unSeminary Podcast

Thanks for joining the unSeminary podcast. We are talking with Heath Bottomly, the Lead Pastor of Creative Teams at Pure Heart Church in Arizona. Does your church’s organizational structure match the vision that you believe you have been called to? Listen in as Heath shares how to get clarity about what is true, realign your structure, and build margin into your systems in order to achieve your God-given mission. Be intentional and plan. // It’s become more difficult to strategically plan and navigate our quickly changing world. We have to be intentionally planning what our strategies are for where we want to go, and intentionally streamlining processes. Does your church have the ability to pivot in a day’s notice, or take advantage of new opportunities when they arise?Begin with the end in mind. // What is your church’s mission statement and where are you headed? Does your church have the capacity needed to achieve your mission? As Heath has conversations with churches, many times he discovers that how they want to go about fulfilling their mission doesn’t match how they are staffed, or where they’re putting the bulk of their energy and resources.Say no to the good for the best. // It can be difficult to redirect energy within our churches so that we are focusing on the right things to achieve our missions. But everything we say yes to means we are saying no to something else. The hardest things to say no to are good things, but we have to sacrifice the good things for the best things.  Have the hard talks. // When a church is focused on things that are out of alignment with its mission, the senior pastor feels the weight of that, and how it affects the people attached to these areas. No matter how much you try to care for them, some people may still feel devalued in the process. However, we can’t let that restrict our decisions. The best way to broach hard conversations is showing what the reallocation of that time, energy and resources could look like. Demonstrate what could be accomplished in pursuing the mission and vision or the church and ask the people involved which they think is the better stewardship decision.The importance of margin. // Many church leaders struggle to introduce margin into their lives and church systems, but Heath says margin is the only way that we fight for the future. How many people on our teams are actually and adequately creating margin in their personal lives in order to take advantage of opportunities when they come? Margin also creates space to dream about the future. Take time to dream with your team. Pay attention to what percentage of time you are allotting toward margin vs the tyranny of the urgent.Plan for the right people. // Margin also allows us to hire the right people when they pop up instead of waiting until the need is a pain point. Great people are not available long. The right fit is hard to find, and when a position opens up the people that apply may not be the ones that are actually right for the job.Experience Conference. // Heath is also the creative strategist for Experience Conference, an opportunity for worship leaders, creative leaders, production, and more to come together. Rather than being a concert or green room environment, it’s more about bringing peers together to hang out, jump into workshops, and learn from each other. You can register for the conference at www.experienceconference.com and reach Heath at www.mavenmediaproductions.com or www.heathmichaelbottomly.com. Learn more about Pure Heart Church at www.pureheart.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: 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. Super excited for today’s conversation. You know every week we try to bring you a leader who will both inspire and equip you and today is no exception. Excited to have Heath Bottomly with us. He is he’s got lots of hats. Rich Birch — But if I can keep a couple of the hats straight. He’s at Pure Heart Church which is a two campus multisite church in Arizona. This church has strong values of transparency, vulnerability, relationships. He’s the lead pastor of creative teams – you know we love creative people here at unSeminary. Excited to to lean in on that. He’s also ah, runs, owns an organization called Maven Media. Plus he’s the creative strategist for a great conference called The Experience Conference. Heath, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here. Heath Bottomly — I appreciate the opportunity. Excited to be a part of it, and looking forward to chatting today. Rich Birch — Love it. And our mutual friend Scott Longyear said, you got to talk and so anytime Scott says I got to talk to somebody, there it is. So I’m super excited to to get a chance to connect. Why don’t you… Heath Bottomly — You know I love love Scott, love Scott. He’s a great guy, good friend, and always always a pleasure to connect with more people. So. Rich Birch — Love it. So why don’t you kind of fill out the picture a little bit. Tell us a little bit more about yourself. Give us a sense of the church. Talk through those things. Heath Bottomly — No absolutely. Pure Heart is ah a church about you know about thirty years old in the Phoenix area. It’s ah it’s a growing church um. We’re probably we actually um, we technically list ourselves as having three campuses. Um. Rich Birch — Oh nice. Heath Bottomly — And because we intentionally created an online campus ah that has its own campus pastor and everything like that. Um, and so in-person we’re probably, you know, I know people always go so how big is it? You know because that’s just the question… Rich Birch — Yes, ah yes. Heath Bottomly — …as if that makes it, okay I’ll listen to you. Rich Birch — Yes. With post Covid is it is an even more difficult question… Heath Bottomly — Yeah. Rich Birch — …because it’s really what does that number mean? I don’t know. Heath Bottomly — Really nothing. It’s just how many people want to want to hang out on… Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Heath Bottomly — …ah you know, ah around you on campus. And it helps that our our Glendale campus has a has a restaurant actually on the campus. Rich Birch — Oh that’s cool. Heath Bottomly — So um, so it may be that they’re just hanging out for tacos. Um… Rich Birch — I love it. Which is a good reason. Heath Bottomly — Which would always draw me. Rich Birch — Exactly, exactly. Heath Bottomly — But but but we run probably about 2 to 3,000 people on a weekend on campus, and then um, we also have a good number of people probably another 1500 to 2000 online um each week. Rich Birch — Love it. Love it. Heath Bottomly — So it’s a great great church. We do a lot of some people would say a lot of crazy thing we have um we have an intake center on campus for people dealing with um addiction… Rich Birch — Oh wow. Love it. Heath Bottomly — …and also mental health um issues. We have an entire Life Bridge um Ministry which deals with resources. Helping people get prepped, even prep for job interviews, finding ah things they need and this is actually… they do drop-ins for food in neighborhoods. Um, but they’re all across the Phoenix area. It’s got ah it’s got a ah a workout area on campus and everything… Rich Birch — That’s cool. Heath Bottomly — because you know it’s going We want people to take care of all elements of ah that of their created body, mind, spirit, everything. So. Rich Birch — Love it. Heath Bottomly — Yeah. Rich Birch — That’s so cool. And then you also have the you know hats where you’re connecting with a lot of leaders across the country… Heath Bottomly — Yes. Rich Birch — …whether it’s through Maven Media, through the conference – which is fantastic. I’d love to actually start there. You know you interact with a lot of church leaders. You connect with, you know, them. I’m sure they’re reaching out to you looking for help, advice, consulting – that kind of thing -coaching. What would be one of those things, particularly in this season, that you know you find yourself bumping into, or kind of tensions that church leaders seem to be having consistently that that you see that you end up, you know, talking them through or or or at least engaging with them on? Heath Bottomly — Well yeah, and um I would say that probably in years past there’s been a lot more of a buffer zone for this. So um, but lately I’ve seen that it’s become a point of of, not conflict, but struggle is being able to strategically plan, um and intentionally ah navigate situations. in years past we had kind of a there wasn’t as much of ah, an urgency in it because you could always kind of figure things out because we always know well the weekend’s coming… Rich Birch — Yes. Heath Bottomly — …so we’ll just figure it out then… Rich Birch — Right. Heath Bottomly — …um, we live in a new world now where it’s actually ah, you can’t take those things for granted anymore. Rich Birch — Right. Heath Bottomly — You have to be intentionally planning out um, what your strategies are for where you want to go. And you’re going to have to really streamline things because you have to think about things, like how much margin do you have um in order to pull the trigger on opportunities, or if something catches you off guard, do you have the ability to pivot in a day’s notice? And a lot of churches I think it it highlighted the fact that they did not have the ability to pivot that quickly. Rich Birch — Right right. So true. Heath Bottomly — Um and and didn’t have built into their system both margin for not only financial resources, but personnel resources, connection, networking resources. Um, they didn’t know where to go when things go sideways. And so that’s kind of this new world that we’re kind of navigating and those are some of the things that um, what I’ve been brought in a lot more recently is looking at, does your organizational structure match the vision that you say your organization has been called to? Rich Birch — Yes, love it. Heath Bottomly — Um and that just hasn’t matched up. So. Rich Birch — Yeah I would love to dive into that. You know it has been it’s been quite a few years here. You know it’s been the last couple of years I was talking to a leader recently and and they were reflecting on exactly this issue to say you know when you think about the last couple years. Any one of the kind of crises that have come come by, whether it is covid, whether it’s you know, racial unrest, whether it’s um, you know the war in Ukraine, whether it’s the economy. Any of those in and of themselves lots of churches would have a hard time dealing with. On their own. But what we’ve had is just this kind of repeated, you know, it’s kind of one thing after another. It’s like we’re always waiting for the next – it seems like we’re always waiting for the next shoe to drop, and it can make it very difficult. Ah so talk to me about how so how do we ensure that our organizational structure is aligning to our mission – that those two things are, they’re not disconnected. We don’t just have this kind of interesting mission statement on our wall but that doesn’t actually impact what we’re doing day to day. Heath Bottomly — Right. I think it’s a lot of it is is really diving into clarity. Um, because yeah, like you said, and you know it’s interesting to me how many mission statements I come across and they basically all say the same thing. Rich Birch — Yes. Heath Bottomly — I mean it’s it’s hey we want to make Jesus known to the you know to the world, or we want to grow to become more like Jesus. Um, and those are very truthful statements. But what does that mean in your organization’s capacity? What does that look like? Um how are you guys doing that? Um, when I dive deeper into these conversations with churches, um I find out that the heartbeat of how they want to go about doing that oftentimes doesn’t match how they’re even staffed, or where they’re putting a bulk of their energy in resources. Rich Birch — Mmm-hmm. Heath Bottomly — I talked to people are going, man, we really want to we really want to connect in ah in a digital world. And I’m looking at their staffing and it’s almost entirely based on very ah, ah, organic or in-person meetings. And I’m going, so how are you planning on making that move? Rich Birch — Mmm-hmm. Heath Bottomly — Um which then brings about or we want to make an impact in the culture around us, but everything is internally focused staffing wise… Rich Birch — Right. Heath Bottomly — …and structurally within their church. You walk into their service and you’re going, this doesn’t say anything to the culture around. It’s all about drawing people who have already have institutional knowledge of this organization. And so then we have to go through and revamp, and build margin into their structure so that they can then take a step into the opportunities that present to get them to their vision. Rich Birch — Yeah. I love that. Can we dive into that a little deeper because I do think that’s a real common problem, particularly when we think about the creative programming what we do on the weekends, the language we use the music we use. There’s lots of times where it can feel like a pretty significant disconnect. How do we ensure that ah, that we can add how how can we ensure that our organizational structure actually does allow us to kind of operationalize actually try to connect with the culture around us? What does that look like? Heath Bottomly — I mean it all kind of depends on your specific ministry. Um, the last thing you want to do is try to become something that you’re not. Um because that actually does more damage I think to to um organizations, to ministries, is when people are trying to…people are trying to become the cool thing. And and honestly—it sounds horrible because I’m not expressing it well but—the coolest thing is being the most real thing. And so I remember in high school the coolest teacher that I had was was one of the like he loved English. You know of at… the taught… the subject. I’m like I’m sorry but there’s nothing cool about about verbs and and like diagramming sentences… Rich Birch — Shakespeare… Heath Bottomly — …but he in literature, I mean he would just get so intense on it I’m like the guy’s a nerd, you know? Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Heath Bottomly — But he was so cool because he was so real. Rich Birch — Right, it was genuine. Heath Bottomly — Now the guy who, the PE teacher, who was trying to be hip and cool and relatable or whatever, everyone’s like the guy’s a dork, you know? Rich Birch — Yes. Heath Bottomly — Yeah he he looked the part… Rich Birch — Right. Heath Bottomly — …but he wasn’t so back to churches and organizations. It’s knowing who you are. And that’s why that clarity element is so important. Once you can do that um, then it’s a matter of we all know the phrase “begin with the end in mind.” Um, and for most of my life I have I have been able to ah, once we start with what the end is almost, I I tell people I can almost see the red line that connects the dots, steps. And I’ve always assumed for most of my life I’m like everyone sees that. Rich Birch — Yes. Heath Bottomly — It wasn’t until well into it that I started learning going, oh okay, this isn’t common. Um, but what then I can do is help clarify. There’s a class that is offered in a lot of colleges called logic. And what it does is it says, if you say this, this is where that ends at the nth degree. Um and using that same mindset, looking at our organizations and going, if we really want to accomplish this… say we want to um, be influential in the arts. Um you will not magically wake up one day and be influential in the arts. Rich Birch — Right. Heath Bottomly — You’re going to have to create space and show what that looks like by investing in it, because what you are actually doing draws the people who are attracted to doing that. It doesn’t work the other way around. Rich Birch — Right. Heath Bottomly — You can’t go, when we get the people we’ll become an artist environment. Rich Birch — Right, right. Heath Bottomly — You have to actually go, we’re going to embed artists in this. We’re going to create space where artists want to come to – an environment where they want to be a part of it, and then it grows so. Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, that’s interesting. That’s ah, that’s an interesting application. I think it’s so true, particularly um, that is one of those areas where I think people often maybe are super aspirational. They want to as exactly use they want to become the kind of church that is creative but but they think that that’s like a disconnected, kind of like you just have to wear skinny jeans and then that’ll do it. No, it’s so much more than that, right? Heath Bottomly — Yep. Rich Birch — You’ve got to build a culture and a climate around that. Love that. That’s ah, that’s a perfect example. Now, when you think about that particular this whole idea of misalignment, this whole idea of, hey we’re not heading in the right direction. How do you go about realigning your structure internally? Let’s let’s say we do have a sense of, okay we need to make some changes. We need to maybe shut down some programs that that we weren’t doing, or kind of redirect some energy. What does that look like? What what should we be thinking through when it comes, particularly on the um, you know on the misalignment side on kind of realigning people and resources? Heath Bottomly — I think ah, there’s that phrase “everything that you say yes to means that you’re saying no to something else.” Um, once you start holding that grid up against your organization, you start going point by point – almost like you know the TV show where they go, does this bring me joy? Rich Birch — Mmm-hmm. Heath Bottomly — Um, you know and and you go, do I let it go or not? Um, there is always an argument to be made for the things that you are doing. Rich Birch — Yes. Heath Bottomly — It… very rarely is it a clear, almost never is it a clear right and wrong of whether or not you should be doing something. There’s always a good reason to be there’s always a good reason to have um, a quilting ministry in your church. There’s always there’s and there’s a case to be made for it. Rich Birch — Yep. Heath Bottomly — Um, what’s important is going, will it help us get where we feel God is calling us? Rich Birch — Yes. Heath Bottomly — Because and also in our attempt to be everything, ah we oftentimes are nothing. Rich Birch — Right, right. Heath Bottomly — And and what I try to do with organizations is go, I want you to have the sharpest edge to your ministry, which means that you’re going to have to pare down some of these things that are… the hardest things to say no to are good things. But you have to sacrifice the good things for the best things and when you do that, you will always have people who go, you’ve missed the mark. You know you don’t care ah, you don’t care about people. Rich Birch — You don’t care about this anymore. Yeah. Heath Bottomly — Yeah, and and you have to that’s just you have to live with that. I mean Jesus dealed with that. People are going why aren’t… you know they would give him a hard time for saying the hard things. Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Heath Bottomly — Like you know what. Why are you calling us to this? That’s way too difficult. Rich Birch — Yeah. Right. All the time. Heath Bottomly — Um, but he needed the edge in order to accomplish what he needed the church to become um by doing that. Rich Birch — Right. Okay, yeah, let’s get a practical example of that. So I um, you know is there’s this church who – this is probably it’s hypothetical but not not really, it’s based on what you hear happening. So let’s say I’m a staff pastor. So I’m not the lead pastor, or maybe executive pastor, associate pastor – and we have a pet project that our lead pastor just loves like it and the rest of our staff kind of snicker about it. We know this is not aligned with our mission. This is not aligned with where we’re going, but for whatever reason that individual just loves this thing. How do we start that conversation. What does that look like? How how could I lead up in this dialogue around, hey you know there’s this area that’s a little bit out of alignment with what we’re doing. Or or maybe widely out of line. It literally like you’re saying is the quilting ministry. It’s the you know think we all churches have these kind of like just random programs that aren’t really pushing us forward. How do we lead that conversation? Heath Bottomly — I think there’s a few different ways – the one that I’ve found um, especially for senior pastors tends to be um… I mean these guys they know that they are stewards of what God has entrusted them with resources, and to the point where that actually I I feel the weight from people. They really connect with that. Heath Bottomly — Um, that’s where a lot of the stress comes from. I was a a creative arts and worships pastor for years. Um, and then stepped into a senior pastor role for about 3-1/2 years. Um as a worship pastor, I knew the things that we needed to be doing. I knew them, I mean inside and out. Rich Birch — Right. Heath Bottomly — Yeah I say that satirically. Rich Birch — Yes. Heath Bottomly — Um and I’m like it’s an easy decision. Rich Birch — Yes. Heath Bottomly — When I stepped into the senior role I suddenly went I felt the weight of those decisions… Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Heath Bottomly — …because it’s not just cutting a ministry. It’s It’s potentially making people feel devalued in the process. Rich Birch — Yes, yeah. Heath Bottomly — No matter how well you how well you try to take care of them. Rich Birch — True. Heath Bottomly — …you can’t you can’t make sure that they don’t feel that. Um so but that doesn’t mean that should restrict your your decisions. So all that to say understanding that senior pastors feel the weight of the people that are attached to these things. Rich Birch — Yes, yeah. Heath Bottomly — The best way that I’m broaching conversations is going is reattributing, showing what the reattribution of these resources could look like. And going if you keep utilizing these resources in this direction… Rich Birch — Yeah. Heath Bottomly — …what, ask the question, what what’s the what’s the win? Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Heath Bottomly — And then going, the reallocation of these resources, time, energy and really clarifying that resources go beyond finances. It’s bandwidth. It’s um because I’m a big proponent for margin. And I can dive into that more but most churches and most ministries do not ah work well with the idea of margin. But, margin is the only way that we actually tackle and fight for the future. Um, we just expend all the everything that comes in and feel like that’s good stewardship, if it all goes right back out. Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Heath Bottomly — Um, which isn’t isn’t good planning. Rich Birch — No. Heath Bottomly — Um, but if we can then go, okay, the reallocation of these resources could, we project, could accomplish this toward the vision and ministry of the church. And then go ask the question going, what do you feel is is a better stewardship for that? Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. Heath Bottomly — You know? Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. I think there’s a lot of wisdom there too, leading with questions I think is is a good thing, right? Help helping senior leaders wrestle with as opposed to coming accusatory. That never works, you know? Heath Bottomly — Yeah. Rich Birch — I think the idea too of of trying to understand—and this is for any, you know, leading up in any scenario—is to understand what their priorities are, and to cast the change that we’re talking about in as a step towards their priorities. You know they ultimately yeah, it’s not ah, it’s not a judgmental statement, but ultimately everyone’s selfish at some level and we’re concerned about our stuff. And so what is it that your senior leader is excited about? How do we recast this change in light of what they’re, you know, fired up about? Rich Birch — Talk to me about margin. I’m sure there’s I’m sure there’s church leaders that are listening in that are like, margin? What are you talking about? I’m just trying to get ready for this fall, and like I’ve got twelve things to do and only you know three days to do it before kids get back from school. Man margin is the farthest thing for my reality. How can I find margin? What should we be thinking about margin? What does that look like? Heath Bottomly — Well, it all comes back to, I know that some of the things that you address on this podcast and everything are going, so what is it about that you’re not picking up in seminary that is useful, and actually you should be learning if you’re going to be jumping into into ministry. Especially organizational ministry because people will go, man, it’s not about the systems. It’s not about the process. As soon as you actually want to take advantage of resources and like things like insurance, 401K – as soon as you want to add staff, you’re an organization whether you like it or not. Rich Birch — So true. Heath Bottomly — Um and so you need to be trained in what how to effectively lead an organization. Ah, financially, um, strategically, all of these things. Otherwise you can you can do church anywhere. I mean the body of Christ you can meet in your living room and you don’t have to worry about all these things. But if you want to engage in those things, and benefit from them, then you should understand the best way to utilize them and structure yourself accordingly. Heath Bottomly — Um, and so when it comes to margin, first off, there’s the there’s the personal. How many people are actually adequately creating margin in their life to take advantage of opportunities when they arise? What we do is we feel… there’s that weird ah work ethic element responsibility thing that goes, if I… the busier I am, the more important and the more responsible I am. Rich Birch — It’s so true. Heath Bottomly — And and it’s and it’s it’s so… I don’t want to say it’s backward because I’ve also seen the other side of the coin where people are like I’m going, they’re like oh I’m I’m so I’m so busy. I’m like you did nothing, but these 2 things this week. Rich Birch — Yes, right. No no production. Yeah exactly. Heath Bottomly — Yeah I’m like you spent you spent all day working on one song you know… Rich Birch — Yeah, yes, yes. Heath Bottomly — …like going you you can be more efficient. Um, but margin is going, am I creating space to—for some so start simple—am I taking time each week to dream about the future? Am I taking a certain amount of hours to do… am I doing that with my team? How much of a percentage am I allotting towards things that could be, compared to Sunday’s coming and the the tyranny of the urgent, of the immediate? Um, every organization that is, outside of ministry, that’s ah, that’s affecting change and impacting culture has a research and development, has ah lots funds for opportunity. Um, they do that so they can actually try things out, fail at them, and learn how to do it better. Rich Birch — Yeah. Right. Heath Bottomly — And from there they can find the way that changes the future. Rich Birch — Right. Heath Bottomly — Um, ministries need to start then um, people who are leading ministries, need to get a lot more efficient and learning clever ways of how to, first off, how to run a budget? Most guys who are pastors in churches or leaders in in churches have no idea how to budget. Rich Birch — It’s true. Heath Bottomly — You know they’ve never been trained in it. They’re they’re making it up as they go. And then they find themselves going I think I did it right. Rich Birch — Right. Heath Bottomly — And then going why why why are we not growing? Rich Birch — Right. Heath Bottomly — Or why are we not doing things? Um but creating margin within your budget by creating even zero-based budgeting, which irons out going, what do you want to accomplish this next year and what will that cost? Don’t go, this is what I had last year… Rich Birch — Add 5%. Yeah exactly Heath Bottomly — …and now this is what I have this year and I want to add… Rich Birch — Yeah. Heath Bottomly — Yeah, what do you want to accomplish and why? Um and then creating space, then in opportunity and margin, even with staffing. And this is where this is going to get a really a little touchy. Um, great people are not available long. Rich Birch — Right. Heath Bottomly — And so usually by the time we’re looking for a position, um, we end up finding people who are either, often they off chance they happen to come available right then in that window… Rich Birch — Yes. Heath Bottomly — …and it’s like oh what a steal. What a God moment… Rich Birch — Yes. Heath Bottomly — You know? Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Heath Bottomly — Um, or there are people who’ve just been available because they’re not exactly the best fit… Rich Birch — Yes. Heath Bottomly — …but they’re the best of what’s available… Rich Birch — Yes. Heath Bottomly — And then ah that which then turns into frustrations down the road if we have. Rich Birch — Yeah. Heath Bottomly — Ah, CCV Christ Church of the valley is a great church here in Phoenix… Rich Birch — Fantastic church. Heath Bottomly — Um, and I love how they wind themselves up to get key campus pastors. They will hire a campus pastor even if they’re not launching a campus… Rich Birch — Right. Heath Bottomly — …because they’ve created margin to do so. Rich Birch — Yes. Heath Bottomly — Because they know that those at the right fit is hard to find so when one comes available they will go and they’ll have them do something else in the meantime. Rich Birch — Right. Yeah. Heath Bottomly — You can’t you can’t get there unless you have strategically planned for that. Rich Birch — Yeah. I love that. Yeah, that’s that’s such truism in hiring. I’ve seen that in my own ministry over years. I’ve hired a lot of people and there is that the people who are available are not necessarily the people you want to hire. Um, you know the people who have um, who are going to apply aren’t necessarily the people you know you want to find someone—I’ve said this so many times. My best hires when I first started talking to them, they were completely happy in their existing role. They weren’t you know they were loving what they were doing and so then you kind of always have to be recruiting, talking to people, leaning in. Hey like what’s God’s plan for your life; where you headed next? That sort of thing. Love that. That’s that’s good. Love it. Rich Birch — Now… so talk to me about the Experience Conference. It’s coming up here. Ah tell me about it. Give me a sense of the conference. Who’s who’s who would benefit from it, besides everyone. Um, you know, tell me more about it. Heath Bottomly — Yeah. Well Experience Conference is is really a unique opportunity of worship worship leaders, creative leaders, production, everything, to kind of come together. What I what really drew at me to it as an attendee years ago was this element that we hadn’t really defined but then we put words to a couple years down the road was this idea of lowering the stage. And what that was is going, I had been to so many different events and conferences that um—and this isn’t a bad thing but—it it was more of a ah, bunch of concerts all mashed together. And and then I’m looking around the room going, these actually we’re all peers, you know. So you get a Brandon Lake you know on stage and he is doing the same thing that everyone else in this room does week in and week out. And actually there’s more people who will hear Brandon’s songs from the people in the community than from Brandon himself. Rich Birch — Sure. Heath Bottomly — And so we started going, once I came on staff, we really started having intentional conversations with the with the artists and speakers and going just reminding them, hey you’re talking to peers in the room. This isn’t a ah… Rich Birch — Right, right. Heath Bottomly — …a a worship concert event that you’re used to doing. Rich Birch — Right. Heath Bottomly — Um and that changed the tone tremendously. Rich Birch — That’s cool. Heath Bottomly — And it became less of a green room environment and much more of a of people hanging out with each other. Rich Birch — That’s cool. Heath Bottomly — Um jumping into workshops. And and it changes the heartbeat of it. You know? Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. Yeah I totally get what you’re saying I remember years ago—this is probably twenty years ago—when Matt Redmond was Matt Redmond. And um and it was him in Pilavachi, and Mike Pilavachi, they were at this conference and I just happened to be there. And that was very much the vibe of it. They were they very much were there just to try to help, and like, hey what can we do? And like here’s happy to share some stuff we learned at Soul Survivor and all that. And it felt very like, hey like you’re they’re not trying to present themselves as rock stars. It’s just like we’re here. We’re just another kind of worship leader. And we’re all trying to do the same thing. And it might look a little different in your context than my context. But how do we how do we lead together? Rich Birch — I love that that idea of how do we network together. What do you guys do at the what do you do at the conference try to encourage that cross communication engagement with each other? What does what does that look like at Experience? Heath Bottomly — Well we try to create a lot of intentional space. Even how… and I mean and it all comes down to how the the people who are part of it respond. I mean ah—I’m just going to brag on him a bit because he’s awesome—but Andy Rosier from Vertical, he um he is now at New Life in ah Colorado. And actually we have him, John Egan, um Natalie Runnion, like ah Eddie Hoagland, and everything – all as part of the speaking team this year, which is really cool. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s fantastic. Heath Bottomly — Um, but Scott Longyear, who’s the pastor of the conference, um was meeting with the teaching team. And Andy says, he’s like how long do we do I have do we have to speak in this one session? And Scott was like oh you have about thirty thirty five minutes. And he surprised us he he was like, can we use less time to speak, and then open it up so that we can we can interact, and and spend some time praying for individuals in the community here? Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Heath Bottomly — And I was the first time I had ever heard someone say can I, a speaker, go, can I speak less? Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Heath Bottomly — And spend more time with people? Um, it’s that kind of mentality. Meredith Andrews a few years back, we had our event the day before we were supposed to launch. Um a hurricane blew through… Rich Birch — Oh God. Heath Bottomly — …or actually was was going to blow through and so they shut down… Rich Birch — That’s that’s Orlando in the fall. Orlando in the fall. Yeah Heath Bottomly — …the airport. Yeah, but it’s the first time they had shut down the airport in advance… Rich Birch — Oh wow. Heath Bottomly — …of the potential because it was in order to get funds, federal funds, they had to take proactive measures. Rich Birch — Oh okay. Heath Bottomly — Um, but it killed our conference. But we already had about 600 people on the ground um in advance of the conference. Um, so we showed up and we’re going to do like going, for anyone who was there you know a makeshift you know boot camp basically like version of this thing. And Meredith called up and she was scheduled to perform one of the sessions. She’s like God’s just laid it on my heart um, do you need me? And we’re like ah to do I mean yeah to do what? And she’s like, whatever. Rich Birch — Aw, so sweet. Heath Bottomly — And she came in and she led, or was a part of leading, worship for every session that we had. Rich Birch — Oh wow. Heath Bottomly — She she helped out with the prayer ministry aspect. She was interact… she was leading workshops. That’s the type of environment and heartbeat that uh is what we feel God is called Experience Conference to… Rich Birch — Love it. Heath Bottomly — …on um, even a broader level moving forward. Rich Birch — Love it. Well, friends that are listening in, you know, I know we have a lot of executive pastor types who are listening in who are not necessarily the folks that are going to be on stage leading worship. However, we all know that our creative people over the last couple years, we’ll call it they’ve been stretched. Heath Bottomly — Yeah. Rich Birch — It’s been a tough couple years here, friends. Heath Bottomly — Absolutely. Rich Birch — And this could be a great thing when I when I was going through all of this and looking at your material, the thing that struck me was like, wow like this could be a great thing, frankly to give to a couple of your worship people, or maybe a small team of them as a hey, thanks so much – a shot in the arm injection in the arm, as we kick off the fall here. Um I think it could be, if they’re if they haven’t gone you know in the past, this could be a great thing to go to that. So where do we want to send people if they want more information about Experience Conference. Where do we send them online? Heath Bottomly — You can go to experienceconference.com… Rich Birch — Yeah, great. Heath Bottomly —…and it’s all one word – all lowercase. And it it’ll take you right there and it’ll give you all the information you need to know. What I love is like even you know Pastor Scott um shared this with our team a couple years back, he’s like ah it’s a huge thing for him. He he loves the fact that he gets to come and he brings his his team, his worship leaders. And he gets to stand next to him and worship together… Rich Birch — Huge deal. Heath Bottomly —…which usually don’t have that opportunity on a staff team to do that… Rich Birch — Yep yep. Heath Bottomly —…and build camaraderie because that tension and we know that it exists. There is a lot of tension between, um or can be between, the lead pastor/senior pastor and the worship pastor, or worship leader. And so anything that we can do to kind of ah create common ground and really sync that up and strengthen that is a win. Rich Birch — Yeah I love that – love it. Yeah, and even just that—we all know this friends but—you know getting in a car and driving if you can or flying you know, even just that alone to do that with your worship people, that is such a great accelerant relationally. Um, and it’s like the conference is a bonus, in this case, the conference is a huge bonus on top of that. Heath Bottomly — Yeah. Rich Birch — Listen I would strongly encourage you to ah to check out the conference if if you haven’t checked it out, I would you know, check it out and it could be great. Scott’s great guy obviously he’s a great guy. It’s been so good to have you here today. Heath Bottomly — Thanks. Rich Birch — I know we’re coming in to land the plane here, but is there anything else you want to share as we wrap up today? Heath Bottomly — You know I do just, I know we just touched on it. Um, but I would be remiss if I didn’t kind of zero in on this for just a second is… Rich Birch — Yeah. Heath Bottomly — …I’m seeing a lot more because of the craziness of the last couple years some of these tensions between senior pastors and worship pastors have come to the surface a lot more, and I want to I would love to encourage um, both parties in that conversation um with this is that so much of our frustrations in ministry and life come from unmet expectations. But so so often those expectations have never been communicated. Heath Bottomly — And what I’ve been having the opportunity to do is work with senior pastors and worship pastors to really encourage them to get clarity on, do you actually know each other? Um and one of the main things that I mean by that is a lot of times senior pastors think that they’re hiring a shepherd to lead their worship ministry. And and when I say shepherd I mean someone who is is interested in discipling and guiding and teaching the theology, the richness of the faith, um spending one on one time. Heath Bottomly — And the reality, and what I found time and time again, is that there are often, and these are like 3 of the top ideas um that I found more common in in those who lead a worship ministry. You do have the shepherds, but you also have worship artists. Um, and you also have what I found is the rallier. Um, and all 3 of these are hugely valuable and vital can be vital to your organization. But if you think you have one, and yet you had you’ve hired another personality of this, your expectation for them is going to be constantly butting heads, and the frustrations will grow because you actually don’t know the person that is on your team as well as you thought you did. Rich Birch — Oh that’s good. Heath Bottomly — And sometimes we put so much value on the shepherd part, which is a huge value… Rich Birch — Yep. Heath Bottomly — …that we minimize the value of of a worship artist, the creative, who who wants to to minister to people through inspiration and showing them a reflection of God that they haven’t seen before. or the rallier who can connect in that moment on the weekend in a way that maybe a shepherd can’t. Um, if you have unmet expectations for any of them. You’re going to be constantly frustrated… Rich Birch — No that’s good. Yeah. Heath Bottomly — …by what you see as weakness and it’s on a weakness. Rich Birch — That’s really good. I love that distinction there, man. That feels like that could be a whole conversation right there. That’s that’s really good bit of coaching there, particularly again I think for for friends who are listening in who are like senior leaders trying, but maybe feeling a little bit of frustration… Heath Bottomly — Yes. Rich Birch — …or maybe feeling like, hey how is this thing working out I’m not sure what do they? You know how do those people fit on our team? I don’t get it. They’re weird and they have funny hair. Um, you know how does they you know how does that work out. So I appreciate that – that’s that’s really good. Well Heath, I appreciate you being here today. Where do we want to send people online ah if they want to connect with you, if they want to kind of track with your story – where do we want to send them? Heath Bottomly — Um, you can send them to mavenmediaproductions.com. You can also reach me through the Experience Conference page as well. Or it it sounds funny that I’m actually um, but you can go to heathmichaelbottomly.com… Rich Birch — Love it. Love it. Love it. Heath Bottomly — …for my personal page. And interestingly enough you can go to heathmichaelbottomly.ninja Rich Birch — Funny! Love it. Heath Bottomly — …um because as soon as I knew ninja was available I’m like yeah I need that… Rich Birch — Scoop that up. Heath Bottomly — Um I’m going to need that. Yeah. Rich Birch — That’s fantastic. This has been great. Thanks so much for being here. I appreciate you. Excited for the conference. Hopefully goes well. I know it’ll go well this year. I know these all of these events it does seem like this is like fall that all this stuff is returning. So it’s great. Didn’t even mention for listeners, it is at the Disney Resort, which for no for longtime listeners people know that’s a bonus point for me, so you know that’s a good thing. So appreciate that. Heath Bottomly — Yeah, yeah, Coronado is beautiful… Rich Birch — It’s killer. Heath Bottomly — …and it’s it’s gonna be a great time. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, that’ll be great. Thanks so much, man – you have a great day. Heath Bottomly — Yeah, thanks – you as well. Thanks for having me.

Thanks for joining us for the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Larry Osborne, the Teaching Pastor and Kingdom Ambassador at North Coast Church. North Coast has nine locations in California, one in Ohio, one in Hawaii, and one in both Mexico and Japan. Churches can be tempted to look back to the old way of doing things and wish we were there. But we’ve been trusted, empowered and equipped to lead in this new, strange time. Listen in as Larry Osborne offers advice to church leaders in this season and how we can lead in the unchangeable present. Know where you are. // Churches need to have a clear understanding of their goals when moving forward, but Larry says they also have to know where they currently are. Right now a lot of churches don’t know where they are. They were on one road prior to COVID and didn’t just move backward – now they are on a completely different road. Our churches may still be heading for the same goal, and have a lot of the same things on the new road toward that goal, but are starting from a different point and we need to accept that.The effect of choice on the world. // We’ve always lived in echo chambers, but they used to be geographical, rather than by choice. In today’s world we have so many choices that it naturally creates these echo chambers. Larry believes that more choices in our culture will increase our inability to communicate because we are choosing the information world we want to live in.Kingdoms, not castles. // The result of more choices means our ministry lanes need to be narrower, but we also have to be more supportive of the lanes right across the street. In other words, we have to be more supportive of churches that are different from us because different churches may be able to reach people that we can’t reach. If we think ‘Kingdom’ instead of ‘Castle’ we will be as excited about the church across the street as we are about our own, rather than viewing them as competition.Connect people in all ways. // A lot of worship leaders and speakers desperately want to get everyone back in the room for church services. They may feel like their church is failing if people aren’t physically in the church. Internet services used to be viewed as only a way to introduce people to a church, but they can be so much more than that. An entrepreneurial leader can transform church online into a community where people truly connect.Focus on relationships. // What we need to focus on in the church is relationships and iron sharpening iron, rather than whether services should be only in person or online. Believing that gathering with a large group of acquaintances is the only way that we can meet according to Hebrews 10:24-25 is a modern idea. Some people can better focus and absorb the teaching in a small group or through an online service that they are able to pause and think about. Others focus better in person with the pastor in front of them. Serve more people with more services. // Larry doesn’t think mega churches will be going away, rather the churches are adjusting their services to serve more people as needed. Rather than build bigger buildings, offer more services across your campuses to reach people in smaller settings. You can learn more about North Coast Church at www.northcoastchurch.com and reach Larry at www.larryosborne.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 — Well hey, everybody, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in today. We’re in for a real treat today. We’ve got Larry Osborne with us. Larry’s been connected with North Coast Church for a long time. It’s one of the fastest growing churches in the country, if you’re not aware of it. Larry’s been at the front of so many different innovations—North Coast has been as well—video venues, you know, so ah small groups, multisite. Larry was the lead pastor there and then co-senior pastor from 1980 to 2019, if I’m doing my math right. Ah, but he’s currently serves as the teaching pastor and kingdom ambassador, which I love, mentoring pastors and church leaders around the nation. He’s also so authored several books. Larry, welcome to the show – I’m so glad you’re here today. Larry Osborne — Well thank you. Glad to be with you. Rich Birch — Larry, fill out the story. What did I miss there if people aren’t, you know, aware of you or the church? What what what do we want to make sure they know? Larry Osborne — Not a lot. I just tell people we came… a lot of people think I founded North Coast Church. I didn’t. It was a small group of 70 about a year and a half old meeting a high school cafeteria. So much of the church planting thing I went through, borrowed desk on the trash of the big church I’d been a youth pastor at and uh my office was a parishioner’s garage, and we had skateboarders out the window while I’m trying to preach. Rich Birch — Love it. Larry Osborne — So I kind of knew that thing, but it’s just it’s been a fun journey. You know like everything and has it’s hard times. But I tell people basically North Coast is a church I always wanted to go to. Rich Birch — Oh love it. Larry Osborne — Often when I work with church planters talking about how to plant a church, I go, plant the one you want to go to and see if anybody else wants to go to it. Rich Birch — Oh so good. Larry Osborne — Now to my shock quite a few people wanted to go to one just like that. So it’s a youth group for adults. Rich Birch — Yeah yeah, love it. That’s great. Love it. You know and like I was saying in the intro, you really you know God’s used you in a bunch of I think really strategic ways over your ministry career. And there’s lots of innovations that have ended up impacting hundreds, thousands of churches across the country that that your you particularly were early on in, and so I’m eager to kind of tap your brain today as we kind of come out of covid, or I’m not even sure what this season is as we kind of pivot beyond that, what are you seeing in in churches? As you’re talking with church leaders in this kingdom ambassador role, what are some of those things that you’re, either problems that churches are facing, or advice you find yourself continuing to give… Larry Osborne — Sure. Rich Birch — …what are you talking to churches about these days? Larry Osborne — Well if if you’re going to lead anything you have to have a clear understanding of what you’re headed towards, what your goal is, right? But you also have to know where you are, and I think coming out of covid the problem is that that most churches don’t know where they’re trying to go, but an awful lot of them don’t understand where they are. Rich Birch — Okay. Larry Osborne — If I had a whiteboard I would draw kind of a highway if you will that’s heading up towards ah a star in the upper right corner, whatever it would be, and I would put a church three quarters of the way up pre-covid, and that’s a road we’re on and we’re heading in this direction. And now most people think okay, we went backwards for a period of time. Ah, but we’re on the same road. And so I get lots of pastors saying hey, help me figure out how to get back to where we were and then back in the race. Larry Osborne — I had two kids who ran distance, and on the track side, not cross-country side. If you had your heels clipped or clipped somebody’s heels you would stumble or maybe even fall. You had to get up and run faster than everybody else to get back in the pack and see if you had anything left. And I think that’s the picture that a lot of us have. How do I get back to where I was, and then move on? But the truth is if you can see the word picture of this road with a church where it was and then lost some ground but gaining it back. The reality is we’re not on that road anymore. We’re somewhere over here… Rich Birch — Oh nice. Wow. Larry Osborne — …on the far left hand corner, and we’re in a completely different place. Now we’re still heading for the same goal. Rich Birch — Right. Larry Osborne — And we still have much of the same things we had on the previous road. It’s kind of like the second temple. When the second temple was built, there are a lot of people, the older heads of households, older priests, older Levites, wept and mourned because it wasn’t as big as the first temple, even though in Haggai it says the glory the second is going to be great in the glory first, and by the way you never even saw the first with this, you kind of glory in it. But they’d they’d experienced something bigger, and they thought better. And that’s kind of where we are now. Larry Osborne — The the second temple still had a Court of the Gentiles, still had a Holy a Holies. It still had, you know, it still had all the same elements. And so in that sense I don’t think church has changed. Rich Birch — Right. Larry Osborne — But we’re in a completely different place. Rich Birch — Right. Larry Osborne — And then the second thing was I really believe that ah the whole internet conversation. And the online realities in the church have been sped up by about 10 years… Rich Birch — Yep. Larry Osborne — …and a lot of churches are still confused by that. They’re trying to get people back, rather than from this new place saying, Okay, we’re leading people to Jesus and we’re not done until we’ve taught them to obey everything he taught us. What is the best way to do it? And some of the old things, but there’s a bunch of new things, and just old stuff won’t work anymore. Rich Birch — Um, yeah, let’s dive into that. That’s I think is a really clear word picture – not surprising from you. What what when you think about the kind of road that the fact that it shifted, what would be a couple of those things that you’ve seen, either in North Coast or in churches that you’ve kind of talked with that, are like here’s some new realities we need to be thinking about, we need to be kind of wrestling with? Maybe the internet is one of them. Are there others? Larry Osborne — Yeah I would say you definitely have to come back to a couple things about the internet… Rich Birch — Yeah. Larry Osborne — …but there’s been a cultural shift, and it’s caused by echo chambers. We’ve always lived in echo chambers, but they used to be geographic, and now they’re by choice. And so you have people who live in MSNBC and people who live in Fox News… Rich Birch — That’s so true. Larry Osborne — …and everything in between. And the only thing they know about the other side is what their source tells them about the other side. And we’re becoming angrier and angrier. And I I believe part of it is there’s this phenomenon of choice. Everybody I talk to hates echo chambers, and what what they’ve done our inability to dialogue. But nobody’s willing to get rid of choice. So I’ll ask 500,000 pastors at a conference, how many of you hate it? Every hand goes up. How many of you are willing to go back to just three network news stations? No hands go up. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Larry Osborne — I mean you’ve gone one AM or or one FM radio station instead of your… Rich Birch — Yes. Larry Osborne — My phone has eight days of music on it. Whatever mood I’m in, my choice. So I don’t you know, when I look forward, no one can see the future but we can see the unchangeable present. And ah change, I mean choice coming into our culture is going to increase our inability to communicate… Rich Birch — Yes. Larry Osborne — …because we’re choosing the information world we want to live in. And I’m always telling people, all the angry people over the last few years didn’t suddenly become stupid and immoral on whatever side you’re on, the other side. Rich Birch — Right. Yes. Larry Osborne — …I believe going forward we’ve got to understand that just like a missionary understands when they move into a country, hey this is a red flag word. This is a concept. This is you know it’s relational time not chronological time. Whatever it would be the new world in is one in which I think our lanes of ministry have to be more narrow and our support of other lanes right across the street has to be tighter. You know it used to be kingdom ministry started overseas, or more than 40 minutes away… Rich Birch — Right. Right. Larry Osborne — …now it’s just right across the street. We literally… Rich Birch — Yeah unpack… Larry Osborne — We literally… Rich Birch — Yeah, unpack that a bit more. Larry Osborne — Another free church. That’s our tribe… Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Larry Osborne — …plant across the street from one of our campuses. Rich Birch — Wow. Okay. Larry Osborne — Why? Because they’re not a threat. Rich Birch — Yeah. Larry Osborne — We’re all reaching very much narrower than we ever did in the past, and the I would love my church to be like heaven. Larry Osborne — If I’m really reaching lost people, they ain’t going to heaven. They’re in hell. Rich Birch — Okay. Larry Osborne — And then I started saying, okay this is what heaven’s like, that they won’t they won’t even listen. So I think that’s one of the things in Romans chapter one, it talks about the downward cycle of a culture that ignores God, which I think many of us feel we’ve done. Most Christians think you ought to read it romans 1:18-32 – read it carefully and you’ll be shocked, because most Christians think the bottom cycle is sexual decadence. It’s not. The final said when he says he gave him over to a depraved mind to do what ought not be done. It’s slander, gossip, no faithfulness, no mercy, knowing these things are wrong, but approving – talk about virtual signaling – those who do them. It’s every single thing is relational destruction in that list, not sexual decadence. Rich Birch — Interesting. Larry Osborne — And that’s where we are right now and if I gripe about it… Rich Birch — Yeah. Larry Osborne — …instead of saying, wow Lord you put people behind enemy lines. How exciting is this? We’ll never be able to move forward. Rich Birch — Um, yeah, so how do we as… so I think I think that’s ah, a searing insight I think a very good insight for us to be thinking about – this idea of echo chambers and the idea that we’re living in a, you know, a more maybe more fractured culture than before. One of the the complexities of leading a larger church, at least I found it, as we go beyond 1000, 2000 is you you do have to become broader. It’s like you have to figure out how do you appeal to more people in your community um, and North Coast has done this over the years, you know, you did that with the kind of multiple venue thing that we found different ways to do that. So how does how does that those lessons, those principles apply to where we are today, if if we are living in a kind of an increasingly echoey chambery world. What what does that look like for us going forward do you think? Larry Osborne — Well if we would think Kingdom instead of Castle, which is excited about the church across the street as we are about ours. We we had a real life experience of this a going and blowing college ministry where that college pastor wanted to start a church but wanted to stay in the area because his daughters were in high school, his kids were in high school. Rich Birch — Right. Larry Osborne — He ended up planting a church um about five miles from our house. Rich Birch — Right. Larry Osborne — It was a little more charismatic leaning than we were, so we told him, hey Assembly of God give you 75 grand to do it, go with them. We’re still gonna give you the $100K. Ah, well, you just didn’t you just didn’t do that fifteen years ago… Rich Birch — Right, right. Larry Osborne — …because it was almost like a church splinter. Rich Birch — Competitive thing. Yeah. Larry Osborne — And it’s not a church plant reaching lost people, it’s it’s just a new church. But in this day and age of all the narrow things, if I think Kingdom, there is no competition of another church. And the irony is, excuse me, at one point he came up to ah and said there’s this church of another tribe in the town that had kind of died and they were looking at him to maybe come and be their pastor. And our first response is, oh man, that’s so close to us – I don’t know. And then when we walked out the room, Chris Brown, myself and one other, we looked at each other said, Lord have mercy on us. Because if he said this dead church wants to be called North Coast Church campus with live preaching instead of video we would high five how much God is blessing us, but because it had another tag… Rich Birch — Oh gosh. Yes. Larry Osborne — …we we had a brief hesitancy. Rich Birch — Yes. Larry Osborne — And so that to me is a real practicalness of like, you know, the the people listening are are leaders in this. It’s like are you helping the new church plant buy chairs? Are you letting them use your building? Are you constantly in touch with a way where you’re not trying to become one thing? Blended services were a great way to make no one happy, and blended churches are a great way to make no one happy. Rich Birch — Love it. Larry Osborne — But let’s just celebrate these different little ah lanes we have and support that. Rich Birch — Yes. Larry Osborne — Starbucks doesn’t care if I quit going to the one I go to and go to another… Rich Birch — Right. Larry Osborne — …you know, ah, eighth mile away. Rich Birch — Right, right. Larry Osborne — The branch manager does. They don’t care if I go to Seattle’s Best because they own that too. Rich Birch — Right, right. Okay, good good great insights there. Let’s get back to the internet conversation. So our, you know, I I like that insight of like, and I think it’s true, you know the internet has, you know, what has happened through covid in a lot of ways is just accelerated trends that are already there for sure, kind of church online. You guys have been doing church online for a long time. We’ve been involved in that for a long time, and it went from like this fringe thing even two years ago, I was surprised at how many people really looked at that suspiciously, to like okay now it’s a part of who we are. As you look up over the horizon, what should we be thinking about or wrestling with on that front? Larry Osborne — Well what happened in the past is when churches got a little bit larger because of mobility, they start having two services instead of one, people said we can’t do that we won’t be a church. Yeah, we were. Then you had three, then you had a night service, and you had another day. Same complaint. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Larry Osborne — So then you had different places, or you put something on video. Oh we’re not one church. And then afterward you go, oh we absolutely are. Because what makes us one church is our focus on Jesus Christ, it’s the discipleship that happens through the life on life connections that are happening. And the transformations take place through the word of God, the renewing of a mind. And so in this new place we are we’re at we need to start realizing there are other ways that people get the key information that renews their mind than just physically in the room. What I find is worship leaders and speakers desperately want everybody back in the room. Rich Birch — We want we want big crowds. Right. Larry Osborne — Yeah. And so like at North Coast one of the things we’ve done is, now we’re in a very blue state and a bunch of different things and some other people, but what we did is we said we’re happy that we can offer a live option, rather than the word ‘come back’. Rich Birch — Right. Larry Osborne — And that broadened the number of people we could reach because if we said, hey you can come back now, for all those who choose not to come back for whatever reasons, but they’re still involved, there they just been subconsciously called the second class citizen. Larry Osborne — My friend Nathan Artt of Ministry Solutions does some great stuff on on this. He talks about Home Depot. And I’ve had the privilege of being in a situation with Frank Blake the guy who turned them into the internet focus. And I might be off—’cause it’s off top of my head—a percent or 2, but something like ah I believe they’re the fourth largest online retailer. Rich Birch — Wow. Larry Osborne — But only about 5% of their sales come online. They don’t capitalize. People go back and forth. So any of our listeners right now that live near a Home Depot know there’s sometimes I want to go there and see the thing. Rich Birch — Right. Larry Osborne — Because can’t quite get it. There’s other times I know exactly what I’m getting and I don’t need it right now, so I go online order it and they ship it to me. There’s other times where I know what I’m getting, I go online, I order it, and then I go get it from the locker box that they have. And I’m just interchanging all the way and we used to think of the internet as a funnel to get you to church. Rich Birch — Right. Larry Osborne — And and it isn’t. Rich Birch — No. Larry Osborne — It’s just an alternative way to get the information. Rich Birch — Right. Larry Osborne — And people will go back and forth and how they’re comfortable. And that changes the way you introduce it, who you have leading it… Rich Birch — Right. Larry Osborne — If it’s a funnel to lead you back to the church. You probably have a shepherd as your campus pastor online. If you see it as another opportunity, you have an entrepreneurial leader over that ministry, a person who has industry of building things, not just loving on people because the opportunities are massive. Rich Birch — Right. Where would… Larry Osborne — You don’t cannibal… Rich Birch — Yeah I like that I think that’s a good call. I think we we all have to figure out how this fits in into our overall ministry mix that there are… I think the thing we’ve all seen—I hear this time and again when I talk with church leaders—is we we we know we have people that are connecting with us online, they’re they’re connect they continue to connect with us online. And even if you were in that category of like, oh I really hope all these people will come back um, you realize not all those people are “coming back”. They’re going to connect with us online, and they want to connect with us online, and we don’t want to like turn it off, which is but very terrible idea. But what would you say are maybe some of the limitations, or are there any limitations? Are we just got to work through some of those limitations? Larry Osborne — Well… Rich Birch — What where would we kind of say it’s maybe not a full expression? Larry Osborne — Yeah, we we’ve defined ‘forsake not the gathering yourselves together as the manner of some is’ from Hebrews 10:24-25 as a large group gathering, when it was written to people in house churches. Larry Osborne — So our idea that you have to be in a larger group where you have acquaintances, not affinity and relationships, is very much we’re like a fish in water – you have fish, house, water. What water? That’s all it knows. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Larry Osborne — So ah, we tend to read the bible in scripture and experiences through our our modern day lens. Ah, but you need iron sharpening iron. But if this idea that everybody needs to be back in a group setting in rows, whether there’s lots of rows or few rows, listening to one person talk up front, I want to go well, you do realize that didn’t happen for a few hundred years of Christianity. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Right, right. Larry Osborne — Right? Rich Birch — Yep. Larry Osborne — I mean what what we need is relationships; we need iron sharpening iron. So one of my best friends will probably never come back to North Coast Church physically. But what he does he meets with his life group. They watch the sermon together, then they have a brunch, they pray for one another, they love on one another, somebody’s going through a medical… I mean they’re being the church in a house church model. Rich Birch — Right, right. Larry Osborne — But we’re going, oh no, you need the crowd. And yes, some personalities need the crowd. I get more out of the time shifted sermon the weeks I’m not preaching. You know I only preach about 20 times a year and when I’m in live, I’m wondering why that gal’s given that guy a back rub, and why they don’t just get rent a room ah, two rows in front of me. And then I’m noticing the little noise from an air conditioner over here. All of these distractions. Rich Birch — Yes. Larry Osborne — But when I’m listening online or a podcast, I can pause I can think about it. My wife and I can talk – I get way more content by my personality… Rich Birch — Right. Larry Osborne — …by not being in the room, believe it or not. Rich Birch — Yes, yeah. Larry Osborne — And I think a lot of pastors who are, and and executive pastors and leaders, who are trying to drive everybody back are actually the same way. When they go to a conference, they sit on the back row on an aisle… Rich Birch — Yes. Larry Osborne — …but they’re upset when their people sit on the back row on an aisle. Rich Birch — See this is what I like about you, Larry. You have some pretty searing insights that I think are true. You know and I think it was you that said, I’ve requoted or I keep quoting it to you, that it’s only pastors that like big churches, that you know that actually functionally, like the average person that attends it’s a hassle when our churches are packed out. When there’s 2000 people all trying to cram into a room somewhere that we like it because we stand up on the stage and we look at and we think isn’t that cool? Um, but actually if you were to talk to most people in our congregations they wouldn’t necessarily say I prefer that – that there’s a lot of people that would say I would actually like a smaller environment. Larry Osborne — Yeah, what they’re pursuing is quality. That’s why it gets big. They’re not pursuing big. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Larry Osborne — They want enough energy… Rich Birch — Yes. Larry Osborne — …the room’s got to be half full and enough energy wherever the room is, whatever its size is to feel like something’s happening here. Rich Birch — Yep. Larry Osborne — But but they’re not pursuing big. They’re pursuing quality. Rich Birch — Right. Larry Osborne — And because of mobility, it being ubiquitous today… Rich Birch — Yep, yep. Larry Osborne — …ah, people can now chase after the the best or the better instead of the closest… Rich Birch — Right, right. Larry Osborne — …which is for almost all of human history where you had to go. Rich Birch — Right. Interesting. So in kind of related issue, you know you’ve been at the core of the megachurch movement for as long as it was called the megachurch movement, and there seems to be people out there now, relating to a lot of the stuff we’ve been talking about, that are are kind of ringing this death knell for ah that particular kind of form of church. What’s your thoughts on that? Where where is where do you think this is is going long term? Are we are we going to all end up in ah you know a lot of smaller churches? What what do you think that’s going to look like? Larry Osborne — Well I’ve I’ve heard this before and it’s a both/and. Part of it is dead. The culture has shifted. Big thanks to video venues and or the multi-congregational model. What we’ve done is when people drive more than 20 minutes, two things disappear: come and see evangelism, and youth involvement. Which is why we do our campuses. We’re not trying to grow. We’re we’re actually going where we have feet on the ground of people driving too far, and come and see evangelism is a major way adults come to Jesus Christ. So the really big buildings were before we could had the ability just even financial and quality to use video and some of the stuff we can use now. So had we not come up with that, somebody else would have in the next two to five years. I mean it was just like duh. Rich Birch — Yes. Larry Osborne — Um but ah in that sense I don’t think people are going to be building 5-, 6-, 7000 seat… Rich Birch — Right. Larry Osborne — …buildings anymore. Rich Birch — No, that’s true. Larry Osborne — Because that is an event that takes you 30 minutes to get out of, and what people do is they go to an event sporadically. But if you’re talking about megachurches with lots of services and thousands and thousands of people, that’s not going away. Rich Birch — Right. Larry Osborne — The first, you know, megachurches were created for the same reason big box stores were created. Rich Birch — Right. Larry Osborne — The Automobile. You know when I was a young kid, we had one car. Now every apartment you drive by doesn’t have enough parking because if there’s three people in the apartment, there’s four cars. And that ability now, as I said earlier, we don’t have to go to the close we can go to the best, or in our moment the better or best. So that creates big but once big becomes too much of a hassle, you’re like that restaurant with a long line. And after a while you only go there on a special occasion. Rich Birch — Right, right. Larry Osborne — Ah, but I don’t think big churches are going to be gone. You know for a while there was this millennial millennials don’t like megachurches. No they didn’t like boomers’ megachurches. Rich Birch — Yes. Larry Osborne — But soon as they had their own, they loved them. Rich Birch — Yes, yes, it’s so true. Larry Osborne — And that’ll be true with Z, and every group – that we have the ability to make large and the moment it becomes congestive… Like we have a rule at North Coast, you got to get out of the parking lots of any place in 7 minutes. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Larry Osborne — Okay, and if not and that’s why we don’t build bigger and bigger buildings. We had more and more services. Pre-covid time, place and local campuses we had 56 services. Why? Because we could reach a ton of people in a lot of smaller settings that didn’t tell them… Rich Birch — Right. Larry Osborne — …this is too much of a hassle to check your kid in or whatever. Rich Birch — Yeah and that parking thing that is that’s so true. Like over the years I’ve we’ve written on parking on our blog and talked about it and and it is one of those like unseen things that, and typically because lots of church leaders are in the building when there’s when there’s hassle out in the parking lot and they don’t see it, and they don’t realize what pain that is. And so we’ve got to lean in on that issue. It seems like a funny practical thing, and I’ve said that to church leaders over the years how long to take people to get out of the parking lot and they look at me like I don’t know what you’re talking about like you know, but it’s a it’s a huge issue. Larry Osborne — Yeah, here’s what happens when anything gets large, you get sucked to the middle. Rich Birch — Right. Larry Osborne — You want an illustration of it think of a high school Principal of a really large high school. He or she will only know the worst kids and the best kids and have no idea what a regular student’s like. Rich Birch — Right, right. Larry Osborne — So you have to fight to the fringe. So one of the things I’ve done over all the years I continue to do at North Coast is I like to arrive 4 minutes before the service starts, every now and then when I’m not preaching to see if I can jet out of there like right at… because because that’s the only way I can know. Rich Birch — Yeah. Larry Osborne — I wonder how many pastors walk around and see of a larger church and actually take a look at at at the line people trying to check their kids in. Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so true. Larry Osborne — And we’re here early, leave late, so we think it’s all great, and then we have no idea what people are experiencing. You got to fight to the fringe. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s very good. Larry, if you were, you know, you’ve been like I say I’ve been a part of so many innovations over the years. How do you personally stay fresh and personally stay engaged with you know where culture is going? What does that look like for you like you you? You seem to be always have these effervescent kind of just ideas bubbling from that are you know, just from the world around us. How do you stay fresh personally? Larry Osborne — Well I think part of it’s a natural giftedness. I get asked that all the time. But even as a young kid I could mentally model outcomes, and say if we do this this is going to happen just quickly. Like some people on a chessboard can see a few moves ahead, if I do this or if we do this, or whatever, which by the way I can’t. Larry Osborne – So but I’ve always noticed that about organizations and cultures. Not so much about an individual… Rich Birch — Right. Larry Osborne – …but ah organization. Ah, and I don’t think anybody can see the future. I’m not a big fan of the books that tell us where we’re heading because when you read the old books by the people they’re all wrong… Rich Birch — Yes. Larry Osborne — …but I’m a big fan of the unchangeable future. Rich Birch — Yes. Larry Osborne — So I’m always looking around like like what we tend to do is we straight line today and say this is where we’re headed. Well if that’s true, I’d still have a ponytail and be living out of a VW van. You know? Rich Birch — Right. Yes. Larry Osborne — It’s like no suddenly boomers got jobs, and millennials got jobs. You have kids and it’s like we don’t stay the same. Life changes. As life changes culture. But when Peter Drucker forty years ago said Europe is going to have a massive social problem of all their pensions and social safety net and immigration problem, he wasn’t seeing the future. He was seeing the unchangeable present. Zero birth rates. If we have zero birth rates today, we won’t have enough workers to feed the pension 20, 30, 40 years from now. Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah, yeah. Larry Osborne — And so that’s what I’m looking for. That’s why I said echo chambers. I think I can be spot on. Time’s shifting. No one’s willing to go back. Rich Birch — Yeah. Larry Osborne — Having to turn on the TV game right when it starts that there are certain things you realize are unchangeable future. Building bigger and bigger buildings – what’s what that’s what video venues came out of is we’ve got to find a way to make it small, and nowadays we have incredible sound systems projectors and cameras. And here’s the other unchangeable, when I was in a big room after the seventh row they were watching the screen anyway. Rich Birch — Right, right. Larry Osborne — So everybody was watching a video venue anyway. Anybody’s spoken there knows like, look at me look at me and they’re all looking at the side. Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes, everyone’s eyes are off to the side. Yeah, absolutely. Larry Osborne — Yeah, unchangeable future. Rich Birch — Yeah, for sure and you know and I’ve seen that from you over the years, even that today you know the conversation, you know, could have been like convenience and choice. Those are consistent cultural that is just baked in seems to be baked into the culture that and we look to the future people are going to be asking more questions around how do I have more choice and how do I how can I access those things in a more convenient way? Um, those are that has been true for 50 years, 50+ years, 100 years, 1000 years will continue to be true. It’s like it’s like Jeff Bezos for years has been talking about you know, hey we know that 10 years from now at Amazon people are going to want product products faster and cheaper, like that’s just true, right? Like and so how do we build over an extended period of time towards being faster and cheaper, which they have. They’ve marched in that direction and made a huge difference. Well I really appreciate this, Larry. As we wrap up today’s episode anything else you’d like to share before we we close it down? Larry Osborne — Well just remind everybody what an incredible privilege it is to be doing ministry in some of these strange and unique times. You know I’m over here by the Marine Corps base and the the Navy down in San Diego, and it’s the greatest honor ever to be a Navy Seal. And they put you behind the lines in those kind of situations only when they think you can handle it. And and we should in no way, be looking back at the old days and wish we were there. We’ve we’ve been trusted and empowered and given all we need to do what we need in this new, strange situation. And so we should wake up every day going, wow. How can I charge that hill? Rich Birch — Love it. Well, Larry, I appreciate you being here today. I appreciate your investment in us. Um, if where do we want to send people online if they want to track with you or if they want to track with the church, where do we want to send them? Larry Osborne — Northcoastchurch.com has our stuff and our sermons and all that. And there’s ah, a site called Larry Osborne live which sometimes is pretty dead; I don’t do a lot of social media. But it’s got things in my books and stuff like that kind of connected to it. But… Rich Birch — Great. Larry Osborne — And then there’s a North Coast Training Network which is a part of Northcoastchurch.com so that’s off … see all the stuff we’re doing. Rich Birch — Great. We’ll link to all those things. Again, Larry, appreciate you being here today; appreciate your leadership over the years. Thank you so much. Larry Osborne — Thank you.

Thanks for joining us for the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Executive Creative Director Melody Workman from California-based Sandals Church – one of the fastest growing churches in the country for several years now. It’s hard for churches everywhere to build high performance volunteer teams. Often our growth strategy for volunteer teams doesn’t match our growth strategy for church planting or campus expansion. Listen in as Melody shares about how to shift to a team-building mentality that will support growth at your church. Make the shift to building robust teams. // At first Sandals Church had a great growth strategy for planting campuses, but no growth strategy for building high performance volunteer teams. Melody began putting a lot of emphasis around the idea that when hiring someone they can’t simply be really skilled at their job, but they also need to be a strong team builder, or they probably won’t work out at the church.Who knows what you know? // Great leaders always ask two questions: Who knows what I know, and who can do what I do? As church leaders we may falsely believe that if someone else is as skilled as we are that we are devalued. But the truth is that when we reproduce ourselves, we have increased our value. Now we’ve trained others to know what we know.What do you value? // When it comes to what the church values, Melody tells her team that if they’re not vocal about it and it’s not visible, it’s not really a value. Team building needs to be front and center all the time if it’s something a church values. Talk about team building in your meetings and cast vision around it for your team. People are not drawn to tasks, they’re drawn to vision. Recognize that team building brings value to the volunteers involved, the campuses, and to the church. Show the volunteers you appreciate them. // You’ll find that volunteers will care about the work that needs to be done when you care about them. Recruiting is only part of the job; build time in your calendar to express gratitude to your volunteers. Let them know that you couldn’t do everything you do without them, and that you wouldn’t want to.Growing pains of a growing church. // Growing churches are going to have growing pains. For example, it can be hard for the central team to be aligned with the campuses. First, celebrate the fact that you are growing. Then establish wins. Melody worked with the executive team at Sandals Church to outline the Weekend Win: what is the win on that weekend regardless of what campus you are at? They also have weekend evaluations that come from the campuses to the central network staff every weekend. Supervisors from both areas review these evaluations.Look for the little wins. // When recruiting team members, every leader brings different strengths to the table. Work with leaders at each campus to set sizable, reachable goals. Melody underscores that it’s important to celebrate before you evaluate so that you don’t deflate your team. Leaders at Sandals know they will be evaluated on team building, so Melody makes sure they are offered constant encouragement when they take steps toward this goal. Every step is celebrated. Without celebration, a team will become deflated by evaluations, and a deflated team will underperform every time. Celebrate the small things and it helps evaluations become less of a nemesis.Building and Caring For Your Team. // Sandals works to train up leaders from within, and one of the ways they do this is through ROGO school, which stands for Real with Ourselves, God and Others. One of the ROGO resources Melody has developed is called Building and Caring For Your Team. Help leaders build and care for their teams by watching the video below, and downloading this PDF. You can visit Melody online at www.melodyworkman.com or on Instagram @MelodyWorkman. You can find out more about Sandals Church at sandalschurch.com. The Vision And Heart On Building Teams | ROGO School | Sandals 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: 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, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in today. You know every week we try to bring you a leader who will both inspire and equip you, and this week is no exception. I am super excited for, been looking forward to this conversation. The Executive Director of Story and Experience from Sandals Church. Sandals is an incredible church – Dan Zimbardi was on in the past, executive pastor from there. It’s repeatedly on the fastest growing church list across the country. They are consistently there and have been there a bunch of times which means we need to lean in and learn from them. If I’m counting right they have 13 campuses across California, plus Spanish services, and church online. A robust online strategy that I’ve pointed to multiple times with Sandals Church Anywhere. Melody is ah the leader we’re talking to today. Melody welcome to the show. So glad you’re here. Melody Workman — Hey Rich. Thanks so much for having me. I’m excited to be here. Rich Birch — Yeah, this is going to be great. I why don’t you fill in the story. What am I missing about Sandals? I feel like it’s hard to keep up with – you guys are always moving, always shaking. There’s always something new. Melody Workman — Yeah. Rich Birch — So what what what do we what did I miss about the the Sandals story? Melody Workman — Well I think you covered it pretty well. We we did recently just make a change on my team specifically. We we’ve been the story and experience team but we’ve just now moved over to being Sandals Creative… Rich Birch — Okay, nice. Melody Workman — …and that’s worship production video and design. And we have kind of our tagline is that we we tell stories and create experiences that connect people to Jesus in real life. Rich Birch — Love it. Melody Workman — Our vision at sandals is this vision of being real, and so I want to bring storytellers, and artists, musicians, people who love audio production, all of that stuff here who want to tell the greatest story ever told and connect people to Jesus in their real life. Not a weekend experience, but ah, a day by day experience that they where they love and encounter Jesus. Rich Birch — Love it. You know for folks that are listening in Melody is at the center of a a church that does a great job on exactly what she’s talking about. You you have you know huge influence over this area. But when I hear all those areas; I’m like there’s a ton of people behind all of that. Melody Workman — Right. Rich Birch — Talk me through kind of what the you know you just which I loved just you know, rattled through here’s all these different teams – talk about those teams give us a bit of the scope, scale – help us think through that, give us ah a sense for folks that are listening in, on the team side… Melody Workman — Sure. Rich Birch — …when you think about here here are the kind of areas that you’re leading. Melody Workman — Yeah, so worship and production. We run live services, multiple live services at our campuses. Right now we do have 14 – ah our latest campus that we’re launching in Santa Rosa which is north of San Francisco um isn’t fully launched, so we’re running one service there right now. But we have one part time person in worship, and one part-time person production at these campuses which means everybody else is a volunteer, so I’m excited to get into talking about how we do that, because it’s 52 weekends a year we got to keep this machine rolling. Melody Workman — Video and design are really our teams around um everything that you see outward facing around our art, bumpers for video for sermon series, any videos that we create, story videos. They are the ones who are kind of thinking through how do we make this idea come alive. We work a lot with our senior pastor, Matt Brown. He comes into these conversations. Um, and it’s different for every senior pastor, but he really loves to sit in the ideation phase And we we kind of lean in and like what’s God saying to him. Okay, how do we bring this to life. So um, we have a lot of fun. But um, we we work really hard. Rich Birch — Love it. Yeah, so there’s a lot of people wrapped up in there. A lot of teams. I love the you know the focus on volunteers. I think sometimes there’s this misnomer as churches grow larger that like well that’s like got all be paid people… Melody Workman — Yes. Rich Birch — …but you know Sandals has done so much of what you do is with volunteers. I’d love to learn from you on that. What what what is the ah maybe some of the the problem around building teams? When you think about, Okay, it’s difficult for churches to do that. Why is it? Why is it so hard for us to build high performance teams? Melody Workman — Yeah, man, when I first moved into the role that I’m I’m in now, I recognize that we had a ah problem and that we had this growth strategy to plant campuses, but we had no growth strategy for our worship and production teams. Rich Birch — Oh that’s good. Melody Workman — So when you take them out of the equation, weekend services are going to really take a nosedive. You know you walk into a service you want a full band, you want a stage that’s alive, you want ah a full booth where people are running and in the lights, the lyrics, everything looks and sounds really good. So I recognized, we don’t have a growth strategy for this. And so when I was visiting campuses I was seeing really small teams and I I thought we’ve got to address this. So I kind of started putting a lot of emphasis around this idea that at at our core, when I’m hiring someone, they may be a great musician. They may be able to sing riffs ah around, you know, whatever. They may know everything about tech. If they do not value and understand that they are a team builder, they’re probably not going to work out here. And so it’s a unique person to find… Rich Birch — It is. Melody Workman — …musicians – you can find musicians everywhere, especially when you’re an hour outside of LA, But do do you have someone who wants to invest in people? And so that’s where I recognize our core problem wasn’t just, a hey you guys got to build teams and get people. I really had to help people see and embrace the value of it. What is it actually that we are trying to do? And that’s when I think we’ve made a real shift um, to have the robust teams that we have right now. Rich Birch — Yeah I love this. And and for folks that are listening in, like I have found this same tension around ah particularly in our creative department where it’s like it seems like—and listen I love creatives. I love worship leaders. I love people that do creative things—but there’s like a um, I want to be the person on stage you know, kind of undercurrent with some – not with all – where it’s like and and the idea of replicating other leaders – finding, releasing, equipping, other leaders. It seems to be difficult for folks in that domain. is that true am I misreading that I feel like I bumped into that dynamic. Melody Workman — Sure. Yeah. Rich Birch — Have you seen that with some leaders? Melody Workman — Absolutely. I think it’s difficult for leaders to think about it because I think that we are often thinking about it through the wrong lens. We think that if someone else is as good as we are, we have devalued ourselves. When the truth is when we when we when we reproduce ourselves, we have increased our value because now there’s someone else who knows what we know. I think I think great leaders are always asking these two questions: who knows what I know, and can do what I do. Rich Birch — That’s good. Melody Workman — This is what I this is what I burn into our team: who knows what you know and can do what you do? You need to that needs to get you out of bed, that needs to motivate you during the day. You need to be seen. I mean when Covid hit, we all had this weight to carry of who who can fill in? I’m I’m positive or I’ve been I’ve been you know exposed. What are we going to do? So that really did create a moment where I think our teams in a fresh way understood how important this is. People have to know what I know and can do what I do. if I’m the only one who knows this, I am not an asset to the organization the way that I could be, if not only I know it, but 2, 3, 4, 5 other people know it as well. So it’s been a shift to get people to see that. But here’s the other here’s the other beautiful thing too. Um. What I tell our team all the time is people are not drawn to task, people are drawn to vision. Rich Birch — True. Melody Workman — So throw this idea of asking people to help out the window. I say all the time – we are not asking people to help we are empowering people to serve. Um. You know 1 Peter makes it really clear that God’s given each of us a gift. He did the hard work of giving us the gifts and skills we need. We just have to empower people to use them. And so I’ve watched you know one campus in particular, our model is really around dying churches, and going in, and bringing new life to them. And so we had a campus where there were 8 people left… Rich Birch — Wow. Melody Workman — …in this in this certain congregation. Everyone was over 65. And so we had a part time worship lead. How’s he gonna build a team there? Rich Birch — Right. Yes. Melody Workman — Like what how is he going to do this? He he now has um, he now has 20% of the congregation on his team on on his team. Rich Birch — Wow! That’s amazing. Melody Workman — And and and they’re young, and they’re vibrant, and they’re full of passion. And when I interviewed him for a conversation not too long ago, I said what was the strategy? And he goes like this I just don’t quit. Rich Birch — Right. Nice. Love it. Melody Workman — That that was it. Like that was the answer. He just he… I hustle. And so I think too when it comes to team building, we can talk about things to try and things that you should do. But I think at the end of the day leaders have to be telling their teams, this is a grind. It is a grind. If you’re built on a volunteer structure like we are, this is a grind. It doesn’t go away. Volunteers get to quit whenever they want to, like Sunday morning at 7:30 they get to quit if they want to. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Melody Workman — And so we have to know that we have to understand this is the reality of the situation. Rich Birch — Yes. Melody Workman — But when you’re empowering people to serve and you’re casting vision, man people want to be a part of that. Rich Birch — Yes. Melody Workman — And that’s how we’re seeing our teams grow. Rich Birch — Love it. I love that you’re calling this out, you know. This is one of these things in campus expansion, you know, I coach churches around that – I’ve done a bunch of that myself – and oftentimes I come back, the way I say it is, like there’s a lot of this that’s just isn’t sexy. Melody Workman — Right. Yep. Rich Birch — Like it’s just a ton of work like. It is we’re going to call people. We’re going to get in front of them. We’re going to… when you talk about the grind, that team building is the grind. What would be some of those elements of the grind? With leaders that are really succeeding and building strong teams in your environment, what are those things that they’re kind of consistently doing that feels like, you know, wow we’re just we’re just pounding on this time and time again? Melody Workman — Yeah, that’s a great that’s a great question. I would say I start with this idea of a value, like what is a value? And so here’s here’s what I tell my team: if you’re not vocal, and it’s not visible, it’s not a value. Don’t don’t say building a team is a value if you don’t talk about it and you don’t see it. My teams know, they know when we go into a team meeting or whatever, we aren’t not talking about team building. It’s it’s gonna show up. They you know they might do a little eye roll. But they know we’re talking about it because of the value. The value that it brings to their campus, and the value that it brings to our church, and the value that it brings to the person. Rich Birch — Right. Melody Workman — Um, when I meet our volunteers around our campuses when I travel, they’re so excited to be a part of the team. They’re so thrilled that they’re getting to use these gifts and skills. Someone had to go invite them. Someone had to go have a conversation. So one of the things that I tell my team is start with this idea that if this is a value, you’re talking about your team all the time, you’re casting vision for your team, because if it’s if you’re not vocal and it’s not visible, it’s not a value. Um, well. Rich Birch — That’s so good. Melody Workman — One of the second things that I tell our leaders all the time too is you’re going to find volunteers that care about the work when they feel that you care about them. And so don’t don’t like recruiting is just a part of it. Um, there’s this after piece to, you know, doing things that cost nothing, but mean everything. Text text your team, like build time in your calendar to, hey our weekend services were dynamic and you were a part of making that happen. We’ve adapted the phrase for volunteers, we couldn’t do this without you, and we say that – it’s true. Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s absolutely true. Melody Workman — Like we we’ve got a part time person, like on that’s who’s getting paid, and so that’s gonna last you for about a couple weeks until the congregation’s like where’s everybody at, you know? So let your volunteers know we couldn’t do this without you, and we wouldn’t want to. And so we’ve we do some strategy things, but I sometimes when I’m sitting with one of our campus leads in there like I’m having a really hard time building a team, I’m like tell me what you’ve tried. And a lot of times they’re they’re thinking up here like and I need to be doing this and spending a lot of money, when really put on your calendar: text everybody on your team. Rich Birch — Yes. Melody Workman — It’s gonna take you less than an hour. It’s it’s little things. And sometimes we we skip the little things, and then we miss big results as a you know because of that. Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. Yeah I love that. When when you say part time, how how part time is part time that those those people are? Does it vary depending on the campus size or what does that look like? Melody Workman — Yeah, so if we have a campus that runs 3 services, sometimes you’re up it’s like up to 25 hours. Rich Birch — Right. Melody Workman — If they run 2 services, it’s 20 hours. They have a midweek rehearsal. But we don’t like these aren’t full time roles… Rich Birch — Right. Melody Workman — …like this is not the only thing these people have going on so it’s even more of a challenge. So we have to really sometimes sit down with them and say, you’ve got this many hours a week. Team building is our highest value. I want to see this reflected in your hours. Rich Birch — Right. Melody Workman — I want you to show me with your hours what you’re doing and and how you’re connecting with your team, reaching out to them, having conversations. Um, and and with our model, I often say to our campus lead, when you’re feeling a pain point here I want to know what your dialogue with your campus pastor is like. Because your campus pastor wants a full stage, I can tell you right now I know he does. So how many conversations are you having with him around this idea? Rich Birch — Right. Melody Workman — So in our model we’ve got we call it Network; a lot of people might call it central. Then we’ve got the campus. Our job at the Network is to resource, train, and equip these campus leads. So we resource them. We train them. We equip them. And so but it’s a very collaborative effort from a coaching perspective that you’ve got a Network supervisor and a campus pastor aligned with each other that team building is a value. It doesn’t work if one holds it and one doesn’t. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s very true. Melody Workman — So we so we spend a lot of time with our multi-site model, making sure that networking campus supervisors are aligned with what the employee should actually be producing. Rich Birch — Love that. Let’s talk about that a little bit more. We did so unSeminary for about a year we did this once-a month episode that was on multisite. And it was at what what we did was we had this like roundtable. It was the same people every month. People would send in their questions and the um after about six months I realized everyone is sending us the exact same question, which is exactly what you just talked about there. Melody Workman — Yeah. Rich Birch — Some version of, in your language, Network versus Campus. Melody Workman — Yeah. Rich Birch — It’s like, how do I get these people to work together? How do we get alignment? How do we get our Network Supervisors and our and our ah Campus Pastors, how do we get them working together? Talk us through what that looks like – it could be within you know this this particular area or more broadly. How are you doing that? How are you staying connected, ensuring that you’re aligned with those people? Melody Workman — Yeah, this is the ongoing conversation in an organization, you know, the size of ours. And I I, like you, when I talk to friends in ministry who are multi-site, this is just an ongoing pain point. So I think one of the things that we have to recognize is if you’re in a growing church, you have growing pains. This is a growing pain of a growing church. So we shouldn’t go man, this isn’t working. We should say, hey we’re having growing pains. Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes. Melody Workman — Let’s celebrate that we’re growing. Um, let’s not take that for granted so where I’ve put a lot of time and effort into this is as I visit the campuses and I understand, one, I established something called the Weekend Win. What is the win on the weekend regardless of what camp Sandals Church campus you’re at? Rich Birch — Okay. Melody Workman — Um and that started with ah a conversation with a guy on our executive team who oversees our campus pastors. We collaborated and said, we feel like these things are what are inside a Weekend Win: a team that’s well-prepped, a team that brings presence to the platform into the booth. They’re they’re they’re reading the room; they know what to do. And they’re they’re highly connected to people, so loving the volunteers, recruiting new people. This is this is what we want it to look like. We feel like when you’ve got these three components, a dynamic weekend service is is going to happen. Melody Workman — So then we kind of had to take a step back from those and then go, okay, so then what does it look like for there to be collaboration around making… how how do we make this happen? So some of the some of the tactical things that we’ve done are, because we also have some dual role employees. Rich Birch — Yep. Melody Workman — They’re a full time employee with 20 hours at the Network 20 hours at the campus. So they’ve got two hard lines. So how how do we make that work? Rich Birch — Yes. Melody Workman — Um, we’ve we’ve done some things like two on ones. So there’s there’s a 1 on 1 but then once a month there’s a 2 on 1. Rich Birch — Okay. Melody Workman — And that looks like the Network Supervisor, Campus Pastor having a quick brief conversation… Rich Birch — Oh that’s good. Melody Workman — …before they sit down with the employee, and they go, hey from my perspective, she’s doing great. From my perspective, she’s really struggling. Okay, where? And then let’s we’re gonna address those. The second thing we do is we have weekend evaluations that come from the campuses to the network every weekend. And campus pastors and network supervisors both have eyes on those. So they know the campus pastor was at his campus so he could tell you, I felt like this went well. The Network Supervisor who may not be there can go, there was some behind the scenes stuff that you that you’re not aware of that we need to touch base on. So the weekend evals tell us a lot about how it’s actually going. And and they both have eyes on that. Rich Birch — Yeah. Melody Workman — Um and and and so we’ve had to address, how do we do performance reviews. Um, and we’re we’re still working through some of these, but what I have what I have said to our campus pastors and Network leads is, if we have a frustrated dual role employee most likely that’s our fault, not theirs. Rich Birch — Oh so true. So true. Melody Workman — We haven’t we haven’t created a structure that’s working for them, so they’re not doing great work for us. Let’s improve the structure. Let’s improve the process, and then let’s see if their performance grows. And and by and large it really has as we have addressed the the pain points with having the network campus, you know, fun, fun structure. Rich Birch — Yes, tension tension to be managed. Melody Workman — Yes, yes. Rich Birch — Yeah I love that. So many times that’s that’s such great, friends, if you just listen and there’s some great coaching that we just went through there. Thank you so much you know for that, Melody. You know so many times that conversation degenerates down to who’s in charge. It’s like who gets to fire who. And that’s like the worst case scenario! Melody Workman — Right, right. Rich Birch — And I love that picture of let’s get together and agree on what the win is, let’s do the hard work at the campus leadership and network leadership to say, Okay, what is it that we’re actually trying to do? Because we both need to agree on that because we’re pushing at it from just different angles. Melody Workman — Yeah. Rich Birch — We’re trying to come to the same thing where as opposed to, you know, because oftentimes that’s where the tension is created. They both sides of that equation maybe think the win is different. They don’t… Melody Workman — Yes. Rich Birch — They don’t actually have alignment on what that is. That’s very good. When you when you… Melody Workman — Well and one thing I would…oh go ahead. Rich Birch — Sorry, go no go ahead. Melody Workman — No one thing I was gonna say to that, Rich, because this is something that I hear a lot even when I talk to pastors and friends in in other churches. One of the things I think needs that needs to be addressed at the executive level is, if ah, if a senior pastor, an executive pastor, is visiting a campus and they hear something or see something they don’t like… I call it the power of the first text. Who are they texting when the stage isn’t going where they want it to, or there’s production issues? Whoever they’re texting first has to have a voice, and weight, and and say into how those things are going. Melody Workman — So I’ve heard of churches that are structured where the campus pastor has full autonomy in terms of leadership over campus staff. But if someone visits their campus and and they don’t love how it went, they’re texting someone at the network but that network that person on the network doesn’t have a voice. They don’t have say into it. So I would I would put it back on executive level leaders to say if when you visit a campus and there’s something that you don’t like or something you want to see more of, the power of the first text. Who is that person? Make sure they have a voice and a seat at the decision making table. Um, otherwise you’re you’re creating the problem. And and you need to address that by giving leverage and decision making responsibilities to the people that you’re reaching out to to say, hey fix this. Rich Birch — Yeah I Love it. Melody Workman — So that’s ah, that’s a pain point that comes up a lot that I hear about. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. I love it. So on the team building, you know how do we build and release great teams volunteer teams. What is Sandals doing from a recruiting point of view? Like I think sometimes there’s this tension of like somebody else needs to get up and talk about this thing and that’ll solve my problems. Like and whether that’s in creative or in you know, other areas, what is what is kind of recruiting at kind of a system wide point of view look like and then how does that relate to you know what your particular team is doing? Melody Workman — Um, I think we I think one of the things that we talk about is our our core values that we’re raising up within our own church the people that we want to see. I I want to I want to visit a campus… I will sometimes sit down with a worship lead and say. You know what a win looks like for you? A win looks like for you when you’re on but you’re off. Meaning you’re at your campus. You’re coaching your team, but you’re not on a position, because you have raised up and developed people who can do what you do. They know what you know, and they can do what you do. So you’re walking in a rehearsal with a coffee, you’re cheering them, on you’re highfiving them, but you don’t have to be on because of the work that you’ve done. Melody Workman — So we’ve we’ve put a lot of training and resourcing around our own development. We have what we call ROGO school—that’s Real with Ourselves, God and Others—because that’s our vision, but it’s ah it’s a development. It’s a training school. We’re trying to train up from within. So I can tell you that for us on the worship side of things, um 70% of our most recent worship lead hires have all come through ROGO School. Rich Birch — Hmm – wow. Melody Workman — We’ve trained, and equipped, and resourced them, and then we’ve hired them. So just recently I was at an event that we were having and every single person on the platform was in ROGO school. Rich Birch — Right. Melody Workman — They were and so I’m I’m watching it work. Rich Birch — Right. Melody Workman — Um, you know you know we you know we’ll utilize some of the higher level things, you know if we want to reach out to a head hunter, creative staffing, church staffing – those type of things for higher level roles. Um, but when we’re looking for these part-time roles, a lot of that we’re doing internally… Rich Birch — Right. Melody Workman — …because we trust our own process. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Melody Workman — Like we we know this person knows what they need to know. And sometimes when when you’re growing church The DNA of the church culture inside a person is more important than their raw talent or skill. Rich Birch — Right, right. Melody Workman — They they might be able to lead like crazy. But if they don’t understand the context in which they’re leading, it’s not going to work. So we’ve we’ve done a lot of hard work. You mentioned Dan Zimbardi before – he he really kind of birthed this idea of let’s train him up ourselves. And so we’re we’re seeing the fruits of that in in the past few years for sure. Rich Birch — Love it. When you take it kind of a layer below that—so I’m at of campus, I’m one of these part time people, I’m ah—what ah what are we doing as a church or what’s the church doing ah to help me find a drummer? I need a draw I need more drummers. There always seems to be, you know, that seems to be an issue. Melody Workman — Yeah. Rich Birch — How much of that is just on that individual leader? Are you doing like a regular recruiting process at that level for like the volunteers on your teams? What does talk us through what that looks like. Melody Workman — Well, what’s what’s been beautiful as as we’ve grown is, you know, everybody brings different strengths to the table. Rich Birch — Yeah. Melody Workman —So I might have a worship leader at this campus and they’re just the dynamic team builder. They’re a people person, they’re charismatic. They’re work in the lobby every week, they’re they’re they’re just that person. Then I’ve got a person who maybe is more introverted, conversations are difficult for them, and so what we do is we look at the size of the campus and then we set sizable reachable goals. So I might say, you know to to one of our worship leads, your campus is about 300 um, you’ve you’ve auditioned X amount of people, I want to set a 30 to 60 day goal. I want you to have 3 conversations and audition one person by the end of the month. Can you do that? Rich Birch — Right, right. Melody Workman — These bite size goals because then what happens is—and this is one of the key points I think when when you’re when we talk about hey team building is our thing, you’re being evaluated by team building—one of my core principles across the board as a leader is celebrate before you evaluate so that you don’t deflate your team. Rich Birch — Oh that’s good. Melody Workman — Since I want them to do this. They’re constantly being evaluated by how they’re doing. But ah, but a deflated team is going to underperform every single time. So I will reach out to that lead and say hey did you have the conversation, how did it go? Oh I was nervous, but I did it. Dude, you did it! You did it. That’s awesome. You had a conversation. Dude, you might have a new drummer in just a month. How think think about how awesome that’s gonna be. Rich Birch — Right. Melody Workman — And that celebration is like fuel in the tank for them. And so what I’ve what I’ve seen, Rich, and and this is how I know it works, is that through celebration, evaluation becomes less and less of a nemesis. It becomes less and less of like, ah oh I can’t stand this. And then when when they feel like there’s this, okay I’m celebrated so the evaluation is gonna come. They’re not deflated. A deflated team is a depleted team. Rich Birch — Right, right. Melody Workman — They’re exhausted even if the work isn’t too much. Rich Birch — Right. Melody Workman — They’re just constantly feeling your displeasure. Rich Birch — Right. Melody Workman — So I have we have to look for the little wins. When we started a campus up in the mountains, um, we we recognize right I mean right right off the bat, they’re gonna attract most of the same people all the time. They’re not gonna get the influx of visitors that are other campuses get. We’ve got to do things differently. So that leader we started going, hey what could you do? You could visit some coffee shops? Could you put together a jam night. Could you… and he just went into the grind. But every time he auditioned somebody, we we like went nuts. We were like you did it! Dude you did it! Rich Birch — Ah, that’s great. Melody Workman — And now he’s built this phenomenal team. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s so good. Melody Workman — And so it’s a grind, but man when you celebrate the little wins, your team will go the distance; they will do the work. Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. Can you talk to us… this is kind of a foundational question I probably should have started here, but you think 600 episodes in I could think through this these things but um, you know we’ve been talking so much about the fact that you have such you know part-time staff like that which is an amazing. Um why? Like why not just… so the church could afford it. Um, you know I love the decision. It’s not a challenging question from a like, I think you made the wrong decision – I love it. But explain why. What is the thinking behind that? Melody Workman — Well… Rich Birch — Particularly in this area, particularly in the worship and creative area. Why why not just because you could hire ah, band of 8 people and they could be there every weekend… Melody Workman — Sure. Rich Birch — …and and you wouldn’t have to do any of this. Melody Workman — Well, it’s an interesting that’s that’s a great question. I think it what it comes down to is overall our church is is built on a model of discipleship. Rich Birch — Yep. Melody Workman — We think that we can we can equip people to do the work that they’ve been called to do, based on you know 1 Peter 4:10. And in doing so they’re becoming more like Christ, which fits within our discipleship model. You know we have something called a growth path. We want to move people through this growth path. And if they’re a contract musician that’s showing up on the weekend, that’s not a bad thing. I mean we we know they’re going to hold it down at electric guitar. We know they’re going to hold it down on keys, but are they becoming more like Christ in the process? We value that more than we value, sure we got a full team. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Melody Workman — And so shat’s why the grind is there because spiritual growth is a grind, you know? Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Melody Workman — So we have to just kind of embrace that. Listen helping people become more like Christ is painful. It’s refining, it’s difficult, but I’ve got a guy on my team, Rich, who visited Sandals Church, was was deep into drugs, like he he was dealing them. He was he was a mule type of in in that. And his friends’s like, you dude, you gotta go to church. You gotta turn your life around. And I have watched him go from sitting in the audience, hearing a message, deciding to come back, auditioning for the team, and now one of the best worship leaders we have on our staff. And that doesn’t happen if we just go, hey we’ll pay you to play the drums. Rich Birch — Right. Melody Workman — Hey we’ll pay you to… and again I’m not putting that down… Rich Birch — No. Melody Workman — …because in some situations you have to do it. You can do but in this in this model is the work hard? 100%. But is the return the most amazing thing ever to watch people go you get to watch people on their growth path? It’s like nothing else. It’s like… Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. Melody Workman — And sometimes in Ministry you’re just you’re just dying for some joy. You know you’re just dying for some wins. Rich Birch — Ah, yes. Melody Workman — So when you get to see people come in where they come in and watch where God takes them through this discipleship process, it it makes it all worth it. As hard as it is, it makes it worth it. Rich Birch — Yeah, so good, Melody. That’s fantastic. Yeah I’ve lived in both worlds where we’ve you know, paid a lot of creative people and and ah both approaches have lots of issues with them. What the the path you’ve taken um, yeah, it’s like you say it’s the grind. It’s it’s hard work. But I think it’s a better set of problems. Melody Workman — Yeah. Rich Birch — I think like you’re saying it’s actually pushing us towards what we’re supposed to be doing as a church. It’s it’s pushing us towards discipleship. And and, friends, you know we’ve talked about this in other contexts. Ah fast-growing churches have a lower per capita staff than slow growing churches. They have less staff per capita. That is just what happens. And you’re seeing the mechanics behind why that is because you’re attracting people, getting them plugged in, all of that. That’s fantastic. Well, Melody, anything else you’d like to share just before we wrap up today’s episode? Melody Workman — Um I Just I think I want to just give a word of encouragement to to those who are in this grind of building teams, especially in this post-ish Covid world that we’re in. Rich Birch — Ah, yes. Melody Workman — Um I don’t want to I don’t want to move away before I just say, you know, there have been times where we’ve gathered our teams together and said, when’s the last time we prayed that God would bring us more people? Like we’ve got strategies. We’ve got you know tactics. We’ve got parties. We’ve got. But when’s the last time we got to get we got down on our knees as a team and said God, would you bring us people that you want to be here… Rich Birch — That’s good. Melody Workman — …to serve you with their gifts, but also to to grow into who you want them to be, and and that we would get to be a part of it. And so we’re in Christian world we’re in churchworld. We’re in ministry, so we kind of throw around prayer. Oh we got to pray about it. but I want to leave people with this idea that prayer changes things you know? Rich Birch — So true. Melody Workman — So lead by example as a leader and say, I’m committing to pray over this myself and we’re going to pray over this together as a team. And and don’t don’t negate, you know, the basics for for high level strategy. Um, you you need both. But one thing you got at your team’s got to see you do is lead by example, and so pray for your team, and then pray for their teams. Um that that’s been a that’s been a game changer here for us. Rich Birch — All right, Melody. Just before we end, you’ve given us a resource here, Building and Caring for Your Team. We’re going to link to it in our show notes, but tell us a little bit about it. Melody Workman — Yeah so I mentioned ROGO School which is how we develop our own leaders, and so I put this together for our ROGO leaders – all about how to build and care for your teams. And so if it’s if it’s a help to any of your listeners, I wanted to make it available to them. So theres’s a video teaching and then I think there’s a PDF as well that they can use. And man, I hope it’s a help. It’s been a help to our leaders here for sure. Rich Birch — Yeah, friends, this is a great resource. This is a… now you’ve come to the end of the podcast, you’ve listened to this, you should dive in, watch this teaching. It’s the kind of thing you could share with your team. This could be a great like training thing – you’re looking for something to do on a staff meeting, this is like ready-to-go resources. So helpful. Yeah, thanks so much for sharing that with us. Rich Birch — Well I really appreciate this, Melody. Thank you so much. Such great coaching and encouragement from you today. An honor that you would be with us. Um, if people want to track with you or with the church, where do we want to send them online? Melody Workman — Yeah, so um, I have a website melodyworkman.com which you can get in touch with me there. Instagram I’m just @melodyworkman – no fancy names or handles that you know there and there. Rich Birch — Yes. Melody Workman — There’s direct links through my Instagram to both Sandals Church and Sandals Creative. Um, and so shoot me a DM. You can you know reach me through my website and I’m happy to connect; I’d love to. Rich Birch — Great! Thanks so much, Melody – appreciate you being here today. Melody Workman — Thanks, Rich. It was great.

Welcome to this episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re chatting with Chris Hahn, the Executive Pastor of Missional Spaces at Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago. In the demands and activity of ministry, church leaders can find there is a disconnect between their public leadership and struggles in their personal lives. Don’t miss today’s podcast episode where Chris shares his story of how God brought him to a place of burnout and brokenness in order to bring about His redemptive purposes. Stepping back. // Chris has been in ministry for over 30 years, starting in student ministry, moving into working as a children’s pastor, and finally an executive pastor role at a large multi-site church in Kentucky. Amidst all of the growth and hard work at the church, in January 2020 the leadership brought to Chris’s attention that he was not operating from a healthy place. Chris sensed that something might not be right internally, but he hadn’t wanted to confront it. It ultimately took outside help for him to see that he needed to step back from ministry.Seeing the truth. // Although leading up to this point Chris was walking with Jesus, praying and in the word daily, he realized he’d been ignoring the warning signs in his life. Chris was experiencing burnout, and ignoring it resulted in immature behavior patterns. When God got his attention and everything was stripped away, Chris knew that he had to make some serious changes in his life, and he left his executive pastor role.God has wired all of us with emotions for a reason. // As Chris sought healing, he wanted to understand what had gotten him to this place and how he could have ignored it. He began journeying with mentors and a counselor to take an honest look at his life and committed to being 100% vulnerable. In one of the early sessions with his counselor, she asked Chris how everything he was going through made him feel. Chris realized the truth was that he didn’t know how he felt. He knew what he thought about everything and how he should feel, but not how he actually felt. At that moment Chris realized he didn’t really know who he was anymore. Figure out why. // Chris had to start a journey back to how to feel emotions again and understand what it means to sit in feelings and not just get through them, compartmentalize them, or bury them. It is important to figure out what you’re feeling and why you’re feeling a certain way. Then just sit in it and recognize that you feel sad, even if you don’t know why, and it’s okay. You may need to talk to someone about why you feel what you feel, or journal about it.Find your ministry mentors. // Chris reached out to his ministry mentors to help him find his way back along the path back to health and wholeness. These people are pastors he had worked with, spiritual mentors, close friends, and a trusted counselor. He could reach out to them and be vulnerable, and they would be completely honest about what he should do. Through this process of healing, Chris realized that God was rescuing him from going deeper into unhealthy patterns and falling further into burnout.It’s okay to not be okay. // Chris never thought he’d be able to return to ministry within a church, but when he surrendered these fears to God, God brought him to his current position at Willow. In his current leadership role, he’s able to help create a culture where it’s okay to not be okay and not feel like you’re going to get canceled. Within the church we need to create a culture from the leadership to the staff where we can talk about things we’re struggling with, not be afraid to get help, and lovingly confront and be honest with each other.Be transparent and real. // Find someone you trust to talk about your own struggles in your life. Be completely transparent and honest with them, and be willing to go to those hard places. Chris also makes himself available to any leader or pastor who needs to talk in these situations. No matter where you are or how far you’ve fallen, God isn’t done with you. Your failures don’t define you and they can be redeemed to help others down the road. You can reach out to Chris by emailing him here. Watch a bit of his testimony at Willow Creek below. Chris Hahn Sharing at Willow Creek Staff Gathering 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. Today’s a special episode of unSeminary. It’s going to take a little bit of a different conversation than we normally have. Got my friend Chris Hahn with us. He is the Executive Pastor of Missional Spaces at ah, church in Chicagoland you may be heard of before, Willow Creek, but really today I want to hear more about Chris’s own story, and kind of his own ah you know the journey that God’s had him on. And so obviously what he’s doing at Willow connects with that story, but I’m actually more interested in the kind of broader story. Chris, welcome to the the show. So glad you’re here. Chris Hahn — Thanks, Rich. Man, it’s great to be on. An honor to call you my friend, and also to be a part of what you’re doing which is impacting a lot of lives of leaders and churches. So thank you. Rich Birch — Thanks so much. I ah, we’ve had a chance to connect a little bit over the years and excited to you know to kind of have a conversation in public today um about just the journey you’ve been on. I really really appreciate that. So why don’t you tell us a little bit of the the Chris story, kind of pull back, give us the 20,000 foot view. How do you, you know, kind of the journey you’ve been on and then we’ll narrow in and talk about the last kind of this last long leg of your journey. Chris Hahn — Yeah man, well appreciate that. I I’ve been in ministry for over 30 years. It started out in student ministry and then out of college landed at a church in Kentucky, a large church in Kentucky, where um I started as a children’s pastor, and did that for ten years, and then kind of moved around which I would say like all like yeah, all ministry can be learned through the lens of children’s ministry. There’s so much you can learn that but… Rich Birch — So true. The best people comes out of kids ministry. Chris Hahn — Totally, totally. Um. Rich Birch — So true. Chris Hahn — And then I navigated a couple of transitions in there to where I eventually landed over the last ten years or so of my time there I was executive pastor, and the lead executive pastor for the church. The church was, you know, large large church, multi-site. We’d gotten into the multi-site world, had a lot of campuses and expanding our campuses. Our our goal is to kind of put a healthy church within the reach of anyone in the state of Kentucky. And we we pushed the gas as as hard as we could and and took off after that. Chris Hahn — And, man, I think the the big piece of my story is at in January of 2020, which was at the beginning of when a lot of lot of lives began to to change, right? I had no idea but was was called to my attention that I I was I was not in a healthy place. And I think I knew it internally but I I did not want to confront it. And I as as an as I’m I’m in Enneagram One and I don’t know a ton about enneagrams, but I have learned a lot about what that means for me in this in this last season. But um was called to my attention, man, that I was unhealthy and it was was at a place where I needed to step away from what I was doing. And it was one of those where you know walked into a meeting and had no idea what I was walking into and walked out and you know everything had changed. Chris Hahn — And um and and really what I, Rich, what I looked by what I look back now and see is that I was carrying a lot. And I was ignoring a lot and as an Enneagram One I really felt like it was just my responsibility to do what I was what I was supposed to do and do it really well really really well with ah a great deal of responsibility. And what I what I just kind of glossed past was man and we we’d had family challenges that—my daughter had had a significant relationship that broke up and I just kind of navigated that, I was actually the Chairman of a board of a small college that we had to close the doors on. During that period of time we were restructuring our staff as we were getting ready to expand our mission a little bit, and um I just kind of kept plowing, right? I didn’t ask for help. I didn’t really pay attention to any of the warning lights that were on my dashboard that I was I was getting really tired and burnt out. Chris Hahn — And um one of the one of the things I look back now and see is that I’d walked with a family, two families actually in our church, that lost 20 year old sons, and I did the funeral for one of them. My kids had been friends with these these guys. And I remember walking out of that that situation one day just thinking I don’t know how much longer I can do this. Rich Birch — Hmm, interesting. Chris Hahn — And I’d never really thought that before. Rich Birch — Right. Chris Hahn — But but you know what man I just I just ignored it. Rich Birch — Right. Chris Hahn — And um I allowed myself then in in my, what I now can look back and see was was burnout, um I allowed myself to slip into what I would just say is is really immature patterns. And um I was walking with Jesus, I mean I was in the word every day you know my prayer life was great… Rich Birch — Yeah, right. Chris Hahn — …so it wasn’t like I, you know, was into you know anything that was immoral, or or ah my holiness was was slipping, but I was I was just in my fatigue being really um, kind of an immature mainly with my with my speech and the way I talked to people. And um, when when I realized that when it when I when when God got my attention and everything was completely stripped away from me, um man I I knew that um that God was getting my attention. And I knew that I had to had to make some some serious changes in my life because he was he was putting me in the situation… Rich Birch — Yeah. Chris Hahn — …to have to make some changes. Rich Birch — Yeah, I’m I’m really looking forward to to talking about this. And you know, friends, Chris is giving you a a gift today of helping us understand to get inside of this and so um, it’s it’s an honor that you would would share a little bit. You know just to give a little bit of outsider context, the part that I think is fascinating about this story about what God’s done in your life is I think we all have faced, to different degrees, where you know the church you were at like you say large church in Kentucky it was growing up into the right, you know, lots of great things going on in ministry while at the same time you know your own personal life you were, you know, struggling with um and maybe even like you say unknown. And I think that we have all experienced that in ministry. There is a disconnect when we lead between what we do publicly and then who and then what’s happening in our own lives. And so um in some ways you know I look at it and say wow God did a great thing because he got your attention about these things, and didn’t let it continue but before it could become you know much you know much worse situation. Rich Birch — Let’s let’s talk about maybe the first steps of, okay so you are you know called into this meeting and, you know, it’s this beginning of this revelation process. Wow – like something is out of step. Talk us through what those those you know first few days and weeks what did that look like. What was what was going on? Chris Hahn — Yeah, you know what’s crazy is when I walked out of that meeting, as devastated as ah as I was, there was something in me that had a sense of relief, which is really really strange. Rich Birch — Hmm, interesting. Yes. Chris Hahn — You know it was really strange. I did not expect that. Um but I immediately of course called my wife who’s ah has been amazing, has been my rock but this whole thing but um, gathered with friends, gathered my adult kids, and then I started you know calling my my spiritual mentors, my ministry mentors, my um, counselor and just saying, hey here’s here’s here’s where I’m at. This is what’s happened and I I need help. I need to figure out like what is it in me that that got me here, but also like like why would I have ignored it? Chris Hahn — Like to me that was a bigger problem is if I’d been sitting across this desk from myself, you know, months before I would have seen some of those things, but there was some arrogance in me or something that just caused me to ignore what I was what I was seeing. So I started journeying with my mentors and with my counselor in in ways that just was like strip me completely away, right? I mean it’s like I want to like figure it all out and I’m willing to be 100% vulnerable, transparent. And there was ah there was a session I had with my counselor early on where was walking through some stuff and she said she asked me she said how does that make you feel? And I looked at her, because I was like I was committed to being honest, and so I looked at her and I said, you know, I I don’t know. Chris Hahn — I I know what I think about it but I’m not sure what I feel about it. And then then I really thought about it I thought you know actually I know what I should think and I know what I should feel but I’m not sure what I think and feel. And you know you never want to look up and see your counselor looking at you with real wide eyes, right? That’s never a good thing. Um. Rich Birch — Right. Yeah. Chris Hahn — But but she was she was looking at me in a way where she had just had discovery and she said, you know, you don’t really know who you are any anymore, do you? And man, it was at that moment where I was like, you know what, I hate to admit it, but I don’t. And um I had learned over the years just how to compartmentalize my feelings, how to not really feel em. Um to the point where then we had to begin journeying out like me even recognizing what certain emotions were. Like I couldn’t really even identify sadness versus anger or you know, discontent or whatever emotion – I couldn’t really even identify. Chris Hahn — Um, so I had to start a journey back around just starting to feel again. And understanding what it means to sit in feelings, and not just try to get through them. You know that was a big part of my my journey as well. And then we had friends that were super close with us that allowed us to come, stay down at their house just for several days, and just kind of just kind of rest in their in in that community, and then just in what the Lord was doing. And and these friends, along with some others, interestingly enough, just kept saying as they were praying for us they were getting they kept getting the word rescue. They kept getting this word rescue as they prayed. And um, you know, just kind of like you know, not really sure what this means. But um, we feel like God’s God’s doing something around rescue. And now we look back, you know, two years later and realize God was God was kind of rescuing rescuing me from, you know, kind of going deeper into maybe spinning out further into burnout. Chris Hahn — So then I took you know I took several months and really just thought, I think God’s that’s probably done with me in the church. Because the last thing I ever wanted to do was to hurt a church or hurt people. I mean I got into ministry to help people, right? I love the church. Rich Birch — Right, right. Chris Hahn — And I just kind of felt like I’m probably I’m probably done. And you know was was talking to God saying, man, I’ll do anything that you want me to do except go back into the church, right? Rich Birch — Right, right. Chris Hahn — Because I was scared to death. And and, you know, honestly there were people like you who walked with me in that time that were so kind to allow me to have the space to process that way. But also were kind of encouraging thinking you know I know when you and I had a conversation at one point where I said, actually I feel like I’ve been holding onto this thing where I’ve thought God’s, I can’t go back into the church, but God I’ll do anything else. And once I finally opened my hand to say, okay God I’ll do whatever you want me to do. And have that conversation even with you, you were like, yeah I know God’s not done with you in the church. Like there’s something there’s something there… Rich Birch — I would agree. Chris Hahn — …that that we needed to process. But I just had I just, man, I I thought I was done. I mean I just thought I was done. Rich Birch — Right. Yeah. Chris Hahn — You know? Rich Birch — Talk talk to me about ah so… I have similar story around counseling around feelings, for sure. And like I only thought there was a couple feelings. Turns out, there’s a lot more. And you know, ah talk us through that. What difference did that… because there may be leaders who are listening in listen there’s people who like pretty driven pretty like you know, hey like you say Enneagram Ones we got to check out, check the stuff off the list. We got to get it all done. Rich Birch — Um, and we’ve learned systematically to like stuff that stuff down. To just like I’m going to keep my emotions down. And I know for me, you know if I’ve have struggled over the years even with positive emotions. Like great things will happen at church, and I just want to move on to what’s next. I’m like I’m not taking a moment even to just be thankful, to be happy… Chris Hahn — Yeah. Rich Birch — …or what you know what happened. Talk to us about the difference of kind of understanding, identifying, sitting in, kind of go a little bit deeper onto that. Chris Hahn — Yeah, that’s great. I so it kind of embarrassed to say, but I looked back I looked back at at my leadership and I kind of wore it as a badge that I didn’t feel things. And you know, I didn’t even like thump my chest and go dink dink dink like you know my heart can be hard, I can go in and handle really hard things and not feel it. And I thought that was honorable in some really weird way, and then I learned that it was the opposite. It was a big problem. So um, through counseling, you know, honestly reading some of Brené Brown’s books. Um there’s a podcast called The Adult Chair where I learned some things, but learning to identify “this is what I am feeling at this moment” and really sit and whether that’s write it all out and and kind of figure out, okay I’m feeling this, why am I feeling this way? What am I feeling? And then and honestly just sitting in it. And and recognize that I feel sad right now, and I I don’t really know why, but I feel sad. And I just need to sit and be sad, and it’s okay to be sad. Or I needed to talk to somebody about why I might feel sad. You know Journaling was a really really big big piece of this to sit and just really write down what I was feeling and identify it. But then not to just not to move on from it. To realize God… Rich Birch — Right. Chris Hahn — …God has wired me with emotions, all of us, for a reason and they’re there to to help us and and to teach us something, right? So there’s a book that’s called Permission to Feel and in that book it describes a bunch of different emotions. And so I I really camped out in that book a lot trying to identify, okay, here’s what I’m writing out that I think I’m feeling, and now let me kind of look at look at this book to see, okay, oh it’s not necessarily anger, it’s frustration. Or or whatever it is, and then and not not trying to rush out of that and into something else. Um, and that what’s what’s what’s phenomenal is that that process that I say I started in 2020, like I’m still in it. Rich Birch — Right, right. Yes. Chris Hahn — Like I’m still in that process, you know, now of of each day figuring out, you know, what am I feeling, why am I feeling it, and not really feeling like I have to do something about it. I don’t know if that makes any… Rich Birch — Absolutely, no Chris Hahn — …if that but makes much sense or not. Rich Birch — Absolutely, yeah. I love that. You know it sounds like you had around you, um, an existing network. You had people that were there. Um, is that a misread, or did you have to build a network of people, counselors and you know mentors and stuff, during this season? I’m thinking particularly folks who are listening in today who are like, I look around and I I don’t know who I would talk to. I’m not sure who I would have that conversation with. Help me understand how you know how you identify these are the people I should be processing with. Chris Hahn — Yeah, that’s a great question. So I I reached out to who I would would refer to as my ministry mentors initially, which was my former youth pastor. Rich Birch — Love it. Chris Hahn — Who I honestly hadn’t really had had conversation with like intense conversations for years. But I I knew he loved me and I knew he would you know would speak hard things to me, but also would would you know embrace me for where I was and who I am. So reached out to him, reached out to a former lead pastor, reached out to some spiritual mentors as well. Just you know people around the country that I’m I, again, knew loved me and knew cared for me. Close friends and then a counselor we had had who had helped us navigate some family stuff at you know years before. And I’d ah actually is what’s weird is I kind of made it up ah a little bit of my routine where at least once every couple months I would just go and sit and say, ask me hard things because I don’t know, I feel okay, but ask me hard things. So I had that I even had that rhythm and routine built into things that just wasn’t 100% I don’t think I was going to the depths where I needed to go. Chris Hahn — So I had that network somewhat in place but it wasn’t they weren’t necessarily the people that I I ran with every day, or you know they weren’t you know the the closest friends that you know you’re doing doing life with. They were people who I knew that I could reach out to at any moment with anything going on and they would be they would love me, but they would be completely honest with me. And my my former youth pastor, he’s the one that really just challenged me. He said um, he he told me some things to do but he also said go back to your leaders and just say, I need to know everything. Like I need to know every piece of me that there was an issue with because I’m getting ready to dive into some really hard work… Rich Birch — Right. Chris Hahn — …and I want to make sure I do all of the work right away. And I just took I took those that wisdom and took it to heart, and and followed exactly what what these these folks said to me that or so was so important as they coached me. Rich Birch — Wow, that’s interesting. That’s good. I love that encouragement of even like, you know, people who you haven’t connected with in a long time that you know you had some, you know, relationship with I think that’s really really good. You know I’ve heard another context, right, you’re looking for people who love you, but aren’t impressed with you, right? They… Chris Hahn — Yeah. Rich Birch — They love you but aren’t like they’re they’re not like, wow, you’re like the most amazing person. Chris Hahn — Yeah. Rich Birch — You’re you’re just a person that they they deeply deeply love. I love that. That’s ah, that’s so good. Now. So let’s let’s talk about um your processing all of this, and at the same time because you were talking there about you’re thinking about what you’re going to do next, right? There’s the like am I going to become a real estate agent? Am I going to… How does how does all that fit together? Because to me that’s the, man, that’s a complex that’s complex to figure out when it’s so attached to, you know, the kind of pressure point the the crisis point was so attached to where what your your vocation. How did you navigate that? What did that… how did all that fit together? Chris Hahn — Um, um so I I initially started thinking, you know, I ah didn’t feel like I was losing my call to ministry or anything like that. Rich Birch — Right. Chris Hahn — So I was like I I’m gonna do something ministry-wise. But it just may not be in the church. Rich Birch — Right. Chris Hahn — Like I I thought I’ll go do something in in fitness and be able to have a positive impact on the lives of of people, you know, physically but also spiritually, and in that same context and I’ll I’ll do ministry that way. And I had one friend who’s out in in California who just really kind of pushed me a little bit around the church thing to say man, you know you know what? You’ve where you are and what you’ve done does not disqualify you from God using you the church, and the church needs you and needs what you but you bring to the kingdom. And so I just dismissed it at first because I was like man there’s I just can’t do it like I I don’t know if it was humiliation or embarrassment or just again I I never wanted to hurt a church. And so I just started to just pray through it honestly and just really give it over to God to say man if if I’m supposed to do if I’m supposed to say I’ll do whatever you want to do, then I gotta be willing to really do whatever you want me to do. Chris Hahn — And the day that that—it’s funny—the day that we, my wife Sharon and I, the day we kind of came to that realization and opened our hands to say okay, God we’ll do that. Um, the very next day had three churches call me out of the blue, and just said hey heard this is this is where you’re at, would’d love to talk with you. And I was like okay God – that’s confirmation… Rich Birch — He got your attention. Chris Hahn — …that that maybe I need to I meet I may need to listen—yeah… Rich Birch — Yeah, interesting. Chris Hahn — …and and pay attention to that for sure. So. Rich Birch — Yeah I think it’s um, and this is not… listen you know this as a friend I respect you and the whole team at Willow, what what you’re doing (and that’s a whole for whole conversation for our whole other day), what the ministry that you guys are you know, attempting to rebuild and all that with the stuff they’ve been through. It is—I didn’t think of this until literally till now—but it it just feels like a God story that he’s placed you, a person who you know has struggled with some performance stuff and how does that relate to life and as on the other and on the other side of that, and now you’re leading in a ministry who there’s there’s echoes of those issues that have impacted, dramatically impacted, the ministry there. That feels very gospel; that feels very you know making taking bad things and making good out of it. That feels amazing. Rich Birch — Um, help me understand um, you know, one of the things I think I’ve been thinking a lot about over this last year it it seems like they’re everywhere we go you know and so many ministries have had leaders fall. And that’s just a normal part of the, you know, it’s like it’s like baked in some for some strange reason. You know, having been through what you’ve been through, help us think through how we create a culture where we can create the kinds of places where people go from making maybe unwise decisions to foolish decisions and then somewhere on the other end of that spectrum is like radically hurtful, damaging you know like I’m out doing something super negative to people, manipulative like super super dark, but we want to catch people when they make you know they’re making foolish/unwise decisions and we want to create the kind of culture that can open up and be like, hey let’s talk about those things. Having been through what you’ve been through, how are you trying to build a culture now that would allow that for yourself and for other people? What does that look like now kind of on on the other side as you’re trying to wrestle through that? Chris Hahn — Yeah, that’s an amazing question, and man our our whole journey to Willow was, man, God just in the middle of every bit of that. Rich Birch — Right, right. Chris Hahn — And my first conversation with Dave it was like, okay God’s doing something here. But then as we journeyed that out um seeing what I had gone through, knowing some of the experience that I I’d had even in leadership but just the redemption of what God had done in my own life. And man the impact that Willow had had on my ministry for you know all the way back into the 80s is… Rich Birch — Yeah, like so many of us, right? Yeah yeah, we all have. Yeah Chris Hahn — Right, right? It was like like God was lining a lot of this up and so um I think in the in the church, the church world we have to get better with creating a culture where it’s okay to not be okay. Rich Birch — Right, right. Chris Hahn — And not feel like you’re going to get canceled, or you know it’s like we we really have to have intentional um, opportunities to be in the lives of one another. I think Willow’s done an amazing job of responding to some extreme challenges and difficulties to reestablish a healthy church. And to be in the lives of people, to provide opportunities, to say hey if you’re if you’re not okay, then, you know, let’s talk about it doesn’t mean you’re going to lose your job. Rich Birch — Right, right. Chris Hahn — There’s there’s avenues that we can put in place that that can help you with that. One of the things that was ah, really um, really helpful for me personally was um in, I started in July 2020 at Willow, and in October of 2020 I got up in front of the whole staff and told my story. And and just was transparent and vulnerable. And in that culture that had not been something that had been done before where leaders would have admitted, you know, failures or mistakes or faults, and that opened the door for a lot of um lot of vulnerability within our team which I think was helpful. So I think leaders have to go first, right? I mean I think I think as leaders in the church culture, I think we have to from the senior leader elders on down have to create a culture where it’s okay to not be okay and to talk about things that you’re struggling with. And to confront one another on things that are that seem to be out of line. You know it’s like, hey I’m I’m picking up on this behavior in you and I love you enough to tell you something’s not right. Rich Birch — Right. Chris Hahn — And I want to journey this out with you as opposed to just cutting you off or distancing myself from you… Rich Birch — Yes. Chris Hahn — …before it gets to a place where where it spins out of control, right? Rich Birch — Yeah. Chris Hahn — And so creating space for us to be honest with ourselves, with one another. Creating places where we can kind of cry uncle – I’m I’m carrying a lot and I need help. Creating spaces where you know you have somebody who will will be 100% vulnerable with you and you with them. You can’t do that with everybody, nor should you – that’s not healthy, but you have somebody, right, that you can just be really vulnerable with. Not be afraid to get help, you know, in in the in the church culture – to say I need to go to go see a counselor, or whatever that might be, but really creating a a culture from leadership all the way through the the staff and organization where we admit our failures and it’s okay to to to not be okay. Rich Birch — Yeah I love that. I think that’s um I think that’s what we’re all trying to create. We’re all trying to get there. One of my concerns with, you know, we have these very public, you know, use the word cancellations. It’s like cancellations of someone’s and they step over an egregious line. They shouldn’t you know, like in some ways It’s like yeah that that makes sense. That’s that’s understandable. Um that every time one of those things happen, my concern is, man, people are just stuffing their stuff down deeper and deeper, because they see that happen and they’re like if I even open the box a little bit, man, things are gonna I’m done. And it’s and you know and that um, man we have to figure out how to how to turn that trend around, and stare at these issues more deeply. Rich Birch — So so how are you leading differently now? So you know, here you are, you’re leading in the middle of ah you know coming out of the pandemic, facing everything that you’re that all of us are facing. Um, you know it Willow is a complex, large, you know, ministry, you know, doing all kinds of great stuff in Chicagoland. You have a huge portfolio there. I could imagine that leading in the portfolio you’re in, man, it is set up for you to take the step back to where you were before. Like it is set up for you just to but to lean back onto old habits, old approaches, old old ruts in your in your mind in your in your brain. Um, what’s different? How is it how are you leading differently today? Chris Hahn — Yeah, great question. Um my it’s funny, my counselor here in Illinois that the established relationship with, you know, she has said numerous times like I, out of everything that you’ve come through and that your journeying, I just can’t imagine that Willow was the best place for you to step into. You know she kind of says that. And just just like it’s like it’s like you stepped into a really difficult situation. And um I’ve I have had to just be super mindful of it’s not about me, number one. Like it’s just not about me; I am here to serve and love people well. And I may get some things wrong and, you know, I may not um, I may not be like in the achievement category like the you know the straight A student, which is good for me because I don’t need to be. But I’m gonna I am just gonna continue to remind myself daily that it’s about caring and loving people, caring for and loving people really really well. And so there have been times where I’ve just said, you know what? if that’s if if this over here is what I’m gonna have to have to shift to become in order to produce or achieve or see results from, then I’m okay to step away. And I just may need to step out, and do something different. And because of what I’ve come through, I know God has a plan and God can do that, but I I just can’t allow myself to go back there. So I’ve got good people in my life. My wife is one of them who, when she starts to see up, and is like what’s going on? And we’re… Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Chris Hahn — …Yeah and and I keep the rhythm of counseling so that my counselor can can ask me difficult questions as well. Um, but I’m just at so much peace, man. Now I will tell you it took me it took me a long time to get my confidence back. And I was not surprised… I was I was not expecting that I was super surprised by that just a leadership confidence, like I was really really like scared and nervous that I was going to step into something that I just wasn’t even aware of because I wasn’t aware of of things in the past. But that’s kind of come back a little bit and not in an arrogant way at all. I just I just won’t I just won’t allow myself to go to go back into those scenarios. But having really good relationships around me, good guardrails has has been so far super helpful, and just not a fear to to just go, ah this this might not be for me. Rich Birch — Right. Chris Hahn — You know if it gets a point where I’m not healthy, I’m not going to allow myself to get unhealthy so that a ministry can can get can see growth and progress. I’m just not going to. Rich Birch — Um, yeah, dude, I love it. I love ah I appreciate what you said about your wife there. I know and I’ve joked in other contexts that the voice of the Lord and the voice of my wife, wow they’re like they just sound very similar. There’s a there’s a resonance there that you know… Chris Hahn — Yup. Rich Birch — …oftentimes she’s things see things so clearly for sure. Well let’s let’s maybe talk directly to a leader who’s listening in today who can your stories resonating a little too much for them. They’re saying ooo I in fact, a couple times they’ve thought about turning this off because they’re like yeah this is I don’t want to hear this this conversation today. What would you say to somebody who’s, you know they maybe are in that maybe it was the language thing, they’re like they find they find themselves saying things that like I wow that’s like why am I talking like that? Or they see things coming out of their leadership that’s like oh that’s coming out of a place of death and destruction, not at a place of life. Um, what would you say to somebody like that today? Chris Hahn — Yeah, well number one I would offer an opportunity to have a conversation with me offline, and I would love to be able to to help anybody who’s in that scenario where where it wrestle with that because I can relate so much. And so I make myself available to any leader, pastor that would would want to have a conversation and and be safe and that. But if it’s not me, you got to find somebody. You have to find somebody that you trust that you can go to and just be 100% transparent and vulnerable with. That’s to me the very first up. Just not having any facade, not having anything like you got to put together and just be able to be completely honest, maybe it’s a counselor. Maybe it’s another pastor, but a different church, but somebody that you trust. And and that’s I think that’s where it it all has to start and and being willing to to go to those hard places. Ah, there’s a book by Alan Nelson called Embracing Brokenness, and um I would encourage us to, even if you’re in completely healthy places, I would encourage ah to read that book. But especially when you’re in a season where you’re where you’re maybe dealing a struggle with some things like that. It talks about being voluntary broken and and then also involuntary brokenness and we’re going to be you know God’s going to bring us to a place of brokenness one way or the other and so it’s it’s much better to go there on your own. That book walks through a lot about how to really get to that place of laying some of that stuff down and and really making sure that we don’t sacrifice our heart on the altar of ministry for sure. So the big thing that mentions is having a conversation with somebody you can be transparent and real with you know, fully vulnerable. Rich Birch — Right. Love it. Yeah, friends, this is how this podcast came about. Chris reached out to me because of ah a previous episode that we had on and he said, hey, if I if I can ever be a help with anybody let me know. And I said, hey, well why don’t you come on the podcast and talk about it publicly? And he ah he was, graciously agreed and so that’s not off the cuff there. He he is willing to talk with you. And so we’ve got a link in the show notes to his email and all that. So if you need to pick that up, reach out. Chris is a great guy. He’s a trusting a trusted leader that you you know you could connect with. So I really appreciate this. Chris, thank you so much for being on today. Is there anything else you want to say just as we as we close out as we close out today’s conversation? Chris Hahn — Man, the the the thing I’d love to just say is I as as difficult as January 2020 was for us, we wouldn’t go back. I like we just wouldn’t go back to to the way life was prior to 2020, even though everything got completely flipped upside down. Um the redemption of God’s story in my life is incredible. And I think it was something that I think Sonny or Shawn – one of them said on on your previous podcast. It’s something about you have to fall all the way, right? And you can you have to fall all the way. And um I think in falling all the way, God God has rebirthed something in me that is redemptive. So probably the big takeaway is just you know God’s just not gonna be done with you, no matter no matter where you are. God’s not done with you. Rich Birch — Right. Chris Hahn — And your story does not define you; your failures don’t define you, and it can all be redeemed to help other people down the road as well as yourself. So just lean into it, and allow God to do what only God can do, and watch the story he unfolds. It’s incredible. Rich Birch — Well I think that’s a great place to end – great last word Chris I appreciate being on the show today send love to the entire team. Cheering for you and for everything that’s going on at Willow. Appreciate being here today and and for helping us and helping and open up a little bit about what’s going on in your life. Thank you. Chris Hahn — Thanks, Rich.

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we have Carl Kuhl with us, the lead pastor of one of the fastest growing churches in the country, Mosaic Christian Church in the Baltimore/Washington, DC area. Listen in as Carl shares about the missing piece that will help people in our churches go deeper, both with God and each other, in order to find healing and freedom. A church for the wounded. // Mosaic Christian Church has a bold statement on their website that they are a church for people who don’t go to church. Carl explains that it’s a paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 14. Paul tells everyone to speak a language everyone can understand so the nonbeliever can hear the gospel. Part of the way Mosaic does that is by doing church in a way which makes it ok to be broken and hurting.Be real with Jesus. // As Christians we can forget the things Jesus saved us from and the depths of our brokenness. We become disconnected from what it looks like to live life without God. We can help ourselves remember not only by being around nonbelievers, but also by continuing to let Jesus address our junk. Our relationships with Jesus and others will deepen as we are honest about the ways we’re still broken, so that God can continue the lifelong process of healing in our lives.Embrace open brokenness. // We need to combine open vulnerability about our brokenness with the truth and grace of the gospel. The result is true community in the church. Shifting this culture has to begin with the leader, whether we are hanging out with friends, spending time with family, or teaching and leading the church. To make sure there is an appropriate level of sharing with the church, first talk about what you want to share with trusted leaders, friends, and your spouse.Grace and truth. // What is the truth that you don’t want anyone to know? That’s what is most important to share and bring into the light. The confessions of our brokenness have to start with the leader in order to demonstrate that the church is a safe place for everyone. Start the community that you want to be a part of. If we allow God to really work in us and deal with our brokenness and sin, then when we confront someone else about their sin, it will come from a place of love and compassion, not judgement and comparison.Transform the church. // Carl has written a book called Blood Stained Pews: How Vulnerability Transforms a Broken Church into a Church for the Broken. Many churches feel that they are missing something and need more – a deeper, truer community where vulnerability and the gospel collide. Through personal stories and powerful insights, Carl’s book calls us to more deeply consider God’s grace and turn our churches into places people can run to when they are wounded. You can learn more about Mosaic Christian Church at www.mosaicchristian.org and learn more about Carl and his book at carlkuhl.org Download and read the first chapter of Carl’s book here plus get free resources for your team for the book by emailing Carl. 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 — Hey, friends welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. You know every week we try to bring you a leader who will both inspire and equip you. Today we’ve got a repeat guest, somebody who was on just a year ago. And you know when we have a repeat guest it means we’ve got more to learn. So super excited to have Pastor Carl with us. He is the lead pastor of Mosaic Christian Church, which is in Maryland. It’s one of the fastest growing churches in the country and it’s serving the Baltimore/Washington DC area. And we know that that’s not the kind of place in the country that fast-growing churches normally come from so we’ve got a lot we can learn from Carl today. Welcome. So glad that you’re here. Carl Kuhl — Thanks for having me. Thanks for having me back. Really excited to be here. Rich Birch — Yeah, this is going to be great. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about the church, kind of fill out the story a little bit anything we’re missing. What do you want people to know about Mosaic. Carl Kuhl — Yeah, we like you said our church plant from 2008. My family planted it back then you know, moves to some portable locations, and got in our own building a few years ago. And we are back back back from coronavirus world where I just think we’re in the new normal and have been in the new normal, and pushing along and seeing a lot of great momentum. Rich Birch — Love it. Well you know one of the things when I go you should go to your church website. So mosaichristian.org if listeners, if you were to go there now, and huge bold letters on the front of the website: a church for people who don’t go to church. That’s a bold statement. Tell me why you’ve landed on that. What do you mean by that? I’m sure that’s much more than just a ah marketing statement. Tell me about what you mean by that? Carl Kuhl — Absolutely. I think it’s a biblical statement. And you’re aware that in church world we’re always like swinging the pendulum back in the direction that it went too far from, right? Rich Birch — Yes. Carl Kuhl — And I think this is a response to that. I believe every church is theologically, biblically supposed to be a church for people who don’t go to church, but what it’s simply at its most basic form is our paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 14 – that Paul says, hey I love that you’re doing these spiritual things, but speak a language that everybody can understand so the non-believer here’s the gospel. And what we’re saying in that simple phrase is: we are the church. We do not apologize for that. We love Jesus. He is our savior. The bible is our standard. At the same time we are going to do church in a way that makes sense to people who don’t have a background in church or the bible. Rich Birch — Yeah, what would be some of those things, and this is what I appreciate about you – you’re not um, that’s not just like a slick marketing kind of thing. Um, this drives deep. It gets to who you are as a community. But what would be some of those things that are maybe beyond the surface, beyond the ah, you know the veneer that drive deep and say, hey we want to be the kind of place where people regardless of their background can feel open, can feel safe, could feel like hey this is a great place to to be? Carl Kuhl — You know as Christians, um I’ll speak for myself, and but I think others can relate. We are so bad at remembering the depths from which Jesus saved us. And we forget. And we get in our own little world that’s full of joy and hope and community, and we we have to remember what it was like. I believe it that happens in a couple ways. One of them is just by being around non-believers. Who is your friend that you’re praying for to be saved? Because when you’re doing that you’ll look at everything through the lens of their eyes and ears. And the other thing is just continuing to let Jesus deal with our own junk, to be vulnerable about our brokenness, so Jesus can continue this lifelong process of healing us. Rich Birch — Let’s let’s let’s pause on that vulnerability idea. You know, I think one of the criticisms that can be kind of thrown against the church is that we can sometimes be considered shallow, or considered not authentic, not vulnerable. Why why would you say vulnerability is really an issue, something that we need to to lead with as a church? I totally agree. But why why is that so important? Carl Kuhl — Well, you’ve heard, we’ve all heard, right, the thing of like, I I want to go deeper. Or I need deeper teaching, or or deeper this and that. And sometimes as church leaders we get offended and write those people off, I think most of the time, but that desire is healthy. Like I I want to go deeper with Jesus, right? I want go deeper in my relationship with my wife, and my good friends, and all of it. But I think we miss what it’s about, because deeper isn’t I need to go back and get a refresher my koin a Greek. Rich Birch — That’s so true. Carl Kuhl — Deeper is being real about the ways I’m still broken that Jesus hasn’t fixed yet, and ways in—whether it’s pain, whether it’s doubt, whether it’s even some hopes I have about the future that I’m scared to talk about—giving those to Jesus letting him do what he will with them so that I can become who he wants me to be. So um, deeper… so there’s a lot of talk about vulnerability in our world today, right? I mean I love the Brené Brown books and podcasts, and there’s all different people talking about that. Carl Kuhl — But what I noticed over the last several years is I would get get those tools and realize I’m worthy and I’m enough because I was able to combine what these secular people are saying with the gospel. But I realized there was this gap in the church, in christianity, as far as equipping people to do this work, because we need to combine my broke… my open vulnerability about my brokenness with the truth and grace of the gospel. And the result of that, I believe, is when true community happens that Jesus calls this church. Rich Birch — Oh I’d love to hear more about that. What is what is open brokenness? Maybe we’ll start with you as a leader – what does that look like for you? I think this is ah is critically important. It’s one of those I would say major paradigm shifts from when I started in ministry, which is too many years ago to count. Ah, you know at that point it was like it was almost like we wanted leaders who were super human. Um and that I think was super unhealthy, but it was like we wanted them to be distant. We wanted them to be perfect. Um, and that didn’t work out. But now I love that you’re pushing for and and championing open brokenness. But what does that look like for you as as a leader, Carl? Carl Kuhl — As ah leaders have to go first. Rich Birch — Yep. Carl Kuhl — And so it simply means that whatever context I’m in, I have to set the standard of here’s what it means to be vulnerable here. Whether that’s sitting around a fire pit with my buddies, whether that’s around the dinner table with my family, and obviously including when I’m on the platform teaching our entire church. Carl Kuhl — And so I had this pit in my stomach a couple years ago when we were doing a long series through the Song of Solomon, and you know most of that can be fun, and there’s grace, there’s truth, it’s all great. But I realized oh arguably the number one sexual dysfunction in our country has to do with porn. I’m going to have to talk about my past porn problem. And I wrote a sermon that I was probably more nervous to share than anything I’ve ever shared. I even said in the intro like, hey this sermon would get me fired from some churches. Rich Birch — Wow, wow. Carl Kuhl — And I had run it by trusted men, my wife had read it, so it wasn’t me just getting up there being inappropriate, right? I did hear of one pastor who got up and said, you know, I need some of you ladies to dress better because I have a lust problem… Rich Birch — Oh gosh! Oh my goodness! Carl Kuhl — …and I was like whoa! Rich Birch — Whoa, whoa! Yeah back it up back it up. Carl Kuhl — Honey that’s our last day at this church! Rich Birch — Ah yeah, exactly. Oh my goodness. Yeah, yeah. Carl Kuhl — Um, but at the same time, one of my friends and I talk about this way, it’s what gives me the bubble guts. That’s what I have to share. So I went on this retreat a couple years ago that helped me kind of crystallized this thinking, because one of the exercises we had to do is we had to get up in this room of about 30 or so men and say: the truth I don’t want you to know is blank. Rich Birch — Okay, Wow. Carl Kuhl — And I was like, oh crap. Rich Birch — Yes. Carl Kuhl — But other men went first… Rich Birch — Right. Carl Kuhl — …including a couple leaders, and so I had no choice but to follow their example. The trick though is in church world we want it to be the truth I didn’t want you to know. So for what I mean is I went back, I don’t know, a year or two later and helped lead that same retreat, and the organizer said hey Carl would you be one of the the men who modeled this exercise, like you’ll go first. And I said oh sure. Yeah like I can share what I shared and all that. And they corrected me they said no no, no, no, no. It’s not the truth you didn’t want people to know two years ago. It’s the truth you don’t want people to know now. And I’m like oh crap. Rich Birch — I got to do this again!? Ah no, oh my goodness. Wow. Carl Kuhl — I got do a whole other one. Yeah. But but I believe that’s what it means to be a leader is always putting yourself in the front. It’s giving people ammo, saying you can shoot me with this if you want, but I know freedom with Jesus only happens when I’m real. So I have to be real in the context of community if I want this community to be worth anything. Because I know you have stuff that you need to be open about, and I don’t know what it is but I know—and I’m not going to compare our things—but I know what my thing is doing to me your thing is doing to you. So if I’m brave enough to put my thing out there and say, hey here’s what Jesus is helping me deal with. I don’t have answers yet. So don’t ask me what the solution is, but I just know he’s got me and he’s gonna get me through it. Somebody else is gonna have their thing. Rich Birch — Love that. So yeah, we’re kind of tiptoeing around this, and you know talking about um you know how we’re how we can create a more open broken community. Talk me through how you’ve been able to structure that at Mosaic in a way that is responsible. You know you’ve kind of mentioned it a little bit there because we you know we want to create a place where people are able to um to share. But also we want to do that in a context that’s that’s helpful, like that one story but that kind of like – we don’t want it to be like that one story… Carl Kuhl — No, we do not want that. Rich Birch — …like the pastor who said something inappropriate. How have you been able to create some some guidelines, some um you know some boundaries around ensuring that people are sharing appropriate things at the right time in the right place – that sort of thing? Carl Kuhl — Yeah, so I’d always rather err on the side of sharing too much because the church you know it’s like that pendulum thing. The church is traditionally not shared enough. And so it’s like, hey take a risk, right? It’s it’s gonna feel scary. It’s gonna it’s gonna be dangerous I think it does start up front. Rich Birch — Mmm-hmm. Carl Kuhl — Um, it does have to start in the preaching. So just one really practical thing we do, because I I need it and I preach about 75% of the time here, is on Wednesday the week I’m preaching I will always preach my entire sermon in a conference room to 2 other people. And I’ve used other pastors over the years for that. I’ve used mostly current staff now. And it’s not just anybody. It’s selected people who I know will help me, not like fine tune a theological point (although they can if I need that). It’s more like, hey are you being vulnerable? Are you being appropriate? Are you giving bread for the hungry? Like that’s one of the primary questions they ask and they’ll push back on me. Rich Birch — Hmm I love that. Carl Kuhl — And so last week I went in that and I thought, man I’m not gonna have anything due on Thursday – my sermon’s done. And then I did that and they’re like, yeah you need ah you need some work here. Um so it took some more hours. Rich Birch — Wow. Love that. Carl Kuhl — But ah, that’s one place it starts, and then even as we talk about community, our staff has to model it and how they lead volunteer teams. Our group leaders have to model it. You know when we interview group leaders if if they’re just, you know, I if they just say they’re full of the joy of the Lord all the time every day, I’m like, I’m happy for you. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Carl Kuhl — That’s not my experience. Rich Birch — Yes. Carl Kuhl — So let’s go a level deeper. Rich Birch — Yes. Carl Kuhl — And if they can’t, I don’t know if I can put them around other people whose lives are falling apart as their leader. Rich Birch — Okay, I wonder about you know there’s this um, aspect of creating the kind of community that is full of both grace and truth. There’s kind of the other side of vulnerability which is calling out; it’s the, you know, Matthew 18: hey you’ve sinned against me. There’s a, you know, there’s a problem between us. What has that looked like in Mosaic? How have you encouraged people to live um, you know a transparent life when it comes to maybe confronting each other, or talking through ah you know, talking to each other about issues that that sometimes we might just avoid because it’s you know, not polite company or whatever that looks like in some churches? Carl Kuhl — Yeah, so this a great question, that not many people ask me about this is, so when we talk about Matthew 18 or you know like Christian church discipline, um Jesus always tells us to look in the mirror first, right? Rich Birch — Mmm-hmm. Carl Kuhl — I mean multiple places he talks about that – sermon on mount ah, you know, let him without sin throw the first stone. All that stuff, we always look in the mirror first. So if it’s not safe for me here to be vulnerable about, I have this issue that’s going on – I have this doubt, I have this pain, and I’m mad at God, then I guess I’m just gonna look to throw stones at other people, because I can’t share my stuff so I’ll just find somebody who has something worse. And that’ll take that’ll take the spotlight off of me. Rich Birch — That’s so true. Carl Kuhl — So I think a lot of the problem with “church discipline” is that we haven’t done this, because if we create a culture where it’s okay to be broken, then I’m not constantly the police looking for who else is doing something worse than me. Rich Birch — Oh, I love that. Carl Kuhl — So then if I do confront it’s because I’ve already done some work myself and then man, it’s really based on compassion, because I know how much I don’t know and mess up and need Jesus, so the confronting thing is not going to be a finger point. It’s going to be a thing with with tears of hey, I’m concerned about you. And that’s just 100% different than how a lot of us envision that. Rich Birch — Yeah I love that. so the thing I want to encourage our listeners, I just think this is I think you’re the kind of leader people should be following around particularly on these issues. I think there’s something you are are pushing on an issue here that I think all of our churches are facing whether we talk about it or not. Um, you know, we’ve all seen these kind of high profile flameouts of significant leaders in the Christian world, and the problem with even talking about that is I know that it’s like going to be evergreen content because when you’re whenever you’re listening to this, even if you listen for a 2 years from now, chances are there was someone who just recently had some sort of huge flameout. And one of my kind of concerns for us, the broader us, is you know, rightfully so someone that does something where they step way over the line and then, you know, this kind of huge crashing accountability comes down on them, and they’re like extinguished off into the universe somewhere. They’re gone. Carl Kuhl — Yeah, yeah. Rich Birch — And the problem with that is oftentimes the way that’s handled, I think there’s a ton of people out there that see that happen and what it does is it actually forces our own issues deeper down inside. We’re less likely to talk to other people because we’re like gosh, I’ve done really crappy stuff and if anybody knows about that, man I’m done. Like it’s gonna it’s going to explode over me. And I’m not saying that people shouldn’t shouldn’t have shouldn’t be held responsible for their activities. But there are times where we make an unwise, you know, foolish decision that actually hasn’t hasn’t become sin yet. It’s not… it’s just stupid. You’re being an idiot. Like why are you doing this? And oftentimes as church leaders there’s no way for us to talk about those things. There’s no place for us to actually begin to engage that. Um and I love that you’re pushing us to think about how do we become vulnerable with the people around us because I think if we did that more there would be more leaders who wouldn’t go from foolish, to stupid, to sinful, to egregious sin. Um, whatever that spectrum is that and ends up with you know you know them, you know, ending up ultimately being canceled… Carl Kuhl — Yeah, yeah. Rich Birch — …and like I say expunged out into the universe somewhere. What does that look like for you and your own team dynamics? As people have maybe come forward with things that are in that category of, again, ah it that – there’s a wide spectrum here, but in that kind of unwise/foolish. You know doesn’t really um, haven’t stepped over a line yet. But man, we want to get some corrective behavior. What does that look like for, particularly say that your team, the people that are reporting to you – whether it’s either elders you know on that side or on your staff? What’s that look like for you? Carl Kuhl — Well, you know I think it’s AA that says you’re only as sick as your secrets, right? Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Carl Kuhl — And I love like kind of the progression you talked about of like, it’s silly to stupid to you know, eventually egregious. That’s so true. And I can honestly say you could not find any dirt on me or my past that men in this church don’t know. Not every man, right? Rich Birch — Right. Yes, yep. Carl Kuhl — I mean I have boundaries. But there are specific men that you could go to him with the whatever you could find on me and they’d say, yeah we know. Rich Birch — Right. Carl Kuhl — He’s told us. Rich Birch — Yes, yeah. Carl Kuhl — And so I think it again has to start with the leader. I heard one of those you know leader… I was caught so here’s kind of something you may call a confession but really isn’t… Rich Birch — Right. Carl Kuhl — …where he said “Where do pastors go?” And my answer—I was yelling at Youtube—was where everybody else goes! Rich Birch — Yes, yes, we’re not different. Carl Kuhl — To their church! Rich Birch — Yes, yes, it’s it’s called the body of Christ. Carl Kuhl — We say… yeah we say with other things: speed of the leader, speed of the team. It’s true with this as well. If you don’t think it’s safe for you, somehow people are going to pick up this isn’t a safe place for me either. It’s a safe place for me to share that type of stuff but not this stuff. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, right. Carl Kuhl — And so as leaders we have to go first, you know, combination of elders, and staff, and men and women in the church. I know you know this audience is not exclusively pastors, but it’s a lot of pastors… Rich Birch — Yep. Carl Kuhl — And you have to start the community that you want to be a part of. Rich Birch — No that’s good. Yeah, that’s so right. Carl Kuhl — I absolutely believe that. Not in a selfish way—like, oh we’re just going to sing my favorite worship songs… Rich Birch — Right. Carl Kuhl — …but in a broken way of, I’m going to be I am going to lead this. This will be a community that can support me, or I will go find a new one. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Carl Kuhl — Which means I have to put stuff out there see if they could support me. Rich Birch — Yes, absolutely. Love that. Carl Kuhl — So when it’s come to ah leaders um, with you know, hard big things, ah, it’s grace and truth. Rich Birch — Yep. Carl Kuhl — And so I heard, um and want to ascribe this to Tim Keller—I’m not sure who it was but that sounds right—said that sometimes we approach the paradoxes of the bible where we want fifty-fifty each of them. Ah, or we think they’re supposed to be balanced, so we’ll even approach a situation say well is this grace, or is it truth, or is it fifty fifty both. But the paradoxes of the bible are 100% both. So when Jesus says you die to live. It’s not like sometimes die, and sometimes live, or it’s like half and half. It’s no you fully die so that you fully live. And with grace and truth it’s full grace and full truth. Rich Birch — Oh that’s good. Carl Kuhl — So it’s hey, you can’t lead here for a season, and the season may last forever, we’ll see. We’re gonna act as if it’s forever, and we’ll see what happens, but we’re gonna pay for you to go to this weeklong therapy that costs thousands of dollars. Rich Birch — Right, right. Carl Kuhl — You can’t be on our stage right now because of what’s going on in your life. And it’s bad and it’s ugly, but my wife and I are going to personally mentor you nonstop for the next several years to see if we can help your marriage heal. Rich Birch — Right. Love it. Carl Kuhl — You know so it’s it’s full grace. It’s full truth. And I find that when the leader goes first about their stuff, and you work diligently to create a culture of that, that people accept that. You know I get frustrated, if I kind of give a related tangent. Rich Birch — Yeah totally. Carl Kuhl — Um, I get frustrated when christians and churches and pastors don’t preach on hard things. And obviously we need to preach on joy and hope and the things that you know make life easier with Jesus. But we also need to preach you know, like on sexual standards, and you know, sometimes cultural things, right, that are in the gospels… Rich Birch — Yeah. Carl Kuhl — …and we want to ignore and just go back to like let’s just make everybody feel good today. But I think one of the reasons we’re hesitant to preach on those things is because we don’t we aren’t open, we aren’t vulnerable, so there’s not a context of grace so it comes down just as heavy handed truth. But when I preach on sexuality and say God says some hard things and some y’all need to knock it off. When that’s in a context of my own sexual brokenness that I’ve written about, that I’ve preached about, people are like, he’s not throwing stones. Rich Birch — Right, right. Carl Kuhl — He just wants us to find what he’s found. Rich Birch — Yeah, love that. And now how much you know I think one of the criticisms of fast growing churches is is exactly what you’re talking about. It’s like well they’re just all, you know and it’s just different criticisms. They’re all just easy gospel. They’re all just grace grace grace um, or they avoid you know, tough things that we don’t want to talk about. The kind of vulnerability we’re talking about, the brokenness we’re talking about – from your perspective as a leader – how does that connect to the fact that you’re a fast-growing church? How how do those two things relate to each other? Are they related; are they not related? How how does that fit together? Carl Kuhl — I absolutely think it’s related. I think it’s best illustrated in how we do baptism. And we have a high view of baptism because Jesus and Paul and the bible do. Rich Birch — Yes. Carl Kuhl — And so we tell people when you want to accept Christ have faith and that’s expressing repentance and baptism. Rich Birch — Yep. Carl Kuhl — And it’s a central part of our service like during the last worship song the band will kind of you know vamp a little bit and the lights will come up on the baptistry, and we always tell a story of the person. It’s quick but it shares their brokenness. So there’s two things going on with our baptism. One is we ask people if we can share like what got them there really. And so there was a woman recently who addiction has ruined her life, like destroyed her life, and we got into that in just a sentence or two. But then pointed out, she wanted to wait till she was seventy five days clean to get baptized, but we pointed out to her, hey Jesus isn’t gonna love you more when you’re seventy five days clean, and you’re gonna still need his grace just as much then as now. So if you want him, he’s ready. And so she was getting baptized that day. Carl Kuhl — You know but I was sharing openly about addiction and in that baptism tub we’ll share about addiction and divorce and ah seeing ah fellow soldiers get killed and how it messed you up and that eventually brought you to Jesus, but the thing that goes along with it is these aren’t spontaneous baptisms. We tell people when you want to get give your life to Christ, check this box on the card or online, and we’ll talk to you about it. Rich Birch — Right. Carl Kuhl — And we want to make sure, you know, we baptize so many people who say, I got baptized kid – I don’t know I was doing. Rich Birch — Right, right. Yeah, exactly. Carl Kuhl — And so we don’t want to like baptize 10,000 people and then they go to other churches and I never really know what they are doing. So we have a conversation with every one of them. And last stat I was told, just recently, is 51% of people who want to get baptized we tell them not yet. We say hold the horses… Rich Birch — Wow. Carl Kuhl — …and we say we have some homework for you. Rich Birch — Huh. Carl Kuhl — And if they’re kids we say, go read the gospels of Luke and John, write down all your questions, and we want to meet up again. Rich Birch — Wow! Carl Kuhl — And if they don’t do it then they’re not ready. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Carl Kuhl — Because if Jesus is your Lord, if he’s your savior for all eternity, you’ll go read like a couple books, right? Rich Birch — Yes, Wow. Carl Kuhl — And a lot of people we say do you have we say to all of them, do you have sin on the calendar? Rich Birch — Right. That’s a good phrase. Carl Kuhl — And you know we had a guy recently who literally said hey ah, let me get back to you, and then he called us back and said I canceled some things that were on the calendar, I’m ready to follow Jesus. Rich Birch — Wow. Carl Kuhl — And we’re like let’s go. Rich Birch — I love it. I so I love that. Carl Kuhl — And we tell our church that, so it’s like hey just because you check the box it’s not like you’re in, right? Rich Birch — Right, right. Carl Kuhl — There’s there’s no hand raise or sinner’s prayer in the bible. It’s like let’s get real about what it means to follow Jesus. So I think that captures in a church of full grace and full truth, hey we’ll baptize you when you’re just barely clean, right? Rich Birch — Yeah. Yes, yes. Carl Kuhl — But we want to make sure you know what you’re doing because it’s too good to get this wrong and mess your your future spiritual growth up. So… Rich Birch — I love that. What a great ah vivid example and a great kind of looking under the hood. I appreciate you sharing that of how grace and truth works itself out in that one incredibly important step of baptism. That’s just so great. Now, you’ve written a book called… I love this title by the way – this is like, lean in friends, it’s a great title: Bloodstained Pews: How Vulnerability Transforms a Broken Church into a Church for the Broken. It’s obviously around what we’ve been talking about today. But what got you to saying you know what I need to I need to get this…do the hard work of pulling it all together into a book. Ah why write this book? Carl Kuhl — I believe this is what the church is missing. Rich Birch — OK. Carl Kuhl — And we feel it, but we can’t articulate it. I think this this is related to the whole deconstruction thing. I think this is related to what you said about the tension of fast-growing churches – are they just shallow and hype? I think this is related to when we’ve been part of small groups and it’s like nice, but I need something deeper, but then I don’t like that word deeper so what am I missing? I’m missing true community when vulnerability and the gospel collide. So if you have time I’ll tell you the story that was kind of the genesis of it. Rich Birch — Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. Carl Kuhl — A few years ago we weren’t subscribing to any streaming services. We didn’t have cable. I was home alone. My wife was out, kids were in bed. I ended up watching this documentary on PBS. Rich Birch — Oh nice. Love it. Love it. Carl Kuhl — So it’s like in black and white, and it’s about these two medics in World War II. They were air-dropped into Normandy on D-Day; they were mis-dropped. They end up in this tiny town and immediately one of them sees this 900 year old church building, puts his cross red cross flag on it, and says this is going to be our trauma center. And they take turns going out with a wheelbarrow and bringing in soldiers who’ve been shot up, and bringing them in there. Rich Birch — Wow. Carl Kuhl — And it’s really dramatic over the course of the night. At one point a dud bomb falls through the ceiling and doesn’t go off. Rich Birch — Oh gosh. Carl Kuhl — Another point a German soldier bursts in with the machine gun. But when he sees they’re just there as medics to help wounded soldiers, he crosses himself and leaves. They make every soldier of both sides check their weapons at the door. Rich Birch — Wow. Carl Kuhl — And they save some 80 men’s lives that evening… Rich Birch — Wow. Carl Kuhl — …before the fighting moves on to like the bigger areas of World War II. Rich Birch — Right. Carl Kuhl — But the thing that struck me about it was after the war was over, and the people were rebuilding the town they fix, you know, the the hole in the roof, all the stained glass had been shot out, so they replaced all of that. But when they came to the pews they were stained with blood, and they didn’t replace the pews. They didn’t sand it down. They left it. Rich Birch — Oh wow. Carl Kuhl — Because they said this church was built 900 years ago to be a place of hope and healing for the bleeding and broken, and on D-Day that’s what it was. Rich Birch — Wow. Carl Kuhl — So I’m watching this documentary… Rich Birch — Gosh. That’s amazing. Carl Kuhl — …my wife gets home. She sees me watching this like little PBS special and I’m weeping, and she says, babe, are you okay? Like do I need check you in? And I said, I’ve just seen the best picture of church I’ve ever seen. Rich Birch — Oh wow. Wow, that’s that’s… Carl Kuhl — Because when Jesus says in Matthew 11, hey if you’re tired or worn out, if you’re weary and broken, come to me and I’ll give you a real rest. And I love the way the message paraphrases verse 30, says I help you live freely and lightly. Rich Birch — Love it. Carl Kuhl — When I see those bloodstream pews I say that’s it. Rich Birch — Right. Carl Kuhl — That’s it. That’s how we get it. So I wrote the book. Rich Birch — Wow, so good. You know I was struck when I looked at this, I thought man this this seems like the kind of thing that would be… I’m sure there’s leaders that have been listening into today’s podcast and they’re saying, man I wish I wish I could be more that way. I wish our culture could be more this way. To me this struck as a great leadership book to maybe you know here we are in the summertime this is a great like, hey let’s read this together over the next three months. Let’s get together three times and talk about what we’re learning. Um is that is that what you had in mind, who did you have in mind as you were writing this book? What was the kind of the the people you imagined that could, you know, consume this content and then ultimately hopefully live differently because of it? Carl Kuhl — This book is for Christians and fringe Christians who have who are longing for better community. And they have something inside them that’s not working, or that’s broken, sometimes even a dream and and it’s just not out there and they feel alone. And I would say if you need if the promises of Christian community have let you down, this book is for you. Rich Birch — Love it. Um, talk to me about your thought you’d mentioned there around it seems like deconstructionism is like everybody’s talking about it. Talk to me more about your thoughts on the connection between vulnerability and deconstruction particularly. Carl Kuhl — So deconstruction goes to like these bigger questions of what is the church, and you know can we trust the bible, and those are always important questions in context. I do draw a line in leadership between being cynical and being skeptical. Skeptical is honest questions. Cynical is trying to poke holes. Rich Birch — Right. Carl Kuhl — And in the gospels Jesus will answer skeptical people all day long. All day long. Cynical people he does not have time for. Rich Birch — Right, right. Carl Kuhl — I love when Jesus says like I wish I could get away with saying some of the things Jesus says. Rich Birch — So true. Carl Kuhl — One of my favorite quotes when he says, how long—he says to his followers—how long do I have to stay here and put up with you? Like if I said that in the staff meeting I think my elders would get an email. I don’t know. Rich Birch — Yes, so true. That’s great. But it’s ah Jesus is all about skeptical. He hates cynical, right? Rich Birch — Right. Carl Kuhl — And I think deconstruction, when by the time we hear about someone’s deconstruction., they’re already cynical, right? It’s already like I can’t help you at this point. I want to help you but you’ve just gotten to a place where I can’t. But we have to let them be open when they have the skeptical questions… Rich Birch — Right. Right. …the honest questions. Rich Birch — Right. Carl Kuhl — And I think the reason people get to those bigger cynical questions is because they couldn’t be open about the real questions that weren’t even that big, but it just was like one small domino that led to a bigger domino. Like if I can’t ask this… Rich Birch — Right. Carl Kuhl — …then why do what what’s even church supposed to be about. Rich Birch — Right, right. Carl Kuhl — So I think this doesn’t solve someone who is already deconstructed. But this will prevent the next generation from leaving the church saying it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Rich Birch — So good. Well friends, I I really want to encourage you to pick up copies. Like I said, this is the kind of book you shouldn’t buy yeah copy for yourself. You should buy 5 or 6 and you should get some people together and actually read it together because I think ultimately that’s what we’re trying to drive towards within open ah, vulnerable community is is discussion with others. I think this would be a great conversation starter for your team. We’re actually going to provide a link to the first chapter which is incredible. So you know if you’re looking to to get a sample of it, you could do that but you could just skip over that and pick up a copy. I’m assuming we can get it at Amazon. I know we can get it Amazon. Is there other places we want to send people online to pick up ah, copies of Blood Stained Pews? Carl Kuhl — I know it’s getting on a couple other places, but Amazon is just the easiest, so just get it on Amazon. Rich Birch — Great, good stuff. Carl Kuhl — But it is available there. Audio, it’s available digital for the Kindle readers, and obviously paperback. We do have resources that we will give you for free… Rich Birch — Oh love it. Carl Kuhl — …if you do a group study, or some churches have already contacted us and said hey this needs to be like our church’s culture. We’re doing an entire journey, an entire series that everything in the church is focused on. So if you contact me at Carl with a “C” at mosaicchristian.org, me and my team would love to help you with giving you any free resources we can. Rich Birch — So generous. Thank you so much, Carl. Is there anywhere else—this has been a fantastic conversation—is there anywhere else we want to send people online if they want to track with you or with the church? Carl Kuhl — Yeah carlkuhl.org is my website and that’s where you can just sign up for updates and we’re giving away the free chapter through this podcast. It’s also available on my website as well And then Mosaic Christian Church YouTube page is really the best place if you’re interested in more content. Rich Birch — Love it. Thanks so much, Carl; appreciate you being here. Cheering for you – hopefully we’ll have you back on in the future. I enjoy you know learning from you and appreciate what you’re doing at Mosaic Christian. Thanks so much for being here today. Carl Kuhl — Appreciate the work you’re doing. Thanks for having me.

Thanks for joining in for the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Vern Streeter, the lead pastor at Harvest Church in Billings, Montana. Harvest Church is one of the fastest growing churches in the country and has had a long-time value of being community-focused. Listen in as Vern chats with us about paying attention to the unique needs in your community, and how you can creatively impact and serve your city in Jesus’ name. Focus on the community to be relevant. // Planting a church where the focus is simply “doing church” should not be our primary goal. If people don’t want churches in their neighborhoods because churches are irrelevant to their lives, Vern believes that’s the church’s fault for not connecting with the community in meaningful ways. At Harvest Church their mantra is to be so tangible and relevant that even the most ardent critic of Christianity would be bummed if they ceased to exist. Plant a church with a focus on serving the community and being relevant to them.Serve others outside worship services. // In an effort to build a connection with the community, Harvest Church didn’t start with worship services, but rather with serving the neighborhood. They began with simple activities such as raking leaves and taking care of landscaping, and over time have held bigger events and gotten really creative about serving their community. That even led to the construction of a pool and water park for the city of Billings. Rally others to new ideas. // Vern advises to other pastors who hear an urge from the Lord to do something crazy for their community to just get out there and go for it. Ask yourself what your community needs and rally everyone to the new idea that will serve the community in a surprising way. Followers of Christ are tired of the consumerism in churches and are ready to surprise and delight the community in Jesus’ name. Think outside the box and get outside the church walls to engage the curiosity of unbelievers, and your church will gain traction in your community.Needs unique to your community. // Montana and Wyoming lead the nation in per capita suicide and the need for mental health care is huge in the community. To address this need, Harvest Church is redirecting funds that were originally for a new building and they are constructing a mental health facility to serve the community instead. The arrangement is not without challenges, such as accepting medicare, medicaid, and insurance, and having all federal and state licenses that are required. But the team at Harvest believes this is a specific way that God is calling them to serve their community with excellence while being unapologetically bible-based. You can learn more about Harvest Church at www.harvestchurch.tv. 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, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in today. You know every week we like to bring you a leader who will inspire and equip you and I know today is no exception. Super excited to have Vern Streeter with us. He is the lead pastor at Harvest Church in Billings, Montana. It’s one of the fastest growing churches in the country. They, a number of years ago, started the Better Billings Foundation which we’re going to hear more about, and their kind of practical outreach to make a difference. They’ve been done all kinds of really cool things. I’m excited to learn from them and part of what I love is Billings, Montana is not the kind of place that you would say a fast-growing church comes from. And so we can definitely learn from Vern today. Welcome to the show. So glad you’re here. Vern Streeter — Really glad to be here. Thanks, Rich. Rich Birch — This is going to be great. Why don’t you fill out the picture kind of tell us a bit more about Harvest. Give us the kind of the picture, if people were to arrive this weekend, what would they experience? Vern Streeter — Yeah, so ah, Harvest Church was planted in the year 2000. I was a youth pastor for 10 years at the mother church across town, and this area of the community needed a church like what we do and so um, they asked me to consider it. After a few years of working on it. We we launched in a high school in the year 2000 and started working on getting into our own piece of property. So we bought a property next to the school and moved into us building in 2004, which we thought was a temporary building. It’s currently our permanent building and but what we did… Rich Birch — Yes, still temporary all these years later. Yes. Vern Streeter — Yeah, so we did the classic cafe-gym-atorium. We we built a gymnasium that converts to the worship center on the weekend. we are still setting up in chairs and ah but we put we did that because our heart is to serve the community and we knew, hey man, a gym’s gonna get used. Rich Birch — Yes. Vern Streeter — And it is, it gets used every single day. And you know the acoustics are terrible, but we’ve we work on that constantly. And our lobby’s got climbing walls in it, and have great coffee and real open and friendly and welcoming and then you step into a gymnasium that’s a worship center. And we try to do a really good job on but so people experience on the stage as far as theming our sermon series and so on. Ah so you you’d walk into a place with good energy, and a little unusual because all of a sudden you’re rubbernecking noticing that there’s people climbing the walls. Rich Birch — Love it. I love that heart from the beginning of being the kind of church that you know wants must want to make a practical difference in the community. I think that is just such a great thing. I think there’s a lot of churches that talk about that, but from what I can tell Harvest Church is actually doing that right from you know, there’s even something as obvious as the way you’re building is is using. Let’s talk about that. Where has that led you as a church as a leader as you’ve thought about how do we make an actual difference in Billings with the real issues that people are facing? Vern Streeter — It was really moral for me because the Lord ah he made it very clear to me that if you’re gonna plant a church that’s just gonna kind of ‘do church’, don’t bother. And so let me let me let me expand on that a little bit. Rich Birch — Yeah. Vern Streeter — So when when I was the youth pastor and realized I was going to be planting this church, I was researching the starting of new churches and read an article about subdivisions and planned urban developments or so on that ah are writing into their deed restrictions or their covenants that they didn’t want churches in the community. Which is a little alarming article to read when I was about to plant a church, but the Lord was really gracious but really firm with me – kind of a boot on my neck going, you can’t just be offended by that. You got to think more about this and think deeply about it. And so we we just had this little session where he just had me going down layers. And I’ll shorten the process but the the question was like whose fault is this that a community doesn’t want a church? And what he was revealing to me is that this was an issue of relevance – well used word – but that a guy would make a decision that he wants a laundromat or a gas station in in in his neighborhood but not a church. Rich Birch — Right. right. Vern Streeter — And he’s concluding that the church has some irrelevance to him where of course he wants his clothes clean and a gas for his car, so that matters to his life. But what flipside on its head is that the church has been entrusted with the, actually the only thing that matters, right? Rich Birch — Right. Yes. Vern Streeter — So like a guy’s eternal life or human flourishing. And so, but so if if they deem that the church is not doesn’t matter. It’s irrelevant. That’s the church folks’s fault. That’s that’s us. Rich Birch — Yes. Wow. Vern Streeter — We were entrusted with it and we’re the ones that made it irrelevant. So I just owned it. I just didn’t do anything but own it. I was like yep, Lord, that’s on us. I just in that moment was representing churchdom and went, all right, we’ll be different. So this little mantra of we got to be so tangible and so relevant that even the most ardent critic of christianity would be bummed if we ceased to exist – this was kind of a sentence we just kept telling ourselves and so when we started our church, we started by raking leaves and doing yard care in neighborhoods… Rich Birch — Love it. Vern Streeter — …where we were gonna plant. So we we didn’t start with worship services. We started serving and I just wanted our whole launch team to go to get it like we. Vern Streeter — We’re going to get our hands dirty, guys. We’re going to work hard and have sore muscles because of it… Rich Birch — Love that. Vern Streeter — …rather than our cool new worship service with a band. You know. Rich Birch — Yes, yeah I love that because I think so many times the easy answer to relevance is exactly that. It’s skinny jeans, a band, and some lights, and and that just is proving to be not that relevant. And um, and I love that you’ve asked the deeper question and also owned it, and said hey that’s on us, not be not from like a blaming point of view, not from a like pointing fingers, but from an acceptance point of view. I love that from the beginning you were like how do we serve? You know, even as simple as raking leaves. Where has that where’s that continued to lead you? Vern Streeter — Yeah, so so the very next thing we did was partnered, partnered I guess a good way to say it, is we used a high school. So we were the first church in Billings to ever use this school district’s property. Rich Birch — Wow. Vern Streeter — So we had to keep break ground in there. Some school board stuff. Rich Birch — Yep. Vern Streeter — But what we told the principal was we are going to be a blessing to your school. And he’s not he wasn’t a Christian so we didn’t quite even understand why we needed another church in town. It was pretty funny. Rich Birch — Mmm, yes. Vern Streeter — And um, but we just started serving that school. Rich Birch — Yes. Vern Streeter — Everything from the intangible of praying that the Holy Spirit would linger all week long after we left, to the very tangible of all the stuff that we have you can use at any time that you want, to we’re buying stuff that the school needs, to the way we treated the custodians, to how we left the rooms, to the way we would bless teachers tangibly. So we just put our arms around the school. We were actually the landscapers and the yard care for the high school for a while because… Rich Birch — Yes. Vern Streeter — …it needed help and the school didn’t have the money and so we were like we got it. Rich Birch — Right. Vern Streeter — So right away we we now we’re doing worship services, but we’re also serving like crazy the school. and that principal later when we were planting a church in another town, in ah in a school which was also gonna be new in that town, he wrote a letter of reference to that principle… Rich Birch — Wow. Vern Streeter — …saying the single best administrative decision he’s ever made was allowing Harvest Church to use his school. Rich Birch — Wow! Vern Streeter — I know that was awesome. Yeah. Rich Birch — Wow! That’s amazing. That’s incredible. That’s so tangible. That’s incredible. Wow. Vern Streeter — Exactly. So then it expanded from then then we got into our own building, which was unique, was like hey we own something now, so how do we how do we use this? But. Rich Birch — Yes. Vern Streeter — But didn’t stay inward. We we started doing everything from Easter egg hunts and with helicopter drops, to there was no there was no great fireworks display in our region and so we now host the what we call Celebrate Freedom (a name I stole from somewhere in Texas), and we do this huge Fourth of July thing… Rich Birch — Wow. Vern Streeter —…and pay for the whole deal, and it cost us 70 to 100 grand a year and it’s our gift to the community. And then we would do classic compassion weekends where we’d shut down services and spread out all over the city and mobilize a couple thousand people to serve like crazy. Those are so fun and so effective. Rich Birch — Yes. Vern Streeter — And that was everything from putting a roof on a widow’s house, to building a bridge over a city ditch because the city didn’t want to do it, to filling in—one of our funnest projects was we – the the graves in the city cemetery were all collapsing because… Rich Birch — Oh my goodness. Vern Streeter — …because, you know, the coffins I think like that body rots and then the coffin collapses after fifty or eighty years. And so so they were all sunken… Rich Birch — Oh my goodness. Vern Streeter — …and so they supplied the dirt but we supplied the manpower, and we went into this this cemetery for two days, man… Rich Birch — Wow. Vern Streeter — …and refilled graves and replanted grass. It was an awesome project because it really, really built credibility with the city of Billings. They weren’t sure what to think of us, especially because again, an indictment on church folk, they were used to churches going, hey we got like a serve day – you got some projects for us? And then not finish the projects. So half a gazebo gets painted, or something like that. So they talked to us about that. And we were like, all right no matter what happens we are gonna complete our projects and go above and beyond, and we have a heritage of that. And they have learned to trust us over the years which really paid off when we actually built a water part for the community. That partnership with the city was… Rich Birch — Dude, I love how you just rolled over that, like that is so great. Well then that paid off and when we built a water park. You did what? What did you do? Vern Streeter — Ah, so one of the dynamics one of the dynamics in Billings is that we’re kind of a bifurcated or divided city because of geology, not geography, but literally geology. There’s a cliff band that runs across the north end of our city that necks down at the Yellowstone River… Rich Birch — Right. Vern Streeter — …and so you’ve got the city separated by this cliff, and the only way to get to the part of the city I’m in is through that bottleneck by the river. Ao my area the community is called the Heights and there’s probably 40,000 people that live here and there’s about 100,000 people that live in the valley, if you will, below those rims. Rich Birch — Okay, yep. Vern Streeter — So this area of the community wasn’t um, didn’t become city, wasn’t annexed, until like the late 80s… Rich Birch — Okay. Vern Streeter — …and there’s people that live here that are still angry about that because of the sort of the independence period, you know, of Montanas… Rich Birch — Right. Yes. Vern Streeter — …and they didn’t want to be in the city, but they’re in the city now. So now we’re in the city. We’re paying city taxes, but there was no city recreation center, or or swimming pool. Rich Birch — Okay. Vern Streeter — So you got 40,000 people, no city swimming pool. But every time we would go to the voters, it would always get voted down because the rest of the city would go, well I’m not going to the Heights. Why would I… Rich Birch — Okay. Vern Streeter — …why would I vote to have my taxes raised for a pool I’ll never use, which I felt like was like, see this is the problem with the world… Rich Birch — Yes. Vern Streeter — …and so we’re doing something about this. So the Lord was just he just impressed upon me like, that’s going to be your responsibility, and that that was after a couple of failed votes over a few years you know. And so we put it in our master plan, but it was phase 4. But we moved it from phase 4 to phase 2. Rich Birch — Right. Vern Streeter — So we got we had to get out of the school and as soon as we did. We started a capital campaign to raise money for a water park. Rich Birch — Wow. Vern Streeter — And so we raised like 4 we raised five million bucks to build, literally it’s the best water park in town, by far. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Vern Streeter — Matter of fact, it was the only water park for a while… Rich Birch — Right. Right. Vern Streeter — …then the city pool started going like we better put some slides in. Um, but one of the but one of the amazing things that happened is, well one of the amazing things that happened is that our church agreed that we should build a water park. That’s unusual to get… Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s super unusual. Vern Streeter — …several hundred, you know, I don’t know what we were 1500 people or something like that to go like yeah, let’s let’s not do some for ourselves. Let’s do something for the city that, and then we’re just going to gift it to the city. So so what we did is built this water park. We had to start a foundation to kind of do the firewall thing. And then ah, we got a director over it. We employ about a hundred kids every summer. Rich Birch — Wow. Vern Streeter — It always turns a profit but we charge very little… Rich Birch — Right. Vern Streeter — …and we just need to just need to make like 25 grand every year to put into the maintenance fund for a new pump or whatever. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Vern Streeter — But but one of the moments that was most special for me was we were on our way to a meeting with engineers to talk about finalizing the product, you know, what we were gonna do on our land because we got these 29 acres. And the city of Billings calls us and goes, hey we got 7 acres of land that’s basically unusable that we don’t have any money to put in to do anything to it. Rich Birch — Right. Vern Streeter — How about you guys put that pool you’ve been talking about there? Rich Birch — Wow. Vern Streeter — So the city so the city literally gave us seven acres of land and and it’s in a way better location than where our church is because we’re at the we’re at a dead dead end basically. So now it’s in the center of the community basically… Rich Birch — Wow. Vern Streeter — And that thing is slammed all June, July, and August. It is a blast. Rich Birch — That’s amazing. That’s incredible! I love that – I love the the heart. So I don’t know, so I we had run into this story and I’m like I I don’t know any other church – now you probably do because you’ve talked with me – I don’t know any other church that’s built a water park that’s like, hey that’s led to that kind of you know situation. I love that you’re employing students. I love that it’s meeting a practical need. Um, you know, I love that it’s you know that arm’s length thing that’s kind of a fun you know, fun part of the story. Um, what would you say to church leaders that are thinking, they might have that kind of God-story resonating in their brain where like the Lord—it might not be a a water park—but it might be something of a similar nature of weirdness, like what? The Lord’s telling me to do this! What would you say to them as as they’re you know, hearing that, you know, today? Vern Streeter — Yeah, I I would say, hurry. Do it. Get after it. Now. Now. You need a visionary… Rich Birch — Yes. Vern Streeter — …courageous guy that’s going to stand in the pulpit and rally everybody to this new idea. But… Rich Birch — Sure. Vern Streeter — But but I do think that church folk I I think they get self-nauseated at consumerism themselves, and so the idea of let’s do something that’s radically different than what a church normally does, that radically serves the community in a surprising way, and I think that’s what and one of the fun things is the surprise that people have experienced. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Vern Streeter — I think Jesus surprised people all the time, and so for a church to do this is surprising to people, and it draws interest in what kind of a church does that? So it just seems that we’ve done a really good job of serving ourselves over the millennia… Rich Birch — Right. Vern Streeter — …and to do things that are outside the church walls and outside the box, that surprises people and causes, especially non-christians to go, what’s the deal there? Rich Birch — Right, right. Vern Streeter — That we’ve gotten tons of traction because of that. Rich Birch — Okay, so let me let me, we’re friends, but let me push you on it. What are some other ways that as you’ve been, you know, being led by—which I love this heart for like how do we how do we help our community? How do we lead our community?—that may be push to deeper issues, that open up to you know things that – ah I’m not saying that a water park is not ah, not ah, not an yeah, a real issue but ah, you know there’s got to be other things that you know in your community that’s led you to think like hey we should we should maybe help with that. We should tackle it with that issue too. Vern Streeter — Yeah, so for sure so we we’ve done everything from like we had this we had this hearse that pulled a coffin that was actually a barbecue and we would we would pull into the skate park with this thing. It’s got the best sound system of any hearse in town I promise you. And we would open that thing up and it’s got a cooler and barbecue in this coffin and it was a great opportunity to talk to kids about eternity. Or we have a car care ministry that takes cars in and gets them ready and usually they’re going to single moms, and so people don’t trade in their cars anymore. They give them to Car Care ministry and that thing that goes out. We have an ambulance that we converted that would go out and serve the homeless. So those kinds of things have just been just regular things for us. Rich Birch — Right, right. Love it. Vern Streeter — The latest and the doozy now that we’re that we’re doing, is that we’re we’ve we’ve opened a mental health practice. Rich Birch — Okay. Vern Streeter — So we’ve we’ve opened a mental health practice and it’s in matter of fact, it’s so um, preeminent for us that we reprioritized a recent capital campaign. So Covid helped us reprioritize it, it did. Rich Birch — Wow. Vern Streeter — But the money that we raised for a worship center is actually getting totally repurposed and going for this mental health facility. Now, this is all about, and this is a major important theme and I think anybody listening to this like this is what you’ve got to evaluate is: what does your community need? So our community actually needed and I put it in quotes for sure but “needed a water park”, or a swimming pool for the 40,000 people that didn’t have one. So we did that. Or we didn’t have a fourth the July celebration that was safe and fun for families. So we did that. Well the mental health deal is the same deal. So we have a mental health crisis. It’s literally a crisis in our part of the country. And you put Billings in between Calgary to the north, Minneapolis to the east, Denver to the south, and basically Spokane or maybe Seattle to the west, and so you we are in a hole. And lots comes into Billings, but it’s very it’s regional at Billings, but we’re still very rural, and as you can imagine. Vern Streeter — So our mental health situation is not good. The federal government has designated us a mental health shortage environment. So there’s actually funding available to try to get more people, mental health practitioners, to come to our region. Rich Birch — Hmm, wow. Vern Streeter — And our suicide rate leads the country. Rich Birch — Wow, wow. Vern Streeter — So we so we flop with Wyoming. Montana/ Wyoming lead the nation… Rich Birch — Wow. Okay. Vern Streeter — …in per capita suicide. And we know all the reasons why, by the way. We know that we know why we lead it. And I could list them for you. But the what we decided then was, and we’ve done this pretty much since the beginning of our church, was like understand that there’s mental health issues. Let’s try to help people. And it was really um, pastoral counseling without any credentialing… Rich Birch — Right. Vern Streeter — …but we’ve been working on it. And then ah when covid hit, as you know, mental health Rich Birch — Right. Vern Streeter — …anything that was like under the water and the water went out. You could really see it, right? Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Vern Streeter — And so our pastors were buried in marriages that were just falling apart. Rich Birch — Right. Vern Streeter — And I remember sitting in this one meeting and they all just had their pulled out their little lamb skin books – you know those those deals are journals. And they’re just they’re just reading couple after couple after couple to me that are either separated, divorced, or divorcing. They’re out. There’s domestic violence. And it was just heartbreaking, and just all that Covid ugliness… Rich Birch — Right. Vern Streeter — …that exposed the mental illness deal. So we went all right, man. Let’s start a mental health practice. Rich Birch — Wow. Vern Streeter — So we the this we got this director of operations and she’s a juggernaut. Rich Birch — Right. She’s awesome, but she she ran a she ran at a party rental business. Rich Birch — Okay, okay. Vern Streeter — Well, what do you suppose is one of the first companies to go under during covid would be a party rental business. Rich Birch — Okay, right. Of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Vern Streeter — So she so she had to close up shop and sell her building. We scooped her up. She’d been at our church basically from the beginning and she is a leadership beast, and so I just sat down with her last January. And was like let’s go, Lene, let’s open a practice. And in nine months we had our first counselor hired. So last September we opened. Rich Birch — Right. Vern Streeter — We now have five counselors. Rich Birch — Wow. Vern Streeter — They’re all busy. Rich Birch — Right. Vern Streeter — And then we were gonna do this building and we went, we don’t have the money to build the building anymore because of Covid increases, supply chain problems, and then inflation on top of it to put it out of reach. Rich Birch — Right. Vern Streeter — So God graciously just was like you should build a building. So we’re building a sweet counseling building that will not look like a counseling building. So that… Rich Birch — Right. Amazing. And then you’re going to stay in your existing facility and then that’s and that’s on your property. Vern Streeter — Yep, yep. Rich Birch — Yeah wow, that’s amazing. Vern Streeter — We got twenty nine acres and we’re putting it on the far northeast corner of our property, put it away from the church, put it in a more tranquil location, off beaten roads. Rich Birch — Yep. Vern Streeter — People in Montana are embarrassed to go see a councilor so we’re gonna be real sensitive to that, and kind of put it out of the way where you can sneak into that parking lot and get in the building quickly, and get help. Rich Birch — Wow, yeah, that’s amazing. What what the… I love that. I think this is first of all, this is just incredible story. What God’s doing at your church I just think is so cool. Um, you know as on the the mental health facility, what’s the launch of that look like? So you obviously you have a number of counselors on the team, you know how are you spreading the word? How does it work from a just kind of give us ah you know a leadership a little bit of deep dive around, you know, how are you paying for those people all that kind of stuff? Vern Streeter — Yep, it’s really good. So again had to set up another 501C3 so it’s its own corporation; the church actually owns it. But we’ve got the firewall in place. Additionally though we did not want to turn away people. So… Rich Birch — Right. Vern Streeter — …that means we’re taking medicare, medicaid, and insurance, which that means is that we have to have all the federal and state licensure that that is required. Rich Birch — Right. Vern Streeter — So that means we get to do talent recruitment and get the right people here that have those credentials. Rich Birch — Right. Vern Streeter — We’ve got the clinical director that we got from another town in Montana. And then some local counselors to to join us. We are unapologetically bible-based and Jesus-centric, but John Townsend and Henry Cloud would be who our guides are on the clinical side. Rich Birch — Okay, yep. Vern Streeter — So that’s model of mental health from those guys. And then our all of our providers, all of our counselors are in the process of getting their credentialing, their hours. And then a variety of of credentialing, right? LC/PCs… Rich Birch — Right, right. Vern Streeter — …or social workers, or whatever it is, so… Rich Birch — Yeah. Vern Streeter — We’re kind of getting the ah full team together that is… Rich Birch — Right. Pulling the team together. Vern Streeter — Yep, and it’s broad like we we want to help everybody. Rich Birch — Right. Vern Streeter — So from children to older adults as well as addiction counseling. So that means we’re providing the services that are required there by the state. So we are being a um we are playing nice. We are joining what the state and the feds require… Rich Birch — Right. Vern Streeter — …but unapologetically Christian, but with a high level of training and expertise. So it’s not pray and memorize a verse. Like we are doing deep dives into a person’s soul and their mental health issues. So that and and um, we have the accountability in place to be able to do that. Rich Birch — Right. Vern Streeter — Actually had to contract for a while with another Christian counseling agency in town to be our clinical director before we had our own. Rich Birch — Right. Vern Streeter — So that we would have the oversight and the accountability that’s required and… Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s amazing. Vern Streeter — And so there’s you know, Medicare, Medicaid, there’s counseling agencies that don’t accept it because it’s such a pain in the butt. Rich Birch — Right. Because there’s so much paperwork. You’ve pretty much got to hire somebody to just do red tape. Rich Birch — Right, right, right. Vern Streeter — And so you got It’s these precious people who’ve got no resources are getting turned away. Rich Birch — Right. Vern Streeter — And we went nope. Nobody gets turned away. Rich Birch — No not under our watch. Yeah yeah, yeah. Wow. Vern Streeter — So so that means we had to deal with sliding scale so we had to figure out what what can you pay. So it’s everything from 0 to $150 an hour, depending. Rich Birch — Right. Vern Streeter — And then whatever your insurance company does and whatever Medicare and Medicaid does for you, we are just making it work for people because we want them in the room with a counselor. Rich Birch — Wow. And you if it structured as a 501c3 or is an LLC or what is that organization? What is that? Yeah like is it a for profit, or is it a nonprofit structure, or charitable? Vern Streeter — It is a okay… Rich Birch — That’s a curveball question. Sorry. Vern Streeter — Yep, ah it’s a you know it’s it’s just where I need my director of operations. It’s either an LLC or a 501c3. Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s fine. Yeah, that’s fine. Vern Streeter — And I thought it was 501c3 but it it is a for profit entity. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Vern Streeter — Um, which we’re trying not to make a profit. Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, yeah, no, that makes sense still make total sense. There’s a number of churches do that. Vern Streeter — We just, right, we’re just going to pour money back into it and just and just talent recruit and just get the next counselor on board. Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely. Vern Streeter — Because it’s a massive shortage in Billings. In some cases it’s six months to get into see a counselor. Rich Birch — Yes, Wow, that’s amazing. Vern Streeter — Well people are pulling a trigger by that time. So… Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, absolutely. Wow, that’s amazing. So what’s the what’s the top end kind of vision there? Is the hope to… do you have like ah a sense of the number of people that you’re hoping to serve? Or you know, what what is that what does that look like when you articulate that to your people? What what is it you saying? Vern Streeter — Yeah, yeah, so there’s going to be about a dozen offices in there, so we could get have a dozen counselors, even more with some office sharing. There’s breakout rooms in that building because we we feel strongly about what happens in a small group and processing things together with groups. We do a thing called T Groups which is follows the John Townsend’s Townsend leadership program model where there’s teaching but then lots of processing in a small group. So we’re designing the building to hold that, but we’re also putting 150 seat amphitheater in there… Rich Birch — Wow. Vern Streeter — …that will be like a oh like a state of the art college classroom. Rich Birch — Yes. Vern Streeter — Ah, and that is for the purpose of education. And especially all the those that continuing education requirements. We’re gonna we’re setting ourselves up to be the place that this region will go to to do that learning… Rich Birch — Love it. Love it. Vern Streeter — Because we can bring it, we can pipe it in, but we’re also bringing guys in. Rich Birch — Yeah. Vern Streeter — We’ll bring in Cloud and Townsend to to pour into people and we’re going to be um, unreligious about it. I mean so certain, again, unapologetically Christ-based, Christ Center, bible bible-based, but but some of our speakers are going to just be some of the best practitioners in brain science. Rich Birch — Right. Yes, yeah. Vern Streeter — For instance, those guys are coming in and they’re gonna teach. Rich Birch — Right. Vern Streeter — So we are gonna have this education part of this as well. So we’ve got tons of room to really serve the region, and that’s the goal. We are not we can’t just think about our county… Rich Birch — Right. which is the biggest county in the state… Rich Birch — Right. Vern Streeter — We got to think about the region just because of how it’s spread out we are. Rich Birch — Well the fun thing I love about this story, Vern, is I love how it started where so many churches start which is like, let’s rake some leaves in the neighborhood. Let’s, you know, let’s do that and somehow it goes from raking leaves… Vern Streeter — Yeah. Rich Birch — …to having you know the most advanced mental health facility, ah you know world class offering incredible service. I love that. I love the story that God’s writing there. When when you think about the impact on, I don’t even know what you call it, the kind of the rest of the church. The the box that we would normally call “church” – you know weekend service, getting people into small groups, kids ministry – all of that. Vern Streeter — Yeah. Rich Birch — How has your approach to being community-focused, how has that impacted um—I know that sounds like such a juvenile question—but how does it, how is all that working together? What’s it what how does that impact you know what’s happening on that that side? Vern Streeter — Well, ah, yeah. So I don’t think it’s a juvenile question I’ll give you but I give you better more credit than that. Because here’s what’s happened in Billings is like somebody moves to town and they’re with their realtor and they’re talking about schools and churches and things and they go and the realtor goes, well, the first place you should probably check out is Harvest Church. And they go well, why? And they go well, they do a lot for the community. Rich Birch — Right, right. Vern Streeter — And then the person goes. Do you go to Harvest Church? And they go, oh no I don’t go to church at all. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Vern Streeter — But but that church, man, they do a lot for the community. Rich Birch — Yes, I love that. Vern Streeter — So so 22 years now that it’s a deserved reputation. Rich Birch — Yes, yeah. Vern Streeter — We do do a lot for the community, and and christians and non-christians alike go like well that that just seems right. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Vern Streeter — So I love that that’s our reputation and and we have got to keep doing it. So that’s one of my little my things with this. Our staff is all right, what’s the next thing we’re gonna do to serve the community? Rich Birch — Right, right, right. Vern Streeter — We have to stay on it. So it does require somebody to keep it going because man it’s easy to get insular and inward. But the but the reputation I think has given credibility for the gospel. Rich Birch — Love it. Vern Streeter — You ask people why they came to Harvest, It’s probably had something to do with our community involvement. Rich Birch — Love it. This is so great. I I this has been a great conversation. So fun to hear. Anything else you want to share just as we’re wrapping up today’s episode? Vern Streeter — Yeah, um, one of the things that I my my church hears a lot from me is that we serve the one who said he came to not to be served but to serve and to give his life away. So so guys, you know how I talk to him like we if we say we follow him then we’re gonna be doing the same thing. And so that’s where that service thing is um, foundational to us, and and will it’ll just never stop here. Um our core values are word-centered, community-focused, growth expected, fun required. And so that so unapologetically word-centered but community-focused is number two on that list. So if a person comes to our church and doesn’t want to be a part of the community, they’re they eventually gonna probably move on because we’re pretty obsessed with wanting to serve our community. Rich Birch — Right, right. Love it. Vern Streeter — And it needs it more than ever we lead the nation in suicide. Rich Birch — Right, right, right. Vern Streeter — So come on. Let’s go. We got to get outside of these walls and help people. Rich Birch — Vern, this has been so good. Thank you so much for spending time with us today. I want to make sure we send people to the right places online. If they want to know more about Harvest Church they just go to harvestchurch.tv. Are there other websites that we want to send them to or is that the primary place we want to send them? Vern Streeter — That’s the primary one and then um, please go with grace in your heart to that website. It is being redone, launches in June. Rich Birch — Okay, all good. All good, all good. We are always we’re all our websites are always at that phase. Vern Streeter — We’re always a little embarrassed by our websites. Rich Birch — We’re always like you got you got other stuff to do besides make a great website. Vern Streeter — Exactly. Rich Birch — You’re you know you’re somewhere between running a water park and a mental health facility. It’s fine if your website… and I think your website’s great. Vern Streeter — Okay, thank you – appreciate it, Rich. Rich Birch — That’s great Vern I appreciate you being here. Thanks so much for being on the show today. Thank you so much. Vern Streeter — Great to be with you. Hope it helps a little bit.

Welcome back to this episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re chatting with Paula Ley, executive pastor at Radiant Church in the Tampa Bay area. Paula is talking with us about the spheres of influence in our lives and how to balance the busy seasons of ministry while still prioritizing our most important relationships. Ministry is a marathon, not a sprint. // Paula has served in many different ministries from being a missionary to working for Radiant Church, to starting a non-profit with her husband. She has a saying that she sticks to which is: the principles don’t change, the particulars do. When you’re grounded in the word of God, He can move you anywhere and give you unexpected experiences, and he never wastes a thing. You might not be in the right role right now, but God will use it in the future if you stay close to him.Spheres of Influence. // When working in ministry, there is a lot that can bleed into your personal life. Church leaders carry a huge responsibility, and so Paula put together a system called the Spheres of Influence that helps her make decisions about what to prioritize in her life. She also uses it when coaching team members and volunteers so they can figure out what to say yes to and what to say no to.Start with God in the center. // On the sphere, Paula starts out with a small circle and puts God in the center of, indicating that a relationship with him is top priority. From there she draws more concentric circles, moving out from the center. Next she has a circle for her husband, then her kids and grandkids, and then her job and ministry. As the circles get larger they extend to other parts of her life. These Spheres of Influence help you stay on task, but also keep people as most important in your life because ultimately as pastors, people matter more than what role we play.Urgent items. // Urgent items will move into the inner circle at times, but they can’t stay there. By nature urgent items are short term. Otherwise they need their own permanent spot in the Spheres of Influence and regular attention in your life. Examples of urgent items might be a sudden death in the church, or other events that need a pastor’s temporary focus.Hard calls and soft calls. // Once you have your Spheres of Influence drawn, Paula says to pay attention to hard calls and soft calls. The hard calls are the things that God has brought into your life which need you and aren’t going to change, for example: your spouse, young kids, aging parents, etc. The soft calls are the outer circles in your life that do change, such as job, ministry, and other relationships.Finishing well. // Time management and prioritization applies to everyone. Pray about how God wants you to organize your spheres. Each person has to draw their own sphere, although it may help to speak with a spouse or family as they can help us pay attention to patterns of workaholism. Heavy seasons of ministry will have a sacrificial component to them, but it’s also important to make sure that your innermost circles are healthy. Finishing well is about having integrity in those inner areas.Serving Beyond Borders. // Paula works with the non-profit Serving Beyond Borders which helps leaders and nationals in other parts of the world create leadership structures for church planting. They partner with existing ministries in other countries to reach out to the people in their communities.   You can learn more about Radiant Church at www.weareradiant.com. You can also learn about Serving Beyond Borders at www.servingbeyondborders.org. You can hear more from Paula and her husband on the podcast, The Radical Christian Life with Doug and Paula, which can be found on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. 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.

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Tony Morgan, the founder and lead strategist of The Unstuck Group, which offers consulting and coaching for churches as well as practical resources such as courses, access to research and more – all to help churches get unstuck. The Unstuck Group does quarterly trend reports that reveal where churches are thriving or getting stuck in this season. Today Tony is talking with us about some of the latest findings. Spread the gospel. // One of the notable trends in churches right now is that baptisms have increased over the last 12 months, indicating that churches are reaching new people who are taking steps in their faith. This is an important shift because in the beginning of the pandemic, ministry leaders became so focused on taking care of their own congregations that they lost sight of the broader mission of spreading the gospel. The report on baptisms indicates that churches are bouncing back to being focused on pointing new people to Jesus.Create an intentional discipleship strategy. // The average number of people that churches are baptizing is 5 people for every 100 people in attendance in a given year. In other words, if a church has 1000 people in attendance, on average between 50 and 60 people go public with their faith through baptism. Churches need to keep in mind the fact that people are on a spiritual journey. God ultimately has to work on someone’s heart to prompt them to take the step to be baptized. However churches also need to be intentional by having discipleship strategies in place that show people what their next steps are.Create an intentional reach strategy. // In addition to having intentional discipleship strategies, churches need to have intentional reach strategies which engage new people outside the church and faith. The most common challenge for churches is this “front door” issue – engaging new people with the gospel. Without an intentional reach strategy we cannot live on mission, and it’s only a matter of time before our churches start to plateau and decline. Decrease in church engagement both ways. // The Unstuck Group has gathered data for the first quarter which shows about a 15% drop in online engagement and a 27% drop in in-person church attendance. Church leaders have been hopeful that if people aren’t attending in-person then they’re watching online, but these numbers are indicating that church engagement overall is decreasing.Engage with people online. // Our online services can be part of our reach strategy – many new people will watch a service online before they ever attend in person. However we need to create more connections with these people instead of just streaming services. Engage with people online to help them take next steps. Use social media for more than just promoting what’s happening at the church and actually interact with people. Discipleship happens in community so connect people online with each other as well.More statistics from reports. // Tony shared some of the other statistics that the trend reports reveal as well. For example, growing churches have smaller boards and fewer committees. Growing churches also have less debt than declining churches and are baptizing a higher percentage of people. Most notably, declining churches have significantly bigger staff teams than growing churches, employing 56% more full time employees. Overstaffing means the staff does the work of the ministry instead of equipping the people of God to do it, as Paul instructs in Ephesians 4:11-12. If you want to get a copy of the latest trend report from The Unstuck Group you can go to www.theunstuckgroup.com/trends and explore all of the resources available to churches. 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, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. You know every week we try to bring you a leader who will both inspire and equip you and today’s absolutely no exception. Super excited to have Tony Morgan with us. He’s the founder and lead strategist of an organization called The Unstuck Group – they help churches get unstuck. Unstuck offers consulting, coaching with several kind of different areas including multi-site, staffing, digital strategy, just to name a few. They’ve been around for quite a while. Tony’s previous experience was in senior leadership roles at Westridge, at NewSpring, at Granger – he’s published several books and also hosts his own podcast. Tony is the reason why there’s a lot of reasons why I love Tony – one of the reasons why I love him is he is in the corner of church leaders. He loves church leaders and wants to help, so Tony, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here. Tony Morgan — Rich, it’s so good to be with you, and and you just nailed ah you just nailed it. I mean that’s what I’m about. I’m trying I’m trying to help ah churches get unstuck. But honestly it comes down to the pastors and church leaders that we get to serve. Rich Birch — Yeah, totally. Tony Morgan — And I know especially after these last couple of years whether you’re in Canada or the us or anywhere else, my goodness these have been challenging days. Ah, and so we do, we want to be in your corner trying to help you accomplish the mission God has for your church. So thank you for giving me this opportunity. Rich Birch — Yeah, and I know we’ve I’ve I’ve joked with your team about this and I think I’ve joked with you about it. You know I do coaching and consulting with churching on churches as well, and it seems like every time I talk to people they’re either they’ve either just talked with you, or they’re talking with you, which is great and so, which is fantastic, and there’s more than enough churches to go around. And so I I love pointing people to you guys. I really do think, right, this is not as there’s not an ad. I asked Tony to come on. I I really do think that what you do is great for churches and you make such a difference. And there are folks in this market who will remain unnamed who I get the vibe that they look at churches as just another market. It’s like they could be selling to people who run grocery stores, but they’re selling to churches, and and that’s not you guys at all. You really are you want to make a difference and so I just love that. I think it’s an honor to call you guys friends. So I love Unstuck, love what you’re up to. Well what fill out the picture there. What am I missing about Unstuck or parts of your story? I want to make sure we get out there before we we roll in. Tony Morgan — Yeah I mean we do. We’re trying to provide all kinds of coaching and content as much of that as free… Rich Birch — Yes. Tony Morgan — …free of charge as we can, Rich. But at the end of the day. What we love to do is actually be on site working with churches where we walk through a process to help them kind of assess where the church is, what’s working, what’s stuck right now. Um, plan for the future. Um, and needless to say again after these last couple of years I think churches are recognizing kind of that mission, strategy, vision for the future. There need to be some tweaks right now. And then making sure your structure is in place, whether that’s staffing or volunteer structure to support that, and that’s the core of what we do to help churches. But in the meantime if there’s some content that we can offer that will be a help you and your leadership and help your team consider next steps, we’re grateful for that opportunity. Rich Birch — Love it. So good. Well one of the things you do consistently are these trend reports – The Unstuck Church Report. Every time I see these, friends, this is on my required reading list; whenever it comes out I am always poring over it. Ah, there’s so much good stuff. Um, and we’re kind of caught when we’re recording this. We’re kind of caught between quarters and so the last most recent public one was the Q1 2022. Ah, but you know you’re working on another one. The team’s working on another one but there was a couple things in there particularly that stood out to me this report was, if i’m if I’m correct, it’s really the first report that has a whole year of data. Tony Morgan — That’s right. Rich Birch — Ah you know in relation to kind of the whatever you… I don’t even know what you call this anymore post-Covid you know… Tony Morgan — Yeah. Rich Birch — …intra-covid whatever this season that we’re in, and get… Tony Morgan — So you’re right. And let me just confirm. Rich Birch — Yes. Tony Morgan — So this is the first time one of these reports when we go year to year comparisons, it’s actually on this side of the beginning of the pandemic compared to a year before when we were still in the pandemic. So I think we’re, for the first time, getting a true sense of not, and again, not just covid but the world has we’ve just experienced so much these last couple years, but we’re finally starting to see a glimpse of how this is starting to impact church ministry as well. Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. One of the things that stood out to me was—there’s a bunch in this report again friends you want to pick it up—but one of the things that stood out to me was this whole conversation about baptisms and the fact that in the twelve months preceding that baptisms actually went up, which is ah fascinating. You know I think it it tells us a bit of a story of what’s happening under the hood. You know I’ve often joked another context I think that baptism is a great thing to measure because it’s like a real issue – you have to get people under the water. You know it’s like it’s it’s a good thing to measure… Tony Morgan — Yeah. Rich Birch — …outside of it’s like, you know, what it means spiritually. It’s it’s it’s kind of a fun metric. Talk to us about what you learned. What are you seeing, and what do you think the implications for that, you know, in this season for our churches are is? Tony Morgan — Yeah, so I’m actually encouraged to see baptisms start to bounce back over the last twelve months, because you know again looking at this data a year ago. Now granted of you know, especially for Canadian churches but other churches just being locked down and not being able to meet certainly that impacted the actual number of people getting baptized as well, though we found churches engaged in some creative ways ways for folks to experience baptism and go public with their faith. Um, even though the church wasn’t meeting. But all that said, um, the baptism numbers were low a year ago. And that that was actually it was actually confirmation of what we were seeing in other areas of the data where it just didn’t look like churches were reaching many new people. Rich Birch — Right. Tony Morgan — And I get it, I mean especially at the beginning of the pandemic. I think churches were so focused on how do we how do we take care of our own congregations that honestly I think ministries lost sight of the broader mission, which is to spread the gospel and to point people, including new people, to Jesus. And so it’s it’s it’s just encouraging for me now a year later to see that starting to bounce back. Tony Morgan — And in case you’re curious, and I think this is just a good barometer for any church to be considering, the really the average number of people that churches are baptizing is 5 people for every hundred people in attendance in any given year. And so if your church, you know, if your church has 1000 people in attendance, I would expect probably between 50 and 60 people on average to go public with their faith through baptism. And so if you’re curious, you know, how are we doing based on the size church we are, that’s kind of a good benchmark to be looking at. And of course we hear stories – two of churches that are experiencing far more life transformation than that. In fact, a church that Amy Anderson and I—she’s our director of consulting—we were just with them last week and gosh it’s amazing what God is doing in their ministry, especially in this season. But just, I think it was over Palm Sunday, they baptized 250 people in one Sunday and so… Rich Birch — Wow, that’s amazing. Tony Morgan — That’s ah, that’s what those are the stories, Rich, that I love to hear, especially now. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Tony Morgan — Because it feels like I mean we’ve had so much working against us as church ministries in these last number of years, it’s fun to see some celebration now of real transformation happening in people’s lives and… Rich Birch — Absolutely. Tony Morgan — And goodness, I love hearing stories like that. Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely. You know I know a part of my area work is helping people with this whole idea of invitability – that you know growing churches are churches that encourage their people train their people, equip them, motivate them, to you know to invite friends that that’s like a huge piece of what we have to do. And there for sure the joke I’ve made with churches through this has been there was a season there where inviting a friend to a church felt like, yeah I’m inviting you to get sick… Tony Morgan — Yeah. Rich Birch — …or like can you come and like you might catch a deadly disease you know, but can you join us this weekend and it makes sense that there was obviously a drop in invitability there, ah you know for a while. Tony Morgan — Yeah. Rich Birch — I love that 5 per 100. Again, friends, this is why Tony’s so great. He’s like… I play I play an expert on the internet,Tony actually is one. Um, when you think about churches you know, trying to encourage that number, trying to encourage baptism, um are there are there some best practices on that or some things we should be thinking about trying to move people towards that? So what would advice would you give to churches that are wrestling with that? Tony Morgan — Yeah I mean obviously it’s it’s God moving in people’s lives… Rich Birch — Right. Tony Morgan — …that ultimately gets them to a place where they begin to follow Jesus and then hopefully go public with that decision through baptism. However, Rich, I mean you I could I wish I could just show you… Rich Birch — Yes. Tony Morgan — …practically what how this plays out in most churches. Because really one of the things we want to help churches think about is people are on the spiritual journey that for most, I mean I think for everyone, begins with in this place where folks aren’t interested in faith, maybe not even curious about faith. And over time hopefully God intervenes in their life in some way where they start to ask spiritual questions, eventually put their faith in Jesus, then engage with a church and go through a discipleship journey, and ultimately become disciple makers themselves. Tony Morgan — And so there’s these steps that we want to, in the churches that we’re working with, that we want to help them just kind of identify what’s what’s our strategy? What’s that spiritual journey going to look like for people so that we’re encouraging folks to take their next steps towards Christ? Tony Morgan — And what I find interesting in the churches that we’re engaging with is that there are a lot of churches that have great discipleship strategies in place once people connect to the church and once people are connected to faith. But, I think what distinguishes the churches that are seeing the most life change is not only do they have a discipleship strategy, they also have a reach strategy. It’s well-defined. In other words, they they are very intentional about how they’re trying to engage people outside the church and outside the faith. Tony Morgan — And um, there are many aspects to that, for the churches that are doing this well, including by the way intentionality around Sunday morning worship services. Um, but I think the key and and the distinction that we see oftentimes is, for the churches that are seeing a lot of life change, and therefore baptisms are higher, it’s because they have both a discipleship strategy and a reach strategy. Rich Birch — Yeah I love that. You know the the thing I’ve noticed, similarly, over the years in helping people on that reach strategy side, using the language that you’re using there, is I think there’s this misnomer that like churches that are thinking about the front door are ignoring the back door, and that’s just not the the case with fast-growing churches. Tony Morgan — Right. Rich Birch — They are working on both sides of that equation. They are thinking very clearly about what are we doing to reach new people, and to keep the people that we’re having. They’re not… it’s like it was like a preaching point for a while there where it was like you could only do one or the other. Tony Morgan — Right. Rich Birch — But that’s just not actually true. That’s not how churches that are making the kind of impact that we’re so that are we’re seeing, that are exceeding maybe what is normal, they really see it as both connected for sure. What would you say on that, if there was that false dichotomy in the the churches that you’re engaging with, that you’re trying to help be Unstuck, do they have more —again using the forced dichotomy—is it a a reach problem or a key problem? Tony Morgan — Yeah. Rich Birch — Is it is it which which of those it seems that they need to spend more time working on? Tony Morgan — That’s a good question. I mean ah there have been some rare exceptions where we’ve gone in and attendance has been declining, not because they have a front door challenge, but because there is more of a backdoor challenge. In other words, that discipleship strategy wasn’t as defined as it needed to be, as clear as it needed to be, and so people, new people, were connecting to the church and connecting to the faith and kind of getting stuck in that spiritual journey. But by far the more common challenge, Rich, that we see is churches that don’t have a back door issue. It really is more of a front door where they’re just not engaging enough new people. Tony Morgan — And in fact, in one of the recent podcast episodes Amy and I were talking about this. This is the great wisdom that I periodically offer, Rich, if you want to grow your church, if you want your attendance to grow, you actually have to reach new people at your church. They pay me the big bucks for wisdom like that. Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes. Tony Morgan — But I think sometimes as as church leaders we forget the fact that I mean people are a living life and included in living life is job changes and moves and things like that and so there’s just this natural attrition that happens in churches. And frankly, if we don’t have an intentional reach strategy in place, it’s just a matter of time before our churches start to plateau and decline. So um, you know… Rich Birch — Interesting. Tony Morgan — I liken it to at The Unstuck Group. We eventually do have to make some money ah for my family to have food on the table, but also to pay the salaries and support everybody else on our team. And if we just focused on the churches that we were currently engaged with, we would be about six months out from having to shut our doors. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Tony Morgan — Because we kind we need this constant stream of new churches that we’re serving in order to pay the bills… Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Tony Morgan —…but also to help us continue to fulfill our mission. And as church leaders I think sometimes we we just are we’re so focused on ministering to and pastoring the people that are already a part of our congregation that we forget that part of the mission that God’s called us to is to actually go engage new people to try to share the gospel message so that new people began to fall in love and follow Jesus. Rich Birch — Dude, love it. I love that. That’s ah, that’s good to hear. You know it’s an interesting… that’s a fun way to think about it that you know for some reason we can make that translation when we think about organizations or businesses, but it’s like we… I think there’s a segment of the church world that it that feels almost like unspiritual to like think about what are we doing to reach new people, which is ironic. There’s something strange about that. But but that does seem to be out there. Um, so… Tony Morgan — Yes, yeah, go and go go and make new disciples. It’s it’s our mission, right? Rich Birch — Yes, it’s not a new idea by any means. Tony Morgan — Yeah, so yeah, it’s not a new idea. Rich Birch — Yeah, so one of the things that so in the last couple years I love the transition that has happened with church online. And I love what’s taken place on that front. Ah probably a year ago I was talking to a friend who I’ve done a bunch of work with their church and he was reflecting back on his own leadership. And he said, you know, if you were to ask me in February 2020 he’s like I didn’t have a Facebook personal Facebook account. Um I was not online. In fact, I I don’t know that I ever preached against church online, but I definitely was the guy who kind of dogged it. Um, and then he said I distinctly remember it was like March 17th, whatever the date, he was he pulled all his pastors together and he said all right, friends. Y’all need to open up a Facebook account. You need to figure out how to do Facebook Live and we got to move this thing online. And then and you know it was a great statement, this great leader who’s like, listen I’m so humbled by what God’s done on our online stuff. I’m you know I’m sad that we missed it. You know all those years – it was kind of a cool engagement. Tony Morgan — Yeah. Rich Birch — But here we are 2 years past all that now I talk to leaders all the time, and they’re like we have all these people attending online. I have no idea who those people are. I’m not sure what do we do with those people. What so what are you seeing in the churches you’re working with? How what is what is this, you know, either the stats are telling you or just as you’re engaging in conversations as, you know, we’re kind of a couple years past this online revolution that’s happened – what where are we at today on that? Tony Morgan — Yeah, so let me ah this is actually some you’re getting a sneak peek, Rich, at some of the new data coming out… Rich Birch — Ooo love it! Ooo love it! Tony Morgan — …and the next quarter’s report. Rich Birch — First first release here, you’re not going to get in trouble; Tiffany’s not going to get any trouble here, is she? She’s not gonna like pull in… Tony Morgan — Yeah well I might get in trouble. Tiffany’s fine, but I might be the one that gets in trouble. Rich Birch — Yes I mean that’s what I’m saying – she’s not going to be the one that’s going to get you in trouble. That’s great. Tony Morgan — Yeah, yeah, so um, this is ah this is the first quarter now in all I mean over these last two and a half years of dealing with pandemic and everything else. This is the first quarter that we’ve actually seen a drop in online engagement, a drop in the number of people viewing online services. It was ah the fresh data showing about a 15% year over year decline. And so here now um, in in fact, the data looking at in-person average weekly attendance in this next Quarter’s report, it’s a little bit better than the last report. The last report showed a 30% decline year over year for in-person attendance. This this next quarter I think is 27% or 28% decline year over year. So there’s a bit of an ah improvement, but attendance is still down year over year… Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yeah, yeah. Tony Morgan — …in churches. And I think as pastors and church leaders we’ve been kind of… I don’t want to say we’re okay with that, but at least somewhere in the back of our our mind we’ve been we’ve been using online engagement to kind of offset that in our mind. And until this last report I I could see why pastors were using that to justify that. Rich Birch — Hmm, fascinating. Tony Morgan — But now what the data is showing is not only is there a decrease in in-person attendance, but there’s also a decrease in online engagement. And so I think over these last number of months we’ve been hopeful that people that aren’t in attendance are still watching and engaged online. And I don’t know and I’m sure some of that is still happening, but if if it was happening, we’re starting to see that attrition in online engagement as well. And I kind of understand, I mean if the only connection… Rich Birch — Right. Tony Morgan — …with our ministry was by watching services online and people aren’t connected to a group, and they’re not connected to serving opportunities, and they’re never showing up in person on Sunday morning to just kind of experience what it is to be on mission together as a body of Christ, then I can see over time how there would start to be a disconnect if their only if their only involvement was watching services online. I think we’re starting to see the front end of that. And you know it was big speculation through throughout all of covid how long will people do this? It might be about 2 years and that’s it. Rich Birch — Right. Yes, about eight quarters and here we are. Yes, yeah. Tony Morgan — So um, yeah, so now is it going to just cut off immediately? Rich Birch — No. Tony Morgan — No I don’t think so but over time I do think there’s something to us um, continuing to press in, even in our online opportunities to encourage people, yeah I’d love for them to come back to Sunday worship, but at a minimum people need to get involved in in others’ lives. Rich Birch — Yes. Tony Morgan — There there need to be opportunities for us to engage with other believers. Um, whether that’s in a bible study or a home group or a serving opportunity. We we need that. Rich Birch — Yep. Tony Morgan — Um, the other thing I would add here is I still believe in online. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Tony Morgan — And what I’m seeing more and more is that when it comes we talked about the difference between reach and discipleship strategies for churches. And how they eventually overlap and and kind of feed off of each other, um the churches that are effectively leveraging online, it’s really helping them with the front door side, that reach portion, of their um ministry strategies. I think over time we’re going to learn there are some things we can do related to to discipleship online. But honestly discipleship is highly relational. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Tony Morgan — I mean it’s one life on another life. And yeah we can we can do some of that online, but we really need people kind of sharing life together…. Rich Birch — Yes. Tony Morgan — …for that real transformative change to happen. And so when it comes to reach strategies though online, I mean there’s a lot of opportunity there for us to engage with people that aren’t currently a part of the church and aren’t currently a part of the faith. In fact ah, Rich, my volunteer serving opportunity that I engage at my church… Rich Birch — Yep. Tony Morgan — …is in the connection space and it’s kind of where new people stop before and after the services. I can’t tell you the last time I talked with a new person who did not, before showing up on Sunday morning… Rich Birch — Oh sure. Tony Morgan — …watch a service online. Rich Birch — Oh sure. Absolutely Tony Morgan — I can’t tell you the last time that that happened. And so it’s it’s really critical… Rich Birch — Yes. Tony Morgan — …I think for us and our reach strategies to be leveraging online, but we can’t be assuming that people connected to our church can live their entire ministry ah relational existence online. I just don’t think that’s possible. Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so fascinating. I think that’s so true and I you know as we wrestle with this I think we have to continue to lean in. A couple episodes ago we had Jay Kranda from or from so Saddleback on and I love what he talked about because he was pushing us on, you know, moving beyond the stream. Tony Morgan — Mmm-hmm Rich Birch — I think so many of us are stuck that that like what church online is, we’ve reduced it down to it’s just a stream. It’s just like it’s just a post of the video. Um and that’s not ministry in the same way that watching sitting in the back of a service, sitting in the back row of a service is not church, right? That’s… Tony Morgan — That’s right. Rich Birch — That’s something different than church. And so I think we have to keep looking at that. I love that. You know, interesting it’ll be interesting to see how, as that trend continues. Now kind of connecting these two together like do you think and I’m I’m not so I’m with you. I’m, folks that are listening in, I’m not anti-church online. Listen we first started doing church online in 2009. I’ve spent a lot of time effort and energy – I’ve burned a lot of brain cells around how do we do church online. Like I’m pro-church online. So don’t don’t save your cards and letters. But do you think that there’s a connection there between the drop we saw in discipleship stuff in 2020 early 2021, and the kind of the fact that that we were just online. Like and the fact that we now, two years later, if we’re not moving people along, we’re seeing that drop like are we seeing are we… There was a there was a moment where, and Carey Nieuwhof’s a good friend of both of ours, and there was a moment there where he was like—and Carey, I love you—but he was like you know, jumping up and down: this is the this is the revolution we’ve been all been waiting for. And I’ve always always like yeah I think it’s a part of it… Tony Morgan — Yeah. Rich Birch — …I think it’s a part of what we’re talking about, but I don’t know that it’s all of it. I’m not asking you to pick a fight with Carey… Tony Morgan — No. Rich Birch — …but tell me what do you think about all that what do you what do you think? Tony Morgan — But yeah, and actually I appreciate Carey really pushing us as churches… Rich Birch — Yes. Tony Morgan — …because it’s probably causing us to think further ahead than we would normally be comfortable thinking and and making some initial innovations and take and test driving some new things that maybe we wouldn’t have considered without that push. But I will say this I just I’m not convinced that the goal for church is to become like Amazon where we’re providing ministry online 24/7 when anybody needs it. I’m just I’m not convinced that that’s the case. And again I really do think there’s some opportunity. I love the fact that you’re talking about online not just being the stream on Sunday… Rich Birch — Yeah. Tony Morgan — …because it’s for it to be effective, it needs to be far more than that. And there are ways that we can can connect with people relationally primarily through social media channels that are available to us where we’re not just promoting what’s happening in the church, but we’re actually engaging with people online. And then secondly it’s not just the service content that people are looking for online. They’re looking for answers, next steps around a lot of different topics that people consider are considering right now related to family health, marriage health, um emotional health, and on and on and on. Tony Morgan — And there’s so much opportunity for churches to engage people with helpful content that does begin to point people to faith and point people to the church and so… Rich Birch — Yep. Tony Morgan — …lots of opportunity there. But I don’t think trying to become fully online is the answer to the mission that God’s called us to. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s a good flag. I think, you know, we again I think we want to find a good balance there. We want to leverage—I’ve said this in other contexts—I really do think church online for all of us is going to look more like what. Gent jeannine or Jenny Jeannine Allen does with IF gathering where it’s like if you look at what their strategy is, it’s like some in person, a ton of online content, you know groups that are in-person, small groups, large groups, mid-size events, like it’s like a whole plethora of kind, you know, of ways to connect with the message. I think a lot of I think we’re going to look more like that, we’re going to you know as we you know look to the future. Um, that’s exciting. It’s interesting. It’s exciting times. I love it. Was there anything else either from the last report or the next one that’s coming up… dun dun dun…That ah you want to you, you know, you find particularly interesting or you’d love to comment on? Tony Morgan — Yeah, let me just highlight in the last report one of the things that we offered in our bonus section was just to look at some of the distinctions between growing and declining churches. And let me rattle off some of these.… Tony Morgan — Growing churches have smaller boards and fewer committees than declining churches. Interestingly growing churches have less debt than declining churches. I think I would have expected the opposite that if the church is experiencing growth in order to help fund that growth that might they might have to borrow some money to, you know, either build new buildings or expand or whatever multisite, whatever that might look like, and actually the reverse is true. Tony Morgan — Ah growing churches are baptizing a higher percentage of people than declining churches. I was glad to see that because again I think there’s this assumption that if the church’s experiencing growth, they’re kind of just poaching Christians from other churches, but and it would actually show, no, that’s not the case. I mean some of that may be happening but there’s ah, there’s conversion happening, faith conversion that’s happening in churches and they’re seeing more life change. Tony Morgan — Here’s one of the big shocks for me though: declining churches have significantly bigger staff teams than growing churches. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Tony Morgan — Yeah, you heard that right. Declining churches have bigger staff teams than growing churches and quite a bit bigger. Declining churches employ 56% more full time equivalent employees than growing churches, And you know I could I don’t know if we have enough time I could speculate on why that is… Rich Birch — Yes. Tony Morgan — …but let me just say what we see in churches is when they kind of overstaff—and there’s a lot of overstaffing in churches right now—the staff end up doing the ministry. Rich Birch — yes. Tony Morgan — And the challenge is that’s not that’s not what we’re supposed to be doing. Rich Birch — Yes. Tony Morgan — I mean Paul is pretty clear in Ephesians we’re supposed to be equipping the people of God to engage the work that God’s called us to. And the church the growing churches commonly do a lot better job of hiring people that know how to raise up other leaders, and equip and empower God’s people to engage the ministry. And not only does that help them save some money on staffing, but it also helps them to become a healthier thriving church… Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. Tony Morgan — …and that’s the more more important part of that story. Here’s what’s interesting though, Rich. When we looked at some of these differences between growing and declining churches, there really wasn’t a lot of difference post-pandemic as we were seeing pre-pandemic. In other words I really think if churches are kind of struggling to get back to where they were, whether that’s and life change through baptisms or attendance or people connecting to serving and groups and whatever, if that’s what you’re concerned with right now, a lot of a lot of the shift that might need to happen in your churches is just getting back to some of the fundamentals of healthy church. I mean it’s not new things that we need to consider… Rich Birch — Right. Tony Morgan — …it’s actually getting back to some of the fundamentals of what we need to be true about healthy thriving churches. And the good news that with that is you don’t have to guess you don’t have to be you know predicting what is online going to do or not going to do with our church going forward. You just you kind of need to go back to the mission God’s called you to as a church. And just recognize there are certain elements of what healthy church looks like, and we need to double down on that, because that’s what’s going to make the the biggest difference for your church today and in the days to come. Rich Birch — Love it. Yeah, so friends you know Tony is a is a good guy. Super friendly. Nice guy. When I read that when I read this part of this report to be honest, the thing that went through my head is like ooh this is the part where Tony picks fights. Ah you know and in a good way. He’s like hey pointing out here are some of these tensions. And it’s funny I was thinking about literally that point around higher staff versus or more staff versus less staff. There’s a church I’m doing some coaching/consulting with right now on multisite and there I’m helping them walking them through launching. And um and this is a growing church and we were talking about the staff footprint at the the new location and I was pushing for a larger footprint than they wanted to do. And I was in my assumption what I was like—and and it was so great—the executive pastor and lead pastor were like, I just don’t—and they said exactly that they echoed that they’re like—I think if we hire those people it will hamper us right from the beginning. We can do this with less staff, and it was like and I had your report ringing in my brain and I because I know that I’ve said that to church leaders in the past, hey we’re overstaffed – that’s going to slow the growth of our church. And I was like it was one of those like oh yeah, that’s right, it was like another humbling moment. So ah I again appreciate the work that you do you – you and your team just do such great work. Friends, if you want to pick up a copy of either the last or by the time this comes out maybe the next one. All you need to do is go to theunstuckgroup.com/trends. Is there anything else, Tony, you want to share with us as we wrap up today – any kind of last parting thought? Tony Morgan — Yeah. No, I just I can appreciate it. I mean number one I’ve been in ministry, like you, and secondly I’m still engaged in ministry of a local church. I just I know the challenges that pastors and church leaders are experiencing. And again, it goes well beyond covid Itself. There are a lot of other factors that are impacting what churches are experiencing right now, but more importantly, what pastors are experiencing right now. And I just want you to know I’m in your corner. Our team, I continue to pray for you on on a regular basis. We just we we we love what you’re doing. We’re grateful that you’re committed committed to this mission and if there’s anything we can be doing to support you and your ministry going forward, we would love to have that opportunity. Rich Birch — Love it. Friends again, a hearty endorsement from me of The Unstuck Group. They’re great people. They they really do want to help and so you’d be you’d be wise to follow them and to reach out. If you’re like hm we’re stuck in an area. We we need some extra help on some things, they they would be glad to jump on the phone and talk it through. Ah, Tony, where do we want to send people if they want to connect with you or with The Unstuck Group. Tony Morgan — Yeah, the easiest way is just to go to the website at theunstuckgroup.com Rich Birch — Great! Thanks so much. Thanks for being here.

Thanks for joining us for the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Dr. Derwin Gray, the lead pastor at Transformation Church in South Carolina. In the bible we see every nation, tribe, and tongue worshiping Christ together, yet in our country and churches we continually see examples of the racial divide. Listen in as Derwin shares his heart and steps that we can take toward racial reconciliation in order to achieve God’s vision for a redeemed and reconciled multiethnic family of believers. Consumer Christianity versus authentic Christianity. // Jesus says the world will know His disciples because of their love for one another. There is a difference between consumer Christianity which says Jesus is a means to an end and authentic Christianity which says Jesus is the end. Jesus broke down every dividing wall so we could be a part of a new multiethnic family. This is intrinsic to the gospel.Our differences reflect God. // Some Christians don’t want to talk about race, but Derwin points out that the bible does talk about it. God redeems our colors and our culture to be a beautiful reflection of Him in the world. At the end of the bible there’s every nation, tribe, and tongue worshiping around Christ. God saved us as individuals to put us into a family, and this family is a multicolored family. Keeping silent about the issue of racism hurts the witness of Christ.Homogenous unit principle. // The homogenous unit principle teaches that if churches want to grow fast, they should gather and target the same type of people in a church. This idea was developed by a missionary in India to reach out to the different castes of people and bring them together as the family of God. But it was changed in the US to reach out to people who already look and think alike. Decades later the result is increased political division, racial prejudice, and isolation in the body of Christ, along with deteriorating discipleship.A gospel issue. // If you truly want to heal the racial division in our churches, you need to recognize that there will be a backlash. You need to have a theological conviction that this is a gospel issue so that you can stand against the opposition. Examine your motives for taking this step. You shouldn’t want a diverse church just because America is more diverse, but because it is the outworking of the gospel of Jesus Christ.Diversity in leadership. // Your leadership should reflect the congregation you want to have. That doesn’t mean that someone is on the immigration team just because they are Latino, or someone is on the urban team just because they are Black. It means sharing the pulpit and needs to be reflected in leadership positions that make decisions, such as executive pastors and small group pastors.Cross-cultural competency is important. // Love means being willing to learn about someone else’s culture. When you have the majority culture, you don’t have to listen to others’ stories. Choose to listen so you can understand where people are coming from, and what they experience in their lives. In the gospel, our ethnic differences don’t need to be obliterated, they can be celebrated. All of us through the blood of Jesus are equally declared righteous.Healing our racial divide and living in His light. // Derwin’s book, How to Heal Our Racial Divide: What the Bible Says, and the First Christians Knew, about Racial Reconciliation, is meant to help leaders lead more effectively in the area of racial reconciliation. It goes through Scripture, showing the heart of God, and how God from the beginning envisioned a reconciled multiethnic family in loving community, reflecting his beauty and healing presence in the world. Don’t miss the giveaway unSeminary is offering to the first five leaders who commit to reading Derwin’s book with another leader at their church. For a chance to win two free copies of How to Heal Our Racial Divide, respond to an email from Rich with your interest. You can learn more about Derwin Gray, his book, and other resources, such as The Multiethnic Church Roundtable, at his website www.derwinlgray.com. Or follow along with Transformation Church at transformationchurch.tc. 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. My name’s Rich and the host around these parts and I am just so honored to have our guest with us today, Dr. Derwin Gray. He’s the lead pastor at Transformation Church it was started in 2010 by himself and his lovely wife, Vicki. Ah, if you don’t know Transformation I don’t know where you’ve been, but it’s a multi-ethic multi-generational missional-shaped community in South Carolina. Over the years Transformation has launched a bunch of campuses and locations including at the Kershaw Correctional Institute and the Lee Correctional Institute. They have outreach opportunities in a number of others. They have a location in Spain, which is amazing. On top of all the Transformation Church stuff that ah that that Derwin’s involved in, he also is a speaker and author, and just an all around great guy. Derwin, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Hey thank you so much, Rich. Appreciate that and as you were just saying about Transformation Church, I mean God has been incredibly gracious and he has brought some incredible Gospel partners who serve along in the staff and in the congregation. And so Jesus is building his church. We’re simply his hands in his feet, but I sure am grateful that he called my wife and I a start Transformation Church and it’s beautiful to see it blossom and mature. And yeah, I’m just blown away and grateful. Thank you. Rich Birch — Love it. Well we’re so honored that you would you know have that you’d come back on the show. So a little behind the scenes, friends, that are listening in. We’re hovering right around 6000 episodes and when I was looking back over ah the episodes I was thinking man, who would I like to have back on and Derwin was at the top of that list. I really wanted to have you back on, partly to loop back on something you said. We were talking about, which I’m hoping to dive in today, racial reconciliation issues and um I was, up until that conversation, you know I felt like oh I’m like a pretty progressive leader and want to do what I can to ah be the kind of church that reflects our community, and and have led in that way and have we taken you know real practical steps in that way over the years. And you graciously challenged me in that episode and to to actually think a bigger thought, ask a bigger question, which is actually the gospel is about reconciliation and it’s about ultimately ah, the kingdom of God and creating a multi-ethnic future even now. And that has stuck with me and so many times over the years I’ve said to people as we’ve been talking about these issues, I said you know my friend Derwin, he he leaned on me on this issue and and and I really have just… And so I I just am so thankful for you, thankful for your leadership. And so I’d love to pick up that conversation… Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Yeah, yeah. Rich Birch — …and I know this is one of those you know conversations you find yourself in, but I just want to say thank you for that all those years ago. I appreciate your you know, even gracious and and loving challenge in the midst of ah you know, even a podcast. So appreciate that. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Well and I appreciate you being a good student, and humble, and listening, even five years later. So so so pretty much um, typically within the American Church context we tend to be very pragmatic and pragmatistic says if it’s right, do it. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Or if I’m sorry if it works, do it… Rich Birch — Mm if it works do it. Right. Yes. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Not if it’s right. Rich Birch — Yes. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Because the way God’s economy works is it’s not about doing it because it works, do it because it’s faithful. And so when it pertains to. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — racial reconciliation, this is not a side issue… Rich Birch — Right. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — …of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I think in a desire to have people come to Christ it’s like a beautiful car that we have stripped to its most minimum aspects and go okay, this is the car. No actually it’s a part of the car. And so within evangelicalism typically we say this: believe in Jesus. He’ll forgive your sins. You won’t go to hell; you go to heaven when you die; he’ll be with you. Well, that’s a part of the car. But the entire car goes back to in Genesis 11 when God’s family scatters. In Genesis 12 he calls a man by the name of Abram, changes his name to Abraham, which means father of many. He says Abraham I’m I’m going to give you a big old family made up of. All the nations of the earth. So let me give you a big old multi-ethnic family, and through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, in the nation of Israel and ultimately Jesus comes, the Jewish savior. And so Jesus’s sinless life, his atoning sacrificial death on the cross… Rich Birch — Mmm-hmm. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — …His resurrection from the dead, seated as Lord, descending of the Spirit is not just to forgive our sins, but is to give Abraham that family with different colored skins. And through the Holy Spirit’s power, through the Gospel as we begin to love each other across our ethnic and demonic barriers. Rich Birch — Mmm. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Jesus says you will know my disciples because they love one another. Rich Birch — So good. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And so there’s a difference between Consumer Christianity which says, Jesus is a means to an end, and Authentic Christianity that says Jesus is the end. Rich Birch — So good. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And so Jesus being the end… Romans 8:29 says that he’s the first born of many brothers and sisters from the dead. So in his humanity, he is the prototype of this new multi-ethnic family. And so this is not intrinsic to, this is not separate from the gospel. This is intrinsic to the gospel. What I like to say to folks is listen, over the last twelve years of Transformation Church not only have we seen over 7000 people come to faith. Not only have 4 of us from around a table turned into thousands. Not only have we seen over 1000 baptized. Not only do we have um a free grocery store and we do backpack meals, but we also have a multi-ethnic congregation and we understand Justice. So what I’m proposing is that the gospel is so much bigger than an ah individual transaction. Rich Birch — So true. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — God saves us as individuals to put us into a family, and this family is a multicolored family. And I know some of the pushback right now is like, well, why do we have to talk about race? And I’m like well because the bible does. Rich Birch — Yes. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Think about it. The nation of Israel were slaves in Egypt for 5 years. Canaanites Hitties, Jebusites, (…) on the way to promised land. Babylonians, Romans, Barbarian Scythians, Cornelius was an Italian, there as a Samaritan woman at the well, there’s a good Samaritan. At the end of the bible there’s every nation tribe and tongue around Christ. Our colors and our cultures have the image of God. God redeems our colors and our culture because this colorful family is a beautiful reflection into the world. And I believe it’s a dark, demonic attack that has kept the church silent, particularly the white aspect of Christianity silent… Rich Birch — Yep. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — …on this issue and it’s it’s hurting the witness of Christ so bad. Rich Birch — Absolutely. Yeah, no absolutely, And I I appreciate that, Derwin, like that is um, yeah, that’s ah, so true and I appreciate you raising the flag for that and and you know providing corrective witness as, particularly to leaders as we think differently, and and try to walk out of or walk away from as as you say demonic practices in the past. I remember when I was in… so like I’ve done a lot of work over the years on church growth, like that’s where I spent a lot of time thinking about how do we help our churches reach more people. And ah part of the irony of that is I only remember one lecture from school on church growth. And it was the homogeneous unit – that was what was taught. Like and and when you talk about the pragmatic nature. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Yep. Rich Birch — Um, that was a pragmatic approach that was in hindsight, you know is like you say demonic. It’s it’s just because it works, and I’m not even sure it works anymore, but just because it works ah, you know doesn’t mean it’s it’s right. But you know that um, you know I think that has impacted so many of our churches over the years… Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Yeah, yeah… Rich Birch — …we’ve we have been stuck on this idea. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — …and and and yeah and and and, Rich, you know, particularly for the executive pastors and ministry leaders that are listening, they don’t even know that they’ve been baptized in the homogeneous… Rich Birch — Yes, yeah. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — …unit principle. So let’s just do a little history. First of all, what is it? The homogenous unit principle was a principle developed by ah Donald McGovern he was a missionary in India. And in India you have a caste. Rich Birch — Yeah. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And so what he said is I’m gonna reach the different people of those different castes, but then I’m going to bring them holistically into a church together as the family of God. Because if you don’t, you’re gonna have racist and classist class-filled churches. Well Americans got a hold to to to it and conveniently it fit racist culture of okay, yeah, if you want to grow fast. And who doesn’t want to grow fast? So in order to grow fast, let’s make sure that we reach people who think alike, look alike, same political persuasion. And what you have is you have these churches of sameness. And research shows that homogeneous churches increase political division, racial prejudice. Um it it it deteriorates discipleship. And then let me add this, Rich, is… and I don’t want to be ah… hear my heart in this. Rich Birch — Mmm-hmm. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — All’s the church growth movement has done for the most part is made bigger churches bigger. Because you have better speakers, better music, better facilities and Christians go to the better place to consume. Rich Birch — Right. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — But if you look at the rise of Christianity in total, um, it’s not really rising a whole bunch in America. Where the church is growing is in Latin America, Africa, China, India. The fastest conversion rates are in Iran. And so what the homogenous unit principle’s done and the church growth movement has done is you have basically created “Amazon” churches, and then “mom and pop” churches and there’s really not a whole bunch in between. Rich Birch — Yeah. Right. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And our church is a very large church, but our methodology for going ah about it is not a consumptive model. Like I believe that you can actually grow… Rich Birch — Yes. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — …healthily, without having to be pragmatic, and creating these bubbles of isolation. Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. Yeah and and so this is a part of what I love about Transformation. This is why I love watching what your church does and pointing people towards you because I really do think that, and and maybe I’m just too pragmatic, but I love watching and trying to learn from what your church is doing to work this out practically. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Totally. Rich Birch — To work out, okay, what is this… how how does this… how does the rubber meet the road on this? Because I think there are, unfortunately, there are a lot of leaders that are out there who are, like you say, we’ve been kind of baptized in the homogeneous movement, Even if we don’t know it… Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Mmm-hmm. Rich Birch — …like even you know even if we don’t we’re not aware of it. That’s just that’s that’s been the dominant idea, but you know and I know that ah the church of the future is more diverse than the church of the past. It has to be. Like that we have to be more like the gospel. We have to work this thing out. Um, so what would you say you know I’m sure you have church leaders talk to you all the time. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Yeah. Rich Birch — And you know ask the question, okay, so I’m I’m convinced you know I’m not resisting on ah, the you know the idea that our church needs to take steps increase steps towards diversity. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Yeah. Rich Birch — And I’m not you know… I’m I’m with you on that, and they you come from a genuine place. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Yeah. Rich Birch — What would be some of those steps that you would say, okay here are some some steps we should take towards that. What does that look like? Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Yeah, so the so the first one by way of illustration, when Wolverine got the adamantium put inside of him… Rich Birch — I love it! Love it! Dr. Derwin L. Gray — …it changed and it it it changed it changed his DNA, right? So you have to have more than simply, I agree with the idea. Rich Birch — Yeah. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — The theological conviction that this is a gospel issue has to be the adamantium inside of you. Because if not, you won’t be strong enough. Rich Birch — Right. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — This is what I tell all my white pastor friends. If you’re serious about this, you’re going to lose 30% of your people in one year, so your theological roots had better be like the adamantium in Wolverine and so that’s why I wrote my book, How to Heal Our Racial Divide. Pastors can listen to our messages. We also have a roundtable called Building Multiethnic Church Round Table, like this has to be in you deeply. It can’t be like we’re not trying to have diverse churches because America’s more diverse. Rich Birch — Right. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — We’re trying to have more diverse churches because that is the outworking of the gospel of Jesus Christ. So that’s first. Secondly once you have those theological gospel convictions, your leadership has to reflect the congregation that you want to have. And when I say leadership I don’t mean like you know the one minority guy, if he’s black, you know he’s always on the urban team. Rich Birch — Right, right. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — You know he goes on because only black people live in poor, you know, and if he’s latino then he’s on the immigration team. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — But, you know, sharing the pulpit. Um executive pastors, administrators, small group pastors – so it has to be reflective in leadership that makes these decisions. Thirdly cross-cultural ah competency is so important. Let me give you an example. In my sermon from last week, I opened up with the story from Encanto. Encanto is a movie about latinos… Rich Birch — Yep. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — …we have latinos at our church. And what I opened up with is this, I said yes I’m Felix. I look like him. I’m Felix and everybody laughs. But one of the themes in the movie is we we don’t talk about Bruno. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And everybody’s like you had a laugh and I said well for most of our white brothers and sisters in Christ you were not taught don’t talk about Bruno, you were taught don’t talk about race. So I used a latino movie to bring out a point, right? Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And so cross-cultural competency is understanding that Mexicans are not the same as Puerto Ricans. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Puerto Ricans are not the same as Cubans. Cubans are not the same as Venezuelans. And then you have various a… so so love means I’m willing to learn about your culture. Rich Birch — Yes, yes yeah. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And that’s what Paul did in 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 … to the Jew I become a Jew, to the Gentile I become a Gentile. In other words, he understands their culture. So empathy and sympathy and saying, hey man I get you. I understand you. I feel your pain. And I believe that’s what Jesus did with the woman at at the well. She was a non-Jew. I believe that that’s what Jesus did when he told Jerryius you know, ah like I haven’t seen this much faith in all of Israel. Like cross-cultural competency. But here’s the hard part… Rich Birch — Right. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — …and I want my white brothers and sisters to to hear this. When you’re the majority culture. It’s harder for you to listen to other people’s stories because you don’t have to. Rich Birch — Oh that’s good. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Because because as the dominant culture, it’s like an elementary school when all the desks were pretty much right-handed desks. Rich Birch — Right. Yep. Yeah. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — But for left-handed people people was very hard to write… Rich Birch — Yep. Yeah. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — …like they could write but it was very hard. So the right-handed people had right privilege. Rich Birch — Hmm. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And so majority culture people have privilege, meaning the world was created by them and for them, and so why listen? So it takes great depths of humility very incarnationally to listen to someone else’s stories. Like one of the one of the things that’s really frustrating as a 51-year-old black man is I shouldn’t have to defend that racism is still a problem. I shouldn’t have to like. Rich Birch — Right, right. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — I shouldn’t have to like give a blood test and a lie ah, you know, ah ah, a lie detector test. I’m like no the statistics are here. But here’s what’s happened though, bro, is at our church we’ll have white families that adopt black kids, particularly black boys, and when they’re young, they’re cute and cuddly. But when they become teenagers, they become a threat. And then those same parents will say things like, we had no idea that it was this way. Our black adoptive son is treated much differently… Rich Birch — Right, right. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — …than our white ah adopted son. We had no idea. And I lovingly say how come you had no idea? Rich Birch — Right, right. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Black people have been sharing that with you for a long time. Rich Birch — Long time. For your whole life. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Well what happened is the pain became approximate. Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Let’s not wait till the pain becomes approximate to be our brothers and sisters’ keeper, because that’s the gospel. Rich Birch — Yeah, dude, I love this. A number of years ago I read ah Jim Wallis’s book, America’s Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and The Bridge to a New America, which in that he…I loved that book. It was fantastic and in that it one of the eye-opening… and this was one of in my own journey and these again I would say from thinking, wow like you’re pretty progressive to like you don’t know anything – you’re an idiot. Um in my own you know in my own life. He talks about very similarly he said, you know talk to ah as a challenge to a white guy. He’s like hey, talk to a black friend, black male friend, guy about the talk that his parents had about what happens when you get pulled over by a cop. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Mmm-hmm. Rich Birch — And so a good friend of mine I talked to and had that conversation and it was an eye-opening experience. I was like I um was a little shocked by that. I was like I you know as ah as I remember I I don’t remember my parents ever telling me about what it was like to talk about cops, if we ever had that conversation, was like don’t be an idiot in speed. That was basically it. Um and and so yeah I I appreciate, you know, you pushing on that issue. That’s another great book for folks that may be looking to journey. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Yeah, you you know, and and also you know like you you have the police brutality. You know I I think those are the easier aspects of things that you see. What I’m what I’m trying to help the body of Christ with is particularly for the people who don’t who don’t think they’re prejudiced. Rich Birch — Right. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — You know they’ll say things like yeah well you can be my brother in Christ, but not my brother-in-law. Or you know like seminary, I… Rich Birch — It’s messed up. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — I heard how great Jonathan Edwards was and George Woodfield, and they both condoned slavery. Rich Birch — Right. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — But yet Dr. King, who may have had affairs, was considered unsaved. But yet those guys who owned slaves well they were men of their times. I’m like no. Ah, William Wilberfors, John Wesley were abolitionists. Um, he you know? So it’s not been an issue of your time. Rich Birch — Yeah. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And then if a black man writes a book, it’s black theology. Rich Birch — Right. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — If a latino man writes a book, it’s latino theology. If a white man writes a book, it’s theology. Rich Birch — Just theology. Yeah. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Yeah, and so what I’m trying to do is show how in the gospel… Rich Birch — Right. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — …our ethnic distinctions don’t need to be obliterated. They can be celebrated. That our ethnic differences actually make us different for the better. And that all of us, through the purifying blood of Jesus are equally declared righteous, so therefore when we look at each other we see the righteousness of Jesus and we treat each other accordingly. Rich Birch — Right. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And that moves us to Philippians 2:3 – do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit but consider others better than yourself. Rich Birch — Love it. Listen it’s funny you you mentioned Encanto because I… first of all I love the Felix, I love that! You know that you must get that… Dr. Derwin L. Gray — It is true I am Felix. Rich Birch — …and I like how he treats his wife you treat Vicki the same way. It’s so fantastic. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Um, yeah. Rich Birch — Ah, but so with so much respect, which is great. But um, you know that’s an interesting that’s an interesting movie because I I watched it and I had this same similar kind of experience where I was like there’s a whole bunch of stuff happening in this movie that I don’t get at all that’s happening on a bunch of different cultural levels and I think is amazing. I’m like this is great. And it’s a kids’ movie, right? It’s a kids’ movie. But it’s you know, fantastic. What would you say to leaders who are leaning in to say hey, I want to grow my own cross-cultural competency. I I want to grow that – sure I I feel deficient in that area. I feel like hey there’s there’s you know something I need to grow and what what would you suggest to to them? Dr. Derwin L. Gray — I would say read my book How to Heal Our Racial Divide. Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — That’s why I wrote it. Rich Birch — Yes. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Cause ah readers are leaders, leaders or readers. Rich Birch — Yes. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And so I wrote this book for readers to become leaders and for leaders to read it to lead more effectively. Rich Birch — Love it; love it. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Um, so that’s the first thing is it’s like ah you know about 29 years ago this week I was drafted by the Colts. So I had to learn the playbook. Rich Birch — Right. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Ah, couldn’t just go play I had to learn the playbook. Rich Birch — Right. Dr. Derwin L. Gray —And so learn the playbook which is written throughout the bible, and you’ll begin to see as you read my book, you’ll begin to see scriptures and things you never ever thought, like how did I miss this? Well I think we miss it because the devil wants us to. And the teachers who taught it um oftentimes it was the most conservative seminaries that were holding the gospel that were the most racist. I mean could you imagine Dr. Tony Evans not being able to get into some schools? In 1980? Rich Birch — Yeah. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — …there was a church in Atlanta that wouldn’t allow him to be a member of the church. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s crazy. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — I get emails all the time just a few weeks ago um, some people who came to our roundtable, had people leave their church because the first two black people in the history of that church got baptized. So they left the church. Rich Birch — Oh my goodness. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Yeah yeah, so um, so like really to grow in cross-cultural competency you have to read authors and people who’ve been doing that, and they’ll take you back to the bible and you’ll see insights. You know like Jesus… Rich Birch — Love it. Right. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — …I mean when he goes to Samaria that’s an exercise in cross-cultural competency. It’s an exercise in reconciliation. It’s an exercise in overcoming misogyny. Rich Birch — What so ah yeah I want to make sure people are are pick up a copy of this book. So again, you you reference a name there. It’s How to Heal Our Racial Divide: What the Bible Says, And the First Christians Knew, About Racial Reconciliation – again this friends you should pick this up where books are available. Has there, now that the book’s been out for a while, have there been ah any kind of surprising interactions with it that either you’ve heard that are kind of interesting stories, that you know the impact could be positive or negative, ah that it’s had as you know as it’s been out there for a while now? Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Yeah, the the first one is montree college is using it as a textbook for one of their classes. Rich Birch — Oh cool huh. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — So that’s pretty awesome. Rich Birch — That is awesome. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Ah Pastor Rick Warren said over a hundred books in his library on the topic that mine is different in that it’s so biblical and gospel laden, but also with cultural awarenesses and practices. You know he says it’s the best that he’s ever read. Um I’m getting tons of feedback just from people going, this is what we need the church needs this the church needs this. We need this. More people need to read the book. And so it’s been overwhelmingly positive. For pastors who are interested at our Church, Transformation Church, we’re doing a series called color blessed where I’m working through some of the material material in the book because we’re discipling our congregation, and so you can listen to see how I do this. You know like I’m not writing from a classroom I’m writing with dirt under my fingernails from actually pastoring a multi-ethnic church, having a doctorate in new testament and so I just want to be helpful to the bride of Christ, because, man, the last six years has just really been embarrassing for Christians. Rich Birch — It’s so true. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And I want to lay this challenge out. We’ve got all these multisites, and all this stuff, and under our noses Q-anon fills the church. Christian Nationalism… Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so true. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — …fills the church. Racial division… Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — …anti-vax, people arguing about masks. And we got all these campuses and all this stuff, but I’m goingh how is it on our watch that we are a part of the problem, not the solution? Rich Birch — Yes, yes. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Like we like NASA we have a problem, and we’re looking at it in the mirror. Rich Birch — Yes, look. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — So I just want to… I think we need a new reformation. And I hope my book is a part of that. Rich Birch — Yeah so good. Yeah I agree. It’s interesting. One of the things I you know I end up doing is end up in churches, and you know in the current season their, you know, leadership is are often asking like what are you hearing? What are you seeing? And the Q-anon you know Christian Nationalist thing I reference that as one of the top 3 things that I’m like, this has this is an issue for all of our churches. It is ah, it is like a weed that is growing up around us that we have to, we can’t we can’t ignore we have to do something about. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Yes. Rich Birch — And even if your church is not. It’s impacting your church even if you haven’t seen haven’t seen the evidence of it yet. It’s huge. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Well this is this is ah about, um oh gosh, probably four or five years ago I was on a podcast and I said to the podcaster, I said if you rarely preach about the sin of racism and racial injustice at your church racists are filled in your pews. And I got all the pushback. And then every one of them have come back and said yep, you were right. So within white evangelicalism a lot of these things have taken root… Rich Birch — Yeah. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Because a lot of the messages are very individualistic. They’re very therapeutic. Rich Birch — Yes. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — They’re very 4 ways to get over this five ways to get over this. It’s not a real expiration of Jesus, and what he’s accomplished. And then you’re taught don’t talk about race; don’t talk about politics. Don’t talk about controversial issues and while we’re being silent, News Max 1, Fox News, CNN, CSNBC… Rich Birch — Yep, yep. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — …all these news channels are discipling our people and we’re wondering why if we say so something that Carlson Tucker doesn’t agree with they agree with Carlson Tucker instead of us. Rich Birch — Yes. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Because we have been hirelings and not shepherds having difficult conversations. Last week’s message that I did is called how do we have color blessed conversations. What I meant is we’re not going to be “let’s don’t talk about Bruno” people. No, we’re going to talk about the issues in the framework of the gospel. Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — And we’re gonna have four L’s love, listen, learn, and leverage. Rich Birch — Mmm, love it. Listen, friends, who are you know, friends, who are listening in. I so in my role I get books sent to me all the time. This book was a book I bought with my own money because I want to support Derwin. I want to support what he’s done and have read it and found it challenging, and helpful, and biblical – all 3 of those things. This is the kind of book you read and it it draws you in and so I want to encourage you, and Derwin didn’t know I was going to do this. I’m not trying to make a big deal, I just want more people to read the book I want. I what I want to do is give away 10 copies of this that I’ll pay for directly. What I’d love you to do if you’re listening in is zip me an email. You know you get a lot of emails from me, if you’ve been listening long enough. You’ve signed up to our list. The first 5 leaders that reach out what I want to do is I’m going to buy you 2 copies under this condition: that you find another leader at your church and that you read it together, that you commit to reading it together. So it’s not like a lone thing. I want you and another leader to read this book together and then have a conversation about it. And I’d love to hear about it I’d love to hear how that goes so again first five people that email me look for that. We’ll send you those books. I would love to have that to hear you know how that conversation goes. And and for folks that aren’t there I would love for you to pick it up. So go to Amazon. It’s How to Heal Our Racial Divide by Derwin Gray. I’d love for for you to pick it up. Well Dr. Gray, I really appreciate you being on. Is there anything else you want to share just as we wrap up today’s episode? Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know what I would say to every leader that’s listening um is this is is Jesus is the greatest prize we could ever possess. That everything we could ever want is found in him. And some of you may be listening and saying well what does that mean? This is what I’ll say it means this the nearer you draw unto him, the clearer that answer will be. That everything we do and say will be fueled by his resurrection life. And so racial reconciliation is one aspect of what it means to be a disciple. And as you read this book, your love for Jesus, your love for scripture, your love for people, your love for yourself and his mission will grow exponentially. It’ll be healthy for you. And just know that I’m cheering you on. I believe in what God is doing in your life, and it’s an honor to partner with you all in the gospel. Rich Birch — Well thank you so much, sir. If where do we want to send people online if they want to track with you or with the church which where do we want to send them online for that? Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Um, yeah, just go to derwinlgray.com – derwinlgray.com – that’s gray with an “a” derwinlgray.com and that’ll take you to everything. Rich Birch — Great. Thanks so much – appreciate you being here today, sir. Dr. Derwin L. Gray — Thank you.

Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. In this episode we’ll be chatting with Dino Rizzo, the executive director of the Association of Related Churches (ARC) as well as part of the senior leadership team at Church of the Highlands. ARC was created in 2000 by six pastors and has grown to be a preeminent church planting and leadership support organization. Having been a church planter himself, Dino has a passion for training other church planters, and coming alongside them as an older brother in Christ to cheer them along on their journey. Listen in as Dino shares encouragement for church planters and leaders in this season. Decide on your outlook. // It’s been a season where church leaders everywhere are evaluating if their souls are healthy and their spirits are full. Painful seasons can cause you to focus on the complications of church and leadership and become disillusioned. Bring your focus back to the simple gospel of Jesus Christ and decide what your outlook will be.Look at your soul. // If you find you are frustrated, angry, fixated on the negative, and comparing yourself to others, it’s a sign that you need to shift your focus. Remember that you are valued by God for who you are and not what you do. You are seen and loved. Look at the field you’re in and know that this is where God has you in this season. He’s responsible for your usefulness.Reach out to others. // If you feel isolated, remember that you’re not alone. Take time to cultivate relationships and be proactive about reaching out to those around you. If you have friends you haven’t seen or talked to in a while, you can be the one to take that first step in reconnecting with them. Serve your community. // So many times the way out of your own pain is by serving someone else. There is no peace or fulfillment when you live your life for just me, myself, and I. Dino recommends that before having your first church service at a new church launch, serve your city. You’re not there to just build a church; you’re there to make the city better and will grow the church by engaging and serving your community.Empower your people to make a difference. // Church of the Highlands wants to empower their people to make a difference so they hold a Serve Day in July with the purpose of serving the people in their community in various ways. An “all call” event like this helps to pull in people who aren’t already exercising those serving muscles. Rather than a one-time event, a serve day is meant to build a culture of service at your church. As you create serving opportunities, you can develop leaders, build partnerships, and plug people into small groups where serving is a regular part of life.Be a blessing today. // With all of the pain and hurt in the world, one of the greatest things we can do is decide to be a blessing each day. Get up and bless the people around you, even in the smallest ways, and model it to your church. For ideas on how to begin, visit www.serveday.com and www.servolution.org. You can learn more about ARC and access their many resources for church planters at www.arcchurches.com. Or follow along at Church of the Highlands at www.churchofthehighlands.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 — Well hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. Super honored to have Dino Rizzo with us today. He’s the executive director of ARC, The Association of Related Churches. If you don’t know ARC, man, this is an incredible movement. It was started in 2000 by six pastors—and one of them’s on our show today, Dino—and has grown to be really a preeminent church planting organization and really leadership support organization. They’ve launched, I think at the last count, over a thousand churches in the last twenty years which is amazing and they just keep it going. They they not only launch but support churches. They have just all kinds of you know, great helps for churches and they really have a focus on churches reaching unchurched folks. And so I just really love ARC; we love that whole community. So, Dino, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here. Dino Rizzo — Thanks Rich! Always enjoy it and love last time we had a conversation, and appreciate your listeners and all those that are that are making a difference. Rich Birch — No, it’s so good, Dino. Why don’t you fill out the picture for us. Kind of give us ah, you know the Dino Rizzo story – ARC and you’re also involved in leadership at Church of the Highlands, so kind of fill out the picture for us a little bit. Dino Rizzo — Well, you know you know like everybody that that has had an encounter with Christ, you’re you’re just such a debtor to what God has done in your life, and I I always felt that way. You know I was reached through outreach; I was not raised in church. A little small church in Dillon, South Carolina… Rich Birch — Nice. Dino Rizzo — …made a move towards me when I was working at at the beach, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. And ah so church did an outreach – it impacted my heart. I ended up in a church you know, got to go to bible college, you know which was a shocker, involved with student ministry – I’ve always loved student ministry. Rich Birch — Yep. Dino Rizzo — My wife and I planted a church. We we planted a church in ’92. And so during that time you just spend. You need resources, you need help, you need some training, you need some how-tos, and there wasn’t that many, so we had the ability to help church planters. We wanted to do that. And through that process a good friend of mine, Billy Hornsby, who’s Chris Hodges’ father-in-law came to me along with Greg Surratt, who pastors at Seacoast, said, what if we came together and trained church planters to launch churches, and and do all we can can to to champion them? And so that’s been, you know, and I was pastoring a church. Pastored church in Baton Rouge for 20 years, and then I’ve been doing this now in Birmingham with ARC. We we just launched our 1,031 church… Rich Birch — Love it! Dino Rizzo — …just a few weeks ago. And then I get to serve at Church of the Highlands. I love Chris Hodges; he’s a dear friend. Pastor Chris has just been ah, he’s just the real deal. And and then all the lead team and all the churches that support ARC, and people like yourself that help us champion this idea to train a church planter where they can go in and launch a church. And then to be just some just be older brothers to them and just cheer them on as they go about their journey. Rich Birch — Yeah I love it, Dino. I you know just want to honor you and what you know what God’s done through your leadership and your group of friends who over the years have made a huge difference. You know there are not a lot of people who you know you can point to and say hey, you know they were catalytic in a movement of God, and you are definitely one of those people, so it’s really our honor to have you on today and and to kind of tap your brain a little bit. And yeah, just love what you’re you know what you’re up to. But you know you talk to church leaders a lot, you engage with a lot of church leaders. A part of what I love about ARC we actually had Greg on, Pastor Greg on a couple episodes ago so it was it’s been good to kind of connect with our ARC friends again. And one of the things I love about ARC is—and you’ve just heard it, friends—you guys bleed loving leaders. Like the the impression I get from you is like, wow like those people love leaders, like they love church leaders. You want to help and you talk to a lot of church leaders you engage with a lot of leaders. What are some of the questions or conversations you seem to be having regularly with leaders in this season that you kind of keep bumping up against as you’re engaging with them? Dino Rizzo — Yeah, it’s it’s a unique season. I mean we we had a lot of conversations during Covid about how do you make it? How we going to survive? Ah, you know how do, how do you, how do you deal with the fallout of everything that’s happening in our world. Lot of pain in our world, lot of trauma, lot of hurt. And so you’re trying to help people find healing and find health. Ah leaders, people who lead churches, people lead college groups, small groups, worship leaders, on and on. So we’re doing, you know you do everything you can to help them. Dino Rizzo — I know, you know, I’ve I’ve had my journey. I’ve had my painful seasons. There’s been times that, you know that that I was not where I needed to be, and so those are tough times. I think everybody is evaluating you know is their soul healthy? Is their spirit whole? You look around at a world. There’s a lot of things going on. We’ve seen things recently in the church that is that are that is painful. And you’ve got to just kind of decide what your outlook’s gonna be. So you’re right I spend a lot of time on the phone with pastors and and planters and just friends, just trying to help them to have an outlook from God’s word, from what Jesus has done. I really am old school. We look to Jesus; we look to his word. The worship, prayer, friendship. You know the world is very complicated. Church can be very complicated. Leadership gets complicated. You can get hurt. You can get disillusioned. I try to bring some things back to the simple gospel of Jesus Christ. Serving people and trying not best to stay healthy through what I’ve learned through grace and mercy. Rich Birch — What would be some of those signs, as you’re talking to a leader, that you’d say hmm you know this person may need their outlook kind of refocused on Jesus, or like realigned. Maybe you’re in a conversation and you know the call it, you know, you get a prompting for the Spirit, or you’re like you’re hey there’s there’s I need to lean in here. What would be some of those kind of telltale signs of like oh here’s here’s a conversation I need to to to maybe help someone in this season. Yeah. Dino Rizzo — Sure. Well, Rich, a lot of times I can hear it because I I’ve walked through it myself. And so… Rich Birch — Sure. Yes, yeah, yeah. Dino Rizzo — I know you know I know but you know like you’re not in a good space because there’s been times I’ve not been in a good space. Rich Birch — Yes, yeah. Dino Rizzo — And so you’re looking for frustration. You’re looking for anger. Ah, you’re looking for negative. You you know when when we go negative, when we go critical, when we when we’re frustrated beyond what is healthy. When we all of a sudden you know everything is bad. You know we we believe the worst. Ah you know now we’re focusing on everything that’s not working. How about what we don’t have. And and you begin you can hear that in someone’s conversation. Rich Birch — It’s so true. Dino Rizzo — And I think you’re listening for that, or you’re looking for the signs that that someone is unhealthy or that they’re not in ah in a good place, and you’re just trying to bring them to a place of understanding that, hey, you know, you’re not a human doing. You’re a human being. Rich Birch — So good. Dino Rizzo — It’s not about what you produce. It’s not about what you perform. You know God didn’t call us to be celebrities or producers. God called us to be his children. So sometimes you got to bring it all back to the the base of I am loved. Rich Birch — Mmm. Dino Rizzo — I am seen. I am noticed. And I’m cared for. And I’m grateful to do anything I can for our Savior today. Rich Birch — Right. Dino Rizzo — Whatever that may be, I’m just thankful for it. And you know how it is, Rich. Everybody’s comparing today. You compare yourself. And that’s such a poison. Rich Birch — So true. Dino Rizzo — And so you’re just trying to get God’s sight. Look at the field that you’re in. Here’s where God has you. Rich Birch — Right. Dino Rizzo — He’s responsible for your usefulness, and settle in on that. Rich Birch — Yeah that’s so good. I love that. One of the things that I would say is a hallmark of ARC is it does seem like a great network of friends. It’s people who even just how it started and how it’s continued. But there’s a lot of leaders that are isolated who do feel like they’re on their own. Like they don’t know anybody that they can talk to about what’s going on in their world. What would you say to a leader that’s in that spot today that that feels a little bit disconnected, that feels like hey I I don’t have somebody I could I don’t I don’t have an overseer I could call to kind of wrestle through these issues? How how how do we how do we fix that? Dino Rizzo — Yeah, well, it’s isolation is a dangerous place. I mean you you think when you’re alone in your thoughts, you could come to the wrong conclusions. Rich Birch — Yeah, so true. Dino Rizzo — It’s just every man, every woman, a couple can, a person on a staff, an XP, a worship leader – when you just get alone in your thoughts. So I would encourage people to you know to know that, man, you you can’t you can’t let that thing boil over too much. You can’t let that ruminate too much in your Spirit. When you’re when you feel lonely, when you feel forgotten, when you feel overlooked, when you are when your heart when there’s you’re disheartened about your leadership, or somebody else’s leadership… hey someone’s let you down. Man, I’ll tell you I went through a season of my life where a leader let me down, and then as a leader I’ve let people down… Rich Birch — Yep. Dino Rizzo — …and you know you’re you’re trying to get that person back that, you’re not alone. You’re not the only one who’s ever done this. There’s a thing called the Holy Spirit. There are mature people that can talk about it. Don’t let it stew and just realize that, man, you’re gonna be okay. You’ll get through this. We will get through this. But you know and and then really you have to seek it out. Rich Birch — Right. Dino Rizzo — Ah to I’ve got some good friends in my life. And I’ve had to I’ve had to fertilize them. I’ve had to dig around them. I’ve had to text. I can’t sit back and say why ain’t nobody texting me? Rich Birch — Yes. Dino Rizzo — Why anybody hitting me up? I’m gonna text a friend. I’m gonna call a friend. And I’ll get on a plane and go see somebody when I feel like I need to do that. So I’ve always I’ve always tried to be proactive in that. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. I love that. That’s a great encouragement for folks today that even, hey if you feel isolated like you, you know, the ball’s in your court. You got to pick up the phone. Dino Rizzo — Yeah. Rich Birch — You know I’ve said in another context, a great place to find those contacts is to scroll to the bottom of your text because there’s people that you haven’t texted in a long time, and it’s like who are some of those people down there that you know you need to reengage with you got to jump in again and say hey what you know how are you doing? What’s going on in ah you know in your world? You know I’d love to pivot and talk about community service a little bit. I know this is a passion for you – mobilizing people in our churches to you know, get out of their seats into the streets, making a difference. Doing things to actually you know to to make our communities more like heaven, to make our communities more like what what God wants them to be like. Um, that’s been a part of your story. That’s been a part of your encouragement over the years. Does that still work today? Is that the kind of thing we should still be doing? Is that like or is that just like an old idea that like we need to leave that back behind? Dino Rizzo — Yeah I think it works more than ever because people are hurting. Rich Birch — Right. Dino Rizzo —And there’s such a ah deficiency of so many things in people’s lives. You know the the depression, the anxiety, the trauma is on is on the rise. The ah a food food challenges in certain communities, reduced opportunities in certain people groups. There’s a lot of there’s a lot of pain. A lot of fear, lot of shortage of a lot of things. So I don’t know if there’s ever been a more important time for us to to lift up our head. And you know a lot of times that’s the answer out of your own depression. That’s the answer out of your own pain, is you know, they talk about these these things of depression and and anxiety, that’s so often so one of the ways is is serving someone else. Rich Birch — Mmm-hmm. Dino Rizzo — And so I think there’s such healing to that in your own heart and so lifting up our head, noticing what’s going on around us. we get so into our our thing, our world. Noticing that there’s pain and there’s challenge and there’s a neighbor, there’s a people group, there’s a nurse in home, there’s a school that’s being challenged. There’s somebody that’s overworked. There’s a widow. There’s a single mom. And and let’s engage, and you know sure we can give them foods, we put food basket together. We put a care kit together. We cut the grass. But you know what else we can do? We can sit listen and talk to somebody. Rich Birch — Oh so good. Dino Rizzo — And so all those ways are ways to serve. And I think, Rich, one of the things that that’s been happening is you know because I talked to so many church planters, guys that are going into new cities, I mean we’re we’re parachuting in a city… Rich Birch — Yeah, yes. Dino Rizzo — …and you know I’m starting to church I’m. Rich Birch — Yeah. Dino Rizzo — Ah, can’t wait to preach; I can’t wait to I have my first service. Rich Birch — Yes. Dino Rizzo — And and so it’s kind of too focused. I’m always talking to church planters, hey before you have your first service, serve the city. Rich Birch — Yes, so true. Dino Rizzo — You’re not there to build that church. You’re there to make that city better. And then that goes right into just humanity. There is no peace, there is no fulfillment when you just live your life in me, myself, and I. Rich Birch — So true. Yeah. Dino Rizzo — You got to move from that and so helping people have ideas and discover ways to engage their community and I really believe it still. Ah, think you can’t grow a church… Rich Birch — Right. Dino Rizzo — …without eventually engaging your city. Rich Birch — No, I totally agree. You know longtime listeners will know that that’s ah, definitely been a thread through our podcast. It’s it’s something we talk about pretty consistently in our coaching, around you know, churches when you you know around how do we see the kind of engagement with our community serving our community as really key, one of the keys, to you know, growing our church. When you think about that from a church planting point of view, there’s so much you can do, like there’s so… You know gosh like I I always say to church planters, man like you are like you’re going to have this giant home in heaven because they just are incredible what they’ve done, what they do consistently. But but looking to kind of serve in the community, trying to mobilize your people to make a difference in practical ways in in your community—whatever that language looks like for you—um it it feels like that could fall to the bottom of the list pretty easily. It could be like, wow there’s so much else to do. Dino Rizzo — Sure. Rich Birch — Do you see that or have you seen that be a critical piece of church plants that make it, or church plants that thrive? Is there a connection between those two? Ah, you know, have you seen that as like a pattern that consistently has happened there? Kind of talk to us about that a little bit. Dino Rizzo — Yeah, I would for sure think that. I would ah there’s a guy right now that’s planting a church, mayo so well, in Atlanta in a cool little area. It’s great some there’s some great churches in Atlanta – he’s found a little spot there in Sandy Springs called Live Church. But he launches in I think it’s September 18th. he’s having its first outreach tomorrow tomorrow. Rich Birch — Love it. Love it. Dino Rizzo — He’s a couple months away from launching… Rich Birch — Yeah, yes. …but he’s gonna launch a he’s gonna do an outreach. He’s and I told him said why so early? He said I want to know the community. Rich Birch — Mmm-hmm. Dino Rizzo — I want to know them and I want us to be known, that we care, that we’re there. And so I think it’s the heart of God that we care for our our city. I think Jesus is the example we serve because Jesus did. And then I think once you get the heart of God—ah I’m glad I’m in this city, I love my city, I love these people—then you got to do something that I call crack the code. You got to figure out what are the needs there. Because every city is different and their needs. Rich Birch — Yeah. Dino Rizzo — Every it’s not a one size fits all. It’s not a rubber stamp. You there just every, you know, what’s happening in Boston is not what’s happening in Beaumont. That’s not what’s happening in Spokane. Rich Birch — Yeah. Dino Rizzo — So there are different there’s pain, and struggle, and challenge different in all. So you’ve got to crack the code and figure that out. And then you begin to provide an opportunity. Hey we’re gonna do an outreach on Saturday; hey we’re gonna we’re gonna get together and we’re gonna we’ve seen a need we’ve, but we’ve identified a need and so we’re gonna we’re gonna select a day to do an outreach. We’re gonna gonna get leaders together come over bring those weed eaters. Rich Birch — Yes. Dino Rizzo — You know, bring that that bucket over here. We’re gonna car wash. And then you know and you just go. And and you know what’s awesome? What I’ve seen happen is is it becomes a part of the celebration. Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, right. Dino Rizzo — It becomes a part of the culture that we care, we notice, and we love. I just think it’s the heart of Jesus. I’m always thrown off and excited when I read this verse Acts 10:38 – now God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power. And how he went about doing good… Rich Birch — So good. Dino Rizzo — …and healing all who were oppressed by the devil and God was with them. It may be, Rich, my favorite scripture because it just shows you that there was power and there was service and there was blessing on this. Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s the proclamation and demonstration right? It’s like those two go hand in hand, right? And how, you know, if we do one without the other it, it loses its it loses it. We’re not, we’re not living the kind of life, you know Jesus wants us to live. You know we have a lot of executive pastor types who listen in on the podcast and you know they might be listening in, you know there are a couple thousand person church, and they’re saying like we don’t really do anything like that. That’s not really our our deal. We’re good at like services. We’re good at getting people into boxes and doing that stuff, but we don’t mobilize our people. Talk to us from a Church Church of the Highlands point of view around what’s it look like to mobilize people at a larger scale, so not from a church, you know, a church plant point of view but like. Dino Rizzo — Yeah. Rich Birch — I know this is a big part of what God’s doing at Church of the Highlands. Talk to us what that looks like because if you guys can do it sure, a church of a couple thousand could do it. Talk talk to us about that. Dino Rizzo — Well I mean the heart of Pastor Chris is to empower people to make a difference, so we want to give them them those opportunities so we we do a thing called Serve Day. It’s in July. A lot of churches do love weeks and they do it in the spring of the father’s just so you know at Christmas so you know that we we giving hope, or the Christmas tree. You’re just trying to provide an opportunity where there’s an all call. They say about 11% of the body of Christ has an outreach bent. So if you have a church of 200 there’s a couple in there that already think about bikes for children… Rich Birch — Right. Dino Rizzo — …helping those that are have that that maybe are elderly, men thinking about what’s going on in the unreached people groups. You know there there’s just they’re all it’s already in them. Rich Birch — Yep. Dino Rizzo — And some people already have that bent there in their profession. They’re a nurse and they’re a social worker… Rich Birch — Yeah. Dino Rizzo — …care provider, they work at a treatment center – these wonderful people that that serve humanity all day long. So normally in a church, if you’re a church of 2000, your next week you got some people there already doing this. Rich Birch — Yes. Dino Rizzo — You’re trying to harness that with an all-call. And then from there we’re gonna identify leaders, and we’re gonna start doing some consistent things… Rich Birch — Right. Dino Rizzo — …in a city, where consistently… Rich Birch — Right. Dino Rizzo — …we are there, because I don’t think it’s about one and done, or we’ve come in to rescue the city in this one day. Rich Birch — Right. Dino Rizzo — No, no, no, no. We’re building culture. And for us our number one way that we’ve created is through small groups. We have small groups that have outreach bent… Rich Birch — OK. Dino Rizzo — …but really every ah small group even though it may be curriculum based it may be providing pastoral care, there is an element of compassion. Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. Dino Rizzo — We just feel like that’s a part of it. So it’s small groups and then we try to find some things that are kind of consistent or sustainable serves. Hey we’re gonna we’re gonna partner with the food pantry. We’re gonna partner with you know those that ah do Habitat for Humanity. Rich Birch — Right. Dino Rizzo — And we’re gonna do this on a regular basis. Rich Birch — Right. Dino Rizzo — Or we’re going to start a food pantry. We’re going to figure out a way to work with… Rich Birch — Yeah make a difference in that area. Dino Rizzo — …you know, single moms that are struggling, etc, etc. Rich Birch — Yeah I love that. So just to underline what you said there, I love this idea of yeah, there’s going to be times where we do all-calls. We kind of get everybody and I want to talk to you about that in a second. But then we we kind of mirror that with consistent things we’re doing maybe throughout the year. Talk to us about the all-call. Why is it important? Why do because it’s a ton of effort and energy. I’ve sat on the sidelines and watched what you guys do with serve day like I’m like that it gives me a headache thinking about it. Why is that important? What’s the drive to get as many people as possible who are connected to the church out and doing something? Dino Rizzo — Because I just think there’s gonna be a a void and a gap in their life. Everybody is busy. Everybody can be narcissistic. Everybody can be consumed in their own pain. So we’re trying to create a date out of the year where I know you may not be called to it, it may not be your thing, but we’re all going to go out and be the hands and feet of Jesus. Rich Birch — Love it. Dino Rizzo — All of us are, and probably two thirds of our church will come out and be a part of that. Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. Dino Rizzo — And then you know and what happens is a lot of time somebody all of a sudden man, they they get the itch. Rich Birch — Totally. Dino Rizzo — They didn’t know that was their gift. Ah oh my gosh. This is what I’ve been born to do. Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely. Dino Rizzo — So it’s an amazing thing. How it’s a catalyst been it create some capacity. Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. And friends I’ve seen the mechanics of that in our own church, you know 4 or 5000 people we will when we do these big outreaches, man, it is a fertile ground for recruiting into the rest of what we do. So we deliberately will say to our team leader type people you’re going to lead something on these all-call days. You’re going to be but this is a time to make a bunch of relationships with people, to find new folks who could get plugged into other areas. And it’s amazing what awakens in people as they you know as they serve and get out in front of folks. Talk to me about what with a little more detail around what what you’re encouraging your small groups to do. I love that that a part of the small group experience is having a compassion bent. What does that actually look like? How does how do you…how are you working that out with your groups? Dino Rizzo — We do three we do three semesters of small groups. We do a fall semester. That’s you know, twelve weeks, ten/twelve/fourteen weeks – a spring semester. Our summer semester of small groups is six weeks long, because everybody’s busy. Everybody’s going to the lake… Rich Birch — Yeah. Dino Rizzo — …going to the beach, ah going to the mountains… Rich Birch — Yeah. Dino Rizzo — But we end it with the serve day. Rich Birch — Okay, okay, that’s cool. Dino Rizzo — So it ends with that. Every small group then gets to identify, so we give them curriculum and we’ve we’ve got curriculum. We’ll talk about those resources. But more importantly, they get to decide as a small group, hey there’s a neighbor down the street who Ben they’ve they’ve gone through some things. There’s a sickness. There’s a disability. Ah, there’s ah, there’s a pain. Let’s go fix their yard. Let’s go repair their backyard. Hey there’s a school down the street. The playground is jacked up. Let’s go fix that playground. Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Dino Rizzo — Hey there’s a there’s ah a halfway house that is in our community that needs to be painted. You know, let’s go over there and and serve those precious people that are trying to, you know, find freedom in their life, and trying to do better things. It’s that you’re just trying to find ways to be a blessing. Rich Birch — Yeah. Dino Rizzo — And so that is very small group driven. And again let me say, I thank God for the big event. I love how it’s organized. It’s always better when it’s organic like that through people… Rich Birch — Yeah, so true. Dino Rizzo — …who leaders they get ahold of this. And you know the other thing, it’s even better when people make a decision every day than I’m going to notice what others don’t notice. I’m going to see what other people don’t see. Rich Birch — Love it. Dino Rizzo — I’m gonna hear what other people don’t hear and I’m going to be a blessing today. People may say, Dino, that’s cheesy. That’s Mother Teresa. You’re a do gooder. But I’m telling you we’re living in a world right now. A lot of hate, lot of shame, lot of disappointment. Rich Birch — Yep. Dino Rizzo — I think one of the greatest things we could do right now is get up in the morning as a pastor, as a staff person, as a church planter: I’m gonna bless someone; I’m gonna be a blessing today. I’ve been doing a thing in um, drive through windows, and I’ve just doing a little thing that I just let him keep the change. Rich Birch — Oh yeah, yeah yeah. Dino Rizzo — So they’re not 4¢ but I’m trying to, you know, if if the meal’s $4 I’m trying to give $10, and and I’m just tell hey man you keep that change. I want to bless you. Rich Birch — Yep, yep, right. Right. Yeah. Dino Rizzo — And I’m you know I’m a big old dude. I don’t care I’m Italian. I say, hey man hey man God loves you; God cares about you. And again I think that is better than nothing. Rich Birch — Right, right, right. Dino Rizzo — I mean just something – a cup of water in Jesus’ name. Rich Birch — Yeah, so true. Dino Rizzo — It’s better than a great idea that’s never released. Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so true. Dino Rizzo — You know intentions don’t don’t do anything. Intention is not gonna dig a well. Ah, good intention is not going to give out groceries into Ukraine right now. But an idea that, hey man I’m gonna support Samaritan’s Purse or I’m gonna support Convoy of Hope as they’re distributing groceries in Ukraine. Now that makes a difference. Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely. Dino Rizzo — So it’s yeah, and I think that’s I think that’s for leaders to model. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so true. Yeah, absolutely yeah. Talk to me about that piece – the modeling piece. I can imagine that, you know this idea of of being a blessing you know being you know, offering practical help into a community. It’s got to be at the core leadership level, right? We’ve got to feel that as senior leaders. If we don’t feel that it’s It’s not like we can outsource that, or it’s not going to go far if we just give it to somebody who’s one of those 11% who’s already convinced. It’s like we’ve got to own this. Is that true or or you know what’s our role as a senior leader in trying to see this as a value of our churches? Dino Rizzo — Yeah, you have to model it. Rich Birch — Yeah. Dino Rizzo — I mean I know we do our survey days. Pastor Chris is out front, man. He’s leading the prayer. He’s visiting those places, he’s encouraging people. He’s connecting, hearing people’s stories. You know that’s that’s with any good leader. It’s like you can’t have worship in a church if the the senior leadership is not worshipping. Rich Birch — Right. Dino Rizzo — You know you’re not gonna have transparency in a church if the senior leader’s not walking in integrity. It’s like you know you’re you’re not gonna have a giving church if the if the team is not giving. Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, yeah. Dino Rizzo — I mean that’s not gonna have we have to model those things in our life… Rich Birch — Right, right. Dino Rizzo — …as as staff, as leaders, as planters, as pastors you know in whatever it is. It’s just there there’s, you know, it the the the momentum is in the modeling. Rich Birch — Right. Dino Rizzo — I just believe with all my heart at at every ah church. Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. This has been so good, Dino. I really appreciate you being here today – this been like ah I’ve got pages and notes here, stuff I’ve been thinking about, chewing on as we’ve been talking. Is there anything else you’d love to share just as we’re kind of closing out the episode? Anything else you’d love to share with us today as we close out? Dino Rizzo — No, I appreciate you doing this because I think it’s important that and you know the information world right now is is just it is on blast and there is so many things that can can just bum you out and there’s things that can you know set you off. And so the more positive, the more empowering, the more equipping we need to be able to get up in the morning and have a good outlook, get up in the morning and have ah a good perspective. The church has been around for a long time, and and the one who started all this, our Savior, He’s okay. And we’re gonna be okay. We always get better, always improve, always lean in better, but man this…God is doing great things. I’m but I’m a person that just believes that God is at work in Northern Africa. God is at work in the Amazon. God does at work in Siberia. God is at work in downtown Chicago. There are people who love God that are doing great things everywhere. Rich Birch — It’s so true. Dino Rizzo — And I just like focusing on those things. Rich Birch — Love it. So good. One of the things I love about ARC is you guys just produce so many and such great resources. And over the years I’ve pointed a lot of leaders, church planters and otherwise, towards the stuff that you produce because it’s just so helpful and you’re so generous with it. It’s just like hey here it is you know, take it. Where do we want to send people online if they want to connect with ARC or are there kind of specific—we’ve talked about serve day stuff today—is there places we want to send them for more information on that? What what does that look like? Dino Rizzo — Here here for all things ARC it would be arcchurches.com. You know, hey I want to plant a church. Hey I’d love to you know I love to be trained. I would love to connect with some other leaders in my community. You know so arcchurches.com and then for serve related outreach, there’s two. There’s serveday.com which gives a lot of different resources. It’s a free platform. You also can download literally a serve app that if you’re a church leader and you’re trying to figure out how to do an outreach, the serve app can serve that. And then there’s servolution.org which is great resources. There’s in in in those two sites, there’s probably 500 ideas on outreach… Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so true. It’s so true. Dino Rizzo — …plenty of outreaches. And then you know there’s of course there’s there’s Instagram and other platforms. But I would say those 3 things are the main things. Rich Birch — Love it. And we’ll we’ll link to all those in our show notes, friends, so you don’t need to go dig around for those, so you you can see you’ll be right there. I would encourage you you know this has been just so fantastic to, Dino, today I really appreciate you being on. Thanks for for being here today; I appreciate it. Dino Rizzo — Hey thank you, Rich. I always enjoy the talking to you and always enjoy seeing. Rich Birch — Thanks, man – take care.