts; I love leading creative people. Um and creating um the margin for them to think creatively. And even just see how we can draw out some of that in the church. How do I not just be a creative arts director of a group of paid staff, but of our whole church. We got some really creative people in the church. So it’s been a cool 1-1/2 year journey so far creative arts. Rich Birch — That’s amazing. That’s so cool. Janetta Oni — Yeah. Rich Birch — Yeah I love hearing that. I love I love how you created some space for this too. I love that story of like kind of there’s a ah leading up lesson there I think for folks that are listening in. Hey you saw an area and said hey, here’s something we need to do to kind of expand and push forward and I love obviously the fact that your leadership was like willing to say. Yeah, let’s let’s do that. Let’s make that happen. Rich Birch — Now there’s a lot when I think about, man, The Summit – this is a big organization. A lot going on, a lot happening. I’d love to kind of get inside a little bit the personal side of kind of leading in that. What does that look like for you? I’d imagine there’s a lot of pressure in that. Talk to us about what that looks like for you. Janetta Oni — Yeah, so first I’ll say, I am ah grateful for The Summit. I actually ah came into I I said I came in three years ago, and thus far The Summit has been a safe space um to thrive, even though it’s a big machine. The the leaders here are um, our even in our little department, one of our goals for the year is to care about people over product. Um, and that’s been really good. Um I think there’s a lot of potential for a lot of pressure. Janetta Oni — But um, me, I have hit rock bottom before in ah church work. I have um I remember I was making a website for the church I was serving at, and I just hit rock bottom. And um I think I I was I was burning out. I had compassion fatigue. I was diagnosed with compassion fatigue. I was just trying to do everything, because we work for Jesus, right? We’re supposed to, you know… Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Janetta Oni — …when we we say we work for the church. So that means we got to sprint into the finish line and soon as God says, well done good and faithful servant, that’s when we can catch our breath. And… Rich Birch — Right. Janetta Oni — …and so coming into The Summit, having hit that rock bottom, went up um through some ah mental health. I got in counseling. I learned how to create boundaries and so now leading—and we can get into that a little bit more but—now leading, I lead from boundaries. I protect people. Rich Birch — Right, right. Janetta Oni — Um I think that’s one of my main jobs as a leader is to help protect their margin. Rich Birch — Yeah. Janetta Oni — Um they’re better employees when they’re not ah burning the candle at both ends. And so I think my my job in stewarding creative people is to help them enjoy what they do, help them take it seriously for the gospel, but also to to guard against that pressure that can come. Like people are watching, or people won’t like it, or um that pressure is there but to just say take a breath. Rich Birch — Yes. Janetta Oni — Um and realize who you’re working for. So yeah, the last three years has been up and to the right for me… Rich Birch — Right. Love it. Janetta Oni — …it has been mentally. It’s been, and I’m really thankful for that. Rich Birch — Yeah I’d I’d love to pull that apart a bit a little bit and hear a bit more. When you say compassion fatigue, I’m sure there’s people that are listening in that are like… Janetta Oni — Yes. Rich Birch — …oh I think I have experienced some of that! Janetta Oni — Right. Rich Birch — Talk to us about what that looked like, and how did you, you know, how did that work itself out in your life? What did that look like for you when you were in the midst of that? Janetta Oni — Absolutely. So I ah, like a lot of people who work in ministries and work for a local church, there’s this um I guess this unspoken rule that you have to be available 24/7. Rich Birch — Right. Janetta Oni — You are here to ah shepherd the flock and you never know what the sheep are going to need, so you just give everyone your phone number, you say call me at any moment. If there’s a fire, I’m the fireman, if there’s… and and the more we do that, the busier we are, the more important we are, right? Janetta Oni — And so I definitely um, early on in ministry adopted that position, like um I was kind of addicted to the oh “I’m so busy today”. Because the more I was saying I was so busy that and maybe the more important I felt. And that’s kind of outside. No, that’s kind of um, something that we who work in ministry, for some reason need to feel important, especially if you’re on the fringes of when when your Grandma’s like, well my daughter she um, does… I don’t really know what she does. Rich Birch — Right. Janetta Oni — She works at a church all day. Rich Birch — Sure. Janetta Oni — So you you you lean on anything to make you sound important. So for me, it was, I’m slammed. I’m busy. Rich Birch — That’s so true. Janetta Oni — And one day I just was too busy. Rich Birch — Right. Janetta Oni — And um I remember just going into the children’s wing of a church, of our church. Left my office because I didn’t want to be found. And just hiding in like the middle school um room… Rich Birch — Right, right. Janetta Oni — …so that no one would find me. I didn’t even want to go home. I just didn’t want to be found. And after a few days of just really hitting that ah that rock bottom, that depression and anxiety – that’s when it started to manifest. And I remember telling my husband, close the doors. Close the blinds. Lock the doors. No one… Rich Birch — Oh wow. Janetta Oni — Like I just didn’t want to hear anyone else’s problems… Rich Birch — Right. Janetta Oni — …at that at that time. Rich Birch — Wow. Janetta Oni — I just felt so like I was drowning in everyone else’s problems, and then I started to sense my own. And it just my counselor um diagnosed me with um compassion fatigue. She was just like you’ve had enough. And I just didn’t care about anyone else’s problems. I didn’t want to hear it anymore. Rich Birch — Wow. Yeah. Wow, that’s that’s powerful. So let’s talk about you know your counselor. How did you find that person? What did that look like? Tell us kind of what did that… how did you go from being in the middle school room to ah, to then you know, starting to take steps in the right direction… Janetta Oni — Right. Rich Birch — …talking with someone, processing it – what that look like? Janetta Oni — That was I think this is an important ah part of especially the Christian walk. I remember sitting literally sitting on the on the kitchen floor. Um, and just talking to my husband and in with the depression, just saying things I’d never said before. Like um, just saying things like maybe life would just be better if I wasn’t in it, you know, and that was like a trigger. Rich Birch — Oh wow. Janetta Oni — Um and I also remembered um, not wanting to talk to a pastor for some… And I think what that was, I’m not saying that was right, but I think what it was is I didn’t want people to think I wasn’t a good Christian at the time. Rich Birch — Right, okay. Janetta Oni — Like oh well, what’s your sin? I didn’t I didn’t want Job’s friends to come… Rich Birch — Right. Janetta Oni — …and be like, well what did you do? What did you do to get here? Rich Birch — Right. Janetta Oni — I was in the word. I was doing my quiet time. I was going to… I was doing everything right, and yet here I was having this mental breakdown. And so I didn’t I just I think I feared someone coming into the house and telling me to have more faith, and telling me well if you just lean on Jesus and confess whatever sin you’ve done, things will start to write themselves. And that may or may not have happened but I just remembered being very defensive against it. So I told my husband, I will only talk to a counselor, because I know that something’s going on in my head and my heart. and I know that it is not um, God punishing me. I know that. And and there are consequences for our sin. But I knew that this was a mental thing. Um and now that had to be the grace of God. So I knew of this counselor. Um, and I’ve somehow got her and somehow my husband got her number, and… Rich Birch — Right. Janetta Oni — He called her and said, she’ll only talk to you. And by the grace of God she met me… Rich Birch — Wow. Janetta Oni — …that day and said let’s talk. Rich Birch — Right. Wow. Janetta Oni — And um, that was the journey that was the beginning of a journey to just really sort some things out. Mental health is not a DIY project. And I love DIY pro… I love doing it myself. I cannot do mental health by myself. Rich Birch — Right. Janetta Oni — And really no one can. Rich Birch — Right, right. Absolutely. Yeah, I love that. You know you talk about boundaries, and this is ah such a critical piece of this story. Help me understand your own journey to that. What did that um, you know how did you start to identify, okay here are the the boundaries I need to set up in my life that are healthier for me for me to serve to serve well – all that. Janetta Oni — Um I think it started spiritually. My my counselor, she was a professional counselor, but she was also a believer, strong believer. Um, so she sometimes when you get higher in um, in authority and influence in a church or a ministry, people stop telling you things, like hey you are in sin. Um, that’s just kind of people just look up to you and see, but she she made me realize the idol that I had made my Christian work. Um and the idol that I had made my importance in that Christian work. Rich Birch — Mmm-hmm. Janetta Oni — Um well if I don’t do it, um, what’s going to happen? People are… she literally asked me one day, she was like, are people going to lose their salvation if you take a day off? And I was like well no, but you know so she held… Rich Birch — Is yes. Janetta Oni — I think that was the beginning. It’s just putting myself in a proper place. You know, not thinking of myself more highly than I ought to, as scripture says. Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, yeah. Janetta Oni — Um and even in a way that that’s good for me. Rich Birch — Right, right. Janetta Oni — It’s not just good for the church, it’s good for me. And then from that taking God’s Sabbath seriously. Taking um I shall work six days um, as unto the Lord, and then I shall rest. Um I think Christian leaders are infamous for breaking the sabbath and thinking God is proud of them for doing it. Rich Birch — Right, right. Janetta Oni — And I was that that was definitely me. Rich Birch — Right. Janetta Oni — So that that was the beginning. Um taking 24 hours together, a group of 24 hours, not staggered on a couple days… Rich Birch — Yes. Janetta Oni — …but just saying no. That taught me to say no. Rich Birch — Right. Janetta Oni — It and it started with just one day. And then um, then that led into boundaries of the work work week. I work 9 to 5, and then I go home to my family. Rich Birch — Right. Janetta Oni — And 9 to 5 is is enough to get done what God has called me to do. And to believe that. And to have faith in the time that God has given me to work, and to have faith when he says that’s enough. And so yeah. Rich Birch — Yeah I I love that let’s let’s talk about the sabbath a little bit more. I think this is you’re you’re so right. It’s one of those practices that unfortunately so many of us don’t actually practice… Janetta Oni — Yeah. Rich Birch — …that we, you know, we find a way to kind of squeeze things in. Um and and listen, friends that are listening in, listen The Summit’s a high capacity church. There’s a lot going on. This is a you know fast-growing church, large, all of that… Janetta Oni — Yes. Rich Birch — …and the fact that you’re choosing in such a key leadership role to do that. Maybe talk about what some of the pressures are of taking sabbath… Janetta Oni — Yeah. Rich Birch — …help help us understand, you know, what how have you had to kind of structure your life so that that could be a part of you know, kind of your regular rhythm? Janetta Oni — Yeah, so first of all I want to say to the ministers out there, I get it. It it feels different to talk about a sabbath when you work on Sunday. You know, ah my husband is a pastor, and so our work weeks look different. We both work for The Summit. I work Monday through Friday. He works kind of Monday through Thursday, a little bit on… so you know it just kind of gets. Um, so there’s there’s the idea of what happens when there’s an emergency? Rich Birch — Right. Janetta Oni — Um, what happens when I am working at the place where I’m worshipping? And so all of those are factors but um, and there’s just we have three kids who love their devices, and feel like they can’t you know function without them, and so when we say here’s a day off from your devices. They think this is the good Christian life? This sounds this doesn’t sound really like Jesus to me. Um. Rich Birch — That’s funny. Janetta Oni — But the thing that we decided to do is we um, kind of have a traditional sabbath, so we ah sabbath at sundown on Friday. Rich Birch — Nice. Janetta Oni — And we have a meal um like a meal at home, and um, we try to make it everyone’s favorite thing. Like so what do you want? Um, what do you want to eat? What are you looking forward to? So it’s just an incentive, but to look forward to something. Then Saturday ah we we don’t we try not to buy things. We try and not we’re definitely put our phones away. That’s the hardest thing. It’s not just to be off from work. It’s not a day off. It’s not just a day off, so let me get that yard work done. It’s a day um to set aside and enjoy the Lord. A day John Mark Comer has been very helpful in this. I don’t know if you guys guys have read his book – Ruthless Elimination of Hurry is one of my favorite books and has been very formative um in this. But starting with the sabbath, choosing a 24 hour period that your whole family can sabbath together. Um, and then giving yourself grace, you know. Learn to um, ah recognize in it in emergency. Sometimes there aren’t emergencies. Not everything can be an emergency. Rich Birch — Right. Janetta Oni — If it’s an emergency, I I jokingly say if it’s an emergency call 911, first of all. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Janetta Oni — And if it’s the kind of emergency that only I can help, I know you’ll find me. Rich Birch — Yeah. Janetta Oni — And that’s actually been pretty rare… Rich Birch — Right. Janetta Oni — …and even for my husband who’s a pastor that’s that’s kind of rare it’s it’s more rare than we um, have made allowance for, so have faith that um God wants us to have a sabbath. Have faith that it’s his idea, and then just give it a try. Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. And yeah, that’s a great that’s a great encouragement. You know if there’s ah if there’s an emergency every time you’re sabbathing, then there’s a problem with the way you have the rest of your life structured. Janetta Oni — Right. Exactly. Rich Birch — You know there’s some other issue we’ve got to address there. Janetta Oni — Yes. Rich Birch — Now you you commented or talked about leading, particularly creative folks. I’d love to lean in on this from this perspective, from that perspective. So I think we all struggle with this regardless of our kind of what we do in in ministry. But I think particularly folks who are creative um, and they so they are constantly kind of there’s a self-expression portion of what they do that it can be very difficult to turn it off. Janetta Oni — Yes. Rich Birch — It can be very difficult to say, oh I’m going to rest. Help me understand now from a management point of view, how are you leading other people to create healthy boundaries? How are you helping them to to not end up in a place where they’re… Janetta Oni — Yeah. Rich Birch — …you know, hiding in the middle school wing? Janetta Oni — Right. Rich Birch — How how are you doing that? Janetta Oni — Um it it is um, it’s a tough thing. I think working at a church is hard work. I don’t um I don’t ever want to gloss over that. It’s hard it’s hard, rewarding work and there are certain pressures. And pressures aren’t always a bad thing. You know, there’s there’s deadlines and putting a creative process and a deadline together can be very… it seems counterintuitive. Um, so for me I think what’s important is to to have a a lot of white space – a lot of margin around the piece of paper. Um and to give give them set times and say, at this time I want you to do something that gives your brain a rest. Whether that’s reading, I make our team takes more walks around our building than any other team. Like… Rich Birch — That’s great. Janetta Oni — Like go walk around the building. Um it’s it’s it’s something that’s very important because your brain is always it’s it’s a different kind of work. Like there’s the kind of work where you’re doing physical activity and you’re producing something, you’re sitting and and you hold it up and say this is what I’ve done. I think we don’t account for things like decision fatigue. The kind of work where you’re trying to decide what’s right? What’s wrong? Do this, don’t do that. Um, those are the things that are that make us more prone to stress. Rich Birch — Right. Janetta Oni — And so my job as a leader this is—um, anyone on my team will tell you—what I do is I say here’s the fence. This is where you don’t go. This is the yard; here’s the fence. My job is to make the fence. Don’t go outside the fence. Now in the yard you can do whatever you want. I’ve set the boundaries of what not to do. And and I actually came up with this when I was with my kids and I’m like if I just have this area where I know my kids can’t wander off to, they can have at it. They can have as much fun as they want to. Rich Birch — So true. Janetta Oni — And they’re not being micromanaged. I’m not burning out from micromanaging them, and they have creative space without feeling like they’ll float out float off into outer space. You know like when everything is a um, available, then nothing’s available, you know? And so I think good leadership, I try to be a good leader I don’t. I try um, but I think giving people boundaries… Rich Birch — Yeah. Janetta Oni — …as to what they can and can’t do helps protect their boundaries too. If you say, this is… Rich Birch — Right. Janetta Oni — …this is what I want you to do, but I want you to do it the way you were designed to do it, is the safest thing for a lot of people. Give them give them a yard to play in, and give them a fence to feel safe. Rich Birch — Yeah, what would be some of those those boundaries, because again I think particularly within the creative world, Sunday is always coming… Janetta Oni — Amen. Rich Birch — …or the weekend is always coming, right? Like there is a relentless and it seems like we go from Christmas to Mother’s Day… Janetta Oni — Yeah. Rich Birch — …to something in the summertime, to the fall launch to, Christmas to mother… Janetta Oni — Yes. Rich Birch — …like it’s like it just keeps going. It just is now it’s never ending. So yeah, what are some of those practically? What are some of those boundaries look like? Janetta Oni — Um, so one of some of the boundaries is saying no. Um that that um I know there are a lot of ministries out there who feel like the gatekeepers, and the bad guys, because everyone has great ideas great ideas… Rich Birch — Sure. Janetta Oni — …and they really are great ideas, but we can’t do all of them. Rich Birch — Right. Janetta Oni — And so one of the boundaries is saying, hey this is what we’re working on Easter, you know what we’re working on in Easter? Easter. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Janetta Oni — Um, we have done the the creative work for the sermon series that we’re doing, and we we have to limit the capacity of what we’re called to do. Um and sometimes that’s staff staff to staff. So just having a good relationship with other staff to realize we’re not doing this to be mean… Rich Birch — Right. Janetta Oni — …we’re just doing this because there’s 10 people on this team that and they can’t do everything. And so learning to say no to projects. Or saying wait to projects. Let’s wait and do this. We don’t have… we do have to do Easter on Easter Sunday. Rich Birch — Yes. Janetta Oni — We can do that maybe in the summer? Um… Rich Birch — Right, right, right, right. Yes. Janetta Oni — So so just having boundaries with your calendar, with our calendar, saying these are the events. This is what it’s going to take. Working together, um, having people from other departments in our church come in and say, hey you’re creative too. I know you don’t get paid for this, and you don’t have that much to do for this, so hey you want to help with this project a little bit? That helps have fun with it to actually do something new. Janetta Oni — And um I think the most important thing is just to plan. Rich Birch — Right. Janetta Oni — Ah the plan out if like like we said before, if everything’s on fire, then eventually we’re gonna be on fire. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Janetta Oni — So let some let’s take some… We’ve been working since I got here and I think we’re finally there to ah, bump everything back, like to the point where we’re gonna start talking about Christmas this month… Rich Birch — Yeah, good. Great. Yeah. Janetta Oni — …you know, instead of oh wait! It’s November what’s that thing we always do December? Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes, yes. Janetta Oni — Oh yeah, Jesus was born – we should probably um, but just ah remember the things that are coming up and talking about them in advance. And I think we finally – it’s possible guys, I know… Rich Birch — Yes. Janetta Oni — …working at a church is like, now we’ve been trying to get things backed up like four weeks out, three months out forever. You can do it. You can do it. Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, particularly for some of those big days. I think on the creative side, there’s some of that that we know, like you say at Christmas, Easter. Every church has 4 or 5 of those days a year that you know are are big deals… Janetta Oni — Yes. Rich Birch — …and you know you can kind of keep them on the on the burner so they don’t surprise us right, and we can get ahead and be amazed, right? Janetta Oni — Right. Rich Birch — The things we can work on ahead of time. Yeah, that’s great. What would you say to someone who’s listening in, you know, there’s someone who’s listening in who has had the experience that you had of hiding in the middle school room, might have been something different. Janetta Oni — Right. Rich Birch — What would you say to them… but they’re still there. They’re still like um they don’t want to talk to anybody. They they heard “compassion fatigue” today and they’re like, I think that might be me. What would be some of those first steps you would you would encourage them to take? Janetta Oni — So I think ah the first thing is to determine um, is it am I living ah with toxic habits, or am I in toxic environment? Um one of those things you can control. Um I am I am a person who loves the local church, and I say if you are in a place where, you know, your your church is maybe in the awkward teenage phase of and it’s just trying to figure itself out, and trying to grow into its body, have some patience, and you know stick with it. If you’re in a toxic environment, I think with a literal toxic environment, if there are actual chemical toxins in the air, you have to ask yourself how much longer can I stay in this environment before my health is poisoned, and I am not okay? So that’s between you and the sermon of those wiser people around you and God whether it’s time to stay or go. Janetta Oni — Now, the second part is to say am I just behaving in toxic ways? Is is this kind of self-inflicted? It could be both, but to look in and say, what am I doing… Rich Birch — Right. Janetta Oni — …to contribute to this? Like do I need help? And have I been trying to DIY this for a long time? Do I need some objective help? I would say probably the answer is yes. Get it get the counselor get somebody get ah a good counselor. There are bad counselors out there; get a good counselor. Um, preferably a Christian counselor someone, or a counselor who is a Christian um, if they’re a professional counselor. And get some objective like, here here’s my story, what do you think is going on here? Rich Birch — Right. Um, and I think those are the first two steps. What’s going on? Is is the environment toxic? Am I behaving toxic? Is it a little bit of both? And who can help me sort this out? Rich Birch — Yeah. Janetta Oni — I think that’s our very first steps with it. Rich Birch — Love it. Janetta, this has been fantastic. So helpful. Anything else you’d like to share just as we wrap up today’s episode? Janetta Oni — Um I think I just want to just remind everyone who works at a church, your work is so important. Um, and you are the church too. Um I think when we start to become leaders in the church, we forget that we’re also the flock. And and it is a great thing to lay down your life for those you love. Just make sure it’s the way Jesus would want you to and not the way um, unhealthy habits is. Don’t sacrifice your health just due to bad habits. Do it. Don’t sacrifice your health at all. But if you if you’re picking up your cross and bearing it and laying down your life for others, make sure it’s Jesus ordained, and not due to just unhealthy habits. Really, really parse that out. Rich Birch — Love it. So helpful. I think this’s been such an encouraging conversation today. I know that’s our hope, that’s our prayer. Janetta Oni — Yeah. Rich Birch — I know that’s your hope as well. Thank you so much. If people want to track with you or with the church where do we want to send them online to just kind of connect with you know… Janetta Oni — Yeah Rich Birch — …what’s going on the church and all that? Janetta Oni — You can follow The Summit, um mostly on Instagram. That’s where you’ll see most of us is Summit RDU um, that’s where ah, um, we are on all the channels. Um I’m Janetta Oni everywhere – Janetta Oni on ah if you follow me on Instagram you’re just gonna see a lot of funny memes because I like to go to social media and giggle. Rich Birch — I love it. Janetta Oni — Because so much of my work is in in in social media and it can be a dark place. So I’m just gonna go there and giggle. Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, I love it. Janetta Oni — Um, so yeah, you can follow us. You see some of our creative work there. Rich Birch — Great thanks so much, Janetta. I appreciate you being here. Thanks for helping out today. Janetta Oni — Absolutely. I’m just… thanks for letting me be here, Rich.

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re chatting with David Raney, the Executive Pastor of Ministry from 2ND Baptist Church in Arkansas. 2ND Baptist is one of the fastest growing churches in the country, and as a growing church they want to make sure people get plugged in so they don’t fade away. Listen in as David shares how to build a system for healthy small groups that’s always reproducing new leaders. Building the small groups system. // A big challenge churches have is how to shift people from casually attending to being fully involved. At 2ND Baptist Church they found that the best way to do that is through small groups. But that meant reworking their system as the church grew and launched a portable campus. Ongoing open groups. // 2ND has both an on-campus model of small groups for their permanent location, and a home group model for their portable location, however the philosophy for groups is the same. The groups are open and ongoing, meaning that they don’t have an end date and anyone can join at any time. All groups—whether they are for teens, parents, or seniors—are sermon-based and work through same content each week, which creates synergy across the whole church.Give leaders resources they need. // The system 2ND has in place focuses first on building group leaders so that groups can then grow and multiply. There is a small group leader handbook that gives clear direction about what the church is expecting and not expecting of leaders, plus has examples of what healthy small group life looks like. There is a heavy emphasis on making sure group leaders are trained and have the resources they need. Leaders are also encouraged to find others in their groups who could be future leaders, and train them to go out and start new groups.Three circles of healthy small groups. // 2ND’s goal is to have a well rounded small group life that creates avenues for people to take next steps with Jesus. They created a Venn diagram to demonstrate how that looks. In the first circle is weekly bible study, in the second circle is monthly hangouts, and in the third circle is quarterly help-outs. Hangouts are all about spending time with each other to deepen friendships, and doing things such as going out to eat together after church. Help-outs are an intentional way for the group to live on mission while having fun, and focus on the group serving together in the community.Replicate God’s work in the group. // People can be hesitant about starting a new group when they already have a group they enjoy. But David explains to his leaders that it isn’t about trying to split up a group, it’s about replicating what God is doing in their groups and growing new groups from them. New small group leaders are required to come out of an existing small group so that they understand the culture and DNA of what 2ND is trying to do.Home groups and campus groups. // Both home groups and on-campus groups have their pros and cons. Home groups tend to be more relational while on-campus groups can be more convenient for people to attend and have built in child care. Regardless of how groups are handled, consistently launching new groups and constantly communicating about them to the congregation will help grow small group life at your church. You can learn more about 2ND Baptist Church at www.mysecond.family. 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: Chemistry Staffing One of the things that they never teach you in seminary is when to move on from your current church. Over the last couple of years, we have been having a TON of conversations about this with pastors all over the United States. Of all the ministry decisions you make, leaving your position will be the toughest. Download this two-in-one resource that walks you through the decision-making process.

Thanks for joining us for the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Jeff Henderson, founder of The FOR Company, which helps organizations build a good name where purpose and profit grow together. Many people are more familiar with what the Church is against rather than what the Church is for. What does your church WANT to be known for? What would the people you are trying to serve say you ARE known for? Listen in as Jeff shares how to shrink the gap between these two questions. What’s uniquely different? // Jeff built the framework of The FOR Company around two questions: What do you want to be known for? And what are you known for? When the answers match, you create vision carriers for your organization. Your people will invite others to try your church because of the vision and integrity that has been built.Close the gap with clarity and research. // Most organizations have a gap between what they are known for and what they want to be known for, so Jeff and his team help non-profits and businesses close that gap. Once you clarify what you want to be known for, then do research on what you are known for. Once you have that research in hand, you’ve got to get to work on closing the gap. If there’s confusion in the office space, there will be confusion in the marketplace.Begin at the top. // What is the problem that your team has been gathered together to solve? Every organization needs to be solving a problem. When Jeff works with an organization, he has the leadership team write down what they think their organization wants to be known for. More often than not, the answers are very different from each other. That’s when you know the work of clarification has to be begin at the top.Get into the community. // How do you figure out what people in your community think about your church? Ask guests for feedback when they attend your church. To keep from isolating yourselves from the people you’re serving, have staff and leadership meet in the community as often as you meet in your church offices. Use your social media accounts not just to promote your church, but also highlight businesses in the community and add value to them. Introduce yourselves to business leaders and create personal interactions in the community. Have the courage to listen to feedback and don’t take it personally if you discover your church has work to do.Apply these questions personally. // The pandemic has forced people to look closely at their lives and ask hard questions. Many people realized they didn’t like their jobs, but figuring out what to do next can be a paralyzing situation. Asking what you want to be known for can be a way to clarify your next step. You don’t have to figure out your whole life, just figure out what’s next and keep moving forward.What to do next. // If you’re looking for help on taking your next best step in your career or circumstances, pick up Jeff’s book “What to Do Next: Taking Your Best Step When Life is Uncertain”. This book outlines the process Jeff used to determine the next best step for him and how you can pursue more meaning and purpose in your life and work as well.  Learn more about Jeff’s book and other resources, including the free career risk assessment at jeffhenderson.com. Thank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I’m grateful for that. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they’re extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: CDF Capital Since 1953, CDF Capital has helped Christians and churches embrace their part in this story by providing the 3 kinds of capital every congregation needs for growth—Financial Capital, Leadership Capital, and Spiritual Capital. At CDF Capital, we care about each of these components. When a church is properly resourced financially, spiritually, and in leadership, lives are transformed. Sign-up to learn more about CDF Capital and how we can help your church grow. Receive a 50% discount on a monthly subscription to the CDF Capital Subscribe & Save Bundle. Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey, friends welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Super excited for today. You know we every week try to bring you a leader who will both inspire and equip you, and that’s our goal every week, but this week I know that’s going to happen. We’ve got my friend Jeff Henderson – he’s an entrepreneur, speaker, pastor, business leader, really incredible leader. For 17 years he led 3 of North Point Ministry’s campuses in the in the greater Hotlanta or region. I’m sure it’s hotlanta this time of year! And he’s also has been really helping churches, organization, businesses wrestle with this whole idea of what do they want to be known for, and how do we action that. He leads and and that all has taken the kind of current kind of framework of an organization called The For Company. He really helps organizations really build a good name where where purpose and profit grow together. Jeff, welcome to the show. So glad that you’re here today. Jeff Henderson — Rich, it’s great to see you again, buddy. Thanks for having me on and big fan of yours and just appreciate, you know, we’ve known each other for a number of years now so excited to see what the Lord continues to do through you. Rich Birch — Yeah, Jeff’s one of those guys that I consistently find myself quoting things that he said twenty years ago. And I’m not just saying that because you’re on the phone I or on the call. I literally there are times where I was in a call, conversation this week talking about, of all things, multisite. And it was like the classic campus versus you know, central discussion. And literally twenty years ago you had a car I was standing with you at the at the I like to call it the grocery store location of Buckhead. And you said something that I just keep resonating and I keep repeating, and I said well my friend Jeff Henderson said this twenty years ago so it’s still true, or maybe not quite you twenty years ago, a long time ago. So I’m glad you’re here. But talk to fill out the picture, tell us a bit more like kind of for people that don’t know you tell us a little bit more about who is Jeff and anything I missed there. Jeff Henderson — No, that was great. Well, you know, I’m a preacher’s kid so I promise myself I would never ever work at a church. So yeah… Rich Birch — And that didn’t work out. Jeff Henderson — I I promised God, God I’ll never work at a church. Rich Birch — Nice. Jeff Henderson — So if if we don’t get anything out of what I say today, never tell God you’re never going to do something. So I really I you know I was a marketing guy, business guy. You know, I love sports and I didn’t know that you could do sports marketing so I started working for the Atlanta Braves baseball team here in Atlanta. And then worked for another another few other organizations, then landed at Chick-fil-a and managed their sponsorships, sports marketing, regional marketing, beverage marketing, and never thought I would ever ever leave. But we were involved very heavily involved at North Point, and long story short, God just called us to leave that and to help start the church you mentioned ah Buckhead Church. In the early early days we just kind of jumped on board and eventually became lead pastor and was there for 8 years. Jeff Henderson — And then was asked to leave that to go start two other North Point campuses in a northern suburb of Atlanta called Gwinnett. My wife Wendy and I are from Gwinnett County. My dad pastored church in Gwinnett. So to be able to do that was just so much fun. So we did that for was at North Point for 17 years. Jeff Henderson — But when we were there at Gwinnett, we began to ask a lot of the questions that I was taught and trained in from a marketing background, which is what do you want to be known for? And we in the early early days of of Gwinnett Church we, you know, discovered a kind of stumbled on this reality that for many people they’re more familiar with what the church is against rather than what the church is for. Jeff Henderson — And that was both both broke our hearts and also excited us to go, you know, in our community let’s try to change that. And so that’s when we launched For Gwinnett and and it really began to take off. And and then about 2 to 3 years into that, Rich, I came into the office one day and I got a coffee mug from ah, a church somewhere in Winnipeg that said For Winnipeg and you know and as a thank you note and I thought, oh my goodness people are paying attention to this. And so um, it just began to kind of spread like wildfire around really around the world. And then businesses started to do it. And then when we became empty nesters in the spring of 2020, Wendy and I felt like this was a season that we could now be released from day-to-day church work and to really go help other churches and businesses really clarify what they want to be known for. And the two questions kind of that we built the whole framework around. And so that’s what I’ve been doing for the last twenty-some odd months. And so, you know I have I think I do this, Rich, I think every 6 to 7 years I go do something new. Rich Birch — Right, right. Jeff Henderson — So um I don’t recommend that but that’s kind of my track there. Rich Birch — That’s what’s happened. Yeah, exactly. Yeah I love it. You work for a hashtag. That’s what I love. Jeff Henderson — That’s right. Rich Birch — It it’s like you work for the for, you know, city in the world hashtag, which is incredible. And it is amazing. It’s actually been fun to see as that has spread. So many churches have embraced this idea of, hey we want to be known for something, which I just think is great. What a cool thing that you’re stewarding. Now you talk about these two questions that you built the whole framework around. What are those two questions that when when we’re thinking about this idea of being for. Jeff Henderson — Absolutely. Well, question number one is, what do you want to be known for? What is your what is your vision? And it doesn’t have to be you know For Gwinnett like ours was. It could be whatever it is. But what is you know Steve Jobs would say, what is your dent in the universe? What Andy Stanley would say, what do you bring uniquely different to the marketplace? Rich Birch — Yeah. Jeff Henderson — That’s your vision. So that’s question number one. Question number two is not yours, but it’s your that your customers or the people that you’re trying to serve. It’s their question to answer. And question number two is, what are you known for? What are you known for? So question number one is, what do you want to be known for? Question number two is, what are you known for? Jeff Henderson — Here’s the power of those two questions, Rich. When the answers to those two questions match, when they’re the same, when what you want to be known for is actually what you’re known for, you create vision-carriers for your organization. They carry your vision to their friends and they say, you should you’ve got to try out this church, or you got to come to this restaurant. or you got to work at this company. And they become your vision-carriers. And the reason that’s true, let’s just talk about business—this is true for churches, but we’ll just put it from business language. A business is no longer what it tells customers it is. A business is what customers tell other customers it is. That’s the ball game. Jeff Henderson — And um, you know my experience in launching, not just in business world but launching three churches in Atlanta, if you were to say, Jeff, we’ll give you you know $50,000 to launch the coolest website and social media campaign, which would be cool. Or I’ll give you 100 people that will tell people and invite people to your church, and what you’re doing. You can’t have both. You can only have one. I’ll take those 100 people every single time. Now that’s not to say we shouldn’t do websites and social media and all that – we should. But um, we all know this, this is true for church or businesses, the most powerful form of advertising if you will is positive word of mouth advertising. Jeff Henderson — And I know in church world we don’t like the words advertising and marketing and and and I get all that. But from my perspective it’s just simply people that can communicate your vision and can tell people about it. Because the language of organizations are so under… the value of that is so underestimated because when you ask people, hey what do you want? What do you think this organization wants to be known for? When there are glazed looks, when they go have to go to the filing cabinet or their computer to pull it up on something that we came ah you know came up with ah eight seven years ago, then suddenly your vision’s not portable. And if it’s not portable portable. it’s not memorable. And if it’s not memorable, i’s not personable. And so that’s why these these two questions have been really really helpful for in for organizations. And it’s really really simple. People go that’s really really simple. Absolutely. But don’t equate simple with easy. It’s actually hard. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Jeff Henderson — Because in any organization—I don’t care how great it is—there is a gap between what they want to be known for and what they are known for. And so what we try to do is to teach them how to close the gap. Once you have clarity on what you want to be known for, and then once you have some research, or data or some understanding of what you are known for, you got to get to work closing the gap. But the great thing about that is when you have that clarity in an organization, um, the organization understands it and we’re all moving on purpose. Rich Birch — Love it. Jeff Henderson — But if there’s confusion if there’s confusion about this in at the office. Um, if there’s confusion in the office space, there will be confusion in the marketplace about what you want to be known for. So… Rich Birch — Love it. Jeff Henderson — …so that’s what we’ve been teaching churches and organizations. And this is something that I didn’t come up with like three weeks ago, Rich. This is something like like a mentor of mind said, you know, I was telling, man I’ve been so fortunate you know Chick-Fil-A is a multi-billion dollar company. They’ve had same store sales increases for you know decades now. Rich Birch — Yeah. Jeff Henderson — I worked at North Point – one of the largest churches in America. How that’s such a big blessing. And he goes well, it’s a blessing but it’s also a stewardship, you know, responsibility.. Rich Birch — Oh that’s good point. Jeff Henderson — But did you learn, that catalyzed that growth because you were on the front line of both of those. Tell us what you learned. And I thought and that’s that’s one of the reasons I wrote the book. I’m like oh that’s a great point. and so it really kind of came down to both of those organizations were really clear about what they wanted to be known for. They had measurement systems and practices about, you know, where the gaps were, and they went to work. Rich Birch — Love it. Let’s talk about that first question around being uniquely different, particularly in a church context. I think that’s an an interesting idea that maybe some of us can struggle with, right? It’s like how do we define what is uniquely different about us. What what kind of processes do churches need to go through? What does that look like to actually try to begin to to flesh that out? So many church mission statements are the same. It’s like we want to reach and teach people for Jesus. We want to ah you know, win and build the lost, or whatever. Like we come up with the same stuff. But but talk to us about this uniquely different thing. What does that look like? Jeff Henderson — I think it goes back to, what is the problem that you’ve been gathered together to solve? What is that problem? Every organization, business, church needs to be solving a problem. And for me what what drew me away from the business world to North Point is when I I heard Andy Stanley say, hey Atlanta doesn’t need another church. Rich Birch — Right. Jeff Henderson — Atlanta needs a different kind of church. Atlanta needs a church where you could invite your unchurched friends to, and they could attend, and begin a relationship with Jesus. And we all know what our lives the difference our lives would have been if we had grown up in a church like this. Jeff Henderson — Now that’s not to say that everybody resonates with that kind of vision. But it resonated with me. It resonated with Wendy. And it resonated ah with us so much that we were willing to take a huge pay cut to go and be a part of, you know – this is back in the day with video church is like what!? Their church the preacher’s on video!? That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of! So it was all this big “I” experiment idea. But what wasn’t it wasn’t video church that we were going to – that was just the mechanism. What was what we were going to was, hey Atlanta doesn’t need another church. Atlanta needs a different kind of church that’s focused on unchurched people. Jeff Henderson — Now again that may not be yeah… your your listeners, they may say, that’s not what resonates with me. Okay, that’s cool. Rich Birch — That’s fine. Yeah. Jeff Henderson — Well then what is the problem you’ve been gathered together to solve? And that’s why for us For Gwinnett tied directly into the vision of North Point to create churches unchurched people love. Because we wanted to add we just we felt like when Jesus people show up, the community should get better. When we go work, when we go to school, when we go to restaurants, we go into the community, we just want everybody to go, I’m so glad these Jesus people are here. I’m not sure I believe in everything they believe in… Rich Birch — Right. Jeff Henderson — …but man. And what is it about our community that they’re just so… they just… I’m so glad they’re here. I’m so glad that church is here. In fact in the early days of Gwinnett Church I had this this statement , Rich, where I would say, you know, if we ever decided to go out of business as Gwinnett Church, my hope is that the community would rise up and protest. Jeff Henderson — And go you can’t go out of business. If you go out of business, we all lose. And I just I mean imagine if that were the case in every community around the world. Rich Birch — Mmm-hmm. Jeff Henderson — And part of our vision for The For Company is we would like to have a for-minded church in every community. That doesn’t mean that every church has to be, you know, for their community. I personally think they should, but that may not be the unique… Rich Birch — Yes. Jeff Henderson — …unique vision. Rich Birch — Yeah. Jeff Henderson — But I think it goes back to you know what breaks your heart. What’s the problem you’re gathered together to solve. And this whole idea that Atlanta didn’t need another church, Atlanta needed a church for unchurched people – that just broke our hearts in in a really good way and compelling. So again… Rich Birch — Love it. Jeff Henderson — …it doesn’t have to be that vision. But what is what is that unique vision for your for your organization? I mean at Chick-Fil-A, they want to be the world’s most caring company. That has nothing to do with chicken. Rich Birch — Right, right. Jeff Henderson — It is just a mechanism to draw people in, but and you know their goal is to be the world’s most caring company. Is there a gap? There’s a gap in any organization. But everybody knows that. And that’s part of the trick. You know, I work with so many… one of the things I do, Rich, is when I go work with organizations, I’ll I’ll hand out pieces of paper and say, hey I want you to write down what you think this organization wants to be known for. Don’t say it out loud. Just write it down. I collect… Rich Birch — Oh nice. Love it. Jeff Henderson — I collect the pieces of paper and then read the answers out loud. And more often than than not the answers are so different, and the room gets really quiet. Rich Birch — Right, right. Jeff Henderson — And we begin to realize see this is what we have to we’ve got some work to do because if the leadership team isn’t clear about what we wanted to be known for, then the people outside of this room certainly aren’t. And this is you know this is why companies there’s a huge wave coming right now. We all have been through the pandemic. But the sans-demic is coming. And the pandemic means ‘with all people’. Rich Birch — Yeah. Jeff Henderson — Sans-demic means ‘without people’. Meaning that especially in corporate ah, you know, corporate world right now there’s a there’s the war on the war of talent. People are looking for great people to—and let me just speak in America language just as ah and ah for example. In America we have a shrinking population. There are more eighty year olds than two year olds for the first time ever. And if you fast track that about 15 years from now, um, there’s there’s going to be a war on trying to find people and hey… Rich Birch — Right. Jeff Henderson — …we have to say we’ve got a great culture over here, come work for us. We promise you that we’re gonna have we’re going it’s going to be a great place to work. Well one of the ways you do that is you got to get ahead of that and you got to get really crystal clear about what you want to be known for, so that you can create a culture that attracts the right people for the vision that you have. So this isn’t just some nice sweet little thing to do. This is a strategy for the future that that unless you if you don’t jump on board in terms of trying to really clarify this… Rich Birch — Right. Jeff Henderson — …you could look up and you could have a lot of work. A lot of opportunities, and no one, or very few people to join you in the mission. Rich Birch — Right. I love it. You know I years ago I had a a friend of mine, we were talking, similarly talking about our church. And he cast a vision for the value of our campuses to the communities they’re in. He said, you know, what would be amazing is if someday it our church got to the point where when the when the community found out that we were looking at launching in that location and we finally said we’re going to launch a location, if the house values, the housing values of that community went up because people so valued the fact that our church was there, that actually would be reflected in real estate costs. And I was like, wow! That is a massive vision for for the difference that our churches could make – just love that. Rich Birch — Well the second question I find fascinating, kind of what are we known for. I feel like so many of us we we live in ivory towers where like we we get into our little groups that we we think we all know what we are supposed to be about, and like we—and that’s a humbling example of like maybe we don’t even know that, but I feel like most of us who are listening and are like oh yeah, yeah, we all know we all know. How do we find out what we’re actually known for in our community. So, you know, we’re we’re a church of a thousand people. You know, we’re in our community. How do we figure out what do people in our community think about us? Jeff Henderson — You need to go ask them. You need to be out there. Rich Birch — Sure. Jeff Henderson — And you know, you could do everything we would… I mean I’m not saying this is a great idea but we would actually pay people. We would find them on Craigslist and pay them $25 to come to our church just to give us feedback on what they experienced. Rich Birch — Yep. Jeff Henderson — We would I would make sure that our staff meetings and our leadership team meetings we were meeting in the community just as often as we were meeting at our offices. My concern was that if we go to church, and we’re all in meetings and we’re we’re all there, we could we could isolate ourselves from the community and not understand who are we actually trying to serve. Rich Birch — Right. Jeff Henderson — And so with our social media accounts, we would make sure that every third or fourth post would be more about the community, would be something about the community and not about us. Rich Birch — Oh that’s good. Jeff Henderson — That forced us to go out into the business community and introduce ourselves to business leaders and say, hey would you let would you be okay if we featured your business on our Instagram page? Rich Birch — Love it. Jeff Henderson — And they’re like well how much does this cost? And we would say it doesn’t cost anything. Rich Birch — Right. Jeff Henderson — Well do we need to come to… you want us to put flyers in about your church in our restaurant or business? No, you don’t have to do that. And then they would look at us and go then why are you doing this? This doesn’t make any sense. I’m like well we’re for our community and we believe one of the ways that our organization and one of the ways our community gets better is to have thriving businesses. So we forced ourselves to get out and have personal interactions with with with people. And then we would do research just to ask that ask that question. So you could have anecdotal that can give you a pulse of how you’re you’re reading. And then you could have hard hard data. But… Rich Birch — Love it. Jeff Henderson — But the challenge with that is, you know, when you ask these questions it requires courage, and it requires a thick skin, if you will. It’s you’re you’re picking up the rock and looking at all the squiggly things underneath it. Rich Birch — Yeah. Jeff Henderson — And um and so you have to give yourself some grace, and you have to give yourself the understanding that, hey I’m asking some tough questions. I’m asking, how do we get better, and how do we shrink the gap between… Rich Birch — Right, right. Jeff Henderson — …what we want to be known for what we are known for. And don’t take it personally if you actually get some feedback that we’ve got some work to do. Rich Birch — Right. Jeff Henderson — We shouldn’t be surprised by that. Rich Birch — Yeah. Jeff Henderson — And so um, so but you got to go out there and ask, but you have to put yourself… It’s it’s much very it’s very similar to, you know, as as Christ followers if we’re not careful we can look up and the only people that we know are other Christ followers. Rich Birch — So true. Jeff Henderson — And you have to be intentional about putting yourself out into the community, and and rubbing shoulders with people who who may not ever come to your church. But you’re learning from them and you’re just adding value to them. And so many of you are the business leaders that we featured I mean some of them would start attending in our church, and many of them didn’t, but that’s okay because we still want to add value. It goes back to, you know, our church is adding value whether you show up on or not. And that’s why when covid hit and I was I was still lead pastor Gwinnett Church at this time. I just got our team together and said, hey here’s the cool deal. We just got to keep doing what we’re doing. Rich Birch — Right. Jeff Henderson — Because what we were doing was what we should have been doing all along, which is telling the community, hey you don’t have to come to this building. We’re still for you. Let’s just pour fuel on what we’re already already doing. And so that’s why you know any anytime there’s a crisis like this in History, there are, as hard as it is,—and I’m trying to downplay the the tragedy we’ve been through but—there is a glimmer of possibility of hope. Rich Birch — Right. Jeff Henderson — And that’s what this I think has provided the church. There is an opportunity for us to rethink things in a really positive way. Rich Birch — Yeah I love it. You know one of the things I’ve done, you know, multiple times when I’ve out at a church for a weekend, or doing some you know coaching or whatever, then you could do this, listeners, is all like pop into a gas station that’s close to the church. I don’t pick up a thing of gum or something or, you know, some mints and I’ll say like, hey I’m new new to town. You know, what’s tell me about that church over there, like what what do you know about that church around the corner? And then just listen. And it and it’s ah it can be humbling. You know it can be it’s great as the outside guy to say like, well this is what I heard. I know multiple times I’ve when I’ve shared what I’ve heard that that’s it’s humbling for the leadership team. Because oftentimes I would say the common thing having done that at I don’t know a dozen churches over the years has been actually a like, I don’t actually know anything about that church. Like I I actually know very little, like I’m like I see people there but I don’t you know I don’t really know anything. Um, it’s not that it’s negative. It’s just kind of neutral which obviously is is a form of negative. Now you mentioned the the pandemic and kind of were I don’t know what phase of the pandemic we’re in – post-pandemic, intra-pandemic we’re in this – who knows, right? It’s like I I always think like well maybe we’re stepping out of it but you just never know. Rich Birch — But you know when we think about all these things, what do I want to be known for as ah as a person – where where am I spending my time? That feels like a very that feels like a question of the day with people today. It feels like the kind of thing that folks are wrestling with. I know we’ve been talking about it organizationally, but have have you bumped into people who are wrestling with these kind of questions even personally? Jeff Henderson — Oh absolutely. In fact, that’s the the premise of the book or the subtitle of the book was a growth strategy for work, but an even better strategy for life. Because these two questions—what do you want to be known for, and what are you known for—are just as important and just as effective and maybe actually more important and more effective for for you and me and for our listeners personally. What do you want to be known for as ah as a dad, or a husband, or as a leader, as a follower, as a financial steward? What is that? And then what are you known for? Jeff Henderson — Like I could tell you, Rich, man I want to be known for being an intentional, legacy-leaving, memory-making dad. But you know who you have to go to to see whether I’m actually doing that? Not me… Rich Birch — Yes. Jeff Henderson — …it’s my daughter Jessy and my son… You know, your dad was on the unSeminary podcast telling us how great a dad he was, but you know, can you give me the real data here? So… Rich Birch — Yes. Jeff Henderson — …so kind of the next step of this is is there’s so many people who’ve come out of the pandemic and or, to your point, where are we in the coming out of the pan… who knows? Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Jeff Henderson — But wherever the the pandemic has forced people to think do I like my job? Rich Birch — Right. Jeff Henderson — Do I like this career? And so that’s why this whole thing that’s been happening I think since the fall of 2020, the great resignation—at least in America—4,000,000 people every month just quit their jobs… Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Jeff Henderson — …to do something else. Rich Birch — Yep. Jeff Henderson — And they’re waking up every day going. What what do I do now, and what do I do next? And that can be a paralyzing situation. But for me I mean my story was in the, you know, the fall of 2020, I made a career move in the middle of a global pandemic, or whatever the timeline was. Rich Birch — Yes. Jeff Henderson — And we just felt like this was we’d been talking about this for well over a year and a half. We became empty nesters. It was going to be a new season for us. We actually were going to leave in in May of 2020, but with when the pandemic hit we extended that out for for a few more months until we just had to to make this make this leave. But a lot of people have asked me, how did you figure that out? Rich Birch — Right. Jeff Henderson — And how did you figure out what to do next? And you know and that’s been kind of my track record, leaving Chick-Fil-A for Buckhead Church, Buckhead Church Gwinnett Church, Gwinnett Church to what I’m doing now. And it’s been I got the questions so often that it really just led me to the next book that I wrote, which is simply called “What to Do Next”. Jeff Henderson — And I think what happens is is for people as they’re asking these questions, what I want to be known for. And you know these these questions can be so sometimes daunting, intimidating. It’s like I got to figure out the rest of my life. But what I’ve been telling in this season is hey, here’s good news. I got good news and I got good news. The good news is is you don’t have to figure out the rest of your life. Rich Birch — Right, right. Jeff Henderson — The other good news is you just got to figure out what to do next. Rich Birch — Right. Jeff Henderson — And and when you do that one of the best ways that you can understand what you want to be known for is to figure out what to do next. And and for some people that that means to stay a little longer in your current role. Um for others, the greatest risk isn’t leaving, for others the greatest risk is actually staying. Rich Birch — Right. Jeff Henderson — You know you’ve been in similar situations where you were working at a church… Rich Birch — Yep, absolutely. Jeff Henderson — …and then you decided, you know what, I think this season has come to an end for me. Well, how do you know that? What’s what’s what’s the decision making criteria you use to do that? And and and so I talk to a lot of people who are suffering silently on on Zoom calls, or in their cubicle, or at home, because they’re like I just feel like there’s more within me, but I just can’t figure out a process of how to figure it out. So I think that’s why these questions of what you want to be known for and then what do I do next, they really go hand in hand. And if you can make, you know, the best wise decision possible in terms of what your next is, then you keep moving. Jeff Henderson — One of the things that that helped me so much early on in this new season is was speaking at a conference with John Maxwell who’s ah you know the leadership guru and he’s written like 90 books on leadership… Rich Birch — Yes. Jeff Henderson — …and just a mentor and role model of mine. And and so I was speaking to this conference and he spoke first and he said, hey I never had a clear vision, I just kept moving forward. And I thought oh my goodness. Rich Birch — Oh that’s good. Jeff Henderson — I mean I get I get it that I don’t have a clear vision, but John Maxwell didn’t have a clear vision? And he just kept moving forward? Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yeah. Jeff Henderson — And that’s one of the things I’ve been doing in these last twenty months is I just have kept moving forward. Rich Birch — Right, right. Jeff Henderson — And and and and just kind of making it up somewhat as as I go along. And and I think that’s freeing for people… Rich Birch — Yeah. Jeff Henderson — …when they go, I don’t have to figure out the rest of my life. I just need to figure out what’s next. And even when I was when I figured out that next move, I just got to keep moving. Rich Birch — Yeah, and I you hear that a lot actually from leaders that that it’s like in hindsight it’s like I it all kind of fits together, but it’s not like I planned 25 years ago that this is where I would end up. It’s like we kept taking steps forward and kind of they all it kind of what evolved one to the next. As people are wrestling with um, you know, this decision. They’re kind of in their stuff their where they are today. They’re they’re wrestling, they’re thinking maybe maybe this is the time for me to step out and try something new. What do what do you think the the fear around inaction is? So or or maybe indecision?It’s like the why does it feel good to be in that middle zone where people are like oh I’m not sure, and then we just kind of are brewing in that. Because I it see I feel like I run into people who are in that all the time, who are in this kind of like they’re they’re one foot in one foot out. Um you know why is that? Why do why do humans like that? Or why do why why are we are we stuck in that spot? Jeff Henderson — I think it’s because we’ve never been taught how to manage risk in our lives personally. We’ve we’ve been taught how to manage risk, like financially, or manage risk by getting life insurance. Rich Birch — Right. Jeff Henderson — We manage risk by getting car insurance. But there’s no such thing as career insurance necessarily. Rich Birch — Yes. Jeff Henderson — And so what what happens is is your level of comfort as it relates to risk often dictates whether or not you’re you’re willing to make a move. And and sometimes you can be too comfortable with risk. Rich Birch — Right. Jeff Henderson — And if you’re too comfortable with risk, that’s not good. But if you’re not comfortable with risk at all, that’s not good either. And I think what we’re trying to do many times is we’re trying to eliminate risk. And what I’ve discovered in a move like this, you cannot eliminate risk… Rich Birch — Right. Jeff Henderson — …but you can reduce it. You can you can reduce it. You can shrink it. So what I wanted to do in this, you know, in any career move that I’ve had, I’ve never wanted it to be like I’m leaping across the Grand Canyon. Rich Birch — Right. Jeff Henderson — What I wanted what I wanted to do is, I’ve got risk, I can’t eliminate it. But it’s kind of like I’m jumping over a mud puddle. I might get wet; I might get muddy, and it won’t you know it won’t be fun, but at least I’m not plunging thousands of feet below. And and so what I wanted to do in this new book is, how can you shrink the gap from the Grand Canyon to a mud puddle. Rich Birch — Right. Jeff Henderson — So that if you do make the leap you you get wet. And the other thing is is that you’ll never truly know what can be put in your hands until you let go, but letting go is hard. For example yesterday I was in a meeting of a client that wasn’t a client of mine twenty months ago. I didn’t even know I would be actually doing what I was doing yesterday for them. Um, and I never would have stumbled across that unless I had let go. But the other thing that I’ve realized about this is that um the path to your dream job often leads through your day job. What I mean by that is your… Rich Birch — Oh that’s good. Jeff Henderson — …your past experience, your strengths, your giftings, they’re all clues about what your future is. For example, the meeting that I was in yesterday, I was coaching communicators. Well communication has been a part of my background from the very beginning. Rich Birch — Right. Jeff Henderson — So I’m not going to go coach musicians because that’s not in my background, right? Rich Birch — Right, right. Jeff Henderson — I don’t like to play anything. I don’t know how to sing. But I do know how to coach communicators. And so that that understanding of my background, my day job, my my experience, my gifting, my talent. It’s all clues to pay attention to to figure out what’s next. And so… Rich Birch — Love it. Jeff Henderson — …I think for someone who might be dissatisfied with where they are, I think they got to find out what their strengths are. They got to find out how can they shrink the gap. One of the ways that you have to shrink the gap is to get a little bit of a financial runway. I mean how how long could you so go without taking a paycheck? Is it a month? Is it two weeks? Is it six months? I mean build up some financial margin that that will allow you to explore. Jeff Henderson — The other thing I would highly recommend, Rich, is side hustles. You know people, because of my Chick-Fil-A background people ask me, hey Jeff, do you think I should but be a Chick-Fil-A operator? That sounds like a pretty cool job. And my response is I don’t know, but I know how you can find out. Jeff Henderson — You should go down to your local Chick-fil-A and apply for a part-time job. Rich Birch — Right. Jeff Henderson — And if you don’t like the part-time job there, you’re certainly not going to like the role of being a full-time operator where your whole likelihood depends on this. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Jeff Henderson — But if you enjoy it, and you fall in love with the business, that’s good. Well, that’s what a side hustle can do. Rich Birch — Right. Jeff Henderson — Ah, side hustle is you keep your day job, but you’re working on the side and a lot of people are like I don’t know if I can do that. Well okay, but understand… Rich Birch — Yes. Jeff Henderson — …you either can be frustrated or you can actually do something about it. That’s the whole John Maxwell keep moving forward. It’s it’s much similar to… Rich Birch — Right. Jeff Henderson — …very similar to one time when I had a cold, Rich, and I kept complaining at my wife like I got a cold. I got a cold. And Wendy’s like, you should go to the doctor. I’m like I’m not going to go to the doctor. So I kept complaining and finally she’s like, hey Jeff I love you. But if you’re not going to go to the doctor, you forfeit the right to complain that you have a cold, right? Rich Birch — ‘ve had the same conversation with my wife. Jeff Henderson — Yeah, it’s usually a husband kind of a thing, right? Rich Birch — Ah yes, yes. Jeff Henderson — We’re just not going to go a doctor. Well when I hear people complain about their job or where they are, and I’m like, okay do you want to do a side hustle? Have you created some financial margin? Do you know what your strengths are? Have you, you know, the other thing we we could talk about is building your network of contacts.. Rich Birch — Right, right. Jeff Henderson — And there’s a lot of stuff that you could do Rich Birch — There’s ton you could do. Jeff Henderson — If you say, Jeff, I’m not going to do any of that. Okay I understand that. But you forfeit the right to complain about your job any longer. Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes. Jeff Henderson — Um, and so there are some things that you can do. It will take a little bit longer probably than you think. Rich Birch — Yep. Jeff Henderson — Sometimes it won’t. Um, sometimes you start working on things and they just kind of pop out of you know clear blue sky and I think that’s the God factor. Um, but um… Rich Birch — Love it. Jeff Henderson — …but if people wrestling with that, that’s that’s one of the reasons that it’s basically a field guide. My field guide that I’ve ah used the last twenty some odd years about how to make the career decisions um, that that I’ve made. Rich Birch — Yeah. Jeff Henderson — And but it’s not for the faint of heart, but neither is staying. Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes. Jeff Henderson — Neither is staying. You know so you got it… but but risk I think to your to your great question, Rich. I really think it’s we’ve never been taught how to manage risk in our personal careers. Rich Birch — Right, right. Love it. Well this is so good. So the name of the book is “What to Do Next: Taking Your Best Step (why my my words are not working here today) When Life is Uncertain.” Ah, obviously available at Amazon. Is there anywhere else we want to send people to pick up a copy of this book? Jeff Henderson — Yes, well it’s available… well it will be available everywhere in August. Rich Birch — Yes, yeah. Jeff Henderson — It’s preorders now. But yeah and I would say this too, if even before they they get the book, they could I have a free career risk… Rich Birch — Love it. Yeah. Jeff Henderson — …assessment at jeffhenderson.com. It’s a it’s just called the career risk calculator. Basically what it is, Rich, is it’s a series of questions and you get a red light, a yellow light, or a green light. Rich Birch — Love it. Yes, yep. Jeff Henderson — That’s not a pass fail. It’s not it’s not any of that. It’s like if you get a red light, it doesn’t mean you failed what it means is is whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Before you take another move, we got some work to do. Um, if you get a green light that does not mean you are now required to leave your job. Rich Birch — I Love it. Jeff Henderson — That mean that it’ like okay you got a green light. You’ve got some you know financial margin or whatever. But here are some extra things that you might want to think about before you make the move. So they can even before the book gets out, they can just go to jeffhenderson.com Rich Birch — Love it. Jeff Henderson — …click on that, and this is just completely free assessment. But that will give them some clues about what their action items might be to help figure this out. And even for those who would say Jeff I love my job I’m not even sure I’m ever considering this, I still think it’s helpful because you never know what could happen. Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, I love it. Yeah, love that, friend. So again, go to jeffhenderson.com for that. Is be a great tool, great thing to do as you’re thinking about, even if it’s in your like you say in your mind you’re kind of wrestling through this I think that would be a great next step. Jeff, I really appreciate you being here on the show today. Anything you want to say just as we wrap up today’s episode as we kind of close things down? Jeff Henderson — Yes, Rich Birch, you’re amazing. That’s what I would like to say. Rich Birch — Oh come on. Oh, no. Jeff Henderson — I’m grateful for what you’re doing for church leaders. And I would say for church leaders and pastors in particular, I mean I I grew up I’ve been in church all my life. But obviously these are challenging, challenging days. Don’t forget that the grace of Jesus that you preach about is also available to you. Rich Birch — So good. Jeff Henderson — Don’t also don’t hide you need to have someone who is pastoring you. You need to have someone that you can share what’s truly going on inside of you. And so fight for that. And you know that’s why we’re so glad that you’re part of the unSeminary podcast. It’s one of the things Rich’s try to do. Rich Birch — Love it. Jeff Henderson — So God loves you and just don’t forget that the same grace that you’re preaching about is available to you as well. Rich Birch — Love it. Thanks so much. So we want to send people to jeffhenderson.com – is there anywhere else we want to send them online if they want to track with you? Jeff Henderson — Yeah, you can just go to Instagram or LinkedIn um, um, Jeffery Henderson at Instagram and and you’ll you’ll start to see a lot more as the book starts to come out with a lot of other free resources and stuff. Rich Birch — Love it. Thanks so much, Jeff – appreciate you. Appreciate what you’re up to. Thanks for being here on the podcast today. Jeff Henderson —  Thanks, Rich.