Strategic Growth and Alignment: Lessons on Mergers, Multisite, and Ministry with Brian Owens
Jul 18, 2024
Thanks for joining us at the unSeminary podcast. We’re excited to talk with Brian Owens, Executive Pastor of Operations at First Baptist Simpsonville / Upstate Church in South Carolina.
In American culture it’s very normal to want your own voice and identity. Yet this can be challenging when you’re trying to align a church with multiple campuses to function as one unified whole. Tune in as Brian talks about campus alignment, recruiting talent, what to expect with church mergers, and more.
Alignment essentials. // One of the significant challenges of a multisite church is maintaining alignment. Committing to unity from the top down is essential to ensure all campuses are one, pursuing the same mission. Communicate that each campus is important and has a vital role in the mission, regardless of their size or location. At First Baptist Simpsonville/Upstate Church, each site has the opportunity to interact with all of the teaching pastors and leadership staff.
What are the constants? // In order to create a unified weekend experience across all of their locations, Brian explains that they’ve established a set of core campus constants. These guidelines ensure that for everything, from worship and teaching to kids ministry, each campus knows what to expect, what approach will be taken, and how everything will flow. Core campus constants also offer confidence to congregants that they will have the same experience no matter what campus they attend.
Prepare ahead with staff. // When hiring staff members for any level, Brian and his team look for talent that is high capacity, high caliber leaders, and people who buy into the mission and vision. It’s critical for growing churches to be proactive when recruiting so that you aren’t left with a sudden empty spot that remains unfilled for an extended amount of time. Consider partnering with a seminary and implementing a residency program to develop future leaders. Give recent seminary graduates hands-on ministry experience that will grow their skills while helping you develop potential leaders for your church.
Take time before merging. // First Baptist Simpsonville/Upstate Church has a passion to reach the upstate of South Carolina, and along with that, a heart to revitalize struggling churches. When considering a church merger or rebirth, take time to discuss everything with the senior leadership of the struggling church. Talk about what would be the benefits of the merger and what it would look like and mean for everyone. Let the people of the joining church have the time they need to decide if the merger is what would be best for their mission.
Consider the liabilities. // Churches want to have a nice facility no matter how many attend, but buildings do depreciate over time. When considering a merger, look at both assets and liabilities, and the impact of older structures on insurance and risk management. On average, Brian estimates that mergers will cost $750,000 to a million dollars, between updating an older building and installing the necessary technology for services. Finally, be prepared for the legal aspects of merging, including any voting and filing paperwork with the secretary of state.
You can learn more about First Baptist Simpsonville / Upstate Church at www.fbcsimpsonville.org.
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Rich Birch — Well hey, everybody, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. I’m really looking forward to today’s conversation. We have got Executive Pastor of Operations at First Baptist Simpsonville Upstate Church – one of the fastest growing churches in the country with, if I’m counting correctly, six campuses which I which I think 7 coming up this fall, ah in South Carolina. They offer services in Spanish, Portuguese, and English. They also have a child enrichment center for infants and toddlers through fifth grade, and their Upstate Sports Ministry which provides sports and recreation for the whole family. This is a robust and growing ministry. Brian, welcome to the show. So glad that you’re here today.
Brian Owens — Thank you so much, Rich. Glad to be here.
Why don’t you kind of fill out the picture. Tell us there what did I miss? That’s obviously kind of the boilerplate stuff, but kind of give us a a broader picture; tell us a little bit about the church.
Brian Owens — Yeah, the church is an amazing place. My family and I, we moved here fifteen years ago. I’d been in Kentucky in Louisville for about 14 years at Citibank. And coming here, it was a great experience to be able to plug into a great community.
Brian Owens — Um, Upstate of South Carolina in general has been growing crazy, especially over the last 8 to 10 years. They’re anticipating, you know, within the next six years or so another 1.53 million people total living here in the upstate. And so our passion and our goal is to try to hit each of the 11 counties that make up the upstate…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Brian Owens — …and figure out that we need to have a gospel presence there. Not that there isn’t already gospel presence there. But we just feel like that’s the kind of the vision that God has given us – the calling to is to reach the upstate.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. That’s that’s fantastic. Well obviously multisite is core to your strategy, and although we kicked off at the beginning um, you’ve got 6 locations now and I think launching another one soon. And you know, that that puts you in rare air. Like that we were saying this beforehand. You know we’re still seeing about 50% of multisite churches not getting beyond 3 locations. And the fact that you’ve you know six, seven locations, plus you’re doing gatherings – obviously something’s working there. What the one of the questions that jumps to mind right away is alignment. Why is alignment so difficult in so many churches – you know, multisite church is hard to kind of keep things rowing in the same direction. Why why is that?
Brian Owens — You know I think some of it is ah reflective of just the culture that we have. Everybody seems to need to have their own voice. Everybody wants to have their own identity. And so that happens quite a bit. So working against that to say, as a church, we’re going to be one. And we’re going to be one for the same mission. It doesn’t happen by accident, I can tell you that. It definitely takes a lot of energy and a lot of commitment. But it starts from the top down. I think that’s really key.
Brian Owens — Our leadership and especially our Lead Pastor, Wayne, has been very, very focused on this since at least 2018, 2019 when we started a couple of initiatives, one around “all in” and then “one”. Both of those drove the same general message that regardless of what campus that you are sitting at, wherever you’re having your weekend experience, wherever you’re doing your life, we’re doing it together. And on the top of that, you get the opportunity to interact with all of our teaching pastors and all of our leadership staff.
Brian Owens — So we are intentional about going to see each of the campuses. Um, and so each campus pastor isn’t just parked there for fifty-two weeks a year. They will go and spend other other weeks during there in the church year at other campuses. It’s very intentional – about once every six weeks we do a fruit basket turnover is what I call it. I don’t know if there’s another term for it or not, but that’s what we call it. Yeah.
Rich Birch — I like that – fruit basket turnover. That’s good – I like it.
Brian Owens — And that’s where even our lead pastor, he will go to our campus that’s running 600 on an Easter to, you know, two months later he’ll be at the one that’s running 175. So it’s not about the size of the congregation. It’s about each campus, wherever they’re at, are vital. They’re important. They’re plugged into the mission. And they deserve the opportunity to hear from everybody that’s on staff and make sure that we focus on doing that consistently.
Rich Birch — That’s cool.
Brian Owens — So that’s one of the key things that I think we do that’s unique from other things.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. You know I’ve said in other contexts, you know if it doesn’t it takes a certain kind of leader to get 10 leaders in a room and say, Okay, everybody think a different thought. It takes a different kind of leader to get 10 leaders in the room and say Okay, this is what we’re going to focus on – let’s focus on these, you know, this in common. And um I love that you’re trying to figure out how do we do that. How do we kind of keep people pushing in the same direction. Can you kind of talk us through, when you say multisite, what what does that look like from like a programming, teaching, um, you know, kids ministry? How do that, you know, what do you hold in common among your various locations? Kind of give us – I realize that’s a giant question, so try to give us a thumbnail sketch of that.
Brian Owens — Yeah, we we used to have different we’ve tried different models over the fifteen years that I’ve been here. Some have been successful, most were not, but I think the one that we’ve kind of hit our honey spot here in the last six years or so has been driven around we established like ah Wayne, our lead pastor, established with the team a set of core campus constants, so that each campus this is exactly what you’re going to get regardless, this is how it’s going to flow. This is the approach that we’re going to take. That being like, for example, just music, it’s the same music on any campus. It’s a live band regardless, but it’s it’s gonna be the same track list. It’s gonna be the same music and [inaudible]. We have two different styles that are on all of our campuses – modern and then we also have a vintage which is a little bit more pullback. It doesn’t have all the lights and the haze and all the other It’s just really more kind of a forward sound experience. But we have both of those happening on all of our campuses and so regardless of where you go, you’re gonna get the same experience.
Brian Owens — And likewise it goes to the kids. It’s been very intentional. It took us about a year to hire our Director of Kids, Emily Toole. She came to us from up in Northern Indiana and she has been great because she and her team have come together and our target is, although we want to reach everybody, our target is young families in the upstate with kids at home who are unchurched. And so we want to create an environment where families will feel safe coming, bringing their children. And when the kid leaves they’re like, you know, that was a great experience. Mom, Dad, I want to come back and be a part of that. And a lot of that is driven around the kids. So not only consistency in the worship experience but also in the kids experience.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Brian Owens — So that if you’re at one campus on one side of town, or you’re even in another campus thirty, forty miles away, you’re getting the same core teaching. You’re getting the same setup. You’re getting the same experience each one of those locations.
Rich Birch — That’s good. And are have have you defined those, when you say campus constants, are those um is that like a ah written document? Are they all, how are you kind of communicating those among the various locations?
Brian Owens — Yeah, we we work with each of our campus pastors and our leadership on the team. We have, for our structure-wise, we’ve we played around with this over the last couple years. We have now what’s called our executive team. And our executive team is made up of Wayne, our lead pastor, our director of strategy, Kathy, um Wes Walker, who is our executive over creative services, Pat Gillen, who’s our executive over family ministry, Steve ah, Genoble who’s our executive over mission, Stephen Williams who’s our executive over discipleship, making it myself. And we get into a room once a week and our our our philosophy and our approach is, as far as vision is concerned as far as where we’re going direction wise, we take that responsibility. That’s our that’s our tool to play and use for leadership.
Brian Owens — But then the execution of that goes to the campus pastors, the teaching pastors, and then the directors who are over all of the sites. And so what we’ve done, we created a document “Upstate Constants” and its core around unified foundation, ah, unified identity, a unified leadership and our unified function. So all those things kind of pour into the, if you will, it’s the gasoline in the tank that drives everything that we do and all of the decisions that we make.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. Now is there, this all sounds great. You know it sounds like man, this is great alignment. I’m sure there’s never any problems. There’s never any disagreement. It’s always all day long at Upstate. But if you were going to imagine, where there could be potentially conflict on defining (obviously I’m saying all that tongue in cheek…)
Brian Owens — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …you know around constants, are there common areas where you do see rub or or you maybe in the past have seen like hey it took us a while to kind of get alignment, you know, in this particular area on our constants?
Brian Owens — Yep. I think one of the big areas and this is just because of the experience that we had, we grew so fast…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Brian Owens — …we were having ah many of our staff and to ah to a large degree most of our our senior leaders serve in dual roles.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Owens — They’re doing not only like a teaching pastor but they also could be serving over connections, or they could be serving over recreation. And so we had to share a lot of staff and leaders in different seats during the week, and even on the weekend experience. And so um, there was a lot of um, not that we were siloed or we were in our lanes. It wasn’t any of that because we very we have very much a collaborative environment of how we work and our model is set up on that. But when you are trying to go as fast as the growth was happening and we just couldn’t keep up.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Owens — We were just we were pulling that rubber band as, a way Wayne kind of refers to it, and it just just stretching, stretching, stretching. And it’s only so far you can stretch it before it snaps.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Owens — And I think when we were just having to utilize so many staff in so many positions for example, creative arts, worship arts, bringing somebody in who not only handled the weekend experience leading on the the praise band, but then likewise immediately take that hat off and run upstairs and do students and kind of be a director for student areas we’re growing.
Brian Owens — So kind of like your split personalities was some of the the feeling that you could get when we were when we were having folks doing that into a degree. We still have folks that are doing it. But these guys and gals that are on the team, they’re amazing. They’re doing a great job, but we’ve we’ve kind of worked through that I think. But we’re continuing to grow.
Brian Owens — One of the things we’re doing different now I have to say, Rich…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Brian Owens — …is we’re trying to be proactive in our hiring. We’re trying to identify and recruit talent now, even though we might not have an official place on the bus for them to sit at the moment.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Owens — We know we’re gonna need them.
Rich Birch — Right. That’s good.
Brian Owens — And so we’re trying to go ahead and go after folks and anticipate what our needs are instead just being reactive and trying to say oh, there’s a hole. There’s a need. Let’s fill it and get whoever comes along.
Rich Birch — Oh I love that because yeah, by the time you see the hole and feel the pain, it’s too late.
Brian Owens — Exactly.
Rich Birch — And you know, it’s like you know we’ll start it’ll take a year before we can find the right person. So what does that look like? How are you kind of proactively, you know, looking for people out there, kind of pursuing, and then how does the multisite thing fit into that, you know, trying to ensure that they align with your approach to the way you’re doing church?
Brian Owens — Yep, regardless of the position that we’re bringing in, whether it’s kind of a a director level or above or even just from a support position, it doesn’t matter. We look for talent that is high capacity, high caliber leaders, folks who buy into the vision and the mission.
Brian Owens — One of the things that our executive pastor of family ministries, Pat Gillen, has done in the last three years is he’s helped us establish a residency program.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Brian Owens — And by that is if you are in seminary, you just graduated with your undergraduate when you’re going to work on your graduate degree, your master’s degree. We bring you on for 2 years it’s a split half and half. We provide the covering we pay your tuition for your master’s degree and your study, but you raise support to live off of. We provide you housing…
Rich Birch — That’s cool.
Brian Owens — …we provide you opportunities to serve and those kind of things but that process has allowed us to identify young talent who gets into the ditches with us while they’re growing, whether it’s in students, whether it’s in worship arts, whether it’s in recreation. They get to feel what’s happening, be a part of what’s happening, they buy in to the vision, they buy in…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good.
Brian Owens — …to what we’re doing. And then we’re able to continue to use them once they’re done with that 2-year process. We’ve got openings that we’re going to be filling. As a matter of fact, we’ve got two individuals that are going to be finishing up. We’ve got more than that that are finishing our residence program right now, but two have expressed interest in going into full time ministry.
Rich Birch — Nice.
Brian Owens — And so we are looking at spots for them on the team already, just moving them over a little bit. And since they’ve already been here, they know they know what we’re all about, who we are, and and where we’re going. And so that’s building a lot, I think, of a longer runway for retaining top talent as well.
Rich Birch — Yeah I love that. That’s like, you know, um, we’ve had Dave Miller from an organization called Leadership Pathway on which is ah they they help churches like yours build a residency program. And you know the the thing that he says all the time is it is like the, well he doesn’t say it like this, but I always think it’s like the JV team. Or the you know it’s like the up and coming. It’s the, you know, the you know, the the pool that you can draw from, and people that there are and it’s a way for you to serve even if they don’t end up at your church. Man, what a what a huge experience for them to be able to be at a growing a growing, thriving church that’ll take that with them wherever they go. And that’s a great way to kind of expand the the influence of the church.
Rich Birch — Well again, this is I’m sure never comes up comes up at at your church, but there can sometimes be tension in multisite churches between um, the kind of campus leadership and then the central leadership, the people that are responsible for stuff across all locations. How do you work that out at you know, obviously we talked about constants. That’s a part of it. But was there anything else around that that that you found that has been particularly helpful to to kind of drive alignment and keep everybody rowing in the same direction?
Brian Owens — Yeah, I think right out of the gate one of the things that we did, because we had been doing multisite since the mid two thousands.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Brian Owens — We had multi-campuses previously but each of those campuses were very unique. So we had one campus that was kind of built around a horse cowboy horse cowboy culture.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Brian Owens — So it was our cowboy church. We also had one that was kind of like 20 young pros. It was downtown Greenville kind of had a yuppy, bougie feel to it, if you will.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Brian Owens — Then we had one that was kind of just here on the west side of Simpsonville. It was our west end campus. So we just had different approaches, and each one of those um had a live teacher. Some of them at at that time our our lead pastor was Randy Harling, he would go and actually teach on Sunday evenings or wherever it was at. But it just had very unique styles. Kind of a Henry Blackaby model, I guess. If God is moving, we just gonna are gonna join him there and…
Rich Birch — Yeah, let’s just get behind it and do it. Yep.
Brian Owens — …just do it, which is great. But each one of them were going in the same direction but we were completely misaligned. So you could go to any of the campuses and you didn’t really feel that connection.
Brian Owens — So what we have really worked towards in the last couple of years as as a staff is we brought in Tony Morgan and The Unstuck Group back in 2016, 2017 and they did an assessment with us. And one of the key things that we walked away from in that is the decision making rights. And so for that it was a major turning point for us to decide, Okay, who gets the opportunity to so have the influence in the decision, but where on this decision making rights chart are those executed against.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Brian Owens — And so it really clarified for the teaching pastor on the campus, Hey your your day of game on something’s going on, you need to make a ah call, you don’t have the ability to get on the horn and find somebody at the central campus to say, hey this is what’s happening. Make the call, do the decision. We’ll go with whatever happens on that Sunday morning. If the computers break down or whatever, don’t worry about it. We’ll just we’ll we’ll work through it and then we’ll get up on the other side and try to figure it out. So that kind of helped alleviated each of the campus pastors having to feel like they were having that decision rights always hanging over them.
Brian Owens — Plus when we instituted each of the directors, for example Emily – I talked about her earlier. She handles all the kids’ stuff for any campus. So she’s the one that’s on each campus ensuring the constant um rollout of all of it and ensuring that you’re getting the same experience. And so for a lot of campus pastors that alleviated them from even have to worry about, well are we hitting our targets for folks checking in in the quicken amount of time? Are we getting the security badges back? You know all the other things that you would normally think of in the day-to-day, campus pastors didn’t have to worry about that because that decision-making chart, decision-making right process clarified that for all of us going forward. And we still tweak it and adjust it as we go, but by and large that really was a huge defining moment for us.
Rich Birch — That’s cool. Yeah, like just taking the time to define that and to get real clear on exactly, you know, who’s responsible for what what is the sandbox that we’re asking you to play in, man, can be can alleviate so much pain within a multisite church for sure.
Rich Birch — So let’s talk a little bit about um you know mergers or rebirths, that sort of thing. We see this pretty common. I would imagine in a church or size that you’ve had at least one or two of those. Talk to us about that kind of experience. Obviously mergers is a really broad category for lots of different kinds of relationships as you you know have worked with other ministries, but talk to us what that’s look like for your church.
Brian Owens — Yeah, for us it’s been a very unique opportunity. We have been able to partner our denomination is this Southern Baptist denomination and we have what had historically been called Directors of Missions who were kind of like associational missionaries that were in each of the associations and had a network with all the churches, like the 68 churches in the Greenville baptist association, and they were all plugged in to the 2,100 other churches in the South Carolina convention. Our partnership that we’ve had for the last several years with Al, our director, he knows what churches are struggling. He knows which ones are prime and ready. He takes them through, he’s got his own program that he uses for revitalization to help them try to replant, repurpose, revision where they’re at.
Brian Owens — But in in that process sometimes they come to a place where they’re like, you know, we’ve got 30,000 square feet of facilities. You know, we’ve got $300,000 in the bank. We’ve had four pastors in 7 years, but you know we we just keep going back and we’re still doing the same thing and we’re not getting the results. And we know that God’s called us to have a vibrant active part in the gospel and in the kingdom work. And so sometimes Al will connect us to have those conversations. Sometimes we just naturally have those connections with other people. And when that happens we have been able to come alongside and it’s incredible. The the process that we go.
Brian Owens — It’s not it’s it’s not a very light or flippant approach; it’s a very intentional approach. We meet with senior leadership of of the the church that we’re talking with. We lay it out on the line and say you know if you move forward with this, this is what this is going to look like. And each of the times that we’ve done it, they have gotten to a place where they’re like, you know, we see that the mission is so much bigger than us. You’ve got resources…
Rich Birch — Praise God.
Brian Owens — …not that we are the the end all be all, but you know they’re just like you know this this this is what this church was founded on 80 years ago.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Brian Owens — Or this is what this church has been about for the last 30 years.
Rich Birch — Right.
Brian Owens — We want to see a gospel presence. We want to see the kingdom keep advancing. And so they make that decision and and we merge. And we do it legally just like any church. They vote, we vote, we have to file the paperwork with the secretary of state…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Brian Owens —…do all the things behind the scenes that have to get done to make it legal and official. But it’s been an incredible process for us.
Rich Birch — Yeah that’s cool. First I just want to call out Al and say man, great job. You know being, ah there might be people that are listening in today that they they you could play that kind of matchmaker, encourager kind of role. You might be engaged in a conversation with a church that’s either, you know, that that could maybe take a step towards joining another church. But but frankly, your encouragement could really help that process that, you know, you could play a role as a third party in. That that could be just so effective. So you know good on Al for being, you know, open to having that kind of voice. That’s that’s fantastic.
Rich Birch — What about some of the nuts and bolts part of that, you know, some of that, you know, we don’t get into those. My experience has been that the malt I’ve been through multiple of those as well and I found them just amazing kind of from a kingdom point of view. That’s so cool to see. And lots of good stories that you know come out. And um, but let’s talk about maybe some of the practical side around facilities and properties and that sort of stuff, from your seat in operations. Um has that been smooth sailing, super easy, anything any potholes we should be looking out for there? Advice you’d give to us as we engage in those conversations?
Brian Owens — Yeah, man, absolutely. I’ve slept like a baby through all of them. I’ve never had a restless night ever once.
Rich Birch — Yeah, exactly.
Brian Owens — Ah, no man, it it really has not been all that bad of process because typically most churches want to to have a great facility. They want to have a safe facility. So even if they don’t have a hundred people showing up there each week, they still try to take care of the best they can of the facility. But like any fixed asset, it will depreciate over time.
Brian Owens — And so when we go into these situations after now doing this about 4 or 5 times, we finally figured out there’s some key things you want to be looking at on the front end. And it’s not just ledger. It’s not just how much money is in in the the savings account, or how much money they may owe still on a bank note, but it’s the totality of the property and what is there. And um with that you also um, you you acquire new new new footprints, but you also acquire new liabilities.
Rich Birch — Oh yes.
Brian Owens — And so one of the things that we picked up in this last year is, um and and it’s to be understood, and there’s a lot of changes that’s happened with the insurance agency, but we merged with a couple of churches that have older structures, older buildings with more things that need to be mitigated. And our insurance company didn’t like it. Not that we filed anything against it. But just that we’re taking on a greater degree of risk.
Rich Birch — Just increased risk. Yeah, yeah.
Brian Owens — Exactly. And so we had it there some policies that got dropped. So we’ve had to go back out and and shop the market for that. But that’s one of the the things that we view as essential for the kingdom is is that, not that we have deep pockets, because we don’t. We have very limited um amount of money that we’re able to operate with. But if we feel that the mission that God is called that campus to have, whether it was with us, or eighty years ago when it was a completely different campus. Um, if there needs to be a gospel presence there and we feel God is moving there, we’re gonna we’re gonna step up to the plate and do it.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Brian Owens — And each one of those typically require um on average three quarters of a million dollars, $750,000 to a million bucks that we have to invest over two or three years in fixing that footprint, whether that’s foundational issues, that’s plumbing, windows. We need to mitigate issues with lead paint or asbestos…
Rich Birch — Asbestos. Yeah.
Brian Owens — …or any of those other things, you just kind of get that on the front end knowing full well that yeah, you’re going to get a you’re going to get a building. You’re going to sink half a million dollars in there for AVL production when you have a worship, but you’re also going to need to sink in more just to take care of the bones of the building.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. That’s a good kind of even round number to have in in mind and to be able to… how have you typically funded that? Have you funded that through like additional special offerings or have you tried to, you know, have you bankrolled that some of that into debt or what’s that look like?
Brian Owens — What we do is we have done a little bit of all. We’ve bankrolled at some of them by going back to the bank, getting a little loan. Likewise we’ve used to raise it within initiatives, two-year initiatives like our “One” or our “All-in” which kind of fall [inaudible] Generis approach for 2-year vision mission initiative. Or ah likewise we’ve also had some scenarios where folks have um, gifted the church through their estate. And that’s for example, our upstate church Haywood campus um had a gentleman who passed away this last year, Mr. Leland, um basically left us almost $1,000,000 out of his estate.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Brian Owens — That was able to be poured right back into the same campus that he had been worshiping at when it used to be Laurel Baptist for 90 years. We took that and was able to to do some upgrades and things within the facility and now it is it’s a church that when we merged with them were running around 30 or 40 um, this past Easter Sunday they had almost 500 people there.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Brian Owens — So [inaudible] do incredible do things like that. God’s faithfulness to his people is amazing.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s amazing. That’s so encouraging. Yeah, as you look to the future, are you when you’re looking I’m assuming you’re thinking about new campuses, is the merger rebirth this kind of thing is that on the kind of priority scale, is that high priority or kind of low priority? Just wait and respond? Or are you is there anything you’re doing to kind of, you know, actively, you know, kind of inculcate those conversations?
Brian Owens — Yeah, we are doing a little bit of both of it. It’s some of it is a wait and see, hurry up and wait…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Brian Owens — …because we know that, you know, things could come together with of the churches reaching out to us proactively. But at the same time, for example, our Fountain Inn campus that we’re launching this fall and just six miles down the road from where we are, we’re going into a community center and we’re going to launch out of there. We have no idea what the timeframe’s going to be, but we just bought eleven acres for our Five Forks campus which has been worshipping where they are for 7 years and they’ve been waiting. Um I hope we don’t have to wait seven years for our Fountain End campus to find a permanent location but we’ve already started meeting with real estate agents and folks within the church who have connections with land in that area to say, you know what, if if you think you can connect us with a place that’s got 8, 10, 11, 12 acres of land, we’d love to be able to think about building, which could be anywhere from 7, 8, 9, 10 billion dollars to build on some dirt. Or merging, and if you merge with a church, you know you go in you update the facilities, you spend about a million, a million and a half in a couple of years to update. So there’s cost scales you’ve got to look at on both sides. And so we we’re just keeping our ear to the ground and just kind of seeing which way the wind blows.
Rich Birch — Yeah that’s good. That’s good. Well that’s fantastic. Well this has been a great conversation today, Brian. I’m I’m just so thankful that you’ve taken some time out. I know you got a lot going on. I’m honored that you took some time to be with us. Any kind of last words as we wrap up on anything we’ve talked about today, keeping your campuses aligned, or you know, the campus merger type conversations? Anything else you’d love to kind of, yeah, you’d like to encourage us today as we as we leave the conversation?
Brian Owens — Yeah I think one thing I would remind everybody who’s listening is is that have fun. You know, ministry is hard, but it is also there’s nothing in the bible that says you can’t have fun while you do it. And so I would encourage…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Brian Owens — …everyone no matter where they’re at, where God’s planted them, find the joy, find the fun that’s there and have a good time. I believe that there’s joy and laughter in serving the kingdom. I believe that there’s something attractional to that. And mean people are just stink so there’s just no need to be mean, you need to be nice and have fun.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Oh I love that. That’s a great word to end on. You know I’ve ah in other contexts I’ve reflected on the fact, you know, we have the good news, and you know if we have good news and it really is good, that should be generating joy within us and we should be known as a community that’s having fun. You know we we shouldn’t be known as like oh that’s place is a drudgery to be a part of for sure. That’s a good encouragement, Brian. Appreciate that. Where do we want to send people online if they want to track with you or with the church? Where’s the best place for us to send them?
Brian Owens — Yep, they can go to our website: fbcsimpsonville.org, or they can go on our social media page and like us on Instagram or on Facebook.
Rich Birch — Thank you so much. I’m honored that you were here today. Thank you, sir.
Brian Owens — It’s great to be here, Rich. God bless you and thank you for giving me the chance to visit with you.
Mastering Communicating Change in Your Ministry with Dawn Nicole Baldwin
Jul 11, 2024
Thanks for joining us at the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Dawn Nicole Baldwin from Mavericks, an organization which helps churches be more effective in their communications.
Is there a major change your church is thinking about, but you’re not sure how to communicate it? How do you ensure that your messages are aligned and you are communicating the right things to the right people at the right time? Tune in as Dawn talks about the keys for communicating change in your ministry.
Three reasons why change falls apart. // How change is communicated can make or break your efforts. Dawn explains that from a communications perspective, there are three reasons why rolling out change tends to fall apart for leaders: People either don’t agree with the change that’s coming, they don’t understand the change that’s coming, or they don’t know what to do. Tackling these three areas will make it much easier for church leaders to accomplish their goals.
Two sides to the change. // There will be people who aren’t on board with every decision you make and that’s okay. Help the people who have the most to lose from the change feel heard, but don’t water down plans to satisfy them. Help them understand how the change fits with the church’s vision and how it benefits the church as a whole. Giving them permission to leave if they’re just not on board is a good thing. On the flip side are supporters who are really bought into your vision and have the most to gain from the change. Equip them with tools and messaging so they can help to be advocates and motivate the masses.
Communicate from the inside out. // Communicating change to everyone all at once is overwhelming. Look at communicating change as if it were a bullseye and work from the inside out. The inner-innner circle includes just a handful of trusted elders or advisors that you feel comfortable sharing something that is only “half-baked”. They will help you get to where you can have a pretty good feel for where you want to go before you roll out the idea to other groups. Then, your inner circle might be your directors, senior staff, key lay leaders, and high level donors. It’s important to communicate to these people before laying it out to the whole church, giving them the chance to ask questions and give support.
The pain of staying the same. // Another common mistake senior leaders make is focusing on what the change is but not why its necessary and why the church should care. Making the pain of staying the same feel greater than the pain of changing is a critical part of the communication process. Many times leaders will be tempted to skip this part and move on to the exciting, feel-good part of where they’re going. Help your people first understand why things can’t stay the way they are.
Get everyone involved. // Once they have information about the change, helping everyone participate in a meaningful way plays a huge role in creating momentum. Leaders need to motivate their people and make sure they have a vested interest in the change. However, don’t overwhelm them with options during the process. Instead, provide them with clear, simple next steps.
Coaching with Mavericks. // Mavericks comes alongside churches to help them reach more people more effectively. They partner with senior leadership, offering one-on-one coaching around how to get the rest of the team on board and how to be more effective in communications. They also provide community coaching groups to help participants learn from each other while being exposed to best practices from the world of communications. Dawn describes it as the best parts of conferences, one-on-one coaching, and community learning all rolled together in an online environment.
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 shareit 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 extremelyhelpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Portable Church
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Episode Transcript
Rich Birch — Hey, friends, Rich here from the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in. I’m really looking forward to today’s conversation – we’ve got Dawn Nicole ah Baldwin. She is from an organization called Mavericks. They are about helping ministries reach more people more effectively. They are for a number of resources including downloadable blue downloadable blueprints…(that’s I don’t know why that’s sticking in my tongue today) a focus on specific ah topics like community coaching leagues, workshops, coaching calls, and so much more. Dawn is the founder and the lead strategist. You might know Dawn in this organization, they used to have the name Aspire One. She’s definitely a friend and I just I love talking with Dawn because she’s been in this game for a few years and not reveal, you know people’s ages, but has been around the block a few times. So so glad to reconnect Dawn. Thanks for being here today.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — Thanks so much for having me, Rich. I really appreciate it.
Rich Birch — It’s great to see you. What fill out the picture kind of tell tell us a little bit more about Mavericks, tell us about kind of your area of expertise.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — Thanks, Rich. Well we, actually you’re right, we’ve been under Aspire One for a very, very long time. And with that we’ve done a lot of one-to-one custom help with churches, um specifically churches that are wanting to go the next level.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — Um, but with that we also want we realized there’s an opportunity to help more people more efficiently. And so we’ve adopted ah a one-to-many approach by packaging a lot of these resources and making them more accessible for churches. And so that was what Mavericks is all about, why we had changed our name. We’re offering some new resources. So in addition to one-on-one help we’re packaging a lot of these things so they’re either downloadable, or the community coaching you’re talking about, or one-day workshops, just so it’s more efficient both in time and in cost.
Rich Birch — I love it. Well this idea of reaching ah more people more effectively, that definitely gets my attention. So kind of fill out the picture. What are the kinds of either problems that people are coming to you for, or you know, how you’ve helped, what kind of solutions have you been offering to people.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — You know, oftentimes the churches that we work with they they feel like they’re the best kept secret. You know they’ve been in their community for quite some time they’re doing everything that they can, but it’s like ah how can we get the word out. There’s so much that’s competing for someone’s attention. And not even just against other churches just anything that they can do with their time. And so it’s like we we need to get on the radar in a more intentional way. And so that’s what we help them to do, whether it’s reaching new audiences, or raising their awareness, or really rethinking how they’re communicating to people. It’s all part of helping them grow and to take that next step.
Rich Birch — No, that’s cool. That’s cool. Well I want to take advantage of the fact that you’re an expert in this area particularly. If when I think of you I think, man, Dawn’s just so good at the communication piece and how do we ah you know, ensure our messages are aligned, and ensure we’re communicating the right things to the right people at the right time. But you know, when we think specifically about change, you know, I think so many leaders are listening in and they’re thinking, Yeah there’s a we either need to launch a new campus, or we’re going to be you know, maybe changing our name. Or you know maybe we’re maybe maybe there’s like ah a change in theological position or you know something like that where there’s like a major change that we’re thinking about. And sometimes we can get stuck just because of the communication. Like we’re convinced that change is the right thing but we’re just not sure how to communicate it. We’re not sure where to where to begin. And I’d love to kind of unpack that today with you. When you think about that, unpack that problem. Why is it that we get stuck there? Why is it that even just thinking about, you know, communicating change just seems to raise our temperatures and get us nervous?
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — Well, you know it is so true. Most of the churches that are probably listening to your show or that we work with it’s like if they’re not in the middle of some sort of change, there’s one probably right around the corner.
Rich Birch — That’s so true.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — And how it’s communicated really can make or break their efforts. I can’t tell you how many senior leaders have come to us frustrated because their plans had failed just simply based on how they had communicated it. And as doers, you know when we’re thinking about executive pastors, we’re in the business of getting stuff done, right? And so we’re not always thinking so much about all of the steps needed to make sure folks are on board from ah from a um, big picture perspective. And so there’s really kind of three reasons that we found from a communications perspective with why this tends to you know, fall apart for a lot of leaders.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — And it’s usually that people either don’t agree with the change that’s coming.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — They don’t understand the change that’s coming. Or they don’t know what to do.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — And so a lot of leaders, they will spend time talking about what the change is, but not thinking about why people should care about the change, why it matters to them, um, how to get them on board. If we try to get everyone on board at the same time, it tends to be a very difficult process because we can’t make everyone happy, you know, they’re not going to all come on board equally. And so there’s some strategies to make that easier. Or we’ll give them a million different ways to get involved and then they get overwhelmed. And so you know that’s that paralyzed, you know, decision making sort of a thing. It’s like there’s so much going on. We have no idea how to get involved. So they tend to not want to do anything at all.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — So don’t agree, don’t understand, don’t know what to do. And tackling those three things can really make it easier for leaders to accomplish their goals.
Rich Birch — Let’s talk about the understand and agree. You know, I I sometimes think people don’t get… I think that’s a really good framework, those three are really good framework framework, but particularly this kind of understand and agree idea, that you know, we sometimes we make the problems more complex than they are. A part of our job is to try to streamline and clarify them. Pushback on that. Is that a bad theory? React to that; you know, unpack that for us.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — You know, the don’t agree thing. Um, when you have a clarified vision, there are going to be people that don’t think that that’s for them.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — And that’s actually not a bad thing.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — As soon we take a stand on anything and say, “This is where we’re going moving forward,” there’s going to be some folks that are like, you know what? I don’t I don’t think that I’m on board. This doesn’t seem like it’s the place for me. That’s okay.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — I think oftentimes leaders will um, for fear of disappointing people, or people are going to leave, they may try to water it down or try to make everyone happy. And my advice would be don’t don’t let people hold you or your vision hostage, you know, um by their own version of what reality should be. There are going to be some people that leave because they are not excited about the direction that we’re wanting to go. Um and that’s okay. Because that just makes room for people who are excited about where we’re wanting to go.
Rich Birch — Yeah. I’ve heard I had a mentor early on in ministry who said, if you don’t have 10% of the people in your church upset at you, you’re not really leading. I think there’s some truth to that, right?
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Whether the number is right or not, right? But it’s like, hey, if we’re not being the goal is not to get everybody to agree, right? The goal is to is to, you know, align with the mission and um, you know, push forward. What would be some common mistakes that you see church leaders make when they’re trying to build consensus, they’re trying to get agreement, they’re trying to get clarity of understanding? What are the kind of low hanging fruits? You’re like oh gosh, once again, I see us making the same mistake. Are there any of those?
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — Yes, there’s actually two of them. One is trying to get everybody on board equally at the same time. And if you want to picture like ah a bell curve. And if there’s like in the middle is the masses. That’s where the majority of folks are. But on the left side you may visualize people who have got the most to lose. And on the right side you’ve got the people who have the most to gain. Focusing on the fringes, these are your influencers, will really help to motivate the masses in a much more efficient way.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — When we think about, let me talk a little bit more…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — …like when we think about those who have the most to lose, like these are folks that they’re your Negative Nellies. They’re they’re threatened by any kind of change. They’re going to fight you tooth and nail no matter what it is that you do. Helping them to understand how this fits in with the church’s overall vision, how it’s going to benefit them, or giving them permission to leave—you know, if that’s something that they’re just not on board with—is a good thing. And then with those that have the most to gain, these are your biggest supporters.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — You know it’s going to benefit them or they’re really bought into your vision, so you want to equip them with tools and messaging so that they can help other people get on board. So focus on the fringes, not trying to get everyone on board. But your influencers can motivate the masses.
Rich Birch — Okay, so this is good. We’re already I’m like you’re already getting my my gears going, thinking about something differently. So I, you know, I’ve said in other contexts, count the yes votes. You know I understand with the most to gain, Hey let’s run with those people. But unpack the most to lose. I like I I’ve kind of swum a little bit in the school of thought of like ah just ignore those people. Why do we care about those folks? Don’t… but but convince me I’m wrong on that. Why why should we spend a bit more time with the most to lose people?
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — Because those folks tend to have very loud voices. And if they feel like if they’re being ignored, they can start to pick up momentum that may or may not be based in reality.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — And so I’m not saying you address every person who disagrees, or every single person who’s not on board. But think about who are those that have got the loudest voices who probably view themselves as having the most to lose, and spending a little bit of time on the front end, sitting down with them, helping them to feel like they’re being heard, and that they truly understand where this change is coming from, how it benefits the church as a whole, can really going a long go a long way to sometimes converting those folks. Sometimes they push back just because they feel like they they don’t understand or they’re being ignored. And so sitting down with them, spending some time, can really really benefit you know leaders in the long haul.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that makes sense. I can I can see that. You know there’s there’s something about, you know, it’s like a double whammy – if I disagree with where we’re going, and I don’t feel like I have been heard, or I’m trying to express some concern about it and like I’m a person that has, you know, I’m a volunteer, I’m a donor, I actually help here on the church, I’m staff or whatever, and it’s like no one’s listening to me. Well, then that’s really going to agitate me if I’m in that “most to lose” category. I not only don’t agree, but it’s like I don’t even feel like you’re listening to me. You’re not even, you know, connecting. How how does that, what does that look like for churches in that, you know, what have you seen some kind of effective practices there for for connecting with those that kind of most to lose, or most to gain, really those people in the fringes. How do you weed out who those people are?
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — Well usually they’re the ones that are going to have super loud voices.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — So they can be fairly easily, you know they self-identify so that does help.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — But when we think about tailoring communications and tapering it, that’s another part of that process. And so if we try to tell everyone everything all at once, it tends to be overwhelming. Um, and so if you try to picture a bullseye of sorts that have different rings. And at the very center of that bullseye is your inner circle. Um people who are closest to the vision, closest in to what it is you’re wanting to accomplish. You’re going to want to give them more information sooner than people that are all the way on the outside.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — So if we think about kind of your inner circle, weeding out your advocates and your Negative Nellies, there is a great place to um to focus your time and energy. You don’t want to worry about the Negative Nelly that might be in the community or just weekend attenders, because you know, who knows who those people are. But the ones that are on your inner circle, the ones your next level out, might be your directors, your senior staff, key lay leaders, high level donors. Like those two circles those are the ones that it does matter to try to weed out the ones that are having a hard time. Set aside some time to connect with them, whether they might be roundtable discussions. Maybe they’re one-on-one discussions. You know it really kind of depends on the type of change that you’re wanting to initiate. But you’re going to hear from them sooner versus later and sitting down with them and hearing their just their concerns and addressing those is is ah an important part of that process.
Rich Birch — Yeah, how much of that at that level, and and this the answer might be it just depends, but I’m thinking about a change initiative and we’re trying to you know, push things forward. And, you know there’s there’s that moment where maybe as a core leadership team, we’re pretty sure we’re going to make this change. We’re pretty sure things are going to go in that direction. We haven’t really made the decision yet. We’re still wrestling with it. Is that inner circle ah is it about going to them to kind of get their input? Or is it, Hey this is I’m trying to sell you on something that we are already have, you know, decided. And again, it might depend on what it is. But I’ll help me understand the kind of nuance there. Um, how far along should this thing bake, be baked before we start talking to the more to lose, more to gain, you know, group?
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — That’s a really good question. Um, the inner circle is usually your taking shape stage. You know, you’re you’re half baked.
Rich Birch — Okay, yep, yep.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — Um, that’s your your inner circle, your directors, staff, key lay leaders – that would be a level out is how I would view it. Usually you want to have a direction established.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — And you’re looking for maybe input in buy-in you’re looking for that second level um to help support the vision. Maybe they’re the ones that are asking questions. These are the ones you’re starting to equip with information or addressing concerns.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — Your inner inner circle – these are the people that might be your elders, a handful of trusted advisors, people you would feel comfortable sharing something that is half-baked. You don’t want to take something that’s half-baked to your staff.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — You know they’re going to poke all kinds of holes into it.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — They may have some questions or suggestions to refine the direction a little bit or to shape it a little bit, but you should have a pretty a good feel for where you want to go when you’re wanting to roll it out to that group.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good, that makes that makes sense. Any other when you think about kind of the the rollout the conversation. You know this kind of particularly they don’t agree. They don’t understand. Any other common mistakes you see, you know, making beyond, you know, just trying to make sure that, you know, we we can’t we we can’t just dump it on everybody at the same time. We’ve got to kind of segment our audience, get out and and talk about most most to lose, most to gain. Are there any other kind of common mistakes you see that that we should be thinking about?
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — Well with the don’t understand, a lot of times is that they they are they don’t understand why the change is necessary. And so as senior leaders a lot of times we focus on what the change is, but not necessarily why the change is necessary, or why they should care. And so um making the pain of of staying the same feel greater than the pain of changing is is a critical part of the process. A lot of times leaders will skip this part just to get to the good part, you know talking about where we’re going. And everybody loves to think about where we’re going. That’s a good thing. But helping them to understand why things can’t stay like they are is super important.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — So a quick example. Um one pastor we are working with, he wanted to raise funds for a new air conditioner. And when he originally had pitched it to the congregation, they’re like, oh you know, ours kind of works. Do we really need it? You know I mean maybe it needs some maintenance and they were not super excited. So he he was like, okay, and he let it ride. You know by the time July rolled around and it was hot and it was sticky and things, you know, everyone was super uncomfortable, they were a lot more motivated, you know, to want to support the sacrifices to invest in a new HVAC system. So I mean now that’s like a real simple example. But helping people to see why things can’t stay the way they are, and then share where we’re going and how we’re going to get there is really important.
Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good. Yeah, the idea of I think sometimes particularly I can see that with, listen I spend most of my time in that’s that second chair executive pastor type seat. I’ve worked with some amazing lead pastors who are great people. But one of the things that makes that person a great those great people is they are so good at defining the future. They’re so good. They’re like optimists. They’re so like, hey let’s go take this hill. But sometimes we’ve got to stop; what I hear you saying is we’ve got to stop and define why, before we can take that hill, we got to define why this hill is not the hill we want to stay on. We got to go. You know, that there’s problems here that, you know, that people, you know, unless they see, hey it’s important for us to move, they won’t they won’t move. That’s I think that’s a really keen insight.
RIch Birch — Um, when you think about you know, then this whole idea of they don’t know what to do next, man, talk to us about that. I think this is so true. People, um you know, it’s like we define the problem, they have a clarity where they’re going, but with but then now what am I supposed to do? What I’m supposed to do with all this information?
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — Well, there’s two things. Um one, helping everyone to feel involved is ah is is super helpful. And so this is kind of it doesn’t mean that everyone is involved in the decision making or the direction setting process. But they feel like they’re taking part of where we’re going is ah is a big thing. And so this is um, what Jim Collins he’s the author of “Good to Great”. He described this as the flywheel principle. And so once it starts to pick up, it’s hard to stop. It’s kind of the power of everyone. When you get everyone involved and help them to see how this matters to them, really it’s great.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — Like Nehemiah was a great example when he was building the wall of using this technique, where he asked a lot of the people to work on the part of the wall that faced their house. You know? And so they felt involved. They had a vested interest in what was going on. They were participating in a meaningful way. And so leaders motivate others to get involved so that’s important.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — The second big part is not overwhelming them with options. Sometimes um as leaders will we’ll give folks you know, 80…485 ways to do something, you know, whether it’s listed on the website or it’s a verbal announcement or it’s whatever. If people get overwhelmed with options, they’re they’re not going to make any choices, if they are given too many. So provide some clear simple next steps for how people can get involved is ah is a good thing to do.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — One other thing that you had mentioned um with senior leaders. When we think about executive leaders and then we’ve got our our pastors, especially visionary pastors um…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — I don’t know if this is something you’ve run into, Rich, but we run into it often with ah visionary pastors who kind of have a flavor of the month mentality.
Rich Birch — It’s so true.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — They get so excited, right?
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — They get they just are so excited about all of the ideas and the opportunities that they see, you know, for what God can do through their church that they get they they have a little bit of a flavor of the month mentality.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — And what I I think where executive pastors can really help um, those that they team up with from a senior or a lead pastor, is that focuses their friend. And that not now doesn’t mean not ever. You know those are like the magic words for visionary leaders and and trying to contain the crazy that they ah can unleash on their teams. Because if we’re not allowing at least 12 to 18 months to a foreign idea to take root…
Rich Birch — Right
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — …your congregation, they get whiplash.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — You know they they just see one thing after another after another, you know. So try to encourage them to to focus, allow an idea to take root, and that “not now” doesn’t mean “not ever”.
Rich Birch — Yeah I think that’s that’s really good, Dawn. There’s there’s something, again this is a positive part of visionary leaders, like that in that they’re good at defining the, and the reason why that works, the kind of like “hey this is the next hill we’re going on – let’s go over there” is there is nothing like new to generate new momentum. Like when you do something new in an organization, it generates new momentum. But if we do so many new things all the time then it can be like you say it it can grind the organization down and a part of our job is to try to help get some alignment, some some you know some wisdom around what are the things, you know, that we should, you know, be focusing on.
Rich Birch — So pivoting it kind of in a bit of a different direction, but or maybe more of a kind of a meta question, a larger question. You’ve been journeying in this whole area of communication for a few years, what has changed over the years? When you look at kind of like how has our you know our needs as people who communicate, our need as people who are trying to steer this kind of change, you know, with our communities, what has what’s changed? What’s been like, okay this is something ah, we need to think more clearly about today than we did um, you know, whatever number of years ago, ten, fifteen years ago?
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — That’s another really good question, Rich. Um I think that there is more competing for people’s attention than ever before, you know.
Rich Birch — It’s so true.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — And so being clear, trying to focus our efforts our and initiatives and our communications is is absolutely critical. And especially with churches, because oftentimes we’re competing with ourselves. You know, not even outside when we have ministries that are competing with each other for the congregation’s attention. We’re trying to give people all of these different ways to get involved and to get you know to grow in their relationships. They just get overwhelmed. And so there’s this like information overload
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — And clarity is kind, but it takes discipline.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — And I think that the reason why this happens is we want to make sure nothing is is left out. And so we tend to give everyone all these options, all this information, but it’s just it’s like drinking from a firehose.
Rich Birch — Um, yeah, that’s good. So why is it um, so I’m asking this question, I’m not I’m not saying that you’re that you’re the one that said this. But for whatever reason I feel like, so from my perspective communications is a it’s a professional function. It’s it’s like um the example I use with senior leaders, I feel like more and more these days, is I say to them you know, similarly to say the financial side of your church, when you’re when you just get started you might have you know a volunteer that looks after the finances and then eventually you start to think like you know, maybe we should hire a bookkeeper and then eventually maybe like a CFO and that sort of thing.
Rich Birch — The same is true on communication. It is a professional function. Like you, you need to approach it with an air of professionalism. But it seems like there is like resistance to that with some church leaders. And I don’t know why that is. Again I’m the one that asking – maybe you don’t think it’s true. But why do you think that is? Why do you think there’s like a there’s some resistance to saying, hey maybe we should get some help in this area? Maybe this is an area that we shouldn’t just kind of wing it. We should we should actually talk with someone like yourself.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — Well not just with me, but with thinking of the roles that they have internally, communications historically has been viewed as a tactic, and when we—instead of a strategy.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — And we really view strategic um communications as a strategic channel for connecting people to the church and helping them to grow in their relationship, not only with the church but the relationship with God. And so when we’re thinking about it from a tactical perspective, it tends to not get the attention of senior leadership. So when we first started teaching about this, um almost thirty years ago, you know, oftentimes the church secretary would be the one that would be updating the bulletin or or something like that.
Rich Birch — It’s so true.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — You know, they didn’t really have the skills. Now we have made some progress over over this period of time where we have Communication Directors and folks that do have skills and and the talents needed to manage it. But it still isn’t taken seriously by senior leadership. You know, a lot of times the ministries are treating communications as kind of a drive-through service, you know, when they want to promote opportunities and events. It’s like do you want fries with that? You know and it’s like here’s all the things that we want done.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — And these communication leaders are just order takers, when they really should be viewed more as like a Chief Marketing Officer for the organization.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — Just like the the weekend worship is viewed as a strategic channel for connecting people to the church, helping people from a communications perspective is the exact same thing. Because if they can’t connect to your church, if they don’t hear what your message is, then does it really matter how great are weekend service is…
Rich Birch — Right.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — …if we’re making it hard for people to connect.
Rich Birch — So true.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — That’s the role of communications. It’s so strategic but oftentimes not viewed as such by senior leaders just because it’s not something that they were taught you know or that they think about or it’s not super [inaudible] um, but it needs to change.
Rich Birch — Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I wonder too on that literally just last weekend I was at it I was at a church and I was talking with the person that kind of sits in that communications um seat and you know I was saying to them, because we were talking about some of the challenges they were having, and and I was trying to encourage like give courage to this person to say like, hey you you are the expert in this area. Like you are the person that can help give direction. And like you don’t just keep coming to these meetings with the notepad open saying okay, how high do you want me to jump? Like come and proactively say like, hey you want to, I’ve got some ideas on how we could help you know use communication to push the mission of the church forward. Ah yeah, I just think there’s so much so much there.
Rich Birch — Well let’s pivot and talk a little bit about Mavericks. So you provide a number of services and you know, approaches and helps for churches. Um talk to us about the kind of coaching that you do that the kind of assistance. When if you if you wanted if you were if we were thinking, hey maybe you’d like to have somebody come alongside us and help us with that. What does that look like?
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — Well, we can do one on-one coaching,. Um, one in-one coaching is something that ah churches have teamed up with us for a super long time. You know whether it’s kind of partnering alongside senior leadership of thinking through how can we get the rest of the team on board? How can we be more effective in our communications? How can we use this to get the church to the next level?
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — But we also offer community coaching groups, you know, we call them leagues. And this is where they can really learn from each other. So the idea here is that we’re taking the best parts of conferences, one-on-one coaching and community learning, and kind of mashing it all up together in an online environment. So that not only can folks learn from each other but they can get best practices from you know what’s going on in the world of communications and um the one-on-one coaching that I’m able to provide.
Rich Birch — So good. Well this is this has been a great conversation today. We do have a PDF we want to? um, we’ll link to it’s called The Keys for Communicating Change – obviously is around what we’re talking about here. Anything else you want to say about this ah, this resource? I’d encourage people, we’ll put a link in the show notes, go down there, click that so you can pick up a copy of that. But anything else you want to say about this this resource for folks?
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — Um, it’s really just kind of a great overview of what we were talking about today. But if there’s anyone who wants to go a little bit deeper or if they want to think about how they can be more intentional with communicating change, you know, I’m more than happy to to have a conversation with them. We can talk about what potential next steps would be, and so shooting us an email would be a great place to start.
Rich Birch — That’s great. Dawn, I really appreciate you being here today, cheering for you. I think, you know, highly recommend, folks, if you’re if you’ve been intrigued a little bit, I would reach out ah to Mavericks. That’s just mavericks.cc for more information. Dawn’s an incredible leader. Super helpful. She wants to get in your corner and help. Ah, so I’d highly recommend her, but is there anywhere else online where we want to send people if they want to connect with you or connect with Mavericks?
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — Um, the website’s a great place to start. Um or they can shoot me an email. You know if they have a specific question I’m happy to answer, I’m happy to help. And so just dawn@mavericks.cc is a simple way to get in touch with me.
Rich Birch — Great. Thanks so much appreciate; you being here today.
Dawn Nicole Baldwin — Thanks, Rich, for having me. I really do appreciate it and I’m so excited about what you’re doing to to help ministry leaders to to go to the next level. So thanks for having me.
Rich Birch — Thank you so much.
The Disciple Dilemma: Insights from Fighter Pilot CEO Dennis Allen
Jul 04, 2024
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Dennis Allen today, a former fighter pilot who became a six-time Turnaround CEO and now helps churches rethink discipleship.
The vast majority of younger people who were raised in the church are leaving at alarming rates. 80% of the people sitting in our churches are spiritually inert and disengaged. What’s the problem? Tune in as Dennis explores the symptoms and root causes of the disciple dilemma in our churches and how to move forward.
The dilemma in the pews. // Many people sitting in our churches today aren’t fully engaged in the mission. About 65% of millennials (age 45 and under) and 70-80% of Gen Z (age 25 and under) who were raised in the church are walking out because they say the church is intolerant, irrelevant, immoral, and irrational. In addition, 93% of evangelicals believe that talking about Jesus is not their job, it’s the pastor’s responsibility. 80% listen to sermons but have no small group, prayer, or bible study in their lives.
Mission versus institution. // The church, while being the body of Christ, is also an institution. Institutions, by nature, tend to prioritize the urgent over the important, often losing sight of their mission. This phenomenon, which Dennis refers to as “churchianity,” can lead to a focus on maintaining the organization rather than making disciples. If everything we do isn’t driven by the mission of our churches, the mission will slowly be subsumed by the institution.
Recognize the root causes. // Once you’ve identified the symptoms of a discipleship problem, it’s time to dig deeper and address the root causes. In his book The Disciple Dilemma, Dennis lays out six very old traditions that are not right, good, or biblical, but they’ve been around so long they are seen as normal and may be hindering true discipleship. The second half of The Disciple Dilemma lays out a path for how to biblically go after the problem.
The dynamic of power. // One of the root causes of disciple issues is the dynamic of power that began with Constantine. Modern Western Christianity thinks about power as a means to achieve the end of serving God. Because of our fallen nature, power infects the system and it becomes about dominating and being in control. Churches and the people who occupy them want their agendas to be picked up. However what we see in Jesus, and in discipleship, is a servant who connects with people in humility and builds relationships.
Discipleship over growth. // Dennis challenges the notion that numerical growth is the sole indicator of a healthy church. Growth is good, but when you start packing growth into the pews at a rate that exceeds your ability to disciple, you’ll have a problem. Assess whether your programs are fostering genuine discipleship or merely attracting attendees. Encourage personal relationships and mentorship within the church community.
Discipleship at the top. // One of the tell-tale signs of whether churches are discipling well is looking at the leadership team and asking if they have actually been discipled and who is walking alongside them right now. Church leaders must be actively involved in discipleship, modeling it for the congregation. Is the leadership doing what it wants the rest of the church to do? Is the church launching other churches? Does it have a structure that allows one-on-ones and one-on-twos of disciples on disciples to develop?
Help from The Disciple Dilemma. // By understanding the scale of the disciple problem, diagnosing the symptoms, and addressing the root causes, church leaders can cultivate a culture of discipleship that prioritizes the mission over mere institutional growth. For those interested in diving deeper into this topic, Dennis is offering a dozen free downloads of his book, The Disciple Dilemma. You can enter to win a free copy of the e-book here or pick up a physical copy.
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 shareit 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 extremelyhelpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
Do you feel like your church’s facility could be preventing growth, and are you frustrated or maybe even overwhelmed at the thought of a complicated or costly building project? Are the limitations of your church building becoming obstacles in the path of expanding your ministry? Have you ever felt that your church could reach more people if only the facility was better suited to the community’s needs?
Well, the team over at Risepointe has been there. As former ministry staff and church leaders, they understand how to prioritize and help lead your church to a place where the building is a ministry multiplier. Licensed all over North America, their team of architects, interior designers and project managers have the professional experience to help move YOUR mission forward.
Check them out at Risepointe.com/unseminary and while you’re there get their FREE resource “10 Things to Get Right Before You Build”.
Episode Transcript
Rich Birch — Well hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Man, I’m really looking forward to today’s conversation. We’re so honored that you’ve decided to tune in. You know every week we try to bring you a leader who will inspire, equip you, and today I’m excited to have Dennis Allen with us. New friend, he’s a six-time turnaround CEO. That alone should get your attention. But he also would like flew fighter pilot was a fighter pilot at one point in life and has helped all kinds of you know people across the country, and has got a real passion for discipleship, and we’re really looking forward to diving in on this conversation. Dennis, welcome to the show today.
Dennis Allen — Rich, amped to be with you on unSeminary.
Rich Birch — This is going to be good. Fill in the picture, kind of give us the story, the Dennis Allen story. I know that’s hard to do, but kind of tell us a little bit about your background.
Dennis Allen — Yeah, well my background looks like an attention deficit disorder nightmare, if you take a look at my resume, right?
Rich Birch — Love it.
Dennis Allen — I’m just kind of tracking through. Um so I was raised in a Christian home. At the age of 8 my parents, exasperated with me, decided to drag me down to the pastor’s office to try to understand who Jesus really is and how broken my life really was. I became a believer at that point and then I went inert. That’s a conversation I’d like to carry on a little further today when we talk about discipleship. Off into the military, got to fly airplanes. That was crazy, wild ride. Um the Lord had some really interesting issues to throw out at me there which was basically I was told my heart is got the same problem that Pistol Pete Maravich’s heart had on the Boston Celtics…
Rich Birch — Oh no.
Dennis Allen — …and you’re going to die in a couple of years.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Dennis Allen — That didn’t happen but I couldn’t fly anymore…
Rich Birch — Right.
Dennis Allen — …and that sent me reeling off into the business world. The business world I’m working on turning around companies that are either underperforming, struggling, or in just disaster mode. And along the way my bride, Karen, and I are living in lots of different places, and we’re in different churches as members, and we’re getting a chance to watch discipleship live, full and free. And that led me to think a lot about it. And then as I mentioned to you, we were chatting before the podcast, a bunch of theological thugs at gunpoint made me write a book, and that was The Disciple Dilemma. So, here we are.
Rich Birch — Ah, ah well one of those thugs was Os Guinness.
Dennis Allen — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And listen, when his recommendation on your book, like anybody who knows him, obviously is giant, has had so much influence. It’s definitely one of those quotes you want to lean forward and be like, ooh I should probably pay attention to what we’re talking about. What we’re talking about the disciple dilemma. And man, there are so many people, you talked about this inert people that are sitting in our pews or in our seats that are not engaged fully in the mission. They’re, you know, they’re kind of floating through life. But then you’ve got, you know, so many nones in our cultures, ex-evangelicals, deconverted, all that. But help us understand the problem, the scale of this problem. You’ve obviously seen it as a person in a lot of different churches across the country and are now obviously thinking about it. But let’s unpack that problem a little bit. What’s what’s actually happening here with discipleship, or and maybe not happening with discipleship across the country?
Dennis Allen — That’s a great way to set it up, Rich. So here’s here’s kind of the framework of this. I’m gonna I’m gonna lean to some statistics for a couple of minutes. And I’ll start with some of the more recent ones. If your folks are probably familiar with The Great Dechurching, Jim Davis, Michael Graham’s book. There’s work with Pew, there’s Barna, IPPR. Even The Humanist Society of the UK. And let me just lay some numbers out…
Rich Birch — Okay.
Dennis Allen — …so pastors can go, hey this really isn’t my fault; this really is going on all around us, right?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Dennis Allen — So what’s what’s happening in the world? About 65% of millennials, think sort of 45 down, and about 70 to 80% of Gen Z’s, think now 25 and down, who were raised in the church are walking out. They’re saying, this isn’t for me. The church is intolerant, irrelevant, immoral, irrational. I’m not a part of this anymore. I can be a part of a running club or whatever and go do that. So they’re walking out. Those people exit the church. That’s one problem.
Dennis Allen — Second problem that you face in the pews today: 93% of evangelicals would tell you that talking about Jesus is not my job – that belongs to, Rich, the pastor, the guy in the pulpit. He’s supposed to do the heavy lifts on this sort of thing. 80% of the people in those pews are spiritually inert. They have no bible study. They have no prayer life. They have no small group. They have nothing more than 1.7 times a month going to a sermon series. That’s Protestant, mainstream…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Dennis Allen — …and the evangelical traffic altogether. So when we think about the people walking out and the folks that we’ve got in the pews, the question that began to taunt me is, do we have a problem? And if so…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Dennis Allen — …what’s the symptom and what’s the root cause? What’s going on here? That’s kind of the setup.
Rich Birch — Okay, that’s good. I love that. I you know, I know I wondered for a while, you know, if when we the the average church in the country is 75 people. That’s you know that number is super sticky. And you know, ah the the irony of that and, listen, we’re all friends here that are listening in, just a couple of friends sitting around having a coffee. You know, the irony of that in that number to me in other contexts I’ve wondered, I’d love for you to get your thoughts on this, 75 people is about the number of people that you need in a church to pay for one pastor. Um, and that may sound like a really cynical thing but I wonder if so many of our systems in the church really are kind of reinforcing the system, rather than making disciples, rather than making people who ultimately follow Jesus. We’re really, it’s like we’re building organizations. Ah, react to that. Am I just way too cynical? Is that too dark of a thought? Talk to me about that.
Dennis Allen — I love the way you’re setting this up, Rch. So when you think about the world of a church, I’m going to say some things that some of the people in the pews that would get really mad about.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Dennis Allen — But if you really really get angry and upset about this, it’s Rich’ a’s fault for let me on not mine. So.
Rich Birch — Sure, yes.
Dennis Allen — So here’s kind of the setup. The setup is that we have the body of Christ. We have the community of believers that gathers together to worship. But the flip side of that exact same entity is an organization. And when you have an organization, you have an institution. Now here’s where we get into the tension that you’re facing as a pastor and executive pastor. Institutions always want to strip away mission. Institution wants tyranny in the urgent, Charlie Hummel’s book, to take over. You need to fire fight, you need to work the crises, you need to work the budget, you need to work the PowerPoint decks that make all the elders or the board of directors or whoever really happy. You’ve got to churn out administrative, you got to crank out great sermons, you got to take care of the kids on Sundays, bury the in-laws, you got to do all this sort of stuff. That’s the institutional side of the church.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Dennis Allen — And as a CEO in the turnaround space. What’s always killing businesses is they get lost in institutional world, in our terminology we might say churchianity. You get lost in the churchianity and you lose the Christianity. There’s a mission statement and if everything we’re doing doesn’t drive by the mission, the mission doesn’t drive everything we’re doing from the flavor of the donuts at the coffee break to the sermons that we’re teaching and the way we’re interacting with human beings. The mission will slowly be subsumed by the institution. And that’s something that in seminary I bet you don’t have a lot of conversations about.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that that is a that’s a really fresh idea there that you know institutions drive towards the tyranny of the urgent, that you know at the end of the day we we ignore the long-term is is the mission is why are we here? Why are we kind of driving, you know, why why are we doing all these things? And how are we aligning towards that. That’s that’s ah, that’s a bold idea.
Rich Birch — Well, let’s unpack this at a local level. How how does a church leader when, let’s say we’re looking around and it’s like you, you know, you go into a room and it’s like I feel like there’s like a piece of rotten, you know, tomato under the table and you can kind of smell it, but you’re not sure where that smell’s coming from. Let’s assume that we know we have a sense that something’s wrong, but how do we diagnose that? How do we find the root cause? What do we, in our own church, what do we how do we figure that out for us?
Dennis Allen — Well, the first thing that I would want to say is it’s not your fault, but it is your responsibility.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Dennis Allen — If you’re a pastor. It’s not your fault. This problem ranges back, arguably 1800 years and more deep into the church.
Rich Birch — Wow, wow.
Dennis Allen — And in our book, The Disciple Dilemma, we tried to lay out six very, very old traditions that have been around us for so long we think of them as good, right, and normal, but they are not good. They are not right. They’re not biblical. They’re not normal. And so, shall I toss one or two out for fun?
Rich Birch — Yeah I was going to say, that’s a you we’ve got to unpack that. Because I feel like we often hear that like, oh things were so much better. But we talk about like that was like thirty years ago. You’re you’re saying we got an 1800 year old problem here. Let’s talk about those good, right things that are not actually good or right.
Dennis Allen — Let me start with the thing that we were just conversing about. It’s the sixth root cause that we talk about that kills discipleship. And we call it in the book “the not main thing”. It’s we’re chasing stuff, but it’s not the mission. It’s the stuff that’s on fire, screaming and yelling for attention.
Dennis Allen — And as you think about some of your churches that you were just setting up. You know we’ve got churches that are very small, churches that are very large. The dynamics of the urgent in a megachurch can be quite different from the poor, lonely pastor who doesn’t even have enough cash to keep the lights on in a church. However, comma, “the not main thing” is to fail in what Christ called us to be as leaders making disciples, to go after the symptoms instead of chasing the symptoms hoping that eliminates the problem, which it never ever does. So “the not main thing” is one. Let me let me park that one on the table. Let me put one other one on the table, just as ah as an example.
Rich Birch — Yeah, let’s have it.
Dennis Allen — It’s the dynamic of power. Modern Western Christianity thinks about power as a means to achieve the end of serving God. In other words, for Christendom’s sake, for the nationalists sake, for the ability to dominate the world for the Lord, I’m going to go out and conquer these people and beat them down and bring them into subjugation so that they will either by my logic, or by our social influence, surrender. They’ll fall; they’re gonna say oh, you beat me up, you’re right. I give up. I want to be a Jesus person. That power dynamic actually began with Constantine. It began with Constantine because Christianity used to be 5, 6, 7, 8 people meeting in a little barn somewhere and hoping that the soldiers didn’t come in and take them out and kill them or throw them in the arena.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dennis Allen — Constantine switched that to a power dynamic that said, hey, it’s legit; I’m on board with it, and you better get on board with it too.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dennis Allen — Now I’m all for leaders saying, I’m a believer and I’m really into this. However, there’s a problem. When you start packing growth into those pews at a rate that exceeds your ability to disciple, you’re about to have a problem, whether it’s a commercial business or a church. Growth can kill you.
Rich Birch — Um, okay, let’s talk about that. This is one of the the oddities of and this goes back to when I was school in school. It’s like we have lots of historical examples of when the the gospel, the good things of Jesus, the good news are fused with political power, like it’s not good long term. Like it’s like we got tons of examples of that. This is not good for the message of Jesus, but I feel like we just keep reliving that as as a movement. We keep coming back to this. We keep coming back to this place right back to Constantine. Ah, why is that why? What’s driving that?
Dennis Allen — Well I’d reach in first to Francis Schaefer and “the manishness of men”. It’s kind of in our recipe. You know we’re broken. We’re fallen and we like power. We want to be in control, and hey I love it when I walk into a room and I say, thus speaketh Dennis, here is my wisdom, and everybody goes, oh that is so cool. Oh that’s so profound.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Dennis Allen — Okay, that’s a little cynical. But the flip side of it is, churches and the people that occupy them want their agenda to be picked up. Some for the most noble of reasons: I’m following Jesus I want people to get to know Jesus. Some for some darker angel’s reasons which might be the idea of, I just want to get rid of those people over there. If we get them out of the way we have a lovely nation. We have a lovely government. We have a lovely church. Power is always infesting the system. And what we see in the Lord, in discipleship, is a servant who is connecting with people in humility, and reason, but building relationships. This this is that ethos. But power has told us you got to have a brand, you got to have a venue, you got to have growth, you got to have cash flow, you got to have people in the seats, you got to have baptisms…
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Dennis Allen — You got to have great programs. We stole that from the commercial marketplace, Rich, and interestingly, they stole it from Constantine. So we’re in a “do” loop.
Rich Birch — Right, right. Okay. Now let’s kind of similar area but pivot to slightly different conversations. So you know, I think so many times when we when we hear the word “discipleship,” we think of like programs and products and um, like the, you know, the latest system or like some, you know, do these 12 steps, that that sort of thing. That’s not what you’re talking about, is it?
Dennis Allen — Not at all, not at all. Let me let me set this on the table and you can um if you could just have somebody tell me I’m irrational and stupid and ridiculous. I can quit doing this and go back to the regular stuff I do in life.
Rich Birch — Sure.
Dennis Allen — Um, we tend to think of discipleship in the truncated view of the Old Testament. What I mean by that is the the Old Testament and the New Testament and Jesus’s model of discipleship showed three phases of a disciple’s life.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Dennis Allen — And here’s some terms I’ll be familiar to some of you guys, this, I’m talking to a bunch of theologians so I know you guys will get it…
Rich Birch — Sure.
Dennis Allen — …but let me just throw this out. There is the Bet Sefer S-E-F-E-R, the Bet Sefer which is kind of elementary school. Typically it was children learning about the Torah. It was children learning about being in synagogue. It was children learning about the community of believers they were around. That’s the Bet Sefer. And actually in the west we do that quite well. We have fantastic preaching. We have wonderful resources online, ministries like unSeminary. We’ve got these magnificent things going on in the Bet Sefer stage. The problem that we find statistically, Rich, is that most people don’t get part 2 and part 3.
Dennis Allen — Part 2, Bet Midrash. Think of that as vocational school for disciples. You know you might have a vo-tech school that’s going to teach you how to weld to repair cars or cook. Jesus’s model, the New Testament’s model, the Old Testament’s model was you’re going to come alongside a Rich and you’re going to learn how Rich thinks and how he talks and you’re going to start actually imitating him, using his phrases, using his style. And it may not ultimately and forever work for you. But you begin with the basis of somebody showing you the pragmatics in a laboratory environment. That is the Bet Midrash, that is this middle vo-tech phase that is so very rare. Statistics say 90% of your people have never been through this.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dennis Allen — 80% of pastors have never been through this, so go the surveys.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Dennis Allen — Then we get to the third phase, which is the Bet Talmud. And the Bet Talmud, T-A-L-M-U-D, Talmud, is where you become a practitioner. Now you’re walking out with your mentor, Rich, into the public square, into life. It might be at work. It might be in your community. It might be in recreation. It might be in church. You’re walking out amongst other people. And you’re watching Rich for a little while, but all of a sudden you notice Rich is a little quieter and you’re talking a little bit more. And pretty soon you’re looking around and Rich isn’t even there anymore, and he slid somebody up alongside you who needs to start learning how to imitate you. This is not a small group of 10, or a congregation of 75 or a 1000 or 10,000. This is one on one, maybe arguably one on two. Deep, infinite, transparent, intimate walking alongside somebody else. How’s that for a start?
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s great. I love what you’re pointing towards here. Um, because I I think ultimately I think within your bang on is that discipleship is ultimately about a culture. It’s about how, you know, there there isn’t it’s not step 1, step 2, step 3 – that can be a part of it. But it’s ah, really about how are we helping people transform their entire lives, to reform their entire lives in the way of Jesus, ultimately.
Rich Birch — The thing I find interesting is there is like a years ago, maybe 2, 3 years ago, I heard the CEO um, of a large company. They somebody asked them, it’s like off the top of their head. They said, hey, what are the three things you worry about all the time as a CEO? And I was a little struck by this. They said without hesitation they were revenue, culture, and vision. They said, you know, I I I’m the chief salesperson’s, it’s a big company, chief salesperson. Um, but then the other two culture and vision, I’m worrying about how we’re interacting with each other. And then I’m worrying about the vision, are we staying aligned to what we’re called to as an organization. I thought, man, there’s a lot of churches that aren’t doing that. There’s, you know, we’re not worrying about how we’re cultivating the culture. Talk to us more of on the culture side, maybe bringing in some of that CEO turnaround stuff. How does all that fit together in this thinking around the disciples dilemma?
Dennis Allen — Well, I mean I’m going to really tee up on what you just said because it’s really important. And the question that I want to ask everybody just to pause for a moment and think about is, what is the fungible currency, the revenue of the church of the most high God. And the answer to this actually is, I’m gonna I’m let you just pause on that for a second, just think about it.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good question.
Dennis Allen — But the answer to this is really quite fascinating.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Dennis Allen — I’m going to tell you that the fungible currency of the church of the most high God is not what’s in the offering plate. What it actually is, is it’s disciples who make disciples who make disciples. That’s capital formation. That’s the kind of stuff CEOs are really thinking about when they talk about revenue, they’re talking about how do I form capital at my bottom line after all my costs have been paid so that I can move forward more powerfully, more strongly, more…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Dennis Allen — …more deeply into the market to do more of what I do.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Dennis Allen — That’s that’s the currency of disciples who make disciples who make disciples. Now, you brought up the idea of culture, which is so incredibly important. And a lot of people don’t get culture. And I bet your seminaries don’t talk an awful lot about church culture…
Rich Birch — No, no, no.
Dennis Allen — …other than you know, yeah you got to have one.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Dennis Allen — I find that all of my turnarounds, it’s a common script. Number one, nobody knows why they’re there. They know they build widgets or they sell stuff, but they really don’t know why they’re there.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Dennis Allen — If you want a Millennial or a Gen Z to get excited, tell them why. That amps people up when they know the why. My generation, it was a little different. It was like, tell Dennis to go do this, the what and the how. Don’t don’t talk to him about the why, we don’t have time to do that. Go out and produce stuff, right? But what we see in this generation today, and I suspect many of your exec pastors are in this role is, our people in the pews, and I don’t mean this to be an insult, but perhaps a lot of people in leadership don’t know the why that they’re actually there.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dennis Allen — And I’m going to say that the mission of the, here’s where here’s where you can burn me at the stake, right – send your cards letters and ethanol to Dennis. And the mission of every single believer is the same mission as the church. It is to be and make disciples. That’s what a church is. It’s disciples. And that’s what we do as a church. And when you have disciples, as Jesus defined those disciples, the symptoms are worship, praise, ministries, missions, passion, evangelism, conversations, relationships, statesmanship in political dynamics and in civic spheres, this stuff goes wild when you really get what Jesus was doing with discipleship. That’s the kind of culture that we’re trying to build inside a church. If the mission is actually discipleship, if that’s really the mission and Matthew 28 got this assert if that assertion is right, that everything else we hear Jesus talking about is saying, disciples do these things, all these other things, then we’ve got this preeminent statement before us.
Dennis Allen — Leaders you got to go first. You got to eat your own dog food. You’ve got to disciple someone else, even if you’ve never been discipled…
Rich Birch — Right.
Dennis Allen — …so that people can see you doing that and then you can turn around and say, and now my expectation, the culture, the atmosphere, the DNA of this community of believers, is we make disciples.
Rich Birch — Right? Yeah, I love that. So good. You know so you wrote this book, The Disciple Dilemma; let’s pivot and talk about it. You know, specifically to give people a bit of sense of that. Tell us a little bit about the story. What drove you to this point? What you know you got lots of other fish to fry in your life. What what got you to like, okay, I want to spend some time effort and energy you know pulling this together?
Dennis Allen — I kept noticing in churches, even when I wasn’t in leadership roles, I just kept looking around and seeing families going, my kids don’t believe. My kids are angry. My kids are walking out. My kids think we’re hypocrites. My kids have become X, Y, or Z other faiths, no faith, whatever. And of course as we all knows he mentioned a few minutes ago, we’re seeing the nones, the dones, the deconverts, the ex-vangelicals, the spiritually but not religious people, on and on it goes. And I’m watching this and I’m going this is interesting and it echoes in a way my commercial world. I walk into broken companies and people are leaving because they don’t know why they’re there.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dennis Allen — There’s no purpose to it, right? We sing songs and we speak words up into the air and hope that somebody or something hears us, and then we have this TED Talk and, you know the music is awesome, but it’s not exactly doing anything for me. And so I’m watching these people leave, and I’m going, that’s fascinating. What’s what’s the root cause underneath this? What’s going on? And…
Rich Birch — Right.
Dennis Allen — …it drove it drove me to start giving some talks about this. And eventually I gave the talk in the wrong place and a bunch of theological thugs made me write a book about it.
Rich Birch — Love it. Love it. What what are you hoping for? What’s the kind of target that you’re like when I, so taking a look at the book, getting a sense a little bit about it, to me it strikes me as this would be a great conversation with my leadership team. Like let’s let’s pull this together, read this book maybe over the summertime, and you know and really try to you know, reflect on, Okay, how do what should we shift about what we do our own behavior based on this. But what were you kind of hoping for, what kind of church were you hoping to impact, that sort of thing.
Dennis Allen — The goal that we set when we got the book out was we’re going for 3000 churches to actually scrimmage this issue. Now there’s 300,000 protestant churches-ish…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Dennis Allen — …in the in sort of the North American space of which, you know, if you if you look at the numbers you can you can kind of debate how the the people of the world all flow into. But about half the people that go to church go to a megachurch. And the rest go to the 75 that you were just talking about that’s kind of sort of the starkness of this thing. I wanted 3000 churches—small ones, mid-size, large, and megas—I wanted them to start look at this and go like we do have a problem. Maybe we don’t have their problems, but we have problems. What’s going on here? And is it really at the root a discipleship problem, or is it just we need to preach harder, teach better, have more programs, which I think statistically and historically have proven, they don’t work. You could just keep plowing them and you get one generation of a disciple and then they leave or they quit and then it’s done.
Dennis Allen — So the book is really trying to say, there’s a deeper root cause, a historical set of root causes, and you’ve got to evaluate which of those six belong to you. And then start scrimmaging as a leadership team. Do you want to take the second half of the book which says here’s how you take a path forward out of this, biblically, to go after the problem. That’s really what we were aiming for with with the book.
Rich Birch — That’s cool. When you think about churches ah that are doing this well that is like our, you know, beacons of hope for you. What are some of the telltale signs of that that are like, oh here’s here’s a church that’s actually discipling, kind of regardless of size and all that. What is what does that look like for you? What are some of those kind of like oh that that’s when it’s actually working well?
Dennis Allen — Well some of the first symptoms that you can pick up on is when you look at the leadership team and you ask the question, have you ever been discipled, and who’s walking alongside you right now as a follower Christ in your life? I don’t mean like the amazed student who’s looking up and going, Oh gosh you know, Rich, you’re so awesome, so cool. But who actually can look at you and go, you’re not doing very well, Rich. I’m looking at you. Or Rich, it looks like things are going really well. I know you really well, that’s that’s sort of piece one for me as I walk in as a turnaround guy and I look at an organization. Ah is the leadership actually doing what the leadership wants the people to do.
Dennis Allen — The second thing, which are interesting symptoms, is not growth. Growth is a really poorly understood concept and the church tends to run for it saying growth, growth, growth. If you’re not growing, we need to fire the pastor and find somebody else. And heavens, how many pastors I’ve interviewed that are in despair over the way they’re being banged about because you haven’t delivered the numbers, like some stockholders report, right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Dennis Allen — So challenging. So the second piece that I look at is is this a church which is launching other churches and has structure that allows one on ones and one on twos to develop. Small groups are wonderful. Big worship is wonderful. And we need all that and we want all that and God encourages to have all that. But do we see disciples on disciples…
Rich Birch — Right.
Dennis Allen — …moving and working together? And so that gets to be a much narrower slice of our “market”. When you start saying leadership is in it, and the people in this world, some percentage of them, are actually engaged dynamically in disciples. Living as disciples who make disciples who make disciples.
Rich Birch — Okay, let’s talk about that growth thing. You’ve cut you you’ve tapped that a couple times. So one of the one of the I think ah personally I think it’s a false dichotomy is that there’s like a you know real churches that we comfort ourselves with like, oh real churches that are really discipling people, like they don’t worry about growth at all. Like you know that’s not, you know, there if we really were doing what we would we do and it doesn’t matter whether we grow, which I know is not what you’re saying. But unpack that a little bit more. You know, you know you talk about growth being poorly understood, a poorly understood dynamic in the church. Talk to us about that a little bit.
Dennis Allen — One of the quickest ways you can wreck a business is to grow it too fast.
Rich Birch — okay.
Dennis Allen — You’re not prepared to take on either the client load or the production load or the marketing load. Growth kills businesses and it kills it rapidly, if you think about it. 75% of all businesses at startup die in the first five years because they overgrew.
Rich Birch — Right.
Dennis Allen — Churches are equally susceptible to that because there is an organization there. And as people begin to load up, one, you have to ask yourself the dynamic is this a cash rich area that I’m living in so I’ll have plenty of cash resources. It can build lots of buildings…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Dennis Allen — …hire lots of staff. Or am I in a cash poor region where I don’t have enough resource to be able to build and scale on this sort of thing and and get running with that. But I would wager that the growth paradigm is pitched both in seminary and I’ve talked to the seminary professors about this. I’ve had a lot of pastor talk about this. If you ain’t growing, you ain’t going. And that’s the falsity. What’s actually true, I think biblically, is if you ain’t discipling the rest of it doesn’t matter. But if you are discipling, some of you are going to grow numerically. Some of you are going to spin off numerically, launch other ventures…
Rich Birch — Right.
Dennis Allen — …and some of you aren’t going to grow an awful lot for a long time but you’re going to start replicating disciples and your growth’s coming. It may take you years, but your growth is coming. And then you got to decide how you allocate that capital formation we were talking about, the revenue of disciples who make disciples who make disciples.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. I…
Dennis Allen — We are looking at ah there’s there’s a book called the great evangelical recession. And the great evangelical recession is an economist theologian who is saying today that by the year 2040 30% percent of our churches in North America will not be able to afford the facilities that they’re in.
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, absolutely.
Dennis Allen — Growth has its lovely side and it has its challenges. Growth’s not a strategy.
Rich Birch — Yeah, no I get that. You know there’s some stats of there that show that 94% of the churches in the country are losing ground against the growth of the communities they’re in. So there you know there’s there’s the more encouraging statistic that 80% of churches are plateaued are in decline. But actually there’s a whole percentage of churches that are growing that aren’t growing as quickly as their communities. So the problem with that long term is we’re losing influence. Now I agree with you that um you know there’s we have a there’s a discipleship sublayer for sure in this issue that we’re not actually converting people to actually follow Christ. We’re just making more you know Christianitians and not necessarily Christians, you know people who are followers of our organizations, but not necessarily followers of Jesus.
Rich Birch — Yeah, this has been this has been a great conversation. Well where do we want to send people if they’re if they want to pick up copies of The Disciple Dilemma. This is Rethinking and Reforming How the Church Does Discipleship. Where do we want to send them to pick those up?
Dennis Allen — Well, all the usual places. If you want to pick them up and if if it’s at all worthwhile to you, Rich, I’d be happy to toss 25 copies of Kindle, Ebook, Nook codes out for people to get a free download if you got folks who would like that. Um.
Rich Birch — Oh that’d be great. Yeah, that’d be amazing. Yeah, that’d be great.
Dennis Allen — So you can find all that stuff. You can also check us out at www.thediscipledilemma.com…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Dennis Allen — …or Youtube or Linkedin or Instagram or Rumbly or Facebook – we’re out there @thediscipledilemma.
Rich Birch — All that stuff. That’s great. Good stuff. Well, Dennis, this has been a great conversation I really appreciate you being on today, and and love your book. And I really would encourage you listeners to pick up a copy I think. A great time of year to be thinking about you know staff training that sort of thing and I think Dennis’s work here would really help us think about and ultimately take some new steps as a church. So Dennis, thank you for being here sir appreciate being on the show today.
Dennis Allen — Thanks for your ministry, Rich.
Elevating Your Church’s Funding to New Heights with Phil Ling
Jun 27, 2024
Thanks for tuning in to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with generosity expert Phil Ling today. He offers strategic and energetic leadership to The Giving Church consulting team, helping churches fuel their ministries.
The largest transfer of wealth in the world is going on right now. With four generations alive at the same time, churches must adapt their strategies to cater to diverse age groups and their distinct giving behaviors. Tune in as Phil offers help on creating a culture of generosity, understanding giving metrics, and executing successful vision campaigns.
Increase participation. // 45% of the people in the average church give less than $200 a year. While there’s no silver bullet to fixing this problem, it’s important to remember that God built His church around intentional generosity. Every year churches lose 18% of their people. Even when you grow in attendance, more people don’t necessarily solve your money problems. Instead, your number one goal should be how to raise participation while building intentional generosity.
Offer more to the community. // Some churches tackle fundraising by creating multiple revenue streams. Think about a way your church can serve the community you’re in. For one church that looked like building a state-of-the-art event center attached to their location, creating a steady income stream. Instead of constructing a church building, another church transformed an Anheuser-Busch distribution center into an athletic training facility, attracting 500,000 paying visitors annually. Then their portable church meets in the facility on Sundays. You can use something your community needs to both draw people to your church and increase revenue.
Pay attention to giving metrics. // Your job as the pastor of a church is to lead by example, cast a compelling vision, and raise the generosity quotient. People aren’t giving to the church like they did in the past. If you want to change that, it’s crucial that you understand and analyze your giving metrics in order to gauge the church’s financial health.
Celebrate giving. // Vision campaigns create an opportunity for people to feel a sense of urgency to take steps to participate. Ask yourself how do you encourage someone to give money for the first time? What is your strategy? How do you celebrate and communicate about people doing that? How much an individual gives isn’t important, but celebrating the fact that they contributed to the mission is. Communicate the impact of generosity and provide multiple, convenient ways for people to give.
Fuel vision. // If you’re going to do a vision campaign, you need to measure mobilization. How many people will get attached to your vision? Leaders cast vision, but generosity fuels vision. Churches must build a track record of transparency and accountability to gain the congregation’s trust. This involves providing regular updates on the campaign’s progress and financial status, and celebrating key milestones and achievements to keep the congregation motivated and engaged.
Financial analysis. // Phil advises churches to conduct a thorough financial analysis before embarking on major projects. This involves examining giving data over time to understand income sources, giving patterns, and capacity for funding projects. Use The Giving Church’s financial analysis as a tool for discipleship and stewardship. By categorizing giving units based on their trends (above pace, on pace, falling down, or in the watch category), churches can proactively engage with members facing challenges and provide support.
You can learn more about how The Giving Church can help increase your generosity, and download the free PDF 5 Ways to Grow Your Giving at www.thegivingchurch.com.
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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Portable Church
Your church is doing really well right now, and your leadership team is looking for solutions to keep momentum going! It could be time to start a new location. Maybe you have hesitated in the past few years, but you know it’s time to step out in faith again and launch that next location. Portable Church has assembled a bundle of resources to help you leverage your growing momentum into a new location by sending a part of your congregation back to their neighborhood on Mission. This bundle of resources will give you a step-by-step plan to launch that new or next location, and a 5 minute readiness tool that will help you know your church is ready to do it!
Click here to watch the free webinar “Launch a New Location in 150 Days or Less” and grab the bundle of resources for your church!
Episode Transcript
Rich Birch — Well, hey, everybody welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Man, I’m really looking forward to today’s conversation. You know, every once in a while I get to have somebody on the podcast who um, you know, I know in real life, have had an a chance to interact offline, and today’s one of those days. Excited to have Phil Ling back on the podcast. Ah, he provides both strategic and energetic leadership and direction to The Ling Group and The Giving Church consulting team. They’ve worked with nearly a thousand churches of all sizes and over 40 different denominations, if we’re counting correctly. And this is the number I say all the time, I said you know you know that Phil Ling guy? He’s helped churches raise a billion dollars that’s with a “B” – that’s incredible. So he’s amazing guy, been in this for quite a while, worked with friends like the Billy Graham association, Franklin Graham, um Injoy with John Maxwell, great great guy. Phil, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here. Welcome back to the show.
Phil Ling — Honored to hang out with you.
Rich Birch — Thanks for being here. This is going to be good. Well fill in the picture, you know, there are people who would have listened but kind of give us the the 2 minute Phil Ling story, fill in that picture a little bit, tell us a little bit about ah yourself before we jump into today’s conversations
Phil Ling — I call it the “how great I am” part. This is the “how great I am” speech. Ah so yes, when you’re trying to sell something. It’s like let me tell you how great I am. So first I am ah I grew up in a pastor’s house. My dad was a church planter and planted a church in Ohio. And so I grew up there and he never moved so I was one of those preacher’s kids that never moved. And then when I came out of college I planted a church in Seattle in the Seattle area and hung out there for 10 years. God blessed us, did a lot of cool stuff, got to help start school.
Phil Ling — And change gears, ah, did some radio talk show stuff with Salem radio that’s across all across the country. But that introduced me to a guy named John Maxwell. Ah I became executive president of John’s company and for 8 years ran around the country with John and which was ah a hoot.
Phil Ling — And whenever the phone rang and at Linda that meant John that was his assistant and that meant it was fun either I was in trouble or something fun to do. And that was cool ah, but at long story short he wanted to downsize some things and I didn’t want to work for anybody else because he’s too good. And I slid over to become vice president Billy Graham Association. And they were going through a huge change. They had just moved the headquarters from Minneapolis where it had been for 50 years to Charlotte, North Carolina. If you fly into North Carolina and Charlotte and the airport you’re on Billy Graham Parkway. And so that’s right where they are. Address, I think, is number 1 Billy Graham Parkway.
Rich Birch — That’s amazing.
Phil Ling — And they built the library and all kinds of cool stuff. I got to fly in on Mondays, home on Thursdays for a period of time and helped them build ah a revenue stream that was more twenty first century. Because they had invented direct mail basically in the 50s. They were the kings. And now direct mail is different and everybody’s aging and how do we do that and embrace technology and all that kind of stuff. So they were gracious, but they also opened the door for me to have my shingle and work with folks and so I did both. And eventually transitioned.
Phil Ling — So we’ve got two little worlds. The Giving Church – we work with churches. The Ling Group – we work with faith-based nonprofits. Those those are our two little worlds. We’re a boutique group, relationships, all that stuff. I love church planters because I used to have hair and I used to be a church planter.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Phil Ling — And that is our deal and I here I this is longer than the two minutes you asked for. Why do I still do what I do?
Rich Birch — It’s all good. It’s good.
Phil Ling — I’ve got I got two and a half million Delta miles just so that registers – all domestic. Not not international. Those guys cheat they go really long trips.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Phil Ling — I do national. So the reason I still get on planes and do that stuff. I know that if I show up at a church or a organization and say, hey what are you guys really dealing with right now? It’s going to be usually facilities, finance, um facilities, finance and personnel. It’s one of the three areas. And all those relate back to money. And it’s like Okay, how do we pay for that stuff?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Phil Ling — What are we gonna do? How are we gonna do it? And most leaders… I always tease, the only guys that like to ask for money go to jail. Most leaders aren’t well aren’t comfortable with that stuff. And they haven’t had a lot of training in that stuff.
Rich Birch — Yes. Yep.
Phil Ling — And they haven’t really the people that they’re helping with it often have never sat in their chair. And so I’ve got those scars and sat in that chair.
Rich Birch — Right.
Phil Ling — And so that’s where I come from. It’s like how do we raise leaders attached on the vision?How do we build intentional generosity? And how do we do that in 2024?
Rich Birch — So good. Yeah, so good. Well Phil was ah part of ah a retreat we did with… We do this we have a small cohort called the Church Growth Incubator and Phil was with us for a couple days and it was it was incredible. I we were joking beforehand. We did a feedback at the end of that survey with everybody that we surveyed everybody that came. And you know all the different parts of the event and all the stuff we did, and Phil was the only thing that was 5 out of 5 of in the thing. People just could not believe how much value he dropped in. And so I’m honored to have him on the podcast today to try to extract some of that. Obviously we can’t get into everything but there’s really kind of a couple conversations. I wanted to take advantage of the fact that you’re coaching and leading churches all across the country around, you know this whole you know how do we help raise more money raise generosity in our church.
Rich Birch —So a couple different questions. First, you know we’re feeling pressure points. Ah you know the the idea of raising money and creating kind of multiple revenue streams. How do we do that as a church? Is you know it it feels like you know how does that connect to creating a culture of generosity? What’s that actually what is that looking like in the here and now today you know, not you know, not fifty years ago? That’s a part of what I love about you. You’re on the cutting edge of you know helping churches in the real world today. When we’re thinking about, particularly multiple revenue streams, help us think that through. What’s that look what is that looking like for in churches today that you you’re working with, that you’re seeing out there?
Phil Ling — Okay, so first of all, it’s a subject I love and I got some great examples I can share with you. But what I always warn everybody: be careful, don’t look for silver silver bullets. There’s there’s not a silver bullet. There’s this to all kinds of little bullets. There’s all kinds of things that we have to do.
Rich Birch — Good. Yep.
Phil Ling — And and one of them is understand understand the landscape today of church, especially North America, of church. So largest wealth transfer in the history of the world going on right now. For the first time in the history of our world. We have four generations alive at the same time. It’s never happened before. So a lot of the folks that have kept your church going as they age and die are transferring their wealth to their heirs. The people that are receiving that are much more consumers of church than stewards of church.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Phil Ling — They sample, they like certain stuff, they move around. Okay, it is what it is. It’s the blameless autopsy. That’s the patient and in the average church in America—and this is less stat that I’ll throw out just because I know nothing about stats except for what smart people do for us—45% of the people in the average church give less than $200 a year. 45% of the people in the average church give less than $200 a year.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Phil Ling — So they’re they’re pre-donors. They’re really not donors. Collectively that whole 45% so nearly after your people give about 1% of your income.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Phil Ling — So you have a couple of different issues. One when I talk about alternate revenue streams, they are important, but they’re they’re not the stable they’re not that, Okay, this is what I need to do.
Rich Birch — Okay, yep, yep.
Phil Ling — It does not take the place it does not take the place of God’s design for his church. So hear that piece.
Rich Birch — Okay, good, good.
Phil Ling — So I believe God designed his his church around intentional generosity.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Phil Ling — So how do we build intentional generosity? And a reason I I shared those stats first because I think why you’re building your intentional generosity, your number one goal in that world is: how do I raise participation? How do I get more people to do it?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Phil Ling — It’s not how do I squeeze and dry. It’s not how do I shake them upside down. It’s like how do I broaden that participation. Because one other stat I’ll throw in there: in the average church in North America, you lose 18% of your giving units every year. Every year 18% are gone or replaced by somebody else. That’s a churn.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Phil Ling — So those new people coming in are gonna give less than the people that left because they haven’t been there very long. So you’re ah, more people attending doesn’t necessarily solve all your your money problems just because you grew in attendance.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes, so true.
Phil Ling — So it’s like okay, that’s that piece. The revenue piece I think there’s I can probably go into a lot of sociological stuff. But what I’ve seen from some of our clients are some really interesting ways to use how people think today to help fund God’s church. So I’ll give you an example. So I have I have a church in the midwest that they, and they’re a large growing church, and God’s blessed them. Um I think they had ah a big baptism they recently and had like 700 baptisms or something crazy. So you know, they’re they’re they’re a cool church. Ah they…
Rich Birch — Wow. Yeah, that’s amazing.
Phil Ling — …they said, you know, if you’re an unchurched person, if you’re a secular person, when do you when are you more open to spiritual thoughts? And they said well one there’s couple of times in your life that often happens. One is when you’re thinking about getting married and when somebody dies and you need to [inaudible]. And so like many at our contemporary churches, they were kind of a big box church. You know it’s really utilitarian, but it’s not necessarily pretty.
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Phil Ling — And they said what if we built a a section of our facility, really went face forward into it, and built a really nice state-of-the-art event center kind of a thing that would be fantastic for weddings, fantastic for funerals, and some other stuff like that. And why don’t we do that as a separate org that’s owned by the church so it could actually generate revenue. And then push those funds back.
Phil Ling — Um, and so I started working with them at conception early on. So they’re they’re like a ten year client, and worked all through those those issues.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Phil Ling — We raise money. I think we raised like $8,000,000 ah to get the thing off the ground.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Phil Ling — I was able I’ve been back multiple times, going back next month, but to celebrate with their leaders when the 8,000,000 came in and when the facility was actually finished, and so forth.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Phil Ling — Today they have that facility; it’s called The Reverie. It and I’m not you know my my son’s already married so I don’t have to worry about wedding crap. But in that world if you’re studying do wedding you get on and you look you look at Knot. That used to be like Knot Magazine. Knot everything, deal with Knot.
Rich Birch — Yes, yep, yep yep, tie the knot.
Phil Ling — So they’re the number one Knot wedding venue in the state of Ohio. Number one rated two years in a row.
Rich Birch — Wow. Yep.
Phil Ling — They, it is fantastically thought out from how the kitchen works to how they do events. They’ve got over two hundred events scheduled there this year. Some weddings, funerals, those kind of things of course…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Phil Ling — …but they do corporate events. They worked out deals with hospitals for ongoing education. This is fantastic and they worked out the security how that part of the building can be separated from the other part when it needs to be. All that. And fast forwarding…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Phil Ling — …it now throws back positive cash to the church. And ah…
Rich Birch — Wow!
Phil Ling — …and in they pass the million million dollar mark very quickly. Ah so I don’t…
Rich Birch — Huh, fascinating.
Phil Ling — …when I share those stories and it’s really cool and I take people through it say, hey come visit. We’ll walk you through and show you how they’re doing this stuff. It’s not say, hey do this so you don’t have to ask your people to be generous. That is not how it works. But it is an opportunity using understanding of our society, it says you know what? People expect to pay for these things. And they want to do them in a really cool and nice environment, and hook to ah a healthy church…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Phil Ling — …is a good thing. It gets unchurched people walking into your building…
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Phil Ling — …looking around and say, well this is not the freaky thing I thought it might be. You know this looks really cool. This is nice. Maybe I should come back?
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, that’s cool. Yeah.
Phil Ling — And then they’ve got great stories.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Phil Ling — Now because it’s been up and operational for a couple of years they got great stories now of people that first came to event, first had a wedding there, ends up coming back to church, accepting Christ, getting involved. They have volunteers that work in The Reverie that came through The Reverie. And now they’re circled back around. The coolest story recently is they had…
Rich Birch — That’s cool.
Phil Ling — …a couple that got married there had their first child and they named the child Reverie. So I thought that was hilarious. Ah so there’s one one story.
Phil Ling — Ah I’ve got a another client that went a different angle. They bought an Anheuser-Busch distribution center. So this thing is huge. You could pull your semi-truck in, unload all the eggs…
Rich Birch — Wow!
Phil Ling — …and wash it before it went out the other side. Monster.
Rich Birch — Yeah, huge thing. Yeah.
Phil Ling — They were a church that had it been they’ve been in existence in a school bouncing around, even though they’re a good sized church, bouncing around for like 15 years. Never had their own space until they bought this. But when they bought it, they did not build a church.
Phil Ling — They built a state-of-the-art athletic training facility. Indoor soccer fields, basketball, anything you can imagine, and they have church in it. So when you go, I’m I’m honored to preach there every fall, and they’ve got this one one section of it that’s for basketball is 3 high school sized gymnasiums all in one big room. And they set it all up.
Rich Birch — Right.
Phil Ling — Put carpet squares down, pull out the chairs, all that kind of stuff for their 3 services because they do church in this facility that invites unchurched people to come. They have 500,000 paying people a year come through it. Do the math.
Phil Ling — …their motivation was they live in a very secular city of our country…
Rich Birch — Right.
Phil Ling — …that were not receptive to big churches coming in and building big red buildings with steeples
Rich Birch — Right.
Phil Ling — And said, what if how do we build something that the community might view as a positive income see…
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Phil Ling — …and at the same time it creates revenue. It’s ah it’s a revenue stream.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. Yes.
Phil Ling — So I loved doing the revenue stream stuff got other stories…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Phil Ling — …but I always say this is not in place of generosity.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. That’s good. The um, yeah, that’s something for us to be thinking about I think as we look to the future. I’ve heard this in multiple conversations as you know churches are looking to the future realize, hey we need to kind of stretch our thinking, be thinking you know thinking about a bit outside the box, color a little bit outside the lines, to think about what are some different ways we can engage with the community, and you know how does that kind of work from a ah, revenue model point of view. You talked about something earlier. I love that idea. And we’ll kind of loop back into kind of more traditional kind of the generosity side.
Rich Birch — Um, you talked about increasing participation that, hey that should be our goal that there’s you know where we’re when we’re trying to think about the kind of mass of our church, the people who are are disengaged or aren’t giving or are giving less than $200 a year, talk us through that a little bit. Unpack that – what does that look like? How do we do that? How do we increase participation? What are churches seeing? Because I think we often just think about like the other end of the spectrum when we think about generosity. It’s like I got to engage with high net worth individuals to try to extract more cash out of them. But this is kind of the opposite end of the the spectrum. How do we what does that look like?
Phil Ling — So first of all, this is my soapbox. So you know if you can shut me up on I just keep going rambling on. This is my soapbox. This is nothing. It’s jacked up. I’m jacked up on Mountain Dew. Ah, the I think this is a if you look at what your job is as the pastor of a church, leading leaders never goes away regardless of how large your church gets. You always lead leaders. You always cast vision. You want a vision castor and a lot of echoes of vision. So it’s all clear, clear and it’s all the same vision. And you’re always raising that generosity quotient. Well one of the things in order to do the race to generosity quotient, because I’ve already painted the picture. Society’s changing. People don’t just hang out in your church and decide to tithe. That ain’t happening. And we’re going to have more and more of our church’s crater in the next ten years that still have people in them.
Phil Ling — So we we were used to churches dying where there’s 5 cars. There’s one down from my house. But I see every Sunday when I drive by and I it usually has 9 cars and it’s a cute little church, probably been there 130 years. And it’s got 9 cars. So we’re used to that. Okay everybody has died. It’s it’s dying. What we’re not used to is, well attendance isn’t that much isn’t that far off what it was a year ago, but we keep going down financially. Because the people that are there are consuming your product, not necessarily stewards like their moms and their grandmothers were. So all that’s changed. So all right, if you’re going to change that paradigm, one is you have to to actually pay attention to what’s real. What are the metrics?
Phil Ling — And I’m not a huge numbers person. Hired a guy with a degree in statistics years ago. We studied 4000 churches and how they give money. And we came up with an analysis that we use with our our clients. And it’s it’s what I call and I said I think I said it earlier the blameless autopsy. This is the patient. Let’s look at the patient.
Phil Ling — So number of giving units – at what levels do those those units give you dollars? How many are below that $200 ah year threshold we talked about? We’re 45% usually or below that – let’s see about your church. And then we break it down 200 to 1000, 1000 to 5000, 5- to 10,000, 10,000+. Those are the categories for every church in America – big ones, little ones, doesn’t matter, all those. So you want to see where are you in those categories.
Phil Ling — When we talked about the churn rate – 18% of the your giving units leave in a year. All right. Are you different than that? Maybe you’re higher. Maybe you’re lower. Let’s see what that looks like. Those are things you have… If you don’t know this, and I like I say I’m not a numbers guy, but if you don’t know this then you’re what you do is every year when somebody says, how’s church doing? You go by emotion. Well, it feels good. Feels really good.
Rich Birch — Right.
Phil Ling — …[inaudible] on Sunday? How things? Oh felt great. People told me it was a great message. It felt great. But if you don’t have some kind of a metric to say, all right, how many new people are coming in? You know, I I come from a a background of churches that that really stressed baptism, water baptism. And one old pastor you say are you getting your arms wet? You know, are you getting your arms wet? So it’s like, all right. Let’s let’s [inaudible].
Rich Birch — I love that. Yeah, yeah. I love that.
Phil Ling — One of the things you want to count is, how many people give us money? So it’s not just, did we hit budget?
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Phil Ling — Where the money? Did we bring in the money…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Phil Ling — …that keeps this place operational? But how many and how many are we losing and how many are we gaining in the year…
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Phil Ling — …and then break it down and say, are they moving up as they’re here? So if I’m in your church…
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Phil Ling — …and I love what you’re doing and I feel called to your vision, then the longer I’m here I’m probably feeling more and more comfortable and I’m growing in my generosity. If you don’t look at that measure, you don’t know that. So A, you got to do that. You gotta do that.
Phil Ling — I still, and I know I’m the old guy yelling “get off my lawn”, and I’m I’m that old guy. But I still believe in initiatives. We call them campaigns.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Phil Ling — I know that’s not sexy. We call them vision campaigns not capital…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Phil Ling — …because it’s not always capital, it’s not always buildings, but it’s still an initiative where you create an opportunity for people to feel a sense of urgency to take a step to participate. So I’ll give you an example. We had a church recently—a good church, growing church, all this stuff, and and strong financial—but they did a a an initiative and a project. And we stressed participation in entry; people that really weren’t participating before getting involved. 39% of the $5,000,000, 39% – they raised $5,000,000 – 39% of the people that gave that $5,000,000 had never given to the church before. They were there…
Phil Ling — And so it’s the reason you do it is not it’s not like for sermons on generosity and tithing. It’s not, you know it’s got to be ah…
Rich Birch — Vision.
Phil Ling — …a whole process ah of building a culture generosity that celebrates how many people are doing it. You know, my big thing with pastors…
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Phil Ling — …is that never talk about money upfront unless you talk about how many people did something. Because it’s it’s the number of participants…
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Phil Ling — …that actually get involved. You your number one message in the big room on Sunday is we want everybody to get in the car and go on the trip or we don’t go. That participation…
Phil Ling — …is how we’ve used this, how many people did something. That’s why I don’t jump up and down say, hey, Bob gave a million bucks. Well Bless Bob’s pea-picking heart. I would love to have Bob give a million dollars, but I’d also like to have 500 Marys and Bobs and Joes and Johns all give a thousand bucks or something too.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Phil Ling — So it’s like I have to celebrate that. So you when we’re hanging out out west, you heard me do my small, medium, large room stage. You know it’s like the rooms we communicate in. So the big room is participation.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yep. Yeah, and so when we’re trying to encourage participation in that in that big room is that so part of it is not stressing that you know it’s not about like, like you say, Bob gave a million dollars. It’s more like, hey we’re all we’re all in we all want to be engaged in this. We all should be engaged in this. This is ah kind of an all skate. Everybody’s in. What are what are some things that churches are doing to try to increase that participation that are trying to encourage that um, you know that aren’t thermometers hanging on the wall. What is what is that? You know how how do we do that?
Phil Ling — Ah, okay, so in in my world when you talk about generosity in church. You’re always trying to get people to do one of three things.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Phil Ling — Why three? Because I used to be a preacher and everything’s in three. You know, you got to have three.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Phil Ling — So number one, how do I win the first gift? So how am I encouraging somebody to give us money for the very first time? What’s my strategy?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Phil Ling — How do I celebrate, how do I communicate and talk about how many people are doing?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Phil Ling — That that can be a very simple thing. I’ve got churches that really buy into it and get it and there’s one in Delaware that we work with. And they might get up on a Sunday and say, man I am so excited we just talked to our financial secretary and they let us know that we had 27 families last month give money to our ministry for the very first time. How much they gave is not important.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. Yep.
Phil Ling — It’s just that we’re going to celebrate that.
Phil Ling — So talk about the appropriate things and talk to rooms. The big room which is the most diverse audience.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
People don’t know God, people been walking with God…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Phil Ling — …all over the place in the big room. So what am I doing in the big room? It’s the same. I’m always stressing participation.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Phil Ling — I’m talking about what that looks like. I’m celebrating those numbers. I’m telling the stories of people that do things for the first time. That’s big room conversation.
Phil Ling — Medium size rooms are like-minded groups. How do they look at things? How we’re going to identify the likeminded groups and what their key questions are? And then small room conversation are are my leaders. My high capacity those folks. It’s like I have to keep my leaders a safe place to ask me a question. That’s why you have small room talks.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Phil Ling — Biggest checks come from [inaudible] smallest room. And they’re the only people that ask questions in groups, want audiences more than answers. But that doesn’t mean the question [inaudible]. So like give me a safe place to ask my question.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, that’s good.
Phil Ling — So so my long-winded answer to you on that…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great.
Phil Ling — …is understand which room you’re communicating in. What is your what is your goal in that room’s communication for the next twelve months?
Phil Ling — And then how are you going to actually measure it to see if it’s working? So if I’m trying to win a first time gift, like I said one, of our strategies, well then I can measure that. How many first time gifts did we get this year? You know that’s ah that’s a win. Second is I’m trying to lift…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Phil Ling — …people that that give us funds. Well, that’s that’s maturation. So can I kind of look down say you know what we had 83 families last year give month ah give more than they did the year before. How much is not important. That’s growth.
Rich Birch — Right.
Phil Ling — So that is that lift. And then third…
Rich Birch — Right, right. That’s good.
Phil Ling — …how am I keeping my donors? And keeping is just the care and feeding, is how am I showing love and appreciation and gratitude to those people that that financially drive our ministry?
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Well so you you mentioned it, you know they’re not capital campaigns, their vision campaigns. Do people still do these things? Like you know, I feel like the interesting thing about folks in this particular kind of slice of the Christian world is I feel like like they… I’ll sometimes hear people who do similar work to you and and um I feel like they spend a lot of time trying to convince us that we shouldn’t it’s almost like, well don’t do capital campaigns, like they’re terrible. You know, which is kind of weird. It’s like isn’t isn’t that what you do? But to be but I do that does it still work? Do is this still a strategy we should be thinking about, you know, or is that just like something that’s like when I… Listen, I talk a lot about church growth and the joke I make there is I know when I say church growth what you think of as a guy standing with a you know ah a folder of cassette tapes from the 80s. I get that.
Rich Birch — Um, is this the same kind of thing? Like the capital campaigns that that vision campaigns, that all went out with the Carter administration? Or where where are we at here?
Phil Ling — Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, like I say, I’m the old dude. So I as a church planter I had 18 years as a lead church planter that was never a year when I was not in a project or campaign. Because you’re when you’re planting, you don’t have anything…
Rich Birch — Right.
Phil Ling — …so you’re always raising money, or doing something. And then now for the last twenty years you know I’ve been running all over…
Rich Birch — Yep, sure.
Phil Ling — …the country working with folks. And you said I’ve worked with a thousand churches. So here’s the deal. Um I don’t try to be clever. I don’t try to call things different names so that it sounds different so I can sell you a product that was probably the same thing, but you think it’s different and new, improved, like toothpaste.
Rich Birch — Right? yep.
Phil Ling — You know it’s like it’s like no. What I describe to you, you can call it whatever you want to call it, and you don’t have to do it, but you need to do something just like it. It it it is what is because if you’re going to do a vision campaign—that’s just what I call it; you don’t have to call it that—the vision campaign.
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Phil Ling — It is all about what are we gonna measure? We’re gonna measure mobilization. How many people did we get attached to our vision?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Phil Ling — Unanswered questions are stumbling blocks to my participation. You’ve got a great idea, a great vision. If you cannot answer my questions, I don’t participate or I don’t participate very deeply. And that’s why if you just get up on Sunday and say, let’s talk about this cool thing we want to do, and you haven’t done the hard work behind the scenes, you’re might not going to be very successful. So what is my mobilization strategy, my participation strategy? How are we going to measure that? And how are we going to have those conversations in those three rooms? Leaders cast vision; generosity fuels vision. Now think about this.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Phil Ling — So when I was a young pup, you know, I grew up in churches where you walked in in the auditorium had a ah, number are a little board up front with little black numbers. They’d slide in what the offering was last week.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes.
Phil Ling — And then might even have a [inaudible] off, you know, or or budget need…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Phil Ling — …you know this is how much we need.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Phil Ling — And so everybody’s gonna watch see what it is.
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Phil Ling — Those worlds that that’s over. That day’s over. A lot of the folks wandering in your in your building, it’s not that they don’t want to give to God. They don’t know if they should give to you.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Phil Ling — If you will get money to people, not projects. So your trust level.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Phil Ling — Do you do what you say you’re going to do?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Rich Birch — The first time you ever raise money. You do it on a promise. If you give me money I promise to do this. From then on, it’s a track record. And you can’t outrun bad track records.
Rich Birch — Right.
Phil Ling — So all that to tell you, do campaigns still work? If if they’re well run with a clear purpose, they’re hugely successful. The best thing I can say is after all the years I’ve done this thing, half of the people that we work with every year, we’ve already worked with in the past. So…
Rich Birch — No, that’s good. That’s good.
Phil Ling — …that to me is the endorsement. We’ve got some that we’ve literally…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that tells you for sure.
Phil Ling — …um, 3, 4, 5 projects with. Why are you doing them? It’s not to get the people that give you money just to give you a little more. That’s the problem with fundraising. I hate that term.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Phil Ling — You have to increase the participation. That has to be an intentional plan.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Phil Ling — So now if you can do all that without doing a campaign plan, fine and fantastic – do whatever you’re going to do. But you got to still measure and accomplish the same things.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Phil Ling — I’ve not found anything better. They’re they’re they’re fads that come and go, and and all that kind of junk. And that I get that and that’s fine. Um I think that there is in this my last 2 seconds on the on the campaign. I believe in my heart that the people in your church have different pockets with money that they give. And so their ongoing gift and participation in your ministry is one pocket.
Rich Birch — Right.
Phil Ling — A specific project, appeal, vision to do something unique is another proj… or another pocket. So every so often you create those…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Phil Ling — …because that second pocket could actually be the first pocket for a lot of your new people.
Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s so good. Phil, that’s fantastic. So here we are in the spring, I know oftentimes and maybe it’s just me but I feel like a lot of churches think about this stuff in the fall. It’s like you know I know I’ve had that as an executive pastor. It’s like I’m looking at, man, we are running behind. We’re like. Or there’s some new thing we want to do next year and I start thinking about in the fall. But you know should we get started now? Is is spring/summer a good time to you know, even engage with you, start the conversation, start working on things? Are there things we could be working on now to kind of set us up good, either for the the fourth quarter this year, or even into next year if we’re thinking, man, we might need to raise some additional funds in 2025. Talk to us through that.
Phil Ling — Okay, so first of all, all my answers are self-serving.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Phil Ling — So of course, Rich. Yes, you’ve got to.
Rich Birch — Love it. Yes, of course now’s the time.
Phil Ling — Okay here here here’s here’s the world I work on.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Phil Ling — Number 1, the bigger the plane you have, the longer the runway you need. So if I’ve got…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Phil Ling — …I’m just trying to raise a little bit of money for a bite size project, well I can run with my face on fire for a few weeks and maybe you do that. But if I’ve got to raise a ah, a large amount of money and participation for a large project, well then of course I need more time.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Phil Ling — You always want to start earlier, doesn’t cost you anymore to start early start earlier. We selfishly like being at the table early because the first thing we’re going to do with you is that financial analysis I talked about. Which is to me, it’s kind of like preapproved before you go shopping for your house. It’s scary accurate it.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Phil Ling — There’s capacity and giving trends in your church. So then when we sit down with you and and this happens all the time, and you know I’ll sit down with the church and they’ll say, hey we don’t want to go into debt. We want to do this and and cash flow with this project, and we would like to do $10,000,000 project, which is a huge project – $10,000,000. And so I come in…
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Phil Ling — …and do the analysis and say okay, that’s great. I think you can safely raise 5 to six million bucks.
Rich Birch — Wow, yes.
Phil Ling — I think that that is within your capacity based upon what I the analysis.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Phil Ling — And and you know then it’s like, well what we think God could could do more. And I said I know God I can do more. I can tell you those stories. But I can also tell you what he does on average. So let me let me just know that what the problem…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, it’s good. Yeah, talk to us a little bit more about the…Oh sorry. Nope go ahead. Sorry.
Phil Ling — Ah well the problem is where far down the road on saying this is what we want to do before you come back and say, well how how do we know what our capacity looks like? So so that’s why my my argument bring somebody like us to the table earlier, so we can do an analysis with you. It doesn’t limit God. But it says, all right look the blameless autopsy number of giving units.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Phil Ling — At what levels they give…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Phil Ling — …how often you gain a new one. That paints the picture forensically of what people will do. Now there can be outliers.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Phil Ling — You can have, you know, Edith decides to give you two million bucks and and historically she gives about $20,000 a year. Okay, that’s cool. That’s an outlier. That’s fantastic. That’s great. But do that.
Phil Ling — As far as seasonal, um you want to raise money because we’re going for participation so we want most of our people to be here. So in most churches that’s spring and fall projects. So it’s like all right if we want money for the fall of 2024, then right now in the spring we should be building this machine. If we want money in the spring of 2025 and it’s a good big plane that’s got to get off the ground, and we still want to start about now. So pick when and then back up and say, okay, do we have enough time? I won’t be a lightning rod for your failure. I will stand on the table if you don’t have enough time. I say you’re you’re, you’re smoking dope; that this is too much this is too short a window. Um, ah…
Rich Birch — Right. Yes, too fast or whatever…
Phil Ling — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …you got to push it back. We got to push it back a season or something like that. Yeah.
Phil Ling — Correct, correct. So so let somebody like us help you figure that out as far as when you want to do that as far as scope of project. But that means you start earlier have these conversations early summer goes dead so you want to get a lot of stuff in figured out in the spring before you get into a dull time in the summer. And then what’s that fall look like. Fall windows are different for different churches in different parts of the world. People like you up in Canada have a little snow sometimes in the winter. Not much where I live.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s true. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Phil Ling — So so go ahead I interrupt.
Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good. Well and I think that you know and it probably goes without saying but I would strongly suggest you reach out to Phil um, before like if you’re thinking about a building project, like to get to super tactical, if you’re thinking about like we’re you know we got a new campus or we’re trying to build something, man in the same way that you’d be crazy to you know to start shopping houses before you looked at the mortgage, you know you know, this is the same thing. You really should talk with Phil before you even really get too far down that process. This should be the first step. Not the second or third step. Not after you’ve talked to some architect who’s drawn some pretty paper. It’s like no, let’s let’s have this conversation early on. The size, having been through a number of these, the size and scoping is so important on the frontend financially and will save you so many hassles, you know, down the road. Um, you know that’s that’s a great, you know, that’s a great thing.
Rich Birch — Um, talk to us a little bit about the financial analysis. We’re kind of wrap up here. I think this is a great practical step. You know I’ve said to multiple church leaders, you should just hire Phil’s guys to do the financial analysis. This is what a great tool. You know your numbers better. Talk to us about the financial analysis a little bit more detail. What is that? How do I access that? All that kind of stuff.
Phil Ling — So it’s great. Honestly, if somebody reaches out and tries to hire us to do something, most of the time I’ll say, hey, slow down you know before you you hire the the whole enchilada, buy this little piece. I’ve never had anybody buy this little piece in all these years and complain that it wasn’t worth the money, because it’s it’s worth it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Phil Ling — So the analysis, like I said, we’ve analyzed a whole bunch of churches to try to figure out what churches should look like on paper. And then we look at yours. We’ll go back a couple of years and you’re you’re giving and we use everybody’s databases. We can figure it all out. Sometimes we just get backdoors to their processes and and pull those numbers. What I tell churches, they’re your numbers. So when I sit down with the church board, it’s like some of you guys, know these numbers, and gals. You know these numbers. I’m going to tell you what they mean.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Phil Ling — So when I look at it and say, all right, your church brings in $2,000,000 a year. It’s like, all right, where does it come from? Well it comes from this many units. And they come in these categories. So we have this percentage in this category, this category, this category. Every one of those things means something about you going forward. So what does your capacity look like? So you say well we like to do a project that this size. All right. Well that that’s within your capacity.
Phil Ling — If if God has laid something on your heart that’s bigger than what I see, that doesn’t mean you don’t do it. It’s just that means, Okay, how are we going to eat the elephant one bite at a time.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Phil Ling — It doesn’t mean that we’re going to say no to the vision. It’s like we just want to be prudent…
Rich Birch — Right.
Phil Ling — …about don’t build a tower without counting the cost right.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Phil Ling — The analysis in my humble but accurate opinion, (that’s what I tell my son: my humble but accurate opinion), analysis…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Phil Ling — …is something that you do every year for the rest of your life. Once we do it for you and show you how to do it, it’s like here, this is how you pull your numbers, run them through. You can have us do it or you can try to do it yourself. That’s fine. And it it will it’s a discipleship tool. So this one little caveat, one little caveat. We’re going to break down your giving units and put on in four categories. So if Phil and Georgia Ling, if my family is in your church, and Phil and Georgia were there in 2023, and they were there in 2024—so both years—how much did they given 23? How much they given 24?
Phil Ling — All right, what we’re going to look at is that are they above pace where they were the year before? Are they kind of about on pace of where they were the year before? Were they a little off pace or falling down a [inaudible] percentage is falling down. And then the fourth category is what I call watch.
Rich Birch — Right.
Phil Ling — The watch category says Phil and George are giving less than half the year before, or they quit giving completely. Here’s what I know. People quit giving you money before they physically walk out your door. And so it’s one of your disciples opportunities…
Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good.
Phil Ling — …where they’re waving their hand and saying I’ve got a crisis; something’s going on in my life. It’s usually not that they’re mad at you. Pastors always think everybody’s mad at and that’s why they left. Sometimes. Sometimes it’s just stuff happened.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Phil Ling — And so now what if you had a list and you printed it off and said, hey you know what? There’s 32 families here in the watch category. Are they physically still here? Are their kids checked into our children’s ministry? What’s going on in their lives? Are they in any of our small groups? It’s a discipleship tool for you. So that’s why I say you need to do that every year for the rest of your life.
Rich Birch — Yeah that’s good. That’s good. Well friends, I would encourage you, I’ve said that off the podcast, I’ve said that to lots of church leaders. This is a super helpful first step, great way to kind of begin ah the conversation. And you know, Phil, you’re just just a wealth of knowledge as I’ve been taking pages of notes here today. Again I really appreciate that. If let’s, as we wrap up today’s conversation, if people want to track with you ah or with the organization, where do we want to send them online? I know we’ve got a ah resource that we want to download. Talk to us all about that.
Phil Ling — So go to our website is thegivingchurch.com, thegivingchurch.com and there’s some things there you can download for free. There’s ah a pdf that’s “5 Ways to Grow Your Giving” and it’s worth it. Of course it’s free. Of course it’s worth it. But it has value. There’s a book on there that we wrote a few years back that talks about the changing giving patterns in North America. It’s The coming tsunami. So that’s a little bit of a horror show on things that are happening.
Phil Ling — So covid was a wake up call. Covid and the pandemic…
Rich Birch — Man, so true.
Phil Ling — …and and shutting down churches was a wake up call. We were told by society that we’re not an essential institution.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s crazy. Right.
Phil Ling — And it’s like okay so strip clubs are essential, bars were essential, liquor stores were essential. We weren’t essential. I don’t blame the world. I’m not a person who screams at the world. I think that’s our fault that we weren’t essential.
Rich Birch — Right, right, right.
Phil Ling — So what are we doing to be healthier going forward. If all you try to do is hope your offering is good every week so you can pull off next Sunday, eventually you’re going to have something crater. Ah, it’s just the patterns are changed. So what is your intentional plans? We try to give you some values.
Rich Birch — Right.
Phil Ling — Go and get the “5 Ways to Grow Your Giving” PDF – it’s free – thegivingchurch.com
Rich Birch — Love it. Yeah, we’ll put links to that in the show notes as well. Phil, I really appreciate you being here. Thanks so much for all that you’re doing to help so many different churches. Appreciate being on the show today. Thank you, sir.
Phil Ling — Honored to be here. Thanks, man.
Beyond Sundays: Liquid Church’s 24/7 Ministry Model with Lauren Bercarich
Jun 20, 2024
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re joined today by Lauren Bercarich, the Digital Director at Liquid Church, with seven campuses in New Jersey as well as a robust online campus.
Digital ministry is no longer a supplementary aspect of church operations; it has become a cornerstone for reaching and engaging people. Tune in as Lauren delves into the strategic launch of the Liquid Church app and how to use digital to both invite and disciple people.
Digital is your front door. // The stories of so many visitors have digital beginnings, whether they discover your church on social media, stumble across an ad on Google, or begin attending church online. But more than a reach strategy, Liquid Church wants to use digital ministry to encourage seven days of discipleship. This approach extends gospel influence beyond 90-minute Sunday services, fostering continuous spiritual development 24/7.
Engage in the app. // Rather than a static “billboard” of announcements, the Liquid Church app is designed to encourage ongoing spiritual connection between congregants. The homepage includes three daily habits—gratitude, prayer, and scripture reading—and is intended to shepherd people through experiences based on what’s happening in the church. The prayer requests feature allows users to submit requests and pray for each other in real time. Devotionals and reflection questions include space for journaling and sharing responses. And users can journey together with others in similar life stages while engaging with current teaching series.
A three-legged stool. // Lauren underscores that there are three essential components needed to launch an app well: financial resources, leadership buy-in, and promotion. Adequate funding is needed for developing and maintaining digital platforms as well as building a dedicated team to manage and create content. Support from church leadership is critical, ensuring that digital initiatives are prioritized and integrated into the church’s overall vision. This is a cultural shift for your organization, not just a departmental initiative, and your leadership needs to become advocates. Lastly, promotion needs to go beyond the initial launch to include an ongoing adoption strategy.
Maintaining your church app. // It’s essential to have a plan beyond the launch of your church app. It won’t create engagement on its own; you’ll need staff to maintain it and create new content that connects with what’s happening in the life of your church. Look at the people already in your organization and identify those who are super engaged and passionate about digital. Rather than hiring from outside, elevate people internally.
Digital and in-person. // For the first time since the pandemic, Liquid Church is seeing both in-person attendance and online church attendance go up and to the right. Rather than seeing these two options as competing, view digital and in-person as a dual strategy. Digital is your front door and reaches people. But it also can shepherd people seven days a week, making them feel more a part of your community and helping to close your back door.
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 shareit 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 extremelyhelpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
Do you feel like your church’s facility could be preventing growth, and are you frustrated or maybe even overwhelmed at the thought of a complicated or costly building project? Are the limitations of your church building becoming obstacles in the path of expanding your ministry? Have you ever felt that your church could reach more people if only the facility was better suited to the community’s needs?
Well, the team over at Risepointe has been there. As former ministry staff and church leaders, they understand how to prioritize and help lead your church to a place where the building is a ministry multiplier. Licensed all over North America, their team of architects, interior designers and project managers have the professional experience to help move YOUR mission forward.
Check them out at Risepointe.com/unseminary and while you’re there get their FREE resource “10 Things to Get Right Before You Build”.
Episode Transcript
Rich Birch — Hey, friends, Rich here from unSeminary. Super glad that you have decided to tune in today. This is, listen, you’re in for an incredible treat today. Ah you know every week we try to bring you a leader who will both inspire and equip you, but this week is like par excellence. We’ve got Lauren Bercarich with us. She is the Digital Director at Liquid Church, which is one of the fastest growing churches in the country with 7, if I’m counting correctly, in-person campuses in New Jersey, plus a robust church online. Ah Lauren is a friend. It’s always fun to meet new people online ah, through the podcast, but today it’s great to talk to someone who I know in the real world. So Lauren, welcome. So glad that you’re here today.
Lauren Bercarich — Oh I’m so honored to be here, Rich. Thank you so much.
Rich Birch —Yeah, this is going to be great. Fill in the picture like tell us that that’s like the super boilerplate about Liquid kind of you know, paint that that picture a little bit more vividly. Give us a sense of the ministry and your role within the church.
Lauren Bercarich — Sure. So Liquid Church, we are in New Jersey, which sometimes we joke we’re like, yes there are Christians in New Jersey, folks. We do have 7 physical locations. Our vision is to saturate the state of New Jersey with the gospel of Jesus Christ, but we also have a very robust online and digital ministry. Um, we are just a very dynamic ah church. We like to be culturally relevant. We like to be bold and engaging. You know we often people would describe us as seeker-friendly. We want to get people in the door but man we want to go deep with you once you get inside.
Rich Birch — So true. Well friends, I Liquid is…so there’s a number of churches across the country that I that I point to all the time and Liquid is one of them ah for a lot of reasons. But I was so you know pulling back the curtain a little bit, I was saying to Lauren, I keep telling people you should be downloading Liquid’s app. And like literally I’ve stood there and got people to download it while we’re meeting face-to-face. And I’m like you need to register for this thing and engage and then you need to do what they’re doing. And so I’ve said that enough times that I said I actually probably should get Lauren on the on the podcast to actually talk about it and kind of look up under the hood a little bit. But so we’re going to get to the app. But but before we get there, let’s take a step back and just talk about digital ministry in general.
Rich Birch — When you think about digital ministry at Liquid, kind of set that parameters for us. What do you mean by digital ministry? What is that? What are you trying to do? How does that fit into how do you think about that? How does that connect to the kind of overall mission of trying to saturate the state with the with the message of Jesus?
Lauren Bercarich — Yeah, that’s a great question because digital is all encompassing, really, but my vision is that we would um, pursue seven days of discipleship.
Rich Birch — So good.
Lauren Bercarich — That church is more than just 90 minutes on a Sunday. We want to encourage people to read their bibles, to pray, to go deep, and to grow throughout the week and we can use digital tools like the app um in order to do that. And so we’re creating amazing content that’s different content that we’re creating. And when I try to paint the picture for people, I tell them about my team. And it’s like hey we’ve got the techies, right? We’ve got the the developers and the people who are making it all happen. We’ve got content creators who are creating amazing devotionals, written blogs, and audio content, etc. We’ve got our communications and marketing team who’s helping getting the word out there. And then we’ve got church online, so you can actually have that service experience in community and feel like you’re part of that campus as well. So it’s kind of all of that. But really I’d hone in on the idea of like we want to be available, reaching people and discipling people 24/7.
Rich Birch — So good. I love that. And you know, friends, I’ve said in other contexts that I really do think the future of the this is exactly what we’re going to be getting ourselves into in in the future. That we are our, for lack of better word, our business model, our approach what we’ve done, we’ve typically been seen as an event organization. You come on the weekend. We provide a 90 minute compelling experience. But what we’re seeing increasingly with fast-growing churches and churches that are making huge impacts in their community is they’re seeing themselves in that same way. You you know the way Lauren described with their seven days of discipleship. It’s really a flow and yeah events are a part of that. The weekend is a part of that, but it it doesn’t end with that. Talk us through um ah so I want play bit of a devil’s advocate…
Lauren Bercarich — Sure.
Rich Birch — …and and be um, you know the person who is super skeptical of that. And say like yeah isn’t that all just razzmatazz, like don’t shouldn’t we just be trying to get people to show up on Sundays? How does it relate to, how does all of this online stuff and digital relate to the in-person stuff we do?
Lauren Bercarich — Oh my goodness. It’s it’s just incredible. So first of all, let me say that digital is your front door to your church.
Rich Birch — So true.
Lauren Bercarich — So it is directly connected. We just had a staff meeting at Liquid Church and each of our campus pastors got up and shared a baptism story. We had baptisms and they’re telling the story of one individual that stood out to them. Let me tell you how those stories started. Um somebody they found us on social media. We were telling them to put their football jerseys on, they decided this is wacky, let’s go to church.
Lauren Bercarich — Ah somebody was googling. They had some concerns and they found one of our Google ads – digital got them in the door, right? That’s part of our SEO strategy. Somebody else actually asked a friend. The friend told them about Liquid and they thought, you know what? There is a physical location 6 minutes from my house. I’m going to go to church online. I’m going to be there for six months or so…
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s true.
Lauren Bercarich — …feel comfortable, and then show up. So many of the stories have digital beginnings. So think of it as both a reach strategy, right? The first time somebody walks through your door, I just want to be clear. They’re not just showing up…
Rich Birch — Right.
Lauren Bercarich — …having never researched you, looked at you, checked you out, all of that. So that’s part of it. Um, but also, you can go deep digitally. Um, so on our app it’s just incredible. There’s the ability, we have a lot of discipleship tools to pray for others in community. You can submit your own prayer requests, um, you can pray for others, and really get a sense of what’s going on and support them. You can be reading the bible and going through um, bible reading journeys with us and devotionals.
Lauren Bercarich — And just to make this real for you, I want to paint a picture that some of these digital interactions lead to deeper physical interactions. So I attend a physical campus on Sundays. I go to our um…
Rich Birch — How old fashioned, how old fashioned.
Lauren Bercarich — I know, right? I’m a Digital Director who goes to physical campus. But I’m always in the app. I’m submitting my prayer requests.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Lauren Bercarich — And you know, um, one of my children has been struggling this year in school, had a really important meeting at the school coming up, and man did I need prayer. Not only did I put it in the app, I told them the exact time of the meeting, be lifting me up in prayer. I show up to church on Sunday and my child’s um, small group leader in Liquid family in the kids ministry pulls me to the side and says, how did the meeting go?
Rich Birch — Wow.
Lauren Bercarich — I’ve been praying for you.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s vivid.
Lauren Bercarich — Oh my goodness, I wanted to know how it went.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lauren Bercarich — So we had this deep interaction. She reveals to me, I had no idea, she’s been an educator for 27 years.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Lauren Bercarich — She knows all about the process we’re going through. She offers her support. How can she help us, how can she support us through the season. I mean we’re hugging we’re crying in the lobby.
Rich Birch — So good.
Lauren Bercarich — It would have been one of those cursory, hey how you doing interactions. Oh fine. You know I’m not just going to kind of spill my beans um at the check-in station at Liquid family. But what I found is when you’re putting yourself out there in some of these digital ah formats, we’re forming these deeper bonds that are spilling over into our physical location. So…
Rich Birch — Um, that’s good.
Lauren Bercarich — it is not just um, smoking mirrors. It’s the real deal.
Rich Birch — Oh I love that. So let’s talk a little bit about the app. So you know you’ve caught, friends, as you’re listening in um, even just this one function of like, hey I want to share a prayer request. So kind of talk us through for someone who who hasn’t seen it hasn’t you know it isn’t isn’t on your app. Talk us through kind of how are you going beyond, what like I’ve seen and maybe it’s just maybe I’m just not looking in the right place. But I feel like I see so many church apps that feel just like billboards they feel just like oh this is just an ad or it’s just a wrapper on their webpage. It’s like, yeah, I know it’s an app but it’s like this is all the stuff that’s there. That’s not what you’re doing. Talk us through how you’re making these kind of these digital engagements with real people.
Lauren Bercarich — Yeah, sure so we actually relaunched our app um this past year. So I just want to share with everybody that previously we were in that same camp. Our app was kind of just this marketing billboard. It was kind of static content. Um, you know, maybe it had the give functionality that you could use weekly, but there wasn’t really a reason for you to engage in that app beyond a Sunday. And Sunday was really kind of cursory functionality.
Lauren Bercarich — We actually found a strategic partner in Apollos. They’re um, a company out there who is developed this beautiful app template that you can take and make your own by being part of their community. And the goal there is to create an app that really promotes um, discipleship and community and engagement. So it isn’t static at all. So if you downloaded the Liquid church app, which I encourage everybody to do, when you landed on our homepage what you’re going to see are our daily habits, which we want to promote to everybody out there. There’s 3 daily habits: gratitude, prayer (which I was just speaking about), and scripture, which is reading the bible. But we actually shepherd people through um experiences so we have seasons of what we’re reading through a particular book of the bible or it’s thematic or we’re doing video devotionals. And then there’s always reflection questions and you can actually journal in the app and you share those journals with the community as well. So you’re like learning from each other and seeing each other’s personal reflections.
Lauren Bercarich — And you can go beyond that. Like we’re putting in custom digital content for our core audiences. Um, you might think of them just as blogs, but for parenting, for young adults. Um, we have ways that we’re just going to um launch new communities where people can engage in communities and go on these journeys together by location, but also by felt needs. So we’re going to launch here shortly a 21 day journey it’s 21 days um to foster a thriving marriage.
Rich Birch — So cool.
Lauren Bercarich — And so we’re all going to be in there doing that together. So it’s really about community engagement, spiritual habits. Um, it’s not a marketing billboard at all.
Rich Birch — So I love that. So gratitude prayer and scripture. You know you can get a sense even by what you’re when you’re hearing what that looks like, friends, that how those could be kind of engagement pieces or designed for kind of community engagement. There are like social network-esque feel to it, right? It’s like you can, talk us through what what does that look like. So how how do I , you know, how do I kind of identify myself within the app?
Lauren Bercarich — Right. So you have a profile. So if you went in there and you were to follow me, you could, you’d see my little photo holding my daughter. You can follow people, right? So you could search for your friends, follow them in the apps. You get notified when they submit a prayer request or they submit a journal. So that way you’re really tracking with those individuals.
Lauren Bercarich — And I hear that from people. they’re like I’m praying for you all the time like they’re they’re tracking with me in the app you can like somebody’s journal, right? So you’re saying, oh wow, I really liked what they wrote on that give them a heart.
Lauren Bercarich — You pray for people so you actively you see their prayer requests and you’re actively pressing that button saying that you’re praying for them, and they’re going to get notified that hey the community is praying for you right now. So you get that gosh I feel so good when you really need somebody praying for you and you get that. So it really is this give and take.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lauren Bercarich — And what I’d say is it’s just the beginning.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lauren Bercarich — Um, what’s so exciting is that, you know, digital’s always evolving and there’s always new features and I think it’s just going to get better and better.
Rich Birch — Yeah, the thing that struck me and it correct me if I’m wrong on this. This is one of the things I’ve said behind your back, is you know like I’ve got the Starbucks app and the Starbucks app is a digital experience. But it actually enhances my in-person experience. So like I can order ahead of time. And I get those stars and stuff – I really don’t know what those stars are for. I I feel good when I get them I’m like wow that’s nice. Um, but it it enhances the I it it makes my like it makes my better experience when I go in to to go to Starbucks.
Lauren Bercarich — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And there is all kinds of other content. They have the like if I really want to know where the beans come from. My my impression of your experience. What we’ve done with Apollos here is similar where it’s like it it I get that it would be a standalone experience that it could be a standalone digital experience. But it’s even better when you pair it with and in person. Is that how do you think about that? How do those two work together?
Lauren Bercarich — Oh my goodness. So we think about this in such incredible detail. We have our year mapped out with like every day what is getting in the app…
Rich Birch — Oh very cool.
Lauren Bercarich —…and how are we partnering what we’re doing with our teaching series and what we’re going through on Sundays.
Rich Birch — So good.
Lauren Bercarich — So let me give you an example that just knocked our socks off. We did a prayer series um called Moving Mountains…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Lauren Bercarich — …for six weeks and you know we were teaching people essentially how to pray in new ways. Really pushing them outside kind of these comfortable prayers to pray dangerously, to be bold, to try to follow God’s will instead of our wishes. But there was a challenge from the beginning you’re going to do two things with the series, guys. You’re going to get in a group and you’re going to be in the app praying for each other. And we even set a goal – we are going to pray 100,000 prayers in this app over the course of the next…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lauren Bercarich — …six weeks. And we reported back every single week. In fact, when you walked into any physical location, every TV in that location was scrolling prayers from the app.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s cool.
Lauren Bercarich — Our teaching pastors were showing them up on the side screens, actively praying for them in the middle of the sermon. I mean it was interwoven. You couldn’t separate…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great.
Lauren Bercarich — …the app from this series. And then at the end um, we reported back hey it was 150,000 prayers prayed.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lauren Bercarich — And you could feel a spiritual temperature just rising.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lauren Bercarich — Um, it was really incredible. So it is not like, ok yes, there’s this private practice. You can do your daily habits and that can be a part of like your morning devotional routine. But this is something we are weaving into everything we’re doing at church. And it doesn’t stop there so you know you go from Moving Mountains.
Lauren Bercarich — Then you might say hey um at Easter time we did some Lenten devotionals. We read through the gospels of Mark and Luke um up to Easter. We had seven of our pastors reading them. This was an audio product. And they would read the gospel, one chapter a day, reflect on it…
Rich Birch — Oh so good.
Lauren Bercarich — …give everybody a reflection question to journal on in the app, pray us out, and that was leading us up to Easter. People loved it.
Rich Birch — Yes, so good.
Lauren Bercarich — We had thousands of people in there. And even hearing from people who’d never been in the app before saying, that was the thing that got me in…
Rich Birch — Yeah, so good.
Lauren Bercarich — …like that really spoke to me. And so we are constantly creating new content, new ways of reaching people…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Lauren Bercarich — …and tying them to our teaching.
Rich Birch — Yeah, so good. Love that. Yeah, this was ah so ah, friends who are listening in to you know Tim Lucas is the lead pastor at, and a friend of mine. And you know we’re on the texting relationship. We’ll text it quite a bit. And he was, I remember when there was that whole prayer thing going on. And that was like his bullet point. He was like we had, so you know and I was like you know come on. He’s a friend so I could say this kind of thing. I’m I’m like that seems like a teaching pastor kind of thing to say. 150,000 prayers? I’m like how is that possible? Like I that was actually one of the first times I sat up and was like, you’re doing what? What is happening over there? That’s that’s crazy.
Rich Birch — Talk talk to me about the launch of the app. Because I think um, you know my impression is that there’s a lot of churches that kind of halfheartedly commit to this kind of thing, but that isn’t my impression of what you’ve done. It’s like you’re trying to figure out how we integrate this thing in and talk us to what that looked like. So the launch, and then how do you keep it on kind of people’s radar as we go forward?
Lauren Bercarich — Yeah, so I’d say so one of the challenges I feel like for people, Rich, is I I feel like you need three things to launch an app well. And a lot of people don’t have all three.
Rich Birch — Okay. Yep.
Lauren Bercarich — And I say it’s like a 3-legged stool. So if you’re missing one and then the stool topples over. One is that you actually need the money, right?
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Lauren Bercarich — So you need the money to um, get your strategic partner, like we did with Apollos, partner with them. You need the staff to run it, all of that. Some people get the money, but nothing else.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lauren Bercarich — You actually need leadership buy in. So if it’s just a departmental initiative, this is not going to win. Guys…
Rich Birch — If it the nerds are the ones that are going to do it, like go get that, let the nerds do it, that what doesn’t work?
Lauren Bercarich — Ah, yes, sometimes it’s just like a techie project…
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Lauren Bercarich — …and it doesn’t even take on in the staff.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Lauren Bercarich — Guys, this is not a departmental initiative. This is a cultural shift for your organization.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good.
Lauren Bercarich — And um, you need total leadership buy in because you can’t get it to partner with like a prayer series like we did if your lead pastor and your executive team aren’t fully on board, right?
Rich Birch — Yep, yep.
Lauren Bercarich — So you need them on board. And then they help to be evangelists for this as well. And then third, you need promotion if you build it. They will not just show up. They’re not going to just come.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lauren Bercarich — Um, that’s something as a former coms director I’ve always pushed against. You really need to tell people what this is, how to get it, how it will serve them. So when we launched the app we did a six week um launch period where there was no way that you could escape the fact…
Rich Birch — Right.
Lauren Bercarich — …that we were launching an app. I had it it was total communication saturation, right?
RIch Birch — Yes, great.
Lauren Bercarich — But that is a season and that’s honestly the easiest part. The hardest part is what I call the adoption time, app adoption. And that to me never ends.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lauren Bercarich — That is when we calendar out our whole year and give you reasons always to get in the app, to experience something new. We’re always launching new features and new reasons and ways to engage people. Because my ah goal would be that everybody’s in the app that people would understand, Oh this is how Liquid Church does things. Everybody’s in the app.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lauren Bercarich — Everything we do is through the app. And so it really becomes ingrained in our culture.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Okay, so let’s pick kind of a hypothetical situation. Let’s assume I’m a church of you know like a thousand people.
Lauren Bercarich — Yeah.
Rich Birch — So it’s it’s they’re not um, it’s not a giant church is not, you know, it’s not 10,000. It’s a thousand, but it’s also not a small church. These people have some resources. They’ve got some staff, time. You know what would be some potholes that we should avoid now that you’ve launched or that you’ve talked with other churches that like oh you can see where this kind of launch or, you know, branching out into this kind of thing falls apart. Where it’s like oh that just that didn’t go how we were hoping it would go. What would be a put some potholes to avoid?
Lauren Bercarich — Um, I think that people need to have a plan beyond launch. I think a lot of people don’t have that.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Lauren Bercarich — There is a lot of energy that gets put into the maintenance of the app, right? So if we are doing um, scripture readings. That’s 365 days of scripture readings.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Lauren Bercarich — Now there’s the there’s the way to do that that’s not too complex, but somebody actually has to go in there and say, what scripture are we reading on what date, when does that go live. So I think sometimes people want to make this run without actually devoting any staff or permanent resourcing to it. It is not a tech tool that can just thrive on its own.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Lauren Bercarich — You actually need the staffing behind it to help run it. And I think it pays dividends, of course, you know, hey I’m a digital staffer.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Lauren Bercarich — But you do need to invest in that and I think that’s one of the pitfalls that I’ve heard about.
Rich Birch — Yeah, can you talk to us a little bit about what that what is the staffing structure look like. You know, so folks forget to give some perspective, you know, Liquid Church is 5000 people, in that general in that range.
Lauren Bercarich — Yep.
Rich Birch — You know, this a fast growing church. Um, but so talk to me about kind of staffing investment. What does that look like for, you know, for you? Where are you at today? You know what did you launch with? Obviously you always want more so what, you know, what is what’s it going to look like down the road?
Lauren Bercarich — Ah, so true.
Rich Birch — Advocate for I’m sure Tim’s listening in, Dave’s listening in…
Lauren Bercarich — That’s right…
Rich Birch — …Kayra’s listening in, so now is the time.
Lauren Bercarich — …approve that new staff role.
Rich Birch — Yeah fun.
Lauren Bercarich — Um, so I was already on staff at Liquid Church. I was the Communications Director. Um, but I was just you know banging the drum that we need to lean into digital. We need to invest here and they said hey, you know what? We think you’re right. Why don’t you lead that? Um, which was not the direction I thought we were going to go.
Lauren Bercarich — So it started with me and it’s like what’s your division of what this department needs to be? And what I really wanted it to be was, hey we need the techies kind of under my purview. So what we did is we actually split our IT department.
Lauren Bercarich —So we have a traditional IT department, right, that’s running the infrastructure of our buildings, and the computers for everybody, and taking care of all of that and purchasing products, etc. But we have a Digital Products team that is helping me…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Lauren Bercarich — …with um our church management system Rock RMS, that is helping with the app development, website development, and leading on all of that. So they help us run incredibly fast, and they’re specialists in what they do. I can’t do what they do.
Lauren Bercarich — Then I have digital content creators and to be creative guys we took two part-time employees, made them full time, and halftime. They are doing digital content creation, but it was amazing because they already knew our culture.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lauren Bercarich — They knew our voice, they were people that we could put out front, right? So we took a teaching pastor who was doing 20 hours teaching. Now he’s full time, and he can be ah front facing on our digital content. Same with one of our worship leaders. Um, then we actually invested in a church online pastor. So before it was like oh church online just happens in the margins.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lauren Bercarich — No, we’re actually going to fully invest in the care. And so we actually moved somebody. So we moved staff as well. So we took somebody super equipped for that. So one of the things that I like to say is look in your organization right now. Who are some of the most dynamic people…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Lauren Bercarich — …super engaged, really passionate about digital, and maybe elevate them, shift their role. Because initially I was thinking, hey there’s an expert out there, and they’ve got it all figured out. But there really doesn’t exist because this is a new frontier for churches. So I think that elevating people internally is a great way to advance your digital ministry.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. So what is you know when you look up over the horizon, what are some questions that you’re wrestling with on the digital ministry side, as you kind of think about the future? You know, I’m thinking like additional, you know, channels or other, you know, other you know new things. You’ve got these kind of core, you know, gratitude, prayer, scripture. You’re doing content. Is there other things within the app or other areas that you’re thinking about as you look to the future?
Lauren Bercarich — Yeah, so I’d say one of the challenges with digital is there’s always so many options.
Rich Birch — So true.
Lauren Bercarich — What are the best things to do?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lauren Bercarich — What can you actually get done?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lauren Bercarich — What is should you prioritize? So that’s one of the biggest things. Because sometimes I will just say you can get that shiny object syndrome. Oh! Got to do this new thing.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes, let’s try this.
Lauren Bercarich — Oh no, we got to do this.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Lauren Bercarich — And then you just end up being a little frazzled and frenetic. So where we want to lean into this is actually continuing to enhance some of the features that already exist. So like doubling down in the prayer feature which we feel like as an MVP and we’re working with our developer on that, right? So you can have more interaction, more care, more engagement on some of the existing features.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Lauren Bercarich — Um I mentioned to you the community feature. That will be a whole new tab on our app that we’re releasing here in a couple of months. And we’re putting people through this ah, we’re piloting this marriage journey, these ah campus communities. But if it takes off, I mean we’re going to have tons of journeys, right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Lauren Bercarich — We’re already talking about what are we going to do for our parenting series? Should we launch a parenting journey? Should we be helping moms? Should they have their own community within the app?
Rich Birch — Oh that’s cool. Yeah.
Lauren Bercarich — So that’s one avenue that we’re really leaning into and I think pursuing. Um, yeah…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Lauren Bercarich — …I’d say that’s where we’re really focusing right now.
Rich Birch — Um, talk to me about the um this is kind of taking 6 steps back, but to something we talked about you know earlier on. What what is the connection that you’re seeing between all of this digital work and in-person attendance? Like how are are you able to kind of connect those two? Are you seeing any kind of connection? How does all that you know work together? I know there’s church leaders that are listening and they’re like, yeah that all sounds good, but like I really just want people to show up on Sundays. What are you seeing on that front?
Lauren Bercarich — Yeah, so we truly believe that digital is a contributor to the growth that we are seeing at Liquid Church. Um I’ll just give you an example that um, just a few weeks ago we crossed the 5000 threshold in in-person attendance on a Sunday nd we hadn’t hit that mark ah, post-covid. Ah we had hit that mark pre-pandemic. And it was like wow that’s incredible. Now if you just look at that, you could say, hey we’ve arrived. We’re back. We don’t need to focus on digital. But let me tell you there were another 2700 people on church online.
Rich Birch — Wow. Yeah.
Lauren Bercarich — Both church online and in person are up and to the right. For the first time ever both are growing and thriving.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great.
Lauren Bercarich — And I believed that that was possible when we started launching this ministry back in 2022. I’m like I know both can be up and to the right. And we’re there because we’re investing in both. And I believe that’s a digital products too, and shepherding people seven days a week is bringing them back in through the doors. You know we talk about closing the back door. Digital actually does both things.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Lauren Bercarich — It reaches people, brings them in the front door. Um and it gives you all these new avenues, ways to reach them. But I also think it helps to keep people because they can feel connected…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Lauren Bercarich — …more than just at that event-centric Sunday service or any other, you know, events that they’re attending, that they can really feel part of a community.
Rich Birch — Love it. Yeah, that’s great. And and yeah, we’re seeing the same thing in our church. That our the statistics on church online, our digital stuff are accelerating while at the same time are, so very similar, we’re hitting, you know, largest attendance non-holiday attendance ever. Um, and both are driving, you know, we’re in the middle of a capital campaign right now. And it’s like I was just joking with our lead pastor this week, I was like I don’t know that we raised enough money, or are we raising enough money. Like so Both of them are you know are accelerating. And I’ve I’ve seen that from multiple churches that it’s like hey people that are are continuing to invest on both sides are seeing, you know seeing great results. We we live in a digital age.
Lauren Bercarich — Yes.
Rich Birch — People, it’s like it sounds like so um, you know like apple pie, of course we do. But I but there are church leaders that are missing that they’re missing that connection ah between those two things. I want to take this is like side kind of like sidestep this content for a second…
Lauren Bercarich — Sure.
Rich Birch — …and just honor you for your leadership at ah, you know at Liquid. You know, ah so you’re doing such a great job. You’re killing it. You’re doing an amazing, you know I I said earlier in the podcast, friends, that Lauren’s a person I know in the real world. And to me you’re an example of the kind of person that the body of Christ is just so thankful to have working day in day out.
Rich Birch — Tell us a little bit about your background because I’m sure people are listening in are saying, Lauren like speaks in sound bites and is like incredibly articulate and knows her stuff. What is she’ve done all her life? Where does, what is happening? So talk to us a little bit about your your background. And I I say that because there could be church leaders that are listening in today, again that church of a 1000, 2000 people are like, I’m not sure who can run this thing.
Lauren Bercarich — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And it might be someone like who has a background similar to yours so talk us through that.
Lauren Bercarich — Ah yeah, that’s a great point. I’m so glad that you asked that. Actually my background is in journalis. I was a TV news reporter. So I always tell people I’m like, you know those people who stand out in the snowstorm, or like blowing sideways in the hurricane, that was me.
Rich Birch — Yep, that was you.
Lauren Bercarich — So I did local TV news reporting. And then I transitioned into public relations which is, you know, promoting the products and books of your clients. I was attending Liquid Church – it was my church home. And then my campus pastor was just like, well hey, you know we’re hiring a communications director. I had no intention of moving into ministry. And can we peel back the curtain a little bit? Guys, Rich was my first boss at Liquid. So um, I’m just so grateful um, that that that door opened for me and that I was able to walk through it.
Lauren Bercarich — But yes, I was in the role of communications director for 7 years at Liquid Church, running all our um communications and marketing. But I was super passionate about digital and I would say the pandemic gave me a nudge because I just started saying like, hey um we need to be running online things for our parents for liquid family.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lauren Bercarich — We need to be running these online things for um, emotional health and wellness with our discipleship team.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Lauren Bercarich — And I was just so passionate about it and honestly deflated when we started to think that, oh we got to put digital aside in order to lift up in-person.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Lauren Bercarich — But I’m so glad that we recognized actually both can thrive together and at the same time. And so I was promoting it, I was pitching it to our leadership, and then they tapped me on the shoulder, and said you run it. I will say I had a little bit of that impostor syndrome of I don’t know. I it’s the first time I got offered um a job or a promotion, you’re like are you sure? Am I the right person? But.
Rich Birch — Did you get the wrong name? Is there someone else supposed to be here?
Lauren Bercarich — Yes.
Rich Birch — That’s funny.
Lauren Bercarich — But I will say it served me really well because I I can be that strategic thinker. I can be that communicator. I can see the vision for it. But I have the team to do the things that I’m personally not equipped to do.
Rich Birch — Right.
Lauren Bercarich — So I can have the tech teammates who are just phenomenal um, who can help me push forward into the future. And so um I think we make an incredible team.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Lauren Bercarich — But maybe there is a coms person in your organization right? And maybe they’re the right person to lead this.
Rich Birch — Yeah, totally, I love that. And and, yeah, I think when I think about, like one of the things there’s there’s a lot that Liquid Church has done well as a church. And a lot of that does you know though, there’s lines that line right back to you and this is an example of that. You know, the digital stuff, you know, I think it’s amazing. You know there’s somebody who could be sitting in a church today who is doing something that they are happy with and are you know you know they like and whether it was in you know journalism, PR, communications, but maybe a switch to them coming and serving in the local church. Man, that that could open up unlock all kinds of new amazing opportunities for churches that are listening in today.
Rich Birch — So we want to send people to obviously pick up the Liquid Church app – we’ll link to it in the notes. Um, but yeah, just as we’re kind of coming to land, as we’re getting close to the end here, what else would you like to say just as we kind of close out today’s episode?
Lauren Bercarich — I would just say that um don’t consider yourself knocked out of the box here because this is an area where everybody’s learning. You don’t have to be an expert.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Lauren Bercarich — You don’t have to know it all now. You can learn. There’s a lot of people out there to learn from and to see what they’re doing. And what I love about ministry, right, is we’re willing to share and teach and talk with each other. I feel like some people find digital just to be so intimidating that they’ll say you know what? I’m just going to do what I’ve always done because I don’t know how to do that.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Lauren Bercarich — But I don’t think that’s the winning strategy for the future of our church, um of your church, of the big “C” Church, and so I just want to encourage people to to lean in.
Rich Birch — So good. This is great. I feel like during ah particularly during the height of Covid when there were people, including friends of mine, who were like they were like it’s the age of digital. We’re all going digital. No one’s ever going to come back to services. I was like, ah I don’t know that that’s the case. Like I think we’re going to get back to services at some point.
Rich Birch — And then but then now it’s like it’s swung the opposite direction and there are churches out there that are like, we’re getting rid of all that digital stuff and we’re just in person. And I’m like well I don’t think that’s the answer either. Like I think we you know it’s it’s been a funny couple years on this stuff. But I’m just so thankful for what Liquid’s done. I think you continue to lead the way. And I just want to honor you and your team today. So thank you so much, Lauren. We really appreciate you being here today and we’ll link to the the app down below. Um, if people want to get in touch with you or to track with the church, where do we want to send them online?
Lauren Bercarich — Yeah, so if you just want to see what we’re doing, our website is liquidchurch.com. And our website is designed for the new guest so you can kind of get that experience. If you want to reach out to me, I mean honestly email’s the best way. It’s just laurenb@liquidchurch.com.
Rich Birch — Great. Thanks so much, Lauren. Appreciate you being here today.
Lauren Bercarich — Absolutely. So much fun.
Setting Roots, Spurring Growth: Thriving New Campus Location Growth with Aaron Stanski & Aaron Mora
Jun 13, 2024
Thanks for joining the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with two Aarons—Aaron Stanski, CEO and Founder of Risepointe, and Aaron Mora, the Alma Campus Pastor of Community Church in north central Michigan.
If your church is growing, chances are you’ve wrestled with questions about your location or building meeting your ministry needs. Tune in to hear the story of Community Church’s growth and how Risepointe walked alongside them as they tried to find a suitable location for their Alma campus.
The Needs Analysis. // Like Community Church, most of the churches that reach out to Risepointe go through The Needs Analysis process. This information helps Risepointe understand who they are as a church, problems they’re trying to solve, their unique ministry DNA, and who they’re trying to reach. For Community Church, not only did The Needs Analysis answer many of their questions, Aaron Mora recognizes it was critical to helping Risepointe get to know them and design what they wanted and needed.
Take the next step. // A building project is a step of faith. Anxiety and fear that might keep you from moving forward. Aaron Mora admits that while it’s tempting to stay comfortable, Community Church sensed God leading them in this direction. He recognizes that God provided Risepointe and their wealth of experience to offer the encouragement and expertise Community Church needed to move forward with confidence.
Set the guardrails. // As Aaron Stanski notes, buildings aren’t going to do ministry, people are. Risepointe is aware that they are handing over a tool to church leaders so they can further grow their ministry. As a result, Risepointe approaches a project with a church by measuring kingdom impact and how to unleash it in the area. Laying out a clear budget and cash flow positive plan that lines up with giving in the early phase is critical. Set guardrails in place regarding what is needed and what the budget is so you can drive the project toward success.
Don’t let doubt creep in. // Expect that people will have opinions on what’s being done in a building project, but don’t receive it all as negative. Recognize that change will be hard for a lot of people; don’t let the comments cause you to doubt your decisions.
Renovating vs building new. // When considering a building project, it’s important to understand how you’re using your buildings. Be really intentional with the decisions you’re making and examine the pros and cons of building new versus renovating an existing space. Risepointe walks their clients through a decision making matrix to help them understand how they want to develop their sites. Aaron Stanski explains that, in general, you’ll spend about twice as much money building new as you would doing a renovation.
Follow God’s calling. // If you’re trying to decide whether to move forward with building or renovating a location versus portable church, ask yourself, is this what God is calling you to do? God leads us to different strategies in different seasons. Walking through The Needs Analysis with Risepointe doesn’t obligate you to a building project, but rather can help clarify the direction that’s best for your church in your current season of ministry.
You can learn more about Community Church at www.communitymi.org. Visit Risepointe’s website at www.risepointe.com to schedule a free call, walk through The Needs Analysis, or explore recent projects.
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 shareit 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 extremelyhelpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor:The Giving Church
As a church leader you know that your ability to execute your vision comes down to Staffing, Facilities and Programming. All of those needs are fueled by one thing: Generosity. The Giving Church, led by Generosity Coach and Founder, Phil Ling, has worked with nearly 1000 churches of all sizes in over 40 different denominations and raised over a billion dollars to fuel ministry. Don’t run out of fuel for your ministry. Transform your ministry with innovative capital campaigns and leadership coaching.
Rich Birch — Hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Man, I’m really looking forward to having you tune into today’s conversation. You know every once in a while we have a conversation where I’m like man I wish that you know thousands of leaders could tune in because I feel like I’m having this conversation time and again and today is one of those conversations. Really excited to have Aaron Mora with us. He’s the Campus Pastor of church called Community Church. It’s a large multisite church in North Central Michigan. Ah he leads the Alma campus and today we’re talking about their transition from portable to a permanent location.
Rich Birch — But we’re this is the two for one Aaron show today because we’re also joined by our friend Aaron Stanski, friend of the podcast. He is the CEO and founder of Risepointe and with fifteen plus years of really helping churches design you know and launch, project manage incredible projects at churches but not just churches also schools and nonprofits all across the country. He’s an expert in this area. Super excited to have both Aarons on welcome. So glad you’re both here today. Thanks for being here.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Aaron Mora — Yeah, thanks.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, thanks, Rich. Happy to do it.
Rich Birch — This is going to be good. Now I’m going to use your last names ah because you know I don’t want people to get lost. Um, you know so hopefully we’re like friends it’s like friends on a baseball team or something. Ah, but so Mora why don’t we start with you tell us about what was going on. Give us the kind of the the 50,000 foot view of Community Church. Tell us a bit of the story. What’s what was happening at the Alma campus here?
Aaron Mora — Yeah, and so um, Community Church initial campus in Mount Pleasant, Michigan – right in the heart of the mitten, if you’re a a Michigan familiar…
Rich Birch — Love it. Yes.
Aaron Mora — …and ah church was growing. And so actually a number of years. I’ve been on on staff about 14 years, you know, do you build a bigger building in Mount Pleasant and ah, an increasing radius of people that were driving. And so good things, you know growth, and so like many churches we we kind of walk down the road of multisite as an option of being able to grow. And so the Alma campus launched in a January of 2020 which in our
Rich Birch — Perfect, perfect timing.
Aaron Stanski — Strategy.
Aaron Mora — yeah, all of our strategy planning, ah pandemic was not part of it. But we launched about 20 minutes down the road in a town called Alma…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Aaron Mora — …our first multi-site location. And ended up it was actually a launch with a good core, about 150 people who were already from that community plugged into the church And we started portable. And so we met in a Youth for Christ building. Great ministry partners of ours. Had thirteen weeks before the pandemic actually hit. But you know still through that you know praise God navigated, still still growth, still momentum.
Aaron Mora — And um and so ah, probably a year, two in – probably ’21, end of ’21, start of ’22 – we were starting talking about, you know what is that permanent location.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Mora — And um, yeah, so that that kind of a quick snapshot of what what connected us initially with Risepointe.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. Well I’m going to give away the punchline. So amazing thing, you guys launched here in ah right at the end of last year, 2023, in your permanent facility. And and here we are kind of end of April. Give us the punchline where are you at today. This is astonishing. I just love this. Where are you at from a growth point of view?
Aaron Mora — It’s it’s ah it’s been incredible. In fact, um, you know through through the good portion of last year, 2023, was the project. In fact I think we were doing demolition in the the spring of 2023. Opened Christmas Eve 2023, and the average attendance over the last three or four months since we’ve launched I mean almost ah it’s been about 80% growth.
Rich Birch — Wow, wow!
Aaron Mora — So almost double which…
Rich Birch — That’s crazy.
Aaron Mora — …which praise God has exceeded our expectations. Those that are walking through the doors, it’s been lots of people who have have ah a category we’ve called de-churched. You know they haven’t been attending church for a number of years. And um and so to have a I think a beautiful, contemporary facility, you know a vibrant church, there’s just been God’s been using it powerfully. And so it’s it’s exceeded I think my my greatest expectations in a way that you know can only be I think something God’s doing.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s amazing. Well I’d love to kind of pick apart that process a little bit. I’m I’m sure I know there are leaders that are listening in today that are you know they’re they’re portable in a location and they’re thinking about this. They’re wondering about this. And I want to kind of pick apart that story. So Aaron Stanski, do you remember when you first got connected with Community and kind of what what did that some of those initial contacts look like?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I mean I I remember some phone conversations, Aaron. I think I think we might have even hopped on a quick Zoom. I know you guys were you know trying to figure some things out. We might have even popped up on a Google search or something…
Rich Birch — Nice.
Aaron Stanski — …ah, that you were doing. And so connected with them. We talked on the phone and then I think initially we were already over in your area like working on a different project or something. So we went ahead and swung by and I remembered zigzagging all over Alma, Michigan. I remember ah, looking at ah there was a weird abandoned hotel. Do you remember this?
Aaron Mora — I do remember this.
Rich Birch — Oh fun.
Aaron Stanski — It was like it had been abandoned for like five or six years. It’d be perfect for a haunted house or something. So we looked at some farm fields.
Aaron Stanski — And and we looked at ah yeah, a few buildings and stuff. We’re just trying to imagine…
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — …what a permanent facility would look like for for them, which was great.
Rich Birch — Nice.
Aaron Mora — Yeah, that and and so it going back to that initial look, um and and and, Rich, I think this this ties so well into what you were talking about. It’s our first time doing a building project for most of us on staff at at the church. And so we’d done a building building projects, you know, thirty years ago but it was before…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Aaron Mora — …most of us were there.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Aaron Mora — And so in that was it was ah absolutely a Google search. It was jumping online…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Aaron Mora — …saying you know, who do we look up? And and so I think I had ah I had a list of like 8 or and and then campus pastor Aaron, and they’re like, Aaron go find somebody.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Aaron Mora — Um, and so I I went line some architects. Um, you know so from from both the church world and and also just ones that just came up that did great designs that we saw we we tried to get some referrals. And I think initially for Risepointe it was a sense of a design and build, so not just designing but also you know, walking through the building project. And then even some of the other pieces that were there I think that initial conversation, and Aaron alluded to it already, was just so like, oh you’re telling me all the things I wanted to know are are here. You’re you’re talking about you know, planning and and more than just the build of having a great building. What do you need.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Mora — And so it was ah it was an easy fit to where you know we’ve we’ve vetted through and end up going with Risepointe.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. Well the thing you know, Aaron Stanski’s a friend. I love him, and I literally all the time we were saying this before we get started, I feel like I’m consistently saying to church leaders, like have you talked with the guys over at Risepointe? Like they’re they’re so helpful. And um now I think you you do this thing called Needs Analysis, right?
Aaron Stanski — Ssure.
Rich Birch — That what what that sounds fancy, but what what is that, Mr. Stanski. Tell us about what is the ah you know the is that this zigzagging across the you know the Alma thing you did?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I mean The Needs Analysis for us, and it’s a process that most of the churches ah like Community that reach out to us go through. And so it’s a process for us at Risepointe to really learn who are they as a church? What are some of the problems they’re trying to solve? Like what is their unique ministry DNA?
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — Who are they trying to reach? Um and so The Needs Analysis is a process where we spend an extended period of time, usually an entire day, ah walking the the team and the staff through a series of exercises and questions and really getting to know them. And and then it’s asking and answering some specific questions around facility and saying okay, how do we solve these problems? So ah, if Alma already had a campus and they were already up and running we would probably be asking the question, How do we maximize ministry on site? Ah, how do we know when we have to expand or add on? What’s some low hanging fruit that just some some things that we think would be helpful for them to consider with their facility that we might have learned from other churches?
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — And then the last thing is like, man, what’s it all going to cost, right? And so if we can answer those questions and present that back in ah in a format that’s clear to understand, and we’re um and it’s answering those questions, then it gives church leaders a lot of times the what they need to kind of move forward and make some decisions.
Aaron Stanski — And so for Alma campus it was not only those things, it was like what what options exist for a building, right? I mean they could have bought a field and built new. They could have you know they could have you know bought some of these other properties. And so we sort of laid that framework out for them. And then they ended up you know, just finding a gem of a property a ah just a ah, really spectacular looking JCPenny building. And I I say that sarcastically. Ah just this JCPenny building that had been sitting there vacant – it was like five or six years right?
Aaron Mora — It had been a but been a while.
Aaron Stanski —Like it wasn’t it wasn’t occupied, right, Aaron?
Aaron Mora — Yeah.
Aaron Stanski — And so, ah for them, it was like man, Okay, here’s this huge JCPenny building.
Aaron Stanski — Ah, it’s for sale. Ah, do we want to buy it? Ah, do we want to buy some of it, or all of it? Ah, and when we renovate it, how much do we want to renovate? What’s it going to cost? And so we walk them through a Needs Analysis to help them figure those things out.
Rich Birch — Right? yeah.
Rich Birch — Okay so ah, just sticking with The Needs Analysis there for a second. So the thing I’ve said to other people—correct me if I’m wrong on this—is man, I would call Risepointe early in the process, like as you know even when you’re in the like we’re not even sure really the questions we’re asking. Is that true? Because the thing I’ve said behind your back, Aaron Stanski, is like if you call them early, you’re going to leverage all their thinking on some of those early foundational questions that could save you huge dollars and time. And you know sure, you could come and say, ah this is the building. We’ve got this building already; help us renovate it. But man, is it better to call earlier, you know, Aaron Stanski?
Aaron Stanski — Um, yeah I mean the earlier the better.
Rich Birch — Right, okay.
Aaron Stanski — If you feel like you’re getting to a point where you’re either running out of space…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Aaron Stanski — …or if you’re getting to the point where you feel like man, we’re not meeting the needs of the community. We’re not able to say yes to some of the the requests that we’re getting.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Aaron Stanski — Or we feel like the facility just isn’t working as well as we think it should. Then definitely reach out.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Aaron Stanski — Ah for a lot of churches like yeah, it’s time to go. It’s time to raise money and stuff. And for a lot of them. It’s like oh these are the things we need to be thinking about…
Rich Birch — Thinking about this stuff. Yeah.
Aaron Stanski — …as we manage our largest capital asset, right? Our our building. So.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love that. And I know you’ll even just book it on a ah call. Which I think is crazy. Like I’m like you’re not even charging for those first kind of discovery call kind of things, which is crazy to me. I’m like that’s nuts, but people should take advantage of that.
Aaron Stanski — Right.
Rich Birch — Well, Aaron Mora, let’s talk about maybe some surprises in that in those early, the early phases. As you were thinking about the project, what was something that you know, kind of bubbled up in the process that was like, oh here’s some you know some kind of thing that I didn’t anticipate or didn’t really see um, through this that you know maybe was a bit surprising?
Aaron Mora — Sure, and and even going back to that Needs Analysis, um, and um I imagine those listening there’s probably a few out there that are similar to me – we’re pretty cheap, you know frugal.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Aaron Mora — Like trying to say you know how how can we get through this spending the least amount of money…
Rich Birch —Yes.
Aaron Mora — …at least not spending needlessly.
Rich Birch —Yep.
Aaron Mora — And so for a Needs Analysis, I think in that first call was a sense of, you know, is this something that we really need? You know we we know we need a building, so is that something that that’s worth the time? And I think I think um on on one hand um, quick quickly walking through it, that process is first of all gold for us. I think there were a lot of answers that we came to that we wouldn’t have otherwise. But then also I think it was also so helpful for Risepointe to really get to know us as part of the the process of getting to that design, so they were able to design something that just fit what we were wanting to do.
Aaron Mora — And so yeah, that initial kind of drive around exploring the community getting to know the community. That particular hotel that that Stanski was was talking about, I think that their their response was you know, maybe buy it and bulldoze it. Like that’s not that’s not worth going into. But even that sense of like, I I don’t know is that just options that we’re looking around at um.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Aaron Mora — One one of the pieces even even related to the the space that we landed on which was a JCPenny, ah it was the JCPenny itself was about 60,000 square feet.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Aaron Mora — It’s right on the main drag going through… Alma’s ah, a small Michigan town of maybe 20,000 people. And so the the main kind of line through town where all the Walmarts and Meijers and everything’s at, ah this JCPenny was right there. So beautiful location. And the initial thought was oh well, let’s buy the whole thing. Um, and so the the thinking though is if you buy 60,000 square feet based on even with some significant growth, what we’d actually need going back to even that budget question of you know what can you afford for for the congregation? You know what do you need it to to do? And I remember us going through you know. feeling this, like well if we don’t buy it now and you know will we regret it in the future? And Risepointe was instrumental to say you know based on your current attendance, based on growth, this is the square footage that you need.
Aaron Mora — And actually made ah something that would have kept me up at night, just a major decision—like do we buy all of it, do we buy part part of it…
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Mora — …was saying you can do everything you want to in this footprint that you buy.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Mora — So we ended up buying about 30,000 square feet.
That’s great.
Aaron Mora — And in that we we initially built in this phase about 22-, 23,000 square feet of that.
Rich Birch — Okay, yep.
Aaron Mora — And it and it’s ah it’s for right us right now ah, a perfect footprint of what we’re in.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great.
Aaron Mora — And so even walking through those types of decisions, I think it was a sense of saying I don’t know if I don’t think I could have Googled an answer to that solution.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Aaron Mora — I think there there was a part of this process that kind of walked us through um in that. And that didn’t that didn’t finish through the design. I think that Risepointe also being a firm that walked all the way through the project, um like Aaron and then ah Chris, one of the the chief architect on the on the project, were just a constant connection, which not every not every organization does, not every designer does.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Aaron Mora — Um and it it really was a relationship.
Rich Birch — Yeah, for sure. Well and I love that, you know, we and when you come to a key decision like that, like there’s one thing you can’t sure you can Google you can find some sort of calculator online. But man, you want to talk to somebody who’s been through this a bunch and has done a bunch of projects. And you know Aaron and the team you know over Risepointe can do that.
Rich Birch — Talk to us from a kind of a campus pastor, pastoral care, you know the kind of spiritual dynamics that that you went through as a church. There’s a part of this that’s you know 20,000 square feet – it’s colors, it’s color swatches, it’s you know, picking chairs, all that stuff. But what what was some of that kind of internal transformation that you went through as a team? How did that, you know, it’s not just about buildings, obviously. What, talk to us about that.
Aaron Mora — No I think that anytime you’re like a building project is a step of faith. Like you’re probably stepping out into the sense of will will the money come in? You know will will people step in? Will people show up? Is it is it going to be something where you put all this money into something and you don’t grow? And so there is a faith aspect of saying um you know, God we’re we’re we’re we’re sensing you leading us this direction. And that started you know before that even even before we got to multisite. And so there’s there’s a bit of you know, anxiety or fear could keep you in this place of saying, well let’s not do anything. You know, we’re comfortable.
Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, yeah.
Aaron Mora — And um and so I think that the part of the relationship with Risepointe could be the sense of someone who’s there giving you confidence beyond, you know, the Holy Spirit, beyond God. But even this this sense of saying, God using, you know, a firm to be able to to walk alongside and encourage and say, oh nope, we’ve seen this done before. You know other people have walked this road. Different problems or things that we bumped in during the project, even say hey we’ve we’ve seen this in other spots. You know, we we can show up at a town town meeting conversation zoning thing, talk the language. I think all of that was incredibly helpful.
Aaron Mora — And I think in that was this this sense of ah the stress didn’t necessarily go away because a building project, there’s lots of different moving pieces and decisions and and things going through there. But I do think having a good relationship with your designer, um with with the architect allows you to be able to navigate that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Mora — And that was incredibly helpful for us.
Rich Birch – Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. Yeah, there’s that Proverbs 12:15 right, the the way of the fool is right in his own eyes. But the wise listens to counsel. And you know I think this is one of those examples of that.
Rich Birch — Well, Aaron Stanski, talk us through when you you know you approach ah ah, church like this comes to you and is like, hey we’re we’re thinking about this kind of thing, give us some of the steps that your or some of the questions those kind of early kind of decision-making points. How are you helping guide them through you know, this decision making process? How do you come alongside them and kind of integrate with their leadership development, or their leadership not leadership development their leadership process for making decisions?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, I mean I think at Risepointe like we’re we’re constantly measuring kingdom impact, right?
Rich Birch — Good.
Aaron Stanski — And so we want to figure out, man, how do we unleash kingdom impact ah in Alma, Michigan? And so we know buildings aren’t going to do ministry, people are. And so like as we as we grow this thing and build it and stuff like as architects, sure, like 60,000 square feet sounds twice as big and twice as much stuff.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Aaron Stanski — And if it was about us and like you know putting projects on our website that would be one thing. But we know we have to hand over a tool ah, to Aaron Mora and his staff and his team that they’re going to use and continue to grow. Ah so yeah, that one big piece that like we’re always trying to you know, develop a plan, a budget plan, a cash flow plan ah, that’s going to set us up for success. So.
Aaron Stanski — Um, you know when we sat down with their leadership and we were looking at their options like the ability to say, no, we can we can only buy half of the building. And then we’re not even going to build all of it out.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — But we’re going to design it in a really unique way with a phase two in mind so that they do have options to grow. Um, and we’re going to create an entrance that looks really cool ah in sort of the corner of this JCPenney building and we’re just going to bring it back to life, you know. And so being able to lay out a really clear ah budget and cash, you know, cash flow positive plan that we feel like ah lines up with um, you know giving and all of those things is really critical in the early phases. Because if we can if we can set set those parameters in place, if we can get the guardrails in place, and say okay we we need this many seats, we need this type of a tool when we’re done, and this is the budgets and you know sort of the things that we feel like God has given us from a resources standpoint, ah then as as Christians and as designers and as partners with the church, we can say, all right, this is the highway we’re on and we can drive that project toward success.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. Yeah you you brought up the money question. I appreciate you bringing that up Aaron Stanski. Um Aaron Mora, talk to us about that piece of it. I’m sure there’s lots of churches out there that are portable right now…
Aaron Mora — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …and they would say, yeah, we’d love to get into a permanent location, but man we just there’s no way, we we can’t afford that. And maybe they haven’t even looked into it. Talk to us through what kind of how did that piece of the conversation – whatever you feel comfortable sharing um, you know on that front.
Aaron Mora — Um, yeah, well and and I think it was ah it definitely was part part of that that part of that step of faith was we’re rural central Michigan. There’s not necessarily deep deep pockets. And not that that you know and every church I think that probably is an aspect of trying to gauge, you know, what is a step of of faith. But for us there really hadn’t been this sense of, you know, ah you know certain individuals that could give write a check…
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Mora — …you know, and build a building type type thing. And so in that was a sense of you know what is what is responsible? What’s reasonable? You know what are we able to to walk into?
Aaron Mora — Um, and so ah and with that having Also you know a faithful foundation that’s within the church. But absolutely it was a sense of how do we get into this to get an amazing building for for the least amount to be good stewards. And you know even going back to the initial thought of looking at fields. There was this thought of you know if you build it from scratch, you get exactly what you want.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Mora — But you know you know what what would it take to make something that right now is an empty box, ah former store, into something that’s incredible. And and I think that ah, this was also helpful in that none of some of those initial conversations just looking at Risepointe’s portfolio and saying oh this is actually stuff that we’ve done in other spaces, in other places. And you can kind of see, okay, that that gives you an example of you know what could be done.
Aaron Mora — Um I I also appreciated I think that Risepointe former projects that they had done, they were able to also talk to ah builders, construction firms in Michigan, and be like hey can you give us right now like you know you just did a project last year, what’s the cost per square foot that you can expect?
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good. That’s good.
Aaron Mora — And then even beyond the construction, looking at FF&E and you know furniture, fixtures, and all those extra pieces. And those were all things that probably wasn’t on our initial list…
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Mora — …but part of that part of that strategic that that ah that initial plan was to say, okay, here’s here’s looking at the whole picture to get into the building. And so it gave us ah a sense of confidence and a plan. Um and praise God I think also a congregation that was saying, but you know let’s keep going; we feel like this is where this is where we’re heading. This is the next step. And so we had you know a lot of unity on that as well.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Aaron Stanski — I love that you threw out just FF and E
Aaron Mora — That’s right and learning the jargon.
Aaron Stanski — That’s right. Like you’ve you’ve learned…
Rich Birch — Yes, that yeah that tells you’ve just come through a project. Yeah, yeah, when you’re saying FF and E. Yeah.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, you’ve learned a lot on the construction and design side through this whole thing.
Aaron Mora — Well and even so even going back to the heart of you know your your ministry, Rich. Like like even going to the heart of of unSeminary. I did not, when I went through seminary, went to reform theological seminary, there was not a class on building projects and…
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Aaron Mora — And I I think in that there I mean what a what a great topic to say there is a lot of it. I remember one of the that initial Needs Analysis, ah the term FF&E was thrown out and I had to Google it on my phone under the table because I had no idea that and no idea what that meant.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Aaron Mora — Ah, but it is It is amazing to see like through that um, yeah, it is kind of a ah learn as you go. And you want wise people around you to help you figure it out.
Rich Birch — Okay, so talk to us about, so you’re you know four or five months into the building. Have you had any experiences now that you’re up and running and you’re like, oh, we should have done this different, or we should have done this different. Is there anything like that that’s kind of, you know, you you pass on, because I’m hoping you’re gonna do for your other campuses you’re gonna do more buildings.
Aaron Mora — Yeah.
Rich Birch — So you know what you what what lessons are you learning?
Aaron Mora — I think one of the biggest lessons actually is before before you get to anything that we’re like I wish I would have done this differently, is um I felt like I was talking to my staff, and also talking to some of my key leaders to say, change is hard.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Aaron Mora — And even if it’s a good change, even if it’s a exciting change, we’re moving into a new building, all this thing, there are some people where change is just hard. Um I want to go back. I want to go you know to you know I liked it, you know, the old way. And so in that to say, you know, people giving comments or responses, A- expect it. It’s going to come. People are going to have opinions about the color. People are going to have opinions about the sound system PA. People and have opinions about everything. Um, expect it. And then also don’t take it just as negative. And I think that was very helpful…
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Aaron Mora — …as I was talking to my staff because you just get this barrage of people saying things. And it would be easy to have this negative mindset of saying, oh man did did we did we mess up or something? Or you are all these mistakes.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Mora — And I think it’s a sense of of you have overwhelming change with things like a building project moving in. We fortunately have a ah I think amazing congregation. Um, but you know through a lot of the design process we kind of kept a certain number of select leaders in that because you didn’t want everyone’s input…
Rich Birch — Right right.
Aaron Mora — …into a lot of those, you know, decisions that are going through. But that being said I think that ah you know, expecting that change is going to be a little bit hard for people.
Aaron Mora — And then there are going to be so there’s ah, there’s a short list of saying, oh yeah I you know I might have changed, I might have done it differently. Nothing overwhelming, but even you know, one small example that I’ve I’ve been going back and forth with Risepointe a little bit is, in our our lobby we have this beautiful lobby as you enter into the building. None of our other campuses have such an intentional space
Rich Birch — Love it.
Aaron Mora — And but sound treatment. So like in that space, it’s a little echoey.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Aaron Mora —And we really didn’t know until you had 200 bodies in there.
Rich Birch — Yeah, so you actually run it. Yeah, yeah, totally.
Aaron Mora —You know what’s it what’s it going to sound like.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Mora — And and then even Risepointe ah Chris who was kind of our our primary connect with saying you know some people love that, you know, kind of the ambient noise echo going through. Um, sometimes it can also be a little overwhelming.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Mora — Um, and so that’s one thing we’re like we got to figure something out, but that’s not so not something we need to figure out today.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Mora — You know in the meantime we have an amazing space that we’re in.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Aaron Mora — Um, other other small things I think that there were there were things that we figured out getting into it that now that we’re now that you’re in the building, you’re kind of living with it, but nothing that was like a complete miss. I think they’re all small tweaks and changes that you expect…
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Aaron Mora — …when you’re moving into a new space.
Rich Birch — Well that, good for you. Like I we opened um I’ve opened a bunch of buildings over the years, and this was not a Risepointe project. Another with another outfit and we opened 107-, 8000 square foots of big, giant building.
Aaron Mora — That’s huge.
Rich Birch — And literally on opening weekend I’m standing watching. We we have the one side we had like this big ramp and all this to get you know help people get in because it was on we was a renovated building as well. And um, I’m standing watching moms pick up their strollers and come up this set of staircase. We put the ramp on the wrong side of the building.
Aaron Mora — Oh no.
Rich Birch — I literally opening opening weekend I’m standing there looking and I was like, oh my word. Like we got all the kids ministries here, but the ramps on the other side. Why did we? Ah! You know so good for you that the fact that you don’t that’s like a pain point for me in my life. And it’s still to this day that project’s 20 years old and that ramp’s never been fixed. So it’s ah it’s a funny, a funny project. But and again not a Risepointe project. So you cannot blame our our Risepointe friends for that.
Aaron Mora — Yeah, there you go.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, see there, you go.
Rich Birch — Stanski talked to us about just going back to that decision point around green field versus renovating a box. Talk to us at kind of a principles level around that because I think there’s something there for us to kind of think through a little bit if we’re early on in a project if other people are wrestling through that. Talk to us through just in general maybe not specifically this project..
Aaron Stanski — Yeah I mean in general, ah I mean we have to be really intentional with the decisions that we’re making and understanding how we’re using our buildings and how we’re leveraging those things. Ah so you know for churches that are looking at, for churches that are multisites or ah, you know, or trying to understand how they’re developing their campuses and their sites, like there’s a whole decision make making matrix that we kind of walk through. Ah but in general I mean you’re gonna be so you’re gonna spend about twice as much money building new as you would renovating. Now there’s…
Rich Birch — Okay, wow.
Aaron Stanski — …there’s a little bit there’s a cost, right? You have to buy the renovated building and so you have to add that in just like, and it’s going to be more expensive than buying flat land. But in general, it’s about twice as much to build new. And so ah in in situations where you know churches have, you know, they’ve already, you know, planted or sent multisites out several times, and they no longer have the option of sending out 150, you know, folks to launch the next campus or places where they’re completely landlocked, or may or may not have an open JCPenny, it’s certainly an option to take a look at what does building new look like and and how do we get there. But yeah, if you can if you can find ah a space that’s ah that works for assembly and is going to meet code and do all of those things, ah, it can be an option to you know to buy an existing space and you’ll definitely save some money there.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. We’ve done we’ve done multiple of of those. In fact, I don’t think any of the projects I’ve done have ever been from a green field. But the the thing about a renovating I found as just a leader renovating a space, in a weird way if the church is looking and you’re actively kind of like paying attention to the market. Um, we can move faster in some cases we can move faster than other people can, which on the people that are selling these properties can actually be really positive.
Rich Birch — And so we we had one of our our campuses was exactly that. It was a it was a company that was they were shutting down this particular operation. They were literally and it came down to like there was a guy from Texas who was still running this project, and he was like I want to go back to Texas and like they were done. They had already written off all their their loss as ah as a corporation. And it literally was like, if you guys can move fast enough, we’ll sell it to you. And it was like a significant discount – 30% under under market.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, yeah.
Rich Birch — Because they were just like, hey you know we’re done. And so we were like, let’s jump on it…
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …and see if we can make it happen. That’s so…
Aaron Stanski — Now what you have to do with existing buildings though is have more contingency…
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Aaron Stanski — …because you’re going to run into things that you don’t expect. And ah…
Rich Birch — Yes. You open up a wall and that did not anticipate there was that there.
Aaron Stanski — Now we did we did open up a wall on the Community Church project after we had done all of the inspections to make sure there was no asbestos anywhere, and we were good to go.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Aaron Stanski — And we went and opened up the first wall—do you remember this, ah Aaron Mora…
Aaron Mora — Yeah, it was on the the outside facade.
Aaron Stanski — …and here’s the first wall…
Aaron Mora — Yeah.
Aaron Stanski — …and it was spray painted ah asbestos. Do not do not demo.
Rich Birch — Ah, oh my goodness. Oh gosh.
Aaron Stanski — And so that was that was a stinger right at the very beginning of the project, right? You’re like shoot.
Rich Birch — Ouch. Yeah, yeah, totally.
Aaron Mora — Hard hard to ignore it when they they write it on. But and that was I think that some of that some of thats that you expect walking into it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Mora — And I think rolling with the punches like I feel like my skin’s a little thicker after walking through…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Aaron Mora — …even just a sense of expecting some of those surprises as they come through. Um, but overall I think that you you you can just keep persevering and you get to the finish line.
Rich Birch — Yup. I kind of liked frankly the the constraint of an existing box to fit the thing into. We’re we’re going through a building project right now. It sounds similar size 20,000 square feet. And and I like I walk in there and I’m like this is fantastic, like it’s great. And a part of it is because it’s like we’re not thinking about how big the box is. We’re trying to figure out what we can do to get it into this box.
Aaron Mora — Yeah.
Aaron Stanski — Mmm-hmm.
Rich Birch — And all the creativity’s around that which is is fantastic. Well Aaron Mora, talk to us you know, there’s leaders that are listening in who are hesitating on even maybe starting this kind of project. They’re like ah, you know, I’m not this feels like they get indigestion just thinking about it. Talk to that leader who, and I want to push them over the edge to say, hey let’s let’s actually get the ball rolling.
Aaron Mora — Um, yeah.
Rich Birch — What would you say to somebody now on this end, you know you’re a couple years in. You know you now have actually opened. Talk to us what you’ve learned, how what what kind of words of encouragement would you say to them?
Aaron Mora — Yeah, I think even thinking back to our initial steps. Um I think that you have to say is is this what we’re called to?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Aaron Mora — You know because I think that there is different strategy for different times. And honestly I think that if God if we felt like God was saying, hey stay portable. I think I think we we hope that we would have responded to that well. Because sometimes you can just chase growth for growth’s sake, and I don’t know if that is always good. One of the things that allowed us to even I think land with Risepointe was I think one of the lines Aaron I think you you shared with me one of our first conversations is like, we know churches. We talk church language.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Aaron Mora — You know, even as we’re getting into some of those kind of Needs Analysis. It’s also this it’s this faith component of saying, is this something that A, God is leading us towards? And then B, is feasible? And I think that those should correlate, right, between the the two of them. But even just a sense of saying um ah A Needs Analysis didn’t obligate us to break ground…
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Mora — …or to to get into a building.
Rich Birch — No.
Aaron Mora — It also you know is part of that that discerning part of that figuring out you know where are we sitting? Um, and then I think in all of it like for us um I think that we we felt pretty confident that even as a portable campus, permanency, having a permanent location was going to was gonna also communicate to the community that hey we’re not just trying this.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Aaron Mora — We’re not, we’re not you know as the maybe the bigger church that’s up the road in another town. We’re not just trying to you know, kind of see if we can fleece you know people coming in or whatever else. Um I think that permanency also communicates a sense of, hey we’re part of this community.
Aaron Mora — Um there was also even just some being portable some challenge of ah of even being associated with the the wonderful ministry that we were meeting in. But sometimes that could even create some confusion…
Oh sure.
Aaron Mora — …around like well is is it a church or is it h it is it this Youth Ministry thing…
Rich Birch — Is that a YFC thing? Or yeah, yeah, yeah.
Aaron Mora — …and is it YFC thing? And I think that’s just inevitable just from, again, not not being visibly there. And so walking through the whole thing I think there was a sense of permanency did bring a certain level of hey we’re we’re here to stay. And then surprisingly you can do all the social media advertising you want, all the word of mouth, but just having ah a big old building with ah with a sign on the main drag, I had no idea you guys existed. And so I think there’s also just a sense…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Aaron Mora — …of you know, if you build they will come. Um, we built a auditorium that was actually a pretty big step of faith, and I think that was going through Needs Analysis saying you know what what size auditorium could we build? It was built with a stage that can actually expand to be slightly larger, which is which was wise, and you know thinking about a potential phase two down the road. But we are already at at two services ah close to, I mean we’re we’re at 90 were 95% full in first service last week…
Aaron Stanski — Wow.
Aaron Mora — …which is significant. And then in our other service, it’s a little more open but it’s you know, 70% full. Most metrics I’ve seen is 80% tends to be when you’re feeling kind of…
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Mora — …ah too full on Sundays. And so we’re already looking at a third service which makes me also say, man, my faith should have been bigger. Like why why didn’t we build this bigger?
Rich Birch — Where’s that expansion with with here’s those other 8000 square feet – let’s go!
Aaron Mora — But but in but in that is a sense also also the sense of saying though, you know, we couldn’t have known.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Aaron Mora — And I think that um and not every situation is going to be that way. There’s been other areas of growth where we’ve not seen that same automatic return. So it’s not even like you know that we did something right. But for whatever reason I feel like God is using this, this project and saying, hey like you you just see people walking in who I mentioned before a lot of them walked away from church…
Rich Birch — Yeah, so good.
Aaron Mora — …five years ago at the start of the pandemic, or they walked away from church. They just stopped attending years ago. Lots of wonderful churches but very traditional churches in this area. Not many that are that are, you know, more contemporary in in Mid-Michigan.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Aaron Mora — And so even just that, this sense of coming in and hearing the gospel. Um, ah those who are far from God and you think, man, God’s using this to reach all these people who had disconnected from the the body of Christ. And and I’m like man that was that was worth it because you know there there were a lot of months last year that were a little stressful, you know?
Rich Birch — Yeah, oh for sure.
Aaron Mora — Yeah that were, you know, kind of ah long hours working through different things. But seeing the fruit of it causes me to say, man, that was that was so worth it. I’ll do that again in a heartbeat…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Aaron Mora — …if that’s something that leads to this this sense of you know, expanding ah, God’s reach through this local church.
Rich Birch — I love that. That’s such a great encouragement. And and I’m ah I’m a big fan of portable. This is not like an anti portable conversation. I think there’s a good developmental step for lots of churches.
Aaron Mora — Absolutely.
Rich Birch — I think it’s a great way to get rolling. And but there is I would echo what you’re saying. Um, I’ve said this in other contexts there is a tangible intangibility that about going permanent that is it’s hard to get onto a spreadsheet. It’s hard to know like how does that how does that fit? Um, you know what I do know is if I was to walk around Alma, Michigan today and say, Hey tell me about a good church in town. Where is a good church? And I just talked to people on the street they’re going to point at buildings. They’re going to point at, now we know that the body of Christ and the church is the collected body of believers – that it’s it’s a group of people. It’s not a physical building. We know that.
Rich Birch — But that’s not what people who don’t go to church that’s not what they think about.
Aaron Mora — Yeah.
Rich Birch — They think about the actual physical building. And there’s something to that that is that makes a difference to or the excel it can be an accelerating factor ah in our growth. Aaron Stanski, talk to maybe ah, an executive pastor person who’s leaning in today who’s listening. And they’re like maybe a little bit more of the nickels, and you know measuring the the pencils, and thinking about that. You know I love Executive Pastors, friends who are listening in. I’m not making fun of you. Ah, but what would you say to them if they’re thinking about this kind of step? What should their takeaway be from that side? Um you know, if they’re thinking, man, I wonder if we should move these campuses in or this campus into a physical location?
Aaron Stanski — Ah, yeah I mean, I think there’s a lot of things to count there. Um, but I know I know one of the things that we that we quickly noticed and you know Aaron Mora had pointed this out at their portable location is that there were lids that were preventing them from growing. Um.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Aaron Stanski — They had plenty of seats in the gym that they were you know setting up in and stuff, but there were other places of the facility, some kids rooms that were completely maxed out, zero community space with hallways and some other things. And it it does get cold in Michigan so it’s kind of important to have some indoor gathering space. So there were some lids that were going to prevent them from growing.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — And so like how are we going to address those lids. And you know I’m sure if my wife and I I mean we’re christians already, if we moved over to Alma, Michigan we’d find community and like we’d participate and stuff, and that would be great. Um, but the question becomes like if if they were still portable and those lids were existed existing there, and the Holy Spirit told me, man, I need to invite my lost neighbor or my coworker to come to church with me. If the next thought out of my brain is but I got to tell them to get there early so that they get a parking spot.
Aaron Stanski — Or I have to explain to them, go down the weird hallway and like the, or kids or if there’s some sort of excuse that I have to make ah in that invitation, then that’s a problem, right? And you can address it a lot of different ways, right? And we’ve talked about them on this podcast, and we should consider them, like adding more services ah like, you know, expanding expanding campuses, all of those other things. But when we’ve exhausted those resources and those families live in that community and want to go to a place that loves on their kids and they can learn about Jesus and stuff, that’s when it’s time to make room for more.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Aaron Stanski — And we have to figure out the best most effective way to do it.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. What what um, give us a sense ah if a church has A Needs Analysis, I want to underline something that that was said. Like the assumption isn’t that oh you’re necessarily going to do a building project like.
Aaron Mora — No.
Rich Birch — You know I’ve said to church leaders who are facing facility issues, I’ve said man, you should you really should get Aaron and his team in from Risepointe because you know they they might convince you out of a building project and say actually, let’s make these three changes and that’ll get you another 2 years and then that gives you more time. Talk to us about that Aaron Stanski…
Aaron Stanski — Yeah I mean we’ve done that.
Rich Birch — …that kind of dynamic. Right. Yeah.
Aaron Stanski — We’ve done that plenty of times.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — I mean at the heart of what we do, we’re church leaders ourselves.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Aaron Stanski — We’re all actively serving and like at our churches and stuff too. And so the assumption isn’t that building is the solution, right?
Rich Birch — Right. It’s good.
Aaron Stanski — The assumption is God is doing something unique in and through this community and we have to understand how are we using our building.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Aaron Stanski — How are we aligning our building in our facility to our mission and vision and is there an opportunity to do it at ah at a better scale.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Aaron Stanski — And so yeah for lots of churches iIt’s like man, what what makes you unique? What are how are you serving your community, and what does it look like to do some of those things? Some churches it’s It’s like we’ve moved offices out.
Rich Birch — Right.
Aaron Stanski — And by doing that that’s high space and we’re able to add more seats and and some of those other things…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Aaron Stanski — …and for a fraction of the cost of what it would, you know you know, be to do something else we’ve identified a solution that yeah is going to unleash them for the next two years three years four years, and if God continues to bless, you know, then we can look at brick and mortar.
Rich Birch — Love that. Again, bad for business. Great for the kingdom. I’m like you should every solution should be build a new building. Ah, but again, this is why I love Aaron and the team at Risepointe because they really are trying to come alongside. These people love churches and they want to help. And this has been just such a great conversation today.
Rich Birch — Well it’s kind of have last words. Aaron Mora, if people want to kind of track with Community Church and you know track with the church, where do we want to send them online to kind of follow along, to check out the story, that sort of thing?
Aaron Mora — Yeah, because Community Church is kind of a generic name. In fact, a couple years ago we went through a process of rebranding.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Aaron Mora — And we went around, had a whole process of finding finding names for churches and we actually loved, came back to our name, Community Church.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Aaron Mora — Which um so community MI – MI as in Michigan – communitymi.org…
Rich Birch — Michigan. Yep.
Aaron Mora — …is our website. And of course Facebook and other spots as well. Um, and so you want to check it out. I think that ah you know even looking at the the Alma campus specifically, um, we just finished the project but I think there’s some pictures probably getting posted on Risepointe’s site um, to be able to to peek in and see what it looks like. And I just have to tell you I am so stinking proud like of what we ended up with.
Rich Birch — Aw that’s good.
Aaron Mora — Um, you know, even like some of the the colors coming from between the carpet, going up the walls in the kids space, and indoor playground, which in Michigan is killer…
Rich Birch — Big deal. Yep.
Aaron Mora — …place for for moms groups to be able to already start meeting in. Um, it just it it looks fantastic. In fact, I think ah we’re in a more rural context. We’re about an hour north of Lansing, about 2 hours north of Detroit, Michigan. People walk in and be like, I can’t believe this church is here.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love it.
Aaron Mora — So check it out – I’m ah super super happy with the project.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s that’s good to hear, man. That’s that that makes me happy because there are a lot of church leaders who go through these things and they come to the end of them and they’re like, man we just burned so much money, time, effort, energy. I lost way too much time with my kids…
Aaron Mora — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …and I walk around this building and feel like, it’s okay, you know. So I love the fact that you’re you know you’re feeling that. And I did see some of those pictures and it’s funny as we’re going through, I’m like this is the problem with podcasts is like, it’s a beautiful facility – just trust us!
Aaron Mora — It’s good.
Rich Birch — So Aaron Stanski where do we want to send people to actually see pictures of this project?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And if they want to you know, connect with you and do A Needs Analysis, all that stuff, where do we want to send them online?
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, you can just go to risepointe.com – that’s Risepointe with an E dot com. And ah yeah, actually the ah the Alma project is going to be right on our homepage. You just scroll down there and you’re going to see it. There’ll be 2 projects down there but you can click on that one. There’s going to be tons of photos. So you’ll see some of the finished photos of the space. Ah there’s also going to be some of the renderings. So some of the initial renderings of what did we what did we pitch and how did it actually get done. And then I think we’ll even have a cleaned up site ah floor plan.
Rich Birch — Oh great.
Aaron Stanski — So if you kind of want to get a sense of what does that floor plan look like, what are some things that ah you might compare to you know, kind of some of your spaces at your church – that’ll be on there. You’ll also notice that we took the entire floor plan and we just kind of kinked it about 15 degrees or so. I think we’ve all walked into a big box store and we didn’t want it to feel like a box. We wanted it to feel very community-oriented. So just a little bit of ah of a tilt there on the floor plan will give you a sense of of some of the things that we did.
Aaron Stanski — Um, and yeah, if you want to get connected with us, there’s buttons right there on the on the homepage of Risepointe as well. Ah, you can click right on that if you want to have a conversation, you just fill out a little form and pick a time that works for you. We’d love to connect, hear more about what God is doing at your church, and how we at Risepointe could help.
Rich Birch — That’s crazy again. I say that right on the front page. I’ve said this to Aaron before, it’s just a click a schedule to call schedule a call button – that’s nuts that they make it so easy. So that’s ah, you really should do that friends I know there’s people that are listening in that you as we’ve been talking today, you’re like, man, that really does describe a campus or that describes our church and man we’re early. We’re not even sure. I feel nervous talking to these guys. No no, reach out click that button, book the call. That’s a great next step.
Rich Birch — I appreciate you guys being on this on the on the call today and being a part of the podcast. Ah, thanks for being here, the two Aarons. It’s been a great.
Aaron Mora — That’s right.
Rich Birch — The first time I’ve had a double Aaron podcast. So glad for you guys being here today. Thanks for being here. Take care.
Aaron Stanski — Yeah, thanks, Rich.
The Discipleship Opportunity: Blueprint for a Post-Everything Church with Daniel Im
Jun 06, 2024
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We have Daniel Im joining us, the Lead Pastor of Beulah Alliance Church in Alberta, Canada.
The world is a very different place from what it was just a few years ago. While it’s tempting for churches to try to find a way back to how things used to be, is that actually the best way forward? Tune in as Daniel challenges churches to change their leadership strategies and approach making disciples, evangelism, and preaching in a different way.
Spiritual hunger. // Beulah Alliance Church has experienced significant growth while accommodating the expanding population of Edmonton, Alberta. The city is a microcosm of the global shifts we’re seeing, with its post-Christian culture and increasing diversity. Yet even in this context there’s a noticeable spiritual hunger and a quest for deeper meaning. People are more open to exploring the supernatural and are seeking purpose beyond the material world, including exploring Christianity.
Post-everything world. // Everything in today’s world is vying for our attention as church leaders. During the pandemic it was racial tensions and masking mandates. Now it’s everything happening politically. Jesus needs to be our North Star above everything else. Experience the move of the Holy Spirit and share the truth from scripture. Orient yourselves around King Jesus and hold to your convictions.
Church and growth. // Daniel began digging into the church growth movement asking what assumptions are we still believing? He looked back seventy years to the beginning of the movement and discovered we have assumptions about church and growth, which lead to a lot of shame. We need to lay aside assumptions that, of course, people will come to church and, of course, the church will grow today.
Focus on the interested. // Most churches focus either more on discipleship for believers or evangelism for unbelievers. Daniel challenges us to consider another axis. Rather than trying to attract and create interest, what if we shifted our focus to engaging those who are already interested? Shift your focus in preaching, discipleship, and evangelism to be focused on the interested, whether they are Christians or non-Christians.
Leaving room for the Holy Spirit. // Rather than trying to be better than the church next door, give people the truth and word of God in a way that peaks curiosity and holds attention. Be compelling in preaching and have excellence, but also leave room for the Holy Spirit to move.
The Great Commission. // Daniel wrote a book called “The Discipleship Opportunity: Leading a Great-Commission Church in a Post-Everything World” which digs more deeply into this framework. Here he explores the four quadrants of engagement which include: sleepers (uninterested non-Christians), consumers (uninterested Christians), seekers (interested non-Christians), and fully discipled individuals (interested Christians). The first half of Daniel’s book focuses on deconstructing our assumptions about the church growth movement. The second half explores strategies for reaching, discipling, and preaching to the sleepers, seekers, consumers, and disciples in our post-everything world.
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 shareit 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 extremelyhelpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
Since 1953 CDF Capital has helped church leaders and individuals bring light to the world through the thoughtful stewardship of their capital. The Church, including your church, requires more than just financial capital, it also needs spiritual and leadership capital. While separate in purpose, these three forms of capital are intertwined and inseparable for the cause of kingdom growth. Together, when we partner with the Lord to bring spiritual, leadership, and financial capital to a church, the results are transformational. At CDF Capital our ministry is simple:we lend money to churches.
CDF Capital, in partnership with Barna Group, conducted a research study to better understand what happens in churches after a new leader comes in. Barna Group interviewed 111 pastors online who have experienced a leadership transition within the last 12 years. Click here to get your free download of the study.
Episode Transcript
Rich Birch — Hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Super excited about today’s conversation. You know from time to time I get to have repeat guests, and you know when we have repeat guests on they’re they’re on because they’ve got something really important to say and today is no exception. Super excited to have Daniel Im with us. He’s the lead pastor of a church that you should be tracking with – Beulah Alliance Church in Alberta, Canada. This is a fantastic church. Daniel, you might know him from there, but he’s also a podcaster, a bible teacher, writer and really has an incredible passion for the local church. He’s got a book coming up that I want to make sure that you pick up for your team. But before we get to that we’re going to hear, talk about lots of other stuff. Daniel, welcome to the podcast.
Daniel Im — Rich, it’s a joy just to hang out with you and to see you know have the record button pushed as well. It’s going to be fun.
Rich Birch — Yeah, glad to have you on today and it’s nice to always connect with other podcasters because you know you got good mic…
Daniel Im — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …and I know that we’re going to get good audio.
Daniel Im — Yes.
Rich Birch — We’re definitely going to get a good audio.
Daniel Im — It’s important.
Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s a good thing. Okay, so fill out the picture a little bit give me the Daniel Daniel Im story and give us talk about Beulah kind of tell us a little bit more there.
Daniel Im — Yeah, so in a nutshell Beulah is 102 years old, a multiplying church, over 30 churches have been started from this.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Daniel Im — Started streaming not in 2020 but in the 1930’s. So’ve been doing that for a little bit. And yeah, just a a legacy of multiplication in this church. It’s my second time back. So I had served here before and then I lived in Nashville, worked at Lifeway, consulting with churches across North America and and in Australia quite a bit doing just what does multiplication look like? Started something called newchurches.com, did that with Ed Stetszer. So yeah, it’s essentially was loving that, loving living in Nashville. The country music thing didn’t work out so life way was my backup.
Rich Birch —Nice. That would be good, I would love that.
Daniel Im — Not really, not really.
Daniel Im — No, really no, but I ended up coming back to Canada after 5 years living there to do succession. So it wasn’t necessarily something that was on my radar, but as we prayed through the opportunity to come back I was following the footsteps of a incredible leader, Keith Taylor. Led for 30 years so faithfully. And yeah to to do succession here was it’s a long story but definitely sensed God’s leading in it. And it’s been 3 years since, 5 years since I came back and 3 years being in the lead pastor seat. So yeah.
Rich Birch — Love it. So good. When when did you actually move back to Canada? Was that was it 2019, was it right before covid?
Daniel Im — Yeah, August 2019. So, yeah…
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s amazing.
Daniel Im — Succession not trying not to be the scapegoat following a 30 year legacy guy…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Daniel Im — …but also doing it through covid was lots of fun.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Daniel Im — …lots of fun. Yeah.
Rich Birch — Well there’s there’s so much we yeah we could talk about there. But ah, but the thing I want to talk about today. So for folks that aren’t listening I think… so first of all things are really happening at Beulah Alliance. There’s some really so exciting times. I want you to tell us a little bit about that. But but before we get there. Um, just some context. So folks that don’t know um Alberta, you’re in Canada, Edmonton. Um, you know I really do think that the context that you’re serving in, man, so many of us can um, can learn from. I think you have a really unique seat as a as a person as a Canadian serving in Canada.
Rich Birch — Because in a lot of ways I feel like our culture here, it’s like 2 or 3 steps—I don’t know is it forward? Is it backward? I don’t know—then then the States.
Daniel Im — Um, yeah.
Rich Birch — It’s kind of like where it’s where our American context is is heading. It feels like the kind of thing and then it’s inside of all of that man, you’re leading a church that’s thriving that’s multiplying. Man, there’s so much there. But kind of give us some of the bullet points about what’s happening at Beulah and then let’s talk about, you know, the context that you’re in.
Daniel Im — Yeah, a hundred percent. So Beulah so we’re four campuses. We just got our a new building that we’re going to be launching a fifth campus in.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Daniel Im — So we’re multiplying within greater Edmonton. We do multi-site outside of greater Edmonton. Our focus is church planting. So that’s a strategic decision in that. Um, but when it comes to Bula and when it comes to Edmonton and we’re the home of the Edmonton Oilers. So that’s often why people know us. If you ah speak at conferences, you probably have come to Edmonton for something…
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — …conference that was called Break Forth ah, for some reason always happen in the winter.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Daniel Im — So that’s typically the second reason people might know Edmonton but…
Rich Birch — Yes, ah their impression plays to stereotype, Edmonton plays to stereotype in the winter time for sure, you know, so cold.
Daniel Im — Ah yes yeah winter five, six months out of the year.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Daniel Im — But beyond that we’re around 1.6 million people as a kind of a metropolis area, very multiethnic, multigenerational. Just to give you a sense, Canada is about 10% the size of the States. So Canada in 2023 grew by 1,000,000 people, okay, which may not seem like a lot compared to how big the US is, but compared in Canada that’s that’s quite a big jump for us.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Daniel Im — And 200,000 of those 1,000,000 people moved to Alberta. Okay, so…
Rich Birch — Wow. Oh my goodness.
Daniel Im — Yes. So just if you think about that growth and then you think about the city of Edmonton and and and the fact that about 50,000 people have moved from elsewhere in the country into Alberta.
Rich Birch — Yeah
Daniel Im — So a lot of the growth is immigration, but 50,000 people are from other provinces. And then in Edmonton over the last five years has experienced probably a 200,000, 300,000 growth in population. Okay,
Rich Birch — Wow, wow.
Daniel Im — So all of that to say the world is moving, You know…
Rich Birch — To Edmonton!
Daniel Im — The world is moving to Edmonton. Yeah yeah, yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely.
Daniel Im — Experiencing a real winter for the first time. Right?
Rich Birch — Yes, yes, oh my goodness.
Daniel Im — But having said that, there are so many people who are moving here. And as a result when it comes to our church context, we are seeing rapid growth happening by and large by a lot of the new people that are coming here and and and either, and um, it’s not just christians but non-christians as well. Just it’s change. It’s transition.
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — And in this post-pandemic, post-truth, really post-everything world that we’re living in, there’s a I’m seeing a greater hunger spiritually than I’ve ever seen before. It’s not it’s not the atheists that are saying God is dead. No, people are like no there is a supernatural. There is more to life than what I see with my eyes…
Rich Birch — So true.
Daniel Im — …and they’re they’re they’re coming to a church.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Daniel Im — They’re they’re finding us. And and I’m not only seeing that in our church, I’m seeing that in other sister churches across Edmonton too.
Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely. I love that. There’s so much I want to unpack there. That part at the end, um, so I would agree. There seems to be some sort of movement. I remember when I started and this is me talking about me, not about you, Daniel, because I’m about to say something self-deprecating. Most of my experience has been in the broadly attractional church movement. You know that’s where and and I was thinking about this and talking about this recently with a leader, a friend of mine who I’ve been leading with for years. And I said you know when we first started leading a lot of what we were trying to do well we used to say we ain’t your mama’s church.
Daniel Im — Yes.
Rich Birch — But now I feel like so many people come into our churches who they they’ve never been to church. Their parents haven’t been to church.
Daniel Im — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Their grandparents have not been to church. This deconstruction, people are showing up hungry.
Daniel Im — Yes.
Rich Birch — They’re showing up. No one is no one is stumbling into our churches, like oh I came because you got a great band.
Daniel Im — No.
Rich Birch — It’s like I’m showing up, I’ve got questions and I am looking for some sort of encounter. You said this here and you said this in another context and it grabbed my attention: post-everything. That really struck me. Talk to me. What do you mean by post-everything?
Daniel Im — Yeah, so so when I sat down and I’m trying to do succession, I’m trying to lead this church to emerge out of the pandemic. I’m trying to make sure that Jesus is our north star. Okay because it was so easy for it to be the racial tensions that was going on politically, masking mandates. Everything was vying I feel for our attention as church leaders. And for us here at Beulah and with our board we were like, no how do we just make sure that King Jesus is our north star, right? And that’s why that’s why we even put that in our vision awakening greater Edmonton to King Jesus.
Rich Birch — So good.
Daniel Im — So with that being our filter um, the the context that we are living in, it’s fascinating right? Because the truth the truth is, according to our world, in you, right? I hate when people say “you be you”. I like I hate that because I know it’s It’s one of those popular slogans.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, it sounds good.
Daniel Im — People just say it.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Daniel Im — Yeah, sounds good. It sounds accepting.
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — And and I actually think a lot of Christians say it without really understanding the worldview that they’re perpetuating.
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — Because you be you essentially is saying truth is inside of you. The truth isn’t objectively, here are the scriptures…
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — …here is the truth.
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — God is the truth creator, the maker, all… the truth isn’t what you feel, you know. Here’s the truth. It’s outside of you. Tim Keller’s talked a lot about it like before he passed. Um, so with all that being said, yes we live in a post-truth world. We live in a post-christian world. Um, we we live in this world where where people actually now we are seeing that it’s it’s not necessarily, Oh you’re Christian no I’m going to check out everything except Christianity. We’re not seeing that anymore, right? People are like well not actually…talk to me about what you believe. What what what what who is Jesus. Like what what is this all about? Like we’re seeing that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — And and some call it post-Christian. Some now say it’s pre-Christianian.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Daniel Im — There’s there’s there’s all these terms flying around. But we’re really seeing a a fresh, it’s really a fresh opportunity to not attract people with our tactics and strategies, to not try to stir up interest but to actually share the truth, be real about our convictions, talk about Jesus, experience the move of the Holy Spirit. People are longing for the supernatural. We’re not we’re not an overly charismatic church. We’re a Christian a Missionary Alliance Church which is a little bit of a centrist middle of the road sort of denomination. But we are seeing the Spirit of God move and and that’s that’s that post-everything world we’re living in.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. A. B. Simpson’s tribe. Love love…
Daniel Im — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …love them. Savior, sanctifier, healer, coming King – gotta love it.
Daniel Im — Yeah, you got it man.
Rich Birch — That’s so good. That’s that’s fantastic. Now so let’s let’s talk about that a little bit more. So if so I think you’re I think you’re assessment of the culture is really true. I think we are living in this culture where you know things have shifted. They’ve changed. That is obviously going to impact the way we ah lead people closer to Jesus, the way we help them grow. What are you seeing, maybe some of the shifts and changes that are different than say. 20 years ago or when, you know, five years ago when you were in seminary, you know
Daniel Im — Yeah.
Rich Birch — I like to have yeah like I saw to think it was just a few years ago…
Daniel Im — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …but I know it was longer than that.
Daniel Im —Yeah, full on full on.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Daniel Im — So so, Rich, you you said earlier that you were you grew up in this attractional movement and and I think most pastors that are pastoring today are heavily influenced…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Daniel Im — …either positively or negatively or some ah it’s in the air that we breathe right?
Rich Birch — Yes, yep.
Daniel Im — The attractional movement, which you know…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Daniel Im — …the predecessor is that that church growth movement right?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Daniel Im — So so it it is just in the air that we are a part of. It’s in the air that our seminaries were formed out of. I graduated from Fuller, which was the center and hub of the church growth movement in many respects. So with that being said, what’s changed? Because as we’ve emerged out of this pandemic, so I didn’t want to write a pandemic book or a post-pandemic book. But as we have emerged out of it, it’s interesting how normal some things feel and how different other things feel. And and and when I think about the books that are on my bookshelf, and the things that I’ve that I learned in seminary, and didn’t learn in seminary, and all that, it’s so easy in a world that sort of feels like it used to, it’s so easy just to go back to what worked and what I was taught.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Daniel Im — And to go back to those tried and true resources. But the world that we’re living in is actually very different.
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — It’s very different the the philosophy the worldviews. All of that is is very different. So what I essentially did was I went back as far as I could, seventy years, seventy years to the beginning of the church growth movement. I did a literature review, went to the fathers the fathers and the grandfathers of that movement. And then I was like, my my main question was what are we still doing that is actually from all the way back then, seventy years old, what are the assumptions that we are still believing? We would never attribute it to church growth movement.
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — We would never attribute it to seeker sensitive, attractional and we would never do that. But it’s just ah, such a part of our the foundation of our thinking.
Rich Birch —Yeah, it’s just in the water, right? It’s in the air. Yeah yeah for sure. Yeah.
Daniel Im — Yeah yeah, and and the two assumptions I uncovered were, of course church, and of course growth.
Daniel Im — And that those two assumptions are still in the bones. It’s in our water that that actually I’m not going to say who said this who wrote it because I don’t want to throw shade. But this is from the 50s and one of the fathers of all this said this: a shrinking church is a sinning church.
Rich Birch — Oh wow.
Daniel Im — Like you never you never hear anyone say that today, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah, right, right.
Daniel Im — Ah, but but but he said a shrinking church is a sinning church. And I think for most pastors if your church isn’t growing, and and I’m I’m I’m so grateful that we are actually larger than we were pre-covid. And and I’m not the only one saying that there’s many who are saying that. But for everyone who’s like actually we haven’t recovered, we’re smaller than we were. That line, right…
Rich Birch — Weighs heavy.
Daniel Im — No one’s going to say that.
Rich Birch — Yeah for sure.
Daniel Im — But it weighs heavy, and I think how we feel it as church leaders today is we feel shame. We feel guilt. We may not say, “I’m sinning,” but we feel the shame. We feel as, we feel as if what am I doing wrong? What is wrong with me? And what shame says is, you are not enough.
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — So so it’s this sense of it’s this weight that church leaders are carrying around. And I just start off I’m like no you know those are assumptions that are no longer true, right? We can’t lead our churches believing that, of course people are going to come to church. Of course people are interested in church, or of course growth is natural. Of course. No, we we need to lay those assumptions aside and lead in a different way today.
Rich Birch — Well, that’s yeah, that’s you know convicting. Obviously it’s you know there’s those that notion that you know hey if we’re shrinking we’re sinning. You know I think that lands hard for people. I you know I think and there are you know I I talk to a number churches who are um, you know who are kind of above covid numbers. As much as we’ve said like I feel like it was two years ago we kept saying please stop talking about you know, comparing ourselves there.
Daniel Im — Right.
Rich Birch — But we’re still you know four or five years later…
Daniel Im — We still are. Yeah yeah.
Rich Birch — …we’re still thinking about that right? And you know the the reality of it is, it’s all of our churches are a brand new church…
Daniel Im — Yes.
Rich Birch — …from where we were in 2019, and you know in more ways than one. So being that that’s the case. So I understand the kind of deconstruction part of it. What were some of those steps that you believe, either you’re taking at Beulah or you believe as churches we should be pivoting towards? What would that what what would be some of those?
Daniel Im — Yeah, okay, so the so the major one would be, it’s it’s from the Engel scale. It is the Engel scale. And and if and if you’re not familiar, if listeners aren’t familiar with that scale, essentially it’s it’s a linear scale left to right: How far away are you from God on the non-christian side of things and how and then and then zero that point is conversion. And then on the other side, the plus side is your discipleship journey, right? So by and large most of our churches either focused on the left side. We’re evangelistic. We want to reach the non-christians, or focus are the non-christians and then we’ll disciple.
Daniel Im — Or you had churches on the right side who are like, no, our focus is discipleship. It’s reaching Christians, and then we’re going to do evangelism. And whether, and this is broad strokes, but but whether you are on more focusing on reaching non-christians or focusing on christians, both had their strengths and both had their weaknesses. What I noticed, and this is that the major paradigm shift that I want to propose and that I propose in this book, is instead of forming and focusing your churches either on the left or the right, either on reaching non-christians or Christians.
Daniel Im — What if we realized that there’s another axis? That there are both the uninterested and the interested. And this wasn’t a pandemic thing. I think what happened in the pandemic is these people revealed their levels of interest and we begin we began seeing this in our churches and in our communities. But this is this has been in in around for a while. I was just harder to see.
Daniel Im — So when you think about it and you think about your community. Yeah, you know what, through the pandemic I’m sure you heard people and and I’m sure you heard people saying, hey wow like I love that I’m watching you. And then watching them and what… Like in following Jesus, watching is not a verb that should be in our vocabulary.
Rich Birch — Right. Come watch me.
Daniel Im — Right? That’s not that’s that’s all so heavily consumeristic, right?
Daniel Im — And and and I heard Christians talking about it in a positive regard…
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — …and a positive way. We’re watching. It’s like no, we should worship…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Daniel Im — …actively follow. So so we saw that, right? We saw this this level of interest and faith level of interest in discipleship to Jesus where Jesus says come and die. We saw that interest level go down among many people. They became uninterested Christians, which I call consumers. But I also saw the interest level go up. I don’t know if you saw this too, but I saw so many people I’ve never seen people as frequently come and worship and get involved than I’ve than I’ve ever seen. And and it’s it’s like is frequency every other week, is frequency once a month?
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — Among some yes, but among others, no, it’s more than once a week again
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — And I’m seeing that interest grow. So I saw that interest/uninterest divide happened on the christian side but I also saw it happen on the non-christian side where it’s like all of a sudden Mother’s Day, Christmas Eve, Easter I’m not going anymore…
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — …because there’s no point.
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — There’s no benefit. I want to be safe. I’m gonna stay at home. I’m gonna watch. Are you actually watching, right?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Daniel Im — And there’s this there’s this sense where people spiritually on on we saw this divide some went to sleep, right? They’re the sleepers, and others actually increased in their interest to the point where, I’ll I’ll share a quick story…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Daniel Im — …where where this one guy he had not been in church for over two decades.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Daniel Im — He moved to Edmonton from Toronto last year and stuff’s going on in his life that he doesn’t have answers to. He’s not a person of faith, doesn’t have answers. He’s seeking. Last time he’s been in church is over two decades.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Daniel Im — And he grew up going to catholic school. So he was like, you know what, I’m going to let me try Christianity.
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — Let me see… right? And it was an option. So he googles catholic churches near me.
Rich Birch — And he gets Beulah Alliance.
Daniel Im — Beulah Alliance Church is the number one top result. Okay, and I gotta tell you, Rich, I gotta tell you this…
Rich Birch — Ah, don’t tell the arch don’t tell the archbishop.
Daniel Im — …yeah, yeah! I got to this isn’t this isn’t some like ninja style…
Rich Birch — Yeah yes, it’s a church growth hack.
Daniel Im — …search engine marketing search engine optimization hack.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Daniel Im — We are not doing any sort of Catholic Church keywords.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Daniel Im — We’re not targeting. That’s that’s not a part of this at all.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Daniel Im — And we tried repeating this on multiple devices and it doesn’t work.
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — We were the number one search result we can’t repeat it. And every other search result is a Catholic Church in Edmonton.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Daniel Im — Okay, you try to tell me that that’s not God working through Google.
Rich Birch — Yes, yeah, absolutely.
Daniel Im — Right?
Rich Birch — That’s cool.
Daniel Im — So so what’s interesting is this individual, he would not maybe he would have been asleep.
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — But what’s happening in his life. God is stirring, right? He’s moving. We know that Jesus leaves a ninety-nine, goes after the one, that he’s pursuing people. He’s calling people to himself. He is calling this guy to himself
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — Stirs him up. He now moves from uninterested to interested. We didn’t do that. It wasn’t our ads.
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — The Holy spirit is moving people from uninterested to interested, right?
Rich Birch — Yep.
Daniel Im — We are mindful of our Google reviews. We are mindful of of of being visible. There there’s all the best practices that we are very mindful of he finds us not by our own accord or our own effort. He comes, and he experiences church like he’s never experienced before. He experiences God moving.
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Daniel Im — This isn’t a dead religious thing that some people are observing. He experienced a vibrant church family where the Spirit of God is moving powerfully. He experienced that. He experienced people crying in the service. He experienced people singing with all of their heart.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Daniel Im — He experienced a full room of multiple generations and not just gray hair and a dwindling church right? He experienced that. Like you try to tell me that that’s not God…
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — …stirring in the stirring in his heart, calling him back to himself. And that’s what we’re seeing that there’s this interested and uninterested divide happening.
Rich Birch — Okay so I’ve got the quadrant on my paper in front of me.
Daniel Im — Yeah.
Rich Birch — We’ve got kind of the the far from God and then the fully discipled.
Daniel Im — Yes.
Rich Birch — That’s one way. And then we’ve got uninterested and interested.
Daniel Im — Yes.
Rich Birch — So the far from God uninterested, they’re asleep. That’s the category title. Is that the title you’re using?
Daniel Im — Yeah, yes, sleepers.
Rich Birch — They’re sleepers.
Daniel Im — Then the uninterested non-christians yes sleepers.
Rich Birch — Yeah, and then you’ve got consumers are uninterested christians.
Daniel Im — Yes, that’s right. Yeah.
Rich Birch — And then you’ve got the ah the ah the the interested non-believers are stirred…
Daniel Im — Seekers.
Rich Birch — …seekers. Okay, oh nice, we’re using that word again.
Daniel Im — Yeah yes, read yeah exactly, because they are, right? They are using they are seeking.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes, and then and then the fourth quadrant that kind of interested…
Daniel Im — Yeah, yeah would be disciples.
Rich Birch — …disciples, fully discipled.
Daniel Im — Yeah.
Rich Birch — And so when you when you think about our opportunity, like are what we should be thinking about or wrestling with, which of those quadrants should we really be thinking through and and you know if we’re rallying our team together. Um I love a good four-quadrant conversation.
Daniel Im — Yeah.
Rich Birch — So yeah, let’s talk to us about that.
Daniel Im — And and and what I’m not doing is I’m not saying, hey we were you know bilateral linear, left or right, non-christian or Christian, and now there’s four. No, within each quadrant there’s a spectrum, right? Because.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Daniel Im — Because you can be a brand new disciple and you can grow to be a disciple maker…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Daniel Im — …and you’re right, there’s all of that within there. So what I’m proposing and what we’re doing at Beulah and what I’m seeing happen more and more is instead of focusing on either non-christians or christians, and wrestling with that age-old are you more discipleship or evangelism or evangelism or discipleship?
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — Like that’s been a ah constant conversation…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Daniel Im — …for the last couple decades.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Daniel Im — What if we actually flipped it and said I’m I’m I’m going to be our everything that we do, our preaching, our evangelism, our disippleship, our everything is actually going to be on the interested.
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Daniel Im — We’re going to reach actively both the interested non-christians and the interested christians.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Daniel Im — So what we’re not going to do is we’re not going to try to attract, right? And and we’re not going to we’re not going to try to be better than the church next door. We’re not going to be we’re not going to try to do any of that sort of stuff anymore.
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — Because the reality is no matter how great your band was and playing um, ah, Coldplay decades ago…
Rich Birch — Right, yep.
Daniel Im — …like no matter how good even if you try to pull off a Taylor Swift song today, like no matter how good you are today…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Daniel Im — …right, people don’t care anymore, right?
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, it’s true.
Daniel Im — That’s not that’s they don’t because they’re you’re not going to be as good, right? And we were never really as good.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes, that is true.
Daniel Im — We tried right? We tried.
Rich Birch — Yeah and we tried. Yeah.
Daniel Im — Yeah yeah, um, Snow Patrol remember.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, it’s so true. It’s so true.
Daniel Im — So instead of doing that, right, instead of doing that and instead of trying to to teach actually more like a TED talk or with less time because people’s attention spans aren’t as long as they used to be, right? What would it look like for us instead to to give people the truth?
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Daniel Im — To give people the word of God in a way that my preaching coaches taught me, in a way where you’re both your peaking curiosity and your holding attention. So so what I’m not saying is be boring.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Daniel Im — …and right you you need to be compelling. You need to have excellence.
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — That’s that’s all there. But how do we do so in a way where our assumption isn’t we’re trying to stir interest. Our assumption is people are interested.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Daniel Im — Now let’s give them the truth.
Rich Birch — That’s so good. Now talk to me about how this paradigm has shifted. But maybe we’ll talk about just you know there’s a lot we could talk about I can see the implications from this even in you know I in my church I volunteer as an Alpha leader you know, an Alpha helper. And like I’ve seen this I am constantly amazed at the people that end up in my Alpha Group.
Daniel Im — Yeah.
Rich Birch — I’m like the you know I last time round we we had this woman you know, a couple, I don’t know, we’re a couple, maybe week, two week, three couple weeks in. And she sits down at the discussion time and she’s like my mind is blown away. So you’re telling me that Jesus is God? Like you’re telling me that, you know tell me more. Like she’s she’s interested.
Daniel Im — Yes, yeah.
Rich Birch — She’s leaning in like she’s not, you know we’re not having to do jazz hands like that you know which is great. But let’s talk about maybe even just the teaching piece, particularly using this kind of paradigm. How how does this impact the way you communicate or the way you structure services or the way you do you know weekends or that sort of thing you know in your context? What’s that look like?
Daniel Im — Yeah, full on. So we are trying to create an experience with moments, right? So so if our if our if our focus is the interested, and we know that there are both non-christians and christians. What we are seeing in our society today is there is an acknowledgement that there is more to life than this, right? that there is more to life than what we see with our eyes. I don’t know if you ever saw this at Costco, but I recently came across a magazine for witches. And it looked…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Daniel Im — Yeah, it looked like you’re watch you’re you’re picking up Home and Garden. It looks like it looks like a Oprah magazine…
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — …and it was witches.
Rich Birch — Wow. Crazy.
Daniel Im — Yeah yeah, so the normalization of of the of the supernatural.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Daniel Im — The expectation that yeah, there is a supernatural. How do I access the supernatural? What we are saying and what we are doing is, hey yeah there is a supernatural and its God and Jesus is the way. So let’s create moments and experiences where yeah, we’re going to leave room for the Spirit to move in the way that only the Spirit can move.
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — Let’s sow prayer into our service. That old Charles Spurgeon, right? Like what what did what he do? There is like a furnace room underneath his auditorium, underneath the sanctuary of people praying, right?
Rich Birch — Love it.
Daniel Im — Like that’s the fire. What does it look like to do that and to expect God to move in supernatural ways…
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Daniel Im — …not getting weird, right? Um, um, we’re not, we’re not trying to to to chase an experience over the truth. But we know that Jesus said to his disciples in John 20:21, As the Father has sent me so now I send you.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Daniel Im — And then we know we know that the very next verse that 22 comes after 21. Like we know that, right? In math 22 always comes after 21.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes.
Daniel Im — But in our mindset of of being tribal in our in our faith and tribal in our theology and tribal in all of that. And we’re like oh yeah, mission missions first, missions. You know as a Father of sent me I send you. Let’s go. Let’s do this. Let’s ah, let’s accomplish the great commission. Let’s go. But we forget that Jesus in the very next breath said to his disciples receive the Holy Spirit right?
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Daniel Im — Like like it’s not a different book. It’s literally the next verse.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yes.
Daniel Im — And and and we forget that.
Rich Birch — Right, right. Good.
Daniel Im — So how do we do this? Yeah we expect the spirit to move. This this isn’t something that we try to do that we are planning to do. Um but I can’t tell you the number of people who when they enter into our space of worship, they just start crying.
Rich Birch — Um, yeah, yeah, yeah, right.
Daniel Im — Like and and it’s not not like ugly crying right? But there’s there’s there’s some there. It’s the Spirit of God right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — Like it’s it’s it’s it’s the prayers of the saints over the last 102 years that’s being poured out right?
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Daniel Im — It’s the presence of God, people are entering into the presence, right? And we know that yes we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we are you know temples of you know there’s all of that. But when they enter into this space of worship that’s been saturated with prayer, it’s amazing to see how people are like Okay, what what is this place? What is going on?
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — And they want to seek God, so let’s give him God right?
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Daniel Im — Let’s give him the truth.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. Our you know our mutual Friend Carey Nieuwhof and he said for years like wouldn’t it be sad if people came to church and all they found was us, you know.
Daniel Im — Wow.
Rich Birch — And and, you know and I’m like oh that’s so true right?
Daniel Im — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Like I you know I Tim Lucas lead pastor I work for at at Liquid Church, I deeply respect, well respect Carey too. I remember him years ago saying he went through a personal I would say kind of transformation where he he came to the end of himself and it was like listen if if this is just about me, if this is just about coming up with some sort of sticky statements, this isn’t enough.
Daniel Im — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Like this will not transform people’s lives. We we have to provide an accessible encounter for people. We have to find a way to usher people to the throne room ultimately.
Daniel Im — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Love that, love that.
Daniel Im — Yeah, and I and yeah, and yeah…
Rich Birch — Well you’ve got a…
Daniel Im — And I don’t think it’s through the newest tactic.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes. Hundred percent. Yes
Daniel Im — I don’t think it’s through any kitschy thing…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Daniel Im — …or or through like airy worship music trying to stir up emotions, right? That’s that’s not the tactic…
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — …and that’s not what you and I believe nor it’s what either of us write about.
Rich Birch — No.
Daniel Im — There’s best practices. And there are things that we need to do create to create welcoming environments and not be distracting, right? And all this isn’t an excuse to throw all that away. But we’re not trying to manufacture something, right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — We’re we’re crafting our services. We’re preaching the truth. And I love what John Stott says about preaching. And and this is this is it’s my it’s my motto. It’s how I it’s how I live. I love this. And and I’m going to butcher it because it’s just to paraphrase right?
Rich Birch — Yes.
Daniel Im — But he said the most holiest moment in a service, right, it’s not the music. It’s not the preacher. It’s not any of this. The most holiest moment in a service is the moment after the preacher has spoken, and before the words have entered into the hearts and minds and ears of the congregation, right?
Rich Birch — So good.
Daniel Im — It’s that split second where the spirit of God transforms what’s been prayerfully prepared and said and transforms it into manna, right? It transforms it into our daily bread, transforms it into what we all need to hear. And and and who does that right? Yes I got to I got to I got to grow as a preacher. I gotta got to learn how to build tension. I got to learn how to craft compelling talks and sermons. But it’s not that’s not what’s going to change people right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — It’s the ministry of Holy Spirit.
Rich Birch — Yeah, so good. Love it. So good. This is fantastic. Now, you’ve got a book coming out that I I want to make sure people pick up. It’s called “The Discipleship Opportunity: Leading a Great-Commission Church in a Post-Everything World”. Obviously we’ve been kind of talking around those those issues today, but give us some context a little bit more kind of flesh out specifically around the book. You know what were you thinking when you pulled this together? What are, you know, what are you hoping for, that kind of thing?
Daniel Im — Yeah, yeah, so the premise of the book is let’s focus on the interested. Let’s stop doing this old divide of being a church that’s more about reaching the lost or more about ah equipping the saints and and discipling. What if we actually could focus on both…
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Daniel Im — …through a new paradigm of the interested. This isn’t a both/and, either/or sort of debate either.
Rich Birch — Right.
Daniel Im — It’s a new quadrant. It’s a new perspective on that, right?
Rich Birch — Right. Love it.
Daniel Im — So what would it look like for us to do that. So essentially the first half unpacks the the foundation of that deconstructing some of the assumptions we believe about the church growth movement, not in its entirety because there’s so much good that’s come out of that. But what are the things that we need to stop assuming and carrying. I present this new framework and then essentially I wanted to write, I mean this is the shortest book I’ve ever written.
Daniel Im — When I did “Planting Missional Churches” with Ed when we rewrote that I think that was like 120-, 130,000 words.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Daniel Im — Ah “No Silver Bullets” was like 77-, 78,000 words. “You Are What You Do” was like 60-
Rich Birch — Yep.
Daniel Im — 50-, 60-. This is like 30-something thousand words.
Rich Birch — Love it.
Daniel Im — So I’m like my attention spans lower.
Rich Birch — Yeah way more compressed. That’s good.
Daniel Im — Yeah, so I want it to be punchy.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Daniel Im — And essentially the second whole part of the book is there’s a chapter on how do we reach disciple and preach to the sleepers, to the seekers, to the consumers, and to the disciples. Basically evangelism, discipleship, and preaching – what needs to shift what needs to change.
Rich Birch — So good.
Daniel Im — What does our focus need to be for each of those categories as we move into this post-everything world. So.
Rich Birch — That’s great. It’s this struck me as a great book, you know we’re coming up here maybe this fall, as like a fall leadership book. You could read it together as a team. Um, you know, go through it and really ask the question, Okay, so in light of what Daniel’s unpacking here, what does that mean for our ministry? How you know how I would really encourage leaders to do that. Where do where can people pick up copies of this book? Where do we want to send them online to kind of learn more to dive deep?
Daniel Im — Yeah, totally. So you can get it anywhere books are sold anywhere you like buying your books. It’ll be available everywhere. But if you go to my website danielim.com/thediscipleshipopportunity or and I know that’s a crazy long url. Or you just go daniellem.com and you’ll find the link. There’s some preorder and order bonuses and all that stuff just for more helps as you unpack this with your team. But yeah, you can get the book anywhere.
Rich Birch — Um, so good. Yeah I would encourage people to pick it up. I really do think this could be a great resource for you and for your church as a you know as we look forward as we’re all trying to figure out how do we lead in ah in this context. Well Danielle, I really appreciate you being here today. Where do we want to send people online, obviously daniellim.com, is there anywhere else if they want to track with you, with the church, that sort of thing?
Daniel Im — Yeah, so daniellim.com will get all the links. Beulah Alliance Church is the church. And I I all preaching all that stuff is there and on Youtube. And on social media I’d love to connect. I’m probably the most active on Instagram. Facebook’s a little bit of a necessary evil.
Rich Birch — Nice.
Daniel Im — Ah X or Twitter is just whatever it is now.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, exactly remember when it was fun? It used to be fun.
Daniel Im — Yeah, so it it used to be fun. But yeah, so I’m on the I’m on all the platforms and my my handle is Daniel and then it’s my korean name SANGI – @danielsangi – so love to connect.
Rich Birch — Love it. Daniel, appreciate you being here today cheering for you and thanks for being on the podcast. Look forward to having you come back at some point in the future. I just love what you’re up to. Thanks so much, brother.
Daniel Im — Hey Rich, you have been a staple in my podcasting my podcasting rounds. Like not sorry, not rounds, but what I listen to…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Daniel Im — …and and your books…
Rich Birch — Sure.
Daniel Im — …and your influence. I’ve just been and your friendship has just been I’ve just been so grateful. So thank you, Rich.
Rich Birch — Thanks. Thanks so much, man.
The Staff Health Puzzle: How Central Christian Operationalizes Alignment with Joe Platania
May 30, 2024
Thanks for joining in the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Joe Platania today, the Executive Pastor of Human Resources, Staff Development, and the Central Leadership Institute at Central Christian Church in Arizona.
Maintaining a healthy staff culture at a growing church is no small feat, particularly when you have multiple campuses. How do you lay a healthy foundation and build upon it well? Tune in as Joe shares a wealth of wisdom about leadership modeling, staff development, deep dives into organizational health, and more.
Health starts at the top. // Functioning with a healthy staff culture all begins with the foundation being laid by the leadership. A church’s senior leadership needs to model healthy behaviors, being transparent, vulnerable, and accountable. These are the pillars that support a thriving organizational culture. At Central Christian they’ve also developed leadership promises, a set of commitments that guide their leaders in fostering this positive environment.
Build it and then sustain it. // With the leadership creating a healthy foundation, it’s important to continue to cultivate that health by keeping the church in certain rhythms. Create a church calendar, policies, processes, and practices that keep the church moving forward in ways that sustain health, and then drive it through the organization. Build trust with your staff by addressing the problems they see. Ask them for feedback and then focus on process improvement.
Be accountable with each other. // Some things that Joe and his team worked on to improve their team culture at Central Christian were leadership promises, model clarity, and role clarity. Every January the leadership go through a 360 review process based on the leadership promises, which allows staff to provide feedback and keeps leadership accountable.
Maintain alignment. // One of the most challenging aspects of a multisite church is maintaining alignment and role clarity across campuses. Like other churches, Central Christian has their mission and vision. However, they are also crystal clear about being a centralized model of ministry and ensuring decisions, staff roles and job descriptions across their campuses support that model.
Deep dive with your team. // Joe maintains organizational health by meeting with his ministry teams for “deep dives”. These data-gathering sessions are crucial for celebrating wins, measuring important metrics, evaluating systems and processes, assessing leadership effectiveness, and pinpointing areas for improvement. The data collected from these sessions is then used to develop actionable plans and measure the success of implemented solutions.
Learn more about Central Christian Church at www.centralaz.com and click here to download a Team Reflection Deep Dive PDF which details the six deep dive questions that Joe discusses.
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 shareit 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 extremelyhelpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
Rich Birch — Well, hey, everybody, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Man I’m so excited that you’re tuned in today. Really looking for today’s conversation with Joe Platania. He is the Executive Pastor of Human Resources, Staff Development, and the Central Leadership Institute at Central Christian Church. This is a multisite church in Arizona that if you’re not tracking, you should be. They’ve got, if I’m counting correctly, 5 locations plus church online. It’s one of the fastest growing churches in the country and they’ve got a mission to lead people to discover and fully own a faith in Jesus. So Joe, just so glad that you’re here today. Thanks for being here.
Joe Platania — Thanks, Rich. I’m excited to talk to you today.
Rich Birch — Yeah, why don’t we fill out the picture – kind of tell us a little bit more about Central. Kind of give us the flavor if people were to come this weekend. What would they experience?
Joe Platania — Yeah, you know I think they’d have a great experience with worship, incredible messaging and a culture that is ah, an inviting culture. We we want to create an environment on weekends where people feel comfortable, they feel welcome, but they are also getting a message that’s very biblically centered. We’ll a lot of times preach really almost in an expository fashion but in a way that’s applicable. So a lot of people really these days seem to appreciate that authentic approach to God’s word.
Rich Birch — Oh absolutely.
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah, for sure, we’ve seen that that’s one of the you know, kind of misnomers of fast growing churches is is they think, oh like they don’t really preach from the Bible. That’s not true at all and Central is a great example of that.
Joe Platania — Yeah, yeah.
Rich Birch — You know, just if that’s what people are looking for. Ultimately they want timeless truths that’s applicable to today. That’s great. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about your role; give us a sense of kind of the every executive password looks a little bit different but give us kind of a sense of of your piece of the puzzle.
Joe Platania — Yeah, and that’s a great way to put a piece of the puzzle. At Central there are 4 of us who sit in that executive pastor space and my part of it is the human resource space, I guess for lack of a better term. I certainly oversee our hiring and are handbook and our practices and um policy when it comes down to that. But I also get to work on our culture and I get to help ah my teammates my peer group ah work on you know, healthy processes and kind of digging in when something’s not quite right in their Ministry space and I’ll tell you that’s.
Joe Platania — That’s tricky sometimes because there has to be a lot of trust between us. Um, you know we’re we’re clearly in it together and I think we the the 4 of us recognize that so that allows me some some true in route to their ministry where I get to work and support them. Yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah, love that. Yeah that I’d love to really dig into that. Anybody that’s led a church of any size knows that developing a healthy staff culture can be difficult. It can be hard and you know there there can be this kind of misnomer out there – let’s use that word twice in one podcast – that you know people come and work, everybody loves Jesus and the staff will be amazing because of that.
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Ah, but we know that it can be difficult. Why is that why do so many of us seem to struggle to have healthy staff cultures? What’s what’s your diagnosis of that issue?
Joe Platania — That’s a great question. I think I think if you and I could figure that out today, we could retire and and live well and the kingdom would be advanced because of it. Ah boy, I’ll tell you I I think it’s different from place to place. But I think there are some foundational truths that are in place when you have a healthy culture. And then I think there’s a layer on top of that that continue that healthy culture.
Joe Platania — So I I think you have to have that healthy foundation. You know I think that looks like first your leadership from from the top down has to be healthy. They have to act healthy. They have to interact with each other in a way that’s healthy. They have to model health.
Joe Platania — Um, and and then that looks like them being vulnerable, them being transparent even even when it’s hard to be transparent, and them to be accountable. And when when your leadership is that way, boy it’s kind of hard for the rest of organization to to not follow suit. So.
Joe Platania — So I think first of all those foundational pieces have to be in place. But then you have to continue to cultivate that health. And that’s just what I’ve learned. It’s like okay, let’s get this big rock in place, this foundational health in place. And now let’s continue it well, how do we do that.
Joe Platania — Now part of this by keeping the church in certain rhythms and and you do that with with a healthy calendar, with a process um and policies and practices that keep the church moving forward in ways that are healthy um and and driving it down through the organization. I think it’s hard at any size church. I think the bigger the church is, it It gets harder, especially when you start getting into multiple campuses. You know we we I don’t want to use the word struggle but it’s definitely a tension for us to continue to manage alignment not only through our ministries but through our campuses. I have to believe anybody who works in multisite church understands that alignment is tough and and clarity role clarity is tough.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s true.
Joe Platania — And those are those things though that you have to build on top of that healthy foundation. So build it and then sustain it. Yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good.
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah I love that that challenge of even for us at the senior leaders table, hey like it’s got to start with us. It’s not like we can’t point at everybody else and say, hey you got to be healthy.
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — But then when we look at around at our relationships we say, man is this because really I really do believe that that kind of what starts at that level ends up rippling throughout the entire organization, staff team and then ultimately out from there.
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch —Let’s talk about some of those rhythms. You talked about calendar, processes, practices.
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Help us unpack that. Try to get a little practical there around some of those things. What are you doing at Central to try to help drive the healthy staff culture through you know, great calendaring, processes, practices, that sort of thing.
Joe Platania — Yeah, it’s it’s a great question. So with our calendar process, it’s something that we are really developing right now. We have it in place. But when I say developing we’re working on improving even in on that process. Um.
Joe Platania — We did a best Christian workplace survey in the fall of last year. And our score was good and but there’s always room for growth. And you know one of the tension points that our staff shared with us is hey we feel um, overwhelmed. And sometimes it feels like we’re doing too much. So we said hey we need to look at our calendar and make sure that um, it’s clear what we’re doing when we’re doing it that the the return on it. Um, and not only that, what is required for everyone to be at and what is something we’re doing as a church.
Joe Platania — So we went to work on that. We we went through a problem solving process where we we collected a lot of data from our staff after um the survey and then we we went through an orderly process solving um, a solution developing mandates and then really an approach. And now ah where we’re about to execute that. We’ve also put in place some hey how do we know when we’re successful with that approach.
Joe Platania — So we’ve gone to work on our calendar and I’m really excited. We just shared with our lead team on this last week hey here’s here’s some things we’re doing to provide you with clarity, and better detail in organization. And I was just listening to it I’m like wow we are we followed a process of improvement and now we’re providing really, the ask of our staff last fall when they said, hey this is a hard thing about working here.
Rich Birch — Right.
Joe Platania —Like help us, fix this. And like, okay here we go. So now it’s sharing that so we shared it with lead team…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Joe Platania —…next next month at staff meeting we’re gonna share it with them. And then we’re gonna ask them, hey hold us accountable to it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Joe Platania —Like here’s what you said, here’s what we’re doing to fix it.
Rich Birch — Right.
Joe Platania — And here’s how we think we’ll know we’re successful, but you got to help us. You got you know, but that’s where that foundational stuff, Rich, that we talked about. Like if they can’t trust us, if they can’t believe that we’re there, that we’re not going to give them like a beat down for sharing feedback with us…
Rich Birch — Right.
Joe Platania — …then we’ll never hear it. So that foundational health has to be in place ah for for that layered health to continue.
Rich Birch — Oh I love this. I’m fascinated by this. I’d love to kind of pick that apart.
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — I’d love to get to the process of how you got to that. So like kind of the meta idea of…
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …okay, how did we how do you go about listening? And then you know and then okay so we took that feedback, now we’re trying to actually live it out. But let’s stick with just the calendar thing there for a second. Unpack what you kind of discovered. It sounds like there was a tension around, we’re not sure you know even what people should come up, show to, you know what is you know… I know this is like a common thing. It’s like I know I work here. We do you know, Easter’s got 78 services…
Joe Platania — Right.
Rich Birch — …do I need to be at all 78 services for Easter?
Joe Platania — Right.
Rich Birch — Is it that kind of thing you’re wrestling with? Help us understand that a little bit.
Joe Platania — I would say on some level it is. It’s really interesting, I think there’s two things I think first of all, we’re a really active church. We’re trying to reach people um, who who are either far away, who don’t know Jesus. And then we’re trying to provide ah environments for people who know Jesus to grow in him. So you know because of that and that sounds like well yeah, every church is doing that. Well some churches are a little more direct in one or the other.
Joe Platania — One of the things I I find about Central is we try to do a little bit of both. You know we we want to provide environments and ways that we’re reaching the lost but also ways that we’re developing and helping the church grow spiritually. So that probably won’t surprise you kind of ends up in a busy calendar. So yeah, we’ve got Waster and a lot of services. But then we’ve got a lot of other different things that end up on our calendar.
Rich Birch — Right.
Joe Platania — And so then when you have 5 campuses what you realize is, well, you’ve got these big rocks that you know Central services is putting on the calendar. Then each campus has their own things that they’re doing to try to reach their community to try to you know foster ah community amongst their their congregants. And then, what’s funny is then some of those things are like groups and and ministry settings. Well those ministry settings have things, you know.
Joe Platania — So like last weekend I was talking to one of our campus pastors and I was saying man, it’s so funny. I said we we have one thing on the calendar this weeken. But I don’t know about you but I’ve got 5 church things to do in the next day and a half.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Joe Platania — And so so you know, um, and so we we’re trying to solve that – that’s a second tension. So the first thing is we need to do as a church is make sure everything we’re putting on a calendar is in alignment with our mission, our vision, our strategy, that there’s an ROI, and we’re measuring that ROI, and we understand that. But then we’re giving our staff clarity is like hey these are things you really have to do – these are tier 1.
Rich Birch — Right.
Joe Platania — And then these are tier 2. These these are, hey we hope you’ll do them, or if you have time to do them, or capacity to do them, if tier 2. And then I’ll tell you it’s a part of it that we haven’t solved yet and we’re going to need to go to work on—maybe it’s solving 1 before you can solve 2—is like how do we help our staff to even organize things on that third level of like, hey on my campus in my community…
Rich Birch — Right.
Joe Platania — Because you know even though Central’s got one thing in ten days, I’ve got nine. So yeah and it’s helping that. And I think some of that, and you probably you know know this, Rich, in ministry we don’t do so well with boundaries. So we’re often our own worst enemy.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Joe Platania — And I do wonder if some of that’s like ah ah you know teaching our staff on setting boundaries…
Rich Birch — Right.
Joe Platania — …and understanding like, hey it’s okay to say no. Because it doesn’t always feel okay to say no um, in ministry you know. And so that’s it. So that’s I would say we’re we’re making good traction. I love um the work we’ve done in our calendar. I love the the rigor we’re putting to it that’s going to only help keep it keep us in rhythm, but provide clarity. But um I do think there’s work to be done um, on that next level.
Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, that’s good. There is something about I had a friend who you know always joked. He said you know our mission is a bottomless pit.
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Kind of a little bit of surgeons black humor there of like ah…
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …but it’s true, right?
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Like there is always more to do, but the reality of it is we’ve got to help our teams kind of pick and choose and prioritize because there will always be more to try to accomplish the mission that we’re you know a part of, so. Let’s let’s talk a little bit more maybe about another aspect of your culture that over the last number of years you’ve looked at and said, hey here’s an area where we could pursue towards health. I understand this calendering piece. Are there other things other initiatives that you’ve kind of attacked as an organization to help improve your team culture?
Joe Platania — Yeah I’ll give you three right off the top and we could talk about any of the ones that you’d like.
Rich Birch — Yes, okay. Yeah.
Joe Platania — One kind of speaks to that foundational health I was talking about. And one thing we developed was called Leadership Promises. And I can share a little bit about that if you’d like. But then there’s two other things that we’ve really had to work on, I would say in the last two years that have been really helpful. And they’re they’re that second tier of of health. Um, and one is model clarity and alignment, and then role clarity and then alignment to model. And so you know ah we have mission, vision, model, strategy, you know. I think we’re really clear, in my opinion, very clear in our mission and vision. Um I think we’re clear in our strategy. But I think when we start to get into you know, model, alignment again, especially with multiple campuses and diverse communities, it gets tricky. So you know. So leadership promises was foundational…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Joe Platania — …and that’s going to help keep a strong, and then model and role clarity.
Rich Birch — Let’s talk about Leadership Promises. That that that’s intriguing. What what did you mean by that? What was the problem you were trying to solve with that?
Joe Platania — Yeah, so it’s it’s funny. I’ve been with Central for about two and a half years now and so I wasn’t actually part of this, but um, some of my teammates were telling me right before I joined the team they were in an interview with a candidate. And the candidate said, Hey you you guys ask a lot from the staff. Um, we had something that we shared with them called cultural distinctives, and they were just like hey um, here’s what it’s like to work in a church. And it’s awesome, but it’s hard. And so we were sharing cultural distinctives with them and this was what it’s like really. And they said but what do you promise? What do you promise to the people who work there?
Joe Platania — And and I remember um one of my teammates said to our executive group, hey I think it’d be really wise for us to develop um some things that we promise. So we went about the work. We worked with our executive team, with our lead pastor, and and then our lead team, and we developed like here are promises. These are commitments that our leadership is going to make. These are those foundational things which I was telling you about that. We’re going to commit to you. And then here’s what we’re going to do. Because ah promises are great, but if you’re not going to be accountable, your promises are pretty much useless. And honestly I think they’re negative.
Rich Birch — Right.
Joe Platania — Um, and so what we do is each year, and we do it every January, um we do a 360 review and everyone in leadership. And the basis for that 360 review is our leadership promises. So we we cascade our leadership promises out to our entire staff, and we ask them to evaluate their leaders. And then we also send that to um peers and and supervisors. So leader is going to get feedback once a year on how they’re living out our leadership promises from their their teammates um who they who report to them, their peer group, and their supervisor. And and said it’s an accountability thing. So hey we promise you these healthy behaviors…
Rich Birch — Right.
Joe Platania — …and now we’re going to hold ourselves accountable to them. And yeah I love that. That’s been in place, this is our second year – we’re in or in April now. So we just came through our second cycle of that. I love it. I love it. Big fan of it. We’ll probably go to work this summer on making some improvements to that process now that it’s two years old. But ah it’s working.
Rich Birch — Yeah, talk to me about what some of those leadership promises are – maybe maybe 1 or 2 that ah provided kind of the the biggest leverage point, or maybe area of concern or improvement that you need to as ah as a team. What would be some of those Leadership Promises? What’s the kind of thing you’re you’re holding yourselves accountable to for your team? Which I love that idea, I think it’s fantastic.
Joe Platania — Yeah I would say a lot of it was based on narratives that we had heard from our staff and we talked to them about, but also things we wanted to make sure that we reinforce. So first of all, we wanted to make sure that we committed to our staff that we we were going to our leadership are going to be men and women of prayer. That we were and that’s the first thing on the, hey church, we are going to be praying. We’re going to ask God for guidance and clarity ah above and before all things. So that’s the first
Joe Platania — And then there’s other things in there that are really helpful that we’re going to be living transparently and we’re going to share authentically. We’re going to ask for feedback. You know we’re not going to wait for you to come. So one of the things that was an output of of our leadership promises was something that we do in our monthly reviews. And we call those reps, but it’s ah every thirty days everybody gets a 1 on 1 with their supervisor. And go over the normal things that you would go over in a 1 on 1. But one of the things is like, hey what feedback do you have for me? What can I be doing better? How can I support you better? But that came out of that like, hey we’re going to ask for feedback regularly. So of course we do our 360 once a year, but every month every supervisor should be asking, hey you know what what can I do to help?
Joe Platania — Other things and I’ll just give you one more that’s interesting and maybe this will resonate with you. Um, in the church world we I always like to say I think we’ve we have ruined the word family. I you know, starting in church it’s like, hey my church family. Well we’ve weaponized that word to some degree as a as a capital “C” Church and we use it to make people feel guilty about leaving, or growing and going elsewhere. So one of our promises was like, hey we’re gonna pour into you. We’re gonna invest in your personal and professional development, and then if you take that and leave we are gonna celebrate you for that.
Joe Platania — And and so that is, and you know my previous experience in church. And and not so much even with the church I’m with, it’s just the culture of church that wasn’t it. When you said, I’m leaving, the answer was like, how can you do this?
Rich Birch — Right.
Joe Platania — You’re, you know, you’re traitorous!
Rich Birch — Right.
Joe Platania — And now we’re saying the opposite. Like we’re going to make a kingdom investment in you and we hope you stay forever.
Rich Birch — Right.
Joe Platania — But if you don’t, go with God and and grow the kingdom and we will celebrate that. So those were just some of the things.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Joe Platania — I I think we have about 10 or 12 different leadership promises.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Joe Platania — And um, you know, and it’s just again, it’s a promise to our staff…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Joe Platania — …ah that we’re going to be healthy.
Rich Birch — I love that. I love that even that idea of you know how we what’s our posture as we leave, if you’re leaving…
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …if you’re, you know, I like that going on to a new kingdom assignment.
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Because that is one of the telltale signs, I think, of a culture that’s maybe gone sideways a little bit is, you know, is you… and I’ve had this happen as somebody who’s in the role I’m in. You know, I’ll hear from leaders who are saying like, hey, I’m thinking about moving on, but please don’t tell X. Please don’t you know.
Joe Platania — Yeah, yes.
Rich Birch — And and and the problem is like I I which, I understand. I’m not there’s not any judgment behind that.
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — I understand why people say that. But that is I think once once we trip over that in our brains and realize, man I can’t even talk to my person about the fact that I’m thinking about leaving, or it’s like you’re dead to me, right?
Joe Platania — Right.
Rich Birch — They’ll be like, you know, you’re cut off you know, kind of thing.
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — I love that. That’s so good. Can we pivot and talk a little bit about multisite? I think…
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …you know ah, let’s picture there’s a lot of multisite churches that are listening in, executive pastor of maybe a church of a couple thousand people.
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — We’ve got 3 or 4 locations. And I hear you talking about church health and I’m like I have a hard time getting handle on where things are at in multiple locations. It feels like as church leaders were trained to kind of lead things when we’re in the room, but when we’re not in the room, it’s hard for our influence to continue to ripple, and multisite is you know that on steroids.
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — So talk us through how how are you wrestling with kind of ensuring alignment around some of these health issues across all your locations. What are you learning in that process?
Joe Platania — Yeah, I think that kind of goes to the other things I was talking to you about where I think you have to have some really important things in place like model clarity, model alignment and then you know from that, hey this is what we are we – ah a centralized model church are we decentralized? Okay, great. What does that mean to be and and how should we act?
Joe Platania — And then from there it’s role clarity. Like do our roles align with that model. One of the things that I talked to some friends in the church world that I hear as a disconnect in multiside churches. They have a good idea of what kind of model church. They are not everyone does, honestly. But some do. But then they’ll they’ll create roles and job descriptions that are just not in alignment with that.
Rich Birch — Right.
Joe Platania — Or at least their their staff and we had some of that for sure at Central. And so one of the things we’ve been working on is first like hey guys here’s who we are. This is our model. This is the kind of church we want to be on all 5 campuses. And then here are our roles, here are job descriptions.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Joe Platania — So we yeah, and you know that sounds so easy. But as you can imagine you have I think we’re a well over a hundred staff right now. That’s a lot.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Joe Platania — Yeah, you know it’s a lot to do across 5 campuses. Um, so it’s it’s only a full time job. And and ah yeah, it takes a ah lot of collaboration among all of our team. Not only our campus staff. Our central service staff but our executive and lead team as well.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Joe Platania — But that’s that’s how we drive it. It’s like hey you know, healthy healthy culture, clarity at the model alignment level. And now let’s push that down to the “me” level, the person level, through role clarity. And I you know I do have some some tools that I use that I’ve just developed over the years that help ah deliver us at at spots of role clarity, and and even model clarity. And so when we we kind of start to feel those tensions. We’re like hey, maybe this team needs to do a role clarity exercise and help us.
Rich Birch — Um, yeah, let’s talk about that. Um, you’ve talked about model clarity a few times. And um I suspect that there are people that are listening in that are like, I’m really not sure what he’s talking about there.
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — What what do you mean by model clarity?
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Um, and then let’s kind of scale that down then into role clarity a little bit.
Joe Platania — Yeah, so you know when when you’re a multisite church, there are things that get easier honestly and there are things that get harder. And one of the things that’s harder is keeping everyone on the same page. So you know the way I’ve learned to help keep larger groups on the same page is to be as foundationally strong and to build good solid brick levels at each spot.
Joe Platania — So one of the first spots is just understanding what operating model we’re going to follow. So are are we a church that is going to be, you know one church many locations. You know so really centralized. Are we going to be a church that really allows a lot of autonomy at the campus level. So we’re going to have some synergy and some redundancy from from the broadcast campus. And will allow those efficiencies to help our campuses but largely they’re going to be autonomous to reach our communities the way they think is best
Joe Platania — And I think you know there’s a spectrum of that. And I think you need to decide as an organization, are we going to be…
Rich Birch — Right.
Joe Platania — …and these very well may be my words. I don’t know that everyone uses decentralized and centralized, but it was just the easiest way I could think you know are you going to be a decentralized organization or a centralized. And at Central we’ve chosen to be a centralized model church.
Joe Platania — So we we’re one church, multiple locations, and so everything kind of falls under that banner and follows that order. So then you start to get to a funnel, what I would call a clarity funnel of, okay so everything falls on – we know who we are, now here’s what we do and how we do it. Because of that.
Rich Birch — Well, let’s let so yeah, this is ah so I’ve been doing multisite for you know 25 years, since really since 2000, 2002 – so almost twenty five years. And I was at a thing recently um, was speaking at this conference and we were talking about multisite and and I was joking with a friend of mine. I said you know you, could take the questions from today’s from the leaders in this room today are like the same questions that we were asking in 2001, 2002. It’s like dotted line, solid line. You know campus versus central.
Joe Platania — Yes.
Rich Birch — You know, all of that kind of stuff. It’s like man, we we find ourselves asking the same kind of questions. How do you talk about those issues when you try to define so you say centralized. What does that mean for like staffing and you know those kind of things.
Joe Platania — Yeah, yeah.
Rich Birch — What’s some of the language help us understand how how you talk about that at Central.
Joe Platania — Yeah, that’s really that’s a really good, and and so I would say what we start with with that… First of all, there is always a tension when you have that centralized approach who who leads the staff at the campus level. So you know you have ah you have an executive level that sits under the lead pastor. And then you have a lead team. And then you have a central service, central support level, and then you have your campuses. And that’s not necessarily a hierarchy. Um, but you have to decide, do our campus staff, which is a lot of our you know church-facing staff – the people who are neck deep in ministry, who do they report to?
Joe Platania — So you know we have an org chart that provides really clarity of that. You know we have we have straight lines and dotted lines and everyone knows the answer. And for us what we’ve chosen in this season and, and again I don’t want to say that this is the only right way.
Rich Birch — Right. Yes.
Joe Platania — This is just the way we chose. Rich, I don’t know about you, but the older I get the more I figure out there’s more than one right way to do something. So you…
Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely oh for sure for sure. But I think the take, the key on that though that I want to that I want to underline for people is I think the thing that you’re 100% or 110% true on is you’ve got to be clear in your church what your your approach to these issues. Because if it gets I literally was saying this to somebody two days ago – they were talking about multisite, they got a couple locations. And I was like you got to get clarity because if if you don’t then you’ll leave your team hanging out there and they’ll just guess, and you know and then you’ll have problems.
Rich Birch — So yeah I agree. There’s not there’s not one way to do this, but you got to be super clear on it. Sorry I interrupted you there.
Joe Platania — No, no.
Rich Birch — I was just giving you a hearty amen.
Joe Platania — Yeah, no and I and you’re so right. And so we try to provide that and so what we’ve chosen for this season is that our our campus level staff are going to report to you know central central service leader. So like our our kids staff on our campus report to our lead kids pastor, our student… Now they have a dotted line relationship with the campus pastor who sits on lead team as well. And and then of course the campus staff, associate campus pastors, they’re reporting to our our campus pastor.
Joe Platania — But we have that that we have that organizational alignment. We have a org chart. Again, some of this is just communicating who we are clearly. And so we have that. But it it can’t stop there. You you know you, then you have to continue to add texture and layers and context. And so while we have an org chart, now we have to build job descriptions that are really clear and in line with that that model of church that we want to run. And um and one of the things we’ve done with some of our groups and this will be a summer project is with some others is we not only want to have um, a job description that supports our the alignment of our model. But we want to have success behaviors that fuel our job description. So this is another layer, right?
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Joe Platania — So you have a model, you have clear job descriptions. What… Okay, that’s great, but what is what, you know, I can have 15 tasks or actions on my job description. That’s not super helpful. So I got to practice with this a little bit a couple of years ago with our campus pastors. And here’s what was kind of mind blowing. Um, we had we we developed some clarity for them, and and then we worked on hey let’s develop some success behaviors. I think we developed the 123 things that they do on a regular basis. I don’t know about you, but that feels like a lot.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s a lot. Wow.
Joe Platania — It’s a big job that our campus pastors have.
RIch Birch — Yes, yes, yes.
Joe Platania — And I’m confident like no matter who we looked at at staff, it’s going to be in that ballpark.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Joe Platania — And we’re just we have a lot going on.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Joe Platania — But what that does is is it allows now them to understand, Okay, here’s what it looks like for me to be successful. And then there’s another level of that like, hey I need to rank. I need to rank these behaviors. Like these are the behaviors I need to weigh and put first. So if I’m gonna only be able to do eighty of these 123, here’s the 80 I’m going to do first. But this is a multi-generational thing. So it’s like let’s start with this and you gotta work your way down. So these are things I’m hoping to continue to develop as we go into the summer and into the fall and yeah.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — That’s good. I love that. I love the you know continue to just push for for increasing clarity and increasing um helpfulness, really for our team…
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …and and really to define hey here are the success behaviors that we’re attempting to drive towards. When you think about alignment, are there other areas that have been particularly helpful, whether it’s you know across campuses or within your team that have you know any processes or approach or practices that have been helpful to kind of drive clarity for for you?
Joe Platania — Yeah, yeah, so again, maybe we go on to like the maintenance phase of all of this.
Rich Birch — Sure, sure.
Joe Platania — Like hey, it’s great. You have organizational health, and you have model clarity. Now you have role clarity. And okay, well, that’s great. So then we’re going to put all of these best practices in. And we’re going to go into execution mode. We’re gonna operate, right? There’s what we do, every every day every week. And so um, here’s here’s what happens: it doesn’t all work. Um, you know it’s not like the best laid plans, right?
Rich Birch — Yes, yes, yeah.
Joe Platania — You know, um I’m confident. There’s a lot of you know, football coaches who develop a game plan and they they go into the game confident they’re gonna you know, blow out the other team. And they doesn’t work, it don’t work that way. So we go in execution mode.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Joe Platania — And um and so we need to measure, hey how is this going? So one of the things that we’ve been working on and again I’m gonna use the words that I use.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Joe Platania — But I think maybe some of your listeners might be able to, you know, understand it better as a SWOT analysis or something like that. I don’t use that word and I use ah a different process. Um, you know I spent some time in in the secular world and we I was taught a process called DMAIC and it was ah a ah, process improvement process. And so I’ve adopted some of that. And ah we go through the – I call them Deep Dives. So we we meet in a ministry setting and man, I’ll tell you ah the more nuclear the setting the better.
Joe Platania — So what I mean by that is ah I want um I have 6 different questions that you know we’ll go through so you know to help ah, uncover how things are going. Not only what’s working well so we can keep doing, but hey what needs to be changed, what needs to be modified, what needs to be improved.
Joe Platania — Um and we can do that – let’s say we can pull the whole kids staff together. Like you know we have 9 or 10 different kids team members. That’s good. You know what’s better is if I go to our Queen Creek campus and I meet with the kids staff there and 8 of their key volunteers and some campus staff and we do the deep dive at that nuclear level. So I don’t think it’s unimportant to do it at the higher level. But, boy, you just get all sorts of deeper, richer information the deeper you go into the the heart of the church.
Joe Platania —And so we we what happens is because I’m weird, I like to type with my thumbs. I sit there on my phone. I ask these questions and um and I’m just making notes. And ah then I share those notes with with my teammates on lead team and the executive team. And and it just depends on you know, leader to leader how they want to handle it from there. Sometimes they can use those notes um to work with their team. Sometimes I work with them to develop solutions and approaches to improve. But here’s the thing. Um I would say that doing regular, what I call deep dives, is really important to maintain our maintenance mode of of this health.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Joe Platania — And I can just tell you what I learned. Again I’ve only been at central for a little over two years. At other churches ah when I hit the third year of these, and it’s Central I’m really just in about the first year of this practice. Um, The third year was really weird because the first year we had we we uncovered a lot. In the second year we uncovered a few other things. The third year I would say we spent more of our time saying, this is so awesome. You remember the first year we talked about that? It’s better! And and this…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Joe Platania — Now that doesn’t mean we’re perfect and there’s no problems. I’m just saying there’s less. Less problems
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Joe Platania — And we have just a better grasp then hey there’s always going to be problems I feel like are unsolvable.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Joe Platania — Um, you know what what what are the two things that you know we all wish we could control but we can’t. You know time and often money so. You know those are problems that we want to address authentically but you know you got to be really careful about like hey this isn’t a utopian thing where like we can pour all the money in the world on this. So you got to be careful with that too. So.
Rich Birch — I love that. I the thing I think you’ve hit on, well there’s a lot there. There was so much. Friends, if you if you missed anything you got to go back there and unpack there. There was a bunch there that you said was super helpful. But one of the things I think that would be really helpful for many of our churches is as our teams grow, as our church grows, as the complexity of what we do grows, yeah are the information that we get as a senior leadership team can become very filtered, and become very like unclear.
Rich Birch — And you know people know what they want people your people know what you want to hear and so they’ll tell you what you want to hear. They’ll, you know, and it’s not that they’re lying but they’re they just will things get changed. And so this idea of like let’s have some these kind of nuclear deep dives, I love that.
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Um, and man, even just doing that adding that to our practices I think could be super helpful.
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — What are those, you said there were six questions that you ask, common questions.
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Do you mind running through those quickly, even just for documentation? What would those what are those six questions? I’d be intrigued to hear what those are.
Joe Platania — I I don’t mind. Um, you mind if I I’m gonna pull them up on my phone?
Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely for sure.
Joe Platania — Um because you know I did turn fifty this year and I don’t remember them as well as I’d like to tell you I remember them.
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Joe Platania — But I will first of all, um, the first thing I do is I share rules.
RIch Birch — Yep.
Joe Platania — And and the rules are are things like, hey this is there’s no fixing. Um this this is not time to be in problem solve mode. So you want to establish that ah, first. Like this is a data dump. This is like a brain dump…
Rich Birch — Yeah, weere just listening. Yeah yeah.
Joe Platania — …of what you feel. Yeah, because what happens is you get a bunch of passionate ministry people around a table and what they want to do is they start identifying problems and they want to go right into problem solving mode. Like yeah, there will be a time for that. So you know also no arguing. No no, no negativity, but disagreeing is okay.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Joe Platania — So Rich, if you’re like, you know, Joe, I feel like this is it. Yeah I don’t feel that way but let’s share it. Let’s have that.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Joe Platania — Yeah, and then um, here are the questions though. And I’ll I’ll read them to you. The first one is: what do we have to celebrate over the last year? Where are we winning? Why is that happening? How can we keep winning and win bigger? And then I’ll stop and you know we’ll collect things but just let them kind of marinate.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Joe Platania — Second question is: we measure what is important – does this team have an established set of metrics? Do you know what they are? How are you doing in relation to them? How can we improve our metrics? The next one is…
Rich Birch — Oh, that’s good.
Joe Platania —Yeah. Systems. Systems and processes are the highways that vision travels on. Are our systems and processes the right one for our teams and church? What needs to improve?
Rich Birch — So good.
Um, couple more. One is leaders. Leaders are vision ambassadors. Do we have the right people in the right places? What changes to our organizational structure do we need to make to be more effective and efficient?
Joe Platania — And actually there are two more.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Joe Platania — One is: we must be consistent in all we do; the rhythm and planning of the church is is critical. How does your team make plans and set goals? How can this be improved? What is coming next that we need to be prepared for?
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Joe Platania — And then finally it’s a it’s it’s a catch-all category. Um, you know, what what did we miss? What what is right that needs to be amplified? What is wrong that needs to be fixed? What is missing that needs to be developed? What is confusing and needs to be clarified? Um, so those are the questions and I’ll be typing away. I would say um I get when we do that exercise usually takes about three hours, two and a half, three hours.
Rich Birch — Wow, yeah.
Joe Platania — And I usually get between 70 and 150 data points.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Joe Platania — And it’s amazing and just the information you get. And man, and you’re sitting with people who like are these are their their babies. They are so passionate and they’re like yes, let me tell you about my baby, and you know, all the… And but then it’s an interesting thing because they also want to tell you some of the things that they don’t like that’s happening with their baby.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Joe Platania — And so you just get the to hear. And then you got to take all of that information and process it and develop plans. Um, and then really one of the worst things you can do is to spend that time and get that investment from folks and do nothing. .
Joe Platania — So one of the things we talk about is like hey this is great information. Let’s glean what we can and let’s really be good about sharing, hey here’s what we heard and now here’s what we’re going to do and executing that. And then checking in, like that’s where I said that’s always cyclical.
Joe Platania — How do I know now that I was successful on that fix? So I did a deep dive, I gather data, I’ve prepared a solution. Um, then I’m going to measure how’d I do. How’d I do, how’d we do with this? Um you know so you’re constantly evaluating and Rich, it never and it shouldn’t.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, that’s so good.
Joe Platania — It’s this we’re living, we’re living a breathing organization, right? So.
Rich Birch — Yes, so good. Well Joe, this has been very rich, super helpful. Thanks for for running through those, but then just all of this has been super, super helpful. As we wrap up today’s episode…
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …is there anything else you’d like to share with us as we kind of you know, look to land the plane here today?
Joe Platania — Yeah, first just thank you for the time. Great to talk to you. Ah the work we do is so important and and the the only thing I would say is um I would encourage people if if they haven’t figured this out, and I’m sure many have, that that health is in my opinion layered.
Joe Platania — And it is does start with a bedrock foundation. Um, and then you just build on top of that. I that’s biblical I guess. Um and so looking at it that way, and so when I’m trying to manage health I want to understand how’s my foundation? How’s my next level? How’s my next level? And just breaking it down um in that kind of detail is so important…
Rich Birch — That’s so good.
Joe Platania — …not only to just to developing it, but sustaining the health. Because it’s again, it’s not easy, but a lot of us can make health. The trick I think is sustaining it, like how do you keep it going. That would be it. You know make sure we keep it going.
Rich Birch — So good.
Joe Platania — Yeah.
Rich Birch — So good. I really appreciate this. Joe, if if people want to track with you or with the church online where do we want to send them?
Joe Platania — Yeah, centralaz.com is is the easiest place to go.
Rich Birch — Perfect.
Joe Platania —You can watch us. You can connect with with me or any of our our leadership that way. Yeah, absolutely.
Rich Birch — That’s great.
Joe Platania —Would love to love to connect with anybody who wants to talk more this. Much like you, Rich, I’m sure, this is a passion for me. I would do it for free…
Rich Birch — Totally.
Joe Platania — …if I could afford to. I can’t, but nonetheless um I love it. So love talking about it…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Joe Platania —…and love to talk to other churches and learn.
Rich Birch — Thanks so much. Thanks for being here today, Joe – really appreciate you being on the show.
Joe Platania — Yes, sir. Thanks, Rich.
From 1,000 to 2,000 in 1,000 Days: Most Churches’ First Steps
May 29, 2024
This is part four of an ongoing series where we explore the “Goldilocks growth rate”—a concept aimed at helping churches grow at a pace that’s impactful yet sustainable.
Understanding the Goldilocks Growth Rate
The Goldilocks growth rate is all about balancing rapid growth with the ability to effectively integrate new members into your church community. The goal is to grow faster than the natural population increase in your community while avoiding burnout among your team. To maintain momentum, churches must address the inevitable 15% attrition rate caused by people moving away, disagreements, or life changes.
Three Crucial Metrics
15% Attrition Rate: This is a baseline assumption. Every church loses about 15% of its members annually due to various reasons.
3% Documented New Guests Weekly: For a church of 1,000, this means capturing contact information for 30 new guests each week.
26% Retention Rate: Retaining 26% of new guests to become regular attendees is essential. This helps achieve an overall growth rate of 26%.
When these metrics are met consistently over 1,000 days, a church can effectively double its size.
Focus on the Front Door
Many churches concentrate on retention (the back door) but often overlook the importance of attracting new visitors (the front door). Most churches need to increase their efforts on inviting and documenting new guests to ensure sustainable growth. Simple yet effective strategies to enhance your church’s invite culture include:
Shareable Weekend Teaching: Make your weekend messages compelling and easily shareable to encourage congregants to invite their friends.
Eventful Big Days: Leverage special events like Christmas and Easter when people are more likely to invite their friends.
Captivating Online Conversations: Engage with your community online to spark discussions and keep people connected.
Magnetic Community Service: Organize community service events that attract both volunteers and attendees.
Appealing Volunteer Experience: Create volunteer opportunities that are enjoyable and fulfilling, encouraging participants to invite others.
Resources to Boost Your Church’s Growth
To support churches in these efforts, we offer two key resources:
Church Growth Incubator: A year-long program featuring bi-monthly calls, quarterly intensives, and two in-person retreats to equip church leaders with the latest research and proven tactics for growth.
Success Stories and Proven Results
Churches participating in the Church Growth Incubator have seen remarkable results, with an average of 4.22% documented new guests weekly, far surpassing the 3% target. This significant increase translates to over 2,000 new guests annually for a church of 1,000 members, showcasing the effectiveness of sustained, strategic efforts.
Read the Book
Unlock the potential of your church’s invite culture with our latest book, “Unlocking Your Church’s Invite Culture“. This book is designed to be a practical guide for you and your team, offering a primer on the five gears of invite culture. Packed with actionable examples and strategies, it’s an essential resource for any church leader looking to make a real impact. You can purchase your copy at unlockinviteculture.com or on Amazon.
Join the Cohort
Take your church growth strategy to the next level by joining the Church Growth Incubator. This year-long program includes bi-monthly calls, quarterly intensives, and two in-person retreats, providing you with the latest research and proven tactics for growth. Collaborate with like-minded leaders, gain direct access to expert advice, and see measurable results. Interested in joining? Email me with the subject line “Church Growth Incubator” to secure your spot this summer. Let’s work together to achieve your church’s growth goals!
Beyond Accessibility: Gail Ewell’s Vision for Church Inclusivity
May 23, 2024
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Gail Ewell a leader at Bay Area Christian Church and Hope Technology School.
Gail’s story is one of personal struggle and triumph. As a mother of children with special needs, she faced significant challenges in attending church. Her experiences shed light on the isolation and strain that families with special needs often endure. It was through these personal trials that Gail’s passion for inclusivity within the church was ignited.
Tune in as Gail shares how the simple step of a church extending friendship can transform a community.
Focus on the isolation and strain. // It’s estimated that about one in five children are neurodivergent and yet 85% of churches don’t have ministries that can support them. In California, 1 in 22 children are diagnosed with autism and other types of disabilities are on the rise. Bay Area Christian Church (BACC) is committed to inclusivity and working to address the isolation and strain of special needs families.
Spiritual Resource Ministry. // It’s not uncommon for parents and children to miss church because it can be difficult to attend with a child’s special needs. BACC has developed spiritual resource ministries which promote the inclusion of people and families with special needs so that they don’t feel isolated. It began with smaller classes that are more sensory-friendly and include both neurotypical and neurodivergent children. From there it grew to creating E-sports and E-life which offer inclusive programs for a variety of activities, from soccer and karate to gardening and photography.
Partner with others. // Because the goal is to include rather than segregate, Bay Area Christian partners with other youth ministries, professional sports teams, guest speakers and more. Identify the needs in your community and the gifting in your church and how you can pair the two together. Partner with organizations, schools, ministries, businesses and teams in your area to provide inclusive opportunities for children with special needs.
Start small. // Gail encourages churches that feel overwhelmed and don’t know where to begin to start small. Extend friendship to the special needs community in your area because there is often a friendship deficit here. Anyone can give the gift of listening or friendship. Not only are you building relationships among the children, but their families also benefit from being able to connect with others.
Provide training. // The success of inclusive programs is largely dependent on the volunteers who bring them to life. Gail emphasizes the importance of training these individuals, underscoring the biblical principles of friendship, encouragement and support for the vulnerable. Recognizing and appreciating these volunteers is crucial, as they are the ones who make a tangible difference in the lives of special needs individuals and their families.
Seek understanding. // If you’re facing challenges and concerns, open a dialogue with the family affected by special needs in order to know how to best interact with their child. Seek to understand what is needed and what you may not have considered in your program or outreach.
Meeting a critical need. // While it can feel intimidating to step onto the path of developing a spiritual resource ministry, Gail encourages churches to just begin. Remote areas may not have a lot of services for special needs children and families. There’s a big opportunity for churches to step in and offer purpose and occasions for inclusion. It begins with a heart to love people, extend friendship and meet a need.
Want to learn how to build a spiritual resource ministry at your church? Visit Bay Area Christian Church’s website to download the SRM Manual that Gail mentions. Plus explore E-sports and E-life for examples of inclusive community service programs.
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 shareit 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 extremelyhelpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally!
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Episode Transcript
Rich Birch — Hey, friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. So glad that you have decided to tune in today. You’re in for a real treat. Super excited to have Gail Ewell with us. She’s at Bay Area Christian Church. It’s a fantastic church in the Bay Area, obviously. She’s also a part of Hope Technology School. Bay Area Christian Church is deeply committed to creating environments where children and adults with special needs can thrive alongside their neurotypical peers. And ah the the school that she’s a part of, Hope Technology School, is a fully inclusion nonprofit school located in Palo Alto. Ah, super excited to have you on the show today, Gail. Thanks for being here.
Gail Ewell — Hey Thanks Rich! Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
Rich Birch — Now this is going to be great. I’m honored that you would take some time to be with us. Tell us a little bit about Bay Area Christian. Kind of fill out the picture. Give us a you know a flavor of the church. Help us understand more about it.
Gail Ewell — Yeah, we’re we have 8 campuses throughout the Bay area, and Bay is really big and we’re spread all over the place. But yeah, we’re church committed to inclusivity for those with different abilities And it’s been a definitely work in progress. So it’s it’s really been a great light for we’re very um, focused on God and good, doing good and so a lot of our focus is outreach to the community. So we do a lot of community activities and programs. That’s a central focus for our church.
Rich Birch — Yeah, so good. Well I want to kind of zero in a little bit on what you’ve done to create a more inclusive church. And let’s talk a little bit about why this is such an issue. I had heard that and I and I don’t know whether this is true, but it’s one of those things I heard and it was stuck in my brain. I was talking to a friend who’s involved in similar ministry and they were talking about children specifically. But they were saying 1 in 5, I think was the number that they used, of children would be considered ah neuro-divergent different, you know than than everyone else. And 85% of churches don’t do any special needs ah, ministry whatsoever.
Gail Ewell — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Um, and ah those that that struck me. I found that you know, really shocking. So talk to us tell us talk to us about why this is such an issue.
Gail Ewell — Ah, well in California 1 in 22 children are diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.
Rich Birch — Wow. Yep.
Gail Ewell — And and other types of disabilities are on the rise as well across the United States. But around maybe 15% of US children between three and seventeen years old are affected by a developmental disability. And emphasizing of course the need for ministries and churches for inclusion. I actually recently heard of a study conducted by the university of Wisconsin that monitors the stress levels of ah mothers for eight days.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Gail Ewell — And they measured their hormone levels on specific days. And the study found that chronic stress levels experienced by these mothers was were similar to that of a combat foot soldier.
Rich Birch — Wow. Oh my goodness. Wow.
Gail Ewell — So yeah, so what we the problem I guess that we or the need is that we were trying to address the isolation and strain of special needs families that can be a significant problem for not only in our congregation, but also in our communities.
Rich Birch — So how did what was the kind of journey the starting journey for this at Bay Area Christian? Where did this where did this begin?
Gail Ewell — So as a mother and a leader I was going to church and um, we have a strong women’s ministry, and that’s my primary focus – women’s ministry. I’m an executive women’s ministry leader for very large church. And I couldn’t get into church because I was at church the building but because my child had autism I was unable to be a part of the whole service because I was always getting called out at the children’s ministry. And my first son John was born with ah down syndrome – that was a surprise to us. We didn’t know.
Gail Ewell — And then two years later our son Jordan was diagnosed with autism. So we had significant needs in our own family and we experienced our own barriers. Um, and I knew and understood there must be a lot of other people facing this kind of challenge.
Rich Birch — Absolutely.
Gail Ewell — So we created programs for that because I knew the community probably at back then had you know needs. And I just ah understand that you know I realized that a lot of moms and children are missing church because there’s just no way they can even fathom going to church with their child’s needs, you know?
Rich Birch — Yeah, totally.
Gail Ewell — And um, one you know it’s just and so I become you know all, most parents become strong advocates when this they get these kind of needs in their family. For those that have less support needs there’s more advocacy out there. But I always think of Proverbs 31 that says we should speak up for those who can’t speak for themselves.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Gail Ewell — And my my children at that time were nonverbal…
Rich Birch — Oh wow.
Gail Ewell — …and I had a strong conviction about speaking up for the nonverbal…
Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely.
Gail Ewell — …and those literally the had no voice. Yeah.
Rich Birch — Yeah, absolutely. Wow. So What does this look like at Bay Area Bay Area Christian? Like if I’m a parent who’s exploring, thinking about coming to the church, how do you actually engage with them? What does that look like?
Gail Ewell — Yeah, we had two programs we developed out of these needs that we saw in my own life, and in the community, and in our church. And that’s um we developed a spiritual resource ministry that was founded in 1996 but that was mostly to help families who felt isolated and ah couldn’t participate in church. And so what we did is we developed what we call our SRM Ministry – the Spiritual Resource Ministry. Which basically you know for me I didn’t understand sensory sensitivities back then. Now it’s a little bit more known. Sensory friendly is a more common term. But back then I didn’t understand my child was experiencing experiencing sensory sensitivities in church.
Rich Birch — Right.
Gail Ewell — And so you know there’s the loud, there’s the music, there’s the crowds. And you know even for us that are neurotypical, we can experience sensory sensitivities at times, right?
Rich Birch — Yes. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, for sure.
Gail Ewell — So we’ve had to develop a smaller class and we started from there that was more sensory friendly. And then we did kind of a reverse mainstream where we allowed children to come in who are neurotypical. And it just and from there it kind of exploded and ballooned into over 20 locations.
Gail Ewell — The six sports that we did E-sports and E-life. And E-sports is more like soccer, basketball, football, karate, dance, fitness. It just kind of exploded because the members expertise or talents, they could take their talent and use it wherever their community was. And they caught a vision and it exploded. And then it’s more of late it’s turned into E-life, which is more like activities versus sports.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Gail Ewell — And so not everybody does sports. But you know we anyone at any level can come. I mean even our E-sports program, you know we have ah a child… I’ll give you an example of a boy and who came with a wheelchair and he had Spina Bifida and he did not want to go to the wheelchair programs that were out there. And so what the volunteers did is they gave him a walker and he’s the goalie and he was so excited. Parents are in tears. You know like we’re trying to constantly modify and adapt our program so anyone could come at any level.
Rich Birch — Wow.
Gail Ewell — And the E-life kind of came out of that and that’s more like gardening and theater and photography and academics. And we had a professor do an e-stem class recently for his community…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Gail Ewell — …and then gaming. That’s a big one – the e-gaming. So we have a couple that’s awesome. The Combs and they they run that as well for their children…
Rich Birch — Wow.
Gail Ewell — …and for the community.
Rich Birch — Wow. Yeah, well I I love this.
Gail Ewell — And sorry – tell me when to stop.
Rich Birch — I know – I love it. I love it. Because you know as people that are you’re listening in, you’re realizing, man, there is so much going on at Bay Area Christian in this area, which has been my experience in the past. It’s like when we take some first steps in this direction, we realize oh my goodness, there’s this tremendous need in the in the community and it’s an opportunity for us to step in, and and it does start to balloon. But let’s take a step back to, maybe if a if a church is thinking about or or maybe at Bay Area when you when you first started to offer, you know, the the classroom and stuff like that. How did you build say awareness and education with the church in general? Like you know, obviously the parents who who are wrestling with these issues understood that, hey this is a there there’s stuff here I this is something I need help with.
Gail Ewell — Yeah.
Rich Birch — But with the broader church, what’s that look like?
Gail Ewell — Well we kind of did a needs assessment in our church where we just understand the specific needs of our church community and identified areas that required additional support. The members that needed the support. We are fairly large church. So there were a lot more when we kind of looked at it opened our eyes and looked at it and were able to see the needs. And then we did identified church talents and then we’re able to assess talents. But also looking at professionals who in the field had experience, right? Whether it’s healthcare providers, or teachers, or special educators, or therapists. They were just a lot, boatload of people that we didn’t always understand. We had such a wealth within the church. We just had to go assess that and identify the talent. And we created those programs out of that talent.
Gail Ewell — But early on it was, you know, ah humble beginnings. We across the street was a big field and it was full of duck poop and um geese poop, and that was our first E-soccer.
Rich Birch — Right.
Gail Ewell — And you know and it was just humble beginnings. Yeah, we just started and and it grew from there. And for a lot of churches, I think it’s just honestly believing that you can do something. And I try to encourage people that um, you can start with friendship because there’s a friendship deficit in that community. Um, and so I think anyone can give the gift of listening or being a friend. And that’s that’s where we started. We started with just outreach and friendship and listening and started small.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Gail Ewell — So I don’t know if that answers the question.
Rich Birch — Yeah, no, that’s good. That’s really good. Yeah, maybe unpack that a little bit more. When you think about what some of those, what would be some of your advice. I’m sure you get calls from churches and they you know leaders see the need. They’re like I understand but, man where do we start? I’m a little you know I look at everything Bay Area has done. That’ll be great 5 years from now, but what’s my first step into this area?
Gail Ewell — So we did our first step, I think we started with some sort of evangelistic type outreach for workshops that we did.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Gail Ewell — And so I just took an interest I had and I remember just reaching out to doctors in the field, whether it’s natural medicine, or [inaudible] medicine – something interesting to all people. And I invited a a guest speaker.
Rich Birch — Okay.
Gail Ewell — And we just created our, you know if you have a church building, you can have it there. And then you reach out to your community to come to the guest speaker. Because there are a lot of people who want to hear different topics, whether it’s anxiety or depression or you know or just could be tailored to a specific special need. And…
Rich Birch — Right.
Gail Ewell — …and that’s when we realized we had so many people come that that’s when we realized, wow, you know we could build a ministry from this because the outreach was actually easy. Um, and sometimes we get frustrated with that. But this was so easy. I mean my son went to preschool at special needs preschool, and I invited his friend his little buddy and his mom. And his mom came and then from there she came to church and she became a Christian. Then he grew up, he became Christian. Now he’s trying to help all his friends become christian.
Gail Ewell — And he you know he’s he’s autistic. And how he’s going to school and he wants to be a broadcaster.
Rich Birch — Oh cool.
Gail Ewell — You know he’s been on television. And and that was just a first workshop we did and that was the first thing she came to, and then from there you see the evolution of how you can change lives and help people and serve people in the community.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so cool. Yeah, I love that. I think there’s you know there’s a lot there. When you think about what have you learned in kind of interacting with the various ministries of the church because as you start to provide say hey we’re trying to open our door here to, say kids kids with special needs or you know the broader community with special needs, that starts to have impact on lots of other ministries. You know you start thinking, hey we want to you can’t just have like a there’s just like a special needs ministry and then that’s totally disconnected from the rest of the church. It’s got to be integrated into what do we do. What have you learned on that front? How do you collaborate with existing ministries?
Gail Ewell — Absolutely, yeah, the goal is inclusion not separation.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Gail Ewell — So you you don’t want to have a special needs, you know children’s ministry or a special need… you know the goal is not to segregate, it’s to include. And so we collaborated like you said with existing ministries that we partnered with ah, the youth ministries, and so a lot of our middle school and teens came out. You know they maybe did their high school service hours. So there was ways that we partnered with other ministries to get things kind of rolling um, and that really helped us a lot. We promote volunteering in our church and you know at all the time. And did we did a lot of, I thought back because sometimes you don’t think about what you do, you know you don’t think about I did this now,
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yes.
Gail Ewell — You know God gets all the glory – I mean he had it explode. But but um, we offered a lot of training sessions, you know, where we could just help enlighten people about different areas or needs of special needs, and that helped the volunteers with their skills and knowledge. And um, you know I always like to start with a biblical motivation. So Matthew 5 says be the light, and you know if you shine bright people are gonna be they’re gonna see that light and want to come to it.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Gail Ewell — You know, ah every church community, like you said, you know, it’s it’s unique. And you know the tactics you find are are going to be specific to your city and your needs. But recruiting and dedicate yourself to volunteers is really important for a thriving ministry. And we just went out to the community and we found, you know, university sports teams, the USF, University San Francisco, they actually have their men’s and women’s basketball team come out and help us with e-hoops…
Rich Birch — Oh wow.
Gail Ewell — …you know and help us with the clinics. And then the major league, our major league teams like the Earthquakes and the Warriors, we actually partnered with them to do activities and clinics. And our kids were able to go out and play on play where the play pros play. And and ah play you know sometimes they play on the the actual you know, um place where they’re playing it for the halftime. Or sometimes they’re having a special clinic, and even Ron Adams, one of the assistant coaches came out and spoke to the kids. So we like to partner with, you know, universities or or major leagues in your area, or existing ministries, or just looking for outreach where people want to do good…
Rich Birch — Yes.
Gail Ewell — …because that’s our our conviction to God and good.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, that’s so cool. I love that. When you think about the training of you know, your existing ministries and some of that coaching that you’ve done within your you know your existing you know things that were already running. Was there, is there some go-to advice that you find yourself coming back to time and again to try to help various ministries be more inclusive? Is there like a piece of advice that it’s like, oh you know, I would say these two things to everybody every ministry? What what would be some of those things?
Gail Ewell — Yeah, I think um training for training definitely did a lot of sensory-friendly. Matthew 25 says that you know the parallel shoots a groats it says there’s a part where it says when when did you see you friend…this is The Voice, it says when did we see you friendless or excluded, without friends when did we see you weak or without friends? And Jesus respond when you when you saw the least of these and you ignored their suffering, you ignored me. And I think something we can all relate to is loneliness and friendlessness and and needing friends.
Gail Ewell — And that’s really a critical part of building and training the volunteers because our volunteers aren’t just doing their duty. They’re making friends.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Gail Ewell — They’re going out and being friends.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.
Gail Ewell — You know they’re volunteering in other ways that we don’t even know. They’re going to homes and you know they’re serving the community on a, not just a buddy. You know a good buddy. It’s their friend, you know? And they’re helping to break that friendship deficit and that isolation and that stress of those families in an incredible way because of their big hearts.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. That’s cool. Well I’m sure over the years you’ve you know there’s some volunteers, speaking of volunteers that have really stood out and have been like, wow these these people are doing an amazing job and…
Gail Ewell — Yeah.
Rich Birch — You know what what would be some of the ways that you’ve shown, you know you’ve recognized those people, you’ve shown appreciation, you’ve you’ve tried to you know, celebrate them internally?
Gail Ewell — Um, yeah, we do recognition appreciation all the time, regular acknowledgement, appreciation of the volunteers. One one of the guys that really stands out to me is Jason Collette because we had volunteered to do a sensory [inaudible] vaccine clinic and the family said that they called him personally and asked if he would come to another time of his doctor appointment…
Rich Birch — Okay.
Gail Ewell — …because the only way this child would get it her his shots was, I think he, was through having Jason there.
Rich Birch — Wow, wow.
Gail Ewell — And so, you know he’s a really bighearted guy. And he went. And you know his own you said, oh sure I’ll come to your doctor appointment, help ya. And you know that he got all his shots and everything you know. And the family was so grateful because there’s so many needs in the community they get so isolated and they can’t do some of the basic things that we take for granted, just go to the doctor, you know.
Rich Birch — Right? Yeah, that’s cool. What a cool story. I love that. You know, going that’s, talk about going above and beyond.
Gail Ewell — Yeah.
Rich Birch — Like it’s you know it’s so much more than just showing up for e-sports or whatever…
Gail Ewell — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …whatever he’s volunteering with. It’s like how do I really get into these families’ lives and help serve you know their their total life.
Gail Ewell — Yeah.
Rich Birch — That’s that’s amazing. What when what is the kind of the support for volunteers look like? How do you what kind of training do you are you doing? I’m trying to kind of get a sense of what that looks like. Obviously there would be whatever you would normally do for for every other volunteer, but then there must be more that you’re doing on top of that to provide additional support and help.
Gail Ewell — Yeah, yeah, definitely. We’ve definitely developed trainings for, especially from some of the sports programs for the volunteers that come out…
Rich Birch — Okay.
Gail Ewell — …on how to interact specifically with the special children with special needs. And we’ve utilized and accessed our own talent in our church to do that, and including um, you know this special some of the ones that have more expertise to come out and help the coaches. We’ve also, so specifically they’re talking about how to interact and how not how not to react, and how to be a friend. And you know how to encourage participation. And you know these are children who otherwise would have no sports.
Rich Birch — Interesting.
Gail Ewell — You know they would not be it. They would not be at sports.
Rich Birch — Right, right.
Gail Ewell — I mean it’s beautiful to watch, because you just realize, wow, this is definitely God’s work, you know. Because this wouldn’t otherwise happen. And these these events are they’re they’re monumental in the child’s life. They’re what they remember. They’re their favorite time of the week, you know, when they come.
Gail Ewell — And but we have had to so you know we’ve learned by doing. It’s a work in progress and a lot of hands-on field experience. So we’ve learned by doing and so then we access the talent from the church, and then we continue to have volunteer recruitment, but trainings that can help them learn to be more sensitive sort of to the special needs. You make mistakes, but honestly the parents are so grateful and it’s free, and and they make friends and otherwise at school many times they’re friendless, you know. So not always, but you know they are a lot. And the parents get to have a little break on the sideline…
Rich Birch — Right.
Gail Ewell — …and talk to other parents.
Rich Birch — Yeah, there’s some networking that happens there for sure.
Gail Ewell — And get yes and just get support and encouragement.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Gail Ewell — So that’s just that’s the the favorite time for those families. But yeah, the volunteers are getting trained as much as we can and much as we know, and we’re learning from our mistakes. But I don’t know if that’s specific enough for you.
Rich Birch — No, that’s good. Yeah, that’s good.
Gail Ewell — But that’s what we um do.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I remember um once I was talking to a parent who was reflecting thanking, you know our our our church for having you know of a similar kind of ministry. And they were saying you know my son um, who would have been a teenager at this point you know everyone in my son’s life because of his his special needs are various care workers that are paid to be with him, that are you know these are and and um, and I get choked up every time I think about it. And she said you know when we come to church, these people are choosing to be with my son. And you know they’re they’re you know they’re they’re saying hey I want to be here. This is you know, um and she was reflecting on, man, what that what what that meant to her as a mom…
Gail Ewell — Yeah.
Rich Birch — …that you know there’d be people that were going out of the way to say, yeah I I want to be with your kid. And and like you say it develops into that kind of friendship; it develops into… I like that you keep coming back to that. That this whole idea of isolation and you know friendship ultimately and how do we develop relationships. It’s not about providing some sort of program. It’s ultimately trying to get people connected with each other. I love that.
Gail Ewell — Yeah, that’s a great, that’s a great story because we see that happening and um I appreciate that those ministries so much, because I think it’s sometimes the only thing they have, you know. Like you said the paid versus a real friend or…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Gail Ewell — …someone not being paid to be with me. We like to empower the adults, and that’s on my heart because my kids have grown up…
Rich Birch — Grown up. Yeah.
Gail Ewell — …and are adults with special needs. But um because you know we’ve empowered them to become coaches now. You know they went through the program now they’re learning and training to become the coaches, and that really is inspirational because they’re seeing their purpose you know?
Rich Birch — Yep, yeah, that’s cool. Talk to me about I’m sure there are um, once once you open up as a church and say hey we want to do more of this, and and I I do want to talk more about the adult side of the equation as well. So this is I’m going to ask a kid question, but I want to get to that. You know part of what we’re we’re trying to do is you say hey we want to be inclusive for anybody. And that ends up you know which is wonderful and we’re trying to figure that out.
Rich Birch — But then there can end up being kids or adults that come that have very severe, you know, ah medical needs that are, you know, they’re like complex that they’re you know there’s something we need to think really delicately about. We need to ensure that we you know we handle that relationship in that individual well so that we don’t you know, create any you know further problems. How do you handle that? How do you how do you ensure that kind of the right information is getting the right people that we’re you know we’re handling people correctly, doing everything we need to do? Um, yeah, what what does that look like?
Gail Ewell — So like I think that if you open the dialogue with the families, they know they’re the experts.
Rich Birch — Yep.
Gail Ewell — They’re the seasoned parent, you know. And when you open that dialogue and you have good communication with families then you know best how you can accommodate or modify or meet needs. Ah, and and when you have that listening ear and you’re open to hearing the the the needs and what they need for support. I know we have one family and their child, you know is a wheelchair and has some special needs as far as their physical mobility, et cetera. And that you know coming to Camp was hard because our Camp had hills.
Rich Birch — Yep, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Gail Ewell — Um, some of those camps was like alone pushing the wheelchair up and down the hills…
Rich Birch — Right, right, right.
Gail Ewell — …you know is wearing her out you know. And there was some other complex needs. So you know we just communicated in a way where we could get volunteers to push and make sure her cabin’s on the flat level. And just accommodated make sure her our classes were on the flat levels you know. And thinking about mobility needs right? And that was just talking to the mom and get hearing her feedback and hearing, oh yeah, I’m not even we’re not even. We’re so sorry we oversight you know. We’re not even thinking about the hills, you know…
Rich Birch — Right, yeah.
Gail Ewell — …and how hard that would be for someone to go up and down them hills for the classes a camp, right?
Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, yeah for sure. Yeah, that makes total sense. Well let’s pivot in a little slightly different direction. Tell me about Hope Technology School – tell me a little bit about this.
Gail Ewell — Yeah, um, Hope Technology School is an inclusion school which means that everyone’s included in education. There’s no separate classes. Um, it basically we have neuro 60% special those with special needs and then 40% are actually neurotypical .
Rich Birch — Okay, yep.
Gail Ewell — So they so a lot of people but you know that’s a a nonprofit private school, um and a lot of people it’s non-sectarian it’s not religious. Um, but it’s an incredible light because we include. And and we’ve seen I mean we’ve seen the neurotypical people graduate, go to college, get incredible jobs, you know. We’ve seen this kids with special needs go go to college. I mean it’s just the power of inclusion is amazing. And um we’ve learned a lot in the years we’ve done it. You know whatever is a twenty plus years um. And you know we do collaborative teaching and differentiated instruction and you know we have ah kind of a universal design approach to education and modeling. And for anyone out there with education background, they know, kind of these terms. But you know it really helps us have a really successful inclusion model. Um, so is that helpful?
Rich Birch — Um, yeah, that’s wonderful. I love that. And you know I think this is that kind of thing is at least that’s been my experience as well. You see as churches or individuals or leaders, they they start moving in this area. And you start to realize, oh man there are just so many needs. There’s so many pieces of the puzzle here around how do we create a world where you know we can include more people where people can be ah, be you know, get a place at the table. And you know like it’s it’s you know there’s lots of different pieces here which I just think is so inspiring and you know just so incredible.
Rich Birch — So when you look to the future as at the church when you think kind of you know where where does this go next for Bay Area Christian as you think about inclusion down the road? What would be some of the questions you’re wondering about as you look up over the horizon?
Gail Ewell — Um, as far as new programs and outreach and things like that I think our E-life is something we’d like to develop more because we were primarily focused initially on inclusive sports programs and getting people out who otherwise wouldn’t have any opportunities. Ah, so E-life I mean there’s just a whole world of things we can do with that, you know. It basically if they’re cooking or doing yoga or whatever you can make it an inclusive activity and you know. And the E stands for exceptional. So we think they’re all exceptional.
Gail Ewell — Um, so that that’s something we’d like to develop more. And then I think the isolation is something I’d like to tackle more in the adult ministries. It’s something I like to tackle more and do more for the adult ministries. So there’s just not a lot when people age out of the system, so to speak that’s a term, they the parents and adults lose a lot of their support. I mean there’s these day programs they can go to – it depends on the city and the area you’re in what kind of services. Sometimes people in remote areas just don’t have a lot of services. There’s not a lot. And the church can do a lot as far as providing purpose and opportunities for um inclusion.
Gail Ewell — I I don’t know if I should keep so you know hopefully you could edit this out if it’s not a good story there. Yeah, but but ah…
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah.
Gail Ewell — You know I don’t know um, but what if some part that inspired but also challenged and convicted me was when I moved to the city I’m in now, and um I heard ah a neighbor asked me at a block party, did you hear about this story? And and I and then I didn’t know what she was talking about. I went and looked it up and it was basically a person in our area who aged out of the system—a mom —and she ended up shooting her son and shooting shooting herself. And…
Rich Birch — Oh how sad.
Gail Ewell — …and it for me I mean we don’t ever want to hear the uplift you only want to hear the uplifting stories. But really honestly that burned a hole in my soul.
Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah, oh man. Yes.
And I said I want to provide something for the adult because she reached out to her neighbor and her neighbor didn’t know what to do. And there was I just keep thinking if someone had reached out to her…
Rich Birch — Right.
Gail Ewell — …her and her son would be alive, right?
Rich Birch — Right.
Gail Ewell — She was so distraught, obviously probably had mental health issues and depression and whatnot. But so that gives you just a window into the isolation that can sometimes occur for those with more support needs. And that there’s just pinnacle moments in my life where like something’s burn in your heart and you go, I’m gonna do some about that, you know.
Rich Birch — We got to do something about that. Yeah. Yeah, totally, yeah.
Gail Ewell — Yeah I’m gonna do some about that. There’s something I’m gonna do. I’m gonna get a conviction about that. And I’m not going to forget about those those individuals who are who are really in need.
Rich Birch — Yeah, I love that. And I think you know that that is such a great example of I think as churches, think a lot the churches that I’ve seen that have got engaged in trying to create an inclusive environment, it typically starts when kids ministry. But then what happens over time…
Gail Ewell — Right.
Rich Birch — …is you know these those young people though they they go from kids to young people to young adults to adults…
Gail Ewell — Yes.
Rich Birch — …and and and which is a wonderful thing, right? Then it creates these new opportunities for a church to say hey what what can we do? And you know man look forward to a future where that’s just a normal part of um, you know what’s happening in in the church.
Rich Birch — Do you have a sense…so ah like this feels like ah it’s still a minority of churches that are doing something. Like this this feels like ah you know what do you have any sense of the kind of percentages what that looks like, how many churches out there?
Gail Ewell — Yeah I don’t know the percentages but when I’m ah in social media and I’m on support groups and I’m following ah parents that have huge followings…
Rich Birch — Yep.
Gail Ewell — …you know with special needs families, there are so there are good works out there. There are people reaching out. There are activities. Um, but I think it’s what you said, it’s It’s few.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Gail Ewell — You know there’s not compared to how many people there are and how many churches there are.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Gail Ewell — I think most people can get intimidated by it. I was telling one of my friends a story about when um I was in high school and you know they ask you what do you want… they kind of help you with what do you want to be career building or whatever. And they sent me to back then an institution where all the ah people with down syndrome were put. And it was terrible experience for me. And I remember walking out of there going I never want to work with people with special needs. I was too afraid of what I saw.
Rich Birch — Right.
Gail Ewell — Of course now they don’t have those institutions, but it’s much different for people now in that sense. But um I think a lot of times fear…
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Gail Ewell — …can keep us from opening up our ministries because we fear of the unknown, I suppose.
Rich Birch — Yes.
Gail Ewell — I don’t know anything about it. Or I don’t know oh that’s going to be too hard or it’s going to burn us all out or it’s going to take up too many resources or. And they don’t understand that really it it just starts with a big heart to love people and be a friend and reach out and meet a need. And and I think God blesses it. He he you know was at John 9 where he talks about the man born blind and he says that the parents didn’t sin. It’s because the work of God was meant to be seen through his life.
Rich Birch — Yes, yes.
Gail Ewell — And I think that that’s what God can do.
Rich Birch — Yeah.
Gail Ewell — He can show the he can show the light. He can show the work. He can show your hearts.
Rich Birch — Yeah, amen. That’s so good. Well I think that’s a great place to to to land it. I think that’s a great kind of even you know, kind of final thought there. But as we wrap up, kind of any any final words then I want to make sure that we give out contact information, websites, all that stuff so people can track. Because I think this is a great story and there’s going to be churches that are going to want to know more about it. But any kind of final words and then how can people track with you and the church.
Gail Ewell — Ah, final word. My final words would be believe that you can make a difference. Believe that you can listen. You can be a friend. Reach out to your neighbor. Reach out to the people at school. Understand and believe that you can really help, you know.
Rich Birch — That’s good.
Gail Ewell — Try not to judge. You know when you see the boy at the Target having a meltdown, you know be just reach out and be a friend. Is there anything I can do for you?
Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.
Gail Ewell — Um, you know I think we’ve developed a spiritual resource manual that’s coming soon. We have updated an old one and so you can register for access and um on that on the website I’ll I’ll give to you all the websites. And you can access that manual which will give you a lot of hands-on tactics and practical advice about how to start your spiritual resource ministry or how to start an E-sports or an E-activities in your community. So there’s a lot of ah resources we have online if people want to register for access…
Rich Birch — Love it.
Gail Ewell — …to the spiritual resource manual.
Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s great. I’ll I’ll put a link to that in the in the show notes. But I think that’s just at bacc.cc/srm for folks that are listening in.
Gail Ewell — Yes.
Rich Birch — Um, but we’ll ah we’ll we’ll put a link in the show notes as well for that. I would encourage people to pick that up. Well this has been a fantastic conversation, Gail. I really appreciate you being here today. Thanks so much for being on.
Gail Ewell — Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
Key Takeaways from XPS 2024: Navigating Organizational Doubt, Leadership Stages & Target Audiences
May 22, 2024
This week, we delve into the highlights of the XP Summit 2024, or XPS, as it’s affectionately known within the executive pastor community. Held at the vibrant Flatirons Church in Denver, this year’s event was a powerhouse of insights, connections, and practical takeaways for church leaders. Here are some key points from my solo podcast […]
Vision to Reality: How Executive Pastors Shape the Church’s Future with Phil Taylor
May 16, 2024
Thanks for joining us for the unSeminary podcast. We’re welcoming back Phil Taylor, a seasoned leader with over 20 years of experience in various pastoral roles and a passion for helping pastors turn vision into reality, which he does through his ministry, Backstage Pastors. Tune in as Phil shares insights on the importance of the […]
From 1,000 to 2,000 in 1,000 Days: Engagement Pathway Best Practices
May 15, 2024
We’re aiming for what might be called the Goldilocks growth rate—quick enough to make a substantial impact but sustainable so it doesn’t overwhelm your resources or team. To achieve this, we’ve identified that retaining 26% of new guests is pivotal. To effectively double a church’s attendance from 1,000 to 2,000 members over 1,000 days, or […]
Exploiting Limits for Church Growth: Insights from A Better Theory’s Nathan R. Elson
May 09, 2024
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Nathan R. Elson. He is the founder and chief theorist with the organization, A Better Theory. Every ministry, every church, and every leader has problems they have to deal with. Regardless of the size of your problems, it is possible to develop a pattern of […]
The Four Key Factors of Magnetic Community Service That Drive Invite Culture
May 08, 2024
In this episode of the unSeminary Podcast, we delve into the transformative impact of magnetic community service on building a vibrant church invite culture. Drawing inspiration from outreach initiatives at prominent churches like Elevation’s Love Week and Church of the Highlands’ Serve Day, we explore how strategic mass outreach can drive your congregation’s growth and […]
Calling the Next Gen to Leadership: Insights on Empowering Emerging Changemakers with Brad Dreibelbis
May 02, 2024
Thanks for tuning in to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Brad Dreibelbis, Next Gen and Operations Pastor at The Journey, a church in Delaware. How do you identify and find high caliber leaders, particularly from the next generation? Too many churches wait for young leaders to be trained in other places instead of raising […]
From 1,000 to 2,000 in 1,000 Days: Understanding New Guest Metrics
May 01, 2024
Today, we’re continuing our series on how your church can expand from 1,000 to 2,000 members in just 1,000 days. We’re focusing on the practical steps and metrics essential for managing such significant growth without overburdening your team or losing touch with the community’s needs. This discussion builds on our ongoing series, where we explore […]
40 Day All-In Campaigns for Your Church: Unleashing Discipleship & Growth with Zach Zehnder
Apr 25, 2024
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Zach Zehnder, the co-founder of Red Letter Living. Zach is a pioneer in creating 40-day challenges that have transformed discipleship and church growth in over 1000 churches. He’s also the teaching pastor at King of Kings in Omaha, Nebraska. You know that disciple-making is important, but […]
5 Counterintuitive Truths About Hiring for Church Leadership
Apr 24, 2024
You’ve often heard me stress the importance of culture, revenue, and vision in our churches, and our approach to hiring is at the heart of shaping our culture. Let’s explore five counterintuitive truths about hiring that I’ve uncovered through my experiences and coaching other church teams. 1. Judge by the Past, Not by Potential In […]
Volunteering as Mission: Cultivating a Culture of Engagement with Mary Ann Sibley
Apr 18, 2024
Thanks for joining in the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Mary Ann Sibley, church leader cheerleader and volunteer ministry ninja who works to make you look like the hero as you improve your volunteer culture. Does it ever feel like there’s a lack of ownership when people serve at your church? How do you […]
From 1,000 to 2,000 in 1,000 Days: Key Metrics for Explosive Church Growth
Apr 17, 2024
Today, we’re diving into the mechanics of rapid church growth, specifically how a church can potentially double in size—from 1,000 to 2,000 members—in just 1,000 days. If you’ve been pondering how to expand your congregation effectively and sustainably, this is the episode for you. The Balance of Growth Rapid church growth is exhilarating but maintaining […]
Embracing the Future with Humility: Community Christian’s Leadership Succession with Ted Coniaris
Apr 11, 2024
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Ted Coniaris, the Lead Pastor Apprentice at Community Christian Church. One of the fastest growing churches in the country, Community Christian is an entrepreneurial church which has been a ministry “teaching hospital” and vanguard for decades. Whether it’s five years or fifty years, every lead […]
Attention Economy: Understanding Its Impact On Your Church’s Mission
Apr 10, 2024
In our rapidly evolving digital landscape, the concept of the attention economy has become increasingly relevant, especially for churches seeking to navigate this new terrain effectively. At its core, the attention economy is about the commodification of human attention, where businesses and organizations vie for our focus amidst an overwhelming sea of information. This shift […]
Redemptive Poverty Work: Transforming Urban Communities Through Faith with Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders
Apr 04, 2024
Thank you for joining us at the unSeminary podcast. We’re excited to have Rev. Dr. Alvin Sanders from World Impact with us. This organization comes alongside church leaders and offers training and support designed for the urban context. The American Church has devalued the urban space, either fearing it or viewing it as something to […]
Easter 2024 Stats Exposed: Insights Your Church Can’t Afford to Ignore
Apr 03, 2024
During this episode of the unSeminary, we dived into the Easter 2024 attendance figures, collating responses from a wide array of churches. The total combined attendance hit a staggering 249,377, revealing much about the state of church engagement during this important “Eventful Big Day.” The Importance of Eventful Big Days Easter can be an “Eventful […]
The Jewish Road: Uniting Act 1 and Act 2 of Our Faith Journey with Matt Davis
Mar 28, 2024
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Matt Davis from The Jewish Road, an organization that works to help Christians make sense of their Jewish roots while helping Jews make sense of Jesus. Most Christians have a basic understanding of Jesus and His teachings, but they aren’t getting the whole story. Jesus has […]
From Vision to Reality: Crafting a Future Where More People Meet Jesus with Paul Alexander
Mar 21, 2024
Thanks for tuning in to the unSeminary podcast. Today I’m joined by Paul Alexander, the Executive Pastor at Sun Valley Community Church in Arizona. As church leaders, sometimes we can have a natural aversion to strategic planning. Yet we see in the scriptures, from beginning to end, that God has a plan. And He wants […]
Leading Through Growth: Executive Pastor Roundtable with Jeremy Peterson, Kayra Montañez, & Jesse DeYoung
Mar 20, 2024
This episode of unSeminary brings together a distinguished panel of Executive Pastors—Jeremy Peterson, Kayra Montañez, and Jesse DeYoung—for an insightful roundtable discussion. These seasoned leaders from across the country share their frontline experiences and strategies in navigating the complexities of expanding churches in today’s rapidly changing ecclesiastical landscape. What You’ll Learn: Guest Bios: This episode […]
Wonderful: Charting the Path to Fulfillment in a World Overflowing with Options with Travis Spencer
Mar 14, 2024
Thanks for joining the unSeminary podcast. Today we have with us Travis Spencer, the lead pastor at The Fields Church in Mattoon, Illinois. We’re talking with Travis about his book Wonderful: How to Live a Fulfilled Life in a Very Full World. Have you ever thought about writing a book? Tune in as Travis discusses […]
Bridgetown’s Pivot from Livestream to Local: Kenny Jahng & Rich Birch Discuss
Mar 13, 2024
In an era where digital presence is almost synonymous with accessibility, Bridgetown Church’s recent decision to cancel their livestream services stands out as a bold counter-current move. This episode of the unSeminary podcast, featuring a conversation between host Rich Birch and guest Kenny Jahng, dives deep into the implications and motivations behind this pivot. Here’s […]
Unlocking Generosity and Engagement: Key Takeaways from Church Growth Incubator Retreat
Mar 07, 2024
In today’s episode of the unSeminary podcast, we pull back the curtain on an extraordinary gathering that promises to revolutionize the way church leaders envision growth and community engagement. Fresh from the Church Growth Incubator retreat held at Mariner’s Church in Irvine, Southern California, we’re eager to share a treasure trove of wisdom that emerged […]
From Attendance to Engagement: Zach Interviews Rich About Transforming Your Church’s Growth Strategy
Feb 29, 2024
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today I’m happy to sit down with Zach Zehnder, who runs an organization called Red Letter Living. The mission of Red Letter Living is to challenge all people to become greater followers of Jesus Christ. Thousands of individuals and hundreds of churches have taken one of their 40-day discipleship […]
The Diffusion of Innovation Curve and Leading Change at Your Church
Feb 28, 2024
In the dynamic landscape of church leadership, the concept of change is both inevitable and essential. As leaders, our mission extends beyond merely maintaining the status quo; it involves steering our congregations toward a brighter, more engaging future. This journey of transformation, however, is far from straightforward. It demands a nuanced understanding of how change […]
FILO: Empowering Technical Artists in Your Church with Todd Elliott
Feb 22, 2024
Thanks for tuning in to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Todd Elliott, a writer, speaker and audio engineer serving the local church. He’s also the founder of FILO: First In, Last Out, which is built around supporting technical artists who serve the local church. Do you ever feel like there is a disconnect […]
Church Merger Tactic: Expanding Your Church’s Reach with “The Letter Method”
Feb 21, 2024
In today’s solo episode, I’m diving deep into a topic close to my heart and crucial for any growing or multi-site church considering expansion: church mergers. This isn’t just another growth strategy; it’s a pivotal approach that could significantly impact how we reach more people and foster an inviting church culture. The Growing Trend of […]
From Downturn to Turnaround to Steady Growth in a Rural-ish Community with Joseph Berkobien
Feb 15, 2024
Thanks for joining us for the unSeminary podcast. We’re happy to be talking with Joseph Berkobien, the Lead Pastor of Frankenmuth Bible Church in Frankenmuth, Michigan. Transitions in leadership can be challenging times for churches. How do you recover and grow after a season of decline? Tune in as Joseph shares the turnaround story of […]
Reflections on Christian Ministry at the Halfway Point with Jon Thompson
Feb 08, 2024
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Jon Thompson, the lead pastor at Sanctus Church in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Being a Christian leader is a marathon, not a sprint. In the middle of the social media and the politics and the pressures and the fear and the questions, we can be tempted to […]
From Eye Rolls to Engagement: Boosting the Effectiveness of Your Church’s Announcements
Feb 07, 2024
This episode tackles a critical yet often overlooked aspect of church services: announcements. Far from being mere placeholders, announcements have the potential to drive engagement within your church significantly. We start with a relatable discussion on why church announcements typically induce eye rolls rather than enthusiasm. Recognizing this issue is the first step towards transformation. […]
Protecting Your Church’s DNA: Jon Delger on Building Culture Within a Fast-Growing Church
Feb 01, 2024
Thanks for joining us at the unSeminary podcast. We have Jon Delger with us today, the Executive Pastor at Peace Church in Michigan—one of the fastest growing churches in the country. Whether your church is growing a little or a lot, change to the people making up your church will change your culture. How can […]
From First Fifty to New Frontiers: Mike Signorelli on Moving Your People to Deeper Levels of Commitment
Jan 25, 2024
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Mike Signorelli, Lead Pastor at V1 Church – one of the fastest-growing churches in the country with locations in New York City and other cities across the country. Are you feeling stuck moving people at your church to increasing levels of commitment? Wondering how to manage […]
Revitalizing Invitation: Strategies for Engaging Your Church Community
Jan 24, 2024
Today’s episode is unique and particularly close to our hearts as we address a question from one of our listeners, Drew Williams, head pastor at New Life Lutheran Church. This direct engagement with our audience not only reinforces our community’s interconnectedness but also grounds our discussion in real-world church leadership scenarios. Drew’s church, nestled in […]
Pastoral Transitions: Matt Davis on Best Practices in Moving Members Off Your Team
Jan 18, 2024
Thanks for joining the unSeminary podcast. This week we are talking to Matt Davis, the President and Chief Pastoral Officer at Pastoral Transitions. This ministry exists to help churches love and support their outgoing pastors and their families. They provides transition services to help pastors continue their life ministry for building God’s kingdom. Every pastor […]
Doubling Impact: Navigating the Shift from One to Two Church Services
Jan 17, 2024
Why add another service? Growth and multiplication are signs of a healthy church. This isn’t just about getting more people in seats in the building; it’s about creating new opportunities for reaching out, engaging more volunteers, and widening your church’s impact. Remember, every empty seat is a missed opportunity to change a life. Breaking the […]
Fast-Growing Follow Up: Insights from Pantano Christian Church’s Growth with Trevor DeVage
Jan 11, 2024
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. This week I’m talking with Trevor DeVage, the lead pastor at Pantano Christian Church in Tuscon, Arizona. Trevor has talked with us before and is back sharing how to recognize opportunities at your church and embrace best practices to create space for growth. You can learn more about Pantano […]
Beyond the Budget: Innovative Ways to Increase Church Revenue
Jan 10, 2024
This solo episode offers practical insights, strategies, and inspiring stories aimed at helping church leaders expand their fiscal horizons. The discussion kicks off with a look back at the remarkable achievements of the ‘Best Year End Ever’ cohort, part of The Art of Leadership Academy. Success stories from various churches demonstrate the immense potential and […]
Executive Pastor Profile: Sam Beatty from Grace Church, Cleveland
Jan 04, 2024
Thanks for joining us for the unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to have with us Sam Beatty, the executive pastor from Grace Church outside of Cleveland, Ohio. As our churches grow, they naturally become more complex. It’s important to keep them focused and drive towards simplicity so we don’t drift from the mission and vision. Tune […]
2024 Unpredictions: Timeless Church Leadership Challenges & Solutions
Jan 03, 2024
As we step into the fresh possibilities of 2024, it’s vital for church leaders to discern between fleeting trends and enduring challenges. In this episode of the unSeminary Podcast, we delve into the “2024 Unpredictions,” a guide to the timeless challenges and solutions that will shape church leadership this year. Core Themes: While we embrace […]
Digital Rabbi: Unlocking Your Purpose and Passion with Sats Solanki
Dec 28, 2023
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Sats Solanki, the founder of Reflect Church in London. Sats is not just a pastor but also a coach, speaker, and host of the podcast, Digital Rabbi. Tune in as he shares about the unique journey of Reflect Church and its strategically slow approach to rebuilding […]
Lessons from Christmas: Elevating Your Church’s Impact
Dec 26, 2023
As church leaders, we often find the post-Christmas period a time for reflection and planning. The festive season’s hustle has settled, and it’s time to ponder on our successes and the areas where we yearn for growth. In this latest episode of the unSeminary podcast, we delve into crucial insights and strategies to transform your […]
Persevering After Being Fired by Your Church: Kyle Isabelli Reflects on His Journey
Dec 21, 2023
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with repeat guest, Kyle Isabelli, the lead pastor from Avenue Christian Church in the western suburbs of Chicago. Did you know that as many as one third of people working in church ministry will be forced to resign or be fired from their position? If you’ve ever […]
Beyond Predictions: Increasing Generosity at Your Church Amidst Economic Fog
Dec 19, 2023
As we step into 2024, churches face a unique challenge amidst a mixed economic outlook. With predictions ranging from robust growth to stagnation, it’s crucial for church leaders to focus on effective revenue generation strategies. One key area that offers significant potential is the enhancement of offering talks. Understanding the Economic Landscape The economic forecasts […]
Why Your Team Should Do a 90 Day Bible Reading Challenge (& How!) with Mary DeMuth
Dec 14, 2023
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Mary DeMuth today, an international speaker, podcaster, and author of nearly fifty books. You may have read through the Bible in a year, but have you considered reading the entirety of scripture in just 90 days? In today’s conversation, Mary shares how this 90-day challenge started […]
The January Bump: Game-Changing Perspective on Christmas Attendance Targets for Your Church
Dec 13, 2023
A New Metric for Success: The January Bump Traditionally, we judge the success of our Christmas services by the number of attendees. But what if we shifted our focus to what I like to call the ‘January bump’? Imagine measuring success not just by the numbers during Christmas but by the increase in attendance we […]
The Chosen: Stan Jantz on Reaching 1 Billion People, Ministry Innovation & Helping Your Church
Dec 07, 2023
Thanks for tuning in to the unSeminary podcast. We’re happy to be talking with Stan Jantz today, the Chief Executive Officer of The Come and See Foundation. In partnership with ministries around the world, Come and See is on a mission to share the authentic Jesus with 1 billion people worldwide. Throughout history, followers of […]
Residency Reflections: Saddleback Church’s Brittany Crimmel on Her Leadership Pathway So Far
Nov 30, 2023
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Brittany Crimmel, a Production Director at Saddleback Church in California. There is a leadership crisis in the local church with so many churches struggling to know how to find and develop people. However, by participating in internships and residencies, churches can contribute to developing the […]
Behind the Leader: Ian Borkent’s Journey of Burnout and Relaunch
Nov 23, 2023
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re chatting with Ian Borkent from C3 Rivers Church in the Netherlands. Ian also started the ministry Grow a Healthy Soul to help church leaders take care of their souls. Church leaders often focus on metrics such as attendance, salvations and finances to gauge the health of their church, […]
Secrets of Top Team Players: Insights from 30,000 Leaders & William Vanderbloemen
Nov 16, 2023
Thanks for joining us on the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking again with William Vanderbloemen, the founder and CEO of Vanderbloemen Search Group, an organization that helps identify executive talent and matches value-based organizations with like-minded people. When it comes to hiring the best people, what factors cause them to shine? How can you learn to identify […]
Talking with Your Lender: Mark Briggs Offers Insider Advice for Growing Churches
Nov 09, 2023
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Mark Briggs, the Executive Vice President of Ministry Lending at CDF Capital. CDF Capital is dedicated to helping churches solve problems and bridge the financial gap often faced when trying to expand and reach more people. Mark has been with CDF for over 20 years, helping churches […]
Guest-Friendly Environments: Aaron Stanski on Effective Facilities for Your Church
Nov 02, 2023
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Aaron Stanski, the founder and CEO of Risepointe, with fifteen years of church design and ministry leadership experience. Do you feel frustrated with your church building, or like it’s holding you back from fulfilling your mission? Aaron’s experience has given him unique insights into the common […]
Increasing the Generosity Culture at Your Church with Phil Ling
Oct 26, 2023
Thanks for joining us for this episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Phil Ling, a renowned expert on generosity in the church and founder of The Giving Church. Did you know that in the average church in North America, 45% of the people that give a church money give less than $200 […]
Increase Engagement with Data-Driven Strategies: Ronee de Leon on Unlocking Your Church Database’s Potential
Oct 19, 2023
Thanks for joining us for the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Ronee de Leon, the Director of Executive Project Management from Grace Fellowship, a multisite church in Ohio. Many churches have some sort of church management software and mountains of data. But figuring out how to make it actionable so you’re connecting with your […]
Mission Trips vs. Strategic Visits: Nathan Nelson on Transformational International Partnerships for Your Church
Oct 12, 2023
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Nathan Nelson, Pastor of Mission and Outreach at Bethany Community Church in the Seattle, Washington region. Do you ever feel like short-term missions trips actually push against creating deep, lasting change in the communities you serve? Tune in as Nathan shares how to move beyond the […]
Engagement Pathway: Greg Curtis & Tommy Carreras on Best Current Practices on Assimilating People at Your Church
Oct 05, 2023
Thanks for joining the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Greg Curtis and Tommy Carreras. Greg is the Pastor of Guest Engagement at Eastside Christian Church, a multisite church in California, Nevada, and Minnesota. He’s also founder of Climbing the Assimalayas, a website focused on helping churches design an engagement pathway that fosters connection, enables […]
Transforming Team Culture: Karen Berge’s Insider View on the Shift from Unhealthy to Thriving
Sep 28, 2023
Thanks for joining us on the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Karen Berge, the Executive Pastor of Ministry at Flatirons Community Church. They are one of the fastest growing churches in the country with five physical campuses in Colorado as well as church online. Many churches are able to say there are good things happening there. […]
How to Leverage AI for Your Church & Your Future with Kenny Jahng
Sep 21, 2023
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today’s podcast is the second of a two-part series (you can listen to part one of the podcast here) with Kenny Jahng, an expert when it comes to using AI in the church, and the founder of Big Click Syndicate. In today’s episode we’re delving into the implications of […]
How Your Church Can Have the Best Year-End Ever with Kenny Jahng
Sep 14, 2023
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today’s podcast is the first of a two-part series with my friend, Kenny Jahng, the founder of Big Click Syndicate which helps cause-driven organizations get their messages in front of the right audiences. Did you know the last 45 days of the year are crucial for charitable giving? Because […]
Fostering Community in a Fast-Growing Multi-Campus Ministry: Scott Freeman on Effective Pastoral Care
Sep 07, 2023
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. This week we’re talking with Scott Freeman, the Pastor of Community at Grace Church in South Carolina. As a church expands, there is a constant tension to manage between growth and deep community. Grace Church has experienced significant growth over the years with ten campuses and over 250 community […]
The Future of Faith is Child-Friendly: Stephen Moore on WinShape Camps for Communities
Aug 31, 2023
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. This week I’m excited to be talking with Stephen Moore, the Director of WinShape Camps for Communities. WinShape, an organization started in 1985 by Truett Cathy, the founder of Chick-fil-A, started as a college program and has since grown into five different ministries, with focuses on professional development, marriages, […]
He Gets Us: Kyle Isabelli on Reaching Out to Non-Christians with Gloo
Aug 24, 2023
Thanks for tuning in for this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re chatting with Kyle Isabelli, the lead pastor of Avenue Christian Church in the western suburbs of Chicago. Wondering how to connect with hurting people in your community who might not venture through your church’s doors? In today’s episode Kyle and I have a fantastic conversation […]
Faith Forward: Fr. Peter Wojcik on Strategies for Engaging Millennials, Gen Z, & Gen Alpha in the Church
Aug 17, 2023
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we are joined by Father Peter Wojcik, pastor at Saint Clement Parish in Chicago. Do you struggle to engage Gen Z in your church? Do you want to invite younger generations into ministry, but aren’t sure where to start? Saint Clement is a dynamic Catholic community in the […]
From Struggle to Success: Evan Courtney on Revitalizing a Church Campus Amidst Challenges
Aug 10, 2023
Thanks for joining us for the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Evan Courtney, the Executive Pastor at The Fields Church in central Illinois. Have you ever experienced decline in your church or felt like everything was going wrong? Don’t miss this encouraging conversation as Evan testifies to the power of perseverance, overcoming obstacles that lead […]
Uniting the Church to Quench the Global Water Crisis: A Conversation with Mike Mantel
Aug 03, 2023
Thanks for tuning into today’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Mike Mantel, the CEO of Living Water International. They are a faith-based global humanitarian organization that links arms with churches around the world to serve thirsty communities through access to safe drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene. What if the church of Jesus Christ could end […]
Nurturing the Spirit of Advent with Families at Your Church: Chris Pappalardo & Clayton Greene on the GoodKind Approach
Jul 27, 2023
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. I’m talking with Chris Pappalardo and Clayton Greene from The Summit Church in Durham, North Carolina. Chris is Editor on the Creative Arts team and Clayton is the Summit Collaborative Director. Have you started planning for Christmas yet at your church? Are you looking for a way to help […]
The Art of Working with (Almost) Anyone: Michael Bungay Stanier Offers Coaching For You As You Lead At Your Church
Jul 20, 2023
Thanks for joining the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with coach and writer Michael Bungay Stanier, who is best known for his book, The Coaching Habit, which is the bestselling coaching book of the century. We all know that not all work relationships can be perfect, but how can we improve them? In today’s episode, Michael […]
The Resilience Factor: Insights from Léonce B. Crump Jr. & Warren Bird on Unbreakable Teams
Jul 13, 2023
Thanks for tuning in to the unSeminary podcast. Today I’m talking with Léonce B. Crump Jr. and Warren Bird. Léonce is an author plus the co-founder and senior pastor of Renovation Church in Atlanta. Warren is a repeat guest on unSeminary. He works for the Evangelical Council for Financial Ability (ECFA) and is also the […]
When Pastors Aren’t Angels: Becca Pountney on Wedding Industry Challenges
Jul 06, 2023
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today I’m talking with Becca Pountney, the UK’s number one wedding business marketing expert and host of the podcast Wedding Pros Who Are Ready to Grow. Did you know that many wedding professionals have a negative perception of church weddings? From difficulty accessing church buildings and strict rules, to […]
Long-Term Vision, Lasting Impact: Curt Seaburg on Strategic Vision in Church Leadership
Jun 29, 2023
Thanks for joining the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Curt Seaburg, the lead pastor of Victory Church in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. While it’s important for church leaders to learn from each other, when it comes to vision, it’s critical to know yourself and the God-given calling for your church within its unique community. Listen to […]
Hybrid Church in a Digital Age: Collin Jones on the State of Church Tech Today
Jun 22, 2023
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Collin Jones, the chief ambassador at Resi, part of the organization Pushpay. Pushpay provides a donor management system, including donor tools, finance tools and a custom community app to the faith sector while Resi helps deliver reliable livestream solutions to churches. Online services and live streaming […]
Exploring the State of Church Staff Health: Todd Rhoades & Matt Steen on Findings and Insights from New National Study
Jun 15, 2023
Thanks for tuning in to the unSeminary podcast! Today is part 2 of a conversation that we started back in April with Todd Rhoades and Matt Steen, the co-founders of Chemistry Staffing. If you’re curious about the state of church staff health in the US, you won’t want to miss this episode as we dive into the findings of […]
Discipleship Leadership Development in Church Planting: Stevie Flockhart’s Leadership Journey
Jun 08, 2023
Thanks for tuning in to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Stevie Flockhart, Lead Pastor of 901 Church in Tennessee. Have you ever struggled with the desire for personal recognition and validation in ministry? In this unSeminary podcast episode Stevie shares his personal journey and struggles with comparison and the desire for success. Listen in […]
Long-Term Leadership: Jeff Cranston on Steady, Purposeful Leadership
Jun 01, 2023
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Today we have Lead Pastor Jeff Cranston with us from LowCountry Community Church in Bluffton, South Carolina. How can churches maintain balance in ministry and create engagement within their congregation and staff? This is a question that Jeff answers in today’s episode of the unSeminary Podcast. Don’t miss this conversation […]
Doing Less to Reach More: Trevor DeVage on 160% Church Growth in 18 Months
May 25, 2023
Thanks for tuning into this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Lead Pastor Trevor DeVage from Pantano Christian Church in Arizona, one of the fastest growing churches in the country. Is your church in a season of growth, needing to streamline its ministries? Or are you trying to simplify your systems so that they […]
Practical Help on Increasing Engagement at Your Church with Ken Nash
May 18, 2023
Thanks for joining us for the unSeminary podcast. Ken Nash, the Lead Pastor of Cornerstone Church in Michigan, is with us today. For decades churches measured how well they were doing based on counting nickels and noses, but with the upheaval and loss churches have experienced over the last few years, they need to change […]
Training Your Team to Lead Through Others with Phil Caporale & George Probasco
May 11, 2023
Thanks for tuning into the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Lead Pastor, Phil Caporale, and Campus Pastor and Kingsway Leadership School Site Director, George Probasco, from Kingsway Church in New Jersey. As a church leader, one of the most challenging aspects of your role can be developing leaders. While it can be difficult to identify […]
Leaning in on the Important (& Potentially Awkward) Conversations Around Women in Leadership at Your Church with Lisa Penberthy
May 04, 2023
Thanks for joining us on the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Lisa Penberthy, a church leader and consultant with 20 years of experience and an M.Div and MBA in nonprofit management. She is currently serving as the COO at Dannah Investment Group and is passionate about stewarding people’s callings as well as church resources. […]
Closing the Gap Between Your Church’s Vision & Execution with Nick Thompson
Apr 27, 2023
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Nick Thompson, the Executive Pastor at The Living Stone Church in Denver, Colorado. How is your church executing on its vision? If you’re a church leader looking to create a practical framework for decision-making, a Vision Frame might be just what you need. Listen to this […]
Building a Resilient Church Staff: Secrets to Sustaining a Strong Team Culture with Todd Rhoades & Matt Steen
Apr 24, 2023
Welcome to today’s special episode of the unSeminary podcast where we are replaying our recent webinar called “Resilient Church Staff: Secrets to Building and Sustaining a Strong Team Culture” with my friends Todd Rhoades and Matt Steen, the co-founders of Chemistry Staffing. In this webinar, Todd and Matt discuss the importance of cultivating a healthy […]
Being a Clarity Champion on a Senior Leadership Team at a Fast Growing Church with Kasey Husen
Apr 20, 2023
Thanks for joining this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Kasey Husen, the Executive Director of Communicatons and Events at Crossroads Christian Church in Corona, California. Kasey talks with us about the importance of having a Communications Director at the senior leadership level at your church. Beyond branding and marketing, Kasey shares how they can […]
Leading Through the Crisis Your Church is In (Or About to Be In) with Rusty George
Apr 13, 2023
Thanks for tuning in for this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Rusty George this week, the lead pastor of Real Life Church in Southern California. In addition to being a pastor, Rusty is a speaker, teacher and author focused on making real-life simple. As leaders, we all face difficult times and crises that challenge […]
Skills You Need to Move from Pandemic to Progress with Brian Dodd
Apr 06, 2023
Thank you for tuning in to this week’s unSeminary podcast. We have Brian Dodd back with us. He’s the Director of New Ministry Relationships at Injoy Stewardship Solutions, as well as blogging at Brian Dodd on Leadership and the author of several books. Brian is talking with us about the current state of the church […]
Sunday Service Dedicated to Pre-schoolers & Their Parents? Church Growth Lessons from Marcus Gibbs & Bubble Church
Mar 30, 2023
Thanks for tuning in to the unSeminary podcast. We have a real treat today. We recorded this interview in person while in London, England with Marcus Gibbs, Vicar at Ascension Church. Are you looking for innovative ways to reach unchurched communities and serve the next generation?Listen in as Marcus shares the simple yet engaging Bubble […]
Leveraging Data to Drive Ministry Outcomes at Your Church with Erik Henry
Mar 23, 2023
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking today with Erik Henry, the Executive Pastor of Central Christian Church in Wisconsin. Data is critical to accurately understand what’s happening at your church and what’s changing over time. Listen in as Erik discusses the importance of using data to make informed decisions at your church as […]
Moving from Spanish Translation to a Full Spanish Ministry with Tim Hill
Mar 16, 2023
Thanks for tuning in for the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Tim Hill, executive pastor at Bear Creek Church, located at the crossroads of West Houston, Katy and Cypress, Texas. Every zip code in America is more diverse today than it was ten years ago. And it will be even more diverse ten years […]
Seeking God’s Best for Your Church Even in a Hostile Environment with Terry A. Smith
Mar 09, 2023
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’ve got Terry A. Smith with us today; he’s the lead pastor at The Life Christian Church (TLCC) which serves the New York City metro area. He recently wrote a devotional called, The Lord Bless You: A 28-Day Journey to Experience God’s Extravagant Blessings, and today we’re unpacking a […]
Building a Positive Working Relationship with Your Church’s Financial Institution with Eric Schroeder
Mar 02, 2023
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re having a great conversation with Eric Schroeder, the president and CEO of CDF Capital, an organization that helps churches grow in order to transform lives and communities. Financial matters, like spiritual matters, are very personal. And when you’re dealing with something personal, it can be hard to develop […]
4 Minutes Every Weekend to Increase Revenue & Spread Culture at Your Church with Taleah Murray
Feb 23, 2023
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Taleah Murray, the Executive Pastor of Ministries at Crossroads Christian Church in Corona, California. One of the areas Taleah oversees at Crossroads is offering talks and using video to share the impact that the church’s generosity is having as people give. Listen in as she […]
Kadi Cole Interviews Rich Birch about Female Leadership in the Church
Feb 16, 2023
Thanks for joining us for this episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Kadi Cole who leads the organization Kadi Cole & Company which helps with leadership development, management skills training, executive level coaching and more. This time Kadi is taking over hosting the podcast as she interviews Rich on how men can open […]
XP Roundtable: Finances, Volunteers, Staffing & More with Lisa Penberthy, Jeremy Peterson & Brandon Beard
Feb 09, 2023
What larger trends are impacting churches across the country? The landscape of our culture continues to shift & evolve. Growing churches respond to those changes and find ways to thrive. Learn from the latest insights on trends and how those impact you and your team. Don’t miss this special podcast episode as we hear from […]
Get a Head Start on Your Church’s Multi-Use Strategy with Frank Bealer
Feb 02, 2023
Thanks for joining us for the unSeminary podcast. I’m talking with Frank Bealer, the co-founder and Chief Growth Officer of Phase Family Centers as well as Chief of Staff at Local Church. Is your church considering a multi-use strategy? Does it seem overwhelming as you think about how to get started and all that you […]
Help to Fight the Scourge of Predictability in Your Church Services with Lance Burch
Jan 26, 2023
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. I’m talking with Lance Burch from Reality Church in Omaha, Nebraska. He often explores and identifies current cultural phenomena and then tries to find a way to connect them to biblical truth. Listen in as Lance shares how to pay attention to the questions the culture around us is […]
Tithes & Offerings Are No Longer Enough To Fund Your Church with Mark DeYmaz
Jan 19, 2023
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to be talking with Mark DeYmaz, who planted Mosaic Church in Arkansas and is co-founder of Mosaix Global Network. We’re nearly a quarter of our way through the 21st century and yet some churches are still operating on models from the 1960s. In spite of good intentions […]
Reflecting on Seasons of Life, Leadership & Their Impact on Your Team with Lee Coate
Jan 12, 2023
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Lee Coate, the executive pastor at The Crossing in Las Vegas, and the president of Growmentum Group. Today Lee is talking with us about Growmentum Group, how they are helping church leaders accomplish their missions, and how to use the different seasons of leadership that are […]
Doing the Right Things for the Right Reasons with the Right People at Your Church with Scot Longyear & Heath Bottomly
Jan 05, 2023
Thanks for tuning in to the unSeminary podcast. We’re with returning guests Scot Longyear and Heath Bottomly today. Heath is the Lead Pastor of the Creative Teams at Pure Heart Church in Arizona and Scot is the Senior Pastor of Maryland Community Church in Indiana. Scot and Heath talk with us about their book Fight […]
Lessons from Inside a Rapidly Multiplying Church with DeWayne McNally & Paul Schulz
Dec 22, 2022
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with DeWayne McNally and Paul Schulz from Hill Country Bible Church in Austin, Texas. DeWayne and Paul both serve as executive pastors of ministry by dividing the responsibilities; DeWayne handles the operations, multiplication and family ministries while Paul takes care of the personal/spiritual growth related ministries, including […]
Reframing Evangelism at Your Church with Shaila Visser
Dec 15, 2022
Thank for joining us for the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Shaila Visser, the Global Senior Vice-President for Alpha International. Alpha is an 11-week course that creates a space for people to invite their friends for a conversation about life, faith and Jesus. Worldwide, an increasing number of pastors believe evangelism is wrong. This mindset, […]
Business as Core to the Mission of Your Church with Johnny Scott
Dec 08, 2022
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. I’m happy to be talking with Johnny Scott, the lead pastor of Generations Church in Trinity, Florida. Ever wonder what a self-sustainable church might look like? Curious about how to use business as ministry? Listen in as Johnny Scott shares how churches can use holy-owned businesses to reach their […]
Working Genius with the Team at Your Church with Patrick Lencioni
Dec 01, 2022
Thanks for tuning in to the unSeminary podcast. This week we’re talking with Patrick Lencioni, one of the founders of The Table Group and an expert in leadership, teamwork, and organizational health. Pat’s also the author of 13 books which have sold millions of copies around the world, and today he’s talking with us about […]
In The Trenches of Guiding a Church to Be More Outsider Focused with Chuck Fenwick
Nov 24, 2022
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today I’m excited today to be talking with Chuck Fenwick, lead pastor at New Haven UMC in Indiana. How do we build churches that are both reaching new people, and caring for the people who are with us? It’s a universal tension all church leaders face. Listen in as […]
What Are the Best Predictors of a Church’s Ability to Multiply Itself? A Warren Bird Conversation
Nov 17, 2022
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’ve got Dr. Warren Bird with us today. He’s the Senior Vice President of Research and Equipping at the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA), and an author of over thirty books. Warren is back to talk about the New Faces of Church Planting survey which was performed back […]
Creating & Sustaining an Empowering Culture at Your Church with Dr. Derry Long
Nov 10, 2022
Thanks for joining us here at the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Dr. Derry Long, from the Yellowstone Theological Institute. He’s served for 45 years in many church leadership roles and is here to share his knowledge with us. At churches, it’s not uncommon for 20% of the people to do 80% of the work, […]
Embracing a Team Mentality to Spark Growth at Your Church with Aaron Tredway
Nov 03, 2022
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast – so glad that you have decided to tune in. This week we have with us Aaron Tredway, Lead Pastor of Fellowship City Church in Ohio. As church leaders, we know that when we empower others, we can accomplish more together than we can alone. But it can be hard […]
Under the Hood of a Multiplying Church of Nearly 30 Church Plants with Josh Husmann
Oct 27, 2022
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today I’m excited today to be talking with Josh Husmann, lead pastor at Mercy Road Church in Indiana. Mercy Road is one of the top reproducing churches in the country with a passion for multiplying disciples, leaders, churches, and expanding the reach of the gospel throughout the state of […]
Leading Slow & Steady Change in a Fast Growing Church with Mark Williams
Oct 20, 2022
Thanks for joining us at the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking today with Mark Williams, Executive Pastor at New Day Christian Church in Port Charlotte, Florida. The last few years have seen a lot of changes for church leaders and their congregations. How do you continue to grow and change when people are burned out and […]
Gaining Brand Clarity That Makes Growing Your Church’s Mission Simple with Joey Speers
Oct 13, 2022
Thanks for tuning in to the unSeminary podcast. We’re excited to talk with Joey Speers, a brand builder and digital marketer. He and his wife founded the Speers Collective Inc., the parent company of Creativ Rise and Brand Therapy. Joey is talking about how churches can generate brand clarity that makes growing their mission simple […]
Leading Change in the Midst of the Messiness of Ministry with Mike Bonem
Oct 06, 2022
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Mike Bonem, a coach and consultant who helps church leaders with vision discernment, organizational design and strategy. In the last three years, everyone has had to make massive changes. Now as churches have found their new normal and are looking to the future, there can […]
Technology Insights to Drive Ministry Outcomes with Aaron Senneff
Sep 29, 2022
Thanks for joining us on the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re chatting with Aaron Senneff, the Chief Technology Officer at Pushpay. Pushpay is a digital engagement platform that provides a donor management system, including donor tools, finance tools and a custom community app, to churches. Technology is more important than ever in the church. But how […]
Outreach Lessons from the Statistically Most Secular City in North America with Jeremy Norton
Sep 22, 2022
Thanks for joining the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Jeremy Norton, lead pastor at Mountainview Church in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada. Being a church leader in a place like the Yukon is a little like living in the future. Listen in as Jeremy shares how to engage with your neighbors and city in a post-Christian […]
Practical Help on Taking Your Messages from Good to Great with Pete Briscoe
Sep 15, 2022
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking today with Pete Briscoe, who was the senior pastor at Bent Tree Bible Fellowship in Dallas for almost thirty years and preached through the Telling the Truth ministry, reaching an audience of more than 1.2 million people every week. Currently Pete is a coach for church and […]
Journey Beyond Burnout & Compassion Fatigue with Janetta Oni
Sep 08, 2022
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re chatting with Janetta Oni, the Creative Director at The Summit Church in North Carolina. Compassion fatigue is far more common in ministry than we might like to admit. It can be easy to wear busyness like a badge of honor while burning out in the process. But […]
Inside the Groups Ministry of a Fast Growing Baptist Church with David Raney
Sep 01, 2022
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re chatting with David Raney, the Executive Pastor of Ministry from 2ND Baptist Church in Arkansas. 2ND Baptist is one of the fastest growing churches in the country, and as a growing church they want to make sure people get plugged in so they don’t fade away. Listen in […]
Advice on Taking Your Best Next Step When Life Is Uncertain with Jeff Henderson
Aug 25, 2022
Thanks for joining us for the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Jeff Henderson, founder of The FOR Company, which helps organizations build a good name where purpose and profit grow together. Many people are more familiar with what the Church is against rather than what the Church is for. What does your church WANT to […]
Aligning Mission & Organization to Achieve Creative Outcomes with Heath Bottomly
Aug 18, 2022
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 […]
Leading in the Unchangeable Present with Larry Osborne
Aug 11, 2022
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 […]
Managing High Performance Multisite Creative Teams with Melody Workman
Aug 04, 2022
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 […]
Burnout, Perfectionism & Identity: Inside Chris Hahn’s Personal Journey to Restoration
Jul 28, 2022
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 […]
Leading Through Healthy Open Brokenness & Vulnerability with Carl Kuhl
Jul 21, 2022
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 […]
The Surprising Journey Toward Being a Community Focused & Fast Growing Church with Vern Streeter
Jul 14, 2022
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 […]
Balancing A Growing Family & Ministry with Paula Ley
Jul 07, 2022
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 […]
Latest Church Trends Post-COVID with Tony Morgan
Jun 30, 2022
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 […]
Healing the Racial Divide in Your Church with Derwin Gray
Jun 23, 2022
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 […]
Leading in Our Churches & Community in this Current Moment with Dino Rizzo
Jun 16, 2022
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 […]
International Business & Marketing Coach Chris Ducker Offers Advice for Church Leaders
Jun 09, 2022
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re chatting with marketplace leader Chris Ducker, who is a serial entrepreneur, bestselling author, and runs several businesses. As churches find themselves more a part of the online world, there is continually a challenge to connect with people in a meaningful way. Listen in as Chris shares how to […]
Helpful Insights for Church Leaders with Brian Dodd
Jun 02, 2022
Thanks for joining in for the unSeminary podcast. This time we’re talking with Brian Dodd, the Director of New Ministry Partnerships at Injoy Stewardship Solutions. He also runs a blog called Brian Dodd on Leadership which provides perspective, encouragement, and solutions for church and ministry leaders. When you look at the world today, there seems […]
Coaching on Rebuilding a “New” Launch Team for Your Church with Shawn Lovejoy
May 26, 2022
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re chatting with Shawn Lovejoy, the founder and CEO of Courageous Pastors and Courage to Lead. His work is all about coaching leaders around what keeps them up at night and focuses on personal and organizational growth. Shawn is talking with us about building and redeploying healthy teams in […]
Reflecting Back 5+ Years After a Sr. Leader Transition with Executive Pastor Kevin Cook
May 19, 2022
Thanks for tuning in for this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re chatting with Kevin Cook, executive pastor at Cross Point Church in the greater Nashville, Tennessee, area. They have six locations in middle Tennessee plus online services. God has entrusted those of us who are executive pastors with a significant leadership. While He may be preparing […]
Encouragement For You From Nearly 4 Decades of Ministry Experience with Greg Surratt
May 12, 2022
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. We’re chatting with Greg Surratt, the founding pastor of Seacoast Church in the Carolinas and also a founding member of ARC, Association of Related Churches, which trains, coaches, and equips church plants across the country. So many pastors are wrestling with similar concerns and soul care issues today. They are […]
Pushing Your Church’s Culture Forward in This Current Season with Jenni Catron
May 05, 2022
Thanks for tuning in for the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Jenni Catron, the founder and CEO of the 4Sight Group which helps both leaders and their teams be healthy and thriving. With the disruptions that covid has brought, many church leaders are struggling with a sense of overload and fatigue. Shifts in how we […]
Insights on Pastoral Restoration After a Fall with Shawn & Sonny Hennessy
Apr 28, 2022
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Shawn and Sonny Hennessy, from Life Church Green Bay in Wisconsin. Shawn and Sonny are also co-hosts of The Rise After the Fall podcast and together founded The Exchange Collaborative. The highs and lows of ministry, and the trials of life can threaten to destroy pastors […]
Latest HR Dynamics Impacting Your Church With Tiffany Henning
Apr 21, 2022
Thanks for joining the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Tiffany Henning, founder of HR Ministry Solutions which helps with human resources in churches and faith-based ministries. At the beginning of 2021, many churches were restructuring their staff. Now in 2022 with so much inflation, there are concerns about how to compensate staff fairly. These things […]
Helping You & Your Team Ditch Discouragement, Fear and Anxiety with Scot Longyear
Apr 14, 2022
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. This week we’re talking with Scot Longyear, the senior pastor of Maryland Community Church in Indiana, and guest host for the Worship Leader Probs podcast. Two years after the pandemic, church leaders are still trying to figure out where to go from here. It’s been a tough season to […]
Moving Beyond the Stream of Church Online with Jay Kranda
Apr 07, 2022
Thanks for joining us for this episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Jay Kranda, the online pastor of Saddleback Church in California. Digital ministry is here to stay and churches need to think about how to move beyond just managing their weekend stream to actually connecting people online to the church and each […]
Shifting Paradigms Impacting Growing Churches with Sean Morgan
Mar 31, 2022
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re chatting with Sean Morgan, founder of The Ascent Leader, a year-long development program structured around relational cohorts which is designed to engage ministry leaders in transparent conversations and one-on-one coaching with world-class leaders. As we transition from COVID being pandemic to endemic, there are paradigms church leaders have […]
Tips for Making Your Church More Single Friendly with Kaylee Estes
Mar 24, 2022
Thanks for joining us for this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Kaylee Estes who was the Connections Pastor at Restoration Community Church in Denver, Colorado. More and more people are single in our churches today than in previous generations. Younger people are waiting longer to get married, the divorce rate continues to increase, and […]
Inside a 4X Growth In Group Engagement at a Growing Church with Joe Boyd
Mar 17, 2022
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Joe Boyd, lead pastor of Grace Fellowship in Minnesota. They are one of the fastest growing churches in the country as well as a church-planting church and have started 28 churches during their 34 years of service. Jesus changed the world with a small group. Groups […]
Crucial Conversations with Team Members at Your Church with Matt Slocum
Mar 10, 2022
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Matt Slocum, executive pastor at Victory Life Church in Battle Creek, Michigan. Conflict is inevitable in relationships and it’s important to handle it well. Matt is talking with us today about how Victory Life Church sought to help its staff get better at having crucial […]
Is Church Multiplication on the Rise? Don’t Miss This Conversation with Warren Bird
Mar 03, 2022
Thanks for joining us for this episode of the unSeminary podcast. I’m talking with Warren Bird, the Senior Vice President of Research and Equipping at the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. It’s time for a fresh look to see what God is doing, especially coming out of the pandemic. If you’re wondering how church planting […]
Office Hours: Volunteer Recruiting Best Practices & Reaching New People
Feb 24, 2022
Welcome to this month’s Office Hours episode. This month Rich is taking on your questions about building volunteer teams, and reaching people who might not normally attend your services. Leslie Moffat, administrative pastor, Celebration Church in Brantford, Ontario, Canada: “For churches with multiple services, do you recommend the same volunteers stay on for the entire […]
Stop Copying and Pasting the Announcements for Your Church!
Feb 22, 2022
Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. I know this sounds like some homespun advice from your mom, but it does apply to looking for resources on the internet to improve the weekend services or announcements at your church. A quick search online will reveal an endless amount of templates and done-for-you resources that […]
In-Person Community & Bold Digital Innovation in a Lonely World with Benjamin Windle
Feb 17, 2022
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with return guest Benjamin Windle from Life Place Church in Australia. Whether or not churches are going to opt in to the digital revolution is no longer an option. Now the question is, how do churches operate and minister in a digital world, particularly to younger […]
9 Tiny Habits That Can Cause Huge Disengagement During Announcements
Feb 15, 2022
When you have a little pebble in your shoe, it’s hard to focus on anything around you besides that minor discomfort, right? We sometimes do the same thing with our tiny habits during our weekend service announcements. What about that little smudge from your kid’s finger on the TV as you watch the latest Hollywood […]
Increasing the Impact of the Serving Experience on Volunteers with Rachel Long
Feb 10, 2022
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we have Rachel Long back on the podcast. She’s one of the executive pastors at Emmanuel Church, a multisite church in Indiana. Today Rachel is talking with us about building healthy volunteer teams within our churches. Take a step back and evaluate. // Back at […]
Why Church Leaders Can’t Stand Doing Announcements
Feb 08, 2022
Do you dread being asked to get up and host a weekend service at your church? Can just talking about hosting the announcements this coming weekend make your stomach turn? Is your team pushing you to drop the announcements? And maybe even more worrying, do you have a good reason not to drop them? Are […]
Increasing Multi-Faith Proximity While Remaining Gospel-Centered with Kevin Singer
Feb 03, 2022
Thanks for joining in for the unSeminary podcast. This week we’re talking with Kevin Singer, co-founder and co-director of the student-led movement, Neighborly Faith, which brings Christians and Muslims together. There is very little in the church to help equip believers regarding how to engage with our neighbors of other faiths in a way that […]
5 Leadership Hedges Against Inflation for Your Church
Feb 01, 2022
Just when you thought the word “unprecedented” couldn’t possibly be used any more, we continue to climb into levels of inflation that haven’t been seen in over four decades. In fact, the last time we saw inflation this high, the world was a completely different place. We find ourselves leading in an environment of increasing […]
Office Hours: Attracting Young Families & Help with Hiring Your Next Team Member
Jan 27, 2022
Thanks for joining us for this month’s Office Hours podcast episode. Today Rich is answering your questions about attracting young families and getting help with hiring your next team member. John Boyle, executive pastor, Calvary Bible Church in Boulder, Colorado: “I wanted to pick your brain on attracting more young families to our church.” Know […]
Mega to Meta? Your First Step in Starting a Metaverse Ministry with Jason Poling
Jan 20, 2022
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Jason Poling, lead pastor of Cornerstone Church of Yuba City in California. For the first ten years of Jason’s ministry as a pastor, he felt like he had been living in “maintenance mode.” While his church was experiencing growth, some of which was due to brand […]
Best Practices in Onboarding New Staff with Ken McAnulty
Jan 13, 2022
Thanks for joining us for this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Ken McAnulty, executive pastor at Arise Church in Florida. The hiring process is tough, and ramping up new staff can be awkward and stressful if it isn’t done with a lot of intentionality. Ken is with us today to talk about how to […]
Rebuilding a Team Culture That Was Broken with Jesse DeYoung
Jan 06, 2022
Thanks for tuning into the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Jesse DeYoung, the executive lead pastor at Flatirons Community Church in Boulder, Colorado. Jesse is talking with us today about how Flatirons Church worked through a difficult season of ministry, addressed their broken team culture, and witnessed God’s redemption among the staff. Recognize what’s not […]
Connection & Engagement Lessons from a Fast Growing Church During the Pandemic with Julie Hawkins
Dec 23, 2021
Today we’re chatting with Julie Hawkins, the Next Steps Pastor at Chapel Hill Church in Washington state. So many churches had to quickly develop an online presence at the beginning of 2020 and it made the area of helping people take their next steps more challenging. Listen in as Julie shares how Chapel Hill Church […]
Helping Female Leaders in Your Church Find Their Leadership Voice with Kadi Cole
Dec 16, 2021
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Kadi Cole, the founder of Kadi Cole & Company, an organization created to help leaders of all organizations. Kadi is with us today to talk about encouraging female leaders at your church while removing barriers from leadership opportunities. Find the drop off. // Many men in […]
Building a Team Culture at Your Church that You’ll Love with Brian Cook
Dec 09, 2021
Thanks for joining in for this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Brian Cook, the lead pastor of ACF Church (Alliance Christian Fellowship) in Eagle River, Alaska. Right now 4.5 million people in the US are quitting their job every month and 50% are looking for a new job. Staff culture is a big […]
Helping Teams Leverage, Not Loathe, Personality Differences with Eddie Hastings
Dec 02, 2021
Welcome back to this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Eddie Hastings, Executive Pastor of Ministries at Chets Creek Church in Florida. Eddie is talking with us about using personality tests to better build and communicate with your staff teams. Know and trust each other. // When a church grows, especially to have multiple campuses, […]
Bonus Deep Dive: Health Care Sharing For Churches? Marq James Helps Us Clear Up Misconceptions
Dec 01, 2021
Are you a senior leader in church thinking about health care options for your team? Did you know that your team is anxious about this aspect of serving at your church? Today on unSeminary we want to help with that worry & stress. We are joined by Marq James, an expert in health care sharing […]
If Jesus Gave a TED Talk? Neuroscience Communication Principles The Master Teacher Used To Persuade His Audience with Charles Stone
Nov 25, 2021
Thanks for joining in for the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Charles Stone, lead pastor at West Park Church in Ontario, Canada. He also is an author and provides training for pastors. 75% of people forget most of what they’ve heard from a talk within an hour. 90% forget what they’ve heard after a week […]
Leading a Fast Growing Church While Having Healthy Rhythms & Boundaries with Zeb Cook
Nov 11, 2021
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Zeb Cook, the lead pastor at Apex Baptist Church in Apex, North Carolina. Zeb is talking with us today about establishing healthy rhythms and boundaries in your life so that you can continue to thrive in the ministry where God has called you. Create a system […]
Going International as a Multisite Church with Tommie Bozich
Nov 04, 2021
Thanks for joining us for this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Tommie Bozich, the executive pastor of Trinity Church, a multisite church with locations in Virginia and also internationally. Tommie is talking with us about what led them to launch a location in Stuttgart, Germany, and what a church should think about when considering […]
Practical Advice on Fostering a Kingdom Mindset In Your Church with Brian McMillan
Oct 14, 2021
Welcome back to this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Brian McMillan, from CenterPoint Church in Long Island, New York. Brian is talking with us today about how pastors can keep their souls healthy by being generous and Kingdom-minded toward church plants coming into their area. Challenges of church planting. // When planting a church, […]
Moving from Paid to Volunteer Music Teams in a Fast Growing Multisite Church with Stone Meyer
Oct 07, 2021
Thanks for tuning into this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Stone Meyer, executive pastor from The Bridge Church in Tennessee. Stone is talking with us today about the musical worship part of services and how to develop excellence in your unpaid volunteer musicians. The musical worship aspect. // The musical worship aspect of services […]
Moving from Maintenance to Movement in this Season with Van Vandegriff
Sep 30, 2021
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. This week we’re talking with Van Vandegriff, lead pastor at Cedarcrest Church in Acworth, Georgia. Van is talking with us today about dealing with COVID and helping people at the church to shift out of neutral and reengage with the mission of the church. Reengage with the mission. // […]
Sermon Planning Rhythms that Produce Engaging & Faithful Content with Zach Lambert
Sep 23, 2021
Thanks for joining us on the unSeminary podcast. This week we’re talking with Zach Lambert, lead pastor at Restore Austin in Austin, Texas. Zach is with us today to talk about how to take the stress out of sermon planning and coming up with biblical and engaging topics in your teaching. What are you preaching […]
Building Staff Culture While Leading During Trying Times with Rusty George
Sep 16, 2021
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Rusty George, the lead pastor at Real Life Church in the Los Angeles area. He’s talking with us today about what it’s like stepping into the lead pastor role after the founding pastor. You can learn more about Real Life Church at reallifechurch.org and about Rusty […]
How to Get Time, Energy, and Priorities Working in Your Favor with Carey Nieuwhof
Sep 09, 2021
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Carey Nieuwhof, a leadership expert, author, speaker, podcaster, former attorney, and church planter. He’s with us today to share about how to address the crisis of overwhelm in our work and lives. Digital scales in a way that physical doesn’t. // After the pandemic, we […]
Leading Change That Lasts with Hillsong Atlanta’s Lisette Fraser
Aug 12, 2021
Thanks for tuning in to this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today I’m talking with Lisette Fraser, the COO/executive pastor of Hillsong Atlanta. Leading through change is at the core of serving as an executive pastor and church leader. Today Lisette is talking with us about where to begin when stepping out and leading change in this […]
Inside Team Culture Development at a Fast Growing Church with Chad Asman
Aug 05, 2021
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. This week we’re talking with Chad Asman, executive pastor of Heritage Church just north of Detroit, Michigan. He is with us today to talk about developing team culture at your church to create future leaders. Start with culture. // Heritage Church worked to create a leadership pipeline not only […]
How to Get Traction on Execution at Your Church with Allie Bryant
Jul 29, 2021
Thanks for joining this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Allie Bryant from Trader’s Point Christian Church. Although they have six campuses in Indianapolis, currently four are opened along with church online due to covid. Allie is the Strategic Alignment Executive for Traders Point and she loves getting the right people in the room to […]
Balancing the Healthy Tensions of the Executive Pastor Role with Tyler Althof
Jul 22, 2021
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today I’m talking with Tyler Althof, the associate pastor from Action Church in Florida. Tyler is with us today to talk about tensions to manage when you are leading from the second chair at a church. We need a sense of security. // As church leaders we need to […]
Tackling the Early Days as a New Executive Pastor with Matt Gilchrist
Jul 15, 2021
Thanks for joining us for this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today I’m talking with Matt Gilchrist, executive pastor at Hope City Church in Missouri. Matt is talking with us about getting up to speed as a new XP at a church and how to connect with your lead pastor, your staff, and spouse during this season […]
Improving Your Church’s Financial Competencies with Ken Fisher
Jul 08, 2021
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Ken Fisher, Executive Pastor at Church at the Mill in South Carolina. As one of the fastest growing churches in the country, Church at the Mill has doubled in size in the last five years. As a church grows, the staff needs to consider how they […]
Leveraging Research to Drive Design & Communication Insights at Crossroads Church with Vivienne Bechtold
Jul 01, 2021
Thanks for tuning in to this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re excited to be talking with Vivienne Bechtold, the Director of Studio and Leadership Development at Crossroads Church in Ohio. Crossroads has been one of the fastest growing churches in the country for several years, but this growth hasn’t happened without being intentional about reaching those […]
Moving from Pre-Recorded Church Online to Live with JD Mason
Jun 24, 2021
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with JD Mason, the online campus leader from Liberty Live Church in Virginia. JD is chatting with us today about how church online has evolved for Liberty Live Church since the pandemic and why they made the decision to transition to live, rather than prerecorded, broadcasts. Trial […]
Bonus Deep Dive: Current Best Practices in Operational Reserves for Your Church with Steve Carr
Jun 23, 2021
Thanks for tuning in to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re doing a bonus deep dive about operational reserves and how much our churches should be saving. We have expert Steve Carr from CDF Capital with us to help us think through these questions. Maintain generosity. // During the pandemic, churches trended toward either maintaining their […]
National Church Leader Survey on Attitudes Towards In-Person, Remote, or Hybrid Work Arrangements
Jun 22, 2021
Is your team moving back to an “in-person” office experience? Do you know how your team members feel about working at home once life looks a little more normal? What does the future of church leadership work arrangements look like? We must understand the impact that COVID-19 has had on our church leadership environment and […]
Rebuilding Connection At Your Church Post-COVID with Abby Ecker
Jun 17, 2021
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. This week we’re talking with Abby Ecker, Next Steps Pastor from The Journey in Delaware. She’s with us today to talk about getting people connected and helping them take steps from just attending weekend gatherings to moving into the core of the church. Help people take steps, not leaps. […]
Expanding the Leadership Voices at Your Table with Jeannette Cochran
Jun 10, 2021
Thanks for joining us for the unSeminary podcast. This week we’re chatting with Jeannette Cochran, executive pastor Seneca Creek Community Church in Maryland. Jeannette is talking with us today about what it is like being a female executive pastor in a church and how you can empower more women to engage their gifts and lead […]
5 Mindsets Church Leaders Need to Change Post-COVID
Jun 09, 2021
As the leader goes, so goes the organization. It’s often been said that the mindset of a leader ultimately drives the behavior of an organization. It’s a scary thought when you consider that our internal thought life can express itself in the people that we consistently lead. I think this is a truism when it […]
Season of Hope: Your Church’s Fall 2021 Growth Opportunity
Jun 08, 2021
The coming months hold an unprecedented opportunity to see your church impact more people than ever before. As the country begins to shake off the shackles of COVID-19 and the ensuing economic calamity, we’re seeing new windows of opportunity. We must leverage this season for the message of Jesus. We can echo what Paul said […]
Focusing on Jesus in a Distracted World with Steve Brown
Jun 03, 2021
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Dr. Steve Brown, President of Arrow Leadership and author of the book Jesus Centered: Focusing On Jesus In A Distracted World. Steve works to help leaders find clarity, community and confidence in their work as Jesus-centered leaders. He’s talking with us today about how to lead […]
Improving Your Working Partnership with an Executive Assistant with Jannet Morgan
May 27, 2021
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we’re chatting with Jannet Morgan, the Executive Assistant (EA) to Lead Pastor, Tim Lucas, at Liquid Church in New Jersey. She’s with us today to talk about the role of the EA supporting leadership in the church and how to make the most out of that partnership. Be […]
Applying Pandemic Learnings from Church Online to Post-Pandemic Church with Jenn Clauser
May 20, 2021
Thanks for joining in for this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Jenn Clauser, the Director of Communications at Coker United Methodist Church in San Antonio, Texas. She’s with us today to dig deeper into online church and how to integrate it as a core part of our mission to reaching people who are far […]
Is Your Team Languishing? Practical Help for Executive Pastors.
May 18, 2021
It’s clear that we’re entering a post-pandemic stress period in the life of the local church. All around us we see signs that our teams are stressed and not sure what to do next. Anecdotally, we’re hearing about huge turnover at churches, and we cannot ignore the rising anxiety in leaders across the country. Recently, […]
Pete Briscoe’s Lessons from Coming Alongside Senior Leaders to Help with Communication & Self Care
May 13, 2021
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Pete Briscoe, who served as the senior pastor for nearly three decades at Bent Tree Bible Fellowship in Carrollton, Texas, and now consults with and coaches pastors. He is with us today to talk about growing communication skills to improve preaching as well as how […]
Pitfalls and Possibilities of VR Church with Jonathan Armstrong
May 06, 2021
Thanks for tuning in to this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Dr. Jonathan Armstrong today, an educator who has also helped run the virtual reality (VR) lab at Moody Bible Institute. Our perspective on what technology is and how it’s affecting our world keeps changing. In fact as younger generations have grown up with […]
Practical Strategy for Developing High-Capacity Volunteers with Danny Franks
Apr 29, 2021
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast! This week I’m chatting with a repeat guest, Danny Franks, Pastor of Guest Services at The Summit Church. The Summit Church has twelve locations around North Carolina and the heart of the church is set on sending. They continually want their people to be asking: how does God want […]
Practical Help for Church Leaders in Emotional and Spiritual Growth with Bill & Kristi Gaultiere
Apr 22, 2021
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. This week I’m excited to talk with Bill and Kristi Gaultiere from the organization Soul Shepherding. Bill and Kristi felt called to study psychology for the purpose of ministry, and serve as spiritual directors and pastors to pastors. Soul Shepherding offers resources and training for pastors and leaders and […]
How to Beat the Spring Lull & Gain Momentum at Your Church
Apr 21, 2021
The season between Easter and summer is a strange one in the life of a church. Many churches gain momentum coming up to Easter and then find the weeks that follow before summer arrives, drag on. In any other year, this lull in momentum can feel difficult to climb out of; however, this spring is […]
Turning Obstacles into Opportunities: Church Real Estate Lessons with Andy Wood
Apr 15, 2021
Thanks for joining us for this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Andy Wood, founding and lead pastor of Echo Church in California. Many times in ministry, the thing that should be an obstacle actually can become an opportunity if we think about it differently. Echo Church held strongly to this idea when it […]
Loving the Church You Serve with Carl Kuhl
Apr 08, 2021
Thanks for joining us for this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with church planter and lead pastor Carl Kuhl from Mosaic Christian Church in Maryland. Mosaic was planted in the fall of 2008, launching first in a movie theater, and has become one of the fastest growing churches in the country. When planting a […]
3 Key Lessons For Your Church From a Study of 20,000 Online Events
Apr 06, 2021
Recently, a report entitled The State of Virtual Events 2021 was released, which looked at the experiences of 100 leading brands that ran over 20,000 online events in the last year. This study explores these brands’ thinking around online events as they have made the “great pivot” to utilize this option more and more. Like […]
Helping Leaders Slow Down with Christa Hesselink
Apr 01, 2021
Thanks for tuning in for this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Christa Hesselink, founder of the organization SoulPlay. SoulPlay offers creative experiences, curated resources, and personal support to help individuals and groups dig deeper, listen well, and journey towards loving themselves, others, God, and our world, well. The last twelve months have been incredibly […]
How to Help People Who are Burned, Bruised, or Wounded in Your Church with Steve Grusendorf
Mar 25, 2021
Welcome to this week’s episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Steve Grusendorf who is a part of the denominal leadership at the Christian and Missionary Alliance. He started as a local pastor at a CMA church, always serving in leadership development, and a few years ago became involved in this aspect at […]
Pandemic to Endemic: Five Questions Your Church May Still Need to Answer About COVID-19
Mar 23, 2021
The cultural and economic impact of COVID-19 is one of the greatest influences on the local church in at least a generation. Over the last year, we’ve seen COVID-19 impact our ministries in innumerable ways. In some respects, COVID-19 has accelerated positive change in the local church. The shift to equipping the majority of churches […]
Working at Health while Facilitating for Growth with Renaut van der Riet
Mar 18, 2021
Welcome to this week’s episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Renaut van der Riet from Mosaic Church in the Orlando, Florida area. Passionate about making the gospel beautiful however they can, Mosaic is continually pursuing how they can serve each other and how they can serve their community. This heart has led to […]
Practical Help for Church Leaders Dealing with Home Life Pressures with Michelle Leichty
Mar 11, 2021
Thanks for joining in to this week’s episode of the unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to be talking with Michelle Leichty, the Communication Director at Covenant Church in Indiana. For many church leaders, managing their homes and serving in ministry has been especially challenging to balance during the pandemic. Shifting back and forth between work burdens […]
Speaking Truth to the Hearts of Executive Pastors with Kevin Davis
Mar 04, 2021
Welcome back to this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Kevin Davis from 2|42 Community Church in Michigan. Kevin is one of the executive pastors and focuses on small groups, culture, and leadership development. What makes a good ministry leader? How can you learn to lead yourself well? How do you work through conflict […]
Moving a Fast Growing Multisite Church from Centralized to Decentralized Leadership Structure with Rachel Long
Feb 25, 2021
Thanks for joining in for this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Rachel Long, Executive Pastor of Families and Multisites at Emmanuel Church in the greater Indianapolis area. Making the decision to go multisite and growing to multiple campuses will inevitably lead to a discussion about who answers to who on staff. The dotted […]
The Reason Your Church Marketing Isn’t Working
Feb 23, 2021
Are you wondering why those Facebook ads that you’ve been running for the last few months don’t seem to be translating into people connecting, neither in person nor online? Have you tried multiple flyer drops in your neighborhood and you’re desperately hoping that maybe one person would show up, but it just hasn’t happened? Are […]
Something is Broken: A Conversation About What Christian Leaders Should Stop Saying about Sexual Abusers with Tanya Marlow
Feb 19, 2021
This is a special edition of the unSeminary podcast. Many church leaders don’t know what to say when it comes to the revelations around disgraced Christian leader, Ravi Zacharias. Earlier this week I bumped into Tayna Marlow’s article on this topic entitled “But his books are still good, right? – 5 things Christians must stop […]
Everyday Ways to Help Your People Change the World with Dave & Jon Ferguson
Feb 18, 2021
Welcome to this week’s episode of the unSeminary podcast. I’m happy to have Dave and Jon Ferguson with us from Community Christian Church. Community has nine locations in Illinois as well as online services and works in three correctional facilities. Almost all Christians want to share the love of Jesus with their friends and neighbors. […]
Former Divorce Lawyer Offers Perspectives on Marriage with Toni Nieuwhof
Feb 11, 2021
Thanks for joining this week’s unSeminary podcast. This week I’m excited to talk with Toni Nieuwhof. Toni’s extensive experience as a family lawyer, pharmacist, and church leader has given her unique and practical insights on how people grow emotionally, personally and spiritually. Although we don’t know the impacts of the pandemic on marriages and the […]
Increase Your Church’s Volunteer Teams with This Proven Multisite Expansion Tactic
Feb 09, 2021
Does your church have fewer volunteers today than it did a year ago? Are you wondering how you’re going to rebuild your church’s teams after everything that’s happened with COVID-19 and the way our culture has changed as a result of the pandemic? Have you wondered where you go next when it comes to gaining […]
Increasing Prayer, Transparency and Accountability on Your Church Team with Darrell Roland
Feb 04, 2021
Welcome back to this week’s unSeminary podcast. This week we’re talking with Darrell Roland, from Rock Bridge Community Church. They have six locations in Georgia and Tennessee as well as a Spanish service. One of the roles of the executive pastor is the management and leadership of the staff, and so today we’re talking about […]
MrBeast Burger: What Is It? What It Can Teach Your Church!
Feb 02, 2021
If you’re not familiar with YouTube culture, you might not have heard of MrBeast. Jimmy Donaldson (aka MrBeast) is the top content creator on the platform for 2020, and he’s super engaging. Over the years, he’s produced some amazingly creative content that has earned him over 51 million subscribers and all kinds of awards. He […]
Becoming A Multicultural Church with Dave Swaim
Jan 28, 2021
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Dave Swaim, pastor at Highrock Covenant Church and president of the Highrock Network in the Boston area. The Highrock Network is a family of churches with a shared vision for locally focused congregations. Highrock Covenant Church began when a group of “spiritually homeless” individuals started […]
Carey Nieuwhof Interviews Rich Birch as unSeminary Celebrates 1.5 Million Downloads!
Jan 25, 2021
This week we’re celebrating YOU, dear listeners! We always want to do everything we can to set you up for success – we’re always cheering for you! We’ve reached out to some friends who love serving church leaders like you and have put together some fun giveaways in honor of hitting 1.5 million downloads on […]
Church Based Justice Ministry That Doesn’t Drift from a Firm Faith-Based Foundation with Aaron Graham
Jan 21, 2021
Thanks for tuning in to this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Aaron Graham, the lead pastor of The District Church in Washington, DC. The District Church was started in 2010 with the desire to be a church for the city, impacting it for Christ one neighborhood at a time. In an area where […]
5 Forgotten Ingredients in Your Church’s Giving Moments
Jan 19, 2021
The two minutes before you ask people to give to your church during your services are vitally important financially, both for the future of your church and for your people. Giving moments are an important part of your church’s system for increasing generosity and pushing the mission of your church forward. If your church is […]
Lead with What Your Church CAN DO with Chris Bell
Jan 14, 2021
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Chris Bell, from 3Circle Church in the Mobile, Alabama area. When the pandemic started, all we heard about was new restrictions and what we couldn’t do. Chris was immediately challenged to focus on what the church CAN do each day. Listen in as Chris shares […]
5 Mistakes Churches Make Onboarding New Staff
Jan 12, 2021
Hiring is the single most expensive decision that most church leaders will make over the course of their ministry. In many churches, staffing accounts for anywhere between 30 percent and 50 percent of the annual budget. You want to make sure that, as you hire new team members, you invest what you can at the […]
Helping Your People Add Keystone Habits that Grow Their Spiritual Lives in 2021 with Zach Zehnder
Jan 08, 2021
Thanks for listening in to this week’s unSeminary podcast. We have Zach Zehnder with us today, the author and founder of the Red Letter Challenge. RLC began with the simple concept of trying to help people be greater followers of Jesus. It started as a book, leading the reader on a 40-day life-changing discipleship experience […]
Recall: Your Church’s 2021 Strategic Communication Focus
Jan 05, 2021
You have no doubt heard all the doomsayers saying that what we’ve experienced in the last year is beckoning a new age of disengagement in your church. You’ve probably heard people say that somewhere around a third of our people have left the church and won’t be returning. It seems like for decades, we’ve been […]
Inspiring Reflections on 2020 from Chicago with Mark Jobe
Dec 24, 2020
Thanks for tuning in to this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking to Mark Jobe, senior pastor at New Life Community Church (NLCC) in Chicago area and president of Moody Bible institute. New Life Community Church meets primarily in the city and has 28 locations with 40+ worship services. It’s a very multi-ethnic church with […]
Lessons From Casting Vision & Pushing Forward During the Pandemic with Drew Sherman
Dec 17, 2020
Thanks for joining us for this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Drew Sherman, lead pastor of Compass Christian Church in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Compass has four physical locations as well as an online campus and is one of the fastest growing churches in the country. The most fruitful seasons of our lives […]
Adding More Structure While Staying Relational in a Growing Church with Mark Geissbauer
Dec 10, 2020
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Today we have with us Executive Pastor Mark Geissbauer from The Chapel which has three locations near Lake Erie. As a church grows, adding more structure is necessary to keep everyone in the loop and enable systems to operate smoothly. But how do you maintain a personal touch while adding […]
How Your Congregation Can Adapt and Thrive after a Crisis with Karl Vaters
Dec 03, 2020
Thanks for listening in to this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Karl Vaters, a teaching pastor at Cornerstone Christian Fellowship as well as an author and speaker. Karl focuses on serving small churches, encouraging their growth and helping them to be healthy. 2020 has been a tough year between the pandemic, economic stress, social […]
Connection Between Community Service & Church Growth with Kyle & Justeina Brownlee
Nov 26, 2020
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to be talking with Kyle and Justeina Brownlee from Xperience Church in Ohio. At Xperience Church, going beyond their walls to serve their community isn’t just something they do, it’s who they are. Listen in as Kyle and Justeina share about how to build a culture of […]
Using Tech to Increase Bible Engagement at Your Church with Scott Lindsey
Nov 19, 2020
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re honored to have with us today Scott Lindsey, the executive director at Faithlife. Faithlife is the company which created the Logos Bible Software for digital Bible study. Scott is with us today to talk about Faithlife, how they can help you, and how you can […]
Millennials, Gen Z and Your Church with Benjamin Windle
Nov 12, 2020
Thanks so much for joining us for another unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Benjamin Windle. A native Australian, Benjamin has worked as a youth and young adult pastor in the US and currently helps churches develop Generational Intelligence in reaching Millennials and Gen Z through an assortment of resources, coaching, and speaking. According to […]
3 Myths about FutureFWD. Plus Dr. Henry Cloud
Nov 07, 2020
Are you and your team registered for FutureFWD? You should be. Join us. Imagine you could get inside the minds of leaders who are thinking through where the local church is going next. What would it be like to understand how leading churches are thinking about what the future holds? Listen in to today’s special […]
Lessons In Getting People Back to In-Person Services with Kyle Mercer
Nov 05, 2020
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast! Today we have lead pastor Kyle Mercer with us from Two Cities Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Two Cities was originally planted out of The Summit Church with J.D. Greear in 2016 and grew to about 1300 people before covid, becoming one of the fastest growing churches in the country. […]
A Simple & Scalable Way to Reproduce Christians with David Putnam
Oct 29, 2020
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to have David Putnam with us today. David spent many years as a church planter and executive pastor and today consults with churches as a lead navigator with Auxano. David has also founded the organization Planting the Gospel which helps transition churches from a weekend-only disciple-making culture. […]
3 Ways FutureFWD Was Designed with Your Team in Mind. Plus Jenni Catron on Culture.
Oct 28, 2020
Designed to help encourage collaboration. FutureFWD will have “future positive” tone that embraces the world we find ourselves in and gives helpful next steps to leaders like you. You and your team will leave energized and focused to lead into 2021 and beyond. FutureFWD is designed to encourage and equip your team to push forward […]
Thriving in the Midst of Life’s Storms with Ben Young
Oct 22, 2020
Thanks for tuning in to this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we have Dr. Ben Young with us, who is a writer and pastor at Second Baptist Church, a diverse, multi-ethnic church with over 20,000 people attending weekly services online and on six campuses throughout the city of Houston. Technology and the fact that we’ve become […]
How Will Your Team Benefit from FutureFWD? Plus: What’s Next? Justice. by Efrem Smith
Oct 21, 2020
You and your team will leave energized and focused to lead into 2021 and beyond. FutureFWD is designed to encourage and equip your team to push forward with the plan God has in store for your church. Leading voices investing in your team. You’ll get to hear from marquee leaders across the church on how […]
Why should you register for FutureFWD? PLUS Larry Osborne on Both/And Leadership.
Oct 14, 2020
Imagine you could get inside the minds of leaders who are thinking through where the local church is going next. What would it be like to understand how leading churches are thinking about what the future holds? In today’s episode, Kenny Jahng and I sit down and talk about FutureFWD. This is a 2-day online […]
From Plateaued for 30 Years to One of the Fastest Growing Churches in the Country with Bob Riedy
Oct 08, 2020
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Bob Riedy from the Church of the Open Door (COD) in York, Pennsylvania. COD was started in the early 50s after breaking off of a mainline denomination. They experienced rapid growth for about 30 years, but then plateaued for the next 30 years. Today COD […]
Challenge Your People to Grow In Their Faith with Gregg Farah
Oct 01, 2020
Thanks for tuning in to the unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to have Gregg Farah joining us from Shelter Rock Church in Long Island, New York. Why is the Church at large struggling so much to help people grow in their relationship with Christ? Many sincere followers of Jesus feel stuck or stalled in their faith. […]
Lessons from COVID-19 & the Reopening Phase in Australia for Your Church with John Finkelde
Sep 24, 2020
Thanks for joining in for this week’s unSeminary podcast. I’m glad you’ve decided to tune in as we talk with John Finkelde. John has thirty plus years of pastoral experience in Australia and currently runs the organization Grow a Healthy Church. He consults with and coaches churches and church leaders all over the world, helping […]
Community Service & Outreach in the Reopening Phase. Roundtable discussion with Heath Hollandsworth, Johnny Ova & Eric Jaffe
Sep 22, 2020
This is an unprecedented season of opportunity for your church. In today’s episode we’re going to look under the hood at three churches that are involved in some pretty amazing community service and outreach in the reopening phase. Heath Hollandsworth, Executive Pastor of Ministries – Graystone Church, Georgia // Graystone Church believes one of the reasons […]
Leading a Thriving Small Groups Ministry with Ryan Hartwig
Sep 17, 2020
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to have Ryan T. Hartwig with us today. Ryan is Professor of Communication at Colorado Christian University and has studied collaborative organizations within the church, such as groups and teams. Ryan is with us to talk about a new book that he wrote with Courtney W. Davis and […]
Practical Help Increasing Engagement at Your Church with Jacob Burgei
Sep 10, 2020
Thanks for joining us for this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Jacob Burgei today from Fuel Church in Kokomo, Indiana. Fuel Church launched in 2016 with about 85 people but as they began to understand the needs in their community, they quickly grew to become one of the fastest growing churches in the country. […]
From Steep Decline to One of the Fastest Growing Churches in the Country with Todd Elliott
Sep 03, 2020
Thanks for tuning in for this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today’s guest is Todd Elliott from Beach Church in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Beach Church was founded in 1992 and Todd began as the Small Groups Pastor in 2007. During that time, a falling out between the lead pastor and executive pastor led to them both […]
Multisite Alignment by Leveraging Objectives & Key Results with Michael Volbeda
Aug 27, 2020
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to be talking with Michael Volbeda, Executive Pastor of Ministries at Brentwood Baptist Church in the Nashville, Tennessee area. Brentwood went from two to four campuses in 2014 and has since grown to eight locations. As time went on, the church realized it was operating as if it […]
What are leading churches doing for weekend programming this fall? Roundtable discussion with Ben Stapley, Chris Vacher & Brian Tome.
Aug 26, 2020
How committed are we really to forging the future rather than preserving the past? Today we’ve got another special episode of the unSeminary podcast where we sit down with three fantastic church leaders from around North America—Ben Stapley, Chris Vacher and Brian Tome—and ask them some questions about the future that is the Fall 2020. […]
Increasing Engagement at Your Church with Tony McVickers
Aug 20, 2020
Welcome to today’s episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Senior Pastor Tony McVickers from RockFish Church in North Carolina. RockFish Church is a multi-racial, multi-cultural church located near Fort Bragg and draws a large number of military members and families to its services. But this also means that RockFish Church has to […]
Hosting an Outdoor Church Service that Reaches People with Hal Seed
Aug 19, 2020
Today’s episode is a special “rushed” edition of the podcast. We wanted to get you this up to the minute help for your church. Many churches are looking for advice on how to hold outdoor services and in today’s episode, we dive deep with Hal Seed on this issue! Hal is the lead and founding […]
Keeping Your Church Focused on Reaching Unchurched People with Brent Purvis
Aug 13, 2020
Thanks for listening in to this week’s unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to have Lead Pastor Brent Purvis with us from Cascade Hills Church in Georgia. Cascade Hills Church was started by Brent’s father, Bill, after a dramatic near death experience caused him to give his life to Christ. Cascade Hills has always been a church […]
5 Church Budget Items to Rethink for Fall 2020
Aug 11, 2020
As we look to the coming months, a tremendous amount of uncertainty still remains. Many church leaders across the country are facing huge pressures from COVID-19 and the ensuing economic crisis. Budgetary pressures are leading us to rethink many aspects of the way our churches invest their resources. We find ourselves in a prolonged reopening […]
Building Bridges Between Anglo and Hispanic Churches with Raul Burgos
Aug 06, 2020
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Raul Burgos from Comunidad Cristiana in New Jersey. Raul grew up in the Dominican Republic and emigrated to the US when he was in his 20s. He’s spent the second half of his life immersed in American culture and has helped plant both English-speaking and Spanish-speaking […]
7 Reasons Your Church Should Merge With Another Church in 2020
Aug 04, 2020
In this season, many churches have been stalled by their plateaued or declining attendance, while other congregations are thriving and making an impact. 94% of all churches in the country are losing ground against the communities they serve. That means that if this trend continues, the message of Jesus will in turn lose ground in […]
Navigating Social Media in the Next Normal with Advice from Facebook’s Nona Jones
Jul 30, 2020
Thanks for tuning in to this week’s episode of the unSeminary podcast. In June we helped cohost The Next Normal Conference with our friends at Leadership Network and Church Communications in order to inspire church leaders and spur collaboration between their teams about where we are all heading next. Today we’re bringing you a re-broadcast […]
Cirque du Soleil, Monster Jam and Disneyland: Marketplace Reopening Lessons for Your Church
Jul 28, 2020
There’s no doubt that the reopening phase at your church is going to include some of the most complex decisions you’ll ever make. The switch to fully digital a few months ago will look like an easy decision and simple process in comparison to what will come next. Unlike the last transition, the reopening phase […]
The Extraordinary Calling of Ordinary People to Lead in This Season with Ken Costa
Jul 23, 2020
Welcome to this week’s edition of the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Ken Costa, the founder of God At Work and author of four books including his latest, Joseph of Arimathea. He is with us today to talk about listening and leading in this season. Stop and listen. // Right now we’re dealing with a […]
5 Questions About COVID-19 that Your Church Might Still Need to Answer
Jul 21, 2020
One of the core takeaways from 2020 so far is that we all have lacked the imagination needed to see over the horizon. Who would’ve thought that this year would bring all the challenges that it has as it relates to coronavirus? Oftentimes people say that no one could have predicted this, that no one […]
Navigating Your Church’s Next Financial Phase with Jim Sheppard
Jul 16, 2020
Thanks for listening in to this week’s unSeminary podcast! Today we are joined by Jim Sheppard, CEO of Generis. Generis is in the business of helping churches and ministry organizations with giving development. They’ve been around for a little over 30 years and are most known for their giving campaigns as well as coaching churches […]
COVID-19 Killed Church Consulting. Long Live Strategic Outsiders!
Jul 14, 2020
It’s already been said a million times, but we are living in an unprecedented age. This is true for your church as well as mine. The impacts of COVID-19 and the ensuing economic meltdown that are rippling across the country are having profound impacts on churches everywhere. As someone who has spent a tremendous amount […]
Kids Ministry in the Reopening Phase: Roundtable with Christine Kreisher, Suzi Soares, Heather Celaya & Aanna Smalley
Jul 09, 2020
Kids ministry has always cultivated some of the most innovative church leaders. And kids ministry is a growth engine behind the fastest growing churches today. To reopen your church without a kids ministry, I would contest, is not actually reopening the church. Listen in today as I’ve gathered four kids ministry experts from across the […]
Turning Up the Volume on Reaching Unchurched People with Brett Bixby
Jul 02, 2020
Thanks for listening in to this week’s unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to have Brett Bixby join us from Bridgewater Church – a multisite church with campuses in New York and Pennsylvania. Founded in 1807, Bridgewater Church plateaued for many years with most of their growth being transfer growth rather than new salvations. But fifteen years […]
5 Reopening Phase Opportunities for Multisite Churches
Jun 30, 2020
The multisite church movement is the most pervasive innovation in the local church in the last 20 years. Yes, even more impactful than the current shift to digital. Across the country, this movement has generated tens of thousands of new connections between local churches and those living in the communities around them. Many multisite churches […]
Leading When You’re Young & Starting During a Crisis with Brent Ingersoll
Jun 25, 2020
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. I’m really excited to talk with Brent Ingersoll, senior pastor of the multisite Kings Church in Canada. Kings Church was planted in a suburb of St. John, New Brunswick over 30 years ago but then encountered a crisis in 2012 when there was a moral failure within the senior […]
5 Reopening Phase Church Growth Tactics
Jun 23, 2020
There are a lot of “doomsday conversations” happening in church leadership circles about how COVID-19 and the ensuing economic crisis have brought on the end of the local church. But I am a glass-three-quarters-full kind of leader. I believe that this is actually an incredible season where you can see your church reach more people […]
Increasing Your Church’s Generosity Culture with Steve Stroope
Jun 18, 2020
Thanks for joining us for this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re in for a real treat talking with Steve Stroope from Lake Pointe Church in Texas. Steve started as the first pastor at Lake Point Church about forty years ago and has since passed the baton to Josh Howerton. Lake Pointe began with a launch team of […]
5 Fears About Reopening that Church Staff Aren’t Telling Their Leaders
Jun 16, 2020
This has been a strange season to be working in the local church. Just a few months ago, we all made the pivot to entirely digital and that felt like the biggest change in our history of leading in the local church. At that point, we thought it would only be a few weeks that […]
Building High Trust Teams in Your Church with Rob Deveney
Jun 11, 2020
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we are talking to Rob Deveney, executive pastor at Twin Rivers Church. Twin Rivers Church is located in St. Louis, Missouri. It started as a small denominational church, but has grown over the last 90 years into three locations around St. Louis. Rob is with us today to […]
Positive Partnerships for Community Impact with Alan Murdock
May 28, 2020
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Alan Murdock, who works with the organization Project Connect Nashville. Project Connect Nashville was formed in response to some historic flooding which occurred ten years ago in the Nashville area. But today rather than solely focusing on disaster relief, they primarily build relationships with individuals that are […]
Leading Through Change in Your Church with Larry Wren
May 21, 2020
Thanks for tuning in to this week’s podcast. We’re talking with Larry Wren, Executive Pastor at Pathway Church in the Witchita, Kansas area. Pathway Church began in 1959 and has become one of the fastest growing churches in the country as they’ve shifted their focus over the last ten years to children’s ministry and reaching […]
Lies about Work, Life, and Love That Are Impacting Your People Today with Daniel Im
May 14, 2020
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Daniel Im, the Senior Associate Pastor of Beulah Alliance Church in Edmonton, Canada. We’ll be talking about Daniel’s book You Are What You Do: And Six Other Lies about Work, Life, and Love and its application in today’s world. The gig economy. // The gig […]
Leading Through Big Changes in a 100+ Year Old Church with John Hill
May 07, 2020
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with John Hill from First Church in Wheatfield, Indiana. Being diagnosed with a cyst in his brain made John think about where his life was going and prompted him to pursue his dream to have greater kingdom impact by pastoring a church. In 2014 John and his family […]
Surprising Role of Systems in the Health of Church Staff with Wayne Stewart
Apr 23, 2020
Thanks for listening in to this week’s unSeminary podcast. With us today is Wayne Stewart, Pastor of Support Ministries at Christ Community Church in Ames, Iowa. Christ Community Church is in central Iowa near a university and so the church is home to a very diverse crowd of international students rooted in a stable, caring […]
Critical Human Resource Issues in Growing Churches with Tiffany Henning
Apr 16, 2020
Thanks for joining us on this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Tiffany Henning from HR Ministry Solutions. HR Ministry Solutions is a religious non-profit founded in 2016 which helps with the resources side of running a church. We’re talking with Tiffany today about how to resource your church staff well. More than just […]
Releasing Volunteer Staff to Increase Your Church’s Impact with Jeremy Jernigan
Apr 09, 2020
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Lead Pastor Jeremy Jernigan from Abundant Life Church in Portland, Oregon. Every church out there would like to engage more people, but it’s tough when you’re working with finite resources. Listen in as Jeremy talks about the limits Abundant Life Church encountered when it came to […]
5 Simple Ways to Increase Your Church’s Digital Easter Attendance
Apr 07, 2020
He is risen. He is risen, indeed. This coming weekend, the church across the world will be celebrating the death and resurrection of Jesus, a story at the very center of our faith. It’s the story of victory over death. It’s the story of lives transformed. It’s central to what we do as a local […]
Decisions Today for a Stronger Financial Future Tomorrow
Apr 04, 2020
CARES Act The impetus behind the funds being issued by the CARES Act is to keep people employed and on your payroll. The default is to the employee and the intent is to keep cash flowing in the economy. As church leaders, we also want to default towards caring for our staff. If you qualify, […]
Effective Churches Will Make This Shift
Apr 03, 2020
“You can teach people analysis, but you can’t teach them experience.” – Matt Mashburn We’re heading into a time where the future of staffing and team development will look very different. As church leaders, we will inevitably be facing some tough decisions around staffing in the near future, and that may mean severances of staff […]
How to Spread HOPE Faster Than COVID-19
Apr 02, 2020
“Now is not the time for the church to be on pause, it’s time for her to be on mission.” – Ed Stetzer When thinking about mobilizing our people to meet needs at this time, we as church leaders should be thinking through our strengths, our weaknesses, and our opportunities. Start this process of giving […]
Gearing Up for a Digital Easter
Mar 31, 2020
A few weeks ago, streaming wasn’t necessarily a part of your church’s regular operations. Now we’re all video streaming and trying to find solutions before the Easter season. The why, where, and how of video streaming The why, where, and how of video streaming are its first principles. The “why” is pretty evident: to connect […]
Continuing Intentional Community in a Socially Distant World
Mar 28, 2020
A mentorship relationship starts with purpose and intentional relationship. Kevin stated that, “More time with fewer people is greater kingdom impact.” At Radical Mentorship, their mentorship groups are high commitment, as they call their participants to application and high standards. Radical Mentoring’s groups meet once a month for three hours at the homes of mentors […]
How the “Families First Coronavirus Response Act” Is Impacting Your Church Today
Mar 27, 2020
Disclaimer: None of this information is legal or tax advice and you are not entitled to rely upon it. If you have any questions, we advise you to refer to your own legal counsel. Families First Coronavirus Response Act This Act requires employers to provide paid sick time to employees who are unable to work […]
The Portable Church Advantage in the Midst of The Crisis
Mar 26, 2020
Livestreaming Best Practices With church going online, Kevin reminded us that “churches are all equalized now; they’re just a click away.” Your church now has the same tools to bring content to your people as every other church out there. Even so, with the church entering the digital realm like never before, there is a […]
Leading through Volatility and Uncertainty
Mar 25, 2020
How do we lead well during this time of volatility and uncertainty? Rick pointed to the acronym “VUCA” as one way of understanding our current context: Volatility // This element has to do with the instability of the unexpected. For us today, this includes the shifting financial markets, the constantly changing numbers of the COVID-19 […]
3 Types of Data Pastors Need for Crisis Response
Mar 24, 2020
Webinar Notes & Quotes “Churches are about the business of personal growth, whether that’s helping people grow spiritually, or grow in their marriages, their relationships, their finances, their recovery, their career, whatever that might be.” -Brad Hill “Today is about taking capabilities that we’ve really worked hard to build and then how do we apply them […]
Starting Strong in a Church Job with Charles Stone
Mar 19, 2020
Thanks for joining us for this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Charles Stone, pastor at the very multicultural WestPark Church in London, Ontario, Canada. In seminary they don’t teach pastors what to do when starting at a new church, but there’s much more to the job than preaching the Gospel and visiting people. […]
COVID-19 Roundtable: Lessons from a Church Plant & a Megachurch
Mar 18, 2020
We’re happy to bring you a special roundtable discussion around how COVID-19 is impacting churches across the country. In this episode, you’ll hear from two church leaders on the front lines of responding to the current crisis. In this roundtable conversation you’ll hear more about: The thought process behind how these churches came the decisions […]
Developing Teams & Building People with Bill Krause
Mar 12, 2020
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re excited to talk with Bill Krause from Eagle Christian Church in Idaho. Eagle Christian Church is a multisite church with three campuses near Boise, Idaho and is celebrating 25 years in 2020. Bill is with us today to talk about the revamped system and mindset Eagle Christian Church adopted […]
Behind the Scenes of Mergers, Multisite & Campus Upgrades with Jason Held
Mar 05, 2020
Thanks for listening in to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re joined by Jason Held, the Executive Pastor of Administration at Journey Church, which has campuses in Wisconsin as well as a campus in Lithuania. Jason is with us today to talk about how Journey Church overcame the technological challenges that are inevitable […]
Leaving Behind Disappointment and Learning to Dream Again with Josh Gagnon
Feb 27, 2020
Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today I’m talking with Josh Gagnon of Next Level Church in New England. Josh leads one of the fastest growing churches in America in an area where people typically don’t go to church. He’s with us today to talk about how as leaders we need to […]
Insights into Thriving Relationships Between Elders & Senior Church Leaders with Ben Cachiaras
Feb 20, 2020
Thanks for joining us for this week’s unSeminary podcast. This week we’re talking with Ben Cachiaras, lead pastor of Mountain Christian Church. Mountain Christian Church was founded back in 1824 and currently has four campuses in Maryland. Ben is with us today to talk about how to foster thriving relationships between the elders and the […]
5 Keys to Leveraging Interviews to Build Strong Church Teams
Feb 18, 2020
“None of us, including me, ever do great things. But we can all do small things, with great love, and together we can do something wonderful.” Mother Teresa Have you ever had to let a team member go because of a performance issue? Without a shadow of doubt, it’s a horrible feeling. I know there […]
Church Mergers, Adoptions & Rebirths Advice from Eric Rojas
Feb 13, 2020
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re chatting with Eric Rojas, Executive Pastor of Rolling Hills Church in Nashville, Tennessee. Rolling Hills was started in 2003 and currently has four campuses in the Nashville area. As they’ve grown and gone multisite, they’ve developed a heart for church revitalization and partnering with struggling churches in […]
Insider View of the XP Role at a Fast Growing Church with Steve Smith
Feb 06, 2020
Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to have Steve Smith, Executive Pastor of High Point Church in Chicago, with us today. As High Point Church grew and multiplied, it had to make some key shifts to the way it was structured. Listen in as Steve shares about some of the hurdles that came up […]
Lessons for Your Church from Retail Loyalty Programs with Joel Percy
Jan 30, 2020
Welcome back to the unSeminary podcast. We’re chatting with Joel Percy today who is a consultant helping retailers in the area of personalization and loyalty. Listen in as we learn from him about receiving feedback, personalization and how you can use these strategies to help people take their right next step at your church. Focus […]
God’s Answer to an Increasingly Fractured World. A Conversation with Greg Holder.
Jan 23, 2020
Thanks for joining us for the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Greg Holder. He is Lead Pastor at The Crossing in the St. Louis, Missouri area. The Crossing was originally planted in the early 1990s. In 1997 Greg was called out of the marketplace to pastor The Crossing, bringing the ancient truth of Scripture […]
5 Ways to Improve Your Church Parking Without Breaking the Bank
Jan 21, 2020
Your parking lot is the very first of first impressions that guests at your church experience. When was the last time you thought about how to improve that experience? Is the parking experience at your church turning people off before they even get to your building? What is your parking lot communicating to people who […]
How High Capacity Church Leaders Start Their Mornings with Carey Nieuwhof, Jenni Catron, Dan Reiland & Kadi Cole
Jan 16, 2020
How do you start your morning as a church leader? What happens in the first hour of your day that sets up where the rest of your day goes? Have you ever wondered how highly effective ministry leaders begin their mornings? Today on the unSeminary podcast we dive deep with Carey Nieuwhof, Jenni Catron, Dan […]
Boost Your Church’s Guest Return Rate in 3 Steps
Jan 14, 2020
When you consider how many guests came to your church last year, do you ever wonder how you could get more of them to return? Every time a new guest comes to your church, it represents a huge step of faith. What can you do in the next month that would help more guests connect […]
Leading a Church for This Generation with Josh Finklea
Jan 09, 2020
Thanks for joining us for this week’s unSeminary podcast. I’m excited to have Josh Finklea with us today. He’s the lead pastor at The Rock in South Carolina. With five campuses, The Rock is one of the fastest growing churches in the country. It attracts people from a variety of backgrounds, ages, ethnicities and […]
Try These 5 Non-Scalable Church Growth Tactics
Jan 07, 2020
Only 6% of churches are growing faster than the communities they serve. [ref] Stop and think about what that means for a moment. A radical minority of churches are having an increasing impact on their communities. This is a problem for all of us. If this pattern continues over time, then the message of Jesus […]
5 Unsung Heroes in Your Church (And Ideas for Showing Them Appreciation)
Dec 23, 2019
Unexpressed appreciation comes across as a lack of appreciation. Our churches are fueled by a series of unsung heroes. These people serve behind the scenes to make a difference in our churches week in and week out, and they often go unseen and unappreciated. The problem with that is that over time, if we don’t […]
Our Calling & Identity While Leading with Joshua Trombley
Dec 19, 2019
Thanks for joining in to this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Joshua Trombley with Life Boat Church. Life Boat Church started four years ago outside of Halifax, Nova Scotia to reach the unchurched communities there. Joshua is with us today to talk about the challenges of ministering in this type of post-Christian environment […]
5 Warning Signs That Your Church Shouldn’t Merge
Dec 17, 2019
Is your church healthy but considering merging with another church? Are you a multisite church that is thinking about helping another church through a merger and adding a campus at the same time? Are you part of a struggling church that is looking at the potential of merging with another church in your community? Over […]
From Church Plant to One of the Fastest Growing Churches in the Country with Joey Salazar
Dec 12, 2019
Welcome to this week’s unSeminary podcast. We’re talking with Joey Salazar, the Executive Pastor from Journey Church in Florida. The road to starting Journey Church began four years ago when the lead pastors had a dream of planting a church that would make Jesus accessible to everyone. In 2016 the church was launched in Winter […]